The Presidium 2190
9:15 am

An unsettling silence had descended upon himself and the Commander. So quiet he could almost make out the words between Vakarian and his father from within the soundproof room. He could feel the vibrations of their sub-vocals tingling against the lining of his cowl, but he was unable to parse any real meaning from them.

Were they arguing?

"Sanctuary is..." Commander Shepard's hand clenched into a tight fist. "Not something I like to think about."

"So what I heard was true then... What was done to all the people... all the families that went there."

"Yes." She looked at him, remorse reflecting in her eyes. "I'm sorry."

So was he. He pictured little Apter's bright blue eyes, shining with curiosity while he followed him around the camps, lobbing questions at every turn. It hurt to think he had dodged a proverbial bullet, but allowed it to punch through the skull of a child.

A low keen escaped him and he appreciated that the Commander pretended not to notice.

"I would like to hear more about Sanctuary sometime, if you don't mind." Her eyes hardened on him, but he willed himself to hold her gaze. "I owe it to Apter and his family to know exactly what they went through."

"It might take a few drinks to get it out of me," she said.

"I'll buy."

Her eyes softened at that, but she didn't smile. She gave him a quick nod and said, "Alright." Then, eager to move on from the topic that clearly disturbed her most, she told him, "I don't remember seeing you at the camps. I stopped by there a few times, but Garrus was there quite a bit on behalf of the Primarch. Do you remember ever seeing him?"

He looked up at the ceiling as he rifled through four years of memory. "I think I might have seen him once or twice, but it wasn't until I saw you two during the coup when it clicked in my head that I knew you somehow. You look pretty different out of your armor. Maybe it was all the shooting that jogged my memory." He removed his eye from the ceiling to level her with a pointed look. "That was how I met you two."

"True," she acknowledged. She shifted her back against the wall, wincing slightly at the motion. Once she was comfortable again, she regarded him and confessed, "Cerberus paid for what they did. I want you to know that."

He nodded, not knowing what to say. Revenge could be sweet, but in this case it was little consolation for what happened to the good, kind family.

The Commander went on. "Actually, I was at the Cerberus facility when the reapers took the Citadel. I didn't find out about it until my crew and I were on our way to Earth. By then it was too late to do anything about it except to kill those bastards as quick as I could."

"You certainly did that." His mandible flared into a wry smile.

She playfully bumped her shoulder against his. "Continue your story."

Docking Bay D-24 2187
7:13 am

During the coup, there was chaos. People ran in all directions, hiding from the armed Cerberus soldiers. This time, however, the population of the Citadel ran to one place, the docking bays. Felix had never seen it more packed than it was and he knew it was only going to get worse if he didn't get to his assigned shuttle as soon as possible. He paused for only a second to look at the prefab that had served as his home for months and then again at the one that had sheltered the Posnions as he past it. He would have dragged them to the shuttle assigned to him.

With a heavy heart, he abandoned his home and stepped into the pandemonium.

It took far longer than he would have liked to get to his shuttle. He was pushed and jostled around, but he was determined to remain standing for fear that he wouldn't get up again if he went down. He was not inclined to die via trampling. Finally, he climbed aboard and began helping his passengers onto the shuttle.

Alongside him, C-sec officers did their best to reign in the upheaval and get as many people onto the shuttles as they could. Leaving no room for themselves, Felix realized. Though he was sure some would squeeze on at the last minute, many had a resolved look in their eyes as they ushered person after person. This was how they would go; serving the public to the very end.

Turian through and through.

Naturally, his eye scanned the crowd for the officer he'd come to call his friend, but it would be some time before he saw him. When he did spot him parting the crowd, dragging Sarah by the arm, relief washed over him. That was, until he heard the sound of his subharmonics. He knew what he was going to say before he'd even voiced it.

"Get on the shuttle," he told his ward, voice sounding more detached than Felix had ever heard him. He clearly had no intention of joining her as he roughly shoved Sarah in front of him toward the open hatch. Felix automatically reached a hand to her but she balked and turned to face her guardian.

"Not without you."

"My place is here. Get on the shuttle," he repeated, emotionless.

"No." She shook her head.

"Get-" His hands gripped her shoulders. "On-" He forcefully turned her. "The shuttle." And shoved her again toward the hatch, but she ripped away from him.

A litany of "no's" fell from her lips as she shook her head harder and her eyes shown with unshed tears.

Nellus repeated the same order, but was met with more refusal.

"GET ON THE FUCKING SHUTTLE, SARAH!"

Sarah froze in place. Her widened blue eyes allowed the tears that had been pooling in her ducts to finally flow freely, staining her cheeks. Felix had heard Nellus curse plenty of times, but never around Sarah and he certainly never spoke to her with a tone like that. He had to suppress a shiver, for it wasn't anger that reverberated in his second vocals.

It was terror.

Instead of countering with a shout of her own, Sarah wordlessly raised her hands to Nellus' face. She was too short to reach so, despite himself, Nellus bent to allow her hands to cup his mandibles.

Felix pretended not to notice the desperate keen that emitted from the depths of Nellus' chest.

"I already had to leave my parents to die," she said, acknowledging out loud, for the first time, what Felix and Nellus knew all along. "Don't you dare ask me to do that again- Not to you. Don't you dare. All those hours we spent at the Armax Arena weren't for nothing. I can fight. I'm strong now." She gave his head a slight shake. "Damnit, you made me strong."

She withdrew her hands from the turian and reached for a -very illegal- C-sec issued pistol, holstered at her hip. She drew it and within seconds she removed the mag, pulled back the slide, released it, reinserted the mag, and flicked the safety off. With a fierce determination in her eyes, she stood ready with the barrel pointed in the air.

"You'll die here," her guardian lamented.

"I know what we're up against. I've already seen them, remember?" She smiled. "And if I die, it's okay. It's my choice to make. I'm done running."

It was a well-made argument considering the race of her intended audience and Felix could tell the profound impact her words had on Nellus. As people continued to file past them, spreading goodbyes in the air, the human and the turian stood silently, staring at each other. Finally, Nellus capitulated with a nod, flicking a mandible into a wry smile.

"Alright," he relented.

"Alright," she confirmed.

Nellus turned his gaze onto Felix next and stepped toward him.

"We're headed to the Invictus colony," Felix informed him. "Sources say that's one of the least impacted places thus far-"

He was cut off as Nellus gripped his shoulder and tugged Felix down to press his red-painted brow against his. Taken aback at the sudden show of affection, Felix stiffened at the contact. Before he could think to respond, Nellus pulled away and met his gaze. He felt the cold steel of a pistol pushed into his hands.

"Get these people there safely," the officer ordered. He then turned, meeting the eyes of his little ward before the two left him behind and disappeared into the crowd.

Shastinasio, Invictus 2187
1:18pm

Unfortunately, Invictus would prove to only be safe for so long. Only three days after Felix flew himself and three-hundred lives to Invictus' capitol city, Shastinasio, did the reapers lower themselves from the sky. Felix watched, transfixed as they descended and quaked the ground with their colossal legs upon landing. Then the beasts vibrated the very air with their deafening growls, which left Felix without any doubts that he had seen them before.

That sound was unforgettable.

The reaper trumpeted again before the core just above its head peeled opened, revealing a flash of red half a second before it obliterated hundred-year-old buildings along with any souls that failed to get out of the way.

Felix turned and ran for all the good it would do him. Hearing the grunts and snarls of the twisted forces that gave chase behind him, he drew his C-sec-issued pistol and prepared himself for a fight.

Another deafening roar vibrated the ground beneath his feet and then a flash of red colored his vision. He wouldn't realize he'd gone airborne until his body harshly met the ground again. He felt the wind get knocked out of him and it was only made worse by the dust and debris that now coated his lungs. Then he heard an animalistic snarl and he knew he had no time to dwell on his injuries.

Swaying slightly, he forced himself up and would have taken off again if not for the terrified cry that reverberated off the inside of his cowl. He looked around for the source, squinting through the haze until his eyes fell on a small turian girl, pinned under the rubble of a fallen building.

Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one that heard her cry. A gargantuan mish-mash of both krogan and turian parts began to lumber her way.

'Service before self,' was what Felix told himself as he ran for her, willing himself to top speed despite the hindrances of both his prosthetic and the rugged terrain he had to traverse. The brute had a mountain of rubble to scale before it could reach them, which was what instilled a small amount of confidence that he could reach her in time if he hurried.

He dropped to his knees the instant he got to her.

"You're okay," he tried to sooth. "Let's get you out of there."

The little girl looked at him, fear and confusion darkened her eyes.

"I'm stuck!" She cried, but not in Imperan, and that was when Felix realized that his translator had been taken out during the blast he'd taken. Regardless of that, Felix was amazed to discover that he understood her perfectly.

Apparently he was bi-lingual too.

"Here, grab my hand. I'll get you out," he told her in fluent Invictus. She did. Felix leaned back and braced his good foot against the wall of rubble that pinned the little turian. He pulled her while simultaneously pushing on the rubble, taking small victories for every centimeter he earned.

The monstrous creature roared below them, slipping and sliding on shifting debris as it redoubled its efforts to reach them. To Felix's horror, it was clearly gaining ground up the incline faster than any headway he was making for his endeavor. Still, he pulled, ignoring the sound of concrete cracking under the beast's massive bulk or the way it snarled viciously at them. His heart pounded in his chest as it grew closer and closer. He could hear-no, feel the second set of cords from the poor turian used to make such a monstrosity as it made its ascent.

"No, no. Look at me," Felix tried to sooth the girl, not wanting her to see the cold white optics before it killed them both. "It's okay. Just look at me." Spirits bless her, she tried, but when the creature reared up, roaring its victory she couldn't help but look at it.

She screamed.

A blue force-field appeared around them just in time to deflect the monster's large fist.

'Biotics?' The creature screamed it's frustration right before the rubble it stood on glowed blue. It screamed again as it was lifted and thrown away from them to tumble unceremoniously down the incline.

A male turian suddenly flickered into his field of vision on a stream of biotic energy. He stood crouched in a fighting stance with dark energy crackling his fingertips. At the wave of a hand, the rubble pinning the girl was lifted off her only to be effortlessly thrown through the air, following the path the brute had taken. Felix heard it roar as the massive piece of wall collided into it.

Their savior said nothing when he stooped to scoop the girl up. He then looked at Felix and appraised him with conflict in his eyes. Just as he looked like he was about to turn and leave him, the little girl in his arms spoke up.

"He tried to save me. We can't leave him!"

Rather than wait for a decision, Felix took the lead, thankful for the potential to have someone watching his back.

"Come on, we'll sequester in the jungle until reinforcements arrive."

Every turian child was taught in school the failure that almost was the Invictus colony. The jungle was so full of inhospitable plants and animals that it made establishing any sort of civilization nearly impossible. As a result, colonies were set up in the hot, dry deserts just on the outskirts of the equator; warm enough for turian life, but dry enough to keep the jungle at bay. The small population and relative lack of resources was likely the cause for the reapers disinterest, keeping them safe.

'Until now, anyway.'

As he sprinted toward the treeline, it was Felix's hope that the fauna of the Invictus jungle would prove just as merciless to the reaper forces that tailed them. It was dangerous, but he didn't see any other way of giving them the slip. It would either be his undoing or his salvation.

To his surprise and, he'll admit, relief the other turian followed.

"There won't be any reinforcements," the turian informed him with an Invictus tongue. "The Chief Primarch took the bulk of the entire Hierarchy fleets to Earth."

"Earth?" Felix questioned, sprinting toward the treeline.

"It would seem they have some sort of plan they mean to put into action. They've towed something there they call, the Crucible."

Felix had heard of it. Engineers and scientists of all races had gone to and from the Citadel, spending time in the docking bay speaking out loud of the project. They did so with so much hope in their voices.

Felix's muscles were starting to burn, more so on his left side for having to compensate for his hindered right. His heart hammered against the inside of his carapace, but he ignored it. They had to fight hard against the soft sand that absorbed the impact of their feet.

At last they approached the treeline and slowed to a stop. The three turians stared into the dark jungle as if it was yet another beast intent on eating them. Maybe it was. Then they heard the pained shrieks and screams of those less fortunate behind them and their hesitation faded.

"A house in an Invictus jungle." The man quoted the modern turian phrase that meant, an idea that seems like a good idea, but only to the person who came up with it.

Quashing his fears, they stepped beyond the treeline.

Felix cursed as he swiped at an insect that landed on the inside of his cowl. The effort was futile because two more simply landed in place of the first's absence. They had been moving through the trees for what felt like hours, jumping at every noise, unsure of what to be more afraid of; the reaper forces or a large hungry creature that could be tailing them.

In an effort to distract himself from the constant feeling of being watched, Felix said, "Name's Felix, by the way."

The turian in front, still carrying the child, didn't respond. Instead, the little girl peered at Felix over his shoulder and answered for him.

"I'm Malpia," she told him, mandibles fluttering into a smile. "This is Voltaire. He's my brother."

"Quiet, Maly," her brother chided her.

"But-"

"Maly."

"Sorry." Her mandibles pulled tight against her face, chastised.

The group spent the rest of the day, walking in silence. Felix tried not to think about the way his left leg throbbed with every step he took with it. Every tree root seemed intent on tripping him, but like in the docking bay, he endeavored to keep himself upright. He wasn't sure he'd get back up if he went down. The thought of rest was an alluring one, but he didn't want to appear weak. He got the impression that Voltaire already viewed him as a risk to both himself and his little sister.

Mercifully, Voltaire finally stopped. "I think we're far enough for now." He then lowered his sister to the ground to gauge the injuries she sustained hours ago. It was the first moment he'd been able to, Felix noted.

"Does it hurt when I do this?" He asked her as he pushed and probed her legs and torso with his fingertips. When he pressed underneath her keel, she hissed.

"There," she told him, raising a hand to brush the spot.

Breaking or damaging a turian's keel was a hard thing to do, but when it happened, it was difficult at the best of times to treat. Let alone being stranded in the middle of nowhere without access to any kind of first aid whatsoever. By the way Voltaire's mandibles pinched his jaw, he knew this.

"Nothing we can do about it now. Just rest for a while." He lowered himself to the ground and gathered the child in his arms, careful of her keel. "Try to get some sleep, ok?"

"What about you?" She asked him, sub-vocals warbling with worry.

"I'm resting too," he told her, flicking a mandible into a rare smile. "I've got our new friend to watch over me."

At this, the little turian's eyes sought Felix out and he felt the need to put a lid on his pain, straightening his posture. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she regarded her brother again and said, "Good. You need to rest too. Your nose is bleeding again."

Voltaire brushed his nose with the back of his hand and observed the blue blood that left a streak across his hide.

"I've just been going a little overboard with the biotics, that's all. You know that. I'll give them a rest."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Felix attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible especially when Voltaire's subharmonics began to hum a soothing sound to lull the child to sleep. He simply scanned the perimeter of their little resting area and listened hard for any sign of danger.

After a while, Maly fell into a light sleep, nestled against her brother's chest. Only then did Voltaire look up to regard the one-eyed turian.

"You're not from around here, are you?" He asked.

Felix smiled wryly. "That obvious, huh?"

To his mild surprise, Voltaire shook his head. "Not really. Your accent could use a little work, but your Invictus is good. It's your tattoos that really give you away or... what's left of them. I have to wonder, who taught a Palaven boy to speak Invictus so fluently?"

"It's important to learn the language of those hostile towards you," Felix remembered. "You'll blend in far more fluidly without the use of your translator. Spirits know that's saved my life more than a few times."

Felix shrugged. "Don't know."

"You don't know?" Voltaire stared at him skeptically.

At that point, Felix was too tired to explain the whole story so he sufficed by gesturing to the damaged part of his face. Voltaire seemed to get his meaning, indicated by the way he hmm'd and nodded.

"Are you a native?" Felix asked, determined to keep his mind off all the potential dangers that lurked around them.

"Born and raised, Maly and I. She doesn't know anything outside this colony." The thought of asking the status of the rest of the family occurred to Felix, but he dismissed it. Given their absence, he could draw his own conclusions. He saw enough separated families on the docking bay to know how sensitive a question that was.

Instead he asked, "Were you with the cabals?"

"No." At first, he thought that was all the answer he would get. Then Voltaire continued with, "They don't enforce that rule here. Nor did I get shipped off to boot camp at fifteen."

"They don't do that either?"

"It's an option, but it's not forced on us. Our government may be a part of the Hierarchy, but only in name. I'd say we have a lot more freedoms here than you have on Palaven and the other loyalist colonies." He said the word 'loyalist' like an expletive.

"You have more crime," Felix pointed out. "Mercenaries, vigilantes, smuggling."

"Yes." Voltaire nodded. "Freedoms. Invictus means unconquered; A fitting name to reference the nature of the colonists here."

'Or a metaphor for how this rock is impossible to properly colonize.'

Felix couldn't say he agreed that 'freedoms' was synonymous with anarchy, but he felt disinclined to offend the closest thing he'd made to a friend since leaving the Citadel.

"I was a hit-man before all this happened," the other turian confessed. "Pretty damn good one too. Been at the job going on six years now."

Startled slightly at the admission, Felix said, "You're awful open about that."

Voltaire shrugged. "What does it matter when we're facing our extinction? If I'm going to go out, I'd like to do so as an honest man."

"Does she know?" Felix inclined his head toward the sleeping girl in the killer's arms.

Voltaire followed his gaze and smiled softly at the snoozing child. "No. She thinks I'm out protecting people as a bodyguard. I know sooner or later she'll find out the truth, but my hope was that I'd be done with the work before that happened. Hers is one look of disappointment I don't ever want to face."

"Well if the reapers win, you won't have to."

Voltaire huffed a dry laugh. "Well there's one positive takeaway."

Night had begun to darken the forest by the time both adult turians were able to get some rest, though not nearly as much as Felix would have liked. He didn't even try to sleep, partly for the danger around him and partly for his company.

Voltaire's confession hadn't exactly inspired much confidence in him and Felix wasn't sure if he'd wake up with a knife to his throat. That, or wake up only to discover he'd been abandoned. He wasn't sure which outcome was worse.

He was thankful for his natural night vision, though it only helped a little against the thick foliage that blotted out the stars and moons. As they continued their escape into the forest with no true destination in mind, he felt exhausted. His limbs were like lead that he had to force into action despite their weight. In addition to that, they had to move silently, adding extra strain on his already overtaxed muscles.

The sound of a twig snapping ahead of them brought the trio to a sudden standstill. There eyes scanned the trees, searching for any sign of movement. A cold finger of dread slid its way up Felix's spine. He didn't have to see the white optics flash out from the darkness to know they'd been caught.

Another twig snapped, this time at their right and Felix felt himself take a step back.

Trees went careening aside in a wash of rocks and dust as a giant abomination threw itself at them with a roar that pierced the night, calling its brethren to it. Disregarding his earlier promise, Voltaire's talons lit up with dark energy before he swept the creature off its feet and sent it careening into the reinforcements that were bringing up its rear. The action would only buy a couple seconds for the trio to turn and run.

Tree limbs and branches whipped at their faces as they launched themselves through the dark, forgetting the natural dangers of the jungle. All that processed through their minds was the ground vibrating beneath them as the brute gave chase. A second roar and Felix knew there were two, no- three. Gun fire, snarls and screams accompanied the bellow in a crescendo of death.

All Felix could do was run like the prey he knew they'd become. He was slowed by his prosthetic, but he was still just able to keep up with Voltaire because he was slowed under the weight of his sister. She rode on his back, legs clamped around his waist while her hands gripped the back of his cowl. She pressed her face against the back of his neck with her eyes scrunched shut in fear.

Every now and again, Voltaire's biotics would flare and Felix would hear a tree crash down behind him or the fading shriek as a creature was picked up and thrown.

It was blind fear that gripped his heart and pushed his legs past what he knew was their breaking point.

Felix looked up just in time to catch Voltaire as he glanced back at him. There was an apology in his eyes and suddenly that cold finger he felt earlier had turned into a ham-fisted punch to the spine.

Voltaire had decided to leave him behind.

Before Felix could give voice to- what? Beg? Plead? Object? Even he wasn't sure. His eye widened with horror when he saw the length of Voltaire's arms light up. The crackling dark energy traveled down to his legs and he was gone a split second later.

'Spirits, no!' His mind descended into blind, helpless panic.

"No. No." He breathed.

He was going to die alone. Alone and scared and helpless and-

Instinct took over to change his course away from the sound of the bone-chilling scream he heard from the direction Voltaire disappeared. His heart clenched painfully in his chest. The scream did not come from one of the abominations that chased him.

It came from the subharmonics of a little turian girl.

He didn't have time to dwell on that thought as his remaining eye caught a flicker of movement from his blind spot. Too late. Something that looked like an asari once appeared out of the darkness in front of him. His feet skidded to a halt and he attempted to change direction, but with a wave of the banshee's finger, he felt his ankle slide out from underneath him and he crashed to the ground.

Immediately his talons went to work, digging furrows in the moist soil as he scrambled to his feet. He willed both legs to move, trying to gain traction so he could kick off the ground but found that only one was doing any work. That's when he realized that, despite him still feeling the leg no longer there, his prosthetic had been disconnected, rendering his right leg as nothing more than a useless stump.

Still, as futile as the logical side of his brain reasoned, his instincts drove him to try. Then he felt long fingers slither around his ankle before he could crawl more than a few inches. He felt the once-asari's nails bite into his tough hide, her skin so cold that it burned as she dragged him backwards like he weighed nothing at all.

Then, like an insect, she crawled over him on sprawling arms and legs to enclose her nails around his crest. One of them came to rest just centimeters from his good eye. Then she let loose a scream like he'd never heard. Triumph maybe.

His mind raced with every horrible outcome to his fate, each one worst than the last. Would she simply kill him? Would he be indoctrinated within seconds and turned into a screaming husk of a turian? Would he then be set loose on the people he'd come to care for over the past year?

Amber eyes and a tattooed face.

He was powerless to stop the scream that ripped from his lungs. His subharmonics carried all his terror and loss and rage into the trees where no one was around to hear it save for the encroaching horde that seemed to revel in it. Their hisses and screams and cries joined his in a deafening crescendo, beaten only by the monster that pinned him down, screaming in his ear.

A flash of red enveloped his vision, blinding him.

'This is it,' he thought to himself.

He laid trembling on the ground for several minutes before his brain was able to compute the sudden lack of weight on his back.

Then he noticed the sound of absolute silence.

Felix allowed himself a moment to take in the fact that he was still alive. The screams and snarls from before had been replaced by the typical chirps and chatter from the jungle's nocturnal wildlife. His heart still hammered against his carapace, causing his air to leave him in short, rapid breaths. It was after he managed to lower his heart rate that he felt an unpleasant, sticky moisture clinging to his thighs.

He'd pissed himself and unfortunately he had calmed himself down enough to feel embarrassed about it. Hesitantly, he raised his head from the ground and began to take in his surroundings as far as his night vision would allow. He took in the sight of strange, gray, piles of dust that surrounded him haphazardly.

'The reaper forces,' his rebooting brain supplied. They had been reduced to ashes. His eye fell on all the piles closest to him, causing his body to shudder. In his terror he hadn't realized how close they were to him. He was literally seconds from death... and then that red light lit up the atmosphere around him.

He used his still-trembling arms to push his upper body off the ground, trying hard not to retch up his last meal as he did so. Remembering the seconds before the monster grabbed him, he seated himself upright and looked around for his missing leg.

Indignantly, he began a slow crawl along the ground, feeling around in the dark as he went until, at last, he found his prize buried under the ashes of the fallen. After a quick inspection, he snapped it back in place and began the arduous process of climbing to his feet.

Surrounded by the ashes of his enemies, he stood alone in the darkness.

Then he remembered he wasn't alone and a heartbeat after that, he remembered the blood-curdling scream he heard. Afraid of what he would see, Felix turned for the direction he saw Voltaire disappear in. It wasn't hard to recall which direction that was either. All he had to do was follow the ashes of the forces that continued to chase him down.

As he picked his way through the jungle, he began to feel a hum prickle the inside of his cowl. It wasn't a sound he wanted to hear. It was the sound of a defeated turian keening his loss. Felix's stomach plummeted to his feet, knowing the scene he was about to intrude on as the sound grew louder as he got closer.

Voltaire had not made it far in his escape. Felix found him hunched over a particularly large pile of ashes. His back was turned to him, but Felix could see clearly the way it trembled with each racking sob that left him. Voltaire's subharmonics emitted a constant keen as he rocked and shook. It was an effective saline to wash away any anger Felix might have felt at his betrayal.

Afraid of startling a distraught biotic, Felix gently called his name.

"Voltaire." He got no response, though he felt sure he was heard. Tentatively, he stepped closer, steeling himself for what he knew he was about to see.

His heart lurched painfully in his chest regardless.

In Voltaire's arms was the limp and bloody body of his little sister. She was covered head to toe in ashes, which painted a horrific picture of her end in Felix's brain. Gray dust colored her clothes and created rough patches everywhere she had bled from. Felix winced. There were a lot of clotted ashes.

"They ripped her right off my back!" Voltaire wailed. "I had her! I had her!"

He bowed his head to press against her brow, bringing him level with her open sightless eyes. He lingered like that for a moment before he reached up to her face in an attempt to close her eyes. It wouldn't work, Felix knew. That only worked in the vids. He had to look away when Voltaire repeated the action and failed again and again.

"What are you doing here?" Voltaire asked, his eyes never leaving his sister's. "Come to gloat? Happy I got what I deserved for leaving you like that?"

"No," Felix shook his head instantly. He remembered the conflict he saw on his face. He knew he didn't want to do it, but he did so thinking he was saving the only family he had left. In his place, Felix might have done the same thing. Not knowing what else to say, he uttered, "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" His voice was quiet. In an instant, Malpia fell limp from her brother's arms as he stood up, filling Felix's vision with his grizzly face. There was blood pouring from his nose. Then he roared, "YOU'RE SORRY?"

Felix was unafraid after seeing the state of his face. He had exhausted his biotics, likely using up a large amount in his escape.

"They're all dead!" He screamed, waving an arm at the dust piles around them. "It's all over. All I needed- all she needed was just a few more seconds... just a few more seconds and she would have been fine! But I..." He collapsed and gathered his sister in his arms again. "I didn't have enough left to protect her! I tried!" He nuzzled her face, speaking to her. "I tried. Oh, Maly... I'm so sorry!"

Not knowing what else to do, Felix reached for Voltaire's shoulder, but the other turian wrenched away at the contact.

"Don't!" He snapped. "I don't deserve it."

"You couldn't have known-"

"Go," he seethed.

When Felix didn't move, Voltaire roared. "GO!"

He went.