-Ye Old Disclaimer-

Speical Thanks to EA and Bioware for Mass Effect, and Wildbow for the epic tale that is Worm. No money is being made by me (sadly) and all characters, rights and such all belong to the people who made them, which other than a few OC's, is not me. A huge thank you goes to my Beta/'s, Materia-Blade, MarkerIV, the BSdude, Suyrn, and Grui without whom, I'd never have gotten this far.

Welcome new and old, to the sequel of Exiled: Gatecrash
*Special thanks to Candid Opinion for the title, it hit all the right cords.

gate·crash
ˈɡātˌkraSH/
verb

to enter (a party or other gathering) without an invitation or ticket.

Arrival Story Arc: 1.1

"Alright, doin' this big, in five…"

I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to keep myself calm. Steve was at the helm, Greg in engineering, and Dinah was sitting at navigation. We hadn't built the Exiled with a typical command structure in mind, wasn't really our style. As such, our seating arrangement didn't conform to Alliance Shipyard Standards.

Helm in the middle, navigation to his left, and I was seated to Steve's right. I had a bit of everything around me. My eyes dancing between power levels for various systems, internal status checks, just about everything relevant. The comm was open to Greg, who was working with Atlas to keep everything just right. No easy thing, considering the sheer amount of experimental tinker tech we'd been pouring into the old girl.

"Four…"

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Dinah pause in her own calculations. The necklace that had been around her neck practically since Sebastian put it there had found its way into her hands. Eyes closed, she blew into it, highlighting the bridge momentarily in its blue flare. As I turned back to my tasks, I hoped this was one wish the relay granted. I wasn't worried about making it, per se; it was more to do with what was going to happen when we did. Hopefully, things went to script and we showed up nice and quiet like always. Alternatively, the Alliance Fleet attacks us for ripping a hole in reality right on their front door step.

"Three…"

I checked the stasis pods to find all three of them in perfect condition, backups were running ready, and they were all secured. A good thing to know as the ship began shaking under the stress of the power buildup. "Greg, adjust the MT23 flow rate down by two percent."

"Two…"

The shaking grew worse, making me wonder if we miscalculated somewhere, as I checked all the readouts again, but everything looked within specs. Of course, we were tinkertech space magiking this whole thing, so what looked right really didn't mean shit.

"One…"

Pleasant thought to have, kinda late now though, right? Nothing left to do now, but enjoy the ride. The shaking in the ship doubled as my hands danced over the interface, taking care of the things I knew to fix as systems glitched, froze, or just flat out failed. Likewise, Steve's hands were flying over his own console, before he looked forward, a mad glint to his eye with a smile to match, as he triggered the jump.

"WE ARE FUCKING OUT OF HERE!"

Even as everything unraveled, I smiled widely, though I'm sure to anyone else but the gang, it could have been more disturbing than joyful. As absolutely stupid as it might have been right now, with reality bending, I was reminded of something Mom used to say as a joke every time Dad came home from work.

Hannibal ad portas.

Hannibal is at the gates.

The ship gave one great lurch. A blinding flash of light combined, with the feeling of every cell in my body exploding, overtaking me and rendering me insensible after my last thought.

We're coming Sebastian. We take care of our own: whether you remember us or not, we've never forgotten you.

XxXGatecrashXxX

I waited, sitting on the hood of the pitch black Charger Steve brought here for me. Of all the places I thought I'd end up for my last day on this Earth, this was about the last place I'd have thought I'd be. Stretched out in front of me was the complex for Estate Paper, for the first time in my memory, fully loaded with people, going about another day on the job.

My timing was good, as I'd only been waiting a few minutes when the person I was waiting for, walked toward me, a very recognizable man at his side. I kept my eyes on the first, ignoring the second. He looked good, far better than his counterpart ever did to my memory, but I knew why that was even before I came here. I read the dossier Steve put together, so I knew this Earth's version of dad never lost his wife. That's the kind of thing that would make a difference.

As he approached, he eyed me up. Not creepy like, or incestuous to my point of view, but assessing, confused by my appearance and why I asked to see him. I didn't change when I rode over here, so it was understandable. It's not every day a young woman who looked like she just walked out of a sci fi movie asking to see you.

A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips, as I greeted, "Mr. Hebert, thank you for agreeing to see me."

"I am very confused. I don't know you but you look familiar. Have I worked with your dad before?"

My eye twitched, but I kept the smile on my face. "Something like that."

"I see. Well, how can I help you, Miss…"

"Taylor. Taylor Hebert." I answered to the shock of the two in front of me. "Don't worry, I'm not some love child from your college days you don't remember. I'm something even weirder."

"...I think… No, actually I don't know what to think. Would you explain please?"

My smile widened at the confusion, even as I answered. "What I am going to tell you is going to sound impossible, unbelievable, but I'm not here to make you believe me, just to be clear. That said, on another earth, I was your daughter."

"My… are you feeling well?" Danny asked me. I did note he was looking closer, and by the glint in his eye, he was noticing the similarities. "I will admit there are some similarities between us, but…"

"Like I said, I'm not here to make you believe me. I'm here because I'm about to do something incredibly stupid, very dangerous, and I have no intention of ever coming back again. You see, on my earth my dad and I parted on rough terms and never reconnected. I'd like to leave with as little baggage as possible. Which is why I'm here. You are not my dad, but you look identical to him. If you don't mind, I'd like to say something, sort of close this part of me, before I move on."

"I-I see." Both men looked uncomfortably at each other before Danny turned back to me. I could see in his eyes, him turning it over in his mind. While parahumans were not unknown, they were still very new on this world. While my story was far fetched, it was just the right kind of weird, to be believable. After a few moments he nodded to me.

I slid off the car, standing in front of him, looking into his eyes. It was an easy thing to do, delude myself that I was talking to my dad. I had similar instances with Annette where I felt like I was talking to my mom. I took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, about how I left, the things I said. I just wanted to keep you safe. After you lost mom, you broke, inside. I was too young to help you, to understand, not to mention that was my mother I lost as well. That was something you never understood, I lost someone too. The fact neither of us handled things well didn't help, but, that does not excuse what I said."

Danny blinked, his shock increasing as I continued. "I am the supervillain Matriarch. I have taken territory, robbed, caused property damage, maimed and murdered. I put together a team of villains and rogues to do that and more. I did it all thinking it was the right thing to do, to help a little girl we rescued. Given the chance to do it over, I'd probably have done more, except for you. I think, that is the one thing I would have changed, had I known how things were going to go. I'd have told you, forced you to come with me. At the very least, I would have explained why I was doing the things I did."

I swallowed thickly, finally saying the things I never got to say to my dad. "I am sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry for everything you had to go through, while I was taking over Brockton Bay. The worries, the fears that drove you to helping the Protectorate. I know you thought you were helping, I know you did it because you loved me. For that, I forgive you, because I probably would have done the same, had I been in your place with what little you knew. I hope, wherever you are, you might find it in your heart, to forgive me too. I love you. Goodbye, Dad."

I turned away from Danny, reaching into my back pocket to hand him the envelope. "Here."

When he took it, I walked away heading to my bike. "What is this?"

"Pink slip to the Charger. Dad always wanted one. Never got around to it, after he found out Mom was pregnant with me. Consider it a 'thank you', for listening to the crazy kid you didn't have."

I ignored Danny's questions as they followed me to the Triumph. Once I had my leg over it, kicked it to life, I drove away. Putting the last of my past behind me, focusing on the future I hoped to win.

XxXGatecrashXxX

Dim lighting and fuzzy outlines dominated my vision a moment later. Even in my muddled state, I knew that 'moment' was subjective. No telling how long I was out, but most of the bridge was dead, emergency lighting casting the cabin in a harsh glow. Not something you want to see when returning to consciousness, but it wasn't exactly unexpected. It did verify one thing. We were alive. Hopefully, that meant the ship was still intact as well.

I did not want to know what Leviathan went through. That, while ironic, would just suck so much.

Bugs I kept on everyone told me only Greg and Miguel were mobile, both in engineering. I coughed as the acrid smell of burnt circuitry hit me. The cause, a panel not far behind me. I spun my chair to get a better look noticing, thankfully, that it was already dealt with by the ships automated systems. As I started to get a grasp for my situation, I left my seat moving to Steve, slumped into his console, interface fuzzed out and red.

Pulse steady when I checked, but he had a bad gash on his forehead. He'd probably be fine, which brought me to Dinah. She was already coming around when I knelt next to her, checking for damage. Other than a slight glaze to her eyes, she looked fine.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" I asked, raising my hand in front of her.

"Tw-" Dinah's gasp had me looking over my shoulder expectantly to the view port.

The object that dominated the window, was absolutely monstrous, and one both of us recognized. Like an enlarged version of her necklace, the construct looked like nothing more than a two pronged tuning fork, with a rounded base. Two rings spun around a giant dark energy singularity.

A mass relay.

Seeing it in front of me, for real, I couldn't help but whisper, "Holy shit, we did it."

We stared for some time before I shook it off. Judging by our relative position to the relay, we weren't moving, though thankfully we were out of departure or arrival lanes. Whether we were dead in space remained to be seen, but one thing was for sure, we couldn't stay here like this. Someone had to have noticed our arrival.

"Wake Steve; I'm going to engineering to see how much damage we took."

"Alright," Dinah agreed, though her voice was shaky, eyes still glued to the view, her hand clutching her necklace tightly. I squeezed her shoulder to get her attention, before nodding and heading out. Most of the ship was running on emergency power only, something I noticed as I made my way to Engineering.

When I entered, I was instantly assaulted by Greg's voice. "Good, but keep the flow regulated or we're going to lose containment."

"Do I look like a wrench monkey?"

Greg didn't even turn to Miguel as he replied. "Do you want us to blow up? I don't, and if that means you need to sit there tinkering with that flow regulator, that is what you are motherfucking going to do."

"How bad is it?" I asked, cutting off the argument taking place.

"Man, am I glad to see you. Things could be worse, but we lost the jump pylons on reentry. All that tech we added? All gone. We're on basic systems here. Right now, I'm shunting all power into life support, stealth, and the cloaking drive."

"Damn." I grimaced. "How long until we can get propulsion online? Its critical we get out of here before the Alliance finds us. They had to have noticed the spacial rip we caused getting here."

"If I do a quick reroute, I can give you it now, but we're going to be limited to in-system travel only. Long range FTL was lost when with the Jump drive, had them bound together to cut down on feedback, remember? Also, we can't have both running. We're either moving, or we're in stealth. Can't do both until we do some big fixes. That means planet fall, or a dock assuming we're in the right dimension."

"I saw a Mass Relay outside so I'm pretty sure were in the right place. The right time though? This, complicates everything…" I groaned, rubbing my eyes at hearing that. "Can you get me an extranet connection?"

"Yeah, but I wouldn't do much with it. I don't have sensors up yet, but if the things you told us were true, they have to be out there somewhere watching this area. Best not to give them something to pinpoint our location."

I nodded to his point. "Just need to refresh myself on some things."

I took the indicated console, quickly tapping into the nearest buoy. While the memories Sebastian gave me clued me into certain things, it wasn't like I had the full picture of all the things to come or that happened to him. He mostly gave me skills, associated memory flashes from time to time, but it was fragmented, not quite right and nothing I could consciously access. I took notes though, logs when something came up, trying to make sense of the big picture. Hopefully it gave us enough of an edge to stay ahead of things, but ultimately we weren't banking on it.

Half an hour later, I leaned back in my chair. Greg sitting next to me, done with what he could do for the moment. Waiting patiently for me to get my thoughts in order. When I looked at him, he silently handed me the datapad, our damage taking front page.

If anything my frown deepened.

"I know that look. How fucked are we?" Greg asked.

"Depends. Do you want the truth, or the feel good lie?"

Greg's head wobbled side to side a moment before he answered. "Lie to me."

"Things could be worse, but it's salvageable," I lied.

"Shit. That bad?"

"Probably not, but yeah," I answered. "Without stealth mobility, we're so outclassed we might as well be naked. All the tinker tech we accumulated besides yours is gone according to Atlas. We have maybe half our systems in the ship, running at a third power. Without long range FTL, we're stuck to relay systems. Oh, and the best part of them all, we fucked up. Best as I can tell, I think we missed our window by two years."

"Motherfucker. We got here too early?"

My voice lowered to a whisper. "Too late. According to the search I did, Shepard died two years ago. We won't be able to stop the Lazarus Project."

I felt Greg's hand on my shoulder, comforting me. "Okay, but we can still do this right? We still have options, yeah?"

I sniffed, wiping my eyes. "Yeah. Just have to make some adjustments. I… really wanted to stop the Lazarus Project from happening. Since we can't, we'll have to do something else. The big problem is, we're broken, time is a factor, and we need stuff. More information, a better sense of the galaxy, cover ID's since we don't technically exist, a galaxy map, shit like that. All of that is complicated by the fact we don't have the time to make the connections needed and we can't go to the Citadel until we get some of that going for us. We brought some salvage to make a few credits, but have no way to unload them until we can get to the Citadel. Damn sure cant do that on Earth, not right now anyways. So, yeah, we're pretty boned."

"Is Shepard back on his feet yet?"

I shook my head. "No, not even a rumor of him anywhere. Human colonies are disappearing, which tells me enough to know roughly when we are, but that's all I'm getting. A rough sense."

Greg nodded, knowing how much I struggled trying to remember more, but not being able to. "Okay, so we need shit, and we're restricted to relay systems. Can we get to that safehouse you said Shepard setup?"

"Intai'sei?" I asked before shaking my head. "Phoenix isn't the relay system for Argos Rho, Hydra is. Not an option. No, we'll need to do something else considering our handicap."

"Okay, so where we going then?"

"Tuchanka."

"What's on Tuchanka?"

"Someone crazier than we are. I just hope he doesn't eat us before we can convince him to help."

***Author's Note

While some readers do not like these things, I don't care. A few things to note about the story. Yes, it takes place in Mass Effect universe. It's going to take a while before Shep is even in the picture as the first three Arcs are devoted to the crew getting to him. Some character changes are in play, due to the time difference between when Exiled ended, and when Gatecrash starts. Unlike Exiled, Gatecrash is very much still a work in progress, and as such chapters will be posted as they are developed. They may not be beta'ed, and those chapters will be replaced as they are done. For everyone out there who might be looking for a refresher on who is who and who can do what, the last chapter of Exiled as a cast and crew page.

As always, I very much look forward to reviews, so please, let me know what you think of the chapters! I hope everyone enjoys the new installment to the story.