In the mail sits a stiff engraved envelope that is a dark red color. Fancy swirls mark the letter and eventually point to the backside of the letter, indicating the user to open. When opened and unfolded, the stiff paper turned out to be a red and white invitation, stating the following:
"Neo Dreak and Cryno Gailian:
Request the honor of your presence at their marriage
Saturday, the fifteenth of October
two thousand one hundred eighty six
at three o’clock in the afternoon”
When flipped over, the back reads:
"The wedding is to take place at Zanguard Memorial Church. The attire is formal, and food will be provided at the reception, which will take place promptly after in the Church gallery.
Each guest is allowed to bring themselves as well as as many family members they please. Significant others are also allowed to attend.”
Back in the envelope, there is a small letter, styled like parchment and also folded. It reads the following:
"If attending, check the RSVP below.
RSVP? [ ]
Check if bringing guests, then state who and how many
[ ] _________________________________________________________________
If you are Levo, check the desired meal you wish to have. If Dextro, follow the same parameters
Check: [ ] Levo or [ ] Dextro
Check one:
[ ] Smoked beef brisket served with seasoned rice and steamed carrots
[ ] Grilled chicken breasts served on pasta with a white wine sauce and finely chopped broccoli
[ ] Smoked turkey leg with pan fried seasoned potatoes and coleslaw
[ ] Salad, served with eggs, chopped grilled chicken, carrots, spinach, red onions, and broccoli
[ ] Five jumbo shrimp, served with sweet sticky rice and assortment of steamed vegetables
For Beverage:
[ ] Wine
[ ] Soda
[ ] Water
[ ] Tea”
He let out a ragged sigh and dropped his head in his hands. It was done. For better or worse Neo was now his older brother. He didn't, for a moment, think Neo would use the connection to his advantage or try weasel money from him. He respected the man, trusted him and liked him a hell of a lot. He'd even gotten rather used to the name richdick. He knew it had become a term of endearment and he accepted that.
He wished, in truth, that Neo had been his brother. He would have saved him from the life he'd lived if he could. But then again, perhaps his brother would have died with the rest of his family during the invasion. He shook the thought from his head and rose from the desk. One day, when this damned war was over, he'd help Neo find his true birth family. He didn't even think that Neo would not survive this. The man had too much zest...or was it sass....to let a small think like death bring him down.
He rose early, made sure all the documents he would need were in his datapad and headed off to the hospital at a fast clip, one hand on a stasis pod hovering next to him. Otek was on a quick trip to Illium with Vanny to gather a few black-market supplies he'd need for Neo's care. For the next three or four days, while awaiting their return, it would just be Neo in the bacta's embrace under Anzi's eagle eye. With, no doubt, the Council's guards parked outside the entry of his ship.
He arrived at the Huerta and moved directly to the front desk. He handed them the document rich datapad and asked for the release papers. He nodded to Anzi, who took control of the stasis pod and moved off towards Neo's room.
The hospital seemed more than relieved to release the Spectre. It would get rid of the armed guards, a dead man they did not wish to add to their stats or get sued over, and it would keep the man's fiance from returning. Win-win in their eyes.
The guards stepped aside, but kept careful eye on the proceedings. Draek was not allowed to leave the Citadel. And anywhere on the Citadel he went, they were to follow.
By the time the release paperwork was finished and he'd made it back to his brother's room, Anzi already had Neo in the stasis pod. He looked down through the glass, his heart constricted with pain. The drell's eyes had been closed...thankfully, but the look of unimaginable agony was frozen on the man's features. And somehow...somehow, he looked smaller. Talyn sighed and backed away, nodding at Anzi.
They left the hospital in silence. Not even the armed Spectre's could be heard. The silence lasted all the way to his ship, where he saw the flashing red light at his berth. His ship was locked down so they could not take off with Neo. No matter, they hadn't intended to leave. But if he wanted to, breaking lock-down was child's play. The guards pulled up, stood at either side of the airlock and allowed them to enter with the pod.
Otek and Anzi hurried swiftly to The Venture. It was a sleek, powerful ship berthed alone on a private dock. He, himself, used a VIP dock for his ship. It was obvious this man had more money than he knew what to do with.
"Do you know anything more about the turian's condition?" Anzi asked quizzically.
"No, child, I told you all that I've been told. I do not think we will be able to find out more until we arrive." He looked down at the cases they each held. "I think you've prepared for any circumstance." Rarely, was she ever unprepared. He was very proud of his daughter.
A flashing drone whirled around them. "Protheans. It is so odd to see a prothean, because you were no more than historical records to me." She darted between the two and came back around to the front. "What was it like to wake up to a different reality?"
"Savvy!" The pilot spun around and admonished the drone. "Leave them alone and go amuse yourself elsewhere." He shooed his hand at the drown impatiently.
Otek and Anzi looked at each other. AIs were always a concern for them, due to their own war with the machines.
He rose from his seat. "Forgive her, I made her far too inquisitive. She means no harm by it. Talyn Nikyrian Teiner, at your service." He offered them a small bow.
They wanted to correct his use o f "her", but rather than insult the host, they returned the polite greeting and provided their names. They took the two remaining seats in the cockpit and as the ship pulled out of port, they went over everything they'd found out.
They watched in silence as the ship was yanked into the Relay. A moment of indefinable silence, utter stillness wrapped around their senses and then everything came crashing back as they shot out of the receiving Relay.
Once through the Relay, Talyn set course and then showed his guests around his opulent, sleek ship and then to their quarters.
The guests were suitably in awe, though none tried to show it. Such a palatial display of wealth was rarely seen aboard a ship. The flooring was soft, like a cloud, under the foot. It had been awkward to walk on at first until you adjusted to it. Murals were painted directly onto the ship's walls from the best artists the galaxy had to offer. They were based in a realism..the details so rich that you wanted to reach out and touch what you were seeing, because it looked too real.
When the tour was finished, they adjourned to their quarters to settle in.
It took a few days and one more Relay to reach their destination. Over those few days, lasting friendships were developed. The initial awkwardness had settled into an easy camaraderie.
In orbit above the planet, they stepped into the shuttle, fully armored, weapons ready. All the squad members but Talyn were biotics. He, however, was dangerous in his own right. He was a genius... his brain, quick and sharp. He'd created some nasty toys - illegal in Council Space, but that did not stop him from having them as part of his arsenal. Savvy zipped around the squad members, eager for the shuttle to touch down.
As they stepped out of the shuttle and into the facility, the security guards stepped aside when Talyn used his charged whips to relieve them of their guns. It was actually a bit of a let down. They had intended to barge in, guns blazing, wreaking a path of destruction through the facility...but people took one look at the well armed squad and quickly got out of their way. One young nurse was even so helpful as to escort them to the room at the back of the facility that housed their special guest.
As they burst through the door, Neo's eyes swept over the room. Saw the condition of turian on the table and thought him dead. His eyes found the man responsible. He charged the man, but pulled up just enough that he wouldn't be shattered too badly. The other drell slammed heavily into the wall and slid down it, puddling on the floor. He charged over to the other drell and hunkered down next to him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him towards his face. "I think not...you fucker. I'm not letting you out that easily. You will die...but all you will know is pain all you will hear is your own screaming...begging me to kill you." His voice was cold, hard and dangerously soft. His biotics glowed, a feral smile on his lips as he began to leach, or rip, the lifeforce from the man in his grasp. When the first screams came he dropped the man and stood back. The man body rose from the ground, arching up, stiff in agony. The screams that rent from his throat were high, hoarse, coming from his soul, as his cells burst one by one.
Ratash froze. Pain like he'd never known ripped through him. His eyes locked on to the other drell, before a vice squeezed him. His body lifted into the air. It felt like he was being melted from the inside out. The agony was more than he could bear. Raw screams tore at his auditory senses. He wanted to yell at whoever was screaming to shut the fuck up. As his body ripped itself asunder he realized he was the one screaming, but he couldn't stop…the pain was too deep…too consuming. His cells and then his organs began to burst, his veins and arteries shredding…and still the pain went on. His vision began to dim, the sounds faded, he could feel blood rolling off of him in rivers. Then blessedly…there was nothing.
"Neo, stop!" Talyn said, unsnapping the handles from his magbelt, he activated his whips. He flicked them out, wrapping one around each wrist and pulling the large drell's arms wide. Savvy was shooting low volts at the drell, but he didn't appear to even feel them. Neo glowed brightly and shot out a wave that sent Talyn flying. Talyn flipped in the air, disks slid out of his boots and he propelled himself at Neo, slamming into him and sending them both flying. They rolled arse over end until they came to a stop. Talyne sat up, a smile on his face. "I have never seen biotics like that. I do not know what you did to the good doctor, but he is quite dead. Crossed the sea some time ago, but you were too engrossed to realize it."
Neo glared at the rich dick...at Talyn. He'd come to know him too well on their voyage for him to see him in the same light. The man was still rick as fuck, but he wasn't a dick. "I wanted nothing left but a puddle...If I could rip him from your godess's embrace, I would kill him all over again. No one has the right to do that to another being. He deserved what he got!"
"You will broke no disagreement from me. I concur. But there is no point in killing the dead, when the living needs to be seen to," he said pointing over to the turian on the table that Anzi was working on.
When Anzi spotted the turian, she moved swiftly to his side. His eyes were open, but glazed in shock and pain. She smiled warmly at him. "My name is Anzi, I'm here to help you. I'm going to sedate you, but I will not leave your side." Her eyes taking note on the damage and what she needed to do to put him back together again as she talked to him. She sedated him and then flipped on her holo-tool..the prothean version of the omni-tool. It's green glow comforting as she scanned the turian. A wave of power slammed into them and she lowered her body over the turian's to shelter him from the blast. She glared at the two drell, she needed to stabilize him before they could risk removing him.
She sprayed film on her hands and gently sifted through his open chest cavity, placing his organs back into place. She then spread a thin layer of bacta-gel over his wounds and into the cavity of his chest. She proceeded to fill his cavity with medigel. She pinched his skin together, applying the med-glue. When she released the skin it held, but she wanted it to do more than hold. She aimed her holo-tool at the wound, as thin, laser-like beam shot out and she slowly drew the beam down the newly glued skin, activating the healing properties of the med-glue, sealing his skin together.
She sorted through one of her cases until she found what she needed. She withdrew five syringes that held enhanced, programmed embryonic stem cells attached to an inert virus. That would essentially rewrite the subject's damaged cells. This was the first time she would be applying this treatment to a primitive. It was something her husband, Zocha, had come up with late in the war. Too late to help many...and she had been too far away to save him. But that is a failure she did not wish to think about.
She rolled the turian slightly and carefully inserted the needle at the back of his neck, into the stem of his brain. She released the contents of the syringe, rolled him back onto his back and released the contents of the other syringes in the most beneficial locations she could find. Now, it was only a matter of time.
"We need to get him out of here. I'll work on his face on the ship. Someone find a hover bed!"
Talyn left the room, but returned quickly. "Everyone appears to have left. We are alone...and that is troubling."
"Fuck the bed! We need to go now!" Neo bellowed. He scooped up the turian, more gently than he had intended to and held him to his chest tightly. "If you can't charge, find someone who can. Go!" With his prize in hand he charged for the exit, the walls blowing by in a flash of color. he saw a brief glimpse of Talyn, who appeared to be flying by his side and he wondered how the hell the man was doing it.
When they reached the shuttle, he sat down with his burden in his lap as the others poured into the shuttle. Talyn hopped into the pilot's seat and they were off in a flash.
An explosion buffeted the shuttle, as the hospital and anything left in it, exploded in a brilliant ball of color. He tried to absorb the movement of the blast with his body, so as not to jolt the broken man in his arms.
He was the first off the shuttle, followed by Anzi, when they docked within the belly of The Venture. He moved swiftly to the med-bay and laid the turian down on the table. He tried to hide his shock as he took his first real look at the broken man.
Anzi shooed the dazed drell back. "He will not always look like this. He will heal...but it will take time for every cell in his body to be...rewritten. That term is not the most accurate, but it is the easiest to understand. Now, let me get to work so that everything heals as it should."
The man was an odd mix of turian and something else...almost reaper like. She didn't understand what she was seeing, but she didn't need to. She reset and braced his mandibles and then worked on the rest of his face, carefully setting everything back into place. After several hours of working on the turian she stretched her sore limbs.
There was little she could do on this ship about the missing limbs and fingers. She had to give the cells time to do their job. She turned to her father. "Is the bacta tank ready?" she asked, her tone exhausted and irritated.
"Of course," he said briskly and turned to exit the room.
She started to activate the bed when Neo stopped her. "Can he be moved?" He made a motion of picking the man up.
She nodded. "Yes, he is stable and in no current danger."
"You will need someone to put him into the tank and I'm far faster than that damned table." Neo slipped his arms under the turian and scooped him up. He held him tight and charged through the halls, landmarks flashing by. He slowed as he entered the lab with the bacta-tank. He laid the man in the tank and began to attach the electrodes to his hide. He stepped away when Anzi arrived.
Anzi looked over the electrode placement and smiled at Neo. She gave the turian another injection to keep him sedated and typed in the command to close the tank. Healing, oxygenated, bacterial fluid, thicker than water, but not as thick as gel began to fill the tank. The turian would breath the healing fluid while he was emerged. She released the dextro nutrients into the gel, so that he would receive adequate nutrition...which was something, it appeared, he hadn't received in some time.
The tank rose into a standing position, the pressure of the fluid keeping the turian in place. She had done all she could for him. Now, it was a matter of time. Though, she would continue to monitor her patient at the Huerta for the next week or two, depending on how fast his body acclimated to the new cellular growth.
Neo found himself stopping by the bacta-tank several times a day on their journey back. He would pull up a chair and talk to the turian. He doubted the man could hear him, at least he hoped he could not, for he told him stories about his life as a slave, what he had gone through, how he had escaped...the man that changed his life, becoming a Spectre whose job it was to hunt corrupt Spectres...he left little out as the days went by. It felt good to unburden. He'd never told anyone but Nihlus about the life he'd led. He just hoped the man in the induced coma had not heard, but regardless, the telling was cathartic.
By the time they arrived back at the Citadel, no one really wanted to leave. The ship had a pool, a rec room, gym...everything you could want...everything luxurious...it was like the world outside the hull ceased to exist. The only reminder was the man in the bacta-tank.
Anzi lowered the tank to a reclined position, the bacta-gel drained away. She tilted the turian as his lungs automatically expelled the fluid to breath the air again. He already looked quite a bit better than he had, which wasn't saying a whole lot...she wished she could have kept him in the bacta-tank for at least a week. He needed it...but it was a technology she wasn't ready to give to the primitives for fear of it being abused. That and they were still in the process of creating more bact-aid gel. There simply wasn't enough for wide-spread dispersal.
Neo picked up the turian and transferred him to a hover-table. He drew the straps over the man to secure him and then backed away with a nod.
They transferred him to the hospital and into a private room. Anzi registered him as her patient and then went to check on the young man. She had him on an IV of dextro nutrients and pain killers. The sedative she'd given him to induce a coma would wear off soon, but the pain killers he would continue to need, because it was painful to alter cells and repair damage...and growing something new could be excruciating.
She scanned him with her holo-tool. She smiled, his gizzard was in the process of growing back. She wasn't sure why the man was missing it, but the cells were doing their job. How many more treatments he would need, she didn't know. A prothean would need no more treatments. The cell altering was permanent. She suspected it would be the same for the primitive, but time would be the deciding factor on that. Her smile remained in place as she left his room. She considered him a success story, even if the story was not completely written.
