There were three things that Nihlus had learnt about humans from his interactions with them: they had poor impulse control, they considered violence to be amusing, and they were fascinated with particular members of their own race known as Sirens. Supposedly, they were only six of them at any time, all of them female, and even humans had no idea where they came from. Among the citadel races, there were suspicions that sirens were actually the result of a super soldier program that had gone wrong, but they had yet to uncover any evidence that would confirm this. Bizarrely enough, knowledge about the sirens might be the one thing that humans were actually honest about.

The result of this reveal of information had caused the retrieval team to press onward to the Maliwan facility instead of fulfilling the mission by extracting Lt. Alenko. It would be meaningless to attempt to convince the humans to leave and call in reinforcements to deal with the situation; it would be like asking a turian to abandon an imprisoned general if they saw they had a chance to rescue one. This was likely the reason that the lieutenant had not escaped the facility by himself. The only stroke of good luck, Nihlus thought to himself, was that Alenko had spent a great deal of time in the maintenance tunnels, and so he was able to guide them to the main facility in a much shorter amount of time than if they had continued with plan A, stumble blindly and hope no one found them.

With their current plan, however, there were many problems. Even assuming that Alenko managed to get them to where the siren was being held, there still lay the problem of getting out. According to the lieutenant, Zimboltz had the siren in the heart of the facility, and had connected her containment chamber with enough sensors and alarms that the entire building would go into lockdown if her breathing rate got a bit too fast. Khan, Shepard and Lovel had resigned themselves to fighting their way out, but Nihlus was determined to find another way, one that didn't result in their being discovered and presumably murdered if security handled itself well. The only thing that worked in their favor was that, according to Shepard, Zimboltz was probably working without the permission of his higher-ups to capture the siren, otherwise she would be held at a facility devoted to just her. Once they got out, the man would try to flee to escape the wrath of his superior rather than risk following them.

At the front of the group, Alenko came to a halt before a door that was significantly more shiny than the rest of the tunnel. "I hope everyone's ready for a experience that promises to make at least one person laugh!" the cheerful marine began, " Because once I open this door we will be in the main research facility."

Everyone in the group looked at one another and checked their weapon load-outs. They likely would not have time to reorganize themselves once they were in the facility, so whatever they had on hand, as well as in the quick-access section of their SDUs would have to be able to get them through the place. Getting confirmation from several quick nods, Alenko grabbed the handle of the door and lowered his shoulder to be able to force the door open quickly, hopefully surprising anyone who might be waiting on the other side. With a powerful shove, the door opened... to absolutely nothing. Apparently, there was no one patrolling the area at this time. Nihlus took a quick scan of the area, but detected no cameras: they were in the clear, for now.

"Alrighty then, if I remember correctly, we should go thiiiiis way. Maybe." Alenko pointed down a nearby hallway and motioned for the others to follow him.

"Maybe?" Khan hissed in response, "If there's a thousand fuckers with guns this way, I am definitely killing you before they kill me."

"Look, when I was running from the bullets, and the attack skags, and the hateful words, I didn't really have time to do things like 'make detailed mental maps' or 'not scream like a small child'. ergo, I have a general idea of where to go, but not an exact idea. Don't worry about it, we'll get to the siren, I promise."

"We'd fucking better."

The hallway was deserted, which caused Khan to wonder about the security of the place. So far everything had seemed too lax. Sure, Zimboltz had blown up the train that they were in, but other than that, they had seen almost no guards. There was no way that this guy had gotten to the position of an executive without being paranoid as all hell. It looked like a trap, smelt like a trap, and so it really should be a trap, but if it that was the case, it was really well hidden.

The research labs resumed the style that had been present in the train station: sleek with glowing lines infesting the place. Every so often, the walls would pulse for seemingly no reason other than to startle the small party and cause them to raise their weapons in alarm.

"Hey Shepard, you think there's any reason for the walls to look like this other than to freak the hell outta people?"

"Corporations like their little marks, Khan. For example, if you go into a Dahl facility, there'll be camouflage everywhere, not that it makes any sense in the middle of a city. Enter a Roland R&D lab and expect to see pictures of whale squids on the walls. Of course, if you ever got into one of those, I'd have to kill you."

For a moment, Khan paused and confirmed if she actually heard what she thought she had, "Wait, what? Whale squids?"

"They're the princes of the sea. Just... just don't ask. God knows I don't anymore."

Pushing further questions out of her mind, Khan focused on the task at hand. She leveled her sub-machine gun in front of her, and prepared for the worst. The end of the hallway was in sight, and from there, it looked like it split off into three directions. One way would take them closer to their goal, while the others would just get them hopelessly lost. To be fair, they would still be lost even if they got the siren, but at least then they would be focused on getting out rather than trying to get to a particular room.

A soft thud distracted Khan from her thoughts. Looking around, she saw Nihlus crouched over a prone body, working a knife out of the neck. There had been a guard stationed here, and the stealthy turian had taken him out without so much as a word. She was reminded of when she had met him on the Normandy; the lack of presence that he had carried with him. There was no doubt about it, the bird was good, even if he didn't show demonstrate his skills too often. The man on the floor was an older sort, with traces of gray beginning to creep into his hair; he had a simple guard uniform on, with the typical Maliwan frills, and had been armed with a shock pistol. An omnitool had fallen to the floor. Unused, it had failed in its purpose. Khan leaned down and proceeded to loot the pistol from the man's corpse; it wasn't like the guard needed it anymore, and an extra weapon was never something to simply pass up.

Alenko had moved to the division in front of them before stopping and examining the walls, "Yep, I remember here! They still haven't removed the bullet holes from where they managed to gun down Isley. Good ol' Isley, always liked himself a nice cup of hot cocoa. I'll never forget his last words, 'Gurgle, gurgle, you bastard Kaidan, help me, gurgle', ah, the fun we used to have." Smiling to himself, the lieutenant continued, " Anyways, it's a simple matter of following the bullet holes from here to the lab, so let's go, go, go!"

"I will never get used to that."

Khan spared one last look towards the fallen guard before moving onward. It was dangerous to just leave him lying there, but there didn't seem any safe place to store the body. They would just have to move quickly before any of this fellows found him and set off an alarm. Luckily, the place seemed quiet enough that it looked like they would have enough time. As she completed that thought, Khan cursed inwardly. Things never went according to plan when you thought things like that. She picked up the pace almost instantaneously, hopefully her new paranoia would be enough the placate the gods of misery and misfortune. If they got caught in a hallway like this... it was best not to think of such things. The combination of no cover and little room to maneuver would make it like shooting fish in a barrel for whoever got behind them, especially so if a guard was carrying around in a rocket launcher like that asshole who blew up the train. Speaking of which, she had to get back at that fucker extra hard. Blowing up your enemies was one, admittedly awesome, thing but sacrificing your own allies in the blast? That sort of thing should never be done. There were some rules that even corporate nut-jobs should follow.

They followed the hallway until it opened up into a much larger room. There were two guards stationed in front of a large metal door, who, unlike the previous guard, were much better armed, with full body armor and helmets that completely covered the head and neck areas. Upon seeing the trespassers, they gave a cry of alarm and raised their weapons, intending to dispatch the intruders. Unfortunately for them, they were too slow. Nihlus shot one of them in the neck with his pistols, while Khan drilled one of them in the stomach with her sub-machine gun. The first one of them was lucky enough to die instantly, the second one, however, was only wounded and reached to his side in an attempt to alert the rest of the facility with an omnitool. He had managed to unhook it from its holster when Shepard ran up to him and bashed his head in with the butt of his buzz-ax: after a few hits, there was nothing but a red mess left on the floor.

Now that the guards had been taken care of, Khan managed to get a good look at the area. There were raised two raised barriers on either side of the room facing towards the hallway that they had just come out of, as well as a more central barrier that had been placed ahead of the other two. Odds were that they were supposed to be used in the event of a corporate raid, to help the defenders hold out against anyone who tried to steal the most closely guarded secrets of the facility. It was kind of funny that in all likelihood they would be used for the exact opposite reason: helping those who broke in defend themselves from Maliwan's security.

"And now, the door!" Kaidan said as he gestured towards the last obstacle that prevented them from getting into the heart of the facility. This was followed by awkwardness as everyone simply looked at each other as Alenko continued his flourish. Slowly, the smile faded from his face as no one moved towards the door. "You guys do have a way to get through physical security right? I mean who tries to break into a corporate facility without bringing a cracking kit?!"

"Well, our plan involved a lot more interrogation of guards and tricking people into letting us into locked rooms than explicitly sneaking into the facility. We thought we would have to do a lot more searching for you, you see?" Nihlus muttered while examining the door's lock, "But there must be something that we can do to open this door."

"Like cheating in a videogame only to get stuck on the second level because you didn't pick up the special item in the first!". Apparently pleased with himself for thinking of this analogy, Kaidan bent to give the lock a try, only to give up shortly afterwards. Whatever the man's talents were, they definitely did not include hacking high level security doors.

The lock itself was quite standard for a high-level corporate lab, which meant that it was quite nonstandard in comparison to just about every other lock that existed . The means by which it opened was quite simple: there was the electronic jack point that would accept whatever device was used as the key, followed by a DNA scan that verified that the person trying to open the door had Maliwan-sponsored DNA. The really tricky bit came if you failed the identification process. If the door detected that the person trying to open it was not a Maliwan employee, it looked like it had mechanisms to melt the door into the rest of the wall. It would be impossible to open it up at that point other than using extremely potent, and therefore expensive, corrosive weaponry. Even if the person trying to open the door had those, the alarms that would go off would alert Zimboltz and there would be enough guards down here to turn the burglar into fricasse. The odds were pretty good that those guards wouldn't be the regular run-of-the-mill guys either; they would be a corporate tactical response team, trained and equipped to take down a small army.

One by one, the five of them took a look at the device, only to come away shaking their heads. Khan had briefly considered shooting the door with a shock weapons, but Maliwan, as a company that specialized in elemental guns, would have definitely made the security responsive to such attempts. Lovel was the last, and he spent the most time looking at the lock in abject silence before his head sank in defeat. For a moment, it looked like he was going to punch the door in anger, but then he gave an uncharacteristic sigh and stood up.

"A mighty challenge. I must admit surrender. What sorrowful shame."

"Alright, look, we didn't come this far to give up, I say we take a moment, clear out heads-" As Khan was speaking, she started to hear some noises in the direction of the hallway that they had come from:

"Alright Frank, time for a shift change. Aw, are you sleeping on the job again? That looks so adorable, but come on, let's switch."

"Dude, I don't think Frank's sleeping, I think he might be dead."

"DEAD?! NOOOOOOO! HE WAS ONE DAY AWAY FROM RETIREMENT! AND NOW HE'LL NEVER GO TO HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER'S GRADUATION FROM EDEN-4 MEGAVERSITY!"

"Sound the alarm and spread out! We gotta catch whoever did this!" Shortly afterwards, a loud wailing noise was heard throughout the facility.

Khan turned back to the rest of the group and resumed speaking, "On second thought, panic. Panic is good. Panic is where we should be right now. Does anyone have a desperate idea that we can cling to like a drowning man at sea?"

Shepard spoke up at this. "There might be one option still on the table. But, ah, I think that maybe... we should see where this takes us? Who knows, the first guy to come here might have the key to this place, and we could use him to open the door?"

Nihlus looked at him with a look of incredulity, "And he or she will no doubt be with heavily armed back-up that will alert the entire complex. Shepard, if you have some way of getting in, please employ it. If you are worried about us stealing corporate secrets from Roland, you have my word that we will not do so."

"You know, we should really forget I said anything. I hear being melted alive really isn't such a bad way to die."

"Shepard, if we get killed here, I will haunt your ass in hell for all eternity. OPEN UP THE FUCKING DOOR!"

With the look of a man resigned to his fate, Shepard pulled a small SDU from a pocket. It looked different from other SDUs; it was customized to the extent that it probably only held one thing, but whatever it stored was likely not going to suffer from any digital degradation. For a moment Khan wanted to ask why he was carrying it on him instead of storing it in his main SDU, but then she remembered that when you tried to "stack" storage like that, it often led to a high rate of data corruption. Whatever this was, it was important.

"Remember, you brought this upon yourselves," Shepard said to the group assembled in front of him, before digistructing the contents in front of him. Whatever was inside wasn't that big, in fact, it only came up to around his waist. It looked like a small, stocky robo-

"HELLOOO SHEPARD!"

CL4P-TP

-Wants to help. Emphasis on 'wants to' -

"Quiet down, you idiot machine! We're in the middle of an important mission. If you are not quiet, we're all going to die!" Shepard hissed at the CL4P-TP unit.

"Ohhh, sorry," whispered the diminutive robot, "Oh, new people! I love meeting new people! Greetings, I am a CL4P-TP Mk. II unit, but you can call me Claptrap!"

Despite the little robots cheerful introduction, the rest of their group did their best to not fall to the ground in despair, Shepard's reluctance made much more sense now. Claptrap units were known for two things, being annoying and ruining everything. No one knew why the Roland corporation had obtained the rights and continued to produce the damn things after the fall of Hyperion. However, they were supposed to be very good at opening doors. Khan realized that this must have been who they had heard speaking when they gone to Shepard's room after Nihlus had arrived on the Normandy.

"Claptrap, listen closely to me. You are going to open this door and that's it. If you dance, or play dubstep, there is no court, crooked or otherwise, that will be able to hold me accountable for what I will do to you."

"A door? We claptrap units are made to open those. Literally. I'll get this door open in a jiffy!" With that, it wheeled towards the steel port and plugged itself into the lock. "Ha! This door shall soon bow down before the awesome might of my superior software! These firewalls are child's play! I'm through security aaaaaaaaannnnnndddd OPEN!"

However, rather than the door opening, a calm female voice began to speak on the intercom system, "Intruders detected in front of Research Lab Zeta. I repeat intruders have just tried and failed to open Research Lab Zeta. If you follow the blinking lights along the corridor, you will be directed along the fastest route there. Please be aware that the shortest path may be behind you. Come and kill them please."

"Goddammit Claptrap!" Shepard shouted as he dove for cover behind the central barrier.

"Heh, oops? My bad. But on the plus side, I didn't trigger the security mechanisms, so I get to try again! I'll get it for sure this time."

Almost immediately, Nihlus took charge of the rapidly depleting situation. " Khan and Lovel, on the left. Alenko, you're with me. Claptrap, get that door open! We hold them off here and pray to the spirits that things somehow turn around."

Nihlus had to admit, even though they probably were of the craziest race in the entire damn galaxy, they were well trained. They followed his orders precisely, and had taken up position where he had indicated. Whatever came into the room was going to have it's work cut out for it.

They did not have to wait long. They had barely settled in when the first Maliwan units burst into the room. They were outfitted similarly to the guards who had been stationed in front of the door; the first guard they ran into must have been the exception, not the rule. With only savage yells and whoops, the Maliwan guards opened fire, peppering the air above the entrenched agents with gunfire. They must have been expecting lightly armored foes, as the majority of the bullets blazed to indicate that they were of the incendiary type, with the occasional shock round pulsing through to remove any shields.

Khan and Lovel seemed to be matching their opponents' firepower all by themselves, with Lovel having produced an SMG together with Khan. However, as they were only two, they were unable to line up a proper shot. At first, the massive amount of return fire had startled the newly arrived Maliwan troops, but as they realized how erratic it was, they managed to slowly inch forward, with more precise shots from Nihlus's pistols picking off an unlucky few.

However, before the guards could get too close to the defenders, Shepard stood up out of cover, which made them pause. The air in front of him was immediately filled with small blue flashes as his shield dispersed the kinetic energy from the bullets that were aimed at him. With a shout, he hurled a grenade into the center of the massed troops, which immediately pulled them all closer together before detonating. Only those who had been closest to the blast had been killed, their arms and legs torn off by the force, but the ones farther out were still alive, albeit wounded. But harming them had only been the grenade's secondary purpose; they were now disoriented, and more importantly, clustered together. Now able to properly aim, the defenders concentrated their fire at the mass of bodies, finishing off whoever was left

Although they had just achieved a small victory, there was no time to cheer. There seemed to be a constant stream of guards into the small room. Better weaponry or no, they would eventually squash the defenders with sheer numbers. As much as it chilled Shepard to think about, he had to admit that their lives were in Claptrap's frail, nearly useless, metal claws. If the robot could not open that door, which, he reminded himself, was the sole reason they were useful, they would not be leaving this place alive.

The stream of Maliwan soldiers into the room gradually slowed down, but it did not seem to be due to any lack of personnel. Rather, they were stopping and backing away from the room of their own volition. Well that's certainly not ominous, Shepard thought to himself. Security personnel generally operated on the principle that whatever an intruder might do to them, their bosses would do much worse. If they were pulling out, that meant something worse was coming in.

From behind the rank and file, a large silhouette was muscling its way to the front. The guards attempted to get out of its way, but the hallway only had so much room, and so they were being flattened against the walls. There was a sound of crunching that indicated that bones were being broken as the figure strode onward. As it finally cleared the hallway, Shepard was able to make out what it was.

Normally, Maliwan soldiers were sleek and fashionable, like everything else the company produced. After all, the Maliwan unofficial motto was "If it's worth doing, it worth doing with style." That was an ideal that was thrown out the window when it came to outfitting this particular soldier. The front could be considered to be "futuristic" in the same way that the Death Star from that old earth vid had been. It looked like someone had taken solid sheets of metal and decided, "yes, more of this, a lot more of this." Aside from a glass slot that the person inside the armor used to see and a respirator apparatus that allowed them to breathe, it was almost like a wall was advancing forward. Thick gloves and boots covered in metal protected the arms and legs, and Shepard knew from experience that they were actually soldered onto the rest of the armor. Whatever style had been salvaged in the front of the armor, the back had completely lost. Billowing cloth, reinforced with metal plates, peeked out from beneath a gigantic tank that could be glimpsed from the front. A sleek black hose led from the tank and ended in a tapered nozzle that would soon see almost constant use. Dread seeped into Shepard's heart, a Maliwan Fireman had arrived.

The sound of shots pinging off the badass's armor filled the air, but did not do much besides. The large soldier let out a deep laugh before it pointed the nozzle of the flamethrower in front of itself and pulled the trigger. Gouts of flame spewed forth, and filled Shepard's vision. His shield, already weakened from the earlier barrage of bullets, gave out, and before he could duck into cover, his left arm had been badly burnt. Digistructing an insta-health into his remaining good arm, he sank the needle in and pressed down on the plunger; sweet relief soon flooded into his system. He might not be able to hold anything in his left arm until he got proper medical attention, but at least now he would not be distracted by the pain. Shepard felt the barrier that he was hiding behind heat up, the fireman was approaching, and unless someone did something, he was a dead man.

Nihlus surveyed the scene in front of him. The elite soldier that had arrived had completely changed the course of the battle. Whereas before, they had been more or less able to keep the Maliwan troops at bay, they would soon be defeated unless they were able to overcome this new obstacle. From the other barricade, Khan and Lovel were firing at the large soldier, but it seemed to have no effect. Their best bet was to attack the tank on the flame trooper's back, but his defense seemed almost impenetrable from the front. It didn't help matters that the flame and smoke from his weapon was making it difficult to aim at the few vulnerable spots that he had.

Next to him, Lt. Alenko had placed his weapon at his side and seemed to be deep in thought. He was speaking softly to himself, and Nihlus listened in; perhaps the man was more adept at strategy than he first appeared?

"Eenie, meenie miney mo-"

Or he had completely lost his mind.

"-my mother says that you are the one-"

Wait, could it possibly be that he-?

"-are it!" At that, dark energy collected around the lieutenant before surging forwards and striking the heavily armored soldier's legs. Normally, a biotic push would not have been that useful on such a large enemy, and would have bought them a few seconds at most. However, heavy troops such as Firemen were used to being being have sure footing; after Kaidan had unbalanced him, he was unable to regain his balance, and although he threw out his arms to steady himself like a drunken ballerina, the Fireman fell forward, exposing the tank on his back.

This was not an opportunity that Nihlus was willing to let slip by, and by the looks of things, neither was anyone else. Throwing down his SMG, Lovel digistructed a sniper rifle in front of him and immediately began firing at the tank on the badass's back. After a few burst fire shots from Khan to deplete the Fireman's shield, it did not take long for Lovel to puncture a hole in the cylinder, apparently Maliwan had been unable to properly armor up the tank without it becoming too heavy to lift.

Upon seeing this, Shepard immediately scrambled backwards and took cover alongside Khan. The reason for his haste soon became apparent: with a small groan of sadness, the Fireman lay prone and then immediately exploded, lingering flames having ignited the now free gas that he had been using as fuel for his flamethrower. The silence that followed was deafening, partially because many of the people present had momentarily lost their vision and hearing from the explosion.

"Ding!" The noise caught everyone's attention. Looking behind him, Shepard saw the one sight that he had never expected to see in his entire life, that of a claptrap actually being useful. The door was somehow open, and it looked like the robot was trying to crack the non-existent knuckles on his pseudo-hands.

"Yes peons! Bask in the glory of a CL4P-TP Mk. II Unit. We are mighty! We are unstoppable! We are-!"
"Kill them before they can enter that lab!"

Realizing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, the infiltrators raced towards the now open door, laying covering fire behind them. As she was running, Khan digistructed a small module into her hands, and threw it at the advancing horde. "Don't worry, I got a lovely parting present for you assholes!" When the module hit the ground, it spawned a turret, which showered the approaching guardsmen with bullets. Having slowed their opponents advance, the erstwhile defenders managed to get into the lab, and close the door behind them. Nihlus, the last one to enter, had left a small explosive on the outside, and detonated it once they were sure the door had been locked, activating the mechanism that would ensure that it would take time before their opponents could open the door. True, they could no longer leave that way, but that had not seemed a viable option in any case. They would need to find another way out after rescuing the siren, but for some reason, Nihlus considered that to be the least of his worries.

It could probably be described as the lab of someone's dreams, and could definitely be described as the lab of more than a few's nightmares. When they had been running towards the door, it had seemed to be clean and chrome, but a closer look showed that unpleasant reality. They probably did many things here, so it wasn't fair to dwell on one thing over another, but still, the dissected bodies caught everyone's attention. A human woman looked like she was only sleeping when viewed from the left side of her body, but the right side was a mess. There were mechanical parts sticking where they definitely were not meant to ever be, and some enterprising young hopeful had decided to add parts to some places until it seemed that it had never been organic. It wasn't just human bodies though, there seemed to be samples, male and female, from every race: asari, turian, salarian, batarian... and each specimen had been treated with the same level of barbarity.

"We're sure this siren is still alive?" Nihlus asked Alenko. From what he had seen so far, it did not seem likely.

"Yep! Zimboltz wouldn't dare let any harm come to the siren. They're not only really hard to come by, but their powers supposedly leave them when they die. No way is he risking losing that just to be able to examine her better. She's alive, just somewhere in here."

"Of course, that's assuming you can trust the word of a fucking heretic." muttered Khan as she looked down a row of stasis pods.

"Excuse me?"

"Did I fucking stutter? Everyone saw the shit you pulled back there on that badass."

By this point, Kaidan had caught up to Khan and was the two were engaged in a staring contest. Both Shepard and Lovel had decided to stay out of it, and were instead showing a surprising amount of interest in random pieces of machinery.

"End this, now!" Nihlus snapped at the two bickering soldiers, "I don't know what the problem is between the two of you, but I won't have it endangering the mission. Whatever it is, it can wait until after we are done here!"

With a final glower exchanged between the two, they each went to examine different ends of the lab. The thick tension between the two of them was enough to send the rest of the squad into silence as well, and they all searched for the siren in silence, with the only sound being the occasional boom as the Maliwan troops outside attacked the door in a vain attempt to blast it open.

"Found the objective." Lovel's emotionless voice carried throughout the lab, and the rest of the crew rushed to his location. Lovel had stopped in front of a large glass container that was attached at the base to a console that was beeping furiously. The top of the container stretched to the ceiling, and it was filled with a cloudy fluid that made it impossible to see inside. Printed on the glass were the words "DO NOT OPEN" followed by the skull and crossbones symbol used to symbolize hazardous death, whether that death would be due to what was in the tank, or what Maliwan would do to anyone who opened it, was left unclear. Nihlus went over to inspect the various displays on the console, and noted that many of them were monitoring an organism's vital signs. Alenko had been right, whoever, whatever, was in here was being kept healthy.

"Alright, we'll need to do this carefully in stages. First, we need to shut down anything that could cause harm to the siren when the fluid is drained out. From the looks of things, it's a mix of sedative and nutrient ooze. Then we'll-" Nihlus was interrupted by a beeping noise that indicated the container had been opened Turning to his side, he saw the claptrap unit had pushed a glowing red button while he had been speaking.

"I didn't do it."

Sparing him a single glare, Nihlus moved to make sure whatever was inside had been unharmed by the steward bot's rash action. However, he had moved too slowly: by the time he crossed the distance from the console to the opening in the glass, Shepard and Khan were already there to catch the siren as the liquid that she had been floating in drained away. The two ripped away the various pads and wires that had been attached to the naked woman, and Shepard checked her vitals to make sure that they were still strong. Giving a curt nod to indicate that he detected no abnormalities, the two of them gently laid her on a nearby table, scavenging some nearby sheets to use as makeshift bedding.

Whoever the siren was, she possessed the same ethereal beauty that all sirens were said to have, as well as the blue eridian script down the left side of her body. Her hair was not simply pale, but stark white, but from the lack of concern that the humans seemed to hold for that, Nihlus attributed it to some aspect of sirens rather than being from the experimentation. She was breathing slowly, but without any trouble, and from the levels of sedative in the tank, Nihlus guessed that she would remain unconscious for quite some time.

As Claptrap peered at the sleeping woman, he appeared to be deep in thought, before speaking up in an excited voice, "Hey, I recognize this meatbag! She's got an extranet site that I'm subscribed to! Her name is

Echidna Thurston

-Gentlewoman adventurer! Also: siren-

Yeah, it's really cool, she goes to weird, out of the way ruins and broadcasts what she finds there."

"Claptrap, do you mean to tell me you've been aware of a siren all this time and have never told anyone at Roland about this."

"Hey! I would have totally told you guys about this! She was just really, really good at hiding the fact that she was a siren."

"Out of random curiosity, how was the show?"

"Oh the show is great. I mean, yeah, most of the time the production quality is really low, but the special effects are AMAZING. I mean, at least she SAID they were special effects. If you can't trust a random stranger on the extranet, who can you trust?" Claptrap trailed off as he realized exactly what he was saying, "Have I ever mentioned how much I love you?"

"I'm not sure who I should be angrier at. You, or the investigate department at Roland whose job it is to find out these things." Shepard said with a sigh.

He looked over the Eridian script to try and see if he could figure out what this siren's powers were, but had no luck. He had not spent nearly enough time going through the archives that Roland had on sirens to be able to be able to match up what script meant what powers. However, at least he was sure that she wasn't the phasewalker, phaseshifter or the phaselocker, as each siren had their own unique power, and he already knew where those three were. That meant that she was one of the others. Unfortunately, even through there were only six sirens at any time, that didn't mean the same powers were manifested in every generation.

From the look on his face, it seemed that the others had realized that he was as clueless about the siren as the rest of them, and so they refrained from asking him any questions. Shepard wrapped the sheet around the the siren and hoisted her over his left shoulder. If his hand was unable to hold a weapon for the rest of the mission, he might as well get some use out of his arm. Khan looked as if she was about to protest his actions, but gave up as she realized that there didn't seem to be any better alternative for carrying the siren.

Now that they had the siren, the hard part of the mission was technically over, and all that was left was the getting out. However, the difficulty of the first part had been mostly due to getting in without being noticed. Seeing as they had officially screwed that up, actually leaving was going to be much harder than they had expected.

"Spread out and search for anything that might help us. A secret exit out of the facility would be best, but anything and everything improves our chances of staying alive. This place is bound to have something that we can use to surprise the men who are about to blow the door down." after saying this, Nihlus went over to a console that seemed to be the most important in the lab. With any luck, he would be able to find out exactly what they were trying to do here and gain other valuable information about Maliwan. They would have to work fast, the sound outside the door had been getting louder and louder; it would not be too long until the door was breached, and Nihlus was not looking forward to facing whatever forces Maliwan had been able to mass outside the door.

The rest of the team, sans Shepard who was spending his time trying to make sure that the siren was securely slung over his shoulder, followed Nihlus's lead and searched through the computers scattered throughout the lab, hoping to find some way out of the predicament that they found themselves in.

"Hey, I found something over here!" Khan cried out excitedly, "I think I may have found out how we're getting out of this damn place!"

"What is it? Is there some kind of exit that the guards may have overlooked in their haste to surround us?" queried Nihlus.

"Kinda. It's a map of this place, including all the rooms that they probably left off of their official documents. From the looks of things, right next to this room is a passageway that has a room off to the side which can get us out of this place."

Nihlus examined the plans carefully, "Khan, there's a problem with your plan. The passageway that leads out of this place isn't connected to this room at all, to get to it, we'll have to get through a wall that looks to be at least 8 meters thick!"

At this, Khan merely smiled.

To say that the Maliwan personnel that were currently attempting to break into Lab Zeta were unhappy would be an understatement. If the company had ever endeavored to make them feel like they were anything more than another body for the meat grinder, it had happened quietly and not bothered to alert any of them. Instead, they were currently outside the door that they had been told countless times to never, ever enter, unless they wanted to be killed slowly over the course of several days. The worst part was that there were several elite troopers had come down to make sure that the intruders did not manage to escape. Normally, having the backing of several badasses served to boost morale, but the rank and file had an uneasy suspicion that after the badasses took out the people currently holed up in the lab, they would clean up all of the loose ends, i.e all of the other gaurds.

A corrosive trooper had brought down a small mining laser and was currently drilling around the door that had become melted into the wall. Unfortunately, this was only after several men had tried to blast through the wall with rocket launchers. Not only had they been unsuccessful, but splash damage from the explosions had claimed the lives of many guardsmen, not that their superiors had given a damn.

They could hear loud noises from the inside of the lab, which did not make things any better. Whenever a project was set back, management was unhappy, and when management was unhappy, everyone was unhappy. The guys on top always made sure everybody else shared in their misery. "Come on you assholes," a soldier muttered, "You're already dead men walking, why do you have to make our lives harder as well? Dick move. Dick. Move."

By now, the mining laser had almost finished it's job, and the men and women who worked for Maliwan were readying their weapons. They would have to be quick and accurate once the door came down. If they accidentally shot anything in the lab, the would probably "accidentally" fall into an incinerator in the next few days. The last bit of the door that was still connected to the door finally yielded, and the door shook for a bit before gradually falling forward, squashing a luckless soldier whose job it had been to operate it.

They burst into the room, only to see that the invaders had dragged as much furniture as they could onto one side of the room. On the other side, there were several packages heaped against the wall, and a red haired woman crouching behind an upturned desk was holding something that looked an awful lot like a detonator.

"Well shit."

The sound of eight barrels of Torgue Ocean-Exploder going off at once was both beautiful and terrifying and wonderful. For Khan, it sounded of freedom and joy; to everyone else, especially the guards who were caught in the blast, the noise sounded more like a demon of hell had woken up with a horrific hangover. The wall was more that destroyed; the very possibility of a wall having once existed there had been removed. All that was left was a smoking crater.

"Move it! Move it! Move it! The blast didn't kill all of them, and it won't take them too long for them to realize that!" Khan shouted at her compatriots as she vaulted over the remains of their makeshift barrier. Shepard was quickly behind her with the siren over his shoulder, and the rest were not far behind.

"This way!" Pointing at a corridor that was now visible beyond the now-missing wall, Khan digistructed a Dahl assault rifle and began firing at the first few troops that had dared to poke their heads into the ravaged laboratory. These guards must have been higher-up in the company than the previous ones, and had shields that held up for a short time before dissipating and leaving their bodies to be shredded by bullets. However, the time that the shields had bought allowed more guards to enter the room faster than Khan could kill them. By the time Nihlus, who had taken up the position of rear guard, crossed over into the hallway, at least 15 guards had managed to pour into the room and were taking up position to gun down the five of them before they could get to the room with the escape route.

"Huh, wh-where am I?" Shepard heard a sleepy voice behind him say.

"Dammit, is someone concussed?! Who the hell is it!"

"Not me!"

"Me neither!"

"My condition is fine!"

"My status: excellent."

Then who the hell is it? Shepard wondered, there were no guards close enough to him that he should be able to hear them speak. The only person that was left was the siren, and according to Nihlus, she should still be unconscious. Sirens were supposedly tougher than they might otherwise appear, but could they really be that strong?

"What was noise?" Ah, that explained it, the explosion was probably loud enough to wake the dead, and had managed to bring the siren back to consciousness for a little while.

"Don't worry about it ma'am, we're your rescue team, and we're getting you out of here." Shepard looked back to see the guards were getting ready to fire a massed shot to take them all out, "Hopefully"

The guards were taking careful aim to shoot the intruders, but avoid the siren that was slung over Shepard's shoulder, their superiors having told them that if they shot the woman, it would be best for them to shoot themselves while they were at it. But, before they could let off a shot, their guns turned a sickly green and became too painful to hold.

"Why have you betrayed us, guns? All we've done is love you! Is that a crime, to love too much?!" screamed a Maliwan soldier as he dropped his submachine gun, the hand that had held the gun having corrosive burns on it.

Khan took this chance to lob a child grenade in the center of the group before sprinting to catch up to the rest of the group, the blast still wouldn't be enough to kill all of the guards, but it would buy more time to help them get the hell out of the Maliwan facility and into relative safety.

By now, the rest of the group had reached the room that supposedly held the secret exit, and Lovel had taken up a defensive position just the entrance, and slammed it shut after Khan passed through, with an electronic noise confirming the door had locked itself. As Khan stopped to catch her breath, she saw Shepard was checking on the siren who had fallen asleep once more while Nihlus, Alenko and the claptrap unit were looking around for the switch that should open the passageway that would be their salvation..

"Alright, I think she's okay. Guess we owe her our lives now. "

"Yeah..." Khan began, "I've heard about the powers of sirens, but I never thought there would come a day I'd actually fucking see 'em in action. What the hell was that?"

"If I had to guess, this, uh, Echidna, used what we have come to call Phasecycling."

"And that mean she can-?"

"Temporarily imbue things with the elements. Herself, others, weapons. It looks like she made the handles of their guns corrosive so that they couldn't stand to hold them. I doubt that she's able to do such a thing often, but being kept asleep for so long probably built up a lot of energy in her system. Also explains why Zimboltz decided to risk capturing her, probably wanted to study that for their weapon systems."

"Ah,yes, Shepard, while we're looking for the switch, I don't suppose you would care to enlighten why this seemed so out of place for a corporation to do? You would think that with their greed, corporations would try to kidnap a siren every time the ran into one." Nihlus called out across the room.

"Well, sirens are a bit of a tricky business. Although they're technically the same as any other citizen, you'll have a hard time who actually thinks of them like that. I suppose you could call them living national treasures that belong to themselves; kidnapping one can lead to you being hit by every single other corp, not to mention the Systems Alliance."

Noting this information, Nihlus resumed his search for the escape switch, with Shepard and Khan joining in, Lovel remained watching the door, as they still had to worry about the guards catching up. As Nihlus felt along the bottom of the wall, his hand passed over a small recess. Stretching a talon into the opening, he was rewarded with a small click that resulted in a section of the floor sliding away revealing a flight of stairs: they were out.

The stairs had led to a tunnel. The tunnel had led to an elevator. And the elevator had led to warehouse, which was were they now were. They had run the entire way and Khan had dropped a grenade in the elevator after they had gotten off of it, which would give them some time before their pursuers caught up to them. As they sat on some crates to try and regain some of their energy, Nihlus's omnitool began to let out a series of beeps.

"-lus. Nihlus are you there, If you are getting this please respond. This is Captain Anderson."

Nihlus raised his omnitool to his mouth and answered, "Captain Anderson, this is Nihlus, the parameters of the mission have changed. Maliwan was keeping a siren imprisoned, and we were able to rescue her along with Lt. Alenko. Please send down a shuttle for extraction, I'm sending you our coordinates now."

A series of very impressive swears could be heard from the omnitool, but eventually, Anderson was able to make himself coherent once more, "Well that explains more than it doesn't. This fuckshit bastard sunnavabitch has deployed what looks like to be every single soldier he's got left. They executed the circus troupe you guys were with and basically have the entire city on lock down. But a siren changes things! We don't have to hide ourselves much longer! I'll get every single Alliance soldier in the fucking system to murder this fuck! Can you hold out at your position?"

Nihlus exchanged looks with the rest of his team. They were low on ammo, the siren was unconscious, and several of them were injured, with Shepard unable to use one of his hands, if Maliwan troops were able to pin them down, they would have almost no chance of surviving. He also doubted that they would get another miracle, such as when the siren had woken up and disabled all those soldiers. "I'm afraid that's a no. The enemy has a very good idea of where we are as well, so we desperately need a hot extraction."

On the SSV Normandy, Anderson was deep in thought. They needed to get that siren out of there, and they needed to keep Nihlus and company alive. Unfortunately, he could not figure out a way for both these things to occur; either they abandoned the siren and vanished until Anderson could get a rescue team in, or most of the team fought a last stand, while one member crept away with the siren. Either way was not attractive, in the first, Maliwan kept a siren in their grubby hands. In the second, he was going to have to explain to a lot of powerful people how he managed to get an active Spectre, as well as humanity's possible first Spectre killed on their first mission. In the first scenario, he would be tortured then killed; in the second, they would probably get creative, especially Roland, who had bristled at sending one of their best to work for the Systems Alliance.

With a deep sigh, Anderson prepared to tell Nihlus to get the siren comfortable and get the hell out of there, when he had an idea. A wonderful, terrible idea "Shepard, is there any chance I could send some of your men down in one of their special "shuttles"? In the chaos, we can probably send down a real transport to pick you. up."

There was a small pause as the omnitool was passed to Shepard so he could speak, "Tell them they're going to MeatLand. That'll get them to go anywhere you damn well want. Of course, they'll probably dismember whoever you send to tell them that since they don't trust the 'magic voice box' but I'm sure you can handle that""

"Well then, prepare for a distraction, followed by an extraction."

That was it! Nobody gave a damn if psychos died. Hell, they loved it when psychos died! The world would be a much sadder place if a child's face did not light up upon seeing a psycho die in a cruel and unusual manner. But who to send? Shepard was right, whoever he sent in there would be killed without Shepard to keep his 'men' in line. There were just so many options though! Jordan who got his coffee order wrong, Harriet with the annoying voice, Ronnie from engineering, Megan who kept drinking on the job, Ronnie, Clyde who talked too loudly, Ronnie, that stupid pilot, Ronnie... decisions,decisions.

In the cargo hold, there were currently three people bleeding to death, four others with various wounds gotten that morning, eleven fresh corpses, twenty old corpses, and several people brawling in a circle while their companions placed bets. Such good behavior only meant that the psychos really, really,wanted to be unleashed somewhere. The door opened, and a nervous man walked in. Instantly, every head turned to look at the fresh meat.

"MISter SPICKle-SPACkle, I DIDn't KNOW it WAS TIme FOR the tEA parTY! WHERE'S YOUR BIB?!" A psycho with a blue mohawk called out as he advanced with his buzz ax drawn.

"Um, so I'm supposed to tell you that if you get in your shuttle it's going to take you straight to MeatLand. Please don't kill me." Ronnie squeaked out. It had been a direct order from the captain, so he had to go, but he still found his pants raising several degrees.

"MEATLAND! WHAT GLORIOUS THINGS LAY HIDDEN IN THE MIST?! MY COMPANIONS AND I SHALL PARTAKE IN THIS FINE QUEST!" The mohawk psycho, apparently some sub commander, had turned towards the rest of his crew and shouted what he had just been told. This, apparent mollified them, and they began pushing, shoving and shooting others in their desire to get into what consisted of their 'shuttle'. This 'shuttle' was a specialized invention that Roland used to deploy their more uncontrollable soldiers, and was simply a metal pod with doors hastily thrown on. It could be dropped onto a planet, but there was little to no way to retrieve it, and it tended to kill half of it's 'passengers'.

Ronnie let out a gasp of relief, it seemed he would be surviving this after all. "AND BRING THE MESSENGER! HE SHALL SHARE OUR BOONDOGGLES!". Or not.

Back inside the warehouse, there was an air of extreme uncertainty. They could hear the sounds of the Maliwan troops going through the city and destroying every building that they came across. They had to know where their own tunnel led to, so if they were taking the time of demolishing everything, it meant that they were silencing witnesses and removing possible allies and hiding places. By now, Zimboltz would have been told that they successfully escaped with the siren, and that meant that he was getting desperate. After finishing the call with Anderson, Nihlus had looked around to see if anywhere else provided suitable cover as they did not trust Maliwan to necessarily have only one secret entrance built into their hideaway, but there was no such luck. The land around was clear of anything that even seemed remotely defensible, Maliwan had probably bought up all the surrounding property to ensure that no one discovered their secret tunnel, and would have kept it clear to allow for vehicles to pull up with ease and pick up a fleeing executive. While this meant that any shuttle would have an easy time landing, it also meant that it would be easy for Maliwan to surround them with troops.

"So how long do you think it'll before your boss can send down that shuttle?" Alenko asked Shepard.

"First, he's not my boss. Secondly, he'll have to let the psychos land and cause enough of a distraction before he can send the real shuttle for us, so I'd say anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes."

That seemed to satisfy Alenko, and he settled down to take watch once more. The siren was sleeping behind some crates that they had dragged over to cover her. Lovel had been the one chosen to watch over her. If worst came to worst, he was to leave the rest of them to their fates while he got the hell out of there with the siren. He hadn't exactly been happy with that, but as the "Wraith of Echo", his ability to become undetected was probably the greatest out of all of them.

Khan was keeping watch at the western window when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Closer inspection revealed it to be a Mantis gunship, and on the ground, it looked like it was getting some support in the form of a few infantry transports. Maliwan must have decided that they were somewhere in the area, but still had enough doubts to not commit the entirety of their forces to the area. That indecision would be a big factor in whether or not they would be surviving this.

"Look alive assholes! We got company, and they do not look like they're happy!" Her shout alerted the rest of the team, and they took up position to defend from assault, it was do or die time. The Mantis was now close enough that Khan could make out the man in the passenger seat now. She would recognize that stupid hat anywhere, the asshole that blew up the train was back, and he had friends. Well, if they were going to die, at least they were going to get their revenge.

"We got a heat signature down there Mr. Manicolo, sir, it's them. Should I call the rest of our forces?"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, MY NAME IS GARROK WARSCREAMER! And no, don't call everyone else! That'd mean less XP for me."

As the gunship touched down, the pilot turned to his passenger, "With all due respect sir, that's a terrible idea. I really think we should at least inform Mr. Zimboltz and get him to send at least a-" Whatever the pilot was going to say was cut off by his being shot in the head by his passenger.

"Anyone else want to give their leader suggestions?" At the chorus of 'No's and "Not me"s, James turned towards the warehouse, "Attention villains! I should warn you that I have a high diplomacy stat. Any attempts to convince me to leave will not work! Surrender immediately and hand over any cool loot that you may have." a nearby soldier whispered into his ear, "And the siren. We'll be taking her back as well. She is almost as important as the loot. Not quite, but almost there."

"So what the hell do we do now?" Khan hissed at the rest of the squad. It looked like a pretty bad situation. As much of an asshole that he was, the guy in the cowboy hat looked pretty important, which meant he was probably really good in a fight. The most common way for a position like that to change hands was for one guy to off the other, and as stupid as he looked, it was probably the same for this guy.

While Khan had been talking, Shepard had been playing with something that he had been keeping in his right, good hand. She sneaked a look and it seemed to be two pills. Was this fucker going to take the easy way out?

Apparently, whatever it was, Claptrap noticed it too, "Ahoy there Shepard! That wouldn't happen to be your special happy pills would it? Because you know you're not supposed to take those."

Shepard looked up at the rest of the squad, and began to speak, "You all go, I'll distract them. When I see you guys have made it then I'll get out of here as well. Hopefully."

"Shepard, there is no way you can handle all of those soldiers by yourself. I don't care what kind of drug you have, it won't be enough! We stick to the plan: we all act as decoys and enable Lovel to escape with the siren."

At this, Shepard chuckled, "I'd advise against that because I really don't know if I'll remember that you're on my side." He stood up and walked towards the door, with one smooth motion, he shoved the pills into his mouth and unhooked the buzz ax from the back of his pants, "And this isn't a drug, it's an antidote."

"So what, do we just go in and shoot them?" One of the Maliwan soldiers asked his fellows. After Manicolo had given them his ultimatum, there had been no response from inside the warehouse. His fellow hired gun simply shrugged his shoulders. With their crazy boss, there was no telling what the correct course of action was. Speaking of their boss, he had not taken the way he had apparently been ignored well; from the looks of things it wouldn't be too long before he ordered them to do something.

Just then, the door of the warehouse opened up, and a tall man walked out. Armed with a buzz ax, he did not appear to be too threatening.

"AHA! A champion! I shall take your challenge! And when I defeat you I shall gain a new title!" James shouted at Shepard, who paid him no apparent notice. Instead, he held up his hands to inspect them, and held the ax straight in front of him. Something seemed to be off with Shepard, but none of the soldiers could place it exactly.

"To hell with this. NPCs shoot that man! Alternate method of completion!" At last getting an order to kill, the soldiers raised their weapons and shot at the man who was simply standing there, expecting an easy kill. Almost at once, Shepard roared. It was not a roar of challenge, nor was it one of anger. This one was of a beast about to catch prey.

Shepard dropped to a crouch and raced towards the soldiers that were closest to him, a flame squad, going by the coloration of their weapons. Before they were able to properly register this, Shepard raised his ax into the air and brought it straight down into a soldier's face. The man screamed and flailed, his pistol going off and killing the man next to him as well. It was then that they realized what had seemed to be so off, it was Shepard's arms: since when did arms have that many joints?!

The rest of the soldiers fared little better. One tried to take aim at Shepard, but in his haste, missed and simply alerted the bestial man, who was quick to slice open his belly. Another soldier had the presence of mind to draw his knife, realizing that he would not be able to aim quickly enough in such close quarters. Screaming, he stabbed Shepard in the shoulder, but it did not seem to do much more than irritate the man. With his left arm, Shepard grabbed the soldier by his face and threw him to the ground, mercilessly lifting him up and slamming him down until he stopped moving and shrieking.

This gave the remaining soldiers pause, and Manicolo shouted at them to get them moving once more. "He's just one man! Take aim and fire! Some of you may die, but that is a risk I am willing to make!" His words broke through the fear that had settled into the Maliwan personnel, and they began to fill the air with bullets. They were trained soldiers, and many of their shots were on target, despite Shepard's erratic movements as he ran towards them. However, even though he had been hit by several bullets, he was not slowing down, and eventually reached the second group of soldiers. Seeing what he had done to the first group that he had gotten to, their immediate reaction was to make distance around him to prevent him from taking them down before they could get a shot off. Shepard brought up his ax and beheaded the first man he got to, and with another roar leapt onto another, and ripped out his throat with his teeth.

Shepard stood up from the body, and grinned, his mouth still red from the unfortunate guard's blood. This caused several of the remaining soldiers to break and flee. They had made up their minds to fight to the death, but not this death. Not death by teeth.

"HA HA hA Ha HAHAHA haha HA!" Shepard laughed as the soldiers began to break and run. How long had it been since he had let loose like this? Too damn long! It was so much funfunfunfunmeatjoylaughlaughkilkillhahahaha!

Manicolo took stock of what he had left. Things were not going to plan, but it was okay; he never failed, he always knew what to do.

"You and you! Get in those transports! Drive around and shoot at him, there ain't no way a man can keep up with a fucking vehicle! He gets close, you run him over!" He yelled at soldiers to get them back into order. Half the damage the psycho was causing was due to the men's panic, if he took care of that, things were going to get a lot smoother.

"What about you sir?"

"I'm going to get an aerial bonus."

Shepard snarled in frustration. Where were the meat chunks? They couldn't have all gotten away. A burst of feeling on his left side alerted him to where the meat had gotten off to. They were in their little metal boxes! He would show them he could play the tinhorn man too!

James smiled as he saw that his plan was working. The psycho chased after the vehicles, but even with his enhanced speed, he could not keep up with them. If he had been able to think, he would have realized his best bet was to try and cut them off whenever they tried to make a turn, but since when had a psycho been able to think? James would let the other soldiers wear the psycho down, and then come in for the kill with the gunship. The vehicle penalty for experience probably wouldn't be too bad.

The medicine that Shepard had taken was slowly starting to wear off, and he realized exactly how bad a situation he was in. When he had been in full blown maniac mode, he had been goaded into what looked like an unwinnable situation. He was getting tired now, and the wounds that the beast had been able to ignore were taking their toll. Even if they did not kill him now, if he did not get medical attention soon he was going to die. The transport drivers seemed to realize how close he was to death, and backed off as the gunship moved in for the kill.

The psycho had been worn down now and barely seemed to be moving. Some players would argue that he had cheesed his way through, but what the hell did it matter how he did it as long as he managed to finish off such a tough enemy? James was interrupted by the a high pitched sound behind him. What was that noi-.

A shuttle crashed through the Mantis gunship and landed on the ground, completely stunning the soldiers. The hell was this?

That question was soon answered as the door of the transport fell off of its hinges and a psycho jumped out. The psycho was carrying a crying man in one arm, and an assault rifle in the other. He threw back his head and shouted, "WE'RE AT THE DIAMOND JUBILLEE! TO YOUR HORSES!". With those words, many more psychos burst out of their transport, arms flailing and weapons going off at random. They quickly overwhelmed the transports with an impressive amount of firepower, and stampeded towards the city, ignoring their fallen commander, their heads filled with dreams of slaughter and mayhem.

Just gotta keep conscious. Shepard told himself as he dragged himself to an upright position. Insta-health would not help him not, he was too wounded for it to white out all of his pain. At least the siren got away. He did not know how long he was sitting there, against the wreck of the psychos' transport. The last thing he saw was Khan, or perhaps it was a hallucination of Khan, shouting something at him, but he was too tired to hear what it was. He closed his eyes, and then, nothingness.

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So there's a reason that Shepard's obeyed by psychos! But, there's a bunch of reasons he doesn't do that often. Also, DEUS EX MACHINA BABY! Although I had always intended for Manicolo to get killed by luck more than anything else...

Okay, that's another chapter down and the end of this 'arc'. I had a chapter done by new year's, but I really wanted to finally get to the actual crossover/universe melding bits, so I just finished the next chapter and combined them. See if you can figure out where I frankensteined the chapters together! I'm using quotations around 'arc' because it was supposed to be a lot shorter (only around 10,000 words) and only introduce Kaidan, but then it kind of grew into this big thing. So to answer the reviewer known as Jimbo Jones, that's why so far this has all been very Borderlandsy. It was supposed to just flesh out the character a bit more and showcase the Borderlands side of the universe. Next couple chapters are going to be lot more Mass Effect like.

On the subject of the new siren power, it was meant to be an opposing one to Phaseshifting, as phaselocking (stop an enemy) is to phasewalking (personally be unrestricted). The problem is that it's never really explained what the phaseshifting power is. The best explanation I've seen so far for Phaseshifting is that it allowed Angel to exist simultaneously in two dimensions, and in the second one she had powers over computers. So the opposite of this, Phasecycling allows for elements (from the 'other' dimension) to be added to things of this dimension. It's effects don't last too long though.