Hello once again my dear readers! I am once again back with a new chapter. Sadly, this one is shorter than usual, but either way, it gets the plot to move. In all honesty, I planned to finish this chapter around tuesday, but sadly my job kept me from writing. Still, I finished it today and you get a new chapter to read!
So without any more delays, enjoy the new chapter!
Overall, the way back was eventless. No more rachni soldiers popped up and I think all of Benezia's secret agents were dead by now. Once we got back to Port Hanshan Shepard arranged for Benezia's body to be sent back to Thessia for proper burial, or whatever method the asari used for their dead, and from there we came back to the Normandy.
Much to my surprise, a pleasant surprise as far as I'm concerned, while we were dealing with the mission, the crew did all the shopping for us. What made this a pleasant surprise was the fact that once we got back I learned that our requisition officer got me the thing I planned on buying, a shaving machine. I didn't expect it, but I think I mentioned I wanted one in a conversation before, so either way, it's a nice present. Now I can get rid of these annoying sideburns I've been growing. They totally mess up my style. Not that many people even see my face, considering that lately I've been wearing my helmet 90% of the time I'm out of the ship.
So, as soon as we got back we went to report to the Council after Shepard gave us 10 minutes to change out of our armors and so on. The meeting went just as I expected it would, with nothing special happening. The turian councilor blew a gasket as usual, the asari was relatively nice, and the salarian councilor was acting all mysterious as usual... man, I gotta find out where he gets his robes. They're awesome. Really goes with the whole archmage look.
With the meeting over everyone who needed it went over to Chakwas to treat their acid burns, which is where I am now. "Do I have to forbid you from going on missions?" She asks me angrily as she pokes and prods – painfully I might add – my injured side. "Must you wound yourself every time you step out of the ship?"
"Hey, they got acid burns too! That counts as injured!" I counter, gesturing at Shepard and Ashley. The former decided to stay and see the rest of her team getting a clear medical bill, and the latter came just because she wanted to see what kind of painful injuries we went through. The rest already left for their stations or, in the case of Wrex, to procrastinate in the cargo bay.
"Yes, but Wrex is a krogan, so he doesn't need treatment, and the rest of the team don't have a broken rib and two cracked ones," she states with finality and a cheap shot that came in the form of another poke in said broken rib, making me wince. By the nine hells, you're a doctor! Stop torturing me to make a point!
"She's got a point," Ashley helpfully points out.
"Well, the rest of the team weren't flung around the room by an asari commando like ragdolls," I deadpan, looking nervously at at an injector Chakwas pulled out of her 'broken things' kit, as I like to call it.
"It will take about two days for the ribs to fully heal, so I forbid you from doing anything physically taxing. I give you one warning," she looks at me with full seriousness. "if you don't rest until I say you can do missions again, you will regret it," she finishes and with that, plunges the injector into my injured side, making me wince again and hiss in pain. Damn, that thing hurts! She applies some medigel over the injured ribs, wraps some bandages around them and then finally releases me.
"Uh, sure Doc. I wouldn't dare to do anything like that," I quickly say as I put my shirt back on.
"You should listen to her," Shepard suggests. "Once, because I didn't do as she said, she locked me in the med bay, tied to the bed for almost the whole day," she says with a grimace and a far off look on her.
"And with good reason," Chakwas breaks into Shepard reverie. "you kept running around like a headless chicken, with an injured leg. Now carry on. I have to file the mess that always comes after your missions. I assume you have things to do as well," she dismisses us, turning away and walking over to her terminal.
Being dismissed, we leave the med bay. "You know, after all I've heard, I think I don't mind I stayed on the ship," Ashley remarks. "Rachni, asari commando and bad weather. Sounds like a wonderful place."
"Oh yeah. I'm totally booking my next vacation there," I say with a roll of my eyes, and turn to Shepard. "So... how's Liara?"
And with that I kinda ruin the whole mood. As soon as Chakwas cleared her as healthy, Liara vanished without saying a word, probably going to her quarters. A frown appears on Shepard's face and Ashley grimaces. "I doubt it's anything good. Poor thing had to watch her own mother die," she says solemnly.
Technically, she helped kill her own mother, which only makes it worse. I don't even know what I've been hoping for. I knew this will come and there was no known way of avoiding it. I guess I was just... hoping for something to happen, don't even know exactly what. "Maybe... we should talk to her?" I slowly ask.
Shepard lets out a large sigh. "I'll do it," she says with a grimace. "I delivered the final blow to Benezia..." she trails off and I realize why she's grimacing. Guilt. She pulled the trigger. As simple as that. Without saying anything else Shepard leaves us and walks back into the med bay.
"Well, this sucks," I summarize it. No other way to phrase it.
"No shit," Ash agrees. "I'd hate to be in either one's place right now. Oh, and what's up with Wrex?" she suddenly asks.
"What about Wrex?" I ask in confusion.
"In case you didn't notice, he's awfully pissed off about something," she pauses there, adopting a thoughtful look. "Well, pissed off more than the usual," she finally adds and I let out a small snort at that.
True, Wrex did seem to be pissed off most of the time, but then again, most of the krogan I met seem to be that way. Must be a krogan thing. I didn't see if Wrex was angrier than usual, mostly because he went back – more like stormed his way – to the cargo bay as soon as the talk with the Council was over. "Well, we did kinda release a rachni queen to repopulate her race," I point out. "He's probably still pissed about it," I conclude.
"Well, having an angry krogan on the ship is a bad thing. Someone should do something about it before it gets out of hand," she says with a frown.
I frown too. "Wrex wouldn't do anything," I say, trying to put conviction behind my voice. I want to be sure about it, but the part in the Virmire mission where he might turn on us keeps nagging me in my mind. Then again, Wrex didn't seem to care until the genophage cure came into play. In fact, it always seemed odd to me that Wrex just brushed off the rachni queen issue in the game so soon after releasing her. The fact that he actually seems pissed off about it here makes me slightly nervous. "Wrex is part of the team, and a friend," I'm not entirely sure if Wrex will say the same, since he's not really friendly with anyone. I think his relationship with us revolves around respect more than anything.
"Wrex is also a krogan," she counters with a flat voice.
I furrow my brow at that reply. "That's racist," I point out indignantly. Admittedly, I can be a racist too! I honestly dislike batarians, and they've done nothing to me. I've never even met one. But at least I keep that opinion to myself.
"No, that's common sense," she replies flatly. I think I offended her with my last comment, despite how true it might have sounded. "Angry krogan are dangerous. To both sides. Angry krogan stuck in tight places in space are the worst case scenario."
By the nine hells, she honestly believes that Wrex might harm us because he's pissed? That's fucking ridiculous. I can honestly understand why Wrex is pissed. The whole reason why krogan have a reputation as the most dangerous and hard-to-kill species was just set free to roam the galaxy. It's like we made all the sacrifices and hard-fought battles of his people meaningless, or at least partially meaningless, since they did save billions in the end. I'd be pissed too! But Wrex won't do anything to us over something like this.
"Fine," I finally say, slightly angry over her accusation. Wrex is a friend, whether he wants to or not, and I'll defend him if I have to. So I have to admit that I feel a bit insulted that Ashley thinks so, especially after all the missions they did together, including the small side-quests Shepard is adamant on taking. "I'll talk to him."
Ashley's eyebrows shoot up to her hairline and her slightly angry expression vanished and surprise takes it's place. "What?" she blurts out. "Are you sure that's smart?"
I snort loudly at that, just to show her how stupidly she's acting. "Well, since you're so scared," I make wave hand gestures and make a whiny voice while saying that, "of krogan, I guess I'll have to be the one to talk to him, don't you think?" and with that, I walk off to the elevator, leaving a gaping Ashley behind me.
"What? I- get back here, Alex!" she snaps angrily at me but I cut her off by turning around to give her a half-hearted glare. I have a broken rib, which is annoying me, and beyond sitting 20 minutes in the meeting room, I've no rest. I'm really not in the mood to argue with Ashley.
"You know," I say, trying to convey all my disappointment in my voice, and I think it works since she did shut up and lets me speak know. "after all the stuff we've been through together, all the missions we did, I'd expect you to trust him at least a little bit," and with that, I turn around and walk away, and this time Ashley doesn't stop me. I guess I gave her some food for thought.
Damn, I honestly feel awesome for doing this. I never thought I'll ever have to argue about anything with Ashley, since we usually got along fine. I doubt Wrex will appreciate me defending him though. He'll probably say something like 'I don't need you defending me' or 'I can handle it myself' with his half-annoyed-half-exasperated tone of voice.
One elevator ride later I walk out into the cargo bay. I spot Garrus by the Mako, fiddling with his sniper rifle and Wrex is standing at his usual spot. Garrus raises his head for a second to give me a greeting nod – which I return – but Wrex complete ignores my presence. Well, better get this over with.
"Hey Wrex," I greet as I walk up to him. He doesn't look at me but he does let out a short grunt to acknowledge that he hears me. "I heard you're still pissed about something," I remark casually.
"What do you want?" he grunts out at me, not turning to me but his eye does focus on me.
"Hey, I'm just trying to figure out what got you so annoyed that other people start to worry," I say with a shrug, as if it's not a big deal, and actually, it's not. "Is it about the rachni?" I try out and apparently, hit right in the bulls-eye because Wrex turns his neck to fully face me.
"Damn right I am," he replies angrily. "the rachni nearly wiped everyone out and only my people had the power to stop them. Now, you released them, and this time there aren't millions of krogan around to throw at them," he spits out.
I can't help but roll my eyes at that. "You heard the queen, she's not going to do anything like that. And it will take her a long time to actually make an army strong enough to threaten the galaxy," I say, though I have my doubt. She's a bug... so she probably breeds extremely fast, if by ME2 she already offered her help against the Reapers... which means she already had a small army behind her back.
"And what makes you think that? The word of a mind-controlled asari corpse?" he asks mockingly. "millions of my people died stopping them once. And you just... release them to let it happen again," he says, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Look, I'm not going to pretend to understand how you feel about this. Back then, my people were running around with swords and spears and believed the Earth was flat, but for fuck's sake Wrex, even you weren't alive back then! It's been fucking eons ago! Things change, people too, or in this case, sentient alien bugs. What happened two thousand years ago won't necessarily happen again," it's the fucking past! No point in living in it.
But Wrex just snorts and shakes his head again. "You just don't understand..."
Ugh, I can't believe I'm actually going through with this, but... "Well, in that case, maybe we should kill you? Wipe out the krogan too!" I say to him.
The reaction is immediate and scary. Within a second, Wrex is no longer leaning on the wall, but is standing in front of me, his face nearly touching mine. Hot air hits my face as he blows it out of his flaring nostrils and his red eyes burning a hole through my head. "Want to say that to me again?" he doesn't yell, or growl or anything. He says it in a completely calm tone, which let's me know just how much I pissed him off.
Oh fuck. Wrex is going to kill me by the looks of it. I've never seen him so pissed off. By the nine fucking hells, why did I think this was a good idea? Even worse, I can't back off now, otherwise Wrex is going to be even more pissed. I try to maintain my calm look, and I think I epically fail at that, but I do continue. "Maybe we should fucking kill you? And wipe out the krogan. I mean, you rebelled against the Council all that long time ago, killed many, many people, so you'll probably do it again," I say, throwing his reasoning right back into his face. "That's your own fucked up logic right there. Maybe we should wipe out the turians too after they attacked my people? Why won't we wipe out my people as well, since after the krogan, we're the most violent race around. We're bound to attack something in the future, so why not prevent it?"
Wrex is just... staring at me. He doesn't even look that angry anymore. Maybe because I'm not sitting in the corner, crying my eyes out in fear. "Look Wrex, I'm not saying all of this seriously, but your logic is fucked up. Period. With the same logic, we should wipe out the whole galaxy and be done with it. Turians attacked my people because they were somewhat assholes, but I don't see anyone carrying much of a grudge. Except racists, but they hate everyone," I add as a bit of an afterthought. "Anyway, the point is... it all happened a long time ago, and I doubt it will happen again. It's before your time, so there's no point dwelling on it. Different times, different people. And you're being an ass... not that there's anything new with that," I finally conclude.
Wrex is still staring at me for what feels like an hour, until out of nowhere he snorts, blowing more hot breath into my face, and shakes his head. "You've got a quad, saying that to me," he rumbles out, sounding less pissed and more... amused? The hell?
"And I've got a point too," I say with a nod, more than relieved that Wrex is not looking like he might stomp on me. "Just because it happened once, won't mean it will happen again. I'm willing to trust the rachni queen when she said she's not planning on starting another war. If not that, at least trust Shepard's judgment."
Wrex turns away and goes back to his usual spot: leaning against the wall by the lockers. "Fine, I'll trust Shepard on this one, just stop annoying me," he says with a roll of his eyes when I keep staring at him.
I let out a short snort as a thought enters my mind. "Hey, think of it this way. If the rachni do start another war, you'll get your genophage cure because the krogan are the only ones who can stand up to the rachni," I say with a smile.
Wrex looks slightly surprised at the thought and barks out a short laugh at that. "That does sound like something the Council will do," he says with a small smirk.
"It does, doesn't it?" I remark. Just... wow. It's really sad when the body ruling the majority of the galaxy is actually expected to do stuff like this. "Either way, Wrex. Stop being an angry ass. You're scaring Ashley," Hah! Take that Ash! Revenge!
"Whatever," Wrex says, though he's obviously amused by it, despite the nonchalance of his tone.
Hm, I've had this idea for a while now, so why the hell not. "By the way, I'm planning on watching some movies tonight. Everyone else will probably join too. Feel free to drop by the rec room," I offer with a smile.
Wrex just shrugs. "Maybe. If people would stop annoying me," he says, pointedly staring at me.
Okay, I get the cue. I'm starting to annoy him. Not that there's anything new with that either. "Whatever, I know when I'm unwanted," I say with mock hurt, turning away from him. "I'll see you later."
And... I'm still alive. Holy crap. I can't believe I survived that after saying what I said. Either Wrex saw what I meant... or I actually managed to get him to like me! If it's the latter... awesome! Well, let's see my other plan coming to fruition. I walk over to Garrus, who casually fiddles with his rifle still. "You know, for a moment there I thought we're going to have to peel off your remains off the floor," he greets me casually.
"Ah, but you didn't have to. Came out unscathed too," I say back, pushing a small crate over to his side and taking a seat. "Got a quad out of it too, according to Wrex," I add with a grin.
"Congratulations? I'm not entirely sure why you'd need an extra pair for, but whatever floats your boat, as your human idiom goes," he says dismissively, apparently not impressed with my accomplishment. And here I thought that at least someone will be happy for me. "So..." he trails off, activating his omni-tool. "Up for a game? I'm really bored and if I'll have to clean up my rifle one more time I'm afraid I'll start peeling off the paint," he says rather sheepishly.
Well, I don't mind. "Sure, why not?" I agree, activating my own omni-tool and launching the game. "You're totally getting your ass handed to you this time," I boast to myself. I've had some practice against random players on the extranet, so I've improved as far as I'm concerned. Five victories in a row!
"I see you licked your wounds and came back for more?" he shoots back with a smirk. "well, you know me. I love sharing my can of ass-kicking, so feel free to get more."
"I see you've been hanging out with the marines," I reply, noticing the new quirk of speech. Garrus never used 'can of ass-kicking' in a phrase before, unlike certain marines I met on this ship.
"A bit," Garrus confirms my suspicions. "Not that it's my fault. You're not the one who's been left on the ship with nothing to do," by the way he says that, he almost sounds... hurt.
"Aww, is little Gary jealous?" I say in a whiny voice and a grin.
"No. I just feel annoyed that there is nothing for me to do, while you're all having fun," he admits. Well, I'm not going to call the last mission fun. Not in the closest sense of the word. It was freezing hell as far as I'm concerned.
"Speaking of fun, we're going to watch a movie tonight. Feel free to join," I'm not sure who are 'we' yet, since Garrus and Wrex are the only ones I invited so far, and I'm not sure if Wrex will come.
"Hm, is it a human movie?" he asks.
"Yep. One that is in my opinion one of the best movies of all time," well, I'm not really sure, considering I missed about a century and a half of movies, but I'll let it slide this time. The movie is awesome, enough said.
"Well, it's not like there's anything else to do. You didn't take the Mako with you this time, so there's no calibrations to do..." he says with a thoughtful tone. "Eh, why not. I hope this movie is as good as you say."
"Trust me, it is," I say with conviction, and the game starts. Now I just need to notify everyone else and make sure the rec room is free tonight.
Aaaaand, that's it! Yep. A really short chapter, but it gets things going. Soon enough Virmire will come into play and I'll be one step closer to ending the ME1 timeline. Either way, this chapter had been much easier to write, mostly because it depended solely on my imagination and so on, and I don't lack in that department. I'm also planning to have some fun with the Virmire mission, so... just wait and see. :)
Now, thank you everyone who read and commented on the story! You guys make me feel aweosme. Thanks for reading! Feel free to point out any mistakes I made, or to just comment on the story! Your reviews are much appreciated! Especially when you detail what you liked most. Anyway, feel free to comment. Don't be a lurker :) For now, I'm going to play some Dishonored (just bought and right now downloading, 50% left) which should be very fun. If the game won't keep me too occupied, I hope to get the next chapter around next week, possibly exactly in a week, though I'm unsure, due to my job. Who knows. Either way, I shall see you soon enough!
Delvaro out.