Hello Comrades! Yeah... I suck. I originally planned to finish this during the start of August. But... well, stuff happened. Stuff like Monster Hunter World coming out on PC. So... yeah, I literally have no excuses. Its one of the most fun and addictive games I've played in recent years and those of you who played it could probably confirm that. I love fun things :(

On top of that, the end of August had my little sister coming over for a visit. Not exactly fun in my books, since I had to drag her around Moscow to buy her stuff. In total, we crossed about 210km in a single day on busses, metro and on foot by going from one store to another, all of which were conveniently placed on opposite sides of the whole goddamn city. Really not fun. Pulled 3 muscles on my leg. And it lasted almost a week. Ugh, I sometimes hate my family. They can't even bribe me properly! Apparently, they bought me a brand new notepad, as a present for helping my sister. But they forgot to pack it with her things. So I was pretty much bribed by the promise of a bribe. Ugh, amateurs.

Anyway, this was being written for a long time, much longer than it should've been. So without more delays, enjoy the new chapter.


Somehow, I expected my return to the Citadel to be much more… relieving? Yeah, that's the right word. Despite that I can't say I've been too surprised when things didn't go my way – I kinda knew better by then – but the sheer scale of it was definitely left me feeling somewhat surprised.

I mean, after spending two months in what essentially amounted to a survival exercise in a jungle hellhole it sort of leaves an impression on a person. The kind that made me think that things couldn't get any worse.

Oh boy, did I jinx myself just by thinking that.

As soon as we docked, Ella basically kicked me off the ship so she could return the rented shuttle and proceeded to disappear on me. I literally had nothing on me but the clothes I wore, since she didn't deem it important to take my omni-tool with us, and had no real way to even contact her or anyone else. So I headed home.

And now I was dealing with this shit.

"This is bullshit," I spat out, not bothering to hide my outrage.

"Sorry, but the rules are rules," the turian manager, whose name I never actually bothered to learn, repeated tiredly, his tone utterly bored.

"But I've been living here for ages!" I reminded him pointedly.

His expression barely changed. I had the feeling that his job was so mundane and unfulfilling he was simply no longer capable of emoting properly. "And I thank you for your patronage but you were over a month late on rent. I have already waited for an extra week, longer than we usually give, but you never showed up."

"So what's stopping you from letting me move back in now? I have money!"

"Company policy," he drawled with a shrug. "Your belongings are in the back. Feel free to take them off our hands."

I gaped at him for a long moment, during which he just turned back to the monitor behind his desk and continued watching a soap opera of all things by the sound of it. Realizing that the battle was pretty much lost, I huffed angrily and stormed past him to the storage room they had in the back.

Thanks a lot Ella. If you had to fucking kidnap me, you could've at least paid my rent! The room was filled with lockers that were used by the tenants of the hotel-slash-apartment block that used to be my home for the past year. I didn't actually own a lot – my weaponry and armor were all on the Mortifera – so all the manager did was put the things I owned into my old duffle bag.

I sniffed angrily as I pulled it out of the locker and slammed the door with more force than necessary. As if the universe decided to make fun of me on top of everything, I've apparently caught a cold. Running naked around in a jungle through the rain and freezing night did nothing to me, but a couple of hours in a sterile, dry environment was apparently enough to make me catch a cold. Fuck logic.

I left the storage room after checking to see if anything was missing – surprisingly, everything was in the bag. Then again, I was known to shoot people for a living, so they probably didn't want to risk it – and stomped my way past the reception desk without giving the manager another look or saying anything. Not like he bothered saying anything either, even after I sunk so much money into this place.

Stepping out into the streets of the ward I stopped there, breathing in the relatively scentless air. After so long in the jungles of that planet, the Citadel felt almost… dead in comparison. No notable scent, no wind and too fucking loud with all the random background noise. Not for the first time since I came back I just took it all in and found myself overwhelmed.

I was also homeless now.

Thanks again, Ella. I wanted a nice, hot bath – the shuttle barely had any water for a quick cold shower, just enough to wash off the grime that clung to my skin – and to just relax but it didn't look like I was going to have any good things today.

Now I had to figure out where the fuck I was supposed to go from here.

After a few seconds of mulling it all over, I had my course of action. I fished out the omni-tool out of my bag – again, very surprised it wasn't stolen since it cost more than my rent – and put it on my wrist. Waiting the minute it took to but up I was immediately assaulted by a proverbial flood of message alerts.

Let's see… about fifteen missed messages from Jorrun, a dozen or so from Honda, five from Riley, seven from Johnson, two from Tilben and almost two dozen from Patrick. Other than that, at least thirty from various other people, half of which I didn't even know.

Thank you, Ella. You really did me a favor there. Why would I want any of these job offers? Some of them even looked like they offered a lot of money, and we didn't need that, apparently.

I was heading to the Den. Either to get help, or to get drunk. Both sounded good at that moment. While at it, I might as well find out what the hell I missed in my absence.


Someone should invent a way for normal people to communicate with the universe, or whatever higher power controlled it, so I could tell it to stop taking my half-jokes so fucking seriously.

Or, as I wanted to do more often than not, so I could punch it in the face.

I didn't want to find any surprises upon my arrival and messaged Jorrun ahead. After receiving the obligatory two dozen or so angry messages back he finally calmed down enough to give me a quick rundown on what I missed.

Apparently, despite how crazy it sounded, Patrick did take the reins of the company and somehow nobody tried to stop him.

He lasted exactly four days when Jorrun, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, essentially performed a takeover.

Needless to say, Joe was naturally pissed about the whole thing since he had enough things to do while running the Den without adding an entire company on top of it all. All I could do was be thankful that he stopped Patrick before the guy managed to cause even more chaos.

Or so I assumed.

Because somehow, without any prior experience in running a company, within just four days, Patrick got us a one million credit contract. With renewal options on top of it all!

With Fornax of all things.

Should I even be surprised at this point?

I don't know how he did it. I'm not sure if I wanted to know. I was almost afraid to ask what else he had planned if Jorrun hadn't stepped in. Either way, he somehow earned us a lot of credits for almost no effort on our part.

Despite these facts, these good facts, it didn't stop me in the least from wanting to punch Patrick in the face when I approached him in the Den. The sheer smugness radiating from his shit eating grin could almost be physically felt. So powerful it was that I nearly lost my ability to speak.

It was only amplified by the drop-dead gorgeous bombshell that was literally sitting on his lap. Luscious golden locks that glowed under the club's lights, a blouse with a cut so low that even some Asari maidens would hesitate wearing it and a short skirt that made her long, smooth-looking legs seem like they went on forever.

I wasn't someone who usually described appearances with poetics, but damn did this woman deserve it.

What made it even worse, depending on how I looked at it, is that I happened to know who the gorgeous woman was: one of the top human porn stars in the galaxy and Fornax's Cover Girl of '82, Olivia Cox.

"Boss! You're finally back! You look like crap!" Patrick greeted me, grinning from ear to ear. "This is the breathtaking Miss Cox," he introduced the girl on his lap.

"Hi there! I heard a lot about you," she offered me a hand, which I tentatively shook, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.

I haven't had a decent shower in ages and while I was pretty much desensitized to my own smell, I was pretty certain that everyone else wasn't. I was covered in bruises and old injuries. The bite marks on my forearm, while healed – and miraculously uninfected – were an eye-catching crimson that I didn't even bother to hide.

"Uh, I hope only good things?" I asked, managing to pull off an easy going smile despite how out of my depth I felt.

It was arguable at this point, but one of my main advantages when dealing with people of various levels of fame was my utter ignorance of who they were. I barely watched any of the modern movies, didn't really listen to the new music all that much and I certainly didn't follow any of the tabloid gossip. I wasn't star struck or in awe whenever I met one of these people. I had no idea who the fuck they were, so I didn't give them special treatment.

Porn stars on the other hand? Well…

"Both. But all of them interesting," she said with a playful smirk, eyes travelling up and down over my body. Judging by the look she was giving me, I wasn't that much of a disappointment!

Oh my god, is a porn star flirting with me? I was completely caught off guard, but thankfully, I didn't open my mouth and say something stupid. Instead I looked at Patrick. "So what did I miss?"

The ex-cop laughed out loud. "Oh, man! You missed the biggest new year's party ever!" Patrick practically preened. Right, the Fornax contract was for their new year's event. Speaking of, I missed Christmas and New Year's Eve and all that. A bit disappointing, since I made it a point to celebrate it every year but not a big loss when it comes down to it.

Speaking of it… Holy shit! It's 2184. It's almost been a year since Shepard died and just a little over a year until she comes back. The knowledge is both exciting and more importantly disappointing. I don't think I've really done that much with my time.

"And you should've seen the afterparty!" Patrick continued, ignorant of my sudden realization. "All the drinks, all the girls! Oh man! I kid you not, it was the best party ever! And the girls! The entire Fornax roster was there!"

Goddammit Ella! Worst. Timing. Ever! I know for a fact that even Ella would've enjoyed a party like that too!

"Oh!" Patrick paused and activated his omni-tool and started doing something. "We got some gifts!"

A moment later my own omni-tool chimed with an incoming message. "A yearly subscription to Fornax?" I questioned after I checked what he sent me. I gave it another look at raised an eyebrow in surprise. "A yearly platinum subscription?"

"Yeah. We all got one. A small bonus for our hardwork," Patrick explained, giving a cheeky grin to Olivia, which made her giggle for some reason.

Oh, no. Ugh, this couldn't be. The only reason she'd laugh at such crappy and lazy innuendo would be if she was just too polite to hit him or if she genuinely liked him. Okay, dropping that line of thinking. I don't want to think about Patrick getting it on with one of the galaxy's most beloved entertainers.

Oh my god, if word got around, he'll have people after his head.

"I… should go," I slowly and cautiously said, not really sure what else I could say. I really didn't want to be anywhere near them right not, with the looks of, ugh, affection they were giving each other.

Not waiting for a reply, I quickly left and headed towards Jorrun's office. Didn't have to wait for one either, as both Patrick and the actress completely ignored me in favor of making out with their eyes.

I moved to the back of the club, banishing any thoughts that strayed anywhere near Patrick and his companion and decided to concentrate on less aggravating things. Or more, depending on how I thought about it.

I have just a little over a year left and… what did I exactly do? I can't say I accomplished much. Well… no. I did accomplish quite a bit, much more than the average person ever did but on the overall scheme of stopping the Reapers? A whole bunch of nothing. That goal wasn't that realistic to begin with seeing that I lacked the influence and resources needed to influence things on that level but… I was working towards that, wasn't I? I did have contact with quite a few influential or at the very least pretty rich people. That had to count for something in the end. At least, that's what I kept trying to convince myself of.

I found Jorrun in his office, sitting behind his desk and fully immersed in work like usual, at least until I entered the office. I dropped my duffle bag on the floor by the door and walked in. "Hey Joe," I greeted him casually, hoping that he wasn't as pissed as he seemed in his messages.

Joe stood up; arms planted firmly on his desk and leveled a murderous glare at me. I winced and looked away. He was beyond pissed. "Sit the fuck down," he demanded, his voice deceptively calm.

I quickly sat the fuck down.

He kept looking down at me, like an angry headmaster staring down a problematic child. His eyes roamed over my body, noticeably pausing over the bruises and visible wounds. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Training trip," I quickly replied.

"Training trip?" he echoed slowly. "Any reason why you couldn't notify anyone about it before you vanished?"

"Ella kidnapped me?" I hesitantly answered, already wincing at that particular landmine. Joe didn't really like Ella in particular and rarely bothered to hide it. The reply was a blank look, though if Joe was a human, I'm pretty sure he'd have an eyebrow raised. "Like, literally, not figuratively. Injected me with drugs, somehow loaded me on a shuttle and took me to an uninhabited planet for survival training."

My grimace grew with every word that came out of my mouth. Jorrun's face didn't change at all as I elaborated further. He just kept staring, not really reacting in any way or saying anything. It almost made me want him to explode like I'd been expecting him to.

After what felt like some of the longest few minutes of my life, Joe let out a drawn out sigh. "Anything else?"

"I got sexually transmitted assassins," I admitted with a wince.

"Sexu—" Jorrun cut himself off as he stared at me, mouth open and mandibles slightly parted as he was visibly struggling to find a response to that. I stared at his left mandible as it kept twitching erratically. I was becoming somewhat worried over him when he suddenly pushed himself off the table and walked over to the small cabinet behind his chair.

From the cabinet he pulled out a glass and a bottle of amber liquid. He stared at the glass for a short moment before he placed it back into the cabinet and unscrewed the cap on the bottle before taking a full swig.

I remained silent, watching the scene unfold without bothering to hide my awe.

I'm not sure what exactly I was seeing. Did I push him too far? Was this what unconditional victory looked like?

Taking the bottle with him he walked back to his chair and collapsed into it. He stared at me for a moment before taking another swig. "What the fuck?" he finally asked, rubbing a talon against his forehead.

Oh my god, I think I broke him. That thought filled me with too much joy for it to be healthy.

"She's a former member of a black ops unit, now AWOL. They might try to kill me in the future for sticking it in," I summarize it for him.

I might be betraying Ella's trust by telling Jorrun about it, but I trusted him. Joe was one of the most private and paranoid people I've ever known. He rarely talked about anything from his life before he started living on the Citadel and he definitely knew not to blab about anything like that. He won't tell a soul and I didn't even need to remind him of that.

"Oh," was his response as he stared at me from between his talons. "That's… not as bad as I expected."

That causes me to perk up. "Wait, what? Someone actually weaponized STDs or something?" I asked with wide-eyed horror. Ardat-Yakshi immediately sprung to mind, but that wasn't exactly an STD… or was it? Sexually Transmitted Death, heh.

"Spirits, no!" that finally got a proper reaction out of him. He rolled his eyes and removed his talons from his forehead to sit straighter. "It could've been worse."

"True," I agreed with a shrug. "I could've been dead. She wasn't exactly gentle about the whole thing…" I raise my arms to make a point, where the cuts and fresh scars were prominently displayed. I saw his eyes focus on the bite marks on my arm and decided to elaborate. "A lizard-dig thing tried to bite my throat out. It bit my arm instead and I stabbed it in the head. Had to kill pretty much every living thing I encountered there, sometimes with my bare hands."

I wasn't boasting. No, not at all. I was shamelessly boasting.

Sadly, Jorrun didn't look all too impressed. "You don't seem too worried about a black ops unit coming after you."

"Neither do you," I sniped back as I stared right back at him. There it was! His right mandible twitched slightly! I broke into a wide, victorious grin. "So what is it? Blackwatch?"

He doesn't really react to my question, but his eyes narrow slightly. I had him and he knew it.

It's been a point of debate between the gang for ages now. Whenever the subject of Jorrun's past occupation came up there'd been plenty of theories. Joe pointedly ignored all the questions and instead allowed us to speculate. So far, the leading theory was that he was former Blackwatch, which would definitely explain the armor. That kind of gear was the kind that you'll have trouble finding on the black market, not for the money Joe was earning from Fist.

"My situation is different," Jorrun eventually said. I dropped my line of thinking in favor of staring at Joe in shock. Holy shit, he actually talked about it!

"How exactly? Word is that you went AWOL or something like that."

"Something like that," Joe confirmed with a grimace. Talking about it was bringing him almost visible discomfort. "We didn't part on the best terms but I'm not in danger as long as I follow some rules. I don't have assassins after my head," he added, giving me a pointed look.

"Neither do I as long as I don't blab about it. She has that taken care of, apparently," I shrugged again. "They're the kind of black ops unit that the black ops units don't know about. Secret society levels of bullshit or somewhere close to it. I personally suspect they're something like Councilor Tevos personal assassins but I'm probably taking it to the extremes."

"And now you –" he snorted with a barely concealed laugh "—transmitted the assassins to me."

I laughed out loud at that. "Hey, it's sexually transmitted so you're safe."

"Thank the spirits for that one…" he muttered. "So was it worth it?"

"Totally worth it," I replied with a grin. Jorrun's glare hinted that we were thinking about different things. "Oh, you mean the training thing? I dunno, honestly. I'm definitely better at hand to hand now. I'm definitely handier with a knife too. She taught me a lot but I haven't really put it into practice yet so I can't really say."

The knowledge in particular was most definitely useful. I stared at Joe, my eyes focusing on the spots on his head where the carapace was decidedly thinner and from there to the other weak spots she forced me to memorize to the point I could recite them. I immediately located them on Jorrun's body with surprising ease despite the fact that I hadn't put that knowledge into use yet.

The lessons definitely stuck with me.

I tore my eyes away from him, somewhat uncomfortable about looking at Jorrun in that way. If it was anyone else, like that Turian receptionist, sure, but not to a friend.

"So what happened with Patrick?" I asked, deciding to change the subject.

Jorrun let out a pained sigh. "Besides the brain damage or whatever he's on this week?"

"Yes?" I asked with an amused smile.

"I don't know if he's a certified idiot or a genius. I take it you've seen him on your way in? And who is with him?"

"Holy shit, yes I did," I confirmed, finally letting out the shock I had contained inside. "Olivia Cox!"

The Turian rolled his eyes at my excitement. "They dated throughout high-school, apparently. He went on to join law-enforcement and she went on to acting school," he scoffed at the last one.

"Fuck right off!" I nearly yelled in outrage. "I call bullshit on that!"

"He even has pictures. Showed them off to everyone when we called him out on it."

"Holy shit…" I was honestly stumped at that point. "So is that how he got us the job?"

"Seems like it. I'm not an expert, but apparently a pornstar with galactic fame to her name has some sway within the industry. He asked for help and she delivered."

"Wow… and she's just… hanging out in the Den now, of all places?" I couldn't hide the incredulity in my voice, earning a dirty look from him.

The Den might no longer be a den of criminals, pun completely intentional, but it wasn't exactly a high-class establishment, no matter how much Joe wanted us to pretend it was. It just wasn't a place that famous people would go to for quality time.

"I'm not complaining. The amount of customers went through the roof since she showed up," he said with a nonchalant shrug.

"Figures. It's all business for you," I said with an eye roll.

"Some of us actually care about their business and don't leave it in the hands of whoever grabs it first," Joe shot back with a very pointed glare.

"Hey, blame Ella! She was the one who kidnapped me," I argued back, immediately reminded of the trouble she caused me. "She completely screwed me over. I even got evicted!"

"You can't stay at our place," Joe immediately said before I could add anything else.

Damn, there went my original plan.

Ella, you suck!

"Can I at least stay here until I figure something out?" I asked with a grimace, looking at Joe's Lucky Couch. Jorrun's office had an old lumpy couch that somehow survived Shepard's assault without a single scratch on it, thus making it the luckiest object in the office, as Jorrun claimed.

It was a horrendous beige thing made of faux leather that I suspected was purposefully made to be as uncomfortable as possible. Fist and now Joe, since they tended to offer it to the people they least liked, which was practically confirmation for me.

I wasn't going to complain though. I spent the last two months sleeping on the hard, cold ground, so this couch would probably feel like a soft heaven for me.

"Fine, but if you drink anything without paying for it first I'm kicking you out," Joe said sternly, leaving no room for argument. I knew from experience that he was completely serious about it too. "What are you planning on doing? Going to rent another room somewhere?"

It was something I already thought about and I had a different idea now. I've been here for quite some time now. Maybe it was time to… put down some roots, as the saying went. "Nah. I think I'm going to actually buy something. Have something of my own, you know? The company is earning enough for me to afford something."

"And now you're embezzling funds from your company," Jorrun drawled with a sigh, "truly, you are becoming a fine CEO and a shining example for business owners everywhere."

"It's my company," scoffing at the accusation, I countered, "It can be good for company too. It'll be like having an HQ or something! It's better than hanging out in your dingy club all the time."

I expertly ignored the glare Joe shot my way and instead basked in the joy of small victories.

"You know, I think sleeping on the streets would do you some good…"

And there goes that small victory. Damn.


And there you have it! Shorter than usual but it got the muse going again. I feel like a piece of shit now. I wrote this in two days and it took me over a month to get my ass moving to actually start writing it. Ugh, I really need to take this shit under control. In case I haven't said it before, I'm planning on writing a web-serial. And a schedule is fucking important in that. As you know, my record with those is... sketchy at best. So goddammit, I need to take control over my impulses! It's a battle of wills here and I'm planning on winning!

Thankfully, when it comes to MHW I pretty much did almost everything (unless I seriously going to try getting all the achievements) so until the DLC comes out, I should be playing noticeably less. Speaking of it, if you're playing on PC, hit me up with a pm or something. I could definitely spend an evening on some quality jolly cooperation.

Oh, still unemployed. It sucks :\

Anyway, thanks for reading my story! Can't thank you all enough for sticking around for so long and tolerating my shitty schedule. So thank you! If you enjoyed the chapter, feel free to comment, offer suggestions or give me some of that constructive criticism! Or PM me or something. So thank you all again for reading and hopefully we shall see each other (figuratively) soon enough! Delvaro Out.