Radicalisation

Miranda had been frustrated by the sounds of close quarters combat emanating from Shepard's area of the battlefield; it meant that she could no longer render assistance with her own rifle, or even interfere with the advance of the group of hunters assigned to eliminate her. Instead, she was forced to restrict herself to her biotics and close quarters combat in an endeavour to avoid giving away her presence to Shepard's Alliance guards.

The result was an infuriating game of cat and mouse amidst the ruins of razed buildings, a game that Miranda was hard pressed to retain the advantage in. What had been more perturbing than this, however, was the explosion and sudden abatement of gunfire from Shepard's area; not limited to an end of automatic or single fire weaponry, either of which would indicate that Shepard was still operational, but all gunfire.

There were simply too many batarians for Shepard to have just finished them off.

He might be able to take care of himself, but no-one is immune to mistakes or misfortune; I need to safeguard the objective. Miranda made her decision, ducking out of cover to hurl a batarian back into a pile of rubble through careful manipulation of gravity. He made impact with the concrete with a sickening crunch, his armour misshapen, caved in at the back. Judging by the way he slumped to the floor, apparently catatonic due to shock, she had broken his spine.

She didn't stop, however, sending out a pulse from her Omni-tool to cause the alien's comrade's weapon to malfunction and his kinetic barrier to overload, preventing him from firing and giving them away as well as providing her with time to close in, staggering him with a smooth spinning kick to the head before continuing the motion to deliver a precise biotic pulse to the alien's chest, disrupting the rhythm of the batarian's heart and sending him into cardiac arrest. He collapsed, groaning and fighting to retain consciousness.

Miranda didn't give him a second glance, but simply moved off through the ruins towards the source of the explosion that, she deduced, had put an end to Shepard's one-man insurgency.

Thaddaeus Shepard awoke in pain. Rather a lot of it, actually. However, what surprised him was the nature of the pain he was in. From a rapid (and not entirely reliable as a result) self-diagnosis, he summarised that he had suffered no burns as a result of the explosion that was the last thing he could remember, and had suffered no actual open wounds; instead having suffered a significant battering as a result of the powerful concussive wave that the explosion had given off, and numerous scrapes, grazes and bruises from his landing on jagged concrete debris.

Oh, and his head was slaughtering him. Slowly.

I'd think I was suffering from an aneurism, except for the fact that I wouldn't be feeling it; I'd be dead. Besides, unless it affected the areas of the brain associated with pain, it wouldn't cause anything like this. So; concussion, perhaps a shattered skull-

Then, he recalled that he wasn't in an environment that could reasonably be called 'safe'. He analysed the information his senses were providing him, careful not to provide any indication that he was conscious until he had ascertained whether he had company or not.

He smelt blood and smoke, and the air had a strange sting from the explosion, which he presumed was recent. He heard gunfire, and nearby voices. Batarian voices. Judging by the fluctuation in volume, voices belonging to people that were moving around, and judging by their comparatively hushed nature, voices belonging to people hoping to avoid detection, meaning that they were probably searching for him.

Their hushed voices meant one other thing.

They were very close by.

He had what data he could gain without displaying consciousness; it seemed likely from the data that he had that it was safe to open his eyes. He did so, and immediately reemphasised that it had been likely, not certain.

There was a batarian standing over him, carrying a gun that seemed to be pointed between his eyes, who was glaring at the now quietly groaning human with a look of utter hatred.

"Corporal Shepard." It greeted him quietly, it's deep voice a snarl.

"Oh, no, that bastard ran off a couple of hours ago." The human responded glibly. "If you like, I could take a message?"

"You don't think I'd recognise the Butcher of Torfan on sight?"

"And there's that nickname again. I kill people with precision, damnit; it's an important distinction. So, I assume by the fact that I'm not dead yet that you wish to rail against me for my vile crimes against your species, studiously ignoring the fact that your precious Hegemony brought that raid down on themselves? You may as well shoot me now; it'd be kinder, so you'd actually have the moral high ground your species seems to believe they occupy, and, given the fact that your earlier attempt to kill me failed, I'm in a certain amount of pain that has triggered such resentment that the low probability that you might have been able to torture me into showing some form of remorse has been rendered zero."

"We-the Hegemony isn't trying to kill you."

"Oh. Thanks for telling me, I must have misunderstood the bullets and explosions. That's a cultural thing I suppose? I suppose I should tell you that in my culture, pointing a gun at someone tends to make them uneasy and in my own personal case sometimes rather stubborn." Shepard said, unusually testy and flippant due to the crippling pseudo-migraine in his head.

"The Hegemony wants you alive. For now. I disagree."

"Oh. Why?" Shepard asked curiously. The batarian Hegemony was hardly known for its forgiving nature. "Not you, your government." He interrupted to clarify as the batarian opened his mouth to explain. "I know why you want me dead; Butcher of Torfan, etc etc..."

"They want what's in your head. Details of the Leviathan research project. And, of course, to... chastise you properly, affording the process the proper amount of time and attention. Any attempts to kill you have either been rogue operatives, fools who failed to recognise you, or misunderstood on your part."

"They expect me to remember specific details of their project that they were running on Torfan?"

"Yes."

"That's completely fucking absurd. Given the leisure to do so, I might have read through the details of the project, however, I didn't have time, as your own people had rigged the bunker network to explode, which, incidentally, is also what destroyed the data."

"You didn't take it with you?" the batarian asked curiously, despite himself, surprised that someone with the vicious reputation of the Butcher of Torfan had failed to bring back such an important item, particularly when it would have been so easy to retrieve.

"I carried my CO out on my shoulders instead." Shepard admitted with a scowl. Seeing the alien's eyes widen, he hastily went on to explain "I was suffering from severe blood loss, not fully conscious, and the man I had with me that was carrying the data got shot by one of your comrades. I forgot about the bloody data and carried a useless gibbering loon out instead."

The batarian was practically speechless.

"See, I'm never going to be able to live this down." Shepard complained testily. "The fucking Alliance wants me dead for doing what I had to in order to stay alive and get the job done, and I managed a pointlessly compassionate act by accident, to the detriment of the mission and myself, and they want me dead for being a murderous psychopath! The fact that that's almost entirely accurate is irrelevant!"

The batarian thought for a moment, trying to get his head around these revelations.

"Well, now that you've told me that you don't have the data, I suppose I may as well kill you..."

Bugger. Need a solution, quickly please... Shepard urged himself, his migraine getting worse, something he might have previously doubted as even being possible, as he raised his hands to massage his temples to try and give himself some relief-

He froze halfway through the action, staring at his exposed wrists.

They were surrounded by a blue aura; slight, but actually more visible than it was usually, when he was using his biotics passively.

That raised an interesting idea, and a far more interesting possible solution to his current predicament.

Remembering his scanty knowledge of conventional biotics and improvising, through the pain, and the gunfire, and the choking dust, Shepard tried to focus his entire mind, unify conscious mental function onto one idea, onto one section of his anatomy; the right hand that was currently massaging his temple.

It was bloody difficult, even without the external distractions; Shepard's brain had a habit of randomly flitting from concept to concept almost spontaneously, with only a relatively small part that he could focus on any one thing, and trying to push past that was actually intensifying the pain in his head, as if his body were attempting to discourage him, something his subconscious seemed to agree with as it tried to rip his thoughts to shreds.

He railed against the obstacles, but pushed on regardless, the glow fading on his left wrist and intensifying on his right, to such an extent that the batarian, having paused, curious at the human's strange pain noticed it himself, despite having never encountered such a phenomenon before.

"What are you doing-" It began suspiciously, as Shepard's closed eyes shot open, and his right hand almost spasmed out, the muscles in the forearm having tensed the digits into claws, and blue energy transferred from the limb to the batarian's head.

The change was insignificant at first; Shepard feared he'd failed, wasn't even sure what was supposed to happen; he'd acted with no clear goal in mind other than survival, until the batarian's nose began to leak the odd dirty yellow blood that belonged to the batarian species.

He knew batarian anatomy; the nose was not an orifice that was prone to bleeding.

The batarian knew as well; he rubbed at the substance that was flowing ever more copiously from his nose, asked "What did you do?" Shepard merely grinned in response, as he saw blood drip from his foe's tear ducts, then his ears and from his mouth, before it seemed that he was bleeding under his very skin. Hysterically, somehow not even having the sense to seal Shepard's fate with a scream, the batarian clutched at his head, attempting to staunch the bleeding, and failing woefully.

Shepard watched as the batarian thrashed around, fell to the floor, and his death throes ended.

There was a metallic tang in his mouth, and moisture on his face. He swallowed and felt the viscous texture of blood flow down his throat, sickening and strengthening, wiped at the moisture on his face, flowing from his own tear ducts and nose; his hand came away red.

"Shit." He mumbled to himself, light headed and drained, fighting for consciousness as he slumped back against the rubble he had been tossed into by the explosion.

Around him, the gunfire intensified, the batarians encountering more opposition than there really should be in the area. Shepard tried to consider explanations, but his brain was refusing to function as it normally did. He saw Miranda in the distance, watching him, clearly stunned by what she'd seen and considering its implications. She shrugged, and began to walk towards him, before she saw something over his shoulder that made her melt back into shadow.

Cameron walked into his line of sight. Alone, and armed, and bloody, and with dilated pupils, eyes that gleamed with a feral energy that Shepard was on familiar terms with.

Oh, just bloody wonderful...

She offered him her hand. He blinked.

"We don't have time for this; Command has a new directive for us."

I didn't know that hallucinations were a side effect of biotics...