02.16.03 - The moon controls the tide, it can cause you to drown
Rebecca looked at her omni-tool. No. God no, that sounded like the most boring fucking thing on the planet. That sounded so terrible. Maybe she could re-direct that. Maybe... Nah, fuck it, you've never even tried building a model so how would you know. Because it requires fine dexterity. You're a cyborg now, so maybe it'll be easy. Ugh.
The door to the quarters slides open, Rebecca having been given access minutes aboard the ship. Shepherd is on her bed, legs crossed in shorts and a tank top, a tiny pile of model Reaper components on her lap.
"You don't think it's weird you give everyone access to your room?" Rebecca asks looking at the models. "Also, you meant literal Reapers. Not like a brand, or the spirit."
"I make 'em." Shepherd smiles, looking down at it, "Three-D print the components, put 'em together. This is my last run of these. Everything should fit." She puts together the central body of the thing, clicking things into each other and twisting in screws.
Rebecca watched and then walked in and stared at the fish tank. The room was spacious; it had a lot of things but none of it really seems personal. Small touches here and there that seem personable, but it was like a recreation of where someone would live. It was weird. Rebecca didn't like it or what it might mean. If it even meant anything, Shepherd could just be incredibly boring.
"Weird right?" Shepherd says from her cross-legged seat on the bed, "The room? Like a robot put together something that belonged to someone." She points at the walls, the fish-tank, everything except the models littering surfaces, near-indiscernible from the background unless you look.
"Yeah, I realised something was up when every book on the bookcase was the same size." Rebecca pointed at the shelves. "It's there to seem like someone reads, but books aren't that standardised."
"I'm tryin' to fix that. It's a bitch though. Not really.....don't do much that isn't the goal anymore." Shepherd admits, patting the bed as a seating option for Rebecca, looking up at her after the first parts of the Reaper click together, "You ever feel tired?" She asks. It sounds casual. She's giving no signs of being in distress, but there's a twinge in Rebecca at the question that tells her it's important.
"I've been chewing up dextro-amphetamines by the handful." Rebecca says with a small laugh, "I feel exhausted. Constantly." She walked over, stepping very carefully around the surrounding models and pieces sitting on the bed. "So. I'm going to ask you something, and it's going to be one of those questions where there's almost no answer that won't tell me what I want to know."
"Good setup, you've got me in the mind-state to answer truthfully. I like it," Shepherd says with a nod, smiling.
"Can I check your health monitor?" Rebecca asked plainly, raising an eyebrow at her.
Shepherd sighs, letting the model lay on the bed. "Can I ask why?" She plainly returns a question. Confirming suspicions anyways.
"You're touch starved. You spend eighteen hours a day playing therapist. Your only hobby is building model ships, you don't even read. I'm... Pretty dumb. Most days. It bugs me no-one's even asking about what is clearly a fucked up situation." Rebecca takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose a bit. "This is... There's no way this is healthy. I don't know what healthy is, but I know what it isn't."
"I'm Commander Shepherd," Shepherd starts with a wry smirk, "I don't bend or break, they don't notice 'cause I don't show it. If you hadn't gotten those texts from me, you'd keep thinking I had hobbies, fun times, regular sleep, the works." The woman sounds amused, her voice lilting with a silent laugh.
Rebecca pulls up her omnitool, and then a spreadsheet. Using the project feature to make it larger than both of them. She presses another button to activate the spreadsheets VI.
"Hey Valerie," Rebecca said, taking a small breath, "Whose used the bar in the last month or two?"
"Commander Shepherd was the only customer at the ship bar in the last sixty days."
"Hey Valerie," she said again, that being the command word, "Whose used the VR Sim? Least."
"Commander Shepherd is the least common user, with 1 use. At ship launch date."
"Hey Valerie," Rebecca rubs her eyes, "From the medical records I stole, who sees the doctor the least?"
"Commander Shepherd is the least common user of Normandy SR-2 Medical facilities, with one monthly visit, enforced by Doctor Mordin Solus."
"Hey Valerie," she is now looking directly at Commander Shepherd, "Have we ever seen Commander Shepherd on leave?"
"Commander Shepherd's last recorded leave is 2280, it is 2285."
"Hey Valerie, delete this question history, then run the spreadsheet by the point system I made up," Rebecca said, watching the numbers on the spreadsheet calculate. A weird little scoring system that Rebecca had created, mostly just adding times people did something that would destress then compared to how many missions they want on. It was a ratio, and it wasn't really mathematically accurate unless there was a huge outlier. Rebecca didn't need to look at it to know the answer.
She gestured "I mean... Like it's not corporate heuristics, but it's not something I'm unaware of."
"I'm aware, Rebecca." Shepherd sighs, "But what happens if I take a break? What happens if I flag?" She asks with a tilt to her head.
"Used to work at a clinic." Rebecca said. As she talked, she tapped her omnitool, printing out a bowl, a block of wood, and a knife. She started to carve it, which made it easier to talk. "So, I really cared about it. I'd get nervous, literally wake up the doctor and carry her if she was going to be a minute late, because if we weren't there, people would die. And that was where I met my dad."
The shape was easy now, used to be she couldn't figure out what she'd carve. Used to be a lot more confusing, now the knife just made things. "One day, we went to the clinic, and someone bled out waiting for us. I vowed to never let it happen again. I forced both of us to work overtime, because I'm kind of... Demanding. I used to shoot people when I didn't get my way."
This one wasn't a heart, but she had plenty of references around here. It'd be hard, but not impossible. "Well. Lisa had to do surgery, and we'd been running so ragged she nodded off. Just for a minute, and whoops there goes a Salarian's artery. Almost couldn't bring him back. Not only that, there were still people bleeding out, or dying of the plague, or god knows what when we weren't there."
They were actually a pretty simple shape, all things considered. Arms were very spindly, but that's why she started putting small files in the hands of the whittling knives. She blew on it, as in almost a dozen minutes she had finished the last touches. "The truth was, we didn't really save that many more people. No-one came during those extra hours, and the same people were dying, and even the people who showed up sometimes died."
Rebecca had made a wooden reaper, inspecting it, and digging out the eye with the tip of the knife, before handing it to Shepherd with a small sigh. "You don't save more people by killing yourself. You'll end up just fucking up at things that're supposed to be easy. You're not 'Talk Saren Into Suicide' Shepherd right now." She sighed again, "And you keep red-lining you won't even be, 'Shepherd,' who my girlfriend whispered wow about, so I singed Archangel.' You're just going to fuck up something simple because you're tired."
Shepherd chuckles, "I hadn't slept in four days when I got Saren to do it. I'll have you know." The smile's a tad bitter at that memory, not quite the glorious victory the news made it out to be. "Didn't even really get him to do it. I just...helped him realise he was being controlled."
"The dumbass Turian decided if he can't be the master of his soul, no one can." There's another chuckle at that.
Rebecca side-stepped the deflection. "That's not the take away here." Then it hit her, and she decided to maybe walk through that logic out loud. "Well, maybe it could be if you've never talked about that before. Which would be like, shocking, but not impossible, I'm realising."
"You'd be amazed at what I don't share. Little bundle of trauma in a six-foot-one hot chick body." The Commander stretches her legs after unfurling them from their criss-cross, a tattoo on her thigh commemorating some battle or another that was brutal. "What's the take away then?"
"You're not going to like it," Rebecca said with a small laugh. "Pick one of the crew—not me. And make that one your favourite. Be unprofessional. Grab a fuck buddy."
"Hah. Sorry, but, uh." Shepherd shakes her head, "If I do that, I crumble like a deck of cards, and spend the next month crying."
"Okay?" Rebecca said with an eyebrow raised. "Oh no, one month."
"We're losing a colony every sixteen hours." Shepherd answers.
Rebecca nods, well aware of the numbers. "You can crumble and go on murder rampages. It's very, veryy possible. But also like, it's a galaxy,* those are colonies. There's just a lot that—"
"You know that parasocial thing?" Shepherd chuckles, interrupting Rebecca, possibly by accident as she looks down at the bed, "It's, uh. Everyone. That I'm supposed to protect." She leans over the edge of her bed, sprawling her legs out to balance as she grabs a tablet, tapping at the holographic interface and bringing a crawl of Alliance Military Fatalities in the last four months. She wiggles it. "They're, yeah. It's not great."
"So. I don't know how to do things the gentle way. I'm going to apologise in advance for that." Rebecca says as she types in her omnitool. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to take a day off. If you don't take a day off, I use the access codes you gave me (that I've just changed.) To lock you in your room. When your crew comes to save you, I'll use a shotgun to fight them off."
"Here's the funny thing, Rebecca." Shepherd raises a finger to point at her. "Now that you told me that, you're not leaving the room, either. Because then you'll be fighting my crew off with a shotgun." Her leg muscles tense, cords of thick synthetic and organic muscle intermixing as she flexes.
"Or. You could just take a break." Rebecca says, annoyed, her jaw setting.
"I got one terrible trait." Shepherd admits, "In the sea of all my good ones. I'm kind of a bitch. A stubborn one."
Rebecca sighed, as she stands, "You should put away your models before we do this then." the she pulled a shotgun out. "Because you're going to take a break."
"Usually." Shepherd slides off the bed, picking up the models gingerly and putting them in a metal locker, "When a woman racks a shotgun in my room, I'm drooling on the bed beforehand." She jokes, smiling even with the threat as one after another, nearly thirty models and then stares at a covered object.
Rebecca checks the safety with a sigh. "You know how bad this is going to make me look?"
Shepherd uncovers the cracked, slightly melted and chipped N7 helmet, brushing some dust off it with a grimace. "I think I landed on my head. I've had this migraine ever since I woke up. Or resurrected, I guess." Her reflection in the polarised glass.
Rebecca furrowed her brow. "I got... shot in the head. Ma'am. I have the same tech."
"I guess I was rotting for a year 'fore they found me," Shepherd answers.
"Did you... mother fucker did you rest after you got out?!" Rebecca said, now annoyed and furious.
"I woke up to a raid. My first thought was wrestling some Blue Sun assholes' gun into their mouth." Shepherd answers with a shrug, "Then I got to work."
"Then you got to work." Rebecca growled out, a very sharp, raspy steel getting in her voice. Now definitively deciding to turn the safety off, having made sure the weapon was loaded with concussive rounds.
"Well, I also had to kill everyone assaulting the station they put me back together on. Did you know they don't know if they brought me back? Or just a clone?" Shepherd's still staring at the N7 helmet, finding it interesting.
"It doesn't really matter. Because you're a living person, with thoughts. Feelings. You're a person who gives a fuck whether you're a copy or an original or whatever the fuck." Rebecca says truly truly confused.
"It matters to everyone who thinks they know me," Shepherd murmurs. "It matters if I'm not the person they knew. Just a xerox of 'em." The helmet goes into the locker, another second of staring before the locker closes. "I care a lot about people."
"Well, I can't imagine stun rounds are going to make your migraine feel much better than." Rebecca mutters to herself, "Shame. Respectfully. Fuck, anyone who doesn't accept you because you got hurt. Your migraine is because you're fucking exhausted."
"I woke up with it. And the joint pain. Muscle pain, organ pain, organs don't, uh, have nerves you know?" Shepherd's turned, staring at the armed Rebecca while in shorts and a tank-top, starting to stretch.
"Yes." Rebecca said, "Yes, that's because it's psychosomatic."
"By the way, you're, uh, not gonna win this fight. What's after that?" Shepherd calmly states, making her shoulder pop with a stretch before moving to the next one.
"In my entire time on Omega, I have consistently won fights against people who are better than me in every single way." Rebecca says with a sigh.
"The issue is, Becky, you fucked that up. I'm in shorts, you're in a hard-suit." Shepherd grins, looking dangerous again, bouncing from foot to foot as the glow in her eyes brightens, "I'm the underdog."
Rebecca sighs and nods, then taps something on her omnitool. Beeping start coming from the bed they were both sitting on. She then silently stared at Shepherd, pointing the gun.
"Explosive?" Shepherd asks calmly.
Rebecca responds with a wild grin, "EMP."
"We'll both go down." Shepherd says with a stare.
"I know, isn't it fun?" Rebecca replies, "Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock."
"Wow." Shepherd says, a grin spreading back across her face, "I'd ride you until you broke. I just want you to know."
"I know. I have the attachment for it and everything." Rebecca continues to grin.
"How longs the timer?" Shepherd's gathering information.
Rebecca is now wild in the eyes. "Oh, it's set-up to my head. When I go down, it goes off. Might kill me."
"Perfect." Shepherd answers with a kick off the ground, pulsing biotic fury coming off her skin, eating the immediate two slugs Rebecca fires on instinct is purple barriers as she enters hand to hand and then head to head with a clang of metal on metal, slamming the other cyborg against a wall, hurting herself just as much as Rebecca with the impact of flesh, metal and bone on hard-suit.
Fuck. Rebecca winced. There wasn't an EMP in the bed. She just wanted to shoot Shepherd in the back when she turned around. Now she'd actually have to use an EMP. It was going to hurt. So fucking bad. She pressed her hand to her back, and the actual beeping of a grenade went off. Instead of fighting, she leaned against the wall. It should spread through the floor. Hopefully.
"You know what's funny?" Shepherd grits out, wrestling with the arm pressed to her back, "I don't even know if that'll turn me off. I'm half meat!" She grins, laughing through the effort.
"I don't either," Rebecca says with a horrific giggle, "I'm a half a brain in a jar, pretty sure this kills me."
"It won't. I won't let it." Shepherd starts, with a hiss of effort, to peel Rebecca off the wall, her feet planted on it as Rebecca realises she's pulling with her arms and pushing with her legs. "You're mine." She growls.
"You have like, two seconds," Rebecca said back, keeping her feet in front of her to make sure her arm remains on the grenade, "Before it goes off. Just take a break."
"I can't." Shephard hisses, sweat beading down her face as the cyberware glows bright red, "I'm sorry 'bout this." She says, moments before a fist slams into Rebecca's only exposed soft part, her throat. It's a jackhammer, feels like a Krogan haymaker and slams her against the wall. Synthetic reinforcement makes it non-lethal, but the pain that arcs out of the point of impact is very real.
Rebecca groaned, and for a split second, thinks about taunting, maybe throwing the grenade, or really anything, instead through the pain, and the terror, and everything. She tried to think, which was hard as the second and third hit came in. It hurt so fucking bad. The smart thing was to not risk losing at this point. To not risk the one grenade from not going off. Her arm, the one not fighting Shepherd, reaches back and is jammed into her own chest. Ripping through Rebecca's chest plate to the core that powered her heart. The short circuit did two things.
First, and most importantly, it set off the grenade instantly.
Second, it sent an ungodly amount of voltage through them both.
Direct Message With: Needy
|
The door to the quarters slides open, Rebecca having been given access minutes aboard the ship. Shepherd is on her bed, legs crossed in shorts and a tank top, a tiny pile of model Reaper components on her lap.
"You don't think it's weird you give everyone access to your room?" Rebecca asks looking at the models. "Also, you meant literal Reapers. Not like a brand, or the spirit."
"I make 'em." Shepherd smiles, looking down at it, "Three-D print the components, put 'em together. This is my last run of these. Everything should fit." She puts together the central body of the thing, clicking things into each other and twisting in screws.
Rebecca watched and then walked in and stared at the fish tank. The room was spacious; it had a lot of things but none of it really seems personal. Small touches here and there that seem personable, but it was like a recreation of where someone would live. It was weird. Rebecca didn't like it or what it might mean. If it even meant anything, Shepherd could just be incredibly boring.
"Weird right?" Shepherd says from her cross-legged seat on the bed, "The room? Like a robot put together something that belonged to someone." She points at the walls, the fish-tank, everything except the models littering surfaces, near-indiscernible from the background unless you look.
"Yeah, I realised something was up when every book on the bookcase was the same size." Rebecca pointed at the shelves. "It's there to seem like someone reads, but books aren't that standardised."
"I'm tryin' to fix that. It's a bitch though. Not really.....don't do much that isn't the goal anymore." Shepherd admits, patting the bed as a seating option for Rebecca, looking up at her after the first parts of the Reaper click together, "You ever feel tired?" She asks. It sounds casual. She's giving no signs of being in distress, but there's a twinge in Rebecca at the question that tells her it's important.
"I've been chewing up dextro-amphetamines by the handful." Rebecca says with a small laugh, "I feel exhausted. Constantly." She walked over, stepping very carefully around the surrounding models and pieces sitting on the bed. "So. I'm going to ask you something, and it's going to be one of those questions where there's almost no answer that won't tell me what I want to know."
"Good setup, you've got me in the mind-state to answer truthfully. I like it," Shepherd says with a nod, smiling.
"Can I check your health monitor?" Rebecca asked plainly, raising an eyebrow at her.
Shepherd sighs, letting the model lay on the bed. "Can I ask why?" She plainly returns a question. Confirming suspicions anyways.
"You're touch starved. You spend eighteen hours a day playing therapist. Your only hobby is building model ships, you don't even read. I'm... Pretty dumb. Most days. It bugs me no-one's even asking about what is clearly a fucked up situation." Rebecca takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose a bit. "This is... There's no way this is healthy. I don't know what healthy is, but I know what it isn't."
"I'm Commander Shepherd," Shepherd starts with a wry smirk, "I don't bend or break, they don't notice 'cause I don't show it. If you hadn't gotten those texts from me, you'd keep thinking I had hobbies, fun times, regular sleep, the works." The woman sounds amused, her voice lilting with a silent laugh.
Rebecca pulls up her omnitool, and then a spreadsheet. Using the project feature to make it larger than both of them. She presses another button to activate the spreadsheets VI.
"Hey Valerie," Rebecca said, taking a small breath, "Whose used the bar in the last month or two?"
"Commander Shepherd was the only customer at the ship bar in the last sixty days."
"Hey Valerie," she said again, that being the command word, "Whose used the VR Sim? Least."
"Commander Shepherd is the least common user, with 1 use. At ship launch date."
"Hey Valerie," Rebecca rubs her eyes, "From the medical records I stole, who sees the doctor the least?"
"Commander Shepherd is the least common user of Normandy SR-2 Medical facilities, with one monthly visit, enforced by Doctor Mordin Solus."
"Hey Valerie," she is now looking directly at Commander Shepherd, "Have we ever seen Commander Shepherd on leave?"
"Commander Shepherd's last recorded leave is 2280, it is 2285."
"Hey Valerie, delete this question history, then run the spreadsheet by the point system I made up," Rebecca said, watching the numbers on the spreadsheet calculate. A weird little scoring system that Rebecca had created, mostly just adding times people did something that would destress then compared to how many missions they want on. It was a ratio, and it wasn't really mathematically accurate unless there was a huge outlier. Rebecca didn't need to look at it to know the answer.
She gestured "I mean... Like it's not corporate heuristics, but it's not something I'm unaware of."
"I'm aware, Rebecca." Shepherd sighs, "But what happens if I take a break? What happens if I flag?" She asks with a tilt to her head.
"Used to work at a clinic." Rebecca said. As she talked, she tapped her omnitool, printing out a bowl, a block of wood, and a knife. She started to carve it, which made it easier to talk. "So, I really cared about it. I'd get nervous, literally wake up the doctor and carry her if she was going to be a minute late, because if we weren't there, people would die. And that was where I met my dad."
The shape was easy now, used to be she couldn't figure out what she'd carve. Used to be a lot more confusing, now the knife just made things. "One day, we went to the clinic, and someone bled out waiting for us. I vowed to never let it happen again. I forced both of us to work overtime, because I'm kind of... Demanding. I used to shoot people when I didn't get my way."
This one wasn't a heart, but she had plenty of references around here. It'd be hard, but not impossible. "Well. Lisa had to do surgery, and we'd been running so ragged she nodded off. Just for a minute, and whoops there goes a Salarian's artery. Almost couldn't bring him back. Not only that, there were still people bleeding out, or dying of the plague, or god knows what when we weren't there."
They were actually a pretty simple shape, all things considered. Arms were very spindly, but that's why she started putting small files in the hands of the whittling knives. She blew on it, as in almost a dozen minutes she had finished the last touches. "The truth was, we didn't really save that many more people. No-one came during those extra hours, and the same people were dying, and even the people who showed up sometimes died."
Rebecca had made a wooden reaper, inspecting it, and digging out the eye with the tip of the knife, before handing it to Shepherd with a small sigh. "You don't save more people by killing yourself. You'll end up just fucking up at things that're supposed to be easy. You're not 'Talk Saren Into Suicide' Shepherd right now." She sighed again, "And you keep red-lining you won't even be, 'Shepherd,' who my girlfriend whispered wow about, so I singed Archangel.' You're just going to fuck up something simple because you're tired."
Shepherd chuckles, "I hadn't slept in four days when I got Saren to do it. I'll have you know." The smile's a tad bitter at that memory, not quite the glorious victory the news made it out to be. "Didn't even really get him to do it. I just...helped him realise he was being controlled."
"The dumbass Turian decided if he can't be the master of his soul, no one can." There's another chuckle at that.
Rebecca side-stepped the deflection. "That's not the take away here." Then it hit her, and she decided to maybe walk through that logic out loud. "Well, maybe it could be if you've never talked about that before. Which would be like, shocking, but not impossible, I'm realising."
"You'd be amazed at what I don't share. Little bundle of trauma in a six-foot-one hot chick body." The Commander stretches her legs after unfurling them from their criss-cross, a tattoo on her thigh commemorating some battle or another that was brutal. "What's the take away then?"
"You're not going to like it," Rebecca said with a small laugh. "Pick one of the crew—not me. And make that one your favourite. Be unprofessional. Grab a fuck buddy."
"Hah. Sorry, but, uh." Shepherd shakes her head, "If I do that, I crumble like a deck of cards, and spend the next month crying."
"Okay?" Rebecca said with an eyebrow raised. "Oh no, one month."
"We're losing a colony every sixteen hours." Shepherd answers.
Rebecca nods, well aware of the numbers. "You can crumble and go on murder rampages. It's very, veryy possible. But also like, it's a galaxy,* those are colonies. There's just a lot that—"
"You know that parasocial thing?" Shepherd chuckles, interrupting Rebecca, possibly by accident as she looks down at the bed, "It's, uh. Everyone. That I'm supposed to protect." She leans over the edge of her bed, sprawling her legs out to balance as she grabs a tablet, tapping at the holographic interface and bringing a crawl of Alliance Military Fatalities in the last four months. She wiggles it. "They're, yeah. It's not great."
"So. I don't know how to do things the gentle way. I'm going to apologise in advance for that." Rebecca says as she types in her omnitool. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to take a day off. If you don't take a day off, I use the access codes you gave me (that I've just changed.) To lock you in your room. When your crew comes to save you, I'll use a shotgun to fight them off."
"Here's the funny thing, Rebecca." Shepherd raises a finger to point at her. "Now that you told me that, you're not leaving the room, either. Because then you'll be fighting my crew off with a shotgun." Her leg muscles tense, cords of thick synthetic and organic muscle intermixing as she flexes.
"Or. You could just take a break." Rebecca says, annoyed, her jaw setting.
"I got one terrible trait." Shepherd admits, "In the sea of all my good ones. I'm kind of a bitch. A stubborn one."
Rebecca sighed, as she stands, "You should put away your models before we do this then." the she pulled a shotgun out. "Because you're going to take a break."
"Usually." Shepherd slides off the bed, picking up the models gingerly and putting them in a metal locker, "When a woman racks a shotgun in my room, I'm drooling on the bed beforehand." She jokes, smiling even with the threat as one after another, nearly thirty models and then stares at a covered object.
Rebecca checks the safety with a sigh. "You know how bad this is going to make me look?"
Shepherd uncovers the cracked, slightly melted and chipped N7 helmet, brushing some dust off it with a grimace. "I think I landed on my head. I've had this migraine ever since I woke up. Or resurrected, I guess." Her reflection in the polarised glass.
Rebecca furrowed her brow. "I got... shot in the head. Ma'am. I have the same tech."
"I guess I was rotting for a year 'fore they found me," Shepherd answers.
"Did you... mother fucker did you rest after you got out?!" Rebecca said, now annoyed and furious.
"I woke up to a raid. My first thought was wrestling some Blue Sun assholes' gun into their mouth." Shepherd answers with a shrug, "Then I got to work."
"Then you got to work." Rebecca growled out, a very sharp, raspy steel getting in her voice. Now definitively deciding to turn the safety off, having made sure the weapon was loaded with concussive rounds.
"Well, I also had to kill everyone assaulting the station they put me back together on. Did you know they don't know if they brought me back? Or just a clone?" Shepherd's still staring at the N7 helmet, finding it interesting.
"It doesn't really matter. Because you're a living person, with thoughts. Feelings. You're a person who gives a fuck whether you're a copy or an original or whatever the fuck." Rebecca says truly truly confused.
"It matters to everyone who thinks they know me," Shepherd murmurs. "It matters if I'm not the person they knew. Just a xerox of 'em." The helmet goes into the locker, another second of staring before the locker closes. "I care a lot about people."
"Well, I can't imagine stun rounds are going to make your migraine feel much better than." Rebecca mutters to herself, "Shame. Respectfully. Fuck, anyone who doesn't accept you because you got hurt. Your migraine is because you're fucking exhausted."
"I woke up with it. And the joint pain. Muscle pain, organ pain, organs don't, uh, have nerves you know?" Shepherd's turned, staring at the armed Rebecca while in shorts and a tank-top, starting to stretch.
"Yes." Rebecca said, "Yes, that's because it's psychosomatic."
"By the way, you're, uh, not gonna win this fight. What's after that?" Shepherd calmly states, making her shoulder pop with a stretch before moving to the next one.
"In my entire time on Omega, I have consistently won fights against people who are better than me in every single way." Rebecca says with a sigh.
"The issue is, Becky, you fucked that up. I'm in shorts, you're in a hard-suit." Shepherd grins, looking dangerous again, bouncing from foot to foot as the glow in her eyes brightens, "I'm the underdog."
Rebecca sighs and nods, then taps something on her omnitool. Beeping start coming from the bed they were both sitting on. She then silently stared at Shepherd, pointing the gun.
"Explosive?" Shepherd asks calmly.
Rebecca responds with a wild grin, "EMP."
"We'll both go down." Shepherd says with a stare.
"I know, isn't it fun?" Rebecca replies, "Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock."
"Wow." Shepherd says, a grin spreading back across her face, "I'd ride you until you broke. I just want you to know."
"I know. I have the attachment for it and everything." Rebecca continues to grin.
"How longs the timer?" Shepherd's gathering information.
Rebecca is now wild in the eyes. "Oh, it's set-up to my head. When I go down, it goes off. Might kill me."
"Perfect." Shepherd answers with a kick off the ground, pulsing biotic fury coming off her skin, eating the immediate two slugs Rebecca fires on instinct is purple barriers as she enters hand to hand and then head to head with a clang of metal on metal, slamming the other cyborg against a wall, hurting herself just as much as Rebecca with the impact of flesh, metal and bone on hard-suit.
Fuck. Rebecca winced. There wasn't an EMP in the bed. She just wanted to shoot Shepherd in the back when she turned around. Now she'd actually have to use an EMP. It was going to hurt. So fucking bad. She pressed her hand to her back, and the actual beeping of a grenade went off. Instead of fighting, she leaned against the wall. It should spread through the floor. Hopefully.
"You know what's funny?" Shepherd grits out, wrestling with the arm pressed to her back, "I don't even know if that'll turn me off. I'm half meat!" She grins, laughing through the effort.
"I don't either," Rebecca says with a horrific giggle, "I'm a half a brain in a jar, pretty sure this kills me."
"It won't. I won't let it." Shepherd starts, with a hiss of effort, to peel Rebecca off the wall, her feet planted on it as Rebecca realises she's pulling with her arms and pushing with her legs. "You're mine." She growls.
"You have like, two seconds," Rebecca said back, keeping her feet in front of her to make sure her arm remains on the grenade, "Before it goes off. Just take a break."
"I can't." Shephard hisses, sweat beading down her face as the cyberware glows bright red, "I'm sorry 'bout this." She says, moments before a fist slams into Rebecca's only exposed soft part, her throat. It's a jackhammer, feels like a Krogan haymaker and slams her against the wall. Synthetic reinforcement makes it non-lethal, but the pain that arcs out of the point of impact is very real.
Rebecca groaned, and for a split second, thinks about taunting, maybe throwing the grenade, or really anything, instead through the pain, and the terror, and everything. She tried to think, which was hard as the second and third hit came in. It hurt so fucking bad. The smart thing was to not risk losing at this point. To not risk the one grenade from not going off. Her arm, the one not fighting Shepherd, reaches back and is jammed into her own chest. Ripping through Rebecca's chest plate to the core that powered her heart. The short circuit did two things.
First, and most importantly, it set off the grenade instantly.
Second, it sent an ungodly amount of voltage through them both.