When he was told there was damage, that he would have to wait until one of the primitive races had located the bunker, Javik had expected a long wait. Certain though he was that he would accomplish his mission, as the ice set in and froze his bones, he had doubted, just a little, that the primitives would ever find his people, that he would ever be free-that he would ever wake up.

But now-right now-he was definitely feeling something...

His toes. He could feel his toes. That was stupid. And he-

He couldn't breath. He couldn't move in the slightest. Stars, this was agony! He'd been told waking up would be painful, that thawing would be a process that would have him on his knees if he tried to force through it like he usually did everything else.

Javik, despite the pain, and the screaming of his instincts, forced himself to calm, and wait for the ice that burned in his chest to disappear. He could feel the pod's systems working double-time both to wake him, and keep him alive during the process.

Then, he heard something. At least his ears were working, then. An alien language...

There was someone, something, looming over him. He could feel most of his body now, he could feel the tension in his chest, the one that kept him from breathing, vanishing. He forced his eyes open...

And screamed, attacking, lashing out with his biotics at the ostensibly larger being that had been leaning over his pod. The action sent deep flares of agony through his entire body, most especially the arm he used to attack with, and when he threw himself over the edge of the pod, the resulting crash of dizzyness sent him to the floor.

He didn't see if his attack had worked, or how far it had sent his (victim-attacker-he didn't know, nor did he care), he just knew he had to put distance between them, distance was key, he needed distance so he had time to reorient for his next attack, because right now he was scrambling through darkness in a room that was blindingly bright, flailing like a fish out of water as he hit the ground several more times.

The something he'd attacked boomed with laughter as he finally relented and stayed kneeling, taking deep breaths to banish both the darkness, the dizziness, and the rising nausea.

His enemy was laughing at him. The large enemy, judging by the sound. At least if it was laughing, it wasn't attacking-why in the stars had he allowed himself to turn his back to it for so long? Never leave your back open, that the the first thing a prothean learned!

He hadn't noticed before, the smaller figure approaching him; not until the tentative hand was on his back. Javik saw an opportunity, and he took it; he shoved the last thing he remembered into their mind to distract them, while he tore through their mind, looking for anything-language, motivation, affiliation- anything that could help him.

This mind has scars on it. He realized. I am not the first to look upon it.

And whomever had been here before, they had not been gentle. In fact, it was the crudest, ugliest work he'd ever seen, a prothean toddler could have read this being without tearing his mind apart, yet whomever had been in here clearly was the worst he'd ever-

Ah, torture. That explained it; not the work of an idiot, but of one who wanted this creature-Sindu's-loyalty without anything in return, without worry of rebellion.

He would be certain not to trust these... psions.

But this was not a primitive. The Sindu was not from his galaxy...

Oh. Oh dear, that was interesting. Very interesting... Perhaps he could use this... Calus creature to his-

Something he didn't want to know. He refused it. Left the Sindu's mind, and stayed on his knees, trying to process a very simple fact. Despite what he'd seen, a small part of him denied it. That part demanded that he ask.

"The others...?" He was not the last prothean. He couldn't be. That couldn't be correct; it couldn't have been that long.

"I'm sorry. You're the only one Calus found." the Sindu confirmed his worst fears. "You speak my language? Did you take that while you showed me what happened?"

Spoken truly by someone who had had their mind invaded no small number of times. Not simply invaded-burned.

"Yes." He forced himself to stand. He turned, fighting the bile that rose in his throat, at both his new position, his status as the last of his kind, the new weight his title as an Avatar now carried, and the lavish, disgusting setting he'd woken up to.

And there it was, the so-called 'Emperor Calus'. From what he'd seen in the Sindu's mind, he could not trust this creature... but perhaps there was use for him after all.

"My people have been slaughtered, and I owe a reckoning to the machines that did it." he declared. "Are the Reapers here? Have they started to kill in this cycle yet?"

"I don't know of these Reapers, or cycles, of which you speak." Calus rumbled. He spread his arms grandly. His posturing is truly pathetic. "But this ship is capable of consuming entire planets on a whim! I don't see why your Reapers would be such a large problem to destroy. Join me, and you shall have more than just revenge; you'll see the universe itself on fire, I promise you that!"

Mind filled only with the thoughts of the Reapers destroyed, filled only with thoughts of fulfilling his duties, filled only with thoughts of balancing and choking the level of control Calus had over him(lest he end up like Jarus, or the Clipse warrior), Javik accepted.

And here's where Things get interesting. I've done little one-shot like these for Rull, Feltroc, and Jarus, winding up for a potential crossover universe. Still approaching it hesitantly, though; I've got separate project in both fandoms, the Destiny one being the longest and my main concern due to the fact it's the only fic where I've set myself a word length limit(4-5,000 words per chapter).

So if I do go through with the universe I've set up here, it might be a while, unless I find a really good co-author, or put it up for adoption.

Fare Thee Well!