Year 2184: Earth: Europe: Croatia: 4.223 kilometres off coast: 14.809 kilometres into the ground:

"I think we've found something, boss," a gruff sounding voice shouted down the dimly lit corroded metal corridor.

"I'm coming down with the scientists, then," a rougher voice shouted. This man turned to face his companions, and continued. "He might have found that thing you're looking for. I just want to get out of here. Place is giving me the creeps..."

The boss man was indeed scared of the place they were in. It was obviously old, considering the rust and the dark stains of what looked like contaminated water. What gave him goosebumps were the small but unmistakeable small wisps of green embers floating in the air. No one else seemed to notice them, so he kept them to himself for the time being. Reporting his hallucinations would be advisable, but that could wait until after the job was finished.

The two shady researchers didn't give any indication that they had heard him, rushing forward without any concern for the workers. One was intense, the other calm but determined.

Both the scientists were historians. The history of some military suit of sorts that had supposedly come from a civilization long gone. Both thought it was a ridiculous notion, but they had to know. Their thirst for knowledge was too great for them to ignore it.

They had the resources to conduct the searches for these... suits. The money the technology could potentially give them was so immense, it could finally make them be remembered as archaeological and historical geniuses for thousands of years!

They stormed to a pod, or some large container. It had a glass surface, allowing anyone to see what it contained.

A suit, clearly for the humanoid female form. The suit was a crisp white colour, with small violet streaks arranged symmetrically, accenting the suit's well formed curves. The helmet was simple, had no holes in it at all, meaning that the user would not be able to see anything, say anything, smell anything, or hear anything. The helmet did have two vertical violet slits that be serving as something that could grant the wearer visual feedback. The sides of the helmet were slightly more unsightly than the front part, more mechanical, less bare. The back of the helmet, though, seemed to allow hair to pass through.

Long bright red hair cascaded out the back of the helmet, down to the middle of the suit's back.

The intense scientist grinned widely, almost maniacally, while the calm one smirked.

"Opening the pod. This is it, Gerald. This is what we have been waiting for..."

"Indeed, Simon. Imagine; we will be seen as the pioneers of science!"

A hiss erupted from the pod, a thick white mist shot out of the seams connecting the lid to the pod. Excitement flooded the two scientists as the pod's top slowly split in half, turning to the side.

The mist dissipated into the small vents on the floor. The suit was finally exposed to open air.

And then it moved on its own.

Alarm, panic, fear, confusion, anger, rage, denial ran rampant around the minds of the two scientists and their five lightly armed guards.

Green embers swarmed the heads of the seven men in the room, and it oddly enough calmed them.

The suit climbed out of the pod, and surveyed its surroundings, rubbing its wrists as it did so. Strange sounds emanated from the suit. It sounded like an entirely different language, but even so, the pleasant and collected voice was sultry, smooth, and female.

She paused for a moment, realizing that no one could understand what she was saying.

And so, the green embers floated into the ears of the seven men, and after a few minutes, the very same embers flew back to the suit.

Then she spoke in a tongue they could recognize. "Can you understand me now, boys?" her voice intruded into their minds, not unpleasantly so.

The two scientists nodded, while the guardsmen started to bleed out their ears. The last thought that went through the five guards' heads was 'She doesn't need us any longer. We don't deserve to live.' before they fell on the ground, smashing their heads on the hard metal floor, splitting the skin.

The woman put a hand on her hip and did a once-over on the determined scientist. "Gerald. That's your name, right?"

Gerald nodded, dazed.

She turned her head to the other one. "Simon?"

Simon bobbed his head, charmed by the wiles of the sensual woman.

She laughed. "Gerald and Simon, I need you to let me out. Poor little me can't stand being cooped up in a small space all the time. I need to get out some more," she swayed her hips as she walked to Gerald. "I need clothes, something that can hide my helmet. You wouldn't want me to be shamed, would you?"

She couldn't help but inwardly scowl at how easy it was to charm them. The Grineer, the Corpus, even the infested, were more difficult to maintain a charm on. These two had been charmed for over a minute, when usually, it would last half that, at most. And it didn't even look like they were fighting it.

Granted they didn't have any military training. Their memories showed no sign of physical strain, except for a few minor, childish scuffles between themselves. They were incredibly weak. She couldn't help but scoff at their weakness. The notion of winning them over so easily was so intriguingly dull. She wanted a challenge! Someone difficult to charm, to influence. These two? Way too easy.

So after the two men fell down on the floor with brain matter seeping out of their ears and noses, and picking up a hoodie with a large hood from a storage container of sorts, she went out of the facility and into the modern world.

'I need to see this 'mass effect' fields stuff for myself. From the memories of those peeps back there, I have to say Mag's abilities look a lot like it, although Mag was a bit more magnetic, not this 'eezo'."

After absorbing the memories of a few people walking past – without killing them, of course – she could confidently say that she knew everything she needed to know.

She did have a problem, and that problem was getting energy for her warframe. Her psychic powers were not dependant on the suit, but the warframe's energy was used for the shields. She was very reliant on her shields, seeing as she was a bit of a close range fighter, fighting with daggers, pistols, and submachine guns.

According to the memories of the innocents she was on Earth. She had refused to kill those civilians. She still had honour. She was a Tenno, after all. Every Tenno was very serious about honour, and she was no exception. Those guards and those scientists were far from innocent. Far, far from it. While both scientists had been friends, they planned on betraying one another in order to gain all the fame and riches that getting her suit would give all for themselves. Betrayal was intolerable to the Tenno, punishable by torture till death.

She was pleasantly surprised by the fact that she was on Earth, but at the same time worried. This wasn't the same time as when she was in service of the Tenno, so why was it called the same? She didn't know, but she wouldn't look a gift infested charger in the mouth. She recognized the appearance of humans, as they called themselves, as being very similar to the Tenno without their warframes on. Not that they would ever willingly take their warframes off, but occasionally, she saw a Tenno without a warframe. Mostly when she had to defend them from those filthy Corpus. They were so very obsessed with warframe technology, they were willing to interrogate and torture individual Tenno in order to get the knowledge of the main planet of her race, so that they could assault it with their main force.

Thankfully all Tenno, even civilians, were severely trained in resistance to pain, torture, and interrogation. They knew the warframes would come and rescue them, so they stayed steadfast.

The Grineer just wanted the weapons they had, those war hungry bastards. Selfish, and lacking in honour, one of the reasons she despised them the most.

And the infested? They just wanted flesh.

One thing that made her confused was the existence of aliens. The infestation was a result of the Orokin experimenting on biomass, or something along those lines, so they weren't really an alien species. The Corpus, the Grineer, and the Tenno were all descendants from a single race.

To be honest, the existence of aliens only surprised her, rather than confusing her. The universe was an imaginably vast space, so the chances of aliens not existing were extremely small.

She just hoped her powers still worked against these "turians" and "asari" and all those. If they didn't, she would have to resort to her charms, which she was good at. She was confident in her abilities to manipulate those around her, including aliens.

A quick test on a wayward turian proved that her mind powers worked quite well. She had to adapt slightly – 'Their neurons are a bit misplaced relative to the human brain, as well as smaller by half a cubic centimetre. Good thing I can adapt quicker than any of my former colleagues. Rhino was such a dimwit...' – but ultimately it would give the exact same results.

A few months later, with manipulating people into letting her use their beds to sleep in and then asking if she could have all their credits, she had done multiple mind tests on all the species she could find. Even the pets. Especially the pets.

She loved pets.

Batarians – the few that she did meet during her short travels in Council space – were laughably easy to charm. Turians were a bit like the Corpus, slightly more difficult than the Grineer, mostly due to the different neural structure. Asari were more difficult than humans, much more so, possibly due to their 'melding' biology. The elcor had a very flat brain compared to anything she had experienced before, but they were still susceptible to her manipulations, a bit less than normal humans due to her inexperience with the elcor mind. Salarians were quite difficult to charm, due to their small but dense brain.

She revelled in the challenge.

The volus were exceptionally difficult to manipulate, due to how difficult it was to get her embers into the pressurized suits. Otherwise they were marginally easier than humans.

She met a few krogan. They were so easy that she just had to pity them. 'They're almost as easy as the infested. According to the extranet, it's because they're a young race. Relatively young. Tuchanka is a war ridden planet, no place for peace or technological development. How sad. But really, I don't mind. They're ridiculously strong, more than those thrice-damned ancients!'

The quarian she met during her travel to Omega was more difficult than the volus, suit included. The pressurized suit made it hard for her embers to go through, and the charming was definitely demanding on her concentration.

His mind was a curious thing, his race intrigued her immensely. She just had to know more, so she confronted him brazenly. He had cowered, and she found it irresistibly cute. She liked cute guys, and she made him know that. Explicitly.

She made a good friend that day.

"Where was it we're headed?" the nervous quarian asked the no-longer lone warframe, glancing around anxiously, as if someone would attack and kill them at any one moment. It was likely, too. It was Omega.

"We're just going to set up shop somewhere here. We can get a fortune here, Kenn. You're a better businessman than I am, so you'll do most of the work, but I'll advertise the shop," the Tenno cheerfully explained.

"I don't like staying here on Omega. The batarians, humans, vorcha, krogan, asari, they're all... they all make me kind of scared, Nyx," he whispered.

Nyx sighed, but Kenn knew that it was without malice. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Look, Kenn, I won't let anyone hurt you. We're just going to stay on Omega long enough to get a good ship for ourselves, then we'll see what life gives us, okay?"

Kenn's shoulders slackened ever so slightly as Nyx used her powers to calm him.

The only reasons Nyx ever used her mind powers were to get information, to create within discord in enemy ranks, or to calm an ally.

Or in this case, a friend.

Nyx remembered her friends, her fellow colleagues. She would lie if she said she didn't miss them, but she knew life was precious. She knew that they would chastise her if she became melodramatic. So she didn't grieve over her loss of friends.

Ash, the calm and collected sword wielder who was one hell of a prude. Banshee, the quietest of them all, but also happened to be the kinkiest. Ember, the brash and entertaining youngster. Excalibur, the mediator between them all that was easily annoyed. Frost, the loudest but kindest. Loki, the trickster who once stole Kela De Thaym's underwear while she still wore her armour. Mag, the gleefully intense persona who loved destruction of all kinds. Rhino, the idiot who couldn't resist rushing in with the largest weapons available. Saryn, with the most gleefully energetic personality Nyx had ever seen, even in this new time. Trinity, the constantly constipated stick-up-her-ass girl whose toes Nyx couldn't help but step on. Vauban, basically the stereotypical drill sergeant, whose boots were practically licked by Trinity. Volt, the lazy fucker who wanted to return home just to relax that bit more.

Getting an area to set up shop was easy. Batarians were so gullible and easy to sway. Kenn wanted to dedicate the shop to engineering, perhaps even get a shipyard for mechanical reasons.

Kenn had dreams, a lot of them.

What did Nyx have? She had someone whose company she enjoyed quite a lot. The quarian race fascinated her. The whole 'never being able to remove the suit' thing reminded her of herself and her colleagues.

She swore to always protect Kenn, to always be there for him.

And to help him complete his Pilgrimage.

That was one aspect that confused Nyx, but it was a long-standing tradition, no way was she going to go against it. Honour and all that.

News about their shop, 'Suit up!' – 'Best. Name. Ever.' – spread around like wildfire. Which happened to be both good and bad.

It was good, because business was booming. Requisitioning materials, arms, shields, and other goods was easy, mostly due to Suit up!'s popularity and its cheap – 'Cheapish.' – prices. Mostly. Nyx's abilities helped when people wanted to turn their offers down and turn to another, allegedly cheaper shop.

It was bad, because business was booming. Income was diverted from many shops to theirs, and that made not a small amount of people furious. At least one of their sources of income was crippled due to the existence of Suit up!. Nyx had to train Kenn in the beautiful art of decapitation via shotgun just to protect him should she not be there.

She and Kenn were approached by a messenger once, about three galactic standard months after their rise of popularity – which basically meant about four and a half months since they arrived to Omega – and told them that Aria T'Loak wished to meet them.

It hadn't taken long for Nyx and Kenn to hear about Omega's only rule when they arrived at the station. 'Don't fuck with Aria.'

'Ha, she doesn't know that I've fucked with factions out for my blood and suit more often than there are crimes committed on Omega in a single day. Which says a lot.'

She was leaning on the counter, her boring brown robe covering her warframe, but not the curves. Her thoughts were interrupted by an armoured turian. "Hello, welcome to 'Suit Up!', how may I help you today?" she cheerfully, albeit without the greatest enthusiasm, asked.

"Hi, I was-"

The polite turian – 'What a rare abnormality in Omega, a polite turian.' – was pushed to the side very roughly by an armoured batarian with at least two guns strapped to his armour. Nyx noticed that he was accompanied by two other batarians with similar gear, and a salarian with the heaviest armour available on the market for them. Which didn't say much. "Nyx and Kenn of Suit Up!, you've not gone to Aria as requested. We're here to escort you to her. Now."

Nyx smiled internally, and made her amusement known by propping her chin on her hand. "You are?" she began, small, nearly invisible green lights floating inconspicuously towards their ears. "I'm sorry to hear that. I would have thought that Aria was a patient woman. But unfortunately I can't fulfil her wishes. She needs to wait a bit more."

The turian as well as Aria's henchmen widened their eyes collectively at the sheer guts of the woman in front of them.

But the henchmen didn't have time to get angry. "Now, why don't you make up an excuse for me? I'm busy," Nyx dismissed with a wave of her hand. With that, the glazed-eyed group of morally reprehensible men nodded as one and left.

Nyx turned her attention to the turian, the only indication that she did so being a slight jerk of her chin. "So what was it you wanted, big boy?" she murmured, her spirit rising up from the challenge of having to convince four at the same time. If it wasn't for her warframe, she would be sweating from exertion. 'Damn, I'm getting out of shape. I have an itchy trigger finger, and I can't keep it still for very long. Oh dear, what should I do?'

The turian coughed into his hand, apparently collecting himself. "I was wondering something. Seeing your actions right here leads me to believe you have some... interesting things. I also hear you're good with weapons. I have this..." By now the turian leaned in closely, making sure he was not overheard by anyone else. "Vigilante group. Taking out high-priority targets, generally making Omega a better place to live in. It gives people hope to stand up for themselves, you know? I've been watching your operation for a while now, and I think your service would do real well. What do you say? Partners?"

Nyx went positively gleeful, but she cautiously inquired further. "And what's in it for me? What's the guarantee that you won't stab me in the back when I turn around?"

She knew that the turian wasn't going to, but she wanted to see how he would react to such allegations. "I can't guarantee you anything. All I'm asking for is for you to take a leap of faith and trust me."

Nyx chuckled and leaned back, bending her spine. "Well, whatever you want." She leaned in closer, whispering in a sultry tone into his ear. "Partners, good guy."

They both chuckled and shook hands. "People call me Archangel."

'Archangel?' Nyx thought to herself in pleasant surprise. "Ah, I've heard about you. You've caused a lot of trouble. I like troublemakers..." Nyx trailed off, making a show of looking up and down Archangel's body. "And it's best when they're fit for fight."

Archangel let loose a short and calm bark of laughter. "Well, not to brag, but some of my co-workers have mentioned that I have... impressive reach."

'Oh yeah,' Nyx thought. 'This is going to be the start of itchy trigger fingers and blood splattering fun.'

A green pyjak with an expensive looking necklace jumped up on the table between Nyx and Archangel, screaming loudly as it ran further away from an equally screaming Kenn. "Get back here, you little thief!"

Nyx blinked and laughed. "Huh. I guess seriousness isn't always welcome."

Archangel chuckled right alongside her. "Welcome to Omega."

Three months. Three galactic standard months. Or was it four? Nyx couldn't keep track from all the money pouring into their account.

But time had passed, and business was working as usual.

Unless you counted Kenn having a depression. He had gotten his first real kill just a week before, and it had slowed the shop to a crawl. It took Nyx barely three days for getting his spirit back up again. Convincing him that the batarian beggar that had attempted to mug him wouldn't be missed, and had no family and friends, took a lot longer than she had expected. It took some random acts of kindness – 'And not of the sexual kind! What kind of man is he?!' – to bring him back up from that darkness, and when he was...

'Let's just say that the pyjak still has nightmares.'

Nyx hadn't been idle in the shop either. She was fingering the trigger of a sniper rifle, the head of a krogan in the scope. She wouldn't miss. She was too good for it. She wasn't arrogant, she just knew that a slow target and excellent muscle control and hand-eye coordination was a good match. For her, at least.

She took a deep breath in, stilling her heart-beat. 'Half a click away. No wind. Humidity is at a low three and a half percent. Rotation of Omega station taken into account. Firing in three...'

The Blood Pack krogan rolled his shoulder.

'Two...'

He scratched his head and turned to his fellow guard, although this one was a vorcha, murmuring about something.

'One...'

His colleague's eye popped in a bloody mess.

'Now.'

A loud, resounding bang echoed on the surrounding rooftops.

She heard a voice crackle in the communication device Archangel handed to her. "Tangos taken care of. Your turn, six."

Nyx chuckled and took a sigh of relief. She tapped her own microphone. "I'm going to get a drink. Anyone coming?"

No one accepted her offer. "More for me!"

Nyx stretched her neck as she strutted into a seedy bar. She tapped the dirty counter. "One ryncol, make it double!" Nyx called for the bartender, who stared wide-eyed at her.

The haggard batarian shook his head and sighed. He filled a glass with some kind of mysteriously green liquid. He held said glass far away from him and put it in front of Nyx. "Your funeral," he muttered and went to serve someone else, hoping to whatever gods existed that he wouldn't lose his job.

Just as she grabbed hold of it and brought it up, a rather... tattooed individual stepped up beside and laughed. "You think you can drink that heavy shit?" the marked woman grinned. "I bet you're too pussy-shit to down that."

Nyx chuckled audibly. "Is that a challenge?" she inquired, and grabbed hold of the glass.

The scantily clad woman – 'A gun strap for a bra? Really?' – scoffed. "Consider it a challenge, yeah. One hundred credits if you can down all that ryncol in one go, an extra two hundred if you can down one more. How about that? Or are you too-"

The woman didn't get to say anything more as a part of Nyx's mask opened up to reveal a red, distinctly human mouth,with human shades. The glass met her lips, and the putrid green liquid burned Nyx's throat as it was drunk in three gulps.

"Holy shit, you actually did it," the woman laughed loudly. "Now I'm waiting for you to fall over and die!" she taunted loudly.

Nyx simply rolled her head around, letting the highly alcoholic – and in most cases toxic – truly settle in her stomach and laughed lightly. "Ha, I'm not going to fall over and die from something this small. Bartender," she called. "Get me three more glasses of the stuff. It's way too weak. What, did you distil it with water to save money? Cheapskate!" The bartender only shook his head with disbelief, and served the ryncol, amazement clear on his four-eyed face.

"Throw in two thousand credits if you drink two more glasses. I have money to spend," a mysterious, but still female human voice sounded behind the two.

Nyx, still very much sober to the surprise of just about everyone, and the inked woman looked behind them and saw a hooded figure that had a purple-lipped smile. "Oh no, don't stop for me! I wouldn't dare to get behind a lady and her ryncol."

The barely-clad woman raised an eyebrow. "Who the hell are you? Some kind of master thief or some bullshit?"

The hooded woman grinned. "You could say that. My name is Kasumi. I ask you the same question. I know who this woman is," Kasumi said, gesturing to Nyx. "She's rather popular among businessmen. But I don't know who you are."

The still unnamed woman crossed her arms, frowning. "Call me Jack."

Nyx snorted in a rather unladylike manner. "Jack? You know what, I'm not going to ask," she stated before Jack could get particularly angry from someone mocking her self-given name.

Then Nyx started to down the three glasses in less than thirty seconds.

There was quite a crowd gathering around them, watching the masked and armoured woman down several glasses of unfiltered, spiked ryncol.

Some fools even tried to match Nyx's record of fourteen shots of ryncol. Instant hospitalization.

The bar would become much richer the next day.

Nyx woke up with a thundering migraine. "Oh god why did I do that?" she groaned loudly.

She heard a voice to her right. "No clue, but last night was amazing."

Nyx glanced to her right. She was silent before slapping her forehead. "You've got to be kidding me."

On Nyx's quite comfortable bed was Jack. "Christ," Nyx began. "The fuck did I do yesterday?"

Jack was about to open her mouth when Nyx interrupted her by holding a hand up. "No, I don't want to know. What happens in Omega stays in Omega."

Jack moaned into the pillow. "Sure, whatever," she groaned.

Nyx groaned, and did a check of her equipment. Her suit was still on, and no single component was missing. Although, come to think of it, she was missing one thing...

'Where's my damn credit chit?'

A year or two, give or take a couple of months.

Nyx had partaken in Archangel's vigilante operations on her own time. She didn't even need to use her powers to convince him that she would only join him if she wanted to.

She usually wanted to.

Suit Up! hadn't closed, its business was still going strong, and it had gotten much larger, now having lots of employees and paid guards to take care of their merchandise. Credits were flowing in and out of their accounts.

Nyx thought it strange, but apparently Kenn found his calling in Suit Up!. He loved being a store owner, although now it was more of a chain, thanks to their popularity.

He still had his Pilgrimage to consider, and he had told Nyx that he wanted the funds from Suit Up! to build a big ship. "A dreadnought twice the size of one of the Migrant Fleet's liveships! Imagine, Nyx! I can finally do something good for my people, and not be a nervous wreck in front of them all! I'll be a proud member of the quarian race! I'll be Kenn the Magnificent! Kenn the Dreadnought-bringer! Kenn the Pilgrim! Kenn the... okay, I'm empty."

And aside from that, and some questionable threats from Aria's men, there were rumours flooding the streets.

Something about a dead woman back from the dead and causing a stir.

Naturally the moment the ship the dead woman was on entered the system they had her tagged.

"Normandy SR-2, Cerberus. Not too shabby," Nyx murmured to herself before doing a quick extranet search for why this 'Shepard's' revival was so damn important. Yes, a revival was important, but that wasn't talked about that much. It was the 'who', not the 'how'.

Needless to say Nyx was impressed.

She was relaxing on a comfortable black and white leather couch when her state-of-the-art omni-tool beeped, indicating a message. She sighed. She had only given her omni-tool number to a select few people that she explicitly trusted – Kenn and Archangel – and whenever they called her it was for something very important, but lately it had been getting simple.

The mercenary groups, despite the death tolls and the assassination attempts, were still buying from their stock, more than usual, but still nothing to be concerned about. The Blood Pack had purchased some excavation drills and explosives. Nyx couldn't for the life of her understand why the Blood Pack wanted drills, but they paid. The Blue Suns had bought a gunship, which was armed with missiles and with some killer armour and shields. The Eclipse had bought mechs by the dozens. Loki mechs were easy to come by. Relatively cheap, and had a nice aim and reaction time.

They did buy an Atlas mech, something they almost never did. Atlas mechs were expensive, and despite being superior to the Loki in every way when it came to combat, they were only ever good at clearing entrenched positions due to their extremely high quality armour and shields. So it would make more sense to buy more Loki mechs, but who was Nyx to complain about the couple million credits seeping into their hands?

She opened up her inbox. She saw that it was from Archangel, and it was labelled emergency.

She read through the short message as quickly as she could when she saw the first two words.

'I'm surrounded.'

Author's note: Fuck you I'm a multi-tasker.