Past Continued: 15 Years Post War
Irie was frightened, but being the child of Del Shepard and Liara T'Soni, fear had never meant helplessness, or inaction.
She knew who Eír was. Her parents had never lied to her about anything. If it had ever been their intention to, it would have been all but impossible anyway. Even before they were old enough to use the extranet, they had an extended family of Shepard's former crew to fill their heads with tales.
Uncle Grunt and Aunt Jack both loved to tell stories about the war, each more far-fetched and fantastic than the last. Grunt's favorite to tell was the time that Del and Liara had taken on a thresher maw on foot…or had it been three? Irie remembered there was one that involved a Reaper, and one that had to do with some kind of trap- or was it for some kind of krogan Rite? She didn't know what parts of those stories were actually true and what were fancy, but she did know about her aunt Eír. Bába refused to talk about her at all, but Mama would speak on her now and again. She seemed so sad when she did, and she never talked of her for long.
Now, standing next to the closed dressing room in the back of the recital hall- on what should have been one of the best evenings of her life- Irie found herself stuck between her dangerous aunt and the wall. Even were she to scream, she would not be heard- Minestra had started her aria, and Minestra was loud.
"Wh-what danger?" she asked again, trying to stay calm. The calmer she stayed, the better her chance at getting away if an opportunity presented itself. "My parents are in the audience. If there is some kind of danger we should-"
"There is no time, Irie! I need to get you outside, right-"
A portion of the wall beside Irie's head shattered out in a puff of broken wood. Irie saw the flash in the darkness of the backstage shadows, from somewhere about thirty feet away. The following pop that reached her ears a heartbeat later was unmistakable- she'd heard enough guns fired in her life to know the sound instantly.
Instinctively she ducked, flaring blue as she threw up a shaky barrier. Eír did the same, turning toward the gunman as a sphere of biotics formed between the shadows and the girl.
The moment Eír turned, Irie ran.
More gunfire blossomed from the dark, bullets flaring against the barrier. On stage, Minestra's song drew to a wavering and confused halt, the sounds reaching past the backstage area.
Blocked from a quick escape onto the stage and into the audience, Irie pelted into the darkness to her left, where the emergency exit was down a small flight of stairs. Instead of rushing out the door, unsure if someone was lying in wait just beyond, she instead grabbed a short ladder nearby and started scaling it upwards toward the stage rigging. Something behind her crashed, the entire stage rumbling. Her foot slipped and she hung on tightly until she regained her footing, continuing upward.
Masked by both music and distance, the first faint pop was all but impossible to hear for those lingering out in the audience, easily dismissed by even those backstage as a dropped prop or box of some kind. Seated between her wife and daughter- Dae beside Mel and Navis on the far end- Shepard was unfocused, lost in the music. Her hand was loosely twined in Liara's. To her right, bored by the recital, Mel and Dae were whispering softly to each other.
At that first soft pop, however, Del abruptly straightened, her grip tightening on Liara's hand. Her attention drawn by the motion, Liara looked at her love.
"What is it?"
"I thought I heard a-"
More pops, louder and sharper. A few muffled cries of surprise from backstage, and the girl singing broke off in confusion, turning around.
Liara and Shepard both surged to their feet, the human woman grasping the asari's shoulders even as she pushed past her and into the aisle. "Stay here!"
Without waiting to see if she was obeyed, Del ran down toward the stage, dodging around others in the confused crowd who were starting to leave their seats.
Shepard had been out of the Alliance now for fifteen years, but one habit she had never gotten out of was carrying at least one weapon on her person. As she ran she drew the pistol from the holster at the small of her back.
Something backstage blew, wood and cloth sailing out on a wave of dark energy. The girl who had been singing dropped to her knees with a cry of fear, shielding her head. Irie's voice coach appeared, shielding the girl and trying to usher her toward safety. She looked up at Del as Shepard reached the stage, pointing.
"M-mercs, I think…and an asari-"
"Get her out of here and get under cover," Del said, continuing on. The huge velvet curtains that had separated the fore stage from the back had been badly torn, parts still smoldering. As she flanked them, intending to edge around under cover, they suddenly whipped outward, the rumble of gunfire punctuating the bullets as they tore through the velvet just overhead. Del ducked back, then blinked as a sheen of blue fell down between her and the curtains.
She couldn't say she was really surprised that Liara had joined her.
"Melara?" Del whispered.
"Navis," Liara replied. Shepard nodded, then pointed at her eyes and gestured to the left, around the edge of the curtain. Liara nodded, and Del edged around the wall into darkness.
Another blast shook her as Irie made it to the scaffolding high above. It made everything below her light up starkly in flares of pale blue, and for a moment she could see perfectly.
The asari who had called herself Eír was the source of the dark energy, the blast sailing away from her in such a scope that the top of the swell rocked the lights hanging just below Irie's precarious perch. Beyond her, she could see armored people with guns- some tall, other's short and more animalistic. She caught the glimmer of a broad, sharp-toothed grin for a moment and as dark fell over her again, she thought frantically.
Short, long arms and chin, lots of sharp teeth-…vorcha. The short ones must be vorcha.
There was no telling the species of the others. They could be anything from salarian to turian to human.
More gunfire, lighting up the tableau below her in a staccato of reds and yellows. Some tore through the dark curtains, casting more light into the area. Irie edged forward along the rigging. If she could get to the opposite side, she could climb down and escape.
Moving as quickly as she dared, she was nearly across when she heard the bark of a pistol follow another flare of heavy arms fire. Twisting a little, she squinted downward, eyes widening as she spotted her parents.
"Báb-aaah!"
Her call broke off in a cry of surprise as arms suddenly lunged around her waist. Hot breath that smelled of rotted meat washed over her cheek, a smear of something damp running along her chin.
"We has you now!"
The voice was high and gravelly and thoroughly repulsive. Instinctively she tried to tear free with her biotics, but the sudden rush of dark energy only lost her captor his tenuous grip on the rigging. He clung to her as he fell back, his claws digging painfully into her upper arm. Before she could stop herself, they were both falling.
She managed to soften her impact with the ground, avoiding injury. She could not tell where she was in the dark chaos, only that the vorcha was still nearby. As she scrambled to get to her feet, she felt his grip again, catching her about the ankle as he snarled. His tug pulled her back down to her hands and knees.
Twisting, she threw a punch, her small fist cracking hard enough into the side of its grinning face to jar it a bit. Tearing her leg free, she kicked him hard in the teeth, then scrambled up again.
Disoriented, she ran, crying out as the ground suddenly vanished beneath her feet. Hard wood came up under her knees and she fell forward awkwardly, crumpling to the ground at the base of the stairwell she'd inadvertently darted into.
"Irie!"
Her mother's voice rang out from the other side of the stage area. Pushing herself up, cradling her aching arm, the fourteen year old called out.
"Mama!"
Cool air washed over her as the door at her back fell open. Hands like steel grabbed hold of her, pulling her through it.
Shepard, her face lit up in the flare from her pistol, stalked grimly forward as her bullets punched through the vorcha's armor. It collapsed, flailing in its dying throes. She planted a bullet in its brain, stepping over it as another pair of mercs fired on her from the left, the shots hissing past like mad mosquitos.
As she turned her weapon toward them, a great tidal wave of biotics rose up behind them, catching them up as it rocketed toward her, hitting her with enough force to knock her air out, and send her flying off her feet. She slammed into a wall and then dropped to the ground, ears ringing. The limp, heavy body of one of the mercs dropped on top of her, and she shoved him off. She'd lost her pistol when she'd gotten hit, and almost unconsciously she snatched hold of the merc's rifle, pulling it free as she got to her feet.
"Irie!"
Liara's voice, some yards away to her left, all but stopped her heart. She momentarily saw the shadowed form of what looked like an asari rush past, and lifted her rifle to aim at her.
"Mama!"
A bang of a door, her daughter's startled squeal.
Shepard began to run.
Irie had been lifted off her feet by someone much larger than she was. It felt like her back was being pressed against a steel wall, the curve of her captor's armor cutting in to her shoulder blades.
The merc had his or her arm around Irie's waist, holding her off her feet. The cold metal pressed to her head could only be the muzzle of a gun. It felt impossibly huge.
"Try and use your biotics and I'll air you out," said her captor, his voice grating and masculine.
"No you won't," she said breathlessly.
"Won't I?"
"N-No, you did this because you want me alive, not dead-"
"Shut up!"
He gave her ribs a sharp squeeze, hard enough to be painful.
They were still retreating from the backstage door, moving across the grass of the cultivated garden that surrounded the amphitheater. In the distance she could still hear the alarmed crowd, the sound of security arriving.
Then a form ran out the door, and the gun to her temple pressed in harder.
Eír slowed to a halt, but the rippling biotic flame encompassing her like a torch did not die. If anything, it flared even brighter. Her eyes were terrifyingly cold.
"Stay back, freak!" the merc said, continuing to move backward. Eír ignored his direction, walking steadily forward at the same pace that he was backing up. Behind her, two more forms rushed out of the backstage door. Irie couldn't see details around the glow of the biotics, but she didn't need to see them to know exactly who they were.
"You are in trouble now," she said to the merc. "Let me go, or my parents are going to-"
Eír had lifted her hand, narrowing her fingers in a strange, pinching gesture and then twisting them. Irie heard an odd click in her ear. Not recognizing it as the sound of a safety being switched with focused biotics, her entire body jolted with fear, afraid it was the trigger being pulled.
Then the mercs arm was being torn back from her, his body hauled away. Irie hit the grass on her knees, catching herself with her hands. Looking around, her jaw dropped as she saw the merc lifted into the air, struggling against the biotics holding him aloft.
When she and her sister were still small, Shepard had once introduced them to an archaic game that human children still often played when the weather grew hot. It involved filling pouches of latex with water until they were near to bursting, then tying them off.
They had spent an entire afternoon with a full arsenal of these, the entire family waging a full on water war that had left them quite drenched, laughing, and exhausted.
No part of Irie was laughing now as she watched the merc seem to swell and rupture, exploding in the containment of the biotic bubble as if he were one of those selfsame water balloons- one filled with blood.
Though most of it was contained within the biotic field, Irie felt a few warm spatters on her face. Lifting a hand, she almost gently touched one of them, then looked blankly at the crimson smears on her fingers.
A moment later, arms were descending around her, pulling her close against a familiar warmth, a familiar smell. Liara had arrived.
"Irie! Irie, love, are you hurt?"
"Don't fucking move."
Shepard stepped between the glowing asari and her family, rifle up and her finger on the trigger. The expression on her face was one she had not worn in a very long time- one of furious murder.
The asari slowly lowered her hands, the biotics fading and then disappearing. As she turned toward Del, the look on the human's face only grew more stern.
"Eír."
"Hello, Shepard."
Liara had gotten to her feet, still holding Irie tightly as she did, and turning so that she was between her sister and her daughter. Her own expression was just as stern, blue static dancing around her fingers as she held one hand out in obvious threat.
"Li, get Irie out of here," Del said, not glancing at her wife.
"You cannot fight her alone-"
"I have a feeling if she was here to fight, we'd both be in the same shape as that merc. I'll be all right. You need to take care of Irie."
"She was trying to help, Mama," Irie said, her voice soft and dull against Liara's shoulder. "I think she was trying to help…"
Liara's gaze wavered in uncertainty, and she lowered her hand. Eír had left Del alive on V-Day, and had not bothered them in the fifteen years since. Though Liara was still hesitant to trust her, Shepard was right. Eír had torn that man apart with her biotics as easily as popping a soap bubble. Had she wanted to harm any of them, she could have.
Still, it was only with great reluctance and concern for her daughter that she finally withdrew, keeping an arm tightly around Irie's shoulders as she guided her toward the distant crowd.
Shepard waited until her family was at a sufficient distance, before she slowly lowered the rifle. "Should have known you'd pop up again sooner or later. What are you doing here, Eír?"
"As I recall, you asked me to watch over Liara, to keep her safe. I assumed that extended to her children, as well."
"You had to have known within weeks of V-Day that I didn't die in those chambers. Why show up here? Why now? Who the fuck were those mercs, and what did they want with my daughter?"
"Those mercs are 'why here', and 'why now'," Eír replied. "They call themselves Orthrus."
"I've heard mention of Orthrus," Shepard said, glancing at the mutilated remains. "Liara's said the name. Some kind of infiltration group, rumored to be clandestine…parasites to other gangs."
"Yes. That is how they started…just a rumor, shadowy paranoia. I worked for Aria T'Loak for a time, after the war. It was not long before we started hearing those rumors…that members of her syndicate, her most trusted, might in fact be truly working for someone else. To say she was pissed would be an understatement. She started weeding through her own men, determined to clear out any possible traitors. In the end, I cannot say she ever actually found any, but the rumors persisted…and spread. Eclipse, Blue Suns, Blood Pack. All started with the same stories…their troops being turned into double agents, working in secret for another boss. The name Orthrus began to be spread. If you do ID scans on the dead mercs, I am sure you'll find they link up to ten different merc groups, with no traceable connection to one another."
"Until now. What did they want here, Eír?"
"They wanted Irie."
"Why?"
"To get to you, of course. I do not know their entire plan, Shepard. I am not one of them, and it was with great difficulty and almost pure happenstance that I learned enough to send me here. Whatever the agenda of this Orthrus, and whomever might lead it, I have not yet been able to discover. After this, I suspect that Liara will put a great deal of her time and energy into finding these things out. All I can tell you is that they wanted Irie, alive. A live hostage against the hero of the galaxy. They would view that as a smart commodity-"
"And you?"
"I would view it as an exceptionally stupid one. I have fought you, Del. More than that, I have seen what you have wrought. I was there during V-Day. I saw the fleets, the infantry fighting through London. I was there on Tuchanka when you cured the genophage, and I saw you struggling with the last of your strength in the Council chambers. To come against you via your family…they would be smarter to put their guns to their own heads and get it done with."
Del stared at her a moment, then nodded slowly. "Thank you for your help, Eír. You may well have saved my daughter's life, and for that…I can never repay you."
"I have a lot to make up for, Shepard," Eír replied. "Even freed of Gellian's curse, I have…not done things that I am proud of. I considered my life over with, and what does pain or harm matter then?"
She straightened suddenly, taking a deep breath. "I will stay in contact with Liara and her network, and let her know should I discover anything else about Orthrus. I do not think that they will attempt anything like this again, at least…not soon."
She turned and walked away across the grass, not once glancing back.
Authorities had arrived and were picking over the mess in the back of the amphitheater, talking to witnesses. The mercs attack had not been without casualties. Two of the stagehands for the recital had been found executed- though fortunately none of the children waiting for their turn on stage had been injured.
Del found her family seated at one of the tables ringing the back of the amphitheater, a medic looking over Irie. Liara sat at her side, one arm around her daughter's shoulders. The girl's eyes and cheeks were dark and damp, and Liara was whispering softly to her.
Melara, seated nearby with Navis, spotted Del first. Launching up to her feet she ran over, flinging her arms around Shepard's neck as the woman stooped to catch and lift her. "Bába! Are you ok?"
"Shh, I'm fine, sweetheart. It's over with."
Carrying her over to the others she set her down beside Liara, gently prying her daughter's arms from around her neck, before looking in concern at Irie.
"She ok?" She asked the medic.
"She's frightened, of course. She has a few scratches on her arm and is a bit battered around, but she's not seriously hurt."
Del nodded, reaching over and touching her daughter's knee. "Hey, Nub…how are you doing?"
Irie looked at her, her stormy violet eyes holding that distant glass that spoke of shock. Del felt the fury rising in her again, a desire to bring those goddamn mercs back to life just so she could tear them apart with her bare hands for even daring to breathe on her Irie…for putting that look on her face.
"I am ok, Bába," she said, her voice still soft and distant. "I am tired, and want to go home."
"Yeah, sure kiddo. We're going home. Right now."
The medic looked at her hesitantly. "They may want to talk to you about what happ-"
Del's glare snapped her mouth shut. "They know where to find me if they have any questions," she said firmly. "Right now, I am taking my family home."
The medic immediately stammered something and retreated, but Del hardly heard her. She lifted Mel up again as Liara urged Irie to her feet. She obeyed, staying close under Liara's protective arm as they headed away from the mess.
Carrying her youngest, Shepard's eyes nevertheless searched every shadow, every face they passed. For fifteen years they had finally lived with peace.
It seemed that peace was now over.
Del was absolutely positive of one thing, however. If anyone came near her children again, what she'd done to the Reapers and the Illusive Man would be child's play, compared to what she'd do to them.