Scootaloo slumped over the table in front of her, putting her forehead against the polymer varnished surface. People were mulling around her; some were sitting at the restaurant’s other tables, while others were walking around, talking, laughing, oblivious to the pony sitting amongst them. It felt strange, because unlike the often sinister people of Omega, these individuals were happy and peaceful. Scootaloo found herself wishing she could be like them.

Instead, she felt sick. The noise of the people and the dusty atmosphere only made the deep, crushing sensation in the pit of her stomach worse. The headaches had partially lessened, but the memories had not left her. If anything, they kept playing. Always the same, and always on repeat. The gun. Twilight, and her sharp teeth. Trixie dying. The knowledge that Scootaloo had been the one to pull the trigger. Every time these images flashed through Scootaloo’s mind, she felt so much worse.

Six approached the table, levitating a pair of glasses in her magic. She lifted herself into one of the chairs. It was clearly not optimized for a pony, but she was large enough that she fit reasonably well. She passed the larger glass to Scootaloo.

“Here,” she said. “You probably need this.”

“What?” said Scootaloo, somewhat dazed. “Oh.” She pulled the glass closer to her and Six lowered a straw into it. Scootaloo took a long sip and then almost jumped out of her seat. It took everything she had not to vomit.

“Oh hell!” she cried. “Six, what is that?!”

“A 14% ryncol solution. Honestly, you look like you could use something much stronger, but over 14% would probably kill you.”

“THAT’S ryncol?! Ugh, I’ve never had anything…whoa…” she felt her head already swimming. Her stomach felt as though she had just eaten a surprising amount of ground glass. “What the hell…” She shook her head vigorously. “My sister used to drink that stuff straight. Two bottles a day.”

“Straight?” said Six, her eyes widening. “Are you sure? They don’t even serve rycol over 70% here. Because it combusts on exposure to oxygen. Two bottles straight…that must have been terrible on her liver…”

“She died of cirrhosis.”

“Oh- -oh, I’m sorry,” said Six. “I didn’t know!”

“The trouble with being a chronic alcoholic,” she said, taking another sip and wincing as she swallowed the salty, acrid fluid. She looked up, her vision shifting slightly, and she saw Seven swooping in from above and Inte’s mobile platform approached from the same direction. Seven took her place next to Six, and Inte sat down on Scootaloo’s right. Both were holding their own drinks.

“Please tell me you’re not having ryncol too,” said Scootaloo, watching as Six sipped at her glass.

“What? Oh, no. Appearances to the contrary, I am not that manly. Cognac for me.” She looked in Seven’s glass. “And that would be kvass. Eew.”

“And I have the lactic solution of a turian!” said Inte, excitedly. “Because I am thinking of miwkies!” She lifted the glass to her mouth and took a long sip. Being a hologram, though, the fluid almost immediately spilled through her body and onto the floor. She looked down at it, appearing somewhat disappointed.

“It’s not actually from turians,” said Six. “You know that, right?”

Inte’s face scrunched. “Of course I am aware of that fact.”

“Six,” said Scootaloo, looking around at the people that surrounded her. They were all happy and smiling, but the crowd was large. She could not possibly see everyone in it. “Are you sure we’re safe here?”

“Safe? Yes, of course,” said Six. “This is Feros. Widely considered one of the greenest places in the galaxy.”

“I can see why,” remarked Scootaloo as a green asari passed by.

“The locals here are known for their peacefulness and hospitality,” continued Six. Seven turned her head slightly, and Six seemed to respond. “Yes, and for their freakish tendency to behave in unison. They do not take kindly to bounty hunters, or to violence at all. If anyone even tried to look for you here, there is no chance they would dare to attack.”

“Why do they function in unison?” asked Inte.

Six leaned forward. “They say there was once a thorian here. And that pieces of it are still alive, down below, in the ruins. I don’t know if I’d believe that, though.”

“I’ve met thorians,” said Scootaloo.

“W- -what?”

“There’s a large number of them in the Crystal Empire. Out on distant planets. There’s even a smaller one on the Imperium, it functions like an embassy. They tend to be…finicky. Very isolationist.”

“Holy crap,” said Six, taking a larger sip of cognac.

Scootaloo looked at her ryncol, and was about to take a sip when her eyes shifted to Inte. She was smiling and cheerful as ever, even after her “body”- -as in the ship that she operated- -had taken massive damage and was still under repair. Something even greater was disturbing Scootaloo, though.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” she said.

“We almost died is what happened,” said Six. “Only by a miracle did we survive.”

“I don’t believe in miracles. You saw them, didn’t you? Those ships?”

Six averted her eyes. “No,” she said. “I don’t recognize them. Neither does Seven.”

Scootaloo turned to Inte. “But you do, don’t you?”

“I am afraid I do not understand the question,” said Inte, acting confused. She tilted her head slightly to the side. “To which ships are you referring to?”

“The ones you called!”

Inte blinked. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I do not understand to what you are referring to.”

“The distress signal!”

Six leaned forward. “After the harmonic shield failed, you issued a fifth-dimensional quantum entanglement signal. You linked to another quant.”
“No, I did not,” said Inte. ‘
“Why are you lying to me, Inte?”

Inte looked hurt. “I am not lying. I have no recollection of the events you are describing. When my harmonic shield was destroyed, the feedback into my consciousness caused [redacted].”

Scootaloo blinked. “ What does ‘redacted’ mean?”

Inte paused. “I don’t know. As I said, I have no memory between the time when the shield collapsed and when my IFF emulation software activated to use the mass-relay system. I am sorry, but I was offline during that period. I am afraid you are mistaken.”

“Well that’s just bucking great,” said Scootaloo. She sat up suddenly and slammed her hooves on the table, nearly spilling her ryncol. “Because one of you is lying to me. Or all of you are! And I thought you were my friends. How the hell am I supposed to trust you if you can’t trust me?”

Six and Seven looked at each other, and then Six sighed. “The quant is not lying,” she said. “Her VI does not have full access to the content of all her programs. To her, the events we saw really didn’t happen. Her software redacted it from her memory.”

“I find that unlikely,” said Inte, “if not impossible.”

“She’s programmed to hide it,” said Six. “In fact, there’s a strong possibility that she knows but is simply programmed to pretend not to know. She’s not actually a pony; there would be no way for us to tell the difference between her not knowing and lying. Functionally, the two are the same.” She paused. “But…I’m afraid I really did lie.”

Scootaloo glared at her. “Six? What do you mean you lied?”

“Look,” she said, recoiling from Scootaloo’s disapproving gaze. “You need to understand. When I said you were our friend, I was not lying. And I would have helped you pro bono, if it had come down to it.”

“Six…?”

She shifted in her seat. “But this isn’t pro bono. We’re getting paid. A substantial amount. More than we ever have, really.”

“Six…” Scootaloo was not sure how she felt. She was angry, but not to the point where she actually felt a need to hit or turn away from Six. That would have made it easy. Instead, she felt betrayed. Instead of walking away, she just sighed. “How could you?”

“I- -you have to understand, Scootaloo, I was getting paid to do something I would have gladly done anyway!”

“Who is paying you?” asked Scootaloo. “WHO?”

Six looked Scootaloo in the eye. “I don’t know. Neither of us do. They never told us, and for this price, we didn’t ask. I didn’t even see their faces. They only contacted us a few hours before you showed up at our doorstep.”

“And what did they pay you to do?” Scootaloo leaned forward. “Six…Seven…did they pay you to kill me?”

“NO!” shouted Six, loud enough draw the attention from several greenish looking aliens. Six noticed this, and sat back down, blushing. “No, Scootaloo! I could never do that! Not to you! I would die before I let them take you again!” She took a breath and tried to calm herself. “No. Their only request was that we keep you safe, until.”

“Until what?”

“Until the Goddess Rises,” said Inte, taking a sip of her milk.

“What?” said Scootaloo, turning sharply.

Inte appeared confused. “I do not know. I do not understand. My data on the subject is limited or restricted. Need input.”

Scootaloo looked back to the pair of alicorns. She still felt betrayed, but only because they had not told her earlier. “You should have said something.”

“We didn’t think it was necessary. Not yet.”

“Well, it was. You thought wrong.” Scootaloo sighed and put her head on her hoof. “Fine. And do you think those black ships had something to do with it?”

“What I think is that someone is pulling strings,” said Six. “And the more I see the strings, the more concerned I grow. I don’t like this.”

Seven nodded in agreement.

“Neither do I,” said Scootaloo, taking another long sip of ryncol. “Celestia damn it…why does NOTHING MAKE SENSE?!”

“I just ignore it,” said Inte. “It’s easier that way.”

“I have some contacts,” said Six. “I can try to find someth- -”

“That’s not it,” said Scootaloo, putting her hoof on her suddenly aching head. “Not just the ships, not just me. I hate being a pawn. HATE it. But I’m still missing something. This…this is just too much.” She looked up at Six. “Starlight just tried to kill me. Starlight. Starlight Glimmer! We were Priestesses of Harmony! She was one of my best friends! She was a frigging bridesmaid at my wedding!” That thought made Scootaloo’s breath suddenly catch as the image of that day passed through her mind. The bright light of the Equestrian sun, the crowds, the flowers, her sister and an all-white Pegasus beside her- -and Trixie dressed all in white. The pain of that memory was too much to bear. “And what she said…”

“It wasn’t true!” said Six. “Scootaloo, I may not know your life history, but I do know enough concerning you to know that you would NEVER hurt a pony that you love!”

“But I DID. I remember it! I- -I shot her. With something. Some kind of gun, one I don’t recognize. She…she died.”

Six looked dumbfounded. “But…but why?”

“I don’t remember!” shouted Scootaloo, tears welling in her eyes. “It hurts, it hurts so much- -but I JUST DON’T KNOW!”

Six leaned back off of her chair and got up. She walked around the table and sat down next to Scootaloo, then put one of her forelegs around Scootaloo’s much smaller body. Scootaloo resisted at first, but Six held tightly.

“Listen to me,” she said, “your memories are still damaged. But it’s going to be okay. You shot her. Okay. So what?”

“So what?! I shot my wife- -”

“But you don’t know under what circumstances! Maybe you were justified! It’s impossible to know without the rest of the memory! Besides…” She paused. “This is going to sound callous. But if I need to be the callous one, so be it. Scootaloo, she’s been dead for centuries. What has it been? Two hundred fifty years? Two hundred and sixty? She would be dead by now anyway.”

Scootaloo looked up at Six, and then pushed her away. “If you think that makes me feel any better, you don’t know me at all.”

Six looked hurt, but accepted Scootaloo’s rejection. She slid away from Scootaloo and to Seven’s side. “Regardless,” she said, opening her omnitool and checking it, “we are going to do our job. And I am going to keep my word to you. We are going to protect you.”

“Really? Because you’re doing a stellar job of it so far.” She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But what are you supposed to do? Two alicorns and one…robot thing.”

“Quant thing,” corrected Inte. “I am a quant thing.”

“You won’t just have two alicorns,” said Six, pointing to her omnitool. “How many alicorns are alive today? Nine? Well, we now have just under half of them.”

Six shifted and gestured over her shoulder. Scootaloo leaned and, just as Six had said, saw two more ponies approaching. Both were violet alicorns, and both looked almost identical to Twilight- -but at the same time were as different from each other as Six was from Seven.

One of them was tall and fit, her hair cropped into a short military haircut and her expression serious. She wore a suit of freshly painted heavy armor that covered most of her body, making her size seem even more imposing. She was at least as tall as Seven, but not as wide as Six.

Beside her was a pony of ordinary height that gave the impression of being her exact opposite. Although they shared the same face, the smaller pony looked mischievous and joyful. She was wearing a version of fine civilian clothing- -something of a semi-dress with attached sleeves and gloves- -and had her hair cut in such a way that a pair of long bangs framed her face.

“Nine? Eight?” said Scootaloo.

“Who else would we be?” said the taller of the two, Nine, as she reached the table. She looked Scootaloo over and smiled. “You know, I almost thought Six had finally gone senile when she said you were actually still alive. I really dig the hair, too. You look good butch.”

“And what the hell,” said Scootaloo, momentarily forgetting why she had been so sad and angry, although she was still highly conscious of the tear stains running down her face. “You got so big!”

“Roids will do that to you,” said Eight.

Nine glared at her and then, not to anyone’s surprise, took a swing at her. There was a pop and a flash of pink-violet light, and Eight disappeared before Nine’s armored hoof could strike her.

“Too slow,” she said, now sitting across the table where Six had been sitting before.

“One of these days,” said Nine. “I’m going to strangle you.”

“Oh please, you don’t even have fingers. Besides, you know I’m into that kind of thing.”

“So?”

“So, I’m coming up on an estrus cycle. How about you strip me down and lay me across the hood of the SR2 and ‘choke’ me all night long?”

“Scootaloo could join you!” said Inte. “You could choke the chicken!”

“No!” said Six, perhaps too vehemently. “No, I mean, we don’t have time for incest right now.”

“There’s always time for incest,” said Eight. She nudged Seven with her elbow. “Huh? Huh? Do you come here often, cutie?”

Seven just looked at her, and Eight backed off. “Still doing the whole ‘strong silent type’, I see.” She shrugged. “Well, I guess it works. You should really own the whole derp thing though. How about a round of drinks? On me.”

There was a flash of light and several glasses appeared on the table, teleported into their location by Eight’s magic. Nine looked at hers and for the first time seemed somewhat pleased. She sat down at the table and lifted it in her magic and took a sip. “Ah,” she said. “Pure grain alcohol and distilled water.”

“I know how much you like to protect those precious bodily fluids.”

“That damn fluoride,” muttered Nine under her breath.

“There is no scientific evidence that fluoride is toxic! Besides, it helps your teeth!”

“Yeah!” said Eight. “Look at Seven!”

“Science can kiss my sexy horse plot,” said Nine, downing her alcohol. She directed her attention at Scootaloo. “It’s good to see you, though, Scoots.”

“Indeed,” said Eight. “You look good for your age.”

“I’m only thirteen years older than you.”

“You are?” said Six. “You are…I forget that sometimes.”

“It’s because she’s so small,” said Inte, matter-of-factly.

“I was frozen,” said Scootaloo.

“Really? I hope they rotated you a bit. Or else you’d get super freezerburnt.”

“The freezerburn was quite extensive,” said Inte, nodding knowingly.

“Who the hell froze you?” demanded Nine, seeming offended by the very idea. “Why the hell would someone try to do that?”

“I don’t…I don’t…” Scootaloo’s stomach suddenly gurgled, and her vision began to swam as her whole body suddenly felt absolutely terrible. “Oh crap,” she said, standing up. “I think I’m going to puke.”

“I strongly recommend against that,” said Six. “If you think ryncol is bad going down, it is two hundred times worse on the way up!”

“You gave her ryncol?” said Nine. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Nine jabbed Six hard in the shoulder.

They began to argue, but Scootaloo hardly heard them. She weaved her way through the crowd, stumbling toward the restrooms of the large outdoor restaurant and bar. The dizziness and sickness only increased, and the noise of four Twilight clones and a hologram pony did not make things easier when her mind was already weighed down by her situation. Really, she had just wanted to sleep. Now, though, she wanted to retch, badly.

Six had been more right than Scootaloo had ever imagined was possible. Drinking ryncol had been like trying to swallow red-hot iron filings, but sending it back up made Scootaloo feel as though her organs were at risk of being expelled- -which, with the amount of blood that ended up in the toilet that she was desperately hugging, did not seem all that inconceivable.

During the process, Scootaloo found herself reminded of all the times during her fillyhood that she had seen Rainbow Dash doing the exact same thing. It usually happened late at night when Rainbow did not think anyone could see her, usually after trying and failing to drink herself into unconsciousness. Sometimes, on the really bad nights- -usually when the Wonderbolts were in the area- -Scootaloo would hear her sobbing softly and cursing her largely nonfunctional transplanted wing.

These memories in combination with the agony of vomiting krogan alcohol made Scootaloo realize that this was not the right thing to do. She had seen Rainbow Dash destroy herself; even in her hazy, disjointed later memories, she recalled that Rainbow Dash had been trying and badly failing at becoming sober, relapsing time and time again. Scootaloo knew that this was not a way she could actually deal with her problems. She could hide them, but she needed to eventually face them, head on. In her case, it was especially important. No one hid from the Cult forever. Resorting to alcoholism was a death sentence.

This realization terrified her. The problem, she found, was that she did not know what to do. She had no idea in the slightest. Originally, she had thought that she could convince Twilight that there had been a mistake- -but now she knew that there never had been a mistake at all. Scootaloo had betrayed and murdered Trixie. She was still not sure why, but she understood why she was hunted and why she deserved to die. Despite understanding this, though, she did not want to go down easily, and found herself wracking her brain for another solution. Try as she might, though, none came.

After nearly half an hour, Scootaloo finally believed that she was done. She released her toilet and, shaking, stood. She felt less ill, but now she felt feverish and dizzy from the blood loss. Whatever was in ryncol, it appeared to be mildly toxic to her.

Bracing herself, though, she forced herself to stand straight and maintain balance. That was another thing that she had learned from watching Rainbow Dash: the ability to hide pain and sickness very, very well.

She waited for a moment, and then left the stall. She found that the restroom was empty, save for one individual standing near the mirrors: a biped dressed entirely in silvery, excessively bulky armor. From the look of her, Scootaloo assumed that she was a quarian, although with the armor it was challenging to tell.

Scootaloo walked up to a sink and stood on her hind legs. Even then, she was only able to just barely reach the bowl, let alone the mirror. The armored biped looked down at her with a pair of disintesrted, luminescent eyes that were visible through her cloudy mask. As she did, Scootaloo saw what the biped had been doing: it was holding an enormous syringe filled with muddy brown fluid and injecting the fluid into a port on its neck.

“Tu as un air terrible,” she said with a heavily distorted voice. She pulled the syringe out of her neck. Scootaloo grimaced when she saw that the needle was at least four inches long.

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, not understanding whatever alien language she was speaking. “Thanks.”

“Vous mourrez probablement bientôt. Je vais te manger quand tu le feras. J'aime le poulet.”

“I don’t speak quarian,” said Scootaloo. “I’m sorry.”

The woman mumbled something and then threw the empty syringe into the string. She left, and Scootaloo tried to reach the mirror for a bit longer, but found that it was simply too high. Eventually she gave up and left as well.

When Scootaloo stepped out into the sunlight, she winced from the brightness and immediately began trying look for her table. As she did, though, she heard a voice from behind her.

“Scootaloo of Equestria?”

Scootaloo turned around and looked up to see a pale asari standing behind her. The asari was dressed in unusual red and black armor with a long slit down the front, a thick golden choker, and a strange red-colored tiara-like feature affixed to her forehead. Their eyes met, and for a moment the world seemed to freeze. Then Scootaloo saw the asari’s hand slide up to the handle of the sword on her back.

The world seemed to continue to move in slow motion, and Scootaloo felt herself begin to move out of pure instinct. The asari was amazingly fast, but even with her extensive frost-damage, Scootaloo was both physically fit and physically small. She pushed herself back, her tiny wings whirring as if they could help her, and turned as she moved.

The sword came down, and Scootaloo was knocked back. She twisted in the air and landed on her feet out of her striking range. To her absolute astonishment, though, she suddenly fell to one side. Her mind simply could not register why she was suddenly unable to stand- -or why her front left leg was lying on the ground two meters from the rest of her.

The asari moved with beautiful swiftness. The blue corona around her sword trailed through the air as she shifted her weight and in a single motion closed the distance between Scootaloo and shifted her hold on the sword to strike a final blow.

Instead, though, she suddenly turned, holding the sword flat and bracing it with her free hand barely in time to deflect an immense violet singularity. The explosion of the biotic energy in her sword reacting with the attack was deafening, and people in the area immediately started screaming and trying to escape.

Scootaloo, still lying on the ground, saw the asari knocked backward by a blinding tech flare. She heard weapons firing, and rolled over, facing the sky and trying to sit up. Something was wrong though. Her body would not respond to her thoughts. Her mind wondered why, and cursed the fact that she had landed in a puddle. A puddle that seemed to be growing rapidly.

In her peripheral vision, Scootaloo saw Seven charge the asari, leaping at her with a horribly indecipherable scream of rage. Somewhere else a magical beam cut through the air, slicing a deep gouge in the nearby building.

There was a surge of pink light near Scootaloo, and Eight suddenly dropped to the ground near her. Scootaloo saw the panic on the alicorns’ face as she looked down at Scootaloo.

“Oh fuck,” she said, teleporting in a boxed medical kit and opening her omnitool. “Oh fuck oh fuck OH FUCK…”

“Eight,” said Scootaloo, feeling her body starting to spasm and shake. “I feel…cold. Why do I feel cold?”

“It’s definitely not because your dying. You’re not dying! Hold on damn it!”

She began working frantically. Scootaloo did not know what she was doing, but her mind was starting to realize that something was horribly wrong. Not just with the situation- -but that she was even more badly injured than Eight was aware.

Scootaloo’s eyes tilted up, and she saw the asari, her body ignited completely with blue light, sending out a barrage of biotic projectiles. Nine, in the distance, barely managed to get to cover in time, although she continued firing with the several rifles that she was levitating around her person. With one fluid motion, the asari suddenly pivoted, and the biotic spheres that had not yet struck Nine’s cover changed direction, arcing into Seven and breaking apart her shields and the several combat drones following her. All in the same motion, the asari raised her hand at Scootaloo, and another blast of energy shot out.

Before the bolts could strike, a pink-violet dome erupted over her and Eight. Scootaloo looked up to see a much larger alicorn standing beside Eight.

“What’s the situation, Eight?” demanded Six.

“It’s bad, it’s goddamn bad!” said Eight, on the verge of panic. “It’s a clean amputation with a biotic reave effect- -I can stop the bleeding but I can’t stop it from spreading! We have to get her back to your ship!”

The asari drew her sword and shifted it in her palms to point it downward. She slammed it directly into Six’s barrier, and the Six grimaced as her horn was forced to glow much brighter to compensate. The asari’s power seemed almost godlike, though, because rather than be repelled by by Six’s alicorn magic, she braced herself and with a cry drove the sword deeper. The dome distorted as the point of the blade began to cut through, and Six was forced to her knees.

“Teleport her out!” cried Six. “I can’t hold this for long!”

“But- -you, and the others! I can’t leave you!”

“That doesn’t matter! Get her to safety!”

Eight looked like she was about to cry, but nodded and charged her horn. Scootaloo felt her body spark with energy, but then screamed in agony as the entire right side of her body burst open with blue flame. She smelled something burning.

“Oh crap oh crap oh crap- -no! Sorry, I’m sorry!” She turned to her sister. “I can’t move her! The reave effect is too strong!” cried Eight, shifting the position of her omnitool. “Hold on, I have an idea! We need cover! I knew I was saving these for something epic…”

She poked at her omnitool with her bloodied free hoof and her magic, and her horn charged with magic the same color as Six’s. Scootaloo, who was now nearly unconscious, saw three massive flashes of light outside of Six’s barrier. Three enormous white objects appeared, and immediately began unfolding into gigantic bipedal machines.

“System initializing,” they said in identical deep, robotic voices one after the other. The first one to unfold turned to the asari. “YMIR model 37-G: engaging enemy.”

A barrage of bullets spewed forth from the first mech, followed by the second and third. The asari was forced to jump to the side, only to be side-kicked hard by Seven in the face.

Scootaloo, now doubled over in pain, felt herself being picked up and laid across Six’s back. She felt her surprisingly soft wings against her belly. They were so well maintained, and Scootaloo felt bad for getting so much blood on them. By this time, though, the shock was so extensive that it had lowered her blood pressure to the point where her brain, though conscious, had stopped thinking. She hung limply as she was carried away, leaving her severed leg behind.

To her distant left, Samara saw her target retreating. The Equestrian had been faster than she had anticipated, and though the wound was substantial, it had not resulted in a confirmed kill. She immediately turned and began sprinting toward them, her sword ready to strike down the small horse as well as her allies, when she encountered sudden resistance. Her flesh tingled and then burned as she realized that she had been trapped in a biotic field, and she shifted her own field. The reaction was almost frighteningly slow, though, and Samara barely managed to escape the telekinetic field before a barrage of rockets from the nearest YMIR mech released a barrage of lethal rockets into the position where she had just been.

The fight, was, in itself, astounding. Samara had lived a long time, but she could not recall having participated in such a challenging battle in several centuries. These winged unicorns were far more powerful than she had initially expected. In fact, their raw biotic power was substantially greater than hers. Had she been any other asari, she would not have survived longer than a few seconds against one of them, let alone a small flock. As a Justicar, though, she did not need power to fight them. She instead drew on her experience and skill, and through that found herself in a position of advantage.

One of the horses, a tall armored one, was firing at her. Samara assessed the situation and realized that that particular horse was not trying to actually kill her directly; instead, she was using interference rounds to attempt to lower her shield so that the YMIRs could engage. Samara countered by dropping into a crouched position and focused her biotic energy into her legs. With a single burst, she closed the distance between her and her target. She drew her sword and slammed it into the pony’s side, only to have it stopped by a suit of tech armor that suddenly appeared around her. Samara barely turned in time to see the second horse- -the one with long, sharp teeth who had projected the tech armor- -behind her.

Samara twisted, but still took the brunt of a neural overload attack. Her body was racked with pain, but she dealt with it, ignoring it as she struck out at the second horse- - only to receive a damaging biotic blast into her back from her original opponent.

The combination of the attacks staggered her, and she retreated several steps. She expected them to redouble their efforts, at which point she was in a position to strike down the taller of the two- -but instead they spread their wings and lifted into the air, following after their comrades.

“It will not be that easy,” said Samara, placing her sword on her back and charging both of her hands with biotic energy. She was about to fire at them when her already damaged shield was broken by the rapid-fire weapons of the mechs. She was forced to fire at them, but their shields and armor absorbed her blows easily. They continued to advance on her, and as they did, she saw the symbols emblazoned on their chests.

“Cerberus,” she said.

“Function nominal,” said one of the robots. “Target acquired. Primary mission: ‘kill in the name of the sexy horse-girl Eight’. Achieving mission…”

“So be it,” said Samara, standing firm as the robots advanced. She drew her hands together and concentrated. The robots continued to march forward, but Samara did not move.

Then she looked up, and unleashed all of her biotic power at once. The effect was barely controlled, and she could hardly even keep the blast moving in one direction. The shockwave struck them with such great force that the first one was instantly torn apart, along with most of the ground and any material substance unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast. The two behind it were stumbled, and then lifted off the ground and slammed against it with enough force to imbed them into the floor and into the beams of prothean metal that made up the rest of the tower below.

The shockwave continued backward, sending everything it touched flying. Samara had been able to control it poorly, but most of the people in its path had already gotten out of the way. The few that remained were thrown about like toys.

While most of the civilians had escaped, though, one table remained occupied. When the shockwave hit it, a red-colored dome erupted over its two occupants, protecting them from the blast.

Samara ducked behind a planter that had mostly survived her blast just barely in time to avoid the explosion of the wounded YMIRs detonating themselves. The explosion was impressive, and actually stunned her for a moment. After pausing to recharge some of her energy, though, she vaulted over the planter and charged in the general direction of the table that had produced the inexplicable red hemisphere. It was not actually relevant to her, though; she only went in that direction because she could see the violet tail of a pony waving through the crowd in that direction. With their defenses defeated, it was now simply a matter of the chase- -a chase that she could easily win.

Once again, Samara sprinted, chasing after the ponies and the Equestrian Scootaloo. She cleared the crater that the YMIRs had made in a single leap, and landed on the far side. As she pushed through the shattered and overturned tables, though, one of the two figures at the only surviving table stood, blocking Samara’s path.

The figure was dressed in what seemed to be a heavy, hooded garment that blocked his features. As he stood, though, he removed the hood of his cloak. His appearance gave Samara momentary pause. She was one of only a few remaining in the galaxy who were old enough to remember what humans had looked like- -and, for the most part, this man was human. His skin was gray and sickly pale to the point of translucency, and his black hair was greasy and unpleasant looking. The only part of him that appeared distinctly inhuman were his pinkish eyes, and the pupils that narrowed into a pair of vertical slits when exposed to the Ferosan sunlight.

Samara attempted to go around him, but he stepped in front of her.

“I do not want to kill you,” she said. “But move, or I will.”

The human turned to his companion, who Samara assessed as a quarian in excessively bulky silver-colored armor. “I am sorry about our lunch. But you are going to want to get to a safe distance.”

She looked up at him and nodded, then stood and ran. The human turned back to Samara, and her muscles tightened, preparing to strike him down. For a moment, he seemed about to fight, but then instead of launching an attack, he stuck out his right hand. “Hell, my name is Eloth,” he said, smiling broadly. “And I want to be your friend!”

“So be it,” said Samara, drawing her sword and feeling the centrifuge rev as she sliced across his body.

Instead of cutting, though, the sword suddenly stopped. The human had blocked the blade with one of his forearms. For a moment, Samara stared dumbfounded. The sword had been precision manufactured to align to her biotics, and it was capable of cutting a krogan in half if used at the right angle with enough force and proper technique. Though she had cut nearly half an inch into the human’s arm, it had not even severed it. Instead, Samara saw a small red section of biotic barrier protecting him.

“Well, that’s surprising,” he said, eyeing the sword. “I was under the impression that the asari were a spear-wielding culture. A sword is an interesting choice for a Justicar.”

Samara moved backward, retreating for a moment in her uncertainty. As she did, the absurdity of the situation began to dawn on her. She was staring down a human, a member of a race that had been driven to extinction centuries ago. Not only that, but he had nonchalantly deflected a direct sword blow. This did not frighten her, but it caused her to curse her momentary lapse into arrogance for believing too strongly in her own superiority.

She looked past the human, and saw a starship rising from the far edge of the tower. In the distance she saw her target escaping.

“I don’t have time for this,” she said, placing her sword on her back.

“I think we do,” said the human, cheerfully. “I mean, I’m sure this is a misunderstanding. We don’t need to resort to violence. I’m sure if we just talk about it- -”

With a roar, Samara unleashed another shockwave. It ripped through the ground toward the human. He seemed startled, but raised one of his hands. There was a flash of red light, and suddenly everything in his immediate vicinity was vaporized as his own shockwave burst forth. The entire tower seemed to shake, and the floor was torn to pieces that turned into shrapnel. The human’s shockwave struck Samara’s and instantly overwhelmed it as though it were nothing.

What Samara was seeing should not have been possible. Its possibility, though, was not her concern. She jumped back, letting her own shockwave act as cover , and then knelt down, coating herself in the best biotic barrier she could generate after using so much power on the shockwave.

Her barrier was barely enough, and the feeling of the shockwave washing over her was roughly equivalent to standing in the midst of an orbital bombardment. It took far more energy than Samara expected to absorb the blast without being torn apart on a molecular level.

It did pass, though, and she did survive. After it had, she started to stand- -and felt a pair of hands close around her head.

“Of course,” said the human, suddenly behind her, even though she had not seen him move. His voice sounded different than before. It was no longer cheerful, but it was not angry, either. Instead, he just sounded so empty. “Don’t take that to mean that I’m not capable of violence. It’s just so much work. Oh well.”

Suddenly, Samara started screaming. He was not hurting her physically, but she could feel him suddenly entering her mind. His mind forced its way past her mental barriers, penetrating into her. She tried to resist, but somehow he was stronger, and time seemed to slow down as the world seemed to fall away from her, leaving her floating in blackness.

She felt him, wrapping around her mind and infecting it, combining with her and merging their thoughts. It was more horrible than any physical torment he could have inflicted on her, and her mind writhed in pain. It was wrong- -HE was wrong. Whatever his mind was, it was not what it was supposed to be. His thoughts were broken and strange, incomprehensible and cold. It was the mental equivalent of being being dragged down by an animate but rotting corpse.

In her mind, she felt a sensation of humming, a kind of mental static. She distantly remembered it, but she could not tell from where- -and to her horror found she could not remember anything at all. He was taking her memories, changing them, rewriting them as he pressed deeper and deeper inside her.

“You don’t want to resist,” said his thoughts as they swarmed around her. “You don’t have reason to. You know that.”

“Why would you fight me? You agree with me. You have to.”

“I only want to help. I am correct. I am just.”

“My cause is just. You know that, you have to understand. Don’t you understand?”

“It…it is,” said Samara, feeling his voice come through hers as a distant echo. She was growing more calm, realizing that he was correct. She could see his mind, and she could see that he was not harmful- -that what he was trying to do really was best for her, and for the people around her.

“See?” he said. “I am only trying to help. I have always been trying to help.”

“To help YOU, Samara. To help everyone. I am peace. I am justice.”

“You…you are…”

“You can see that my goals are beneficial to us all. I am beneficial.”

“You love me.”

“I…love…”

“And you want to serve me, to serve this ultimate goal, to lead the galaxy into prosperity.”

“Serve me, Samara. Please. I need your help. Serve me. SERVE ME.”

“H…how?”

“Die.”

“Die.”

“Die.”

The voices became overwhelming, and in atavistic terror, Samara covered her ears. The voices did not stop, though, but rather swirled around her, taking shape. The sounds changed; instead of her voice reflected back at her, it was replaced by the sound of mortars, screams, of biotic blasts and bullets leaving guns in every direction.

Samara opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by a ghostly battlefield. Soldiers were running, sprinting into the fight. She could barely see them, and not make out their features, but she knew that she had returned to a familiar War.

The humming, static noise grew louder, coming from above. Samara looked to the inky sky, and from the darkness she saw a massive shape emerge, resolving into a leviathanesque, almost arthropod-like black ship hovering above the battlefield, its surface illuminated with a brilliant pair of glowing red eyes.

“I am the future, Samara,” it said in a voice that was a combination of the human’s, hers, and something much deeper and far more ancient. “And you are MINE.”

Samara dropped to her knees in the dust, knowing that she had lost. She felt her mind beginning to decay, and she knew that it was better that way. The voices were right. They knew what was best for her, and what was best for her was to allow her mind to be swallowed in the red fire that was consuming it. It would be painful, but it was necessary for the cause to survive.

“No! Samara!”

A different voice caused Samara to look up. Beside her, she saw one of the ghostly figures, although this one had been resolved into flesh: a human male, one that she had not seen in so many years but who she could never forget.

“Sh…Shepard?”

“Don’t give up, Samara!” he said. “Don’t let them win! Fight it! FIGHT IT!”

He then charged off into the afterimage of the battle that Samara knew had been his last. While so many others were retreating from fear of the looming shape that dominated the sky, driven by fear and panic, he rushed forward toward it.

Samara felt a spark within her. A sudden realization, a hole in the seemingly impenetrable logic that was running through her. She recognized that sound, and knew what was happening to her. She took a breath, and then stood.

“I was born asari, a daughter of Thessia,” she began, “and given a mind, a body, and a soul. With this Oath, I subsume what I was born as for what I shall become, and forever more be; I subsume myself to the Code, so that it may replace what I once was, and so that I might live by its will without ambiguity.”

“What are you doing?” said the deep voice, now lo longer with an echo of hers. “Stop. STOP.”

Samara did not stop. She continued, grasping and holding tightly to the deepest part of her being, to her Code. She recited it, line by line, proceeding through the countless thousands of verses. To her, it was not just a recitation from memory, but a declaration of fact. Slowly, who she was began to return to her.

Eventually she had forced the human out of her mind enough to take back control of her body. With one final push, she forced him out with everything she had. In the real world, she was conscious of the effect of this action: an incredibly energetic biotic explosion that threw the human free of her.

She immediately dropped to her knees, gasping. The world seemed to be shifting around her, and her cognition was slowed. Still, ignoring her weakened state, she looked up at the human. She saw that he had survived the explosion, but his arms had not. Both of his forearms had and hands had been reduced to charred bone.

“You- -you attempted to indoctrinate me,” she said in disbelief.

“No,” he said, flexing his fingers and confirming what Samara already knew. What she had initially mistaken for blackened bone was in fact a system of thin, skeletal robotics constructed of black-colored metal. “I was attempting to burn out your neural architecture. Essentially to lobotomize you. You should not have been able to force me out, though.” He paused, looking at Samara with a great deal of intesest. “Are you an Ardat-Yakshi?” He paused, and then answered his own question. “No…but you are a pureblood. And one step away from that evolution.” His pink-red eyes locked with hers. “But your daughters were. Morinth, Rila, Falare. They are all dead now. Because of you.”

“No,” said Samara.

“Yes. Morinth died by your own hand. Rila because you failed to save her. Falare to cure the disease you propagate.”

“No. I had to, I didn’t- -”

“I’m not lying. I am stating facts. Or, rather, stating what you believe.” He crouched down. “I saw your memories. For a brief moment, I WAS you. You blame yourself for them…but more than that.” He considered for a moment. “You blame yourself for having brought such cursed creatures into this world not once but three separate times.”

“NO!” cried Samara, drawing her sword and striking with all of her might. This time, the sword hit its target, striking the human in the neck. Once again, though, it only managed to cut through the skin on his surface, failing to penetrate the metal that ran just beneath.

“You know what?” he said, his expression suddenly darkening. “I’m really getting tired of this.” He reached up with one hand and took hold of the sword. The biotic energy that flowed through it ignited around his own hand, but it had no effect. There was no flesh to burn, no living material. Just a machine.

He started to pull the sword away, his hand on the blade, even as Samara put all of her force into keeping it against him. She was struggling, but he seemed to not even be trying.

“I will never understand why the galaxy progressed to the use of SWORDS. They are obsolete, POINTELESS weapons!”

He closed his fist around the blade. There was a surge of red light, and the biotic feedback between his energy and Samara’s caused such intense interference that the swords not only shattered but detonated, taking the lower half of Samara’s left arm with it.

She cried out and jumped back, grabbing at the bloody strips of flesh and shattered bone that had once been her limb.

The human’s eyes widened in shock. “Holy crap!” he swore. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t expect our biotics to be synchronized, that was- -oh, I’m so sorry, it shouldn’t have done that! I was just trying to be impressive, I just- -”

“I’m not dead yet,” said Samara, taking a breath and doing her best to control the pain.

The sympathy on the human’s face vanished completely, replaced by amusement. “No. You didn’t. Which is, in its own right, impressive.”

“Well, then?” said Samara.

“Well what?”

Samara took another breath and sighed. “I am defeated. With my limb removed, I can no longer fight you. Though I doubt I could have even with both and my sword. I concede. The appropriate response is for you to deal the final blow.”

The man looked confused. “Kill you? Why would I kill you?”

Samara’s expression hardened, her jaw clenching in rage. “You would insult me so?”

“Insult? Oh! No, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. My intention was never to kill you. I’m just the distraction.”

He leaned to the side, and far in the upper part of the tower, Samara’s eyes focused on the heavily armored quarian from before- -and the enormous blue-lit rifle that she was holding. There was a loud crack, and a snap of light. Samara’s shield immediately shattered, and the generator sparked and ignited, burning her where it was located.

Before she could remove the damaged equipment, the human stepped to the side and pointed with one hand toward the quarian. There was a flash of red light in the distance and one closer, and the quarian suddenly appeared feet from Samara.

The armored woman charged into a fight, swinging the bizzare rifle. As she did, Samara saw the device seem to change in her hand, shifting into something different, all the while releasing that same strange blue glow.

The interloper was fast, but Samara was faster. Even with one hand, she blocked the quarian’s first strike, setting her off balance in the process. It was not an easy task considering her armor. The quarian barely seemed to notice, striking wildly and without any regard to her own safety, aiming for areas of Samara’s body that were already injured. It was as though she were trying to cause pain without actually doing any real damage.

This was annoying to say the least, and when Samara finally got an opening, she took the opportunity to end the fight. She charged her remaining fist with biotic energy and struck the quarian in the face with all of her strength. Samara anticipated the blow to be lethal; not only did it have a tremendous striking force, but she could feel the biotic corona disrupting her target’s organs in ways that no quarian would be able to survive.

Except that the woman did not go down. The hit had shattered part of her mask, and that would have been a critical medical emergency for a quarian- -but in the instant she saw what was behind that mask, Samara realized that this was no quarian. Instead of a sickly face with reflective eyes staring back at her, she saw a wide, grinning smile and several curls of black hair that almost completely covered a large blue eye with a vernicle slit pupil.

“I win,” she said.

Samara looked down, and saw that the weapon that the woman had been holding had reconfigured itself into a knife- -and that it had been punched into her lower chest, right where the slit of her armor passed down between her breasts. The woman had opened herself up to a potentially lethal blow to strike one of her own.

“Armor, bitch, it’s why I wear it,” she said, twisting the blade and then pulling it out sharply.

Samara took a step back, staring in complete surprise. She did not know what kind of weapon that was, but it had completely bypassed her biotic barrier. Not only that, but it had penetrated her diaphragm and collapsed two of her lungs. It also seemed to have struck a major blood vessel, because she could feel herself bleeding internally. It did not feel pleasant.

The hole in her chest would have been instantly lethal to almost any other asari, but Samara used the last of her energy to attempt to reinforce her body using her biotics. She dropped to her knees, mortally wounded but not dead, and her opponent took the opportunity to kick her in the face, shattering her nose and sending her sprawling on her back.

As she fell, she felt her omnitool flicker to life. Someone was controlling it externally.

All at once, the sky was filled with hundreds of ships, all mass-jumping to Feros in massive succession. The sun was already low in the sky, and with the fleet of hundreds of ships of every size and shape, the sky was almost as dark as night.

“Damn that,” said the woman, putting her finger to her ear. “It looks like SOMEONE just transmitted information that Scootaloo was on Feros to pretty much every bounty hunter in…well…everywhere. Even me, but I already knew that.” She looked over her shoulder at the human man, who was now watching the proceedings without participating.

“Eloth,” she said. “Handle this.”

“On it,” he said, raising his hands. He focused his energy into his biotics and ignited his arms with red light. As he did, the majority of the ships overhead ignited with the same light. There were more than he had anticipated, and he actually had to use a nontrivial amount of power to reach all of them.

Then, with one quick motion, he lowered his arms. The ships were dragged downward by his biotic force. Some resisted, their engines straining against the foreign mass-effect field, but none of them were strong enough. Eloth accelerated them, driving them through the dusty cloud cover below and feeling the resonance in his being and on his long-range sensors as they smashed into the planet below.

Almost immediately, though, something in his perception changed. He had no heart, but his equivalent almost skipped a beat. “Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it damn it damn it…”

“Eloth?”

“I used to much power,” he said in a panic. “The others, they detected me!”

There were several resounding, thunderous bursts as a new group of ships materialized in the upper atmosphere of the planet. At first, they were almost exclusively Governor craft, each one a version of a cylindrical prothean starship surrounded by stony armor. Then the unthinkable happened as the last ship arrived: a massive, black, insect-like craft, its body lit by blue light. A Reaper had arrived.

Eloth looked up at the black ship, and felt himself overwhelmed with sadness. “Brother,” he whispered “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Eloth?!”

Eloth looked to his partner. “That’s a Reaper!” he said, pointing. “And Collectors! I can’t take those down! I’m not a volus!”

“Fine,” said the woman, lifting her knife into the air. It shifted again, its shell reconfiguring and pulling apart to reveal the small, ever-shifting blue-lit fragment within it hovering just over her hand. She lifted the artifact and pointed. As she did, space a few meters away from her distorted, tearing open a hole in space to a rocky crag under a toxic yellow sky. “Then it’s time to go.”

“But what about her?” said Eloth, pointing to the dying asari. “Are you not going to eat her?”

“Her?” said the woman. “Please. At her age, she’d be way too tough. Like eating a boot. Leave her.”

She stepped over Samara and into the portal. Eloth followed, but paused for a moment as he passed.

“You intrigue me,” said Eloth. “I really like you, and find you interesting. It is highly doubtful that you will survive this. But if you do, seek me out. I want to see you again.” He paused. “I might even be able to cure you.”

“Eloth! Get your damn ass in motion or I will have to put motion into your ASS!”

Eltoh sighed, and gave Samara one last smile. The Governor army was descending from their ships and swarming onto the ancient, repurposed prothean tower. Aware of and admiring the irony of that situation, Eloth stepped through the portal. Before the Governors could reach him, the portal sealed behind him and his partner.

Author's Note

I'm probably going to take some heat for this (not really; almost no one reads these things). To some, Eloth is going to look almost like the prototypical Mary-Sue. Except that he's a minor character who does basically nothing useful, but that's beside the point. Eloth is another character from the Vocqtus universe (although he was an entirely different species there). He's meant as a foil to his partner.