Chapter 21

I barely remember getting back to the club, it all kind of blurs together, but I know I didn't do it on my own. I was cognizant enough at the time to realise I needed help, so I called Vassen for assistance requesting he come get me himself, I didn't really trust anyone else to do it. Thankfully, he didn't refuse my request. Unfortunately, he also took me directly to the medical bay despite my protests.

"I don't want to be associated with Fury Vassen!" I growled at him. He looked unimpressed.

"Then you shouldn't have gotten so injured. Surely that would have been suspicious. You need medical assistance, from a professional. You also shouldn't move any more than you already have, so you aren't leaving this room. The only compromise I will offer is for me to take your armour out first. Your pick."

Not much of a choice, is it. I can't exactly get up and walk out myself, I tried.

"Fine! Fine, just help me take off the armour. It might be a little tricky." I moved to take of one of my gauntlets, but my hand spasmed when I tried, throbbing painfully. I ignored it and tried again, grimacing at the sensation. It took a few tugs, but it eventually came off. I breathed shallowly, holding in the wince that wanted to come out. A hand stopped me from reaching for the next piece though.

"You're hurting yourself Fury, leave it alone. The armour isn't going to come off easily when its half melted like this, you shouldn't hurt yourself any more than you already are because of your pride."

I leave my hand where it is for a second, then sigh and let it drop. He's right, I hate to admit it, but he's right. I'm ignoring the pain as best as I can, even after the numbing effect of the Omni-gel took effect, but it could only do so much. Especially because my Omni-gel reserves weren't large in the first place.

I almost flinched at the hands reaching for my helmet, years of unresolved issues working against me, I don't think he noticed though as he had to twist the helmet sharply before pulling it off. This is the first time I've seen what had become of my helmet, it isn't pretty. The glass is cracked in several places, which I knew, but the electronics that were part of it were fully destroyed ass well. There's no salvaging the helmet, most of the armour really.

"I'm going to need a new set of armour," I sighed.

"Yep. This one's wrecked, I can probably get a new set commissioned for you If you'd like. How the hell did you even get so injured?"

"I'd rather not say, and I'll think about it." My reasoning for doing what I did isn't as sound as some would like, but it felt right to me.

"Fair enough Fury."

Vassen worked in silence, taking off my armour piece by piece, more pieces present than there once was. He had to use his Omni-tool in some places, generating specific tools or even an Omni-blade once to pry the armour off me. All in all, it took him 20 minutes, each movement of the armour against my skin grating. The clothes I was in were largely wrecked as well, having come off in bits and pieces with the armour. I must have subconsciously protected myself with my biotics, at least to some degree, because my clothes were far more damaged than I expected. I certainly didn't protect them, as what was left didn't really provide much modesty.

Oh yeah, Vassen's still here. I looked up to find him turned away, focusing on a data pad likely to benefit me.

"My clothes are ruined, and they will have to come off anyway. Help me get them off."

"You sure?" Vassen's normally easy-going nature seemed a little strained at that.

"I don't mind. I don't much care about being seen, and I trust you." And I do. He's so far been the only male that I trust, which could have been a coincidence but I'm not so sure about that. The ratio is a little skewed.

Vassen didn't object any further, turning back to face me and carefully cutting the fabric until it came off as easily as it could. This left me naked aside from some underwear I was wearing, leaving me bare from the waist up. The cool air was soothing on my skin though, and I made no effort to cover up, watching Vassen instead. He had kept himself focused on the task at first, but I could see his eyes darting around my frame now before finally looking at my face. I smirked at him, making no effort to cover up.

"Your tattoos are fascinating." He offered.

Sure, if that's what you're going with. I didn't care much either way, and he may have been telling the truth, I know I liked looking at them.

"Feel free to look at them, they are beautiful." I was being completely objective, I assure you. His breathy chuckle disagreed. Vassen took his time to look over my weirdly undamaged tattoos, even reached his hand out at one point as if to touch them. I only tensed up then, the thought of anything touching my skin unappealing right now. He quickly drew his hand back and finished up his observations shortly after. He then began putting all the armour pieces into a disposable bag, making sure to gather every piece.

"I'll call for a nurse now, I can ask them to be discrete if you'd like?" I nodded. "Then I will take my leave. I'll see you again once you're better, so don't try anything," he waggled his finger at me, faux scoldingly. I snorted at that, humming nonchalantly.

"Bye Fury." Vassen turned around to leave, but my voice caught him before he could go.

"Jack. My name's Jack if you were unaware. I'm not exactly wearing my armour right now, am I." He more than deserved to know, after all he'd done for me. It's weird that I didn't mind him seeing me so vulnerable, and I'm not talking about my state of dress. I was injured, near defenceless, yet I didn't mind him seeing me in such a state. I suppose, in a weird way he would be like a brother in my screwed up little family. Aria certainly isn't what I'd call a normal mother.

"Then goodbye, Jack." Vassen replied before leaving the room.

"I hope you're pleased with yourself."

Aria's voice was clipped, her lips narrowed. This is the second time I'd seen her, the first just after I'd been seen too by the nurse who slathered me in some sort of cream. She had made sure I was alright, checked to see how bad my injuries were then left shortly after, seeing how exhausted I was. I'd passed out shortly after she left, so she had made a good call. Unfortunately for me, that just meant she had left the interrogation for today.

I didn't reply to her, knowing she had more to say. It had been foolish in truth, so I probably deserved this.

"You almost killed yourself, and for what?! A corpse and the daughter of a disgraced Matriarch. How could you be so stupid. Do you know just how close to death you came?" Aria stared down at me, as if I was a child. All right, this is starting to get on my nerves.

"I knew exactly what I was doing-" I began expanding, but Aria cut me off.

"No! You didn't, otherwise you wouldn't have done it! You must have been on the verge of crippling yourself for nearly a minute, every second spent playing the odds. I have never seen a worse case of biotic burns before because the only ones who even get them are children unable to control their biotics at all! Have you learnt nothing?" Aria hissed.

She has gone too far now. How dare she say such a thing to me, me?! I have spent years training myself under her, gone through so much pain, sweat and suffering. All of that to then be called a clueless child. Aria had no clue of what I'd done exactly, as it was even more dangerous than what she likely thought happened. My will had never faltered, never failed me for even an instant because if it did? I wouldn't be here at all. I had been working with too much energy for anything otherwise. She would not know if I had my way either, but that doesn't excuse how she's treating me. I knew how to handle myself just fine.

"You damn well know what I've learnt! Why else would you refuse to battle me at long range anymore. Don't call me a child for injuring myself, there will be no lingering scarring, no lingering injury so as far as I'm concerned, it could have been worse!" I glower at her.

"That's right! It could have been worse, so much worse! You won't even tell me exactly what you were doing, like a prideful, petulant, child!" Aria sneered

"I am not. A. Child!" I growl.

"Then why are you acting like one! I had thought better of you. Effective immediately, I'm benching you inside the club. You're no longer my bodyguard, and no longer an enforcer. As far as I'm concerned, you're a bouncer again. Maybe that will rid you of your stupid pride!" Aria glared at me viscously, a sneer on her face.

What did she just say? Did she just … My fists clenches beside me, my nails digging into the palms of my hands. I could feel my biotics beginning to stir within me, spiralling up just waiting to be released. The red haze that had washed over my head barely let me think enough to realise why that would be such a bad idea, for both me and the room.

"Leave." I mutter, closing my eyes to try and stop myself from doing something I know I'd regret. I can't argue against her actions right now, my control shot from the traumatic experience I had just been through, even if I refused to acknowledge that it was, in fact, traumatic.

"What was that?" Aria mocked, leaning down closer to the level my head was at. I levered myself up so I was closer to her, my eyes staring directly at hers.

"I said LEAVE!" Energy began circulating around me fists clenched around the bars on the side of the bed. The bars shrieked, the metal deforming and it was the best I could do to leave it at that. Aria sneered at me, but she turned around and stalked out of the room without another word, leaving me to stew in my thoughts.

It took me a minute before I calmed down enough for the biotic energy to stop circulating my hands, letting me unclench them from around the bars. I left behind imprints of my hands on the bars and winced at the sensation returning to my arms.

They throbbed viscously, a brighter red than before with a little blood leaking though in one spot where the crumpled metal had cut me. Using my biotics was something the nurse had strongly warned me against, the biotic burns extremely sensitive to biotic energy right now. Any added energy could exacerbate the burns viscously before they healed. It's why pulling on so much energy was inadvisable, as even losing control for a second would have been enough to practically roast me. All the damage I had suffered was only from the small bits of energy I lost control over, nowhere near the amount I had been channelling.

I reached over for the bottle of cream I had been left, I was supposed to reapply it every few hours to heal properly, but my newly injured hand spasmed and I dropped it onto the ground. I cursed at the slip, and the lack of control, before reaching down to grab the bottle more firmly. I had to lean my side against the bed to do so, making it hurt more than before, but it was nothing compared to how agonising picking up the bottle was. It felt like my hand was on fire, the flesh burning off to leave only bone behind. I picked it up and threw it onto my bed as quickly as I could then laid there moaning in pain. I laid there for a while before I finally mustered up the effort to try opening it. The seal was tight, which was manageable before I reinjured my hands but was now nearly insurmountable. Any time I tried using enough pressure to pull of the lid, my fingers spasmed from the pain. I tried again repeatedly, but I couldn't manage it. Even so, I kept trying, my anger fuelling my determination. Even when tears filled my eyes, I kept trying.

"Stop it Jack." Hands picked up the bottle, moving it away from me. I looked up, my vision too blurry to make out anything more than that they were an Asari, but I recognised the voice.

"Bari." My voice was raspy and sounded far less commanding than I would have liked. I turned my face away from her, not wanting to see her right now.

"Jack …" Bari sighed, the bed sinking near my feet when she sat on it. I didn't turn my head, and we waited like that for a minute before I felt her move. Her hand entered my vision, turning my face towards hers. I thought about resisting her, but I didn't see the point. She used her thumbs to gently wipe the tears out of my eyes, showing her concerned looking face to me.

"There, isn't that better?" she grinned at me, and as if to spite me I could feel my lips twitching upwards in kind. "Now, will you let me apply the cream for you?" she raised the bottle, waving it in front of me. I pursed my lips but held my hands out to her. Her eyes tightened when she saw the state they were in, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she opened the bottle and gently applied the cream to my hands, rubbing it in softly with a circular motion that had been recommended to me by the nurse. Bari knew of it as well, it seemed. The cream also stopped the bleeding as well, I'm not quite sure what the cream was made of but it was potent stuff. It left me feeling drowsy after every time I used it, it also number my skin completely wherever it touched. I couldn't feel them right now, which was a bit weird to say the least.

"There, done." Bari commented, returning the cream to the table beside me before she turned to face me completely.

"How are you Jack?"

"I've been better." I murmured, staring at her. She chuckled, nodding her agreement.

"I imagine so. I don't suppose you want to talk about it?" I frowned at her, bristling up again. "That's fine too. Will you be all right?"

"I'll be fully healed in a week." I replied, confused on why she asked but Bari shook her head.

"No, I meant about … what happened with Aria. I was outside at the time and, well, you weren't exactly quiet." She admitted, wincing. What?! She heard? I flinched, closing my eyes as I was brought back to what I had been ignoring.

"Did you hear the whole thing?"

"… yeah."

I sighed, leaning back into the inclined bed, and stared up at the ceiling. Will I be alright? Who knows. Aria had no right, but she certainly had the power. Pirate Queen of Omega indeed. Somehow the title seems a little more fitting … No, don't think about it. Don't give in to the anger.

"It's too soon to say." I murmured, purposely vague. I saw Bari nod in the corner of my vision, accepting that. She said nothing else, just sat there with me for the next 15 minutes. Her presence helped more than I thought it would. I could just listen to her breath and give off small hums as she worked away at her Omni-tool. It let my temper cool, but that unfortunately let in the hurt that the anger had been supressing. It was no longer potent enough to distract me, simmering in the back of my mind, and letting my thoughts wander is the last thing I want right now.

"Were you not going to ask what happened to me?"

"I didn't think you would tell me, and you don't have to. It's up to you whether you tell anyone." Bari replied easily, and despite everything else right now, I felt touched. It also made me want to tell her even more, maybe I just needed to tell someone.

"It was a mission for Fury." Bari turned her face towards mine, eyebrow raised, but she didn't interrupt me. "An Asari came to Aria requesting information about a trade deal occurring on Omega, specifically involving the corpse of a human. She didn't know where it would be happening and asked for help, help Aria couldn't give."

I tried to keep the details as general as I could, they didn't really matter to what happened as a whole. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to though, once I started speaking the words just continued to pour out of me.

"I knew something though, gave her a lead. I then proceed to follow the Asari in her mission. Unfortunately for her, there was a ship ready to pick up the corpse, and she didn't make it in time to stop it before the ship took off. I … don't really know why I helped her, but something inside me just … wanted to."

"Despite everything Jack, you are kind. I don't think you have realised it yourself, or are purposely ignoring it, but underneath the hard exterior of yours is a kind woman." Bari told me, her eyes staring into mine to show how serious she was. That wasn't … wasn't true. I'm not a good person, I've harmed so many, killed too many for that to ever be the case. It doesn't matter what Bari thinks, she doesn't know just how cruel I can be. So why, why did her word affect me so much? I pushed away my thoughts, returning to the last thing I wanted to tell her, but should I? Bari knows me to be a strong biotic, but what I just did isn't normal, it's more then she would have ever expected me to be capable of. Will she see me the same way? Knowing just how dangerous I could really be. I want to tell her, despite the risks.

"If I tell you …, tell you how I got so injured, will you keep quiet about it?" I look at her, my hands twitching despite their numbness.

"Of course, Jack." Bari placed a hand on my arm, squeezing gently. She looked so honest, so trusting of me. I had to close my eyes before telling her, unwilling to see what her reaction would be.

"The ship was escaping, and I decided to stop it. I had no other tools to help me, so I used my biotics."

"How…?" Bari asked, confused.

"I won a biotic tug of war with it, holding it in place until the engines gave out, then I pulled the ship back to the ground where it crashed."

Bari gasped at the admission and I didn't manage to supress the flinch. Now she knew, knew what I was capable of. Why wouldn't she be frightened of me? I would be frightened of me.

"And … how exactly did this result in your burns?"

"The sheer amount of energy required was a bit too much for me to handle. I kept my aura spread over my entire body, but beating the ship took a little bit more control than I had, and some of the energy escaped my grasp. I had to sustain the pull for a long time, long enough that I suffered burns across most of my body and half melted my armour."

There, now she knew in full.

"Jack?" what did she want now? "Jack look at me, please." Bari pleaded, and despite my fear of what I would find, I did. She was looking at me not with fear, but concern, and a little bit of awe. It left me feeling conflicted, at the same time I loved that she wasn't afraid of me, but I didn't want to be placed on a pedestal. I was just Jack.

"What you did was dangerous, yes. But you survived, came through almost unscathed after doing something many would consider a miracle. Don't be ashamed of yourself, take pride in what you can do because even with all your strength, you're not invincible. Yet you did something so risky not for yourself, but to help someone else."

Bari then place a hand on my cheek, stroking her thumb over it gently.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of." Bari told me firmly, her eyes solid in her conviction and that warmed me, far more than I would have expected. I … I think I needed to hear that, after my confrontation with Aria. Ever so slowly, I leaned over to her and wrapped my arms around Bari gingerly, pressing my face softly into her shoulder.

"Thank you." I whisper. Bari hummed softly and began stroking my hair. It felt … nice, and we stayed there for a minute before I pulled back. Instead of staying on her end of the bed though, Bari moved over next to me and pulled me gently into her side. The room was quiet, a comfortable silence between Bari and I that lasted for a few minutes while I enjoyed the close contact. The soothing warmth eventually got to me, and I closed my eyes seeing no point in fighting off sleep.

"So, what else can you do, aside from metaphorically arm wrestle a spaceship?" Bari asked, and I sighed. We were having a nice moment Bari. I opened my eyes and looked up to find her staring down at me excitedly, a curious gleam in her eyes, and I snorted.

"Nothing quite that impressive." I told her, grinning. I would probably keep my variant of singularity a secret, it's a little early to be talking about that.

That wasn't the last time Bari came to see me over the last few days, she spent much of her free time in my room and for that I was grateful. I looked forward to it each time that she came, partially because I greatly enjoyed her company, but also because she let me ignore the thoughts running through my head.

Just as I enjoyed Bari's visits, it made it more apparent that she was the only one that visited me. I hadn't seen or heard from Aria the entire time I had been here. I was still so angry at her, my emotions only somewhat settling in the last few days, but I would have liked to at least hear from her. For years now I had spent almost every day with her. I spent a large portion of most days next to her as her bodyguard, or I … did.

I had nothing to do in here, nothing to really distract me from my thoughts. I tried using my Omni-tool for the first day, but nothing on there interested me. It didn't help that my hands were far from healed, the nurse told me they will likely take another week longer than the rest of my burns, so tapping away at the screen for something that bored me tested my patience deeply. Hell, I got desperate enough at one point to go looking for some of the more … risqué stuff that the extranet held, but that only left me hot and bothered, and even more irritated. I couldn't exactly do that with my hands, now could I. I won't lie though, some of the videos were … very interesting. I think I might have discovered a few things about myself, and a few things I wanted to try. So, not a waste of time, just an exercise in frustration.

I know I'm waffling on about things, but that's because I really don't want to dwell on what happened. You would think that the scene that played in repeat in my mind would be battling the starship, which I find is kind of a pleasant memory, but it wasn't. What plagued my mind all through the days, what made my sleep fitful at best, was Aria. I could hear her words playing back in my head as if she was saying them, the vitriol in her voice, then anger. Aria had always treated me with respect before, or at least a degree of it, but I'd never seen her like that. I hadn't seen the cruelty that so many others spoke of, and until now I had wondered if they were exaggerating, if Liselle was exaggerating. Aria had never treated me as incompetent before, yet she did now. Why? I've thought it through as much as I could, and I still don't understand. This was far from the worst thing I had done, or the riskiest. She hadn't even cared the time I had almost killed her with my Void's Fury, now that I think about it that's a horrible name. what was I thinking? I was so used to being busy that I never really had the time to think, and that was one of the things that had plagued my mind. My technique fit the name singularity perfectly, shame that one was taken. Instead, I think … Annihilation, works much better. I may have just wanted it to be one word, and Void didn't make sense. It's my technique, I get to name it. It's not actually as like singularity as you would think, as the more time I spent tinkering with it the more I discover the nuances it held. I may have discovered it from overcharging singularity, but that wasn't the most effective way of performing it. It's why I thought it needed a name distinctly different from the other technique.

Back to what I was saying, Aria didn't even care when I almost killed her with an Annihilation. With such a dangerous technique, I could have killed myself! Yes, I was more injured this time but I knew exactly what I was doing. Sure, she didn't know that … ah, that may be the problem. I would be willing to tell her now, but she never came to see me or even asked, so I hadn't had the chance. I'm not sure I want to, either. If she's going to ignore me, why does she deserve to know?

"Jack!" Rialle announced her entrance bombastically with a bounce in her step, breaking me out of my spiralling thoughts. I looked up at her voice just to see the other three enter with her. What the…? Rialle walked straight up to my bed and sat next to me, to my confusion.

"… Hello?"

"Hi Jack, it's nice to see you. How are you feeling? Bari said you would prefer waiting a few days for us to see you. Wouldn't say why though. So, how were you injured?"

I blinked at her chatter, and her fussing. What? I looked over at the other three to see if they understood better. Bari chuckled at my look of confusion, and the other two smiled in their own ways. Seems like I'm on my own. I turned back to Rialle who had finally paused long enough to let me answer.

"It was nothing too bad, I just got burned a little bit. I'm almost healed, see?" I waved my hand over my body, trying to hide my hands at the same time.

"Right," Peros snorted. "You don't stay in the medical wing for 'minor burns', Jack. And I don't suppose you'd show me your hands?" I purposely placed them beside me in as subtle a motion as I could. The stifled snicker from in front of me made it seem like I wasn't very successful.

"Also, I know exactly how injured you were. Viria is a friend of mine. How you even get a whole body second degree burn I don't even know. I do have one question though." Peros told me.

"Who's Viria?" I whispered to my side.

"Your nurse." Rialle sounded amused. Her name was Viria? Doesn't matter. I was curious about what Peros wanted to ask me though.

"Have you been holding back in our fights?" What?! Where did that come from? … I turned my face to Bari and narrowed my eyes at her.

"Wasn't me." Bari shrugged.

I kept my eye narrowed anyway, slowly turning back to Peros. I'm keeping my eye on you Bari.

"Feel free not to answer, you already confirmed it for me." Damn, well no point hiding it now.

"Yeah, I have. It wasn't for no reason either. The point of our sparring was for me to learn, have you noticed that I tend to only enhance myself to boost my speed?" I looked at all three not in the know, getting nods from all of them. "I'm not very good at enhancing my speed, I struggle with reacting to things that happen. What I am good at is enhancing my strength. Something I haven't been doing in our fights for a very good reason," I looked at each of them, wondering how they would take it. "I would win. No technique, no strategy, just brute force."

"You have a lot of biotic energy, don't you?" Rialle asked, catching on.

"More than me, more than you, more than any of us if I'm right." Peros sighed.

"I won't say you're wrong, but how did you figure that?" I was honestly just curious now.

"Viria told me they were biotic burns. It takes a lot of energy to do that, and you had them across most of your body. What were you even doing, that took that much energy?" I glanced over at Bari, who was staring back at me hopefully. I don't mind telling them, they're my friends.

"You want to tell them?"

"Yep!" she chirped and the others turned to face her.

"Jack here, decided she didn't like the look on a ships face, so she put it in it's place." She grinned, pleased with herself. Really Bari, that's your explanation? I raised my eyebrow at her. The others were equally unimpressed, simultaneously turning back to me and ignoring the now pouting Asari.

"And what actually happened?"

"Sounded about right to me." I grinned, leaning into Bari's explanation. She beamed back at me from behind them. I held myself there, grinning while the others stared at me impatient. Rialle got fed up after a minute and started prodding me anywhere she could, mainly my ribs, despite my protests and my attempts to defend myself.

"Alright! Alright, I'll explain." I chuckle at Rialle who looked grumpy at my teasing. I liked being able to do this, it was … fun.

"I was tasked with following … someone, who isn't important. They came to meet Aria and asked for information about a deal happening on Omega. Aria told them, but then asked me to follow them to observe, make sure they weren't causing too much trouble. The person in question was a little late, and the ship with the trade in question was already escaping. I won't get into my reasons why, but I decided to help them, so I caught the ship in a pull. And I pulled until it crashed back onto Omega." There, that's everything they need to know.

"So, you …, pulled a ship that was trying to escape, overcame the force of its thrusters and brought it crashing to the ground." Peros summed up, her face still. I averted my eyes, a little shy at the way she was looking at me. The way she and Rialle looked at me really, it was hard to see what Rimel was thinking in general. She always had such a blank face.

"Yep."

"How the fuck are you alive?" Peros swore, "ignoring the impossibility of you actually doing that, that fact you were burned so much means it was more energy than you could handle, which I will say is something I've never even heard of before. And with the amount of energy you must have been channelling, if you lost control it should have flash-fried you!"

It was a series of lucky occurrences that allowed me to handle that amount of energy. There wasn't much finesse to the pull at all, so any fine control was unneeded, and impossible for me for this, so that just left control the sheer quantity of energy into performing the basic action. My experience with that sort of thing helped, but my past isn't something I really wanted to get into.

"… I'm special?"

That got a round of groans, accompanied by Bari cackling away, holding her stomach. She was having the time of her life, and I won't lie. I was kind of enjoying myself here as well. Just being blunt about things was fun. Eventually Peros got over her frustration and we all began chatting. They caught me up on what they had been doing, and anything else that was interesting.

"I didn't know you went on missions for Aria, are you one of her enforcers?" Rialle asked and I stilled, suddenly wary at the direction the conversation was going.

"I'm not an enforcer exactly, but Aria asks me to handle things for her quietly every now and then, I'm among the most powerful biotics she has access to and she sometimes uses me if she wants to keep things quiet." I chose my words carefully, but Rialle seemed confused. She was the only one though, the other three sharing looks. I'm missing something here.

"She'll figure it out soon enough, we may as well just tell her." Rimel commented. Figure out what? Hang on …

"May as well," Bari sighed, "Sorry Jack, this is getting painful to watch. Rialle?" Bari turned towards the other Asari, getting her attention. "Jack's Fury, in case you were unaware." What the shit Bari! Why'd you tell them? My eyes snapped towards the others, but Rialle was the only one who looked surprised, her eyes wide and her lips parted. Peros saw my look and scoffed at me.

"You don't think I wouldn't figure it out, with how bad you were at hiding it?" I hid it well thank you very much.

"You really didn't" Rimel spoke up, as if reading my thoughts. "Did you ever think that Fury suddenly getting more protective of the dancers wouldn't be suspicious? Or how about how no one ever sees you do any work, but you often seemed tired when we saw you? How about your obvious experience with combat. Please, we had suspicions for a while now. The only piece of conflicting information was we didn't think you a strong enough biotic to be Fury, and that's now been disproven and then some. So yes, Peros and I figured it out. Rialle was going to realise soon enough. I don't care either way, so you can stop worrying about it."

I wasn't that obvious, was I? I looked at Bari, who averted her eyes from mine without saying anything. Well, I guess on the plus side they don't seem to care? I turned over to Rialle, who had so far been quiet. Seeing my attention, she finally spoke up.

"It doesn't matter Jack, it changes nothing. You're still my friend, why would that change?" she smiled at me.

"I don't know, I just thought you might be afraid." The 'of me' remained unsaid. Still, my words got choked up in my throat a little bit, the relief I felt overwhelming at how they all took the news, or how Rialle took it.

"I hate to break it to you, but you were still a scary bitch even without your alter ego." Peros told me. It had the effect she wanted though, as she grinned at my sudden laughter. If it was a little watery, who cared to notice?

"Now, I don't suppose you would be willing to fight a little more seriously with us?" Rimel asked, an excited grin on her face. She enjoyed sparring almost as much as me, so I'm not surprised.

"I might be willing to enhance my strength, providing you all wear full armour." I reply, seeking a compromise. I would use the amount I would always spar with … with Aria when I wasn't focusing on it. Near the end there I always kept up a low level of enhancement, I needed it just to keep up with her.

The girls continued visiting me over the next few days whenever they could, it was nice to finally be able to talk to them without hiding anything. I hated having to do that, and before the mission I spent most of my time with someone I knew, that was no longer the case.

[POV: Aria]

I always seem to end up in these situations, its practically the thing I'm best at. I hadn't seen Fury since I blew up at her, hadn't even messaged her because I was ashamed. Ashamed of what I'd said to her, and the way I'd said it. My actions weren't something I would change though.

I'd never noticed how much I was having Fury do for me, it was a slow process but once she stopped training with me so much it just seemed like she had more free time. She had free time that she wanted to spend productively, and missions that were too sensitive for my other enforcers kept appearing. It didn't help that she was by far my best enforcer, so some of the missions that weren't sensitive still went to her, because I trusted her to complete them more than I trusted the others.

The last mission had been a wake-up call for me, Fury had never gotten hurt before, the girl seemed almost invincible at times, but she wasn't. Whatever she had done that injured her so was undoubtedly foolish, but you can't expect someone to make no mistakes. It's how they learn, and Fury wasn't permanently injured so it could have been worse. It was the mindset her injuries revealed that worried me more, biotic burns are hard to get, and whatever she was doing wouldn't have happened simultaneously. She had to have been ignoring the burns occurring, and that scared me. Jack had so little self-preservation, she didn't seem to even care when she was injured. It was undoubtedly due to her time at the facility. Children aren't meant to go through the kind of pain she went through, it has a way of warping their minds that was difficult to fix. Didn't help that Jack was so stubborn either.

I was furious at her at first, I will admit it. But after I had time to think, I can admit it was out of my concern for her. It made me think about my interactions with Jack recently, I hadn't realised how tired she looked at times. She never seemed tired in the way she acted, but if you actually looked at her it was easy to see. Video footage of Jack supported this. She was doing too much, taking on too much, and she needed a break, but she wouldn't take one. I knew Jack all too well, she wouldn't take a break if I asked, so I decided to use my mistake. By restraining her to being a bouncer once more, she would be in less danger, would hopefully relax more. It will let her spend more time with the friends she'd made among the dancers as well. I know I couldn't maintain it permanently, Jack wouldn't accept that, but hopefully she can at least have a break for a month or two. I'd messaged Vassen to handle her return as a bouncer, trusting him to do it.

If I have to let her be angry at me, so be it. I will do it to help her, no matter how much I hated our separation. It's funny how much this situation parallels what happened with Lisille, she wasn't cut out for the life I lived, so I let us grow apart, let her keep her distance. That way, my enemies wouldn't go after her nearly as much, and she would be safer. It was a conscious decision on my part in both cases, it's why I hated it so much.

I know I have no chance of repairing my relationship with Liselle, there were too many things I had done wrong with her, too many ways I had wronged her. Too many of them for no good reason. I just hope that Jack will understand one day. But until she tries to talk to me herself, I'll leave her alone. She doesn't want to talk to me right now, so I'll wait until she does. I hope she does.