Joe and the others ducked down as they made their way forward. Shepard had taken a look ahead and seen that there were three enemies talking to Tali. Now, he was trying to figure out what they could do to catch the enemies by surprise.
"Okay, BF, you go running up the middle and take out the guy in the middle. Joe, you do that missile thing to the guy on the left. I'll get the guy on the right. Alenko? Paperclips."
"Oh come on!"
"Wait, you never said my name." Garrus said.
"I forgot what it was, so I said the first thing that came to mind."
"...Well, I'm insulted. Also, why would I go running in? I can snipe him from here."
"Or I could." Ashley muttered.
"You're right! Joe, snipe all three!"
"...Um, I'm, uh...out of ammo." Joe stuttered. This elicited a look from all others present.
"But doesn't-" Shepard started.
"Yeah! Me too! We all are!" Kaidan quickly interjected, hoping to actually save Tali.
"Huh...weird." Shepard shrugged. "Screw it. Ashley, you rush in and try to club them to death with your gun, and while they're killing you, BF, Joe and I will sneak up on them and slit their throats."
The Gunnery Sergeant didn't say anything and instead looked at the commander with wide eyes and open mouth.
"Close your mouth before a bug flies in there." Shepard ordered. "Great plan, Shepard. Thanks, other Shepard."
Joe looked down at the ground and muttered to himself. "Oh my god, he's multiplying in his own head."
Uh… Okay, audience. I am not doing that and I know that Shepard's narrator isn't making him hear voices.
Shepard began looking around. "Did you hear that? That has to be the sexiest voice I've ever heard!"
Why, well thank you She-
"I know. Other Shepard, our voice is amazing."
Fuck you!
"Uh, those other two are pulling out guns…" Kaidan said. "Do we, uh, want to actually do something at any point?"
"Alright, fine. Kaidan, you rush in with Ashley, the rest of us still do the throat slitting thing."
"...You know, since at this point them killing me would be a relief, yeah. Let's do that." Kaidan pulled out his gun and started firing at the closest salarian as he ran at them, right as Tali threw a mine of some sort, so it looked like the gun made him explode.
"Holy shit Kaidan!" Shepard said, sounding amazed. "WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE STEALTHY! NOT MAKE THEM EXPLODE!" He pulled out his sniper rifle and quickly shot both the other Salarian, than the Turian that'd been standing there with an open mouth. "God, do I have to do everything myself?! Yes other Shepard, you do, because everyone else is incompetent. I know first Shepard!"
"Safe." Joe muttered to himself.
The battle was over quickly and cleanly and left the turian laying on the ground and bleeding out. As the mop up was done the others circled around Tali to make sure that she was alright. Joe on the other hand walked away from the group and to the Turian as he tried to crawl away. The scaredy cat held his pistol in his hand shaking profusely.
"Stop r-right th-there." He said, trying to make sure that his voice didn't break much.
The turian propped himself up against the wall and waved Joe off. "I'm already going to die, human. Don't waste the battery."
"Y-you're a b-bad guy though." Joe said, not putting the gun down.
"Kid, I know when I've been beat." He pointed to his stomach where the shot connected and went through. "Your commander took out my femoral artery. The blood loss'll kill me. Might as well just let me die with an intact face."
The gun lowered in Joe's hands and he looked at the Turian. "How can you- be so brave?"
"This isn't bravery, kid. This is me dying with acceptance and I can tell you that you'll know this feeling soon enough." He predicted, pulling out a cigarette and putting it in his mouth.
"How- how- how do you know?" A lump formed in the kid's throat from the dead man's words.
"It's the sight, kid. I look at them and I look at you and I see that you aren't like them. Your eyes still have a sense of innocents to them. You never took a life on purpose. Something else took that life."
Oh my god, can this conversation get any more boring. Where is that delete button so I can take out all this cra-
"There's a demon stalking you, one that's gotten you into this mess and he ain't going to stop until you're dead or he's satisfi-" The turian cut himself off and clutched his heart for a second. The pain of death finally setting in. Call me a demon again. I dare you...seriously, do you think I'd be that low on the totem pole? I'm clearly the Devil himself. And not the type that loses to a guy in a fiddle contest, the one that sets you on fire just for cheating once on a math test. Poor Frank.
Joe kneeled down next to the turian as the poor bastard gasped for his final breaths. "Get- get- get my ligh-ter. I need a smoke for… the road."
Panicking, our human coward looked through the turian's pocket and pulled out the lighter before giving the guy a good light. "I guess, I'll see you when I die then."
The turian took a long puff before giving Joe a twisted look. "Dumbass, what makes you think I'm going to the same place as you?"
The turian died like that, with a fucked up grin on his face and a lit cigarette in mouth. Maybe Joe knew what he meant by a demon or maybe he had just gone crazy and those last words were that of a mad man. Either way, the guy had called a shot and made a bet against Joe's life. One-to-one hundred trillion odds, Joe was going to die.
Well, maybe not die. I might be in a good enough mood to just have him maimed, or brain dead in a coma or something like that...but yeah, almost certainly probably definitely he's going to die.
Once Joe was back on his feet, a soft hand fell on his shoulder and Ashley's words followed. "Hey, you have a stroke or something? Your face is really pale."
"I think I'm gonna spew." He put a hand to his mouth as his cheeks went green instead.
Hmm...where's the worst spot for him to throw up and have it backfire on him…
And Joe proceeded to vomit right onto Ashley.
"...Goddamnit, that's the third time this month." She sighed.
"You've been thrown up on multiple times this month?"
"I had a rookie in my squad."
"Oh, but multiple times!?" Joe asked, trying to blow this one thing out of proportion to ease his mind.
"His dad made him enlist, he was a complete-...well, it happened a lot."
"You were gonna say loser, weren't you?" Joe asked, looking down at his feet in sadness. "I know I'm one, you don't have to pull punches."
Yeah, seriously, that's like the whole premise here.
"Then yes, you're a loser."
"Thanks." Joe said, looking up and giving Ashley a weary smile. "But at least I'm a living loser. Right? Heh-heheh… I'm sorry."
She responded by slapping him, walking away fuming.
I made him say that. HAhHAHAHAHAHAHAHA , you little fuckwit.
Joe looked down at his feet and sighed before walking over and joining the group.
"Thank you all for saving me." Tali said, looking to each one of them.
"Pft, these losers don't need thanks. They're paid to do this. The real person who deserves your thanks is me and this guy." Shepard responded, pulling Joe in for a sideways hug.
"...I thought he shot the first one." She looked between Joe and Kaidan, pointing at the latter.
"Again, paid to do this but it was mine and Joe's plan to do this. You don't thank the tools, you thank the garbage man." He replied letting Joe down. "Wait, bad example…"
"How was it Joe's plan!? He just lied about being out of ammo, with guns that literally never run out of ammo! Seriously, you can just sit there firing at a wall for literally, hours. HOURS. And then you tried getting Ashley killed again. AND THEN you tried to get me killed along with her!"
"I helped?" Garrus offered.
"THAT'S news right there. Because the Commander DOESN'T try to get me killed every five minutes." Ashley said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Kaidan, Ashley, you're dismissed. Go back to the Normandy and sit in a corner or something." The commander ordered, waving them off.
It was hard to tell who ran faster or left first.
"Also, BF, write down popperclops. I'll know what it means."
Garrus cocked his head to the side as Shepard gestured to him. "...BF? Since when did we become friends, let alone best friends?"
"Friends? I meant Bird Face. What, you don't like nicknames?"
"...That's racist." He crossed his arms.
"It's better to just accept it." Joe whispered to Garrus, knowing what it was like.
He rolled his eyes. "I'm doomed, aren't I."
"Pretty much." Damnit Joe, don't steal my lines like that!
"Okay Commander, writing down Popperclops. Would you like that in a certain font or dictation?"
"Why thank you Garrus! That's a pay raise for taking the time to care." He said, giving him a thumbs up.
"... I'm expecting my paycheck tomorrow."
"Nope, on the fifth and twentieth of every month. That's just standard."
"Do you guys do overtime?"
"Nope, but we do 401K and benefits like dental." He assured to the BEAKED alien.
"...What about mental health?"
"Paid psychiatrists."
"I could use one of those." Joe muttered.
"Um...did you guys, um, just happen to be walking by when I was attacked, or…?" Tali looked between them.
"Right. Save the hostage. Take her hostage. Interrogate. BF, what step are we on?"
"Um...couldn't we, like, skip the take her hostage part?" Joe cut in.
"Yeah, let's do that." Tali said, priming her omni-tool warningly.
"Well...okay Joe, but only because your last plan worked too."
"Cool." Joe looked at Shepard and thought for a moment about how much he listened to him. "How about we all just go back to Udina's place and introduce her? Then we can look at the information she has?"
"...How did you know I had informa-"
"We're trying to bring Saren down." Garrus cut her off. "And apparently, you have something that'll link him to the Geth?"
"Shadow punching!"
"...What?" Tali just looked at Shepard in confusion.
"Word of advice: If he says something stupid, just smile and nod...or, in your case, I guess all you have to do is nod." Joe whispered again to Tali.
"Uh...is there, somewhere we can go, and share the information?...With, less, er...eccentric people?"
Sure! Let me just snap my fingers here, and- boom, timeskip.
"You are making my life very difficult Shepard." Udina said with his back to them, a vein pulsing in his neck. "Shooting up Chora's den, reports of explosions on the Wards or at a hospital that I know had to be you, and somehow, you infected my office computer with a dozen viruses when you were surfing the extranet while waiting for the Council!"
"What? I'll have you know that Cartoon Network dot com is completely safe and I just enjoy watching the old shows." Shepard assured, crossing his arms.
"That's not even in the history!"
"Well, that's the only thing I used your computer for and I did it in incomprehensible mode." He shot back, crossing his arms and shooting him a hard stare.
"Why would you use incognito mode for-" Joe was cut off as Udina facepalmed.
"Shepard, that just means that it won't show up in the history. Thank you so very much for answering the least important grievance I have with you right now. It means so much to me that you care that little." Udina's voice dripped with sarcasm.
"You're welcome, it's the little things that matter." He answered, looking to Tali. "So, you wanna show us the goods?"
"Excuse me? Commander, I don't think flirting is appropriate now." She answered, stepping back from him.
"What? What the fuck is flirting?" He asked, cocking his head to the side but then shaking it and looking at her sternly. "I mean the information you have on your omni-tool that proves Saren is evil."
"Oh, so that's why she's here...I was just about to add that to the list." Udina crossed his arms.
"Oh, that, uh." Tali looked down at her omni-tool and worked to bring it up fast. She was obviously embarrassed by the misunderstanding.
"Eden Prime was a major Victory! The Beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit!" Saren's voice slithered through the air.
"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers." Another feminine voice answered.
"That's Saren's voice!" Captain obvi- I mean, uh Captain Anderson- said triumphantly. "This proves he was involved in the attack."
Ugh, this is so boring. Okay, timeskip… again...don't judge, it is boring! Seriously, if you're reading this, you've probably A: Played through it at least a dozen times, and B: Read it in other stories at least 2 dozen times. You'll thank me later.
Joe walked away from the group as they all began talking about possible outcomes and Saren being a bad guy. Sure, it was cool experiencing it, but Joe wasn't in the mood. The stuff that the dying Turian said hung over him horribly. Why did this all happen to him, what the hell does his presence there really mean, and just what exactly was wrong with Shepard?
Just as Joe was contemplating all this crap, something rang through his ears. "You know as well as I do that time travel is possible."
The dumbass looked back and forth, wondering what the hell the people talking about this knew. It didn't take long for him to locate the source as two young guys chatted about something on their datapads.
"Yes, but controlling it is the problem." The second replied.
"In the inanimate object testing, we were always able to send the items the designated amount of time in either direction."
"But the margin of error was noticeable for the longer jumps, relativistically speaking."
"So what if we still haven't seen that toaster reappear? Toasters are mysterious anyway. It's like… you put in bread, and somehow, you get toast. Where did the bread go?"
"God you're an idiot. The deal is that non-biological materials don't travel well through the time stream. You go in wrapped in metal and you come out buck naked. The last guy who traveled did it with a suit on and all his buttons and zippers were gone when he came out." The more knowledgeable one said, putting his head in his hand.
"Because a lack of metal is a problem in this day and age. It's too bad there's no metal asteroids we can ever mine or anything… oh, wait."
"Except those metal buttons and zippers are lost in the time stream forever!"
"So far. They could still pop up at some point. They might've already. For all we know, they probably popped up in the Stone Age!"
"If that were true, wouldn't there be like...super zippers by now or something?"
"What."
"Well, if zippers were discovered back then, we'd have had a zillion years to make them even better! So they don't pinch down there after you go to the bathroom."
"Dude."
"Well, I guess you wouldn't have that problem, according to your ex."
"Yes, I have a small dick, har-de-har. Maybe we could focus?"
"Okay, if you really want to focus on your dick. She also said you couldn't really last more than a minute or two-"
"I meant focus on the time travel you fucking jackass!"
Joe stopped listening after that and started looking for a data pad. If there really was something to do with time travel around, then that was his way home.
S7: I don't know why but I am not really feeling it right now. It's probably my cold.
T117: Yeah, I'm getting over that too...I hope. If it comes back that'll suck.
Grrys: Don't worry about it. So long as you don't stand in the rain, you'll get over it in no time! I said as I used my hood to keep the rain off my phone. As nice as an umbrella would be, I didn't have time for that sort of thing.
T117:...okaaaayyyy…
Grrys: That dark part with the dying turian talking to Joe reminded me of noir films! I said as I turned down a shaded alleyway. You know, like the ones where the hero narrates everything! I stopped as I realized that I had wandered into a dead end.
S7: Well then, anyway, where did that part come from Narrator?
Beats me, I was putting down what I wanted to happen and that kinda just made itself be known. Every time I tried to cut it out it just kept popping back in… what, you thought this entire story would be lighthearted antics?
S7: Okay, well, let's keep this chapter short for A/N and next chapter we'll do our first Q and A chapter.
T117: So if you wanna ask questions, now's the time to do it. Or reviews in general really… we're so lonely right now…Sayonara.
S7: Alright, catch you guys 1473I2.
Grrys: I quickly made my way from the scene of the crime, now knowing that I was a hunted man. Soon, the police would come asking questions about why there were 4 dead bodies, filled to the brim with my custom bullets. I knew that… Oh. We're done. Bye.
