A/N: Welcome to chapter 3. As you may have guessed, I play almost strictly Renegade in ME 2. ME 3, a little harder since it's just you being a bitch instead of a badass who doesn't take shit.

Just Shepard Things

Summary: After the Collector attack on the SSV Normandy, Commander Shepard is brought back by Project Lazarus. However, the commander has ideas on how to get on Cerberus's nerves.

*Cool Mom*

Tuchanka was…not exactly as great as Grunt had imagined. He knew of the krogan homeworld thanks to the knowledge imprinted in him by Okeer, but he never knew what it looked like. Now that he could see Tuchanka's surface with his own eyes, his disdain freely roamed. "This is the supposed great krogan homeworld? This hunk of rubble is barely worth standing on."

Beside him, Commander Shepard snorted in laughter. "Tell me about it. Every time I visit my old pal Wrex, it doesn't get any prettier. Let's just get it over with."

"Adulthood." Garrus rolled his eyes. "Shepard, you sure we can't just take him to Omega and buy him a few dances?"

"Wrex said he has to go through the Rite, so he's going through it." Shepard shook her head, giving the middle finger to a krogan who snarled at her as they went to find the shaman on the upper levels. "Don't worry; Wrex will definitely give him something worth fighting for once our fun little field trip is over."

"Only you could make a suicide mission seem so trivial." The turian snorted. "You're confident we'll return after we go through the Omega Four Relay?"

"With how much we upgraded? I think the Collectors will run scared. And if their ship sneaks up on us, we'll blast them to bits. Anyone else gets in our way, they'll be eviscerated too. Makes no difference to me."

"Anyone have anything to eat?" Grunt's stomach growled.

"Grunt…is now really the time?" the redheaded commander asked rhetorically. Her surgical scars still had yet to heal; if anything, Shepard would have said they got worse. The implants were glowing bright red and her eyes had lost all of their former light green color. Now they took on the same shade of red as her scars.

Grunt growled and flexed his shoulders. He wanted to shoot something. Or have a snack. Cursed adolescence. Maybe Garrus was right about the strippers. It would be a lot less stressful than dealing with whatever bullshit was lined up for them.

When they reached the room where Wrex said the shaman was, Shepard rolled her eyes in annoyance at the sight of the krogan from earlier growling angrily at the shaman. "The beasts of the Rite could ignore him like a lump of plastic!"

"They know blood, no matter the womb. Your barking does not help your cause," the shaman hissed.

"Is this big idiot going to be a problem?" Shepard butted in and folded her arms over her black N7 armor. "Wrex told us to pay you a visit."

The shaman took a step closer to Grunt to study him. "This is the tank-bred? Looks very lifelike." He sniffed. "Smells correct, too. Your protests ring hollow, Uvenk."

The silver armored krogan snarled and glared at the younger krogan. "Bah! He has no one! No one will fight or die for him—"

Shepard reacted before Grunt could snap out his shotgun. Her head slammed right into Uvenk's, the krogan taken aback by the strength the seemingly fragile human possessed. A large bruise started to form on his head and he rubbed it gingerly, glaring hatred at the commander. "You dare!?"

The shaman grinned toothily and laughed. "I like this human! She understands. Better than you do."

"Objection withdrawn…" Uvenk conceded. Shepard had him beat here. "This will be decided elsewhere."

He stomped out, barking angrily at his own clan to follow him and the shaman smirked. "Not bad. You've provoked them. They're your problem now."

"Let me whine about it," Shepard drawled sarcastically. "Can we proceed or do I need to punch another one of his big lumbering idiots to prove that Grunt has someone willing to bleed for him?"

If Grunt didn't know it before, he knew it now. Shepard was a cool mom.

A/N: Yeah, Shepard is a cool mom. I'd have written more but I got sick with something and every word is pure fuckin agony.

Thank god edibles exist.

-Kagerou#0007