In life I'd always known that there were bad days. Then there were bad as fuck, what in the spirits were you thinking, legendary kind of bad days. As I dragged my battered and bruised body on my sliced up hands and my one good leg to a makeshift shelter I'd spied just a few feet away, I realized this was shaping up to be one those legendary bad as fuck days that you told people about. One of those stories you passed down, hoping your kids wouldn't be stupid enough to even attempt something close to what I'd done.
I knew I couldn't stay out in the open because the electrical storms would eat me alive if not set me on fire and I also knew I couldn't risk another attack from the armor clad bastards that did this to me. My body just wasn't in the right place for it and my wits felt just as shattered as the bones in my tail. Thankfully I'd made it to the shelter and I needed to assess the damage to myself before I tried to get back to my shuttle; if it was even still functional and in one piece at this point.
The gruesome sight would have even made the great Alistair Creed cringe. My tail was broken in several places and hung limply beside me. There were deep lacerations on my arms and stomach; a gash on the side of my head and one trailing from my ear down my cheek; sand in my snatch; blood trail behind me; one ear ripped and partially hanging off the top of my fucking head. Not to mention the two bullet wounds in my back.
Fuck. I didn't know how many times I'd been crossed off the list and left for dead. I guess when it first happens the day you try to rise in the Pirate Clan ranks, you're going to lose count like I did. This…this shit wasn't anything new. But the pain was. Spirits… I wanted to fall over and just let the spirits take me to see my father and the rest of the loved ones I'd watched die over the course of my mature life.
Maybe I'll honor that promise to Garrus and meet him at the bar. He's buying anyway.
I was a fighter, though. I'd fought through more than just a simple run gone wrong. I'd fought through the Reapers and I'd survived to tell the tale. But it's always the first shot to the back you don't see coming and the second that puts you down. But why didn't I see it? But why didn't /I/ see it? ME? Captain-fucking-Marcellus. Second most feared space pirate in the entire galaxy to Aria T'Loak. My tail hung limp in my lap as I felt around to see if I could try to piece it back together. Damn pirates. Of course her posse was going to hunt me down and shoot me like a dog…well, cat in my case. Fuck, that's what they did for a living. Loot, pillage, plunder, kill; and if I was lucky, in that fucking order.
Look at me now. I was emotionally damaged beyond repair. I could hardly walk with the broken leg let alone try to defend myself with my only gun since I'd lost the other revolver. I couldn't even pretend I could lift my sword. At this point the main question shouldn't have been "What happened?" It should be "What happened to /me/?"
Somewhere in my life I'd lost a step. Tripped over my tail. Fallen out of my own grace. Missed the memo. I'd gotten fat, diplomatic, comfortable, and sloppy and it dulled my own sharp edged tongue and my expert reflexes. Maybe I went and done the worst crime in this business: I'd gotten married, had children, and became a fucking domesticated housecat with a legal business and no real gun to protect me.
I groaned in pain as I rested my head against the sun bleached rock and closed my eyes while the sand slowly started to accumulate around me from the light breeze. Before I even left the Citadel I knew I needed to zero the clock and go back to a place I was comfortable with. A place I felt myself. A place I needed to venture to; to remind myself of my Creed and what my part in all of it was.
So I took my ass to the only place I thought knew I'd be able to do it without dying. The place where it all started. The place where Marcus and I first met Talea. The first place we'd hopped onto her pirate ship, the Devils' Revenge, and sailed the galaxy as an official space pirates. The place my life took its turn.
Ontarom. If I owned this place and New Davidia, I'd rent this place out and live in New Davidia.
If the lack of water, resources, food, or shitty air quality here didn't kill you, the electrical storms that danced across the surface every two hours or so would fry you to a crisp. This I knew from personal experience. I watched many an armor clad adversary get shocked to shit and laughed as their heads popped like a capacitor in a reversed electrical current.
Fun times indeed.
But now wasn't one of those times. I needed to get back to my shuttle because in that old and fucked up shuttle held my medigels, adrenaline, and pirate sized med kit. I could properly reset the bones in my leg and my tail; patch up my lacerations and cuts so I didn't go back to Carmen looking like I'd been drug through Aratoht's mud; and lived to see another day.
Fuck. I was Captain-fucking-Marcellus. Well, one of them out of the long line of predecessors. I was damn sure the spirits had their tricks lined up for me but getting out of places in conditions no one else could, /that/ was always one of mine.
How'd I escape this hell of a location the first time? That's a story for another day.
To Be Continued…