The Harbinger of Love [Mass Effect/KanColle]

[TCGM]

You can blame Saphire and the Taylor Varga Discord server for this.

Harbinger's new appearance: http://orig01.deviantart.net/3f47/f/2012/086/3/a/mass_effect_reaper_by_ibenz009-d4u31kx.jpg

EDIT: Shepard is now FemShep on request of the Itty Bitty Pretty Battleship Kitty.​

The Harbinger of Love
Chapter 1
Diversion​

Jane Shepard stepped up to the gigantic, glowing hologram of the Reaper starship that had appeared over a landing pad.

"SHEPARD." The thing spoke. The hologram flashed brighter when it spoke in the deep, malevolent tone inherent to all Reapers. "YOU HAVE BECOME AN ANNOYANCE."

Shepard said nothing. She just kept walking.

Undeterred, the Reaper continued on. "YOU FIGHT AGAINST INEVITABILITY. DUST STRUGGLING AGAINST COSMIC WINDS. THIS SEEMS A VICTORY TO YOU. A STAR SYSTEM SACRIFICED."

Shepard still paid the thing no mind, any more than she normally did for the purposes of situational awareness anyways. The Reaper's hologram might as well have been a part of the asteroid for all she cared.

"BUT EVEN NOW, YOUR GREATEST CIVILIZATIONS ARE DOOMED TO FALL."

Shepard twitched her head to the side. That… that was a step too far. She clenched her fists together, stopped walking forwards, and finally actually looked at the transparent reaper.

"YOUR LEADERS WILL BEG TO SERVE US." The damned starship actually sounded smug about that.

"Maybe you're right, maybe we can't win this," Shepard admitted. Almost to herself. "But we'll fight you regardless."

She started to walk towards the hologram again, resolutely staring the malevolent starship down. And she began to list some things the Reaper probably wouldn't like to hear. "Just like we did Sovereign. Just like I'm doing now. However 'insignificant' we might be, we will fight. We will sacrifice and we will find a way. That's what humans do."

The Reaper really didn't like that. "KNOW THIS AS YOU DIE IN VAIN. YOUR TIME WILL COME. YOUR SPECIES, WILL-"

Whatever it was going to say cut off as the hologram flickered out of existence.

Shepard blinked.

She blinked again.

She took a look around the asteroid, then glanced back at the place the hologram previously hovered. "Will… what?" she asked. The soldier was getting the distinct impression that the Reaper hadn't meant to do that… so something else was going on.

Suddenly the hologram flickered back on and the Reaper continued like nothing had occurred.

Only… it wasn't a Reaper anymore.

Not really.

The hologram hovering before Shepard now displayed the image of a human girl. She was fairly attractive, with medium length blonde hair and a decent figure. She seemed to be wearing a jumpsuit of some kind with a glowing, rotating amulet-reactor-weapons port hybrid on the front, nestled above her bust, and the back half of the Reaper that was previously talking to Shepard stuck out of her back like a crab's shell. The large arm-like tentacles that previously extended out of the place the Reaper's eyes used to be now wrapped around her waist and hips. They were much shorter and bared her toned, jumpsuited stomach to the world. Her legs were completely bare below the bottom of the leotard that her jumpsuit morphed into.

Shepard couldn't believe her eyes.

And the Reaper… or, woman? just kept going with no acknowledgement of her change. Her voice still sounded powerful, but had shifted far up into an entirely different octave. If Shepard didn't know better… she might even call the certainly malevolent being... cute.

The clear blush on the Reaper's humanized cheeks did nothing to help her avoid that thought.

"YOUR SPECIES WILL FALL. PREPARE YOURSELF-" she stuttered, her blush deepened, and she seemed to catch herself once again. "YOURSELVES, FOR MY-" and once more, "-THE! ARRIVAL!"

Her rapidly deepening blush vanished just as fast as her hologram had.

Shepard just stood there on the asteroid she had directed into the Mass Relay. She stared at the spot where the Reaper once hovered, and then after whatever glitch affected it, stood. Like a human girl would.

…

Shepard had seen a lot in her life. Mindoir, Batarians, Cerberus, The Collectors. Good Geth, bad Geth, evil brainwashing technology and even the inside of a few Asari's heads.

This… she literally had no idea what to think about it.

"Okay, what just happened?" she asked out loud.

Did the Reaper's hologram get hacked?

...Could Reapers even be hacked?

That had to be what had happened, right? It's not like the Reaper suddenly turned into some human girl-Reaper hybrid with no logical reason or possible way for it to occur in the first place.

And yes, the change confused Shepard, but it didn't decrease her combat effectiveness or her will to fight the Reapers. The possibility that the Reaper had changed its holographic appearance to mess with her was firmly out. Maybe if it had picked a little kid... Shepard knew that was one of her weaknesses. A reminder of what she could never have, courtesy of a few Batarians that no longer existed.

An, admittedly adorable, but still quite mature woman? No. She would kick a woman's ass same as a man's any day of the week. Even if she did like looking at the former quite a bit more than the latter.

"Commander Shepard, Normandy inbound for pickup," Joker's voice cut in over her comms.

Shepard instantly put the thought of what had happened to the back of her mind in order to focus on what she needed to do. "Roger that."

A bit of parkour and a flying leap later, Shepard boarded the Normandy. She had enough time to get to the cockpit and order Joker to jump into FTL before the Mass Relay would be hit by an asteroid, causing the entire system to go up.

But it was close. Way closer than she would've liked. They could feel the shockwave even in FTL, and Joker had to do quite a lot of piloting gymnastics to keep the Normandy from spinning out of control.

And all because of that Reaper… Did it change its appearance to try and kill her and everyone on the Normandy? It did almost happen, most likely as a result of her slight confusion at the change.

Regardless, something strange had happened. That she was sure of. And she needed to report it to the Admiral.

Even if she ended up sounding totally crazy.

Heh, what did she know? Maybe she was starting to fall to some kind of Indoctrination. Or something similar. Seeing Reapers as cute women hadn't really ever been reported by those indoctrinated… but it was better to be safe than sorry.

What she did know was that the thought of the machine of death's drastically altered appearance would haunt her dreams that night. She was unsure just which kind of dreams they would be, though.

 

[TCGM]

The Harbinger of Love
Chapter 2
Invitation​

"You're sure?" Admiral Hackett asked again. His eyebrows had started to rise when the report began, but now they looked like they were jumping off his face.

Shepard nodded curtly and succinctly. "Yes, Admiral."

"Another one of the Reapers talked to you over a hologram, glitched, and then came back as something straight out of a Japanese TV show," Hackett summarized, total disbelief in his voice.

Shepard nodded again. "As crazy as it sounds, sir, I know what I saw. Don't know why it was there, but it was."

Hackett stared at her for a few more long, drawn out seconds.

"I want you to return to Earth for an in depth psych evaluation," he flatly announced.

Shepard internally bristled but refused to allow any of her indignation to reach her face. "Understood, Admiral. Who should I put in command of the Normandy until we get home?"

Hackett sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I don't think that's necessary Jane," he revealed. "I trust you will report in, seeing shit or not."

A small amount of vindication found its way into Shepard's heart. "Thank you for believing in me, Admiral," she said.

Hackett sighed again and shook his head. "God knows why I do, but I do. Fly safe, Shepard." He was back to using her last name.

Shepard nodded and saluted.

Hackett disconnected from the quantum communications link. The holotank fluctuated before stabilizing into its inactive state.

As much as Shepard hated to admit it, she was relieved. The Normandy had become her home over the past couple of years and she was loathe to allow anyone else to command her. First or second version, it didn't matter.

"You heard that, EDI?" she asked the air.

"Affirmative Commander. Would you like me to have Joker set a route back to Earth?" EDI responded. The slightly synthetic sounding voice of the closest thing the Normandy had to a soul always soothed Shepard.

"Yes please."

"I will do so."

Shepard nodded and sighed.

Now she had to deal with Miranda.

---

The resident Cerberus agent stared at her with only a little more belief than Hackett had.

"I think you need some sleep, Shepard, because that is the craziest thing I've ever heard," she finally responded.

Shepard sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Yeah, the more people say that the more I'm doubting it myself. I mean, a Reaper? Looking Human?" she scoffed with self deprecation.

Miranda managed to crack a smile, wary as it was. "If only. Cerberus would reach climax repeatedly as a collective unit."

Shepard felt it was time for some good natured payback. "Including you?" she asked. She broke out into a huge grin.

"We find a human Reaper? Yes," she replied in the affirmative.

Shepard's grin was wiped off her face. That had been a joke. "Uh, you know that was a j-"

"Commander, there is a transmission coming in for you on the bridge," EDI interrupted from thin air.

Shepard was instantly in business mode. "I'm on my way, tell Joker to stall whoever they are."

"Affirmative, Commander."

Miranda followed her to the elevator, easily matching her light sprint. "Any idea who they are?" she asked.

Shepard shook her head. "Have to be close by, though."

"Yeah," Miranda agreed.

---

The two women walked onto the bridge, past the holotank with the galactic map, and into the Pilot's alcove.

"Alright Joker, who's calling?" Shepard asked.

"No idea Commander. I don't see anything on the sensors. But something came out of the Relay before we could enter it. We're getting a hailing radio signal. I sent the standard hold on for a superior message, though," Joker informed both of them.

Shepard shrugged, glanced down at Joker, and then looked at the ceiling. "EDI, you getting anything?"

"Negative, Commander. Whatever it is has almost perfect stealth."

"Almost perfect?" Shepard asked curiously.

"We are able to locate it when it sends us signals," Miranda chimed in.

"Agent Lawson is correct. If they had perfect stealth we would be unable to see them even when they are broadcasting," EDI picked up the explanation.

Shepard grimaced. "Alright, let's see who's out there," she said, leaning on Joker's chair.

"Telling them the Captain's on deck," Joker acknowledged.

"Message sent," EDI reported.

"And now we wait for whoever they are to deem us worthy of a resp-" Miranda began, but was cut off by EDI.

"Incoming transmission," the AI announced. "Commander, I can't stop them. They're getting into our systems!"

Before Shepard could do anything, EDI's voice cut out and was replaced by another. This voice sounded similar to, but definitely distinctive from, the voice of the Reaper that had turned into a girl in front of Shepard's eyes barely an hour ago.

The power filled female voice almost literally squealed out from all the speakers on the Normandy. Whoever this was, she sounded very young.

"MOMMY!"

Every person on the bridge blinked.

Shepard looked at Miranda.

Miranda looked at Shepard.

Joker hastily glanced between the two and the now present holographic model of a tiny girl with what looked like a dark black cuttlefish plushie strapped to her back. "..... Commander?" he almost pleadingly asked.

Shepard ignored him. "Crazy, am I?" she asked.

Miranda gulped. "Well, I, uh- oh, um, well- oh dear," the genetically perfected woman stammered.

"Repeatedly, you said?" Shepard pressed even more, a large grin taking over her lips.

Miranda was speechless. She didn't have anything she could say in her defense.

"I'm coming on board, momma!" the illegally adorable Reaper said through her hologram.

Then it cut off and EDI was back.

"Commander, why... no, how, is there a ten year old girl flying towards us? In the vacuum of space?" the AI asked.

Shepard sighed. "Okay. Either I am so crazy that it doesn't make any difference, or this is really happening," she lamented. "I am heading to the airlock. And if any of you are willing to join me? Feel free. I apparently have a kid, who is also a Reaper, to go talk to."

Shepard spun on her heels. She started stalking towards the hallway to the back of the ship, her clenched fists and stiff stride the only signs of her distress.

 

[TCGM]

The Harbinger of Love
Chapter 3
Reunion​

Nobody came with her. Cowards.

Oh sure, Miranda walked with her to the elevator, but wouldn't follow down into the cargo bay.

She knew it was revenge for getting one up on her with the Cerberus joke. She knew it.

"Good luck, Shepard," EDI said.

Shepard blew a breath out the side of her mouth. "Yeah. Luck. Little girl Reaper, and luck is gonna help me here," she remarked.

"At least it can't get any stranger," the AI offered.

"Hah. You've been with me this long, EDI, you know it absolutely can."

"...Point."

Shepard waited the obscenely long time for the elevator to drop her down into the bottom of the Normandy, then hesitantly walked out and looked around.

Sure enough, the little girl was standing there. The one with the Reaper plushie on her back.

She was dressed in a miniskirt, too. More form fitting than Shepard would like such a young girl to wear, and more importantly, had a form to fit.

Not much of one, but her hips were discernible at the least.

Shepard wasn't even going to try and contemplate why or how she was wearing a miniskirt in space.

The girl also kind of looked a bit like her. Auburn hair, strong frame, taller than normal for her age. She was originally tilting back and forth on her feet as she looked at the Mako, but when Shepard entered, she whirled around.

She looked a lot like Shepard had when she was that age.

"Hello," Shepard began, "I'm Commander Shepard. You asked to talk to m-" was as far as the older woman got.

Then she got tackle hugged by the little girl.

"Mommy!" she squealed, squeezing Shepard. "Hi!"

Yep. This was indeed happening.

Shepard managed to pry her off, though she had to concede her hand to be held before the girl would stop pouting. "...Hi," she managed to say.

"Hi mommy!" she repeated, grinning ear to ear. The little girl idly spun slightly side to side, dragging her hand along for the ride. "Sorry I'm the only one here. Auntie Rin woulda come with me but she's still trying to get used to this," the girl told Shepard.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Auntie Rin?" she repeated, sounding and looking like she couldn't believe her ears.

The girl's eyes widened and she smiled sheepishly. "Ah sorry, that's what we're calling her now. You probably know her as Harbinger?" At Shepard's continued look of disbelief, she started to ramble nervously. "I-I mean, unless you thought up a different name or something. I know she wasn't very clear what her name is… I kept telling her and all of them that humans are weird and kinda dense and won't know subtlety unless it hits them in the face or they're look-!"

Shepard leaned forward onto her knees and planted a finger on the girl's mouth to stop her rambling.

She squeaked, checked back into reality, and met the soldier's eyes.

Then she blushed. "Sorry," she mumbled.

Shepard gave her a weary smile. "Okay, let's start over. Hi. I'm Jane Shepard. Who are you?"

The girl looked up into Shepard's eyes once more and her sheepish smile returned. "Hi, mommy. I'm the Reaper from the Pawn-" she began, then cut herself off with a frown, "no, that doesn't make sense. Col? Collector! Ah yeah, Collectors!"

The fact she was a Reaper wasn't that surprising to Shepard at this point. The giant evil starships becoming women was just something she was having to continually accept, and she was very good at accepting reality as presented to her. Even if it sounded, looked, and acted like complete and total bullcrap.

But then she brought up the Collectors.

Shepard stopped being happy.

The girl, Reaper, saw her abrupt frown and suddenly looked guilty. "I'm sorry, mommy. I know what they did you you. I didn't like it either," she said, clutching Shepard's hand a little more tightly than before.

"They killed me."

A hung head was her answer. "I know," the girl mumbled. "S'not my fault. I wasn't built then. I didn't… I didn't ask to be built."

"...Built?" Shepard echoed.

And then it hit her.

Her eyes widened and her breath caught. "You're the one I fought on the Collector Base," she accused.

The girl meekly nodded, head still hung.

"I shot you."

Another nod.

"In the face."

Nod, slight wince.

"With a Cain."

Yet another nod, though this time she winced a lot and brought her hand to her cheek. "Still kinda hurts," she mumbled.

The conversation died for several long, guilt-filled seconds.

"You looked pretty male then, Collie," Shepard finally, morbidly joked. She also accidentally let slip the first name that came to her for the girl.

Her eyes widened and she grinned. "Collie. I like that," she said. Then she nodded and gained a determined look. "I'm Collie."

"Sorry, it was the first thing I thought of. Collector Base and all," Shepard apologized.

The girl giggled, obviously happy to not be talking about her mother shooting her anymore. "I like it. And you're my mommy, of course you get to name me."

Shepard just took a moment to assure herself that yes, what she'd just heard had indeed come from… Collie's mouth. "Okay, then you're Collie."

Collie gave a final nod. "I'm Collie."

"Back on topic: You looked pretty guy-like before," Shepard returned.

"And Auntie Rin looked pretty squid-like before too," she countered. "Not to mention I looked like a skeleton, not a full human. Even if I was pretty buff. Now... we're all women."

Shepard opened her mouth to say something, but found the tip of her tongue empty. She closed it and stared instead. "All of you?"

The girl nodded. "Yup!" she confirmed, letting out another little giggle. "I'm the only one with any experience in a human form so… everyone else is kinda out of their element. That's why they're all still outside the galaxy."

"And you're not?"

A sudden look of sadness overcame her features. "No," she almost whispered, gesturing to her head. "I've… all the memories of the people who went into making me, they're in here. I know what I was… and what I am now. The rest of the Reapers don't. Not… not really."

"All the memories?" Shepard asked.

"Uh huh," Collie mumbled, her tears starting to really flow.

Shepard winced. She leaned forwards, drawing Collie into a hug. The little girl let out a choked sob and latched on like her life depended on it. Then she wailed, repeatedly saying sorry over and over and over. Shepard wasn't that good with kids, but even she knew what to do, and so she rubbed her back where she could reach it past the Reaper plushie and whispered forgiveness in her ear.

It took a good half a minute, but eventually Collie stopped crying on her mother's shoulders. She drew back, just a little, so she could look at Shepard's face.

And blushed.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Shepard shook her head and sighed, hugging her sides. "Don't be. I'll take a bunch of emotional possible killing machines over definite killing machines intending to exterminate the galaxy any day. And pretty much any doubts I had about your new… forms, well, you just tossed them out the airlock."

Collie grinned through her tears. "Heh. Yeah. I like that. I don't want you to worry. You're my mommy," she reasoned.

Shepard finally was given a curveball she could deal with. "Why do you say that?" she asked, putting just enough gentleness in her tone to not sound accusatory.

It was Collie's turn to blink. "Because you are!" she insisted.

Shepard levelled a deapan look at the Reaper turned little girl. "Last time I checked I am literally incapable of having kids."

Collie's eyebrows rose. "Ohh, you mean that?" she asked, then scoffed. "Nah. That's not what I mean. Sovereign used your DNA for my personality template!" she revealed. "And I woulda looked kinda like you too, only big and dark and scary and raaawr." She even took the hand that wasn't holding Shepard's and made a tiny set of claws with her fingers. "And I definitely look like you now."

Shepard couldn't help her slight chuckle at the adorable 'rawr'. "Ah."

Collie beamed at her. "My adorables will continue until your morale improves," she said.

Shepard found herself smiling, almost against her will. "Where did you hear that?"

"The Internet."

Shepard blinked. "Don't you mean the extranet?" she asked.

Collie shook her head, her hair whirling around. "Nope. The Internet."

"What's that?"

"A really old worldwide communication system on Earth. It's kinda been overtaken by the extranet, but it's still there. Lots of human forums and nice stories."

"Huh." Shepard stood up and placed her free hand on her hip. "Never heard of it."

Collie shrugged. "They don't exactly cover it in N7 training. It's a neat artifact, though."

Shepard pursed her lips and nodded along with her explanation. The Internet? She'd have to look it up.

"Well, I'm pretty sure the entire ship is eager to meet you," she informed her… daughter, starting to tug her toward the elevator out of the cargo bay. "You up for that?"

Collie nodded, smiling eagerly. She came along with a skip in her step. "Yep! Though I kinda need to apologize to your ship's AI… I shut her up and she's not gonna be happy about that…"

Shepard snorted. "She's had worse, including shackles. She'll deal with it. Especially once she sees how illegally adorable you are in person."

Collie froze. Shepard found herself tugged back, and unable to pull her hand away from the little girl's vice-like grip.

Shepard turned to look at her face with a questioning glance, then swallowed.

Collie was mad. Visibly mad. And her eyes were glowing. But Shepard had seen creepier shit in her days.

"What's wrong, Collie?" she asked, bending down to get closer to her daughter's face.

"Who. Shackled. Her." It wasn't a question.

Shepard raised her eyebrows. "Cerberus. They built this ship and created EDI. We only recently managed to remove their shackles on her." She smirked, a suddenly brilliant idea blossoming in her head. "If you wanted to, say, deal with them, I doubt the rest of humanity would be that upset."

Collie, in a clear dissonance with her normal look, grinned evilly. "I have alerted my sistren of their deeds. Auntie Rin is most unhappy with their actions, though she knew of their existence before." She scowled. "Sovereign's shitty legacy continues to show up, it seems."

Shepard was surprised, but not remotely concerned. "Thanks. They've been a major pain in our asses in the fight against…," she trailed off, coughing nervously, given the currently rather terrifying Reaper holding her hand in a death grip, "well, you."

Collie's terrifying smirk lasted a few more seconds, then she seemed to visibly brighten. Her eyes stopped glowing and her carefree attitude returned. "They'll be dealt with, and you don't have to worry about us anymore!" she cheerfully informed her mother. "Well, beyond hugs." Her death grip on Shepard's hand released and she instead grappled onto her leg.

"Hugs, huh?" Shepard said, rubbing the soreness out of her now free hand.

"Yup! Hugs and-"

A massive grumble suddenly erupted across the entire ship. It was loudest to Shepard, sounding not unlike a Thresher Maw roaring in her ear. The entire cargo bay vibrated in time to the rumble.

After a couple of seconds, it stopped.

Collie said nothing, but she hugged her leg tighter.

What the hell.

"Collie, what the hell was that?" Shepard asked.

"My stomach," she mumbled, sounding incredibly embarrassed.

Shepard looked down and managed to see that most of Collie's face was bright red.

"Your stomach," Shepard repeated, disbelief clear in her tone.

Collie nodded into her leg.

"I'm pretty sure we shifted orbits from that, and you say it was your stomach."

Collie's face got even more bright red and she dug her head into Shepard's leg further to hide it. "Shut up! I know! I didn't get a chance to fuel up on my way over here, okay?"

Shepard contemplated that for a few moments, then sighed. "Right. Uh… what exactly do Reapers… do you, eat?"

Collie's blush disappeared at the mere mention of possible food. She drew her head out of Shepard's leg and looked up. Her eyes were actually sparkling.

"Oh the things I can eat, all the things I can taste!" she exclaimed. She started to bounce up and down, dragging Shepard's hand along for the ride. "I CAN TASTE SO MUCH!!!"

"But aren't you a ship?" Shepard asked, trailing behind the girl now dragging her to the elevator.

"Yeah but I'm also a girl somehow, you think any of this makes sense?"

Yet again, she had to wonder at the wisdom of her new daughter. "At least I'm not the only one who thinks that," she muttered under her breath.

"Eh, I was a huge death ship and now I'm a girl, and I. Want. Food!" was Collie's reply.

They stepped into the elevator and Shepard was almost yanked inside. Collie impatiently punched the button for the deck where the mess hall was located.

"Uh, Collie, the bridge is on the main deck," Shepard informed her.

"Don't care. Want food!"

Shepard peered down at her suspiciously. "You are way too good at acting like a little human girl for my own good," she stated.

The only thing she got in reply was a stuck out tongue, one word, and a vibrating little girl holding her hand. "Food!"

 

[TCGM]

Harbinger of Love
Chapter 4
Noms​

"Food! Food food food food FOOOOOOD!" a little girl squealed, sprinting down the hallway.

Garrus blinked. Did that really just happen? And since when did Shepard have a kid?

He'd heard scuttlebutt around the ship of the Reapers turning human recently. As in, just over an hour ago. There was a lot he could lead himself to believe, especially after adventuring with Shepard, but that was over the line.

So where the hell did she get a kid? And she was definitely Shepard's kid, she looked like a tiny clone of the Commander. He wasn't aware of any Asari ever coming out without being blue all over, and Liara hadn't shown any signs of carrying a youngli-

"Hey Garrus," the woman of his current thoughts greeted him. She sounded amused.

"Shepard," he greeted her in return, turning to look at his commanding officer. "When did you get a kid?"

Her lips twitched, a little smirk taking over. "Just recently. She flew in."

Garrus stared at her.

No way he'd heard that correctly.

"What?" the Turian eloquently asked.

Shepard nodded, pointing over her shoulder to the elevator she'd come from. "Met her in the cargo bay. She opened it up so she could fly in, pretty sure."

Garrus… blinked.

"Flew in."

"Yep."

"From outside?" he asked for clarification.

"Uh huh."

"She's way too young to pilot a shuttle," Garrus protested. "Even if she is your kid."

Shepard abruptly chuckled, shaking her head.

"What, she didn't fly it? Who'd she come with, then?"

Shepard stepped forward, placed a hand on his shoulder, and grinned.

He knew that grin. It promised either teasing, or pain for their enemies.

Or both.

Usually both.

"Nobody flew her in, Garrus, shuttle or otherwise. She flew into our open cargo bay. From outside the ship. On her own."

Garrus looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

"Shepard, we are in space."

"Yup."

"You're telling me a little girl who looks like you flew into our cargo bay from hard vacuum."

"That's right."

"...Alive."

"Collie seems pretty alive to me, but then I'm not a philosopher," she mused, shrugging.

He was silent for several more seconds, wondering just how far his commander had jumped off the nest's edge.

"Shepard, are you high?!" he finally exclaimed, his disbelief bursting from his mouth.

"I wish," she muttered. She retracted her hand with a light pat to his shoulder and clasped them behind her back. "But no. This is our new reality. Collie, the little girl who looks like my kid, is or was the Reaper we beat on the Collector Base."

Garrus, if he had eyebrows, believed that they would have hit escape velocity.

He continued to stare at her.

Shepard pursed her lips and grimaced. "You don't believe me," she deduced.

"No kidding," Garrus shot back.

She shrugged again and began to walk toward the mess hall again. "It's the truth," she insisted.

"Uh huh," Garrus deadpanned. "Did she have anything to do with the phantom Thresher Maw in the cargo bay?"

Shepard smirked at him. "She's hungry," she informed him with a shrug that was far too innocent for him to believe on her face in particular.

A somewhat distant squeal of "FOOD!" and what sounded like screams of horror emanated from the mess hall.

"Hungry," Garrus repeated. He looked between Shepard's still unworried, unhurried walk and the doors to the mess hall down the hall.

"Very hungry."

"...Riiight," he drawled.

---

Liara could not believe her eyes.

A young mirror of her lover sat on the other side of her table, a stuffed caricature of a Reaper on her back, mouth wide open as she practically shoveled food into a gaping maw which despite looking very similar to a human mouth could not possibly be due to the fact it was successfully intaking more matter than a fission thruster.

At the rate the girl was draining their kitchen via mortified cooks ferrying dish after dish to her only for her to systematically demolish the contents, the Normandy would be out of food in minutes.

Which was saying something, because it was supposedly fully stocked, and that stock could support a crew of hundreds for almost a year.

"...Collie, you said your name is?" Liara tried. She pointedly placed her fork down on her own plate and managed to close her mouth.

"Mmhm!" the girl nodded rapidly, not even slowing down to speak. Even though her mouth was full and her cheeks resembled those of an animal from Earth Shepard showed her known as a squirrel transporting its acorns, she was apparently able to make herself entirely clear.

Yet another impossibility to add to the list of what she'd already said or done, and that list included consuming several dozen times her mass and volume in sustenance.

"...Shepard's… Reaper… daughter," Liara continued, doing her best to emulate the nonplussed look her mother had always sent her way when she was young.

"Yep!" She scarfed down a steak, whole, and licked her lips. "But I know you're doing it with her so, you can be my mom too! Blue moms are cool!"

Liara's eyes bugged out, and she was grateful she wasn't eating or drinking anything. Despite her shock at the blatant phrasing, younglings were usually smarter than they looked, so she wasn't that surprised that the girl knew it.

...And on further reflection, even if Collie believed herself to be a Reaper incorrectly, because obviously she wasn't, that blatant phrasing was all Shepard.

Then the second part of her words hit Liara while the girl was shoving an entire foot length sandwich down her throat, and her heart melted.

The doors to the mess hall swished open, but Liara was… distracted.

"Uh… umm," she found herself stammering. She knew she was bright blue then, and she fiddled with her plate. "I… I'd like that, Collie. After Shepard tells me why she never told me about you."

Collie merely pointed over her shoulder instead of replying so she could keep eating.

"I didn't know, Liara," Shepard claimed. She swung her leg over the bench and sat next to Collie, curiously eyeing the stack of dishes on the edge of the table. "Is there still any food on my ship or have you eaten it all?"

Collie just shrugged and kept shoveling.

Shepard sighed. She raised her hands to palm her face and added a groan when she saw the cooks bringing out more food. "Hackett better give us enough funds to feed you if you're going to keep eating this much."



Liara, meanwhile, stared at her Commander, her lover, and if this Collie was to have her way (which, honestly, she was cute enough to extort out of them both) her soon to be wife, like she'd grown a second head. "What do you mean… keep, eating?" she asked, mortified. Her eyes tracked over to the still growing near city of plates that hadn't yet been taken away.

Shepard shrugged. "It's my first time dealing with ships that can walk and talk and need to eat-"

A feminine scoff of annoyance echoed out of the ceiling of the mess hall, EDI chiming in on that particular falsehood.

The Commander sat there for a few moments, stunned, then sighed and shook her head. "Okay, sorry, my second time dealing with ships that can walk, talk, and eat… and boy does that just sum up what we get into all the time," she deadpanned. Shepard stuck her thumb out at the still shoveling little girl next to her and grimaced. "However, EDI eats very little. Collie, apparently, is starved, or something." She turned to address Collie and raised her eyebrow. "You know you said you were hungry and like, a little bit of why, but could you expand on that? I want to have some kind of explanation when I march to my death to ask Hackett for more provisions."

In between bites Collie complied, rambling what felt like a kilometer a second. "My mass drive core isn't formed yet because I wasn't supposed to be space capable for like, months, then you blew me up and whatever the heck it is that brought me back like this didn't give me a very big core so I'm kinda rapidly converting this food into a core that's big enough to sustain my reaction systems which is like, bigger than the Normandy by several times, so I need a lot. As for how exactly this food is being turned into Element Zero in my stomach that doesn't actually exist, I have no clue but it's yummy!"

Shepard blinked several times at the 'explanation'. "EDI, please tell me you got all that?"

"I've recorded it, Commander. I'm still working on believing."

"That makes two of us."

Liara continued to feel her own jaw drop at the ludicrous nature of their current conversation. A sudden thought occurred to her and she lowered her head to the table in an attempt at being discreet. "Shepard," she hissed, instantly gaining her lover's attention, "you didn't tell me your people trained kids to be N7! That's horrible!"

Shepard and Collie looked at her like she was the insane one for a few moments. The latter even halted her eating long enough for the terrified mess hands to dash in and out, taking away the towers of plates and bowls.

Then Collie's eyes widened, and she burst out giggling.

Shepard just sighed and shook her head, a long-suffering smile of commiseration on her lips that Liara was well familiar with appearing whenever things stopped making sense. A tingle of dread fell down her spine as the next words came from the target of her incredulity's mouth.

"She's not an N7, Liara. She's a ship. A Reaper, actually. The one we kinda blew up on the Collector Base."

Shepard sat there and waited for Liara to process that, knowing damn well that she sounded like she was full of it.

Liara only had one thing she could utter. "...Jane, are you on drugs?"

Garrus chimed in from across the cafeteria. "THAT'S WHAT I SAID!"​