Chapter One: The Outcast

Tylant Arterius was not your average turian, being the son of a Spectre never is, but even more so for poor Tylant. That being said, he held the determination of an Asari Justicar, not as many years of course, but his search for the truth far made up for that. You see, Tylant was the son of one Saren Arterius, which is all fine and dandy until he had discovered the journal entries as to why his father left him.

Tylant thought his father had taken one too many doses of some illegal drug, or perhaps had his head smashed in with biotics one to many times at some point in his life. Maybe he just had seen too much horrific crap for one man to tolerate. Maybe he didn't even even write these journals.

All of these were acceptable excuses to Tylant. He could have accepted any of these as fact knowing his father was anything but a saint. But admitting to your sins is one thing, having seen the dreadnought sized ship of unknown origins parked outside your little hiding hole on Zorya. Maybe its not too hard to believe that your father, a Spectre, known for facing impossible odds, is the one responsible for the attack on Eden Prime.

Tylant didn't know what would happen when he confronted his father, if he could get to his father. The main problem associated with getting to Saren was simply leaving the planet. Much like the majority of Zorya, Tylant had trouble leaving the planet, a shorthand of industrial momentum due to the Blue Suns lack of production facilities. Then again, its pretty hard to build a ship when you have spores floating outside all major population areas.

Too get to Saren, Tylant had to get a ship, to get a ship, Tylant needed forcibly remove the owners and fly out, to fly out, Tylant needed a pilot, and to hire a pilot, Tylant needed credits.

Fun stuff. He thought to himself as he approached the bar near the edge of town, a small group of dossiers in his hand. The Utopia's Canteen, seems straightforward enough.

As Tylant approached the metal door, a male human was thrown out forcibly by three krogan before he reached it. Tylant did a double take at the human, It took three krogan to get rid of him, either security's lax or that's a tough bastard. Exactly the kind of people I need. Not that Tylant cared, but it didn't hurt to observe everything.

Tylant stood stock still as the human got up and tackled the nearest krogan. Tylant decided that he should get into the bar before blood got on his armor. Human blood tended to stain and attacking a krogan without a gun and 100 yards between you and him is suicide.

The ruckus outside was actually the norm, well, not the human tackling krogan part, but street fights and shootouts were popular in Morgue, hence the name. It was freelance central, a lack of Blue Sun control in the area spawned a population of freelancers. Problem was, work was hard to get, and those who fight alone usually compete to get a job done.

It was a near city sized town filled with a large number of the standard population, which is all well and good because the Blue Suns pretty much owned the entire planet. It did pay well, but it might as well been a prison. Hardly any ships went down, and hardly any ships went up. Hijacking attempts were met with serious resistance. The only easy ticket was covered in blue armor and confined to a life of front line infantry. Or a body bag, but that was never an option.

Tylant took a seat at the bar and ordered a drink, trying to scope out some of the people on the dossiers

he acquired from an ex-Cerberus operative. You'd think they would increase security from the inside, but nope. Shame he had to go on the run, Tylant could have used his help. But until then, all he had for his last hope were these little name tidbits. This left Tylant with a generous helping of names for experts and experienced professionals that were not on Zorya.

Those that were on Zorya were dwindling fast. There were three people left alive that could help him on this side of the planet, out of the original twenty two who knew how to fly a ship. The first one was a Blue Suns pilot who probably got paid too much to betray his organization. The second being the ex-Cerberus officer, who was last seen in the jungle escaping from undercover agents who traced his leak to Morgue. The final being a Quarian slave who was currently in possession by the local crime boss, probably to fix the only ship that has a right to leave without getting knocked out of the sky by the colony defense cannons.

This was another factor that had to be considered in his long but tenuous to-do-list. Even to break in and take the Quarian would require about the same firepower needed to take a ship. So priority one, get some help. Tylant skimmed the holos of a few dossiers, trying to see if anyone in the bar matched the description. He needed a fighter, but some extra tech skills wouldn't hurt either.

This train of thought was interrupted by a krogan, no not a mild, sit down and order him a drink kind of krogan, but by the 'was just outclassed and thrown across a bar' kind of krogan. He had sailed through the now open door and into the stool to the right of Tylant. Dead or unconscious, but bleeding none the less.

Outside the door stood the human who had suicidally tackled the krogan, his face a twisted baring of teeth and his fists covered in blood. Orange blood. Krogan blood, that stuff doesn't wash out easily either. Wearing some sort of casual shirt and cargo pants, a heavy pistol strapped to his left hip.

Now, the krogan being thrown by the man outside was certainly a spectacle, differentiating from what usually happened in Morgue, but this human had just bested three krogan in hand to hand combat. Tylant glanced at the dossier in his hand, to his surprise, and maybe to his luck, it was a match, and he was pretty high on the list too, which meant a lot because the best were at the top. This man was five below an apparently renown assassin who rested at the top of the list labeled 'Professional Riflemen'. Not that he could tell, he had never heard of Thane Krios, but maybe that's what gave him an edge.

Hired guns are one thing, but Tylant wanted someone who was used to coming out alive in high risk missions, not riddled with bullets as a distraction for others. This man fit the bill perfectly.

"Your not welcome here *breath* Earth-Clan" A volus bartender uttered, " Ill have to *breath* get local security to kill you *breath* if you don't leave."

The human went up to the bar and sat right beside Tylant. He spoke in a crackling tone, like he had a cold.

"All I wanted was a beer."

"*breath* No, you drank twice as much as you had been willing to pay for yesterday. *breath* You already can't pay for more, and your lucky I don't charge *breath* you the salary I paid those guards."

"Is it really going to be that way?"

Tylant chimed in "Relax, ill buy for him. After that display you should be giving this man a keg."

"Giving away *breath* beer for killing my protection isn't very good for business."

"Doesn't have to be, you volus can make money off anything."

The volus just shook his head and went to pour said beer.

The man sat there, a look of sadness swirling into his features, he had obviously tried to drink away his problems, and stopped whatever thoughts were mingling in his mind to turn to the turian who so generously gave him a drink. His face seemed content, but he wasn't all there, he was glancing in the corners of the room with suspicion.

"What's your name?"

Tylant hadn't been expecting him to communicate at all, given his current position he expected the man to down the beer in front of him first. Maybe the dossiers he had put on the bar had piqued his interest, since the top one had his name on it. Have to be careful on what he said next, he wasn't stable from the looks of it.

"Tylant Arterius, and yourself?"

"I think you already know, why don't you just read that dossier acquired from that ex-Cerberus operative that you ran into."

"How did you-"

The human pulled out a very large and intimidating pistol whist the turian was speaking from his left hip and stuck it into Tylant's abdomen.

"Read it"

The turian stopped moving, almost stopped breathing, if he moved he feared the human would shoot him and he would bleed out whist everyone continued on without another care in the world. Life sucks.

"I said read it."

The human had repeated himself, probably because he noticed Tylant's reaction to his gun on him. Rookie, obviously not trained past military basic, lack of movement, but no shaking either, either the this one is very deceiving or is scared out of his wits, given that he's turian, I'd say he's very good at deceiving body language, I expected him to start stammering the moment I put the gun on him.

Tylant was scared out of his wits, they never thought of teaching how to deal with this in basic. He looked over to the data pad, cursing the angle and slowly went to pick up and read this man's Cerberus history report

"Name: Jakyll'Durant, Age: 19, Sex: Male, H.. Height: Six feet and two inches."

Tylant stopped reading here, and Jakyll nodded to continue his gunpoint dictation of his biography.

"Ha..ir color: brown, Iris co-lor: unknown"

Tylant stopped to look his captor in the eyes, wishing he didn't stall on his words. and also had difficulty discerning what color they were, its almost as if they were a meld of green and blue. He continued reading. He could ask when his life was not in danger.

"Jakyll is a... former N7 infiltrator who joined the Alliance in 2180 and left in 2182, performing exceptionally in the field... After a disagreement with a commanding officer, Jakyll disobeyed standing orders to deal with a group of mercenaries who had captured hostages and demanded ransom, Jakyll single-handedly freed the hostages held on the planet of Anhur and received several fatal injuries at the cost of all the hostages being returned safely. This prevented court-martial and let Jakyll go with honorable discharge."

It was a mouthful, but Tylant had suddenly been intrigued at what the he was reading. He never got a chance to read the bio, as he had been busy cross referencing pilot names with the obituary logs on Zorya before he got to the bar. If this man is so great, whats he doing on this backwater dump in a bar that made a habit of throwing him or, scratch that, trying to throw him out. Not only that, but he looks fine to me, not a scratch on him. Save that krogan blood... but thats not bodily harm directed towards him.

"Not done yet." Jakyll had broken Tylant out of his pondering stupor, and just as soon started reading again as he felt the gun in his gut again.

"Cerberus had taken interest in Jakyll after his discharge in 2182, and had offered to return him to his former self with minimal consequences. Agreeing upon this, he was a recovery subject as part of Project Regeneration. Upon completion of the project, Jakyll and fourteen others involved in the project were asked to infiltrate a space station over one of Kahje's Moons, known as Second Sun."

Jakyll seemed to break in to the story. "We were all tasked with finding and killing some political figure on the station, it seemed simple enough, while we were there I decided to go ahead get a little physical modification, having your bones enforced with a synthetic weave really helps in the long run. Continue."

Tylant glanced at the odd man, who sounded way too old for his age, interrupting his own stories and putting in what he knew. Tylant decided to interrupt the story for a question.

"Can you please take the gun out of my side, its under my ribcage now and rather uncomfortable."

"You seem to forget that the gun appears to be a gun, would you like for it to stay where it is, or would you rather have it move where it could discharge if the user feels that this meeting is over with."

"Point taken." Tylant continued on, "Within four days, the space station was destroyed entirely, due to unforeseen circumstances. Wait what?"

"Ha, that unforeseen circumstance turned out to be a crazy bitch who slowly took the whole thing down, crashed Second Sun into the moon it was orbiting. It was the break I needed to cut all ties to Cerberus and fast."

Tylant continued reading "To this day, thirteen bodies-"

"Fourteen."

"Have been confirmed dead, Jakyll's body not being recovered, it is presumed that he is still alive, and is a risk to all Cerberus operatives within the system. Did you kill that operative that I met up with?"

"No, I was not after him, I was after you. Someone wants the son of a certain Saren Arterius. Cerberus has an internal bounty on my head for its Terminus entrenched operatives. That warning is for any idiot behind an internal affairs desk that thinks they can take a low risk operation clean up. In case you were wondering."

Jakyll got off of his seat,"Get up, we must go where no prying eyes and attuned ears may obtain something that can't be risked."

"And where might that be? You didn't seem to mind disclosing a lot of personal information in front of a variety of strangers." Tylant got off his seat, still mindful of the gun prodding into his gut.

"Thats for me know and for you to guess at."

"Guess at?"

*Smack*

Tylant hit the floor, hard, he didn't expect the blow to the side of his face in the least bit. Jakyll holstered his gun and threw the young turian over his shoulder, hauling him off to a much more safer location, somewhere that didn't have three Cerberus agents tailing him. Goddamn Cerberus, when did they get so numerous? The only trace the turian had been there being a few data pads and two untouched beers.

/

Deya'Torgue nar Koal was not one who gave up easily. Being a slave is hard, but being an essential slave that could affect the future of those who held you captive makes life simple. You could say she was being held against her will, but from any other angle it looked as though she was being bribed into fixing one of the only spaceships this side of the hemisphere. She played along now, if only because she was told any attempts to leave would be met with a gun and a smile.

Reasonable hours, a job she didn't mind doing, and protection from her boss in case any of those mercenaries decided to ogle her. She could almost stay. Almost, it wasn't until she was half way done with replacing the first engine that she had separated from the small boxy frigate that she realized she was useless to them afterwards. Other than the ship, everything else was low management, nothing else needed her expertise, she could try to pilot too, maybe that would win some hearts, but skimming through a half burnt Alliance manual on how to drive a VTOL couldn't quell her fears that she would crash and burn, literally. Maybe that wasn't a bad way to go, its better than whats bound to happen once I'm done here.

Maybe some dashing hero would come in guns blazing to save me, or perhaps the sky can fall too while I'm at it. Deya started to sabotage the engines in a fit of frustration, crossing wires that really shouldn't be crossed. The way this was set up, with poor welds and an engine thats output far outmatched what it could handle, her work was almost done already, taking numerous shortcuts, her work certainly looked good to the untrained eye. If there was anyone who had at least looked at a brand new Batarian Ros'vla class cargo ship would know that there was something off about the thrusters. This thing would be lucky to take off in one piece. She snickered at the thought off the engines snapping off mid-flight and continually climbing into the sky whist the rest of the ship fell towards the appropriately named town. Her work was complete, her judgment came tomorrow.

/

"Wake up"

Ow my head, ow my head, ow my head. Tylant very-very slowly opened his eyes to find that he was in a completely different location than the bar. Sitting up quickly and regretting every second of it, Tylant found that he was in a small space, like a shack or shed, a temporary structure. They were also in the city, lest the horde of spores would envelop them all due to the window being open. No wait, there was no window, just a rectangular shaped hole in the wall, with a really big gun aiming out of it. The human was there, aiming down the sight of this magnificent weapon, out of his casual wear and into a strange set of armor. The only part he recognized was the Aegis chest plate, the others were either models he couldn't identify or were to banged up to resemble armor anymore. He looked calm enough to talk to without getting shot. At least not shot somewhere vital.

"Head?"

His voice was the equivalent of metal on metal. Tylant covered his ears. Jakyll just looked at him funny, and handed him a M-8 Avenger. Tylant almost aimed it at him, but could see the rifle didn't have a thermal clip in it. Could probably only fire once before the lack of heat sinks melted the various components of the weapon. It was also probably the human had a kinetic barrier on.

"First you point one at me, now you give one?"

"Sure, here's the pistol I almost shot you with too, should give you some nostalgia."

Jakyll tossed, Tylant caught, and immediately aimed at the previous owner. This thing was still loaded.

"I want answers, and something for my headache." He demanded

"Soon enough, I was going to tell you, but since your here, I need your help and we don't have time to discuss the reasons for my actions.

"So you ask if I'm willing to help you after you knock me out and drag me to your secret lair?"

"Sounds about right, think I was supposed to ask before I knocked you out. I never was good at socializing." Jakyll moved off the scope of the weapon, and looked upon the young turian who so eagerly aimed the weapon at its previous owner.

Tylant noticed the canister full of water, the universal drink of the gods, and drank sparingly. His headache was replaced with a dull pain, and he decided to get up off the bed. No wait-floor, he was asleep on the floor, this guy can't get anything right. He never took the gun off of the human.

"What are you looking for?"

"A quarian."

He thought a moment, than decided to go ahead and ask why. Lowering the pistol at the thought of similar goals.

"Why?"

"Because the only way we're getting off this rock is if we work together, I need a ship, you need a ship, that quarian has a perfectly good ship in the works. Lets go get her, get it, and get out."

"Can't I at least go get some provisions from town before we do this? There's no way were gonna take the ship tonight, we can always hold-"

"Got to."

"-it" Tylant blinked, he didn't know the human was so influential in his decisions. "Why the urgency?"

"Town has at least seven more operatives from our favorite pro-human organization than it did last night in town, and those are the ones I noticed, there up to something, and I rather like living. They had a ship touch down disguised as a trading vessel. It was full to the brim with eggs in some sort of cryogenic storage. That was two weeks ago. There up to something, and I don't want to be around when things get bad."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Did some scouting. I let you read the story at the bar because there were operatives listening in. The opportunity to catch me should be too good to pass up. It should at least ground them until tomorrow."

Tylant gave it some thought, after a slight pause, "Is it that dangerous to go into town?"

"You have a bounty on your head. Or did you forget that part too?"

"What! Why?" There was too much focus on the life threatening weapon earlier today to catch all of what Jakyll had said.

"Believe Arterius has something to do with it."

"Dammit. Didn't think my father's name would get me into trouble."

"Please, your in the heart of a merc planet, setting foot in town would be like setting foot into your own morgue. "

Tylant gave him a stern look.

"That was a bad pun, I apologize."

"Can't go in town, can't leave without quarian, what does that leave us at?"

"I thought they taught you turians how to fight. Its obvious that blood will be shed before the day is done."

"In the middle of the night?"

"Hell no, we wait until morning, we'll catch em with their pants down and dirt in their eyes."

/

Deya woke to find day breaking, and the sky falling.

Nameless explosions rocked the complex in the heart of the city, the complex holding her to be precise. The guy was so egotistical he put his base of operations in the middle of the city. Shame that seems to be biting him in the ass. One large earthquake caused rubble to fall and people to shout. Earthquake? The armory must've went up in flames, Deya passed it enough to know it lined the main support beam for this side of the complex.

She heard orders being yelled out from outside her door, and she naturally started eavesdropping. Her helmeted head near the door, but not looking outside the bars.

"We gotta get outside, right goddamn now!" It was a guard

"Door's jammed!" Another guard

*Bang* What was left of a guard.

"Shit! Kenny just blew up!" The second guard

"What? Why?" A third guard

That was Deya's own doing, she had gotten a moment to mess with some of the explosive carelessly lying about, she couldn't hide it on her person, but it certainly screwed up anyone who tried to detonate with a timer.

"Doesn't matter everyone out!"

"What about the quarian?"

"Leave her, Reeche can tear us a new asshole about leaving her behind after we get out of the building." Footsteps

No no no no no! Don't leave me in the collapsing building with all the dead people and crazy explosions!

As if by magic, her door toppled over, not opening, but the wall itself fell out from in front of her. She thought about it for half a second, and the other half was spent racing down the corridor in the opposite direction of the mercs.

After a dozen twists, a few turns, and a near-death experience involving a kitchen utensil that probably shouldn't have been protruding from the wall at that angle, she had managed to grab a machine pistol off a dead guard and find a door leading to an outside area, as in freedom! She could almost imagine herself almost imagining the smell of fresh air when a mercenary turned the corner started leveling his gun at her, probably thinking she caused this.

No sooner had she decided to sprint past the last two meters to him and the door, and in mid-stride, she heard the strangest sound in the world, like a drumbeat, only with more echo and sonic boom, and her visor suddenly became red, very red.

So this is what its like to be dead. How come I'm still running then? She was already outside, and saw through the haze of red that the guard's head had exploded as she ran past him. The red was not blood of her own, and it was all over her. Deya stated to feel queasy and tried to clean her visor quickly. She took in her surroundings whist doing this and noticed she was on the side of a road passing the compound. She hadn't stopped running for since she sprinted through the door.

After years of practice, she finally had the art of self-maintenance down and was now seeing the world clearly. Wasn't much better than the tinted version. People running a muck, piling into the ship she had 'repaired' and firing into an unseen angle. The loud roar she heard did nothing to quench her fears.

Through all the chaos, she noticed two figures on the roof of a two story building, one with a very large rifle, waving it in the air towards her. She then heard words she thought were reserved for childhood dreams.

" Deya'Torgue nar Koal, were here to save y-." The figure's perch broke out from under him in what might have been a structural weakness. She could hear the very loud curse in human tongue and saw

him hit the pavement directly onto his chest, she could only hope that his turian friend who currently had his hand on his face and turning to take the fire exit on the side of the building was helping her too.

Backing up time a bit...

Jakyll decided that the best way to infiltrate the base would be to don the uniform of the mercenaries that guarded it, his active camouflage had recently been buggy, recent rumors from the bars saying they saw a pair of detached legs running away from the docked trade ship did nothing to stifle this claim.

Once the two guards had been knocked out, he realized that their armor was very differentiating, shit, could have just walked in. He had disposed of the guards in the dumpster near Tylant's stakeout point.

Wouldn't have worked, probably had individual Ids, are all these guys freelance?

From here, all hell broke loose. First there was the earthquake, than the unsecured explosives in the base going off, or maybe it was that and the thresher maws, plural sprouting up all over the city. He saw the local mercs piling into the old frigate that was to serve as his escape route. Plan B, save quarian, steal Cerberus ship. As he thought of how he was going to make it there with all these thresher maws tearing the city apart, he spotted a group of mercs stepping out from the building, a few running for it, and a few standing around wondering what the hell was going on. Eventually the few standing around abandoned the complex, save for one, who turned around and raised his rifle. Jakyll was pretty sure the quarian could take care of itself, until he saw this quarian was attempting to run past the merc, and was a she. Exactly who he was looking for. Thankfully, Jakyll was already holding his Widow, and looked down the scope, fired and witnessed the mercenary face explode in a very nasty red, all in one heartbeat. He didn't expect the quarian to keep going after the merc lost his face, but there she was, running as far as the sidewalk till she realized she was coated in red.

After a few more potshots at the retreating mercenaries, Jakyll stood on the edge of the building, Finally realizing that Tylant was shooting right beside him. He actually hit a merc, granted it was in the cod-piece. Not fighting alone this time, gotta remember that. Can't let the kid die now. Gotta scold him on proper use of his weapon.

Jakyll started waving his arms, rifle in his right hand, and he shouted " Deya'Torgue nar Koal, were here to save y-."

The roof portion he was standing on gave out, all the way. Having his arms in the air did nothing to stop his fall as he landed on his chest, and felt his ribs hold, wish they didn't, pretty sure he felt them flex and bounce off some vital organs. Oooohh that hurt, chest pain, blacking out. Shit. Up to Tylant now.

Tylant stood as Jakyll stood, and watched as he made a fool of himself, flaying his arms in the air, screaming like a lunatic. When the building gave out from him, Tylant was preoccupied holding the palm of his hand to his face, hoping no one was getting footage of this. He didn't expect Jakyll to fall, let alone not being able to catch himself. The ridiculous situation just got toned up a notch. Taking the initiative, Tylant took to the fire escape on the side of the building and quickly moved down them.

/

Deya didn't think that anyone would come for her, but from the state of those two, she may have been better off on her own. She thought of checking on the human who had fallen on the roof, but her intuition says to avoid everyone. A quick rumble and the large ass thresher maw breaking through the remnants of the complex made her intuition change its mind. Maybe she should stop listening to it.

Tylant watched as the quarian sprinted across the street, covered in blood from the waist line up save the visor. Once he reached Jakyll, he realized the man was out cold, damn, he'll be heavy to carry. Do I even need to take him? The thresher maw that had burst through the merc complex was looking at them, and it started to retreat into the ground. Take now, decide later.

Tylant picked up the heavy human, putting the heavy rifle onto his back before hefting him onto his shoulder. The quarian was upon him now, asking question after question.

"Whats going on? Who are you? How is he? Who is he? Why is there an army of thresher maws attacking the town? Thats a big rifle. How are we escaping? Why did you come for me-"

Over the time she asked all of these, the turian had managed to get the human onto his shoulder, and was moving to the staircase. Stifling all the questions with a finger and moving towards the fire escape. He was way to worried about the giant worm to be annoyed.

"lets go." was all he uttered.

/

Jakyll woke to a familiar masked face, smiling a little as he saw the outline of his face as she seemed to be peering into his soul. Those masks reminded Jakyll of his father. Not a good time for a flashback. Then all his memories unflashed back to him and realized that this quarian was violating his personal space, by a lot more than he would let a normal person. She can stop slapping me from unconsciousness anytime.

Jakyll shot up, fast, his eyes wild, calculating the situation. Deya backed up quickly, analyzing him. Tylant was already on top of the situation, looking for the thresher that had focused its attention to the group. Some rumble started below the trio, and the thresher zeroed its way through the building they had set up on.

Oh shit Jakyll thought quickly, picking up the turian and throwing him over the alley that separated this building from the next. Directly away from the complex.

Oh shi-Tylant didn't have time to complete the thought as Jakyll picked him up and threw him from roof to roof. Across the alley that gaped between this building and the adjacent one.

Whats going on? The quarian was so lost, but this first thought was her last as the turian had gotten a hold of her arm and was propelled along with him to the adjacent building.

Jakyll pulled out his Widow, and started circling the beast, so that he was had a straightforward path and a little extra edge from the fire escape that lead down to the street, in case he need to run 'when the crap hit the oscillator' as his N7 instructor used to say. Turns out that chest wound had taken a lot out of him, he barely got lined up with the fire escape before the worm had locked on to the other two. The beast had forgotten about him and was about to hack one of those caustic loogies towards the others. He lowered his rifle and fired into its side, and the beast howled in agony as the round passed through it, out the other side, perpendicular to the two he was protecting. The acid dripped from its mouth as it failed to build up momentum. The gunk eating up the rooftop. Now the maw was pissed. Apparently it didn't like being made into maw kebab, so the beast was already turning, staggering slightly as rounds impacted it from the other two, who continued to run away.

Crap, gonna be another snotball headed towards me in two seconds. Jakyll holstered his rifle and turned around, at the same time starting to run, he made some airtime and jumped off the fire escape railing. He could hear the strange noise the creature emitted as the projectile was launched at him. Hitting the roof hard, he skirted against it on his stomach and was slowing to a halt. Extending his right arm and gripping against the surface to increase friction. He stopped and saw as the other two were stopped three buildings away and opened fire on the maw, who started going into the ground. Jakyll grinned, thinking he had gotten away with superficial damage, there was too much opportunity for the worm to waste energy on them. The next sound Jakyll heard was not pleasant, a strange sizzling coming from his right as skin down to his bone dissolved, showing off the gleaming synthetic bone weave he had augmented himself with.

Tylant stopped as he saw Jakyll jump over the roof and the toxic sludge arc through the air, very slowly. Maybe his firing the rifle behind his back with the quarian in tow had paid off. He watched the ball as it hit the roof beside Jakyll, but he couldn't tell if he was hit, the lip of the roof obscured his vision. Even being three blocks away did nothing to dampen the scream of shock that came from the man. He gripped his arm and started running, extremely fast, clutching his right arm with his left.

Deya never stopped firing her machine pistol at the maw, pausing only to eject a spent thermal clip. She saw the human jump over the alleyway, and saw out the corner of her visor as the blot almost hit him. The scream however, stopped her from aiming, and surprised her enough to glance back to his direction. Keelah, look at his arm! No way he'll make it with the pain he's feeling.

Thank god I can't feel this, I'm gonna need some extreme medical attention after this. Jakyll took off running, holstering his weapon and taking off towards the other two. Shit shit shit, gotta find that Cerberus ship fast.

Jump after jump, the human vaulted over the building that were conveniently made the same height, never stopping to glance back at his arm, hoping the pain kept away. He was gonna feel this one in a bit, he could already feel the underside of his arm stinging with report from the edges of the wound. Once he was parallel to the other two, he took a quick right and joined up with the other three. Never breaking stride, only looking at them to say "Keep up!" as he swerved past them.

Tylant had gotten a glance at the arm and almost vomited right then and there. The acid had done its damage and then became a hardened substance, keeping the blood from flowing freely. Thresher Maws, natures little twist of cruelty. Least he didn't get hit in the leg, that would kill all of them right then and there, Jakyll was the only one who knew where the Cerberus ship was. They had discussed the plan of action over the course of the night before the take down, but the merc complex was overrun way before they had to resort to even crossing the street.

Deya was tired, she hadn't slowed down for anything and the repercussions were hitting her like so many throat punches. She didn't have time to think, she barley had time to register that the human had stopped five strides ago, and there didn't appear to be any more roof to run over.

Tylant could only watch in horror as the quarian ran right over the ledge of the building. Gravity went into effect immediately, and she almost disappeared from sight. The last thing he expected the quarian to do was shoot up.

Jakyll was thinking of where the ship was located, at least across the street coming up. Street? Jakyll slowed down and stopped near the edge of the building. Glancing down, it was a good a drop, bout the same as the one that knocked him out when he hit concrete with his chest. No fire exit on this one, but he didn't plan on landing with his face. The quarian took the initiative, or was simply not thinking straight. Right off the building, almost an immediate drop, than she appeared to have hitched a piggyback ride on a thresher maw.

Vertigo is something any quarian can handle, but the sheer G-force followed by the slight vertigo was too much, she vomited in her helmet. She then proceeded to faint, caught on one of the many 'feelers' appearing at random on the maw. Jakyll thought quickly and pulled out his heavy pistol, shooting at the thresher to get its attention.

He shouted at Tylant "Aim at the base of the arm!"

Jakyll was right-handed, not taken that opportunity to try and master the art of being ambidextrous, he could see the training paying off now as he tried to shoot the beast in the eye opposite the quarian. None hit home, and he felt ashamed to call himself a marksmen.

Tylant started shooting at the base of the appendage, only nicking the quarian once, which was impressive on his shooting record, but could end up fatal for her part. The shot had nicked the corner of her visor, but he didn't have time to look at the extent of the damage. As the limb broke and fell, so did she, dropping off the worm as graceful as a bag of rocks. Without thinking, Tylant launched after her, and found out that the drop went over the edge of the building.

While Tylant was busy playing hero, Jakyll had been trying to extract the spent thermal clip with one hand, eventually grabbing it by the slide and making a vertical pump motion. The spent clip ejected, he flipped the gun back to his left hand, extended his arm to steady his aim, and shot the maw right in the giant worm equivalent of a cornea.

Scene tidbit

One of the mercenaries caught up in the uproar had a holo recorder, and caught the moment on tape. When the planet is to be taken by Alliance in the future year of 2194, the clearing of the Morgue would consist of an aerial assault, taking out the maws while in the safety in the sky. When the holo was eventually found in the severed skeletal arm of a corpse, the image would be carved into stone and put into the town's square, showing every detail intricately, from the turian jumping over the building, the quarian almost in his arms, to the shot to the eye just impacting the flesh. The piece was called 'Ghosts of the Morgue' A term that would had carried over to any survivor from the start of the incident.

Back to the story!

Tylant caught Deya in mid-air, and proceeded to turn over on his back to reduce the impact of the road. He hit, and slid, sparks scouring over the road but at least the pilot was safe. Normally turians didn't turn pail, but the mixture coating the interior of the visor could have been blood, he didn't know how quarian physiology worked. There blood could have been this pale mixture of strange lumps of... turian military rations? Oh thank the spirits its vomit. The mixture was oozing out of a small hole in the top left corner of her helmet. I don't think theres any blood in this gunk, I don't think she was hit.

Jakyll watched the worm retreat down the hole, blinding a side of it had pissed it off beyond measure, but pain came before fury, and the worm collapsed to its right side, crushing a merc that thought recording this was a good idea, once it hit the road, the worm dragged itself into the hole it came from, dragging the body under it into a multitude of... stuff. Jakyll didn't have time to observe the lurid scene, he jumped down from the building, happy to land on his feet.

"Lets go."

/

"On it, where too now?" He had hoisted the quarian over his shoulder, drawing his pistol and cursing himself for leaving his rifle on the roof.

The ship, its on the other side of the Blue Sun recruitment building. Jakyll pointed out the complex, the low building recently abandoned for obvious reasons. Screams filled the air that were not nearly as audible since the party of three was preoccupied with the previous maw.

The riot in front of the large vessel was the possibly the second worst thing that could happen today, the first being the small armada of worms destroying the colony. Setting up on a multilevel shuttle garage behind the ship, Jakyll was looking down the scope of his widow, starting to feel the pain seeping into his arm, the artificial bandage of hardened sludge was cracking and blood was seeping from multiple orifices. Glancing over to Tylant, he instructed him to keep the helmet crack pointed downward so the contents of the helmet would drain. She wouldn't be able to see anything and the exposure to the air would probably mean an allergic reaction. He really hoped this didn't kill her. It shouldn't, but he had seen plenty of good servicemen get killed from a minor suit puncture.

Tylant was observing the riot down below, at least fifty armed civilians and assorted mercenaries with guns attempting to get into the ship. The frigate was not boxy, but looked to be held together by some hexagonal shaped armor, giving the ship a strange abstract shape. a Blue Suns logo crudely grafted onto the sides.

Having actually infiltrated the ship a while back, Jakyll knew that the airtight hatch on the top of the freighter was a structural weak point, having poor security on the software side. Jakyll motioned for Tylant to follow, and they maneuvered down a level, giving the perfect elevation for a jump onto the ship.

"Alright, this is how this is going to go. Ill jump first, and you toss Deya over to me. I need you to get her to wake up while I address the crowd below."

"Ok, but whats the point of dealing with the crowd? Aggravating them doesn't seem like a good idea."

"Don't worry about that, ill get you inside, but you need to wake her up. She is the only one on this planet who can get us out of here before we're worm chow." Jakyll was looking at his arm the entire time, estimating the time he had left before blood loss would be an issue. At least his hand worked still, he didn't expect that. That means it could still be saved.

"You gonna be alright?" Tylant was looking at the arm with fearful disdain, not only because it looked bad, but because he had never seen such an injury. It had always been bullet wounds or perhaps an explosion shell shocking someone, but never limb removal. Not that the limb was off, he could see the barest glimpse of bone, surprisingly catching in the light. Must be those synthetics showing, least Jakyll isn't a liar. But dying with a clear conscious was not the goal here. Living was priority one.

The human backed from the railing, and took a handful of deep breaths. Once he felt his shot nerves were getting their bearings, he sprinted for the barrier and ran through the open spot Tylant broke out of.

The leap of faith was witnessed by the crowd, and it became noticeably quiet as the quarian followed a minute after a few shouted orders were exchanged between the man and an unseen person. The man caught the quarian, shouting a curse that was followed with him laying her down slowly and the cradling of his right limb.

Tylant got a running start and followed after the human, landing on a slope of the freighter leading to another flat surface. Regaining his balance Tylant moved up the short slope and watched as Jakyll went to work on the lock, and the crowd interrupted in hatred as they comprehended what they saw. These three unknowns were leaving in the last ship on this side of the planet. In twelve seconds, the human had the lock opened after rewiring some circuits.

"You have to get the second lock, take my omnitool, and for the all our sakes wake her ass up. She's the only one who can get us out of here."

Tylant had mounted the still-unconscious quarian over his shoulder as he maneuvered into the airlock, the omnitool secured onto his left wrist before taking the girl in. Jakyll heard the uproar from the crowd and decided to let them know what he was doing before they started shooting at them.

He drew his widow and fired it into the air near the edge of the ship facing the crowd. The report of his rifle made the uproar and frenzy pause to look at him, many pleading, many crying, even more frantic. Not to mention angry.

"I need for you people to listen!" All eyes on him

"I am going to open the loading bay ramp, and let you all in, when I do, do not make me regret it, I want all weapons you have put in a corner, there will be no hostilities on this ship. I will fly this ship to the Citadel, I don't care if your wanted in Citadel space, I don't care if your stuck with people you don't get along with. We will leave this place, under one goal, survival."

Tylant radioed in on his omnitool "Shes awake, and we have control, I'm in the cockpit now, we'll take off on your mark."

On his earpeice Jakyll responded, "Move to cargo, lower the lift, I am not leaving these people here."

"Understood." I hope we have enough time to do this, we have been lucky so far, no maws have hit the crowd yet.

"This is not a time of heroes." Tylant found the cargo control and worked around until he found the lever to lower the ramp. He pulled

The ramp lowered, but they still watched him. Hanging on his every word.

"Enter now, and embrace a new future! An unshackled future! A future off this backwater planet, with your life in your hands!"

The people cheered, which he found amazing, that was his first speech, unprepared and under some of the arguably worst circumstances.

He almost smiled, but the pain radiating from his arm was interrupting his train of thought.

"Hurry up now, pile in!"

People moved into the freighter, quickly, but considerately so. Nobody questioned his authority, nobody shoved to move in front, nobody questioned his authority. That was a first.

Jakyll gazed into the distance, the Batarian frigate pulling into the sky at an alarming rate. Thresher maws surrounding the takeoff site. It was the strangest thing, the front end of the craft shifted, and broke off the engines and fuel supply. He watched the front end fall to earth through his scope, it impacting the ground with a very dull thud that was only heard but not felt. The screams of the worms filled the sky. He knew that those bastards would only have tried to save themselves, that kilometer long fall should have killed all of them. Not that he had time to investigate. There was a buzzing in his left ear.

"Everyone is on board, get inside before we take off with you on the ship." Tylant, damn, I'm getting lost in thought. Jakyll put himself into the airlock, and sealed the hatch. Noticing a lightheaded feeling, he started thinking of where to look for the med bay. His wound starting to hurt less. Not good.

"Sealing down outer hull now." He opened the second door, which closed automatically. Suddenly everything seemed to slow down as the floor suddenly got closer and darkness enclosed his eyes.

A/N: God this was long, hope you enjoyed it, im probably not very good at proofreading, so point out some errors and ill see what I can do about it. Reviews greatly appreciated, ideas and suggestions may be considered. Next update will probably be over the weekend.