Thirst Unending: A Romp of Sugar and Stimulants from Omega to the Endless Hunt to the Mojave Desert. BOOK 3 Begins! Lets smooch a cleric beast!

[Princess Scribe]

Rebecca skittered off towards Lisa at lightspeed, then stopped and looked back. "I've never committed a war crime." She nodded, sure that she had followed the notes exactly, and jogged over to scoop Lisa up into a princess carry, eliciting a quiet, happy yelp from the woman.

"Lisa! Do you know what I had to do to get here in an hour?!" Rebecca said, holding her tight. "I blew up another apartment building! Two Salarians lost their cars! I made out with Aria T'loak!"

"Can we go to a bed?" Lisa asked weakly, "I've been bleeding and tired for an hour and a half." She justified the brief moment of weakness, mostly to herself.

Rebecca stabbed her with two medigels without asking, then a stim hypo, and then carefully read whether the painkiller would react with the stim. "Is this one the one execs use for speedballs, or the one that mixed with the stim makes your heart explode?"

Gasping from the injections, Lisa managed to say, "N-no more needles, please. Please." She placed a hand against the stim, "I've been using needles for an hour, let's, shit." It was the first real swear or exclamation Rebecca had ever heard from Lisa as she let her head fall into the other woman's shoulder, breathing heavily, "It's been unpleasant, lover. Can I just take the oral analgesics?"

Rebecca replied, "Yeah, sure, of course!" She had been saving those for herself, but it was fine. "Pex, back pocket, get the inhaler." Her arms were full, and she couldn't reach behind her and hold the woman at the same time. The Krogan acquiesced, still staring at Lisa with wide eyes, not having seen an Asari Matriarch in person before, and handed the inhaler over after about half a minute of fumbling for it.

"Pex, the pocket was locked by the fifth pat," she said as she felt the Krogan back away from her rear pocket. "I'm going to let that slide because my hands are full this time. You had a good idea with the welder. Then you had a very bad idea."

She headbutted him with the steel skull on the plate, hard, but not as hard as when she had jammed Kratt's skull plate into his eye. "Don't be stupid. Don't be weak." She gave Pex a swift kick to dismiss him. Rebecca turned around to face Officer Sorensen.

Lisa took the cigarillo out of Rebecca's mouth and ashed it for her. Then Rebecca said, "Officer, uh... Sir, police. Man? Do you know if any of the renters of these apartments are dead? I need their bed."

"I - you know, any other day, I'd be horrified. But I've been shooting techno zombies for an hour, and saw some redheaded crazy bitch — not you — talk a turian into shooting himself. I'm just gonna let it slide," Sorensen pointed to an apartment building.

"What the fuck— Wait no I'm sorry." Rebecca nearly dropped Lisa but squeezed her a little harder. "You saw someone talk a man into shooting himself? What fucking sales pitch do you start with? Heaven's having a two-for-one?!"

"They were in Alliance kit, hit up the commander of the local fleet if you care that much," he said, still pointing at an apartment building.

Rebecca did an about-face and jogged up to the apartment. Sighing into her comms, "Camlos, Kratt just send the Vorcha back to the ship. I can see one of them... God, I'm hoping he's trying to loot that zombie."

The apartment was dark, dusty, and dingy, courtesy of having had a ship battle happen nearby, but the bed was fine, and Lisa was more than happy to cling like a limpet to Rebecca, holding her while doing the closest thing Asari Matriarchs do to crying. Quietly humming something mournful and staring into the distance.

"So." Rebecca tried to start. "You've got something in common with old Earth cartoons now. You've both been fucked by a giant squid."

Lisyris sighed, "You're very cute, and I love you for trying, Rebecca." The smile cut through the sigh as she tore her eyes off the distant canyon carved into the Citadel and back towards Rebecca. "Did you get hurt at all?" She asked, a scar now over her forehead, medigel still healing it. The mark on her perfect skin somehow enraging.

"No, never." She kissed Lisa and placed her gently on the bed, "You're going to be different, but you're going to be okay." Lisa enjoyed the comfort, even as she shook her head.

"No, not different. Just the same, really." She admitted, a small giggle escaping her, trickling over to a laugh, "It's not new, same old thing. Death from the sky, hope and pray." Lisyris laughed a little again, a warm and happy noise, deeply at odds with how shaken she looked.

"Oh! Oh shit! I know what this is!" Rebecca said excitedly, running off to get candles and make some tea. "I used to talk to this old merc in Africa. He fought in 'Nam, and then some other shit before that. He mentioned stuff like this. It's battle fatigue."

"Post-traumatic stress disorder. It's common in Asari. We do not handle conflict well," she giggled into the bed, grabbing at the sheets as she twitched into a fetal position.

"Yeah, he always said he just needed to get one out and he was fine," she poured wine. "I used to help soldiers with this constantly."

"S-sometimes, I w-wonder about t-things you say," Lisyris giggled, unable to stop, "I w-w-wonder if I'm doing-hah- enough." A biotic pressure turned a family photo on the wall into its constituent atoms as a warping ripped it apart.

"Asari can't cry. This is crying," Rebecca stopped; she knew what to do for that too, and instead crawled into the bed, and held Lisyris, gently placing her head against the woman. "You have done more than anyone has ever even tried. I wake up every day thinking about you. When I'm in trouble and it feels unbearable, I think about the things you've taught me."

She pulled the small woman into her arms closer. "There's not a moment you aren't in my mind. You've made me better just by existing in the same space as me."

"What you do is more than enough." Rebecca was stroking her head now, showing a tenderness that's... never shown. For anyone. Ever. Lisa couldn't remember ever hearing Rebecca say something like this. Camlos sure as fuck never heard anything like this.

It was something for soldiers, for people who needed healing. It was a love she had but never expressed because that wasn't the right way to do it.

"I'm v-very proud of you," Lisyris couldn't help but support, be a pillar even if she's crumbling, letting herself fully sinks into Rebecca's embrace, "You've c-come so far, it's amazing." She let the last stiffness leave her frame as she's fully wrapped in the much taller, larger woman's embrace.

"I try so hard," Rebecca said whispering, "Because I know I can show you how much I care with what I do. I can't... I'm not rich. I'm not really tough, or smart. I can change though. I can heal. I do that and I know you see it, and that you recognize that in part I'm doing it because I know you're worth being better for."

They just sat there for a while, and she rocked the smaller woman back and forth. Let the words slip in, and pull her, slowly, piece by piece back together.

"I'm happy I let you into my h-heart," Lisyris finally got out after a silence of seconds, tears forming at the edges of her eyes, beginning to pull mascara down with their passage, a dam centuries in the making starting to crack, break, letting crooked leaks through. "I w-wouldn't have m-made it through without you."

"Then I'm really glad you let me into your clinic," Rebecca said back, "Because I was a fucking nutjob back then." The statement of fact made Lisa chuckle, the sudden happiness forcing a choked sob out of her, her hands turning to vices on Rebecca's sides as she latched on again from the unfamiliar shiver. She smells nice, feels soft, fragile, vulnerable and trusting. Utterly laid bare in this moment.

"Rebecca," she murmured, controlling her voice so precisely, so pointedly, refusing to let such a base thing as sadness stop her from saying her mind, something so small as terror affect her communication. "You're....." Lisyris found the words hard, and that realization let her finally find the right ones.

"I love you," she said in a mix of surprise and joy and sadness. "You'll... always be in my heart. When you're gone, a piece of me will stay with you." Lisa accepted the truth as the words came out, starting to cry properly, tracks of wetness forming on Rebecca's underlayer of flexible soft polymer.

She didn't know what to say to that, it was true. It was scary. It made her feel she hurt Lisa by existing, but she could make it better, by being near her. "I've always known that Lisa. I love you too. I don't... express myself well." Rebecca squeezed the crying Asari to her chest, letting the tears fall onto her.

"I... I'm a lot more observant than people think," she said, kissing her on the forehead again. "You do grand gestures, but there are also tiny ones. Ones that only come from studying a person and really trying to make their days brighter. You don't even say it's you; you just do it, secretly."

"Like, sometimes, things in the house move just out of my way. So I don't run into them," Rebecca said. "One time, I forgot to order well, the forbidden fruit, and it still showed up. You double-checked."

She whispered to her, rocking her back and forth, "You're in the foreground, telling me you love me. Hearing me creak and crack, and then when you think I can't see you, you do a hundred more things so that I don't collect any more damage."

The Asari stayed in the embrace silently, sobs left behind for a wordless, soundless release of emotion. Tears followed their tracks down, dripping onto sheets and polymer alike as makeup that took half an hour to put together—professional, capable, and fitting for meeting with experts in the field of bacterial infections—fell apart.

Finally, a smirk, tiny and weak, formed on her face as she thought of a private joke, something just in her mind that made any of this better, bringing a shining ray of joy into the situation that was spiraling heavier and heavier without recourse. Lisa kept it to herself, finding it inside Rebecca's touch, inside her acts tonight, not speaking a word in this peaceful reality concocted in an embrace somewhere quiet, forgotten, and ruined.

Dust trickled off the walls as more shudders passed through the Citadel, control taken back by C-Sec in the rattle of rifles and bark of pistols, all fading away to the singularity of the two women in love. Time wasn't truly meaningful, but still, after some amount of time—an amount enough that tears had dried, and that sadness had faded and was replaced with the hollowness of healing.

Rebecca sat with Lisyris in silence. In the background of their moment, she heard the Blood Pack and CSEC manage to work together to clear a few more sectors before everyone was "politely" asked to return to their ship or leave. This turned into a very weary truce as the Krogan, Vorcha, Camlos, and Kratt had made it very clear they were not abandoning their President. Instead, they occupied other rooms of the apartment building they were in.

It didn't really matter though, not to Rebecca.

There were cracks of gunfire just a room over, and the scream of husks dying, causing Lisa to flinch and shudder. Her eyes went wide with panic, and she gripped Rebecca's suit. Though she seemed to calm in the warm embrace as Rebecca squeezed her a little tighter.

Over the comms, she heard Kratt say, "Techno zombies are still in the building. Are they fused in a hug?!" A mildly baffled tone hit the comms, not horrified, just confused as to why they were hugging.

"Oh, good, that means the occupants won't be coming back," Rebecca said. "Well, if they're hugging, at least you can kill them easier. What weird little fucking guys. Camlos, the building landlord should be on a directory. They just found out the place got hit; property value is gonna plummet. Can you rent out the building?"

"Let's see if they're still alive," Camlos responded, tapping at a computer on the other side of the link, trying to find contact information.

Rebecca gently rubbed Liara's head and whispered to her, "Hey, they're clearing out the building. We're going to stay; if you'd like, of course, I know the cure was important to you. I don't want to leave you here without a platoon."

Lisa sighed, less sad than it had been lately, "The research is... gone. That ship was destroying every computer it could touch," she murmured into Rebecca's shoulder. "Back to square one, and everyone else wasn't a biotic. A near-miss with a ship beam was... lethal."

"Oh yeah, that's rough when it happens," Rebecca said. "When we were clearing this compound in the Congo, my squad got ripped apart by an ambush. Just... Didn't drop fast enough in time to cover. It's terrible, every time."

The Asari nodded, agreeing silently. Words weren't particularly useful in this instance.

"Alright, I guess that means we don't need to stay then," Rebecca continued, wincing as she received a notification that the money had just left her account—an account that was draining fast and blowing through what was going to be a set of metal legs. The omnitool silently sent a holo behind Lisa's head.

Enough for a mission, Rebecca thought quietly, staring at the rapidly draining account, maybe two if we're lucky. "Let's get you home."

"Alright," Lisa murmured her agreement, breathing out the last bit of stress as she fully marshaled herself back to the now, leaving the drifting tides of memory and fear for focus and discipline.

The Omnitool beeped again, this time with a call causing Rebecca to grit her teeth. She had shit to do. This was getting obnoxious. The number, however, made her skin crawl; it was T'loak's secretary. It rang once, twice, and then a third time before Rebecca finally picked up.

"Hello, Scarlet Angel!" The bubbly voice of the young Asari commando that serves as Aria's secretary was as always, pleasant, fun, and engaging. She had mastered the art of being nice to listen to, easy to agree with.

"Hey Kaezze, how are you doing?" Rebecca was quick with the niceties; the one time she had snapped at the secretary, her next mercenary mission had gone so ass backwards that it had to be sabotage. Not that Rebecca could prove it. Since then, her tone had only been pleasant.

"I'm doing amazing, thank you so much for asking!" Kaezze verbally bounced as she spoke. "How's the Citadel this time of year? I know it's a little rougher than usual." She joked with a mirth in her voice, likely watching all this on the news.

Rebecca looked out the apartment window at the dripping slag, wires, and corpses in the streets. One Vorcha was being mauled as CSEC quickly swept up the zombies that had burst out of what was a massage parlor. Alliance military had come on the scene to assist the Turian Hierarchy, and it was her first chance to see what they were like in person. They were a bit sloppy, to be honest; they had tight discipline, but they seemed... Stupid.

"You know, the sparking wires and molten metal are making me see it in a whole new light," Rebecca gave a small laugh, "The zombie outbreak means there'll be a lot of cleanup, for a while. A long while."

"That's good! So, I'm forwarding some seed money, Miss Angel! It'll be your first task, okay? Super duper easy!" Kaezze bubbled and laughed as she spoke, four million credits hitting Rebecca's account in seconds.

"Oh. Oh, that's... Wow." She was stunned; four million either meant Aria was flexing her endless wealth, or Rebecca would be doing something legendary, both of which made her giddy. "Absolutely, I am at your beck and call."

"Mhmm! Going forward, you'll be communicating directly with Miss T'loak on a very expensive quantum entanglement communicator! Perfectly encrypted, unbreakable!" Kaezze explained, sending an address—a...post office?—to Rebecca.

Rebecca started to practically vibrate and couldn't help but start to babble, "Oh man, Kaezze, this is really going to be great. I can feel it." She squeezed Lisa a little harder, and while still on the phone whispered, "It looks like we might need to stay longer, but we have the building legally. Looks like I might need to leave for a little bit, okay?"

"I'm alright, lover. Don't mind me." Lisyris murmured, giving a tiny smile and a reassuring pat. "Go to work; I'll be...cleaning this place up, actually." She found something to do, staring at the dust and cracked concrete.

Rebecca smiled, "That's great; that's what's always helped me. Find a task and move forward. It's in the past now." She gave her a light kiss on the head as she stood.

"Alright Kaezze, I'm headed there now!" Rebecca said. "Is there anything else I can do on my way there? I could probably loot a gift shop."

"Nope! Low profile, Miss Angel! You'll have to control yourself; you're a boss now!" Kaezze happily informed Rebecca of her future.

Rebecca let out a small breath, did I just get promoted to Platoon Sergeant? "Hell yeah! Alright, alright! Thank you, Kaezze! See you... Well, the next time you video call, I guess. I'm going to let you go now if that's alright."

"Mhmm! Till next tiiiiime~!" Kaezze laughed, letting her attention drift away from the screen and towards something else.

"Bye!~" And Rebecca clicked off the comms. "Looks like we're going to be the point of contact on the Citadel." Lisa smiled at the idea, shaking her head amusedly.

 

[Princess Scribe]

As she walked out, she was on her wrist, the streets of the Citadel frighteningly easy to navigate even with the Husks. She hadn't even brought an Assault Rifle, just using her Carnifex to occasionally pop a few zombies as she passed. There was work to do on her way to the post office.

Emails, mostly. That was what a "boss" seemed to do. Talk to people and tell them "Yes, I can do that," or "No, but I can do this, then." Right now, she was trying to figure out which of her band could get to the Citadel safely and legally. Transport could be arranged once she knew how many could come.

Most of them were career criminals with walls of charges; however, some of them were on C-Sec's most wanted lists, though nowhere near the top ten, and a few were no warning arrests, allowing officers to fire upon them if they suspected they were armed.

That was probably not going to fly; it seemed the police and military here had their panties in a wad about stupid stuff. Some of these were just for smuggling drugs. That wasn't a crime; it was economics! There was still the turian in Omega, and there were a few jobs she had assigned as too small. She could send Kratt back to help her keep the pack in line and do a few jobs on their own. It'd mean splitting her platoon.

Camlos was more or less just a pretty face for the office, having answered three emails before shrugging and just walking beside Rebecca as they got closer and closer to the abandoned post office, taken out of active usage sometime in the Napoleonic Wars by order of the Asari councilor.

"Kratt, you've been promoted. Take anyone in the apartment building with a record that matters and get back to Omega. You and that one chick are going to be working a second platoon so that we have a standing force," Rebecca said matter-of-factly. "You're going to basically be doing what I do now. I don't really have a name for the position yet. Pick and choose jobs yourself, and your supplies, I'm going to break you off a chunk of change for it."

"Huh, I didn't think I had that much of a criminal record," Kratt listened intently, apparently forgetting the cop-killing, assault, battery, and, of course, many murders.

Rebecca stopped. "Kratt, you burned down a CSEC station and set up a... And I quote, Citadel Autonomous Zone. There was blood everywhere."

Kratt laughed, fondly and happily, "Good times!" as he idly scheduled a flight back to Omega.

"Camlos, what's your record like?" Rebecca asked; she had never dug deep into his history. He didn't seem to like to talk about it.

"Oh, uh," Camlos snapped back to reality. "Got discharged from C-Sec for, uh, yeah I shouldn't stay."

"You're a fucking cop?!" She hissed angrily at him. "Why wouldn't you tell me that? Ever!?"

"If you see a Turian, they're either career military, corporate, or cop! And I didn't look like a corpo, did I?" Camlos fired back with his own hiss, starting to miss the arguments. It had been four days since they'd properly shouted at each other.

Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose. "How is a fucking cop a decorated sniper? What were you decorated with? Bacon?!"

"Oh, uh, twelve years in the Legions, then nine as C-Sec pirate response. I took a shot from the outside of one ship to another once. Hostage rescue," Camlos explained.

"Bitch, how the fuck did you get kicked out of one of the ugliest gangs in existence? What the fuck did you do?!" Rebecca hissed as CSEC passed. She gave them a glare as she shot a Husk behind her.

"We get fuckin' Citadel investigation teams regularly; it's bullshit. Asari and Salarians run through the whole network, flirting and blackmailing out the dirty laundry, then cleaning house every ten-twenty years," Camlos complained, explaining some background.

"This is why I don't let you manage. You realize this is why I don't let you manage. That's pertinent information," Rebecca growled to herself, and as the CSEC kept staring, she gave them the finger and walked off.

"That's okay; I don't really want to be in charge of stuff. Lotsa stress there," Camlos shrugged, before continuing, "So I took some, uh, a lot, uh, a lot of dicey shots in my career. Like, uh...four hundred illegal ones."

"What the fuck is an illegal shot when there's a sniper on scene!?" Rebecca was pissed and ready to tear this stupid twink apart.

"Well, the AIC has to sign off on the shot before I shoot, and the AIC has to get permission from the C-SC, Citadel Segment Control that is, to have a high-power shot go off in a space station, for, uh, reasons I hope are obvious," Camlos explained. "But sometimes they're just in the perfect spot, and we're all Turians, so it's easy. 'Till a Salarian pulls traffic camera footage, assholes."

"You're going back to Omega," Rebecca screamed now, as more and more CSEC walked by. "You go with Kratt! You answer to that Turian with a kid; she's a mother, she knows how to handle Fucking children!"

"I should go back to Omega before they arrest me, yeah? It's like...fifty years in prison," Camlos calmly answered, knowing not raising his voice would make Rebecca angrier. "Also, uh, you should be careful with profanity. It's illegal." He chuckled, ducking away before he could be smacked.

Rebecca rubbed her temples as Kratt's hand flew through the Omnitool feed. It momentarily blocked out the camera. "Kratt, you figure out how the Turians lead a bunch of Krogan and Vorcha."

"It'll be exactly how you do it. I'll kick some skulls in, and they'll figure out the pecking order," Kratt nodded sagely, wisdom emanating from his words.

"You're being promoted. Why was she surrounded by idiots? "You'll be the boss paying attention to people who don't matter. You need to figure out how the Turians did what you did for me."

"I'll get a Turian to kick some skulls in, so they can figure out the pecking order," Kratt mildly altered his plan as his flight was scheduled. "Surprisingly easy to schedule flights to Omega. Huh," he whispered, surprised, having no concept of an inner voice, as Rebecca had found out over the months.

"Yes, because only career criminals go to Omega, and unlike Omega, we are an invading force to them," Rebecca took a few deep breaths. It would be fine. Everything would be fine. Sure, everyone is an incompetent idiot, but that's temporary. Incompetence is simply a lack of experience. Not everyone spent... No, everyone under her command had spent more than thirty years in this line of work.

It probably just takes longer to learn. That's all. Incompetence is simply a lack of experience. They were never trusted, and when they failed, failure was met with rejection and a swift death. Let them mess up, teach them.

"Incompetence is a lack of experience," she muttered, repeating her own Turian military mantra, "You can teach them. Incompetence is a lack of experience. You can teach them."

Finally, she admonished, "Just... Look, if you, or one of the officers mess up, have them call me. I'll... explain, I guess. Don't kill the stupid fucking failures." Before Kratt could reply, she hung up.

As it turned out, the post office door was still functional. Hissing open with creaks from ill-lubricated hinges covered in dust, the interior was long-abandoned and empty, except for one suspicious, well-cleaned, and kept open safety deposit box that was literally on the floor of the place, not even hidden behind bars or glass.

"God, that's such a fucking power move," Rebecca murmured as she walked over and picked it up, "Fuck, she's so fucking cool." The box, about ten inches on each side, triggered her omnitool, which started to blink with 'DEVICE DETECTED: Aria's Box. CONNECT?'

There was a moment of apprehension as she considered the question, recalling what Kaezze had said to her. Did she say to call Aria? Was she calling Aria, or had she been summoned? God, she really didn't want to die this close to a moment of triumph. She was the leader of a mercenary band, commanding two platoons—soon, she'd be Aria's personal... Crime Gal.

She clicked yes.

'Calling Aria T'loak,' the omnitool chipperly indicated as the connection formed instantaneously, with no delay.

Wait, what? FUCK. Fuck fuck fuck. Panic washed over Rebecca, and sweat dripped down her face as she bit her curled finger, thinking on how to escape from the situation..

"Dinozzo," The image of Aria, in bed, freshly awoken, without makeup or anything on her was both intensely attractive in ways that no other creature could possibly manage, and terrifying in ways that scream of certain, incoming, painful death. Her voice is a whiskey on rocks gravel fresh from the touch of dreams.

"No, no, no," Rebecca whispered, hoping the communicator hadn't picked up her unintended eavesdropping. "Sorry, sorry, I thought you summoned me," she said, turning her head to try to be polite even in her panic.

"You're on the Citadel? Good," Aria turned in her bed, switching the camera to one on her bedside table instead of using her omnitool. She seemed to choose doing business, over being apocalyptically mad. Oh thank god.

"Yes, we bought an apartment building, and I sent everyone who was too dirty for the Citadel back home, ma'am," Rebecca responded, her voice unintentionally rising in pitch.

"If you keep squeaking when you talk, I might assume you want to be squeezed to death," Aria deadpanned, her eyes remaining closed. Rebecca noted the beautiful, intricate tattoo on Aria's chest and quickly averted her gaze.

This is how you die. Wonderful. A hyper-competent warrior, dying because she can't stop ogling. "Right, sorry. Of course," she said.

"Your next task is getting ready. I'm shipping nine tonnes of Red Sand to the Citadel. It sells for seventy credits a gram. Do the math if you want, just know if I lose the shipment, I'll extract the cost from your bones," Aria casually threatened Rebecca as she shifts again, restless in bed apaprently, she has a spine tattoo is the first thing Rebecca notes as she turns her back.

"Sixty-three billion credits, uh, ma'am," Rebecca calculated quickly. That wasn't an order

"You'll be guarding it, hauling it, and storing it. Luckily for you, Dinozzo, you don't have to sell it. I've got a contact for that; you'll be meeting her soon," Aria continued as she rested, her breath evening out.

This was something Rebecca could handle; it was something she did all the time. Fully in her wheelhouse. But they were on a space station—no jungles or caves or compounds to stash illicit goods. She'd need to navigate urban terrain, engage in social urban maneuvering. Fuuuuuuck. "Easy money, yes ma'am. I'll get it done."

"C-Sec's a mess, but you've got abandoned buildings to stash it in, and populated ones they can't afford to tear apart. Here's a location. Be there," ria continues as the sheets slowly fall against her skin to reveal in the sheer fabric the curves of her lower body, past where the tattoo of swirling lines and Thessian beast heads ends at her tailbone. "Understood?"

"Loud and clear," Rebecca's tone shifted to something more steely, a resolve she had kept hidden resurfaced. This wasn't just for fun; she was dedicating herself wholly to this task. Being rich was no longer a little dream; it was a pressing need.

Every credit was not just money—it was a unit of her rising prestige. She needed to wrack up a highscore.

"Good, I'll be on the Citadel in a year. I best be Queen by then," Aria's instructions were her parting words as the quantum connection began to close.

"Queen of the Citadel? Yes, my liege," Rebecca affirmed, ending the call. "Oh my god, does this make me a knight? So fucking rad."

 

[Princess Scribe]

Rebecca had turned the bachelor's pad next door into a personal office. The apartment featured a living room with an attached kitchen and faux wood floors. The kitchen was well-equipped, but one particular door bore terrible claw marks, as if something had desperately tried to get in.

It didn't look like something that husks would do; the scratches looked like ragged gouges from talons. As she inspected the damage, Rebecca heard a deep, angry growl behind her—something feral and low, like a humming engine, one that wanted to eat her.

She turned around slowly, ever so slowly, as to not trigger whatever predatory instinct of whatever animal was threatening her. The movement felt like it would take years before she'd finally get eyes behind her, and the entire time, her neck was scoured with feral eyes. She could sense that she was being either judged, toyed with, or hunted.

When she finally finished turning around, she saw something that resembled a purple cheetah lurking nearby. It had spots like a cheetah, and the face was cute and rounded as well, but its claws were razor-sharp, and the three tails behind it planted it firmly in the extra-terrestrial category. The growl it emitted was far larger than the beast itself, sounding like a large tiger, or maybe a bear. She didn't know how she had missed it when she walked in. Now that it made itself known, she saw dead husks were scattered around it, and large strips of metal had been gnawed off in crescent shapes. Wait—Could it eat metal? she wondered.

"Hey bud," Rebecca said quietly to the creature, "I'm Rebecca. I don't want to hurt you. Are you friendly?"

She put her hand out. Rebecca had loved animals, but pets were verboten in the small home they kept her in. The ones in the jungle were too scared to interact with, except the one time she had fed a wounded panther. Animals seemed nice; they were like her—they understood survival at all costs.

The creature hissed but then slowly approached. It growled and jumped backward before kneeling low and hissing again. Rebecca didn't move. She didn't want to scare it, and she didn't want to leave it to starve. It was about as big as a Labrador, but she noted the claws tore the carpet as it walked. Eventually, it got close, sniffed her hand, and head-butted it before backing up and looking at her.

"You're a good girl, boy," She looked around and didn't see anything that gendered it. "Everyone in the building is dead. I think I might have to take care of you." The creature let out a low meow in a quiet tone as the words came out, and its head almost drooped.

"Did you... That seemed like... You didn't understand me right?" Rebecca paused for a moment, "That couldn't—Well, aliens, so just in case." She stared at the creature for a moment longer. "The Citadel has been attacked; nothing in this building survived except for you so far. I'm kind of a not great person, but I'm nice to animals."

The Cat laid down low, and made a soft sad noise before walking around and then nudging the Husk where she had been trying to eat it.

Rebecca slowly returned to the ravaged door, where the thing had clearly, desperately, tried to get in. With a breath of relief, the cat's food was easy to find, and a bowl was easy to retrieve as well. Its kibble came out in dried rusty flakes that looked like iron and steel, with small chunks of dried meat-smelling chunks.

The creature seemed to accept her presence as she moved the chair from the dining room into the main area and set it up.

Then she called in two of her employees: a Turian named Sitina, and her... lover, no, life-bonded, a Krogan named Javarog. They showed up in moments, sat down, and were greeted personally by Rebecca and her new pet, Catteris. Hands were shaken, and both shared glances behind Rebecca's back of unease.

"Excellent, well let's get down to why I called you here. I need someone to do the grunt work of leading a platoon. I've noticed that the command structure of someone big and strong enough to beat the shit out of a Krogan, and then a second so that they don't seem to get all frothy about getting attention from their leader works out extremely well," Rebecca explained, "You'll be of equal pay, and essentially, the positions are Enforcer and Leader. However, I'm expecting you to work together."

"Uh, and who gets what?" The lead one, the smart one, Sitina, starts off by clarifying exactly who is what. "I don't exactly know off the cuff which of us is supposed to do the... beating the shit out of a Krogan," she says, audibly hoping it's not her.

Is this a fucking... Is she socially smart, or really dumb? Fuck it, Rebecca nodded, hearing her words and thinking for a moment, "Javarog, do you think you could handle most of our recruits? It would be better for those from Tuchanka to see a familiar face. We've never gotten a Krogan older than, well, you're the oldest at a hundred and nine."

"Yeah? They're pyjack-fuckers with no brains and barely any brawn," Javarog shrugs with the thrumming bass of a Krogan. "It's as easy as throwing a brick at them when they act out, and throwing them at bricks when they're stupid."

Oh fuck. Vro is still on the Citadel. She started to sweat a little. "I just realized my Battlemaster is still on the station. Fuck." Rebecca laughed, trying to show a little personality with the newly promoted. "That's going to suck. I pissed him off right as we landed, then ran into battle."

"You're fucked, boss," Javarog offers his two cents with a sage nod of wisdom. Sitrina quickly gave the Krogan a swift elbow to the ribs. Trying to stifle the man quickly.

Rebecca sighed. Kratt mentioned this might happen. "So, I expect you to speak your mind freely, to be clear. You're now part of the... upper division. That means you're going to take what your platoon says and feed it to me plainly with your opinions, and take what I order to them while keeping any stupid, harmful-for-morale shit out. That means while still professional, we're going to need to be a bit more open." They were still staring at her, seeming to eye her warily. "That means you need to be comfortable enough to tell me when an idea is stupid, and that means we talk more like normal people. Well, Omega normal, not fines-for-swears Citadel normal."

"So... we're commanders. Okay, that's a lot more sensible," Sitina finally breathes out a sigh of relief at understanding what's happening. "Well, then, uh, we need a lot of time to figure out what the platoons are doing. You've been managing them pretty directly, and Kratt tells no one why he does something."

Son of a BITCH. "Nooooo..." Rebecca moaned sadly. "He said you two were prepared mostly... Is one of you good at math?"

Sitina shrugs. "Got a degree in computer science before I fucked off." The Turian points to a service ribbon she still wears for the Palaven Central University.

"Excellent," Rebecca said, breathing out. "So... I give you a mission and a budget. I have a few templates if you need them."

"I can keep the Krogans off the money, yeah," Sitina confirms with an easy nod.

Rebecca pauses a second. "No, I tell Kratt to pay you all a very fair wage. Wait." She takes a deep breath. "How much are you being paid per mission, before bonuses?"

"A chunk under standard rates, usually. But that's because we're not with like, Eclipse," Sitina shrugs again. "It's alright, work's easy."

"No. You're supposed to be paid..." Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. She double-checked her spreadsheets again, quickly. The money out is at the rate she set. That means there was money missing, but it couldn't be Kratt, he was a friend. Krogan culturally find that incredibly weak as well, "Okay, everyone is getting a raise."

Sitina gestures to her omnitool. "You want me to work something up? My omnitool can run VI assistance and a lot of other things." She shows actual accounting software instead of freeware found on the intranet.

Oh, she's just like... Starting on her own. Holy shit. YES! "Oh! You don't use a calculator and a spreadsheet! This is great. Nice. Yes, please, if you could email it to me. The rate is supposed to be as much as a Blue Sun, but everyone still needs to understand that the whole kill a guy to get in, still applies," Rebecca mused, her eyes brightening with excitement. "And we still do the arena for promotions."

"Sixteen kay then. Alright," Sitina agreed with a nod. "And you know, we could like, not do that and save on a lot of expertise we lose when some jackass pulls a gun on a Turian. Krogans don't lose much though, natural fighters and all," she quipped, playfully punching Javarog's side. "We lost a squad commander last month because someone decided to want to get in at high rank and knife fought them. Annoying."

Rebecca considered this carefully. "That should be explained; it's only for below leadership. We have so many Krogan and Vorcha who can do insane work, that it allows us to punch far above what our budget allows for gear and materials." She explained the business side earnestly, ensuring they understood, "Because we use strength and murder as our promotion system, it means our health plan is mostly funneled into life insurance, which keeps costs very steady. Vorcha can fly in nearly unsalvageable ships. Our Krogan whelps barely need barriers, and in fact love running in nearly unarmed. To keep that going we need to be different from corporate suits. We fill a niche for the poorly adapted anti-social."

"I understand that, but if we want to expand massively, corporate contracts ring in at a million credits a month sometimes. We'll have to balance our rep and practical efforts," Sitina immediately counter-argues calmly. "Krogan and Vorcha are efficient, but the real reason we need more Turians, humans, and preferably Asari is so that when push comes to shove, we can take some nice Corpo colony takeover and walk out with a frigate's worth in cash and loot." Sitrina knows her stuff, and she's not afraid to prove it, "They won't hire a Krogan band, bad look. They will hire a multi-species merc company and support diversity, however," the Turian added with a very exasperated tone, explaining the stark realities of intergalactic business, "It's stupid, but it's money."

"My biggest issue, I think," Rebecca said thinking carefully, she was going to play with her knife, but she remembered how hard Larmus slapped her the last time she did that. The coin was supposed to be better, somehow. "Is that we lose our culture doing that. I want Asari, Turians, Humans, and Salarians who see what we do and how we function and want to be a part of that. It self-selects for people who are far more violent than the norm, and filters operatives."

Javarog grumbled, "We don't pay enough for the real fighters of those species," his voice echoed slightly in the quiet room. "STG operatives can get half a million a year in corporate intelligence. Alliance N7's are the nastiest sons of bitches that aren't Krogan Battlemasters of five centuries and know it. Turian Hastati go into piracy and make bank. Asari Commandos? Fuck me, they can not work if they wanna, Aria hires 'em for a retainer of thirty kay a month."

Rebecca paused, the weight of the numbers heavy in her mind. She hated she couldn't afford the best. Hated it even more the best didn't want her. "Javarog," she began, encouraging him to continue, "is there a more organized way we can do our blood-in? That would work for both sides, attractive to the whelps, maybe even help them make that half step to more professional work, and attractive to the skinnier types who don't want to get annihilated in their sleep? Maybe a more organized..."

As the discussion heated up, Catteris, previously lounging in the corner, started to meander around the room, occasionally swiping at stray objects or sniffing at the remnants of a meal forgotten on a nearby table. The slight distraction added a layer of domesticity to the otherwise tense strategizing.

"Make it actually challenges? Like back home. Unless everyone hears you do it, and sees you do it, it's not true. What's the civil word for it?" Javarog tried to think as he looked distantly at the wall.

"Duel?" Sitina finished for him.

"Yeah, that," Javarog chuckled. "Duel, you don't wanna know how stupid that sounds in Krogan."

Rebecca nodded and rubbed her chin. "There's also... Rites? I hear mumbles about them, boasting when they think no one's listening. Do any of them match a dangerous, but not person versus person challenge?"

"Make it challenges? Yeah, guess you could do that. You aren't Krogan, so you'll have to make up your own. But it'll be familiar," Javarog nodded in agreement to Rebecca's statement.

Rebecca nodded; she hated that she'd always be a human. Everything about her "own" culture seemed ridiculous, the way they considered war, the way they considered strength, the way they balked at her. She never chose to be a dead-eyed orphan, fucking morons. "Yeah, alright, that makes sense."

"Maybe you need to... make a recruitment corp?" Sitina offered. "Find some Salarian STG, some Asari Commando, some Human N7, get them in, have them figure it out? They'd know better than us."

"I'd like, with those three that come up constantly, they also consider a Worthy Fist Commander just as fearsome, someday," Rebecca said with a bit of sadness, wistful and far off in her own thoughts. "I do love the challenge though. We can have blood trials one day every month, and after missions. Take sign-ups, have some squad vs squad duels assigned randomly, besides those who sign up together. If we hold it on Omega, we can just sidestep the law entirely for how we conduct recruiting."

"Yeah, that works at least for now. Uh, I still don't know how other species will react. Salarians at least hate random factors like that. They'd get pissy when food was late or ammo was early in training exercises," Sitina explained the Salarian condition. "So random challenges and shit, which unpredictably change their squads, are gonna have 'em up the wall."

"That's why a squad of five can sign up together. Our band is inherently chaotic; they're not going to do well anyways if they can't deal with a bit of messy slop," Rebecca muttered mostly to herself, rubbing her chin. "I'm hoping the squad sign-up will make the incredibly ambitious and opportunistic show up."

"This'll be a mess, you realize?" Sitina sighed, imagining having to handle humans, krogans, and turians smacking into each other. "I suppose we'll have to handle it nevertheless."

Rebecca nodded again as she awkwardly rolled a coin in her hand. Manipulating it smoothly helped keep her mind focused on the present, allowing her to tune out the background noise and remain engaged in the conversation. "I don't want to separate by culture and species. If they want to be a part of us, they need to fit in with us. Blood-in trials it is then."

"Blood-in trials sound fun," Javarog chuckled. "We should like... make 'em cut their hands open and shake their squad mates' hands—"

Rebecca's eyes lit up with a wide smile as Javarog was interrupted.

"We will not have people spreading bloodborne diseases," Sitina interrupted with a grumble.

And then the lights returned to their pre-programmed minimum amount of soul. "Right, yeah. They can do it over a stone."

"Ugh." Sitina realized she was surrounded by the same sort of people, staring at the floor with the creeping dread of being the only sane person here. "Damn it."

"Camlos also hates my ideas normally. You can call him for tips and tricks," Rebecca passed Sitina the number to her own twink. The direct omnitool transfer meant she couldn't do anything about it being saved.

"Ugh," another sound of exasperation left her. "Isn't he the one you shot in the, you know." Sitina gestured downward.

"The bar? No, that was Kratt. The video is— Oh! Yeah." Rebecca gave Sitina a thumbs up. "He's still very good with the go-between. Just crazy enough to understand the bloodthirsty, but with decades of experience operating with the civilized."

The Turian woman sighed again, it was likely going to become a constant refrain, like with Camlos. "Alright, I'm getting the resource planning software up and running, can you give me a bank account to feed off?"

"Yes, I'll give you one like Kratt's, which will be your uh... expending budget-y thing," Rebecca said, rubbing her chin. "Oh, and uh. When I find out who is embezzling money from us, I am probably going to make a very horrifying example. Like... A shrine to Mammon? Demon of greed. Bones and skin stretching and stuff."

"Could have also been like, paying them in equipment or something, you know," Javarog added, seeing the anger build. "Sometimes broke whelps ask to have a gun bought, and they take it out of their cheques."

"That wouldn't affect the base rate which is—" Rebecca was cut off but didn't quite mind it.

"You sure whoever you were making do this knew how to annotate it?" The Krogan looked at the document on his lover's omnitool, finding it black magic. "Cause, uh, I don't."

Rebecca felt like she was hit by a wrecking ball. "But then..." Though the money was all where it should be. Mostly, besides the missing pay, but it was their base rate. Where was the money going? It was going to the missions. He had his own accounts, he gave them their pay, and then he'd have to juggle a lot. She quickly pulled up Sitrina's pay and grimaced. "Two of the numbers are transposed. A four and a nine switched with each other. Good, great, catch, Javarog. I almost blew a ton of money on an investigation that'd've turned up nothing."

"I know Krogan stupid," Javarog was very proud of himself, judging from the blunt-toothed grin and glimmer in his reptilian eyes. Before promptly being smacked on the head-plate by Sitina.

"That's because you are Krogan stupid," she confirmed for him, though the pride didn't crack at all.

Goddamn Kratt was right, they were ready. They were ready for me to manage. They are so cute together. Rebecca breathed a big sigh of relief and visibly slacked a bit in her chair. "Excellent. I'll send an email to Kratt, you'll be coordinating with him since he's on Omega with Camlos, the other Commander Enforcer pairing. Oh man, I did get kind of excited about the shrine though. I guess there will eventually be someone who embezzles or steals from me. I'll draw something up for myself," she mumbled, mostly to herself, thinking of what kind of wire she would use, what gauge. It most likely mattered depending on the species in front of her.

"Alright, well, uh." Normally, Kratt and Camlos just kind of intuited when they were dismissed; Larmus had never taught her how to dismiss someone. Shit—goodbyes were always so hard for her. Oh, this is probably what Aria feels like. "Would 'Get to it then' or 'Dismissed' hit better with you?"

"Free to leave works too," Sitina chuckled as she stood up, pulling Javarog along with her.

"Excellent! You're free to leave then," Rebecca declared. "You have my link, but I prefer text unless it's an emergency. There's also a second number." Rebecca sent that to them both as well, "That's the dire emergency line. If I get a call on that, I'm putting gear on to leave as we speak. But yeah! Free to leave!"

She reached down and pet Catteris. Everything was working out great!

 

[Princess Scribe]

Rebecca was moving to what was supposed to be her base of operations, generously provided by Aria T'loak. Purgatory was a new unlicensed night club now apparently owned by Rebecca. C-Sec used to consistently roll in, to clear it out, but loitering in an area and drinking was not illegal on the Citadel. It was a self sufficient cash-flow that allowed her to have a reason to stay on the station.

She had an image of her contact, a Quarian, Rasu'Ful nar Xepal, from the contact sheet, should be five five, have a gold chunk on her right wrist for identification, and greet Rebecca with, 'It's a good day to touch the stars.' to further identify herself.

A good day to... Touch the stars. I'm crossed between rad, and the corniest thing I've ever heard. Nah, it's great. The streets of the Citadel were already cleaning up. It seemed space stations were just like that, they ignored the issues and returned the moment they could get back to work. Civilian life was a lot like the military; it was nice. The door to Purgatory opened for her, revealing an airlock where two guards stood.

"Uh. I'm the new owner. Leader of the Worthy Fists?" Rebecca said with a small eyebrow raised as she got wanded in. Then they asked very politely to pin-prick her finger, and the sharp sting caused Rebecca to yelp. "OW! Oh, yeah, good work! Thanks! Err... What's your names though?" They were two Turians named... Fuck, she already lost it as she walked into the writhing club, which was starting to get busy with nightlife. The Citadel actually bothered to simulate a cycle, unlike Omega. That seems useless, and now I'm going to get sleepy.

The air was thick with the energy of hundreds of patrons dancing, drinking, and losing themselves to the primal beats. Asari dancers seemed to wriggle and writhe in hypnotic motions on raised platforms. The main floor was filled with every species, talking, almost yelling to crowd out the noise of the people next to them and the powerful base. A quick view around her caught a few eyes who were nervous, and a few more who were intrigued. One human panicked and looked away as she gave him an incredibly threatening smile.

The neon-lit bar lights glowed so brightly that it caused small shadows to be cast from those too close in the dimly lit club. Bottles of exotic liquors from across the galaxy lined the shelves, and the built-in stools seemed to be occupied by wealthy people who used them as a status symbol. The bees closest to the nectar. It was the flower in the meadow, bright petals among a dull plain that promised a small escape from the stress of life.

She walked up to the bar still in a full hard-suit. Rebecca always wore her full hard-suit; it was comfy. She liked it; it had holsters, pockets, and huge tanks of medigel. It was everything a woman needed. Amongst the dance and drink and drugs, the contact was at the bar. Though a Quarian drinking may seem like the start of a joke, it was apparently something she could manage, judging from the tube running down to an otherwise sealed can of substance.

That's... Definitely not right. She double-checked with her Omnitool, she was drinking human whiskey. She was drinking human whiskey, neat, on the rocks. With a fucking straw.

The Quarian, Ras for short according to the datasheet, was leaning onto the bar from the stool, the incredibly skintight environmental suit only made at all modest by cloth thrown over certain areas, purple and carefully sewn with imagery and curves. Digitigrade legs holding her up while the rest of her body seemed like an idealized human in many respects.

Jesus Christ. Rebecca thought to herself as the Quarian moved towards her, My God. I don't understand how humans still breed. Was she gaping? She was definitely gaping as she put the drink to her lips.

The Quarian—Damn it, she has a name—was in front of Rebecca, tilting a masked head with purple glowing eyes vaguely in the tinted screen, waiting for something, anything.

"H— Hello— Hi! I own the club!" Rebecca said with a wide grin, lightly fluffing her curls and turning a soft pink. "Hi."

"It's a good day to touch the stars, no?" The voice was accented, almost scratchy, bringing to mind Middle Eastern or Persian accents, but not quite any of them; she had a hand on her hip, her whole body cocked to one side as she waited for a response.

It'd be a great day to touch many things. Don't you fucking dare say that you mongrel. "Yeah! Good, great day. Good'em'est." What the fuck did you just say? Even Camlos doesn't act like this.

"You, uh, okay?" Ras suddenly sounded nervous, hoping something hadn't gone wrong from the word vomit she was just exposed to.

"I was a popsicle until six months ago," Rebecca admitted, rubbing her eyes. "I've... Not met a lot of people, or even a lot of different kinds of people. I'm..." Her jaw set as she tried to remember what Lisa tells her to do about her feelings, hating it in the moment. "Flustered." Though she could just hear the compliment in her ears as she said it.

"Quarians and Omega don't mix much," Ras admitted. "You wanna go somewhere more private?" She asked, looking at the crowded club, full of noise and prying ears.

"Oh, uh, no you don't have to do that. I own the club and like... That'd be—" She pinched the bridge of her nose for a second, finding the act a good soft reset. "I misunderstood. Entirely. Yes, that'd be great. I'm going to apologize," Rebecca promised, but then didn't. "Err, at your, you're free to lead?" Oh my God, kill yourself.

"O-kay then," Ras stretched out the O in Okay to give her mind some sort of release from the budding confusion as she turned, a woven cloth tied around her waist moving out of sync with her hips. "I'll be over in the office, well, at the door. My access codes were shut off," she grumbled cutely, sounding almost squeaky when annoyed.

"The fuck? Why?" Rebecca asked with a small frown, also she wanted to bite her. She is in a hazmat suit because the air is poison. Do not! Me want bite. "Can I... Wait, I was sent all sorts of paperwork, I've been putting it in a database, and training my VI on it."

The virtual database was spun through quickly, looking up any reason why Ras would be cut off, then how she'd gen a new access code. She'd spent much of the six months learning how to work the basic tech.

"It's 'cause Aria kicked me off the ownership contract. So I'm not linked. Bosh'tet," Ras arrived at the door, waiting for Rebecca, two steps behind her.

"Oh. I don't know how to run a bar, can I just... Give it back?" Rebecca muttered, scratching her head through her curls as she towered over the crowd. "Though it'd be fucked to take a cut if I didn't do anything. Oh! I could give the club back, you could hire the band to do like... I don't really care, I assume you have work. Then I'm not fucking you, and I'm still getting a base income."

The code was... This was a stupid code. Six-nine-four-two-zero-six-nine. She rolled her eyes and opened the door, politely to let Ras in.

The office was a cramped, dimly lit space with peeling paint and a musty odor. A flickering fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting an sickly glow over the cluttered room. Piles of datapads and flimsies were strewn haphazardly across the scarred metal desk that dominated the center of the room.

"So, we've got nine tonnes of Red Sand coming. That's drugs that make you biotic for a little bit," Ras immediately started. "It also makes you high as a star, and twice as stupid. You ever seen it? Or used it? You've probably seen it used and just thought they were bullshitting." She was rapid fire, her cutesy voice moving from one word to another at a hell of a pace.

The walls were dingy and water-stained, with exposed pipes running along the ceiling. A reek of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air, mingling with the scent of mold. Rebecca stepped over scattered debris as she made her way to the employee side of the desk and took a seat.

"Once," Rebecca admitted, as she walked in and sat on the employee side of the desk inside. "I freaked out when I fell in love, went on a drug bender to try and get someone to kill me? Which some people find embarrassing I guess, but mercs do it like... Regularly." Rebecca had taken her drink with her and sipped it, leaving a condensation ring on the already stained surface. "So I went on a drug-fueled rampage, blew up an apartment building, I think I killed maybe seventy-five people? I was on Red sand, heroin, crystal meth, dextro-amphetamines, some weird Turian shit, uhh this thing Kro—"

"Well, I've been on the first bit. Haven't quite hit mass murder level yet," Ras admitted, sitting on the desk and looking down at Rebecca. "But more on topic, we've got a sales plan already set up. The Citadel has a hell of a drug habit, the highest abuse per capita in known space, and the highest income per capita in known space too." The Quarian started swinging her feet as she talked. "Means there's lots of business, yeah? Stupid Bosh'tets with nothing better to do spend all their credits on drugs."

"That explains why everyone I see smells like a potpourri bag and looks like they're made of silk," Rebecca said, finally understanding why she hated the Citadel already.

"Even the criminals are high class, look!" She pulled off the cloth around her waist, revealing the skinsuit underneath, and offered it. "It's Thessian silk, had to get it for, you know, purposes and business." Ras quickly realized she was admitting to having bought it for the sake of the luxury alone.

What. Why is it that tight? That hides nothing. Stop staring. Rebecca's head snapped up. "That's rad!" she exclaimed with a smile. "I don't expect everyone to be a broken psychopath like me. I know people need things to be happy. It's that they don't earn it that bugs me," Rebecca said with a deep exhalation. "Like, just because a bed makes me freak out, doesn't mean I think everyone should sleep on the floor."

"Me too, to be honest. I slept on the ship floor forever!" Ras agreed, tapping the desk with one of her three fingers.

"And people are so weird about it! Like why do you even care?" Rebecca immediately responded, getting excited.

"Right? It's like why do they care what's going on with someone else's sleeping habits? Three seconds." The translator tried to figure out how to convert the idiom to English as she disconnected the liquor tube, hooked it up to a bag on her hip, and breathed in, vapor filling the clear tube as medicine was inhaled.

"I'm not counting," Rebecca said with a nod.

"Sorry, had a suit breach yesterday, now I have pneumonia, ugh!" She complained while the steamed medicine was breathed in as she talked.

Rebecca furrowed her eyebrows. "Oh, that sucks. I haven't gotten sick since I got here. I think it's because I spent most of my life collecting microbes and— I'm a moron. That's good, I'm glad I'm still a moron."

A pretty laugh escaped Ras at the self-deprecation, made a little tinny by passing through a grille. "Wow, I thought I'd be working with some hard-ass merc that's too crazy to like, talk to. You're fun!"

Me. Want. Bite. "People find me a lot easier to hang out with once I got the eyes replaced," Rebecca nodded. "For some reason, human eyes are like dead giveaways." She pulled up the omnitool and flicked through a few colors and designs.

"Those are cyberware? Wow! I love your eyes! That's so cool!" Ras leaned forward, hooking her legs into the desk's underside to keep stable, using her core to stay upright as she looked into them with her own glowing purple ones. "That's like the most advanced I've ever seen, how much did they cost?!"

She can't be flirting. Sex kills them. "Oh uh..." Rebecca got very sheepish. "Eight... hundred and fifty thousand."

"Damn! Well, don't worry, me and you are gonna be rich. Aria lets us take five percent as operating cost coverage!" She reassured Rebecca with a pat on her shoulder.

"Err..." Rebecca paused for a second but still smiled. "I'm uh... I literally only kill people? Like that's my entire knowledge base. Advanced, tactical forms of murder. Have you seen me in the Arena vids from Omega? I'm the Scarlet Angel! It's great!" She pulled up a quick video, an incredibly gruesome fight where a Turian had accepted, the dumb bastard, to fight her one on one, gun vs spoon. She was in the act of removing the man's eye. "It was a little hard because of the plating I got there though. What's an operating cost?"

"Like, drugs, women, booze, bribes, whatever you wanna buy pretty much. It's for maintenance, and we're maintainable. You know?" Ras was still leaning forward off the desk, looking at the omnitool without much visible reaction, obviously used to extreme violence. She'd have to be, working for Aria T'loak.

Rebecca shook her head. "Not really, no." The video ended, and she closed the feed. "The mercenary band I run I just pay a flat salary and make them keep meticulous books. I get really really squirrely when resources go missing. The Company normally would throw you into a cement pit and let you starve to death in it."

"Oh yeah, Aria's like a trillionaire. This is pocket change for her. Just step one for the Citadel," Ras assured with another pat. "We're making inroads, getting her name back into it after C-Sec ripped every establishment she owned to tiny little bloody pieces."

None of that sounded like a salary, though it really wasn't her concern, like, at all the money was just a tool for prestige.

"So if you need to buy a gift or something. Or if you wanna like... I dunno, buy a spaceship after we offload enough of the Sand, you can. It's only technically yours though, if Aria wants it, it's hers." Ras bounced from word to word with an adorable rhythm.

"Oh, no, Aria gave me a spaceship with black-ops Asari commandos on board," Rebecca said with a smile. "They're on retainer, and I really love it when I buy something I've earned. Like through murder specifically. I actually separate on my spreadsheet the murder money from the like, protecting or whatever money. The murder money is for me. I earned it."

 

[Princess Scribe]

"Oh, you are a crazy merc, just easy to talk to," Ras realized. "Well, that's fine, you don't like randomly kill people right? Or shoot at people? I had a boss who did that, really pissed me off." The Quarian woman clarified as the cloth over her chest slid with her lean, showing more of the enviro-suit hugging her.

Rebecca blushed and chuckled. "Like, define random."

"If you like, break my environmental suit's seal by shooting at me for no real reason, or a reason, I'm gonna like, uh..." It was adorable as she scratched the back of her head nervously. "Replace your medigel with fluoride."

"Oh, oh okay," Rebecca shook her head, not out of fright, but with confidence. "No, I don't really do violence unless it's to kill. Trigger discipline says you shouldn't point a gun unless you're at the point you're going to take a life. Are you aware that all your clothes are sliding off?"

"Huh?" Ras said, a surprised squeak really. "Oh. Uhm. That, I. Uhm. Ah." More tiny noises left the Quarian as the glow behind the mask grew, the blush being formed in light. She was frozen, judging from the way Rebecca could see abs flex through the enviro-suit.

"I didn't really, oh," Rebecca stammered back. "No, I meant, I didn't like mind. I just um, there's just. Your suit is very. You— I didn't want." She reached over and quickly twisted the top cloth to be covering her.

"I-d-eep," she nearly squealed at the sudden reach from Rebecca, sliding back and falling off the desk with a thunk.

"Why am I like this?" Rebecca mumbled, slamming backward into her seat. "Sorry. You froze. You're in a suit. I thought you were like, frozen. It felt... exploitative not to cover you back up. I'm sorry." Her bright red face touched the desk and she stared directly downward.

Ras peeked over the edge of the desk, just the top half of her face visible. "I, uhm, sorry?" She had no idea if apologies were the right way to handle this, the glimmer of purple over the desk's edge with a squeak of her voice mixing into the utter embarrassment.

"You were... It was moments from falling off. I'm really really poorly socialized. I've been taking etiquette classes, but it didn't cover this." Rebecca started to get mad, mostly at herself, and she took a few deep breaths. The anger would just kill her senses. She was allowed to feel it, but acting on it was bad.

"No-No! You, I-I mean, it wasn't ba-No bad translator, bad." She started insulting her omnitool. "Uhm, thank you then?" The Quarian turned back from the omnitool to look at Rebecca, still hiding behind the desk while a thicker accent rolled every 'R' she used.

"Ah, I..." Rebecca cleared her throat. "We can definitely move past this easily. I got like, revenge porn'd sorta. You can just look me up. Tit for tat. And then move on, or tit for tit."

"Please don't say 'tit' after that." Ras hid lower as the embarrassment grew, practically glowing past the suit as she pressed into the front of it, very human features barely visible in shadow and outline past the tinted facemask. "This is so embarrassing!"

"Remember, do the opposite of your instinct to tease. Break down the problem, built a solution with the constituent parts."

Larmus had said it over and over. The embarrassment was making things worse. Calling her pretty would be building a relationship. Professional meant detachment. She needed to get a grip, and that meant small harmless lies. "Honestly? I'm kind of playing it up as I'm feeding off your energy." Rebecca sighs as she starts to realise she's being fucked with, "I sleep with... A lot of people, you've done nothing wrong. It is just... Me trying to seem more person-like. It's really easy to move past just... Breathe."

"It's fi-fine. I'm normally better. I just have this stupid pneumonia and stupid headache and stupid fever and stupid stomach ache and stupid ache in my joints!" Ras started to raise her voice, higher and higher in pitch, mixing in with volume.

"It's okay," Rebecca said calmly, trying to emulate Lisa, taking a deep breath.

"No, it's not! What are you talking about? I have pneumonia! One of my lungs is full of fluid, bosh'tet! The other one has a tube in it to empty it!" Ras pointed a finger at Rebecca, obviously not finding the normal comforts comforting.

"Yeah," Rebecca said calmly still, "And you're being very stupid about it. You need oxygen. You're screaming. You're killing your brain doing this."

"I'm going to be as stupid as I want about it! It's my brain!" Ras continued to point, now feeling like she was being ordered to do something.

"Did I say you couldn't?" Rebecca said, breathing deeply. She thought she saw the problem.

"You implied it!" The Quarian shouted back. "That's worse!"

Rebecca shook her head. "I don't see any reason why I would need to order or control you. Let me remind you that I didn't know anything about anyone in any system until six months ago. I'm learning, and I don't care what you do."

"Then I'm going to keep killing my brain! And you can't stop me!" Ras fired back before sitting down at the opposite side of the desk.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to continue if she liked. This was stupid; she was being stupid, but Rebecca wasn't Vro, and the Quarian wasn't Rebecca. She'd just let this go on until the tantrum stopped.

The Quarian slumped into the seat. "I'm very sick, okay?" She quietly, cutely murmured. "M'sorry." Ras raised her knees into the seat, hugging them to her chest as the light rattle of taxed lungs could be heard through the environmental suit.

"It's fine, but can I just say something?" Rebecca asked. She was starting to piece it together, she understood the expectations, or well, lack thereof, that Quarians would receive. At least on a logical level, she could piece together what this whole deal must be. Getting kicked out of a hard-earned position that she fought tooth and nail for sucked. Crime allowed her control, and Aria ripped that away in moments because Aria was, ultimately, royalty as she thought. Which meant a callous disregard for others.

Rebecca waited for the Quarian to give her permission to continue and sat there in silence. It was only a minute or so before Ras mumbled, "Sorry, what were we talking about?" while still hugging her knees to herself.

"Well, we were talking about you retaining ownership of your club. It's yours, I don't want a club, I just need to get sand in." Rebecca said, trying to get the point across to someone who seemed exceptionally dense.

"Can't do that bosh'tet. Aria doesn't want me attached to her property in case I get caught." Ras explained with a hiss. "I'm disposable."

Rebecca nodded; that made sense. "Okay." There wasn't really a way to fix this, she realized. "We'll just move forward, keep eyes and ears open."

"Well, I've already been doing that." Ras unfurled from the seat, moving back around and jumping onto the desk as she recovered from her episode stunningly fast. "So, there's a couple of things I've planned out. I want storage to be far from the sale point, but not so far we have to haul it with cars, right? So I was thinking we go into the tiny little passageways of the Citadel, the ones the Keepers use to slink around." She explained her logic as a Citadel map popped up on her omnitool.

Her cloth was slipping again, and Rebecca just decided to ignore it from now on because for fuck's sake. Incompetence is a failure of education; anyone can be taught. The woman was quickly falling out of the range of desirable as she continued to fall apart like a tower of cards.

"Now, the Keepers clean everything up, so I rigged a little machine together. Shooting a gun in the Citadel gets the threat sensors raring and C-Sec hauling. Keep it to knives, punches, biotics, or exotic stuff." She continued, pulling out what looked like a pistol with no barrel. "Keepers melt if you try and scan them, so we give the bosh'tets working transport one of these. If the Keepers are fiddling with the sand, bzaap, gone." Ras made a shooting motion as she put the scanner down to her right.

"Mmhmm, I'm very good with knives." Rebecca said, nodding her head, then poking at her shoulder to gesture at the oncoming wardrobe malfunction.

"And with the Keepers distracted," the poke fell on deaf ears, or skin, as Ras continued, "we can do a little more. Now, I pulled C-Sec records a while back, took me a week, but they only got military-grade encryption, it's doable. Anyway, they patrol rarely along this axis and don't have a scheduled foot patrol for another three months." She ran her finger down a roadway in the Citadel, gesturing across it to the end point, a major circle of neighborhoods, ostensibly holding millions. "Ride it straight there, disperse at a dark zone in the surveillance, then deal inside buildings." The cloth slipped off completely; she was a very gifted woman, as it turned out, even past the envirosuit.

"Any questions?" She asked.

"Not really, but I do have a request." Rebecca said slowly. "Can you please like, get your shit together? Like just... Everything?"

"W-what?" Ras stuttered.

"So, your plan is great." She tried to be calm and polite while scratching her neck. "I will probably have notes as I study it for a bit, but I'm trying hard to work with you. I don't really know how to manage with people who aren't extremely violent. So you're going to need to be more confident. You're going to need to be able to stay dressed. Double-sided tape is what we used." She pointed at the cloth on the floor. "This might be a ploy to get me to underestimate you. I'm not going to do that."

"Oh, shit!" Ras looked at the cloth, grabbing at it and starting a complicated wrapping routine.

Rebecca just continued on like nothing happened. "That means you need to be exactly what I know you are: a highly competent operative in a large-scale, cutthroat criminal network. If this is a ploy, it's not doing much besides being slightly irritating. I'm not asking you to... Stop flirting, if that's what you're doing. You're attractive. I'm asking you, as far as what we're doing is concerned, to get your shit together."

Rebecca held up a hand as Ras seemed about to speak. "If you're trying to get whatever you've lost back, I will give it back and figure something out. You need to work with me. If you're not, you need to at least make me not worry that I need to baby you."

"Hey, I've been running this thing for six years! I don't need you to baby me! I'm sick, dammit!" Ras complained again, slumping back onto the desk as the top was redone completely.

"Excellent." Rebecca nodded. "That's great then because I'm frightened that I'm going to get in a massive shootout with C-Sec because you're either trying to betray me or because you're going to fuck up. I'll leave it alone for now."

"'Kay." Ras mumbled. "I'm not calling you ma'am." She looked down at the floor, folding her hands in her lap, the pout audible through the polarized faceplate.

"That's fine," Rebecca said. "Truly, it's fine. I am not looking for subservience, obedience, or anything but competence. The only thing I want is to get prestige, riches, and the ability to murder huge swathes of people who accept that they may be murdered."

Ras coughed; it sounded rough and uncomfortably mucus-filled. "That's reasonable. Okay." She said with a regrowing confidence. "I'll be better in a week at most, just, ugh! Hate C-Sec, hate their stupid idiot officers!" She started complaining.

"The only good cop has a hole in the head and a grieving family," Rebecca shrugged.

"Can you believe they profiled me?! I have thousands of credits on me! I'm rich!" Ras started to complain again. "Loitering! What the fuck even is loitering?! There's no law for loitering!"

Larmus had mentioned this as well, and it bugged her far more than human racism. Her jaw set. So many years in the future, it seemed they did the same shit. It just didn't come up as much in her work; she hadn't really noticed it except when mercs were fucking with each other.

"And then they started pushing me around and stuff, and I had to bribe them to go away! And the stupid idiot human poked a hole in my suit! I didn't notice for an hour!" She was venting to Rebecca for lack of having anyone to vent to anywhere else. "After I noticed it, I got checked up! Six different infections! Ten thousand credits of bills!"

Suddenly, Rebecca looked at her. "Do you know the badge number of this officer?" Her knife was in her hand, and she was spinning it. She wasn't aware.

"Uhm, six-two-nine-three-nine-four-seven-alpha-alpha?" Ras rattled off the complex sequence casually enough, remembering it off the cuff despite the fever.

Rebecca wrote it down and took a deep breath. "Sorry, it's really rare to get handed something that's just... Completely moral killing. Normally, I feel a little bad." It'll feel good, no, it'll feel great. When was the last time she faced like, an actual villain? Never, really. There'd be no uncertainty; they were human too. It was so rare she got to gut something human. "Sick!"

"Oh, uhm, can I watch?" Ras started kicking her legs again.

That seemed fine, yeah. At least to Rebecca. "Sure, I don't see why not."

"Awesome!" She squeaked again, the glimmer in her suit's faceplate lighting up as joy was seen in tiny wiggles.

 

[Princess Scribe]

For Rebecca, it wasn't really about the vigilantism. Most vigilantes were stupid, opinionated, and normally had extremely loose and unclear morals. It was just a really good feeling kill. Normally murder, even murdering other mercs in Omega, there was a hint of "Well, they need to make rent." Or "They'd probably starve without merc work." She normally had to imagine a shittier lifestyle off duty to get in the mood.

This, however, didn't need any of that. It was just... A racist human who got a bribe, and then made a Quarian sick. There didn't need to be a false excuse for this kill. It was why she was so excited about the embezzler, she realized. She knew it meant that she could just... Do it. Make a shrine, bleed a pig, remove a bone. It was like the Arena, someone so extremely cruel they show up to murder for fun.

Well, so did she, but sometimes she felt bad about it when they were young.

Still, it was pretty easy to find him. Lives in a second story apartment in a nice neighbourhood surrounded by the other middle-class members of society. Keeps a C-Sec car parked outside to deter local crime, probably has his rent cut for that. Utterly unsecured, as if daring her Who would be stupid enough to kill a cop?

Who would be stupid enough to be a cop? Rebecca wondered with a slight grin to her own retort. A cruel bully who lusts for power. Not even real power, not even real money. No not the military where they could oppress and murder as they see fit. No they'd do it stupidly where the only reward was a miniscule amount of power. Stalking through the Citadel was something that Rebecca needed to learn anyways if she was running drugs. The panopticon had blindspots, and the pinhole cameras were easy to spot.

It was a lot like one of those fun Warlord playhouses the company would have her creep through. Tiny pinhole cameras the size of peppercorns. Patrolling overzealous, unaware guards. They don't even have dogs around.

She was lucky, as she observed the area. It was a middling floor on the station, with the apartment building built street level in a circle around a maintenance column. The crop circle build created amazing blind spots, huge ones that seemed useless. Only a few drones patrolled in the area, and some cameras were hidden by holo fields, but it was all well and good.

"Hey, I can disable the cameras on this side for a minute, loop them." Ras offers from the passenger's seat and staying very very low.

Rebecca considered it, "Is the loop noticeable? I didn't know that was a thing. I was just going to slice his ankle when he stepped in the blind spot, roll him under his own car, the tie him up there. "

"That's really fast though, uhm, no, there's no wind on the citadel, and no people walking outside." Ras says, "It'll just be more empty cityscape."

Ras was nice despite everything that had happened, and she was great with the computers. She had turned weeks of needed reconnaissance into days. Allowing time to learn the book keeping and managing of the bar, and where she would need to place troops. Though the Quarian insisted, for now at least, that Rebecca moved the sand herself to the safe house once it was station side.

Rebecca nodded. "Okay, that's excellent." The blade spun around in her hand, when suddenly she thought of something. "These omnitools turn into hard light, right? Like... They can sprout knife gloves and claws and things? I can't get the damn app to work."

"Sort of, what people think is hard light is actually uhm, usually ultra dense gas caught in a mass effect field, and shaped into shape. Or, uhm, for the claws, its a wire of tungsten carbide held still and locked in place by the Eezo in the omnitool." Ras explains, "But yeah, it can sprout claws, or a blade, you want the programs? I have all of them," She giggles cutely over her speaker box, sounding excited at getting even for once.

"Yes please!" Rebecca chirped back, the idea was exciting, "I have all these weird little gizmos I bought, but I've had a shit time figuring out how to get them to run. There's something about like... Libraries needed?"

"Oh yeah, you have to jailbreak the omnitool sometimes, especially for the flamethrowers. I can upload the dll's for you later!" There's a myriad of "File transfer requested" notifications on Rebecca's omnitool as files names "Incinerator module," "Export Accounting," or "Claw module," were listed.

Rebecca just accepted them all, computer stuff was obnoxious, and she breathed a sigh of relief that someone who understood technology was around. Shit, no, stop it. Business! Lamrus said! Rebecca shot the thought down, Quarians can't have relationships. They'd die. It's literally impossible.

Wait, how do more Quarians get made? She turned over to Ras and watched her for a second. When she looked away, Rebecca tried to quickly do a text search. "How do Quarians make Quarians?"

Quarians, like most known sapient species, reproduce sexually and give live birth.

"Fuck. Mute. MUTE. God fucking damnit." Rebecca closed her eyes.

"Uhm," Ras has no idea how to respond to that being searched in her presence, and instead sort of just folds into herself, obviously blushing past the faceplate.

"I..." Rebecca realized this was definitely a social uh... Lamrus used human language to describe it, annoyingly, and called it a faux pàs like a pretentious ass. She was annoyed she was failing with her first normal person she'd be spending time with. "Sorry, literally all I know is that Quarians wear suits their entire lives. It... I tend to just look things up, because I'm trying to learn what every other adult has spent twenty years learning in one."

"Not entire, uhm, you can make clean rooms." Ras scratches the back of her neck nervously, "And, uhm, sex is just....uhm, takes awhile to work up to. Like, a month or two. To get used to their, uhm, uh, why am I explaining this." Ras starts to stare into the void of the passenger seats footrests.

"Because I... Clearly wanted to know, and you're way nicer than I am." Rebecca sighed, placing her head on the car steering wheel. "You don't have to explain more. I know just by like pure logic, it'd be impossible cross species. Not that you're suggesting that, but like you don't have to..."

"What? No it isn't?" Ras senses misinformation and seems to have a visceral reaction to it.

Well that doesn't make sense. Rebecca touches her eyes, "What?"

"Its just really complicated, so, first you have to start with some filter time, where you go into a cleanroom and then disable your filters, you'll get really sick for a week or two." Ras explains with obvious experience in the matter, "Then, after that, you can do mask time, where you take off the mask and can kiss and stuff, this part sucks." She groans at the memory, lost in the explanation, "And then after that, you do suit time, where you take the whole suit off. Reactions usually stop in a month of that, and they're manageable in a week!"

"That is the most romantic thing I've ever heard." Rebecca said with a small laugh, "Just like... The— Sorry this is your life, I shouldn't be— You get it though right?"

"Romantic's nice, no one calls it romantic." She murmurs with a tiny squeak.

"Why? Like," It really didn't make sense, she hated this world never made sense. "Like it's three months of effort, and sickness, and devotion to reach new heights in the relationship? It's like jumping on a grenade for a loved one, and you stick together while they pick shrapnel out of your gut."

"Uhm, people don't like Quarians, we made the, uh, you know." She scratches the back of her neck through the skinsuit.

Rebecca shook her head, "No, I don't. I just know you guys live on like... Spaceship rafts and are treated like Vorcha."

"Geth." Ras's gaze looks over to the ruined chunks of the Citadel, "AI, against Citadel law. Our ancestors were driven off of Rannoch by them. Off all our worlds." She sounds sad, though in that distant, mythological way that only propaganda and national memory can provide. "They think we were stupid, reckless, dangerous."

"Well, anyone can change the world if they depopulate the galaxy enough." Rebecca said with a small smirk, "No fuck them though. The Citadel is garbage, I helped get a clinic open that saved lives and the thanks I got was 'We won't arrest you for now missy.' Like fuck you, if I gave a shit what a rent-a-cop thought I'd put a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger with my toes." She flipped through the omnitool weapons. A weird outwards facing dagger. Then claws, spiked knuckles, all sorts of shapes and configurations for melee combat, and then she saw it, a knife, or something close enough.

It was orange, and emanated from the side of her fist, as if she was wielding it. The blade was curved, like a talon. Rebecca couldn't help but be fascinated with the orange light. As if she had grown a dew claw out of the side of her hand.

"How sharp is this thing Raz?" Rebecca asked, she gently pressed her finger against the hard light, and saw a pin prick of blood form.

"Technically monomolecular. Shouldn't get stopped by much. Maybe a proper hard-suit?" Ras says, having listened to the rant. She mumbles something quiet, "Citadel's okay. Its home."

"Ah, shit sorry. I've never had one of those. Just the one I built over the last year," Rebecca said, embarrassed, "I don't really get the connection."

"This is my first, its nice." Ras giggles at the idea of her having a home, "I've been here since I was fourteen. When I left on pilgrimage. I don't think I'll come back, the ship was never home, just a place I lived." The Quarian shrugs, having long come to term with the idea of never returning.

"I've never seen home as a place, just... Where ever your touchstone is, I guess. For me it's my family," Rebecca pulls up an image, of two krogan, a turian, herself, and an asari matriarch. "This is them, my entire world, I met Camlos, the twink? Him first and he basically saved me when I got thawed out and dumped on the streets. Basically my boyfriend right now."

She points to the blue woman, "This is my girlfriend, she gave me my first job at a clinic. She's been teaching me right now to handle some emotional issues. I used to be so bad. She fought in the krogan wars with, or maybe against this guy." Then she pointed at the dark, dull red krogan, "Vro, a Krogan battlemaster. That little rampage I mentioned when we met? It ended in his gunshop with me shooting a gun at him. He locked me up and waited for me to knock myself out and called Lisa. I owe him everything. Like a father, a mentor, a sage. I'd die for him. Moment's notice." Then she pointed at the green guy, "Kratt is nice, just... I like him, so I keep him."

She's absent mindedly looking at the holo feed now. For some reason, Rebecca has always made the picture hard light, instead of just light. With a soft brush, she looks at the photo with a wistful sigh. "I adore people. I never thought that'd be true, but I do. I like... Collecting them, keeping them in my orbit safe." Rebecca hadn't looked up from the photo the entire time.

"People are scary, I...can't trust them." In the hovercar's passenger seat, Ras folds her hands on her lap, "I get things instead, little things, pieces of people to remember them with. If they're not around, they'll not change, you know?" She pulls from a hip pouch several plastic bags of lockets, earrings, hair and a dozen other pieces of life and history. "How do you trust people?" Ras asks curiously, "Aren't you worried?"

"I want to die, most days." Rebecca said absent mindedly as she stared out the window, "So it's easy, because if they hurt me, I can hurt them back. If they kill me, I don't have to worry about it anymore."

"But if I die, I can't have the things I want anymore." The Quarian says with concern in her voice.

Rebecca looked back to Ras, "If you don't trust people, you're not going to get the things you want anyways. Even Aria trusts people, she's trusting us to get this done. The threat for failure? That's still a consequence for breaking that trust. Not the sand or whatever. It's not just nine billion credits, it's you know, you were trusted with a job and you didn't get it done."

Ras returns the human's gaze, voice trickling with concern still as her head tilts in a show of confusion or perhaps consideration, "That's.....that's not really trust in people, that's trust in their ability and fear of consequence. Aria doesn't think we, as people, really care about her." She says, hands still folded in her lap as the window shows the building containing the target.

"I'm not sure how you build trust then, I just say what I do, then I do it. Then when someone asks me to do more, and I can, I do that too." Rebecca replied, returning the coin to her hand, fumbling with it. "Like... You have a husband. Everyday you trust he'll go to work, not fuck the secretary, and not shoot up a highschool right?"

"If he does those things, that's a deal breaker. Well it's a deal breaker for some." Rebecca admits, "I just don't see the difference between that, and saying you're going to go to work and do a job. Everything is trust, trust is the currency of people. When you have no money, it's going to be the people who you trust, and who trust you that'll make sure you survive."

"I guess there's no one then, and I shouldn't run out of money for my own good." Ras takes her lessons from the older woman's instruction, "Would you like to like, leave, if we're not killing the bosh'tet?"

"We're killing him, I'm just waiting for him to come out." Rebecca said, "But also I'm trusting you dumbass, to get shit done. You're trusting me to not fuck this up. I've got enough money, I think that if you run out I'm not going to like... Let you starve. That's cruel as fuck. I get off on murder, not cruelty. It's about the blood."

"I guess, uhm, I can loop the cameras remember? Just walk in." Ras pulls her omnitool free and waits to hit a button that reads, "Upload hack."

"Oh, huh yeah that's fine. We're taking him to a second location however." Rebecca said, "I set up a clean room with a clear plastic sheet over everything. When you're ready Miss Ras."

"And, looped."

---

View: https://youtu.be/tSsNFPk2vNA?si=ygHymvIFfT7erR_5​

Rebecca took off the bag from the officer's head, and let him take in his surroundings. It was impossible to tell where he was. Plastic tarping was pinned at the ceilings, and then taped down at the floor boards to create essentially a sack. He flexed against the ropes on the chair, and tried to yell through a ball gag. A stainless steel cart sat across from him, and Rebecca was next to it calmly examined the surgical tools.

"I love Omni-gel. It's insane to me you let everyone keep a 3D printer on their arm to just like... Fuck around with." Rebecca said, there was music, loud music something classical. An aria maybe, from old earth. In the corner was Ras, who the cop clearly didn't recognize, or maybe he couldn't really tell Quarians apart, as it would require noticing them beyond their physical features.

"Officer Hutchinson." Rebecca said with a grin, "Do you know why I've pulled you over today?"

The ball gag stops any legible words from coming out. The man is wearing a pair of pants and a thin white shirt to sleep in, without socks or anything else really on. A tiny trickle of saliva slips down the side of his face, inbetween stubble as he can't properly swallow with the gag in.

"Profiling." Rebecca said. Then she made a clicking noise with her tongue, a small rapid-fire set of noises to express her deep disapproval. "Very steep crime on Omega. Very steep."

She sighed, and then shook her head. "I'm not sure what I can do really. I'd try to let you off with a warning but you know..." Rebecca makes a wave with her hand, "It's just that everyone knows that's what humans do. Don't worry, I've gotten you a public defender. You can beat this charge I just know it."

"Oh. No. They didn't show up. Oh well." The first of what seems to be a dozen ice picks is lifted off the table and slammed into the cop's thigh, avoiding any arteries, and stopping when it lodged in bone. The ball gag covers a great deal of the scream, and the music does the rest. "Anyways, you'll be defending yourself in court today. Let's meet the prosecutor."

The second ice pick lands, to an even louder wail, "Yep, I know, I think she's very pretty too. It's the bubbliness that gets me. Don't worry, she seems very kind and forgiving." Rebecca gave the man a few light pats on the back, each one made him flinch.

Rebecca gestured to Ras, who had been mostly watching, and Rebecca had not given any instruction too really. "Would the prosecution like to make their opening arguments?" She gestured at the cop.

"Caught red handed, uhm, eyewitness report of the whole thing. And the court has suspicion of serial criminality." She plays the character requested ably.

Rebecca nodded, "Alright, that seems pretty sound. Now, could the public def— Oh. Right." She said gesturing to the empty room. "Well, I guess you'll have to defend yourself then Officer."

With a flick of her omnitool, a small rotor on the back of the ball gag spun, unspooling the piece of silicone, and revealing that the corners of the police officers' mouth were getting red, raw, almost bleeding. Rebecca raised an ice pick in front of him. "Please don't leave the court waiting, Officer. Your rebuttal please."

"You're crazy." The officer, Hutchinson or something, shouts, the pain in his leg making every noise and action agony, the blade wiggling in the bone, threatening the artery if he moves too forcefully. "C-Sec'll be here! You're screwed!"

"Yeah?" Rebecca laughed, "That's fine this is suicide by cop-killing. Do you think they'll get here before, or after I've removed little bits of you?" She gently rubbed the icepick down from the temple, to the cheek, letting the tip get dangerously close to his eye. "See, the worst I do to you, the more press it'll get. I'm a martyr to justice reform." He winced for a moment as Rebecca scraped the pick down his cheek making a clear line of blood. "Careful buddy, you're gonna poke an eye out."

"Well, no. I'm going too poke your eye out." Rebecca said with a nod. "Definitely." He grits his teeth, glaring as the implement comes nearby. Rebecca's teasing him with the tip of the pick, skin splitting at the very top level, red starting to slip past in tiny thin trickles.

Rebecca looked at a file that Ras pulled, "Oh by the way, we checked your life insurance policy! You're rich!" She said with a bright grin, "Melany Hutchinson? Her insurance is going to pay out. Brandy, and Jason too. God, wife and kids, terrible accident."

She was lying, it didn't matter, he wasn't going to make it out of here alive.

"You bitch! Stay away from them!" He shouts.

Rebecca pulled up a VI generated photo created mostly for this bit. She held it up in front of him. "Little too late for that buddy." The scene, which shouldn't be described among any polite audience, was gruesome, the faces being some of the only identifiable parts. "Don't worry, they knew why they died. I made sure they all knew it was your fault."

Hutchinson tries to kick out, move, do anything, but he's tied down and tightly tied at that, "Fuck you! You think you scare me!? You're just some dime a dozen crazy!"

"I don't really care if I scare you buddy." Rebecca said, as she pulls the two ice picks out of his legs, and licks them. "Ick, Levo." And spits out the blood on the floor, "Tastes like bacon."

She looked over at the tools, rubbing her chin thinking, "There is a question I've been wondering though." Her back was turned to the cop as she pulls out a bone saw, "Why did you become a cop, instead of like... Alliance Military, or a Merc? Both of those pay well, have clear career paths, and you get to do just as much bullying and killing. So why become a cop?"

"The fuck's wrong with you?!" Perhaps interrogating after a femur-pick isn't the best idea, the man is screaming, the pain of the bodies strongest bone broken open nearly making his eyes roll back.

"I don't know really. Whatever it is, it's high functioning. I'm very successful." Rebecca looked over at the Quarian and sighed wistfully, "It looks like, sadly, the defendant has become uncooperative. Now I know you came in with a femur break, but the court can't really do much about your personal circumstances. We're an unbiased mediator of the law!"

There was art here, it was poetic, the metaphor too clear to be ignored. This wasn't just torture and murder, it was a beautiful show made as a critique of the system. It was sad that only the Ras and Rebecca would see it.

"Any who, the court finds you guilty. We're going to remove your intestines, eyes, ears, balls, and tongue! Ras is going to choose the order."

 

[Princess Scribe]

"What do you mean I need an ID?!" Rebecca was considering gutting the cop right here, but it would make too much of a mess of things, "For what fucki—" There was a notification on her omnitool, that 250,000 credits were deducted from her account. "ng reason!?" Though it was to an unnamed account entirely, not a government entity.

"Profanity is a misdemeanour, punishable by a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand credit fine or one hours community service. In the event you wish the fine rescinded, you may apply to the local C-Sec office and have a refund in exchange for community service hours." The Turian traffic officer is long suffering, and seems to be doing this as matter of routine, completely unaware of the two hundred pounds of Red Sand in the back. "Identification and vehicle registration, please." He repeats his request.

Rebecca stares at him for a moment, the C-SEC seemed off, she had been near C-SEC quite a bit lately, and he seemed a little less. Safe, clear scarring that C-SEC health plans should cover, his uniform was slightly too messy.

What the fuck is he talking about. Rebecca angrily slammed on the dash with her head, when she heard a pistol unfurl. "Officer, are you pointing a gun at me? Do you think that's a good idea?"

The Turian and Rebecca stared at each other for a very long time. The "officer," with his gun out slightly dripping with sweat now, and Rebecca, with steel in her veins, the slight shimmer of her barrier twinkling in the soft Citadel lighting. They don't break sight of each other, neither flinching a clear threat of violence on the horizon that threatened to consume them both.

Finally, the Turian puts the gun away, "Please, in the future, be more careful with sudden movements in a traffic stop. We've had a couple instances of....events recently." He's clearly trying to find a way to exit the situation while possibly on Citadel cameras. "You're free to go. Appreciate your patience." His Turian frangible voice sounds tired as he walks back to his own vehicle, sliding in and then floating off with a C-Sec light-up on the side.

No, that didn't feel right. Rebecca thought her eyes narrowing, there was something else going on there. She quickly checked the side of her car, looking for even the smallest bit of difference. A chip, a fleck. The gun should have gone off, most Turian's don't flinch which meant that the violence wasn't the goal. Then she saw it, the tiniest flake, right there, on a bit of black ink. She picked it up with her finger, the tiniest bit of dust, with the consistency of flea dirt. She felt a small tingle between her fingers as she pinched it, and then rubbed her fingers together outside the car door.

Who is getting involved in my business? Rebecca wondered as she resumed her conversation.

Group Chat: The Family Clubhouse - Rebecca stop changing the name of this - No make me - For fu... Rebecca First of all, Vro, you'll never find me. Second of all, and more importantly I am *desperately* in love with this Quarian, who is clearly using me. Well I guess not using me, just pretending to be vulnerable for some reason. Seems to think I'm... I dunno, it doesn't super make sense Doctor Girlfriend Well, so long as it seems safe, there's nothing wrong with experimenting with relationship styles. Quadzilla *I will.* Birdy Quarian is exactly what i expected to break you. Dextro and very humanoid. Rebecca They're dextro? fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck @Quadzilla I have the tracer, and I'm not creaky and thousands of years old. @Quadzilla can't we just agree to a truce. One where I get what I want, and am not harmed? Quadzilla I have friends. Rebecca I don't *want* to fall in love 😭 😭 Doctor Girlfriend Quarians are very attractive. Especially their accent and way of speaking. Does she roll her words and have a squeaky voice? Rebecca Yeah, it's adorable She plays it up quite a bit but I can't complain. Birdy Sounds like she's got one hell of a informed social behaviour. How long she been in the cittydel Rebecca like, almost a decade by my count Do I come off stupid? Quadzilla Yes Doctor Girlfriend Of course not, lover. Kratt name here Huh? Birdy You know, very interesting question. Rebecca [File Attached: quadzilla_missed_me.jpg] This is from this morning Just saying, you're getting old. Anyways, the spot is coming up *cya!<3~* Quadzilla Your end will be slow. Expected Wanted.

Rebecca decided to call Ras before pulling in, and when the Quarian showed up on her omni-tool the woman seemed clearly aggravated, despite the lack of facial expressions on the suit.

"Ras, you explicitly told me in your lovely plan that there wasn't foot patrols between the keeper tunnels and the building." Rebecca said clenching her jaw, "You'll never guess what just happened."

"There isn't any foot patrols! None! Completely none!" The Quarian sounds incensed about the idea of there being someone there. Absolutely driven mad by the idea. "Those slimy bastards not reporting their routes!"

"I just got pulled over, and they tried to put a little drone on my car." Rebecca though, couldn't help herself giving the Quarian a small poke, "Ah, don't worry about it. You can't think of everything, you know?" Such a friendly statement to most, but somehow Rebecca knew these were killing words.

"Die in a ship fire!" Ras throws something at a wall and hangs up, victory.

With a small laugh, "Oh, far less cutesy now. I didn't think the mask'd fall that fast." Rebecca murmured to herself.

---

The drop off spot was essentially a warehouse nestled in a set of low-income projects in the citadel that had been wiped out with beam fire, and considered "low priority," for reconstructive purposes. One of the few places, even a few weeks out, that still regularly flooded with zombies when someone spoke too loud around some of the abandoned buildings. Rebecca wasn't entirely clear how Ras was moving from here to high end clients, but she also wasn't clear why selling drugs required brutalizing CSEC officers. Rebecca had beefed it up with a few things that made her feel safer, and it had good sight lines as Reaper-fire had leveled most of the buildings around besides one, which Rebecca kept a zipline in. For emergencies mostly.

They'd gotten to their fourth or fifth drop-off now, though god was it fun to just hang out, talk, and torture people. Ras is 'cooly' hanging out at the front of the building, what used to be a storefront and storage facility in one bit square, the dull squares that these sorta commercialized establishments live and breathe inside. She's wearing purple and gold cloth now, letting it trail off her hips and down behind her almost to the knee joint in free flowing silk while the cloth on her chest is tightly bound and woven, the sickness having mostly passed. Returning a new strength to Ras who showed off a keen fashion instinct despite being trapped in a suit.

Rebecca wondered, not for the first time, how much Ras spent on a suit that left nothing to the imagination. A few quick searches online revealed it wasn't standard, it was a luxury item reserved for the wealthy elite who managed to climb up despite their circumstances.

"Hey Ras, I brought you a gift," Rebecca said as she hopped out of the car, moving to the trunk, "Even wrapped it in duct tape and cling film." She slammed a hand down on the trunk and it popped open, revealing the small brick of red sand, she grunted as she picked it up, and placed it on a small grav lev for her "Do you need help carrying this in?" Rebecca asked.

"The drones got it, don't worry." Ras says, inspecting the brick, then moving to where the rest are hidden in the car as hardlight drones come near, pick them up, and buzz away, flashforged by the omnitool.

It had started to become a routine, and the routine in a way created a silent way of communicating normalcy. Rebecca pulled up, she made a joke, placed the brick on the grav lev and offered to help. Then Ras said of course not, examined the brick, coordinated, and called the drone. Rebecca gave Ras a gift, and then had a chat. Rebecca loved routines. Routines made things simple.

"Oh, wait I guess I did actually get you something." Rebecca said with a laugh, reaching into her hard-suit's utility pouch to the rapt attention of Ras. She adored gifts. Absolutely and completely. The first time it was just a small thing, some food she mentioned that came in these hyper sealed containers. It was apparently like dextro chocolate or whatever. A gift now showed up every time, Rebecca liked when doing it because—

The hug is sudden, immediate and tight as Rebecca is tackled by the smaller woman, the impact managing little more than a step back as Ras squeaks and stutters, "You're so cool, no one ever gets me anything!" The theoretical idea of a gift seems to do it for her moreso than the actual article.

Well, because she was very, very affectionate. "I haven't even shown you the gift yet Ras." Rebecca said with a small shake of her head, "I seriously do wonder how much of what you say is true. Anyways, here you go, I made it."

It was a carving, one like Camlos got when she first moved to Omega, but this one was far more intricate, as Rebecca had much more practice, and nearly machine-like precision with her mods. She was also strong enough to carve silver, which meant it could be sanitized entirely. It was a heart that had been carved out of a block of silver, with a sharp KBAR carved to be free floating inside, the hilt being too large to allow the blade to fall out of the Hollow heart.

Ras disconnects as the carving is offered, then carefully, brings out a plastic bag, opens it up, and directs for Rebecca to drop the carving into the baggie. "That'll keep it safe." She states. "From time and elements!" There's an adorable seriousness to her voice at the hand-made, effort filled gift. Like a squeaky toy told to lead in battle.

"It's silver Ras, it's unreactive and anti-microbial. There's no way you don't know that." Rebecca laughed, Ras did shit like this on instinct. She wanted to be underestimated, and Rebecca refused to play into it. "But yes, it'll be quite protected." Then she gently placed it into the bag.

The plastic is quickly sealed, and then carefully pocketed during which Ras says, "First sales of sand are in, we made good money and are selling above market." She's excitedly moving from word to word as she leads Rebecca into the building where a small operational base of people on computers. Driving in and out to deliver, and the ever-present presence of red sand bricks in every room, far too many of them around. "We'll be unbelievably rich Rebecca!"

Ras sent over the numbers, and Rebecca had already counted bricks in the rooms as they walk, "These numbers don't match." She said plainly, with a smile.

"Well, yeah, the bricks aren't all here bosh'tet!" Ras fires back with a bemusedly annoyed tone, "Some of them are in the field, already getting split up."

"There's too many bricks, in this base, for the pay you've just handed me." Rebecca said again, calmly. There wasn't really a need to get angry yet, and she hadn't even really asked a question, she just... Didn't like that. "Above market rate doesn't quite realistically cover what I'm seeing in these numbers. Ras, I run a mercenary band. I do my accounting with a spreadsheet and a calculator. I generally get pretty good instincts about numbers."

"Well, shit! Where's the money coming from? Or the bricks going? I keep anal retentive track of these so its not on my end. Dealer side? Big sale, upcharged? Made the above market rate average happen singlehandedly," The Quarian sounds very annoyed, voice squeaking and feet stomping as she walks alongside Rebecca to the sitting room of this place, with office chairs and a faux-professional look to it despite the ruined walls.

Rebecca sighed, she could see where this was going, and she didn't really want to do a whole charade. "Got it, so you want me to believe you're drowning, and hiding the fact that you're not moving sand as quickly." She kept doing this, and Ras seemed to hate it, "Which is why the money transfer clearly comes from the wrong account then it should. Why do you want me to believe that?"

"Do you like get off on stressing me out? The rate of sale is fine!" Ras complains, avoiding the question and replacing it with volume as she shouts.

"It's got to drive you nuts that I see through most of this and still bring you gifts and things." Rebecca laughs waving her off entirely, "I love being annoying. It's a sickness. So you're wanting me to help with your half without asking."

"Yeah, you're terminal." Ras complains, rubbing one arm and letting her head hang, "I could use some help maybe. Please." She's mumbling half the words, barely whispering the other half, but does ask for help.

Rebecca took a small transfer from what was 'her cut,' to keep the band going. Though Kratt and Camlos had already gotten some work, and the first blood-in rituals were soon, which got a shocking amount of recruits from all walks of life. "Yeah, of course. I keep telling you I'm actually like this. The band is almost self sufficient again, so I'll probably not bother taking cuts soon because like, why would I?" She stood up and did a manual count of how many bricks were in the building.

Did the Quarian make a mistake, or was this a trick. She counted again. Then looked at the spreadsheets, oh the greedy "Bosh'tet" Rebecca growled quietly, "Why do you have one brick more than I could have given you."

"Rate of sale's fine! Its just not as in demand right this second," Ras answers the question, pretending to not realize what's being asked.

Now, for a trick of her own, that the Quarian wasn't aware of. A good secret of The Company. She raised an eyebrow at the Quarian, turned her orange omnitool purple, and then revealed a small luminescent but invisible fist that she stamped on every bag before she brought it in. She didn't bother talking, as she had already found unmarked bricks. "Ras, why did you pick up a second supplier?"

"I was expecting a little more flow." She admits, scratching the back of her neck through the hooded helmet, "Usually we get a lot." Ras says, pulling previous years at roughly thrice this rate.

"Do you comprehend how lucky you are that I do not care when I'm being lied too?" Rebecca pulled out a pack of Earth cloves, and lit one, "I like, you just lie, and then I very patiently show you why it's obvious, and then you lie again. I'm not mad, just kind of baffled at this point."

Rebecca pulled up videos and files on her omnitool, "Because yeah I can pull files too. It's just a very long decorated career of murder, ordering murders, and selling insane amounts of drugs. I have a video of you here where you use a very not so cutesy voice with people."

"And? That's three years old!" Ras defends herself, pointing at the recording of a chainsaw and a turian neck, "I'm not that girl anymore, I don't chainsaw people!"

"You literally chainsawed a cop, three nights ago." Rebecca sighed, her voice however became a flat, unammused monotone. "Sorry, I meant, no you're right. Of course. Silly me I was just being paranoid of course."

Ras is once again beaten down by the change, "sorry." She mumbles with a kick of her legs as she sits.

She's not, and it's exhausting and you NEED to stop wanting her. Now. Idiot. "I need you to understand it's the bits behind all this bullshit that I... Nevermind." There were more things she needed to do, more important things. "I need to off this other supplier, so you're not indebted to them."

"Its not a debt thing, jeez, I'm not stupid." Ras starts to actually push back.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow, "You're not selling Aria's sand, because you think it's about the money. That is stupid, actually, she calls herself a queen and plays power games. It's not about the money. It's about her product taking the Citadel. If she comes back, and we have a quarter crate of Sand, and twelve billion credits. We'll still both be dead, because she wants the Citadel, she doesn't want money. So yeah, this supplier dies."

"No." There's an annoyance to Ras now, "I've done this longer than you, with more drugs than you've ever seen. Stop barging in without experience, pretending to know the trade." She's pointing a finger at Rebecca. "Aria's product is--"

"Ah, true, it's very frustrating when people pretend to be who they're not. How could I have come to the assumption, when you've so clearly and assertively presented yourself as you have." Rebecca inspected her fingernails, finally getting a rise out of Ras, it had taken weeks. The woman's willpower was... so overwhelming.

"Grr." Ras actually growls at Rebecca, its, to be fair, still very cute and high pitched, something that may actually be her speaking voice, "Aria's product is too pure, and we can't cut it. The Citadel just had an attack that killed hundreds of thousands, did trillions in damage. People don't have spending money yet."

"We needed something cheap so we can continue to pay bribes, payroll and rent."

Rebecca looked at the floor and sighed, "Alright, that doesn't make sense, but alright." It wasn't super worth it, there wasn't any reason here to pick it apart yet. It'd just frustrate her, and her willpower also had limits, but far worse things happened when she was pushed past them. "Could you plainly tell me what you want me to do?"

"We've got someone pushing on us, stealing product from dealers at the street level. Negligible losses, a baggie here or there, but its making them feel unsafe. They won't buy to sell if they're feeling unsafe." Ras explains with a visual aid of two humans and a krogan sticking up and brutalizing a turian dealer. "Stop 'em, do your crazy blood angel thing."

"Yeah." Rebecca sighed, "No worries. Consider though, an alternate timeline of today. I come bring the brick in, I surprise you with a gift. You invite me inside for tea and conversation. You tell me that plainly, and we just chat about our week." The redhead scratched at her curls, feeling something almost crawl across her scalp as her danger senses tingle.

 

[Princess Scribe]

"We can still chat..." Ras says, starting to look down at the floor instead of at Rebecca. She's folded her hands on her lap and seems to deflate, she's been doing that a lot lately, and its getting hard to tell which is the obviously fake played up ones, and which are real bursts of tired sadness. Honestly, none of it is most likely real.

"Of course we can," Rebecca smoked her cigarette and exhaled it into the air, "I'd like if you met some of my family, after the krogan kicks the shit out of me. I've been antagonizing him and taking pictures of him for like three weeks now."

"Oh, uh, wow. You're stupid, no offense." Ras scratches the back of her neck at the offered conversation.

"I mean." Rebecca gestured at the room around her with a trail of smoke from her lit cigarette, "I'm literally dealing billions of drugs with a compulsive liar that I'm in lo— That I enjoy the company of. Stupid is just how I operate."

"oh." Its clear that she's much too perceptive to not have heard the slip up.

"Fuck." Rebecca hissed.

In a quiet voice, after fifteen seconds of silence, with only the breathing of her envirosuit to blame for background noise, Ras murmurs, "I like you too." Looking up nervously then looking back down, "Unless, uhm, that's not what you said or meant or maybe the translator was wrong in which case please forget this all happened or I will die of embarrassment."

"Sorry, unfortunately, I don't really go back or hide my feelings too much." Rebecca ashed the cigarette, letting char fall onto the floor of the office, "I just kind of... Blurt them out and deal with the consequences. I said what I said."

"Do.....do......do you....." Ras starts stuttering through a sentence, the blush nearly luminous through the mask and glass, rendering her an almost illusory nervous wreck of wringing hands and other stress relief behaviors. "Do you wanna make a, uhm, cleanroom? Or is that too far, that's too far, I'm sorry, that's way too far, I apologize, I'll, uhm, I'll just go jump off the Presidium."

Rebecca dropped her cigarette, fumbled, and then snatched it out of the air by the wrong end, the cherry burning the synth flesh palm of her hand as she grasped it. Finally, she just let it fall and dropped it. Then walked forward quickly towards the meltdown. It didn't really matter if it was real or fake it just... Hurt

Ras audibly complained, started to choke up. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, why did I think that, oh no, no, I ruined everything, stupid, stupid stupid--"

Rebecca hugged her, hoping to god she wasn't breaking a boundary, "Uh, I don't... The self deprecation is splitting me in two. Like, actually gutting me it's a really uh..." She gave her a small kiss on the helmet. "Please don't do that, even to like, it hurts to see. It hurts to see a lot. A lot more than I think you might be thinking."

"Okay." Ras murmurs in the touch, stiff, relaxing and uncoiling inch by inch, "it's ... Not intentional. I ... Don't like it." She says with a scratchy, but still high-pitched voice, letting her breath leave her in the touch and hug with a tiny little shudder. Rebecca could tell that was a lie.

"I know," Rebecca says quietly, "It lets you keep a bit away from everything. The... Acting means you don't have to think about being vulnerable. You can even play someone vulnerable, knowing none of it's real" She gave her another kiss on the head. "I just... Don't care? Like I'll end up dead probably, but fuck it."

"I don't think its working." Ras almost chuckles from inside the embrace, a hollow sort of noise. "I feel pretty freaking vulnerable right now." A burst of humour and something approaching a real, unfiltered Ras pushes through the dimness.

Rebecca nodded on top of her head, "Yeah, I don't know about you, but I knew I was fucked the minute I started stumbling over every half-word without being able to talk."

"I, uhm, it was when you kissed me-well not really a kiss but you get it." Ras tries to locate the memory of when exactly it turned from half-act to terrifying reality, "You hugged me and told me it was okay and we got even and ... uhm ... we kissed. you're really cool Rebecca." She sweetly says from in the embrace, "Like the coolest person ever." It doesn't sound quite right, but the feeling quickly gets easy to ignore.

Rebecca didn't remember anything like that happening, but Ras seemed so sure of it.

"Oh god, I just realized something." Rebecca says out loud as she feels the hard helmet under her cheek. "You can't actually feel that can you? I've been doing it everytime we hug."

"I-if you've not been kissed for long enough, uh, there's ... transfer, uhm, like, psychogenic?" She says, "S-same way I can like, imagine what a real touch is like." Ras admits to imagining things.

"Oh, okay, good. It felt weird, if you know, I was just like, secretly kissing the top of your head without your knowledge." Rebecca realized that... She just said she imagined touch. Like.. As if she's not aware of what that would be. Like. The words are flipping over and over in her head. Yeah that was the only definition. "For the record," Rebecca said, "The Clean Room sounds... Nice and I'd like that. We don't have too though."

"I really want too. I, uhm, can't stop imagining what your skin feels like." Ras admits, "Or your hair, or your fingertips and lips-Uhm, shit, I have a bad habit I'm sorry." She tenses up at another verbal mistake, swears in another language that the translator has little equivalent for softly emanating from insider her mask. "C-cleanroom, right, ha-h-ha!" Ras tries to refocus everyone, all two people involved in this conversation to anything else.

It was easy to push out conversations Ras had before this of previous partners. Of what Aria had already given her. Rebecca simply wanted to fall for the woman.

Rebecca smiled, and then looked a little mischievous. Ras had been teaching her a few things about the Omnitool, even some tricks. Like confirming a file's existence if you knew it's name. Behind the woman's back she requests the MD5 hash of a very popular, god why is it getting so popular, video of herself that's spread far and wide across the net. There's a quick bleep on both their comms, one on Rebecca that very much did not say "File Not Found."

One on Ras that asks if she'd like to send the requested, and very much existing on her omnitool, file. There's a very real, very adorable vibration from Ras when the file name pops up on her interior helmet heads up display.

"So a bit more, then just imagining then." Rebecca said with a wicked grin. She sends a file transfer request.

"noooooooooooooooooo." Ras says as she denies sending Rebecca the file on her omni-tool, "I can't touch you for mooooooooonths." She whines a little sadly, unaware her mic was picking her up. "I should stop, this is weird, I'm sorry. I've never done this before, can we start over? Hi, I'm Ras, I'm not weird."

Rebecca reached down, and gently prodded at the suit between Ras's legs, "Hi, I'm Rebecca, I'm pretty weird." Oh, it's like really soft here, it's not hardweave. Oh no, you're just like. You're just like all up in there.

"oh." Ras squeaks at the touch, the suit having a very flexible, tear proof give to it. Able to resist falls, trips, cuts and impacts. She doesn't move away, however, even as her breath picks up fast. Like a racehorse at this point.

"I... thought the suit was less flexible, I didn't realize I'd just be like." Rebecca didn't know what she should do now. It was like she caught the proverbial tiger by the tail.

"I-I have a g-good one. N-nice la-layering, tear r-resistant, c-comfortable. H-had it custom made you know?" Ras starts to explain in her rapid fire way, words becoming more sensical and less clutter while she speaks, "A-asari space suit designers m-made it, they used neo-aramids and c-c-carbon nanotubes to make it n-nice."

While the woman was talking, Rebecca decided to figure out if that meant what she thought, as she gently moved her middle finger in back and forth strokes. "Have... You looked in a mirror? While wearing this fancy suit? Because it..."

"N-no-ah- N-no." Ras says while starting to hold onto rather than grip Rebecca.

Okay, that's obviously a lie. Rebecca thought, because why would she buy an expensive custom-made suit, wear it twenty four seven, and not end up naked in front of a mirror. She can work backwards from there. She was enjoying this however, maybe it'd be something she'd figure out later.

A better idea came to mind, "Lie again and I'll stop." her hand moves away but not too far though she just realized god it's warm.

There's an audible clicking shut of Ras's jaw as she panics and immediately begs, "Please, please, I won't!" Starting to lean back into Rebecca desperately, shivering from the change in contact, the change in stimulation.

Rebecca had a custom omnitool program, and omnigel quickly printed out a large, battery powered rotor in an egg basically. Its only purpose was to shake and be pressed against extremely sensitive flesh. It... Should? Be fine against the suit? She pressed it against Ras then turned it on.

"AH!" Ras screams, as she tenses and falls into Rebecca, the screaming fading into a constant, thrumming, almost vibrating refrain of pleasure, never once not making noise.

With a small twitch of the lip, Rebecca whispered, "I don't really care about real or fake. I adore the games, puzzles are fun."

The Quarian gasps and gives another scream as her legs clamp shut around Rebecca's arm at the words, still screaming after nearly ten seconds, the noise falling into a new humming refrain as the aftershocks pass, "please please please please." She's begging for something, not that she's at all aware what that something could be as she can't control her breathing or thoughts, entirely broken for the moment by the touch and the toy.

"Wait," Rebecca realizes as she feels the sheer heat emananting around her hand ensconced by the suit. "Have you... Actually not been uh... Affectioned on... Much?"

"T-they d-don't-fuck-f-flirt with Quarians. F-fetish b-bait m-mostly." Ras tries to explain, getting a coherent sentence out.

"Why? Oh ick." Rebecca said as she made a gagging noise, "Though I guess I've got... It's not a fetish I don't think? It's the sugar thing. I just can't get over that."

"W-we can call it a fetish, uh-uhm-ngh-" Ras is interrupted by a change in vibration.

Rebecca had turned the setting up higher while having a normal conversation. "You're right, I suppose. I think it's a... You wouldn't get this really, I guess, it's a taste thing? Like even levo krogans taste like sour apple, because of an extremely high glycemic-content? Which doesn't super make sense to me, but god. I wasn't get a lot of candy growing up."

"I-I-I t-taste good, c-chemically, uhm, -y-yeah-AH!" The Quarian twitches and shouts at the higher setting, "T-this is m-m-max r-right?" She asks, a trickle of fear and excitement alike.

"What? No, it's three of ten. There's also a pattern thingy. You can also hook it up to music. I'm..." Rebecca was hit with a realization. "You went on your pilgrimage at fourteen, no-one would've explained..."

Rebecca had gotten the talk from a one-eyed woman in Morocco, who then proceeded to give her the most terrifying, wonderful night of her life. Then handed her... Oh, no-one's taught— Is that a trick? Fuck it.

Finally, she said, "I'm going to leave this with you. I uh... I didn't really think about any of this until someone showed me. Before that I was just grinding on pillows and couch arm rests." She pulled it away and handed it to her.

"Y-yeah." Ras agrees, shakily grabbing the toy, letting it hang in her hand.

"You're pretty lucky, my first time, she kissed me, and I started crying because I didn't know what to do next. It was awful." Rebecca laughed, "She licked the tears and then laughed at me. We didn't do much either because 'I was disappointingly sad.' Bitch."

Ras laughs, "L-luckily, I h-have a m-mask, and c-can't do m-much more."

"You've done fine, and I've got pretty good ideas now on how to read the truth around what you say. Or you're like, extremely good at this, and at that point. I'm just too tired to dig deeper." Rebecca sighs.

Ras jokes as she slowly climbs up into Rebecca's lap, "I-if you start d-doing this every time I lie, we're both l-losing it Rebecca."

"Oh, honey." Rebecca says as she's pushed into a chair, her tone is very soft, whispery with a luxurious silk to it. "I'm doing this every chance I get. It doesn't matter what you do. Just that you want it."

Ras laughs shakily, "D-did you k-know Q-quarian f-fluids are addictive?"

"That... Can't be true." Rebecca said, though it sounded amazing, "Oh no. That's not good for either of us, I love my vices so much."

"L-aspartate and, uhm, L-arginine. Stimulants, b-both. There's a t-trade for t-them." She explains, falling back on facts and descriptions of them when her minds racing to catch up and understand something, like the threat of orgasm every time they are alone. "Effect on h-human's isn't s-studied." Ras looks up to Rebecca, starting to touch her three fingered hand to the human woman's thigh with an ease.

Rebecca couldn't help but giggle at the idea of studying, "I taught myself accounting, how to run a mercenary band, social etiquette, how to use an omnitool, and like thirty different machines and weapons in six months. I love studying." Then she gently moved her legs open ever not entirely sure where the woman was planning to go, but not wanting to be a barrier.

"T-tell me if I'm doing something wrong, okay?" Ras asks with a soft voice as she rubs up Rebecca's thigh, letting her fingertips trace underneath the polymer skinsuit, feeling oddly textured even through clothing, slowly making its way to the center of Rebecca's legs.

"Oh... No." Rebecca whispered, looking over Ras. There was a very, very, very angry Krogan, who she couldn't have tracked, because she was busy jerking off a Quarian. Oh no. Oh no.

"D-did I do something wrong?" Ras asked, stopping suddenly, staring at Rebecca. Though just beneath the polarized plating, she was smiling

Rebecca is hyper ventilating, "No, I've been taunting my dad for about two weeks. He's found me. He will now make the walls sweat with me. There were a few other choice threats." Rebecca waved weakly, "Hi Vro."

"Rebecca Mara Dinnozo, where have you been? I have been looking for you. We have business." Vro grumbles, as he steps into the room with stomps.

"Oh no." She whispered, "Hey, uh so, this is Ras, and it would be terrible to expose her to extreme violence I think." Rebecca said quickly, poking the Quarian to get up so Rebecca can run. "So. Yeah. So." Ras is either not moving, or doing it slowly.

Vro says, "I've already blocked the exits." And Ras finally strolls to another room.

"Ok wait though," Rebecca says as she stands up now free, and backs away slowly, "The tracker was dead when we got here. I just looped the feed."

"Don't you lie to me." Vro points a finger intimidatingly at the human woman.

Rebecca wasn't lying and she pulled up the tracker site, "It just updated when you checked it. See?" It showed him in a completely different part of town right now. "Haha, prank?"

"Drop." Vro orders, pointing at the ground as he looks around them room, all thirty feet of it in ay one direction. "We'll need effort to make this room sweat, lots of moisture needed, we'll be here awhile." He turns to Ras, "Quarian girlfriend, bring water, lots of water."

A grimace shot across Rebecca's face" Okay, wait though, are you not a little proud I was able to track you and get pictures." Rebecca laughed weakly, "I mean... Like. Come on that should count for something."

Vro denied it immediately. "No, success is its own reward."

 

[Princess Scribe]

Rebecca, Lisa, Vro, and Ras were sitting in the Worthy Fists apartment building as Rebecca cried out in agony. Vro, who seemed to have gotten to the safe house there without a vehicle, drove Rebecca's car back to the building after about a dozen hours of exercise. Even after a full day of rest, she was exhausted. "My arms, my legs, I'm so tired..." She moaned quietly while Lisa tried to rub the tension out, only succeeding in a vague, painful way. Rebecca cursed again that cyber-ware was allowed to feel joint pain. Ras had spent the night, for reasons that escaped Rebecca entirely.

"You'll get better, my lover, I promise." Lisa says with a soft pat.

"Hey, Lisa." Rebecca said quietly, transferring her a half dozen files. All of Vro being tracked around the Citadel.

Direct Message With: Doctor Girlfriend Rebecca Next time he brings up Orange, send him one of these. [image attached Vro_can't_catchme.jpg] [image attached Vro-getting-coffee-where-am-i.jpg] [image attached Vro-looking-in-the-wrong-place.jpg]

"This is going to ruin my life, but it's worth it." Rebecca said nodding, "It's only fair to even the game out a bit."

"You are very kind to me Rebecca. This is wonderful ammunition." Lisa leans down and plants a kiss on the redheads cheek, humming a song as she continues to work tension out with her hands as Ras quietly watches and takes detailed, video notes for research purposes. "I think Ras likes us, Rebecca." Lisa whispers while leaning down, smiling.

"God, I hope so I told her I loved her last week." Rebecca murmured, "If she doesn't I don't know when I'll stop crying. Probably only after I finally get to gut a Specter or something."

"While she's very interested in you." Lisa says, loudly, as she leans back up, rubbing at Rebecca's lower back which currently feels like it was kicked in repeatedly by a bulldozer on legs. "I was also speaking to the fact that she's been staring at my, ahem, beauty for a half dozen minutes."

"What-OH, uh, I am so sorry, oh no, damnit Ras! Why!?" Ras immediately starts kicking herself verbally as she realizes where her eyes have been this whole time.

Rebecca rested her head on Lisa's shoulder, "You're scaring the drug kingpin Lisa."

Lisyris smiles, "I'm sorry, its not intentional." As she shoots a glance to Ras that could make anyone freeze, now deciding to play with her instead of let her suffer on her own, "It just happens when I'm....interested in someone."

"You can confirm, can't you Rebecca?" Lisa asks, letting her hands move to Rebecca's legs.

"Were you interested before or after I made you demolish a small office." Rebecca asked with a mischievous smile, "So many chairs lost."

"During. I think." Lisyris grins back, while Vro is currently cycling through sleep because he can. "Something about gunshots and biotics can get anyone to fall in love, I'll admit." Ras is hurriedly taking notes for her personal records the more the two women talk.

Finally, Rebecca looks back to Vro, and decides to tease, just a little, to see what happens. "You uh, still mad I beat you?" She had been phrasing it like that for weeks.

"Don't make me figure a way around your medical limits, whelp." Vro calmly and, for a krogan, friendlily states the future if this course of action is followed.

Rebecca nods, with her eyes closed, "Okay, until next time then." She opened one to see Vro's reaction. He's opened one eye, and its burning a fiery, reptilian hole straight through Rebecca's forehead.

"When you went to the Doctor, and they couldn't find anything..." Rebecca couldn't help but just keep pushing despite herself. Or maybe to spite her self. "Wouldn't that have been a clue?"

"Mhm," The Krogans second eye blinks open, a half-dozen sclera and lids coming apart as it does. "We haven't done too much work with your calves have we?" He starts to considers audibly as Lisa smacks Rebecca on the back of the head and says.

"She's done plenty, and will stop antagonizing you until she's hale and healthy."

"Oww!" Rebecca yelped, "Why is everyone hitting me? I'm literally an innocent thing, a creature of peace and kindness. Why am I perpetually bullied for my soft, gentle, soul."

"Kindness? Yes." Lisa agrees, smiling at the words and played up reactions, "Peace? I think we both know that's a bold faced lie, lover." She's moved further down, rubbing at ankles and massaging Rebecca's joints.

Rebecca is wearing, instead of her hard suit, the normal tanktop, and cargo pants. When it was clear that Lisa wasn't looking she took an Orange out and place it on the table. It seemed that today, Rebecca was choosing violence. Mostly inflicted upon herself as she hacked away at her only protection. Self destructive behavior was always her downfall.

It takes a few seconds, but Lisa sighs as she notes the orange. Another smack hits her as Lisa says, "Because I love you truly, deeply and without any recourse, I'll stay here with you despite your jokes. Because I care, alright?" Ah, Lisa has also chosen violence is seems, laying down next to Rebecca and hugging her looseu, just for warmth.

"Why did you think the oranges would stop after six months? I had them sent to the clinic every day you were gone." Rebecca giggled, though wondered if she was being cruel to Ras.

"If.....there is rotten oranges in my clinic." Lisa carefully says, hooking a leg onto one of Rebecca's threateningly.

Oh no. Rebecca froze, "You... Didn't get the oranges..."

"If there is rotten oranges in my mailbox." Lisa pulls Rebecca tight to her, glaring into her eyes.

"No..." Rebecca whispered. "No... I asked every day if you got my present."

"You are the present darling lover." Lisa is twitching.

"You don't check your mail at the Citadel?!" Rebecca whispered quietly.

"I do it once a year." Lisyris is not so quiet, realizing she has rotten orange in her mailbox, and has had them for months.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooo." Rebecca whispers, "No. Lisa, you're my only protection from Vro."

"Until we find the truth of the possible mailbox fiasco, I'll be your guardian angel, lover." The leg hook ends with Lisa being able to casually move to atop Rebecca in one smooth motion, "I will get my stress and anguish out."

Rebecca says, "Okay, but we seriously, need to to get those out of their. You get mail there. Like, there's so much gross mold. What if you got an important document? Do they charge you?"

"They'll have to clean it out yes, likely with fire." The Asari agrees with the gross mold estimation. "I do get mail there, I do not typically get overly important mail there. Which is why its a future worry."

Rebecca sighed with relief, breathing more slowly. She wondered if Vro was aware she was going to be just as bad, but in different ways, with her mentor. Hopefully not, he'd have already killed her imagining the next sixty or so years. "I think I have a problem where I need to touch livewires."

"How you doing Ras?" Rebecca called to the corner with the Quarian, "This is pretty much homelife, I guess. Normally there's also a whiny bird man here."

"Oh, uhm, staring mostly-You asked how I was doing." Ras sighs at herself, how she acts, "I'm watching, taking notes, uh....seeing how to, you know.....do things. Like not stare at your girlfriends ass for eight min-DAMNIT!"

"That wasn't really..." Rebecca laughed, "Christ. It's... A human thing? That's supposed to be like a kind of big deal? Shows up in a lot of human shows and shit where it's like 'Oh now we're meeting the family and it's a big deal.' I have no clue why."

"Its kind of a big deal. That's obviously your dad. And that's your like, older, better at life girlfriend whose fixing you." Ras starts to figure out the dynamic of life in this household fast.

"Jokes on her I'm far too broken to ever be fixed." Rebecca smiled over her shoulder.

"You're perfect as you are lover, any change is because you wanted it." Lisa assures with a smile, legs crossed on the couch as she listens to the conversation between Rebecca and Ras.

Rebecca asked, "You hear about that other crazy red head? The dead one from the alliance?"

"Commander Shephard? Yeah, who hasn't? She single-handedly turned the Citadel criminal underworld into a pile of blood, guts and biotically slammed bones in six hours. I hid in a locker while she was hanging people off wires." Ras shudders.

"While she was what?" Rebecca asked suddenly, that last part didn't sound quite like the normal stories.

"Hanging people she was fighting off the ceiling. She'd wave her hands, they'd go up, crunch against the ceiling, and get hung off wires." The Quarian describes in vague detail what she's talking about, "It became a crazy game after a bit."

"Yeah, I heard she had her own whiny twink. Or did." Rebecca snorted, "I wonder if it's a red head thing."

"Officer Vakarian was nice." Ras says kicking her feet, "He gut punched someone for trying to get a bribe out of someone on camera once. Human didn't do so well with a Turian fist firmly spelunking their interior."

"Why? Turians are kind of pushovers, like physically" Rebecca was confused, she could throw around most Turians.

"Uhm, Officer Vakarian was six eight and two-hundred pounds." Ras pulls up images of the man in question, photogenic shoots of him dragging in criminals, a candid photo of him covered in blood after a firefight, a photograph of an arrest turned violent that ended in a flensed Krogan.

"So... Yeah, a twink." Rebecca said confused, looking at Ras's photo. "Look at him, he's very skinny. Also a boot licking thug with delusions of justice. Probably follows that Shepherd chick around for his fascist fetish. Oh I'm above the law, I'm the ultimate justice. While jerking his bird dick or whatever."

"I liked him." Ras shrugs, "He seemed cool, if a little crazy, after a, uh, what was it....Breach and clear of a pirate held station, someone asked him how taking a life felt, craziest thing, you know what he sai-Wait no." Ras suddenly corrects herself, "They asked him what killing people was like."

"Guy said, 'I've never killed people, only scum'." Ras laughs.

"Gosh, I wonder why people don't trust the pure, and brave, members of the police force." Rebecca rolled her eyes angrily, "I hope I never meet this dick head, I'm going to try and wear him like a boot."

"Don't you already do that to a Turian?" Ras asks idly, before her brain can catch up.

"Yes, but I stop when he asks." Rebecca laughs, "Officer snuff film is going to end up in a shallow grave. GOD I hate cops. I fucking hate cops." She was getting worked up, as she normally did when speaking about authority figures.

"The recommendation I have is to not pick fights with someone that was hand-selected by a Spectre for lethality and killing prowess." Lisa offers her two cents.

"He was selected because the Specter goes around collecting people on her fuck boat, to go and be a lawless heathen who thinks the law doesn't apply to them." Rebecca muttered angrily.

"Pot and kettle?" Vro chuckles from his half-sleep, "Something about the two fucking I dunno."

Rebecca looked at Vro with annoyance, but quickly looked away when his eye snapped open. "I just mean... Blech."

"If they offered you Spectre, you'd take it. You're just a little jealous whelp. Its alright." Vro nods, sure of his estimation.

Rebecca shook her head, "I absolutely would not. There's no glory in being a specter. I want to help everyone. Not just hand picked orders as an assassin for a bunch of fuckhead nobodies. A mercenary band provides food, housing, fucking pay. I make sure people eat, thrive, and get skills so they can go make shit and make sure other people eat and thrive."

"And I'm very proud of you for that, lover. You've done something very meaningful." Lisyris gives her daily compliment, or more accurately, hourly compliment before suddenly remembering something. "I forgot to ask love, would you like to get your ears pierced? Like mine? With three holes each?"

"Is this question related to the mailbox fiasco?" Rebecca asked.

"No, I'll ask for a very different sort of piercing if my mailbox is overgrown with orange fungal mould." Lisyris assures Rebecca with a pat.

Rebecca thought about something, and then pulled up her omnitool, to cancel the deliveries. Sweating as Lisa watched her slowly scroll through the numerous websites she uses to fuck with her. The sheer amount of planning and effort that goes into a stupid joke. They wouldn't let her cancel. All the deliveries had reached the courier.

She gave a small, weak, chuckle. They wouldn't let her cancel at the clinic back home either. Or the apartment.

"Its alright Rebecca, you can take it." Lisa reassures the aforementioned woman of how durable she is.

Direct Message with: Birdy Rebecca Please get the oranges out of the clinic in Omega Please. Please. Birdy What about the mold? Rebecca There are maid services. We have half a million dollars! Birdy I dunnooooooooooooooo Might not be possible. Rebecca She is going to give me very permanent piercings in very sensitive places I'm going to do worse than that to you. Birdy We're already at threats? Hmmm Might not be possible after all. Rebecca [Image attached amazon_receipt_birdcage-for-large-birds.jpg] You will live in there. Birdy After you relearn how to walk, you mean. Rebecca I'm going to actually Wait. Better idea. You're not getting the video when me and Ras are done with the clean room. ..|., Birdy Now that's tempting, but, uh, you realize something right? Rebecca no what Birdy She has cameras in her clinic, they're only on a two hour delay. Rebecca I know the oranges have been in there for three months now. They need to go before she gets home. Do you understand? I sent them to the clinic and her mailbox here there are rotting oranges everywhere. I'm going to be murdered. Birdy Spirits above.

"What would you like for a piercing anyways?" Lisa asks, interrupting the text conversation, "I've had every kind you can think of." She pats the muscular woman's side lovingly.

Rebecca groaned, "Anasthetic. Please."

Lisa kisses Rebecca on the cheek, "Anasthetic or my kisses during." She asks.

"During a piercing over my clit?" Rebecca hisses, "Anasthetic!"

"Is that where you want it? I could have been argued to nipple or belly button fairly easily." Lisa states with a wry smirk.

"Oh," Rebecca thinks on it, "Well... Now I can't argue because you've agreed to be talked down."

"So you do want one there." Lisyris casually plays dumb.

"You've been looking at my searches." Rebecca hisses, "You must have, there's no way I haven't talked about it with any—"

"No, Rebecca, I've been dreaming with you." Lisa chuckles, nuzzling into her lover.

"Fuck." Rebecca moans, that was correct and it had been on her mind.

"I was lying about one thing though." Lisa admits, idly kissing at Rebecca's shoulder, "I won't be able to not kiss you." She giggles into her lover, while Ras stares again at the two women interlocked with one another at this point.

Rebecca smiles, and finally reaches up to Lisa's head and gently pulls her into a kiss, taking the lead. Letting their lips over laps with small touches of tongue. After a moment of kissing, Rebecca broke away. She forgot momentarily that Ras and Vro were there. It would have gotten very weird...

"Do you guys think we should stop like, serial killing cops?" Rebecca asked suddenly, mostly to herself, "I feel like maybe three dozen is too many."

"Probably, before C-Sec actually comes down on you." Lisa offers, "They have tanks, and spaceships. Very unfair to fight."

"Do they still though? I mean the weepers blew up half of this giant squid, and melted whole donut shops worth of CSEC. " Rebecca slowly got to her feet, suddenly wondering about work an odd tingling that came from managing a company. The e-mails always stopped right before a fire, and she hadn't gotten one in a few hours. She had sent the Worthy Fists to go shake down the people who bother Ras's dealers. Sitrina and Javarog should have checked in by now.

Calling them while they were in the field was a bad idea though, but the lack of reports was worrisome, The second Blood-in ritual went well thought, and they were collecting a crew of blood thirsty competent psycho paths. Much better, and completely unintentional, the challenges seemed to self select for ones who could easily blend in. People who could slot into a random squad and deal with anyone.

Had she given them enough resources? They hadn't asked for more, they hadn't really asked for any advice. Was this too big of a first mission? It might have been something she should have handled herself. Her thoughts spiralled a little.

Finally, she decided it couldn't be helped.

Group Chat: Officer Chat President Dinozzo ETA on progress report? Commander Sitrina We've got a good idea so far, probably need weeks to be one-hundred and ten percent, but we'll be in fighting shape by tomorrow at zero-nine Omega time. President Dinozzo Rad. Weird danger-sense tingling. Commander Javarog Probably all the C-Sec you killed. President Dinozzo Oh you mean like... Indigestion? Because of the turian? That kind of makes sense. Commander Javarog I was thinkiing the missing people, but yeah President Dinozzo If you need help, reach out. I'm trying to let you all do your thing. Ras says the mercs you've used to patrol have generally been affable uh that's my word of the day. It means... Not shitty? Sorta. Anyways, good job. Commander Sitrina [FIle Attached status-report.pdf 12.4mb] That should cover everything that's happened.

"Well, look at that, everything is..." Rebecca said looking through the document on the omnitool, now sitting up from her massage, and moving to a coffee pot. "Well, it's not the worst it could be, and that's a great start."

They've shaken up roughly half the criminals in the drug trade on the Citadel, or that's what it feels like at least, no less than six corpses are left, all done with blades, clubs and the occasional legacy gunpowder pistol that's too slow to set off the Citadel alarms. The people stealing from dealers appear to be ill-organized, but under interrogation break and say they had a hint of where to go to get some high quality, unprotected stuff.

Sitrina thinks the following, 'Likely Blue Sun competition. They compete with Aria on Omega as well, and they're the heaviest armed mercenary group in space today, she can't just crush them. Perhaps they have their own designs to the Citadel.'

"Well, we knew this wasn't going to be easy, the only good news is we were likely to have gotten here before them. Or else we'd have had to push their dealers off the corners." Rebecca sipped her coffee, and then pulled up a city map. She had already colored blocks, and used the tracking data from her krogan soldiers, and the reports, to get a general feed of the area.

Thinking on it, the concentrations are pretty obvious. Mostly around the Citadel civillian docks, with a spread into the lower chunks of the Presidium for sales purposes. Its less a takeover as it stands and more an easy leeching attempt. Have a half dozen or so mercs rough people up, make a few thousand creds or more a rough up, easy money, easy business. Its likely a preamble to something more serious.

And the last time Rebecca fought the Blue Suns in an open brawl, they brought the sky down on the Worthy Fists. Thrice. Until they could safely evacuate their ground forces.

"Now, the real question is," She mumbled to herself as she started to place the hits on the screen, and coordinating through the docks, "Is how silly they're willing to get on the Citadel. We may have the advantage here, they have far more reputation to protect than we do."

Vro finally pipes up, "And they can't bombard you with artillery, aircraft or ships on the Citadel. So you just have to deal with them having integrated biotics, heavy weapons and effective squad tactics. You've got the numbers for it."

"We've also gotten a few biotics sign up, some nut-job huntresses who... I don't know what they're thinking to be honest." Rebecca muttered, as she checked the sights on a pistol.

"They're horny probably." Vro nods, making Lisa sigh. "Want the Krogan experience twenty four seven."

Rebecca nods in agreement, "It's got it's perks, that's for sure. Alright, I think I'm going to do something very bold and stupid. Which will in turn, cause them to do something stupid."

Vro chuckles, "Challenge them to an honour duel for blood and glory?"

"Nah, I'm going to stab one of their officers on leave." Rebecca said, she picked up the annodized pink talon off the table with glee.

It was time to show people why she was the President.

 

[Princess Scribe]

The Blue Sun's Officer was lounging, feet up on a bar. An Asari with a nasty scar over her right and left cheek that looks like some heavy mass accelerator punches in and punched out, giving her the warrior equivalent of dimples. The bartender would complain, but the moment he did, she said, "Now I'm not going home with you."

"Well, yeah, but that's because you're going home in a body bag," Rebecca had snuck through the bar, and now was whispering in her ear, "Which is really sad, because you're like, one of the top hundred pretty asari I've seen."

Rebecca giggled as she scraped the knife on the back of the stool. "Still bottom fifty though."

"That's cause you haven't seen me naked, Scarlet Angel." The officer, thirteen years in the Blue Suns, a consumate professional with a wall of crimes about ten inches thick when printed out, turns her head, looking excitedly placid in that Asari way where her eyes are widening in preparation for a fight but the rest of her looks torn between decadent rest and wrapping herself around someone for the day.

Rebecca threw paper photos on the bar counter, "No, I have, I know what I'm talking about." She points at the stack, "Doctor reports, Blue Suns healthcare is kind of shit at security."

"Well at least the porn didn't get out." Narekaya murmurs, looking at the pictures.

"Old war wound acts up right? When the atmosphere shifts? Creaks in the joints." Rebecca said, tapping the blade on the bar, "Not to mention the sensitivity to sounds in certain frequencies. Wouldn't really come up in merc work, but I did my research."

"Do you want to kill me or collar me? I'm getting mixed signals here, Angel." Nare asks, still not panicked, far from the first time someone's cornered and tried to kill her. She's got dark blue skin and a pair of dark blue eyes that seem black in the dark, probably half the reason she isn't getting as much attention as other Asari.

"Well," Rebecca said with a smile, "I want to kill your boss. Carve a fist into his back, and remind his boss that fucking with me is hazardous for people's health." Rebecca is making a scraping noise, a high pitched one as she drags it across the metal bar.

"Well, either way, you'll have to have me on the brink to agree to either information or that. So lets see how well you fight." Nare considers, putting one heel on the ground, its a two inch wedge, and then standing up, putting the next one down.

"I pay better." Rebecca said as Nare stood up. Then Rebecca shrugged, "That's why the Blood-in trials have been so busy. E-4s start at 4k mission retainer, and share a twenty percent pot with the other E-4s on the mission."

Nare chuckles, starting to rip at the side of the dress she was wearing for flexibility, tearing the cocktail dress in dark green up to her hipbone on both sides.

"Well, I gave you the option to not be brutally humiliated. Just remember that." Rebecca said as the Bar started to quickly empty.

"That's always the thing with you humans, other species in general. Humiliation is the worst thing. A little bit of public knowledge that you lost terrifies you." Nare starts to chuckle to herself more.

"What?" Rebecca blinked dumbly, "Not... really? I think that's a Krogan thing really. They get pissed when I fist fight them."

"Is it? I get humans and krogans mixed up often." Nare actually asks, stopping the stretches to get this information.

"Oh, one is a big violent moron with poor socialization, the other is Krogan." Rebecca sighed, "God I hate my kin. Anywho, we doin' this?"

"Oh yeah totally, I have a few ground rules though if that's okay? Its leave, so I'm not fighting to win totally, no pay in it." She's stretching her mid-section with a hard pop of gas escaping joints.

Rebecca tossed her a credit chit with five hundred credits on it. "I don't want you to have an excuse when you lose."

Nare catches the chit and immediately downloads the money into an account, "Okay, still have some rules though. No knives below the belt, you know what I'm talking about. In exchange, I'll not biotically twist your ovaries." The Asari nods to Rebecca.

"Ah, you've been to the Arena I see." Rebecca mumbled, clearly disappointed.

"Oh yeah, seen plenty of your fights, you made me a rich woman with that four on one, armed Turians versus Scarlet Angel with just her hands. In the pre-fabbed battlefield with cover and sand." Nare starts to tense up, Asari muscle usually hidden under soft curves now flexing obviously.

"Awww, thank you." Rebecca says, as she presses a few switches on her omnitool. Then she threw the knife at the Asari, and ran forward behind it.

The knife slams into a purple-black barrier, bouncing off it as Rebecca nears and the Asari gets one last word off, "And if someone says Eternity, they've given up!" As she rolls across the bar and uses it as a moments delay to Rebecca's cybernetically charged advance.

The spinning blade is caught by a wire, and the omnitool pulls the blade back, jerking it around to her hand. Rebecca swings out again, using the new program to let her throw the knife when the Asari gets out of reach, always pushing against the barrier, watching it pop in purple lights.

There's a feeling in the air of everything warping, and the kinetic barrier reports seven hundred continous newtons of force applied, three hundred off a metric tonne per square inch. If that barrier drops and she can do that again, it'll be the end of walking for a few weeks. The Asari breathes out as the Warp stops, giving Rebecca a chance to get over the bar and force a melee. Rebecca refused to get torn apart by biotics.

Rebecca fires a flying knee over the bar, threatening to crash into the Asari's skull, forcing her to retreat, and then the knife is thrown again. As it bounces off, Rebecca grabs liquor of the wall, and lets one fly. Eyes glimmering with mischief as her barrier spills Ryncol across herself, the floor, and her surroundings.

"I'd give up if I were you." Rebecca said, as she flung another bottle. The acid spills out on both of them, and in small puddles on the floor. Then staring the Asari in the eyes, she pulls out a lighter. "I love getting synthetics put in. How do you feel about it?"

Nare breathes out slowly, staring at the lighter before grimacing at the idea of skin grafts, "You win, Angel. Eternity." She's annoyed, but accepting of the loss, biotic barrier keeping the Ryncol off of her as long as she maintains it.

Rebecca looks at the bar, too find actual, shitty, high alcohol human liquor. Finding a bottle of concentrated jim bean, she douses herself in it to get rid of the ryncol that was actively burning through her hard suit. Then she walks over with the hose from the soda fountain and sprays down around the barrier and the Asari's feet.

"You will not--" Nare yelps as she's hit with a constant spray of what smells like Root Beer, soaking into her as she barrier is superceeded by non-threatening substances, staining her expensive clothes.

"What?" Rebecca stopped. "What? How does that even work?!"

"Root beer isn't a threat! It's a biotic barrier! I just let the amps handle it!" Nare yelps annoyedly, now soaked completely through.

"I don't know what that means. It's space magic. I'm sorry. That was horrifically rude." Rebecca says, pressing a button to switch the fountain to water, and spraying downwards away from the woman, to clear out more Ryncol.

"Damnit!" Nare complains as the dress is fizzy now. "Damnit! This was a New York style cocktail dress! Peak human fashion! Nine thousand credits!"

"What." Rebecca says looking at the dress, "Human— Oh wait, I was a popsicle. Though I guess I had only really seen fashion on TV. Huh." She printed out another credit chit grimacing as her bank account started to well, not dry, but it was a lot less moist then when she started. "Here, I didn't want to ruin your clothes."

"Weren't you going to brutally carve me up as a message, and hang my chunks on the Presidium?" Nare says with mild confusion.

"Yeah, wait, what?" Rebecca growled, "I'm NOT that redhead. I'm the other one. THE ONE WITH MORALS!"

"Oh, yeah you do have curls, her hairs straight. Is straight hair a sign of insanity?" The Asari asks, sitting at the bar with a squelch of wet cloth and pouring a drink for herself and Rebecca.

"No, it's the color. I think." Rebecca pouted, as she grabbed the glass and slugged it, "Everyone thinks I'm this stupid black-ops thug. I actually work for a living. I don't just fuck off in a spaceship playing grab ass."

"Did you meet her or something? Cause all I know is she went through the Blue Sun guys on a couple of worlds." Nare says, "Like, through us, five dozen dudes killed in maybe sixteen minutes."

Rebecca murmured angrily to herself, "I've done that, no-one remember me." She keeps pissing and moaning as she pulls out a file.

"Maybe you should fuck her or something, you've obviously got the tension for it." The Asari's got her face in her hands, obviously exhausted by the fight, or maybe just drunk.

Wow, this is what it's like to handle teasing from me. It's fucking terrible. "I don't and I just have been... Snooping. I'm not interested in meeting a force of nature with three braincells, with two dedicated to jerking each other off."

The Asari commando's mouth opens, there's a long, long second where she thinks, considers, really internalizes what she's about to say. And then decides to say it anyways, "You two sound like long-lost soul mates, to be honest."

"You are so lucky that I take anger management now." Rebecca hisses out loud.

Nare grins, having found a chink in the armour, "Or what? You'd choke me? How cute."

"What? No I'd just remove your skull and beat your superior officer to death with it." Rebecca took out a video from her first night in the arena, in which she ripped the skull and spine out of one, and then beat the other Vorcha to death.

"That's legitimately hot, like, wow." Nare stares at the vorcha fight, "Wow, is it cybernetics? If I get them, my biotic powers weaken. That's incredibly impressive." She leans forwards to look at the omnitool.

"I didn't have any cybernetics then, that was before the arms. I just had a lot of like... Anger issues." Rebecca admits, as she flicks through to the beginning, where she snapped an arm and ripped a throat with it.

"You wanna go to your place and watch your fights?" The Asari asks, mostly earnestly even.

Rebecca kind of grimaces, "You're very nice, but you like... Didn't really even stand a chance. I'm worried I'd break you. Like a twig."

"Honey, I was twelve drinks deep when you stumbled in. I drank three more while you were monologuing, and if you didn't have a barrier, you'd be a ragged meat pile screaming." Nare pokes Rebecca on the nose. "That's your overconfidence."

"Yeah? But I did a lot of rese—" Rebecca snapped a bit at the finger, "No! You have a record for playing with your food, you've been written up multiple times. I knew what I was doing."

"Scared of me?" Nare chortles, biting her bottom lip, puffing it up.

"Do I look scared of anything?" Rebecca now getting incensed but also... Weirdly... She didn't want to think about what she w as feeling. "Look, you lost you're calling your boss so I can gut him."

"You're letting the five five loser bully you. Come on Angel." Nare chuckles again, letting her hand reach out to cup at Rebecca's cheek.

---

Rebecca grabs the hand, pulls her forward and slams her head into the counter. Repeatedly. Over, and over, and over. Spurts of blue blood bring out a gratification that was so deep and sumptuous that it roiled over her senses. The violence was the only way forward. The violence would equalize. It would

Touch her on the lip?

---

"Huh, I've... Not done that in a while." Rebecca said mostly to her self as she pawed the finger away, "I was joking, earlier by the way. Well mostly trying to get you off your game."

"You definitely got me off." Nare chuckles, its a light and airy noise, very well put together, lacking in the odd and fragile noises of a human laugh.

"But we're absolutely not fucking, and it's not because it's you. It's because I have a matriarch and commandos waiting for me, and I just... Don't like to disappoint by lowering my standards." Rebecca was trying to put it gently.

"To be fully honest with you," Nare says with a tilt of her head, "I think you're just justifying to yourself a lot." She's leaning on the bar with something resembling interest in her dark eyes, "I touched your face and your jaw went slack, your muscles tensed and you started muttering about blood."

"That screams that you've got sides of yourself you've not really explored. Maybe don't think you wanna." Her hands stroking the outside of the hard-suit, rolling over ribbed plating that is pockmarked with battlescars. "So when I offer that, whatever that side is, it be revealed. We find it out together, you reject it."

Rebecca checked her omnitool, and nodded with a deep breath. "Well, the photo's done." She said plainly.

"Photo?" Nare asks curiously.

Rebecca showed Nare a picture of herself, modified with VI to look like she's been brutally murdered, the address of the bar and the clock at the exact time carefully in the photo. There's a bloody fist carved in it, the email has been sent "Come if you want an ass kicking."

Nare laughs, finding something incredibly amusing, "Wow, my eyes don't change at all when I'm dead." She points at it with joy.

"No, normally the VI has to do work, I had the same thing going on which is why I got cyber-eyes." Rebecca checked the comm, "The plan right now, so you're aware, is a bunch of Blue Suns come down here to fight, and I kind of just slaughter them."

"If I help you murder them, especially the one's that'll murder you, can we come back to movies at your place? Or mine." Nare asks curiously.

"I literally, literally," Rebecca tried to get the point across hard enough, "Can not get in the mood unless I think the person is competent. Like, it just doesn't happen. It's weird."

"Oooooooooooooh!" Nare has a blast of realization, it actually dilates her eyes slightly, "I thought you wanted someone you could cut open and wouldn't fuss too much! Sorry, miscommunication, I'll fix--"

"No, I want both." Rebecca pulled up a video of her and Camlos' gunplay, "It's about not feeling like I'm taking advantage of a victim. Most people just... Aren't on my level. It's like fucking a sheep."

"I'm tracking, mkay, mkay." She nods as another glass is downed, then another, then a third. "You wanna see what an L3 amp can do when I really don't give a shit?" Nare looks over with a tiny, scary trickle of absolutely insanity her eyes, likely from twenty drinks.

"Now," Rebecca says, looking at her with a grin, "Now you're talking my language. Hell yeah, space wizard."

Blue Suns blow open the doors, twelve fighters in full blue hard-suits, glinting with advanced lights and kinetic barriers rush in, mass accelerators beginning to fire as Nare screams, thrusting a hand out and wrenching it down, one eye flooding with blue blood as half of them detonate in sprays of organ and blood, kinetic barriers lasting half a second under an incredible amount of pressure before the Asari leans back against the bar, waving to the rest.

Her name was Nare, right? Rebecca thought as she watched blood drip from the ceiling, What a cute woman. She quickly flash forged a small shield to accompany her knife and barrier. Rebecca looks at the other six and shakes her head slowly.

Nare said, "You got it, I wanna keep drinking."

The remaining are in various amounts of pain as the Warp didn't leave them be, but get back to fighting shape fast. Rebecca rushes as they fire, letting her barrier take a few shots as she rushed forward with an omnitool. Like most Blue Suns, they rely on their enemy being smarter, safer, and sane. So when the enemy combatant forces them into a semi circle, most of them panic trying to decide whether to risk firing on their allies. The omnitool shield smacks a gun away while her knife slips between the helmet and chest plate of the man's hard suit.

She then spun around him, getting behind and unzipping his neck. Arterial spray doused his comrades in arms, as panic takes over and they open fire. His barrier pops, and Rebecca charges into a another with the corpse. A blade from her omnitool is pushed through the corpses head when she feels it collide and then a second, gurgling scream. Her kinetic barrier popped, and she felt hard slugs slam into her back, and feels a puncture between the joints.

She finally decides to open fire back as she starts to bleed, the Carnifex loud and aggressive barking as illegal polonium rounds slam into their skulls and explode out the back of the head. Easily penetrating the weak barriers. The last one, a commander of some sort has the gun ripped from his hand and back handed, hard. Then she puts her foot under him and fires into his knee making him fall backwards.

Rebecca finally turns on her camera, slowly panning across the blood stained bar, showing the gore, the viscera, the clock that shows just how quickly the work gets done. The commander is panting and hissing in pain as he tries to figure out a battle plan. Rebecca gets into a slavic squat, holding the camera up high so that they're both in frame.

"Stay the fuck out of my territory." She made the message extremely clear. Then while the camera was still on them, exploded the commander's skull onto the back wall. "Hugs and Kisses, tell Zaeed to eat a massive cock."

"He's probably never gonna see that." Nare amusedly states, having watched with an eye fully turned into a blue orb, crackling with bioelectricity from the biotic expulsion. There's still warps and gravity mishaps happening on her skin.

"What? I thought... Wait who's the hot shit now?" Rebecca says turning the omnitool off.

"Vido Santiago. Some other human. Apparently gave Zaeed the old mass accelerator retirement plan awhile back, news didn't spread I imagine." She says with a shrug.

"Oh," Rebecca sighed, "Oh well." With a sigh, she sent the e-mail off to Omega, to be sent to the Blue Sons, and dispersed among the web. It was unfortunate, but she wasn't going to get a second take.

"Oh? Can't you just lure more Blue Suns here? Or is the email already sent." Nare asks curiously.

"Ah, I've done this before on Omega, they don't send a second wave once they learn it's me." Rebecca sighed heavily.

"You ever fought Eclipse before? I assume not, they don't like, do anything on Omega often." Nare considers.

"I haven't really avoided them, but I don't go out of my way to fight them either. We tend to run parallel, not perpendicular." Rebecca admitted, "Not really a stand in the eezo tank for twenty minutes while playing horde defence types."

"Yeah they do like, black ops stuff, in and out in a flash. HALO jumps and crazy aircraft tricks. I was fighting them once right?" Nare is starting to tell old war stories, this is common with drunk Asari.

"Wait, tell me while we go to your place, CSEC is coming." Rebecca said with confidence, the exploding bodies was so so hot.

"Just a warning, I am really drunk, so I might need like, actually a few hours to sober before I can do much more than like, lick you." Nare giggles, standing up and then falling into Rebecca.

"Oh no, I was going to take care of you until the morning first." Rebecca said, not really thinking about it as she lifted the Asari, as she did with most men and women in her life. "You've gotten out of the sheep category, and now I want to make sure you get home safe at the very least."

"Wow, I'm gonna cum my brains out." Nare idly murmurs after that exclamation.

"That's the normal reaction, yeah." Rebecca sighs as she carries her out of the club, and places her into one of the many cars she's renting, and rotating. Then she walked over to the Blue Suns transport, piled the bodies inside, and set the Return To Owner feature on. Watching with a smile as the auto-pilot took the corpses back home. "I'm doing great on the Citadel."