Ah, To Be Young Again.
The Morning it Started (1/?)
Prompt:Through a Prothean device or some other sorta science-fictionry, several members of the Normandy crew are aged backwards to a younger state. The affected individuals also lose all their memories from after their new, younger age, so they don't remember their adventures on the Normandy. While the rest of the crew tries to find a cure, the de-aged crew get used to their new surroundings, and maybe sow their wild oats a little.
The author is invited to choose whoever they want to have affected, although I have a few suggestions:
Samara - Aged back to her younger, wild maiden days, and intrigued by these strange new "aliens" (i.e. humans) she is now sharing a ship with
Zaeed - Turns out the grizzled merc was quite a heartthrob back when he was a young man
Dr. Chakwas - Word has it she was quite a head-turner in her med-school days...
Earthborn Shepard - Solving this problem is going to be so much harder, with Shepard acting like a rebellious street punk
Jack - If the author wants to get a little angsty, take Jack back to her days fresh out of Teltin, a scared but violent young girl
But whoever you want to play with or how much smut ends up being involved, I'm not picky.
Summary and Note: Commander Aurelia Shepard never has it easy. Go dirtside to get a prothean artifact and the next morning wake up... in a place she's never seen before. Add in the fact Garrus and Zaeed went along and you're in for a wild, wild ride. For those who frequent the Mass Effect Kink Meme, you'll notice that this version differs a bit from the one I posted on the Meme. It's just a bit of polishing on my part. Enjoy!
-.-.-.-.-
Aurelia Shepard was not a happy woman, in fact she was down right terrified and confused. She went to sleep on the SSV Einstein after a day of daycare duty.
'Where is the bear that little Anula gave me last night?'
Green eyes peered around the room – fish tank, large bed, model ship display, space hamster, private bathroom, armor console? What the hell was going on. Even her mother's quarters as a higher up weren't this lush...
"Commander Shepard – Operative Lawson wishes for you -" a disembodied voice began speaking, a blue...head thing, popping up from a console near the door.
"What the living fuck." Aurelia shrieked.
Scrambling out of bed the redhead all but ran from the room into the elevator, mashing the CIC level frantically. Her thoughts were wildly controlled, breath even, even as she panicked.
'This...this is a joke, my mother is getting back at me for filing the volunteer application behind her back with her signature on the permission line.' The young commander rationalize on the short trip until the elevator binged, doors opened and a whole lot of humans she'd never laid eyes on looked at her.
'Do. Not. Panic.'
Squaring her shoulders and wincing internally as she remembered she'd just run from her bed, the girl stepped out and made a beeline for the redhead by the console. Was that the galaxy map? That was way more advanced than the Einsteins' – Henri was going to be so jealous when she got back to the academy and told him about this!
"You've received a new message at your console ..." The redhead started and stopped almost simultaneously with her normal greeting as she turned and eyed the slightly shorter, much younger version of her commander.
"Uh..."
"Who are you, where am I, what ship is this, what system are we in and why did my mother send me to this ship. In that order if you please." Shepard demanded, standing at her full height of five foot two inches, emulating her mother's command tone to the best of her ability.
"I'm Yeoman Kelly Chambers, you're on the SSV Normandy SR-2, we're currently docked at Omega on your orders after you returned from a Prothean Dig site at 2050 hours, Commander. Your-Your mother did not send you to this ship."
Aurelia felt like her brain was imploding. Commander? Omega? Prothean dig site? She was Sixteen years old for christ's sake, still in high school, two years out from trading the Alliance Academy High for Alliance Military training.
"Commander?" Yeoman Chambers, prodded quietly, as if trying not to startle Shepard. The young woman in question, took a breath, nodded with a sharp, "That'll be all, Yeoman." and turned to the elevator again. Sighing with relief when she spotted a console near the lift, went and had accessed it in a few moments, grimacing and filing away the panic from using her custom log in and having it work. Mere seconds later she was off to level three – the personnel quarters and where the apparent second in command of this...Normandy, was located.
-.-.-.-.-
To say Miranda Lawson was surprised when the smaller, near waif-ish, teenaged Commander burst into her office would be an understatement. Saying her shock didn't increase three-fold when a strapping, much less scared version of Zaeed toting his gun, swept in blustering about how the Suns wouldn't stand for an abduction would be a lie. When a teenaged, and mostly naked, Turian dropped from an air duct with a squawk – the Cerberus operative wished she'd just stayed in bed that morning.
It took all of thirty seconds for Miranda to realize she never wanted children when the trio caught sight of each other and began to truly freak out. Well, to be fair, Garrus was the one really freaking out, Zaeed seemed to be trying to impress both herself and the Commander, while Shepard was doing her best to glare a hole in the XO's skull and demanding to speak with her mother. It went on for a few moments before Miranda stood, smacking her palms on the desk before her to garner silence and addressing the group.
"You are on the SSV Normandy SR-2. Shepard, Garrus, and Zaeed, you've apparently been subject to an unfortunate accident. You are in fact, all, a good sixteen to twenty years younger than you should be."
"Bullshit."
"No fucking way."
"Spirits..."
"Get Hannah Shepard on the line, Operative Lawson, I have no reason to believe you! I don't know what sort of crap you're trying to pull here -"
"My father is Executor on the Citadel! He'll know you've taken me, there will be no negotiations – he'll blow this vessel straight out of he sky."
"We're not in the sky you idiot. We're in space. What I want to know is why three high ranking individuals, well two kids of high rank any way have been abducted by a human supremesist group. Especially since two of the three are human."
Miranda pinched the bridge of her nose and stood straight. "Sit – all of you. We didn't abduct you. Zaeed you were contracted by cerberus for this mission, Garrus was recruited, Shepard you were rebuilt for this – to save humanity."
"You're on drugs." Aurelia stated firmly, body taking on a blue glow as her biotics flared with her rising emotions.
"I can assure you that I am not. EDI."
"Operative Lawson."
"Get Mordin Solus in here, now."
"Affirmative, logging you out, Operative Lawson."
While Miranda spoke the the AI, Shepard tried her omnitool. Two tries at the password and she was in, seconds later she had located the Einstein. It was decommissioned in 2182... The color drained from the young woman's face and she ran another search only to come up with the same results.
Shepard ran a search for her mother, the date, and as Miranda looked at her and realized what the teen was doing – herself. A strangled cry silenced two boys and they looked at her curiously.
"Its-It's2185...I'm 31 years old but, I was dead? How could I have been dead if I'm alive! You- You said you rebuilt me! What's going on. Why am I not 31? Why don't I remember my life!" Never before had Shepard broke down as completely as she was at this moment. Then again, the redhead was a frightened sixteen year old girl not a battle hardened soldier.
" 'ere now Sweet cheeks. It's not 2185 it's 2160, just had me twentieth birthday with my best mate see. Blue Suns are due to start recruiting the hirelings in a week or two."
Green and blue eyes sent piercing looks at the young Merc.
"No fucking way. I'm sixteen it's 2170! You're cracked!" Ground out the lithe redhead as poor Garrus shuffled awkwardly to the side.
The two young humans didn't stop bickering even as the doors to Miranda's office slide open and Mordin Solus bustled in. He went to address the XO then caught sight of the teenagers.
"Hm. Commander? No. Too young. Zaeed. Garrus. All in late teens. Odd. No reason for degeneration of age. What caused this? Collector battle? No. Whole crew would have degenerated. Unknown element exposure on planet? Didn't pick up readings. Strange tech? Prothean dig site!"
In the space of seconds Mordin had, as usual, caught everyone's attention and found a possible explanation. The three young people however, weren't buying it.
"A goddamn prothean relic did this? You're off your nut."
"No fucking way. Prothean relics are data caches at best – tech left over from a bygone era -"
"Spirits, my father is going to kill me... I'm trapped on a human vessel with you crackpots?"
"Shut it, ya Turian bastard!"
"My parents are married."
"Got nothin' ta do with it."
"It's got everything to do with it, you backwater ape."
"I'm going to re-arrange your ugly scaley face you little shit!"
"ENOUGH!"
The boys stopped their bickering as the redhead, apparently named Shepard, stood, glaring at the room. Garrus could have sworn he smelled salt water, but with a quick look around found there was none to be had. Zaeed on the other hand, was wondering exactly how long it would take to get the little miss out of her knickers and into or onto the next sturdiest surface he could find.
"Lawson."
"Commander?"
"I'll say this one last time, get my mother, Commander...Captain Hannah Shepard on a comlink now. I don't know whats going on and frankly I don't care. The last thing I remember is going down to the children's wing on the Einstein to help keep their minds off the fact half their families were dead thanks to the bastard Batarian slavers that hit Mindoir last week. I went to bed and now I'm here. I want to know how, why, and when it will be fixed - if it can be fixed. The Turian obviously has parents – he needs to be in contact with them. The Merc can be tossed on his ass in the brig for all I give a rat's ass."
"Oi girly, treat the founder of the Blue Suns with some respect or I'll teach you some." The mercenary growled, every inch the Zaeed Miranda had come to know and disdain. What surprised the Cerberus operative was Shepard. She faced Massani, got up in his face even, very much a young girl but one with some backbone.
"Try it Merc. Say you beat me down. I'm just a kid – an alliance officer's kid. But, I bet you get off on that kind of shit. Beat up people weaker than you – especially for money. You've got no honor, no sense of right or wrong. You're nothing but a big goddamn bully." Aurelia spat, toe to toe with the taller human, her hand in his face, deadly serious.
"Careful little girl. I wouldn't want to mess up that pretty face a yours."
"Bite me."
"That the best you got, girlie?"
"Not even close. Back off or I'll make you."
"Bet you can't even throw a punch."
"I've already been scouted for the Command track at the Alliance Academy. You tell me if I can throw a punch, half wit."
"Little bitch."
"Two bit mercenary. Couldn't even become a real soldier. You had to -"
Zaeed punched Shepard before she could finish her sentence. In seconds she was up and the two were rolling around the floor, Shepard glowing an erie blue as her biotics flared, Zaeed spitting and cussing when she broke his nose.
Miranda just let them have it out. Mordin watched with a frown gracing his features and Garrus, sneaky little hacker that he was, tapped away on his omnitool, bypassing normal comlink protocol to try and reach his father. His mandibles fluttered in frustration when Pallin, the UnderExecutor answered at C-Sec and growled when his father's apartment number was found to be disconnected. Frustrated when even his home number on Pavalen wouldn't work, the angry, puffed up Turian stalked over to the two also afflicted humans and tore them apart. Without care he tossed Zaeed to one side and sent Shepard careening into Miranda, all of them landing on the floor with loud, uncomfortable thuds.
Without a word Vakarian walked out of Miranda's office and back toward the forward Battery where he'd woken up. Sitting up Aurelia glared at the door through which Garrus left then back at Zaeed.
"That was your fault you know."
"Bullshit sweetheart."
"Whatever. Lawson."
"Shepard." The Operative ground out, her patience at being bossed around by a teenager wearing thin.
"Can I call my mom now?"
Miranda sighed. "Yeah, come on, kid."