Red Earth

by Lesatho

From Punk to Paragon; the story of an Earthborn Shepard and what drove a gangster to the stars.

The last thing they'd called him was 'Shrimp'. Before that it had been Slim, or Skinny, or Tiny; an endless list meant to bring home the fact that even at the same age, he was smaller than the rest of his peers. Not just physically shorter but lacking in the muscular department as well, when flexing his arms or shoulders only seemed to make him look stringier than usual. Certainly, they meant for him to feel inadequate or weak, but he didn't let it get to him. The newest nickname in a long line assigned to him was Rex. As in T-Rex. Ha ha. But at least it was a nickname that he could work with. Even though they laughed, made growling dinosaur sounds that were meant to irritate and once again drive home his - ahem - lesser stature, he could work with Rex. It was a name he could turn around on them eventually.

Of course, then they had to go and pair him up with Matty. Broad at the shoulders, tall at the crown Matty; who looked about as normal as any kid could. From his tousled blonde hair to striking blue eyes and his ability to get just about any job done in his own deliberate, plodding way. Matty didn't look like anything special when it came right down to it, but he was packing hardware that people would never expect. A back-alley L2 biotic implant that probably never passed quality control testing. Everybody was certain it would drive him crazy one day, causing a real rift in leadership if he happened to be in the same room as some of the Big Dogs, so most people tended to avoid him whenever he got that squint-eyed look of an impending headache. Hell, even the expertly installed L2 implants drove the occasional person nuts. Most people treated Matty like he was slow, but Rex knew better. After working with the other teen for the last few weeks, he'd learned that Biotic-Boy had a good head on his shoulders but generally kept to himself and let the rest of the Tenth Street Reds lead the way.

He supposed they were both just background muscle anyway so it wasn't like the opinions of the Head Honchos meant anything. Or at least not until they'd gotten enough attention to be considered for true induction into the Reds instead of the piddly stuff they'd been thrown; like scraps to starving dogs.

"Geez, what a freaking joke." Jamming his hands into his pockets, Rex angled his head to cast a dark look at Matty from beneath a fringe of dark hair. The blonde replied with an arched eyebrow that in Matty-speak could have amounted to a cordial "Please, continue.". Grunting his irritation, Rex turned and kicked at a piece of scrap, sending it spinning across the pitted surface of the street where it skipped the curb and landed in a haphazard stack of its fellows. "We're never gonna prove ourselves by doing these little jobs Matty. Collecting protection money? Running off loners sniffing around the territory? This won't add up to shit." A snort as he turned the corner, skinny arms angling outward to maintain balance as he hopped to a lower level of the sidewalk. Matty landed smoothly beside him with the soft 'whud' of his sneakers hitting the ground. "Not to shit." The area of town that they had been tasked to work was run-down even by the Red's standards; aging brick faces of buildings that leaned companionably into one another, broken street lights and not even the telltale leavings of broken glass below them to give a clue as how long they'd stayed that way. The roads were more pothole than passable driving surface and the sidewalks were riddled with crazed patches of missing surface and century-old rebar. Well, where enterprising young hoodlums hadn't cut it out and used the rotting bars as questionable weaponry.

"We all gotta start somewhere." Matty shrugged in a habitual manner, lengthening his stride a moment to keep up as Rex swung around another corner. The two had been around the Tenth Street Reds for a long time. Most kids in the city neighborhoods were familiar with the gang as they grew and most seemed to accept their eventual integration into the group as matter of fact. Though from different parts of town, Rex and Matty had been no exception. Now they stood at the crossroads. Work harder, be tougher in looking out for the interest of the gang and be fully inducted as low tier members, or keep on with their low grade work and only ever be underlings. Stooges. Lackeys. Neither of them were interested in following orders for the rest of their lives.

And yet, it was hard to find ways to prove themselves when the gang had the central areas covered. People didn't buck a working system that had been in place for generations of thugs, criminals and have-nots. So they had moved their patrols farther out to the outskirts – a place both safer and more dangerous than the heart of the bigger city. Turf wars were more common here as smaller gangs attempted to carve out portions of territory and the cops here weren't cowed by the sheer numbers of the Reds or bought off with dirty credits; so there were still fatalities on the side of the gangs. But it beat being cattle. Being powerless. It was easier to join the Reds, build some power, and not have to scratch in the dirt for a living.

Homing in one of the buildings in the row that at least tried for cheerful and reputable, Rex aimed for the corner store; brick walls and reinforced glass decorated with a variety of ads and slogans in an attempt to draw in anybody with money, or at least a fascination with a bit of glitter in the run down edge of town. Shoulder to the reinforced glass, Rex shoved the door open and swept inside with a low sigh of irritation. The small jobs grated on him. Snatching up a chocolate bar from the racks as he strode toward the counter, he ripped the top open and smirked as he bit the top corner off. "Alright folks, time for you to make a... decision." Turning the counter, he stopped short and Matty nearly collided with him. Settled against the counter and eying the Reds with an open hostility were a handful of young men their age; biceps wrapped with the orange-on-grey symbol of one of the smaller, encroaching gangs. "Sevens." He spat, frown turning into a sneer.

Already tense, the clerk behind the counter took advantage of the shift in attention and backed away slowly, turning around the end of the counter to vanish into the armored office as the two groups sized one another up. Rex frowned. He and Matty were outnumbered two to five and the Sevens were smiling; lips pulled back into hyena grins. Behind him, Matty took a low breath and stepped around to take up a position at his side. Feigning nonchalance, Rex took another bite of the bar and chewed deliberately as he thought up battle plans. Whatever was going to happen, it would be messy.

"The Reds sending kids to run their errands now?" Appointing himself leader, one of the Seven's stepped forward, orange ball cap pulled low over green eyes. Jerking his chin at Rex, he let his arms fall loose at his sides and shook out his hands. Set in a typically blemished teenage face, his green eyes moved to size up Matty. "Hey big guy. Why don't you take your little buddy and run along before somebody gets hurt?"

"Only person that's gonna get hurt... is you." Pointing at the Leader with the half-eaten candy bar, Rex flipped the bar back around after a second, jamming the rest into his mouth. He couldn't taste it anymore, chocolate substitute turned even more tasteless as adrenaline and slight, jittery fear turned his attention to the problem at hand. "Why don't you beat it. This is our turf and your buddies are gonna laugh when a guy that comes up to your chin kicks your teeth in."

The leader dove forward and Rex called foul in his mind. He was only getting started up on the verbal abuse portion of the confrontation. Matty heaved himself back a step, grabbing Rex by the back of his shirt and hauling him sharply upward. Rex kicked out as he left the ground, eyes going wide in surprise as clarity slowed things to a veritable crawl. One foot caught the Seven in the shoulder and staggered him back a step, the other glancing off the bill of his cap and flipping it to the ground. Then things seemed to speed up. Landing beside Matty, he watched as the blonde sidestepped the shocked looking Seven and plowed into one of his buddies, fist coming up under one's chin to the sound of teeth grinding together. Rex blinked once, then turned his attention to the Leader as he closed in again.

Being small had one advantage that Rex had been able to find. He was fast. Faster then most kids gave him credit for. It had served him fairly well as long as he could land the first few strikes. The Leader didn't seem too tactically minded and was already plowing in, which meant he was probably strong enough not to need a backup plan. Neatly ducking under the first sloppy punch the Seven threw, Rex came up underneath him with a sharp jab to the ribs, a knee flicking up to jam against the side of his thigh. Eyes widening in surprise and hurt, the Leader fell back for a moment as his leg went dead. With a whoop of success, Rex jumped him.

Fists and feet striking out with little coordination, he hoped to simply hit something vital as they rolled and clawed across the floor. In the background he could hear similar sounds of combat; Matty's grunts of both endurance and pain only barely distinguishable from the strangers' noises of battle. The Leader managed to land a solid hit on him, snapping his head back with the force of the blow as fist met face. Hissing in pain, Rex kept striking away, then cursed as his arms were roughly grabbed. Any irate hope he had that it was Matty breaking them up faded as somebody's fist plowed into his gut and doubled him over. Not Matty then. Another Seven.

Thrashing madly to escape the grip on his arms, he kicked out behind him. He made solid contact with the move and brought his second attacker down to his knees but he still didn't let go. Twisting around, he tried to jerk an arm free to at least get a few punches in but the guy wasn't letting loose. Growling, he threw his body weight backward toward his captor, and they both crashed into one of the racks, bowling it over and landing atop a spilled pile of candy, chips and boxed food. No sooner had he gotten his feet beneath him, the Leader was back. One fist caught him in the jaw, another jab sent him crashing to the ground with the taste of blood in his mouth. Spitting, he jammed his shoulder up into the Leader's gut and they were back down. The occasional unfocused glimpse told him Matty was having an interesting time of it as well. Although one Seven was down, the blonde was still pushing against the other two and one of his eyes was about swollen shut and bruising.

It was not boding well for them. "Matty!" He shouted, backing away from the Leader and angling to shift down an aisle as the second one he had been fighting against joined up with the first. "Blast these suckers!"

"Get this ass off my back!" Matty shouted back, voice choking off into a hoarse, coughing growl. Cursing, Rex turned and sprinted down the aisle, shooting around the corner and up another that would get him next to his partner. Things should have been going better, but that just went to show you couldn't trust vids and sims all the time. Sometimes the little guys got their heroic asses beat. One of the Seven's was behind Matty, arms wrapped around his neck as he tried to bend him back far enough to overbalance him. Rex plowed into him with a war whoop and crashed into the ground, planting his hands on the fallen Red's head and grinding the guy's face against the floor and a few bags of roughed up potato chips as they both gasped for air.

"Do it Matty!" The three that were still standing were closing in fast. A blue corona of biotic power snapped into existence around the blonde's body. Eyes closed in concentration, Matty let out a guttural howl and thrust his fists outward. Like punching air. And the air went on to punch the Seven's; a streak of biotic blue slamming into them and bowling them backward. Rex jumped quickly up, boot grinding into the back of the Seven he'd tackled off his friend. As the Leader and the two got slowly back to their feet Matty let out a low snarl, fists wreathed in a haze of roiling blue energy. Casting a hateful look back, the three Sevens that were still standing turned and bolted for the door.

"Ow. Shit." Letting the biotic energy fall away, Matty prodded gently at his swollen eye and gave the fallen Seven a half-hearted kick to the ribs. "What the hell Rex..." He glowered. "They beat our asses."

"Yeah, but we still won." Rex growled, spitting blood to the side and wiping his face with a shirtsleeve. "And they go back crying to their boss that a couple Reds kicked their asses and sent them packing." He nudged a sprawled gangster with a toe. "Minus two. Lets drag these losers outta here and go report back in."

oOoOoOo

"Sevens are getting pretty cocky." Vannilear, better known amongst the Reds simply as Van or even occasionally Van the Man, sat back in his scuffed chair and looked Rex and Matty over. The two had taken one hell of a beating, but still came back to the base all puffed up and heroic. "We can't let them get so much as a sniff 'round here or they'll start grouping up and really trying to hit us. You two did good." If anything, Rex seemed to puff up a bit more, the kid's chest sticking out like some cartoon hero accepting the goodwill of a liberated population. Matty accepted the praise with a fractional smile and a quick wince. Yeah... they were getting good. Even though Rex had a big mouth that was mostly full of complaints about being given little jobs, the kid had a knack for computers and system hacking that he'd put to good use before. And the Reds always needed more biotics around. Seeing as how Matty worked best with Rex, the two could test together and rise together. Van eyed them critically. Or fall together.

"Alright you two, go get cleaned up and be back here in an hour."

Rex blinked slowly, expression going quietly blank. "Van?"

"You heard me. This is something that needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later." He paused, running a hand through his short chopped hair before settling it back atop the armrest of the chair. "Looks like you two finally get that chance to prove yourselves."

oOoOoOo

"This is it Matty. This is it! With a capital I, capital T!" Rex practically danced around the small room, fists beating against the air as he expended the sudden burst of excitement. More subdued but no less pleased, Matty scrubbed at his face a moment with the washcloth before lofting it over to Rex. The smaller youth snatched it out of the air and wiped at the dried blood on his chin.

Rex lived on the other side of the city from where the Red's local base was, so had come to depend on Matty's kindness – or maybe it was pity? - when it came to a place to crash or clean up. Neither was sure what made them such good partners and even friends, Rex's frenetic personality and quick mouth seemed at odds with Matty's general caution, though the blonde was no less ruthless when it came to getting a job done. Still, they knew little about one another aside from professional abilities. Rex had always assumed Matty was just a loner. Detached. That was before he had worked with him and long before he had spotted the bent photograph tucked into the metal frame of his cracked bathroom mirror sporting a classic scene of better times; smiling parents and one blonde kid with sharp blue eyes. Matty wouldn't talk about it, but it wasn't difficult to tell that his story had taken a turn down less pleasant streets.

Throwing a clean shirt on and calling it good , Matty dragged on his sneakers and threw his much abused red jacket on top of it all. Rex had taken more time to get ready for what he viewed as a large appointment. Dark jeans, good sneakers, a red shirt beneath a nearly electric orange vest and red bands cinched down about his skinny biceps. Shoving a red cap down over his dark hair, he cracked a smile at Matty and gestured toward the door. "C'mon, we gotta go. We don't wanna be late, we don't even want to be on time."

"Yeah, yeah, early is best." Matty agreed, blinking as they stepped out into the sun and began to move away from the dingy brick building that they and a half a dozen other disillusioned youth called home. "How long do you think until the swelling goes down?"

Rex turned to see the blonde examining the tender, puffed skin around his black eye and shook his head. "Longer if you keep messing with it. We'll try to scrounge up some medigel later." The jaunt between their home and the base was a short one. They both strode into the base floor, nodding to other Reds that they recognized. Hell, nodding to any Red that they saw, thrilled that it might not be long until they were elevated just a bit higher amongst the group and on equal footing so far as status went. Taking the stairs two at a time, Rex led the way to the third floor and ducked down the hallway. "Yo. Van's expecting us." He hailed the two upper-tier Reds standing outside the door.

"Yeah, we know. Go on in T-Rex." One chuckled, pushing the door open with a toe as Rex glowered at him. Matty laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and propelled them both into the room. Just as they had left it, Van was sitting behind a beaten desk sporting a few scattered stacks of paper.

"Good. Right on time." Nodding lightly, Van pushed away from the table and closed the distance between the two with a few long steps. Flirting with thirty, Van was a capable head of the local group, keeping the Reds in line and on task as well as handing out prize or punishment as necessary. Dark eyes settled on them in turn, sizing them up in a similar manner of the Sevens earlier that day. Rex didn't flinch, meeting the studying look with an almost flippant grin. Matty returned the look with bland interest. "You two did alright today out in Seventh Row. Those little wannabe's though, those Sevens, need to learn they can't take our territory. So here's the deal." Van returned to his desk, unlocking one of the draws and dragging it open. "The guys you fought today need to serve as a lesson. A bigger one than just getting beat down. The Tenth Street Reds are top around here. We do not put up with that shit." Picking a dark shape from the drawer, he threw it lightly in Rex's direction. "Take care of them."

Fumbling the airborne item somewhat, Rex managed to catch it awkwardly. His hold on it became even more awkward as he realized he'd been thrown a gritty looking pistol. Eyes going wide, he glanced up at Van. "You mean...?"

"Take care of them." Van reiterated coolly, tossing a similar pistol at Matty. Catching it gingerly, Matty gave it a look over, checking the weapon with interest. Rex sighed internally and did the same. Basic police issue with a modified rail system so they didn't overheat quickly, the pistols were in good shape and only carried a few rough gouges on their matte surfaces, the identifying numbers scoured off the lower charging barrel. Though thermal clip technology was quick replacing the standard style, these were better for quick strikes like what they were expected to pull off, because there was no need to recharge. You just had to be cautious not to let the firing system overheat.

"Right." Rex tucked the weapon into his belt, settling it against his lower back as he flipped his long shirt to cover it. "We'll take care of them." He glanced at Matty and the blonde made the pistol vanish into one of the oversized pockets of his jacket.

oOoOoOo

Night found them making their way back toward the Seven's territory, Rex wide-eyed and jittery, steps lacking the usual cocky ease that he moved with. The pensive expression on his face had seemed to slow the youth down entirely until his sedate pace was barely keeping up with Matty's. Eventually, the blonde slowed his walk into an ease amble, blue eyes fixed on Rex's face for a few long moments before he spoke up.

"This is what you want, right? Our chance to move ahead." Matty sounded sure enough of himself, thumbs hooked loosely in the broad pockets of his jacket and a sort of nonchalance visible in each sure step. Rex wished he felt half as certain about the task they'd been set out to accomplish. Blowing out a rough breath, he rolled his shoulders in a quick shrug and hurried along, leaving Matty in the dust for a few steps.

Rex sighed, eyes scanning the neighborhood streets with cringing apprehension; he would rather their quarry not show themselves entirely. "I don't know about this," he sighed. "Killing somebody? Sure, it was a bit of a scuffle but... what do you think?"

"I think if we don't do this, Van isn't going to give us another chance." The hard set of the blonde's jaw tightened down, eyes narrowing into angry slits. "I don't want to be stuck scraping around after everybody else for the rest of my life Rex."

"You think I do?" The pistol was a cold weight against his spine. "I just don't know... I got my sister to look after Matty, but I don't know if I can kill people to do that." His companion shuffled an awkward step, swinging to give Rex a surprised look. Neither had ever spoken in depth about their respective families and Rex could only imagine that siblings had never occurred to his friend. "My little sister. Our parents are gone, its just me looking after her you know. She stays back home on the other side of town with a few kids. Neighbor woman looks after them." His lips twisted into a grimace. "Mrs. Abigail, her high and mighty... well, she looks after Jenny for me and I send money when we get it." Matty mulled it over for a moment, lips tugging into a faintly amused smirk.

"She short like you?" All it earned him was a sharp jab to the ribs. Smirk falling away, he shot Rex a glower and rubbed at his side.

"Jenny got the short stick. She's pretty much perfect, real sweet." Rex sighed, shifting uncomfortably in his own skin in an attempt to distance himself from the reality of what they'd been sent out to do and the pistol sitting hard and unyielding against his back. "She looks up to me, Matty. I can't kill people..."

"Then don't tell her." Matty finally sighed, giving his head a shake and dipping his hands into a pocket with a low sigh. "Sometimes we have to do things we don't always like if we want to get ahead." Rex let out a quick huff at that.

"What about you and your family? You think getting an L2 is going to make them happy? Your brain is going to overload one day and bam. Matty the Vegetable." He ignored the cold look his friend fired at the back of his head. "Matty the nut. You'll melt down and that'll be it." With a snarl, Rex kicked a hapless rock that happened to be in his path, sending it skipping out of the meager light of the overhead lamps and into the darkness. "I should've known better than to be best friends with you. You'll probably fry me too when your brain finally kicks over."

Matty laughed, a quick bark of surprise that sounded a little wild in the darkness. It ground on Rex's nerves for the long moment of silence. "Best friends huh? I think I can deal with that. I don't have family left, so you'll be the only one that feels sorry for me when I snap. I just want to get somewhere in my life before it comes to that."

Coming to a stop, Rex turned to face Matty and shrugged. "Look at us. Couple of hardened Reds aren't we?"

"I'd say you're more like a couple slabs of dead meat." At the unfamiliar voice, Rex skittered back around, spine going stiff as he shot Matty a quick, worried glance. They'd kept wandering into Seventh Row as they talked, losing sight of the goal and now they'd been spotted first. Fantastic. Peeling away from the dark, a small group of Sevens angled into the street lamps, fanned out to show superior numbers in the face of the two interloping Reds. Rex could have groaned, the situation was so similar to their earlier encounter that it made him want to spit. Matty was looking just as sour, eyes scanning the group of Sevens with an eerie sort of intensity.

"Hey. Hey!" One of the Sevens separated from the group, sporting a black eye and fat lip atop a particularly angry expression. "Those are the punks from the store! The Reds!" Rex blinked in surprise and looked the others of the group over; a jumbled group of six ranging from their age to a little older. So far the one that had pointed them out was the only one he recognized and none of the others seemed particularly beaten or bruised. It was questionable luck that they had run into one of Seven's they had been directed to take care of.

"Well." One of the older Seven's drawled out the word, lips parted to show a predatory, gap-toothed smile. "Looks like payback. We own Seventh Row, seen? Reds'll get it when we send you back in pieces." Light gleamed a bitter stripe against the blade the self-appointed leader flipped out, twisting it in the air to catch what light he could. Rex felt something suspiciously like a whine begin to form somewhere in the depths of his chest and choked it back down.

"Careful man, that one's a biotic." Stabbing a finger at Matty, their earlier opposition edged closer to the action as one or two of the others produced blades of their own, but nothing like the sort of heat that Rex and Matty had been given. Rex glanced back at Matty, who gave him an unconcerned look and freed a hand from his jacket, giving him a roll of the wrist that practically shouted "get on with it." Rex prided himself on his almost classic delivery of lines, a wit honed by years of watching action vids. Licking his lips and setting his feet, he tried for a devil may care smirk but got the feeling it was a lot less impressive than what he'd been aiming for.

"You losers oughta know better than to bring a knife to a gun fight." He couldn't have practiced it better than it came out, and the Seven's froze with a shiver of uncertainty as he reached behind him, producing the pistol with a straight-faced flair that suddenly had retreat shining in their eyes when there had only been certainty atop blood-thin smiles.

The Seven in the lead summed it up in one tense word."Shit."

The movement at his side and the sudden flicker of large, fearful eyes to his partner was all the confirmation that Rex needed to know that Matty had revealed his own trump card. No witty one liners from Matty, but it was still effective. The Seven at the rear of the group went ramrod straight, spine taking on the flexibility of one of the scattered streetlamps for a moment before he turned tail and bolted.

"Aw hell, Rex." Matty made a half-step jerk forward, some predator instinct to chase a running bit of prey, before he pulled up short, waving the blunt nosed pistol with an irate grimace. "He ran away!" Mouth gone dry, Rex turned his eyes back to the kid they'd gone toe to toe against earlier. It was even harder now than he thought it might be when they'd set out; the kid had terror written clear in his eyes. His hands shook with a junky's tremor, fingertips disappearing and reappearing from sweat-damp palms and he tensed and clenched his hands. "Rex?" Matty seemed miles away as Rex struggled with the decision in front of him.

What felt like hours had dragged by in a quick tick of seconds as Rex lifted the pistol, eyes as wide as the kid he was pointing it at. One of the Sevens moved and the report of gunfire made him jump clean out of his skin. The older kid with the knife who had acted as instigator in the whole thing clutched at his chest, a garbled howl in the hollow echo that bounced from building to building before he pitched forward onto the dirty street. Rex jerked his body about to stare at Matty, already drawing down on his second target with the charging block a dull glow in the dark.

The pistol jumped a little when the blonde pulled the trigger again and when the second thug lurched forward with an agonized cry it seemed to galvanize the rest into panicked action. Teeth bared in a snarl, Matty whipped his head around and barked out a harsh, "Rex! Get him!" A lifetime spent following orders of one kind or another turned him back to target, where their appointed victim was beginning to break out of his fear-borne stasis. Their eyes met across the street as they both turned; Rex realigning himself and the kid getting ready to run. Reflexively, Rex pulled the trigger. The kid's mouth rounded into a shocked O as he stumbled midstep, hands snapping to his shoulder. Cursing without knowing if it was at himself, the kid, at Matty or even Van, Rex dropped the angle of the barrel and fired again.

It only took a few seconds for the street to clear; three bodies littering the sidewalk and street where the Seven's had fallen and the survivors gone. Rex had the pistol in a death grip when Matty reached over and grabbed his wrist. It went off again when he jumped, sliver of a bullet arrowing off into the darkness as the blonde cursed and snatched the gun of Rex's hand, hauling him away from the scene of the crime with a dark mutter. "Got one of 'em from before. That's gotta be enough... and two more." Blocks streamed by in his state of shell shock, Matty dragging him along Seventh territory and back into the safer streets where the Reds prowled. "I think I winged one."

Without warning, Rex dug his heels in and pulled his hand free, matching urges to either laugh or vomit warring in his gut. "Matty, we just killed those guys."

"We had to."

"Matty!" Close to screaming, Rex punched his friend hard in the arm and Matty staggered back a step, his body vibrating with sudden tension. "We just killed those guys!" Rex had always hoped he could be like one of his vid heroes; detached and calm in the face of any horror thrown his way. Is was disappointing in a new and wrenching way; twin to the gut deep horror of having taken a life just because he was ordered to. Matty seemed calm in the face of it all. Maybe there was already something wrong in the blonde's brain, crossed wires that put killing on the same level as breathing.

"I know." Matty's teeth clenched around the words, throat working as he tried to swallow. He looked at Rex with a new weight in his blue eyes. "Look, go back to the flop. I'll go tell Van that we did it."

"What?"

"Just do it. You look green." Turning on a heel, Matty left his friend and vanished around the nearest corner. Rex found himself automatically following but stopped when he neared the jagged corner of old bricks and stained metal, the unmistakeable sound of somebody retching their guts out clear enough from where he was standing. Matty was just better at hiding the humanity that lurked below slow words and deliberate actions. Feeling somewhat less than human beneath the greasy layers of shame and nerves, he gave his head a shake and turned back toward the flop.

oOoOoOo

"Well?" Matty could sense the expectation when he stepped into Van's office but still hadn't formulated an answer that seemed satisfactory. They had accomplished at least a small bit of their task but not to the level of completion that Van probably wanted. Still searching for an answer, Matty stood in silence until the leader snapped his fingers. "Hey. I'm talking to you, Matty. Where's Rex?"

Teeth ground against one another and Matty sighed inwardly. It was no wonder people thought him a bit slow; being political was a pain in the ass and the headache creeping into his skull only spiked the slow, awkward roll in his guts upward another notch. Nausea was turning into full and steady uproar and he was at least momentarily thankful there was nothing else in his stomach that he could slop across Van's dingy carpet. "We got three Sevens." He delivered his report in a steady monotone, too tired to care about inflection. "The others ran. They'll be spreading the story about how we snuffed their friends. Make them think twice."

"Only three." Van attempted a cold look at Matty but rather than have the bowel-watering effect it usually had on other underlings, he got the impression the blonde didn't notice it beyond the attention and eye contact. "Its a start. I expect more from the both of you, so this isn't over yet." Lip dragging upward into a smirk, he shrugged faintly and returned to the station behind his desk. "Get out of here. And tell Rex congratulations. You're both real Reds now."

oOoOoOo

AN: When I put together my second Shepard, I chose almost straight-line Paragon because my first had been more of a Renegade and I wanted to see where the differences sat. Going with Earthborn, hitting the quests where you learn your Shep wasn't the best person and had a history as a gangster back home made me wonder about the possibilities. So hopefully you all enjoy this and my fumbling attempts at making sense :D

To be continued!