"That's a yagh?" Crow exclaimed as Joker showed off the picture he'd pulled up on his omni-tool. "By the Light..."
"She bloody punched that?" Ken let out an impressed whistle. He and Gabby were leaning in between the Hunter and the pilot to get a better look, along with a few others who happened to be in the mess.
"She said she did." Crow told him, taking a sip of water and trying not to let the crowd bother him- or at least trying not to show that it did.
"And you believe it?" Goldstein questioned incredulously.
"Her hand was broken in seven different places. Yes, I believe it." He waved his own hand about as an example. "Chakwas wasn't too impressed, though."
"Did she say why she punched a yagh?" Gabby asked, still sounding mystified.
"Something about breaking his shield? Apparently bullets weren't working." He shrugged. She was definitely channeling a Titan in there, that's for sure.
"No omni-blade, no knife, just straight up-" Joker struck out with his fist to punctuate the sentence. He held out the picture of the yagh as if to get a better look at it, before shaking his head. "Right, show's over, probably shouldn't be looking at something this ugly while we're trying to eat, anyway."
"I'll second that." Ken says as he and Gabby settle in on Crow's right. "Not to sound dramatic, but I heard they killed the First Contact party way back when, even ate them."
"Kenneth, you're being dramatic. They did not eat them." Gabby poked him in the side with her elbow as she sat down beside him.
"Where's you proof? Everyone who was there was dead, and it's not like they'll declassify the footage anytime soon." The other engineer argued, rubbing the spot where she elbowed him. "If someone let it slip they got eaten before it was officially classified, who's to say it's not true?"
"Didn't you second no more yagh at the table?" Crow pointed out, waving a fork with a mushroom speared on the end of it in his direction.
"I'm just saying, is all!" Ken threw his hands up in surrender, and Crow rolled his eyes, before focusing on his meal again, resisting the nervous urge to fiddle with his fork instead of using it to eat.
"Sorry again, about last night." He manages before stuffing food in his mouth so that he had an excuse for taking too long to speak if his apology received a negative response.
"Ain't us you got to apologize to; what did the bloody table ever do to you?" Ken shook his head between shoveling food into his mouth. Crow could feel Glint about to materialize and berate the man on his manners, but Gabby beat him to it.
"Kenneth, you're talking with your mouth full again." She flicked his ear. "I'm not saving you again if you choke."
"Again?" Joker asked, deadpan, leaning forwards to stare at the two.
"The definition of insanity is trying the same thing a multitude of times and expecting a different result." Gabby explained vaguely, and Ken made an offended noise. He still had the grace to swallow this time before putting his protest into words.
"I'm not mad! I just don't like leaving a pause in conversation, it's awkward." The bearded engineer defended himself.
"So, you'd rather choke than spare a few seconds chewing and swallowing?" Crow inquired. "As opposed to making it more awkward by showing everyone your half-chewed food when you speak like a toddler? What if you mispronunciate and it sounds like something offensive?"
"Everybody's a bloody critic." The man said around another mouthful of food, this time clearly on purpose, but there didn't seem to be any bad blood between anyone, for which Crow was grateful.
"In... um, relation to last night, why did you guys all join the Alliance?" He inquires curiously. He's heard a bit about what Alliance life is like, and a fair amount about why certain people on board had joined Cerberus, but nothing about why people had joined the Alliance. "Joker, you could've gone a professional jumpship racer, if they have something like that around here, and surely there's more uses for technical skills than a warship."
"Eh, I thought about going pro, no jumpships around here though, remember?" Joker twirled his fork between his fingers. "But my family's had their fingers in military aviation since planes were just tubes with wings soldered on and only good for dropping bombs. My parents helped build Arcturus, so I grew up around military ships. Going pro racer was just... boring in comparison, and I figured it had been too long since a Moreau was actually at the helm of a ship. Never pictured myself doing anything else. That, and I wanted to get back at the assholes who said I couldn't do it."
"I went into it because chicks dig a man in uniform." Ken stated, sleeking back his hair and winking at a crewmate across the room(who promptly flipped him off). "That, and I had an interest in experimental drive cores. Best way to get in on making the latest tech is going military. They make everything first, everything civilians get it what trickles down after new comes along, been that way since the dawn of man."
"I'm pretty sure if you asked dirt-eaters like Shepard, most would say something along the lines of 'doing my duty to serve humanity'." Joker made his voice deeper and took on a stoic look. "'For the protection of our people, to-'"
"Actually, I did it to get out of foster care and smash some batarian heads in." They all jumped, twisting in their seats to look at the grinning Commander. "Technically, I faked my age, but by now I'm sure they can't really do anything if they find out about it."
"'Ei, 'ommn 'er." Ken gave her a tiny wave, accidentally spitting crumbs onto Gabby's shoulder.
"Kenneth, ew!" She exclaimed, while Joker simply stared at Shepard with a reddening face, for once at a loss for words.
"Should you be up?" Crow inquired, looking down at her wrapped arm and hoping to steer out of the awkward moment."
"After yesterday, Chakwas and I both were hoping to get a better assessment of where those healing skills of yours are at. I volunteered." She shrugged, before regarding Joker with an amused expression. "No offense taken, by the way."
"Have I ever seemed worried about offending people to you?" The pilot finally found his voice again. "Crow, glow her up. Make it blind her. See if she ever mistakes me as being worried about causing offense again."
"How would that..." Crow trailed off as he tried to find just how blinding Commander Shepard would prevent such misunderstandings.
"Can't see things that aren't there if she can't see, can she?" The other man huffed.
"I'm not blinding anyone." Crow sighed, before regarding Shepard's hand nervously. "Are you sure about this? Yesterday was an emergency, and bone fights me alot, so I'm not sure what good it will do you."
"Chakwas already set the bones." Shepard told him. "Just do what you can, we're only looking for a baseline. I like to know what my crew is capable of. We can wait until you're done eating, just meet me in port observation after."
"Sure thing, Commander." The Hunter nodded, and the N7 left them to twist back around in their seats.
"Well, that was-" Joker started, flicking the brim of his hat up with his thumb.
"Awf 'merd?" Ken interjected only, to Crow's alarm, make an awful noise and started pounding on his chest. Gabby rose quickly, angrily, from her seat and made her way behind him.
"Dammit, Kenneth, I told you!"
Crow strode toward port observation still slightly put out from both Gabby's impromptu lesson on the heimlich maneuver, and Liara's sudden arrival as he left. He'd caught the tail end of Joker's greeting, which had sounded like an innuendo if he'd ever heard one(and he's heard a lot, The Shore being The Shore).
Well, at least I know what to do now. And at least the other engineer was okay. Hopefully he takes our advice and breaks that habit.
He entered the observation deck, and found Shepard to in his immediate line of sight. She stood in front of the window, fidgeting with her less injured hand, her back facing him as she gazed at the churning terminator zone of the planet below them. He walked up to stand beside her, and found he much preferred this view of Hagalaz to his groundside experience from earlier. He had always found it... calming, to watch planets from above. Sometimes, when he had spare fuel or time from a task Spider had given him, he would pick the nearest world, park in orbit, and he and Glint would simply sit in silence and observe.
"How's that drell doing?" He asked, to pick up the conversation. Liara's friend had been in bad shape, and Crow hadn't seen the full extent of it, Chakwas had put up a curtain around his bed for privacy.
"You would know more than me." Shepard told him, not looking away from the whorls of atmospheric activity below them. "You live in the med bay."
"She doesn't let me stay for stuff that intense." Crow shrugged. "Needs her focus. Can't have that if I'm in there lurking."
"Maybe she'll find more for you to do as you get more disciplined with this healing thing." She finally turned to look at him. "But that's not all I wanted to discuss with you. We've got all the intel we need to remove the bomb, I thought you might want to discuss it away from the others."
Almost immediately, he feels a burst of anxiety from Glint's end of their Link. It's okay. He tries to reassure his Ghost. You know this has to be done. You know I'll be there.
"Your hands are messed up." He pointed out after taking a deep breath in an attempt to banish his own fears. "Ever disarmed a bomb with with broken fingers?"
"As a matter of fact, yes, I have." She smirked. "But no, it isn't ideal. I was hoping you could allieviate that problem a little, but I'm not the only trained EOD specialist on board. Garrus will take over if you have trouble with this healing thing, unless you would rather wait for Chakwas to finish having her way with me."
"I'll..." he tries to feel out Glint's opinion on the matter, but as usual when faced with talk of inevitably opening him up for this herculean task, the Ghost had clammed up. "I'll have to think about it, but I would rather do it sooner rather than later, Glint is already stressed out waiting, I don't want to make him wait more."
"Once Liara is settled, we'll go into port on the Citadel so your team can run some more controlled final checks on the transmat system." Shepard informed him. "We can disarm an dispose of the bomb while we're at it. And... I guess I should let you all cut loose for a bit of shore leave, after. Start your bomb-free life out-"
"Not with a bang, I hope?" He raised an eyebrow, and Shepard fumbled with her words, face flushing.
"Poor choice of words. My bad." She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly only to flinch when the hand she used decided to remind her that she had punched a yagh earlier.
"Just, give me that." He offered her his hand. "Before you make a poor choice of gesticulation."
"You're starting to sound like Chakwas." She snorted, giving him her worst hand.
"I'll take that as a compliment." He stated. "Hold still."
He pulled on his Light, feeling the swollen flesh and broken blood vessels. Cracked bone and damaged tendons. He knit the cracks as best he could, and coaxed the burst capillaries back into an undamaged state. He made the loose blood reabsorb into the body, soothed the tendons, and convinced the flesh that it didn't need to swell as much. He tries to do more to the bones, but they fight him just as they had before, so he settles for what little he can do. The result is that the bones seemed like they had been damaged a week ago.
Shepard took a sharp breath, releasing it slowly as he continued the process up her forearm until all of the bruises and swelling were gone. He then repeated the process with her other hand, though this one wasn't as damaged. Having done all he can do, he let his Light go and visually inspected his work. Shepard fexed her fingers gingerly, a perplexed look on her face as they both examined the unbruised, much less swollen flesh.
"Don't do that." He warned, gently stilling the action. "They're still broken, let Chakwas handle the rest."
"That I can feel." She turned her hand over with a wince. "But they don't look broken. Damn, that's weird."
"Let's go show Chakwas and get you squared away." He gestured to the door. The Commander nodded, distracted still by the state of her hands, as they made their way out of the observation deck. Glint's distress still hadn't quieted, and he tried to coax him out, to comfort him subtly with the Light as his Ghost often did for him, but his friend wouldn't budge. He tried not to show his unease as they made their way through the crew deck.
Glint, please let me help. Silence. He knew his Ghost was afraid, but he's never been this silent before. I know you're scared of this. You've always been the one to push me through the things that I fear, the things that are necessary. You've always kept me upright through it all.
Still silence.
Please, just talk to me. Tell me what you need.
The doors to the med bay open, and he's glad Shepard is in front of him and Chakwas has her back turned, because he knows his expression falters when a tiny, frightened voice whimpers across their Link in a way that breaks his heart.
"I don't want to be taken apart again..."
Please, I love Glint, I swear! I'm just addressing the fact that Crow probably wasn't the only one traumatized by Spider's tender love and care. This was compounded by my opinion that they let Spider off a little too easy in canon. I can only assume that the 'little lies' Crow mentioned telling when he got to the city included never telling anyone he used to 'work' for Spider. If he had, the Vanguard probably would have let Saladin punt Spider into the sun for putting a bomb in a Ghost, as that sounds like the kind of thing Warlords would have done, and definitely would have earned him a visit from a Titan with a literal axe to grind.
Jebest4781: :)
Gartos: I have some more Destiny stuff planned to take place in the sequel, but I prefer to focus on Mass Effect's primary plot lines rather than muddying the water with Destiny's legion of subplots. One wrong sentence about whispers could have people thinking I have plans for Ahamkara magic when I don't.
JGThorncross: Ooof, that bad? I just kind of took a break for a bit, but the potential for Wrath being the next raid drew me back. The current season has better writing, but too little too late. The anime was My Hero Academia. I made partway through season 2 before I got sick of the constant screaming( from one character in particular), and learned the rest of the story through fanfiction and wikipedia.
Guest: :)
Knightwolf1875: Thanks!
Guest: see Thorncross reply.
Hornig3: Oh, don't worry. Crow has plenty of feeling on the Shadow Broker role next chapter.
Jctherebel: :)
Edboy4926: Perhaps through the cryptolith, I'll have to check the lore. No freaking way, I thought she sounded familiar. She does 'unhinged war psuedo-god' very well.
NotLeviathan: Thanks! Crow is part of team Charlie, that's what that was. Charlie is referred to collectively.
Kataang00: I'm glad you're enjoying it!
S290138: Sadly, I know very little about Pacific Rim and have never really been interested in it.
Expect updates to be late more frequently; new job means more staring at a blank document while my brain goes 'you clocked out, didn't you? DiDN't YoU?'
All I'll say on the matter of the Final Shape reveal is that they better bring on the same A-Game they did in Witch Queen and pull it off correctly. And that they aught not to leave certain subjects untouched just because they don't want to write drama. I'm part convinced now that they killed a certain character off to make things less complicated, rather than embracing the potential plots that her being alive and potentially together with a certain bird boy might bring.
Fare Thee Well!