Since her control range for drones extended over twenty kilometers, it was trivial for Taylor to monitor the advance of the Blue Suns through Blood Pack territory. Even with a majority of their members suffering from a heavy sickness, they still fought as brutally as ever. It would take hours, or maybe even days, to retake the entire district.

With the army still camping in front of the life support system, though they had abandoned the idea of cutting through, Mordin suggested she simply change the authentication keys for the main door. Then, they could leave through the shuttle dock, with everybody outside none the wiser, and give the new keys to Aria to do as she saw fit.

For the return journey, Taylor did not bother with a propulsion system, she simply used her flight power.

"You could do that the whole time?" Niusa exclaimed.

"Yes," Taylor answered as she flew alongside the Asari. "It was a bitch and a half to make so I though I'd enjoy it a little more."

"Are all parahumans like this?"

"Most enjoy using their powers, yes," she flew a loop around Niusa. "But in terms of strength, I am likely in the top five, possibly top three."

"That is … somewhat frightening," Niusa said hesitantly.

"Assessment, accurate," Mordin chimed in.

"Hey, I'm still the same Taylor," she protested.

"Same Taylor, more frightening," Mordin said.

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They returned to the clinic to find it …

Exactly the same. As far as everyone knew, they had just disappeared for a few hours and returned with the good news that the cure was spread. Maybe her luck wasn't as bad as she thought. Or Mordin's level of preparation countered it.

Daniel had been provided with several doses of the cure in injectable vaccine form before they left as the patients that were the most affected needed a stronger dose. Their bodies were still wrecked by the disease but at least they'd be able to recover to a degree.

Taylor offered to use regeneration to the worst victims but Mordin told her that it was better not to. His reasoning was that her true nature was best kept within a close group to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention. She hated that he was right.

"What now, doctor?" She asked.

"Will leave clinic to Daniel," the Salarian said with a smile, "good doctor, only needs some self-esteem. After that … Taylor likely interested in traveling companions."

"Do I have to ask?" She turned to Niusa.

"Of course I'm coming with you," the Asari said.

"Alright then," Taylor smiled. "Let's take a few days to finish with the clinic and get organized. Since I'm going to be interacting with more people, I need to be able to better sell the illusion that I am actually a Quarian."

"Need to inform Aria as well," Mordin pointed out. "Handover life support access."

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Mordin went to check the patients in the isolation ward. The staff should already have administered the vaccine but he wanted to make sure there weren't any side effects. Taylor the opportunity to check on the medical equipment. The strain on the machines had been lessened by the immune booster and she wanted to see if any were close to failure. Even if she hadn't been at the clinic all that long, less than a week by her estimate, the staff and patients had warmed up to her. It was a nice feeling, to help people and without punching the problem as had been too common on Earth Bet.

When everything was in order, Mordin gathered the staff and announced that Daniel would manage the clinic. It was a surprise to everyone. Daniel tried to refuse but the praise from Mordin turned him around in the end. The couple she had rescued, who had taken over the kitchen, also decided to stay. The clinic would probably have to charge a small fee going forward to stay afloat but Mordin planned to leave most of the supplies he had brought to help with that.

Then, it was time to pack. Taylor, Mordin, and Niusa spent the day packing the laboratory equipment for transport. Mordin had several anti-gravity transport pallets he had used to bring everything in. Their plan was to leave the clinic with all the equipment on them then transfer everything into her storage space once out of sight.

During the night, Taylor went for another experiment. She could absorb genetic material and use it for herself but it was far from the limitation of her plasmoid abilities. According to Asteria, she could do it with pretty much anything as long as she could get it inside her extradimensional stomach.

So she tried it with something small first: a thermal clip. She had an entire crate of them so one less wasn't much of an issue. It was also easy to swallow without needing to expand her body. Once it sat inside, she flipped the mental switch and the clip dissolved into raw materials. The blueprint for the device flashed in her mind and Prototype archived it. She then tried the next step, producing more. With an effort of will, she recalled the blueprint for the thermal clip and created three from raw materials into her stomach.

This has potential, she thought. Can I make altered variants as well?

She used Prototype to help design a larger thermal clip variant with more capacity. Once she had the blueprint in mind, she recycled the three already in her stomach into the larger variant. It worked perfectly. She couldn't test it on a gun but she trusted her power's analysis.

Out of curiosity, she recycled the thermal clip and tried to produce something completely from scratch. She felt a slight resistance at first but the part slowly materialized inside of her over the course of two minutes. The second copy was significantly quicker which confirmed her suspicion. She could but there were drawbacks.

Her reserves of raw mass had increased slightly during her stay at the clinic but she couldn’t produce larger objects quite yet. She needed to feed on some denser materials to build up her reserves. Maybe Mordin would agree to make a stop near some smaller asteroids once they left Omega. In the meantime, she could absorb some of the redundant supplies she had from the Cerberus cache, like the crate full of thermal clips.

Taylor fully extracted herself from the Quarian suit for the first time since she had arrived in this dimension. She had used a human appearance the first time she had revealed herself to Mordin but she had found over time that the intermediate humanoid form was much more comfortable in the long run. Since she was hidden inside the suit most of the time, nobody could see her true form.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

With the freedom to change shape however she wanted, she pulled the crates she wanted to eat out of storage and placed her hand on top of the first. Her hand expanded to fully engulf the crate and absorbed it into her stomach. It was strange she hadn't thought of that initially but she put it down to the initial disorientation. Once her feeding spree was over, she had nearly a metric ton of spare mass.

With an entirely useless stretch of her gelatinous limbs, she pondered on her next steps. The night was still young after all. Then, her eyes landed on the Quarian suit laying on the floor and her mind wandered to the ten or so other ones that sat in a crate. So far, she had used destructive analysis but she had an inkling that it was possible to avoid digesting the items if she let her power take its time. With a collection of blueprints, she could obviously create her own with whatever tinker-tech she wanted inside in addition to the existing features.

Taylor pulled all the crates full of equipment from storage and started to absorb everything she could get her hands on. The collection of Quarian suits, one of the human-shaped armors, the different models of weapons present, and finally a few omni-tools and their modules. She flagged the Quarian suits for non-destructive analysis and the rest to be digested. Asteria informed her that the whole process would take the rest of the night.

She lay down in her small camping bed with a smile on her face.

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Taylor woke up in the morning still smiling. Since the virus was dealt with she had taken some time to relax in the Shire during the night. Gamma had built a Viking themed bath house where they spent some time and Delta had created a mini-golf course throughout the village where they competed against each-other. With Thinker powers in the mix, it turned into a trick-shot competition to see who could finish the hole in the most impossible way.

With the analysis of everything completed, she stowed away all the Quarian suits back in their crates and produced her own copy directly around her body. She attached her omni-tool back on and it interfaced flawlessly with the suit. It was the only piece of gear she hadn't absorbed as she wasn't certain she would be able to re-create the contents of the memory. She had produced the modules she was missing, however. At least the ones that had been present on the other models of omni-tools present in the crates.

She finally had access to the micro fabricator and disassembler that had not been originally equipped on her scientific variant as well as some combat modules. She didn't particularly need them but she was also curious of how they performed compared to her suite of powers. Just as she tested the blade, Niusa entered the laboratory and raised an eyebrow at Taylor.

"I did not think you would need a combat omni-tool," she remarked.

"I'm curious how it performs," she just shrugged as the blade vanished.

"Even if your target is a heavily armored Krogan, a well placed omni-blade usually is enough to make them back off," Niusa explained. "Though it's best to avoid getting into melee range with the likes of a Krogan in the first place."

"Maybe I should test my super-strength by arm wrestling a Krogan," Taylor grinned behind her visor.

"I have no doubt you would win the match," the Asari let out a laugh, "and the ensuing brawl. Maybe with a few marriage proposals as well."

From everything she had read online, the Krogan were something of a warrior race who put strength at the top of their priorities. The public recounting of their bloody first contact with the council races and the use of the Genophage virus had made her even more wary of the rules of this galaxy. When she had asked Mordin about it, he had called the virus a regrettable necessity.

Taylor knew about those.

They finished packing Mordin's laboratory in the middle of the day. All of the scientific equipment and anything that could be used to synthesize genetic material was packed away and secured. Taylor had wondered why they hadn't left some of the equipment to Daniel so he could synthesize more cure if necessary.

Mordin explained that bio-synthesis fabricators were highly restricted technology. It made sense, they could be used to manufacture all sorts of bio-weapons from anthrax to the mysterious virus they had just encountered. However, he left a bio-reactor with the bacteria that produced the cure.

They left through the back entrance of the clinic without much fanfare. Mordin wasn't one for goodbyes it seemed. Taylor deployed her reconnaissance drones once again and found an isolated area for her to stash away the equipment.

Then, before leaving the district, they made a small detour by Dirk's Repair Shop. She placed the fabricators she had borrowed back on the central desk and put back several bins of components she hadn't used. With her ability to build anything within herself, she had no need for the machines anymore and it felt right to bring them back to their rightful owner.

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The exit of the Gozu district was guarded by Turian mercenaries. From what their leader said, or shouted from afar to be precise, they were there to enforce the quarantine and would shoot anyone who approached.

At first they had refused to even entertain the idea that the plague had been cured but Mordin and Niusa managed to at least obtain an audience, via teleconference, with Aria who had the final say over things. The Turian mercenaries let them into their camp, though all of them had their hands on their weapons, and the leader brought them to a terminal in his office.

It was there that Taylor saw Aria T'Loak for the first time. The woman was very protective of her image and the only pictures of her on the extranet were of very low quality. Unlike Niusa, who looked gentle and put Taylor at ease, Aria had a stern expression that put her on edge. From everything she knew Aria had been ruling over Omega with an iron fist for the last two centuries and had even earned her the moniker of the Pirate Queen. Taylor found her sense of dress a bit too risqué but she had the figure to pull it off.

"Professor Solus," Aria skipped the pleasantries.

"Aria T'Loak," Mordin simply said.

"You assert that you have cured the plague in the Gozu district?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "From anyone else I would dismiss it but your reputation precedes you. Are you also responsible for the blackout of the life support system as well?"

"Blood Pack disabled the system to prevent spread of the cure," Mordin explained. "Temporary setback only. Infiltrated the area with assistance, eliminated all resistance, introduced cure into the air supply. From calculations, total population immunization achieved six hours ago."

"And the rumors of a mysterious sickness affecting the Vorcha in the district?"

"Secondary objective, prevent Blood Pack from retaking life support systems," Mordin said calmly. "Weapon deployed short lived, highly targeted, incapable of reproduction. No danger to Omega."

"Very well," Aria sighed. She apparently knew that it was pointless to argue with the doctor when he had his mind set. "Gavius Murnis, the quarantine is lifted, they can leave."

"Life support access keys modified to prevent intrusion," Mordin pulled out the small chip I had given him.

"Leave it with Murnis," Aria dismissed them with a wave of her hand and the hologram winked out.

"Alright, you can pass," the Turian, presumably Murnis, let them go.

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Omega beyond the bounds of the Gozu district was at the same time familiar and alien to Taylor. She had gotten used to the deserted halls of the quarantine area with its ominous red signs and pyres. Without the thread of a deadly virus, the same architecture felt much more lively. The metal hallways had constant traffic of people coming and going. Areas with shops had their holographic signs on and wares on display.

It looked like something out of a science-fiction movie with a dark and brooding atmosphere.

Taylor and her team, Mordin had apparently decided she was the one in charge for the moment and Niusa had happily agreed, were faced with their first problem.

Getting off the station.

Her plan, more of a rough outline, had been to find her way to the local Earth, somehow, then to cross over with a portal. She had since discovered that she was almost on the other side of the galaxy from her objective in what was essentially a lawless city.

The easiest way to leave Omega would be to hop on a shuttle towards citadel space. It was also the cheapest by far but came with a big problem. She still needed to get to Earth somehow. She had no identity in that world and the instant she stepped on a station with an identity check, she was bound to get discovered. Buying a fake identity was probably possible but it would not come cheap, especially one that could get through customs.

The other option was to get a ship of her own. It was bound to be much more expensive, even for a small one, but she would have much more freedom in how to approach the issue. From everything she had read on the extranet, the best faster-than-light drives covered around twenty light years per day without the help of a mass relay. It was a laughably low number, even the slowest option offered by her stellar travel tinker specialization could cover a hundred times that in a matter of hours. If she mounted that kind of drive core on an existing ship …

"Sanna'Shesa," her thoughts were interrupted by … a Quarian.