An Alliance soldier enters our cell. Shepard identifies him as James Vega. He tells us that Admiral Anderson wants to speak with us.

Anderson: You look good Shepard.

Mom: Damn straight I do.

Thankfully (for Anderson) she talks over the crack about Shepard gaining some weight.

Anderson explains the situation. A massive force has been picked up by Earth’s detection system, moving at an incredible speed toward the human homeworld. No one’s come out and said it yet, but there’s only one possible explanation: The Reapers are here, and they’re gunning for Earth.

Mom: What, they lock me up and then they think I’m gonna help them out of their problem? Fat chance buddy. Let’s go hit the bar.

As we head to the central command room, we walk past Kaidan.

Me: It’s Kaidan!

Mom: Stay put Hotpants, I’ll be back in a minute.

Me: Are you still planning to kill him?

Mom: Of course!

Liara’s contact tells us that Thane Krios has been hired to assassinate an asari named Nassana Dantius, a woman who called us up back in Mass Effect 1 to discuss a business proposition, but we blew her off. She offers to take us to Dantius Towers, where we can hopefully catch the assassin before he escapes. 

The asari flies us to the bottom of one of the towers. Mom asks why we aren’t flying straight for the penthouse and Shepard echoes her. The asari explains that the place is loaded with mercenaries armed to the teeth, and that starting from the bottom is the only viable route.

We blow open the front doors of the tower and start gunning down mercs and mechs. We head to the elevator, where we find a salarian janitor gasping his last breath. He says that the mercs started open-firing on the night crew before ever giving them a chance to leave.

Me: Do you want to give him some medicine to save his life?

Mom: What do you think.

The salarian passes away and we head up to the next level of the tower.

Upstairs we take out a few more waves of mechs before coming across a sealed door. We hack it open to find several salarian workers. One of them has a gun pointed at us and is visibly shaking in fear.

Mom: Shoot him!

I take the Renegade Interrupt, but it only knocks him out.

Mom: Rats.

The salarians explain that a mysterious drell locked them in the room for safety. We tell them to get out of the tower while the lower levels are cleared.

We hop in another elevator and happen upon a merc chatting with his partners. We manage to get the jump on him and try to coerce him into helping us, but he’s not going for it.

Merc: I’ve got nothing to say to you.

Mom: Shove him out that window!

A Renegade Interrupt comes up and I do exactly that.

Shepard: How about “goodbye”

Mom: Yes!

We head for the warehouse district. Harkin’s ready for us, and throws wave after wave of mechs and mercs at us. We punch through his defenses and make it to the control room.

Mom: “I remember Harkin.”

Me: No you don’t you liar.

Mom: Shoosh, HE doesn’t know that!

Garrus beats Harkin into submission. The crooked C-Sec officer finally relents, and agrees to set up a meeting between us and Sidonis.

Mom: Stop talking and kill him!

Garrus draws his gun and fires, putting a bullet in Harkin’s leg.

Mom: No, you idiot, I said kill him!

We head into the warehouse to talk to Fade, the criminal who made Sidonis “disappear.”

Fade is a volus, flanked on either side by a krogan mercenary.

Mom: Shoot ‘em!

A Renegade Interrupt appears and I do exactly that.

Mom: Shoot Fade too!

Me: We need information out of him!

The volus gets nervous and immediately starts talking. He explains that he’s not actually Fade, he only works for him. He tells us where we can find his employer, and reveals that Fade is none other than Harkin, the alcoholic C-Sec officer we had to deal with back in Mass Effect 1.

Me: Do you remember that guy.

Mom: Of course not. Shoot Fade!

Me: That’s not even the real Fade! He was lying.

Mom: Ughhhh.

We continue to fight through the Geth to meet up with the Quarian squad that’s guarding Tali. By the time we make it there, the only one left is a commando named Kal’Reegar.

Me: This guy is voiced by Adam Baldwin.

Mom: He is?

Dad: That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Ohhh, you should by this game! It features a character voiced by Adam Baldwin. Who cares?

Mom: Wait, Adam Baldwin? I thought it was Alec Baldwin.

Me: This is Alec Baldwin’s brother.

Mom: Never heard of him.

Me: Tali is asking us to keep him safe for her, but he’s offering to basically sacrifice himself to keep us safe. Do you want to take him up on that?

Mom: Of course!

Me: Okay. I think if we get through this area fast enough he’ll survive anyway… which probably means you want me to go slow.

Dad: Take your time! I want to see this sucker fry.

Mom: Ha! Now you’re learning how to play this game!

I head over to the asari that gives you access to Thane’s recruitment mission, only to find that she won’t talk to you unless you talk to Liara first.

Me: Ah, we have to talk to that blue girl from the first game before we can do either of these recruitment missions. I dunno if you want to do that.

Mom: Pff, why not? I’m not scared of her.

Me: Well, you generally don’t want to talk to anyone.

Mom: Oh yeah, good point.

An ad plays over the radio for indentured servants.

Mom: Why do we want dentures?

Me: No, indentured servants. Like, slaves.

Dad: Slaves.

Me: …Yeah. So, anyway, do you want to find something else to do instead of talking to Liara?

Mom: Eh. [Dad], you decide what mission we should do.

Dad: Let’s go get some slaves.

Me: I… you can’t actually get slaves. That’s just for ambience.

Mom: Lame.

I head back to the bridge and talk with Kelly to see what other Loyalty Missions have opened up.

Mom: Who the hell is this?

Me: It’s Kelly, your secretary.

Mom: Yeah I’ll bet.

Me: So Mordin, our doctor scientist guy, wants to talk to us. And also Grunt, your uh… little brother. He wants to talk to us too. Do you want to see what either of them want?

Mom: Nah.

Me: But he’s family!

Mom: Don’t care.

Me: Alright. So here are our options. We can investigate “Project Overlord,” we can  help Admiral Hackett save his spy friend from aliens, we can help the one-eyed guy kill the leader of a gang, we can help that blue girl from the first game kill a powerful criminal, or we can recruit “The Assassin” or “The Justicar.”

Mom: What’s with all the helping? I don’t want to help anyone! I want people to help me!

Me: We can also see what Grunt or Mordin want.

Mom: I GUESS let’s recruit The Assassin, just because that’s the only one that doesn’t involve helping someone.

Me: Well, we could also recruit The Justicar?

Mom: What do we know about them?

Me: All we know about her is that she’s called The Justicar.

Mom: Aha! Her. No thanks.

Me: For what it’s worth you can kill her.

Mom: Hm. Does she have money?

Me: I don’t know.

Mom: Well, we’ll put her in the “maybe” column.

As we continue to fight our way through the Eclipse mercenaries, we begin to hear radio chatter that suggests that Niket may not be as trustworthy as Miranda thinks. She gets angry, but we tell her that we should wait and see for ourselves.

Unfortunately, her suspicions turn out to be true. Miranda’s father was never involved in any of this. The entire thing was Niket’s doing. He doesn’t think it was right to take Miranda’s “twin,” who is in fact many years younger than her, when she was only a baby. He has no problem with Miranda choosing to leave her father but believes that Oriana deserved the opportunity to choose for herself. Miranda draws a gun on him.

Me: Do you want to do something nice?

Mom: Pff, no.

Me: Alright, well, that guy’s dead now.

Mom: Who cares.

We find out from Miranda’s contact that her father has hired Eclipse to retrieve his daughter. Miranda’s oldest friend, Niket, is currently trying to meet up with the family to get them to safety.

Mom: Look at the family resemblance between us.

Me: …You do look vaguely similar.

Mom: Told ya.

Shepard: I’m ready to go when you are, Miranda.

Mom: UGH. I hate the way I’m talking to her now.

We take a car over to where the handoff is taking place, and are confronted with Eclipse mercenaries. They want to keep Miranda alive, but warn us that they have snipers in position. A Renegade Interrupt comes up.

Me: Do you want to do something mean?

Mom: How many times do I have to tell you to stop asking?

Me: I dunno what the heck happened, but we’ve got about 30 followers today. We’ve been sitting at about 900 for over a week and now we’re up to 936.

Mom: It’s because of all the compassion I showed for my pal Jack.

Me: I… dunno about that. You made her kill a guy.

Mom: Yeah.

Me: She didn’t seem that into it.

Mom: Look I need her in peak condition. She’s gonna kill Miranda for me. And then she’s gonna kill Hotpants for me to get his money.

Me: I see. That way you’re not implicated.

Mom: Exactly. I’ll slip her a little something for her trouble.

Me: So how does Jacob fit into this?

Mom stares at me incredulously.

Mom: Uh… He’s my Hot Chocolate!