Title: Changed
This is my first game fanfiction and my first fanfiction for this sight. It's been a couple of years since I've written anything and I'm a little rusty but I've never played a game that inspired me more than Mass Effect, so I thought I'd give it another go. It was inspired by Kaidan's words to Shepard that he didn't know what he would do if anything ever happened to her...so know this story is kind of dark.
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and Characters belong to Bioware.
Her smile...bittersweet, her lips...beckoning, her eyes sparkling...but only when she gazed at him. As quickly as the image had filled his mind, it faded.
The sting of the red planet was its almost unbearable blistering heat, but it's location offered a benefit that could not be found elsewhere...sanctuary...for the time being a place to hide from the law.
Steady from dedication to his cause, the gun in his hand was held motionless. No remorse for his victim...no sorrow...only the empty pain he carried in his heart.
Sprawled limply across the rock littered terrain the corpse stared blankly into the triple suns that hovered overhead. The gapping wound in it's head generously supplied the blood that filled the crevices of the sun dried basin floor below.
Her hand caressed his face.
"I know", she said, "I know..."
Her voice trailed off into the corners of his mind.
She knew he loved her and she loved him. He could see it in her eyes...in the way she moved...in the way she looked at him. They were meant to be...of this he was sure.
"What would she think of you today? Would she still love you? After all you've done?" the voice rang out in his head.
Guilt was an ugly thing. It kept knocking on the door trying to suck him in...he never let it.
"It wouldn't matter. She isn't here." he whispered to himself.
"I'll see you soon" she promised.
The look in her gaze told him that she didn't want to go...not this time. Part of him wanted to cry out, "Don't go!" but he couldn't find his voice.
His image of her lost focus as she exited through the airlock of the Normandy...for the last time. He never saw her again. That's when everything changed.
Maybe he should have saw it coming. It was always there just underneath the surface...the anger...the rage...even as a child.
His father had been a military man and he wanted the same for his son...unfortunately Kaidan had been born a biotic...the result of exposure to element zero due to an "accident" when he was still in his mother's womb. Biotics were frowned upon...looked down upon...and at the time of Kaidan's birth any hope of a military career for the younger Alenko was highly unlikely.
The disappointment the elder Alenko held toward his son wasn't well hidden and fueled feelings of inadequacy in Kaidan that eventually expressed themselves in a growing rebellion towards authority.
By the time Kaidan was old enough to join the Alliance, biotics had become fully accepted and welcomed...at least within the military. Kaidan had excelled after joining, and with many commendations and promotions his father had expressed pride in his son.
Although the relationship between the two seemed to be repaired at least superficially, the foundation of what drove Kaidan Alenko had already been laid.
"I was at the helm of the dreadnought that killed your father" the voice flickered in his head. Vrynnus...how he had hated him.
Shut up! Kaidan yelled at himself.
They had come in the middle of the night and had taken him away. His mother had screamed for him...his father had almost looked relieved. His stomach was tied up in knots, and he could feel the anger just beneath the surface.
He stood in a group of others, he assumed, like himself who were biotics. Some looked afraid, some confused, some simply disheveled and still half asleep. The room they were in was sterile and bland... devoid of any human comforts.
Why are they doing this? Was it just because he was born different? Why couldn't he just have a normal life?
These thoughts were running recklessly through his mind as the Turian opened his mouth to speak, "I was at the helm of the dreadnought that killed your father".
"My father wasn't even in the war!" Kaidan snapped.
The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted it. He knew that he had opened the door to trouble, and that everyone would pay for his mistake. If only he could have exercised self control.
Kaidan cringed. It had been a long time since he had felt anything that closely resembled remorse.
"I'm thinking too much." he thought, " trying to analyze things too much...this isn't about Vrynnus."
"Then what's it about Kaidan?" the voice inside his head asked.
"Not Vyrunnus", Kaidan whispered only half believing his words.
"Hi...some of us are going to play games...do you want to come?" the young girl asked.
"Sure" Kaidan answered.
He wasn't sure if he wasn't blushing.
Did she notice? Or was she on to him? Did she know how he stared longingly at her when he thought she wasn't looking? It wasn't like he was the only guy there that had noticed Rahna.
"You don't talk much." she ventured.
"Uh...maybe I just haven't been asked the right question", Kaidan replied awkwardly.
"Well maybe I should ask you more questions," she half-laughed, as a huge smile beamed across her face.
"Maybe you should". Kaidan answered more confidently. He returned her smile with his own.
For the next few months they grew closer and despite the dullness of their surroundings and the difficulty of their training, Kaidan saw it as the happiest time of his 17 year old life.
"Memories are for forgetting" he whispered. The gun which he had once held motionless with so much confidence had begun to shake.
"Ah but they reveal so much" the voice in his head laughed.
"What do you think you're doing!? That's not the way!" Vyrnnus screeched, his bleating red eyes searing into Rahna's face. A crack echoed throughout the mess hall, and Rahna began to scream.
Kaidan slammed Vrynnus away from the frightened girl and she crawled quickly away, awkwardly holding her arm to her chest.
"Who do you think you are...HUMAN?!' Vrynnus yelled.
The first blow landed Kaidan face down on the floor, the second pierced his side with an agonizing pain, after the third he stopped counting. He deserved this...it was his fault. If he hadn't spoken out against Vyrnnus when they had first been brought here, maybe Vyrnnus wouldn't have pushed so hard and he wouldn't have hurt Rahna.
So he took it.
Perhaps Kaidan had underestimated the hate he had brought out in Vyrnnus, perhaps he just didn't understand Turians in general, but in the end it didn't matter...Vyrnnus intended to kill him.
Kaidan became fully aware of that fact when the military issue talon came within inches of his face.
The rage burned within and out of nowhere Kaidan lost himself. Vrynnus went flying across the room, slamming forcefully against the wall, the sound of his breaking neck filling the room, as everything and everyone else observing the exchange, hushed in shocked and stunned silence.
It seemed as though he stood there for an eternity looking down on Vrynnus's body. The signs of life that lingered quickly fizzled out as no one made a move to help the dying Turian.
Slowly people began to come back to life...many of them searching for some of the other human instructors to report what had happened.
In the bustle of activity that took place afterward, Kaidan looked up to see Rahna standing there still holding her broken arm. The warm affection that Kaidan had seen growing in her face over the last few months had been replaced in one moment with the look of fear. But it wasn't Vyrnnus she was seeing...it was him. She fled the room, and Kaidan knew he had lost her forever.
"What does that have to do with this." Kaidan half chuckled...waving the gun as he did.
"Everything" the voice responded."It was the one in authority that destroyed your relationship with Rahna. It was Vryynus."
"That's water under the bridge...a long time ago...it doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with today", he argued with himself.
"But it's the same don't you see. The one in authority destroyed your chance at happiness with Rahna and those in authority were responsible for Commander Shepard's death...the death of the woman you loved." the voice explained.
Kaidan winced at the mention of her name...even if it was only in his own mind that he heard it.
"Yes...yes they are responsible." He hissed between clinched teeth.
"She stopped Saran...saved the universe time and time again, but they just wouldn't stop. There was always something more...some new mission...something new to endanger her life. They knew one day she wouldn't come back..." he recited.
"Yes, they knew." the voice said
"... and they go on as if it doesn't matter. They just find someone else to send out until they're dead too and they sit back and have the life of happiness that we should've had." Kaidan continued.
"And that's why councilman Udina lies dead at your feet" the voice explained.
"And it won't stop there until they all pay...everyone of them." Kaidan stated flatly as he emptied another round into the deceased body of councilman Udina.