Staring right at the eyes in front of me I simply looked at the pair until finally they break off and flies off, the changeling in question zipping past several others who have gathered around the chamber I am in, and to my surprise that when I sat up I was expecting to be in a metal or wooden coffin filled with honey but instead I was in a cocoon of sorts, filled with honey, which sadly tasted a bit bland and needed more sugar...and maybe some toasted bread.

Bringing my right hand to my face and watching a glob of honey slowly drip down from my hand, watching it form sticky strings attaching my fingers to the cocoon, forming a sticky strand before finally drooping my hand back into it and taking another mouthful of the stuff, filling my mouth to end the slowly rising pings of sharp hunger pains, hoping that honey alone can fend off the growing intensity of starvation.

The scuttling sound of carapace covered hooves on cut stone echo across the walls of the chamber, my eyes darting to its point of origin only to see what looks like a much smaller changeling, a youngling or a peon, whatever they are called one came up to me, its emerald eyes looking up at me, seemingly a bit to large for its head but it did make it look adorable...oddly adorable.

"*cough cough* Hey little one...you mind if you can help me out of this cocoon?"

The little changeling shook its head 'no' a few times before I saw its oddly pointed ears twitch a bit before it ran off back into the darkness of the cave, my chamber only illuminated by glow-in-the-dark fungi and moss scattered around the room, and only when I switched from normal vision to night-vision do I realize that all the buzzing and chittering was from the dozens of changelings moving all over the place.

Just looking above my head I can see them flying over head, going in and out of the chamber, a few landing on the floor talking to another before flying off in random directions. As my eyes finally cleared itself of the visual blurs everything came into clarity and was picture perfect lime-green but even with everything being a brighter and darker shade of green I can still pick things out of the different hues, mainly moving changelings and some other subtle shapes that I couldn't entirely pick out.

'Well...I can now claim that changelings are extremely busy.....I wonder if I can even lift myself out...'

Slowly lifting my right arm over the side of the cocoon, trying to get a hold of something to hoist myself up and out but sadly all that I can feel is the stickiness of the honey and the smoothness of the shell holding me in place. Fumbling around for something to get a grip on I claw my way into an upright position, trying to get my legs to bend a bit so I can stand on my own power but my legs are that of the honey, jellified and unresponsive.

"Perfect...looks like Death failed to mention that my body would say 'Fuck you' to me when I come back....looks like I have to crawl everywhere till I get complete motor control again....fuck..." muttering quietly as I slowly began to claw my way to the front of the cocoon and began to with my one arm, grabbing the very edge and clamping down as hard as I can and ever so slowly tried to climb out but in my weakened condition, the only thing I did was exert to much on my body as it forced itself to shut down to prevent myself from further attempts at self inflicting pain.

Days came and went as I sat there in my pod of honey, my body slowly but surely healing over those days but I was slowly growing tired of my confinement. Looking around my room that I am in and also at the coffin that my body is currently resting in I took notice that not once in all the days I have been here that I had not even had the chance or need to go to the porcelain throne, my mind trying to figure out if it is just my body still trying to put itself back into working fighting order, or just a spell that has been placed on me so I don't have to use the bathroom. If it was the latter choice than I want to know that spell so the next unicorn I meet can cast on me, it would really save me on toilet paper.

Glancing around the chamber to see if anything has changed and in short order I saw some things that made me question my heavy sleeping practices. My eyes hardly needed to scan the room to see the changes, the walls around my cocoon were actually given coverings of sorts, there was actually a carpet on the floor but it was only near the small sofa and three cushions. My room slightly modified to accommodate ponies or in this case, bug ponies. Taking one last look around I scooped another handful of honey, now tasting less stale and more sweet than the previous time I had a mouth full and with a shallow swallow and a loud thunk of my head hitting the top of the coffin I drifted back to the land of dreams, sweet dreams of me beating the shit out of the Illusive Man for being a complete jackass.

It has been three weeks since I woke up from my death sleep and in that span of three weeks I have been getting my body moving again, my arm now fully responds to my command my legs are less jelly and more stiff and orderly but walking is still a bit of a bitch but getting over that is something I consider a challenge worthy of my time. For the first few hours of my waking days I tried to stand up, using the coffin as a crutch of sorts, keeping a firm clamp on the rim of it to steady myself as I ever so slowly regained my ability to walk on two legs. It took me five days to walk again under my own power but the last two days I spent them exploring my room and the hallway outside of it but the changeling guards posted at me door told me to wait inside until the queen says I am allowed to leave on my own.

Not knowing what would happen if I refuse to comply and if I refuse and be hostile I might be thrown in a dungeon cell or worse, a Varren Pit so I turned back to my room, closed the door, went back to the sofa and laid down on it before snoozing. what I was not expecting to wake me up so early in the night was a pony that I knew for a few days during my time in training a platoon of ponies.

"Mirias...I see that you are doing better now...so can you please tell me why you are disturbing my sleep at this hour." I opened one eye looking at hers before swinging my legs off the arm rest of the sofa since it was way too small to serve as a temporary bed for me, my feet touching the ground gingerly before sliding to the side to allow Mirias a spot on the sofa which she jumped on the spot where my head was before sitting down.

"Well, I should say the same about you to, you looked far worse than I have ever seen, we knew that you were dead but the wounds you have received. I was not among our mages when they started the healing process but I saw your body before hoof, it makes me wonder what exactly are you fighting for to take such injuries and keep fighting?"

"I fight for a few things, one thing is mainly money cause of old habits I have, another is that because of my job that it is a requirement, another is simply that I can fight and those that I fight are quick to scurry away and flee before they lose their heads and have their friends watch it get mounted on pikes.But I fight because I can." I said while looking over myself, my clothes feeling more formfitting than normal, the fabric slightly tight around my right shoulder, midriff and chest and along my thighs but it was not enough to be entirely uncomfortable to be a problem.

After our banter against one another, telling stories what we have been up to lately and lastly the story of how I ended up on Death's doorstep for what I can guess is the ninth time, which oddly enough earned a confused look from Mirias who thought I was just joking but when I told her the other times I died she went from confused to wondering how the hell am I still breathing. When it was over she left me alone and before closing the door she winked at me and gave me a coy looking grin before shutting the door and only after did she leave did I notice how light headed I was, unknowingly being fed off of the entire time as I laid my head back onto the sofa and went back to sleep.

Changeling Hive, 1 Month after Revival

In the darkness that is the chamber I feel something prodding my side a few times, my body ringing in pain as I let out a weak groan, and very weakly waving them away from me but sadly the prodding doesn't end until finally it gets to the point where I had to whip my right arm at the changeling poking me but when I sent my arm to swing at the offending hoof I feel it get constricted in a magical grip before having it gently released my arm down onto my chest, my head turning to see who was so bold to stop me from hitting the annoyance, but to see who it was, was a bit of an understatement.

Standing almost directly above me was the two changelings that I easily remember as my acquaintances and friends, Ditto and Mirias, the two just staring at me until finally my eyes came across the large changeling behind them. Tilting my head up from ground to get a better look at who it could be, I saw that this changeling was obviously much larger than the typical breed of them, and from the angle I am also looking at I can tell that this is a female from the most noticeable features I can presently see at this moment, but the way her voice is...its something that would make even the most expensive of awesome voice covers go green with envy.

"You have not completely recovered from your ordeal human, it is most wise to just stay still within your healing cocoon and wait till your wounds have stitched themselves together, but sadly your left arm could not have been found in the winter tundra that is northern Equestria." the large changeling said while looking down at me as her eyes looked me over and from my position I saw a crown resting on her head and the thing doesn't look like it is made of any metal that I know of so it was rather made of something organic or magically treated wood, something that I know that I can never remake on my own.

Looking at my left arm I can clearly see that is it indeed gone, but already knowing that since I cant feel it at all and that it would be poking my chest about now feeling for the stab wound and other scars that I have somewhat started to accumulate. What I did not know was that covering the stump of my left arm, directly on the shoulder-blade is what I think is a dome of sorts, texture and temperature alone is enough to tell me that it is not cloth or a semi-permeable material, but instead it is something like stone or metal, either being better than a piece of fabric covering a wound like that.

"Yea, that much I noticed, if it wasn't for the throbbing pain, the dulled nerves and fatigue, I would have guess that I was being treated...but still though...why am I here and not in Equestria?" I asked while still checking myself for any signs of modification or change and with a tiny smile I found nothing different about me besides the stump cover.

"Well, to answer your question it would lead to us asking you why you are assisting those ponies when those that need your help more is closer than you think...but to answer your question, they just couldn't find your body when it was expelled from Cadence's kingdom, the few drones I had placed amongst her people had told me that you were removed from that wretched city was the only way of acquiring you...so when the ponies tried to find you, we got to you first and took you away from pony held lands all the way here to changeling territory, the past few months has taken us with prominent abilities in healing magic to ensure that you recovered from your near-death experience." she said while moving over to sit down on the largest of the floor cushions in the room, the other two sitting on the other ones, the large changeling simply watching me with those emerald cat eyes of hers and the more I look into them...the more I feel like my thoughts are slipping from my grasp.

"Just to clarify, I have been dead for five months...Death was just on break from his job to send me back." I said trying to cross my arms but only making it look like I was holding my side in pain, which they take as that I have injured myself yet again, intentionally or otherwise. Looking down at myself and sighed a bit, most of my clothing I was wearing as padding for my armor is gone, leaving me with nothing but honey besides my underwear and Alliance off-duty shirt.

Going back to looking at myself I found that the pants I was wearing under my armor was gone and that it was a bit drafty in here, "I am also assuming that you had to remove my pants to tend to my wounds hmm? Was it necessary to take that off when the injury I have sustained was above the waist?" I asked while looking at all three before they all looked away in different directions before finally Mirias had the decency to answer my question.

"Well...Roran, the reason why we took everything off was that...even our healing magic was having trouble tend to your wounds when it was being actively blocked, your armor must have some sort of enchantment making it unable to receive any kind of magic from anypony, even us so we got a little...desperate in removing it, and since your wounds were covered by your daily attire we had to remove that as well...and...well...my queen wanted to know more about your physiology." she said as I tried standing up to stretch my legs, trying to get them a bit limbered up so I can resume my walking practices in hoping that I would no longer have to worry about falling over, even with cybernetics in my legs being inactive for 5 months left them inoperable and non-responsive.

Rolling my eyes I bring up my barriers but as I try to even attempt it, they immediately shatter and my mind takes the whiplash even more so than usual, the large changeling in question laughs quietly as I stumble back onto the floor and waving away the two's assistance, clearly trying to get up and stay up on my own power.

"So....you were interested by my people's body...let me guess, you want to try and turn into one of us so you can proclaim yourself as a lone survivor like me, Katherine and Hilo'Jaa...well good luck with that...you will need it...but it still doesn't answer my questions on how you managed to unstrap me of my armor and how you managed to get me all the way here when I knew that my body died way before anyone found me in that frozen wasteland Celestia and Cadence called the north." I said crossing my one arm again, my eyes scanning the three for a while before turning my attention on the constantly buzzing changelings overhead, around the chamber and also far away from it, my eyes catching small glimpses of shapes that I thought were extinct like me, or just illusions.

Getting back onto my feet I moved slightly near the edge of the chamber, my eyes fixing themselves and adjusting to the growing darkness that is the healing cell I am in but upon getting to the edge I had to grip onto the wall to steady myself.

"Holy Hell this place is fucking huge!" I shouted which, not to my surprise that it bounced off the walls and echoed along the caverns, dens, and chambers that is which the 'Hive', and upon shouting that every single changeling present stopped what they were doing, looked directly at me and from where I was standing, saw nothing but vast oceans of emerald green, violet, orange and sapphire blue eyes, even small traces of silver eyes scattered in the vast array of eyes, all of them looking at me before continuing on their daily lives.

From where I was standing, near the ledge of what I thought was just a chamber by itself near a cliffside wall but it was actually a bulbous room by itself hanging over what I now see is a castle of sorts, underground, which now clearly makes no sense whatsoever unless that the castle itself was a bunker of sorts. I will never know.

"And I do believe that we have also come to an agreement that you will not be able to leave this Hive without my permission until you are better, and also a few other things that we will discuss in time but I can clearly tell from the look on your eyes that you want to know more about your saviors, that will come in time as well, but for now, sleep." the tall one said before her horn glowed a ghastly green aura, and as she shot me with the beam I went from 'weak and tired' to 'sleep time' and before I even hit the ground I was catching on some Zzz's and was snoring like a beast.

The Hive, Healing Chamber/ My Room, Omni-tool Time Log: Morning-Early Afternoon

Slowly waking up from my spell induced sleep, I yawn quietly and stretch with my one good arm while keeping my eyes closed for the greater part of five minutes, but the odd feeling of something poking my head was starting to gnaw at my senses and when I swatted at it, my hand connected with a small object and barely heard it hit the ground before feeling slightly lightheaded and immediately after knocking said object away I hear the sounds of partially hidden laughter and upon opening my eyes I can see that Ditto and Mirias were standing over me, both of them trying not to break into laughter but failing so when I just slowly glare at them.

"What were you two doing...next to my head?...Wait...I don't want to know....just leave me be....sleep time is calling for me..." I mumbled out a few intelligible words before slowly shutting my eyes and rolled on the couch so I don't have to see the two.

Hearing nothing for a while and the occasional scrambling of holed hooves on stone rang out in the partial hollow chamber but upon looking at the two I used the shiny honey that hardened on my right hand to see if they did anything to my face.

I was amazed that nothing changed, except for a tiny little indent in my head.

"Okay...what did you two do to me this time?"

They both looked at each other for a while before rubbing the back of their heads with their hooves, none of them making eye contact with me, both are to busy looking at random places of the room. Ditto was trying look back at me but when we made the barest of eye contact he quickly turned the other way and when I made eye contact with Mirias she just giggled before patting me on the head and flew off along with Ditto.

Looking around while staying on the floor I found what I smacked with my hand, a bendy straw.

'The fuck? Like seriously...the fuck?'

Before long I felt something else poke my head but this time it was directly at the top of my skull, than a few moments later I heard the sounds of something sucking strongly, and in that moment I felt lightheaded again but with a bit more of a fuzzy warmth feeling than lightheaded.

Looking up to see what it was this time, I saw something that could only happen in very old Earth cartoons, I saw the large changeling again, but this time she was sucking on a different bendy straw and every few seconds I saw tiny pink hearts just appear around the straw before fading away and when she let go of the straw I saw a small cloud of pink with tiny hearts appear at the end of the straw.

If I could look at my own face at that exact moment it would be of pure bewilderment and 100% confusion.

"Roran, what you are seeing is me harvesting your positive emotions from you directly, as you know or should know, us changelings can live off normal food like the normal ponies themselves but it must be in greater quantities than them, and since such amounts do not currently exist within this realm of Equestrian territory we had evolved and adapted to be able to feed on emotions. In general we most feed on positive emotions but few of us can feed on the negative ones, but those that do tend to change into abominations...it is not a pretty sight." said the large changeling, her voice sounding odd yet regal at the same time, a trait I find strangely enjoyable to listen to.

"So...sucking on my head was you feeding off my good emotions...and did I give you permission to do such a thing?" I said sarcastically, staring right at her while getting to my feet, this time much more easily than the last time and with a lot less exhaustion and motion weakness.

Looking around again I find that the changelings are once again buzzing around and doing their jobs or whatever they do for a living but what I did not know was that they were intently listening to our conversation as a few were flying closer than usual and even a few had landed outside my window and tried to act like they were resting.

"You would have given it to me regardless, if it was not for Ditto watching you in the Crystal Kingdom you would have been been left under more than enough frozen snow and ice to never be found by any pony and be left in that ice prison of yours. You should be happy that I am feeding off of you instead of being mad at me for doing so, you are lucky my mother has said to limit how many times we can feed off of you per day otherwise you would be in the cocoons with the other livestock." she declared, flaring her dragonfly-like wings and from that notion several changeling guards appeared in front of her, forming a phalanx of sorts but it only serves to make me less easy on trust her.

Looking at her I simply just let my eyes go on automatic and move on their own but since this changeling in question was a leader of sorts I let them slightly move around, making it look like she had my attention while at the same time the watching the guards as well .We stared at each other for a good few minutes, seeing who would make the first move or even make a move, but from all that waiting I finally exhaled and gave some slack in my stance, still tired from being a limp fish for five months.

"You know I can just, oh I don't know, turn on my omni-tool and set it to overload so I can deny you your meal and leave this very chamber into a furnace." I said while flipping my omni-tool around, the central matrix core instantly forming into a sphere of orange fire as five smaller spheres appear around it forcing the guards to move closer to me in a loose formation which would do absolutely nothing.

"Yes I do know that, but would you?" she said, batting her eyelashes at me, trying to get me to stop with cuteness, but sadly that award went to Applebloom when she did that quivering lip and big sad eyes, the stare that can pierce the soul...and get you to stay over for lunch when its about to be served, and there was no way of me telling her no and survive the tongue lashing that both Applejack and Big Mac would have given me along with Granny Smith if she even managed to get outside at the time I said no.

"No, but it is nice to always have it as an option." I said while giving her a toothy grin before turning off the kill-switch.

During the silence that came after me turning off the potential suicide bomb attached to my right and only arm, a changeling came flying over to us and whispers something to the large changeling before flying back into the darkness.

Coughing slightly louder than normal I asked the large one what the normal sized one wanted, and on that note her horn began to glow a sickly green again but knowing that I was boned no matter what I did, I took like a man and fell into the darkness that is dreamland.

What I did not know was that I was woken up a few moments later, but on the ground floor, surrounded by changeling guards and was somehow standing up next to the large changeling in question.

Upon seeing me standing up on my own she signaled the guards to start walking and at the sudden prodding at my knee I started walking as well.

"I know that this may seem like I am holding you against your will, but I am just following my mother's orders, to keep you here until you are better and able to move on your own power and without dying from your wounds. As you can tell, my mother gets what she wants..." the large changeling said, apparently named Queen Chrysalis by her guards and by Ditto and Mirias, but for me I would just call her by name since the only royalty I had ever given respect to was Queen Elizabeth the II, that old fart can rule in style.

Looking her over I can see that she is visibly ashamed about keeping me hostage but seems to be enjoying it for some reason. Shrugging away that thought I kept up the pace with the group, and as we walked out and down the side of the castle foyer I received more and more stares until finally I heard and felt something crack and looking down was my obvious reaction. As I looked down I saw that the honey was cracking and breaking after near-instantly hardening than slowly disintegrating away into small pebbles of hard honey but what surprised the shit out of me was that my clothes was already on my body but was completely see-through and I was unable to feel it.

"I see that the royal honey has finally been expunged of its usefulness. Now you are presentable to my mother, just try not to embarrass yourself in front of my mother...just let me do all the talking...better yet it would be for the best of both of us if you just did not speak at all."

"Well if your mother asks me something you do know that I will respond to it, if you try to cut me off from speaking I will just ignore your advice and speak my mind." I said, looking around the main road we were taking and noticing that there was small ash piles all over the place, surrounding most of the dark green and black buildings that was the changeling structures, another thing I noticed was that when we all got to ground level of the hive I saw more and more insect-like beings scurrying about and I saw a few things that looked like over-sized ants.

'Where have I seen that thing before.....giant fucking ass ant....I gotta stop watching Old Earth movies...'

Walking down the main road soon lead us ten to a path that was of gravel and rocks before eventually becoming the rapidly haunting sound of gravel over metal. Looking down at my feet I felt a very gentle rumble of energy moving through coils and conduits, the rumbles of power moving back and forth between energy pylons and collectors, the scuttle sounds of chitinous feet on metal echoes around the twenty meter diameter corridor and the many changeling eyes that once occupied these halls are now replaced by ones that looked more and more familiar until finally we came to the end of the passage, blocked by a colossal metallic door protected by two massive specimens of insecticidal beasts.

"Oh...no...fucking....way...." I slowly shouted, the two beasts instantly recognizing what I am but it took me nearly forever to remember what I was staring at.

Chrysalis turned to look at me with a large grin on her face, clearly amused by the look on my face, that of pure anger against the Rachni.

"So you have met my mother's children before, well than this is going to be a reunion of a magnitude that you have never been a part of hmm?" she said while wearing her small grin proudly on her muzzle, my fist clenching tightly enough to make the synthetic skin get pulled tight enough to turn whiter than normal at the knuckles.

"Yea...we met, just not on the best of circumstances....I sure as hell hope that she is keeping her word with Shepard...." I said, not looking away from the two massive Rachni warriors, their armored plates and two tentacles were quivering as I said out loud Shepard's name and that we have met before, as I did not know how long these things can live let alone that the Rachni Queen was still alive after all this time.

Still looking at the Rachni I realized that I was being watched by more of them and the sounds of their feet on the metal grooves of the floor alerted me to their presence and turning around quickly was probably not the best choice that I have made so far. As I turned to see them, I saw over a dozen of the bastards, I saw small drones skittering about around us, workers and small soldiers watching our--I mean my very moves, just waiting for me to make a hostile motion to put me down.

"I swear whenever I get the chance to talk to Shepard again I gotta ask him why he saved the Rachni Queen twice...I swear if he says the same thing that Mordin said than I am going to be on a losing betting streak...I fucking hate losing." I mumbled most of it, looking at the slowly gathering crowd of Rachni, my body slightly shaking from the growing crowd, knowing full well that I am screwed in the event that I snap and go berserk.

The sounds of metal groaning under intense amounts of pressure and crumbling of soft rocks alerts me to the twin metal doors slowly began to conceal themselves into the bulkhead that was the surrounding stone walls and in that span of time I counted how many Rachni has gathered around us and I started to lose count at 54. At the mere mention of 'Shepard' the large changeling and all of the Rachni they stared at me for the longest time until both doors came to a complete halt and the sounds of locks connecting to magnets fills the hall besides the sounds of breathing and skittering.

"So...I take it that this is our cue to go in and talk to your mother or is this just your cue to walk in and talk to her first than I go in to talk to her...or what? Cause with the amount of Rachni here around me I got a sinking feeling...and a corrosive feeling..." I said knowing full well that if I even managed to kill any of the Rachni their blood would start to melt right through my clothes and body as if it was wet tissue paper...and I rather not be running around naked, melted, and most likely a fucking ugly mess.

The colossal chamber in front of me is lit by torches and cracks in the ceiling and walls, the lights bouncing off the polished metal floor and as we stepped into the chamber the doors slowly closed behind us and clicked into place.

Walking into the chamber I noticed that it was lined with webbing that I have only seen in the after-action reports from Commander Shepard's expedition to a Rachni planet that has been infested with Reaper tech...but this webbing looks more organic than mechanical in nature. The webbing before us parts and collapses to the ground into a silken heap of lime green strands, and standing before us, in all of its strangely majestic beauty, the Rachni Queen.

'Shepard...if you are seeing this...I fucking hate you with a passion...no way in hell will any amount of thermal clips and hand grenades I have will ever manage to put this bug down...not even a cave-in will do. Nuking her might just piss her off beyond reason.' my thoughts came to a screeching halt when I saw the Queen of the Rachni, just sitting on the floor looking at me or looking at everything but me.

"So I see that the last human has returned to his home-world...the sour notes are gone from here and at its weakest everywhere but we are stranded here....and now he who has been blessed by the void is among my presence." her voice said from the corpses of dead diamond dogs that are hanging in webbing on the walls and lying on the floor, their mouths moving in union, in all honesty I almost pissed myself when I saw that.

"Not really the last human but than again I am not entirely human, a decked out cybernetic implanted human is more like it but since the synthetic-weave skin looks human enough...yea...the Reapers are gone...wait, did you just say weakest? Are you saying a few Reapers survived? Oh man we are fucked so bad....well I'm fucked since I live on the surface." I said giving another half arm crossing before moving my hand through what little of my hair there is, my real skin still ashen from being dead for so long and is still crawling with goosebumps from the cold.

"You are not the only one that is doomed if the sour notes return with how expansive these extra races are....they might try to make short-cuts to make another than all will be purely lost if it already hasn't been destroyed in the blast from the Crucible. You human, are one of the few that can still defend others even when everything has been taken away from you."

"And what makes you think I am even capable of stopping the Reapers if they return? We don't even know how many are left let alone what variants they are. I am just one human being with PTSD, severe issues with pretty much everything that breaths, issues with my past, and let alone getting fucked over by anything that is holding power over me. Even if I could handle the Reapers, the ponies, gryphons, dragons, dogs, changelings and whatever the fuck is out there, what would make you think they might fear me more than them, me, a human being that is only six feet tall that took down a giant fucking robot the size of goddamn skyscrapers and getting them to not fear me is even then a long shot."

"My appearance alone put off almost every single pony, I am bipedal, my teeth are fucking sharp enough to eat and consume meat like it was nothing, I am generally violent and hazardous, my respect for authority is non-existent, and the fact that I am most likely sure that I am the last human that is alive only confirms that dying alone is gonna be a bitch. Just cause I have earned that title and achievement of 'Last Human Alive' doesn't mean I like it. Hell, humanity is already extinct, I know that for a fact that there is no way to revive it, even with magic and technology working together, it just won't bring my people back."

"You value yourself so low and useless knowing that you are not and yet you degrade yourself, just tearing yourself apart. You may have lost everything you hold dear but there are those that you have met, those that you care for, that you love...are you so willing to let them fall to the notes in the darkness of the sky? Are you so willing to let everything around you burn again into ashes and cinders, when you know you can stop it from happening again? Are you so willing, to let the sun you cradle fall?" the corpses say as the colossal queen continues to look at me, its head moving like that of a bird.

Her words were striking home and a lot harder than they should be coming from the bug that could have helped save our asses on the ground instead of just working on the machine.

"Human, never think for a second that you are not important to many ponies. Despite what you think about many of your friends, We know they like you and would mourn your passing. Celestia would lose her only real friend along with Luna, and maybe the God of Chaos. Your close friends would be distraught.”

Looking at the ground, looking for anything to take my mind off of the Queen's words but I know that nothing would, the lose of pretty much everything has kicked the fight out of me pretty much to pieces.

"So what would you have me do than? Go out there, find the weapons and means to destroy whatever Reaper is left, and bring peace? Well that plan would work for mainly you because you are the only species that can attain spaceflight capabilities and you know that would lead to your kind spreading throughout the galaxy and most likely kill anything that gets in your way. The Krogan had to be uplifted to stop you the first time, the Reapers nearly had you under their control, what is left to stop you in case you go against your promise? Nothing, is left to stop you."

Before the queen could speak up, she lets out a loud screech that caused my ears to start bleeding and to even see the air vibrate.

"I will fight against the Reapers, but I am not doing it for you, for the ponies or for anyone else. I am fighting them because I have to, my entire life that was what I have been trained to do, fight, nothing more and nothing less. When what little of the Reapers return, if at all are any left, just stay out of my way and stay hidden, until you can get the hell off my planet back to your own." I said with little to no emotion in my voice as I stepped closer to the the Rachni, ignoring the guards that approached me until I was standing directly underneath her head.

Just looking at her and sitting down beneath her head I wait for her to speak but instead only to receive silence, eerie complete silence. But as I moved slight one of her tendrils on her back darts from behind and stops right as it barely touches my forehead.

"You have so much hatred in your heart...so much anger and hatred for everything that used to exist, that does exist and that ever will exist. It was because of that anger that you have died and are now look where you are." her tone slowly dripping with sadness, her eyes looking directly into my own.

Staring right at her I lay down against the steel floor and rested my head on my only hand that I have, smirking a bit before looking around at the corpses in the webbing.

"I may have hatred in my heart but it was because of that hatred that I managed to get the job done when I know that it would have been completed at the cost of lives and time, time that we did not have at the moment of time that we needed to be used wisely elsewhere. If you are so concrete on trying to get me to return to normality than you can try, but this is the route I took when I began my career as a soldier, we gave up being normal when we signed up. You can try to change me but just know this, it will fail." I said still smirking until I felt the tendril that was on my forehead open up a bit, revealing a strange array of sharp needles before I felt it latch onto my head and than darkness returned to me.

"Face your fears and failures...and you will be free from the torments that reside in your mind."

Memory View Corrupted

Arcturus System, Benning, 2183

"Lt. Delta, we are over the target site. We are ready to deploy at your command sir." a robotic voice said behind me as our shuttle slowed down as we came to the target location, the soldiers around me getting their propulsion boots ready.

"Than proceed with Operation Concrete Jigsaw as planned, all forces under my command, deploy now." I said as the shuttle door opened up as the raging storm around us begins to pick up in pace as the thunder and rain started to come down harder.

"Yes sir." my men replied as they hooked up to the Kodiak's hook system before jumping out of the open doors and out onto the ground and started to spread out.

As the squad started to spread out and began to search for targets marked by our spotters we heard the sounds of sirens heading our way before the Colonial Militia arrived from their police shuttles and landed in scattered positions before jumping out and taking up defensive posts. Yelling at my men to get to cover behind anything they can find to use as solid cover for the time being I jumped behind a crate before feeling something prod my head gently until the prodding feeling rapidly turned into a sharp piercing pain.

"Your failure to save those you promised to protect, you know you could have saved these civilians but instead you cared for yourself. Do what you were meant to do, and uphold your promises." a strange voice said in my head as the pain slowly increased before it died just as quickly as it came and looking down at myself I saw that my armor went from porcelain white to midnight black.

Looking back at the Colonial Militia and my men I saw that they were instead of shooting at the Militia, they were shooting at civilians, innocent non-hostile civilians.

"What the hell are you doing! Your orders are not to kill unarmed civilians let alone even open firing on them!" I roared over my headset before realizing that my voice was no longer modified by the com unit installed inside my helmet, my voice now sounding older, more mature and even more ragged.

One of the Cerberus soldiers turned around to face me but as soon as he did his helmet crumpled in on itself before his body even hit the floor and the soldier next to him exploded violently from a biotic flare blast from within his body. The rest of my ex-squad turned to face me and as soon as they opened fire upon me I gripped the corpse of the first dead soldier with a Pull Field and as it came close to me I took a firm grip on his back and let it take all the bullets fired at me, and just as the firing slowed down in time I used Throw on the corpse to distract them long enough for me to get to cover and throw a grenade at the enemy soldiers to hear them yell out a warning before getting cut off from the blast.

The few remaining soldiers from my squad begin to open fire on my position behind a cabbage crate as one or two return fire at the local Militia to try and stall them as long as possible to hopefully get me killed. Looking over the crate's edge I spot only five left still alive and they are making a desperate last stand while looking past them I could only make out two or four of the Militia standing up behind a concrete barrier.

Clenching my left hand into a fist and focusing my biotic energy into it, forming into a chaotically glowing purple sphere before lobbing it over my cover and watched it as it arced towards the middle of the Cerberus defensive line, the soldiers within only watch and move as far away from the middle as they could but the oncoming fire from both the Militia and my blind firing with my Mattock made it nearly impossible to get out of this situation in one piece.

As the sphere detonates within their lines all five are lifted off the ground and are helplessly floating in the air, getting shot from both myself and the locals and as I see a few drop the weapons from their lifeless owners I take my time and shoot each one of them in the head to ensure they are dead.

"Stay where you are! Drop your weapon and get on the ground!" one of the Militia said before prematurely firing at me, hitting me in the left hand.

Yanking my left hand to my chest and shaking it repeatedly to dislodge the bullet from my hand, my left hand now has a dent in it and that it was now a bit stiff from the slightly damaged circuits. "Oww you fucking jackass! That was my favorite hand you just shot!"

The civilian soldiers walking up to my cabbage crate cover any route of escape that I could of had by shooting near me before the one that shot me spoke up, "Oh yea? Well why is it your favorite hand than?" his tone was in a mocking manner, doing no justice for my rising temper.

"What do you think dumbass." I shouted back before giving him the finger with my good hand. Taking a peek around the corner again I can clearly see that all five of them were in a loose crescent pattern and as I stood up they saluted to me immediately which I thought was odd until I looked down to see that my Centurion armor has been replaced with a set of N7 armor. I was wondering why my own team turned on me when I told them to cease fire on the civilians.

As the salutes ended, the man that shot my hand started to stutter out an apology for the accidental friendly-fire and also for damaging my hand but I brushed it off as a lucky shot cause if he hadn't had hit my hand, he would have more than likely to have shot my head and I would not have been having this conversation with him.

"Men, we have a strong Cerberus presence on this planet, we need to uproot them before they kill or capture and civilians here, am I understood?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"Good now make like a baker and get your buns moving, we got plastic soldiers to kill." I shouted and the response from the men and women now working under my command roar in approval as they pick up any spare thermal clips and grenades from the dead Cerberus soldiers before going back into Benning to remove the other hostile squads and to free any captured civilians that they might have acquired.

The sounds of rising gun fire, screams of pain from both sides of the field and the cries of the innocent soon filled the afternoon skies as both Cerberus and E.S.A Militia fight it out to see who would claim Benning by the end of the day. Neither side is willing to let it go with what is currently at stake and from the sounds of radio chatter from a com bayou something big is on its way.

Running with along side civilians providing covering fire and support as they make their way towards a safe zone within the city to against the fighting until Alliance reinforcements arrive to aid us in the Cerberus assault, but what we hear flying in the skies was something that I had clearly forgotten about.

"Cerberus Frigate inbound! Any Militia member that has long range communications, tell the defense cannon crews to get their cannons fully powered up and to bring down that frigate before it starts to offload any spare hostile reinforcements it might have or before it turns its own cannons against us and wipe us out!" I heard a female voice shout out over the friendly channel as I tilted my head to the sky to see a heavily armed Cerberus Frigate slowly making its way toward the city and tiny specks departing from its underbelly heading in different directions.

"Okay ladies and gentlemen, we got inbound enemy air support along with a MK III class Frigate heading our way, get missile launchers on the roof tops to take out the air support and if we don't have any than aim at the engines on their tails and on the wings, take out one side and it will go down in a death spiral. Good luck and keep these civilians safe." I said over all com channel before turning it off as soon as we turned a corner to watch a Mantis Gunship offload a group of Rampart Mech's and a lone Phantom before taking off once again into the sky and as the sound of its engines slowly fades away me and the rest of the group hide behind whatever we could before the death machines turn to our position and open fire prematurely.

My vision started to blur as I turned to see if there was any of the militia around me but my eyes met flames of burning buildings and charred corpses, all around me everything was burning even the very air I was breathing in was burning my throat and lungs has nausea was starting to have a firm grip on me, my ears begin assaulted by the screams of the innocent being cut short by metal claws and unholy energy by the beasts that has been sent to consume us all. And as quickly as the hellish vision came it went as my body unconsciously moved with my vision.

Shaking It off I continue on with my mission to save the people that need it, to be saved by the people that say that are fighting for them and betraying them in front of their faces.

As I ducked behind a parked skycar and the five others hid behind two other parked cars behind me we waited for the enemy squad to start moving our way so we can force them into an ambush and just as we had hoped for the machines did not notice we were there until it was too late to stop us but the Phantom was lucky enough to turn on her active camouflage and disappeared from sight as we opened fire on her escorts, reducing them into semi-perfect piles of scrap metal.

"We got a ninja in the area, keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like an area of displaced air, you see it, shout the direction of it and keep your shots minimal, it takes just one bullet to blow its cover."

"Bob look out!" one of the girls in the squad said before the man named 'Bob' takes a serrated sword through the spine and is promptly lifted off the floor before dropped down in a pile of blood and flesh, his eyes glazed over before he even hit the ground dead. The firing squad that became us remaining five was enough to put down the assassin and to avenge his death, the girl that tried to warn him rushed over to him, hoping he is still alive but from all of my experiences with watching and seeing in action a Phantom assassination maneuver, their victims are rarely alive afterwards.

Going over to her and gently pulling on her left shoulder I spoke in a hushed tone beside her, hoping that she won't do anything rash or foolish because of his death, "Sorry lass but he is gone, their is nothing we can do for him. Once a mono-molecular blade has been thrust into someone's flesh it starts to tear the cells apart rapidly leaving the wound untreatable without immediate aid...he was the lucky one to not feel the pain of it happen."

The instant my left hand touches her shoulder she smacks it away and turns her head to glare at me, her eyes filled with killer intent and wishing death upon the one person that could have saved her friend but in he end she just goes back to holding his dead body in her hands as the rest of us steel ourselves for what is to come as we leave her behind with the fallen comrade.

"Should we have really left her behind?"

"If we had stayed than another group of those bastards would have snuck up on us and gunned us down without a fight. It is probably for the best."

"Can the chatter, we got a pair of Nemesis's on the roof tops at 2'o Clock. Everyone get on the rooftops, I'll be the bait and when you take the pair out, take their weapons and pick off any plastic soldier you see than regroup." I pointed to the two snipers currently standing on some person's roof, idly standing by for some action as we watched them sway a bit.

Leave them behind, they will only slow you down...you don't need them...sacrifice them for the sake of the mission...they are useless...

I crouched down and slowly made my way down the street until I was at the staging point to act as the bait as I caught a few glimpses of the team scurry on the roofs until they too got into position. As I gave the order to engage them the sound of a blade being carefully pulled out of its sheath very quietly rings out from behind me and turning to see who it was I found out real fast that being alone in a city under siege sucks.

"Oh Holy Shit!" I shout just as the blade comes down in an arc, the strike aimed for my head but I raised my rifle in time to take the force from the blow but it neatly bisected the rifle in half.

The people in my squad, taking that as their cue to engage the two snipers waiting across from them and just as I had told them they started popping off shots at them but since they lacked real medium range aiming their shots went wide and gave the two enough time to get to cover and stay safe, while me on the other hand ducked again in time to avoid getting my head removed from the shoulders it so proudly sits upon.

As I bobbed and weaved my way around her blade's deadly arcs to ensure that I live to fight another day in mid-dodge of another swing the Phantom turns on her cloaking field again and the sounds of her feet moving away from me doesn't bode very well for me as I start to contemplate that she went off to kill the rest of my team but as I start to move to the latter across the street a red dot appears on my forehead and just as I closed my eyes to meet the end the shot rings out but I don't feel pain...but I did feel liquid splash all over my helmet.

Right as I open my eyes a corpse appears out from thin air and drops right on top of me, tripping me in my rapid movements as the corpse and I hit the floor, her body right on top of me as I quickly roll the corpse away from me, the sword still being held in her death grip.

"Hey! Way to go killing your friend! You team killing fucktard!" I yelled while partially lifting the dead Phantom over the skycar, a clear hole dead center of her helmet as another bullet whizzed by forcing me to get to cover and drop the corpse as it makes a wet squelching sound as it hit the floor, blood once again pooling whatever is left onto the floor.

Poking my head over the cover I see the same Nemesis that fired at me aim again but gets brought down by now focused fire as the other falls down as well, their bodies giving one last twitch before ceasing any further movements.

When we regrouped back together we did a body check to see who was injured and passed around small amounts of medi-gel to preserve what little we have left, moving into a windowless building for rest and cover we wait a while to come up with a plan of action, but as we talk over where to go next the outside of the building suddenly becomes dark as the biggest threat to Benning's safety is overhead, slowly plowing through the skies to reach its next staging point of attack.

Tapping my helmet I started looking on the channels to see if any of the city's defensive cannons are online and to my luck they are but they needed targeting coordinates to begin firing, their short and long range targeting sensors are offline and disabled. Grabbing a chocolate bar from the rack near the door and tearing it open with one hand while at the same time pointing my palm up at the frigate's undercarriage and as soon as the coordinates flashed on my helmet I rapidly sent it to every single militia manning one of the cannons and in a single moment I only heard the sweet sounds of thunder rolling throughout the city followed by repeating sounds of explosions overhead, shortly tailed by the death roar of the starship's engines before it started to slowly veer off-course and crashed away from the city before exploding in a fiery wreckage of warped and melting metal.

"That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you take down a Cerberus Frigate from below." I said while climbing onto the latter and sat at the edge of the roof, watching the frigate burn in the distance, a smile growing on my face as I see smaller explosions rock the ship from bow to stern.

As I watched the ship burn I felt a spike of pain lance up my skull forcing me to grunt out in pain as both my hands hold my head trying to keep it one piece as the pain grows in intensity until it finally dies down.

"You have carried your oath when you were confused as to who you were...even when you thought you were still with Cerberus you wanted none of the civilians harmed, but it does not end here..." the strange voice in my head echoes out as a shadow slowly begins to form around me, growing rapidly until I heard the sound that destroys the hope of an entire colony, a Reaper but not just any Reaper, Harbinger.

For a few moments as I looked back down at the city everything was fine, and my vision suddenly wavered until it turned into something that I feared that was going to happen. The city was on fire, buildings were crumbling all around me as the sky filled with smoke, embers and burning flesh and screams of pain, the sight of Reaper forces running through the streets killing anything that moves or breaths air. Off in the distance I saw a Cerberus vessel with smaller craft hurriedly go back to its docking cradle before leaving those left behind to a fate far worse than death. And just as quickly as this nightmare began it ended with Harbinger landing directly in front of me.

Looking up at it as the city's defense cannons begin to open fire only for it to have little to no effect on it until it charged up its main weapon and brought its wrath down towards me as I threw my arms at it, one trying to cover myself while my other gave it the middle finger in defiance.

End of Corrupted Memory

My eyes open weakly as I gasp for air, my arm and legs feeling heavier than I have ever felt them before, my entire body weak and exhausted for unknown reasons, my body feeling like pure and utter shit, every muscle and nerve burning with overuse as I tried to move a single finger.

"Pain has and will always accompany you...no matter where you will go or hide...it will follow you. Now, face it again." the Rachni Queen said before the same tendril latches back onto my head as my vision goes back to darkness.

Memory View Corrupted

Aboard the Starship MSV Mauler, 2185

"Hey boss! What we gonna do with this one, he don't look much credits worth to any buyer...can we just off him?"

"No you blasted fool! I got us a contract, and this little shit here has gotten himself a mighty bounty with Cerberus, and with this haul we got with us, we can all live sipping on booze by the beaches with bitches for the rest of our lives! Now shut up and keep that runt chained to the wall and if he tries to escape put a bullet in a leg, don't really care which one and how high or low it is."

"Aye aye boss, will keep this cargo nice and safe till payday arrives."

My eyes looking at the floor of my prison cell as I feel one of the slavers hands grasp my hair and yank it up to look at my face before releasing it and kicking me in the chest, doing little to me since my combat training over the years and actual combat experience has hardened me to the pains of hand-to-hand combat, the pain itself only heightened my awareness of those watching me for the moment.

"Now be a good little boy and stay here, I rather not put a round in you and ruin my prize." the slaver said while dragging a rusty serrated knife across my cheek, leaving a thin red trail behind the tip of the blade as she strolled away down the hall as the two others watch her leave, the one sitting on a food barrel gave a low whistle as the doors closed.

Hearing the sound of pressurized gas hiss as the metal plates grind against each other signaling everyone around the door that it was closing and just as I see the last glimmer of escape leave my stomach made a gurgling sound than a weight hit my gut again for the umpteenth time forcing me to say something I rarely say outside of my friend circle.

"I gotta take a shit..." I said as soon as the door closed, my words were low enough for the slaver on the barrel to lean a bit forward to try to hear what I just said, a finger going to his ear to clean it out.

"Didn't hear that, what you say boy?" the slaver said with a hint of annoyance in his tone, clearly he was in a crappy mood. Pun probably not intended.

"I said I gotta take a shit, and last time I checked Cerberus likes their traded prisoners clean and in good condition." I said while still staring at the floor, waiting for him to take the bait.

"What makes you think they care on how you are when we give ya over to em." the other slaver said as he walked over to my cell and stuck his pistol between the bars as he lined up a shot with one of my legs.

"Cause I used to work for them fuckstick, my serial number was C.C.Lt. 102191-587D. My code still works on abandoned Cerberus Outposts since they have to be updated manually." I said while slowly lifting my head to face my would-be shooter but when they realize that I wasn't joking about the serial number when the one sitting on the barrel had his omni-tool open and had actively searched for that specific number, coming up with my profile and when it popped up, he nearly fell off his seat.

Smirking to myself the two start to look at my profile, reading aloud everything I have done and also the things that I was awarded and promoted for, even saying the time that I bested a similar ranking agent in a VIP target hunt at his own game before leaving him with finding an alternate ride out of the firezone.

"Well looks like the Ex-Cerb bastard wasn't lying...Flint, take him to the shitter and keep an eye on him." The one with the gun said before grabbing the keyring from the wall and unlocked my cell before walking over to me and undid my cuffs that held me to the floor as I walked over to the door and waited for it to open to get to the restroom before I exploded.

As the slaver named 'Flint' got off the barrel and basically prodded me all the way to the bathroom and followed me in as I went to a stall and attempted to close the door but his boot caught the door as I sat down with my pants almost around my knees.

"I'm a grown man, I don't need anyone to hold my hand while I do my business and especially if that man that is trying to hold my hand is wielding a gun." the slaver looked at me as if I was stupid for a minute before shrugging and slamming the door shut and with my moment of privacy I started to do my business but was quickly interrupted by the sounds of yelling from outside along with one within my head.

When I started hearing something in my head, a voice that stung with icy sharpness along with reverberation of echoes, "You have let these poor slaves die to save your own life, full knowing that you could have saved them all. Now is your chance to redeem yourself and save them...do not disappoint me." the voice in my head slowly dying down along with the pain as my thoughts slowly clear up before the sounds of someones hand bangs on the stall door in front of me.

"Hurry the fuck up package, just drop it and go we got a schedule to keep up with." Flint growled outside my stall as I heard his boots thud on the smeared metal floor plating.

"Hey, I like to see you take a dump after holding it in for six days straight while wearing the same suit of combat armor on a god forsaken rock." I shouted as I grunted a bit, making fake sounds as I attempted to turn on my omni-tool's tracking signal and as Flint kicked the door open it turned on and there was a splash below me as I had forced myself to shit on command to get him off my trail.

"Finally, now clean yourself up and pull your pants up, we got our paycheck coming in a few minutes." Flint said as he turned away for a moment as I quickly did a once over and pulled myself together before following the same route back to my cell, my eyes darting around taking in as much information as I could before the door to my area opened up and I was yanked in before being tossed into my cell as it locked behind me.

Sitting alone in my cell for the greater part of two hours as the sound of boots outside my cell come and go and the supposed '15 Minutes' till Cerberus gets here to pick me up came and gone in an instant but what is making me wonder what is taking the Alliance so long to properly respond to the basic S.O.S. signal made me generally confused but when the other guy in the room went out the door to check on something after the ship lurched back and forth suddenly I took that as my moment to strike.

Just as the door closed to my room and the ship lurched a second time I quickly lunge forward toward the bars as Flint gets tossed toward the bars, his head banged off a metal bar just as my hands wrap around his throat and started to repeatedly bang his head against the bars as his own hands tried to claw mine off his throat but after a few seconds of the throat crushing pressure I tightened my grip again and to my satisfaction heard the sounds of his neck snapping as his eyes start to glaze over dead as his last breath escapes his lips.

My hands quickly coming away from his throat as I moved over to where he kept the key-ring on his belt as I felt around for them and came up with the keys along with his sidearm and a single thermal clip along with a serrated hunting knife marked with the words 'Varren Hunter' etched right on the blade. Taking everything and putting the blade in my boot as I undid the cuffs on my wrists before opening my cell door and taking a few steps out I looked around for any kind of surveillance camera and smiled when I found none around.

Bringing up the Predator pistol to the door I tapped it a few times to see if any slaver would be foolish or stupid enough to go to the door and open it from the other side but nothing came after a minute so I took the risk and opened up the door to the sounds of echoing gunfire and explosions, and with each explosion the ship lurched side to side and before long the emergency strobe lights went off and a VI spoke over the intercom.

"Alert, All Slaves are in riot, all personnel report to your stations. Alert, All Slaves are in riot, all personnel report to your stations."

On that note I took off down the hall that led to the restroom and followed it till I came to a four-way intersection and as I took one step into the middle of it another alert went out.

"Alert, Slaves are in full riot and have access to arms, all personnel have permission to put down the riot with lethal means. Alert, Slaves are in full riot and have access to arms, all personnel have permission to put down the riot with lethal means." and when it said lethal means I heard even more gunfire go off followed by screams of terror and pain as I rushed down the corridor it came from, my heavy body thudding loudly as I came to where the firefight began and the sight was something of cargo port mishap.

All over the floor was cargo containers strewn all over the place, many are overlapping and covering others with open doors and missing sections as escaped slaves fought over freedom against the slavers who had the high ground and actual combat experience as they started to repel them back into submission. Fire was clearly evident in this place as a few incendiary grenades were used to try an deter the slaves but it had little effect when they are choosing freedom or death as their only option.

"Bring it on you stupid slaves! We got all the ammo and guns and you got jack shit! Go back to your cells and we just might not beat the living hell out of you and starve ya till we get to the buyers!" one of the more crazed looking slavers said as he pulled out a Crusader shotgun and before he squeezed off a round I rammed my right arm through his chest and lifted him off the ground before whirling to the side to shoot the nearest slaver three times aiming my pistol higher as each round is squeezed off, hitting his right hand, his rib cage than finally his lower jaw as he slowly dropped down dead as the others beside him turned to face their assailant to see me holding up a dying slaver with my right arm while shooting at them with my left.

As soon as the slavers saw me with a now dead corpse as a meat shield shooting their comrades they started to shoot at me while retreating back into the bowels of the ship to better protect themselves from what they saw as truly barbaric act on my behalf.

Walking over to the edge of the rails above the slave pins as I looked over the so called 'catch' but what I saw was something more of a 'haul'. In the slave pins I saw something that was more of a small colony than an unlucky ship to be caught in these pirates cross-hairs.

"Holy hell...where the fuck was the Alliance when this happened...they should have prevented this..." I mumbled as I hopped over the guard rails and landed near a pile of shivering slaves, they huddle against each other as they scoot away from me, fearing that I am some psycho murderer that has escaped from a high security cell. Walking towards the group of slaves that were armed during the fight look at me and slowly shift themselves into a readily available position to collapse on themselves to open fire when they roll to the side, their leader on the other hand looked like more of a hardass with the eye-patch covering his left eye, his clothes look slightly clean compared to everyone else's, even his face looks more clean shaven than the others, but upon closer inspection I found out why he looked way better than the others.

"Lt. Mendez, you crazy bastard what the hell are you doing all the bumfuck way out here?" I said aloud while shifting my weight to my left leg, putting most of my weight on it and angled myself away from the group encase everything goes south.

The old man looked at me a while before his eye widened in shock before his mouth quickly formed into a grin before he came up and wrapped me in a hug while shaking my hand, the other armed slaves give him a quizzical look while I give a laugh and returned the hand shake.

"Well ain't it the little 'Bastard' from my beloved Core, seems like you have gone up in the world, or was in down? Our com channel said that you were discharged from the Alliance than joined Cerberus than left them, what are you playing at by being here? Trying to get payback on your old employees? Or maybe something else?" Mendez said as his tone was slowly rising, trying to push my buttons to get the reaction he wants out of me.

Before he can question me about by presence here I raised my hand to stop him before grabbing his right hand and placing a small device in it before letting him go and as I turned around and walked over to an upturned cargo container I turned on my biotics and started my breathing practices for what I am planning on doing.

'Breath In. Breath Out. Breath In. Breath Out. Breath Deep. Exhale. Focus. Now Execute.'

My eyes flare open as they focused on the target in front of me, both my arms angled forward as my hands slowly flexed open as two spheres of purple energy formed up before I threw both at the container, both spheres hitting it at the same time and was within my grasp as I slowly turned it on its side as I kept my eyes on the target and in a matter of seconds the container formed a perfect ramp over the rails.

"There, now we all have a way up instead of creating a human pyramid, now those that know how to use a gun, grab one from the dead slavers I capped, arm up and scavenge what you can and hold this area, anyone that wants to come with me you can but you move at one speed only, mine. If you can't keep up don't step up cause I will leave your dying ass behind. Don't like those odds than stay here and watch the civies." I slide over the guard rails and grabbed the Crusader and tossed it over to Mendez who popped out the thermal clip before smiling in satisfaction that it wasn't depleted yet as he shoved it back in as I grabbed a mining tool that was still held tightly in a dead slavers hands, my own hands roaming the dented, scratched metal, my left hand gripping the handle on the tool and my right arm fits into the bracer that fits around it to form a metallic glove of sorts, the blade looked more fitting on a logging mech than a mining tool.

The few civilians that came up to the rails and grabbed whatever they could looked at me uneasy as I fiddled a bit with my weapon of choice, my right hand squeezing the trigger a few times, powering up the blade a few times to get it spinning in regular intervals to keep it at readily available in the event it needs to be sheathed into someone slavers body.

Briskly walking past them and to the nearest door that I saw the slaves run through before getting out of the death zone that I was just about to create, pushing the button for the door to cycle open and as the rest of the group formed up behind me I revved up the saw the door opened up to reveal a slaver with a shotgun pointing right at me and before anyone could shoot off a round I lunged forward, the saw biting into the gun, destroying the barrel in the process before I lanced it upwards as it sank its teeth into his chest and forced the blades to move in deep before I yanked it out spraying blood everywhere. The other slavers that were his backup saw that and turned tail down the narrow corridor only to end up getting shot by my old instructor, dropping them like stones in a lake.

"We got to make sure this boat can still move before evac arrives cause if it doesn't than I don't want to be dead in the water till someone or something finds us. You take your people to the engine room and make sure it works just fine, I'll check life support, meet me back at the pen when your done so we can storm the bridge together." storming past them before opening up an ventilation shaft and crawled in it before sealing it shut behind myself as the others headed towards the engine room.

Crawling through the bowels of the ship I turned on the basic layouts for ships and tried to figure out what it was but as it came up as a large cargo transport vessel I soon found myself heading in the right direction about two stories higher off target. On my hands and knees shuffling in the darkness while my right arm clangs loudly against the sheet metal walls, grumbling to myself that this was a stupid idea to start with but considering the part of running into more slavers and running them through with their own torture tool brought a twisted smile to my face but the slowly rising voices alerted me to a group of slavers that was coming below me.

"We has us a slave hunt, if ya see one that is not in its cozy home than gut em, ain't no skin off our bones." one said while laughing raggedly before coughing up a storm, my guess was that he just took a large dose of red sand and didn't bother to wait and let it settle.

"Yea, but leave them ladies fine and send em up to the support room, us can later take a little rest with the fine ladies before we sell em to the four-eyes." another said as they kept walking, not noticing the small spherical object falling right behind them and as it got within three inches of the floor, the grenade detonated sending all three flying down the hall on fire and filled with metal fragments as I kept crawling down the duct before reaching a vertical shaft and slid down it until I slammed into a metal wall head first and temporarily blacking out.

I awoke to the sounds of crying and whimpering as my eyes flickered open to see nothing but darkness around me, my surroundings still the same grey metal of the air duct but was now accompanied by the sounds of sorrow and sadness. On command I shuffled my way towards the noise, keeping my hand on the trigger of the saw as I shuffled closer and closer to origin of the sound, the sounds only growing louder and more intense until I finally reached the end of the line, I was in Life Support, but what was there was something that made my blood boil.

Getting on my knees I pressed myself against the top of the shaft and with pressure on the grating I popped the lid and fell down to the ground, my saw spinning rapidly as I fell on top of a slaver, my saw digging deeply into his spine as I yanked it upwards sending pieces of his spinal column and his skull towards another slaver who was busy trying to comprehend what just happened before taking the saw blade through his chest and out the back, my left hand was busy with holding up Omni-shield from a potentially fatal shotgun blast at pointblank range but the pellets bounced off the hardened surface to go back to its owner, perforating his body as it hit the wall behind him with a light thud.

Yanking my saw out from the nameless slavers body and turned to look around to find another slaver hiding in a corner of the room, trying to get away from me by forcing his body against the corner, futile attempt to leave. I barely had to walk towards him for him to cower in fear behind his arms, the very sight earning a low chuckle from me before I turned my back on him, giving him a chance to flee or try to take a stab at me to avenge his friends but in that moment of hoping he would fall for the bait, he didn't. I heard his scared ass get off the floor and made way for the door but was immediately shot in the back by the girl they were trying to rape, her face still covered in tears as her clothes were torn up, the pistol in her hand was shaking as the barrel was smoking from the recent round.

Slowly walking towards the girl I gently placed my hand on the barrel of her gun and lowered it down so I wouldn't get pegged by a round in the event she squeezed the trigger again on accident or on purpose, her eyes were still fully dilated and were shaking like marbles in someones unsteady hands. After a few moments of silence she finally started to come back down from what just happened but as soon as she did she broke down in a heap and started to cry again, her crying shaking her to the core as I took off the only piece of clothes that slavers let me keep that was not part of my drifters uniform, my trench coat and draped it over her as I sifted through the room to find any other slavers that are hiding from the enraged Paladin that is I or any other slaves that are hiding from the homicidal maniac that just brutally killed three people right before their eyes. Satisfied with finding nothing out of the ordinary in the room I went to check on the ship's life support systems and found it was turned off for the rest of the ship and after a few seconds I turned it back on and went to the lass.

I slowly extended my hand to the poor girl, my left hand open for her as I stood in a position to cover her in the event of someone finding us and opened fire. The girl slowly took my hand and I gently lifted her up off the floor and held her in a weak embrace with my left arm, turning on my Omni-shield to protect her while I kept my chainsaw arm at the ready in the event they try to bum rush us from the rear.

"Keep calm little lady...everything is going to be okay...these little shits are going to burn for what they have done to all of you."

As we walked back to our staging point I found that my old instructor made it back with a few less people than he started with and that the smell of burning flesh and wails of pain have only increased in the time we have left to carry out our missions.

"Mendez, looks like this place took another beating, seriously no wonder why these raiders and slavers prowl on the weak, they can't even defend themselves properly...doesn't matter, we got life support, please tell me we got engines." I said while gently placing the lass down on a makeshift bed made of covers and package gels.

The look on his face told me otherwise.

"Fuck...well as long as we got air, food and water we can just wait it out, in the meantime I am going to find my armor, being without it doesn't feel right. I just hope they didn't tag it up or try to take things out of it yet...cause if they did than they will be all choking on their own blood."

Going down the halls towards the ship's armory, which oddly is located near the bay doors but knowing slavers they probably want to shoot anyone that tries to land in their ship without permission than enslave those that survive the first couple hails of bullets and explosives. Grabbing a dropped Tempest SMG and moving at a brisk pace towards the armory with the need to find my armor and pray that nothing has been done to it, a paint job would be nice but if they made it fuck ugly than heads will roll. Turning the corner down the hall I was abruptly stopped by something in my way and it was soft...and blue.

"Hey watch it asshole!" an asari said while backing up, rubbing her head with an empty hand as she holds onto a Scorpion in her other hand, her clothes was something that just screamed 'CRAZY BITCH' but what caught my eyes was something that turned into me having to do something less than subtle to escape a painful end.

I reared my head back, than went face first into blue cleavage, and at her moment of shock and confusion I did what any sensible would do to a pair of tits, motorboat. When she came back to her senses I pulled back long enough to use Pull on a loose overhead light and forced it out of its socket to let it drop onto her head, rendering her unconscious.

'Heh, Aria T'Loak got nothing on this girl, to bad this bitch is crazy...eh call it as I see it.'

Running back down the halls of the ship and cutting through another group of slavers that was in my way and tapping a door a few times for it to be opened by a large turian, who looked alot like Garrus except that instead of cobalt face paint it was red, well red and blue now as I forced my chainsaw into that armored face of us, really turning him into the split chins of an old Earth game that was really popular for some reason, but I can now see the similarities by the four mouth pieces, and the bluish blood now covering the floor, the walls and ceiling, and also my face, chest and right arm.

Looking around the room I saw all sorts of weapons, tools, and even in the corner of the room, a stack of Fornax and resting right next to it, my armor but it has been given a new paint job of camouflage but it was red and resting right on the codpiece was a middle finger and in small words written above it said 'Respect this'. I was semi amused.

'At least it wasn't painted pink...'

As I started putting my armor on, doing it in a hurry was my main objective cause if I took my sweet time and was caught with my pants down, literally, than I would be fucked nine ways to hell and I was not dying from lack of protection or from getting dressed. As I finished donning my armor I looked around for my helmet and found that it was given a paint job also, but the visor has been changed to look like it was cracked and at any moment shatter.

Just as I was about to put on my helmet the door to the armory slams closed and the window to zero atmosphere opens up to reveal that it was cracked and damaged, and was most likely being held in place by the shutters and since those were gone, they collapsed under its own weight and started to suck everything out into space. As I held onto the table I saw my helmet get sucked out of the room and I vaulted toward my helmet as it leaves the safety of the armory and out into the darkness of space.

'I am so fucking stupid...'

The creeping cold of space started to affect me as I felt my face instantly freeze my face, the numbness already starting to spread as my eyes started to glaze over as frost started to cover the lens, my lungs starting to ache as I crept close in zero-gravity to my helmet and when I felt my head about to explode from the exertions that I was placing upon it, I gripped my helmet and forced it into its housing and felt the coldness die off and stale air from the ship seep into the helmet and recycled what I was holding in.

'Never again...that was cutting it way to damn close...'

As I drifted off in space I saw that the ship was sort of drifting off, its engines were offline and looked like they were destroyed or sabotaged or something cause they looked busted as fuck and unusable. Slowly drifting away from the ship I twisted around until I faced away the ship, my suit shooting out tiny pockets of CO2 to keep me balanced as I started to work a way back to the ship, lifting my left palm I charged a biotic blast and minimized it so I can preserve as much power as I can as I slowly sailed back to the ship and as I got within a few meters my magnetic boots kicked in as I hit the side with a silent thump on my side a possibly a loud ass thud on the other side.

Looking around the darkness of space and the exterior of the ship for a way back in I feel my Omni-tool vibrate and a message is pinged to my visor, a message straight from Mendez:

Get your ass back here on the double, we got slavers coming out of the woodwork and are trying to pacify us with flamethrowers and explosives. Get back now.

Tapping my Omni-tool and moving as fast as I could in zero gravity to find any kind of airlock or window, any means of getting back inside but finding none, but upon the sight of a bulbous object ahead was something that I was partially not looking for unless I was inside the ship.

The ship's cockpit.

Slowly thumping my way across the outer hull of the ship, each step taking a while as my magnetic boots try to quietly stick to the metal hull as best it could without alerting those underneath me and hopefully those not stupid enough to fire straight up at the hull with armor penetrating rounds. Walking towards the cockpit the ship lurches forward, a weak shockwave rolls over the hull as it connects with my feet, making me stumble a bit as the engines give a weak burst forward to increase drifting speed, trying to limp its way to a refueling station for repairs and resupply, the cockpit now closer than what I would have guessed as I revved up my chainsaw and started to move at a much faster pace to the cockpit, my plan with cleaning it out now fully formed.

Getting close to the glass bubble that is the cockpit I slammed my chainsaw as deep as I could into the hull, cutting into it to form a perfect handhold as I turned off my magnetic boots to let me drift over the chainsaw, my right hand keeping a tight grip on it as I vaulted over it just in time for my body to slam into the glass bubble, my left hand punching through the glass and forming a perfect seal to prevent the ship from starting a lockdown procedure. The slavers in the cockpit are scared shitless as they see me outside of their window, my left arm from the elbow down inside of their room, and it gave off an ominous orange glow.

"Burn in hell assholes!" shouting at them as my left hand opened up to reveal the flamer modification as reddish-blue plasma fire belched out from my palm splashing and licking at anything organic within the sealed room as emergency fire alarms keep it sealed tight to prevent the flames from spreading. The occupants inside scream as their flesh bubbles and boils from the intense heat bathing them as I spread it around the room so none of them would be spared for the lives they have ruined.

After a few moments and letting the flames inside die out before yanking my arm out from the window and letting the cockpit go through an explosive decompression, the glass blowing out along with the burnt corpses and shortly after a few seconds of all the air being sucked out I climbed through the ruined frame and sat down in the captains chair before tapping into the loudspeakers through out the ship while tapping into the ships schematics and tagging areas of interest and hollowing out most places of the ship.

Kill them all...they have no use in the end...you are the only one meant to survive the coming destruction...for only the strongest will survive.

"Hello ladies and gentlemen of this finely crafted shit vessel, this is your new captain speaking. As of now all slaves are hereby free from the slavers and those slavers that are still alive, you are not going to be placed under arrest. No instead you are going to be out of oxygen in less than ten seconds as I open all the airlocks except for a few areas. Have a nice day." I said as I typed in a command list and at the press of the glowing skull button with a dark grim smile as I heard the banging on the door followed by the constant sounds of blast-doors being forced open and the rumbling of air being vented out into space along with the unlucky ones that couldn't strap themselves down.

Looking outside the window I can see bodies floating in the inky blackness that is the darkness of space, waving slowly at them while waiting a few moments before tapping in another command code to close and seal all windows and blast-doors before reinserting oxygen into the areas that has lost pressure and air before finally unlocking the cockpit to find a chained up asari holding a scorpion in her right hand...and looked exactly like the one I just knocked out.

"Well ladies and gentlemen that was the colony of wherever the hell you were from, the ship is now yours, be cautious when walking the halls cause they might be some slavers skulking about so keep a gun on you at all times and stick to groups. Have a nice day." saying one last time before picking up the barely conscious asari, placing her over my shoulders and walked her back to the cargo hold where the civilians were being kept before dropping her off by the rails before leaving her a note on her Omni-tool and walked off looking for Mendez amongst the crowd of mumbling people.

As I walked through the crowd I heard the mumbles of the people around me, a few saying that I was a hero, a monster that should be looked away, a man that should be looked up to, and in the very few cases, a man that needs to be held on a leash.

"Mendez! Mendez! Mendez where the flying fuck are you! Come on Mendez don't be an asshole and have me hunt for you! Oh than go fuck yourself than I don't have time for your shit!"

"These lives you have saved, you had to be cold to the enemy and yet kind to those that deserved it. You know that when the airlocks were opened the few slavers that were old slaves were smart enough to hide in the engine and life support rooms. Now you must face your worst nightmare."

My eyes darting around for where they voice came from, seeing nothing but semi-happy humans, turians, asari and salarians, very slowly I scanned around me until my eyes came across a cloaked figured, standing almost as tall as anyone else in the room but the eyes on it...those black eyes....like a dolls eye. The figure stepping back into the crowd before the people it walked by moved out of the way to reveal nothing but air, the stranger leaving nothing behind but a cold stare.

"Alert, Raider forces inbound. Alert, Raider forces inbound." was all that I heard before the ship shuddered under intense fire and pressure as the hull buckled and bent under the intensity of the raw amount of heavy metal being thrown at us. The civilians are immediately trying to get to the ships lifeboats, hoping that they can take refuge that will be this ship's scrap field floating in the abyss.

The ship started to deteriorate rapidly as I felt my ears pop at the change in cabin pressure and soon enough I heard the ripping of metal and in an instant an explosion pierced the hull directly over the cargo area and in that moment everything slowed down for me, civilians running towards the doors, mothers holding their young as they cried in their arms, the few with gods chanting to them to spare their lives, the asari I saved looking at me before shutting her eyes and just like that everything resumed their normal speed as everything was uprooted and ended.

"Collision Imminent, Repeat. Collision Imminent, Repeat. Collision Imminent." feeling the ship shudder one last time before everything was thrown around and dismantled. My eyes only seeing the end of the road for a few moments before getting clocked upside the head. Darkness consumed everything...everything.

End of Corrupted Memory

"Please...." I slowly choked out, tears starting to form in my eyes as I tried to raise my right arm toward the tendril, an Omni-blade forming at the end as I tried to cut away at the beast causing my worst failures to come to my head, the very thing I sealed away in the deepest parts of my mind to never be seen again. "Please stop....this madness....the depths of this madness.....please....just stop...." I cried out in anguish, the few things I feared was happening to me, to repeat my failure, to succeed when I got it wrong only to have it thrust back in my face as it originally was, a failure, it was like having an old wound opened up, to have salt placed upon it and to let it fester and ooze and only when the pain starts to fade does it get only worse when it gets pressed by the cause.

"Purge yourself of your failure....and it will end...."

Memory View Corrupted

Colony: Unknown, Morning, 2185

The steady humming of the Kodiak's engines lulled me to sleep after a few hours of flight away from the Alliance Frigate Two for Flinching, the pilot knew well enough to let me sleep on this leg of the journey, almost every pilot that I ever went with on any vessel knew that if I was ever woken up in the middle of a transport flight would have his ass chewed out and than promptly the shit kicked out of so I was thankfully left alone. The ride away from the frigate was short as we were quickly given the green light, the ride was smooth and easy as we breached the planet's atmosphere and the internal oxygen supply was turned off as minty fresh pine air filled the cabin bringing a smile on my face as I wobbled on the seat as the Kodiak pulled into a turn towards a small settlement near the woods.

"This is Echo-Four to Alliance Traverse HQ, the package has arrived, I repeat the package as arrived. Do we have clearance to land at Landing Pad Zulu?" the pilot said as his head turned to look at me as the Kodiak slowed down and slowly hovered near the Alliance outpost as we waited for confirmation.

"Affirmative Echo-Four, Landing Pad Zulu is cleared for landing, proceed as planned." the female voice said at the other end of the line with a cheerful tone as I felt the Kodiak pull a quick burst of speed before slowly hovering directly over the pad before landing with a soft thud.

"Hey, Roran....Lt. Roran Zidane, we have arrived at your destination, get your footlocker and report to your station, you are here for the next three months. And remember to stay away from the local bar if you could, ryncol is a heavy ass drink." the man said as he poked me a few times before I drowsily mumbled unintelligibly before swatting at his hand before I grumbled again and got up from the comfy leather chair and grabbed my footlocker along with my dark green duffel bag and walked out of the temporary parked Kodiak before gently rising off the ground and took back off back towards its cradle and a safe journey home.

Looking around I saw that the settlement has grown the last time I have seen it, more buildings have been erected and even a small protective wall has been placed around the settlement to prevent the creatures of the forest from waltzing in. Walking towards the building that I was assigned to by my superior officer weeks ago in advanced.

Smiling to myself under my on-duty cap as I walked through the streets of the early dawn, barely anyone was up and about as the few people that are were busy trying to collect themselves for the coming day, the select few people coming and going are actual Alliance officers and workers, getting on or off their shift while the rest was the settlements civilian population.

Keeping the brisk pace I set myself to I continued my walk towards the objective at the end of the grass and dirt road, the building at the very end of the road was the basic muted brown color with the occasional white vertical line, near the windowsills are flowers of varying colors and shapes ranging from roses, tulips and even a few dandelions. As I walked up to the house I saw a faint shadow by the front window of the living room and as I stepped onto the doorway I saw the shadow leave the window quickly and before long as I opened the front door I heard the pitter-patter of feet on the hardwood floor, and before long a figure ran down the hall and leapt into the air forcing me to brace myself as I opened my arms wide enough to drop my footlocker down. The little figure had enough momentum and build up enough speed to collide into me causing the both of us to fall over as she started to giggle happily as I let out a small chuckle as I started to pat her back.

"Why hello their Emily, so good to see you again after all these months." I said with a growing smile on my face as I leaned forward to be partially sitting upright as I held onto Emily with my left arm while I used my right to help prop myself up, my little sister was busy giggling and laughing as she pinched my cheeks before wiggling free from my grasp and grabbed my left hand and pulled on it and until I got off the floor and followed her up to her room along with my footlocker, as she pushed her door open I saw that it was still the same light pink wallpaper and frilly appearance but it now held a small stand with an Alliance medal case resting on it, and placed inside the case was an Alliance Purple Heart medal. MY Purple Heart medal.

"Rory! It been to long since you last came to visit me! Why do you never send me a message when I send one to you!" Emily said while she pulled out a few dolls and toys from a small toy chest near her bed as she passed me the small knight doll that I usually play with when I am over on these types of job shifts.

"Well sis, I have been very busy...my job doesn't give me much off time and well...I have to keep the galaxy safe from the baddies hiding in the shadows of space. I am doing this job cause when I do get the chance I take it to visit you, and besides I brought you a present from the Citadel." I said while still wearing my smile, I pulled my bag open and pulled out a small glass box with a tiny creature sleeping inside of it. A space hamster.

Upon seeing the small brown and white spotted rodent she sqee'd in joy and took it out of my hand and started to pet it and snuggle with it, the sight was enough for me to just smile and given me enough time to take a picture of her face of sheer happiness and saved it on my Omni-tool.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! Imma name him Fluffy!" I continued to watch her pet and mess with her hamster and as the day continued on we spent playing together, talking and having a good time while I kept up the appearance of being a bodyguard while our mother was busy off world on Earth. The day came and went as she quickly grew tired and as I carried her back home, propped her on my back as I walked through the dark streets as the sun goes down the horizon leaving us in the twin moons embrace.

Walking back into the house I locked the door behind us as Emily's caretaker left us a note saying she is now my responsibility and to make sure she doesn't get into trouble. Easy enough when she is still easily amused and can be distracted long enough to stay out of trouble or anyone's private business. Going down to her room I placed her in her bed and covered her up in her blanket and turned off the lights, looking back at her I saw that she had a thin smile on her lips as I shut the door behind myself and stood in the hall as I turned on the home's security grid and added myself to the list of people to protect as I stood outside her doorway and stayed like that the entire night, keeping myself semi-awake to stand guard.

I would not let anything happen to my only family that I care deeply for.

1 Month Later

"And this Emily, is how you properly Lift. You have to have focus and endurance to make an object heavier than what you can normally take off the ground and keep in the air for prolonged periods of time. If you can not focus on the target and maintain the connection than it will break and the target will be free. That is all for today, run along back home, I have to deal with something real quick." I said with a slight frown as she had an even larger one plastered on her face but she sighed softly before giving me a hug and ran back to her home, I tapped out a message and pulled some strings to get two marines to watch after her as I go follow a message sent by HQ about a drug den far from the settlement.

Stepping past a few people and off to the landing pad I found that there was a few Kodiaks waiting for me as I saw more than forty marines waiting for me, and as I stepped onto the pad they gave me a salute as I gave a half salute and waited a while for someone to say something until finally I was given a datapad with what I was looking for. We had a group of raiding ships inbound to a few settlements including this one and they needed us to go bolster the defenses of the others while a platoon would stay behind and protect this one. I was about to give protest that I was needed here along with half the ones being sent away as our commanding officer that heard of the attack gave us a stern glare and told us to get on the Kodiaks and to shut up and strap in.

If only he wasn't so very wrong about how large of the raiding party was.

4 Hours Later

"Heckel I swear I am going to kill you if we don't die from this crash!"

"This is Charlie-Two we are going down I repeat we are going down! We have been struck by an enemy RPG, we have lost both engines and our stabilizers are disengaged. Everyone prepare for an emergency landing!" our pilot, Heckel did his best as we spun out of control, our left side door flew off from the momentum, I grabbed the nearest metal pole and put it on a death grip as we spun to the point of one of the private's threw up until finally we all saw the tops of buildings, fire and smoke and finally in a bone-jarring halt, the ground.

Getting up off the Kodiak's floor along with the privates and the pilot we stumbled out to enemy fire that was unorganized as we got pelted by weak shots but that did not last long as they noticed that we did not go down like the civilians they were aiming for as they opened fire again as one of the newest soldiers went down in a twitching mess before the rest of us dove for any cover that was available as I slammed my Omni-shield down and waited for the shooting to stop long enough for both of my shields to regenerate as I slowly inched my way forward as I took out my Talon pistol and took pot shots but was working as a distraction.

"Lieutenant what are you doing!" Heckel said before ducking behind the burning Kodiak's forward engine flap as the other four hid behind the rear flaps and one hid inside the slowly burning husk of the Kodiak.

"I am doing what I was born to do Flight Lieutenant Heckel!" I shouted as I lifted my Omni-shield off the ground and sprinted towards the nearest raider, my shield still raised as I brought my Talon on the second nearest raider and squeezed the trigger to see him go flying back from the flechette impacting his body and shredding his clothes and ragged body armor. The soldiers behind me started to take their pot shots against the raiders, my men had better aim and managed to ding and snag them but not immediately kill them, but it was fair enough for me.

Cause for me, when you attack a planet I am on, you anger me, when you shoot at me and kill people under my command, you bring my anger to pissed off. But when you attack my planet, piss me off so badly, and you cause death and destruction close to my little sister, you just brought out the Grim Reaper within me.

And no one, gets away alive or in one piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkvQuhIWK2k

I raised my right hand at the closest thing to a group of raiders my eyes going from the normal hellish red that marks my normal self, and as my eyes close and re-open as the sclera turns pitch black as the iris and pupil turn purple with black veins creeping toward the middle. My right hand opens up as my biotic energy builds up for only a second before stopping as the pressure and energy around the three raiders rise than immediately erupts into a hellstorm of purple flames. My gaze turned to another group of raiders that just barely turned the corner as I used a Pull Field on them, their bodies drifting toward me as I rushed toward the lone raider standing in front of me as I smacked him with my shield, forcing him onto his back as I slammed the bottom of my shield on his throat, slicing right through meat and bone as his blood fountains out and in sequence turned to shoot each one in the throat with my heavy pistol as my grin turned manic and twisted.

Walking over to a raider that was still trying to cling to life, putting pressure on his throat trying to slow the bleeding long enough to put some medi-gel on it I strutted over to him, my grin only growing more twisted and evil as I got closer until I was standing right above him as one of the soldiers that crashed with my shouted out trying to get my attention, "Sir!" I ignored his voice as I brought my fist down upon his chest, my hand opening up inside his chest as I grabbed his heart and ripped it out and showed it to him before throwing it to the side as I started to run toward the house of greatest priority.

"Sir!!!" another soldier said as they tried to keep up as I rushed toward another group of raiders my shields flaring as bullets ping off it as my biotic energy flared up for all to see as both my hands were open filled with the twisting energy of my biotics as my blood fueled my strength of my wrath as wheeled back my right arm and threw a condensed ball of black energy as it detonated upon impacting the ground creating a swirling vortex that proceeded to uplift the raiders, the few mailboxes around and even shatter the windows of two homes and even a nearby skycar as the glass swirled inside the vortex, shredding and slicing through their bodies as blood started to seep from their wounds, tinting the black with speckles of red.

Breezing past the floating dying bodies as I slammed my shield into a resting raider who was leaning against a window, the impact enough to send him flying through the window and into a vending machine inside, the sounds of his groaning was music to my ears as I saw Alliance soldiers having a shoot out with raiders, my eyes gleaming with renewed resolve as I heard the screams of the people having their homes broken into and the looting from within reach my ears as I watch a raider run out with a large safe held in his arms, a batarian...who only took a few steps before bursting into flames by an Incineration and dropping the safe down on his own feet as he tries to get it off of him while flailing his arms

The next six raiders to walk out of the house were holding various items of interest but none knew what was going to happen to them as they too burst into flames from a trio of Incineration tech spheres and two froze solid from a face full of Flash Freeze tech spray, the pair was holding up a television set but the sight of me giving off an unholy aura sets the pair off as I line up my revolver with their heads as I squeezed the trigger once, the heavy flechette tearing right through them as the three burned alive. The civilians that was inside the house watched as their looters died in front of them as the smell of burning metal and vegetation reaches them as they realize what is happening as they retreat back inside as they collect their family members and retreated to their basement to wait it out, something I understand but fail to go through, to run away from a fight when I have the power to end it.

Yes....fight....kill...destroy....your enemies will suffer a thousand deaths for their error in crossing your path....make them feel your anger....and unleash with pride.

"Corruption! Begone from this mind! You are not wanted here!"

Queen of the Desert Hive....it is you who is no longer wanted here....his worst fears are over...it haunts him because they push him to be stronger and better....it is his fears that makes him strong, unlike the rest of Equis who wallows in their own failure and never see the truth....only those with power can shape the world to their liking....and you are no different leech queen.

"SHUT!" Grabbing the nearest burnt corpse I yank it upwards as I smacked a raider firing on an Alliance soldier sending the bastard sailing through the air before getting pelted by bullets and friendly Incineration tech spheres.

"THE!" Disengaging my Omni-shield and reducing its octagonal shape into its bladed brother as it crashes down onto another slavers shoulder blade, digging deep into his chest cavity as another bursts into azure flames by an Unstable Warp Field, his wails of pain filling the air as his flesh melts off in chunks as his body rapidly disintegrates into nothing.

"FUCK!" Turning around to punch one of the recruits in the face for getting in my way as a raider unloads a full thermal clip on me as my shields shatter from the barrage of 75 rounds before he even had a chance to reload his I brought up my left arm to smack his rifle away and knee'd him in the gut and brought my right arm onto the back of his neck, shattering the vertebrae and dropping him like a stone before storming through the wreckage of another Kodiak toward the house at the end of the street before coming face to face with a modified Cerberus Atlas mech that had its claw arm removed for another cannon arm.

"UP!" I sprinted at the raider driven mech and put all of my biotic energy into my left fist as my right hand stripped the Atlas of its shielding with an Overload, the mech slumping downward from the sudden power loss before I leapt straight at it and brought my fist right into its cage and released the energy within before jumping back and watching it implode inside a micro-blackhole before it collapsed on itself into a three meter wide crater.

The sounds of the wind breezing through the holes in homes and metal whisper by me as the sounds of over-burdened metal groaned all around me as the sound of a damaged structure filled the air before the building near the crater slowly began to collapse on itself and before long the groaning ended into a heap of twisted brick and metal.

Stepping towards the crater I peeked over the edge before hopping over it and continued my run towards my home, praying to the lords above and below that Emily was safe and sound. The sight before me made my heart drop in my chest as the front door was busted open and their was blood on the floor from a dead body of one of the soldiers I pulled to the side to protect my little sister for the time being.

You must be strong....even your family must not be allowed to live if you want to shape the world to the way you desire it. Everything will be yours if you give up your humanity and embraced the darkness.

"No...." my fists clench tight under the armored gauntlets as I held my pistol tighter in my right hand as my left hand was open wide with a inky black sphere dancing around the palm as I slowly stepped into hallway fearing the worst and hoping for the best.

My vision under my helmet blurs for a moment and my vision clears instantaneously as the sight of a destroyed home fills my eyes with rage, anger and fear as my eyes scanned the hall and living room of the once great home of my mother and sister. The paintings that hung on the wall were damaged or destroyed from vandalism, furniture was flipped over and wrecked from abuse, the fridge has been raided of what food was in there from the previous night and the past week, the blood of dead raiders and now the other marine splatter the walls and floor of this once peaceful abode.

Climbing up the second stairs slowly I listen out for any noise present in the household, my ears keeping open as I hear a scuffle down the hall, leading to the left, to my sister's room. Gripping my pistol and aiming down the hall as I switched from something overly lethal to overly painful to the point of lethal as five raider step out of the room, talking and smiling as I see all of them with smiles on their faces, their bodies smelling like sex. Upon seeing me they froze as I turned off my visor for them to see my face, my face contorted into pure rage as I threw my sphere at them while yelling out in silence, the only one with his shotgun out fired off one round before getting his head blown off by the flechettes spewed out from my revolver as the rest are lifted off the ground and tossed around from the concussive force of the blast before being slammed straight down onto the ground with bone shattering speeds, one of them snaps their neck on impact.

Going slowly past them I personally kicked each one down for the count to ensure that if what I think is around the corner what I hope it isn't, than they would be meeting their maker a lot shorter than expected. Just as I reach the threshold of the doorway my eyes blur up again and disappear just as quickly, my left hand holding the doorframe for support and taking only one step into the room my eyes looked around to find the room trashed but my eagle eyes never looked at the décor for longer than two seconds as my sights came down on one lone crumpled figure.

Emily...my little sister, was lying on the floor, her body slightly mangled and bruised as I quickly rushed to her side, my hands picking up her body as I took off my right gauntlet to check for a pulse at her neck...there wasn't any. I looked at her body for a split second, her clothes were torn up all over the place but I knew what they had done to her in her last moments...

Gently placing her body down on the ground and crossing her arms over her chest I picked up my gauntlet and slid it back on before locking it in place and walked out the doorway and grabbed every single living raider by the scruff of their neck and dragged them into my room which looked just like the rest of the house, I threw each raider into each corner of the room except for the leader, I threw her to the center of the room as I placed her in a Stasis while the other three were barely getting to their feet as I calmly shot each one in the leg, forcing them back down onto ground.

Each pair of eyes were now on me as the Stasis died off and as it did I brought my boot down onto the leader's midsection as I brought out my omni-blade and looked at her eyes with killer intent before speaking up, "You have left this world barren of life, you ended the lives of the innocent throughout the settlements, for you have left us barren I shall return the favor, the pain from this, will be beyond what you have ever felt.", bending down over her as I quickly sunk my blade into her belly, cutting her shallowly and made a large gash into her belly as I stretched the wound open to reveal her organs within, the leader was screaming in pain as the raiders tried to assist her but I took out my revolver again and shot each one in the head to ensure that no one else will get in my way of my vengeance.

My vision blurs once again, my cybernetic eyes starting to become faulty but what I saw was what made me wonder what I was seeing was real or an illusion. My room went from being a complete mess with three corpses in three different corners with a bleeding female human on the floor, and it went to just a broken room with destroyed furniture and only the female human on the floor. As quickly as the optical failure came it went as I returned to my task at hand, my hand digging into her belly, reaching for the prize at hand and gripped her womb and slowly tugged on it and slashed the securing pieces of flesh and brought it out to show her.

"P-p-please...."

"Please what?"

"S-s-spare...m-m-mee...."

"Oh I am sorry, I am all out of mercy, all I can offer you is a quick end or a continued existence never being able to have a family. My choice."

Pulling out my revolver one last time and slowly it aimed it at her head, my hand slightly shaking as my vision tunneled down to just her face, the tears streaming down her eyes, her sobs slowly fading from the hearing as my finger slowly slid to the trigger and before I had a chance to pull the trigger...

"Brother! Stop!"

TARTARUS TAKE HER!

"Your hold is broken over him, begone parasite and stay away from this being or be erased from existence!"

The sudden shout from both the real world and inside my mind I spin around on my heel to point my pistol at the ghost but what I saw as my vision finally shattered as everything around me became clear, the feeling of a soothing scrap on my mind made everything true. The light shone through the darkness that was my mind as I saw my little sister, unharmed, scared, and afraid of me.

"Emily...what....what happened....I...what....." I stumbled over my words as I looked down around me, the three corpses around the room were now gone, all three piled up in the hallway alongside the others that died as well.

"Brother...please....stop this....this is not you! Please stop this! I don't like this at all!" Emily shouted at me as I saw tears falling from her face, her dress was speckled in small droplets of blood as I realize that she was hit by a thin mist of blood when I killed the raiders that came out of our room moments earlier.

YOU WILL DO AS I TELL YOU!

'No...your nothing spirit....I will not go back down that road...never again....'

THAN ALL OF EQUESTRIA WILL SUFFER FOR THIS!

'Get the fuck out of my head.'

The clouding power over my mind slowly fades away as I looked back down to the dying raider, her breathing was starting to become ragged and as I watch her fire slowly fade I placed the organ as best as I can back inside of her and applied three layers of medi-gel to her, two for her organs and one to seal the wound to keep her alive.

"I am only granting you mercy....because I will not become the beast that Cerberus wanted me to become. I will not be their successive pet project." I said before placing a small medi-gel canister next to the raider as I tried to clean the blood off of my arms by ripping a piece of the thin blanket off my bed and wiped myself clean.

Walking over to my little sister I can see that she was still crying so I kneel'ed down to her level and pulled her into a hug, trying my best to calm her down as she looked at me as the calming voice from before echoes out in my head.

"You fought your fears and pushed out the spirit of darkness from within. You have been purged. You are free now."

The last few words the voice said as Emily's kind smile slowly faded away to a frown as the world around me began to fade away, the walls turning to ashes along with the floor and ceiling, the world around me decaying as I felt my body turn to ashes along with my sister, both of us being separated again for hopefully not the last time.

Freedom...from the depths of my own madness....but for how long?

End of Corrupted Memory

As my eyes slowly opened up I was resting in a bed of sorts, the ceiling was dark green as my eyes adjusted to the low light being filtered into the room, the walls had tapestries of the past for the Changelings and Rachni, the floor had a lush carpet of the shades and hues of grass, the bed itself was made of black velvet. The quiet voice of Chrysalis draws my attention toward her as she is holding onto a small locket in her magical grip, the small metal case glittering in her aura.

"So....what Celestia said was true than...you really are alone...for all of your life you have been alone."

Before I had a chance to even speak or raise a finger she levitated the locket back to me as I quickly snatched it out of the air and put it back into my pocket of my pants. My eyes resting on hers for a while longer before I slowly pushed myself into an upright sitting position as I saw my armor was resting quietly by the door, my armor fully restored except for the left arm and helmet, the metal plates shining dully in the low lightly like a silent sentinel in the dead of night.

"You don't need to say anything, but all I can ask is that you give us one last feeding before you go back, the journey ahead of you is not going to be easy. All that what my mother and I know is that feeding from a human...is something that can truly keep us fed for months, long enough to find a stable food source if possible. That is all I can ask from you Roran." her words were tinged with sadness as I felt my face for any signs of damage from where the tendril latched onto my head but found only small grooves that was already healing and were by now mostly gone, the appearance of the grooves made it look like my skin has been pressed down by a heavy weight.

Looking back at Chrysalis I shrugged a bit and flinched at the sharp pain that went up my spine as it began to rapidly fade away, the pain was odd but as it died I rolled my shoulders to find that it was from the stiffness of laying down for prolonged periods of time and not from an injury of some sort. As I shrugged out the yes she let out a happy squeal of sorts before quickly recovering from the very un-queen like behavior and resumed her oddly creepy seductive look before buzzing her way over to me as she got up close to my head and bit down on my skull, there was no pain as it was more like when a puppy was playing with you by gently gnawing on your hand, her fangs didn't even penetrate the skin as I felt slightly lightheaded from the sucking on my noggin and before long I felt happy for a few seconds until I realized that it was the queen changeling was starting to lick my skull, and I thought I felt tongues on my body before. I saw ponies speaking before and their tongues looked normal, I saw a couple changelings speak and it looked a bit thin but having it lapping at my flesh? It was more on the border of a sticky reptile tongue or like a long, thin cat tongue. Either way it was strange as hell.

"Okay that is enough...feels like your trying to lick the flesh off my head to get to the gooey center of my head. My head is not a jelly bean god damn it..." I proclaimed as she released her hold on my head and went towards the window before her horn started to glow with the sickly green aura as wave after wave of it radiated from her horn as I watched the two guards by the door look much better than the last time I saw them, they now look more full of life than the usual doom-and-gloom facial look.

Looking over the window near my new bed I saw that there was a large gathering of changelings and rachni all around this section of the royal changeling castle, the vast numbers made me take note that while they may be small and can shape shift into pretty much anything, I quickly learned that there was no way in hell that I was going to manage to feed all of them without any kind of assistance but strangely enough that odd green aura that Chrysalis was giving off was acting like an old fashion crop duster and dispersing the strange food to everyone present. Oddly enough I wasn't hungry anymore for some reason or another that I failed to notice.

"Chrysi...erm...I guess thanks for bringing my dead ass back from the grave...and if your people need to be fed just go looking for me back in Equestria or where ever the hell the Gryphon Kingdom is, just get one of your people to find me, hopefully they can carry whatever the hell it is your changelings feed on back cause there is no way in hell I can manage the constant travelling back and forth without the tools of my trade...that or a teleportation spell...either one works." I said before walking to the window with my right hand holding onto the side as I gazed at the dispersing crowd, everything going back to its working order as the buzzing sound of insect wings consume the colossal Hive colony again.

Hive of the Great Desert, Midnight

"Now Roran of Zidane-" Queen Chrysalis was cut off by me as I coughed abruptly to get her attention.

"Its not Roran of Zidane, just Roran or if you want to be formal Roran Zidane, first name than last name." I said with a smug grin before realizing that I just busted an Urta.

".....grammar gryphon...." she mumbled as she straightened her mane, the two royal guards flanking her are keeping their eyes peeled for any signs of danger, which would mainly be me since I am a walking time bomb.

"Sorry please continue." 'Well fuck you to...grammar Nazi...'

"As I was saying, follow the river north till you reach the large city of sheep that rest in the middle of the delta, the river will provide you with water and most likely traders will offer you food if you have the salt for it...or bits but that carries much more risk. Just follow the water back to Equestria, and tell your princess...that I would like to talk to her about the past."

"Sure, and don't worry much about me, I may be crippled but it doesn't mean shit to me, I only need one arm to get the job done, maybe both...depends on the task." I said while giving my best 'I will seduce you' look but sadly with one arm it wouldn't have much affect, but the two guards caught onto it quickly and snickered before stopping by the glares they were receiving.

Walking towards the Hive entrance, the sounds of winds howling down the cave followed by speckles of dirt, sand and pebbles flowing around and into the cavern as the full moon is raised to the middle of the sky, the small pack I am carrying made of manticore leather, which to me is the best kind of leather there is, all the durability of thick leather with the smoothness of snake skin. Now if only I can make a tanning hut....

Getting back on track I started my march back home, back to England where I belong, where I am needed, but alone in this desert.

Flipping my Omni-tool open I pushed a button with my nose to a song that I have been waiting to listen to for a while, thinking the moment fit the bill as it started to tune out the howling winds and cascading sands.

As the tune ended I heard a soft giggle before long I was not alone on this journey.

"Brother...can you tell me a story about the Shepard?" a sweet tiny voice said as I felt the faintest of pressure on my shoulders as I walked over the first sand dune in the great desert of the southern lands.

Smirking to myself I sped up my steps as I slid down the dune and came across the river, the water was sapphire blue, cat tails were lined up along the river next to tall grass and weeds.

"Okay, just this one story...not sure how mother allowed you away from bed but...just one story."

Equestria, Canterlot Palace, Princess Celestia's Room, Midnight

Celestia's POV

It as been almost a year now....a year since my friend died...to save the Crystal Empire against Sombra....my friend...oh how I hated him for those pranks, gags and terrible jokes...but that was what made him special. The first pony no person...to ever treat me as if I was not royalty but instead like a common pony...I will miss him so much...so very much.

A lone tear drops onto the last diary page as I closed it shut and levitated it under my pillow as tears started to form up on my muzzle and before long I started crying myself to sleep after remembering what Roran once said to me as we walked down the halls one time to speak to the Gryphon Emissary about the lost technology of Humanity.

"Roran, why are you so set on putting yourself away from everypony that is trying to be your friend? Are you afraid of something that would happen to us if you did? You can always tell me what is wrong."

"Celly...sometimes we put up walls. Not to keep people out...but to see who cares enough to knock them down and help us see ourselves for the better..."

"I see....well...I care enough to help you through your pain...like...when...you were..."

"Shush cutie, I remember, don't need to think to that time of my near-death experience. You just got to be strong for your ponies, for when the time comes of a great tragedy or sadness, they will need their leader strong enough to guide them through it. Just relax, I can handle this one."

That one memory was one of the happiest of my life, I felt happy to be able to speak without having somepony groveling at my hooves or thinking carefully about what they are about to say as to not offend me...

Beep

The sudden sound roused me from my wallowing to see the orange gauntlet that was fading in the snow that we managed to recover in the blizzard, was now glowing brightly as it started to activate, a small screen appeared as I trotted slowly to it, hoping it was a sign that he was out there...somewhere...somehow still alive and looking for us or hoping that we can find him...and bring him home.

Taping the tiny screen with my hoof small notes started to play through the room as a song began to play in my room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu7QvOQKcKk

Just as the song came to an end, a small message appeared on the screen.

Someday you may forget about me,

my name, my voice,

who I am and who I was to you.

But

even if you still totally forget about me,

I just want you to know that

I will never forget a single thing about and

everything we went through...

Love in your heart...I will return for you...

and everyone else that I left behind.

A single tear rolled down my muzzle as a small smile began to tug on my lips as I uttered out only three words.

"My Roran lives..."

Author's Notes:

Finally got this done, on the spot Nine A.M. Take that writers block and college work!