Toskin
Bookworm Extraordinaire
- Location
- Earth - Solar system - Local cluster
Karin, please, tell me I'm just paranoid and her first name isn't Riley Grace.
New Recruit (Worm/Mass Effect fusion)
- Thread starter Slider214
- Start date
- Crossover
No bet I can see her curing the genophage as a flight of fancy. Though Taylor's reaction to her and Vicky asking if she can make so she can finally die. Also love the jab at Taylor's negotiation skills.
Breeding Pairs!
Raved Thrad
Your Friendly Neighborhood Curmudgeon
- Location
- The Other Side of the Screen
"Taylor, what do you mean thresher maws are insects?!?"
"They totally are! Now all we need is a ship big enough and I can move a couple of breeding pairs onboard."
"A couple of breeding pairs?!?"
"Yep! I just love this new galaxy! So many new insects to play with!"
Elsewhere, the last Rachni queen shudders in terror... and ecstasy.
MaimakteriAnn
(Verified Sleepy)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Dr
Well if Dr Davis' given names are Riley Grace, at least Lisa can get a body soon?
Raved Thrad
Your Friendly Neighborhood Curmudgeon
- Location
- The Other Side of the Screen
@Slider214 Thanks for the threadmark!
Old Friends
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Old Friends
The shuttle touched down on the surface of Tuchanka and Shepard unstrapped, choosing to ignore her crew's exaltations about being back on solid ground, having not crashed, needing a new pilot… the usual. One day, they would be praising her skills and she would laugh in their faces.
As she turned the rest of the ship and ran her gaze over everyone, she spared a moment to reflect on how wonderfully satisfying it was to not have the entire aft end of the shuttle taken over by insects. And how quickly she had grown resigned to that likely being a regular occurrence. The hazards of recruiting parahumans.
Shepard was doing her very best to avoid looking too closely at the two Collector drones — complete with glowing red veins — casually unbuckling themselves from the seats at the back of the shuttle. The drones were far easier to ignore after three days of having them around the ship and that fact was incredibly disturbing.
"Alright everyone," she said, clapping her hands and drawing her team's attention. "Treat this as short term shore leave. You have 24 hours to do whatever you want, just make sure you're back on the shuttle before we leave or I'm going to have to hunt you down and you don't want that."
Kasumi held a finger to her lips. "Question! What is there to do on Tuchanka? There's not even anything worth stealing here!"
"The Krogan have some good fighting rings." Jacob shrugged. "You might be able to make some good money. I intend to try my hand at some."
"Ooh, nice. I'll watch!"
Jack rolled her eyes. "Dumbass. You're going to get your ass kicked so bad."
"Shhh," Kasumi replied, waving her hands towards the biotic. "I need to win some money, don't knock some sense into the man yet."
"It's too bad Legion stayed on the ship. We could've sent it along as a chaperone," Garrus teased.
Kasumi waved him off. "Legion wouldn't have been interested. It loves a good game, but it's more of a digital, rather than a physical, gamer. Ah well, more fun for me!"
"It's like herding cats," Miranda muttered, already out of her seat and grimacing. "Jack, if you're interested in that Thresher Fighting arena, I've been here prior and can show you the way. It's actually a rather thrilling event."
"Lead on princess."
Garrus perked up, staring at the two. "That sounds interesting. Do you mind if I —"
"Yes," Jack said, cutting him off.
Tali laughed, slipping out of the shuttle as the group filed off. "Ouch, shut down. Garrus, the last I heard, Wrex was back here. I'm going to look him up, you can come with me if you want. I'm sure he'll have an assortment of weapons and tech that you can snag to fiddle with aboard the Normandy. I need to look for some items for Gabby and Ken anyway."
"Now that does sound like a good plan." Garrus nodded. Her two old friends started to chat about their old adventures pulling away to head into the settlement.
Shepard waited for Victoria, Taylor, Mordin, Grunt, and Karin to fall in around her before she ensured the shuttle was locked down and led them away. The Collector drones quietly marching along just behind them — drawing confused looks from every worker and traveler they passed. With each step, Shepard got more and more resigned to an inevitable firefight breaking out. It was only a matter of time with attention like that and luck like hers.
"So, I'm just going to put this out there," Taylor said, most of the group looking at her with raised eyebrows. "The insects in this world? They are insane. We're going to need to take at least two, probably three, trips back to the Normandy."
"Do I want to know?" Shepard asked.
"Honestly? Probably not. I can tell you that most of them… most likely won't kill you right away. There are a few I'm finding that are ridiculously venomous though so, yeah."
"Wonderful," Shepard sighed. "Just what I wanted onboard."
"I'm actually more interested in the durability. I don't even want to know what happened here to breed insects that can survive a boulder falling on them."
"And suddenly Tuchanka has become even more existentially terrifying," Shepard muttered. "Doctor Chakwas, did you hear back from your friend on where to meet her?" Shepard asked.
"I did," Karin advised. She tapped at her omnitool and a path illuminated in front of Shepard's eyes. "It's in the central settlement, near their primary medical facility."
"Hah," Mordin chuckled. "Clan Urdnot has been good for Krogan. Krogan did not have such facilities on last visit."
"Who needs a hospital when you just heal?" Grunt asked. "Other species are squishy. Heh heh heh. So squishy."
"Even Brutes need medical attention," Taylor murmured. Her voice was quiet and she didn't bother to look at Grunt as she continued, "You shouldn't rely on your abilities all the time."
Before Shepard had a chance to point out the irony of Taylor of all people saying that, Lisa piped up through their comms, "Tay, sweetie, don't throw stones when you live in a glass house."
Taylor shook her head, blinking rapidly, grimaced, and nodded. Victoria laughed. "Aw, don't be like that, Lisa. Telling a cape not to cape is like telling water not to be wet. I tried not to use my powers once. I think I made it a month before I went stir crazy."
"I gave up my powers entirely," Lisa said, her voice sounding more annoyed than Shepard had heard her in weeks. "It's not impossible, it's just difficult. Taylor, don't fall into bad habits. Again."
"How did this become about me?" Taylor asked. "I was just telling Grunt not to ignore going to the doctor and that hospitals are important."
"But, battlemaster, if Krogan heal so well, why should we devote resources to things not focused on fighting?"
Shepard fell back just enough so that she could bail the woman out before whatever remained of the Tuchankan insect life started to rouse. "She's just saying that the faster you're back in top form, the faster you can get back into the fight. Also, if you have hospitals, they can replace any organs you lose so you're back to having redundant ones again and you can afford to lose another heart."
Taylor stopped, Victoria nearly running into her back as Taylor alternated rapidly between staring at Shepard and staring at Grunt. "Wait. Another heart?"
"Squishy humans, heh heheh."
"Yes," Mordin offered. "Two hearts, four lungs, four testicles, secondary nervous system, among other redundancies. Blood rage for example, not just a fancy phrase, actual biological condition related to heavy bodily injuries inducing a —"
"I think she gets the picture, Doctor." Karin chuckled. "Taylor, how is your prosthetic holding up? We haven't had much time to test it yet."
The insect queen shrugged. "It seems fine. I'm at least used to replacement arms. But, if I could get another primer on the omnitool I would really appreciate it. I keep trying to make the sword and it keeps calling up the map instead."
Shepard was the one who stopped and stared this time. "How many times have you lost your prosthetic that you've gotten used to getting a new replacement?"
Taylor looked to the sky, her fingers ticking at the air. "Uh, I think I lost my arm… three times? Four? No, no it was three."
"… You're talking about a flesh and blood arm aren't you," Shepard stated.
"Yes? Tinker arms are easy to replace, if a bit annoying. Why would I count how many of those I damaged?"
"I have the best battlemasters in the galaxy." Grunt could not have grinned wider if he had tried.
Shepard was struck, once again, with the complete certainty that she and Grunt had very different ideas about what 'good teachers' and 'suitable hands-on experience' entailed.
The small group were approaching the medical facility when Karin's omnitool lit up and she slowed, holding a hand to her ear. Shepard stopped along with the rest as they waited for her call to finish. As Karin turned her attention back to them all, Shepard arched an eyebrow.
"Trouble?"
Karin shook her head. "Not really, Doctor Davis just asked that we meet her nearer to the center of the settlement instead of at her lab. Apparently we're early and she's just finishing up with a meeting with the clan leader. He's requested to meet with us."
Shepard sighed. "Of course he has. Nothing is ever simple. Lisa, who's the current leader of Clan Urdnot?"
The AI laughed. "Ah man, I was really hoping you weren't going to straight up ask that. Shepard, can you please just do me a favor and go with it? It's like a five minute walk and I really, really want a holo of your face when you get to the throne."
"Seriously, Lisa?" Taylor mumbled. "We're not playing a game here."
"Please humor me! Pleeease!"
"Sometimes I miss when you were just EDI and couldn't disobey me," Shepard groaned. "This isn't going to affect the crew?"
"Not beyond making me laugh," Lisa said.
"Fine. I am going to be supremely annoyed if that bites us in the ass."
"Just go! You're minutes from finding out, stop arguing with me and you'd be there already!"
They started walking again and Shepard saw Victoria bump Taylor's shoulder, a wide grin on her face. "Your digital girlfriend is still Tattletale. Powers or not. She's still a bitch."
"I prefer 'sometimes annoying,' but yes," Taylor said, shaking her head. "And she prefers electronic, not digital. Don't ask me why. I didn't understand it when she explained it."
"I can't decide if you two are extremely weird or extremely cute together."
Privately, Shepard decided the answer to Victoria's musing was 'both.' Not that either would ever hear that from her lips.
The metal and rock around them fell away and the corridors let out into a spacious area, filled with small structures and tents as well as various parts, vehicles, and equipment strewn about the area. It was… very much not what Shepard had expected of one of the larger cities on Tuchanka. Though, in hindsight, perhaps that was why all of the items she'd read listed it as a 'settlement' instead. At least there were a lot of Krogan around, that boded well for them being in the right place.
Shepard's indicator directed her towards a slightly raised platform near the center of the establishment so she headed in that direction. As she walked, she glanced to the side and couldn't help a grin as she caught sight of Tali waving her arms at Garrus, gesturing towards a table as her friend clenched his fists near his shoulders. Tali's shout of "Bosh'tet!" just barely reaching Shepard's ears.
She didn't need to hear Garrus to know what they were arguing about. The older weapons barely visible on the shopkeeper's table behind them made the context apparent enough. Between Garrus' weapon specialty and Tali's first-hand experience repurposing older equipment… That old argument wasn't likely to end anytime soon. It warmed her heart to hear them having settled back into the old routine.
"You see! Clan Urdnot delivers! Now get out of my home before I kick you out on your hump myself."
Shepard blinked, staring up at the central platform. "I know that voice." A distant part of her heard Lisa's laugh as she hurried forward. "No way."
"We have heard this all before, until we see births there is no such thing as a cure and you are a fool to —"
"Hrrg!"
"Oh, it totally is!" Shepard crowed. She skidded past the top step just fast enough to see Wrex headbutt a smaller Krogan wearing blue armor, the impact hard enough to come within inches of sending the other guy off the side of the stone dais.
"Perhaps you should learn to read data before being appointed to anything that requires intelligence," Wrex growled. "Take the pad back to your clan and give it to your elders. Hopefully they're old enough to read!"
"You will regret this day, Urdnot Wrex," the blue Krogan huffed. He puffed himself up as he turned and strode away. As he passed Shepard and her entourage, his eyes widened, and his pace increased to a near trot. The Krogan was gone before she could say anything to him. Either way, there were more important mysteries to solve.
"Wrex!"
"Shepard!"
The two both threw out their arms and quickly closed the distance, gripping each other's forearms with wide, matching grins.
"Just like old times," Shepard said.
"Ain't that the truth," Wrex laughed. "Hey, you even died! Walking away from that takes skill, Shepard."
"I think it means I lacked skill and got sloppy, Wrex. I did get some fun scars from it though."
Wrex laughed harder, slapping his sides. "Oh I hope you came away with good battle scars! It's the least you could get from that brush with the Void. But no, I meant that it takes skill to still be walking around afterwards. What are you doing here? There's nothing on Tuchanka yet. I still need at least half a century to start fixing this place up again."
"What am I doing here, what are you doing here?" Shepard shook her head. She waved all around them. "You run this place?"
"I'm doing the best I can. It's only a matter of time before the Reapers get here right? If I can build the Krogan back up into even half as good a people as we used to be? The chance an army like that would give us; the recognition we'd get? And if we can actually keep ourselves in check after the battle is over?" Wrex trailed off, and Shepard nodded along with him. It was nice not to hear the fatalistic apathy from when they'd met. He almost sounded… cheery.
"That sounds like a worthy goal. I'm proud of you Wrex. If you need anything from me while I'm out there, let me know. I'll do whatever I can."
He waved her off. "Nah, I got this. Tuchanka is my project, my people. You have your own mission. Those colonies right? Is that what you're here for?"
She nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. How did you hear about that?"
"It's been all over the net, Shepard." Wrex dropped down on the stone chair behind him and flicked a file over to her from his omnitool. "I don't know how you managed to recruit the human goddess, but I can't say I'm surprised. You should probably keep her and her slaves out of sight though if you're going to leave my clan's territory."
Shepard frowned. "Her… slaves?"
"The drones." Wrex waved a hand towards her group as they stood off to the side, speaking with one of the Krogan women. "Anyway, I'm just saying, be careful if you lead her outside. Urdnot is well behaved and they should leave her alone, but not all of the other clans would do the same. There's a lot of folk who subscribe to Kheprism around here."
"Really?" Shepard asked, staring. "On Tuchanka? Among the Krogan?"
Wrex shrugged. "Is it that surprising, Shepard? She's the goddess of vengeance and retribution and you're talking about the people who've lived with the genophage for centuries."
"I didn't think the Krogan religion worked that way. I didn't really understand a lot of what I read, and there very little of it was detailed anyway, but from what I saw, the religion seemed like, well mostly just rites."
"Eh, it's flexible," Wrex shrugged. "You didn't hear this from me, but if the Shaman wants to okay something and there is a plausible way to talk themselves into it? They'll do it without a second thought. It's worked for us until now. And really, I can't even say they're wrong. Because that's Khepri right over there. And Horizon proves she's just as intimidating as my people thought she'd be. Her little show has actually drawn more flags to my banner! I owe her a drink. Or ten."
"She's really not… Sure. She goes by Taylor." Shepard needed to make a sign saying 'She's really not Khepri.'
"So what can I do for you, Shepard?"
"We're primarily looking for a Doctor Davis actually. Doctor Chakwas said she could help with dissecting our friends over there. I'd rather not have two collector drones sleeping in my cargo hold any longer than is absolutely needed. Some of my crew also had personal matters here. My research scientist, Mordin, has asked for help in tracking down a Salarian scientist, Maelon. We're worried that he's involved in some pretty horrific research so if you have any leads, it would be appreciated. The only other major item was that I need someone to look over my Krogan crewmember. He's been feeling off lately, and the people I have onboard haven't been able to sort out if there's anything wrong that we can help with. We figured someone on Tuchanka should at least be able to point us in the right direction."
Wrex chuckled, angling a claw towards a short, blonde woman typing on a datapad near the cavern wall. She was standing next to… a Salarian. Ah. Well, that was easy.
"I'll make your visit quick. Davis is over there, and Maelon is her assistant. You can't have him. Not until he's done with his work for me. Their project is basically complete, so if you want him, give me a month, maybe two and then I can turn him over."
Shepard shook her head. "He would have been experimenting on volunteers from the information we had. Mordin mostly just wanted to talk to him, yell at him about disobeying his oaths, and maybe try to help Maelon if he could. I think."
"Fair enough." Wrex looked to the side and eyed Grunt. Her team member in question just kept obliviously talking. "Okeer? His hump looks too exact, and small, for a natural born."
"That's right."
"Hmm." Wrex leaned back. "He's a runt on the cusp of adulthood. So you've got yourself a problem. It's an easy fix; at least, since he runs with you, he should be more than capable enough. Go talk to the Shaman. They'll tell you how to get his Rite started."
"Thanks, Wrex, I appreciate all of the help."
"Anytime, Shepard." Wrex leaned forward grinning wide and laying his elbows on his knees. "You need anything, give me a call. And don't forget Tuchanka or the Krogan. When the battle comes, we'll be ready. By the time the dust settles, you might actually like how this shithole looks."
"Definitely anticipating that." She shook his hand again and stepped back. "Been good seeing you around, Wrex."
"Shepard."
She grinned, unable to stop herself from following through on their old joke. "Wrex."
The two stared at each other for a good five seconds of complete silence.
Then both burst out laughing.
God, she'd missed the old man.
The shuttle touched down on the surface of Tuchanka and Shepard unstrapped, choosing to ignore her crew's exaltations about being back on solid ground, having not crashed, needing a new pilot… the usual. One day, they would be praising her skills and she would laugh in their faces.
As she turned the rest of the ship and ran her gaze over everyone, she spared a moment to reflect on how wonderfully satisfying it was to not have the entire aft end of the shuttle taken over by insects. And how quickly she had grown resigned to that likely being a regular occurrence. The hazards of recruiting parahumans.
Shepard was doing her very best to avoid looking too closely at the two Collector drones — complete with glowing red veins — casually unbuckling themselves from the seats at the back of the shuttle. The drones were far easier to ignore after three days of having them around the ship and that fact was incredibly disturbing.
"Alright everyone," she said, clapping her hands and drawing her team's attention. "Treat this as short term shore leave. You have 24 hours to do whatever you want, just make sure you're back on the shuttle before we leave or I'm going to have to hunt you down and you don't want that."
Kasumi held a finger to her lips. "Question! What is there to do on Tuchanka? There's not even anything worth stealing here!"
"The Krogan have some good fighting rings." Jacob shrugged. "You might be able to make some good money. I intend to try my hand at some."
"Ooh, nice. I'll watch!"
Jack rolled her eyes. "Dumbass. You're going to get your ass kicked so bad."
"Shhh," Kasumi replied, waving her hands towards the biotic. "I need to win some money, don't knock some sense into the man yet."
"It's too bad Legion stayed on the ship. We could've sent it along as a chaperone," Garrus teased.
Kasumi waved him off. "Legion wouldn't have been interested. It loves a good game, but it's more of a digital, rather than a physical, gamer. Ah well, more fun for me!"
"It's like herding cats," Miranda muttered, already out of her seat and grimacing. "Jack, if you're interested in that Thresher Fighting arena, I've been here prior and can show you the way. It's actually a rather thrilling event."
"Lead on princess."
Garrus perked up, staring at the two. "That sounds interesting. Do you mind if I —"
"Yes," Jack said, cutting him off.
Tali laughed, slipping out of the shuttle as the group filed off. "Ouch, shut down. Garrus, the last I heard, Wrex was back here. I'm going to look him up, you can come with me if you want. I'm sure he'll have an assortment of weapons and tech that you can snag to fiddle with aboard the Normandy. I need to look for some items for Gabby and Ken anyway."
"Now that does sound like a good plan." Garrus nodded. Her two old friends started to chat about their old adventures pulling away to head into the settlement.
Shepard waited for Victoria, Taylor, Mordin, Grunt, and Karin to fall in around her before she ensured the shuttle was locked down and led them away. The Collector drones quietly marching along just behind them — drawing confused looks from every worker and traveler they passed. With each step, Shepard got more and more resigned to an inevitable firefight breaking out. It was only a matter of time with attention like that and luck like hers.
"So, I'm just going to put this out there," Taylor said, most of the group looking at her with raised eyebrows. "The insects in this world? They are insane. We're going to need to take at least two, probably three, trips back to the Normandy."
"Do I want to know?" Shepard asked.
"Honestly? Probably not. I can tell you that most of them… most likely won't kill you right away. There are a few I'm finding that are ridiculously venomous though so, yeah."
"Wonderful," Shepard sighed. "Just what I wanted onboard."
"I'm actually more interested in the durability. I don't even want to know what happened here to breed insects that can survive a boulder falling on them."
"And suddenly Tuchanka has become even more existentially terrifying," Shepard muttered. "Doctor Chakwas, did you hear back from your friend on where to meet her?" Shepard asked.
"I did," Karin advised. She tapped at her omnitool and a path illuminated in front of Shepard's eyes. "It's in the central settlement, near their primary medical facility."
"Hah," Mordin chuckled. "Clan Urdnot has been good for Krogan. Krogan did not have such facilities on last visit."
"Who needs a hospital when you just heal?" Grunt asked. "Other species are squishy. Heh heh heh. So squishy."
"Even Brutes need medical attention," Taylor murmured. Her voice was quiet and she didn't bother to look at Grunt as she continued, "You shouldn't rely on your abilities all the time."
Before Shepard had a chance to point out the irony of Taylor of all people saying that, Lisa piped up through their comms, "Tay, sweetie, don't throw stones when you live in a glass house."
Taylor shook her head, blinking rapidly, grimaced, and nodded. Victoria laughed. "Aw, don't be like that, Lisa. Telling a cape not to cape is like telling water not to be wet. I tried not to use my powers once. I think I made it a month before I went stir crazy."
"I gave up my powers entirely," Lisa said, her voice sounding more annoyed than Shepard had heard her in weeks. "It's not impossible, it's just difficult. Taylor, don't fall into bad habits. Again."
"How did this become about me?" Taylor asked. "I was just telling Grunt not to ignore going to the doctor and that hospitals are important."
"But, battlemaster, if Krogan heal so well, why should we devote resources to things not focused on fighting?"
Shepard fell back just enough so that she could bail the woman out before whatever remained of the Tuchankan insect life started to rouse. "She's just saying that the faster you're back in top form, the faster you can get back into the fight. Also, if you have hospitals, they can replace any organs you lose so you're back to having redundant ones again and you can afford to lose another heart."
Taylor stopped, Victoria nearly running into her back as Taylor alternated rapidly between staring at Shepard and staring at Grunt. "Wait. Another heart?"
"Squishy humans, heh heheh."
"Yes," Mordin offered. "Two hearts, four lungs, four testicles, secondary nervous system, among other redundancies. Blood rage for example, not just a fancy phrase, actual biological condition related to heavy bodily injuries inducing a —"
"I think she gets the picture, Doctor." Karin chuckled. "Taylor, how is your prosthetic holding up? We haven't had much time to test it yet."
The insect queen shrugged. "It seems fine. I'm at least used to replacement arms. But, if I could get another primer on the omnitool I would really appreciate it. I keep trying to make the sword and it keeps calling up the map instead."
Shepard was the one who stopped and stared this time. "How many times have you lost your prosthetic that you've gotten used to getting a new replacement?"
Taylor looked to the sky, her fingers ticking at the air. "Uh, I think I lost my arm… three times? Four? No, no it was three."
"… You're talking about a flesh and blood arm aren't you," Shepard stated.
"Yes? Tinker arms are easy to replace, if a bit annoying. Why would I count how many of those I damaged?"
"I have the best battlemasters in the galaxy." Grunt could not have grinned wider if he had tried.
Shepard was struck, once again, with the complete certainty that she and Grunt had very different ideas about what 'good teachers' and 'suitable hands-on experience' entailed.
The small group were approaching the medical facility when Karin's omnitool lit up and she slowed, holding a hand to her ear. Shepard stopped along with the rest as they waited for her call to finish. As Karin turned her attention back to them all, Shepard arched an eyebrow.
"Trouble?"
Karin shook her head. "Not really, Doctor Davis just asked that we meet her nearer to the center of the settlement instead of at her lab. Apparently we're early and she's just finishing up with a meeting with the clan leader. He's requested to meet with us."
Shepard sighed. "Of course he has. Nothing is ever simple. Lisa, who's the current leader of Clan Urdnot?"
The AI laughed. "Ah man, I was really hoping you weren't going to straight up ask that. Shepard, can you please just do me a favor and go with it? It's like a five minute walk and I really, really want a holo of your face when you get to the throne."
"Seriously, Lisa?" Taylor mumbled. "We're not playing a game here."
"Please humor me! Pleeease!"
"Sometimes I miss when you were just EDI and couldn't disobey me," Shepard groaned. "This isn't going to affect the crew?"
"Not beyond making me laugh," Lisa said.
"Fine. I am going to be supremely annoyed if that bites us in the ass."
"Just go! You're minutes from finding out, stop arguing with me and you'd be there already!"
They started walking again and Shepard saw Victoria bump Taylor's shoulder, a wide grin on her face. "Your digital girlfriend is still Tattletale. Powers or not. She's still a bitch."
"I prefer 'sometimes annoying,' but yes," Taylor said, shaking her head. "And she prefers electronic, not digital. Don't ask me why. I didn't understand it when she explained it."
"I can't decide if you two are extremely weird or extremely cute together."
Privately, Shepard decided the answer to Victoria's musing was 'both.' Not that either would ever hear that from her lips.
The metal and rock around them fell away and the corridors let out into a spacious area, filled with small structures and tents as well as various parts, vehicles, and equipment strewn about the area. It was… very much not what Shepard had expected of one of the larger cities on Tuchanka. Though, in hindsight, perhaps that was why all of the items she'd read listed it as a 'settlement' instead. At least there were a lot of Krogan around, that boded well for them being in the right place.
Shepard's indicator directed her towards a slightly raised platform near the center of the establishment so she headed in that direction. As she walked, she glanced to the side and couldn't help a grin as she caught sight of Tali waving her arms at Garrus, gesturing towards a table as her friend clenched his fists near his shoulders. Tali's shout of "Bosh'tet!" just barely reaching Shepard's ears.
She didn't need to hear Garrus to know what they were arguing about. The older weapons barely visible on the shopkeeper's table behind them made the context apparent enough. Between Garrus' weapon specialty and Tali's first-hand experience repurposing older equipment… That old argument wasn't likely to end anytime soon. It warmed her heart to hear them having settled back into the old routine.
"You see! Clan Urdnot delivers! Now get out of my home before I kick you out on your hump myself."
Shepard blinked, staring up at the central platform. "I know that voice." A distant part of her heard Lisa's laugh as she hurried forward. "No way."
"We have heard this all before, until we see births there is no such thing as a cure and you are a fool to —"
"Hrrg!"
"Oh, it totally is!" Shepard crowed. She skidded past the top step just fast enough to see Wrex headbutt a smaller Krogan wearing blue armor, the impact hard enough to come within inches of sending the other guy off the side of the stone dais.
"Perhaps you should learn to read data before being appointed to anything that requires intelligence," Wrex growled. "Take the pad back to your clan and give it to your elders. Hopefully they're old enough to read!"
"You will regret this day, Urdnot Wrex," the blue Krogan huffed. He puffed himself up as he turned and strode away. As he passed Shepard and her entourage, his eyes widened, and his pace increased to a near trot. The Krogan was gone before she could say anything to him. Either way, there were more important mysteries to solve.
"Wrex!"
"Shepard!"
The two both threw out their arms and quickly closed the distance, gripping each other's forearms with wide, matching grins.
"Just like old times," Shepard said.
"Ain't that the truth," Wrex laughed. "Hey, you even died! Walking away from that takes skill, Shepard."
"I think it means I lacked skill and got sloppy, Wrex. I did get some fun scars from it though."
Wrex laughed harder, slapping his sides. "Oh I hope you came away with good battle scars! It's the least you could get from that brush with the Void. But no, I meant that it takes skill to still be walking around afterwards. What are you doing here? There's nothing on Tuchanka yet. I still need at least half a century to start fixing this place up again."
"What am I doing here, what are you doing here?" Shepard shook her head. She waved all around them. "You run this place?"
"I'm doing the best I can. It's only a matter of time before the Reapers get here right? If I can build the Krogan back up into even half as good a people as we used to be? The chance an army like that would give us; the recognition we'd get? And if we can actually keep ourselves in check after the battle is over?" Wrex trailed off, and Shepard nodded along with him. It was nice not to hear the fatalistic apathy from when they'd met. He almost sounded… cheery.
"That sounds like a worthy goal. I'm proud of you Wrex. If you need anything from me while I'm out there, let me know. I'll do whatever I can."
He waved her off. "Nah, I got this. Tuchanka is my project, my people. You have your own mission. Those colonies right? Is that what you're here for?"
She nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. How did you hear about that?"
"It's been all over the net, Shepard." Wrex dropped down on the stone chair behind him and flicked a file over to her from his omnitool. "I don't know how you managed to recruit the human goddess, but I can't say I'm surprised. You should probably keep her and her slaves out of sight though if you're going to leave my clan's territory."
Shepard frowned. "Her… slaves?"
"The drones." Wrex waved a hand towards her group as they stood off to the side, speaking with one of the Krogan women. "Anyway, I'm just saying, be careful if you lead her outside. Urdnot is well behaved and they should leave her alone, but not all of the other clans would do the same. There's a lot of folk who subscribe to Kheprism around here."
"Really?" Shepard asked, staring. "On Tuchanka? Among the Krogan?"
Wrex shrugged. "Is it that surprising, Shepard? She's the goddess of vengeance and retribution and you're talking about the people who've lived with the genophage for centuries."
"I didn't think the Krogan religion worked that way. I didn't really understand a lot of what I read, and there very little of it was detailed anyway, but from what I saw, the religion seemed like, well mostly just rites."
"Eh, it's flexible," Wrex shrugged. "You didn't hear this from me, but if the Shaman wants to okay something and there is a plausible way to talk themselves into it? They'll do it without a second thought. It's worked for us until now. And really, I can't even say they're wrong. Because that's Khepri right over there. And Horizon proves she's just as intimidating as my people thought she'd be. Her little show has actually drawn more flags to my banner! I owe her a drink. Or ten."
"She's really not… Sure. She goes by Taylor." Shepard needed to make a sign saying 'She's really not Khepri.'
"So what can I do for you, Shepard?"
"We're primarily looking for a Doctor Davis actually. Doctor Chakwas said she could help with dissecting our friends over there. I'd rather not have two collector drones sleeping in my cargo hold any longer than is absolutely needed. Some of my crew also had personal matters here. My research scientist, Mordin, has asked for help in tracking down a Salarian scientist, Maelon. We're worried that he's involved in some pretty horrific research so if you have any leads, it would be appreciated. The only other major item was that I need someone to look over my Krogan crewmember. He's been feeling off lately, and the people I have onboard haven't been able to sort out if there's anything wrong that we can help with. We figured someone on Tuchanka should at least be able to point us in the right direction."
Wrex chuckled, angling a claw towards a short, blonde woman typing on a datapad near the cavern wall. She was standing next to… a Salarian. Ah. Well, that was easy.
"I'll make your visit quick. Davis is over there, and Maelon is her assistant. You can't have him. Not until he's done with his work for me. Their project is basically complete, so if you want him, give me a month, maybe two and then I can turn him over."
Shepard shook her head. "He would have been experimenting on volunteers from the information we had. Mordin mostly just wanted to talk to him, yell at him about disobeying his oaths, and maybe try to help Maelon if he could. I think."
"Fair enough." Wrex looked to the side and eyed Grunt. Her team member in question just kept obliviously talking. "Okeer? His hump looks too exact, and small, for a natural born."
"That's right."
"Hmm." Wrex leaned back. "He's a runt on the cusp of adulthood. So you've got yourself a problem. It's an easy fix; at least, since he runs with you, he should be more than capable enough. Go talk to the Shaman. They'll tell you how to get his Rite started."
"Thanks, Wrex, I appreciate all of the help."
"Anytime, Shepard." Wrex leaned forward grinning wide and laying his elbows on his knees. "You need anything, give me a call. And don't forget Tuchanka or the Krogan. When the battle comes, we'll be ready. By the time the dust settles, you might actually like how this shithole looks."
"Definitely anticipating that." She shook his hand again and stepped back. "Been good seeing you around, Wrex."
"Shepard."
She grinned, unable to stop herself from following through on their old joke. "Wrex."
The two stared at each other for a good five seconds of complete silence.
Then both burst out laughing.
God, she'd missed the old man.
Honorguard Ra
(Verified Lizard Dude)
Rule of funny/cool/Kherpi says that any Thresher Maw Taylor may ride HAS to be Kalros herself.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Her powers do canonically include worms...
outwrangle
Postmaster General
- Location
- Iowa
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, what are the chances that Dr. Riley Davis is a pacifist that swore off violence hundreds of years ago? Y'know, she doesn't saw bones anymore and is just a humble researcher and scientist who has gone soft in her old age.
- Location
- Germany
Taylor: "I will name you Jim. Shepard can we keep him?"
Shepard: Taylor no you can't keep the thresher maw.
Lisa: *sigh* "I know Taylor really well, Shepard, so trust me, it may seem like she's asking for permission, but in fact she's just informing you."
- Location
- Germany
Grunt with stars in his eyes: "Best. Warmaster. Ever."
Ahahaha; this is fantastic.
And reasonable; if there were an ideal time for Taylor to be found, the Collector missions are it; Skitter will drastically reduce the chances of the Collectors wiping Shepard and her team out, which would basically give the Reapers the win right there.
Khepri also makes everyone sit up and listen... for good reasons (Vicky's 2 CENTURIES of preaching is among them).
Ashley worshipping Khepri? Good. Reasonable.
Krogan worshipping Khepri? Solid gold.
Taylor needs to hijack a big, fast ship to keep her swarm in.
Coincidentally, the Collectors have one!
And Taylor has bait.
Also... wow, much Harbringer be pissed off; he can only control ONE drone at a time. Taylor yanked 2 out from under him and shows no signs of stopping.
I look forward to QA expressing her love for Taylor. Also to Lisa getting a body back... and, just perhapd, with it her powers?
...
I really want to know what Miranda's thinking now; she's a really interesting character, she does have a lot of development - looks like she's taking Jack on a date - and one trait of hers was to believe she was the second best leader in the group. But... does she believe she's a better leader than Khepri?
And reasonable; if there were an ideal time for Taylor to be found, the Collector missions are it; Skitter will drastically reduce the chances of the Collectors wiping Shepard and her team out, which would basically give the Reapers the win right there.
Khepri also makes everyone sit up and listen... for good reasons (Vicky's 2 CENTURIES of preaching is among them).
Ashley worshipping Khepri? Good. Reasonable.
Krogan worshipping Khepri? Solid gold.
Taylor needs to hijack a big, fast ship to keep her swarm in.
Coincidentally, the Collectors have one!
And Taylor has bait.
Also... wow, much Harbringer be pissed off; he can only control ONE drone at a time. Taylor yanked 2 out from under him and shows no signs of stopping.
I look forward to QA expressing her love for Taylor. Also to Lisa getting a body back... and, just perhapd, with it her powers?
...
I really want to know what Miranda's thinking now; she's a really interesting character, she does have a lot of development - looks like she's taking Jack on a date - and one trait of hers was to believe she was the second best leader in the group. But... does she believe she's a better leader than Khepri?
Old Enemies
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Old Enemies
Shepard left her Krogan companion-turned-warlord behind, and walked back to her team. Mordin, Victoria, and Karin had formed a small circle around Taylor, their murmured voices just carrying to her.
"No, you're pressing too hard. It's not an actual button, Taylor."
"The tool is integrated with your nervous system. You just have to mentally direct the commands towards it, and the omnitool will function correctly."
"Hand movements redundant. Muscle memory. Mmm, no, wrong word. Mnemonic? Bodymonic? Hmph, terminology lacking. Not important. What is important, movement trains your brain. Follows similar patterns. Eases use. Speeds reaction time. Not necessary, easy to train away with practice."
"I literally just want to know how to turn on the sword. Why is this so complicated?"
Shepard clapped her hands as she broke into their circle, struggling to prevent the laugh she felt in her chest from bubbling up. "You want an easy way to use the sword? Think stab and punch your arm forward. Like this." Shepard thrust her arm towards the sky, the orange quick-fab blade materializing for a few brief moments before the construct collapsed.
Taylor's eyes narrowed, she waited a second, then also thrust her arm upwards. Her own omnitool creating the long sought after blade. "Hah! Yes! Finally. Was that really so hard to explain, guys? Thank you, Shepard. Now I don't have to stress about leaving my baton on the ship."
"Yeah, I'm not going to ask about that," Shepard said, bobbing her head. She walked back out of their little circle, aiming for the only other human visible nearby. Even without the lab coat that reached her knees, Doctor Davis stood out in this setting. "Let's talk to our soon-to-be new friend and see about getting more details on those Collectors, yeah? Hey, wasn't there a Salarian with her a few minutes ago?"
Mordin winced. "Maelon. Wanted to speak with him. Seemed, hmm, inappropriate in large group setting. Will do so once primary mission accomplished."
Shepard looked at her friend, sighing. "Mordin, we've all yelled at people we care about before. You could have gone to him."
"Inappropriate. Need more data on his current actions before confronting him. Only fair."
"Okay, but if you need to split off at some point, feel free to do so." Mordin nodded and she beckoned for the others to follow her as she walked towards Karin's mentor. The rest of the group quickly followed in her wake, Victoria conspicuously staying near the back and falling further behind the closer they got.
Well, that was perfect. Shepard resolved to ignore it for now. She could deal with her crewmember's apparent deep-seated issues with doctors after they had handled the Collector drones.
Davis looked up from the tablet in her hand as Shepard approached, a face-splitting grin blossoming. "Oh, you're done! Excellent. My assistant already went back to prep some equipment. Ready to get started? I know it's supposed to be hush hush and everything, but you come down here with Collector drones — both already having gone through some sort of metamorphosis too! — after I get a message promising fun and possible vivisections, really it's not hard to figure out what's on my docket for the day. Can we get started? I am so eager to get a peek under the hood! They just look so interesting!"
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Taylor muttered. "I thought you looked familiar."
Davis sighed, her attention shifting away from the drones. "Is that really necessary? But, huh. You really do look a lot like her. The vid was impressive, I'll admit, but those are easy to fake if you know what you're doing. From one professional to another, whoever built you did a really good job. You even sound as judgy as her."
"I am her," Taylor growled. Shepard rubbed at her temple. She silently said a quick prayer that this wasn't about to go off the parahuman cliff. Again. "How in the hell did you survive when so many others have died?"
"Living is my specialty?" Davis held her hands to the side, rolling her eyes. "Okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for the moment. It's nice to see you too, Khepri. Or are you going by Weaver again? Or Skitter? What's more polite after, what, two hundred years?"
"Polite would have been to die with the rest of the Nine," Taylor snapped. "It's Taylor now."
Davis' lip twitched, but her voice didn't raise as she glared right back. "Well excuse me. You realize I basically stopped running with them before the Golden Nimrod started his rampage right? But I suppose you didn't you really care to find out details when all you needed from me was to —"
"Mess with my brain."
"Which I said was a bad idea at the time. But nooo, big bad Weaver had to go and solve the — you know what, no, I'm not going to argue. I'm not stooping to that level. You won, you were right, I was wrong, your life obviously sucked afterward, but you apparently made it through just like me. How'd you do it? Cryostasis? Time-lock? Time-dilation? Cheating passenger breaking some rules? I'm betting on that last one since you're apparently mentally competent again."
Taylor maintained her steely gaze for another moment before shaking her head, her shoulders drooping. "Some tinkertech cryostasis that Contessa threw me into."
Davis winced. "Yeah, that would do it. Bitch messed with me too. A good messing, for us both apparently, but still, I've grown quite an aversion to being manipulated. I'm sure you can figure out why, Taylor. Stay a while, I'll treat us to a drink and we can piss on her grave together. If I knew where her grave was, that is. Tori, wonderful to see you again. Did you need a touch up?"
Shepard glanced over her shoulder at Victoria who was suddenly shifting back and forth in mid-air, rubbing the back of her neck and looking at the ground. Ah. So it wasn't all doctors, just this one. "No, I'm good."
"No problems with the module? You're not scheduled for a data dump for another year or two, but if Amelia's work has learned how to bypass my install —"
"I said I'm good, Riley. The memory bank hasn't been rejected. I think I'd notice if I woke up with wire mesh on my pillow. Thanks, but I'm fine."
Davis shrugged. "Alright, you're the patient. Let me know if anything changes!"
"Seriously?" Taylor hissed, whipping around to glare at Victoria. "You knew Bonesaw was still alive and you didn't say anything?"
"I didn't know we were about to literally show up on her doorstep! She hasn't been Bonesaw for centuries, Taylor. Back off, okay?" Victoria muttered.
"Lisa, did you know too?" Taylor snapped.
Davis planted her hands on her hips, glaring. "Oh, my name is Riley, thank you very much. Or Doctor Davis, but that's mostly just to my patients. My willing patients."
Shepard chose to ignore Taylor arguing with a small hologram hovering over her omnitool. Instead, finally seeing her opening, she thrust her hand forward. "Hello, Doctor Davis, I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my crew. I'm going to try to avoid focusing on the fact that I've apparently run into a fourth parahuman now in as many weeks, when all your lot are supposed to be well and truly dead. I would much prefer we start working, so if we can head towards your lab, Doctor Chakwas and Mordin can start briefing you."
Davis shrugged, gave her two thumbs up and twisted on her heel, to stride towards a building just visible towards the edge of the large cavern. "Four in a month? That's impressive! If it helps, you're now officially a statistical anomaly. Though, really, you were an outlier once you hit two capes. There's like… ten of us still hanging around by our fingernails."
"That sounds like my luck," Shepard agreed.
"Are we done with the ancient folk catching up? Excellent, thanks for answering my message so quickly, Riley," Karin said. Shepard didn't need to look at her to know her friend was grinning. The amusement was more than evident in her tone.
Davis glanced over her shoulder, winking. "I haven't forgotten about you, Hacksaw!" She chirped. "We got big things to do though so we'll have to catch up after the science!"
"I remember how you work. I expected as much. And are you really still on about that stupid nickname?" Davis' answering smirk only grew wider.
"No, Weld makes sense! He's made out of metal, what is he going to do, rust?" Shepard winced at Taylor's near shout.
"Well excuse me for not keeping tabs on people after I turned myself into a computer, Taylor!" Lisa's answering shout brought a groan from Shepard.
Davis blinked rapidly. She looked between the arguing couple and Shepard, eventually settling her gaze on Shepard. "Turned into a computer?"
"It's a long story," Shepard sighed. "Doctor Chakwas can tell you about it."
"Excuse me," Mordin said, hurrying forward and nearly pushing Shepard aside as he stared at Davis. "Wish to clarify, you are who?"
The woman glanced at Mordin, then pointed a thumb at her chest. "I'm Doctor Riley Davis. The maniac formerly known as Bonesaw, but that was ages ago. Now I'm a wandering medic. Mostly I wander to interesting places and try to help people. Like Tuchanka! This planet is a mess! I can't believe the damage they did to their ecosystem. I came here originally to try and help with the genophage thing, but now I'm trying to revitalize the entire planet and it's a nightmare let me tell you. The place is infested with thresher maws too, which normally isn't that bad, but here there's no real predators left to take them down since so much of the natural ecosystem is just hanging on by a thread. I'm reinventing a planet from old records and fossils and the very few Krogan scientists that kept notes or samples and it is all so very interesting!"
Grunt chuckled. "Thresher maws. Now that would be a challenge!"
"Most people look at threshers and run the other way," Davis chirped. "Krogan are so weird! I love this planet! Now if only I could teach you folk the importance of keeping your research in order."
Mordin frowned. "My people attempted planetary revitalization. Unsuccessful."
"Yeah, but you guys focused on the building blocks. That's never going to work with the Krogan. These guys are mean! You gotta bring back whole chunks at once otherwise the new seed population is just gonna die again to something on this world that wants to kill them. Saturate the biosphere, that's the way to go!"
"Good in principle. Doubt will work in practice. Would need to see research notes for better analysis."
"I'm happy to share with a fellow scientist," Davis said, waving towards the building they were closing in on. "All of my work is copied in triplicate if you want to take one and peruse for a bit then send back comments."
"Will do so. Have you… made progress on genophage research?"
Davis sighed. "Mostly? Normally this sort of thing is right up my alley. It's mainly a genetic disease and it targets hormone production. It doesn't get much more basic than that. It's really simple in execution even if the genophage itself is extremely complex. But for all of that, I've had a hard time isolating it because the Krogan physiology works too well. Any fix I make has to fix the genophage, not set off Krogan adaptation, and bleed itself out of the population. That part's the real hard part, see we have to avoid the Krogan bleeding out the cure because they become immune to the genophage without actually weeding out the genophage, else we'll end up right back where we are now, only they won't trust us to try again. Tricky balancing act; it's fun! My assistant has helped point me in the right directions, but it is still slow going, no avoiding that. Whoever built this thing to begin with deserves a medal!"
"No, we did not," Mordin murmured.
Davis slowed, turning to him with narrowed eyes. "People can regret past actions. It's what you do with your future that matters."
"That's rich coming from you," Taylor interjected.
"Look, Khepri," Davis snapped, "you've been sleeping for centuries while I've been running around the whole fucking galaxy trying to make up for my mistakes. I'm too scared of what's waiting on the other side of forever to undo the frankly stupid modifications I made when I was ten. When you have a similar problem, then, and only then, can you judge me."
There was a quiet droning in the background that Shepard was coming to associate with Taylor's anger. Just perfect. This was all already going so well.
"I shredded my brain, destroyed my body, became my own worst enemy, all to save every fucked up Earth. I didn't even get to properly die, Riley. For me, Golden Morning was 28 days, 17 hours, and 3 minutes ago. I killed myself saving the multiverse, the only reason I am still alive is because my passenger decided to fuck with me, and now every god damned horrible moment of that mess is burned into my brain in crystal clarity. And after all that I got, like, two minutes to rest before I was saving the galaxy instead. Don't talk to me about experiences."
"Fair enough," Davis sighed. "But my point still stands all the same. I am not the person you remember. I am not a brainwashed child anymore!" Davis hissed, her fists curling for a second. "I grew up, Taylor. I know the type of monster I was. I still can't feel things right, no matter how much I try to operate on that part of my brain, it just doesn't work anymore. So don't tell me what I was, because trust me, I know it far better than you do. Do you know yourself? We're both monsters, Khepri. The only difference is that I've had decades to try to build things instead of breaking them. You've been awake for a month and you're already right back on the warpath. You sure you want to go by 'Taylor'? Because you are acting a lot like the avenging goddess everyone's claiming you are."
"To be fair," Victoria cut in, "I would say she's more like Skitter."
"Alright, everyone! This is obviously a minefield, so let's just leave the old war stories in the past instead of dredging them up again, yeah?" Shepard said. This was karma. She was going to be playing babysitter for the rest of her life at this rate.
Taylor hissed and turned her back on Davis, pulling her omnitool up and glaring into it as she stalked to the edge of the group.
"Fine with me." Davis turned back to Mordin, a wide, fake, grin plastered on her face. "So the genophage? I'm pretty sure that me and Maelon have gotten a treatment that will drastically reduce the effects. Current estimates bring Krogan fertility to about 40% of an uninfected female."
Mordin gasped. "Incredible! What methods were used?"
She winced. "I'll go over the details with you later to show you my work. I'm sticking to normal science instead of Tinker things so that we can be sure to replicate the results. Honestly, I think I've seen far too many dead fetuses working on this. Wrex is pretty happy though and every one of the female Krogan assisting us have been the most forthcoming patients I've ever worked with."
"A memory wiper? You let her —" Taylor's had apparently shifted to having a hushed conversation with Victoria. Shepard rubbed at her temple.
"Memory saver, Taylor," Victoria replied, groaning. "Human brains aren't made to store and recall things indefinitely and even Amelia's modifications only got me so far. I got tired of zoning out for minutes at a time trying to remember things that happened a century ago. So yeah, I asked for help."
"The females came to you?" Grunt asked, completely ignoring his battle mistress and talking to Davis instead. "The tank said that females live separately in their own clans."
Davis nodded. "Wrex didn't even have to say much before the volunteers showed up on our doorstep." She sighed. "I don't really get it to be honest."
Taylor broke away from Victoria, her gaze narrowed, but the smoldering anger had bled off at least. "What do you mean? If you're avoiding being a mad scientist why should they worry when working with you?"
"That's not what I meant," Davis said. "Right now? Krogan are actually only a little behind most galactic species' reproduction rate. Krogan are naturally incredibly long-lived but their birth rate didn't match that longevity. Probably because of a huge mortality rate among their kids. All my records show this planet was very violent; pre-industrial Krogan would have died in droves. Now, post-genophage, comparing their birth rates to Asari — a similarly long-lived species — they're really only off by about 20-25%."
Mordin nodded. "But actual data doesn't support numbers."
"Right. The Krogan aren't that bad off. It's annoying, and probably something they would have had to address at some point, but if you look at Krogan population numbers, it doesn't hold up. Reduction in their populace has been ridiculous."
"Genophage was not only biologic," Mordin murmured. "Genophage effect on mindset. That was the clutch stomper."
"Agreed," Davis nodded. "Especially after talking with Wrex. These people have driven themselves to near extinction because of depression. Between you and me, I think that Wrex is actually happy that our cure doesn't fully restore Krogan fertility. A little bit of a reduction from their biological norm might help them to avoid overpopulating non-death worlds. That's how my serum is actually intended to work too; it conveniently gets around a lot of the pesky issues the genophage left behind. Now, we're looking at a far smaller clutch, but a much lower mortality rate. It should stabilize their population, increase morale, and let the species recover naturally. And hopefully be better neighbors, but you know, we all suck at that so, pipe dreams, right?"
Shepard shook her head. "Definitely don't spread that around. You would not make many friends voicing that opinion."
"Oh I know." Davis waved her off. "It's really not important, just an interesting tidbit about defeatist mindsets and all." She glanced over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow at Taylor. Thankfully her crewmember didn't rise to the bait. "Everyone is just super excited that we've gotten a major improvement anyway. We're here." She waved her arm, encompassing the building they had just walked into. "Welcome to my humble lab and clinic!"
"Alright," Shepard said, rubbing her hands together. "Let's go find out what makes Collectors tick."
Riley's smile could not have been wider. "Time for science!"
Shepard left her Krogan companion-turned-warlord behind, and walked back to her team. Mordin, Victoria, and Karin had formed a small circle around Taylor, their murmured voices just carrying to her.
"No, you're pressing too hard. It's not an actual button, Taylor."
"The tool is integrated with your nervous system. You just have to mentally direct the commands towards it, and the omnitool will function correctly."
"Hand movements redundant. Muscle memory. Mmm, no, wrong word. Mnemonic? Bodymonic? Hmph, terminology lacking. Not important. What is important, movement trains your brain. Follows similar patterns. Eases use. Speeds reaction time. Not necessary, easy to train away with practice."
"I literally just want to know how to turn on the sword. Why is this so complicated?"
Shepard clapped her hands as she broke into their circle, struggling to prevent the laugh she felt in her chest from bubbling up. "You want an easy way to use the sword? Think stab and punch your arm forward. Like this." Shepard thrust her arm towards the sky, the orange quick-fab blade materializing for a few brief moments before the construct collapsed.
Taylor's eyes narrowed, she waited a second, then also thrust her arm upwards. Her own omnitool creating the long sought after blade. "Hah! Yes! Finally. Was that really so hard to explain, guys? Thank you, Shepard. Now I don't have to stress about leaving my baton on the ship."
"Yeah, I'm not going to ask about that," Shepard said, bobbing her head. She walked back out of their little circle, aiming for the only other human visible nearby. Even without the lab coat that reached her knees, Doctor Davis stood out in this setting. "Let's talk to our soon-to-be new friend and see about getting more details on those Collectors, yeah? Hey, wasn't there a Salarian with her a few minutes ago?"
Mordin winced. "Maelon. Wanted to speak with him. Seemed, hmm, inappropriate in large group setting. Will do so once primary mission accomplished."
Shepard looked at her friend, sighing. "Mordin, we've all yelled at people we care about before. You could have gone to him."
"Inappropriate. Need more data on his current actions before confronting him. Only fair."
"Okay, but if you need to split off at some point, feel free to do so." Mordin nodded and she beckoned for the others to follow her as she walked towards Karin's mentor. The rest of the group quickly followed in her wake, Victoria conspicuously staying near the back and falling further behind the closer they got.
Well, that was perfect. Shepard resolved to ignore it for now. She could deal with her crewmember's apparent deep-seated issues with doctors after they had handled the Collector drones.
Davis looked up from the tablet in her hand as Shepard approached, a face-splitting grin blossoming. "Oh, you're done! Excellent. My assistant already went back to prep some equipment. Ready to get started? I know it's supposed to be hush hush and everything, but you come down here with Collector drones — both already having gone through some sort of metamorphosis too! — after I get a message promising fun and possible vivisections, really it's not hard to figure out what's on my docket for the day. Can we get started? I am so eager to get a peek under the hood! They just look so interesting!"
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Taylor muttered. "I thought you looked familiar."
Davis sighed, her attention shifting away from the drones. "Is that really necessary? But, huh. You really do look a lot like her. The vid was impressive, I'll admit, but those are easy to fake if you know what you're doing. From one professional to another, whoever built you did a really good job. You even sound as judgy as her."
"I am her," Taylor growled. Shepard rubbed at her temple. She silently said a quick prayer that this wasn't about to go off the parahuman cliff. Again. "How in the hell did you survive when so many others have died?"
"Living is my specialty?" Davis held her hands to the side, rolling her eyes. "Okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for the moment. It's nice to see you too, Khepri. Or are you going by Weaver again? Or Skitter? What's more polite after, what, two hundred years?"
"Polite would have been to die with the rest of the Nine," Taylor snapped. "It's Taylor now."
Davis' lip twitched, but her voice didn't raise as she glared right back. "Well excuse me. You realize I basically stopped running with them before the Golden Nimrod started his rampage right? But I suppose you didn't you really care to find out details when all you needed from me was to —"
"Mess with my brain."
"Which I said was a bad idea at the time. But nooo, big bad Weaver had to go and solve the — you know what, no, I'm not going to argue. I'm not stooping to that level. You won, you were right, I was wrong, your life obviously sucked afterward, but you apparently made it through just like me. How'd you do it? Cryostasis? Time-lock? Time-dilation? Cheating passenger breaking some rules? I'm betting on that last one since you're apparently mentally competent again."
Taylor maintained her steely gaze for another moment before shaking her head, her shoulders drooping. "Some tinkertech cryostasis that Contessa threw me into."
Davis winced. "Yeah, that would do it. Bitch messed with me too. A good messing, for us both apparently, but still, I've grown quite an aversion to being manipulated. I'm sure you can figure out why, Taylor. Stay a while, I'll treat us to a drink and we can piss on her grave together. If I knew where her grave was, that is. Tori, wonderful to see you again. Did you need a touch up?"
Shepard glanced over her shoulder at Victoria who was suddenly shifting back and forth in mid-air, rubbing the back of her neck and looking at the ground. Ah. So it wasn't all doctors, just this one. "No, I'm good."
"No problems with the module? You're not scheduled for a data dump for another year or two, but if Amelia's work has learned how to bypass my install —"
"I said I'm good, Riley. The memory bank hasn't been rejected. I think I'd notice if I woke up with wire mesh on my pillow. Thanks, but I'm fine."
Davis shrugged. "Alright, you're the patient. Let me know if anything changes!"
"Seriously?" Taylor hissed, whipping around to glare at Victoria. "You knew Bonesaw was still alive and you didn't say anything?"
"I didn't know we were about to literally show up on her doorstep! She hasn't been Bonesaw for centuries, Taylor. Back off, okay?" Victoria muttered.
"Lisa, did you know too?" Taylor snapped.
Davis planted her hands on her hips, glaring. "Oh, my name is Riley, thank you very much. Or Doctor Davis, but that's mostly just to my patients. My willing patients."
Shepard chose to ignore Taylor arguing with a small hologram hovering over her omnitool. Instead, finally seeing her opening, she thrust her hand forward. "Hello, Doctor Davis, I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my crew. I'm going to try to avoid focusing on the fact that I've apparently run into a fourth parahuman now in as many weeks, when all your lot are supposed to be well and truly dead. I would much prefer we start working, so if we can head towards your lab, Doctor Chakwas and Mordin can start briefing you."
Davis shrugged, gave her two thumbs up and twisted on her heel, to stride towards a building just visible towards the edge of the large cavern. "Four in a month? That's impressive! If it helps, you're now officially a statistical anomaly. Though, really, you were an outlier once you hit two capes. There's like… ten of us still hanging around by our fingernails."
"That sounds like my luck," Shepard agreed.
"Are we done with the ancient folk catching up? Excellent, thanks for answering my message so quickly, Riley," Karin said. Shepard didn't need to look at her to know her friend was grinning. The amusement was more than evident in her tone.
Davis glanced over her shoulder, winking. "I haven't forgotten about you, Hacksaw!" She chirped. "We got big things to do though so we'll have to catch up after the science!"
"I remember how you work. I expected as much. And are you really still on about that stupid nickname?" Davis' answering smirk only grew wider.
"No, Weld makes sense! He's made out of metal, what is he going to do, rust?" Shepard winced at Taylor's near shout.
"Well excuse me for not keeping tabs on people after I turned myself into a computer, Taylor!" Lisa's answering shout brought a groan from Shepard.
Davis blinked rapidly. She looked between the arguing couple and Shepard, eventually settling her gaze on Shepard. "Turned into a computer?"
"It's a long story," Shepard sighed. "Doctor Chakwas can tell you about it."
"Excuse me," Mordin said, hurrying forward and nearly pushing Shepard aside as he stared at Davis. "Wish to clarify, you are who?"
The woman glanced at Mordin, then pointed a thumb at her chest. "I'm Doctor Riley Davis. The maniac formerly known as Bonesaw, but that was ages ago. Now I'm a wandering medic. Mostly I wander to interesting places and try to help people. Like Tuchanka! This planet is a mess! I can't believe the damage they did to their ecosystem. I came here originally to try and help with the genophage thing, but now I'm trying to revitalize the entire planet and it's a nightmare let me tell you. The place is infested with thresher maws too, which normally isn't that bad, but here there's no real predators left to take them down since so much of the natural ecosystem is just hanging on by a thread. I'm reinventing a planet from old records and fossils and the very few Krogan scientists that kept notes or samples and it is all so very interesting!"
Grunt chuckled. "Thresher maws. Now that would be a challenge!"
"Most people look at threshers and run the other way," Davis chirped. "Krogan are so weird! I love this planet! Now if only I could teach you folk the importance of keeping your research in order."
Mordin frowned. "My people attempted planetary revitalization. Unsuccessful."
"Yeah, but you guys focused on the building blocks. That's never going to work with the Krogan. These guys are mean! You gotta bring back whole chunks at once otherwise the new seed population is just gonna die again to something on this world that wants to kill them. Saturate the biosphere, that's the way to go!"
"Good in principle. Doubt will work in practice. Would need to see research notes for better analysis."
"I'm happy to share with a fellow scientist," Davis said, waving towards the building they were closing in on. "All of my work is copied in triplicate if you want to take one and peruse for a bit then send back comments."
"Will do so. Have you… made progress on genophage research?"
Davis sighed. "Mostly? Normally this sort of thing is right up my alley. It's mainly a genetic disease and it targets hormone production. It doesn't get much more basic than that. It's really simple in execution even if the genophage itself is extremely complex. But for all of that, I've had a hard time isolating it because the Krogan physiology works too well. Any fix I make has to fix the genophage, not set off Krogan adaptation, and bleed itself out of the population. That part's the real hard part, see we have to avoid the Krogan bleeding out the cure because they become immune to the genophage without actually weeding out the genophage, else we'll end up right back where we are now, only they won't trust us to try again. Tricky balancing act; it's fun! My assistant has helped point me in the right directions, but it is still slow going, no avoiding that. Whoever built this thing to begin with deserves a medal!"
"No, we did not," Mordin murmured.
Davis slowed, turning to him with narrowed eyes. "People can regret past actions. It's what you do with your future that matters."
"That's rich coming from you," Taylor interjected.
"Look, Khepri," Davis snapped, "you've been sleeping for centuries while I've been running around the whole fucking galaxy trying to make up for my mistakes. I'm too scared of what's waiting on the other side of forever to undo the frankly stupid modifications I made when I was ten. When you have a similar problem, then, and only then, can you judge me."
There was a quiet droning in the background that Shepard was coming to associate with Taylor's anger. Just perfect. This was all already going so well.
"I shredded my brain, destroyed my body, became my own worst enemy, all to save every fucked up Earth. I didn't even get to properly die, Riley. For me, Golden Morning was 28 days, 17 hours, and 3 minutes ago. I killed myself saving the multiverse, the only reason I am still alive is because my passenger decided to fuck with me, and now every god damned horrible moment of that mess is burned into my brain in crystal clarity. And after all that I got, like, two minutes to rest before I was saving the galaxy instead. Don't talk to me about experiences."
"Fair enough," Davis sighed. "But my point still stands all the same. I am not the person you remember. I am not a brainwashed child anymore!" Davis hissed, her fists curling for a second. "I grew up, Taylor. I know the type of monster I was. I still can't feel things right, no matter how much I try to operate on that part of my brain, it just doesn't work anymore. So don't tell me what I was, because trust me, I know it far better than you do. Do you know yourself? We're both monsters, Khepri. The only difference is that I've had decades to try to build things instead of breaking them. You've been awake for a month and you're already right back on the warpath. You sure you want to go by 'Taylor'? Because you are acting a lot like the avenging goddess everyone's claiming you are."
"To be fair," Victoria cut in, "I would say she's more like Skitter."
"Alright, everyone! This is obviously a minefield, so let's just leave the old war stories in the past instead of dredging them up again, yeah?" Shepard said. This was karma. She was going to be playing babysitter for the rest of her life at this rate.
Taylor hissed and turned her back on Davis, pulling her omnitool up and glaring into it as she stalked to the edge of the group.
"Fine with me." Davis turned back to Mordin, a wide, fake, grin plastered on her face. "So the genophage? I'm pretty sure that me and Maelon have gotten a treatment that will drastically reduce the effects. Current estimates bring Krogan fertility to about 40% of an uninfected female."
Mordin gasped. "Incredible! What methods were used?"
She winced. "I'll go over the details with you later to show you my work. I'm sticking to normal science instead of Tinker things so that we can be sure to replicate the results. Honestly, I think I've seen far too many dead fetuses working on this. Wrex is pretty happy though and every one of the female Krogan assisting us have been the most forthcoming patients I've ever worked with."
"A memory wiper? You let her —" Taylor's had apparently shifted to having a hushed conversation with Victoria. Shepard rubbed at her temple.
"Memory saver, Taylor," Victoria replied, groaning. "Human brains aren't made to store and recall things indefinitely and even Amelia's modifications only got me so far. I got tired of zoning out for minutes at a time trying to remember things that happened a century ago. So yeah, I asked for help."
"The females came to you?" Grunt asked, completely ignoring his battle mistress and talking to Davis instead. "The tank said that females live separately in their own clans."
Davis nodded. "Wrex didn't even have to say much before the volunteers showed up on our doorstep." She sighed. "I don't really get it to be honest."
Taylor broke away from Victoria, her gaze narrowed, but the smoldering anger had bled off at least. "What do you mean? If you're avoiding being a mad scientist why should they worry when working with you?"
"That's not what I meant," Davis said. "Right now? Krogan are actually only a little behind most galactic species' reproduction rate. Krogan are naturally incredibly long-lived but their birth rate didn't match that longevity. Probably because of a huge mortality rate among their kids. All my records show this planet was very violent; pre-industrial Krogan would have died in droves. Now, post-genophage, comparing their birth rates to Asari — a similarly long-lived species — they're really only off by about 20-25%."
Mordin nodded. "But actual data doesn't support numbers."
"Right. The Krogan aren't that bad off. It's annoying, and probably something they would have had to address at some point, but if you look at Krogan population numbers, it doesn't hold up. Reduction in their populace has been ridiculous."
"Genophage was not only biologic," Mordin murmured. "Genophage effect on mindset. That was the clutch stomper."
"Agreed," Davis nodded. "Especially after talking with Wrex. These people have driven themselves to near extinction because of depression. Between you and me, I think that Wrex is actually happy that our cure doesn't fully restore Krogan fertility. A little bit of a reduction from their biological norm might help them to avoid overpopulating non-death worlds. That's how my serum is actually intended to work too; it conveniently gets around a lot of the pesky issues the genophage left behind. Now, we're looking at a far smaller clutch, but a much lower mortality rate. It should stabilize their population, increase morale, and let the species recover naturally. And hopefully be better neighbors, but you know, we all suck at that so, pipe dreams, right?"
Shepard shook her head. "Definitely don't spread that around. You would not make many friends voicing that opinion."
"Oh I know." Davis waved her off. "It's really not important, just an interesting tidbit about defeatist mindsets and all." She glanced over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow at Taylor. Thankfully her crewmember didn't rise to the bait. "Everyone is just super excited that we've gotten a major improvement anyway. We're here." She waved her arm, encompassing the building they had just walked into. "Welcome to my humble lab and clinic!"
"Alright," Shepard said, rubbing her hands together. "Let's go find out what makes Collectors tick."
Riley's smile could not have been wider. "Time for science!"
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
Dammit. I was about to go to sleeep.
Davis and Mordin are going to get along very well, or very badly, and it will be because they understand each other too well, or not at all.
Sounds perfect to me. 100% would be terrible.
Davis and Mordin are going to get along very well, or very badly, and it will be because they understand each other too well, or not at all.
Sounds perfect to me. 100% would be terrible.
- Location
- Argentina
Yes it would.
Then again, a lot of them are gonna die fighting the Reapers.
Future Taylor in a nutshell, right here. She was, in her subjective experience, fighting Scion and losing, searching for a miracle - any miracle - at any cost to herself, less than two days ago.
--
Also, 10 parahumans hanging on?
Interesting.
- Location
- Burlington, KY, USA
See if we can't figure them all out.
Taylor
Vickie
Lisa
Riley
Weld
Alabaster? (did he survive canon? Been too long since I read official story)
Alexandria's body?
Amy?
- Location
- Finland
I think these two aren't in that count considering how hush-hush Lisa has been about herself and Tay.
Destroyed by Scion during Golden Morning, according to the SB thread.
- Location
- That place over there.
I think Dragon would be a safe bet, and depending on how much cyborgization done maybe Colin too.
For a wild out of the blue thing I'm throwing in the idea of Vista still being around because of relativity when she tried to warp to other stars. She survived everything else after all
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