Mass Effect

Rise of the Imperium

The Angel Cracks

"How'd the meeting go?" Tali asked as Arcee came out of the elevator on the Normandy into the bedroom of Shepard and Tali, where they along with Legion were sitting on the couch. She hadn't been in here since Shepard and Tali had been married.
"It went great," Arcee said, "Han loved the weapons he saw and is just figuring out the numbers he wants for each weapon. I also asked if he could contact Shala'Raan and tell her about my weapons. He'd said he would."
"I'm sure he will," Tali said, "Han'Gerrel doesn't lie. A bit strict at times, but he's a good Quarian."
"You know you could probably have asked Tali to do that," Shepard said.
"I know, but, I figured I should go through the proper channels," Arcee said, "no offence Tali, but, even though you are an Admiral, you are the admiral for the Geth, Quarian and Non-Quarian relations."
"I understand," Tali said, "and you are correct about those channels. I hope you haven't been sneaking into the Quarian systems and finding things out you shouldn't."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Arcee said, "But, I am sorry about Daro'Xen not getting along with the Geth."
"Arcee." Tali said disappointingly, "You really shouldn't be snooping through private files and Admiralty Board meetings."
"I like Uncle Han," Legion said suddenly, "he's always so nice to me whenever he visits."
"I heard he even let you keep the blade you found when you were lost in the ruins with Mia," Arcee said, "I bet you really liked that."
"I did," Legion said happy, but quickly became sad, "but, it was in my room when the house burned down"
"Oh, I'm sure it's fine," Arcee said, "after all it did survive for over a thousand years in some ruins. How bad could a fire be to a weapon like that?"
"Yea, I bet its just fine," Legion said sounding happier.
"Yep, I bet it is just a bit blackened, but I'm sure you could shine it up again like new," Arcee said smiling brightly.
"Why don't you go look at the fish or the model ships," Tali told her son, "Auntie Arcee, your father and I need to talk about the repairs to the house."
"Okay," Legion said, "can I play with the models, Dad?"
"Sure, just be careful with them," Shepard said, "some of them were fairly expensive and no longer available now."
"Yippie!" Legion said as he ran to the models.
"I was thinking of building the house with ship armour," Arcee said, "of course, the ship plates would be between the walls making sure house won't burn down ever again."
"A bit overkill don't you think?" Shepard asked.
"Maybe, but, I can get you a good deal on ship hull plates," Arcee said, "the Imperium has several ships that have been scraped and the armour from them can't be put into new ships. So there is a lot of scrap. Good quality at that."
"In other words you want to get rid of stuff you don't want," Shepard said.
"Actually, I was planning on making things from it that don't require high quality metal," Arcee said, "housing was part of the plan, but also exterior for weapons and missiles as well a few other ideas."
"Building materials aside," Tali said, "though, I do like the idea of reinforcing the house with ship hull plates. I'd like to think of what the house will look like."
"Do you want to change the layout of the house or keep it the same?" Arcee asked.
"I was thinking of keeping it he same, but with a few upgrades here and there," Tali said.
"Like what?" Shepard asked.
They spent the next several hours going over the rebuilding plans for the house. Legion fell asleep long before they were finished and was placed in the middle of the bed holding the model of the Normandy SR2 in his arms.
He was soon joined by Shepard and Tali while Arcee got out some bedding and slept on the couch adjacent to the bed. It wasn't very comfortable, but she had slept in worse conditions.



"Arcee." Arcee heard her name being called waking her from her sleep with a start.
"Just a dream," Arcee said as she was about to close her eyes, "Arcee." She heard her name being said again.
She checked her Omni-tool to see if there were anyone else in the Normandy besides Joker, Edi, Chakwas and the Shepards, only to see everything normal. "Arcee." called the voice again.
She didn't know why, but she being drawn to the voice. Before she knew it she was already walking towards the elevator. The voice was coming from the elevator, "The elevator." It said, "Come to the Crew Quarters." the voice told her and she obeyed getting into the elevator.




"Arcee?" Legion said as he sat up in bed. His parents on either side of him sound asleep. He looked and could just see Arcee in the elevator as the doors closed. He looked at the time and noticed it was just past three in the morning.
He carefully crawled to the end of the bed and got down and headed towards the elevator calling it back.




Arcee stepped out of the elevator and heard the voice again, "Arcee, the woman's restroom." It said.
She followed the voice and entered the woman's restroom the automated lights turned on illuminating the washroom.
She looked around the washroom. It was only her in the washroom, but she could still hear the voice calling her name. "Arcee, the sink. Come to the sink."
She walked over to the sink and looked around expecting to see some device. She was starting to think this was some sort of elaborate hoax dreamed up by Shepard or Joker.
"Look at the mirror." The voice said. She looked at the mirror, but all she could see was herself, "Look closer." the voice told her.
That is when she saw it. She took a couple of steps away from the mirror shocked by what she saw, "What are you?"
"I'm you." Her reflection said. Though the reflection's hair was quite a bit more wild, but was wearing what she had on currently. Its eyes on the other hand, were quite a bit different, they were sunken and darkened with just a hint of red shining from the center. "The Dark you."
"I don't have a dark side," Arcee told her reflection.
"Everyone has a dark side!" the reflection shouted at her, "Even you. Even Shepard. Kal knows this. He called it being a Renegade. Don't you remember?"
"I do. But, I don't have a dark side."
"You do You've just suppressed it for such a long time. But, ever since you had that man killed..."
"What!" Arcee said suddenly realizing this wasn't just some hoax. Only she and Itachi knew the events of that day, "What did you say?"
"The man you had killed. Because he knew about this," the reflection said as it held up a arm and showed that it was mechanical, "Your arm. Your mechanical arm."
Arcee could feel herself tensing up, "I don't know what you are talking about," Arcee said controlling herself.
"Oh, you think this is a hoax," the reflection said chuckling, "Well. It isn't." it said darkly suddenly stopping its chuckling, "I know what you want. You want Shepard or Tali. You know the only way to get one of them is to ki--"
"Arcee." said a gentle young male voice causing her to look away from the mirror  seeing Legion in the doorway of the washroom he wasn't wearing his mask revealing his glowing eyes that looked like his father with the same dark hair that hung just above his eyes..
"Legion," Arcee said suddenly realizing she was out of breathe, "What are you doing here?"
"I saw you get up and leave and followed you. Why didn't you just use the washroom in my parents bedroom?"
"I...I didn't want to disturb your parents with the sound of the restroom going," Arcee said lying to the little boy, "I...I didn't mean to wake you."
Legion's head went sideways for a moment, "Doesn't the elevator make more sound than the washroom?"
"Got me," Arcee said laughing slightly, "in truth, I wasn't very tired. I was just having a small little nap. C'mon, back to bed you go. Young men like yourself need all the rest you can get."
"Okay." Legion said as he turned to leave, but stopped, "Are you okay being on your own? You were talking to yourself in the mirror."
"I'm okay, sometimes I do that to think. I find thinking aloud helps me more than thinking inside my head. Even though it can make me look a bit crazy at times."
"I don't really want to disturb my parents," Legion said, "can I spend the rest of the night with you? Can I sleep in the same room as you are in?"
"Is it because you are afraid just in case those nasty men return?" Arcee asked. Legion nodded a few times with scared little eyes, "Sure. Let's go to the lounge, I'm sure there is a sofa in there that you can sleep on."
"Okay. I like you, Arcee. You're funny."
"Run along now," Arcee said, "I'll be in the lounge before you know it." Legion ran off towards the lounge. Arcee turned to the mirror to see her reflection was normal, "I have full control of my dark side," she said to the mirror as she began to leave.
"Do you?" She heard the voice say as she was about to leave the restroom.
"I'm just going to get a blanket for you first," Arcee called as she went and found a small blanket before going into lounge. "Legion. Where are you?" she called when she realized she couldn't see him and figured he was playing a game. She dropped the blanket and began to search for him, "Fee, five, four, thumb. I smell the blood of a Quarian Man." She said as she approached the bar and looked behind the bar, only to see nothing, "I was certain you were there?"
"Surprise!" Legion shouted as he suddenly jumped on Arcee's back, "Giddy up horsey."
"Horsey! Horsey!" Arcee shouted as she lightly bucked and jumped up and down while holding onto his arms. She went toward the long lounge chair and when she was within range she gave one big buck and launched Legion off of her and he landed safely in the chair.
She then quickly grabbed the blanket and ran over to Legion who was sitting up in the chair laughing. She sat down with him on her lap and threw the blanket over both of them, "Okay, you go to sleep and I'll do my work from here. Sound like a plan?"
"Yep," Legion said as he curled up and quickly fell asleep while Arcee used her Omni-tool to look over the Imperium projects.
A few hours had passed and at some point in the morning, Tali and Shepard came walking into the lounge, "He followed down here. Can I keep him?" Arcee joked.
"For now," Shepard joked back, "I'll tell you the joke later," he continued to Tali.
"Sometimes, I wish I had a kid," Arcee said as she played with Legion's dark hair, "but, then I remember I do. The Imperium is my kid and he is growing up fast."
"Don't forget, you are his God mother as well," Shepard reminder her.
"And God I am," Arcee said smiling, "I know I told you this when you first told me I was his God Mother. But, thank you for making me be that."
"You guys get to work on your house," Arcee continued, "I'll stay here and look after Legion while he sleeps."
"Okay," Tali said as she kissed her fingers through her mask and placed them on Legion's head, "Look after our little darling."
"I'll try to arrange with the Imperium what scrap we'll need and get it delivered as soon as it can be," Arcee told Shepard, "as well as other building materials."
"Okay, we'll be outside cleaning up and getting ready for the rebuild," Shepard said as he crouched down and gave Arcee a kiss on the forehead, "we appreciate this. Thank you Arcee."
"No worries Shepard," Arcee said as she could feel herself blushing. He beginning to leave, "And thank you again for letting me be his God Mother...and the kiss."
"See you soon, Arcee," Shepard said as he left the room.
Arcee continued to play with Legion's hair as she laid there with him on top of her, "I need a drink," Arcee eventually said with a long sigh, but didn't move not wanting to disturb the young man in her lap and decided to just wait until he woke up to get a drink.




Clearing away the rubble of the old house's foundation was a simple process that didn't take too long to complete. The rebuilding of the house was going fine and quickly. It had only taken a couple of weeks to get the house's frame built.
Arcee was able to get the scrap metal from her company and it was of medium quality, but would be strong enough to withstand light to heavy personal weapons as well as the equipment needed to cut and shape it and before too long the reconstruction of the house to how it looked before, but with a few new rooms on the main floor and a couple of additional rooms on the second floor were finished. The only thing that had survived from the old house structure was the emergency weapon cache and elevator to the hangar.
Arcee had spent most of the time helping Shepard or Tali with rebuilding the house. However, she dedicated the first few hours of every day and that last few hours of every night to going over the data that her company had sent her regarding the new and in process projects.
She found it fairly easily since she was still going on her thirty six hour days, but she did give herself a nap for a few hours every night around the time that Shepard and Tali went to sleep.
Some nights she had fallen asleep in the Normandy's lounge and woke up with a blanket on her. She figured that either Shepard, Tali or maybe even Legion had given her the blanket. She had kept track of all proceedings of the Imperium projects.
Some nights she could hear the voice calling to her, but she just ignored it until it went away until the next time it would come around. She never told anyone about the voice confident in the fact that she could control it.
She had to use the QEC a few times to talk to her share holders or some of the project managers to discuss details about the projects, but for the most part everything went fairly smoothly.
She also sent Itachi on missions to deal with certain things that she rather be left in the dark about, but also to gather information on just who had attacked Shepard and Tali. She was confident that Miranda would give them all the information she had on the people the Cerberus deserters, but Arcee still wanted more information and knew that Itachi was the best person for the job. Also she wouldn't really be able to do any shinobi training while she was here on Rannoch.
As the month went on however, some of her companies share holders kept getting more and more aggressive with demanding that she return and give proper meetings. Every time they contacted her she would get more and more irritated with them. Nearing the end of the month, they were calling her every day and during the final week, they had started calling her multiple times a day to the point where she couldn't even help Shepard or Tali with building their new home.
She eventually got to the point where she couldn't take it anymore and decided to give them a piece of her mind.
Arcee was up on the roof with Shepard helping him with shingling the roof while Tali was on the ground getting the house's sidings ready. They were nearing completion with the shingles when Joker came over the communication system, "Arcee," Joker said, "your Share Holders are trying to contact you again."
"Seriously? Again? I only told them to stop an hour ago," Arcee gasped throwing her head back.
"Gonna tell them off again?" Shepard asked.
"Yep, and this time I'll make sure they don't try to contract me again for the rest of the month," she said as she made her way off the roof and towards the entrance to the underground hangar that was built into a new portion of the house.
She entered the Normandy, activated the QEC and saw four of her Share Holders. They were all new and she didn't have time to remember what their names were. She was so furious with these four that she was going to teach them a lesson after getting flamed by her.
"Arcee, I'm glad that you contacted us," one of them said, "we wish to know when-"
"SHUT UP!" Arcee shouted cutting the man off, "What I'm about to tell you is something you need to pay attention to. Got it?"
"Yes," each of them said one after the other.
"Good. Now listen and listen carefully," she said her tone was level, but with a fair amount of threat in it, "I don't care if you don't like the fact that I'm taking a month off," Arcee told the shareholders of her company, "I'm helping my friends Shepard and Tali rebuild their home. If you don't like it then let me give you my response." Arcee said as she activated her Omni-tool and a few minutes later she could hear screams as the shareholders she was talking to were sprayed with cold fire suppressing foam. The QEC on their end was starting to malfunction and eventually she could not see them at all, but knew the connection was still active, "Now cool off and GET OFF MY BACK. I'LL BE BACK IN LESS THAN A WEEK YOU IDIOTS! AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU CAN FUCK OFF AND NO LONGER BE SHARE HOLDERS OF MY COMPANY. GOOD DAY TO YOU."
She closed the connection and walked away in a huff towards the surface breathing heavily as she tried to calm herself down. She still had her fighter, the Nightfury parked outside nearby the house. "I need to take a fly around," Arcee said to herself, "clear my head."
"You should just kill all of them," said the voice in her head.
"Quiet, I will not do what you say," Arcee said to herself.
"But why? You know you want to." the voice countered, "And you know you can get away with it too."
She shook her head and doubled her pace towards her ship as got to the surface, "I will not listen to you," she said under her breathe.
"Arcee!" Shepard called to her as she was about halfway to her ship causing her to stop, "Arcee, Joker, Edi, and Chakwas are going to get more supplies for rebuilding the house. Do you mind keeping an eye on Legion until they return?"
"He doesn't want to go with them?"
"He said he was really bored the last time he went with them," Shepard said, "So he opted to stay behind, but he kinda looks a bit bored right now. Tali and I were just about to put the siding on. We can't entertain him while we put the siding up. Besides, you look like you could do something more relaxing," Shepard finished.
"What about his friends?" Arcee asked.
"They are either all away with their parents or busy with schoolwork. He's finished all his schoolwork so, he doesn't really have anything to do right now," Shepard explained.
"You know me quite well, Shepard," Arcee said thinking this was probably just what she needed, "I just had a horrible conversation with my shareholders. They want me to come back, but I told them for the hundredth time this month that I am going to help you guys with the house. So, I sprayed them with some cold fire suppression foam before coming up here. I was about to go for a fly around to take my mind off them. I could take Legion with me. It should entertain him and me for a little while at least."
"That rough, huh?" Shepard said, "you look a bit steamed right now. Are you sure you want to look after Legion?"
"It'll be no trouble at all," Arcee said, "I love spending time with him and flying takes my mind off things."
"Legion, want to go for a fly in Nightfury?" Arcee called to the young Quarian.
"Sure, I really want to fly around in Nightfury! Do you think I can fly it?" He said looking at her with hopeful eyes.
"I don't think that'd be a safe idea," Shepard said.
"I have to agree with Shepard," Arcee said winking at Legion.
"Arcee," Shepard said sternly, "are you just giving me lip service?"
"Nooooo," Arcee said not looking at Shepard, "C'mon, little man, let's go for a fly."
Arcee took Legion high into the air doing with Nightfury doing aerial acrobatics. Legion sat on her lap as they did all forms of tricks.
"Auntie Arcee, is everything alright? You seem rather tense." Legion suddenly asked her.
"I'm fine, just some work related stuff," Arcee said, "Now to give you the controls. Just don't tell you parents."
"Really! Thanks!" Legion said as he grabbed the controls.
"I'll handle the foot pedals, just concentrate on the hand controls," Arcee told him, "let's see what you can do."
She let him play with the controls doing what she needed to do and when with the foot pedals to keep the ship stable. It was fairly easy, he didn't do much more than do some simple acrobatics like loops, barrel roles and aileron roles.
At a certain point she realized that she wasn't even concentrating on driving, but rather the clouds and the sky. She always loved being high in the sky, free as a bird soaring through the bright open sky.
Even the voice her head was quiet, even if it wasn't she wouldn't let it bother her. Her love of the open sky outweighed any negative feelings she gets from her life. The only thing she found more enjoyable than flying was free falling. It for whatever reason cleared her mind and brought her peace more than anything else. If only it could last longer.
"Arcee, I'm hungry, can we land and have lunch?" Legion suddenly asked.
"Sure, I'll bring Nightfury in for the landing," Arcee said as she took hold of the controls and brought them back home.


"Wow, you guys made some major headway," Arcee said as she jumped down with Legion in her arms. "How long were we away for?"
The house had gone from having only a shingled roof and bare sides showing the ship plating. To having its sides be fully covered and painted a beautiful dark, nearly black violet with a blue hue that could be seen at the right angle.
"About three hours," Tali said, "we were actually getting a bit worried about you two."
"Three hours!" Arcee gasped in amazement, "Oh god, I didn't feel more than thirty minutes to me."
"That is because you started day dreaming," Legion said.
"There wasn't any danger though," Arcee said quickly seeing the concerned look in Shepard's and Tali's eyes, "Nightfury comes with safety protocols to ensure no accidental crashes from a pilot that is not paying attention. I can disable it, but, when I am just flying around for fun, I make sure it is enabled."
"Nice paint," Arcee commented, "where'd you guys get the idea for such a lovely colour?"
"You." Shepard said blankly, "when you became a Spectre. When you met with the Council after rescuing me."
"Right, I did have a suit with those colours," Arcee said remembering that day, "It was a new suit I was testing for comfort reasons. It nearly passed, but still needed a few tweaks that have since been rectified. Its still in development and may not make it past the next phase pending future testing."
"What is the suit supposed to do?" Shepard asked.
"Simplest way I can explain it is a suit with jets installed in it so that the user can move faster and jump higher and even hover in place for a few seconds," Arcee told them, "thing is, the speed it can produce is faster than the human brain can process so there are some problems with that part. There are also half a dozen or more other problems with the project, but I don't want to get into any details right now. It's a real headache of a problem. If I do get a suit like that working, I may save it for myself."
"Course you would," Tali said, "Like you are with your biotic suits."
"Well, that was part of the Council," Arcee said, "they don't want them to be mass produced and the Imperium isn't allowed sell them publically or privately. So, blame them for not having suits with biotic powers."
"Are you going to give your companies security forces those suits then?" Shepard asked.
"I would like to," Arcee said, "but, they cost to much, so I have to be a bit cost wise and not do that...quite yet."
"So, what do you guys have left to do?" Arcee asked, "also Legion is hungry."
"Edi and Joker have lunch waiting for us in the Normandy," Tali said, "Legion. Honey. Why don't you go on ahead. We'll catch up soon."
"K." Legion said as he ran off.
"We just finished the insulation," Shepard said, "all that's left is to put the drywall on and paint."
"Then we can start refurbishing," Tali said.
"I can take care of getting all that stuff for you guys," Arcee said, "It wont' be a problem and I won't take no for an answer."
"We figured you wouldn't," Shepard said.
"And knew you would want to help furnish the new house," Tali added.
Arcee blushed slightly at the fact that her friends knew her so well, "This is why you two are my best friends," Arcee said, "you know me and know what I'll do almost as fast as I do."
"We do get concerned about you sometimes," Shepard said, "if we didn't hear reports about the Imperium every month. I think we'd think you had died or vanished again."
"I can promise you two one thing," Arcee said, "I will never vanish like I did before."
"That's not something you can keep," said the voice that was inside of Arcee's head that she quickly ignored and paid it no mind even though the voice continued to talk despite Arcee not listening to it. Even though every time she passed a reflective surface she could see the image of her dark self in it. She was beginning to wonder if she would go insane, but quickly put that thought out of her mind.
It had surprisingly only taken six days to finish and furnish the house letting everyone have one day to relax in the new house, "This is a beautiful day for the final day of my little vacation," Arcee said as she relaxed on the lawn chair in the warm rays of the sun.
"Some vacation," Shepard said, "you spent more time working than you did relaxing."
"To me this was relaxing," Arcee said, "I'm normally moving around so much I barely have time to be still for more than three seconds."
"Really?!" Tali gasped, "by the way you did things while you were here I have figured you would do the same thing at home."
"Home. The bigger the Imperium got, the less time I actually got to spend at home. If I'm not sitting in a meeting, or helping one of my projects get through a hiccup with a project, then I'm moving to the next meeting or project facility."
"Thank you." Arcee finally said to them after about a minute of silence.
"For what?" Shepard asked.
"For letting me help you two with your house," Arcee said, "and for letting me use your QEC. I haven't been this still since the Reaper war. To me, this was a great vacation."
"In that case, we are glad to have accommodated you," Shepard said, "we enjoyed your time here and are thankful for your help with the house."
"And the furniture?" Tali added, "it must have cost you a fortune."
"Not really, I have plenty of money in my own bank account," Arcee told them, "it barely made a dent in my balance."
"Wow, you must be quite well off," Shepard said.
"My parents kept making deposits into my bank account after I went to live with your people, Tali," Arcee said, "thanks to them, I have the fortune I have now."
"You must be thankful to them, then," Tali said.
"I am. I just wish they were still alive," Arcee said as she stood up and went to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the ocean, "I never said goodbye to them. After Elysium, I went directly to the Quarians. The last time I saw them was before Elysium."
"Arcee," Shepard said as he and Tali appeared on either side of her, "That must be rough."
"It's alright," Arcee said smiling as she turned and put her arms around both of their necks, "I've already accepted the fact that my parents are dead. I'm moving forward with my life. Like you did, Tali."
"Arcee." Tali said softly as she hugged her friend back.
"Tali," Edi said as she came out of the house, "the Admiralty board is contacting you on the new QEC that Arcee had installed in the living room. Shepard, the Council is contacting you through the Normandy's QEC."
"Thanks Edi," Shepard said as he, Tali and Arcee separated from each other, "we'll be right there."
"Back to work for me and Shepard it seems," Tali said.
"I'll be here when you two are done," Arcee said as she sat back down in her lawn chair, "I'll be here waiting for your return."
"It shouldn't take too long," Shepard said, "they probably just want to know how we are recovering."




Arcee was behind a desk in a dark room looking over notes and information regarding various projects. She was wearing silk pink and white pyjamas with her hair tied back in a large knot.
"Arcee, I have recovered the information that you wished for," Itachi said as he appeared before for dressed in a black cloak that covered his entire body with his hair in a simple ponytail that went straight down his back.
"Excellent, what do you have for me?" Arcee asked him.
"Before I get to that," Itachi said sounding concerned, "Do you have anything you wish to tell me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you hearing voices?"
"Why do you ask?"
"I've watched you for the last couple of hours and you seemed to be talking to yourself."
"I have," Arcee sighed putting the datapad she had down on her desk, "it started not long after Shepard and Tali were attacked. What do you think this means?"
"Arcee," Itachi said after a few long minutes, "I was afraid you may get like this. The sheer amount of stress you are under coupled with the amount of hours you work I figured something like this may occur. But, I believe you have the will power to control and keep those voices in check. You are far stronger than you even know you are."
"But, if you ever feel those voices are getting upper hand, you can talk about it to anyone," Itachi continued, "Even me if you feel you can't tell anyone who isn't a shadow."
"Thank you. I'll be sure to do that if I feel I am losing control," Arcee told him.
"Now. I have found quite a bit about the who had attacked Shepard," Itachi said, "not as much as you would have liked, but quite a bit regardless."
"Good, let's have it," Arcee said.
Itachi handed her a large brown envelope that contained pictures and papers about a new not yet known organization that was called Chimera who's founder was part of the old Cerberus. A scientist that specialized in genetic modification and splicing who's name is Xecil. All the pictures of him were him wearing a white cloak that covered all of his features. He had a white snake that was beside him.
"This is it!?" Arcee asked sounding shocked by the lack of information.
"Read on," Itachi said, "you'll see it has a bit more, but sadly, it isn't as comprehensive as you would like it to be."
She read more of the papers and only found out that he had worked with Cerberus for a very long time, but left shortly after the Lazerus project was completed because of a disagreement with the Illusive Man. His whereabouts after that are unknown, but an offer was made to a large number of former Cerberus soldiers once the Reaper war was over.
"If you like, I may be able to arrange a meeting with this man," Itachi said.
"Seriously!" Arcee gasped in shock, "How?"
"Being a criminal, I have connections to the criminal underworld," Itachi said, "it is how I was able to get that much information. If I did get a hold of him, I would likely have to go deep undercover and I would not be able to train you in being a Shinobi for quite some time."
"Does this go beyond Aria T'loak?"
"Aria is but one, if not the most powerful one of the criminal world," Itachi said, "where I am going. Is the criminal underworld. Its a world that has criminals that are even more despicable than Aria, just not as well known and without as large of a gang. They fly below the radar of many, even those in the criminal world."
"I see, I see."
"The criminal underworld is where a lot of the big time criminals get a lot of their information from," Itachi continued, "If you think Omega is a terrible place to be, then you should see the underworld hub. It makes Omega look like heaven. If you aren't careful you'll disappear without a trace. It's where people go to disappear and appear somewhere else as not themselves."
"Sounds like a fun place," Arcee said jokingly, "you should take me there sometime."
"I'm not kidding," Itachi said sounding stern and not appreciating her joke, "but, I may take you there one day...after your Shinobi training is complete."
"Well, if you are going to be gone for an extended period of time, this'll give me time to work on quite a few of your training exercises then," Arcee said, "make a regiment for me to do while you are away and when you return, I'll hopefully have improved my Shinobi game."
"Arcee, from what little I was able to gain, this man is extremely dangerous," Itachi said, "the fact that he was able to cover his tracks so well proves this. I do not even know if I will return in one piece or what information he'll want from me for me to join his organization."
"I understand," Arcee said, "Do you feel up for this mission then?"
"Yes. I do."
"Then go, but if things get too dangerous. Don't put yourself past your limits. I don't want to lose my teacher."
"I'll do my best," Itachi said, "I have one more mission to do before I die. And I don't intend to let this mission go unfinished."
"What's that mission?" Arcee asked.
"I'll tell you when the time is right," Itachi said mysteriously as he turned to leave, "I'll make you a Shinobi training regiment before I leave for this mission."
"Itachi. Be careful."
"Just in case I don't return," Itachi said, "you are making a fine Shinobi. You'd have made a great Shinobi and very well may have been recruited for it some time after becoming a N7."
"Thank you," Arcee said as her friend and mentor left the room. She didn't know if she would ever see him again, but was confident in his skill that he would return to her.