This chapter covers quite a time frame, I think it came out pretty well a few sections I am kinda eh about. Please leave a review of the story so far, I would really appreciate feedback so I can try and make this story a better experience for you all it can be grammar, story points I don't mind.
Everything was silent, my pistol drawn and pointing at the spot the Salarian had just been standing now he lay on the ground blood pooling around him, still alive his breathing was intermittent blood building in his throat as his lungs filled with blood. I had fired three shots in quick succession the first one was absorbed by his shields while the second two shots had torn into his chest leaving a sizeable hole in not just his armour but also his body.
As he lay dying in front of me I couldn't look away no matter how much I wanted to his limbs were beginning to shake violently and the colour was rapidly leaving his skin he was dying slowly, painfully and alone in this dark backstreet. My hand began shaking I grabbed down on it with my other hand bringing my pistol arm to rest down by my side, but the shaking wouldn't stop. The Salarian had stopped moving now, the raspy breathing had stopped and sound finally returned to me.
"Xha? Xha come in? Respond damn it?" The Salarian's Omni-tool was on his fellow officers desperately trying to contact him but he would never answer. The sound of running was coming from all directions the few people who had been in the side streets had taken off at the sound of gun fire. I was now alone with nothing but a corpse for company.
"The other officers will be here soon we have to go." Sovereign's voice finally broke through. "We can't stay here, he died so that untold trillions could live we have to leave!" His voice was forceful this time. Without thinking I turned away from the man I had just murdered and began to run. The sound of pursuing agents quieter as I ran back to the main streets as I approached the path that would take me back to the crowds I saw crowds were gathering at the entrance while a group of C-sec agents kept the crowd away. I turned to head back towards the backstreets but the ever increasing noise of my pursuers forced he to realise that was futile, they had been surrounded my cloak was nowhere near ready to be used again and there were no side streets to flee through. I was trapped.
"Carolus listen to me." Another women's voice a voice I had not heard before came from my mind. It was soothing yet forceful enough to demand my attention. "His death was inevitable; everyone we kill dies so that we can with Shepard save countless lives. I remember what it was like to take a life for the first time it is a defining moment of a person's life." The sound of the approaching agents who were by now clearly going to be after my blood were close enough for me to make out conversations as they barked orders at each other while others swore to take my life make me suffer for killing a fellow officer. "But right now, the greatest dishonour you could do for that officer would be to fail now. Every person you have to kill do not see it that way, they are just another victim of the Reapers, they killed him not you they are just another person you couldn't save." Her words brought me to a realization, I may have pulled the trigger but this wasn't my fault. No I was not to blame not directly I wasn't good enough, wasn't strong enough to save him from them. The officers running towards me, I am not strong enough to save them yet, I needed to get stronger.
"He is over here!" I was interrupted as the first group of C-sec agents arrived weapons drawn aimed directly at me. I had put my pistol away as I had run away from my pursuers but here they were the ones containing the crowd had now let through another group to confront me while they kept the civilians back. I was now surrounded by C-sec agents who were heavily armed and looking for revenge, but for the sake of the Salarian who died alone in that ally I wasn't about to fall here.
"Drop your weapons and get on the ground!" Shouted one of the officers as his comrades slowly approached looking for any excuse to put me down.
"Or don't that would work to!" Another bellowed the rage in her voice clearly showing. If only they knew where they should be directing that rage. It should be at the Reapers not me, I was trying to save them.
"I am so sorry." My voice was quiet barely audible to any but the closest of them. "I am so sorry."
"What's he saying?" One of the agents further back asked.
"He says he is sorry." One of the closer ones replied. "Yea well sorry isn't going to cut it! You are going to pay for what you did!" Another yelled in anger. "I won't say it again get on the ground NOW!"
"It's okay Carolus, together we will make the Reapers pay for what they have done, what they are going to do but for now we have to live and for that to happen these people stopping us have to die." As the mystery Shepard finished talking I could feel a surge of power flow through my body, I remembered this feeling I couldn't recall when I felt it but It felt safe and calming.
"I am sorry…. I couldn't." I paused for a moment the build-up of power began leaking into the very air around me as my casual clothing faded and my armour returned.
"What the fuck?" One of the officers stuttered as a few of them back off slowly. "Sorry you couldn't what?" The closest one asked.
"Save you." I saw flickering strands of red lash around me as loose pieces of debris got snapped up into the air.
"Shit take him down! Open fire!" The thunder of guns soon ripped through the air but so was I. I threw myself forwards with my biotics straight into one of the officers in the back ranks sending him flying into a nearby wall with a thud, the rounds his comrades fired being absorbed by my barrier as I slammed my fist into a second one that I pinned against the wall red biotics flowing as my blow collapsed his helmet. As I withdrew my fist his body went limp as he slid down the wall bloody streaks marking where he had been pinned. My body felt light as I moved around the C-sec agents one after the other they tried to stop me but to no avail as most of their shots slammed into the walls and bulkheads. Now with pistol drawn I carved a path towards a side street felling another two of the officers as I made a hasty retreat as more agents arrived and my HUD blaring with notices about my barrier beginning to fail.
"Alexandra how is the barrier holding?" Sovereign asked as I took pot shots at the officers following me down the streets.
"Well enough, thankfully the distortion field is working a significant number of their shots missed us the shots that did hit home have taken a toll but I can hold it." She replied as the I felt the great surge of power slowly ebb away. My breathing was now laboured my legs were beginning to feel heavy more like stone pillars than flesh.
"Aletta can you get any more out of our amps?" Sovereign asked the other Shepard who had by now clearly taken residence in my mind.
"Not without risking the whole network, he will have to manage without the boost." She responded as the sense of calm that had once resonated through my body finally faded.
"What just happened?" I asked as the events of the past few moments finally began to process still not stopping despite gaining significant distance between myself and the officers giving chase.
"Carolus I will explain everything when we are not running for our lives, no scratch that not our lives the lives of the entire galaxy." Aletta responded as I struggled to will my now exhausted body onwards.
"But I just." My mind stopped as the pictures of my brutality flashed before me. "Oh god what have I done?" I managed to blurt out between my now laboured breathing. I didn't stop the sounds of gun fire had stopped and the footsteps of my pursers slowly faded into the distance.
"What you had to." Alexandra's voice was filled with sympathy not the usual patronising tone I had grown accustom to. I let her words and my actions sink in before coming to a stop and slumping against the cold metal wall.
"I can't go any further." I managed to say in-between deep breaths as I attempted to steady my heart rate and regulate my breathing.
"We know." Sovereign responded. "It's okay, that hatch on the wall opposite do you see it?" I brought my gaze away from the floor and saw a panel that was on a set of hinges and not welded like that rest.
"Yea I see it." I replied as I holstered my pistol and shifted my body to allow me to look across from my current position.
"It is an entrance to the Keeper tunnels they won't look for us in there but it isn't the safest of spaces, but we will be able to regroup there." With that said Sovereign and the other Shepard's faded from my mind. The sound of footsteps returned as my pursers now picked up my trail not wanting to get into another fight or rather not being able to I dragged my body over to the panel before lifting it open and throwing my mostly limp body down the tunnel and into the descending darkness.
Shepard
This was not how she had expected her day to unfold. Wake up on the Normandy feeling like the morning after shore leave check, fail to arrest a man who was less than ten feet from her check, then follow instructions from said man and get caught in the middle of a shakedown of a med clinic check, and now here she was in the middle of a full on fire fight in the middle of a seedy bar on the citadel of all places, with a Turian C-sec agent and a Krogan bounty hunter for company.
"Fuck my life." She muttered to herself as she watched another one of the bar's defenders try to advance across open ground only for Garrus to remove the poor guy's head from his shoulders with his sniper rifle. The Krogan called Wrex was off to her right bulldozing his way through anyone that didn't have the brains to get out of his way.
While she herself was also working away on her fair share of bodies. One of them had gotten the smart idea to climb on top of the bar and use its height to fire down on her and her new found allies, sadly this left him largely in the open and unprotected. Shepard sabotaged his rifle with a quick tech attack, the poor guy clearly not being a trained fighter and more like hired muscle loudly cursed as he smacked his gun over and over trying to get it to work right up until the moment she fired two shots into his face with her pistol, and needless to say that was the end of that.
After flipping a few tables wild west style to use as cover sending cards and glass all over the floor in the process, she and her terrifying team cleared out the rest of the bars 'defenders'.
"All clear here Shepard." Garrus said as he looked over a few of the bodies to see if any of them were still alive.
"Well that was not fun." Wrex muttered as he lumbered over towards her. "When the Shadow Broker hired me for this job I thought he might have given me at least a good fight, but this would hardly be considered warm up." The old Krogan looked over at the bar before grabbing the seemingly only glass that had survived the shootout and fixed himself a quick drink before continuing. "Can't stand this Citadel crap." He added as he tossed the glass against the wall with a satisfying crash.
"Let's just get Fist and be done with this." She said as they made their way over to the rear door leading to Fist's office. As the door opened she was greeted by two more goons holding guns.
"Stop right there or we will shoot." One of them whimpered as he shakenly held up his pistol.
"Store workers." Garrus whispered as he and Wrex trained their weapons on the two clearly terrified workers. These must be the last of the staff she thought to herself as she decided that killing backroom workers was a little unnecessary.
"We just killed thirty of your friends back there." She said as she gestured behind her. "It's quite a mess and I don't really want to make another one in here." She added raising her pistol into the face of one of the two. 3….2….1. She thought to herself as the two men dropped their weapons and ran out the door.
"Would have been quicker to just kill them." Wrex shrugged as they made their way into Fist's office.
"Fist, I was wondering if we could have a nice long chat." Garrus said as he rounded the corner into the office.
"Get fucked you Turian piece of shit!" Fist replied as two personal defence turrets came online.
"Nope." She chuckled as she brought up a quick program on her Omni-tool that shut them down before they could even spin up.
"Pieces of junk!" Fist retorted as Wrex dragged him out from behind his desk and threw him at her feet.
"Now I need to ask you some questions about a Quarian." She said as she knelt down in front of him pistol in hand.
"Sure Quarian what do you wanna know?" It always amazed her how quickly so called tough guys talked whenever they felt just a little threatened, mind you what she and her new found friends had done in the other room was a bit more than a little threating.
After a few minutes of Fist fumbling around his words with her waving her pistol around she got what she wanted.
"I set her up to meet Saren's men, she thinks she is meeting the Shadow Broker directly, no one meets him directly not even I know who he or she is. When she gets there what you're looking for will be gone." He answered as he let out a laugh.
"Where is the meeting point." Garrus demanded as he rammed his pistol into Fist's nether region.
"A back alley in the wards I will give you the navigation point just don't kill me!" He pleaded as he quickly send over the nav point via Omni-tool.
"Alright let's move we don't have much time." She said as she nodded to Wrex and headed to the exit while Wrex did what he was paid to do.
It didn't take long to reach the meeting point and as soon as they did the bullets started flying. There was an explosion as one of the Salarian's that had gotten a little too close to the Quarian went flying into the wall. Garrus took a position atop the stairs while Wrex charged off towards the remaining targets shotgun in hand, while she had life a nightmare for them disabling armour joints, overloading shields and frying any tech she could hack her way into.
The battle didn't take long Saren had only send a handful of agents to deal with what he thought would be a simple child clearly not expecting A Krogan to come barrelling to the rescue guns blazing. With the last of them dispatched She gestured for the others to put their guns away as she approached the Quarian.
"Who are you?" The Quarian was clearly on edge even without being able to see her face, it was clear from her posture and tone of voice.
"Relax, my name is Commander Shepard, I am looking for evidence for who organised the attack on Eden Prime." She raised her hands to try and ease the tension, the last group of people the Quarian had met they tried to kill her. Shepard needed to know what she knew.
"Then I have a chance to repay my debt, but not here we need to go somewhere safe." She replied seemingly easing up it was hard to tell without facial expressions to read. She had never seen a Quarian before today, or a Krogan for that matter not in person anyway this day was just getting weirder and weirder.
"We can take her to the human embassy it should be save there." Garrus suggested.
"Good idea Udina will want to know what we have, and make the arrangement with the council." She agreed that it would be the best course of action but before they could get going, her Omni-tool received a message, it was from Kaidan.
"C-sec found Carolus, you're not going to like this."
Carolus
When I finally opened my eyes I couldn't even see the hatch I had crawled into I had no idea how far I had fallen or how long I had been laying there motionless but I didn't really want to think about it either. It was welcoming the only sound being my own breathing the cold hard metal felt safe, I wished I could just lay here, let them find me let this nightmare end let the universe take its natural course what happens will happen, I just wanted this hell I had found myself in to end. Anyone who thought this universe could be a great adventure was narrow minded.
"Carolus your body should be ready to move now. Lets' get going." Aletta's voice was an unwelcome end to my silence.
"Why bother?" My voice was deflated; I had done nothing right since the moment I had awoken on Eden Prime who ever I was supposed to be was clearly not what I was. "I am clearly not what you all intended when you started this mission, what use is a broken solider?"
"The man you were supposed to be isn't relevant anymore, we work with what we have if you are even a half of the man we had before…. Look if we work together we can get through this." My response was just to close my eyes again I just felt so tired.
"Why should I care about what happens to this universe?" I muttered under my breath. My gloomy mood was cut short as a sudden burst of pain erupted through my chest.
"You want to know why you should care!?" Alexandra's voice was full with malice and rage. The burning pain began spreading throughout my body, I tried to scream but no sound would come out. "Countless people will feel a pain much worse than this, and those that survive till the end will live with the pain of knowing the trillions that died so that their insignificant lives could be extended just a little longer. While the Reapers destroy and corrupt all they come across!" The burning sensation was now filling what felt like every cell in my body, before vanishing in an instant.
"Now move, get up stop being a coward and do what only you can do." Sovereign added as I still lay in a feeble heap on the floor.
"Or we can do that again." Alexandra said without a hint of remorse for what she had just put me through. "You will do what we brought you here to do or I will personally put you through the worst levels of hell. You are one person, if we have to kill you we will but we are giving you a chance to do some good and help us save untold numbers of lives." As I lay there I thought what kind of person must I have been to willingly go along with this plan? Was I good man that wanted to help? Or an adventure seeker just doing it because it would be a journey one would dream about? No that didn't matter anymore I could decide who I wanted to be from now on, I would forge a new identity.
"I am sorry Alexandra, I…." I was interrupted by my Omni-tool going off as I shifted to allow myself to sit up I saw it was Shepard.
"I have done your little song and dance, just be thankful what I found is useful. Udina has already heard the evidence and we will be presenting it to the council. I don't know if it will help after what you have done. I get to ask a question now, but I want to do it face to face. Turn yourself in, we will do what we can for you but this has to stop."
I sat there a moment so she did it I thought to myself. She is now firmly on the tracks that will lead us to salvation, or the end of the universe as she knows it the only thing question now was would I be along for the ride.
"We need to get to the council chambers." Sovereign interjected.
"It will be heavily guarded would they even have the meeting there?" I asked picking myself up off the floor, the tunnels weren't exactly large but I could still stand in them with my back hunched slightly.
"We use the cloak obviously but it will be heavily guarded but we need to be there." Sovereign responded before starting to give me the directions to the council chambers.
Luckily the keeper tunnels run throughout the Citadel after short while I was spat out at another section of the wards. Having changed back into casual attire I made my way steadily to the presidium, the increased number of C-sec agents was evident from the moment I re-joined the main streets, teams of three or four agents all heavily armed were at most major stations, more pictures of me were circulating the electronic advertisement booths and walls along with Citadel news net reporting on the deaths of the C-sec agents I had so ruthlessly dealt with.
The entrances to the council chambers was heavily guarded, despite my reservations Aletta assured me that they couldn't detect my cloaking. Taking a deep breath, I activated the cloak and made my way towards the chambers.
Shepard
For the second time that day she was standing in front of the three most powerful people in the galaxy, as the Quarian called Tali began to play the audio file she had acquired which she will admit must have taken an extreme amount of technical skill which was extremely impressive considering how young she appeared, she couldn't stop thinking about what Charles was doing.
"Eden Prime was a major victory; the beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit." Saren's voice was unmistakeable his sense of arrogance and pride was sickening to hear.
"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers." The second voice was female; she didn't recognise it.
"Letting Carolus live was stupid, he could de-rail everything, you should have killed him He won't stop until he has killed us all and your new masters." The third voice was another woman she sounded younger but again she couldn't place the voice.
"Silence I will not be second guessed by a human no matter how useful they are." After Saren's reply the audio ends and the faces of the councillors was priceless.
"You wanted proof their it is." Udina said clearly as he gestured towards the council.
"This evidence is irrefutable ambassador Saren shall be stripped of his Spectre status and all attempts will be made to make him pay for his crimes." The Turian councillor was the first to speak while he had been hostile before it seems being presented with clear evidence has a way of changing his tune.
"I recognise one of the other voices, the one that spoke about the Reapers. Matriarch Benezia." The Asari councillor sounded dejected at this revelation.
"Who is she?" She asked.
"Matriarchs are powerful Asari who have entered the final stage of their lives. Revered for their wisdom and experience. They serve as guides and mentors to my people. Matriarch Benezia is a powerful biotic with many followers she will make a formidable ally for Saren."
"I am more interested in the Reapers what can you tell us about them?" The Salarian councillor asked clearly more interested in the unknown quantity.
"Only what was extracted from the Geth's memory core. That the Reapers were an ancient race of machines that wiped out the Protheans. Then they vanished." Anderson responded.
"The Geth worship the Reapers thinking of them as gods and that Saren will lead them to them." She added, the word Reapers made her feel uneasy, whether this was just because of the ties to the grim reaper for something else she couldn't say.
As the councillors looked at each other trying to make sense of what was being said a shot rang out through the air. Instinctively Shepard reached for her sidearm and spun around the others were also looking around trying to determine were the shot had come from, a barrier had formed in front of the councillors as C-sec agents moved into to secure them. Before long a second and third shot was heard. This time the shooters were located it was the sniper teams overlooking the chamber. Shepard looked around trying to locate what they were shooting at before she felt a hand on her shoulder but saw no one.
"Hey Shepard so what was your question?" A familiar voice asked before the flicker of Carolus tactical cloak faded and he collapsed face first on the floor blood began pooling beneath him almost immediately.
On A roll ladies and Gentlemen Three Chapters in Three weeks. I have sorted out my assignments for the most part of I am putting a fair amount of time into this story now. All up this chapter took around twelve hours or work so its no easy feat to find the time when I have work to do also :P
If you want to ask me questions or be notified on story progress you can find the link to my twitter handle on my profile. Anyway almost fifty followers now, that was unthinkable to me so thank you all for following Carolus's story he is a bit of a whiny one I know but how would you like to be dropped in a life and death situation with no memory and three voices nagging you :P
Lord Castor Out!