Ripples in the Stream
A D&D / Shadowrun / Mass Effect crossover by Vyrexuviel
Disclaimer: The author of this story does not, in any way, derive any profit from the story. D&D, Shadowrun and Mass Effect are the property of their respective copyright holders. Jorukaia and other unfamiliar characters in this story, however, are mine.
Author's Note: Normally I put these at the bottom of the fic, but this time I think I'll drop it up here instead. Holy fuck. I nearly added 50% of the length of this fic with one chapter alone.
With that out of the way, I edited several key scenes in the earlier chapters to account for some changes I made in the storyline, so I highly recommend you go back and reread the entire fic to get them.
As always, my perennial apologies for not getting this done and out sooner. Between my muse going off to poke random things, getting sucked into another fandom and my work being an utter and all-consuming bitch, I'm left with little time to write, and even when the inspiration strikes, I'm often not able to put down on paper what I want to say.
Huge shout-out to Erratus Enigma, my beta-reader for this, without whom I may have already given up on this fic, and who is a typo-catcher bar none.
Hopefully I'll be able to get to the next bits of this sooner than last time, but alas it's not something I can promise. Love you all, and please, if you like it, drop me a review!
After a moment or two the door opened, the young, almost frighteningly calm asari giving her a glance before stepping back inside and sitting on the edge of the bed. Aethyta took that as consent, and stepped inside, a package of gauze in one hand and some basic antiseptic in the other. A bit low-tech in this day of medi-gel, but better for wounds in the long run.
"Right, let's see 'em." She set the supplies down as Jona gave her an arched eyebrow, but shrugged and removed her shirt, revealing a slight bosom, her belly and torso marred and streaked with numerous scars. Aethyta stilled the impulse to trace one as she checked where the girl bled during their battle.
"You look like you've been through some shit," she murmured, as she started applying a bit of the antiseptic. "Want to talk about it?"
The girl just shrugged, allowing rather than assisting with the ministrations. "I survived. They didn't. End of story."
Aethyta's lips pursed and she sat back, grabbing the gauze and momentarily taking the girl's hand, turning it over to show the network of scars on the outside of her forearms. "This says you've been through a lot. More than I expect is healthy for a girl your age."
The girl's odd, pale-yellow eyes narrowed and she withdrew her hand. "So I've had a hard life. Nothing new about that."
"No, probably not. But I'm curious." She gave a faint smile, starting to bandage the girl's upper arm, where a lucky shot had zipped through the meaty part, just below the left shoulder. "Mind indulging me?"
Jona heaved a sigh, shrugging her other shoulder. "Born a slave, but I bet you figured that out. Don't remember my mother. Learned English from a slave that Master picked up. Don't know how old I am." She hissed faintly as the bandage was pulled tight, but otherwise betrayed no sign of discomfort.
"Master," and the word held pure, condensed loathing, "had me trained as a gladiator."
The older asari paused, giving the girl a startled glance, but Jona ignored it. "Had to fight for my life since as long as I can remember. It's the only thing I know how to do."
The girl held her right arm up obediently for Aethyta to get at the small tear on the right side of her torso. "How'd you escape?"
Jona gave a smirk, "Master had this thing, I don't know what it was, just what it did. He used it to torture the slaves that really pissed him off. They got picked up by it, held, and dropped. They were always gibbering after that. I killed one of his favorite slaves, and he decided to have me punished."
The youngster started pulling her shirt on at Aethyta's direction. "It did the same to me. Dumped all sorts of shit in my head. But it blew up while it was doing it, so I didn't get the full blast. It's all there, just jumbled, I think. Master got so pissed at me he tried to kill me himself." She gave a wicked smile at that point.
"Turns out, he trained me too well. I killed him, and his guards. Killed all the fucking masters, let the slaves out." She paused, looking away. "I had to kill the chipped ones. They couldn't survive without the masters."
Aethyta had to control the almost overpowering urge to hug the girl. If she had actually killed a high-ranking slave-owner, she'd done the galaxy a service, though killing the chipped slaves was...
She was still talking, and Aethyta missed some of it, "- got out. Made it to a spaceport and hid aboard a starship. When the captain found me, I told him what happened, and he took me on as a worker. Paid me and everything when he dropped me off in the Terminus. Spent a couple years looking for work, but also looking for someone to help me get this shit out of my head. I knew it was prothean, but I don't know what it means."
"Prothean? The batarians had a prothean beacon?" She took the girl's shoulders, then turned her head to face hers with one hand on her cheek, staring into Jona's odd eyes, "Tell me straight girl, this master of yours had a prothean beacon?"
Jona pulled away, a faint scowl on her lips, but she nodded. "Yeah, can't think what else it was. Tall, slender, spire-y. Lifted me up and started cramming junk into my head."
'Well, shit, if the kid's telling the truth, that might just be the thing to get the Council of Matriarchs up in arms. If the Batarians are hoarding prothean tech...'
"Do you remember where your master's- your former master's place was?" She hastily corrected herself when Jona shot her a dark look.
The young asari shook her head. "Don't even know what planet it was on."
"Ahh, well, if you ever want to talk about it more, I'll always be there to listen, alright?" At Jona's nod, she smiled. "Good girl. Now, take care not to dislodge those bandages. It won't heal right and will scar if you don't. And I think you've got enough of those."
Aethyta almost missed Jona's comment on her way out the door, "Scars tell you you're still alive. I won't mind a few more."
Jona glanced about the tiny apartment, standing in the door. A duffle bag was slung over her shoulder, and she was wearing a brand-new dress, bought for her by Aethyta, though she would have preferred a shirt and pants.
The apartment was _tiny_. The bed took up more than three quarters of the available space, and had to be folded into the wall to allow the drawers underneath to be accessed. A tiny little one-person bathroom was built into the other wall, and that was the entirety of the place.
She nodded and glanced at Aethyta, who looked dubious, "It'll do."
"If you're sure, well, alright. I'll keep in touch, check up on you tomorrow."
Jona shrugged and stepped inside, "If you want to."
The repatriation of an escaped slave was common enough on Illium that they had a small office in Nos Astra for the purpose. The girl who worked there was bored most of the time, but when one of her sisters was found, she was happy to help them reorient into society. Council law mandated that all escaped slaves be given a citadel citizen registry ID code, a lump sum payment, and a small monthly stipend for the next two years, as well as free counseling. Failure to do so would have resulted in serious repercussions, so much so that failing to comply would have resulted in very unfavorable trade bans being imposed on Illium by the Council, something which the corporate-minded oligarchical rulers would not tolerate. And so Jona Siberys found herself an official citizen of Council Space, with a four-figure balance in her bank account and another 500 paid out a month.
"You really certain you want this one, Jona? I've seen closets that were bigger."
"I've been in cages too small to turn around in. This will be fine." Aethyta winced, but nodded.
"Alright. Call me if you have any problems, girl."
Jona nodded, stepped into the apartment and let the door shut and lock. She dropped her duffle on the floor, not bothering to pull down the bed, and made absolutely certain that the door was locked, and there were no monitoring devices in here. It was nigh-impossible to get away from them on Illium, but she seemed to have found a place at last that didn't have at least a security camera over the door. Granted the place was tiny, no doubt had problems with the plumbing and probably had no soundproofing at all given the thinness of the walls, but those wouldn't bother her, and it suited her needs.
Jona stripped off the dress, tucking it into her duffle, and, closing her eyes, gave a long, heartfelt sigh of pleasure, as she relaxed her hold on the magics binding her to this shape.
Her spine crackled as she swelled in height by nearly half a meter. A wet, slithery sound, soft and somehow disturbing, followed as the long tail flowed into existence. Fingers- and toe-tips parted as sharp claws emerged. Two of her crest-tendrils raised themselves, lengthened, and took on the hard sheen of bone, while the rest darkened and bifurcated into innumerable strands of hair. A faint rubbing sound accompanied the swelling of her faint dappling of scales into a hide-full of minuscule overlapping plates.
Jorukaia stretched, arching her tail ecstatically, very glad to be back in her native form. She'd held Jona's form so long her body was beginning to forget what it was like to be in its natural state. She dipped to her duffle again, removing her own clothes and changing into them, buckling on her belt and extracting a small, intricate key from one of the pockets.
She turned to the blank wall next to the bathroom, then paused. This was the moment of truth. Either it would work, or it wouldn't. She took a breath, to steady her nerves, and inserted the key into the air above the wall. She twisted, a sharp quarter turn to the right. A door, exactly identical to the one beside it, opened out into the tiny apartment, letting a flood of natural sunlight to fill this space deep inside the building.
Joru let out her gathered breath in a soft sigh of gratitude to whatever gods watched over her. It worked. Her refuge was there. Grinning widely, she grabbed up her dufflebag, and stepped through the door into a small desert-canyon arroyo. She shut the door behind her, and after a moment, it vanished, quietly and without fuss.
The apartment was as she left it, empty and bare, with no sign of where the occupant had gone, and the door locked from the inside. No doubt a pretty puzzle, should anyone happen to have been observing.
It had been far too long since she'd been up high on a proper planet.
Joru stretched, a luxurious affair, perched on her clawed toes on the rail along the edge as she stretched skyward, letting her tail sway and curl as it would to balance her. She could -feel- the clicks as her spine realigned. She'd been stuck as Jona for far too close to the limit of her power for her comfort, and that always came with a bit of a price. She had spent nearly ten hours in her refuge, luxuriating in a boiling-hot bath, then practicing with her combat dummies for an hour, and even sleeping for a couple hours on her own firm bed.
It had felt so very very good to be home. She wondered when she started thinking of the Refuge as home, but it didn't really matter. The place _was_ her home, had been designed as such by a very very old friend of hers, as a heartfelt thank-you for all the good deeds she had done for him and his line.
'At least I still have my home.'
But there was something else that she needed right now, other than the stretch. She grinned in anticipation as she gazed off, the elation over finding her refuge still intact and as she left it still sizzling through her veins. The Illium sun burned red at the very limit of the horizon. The darastrix let out a soft little groan as she shifted, a pulse of darkness flaring from both shoulders and rapidly coalescing into two huge wings, formed of solidified shadow, that stretched to a full six meters as the dragoness arched her back in ecstasy.
It had been far too long since she'd had a proper flight.
With a joyful whoop, she let herself fall from the high place, her shadowy pinions folding as she gained speed, the immense wings beating faintly as she fell, first past darkened windows, then lit ones, twisting her tail and angling herself away from the building as it began to tier outwards, vanishing past a brightly-lit balcony and its startled occupants.
'Time to show these sleepy complacent sheep that a hunter still lives and breathes in their skies.'
Her wings flared with a pulse of magic, her voice lifting in a hunting cry that was more bestial than human, peeling out of the dive and into a series of soaring arcs as her powerful wings beat once, twice, thrice. Rippling waves of shadow buoying her aloft in a freedom that only the birds know. The stream of twinkling lights that was an air car lane came into view as she pulled a tight arc around a building, ignoring the cattle on the edge, and a wide grin spread across her lips.
'Why the fuck not?' With a flick of her tail, the dark shape turned over and arrowed down towards the stream of air cars, letting loose a high, screaming howl of delight.
Claire's darling girl was reading her favorite book, an antique from the pre-spaceflight days, entitled "Flight of Dragons". She was a good girl, sweet, but always asking questions, and so often lost in fantasy worlds that her mother wondered if it wasn't start time to ween her daughter off those sorts of fanciful tales. Claire was driving her daughter back from a birthday party for one of her friends and lightly tapping her hands on the air car controls as she listened to her music.
"Mommy?"
Claire blinked and looked up at her daughter through the mirror, but surprisingly, the little girl wasn't looking at her book, but instead looking out the side window of the car. "What is it honey?"
"When did the dragons come back?"
Claire blinked. That was not the question she was expecting. "What do you mean, sweetie? Dragons aren't real."
Krysten pointed at something out the window, "Then what is she?"
She was utterly unprepared when something knocked on the window beside her, drawing her eyes to the huge, winged thing outside the car and clearly keeping up with them despite Claire's instinctive flooring of the accelerator. The figure gave her a wide, toothy grin, slid back and winked at her darling little girl before peeling out with a sudden snap of her wings. It arced first up, then over the car and speeding forward with multiple beats of those huge pinions, the long tail swaying and flicking behind her as she raced forward, weaving between air cars with ease.
Claire realized she had screamed only when Krysten asked her mommy what was wrong.
Jona Siberys grimaced ever so slightly as she noticed a news report about a large flying creature that had been spotted diving through a traffic-stream last night, and lifted her glass. She had found this place earlier in the day, but it had been dead and empty at the time. She glanced over at the news vid again. Perhaps she shouldn't have let herself get so deeply into the thrill of flying again, she'd definitely been seen and not just by individuals who wouldn't report what they saw because it was unbelievable.
A glance about the bar told her she was in no danger of being accosted. She wasn't the only asari in here, but the only other one was a scarred old veteran commando over in the corner, chatting with a krogan and a salarian. She let the harsh liquor roll around in her mouth, somewhat relieved that in this form her sense of smell was slightly blunted.
She put the empty on the bar and tapped beside it for the bartender's attention. As the turian poured her another, she asked, "Where might a girl go to find a little action around here." She tilted her head towards the vidscreen, which had finished the news report and had returned to the normal program. It showcased an asari martial-arts tournament, though the current bout was between two humans.
"Hmm?" The turian glanced up, then arched a brow at Jona. She met his gaze, frank and hard. "Ehh. I guess you're in luck, if you like that sort of thing."
"Oh?" She knocked back a slug of the heavily alcoholic beverage, feeling the mild burn as it slid down her throat.
He refilled her glass again as she set it down, "Yeah, the Eclipse are holding a tournament tonight. I think you might be in time to catch the start of it, if you went soon."
"Tell me about it?" She knocked back the rest, missing the turian's wince. The girl had already had more than he would have believed possible for an asari to drink and still be conscious.
The bartender shrugged, "It's a tournament. contenders do trials, and if Eclipse think you're good, you get put in the roster."
"Heh, sounds fun. Where's it at?" She arched a brow as he slipped her an OSD.
"Told them I'd let interested parties know where to find a good time." He winked at her, then turned to serve another customer down at the end of the bar.
Jona rolled the glass between her fingers a while. On the one hand, a fight was just what she needed, but she also had to keep a fairly low profile, and her flight last night hadn't exactly helped with that. She'd caught a few bulletins about the escaped alien fugitive, armed and dangerous on the vidfeeds. They were starting to expand the search to include areas outside the Citadel now, and one of the first places they had gone was Illium. It made her wonder if showing herself to that little girl hadn't been a good idea, but she'd seen the girl's book and just had to put a bit of wonder into the girl's life. Magic was a gift to be treasured, like water in the desert.
Still... She knocked back the drink, letting it burn its way down her throat with a soft sigh, and set it on the bar. Getting up, she noticed the asari watching her with calculation, and nodded her head respectfully to the older woman as she slipped out the door.
A fight was as good as a fuck, and right now, she needed something to blow off a little steam.
Jack hadn't felt this good in ages. Her fist smashed into the asari's arm, the sound of the crowd mingling with her own cries of effort and exhilaration. She lived for this shit.
She pressed the attack, following up with a lighting left jab and low body blow with her right. Both strikes were parried, though not without cost, she felt the girl's gasp as her second blow drove into the asari's belly at a glancing angle.
Jack lashed out with a roundhouse kick but her opponent was already dancing away, rubbing her belly and giving Jack a venomous look. She gave a focused cry as she brought her arms forward in a textbook move, her intention as plain as if she had sent a written essay, and launched a Warp at the human.
The human biotic gave a wicked grin and slashed her arm back, sending a Shockwave in return that blew the unprepared asari off her feet and into the wall behind her.
Jack didn't hesitate, and had no use for mercy. She pounded the snot out of the girl, landing three solid blows to her upper torso before she was wrenched away by the Stasis field from one of the referees. She suppressed a snarl and gave a curt nod to the old asari. She'd behave.
Jack turned, ignoring the asari helping her friend onto a stretcher. Jack flexed her right hand, grinning a bit as she glanced up at the crowd She'd felt something give under that last blow, but hadn't cared a whit. She'd been in that zone, that state where even pain felt good, with nothing but the urge to hurt driving her onward.
Her eyes met pale yellow ones, odd in such a dark-skinned asari. She was leaning against the rail at the top of the enclosed pit-like area the fights took place in, and something about her caught Jack's attention.
Jack paused, giving the asari a steady glare in return. Her obvious challenge was deflected as if it were trivial, the pale-eyed asari glancing to the asari now being rushed out the side door, then back to the human. She was clearly amused, the crook of her smile said that, but the faint, approving nod she gave at Jack both made the human's heart soar, and inflamed her hatred.
How dare this bitch think she could pass judgment on her abilities? She was just some lookie-loo, a prissy, stuck-up bitch with too much money and time on her hands, who got her kicks by watching bitches beat the shit out of each other.
Jack gave a derisive snort and tossed her head, raising both hands to the crowd, but really at the asari. Her meaning was plain: 'come and get some, bitch, if you think you're bad enough'.
That same damned amused smirk touched the girl's lips, and her head tilted to one side. Amusement gleamed in her eyes a moment, then one dark-blue eyelid fluttered down in a wink, one finger raised in a "wait" gesture.
Jack grinned wickedly and stalked off, pleased with herself. She'd show that bitch what-for in the ring, later. For now, she'd better collect her winnings for this fight. She'd placed a few bets with a few people about the outcome of the fight. Not that she'd win, she never bet on a sure thing, but on how long it took her to beat the tar out of the snot-nosed wannabe who should go back to hide behind her mamma's skirts for another few centuries.
She'd been out cold when the dark-skinned asari had her first bout, but heard all about it from one of her friends in the crowd when she got back. Lucky fucking bitch had managed to get her in a headlock and Jack was still smarting from the indignity of being put to sleep.
Apparently Dark-Blue had went up against a krogan in her first match, and hadn't just managed to survive, but actually win, if on a technicality. Jack was impressed, it wasn't often you ran across a newbie fighter with the skill and smarts enough to go toe-to-toe with a krogan and come out of it with all your teeth. Not only that, but apparently the girl had made it to the finals while Jack was out to lunch, so she had to be good, not just lucky.
But now, the girl was up against a Sisterhood Initiate, and Jack was looking forward to it. No matter who won, Jack was going to be feeling good. On the one hand, the dark-blue bitch probably had it coming to her to get her ass broken. On the other, the Eclipse sure hadn't given Jack any love. They didn't want her kind, and had made it fucking clear that even if she won the tourney, she wasn't getting into Eclipse, even if she fucked the entire leadership until they screamed.
Not that she wanted to, she had other arrangements, but the condescending bitches needed to be taught a lesson.
Luckily, Dark-Blue looked to be ready to give this initiate a run for her money.
Joru was breathing steadily. She'd taken a blow to the upper abdomen from that damned krogan before she'd gotten him back at range, but her disrupted breathing was back on an even keel now.
He'd managed to do more damage than she'd thought him capable of, and that headbutt of his was like being run over by a truck, but she'd managed to break away and put him on his ass with a well-timed kick. And once a krogan goes down, he stays there unless you're monumentally stupid.
This fight, however, was going to be interesting. Her eyes glittered as she surveyed the lithe, graceful asari going through a series of stretches on the far side of the ring. The asari had a slight advantage in reach while she was in this form, but Joru enjoyed the edge in stamina, strength and speed, though she hadn't displayed those quite to their fullest yet. The best she had done was to show that she could take quite a beating from a krogan and come back to put him down.
She honestly hadn't meant to break his legs, that was just stupid over-excitement on her part.
The sight of the asari performing a quick series of flips and arches drew her attention back to her opponent. Ashira was an initiate of the Eclipse Sisterhood. She'd been good enough to get a place among the Sisters, but hadn't been fully trained up to their standards yet.
Joru was honestly looking forward to seeing how good she was.
Ashira tried to suppress a glare at the odd, dark-skinned asari. Bitch wasn't impressed in the least. Ashira ground her teeth as she finished off a rigorous display of gymnastic performance. It wasn't strictly necessary, though it did get the kinks out.
The bitch hadn't even bothered with a warm-up. True, this wasn't her first fight, but she'd get a knotted muscle or something sometime and be a sitting duck, while Ashira made sure to limber up before every fight, to avoid just that potential hazard. 'Her loss, then.'
She stepped to the line at the direction of the referee, giving a grin as she and the asari took their places.
She was looking forward to wiping the floor with this upstart.
The first few clashes disabused Joru of any sort of doubts of the quality of her opponent. She grinned in delight, finding herself having to stretch herself a little to hit the girl. She was fast, agile and clever.
Joru backed off after a particularly viscous strike at her right side, high up under her arm. She rubbed it a moment, then gave a grin at her opponent, who was bouncing lightly from foot to foot. "Nice hit."
The initiate just grunted and came for her, spinning into a roundhouse kick that was so clearly telegraphed that Joru didn't even bother deflecting, just ducked forward and slammed in with a shot at the girl's thigh.
Ashira nearly fell over at that blow. The bitch was fast, she gave her that, having to hop on one leg while she stretched and massaged the other. The damned bitch wasn't even trying to make the most of her situation, and after a moment or two, the numbing blow started to fade.
Dark-blue just watched, her pale eyes glittering a bit as she slowly paced, ignoring the catcalls as Ashira stretched her leg and flowed back into a combat stance. With a grin and a toss of her head 'what was that about?' Dark-blue slid into another combat stance, different than any Ashira had seen.
Despite herself, Ashira was intrigued. Dark-blue had proven herself both resilient and powerful, but this poked at her curiosity.
She'd just have to do some rigorous testing to find Dark-blue's breaking point.
Jack whistled softly as she leaned against the railing. The two had only clashed twice, then had gone into a rapid-fire blitz. Jack couldn't follow all of it, it was too fast, but the taller asari had the edge in reach, especially with the way she was putting Ah'ziha to work for her. The asari martial art was mostly focused on using the legs for offense and blocking with one's arms.
Dark-blue on the other hand, was having none of that. She favored her arms both for blocking and defense, and on one occasion managed to turn a deflection into a grab that the initiate only managed to get out of by balancing on one hand and kicking out with her other leg to break Dark-blue's hold on her ankle.
Jack was grinning wickedly as both asari squared off again. The look on the initiate's face was priceless.
She was getting pissed. This girl had to be toying with her. She spun into a rapid series of kicks, her limberness allowing her to strike twice and three times, but she growled as each strike was deflected.
The other asari was grinning at her, as if she were some sort of amateur. 'Screw you, bitch.'
She gathered herself, took two running steps and leaped, striking out at her target with a well-aimed kick.
Her eyes widened as the girl's hands snapped up and caught her shin, far faster than she'd let on.
Joru grinned wickedly as she caught the now staggering asari's leg, holding her shin up at an awkward angle, almost at head-height. One hand was gripping her ankle, the other just below the knee, forcing her into an unbalanced split.
Her grin turned into a snarl as the girl finally wised up and hammered a blow into her side with a fist, just above her hip, where the exposed skin left her unprotected.
She dropped one hand, the one at the knee, and swept that arm down even as she tugged with the other.
Ashira didn't know whether to scream or cry. Her leg was wrenched savagely as she pulled into a sort of skittering hop. She struck again and again at the same place, hoping she was doing enough damage to make the bitch pay for this humiliation.
She managed to get her ankle free from that iron grip and winced a bit as she tested her weight on it. Bruised for certain, but otherwise fine. She glared daggers at the other asari, limping a little as she got used to the pain in her ankle.
"You'll pay for that, bitch!"
"Make me."
The strikes at her side had been painful, but not too damaging, though she knew she was starting to bruise there. She dropped into a combat crouch as the other asari tested her ankle, then twirled forward and brought her leg down in an overhead smash that was easily deflected. The girl then did something unexpected. She lashed out with her biotics.
'Gotcha, you damned bitch.' Dark-blue sailed across the ring to bounce off the far wall. She wobbled a bit and shook her head, then glared at Ashira.
'Thought I was a pushover, huh?' Ashira settled back into a combat stance, one that maximized her ability to dodge rather than optimized for strikes. Biotic energy laced down her arms to gather around her open hands. One she lifted, and made a 'come on' gesture at Dark-blue.
She was met with a worrying grin.
Joru was having so much fun with this one. Her wide grin kept breaking out as she spun and whirled, dodging blast after blast. It was just like practice back on the training floor, dodging arrows from the enchanted archer.
One grazing blast spun her around rapidly and she rubbed her hip as she fell into a slithering skid to avoid another blast. A second caught her when she rolled to her feet, smashing her into the padded wall of the arena. Her left arm shot out to brace herself, and she blinked in some fascination at the sight of her fist emerging from the hole in the padding when she freed herself again.
'Got to be more careful, Joru, don't let them see something they shouldn't.'
The third blast to clip her however, wasn't a Throw. The searing pain as the Warp burned along the length of her bicep and tore a patch of skin off her shoulder made her give an aborted cry, almost a roar, as the upstart asari gave a crow of satisfaction.
'Right, no more miss nice dragon.'
The power sung through her, rippling on the razor edge of control, and Ashira reveled in it. She sent another bolt of biotic energy blasting after the spinning whirling target, following her Throw with a Pull, on the heels of which chased a Warp. A large section of the padding was blown off the wall in a spray of foam shards when both biotics impacted near-simultaneously, but her target was nowhere near the point of impact.
She was caught completely by surprise when Dark-blue fired off a Shockwave at her from somewhere in the hailstorm of foam pieces.
Joru had no idea at first what she had done. At one moment she was just taking the usual combat stance, the next a wave of blue energy had rippled up from her torso, down her arm and expelled in a blast of unfocused biotics from her upraised palm.
'Well, that was unexpected.' She watched as Ashira took a turn at bouncing off the walls, a grin touching her lips. 'She wants to play rough, two can try it.'
The biotics flew thick and fast after that, but it was clear that Dark-blue had no idea how to use them. Still, Jack was impressed with her power. 'Girl must have insane stamina to keep overpowering her biotics like that. If she's not careful she'll burn out, and that Sister is no pushover.'
A particularly vicious combination of Stasis and Warp narrowly missed blowing Dark-Blue in half, and Jack gave a little cry of encouragement to the darker asari as her return blast-wave of unfocused biotics sent the Sister to slam into the wall again.
"Yeah, that's right, show the cunt who's boss!"
She was better than this. She had been trained by the best and gone through hell to get the skills she had. She wasn't going to let some one-century punk-ass kid beat her at her own game!
Ashira summoned her biotics, popping up a Barrier just in time to counter another of the kid's blasts. 'Seriously, it's like she has no idea what to do with the power!'
She'd been bounced off the wall twice by those overpowered shockwaves though, so she knew the raw power of her opponent. She'd have to do something about that. But Ashira herself had all the skill in this engagement. The kid clearly had no idea how to use her biotics effectively. It was like watching a baby throw a tantrum, admittedly one with more power than the older asari expected.
Instead of renewing her long-ranged assault, she dropped into a different combat stance, something that provoked a tilt of the head from the stupid punk kid.
She lit her fist with an aura of blue energy. "Right, Bitch. Time to teach you a real lesson."
Joru grinned and lifted her hands. She focused her newfound energy, trying to do what the other asari had done. She frowned momentarily as the energy failed to do more than flicker, but she had no time to try again, as the girl was flying at her. A blast of blue energy had shot down her leg and launched her at the "young asari" with a yell.
'Really, she needs to work on her warcry,' Joru thought, just before the asari's fist crashed into her upraised arm like a freight train.
Joru was knocked back, gasping in pain as the impact left her left hand numb. 'Right, don't do that again.'
The asari crowed in delight, but it was cut short as Joru swept a leg around, catching her in the back of the knee and knocking her down, where a roundhouse caught her just on the shoulder, rather than in the head as Joru had aimed.
The young asari quickly rolled to her feet, snarling and turning the roll into a spinning roundhouse kick that Joru neatly dodged by bending backward and snapping one of her own legs up to catch Ashira's second strike. Joru bit down on her tongue hard as her knee was smashed by the biotically-amplified strike, cracking the patella and knocking her enough off-balance to send hear heavily to the floor. The asari completed her spin to wind up back on her feet while Joru had to use her undamaged right leg to get back on her own feet.
Joru was seething now. That had fucking hurt. First her forearm, then her shin. She had underestimated how strong this little girl's biotics were. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
Her eyes narrowed as she kept her gaze on the asari, rubbing the outside of her left forearm and carefully testing her leg. 'Time to let a little bit loose.'
Ashira was confused, and more than a bit angry. That blow should have broken the bitch's leg, and her biotically-enhanced fist should have left the girl's arm a mangled, gory mess!
Something was wrong here, and Ashira wasn't sure it was her.
The bitch came at her again, no words this time, just a cry that turned into a full-throated roar as Ashira had to block again and again against fists that slammed in like hammer-blows.
She ducked and wove, but her training wasn't adequate to block everything, not when the bitch seemed to be favoring her fists and ignoring her longer legs.
She tried again to widen the gap, to bring another kick in for a knockout blow, but both times she tried the bitch merely stepped with her, as if anticipating the move.
She didn't quite manage to get her head out of the way of the incoming blow in time, and staggered back as the impact broke two of her teeth and sent a spray of blood flying.
Joru watched the spray of blood, fascinated as always by the substance. She had landed a solid blow to the girl's jaw, after a flurry that had been longer than she had expected. The girl knew how to block, that was certain, though she had been careful not to fully exert herself.
The scent of blood, hot, raw and sizzling, was intoxicating to her. The way it seemed to hang in the air, the sheen of it, the deep-blue color of cobalt-based blood. She could spend hours waxing loquacious about the way the life-giving liquid seemed to focus her senses.
She staggered back as a blow to her ear made her head ring, then fell to one knee as dizziness overcame her momentarily. One kick to the head became two, the asari's second blow catching her low on the jaw.
The noise of the crowd seemed to dull. She saw the sawdust-strewn floor before her. Saw the splatter of blood. Her blood. The scent was heavy in the air now.
The beast awoke.
Jack was the first to see it. Something in Dark-Blue's demeanor changed when the blood first flew. She had gotten distracted and the return kicks had put her down hard.
Jack had an idea of what was going through the girl's mind. The scent and sight of blood did things to her, even this long after she had gotten out of that hell she had been raised in.
She always got excited in a fight, but blood... Blood spoke to her deep in her hind-brain, tweaked the animal instincts, and made her even more violent.
She winced a bit as the darker asari let loose a howl as she charged the startled asari. 'Fuck. Sister's in for it now.'
Ashira drew back to deliver the finishing blow. She felt exhilarated, blood singing and power raging. She paused, letting the biotics blaze around her lower leg a moment. It was pure showboating, and it cost her.
The deep, guttural roar from the young asari broke her concentration, and the hammer-blow that slammed into her exposed belly won the match.
All the rest was just brutal savagery.
Joru smelled blood. Thick, sweet and metallic, it hung around her like a miasma, driving her beast insane.
She struck hard and fast, one knife-hand strike buried into the girl's belly, driving the breath from her lungs and opening a wound with sheer force. A brutal left hook smashed the girl's head sideways and knocked her on her side. Another blow broke the young asari's knee, shattering her kneecap and bending the joint backwards.
She kicked a raised hand with enough force to break the ulna in two places, and brought her heel down on the girl's unprotected side between hip and rib-cage hard enough to cause organ damage.
The monster in dark-blue asari clothing dropped to one knee, pinning her victim to the sawdust and bringing one fist in with an overhand smash into the helpless asari's face.
Blood flew as the septum shattered, and Joru smiled as screams filled the air.
Jack watched, awed. That dark-blue girl had one hell of a fighter in her, and biotics or no, the sister she'd been fighting was no match for her.
'Damn. If I had gone up against her, I might be bleeding like that too.'
Dark-blue seemed to relish the screams as she caught one flailing arm and expertly broke the elbow backwards, pulling hard and dislocating the shoulder as well. Jack winced a bit as the Sister's screams went up a notch.
'Just what the fuck was she?' She was no asari, Ashira had that finally figured that out. This thing was too strong, too fast, and had far too much stamina to be anything other than a freak.
Through the pain and blood and the ringing disorientation of a massive concussion, she saw the bitch raise a fist, saw the blue biotic glow wrap itself around her hand.
Both her arms had been disabled by this monster, one leg was useless, and the other pinned. She couldn't stop that blow from striking.
'Goddess above, I'm going to die...'
Jack's head snapped to the side as one of the referees, finally waking to the fact that lethal force was about to be used, acted just barely in time to save the sister's life. The Asari matron gave a shout, and whipped a hand forward, instantly followed by two more, wrapping both combatants in Stasis fields.
The roar of rage from the darker of the two asari was something of a shocker, as was the fact that she was struggling in the restrictive field. Jack had been impressed by her strength, now she was a little intimidated by it.
With three veteran commandos at work, though, there was no way she was going to get away, and the dark-blue asari was forcibly hauled off her opponent, who was quickly attended to by medical staff held on hand for just such occasions.
Jack's face was a study in disappointment and annoyance. 'Fucking prissy blue bitches, just when it was going to get really good.'
It took Joru a very long time to calm herself down. Once her beast was roused, it tried to get control for as long as it could, something that could be useful in an extended battle, but not useful in the here and now. She struggled, fought, and waged war within her psyche as she forced her bestial aspect back into the cage of willpower she had forged for it all those centuries ago.
Still it howled, a presence in the back of her mind, demanding blood, demanding carnage. She could ignore it, with difficulty, but the repeated attacks on the locks she had warded it with were more distracting.
She returned her attention to her external surroundings to find herself confronted by an asari in full battle-dress, the black-and-gold of an Eclipse Sister a dark and plain statement of power, standing almost toe to toe and looking down at the younger asari. 'Yes, I'm an asari, a good little sister, there is no blood, no need for violence yet.'
"-pulled you off, they'd be picking pieces of her skull out of the floor. You forfeit the prize money, we explicitly stated no fatal blows, and if that one had landed, you'd be in deep shit." The asari leaned down, her thunderous expression really rather good, though Joru had been interrogated by far better expects of that art than this girl.
"Do you understand me, girl?"
"Perfectly." She modulated her voice almost as an afterthought. She'd nearly forgotten how, with her bestial side hogging all her attention. It still howled for slaughter even in the back of her mind, an insistent tone in the background. 'You will be ignored.'
"Good." The Eclipse soldier straightened, and was about to add something, when she snapped her head to one side and raised one gloved hand to her earpiece, "One second."
The asari froze a moment while Joru waited. "Are you serious?"
Whatever she heard tore a string of foul oaths from her in High Thessian, which Joru noted for later reuse.
"Right. Fuck." She turned to the assembled people of various species, "Alright, listen up. Any one of you that wants to earn a bit of extra cred, follow me, the rest..." Her gazed swept the onlookers, "Get out."
That started some moving, but the rest just sat, frozen. She turned away contemptuously, "We've got Blood Pack incoming."
"You." The angry asari's eyes fixed on Joru, a smirk tugging up one corner of her thin mouth. "You're gonna work off your debt. Someone get her a gun, she's gonna be on the front lines."
Enyala smirked as the chosen meat-shields were issued equipment and told where to go. The bridge was a main thoroughfare between tower-complexes, so it saw some fairly heavy cargo traffic in both directions. Or at least, it had, before the Blood Pack moved into that sector and pretty much strangled all trade going out of their area that they didn't get a significant cut out of.
That had been three years ago, and now the bridge more resembled no-mans land than a trade route. Multiple turret emplacements had been set up to help curtail the increasingly antagonistic blood Pack forays into their territory, and the bridge made a natural chokepoint. The majority of its length was clear and open, with strategically placed crates, filled with old broken equipment for ballast, set up for defense. The 'Pack had done something similar on their end, but with manned emplacements instead of automated turrets.
Enyala shrugged slightly at that. Turrets didn't need bathroom breaks.
"Get your asses out there, you're being paid good cred for this, so make the most of it!" She always did enjoy bossing around the fresh meat. And then there was That Girl.
Enyala had seen what she did to Ashira. The poor girl was gonna be in traction for a while, what with both arms shattered. She was lucky to still be alive, the older Sister had to have been asleep to let the damage get that bad. The dark-skinned asari had turned down their offer of a heavy pistol, saying she had her own, and hadn't asked for armor, so Enyala hadn't even gotten to tell her off for trying to get such valuable equipment.
She was looking forward to seeing the girl get splattered. Served the bitch right for daring to strike down a Sister.
The plan was a simple one. First, the vorcha with rocket launchers would send a mass 'care package' to take out the automated turrets, and hopefully the stronger hard-points on the far end of the bridge. Next, the charge would happen, with the big, hulking merc leading the way. Third, if all went according to plan, they'd start rampaging at will among the skinny, weak asari bitches and show them that the Blood Pack was not to be trifled with.
Wrex shifted his considerable weight as Jakord went over the plan again, hammering it into the stupid vorcha's heads that they'd get the first shot at the enemy, but only if they kept their heads and only fired when the Chief gave the word.
"Any of you pyjaks let loose before I say so, and I'll nail you to a wall and let you bleed out, got it?"
There was a chorus of hisses and nods. Most of the vorcha here had nothing more than small-arms, but a few had managed to cobble together some flamethrowers that were slightly more dangerous to the enemy than the user, and a dozen or so had some of the fully-charged rocket launchers they had confiscated from the local smaller arms-dealers.
"Right, good. So, you ready to go smash some heads?" that last had been aimed at Wrex, who shifted off the wall he had been leaning against.
"Been ready for a while." He'd been paid well for this. Well, as good as 'be the sharp pointy tip of the metal bits we stick in the enemy' got, at any rate, and they had, somewhat surprisingly, paid him in advance. He should probably have demand more, but ehh. He wasn't planning on being on this planet long, not once his broker got back to him about that job out in the Traverse.
Jakord grinned at the red-crested krogan and gave the shouted order to move out.
Joru sighed softly, checking and rechecking her weapon's readouts and wishing she had a proper smartlink setup. As it was, the gun's physical readouts looked fine, but having to check her omnitool every time she wanted to see how many shots she'd fired was going to be annoying.
The asari next to her was clad in some light armor and was checking her own gun with similar intensity, though shooting glances at Joru's own weapon. "Hey, what sort of gun is that, anyway? I haven't seen one like it."
"Old model." Joru slid another two rounds into the magazine, feeling them click into place, and added two more, tucking the last back into her belt as it wouldn't fit. 'Full load, good.'
"What sort of model?" It was probably just the asari's nerves making her talk to diffuse tension, but Joru gave a faint smile.
"Something I picked up out in the terminus. Old-style chemical propellant. Probably not that good against shields, now I think on it."
The asari gave a soft snort, "Yeah, unless that thing's got a wicked huge payload, it's gonna do fuck-all against a charging krogan."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Joru smothered a grin. "I've put holes in steel plates with this baby."
The asari's reply was drowned out by the scream of missiles slashing overhead to smash into the hardened shields protecting the exposed turrets. Each of the four turrets was struck by two missiles in rapid succession, enough to batter down their defenses, and before they could reinitialize the shields, a third missile streaked in to deal significant damage.
Joru sighed as she heard the roar from the other end of the bridge, almost felt the steel decking underfoot tremble as the hoard rushed towards them. The asari turned pale and rolled around to peek, giving a startled yip as bullets shot past her.
Despite herself, Joru was grinning widely.
Urdnot Wrex had been through a whole lotta shit in his life, but this fucking asari was a new one on him. The first few of them hadn't been tough, more kids playing at soldier than anything else. The turrets had been dealt with flawlessly, which made him a bit twitchy. Something that good coming from a vorcha was usually counterbalanced by some form of shit hitting the ventilator.
He didn't have to wait long to find out what it was. The resistance on the bridge itself thickened up wonderfully, and he was having a good time fighting his way through. The Blood Pack was coming in behind him, but he'd been hired to break through the resistance to let the 'Pack mop up and expand the breach he caused. It was unusual to hire a merc to do that, especially for the 'Pack, but something about their last three champions dying on this bridge probably had something to do with it.
But Wrex was no ordinary krogan. Gifted both with biotic power and a damned good sense of when to hit the deck, he managed to use cover and kept his cool while advancing across the killing box the Eclipse had made. A blazing-blue biotic Throw smashed a hole in their lines, and a followup Carnage shot from his heavily customized shotgun put several of them down for good. He grinned as he stepped over the first corpses, only to get blasted nearly off his feet by a shockwave from an asari he had missed.
He had to hand it to the bitch, she had a quad on her, going up against a Battlemaster with only her biotics. Still, a job's a job, and he'd been paid in advance. He pointed his shotgun her way and let loose with another Throw, sending her hurtling over a line of low crates that had been hastily set up as a firing line. He charged after her, shotgun barking to cover the advance of the blood pack coming up behind.
He caught one glimpse of her, flat on her back as he sailed overhead. His reflexes and instincts were finely honed from centuries of surviving, and he managed to rip up a Barrier, just before the thunderous crash of that antique firearm belched fire and a fairly massive slug pounded its way into his Barrier. If he had been a half-second late, he'd be singing soprano, armor or no.
He spun as he landed, the girl's gun, comically oversized for someone her size, giving another of those cacophonous crashes. The bullet bounced off his barrier with a whine that made him flinch. His own much more modestly loud weapon gave a bark of its own, barely managing to miss as she rolled quickly to her feet.
Not quickly enough. His hand grabbed her by the arm and hurled her away far enough for his shockwave to blow her into the railing at the side of the bridge. A section of it broke, bending at one side as the asari smashed into it hard enough to break her spine.
'Too bad, she had spunk.'
He was nearly to the far side of the bridge, hunkering behind cover when a cry from a vorcha to his right saved his eye. The scrawny asari bitch was back.
He managed to barely draw back from the first of the smashes she aimed at his head with that length of railing, starting to drive him out of cover as the asari smashed at him.
The whistle of metal far too close to his head was followed by a shriek of rage from a vorcha. He managed to draw back and get his bearings long enough to see that the asari bitch, who should have been dead or at least paralyzed tearing out a vorcha's throat with the sharp end of the length of railing, giving it a spin and hammering it into his chestplate hard enough to stagger him and crack his armor.
Wrex had had had a lot of shit thrown at him, and this wasn't the first time he'd been driven back by an asari. He retreated one step, two, as the asari's onslaught neatly overextended her. "Night night, girl."
His shotgun roared from the hip. He had been expecting the blue ripples of a barrier, but he was genuinely surprised when a fist-sized chunk of flesh at her side exploded outward in a spray of cobalt gore. "So focused on killing me you're not even shielding? Girl, you're gonna die fast."
He didn't get a reply, only a wordless snarl of fury as her weapon flashed with liquid speed, neatly smashing his wrist with the butt-end of the impromptu spear. He gave a roar of pain and rage as his gun clattered to the decking, and charged into her, grabbing with both hands.
It was a mistake.
He caught one up-close look at her face, and suddenly realized he wasn't fighting an asari, he was fighting a beast in asari shape. Her eyes were large, pale-yellow, her skin a dark blue, almost purple. Her face was contorted in an expression of rage and effort, and he realized that the scenery around her was shifting only when she turned her head and emitted a sound that no asari throat could produce. It was a high, keening shriek, underlayed by a deep basso bellow that belied something with far larger lungs than his was really fucking pissed off. His feet left the decking as the asari twisted, her fingers slick with his blood as she gripped the rent in his armor.
Sky and ground interchanged, and Wrex flailed as he fell. He barely managed a trick an old asari friend taught him a few decades back, and slowed his fall just enough to avoid fatal damage as he crashed into the freight-container, merely shattering his forearm and bruising several ribs. He tore his way out of the container and looked up the five stories to where the battle still raged on the bridge.
"Gods below, girl, you'd better survive. I want a rematch."
The 'Pack's drive was faltering. The turrets may have been damaged, but they could still spit lead in at least limited firing arcs. Mowing down the stragglers left only the hardened vanguard to deal with, and they had no reinforcements. Enyala's shotgun barked once, twice, thrice as she moved out, then went on cooldown as she splattered three vorchas' brains over the decking. Her armor had shrugged off most return fire, what little had gotten through her shields, and she wasn't going to stop just now, not with that glorious sight up ahead.
That dark-blue bitch had to have been holding back in the ring, there was no fucking way she could have been going all out, not when she could do that.
Bitch wasn't even using her gun anymore, she'd torn off a piece of the alloy-steel railing and was using it to literally beat vorcha to death. Enyala had seen what looked like a krogan being hurled off the side of the bridge, and hot damn, she wanted in on the carnage. Still, the resistance was thinning, and some of the brighter krogan were starting to retreat across the bridge, focusing fire on the turrets to disable them enough to let them get back with their organs un-punctured.
The girl was having none of it. Those krogan in close proximity had found out the hard way that shields don't do jack-shit about a length of metal being swung into your face, and more than one krogan had lost an eye over there before losing his life. Enyala rounded a crate and snapped two shots into the nearest krogan before the girl's spinning slash tore the krogan's throat out in a spray of yellow-orange gore. The sight of it made Enyala tingle as she stepped carefully across the blood-slicked decking.
That girl, she thought her name was Jona, had been very busy. no fewer than six smashed and pulped vorcha, and three krogan had been laid out around her, and although the girl was bleeding and had a fairly large chunk of skin shot off in her midriff, she was still on her feet and fighting.
Her overhand smash brought the last krogan, a hulking great brute, down on his knees, and before she could finish him off, Enyala's shotgun was pressed to his cheek and had blown his head clean off.
It took the girl a second to realize what had happened, and the clatter of her makeshift weapon hitting the ground was loud in the sudden stillness.
Captain Wasea had been coordinating the defense from a nearby command & control bunker - more a closet they had re-purposed really. She had live video feed from all the Eclipse helmet-cams and the turrets' own visual processors, along with audio from the same sources, allowing her to call targets and spot any flanking maneuvers. A lot of Eclipse commanders would have preferred to lead from the front, but Wasea counted herself among the smarter subset who preferred to let their sub-commanders take charge of the tactical situation while she focused on the strategic.
It was because of that that she had made Captain after only a dozen years, while Enyala, who had joined up a year or two earlier than she, was still stuck at Lieutenant. It was something that grated the other asari immensely, and something that Wasea enjoyed needling her over.
Once the battle was over, she emerged from her 'bunker' and started giving direct orders to organize the cleanup. Techs were already on standby, having been summoned the instant the turrets were struck, to help fix them as rapidly as possible, in case the Blood Pack had an extra wave they were holding in reserve, to take advantage of the post-battle relaxation. So far, they hadn't been that smart, but you never could tell with Krogan.
She met with Enyala out on the bridge itself, the LT directing her squad to start stripping the bodies. "So, where's this miracle-girl?"
Enyala tossed her head out towards the bridge, "Out there. She's still a bit touchy."
The older asari nodded slightly, stepping past her subordinate and rounding the crates to get a good look at the battle. Sometimes watching it through video feeds wasn't enough, you had to get out there to see for yourself. In this case, the blood and guts and offal assailed her nostrils, making her gorge rise, and making her thankful that she hadn't had more than a light lunch earlier. The girl was out at the last row of crates, and at first Wasea thought there was something wrong with her.
The girl was swaying slightly, shifting her weight from side to side, standing on the balls of her feet. As Wasea got closer, she saw that the girl's odd eyes were half-closed, her lips parted and one hand flexing slightly, the other resting on the edge of the crate. The captain only hesitated slightly before moving in and speaking.
"I was watching the feeds. Good work on crushing those idiots. Even knowing you're hot-headed, we need more sisters like you. Let's negotiate."
The girl didn't reply for a second, and the captain moved closer. "You're good in a fight, competent, efficient. I like that. You could go far with Eclipse."
Pale-yellow eyes focused in her direction and something about them gave Wasea pause. "Why?"
It hadn't been articulated as a question, but Wasea took it as one. "You're smart, good with esoteric weapons, and it didn't look like you missed much with that gun of yours. With a proper firearm, you could be a big asset in future operations."
"Asset." The girl's tone was flat, almost entirely uninflected, though she was clearly in the grip of some post-combat fatigue. Wasea could empathize, she'd gotten used to her own post-combat shakes.
"You could name your price. If you want rank, I could see about getting you set up as an NCO right now. A commission might take a few days, but if you want it, you've got it."
The girl was silent for so long Wasea started to wonder if she was hearing her at all. Pale eyes flicked from her face to the gore-streaked bridge where a few Sisters were searching for valuable tech. "You saw what I can do."
"Yes, that's why-" She cut off as the girl's eyes flicked back to her own, something in them making her shut up without a conscious decision as her well-honed danger sense started pinging in alarm.
"Then why are you in my way."
The girl paused for a moment, pale eyes staring for a moment before she stepped past Wasea. She stumbled slightly, corrected with ease, but that initial stumble told Wasea much. The girl wasn't really in post-combat cooldown, she only looked it. This was something else, some sort of struggle going on inside. Still, that last implied threat spoke volumes.
Wasea became aware of Enyala at her elbow when the taller asari spoke. "How'd it go? She take the offer?"
Wasea shook her head. "She turned me down, I think."
"What?!" Enyala turned to look at her boss with surprise. "Why? We need girls like that if we're gonna push into the other gangs' territory!"
"I know, En. Still, I don't wanna push her right now. You saw what she did to the krogan, do you wanna get in her way?"
The pair of asari watched as the girl crossed the bridge, moving as if in a trance, shifting just far enough to get out of the way of a sister coming back with a skid loaded down with bits of salvage. Later, Wasea would swear she saw something flick behind the girl as she stepped out of sight.
Aethyta had given up ringing the chime and had started pounding on the door. In another five minutes, she was going to bribe the manager to unlock the door for her. Jona must sleep like the dead.
She held the intercom button again, "Jona, I swear, if you don't open this door in the next minute, I'm going to tear it out of the frame!"
"I suggest you don't, it would make the management nervous."
Aethyta's head snapped to the side, blinking in surprise as Jona rounded the corner. She was about ten meters away, but even at that distance, Aethyta could see the faint smears of blood on her young friend's outfit.
"Goddess, girl, what have you been up to?"
Jona didn't reply, merely stepped up to the door, which Aethyta backed off from, and unlocked it with speedy fingers. It slid open for them, and as Jona stepped inside, so did the older asari, glaring at the seemingly-drained youngster. "I want an answer, Missy. What have you been doing?"
The dark-skinned asari merely gave her a glance of pale eyes, and locked the door. Jona's swift glance around the room made Aethyta frown, but Jona gave a satisfied nod. What happened next shocked and scared Aethyta on a visceral level.
Jona let out a slow breath, her eyes closing. Her scalp darkened, so did the rest of her skin. Two of her scalp-crests lifted, darkening still and going rigid, as the rest of them split, split again and again and again until they were hundreds, thousands of tiny fibers. She swelled, not merely bulking out, but actually growing by nearly half a meter, spine crackling as it lengthened. Aethyta staggered back, and almost fell through the doorway into the tiny bathroom with a cry.
The young asari wasn't done there. A soft, wet tearing sound was accompanied by a long tail swinging into view, and as the towering figure opened her eyes, red-gold eyes stared into Aethyta's wide-open deep-blues. Before the shocked asari could do more than open her mouth, the figure turned to the blank wall. She fitted a small, intricate key into a lock and opened the door there into a...different world.
Aethyta's breath hitched to a stop as a doorway opened in a wall that had no door. Night sky, strewn with stars far too bright and vibrant to be dulled by cityscape light-pollution greeted her, above a box canyon that seemed to end in a cliff. Twin lanterns glowed with a soft, steady, golden light to either side of the doorway, illuminating what looked like a rock garden and some sort of platform in the distance. The tall figure stepped through the doorway, turning to give her an almost imperious stare from that strange otherworldly place.
Her voice, when it came, was rich, deeper than most women, and held a calm, but regal tone, "I grant you permission to enter my Refuge, Matriarch Aethyta. We have much to discuss."