A/N And for all of my remaining readers out there here's the piece of cloaca that I have been stuck on for over a month and a half now! I hope you enjoy it, but I doubt it since I personally had to rewrite it eight times to make it relatively understandable. Anyways, This chapter is an intermediary between the second arc and third arc of Scorpio's Legacy Pre ME1. If you're confused about any of it please notify me by either Private Message or Review and I'll explain as well as I can. I hate this chapter so just bare with it as it was written without a proper guideline or notes. The next chapter is set in 2176 and Ch. 20 was in 2172 so I felt like a chapter needed to outline what happens between the two. Have a wonderful Labor day all of you who are in the United States like I am, and have a wonderful day to the rest of those who have the patience of a hawk to stick by my side throughout this. :)
Read, Review, and Enjoy! (Hopefully)
It didn't take long for my notoriety to explode once word made it out that a Human defeated the invasion. They named me the Protector of Thessia for thwarting what the Council failed to recognize as a threat. Relations between the Council and Asari Republics dwindled when word of their denial of relief aid reached the public, talk of Councilor Tevos stepping down reached the majority within a month. I had to publicly acknowledge her as the person that denied immediate aid to be sent to Thessia just to keep the blame from placing assassins on my doorstep. By the end of 2172 she resigned, all because of my influence. Hmph, I never wanted to become famous from that event, neither did anyone else I know, well, maybe Mein, but for different and much more bloody reasons. Tevos ended up arriving on the doorstep of my apartment begging forgiveness for the tragic mistake she made. I calmed her down and accepted her apology while explaining that her losing her job was simply a political move to get a more Asari-centric Councilor in charge. We continued to talk until Rila came home from work and instantly hugged her mother lovingly. I let them catch up and at the end I made Tevos promise to not let our relationship make it to the public, it wouldn't make any of our lives any easier. She happily agreed.
I gained instant celebrity status among the Asari after the reward ceremony. I was hounded for months by this Matriarch or that Politician, even young Maidens constantly contacted me with proclamations of their love, Merchants and Suppliers of raw goods flocked in from around Citadel Space to offer my barely recovering company their services. It seemed like everyone wanted to instantly be my best friend, or perhaps NOT be my enemy. Overall the name Scorpio became so popular so quickly that if you searched it on the Extranet you would have to jump down eight pages to find anything related to the Human astrological sign, I know, I looked it up and laughed for hours.
On the one year anniversary of the invasion the entire planet had a day of mourning for the people lost during the tragedy. High Priestess Ardania proclaimed the ninth day of the third month by the Athame Calender as the Day of Remembrance, the first new holiday added to Asari Culture since the end of the Krogan Rebellions over a thousand years ago. The total number of allied dead from the short invasion reached just around eight million civilians and forty thousand local militia world-wide, eight thousand APC officers, and one Asari Frigate that had just over thirty personal onboard. Enemy casualties reached just over thirty thousand Eclipse personal, two hundred thousand LOKI and YMIR mechs world-wide, and just over six thousand slavers. The overall casualties were ultimately lower but the total cost averaged around ten billion credits. The entire Eclipse Mercenary Company on Thessia was bankrupted eighty times over and as a result Thessia was without a working and organized criminal underground for the first time in centuries. I personally had Seila and Mein re-organize the small-time thugs into a sort of beggar's guild so we could keep the black market trade intact around Armali without extorting the populous or creating a complete war for illegal trade from breaking out.
Add that to the forty billion credits in property damages world-wide and you got the largest free enterprise in the galaxy nearly going bankrupt. Only an emergency loan from the Volus Bankers running the Citadel's economy kept everything running, well that and the fact that the Quarian Flotilla arrived out of the blue and offered up billions of tons worth of minerals and materials as well as Quarian labor for the reconstruction. That got everyone's attention immediately. Officially the Council races couldn't accept any aid from the Quarians due to official sanctions, but as respected advisors within the Asari government the Matriarchs had the authority to call in 'loans' from exterior parties, such as the Migrant Fleet. This workaround naturally pissed the Council off to the point that they tried to sanction the free trade on Thessia to get back at the Matriarchs. I personally made sure it never passed by making a 'diplomatic visit' to the Citadel and 'convincing' Sparatus to back off his support of the bill. He accepted my bribe, oh I mean 'gift' crate of rare dextro-Thessian white wine and a few hours later during the debates he threw Valern under the bus. I had a good laugh with him in private over the shock on Valern's face when Sparatus politely told him to fuck off. He's surprisingly reasonable once he's on your good side. Sparatus made a few jokes about Salarian Dalatrasses and I ended up surprisingly enjoying myself. The man knows how to tell a joke I'll give him that much.
After almost two years almost all of Thessia was rebuilt and I was summoned as a witness to a trade agreement signing between the Asari Republics and the Migrant Fleet. The Admiralty board signed it, then Ardania and twenty other Matriarchs, including Aethyta and Benesia, who barely made eye contact, but I could still see something like admiration in Aethyta's eyes when Benesia leaned ever-so-low over the bill to sign it and give us all plain view down her purple dress. I blushed and looked away to see Aethyta staring longingly. She still loves her, even with the fallout she still has a thing for the mother of her only Natural Asarian daughter. No wonder she keeps tabs on them both constantly. The entire meeting was held in secret and never released publicly. Only a select few within the Asari and Quarian governments knew what really happened that day. Hell, the only reason I was there is because the Asari Republics, Ardania specifically, wanted to use my company as the middle ground for the entire agreement, that way the Council couldn't officially declare a breech in Galactic law since my company is technically a private third-party industry set up on Thessia. I'm still a bit weary that it was held in a still crumbling warehouse even though the inspectors said it was structurally sound. I think I'm still rebuilding it anyways, a stray orbital shot hit the roof and nearly toppled the entire thing during the last leg of the space battle at the end of the Invasion. The first thing Mein did when she walked inside and saw a crashed fighter sticking out of the ceiling of her office was, "Oh goodie! More scrap metal for my experiments!"
It took almost two and a half years for Ardania to officially declare Thessia recovered. The Asari people now respected the Quarian people for their hardships and dedication to help their entire people and others during a crisis. Just recently there has been talks of the Quarians regaining their embassy on the Citadel, but only the new Asari Councilor, Matriarch Telaria, seems to be willing to allow them back inside Council Space anytime soon.
Onto a personal level, Mein and I had to convince Jeilus to keep my secret to herself after she surprise-scanned me during one of my random visits. Naturally she was shocked that I was technically trans-human, but overall she's kept it to herself so I don't mind. My nightmares are back, they started up again after the battle and haven't let up since. I started coughing up blood after a particularly bad one and freaked Rila out when she woke up to me standing over a pool of blood with the rims of my irises glowing bright blue. Rila forced me to see Mein and Jeilus twice a week after that. It looks like the initial scans were only partially correct, the supposed cybernetic Reaper tech in my body was expanding to take over most of my basic functions. I would already be dead if Mein hadn't hacked into them and rewrote the basic coding to only replace damaged tissue during severe trauma. She and Jeilus are researching ways to try and reverse the process but according to them I have barely twenty years left to live before I'm just a husk. They can't seem to understand what the origins of the cybernetics are and I'm content to let them stew in their ignorance for as long as possible. I already screwed up the timeline beyond all thought by just crashing a skycar into a cargo ship, I'm not chancing what consequences whoever D has for me if I tell them the truth.
I haven't told Rila yet, no need to worry her. She has enough to deal with being the Commissioner of the APC. We haven't talked about it much but I can tell that she worries that I might just drop dead one of these days and leave her here alone. I love her, I can't understand why but I do, but I can't allow her to be more than a loving companion to me, not after Neril, not after Cynthia. She wants us to be more, she desperately needs us to be more and I don't know if I can do it. So far our melds have only gone skin-deep, I worry that if I let her in, then too much could be traded and D might decide she's expendable.
I sit back and close my eyes as I think about how soothing she is. Her touch, relaxing and calming. Her voice, beautiful and strengthening. Her eyes, burning with passion yet sweet and curious to everything around her.
She's brilliant.
"Scorpio!" I jump awake and look across the table at Rila in shock. "You were drifting off again. Are the nightmares getting worst?" Worry creases her invisible brow.
I sigh and look off into the distance, trying to remember if I even slept last night. "No, no I was just... thinking."
She cuts into her meal and takes another bite before asking, "About what?"
"About the war." I say indifferently. She frowns at me over her glass as she takes a sip and I sigh as I try to elaborate. "About what happened when I puked up three liters of blood and passed out under the anti-air battery."
She coughs on her wine and wipes some off her lips before staring at me in shock, "Wha- When did this happen?" Her voice is soft, yet scolding.
I cringe, it was her, 'You lied AGAIN?!' voice. "A few moments before it fired, Nihlus and I were stuck fighting a horde of Varren off while trying to repair the firing mechanism. I had to use my already strained biotics to lift a four ton cog over a crevasse and lock it in place to get the cannon running again while Nihlus kept the Varren distracted." I blink as the deep booming voice I heard from that day echoes in my memories.
Rila nearly tosses her fork off the table as she slams her palm down, "Why didn't you tell me this before?!"
I lower my head and take a deep breath, "Because it was traumatizing and I didn't want to talk about it until now." I say blankly. She stares. "That and it eludes to some rather... unpleasant things that happened last time I nearly died." I say quietly, the memory of waking up to finding Neril lying against my couch, dead.
Rila goes quiet as she digests the new information, and her salad. "So what else aren't you telling me?" I look up at her wearily, my mouth open as if I was going to tell her everything, but I close it, that wouldn't help. "You aren't alone in this Dylan. You don't need to be alone." She reaches over and places her hand over mine, I effortlessly intertwine my finders with hers.
"I know, it's just..." I close my eyes and try to focus on the strangely alien texture of her thumb brushing against my own.
"Can't let it go." She finishes for me.
I look up at her and smile, she always knew what to say to crack me open. "Yeah. I guess I'm just being selfish again aren't I? Sharing nothing to protect the ones I love."
Her eyes twinkle at the word, "You bet your ass your being selfish!" She says mockingly while retrieving her hand. I wince involuntarily at the lack of physical contact and by the look on her face I can tell she noticed. She pounds back the rest of her wine and shakes her head at the instant buzz the winter-blend wine gave her biotics. "You want to watch a movie or something?" I sigh quietly, already close to tears from my internal recap of the last few years. "Or we could... just cuddle." I actually smile at that. Once again she knows exactly what I need before I even know it.
We lay down on the couch wrapped in each-others arms while watching whatever our Vidflicks account had already on pause from last night. "I love you." I suddenly blurt out.
She looks at me and smiles weakly, "I know." Is all she says. Those two little words, two simple words, crush my heart.
That's what my secrets have caused, she no longer sees me as her love. I close my eyes and silently wish I hadn't listened to Neril, never got involved, never saved that damn Asari girl in the alleyway, never felt it necessary to lead a desperate counter-strike against an invasion I caused. I shake my head as the tears finally break through and start streaming down my face. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Hey, hey..." She cups my cheeks and I look away from her, She doesn't deserve my lies. "Stop it." She slaps me across the face and I stare wide-eyed at her as she just frowns. "Stop lying." She pushes me off and stands up to walk out of the room.
I grab her wrist, "Et Ul Rila." She stops and turns to glare at me and I stand, tears subdued, to try and explain. "I'm broken, I-I mean..." I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm not- I'm-" She presses her lips against my own and I yelp in surprise.
She pulls away a second later and hugs me, "I don't need you to tell me everything, just remember that I'm tougher then I look and can take anything you throw at me. Hell... just look at Tela!"
I snort out a laugh and lay my head against her shoulder, just soaking in the comfort. "I'm dying." It's barely above a whisper, just enough for me to know she heard it.
She holds me tighter after a moment and whispers back, "I know."
I pull back to look at her, "You know?"
She looks at me apologetically, "I... talked to Mein last time she stopped by to-" She frowns. "Do whatever she does with you." I sense the malice in her voice and swallow. "I was waiting for you to tell me what was happening but you never did, so I... investigated." I blink at her.
Damn... well, she WAS the head officer in the APC before becoming Commissioner...
"I'm sorry, I didn't know how to tell you, I- I didn't want to add to your stress." I say truthfully.
She kisses me again, this time with more force, "Next time just fucking tell me. I nearly killed Mein when she hinted that you and her were doing 'routine checkups'."
I growl, "God damn it Mein I told you to AVOID innuendos!" I sigh tiredly.
She giggles, "Yeah, you might want to check your account, I didn't have enough money in mine to fix her facemask when I cracked it over the coffee table."
I groan, "Really? WHY the coffee table?" I look over her shoulder to scan it visually for cracks or laughs. "Hey, I already lost TWO coffee tables to rowdiness, I don't need another utterly destroyed one on my conscious!"
She pulls away and pouts as she sits down onto it. "But you said you liked my rowdiness."
I blink before grinning and stepping closer, "Oh, I do. I just enjoy fine craftsmanship a bit more." I reach past her, brushing my finger tips across her thigh as I run my hand across the imported hardwood furniture.
She grabs onto my waist and pulls me ontop of her, "And I enjoy your directness." I just smile before our mouths crash into each other with renewed passion, ready to rekindle our dwindling flame...
YOU WILL NOT STOP US!
I jump at the voice and keep running.
WE ARE ETERNAL!
I duck past the swinging claw of a brute and grab my pistol from where I dropped it before jumping up and shouting out in rage as I bioticly slam down onto it's back, throwing it to the ground. It's head turns to growl up at me just before I blast it off with three pistol shots. "You can go fuck yourself Harbinger!"
YOU CANNOT STOP US!
I look up and duck as three marauders start firing at me. I hop down and jump back to the road to keep running towards my destination, a clinic a few sectors down from my apartment.
No need to waste ammo.
Rushing through the lobby I pound the elevator button and turn to fire at and kill two of the husks trying to get in to rip my throat out. I fall back against the back wall and swear as I see two shots made it through my armor. I slather some expired medigel I scavenged and cringe at the burning sensation. "God damn it, how could this happen?"
YOU ARE ALL FEEBLE.
I ignore the voice and check my pistol for malfunctions. "Last thermal clip." I mutter absentmindedly.
YOUR STRUGGLE IS FUTILE.
"Oh yeah? Then how did I blow up your right hand you fucker...?"
…
"You're so arrogant you can't even realize how futile YOUR struggle is. We have the Crucible! WE will win and YOU will die!"
IT IS INEVITABLE...
I gasp awake from my sleep and look around to find I'm still in bed, Rila wrapped around my side. It was a dream. I lay back against my pillow and sigh in annoyance.
Why do all of them have Reapers?
Rila shifts and mutters something in her sleep. I rub my thumb over her head crests and she calms down, smiling at the small comfort.
Nazara had better be watching it's back, because I'm going to to bioticly tear it a new asshole if it thinks it can 'assume direct control' my ass anytime soon. Or... I'll tear it an actual asshole... whatever, I'll just kill it when I meet it.
Carefully pulling myself from Rila's hold I sneak out of the bedroom and throw on a robe before grabbing a glass, filling it with ice-winter brandy and walking out to the balcony to drink in peace. I look down at the silence the barely recovered capital of Thessia now breeds. The simple complacency that caused the invasion to be allowed to happen slowly but surely coming back to life. I look to the stars next, seeing only the brightest of them getting through the skyline to reach the oblivious people scurrying about. I focus and close my eyes to open them and see all of the stars with a small trick my cybernetics gave me, Optical Static Filtering I think Mein said. I count the stars, something I do when I can't sleep, I get up to half the stars in the sky when a late-night bird flies through my line of vision, breaking my concentration. I follow the lone bird as it flies through the air, circles twice, then lands on the platform below. "This is life. This is contention." I take a sip and ignore the icy burn it has in the back of my throat when I swallow. I scoff at the rebuilt city of fools, "This is complacency. This is what happens when all war is done." I sigh and shake my head as I lean forward and against the railing. "This is insanity..." I finish my drink and press the still cool glass against my forehead to ease the headache that surfaced from my thoughts. I hum at the relief before my sharpened hearing catches the footsteps of Rila behind me. I choose not to turn to her.
"Can't sleep?" I simply nod in response. She steps over, her own robes tied close to ward off the cool night air. We stand in silence for a moment before she speaks up. "I heard you." I look over at her and see her worried expression. "You never talk about Armali like it's a disease in public." She smiles, which makes my lips twitch into a small one as well.
I sigh and look back at the city, "This, all of this..." I sense her looking around. "This is what's wrong with peace. It makes everyone complacent. I'd much rather have riots in the streets then this... silent chaos." My grip tightens around the glass, threatening to shatter it. "We strive for peace, and when we get it we whine and moan about how dull it is. Then when we go to another war and everyone brushes it aside like it's horrifying and unnatural." The tempered glass cracks. "Peace." I scoff at the city and turn, arms wide, "This is what we strive for and yet it's what we despise the most! I am sick of dealing with the galaxy's bull shit already and the Reaper War hasn't even started yet!" The glass shatters, piercing my hand with thousands of fine shards of glass. Pain, I sigh at the feeling that reminds me I'm still human, or at least organic.
"Dylan, what the hell are you doing?!" I stop pulling out glass and look up at her frightened expression.
I close my eyes, wishing she hadn't seen me do that. I'm not sure how strong you have to be to shatter tempered glass but my skinny but toned arms definitely couldn't even chip it.
Must be the cybernetics.
"I'm living in peace Rilana." I bite out angrily. She backs up in slight fear and I scold myself for directing my anger at her. "Sorry, I'm just frustrated, so many people died because of me that I'm starting to lose touch with reality." Absentmindedly I lift my hand up to rub at my headache and wince when I stab a piece of glass into it instead. "Damn it." I look at the bloody hand and notice the bleeding already stopped. "Well... better get this cleaned up before the wound seals." I step back inside and walk into the bathroom to get a tweezer and meticulously pluck at my wounds.
"What is the Reaper War?" I stop and look up through the mirror at her in shock before swearing under my breath.
"It's noth-" I stop myself from lying again and set the tweezers aside to look at her directly, "Its my nightmares, a war beyond the scope of any that we have ever known is coming. Horrifying monsters of mutated flesh and cybernetics slaughtering everyone and using their bodies to create more of them." I stop to see her reaction, she stares in horror at me before stepping up and hugging me. I hold my bloody hand out away from her and hold her with my free one.
"I never knew, how can you just shrug off these nightmares?" I know the question is rhetorical.
"I'm resilient." I say bluntly, watching small cuts from where I removed glass start to heal themselves already. "Um, I need to fix my hand, then we can talk."
She pulls away and looks at me then at my hand, "Oh! Sorry. Here let me help you." Her hand glows with biotics and suddenly all of the visible glass is ripped out of my hand at once. I stare at her as she drops the shards in the trash. "Biotics were once used by field medics in the Asari militia before the advent of medigel. I learned a bit of it from my mother before her political years." She turns to pick up the tweezers and turns back to pause, the cuts were already healed, only small hairline scars to show anything even happened.
"Yeah that's the other thing, my cybernetics also increase my cell regeneration and sensory abilities. Aethyta keeps calling me Battlemaster whenever we duel and I drop into Biotic Rage." I state plainly.
She smiles at me sadly, already knowing what I can do when I drop into my rage.
We walk back to the living room and sit down and I know in that instant that I can't keep my knowledge a secret no matter how hard I try. "Rila, what I'm about to tell you is beyond classified, so classified that if a Councilor knew the information I'd assassinate them in a heartbeat to keep it from leaking out to the public. Do you understand?" She watches me for a moment, seeing if I was serious before nodding. "I need to hear you say it."
She sighs, "I understand, I can't tell anyone."
I nod my head sullenly, "Alright... this will sound insane, but, well... I've already claimed that title so this might not even surprise you. It's time you know the truth, MY truth..."
Rila sits back and stares up at the ceiling, soaking in the massive influx of data I just gave her. "So, when you were in a coma..."
"I was in direct contact with whoever D is. I used to think him a useful, if not dangerous, ally. Until he started torturing me."
She blinks at the ceiling. "You do realize that this defines being psychologically insane yes?" She shakes her head. "And yet I believe it, what the fuck did I do to get YOU of all people being the man I love?"
I snicker, "Well, the gods have a sense of humor, I think, or at least I hope so, otherwise this is just cruel."
She barks out a laugh and runs her hands over her face. "Seriously how the fuck did you stay sane having to deal with all of that AND fighting back an invasion?" I shrug and she laughs at my modesty. "Goddess this is fucked up."
I nod in agreement. "Now, you can imagine why I'm depressed and seem a bit bipolar at times."
She sits up and looks at me in surprise, "Bipolar?! I'm surprised you haven't snapped and slaughtered your way though the streets screaming at the top of your lungs yet! Especially after Neril..." She swallows, "Died..."
I sigh sadly and nod, "Yeah, I actually thought I HAD gone insane when I woke up on a park bench with a gash in my leg and only surrounded by Asari." I take a second to just remember how much I refused to believe, until I ended up in that coma.
Rila stands as I get up to grab the two empty wine bottles we ended up uncorking to take the edge off while discussing who's fault the invasion was. We decided it was D's fault and moved on to my cybernetics with ease before ending the eight hour discussion with two Omega gunshots. (a drop of ryncol with a half-ounce of Batarian ale and a full ounce of Vorcha vodka mixed together with a drop of a weak neural-suppressor poison that's technically illegal in Council Space so I substituted it with some ice-winter brandy.) I hand her the extremely unhealthy shot and take my own, noting how much my throat burns as it goes down. "Fuck. *COUGH COUGH* Damn that's strong..." I nod in agreement, my gut feeling like it's on fire.
Oh damn, I really need to stick to wine.
"Come on, lets test out the one sure way to cure a hangover." I look over at her as I place the bottles in the trash and see a familiar glint in her eye.
"Oh alright, but your on top this time, my arms are killing me from this morning." She just laughs and I wonder what might D do when he finds out about this.
Oh let him try and kill us, he's already failed miserably a dozen times over. Let him come. I'll finally have a chance to repay him for the invasion.
I look down to check my black onmi-tool to see the date and time. 6-9-2174 ART, 0831 GST. I sigh in annoyance, Mein said that they were punctual and they're already a minute late. I look drop my arm to fall back into the depths of my cloak and tap my foot impatiently. I notice a side door opening and ready my biotics as two Turians walk into the cargo bay, watching the corners for any sign of a threat before noticing me and signaling behind them. I drop them as an Asari in a captain's uniform walks out of her ship smiling, "Well well, if it isn't the Protector of Thessia himself."
I step forward and shake her hand, "You will address me as Dark Wolf and only as such in our business deals are we clear?"
She scoffs before saluting professionally, "Alright Dark Wolf, our mutual friend says your looking to hire a starship captain for a scouting mission."
I shake my head, "That was the official story for the underworld, this is bit more complicated." I bring up my tool and show a hologram of a galactic map I took from the AAH archives, overlaid and cross-referenced with a current galactic map with a small bright spot in the corner, one location out in the Hades Gamma cluster. "I want you to scout for a system, nothing more, nothing less. When you find it I want you to contact me with a blank message on this channel." I send it and the map over to her omni-tool. "Discretion is key in this. I want no-one besides you and maybe your navigator to know where you are going, or even which cluster your looking in. Any deviation from these terms will result in immediate..." I turn my head slightly as I pause for emphasis, "...termination of our contract."
She looks at me as I punctuate 'termination' for her, she looks surprised I'm threatening her. "Um... alright? As long as I get paid for it I'll keep my discretion."
I nod, "That is expectable, here is one tenth the pay, you will get the rest when you return."
She is about to complain when her omni-tool pings and her eyes go wide, "A million credits!"
She gaps at it as I nod and shut down my omni-tool. "Your crew is also going to be compensated for their discretion, but at a tenth of that amount." She stares at me. "Each." She blinks as I let it soak in for her. "You are required to do your mission, nothing more, nothing less, if I require your services in the future I will contact you. When you find the system you will be sent coordinates, the cypher I implanted into your personal terminal onboard will decipher the message and you are to go to that location, there you will have every bit of data and information scrubbed from your ship including omni-tools before you will be told to report back here. At that point I will personally hand over the last remaining sum of credits and we will go our separate ways."
She blinks again before frowning. "How did you get-"
"I'm a master hacker dull stone, right now the security footage from this cargo bay shows you standing here, alone, talking to thin air. I am a shadow. I deal within darkness. You are standing in the light, willing and able to be seen by the authorities. I will be advising them of your smuggling operations if you do not comply to these orders and your ship and crew WILL be imprisoned or out-right murdered via sabotage." She winces at my clipped and monotone voice before nodding quickly and turning to go back to her ship. "Oh and say hello to your daughter Amelia for me." She whips around in shock to find me already gone, well, at least it seems like it, all I did was step back into the shadows and walk into a corner to lean back comfortably and watch her reaction.
I just played every single card possible to keep her in line, lets hope this works, I don't fancy dealing with D alone and sending these small-time smugglers into his trap seems like a nice enough way to test his strength.
I turn as the Asari-made scout shuttle with a crew of twenty seven and moderate firepower coupled with heavy shielding exits the docking port and immediately jumps to FTL as it leaves the atmosphere. "At least their dedicated." I take an anxiety riddled breath before bringing up the old Prothean coordinates D sent me last night, no words just the coordinates, and deleting them so only my memories would hold the secret.
"Hey captain." The twin Turian pilots say in unison as Captain Neria Seria steps into the command center to sit between them.
She nods to them.
They notice her confused expression and decide to cheer her up. "Hey Grill what did the Turian say to the Turian?" Brill asked from her left.
"I don't know Brill what did he say?" Grill asks from her right.
"Damn it you just wrecked the punchline!" Brill shouts in false exasperation.
Neria smiles slightly.
"Oh REALLY... so you didn't realize that WE were Turians?" Grill asks with a slight laugh in his subharmonics.
"No... wait we're Turians?!"
Neria shorts a laugh.
"Well, what did you think we are?" Brill asks with a raised eye-plate.
"Uh... Batarians?" Brill shakes his head. "Wow I just realized I shouldn't have eaten that bird we scrapped off the windshield earlier, I might need to go throw up now, before I die."
...
Neria bursts out laughing and punches both of them bioticly, "Damn it I hate you guys! Every time I'm sad, pissed, confused, jealous or horny you just make a joke out of it!"
They both turn with mock shock and say in unison, "We are special! You love us!"
Neria shakes her head and sighs, "I'll give you the first part. Now lets get on with the mission, this guy's paying me a million up front and another nine when we get back."
"What about us?" They speak in literally what sounds one voice.
Neria shakes her head, "Damn it you guys! You know how freaked out I am that you can do that!" She cringes as they laugh together. "And he's paying one million per person when we finish it."
They stop laughing and stare at her in shock, their eyes gleaming with credit signs and Neria could have sworn a *CHA-CHING* just echoed off the hull. "Ok wha-?"
She cuts them off. "I can't tell anyone anything or we all die from sabotage, now go to these coordinates and get us there fast." Neria states with her 'if you talk back I'll throw you out the airlock' voice as she uploads the data stream.
Both Brill and Grill immediately shut up and go to plotting in a course. "Wait... this is in-" Brill starts.
"I thought we were banned from entering Alliance Space after you blew up that cargo transport over Terra Nova?" Grill states for Brill with mild concern.
Neria sighs before glaring at both of them, "First of all I did not blow up that cargo transport, the drive went critical when the mercs hit the coolant tanks with a live grenade. Second, I'm the Captain so what I say goes, now get us there! If we pull this off we can all retire in luxury on whatever planet we want!" She stands from her seat and doesn't wait for the two to answer her as she quickly rush-walks down the hall and into her small private quarters to send a private message back home to her family before they had to drop all comms and go silent.
A star, small, dull, insignificant compared to the giants seemingly surrounding it. The dwarf lightly playing with the subtle waves of energy as they pass by, nearly oblivious to the larger brothers and sisters of the darkness that neighbor it. The picture zooms in another fraction, another small blink of light just beyond the star, a rock planet possibly the size of earth whipping around the star at tremendous velocity, nearly inconceivable small compared to the universe surrounding it. Impossible to see to the naked human eye.
"Not without a telescope..." I mutter while staring at the normally invisible star I pinpointed using my omni-tool's star map, my cybernetic upgrades allowing my eyes to filter out the other stars and focus on the one.
"What?" Rila asks as she looks down from the stars to watch me.
I don't look away, I can't. "Nothing, nothing. It's just so beautiful."
"Dylan?"
I blink, losing my place, but always remembering the spot.
"May the Goddess guide them to safety..." I mutter quietly.
That star was where I sent the Torniquen to fall into D's trap. According to standard transit it'll still be eighteen hours before they arrive in system.
"Dylan?" Rila places her hand on my shoulder, knocking me from my thoughts to look at her. "Are you alright?" She asks, worry creasing her blue-purple features. She stopped taking the skin altering supplements after Tevos left the Council. It's taken years for them to start taking effect.
I close my eyes. I never told her about the message, or about my own universe. I'm quite content with keeping it like that. "I'm fine, just..." I look back at the star, worrying about them. "Worried, I'm just worried." I take a sip of my drink and savor the bitter taste that finishes with a burning at the back of my throat as I swallow.
I'm immune to toxins. Which includes alcohol. The Reapers made sure I couldn't get drunk the bastards...
I smile at Rila as she leans against the railing and sighs up at the stars.
She has no idea what monster lies in wait inside me. Mein's experiments with a few nanites she 'harvested' from my organs have shown they are... preparing my body for... for- 'I don't know' is what she said. I know it too well as the husking process the Reapers use. Her brilliance with mechanical technology has bought me time but only enough until the Reapers arrive. The nanites would have taken over completely if she hadn't reprogrammed them. It makes no difference, I'll probably turn on whoever I'm with and serve the Reapers as another sleeper agent. Murdering innocents for my masters.
I take another sip of the Krogan Ryncol I traded a merchant at the docks for.
It was my excuse to go there, so Rila wouldn't get suspicious, so I could successfully feed her my lie.
A sharp pain hits my stomach and my artificial pain center automatically tunes it out, giving it a slight burning sensation instead of the normal flesh tearing, internal bleeding, sharpness that Ryncol is supposed to give my species.
"I don't get how you can drink that." Rila thankfully interrupts my thoughts before they get to the next stage of Ryncol poisoning.
"It's an acquired taste." I say with a smirk.
Truthfully Mein told me to drink a glass every few hours to test out my advanced cybernetics. She told me that if she had the resources she might be able to reprogram the nanites permanently, making them only respond to my own commands such as to heal, or to enhance this part or that.
She smiles and steps up to give me a kiss. "You are insane Dylan, but I love that about you." She turns and I wrap my free arm around her waist. "*sigh*, Why can't we spend all our nights like this?"
"Well, for one I'd probably die of Ryncol poisoning."
She chokes on her drink and I laugh, "Damn it, you made me shoot wine up my nose!" She coughs again and I rub her back empathetically as she clears her nose of wine.
I think I'm indoctrinated. I never really reacted to my recent discovery. I just accepted it and moved on like usual. I still feel numb though, its too fresh I think. Maybe in a few years it'll sink in and I'll properly flip my lid.
She snorts, "Oh, that was bad..." Rila wipes her nose on her napkin.
I wince, "You are... still sexy. I think."
She frowns at me, "You think?"
I shrug, "You're not human, I can't tell if that's sexy or not. I just guess." I smirk again. She raises an eyebrow at me as I swallow down the rest of my drink and wipe my lips off to avoid poison exposure. "I mean... yeah... your still a sexy goddess." I kiss her lightly on the lips and she blushes.
"Well... I'll go get you something else, can't let my victim- oh I mean 'lover' stay sober for one night." She takes my glass and sways her hips as she walks back inside. My eyes naturally look, even though I had every single curve, divot, and freckle across her body memorized from our various nights together.
Although, the bluer her skin gets, the harder it is to remember where each little one is. She has the constellation scorpio on her back. I had to laugh at the irony and naturally tease her about it. She still blushes when I tell her it's my permanent mark of conquest. She now constantly mocks that I'm making love to myself when we go to bed. I always respond with a terrible joke about how I'm going to 'embrace her eternity' and we naturally forget about it in favor of making love, or just a quick tumble, whichever she feels like. I'm tempted to research some kinky things we could do, but I'll settle with learning how to use our biotics in bed. I might just ask Aethyta tomorrow for some tips.
I internally sigh.
I still don't let Rila see everything during our melds, just as far as me waking up on a bench in a park goes, nothing further back. She's frustrated about that, especially since I've seen her's.
I smile sadly as my lies instantly comes back up to haunt me once again.
"*sigh*, She really doesn't deserve me..." Leaning back against the balcony railing I raise my hand and play with my biotics as I wait, creating small rises and dips in gravity to pass the time.
"Entering system now." Brill announces to his captain.
Neria watches as the screen in front of them shakes with the ship before they drop out of FTL just at the edge of a black hole. Instantly Neria's eyes widen in shock. The entire ship lists to the side.
"BY THE SPIRITS!" Grill shouts before he and Brill kick the thrusters and jump to full power just to even out the gravity well dragging the small Asari frigate into the black hole's accretions disk.
"GET US OUT OF HERE!" Neria shouts in a panic.
Brill hits the FTL and everyone in the ship is tossed into the backs of their seats as the motion dampeners fail from a systems overload.
"HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!" Grill screams as Brill struggles to reach out and end the FTL jump.
Ship-wide warnings blare in multiple languages that the engine shielding was failing.
"AH!" Brill hits the display, ending the jump. The restarting motion dampeners can't keep up with the sudden momentum jump as it hurls multiple crew members across the ship, Brill slamming his face against the bulkhead and Grill breaking a mandible on his dashboard as a result.
"Damage report!" Neria shouts while rubbing the bleeding cut on her forehead.
Grill groans as the displays spark before dying. Every light and system goes dark shipwide instantly.
"YOU ARE NOT SCORPIO" Blares across all channels in a deep, sinister voice that sends chills down the entire crew's spines.
"What's happening?!" Neria shouts out.
"We lost all power! My omni-tool doesn't even work!" Grill reports as he stabs at the band on his wrist frantically.
"HE HAS BETRAYED MY TRUST TOO MANY TIMES!" A high-pitched buzzing hits their ears and everyone screams out in pain. Before it all goes black.
"No-" Neria passes out and slumps forwards onto her panel.
A flickering light in the hallway behind the bridge outlines a black figure stepping slowly to the front of the ship through the black void, metal boots clanging against the floor as the shadow slowly makes his way to the front. "THERE IS NOTHING I CAN'T DO." It states with three voices, one calm and almost caring, another powerful and full of determination, the third demonic and sinister with every breath. It flicks it's finger and Neria's chair spins around. It grips her by the throat and looks at her face in the flashing light. "SO FEEBLE, AND YET..." The shadow whips it's head around to see the lights flickering online from the back of the ship to the front. It sits down with Neria as the lights turn back on fully. Neria chokes out as the black smoke that the shadow was made of absorbs into her body. She writhes in her sleep before falling forwards and to her knees and passing out from the exertion as her head hits the floor.
HEH HEH HEH...
Neria's vision comes back to her and she gasps out as her senses return to her. She's in her bed. It was just a dream, it was just a dream. She holds her breath as her cabin door slides open to show a shadow. "YOU ARE NOW MINE..." It rushes up and Neria screams out just before it touches her.
She jumps out of bed, panting and crying at the horrific nightmare that played with her mind. "What... why is this happening?" She shuts her eyes tight, trying and failing to block out the images of death and murder that drove her crazy weeks ago.
She shakes her head and pulls her arm restraints up high enough to hold her head in her hands. She was a prisoner now and she had only one person to blame for all of it. "Scorpio..." She breaths with so much malice that her teeth snap shut as the last sylible of his name reaches her ears.
Why did I trust him! Why did I agree to help him?!
She pounds her fists against the soft bed she's tied to in a futile effort to break free of her torment and just go back to her normal life. Just forget everything and find her daughter and bondmate.
I'm alone...
Neria stops crying for the first time in maybe a month, maybe a year, she can't remember too much about the past anymore. Just her anger and rage towards Scorpio, the Protector of Thessia, the destroyer of her life. "He is dead to me..." She hears herself mumble quietly as she curls up into a ball and holds her emotions in a tight vice. She was transferred to this metal box while she was sleeping. At least she could move around if she wanted, not stand since the ceiling is too low, but roll around a bit to know she was still alive. "I just want to go home..." She can't cry anymore, she doesn't have the energy.
White lights, white searing lights burning into her retinas. "Please!" She shrieks out for the thousandth time, surprisingly it stops. The blackness returns as she struggles to stay conscious. She tries to move and finds her hands are bound behind her, she was sitting in a chair and her feet were strapped under water below her. They felt pruned and raw from the constantly moving water, but she could stand it, just barely, but she could. She had to withstand it.
They ask her questions, what happened, how it happened, where she was, how she got there, everything. She was... woken up in a hospital a week ago. Doctors and nurses treated her silently as she simply watched them, dead inside from the horror she lived through. Every little thing she remembers from the incident above the garden world Scorpio sent her ship to makes her ask one question...
Why? Why did this happen?
Of course she can't speak, she just... she can't even begin to describe the horror of what it felt like to- She tears up again as they ask the simple question for the thousandth time. "What happened to your crew?" She looks at the Asari in front of her, she was blueish purple with vibrant blue eyes, a police uniform, no, an officer's police uniform. Her name is Rila. She helped her escape the darkness when it got bored of her and left her to die.
Neria looks off into space once again and remembers the sick twisted and perverted things the... darkness made her do to her crew. "I killed them..." Her voice is dead, she lost all emotion after slicing Brill's neck and dropping the ship, HER ship, into the planet surface below. The darkness left just in time for her to hop into the last escape shuttle and get into a high orbit around the planet before she passed out.
The Asari next to Rila scribbles down on a data pad and shakes her head. "Why did you murder your crew?" She asks bluntly.
"Vera!" Rila instantly reprimands the nurse and sadly looks back to Neria for an answer.
Neria's voice finally comes to her, "The darkness is coming. It will destroy you all, it is unstoppable."
The nurse sigh agitatedly and stomps out of the small recovery room Rila had permanently booked for her, Neria never understood why she liked Rila, but she does. "They will all come. The sky... the sky will darken with-"
Rila cuts her off, "The sky? You never mentioned the sky before. What is the sky?" she asks comfortingly.
The door opens again as Neria goes to speak, but her voice dies in her throat as she sees who's in the doorway. A man, in a dark bodysuit, walks inside and she watches as he steps up to sit in the corner. "The darkness knows you." He stops just before the chair and looks at her. She smiles for the first time in... forever. "He will find you Dylan and he will kill you for your treachery. The sky will darken with numbers beyond counting, you will bow before the masters." Neria breaths before convulsing as her message has been delivered. The medical equipment beeps franticly before flat-lining completely as Neria stops shaking, her eyes lose the life in them and a stream of blood drips out of her smiling mouth at the last piece of the puzzle falls into place.
The nurses stand at the door, staring at Rila who's by this point pushed Scorpio up against a wall bioticly. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" She screams in his face. All she gets is a dead expression, his eyes displaying absolute horror at the situation. The nurses are pushes aside by a massive figure. "Furious anxiety, What is happening in here? Neria! Neria!" The Elcor bondmate of Neria shouts out as the combined biotics of eight nurses barely holds the massive creature out of the room. Scorpio failed. The mission failed. So many had died for him.
I sit back into my recliner while going over the last bits of information the only survivor from the crash, one of the Turian pilots named Grill, had given when my rescue ship arrived. I read his report out-loud, "After the crash we were attacked by wild creatures and barely held them off until we retreated into a cave for the night. A shadow stalked us throughout the entire night, killing off one crew member at a time until daylight showed and only myself and Relen, the chief engineer, were left. The resulting cuts and gashes from running through what I can only describe is barbed wire bushes resulted in myself and Relen being heavily poisoned. He- he sacrificed himself during the last push towards the rescue shuttle to keep myself alive." I shake my head as the words of the only sane survivor tears deeply into my soul.
Why? Why didn't I just go myself?
I toss the data pad onto the coffee table, completely numb from the events I had to witness over the last few months.
I let my face fall into my gloved hands, "Neria... why did he choose you? What was special about you?" I mumble out, just trying to keep calm after such a catastrophe.
I found the planet. A major find for my company, and I'm the only one who knows where it is officially so I have complete rights to colonization, mining, and archaeological recovery on the surface.
I reach over and take a glass of water from the small nightstand next to me.
I sent teams down to deactivate the signal that had caused the ship to crash, an ancient gravimetric cannon thousands of years old. Something so powerful that it could take out a star at full power. I naturally nuked it into oblivion using a device Mein was able to pull together in a moments notice to disable it permanently.
I take a sip and sigh at the refreshing pure deionized water I had brought in from the carrier I borrowed from the trip.
Five more people died recovering a strange energy shard from a crypt in the substructures of the cannon. Mein is studying it now, as well as putting together a small research team to scout out the rest of the planet.
Rila walks by, her face absolutely frozen solid with grief. "Time will tell if what I did was right." I murmur half-heartedly. She stops moving and turns to stare at me before stepping over into the kitchen and out of sight.
Why couldn't I have just went myself? I'm a fucking coward! I'm a terrible terrible-
I sigh and pound back the tasteless water before staring at the glass in my hand for a moment.
Thousands of billions of molecules coming together into one solidified object in a crystalline form just to create this glass...
I close my eyes.
For all my knowledge and strength I still can't save everyone. I can't save everyone.
I grind my teeth at the thought.
I can't save everyone.
"Dylan?" I look over to find Rila handing a glass of dark liquid to me. I take it and silently thank her as she sits down on the edge of the coffee table to face me.
Neria didn't deserve to die, I deserve to die.
"Dylan I know what you're thinking." She says quietly. I blink at her lazily. She bites her lower lip in worry and sorrow. "I've seen a lot of terrible things too, and I'm still here."
I shake my head and stand up to walk away, she catches me by the arm. "You are not worthless, you just made a decision."
I look at her tiredly, "Every decision I make gets more people killed."
Rila grips my arm tighter, "Damn it just- just focus on what you're accomplishing for one fucking moment!"
I can't move, I want to go, to just jump off the balcony outside and fall to my death, to just end the horror that I've inflicted upon others so regularly. "I know, believe me Rilana I hate what I'm doing and I can see the accomplishments just fine." But I can't do that to her. "But I just can't let the ends justify the means." I take in a shaky breath as tears come to my eyes, "I can't not see you Rila. I can't not have you here to keep me here. I-" She crushes me with a tight hug and I hate how easily it makes me break down.
'The road to hell is paved with good intentions.' I know what that means now, I know why I'm a coward. I know why I have to keep training.
"What did she mean by the darkness Dylan?" I shut my eyes tight, knowing that I couldn't tell her anything about it. I had to hold it back once again, lie once again to the only person who keeps me sane.
I rub her back and just take in her scent, "Nothing, just- nothing."
And I will forever hate myself for having to do what I do to end this war. Let the Spirits, Gods and Goddesses have mercy on the lost souls aboard the Torniquen...
A/N And we finish up a character building chapter. You know, after rereading it again while triple checking for mistakes, I'm actually content to where this chapter ended up. The next chapter, Chapter 22 will be coming out next Saturday or Sunday the 6th and 7th of September.
Also I'm going to be revising the earlier chapters for spelling or grammar errors so if you find an error please PM me. It'll help me out a lot. :)
Anyways, everyone have a great day and I hope you enjoyed this chapter of Scorpio's Legacy. Which is NOT DEAD! :P
I'm sorry! I got too over zealous with my writing and now Thane is going to be in later chapters! Originally I planned out this story with 27 chapters but now I'm at around 32. So the increased content is why the Thane wasn't in chapter nineteen and WILL be in later chapters. Sorry, had to add the Thessia Invasion to make it more awesome. ;)