The Normandy was larger than anything the ponies had seen: it had an elegance to it with its curved long structure that was at complete odds with the square-like ship that had taken off with Dinky.

As they approached, they grew silent. It felt like they were approaching something truly great, beyond their experiences. Rainbow Dash stole a look at Twilight, who was looking at the ship with unhidden longing, and yet… her eyes now went to Wrex, who seemed unusually somber, in contrast with the proud statement he had made earlier.

His gaze was lost in the spaceship, and she could almost see the memories flooding his mind reflected in his eyes. There was a tremendous sense of history here, permeating every inch of the ship. Princess Luna paused and took off into the air, flying small, ponderous circles around the Normandy. Rainbow Dash couldn't help it, and apparently neither could Derpy, who followed immediately after her.

The glossy paint did a very good job of covering small dents, streamlining the ship and giving it a slightly predatory look, as if it were some sort of rapacious bird. There was writing of some sort on the side of the ship, and Rainbow Dash assumed that was the actual name of it.

"It's very impressive," Luna whispered, stopping to hover next to her and Derpy. "Such a ship… it's beyond what we can create at this time. It would take lifetimes of continuous magical and scientific development before we were ever able to emulate such a thing."

Octavia glanced at Twilight as Wrex summoned his omnitool and typed in a command. The underbelly of the ship shuddered and with the hiss of hydraulics, slowly opened like the maw of a giant monster.

But it wasn't a glance seeking assurance that she had directed to their commander. It was one of curiosity.

Twilight visibly trembled with anticipation. Her eyes were wide, her mouth smiling almost savagely. Octavia knew her well enough to see all the tells of Twilight being excited beyond the general thrill of combat. Or sex. It made her a bit jealous, actually.

Wrex took that moment to chuckle and glance back. "Well. It seems you finally get your wish, Sparkle."

"Took you long enough Wrex."

The Krogan chuckled, shook his head and motioned for the others to follow him up the ramp. Luna, Ditzy and Rainbow Dash quickly landed behind them and followed the procession into the Normandy.

The interior of the ship slowly lit up with blue-white light, hidden behind metal panels that allowed it to curve up and around, while curved columns also had lights that flickered on, illuminating the whole thing.

It was a dark, metallic gray, with deep blue wherever it wasn't covered in equipment beyond the understanding of the gathered ponies, who looked at the whole thing in awe as multicolored lights started humming into life on several different panels. A bay in the middle of the ship drew Twilight's attention, and knowing what she was going to see, she quickly trotted onto the bridge, overlooking a hologram of the galaxy that materialized a few seconds after she did.

"This. Is. Awesome." Rainbow Dash stated.

The ponies gathered in awe around the hologram, but only Twilight and Luna herself out of all of them really seemed to have an idea of what it represented.

"Marvelous," Luna whispered, her horn alight as she scanned with magic the hologram, grunting in slight annoyance when she remembered that it wasn't powered by eldritch energies. "To think that an image of a whole galaxy, to this minute detail could ever exist."

"And that's not the only thing." Wrex grinned as the excited ponies quieted down. It took them a moment to realize what had drawn their attention, but now that they were concentrating on the sound, they gathered together, all except Twilight who looked from Wrex to the automatic doors at the side of the elevator with growing excitement.

Slow footsteps came from deep within the ship, and Twilight shot Wrex a look with widening eyes.

One of the doors to the back of the ship slid open, and a bipedal creature stepped out, holding a gun, and pointing it straight at the ponies.

Twilight's eyes couldn't be wider. "Oh goddess…" she whispered. "It's really you..."

Wrex chuckled. "Ehehehe… time to kick things up a notch."

"Miss Sunset?"

"Yes Dinky?"

"How come I can hear Mr. Sam's voice, but there is nopony else around besides us four?"

They watched as several, heavily armed individuals rushed into the room, pointing their guns in all directions as they systematically took cover behind crates, barrels and vehicles.

"Well, SAM is a bit… different," Sunset said after a moment. "He's an AI, so he doesn't have a body like us… although he does exist physically in the Nexus."

Dinky's eyes went wide. "Is he a ghost?!"

Liam chuckled. "I guess he is, kinda. Ghost in the Machine and all that."

Sunset gave him a look. "Were you rummaging through my 20-21st century Earth culture folder again?"

Vetra held up a hand. "Come now, let's call your classic cartoon folder what it is."

Sunset raised an eyebrow.

The mercs surrounded the large container from where they could hear the voices coming from within. The leader made sweeping motions with his hands, and quickly all the others surrounded the crate, making sure they would not be in each other's line of fire.

"I'll have you know that what you call "cartoons" are highly sophisticated, deep and contemplative stories that weave into what makes humanity, well, human!" Sunset huffed. "The archive was given to me by no less than Liara T'soni herself when we were both part of a team exploring Prothean ruins."

"So, another nerd gave you that, we get it," Liam said.

"We're not nerds!"

"Aww, you're so cute when you get angry," Vetra teased.

That was when the leader of the mercs kicked the container's door open.

The explosion shook the whole ship, making the metal groan and grate so loudly that Dinky jumped into Sunset's arms, a frightened look in her eyes.

"Hey kiddo, no worries, we rigged it right so that it wouldn't damage the hull," Liam said. He pointed at the monitor showing the cargo bay covered in flames and raining down pieces of metal. "See? It might look dangerous, but already the automatic systems are activating and putting off the fire." He bumped his chest proudly. "I'm an expert with explosives."

"Will they be okay?" Dinky asked, innocently pointing at the mercenaries strewn around the cargo bay like abandoned dolls.

"I-I'm sure some of them will have to deal with a headache or a couple of bumps…" Vetra coughed.

They watched in silence as the corner of the cargo bay groaned and split, before ripping off completely and floating off into space, followed by everything that wasn't attached to the floor—including the mercs—before a few moments too late a mass effect field formed around the rip.

"Well then," Sunset said into the heavy silence that followed. "How about I tell you a story?"

Alec Ryder walked into the hospital, followed by his wife, Ellen and son, Scott, and striding past the pegasus statue outside the entrance with nary a glance. He grimaced as he looked at the place. The last time they had been here… there were not a lot of bad memories attached to this hospital but there was a recent one that burned a hole through him, much more painful than being shot in the arm by Turian weapons.

He shoved the memory off of his mind. He could already see his wife's eyes darkening and her son's watering a little. He had to be calm and collected. But Dr. Kustron had better have a good reason for summoning them back to this place.

The automatic doors slid open and they stepped into the cooled down reception. Alec waved dismissively at the attendant that tried to ask him if he needed assistance and guided his family over to the elevators.

It didn't take long to reach the room they had been summoned to. Frowning at the door, he shook his head and opened the door, walking into the room and stopping there in shock.

Behind him he heard Ellen gasp and Scott swear in surprise. And he couldn't blame them.

Dr. Kustron straightened up from the monitor he had been studying, looking at them with a neutral expression.

"But… how?" Alec asked, walking up to the bed and raising a hand to touch the arm of the girl that lay in it, almost afraid that it would go through, that it was just an elaborate joke of some sort. But it felt real, warm and with a pulse. "How?"

Dr. Kustron shrugged. "I don't know." He looked down at the girl with a baffled expression. "You can see why I called you both immediately."
Alec felt his heart skip, but he quickly forced himself to calm down, years of training helping him rein in his emotions. "Is she a clone?"

Dr. Kustron grimaced. "I see no other option, but… she shows no markers. At all. She's as naturally occurring as, well, Scott here. If I hadn't seen Sara—" he cut himself and looked at the monitor again before glancing back at Alec. "I can't explain it, Ryder, for all intents and purposes she's Sara except…"

"Except what?" Ellen asked, walking over to study the monitor readings while Scott walked up to the side of the bed opposite his dad's.

"Well, as you know, we did some scans of Scott and Sara when we found them to be Biotic, and kept track of them after you installed the implants, Dr. Ryder." Dr. Kustron explained, summoning his omnitool and creating a projection with the wave frequencies. "As you can see, these are the original brain and Mass Effect frequencies Sara had… and these," he added, bringing another wave sample up, "are this young woman's waves."

Alec and Ellen studied the waves. "They're similar here," Ryder said, using his omnitool to highlight the Mass Effect waves, "But the brainwaves are completely different, almost as if her brain was not even human."

"How did… where did she come from then?" Scott asked, startling the adults. The fifteen year old was looking down at the exact copy of his sister with an inscrutable expression.

Dr. Kustron cleared his throat. "We're not sure." He finally admitted, massaging his brow. "We recorded an intense Mass Effect distortion outside of the hospital and when security went out to investigate… she was there, lying on the floor and completely unconscious."

Whatever Alec was going to answer was interrupted by a soft groan. The gathered group looked down at the bed where the young woman slowly started to stirr. She groaned and opened her eyes slowly, blinking away at the light behind them, then stared at them in growing confusion.

"W-what the hay are you?!"

The heavy mec floundered around, its cameras destroyed and shooting missiles and bullets at anything and everything. Dinky, watching from inside the biotic and magical shield that enveloped her as she floated above the carnage, half-cowered, half-watched with morbid fascination as the trio attacked the bipedal machine, running from cover to cover and shooting at it without staying in one location for long.

"Wait, so you just appeared? Just like that?"

"And you're a clone!?" Vetra asked as she dove for cover.

"I'm not a clone!" Sunset snapped, bracing herself and emptying her assault rifle at the lumbering robot. "I thought that I made that clear! They thought I was one at first, but I assure you I was born out of a p—"

Dinky missed the rest of what Sunset shouted when the machine exploded, overloading the microphone and drowning what she had said.

"—y, just like you!"

"Language, Ryder, we have an underage unicorn with us remember?" Liam asked, wiping the soot off of his armor.

Sunset grumbled, waving a hand and Dinky saw the shield around her disappear. She quickly made her way to her three rescuers, wincing at the destruction. "You guys really don't know how to hold back, do you?" She asked.

"Oh, we do," Liam said, while Sunset nodded and Vetra gave her a Turian thumbs-up. "We like to live too, so we're keeping things at a minimum."

A screen fluttered to life, showing the visage of the blue woman that had threatened them before. "What the hell, Ryder? Why can't you just die like the useless meatbag you are?!"

"Aha!" Sunset exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "I remember you now… Elora, wasn't it?"

The asari on the screen went quiet.

"Yeah, I remember… it was you who tried to destroy the Nexus," Sunset said, cracking her neck. "I went straight back to Kadara to have a chat, but I was disappointed to find out you had suddenly disappeared. Almost as if you had ran away like a coward."

"That's damned right that it was me!" Elora snarled. "And I di—"

Her message was cut short when Liam blew the screen up into pieces. "What?" he asked. "Isn't that the thing we're doing this time around?"