I grew up in a farming colony on Mindor. Mom, Dad, twin sister (Kaylah).

My mom and dad were ex military, they left the Alliance and started setting up the farm when my mom found out she was pregnant with us.

My mom was strong, confident and smart as a button. She did all the finances and planning for the family - you could always count on her to help if you were stuck with school work, or just needed some advice. She could be quite funny, teased us mercilessly, but it really wasn't a good idea to make her mad - she didn't suffer fools, or allow any disrespect.

When we were small she did a lot around the farm. She got us to help with the some of the chores, but would make them into games so it didn't really feel like work.

Our favorite thing was helping her clearing up the barn, she would play hide and seek with us - pretend not to be able to find the two small piles of hay quivering and giggling in the corner, tickling us until we could barely breathe when we were 'found'. As we older we got better at hiding..but not too good, because we still loved being 'caught'. (grins)

[looks down, smiling..pauses for a moment...]

My dad on the other hand..was more complicated, most of the time he was a real hard ass, all about the discipline. He worked long days, up early, back late - most of the time he only really spoke if he was telling us to do something. As we got older he treated us like cadets, kept every moment of our day busy . If we weren't doing homework, we were doing chores - back chat and you'd be doing press ups for an hour.

One of the scariest moments of my life, was when I was 12 and got sent home from school because I'd got into a fight with a bunch of guys who were hassling my sister. I was so angry I blasted them across the gym - I couldn't control my Biotics very well back then, I was terrified of going home, knowing the School would have told him what I'd done.

When I got in he was sitting at the kitchen table waiting on me alone..you could see the anger radiating off him, he was barely holding it. I blurted out what happened, explained I didn't do it intentionally, hoped he would understand that I didn't just do it for the hell of it. He had never hit us, but from the way he looked I expected a beating.. he stood up saying he should have expected it - I waited for him to grab me and drag me outside, but instead he picked up the phone and called the school, tore the principal a new one for not explaining the full story.

My heart was pounding as he walked by me, out the front door. I followed hanging back, still kinda scared of what might be next. He stopped under the huge tree the punch bag was attached to - stood about 20 feet back from it and took a kind of fighting stance, planting his feet.

Then he thrust his hands forward and blasted the bag right off the tree, smashing it into the trunk with authority. He looked over and said 'come here son' - he never called me that before, and I had never seen him use Biotics.

He put the bag back up and told me to try.. moving my legs and stuff to mimic his stance. I gave it my best shot.. but took out half the branches, raining splinters and leaves down on myself, missed the bag totally. - he laughed, and that night he started training us to manage our Biotics and fight hand to hand combat.

He set up a make-shift ring out back, it became a daily thing after School (when you meet Kaylah you'll probably see, we're pretty competitive when it comes to who is the most bad ass twin)

That was when we saw the best of him, he lit up teaching us techniques. Even saw him smile sometimes, mix and matching wrestling, boxing, jujitsu, kung fu - I think he missed being a soldier. He never really spoke about it, but mom told us he was a combat specialist in the Alliance, even got picked to start training as an N7.

He left half way though to set up a new life and raise us. The rest of his squad were killed on a black ops mission, he had to deliver the news to the families. After loosing all his friends he saw the looks on their families faces as he broke the news, and decided he didn't want to be a guy we never met, didn't want to leave my mom alone to get a message some day he was killed in action. Turned out.. he just didn't know how to talk to us, didn't want to lead us down that path so kept it to himself.

He wanted us to take over the farm and stay on Mindor.. but we wanted adventure, there was a whole Galaxy waiting to be explored. We'd never been anywhere but the tiny little colony where everyone knew too much about their neighbors, it was so boring. We would look up at the stars at night and imagine being on a ship traveling at light speed across to some distant moon.

If you tell anyone about the this, I'll deny it(grin), but.. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with music - of every type, figured I was going to be a rock star. My mom got me a guitar for my birthday and spent the next 6 months teaching me to read music and play.. I practiced for hours..I found I really liked it - it helped me manage my mood.

Step 2. was to find something unique, I figured maybe I could do something with Biotics, found lighting up altered my voice which was cool, I think that was the first fun thing I did with them.. then, because every great artist writes their own stuff, I started looking into poetry to try and come up with better lyrics. - Of course my dad and Kaylah teased the hell out of me for that, but I didn't care they'd be sorry when I was an intergalactic celebrity rock god.. (smiles)

I stuck at it, and not to be out done - Kaylah started singing and stuff too.. she liked more r&b / pop stuff and we teamed up, she put beats arrangements around on my guitar and we sang together.. don't know if we were any good but it was fun.

There was an old building out near the mountains, we'd go there to practice so no-one would be around. Had good acoustics. - We were up there when the Batarians came.

[looks down, smile disappears]

We heard shots, saw smoke coming from the village, people were screaming. We ran back as fast as we could - but we were miles away. By the time we got there the ship had lifted off.

I got to our house first, went in fighting the fumes - mom and dad were gone. We split up running checking the barn and outbuildings, nothing..running into one house after the other, looking for survivors - but there was no-one left.

Kayla came out of the last house an sank down in the street, started sobbing.. she found them. Shot, thoats slit - dead. I didn't believe her, had to see for myself. They must have been trying to save the neighbors.. they had tiny kids.. I went back out, kneeled in what was left of the street hugged each other and sobbed..

I don't know how long after that the Alliance soldiers turned up.. when I saw them I went into a rage.. where were they? why did it take them so long to come? My parents were part of them once.. we wouldn't be orphans if they got off their asses sooner..

I called up all my Biotics and I thew their team them back - Kayla took a hit but managed to put up a barrier. A sniper shot me with a sedative from behind and they took us both to hospital.

Once we were checked over, we had nowhere to go and no money. We couldn't pay for treatment, didn't trust the soldiers, so we escaped, joined a street gang, made a living doing everything from bounty hunting to busking, getting more and more skilled in weapons and defense - all the time, tailing Batarians trying to find the crew that took Mindor, taking them out one by one.

LI: so, how did you end up in the Alliance?

The day after our 18th, Kayla got a solid lead on the rest of the slave gang -.. we tooled up with weapons, blasted into their hideout with Biotics, and killed every last one of them.. but, it turned out the Alliance had tracked them down too.

Anderson walked into the carnage first, told us we had one chance, explain what the hell was going on - or he'd stick us on separate prison ships that second and we'd never see each other again.

We had spent 2 years tracking the gang, we didn't really have a plan for what came next, not sure we even expected to get out of the building alive. I figured, what the hell, told him about Mindor - he brought it up on his omni-tool and seemed to react a little when our parents names showed up.

He told us the tip off for the slavers came in too late to save Mindor (they were too far out), that he had no idea that's where they had settled.

Again, he gave us a choice - join him in the Alliance..he'd clear our C-Sec records/outstanding warrants, tell us more about our parents, and we could take out the slave trade on the side of the law - or go to jail and never see each other again (wasn't much of a choice).

When we got to training camp, Anderson sorted us out a room, and left us to get settled. We didn't have much from living on the streets - we found a stocked bathroom and got washed up. - It was strange being there knowing our parents signed up when they were about our age.

There was a razor so I had a shave, looked at myself with matted hair, and figured if I was going to be a soldier I should look like one.. shaved my head and put on a uniform. Kaylah cut her hair too - up to the shoulder. She looked like she belonged in the uniform. We stood there for a while looking at each other.. soldiers.. it made us feel connected to our past but conflicted, they hadn't wanted this life for us.. but then they wouldn't have wanted us to go after the slavers, or rot in jail for the rest of our lives alone either.

Anderson came back and told us we'd been earmarked for N7, told us what our dad had been one of the best students of his year with an unbroken record for most headshots in training. He said, given what we'd done without training, they wanted to see what we could do with the best.

I had problems holding back with my Biotics when I got mad, so he set up training with an Asari matriarch, she had known my mother, told me some of the crazy stuff she got up to as a kid, how much she loved it there..

LI: you learned Biotic skills from a Matriarch?

Yeah..She was pretty strict to start with - blasted my ass across the room a couple times for sassing her, but I learned to think on my feet better, take the sting out of the bigger hits with barriers and fields, she got to like me in the end .. i'm a fairly likeable guy after all.. (grins), and she showed me some pretty cool tricks.., stick around and I might even show you..

The other students were kind of assholes about it, figured we were getting special treatment, so only spoke to us to rag on us. Hit harder than they should have in training..but we were strong, it just made us tougher.

There were some distinct groups in the Academy. You had the rich kids who were likely going to be officers before they even left training, legacy kids trying to live up to their parents expectations. Ex-gang members looking for bigger fights and better weapons, duct rats looking for a roof over the head - even if it did mean risking their life storming in as infantry.

Us, we wanted to be the biggest bad asses in the galaxy, so no-one would ever dare mess with us or our loved ones again. We wanted to be fearsome, for every merc and slaver out there to know and fear our name - we studied the N7 training religiously, practicing techniques and holds day and night away from the gym. I showed Kaylah what the matriarch had so her Biotics would be as tuned as mine. We were going to be unstoppable.

We got sent out on our first training mission on Tuchanka, it was strange being on one of the warships we'd dreamed about, dashing off across the Galaxy - exciting even.

The mission was a simple capture the flag deal, there were 8 of us. We were split up - into two teams, me leading team A, Kaylah leading team B. First to the flag wins. Our teams weren't happy with us as their leads but knew it would reflect badly in their N7 assessments if they didn't follow orders.

Williams was on my team, I'd noticed her around the place. She was tough and didn't take any shit, I kinda liked the rebelliousness she had, riotous parties went down you know she was involved... She was legacy but something had gone down with her dad and the Legacy kids didn't help her out like they did the others. Didn't seem to bother her though, she could hold her own. She was a good looking girl, a tomboy into hand to hand - we saw her in the gym a lot but I hadn't spoken to her much.

We were dropped off at opposite ends of the training ground, with the flag in the middle. There were turrets and mechs on the course to slow us down.

I spanned out my team the width of the run, sharp shooters in cover at the back me and the other Biotic up front to do the most damage. Where set off shockwaves and novas decimating the mechs, while the shooters took out the smaller robots - we were making good progress, me and Kaylah's squads were matching each other step for step until we were about 50ft from the flag and there were no mechs left so we all ran towards it - all wanting to be the one that picked it up first, I saw the sand hump in front of us, almost in slow motion.. and a thresher maw burst out of the ground.

Williams was the furthest ahead, she was basically under the thing.. the other guys ran to the sides and scaled the ruins to try and get to safety - I dodged the acid attack

And started unloading on it's head with rifle fire - Kaylah came up from the other side matching my fire, Ashley was crouched below it looking to time a run.. it thew another burst of acid, which again I dodged - I shouted at Ash to move and brought up my Biotics to shield - once she was out from under it I gave Kalyah the nod and ran at it full force, boosting up to it's head with Biotics - she shielded me and I had at it standing on it's head with my blade - it keeled over and I jumped off bringing myself down with Biotics to land.

Kaylah jumped down off the ruins and helped me get Ashley up, she'd gone over on her ankle so I had to give her some support getting to the flag. When I got there I figured Kaylah had won by a country mile, and would have that flag mounted in our room, but she hadn't taken it - in the end, neither of us took it. We did it together, and couldn't quite believe we just took out a thresher it was shit scary but, exhilarating.

We figured we probably failed the training mission though, the point was to get the flag. When we got back to the shuttle everyone was wiped out, shell shocked I guess - but we were buzzing. We got off the ship and everyone went their separate ways, we bounced back up the corridor to our dorm thrilled at our combo.

Anderson was waiting..We figured we were going to get it for not picking up the flag, but hey - we had a great day.

Anderson said 'that was a hell of a thing you did out there, there wasn't supposed to be Maws in the area. If you hadn't took that thing down we would have lost people today - you saved lives today kids, but it was reckless - you could have been killed.

You are shaping up to be exemplary soldiers, keep it up and you might even get a command, but don't do anything like that again - you get cocky, and showboat it will get, you or someone in your unit killed.'

- yes sir..

He left, we shut the door and started joking around calling each other 'Commander', beaming with how nice it sounded - and how proud our dad would have been if he had seen us.

We got cleaned up and heard a knock at the door - it was Williams on crutches, Kaylah ducked out of the door past her - smiling back at me with a wink, going down to the gym leaving me alone with her.

I asked her in, and she sat on the bed putting the crutches to one side.. there was an awkward silence, then she said - you saved my life today.. what you did was incredible.. I told her it wasn't all me, there were people shooting, Kaylah gave me cover..

She leaned over and kissed me.. I wasn't expecting that, we barely knew each other. But it felt good.. I took her in my arms and kissed her more, turns out she'd been checking me out a while - watching me at the gym. Noticed me at the library..

It was dinner time, and I was starving from using my Biotics, so we went down to the mess hall. Kaylah, was just going in as we turned up - everyone in the hall stood up and clapped, shouting 'who-ya'. It was pretty cool.. from then we got the best table, and everyone wanted to work with us.

Ashley and I became pretty close after that, I saw a lot of her, we started studying together - she was smart, and funny told me the story about her dad.. how she helped raising her sisters and how she'd threaten to run away with me when ever her mom nagged. I told her we were orphans, how our dad was an N7 candidate before they settled down but nothing about the circumstances or the gang etc..

We were studying and she quoted a line from an old poetry book I had read, she was impressed I knew it was Tenison. Turned out we had quite a lot in common, and I liked her no-nonsense attitude. You won't believe me, but she was a rebel at the Academy.

We got close, ended up dating for a year or so, it wasn't perfect, but it was good - guess we were each others first love - I think I held back a bit, I didn't want to loose someone close again and it couldn't last. We were going to get assigned a role and be star systems apart. Kaylah and I passed out of the Academy top of our N7 class, the legends that took down a thresher on our first mission. - we even got our first command. Ashley passed top of her class too, got assigned to the Citadel to help out C-Sec.

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