Running As Fast As I Can

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Jonathan Shepard knows you're not supposed to pick favorites, whether it is with children or with students or with siblings, but he couldn't help it. Kalisee Shepard was just so much smarter than the other two.

That was his own opinion anyway. And really, if he had been anywhere else but stuck on Mindoir, he would probably have made plenty of normal friends, and would not have had to stick with his own sisters. Really, he thought. There had to be better things to do in life than teach your younger three sisters how to fight.

Not that two of them took to it. Josephine (nicknamed Jo) was too interested in her natural biotic abilities, and spent most of her days following around the Alliance officials, looking to sneak into their own biotic lessons. Satana (pronounced Suh-Tah-Nah; she hated it when people said it Satan-ah, since it earned her the well-placed nickname "Little Demon") spent a little more time around him learning the ropes, but as soon as she accidentally sent a bully flailing toward the wall, she hung out with Jo constantly, learning all she could about biotics.

But Kalisee, twin sister to Jo and branded "black sheep" of the family, loved two things in life: fighting and technology.

One of which happened to be John's favorite thing.

So yes, Kallie was definitely his favorite sibling, insomuch that he taught her all he knew about fighting (even taught her how to shoot a pistol and a sniper, but don't ever tell their father because they'll both die) and even learned a bit about computers from her.

But today she is nowhere to be found.

John eventually finds her in the garage with her younger sister Satana. He looks through the crack in the garage door at two of his sisters, watching carefully as they try to get along long enough for the smaller to finish her homework. The smaller girl sits with a pensive look burning through her green eyes, scratching at her jet black scalp, inspecting the engine carefully. Slowly, she picks up a tool and sets upon the technology with it.

The older girl—sharing only her insanely bright green eyes in common with her sister—cocks a confident eyebrow. She shakes her head, swishing her red locks across her face.

"Satana, you're doing it wrong."

The smaller sister snarls. "Shut up, Kallie."

"All right, I'm just trying to help you."

Sparks fly from the engine, making the smaller sister cry out and Kallie to laugh. Chunk! "Damn it, sister, if you don't get out and leave me alone right now I'm telling Jo!"

Indignant laughter. "Oh? And what will Jo do?"

The door bursts open before he can leap out of the way, and a blonde-haired teenager bolts past him, tackling her red-head lookalike to the ground.

"She's going to pummel you!" Cries the girl, rolling Kallie onto her back and pinning her to the ground.

Kallie pushes a knee up and kicks Jo back from her. Jo stands back up, only to swish her hand across the air in front of her fallen twin. Now glowing bright blue, Kallie is lifted up into the air.

Ah. This old trick. Trapping Kallie in the air is a good way both to trap her and to enrage her. Feeling helpless is not one of Kallie's strong points. John crosses his arms and continues to watch, wondering how this will turn out.

A furious jerk comes from Kallie. "Some twin you are! Let me go!" She twists around in the air to face her smallest sister. "Demon, tell your dog to back down before I hack into the mechs and kill her!"

He shakes his head at this, opening the door all the way and entering the garage himself. "Such sisterly love in here," he laughs.

"John!" Kallie calls, wriggling around in the air to face him. She puts her hands behind her back and tries to looks as innocent as possible. It makes John snort. "Get me down!"

"Why are you stringing her up, anyway?" He asks, as if he hadn't listened in on the whole debacle in the first place.

"She was annoying my little sister." Jo shrugged. "And no one annoys my little sister."

"I was trying to fix the engine I broke at school, but Kallie comes in and says I'm doing it wrong!" Satana whines, crossing her arms and snarling at the suspended girl. "Then she laughed when I got shocked. Laughed!"

"It was funny, you nitwit." Kallie retorts. "You jumped like a bug."

Jo, the more mature of the two twins (though not by far, John thinks, since she has hung her own twin sister in the air and is enjoying her helplessness) tisks a few times and waggles her finger at Kallie. "Such hostility toward your own flesh and blood. Why don't you leave Satana alone and pick on someone who can actually take you?"

Kallie—ever the blunt one—spits at Jo. It lands just short of her shoe. John knows this is intentional. He's seen Kallie lob spit onto people's foreheads from yards away. "Oh, like you? I could take you in a fair fight."

"Says the one who is hanging in the air."

At this Kallie laughs. A large ball of fire shoots out from behind her back and launches itself at Jo. Jo shrieks, jumping backward and effectively losing her biotic grip on her sister. Kallie twists as she hits the ground and is on her feet before the fire has stopped harassing her twin sister, her omni tool glowing proudly on her arm.

Jo growls in aggravation. "Gods, I hate you, Kalisee Shepard!"

"Grow up, Josephine!" Kallie throws back. "You started it!"

Jo hurls a biotic sphere at Kallie, who ducks out of the way and sends another small puff of fire at her twin. In a twist of anger, Jo launches herself at Kallie, who hits the ground biting and scratching.

Satana has wisely gotten out of the way, sitting up on the table next to the power tools (their father was going to kill her if he found out, but Old Man Shepard never was home for most of the day. Hell, if Kallie was paying attention she might have laid it on Satana herself; that workbench was Kallie's whole life) and wrapped inside the ensuing battle.

John sighs and shakes his head once again, reaching out and grabbing Kallie and Jo by the backs of their necks and yanking them apart from each other.

"That's enough!" He shouts. "Look at the both of you. You're fifteen years old, and you're fighting like you're twelve."

Jo glares up at him. "But—"

"But nothing." He shakes the scruff of Kallie's neck. "Kallie, you should have been nicer to Satana while she fixed the engine."

Kallie glares daggers. John gives her another shake and she finally shrugs. "I guess so."

"Good." He sends a deprecating look toward Satana. "Little Demon, you do not have the right to sic your favorite sibling on your least favorite sibling. She was trying to help, and you should have been more tolerant."

Not willing to get roughed up like the twins are, Satana nods, wide-eyed. "Of course, brother dearest."

Well, that was a lie if John ever heard one. Satana indeed lived up to her nickname "Little Demon", intentionally instigating fights between two different kinds of enemies and watching them destroy themselves. What he just saw was her deciding she couldn't win again her brother and faking an admission of defeat. Once he nods to accept her "apology", she continues glaring at him for spoiling her fun.

He'd have to watch his back around her for a while. It was clear he was next on the Demon's Target List.

Giving Jo a shake—a little rougher than the shake he gave Kallie, but only a little—he gets her to look up at him. "You can't go around attacking your own twin like that, Jo. Someday you're going to wish you hadn't fought so much when you were young."

"Someday I'm going to leave Mindoir, and I won't have to see her face again!" Jo struggles in her attempt to break John's grip. He holds fast. "Then that'll be the end of it."

Jo is too angry to notice, but John can feel Kallie tense beside him. Her fists double up, and John knows she's not trying to avoid hitting her sister; she is digging her nails into her skin to keep from reacting to those words.

This time John's shake to Jo is not gentle. "That was very mean, Jo. Apologize to your sister."

Jo shakes her head. "No. She deserves it."

Kallie looks the other way.

This is where John's knowledge of his sisters becomes murky. Jo and Kallie used to be inseparable, then one day, about a year ago, they suddenly couldn't stand each other. Satana knows what happened, he knows, but she won't say anything about it, either. John gets the feeling he wouldn't like his answer.

"Jo—"

"I don't give a damn if she says she's sorry." Kallie snarls. "I wouldn't accept it. And if she ever leaves Mindoir, it'd be a better place. That day can't come fast enough."

She breaks free of John's grasp and slinks out of the garage.

Satana now has the grace to look meek, and John thinks she's sincere. She slides down off of the counter and edges toward the two remaining siblings.

"Damn it, you two, why do you do that to her?" John asks, irritation showing through his voice for the first time. "What happened between you?"

Neither answers.

John groans. "Jo, when you decide to grow up, I expect you to find your sister and apologize to her."

Anger flashes through Jo's face as she defiantly glares her brother down."Or?"

"Or I tell Mom that you've been fighting with her again." John smirks. "In the garage."

Jo pales. "Fine."

He drops Jo to the ground and doesn't even wait to hear her indignant cry as she hits the ground. He leaves the garage in search of his favorite sibling.

Kallie is outside in the back, just as he suspected, fiddling with their broken mech. Another one of Satana's experiments gone awry. When Satana broke the news to the family that she'd decimated another mech, no one mentioned that it was the one that Kallie had built herself until she went out to see it for herself.

She wipes at her nose, but doesn't look up when her brother comes up behind her.

"Hand me the wrench." She says instead, keeping her face toward the mech.

John dutifully reaches into the toolbox and pulls out the necessary tool. He hands it to Kallie who begins working on her mech all over again. This is when he notices the small beacon poking out from the mech's head. He frowns at it and cocks his head. "I don't remember it having a scanner on its head."

"It's not a scanner." Kallie explains. "Well, it is, but that's not what I mean. It's supposed to look out for people nearing the vicinity."

John smiles. "You're building an alarm with a gun."

"Right." Kallie nods, wiping her brow. "I'm almost done, too. I just thought I'd get it finished while Dad was away and while Tweedles -Dee and -Dum are inside and not too likely to come around destroying my things."

John sighs. "I wish you'd tell me why you and Jo seem to hate each other now."

Kallie shrugs. "Sorry. I don't care about it that much."

"You're a good liar, you know." John flicks Kallie's dark red hair away from her shoulder, getting her to look at him. "But not to me."

Kallie gives a grunt of annoyance. "Gods, you're only a year older than us; how can you be so observant?"

"It's what happens when you spend that much time around me, I guess." John shrugs. "I get sharp-eyed."

Kallie snorts as she sits the mech up and shifts the back of its head off to switch the wires out. "You know, I bet that works on all the other ladies out there that aren't your sister."

It's John's turn to snort. "Have you seen the ladies out here? They're all under-educated bumpkins. No, when I get off of this rock, I'm going somewhere where there are all sorts of different kinds of women."

"Right."

There is silence for a while. John sits on the table beside Kallie—one placed there specifically so he would sit on that one, and not the actual workbench like so many are prone to do—and watches Kallie as her total focus is absorbed on the machine.

Finally he can't take the silence anymore. "Will you ever make up with Jo, Kalisee?"

Kallie's movements still. She doesn't turn to look at John as she replies. "Probably not."

John is not satisfied with that answer.

The mech flickers to life as Kallie places the back of the head on.

"Does it work?" John asks, inching closer to the tall white machine.

"Let's find out." Kallie retorts. "Mech, how many sapiens are in the vicinity?"

A whirring sound echoes through the machine before it replies. "Thirty-four sentient life forms within a two-hundred yard radius."

Kallie frowns while John shakes his head. "That can't be right." She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "How many human life forms are within the area?"

Again the machine's eyes blink in and out of existence before answering. "Six humans in the area: Shepard, Jonathan; Shepard, Kalisee; Shepard, Josephine; Shepard, Satana; Shepard, Martha; and Shepard, Frederick."

"Dad's home?" John asks. "It's the middle of the day. He should still be at work."

"Mech, why are there thirty-four sentient life forms in the area, but only six are human?" Kallie asks the machine, ignoring John. "What are the other twenty-eight?"

"There is no data."

"Looks like your machine isn't completely working." John snickers. "You must have twisted the wrong wire."

"The wires are correct. I double-checked them." Kallie states. "Maybe I need to recalibrate the angle of the beacon. Maybe—"

"Warning!" The mech cries loudly. "Warning! Armed individuals within a hundred-yard radius!"

"Okay," Jonathan grabs at Kallie's arm and pulls her back. "This thing is starting to scare me now. Let's get back inside."

"But—"

John forcibly drags Kallie away from her mech and into the house. They are met in the living room by an anxious Jo followed by Satana.

"What was that?" She asked. "We were leaving everyone alone and then suddenly something screams 'armed individuals within a hundred-yard radius!' What kind of monstrosity did you make this time?"

John opens his mouth to answer for his sister when a large BOOM shakes the entire house to its core.

The front door flies open and Frederick Shepard barrels through. He carries two large guns with him.

"Kids, get to the shelter." He barks, turning to look out the window. "Now."

"What's happening?" John asks, pulling the curtain back to inspect the world outside. Kallie leans over his shoulder to look with him.

Kallie's mouth drops. "Oh, my god."

A dread runs through John. "What are they?"

"I don't know," Their father answers. "But they don't look friendly. Get out of here. Run."

Martha, their mother, enters from the kitchen and takes one of the guns. "We'll hold them off. Go out the back and run for the woods. As fast as you can. Don't look back."

Kallie is the first to obey. She pulls John with her, who grabs at Satana and Jo as they head out the back.

"Damn it!" Jo cries as she kicks the back door. "One of you idiots locked it."

John frowns. "No, we didn't."

Kallie growls. "It doesn't matter. I'll go get the card key."

Before John can tell her not to, she bolts off to the front of the house.

Not a moment after she's out of sight, there is a sound like a door being kicked in, and an unbearably loud shriek. John shoves his two sisters back against the wall and bursts into the living room.

Kallie is on her knees, staring dazedly at two peach-colored puddles on the ground.

Standing in front of her are two aliens John has never seen before. Each of their four eyes is fixated on Kallie, who has not moved an inch.

John throws himself at the two aliens, startling them, and picks up one of the guns lying on the ground. He empties the cartridge in one of the aliens before he can safely drag his sister out of the room.

Taking the card key from her hand, he unlocks the door and all four siblings leave.

She will not walk. John has to drape an arm over his shoulder and practically carry her away from the house. They make it to the forest before he feels safe enough to set her down and try to bring her back.

"Is she all right?" Jo asks, taking one of Kallie's hands in hers and rubbing it lightly. "Kallie? Wake up!"

Kallie does not respond.

"She's—" For one of the first times in their lives, Satana sounds scared. "She's not dead, is she?"

John takes her head in his hands and shakes her softly. "Kalisee, you've got to say something. What happened?"

Kallie blinks. Then she leans over to John's right and promptly throws up.

"Good God, Kallie, what happened?" Satana pleads.

Kallie takes a shuddering breath. "Mom. Dad."

"What happened to them?" Jo asks. "Were the all right?"

"Melted." Kallie leans over and vomits again.

John's blood runs cold. The gun he'd picked up—the one laying in the yellowish puddle—

He thinks he'll be sick, too.

"Melted?" Jo repeats. "As in dead?"

"Melted!" Kallie restates. She takes a deep breath and regains her speech skills. "I don't know what they were, but we have to get out of here!"

A proud roar resounds from the house, and an explosion sends the whole place in flames. Aliens are leaving the ruined mess and are making their way for the woods.

For them.

John hangs on to his gun as he turns to his sisters. "There's nothing we can do about that now." He states. "All we can think of now is getting out alive." He looked Kallie over once. "Are you going to be okay?"

Still looking green, Kallie nods.

"Good. Run, as fast as you can, without looking back."

Satana's eyes widen. "What about you?"

John grasps on tighter to the gun in his hands. "I'll play distraction."

There is a resounding NO! between the three sisters, and John thinks he's never loved his family as much before.

The aliens have spotted them now, and are taking aim with their own guns. John must act fast.

"Look, I'm the oldest, so I've had more time to live than the rest of you. Go. As fast as you can. Without looking back." They open their mouths to protest. "No arguing. Promise me you'll all look out for each other for as long as possible."

Silence.

"Jo, Kallie, Satana, please. Promise me."

Kallie cries as she replies first. "I promise."

"I promise, too." Jo repeats.

Satana nods, her eyes also wet with tears. "I promise, Johnny."

"Good. Now run."

Kallie hugs her brother tightly one last time, kisses him on the cheek, then disappears into the woods, dragging her sisters with her.

XXXXX

How about it? This is the start of a 100 prompt challenge I'm going to try to do, but I have a bad habit of not being able to write drabbles, so the 100 prompts might be long.

And I like this one as a good opener. I might actually continue this one on its own, depicting each sibling's fight through Mindoir. Only one of them can become Commander Shepard. Go to my profile to vote which one you like best!

Amme Moto