Note: This is the Alex from my main crossover, "Consuming Direct Control." Reading that one is not necessary, but that's the timeline this is set in.

Alex hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder, eyeing the crowd slowly crawling towards the frigate bound for one of the outlying human colonies. He didn't know much about it, only that it was off-world and as far away from Earth as he was likely to get. There was nothing left for him here, hadn't been for almost a century, and keeping his existence a secret was becoming more and more difficult as technology improved.

He didn't care much for the idea of a lifetime of constant hiding. Blackwatch was less powerful than it had been a century and a half ago, but they still kept their ears to the ground and pestered him from time to time. The only thing that kept him on Earth was Dana's grave, and he'd already promised himself to visit as often as he could—once a year if he could manage it.

There was nothing in the bag over his shoulder except a pile of clothing he'd stuffed in there from various victims of his—to give it the appearance of being full, but he'd learned long ago that a man without luggage was infinitely more suspicious than a man with luggage. And Alex was nothing if not adaptable. For the first time in what felt like decades, he was wearing what he considered his 'true' face. He'd shed skins and identities like clothing while hopping from city to city, trying in vain to stay off Blackwatch's radar and make some semblance of a life for himself. He'd attempted to be human for a few years, even went so far as to get a job as a repair technician, but staying stationary simply invited scrutiny that he didn't want.

He'd grudgingly come to accept that the only way he was ever going to escape Blackwatch was to literally leave humanity behind. And what better way to do that than head for the stars?

He kept his head down and his hood up as he followed the herd of hopeful colonists onto the ship. It had been easy to secure a spot onboard; even after all the advancements humanity had made in space, remarkably few people were willing to leave the comfort of Earth and stake their claim in the sky. Volunteers were scarce, willing participants even more so, and Alex was probably the only one on the ship who was actually hoping life would be better at the colony.

The Shanxi-Theta mass relay was only recently scouted, the colony at Shanxi as fresh and unpopulated as it was likely to get. As far as Alex was concerned, it was perfect.

He dropped the pseudo duffle bag into the seat beside him to discourage any chatty humans from getting into his personal space, and folded his arms as he looked around. The people he'd be sharing a ship with for the next day or so seemed to be sticking in small clumps; families, most likely. That was fine with Alex. He didn't want to talk to them anyway.

The passage of time had long since become unimportant to the creature formerly known as ZEUS. An hour, a day, a week… they all blended together when you didn't have to worry about petty things like aging or death. When Dana had been alive, he had used her as a kind of multi-purpose clock. The fact that she grew older while he stayed the same was not lost on either of them, and Alex had savored every moment with her as if it would be his last. Now, though, he had nothing and no one to keep him grounded. He never rushed to accomplish anything, because he literally had all the time in the world to do it. It was a nice change of pace to the frantic scrabbling back in Manhattan, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to him and how he could stop it from getting any worse.

It could have been a day or a handful of seconds when they finally fell out of the relay jump and docked at Shanxi. Alex let everyone else disembark before him, seeing as how they had lives to live and he did not, and stepped off the ship and stared at what would be his home for the foreseeable future.

He shoved his free hand into the pocket of his jacket and hefted the bag with the other, and began to walk. He was just another pilgrim here, another face in the crowd. Forgettable. Unimportant. No one recognized him from the television or the news reports, no one took one look at his silver-blue eyes and ran away screaming, no one called for Blackwatch or pointed guns in his direction. Slowly the tension bled from his shoulders and he let himself relax.

Not completely, because he could never fully relax around humans, but more relaxed than he'd allowed himself to become in several years. It was a strange feeling. He still tensed and bristled anytime someone bumped into him in the throng, but he didn't feel the constant prickle on the back of his neck that screamed of danger.

This must be what a wolf feels like among sheep. Alex let a smile pull at his lip as he followed the exodus of civilians to the center of the colony. He looked around as he walked, taking note of structural weaknesses, of what materials seemed to be naturally occurring and which ones had been imported.

He had no intention of blending seamlessly into society, he was too far gone into the predatory aspect of the virus for that to be safe for anyone around him, but he wouldn't have to exile himself either.

Money was never a problem. He had the combined knowledge of several thousand victims' bank accounts and savings and bonds, along with the passwords that came with them; it was a simple matter to draw a little from each of them at various places to avoid arousing suspicion.

A day, a week, a few minutes later and he had a room in one of the few apartment complexes set up around Shanxi, a duffle bag with stolen clothing shoved to one side and a rather perplexed Alex Mercer standing in the center.

He knew nothing but war and death. This colony was so… tranquil, so far away from any possible source of conflict that he wondered what to do with himself. He could easily accomplish anything he set his mind to, but that was a double-edged sword. Nothing was a challenge for him. He was an artist, a teacher, a scientist, a doctor, a technician, an engineer, a musician, a pilot, a linguist, a soldier, a general… he was everything and nothing all at once.

Alex sat on the bed and stared out the window onto the sluggish colony of Shanxi, and he waited.

From what little still connected Alex to the passage of time, a year had gone by before it happened. Very little news of the outside world came into the small colony of Shanxi except on the lips of traders and soldiers using Shanxi as a jump-point for other, larger colonies, but Alex was more well-informed than the common civilian.

Humanity had made contact with an alien race near Relay 314, and it had not gone well.

At first, Alex had been just as confused as everyone else. Aliens? They were real? Sure if humans could reach the stars, it made sense that other species could as well, but this completely threw off everything Alex had suspected about the size of the galaxy.

He got over his shock quickly, though, when ships fell out of orbit and began to fire on the colony. A lifetime of constant warfare had conditioned him to near-instantaneous reflexes, and he'd sprinted for the nearest cover a millisecond after the first round had fired. In the time it took the rest of the colonists to figure out they were under attack, Alex had already attempted to match the ships hovering in orbit with any Alliance vessels in production, and come away empty.

The aliens. Alex wasted no time leaping back out into the chaos of the colonists attempting to find shelter. He grabbed one at random as he ran, not even breaking his stride as he plunged claws into the unfortunate colonist's torso and consumed him.

Well, her. Alex frowned as he looked at himself. He hated using women as disguises. It just felt so awkward. But women could generally avoid suspicion easier than men, and all it took was practice. Wearing the young woman's skin, Alex continued his sprint towards the edge of the colony. While the humans were scrambling to hide in buildings, Alex wanted open ground, room to maneuver.

These were warships. None of the shanty buildings set up in Shanxi would stand for long against a barrage of those energy weapons, and he'd rather not have to claw his way out of a collapsed building if he could help it.

There was a small hill to the west, and he let the world fall away as he ran for it, ignoring the screams of the colonists and the rhythmic thoom of the weapons overhead. He slid to a stop on top of the hill and crouched in the grass, staring at the small colony of Shanxi and the ships slowly lowering above it.

They mean to invade, Alex realized with a grunt. This would complicate things. It also gave him the unique opportunity to see exactly what was invading the small settlement. Shanxi had no valuable minerals or resources other than human labor, so they couldn't be invading for that. Retaliation for the incident at Relay 314, then?

He watched the ships lower and blurry shapes disembark, waiting until nightfall to creep back into town, still wearing his disguise. He knelt behind some shipping crates and watched as some armored creatures led a group of restrained civilians to one of their ships. Taking prisoners? So they weren't here to wipe them out, just conquer them. Alex slid soundlessly closer, using his enhanced visibility to study them.

They were humanoid in shape, bipedal, talons instead of fingers, seemed to have scales instead of skin, and they had mandibles with an avian-like crest on their heads. They were well-disciplined, obviously a war-faring species, and were equipped with strange looking rifles that Alex had never seen before.

They looked rather impressive, and Alex figured he was going to have some difficulty finding one alone. He needed to see if it was consumable, and if so, what information he could gleam from it.

His chance came while the humans were being herded into a central area, and one of the creatures caught sight of him crouching behind a low wall. The alien advanced in his direction, Alex guessed that was an expression of irritation on its face, and began to speak to him in a language that sounded absolutely nothing like something a human would say. It was clipped and short, and Alex doubted human vocal cords could even replicate the sound.

He had played many roles over his not-inconsiderable lifespan, and frightened young girl was one of them. He shrank back deeper into the shadows of the alley, letting his eyes widen and his body tremble, and he whispered words for mercy in the most distraught tone of voice he could manage. In his experience, emotion was the one thing that was the same no matter what race you were. He hoped it was similar for aliens.

Apparently it was, because the alien's next words were softer, smoother, reassuring, and he reached out with a taloned hand. Alex hesitated the proper amount of time, took a single step back so the alien would step forward again, and then slowly reached out to take the alien's hand. As soon as he made contact, Alex let the façade fall from his face and he smirked, yanking the confused alien into the alleyway and slamming him—he assumed it was a he—into the wall, casting off the girl's skin with relief.

The alien's small eyes widened as Alex grinned and shifted his free arm into a tall blade, and he began to babble in that strange language in a tone of voice Alex was all too familiar with.

Mercy. Have mercy. I won't tell a soul.

Even the most hardened marine would break when faced with the truth of what he was. A virus. A predator. Inhuman. The Unknown. Alex figured even the blue alien could see the deadly intent in his silver-blue eyes, and recognized what would happen even before Alex plunged the blade at his prey.

There was a flicker of blue that resisted him, but his strength was unmatched by anything he'd ever met, and he broke through with the sound of glass shattering and cut through the surprised alien's thick armor like butter. He let his tendrils crawl across the dying alien's form, curious if aliens were edible, and smirked when the alien began to struggle when his consumer tentacles dug beneath his scales to the softer flesh beneath.

In a matter of moments the alien was gone, and Alex stood bracing himself on the wall with one hand as memories surged through him.

At first they were indecipherable, impossible things that Alex could never have imagined on his own. Space stations, ships, dozens of other sentient races and species all with their own languages unique to themselves. A heartbeat later and he knew the language of the creature, its name, its tactics, the size of its army, the strength of its armor and its shields, the names of the generals and the captains and commanders, their locations, the weak spots on the ship, advice on how to strengthen the weapon systems.

Turian. Alex looked up and felt the biomass crawling over his skin. It felt strange, alien, like trying to put on a shirt that didn't fit quite right, and he knelt to pick up the dropped assault rifle with taloned hands that knew how to fire it and how to grip it correctly.

When he returned to the other turians, they addressed him in a language he knew as well as his own, and he easily replied in kind. He melted seamlessly into their ground force, learning everything he could about them. Their strengths, their weaknesses—they're dextro-anemic, can't eat Earth food—their hobbies, how to determine the size of their military and how to manipulate the Turian Hierarchy.

Three months later and the war was over, peace achieved, and he rode with them to Palavan. Six months after that and he laid eyes on the Citadel, the asari, the hanar, the elcor, the salarians. He wore the skin of an asari diplomat as he consumed his way to enlightenment, and then he turned his gaze to the stars.

The galaxy was much larger than he'd first suspected.

He'd just have to see it all.

A/N: Methinks I'm going to end up doing quite a few of these little glances into Alex's ME past. Every time I mention something like it in "Consuming Direct Control" I just get the urge to write something longer about it.