The Orthopaedic Surgeon
News traveled quickly that there was a strange phenomenon on Omega: an honest-to-God biotic vorcha—and not the kind with biotic enhancements or implants or grenades—was hiding somewhere in the market district. Weirdly enough, this was at the same time a second rumour about Star Enterpies' pies being mind-blowingly good (sorry Brogan) was floating around. Thankfully, very few were aware of what really happened.
Apart from an explosive (sorry again) surge in business because everyone wanted a piece of Star Enterpies, many were concerned with a possible upset in Omega's power balance if biotic vorcha were truly real. Regenerating bloodthirsty vorcha were bad enough to fight, let alone one that could throw warp balls.
The only one who worked to pick apart the rumours sat at the top of Omega's food chain. The station's self-proclaimed de-facto queen (if youre feeling dramatic), Aria T'Loak, was a fearsome take-no-shit asari who ruled the station with an iron fist. Apart from her ruthlessness, she gained the respect of Omega's unruly crowd from the way she rose to power: starting from a mere dancer at Afterlife, Aria's unrivalled cunning and ambition allowed her to overthrow the owner, her enemies, and eventually, the previous 'ruler' of Omega. This also meant that she ruled cleverly and cautiously. Always one step ahead, she made connections and threatened opposers before they even realised they had done anything to move against her.
When she learned about Xegg's newfound abilities from Gavorn, who was only too eager to talk praise about his "good friend, seriously, we're just friends", it was without a doubt that Aria had to eliminate Xegg as a potential threat or keep him as a pet. The answer depended on how the vorcha in question reacted.
Back in Star Enterpies, Aria's bodyguard, Grizz, pushed his way to the front of a snaking queue of sudden pie fanatics to get Xegg's attention. "Vorcha. Aria wants to talk to you."
A human slapped Grizz's shoulder. "Hey buddy, get to the back of the que—"
Grizz pointed a Carnifex pistol at him and fired a shot, mere inches away from his head.
The noisy store quietened down instantly, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea. This wasn't a request but an order with harsh consequences.
The gunshot almost made Xegg drop an entire tray of freshly baked pies, and woke Segg from his midday nap.
Xegg scampered forward. "Me? Aria? Aria hates vorcha! Why talk?"
"Not my place to say," Grizz grumbled back. "Best not to keep her waiting."
The bodyguard left as quickly as he came, leaving the two vorcha brothers confused, near-naked, and afraid.
Xegg turned nervously to Segg. "Aria scary. What if she kills me?"
"If she try, just do the big jump punch at her!"
After work, Xegg had been practicing with Segg to see if he could control his biotic powers. Progress was slow, but he could now more or less charge in straight, controlled lines, and manage smaller warp balls. They noticed that his powers weakened over time as his body processed the eezo. Luckily, they had plenty more 'blueberry' pies in storage to keep him combat-ready.
But unlike how vorcha regeneration normally worked, which was to equip vorchas with a countermeasure for whatever caused damage, his body did not seem to develop any resistance to eezo overtime. In fact, he would argue it was doing the opposite—judging from the increased frequency of nosebleeds and migraines even though he was not producing the same level of output as he did when he fought Brogan. His blood pressure always spiked while practicing, and there were many times where he fainted or puked his guts out.
But honestly, Xegg was just happy to biotic charge at will.
"You're crazy! She will rip my face off! Throw me to varren as midday snack!"
"Aria will do that if you see don't her anyway!"
Xegg's shoulders drooped because he couldn't disagree. He dragged himself out of the shop.
"Break a leg!" Segg called out after him, half mockingly, half affectionately.
Xegg had no choice but to trudge towards Afterlife, where Aria ran her day-to-day, to see what she wanted. Most discussions with Aria ended with the other party acquiescing to her demands completely or in a body bag, but maybe, just maybe, Xegg's new biotic powers could get him out of anything.
Afterlife was a seedy nightclub centered in Omega that made itself intimidatingly visible from the station's docking bays. Bright letters demanded the attention and respect of all species entering the station.
Xegg made his way into the club and up the stairs to Aria's platform. Both the bouncers and guards seemed to know who he was and let him in without so much as a nod of acknowledgment. This precarious balance between being ignored and having guns drawn on him caused Xegg to start sweating bullets. At the foot of the stairs leading to the platform, he stopped to let her guards scan for concealed weapons. He snuck a look at the feared ruler of Omega.
Her dark violet skin was a stark contrast to Afterlife's deep red brilliance. Aloof, with all guards down, she truly embraced the airs of royalty; there was always someone willing to serve her, and she knew it.
Aria was the first to speak. "You're the vorcha everyone's talking about." She waved a hand over to the left, instructing Xegg to take a seat on the sofa.
Xegg wondered whether he would leave a permanent sweat stain on the expensive leather if he sat down there and then. But he also didn't want to disobey Aria while her heavily armed guards were just two steps behind. He settled for hovering over the sofa, thighs clenched and bum in the air, like one would do at a suspect public restroom. If she noticed, Aria didn't seem to care.
Instead, she cut straight to the chase.
"I want to know how exactly you managed to become a biotic. Vorcha don't naturally have the ability to generate mass effect fields."
Xegg's squatting posture was turning into a tougher workout than he thought. His quads were burning. "Err… 'bye-oh-teek'…?"
"Yes," she replied impatiently. Aria had not blinked once since Xegg 'sat' down. Even without eye contact, her razor-sharp glare made Xegg sweat even more. "I assume it was implants. Who gave you the surgery? Was it Cerberus?"
"'Sir-buh-russ?'"
What Xegg was mispronouncing was the pro-human paramilitary group led by the Illusive Man. They were linked to various terrorist activities, assassinations, and unauthorised experiments—all done in the name of human ascension. Cerberus recently came to Omega, with Aria's permission of course, to set up a docking hub for its convoy ships leading to the now accessible Omega-4 Relay. Not much was known about why Cerberus was doing this, except maybe to do some clean-up work after news of Shepard's success against the Collectors, but suspicions climbed when the frequency and number of Cerberus carriers increased over time.
"Don't play dumb with me, you sewer rat," Aria barked, her upper lip curled with disgust and frustration. "I know they're messing around with Reaper tech. That's the only reason why you've become this freak of nature."
Xegg felt like crying. He was the kid in the back of the classroom being called on by the teacher to answer a question he didn't prepare for.
"Ooough… I only sell pies! Good pie! I can make yummy pies for Aria!" he pleaded.
He reached behind him to try and find a name card (one of Segg's ideas) but heard the whistling sound of guns assembling themselves.
"You try anything funny again and you'll leave here without a head." Anto, Aria's second-in-command, pointed his Predator at Xegg's head.
Xegg's body could not handle the physical toll of maintaining the squat, or the emotional one of being held at gunpoint. All at once, Xegg let out a series of rumbling farts and burst into tears.
"Oouh hooh hooh!" –brapp– "I don't know what Aria is asking! Wouuh hooh hooughh!"
–bwoof– "I only eat pie and… waaaah!"
This outburst was probably what saved Xegg. Neither Aria nor her guards were expecting a full-grown vorcha to cry so pathetically in front of them, or fart up a storm for that matter. Feeling a migraine coming on, Aria quickly changed tactics and waved at the guards to lower their weapons.
First things first, to stop the blubbering vorcha. She passed some tissues to him and fanned her face. The smell was unbearable.
"Please stop doing that. It's disgusting."
Xegg sniffed quite loudly and managed to stop his tears and farts.
"I should have known better than to expect a vorcha to give me a rundown." Aria snapped her fingers at Anto. "Get someone to look into this. Or better yet, do it yourself."
Without a word, Anto disappeared down the stairs, two at a time, and headed out the main doors of Afterlife.
Aria finally sat down on the sofa and made eye contact. "We'll have our answers soon enough. Cerberus should think twice before running tests on my station. All I need to know… vorcha…."
Aria paused to let Xegg repeat his name, which she already forgot.
"Xegg!"
"Xegg," she said, forcing a smile. "I need to know that you and I are on the same side."
She spoke slowly as if talking to a child, but her tone was cold.
"Your new abilities might make you stronger than the rest of your little friends, but I promise you, we'd be better as allies than enemies. Understood?"
All she received from Xegg was the same blank expression from before. Her migraine was inches away from kickstarting.
"Ally?" Xegg scratched his head, clueless. He didn't manage to pick up these big words yet, so he had to guess from context. "Aria wants to work in pie shop?"
"What? No—"
"Aria wants to be friends with me?"
"Did you even hear what I said? No."
Xegg gasped. Standing up (and indeed, the sofa was quite irreversibly stained), he started to back away from the asari.
"Aria… Aria wants… to marry Xegg?"
The migraine began.
Aria was now on her feet, furious, telling herself not to unleash a biotic assault on the little vorcha.
"You dare?" she said, her voice barely audible with the music blaring in Afterlife, but Xegg could have sworn the temperature fell several degrees.
He gulped. "I don't want to marry Aria! I like someone else!"
"I don't want to marry you. I'm asking you to serve me."
"Xegg is waiting for marriage! No touchy!"
This was enough disrespect for a day.
"Get out of my club."
With one fluid extension of her arm, Xegg was lifted into the air before flying behind Aria forcefully. If Xegg's biotics looked like something out of a cage-fighting match, Aria's looked like calligraphy, but they hurt twice as much as Xegg's attacks.
His head cracked the glass barrier, and Xegg found himself shooting towards the club below. He was lucky to hit the club's iconic circular podium above the bar where the dancers were before colliding with the drinks below. A few patrons screamed.
Xegg probably sustained a few broken ribs. "Ooouuughh… I forgot rule... 'Don't fuck with Aria'."
Blearily, with worse double vision after the fall and a loud ringing in his head, Xegg picked himself off the floor, intent on dragging himself home to crash in his crib. He barely made it to his feet when a figure pushed past hurriedly, knocking him back on his bum. After blinking a few times, Xegg managed to register that it was Anto rushing back to talk to Aria.
Whatever Anto said was enough for Omega's ruler to compose herself instantly. She exchanged a few words with her men, who pulled out their weapons and filed out of various exits.
Aria followed suit, but not before clearing out the rest of the clubgoers downstairs, still thrashing on the dancefloor and making regrettable mistakes. With a low-power but sweeping shockwave, she simultaneously disabled Afterlife's music and light systems, and shook even the drunkest of partygoers out of their stupors.
"Club's closed," she said quite coolly to the confused crowd, without further explanation.
Surprisingly, all staff and guests stopped whatever they were doing and obeyed, leaving the club in somewhat orderly lines, a few exchanging short goodbyes, while others dragged sleeping friends out with them. Their cooperativeness matched only their level of respect or Machiavellian fear for the Pirate Queen.
Eventually, only Xegg was the last one left sitting in the corner near the main doors. No one was going to help a vorcha after all. Aria certainly didn't as she strode out without so much as a glance in his direction. She'd clearly made up her mind that he was not worth her time anymore—or that something else was.
Xegg's ribs cracked back into place as he stood up once again to leave the club like everyone else. He didn't quite like what he saw with Anto and Aria upstairs. Something was cooking, and if he stayed any longer, he'd probably find out what. One laboured step at a time, he made for the main doors. But he was too slow.
"Well, well, well…" a nasty, annoying, pompous-ass voice shattered the silence. "What do we have here?"
In a poorly lit corner of one of Afterlife's support beams was an obscured humanoid figure, perched precariously on a ledge. The silver glint reflecting off his blade was enough to tell Xegg that he was looking at an enemy, and a pretty pretentious one at that.
Seriously. Why was he using a katana in an age of omni-tools? Weeb-alert? Red flags? Yikes?
"Looks like something got left behind." The figure dropped smoothly onto the ground with a soft thump and walked onto the dancefloor. Xegg saw a ponytailed, thin, edgelord McGee ninja-wannabe, whose eyes were obscured by equally cringe futuristic looking goggles. His mid-thigh length jacket with a circle-skirt (what in the name of functionality was this?!) was left open to show skin-tight pants, mechanical legs starting from the knees, and a thick plate body with the Cerberus logo in the centre—which Xegg did not recognise. The man didn't seem to have a gun, and instead held the blade in his left hand while his right palm was outstretched, facing Xegg.
It was honestly one of the weirdest get-ups Xegg ever saw on Omega.
"A vorcha, huh?" Kai Leng snorted. "Aria must be getting desperate if she's hiring you."
Kai Leng must have thought his slow, mysterious approach looked cool because he was dragging it out unnecessarily. Xegg didn't know if he was supposed to copy his movements. Was this a dance-off?
Before Xegg could show off a perfect pirouette that he'd been practicing in private, Kai Leng dropped into a low crouch.
"No matter. You'll be dead in a minute anyway."
With the outstretched palm, the agent began firing energy projectiles at Xegg with deadly precision. One blast grazed Xegg's arm, and the vorcha yelped before dodging behind a table. Kai Leng was now running at full speed towards Xegg, swinging his blade just centimetres away from the prongs of Xegg's head. Mid-swing, he saw an opportunity to grab Xegg by his collar and hauled him over cover. His hands were already repositioning around the sword's handle.
"Too easy," he said, bringing the blade down towards Xegg's neck.
A burst of dark red blood and a gurgling cry erupted from Xegg as the blade found the web of veins that collected in a vorcha's collar. White-hot pain made Xegg see stars. His arms flailed, slapping Kai Leng weakly to try and get him to dislodge the blade—which he did eventually, but only after the vorcha's body went limp.
Satisfied with killing yet another filthy alien, Kai Leng made a mental note to himself to get some cereal on the way home for a job well done.
Maybe Kai Leng was appropriately absent—maybe he played hooky on purpose—from school on the day that they were teachhing basic alien biology, or he made the grave mistake of forgetting about the vorcha's unparalleled regeneration. In either case, he'd just turned his back on one that wasn't anywhere close to death.
Xegg's wound was already stitching itself together, blood vessels first, then muscle, then skin, all thicker than before. The second his veins closed, his heart kicked into overtime and blood started rushing into his head. All at once, he rolled off the table and onto all fours, eyes red and pulsing.
Xegg had to stop selling pies in the middle of the day. He willingly chose to give up profits to speak to Aria, for which he had to haul his ass all the way to Afterlife only to get yelled at by Anto and thrown about by the asari. He cried in public for the first time in forever, and farted in front of everyone (more common, but still embarrassing).
And now this? Getting stabbed by a greasy ponytail cringelord?
Enough was enough.
"YOU! Human!"
Kai Leng whipped around in shock.
"I'm alive! Can't kill me!"
Xegg threw his head back and cackled with renewed vigour. "You're gonna die!"
Just as he did before, but now with more finesse, Xegg gathered enough biotic energy into his knees and legs to charge head-first at mach speed into Kai Leng. Caught off-guard, Kai Leng couldn't raise a kinetic barrier in time and sustained the full force of the charge right in his groin.
"Hrrk!"
In that instant, Kai Leng lost both his equilibrium and dignity.
Together, they collided into a half-wall with Kai Leng cushioning the blow for Xegg. The pain from having his family jewels smashed in, and smashing his back into the wall caused the agent to make yet another a grievous error: he dropped his precious katana.
Xegg didn't bring any guns with him but was happily using his claws to beat the ever-living shit out of the man.
"Ugly! Birdbrain! Stinky! Poohead!" he spat out choice insults between blows.
Smack! Crack! Smack! Crack!
"Shut up!" Kai Leng struggled to block Xegg's punches. Stuck alone in the club, there was no way he could call on his trusty airship to provide covering fire or summon a platoon of phantom soldiers to draw 'aggro'. He settled on aiming his palm-blaster poorly at Xegg. A few shots managed to hit him, but unlike before, they only served to piss Xegg off.
Was he really going to be bested by a mere vorcha?
"Not afraid of you!" Xegg screeched, his teeth mere inches away from Kai leng's nose. "We know about all your human tricks. Let's see how you fight without toys!"
The vorcha focused on producing biotic energy into one hand, which he used to grab Kai Leng's left arm, and squeezed as hard as he could. The mass effect fields shattered his plasma blaster, its residual force spraying metal fragments out, some of them stabbing into Kai Leng's arm.
"Aaaeerrrggghhh!"
Kai Leng was howling in what must have been unimaginable agony, but it wasn't enough. Xegg's face broke into a grin so terrifying, it made Kai Leng's blood freeze.
"Segg said to break leg," Xegg muttered to himself.
Segg? Leg?
It took Kai Leng a moment to realise what Xegg was about to do. The same biotic claw closed onto a knee cap.
"No, stop! Don't—!"
There was a sickening crunch, followed by metal scraping against metal, and the sound of several wires snapping. The vorcha twisted the leg a hundred and eighty degrees, before bending it at an angle to free the joint from its socket. A lightning strike coursed through Kai Leng before the pain disappeared, almost instantly, when his nervous system lost connection to the mechanical limb.
In the end, Xegg stood clutching Kai Leng's left leg like a trophy.
"Weak!" he spat on the agent.
Kai Leng must have passed out because he didn't try to get the final say. How dare he quit now when the fun was just starting?
Xegg waited to see if Kai Leng would wake up to fight again, but the man lay motionless for several minutes. During this time, Xegg poked and prodded at the agent. He wore his goggles for a bit before deciding that they looked even worse than Segg's sunglasses. Xegg managed to find a mail address from Kai Leng's omnitool, which he used to sign up to various tabloids and adult websites before committing it to memory. He used his biotic skills to float Kai Leng's body higher and higher into the air, but even then, the agent didn't stir. Xegg was getting bored.
Finally, he gave up waiting and tossed Kai Leng's body somewhere behind him. His bloodlust dissipated ages ago. He clutched the leg-trophy and strode out of Afterlife.
But what he saw outside made him wish he'd stayed in the club with Kai Leng.
The walkway leading into Afterlife was in absolute chaos. There was screaming echoing and debris scattered throughout. Alarms were blaring far away, and the sound of gun shots matched his heartbeat. Xegg recognised the dark red stains that painted various surfaces.
Danger! He had to get back to the pie shop quickly. This place had just recently seen some sort of firefight, but with what?
On cue, the answer to his question walked into his peripheral vision. A hulking monster was dragging a struggling salarian towards the market district. The salarian had been running towards the transport terminal to try and get away from the beast: an adjutant—Reaperised creatures with large glowing sacs lined with spikes on their spines and many grotesque tubes running lengths in and out of their bruise-coloured faces, arms, and legs.
"Oh… big monster…."
The adjutant cried something loud but undecipherable when it saw Xegg, and turned to block his path. Xegg panicked. He tried to run past the creature, but the adjutant threw the salarian into Xegg to stop him. He lost his balance and fell onto the floor. There was a sharp crack—the salarian's neck was bent at an odd angle after he landed.
Xegg pushed the body off. Holding his breath, he tried to generate a warp ball, just as he had done several times this past week to practice. But all he felt was a trickle flowing down his face. His nose was bleeding again, profusely. Within minutes, Xegg knew he'd be feeling a headache powerful enough to prevent him from even moving.
It was strange. They never used to happen so quickly. And he'd barely used any biotics in the fight with Kai Leng. So why were they happening now?
There was no time to think. The adjutant was quickly closing the distance to headbutt Xegg. Xegg barely dodged by rolling away last minute. He could now taste blood in his mouth for some reason—it wasn't just his nose bleeding anymore. With a hacking cough, Xegg saw blood.
Loud bellows interrupted his fears. To add insult to injury, the adjutant was playing around with its own biotic fields and was moments away from firing a singularity into Xegg's face.
Xegg used his arms and Kai Leng's leg to shield himself from the blast. He'd shut his eyes when…
BANG!
His eyes snapped open again. One of the adjutant's sacs had burst open. A high-powered sniper rifle tore through the adjutant's barriers and struck home. In the distance, a turian was ejecting a thermal clip from his gun.
Captain Gavorn aimed at the adjutant once more. "Move! We'll cover you!"
"Gavorn?"
Their eyes locked for a moment. The situation could only be described as crazy, chaotic, dire. But for a brief moment, Xegg felt safe and warm in Gavorn's gaze.
In a similar stupor, Gavorn got up and ran towards Xegg, completely forgetting about covering fire.
Suddenly, there was a loud screech of tires. A familiar blue truck was going at full speed towards the adjutant. Its hood smashed into the beast before swerving this way and that, dragging it into pillars and railings on the way.
The truck and adjutant made one last collision into an abandoned taxi before coming to a full, smoking stop. The driver's side's door was kicked open, sparks flying, and out jumped Segg with his sunglasses.
Only stopping to sling a bag over his shoulder, Segg ran towards his brother at top speed to haul him to his feet, pushing Gavorn out of the way.
"We leave!"
Xegg shook his head. "Pie shop!" He coughed up another handful of blood with the effort it took to speak.
Segg panicked.
"You're hurt!"
"There's no time," Gavorn interrupted them. "The station's overrun with these things. We have to go."
"No! Pie—"
Xegg's coughing could not stop. The handful became a small puddle. His condition was worsening by the second.
The sound of scraping metal made them jolt.
Their safety was short-lived: the adjutant was not dead yet and was pushing the truck off its body. Its hideous face centred on the three of them.
A few more seconds, and that thing would break free.
Xegg was in no position to argue or fight, as much as his blood wanted to. Seeing that he was in no shape to walk, Gavorn swept him into an almost effort-less fireman carry and pointed towards the transport terminal.
"We'll take a shuttle off Omega. To the Citadel. You need medical attention and that's final."
With Segg following close behind, Gavorn ran at a fast pace towards the nearest shuttle, which was already filling up with civilians pushing frantically for a spot. Between Segg's unchecked ferocity and Gavorn's authoritative yelling, they managed to find just enough room aboard the shuttle.
With the last of his energy, Xegg looked back at the adjutant. At Afterlife. At the poor broken truck. At Omega.
This dingy, twisted station full of memories, both bad and good.
As he fell unconscious, he wondered if he would live long enough to see his home again.
BONUS SCENE
Evacuating Afterlife
From: Star Enterpies
GOOD. YOU OPEN MESAGE. THIS XEGG FROM AFTERLIFE CLUB. MY PIE SHOP BEST. BUT NONE FOR YOU.
IF YOU READ THIS, YOU LIVE. YOU NOT WEAK FOR HUMAN, BUT XEGG STILL STRONGEST. YOU NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO STOP ME. NOW YOU TELL BOSS THAT YOU LOSE TO XEGG. HAHAHAHA! LOSE TO STRONGEST VORCHA! TELL MOMMY. I PUT YOUR LEG ON MY WALL. HAHAHAHA!
YOU HIDE NOW. IF WE FIGHT AGAIN, YOU DIE. I'LL KILL YOU.
- XEGG