Thank you all my dear readers and reviewers! I greatly appreciate you following this story. And a hearty thanks to Imurhuckleberry for requesting an update in PM. I get distracted from time to time, and if you need an update on a story in particular, please let me know.
Rated M. I own nothing. Please remember to review.
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Garrus slowly became aware of the overwhelming smells permeating the room and the horrid noise that was all but drilling through his skull. He groaned and tried to haul himself up a little bit. It turned out to be a terrible idea. He allowed his head to lull forward, his mandibles barely an inch from scraping the floor. His plates felt far too tight and he wanted to vomit.
"Heh… the new guy'sss up? Watch…watcha… makeathat?"
The scent of Asari hard liquor washed over his senses and made his stomach rebel in an almost violent fashion.
He was going to disembowel that quarian; Just as soon as he had feeling in his feet again.
"You… You male? 'Cuz, I gotta sssay that you're rrathers…" A pause broke the slurred words, as if the individual spewing them were deep in thought.
He cracked one avian eye open. He was all too ready to sink his claws into the hide of this loathsome individual that was abusing his poor ears. Why was the quiet just as loud as the booming sound of speech?
His gaze landed on one very inebriated Asari, rather young from the look of her. His C-SEC training, and furthermore, his time on Omega assessed her with ease. She'd be barely old enough to shake her ass in some seedy bar or strip club. Her fringe was a darker shade of purple than the rest of her, and she had blue spots all around her.
Or the spots were a side effect of the drug, because he knew that her skin shouldn't wriggle the way it did in his vision. Well, that was something he didn't see every day. He shook his head slowly, blinking a few times.
"-Not ugly," the Asari finally finished, half-proud of herself.
He felt his face plates twitch slightly. He was Arch Angel, Spirits take it! And that damn quarian had stuck him in a Drunk tank.
That bastard.
Right in the middle of C-SEC. Likely in the Presidium commons, judging by the bored expression on the nearby officer, and the trill of rebuke only his kind could hear. Unfortunately, it only served to make his pounding head roar to life with a vengeance.
"Ugh," he groaned softly.
He didn't like her eyes. They were glazed over and she smelled as if she or someone else had lost their lunch on her at some point. That explained some of the putrid stench. The others in the room, which he slowly allowed himself to look at; not too quickly or he'd be sick all over the floor. He didn't have the strength yet to push himself over and off of his abdomen.
His low utterance of his internal suffering had her looking at him in a way he could only assume she thought was alluring. "I..Ist a yessh?"
Her fringe was too solid, like his people. Yes, part of him might have found it attractive; had she been sober. And on some level he still did, for it was familiar and accepted. So, why then did his mind supply the image of limp human hair, falling in graceful waves behind slender and soft human shoulders, the same color as- no, he would not think.
He growled his anger, allowing his chest to rumble with his displeasure. His dual harmonics broadcasting that he was indeed still a very viable threat. The asari next to him was too consumed in the lingering effects of her cups to realize that she was provoking a very irate and recently emotionally upheaved wall of muscle.
The guard, however, turned toward him promptly, the lower cascade of soothing or placating tones nearly went unheard.
Garrus needed out of this detainment, first and foremost. Then he needed answers. He had to know. Though he easily told himself it was because he owed his men the blood of their murderers.
It was unforgivable. What she had become.
Murder. Murders. One of which could very well be Shepherd, it seemed nearly impossible. His mind melded the images of her from their first meetings, the eyes that always looked at him with such frank curiosity to the eyes that stared at him like a hardened monstrosity. She hadn't cared what she'd done. She was no better than Aria.
The memories of her with the others, and how she worked a pitiful job in exchange for better dextro food wormed into his thoughts. No, it wasn't right. None of it. To be so wholly different? That was impossible... Wasn't it? Could humans act that way? Were they capable of changing their personalities so readily?
He clicked his mandibles in impotent fury. His hands clenching into fists, and he drew even closer to breaking the last shred of his self-control. He was used to men dying, but they had been soldiers in war that had lost their lives. His squad had been just that. His. He was solely responsible for their deaths, he and their murder. He should have led them better. If he had seen it coming. If only he'd known then his civilian rag-tag group might have survived.
"I's .. no I can… ssshhhow you" The purple faced alien continued unheedingly, " Things. Lots, I can… paradisssse." She looked around sloppily as if keeping a secret.
He spared her a piercing glance, that had her reeling back slowly with impaired reflexes. Garrus had been propositioned by better. He puffed up his chest slightly, a gesture of intimidation and dominance. He would not waste his time on such a foolish … female. It was easier to think of her that way.
Haunting eyes, filled with curiosity imposed themselves on the face of distorted purple skin.
She was nothing like the Shepherd that had fed him information, or looked at him with some form of adoration in those limpid human eyes.
His only logical conclusion was to believe that the Shepherd he'd grown accustomed to, had ceased to exist at some point for some unknown reason. There was no point in fighting the truth. She was every bit as deserving of his skills and bullets as all the other scum in Omega. He would find her. He would kill her for what she'd done.
And then, he would likely mourn her passing.
His mandibles itched, and he snapped them shut in silent contemplation.
She'd be dead and then what? It would all be solved. He very nearly believed it. Except life was never that simple. There was no faceless General giving him orders now. It would be cold blood and he would take her life, because she'd never even fired a weapon- as far as he knew- the last time he'd seen her on the Citadel.
However, as his anger kept reminding him, she had gone and changed for the image of her that had left him perplexed for years.
He'd never tell how it was her voice her heard in his head when he tried to save someone on Omega. That it felt as if he made her proud somehow, despite their sad parting. He had been doing it all. He had been doing it all for…
Justice. Yes, it simply had to be justice. Anything else might cause his pounding head to unravel into a fit of berserker like momentum. Garrus had always held a strong belief in it. He wanted the guilty to suffer and the innocent to be spared.
At least, in that he was akin to the other members of his species. In that he wasn't as defective.
Shepherd had become another soulless piece of filth that exploited the weak for her own nefarious ends. She'd killed or had his squad killed. She'd preyed upon the citizens of Omega for Spirits knew how long. By the moon of Palavan, he'd annihilate her and every one that stood in his path.
She hadn't even done him the curtsey of treating him like a real threat, because she hadn't even bothered to kill him.
His head snapped up, and he regretted the motion. His muscles contracted painfully, and his back clenched in a spasm. He clenched his teeth and fought the hiss that attempted to escape past his throat. His eyes narrowed unforgivingly on the drunken Asari who backed up another step.
"He-.. Hi? Hay? Hey… h-hey. No." She slurred in an alarmed fashion.
The thought seemed to thrum with his heart beat until it was ripping his other thoughts to pieces. She hadn't killed him. He was alive, and not only that, but he'd been taken to the Citadel, incredibly far from the reach of Omega into space controlled by the council. She'd put him back in the same place he'd put her in his mind.
Back to where they'd been a C-SEC officer and a Duct Rat. When they had been themselves, before he'd broken the news to her gently, that he was so very close to being the worst turian alive and every inch a predator to her.
His instinct warred with his common sense. It prodded and poked at the small lingering doubt until he was forced to examine it. No, he'd witnessed humans enough to know that they were in fact, like many species, remarkably incapable of personal change without extreme influences.
Had she been influenced in some manner? Why did that simple question fill his aching plates with something so similar to hope that it nearly stole his focus away? He knew, down in his very bones, that she'd do anything for those she watched. Had one of them been in jeopardy?
He latched onto the thought, pulling it to him as a physical tether.
He rolled himself, watching the others in the cell as they muttered amongst each other. They were more than interested in what the alien beauty was blindly offering. Garrus wanted nothing to do with her.
Asari.
Why was it always Asari?
A thought stuck him. Was that Asari Sharta any part of this?
It seemed a little farfetched. Omega was a free for all, and Sharta worked for the shadow broker. Or she had, she still might if she was even alive. The benefits package with the Shadow Broker might be tempting, but the survival rate was abysmal.
His legs tingled, the signal that he was regaining some of the lost feeling. He slowly moved to stand, his knees buckled slightly under him. His avian eyes glared at the nearby guard who watched him with ill-disguised mistrust.
His devilish good looks and legendary charm must have been failing him today.
Still his mind whirled with possibilities. Too many years stuck figuring out every situation form the ordinary to the extreme coaxed him to wonder if maybe she hadn't been sacrificing herself for one of the children.
Then what would make Shepherd morph into that bitch he had encountered?
Had she been forced? Had she been blackmailed? Rage built in him with a fire that refused to be extinguished. If his furtive speculations were even minutely true, then he had failed her. He had become C-SEC to protect the innocent. He had taken up the mantle and burden of Archangel for the same reasons. Shepherd had been a guardian of the innocent once. She'd been his bright spirit in the filth of the everyday mundane. No, she'd never been his. His breathing quickened without him realizing it. He continued to rumble his warning at the drunken maiden that had resumed chattering indecently.
What if she was in fact every bit as ruthless as she seemed in his last moments of consciousness in her presence?
His heart slowed to the point of pain. It clenched in his chest with anxious energy.
"I'm sober," he growled out in a biting tone toward the guard.
"No, no no. Shhhhh. Don't go. I… you're lots not ugly." The Asari babbled, her previous timidity long forgotten under the heady haze of booze.
Spirits spare him.
His shrewd eyes watched without humor as the guard puffed up and warbled a scoffing sound. Garrus felt the bitter taste of humiliation on his tongue. He would find that quarian and give him a piece of his mind. He doubted that Kenn knew he used to be C-SEC, or how utterly defaming it would be for his character, and that of his family, if this impromptu trip were ever disclosed.
The door opened, and he pried the dark purple hands of the female off of him roughly. He craned his neck and started at the other male passively. A challenge clear in his stance. The guard allowed it to pass without answering. It had been a bit disappointing. He'd been looking for a quick fight. However, it was not the smartest course of action at the moment. He needed to find out what would motivate Shepherd. The one he'd known and the person she'd become.
He had the feeling an old enemy of his might be of potential use in this case.
And, if she was in fact as bad as Aria had been.
He really would have to kill her, though his hands shook at the thought.
"Ready to go home?" The guard rumbled in snide amusement.
Azure eyes glanced at him, assessing and troubled. "This isn't my home," he responded with what little dignity he could manage.
The guard cleared his throat awkwardly, his dual harmonics conveying slight embarrassment.
Garrus cracked a turian smile with practiced ease. "I'm visiting a friend," he lied smoothly to sooth any lingering doubts, "but we seemed to have gotten separated, I won't be any more trouble."
The other turian relaxed quickly, nodding. "See that you don't." he said gruffly.
"Oh don't worry officer." Garrus replied far more composed than he had been even seconds ago. "This is the last you'll see of me."