When I set out to recruit Archangel, I had no idea he'd turn out to be Garrus Vakarian. All I knew was that he was a fantastic tactician and vigilante seemingly determined to take on all of Omega's gangs singlehandedly— which, upon reflection, is a very Garrus sort of thing to do. Our way in, thanks to Aria, was to pose as freelance mercs— the gangs were hiring extra cannon fodder to throw at their enemy. I took Zaeed and Mordin with me— Miranda and Jacob are far too picture perfect to pass for mercs.
The mysterious Mr Archangel was indeed taking on Eclipse, The Bloodpack and The Blue Suns all at once. To get to him, the mercs— and that included us— had to cross a bridge that as good as lined us up for him to take out one by one. Garrus is the best sniper I've met— he can never know I said that— so we could easily have been in real trouble if we'd tried to get across without blowing our cover. That meant we were better off taking out our fellow freelancers as soon as we hit the bridge to let him know something was up. Garrus claims he recognised me from my combat style, but maybe he was just curious— either way, we made it across the bridge and there he was, apparently unfased by my resurrection. Heh, only Garrus…
It was such a relief to see him again— more than I'd admit to his face. I'd asked about him of course— I asked after everyone from the SR1 but Cerberus just stonewalled me. Tali had seemed so unsure when I met her on Freedom's Progress… I didn't blame her for it. It was a totally reasonable reaction, and not the worst I'd get. But Garrus… he was so relaxed about it. Later on, it worried me that he was so ready to accept that I was back from the dead and then follow me into bed with a notoriously evil, racist, terrorist organisation— but right then, it was just so good to see a familiar face. Little did I know, that friendly face was about to take a rocket from a Blue Suns gunship.
But I'm getting ahead of myself… we had a lot of fighting to do before we were treated to Tarak's toy. We got lucky really— we'd been able to sabotage their YMIR Mech and halt the repairs on the Mantis. Still, it was a tough fight. At what point during the two years I was dead did everyone get into flamethrowers and start armouring their varren?
So anyway, like I said, Garrus took a rocket to the face— I swear to God, even his injuries are competitive. Again, I'll never admit it to him, but the bastard had me seriously worried. If it hadn't been for Chakwas we probably would have lost him. Just another reason to love that woman. He made it through, but it was touch and go for a bit. One side of his face was more or less completely… ha, realigned… but in the grand scheme of things, what does that matter? Besides, his new look matched mine— the scars from my reconstruction hadn't healed yet and those bad boys were serious imperfections. I told Garrus he couldn't whine about his face until it started glowing orange like mine.
Having Garrus with me made all the difference in the world. There's no one quite like him in a fight, but it was more than that. I still felt so… out of it, y'know? Was I really me? Or did I just think I was Commander Shepard? How the fuck did I end up where I was… and what was I supposed to do about it? God, it was all such a mess. Having Garrus around, making his smug little jokes and doing his endless calibrations… I'm damn grateful I had him with me.
He took to the new crew pretty quickly. Well, not so much the Cerberus staff at first— but that's hardly surprising. Garrus and Zaeed spent a lot of time talking tactics— trying to top each other's stories mostly. And then when we picked Tali up they spent an intriguing amount of time together… those two need to wake up and smell their own pheromones… But in the end he still spent most of his time in the main battery.
Some time after we made our first trip to Ilium, Garrus left a note with Yeoman Chambers, asking to talk. You see, originally, it wasn't just him against the gangs on Omega; he'd had a whole team. But one of them— a Turian named Sidonis— betrayed him and, well… Garrus wasn't able to save the rest and Sidonis got away. It hit him hard— harder than he liked to let on. That was why things were as desperate as they were when we found him taking on the mercs.
Anyway, the reason he'd asked to talk was because he had a lead on Sidonis. Someone named 'Fade' had helped him disappear— maybe he'd screwed a lot of other people over too, or maybe Garrus was enough of a threat. Either way, he was trying to get away for good, so we went to the Citadel to see if Captain Bailey could help us out. Fade turned out to be an old acquaintance of ours— a disgraced C—Sec detective named Harkin. He was one of the first wave of human officers and an utter sleazeball to boot. I can't say I was eager to see him again, but needs must, as they say. He had a small army of mechs and Blue Suns troops for us to fight through, but it didn't take us long— not with Garrus as angry as he was and Grunt so full of pubescent Krogan energy.
When we got to Harkin he was near enough shitting himself. He tried to keep up the front, but that disappeared around the time that Garrus' foot hit his throat. With a little… ahem, persuasion, Harkin set up a meet with Sidonis. Garrus gave him a bullet in the leg to remember us by and we took off… and that left me with a problem.
Like I said, the fact that Garrus had been quite so eager to join my human—supremacist sponsored end of the galaxy pleasure cruise worried me. Plus, the state he was in when we found him… well, I had plenty of reasons to be concerned about his state of mind.
He wanted Sidonis dead. Fair enough. I'd want the same— who wouldn't? But Garrus really wanted him dead. And not just dead— we're talking dead and unrecognisable to his next of kin if they ever managed to scrape together all the pieces of dead Turian. Back on the SR1, I helped Garrus hunt down a black market doctor who'd got away from him in his C—Sec days. This guy, a Salarian named Saleon, had been making a… ha, killing, in the black market organ trade. I won't bother with the whole story, suffice to say it was some really twisted shit. So when we found him— he was going by 'Dr Heart' by then— Garrus took him out, clean and simple and I wasn't worried. But this time… I don't know, it felt different. Garrus was different.
In the end, I let him take Sidonis out. One clean headshot from a distance whilst I distracted him— no big confrontation, no extra… interaction. I know he would have liked more… would've liked Sidonis to suffer, but that's a dangerous road… and I couldn't let Garrus take it— I owed him better than that. Maybe I shouldn't have let him kill Sidonis at all… maybe it did more harm than good. I stopped Mordin shooting Maelon… I didn't let Miranda kill Niket… Was this all that different really?… But letting what Sidonis did hang over Garrus indefinitely… letting him continue to brood about it… surely that would've just made things even messier when he caught up with him again?… Because I knew that if I let Sidonis go —and we survived the mission— Garrus would find him. A couple of months, a year… it didn't matter. Just more time for that anger to fester, more time for it to warp Garrus into something I knew he wasn't. This way, it was dealt with and I was there to stop it getting messy. It wasn't perfect, but it was done. We could move on. Garrus needed it sorted, and I needed Garrus. I suppose it was as simple as that in the end.
He was a tough one because he's such a favourite- but I did my best.
So that's Grunt, Jack, Mordin, Zaeed and Garrus done. Next up, probably Kasumi.