A/N: Well, this chapter is late as fuck. Sorry about that, by the way. But this chapter was a bitch to write, combined with writers block, combined with finishing over due course work from by diploma, and starting my extended diploma, it means that writing suddenly became a headache. Though hopefully I'll get this story done within the next month or two, plus fixing the first 5 or 10 chapters that I now realise suck balls.
Still, it will be done! Just not as quickly as I had hoped. Enjoy the new chapter!
~ I don't own mass effect, Bioware and EA does ~
24.03.0005 PRW
Citadel
Krogan Embassy
The Asari Matriarch had played with the shadows for more than three hundred years, but she still choked when her daughter revealed the extent of her knowledge. She couldn't help but stare at her daughter as the young maiden gave a small bitter smile and crossing her arms under her chest.
"I don't know what you're talking about" she tried weakly.
The bitter smile was replaced with that of insult.
"My information network is vast, do not insult my Intelligence or my capabilities by saying otherwise."
Wrex laughed, which drew a look of ire from the off balance Matriarch, and Liara used the opening to take a step forward and ask the question she had come to ask.
"Why did the Republic attack Zaire? What was their goal?"
Aethyta took a step back, Liara was looking far less cold and far more enraged. Letting the mask slip and show the anger that was currently being directed at her.
"They were afraid that Shepard would let slip about some major secret of the Republic, so they wanted to shut her up before she could tell the Shadow Broker or the Council" she answered truthfully.
Her estranged daughter seemed to pause, and Aethyta could practically see the incredibly smart mind of hers juggling facts and creating scenarios. After a few seconds of silence, her daughter straightened, and turned to Wrex, a single tattoo raised in question.
"She's not lying as far as I can tell" the Krogan said, shrugging his armoured shoulders.
Liara nodded, apparently trusting Wrex's judgement, and turned back to Aethyta with a contemplating look on her eyes.
"Then why save Shepard? My Intel suggested that you dislike her for what she has apparently done to me."
Later Aethyta would look back at this moment and see how blatantly she was manipulated by her daughter, but in the moment her rage for the Human blinded her to the obvious prod at her issue with the first human Spectre.
"She abandoned you, twice, to work for supremacist terrorist organizations, she's responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 Batarians when she blew up an Athame be damned Relay!"
Pointing a finger at her daughter, she spoke with in increasing anger.
"You were an archeologist, and a damned good one too, but then that Spectre showed up and suddenly your fighting Geth, Mercenaries, your own Goddess be damned mother, and one of the most deadly Turian Spectres on record, all at the same fucking time."
She took a breath, and spoke in a lower tone, bordering on a growl.
"Ten years ago you were an innocent maiden doing what she loved. Now? You're an information broker, fighting terrorists, Republic Commandos, and practically anyone who's getting in that humans way. That human doesn't deserve you, and I only saved her by circumstance."
Through out her entire tirade Liara had stood and listened, and when she finally stopped. The maiden simply held out her hand.
"That is what you see, now you should see what I see."
If Aethyta had been in a better state of mind, she would have probably refused. But her tired and angry brain saw a chance to show her daughter a path away from that manipulating Human, and took it with haste.
She reached out and took her daughter's hand, and aggressively initiated a meld, not bothering to state the words, and Liara let her into her mind. Past some surprisingly powerful mental barriers, and pulled her towards a mental landscape, effectively shutting out the outside world.
Leaving the Embassy behind, Aethyta appeared in a shadowed room, a dark curved desk was placed in the centre, with what appeared to be support colums ringing the edge of the room. Some sort of glowing blue and white energy provided light from behind a glass ceiling, and Aethyta angrily stomped forward, looking for her daughter's presence.
She felt her daughter slowly fade into the room, and Liara appeared sitting in a chair behind the desk, her feet propped up on the table edge as she casually leaned backwards.
Before the angry matriarch could say a word, the desk lit up, information screens flickered to life and information started scrolling downwards like a waterfall, to fast to see the individual letters, but able to see that it was incredibly vast in size.
Her daughter put her feet off the desk and stood up, casually waving away the info screens. A new one appearing at the center of the desk, directly between father and daughter. The new screen depicted a Krogan, two Geth on either side. They appeared to be in some sort of stone ruin, Prothian most likely.
"This" Liara gestured to the screen, "is how I met Zaire Shepard."
Aethyta stared at the unmoving picture, responding with a grunt, "and?"
Liara sighed, "and I would like you to see how things happened, how the events unfolded, from my perspective."
Aethyta wasn't happy with the idea of having to look at this, but she couldn't get her daughter away from Shepard until she could tell what the Human was using to keep her daughter around.
So instead of responding, the crass Matriarch reached out and touched the holo, and the dark room, along with her daughter, faded away. Replaced with the memories of her time at the University of Serrice
She watched as Liara struggled to gain support for her ideas on the Prothian extinction cycle. How she was constantly being sidelined by those who despised her for being a pureblood, and how her daughter tried to convince herself that she was okay on her own, without the worry of friends and family expectations weighing on her shoulders.
The Asari Matriarch watched as she was sent to Therum, a human mining world, where the constant eruption of over a thousand volcanoes across the planet made the uncolonisable world an ideal place to mine for the always needed metals.
With a Prothian facility of some sort discovered when a smaller Human company was prepping an inactive volcano to be mined, the University of Serrice wanted Liara to go and catalog anything of value to be removed for external evaluation.
The trip was made with little issue, but when Liara arrived, she discovered a problem almost immediately. With so many active volcanoes on one planet, the atmosphere was almost uninhabitable, with bio-domes and filter masks used by the Human ground side workers just to be able to breathe. Which meant that Liara needed to spend some of her own money on a filter mask and an air pump to just be able to breathe at the dig site, as the university only sent her the minimal amount of equipment needed to keep the site inhabitable.
Aethyta watched as her estranged daughter forged onwards, hiring a skycar to take out to the ruins, which she also had to pay with her own funds. All the while the Human miners looked at her as if she was a piece of meat on display, which just made Aethyta realise just how much her daughter was alone in the Galaxy.
The angry matriarch watched as her daughters will persevered, and the young archeologist reached the dig site, set up her equipment, and started to look around for anything interesting.
After a quick flash of sped up time, Aethyta watched as her daughter quickly deduced that the ruin was an old Prothian prison. The row upon row of single cells, along with the continuous check points, made it rather obvious to the young maiden.
She watched as Liara spent weeks going over every corner and every possible hiding spot, meticulously cataloging every piece of technology and placing them into crates to be sent back to Thessia. Barely having enough water to drink, never mind enough to wash more than her face.
Things slowed down and became clearer about three weeks after her daughter had arrived at the horrible site. The air filter for the air pump was blocked again, and Aethyta watched as Liara put on another dirty Serrice University uniform, grabbed her Omni-Tool and mask filter, and headed for the surface, the rickety elevator barely staying together as it lifted her to the entrance.
She watched as her daughter barely avoided capture, as the air filter had been destroyed to draw her out by a massive looking Krogan, backed up by what Aethyta recognized as Geth Heretics.
Impressed, Aethyta watched as her daughter blasted the Krogan off his feet and melt the rogue Geth with Warpfire before turning tail and running for the dig site. The roar of the now very pissed off Krogan ordering the Geth to capture her so he could break her legs following her on the wind, along with several of the white coloured Geth that Aethyta recognized as Hoppers.
Liara skipped the battered elevator entirely, instead jumping over the railings and using her biotics to slow her fall. Aethyta could tell from the grunt of effort that her daughter was already tiring, the conditions she had been living in, combined with the large amount of force unleashed on the Krogan meant that fighting wasn't a viable option.
Instead her daughter ran for one of the main Prothian check points, which she had noted early on in her search that it still had power. She had theorized that the power was being drawn from a geothermal power generator that was buried under yet to be uncovered levels below the explored ruins.
The Asari Matriarch initially didn't understand what her daughter was up to, but because this was a memory, she had access to her daughters thought process, and she understood that there was a barrier system that could be activated, and Liara could use her Omni-Tool to wirelessly connect to her terminal and hopefully call for help.
That plan backfired slightly when Liara hit the glowing icon on the main console, and although a powerful Mass Effect kinetic barrier did appeared between her and the pursuing Geth, it also picked the young archeologist off of the floor and pulled her into an X position, using some sort of stasis field.
Trapped and unable to move, Liara was literary stuck until the Krogan on the other side of the barrier could find a way to bypass it and get to her.
Memories sped up again, and Aethyta watched as the Krogan tested both the Barrier itself, and the surrounding rock for a way past it, but both proved to be nearly impervious to both his biotics and his Shotgun blasts.
The Asari Matriarch watched as the Geth moved back and forth. Bringing in pieces of tech that she started to realise it was the main cannon of a Geth armature, which used a combination of plasma and ion particles that was lowered in mass and fired out of a magnetic chamber. It was known for being good at disrupting both biotic and kinetic barriers, which was probably why they were building one.
The Geth built it within a day, though they appeared to be recalibrating it when something happened top side, as both the Krogan and all the Geth that Liara could see moved towards the entrance, drawing their weapons as they went.
A few minutes passed in silence, and then there was a catastrophe of gunfire, the ruins seeming to amplify the sound of the gunfire and blur it into one loud booming tempo, and after what felt to the Asari archeologist like hours, the gunfire petered out.
Silence once again resumed, and the extremely dehydrated and starving Asari thought that she was going to die alone before the sound of the elevator moving filled the empty air. Followed by the screech as it finally gave way and failed.
Tentatively calling out, both father and daughter watched as a different Krogan appeared by the barrier, a female Quarian standing next to him and apparently looking over the mass effect field.
Aethyta immediately recognized Wrex, who's armour was a little scuffed from the apparent fight with the Geth. The Quarian she recognized from the extranet and galactic News. Tali'Zora vas Normandy, and only now did Aethyta realise how young she looked, though the way she held the shotgun in her hands suggested that she at least knew what she was doing with it.
Zora seemed to speak into a private comms channel, and moments later a human and a Turian joined them. The Asari Matriarch quickly spotted the N7 designation on her arm and realised that it was Shepard. The Turian was probably Garrus Vakarian, the ex-C-Sec detective who was now the Primarch's alien advisor. Focusing on the Human more, she watched as the Human seemed to order the three aliens around without much trouble, though she seemed to keep Vakarian and Wrex as far away from each other as possible.
Aethyta watched as the Human finished the Geth cannon, and fired it, disrupting the barrier field long enough for both Shepard and Zora to slip though. The Quarian seemed to attempt to turn off the stasis field via the console her daughter had used, but Shepard apparently got impatient and shot the Eezo emitters embedded into the walls, freeing Liara from the stasis field.
From there it was rather straightforward, with Vakarian and Wrex heading back the way they had came, looking rather irritated with having to be left on their own while so close to each other. Shepard and the Quarian heading towards an old Prothian elevator with the Human having to practically carry her daughter, as she was far too exhausted to make it on her own.
Aethyta started when she felt something exploding underneath the ruins, and thanks to Liara's memories, she quickly understood that the theorized power generator, and that it had probably overloaded from the Geth cannon.
The Prothian prison began heating up, while thick black smoke started to seep into the incredibly slow elevator.
Thankfully the elevator ride was short, and before the smoke started to make the air unbreathable, the elevator came to a stop, revealing that they were next to the entrance to the mining cave that lead to the surface.
Taking the hint, the group made a run for it, with Shepard tacitly picking Liara up and carrying her bridle style in order to get out in time. Smoke was now pouring out of the elevator shaft and she ruins were subtly shaking, making it obvious that the inactive volcano was now anything but.
Exiting the tunnel, Aethyta watched as the group met up with Wrex and Vakarian by a beat up looking Mako, and as the old Normandy SR 1 pulled off a very delicate manoeuvre to get the hanger bay door almost touching the ground. Allowing the Mako to perform a small jump into the bay as the volcano finally began to visibly erupt.
The hanger bay door closed and the Alliance Frigate made for orbit, while a kind looking Female Human arrived in the ship's elevator, carrying a medical bag. Probably the ship's doctor.
From here it was a blur of conversations and questions as Liara's adrenaline ran out and her highly dehydrated and malnourished body caught up with her.
Though the memory briefly sharpened again when Shepard removed her helmet. Time seeming to slow down for Liara, as the young maiden saw the first human Spectre for the first time. Revealing military short black hair, cold green eyes and pale white skin.
Though when Shepard spotted Liara watching her, her eyes seemed to somehow soften, as they briefly made eye contact. The Human Commander smiled slightly, and the change in expression made Liara realise just how beautiful the Human really was, before someone said something over the ship's intercomms, and Shepard's expression seemed to shift from a soft smile to pointed confusion, to internal annoyance, before shifting back to the mask of cold and serious.
From here Aethyta watched as her daughter was told about Nezzy's involvement in the attack on Eden Prime. The fact that the Geth were aligned with Saren, and that Shepard had come into contact with a Prothian Beacon, apparently confirming that her theory that Serrice University had mocked, was perhaps indeed right all along.
It was hours later, after Aethyta had see the last ten years of her daughters life, and understood that her daughter had spent years being an information broker wasn't the humans direct fault, but because of the Collectors, and therefore the Reapers, that the Matriarch finally understood why her daughter stayed at the Humans side.
Aethyta hadn't failed to notice that bits of information were being censored from her, and when she had confronted Liara about it, had been coolly told that she would need to earn the maidens trust before she shared all her secrets.
Subtly, Aethyta had tried to bypass the mental walls, wanting to see what her daughter had been unwilling to share with her, but after getting caught in a rather painful vision of an entire race screaming out in pain, her daughter had caught her and sufficiently scolded her about trying to get past her defences again.
Apparently before Shepard had died, Liara had asked for a copy of the Beacons message, incase there was anything Shepard had missed. Though later on Illium her daughter had bonded it to her minds mental barriers, forcing anyone trying to bypass or break them to see the entire Prothian race getting obliterated, and Aethyta had to admit, using it as defensive mechanism was a pretty good, but really painful idea.
She had also been surprised and alarmed when she felt another presence in Liara's mind, though she quickly changed that to pissed when she discovered that her daughter had become Aethria with Shepard.
The Aethria link was notoriously dangerous, as when one of the partners die, the other can become mentally unstable, a rather pointed example of this was the Eclipses CEO, Jona Sederis, who herself had become Aethria to Turian in her late maiden years. When said Turain died from a raid by a rival mercenary group, Sederis had gone on a crusade to wipe out every last member of the Bloody Talons, and now that the insane Asari was getting close to becoming a Matriarch, the Asari had been getting more and more unstable.
Her worries were partly put to rest with the understanding that Shepard was looking to settle down, with the Humans PTSD making it unlikely for her to be able to return to the battle field for at least a few centuries.
Another thing that made the soul link easier to accept, was Shepard's extended life span, which also gave Aethyta a better understanding of why the Matriarchs were desperate to have the Human killed before she could meet with the Council, as the stubborn and bigoted bitches in in power would refuse to let go of their age limit advantage.
Exiting the meld, Aethyta once again looked around the room, looking at Wrex, who was looking rather bored with his arms crossed in front of his large chest. Urnot Grunt, who Aethyta had learned was trained by Shepard herself, and the Asari Commandos, all of who were loyal to Shepard for what she had done in the War, and for the first time, Aethyta could understand why.
She still didn't like Shepard, but with time, and plenty of alcohol, there was a possibility of that changing.
Please note that updates will be erratic for a while, and that it will probably remain that way until this fic is finished. I'll probably then take a break before fixing shit in the first part of this story, and then start on my next project. AU Project - Revenge of the Fallen.
Thank you for your continual support everyone, and thank you to those who Review, Please do read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not as much. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.
~ JunkMail