"With mild skepticism: So I can rely on you to honor our arrangment?"
"Goddam right, Mr. Wellass," Zaeed affirmed, making unbreaking eye contact with the dark skinned elcor who was standing with him at the empty bar. "So longs I got your word on the payment."
"Condescendingly: Maruvius Wellass always keeps his word. Coolly: So let me give you another. Threateningly: If you do not throw this fight, I will have my men here throw you off Dantius Towers," the elcor returned, making an excruciatingly slow gesture to two drell sitting at a table a ways off.
"It would be wise of you to listen to Mr. Wellass, my brother," one of the drell called over. "Amonkira is my shepherd, and she will not allow me to fail in my endeavor to kill you should it come to that."
"Dontcha worry," Zaeed assured them. "That volus will put me down 'en the third round, guaranteed."
Zaeed just ran. Sure, he wasn't really going to throw the fight; he had a buddy who bet their combined life savings on Zaeed for the event. But he had meant to make it a little more interesting than it turned out. That Maruvius guy was responsible for all of the volus's wins, and since the odds were always against the little guy at the start of his career, it had made Maruvius a killing. More than enough to allow for keeping the volus at the top. And apparently, nobody had ever thought to cross Maruvius. One punch from Zaeed, and the volus went flying back against the ropes. His suit had split, and the poor fighter was just rolling on the ground helplessly when Zaeed left. He didn't wait around to watch what happened due to the suit puncture, but he knew the volus was almost certainly dead.
A taxi flew by, it's vacant light on, and Zaeed waved his hands frantically. Thankfully, it noticed him right away, and Zaeed practically dove into the skycar. "Where to, buddy?" the batarian driver asked gruffly. Zaeed quickly gave his address a few blocks away from the hotel room he had booked ahead of time, and the cab was off. "Just get done with a fight?" the driver asked.
"What's it to ya?" Zaeed asked, trying to deflect the question at the same time as he tried to subtly remove the wraps around his wrists and hands.
The batarian wasn't giving up that easily, though. "Not much. Could be worth something to you, though."
"An' how's that?"
"Just heard on the radio that some prizefighting volus ended up dead in a fight," he said, looking over his shoulder and giving Zaeed a view of his toothy grin. "I hate volus. Damn fine work, whoever that other guy was."
Zaeed eyed the batarian warily. He seemed genuine enough, but Zaeed wasn't exactly anxious to tell people he had just betrayed Maruvius Wellass. That elcor did not look like a bitch at all. A volus Zaeed could handle, hell, he could probably handle the two drell too. But an elcor? No chance. "Damn shame somebody died," Zaeed lied in a dull monotone. He wasn't particularily fond of volus either, but he was going to throw the batarian off the trail as much as he could.
The batarian stared at Zaeed in the rearview mirror for a few seconds, then shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever you say, buddy."
The rest of the drive was uneventful, and Zaeed again sprinted, this time along the last few dark blocks to the hotel. He suddenly stopped worrying about Maruvius when he caught sight of the naked asari in the bed in his room. She was lying with her back to him, and breathing slowly. Probably asleep, he figured. He peeled off his fighting shorts and carefully crawled into bed behind her, running a hand up her bare blue leg and molding to her form.
She stirred, and sighed happily. "Did you win?" she mumbled into her pillow.
"'Course, baby," he cooed into her ear. "Go back to sleep, we need to leave early tomorrow."
She stuck her lip out in a pout, which Zaeed could literally hear in her tone. "You don't want to celebrate?"
Zaeed was quiet in through for a few moments. "Will you use your teeth?"
"Will you get the handcuffs?"
"Goddam stupid bitch," Zaeed ranted, continuing his long list of profanities as he drove back to his apartment. He couldn't believe that asari had forgotten Jesse. The one thing he asked her to make sure she grabbed, and she left it behind. Now he had to risk his ass going back there to look for her. Jesse was probably right where he had left her too, right next to the krogan helmet and bottle of scotch.
He managed to calm down enough on the drive though, and discreetly made his way up the stairs and into his apartment. He stood rigid after closing the door behind himself, only listening. A minute that felt like an eternity passed, and he walked through the space to get to his bedroom. And there was Jesse, right on his dresser where he had left it. Zaeed let out a heavy sigh, and gently picked up the folded rifle, hugging it to his chest.
With that concern out of the way, Zaeed realized he hadn't had breakfast yet. He tucked Jesse under his arm and headed into the kitchen, searching through the cabinets above the counter. After a couple moments, he pulled out a box of breakfast pastries and stuck one in his mouth. And it was in that position that he froze, noticing a fully extended submachine gun sitting on the counter. Suddenly, he had a feeling he was being watched, and he slowly looked up to be staring into the eyes of one of the drell from the bar.
The alien dropped his issue of VorchTorch and lunged forward, his goal clear. Zaeed threw the box of pastries at him, scoring a direct hit on the gills and sending the drell reeling back. With his free hand, Zaeed snatched up the gun on the counter and let loose a storm of bullets into the intruder. It took the entire round to eat through the shields and finally start filling the drell itself with bullets.
Zaeed was breathing heavy when the loud chatter ended, and half of the pastry that was still dangling out of his mouth finally snapped off and fell the floor. At that sound, he dropped the gun and ran, not even vaguely attempting to be subtle anymore.
It was just his luck then, that he saw Maruvius heading through the parking lot towards the apartment. Zaeed figured he must have been around before, maybe keeping watching or looking at the cars, and then heard the gunshots.
Honestly, Zaeed had never seen someone that big move as fast as Maruvius was right then. It was like a sort of galloping, and Zaeed was oddly transfixed for a few moments before he took off himself, running for his car. Unfortunately, Maruvius saw the human making a dash, and turned around and headed back towards his car. They reached it at the same time, coming up on different sides of it. Zaeed yanked the door open, but then jumped back when the elcor's fists swung down and crumpled the top of the car with a mighty crash.
"Angrily: do I look like a bitch to you?"
"Just a little," Zaeed snarled.
"Enraged: why did you win the fight?"
"Because fuck you!" Zaeed exclaimed, whipping around and running the way he had driven. He could hear the persistent thump of Maruvius chasing him, and Zaeed worked on extending Jesse as he ran. When he was finally successful, he sprayed bullets behind him blindly. No damage was done; Maruvius just shrugged off any of the bullets that actually managed to hit him.
Zaeed was quickly running out of options; he knew the elcor couldn't outrun him, but he could outlast him in stamina. The first chance he took, Zaeed ducked into a side door and pressed his back against the wall. "What the?" the male quarian behind the counter asked at the sudden commotion, but he couldn't get any more words out before Maruvius burst through the entrance right behind Zaeed.
He slammed the butt of his rifle into the elcor's face, and he stopped dead in his tracks. "Just leave me alone!" he shouted, his finger twitching on the trigger as he brought Jesse around to point at Maruvius.
"HEY!" the quarian interrupted from behind them.
"Just stay out of this!" Zaeed yelled, not daring to take his eyes off of Maruvius.
"Turn around," the quarian ordered coolly.
"He's trying to kill me!" Zaeed tried to explain.
Zaeed heard the unmistakable pump of a shotgun. "I said turn around," the shopkeeper repeated darkly.
The sound of Zaeed's teeth gritting together was so loud, he was sure the shopkeeper could hear it from across the store. He grudgingly turned around to face the quarian, who had the mother of all shotguns pointed at him. "Come over here," the quarian ordered again. Zaeed shuffled over to the counter, and the quarian raised his shotgun, making to hit Zaeed over the head. He instinctively raised Jesse to block, but the weight of the massive gun was so much that it still sent the rifle crashing into his head with enough force to knock him out, and the last thing Zaeed heard before it all went black was a massive crack as the shotgun impacted Jesse.
Zaeed groaned. This was not a situation where he wanted to wake up with his hands tied. Two quarians were standing over him casually, and he glanced sideways to find Maruvius tied up as well close by.
"Well, well, well," the new quarian sang. "What do we have here?"
"These two were duking it out up in the shop," the other answered. "I figured we could take them down to have some fun with them."
Zaeed spit the gag out of his mouth. "You're sick!"
The new quarian looked at him surprisingly, then was a quiet for a few seconds. "You're right. I have been feeling a little feverish lately. Maybe we should call a rain check."
"I haven't been feeling all that hot either, Led," the other agreed, turning to Zaeed and Maruvius. "Sorry for the confusion, guys. You're free to go," he said as his friend went around behind them and untying them.
"Shame," the quarian said a bit disappointedly. "This one has a nice ass," he complimented, giving Maruvius a firm smack on the rear.
"Disdainfully: Oh hell no," Maruvius said, in as much of a shout as an elcor could manage. He hefted one of his fists up and threw it into Led's face, sending him flying back and slumping onto the floor. A thick line of blood could be seen through the mask, trailing down Led's face.
"What the hell!" the shopkeeper shouted, picking up his shotgun which he had placed a convenient distance away. "What do you think you're doing?"
Zaeed didn't know why he thought he should help. He could've just walked away. But something told him he should do something, so he slapped the barrel of the shotgun down before punching the quarian across the jaw.
Zaeed and Maruvius shambled out of the store before either of their captors could recover, a bit unbelieving that everything managed to work out. The human also scooped up Jesse's cracked body on the way. "Gratefully: Thank you for the help," the elcor said eventually.
"Er, my pleasure," Zaeed said, still a bit stunned. "So we even now?"
"Grudgingly: I suppose. Threateningly: but if I ever see you around here again, nobody else will ever again. Angrily: just like nobody will ever see those quarians again. I will make sure of that."
"Don't worry, I'm not planning on comin' back to this hole," he assured Maruvius as they parted ways.
Zaeed was about to hail a cab, but then caught sight of a skybike that hadn't been there before. He went over to examine it, finding it was registered to a quarian named Led. He didn't even need to think, he hopped on and hotwired it. Even though the quarians let them go, they were still sick bastards.
The wind in his hair was great; he felt free, something was finally working out for him again. His lovely asari was waiting for him up on the second level of the hotel, and she ran out when she saw him. "What happened to the car?" she asked. "Where did you get this chopper?"
"It's a skybike, baby," Zaeed corrected as he took her luggage and hooked it to the bike. "And I'll explain later."
"Who's chopper is it?" she asked as she got on the back.
"It's Led's skybike, darlin'," he answered as he went back to the driver's seat.
"Where's Led?"
"Led's dead, baby," Zaeed answered as he revved the engine and took off. "Led's dead."
Is that really how Jesse broke, Zaeed?
'Course it is, Shepard. What, you think I'd make some story up based on a vid?