Shepard fucked up. He had been slaughtering his way through a sex slave ring, business as usual. As he made his way down the hall, he checked every room. They all held the same thing, a young girl, mostly Human with a few Asari, chained naked to a bed. When he looked into the fifth room, his heart stopped.
Rather than cowering like the others, she was looking right at him. The murderous look in her eye reminded him so strongly of Jack that he froze. No tattoos and a normal haircut but even still, Shepard was paralyzed for a moment.
He snapped out of it just quick enough to realize he was fucked, an overload hitting him in the back.
That had been eight hours ago. He woke up to find himself stripped and tied to a chair. The room was a blank concrete box with a simple light and one heavy door. A camera in the corner watches his every move.
Shortly after waking up, two Batarian goons come in. They take turns working him over for three hours. As a rule, Batarians are pretty fucking stupid, so they mostly just beat him. They could do that for weeks without getting a reaction out of him, which infuriates them.
As they catch their breath, they talk about who they should sell him to. The one missing an eye says they should shoot him, he's too dangerous to keep alive and half his bounty is still an insane sum.
He dies first, too smart for his own good.
After another few minutes, they resume their beating. Shepard notices something that gets the gears in his head turning. It seems the chair he's tied to is coming apart under the heavy blows raining down on him. As soon as it breaks, he's loose.
It takes another hour before it finally does. Shepard uses his adrenaline rush the second the chair snaps and rushes his assailants faster than they can register what just happened.
After the most violent thing a chair has ever been used for, Shepard grabs a rifle and gets to work. He kills his way through the basement under the whore house, stopping in the guards quarters to reclaim his equipment.
Eventually, the only room left is the ringleaders office. He kicks down the door and steps inside. Nirala, the Asari behind the whole operation, is inside, but she's not alone.
She's holding the girl from earlier as a shield, positioning her carefully to deny Shepard any kind of a shot.
"Back off asshole! I saw how you looked at this bitch, get the fuck out of my way right now or I'll take her pretty little head off!"
Not going to happen. He looks into the girls eyes and sees heavy sadness, but also determination. She gives him a slight nod, barely perceptible. He catches on just a second too late to tell her not to do it.
She jerks to the side, giving him a shot. He fires at the same time as Nirala. His round punches her directly between the eyes, hers hits the girl in the temple.
He looks down at her body, burning it into his memory while he sends a message to the local authorities. Once it's sent he kneels down, reverently lifts the girl into his arms and carries her away. He hands her over to the cops and walks away without a word.
He never learns her name.
