Noble Savage
Freedom is a funny old thing, when you get right down to it.
People will lie, fight, kill and die for it. They will call it a fundamental human right. They will call it the ideal for which all must strive. The most valuable commodity in an advanced society. A necessity of life, even.
Yes, its worth is without question, its values manifold. With freedom, anything is possible.
But the funny thing about it is this: you can't eat freedom.
Shepard idly wondered how hungry Kaidan was these days as he split the skull of screaming Salarian with his sword. Though the jolt of slicing through bone rocked through his hands, it couldn't pull him out of the murderous fugue that had descended upon his thoughts.
He wondered if his old friend was cold as he threw himself to the ground to avoid getting hit by a rocket, (a rocket of all things!) not even feeling the pain that coursed through his being as a thousand cuts, burns and bullet wounds protested his stubborn insistence that nothing was wrong. The thought lingered as fire washed across his back and he shimmied out of the piecemeal armour that he had patched together to avoid being cooked alive inside it. He lay on his back panting, heedless to the filth and grime that accumulated on his skin as he did.
He wondered if the townsman, so warm and friendly, could still smile despite his scars. The image drew him to his feet faster than if someone had pulled him and summoned a wordless howl from his throat. His sword, feeling heavier than a tree in his hands, almost slipped from his grasp before he clenched it tight and rested it on his shoulder
What had once been a living room was could now only be called an abattoir. It was difficult to stand, let alone move, due to all the blood and bodies. There had been no time to remove the bodies even if he'd wanted to, and the suffocating stink of death had long since permeated every corner of the building.
He was too tired to feel any pride in his grisly achievement, too hungry to sleep and too weak to flee. He should have died long ago, but that was too lofty a goal for him to aspire to as well.
Foolish, ignorant child that he was, he had thought that everything of worth had been stolen from him.
Prideful, arrogant man that he was, he had thought that a handful of slaves united by hatred and fear made a tribe.
Weak, hateful beast that he was, he had refused to die alone.
The Ash Dogs were dead.
Ash Tree was dead.
A memory from years ago tickled his thoughts. Ghost dancers. At the time he had wondered why ghosts would return to dance for the tribe. He had wondered why they wouldn't return to do something else. But now he understood: the dance was unimportant. What mattered was that they returned at all. That the watchers could drink and pretend for just a moment that they could see a different face behind the sweat and paint.
But there was no ghost dancers here. No drink. No music. There was only death and pain.
He thought of Kaidan...
His fingers ached as his grip tightened on his sword.
Kaidan hadn't been there for the attack.
Kaidan had run.
Kaidan was alive.
Kaidan was a traitor.
Kaidan would die a traitor's death.
And it didn't matter how many others he had to inflict on the way.
His tribe was gone, but the war for survival raged on.
He screamed his defiance at the mercenaries as they prepared yet another skirmish against him.
Garrus Vakarian surveyed the carnage around him with some distaste.
"I think someone got lost on their way to the morgue," he remarked.
Which was an accurate, if morbid and somewhat tacky, assessment. It was like a scene out of some action vid, with weapons and blood and corpses and mechanical parts strewn about the room as if a terrible and very selective whirlwind had swept across it. Which might not altogether as farfetched as it sounded, if the stories the mercs had been telling each other were to be believed.
What kind of idiot used melee weapons in the modern age?
"Fascinating new specimens," the unflappable dr. Mordin Solus commented idly as he examined the dead. "Had heard rumours, but did not believe."
"And what have you heard, doctor?" Hadrian Icena, Facinus officer and professional person of perpetual suspect, asked tersely.
"Nothing of substance," the salarian said with a dismissive wave of his hands. "New soldiers in blood pack, slaves."
"Slaves?" Hadrian repeated, kicking a corpse. "Well, I guess the explains their little war. And the collars."
"Krogan irony most likely," Mordin supplied absently. "Never could understand. Ah! Gender-specific fur patterns! Marvelous!"
"Have you found anything that might help us identify this 'Ash Dog' the mercs were talking about?" Hadrian asked.
"Hmm? No, impossible. No images, no writing we could understand."
Hadrian made a sound of disgust and kicked a corpse with some annoyance
"Think we're too late?" he asked. "Did he get away in the confusion?"
"Unlikely," Mordin said, looking up from his inspection of the new species. "Unique appearance too easily spotted."
"Doctor, they aren't that unique
"Unlikely," the salarian repeated, just as dismissive as before. "Lack of naked asari body," he paused. "But still possible. Implications... unpleasant."
"Unpleasant? What do you- oh," Hadrian shuddered as he realized what the salarian was implying. "That's twisted."
"He's been holed up here for nine days," Garrus reminded the Facinus agent. It was petty, but he liked to see the other turian squirm. "Anyone would get hungry, I suppose."
Hadrian scowled and looked away in disgust, which made the spectre just a little bit happier.
Garrus saw it first. It was a small movement in the corner of his eye, but he whirled on it all the same. And as he did, he saw the dead rise.
The way the body pushed itself off the ground in one slow and soundless motion was eerily like a puppet being pulled up by its strings. But there were no jerks to the movement, only sanguine grace and deadly intent as it stood and then hunched over, ready to strike at a moment's notice. It took Garrus a moment to recognize the length of warped crudely sharpened metal for what it was, but luckily the alien didn't seize upon this moment of indecision. Instead, he watched them.
Seeing this lack of open hostility, Garrus decided to answer in kind.
"Ash Dog?" he said the name tentatively, as if speaking to a wild animal.
The creature made no overt reaction to the words, but its body relaxed just a little at the question.
He – and there was no denying that it was a "he" – looked half dead from starvation and exhaustion. (The former was of particular concern, as he did not relish the thought of having to actively monitor the prospective squadmate's hunger levels for fear that he might eat one of the crew.) But there was a hateful alertness in those sunken eyes and a resigned tension in its posture that promised in lieu of words that he would happily spend the rest of his life killing them should the situation warrant it.
What was perhaps more interesting was the complex network of dark lines swirling and sweeping across his arms, chest and belly. For a brief moment Garrus saw them as vibrant red or green or blue or purple, wet and hot on Ash Dog's sickly pale skin. It was so very easy to imagine the eerily asari-like alien stooped over his kills, watching them die as he calmly decorated his body with their blood.
However hard it was for him to take someone wearing what looked like the frayed remains of shorts and cloth foot wrappings and holding an improvised sword, that image more than made up the difference. However much he looked like a stone age primitive, Ash Dog was more than a match for the well outfitted mercenaries who had tried to kill him.
Ash Dog grunted, and allowed himself to sink back down into a sitting position.
"... You aren't here to kill me," the words were alien, but thankfully the stolen linguistics cypher was working just fine. The creature's voice was as clear and crisp as it was dead with fatigue.
By now both Hadrian and Mordin had looked up from their respective tasks at the sound of a new voice, and in an instant their weapons were trained on Ash Dog. If the alien was worried about being threatened by three armed men, he didn't show it.
"Yeah? What makes you think that?"
Hadrian was a master of diplomacy.
But if the alien noticed the threat he took no offense. He nodded towards Hadrian and gave a quick grin.
"You aren't afraid," he gave a short nod to each of them in turn. "None of you are."
He shook his head, and gestured with his free hand to the bodies around them.
"The others, they're always afraid. They watch the shadows. They look to small noises," he snickered suddenly. "They don't watch the dead."
Despite the gravity of the situation, Garrus laughed. There was something perversely amusing about a hunted man hiding among the bodies of his pursuers and followers.
"You certainly look the part," he joked.
"I've been getting some practice," he agreed with a tired shrug. "Why are you here, if not to kill me?"
It was almost amusing, Garrus found himself thinking, that just for once the hero-shtick seemed to have been flipped around. For once, he was the one dragging someone into something vastly greater than themselves.
"I'm planning a mission to stop the collectors," the spectre explained. "And I think you would be a useful person to have along for the ride."
This failed to impress Ash Dog.
"I do not know these collectors," he said at last. His eyes narrowed. "Why should I want to stop them?"
"They've been involved in the disappearance of several colonies in the terminus systems," Hadrian said matter-of-factly, as if it were reason enough.
"They also killed me," Garrus added.
"That's not an answer," Ash Dog said with a sneer. "I don't know you either, and they can burn your colonies for all I care."
"Then what do you want?" Garrus asked, suppressing the urge to sigh. It was too much to hope for that someone would join up simply to do the right thing, it seemed. "My name is Garrus Vakarian, by the way."
"Council Spectre," Hadrian added unhelpfully.
"There is a man. A human, like me," his eyes burned with palpable fury. "I will kill him. But first, I must find him."
Revenge: the great unifier. More often than not it created more problems than it solved, but just this once Garrus was content to let one of the only humans in known space kill the other so long as it served the greater good.
"I can arrange that," Garrus agreed. And he could: with his connections to c-sec and the Council itself, how hard could it be to find another hairy asari? "Let's get this-"
"Ash Dog!" the amplified voice of Jaroth was deafening in the confined quarters. "You think you can butcher my brother and get away with it?!"
Revenge: the great malefactor. Causing problems at every turn.
"How do you like this?!"
The building was rocked to its foundations by a series of impacts, the last of which caused the ceiling to collapse. Columns of ceramics and steel rained down from above, along with the familiar squat profile of an assault mech. It hit the ground and wobbled for a moment before its systems kicked in and it stabilized itself. Dust was still settling when the telltale whirs and whines of hydraulics sounded out.
"Systems online," the machine droned as it came out of standby mode, unfolding itself to tower above them. Worryingly, the words were echoed distantly from other regions of the building.
The change that came over Ash Dog was something to behold. He had leapt to his feet at the sound of Jaroth's voice, but now his hands gripped the improvised sword like a vice. He charged the rising mech
"Damn the Eclipse!" he screamed. "Damn the to hell!"
"Situation untenable," Mordin said with mounting alarm. "Withdrawal advisable."
"What did you do to piss these guys off?!" Garrus shouted over the clangs of metal as Ash Dog strategically applied blows from his sword at the mech. (It was alarmingly effective.)
The human snarled, baring his little teeth ferociously as he called back.
"I fought back!"
It was later, and Shepard felt like half of his face had been burned off and then stabbed with knives. Which wasn't that far from the truth.
There had been no drugs to make the surgery any easier. How could there be when most people didn't even know that his species existed? So there was no anaesthetic to dull the pain of the burns, no antiseptic to clean the wounds, no grafts or implants to replace what had been lost.
Luckily, he had been weaned on radiation and poisons. His body was more than capable of fighting off the few wayward threats that the sterile environment of the Lariat's medical bay, and he was far too tired to do anything but lay still as the doctor did what she could to patch up the ruinous damage that had been done to right half of his face. As pathetic as it sounded, he could only make small whimpers as horrendous gouges were hastily stitched closed, shrapnel was pulled out of his cheek- and jawbones and heavy bandages were applied in an almost pointless effort to promote healing.
Nothing could be done to save his eye, however. That had had to be removed to, and Shepard had screamed at that. He was lucky that he had been strapped in place, or his sudden flailing might have caused even more damage than the shrapnel had.
Even so, it was worth it. It had to be.
The turian, Garrus, had agreed to find Kaidan. He had promised it. And while Shepard put little stock into the word of the monsters that had stolen him from his world, he was in a prime position to make the alien bastard regret trying to double cross him.
If he had to kill different monsters to make that happen? So be it.
And when Kaidan was dead and gone...
Well, he would have to see. For now, though, the collecters and Kaidan would have to do.
AN: Yeah, Kaidan takes on the Sidonis role in this story. It was kind of a difficult thing to decide, really, because on the one hand I could have everyone survive and go on adventures, but then what? Not seeing Shepard agreeing to leave the Ash Dogs to go on a suicide mission. Not exactly the best chief-type decision. I mean, what would the Ash Dogs do without their protagonist? They'd just be another pack of mooks! (Not to mentioned being a plot hole.) No, better all around if they die for the cause.
Not much more to say, just needed to get this chapter out of the way.
Sorry that I couldn't oblige everyone with a tale of Shepard's intrepid adventures, but I did say that we left the Conan thing behind. (And despite how we look up to him, Spartacus ultimately lost his war. This might be a bit of a step up.)
Moving on, as I said last time the story will only have 1-4 more chapters, depending mostly on where I go with the next chapter. (Maybe one extra, if I want to give Shep and Garrus a bromance moment.) It will depict what would have been Shep's loyalty mission, and as you can probably imagine Kaidan will be involved. (Because who needs to be creative? Not I!) If I decide to, the chapters after that one will detail humanity's possible role in the Reaper war.