DISCLAIMER: I don't own either Miraculous or Mass Effect; the former belongs to Thomas Astruc, Zagtoon and Method Animation, and the latter belongs to EA and BioWare. This is just a one-shot which came to mind, but a plot bunny potentially worth exploring.

"A Different Kind of Effect for Marinette"

by StellarStylus

Commander Shepard stared out the window, pretending not to hear the conversations of anyone else around her. The light of the local sun gleamed off her blue-tinted dark hair and bluebell eyes as she gazed down at the planet below.

She'd gotten a few admirers, what with her blue eyes nicely constrasting her dark hair — a product of her mixed French and Chinese heritage — but she was known for being aloof. Like she didn't want to get too close to anyone else.

But soon enough, she heard the announcement from her pilot

Composing herself, she finally pulled away from the window and started making her way to the bridge of the Normandy.

She knew what her dossier would say, how they would read it. She was a "Sentinel" with special training in both technology and biotics. She was the War Hero of the Blitz. She was a colonist who, earlier in her life, had lost her family to slavers.

...Well, that part wasn't entirely true. She just happened to be there on Elysium when the batarians struck, but she had just arrived on that planet the month before. In all the chaos following the attack, it had been all too easy to take advantage in the gaps of the official records to create what would then become her next alias.

It was all part of her plan, now that she was practically immortal.

Or at least until she could find someone else to be the next Guardian for the Miraculous.

As she thought about it, she resisted the subconscious urge to rub the cuff of her sleeve, where the Miraculous of the Turtle was hidden under he clothes, with Wayzz dwelling within.

Just like how Master Fu had used Wayzz to extend his own life span to nearly two full centuries, now Shepard did so herself.

Even now, in the late 23rd Century by humanity's reckoning, Wayzz and his fellow kwami still couldn't be detected by electronic means. That in itself was truly "miraculous."

If only you could see me now, Master Fu, she thought to herself, looking out to the stars and wondering what veil her long-departed benefactor might be able to see her from. What would you think of your sweet Marinette now, that same girl you gave the Ladybug Miraculous to so long ago?

Not for the first time, Bridgette Shepard — formerly "Marinette Dupain-Cheng" — mused on the irony that now she was probably older than Master Fu had ever been, especially with the magic of the Miraculous. Now that she was the Guardian and everything.

When it became apparent that Marinette wouldn't age normally, she had to disappear. She had never cared much for science-fiction and fantasy stuff before, but she suddenly found herself thinking of those Highlander movies and all those other media where immortal people had to keep changing their identities every so often to avoid detection and exposure. So she took her cue from that and kept traveling around the globe, hopping from country to country, from continent to continent. And when humanity had first unlocked the secrets of space travel, along with Element Zero and the Mass Relays, she had jumped at the chance to leave Earth behind altogether. Better to do it now before anyone else caught on.

Everyone who knew Marinette Dupain-Cheng back in the early 21st Century, and everyone whom she knew, had passed away long ago. Perhaps it was long since time to let her "pass away" along with the rest of them.

But they were never truly dead, especially not as long as she remembered them.

Wherever she went, she carried their memories with her. When she traveled around the globe to see the rest of this beautiful planet called Earth, she still thought of them. When she first journeyed to other planets like Mars, she liked to imagine what their reactions would have been. And when she finally departed the solar system to see the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy, she liked to imagine them cheering her on.

And for a while there - a century or so, give or take - she thought that maybe she could actually hide forever and live a peaceful life until she had finally completed her mission with all the Miraculous.

But after seeing the devastation of the Blitz, and after doing whatever it took to survive and save others, Marinette swore that she would never stand by and be helpless again.

And so she created a new identity that day, and once her information was safely entered into the system without detection, she enrolled in the Human Systems Alliance military.

The old her would have cringed at killing people, letting alone ever touching a gun, but she had stopped being that girl more than a hundred years ago.

Honestly, it was times like these when she really missed being Ladybug, even at its most stressful and dangerous moments.

But it was what it was.

And to think, it was only a handful of days ago when all this craziness began...

What was supposed to be a simple shakedown run at Eden Prime had led so much more. It led to the betrayal of Saren, the allegedly impending return of some enigmatic race known as the Reapers, and Commander Bridgette Shepard being named the first human SPECTRE.

And from there, she had assembled her team: Ashley Williams, Kaiden Alenko, Garrus Vakarian, Tali'Zorah, Urdnot Wrex, and Liara T'Soni.

Even as she spent the past several days running around the galaxy aboard the Normandy, she was wondering about the possibility of using the other Miraculous items to help defeat the Reapers.

(Would the Black Cat Ring and its powerful Cataclysm be enough to make a whole Reaper disintegrate? She saw no reason why not. If nothing else, she smirked at the idea, as amusing as it was.)

So far, their hunt for Saren and the Conduit was going slowly, and no one suspected that their Commander, the first human SPECTRE, was so much more than met the eye.

...Well, except for one person, but luckily, she had managed to swear this other person to secrecy.

It had all started when Liara had read her mind to help unlock the secrets of the Prothean beacon found on Eden Prime. Bridgette had done her best to hide her memories as Marinette, but the young asari had seen those memories anyway while trying to sort them out from the information transmitted by the beacon.

Liara had stared at Bridgette — Marinette? — in wide-eyed shock for several moments before finally noticing the curious stares from everyone else in the room and finally composing herself again.

Even now, she could still recall Liara's reaction...

"By the Goddess... I just wasn't expecting so much information to have been transferred..."

Bridgette had to give Liara credit, the naive young asari scientist was a wonderful actress. Bridgette knew that Liara was covering from her.

Later on, when they had a moment alone, Bridgette had a private conversation with Liara and confided everything in her. Liara swore by Athame, the Goddess of the asari, that she would take her secret to the grave; for that, Bridgette was eternally grateful.

Maybe, just maybe, she and her allies could beat the odds and save the galaxy from the Reapers and their twisted thralls.

One could only hope.

But in the meantime, the woman once known as Marinette Dupain-Cheng had work to do.

Another day, another mission, another chance to find Saren and stop the Reapers.

Acting as the very paragon of humanity and the best it had to offer, she walked into the human embassy on the Citadel and reported to both Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina.

"Commander Bridgette Shepard reporting for duty, sirs."

AUTHOR'S NOTES: So yeah, this happened.

Kudos to anyone who gets the in-joke as to why "Bridgette" is Marinette's new name. Being MLB fans, you should know this.

This was first started many months ago when I first started posting MLB fanfics, and I'm only finishing it now, and even then I think I wanted to write a lot more than this. This also works with the theory that Wayzz's powers of Protection can prolong the lifespan of its user, which would explain why Master Fu is so old at age 186. And before anyone asks, I'm not quite sure how this idea of a nigh-immortal Marinette in a future Space Age popped into my head, but expect 2 more like this shortly...

Otherwise, what do you guys think of this? Worth continuing, or too silly? But one thing I can't figure out is what "class" I should make her: Soldier, Adept, Engineer, Infiltrator, Vanguard, or Sentinel. I honestly wanted to make her an Infiltrator to give her the element of stealth, but would she be so much cooler with biotics in the mix?

...And only now it just occurred to me to maybe have Marinette as yet another teammate or maybe even just a background character who gives out missions. Dangit.