Hi everyone, I'm back. It's been a while but I will be updating at least once every two weeks.

Enjoy this new chapter!

Chapter 2: Tourist's Insight

When Shepard left Omega five years ago, Forlorn was just an abandoned building on the edge of Tuhi—a place where some of the vorchas would huddle up in front of cans of makeshift heaters and dug holes deep enough to take a crap in.

Now, it had been rebuilt into a fighting pit. Omega had a few of those around but this one was huge—a great equalizer among the betters. Especially with the new rules in place.

"So, let me get this straight," Jack said as she gave their pets some food and water. "Sources from your mother —Liara— say that Omega has more rules than the one?"

"Just one other—and it's a complicated one. And please, just Liara. She's more like a bossy older sister." Shepard sifted through the extranet—having hacked into Shadow Broker's database was a great risk—especially since she went AWOL without expressed permission from Liara, who preferred that if she had to break laws and cause havoc, that the asari be forewarned. No, having Liara find out she went to Omega right now would have her sending storms down on all of them. Definitely not an option.

"We can't kill on neutral grounds—not even because it's supposed to be neutral—but because whoever you kill suggests an affiliation to either one side. If you cross borders, it puts a target the size of a frigate on your head. The big guys don't kill on neutral ground because equilibrium would be disrupted. Only neutral zone is Tuhi."

"Well, at least that grocery was on Gozu's border and the vorcha I killed didn't look so affiliated to anyone." Jack mumbled before she closed her eyes and sighed. "Anything else I should know?"

"Yeah," Shepard opened a few videos for download and more dossiers. "Try not to kill any of the brass on either side. They're likely to be someone I know, a friend."

"And I can't even kill the ones worth killing?" Jack muttered. "This is going to be the worse vacation. Ever."

As the two of them climbed up to the VIP balcony of Forlorn, pets trailing behind them, Shepard didn't doubt her instructor's words. Before they could climb the last set of stairs, a turian stopped them, rifle ready. "Only the girl can go the rest of the way up." He motioned his jaw at Shepard.

"Not if I blow your head off."

"Jack," Shepard put a hand out to stop her. "As much fun as I think it will be to blow this place up too—I think some diplomacy is needed." She smiled at Jack's muttered curse. "Take Count and Eezo with you and head back to our place. This could take a while."

Jack looked at her. "You're not fucking serious? Aria could put a bullet in your brain before you even wave hi."

"Don't worry. I know Aria. How did you think we even managed to get in here, huh?" She nudged the older biotic. "Make dinner."

Jack rolled her eyes, make dinner meant "snoop around somewhere else" and she was likely to take Aria's side of the fence. She turned a glare at the turian and sneered as Eezo snapped at him. Count hesitated to follow after Jack but Shepard gave him a nudge in the other woman's direction and he moved along, albeit with less enthusiasm than she wanted.

Shepard made her way up alone. She saw too many new faces and nodded at the surprised old ones as she made her way up two sets of stairs and into the private balcony. In a way, she missed the red couch and the gyrating asaris, even the bass of the music—now all she heard were the catcalls and cheers of spectators as they pitted a krogan against a batarian, wrestling each other in mud and blood.

Aria wasn't looking down at them though. She was looking at Shepard, facing her—waiting.

Shepard knew Aria. She knew her as a ruthless ruler—because otherwise, how else could the lawless respect her? She kept people alive for her entertainment, killed them for the mere pleasure of it too. And that was why Shepard had survived all those years because Aria had deemed her worthy of some watching over.

Aria was full of flaws—unkindness, selfishness, cruelty beyond imagining. The vids of the Betrayal (which Shepard watched while Jack napped— had her teeth dug so deep into the skin of her lip that it drew blood) reminded her of those flaws. But in a place like Omega, so close to the Nemean Abyss, they needed something to be afraid of or else the place would have been swarming with slavers and people worse than merc gangs.

The Aria T'Loak that Shepard knew wouldn't have let the Convocation gain so much power, agree to sign a treaty, and then backstab them. Not when a united front could only benefit Omega—and if there was anything Aria loved more than herself, it was Omega. The Betrayal didn't help Omega—it only destroyed it.

"Shepard," Aria spoke—low, dangerous. "You've grown."

Shepard hadn't heard this voice in five years. And because she couldn't resist, she walked up to the asari, stood right in front of her—shuffling her weight between her two feet before Aria sighed. She stood from a boring chair, fit enough only for her to sit on, before Shepard buried her face in Aria's chest and put her arms around her back.

Aria never hugged back. Never.

But if it was invited, if it was welcomed, then she would never stop it.

"Tell me who our enemies are." Shepard whispered. Her mouth was unseen by the cameras and too soft to be heard by clearly by the bugs. "Tell me who to kill."

Aria put a hand on the back of her head, fingers slipping into her short hair. With the grit of Aria's teeth against her brow, the asari hissed the death sentence and sealed it with the touch of her lips: "Cerberus."


Shepard never could deny the call to run. Even if it was in the dead of night, but in Omega it was always dark, the night cycle was just as dangerous as the day.

When she moved to Ilium, even as her asari and human classmates had sneered at their differences, Shepard had never let Ilium security and not even the merc gangs stop her from running. She'd memorized the routes, found new ones, learned the map by trespassing on every private property, dodging every security patrol, and slipping past Liara's spies and cameras. Everything about Ilium was dissimilar from Omega. All the other places she'd memorized because of missions, training, and vacations had the same effect on her—the Citadel, Thessia, and even Earth— but nothing compared to the spirit that swallowed Omega.

Now, Omega was the same and yet different. In the property owned by the Convocation—there was some measure of order and cleanliness. Some buildings had been rebuilt to make stronger ones. The air lacked the stench of smoke and sweat. Vorcha and other homeless races had been relocated to makeshift sanctums and every corner had groups on patrol. But the zone was quiet, too quiet for a place that was truly at peace. As she scaled up a wall, and flipped over to the other side—the back of her neck prickled with cold air.

She turned to a camera, hidden between the intricate metal vines of the fire escape's railing. She waved at it. Man, she wondered, was Erash still the only one watching these feeds? She doubted four eyes were enough to really keep a look out on every one of them and still stay somewhat sane.

She was making her way to the doc's—she hoped it was still the doc's, anyway. She needed to make sure that all her facts were checking out—well, Shadow Broker files were always pretty detailed and accurate but she didn't want to hack into Liara's database any more than she already had.

There was a huge task set before her. She needed to check all her sources before planning her course of action. Aria trusted her with this task and for Shepard, she was more than happy to admit that she was doing this for more than just Omega and Aria, she was doing this for herself too. She had already sent Jack a message to reconvene; it wasn't fair for her to stay when she didn't know how much was at stake. Moreover, Jack had every right to leave if she wanted to.

It would involve more trickery, more deception than Shepard ever wanted to know about.

Shepard rolled as she landed on her feet, from one of the bunker roofs. She looked left, right and made a smooth dive into one of the alleys—

Where she spotted the glint of a sniper's scope on the far building, she ducked behind a dumpster and the bullet flew right where her head had been barely a second ago and embedded itself into the wall.

Jesus, that sniper was far. Way too far to be that accurate. She hadn't seen a sniper like that since—

Just like Garrus. Hah, like a Convocation flunky knew how well they tangoed in the old days. Garrus must have a whole squad of snipers that kissed the ground he walked on.

Now it was just like old times—but not the good ones because, fuck, she'd been out of her mind when she was sixteen. She ignored Feron's voice in her head that told her she was still as crazy as hell. She looked around for some way to tell the sniper that this was technically friendly fire.

She heard running from the street she came from, she flipped out of her place behind the dumpster just in time before a Shockwave could knock her out cold. That could be Sensat or that could be another asari but she didn't want to risk doing anything irreparable—she dove instead into the window, rolling and righting herself and taking off in a sprint. The building was an abandoned old apartment complex, built in a 21st century earth-style if the old-school door and wood floor paneling was anything to go by. Unsettling the dust and tinkling of scattered glass for every lift and scrape of her boots against the floor. She made her way out the door and into the hallway and up the staircase.

She ducked when she noted the high window, mid-flight of the stairs and another bullet seared through the glass and into a step. She flipped so that her feet landed shakily on the railing and she sped her way up, dodging another bullet when she flipped down. She rammed into one of the first rooms, the door fell off its hinges and her with it, scattering the dust and she coughed when she took a deep breath.

The hallway was a death trap. The biotic was already making her way to her. And she was covered in layers of dust.

Fuck, to think it would suck so much to be home.

Still, her younger self preened, today was still a damn good day so far.

She put her back against the corner of the room, as far as she could possibly be from the hallway and the open door frame but still be able to see a bit of the staircase. She sent a Singularity out far enough that it hit the railing. She heard the creak of wood as someone stepped on the staircase before she detonated it with a Warp.

She rode out the explosion and the force, let it unsettle the debris and glass and dust and shrouding the hall from the sniper's angle, hoping it may have bought her enough time from the biotic on her tail, if not injured her enough to back down. Shepard dashed out to reach the other end of the hallway, grabbing on to the top of the window frame before swinging her legs through—she slipped out with her feet on the window ledge and noted how strong the wind was before she dropped, feet landing on the ledge of the first floor before she flipped down on another alley and broke into a dash without missing a beat. Climbing up a lidded dumpster before jumping over to a high wall, she grabbed on to its edge before she lifted herself up, still crouched when she noted the line of Talons waiting for her, rifles trained at her.

One was a big dog by the way she stood off to the side—her entire bearing completely different but she wasn't someone she recognized. Her hand glowed blue with biotics which was unusual for a turian. "You're good, kid but don't move. I don't want this to escalate any more than it has."

As Shepard stretched to her full height, she heard the running footsteps behind her. She spared a glance at the alley behind her and noted the black armor of the helmeted biotic that was chasing her. If she escaped that way there was still the sniper to contend with for miles. And even during missions she still held one thing sacred all throughout the years: she'd rather face a battalion than run from the scope of a deadly sniper.

She used a Throw on one of the Talons in line, controlled it minutely enough so that he would fly into two others to his right. While they were down on the floor, the two left standing opened fire and the biotic turian threw a Lift Grenade, damn she hated those—

Shepard was ready for it, summoning her strength so a Warp would be in its way—it detonated close enough between them that Shepard had to drop to the ground, summon up a small barrier and ride out the explosion again. A few of the Talons shouted and someone was propelled against the wall. Shepard took her window of opportunity to run past them and into the main street, an alarm was sounding all throughout the district and she sped up, moving into another street where she opened up the hatch of one of Aria's tunnels—

"If you move even an inch, you'll have to say goodbye to that nice head of yours."

Shepard froze. Not because she had a gun trained to her head. But because she knew that voice and the distinct flanging that came with it. She knew the tentative steps he took towards her, rifle out and aimed at her skull.

"You think my head is nice, Archangel?"

She turned around with a smile. She expected a warning shot to her shoulder or near her head but he didn't fire.

His finger was on the trigger, however. His visor glowed with a distinct blue light against his face, a pain so sharp ran through her to see the scars there—almost as if they were fresh, black roots that broke the surface of his skin and plating—tech could have removed those easily but if she knew Garrus then he'd probably keep them for as long as the job wasn't done.

He didn't put his rifle down. He took another four steps to close the distance. "I said, don't you fucking move, tourist."

Shepard bristled. No way in hell was she going to let Garrus call her a tourist in her own home. "Hey, did your sense of humor get burned along with that mug of yours?"

She noted his scarred ungloved hand tensing, his trigger finger curled and he was probably tempted to shoot. Still a hothead but not so much, at least enough to get a painful smile out of him. "You're cheeky for someone who could die."

She rolled her eyes. "Ugh, Garrus, have you always been this slow?"

She was close enough to see his narrowed eyes clearly, close enough to see them widen slowly in realization as he lowered his rifle down. "Shepard?" He whispered, like he couldn't—like he wasn't allowed to say her name out loud.

Shepard closed the rest of the distance, sliding between his arms and holding on to his narrow waist in the tightest embrace she could manage. She smiled against his armor, "I'm back." She looked up at his face. "Miss me?"

Shepard could have sworn he was shaking when he dropped his gun and hugged her back.