A/N: Sorry, I had to edit the chapter. Apparently, the algorithm thought my final line was a website link and truncated it to just 'Shepard.' Which of course, makes no damn sense. Why would Liara think that they should call the imposter just 'Shepard?' Madness.
Anyway, fixed. And thanks to my beautiful wife for suggesting that last line to begin with.
"No."
"Yup."
"No!"
"Absolutely. Cross my heart and hope to be swallowed by a maw." Del regarded the beer in her hand, judging how much was left in it and if it would last the rest of the story. She was starting to suspect it wouldn't.
"What…what happened? I mean, who was she, a-a clone?" Mel asked, her dark brown eyes still bearing a healthy dose of skepticism in with the surprise.
"So she said. Grown by the Illusive Man in case Project Lazarus failed, or they needed spare parts. Salinos found her and woke her up. The guy using Salinos' name, I mean. I wasn't buying it at first either. I thought it was someone who had some cosmetic surgery. I thought it had been a pretty cheap job of it, that she only kind of looked like me. It wasn't until the rest of the crew, and your Mama, reacted that I realized that to them she was my fucking twin."
"What? Why? If she was a clone, she had to be identical."
"Well, yeah, she was," Del said. "Helen had to explain it to me later, after we had to-…I mean, I'll get to that part, but Helen explained it later. People usually never see their own face, Pain. You see it in a mirror, but that isn't what your face really looks like. It's what your face looks like in reverse. The crew all instantly recognized her but to me, her face was the wrong way around."
"What…what did you do? When you realized, I mean?"
Del grinned. "I vowed to put her face the right way around."
When Mel only continued to stare at her, Del lifted a brow, "Because, you know, it was the wrong way, so I'd…you know. With my fist?"
"I understood the 'Dad joke', Bába," she said dryly.
"Oh, Dad joke, is it? There's a reason I call you Pain, Pain."
"Because it is painful for me to hear your jokes?"
"Oh, the next part of this story is going to be torture if you find my jokes painful," Del laughed, bumping her daughter's shoulder with her own, as Melara smiled. It was still a little wan, but it was a genuine smile, and worth its weight in gold.
The merc jumped down off the tall crate, straightening and stretching her shoulders with a lopsided, shit-eating grin. Del was still squinting at her with dark anger.
"No wonder they call you a shaved gorilla," the supposed clone said as they measured each other. "You look like you're about to start scratching yourself and drooling on the floor. Do try and keep up, gutter punk."
The voice was wrong, Del realized. She wouldn't find out until later why the other Shepard's face didn't seem quite right to her, but the voice- she'd heard her own voice on recordings and vids far too many times. Her voice didn't sound the same on recordings as it did in her head- no one's did, after all- but there was more to this difference than Shepard could immediately put a finger on. She sounded like her, but at the same time, she didn't.
"I'm keeping up just fine," Del told her. "So, the Illusive Man grew you for spare parts, did he? So what do I call you? Leftovers?"
"I think 'pale imitation' has a certain ring," Liara said.
"I like 'sloppy seconds'," Tali said. Wrex let out a laugh.
"Ooh, damn girl!" Vega grinned.
Not-Del smiled coldly. "So you need a suit-rat and a college cheerleader pretending to be a soldier to back you up, gutter punk?"
Del's glare was far more heat than cold. "All I need backing me up is a bullet," she said.
The clone leaned a little closer and smiled as she repeated, "All I need backing me up is a bullet."
"The fuck are you doing?"
"The fuck are you doing?" the clone said.
Del was over it. Her hand went to her pistol but before she could even touch it, Salinos spoke again.
"I wouldn't, not unless you want your friend down there dead!"
He was holding his own pistol now, aiming it at Brooks, who was still laying motionless on the ground. Del didn't know if she was hurt, dead, or just playing possum out of terror.
Hating herself for the motion, she slowly moved her hand away from her weapon's pack. Not-Del gave a derisive snort. "Look at you," she said, then glanced around at everyone glaring at her. "Look at all of you. You're like a goddamn cult, all ready to jump and die if Shepard so much as sneezes."
"What the fuck do you want?" Del growled. Not-Del fixed her eyes back on her twin and repeated her again, word for word. "Fucking stop that!"
Not-Del laughed. "Fucking gorilla," she said again. "Isn't it obvious? You're a psycho, an overgrown, worthless, meat-head punk with Mommy and Daddy issues."
"She is none of those things," Liara said stonily.
"Why, because she got lucky and took down some geth? Sweetheart, I am better than her in every way that counts, and more- I don't have the emotional baggage holding me back. I'd have put a bullet in her face the moment I saw her, hostage or no hostage. She's weak- "
"Caring about people is not weakness!"
"So says the cheerleader. Go bounce up and down in the corner, or find a pole to dance around. The grown-ups are talking."
Liara's eyes narrowed sharply, and Del's hand fisted, but before they could reply, the door behind the crate opened, and several more Cat6 swarmed in. Salinos shipped his pistol and started casually down the stairs to join them as the mercs aimed at the crew.
"Enchanting as this exchange has been," he said as he came down the stairs. "Shouldn't we be on our way?"
"Just a second," Not-Del said, without even glancing at him. Her eyes remained fixed to Del's. "I haven't got it quite yet."
"Got what? I don't know what you're thinking, but you are not getting out of here," Del said, her tone full of vicious promises. "Even on the miracle that you do, mu gou, no one is ever going to fucking believe that you're me."
"But I am you. Down to my fucking DNA," Not-Del said, spreading her arms. "This is what you'd be with the bullshit hosed off. Just a few finishing touches left is all. I mean, I was concerned that some of your crew wouldn't buy it- like the cheerleader- but you were generous enough to bring the whole lot of them down here with you."
Del snorted. "You call me a shaved gorilla but you're a fucking imbecile. Kill me? Yeah, ok, I see the necessity of that. But one of the quarian admirals? The clan chief of Urdnot? Ain't you ambitious. You really fucking think no one's going to miss them?"
Not-Del grinned. "We're in a war, gutter punk. Wrex has been stirring up all kinds of crap. Isn't it a shame when he's reported missing and evidence is planted that he was taken out by a rival clan, or some angry turians? Wasn't it so sad when Shepard reported that the Normandy was attacked by the Reapers out on the Traverse, and the suit-rat's shuttle was taken out as she tried to evacuate? Oh, and let's not forget who else was lost in that shuttle explosion- the little biotic schoolteacher? Archangel? A nothing meathead?"
"Hey!" Vega glared.
"Wasn't it heroic of me, how I managed to save the Normandy despite such a terrible attack, a terrible loss of life?" Not-Del continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Aren't I brave, after losing so many of my close friends and 'loved ones'"- here, she looked at Liara meaningfully- "that somehow I managed to keep on, assemble a new crew, finish the mission?"
"Lady, you're a loon if you think you can off all of us and not get found out," Ashley said, but Shepard barely heard her.
"You aren't like me at all," Del snarled low, under her breath. "You're a goddamn coward."
Not-Del grinned that bitch-ass lopsided grin and turned on her heel. "I've got it," she said. Her voice no longer sounded off, and realization hit Del.
The clone had told them she'd only been awake six months, that when Salinos had woken her up she hadn't been imprinted, had no idea who or even what she was. She'd spent that time learning to be human, learning about the woman she'd been cloned from-likely with the help of some neural implants.
Del had been born in the slums of New York. She'd learned English from listening to her fellow New Yorkers, learned Chinese in the Reds, and learned Galactic from a mix of both. Shepard was also a smoker, and while she did not have that gravelly voice a lot of true chain smokers got, her cigars had still left a rougher edge to her words.
Her New York accent had been a lot stronger as a kid, but it wasn't gone. It tended to come out on certain words- coffee, for example, she tended to broaden and came out like 'cawfee'. She dropped or included random r's, and her 'th's tended to turn into d's. Add in some random clipping from the Chinese and some broadening from Galactic and the way she talked had a personal touch that was all her own.
These things were far less noticeable when she was calm and well-rested, but when she was exhausted, or particularly pissed, they came out. Her last 'goddamn coward' had come out more a 'gawdamn cowahd', and the clone's 'I got it' had mimicked that perfectly with the word 'gawt'. She'd even gotten the rough edge from her smoking right.
She hadn't been repeating Del to mock her, she'd been repeating her to get her voice right.
"You fucking-!" she started in a rage, but Not-Del didn't even look at her.
"I'm heading into the Archives. Kill them all," she said to the mercs. "The Cult of Shepard is over."
The rifles bristled toward them but none was pointing at poor Brooks any more. Del lunged for her rifle and hauled it up but the mercs were already between her, Not-Del, and Salinos. The latter two headed back out the door without a single backward glance.
As she got the rifle level the huge crate that Not-Del had stood on when threatening Brooks suddenly exploded in a rain of wood splinters and gunfire. Del recoiled back instinctively, Liara casting a barrier up as the crew behind her scattered for cover.
One of the four suped-up Altas suits, guns still spinning with gluts of flame, stepped out of the ruined crate and from this close, Del could see the pilot inside grinning.
She didn't think. She had no time to think, only to react. Dropping her rifle she snatched a grenade from her belt in the same motion, dove forward under the mech's legs as it stepped out of the crate, and jammed the grenade in the hollow of the leg joint just under the chassis. Not slowing or stopping, she kept on, crashing into the back of the crate wall the same moment the grenade went off.
The world became light and heat, and as her shoulder hit the wooden wall it was already disintegrating around her. She felt as if she'd been hit by an enormous hammer, tumbling so far she nearly hit the door that had closed behind Salinos and the clone.
The explosion tore the leg joint of the Atlas loose just enough that the suit began to overcompensate. Del, shaking her head and pulling out her pistol, stumbled up to her feet just as the thing hit the ground. The air was filled with gunfire.
Many of the Cat6 mercs had been knocked down or startled by the explosion as well. Some were still on the ground but a few were getting to their feet. Del took down three from behind with her pistol, then noticed that Brooks had curled into a ball, her arms around her head.
Rushing forward, she grabbed the analyst and hauled her up.
Brooks gave a little scream the moment Del touched her, but when Del shoved her pistol into her hand she gripped it almost reflexively.
"Get in cover!" Del barked at her, then shoved past her and snatched up her rifle.
Wrex was standing on top of the fallen mech with his shotgun, laughing as he unloaded it over and over again into the cockpit. Seeing the Atlas was not going to get up again, Del quickly pegged one or two of the mercs that were still on their feet.
Just that fast, the firefight was over. Lowering her rifle, she slapped the side of her helmet once or twice, then said, "Everyone all right? Liara? Tali?"
"Why is it that Liara and Tali are always the ones you ask about specifically?" Garrus asked, rising from cover.
"Yeah, I noticed that too," Jack said, appearing over the top of a crate and crouching on top of it. "It's starting to hurt my feelings."
"I think it is because we are not females," Javik said, dusting off his pads.
"Hey, fucker, I am female!" Jack said, and Javik blinked at her with genuine surprise.
"Are you?"
"Knock it off!" Del said angrily. "Is any one hurt?"
A chorus of 'negative' began to fill her ears as she looked around, taking a visual tally as well. Wrex, having grown tired of wasting ammo on the pilot, had climbed down off of the suit and looked almost disappointed that the room was clear.
Liara moved forward, her arm around a very pale and shaking Brooks. She was still clinging to Shepard's pistol as if she'd forgotten she was holding it. Del headed over, gently relieving her of the weapon.
"Brooks, you ok?"
"I-I-I don't know. My shoulder, I- "
She started to shake harder. Del gently felt her shoulder, realized it had probably dislocated when she hit the ground. Without warning, she took a firm grip and popped it back into place. Brooks yelped and punched Del's shoulder pad.
"Oww! Damn it!"
"Better?" Del asked.
"My shoulder is!" she said gasping. "But I think I broke my fingers now!"
"Hey, are we going after…well, you, or what?" Wrex asked impatiently.
"That is not me," Del said.
"Hey, big guy," Garrus said to the krogan. "Maybe she'll fist fight you instead of our Del. Settle that bet. You won't have to pull your punches."
Wrex actually started to grin before Del pointed at Garrus. "I said knock it off," she snapped. "Besides, Wrex didn't pull any of his damn punches in our fight."
"So she thinks," Wrex muttered, and when she turned her glare on him he just shrugged.
"We need to regroup," Liara said. "Have a plan before we just charge after her."
"Good idea. What do we know about this Not-Del?" Vega asked.
"If she's a clone, grown from DNA in case reviving the real Shepard didn't work," Tali said thoughtfully. "Then I doubt she's got any implants. I mean, some level of neural implant in her brain of course- there's no way she could learn as fast as she did without that but, no nanites, no reinforced bones, that kind of thing."
"So Not-Del is softer and squishier," Garrus said.
"She's also a coward," Jack said, jerking her chin at Shepard. "Holding a gun on Brooks? Sending her mercs in instead of cleaning up the mess herself? Shit. She's the pussy I thought you were when we first met."
"Thanks, I think," Del said.
"What is it she is looking for in these Archives?" Javik asked.
"Given her motivation to take over control of the Normandy and our Shepard's life," Liara said. "I suspect the final elements she would need to do so are in here somewhere."
"She's got her Spectre codes and login-ID's," Tali agreed. "What else would she need?"
"She would need the Normandy's command codes," EDI replied. "As well, she would need background information. Shepard, she knows that she would not be able to fool your closest friends no matter what lengths she went to, but she cannot take out the Council, Anderson, Hackett, and others who have had extensive interactions with you in the past, beyond your crew."
"Yes, that makes sense," Garrus said. "Anti-Del wouldn't have your memories of meetings, conversations, and past encounters. But all interactions with the Council are recorded. They'd be here, highly classified, but accessible to your security ident. The Normandy's current command codes would also be encrypted here, your own accounts of your experiences with the Prothean beacon, your classified missions- anything she would need to satisfactorily bluff her way through interactions with the Council or the Alliance."
"They still wouldn't buy it, would they?" Del asked. "I mean, Anderson and Hackett-?"
"If they thought that you had lost all of us," Liara said softly. "They know you would be devastated, barely holding on. Any eccentricities of behaviors or slips may be excused away as due to this loss."
"There might also be more hidden here that we're not thinking of," Tali said. "Things that might help her out in her ruse."
"They probably also have plans to get rid of those of us who ain't here," Vega pointed out. "I mean, Miranda? Navis? Grunt? Joker's outside. Chakwas and Salgado are still back at the apartment, and neither of them would be fooled into thinking Del-Plástico was really you."
Del's gut tightened at that realization. The only thing that kept her from sending half of them out of the Archives right now to go make sure Helen and Nan were safe was that her counterpart still clearly didn't know the apartment even existed.
"All right, we need to get after them, stop them before they can get to Normandy's command codes or whatever else it is they're after," Shepard said.
"The Archives are pretty big," Garrus said. "Might be best to split into teams. Cover more ground."
"Agreed," she said. "Brooks, you ok to keep on?"
"Y-yes, I am. I'm fine, really. I just…yes."
"You're doing fine," Del said, then looked at her friend. "Ashley, you'll take team two, with Tali, Jack, and Vega."
"Team Hammerhead!" Vega said and grinned at Ashley. "We can be Team Hammerhead, can't we?"
"I don't see why not," she replied.
"Ok, Team Hammerhead," Shepard said. "Wrex, you'll take team three, with Javik, EDI, and Brooks."
"If they are Hammerhead, might I suggest Team Mako?" EDI replied.
"Sounds good to me," Brooks said, trying to seem as jovial as the rest of them. "Uh, what's a Mako?"
"I'll head up team one," Shepard said. "Javik, Garrus, Liara, you're with me."
"Team Fuzzy Kittens," Garrus said matter-of-factly. Tali let out a surprised snort of laughter, and Shepard shook her head.
"Garrus, we're not going to be Team Fuzzy Kittens," she said.
"Why not?" Tali asked, still giggling.
"What's wrong with fuzzy kittens?" Garrus asked.
"I second the vote that Shepard's team is Team Fuzzy Kittens," Vega said. Jack and Ashley both quickly agreed. EDI only looked confused, and Javik looked absolutely nonplussed. Del doubted the Prothean even knew what a kitten was.
"That's official, we are Team Fuzzy Kittens," Garrus said.
"Jesus Garrus! What does it matter?" Del asked.
"You tell me, you're the one that doesn't like the name."
"I swear to God, Vakarian-"
"Guys, we need to be serious," Tali said, holding her hands up. "We're all overlooking the most important thing here, and it's not what stupid team names we call ourselves."
"Thank you, Tali," Del said.
"Clearly, it's what we call the Not-Del. We're all over the map on that one. I mean, 'Not-Del' doesn't really have a ring to it, does it?"
"That's it, you're all fucking fired. Again," Del said. "I don't care what you call her or our teams. We're wasting time. Radio contact is to be maintained constantly, ok? There are at least three more Atlas suits not accounted for, and any number of mercs still kicking around, so be ready for anything."
"Yes. There is also another you," Liara said. "I know she probably doesn't have your implants, but you were a force already before you had yours. We need to take her seriously."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the others. They headed for the door that the clone and Talinos had gone through, and toward whatever would be lurking there waiting for them.
"Besides," Liara said, looking back at the rest of the crew as the door slid open. "It is already clear what we should be calling that imposter."
Del glanced at her with a wary expression, and Liara smiled at her love.
"Shepard 2 point No."
