A/N: Okay so long story short, I got really busy, now not so much. There were a number of things that I wasn't happy about what I wrote in the original story so I started from scratch. I'm retelling the story and changing up many of the plot points. This story mostly revolves around a cast of OCs but there will be plenty of familiar characters along the way. Anyway here is the redone version. Please review; I don't mind hearing criticism or praise.
Mass Effect: Birds Of Prey and Fire
Prologue
The mess hall of the passenger liner on its way to Omega was rather empty for an afternoon, or at least an afternoon according to the clock on the ship. Only about a third of the seating was filled.
Ilina and Naltaris were a duo of freelance asari mercs. Though the passenger liner they were taking was meant for general transit, it seemed as though this area of the Terminus System was a popular spot for mercenaries to hang around. At least a third of all the passengers were mercs.
After Ilina and Naltaris went through the food line, which looked like an assortment of dressed up nutrient paste, they made their way towards one of the long tables. The pair chose a table that, with the exception of a human cleaning a rifle, was completely empty.
As Ilina made her way towards the table, she noticed why no one chose to sit there. The human sitting at the table was a rather intimidating looking one. He was an older human, maybe in his sixth or seventh decade of his life, but he gave out the sense that he was perfectly capable of using the rifle he was cleaning and the pistol at his side to their fullest potential. Half of his face appeared to have been blown off and then reattached. His glass eye didn't make him any more approachable than he already was.
Despite the rather scary looking human, Naltaris went ahead and sat down at the table as if the human were any other stranger. Despite Ilina's immediate inclination of finding another place to sit, she went along with her friend and sat across the table from her. Naltaris wasn't the kind of person to get intimidated by one's appearance. She could stare down a krogan if she wanted to.
The two did their best to enjoy their unnervingly bland meal. After a whie, Ilina spoke up, "I heard that another Blue Suns outpost got hit."
Naltaris let out a groan, "And?"
"Well," Ilina hesitated for a moment, "It's suspected that it could be Raptor."
Ilina could have sworn she heard a chuckle come from the stranger sitting farther down the table but was soon distracted by Naltaris.
"Are you seriously still going on about this?" groaned Naltaris.
Ilina threw her hands up in a gesture of defense, "Hey, all I'm saying is that it could be Raptor."
Naltaris rubbed her forehead for a moment, "Listen, how many time have we been over this?"
"I know but-" Ilina was cut off by Naltaris before she could finish her sentence.
"How many official reports have there been of Raptor?" asked Naltaris.
"There have been six," answered Ilina.
"No" retorted Naltaris, "Only one has been confirmed by Aria's syndicate. The other five refer to a mysterious soldier or figure in the distance. That could be anyone, not The Predator of the Terminus."
Ilina was quiet. She realized Naltaris had done her homework, and there was no way of winning this argument. It was strange. Ilina was normally the one making the better case in these situations. She normally brought the brains and Naltaris normally brought the brawns. It must not have been one of those normal days. She let Naltaris continue her rant without interruption.
"There have been several rumors circulating claiming that Raptor is Aria's personal body guard," continued Naltaris, "Of course Aria would want to confirm Raptor's existence if a rumor like that is going around; it just makes her seem all the more intimidating than she already is."
Ilina gave her friend a slightly anxious and alarmed look when she realized the human at the end of the table was staring right at them, but Naltaris didn't notice.
"If you ask me," stated Naltaris, still neglecting to recognize the expression on her friend's face, Raptor is just a made up boogieman to freak out mercs in the Terminus System. He's just a scare tactic, He's not real."
"Pardon, me for eavesdropping," spoke up the horribly scarred human, interrupting Naltaris's rant, "but I couldn't help but notice you two were talking about Raptor."
"Yeah, what of it?" snapped Naltaris, clearly not intimidated by the human's appearance.
"Just thought you two could use my input, that's all," responded the human, doing his best to be polite despite his gruff nature, "You might learn something."
What seemed like a smirk came across the old man's face. The less scarred half appeared to have muscle movement while the other half seemed to have next to no movement at all.
After a short pause, Naltaris spoke in a slightly annoyed tone, "Alright, go ahead."
The human set down his rifle and looked up at the ceiling as though he were trying to recall his memories, "I don't normally talk about this story much since it deals with one of my more unsuccessful missions, but I'm in a good mood."
Ilina noticed that the human talked in what other humans called an "English" accent or maybe it was "Australian?" She was never able to tell the difference between the two.
The human kept on talking, "As if the rifle, the armor, and the scars didn't give it away, you might have guessed that my profession mostly involves me being shooting at things, just like every other bastard on this ship. Anyway, about a year ago, some volus merchant wanted some rich ass asari dead, I can't remember her name but that doesn't matter."
Naltaris rolled her eyes at what seemed like the old man's ramblings,
"I was hired along with seven other men to take her out," continued the human, "There were rumors of the asari having some sort legendary mercenary from Omega called Raptor in her service."
Ilina perked up a little when she heard the name. Naltaris's raised an eyebrow.
"Though some of us, including myself had heard about this Raptor before, most of us were in your boat," said the human, gesturing towards Naltaris, "We didn't really think much of it. I've killed my fair share of men who were claimed to be legendary, so I didn't really think any different of this Raptor."
Ilina noticed the human's story had drawn in a few spectators. Two turians and a human had found a seat at the table and were listening to the veteran's story.
"We tracked the asari's movements and caught up to her at one of clubs in Nos Astra," the human tapped his index finger on the table, "Our contracts offered to pay us all double if we didn't make a fuss or cause any commotion, so we waited until she left. As we followed her we noticed she was unprotected, and the volus hired an entire squad of mercenaries. We knew something was odd, but I've worked stranger jobs in the past."
"Don't tell me, let me guess," Naltaris interjected, "This 'Raptor' came out of no where and ripped your squads to shreds, and you were the only survivor."
Despite the boldness and sarcasm of the asari, the old man let out a small chuckle, "Hehe–something like that. We tracked the asari until she went to an alleyway and figured it was as good of a time as any to finish the job."
The old man paused for a second. Naltaris knew it was for dramatic effect. Though she pretty was sure this human was lying, this guy could really tell a story, she counted at least ten people crowded around the table listening to the veteran's tale.
"Turns out the whole thing was a trap," said the human as his eyes narrowed, "By the time we had set up the ambush, Raptor was greeting us with an ambush of his own."
"So you met Raptor," remarked one of the turians who had recently joined the small crowd to see what was going on.
"What was he like?" asked Ilina, clearly sucked in by the veteran mercenary's story.
"Well," answered the merc as he leaned back in his chair, stroking his chin, "He's not ten feet tall and shoots laser beams out of his eyes if that's what you're asking, but don't get me wrong, he's not the first guy you'd want to piss off."
"I heard he was some mutant turian," interjected a batarian from the slowly growing crowd.
The human cocked his head, "Err, he didn't look much like a turian."
"I heard he was from an unknown race," stated one of the humans in the crowd.
"Well, I wouldn't argue against that possibility," responded the old man, "But if I had to guess, I would say he was either human or drell, asari maybe–hell possibly batarian–I'm not sure. From what I remember, he was wearing a face mask with a glowing red slit visor, so it would be kind of hard to determine his race."
There was a low hum of whispering and mumbling amongst the crowd. Despite the fact that Naltaris believed this guy was full of crap, she still wanted to see where this guy's story went.
"So what happened in the alley?" asked Naltaris.
"Right-let's see–were was I," the veteran furrowed his brow as he tried to find the point in his story where he left off, "Ah, now I remember. Right, when we were about to get the jump on the asari, Raptor got the jump on us. I'm not sure if he was held up in the alley or if he was trailing us the whole time, but he killed two of our men before the rest of us realized he was even there. It didn't take him long to take out another two either."
Ilina shot a glance towards her friend whom didn't seem to notice. Naltaris was still skeptical. The murmur of the crowd grew a little bit louder at the talk of Raptor in action.
Naltaris shrugged, "Don't get me wrong, getting the jump on a squad of mercs and being able to take out four is impressive, but that kind of stuff isn't completely unheard of."
The old human mercenary shook his head, "You would have to have been there to understand. After the first two went down, we opened fire on him while he was in the open, but we couldn't hit him. He just dodged our lines of fire as if he knew where we were gonna shoot before we did, but that's not the only thing that blew me away."
"And what was that?" asked Naltaris, tilting her head.
"Well you see," went on the human merc, "There was this krogan in our squad that was rather-err…unstable, even for a krogan. When it hit the krogan that none of us were able to hit Raptor, the krogan went into a blood rage and charged at Raptor with a combat knife."
The crowd around the old veteran grew eerily quiet.
"When the krogan charged, I thought for sure Raptor would jump out of the way, but he just stood his ground," there was a slight hint of awe in the old man's voice as he shifted in his chair, "Instead, at the last second, Raptor did some sort of hand to hand maneuver that I've never seen before on the krogan, knocking the wind out of the thing. He then pulled out some sort of long glowing knife and with three swipes, hacked the krogan's head off clean!"
There was a long moment of silence, until Ilina spoke up, "So what happened after that?"
"We ran," said the human as he picked up the rifle on the table to resume cleaning it, "We figured going any further along with the mission was just suicide The volus offered to pay well if we succeeded, but not well enough for a suicide mission. I reckon Raptor knew that none of us would be bothering him any time soon since he never bothered to chase any of us down."
When the human finished his story, the crowd mingled around talking amongst themselves. Ilina shot Naltaris a glance.
Naltaris wasn't sure what to believe. The man's story did seem pretty legitimate, but she was a more "see it to believe it," kind of a person. Still, regardless as to whether he was real or not, people in this part of the galaxy sure loved to talk about Raptor.
Six Months Later
Elias scurried out of the public transit tram with the rest of the passengers. It didn't take him long to spot Crow at the docking station.
"Sarge!" called out Crow as he noticed Elias approach him.
"Heh," chuckled Elias, "You still call me that, huh?"
"Well," said Crow, shrugging, "old habits die hard, I guess."
"It's good to see you again," responded Elias, letting a smile come across his face.
"Likewise," retorted Crow with a smile of his own forming.
The two young men stood there for a second trying to take the moment in. They had barely seen each other for over two years.
Crow's smile disappeared as he noticed Elias was clutching his abdomen.
"Uh…why are you–" Crow question was cut short when the noticed that the area that Elias was holding onto had a dark red stain growing around it, "Jesus! Elias, you're bleeding!"
Elias quickly looked down while Crow tried to reach out and get a better look at his friend's wound.
"Oh that?" said Elias, pulling away, "don't worry about that, I'll be fine."
"Look we need to get you to our place, how long has that been there?" the inner soldier had come out of Crow and it showed through his voice.
"I–" began Elias, but he started getting dizzy again, and his vision started going dark.
"Sarge?" asked Crow as he noticed his friend lose his balance.
Crow quickly caught Elias and placed him on a nearby bench to try not to cause too much of a scene out in the open in the Wards.
Crow opened up his communicator, "Hawk! Call up Doc. I found Falcon, but he's wounded and I think he just went unconscious!"
Crow reached into his overcoat and pulled out a small metal cylinder with a needle at the end. He jammed the needle in Elias's quad. Elias let out a grunt as he made his way back to consciousness.
"Come on," said Crow as he pulled up Elias off the bench and wrapped his friend's arm around his shoulders, "Our base isn't far from here."