Disclaimer: There may be mentions of things found to be unpleasant by sane people- e.g. rape, torture, etc. Torture may even be followed through.

BEGINNINGS

Commander Yara Shepard looked out of the Port Observation Deck out into the stars. Her N7 Armour held in her calming breath as she considered the latest directive from the Council. They had decided that she was to patrol the borders of Citadel Space in preparation for a geth incursion. A geth incursion! What retarded politician thought that the geth were a problem? She'd thought that her presentation on the threats of the Reapers had changed their minds…

Well, Joker seemed to be enjoying flying 'his baby' under complete radio silence and stealth conditions, at least.

Shepard turned from the reinforced window, hitting the button to draw down the shutters. As they slid down covering the beautiful ethereal view, she walked back to the airlock, and stepped through. Suddenly, the proximity alarms sounded, prompting Shepard to run to the elevator. She hammered the CIC button as the alarm continued- this was not a drill!

"We have an unidentified ship on a collision course! All hands prepare for a hard fight! I repeat, they can see us!" Joker's voice resounded through the ship. Just as he said this, he started again.

"Watch out! They've got some sort of cutting laser! We-" Joker didn't finish before there was an almighty screech of ripping metal. Looking out of a nearby porthole, Shepard noted her collection of model starships floating away into the stars.

"Brace yourselves! More is com-" BOOM!

The Commander bolted down the hallway to the life pod terminal, flipping up the plastic cover and slamming the Big Red Button. The pod doors slip up, allowing entry to the panicking crew. Shepard continued monitoring the pods, making sure they were all enabled, and provisions were being stocked inside.

"Commander! Commander, we need to leave! Come on! Joker refuses to leave the cockpit!"

Yara lifted her head. It was just like Joker to go down with the ship. "Liara, get to a pod, I'll get Joker and be right there. Now!" She said, as she pulled on her helmet and started running toward the cockpit. Once there, she stepped through the waving energy field, and into the protective atmosphere.

"Joker! We need to go! Come on!"

"But Commander! I can still save her!"

"No! The Normandy's already lost!" Shepard grabbed his arm, and he yelled in pain.

"Ow! Watch the arm!"

"Joker, Get yourself to a pod now, or I'll bring you back and tie you to the ground! Understand?" Joker, nodded, and took her extended hand. As Yara hauled Joker out of his seat, and set him down on his feet, the ship shook once more. She hurried Joker to the pilot's pod, and pushed him in. Just as soon as she did, the artificial gravity gave out, and she ended up pushing herself out of reach of any of the ship.

"Commander!"

Yara spun around, slowly, until she found herself just within reach of the pod release. It was press the release, and save Joker, while killing herself, or leaving it and hoping the timer was soon enough to save her and Joker…

A yellow beam of light seared her vision, burning through the hull like paper. An explosion threw her to the other side of the CIC, struggling all the way to grab some of the tattered ribs or her once-glorious ship.

No go.

She tried to remain calm. She knew there was no saving herself. It was… possible that she could survive the fall… if she flew into a pod. Or something. She was fucked.

Cole MacGrath stood on top of the New Marais Cathedral, with the RFI in his hands. Before him stood Lucy Kuo, crying quietly in fear of the coming storm.

"Why, Kuo? Why did you join the Beast? Out of fear? Or hate?" The agent looked up, her tears freezing before they hit the tiles of the church.

"Because I was scared! I thought I'd die, but I see now. If we die, then millions will be saved! I- I'm sorry Cole… I thought, that maybe…"

Lucy Kuo never finished her sentence, as Cole summoned a true lightning bolt- one of his old ones- down from the heavens. Her last thought was of how wrong she'd been- Cole could never betray humanity- he missed it too much.

As the tiles cracked and cooled, Cole cast one last glance at his friend Lucy Kuo. For a small time, he'd thought… But in the end, she put herself above others. That wasn't what they were there for.

Cole turned to the Beast, as it slowly waded through buildings and ruins towards him. He took out the RFI, thinking of Nix, who'd died to give him more time. He silently sent out a prayer that she was with her mother now, and her 'babies' the swamp monsters. He slowly built up the charge in his hands, letting only the purest of his energy into them. He aimed the RFI straight at John's chest, and let go of his control.

A pearlescent beam of pure white shot out and lanced through the Beast's chest, the hole burning larger until the man he thought he'd known crumbled to ash. Satisfied, Cole released his hold on the RFI- or tried to. He couldn't stop the flow of energy, it was sucking him dry! Pulses of white and blue light radiated outwards, out of view and across the horizon. Screams resounded from across the city, as first one, then two, then three and then more people felt their own bodies being ripped apart. The ripples of Inhibitor energy reached across the globe, until every last Conduit was dead and soulless. It ripped apart the Conduit gene, leaving every chance of that generation becoming superhuman in the dust.

Cole finally succeeded in ripping his hands off of the RFI, but it was too late. The waves of energy came crashing around the Earth, until they found their origin- him. The force knocked him off of the roof and crashing to the stone slabs a hundred metres below.

The Prime Conduit screamed at the sky as he felt himself shred into millions of shards and turn inwards. At least Zeke would be free of the Plague now… Cole hunched over, planting the tips of the Amp in the concrete ground in front of the Cathedral.

He took one last look around, taking in the run-down stone facades, the scaffolding, and the worn-out people. They smiled at him, and his eyes closed one last time.

Beep… Beep… Beep… BeepBeepBeep!

"Miranda! She's showing response to outside stimuli!"

"Sedate her! It's too early!" Turning to Shepard, a figure said, "Shepard, listen to me! Don't move, lay still!" Speaking to the other figure again, it said, "Make sure the other subject isn't doing the same, Wilson!"

Yara's vision went black again, and she went back to dreaming about a craggy-faced man and a lightning storm.

Cole awoke to a feeling of great cold. And that was saying something, seeing as he was used to Kuo freezing his bollocks off. He could feel his muscles ache from lack of use, and his brain felt fuzzy- he was low on energy. He cracked open an eye, and quickly wished he hadn't- he had a killer headache.

He'd caught a brief view of a sterile white room, with a bed and another figure on it. He peeped again. This time, there was a red tinge to the room, and a blaring klaxon startled him out of his fuzzy-minded state. The figure on the table beside him started to stir.

"I don't have long, so listen closely- the station is under attack, and we need to get you out. Take the armour and weapons in the locker to your left, and get moving! Meet me at the docking bay!"

Weird. Cole looked around, taking in the sterile floors and surfaces, and the super-high tech computers and stuff. He quickly jumped over the table he'd been laid on, and stood in front of one computer. He tried to drain it, but it was almost as if he didn't have any powers! He received a trickle of energy, but it was like New Marais all over again- he had to build up his power base once more.

"Gah! Again? Why do I always lose my powers at times like this?"

"What?" Cole spun around, coming face-to-face to a pretty, petite red-haired woman who looked ready to beat him to the ground. His kind of girl.

"I was told to get some armour on. I… have no idea what it is or how to do that. Help, please? I'll explain later."

It took a second of disbelief, but the woman- she looked barely twenty- quickly marched over to the locker, and tipped out two piles of identical style armour, and two little metal cuboids. After some fumbling, Cole was dressed in a kind of plastic-fibreglass-metal armour suit, with his clothes in a small sack. He picked up the metal cuboid.

"What's this, a lunchbox?" He tried a few buttons, but none worked until the red one caused it to rapidly change shape into some futuristic pistol. Looking at it, he could feel the energy coursing through it, but he just couldn't tap into it! He'd think on this later.

The woman shook her head, and signalled him to follow her. Don't mind if I do… he thought, as he lithely sprung after her.

He turned the corner into the ante-chamber to find her bending over, picking up some red and black cylinders.

"These are clips, you put them in the space on the side of the gun. See?" She seemed to have immediately caught onto his unfamiliarity with the tech, and sought to remedy it. Cole snapped a clip into his pistol, testing its weight. Next to nothing. Good.

He'd never fired a gun before, so this would be interesting.

"Uh… So what's your name? Mine's Cole." He immediately regretted saying his name- her brow furrowed in recognition. Shit! She knows who I am!

"Cole… Where've I heard that before…?" The pair had continued down the hallway, and over some boxes- almost like a barricade. Miranda's voice came over the intercom again.

"Shepard, you're going to have to look after this man- he has literally no clue about tech! Teach him to fight while you make your way to the docking bay- and hurr-ry!" The link buzzed out at the end.

Shepard looked at him then. The man had a craggy, yet handsome face, and hair shorn short. He had some electric blue tattoos on his arms- one of a caduceus, and one of an aegis. He held the gun like it was going to explode at any moment. There was a strange set of lines on his right temple, curving down to his cheek. She knew his face from somewhere…

"What's the matter, uh, Cole? It won't explode. It's just circuit boards and a mass drive. Nothing else." The man looked relieved at that, and gripped it right.

"I- The last time I held a gun, it blew up in my face. Damn near took my hand off!"

"Commander Yara Shepard. Spectre for the Citadel Council… And you have no idea who they are, do you?"

"Nope."

Cole shrugged. He'd never really paid attention to politics- and it was hard to do so when under quarantine.

"Well, I'll explain as we go. Come on."

The little lady stalked forwards into the hall, straight into an ambush. There were these weird humanoid robot things that shouted tripe like 'all trespassers will be shot' et cetera. He took one look at the gun he was holding, and sighted down the 'barrel'. Crack!

He fired a shot at the mech's head. A bright, incandescent beam of light lanced out, and wove between the three mechs that had stomped up.

They sparked and blew up before Yara could fire a shot. She looked at him, and then at his gun. The average M-3 Predator smoked slightly. Cole grinned, and sauntered off.

"Hey! You- You're going the wrong way!" That brought him back.

Going down the hallway marked 'Docking Bay' this time, Yara continued telling Cole about the galaxy at large. She spoke about Turians, and the First Contact War. Then she told him about the Systems Alliance, and the member countries, and how they got together. Then she told him of the other species, and the various treaties and relations. She was about to go into the Reaper problem when an YMIR mech started hammering on a window covered in blood. Cole took one look, and sent a worried glance at Yara. She didn't react- she knew the window would hold.

Yara continued on her explanation of the current events, and what had happened before she woke up here. Then, it was Cole's turn. She looked expectantly at him, slightly confused as to where she knew his face from.

"I- You recognised my name, didn't you? First, what year is it?"

"When I was hunting geth forces, it was 2183, I have no clue now. I… I died. I was thrown from the wreck of my ship down to a planet. I… have no idea how I survived."

"WHAT? When I died, it was 2012! I've been dead a hundred and seventy years?!"

Just as he said that, he saw another mech ahead. Without even thinking, he swung his arm up and fired the gun again. This time, it sent a slightly duller ray of energy, destroying the mech, but shorting out the gun.

"Well shit." Yara looked at him. The only Cole she'd ever heard of… had died in 2012… Saving mankind from the Plague and killing the renegade Joseph Bertrand III and the Beast. Thousands died, but millions were saved. This was that Cole?

"It doesn't matter about the gun! Do you not see? We've been brought back to life! But why…?"

Yara looked around, seeing an office. She stepped in, quickly firing off two shots into the heads of the two mechs crawling around on the floor. Then, she opened up a computer and started going through the logs. It took maybe two minutes before she brought them up and played them. It was startling stuff. It turned out that to retrieve Shepard's body, they practically had to use a scraper and a bucket.

For Cole it was another matter.

The people of New Marais had dubbed him the Saint of New Marais, their Saviour. His Amp was still planted in front of the Cathedral, and it was a place of pilgrimage for those who knew dead Conduits. Zeke had put him on a ship, and set sail for the ruins of Empire City. On the way there, a bolt of lightning had struck down from the heavens, and settled over his forehead. It had seeped into his skin, giving him the strange tattoo-like design on his face. Once at Empire, Zeke had buried him among the rubble, next to Trish.

But the agents sent to retrieve him had found him, nearly two hundred years later, full-bodied and asleep. No reconstruction needed. They couldn't figure out how to bring him back, until a man called Wilson suggested using Ray Field Energy. So their employer had built another Ray Sphere, and with the latest technology. They had put him in a chamber far removed from every form of life, and flooded it with the worst criminals in the galaxy. Approaching one million inmates, sucked dry to bring back his powers. With a vengeance.

Cole hadn't conducted energy in nearly two centuries, and it was taking some time for his core to release the tightly-held energy. His anger at finding out the cost, and shock at finding himself in the future released the final bonds.

As Yara left Cole listening to the logs, she went over to the wall safe, and robbed it of all its contents. A couple thousand credits, some thermal clips, and a porn mag.

She pushed the thought aside, intent on following it up later. For now, they had to get out of the station. The hairs on the back of her neck raised. Turning around, she saw Cole hunched over the terminal. Electricity coursed down his arms like water, stemming from his shoulders. The ripples cascaded down, leaping off now and then and shocking a metal appliance.

"Cole! What's happening? Calm down, please!" Cole stood, and swiftly marched out of the room, and down the hall. He came to a crossroads, of two doors without panels, and one with an access panel. He shot lightning out of his hands at the unavailable one in front of him, blasting it open in an array of sparks.

He stalked through, dripping molten sparks to the floor as he went. He came to an open door, which had two signs. The one on the right said 'Docking Bay'. He was about to turn right when the door at the end of the hallway to his left opened and a man bolted through.

Cole shot a bolt at the panel, sealing the door shut behind the man.

A/N: I would like to say thanks to those who reviewed- yes, reviewed- my other FF 'HPatBK', which allowed me to understand the interest in some of my other, unpublished work. If this pleases, tell me why. If it doesn't- talk nicely. I have man-PMS. All the time. Grr.