AN: Sorry for making you guys wait for so long. This chapter was a real pain to write, with dozens of rewrites. Hope you all enjoy the chapter!
Citadel, Alliance Meeting Room, 2176 A.D
1 Week, 3 Days After The Skyllian Blitz
The skycar zipped through the Citadel, breaking a variety of traffic laws. As it stood, however, Whitley had the sinking feeling that C-Sec wouldn't care, due to the raging inferno in the distance.
His heart had almost stopped in his chest when he heard that the meeting room his mother had been in had suffered an explosion. The Silverhand omni tool his mother wore was the one thing that had prevented him from breaking down, as it had shown him her vitals were still functioning.
"Do you have a plan, kid?" Wrex asked next to him.
Whitley nodded shakily. "Not much of one, but it should work. The Batarian's coordinates show that he is going to the rooftop of a nearby warehouse to get a vantage point of the battle. His target is my mother, no one else. All we have to do is to get to him before he's able to take the shot."
Michele shook her head.
"Easier said than done, Shepard. If I was that particular Batarian, I wouldn't leave my vengeance to chance. Odds are that he's surrounded himself with his men, and based on how close he came to killing you yesterday at the tower, he's not someone that should be taken lightly."
"Well, that's what you two are here for, aren't you?" Whitley asked.
Wrex wracked back the slide on his shotgun.
"Been too long since I've been on a real battlefield. Thanks, kid."
"Don't thank me yet, old man." Whitley replied, beginning to hear the sounds of battle echoing through the Presidium.
Before the skycar even touched the ground, Wrex jumped out. Unleashing both a biotic charge and a singularity on the nearest group of Batarians, Wrex laughed, before gleefully headbutting another Batarian and unloading his shotgun on the others.
"Wow." Whitley remarked, seeing the carnage unfold. "And they lost against the Council?"
Michelle chuckled. "It took the Turians and Salarians working together to develop a sterility plague to stop the Krogans. Even then, many of them continued to fight long after the Krogan surrendered."
"Well, he's doing his job. Might as well do ours. Let's go."
"Right behind you, Shepard."
Michelle took out her pistol, racking back the slide. She took out another pistol, before tossing it to Whitley.
"You know how to fire one?" Michelle asked.
"I have two family members in the Alliance Navy. Do you believe they'd let me walk around the house without knowing how to at least use a pistol?" Whitley replied, checking the thermal clip.
The duo ran through the warehouse, coming to an elevator. As Whitley was about to step into it, a door nearby opened up.
"We gotta get to the entrance! A Krogan dropped in a few minutes ago, and he's tearing through
Prapor's squad like paper!"
"A Krogan?! Where in the spirits did he come fro-"
The group of Batarians stopped, seeing Whitley and Michelle in front of the elevator.
Michelle cursed, before throwing a biotic singularity at the Batarians. As more of them began to pour through the doors, she turned to Whitley.
"I'll cover you, Shepard! Go!"
Whitley nodded, before pressing down on the holographic display. The elevator doors closed.
Whitley took a deep breath, leaning his right arm against the elevator panel. No Wrex or Michelle to help him now. He was on his own, against a sharpshooter who had almost taken his head off a day earlier.
"So this is Hannah Shepard's girl. I should've expected someone descended from her to put up a fight as ferocious as you have today."
"Fuck you!"
"It hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped, but I think we can still send that Alliance bitch a message."
The panel sparked, as Whitley's glove-clad chrome prosthetic began to crush it.
You won't touch them. You won't touch them ever again.
P.O.V Switch - Hannah Shepard
As the battle ensued between Hannah's allies and the Batarians, Hannah was far from idle. Grabbing a Batarian, Hannah forced him to face her attackers, using him as a human shield. As his kinetic barrier was riddled by bullets from his comrades, Hannah quickly took note of where the enemy fire was coming from. Firing her pistol in the direction from where the bullets came, Hannah was rewarded by the sounds of the Batarians falling down. Smirking, she grabbed her arm and twisted, breaking the neck of her alien shield.
Rifling through the Batarians pockets, Hannah found a few thermal clips and a grenade. Picking them up, she saw another group of Batarians running towards her.
At that moment, a blue barrier stopped the group from advancing.
"No! She's mine!" a voice shouted.
Hannah looked upwards, only to be greeted by the sight of something impossible.
A Batarian Vanguard.
The Batarian laughed. "You believed that you had destroyed the last of the vanguards, didn't you?" He lowered himself to the ground, surrounding himself in biotic energy. He aimed his hand towards Hannah's direction.
"After all these years, I will finally avenge my fallen brothers."
She snarled. No mercy. No surrender.
As it should be for the slaver scum.
P.O.V Switch - Whitley Shepard
The doors opened up, and Whitley came charging through, holding his pistol out. Realizing that Romak wasn't in front of him, Whitley stopped. Placing his left hand underneath the pistol's grip, Whitley slowly walked across the rooftop.
"It's broad bloody daylight. Where are you?" Whitley muttered to himself.
Suddenly, he heard a chain rattle to his right side. Whitley fired his pistol at the direction from where the sound came, only to be met with silence. Running forward, Whitley saw a chain on the ground.
Whitley looked at it, confused.
"What the hell is this doing here?" Whitley wondered. As he reached down to touch it, a flash of light burst through on his right side. Whitley's eyes were forced close from the harshness of it. Blinking the stars away from his vision, Whitley's blood froze when he realized that the vision in his right eye wasn't clearing up. He tried to move his right arm.
To no avail.
As he was busy trying to bring motion back to his dead arm, a fist rocketed towards his face. Nailing him right in the jaw, Whitley shouted in pain, falling to the ground and dropping his pistol. As he fell to the ground, he heard a rasping laughter.
"Not so tough without your cybernetics, are you, Shepard?" it taunted. In the corner of his vision, Whitley could make out the details of the Batarian's face. Despite the fact that he had never met him, Whitley knew who the Batarian was. It's raspy voice was one he would never forget.
"Romak." Whitley growled.
Another laugh echoed from the Batarian. "And here I was thinking that you wouldn't even bother to learn my name! I'm touched. You truly have done your homework."
"It wasn't difficult. The corpses of your men did all the work for me." Whitley replied, a vicious smirk on his face.
Romak snarled, before bringing his foot down on Whitley's ribs. However, as his foot came down, Whitley rolled out of the way. Grabbing Romak's foot with his left hand, Whitley pulled it towards him, forcing Romak to fall to the ground. Whitley then dove for his pistol. Aiming at Romak, Whitley squeezed the trigger, only for Romak to quickly roll out of the way. Safely out of danger, Romak proceeded to activate a stealth generator.
Whitley breathed heavily, trying to think of a plan. His cybernetic eye was capable of seeing through stealth generators, but right now, it was disabled, along with his right arm. His systems would reboot within the next minute, but it wouldn't help a dead man.
I just have to stall him for one minute. After that, I can deal with him properly.
Hearing the stealth generator turn off behind him, Whitley turned around and fired his pistol. Smiling at the fact his shots hit center mass, Whitley's smile faded as soon as he saw Romak fizzle away.
A decoy! Shit!
Turning around at the last moment, Whitley saw a knife aimed at his jugular. Reacting on instinct, Whitley dropped his pistol and raised his left arm up to block the strike.
Blood gushed out of the wound, causing Whitley to scream in pain. Romak took the knife out of Whitley's hand, before kicking him in the chest, causing him to roll to the ground.
Romak laughed, as Whitley groaned, unable to get up.
"This is the best Hannah's adopted son can do? Pathetic. Her first one put up more of a fight, and he was a mere child."
The Batarian picked up his rifle, and began looking through the scope.
"This is for you, Father."
His finger began to squeeze on the trigger.
And Whitley's vision went completely red.
P.O.V Switch - Hannah
Hannah breathed raggedly. Vanguards were dangerous enough when you had a squad to back you up, but alone, with almost nothing but a small pistol, was a death sentence.
And unfortunately, it looked like this was one that Hannah wasn't going to be able to defy this time.
As the Batarian Vanguard prepared another singularity, Hannah glared at him.
"This is the end for you, Shepard!"
He raised his hands into the air….
Before flinching forwards. The Batarian's eyes widened briefly, before they exploded, along with the rest of his body.
"I don't care what you bastards did to me…" a voice called out. Hannah's eyes widened, as she saw who came through the rubble.
"...nobody touches my mother." Jane remarked coldly, her green eyes narrowed in anger.
The Batarians who had been observing the battle quickly aimed their weapons at Jane, only for a hail of gunfire behind her to cut them down.
"Nice shot with the launcher, Commander!" a voice called out.
"That it was, Jenkins." Jane replied, a smile decorating her lips.
Hannah smiled back. She began moving towards her daughter.
Suddenly, a hole appeared on the wall across Hannah, mere inches away from where her head was.
Hannah and the others ducked down.
"Sniper! Get down!" Jane commanded. She turned to her mother.
"Mom, stay here! I'm gonna check it out!"
"Be careful, Jane!" Hannah called out.
"Always am!" Jane replied back, before running out of the meeting room.
P.O.V Switch
Romak smiled. "This is for you, Father." he whispered. He aimed his rifle at his father's murderer, and began to squeeze the trigger.
Suddenly, a chain wrapped around his neck.
Romak pulled the trigger, but his gun had, out of reflex, pointed upwards, missing Hannah entirely.
The two struggled. Romak should've won. He had broken the human's only functional hand, and yet, he was struggling just as much as the human.
Romak, in the small mirror, could see a glint of silver on the human's right arm. The silver-haired Shepard had put the chain in his teeth and had used his prosthetic hand to wrap it around his neck. Somehow, it had activated once more, despite the fact that the EMP Romak had detonated should have shorted it out for another five minutes.
Romak, desperate, began to stab backwards with his combat knife in an attempt to get the human off of him. The human grunted in pain, but continued to clench his teeth down onto the chain. The two fell down to the ground. Romak was beginning to lose consciousness.
Balak, brother, I am sorry. I have failed you and Father both.
The last thing Romak remembered was the horrific snap of his neck.
P.O.V Switch
Whitley pushed the dead slaver off of him, breathing heavily. Staring into the Batarian's eyes made the truth seem so much more real.
He's dead.
He's dead because of me.
I killed him.
Whitley turned away from the Batarian. He didn't know what to think. Wasn't he supposed to feel guilt, horror, fear, shame? If he did, then why did he feel so….jubilant? Why did he feel such supreme satisfaction snapping his neck?
At that moment, Whitley remembered the promise that he'd made on the SSV Kilimanjaro.
I'll kill them. I'll kill them all.
Whitley breathed heavily, leaning against the wall. He opened his omni tool with his prosthetic hand.
"Michelle, it's done. My mother is safe. I need a pickup. Bring medigel, if you have any. My left hand's severely wounded, and my prosthetic has taken some damage."
He ended the call before Michelle could respond. He glared at the corpse of the slaver.
"I'll send your brother to hell with you." he growled.
The door opened, and Whitley sighed.
"Let's get out of here Miche-"
"Whitley?"
Whitley froze, as the sound of Jane's voice echoed through the roof.
AN: Well, shit. Who's ever had that embarrassing moment where your elder sibling caught you doing something you didn't. I've never been on the receiving end. My little brother, on the other hand….
Whitley gets his first taste of blood. This is only the beginning of his path towards being a Renegade.
I'm sorry if this chapter feels a little rushed. I wanted to pack more detail into it (like Hannah's fight against the Batarian Vanguard) and Jane's reaction to hearing what had happened in the Presidium. Unfortunately, I could never get it written the way I wanted, and I eventually decided to scrap those scenes because I'd already rewritten it over a dozen times and I just wanted to update one of my stories after months of not updating any of them.
Next chapter will involve Balak's reaction, and Whitley having to explain himself to his big sis.
