After making my previous drawing of Garrus, inspired by baby t-rexes being born with feathers that they lose over time; I decided to draw two more little Turians.
Above: Saren Arterius (i gave him longer feathers, inspired by silkie chickens)
Synopsis: What if Liselle had outsmarted her attackers? What if she had better security, and had gotten some help?
Because if Jack canonically almost killed both Brooks and Leng, then Aria T’loaks daughter sure as hell can at least hold him off! Plus we all know Aria would always keep a trusted guard near her daughter.
Frankly, Liselle was not as powerful of a biotic as one might expect from the daughter of Aria T’loak. While she was not a weak biotic per se, Liselle did not turn out to be quite as naturally gifted as her mother was. She knew her mother had been disappointed to find that out, even if she wouldn’t admit that to Liselle’s face.
Contrary to popular belief, not all asari were powerful biotics. Overall, the asari were the most powerful biotic users as a whole. Few alien biotics could measure up to the skill level of a young asari commando. Most of those who could, were krogan, who had centuries to hone those powers. Still, not every asari had the potential to become an asari commando. While every asari naturally possessed biotic powers, every now and then, a young asari would be rejected from joining the commandos due to a lack of biotic talent.
Liselle perhaps would have been among those, had she not worked about ten times as hard as those asari attempting to get into the asari military probably did. Being the daughter of Aria, she was put on a strict training regimen. Despite of that, she could not call herself powerful. Capable, maybe. But certainly not where Aria would have expected a daughter of hers to be after over two centuries of training.
Her biotic instructor, Cylura, would reassure her that she was a late bloomer. That she was one of those rare kind of asari that would experience a sudden and drastic increase of biotic power when they hit their Matron stage. After all, she was Aria’s daughter. She would have to be biotically gifted.
The maiden hoped it would prove to be true, but she did not choose to rely on those odds. Perhaps she was not gifted like her mother in the use of biotics, but she inherited Aria’s intelligence and cunning nature without a doubt.
———
Aria did not like Paul. She hadn’t liked Nessita, Ikerish, or Naedir either. Liselle was certain that Aria was the kind of mother that would not think of any of her daughter’s partners as good enough. What did she expect? That she would remain without a mate for the rest of her life?
They’ve butted heads a lot over this. Especially since Aria could not find a whole lot on Paul’s background, despite her agents specialized for intel gathering being some of the best in the galaxy. Whoever this Grayson was; he was good. Aria respected that, but this man was close to her daughter and so she would keep digging and digging for every bit of information she could possibly find. She trusted no one. And certainly not when it came to her daughter. Even her daughter’s caretakers and instructors were being watched constantly, and were unaware that Liselle was Aria’s daughter.
Liselle agreed with Aria that she would remain cautious around Grayson. They’ve set up so many rules that anyone who wasn’t familiar with Omega’s nature would have thought of Aria as insane, but the maiden could understand her mother. While Liselle trusted Grayson, she was familiar with the way Omega worked. After all, she had grown up here. Matters could get complicated, and Liselle did not wish to see the results of it.
—-
The moment Liselle had the opportunity to set up secret surveillance tech in Grayson’s apartment, she’s taken the chance. Grayson wasn’t easily fooled; so she had to wait it out a bit. But she was certain that he hadn’t noted anything. If Liselle was one thing, it was subtle. She never acted on impulse. Each of her plans were meticulously constructed, and discussed with Aria herself beforehand. Humans tended to be exhausted after a mating meld, and Liselle had exploited that. She’d set up a prototype of a scanner, as well as carefully hidden bugs in his apartment, which Aria had ordered her to install so she could have her men analyze every word from Grayson and possibly use it for intel gathering. Hacking his omnitool wasn’t an option, so the only way they could spy on his calls was by bugging his place.
The scanning device, the Vilra, had been a prototype of an alert system created by one of Aria’s men - a brilliant salarian engineer. Even advanced omnitool scanners did not pick it up, hence, it had to be searched manually in the old fashioned way without the assistance of technology. It would only be a matter of time until software would be released on the black market to pick up nearby Vilra devices up via a scan, and be able to hack them, but for now, it was an extremely valuable piece of tech to own.
Liselle had planted it so that it was impossible to detect without a thorough search, and so that it could scan anyone who entered Grayson’s apartment. Anyone who got to the doorstep would have their morphological form scanned. In case it did not match the form of Liselle or Paul, a signal would be emitted to alert Aria, as well as Liselle herself. Wherever Liselle was, one of her mother’s Agents were always nearby. Of course, in theory, there was a chance that whoever entered wasn’t hostile, but Liselle knew Paul well. He hardly trusted anyone, but her, to allow them into his apartment. Aria believed the only time someone other than Liselle or Paul would enter were in the case that Grayson were to betray his asari lover. That, or, someone was after one of them, if not both of them.
——
As soon as the Cerberus team entered the apartment, a signal had been emitted to Liselle’s omnitool. Being the daughter of Aria, Liselle’s instincts were finely honed, and it was thereby no surprise how quickly she jumped out of bed. Her mother had prepared her for this type of scenario thousands of times. She’d even set up fake ambushes before, sending some of her men to break into her place, or come towards her, just to see how she would handle the situation.
Maybe Liselle was not quite the biotic Aria had hoped she’d be, but her teachers had praised her reflexes and combat tactics. Before she hit thirty, she could kill someone without even using a gun or biotics.
In an instant, she’d put on a belt; a tactical cloak disguised as a piece of asari lingerie. To distract the enemy, she used a method that she hoped Paul would recognize as being an act of deception. As he’d worked with her before, there was a chance he would recognize it as a trick pulled by Liselle.
Taking out her omnitool, she adjusted the pre-written code quickly, only for a hologram to storm out the bedroom. A hologram in the shape of the asari attempting to disguise herself with a cheap tactical cloak. Liselle assumed that if they could override Grayson’s security codes, they probably had the ability to detect poorly cloaked people.
Only, this wasn’t really Liselle. And Paul knew too well that Liselle owned better tech than that poor attempt of a disguise.
But the intruders? They fell for it. Shooting after the hologram, which was running into the living room, far away from Grayson. Luckily, this mistake already cost them a few tranquilizer rounds. Meanwhile, Liselle took the gun from the bedside table.
A few were still shooting towards Grayson, who was hiding behind cover. He wasn’t armed, and it would only be a matter of time until they’d figure that out. So Grayson opened his omnitool, typing in a command to play noises that would give the illusion of a new thermal clip being injected. Peaking out his head, he checked to see if they were hidden behind cover. As he saw that was the case, the former Cerberus operative hit a command to play the noise of a shot.
While half of the hostiles were shooting after a hologram in the living room, Liselle took the opportunity to sneak towards a woman cloaked, using a neural shock to stun her. Any other move would not have been silent enough. She caught her body gently, lying it down on the floor as quietly as possible.
Liselle was by far outnumbered, so she was not going to risk being detected while half of the enemies were distracted by attempting to find the hologram. If she’d fired a shot, they’d all come towards her. She had to take out a few men before she exposed herself.
She ambushed the brunette man shooting towards Grayson, stabbing him with her omniblade and covering his mouth so the kill would be silent.
Unfortunately, one of the other men had seen her. He was quickly brought down by Grayson, who’d snuck out of cover to knock out the red haired man in a quick ambush and remove his gun. Another human male, somewhat older looking than the rest, was about to shoot at Paul, but as the man did not have any shields, Liselle was able to keep him in a stasis field long enough to render him unable to move. By the time the stasis field had vanished, Paul had successfully removed the red haired man’s gun and taken out the older man.
That is, when Paul began to stumble, falling to his knees. A dart had been shot right into his side. The sound of the shot, or perhaps already the sound of the other man being knocked out cold, must have attracted the other hostiles’ attention.
Damnit. Now it was three to one. Liselle was outnumbered, but if she played her cards right, she’d have a shot. They weren’t armed with anything besides tranquilizer guns. They didn’t have armor, or even kinetic barriers.
“Get out of here, quick!”, a woman yelled. Liselle quickly took cover before the woman was able to hit her with a dart. While her first instinct was to protect Grayson, Liselle knew that would be a stupid move. And Liselle didn’t do stupid, as much as she loved Grayson. Her mother had taught her better.
They weren’t going to kill him. They intended to take him alive. If they had wanted to kill Paul, they would’ve done so already.
“Kill the stupid Asari whore!”, a man with shaggy dark hair yelled as Liselle’s bullet penetrated the forehead of the Cerberus woman. Two to one, now.
Apparently, though, Liselle was just a nuisance. So they were here for Grayson, only. That meant they’d try and kill her. She’d have to avoid being shot with a dart. If she lost consciousness, she’d be dead.
“Come out, and I’ll let Grayson live!”, one of the men— he had some Earth accent that must have been Australian- yelled, holding his omniblade to Grayson’s lifeless body.
Liselle’s biotic flared in anger, her pulse rising. That had to be a trick, right?
“Alright, alright. Fine!”, Liselle played along, slowly moving out of cover. Of course, she gathered as much biotic energy as she could, knowing they were attempting to deceive her.
But Liselle was smarter than that. She’s been in the mercenary business for centuries, and her mother had taught her many things. It was not easy to trick Liselle.
The moment the man drew back the omniblade, letting Grayson’s body slump to the floor, Liselle sent him crashing into the wall, the impact breaking his neck. But the last intruder- the one with the shaggy black hair- was stealthier than Liselle had given him credit for. Maybe that was part of his plan. Playing dumb so Liselle would underestimate him. At the cost of his colleagues lives.
She felt her vision blur in an instant. Liselle tried to fight the effects of the tranquilizer as much as she could, focusing on all of her anger towards those who dared to hurt Grayson to muster as much biotic strength as possible. She quickly changed her mind, however, knowing a single biotic attack would have her lose consciousness.
If this attack didn’t take this guy out, Liselle would be guaranteed dead. She could forget the option of running off and trying to keep him distracted long enough for any help to arrive, or for Grayson to wake up.
Liselle feigned unconsciousness, hoping the intruder would fall for it. Then, she could try to take him out as soon as he got close to her. Unlike her, he didn’t have a gun.
But as Liselle did so, she started to think this was taking a little too long. What was he doing? Was he making sure that she had passed out? Had he seen through Liselle’s plan?
Suddenly, Liselle heard a groan. She could barely see as she opened her eyes, but she could make out the shape of a female turian. One of Aria’s people.
The stabbing attack hadn’t done much but sent her staggering a bit. Having natural armor plating, turians were more resistant to injury than most other races.
—-
By the time Liselle woke up, she found herself in her mother’s private, most well guarded hospital. She glanced around the room to see if Paul was here, too, but there was no trace. Instead she met a pair of four eyes. Tvish, Aria’s most trusted doctor. Had this human man taken Paul? No. No. There was no way. Aria’s Agent surely took this assassin out before he could take Grayson. Being armed and armored, she was at heavy advantage.
“We’ve lost track of him”, Liselle heard a familiar voice speak faintly from outside the room over comms. Bray. “Nyreen was ambushed by a bunch of guys. Guards. Asshole must have bribed them to attack us. Nyreen managed to take all of them out, but this human assassin is gone.”
It took a moment before Aria responded. “My, my- I’ve got some cleaning to do in my organization. At least he couldn’t have gotten far. Not when he’s here on Omega. This bastard will get what he deserves.”
With a scowl, she turned to enter the medbay. Her eyes instantly softened as her gaze met Liselle’s. There was a warmth in Aria’s blue eyes that was reserved for no one but her daughter. It was such an unusual look for the queen it almost made her seem like a different person.
