Welcome everyone!
As promised, this story will cover the events of Mass Effect 2, including both the Arrival and Overlord DLC's. I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on my depiction and, as always, I welcome all comments and critique. Receiving your feedback and knowing there are people out there reading and enjoying this story as much as I am is what keeps me writing!

This is a sequel to Shell. If you haven't already read it, I suggest you do. It covers a pretty good amount that will be touched on in Descent.

BioWare still owns it all. I'm just playing in their universe.

Enjoy!

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It wasn't a light he saw when it all ended. It was only black. A fathomless darkness that pulled him deeper, tugged him down, until he was far from it all - from the fire, from the cold, from the screaming in his ears. There was no pain, no loss, no guilt. He let himself fade until there was nothing. He was nothing.

Until something beat in the depths.

We know you, Shepard.

"I think… I think he's waking up."

"What? No, that's impossible. It's too early. Probably just some minor brain activity, response to the cybernetics."

There was warmth. It spread through him slowly, over his chest, his legs, his arms. To his fingers, his feet. His eyes opened and found the sun.

"Thought I'd find you here."

The deep voice was as full as laughter as it ever was, but there was something else in it. Some kind of hurt.

"Dad?"

It was then that he noticed there was something wrong with the sun. It was too bright, too white. His eyes were burning. Everything was burning.

"I thought I'd find that girl here with you, though. At least she's got some goddamn sense." His father settled beside him, unperturbed by the smoke, by the fire. Owen stood up and stared out at the burning colony.

"Cass? Why would I…?" His lungs felt like they were going to fall to ash. He struggled to take a breath. "Dad, what's going on?"

"No, not Cassidy... That little girl got out of here a long time ago, don't you worry about her."

He frowned at his father. What the hell was he talking about? Who else was there? Why was he just sitting there? The screams started, and it sent a piercing, electrifying shock through his mind.

"We need to help them!" It was a need. Some desperate, unexplainable pull. He couldn't ignore it. But his father didn't move. He just smiled up at him through that big beard, giving a small shake of his head.

"Dad, what are you doing? We have to find Mom and Bryce!"

"You're still so goddamn stubborn."

The words triggered something deep and inexplicable in him. It hit him - hard and fast and so painfully it sent him to his knees. He choked for breath, trying to recover as his nerves tingled, as his skin seemed to split. It was all burning, and the sun just seemed to get brighter.

"We have to go… We have to help them." He growled out again, struggling to look back up. His father only continued to smile down at him.

"Yeah, I heard you, kid. Problem is…" The man sighed, leaning forward a little to level his gaze. "Problem is, there's no helping it, Owen."

We are unstoppable.

"…reacting to outside stimuli. He's aware of his surroundings. My God, Miranda. I think he's waking up."

"Damn it, Wilson. He's not ready yet! Give him a sedative!"

The sun was so goddamn bright. His skin burned and pulled and cracked, and he tried to pull in a breath to speak, but his throat felt as if he had swallowed glass. His heart was racing, beating a foreign, rapid pace. Blood pulsed too loud in his ears.

"Shepard, don't try to move. Just lie still. Try to stay calm."

Someone grabbed his wrist and pulled it down, someone with small, powerful hands and long dark hair. She looked like someone. He couldn't remember who. But she was wrong, her voice, her eyes. It was wrong. He pulled against her.

"Heart rate is still climbing. Brain activity is off the charts."

Her hand left as she moved from his side, and he turned his head with torn, aching muscles to follow her across the room.

The room?

The sun wasn't a sun at all. His breath shortened further, painful, panicked gasps as he struggled to get up, to get away, to figure out where the fuck they had taken him. But he was broken. An animal, beaten and tamed.

"Stats are climbing to the red zone. It's not working."

"Another dose. Now!"

The burning faded as darkness began to pull at him again. His heart slowed but his breaths were no less painful. He fought to keep his eyes open. He couldn't just let them take him. But then she was there with him again, smiling as he faded into unconsciousness. He had only a moment to wonder why she was helping them, helping them change him into a slave.

Everything hurt. Somehow the acid was sinking deeper, eating at the wound on his back and travelling down into his flesh, spreading into corrupted veins. They pulsed in protest as sore, tired muscles brought him back to the ledge. He dropped down and rested his rifle on the rock, leveled the scope with his eye and looked out as the earth tremored. There was one still there, waiting, watching. He had no heavy ammo left. He had nothing left.

He was alone.

"Those fuckers got you good, didn't they?" The deep, mirthful voice surrounded him and his chest tightened as he spun around to look at the man, perched on a boulder next to Jamie's body.

"Dad…?" His eyes widened and he shook his head. "You shouldn't be here. This… Oh fuck, I'm going crazy, aren't I?"

"Oh, come on now, don't start getting all dramatic on me."

Bile rose in his throat as he stared at the man, at his full beard and genial face, arms crossed as he watched his son. His eyes were lit with pride and grief.

"You're dead."

"Yeah… That I am." The man reached up to pull back his hair, green eyes narrowing at his son. "And I'm sorry for it. But that's not what you should be concerned about. Do you remember?"

Shepard frowned, his brows furrowing as he stared back at the dead man. "What do you…?" There was another tremor, and the world shook. Panic coursed through him. Screams filled his ears, and the smell of death, of decay, and the festering of his own wound choked him. "We need to get out of here. There's only one left. I think I can get it. Just need to find some way to lure it above ground like the others..."

"Come on, son. I know you're not that slow. You know you get out of here. Do you remember?"

He remembered the smoke, the fire, the colony being burned around him. He remember Cass, shot in the street. He remembered his father, fighting and swearing and not giving up, and dying beside him. He remembered not being able to save them. He remembered the cage.

And he remembered how much it burned when he woke up and saw the sun, when he gasped for breath.

"I… Something isn't right." His eyes fell to Jamie, the woman's body covered and laid to rest in the best fashion he could manage on this goddamn rock. He couldn't save her. He couldn't save any of them. "I'm dying too, aren't I?"

"You need to work on that attitude, kid." His father strode forward and clapped him on the back. "Come on, we don't have all day. Do you remember?"

He remembered Anderson, remembered escaping. He remembered the anger, the loss, the pain. He remembered the Alliance, remembered training. He remembered not sleeping, remembered the wary looks from the other recruits as he shot and shot and kept shooting until he didn't miss. Until he never missed. He remembered the maws.

"They killed them… All of them. I couldn't get them out." He settled down to his knees as his chest tightened again. Something was ripping at his lungs, pulling them tighter, making it harder to breath. "What's going on?"

His father sat in front of him and offered a smirk. "Hell if I fucking know. What else, Owen? Do you remember how you got out of here?"

The sky darkened around them as the tremor came closer. The world seemed to shatter with the maw's approach.

"We need to leave. Right now."

"Yeah, you do, kid. So, do you remember or not?"

It was agony. The acid seemed to stretch and rip and sew his flesh, breaking him down and rebuilding him again and again. It made no sense, made no sense that he knew he would survive it, that he could remember the Alliance pulling him out. That he could remember the months in Brazil, fighting and fucking and hoping not to feel. He could remember the N7 program, how he thought of nothing but training and fighting and finding some way to forget.

You cannot escape.

His mind flashed with the destruction of a civilization, and his fingers pulled at his hair to try and stop the throbbing, screaming pulse. Everything was shaking, crashing down around him, and there was only pain. "Fuck!"

"Come on, Owen. What else?"

He remembered Anderson telling him about his new assignment, remembered the disbelief as he saw the Normandy for the first time. He remembered Joker and the Doc. He remembered Kaidan. His heart seized as he fought for another breath. He remembered Saren, and the hate and the pity filled him with heat. He remembered Tali and Liara, Garrus and Wrex. The heat faded to warmth, balmy and regenerative, and his muscles weren't so sore. He remembered their fight, their mission. He remembered Sovereign. He remembered they were still coming.

"I need to go."

"Damn right you do. You've still got work to do. But there's more."

He could breathe again. There was no longer glass in his throat as everything seemed to fade around him. As Akuze vanished, taking the tremors and the maws and the death with it. He was drifting as he remembered her, as warm brandy eyes seemed to give him new life. He remembered Ash, her long dark hair and daring looks. Remembered her impossible, irresistible attitude, the taunting and the way she always had to fight him. Remembered how goddamn stubborn she was, and how much he wanted her. How much he needed her. How desperately he loved her.

He remembered leaving her behind. He remembered dying.

"I need to get back to her. I need to get back."

"And there it is. Takes a damn fine woman to bring us back home, doesn't it?" His father gave his usual rolling laugh, but it sounded farther off. He searched the darkness, but there was only black. "Now get back to work, kid. I'll see you later."

"Wake up, Commander."

Something shook him, but he knew the maws were gone. The air didn't smell like decay. It was too clean, too sterile, and when he opened his eyes the darkness was gone. There was only white.

"Shepard, do you hear me? You need to get out of that bed right now. This facility is under attack."

The voice was familiar, and he remembered dark hair and a hand gripping his wrist. Seeming to become aware of his consciousness, his body winced in protest at the fiery lines burning on his skin. He lifted a hand to his face, feeling the welts on his jaw. Someone had shaved him. Where's Chakwas? He was shaken again and his ears picked up the familiar sound of gunfire.

What in the fuck?

"Shepard, your scars aren't healed but I need you to move."

Who in the fuck?

Another blast had him electing to follow the disembodied voice's advice. He swung his legs off the bed, but they felt heavy, foreign, strange. Something had changed. He groaned as something tore in his flank, his hand grasping it as he made to stand. He took in his surroundings, lab and medical equipment abandoned around him, bold writing declaring the room 'Recovery'.

Where in the fuck?

"There's a pistol in locker on the other side of the lab. Hurry!"

His jaw set at her command, and he glared around the room to try and find the source. Fuck, just give me a second. He hobbled his way to the locker and slammed his hand on the control. Whoever these people were, they had taken it upon themselves to recreate his armor. He snapped it on and grabbed the pistol, frowning at the empty chamber. "No clips."

"It's a medbay." He swore he could hear her roll her eyes.

"Then why the fuck is there a pistol at all?" Fire climbed at the walls of the room. A door near him began to buckle and hiss, and he dove behind a computer terminal just in time to avoid the blast. "What the hell is going on? What is this place?"

"Someone is hacking security trying to kill you."

Fucking typical. He walked out of cover, taking longer strides as he adjusted to the strangeness of his body. He bent to pick up discarded clips from some woman killed in the explosion. "Where am I going?"

"We need to get to the shuttles. Keep moving."

Because I know where the shuttles are. He jumped over a crudely erected barricade only to be shot at by a security mech perched on a nearby staircase.

"Shoot it!"

"I was planning on it." His voice was a growl, and he peeked out of cover to aim at the mech, firing a round through its head and ducking back down as it shuttered and exploded. He took the stairs, climbing his way deeper into the foreign facility, trying to discern some hint to his location while he ignored the woman's spurring words and reminders to stay in cover. He couldn't figure it out, couldn't understand what the hell was happening. He had thought… He remembered the explosion, remembered the void, the crushing, strangling emptiness. He remembered how dark it was, how there was nothing. He thought he had died, but now he was here… His mind reeled as the woman's voice cut out to static.

Where are they? Where's Ash?

His hand came down on a door control and he stepped into a room, quickly putting a few rounds into already half-dead mechs. Consoles lined the walls, displaying brain scans and beating hearts and muscles weaved with tech.

What the hell is this place?

"Subject shows signs of recovery. Major organs are again functional and there are signs of rudimentary neurological activity. In an effort to speed progress, we've moved from simple organic reconstruction of the subject to bio-synthetic fusion." It was the same woman's voice, and the terminal displayed her face with the recording. Showed her long dark hair, beautiful and familiar if not for the chill that crept over him as he watched her blue eyes. "Initial results show… promise."

"What the fuck…" He stared at it terminal as her face disappeared and the recording ended. Bio-synthetic fusion? There was bile in his throat. Another blast shook the facility, and he was jolted away from the consoles, brought back to reality. He left the room behind and continued on, trying to ignore exactly how foreign his limbs felt, how strange his heart seemed to beat, how even the calluses on his fingers seemed to have disappeared. He walked through another door, raising the pistol to take out a mech across a gap.

"Shepard? What the hell?" He stared as a man peeked out of cover, firing a shot along with him at another mech who had appeared across the way. "I thought you were still a work in progress."

Shepard joined him behind the glass wall as more synthetics began firing at them. "Where are we?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Forgot this was all new to you." A few more shots, and both Shepard and the stranger took down a few mechs. The man sent out an orb of biotic energy, pulling one synthetic from its hiding place. Shepard shot it down quickly. "Nice. Look, I'm Jacob Taylor, I've been stationed here for –" A round whizzed by their heads. "Damn it! Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda's got you running around."

Miranda? It could only be that woman. He glared at Jacob as the man deftly dodged his question. "Where the fuck are we?"

"Look, I know you need answers, I get that. But you're just going to be as dead as before if we don't get you to that shuttle, and I doubt the boss will want to spend that money again."

"What the hell are you –" Another shot pinged the wall in front of him, and he snarled in frustration. "Fine, but I want a full fucking explanation when we get out of here."

"Cool with me. Alright, we need a gap so we can make it to that door. I'll pull them up, you just shoot them down."

"I'm getting sick of people thinking they have to tell me how to shoot."

Jacob snorted and pulled back, sending more orbs over the gap towards another group of approaching synthetics. Shepard shot them down, but he was left wanting with the accuracy of the pistol. He glanced down at the gun with a frown. "This thing is shit. You people got me my armor, where the hell is my rifle?"

"I'm sure we can hook you up. Come on, we need to move."

Shepard sighed and rolled his eyes, but followed him out of the room quickly. "Where is everyone else? Is my team here somewhere?" Jacob glanced at him over his shoulder but said nothing. "I need to make sure they get out if they're here. And there's got to be some survivors. We can't just leave them here."

"They'll be heading towards the shuttles. We can't afford to go back and look, I have to get you out of here. Come on, we're almost there." Another door swung open, and Shepard watched the man warily. Nothing was making sense, but he had no damn clue where to start searching in the inferno that was building behind them. "How long since you talked to Miranda?"

"Not long. She cut out. Taylor, what the hell is going on?"

Jacob didn't look at him, just walked forward towards another door.

"Just fucking tell me if my team is alive."

"They're alive, but they're not here. They're safe." The relief that flooded him was soothing, slowing his heart and allowing him to breathe deep. Jacob keyed open the door.

"Jacob! Shepard! Down here!" A small, balding man shouted up at them from behind a pile of scorched boxes. "Bastards got me in the leg." There was something familiar about him, about his voice. "How about you grab me some medigel out of that crate instead of just standing there, eh?"

Shepard was tempted to shoot his other leg, but he doubted that would be the right path to take to get more answers, He grabbed the medigel and tossed it to Jacob, eyeing the explosive crates piled on the other side of the room and watching the approaching fire. "We need to move."

"Yeah. Wilson, you good?" Jacob hoisted the lab tech up, and Wilson nodded.

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Shepard. Never thought you'd save my life. Guess that makes us even now."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Wilson quirked a brow and glanced to Jacob, and the soldier sighed. "Come on. Wilson, you got that crate?"

"Yeah, got it. Get down." Shepard knelt behind a wall as Wilson overloaded the crate, an explosion rocking the room around him. He heard the resulting blasts of a few mechs taken out by the explosion. "Good. Been trying to take them out for a while now. I tried coming over here to shut down the mechs, but whoever hacked security overrode the system. It's irreversible."

Jacob eyed the small man suspiciously. "We didn't ask you what you were doing. How do you even have security access? You were part of Bio Lab."

"I said I was trying to fix it, didn't I?" Shepard felt his grip tighten around his pistol as Wilson backed away, looking panicked. "I was shot! How do you explain that?"

Another blast, and Shepard pushed past the two. "Who fucking gives a shit? As I understand it, there's someone trying to kill me again, and I'd really like to find out who the fuck it is this time." He glanced back to Jacob. "Unless you'd rather give me answers?"

Jacob frowned, an expression that looked so honestly conflicted that it took him by surprise. He shook his head, but still paused. "We should find Miranda. She's still alive, and I'd bet she made it over here somewhere."

"Forget it. She was in D-Wing." The look Jacob gave Wilson was fire. Shepard recognized the need in the soldier's eyes, the need to protect, to make sure she was safe. He frowned as it made the man seem more human. "Look, you haven't heard from her, right? That means she's either dead, or she's the traitor."

"She wouldn't do that. This project was her baby – no way would she sabotage it now."

What project? He grunted and turned again from the two men, walking into another smoking corridor. They weren't about to tell him what this was. He'd figure it out himself.

"Shepard, wait!" Jacob hurried after him.

"I'm done gossiping about conspiracies. I don't know who either of you are and I sure as fuck don't trust you, so you can figure this shit out yourself. I'm getting out of here and finding some goddamn answers."

"We need to stick together. Those mechs will take you out."

Shepard didn't stop, just walked down the hall towards another door. He saw Wilson scurrying after behind Jacob. More security mechs waited in the next room, and he took them down in quick succession. More came, more shots. Jacob crouched at his side, firing his own gun and sending out sporadic pulses of biotic energy. Shepard left cover as their numbers dwindled, ignoring the shots that came nearer as he shot some more down. He was running out of clips.

"Shepard, cool it. We need to be careful, who knows how many there are ahead." Jacob ran after him, pouring out cover fire as they neared the shuttle bay. "Look, we're coming with you, like it or not. So cool your damn jets and stop trying to get yourself shot."

He glanced back at the soldier, brows furrowing. "You're not coming with me."

"Yes, we are. We have to." Jacob sighed, shaking his head as Shepard walked ahead again. "Look, I give you some answers, you going to trust us?"

Depends on the answers. Shepard stopped, his eyes narrowing back at the man. "Where are we?"

"This is a facility dedicated to the Lazarus Project. The Project that brought you back to life."

His eyes widened as he felt every organ knot together within him. It was real. The explosion, the crushing, suffocating emptiness of the void. It was all real. "It wasn't a dream."

"No, Commander. The Normandy was attacked and destroyed. You were spaced. The Alliance declared you officially KIA. The Lazarus Project was able to recover your body and rebuild you, pretty much from scratch."

"But how…" He searched the floor, trying to figure it all out. It wasn't possible. "Everyone else... They were okay? You said they were safe. Was that the truth?"

Jacob nodded, not backing down as hostility returned to Shepard's voice. "Some of the crew didn't make it. Navigator Pressly was killed in an explosion. But you saved your pilot, Jeff Moreau, and Chief Williams was able to get the crewmen of the lower decks to escape pods."

Ash. Oh, fuck.

Shepard fought the choking sensation in his throat. "Alright… if the Alliance says I'm dead, who brought me back?"

Jacob frowned, taking a cautious step back. He met Shepard's eyes and watched him, as if waiting for him to snap, to lash out somehow. Shepard felt himself tense.

"The Lazarus Project, under Miranda's leadership, was funded and controlled by Cerberus."