AN 1: When I posted the last couple chapters, I forgot the formatting of this site and didn't fix the perspective change separations. Imma gonna go back and fix that.

AN 2: Holy crap, fixing this is a pain in the ass.

John, Shadow Broker's Ship, Exterior, Hagalaz

"You...I've been thinking…" he sighed as he ducked behind a convenient place piece of what appeared to be some sort of air duct. Rounds ricocheted off the heavy metal and were lost in the storm.

A few moments passed as more rounds struck his cover. Thane stood and fired twice, somehow killing three mercs.

Another beat and Samara reached out with a fist of power and pulverized a breast plate, along with the krogan behind it.

With a small curse, Tali shoved two cables, physically into the control junction box for the large door behind the group.

"...Nobody?" John stepped away from his cover, his arms wide. He looked at his team in turn, but none of them acknowledged him. Mass rounds slammed into his tech armor then, dropped to the deck, their inertia drained away.

"Ugh…" Tali rolled her eyes as she glanced back at him. He kinda loved the gesture from her. He liked watching the glowing eyes shifting in the expression she had totally adopted from spending way too much time with him. "Fine, just get back in cover."

"Thank you," John nodded in satisfaction, returning to his air conditioner...thing. Leaning against it, he looked at her expectantly.

Tali stared at him in what appeared to be a combination of irritation and resignation. "What ever is it, that you could be thinking here, John?" Her voice was deadpanned and lacked almost all inflection, impressive even with the slight distortion from her helmet.

Grinning, John revealed in the moment for a moment. He kinda let it sink in.

"John…" Tali's voice took on a dangerous edge as she stared straight at him. As her eyes narrowed, a little primitive bit of his brain twitched. Sometimes he forgot that quarians were descended from a predator species. Sometimes he remembered that humans were not.

"Ahem," John coughed into his hand then made a grand gesture, taking in the ship as a whole. "I think the Shadow Broker has really cornered the market on Evil Overlording."

Tali's eyes narrowed slightly more, until they were almost slits, and John could almost swear he heard a muffled growl….

Then, without a word, Tali turned back the control panel and John felt...he wasn't sure what he felt. It was like some sort of pressure let off his chest. Like...a mouse released by the cat.

It was the Bond, he realized. She was genuinely angry. More so than he had ever felt with her. It was a bit terrifying, honestly. The more they synced, the stronger the emotions he felt from her. They were starting to come in raw and rough.

Then, as the door snapped open almost violently, the anger was gone. It was almost like the opening of the door slammed shut one on their Bond.

"Tali…"

"Not now," she held up a hand, not looking at him. Behind her facade, he could feel emotions roiling. She stood and jerked the cables out of her omni tool and cast them aside. Then, without another word she stalked into the ship.

Liara

"Feron!" She pressed herself against the window to the chamber. He was there. Not ten feet away.

"Ah. Liara," his voice was even more raspy than the usual drell tone. In fact he sounded just about as bad as he looked. Strapped to the table, he was bare to the waist. Fresh cuts mingled bled dully along the lines of newly healed scars. "I figured you would find this place. Didn't think you were stupid enough to do it though."

"Well, you know how it goes," Liara forced good humor into her voice. She knew it wasn't particularly convincing, but it took her mind off the metal probe she could see spiked into the back of his head. "One thing led to another. The Shadow Broker was starting to cut into my profits."

"Heh, Ah!" Feron winced, squeezing his eyes closed. "Don't make me laugh. Ah...enkindlers…. Did you at least bring a decent team?"

Swallowing deeply, she nodded tightly. "I did yes. I brought Commander Shepard and his people."

"You brought a dead guy?" Feron half grinned through the pain. "Did he bring the old gods with him?"

"Not quite," Shepard said stepping up next to Liara. "I brought a Justicar, the Best Assassin Ever, a psychopath, a perfect krogan and my mate."

"Well...shit…." Feron's eyes went wider than she actually thought drell eye could open before he turned a panicked look her way. "Liara, you have to get out of here. He wants Shepard! This is like putting a bow on him! I didn't go through all this for nothing!"

"No, Feron!" Liara pressed her hands against the glass and glanced at Tali.

The engineer gave a noncommittal grunt as she popped an omniblade and began cutting through a panel.

Shepard's chuckle brought her back around. He had stowed his shotgun and was leaning against the window, her feet crossed at the ankles and his arms over his chest. "I'd rather be on the Citadel in a club drinking way too much right now, believe me," he was giving that grin. The one that always made her a bit weak. No matter the situation, he always seemed like he was in control. "Anyway, the Shadow Broker was getting a bit personal. Decided it was time to meet such a big fan."

"What is with this stupid ship?" Tali growled quietly as she shoved both her hands into a nest of cabling. "It's like everything has triple back ups. Who can be this paranoid?"

North West, North America, Earth, Sol System

The sun was warm and bright. Birds sang from the apple orchards, and one could hear the faint cooing of the cattle in their pastures, down the hill. The small dust cloud down the long unpaved driveway announced the visitors well before the crested the lower hill passing the vineyards of the winery next door.

Stopping next to the house two story yellow house, the doors opened almost before the vehicle's gravimetrics set the vehicle on the ground. From the front passenger a nervous, wiry looking man stood, his head seemed to be on a swivel as he did his best to look at everything at the same time. Behind him, from the rear doors, two women so alike they had to be twins, climbed out. They, too, scanned the area, but with much more focus than their counterpart. The driver stood last, she was dressed as the other three, dark suit, white undershirt, dark tie. They even had the cliche sunglasses. Their hair was slicked down and pulled into tight ponytails at least

"Can I help you?" With the aid of his cane. Lucas stepped down the front steps of his porch to greet the visitors. One didn't want to be rude, after all.

"Ah….yes…." the driver of the vehicle said absently. Her gaze was attached to the classic car she was parked next to. It was eye catching. It wasn't often one saw old ground based internal combustion engine powered cars outside of museums or documentaries.

The car was an old two door style that was classified as a 'sports car' in it's day. Or 'muscle car', maybe? Either way it was a deep maroon color with an interior of dark grey. The roof seemed to have two glass panels that seemed removable, then swept down to a smooth slope, ending in a small spoiler.

"It's a 1985 Chevrolet Camaro," Lucas answered the unspoken question with a knowing grin. Fully functional, restored with machined original parts. Been in the family for generations."

"Amazing," the driver smiled warmly as she tore her eyes away from the car. "I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but are you Lucas Shepard?"

Running his hand through what had once been an unruly mop of bright red hair, Lucas chuckled. Now, as was the advantage of being a redhead, it had gone mostly clear instead of grey. "I am indeed, ma'am. How may I help you?"

The two identical women in the back shared a small, nearly imperceptible glance, and the nervous man stilled for a fraction of a moment. Professionals, Lucas smiled pleasantly. They have no idea who they are messing with….

"How rude of me," the leader smiled pleasantly in return as she rounded the car to stand at the low waist-height gate that separated the drive from the path leading to the house itself and extended a hand. "My name is Abigail Smith. I work for a certain organization that has a vested interest in the wellbeing of people such as yourself."

Lucas took the hand firmly and turned back to the house with a little wave. "Come on up to the porch and we can talk in the shade like civilized people."

"Of course, we'd love to," Abigail turned to her people and gave them a small nod before opening the gate and following the older man.

Letting out a slightly pained sigh as he sat in one of the overstuffed porch chairs, Lucas gestured to the other seats. "Have a seat and tell me about my well being."

The twins sat on the low bench, their gaze was steady as they stared at Lucas. Their expression was completely blank, giving away no emotion. The stiffness of their posture, said volumes, however. They sat like cats at a mouse hole.

Abigail perched lightly on the edge of a chair and placed her hands lightly on her knees. Her smile cracking for only a moment as she shot the nervous man a dark look as he paced the grass by the rose hedge. "Yes, well, I'm afraid your grandson-"

"Brandy!" Lucas slapped a hand on his thigh and turned toward the screen door that led into the house. "Brandy! We have guests!" He smiled inwardly as the group collectively jumped. The man's hand even shifted toward his jacket.

Turning back to the little group, Lucas smiled vapidly. "My partner will be here in a moment."

"Uh...yes…" Abigail frowned slightly. She was the type that was used to commanding a situation. She was not prepared for...this. "As I was saying-"

"Hello!" a cheerful voice cut her off again as the screen door swung open and, 'launched' really was the only word for it, a small, round older man. His hair was a dark blonde bun shot through with grey. A deep grey t-shirt exposed his heavily tattooed arms that, despite the man's age, still held a powerful thickness. Over top, he wore a powder blue apron adorned with a cartoon krogan sitting on what was clearly a cartoon Normandy. "I brought some refreshments, just some sweet ice tea, and some fresh lemonade. I baked these snickerdoodles just this morning!" Brandy was like a whirlwind as he set the he was carrying on the deck table. He poured drinks and pushed them into hands, then passed a plate of cookies.

"Ooo…" one of the twins leaked a small smile as she took a cookie. "My favorite…."

"Anyway," Abigail, cleared her throat as she set her glass of cold tea on the table. "I-"

"You too, sir!" Brandy bounced down the stairs and took the nervous man's arm, wrapping his elbow to the man's. The man's eyes went a little wild at the strength, as Brandy pulled him up, onto the porch. "You look positively done it!" Brandy pressed lemonade into the man's hand as he patted him on the cheek, eliciting a small smile.

"Oh, for the love of…." Abigail groaned dropping her head into her hands.

Charles Palintem Nithercot, Alliance N4 School, Venus, Sol System

"Night, night!" Chaa grinned as he slapped one of his assailants on the back. Half a second later he pulsed electricity through the man's armor,

Chaa waited for one of the troopers hunting him and this team through the facility. In this case, the mess kitchens. His knees were hooked around one of the myriad of pipes that ran across the ceiling as the enemy slowly moved his way through the room.

Why they were being hunted wasn't really that clear, but it seemed to have to do with Shepard. His Shepard, not the other one. Well...not his, really. His teammate, not the famous one. Or the other famous one. Or...the other. But, thinking about it, his was also getting pretty famous in her own way…He was over analyzing again. It was going to get him in trouble one of these days.

Actually...It's gotten me in enough trouble already, he mused. It's probably what got him sent to N School in the first place. Still not sure if it's a punishment or not.

The second enemy moved under him, his rifle scanning the room for targets. Then Chaa did something he never thought he would ever be able to do in his life, five months ago. Slowly, he uncurled his body downward until he was just above the enemy soldier.

"Night, night," Che whispered, mostly to himself as his hand slapped down on the other's helmet. With a flick, a pulse of electricity flowed through the unfortunate man, overloading his armor and the man wearing it. With a blue flash, he went rigid and dropped to the floor in a lightly smoking heap.

Chaa then did something even more insane in his mind. He pulled himself back up as if he was doing a simple sit-up. He did it quickly too. By the time the unconscious trooper's team turned, he was gone.

Hopefully unconscious. These guys were Alliance just like Chaa was, they were just getting orders from a crooked officer. Most of them. Probably. Odds of this many turning at this time would be really weird.

"One's in here!" the team leader barked. In tribute to Alliance training, the remaining three enemy pulled together, back to back over their fallen member. "Scanning...alive."

Whew...worried I overcharged, Chaa breathed a sigh of relief. Morons though. Following the engineer into the kitchen. A flick of Chaa's omnitool and the oven/stove system beside the enemy exploded out, throwing the standing men like bowling pins.

Releasing his legs, Chaa dropped. He caught another pipe as he went down, arresting his fall and swinging around so that he landed lightly on his feet. His eyes scanned the room as he moved forward to the closest of the stunned enemy and putting him out with another overload, then the second. The third, however…

"Contact *cough, cough* Contact!" the team leader desperately yelled as he struggled to his feet. Honestly, Chaa was kinda impressed. If he had taken that, he probably would just lay there and ache. Now, however, he had people he cared about.

"I cut your comms off the moment you came in the room," Chaa couldn't stop the sadistic smile from creeping across his face. "How about you give up, tell me everything you know and letting me zap you right into sleepy, go ni, ni land?"

The leaders full helmet made it impossible to see his face, but pulling his sidearm fairly well made his opinion of that idea pretty clear.

"Shit…" Chaa spat, going into a low crouch. He had lost his battle rifle earlier, when he had been forced to abandon a turret most he had been hacking. His own pistol had been ripped right out of his hands by what could only have been a grizzly bear on some sort of steroid that had been stuffed into Alliance armor. So, what it came down to was that he was in a spot of trouble. "I don't suppose you'd let me join your side, would you?"

Two shots that sparked his shields and tore furrows in the armor beneath it gave testament to the man's skill at getting his point across without words. A truly remarkable talent.

Allowing the impact to push him back, Chaa reached blindly to the prep tables on either side of him. Taking the first objects he found, he brought them up, ready for a fight.

The mighty weapon he now wielded in his right hand was a raw, somewhat battered chicken. Fucking seriously? That was the cliche I'm going with? At least his left hand had grabbed a meat cleaver.

"Okay, buddy," Chaa pitched his voice down, in the most threatening manner a five foot, six person, 150 pounds in armor could threaten. "I'll have you know I'm a pountly master. I'll give you the worst case of salmonella you've ever dealt with!"

The man was taken aback for less than a second before he fired again.

That's when it got weird. Chaa knew the man was going to shoot. It was like he saw the decision appear in the man's brain and watched it travel down the man's arm to his hand. And before he knew it, before the signal left the other man's head, Chaa stepped forward and brought the chicken around.

Well. It was almost cool. If it hadn't been a chicken.

Holding the chicken by the breast, Chaa thrust forward, shoving the cavity over the barrel and pulling hard to his right. The enemy, still partially stunned from the explosion and already off balance staggered forward. Chaa took the opportunity to bring the cleaver down in a vicious arc that cut into the inside of the man's elbow, between the armor plates. The cleaver, itself, wasn't particularly sharp, but it was well designed for what it was being used for. The man's body gloves didn't so much cut, as was viciously ripped open as the heavy steel cut through flesh, tendon and bone, lodging in one of the bones in the man's arm.

Naturally, the gun...and chicken, dropped from the man's hand as he screamed.

Chaa released the cleaver and threw his shoulder into the other man's chest, crashing him to the floor. Dropping all his weight into his knee, Chaa crashed down on the man's chestplate, crushing the man's scream into a horse gasp. Then a small light in Chaa's HUD came up green.

"About fucking time," Chaa grunted as he sent an overload into the enemy's body, putting him out fully. Hopefully. Chaa didn't particularly want to kill anybody.

Thomas Patel, Alliance N4 School, Venus, Sol System

"Fuck you," Patel growled as his right fist shattered the faceplate of a hapless private, spinning her around and skidding across the motorpool floor. "And fuck you." His left swung around and caught a corporal in the side, the armor crumpled like cardboard. "Fuck you the most." Taking a step forward he thrust out his right foot into the lieutenant's knee, and with a sickening crunch it bent in probably three directions at once.

Patel slammed the fists of his powered exoskeleton together and laughed wickedly. "I'm a goddamned superhero now, motherfuckers!"

He wasn't rated for the exoskeleton. Not even close. Hell he wasn't rated on the mako. Not after the...incident. Third worse driver that they had ever seen. Whatever that meant. Eitherway, he never got to try this thing out. Now he never wanted to take it off.

"TARGET, LOCKED," a robotic announced accompanied by the spin up of a autocannon.

"Ah….fuck," Patel cursed as YMIR mech stepped out of the storage lines. The mech brought up it's left arm as it split open and extended the cannon. It's first barrage ripped into the mako that was behind Patel as he dove to the side, desperately. But not quickly enough. Shells slammed into the exoskeleton's enhanced shields. The impact was still enough to send him ass of kettle as he tumbled halfway across the motor pool.

"Yup. Fuck," Patel could only wheeze as he looked up as the mech swung around pointing it's autocannon his direction again.

Kelly Shepard, Alliance N4 School, Venus, Sol System

Her biotic aura crackled around her as Kelly strode forward with purpose. And a lot of anger. Mass rounds reflected around, some of them simply disintegrating in the gravimetric disturbance she wore. One rather enterprising enemy even lobbed a warp packet at her. "Please," she snorted, slapping it aside.

"I've gotta say, you and your people are making this far more difficult than I would have expected for an alien and her pets," the corrupt major, whom, due to Chaa's hacking, she learned was Major Daniels, the man who was in charge of this fucking school. "But you are just one squid. Your people are all taken care of. Just surrender and I will end it quickly."

"Ugh...squid," Kelly rolled her eyes as she hopped lightly onto, then over, the hood of a hover jeep. "I swear that has to be one of the stupidest insults. And I'm not sure where you got the idea my team is 'taken care of'. Your comms are fucked and you can't talk to your people."

"Heh, maybe so," Daniels laughed darkly. "But I sent twenty men to take of them. You all may be in this N4 school, but you are untried, alone, outnumbered and outgunned."

Kelly stood for a moment and watched the six marines followed the orders of a piece of krogan shit in armor. Two of them, stared at the Major. They were questioning. The others, however, had the manic grins of murderers. They were just as broken as the Major.

"I think I've had enough," Kelly tilted her neck to the side. In humans, that would be an intimidating popping sound right before she lept into action. She may have been half human, but asari couldn't actually do that. As a kid into action vids, she had been crushed when she learned about it. Then she wasn't there.

A blur of blue and a biotic clad fist slammed into one of the troopers. His armor shattered as his chest collapsed under the impact. The fist then swung up, the momentum of the bioticly enhanced strike pulling her off the ground. There was a fraction of a second where everything seemed to freeze. The eyes of the marines where widening, their brains struggling to catch up. The Major's face was a look of uncomprehending stupidity. Kelly snarled darkly.

Then her fist slammed downward. The impact drove a five foot wide crater into the venusian ground as a biotic shockwave blew outward. The blast rippled outward with more than a ton of force, sending the marines through the air to crash heavily into the nearby rock outcroppings, tumbling across the landscape, or, as with one poor sot, slamming into the side of the jeep.

Then she was shot.

The problem with the charge and shockwave combination is that it expended one's entire biotic field. This had the natural side effect of leaving the biotic individual vulnerable for the moment it took for them to gather the energy to raise one's field again. This wasn't often a problem, as the few things that survived the shockwave tended to be too stunned to do much but lay there and ache. Occasionally, somebody was able to take advantage of the moment. Like right not. With the Major of all people.

"Seriously?" Kelly scowled down at the two holes in the side of her armor, and the violet blood that dripped down her hip. With a slow blink, she lifted her head up to see the Major clad in a biotic field of his own. "Figures."

"Always looking down on humans," Major Daniels chuckled as he slowly got to his feet, his heavy pistol still aimed at the asari. "And people believe that your filthy creatures can be partly human. It makes me sick."

Another blink and Kelly took a shaky step backward. Her hand pressed into her side. Then the pain hit. "Mother fucker…."

"Goodbye little monster," with a cruel smile, Major Daniels raised the pistol and aimed at the middle of her forehead.

*boom*

Kelly flinched. She could admit it. After all, her field was down, and a madman had a gun to her head. Though she never expected to be saved by a hurtling body exploding out of the motorpool.

Luckily, neither had Major Daniels.

As the Major turned a shocked face toward the YMIR mech that was following the figure as it began to rip the hole wider, pausing for a moment to fire a salvo from it's autocannon, then returning to forging open the wall.

So, Kelly stabbed him. As he was turned away, her omniblade flipped out, then came up between the pectoral plates of his light armor. The Major gurgled as he turned back to face Kelly. Then he slowly toppled backward in a cloud of venusan dust.

"Hey! Little help!"

Kelly blinked and shook her head. She nearly blacked out. That was the kind of action vid bullshit she would have eaten up as a kid. It was more or less what she figured what happened with John and Saren.

"Oy! Seriously!" Patel waved an arm. Or tried to. He was wearing some sort of overly bulky armor that was sparking. It seemed to be hindering his movements more than a little.

"Ah...shit," Kelly grunted as she took a limping step Patel's direction. "I got shot."

"Oh, whoop-dee-do," Patel sniffed. "I was shot two times then was shot through a wall by a missile."

"Is that something to brag about?" Kelly groaned as she pulled her power back in and bringing up her biotic field. With a quick look, she confirmed that her armor had auto sealed the holes in the side plate. A quick tap on her omnitool and she felt the cooling rush of her armor's medigel injectors doing it's work.

"Ah, thank god," Patel sighed as well as Kelly's command code activated his armor as well. In theory it would have done the same for Chaa, assuming he was within range. "Now, help me out of this stupid armor before big and gunny gets through that wall!"

"What the hell is this, anyway?" Kelly knelt, and a quick scan, she began to hit the manual overrides. Patel worked the front, shaking off the exoskeleton's plates as he pulled himself out of the wreck.

"I dunno, it just looked cool," Patel shrugged. "Everytime I went through motorpool is seemed to call to me."

"Kept you alive, I suppose," Kelly gave a small shrug as she helped Patel to his fett, the last of the armor falling away. "Now what do we do about-"

Her comment was cut off by the screech of metal and the thumb of heavy legs announced the extraction of the YMIR.

Both weary marines turned to the machine. They were battered, wounded and unarmed, but they would be damned if they went down without a fight!

The YMIR took two steps forward, it's autocannon spun up ...then a blue electric arc surrounded its whole body. Smoke and sparks erupted from joints as it twitched, violently, once, then twice. The heavy weapon arms dropped to its side as the head tilted at an odd angle. Slowly, the machine toppled forward onto its face.

"Hey guys!" Chaa waved cheerfully from the opened wall. His omnitool, hell, his entire left side smoked. Little static charges rippled over his armor here and there. "I got him! Think I may have killed my omnitool though ..."

"He is never going to live this down is he?" Patel sighed in disbelief.

"Probably not," Kelly just shook her head. At this point the ability to be shocked had pretty well be shot out of her. Almost literally.

AN 3:

Okay, I feel I owe you guys an explanation, with how awesome and patient you've been.

My brother was in the marines himself, and I mixed his stories with my own experiences in the army for some of the stuff I write here. I always looked up to him, a lot of the way Kelly does John in these stories. He bought me my first XBox, and the first Mass Effect game. He encouraged me to start this whole writing thing and to post it.

I've been asked if Gerald was an avatar character, and, no, not mine. I based him a lot on my brother. If anything, I made Xera a bit of an avatar character, as I was a medic. :)

Now, I had a rough 2019 as my brother had a rapid onset form of aggressive brain cancer. It was a situation where he could opt to treat it and might be able to string out a year, but it would suck. So, he decided to just have fun. And we did. In a small mercy when it started to affect him in a significant way, it was quick with less than a month.

I am working on writing, but it's a bit slow. I am finding I am needing to ramp up my writing and get back in the flow. I was going to say this story would be a little slow, but that would be a bit redundant. :) But I am going to start a new story to get flowing, as it were. I'm going to hit another chapter on my Overwatch story, post this, then work on the next one a bit. I am going to try (I know I've said it before) to do one or two a month and pick up the pace as I can.

As for what I am going to try… I'm not all the way sure. I've kicked around Skyrim, Fallout 4, or even some TV fandoms. I admit I've binge watched Steven Universe, so I got that rattling around. I'm also a Critical Role addict, so… (DnD was another thing my brother got me into.)

Okay, I've babbled enough. Feel free to hit me some suggestions! In fact, if you have any ideas you think would be neat in Mass Effect here, throw it at me! Inspiration is good!