The blast ripped through Starlight’s ship, sending a power surge through most of the internal systems. Starlight attempted to compensate, but she was not able to restore power to the shields in time. The best she was able to manage was to protect her omnitool form an immediate overload. Though the ship hitched and listed and the lights flickered badly, she retained control.

“What the FUCK was that?!” cried Zedok, her voice transmitted through the ship’s intercom. “Star, we’re losing pressure in the lower deck!”

“That’s the least of our problems,” said Starlight, trying to divert power back into the damaged sections of the ship and to close off emergency bulkheads near the damaged area. “Our mass drive is desynchronized! I can’t jump us! I don’t even have FTL!”

“I can’t I identify the ships,” said Jurneu, only sounding partly panicked. “I don’t have access to the Spectre network, they’re jamming me.”

“Damn it.” Starlight scanned the area and calculated the location of the ships. Many of them were on an intercept course, and the primary ship was preparing to fire again. Starlight determined that there was only once course of action.

The ship shuddered forward on impulse power, forcing Starlight into her seat and knocking Jurneu over.

“What- -what are you doing? Starlight, what are you doing?” asked Sbaya, her voice cracking as she realized that Starlight had just set her course directly toward the flagship of the group.

“We can’t escape and we’re outmatched. I can’t get to the nebula in time, and we need to get somewhere where they won’t shoot at us.”

Jurneu’s eyes widened. “No! You wouldn’t, that’s not- -you can’t!”

Starlight ramped up her omnitool, drawing power directly from the ship and projecting several thick plates of tech armor over the front of her vessel. “Brace for impact!” she cried.

The other ships attempted to scramble, seeming taken by surprise by Starlight’s course of action. By the time they had turned back toward her, it was too late. Starlight slammed her ship into the largest of the enemies, tearing into its hull with a deafening sound of rending metal.

The ship shook, and the commander turned to his quant.

“What just happened?” he demanded.

“The enemy ship has rammed us,” explained the quant. “Scanning…it appears to be largely intact. The probability of crew survival is high.”

“Who is on board?”

“One moment…” the quant processed the request. “Results of the scan indicate the presence of five biotics, with one a predicted [beyond scanning range] mass-effect output potential. Scans also indicate one indeterminate signature that I believe is most likely a synth.”

“You’re not sure?”

“It has technological integration that makes it extremely difficult to track or identify well.”

The commander turned to where a small group of his soldiers were standing, awaiting orders. Some of them were drell, dressed completely in black, but several were reprogrammed Governors, their eyes luminescent with a dim red-violet energy. “Lead a team down there,” he said. “Engage with extreme caution. Ensure that Her enemies are destroyed.”

“I have altered my hull consistency to seal the injury,” said the quant, turning to them as well. “I am currently opening bulkheads to the area…the area will contain atmospheric pressure.”

“It is acknowledged,” said the lead drell, taking up her rifle. Her associates and their Governor counterparts moved quickly and nearly silently, exiting the bridge and preparing their engagement teams from the crew aboard the ship.

“I would recommend that you attend as well,” suggested the quant. “One of the biotics detected is exorbitantly powerful.”

“Not nearly as powerful as I am. I wield the power of a Goddess.” He paused. “Still…I do understand the implication.” He turned to the door and started slowly for the door, his feet clicking on the cold deck below.

Just before he left, the quant suddenly turned toward the viewing window, as if she had eyes to see it with. “Warning!” she said with an extreme sense of urgency. “Enemy ships detected!”

The commander turned suddenly. “What?! Reinforcements?”

“Cannot confirm- -the previously detected energy signatures of the nebula are resolving and are now identified as mass-effect engines!”

The commander rushed toward the window and peered out. His optics zoomed in on the nebula, and he watched in shock as ships poured out of it. There were not just one, or even several. There was what seemed to be an entire fleet.

“Identify them!” he cried.

“Scanning signatures…detecting commercial and military engines from krogan, asari, drell, hanar, turian, Alliance, Equestrian, Crystalline- -unable to identify specific origins.”

“Open fire!”

The ships responded, but to no avail. As the commander watched, a ship that appeared to be a rusted, pitted version of a krogan cruiser welded onto the fins and engines of a badly damaged asari destroyer rammed through one of his ships, damaging itself critically in the process but shattering through the smaller ship’s shields and tearing it in half.

More came. All of them were as broken and strange as the first, either ancient derelicts that were barely holding together or the pieces of broken ships merged into monstrous abominations that somehow still tore through his fleet. The commander was reminded of the stories of quarians and their ramshackle vehicles in ancient times, but this was different. These ships were not quarian. The commander knew quarians, and there was no way a pragmatic race such as them would build such grotesque creations. As one ship passed by, he saw its surface: covered in broken, sharpened fragments of metal and shattered remains of other ships, all painted blood-red and scrawled over with something that was almost lettering.

“The target ship,” said the commander, regaining his sense of mission. “Protect it!”

“Mobilizing,” said the quant. “It is five seconds away from the nearest mass relay. Warning: this action against these opponents will sacrifice all ships sent to protect the target.”

“I don’t care! Let them burn! That ship must survive is She is to rise!”

“Acknowledged.” The quant gave the order, sending numerous soldiers to their death. Through the window, the commander watched as particle beams and ancient mass-effect cannons fired in the battle outside. The enemy, whoever it was, seemed barely concerned with tactics or losses. Most of the time, they just seemed to be ramming anything that they could, destroying it. Some ships seemed to have mechanisms to grapple onto the others, and when they managed to attach they would invariably pull their targets back into the nebula.

“Prepare to enter Vocqtus as soon as the target reaches the mass relay,” ordered the commander.

“Unable to comply. The change to our hull geometry caused by the imbedded enemy starship is inhibiting the generation of a transfer field.”

The commander stared down at his quant, seething with rage and shame. She stared back up at him, emotionless and cold. “They knew,” he spat. “They knew the nebula was infested!”

Through the window, an enormous hybrid of outmoded volus and baterian engineering swept by. As it did, several needle-like portions of it burst forward, rocketing toward the main ship. The shields did little to stop the heavy, slow moving objects and the ship shuddered.

“What was that?” said the commander, already knowing.

“Several hypodermic shuttle craft. More are attempting to launch tactical gantries.”

“Stop them!”

“It is too late. We have already been boarded.”

“By WHAT?!” screamed the commander. “Who would DARE board us?”

The quant stepped back, and a new hologram appeared. It was more distorted than her normal shell, but it showed an image in real-time of the intruders. The commander stared at it in disgust, even though he had no idea what it was. Its body was covered in armor, but its overall shape was extremely thin and lanky. It moved on all fours, but the difference in length between its rear and front legs made it appear like something that should have been bipedal.

“What is it?”

“They conform to no known species biology in our database.”

The creature suddenly stopped and turned its masked head, seeming to look directly at the commander. Then the image faded and vanished.

“What just happened?”

“They appear to be disabling my internal scanning systems and primary power conduits. I can no longer track them.”

The commander turned and quickly moved toward the exit of the bridge. “Attempt to restore systems. Center all ships around this one. Protect us.”

“And you?”

“I am going to rid us of this disease.”

Starlight regained consciousness slowly. The world around her was dark and hazy. On the edges of her perception, she saw flames and sparks and smelled burning wiring and singed hair. Her thoughts were muddled, though, and she was not sure where exactly she was or why her head hurt so much.

“Starlight,” said a voice, and Starlight felt someone shaking her.

“Twi…Twilight?” she murmured.

She started to lift herself, only to be unceremoniously flipped over to find herself a face consisting of machinery and optics.

“Ha. So you are alive. Very good. If you had not been, I would have killed you for dying so easily.”

“Beri?” muttered Starlight. She put her right hoof to her head and winced at the pain as she sat up. Almost as soon as she did, she cried out in pain, but not form her head. She looked down at her left hoof to see her omnitool still partly open and flickering. Even through its dim light, she was able to see the still-smoking remnants of her armor around it, with the sparking and damaged control cables still linked to it.

“Out of the way!” shouted Zedok, pushing Beri out of her path. She knelt by Starlight and opened both her omnitool and a medical kit. “Damn it Star, what did you do?!”

“I can’t…I can’t move my leg,” said Starlight, beginning to panic.

Zedok looked her in the eyes. “Starlight. Look at me. Look at me!”

Starlight obeyed, looking into Zedok’s purple-colored cybernetic eyes.

“It’s going to be okay. I’m a doctor, remember?”

“A yahg doctor,” noted Beri.

“Shut it.” Zedok She clicked at her omitool and inserted a large needle into Starlight’s foreleg through an auxiliary armor port. Starlight groaned and winced; whatever she had been injected with stung horribly. “You interfaced your omnitool’s output directly to the ship’s power system, didn’t you?”

“What do you think?” said Starlight, sarcastically.

“I think you’re lucky your arm’s still attached. It’s not designed to handle that much power! The omnitool is burnt out, and you have a LOT of nerve damage. I’m administering medigel, and it will help a little…” She raised her omnitool to Starlight’s head. “Not to mention you gave yourself a concussion.” She pointed over her shoulder at Starlight’s chair, which was now several meters from Starlight. “I assume you were sitting there?”

“What happened to Sbaya?” said Starlight, looking around the darkened room. She felt a cold fear begin to creep through her when she realized just how damaged the ship was. The tech shields that she had projected at the last moment had kept the ship intact, but the impact still produced substantial damage. The entire bridge seemed crooked, and the front window was badly cracked but fortunately still in one piece. On impact, the kinetic energy running through the shields had overloaded numerous power systems; Starlight had not had time to reroute it, and the feedback had burst through several conduits were visible sparking or overtly simmering through the twisted, misaligned access panels of the walls.

“I’m here,” said Sbaya, standing up behind Zedok. She sounded and seemed quite normal, but a thick line of violet blood was dripping from one side of her head.

“She’s fine,” said Zedok, dismissively.

“I’m actually quite durable,” said Sbaya. “Yet another gift from my ancestors, I suppose.”

“But you’re bleeding!”

Sbaya appeared confused, and then touched the line of violet on her head. She pulled her fingers away, and upon seeing her blood she went pale and began to faint. She was caught by Jurneu’s magic as she descended.

“I don’t know if you’re brilliant or an absolute moron,” he said.

Starlight pointed to the broken, twisted metal on the other side of the nearly shattered window. “They certainly aren’t going to shoot at us now.”

“No,” said Beri. “But now we’re trapped on THEIR ship.”

“It’s better than being space dust,” said Zedok, changing the mode on her omnitool and using it to revive Sbaya.

Starlight raised her hoof and attempted to open the ship’s system. There was a surge of pain as her omnitool once again flickered and went out.

“What did I just tell you?!” said Zedok.

The realty of the situation began to set in, and a set of long-forgotten but all-too familiar emotions overtook Starlight. She realized that without her omnitool, she had no powers whatsoever. She felt the same as when she had lost her biotic abilities. At least then, though, Twilight had been there to reassure her. Now she was trapped on an enemy spacecraft with no magic, no tech abilities, and a biological inability to hold a weapon.

“I will grant Berry this, though,” said Zedok. “Star, this really doesn’t look good.”

“Well, if you have any suggestions…”

“I do.” Beri lifted a sword from her back. “We fight our way out.”

“But I don’t have any powers,” said Starlight. “I don’t know if I can.”

“And that’s why we’re here,” said Zedok, closing her omnitool and unholstering one of Lyra’s singularity rifles. She turned to her daughter. “Sbaya. You’re going to need a weapon.”

“W…weapon?”

“We do have three biotics and a weaponized cyborg,” said Jurneu.

“You’re not even a combat unit,” said Beri.

“No, but I am a Spectre. That said, I have no idea what is on the other side. But I do vow to protect you, Starlight Glimmer, as is my duty.”

“We’re not going to let anything happen,” said Zedok. “I mean, what are friends for?”

Exiting the ship was by no means easy, but it was possible. The ship on the other side, though, was hardly what Starlight was expecting. She had almost taken it as a given that her small group would be faced with overwhelming odds against a force that had gathered around the wound their starship had made in the larger vessel. Instead, she found the corridors absolutely empty. Even the lights had been deactivated, leaving the hallways lit only by the light of Jurneu’s horn and the light attached to Zedok’s gun.

“Okay,” said Zedok. “I’ve just got to say it. This is creepy as hell. Where is everybody?”

“I’d rather not encounter them, actually,” said Jurneu. “But…still. This is not right. A ship this size should have a crew at least.”

“There is,” said Sbaya, her voice sounding distant. She had a light attached to her rifle as well, but had apparently elected not to turn it on. Instead she stared into the darkness, her eyes flitting from object to object. “Or…there were. I can smell them.”

“Smell them? Like hell you can,” said Beri.

“Trust me,” said Sbaya. “I can. I was born to hunt, and I have harvested the Forest since I was old enough to walk.”

“What are you getting?” asked Starlight.

“I don’t know. Not animals. I think…people. Lots of different species and…”

“And what?” pressed Starlight.

“Blood,” said Sbaya, simply. “I smell blood.”

Starlight shivered. She, too, had realized something was more wrong than simply an abandoned ship. This was not a ghostly, empty vessel meant for a skeleton crew. It was apparent from the state and design of the hallways that they were meant for use- -and yet there was no one around to use them.

The silence of the ship was suddenly interrupted by the sound of automatic weapons firing. Up ahead, Starlight saw the characteristic surges of blue light from a mass-effect weapon, followed by screaming. Then hurried footsteps.

Beri and Jurneu stepped forward, preparing to defend with their respective weapons. Zedok moved close to Starlight, raising her own rifle and pointing it at the source of the noise. Almost as soon as she had, a bloodied asari in black armor came stumbling around the corner, looking over her shoulder in terror. Her armor had been cut in places, and she was limping severely.

“Stop there!” ordered Beri. The asari looked up and slowed to a rapid stop as her eyes widened with confusion. She opened her mouth to say something, but the small moment she had stopped in surprise gave whatever was chasing her a chance to catch up.

She screamed as it knocked her to the ground, and Starlight felt Zedok push her to the ground as the black-armored woman fired indescriminatly at her attacker. It grabbed the gun, though, and pushed it to one side. The asari releasted it and tried to reach for something on her wrist. Whatever had taken hold of her knocked her to the ground, though, and managed to get one thin hand around her neck. There was a sudden snap as it twisted her head around, and then the asari’s body fell to the ground twitching but otherwise limp.

It was at this point that the creature seemed to notice that it was not alone, and it froze, looking up at the group standing in front of it. In Zedok’s light, Starlight could see it clearly: a lanky, thin creature that stood on all fours despite its long rear legs. Its body was completely covered in armored clothing that seemed to have been crudely welded and stitched from whatever it could find. Much of it seemed to be coated in rusted metal, and the remainder was dirty- -or stained with a dripping violet fluid.

“What the hell is that thing?” demanded Beri.

Before any of them could answer, it slowly started walking toward them. It made no sound apart from that of its feet clicking on the hard metal floor. Starlight immediately felt her adrenaline race; as a pony, she had a deep instinctual sense of when she was being stalked by a predator.

Then, suddenly, it lunged. Jurneu and Beri acted in sync, with the unicorn falling back to project a defensive biotic shield while Beri took one long step forward and slid her dark-colored sword toward the creature. It was almost impossibly fast, and it dodged the first stroke. Beri was faster, though, and her second move slid through it, slicing its body in half.

As it died, Starlight heard a scream. For a moment, she thought that it had come from the creature- -only to realize that the sound had in fact come from behind her. She turned sharply to see another creature leaping out of the shadows toward Sbaya. Sbaya raised her rifle and fired. There was a sudden surge of energy as a blue-orange sphere of energy shot from the end and struck the second creature directly in the chest.

The effect was drastic. The singularity cut through its crude metal armor and flesh, leaving a gaping hole. The creature’s right side immediately began to slump from the nerve damage, but even though Starlight could literally see out the back of it, it did not fall. In fact, it only paused for a moment, and then, ignoring the damage, leapt onto Sbaya.

“Don’t let it bite you!” shouted Zedok, rushing toward the creature and striking it directly in the head with a powerful biotic punch. The force was great enough to knock the creature back, and Zedok raised her own weapon, this time aiming directly for the upper center of its chest. Another singularity cut through the creature, severing its mediastinum and spine. It lurched forward, now dead, but still took two steps before it fell.

Sbaya saw it go down, and then immediately collapsed to her knees, shaking.

“Damn it damn it DAMN IT!” said Zedok, kicking the corpse.

“Zedok!” cried Starlight, surprised by her friend’s sudden violent outburst. “What’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong, Star! Don’t tell me you don’t recognize these things!”

Starlight looked down at the creature and its pooling red blood. A thought occurred to her.

“No,” she said. “They aren’t…”

Zedok turned away from the creature she had just killed and approached the torso of the one that had been serving as a distraction which Beri had cut in half.

“I would advise against touching it,” said Jurneu.

Zedok ignored him. She reached down and pulled off its mask. Almost as soon as she did, its arm reached up and wrapped her own in a tight grip. The creature, though cut in half, gasped and attempted to sit up, its blue eyes condensing to vertical slits as it tried to breathe through its broken lungs. All it managed to do was to vomit blood, though, before it collapsed back to the ground, its overly large eyes still open and staring even as its pupils began to dilate.

The pale, dirty skin, blue eyes, and deep black hair confirmed what Starlight had feared. “Wendigoes,” she said. “These are wendigoes.”

Both Beri and Jurneu turned to her.

“That’s impossible,” said Jurneu. “They’re extinct. They died with Earth.”

“Apparently not,” said Beri, almost sarcastically. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen them off- world, but…”

“But what?” said Starlight.

“The last time was centuries ago. They didn’t have armor then.”

“I can’t- -I can’t do this!” cried Sbaya suddenly in a high voice. “I can’t! I just can’t!”

Starlight turned to the girl, who was holding her head in both hands and rocking. “Sbaya,” said Starlight, putting her hoof on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Okay? Okay?! Did you- -did you see what I just did?! I put a hole in that man’s chest, I…I just killed him! Killed him like he was an animal!”

“Don’t concern yourself with it,” said Starlight.

“How- -how can you say that?!”

“Because they aren’t any different from animals,” said Beri. “These things? They’re what humans evolved into. The epitome of Earth’s evolution. Did you notice how they didn’t once make a sound? They can’t talk. They can’t think. These things aren’t people. They aren’t even sentient.”

“Perhaps they evolved past the need for thought,” mused Jurneu, sounding more interested than frightened.

“Sbaya,” said Starlight, calmly. “It’s okay. You said you’re a hunter, right?”

“I…I am. It’s how- -it’s how the yahg evolved. It’s how I evolved.”

“Then hunt.”

Sbaya stopped rocking and turned to Starlight. Although her eyes were filled with tears, the nodded after moment and Starlight could tell that she understood.

“Aim for the head and neck,” said Beri. “And watch out behind you. Just because they aren’t sentient doesn’t mean they aren’t smart as hell.”

“And the bite,” repeated Zedok. “I got bit once. I almost died.”

“Probably the only man you could get to bite you,” said Beri. “But yeah. I was there for that part.”

“I will change my engagement procedure,” said Jurneu. “It is critical that we protect the High Priestess.”

Starlight glared at him. She knew it was not his fault, and that what he was saying was entirely logical- -but she resented having to be the one who needed to be protected. It only reminded her of how strong she had once been, and how there was no way she could go back to that state.

The situation had become increasingly dire by the time the ship’s commander joined the battle. The vanguard of the enemy creatures had disabled the ship’s core defensive systems, making it almost impossible to stop more creatures from boarding. The ship shuddered and shook as some of the ship attempted to drag it into the nebula, but from what the commander understood they had not yet managed to breach and disable the central quant architecture. The ship was still alive, and still fighting.

The crew, though, was failing. The Paradigm demanded that the commander question their faith and devotion to the Goddess, but the few parts of his mind that remained from his decades as a turian military commander understood that it was hardly their fault. They had not been prepared for this; they had been preparing to surround and engage the survivors of the ship imbedded in the hull, and they had not equipped themselves for a night-battle against a bizarre horde of aliens.

And yet the crew fought on. As the commander watched, the creatures swarmed forward from the shadows with seemingly no regard for their own survival. Initially, he had wondered why his soldiers had not been able to stop them. Each and every one of them had been trained by the Paradigm, and they knew how to fight. What the commander realized, though, was that these creatures were far from sane.

The creatures had no shields, and their armor was almost useless against bullets or blades, but they seemed to completely ignore injuries that would have at the very least incapacitated any normal sentient creature. The commander saw a young drell woman open fire on one member of the advancing horde. Bullets tore through its body, but it did not slow until one of them penetrated its head. It lurched back, taking several steps. The drell woman turned her weapon toward another target, and the first then suddenly jumped on her, still functioning with massive brain trauma. It tore into the woman, dragging her down. More came and pulled her screaming into the shadows.

One of the others then picked up her weapon, stood awkwardly on its thin hind legs, and began to open fire at the group, covering others that tore into the front lines. Most of the soldiers were forced to fall back, save for the converted Governors. They were the only units that seemed to be resistant to the creature’s attack. Their bodies were already extremely durable and strong, and the particle weapons they wielded could not be used by the creatures that picked them up.

Except that, strangely, the creatures did not even try. Whenever one would manage to take a particle weapon, it would immediately retreat, carrying it off quickly in the same way that they took the wounded or their own dead.

Ignoring the chaos around him, the commander stepped forward.

“MOVE,” he ordered, shoving the front line out of his way. He set his sights on the nearest of the creatures and lifted his hand. It flashed violet as he summoned the Goddess’s power, and an ultra-dense singularity formed in his palm. He projected it toward the creature, and it landed directly on target.

Except that the creature did not fall. A biotic blast of that level of power should have shattered virtually any living creature and then lifted those surrounding it into a toxic mass-effect field. Instead, the creature absorbed the full force. It took a step back, absorbing the biotic energy.

It shuddered, and then suddenly screamed. It’s body ignited with violet energy, and then the space around it distorted as it unleashed a massive shockwave in all directions. The commander was able to jump back, relying on his biotic barrier to protect himself. Some of his soldiers were not so lucky, though. Their legs shattered from the blast, and several Governors staggered, leaving them open to be swarmed by creatures.

The force of the blast was so intense that it actually distorted the internal structure of the ship, rupturing conduits and unseating part of the hull. There was a rush of air as the corridor underwent an explosive decompression, and one of the commander’s pony soldiers was sucked into the fissure, momentarily plugging it before his flesh was ripped away from the pressure.

The shockwave impacted a number of creatures near the first. They responded similarly to the first and absorbed the biotic energy. Instead of releasing it, though, their bodies charged with blue light as they suddenly became far more resistant to damage.

Several of them, seeming to realize that the commander was a threat, leapt onto him. He stepped back but quickly compensated, increasing the entropy and non-repeating resonance patterns of his biotics. He reached out and punched the nearest of them, and judging by how its body splattered, he determined that he had compensated more than adequately for their resistance to biotic attacks.

They were fast, though, and strong, surprisingly so. One of them curled around his body, and he suddenly felt its teeth sink into some of the exposed skin near his neck. He reacted immediately by projecting a biotic blast through the creature, instantly killing it- -but its jaw had already locked, and even though it was dead it did not release him.

He tried to ignore the pain, but quickly realized that something was wrong. The sharp burning was followed by a tingling sensation, and then a numbness as his right arm became weak and began to slump.

“Commander,” said the voice of the ship’s quant through his comlink, “Your telemetry is reporting the presence of and unknown neurotoxin in your blood.”

“I know,” said the commander, opening his omnitool and administering medigel through his support shell. The pain lessened, but the numbness only increased.

Another pair of creatures leapt onto him, with one managing to bite through the thinner armor near his upper left leg. He dispatched that one quickly, but found that his biotic ability in his right arm had decreased. That gave the other a chance to tear off part of the containment unit on his suit and escape with it.

The effect of its removal was much more severe than the creatures’ venom. He almost immediately began to feel the effects of his power rising beyond the biological capacity for his body to withstand it.

“Commander,” said the quant again, relaying some information that the commander did not bother to listen to. He focused all he had on his ability to contain his power, and by sheer will managed to keep it controlled. He then directed his energy at the horde, and slaughtered each and every one of them with a single blow of violet energy. The effect came too late, though, as almost all of his soldiers were dead- -and those that had survived were sacrificed to the Goddess in the blast.

The wendigoes were relentless, but they were not unstoppable. Beri virtually plowed through them, cleaving through their armor as though it were paper. Some of them leapt at her, attacking wildly and biting, but they could do nothing to her mechanical body. She simply ignored them or crushed them to death as needed.

While Beri took pointe, Jurneu remained behind, acting producing a biotic shield as necessary or immobilizing enemies in his magic for Sbaya and Zedok to eliminate. Zedok was, as expected, reasonably proficient at killing them, but her long preference for shotguns left her extremely inaccurate with a rifle. Sbaya, meanwhile, was almost terrifyingly accurate. She remained expressionless, moving in the back of the group and shooting past the others in rapid succession. Wherever she fired, a wendigo fell, their heads severed from their spines by a small singularity explosion.

“This is getting monotonous!” growled Beri, slicing through a wendigo and turning her head just barely in time to dodge a singularity projectile that struck one on the verge of attack. “HEY!” she cried. “Watch it! This body is expensive!” She reached into her belt and drew a Zetan pistol, firing into a nearby wendigo. A relatively slow-moving bolt of light shot out and seemed to pass through the wendigo completely, leaving nothing behind but a charred skeleton. “Do you have any idea how long it is going to take to get all this blood out of my bodywork?!”

“I’m more worried about them trying to get my blood out of ME!” squeaked Sbaya.

“Do we even have a plan, Star?” said Zedok.

“I’m pretty sure this ship uses a quant,” said Starlight, who was desperately trying to get her omnitool back into operation despite the futility of trying to restore the clearly unsalvageable piece of equipment. “We need to get to it. I can reprogram it to mass-jump to Equestria Prime!”

“Without a working omnitool?” asked Jurneu, freezing a wendigo for long enough for Zedok to remove its head with a well-placed shot.

“I’ll manage!”

The ship was suddenly rocked form the side, and Starlight was knocked over. The atmosphere immediately became thinner, and Starlight began to breathe more quickly.

“We’re losing pressure!” said Jurneu. “This ship’s getting torn apart!”

“Incoming!” yelled Beri from the front. Starlight, now slightly dizzy and weak from the sudden lack of oxygen, stood up to see a horde charging her from the front.

“No, from behind!” said Sbaya, turning and firing into several wendigoes who had flanked them. Starlight looked over her shoulder to see their reflective eyes as they charged forward.

“Hold on!” Jurneu charged his horn even more brightly than it had been before, and directed it upward. The air around them took on a pinkish pigment and a dome-like bubble formed around the four of them, leaving Beri outside.

Several of the wendigoes, upon seeing the shield, immediately stopped and backed away. One, though, rushed it, slamming into it. The distortion in space immediately manifested as sparks over her armor, and the metal began to dissolve, reaved apart by Jurneu’s biotic force. The wendigo seemed to ignore it, and somehow managed to reach one arm through the field with minimal damage.

“No you don’t!” cried Zedok, spinning sharply and grabbing the wendigo’s outstretched hand. Instead of pushing her back out, she instead pulled her inward. The wendigo’s eyes widened and she squeaked and chirped loudly as she was forced through the shield faster than her body could handle. The result was incredibly messy.

“Tyros!” called Jurneu, “get under the shield!”

“Not going to happen! I can’t shoot through it!”

Beri fired several more Zetan energy spheres into the darkness, and each one vaporized at least one wendigo. One of the spheres, though, exploded on contact with something pink-violet in the darkness.

Through the distortion of Jurneu’s shield, Starlight could see what appeared to be a turian approaching through the horde. He was limping badly, and one of his arms hung limply at his side. Parts of his flesh were beginning to pull away from his body, both from a rapidly spreading infection on his neck and from the powerful corona of violet light that surrounded him.

As he moved, the wendigoes tried to move aside, but many could not in time. His mere proximity seemed to be fatal to them, with their bodies bursting apart as he passed them.

“Finally, something interesting,” said Beri, raising her pistol and firing. The turian raised his hand and simply slapped aside the slow-moving projectile. Then, without making a single motion, he produced a biotic surge so powerful that the condensed sphere of energy was able to knock Beri to her knees.

“The Goddess,” he said, lurching forward. “I live…for her…for Thebe…”

Several wendigoes leapt onto him. Some of their bodies began to decay, but at least two seemed to begin absorbing his energy, feeding on it. It was already apparent that he was in the process of dying, and he dropped to his knees. He then looked up, ignoring the venomous teeth of the wendigoes digging into his decaying body. His eyes and Starlight’s met.

“I…I remember,” he said, raising his hand. “I remember you…because the Paradigm remembers you. She must rise…I die so that she may live…”

Without any further warning, he fired a singularity directly into Jurneu’s biotic shield. It crumpled immediately under the force, producing a small explosion. Starlight heard Jurneu cry out, but was herself knocked to the ground with tremendous force. A second explosion- -this one of pure light- -erupted in front of her eyes as her head slammed into the hard surface below. She felt the biotic feedback rushing through her, sending her into seizures, and the combination of the two forces resulted in her losing consciousness. While the world grayed and faded around her, the only thing she found herself able to feel was the sensation of many hands surrounding her and quickly dragging her off into the unlit darkness of the ship.

Author's Note

My design for a lot of these enemies is informed by types of enemies that I think would work well in Mass Effect the game. That is true for the Thebe zealots as well as the amplifier-wendigoes.