A/N: Now it's time for those usual 'meet the team' moments, when they talk to each other and all and form basic relationships, hate and love all round!

…

That didn't come out right,

Sabertooth: Zo vhere are ve going now?

Me: I thought the order of the missions should be Therum-Feros-Noveria; it is a good way how to gather up the crewmember Liara, and the mystery one for you as well.

Sabertooth: Bette' be zomevon badazz.

Me: …In their own way.

Sabertooth: Huh?

Chapter 9: Meet the Crew…And The Crew

0032 hours, Normandy, Outside Citadel Space, Sabertooth POV

I was waiting in the cargo hold for the stupid ship to find where it was going, I glanced around the cargo bay, the Lamb was fixing a bunch of rifles on her little workbench, the red Krogan was leaning on the wall at the corner of the room, the Crab-Face that Shepard had brought along was working his way at the tank we had, why they would call it Mako is one of the many things I won't understand, I heard he was a detective, I wouldn't say I hate the law, after all I didn't see them much inside the Pit, the Detective however gets on my nerves, I have confidence as well but I only display it because I have experience to back it up, this one however thinks he can face just about everything because he happens to be a crack-shot with a sniper rifle, he would be Gragle bait within the day if he was at the Pit.

I myself was huddled far away from everyone else, never had done much resting outside my cage before, I guess it was just a comfort because no one could sneak up on me while I was sleeping and try to do me in, the cage was too creaky and guns were too noisy and would attract the guard dogs, and no one wanted to risk that, they were BIG dogs.

Herax had occupied the Mess Hall the last I saw him, he ordered about five courses of meals, don't know what military rations would be appealing however, Hoody and the other Suit was in the big engine room, and squealing at pitches that had my ears bleeding.

Asshat went on his way to the bridge place, said he had to talk to the Council and get the official get-go on the mission, Ugly joined the two Suit's in the engine room, and if it was possible, he seemed to be smiling even more, Bhatia was back from some business she had to do, and suspiciously smelled like she had a little 'fun' with someone, must be a lover or something, she went to get her own room as soon as she got aboard.

The Pup had been around the ship somewhere, no idea and don't really care at any rate, at the moment I decided to see what Walkman dug up,

"Vhat did you find on tis Nirvana?" I asked him quietly, I took Shepard's advice and didn't tell anyone I had a Hollow-Man in my pocket,

"Nirvana is a planet with in colonies of any kind on it, there were a few geologist stations established but have been inactive for years"

That makes sense, the Pit would be put in the most deserted place as possible on Earth, therefore since it has expanded into space, and it will have a better chance in hiding itself.

"Did you get zome info on teir…Omni-Tool's?"

"Yes, they had an appointment with a Turian that specialised in private ships; it further says that they would have set off in two weeks"

So I have a fortnight to kill, great.

"Keep me updated on anyting you find, but I doubt eet vill be uzeful, if tey 'ad dodged people on Earth for more tan a w'ole century, who knows vhat tey can to now"

"Yes Sabertooth"

I put him back in my pocket and looked around again, when my eyes landed on the red Krogan I remembered the alcohol I had with me,

I took both bottles out of the bag that Shepard lent me, and took of the lids, the Krogan then opened his eyes and looked at my direction, I motioned over with a bottle of Ryncol and he shrugged and moved over to me.

"You are a strange Human, first you drink Ryncol like its water, and then you offer it to a Krogan, most of your species stays away from us"

"Don't compare me to 'umans, I am anyting but tem" I then tipped my bottle upwards to savour the drink and then put it down, I handed the other one to him and he sat down and drank with me,

"I suppose your right, for one, you seem like the guy who has actually got into a decent fight, and you don't exactly smell like one either"

…

…

"Zo tat's vhat eet feelz like"

"What?" he said with a look,

"I have a very particular zenze of zmell as well, feelings and distinguishing between each zmell, I alvayz vondered vhat eet vas like vhen ot'ers found out tis about me, now I know"

He gave me another look, "Where exactly are you from anyway?"

"Te proper question iz vhen I'm from," at his questioning look, "Zhepard zaid zhe vould tell te crew, you'll find out vhen zhe getz over the Zpectre ting"

He nods slightly, "Names Urdnot Wrex"

"Sabertooth" I replied,

He held up his drink to take his own swing of it,

"What's with you and Shepard anyway?" he asks

"Vhat do you mean" as I started swallowing more of my drink,

"Are you mated to her?"

…

…

SBISSSSHHHHHHHH!

Everyone in the cargo hold turned their heads in my direction as I did a spit-take all over the wall of the room,

"VHAT!" I chocked slightly,

"Every time you're around her, you give off more hormones then a Krogan in puberty, heck, even more than my kind having sex, and we have a quad so that is an achievement," he seemed unaffected by my massive outburst,

"I-I DON'T THINK THAT WAY AT ALL!" I lied as I stood up quickly,

"Huh, that's a surprising weak spot" Wrex grinned at me, I decided to leave the conversation quickly, ignoring his loud chuckling as I made my way to Lamb,

"So you like Shepard?" she grinned at me, I resisted the urge to give her a buzz cut through her head and glared at her,

"I vant you to ztop tat now, or I'll carve fillets out your flesh" I growled, she jumped slightly, but still kept that annoying grin,

"You know, II thought for sure that you would jump as soon as we got back to the Citadel, kind of glad you didn't"

"Vhy iz tat?" I asked as I picked at the numerous rifles piled on the table,

"I don't really know, I guess it's good to have a guy with so many skills aboard the Normandy, and another Human as well" she looked behind her at the Wrex and the Detective,

"Not too fond of tem I zee"

"Never had been, Turian's are a bunch of assholes, less than three decades ago they were our enemy, and now we're buddy-buddy on the same ship, not something you can just accept"

"And the Krogan," she continued, "you can't meet one that hasn't killed more than fifty people in their lives if you tried, bunch of mercenary's and warmongers"

I glanced to the side to see that the Detective hadn't picked up anything, but Wrex had, he looked our way but turned to the side and made his way back to his spot,

"Eet's good to be a little zuzpicious every now and ten," I said to her, "but I 'ave learned to not puzh zomevon who 'olds te gun aiming at your back, commentz azide, you vill 'ave to deal vith eet vhen Crap-Face iz out and about"

She looked thoughtful, "I suppose so, and it is Shepard's mission at any rate, if she tells me to jump, I'll ask how high, it she tells me to kiss a Turian, I'll ask which cheek"

Sensing some payback, I shouted out, "'ey Detective!" he turned to look at me, "you 'ave zomevon vith a crush on you 'ere!"

Ashley immediately blushed and looked at me in horror and tried to punch me in the face, I ducked and ran out of her range,

"I'll get you for that Saber!" she then took one of the rifles off the workbench and I ran for the big engine room,

As the door closed behind me, I heard Wrex and the Detective laughing while bullets hit the door,

What did you do to piss her off?" I looked up to see Ugly,

"Not much, zhe practically ran into eet" I looked around the room, the big glowing ball of energy caught my attention slightly, but I was learning to accept things like this and shrugged it off,

"I must say, I never expected to work on an Alliance ship, Volus are willing for any cheap labour as long as they stay out of sight, but this is something else" He then looked around the room with glee to enforce the point,

"Vhy don't you juzt marry the zhip" I joked, I then saw Hoody and the other Suit talking to each other while working at one of the big glowing screens,

"Tey 'it eet off" I observed,

"Yeah, it's mostly about engineering of course" as if knowing they were being talked about, both of the females looked around at us,

"Oh, Saber, didn't think you'd come around here" said Hoody as she walked up to us, the other one was more nervous as she approached, probably due to my appearance,

"I vas running from te Lamb," I pointed behind me, "zhe actually zhot at me"

"You need to be more of a people person" she says, "Oh, this is Tali'Zorra nar Rayya, don't be frightened, he might look a little off but he's still a person"

"Vhy tanks" I said gruffly,

"H-hello" she said with eyes watching my claws carefully,

I then thought up a good name for her, Bright-Eyes,

"Vhy iz Bright-Eyez got zuch a long name anyvay?" I asked Hoody,

"It's a Quarian thing really, there are four parts to a Quarian's name, the given name is Tali, the Clan name is Zorra, her birth ship is Rayya, and when she completes her Pilgrimage, she will be assigned to a ship" she then frowned slightly, "talking about names, why do you insist in all those silly nicknames of yours?"

"Eet's juzt te vay I am"

She shook her head side to side, "You don't give names to Herax or Shepard"

"Because tey don't need von"

She grumbles slightly before I decided to ask something,

"Do you 'ave a long Quarian name az vell?"

She froze a bit, and slumped a bit in sadness,

"Sort of… just Nazza'Jlok, I don't belong to the Flotilla anymore"

Bright-Eyes head snapped back to her, "You mean… you were banished?"

"Yes I was" Nazza replied, she then turned away; "if you excuse me, I want to get back on those systems, I think I missed something" she then walked away from us.

I looked at Bright-Eyes and she flinched slightly from me, "Vhat doez banizhed mean to her?"

She looked down at her hands nervously before looking up again, "Banished from the Flotilla is only ever done with major crimes, such as treason and other things, the Flotilla is our only home, so it is quite heart-breaking to Quarian's who are banished"

I looked at where Nazza was working, "Doezn't zeem like much of a terrorizt"

"I suppose so, but why was she banished then?" she then started walking away from us, "Nice talking to you" she said over her shoulder,

I grunted in reply and looked at Ugly, "Zo 'ow iz eet being 'ere and all?"

"Well can't complain" he said as he fiddled with things on a big glowing screen, "well, except for all the looks people give me but that's just the regular price for being a Vorcha"

I glanced around and confirmed that people were giving Ugly dirty looks, I smiled at them and they immediately paled and focused on their working,

"Vell, I bette' be going now, Lamb muzt 'ave given up zhooting me now" he nodded at my statement and I went out the door, a quick glance showed that Lamb had her back to me and she seemed to be aggressively cleaning the weapons on her table while muttering, I wisely decided to make my way to the elevator.

After an agonizing minute of waiting the thing finally got to the floor I wanted and I stepped out, Herax was there chewing on a sandwich,

"Hey Saber!" he called out to me and waved his hand over to me, I went over and sat down across from him,

"So here we are then, off to catch a Turian Ex-Spectre and possibly have the galaxy depending on it, not bad for the week huh?" he chuckled slightly,

"I zuppoze" I said as I looked around, "you zound like eet dependz on you every day"

"Well, not me in specific, Krogan actually" he then halted his chewing, "just think, if the Genophage wasn't gripping us by the Quad we could have found that Saren and shoved him down the throat of a Varren"

I didn't know half of the things he just said so I acted like I did and filed it away for more questions to ask Shepard later, "Zo vhat do you tink of te Genophage anyvay?" maybe I could get some info now,

He leaned back slightly, "I suppose like any other Krogan, I hate it, I can't get a mate because they are divided like loot among the stronger Krogan, all we are now is a bunch of tribes now a days" he sighed, "in fact, Wrex is the only one I know who doesn't resort to head-butting something and say it was using his head"

I nodded at this, "Quad?"

He laughed out loud, "Well, it's interesting, you see, Krogan have double the organs than other people, two hearts, two pairs of lungs, two pairs of testicles, that's what a Quad is"

I stared at "I zuppoze you bunch vere good breederz?"

His face dropped slightly, "Was is the key word there, what we consider a good breeder now a days is someone who's child hadn't been killed by the Genophage"

So it's kills off numbers of children huh? What Hitler would have gave to have that,

I nodded again before standing up, "Zee you 'erax"

"Yeah, you to"

I got up and walked to the front of the ship towards the bridge, I ran into Bhatia on the way,

"Oh, Saber, good to see your up, thought you were the one to hole yourself up somewhere"

I looked her up and down, I never saw her out of her armour and it was like what I saw Lamb wear before,

"Zo you are coming along 'uh?"

She nodded, "Took your advice, I've decided that I won't rest till Saren is behind bars, after that I think I will be officially retiring"

"You don' zeem tat old" I chided her,

She frowned, "Well thanks, I meant more like I could end all of this action you see, settle down you know"

I grinned, "Vith who?"

She then looked a little worried, "Uh, my husband, Samesh, we planned to open a restaurant actually, on Earth"

I paused slightly at the mention of the planet Earth as being something like an option before continuing with my joke, "Really? You muzt of 'ad quite a very good meeting vith 'im back at te Citadel"

She was now adopting a very embarrassed face, "Y-yeah, I did meet h-him there, just to say goodbye and a-all"

"Tat muzt of been quite te goodbye…"

She then immediately high tailed it away from me with an incredibility red face, while I was holding my knees laughing,

"Do you usually sexually harass people like that?"

I looked behind me to see the Detective,

"I tought you vere doing ztuff vith the Tank down tere?" I pointed my claw down for emphasis,

"I saw you try to stealthy sneak out of the room, you may have fooled Williams but I pay attention to detail's" there's that mind numbing cockiness again,

"I juzt vanted to look around, maybe talk to Zhepard or someting"

He then did that weird Crab-Face smile of his, "Really?"

I then glared at him, "Zay another vord Detective and I'll take von of your mandiblez off"

He then grimaced and stroked the said body part gently, "Those are incredibly sensitive you know"

I grinned my feral grin and that made the Detective stiffen, "…I said something I'm going to regret am I"

"Not you in zpecific…" I then walked away, leaving him to worry about all future Crab-Face's I would meet in the future,

As a climbed the stairs I actually contemplated asking Shepard to take out the elevator and add some stairs, it seemed like a good idea given how slow it was,

I then found myself at the deck, Shepard was next to the Joker talking about something, and I was caught half-way when I was walking over to them,

"'ello Azz'at" I said to him, he gave no indication about his name and tried to keep a straight face,

"Sabertooth, what are you doing up here?"

"Juzt tought I'd explore a little more"

"I see" he then clicked a few things on his orange glove and made it vanish, "I was just discussing a few things with Shepard just now, we are planning to find Liara T'Soni, Benezia's daughter, perhaps she can give vital information"

"Vhat, do you zuppoze eet'z the family buzinezz to take over te galaxy?"

He chuckled slightly, "No, but maybe she was in contact with her at some point or another"

He then sighed a little, "Vhat iz eet?" I asked,

"It's just this mission, and Saren, I think you Humans have something called the five stages of grief, even if my friend didn't died, it might as well be, I'm going through denial right now, I keep trying to think of reasons why Saren would do this, blackmail? Lapse in judgement? I don't know, it's just hard to accept Saren is my next mission"

"In te Pit, you 'ad to accept tat everyvon 'ad an agenda for temzelzes, today'z friend'z are tomorrowz enemiez and all, eet vas literal in zome cazez"

He looked at me, "You're an enigma you know that, you fight like a warrior, yet have the intelligence of a Spectre, the temper of a Krogan, yet you speak like a philosopher"

"Tat's juzt te vay I am" I smiled, he nodded and accepted it as another thing about me that he would have to accept and walked away, I then met up with Shepard at the front of the ship,

"Hey Zaber" she said to me, it was obvious she was nervous even without me sensing her feelings,

"You know, I zeen zome people calmer vhen tey are up againzt me" I joked, wasn't true of course, calm was the last thing I would describe them, pissing their pants was more accurate,

She took a deep breath; "I guess I'm more used to leading squads and not ships" she looked around the bridge, with a sudden determined expression,

"I trust you'll stay along until we stop Saren?"

"Of courze, 'ardly 'ave anyvhere elze to be"

"Good, because I'm going to need all the help I can get" she then turned to look behind her, "Joker, broadcast this around the ship, I want everyone to hear me"

I stood at the side while Shepard positioned herself in front of what I assume to be an intercom, I recognised this, whenever Handlers got a little famous, they like to give speeches, only the smart ones know to avoid doing it so that they aren't a potential target.

But Shepard had no greed or power hungry look in her eyes like they did, she was a woman on a mission, and she was going to let it be known.

"This is Commander Shepard speaking" she started, I heard her voice echo throughout the ship, I looked behind me to see several of the crew stop what they were doing and listen,

"We have our orders, find Saren before he finds the Conduit. I won't lie to you crew, this mission isn't going to be easy"

She then raised her voice higher as she continued, "For too long our species has stood apart from the others, now it's time to do our part for the rest of the galaxy! Time to show them what Humans are made of!"

"People may complain why we have such a wide variety of other species aboard, well I am now telling you that they are here to do their part as well as us, they are a team of specialists, and we should be glad to have them" I was not surprised at this, the goody-goody she was,

"Our enemy knows that we will be coming" she said in a completely honest tone, "When we go into the Traverse, Saren's followers will be waiting for us, but we'll be ready for them too"

I then looked back again and saw the entire crew, Wrex, Hoody, Bright-Eyes, Lamb, Pup, everyone now in the bridge as they watched Shepard to her thing, I don't know what came over me, but I started saying things as well,

"Te road vill be tough" Shepard looked back for a second before nodding for me to continue, "but ve vill find tis Zaren and zhow 'im tat 'umans are going to give 'im 'ell to vhat he did to Eden Prime, anyvon who tink's tey aren't ready for tis bette' get off at our next ztop" Shepard looked at me warningly,

"But if you vant to zhow tat pile of zhit vhat 'appenz vhen you mezz vith 'umanity, ten get ready, cause ve are going to chaze 'im down, to a place he vill 'ave nowhere left to 'ide"

I heard smelt respect among the crew as I spoke on, "Te Council iz leaving uz alone vith tis, no need to lie about tat, tey vill expect uz to fail, like mozt other zpeciez vould tink," some anger was now in the air,

"But I zay, 'ell to tem, ve vill travel vhat tey tink az inaccezzible, fight vhat iz unbeatable, win over anyting impozzible, and ten tat iz vhen ve get our time" some cheers were now heard around the place, I never considered myself as a speaker, unless it was intimidating another, but it would seem I could inspire as well,

"And this mission is not for our sake" Shepard cuts in, "but for the sake of every species in Citadel Space, Saren must be stopped, and I promise you all, we will stop him!"

"And fuck any bazturd who tinkz otervize" I put in, she just nods slightly with a frown on her face,

"Well done Commander, the Captain would be proud" said the Joker, he then looked around at me, and said "you didn't do too bad yourself Kruger"

His teasing was starting to get on my nerves, "Ztop eet or I'll call Batman on your azz"

He then looked at me strange, "You know Batman yet you have no idea of Kruger?"

I snorted and heard Shepard laugh behind me; I glanced back and saw her going off to talk with the people on the ground crew, as the term was I believe, nervous as a rabbit one second, inspiring leader the next, honestly, like Asshat would say, the woman was an enigma, I don't know what makes her so attractive, she has too many freckles, her hair is a bit messy, but it does make up for it with the shiny look, her skin has that subtle look to it which doesn't look like she is soft yet hard enough to face a challenge, her body resembles one of those Greek vases of art I saw, with the enchanting sound of her laugh and…

…

DOWG!

"What the hell man!" The Joker said as I had head-butted the wall, "can you at least do it somewhere I don't have to look every day? I think you left a dent… wait, you actually did leave a dent!"

And true enough, there was a dent in the wall, I left without a word, ignoring the cries of 'My baby!' from the cripple behind me, with my head cleared of thoughts I realised something, a lot of things involving me are to happen later, first is the explanation of my situation, next is the possible assassination attempts that may happen from Lamb in the future, consumption of the rest of the Ryncol in my supply, and surgery from a doctor…

I shook the last one off, it was not the same, I told myself, you're not going to be scared of an old woman that you can simply snap the arms of at the soonest opportunity, I sighed and made my way through the ship, down to the cargo hold, I saw several respectful looks from the crew as I walked by, I didn't rightfully care and continued on my way.

But out of all the things that were annoying me, the most tedious was that anytime I wanted to go above deck, I had to use the elevator,

The fucking slow elevator.

Urrrrrg.

A/N: It took a while, but I finished it, this is now going to be a sort of skit way with the chapters from now on, anyone who plays the Tails games should know what I'm talking about, I need to fill in between missions somehow, right?

Next time, SKITS!