Three Headed Dog [V2.1] [Worm/Mass effect]

A.N. Point of view jump from character to character all the time in Arc 1, It will again in other arcs later on. I am mostly looking if publishing whole arc at once is better or worse for this story...

Warning. If you are only concerned about Taylor, read Chapter 1 / 6 / 7 for her and Cerberus plotline.

Arc 1: éveil.


Chapter 1: Taylor Hebert; Unknown Location


"The stars they look warm... and inviting... waiting for us, isn't it?"

The voice of a man said softly right next to my ear, I could barely understand his words as my mind tried and failed to properly wake up.

"Places to be explored. Knowledge to be had. Riches to be made..."

I felt his breath on my neck making my body shiver with fear as the weight of slumber on my eyelids kept them shut.

"But, we will not always be welcome. Those who came before may not be willing to share... It is the way of things, it is... inevitable."

What was happening? I remembered waking up, breakfast, going to school then nothing? What happened? Did I get kidnapped?

"Dark times are coming. There is something out there to protect humanity against."

I felt so cold... I didn't know if it was because of my situation, what he said or just the surrounding temperature... I felt so very cold... Battling against the drowsiness, I slowly managed to move my lips, and a half-formed word slipped out.

"Wua?"

There was silence. For a second. For an eternity.

"Do what you must."

He finally said softly just before the pain hit me. I couldn't even scream when it did, my brain felt on fire as something pushed, crawled and gnawed at it from the inside out, I saw my numb body fell forward, spasming and foaming, when every nerve in my body transformed into high voltage cable that burned me from the inside. I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't move, I couldn't hear, speak or even think, I was pain and pain, was I.

I don't know how long I was unconscious, but the sudden rush of warm water entering my mouth and nose woke me up instantly, heart beating madly in my chest. In my panic I flayed my arms around in an attempt to swim, trying to find the surface and get some much-needed air but, the warm water was pitch black. I couldn't see anything and, for all I knew, I could have swum deeper but, luck was on my side as my head finally broke the surface and I took giant gulps of air.

I Looked around with fearful eyes, everything was bathed in blood red light coming from somewhere far above me, I was in the middle of some sort of giant pool surrounded by small hills of various size. The water was incredibly warm and had a strong coppery taste...

Don't think about it, Taylor...

I was afraid, terrified and my body felt like it had been set on fire, from the inside out.

I spotted what looked like a beach next to the nearest hill and used what energy I had left to swim in its direction, to my immense relief I felt solid ground under my feet when I did. Through sheer will alone I managed to haul myself out of the water before falling to my knees as my legs surrendered.

My whole body was shaking, muscles burning from the pain and effort, I had trouble keeping my eyes open, my clothes were ruined, I was drenched from head to toes into that bizarre warm liquid and I just wanted to fall over, close my eyes and hope that all of this was nothing but a nightmare.

Then, a loud whining noise boomed from above. I never heard it before, but I knew it. Dread, fear, horror, terror, death, destruction, harvest... I couldn't breathe, I could feel my heart racing madly in my chest, my veins were filled with ice, and I wanted to run, but I was stuck, like a deer in the headlight.

Can't move, can't run, can't run, can't run, can't run... Move, move, MOVE DAMNIT!

I screamed to myself trying to pump what I could into my legs to flee what was coming.

I only had the time to take a first shaky step when the floor shook violently under me and the air was filled with the sound of something utterly massive crashing onto the ground. Incapable of withstanding the quake I was sent sprawling onto the ground, my right arm snapped when I tried to use it to slow myself and my head slammed against the ground with enough force I could see endless blue stars above me as I let out a pained whine.

And promptly froze before curling on myself eyes shut, hoping it hadn't seen me, that it would leave, I wanted mom and dad, I wanted my room, I didn't want to be here, I wanted to leave. I knew. I knew what it was. I refused to see it I thought. I needed to see it another part of me responded. I had to see the enemy. So I opened my eyes and behold it.

Blue dots following an intricate pattern, going up and up along a body made of purple alloy sitting on top of five gigantic legs larger and higher than the tallest buildings. I couldn't see it's top from the ground but I knew what it looked like anyway, a cuttlefish that was more terrific than the sight of the three endbringers combined, two kilometers of an unfeeling mechanical nightmare that had but one goal in its existence. Complete the Harvest. But it was impossible, it couldn't be here, I repeated myself as it slowly rotated to face me, each of its step making the ground quake under its weight.

"Reaper."

The word flew out of my mouth, in hardly more than a terrified whisper, yet it was enough for the titanic machine to turn its attention towards me, looking, studying, analyzing. It Reoriented itself in steps that made the ground quake and the blast of a foghorn so loud it physically pressed me against the ground like I was a mere insect as much as it gripped my mind inside an iron grip.

Then it spoke.

"Reaper. A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction, in the end, what they choose to call us is irrelevant, we simply. Are."

Booming, crushingly powerful, devoid of emotion. Its voice trapped me inside an inescapable cold chrysalis of sound as it slowly started pressuring my mind in its grip.

Armored footsteps echoed in the distance, I painfully turned my head toward it, to beg for help or mercy and as I finally was able to saw it, I felt my eyes widen on its alien appearance.

A body born at the end of a very long evolution on another world, a world where the star would shine strongly, irradiating the surface of its world more strongly than other. Legs bend in ode shapes, three-fingered hand and a head more akin to that of a raptor or maybe a bird. I let my eyes linger on his cybernetic arm and electric blue eyes as my mind supplied a name once again.

Saren.

"You have no idea what stands before you."

The words were spats in my face, my very presence an insult to him. Without any warning his feet struck true, forcing me on my back in one well-placed hit.

"You are out of your depth."

Older, colder and contemptuous said a man voice, I couldn't see its owner from where I was on the ground, yet I knew that voice. It was the same voice that spoke to me at the beginning but different... and... and it was also mine?

"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding. "

I whined in pain on the ground when the Reaper spoke once more, each of its words like nails on chalkboard inside my head, clawing and tearing. Saren removed his foot from my torso and together with the man they started circling around me, like vultures awaiting a fresh meal.

"You are bacteria, germs."

Saren dismissed with a wave of his hand before walking out of my field of vision, just to be replaced with the man. Tall, graying hair, blue eyes and with cloths of good tastes. I knew him too, T.I.M. He pointed an accusing finger at me.

"There are choices that are coming that you are not equipped to make."

And they continued to walk around me even as the Reaper above spoke, uncaring and commanding.

"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension."

Saren passed by my field of vision speaking softly to himself, one of his hand scratching pensively one of his mandibles.

"If we work with the Reapers... if we make ourselves useful..."

Soon he was again replaced by the man that was looking back at me, speaking decisively to me even as his face started to melt and change.

"My goal is to save Humanity, at any cost."

His hair growing, curling and darkening, his suits adapting itself to a more womanly shape and his voices became strikingly familiar.

"We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite."

I could feel each and every one of the Reaper words pounding against my mind like hammers, relentless.

"I am forging an alliance between us and the Reapers, between organics and machines. My way is the only way any of us will survive!"

Gleefully said Saren, his arms wide open, inviting, smiling.

Then he, no she, replaced Saren once again. She walked with a confidence, an arrogance I would never be able to muster, her words dripping content as my heart froze when I saw her face.

"When we learned there was more to the galaxy than we imagined. That our place in the universe is more fragile than we'd like to think. They were scared of what we'd find. Terrified of what we might let in."

It was a nightmare in its purest form, I thought as I stared at the arrogant smirk on my own face staring down at me. I screamed and trashed on the ground. I cried. I wanted to wake up. Please.

"We are each a nation - independent, free of all weakness."

A pair of alien hands gripped my shoulders and stopped my struggle. My heart was beating madly inside my chest when one of Saren hand stroked my face with care before he started to speak gently to me, almost a whisper, like talking to a young child.

"Organics and machines intertwined, a union of fleshes and skills, the strength of both, the weakness of Neither!"

"You cannot grasp the nature of our existence."

"Since that discovery we've advanced more than the past ten thousand years combined! The reapers will do the same for us."

I heard myself say from somewhere behind me, her voice envious, lustful. With it came flashes and memories that I never lived through.

Saren gentle stroke shifted into a vicious grip on my throat, squeezing he slowly raised himself to his full height and took me with him even as I weakly clawed at his hands with my only viable arm and my vision filling itself with dark spots.
I was face to face with him, and I couldn't feel the ground under my feet, I was dangling uselessly in his grip.

"Do not mire yourself in pointless revolt."

"We are legion."

He said matter-of-factly, looking and searching for something inside my eyes before suddenly sending me airborne as he tossed me aside like a mere doll.

I flew for a few seconds before my back violently smashed against one of the hills. Hissing through my teeth and crying under the pain I opened my eyes just to behold another horror. A mere few centimeters away from my face was a corpse, its mouth forever stuck in an endless scream. I looked away only to find other corpses, pilled on top of each other, piles upon piles of bodies all around me.

I threw up, on the exploded chest of a woman whose face I refused to see. A hand grabbed me by the hair and violently pulled me up until I was face to face with the woman standing amongst the corpses.

"Don't let idealism blind you."

"The time of our return is coming."

Her voice was cold and unfeeling as machines slowly creeped out on her neck... my neck.

A violent pull on my hair forced me to my knees just long enough for her own knee to find my face, sending me barreling down the pill of carcasses until I violently crashed face down on the ground my body in a small pond of wa... blood dripping down from the pill. I couldn't scream, I didn't have the strength left.

"Do not sacrifice everything in the name of petty freedoms."

"Our numbers will darken the sky of every world."

Saren spoke even as the Reaper drowned on and on unconcerned by the words spoken by the mere insects we were.

I tried to crawl away, but I could barely move my own arm, how would I haul myself? Saren chuckled cruelly above me, and I hoped that would be the end of it.

He used his feet to push my head into the blood, his intent clear. Drowning me in it.

I could feel my lungs suddenly scream for air, as my nose and mouth were filled with blood, each spasmed breaths were agonizingly painful and short. I struggled and trashed against Saren, but the turian was bigger and stronger than me.

When my hair was painfully pulled my body limply followed the movement, thankfully it forced my head out of the water, and I couldn't help but feel immense relief as I took giant gulps of air one after another.

"They're just trying to control us. Think about it: If they wanted all organic life destroyed, they could do it. There would be nothing left."

T.I.M. said right into my ear whispering sweet things my brain barely heard amidst the pain suffusing my whole body.

"You cannot escape your doom."

I didn't have the will to fight anymore.

"I believe in them completely. Join us!"

I cried.

"Control is the mean to Survival!"

I was going to die.

"Is submission not preferable to extinction?"

It was inevitable.

"This is the way Humanity must evolve."

It was the only logical conclusion.

"There is no other logical conclusion."

"Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades.
You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence."

My will was fading, eroding under the strain. I was alone, I've always been alone. Nobody would miss me, nobody would help me. I was going to die terrified, trapped in my own mind, alone and surrounded by enemies.

I was just a fifteen years old girl that wanted her mama and papa.

I don't want to die...

"Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything. "

I saw war.

Peoples, families, flying for their life and relentlessly cut down by husks. Soldiers fighting desperate battles and last stand to give only a few more seconds of life to others.

Kilometers tall skyscrapers blasted away by the red beam of Reapers main weapon. Fleets of spaceships throwing themselves in the paths of Reapers hoping against hope to slow them down.

Children geared for war, looking at their world on fire with dead eyes as Reaper walked slowly toward them. Brothers fought with each other, as indoctrinated slaves turned against old friends, selling them to the Reapers.

Bodies, peoples, entire species pushed inside giant pools and quickly dissolved, processed into a new Reaper or transformed into fresh husks for their endless army.

The entire galaxy screaming for help, for anyone, as one by one each world fell until all that was left was the silence.

That was no war.

Only a Harvest.

"There is no war. Only the Harvest."

It was inevitable...

"Our enemy had a single goal."

A whisper at the edge of my mind, spoken softly, sadly.

"The extinction of all advanced organics lives."

I grasped it in return it grasped back.

"All evidence of the Reaper invasion had been wiped away. Only their indoctrinated slaves were left behind, abandoned."

I felt an old warm and fatherly embrace on my mind.

"You must break a cycle that has continued for millions of years. But, to stop it you must understand. Or you will make the same mistakes we did."

It soothed my mind, fueling me with the only thing that could help me through this.

"Perhaps there is still hope."

Hope.

"This is our destiny, join us and experience a True Rebirth."

Saren raged on the side, its voice sounding more like a machine than a living breathing turian. I choose to ignore him, pushing him and what he was on the side of my mind even as he started to beat me black and blue, I pushed the pain on the side with him.

I choose the clutch that small tiny silver of hope. The longer I grasped it in my mind, the stronger the connection got more and more voices, memories, came forth. Helping me repel the pain and the Reaper.

"There's hope Jack! Stop thinking for once and feel! I'm not giving up."

Eva's voice... I hadn't heard her voice in decades... I...

"I love you, little owl. I always have and always will."

Mama? Mom, I'm sorry! I love you!

"Shepard's right. Humanity is ready to do its part. United with the rest of the Council, we have the strength to overcome any obstacle."

Anderson... Captain Anderson... I know him too, a good man. A stronger leader.

"When the Reapers come, we must stand side by side. We must fight against them as one. And together we can drive them back into dark space!"

I can't give up. It's what they would want me to do, all of them. Emma, Sophia, their sycophants, the Reapers and their slaves. They want ME to forget who I AM. To force ME to fight against what I believe in.

"We are the pinnacle of evolution, immortal, unfathomable, perfect."

Saren's voice matched its appearance, a skeleton of machines that looked nothing like a Turian would, a desecration of a Turian I knew long ago. A headstrong ass that fought for the good of Palaven and turiankind.

"I AM the pinnacle of our species."

T.I.M raged, showing off her inhuman machines crawling under her flesh slowly but surely encompassing her, making her a mockery of Man.

"No. No, you are not."

I spat back in defiance. I would NOT be cowed anymore.

Her mouth twisted into a snarl of pure hatred as she hurled herself at me. We rolled into the blood, and I saw stars when she smashed my face again and again on the ground, yet, despite that, despite my injuries and my wavering strength, I fought back, pulling her hair, strangling her, kicking her, trying to get her off me.

Her fingers found my face.

With a roar echoed by the Reaper above she shoved them inside my eyeballs.

I howled.

Struggling with renewed strength to make her stop.

I felt my eyes pop and her nails scratching the bones behind.

"Your mind will be mine."

I felt the tendrils of the Reaper pressing against my mind, forcing their way in by my empty eyes socket, digging and clawing at what it could. Trying to assert its hold on its prey.

It would be so easy to just give in. And I was so tired of the pain.

"Don't let them win! Don't let them control you! Break their hold!"

Shepard.
A woman, a very specific woman.

No power.
But a will that moved the galaxy.

A force of nature that got up against the Reaper and Won.

Despite the pain, the loss and the despair.

I followed after her. Raging, screaming, kicking, punching in the dark hitting machines again and again. To not give up. To soldier on.

"You resist but you Will Fail."

It started to move, I could feel and hear its massive legs move towards me. I grinned, I could feel it lose its grip on me. I was winning.

A pair of hands unexpectedly found themselves around me, helping me stand up and walk away. Too wide shoulder and three-fingered hands.

"What's the point of advancing a species to its physical peak if you sacrifice intelligence?"

The voice was younger less mechanical but still one I knew, more alive, surer of itself. My voice croaked as I spoke.

"Saren? Is that you?"

The younger Saren urged me forward as he spoke.

"Enough. I am an Arterius but, I am also sworn to defend my people. I have a duty to Palaven."

"You exist because we allow it."

From behind us I could hear the rapid cavalcade of hundreds of husks quickly gaining ground on us.

The younger Saren freed my arm and pushed me forward with a few sad but determined partings words.

"I wish I could stay to see what happens Taylor but, I have to take care of a few things first."

I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what could say one deadman to another, we failed champion of our respective species.

So I started to limp away as fast and as far as I could.

A hand grabbed my arms and forced me to move into a light, but painful run when gunshots and growls echoed in the distance. The hand was strange and continually shifting, like it didn't know what it really was, between old and young, between man and woman.

"We're at war."

T.I.M. voice was equally strange, a bizarre mix of both me and him, superposing, separating and intertwining themselves.

"No one wants to admit it, but humanity is under attack. Blaming it on fate and burying their heads in the sand. It is easier and more convenient."

Behind us, silence suddenly fell, for a second I believed, hoped that he would have won against the Reaper, but quickly enough the cavalcade of husks denied me that hope.

So we ran faster than before, and I gritted my teeth.

I had no idea how long or how far we ran but after a while, we stopped just long enough for her to strap something to my broken arm before shoving forwards with all her strength.

I ran even as gunfire erupted a hair breath behind my back.

Something tried to grab my arm.

"And you will end because we demand it."

It was cold and made me shiver.

I kicked it with everything I had.

The hand released me, and I took off.

My world was black, but I didn't care. I didn't care that I could fall off a cliff to my death, or that I could launch myself into the Reaper arm.

I would not die cowering on the ground.

I would not let myself be enslaved.

"I will fight you until the end!"

Many times something grabbed me but each time I fought back like a possessed woman, kicking and pushing my way through despite the pain, the muscles on fire, the darkness around me, the cold shiver the husks hands made me feel.

"Your words are as empty as your future."

Voices responded. Many many voices.

From somewhere in front of me, growing closer with each step of my run. I used them like a lighthouse as the Reaper above blasted its foghorn trying to cower me into submission.

The air became warmer, the cold started to recede, the light on my skin was beginning to fill me with energy and not sapping it. I ran faster. The Reaper presence was eroding itself away. Voices pushing me forward as the light became encompassing.

I slowed down before stopping altogether. Still standing in front of something...

I felt a hand on my shoulder. A calming presence next to me.

"However insignificant we might be."

She enveloped me in a motherly hug for a moment as my adrenaline filled body started to finally fail, my legs giving out under me and lance of pain pulsed where my eyes once where.

"We will fight, We will sacrifice, and We will find a way. That's what humans do."

She gently let me go, pushing my body forward.

I fell and hit the floor.

Something broke, like a panel of glass and I crashed on the ground for one final time.

As consciousness abandoned me, I heard the opening of a door, hurried footsteps and worried voices.


Chapter 2: Daniel Hebert; Earth Bet

Strange how his feet always managed to make him return to the same place even after all those years.

He sat at the edge of the pier, feet dangling above the sea and arms resting on the lower bar of the railing. He stayed like that for long minutes, his visible breath the only thing proving he was truly alive, staring at the horizon.

The sky above was clear, not even the hint of a cloud, apart from a single golden speck barely discernable high above. The sea was calm as far as the eye could see, a sea of oil as his grandfather would have said if he was still alive.

He had to come here. It was... necessary.

He couldn't stay in the house anymore. The silence there was... suffocating. A reminder of what he lost. The cold other side of the bed. The lack of footstep in the stairs in the morning. The absence of the sound of pen on paper in his daughter's room late in the night, the dust that started to appear in places recently occupied.

Staying in his house after his wife died was a burden but, with his daughter gone too, it was akin to living in the middle of gravestones, each one dedicated to their dreams for the future, all of them dead and gone.

That fateful day he was in his office at the Union, doing whatever, probably reading contracts or something else, a pretty average day since Annette died.

Then there was a sudden flash of red light coming from the City; gone so fast he remembers frowning as if he had imagined it. A second later, he was proven wrong when the sound of a massive explosion reached his ears, the building shook, and the windows shattered inwards under the strength of the blast. He remembers it like it was but a few hours ago.

He doesn't exactly remember what happened after that. How he managed to find himself in front of what once was Winslow High yelling in the face of an officer, nor how he found himself in his daughter room later that day, sitting on her bed elbow on knee and head in hands, hoping against hope that she was okay. Things had become... nebulous in those moments.

But as the days passed without any good news, when he failed to hear her open the front door or her voice calling for him in the living room, he had to accept the truth. His daughter would not come back. Since that realization, he found himself numb to the outside world, not even capable of being angry even if he wanted, his strength having deserted him.

"I knew you would be there Daniel."

A voice cut right through his internal monolog. Alan Barnes leaned against the railing a meter away from him.

"It's strange, isn't it... that even after all those years we are still drawn to this place when things become..."

His voice broke, silence fell only disturbed by the strangled sob of his friend.

"How is Emma?"

His heavy breathing cut Alan response over a wavering voice.

"They... The doctors... They don't know... If she will wake up again. They say she was lucky to be alive, and one of the first Panacea. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Danny."

Daniel glanced at Alan who was openly sobbing, head resting on the railing, body shaking and hands over his head.

He didn't know what to do; he wanted to be angry, to get up and punch him, screaming like a madman at his face, yelling how fucking stupid it was for him to sob and tell him he was sorry when his entire family was Alive. Meanwhile, his daughter and wife were dead, while he had all the money he wanted for his family while he had to count every fucking cent.

But he just couldn't. All strength had long since vanished from him, so he just stared blankly at Alan before replying.

"I know."

His voice comes out hoarse with disuse and dehydration. He didn't have anything else to say, so he returned gazing at the horizon.

He wondered what he should do.

The only thing that managed to keep him going when Annette died was his job, and now even that seemed hollow. He realized he should have spent more time with his daughter, but those realizations are always so easy when the other one is gone.

He should have spoken more with her, to find what troubled her so much in the last few months. He should have taken her out more often to reconnect with her. He should have taken some days off to take care of her.

He should...

He should...

He should have been there.

But he was not.

And now she is gone.

And now he is alone.

He wondered if he should laugh. But, there was another question at the tip of his tongue, mayhaps some sort of morbid curiosity.

"Alan? Do you know what happened at Winslow? I don't remember what I did..."

He looked at Alan, the puffy and tired eyes of his friend had a hint of incredulity in them.

"You... you don't remember?"

"Nothing."

Alan opened his mouth in surprise before he started laughing. It wasn't a pleasant one, hollow and born of grief more than amusement.

"You lost it, that's what happened Danny. I don't know how as you were already punching your way through the cops when I arrived. You're lucky they had other things to do than arrest you when I managed to calm you."

He hummed, so that's what happened.

It was the third time he broke his self-made oath. The first was when he was talking to a mayor's aide when he told him that the revival projects for the Docks were being canceled and there would only be layoff and no new jobs for the weakening Union. The second was also the first, only and last time he truly lost his temper with his wife, less than a few hours later she was dead. And now he lost his temper the day his daughter died.

It was strange how each time he lost his temper marked his failures in life. His job at the union was more akin to screaming in the desert; his wife was dead because he had shouted at her and his daughter had been... killed and once again he lost his temper.

He wondered if his oath was a curse he inflicted on himself, and if now he was free of it, now that he didn't have any family of his own anymore...

Maybe...

He suddenly remarked that while he continued to monologue in his head, Alan had continued speaking and was now yelling, balancing back and forth hand gripping the railing until his articulations were white.

Strange, from both Alan, had always been the calmer one. At least more than himself and his father's temper Daniel pondered.

"... and they don't fucking know what happened? Did you believe that? You seriously believed that? I'm a fucking lawyer! My job is to lie and know when people lie! She's lying to us! They know! They know what happened to our daughters and who is respo..."

He muted Alan again and looked at the horizon once more.

The sky above was clear, not even the hint of a cloud, apart from a singular golden speck barely discernable high above. The sea was calm as far as the eye could see, a sea of oil as his grandfather would have said if he was still alive.

And he continued to wonder how strange it was that his feet always managed to make him return to the same place even after all those years.

He never brought Taylor here.

He should have.

And now.

He cannot.


Chapter 3: Emily Piggot; Earth Bet

Director Emily Piggot finished the last of her coffee, quietly taking in the literally otherworldy nature of the task ahead of her. Said Task was laying quite innocently on her pristine desk, in her new and hopefully temporary office, a single folder containing absolutely everything they knew related, directly or indirectly, to the Incident.

The slight breeze, coming from the open window of her new office, didn't disrupt the folder and already barely managed to make the ficus leaves moves.

Where before they would have been stack upon stack of the mainly handwritten report, thanks to Shatterbird's capabilities to destroy anything silicon-based, she could now see the walls and floor of her office. They were a dull metallic grey like the rest of the Rig, and they still smelled a little stale but, each passing day made the odor of coffee more and more present.

She looked at the city on the shore, frowning when, for the hundred times, its color seemed to bend and shift due to the forcefield protecting the PHQ. It was exactly like looking at an oversaturating TV. Anyone at any given time that would look at the city from within this shielded bubble would see a slightly different tone than anyone else, a slightly different shade of blue, brown or grey... A whole deconstructed because peoples couldn't see it as a whole anymore but as Their own version of a whole.

Not so dissimilar from how the parahumans looked at the world. Emily thoughts. Para Humans, Paranormals Humans, Humans with capabilities beyond the scope of everyone else, most had to view the world like she was now; differently, off-tone, like one giant theme park to do their bidding.

The break down of order, and the crawling emergence of chaos.

It was left to people like her to remind them that what they saw, biased as it was by their "prowess", was not the real world, not their little wonder whole or petty kingdom, that there were hundreds of thousands of people trying to live normal lives without someone in skintight bodysuit ruining their day.

Especially here in Brockton Bay, with its already abnormal number of parahumans, if you could call anything where parahumans were concerned "normal" anyway.

Still, it was quite strange for her that her usually crowded office was so empty of the row upon row of paperwork born from various origins: archives, profiles, timelines, investigation reports, maps of gangs territories. But all of those were, for one, still being put into order by some interne and secondly, redirected towards the office of Deputy Director Renick.

Orders had come from High above; she was to delegate everything else and only concentrate on the Attack until every scrap of information was discovered. She scoffed, after years of scrapping the barrels for funds left over by the other departments, she was now quite literally drowning in it, funds, personals, and parahumans dropping on her lap.

And it only took Brockton Bay to live through the first case of Orbital Bombardment know to man. She mused to herself. And just because we are the closest thing that can understand how to deal with it. She added sourly after a moment.

She pushed the button on her coffee machine resting near the windows so that it would replenish her cup. As she waited in front of the device, she wondered if General Shirazi had been in the same position than hers in the wake of Behemoth first appearance, drowning in money and personnel threw at him with a card "please help" pinned on top.

Slightly amazed she didn't have to navigate trough mount and valley of paperwork to find her way to her desk, who would have throned in the middle of her old office like the Raft of the Medusa, she sat behind her desk and opened one of the lower drawer containing her laptop and booted it up. Usually, she would be quite taken with paperwork, but her new orders had gutted that familiar state of being so much she could indulge herself some professional curiosity.

She entered her passwords and answered the personal questions that Dragon's subsystem posed to her. What is your favorite musician? When was the last time you saw your sister? Unnerving- All those information that Dragon's algorithms could dig up on her from the numerous emails, photographs and surveillance footage since she had started her job as a PRT a little more than a decade ago. It was slight trepidation that she typed in, Chet Baker and June 21 of last year.

Sobering thought that she didn't see her sister in so long but, she couldn't just take a few days of rest, despite the nagging of her doctors, and abandon her post. She was needed here, and people counted on her, her family was secondary in front of her duty.

She typed the words "Behemoth" and watched the list of result, as expected from an Endbringer the list was rather long, organized as a timeline filed with simulation, movement report, possible sighting, anti-Endbringer weapon testing, all rhythmed by the list of casualties and damaged reports from Behemoth attacks.

Emily skimmed through all of those until she found what she wanted to see, the first few entries.

The very first was inconspicuous enough, a simple call for aid after an earthquake wrecked the Marun Field region in Iran. A simpler time then, where, in a world already walking on its head, there was still a certain modicum of sense. A panicked radio call for help from the military units on relief duty. The fear and despair tangible in their voice while in the background the barkings orchestra of guns and the roar of Behemoth could be heard.

She understood them beyond the language barrier, as she was once in their position, sometimes she would still dream of the sputtering of her radio as she was running through a maze of houses on the outskirts of Ellisburg, the cries for help of her fellows just before they were torn apart. It had gotten better over the years but, never had it entirely gone away, always there at the edge of her mind.

The initial damage report, mentioning radioactive fallout that would impair the capacity of the oil field for months if not years until it was safe enough to work. Time proved the radioactivity and the damage caused by the battle rendered half of the oil field improper to exploitation. She pondered what they would say about the crater in the middle of the city in a few years.

She sipped her cup of coffee, letting her eyes wander from one file to another concerning the appearance of Behemoth... Such an apt name, she contemplated... Behemoth, the beast God created so that only He could capture and kill to prove the futility of questioning god reasoning, no man could hope to fight against it and live, so great was its strength.

She looked past her screen, at the Folder on her desk. It sported a single word on a purple folder.

Charon.

She pushed a button on her desk.

"Carol, call everyone to reunion room 3."

"Yes Ma'am"

It was time to work.

+*+*+*+

She looked at each person sitting around the table, either capes or not, in turn. All the costumed capes were on the left side of the room while all the uniformed humans were on the right side, both sides looking comically incompatible with each other.

They came from all other the country and beyond, prt officer military, scientist, tinker, thinker, parahumans team leader. Around forty people sat in the room with her. Most on loans and would soon return to where they came from after a few days or weeks. She knew, at least, that the outnumbering heroes would make the gangs pause, for now, buying the much needed time the city needed to recuperate. A shame she couldn't use the occasion to root them out of the city.

She let the silence stretch on for a minute and almost allowed it to reach an uncomfortable level before starting.

"Colonel, where is the count as of now?"

She asked toward the national guard colonel that was, for the time being, placed under her command. The balding man had not be overjoyed to be placed under the PRT for the next few weeks but was professional enough to keep it under wrap when they both were in front of other peoples. He searched his papers before responding.

"The last tally was putting the number of injured up to twenty-four thousand four hundred and twenty-six, with still one hundred and forty-seven still in critical condition, the capes medically inclined are currently working to bring this number to zero. The number of casualties as of now..."

There was an almost imperceptible waver in his voice as he continued.

"... is at four hundred and nine and it continues to go up as we dig up new bodies. The vast majority of the deceased and injured in critical condition are the student in attendance at... Winslow High. There is still sixty-three students and two teachers missing, most of those reported very close to the impact by the various witness."

She didn't follow up when the Colonel fell silent, letting the assembled peoples in the meeting room slowly digested the news. For those who had assisted to Endbringers battles and lived long enough to tell tales, it was a grim acceptation. Faces were closed off, fist balled, Armsmaster teeth ground together... other who never faced such situation had horrified faces, let out a quiet swear or tried to hold it together quietly.

The Impact had been so violent that it created a crater 16 foot deep and 65 broad, anyone near it would have been simply erased.

In a way, Emily considered, it was a good way to go, one moment there, another not there, so quick that there would be no pain, no time to be afraid or regret. In another she also knew that for some families, they would never accept that their children were gone without any bodies, they would rage against her, demanding the release of a body that had simply ceased to exist, for them there would never be a closure.

She picked up the remote that sat in front of her and clicked a button. The screen on the wall opposing to her light up and Dragon face appeared on it. A few nods of welcome were exchanged between Dragon and a few peoples present before Emily spoke again.

"Dragon, walk us through the incident."

She nodded and her face moving to the top right corner while the rest of the screen displayed a map of the Americain north and south continent.

"Three days ago, at exactly fifteen minutes past ten in the morning, A beam of red light touched the left side of Winslow High. The beam was visible only for 0.167 seconds before vanishing and could be seen in a radius of two thousand and five hundred miles..."

She looked around the table noting the astonished expression of the less informed around the room as the map displayed the known radius for all to see and they were still sorting trough newer reports that pushed that boundary further. She had been astonished herself when she heard the news the first time, behind closed doors.

The map zoomed on Brockton Bay, showing a picture from before the Impact. And as Dragon spoke an animation played, showing exactly what happened in slow motion, if she was honest with herself Emily wasn't comfortable with just how precisely constructed this animation was, it was more like looking at the real impact happening from above than at a computer simulation.

"... The beam itself vaporized anything exactly under the point of impact leaving a crater 16 foot deep and 65 large in its wake. furthermore, I calculated that the energy released by the impact needed, to create such damage to the immediate area and the city at large, to be of the same wield than a 26 kilotonnes bombe."

Armsmaster stood up from his chair and continued after Dragon stayed silent.

"The beam that was fired upon..."

"What? Fired upon?"

And was quickly interrupted by one of the scientists, Emily could see, only by how his beard furtively moved, that he hadn't appreciated the interruption.

"Later. The beam fired upon Brockton Bay had been theorized to have been incredibly small in diameter as it was going at light speed, probably faster. No buildings withstood the strength of the blast in a radius of one hundred meters, at four hundred the buildings still sported structural damage, and there was a fallout of fragments in a three hundred yard radius around ground zero."

The simulation on the screen faded away, letting the assembled personnel see pictures of the Broadwalk, the PRT HQ and a skyscraper in Downtown. All windows blasted away. She had been lucky not to have been in her old office, especially when she saw some shards of glasses planted on the opposite side of the room like so many daggers.

"And as you see no windows in a radius of three miles were capable of resisting the force of the blast, 94% of the injured came from injuries due to shards of glasses moving at high speed. The damages are estimated between ten to fourteen million dollars."

As he fell silent and sat down, Emily let those pieces of information sink in for a few seconds before she took over. She could see on the face of some doubt creep in over the fact that apart from the unusually powerful red flag poll it was at first glance only a "local" event, especially those that came from other countries.

"The chaos of the moments after the explosion was accentuated by the sixty-six prt agents and forty-two civilians injured on the PRT HQ site, even more, when Armsmaster reached out to us with the news that Miss Militia had been instantly blinded by the beam, immobilizing Dauntless, who was her partner in patrol, had to take care of her. All of that notwithstanding the appearance and, still, passive attitude of Scion that only added to the confusion."

She didn't like parahumans, and she was wary of them. She was even more wary of one as bizarre as Scion and quite uneasy to know something would make the golden bizarro boy, that out punched Behemoth, pause for days.

"Further news also showed that the wards had been caught in the event, sporting a few minor injuries of their own. Shadow Stalker was missing at the time, later found buried under a wall at Winslow High in her civies, she is recovering. "

Hopefully, that would ingrain some sense of modesty in the troublesome teen head, but she sincerely doubted that. Teenagers capes were full of hormones and power, not a good combination when she could already see how their adult counterpart acted most of the times.

She nodded at Dragon, who started the animation again, this time stopping it when the Beam appeared.

"At first I believed it to be a tinkertech bomb, and I acted on that belief according to protocol. The most important personnel of the PRT HQ were evacuated on the Rig will troopers secured the site. Every able capes were mobilized, and we reached towards New Wave for support as well, and they secured the proximity of Winslow High, helping the relief effort when the threat of a trap was ruled out. Fourteen hours later Director Costa-Brown received a call from the Australian embassy informing us that they maybe had information relevant to the explosion."

As she finished, she nodded at Dragon who took over for the last part, the shocking one and the reason why there were so many people from every horizon assembled here.

"The biggest of those two planetary bodies is Pluto, the most distant planet from our sun in the entire solar system, orbiting around it is Charon a satellite believed made of ice."

A photo of Pluto and Charon appeared on screen, two white speak one five times as big as the others.

"This is what Charon looked like four days ago. And this..." This time the larger speak was fine, but the smaller one looked like a fly smashed on a wall. "... is what appeared on the Telescope of the Australian Astronomical Observatory."

Gasps of horror and disbelief resonated around the table, Emily understood them as she wasn't in any better shape than any of them when she heard the news.

"WHAT THE HELL?! THEY BLOW UP A FUCKING MOON?!" Morningstar, a Canadian thinker, screamed.

But at least she didn't scream at the top of her lung like a lunatic...

"It was our first thought as well, even if not said with such conviction..." Dragon continued nonplussed by the interruption. "... Unfortunately, accurate, high-resolution pictures made with our very few tinker tech satellites revealed that wasn't the case."

A new picture throned on the screen. This time the silence was deafening.

The moon was blown up, fragmented in thousands of pieces, huge chunks floating amidst a beautiful band of white and brown powder.

And at the very center a small, tubular and dark form, not unlike a tuning fork, was clearly defined on the misty white background.

"The Object is named Charon-U1, and after calculation, it is sitting approximately at the same place than the center of the moon itself."

People looked at each other, incapable of speech, stunned. A shock, unlike any others. Emily knew that the people inside this room, plus a dozen more outside where the only ones that knew of this for now, because its implications were beyond what the people outside could endure right now, not with S class threats running around, not with the Endbringers casually rolling over cities. But, she knew that wouldn't be the case for long, at one point or another someone will look up towards the tiny white dot and wonder why the hell it wasn't there anymore.

She cleared her throat, turning the undivided attention of the room towards her.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen. We have four objectives. One, studying the impact on Brockton Bay and any lasting effect. Two, study by whatever means the Charon object and find a way to know if it is a parahuman powerful enough to teleport a ten kilometers space station inside a moon, or an object encased in ice for what we believe is four and a half billion years. Three find if it will happen again and how do we protect ourselves from it."

She took a long, measured breath.

"And lastly. What do we say to the public?"

The febrile semblance of order shattered and the room descended into chaos.


Chapter 4: Warrior; Earths

The entity floats above one of the host gathering place, a city, and it remembers. Everything is stored, dating back to the very beginning.

Back, from the revolution in the choked space of a gray planet to now. And this wasn't something it, its counterpart and their ancestors ever encountered.

Constant.

Not like the stars or worlds they encountered. For, no matter how many layers they shifted through, always such things existed, in different states indeed but still here. They were older; they existed no matter what...

But, this time something was wrong. For, no matter how many layers it shifted its attention towards, it could still feel the presence of the object no matter the state of this planet. The only thing that changed was the size of the ice world surrounding it. It was something made, created, yet so incredibly old to be like planets, stars, and moons.

Constant.

Never before such thing even registered as a possibility, in its, the counterpart or their ancestor's minds. Never before had they found anything, not a trace or even a clue of such thing. As cycles had passed by, they had the shared belief of being the only ones capable of reaching and travel through the stars. The many creatures they encountered during their numerous cycles were too limited by themselves to do such in more depth than just exploring the outer atmosphere of their worlds. And yet, the contraption was a direct contradiction.

Curiosity.

It passed the last few planetary rotations above the city. Expanding some of its limited energy trying to decipher the object, to view the future, to perceive it from all angle. Yet, it could not predict it, too many unknowns and not enough data. The object was not of this world, not of any others they had visited before, and it couldn't extrapolate enough to understand it. For now.

Unknown.

It was but another occasion to regret the passing of its counterpart. The counterpart is supposed to be the passive figure, the thinker, the planner, the one better suited for such a task than himself the warrior, the protector. But, the counterpart is not here anymore, it is dead. Again, it felt a passing emotion before crushing it. This body could emulate the host species to better relate to them, yet it stayed a simulation all the same.

So the entity stays above the city carefully observing the object for many others planetary rotations. Both the creatures and hosts came and took a closer look at the extension, the former in their mechanical contraption, the later with the use of their shards. It discards the firsts of its mind and gives only a token of attention to the seconds. Their shards grows this is good, yet so futile now that the cycle was broken.

Motivation.

The entity grows bold at the lack of reaction and decides to expend more of it's precious remaining energy, seeing all the layers at the same time. It chooses to interact with the object. It cycles through an ever-expanding number of layers. Most are useless for the ice was too deep and too far away. It then concentrates on the very few where the object was already free of it. It probes and pushes against the object. Surely it could decipher the object? Crack it open and discover its secret. Yet he could not. The object stays unknown.

Deception.

And in one reality in a spasm of frustration, the entity violently reach out toward the object, trying to reap it apart and discover the inside. Contact with the layer and tendril was instantly lost, the entity retracts all of itself in surprise, economizing energy as if threatened. After another handful of planetary rotations the Warrior scan with precaution it's surrounding. Nothing. When it finally reaches the lost layer, it discovers nothing but a quickly expanding cloud of gas and floating debris. A frown tarnish its golden face.

Concern.


Chapter 5: Vanguard; Unknown Location

The automated systems allowing the Network to work appropriately, periodically sent reports to the Vanguard. The vast majority of those were activation reports and maintenance requests. Ascended input was never thoroughly needed to acknowledge such menial task.

As such when the Vanguard received an input from the automated system maintaining the Relay Network, he only dedicated a subroutine of itself to treat, analyze and respond. His immense mind being entirely devoted to a far more annoying issue.

Organics of the last cycle had managed to perturb and block his remote access to Relay 1. It wasn't the first time such things had occurred. But, each had always been a glaringly tedious task to undo. Annoying and futile attempt to stave off the inevitable.

Pathetic.

His progress was, ironically enough, stalled by the Ascended own processing operations during the last cycle. They had done their job too well, and now the Vanguard was left searching for the few scraps they had overlooked, for clues on how to undo the organics last act of spite, without needing raw brute strength.

A despicable loss of time.

Meanwhile, the subroutine treated the error report for an activation, surcharge and emergency shutdown of Relay 6424. Deciding that such behavior warranted an immediate response the subroutine took direct control over a commander drone. Its previous code was erased, and a new one created instantly, to better suit its new mission.

Taking the necessary vessel and drones, the controlled commander departed from its station. The ship took Relay 7 to enter the wider galaxy, jumping from Relay to Relay until it reached the closest one from the malfunctioning Relay 6424. There it would use its FTL drive to close the final gap between it and the Relay. The journey would take months to accomplish, but time wasn't an obstacle. It Ignored organics attempts at communication and hacked their ships, creating expanding catastrophic errors that would result in their destruction later on.

If the Vanguard had put more attention towards the report and the subroutine doing, perhaps things would have been done differently. The travel length could have been different, more or less drone send out, or maybe not even done at all. But he was too much focused on resolving his current issue to turn more attention to this more mine one. As the drone ship entered FTL, the subroutine relinquished direct control and let the new coding do its part. It classified the report as being cared for and forwarded such to higher subroutines who sent it above themselves.

At the same time, his long ranged sensor detected the approaching vessel of the local species. He lowered is power-output allowing himself to start drifting, appearing as a long-lost wreckage. Now he just needed to wait for their pitiful mind to be filled with curiosity and greed.

When the subroutine information finally reached the central part of the Vanguard mind, he only distantly acknowledged it. The organics had started to scan his massive body; he could already feel their pitiful mind gleeful of such find.

The Vanguard knew it would be a long and tedious task to find what he needed.

He let the organics approach him, staining his presence.

But for him Time was nothing.

He reached the organics minds...

After all, what was Time before Eternity?

... and squeezed.

An Annoyance.


Chapter 6: Helena White; Wolf 1061

Admiral Helena White let herself sunk into her chair, allowing it to tilt a little backward to hit her comfort zone. Her old steaming mug carefully held within her two hands as she drank its content with long and appreciative sips. She had a small smile on her lips as she gazed upon the infinity of space just outside of her window. It had always been one of her few pleasures in her rather spartiate life, something to remind her of time long gone. But, such were the necessity of a life of service.

She looked at the growing amount of data pads on her once pristine desk. A quite unusual sight in those days and ages but, it was an extraordinary and otherworldly situation they had found themselves in.

She could remember dying in battle, on board her ship, the Olympus, commanding her diminished and understaffed fleet in one last stand. Her last memories were the tearing sounds of her ship armor and hull, the weightlessness of space and her blood boiling inside of her as she tried to make nonexistent air enter her lungs before everything went dark.

Her ship had been the first to arrive in this system. Depowered, with a mounting number of injured, systems damaged or missing altogether. She and the others had woken up in front of their stations, inside the ship, catapulted across the galaxy by forces outside their control to an unknown destination. She just needed to close her eyes to remember it.

A deafening noise, an aggressive shriek like rending metal, assaulted her ears, physically squeezed her entire body. Her brain started to drown her body with adrenaline as everything around her was but a disjointed concerto of light, sound, and motion as small red and blue particle danced on her hands and arms.
"MEDIC !"

"I can't see... I can't see..."

"...hear my prayer..."

"They are everywhere..."

"What the hell happened?"

"I have another one here!"

"... it was here, it was here, oh god it was here."

"It's okay, your safe. It's okay; I'm going to help you okay."

"I'm not burning... I'm not burning..."

She shook her head to clear it from the unwarranted memory. She didn't have any good night of sleep since then, her mind always returning to those minutes of raw chaos. She had to start using sleeping pills from her own stash; she couldn't let her men see a face that was as haunted and tired as theirs. She had to be strong for them, morale wasn't high and if she started to appear lost? It would crumble in less than a day.

She was the representation of order and familiarity in a place that had ceased to make any sense.

Rubbing her eyes, she sighed as her previous good mood had slipped away on tiny legs and jumped into a black hole.

"Enough time daydreaming," she thought and returned her eyes over the content of the myriads of datapads on her desk, mostly repairs and medical reports. Still, she couldn't help herself but think of the Arrival as a miracle, and as an atheist, she didn't use such word lightly. Everyone who had taken part in the battle of Chronos station in some way was accounted for.

Every single ship, from the Olympus to the most humble starfighter and of course the station itself had reported in a soon as power and communication systems were reestablished. She didn't understand how such... feat had been possible, but she wasn't one to complain to have a second go.

On the other end... They lacked everything, and whatever they had been either wounded or damaged in some way shape or form. They even had trouble finding ammo block after since they had been cannibalized by the engineers to duck tapes... well pretty much everything else. At this point, she only hoped that such stopgap measures would not be needed for much longer...

Time flew away as she worked; reading and classifying reports, approving some demand, refusing others and more importantly, studying the data on the nearby systems made by her scouting missions.

So engrossed in her task, she didn't immediately respond when her omnitool started to beep an incoming call, as she sat there pondering the implication those scouting missions reports were painting of their situation. When she finally realized that she had an incoming call, she answered it with an absentminded movement of her wrist. Her XO voice rang into the silence of her quarter.

"Ma'am. The Verdun entered the system a few minutes ago. Captain Dever is awaiting you in the com room."

"Very well commander, I will be there shortly."

Helena stood up, finishing her coffee who had become cold long ago. She walked up towards the door while checking her uniform, hair, face, and poise for any discrepancy. Judging herself suitable enough to be seen she opened the door with a small wave of her omnitool.

The two guards next to her door saluted as she passed. The passages, corridors, and elevators of the Olympus were crowded with soldiers, engineers crew and a leavening of other officers. They parted in front of her as she passed by. She could see them walk and stand a little straighter when she passed next to them and more often than not they saluted. She responded as she usually did, with stern nods.

It was the most important thing, and she had given strict orders to the various commanding officer of the fleet to do the same; Act like everything is normal and under control, maintain the moral and order in the fleet through the illusion of normalcy. For now, it helped things hold up together, that and keeping the men occupied with all sort of tasks, no matter how minor or unusual. A part of where was glad that the fleet was understaffed; everyone was needed to help in some task or another, and they had not enough time for brooding in their own little corner.

"Not everyone" She somberly thought as she entered the com room. It was a relatively simple room, a square shaped room, covered in glass panels and holographic projector, in its center a QEC pad linked to TIM office and a control panel for the other kind of transmission.

She activated the console and the holographic aging figure of Pierre Dever, one of her frigate captain, appeared in front of her.

"Captain, I trust your mission has gone well."

+*+*+*+

A few hours later

The com room seemed to expand around Helena, and she soon found herself in TIM office. The light of the local red dwarf was illuminating it with a gentle glow.

She looked around to see the five other attendants of the meeting. She nodded towards the short armored men at the head of the ground troops, Colonel Beaumont, who sharply responded in kind. They had known each other for long years of service and respected each other despite their rather confrontational, shall we say, points of view at times.

In a wheelchair between them was Kai Leng. His body had been rudely mishandled by the arrival, his legs utterly useless until they could replace them entirely, he was stuck doing desk jobs for the foreseeable future. She had never liked him, he was far too brutish and a waste of potential in her own opinion, but, she could begrudgingly admit the man was both a capable agent and a reliable field officer even if in a very... vindictive way.

Perhaps being stuck behind a desk at the head of the phantom department would help him grow? She considered for the hundred time that idea, and for the hundred time, she barely stopped herself from laughing.

Standing a little behind them, nervously swinging back and forth, was the jumpiest man that had ever graced her presence. Anton Asimov, newly promoted head of the engineering department, was a tall and thin man. Somewhere in his forties and judging by the smear of oil, grease and other... things on his uniform, far more at ease waist deep into a reactor than inside this very room judging by his permanent sideways glance and his almost complete ineptitude to look any of us in the eye.

Apart from the sheer value of comic relief he had brought to their rather depressing meetings as of late, she could concede that the man was also genuinely gifted with anything related to engineering; thus made him indispensable in their current situation. With enough time he could, eventually, be molded into a somewhat adequate leader... maybe... with a considerable emphasis on "adequate"... and "maybe"... hopefully...

On the right of the empty chair, patiently reading a datapad, stood a woman, Jana. Head of the science department, personal secretary, second in command and defacto leader of Cerberus for the time being; the woman was in one word, forgettable. She was physically plain neither beautiful nor ugly, no distinct physical trait and her voice, soft and demure, gave her a certain intangible presence. Before the Arrival she didn't give much thought about this woman, it was only after the Arrival that she learned who she was precisely for Cerberus, which had led to a quite embarrassing first meeting.

Jana looked up from her datapad and smiled softly; her voice was just loud enough to be audible.

"Helena, glad you managed to join us in time. Let us proceed then."

Jana nodded towards Leng who tersely reported the situation of the Phantoms since their last meeting; report that was laughably short. The man was here more by pretense than anything else, with nothing to spy on and only three dozens agents sporting various degrees of serious injuries mostly stuck inside the medbay bar the three guarding this room and TIM apartment.

Helena and the Colonel both nodded as they listened more by sheer politeness than anything else, Anton continued to sway from side to side and Jana smiled sharply.

As the last words of his reports left his mouth, a short silence signaled the need to move on; She spotted the man relax in his wheelchair as tension bleeds out of him, paying no mind she turned her attention towards Anton who was fidgeting even more now that Jana called for his report.

"... well, hum, we have reestablished power in the station by reactivating the old power system. Hum... we have also repaired the engineering section, so we should, hum, be able to do more complicated repairs and maintenance?"

He looked at her with something akin to a kicked puppy expression as he searched some form of acknowledgment. She nodded sternly in response, inviting him to continue even as she only wanted to facepalm. He scratched the back of his head before continuing, his voice slightly shaking.

"So, yeah, hum, since last time we saw... were... meeting thing... hum... we found most of the region where repair needed to be done and... well... the missing systems are not... random?"

He finished lamely, Jana simply raised an eyebrow which prompted him to explain himself.

"I-I-I meant they 'look' random, but they're not, those missing systems have all one specific common occurrence, here let me show you!"

Anton, whose fidgeting just worsened, albeit in a more enthusiastic fashion, typed a few commands on his omnitool. Three holograms of the station appeared in the center of the room as he started to speak and wave around, enthusiastically.

"Those are the plan of the station two years ago, this one from six months ago and this is the station now. Now, look at the damaged area, for example, this one: the reactor, don't you see something specifically missing?"

She leaned forward a little, as the mentioned sections were highlighted and zoomed in. Each had the old three-core reactor showing but, the second one also showed the Reaper hearth taken from the collector base who had been retrofitted to power up the station; And in the third one it was missing along with a small chunk of nearby cable and support.

"The heart..."

Leng muttered just loud enough for Anton to hear it, who then proceeded to smile broadly at them before continuing very enthusiastically.

"Yes! It's maybe not a clean removal, buuuuuuut, when you look at others parts damaged or missing in the station!"

Multiple windows opened on either side, showcasing those damaged part of the station in, before the reaper overall, after and now. And seeing them now side to side made it glaringly obvious to anyone in this room.

"I had to put enough team on patrol duty, in those part of the station in the last few months, to know that it was here we used to store scavenged Reaper tech... so the only things missing..."

The Colonel said, voice distorted by the helmet and the comm system, before being interrupted by Anton.

"Yes! Reaper Techs we directly incorporated into the station! And presumably fleet as well now that I think of it. I found this when I started looking at the station in its entirety and not only just the part I was... working... on..."

His enthusiasm died down as he started to realize, again, that he was decidedly not with a bunch of engineers inside an unpowered reactor. His whole body was slowly slouching over as he nervously scratched his neck, making sure to look at his feet and mumbling to himself.

She almost snorted at the poor man who had switched from nervous to bubbly to nervous again in the span of a few seconds, and she spotted Beaumont's shoulder shake from the corner of her eyes, the old fox having probably cut off his helmet external micro to laugh at his heart content.

The silence stretched for a short time until the Colonel decided to end his suffering with evident mirth in his voice.

"Good job chief, Now I can sleep assured that I am not going to be mind raped by giant Cthulhu cuttlefish from outer space if I use my damn toaster."

Anton scratched his arm a childish smile on his lips. Leng didn't even bother trying to hide his snort this time around, Jana seemed to hide a small smile behind her datapad, and you were positively sure that had the Colonel been there he would have loudly slapped him in the back as he laughed. She only felt her need to facepalm grow.

Anyway, this detail explained why it was mostly their communication and power source that had been lost from the get-go, there was indeed little in the way of Reaper tech apart from those and... a sudden realization struck Helena, and she sharply turned her head towards the other woman in this meeting with narrowing eyes. Jana reciprocated the gesture and nodded slightly at the silent question, before turning towards the others and said softly.

"This information confirms my own analysis and suspicion. As you know Cerberus personnel, including ourselves, have suffered various forms of injuries, themselves varying in seriousness. When compared to our records we found that those injuries were always roughly located where implants derived from reaper tech where implanted. Also and to the best of our knowledge, no one had suffered from any indoctrination syndrome since our arrival."

Not having a voice in your head whispering incessantly was a news worth celebrating around a good bottle of wine, but first.

"And what about TIM?"

"Stable and recovering. The operation was a success despite the initial seriousness of her injuries, and she was by far one of the worst wounded by the arrival. I didn't find any trace of reaper tech either in her body."

Helena felt a wave of relief washing over her at this most excellent news.

"When will she wake up?"

"When I judge it possible not before. It is going to be a very rude awakening as it is, no need to brusque it even more."

"So we continue the charade?" asked the Colonel. Jana reply was barely a little more audible but sharper than an omniblade.

"Yes. We will Colonel. I understand your dislike of lying to your troops, but the men need any mental support they can now. We only need a few more days."

Taking it as a good enough way to breach the subject she needed to put on the table, Helena let her voice rang out inside the office once again.

"And what of our presence in this system? We cannot spread a nice charade on this, not for long anyway."

All eyes focused on her, Anton looked confused, She couldn't see the Colonel reaction behind his helmet and Jana eyes had zeroed on her like a dreadnought spotting a wounded cruiser. Leng simply leaned towards her and asked curiously.

"What do you mean Admiral?"

She used the console of the com room to transmit the data from her omnitool towards the holographic display in the Office a few thousand kilometers away from her. The center of the room occupied by the holographic representation of the system they currently found themselves in.

Three planetary bodies, orbiting a single red dwarf star, with a belt of debris in between the second and last planet. The first is twice less massive than Earth and too close from the star to be habitable; The third was a smile ice world with a very thick atmosphere; The second one was a super-Earth with a ring of debris orbiting around. A garden world. Oddly familiar to Helena.

"This system is quite a find for us, isn't it? Garden world rip for colonization and mining, an ice world for water and fuel. And all the asteroid we need for readily accessible resources."

The others nodded, and so she continued, emphasizing her point by a wave of her arm.

"So, pray to tell me. Why does this system have pinned on top "Colonized by the System Alliance" in my ships databank when it is obviously, empty."

A perplexed and long silence ensued. The Colonel looked at her, Leng frowned, Anton looked alternatively at all of them nervously, and Jana fixed her unwavering. The latter finally broke the silence by saying simply.

"Explain."

Helena nodded.

"We had more than our fair share of work in the last few days, like the missing reaper tech this would have been overlooked longer if I didn't look at it by luck. Two days ago one of my nav officers forwarded a report for a faulty VI that flagged the system as "colonized" when I looked it up that I recognized the planets below as being effectively one of ours."

"And pray tell, how did you arrive at such a conclusion, Admiral?"

"I was born here. I can recognize the outline of the continents of my home when I see them."

"Couldn't you be wrong though?"

Helena almost scoffed, almost. Like she wouldn't verify such find with doubles and triples check.

"That's why, when the corvettes returned from their exploration of the nearby systems, I contacted each one of them and personally analyzed the data they had collected. And the results I found were disturbing, to say the least. Around 98% of similarity between those data and the info we have in our databank, and those few percents can be explained by the lack of human occupation, and that is true for the twelve systems they scouted so far."

The hologram showed the mentioned systems, before starting to expand further into the "unknown" region she had extrapolated from her study.

Eyes wide open Anton started.

"But that's...!"

Just to be cut halfway through by Helena's voice.

"Baring the fact that it is empty? Yes. It is the Local Cluster. Earth. And I tell you now, any navigators or captains worth their salt is either going to piece it together, is piecing it together or have already done so. And that's not accounting for the personnel that can also recognize those worlds by simply looking out a window."

Anton's mouth was open agape as the revelation hit him like a hammer. Leng opened his eyes wide for a second before reigning on himself. The Colonel and Jana didn't show any emotional response, the first was covered in armor, and the later responded after a minute of silence.

"That. Is going to be a problem."​

Chapter 7: Taylor Hebert; Wolf 1061

Feel.

I could feel.

Soft.

All around me. Encompassing.

I could hear something...

A tone, precise, rhythmic and incessant.

Little by little, pieces by pieces awareness and control returned to me.

I opened my eyes.

White.

Bright.

It hurts. I closed my eyes.

Why was everything so bright?

Something opened my eyes, an undefined blob of colors standing above me.

The blob made sounds. Others passed in the space around me, my eyes and heads tried to follow them with slow and sluggish movement, they were emitting sounds.

They were communicating with each other... How strange... Maybe I could listen?

"... Green?"

Oh. I could. Maybe if I tried to listen more, I could learn more?

"... starting to respond to... awareness of... surrounding."

Listening yay!

"Heart rate stable, brain activity standard. She's in the green."

Peoples. The blobs were peoples. Why was there blob peoples around her?

"Very good. How does it look for the implants?"

Oh! Her voice is sooo soft; I wanted to snuggle it! She would kill me before I do though...

"Everything in the green Ma'am."

One of the blobs walked up next to me.

"Very well, hit her with a mild sedative." Oh, it's snuggle voice yay! A warm, reassuring weight appeared on my shoulder "She will need all the rest she..."

I felt tired.

I slept.

+*+*+*+

I dreamed.

Of red hair and children laugh.

Of a park filled with flowers.

Armsmaster, fighting on TV.

The smell of blood at the bottom of the trench.

Mom's arm's around me.

Ben, cleaning a rifle with a smile on his face.

Walking down the waterfront, looking up at the sky.

Walking up a shuttle, looking down at the Earth.

Dad, back in the cemetery.

Eva tombstone.

The Endbringers alarms.

The Valluvian Temple.

Blissfull oblivion.

+*+*+*+​

Awareness came back to me bit by bit. Squeezing my eyes at the bright light that passed through my closed eyelids, the only sounds I could hear being that of my heavy breathing and a regular beeping sound. I felt sluggish and heavy as I tried to move my body, and my head throbbed with the mother of all headaches.

I slowly opened my eyes, squinting and blinking in an attempt to sharpen the blurry mess that was facing me.

Gradually, as the blinding light subsided, I was able to take a good look at my surroundings.

I glanced around and took in the grey almost white metallic panels that composed the walls and ceiling of the room; the medical equipment scattered around my bed; the ebony nightstand pushed into a corner, pictures and old datapad throning on it; the wardrobe and its hidden armory cleverly camouflaged to appear just as another wall panel. All greeted me with a sensation of overwhelming familiarity.

I frowned, something wasn't right.

Where was I?

I shut my eyes, trying to remember.

Then the memories hit me, in a confused gibbering mess who had the strength of a freight train, I winced as my headache suddenly worsened tenfold under the onslaught. I could feel the blood throbbing in my temple, accompanied by a wave of nausea, and my skull seemingly being pounded repeatedly, as my brain became crowded with flashes and memories with no context dandling just in front of my eyes. Bursts of sounds with no meaning, places, and peoples I could remember but didn't know, whisper at the edges of my hearing I couldn't decipher. A dark places filled with blood and mountains of corpses.

I let out an undignified groan as I laboriously raised one of my hand to my face and began to rub my temples in an effort to massage away the pain, without much success, unfortunately. Thankfully, a duo of voices could be heard coming from the entrance, quickly approaching my room, distracting me from the ache relentlessly assaulting me.

"Any change?"

"No, ma'am."

The first was a delicate and softly-spoken woman voice which yet carried authority, who tickled my memories with its familiarity. The second, on the other end, was dark and ominous due to the external speaker of her helmet distorting her voice, probably a phantom then. Wait. What? How do I know that? Knocks on the wall attracted my gaze to one of the two women who had entered my room during my small lapse of attention.

A relieved smile on her lips and dressed in an impeccable white and black form-fitting uniform she looked utterly relaxed, and yet, on a second glance I could see her shoulder slightly sagging, the small bags under her eyes, her blond hair unusually disheveled and no small amount of mixed feelings in her eyes as she looked down at me.
Jana was exhausted. Something I didn't think I would...

Wait...

Jana?"

I looked at the other occupant of my small office, an eyebrow raised in expectative, she mirrored my expression before responding.

"Why not?"

Taking my glass of whiskey in one hand, I made a small gesture with the other to let explain.

"You needed me for something you couldn't trust anyone else with, and I think it's time we start to trust each other if we want to make this work, sir."

Our eyes locked together in a contest of will as I pondered her offer.

She had a habit of making good points in each of our verbal spars after all, and I needed her, her cooperation was crucial to Cerberus success and the continuity of its operations. Bringing the glass to my lips, I pointedly decided to break eye contact with her as I let the firey liquid flow down my throat. Her face was adorning a small knowing smile
when I finally looked back at her.

"Time shall be the judge of this agreement... Jana."

"I'm holding you to that, Ma'am? Ma'am! Taylor!"

The burst of memories ended with an electric pain who ran alongside my spine from head to toes; the light was suddenly like nails driven directly inside my skull through my eyeballs, and a new wave of nausea took me by the throat, violently. I was distantly aware that Jana shoved me upright and presented me with a bucket which was promptly used to empty my stomach as a hand gently rubbed my back.

Long and painful minutes later the bucket was nowhere to be seen, my back comfortably leaning against a pile of fluffy pillows, and I was nibbling on a pair of crackers without paying much attention as I tried and failed to compute what I just saw. I risked a cautious look at the doctor, Jana, sitting next to my bed and lost myself in the warm embrace of her concerned gaze washing over me.

My throat coiled around itself like a snake and the ball weighing my stomach grew with the realization that no one had looked at me like that in years... Dad had always been too lost in his own grief to be able to muster the strength to be a good father; he was already barely able to do the absent father. Depressingly he was the only one I could think of that, who wasn't dead, that could have looked at me in such a manner, Emma maybe, once upon a time, but she was a traitor.

I looked away and down on the crackers my hands had been busy slowly grinding into crumbs, completely unable to withstand more of the woman look. Like someone starved for too long couldn't take too much food in one sitting, I couldn't stand her concern for more than a few seconds before feelings ashamed. And I didn't even know why I was ashamed...

My voice came out very soft and shy as I tentatively spoke to her.

"Jana?"

"Yes. It's really me Taylor..."

Silence accompanied her whispered response, the words continuing to echoes in the room long after they left her mouth, at ounce sounding soft, thankful, and sad.

"I..."

I didn't know what to say. Who would?

I knew her, but I didn't. I was relieved to have her at my side, but she was a stranger. There was a guilt growing and growing in my guts for a woman who was looking at me with an awkward smile about something I never did.

"I know Taylor... I know..."

Maybe I should have screamed at the top of my lungs about master cape, and maybe I was the unfortunate protagonist of one of those horror stories and urban legends circulating on the web. But I found myself uncaring about that; it was feeling all too real, all too true, and I didn't understand it, I was afraid, and elated, and troubled, and reassured all at once. And deep down inside of me I clung to it like a drowning little girl.

Cautiously her shaky hand reached out to me, halting and hovering in midair as she decided if she should do it or not do it before finally letting it rest on my shoulder, awkwardly patting it reassuringly. I smiled at her with the same kind of awkward smile on my lips; it felt good.

For a second time I took in the entire room, but with a clearer head, if more crowded headspace, and noticed the very sci-fi-esque look of everything, from the metal walls, floor and ceiling, to the holographic displays on the medical equipment, and the few datapads that would shame most tablet back home. This room felt like it had fallen out of a Star Wars movie and not like it belonged inside a hospital.

"Where am I?"

"In your room on Cronos and we are apparently orbiting Wolf 1061, a star quite close to Earth, ma'am."

What?

Wait.

What?!

I was Where?!

My disbelief must have been less subtle than a tank deciding to roll over the boardwalk all canon firing, judging by Jana frustrated sigh or maybe I wasn't the first to have this reaction? After all, how many people get to be woken up in a strange sci-fi room to be told by a virtual stranger you were friends with that you were light-years away from home. Not a lot I bet.

Her hand left my shoulder to massage her right temple as she probably mulled over, how to explain things to me a bit more clearly, and that didn't involve me going into the hysterical reaction I was already starting to feel?!

Unbeknownst to her, she didn't choose well.

"I know Taylor; I know you were on the Citadel? Hunting down Shepard? This need to stop Jack!"

Jana raged against my hologram, her face flushed and her words hissing through her teeth will Leng waited on the outskirt of the room.

"We already discussed this Jana, every sacrifice we made will pay off if, we do this."

She slammed her clenched fist on the table, slightly denting it before she exploded at me, stabbing my hologram with her finger as she did so.

"YOU asked me to keep you in line, SIR! And I tell you, you are going too far! I should never have listened to you and implanted you with those implants, Jack!"

I took a long drag of my cigarette, considering her words maybe she had a... No. No, she didn't. Hum. Time to make some adjustment to our initial agreement then.

"I see... Leng? It is time for the good doctor to receive her implants."

"Understood."

The memory dissipated, only to be replaced by others, more recent, of me bleeding out on a platform on the Citadel gazing down at Earth as I let out my last breath, and of me stuck inside a locker full of rotten blood and used tampons before blacking out.

And I saw what happened after both events. Indoctrinated version of Saren and myself looking down at me.

A Reaper impressive height, crushing me by its mere presence.

The visions of the Harvest.

Then Vigil, Saren, Shepard pushing me, strengthening me, giving me the will to fight.

Jack Harper...

Jack passing to me everything he ever had, everything he ever was and could have been before just... fading away.

And I knew.

I was Taylor Anne Hebert.

And I was The Illusive Man.


End of Arc 1: éveil

 

Arc 2: Ἠλύσιον πεδίον

Chapter 8: Taylor Hebert, Wolf 1061.

"WE ARE THE END OF EVERYTHING."

Countless shape descended from the sky burning down everything in their path.

I woke up screaming.

Again.

+*+*+*+

It was surreal.

Here I was on a front row seat to admire the incessant ballet of spaceships coming and going from the station, eating my second breakfast in space, croissants, of all things, with a cup of steaming black tea, in my personal apartment whose lamest pieces of furniture was more expensive than Dad's whole house.

Nonetheless, the food didn't quite manage to bring me out of the turmoil inside my head. The breathtaking spectacle just beyond the window couldn't breach the wall foreign memories had raised in front of my eyes. And neither the peaceful atmosphere of my apartment was able to cut off the haphazard flow of information that could be randomly brought up by pretty much anything and anyone. Chief amongst them was Jana, with each meeting, call, and even thought and unsuspecting object enough to trigger a memory, sometimes like a first-person movie, overtimes just a few sentences in the winds, and sometimes just an emotion, the lingering feeling of a hand on my shoulder.

She was The Illusive Man second in command, mine now I guessed, she was also a secretary, offered second opinions, directly oversaw multiples scientific projects among other duties... But she was also someone Jack would have been sharing a laugh over stories of departed friends, around a bottle of wine at an evening dinner after a long day of work, before returning right into the thick of things. They were friends, and not a whimsy friendship won over a drink and forgotten a day later, no. A bond born of twenty years of a long relationship as colleagues, in sharing some of the deepest and darkest secrets in the Galaxy, in working tirelessly for the betterment of Mankind.

I was utterly disgusted by what I understood of the fragmented glimpse of Jack's own actions, towards someone he had considered a friend.

In short?

He had been her Emma, and thus, so was I.

To find myself in the reversed position of being the bonafide uber bitch that betrayed her best friend? It was a revulsing thought, one that left a gaping hole in my chest.

And yet, she hadn't treated me with anything but care and gentleness each time she had come over to check up on me. It worsened the ravine between the foreign guilt I felt over actions I hadn't committed but of which I inherited the consequences and the almost desperate need for human contact she gave freely to a starved girl.

A long drawn out sigh escaped my lips as I finally put down the croissant I had been nibbling for the past half-hour absentmindedly.

"She is going to berate me again isn't she?" I said softly to myself, a small hesitant smile on my lips as I looked down at the barely touched breakfast.

With a flick of my wrist, I activated my omnitool, and after some hazardous moments lost in the menus, I barely had any contact with cell phones since mom died and I jumped straight for the high tier space phone, sue me, I finally managed to ping my guards.

"Such small a thing" I whispered idly, eyes lingering on the soft orange glow of the holographic display over my forearm and the thin bracelet that projected it. They were something out of a thinker dreams; cheap to produce, with little maintenance needed and highly versatile in application. The thing even had a microfabricator if what I gathered was correct!

While imagining Armsmaster slashing a surprised Kayser in the face with an omniblade was one thing, I could also perfectly picture firefighters scan injured peoples before administering first aid or my father working at his desk with it. A sudden burst of memories of dad grumbling against our home computer more than once because of one thing or another slipped at the forefront of my mind and let a genuine laugh flew from my lips.

"Hum okay, mayyybe not dad then."

The pounding stride of boots on the floor coming from the corridor killed my mirth instantly, as one of the very first things I had learned about this place was that I could only talk as Taylor with Jana, I couldn't risk being seen as anything else but The Illusive Man by everyone else. Drawing from what I gleaned of how Jack acted as The Illusive Man from his memories I redressed my back, steeled my face and crossed my legs in a posture I hoped relaxed "TIM approved" as I deactivated the omnitool in another flick of my wrist. Not a second later two women silently walked into the room, both armored and helmetless.

The first one was petite and muscled, with short blond hair flanking a heart-shaped face that could pass as "cute as a button" if not for the deadly serious expression she arbored every time I saw her. The other was tall, slender and carried herself with grace, her long black hair held together in a ponytail on top of a round face whose eyes always seemed to take wonder in everything.

"Fort, Queen." I acknowledged them as I crossed my hands on my lap before turning my attention to the space beyond the window feigning interest into the coming and going of the ships.

Queen took the trail on the table and made her way toward the small kitchen in the corner of the room without a sound, quite a feat considering her size and bulk.

"Do you require anything else, Ma'am?" She asked matter-of-factly.

Turning my head slightly in her direction and looking at her in the eye to show her my undivided attention, I raised my arm and pointed at the bathroom in a movement I wanted aloof and firm, the petite woman passed behind my wheelchair and quietly pushed me towards it without further prompting.

Not being able to move freely is a chore I hoped to never had understood but with my legs having been mauled by whatever monsters when I ran away during the nightma...

No. the word slipped away, hard and uncompromising, I could feel my nails digging into the palm of my hands. My wheelchair suddenly stopped halfway towards the bathroom as Fort stilled abruptly and I felt more than I saw a confused Queen turning to look at me.

"Ma'am?" Shit! I said that out loud didn't I? Quick brain think of something!
From the back of my mind, short strings of memories emerged, making me blink in surprise. Could I actively summon memories? What? No wait, it was probably a fluke... let's see... How do I ping my guards with my omnitool? A single memory emerged this time, showing Jack calling up one of his phantom in a few deft movements. OH. MY. GOD. HOW DID I MISS THIS?

Before I could suffer from an internal meltdown, a hand hesitantly shook me out of my reverie.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" Fort's asked, her omnitool at the ready, while a concerned Queen slowly let out my shoulder out of her grasp.

"Uh? What? Yeah, just... thinking..." Well go on Taylor, break character would you, I'm sure you're going to appreciate being spaced. I looked at them, they looked at me. They looked at each other than at Fort omnitool. I cleared my throat, they looked back at me. "I am fine, thank you for your concern, carry on." Queen's worry melted from her face as she smiled broadly and left while Fort resumed helping me getting to the bathroom.

As soon as I heard the door close behind her, my body slumped into the wheelchair, and a long drawn out sigh escaped my lips while I let my head fell into my hands dejectedly.

"And everything was going so well... Fuuuuuuck." I moaned.

+*+*+*+

A.N. yeah I decided to cut the chapter there, it seemed more fitting than continuing as I have no idea when I will be able to write the rest. Thought, idea and comments are as always welcome. Oh, and if someone wants to volunteer to be a Beta, I would gladly like that as I have been reminded again that me can't speak english for shit.