AN: Thanks to everyone who has favourited, followed and double thanks to everyone who has reviewed.
Special thanks goes to my beta Spyke1985! You're the best!
It's here! The chapter where stuff happens! Just one more left of Part One.^^
Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Eleven - The Calm Before the Storm
Sarah was in a rush when she entered C-Sec HQ. She hadn't been able to get to sleep after Philip had left but she'd become absorbed in an RPG on her omni-tool and had underestimated how long it would take her to get ready.
So, she didn't even notice the dark plated turian next to Tia watching her intently, his focus especially drawn to the charm bracelet on her wrist. Two half hearts. One red. One blue.
"Hey." He eventually said, softly, causing her gaze to jerk upwards to him as she froze on the spot.
"Red..." She whispered as he stood up, unsure of the reception he would receive. He was mildly surprised when she ran forward, pulling him close to her and into what would have been a bone-crushing hug, if he hadn't had battle hardened plates protecting him. "I missed you." She told him as he took a few moments to relish in her familiar touch and the all too familiar scent of Earth flowers mixed with something new that he couldn't quite identify...
By the time he did, she had pulled away from him and had started hitting him.
"Ow, Blue!" He protested but she kept hitting, a fire lit behind her eyes.
"Five weeks!" She yelled, and he nodded sadly.
"I know, I know..." He said, but she kept on.
"Five bloody weeks! You have no idea! I mean, I don't even get a goodbye, but you give Tia a charm bracelet to pass on? And don't even think of citing cultural differences as an excuse because you know that that shit won't fly with me!" She yelled, finally stopping her assault as she placed her hands on her hips and stared him down.
"I know, Blue... That was cruel of me." He told her, his sub-harmonics trilling with apology through the agitation and frustration that had taken root in her absence.
"Yeah, no shit." She muttered and he frowned as he remembered what he had smelt on her.
"So, you got a new boyfriend?" He asked, trying to keep the jealousy and pain out of his sub-harmonics. He had left her. If she had chosen someone else, it was no one's fault but his own.
"None of your business." She told him sharply, folding her arms, and he sighed. It was now or never, he decided.
"What if I want it to be?" He asked softly and he caught her sub-harmonics trilling with surprise and happiness before she silenced them, and the small indication of her potential feelings gave him enough courage to step towards her, placing his taloned hand on the side of her folded arm.
"You left." She reminded him and he let his sub-harmonics trill with apology again.
"I'm an idiot. And the closer people get to me, the more I push them away." He said and she nodded, sighing.
"Yeah. But somehow I managed to fall for you anyway." She admitted, her tone resolute. Once she made up her mind to do something, she did it. That included confessing her feelings to the turian she loved.
He immediately stepped closer to her and brought his forehead down to hers, just as she remembered that she had decided to tell him what she was before she asked him about his own feeling towards her. Shit, she thought as she realized that she messed up her timings.
"There's still something I haven't told you and it's important." She admitted. "Really important. So, no big confessions of feelings or anything until I've told you. Okay?" She asked and he could see how distressed the secret was making her, so, instead of telling her the very thing he had been desperate to for weeks now, he simply nodded.
"Okay." He confirmed and she gave him a grateful smile.
"I promise that I'll tell you before the day cycle's up. But right now I have somewhere to be. Now, where did the other two go?"
"Hey, can I talk to you?" Philip asked quietly and Tia frowned. As much as she knew that she shouldn't be eavesdropping, she wanted to make sure that neither of them 'chickened out', as she had heard Philip say. She had tried chicken once at his behest, and she hadn't been impressed. Although, what exactly the small bird had to do with cowardice, she could never figure out.
"But, Philip..." She whined back softly and he grinned at her, shaking his head.
"Come on, there's something I need to tell you." He said and she nodded reluctantly.
"Fine." She said and smiled back at him as he laughed softly. Once they were in the next room, she returned to speaking at a normal volume. "So, what did you need to tell me?" She asked and couldn't help but notice how he blushed slightly and started to fidget. It was cute. No, no it isn't. He's just a friend. She thought to herself as he sat on the edge of a desk to stop himself from pacing.
"Okay, I just wanted to tell you this because you're my best friend and I've never kept secrets from you, and keeping them now is really weird so-" He started to ramble and she held a hand up to stop him.
"Philip? You're talking a little too fast. Wanna slow it down a little for me?" She asked and he smiled sheepishly at her.
"Sorry. Just, okay you know how you said that you didn't want to be anything more than friends when we first started hanging out? I said that that was totally fine, which it was. The more we started hanging out, the more obvious it became that it would never have worked out. I mean, you're smart, like smart smart, and you're... you are genuinely interested in all of that fancy, boring crap that I can't stand. But you're funny and sweet and we somehow found enough common ground to get along. Plus, you don't look down on me even though you know where I come from. So, you're a good friend and I was more than happy to never think about dating you again..." He said and Tia gritted her teeth in an effort to not cry. She knew all of this and she didn't need him to reiterate it all for her.
"So, is there a point to all of this?" She asked, trying to keep the bite from her words but not quite succeeding. He sighed, shaking his head.
"Crap. I'm not explaining this right... I was fine with it until... You remember last year? We went out for your birthday and that total douchebag started flirting with you, then when you started flirting back... I just... I realized that I didn't want to just be friends. That you meant more to me than that. But, you had made it clear that you didn't want to go out with me and I didn't want to lose our friendship. I still don't. But... I guess this is my way of asking if you want to go and get coffee sometime or something..." He said and she seemed frozen in place as her mind went to its usual standby of overloading her with questions.
"We go for coffee all the time." She eventually managed to point out, and he rolled his eyes at her, still clearly a little on edge as he waited for her answer.
"Then we do something else. If you want to..." He said and she nodded.
"I, erm... I have this thing. About people leaving. It's a long story and I'll tell you it sometime. You just... You have to promise me that if this doesn't work out that we can still be friends." She told him and he nodded.
"Tia, we'll always be friends." He said and she smiled at him.
"Then okay. I'll let you buy me a drink or something sometime." She told him and couldn't help but laugh softly as he gave her a huge, child-like grin.
At that point Sarah entered the room, Tiberius just behind her, the both of them smiling like children with a secret.
"Guys, we're gonna be late." Sarah told them and Tiberius gave her a concerned look as his sub-harmonics trilled with worry.
"You're going out on patrol?" He asked and she blushed a little.
"No, actually, I'm performing." She admitted and his sub-harmonics began to trill with surprise.
"Performing?" He repeated and she shook her head.
"It's nothing. Philip and Tia roped me into the band and we got the early slot down in the arse-end of the lower wards..." She muttered sheepishly and he smiled a little.
"I look forward to seeing it." He told her and her blush deepened as she headed out of HQ.
"I hate the both of you for this." Sarah hissed at Philip and Tia as they got ready to start performing.
"Come on, Rookie. It's a crowd pleaser." Philip told her as he started playing and she let her eyes scan the crowd. Her eyes fell on familiar, vibrant green ones and she was both calmed and thrilled at once as she spotted Tiberius watching her in the crowd.
"Where have all good men gone,
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules,
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need.
I need a hero,
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night,
He's gotta be strong,
And he's gotta be fast,
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight,
I need a hero,
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light,
He's gotta be sure,
And it's gotta be soon,
And he's gotta be larger than life-"
BANG!
The three C-Sec officers on stage immediately rolled into action, all of them carrying concealed weapons. Sarah's visor automatically keyed up its combat functions, but she instead used it to help her search for Tiberius amongst the screaming civilians and the troops in yellow and white armour that were filing into the ward. As soon as she caught sight of him, her heart started to thunder in her chest and she felt as if it had stopped still while she had been looking.
"Go! We can handle ourselves." Tia told her and she nodded, wishing that just for once her biotics would activate on command. She felt almost naked in her red silk shirt and black jeans, with no armour or shields. But she needed to get to Tiberius and that simple fact made her move with quick precision, despite the crowds, mowing down any of the armoured assholes in her way.
"Blue, we need to get to the catwalks." He told her as soon as she was in earshot, and she nodded her head, the dull panic of being surrounded by the crowd was slowly creeping into her mind.
"Agreed." She said and followed his lead, watching his back. There was something wrong about the soldiers filing in. But she wasn't thinking as each one entered the range of her pistol, wasn't calculating. She acted on instinct, knowing exactly when to shoot. And she didn't try to think, didn't try to analyze. She knew that that would only pull her out of the zone she was in.
"Blue?" Tiberius asked her as they climbed up onto the catwalk and she nodded, lowering her gun.
"There was something... off about those soldiers. Something different." She told him.
"Do you know what?" He asked, used to trusting her instincts.
"No. Not yet." She admitted before smiling. "I missed this."
"Being shot at?"
"You. You overgrown pyjak." She said, allowing her sub-harmonics to trill with affection, and he grinned back at her, taking courage from the fact that she seemed to return his feelings, at least partially.
"Same." He admitted and her heart leapt a little, despite their situation.
"So, any idea who those guys were?" She asked and he frowned a little, sub-harmonics trilling with confusion.
"You don't know?" He asked and she shook her head.
"No. Should I?" She asked and he sighed.
"Yellow and white armour can only mean one thing. Cerberus." He told her and she frowned.
"They've been out of action for almost twenty years." She told him and he shook his head.
"But not eradicated. It looks like they've been busy. Or maybe they're imposters." He said, shrugging, and she got an awful feeling of impending doom in the pit of her stomach, which was never a good sign.
Her visor chimed, alerting her to new orders being issued. Most officers were being told to stay put, the extra security that had been put in place was paying off.
"We're being ordered to dock control to try and get rid of their ships." She told him and he nodded.
"We can get there via the catwalks." He said.
"You take the ones down there if I take the ones up here?" She asked.
"Sounds good to me." He acknowledged as they began to move in the right direction. Things quieted down as they moved through the vacant cat-walks, only interrupted when he occasionally got a good shot of an enemy down below, so he decided to use the opportunity to talk to her, to try and get a better sense of her feelings towards him. "You were good down there." He told her and she blushed a little.
"On stage or on the battlefield?" She asked, her tone a little shy, not quite brimming with her usual confidence and bravado.
"Both, but I was more talking about the stage." He admitted and she shook her head.
"I can't believe they talked me into that stupid song..." She muttered and he let his sub-harmonics trill with question.
"How did they manage that?" He asked and she groaned.
"They gave me a choice. It was that or I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith. I chose the lesser of two evils." She told him, smirking a little.
"What song would you have chosen?" He asked and she keyed it up on her visor, transmitting it to his comm.
"Drag myself from my bed,
Around twenty past six,
Get my kids up, make breakfast,
One egg, two toast, three Weetabix.
And as I sit down I look up,
And you're standing in the doorway, sun at your back,
In my old brown dressing gown,
Well, no one can love you more than I love you now.
But I gotta go, running for the bus,
Coat flying and I try not to miss it this time,
But the drivers waiting and that's strange,
Kids on the top deck, quiet for a change.
And there's no rain and no roadworks,
In the bus lane and all my hurts run away,
And I'm smiling as I'm punching in.
The day I died was the best day of my life,
The day I died was the best day of my life,
Tell my friends and my kids and my wife,
Everything will be alright,
The day I died was the best day of my life..."
"Morbid." He commented and she rolled her eyes.
"I know but it reminds me of my childhood. My gran-gran loves this song." She said, smiling, and he smiled back.
"So, you think you're gonna die when you're most happy?" He asked and she smirked.
"I hope not." She said and he raised a brow plate.
"Why not?" He asked and she smiled shyly.
"Because if today turns out like I think it will, then the best day of my life would be today. You know, minus the Cerberus attack of course." She told him and he kept grinning, figuring what she meant.
"How do you think today's going to end?" He asked her, his sub-harmonics trilling with affection, and he didn't miss how it made her blush.
"We kick their asses, of course." She settled for saying before changing the subject. "Tia was pretty handy with her weapon out there." She observed, chafing a little from the lack of targets within reach of her pistol, wishing for her rifle. "I thought her specialty was hand-to-hand."
"It is. But she knows her stuff when it comes to weapons." He said and Sarah frowned.
"So how come I didn't see her name on the scoreboards when you tested my weapons proficiency?" She asked, narrowing her eyes a little, and his sub-harmonics trilled a little with guilt.
"There's erm... There is a separate scoreboard for recruits who skip the Academy." He told her and she frowned.
"So why wasn't I on those boards?" She asked.
"I erm... I wanted to compare your scores to mine. Especially with the sniper." He said and her frown deepened.
"So, where did I score on the real boards?" She asked.
"Top end of average." He told her and she rolled her eyes.
"You know, now possibly wasn't the best time to knock my confidence." She told him snarkily and his sub-harmonics trilled with apology.
"It's not as if you're shooting anything up here." He said and she sighed.
"And don't I know it." She huffed, rolling her eyes, as she opened the door to the next section, revealing two of the armoured soldiers in sniper positions. She got the first with a headshot and got the other through the chest, wounding, but not killing, him. "And now for some answers." She said as she moved down towards the soldier.
"Be careful." Red warned her and she nodded as she removed the helmet of the soldier in front of her.
He wasn't human.
Nor was he implanted with Reaper tech like she heard that the Cerberus soldiers her parents had fought had been. He was... If she hadn't been what she was, she may have called him a monster, the skin of one of his cheeks missing, giving way to a deformed mandible, his eyes a strange shade of yellow that made her hair stand up on end, and what skin he had looked... sickly.
She should have been horrified. She should have backed away in disgust and put the poor creature out of its misery. She was literally faced with her worst nightmare, the reason she had always feared hospitals...
And she couldn't bring herself to feel disgust or hatred or fear... Only pity and empathy that made her eyes prick with unshed tears on his behalf.
"Who are you?" She asked softly, a little afraid of the answer.
"I am a soldier..." He managed, slowly, his breathing laboured and his voice sounded warped. As if he had the second voice box of an adolescent.
"For who?" She asked, again softly although fear had begun to claw away at her, telling her to run from the thing that she had been so close to being herself.
"The Illusive Man." He managed after several moments and Sarah frowned, focusing on the information she was being given instead of the poor wretch of a creature who was giving it to her.
"You mean Cerberus?" She asked, knowing full well that the Illusive Man had died years ago.
"Yes..." He replied and she bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall as she watched the life of the being in front of her slip away. She hadn't wounded him that badly but she suspected that he hadn't been stable to start with. Good for nothing but cannon fodder, ensuring that the Cerberus forces were never outnumbered but nothing more.
"Why are you here? What do you want?" She asked, unprepared for the answer she would receive.
"You." He said simply, causing her heart to stop dead and her blood to chill in her veins with fear.
"What? Why me?" She asked, although she suspected that she already knew, and that knowledge made a cold feeling of dread start to creep up her spine as she bit down harder on her lip.
"You are like us." He managed to say and she had to gulp back the sense of panic that was beginning to grip as her worst fears became realized.
"I am nothing like you." She spat. "I wasn't grown in a lab."
"You are like us." He repeated and her denial fell into frustration which, in turn, fell down her face in the tears that had managed to escape the iron wall she had built around herself.
"If I'm just another one of you, why do you need me?" She finally managed to ask through gritted teeth, the words sharpened by so much pain that they cut through Tiberius' heart as he watched the exchange.
"You are like us but we are imperfect..." He managed to explain, and Sarah did everything she could to hold back a sob. This... thing had been created in some kind of sick attempt to recreate her, but they hadn't gotten it right. They needed her for that. Not that she was quite right, either.
"I am so, so sorry..." She told him softly as he drew his last, shuddering breath. This was all because of her. She had caused this, whether directly or indirectly... Because he had been right. She might pretend to be a real person. Pretend to be human, say that she was turian, but in the end she wasn't. She was a horrific creature just like him, a thing of nightmares told in stories to small children in order to scare them into good behaviour.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by Tiberius' hand on her shoulder, but it did nothing to quell the wave of harsh truth rising through her. She noticed her biotics dancing across her skin but, for once, they didn't dissipate with her attention. Instead they seemed to intensify as the truth drove itself further into her mind.
You're not human.
You're not turian.
Stop pretending to be...
"Come on, we're close." She finally said, her tone dead and her sub-harmonics silenced. She didn't have the ability to express the turmoil within her so she didn't even begin to try.
"No." Tiberius said stubbornly but she refused to face him. She felt that, if he saw her now he would truly see her and he would run for the hills. He would tell people that he had once known a hybrid monster and lived, and nobody would believe him. "Blue, look at me." He said softly but his words tore through her like daggers and she couldn't help but flinch at the impact.
"We have to keep moving." She finally said, her tone still dead.
"No. Not until you talk to me." He told her softly, touching her shoulder gently. His touch sent a jolt through her, setting fire to all of the emotions that she had suppressed to a smolder beneath her iron wall. Her sub-harmonics burst to life with a whole spectrum of emotions that melded together into an unrecognizable lurch of sound, not unlike a sob.
"What do you want me to say?" She hissed, so quietly that he almost missed it. "Do you want me to tell you that it was all a load of bull? That I don't know what he was talking about? Because I won't lie to you, Red."
As soon as she had uttered his nickname, he had pulled her close, into his embrace, ignoring the blue glow of biotics over her eyes that had overloaded her visor (thankfully the safeties had stopped any damage from reaching her eyes) and the pulse of them across her skin that she figured must be hurting him at such proximity, but he didn't seem to care.
"It's okay, Blue." He said softly and she shook her head, tears cascading down her cheeks.
"No. It's not." She told him, shaking her head. "He was right. I'm just like him... A deformed creature."
"No. You said it yourself, you weren't raised in a lab." He said and she pulled away from him, pulling back her hair and removing her damaged visor.
"But I'm still a... A hybrid." She admitted and he didn't react, the affection and acceptance in his sub-harmonics not missing a beat.
"Blue, I don't care. I love you." He told her and her breath hitched in her throat, her biotics finally dying down.
"But how can you? Look at me." She groaned, but he shook his head, pulling her close to him once more and lowering his forehead to hers, plates meeting plates.
"It doesn't change you. You're still stubborn and hot-headed and kinder than you want to be. You're still the woman I fell in love with. Always will be." He told her and she nodded, mutely, unable to do anything but accept his words.
"Red, I love you too. And I'm too turian for that mean anything other than..." She trailed off and his taloned fingers gently moved to her cheek and neck gently and almost innocuously brushing the place where bondmarks would be placed.
"I know, ani, I know." He said and her heart constricted as he used the turian term of endearment for bondmates. But then she was suddenly struck by the fact that they were still, technically, in the middle of a battlefield.
"We really do need to keep moving." She sighed, reluctantly, and he nodded.
"I know. But as soon as this is over..." He trailed off and her imagination quickly took hold, causing her to blush furiously.
"I'm gonna hold you to that." She told him, grinning, and he grinned back as they headed into the next section, only to see a whole group of soldiers beneath them.
"Yeah, we're definitely close." She whispered and he nodded.
"No way around." He whispered back and she grinned at him, her biotics once again pulsing across her skin.
"Then we go through." She said as his sub-harmonics trilled with surprise at her apparent control over her biotics, and she just grinned at him. The last block had been removed. She was more in-tune with that part of herself that she had stopped relying on somewhere in her anger. Her instincts were good, and she'd forgotten how to listen to them. She had stopped trusting them. And with that self-doubt had come the lack of biotics. "Watch this." She said before hurling herself from the catwalk and into the middle of the soldiers, her biotics exploding outwards and knocking back most of the enemies.
"Hello boys. Looking for me?" She asked as they took a moment to ready their weapons before firing. Tiberius growled at her reckless behaviour as he moved as quickly as his rifle would allow, taking down as many of the enemies as he could to stop them from overwhelming her.
It didn't take them long to clear the area and as soon as they had, he quickly made his way down from the catwalks, his sub-harmonics growling with frustration and a little anger. Sarah gave him a sheepish look.
"Ah. I know that sound." She sighed and he growled a little louder.
"That was stupid and reckless and... and..."
"I know, I'm sorry." She said, reassuringly. She may have worked off some of the built-up stress energy from their separation but she knew that he was still suffering from the ill-effects, and probably would until she let him mark her. A thrill went down her spine at the very thought, and she moved closer to him, letting her sub-harmonics tell him what she was thinking, which caused his own to growl back as she grinned at him.
"As soon as we're done here." He promised her as he stepped closer and she felt her heart thunder in anticipation.
But she stepped away from him, frowning, as if bucket of cold water had been dumped over her.
"What? What is it?" He asked and she narrowed her eyes, surveying the room.
"Someone is coming..." She muttered and he frowned at her.
"An enemy?" He asked and she shook her head, her eyes quickly surveying the downed enemies.
"No... Someone else..." She muttered as she grabbed a shotgun from one of the bodies.
"Rookie? Smiley? You guys there?" Philip's voice rang out.
"Just go ahead and give our position away to everyone." They heard Tia grumble as Sarah gave a sigh of relief.
"Hey guys." Sarah said as they approached. "What are you doing here?"
"Got orders to meet you here. Apparently their orders are coming from beyond those doors." Tia explained and Sarah began to feel overcome by nerves.
"Wait, shouldn't they send someone to help?" She asked and Tia sighed, realizing that Sarah had removed her broken visor.
"They concentrated their attack on HQ. The Executor was going to send a couple of Spectres our way, but it looks like they're tied up. It's just us." She said and Sarah nodded, resolutely.
"Then we finish this." She said as Tia moved to start hacking the door. "Room filled with big boss bad guys? No problem. I'm Angel Motherfucking Shepard-Vakarian. This won't end well for them." Sarah said, as much for her sake as for her friends'.
"We're with you, Blue." Tiberius told her and she smiled at him, blushing a little.
"Damn straight." Philip said and Tia rolled her eyes.
"I can't believe that I agreed to go on a date with you." She said, shaking her head, and Sarah grinned at the both of them.
"I was half convinced that you would wuss out." She said to Philip who rolled his eyes.
"Same here." He told her and she shrugged, before she heard Tiberius groan next to her.
"I really wish that I hadn't figured out what I just figured out..." He muttered and she let her sub-harmonics trill with apology.
"Five weeks." She told him and he growled back, although he nodded.
"I know. It was just easier when it was some faceless..." He started and Sarah pulled him close.
"Hey, I love you, remember?" She said and he nodded.
"I know, ani. I know." He told her softly.
"Guys, I'm almost done here." Tia called out and the other three readied their weapons.
"How many enemies do you think?" Philip asked and Sarah shrugged.
"Dunno. Lots, probably." She offered and he snorted.
"Helpful." He said, sarcastically, and Tiberius growled again.
"Red? Knock that shit off." Sarah warned him. "Or, at least, direct it towards the bad guys."
"Ready?" Tia asked and they all nodded in response.
"Ready." They said in unison before opening the door to what appeared to be an empty room.
"Huh. Was the intel bad?" Philip asked, but the rest of them shared a knowing look that screamed 'trap'. But Sarah wondered who the trap was for? The officers that had been sent after them? Or the hybrid woman they had been searching for?
Sarah looked to Tiberius, her instincts telling her that as much as they knew it was a trap, forward was the only way. She watched the expression cross his face that she had grown accustomed to, that told her that he was calculating the odds and figuring out the best course of action.
Onwards? She asked him with her sub-harmonics and body language and he nodded.
Onwards it is.
They walked into the room as if they owned the place and Philip was the only one who jumped a little when they were promptly surrounded by Cerberus agents.
"Oh no, how unexpected." Sarah commented, sarcastically. She had learnt battlefield quips at the feet of her father, and she damn well knew how to be snarky in the face of danger.
"Cocky thing, aren't you?" A man asked as he approached via the catwalk and she made an effort to smirk, concentrating on how he sounded like Darth Vader instead of the imminent danger she was facing.
"Ooooh, ominous. Fancy facing me like a man, or am I going to have to kill you while you remain cowering in the shadows?" She asked, hoping to give Tiberius enough time to calculate a way out of their situation.
"I don't have time to talk to scum like you." He said and she raised an eyebrow at that.
"'Scum like me', huh? Well, that's a new one. Care to elaborate?" She asked and she could swear that he was sneering at her, even if she couldn't see him properly.
"Less than human. You will serve our cause. Nothing more." He told her and she folded her arms.
"Uh-huh... So, are you going to fill me in on what this 'cause' actually is?" She asked, still sure that he was smirking at her which was doing nothing more than spurring her smart mouth onwards, hoping that she was buying enough time. The fact that Tia had disappeared just before they'd opened the door hadn't been lost on her.
"The advancement of humanity." He sneered and she felt his glare shift to Tiberius, causing her to give a defensive growl. Nobody messed with her bondmate.
"If you're so hell-bent on the 'advancement of humanity', why are you trying to perfect the hybrids?" She asked, hoping to turn the man's attention back to her.
"They make useful soldiers and reduce the loss of human life. Your kind are nothing better than monsters from tales of old and you will, eventually, be slain as such." He told her and she let her brow plates disappear into her hairline.
"Oh? Wanna say that to my face or are you going to keep hiding in the shadows?" She asked once more, and she watched as it worked and the figure stepped closer to the edge of the catwalk.
"You are pitiful. We shall take your genetic code and then put you out of your misery. And there is nothing you can do to stop us." He said and she felt her heart warm a little as Tiberius gave a protective growl, but she simply smirked.
"Oh, I know. I just said that so that she could get behind you." She said hoping beyond hope that she and Tia were on the same wave-length. Which, apparently, they were as he immediately spun around only to be hit back over the edge of the catwalk by a decloaking asari. "Anyone moves and I kill your boss." Sarah called out to the hybrid soldiers surrounding them and they seemed to take her word for it, before she turned and whispered to Tiberius. "I'm so glad that worked. I've wanted to use that line for years." She told him and he grinned at her, shaking his head a little.
She almost didn't notice Philip stiffen up next to her but it was Tia that asked.
"Philip?" She asked softly, jumping down from the catwalk and using her biotics to break her fall. He shook his head, remaining mute.
"Call them off. All of them." Sarah growled and the man in front of her nodded.
"They are looking for you anyway." He said and she wondered what was making his voice sound the way it did. Did he have Cerberus implants? He looked fairly normal.
"Who are you taking your orders from? Who is looking for Sarah?" Tiberius growled at the man who sneered back at him.
"The Illusive Man." He answered simply and Sarah shook her head.
"Bullshit. He's dead and has been for years." Sarah retorted but the man in front of her simply smiled.
"What do you think people would think of you if they knew what you were?" He asked her and she shook her head at the obvious attempt to change the subject.
"No, no. You were about to tell me just what exactly is going on." She told him but he kept smiling as if he hadn't heard her.
"I think that even those you call friends would shun you." He told her and she sighed, ignoring him.
"If you're not going to tell me then we'll just kill you and be done with it." She told him but her face fell as one of the consoles burst to life and Tia moved over to it.
"It's transmitting... I'm sorry Sarah, it's transmitting you. Your identity, biological profile, everything... There's no way to get it back." She said and Sarah frowned.
"Where is it transmitting to?" She asked, trying to remain calm, and Tia gave her a sympathetic look.
"Everywhere. Every console and every screen on the Citadel and all ships in range." She told her and Sarah growled in anger, a poor effort to keep her fear in check.
"We don't have time for this." She said but the hybrids chose that point to attack, quickly overwhelming them and allowing their leader to escape. Sarah growled at that, knowing that she might not get another chance to find out who was chasing her. She let her biotics loose, momentarily unwilling to harm the creatures attacking them until she saw them surrounding Tiberius. At that point she let loose a growl, letting her biotics tear them limb from limb.
It didn't take long for the room to be cleared, but her biotics refused to fade until Tiberius pulled her close to him.
"It's okay, ani. I'm okay." He told her and she nodded, wrapping her arms around him to confirm what he was saying.
"You're bleeding." She managed, her hand finding a wound on his arm.
"So are you." He pointed out and she nodded as she became aware of her own wounds.
"I heal quickly." She told him before pulling away to survey the area, trying not to note the purple blood everywhere.
"Sarah, everyone knows now." Tia said and she nodded mutely in response. She couldn't quite grasp what that would mean. It was too big of a change.
"How long have you known?" She asked and the asari smiled gently at her.
"Months now. You're really bad at keeping secrets." She said and Sara snorted hollowly in response.
"Yeah. Understatement of the century. So, everyone knows, the big bad leader guy got away and we have no idea who the shadowy asshole even is. That about sum up this clusterfuck?" She asked them and Philip shook his head.
"That's not... Exactly true." He said quietly, his gaze not leaving the floor, and everyone frowned at him.
"Philip, what is it?" Tia asked him gently and his gaze suddenly moved upwards, locking with hers.
"I know who he is." He said and Tia moved her hand to his arm in reassurance.
"Who?" She asked and he sighed.
"His name is Philip Jones Sr. and, yes, it's as bad as it sounds." He managed to whisper out and Tia immediately pulled him into a hug.
"I am so sorry." She told him and he shook his head before moving his gaze to the other two.
"I didn't... I didn't know. If I did, I would have told someone, I swear." He said and Sarah nodded.
"We know, Philip. It's okay." She told him before her omni-tool flashed at her and she activated it. "They're retreating. You guys are being ordered to help with cleanup. I am being ordered to the hospital." She said, her voice quiet.
"I'll come with you." Tiberius said and she smiled weakly.
"Now you disobey orders? I... I'll be fine. I just..." She said, fighting the tears that threatened to fall as she started to crash from the adrenaline.
"Blue, what is it?" He asked and she gulped back the sob that she felt building.
"Something's wrong. I think... I think someone got hurt. I have to go. I'll meet up with you later, okay?" She asked and he nodded.
"Yeah, ani. Okay."
AN: Additional - Hehehe. Told you stuff happens! Just in case you were wondering, the second song in this chapter is The Day I Died by Just Jack. I figured it's a little more obscure than usual. Or maybe not. (I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that you all know I Need a Hero...) ^^