I don't own the Mass Effect.

Another Realm VI: Chevalier

Where I'm an addict and just can't stop myself from posting. Kicking this one off with something a little different, hoping you all enjoy it.

Usual credit to the Blocked Writer for serving as my beta and telling me when I have bad and good ideas. Additional thanks to GreaterGoodIreland for the TvTropes page on the series. Last note before we begin, I did create a forum for this series, the link can be found on my profile page; alternatively you can simply search this site's forums for 'Another Realm'

With the thanking and stuff out of the way... here we go again.

~ Kat

Prologue I: A Shadowy Game

Date: 01-25-2185

Location: Zakera Ward, Citadel

The Huntress

(Nikita Korolev)

Ignoring the screaming, flying blood, and detonating biotics from the brawl occupying my living room, I forced myself to focus entirely on the assassin currently trying to kill me. She let out a snarl as I seized her wrist, my strong arms shoving her own limb up and away so that the silenced pistol discharged into my kitchen ceiling rather than into my skull.

The Asari maiden let out a breathy curse, but her youth and arrogance were showing. Rather than trying to free her weapon up, she started to glow with biotics, clearly intending on channeling some kind of horribly deadly amount of dark energy right into my body.

Her nose broke when my forehead slammed into it, her concentration vanishing with a high-pitched yelp of pain. She reeled back, and even with my vision swimming a little from the headbutt I'd just delivered, I snapped my right hand up to slam it into her throat just like Ash had taught me.

She collapsed with a pained gurgling noise, dropping her gun to clutch at her throat with both hands... very much proving that she wasn't exactly an expert combatant. Ignoring her twitching, I dropped to a crouch and scooped up her weapon. I flinched even as I put a single round through her gaping mouth, my stomach rolling in disgust as blood sprayed out from her broken skull.

Oh god... I hate this...

Not now. Detective Nikita snapped from the driver's seat, rising to a low crouch and listening as the fighting wound down in time with a dying whimper from another Asari.

"Front room is clear." A man's cold voice announced quietly, his voice still managing to carry despite its lack of volume.

"Back is clear." I replied, rising to my feet as my limbs started to shake. Already?

Yes!

There was a mental scoff at myself as the nausea rose up, the pistol dropping from my fingers as I got a better look at what had happened in the rest of my home. Asari and... pieces of Asari were everywhere, purple blood doing absolutely nothing for the décor even as the stench of it reached my noise.

Standing in the middle of the tableau was the man who'd saved me by dealing with the other three assassins while I'd handled just the one, his hands cleaning more blood of off his sword as he regarded me through a blank visor that covered just his eyes.

"So..." I asked weakly, trying not stare at the sheer amount of blood now covering him, and my home. "Is this the part where you say something cliched?"

Kai Leng, Cerberus assassin, and the reason my right arm was filled with cybernetics, flicked the last bit of blood off of his blade before sheathing it. When he spoke, it was in the same utterly flat voice, though somehow it still conveyed amusement, "Come with me if you want to live."

I swallowed, stared at him, then at the three dead Asari who'd been about to murder me, then back at him before forcing myself to nod. Questions about why Cerberus was saving my life could wait until we'd gotten somewhere safe.

Or at least, until I found a way to get away from him as well as avoiding the assassins sent someone I'd thought was on our side.

It took another effort to clear my throat, "Panic bag is in my closet near the door."

One corner of his mouth might have twitched in approval, and he nodded in turn before motioning for me to go first. I did so, rushing down the short hallway and yanking the appropriate door open so that I could grab the small backpack there. A quick check confirmed that everything was still inside, and I quickly grabbed my similarly prepared time-to-run-away coat after a similar go-over.

The pistol Tali made for me, check. Ration bars, check. Canteens, check. Spare clothes, check. Medigel patches, check.

There was a snort from my inner detective, Told you this would come in handy. I also told you to keep it in the bedroom rather than the front closet.

Not. Now.

Yanking the coat on, and pulling the pack over my shoulders, I nodded to the patiently waiting sociopath. He nodded back, and opened my apartment door to reveal a handsome, dark skinned man standing guard in casual clothing.

My eyes flicked up and down on reflex, categorizing everything I could notice in the handful of seconds that I had.

Military, or ex-military. Back is rigid, probably a shoulder holster to conceal a pistol or collapsed shotgun from the way he's standing, My inner cynic rattled off as I risked a few seconds to get a feel for him. Eyes are constantly moving, looking for danger, but he's doing it slowly, not panicked. Not his first rodeo.

Good, I replied to myself, having long ago gotten to used to my own particular insanity. Right now I'll take a bit of professional protection.

"Ma'am." He nodded tightly as the assassin and I exited my place, "There's at least four more of T'Ravt's acolytes nearby, it's my job to get you off the Citadel."

I swallowed, "What about everyone else?"

"Another team is already escorting Doctor T'Soni." He supplied, his head continuing to flick up and down the hallway. "They'll be meeting up with us soon, but right now we have to move. It won't be long before C-Sec gets involved."

And Ash, James, and the other marines would be safe given that they would be at the Alliance embassy, and Tali and Jack were already off station and off to God knows where. Well, Tali was headed back home, it was more Jack who'd up and vanished after getting smashed at the funeral.

Think later, neighbors will be calling C-Sec.

I nodded to myself and to him, resisting the urge to lock the door behind me as if I was just stepping out for coffee. "What hangar?"

"Public nineteen." Leng supplied, his own head on a swivel before he nodded once. "Taylor, take her to the rendezvous point, I will clear the service corridors."

"Sir." The soldier, Taylor, nodded and then motioned with an arm for me to get moving, "Ma'am, this should be the fastest route."

I quickly brought up my mental map of my home district, my legs already moving as I made sure that they weren't trying to lure me somewhere else.

Taylor kept talking even as the more lethal man vanished through a normally sealed service door. "Do you have a weapon?"

"Yes." I didn't bother telling him where it was or what kind, "Do you know what's going on? Why is Matriarch T'Ravt trying to kill us?"

"The details are above my pay-grade ma'am." He replied politely as we reached the nearest stairwell, one of his arms rising to hold me back while he carefully checked the doorway. "All I know is that she wants you dead, she wants Doctor T'Soni taken alive, and she's got enough fingers in C-Sec to stop them from interfering. We're here to help."

No weapon while he did that... probably a biotic then.

And probably telling the truth, I exhaled as I kept following him, the pair of us taking the stairs as quickly as we could without falling, Dammit... I didn't...

You didn't want her to be involved with Shepard's death?

I really hadn't. I'd wanted to still have hope that T'Ravt, while definitely lying to me about a lot of things, had still been someone opposed to...

She is opposed to the reapers, my cynic reminded me, That's why none of this makes any goddamned sense. Why help Shepard clear out Saren's network... and then assassinate her?

Teeth bit my lip as we reached the bottom landing, and I shook my head. Worry later, survive now.

Oh now you've got a sense of priorities...

Ignoring my self-directed sarcasm, I followed Taylor out into the apartment complex's main lobby. The usual staff were still alive, both Salarians glancing up as we headed for the exit, though neither managed to say anything before we'd shoved the front doors open and entered the mildly busy street.

Turning right, we got moving along with the general traffic, heading in the general direction of the nearest set of public hangars. We'd gone about thirty yards before my omni-tool flashed with an incoming message, the cheerful sound of Liara's ring-tone making me jump and collide with Taylor, who grunted in surprise as he caught me.

"Sorry." I muttered sheepishly, flicking my fingers to accept the call and send it to the comm-bead in my left ear. "Liara?"

"Nikita. Thank the goddess you're alive." The Asari exhaled audibly, "Are you moving? Do you have an escort?"

"Yes, you?"

A woman with a faint Australian accent spoke instead of my friend, "We are secure and waiting for you, Operative Leng has just dealt with two snipers who were waiting in the public square just ahead of your position."

The muscles in my back tightened a little in reflexive fear. I'd thought that we'd be reasonably safe in the crowd, at least until we got to the hangar complex. "That's... they were going to shoot us down in public?"

A touch of confusion entered the woman's voice. "Are you honestly surprised? Did you not frequently liaise with her?"

I had... and now that I had a few moments to think about it, I wasn't as surprised as I wanted to be. T'Ravt had never shied away from the brutality of her business, though she'd at least... well, she'd at least given me the impression that she preferred to avoid excessive collateral damage. I supposed the latter was at least something I could rely on, otherwise she might have just bombed my building instead of having her people hack through my door to murder me in private.

Swallowing a little at the memory of their entrance, and Kai Leng's arrival not a minute later, I changed the topic to something more relevant. "Liara, are you sure you're all right?"

"For now, yes." She assured me, "We're in an unmarked freighter, Joker and Doctor Chakwas are also here."

I blinked a little. The last I'd heard they'd both been headed back to Earth for re-assignment... oh, right. Cerberus had probably saved them or managed to warn them ahead of time, and had enough evidence to convince them to ally. Temporarily, at least.

I hoped.

I really, really hoped. Being saved by the same guy who'd sliced my biceps to ribbons was surreal enough, I wasn't sure I could manage if Cerberus turned out to be good guys who were just a tad racist, but also horribly misunderstood.

We made it down one street, up a public stairwell, and then into the nearest common area without any more issues. Kai Leng's quietly vicious voice tracked our progress as we moved, and I had to fight the urge to look up to try and find him as he kept pace above.

Things didn't get worse until we were about two blocks away, the unnamed Cerberus woman coming through on my earpiece again. "We have a new problem, C-Sec headquarters just put out an arrest warrant for Korolev, homicide."

I couldn't help but flinch. "They what?"

"Your liaison in the local office, Bailey, is stalling, requesting clarification." She continued rapidly, ignoring my question entirely. "You both need to move."

She's right, Detective Nikita reminded me, As soon as they stop him from stalling, Bailey will tap the commercial scanners.

I grimaced at the real threat of that. Even if I disabled my omni-tool, some of those stupid things used facial recognition, and in either case C-Sec's official detection grid around the public hangar would pick me up long before we arrived.

"-have to run." Taylor was speaking, as I made faces at myself, his own expression clearly a little alarmed. "Are you all right?"

"Running won't help, but you can go on ahead safely. It's just me that...needs an alternate route." My throat went a little dry at who I was about to spend more time with, "L-Leng, I need a way into the service walks."

"To your left." The assassin rasped promptly.

I stopped moving and turned, Taylor stutter-stepping before cursing and continuing on without me. For a moment I only saw a bright billboard advertising a nearby restaurant, then my eyes adjusted enough to let me see a keeper standing motionless in the dark corner behind it. Just above that was a catwalk, a crouched figure just visible as it nodded towards me.

You've got to be kidding me...

Yeah. Shaking my head, I casually headed that way, trying to fight the urge to fidget or put a hand in my pocket to finger the very illegal pistol there. Don't get me wrong, I was beyond thankful to Tali for having built it for me, but I didn't exactly have Shepard's Spectre clearance to let me carry the thing around anymore.

Stop worrying about breaking a law! They're already blaming you for three dead Asari maidens, are they going to add a two year sentence for an illegal firearm on top of the firing squad?

Twitching a little at the internal reminder, I slid into the small alcove with barely any of the sparse crowd seeming to notice or care where I'd gone.

"Be quick." Leng muttered down. "Potential movement nearby."

That didn't help much, but I forced myself to nod as I regarded the insectoid creature before me. Touching it would probably kill it, its internal acids breaking it apart within a minute or two after it processed that I wasn't just accidentally brushing up against it.

Oh come on, the thing isn't even really alive and you know it. Do you want to live, or do you want to be found dead in a C-Sec holding cell tomorrow?

There were days when I really hated myself. Twisting my lips, and then swallowing heavily, I bounced twice on my heels to work up my nerves and remember old gymnastics classes before rushing forwards. The Keeper didn't so much as shift when I landed on its back, my legs quickly kicking me upwards before I lost my balance.

Kai Leng grabbed my flailing hands, a quiet grunt escaping him as he fought to haul my stocky body up. I kicked my legs against the wall to help, and eventually we managed to get me up there with him.

I wasn't sure which of us let go of the other first, but neither of us wasted more than a millisecond once I was secure.

Whatever respect I'd gained from being ready to flee my home at a moment's notice vanished as I sucked in a few heavy breaths and shook out the stinging in my entirely natural left arm.

I glowered up at his patronizing expression... at least until I saw the flicker behind him that came just as a silenced round hit him in the back. His armor took the blow, though it still drove him a step forwards. He somehow converted the motion into a whirling spin that drew his stupid sword, clearly intending on beheading the now-visible Asari assassin.

She didn't cooperate with that plan, hammering him with a quick punch and a bit of channeled biotic power to send him another few steps back, and then turning her pistol towards my much less protected body.

My finger pulled the gun's trigger twice, sending two phasic rounds through her barriers to impact her forehead. Purple blood, brain matter, and bits of her skull sprayed backwards even as people began to shout in the corridor below us.

Hauling myself to my feet, cynical Nikita kept her place in the driver's seat as I quickly stalked over to the body, keeping my weapon on her as my eyes snapped in every direction to check if there was any other threats around.

After several frantic heartbeats, she retreated back, leaving me shaking and nauseated once again as I stared at the broken corpse at my feet. It took a second try to safety my weapon before shoving it back into my coat pocket, swallowing and shuddering as I realized I'd now killed two living beings in the last fifteen minutes.

Leng didn't waste time feeling the same rush of nauseated self-loathing that I habitually indulged in after being forced to kill someone, instead he simply grabbed my shirt and hauled me into motion.

We didn't run into anyone else on the short trip, which I was thankful for. It gave me time to pull my fractured mind back together.

"You fight well." Kai Leng remarked as he worked at bypassing the door controls to the hangar, "React poorly after. Odd."

I sucked in a slow breath as the memory of what I'd just done continued to linger, changing the topic to something else I'd noticed. "I've seen you fight. She couldn't have pushed you back even if she'd been out of her mind on red sand."

He glanced over at me, his expression as stupidly blank as ever. It seriously annoyed me, if only because I was usually very good at reading other humans... but Leng was like a blank sociopathic wall.

"You... wanted to see if I could defend myself." I swallowed. "If I was smart enough to have a hand on my gun."

The 'and you wouldn't have been really broken up if I'd been an idiot and died' was inserted between the lines. He seemed to hear it all the same from the tiny twitch to his mouth, but his only other response was to keep his visor on me for several more seconds before returning to his work without a word.

I really hate him.

Yeah... I really, really hate him.

Barely waiting for him to check the other side of the door for anymore assassins, I all but launched myself through it in an effort to just get away from him.

The small hangar proved to be holding a small personal freighter, just as Liara had indicated, and the Doctor in question was pacing back and forth in front of the main boarding ramp as we entered on the level above her. Getting down didn't take long, though my feet had barely cleared the steps before she'd all but tackled me in a hug.

"Thank the goddess you're all right. You are all right aren't you?" Hands grabbed my arms as she pushed me back, frantically looking up and down my body. "There's blood on you!"

"It's not mine." I quickly reached up to grab her arms, trying to sound as reassuring as I could as I pulled her back into the embrace. "At my home...and... another one was on the catwalks with us."

"Goddess." Liara repeated quietly, squeezing me gently before we broke apart. "It's all gone wrong, hasn't it? Ever since..."

She visibly couldn't bring herself to finish that statement, and I bit my lip and nodded to show her that I understood all the same.

"I'm sorry to rush you both." I glanced over to see Taylor standing on the ramp, his expression grave, "But we have to leave before they track you to this hangar, or else we won't even get close to a relay."

We collected ourselves and nodded, quickly heading over and following him onto the ship. The interior was as slightly worn but functional seeming as the exterior had been, and I followed Liara through the narrow corridor up to the cockpit even as the engines thrummed to life behind us.

Joker was wearing a battered Blue Jays ball cap instead of his usual Alliance service hat, and there were deep bags beneath his eyes, but his stubbly face still split in his usual grin as he saw us.

"Holmes and Watson, here at last. We finally ready to get going then?"

Liara merely sighed at the nicknames, while I merely smiled, glad for the distraction from what I'd just seen... and had to do.

My smile lasted until the other human present rose from her seat, my eyes shifting to take her in and... woah.

Someone went a little overboard with surgeries.

No... shit.

You could run her down like a male-dream checklist... about the only thing even a little off was the black hair that defied Alliance fashion by stretching far below her shoulders. I ran my usual analysis on auto-pilot, noting a few oddities as I did. Her stance was mildly military but not quite right, and there was a measure of uncertainty in how she held herself rather than the bold declarations I'd expect considering her body.

Maybe in-utero enhancements instead of plastic surgery?

Maybe, I mused, Her face doesn't give anything away, probably have to talk with her.

Her stupidly symmetrical, aristocratically gorgeous face you mean.

"Detective Korolev." The owner of the accented voice gave me a quick nod, her own eyes flicking up and down me in return. She seemed oddly satisfied with what she saw, which made me feel all the more self-conscious about my less than male-dream checklist body. "My name is Miranda Lawson, a pleasure to meet you."

"I... can't really say the same." I admitted once I got over my personal image issues, "Considering what happened the last time we ran into Cerberus."

Lawson had the grace to wince a little, the motion somehow genuine to my critical gaze. "Yes, I was... briefed on that operation. Suffice to say that circumstances have changed a great deal since then."

"Hey!" Joker interrupted, turning around in his chair with a glower at all three of us, "Can we do the catchup thing once we're underway? Kind of need a copilot until we're clear."

"Of course." The Cerberus woman dropped back into her seat, smoothly managing several sub-systems. Liara tugged me back while they were otherwise occupied, leading me back to a small lounge located right behind us.

We were the only ones present, Taylor and Kai-Leng having evidently vanished to the small cabins I'd seen after we'd gotten on board. The Doctor wasted little time in making sure that I'd gotten settled at the room's tiny table, taking my bag and coat, and silently making sure to remove my pistol from the latter.

"There were four of them at my apartment." She spoke as she sat, checking the thermal clip before pushing the weapon across the table. I took it reluctantly, understanding the need but still hating what I'd done with it, "Armed with everything they'd need to knock me unconscious and drag me away. I was barely able to evade them and hold out until Lawson and several other agents arrived."

"Three..." I swallowed as my left leg started to bounce, stress setting in in the wake of adrenaline and fear. "Three of them hacked their way through my front door while I was making lunch. Didn't even get a chance to go for my bag... if that... if Kai-Leng hadn't been there...God, even saying that makes me feel sick. Cerberus saving us."

"Yes." Liara murmured quietly. "We can't trust them, that goes without saying, but... they've earned our attention for now."

I couldn't exactly argue with that, so I just nodded and sat quietly, trying to calm my nerves as I waited for whatever was going to happen next.

Next up is Prologue II: A New Quest

And starting this one out a little differently, covering Korolev and Liara's quest that was alluded to at the end of Einherjar. Prologue will likely be of the usual length, after which we'll be moving into a story built the same as AR:Terminus. Two main acts, with a six chapter mini-arc in between them from a separate point of view (Hint; name will be Operatic Memory).

Little things of note in this one, mostly heavily working to establish some of the similarities and differences between Cieran and Nikita. Neither came out of what the Matriarch did to them well, after all.

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat

I've finally given in and decided to start up a p-atreon account, intended mostly to fund original stories that I'll be working on, but also with potential rewards for those fans of AR. It can be found at p a treon dot com /Zach_K2V

You'll have to remove the spaces and replace the dot, this site apparently doesn't like the word in addition to its usual loathing of external links.