[Book Three] Chapter 24: How it all began

Chapter 24: How it all began

Silence reigned upon all in Aria’s booth in the Afterlife. The asari and Jane were drinking, probably to numb their grief while Nyreen was looking at them from the side choosing to not fight her own that way.
Rick’s actions had enraged his sister and mother to no end and while the former kept her emotions on a tight leash, the latter didn’t even bother to do so. She rushed inside her nightclub to deal with Petrovsky blaming him for the loss of her son, mauling down everyone and everything in her way. It cost her. The Cerberus general trapped her in an energy field and she was stuck in midair. Fortunately for her, Jane and Nyreen were there to free her and after an intense battle against Petrovsky’s elite soldiers and fully controlled adjutants, the man admitted defeat and surrendered. He was nearly choked to death by Aria but the woman was dissuaded by her companions. Oleg Petrovsky was one of the highest ranked members of Cerberus and could have sensitive information that could help. When Nyreen played the ‘Rick would not have taken his life before getting everything out of him’ was the final nail on the coffin that was Aria’s decision.
The pirate queen then addressed the people of Omega, telling them that they were once again free. Surprisingly she admitted that she had some flaws as a ruler but that she was working on them. She promised to always defend the station from anyone messing with it. Nyreen was shocked beyond belief as less than three hours ago she was ordering Jane to cut the vital system of a section of Omega to save her life down in the mines. That Aria admitted that her methods were not the best and promising to protect the people was something she had long accepted would never happen. Rick had still hoped and he had been right to do so, sadly he wasn’t there anymore to see it.
Jane was the one who broke the silence, talking to herself more than anything.

“It was so obvious. The way you treated each other, how long you’ve known each other… the trust… the devotion… him sleeping on your couch or in your bed… that he belonged to a clan without being part of one. It was your clan, Omega. And the royalty comment he made back then… Of course, since you’re the queen then he was a prince. And his nickname… ‘The little shit of Omega’. It was affectionate and in reality meant ‘The little shit of Aria.’... It was all there and nobody saw anything. I didn’t see anything.”

Aria gulped down her drink in one go while casting a side glance at the redhead. Putting her glass down she served herself another.

“How… How did it come to be?” asked Jane.

Feeling that the conversation turned personal, Nyreen exited the room discreetly while Aria looked at the content of her glass, thoughtful. After a moment of silence, the asari picked her drink and the bottle she was drinking off then went to sit on the couch.

“Sixteen years ago… I ended my night and went back to my apartment above the nightclub. The most secure place on all of Omega. Yet, my door was unlocked.”

Tired after a very long and frustrating day, Aria forgo calling her goons and decided to deal herself with the intruder or intruders. She knew it wasn’t Liselle, they had another falling out a month prior, so she took her gun in hand and entered slowly and silently her home. The first thing that hit her was the smell of food that lingered in the air. Was she an honest person she would have admitted that it made her hungry. Walking slowly, her weapon raised in front of her, she checked her living room and saw nothing at first. She saw on the dinner table a dishbell along with cutlery, and a glass of what she presumed was water. Sneakily moving towards her bedroom she found no one in there after checking. She checked the bathroom too and ended with the same result. She doubted whoever entered her house did it just to cook a dish then leave. Still alert she went back to the living room, gun still in hand. Reaching the dish bell, she lifted up, knowing that it wasn’t a bomb thanks to the smell coming from it. She was surprised to find a well done steak with mashed potatoes on a plate. That put her on edge even more as it was one of her favorites. When she heard a high pitch snore her senses were at the maximum of their alertness. It had come from the couch and so very slowly moved towards it. When she reached its back, she was dumbfounded to see a small human child sleeping on it without a care in the world. She took a moment to observe the blond boy right under her eyes and found nothing threatening at first glance. Curious, she shook him awake with her gun instead of just killing him. She was many things but a child killer was not one of them, or at least not unless it was necessary and besides she needed answers as to how the kid had entered her home. Shaking him further, the child had, to her surprise, the audacity to bat away her gun asleep. Way too tired and impatient for anymore bullshit she grabbed the kid by his collar and violently picked him up. The boy instantly awakened and after a few seconds to clear his foggy mind, looked at a very frowning Aria dead in the eye.

“Hello.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m.. Jo…” he began but stopped himself to think for a moment…” Rick. My name is Rick Wald.”
“You have one more try.” the asari said as she put her gun right below his chin.
“Hey! Aria T’Loak is not your real name either and you don’t hear me bitch about it. Rick Wald is the name I chose to live by now, so it’s my real name.”
“Who sent you?” she asked another question, conceding the boy’s point.
“No one. I came here on my own.”
“And you think I’ll believe that?”
“Not really but it’s the truth.”
“...”
“...”
“What are you doing in my home?”
“Oh! That! Well, it’s the most secure place of Omega and I want to be safe.”
“...” She looked at him with confusion, his words making sense and at the same time not.
“Did you like the food?”
“Why did you cook?”
“Well, I’m entering uninvited into someone's home. It was the least I could do to sweeten the deal and not get kicked out immediately. I bought the food with my own money. I didn’t use yours if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“...”

Feeling herself too tired for this bullshit, Aria simply carried him out of her flat and closed the door on his ass before going to bed.

“I can’t believe that idiot did that.” Jane said while she pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Sixteen years later and I still can’t either. I think that's partly the reason I didn’t outright kill him.”
“That’s not all isn’t it?”
“No. When I woke up hours later he was back in.”

Aria woke up to a wonderful smell and the sound of something being fried. Her foggy state of mind quickly changed to alert and she immediately picked her gun under her pillow and slowly made her way towards her bedroom’s door. Chancing a glance, she saw the same boy as the night before standing on a chair and cooking something. With a spatula he took what she realized was bacon and put it on a plate. Getting down from the chair, he put the dish on the dinner table and put back the chair he was using to cook in its proper place before sitting down.
The asari’s mind was all jumbled. She couldn’t understand what was happening, who that kid was, why he was cooking for her and how the hell did he come into her home when the security is top notch. She lowered her arm holding her gun and walked into the living room to confront him. When he heard her he turned his head away from the datapad he was reading and greeted her. Or tried.

“Good Moooor… Haaa!”

The child quickly covered his eyes with one of his hands and looked away.  Raising a brow in a ‘what the fuck’ manner, Aria took a couple of second to realize that she was stark naked. Finding the situation amusing, she simply smirked and thought that it was perhaps her best shot to squirm him for answers.

‘This is going to be amusing.’

Walking slowly she made her way around the dinner table to sit right in front of the blond boy.

“How did you get in, again?”
“I… I hacked the door.” he replied looking down at his plate containing the dish he made the previous night.
“Look at me.”
“Are you… Are you decent?”
“Yes.” She lied.

Raising his head to look at her he was surprised that she, in fact, wasn’t.

“You’re not!”

To her surprise he looked her straight in the eyes but the slight blush on his cheek that she would forever deny finding cute, showed he was still uncomfortable. She saw a hint of embarrassment in his glare but mostly irritation. There was a challenge in those blue eyes of his as if they were saying ‘You want to play that game? Fine, but I’m not going to lose.’

“Was he… Was he seriously pissed because you lied to him?” Shepard chuckled, picturing the scene. She knew how her brother at the time was. Defiant when you tricked him like that.
“Yes. I was… intrigued, grown men rarely look at me like that when they know who I am and here was a child with more steel in his eyes than them who didn’t seem to care one bit about it.”
“I… never quite knew if it was because he was arrogant and felt he was superior or just didn’t care about those things.”
“At that moment… I think he just didn’t care.”

“You hacked the door. Do you really think I’d believe that?”
“What you believe doesn’t really matter. The truth is the truth.”
“What I believe matters because that could be the difference between me putting a bullet to your head or letting you live.”
“Go ahead. Do it then.” he said in defiance.

She raised her gun in a flash and pointed it at his head point blank to see his reaction.

“Sick of living already? You’re what? Nine, ten?”
“Ten. Now are you going to shoot or not?” he asked, his eyes still locked onto hers. Staring back for a moment, Aria removed the gun from his forehead and pursued her questioning.
“Not afraid to die. Well… that’s not uncommon around these parts even for a child.” she commented as he simply shrugged. “Now, how did you get in? And before you serve me that bullshit again, let me tell you that the lock is the latest and best on the market. I had it changed six months ago. Was it omni-gel?” she inquired and got a derisive and amused snort when she talked about omni-gel.
“Omni-gel. Only idiots and barbarian use that. No, I exploited the locking mechanism code. When the code receives too many inputs to check in a very short time, it resets itself to avoid overloading and crashing down. I’m talking about thousands a second, here. When it goes back up it’s in its default state: open. It’s for safety measures.”
“...”
“I can show you if you want.”
“... Why are you here?”
“Told you last night. It’s the safest place on Omega because it’s your home.”
“Safe from what?”
“... Everything? We’re on Omega, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
“... Fair enough.” she said, deciding to let the matter go, for now. “However that won’t be possi…”
“Sure it is, it’s your place, you’re the one who decides who stays and who doesn't.”
“If you think I’ll let a strange child I know nothing about live with me you’re mad.”
“I’m not asking you to let me stay here for free. In fact I didn’t ask for anything, I just stated the reason for my presence. However, now I’m asking you, let me live here and I’ll help you with your work. I’m a genius hacker and can help with security.”
“Sure.” she said in a flat unimpressed tone.
“You’ll change your mind, once you see this.” he replied as he handed her the datapad he had been looking at earlier. Hesitating for a moment, she took the pad and began reading.

“You went along with it?” asked Jane in shock.
“I had nothing to lose. I've seen many things, Shepard. A genius hacker child? Not the weirdest and most improbable among them by far.”
“Still…”
“He seemed to know what he was talking about about my door, so it was worth a shot. At worst that would have simply sped along the conversation and I would have kicked him out faster.”

The more she read, the more she wasn’t happy with what she was reading. Plots, backstabbing, backroom deals that she didn’t even know about were written in detail with dates, locations and pictures. There was even a file about one of her lieutenants who was not loyal at all and helping one of the mercs gang against her.

“I’ve been on Omega for two weeks. That’s all I could find during that time.” 

“If the information contained in this datapad is true… that’s impressive.”
“You’ve seen nothing yet. I just observed and hacked people's terminals or security cameras here and there. Comparatively, hacking your door was harder. Well harder in the sense that the former is like stealing a lollipop from a kid and the latter is stealing one from a teenager.”
“...” Aria looked at the kid in front of her with interest. There was no way a child could make up so much information and be so detailed. So it was probably all true but obviously she’d have to check those. “If what’s in there is factual then you may have found yourself a job.”
“I don’t want money. I just want to live under your roof.”
“And why is that? Why so insistent?”
“Because no-fucking-body will mess with me if I live with you. Plus there are other perks, like… it’s a very nice apartment, it’s quiet, nobody comes here and most importantly there is you.”
“Ah, so that’s your goal. Me.” she exclaimed in understanding.
“Yeah. You’re a biotic and know how to fight so you can teach me to defend myself and I can also learn by watching you how to not take shit from anyone.”

Jane bursted out laughing when she heard that part. Her baby brother learning to not take shit from anyone? That was the joke of millenia. She was pretty sure that Rick was born with the gene ‘not taking shit’ and made it an art form.
“I almost laughed too. He hasn’t been taking shit from me and he wanted to learn from me. Sometimes he can be so stupid.”
“True but I think he was more referring to not being uncaring and passive when people stepped on his toes when he was just not interested and instead fighting back. I’m not surprised though, now that I know about the bullying at school.” the redhead replied sadly.

“You’re a biotic?”
“Yes, I don’t have any implants though.”
“Didn’t the alliance give you one? From what I know, they’re very interested in any new biotic in their midst.”
“The whore who gave birth to me couldn’t care any less.”

“How right he was… She didn’t even bother to acknowledge his existence, so when he became old enough to have one she didn’t even know about it, so he never got one.” Jane commented bitterly.

“We’ll find you an implant but I’m busy, I’ll find you someone else to teach you.”
“No. It’s you, period. Anyone else is substandard. I want the best and that’s you. I won’t settle for less.” he replied with determination.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Are you saying there is a more powerful biotic on this station? Who is it? I’ll have to help her dethrone you.”
“Dethrone me?!” Aria laughed at the notion and the boldness.
“Of course, if you’re not the best then your side is not the safest place but that also means that the other person represents a potential threat. If I want to be safe, that person must rule Omega.”
“You’re ballsy, kid. I’ll give you that even though your balls haven't dropped yet.”
“Of course I am. I wouldn’t be here in the first place if I wasn’t.”

“Somewhat, I both can and can’t believe he threatened to remove you.” the redhead said, facepalming.
“At the moment, I found it adorable.”

“Very well, I accept your proposition. But if you slack off even once and waste my time, you’ll regret it.”
“... I can't believe it worked.” he muttered.
“Really? You need to have more confidence, if you’re going to be my student.”
“I’m sure you can teach me that. Anyway… You should eat, it’s getting cold.” he said pointing at the plate of bacon and eggs.
“... Once I’m done, you’re showing me what you did with the door.”
“Okay but please put something on first.”
“Are you telling me how to dress in my own home?”
“No, but the lock is outside so…”
“Uh-huh. First thing I’ll teach you is to handle seeing naked bodies.”

“I can’t imagine Rick being … a prude. The guy that walked around the Normandy butt naked with only his helmet on without a care in the world and like he owns the place… a prude. That’s… .”
“One month among the girls doing chores he wasn’t a prude anymore.” Aria chuckled.
“You let my ten year old baby brother among…”
“I’m stopping you right there, Shepard. You have absolutely no say in how I raised him since you left him. And no, nothing happened. When he left Omega at sixteen he was still a poor virgin.” the asari placated Jane, very unhappy with what she was told.
“So that’s how the two of you met but…”
“How did I come to see him as my son? Well… as always with him it’s out of the blue. I had spent two years spending time with him, working, training, relaxing… I even comforted him when his pet fish died.”
“He had a pet fish?!” Jane exclaimed in shock.
“He named it Nemo. It was a clownfish.”
“I can’t believe it! I can’t believe him! He mocked me again and again for my fish when he had one himself! That ass!”
“Anyway… One day, my daughter, Liselle, paid me an impromptu visit. When she saw him serving me dinner she jumped to the wrong conclusion immediately.”

“Really?! You have slaves now?! And a kid at that! How low will you… Ooooowwww!” the young asari yelled as she felt sudden pain on her shin.
“I don’t know the fuck you are, or the fuck you want but you don’t speak to mom with that tone.” Rick said, threatening the rude bluenette with the pan in his hand who was dumbfounded by having been kicked and by what he had said.
“Mom?!” the intruder exclaimed in shock.
“Yes?” Aria answered.
“You’re his mom?!”
“Seems like it. Say hello, son.” she said, eating one of the fries on her plate.
“Name’s Rick.” the boy introduced himself.

“Wait, wait, wait. Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Aria replied, taking a sip of her drink. “What can I say? I liked him. He was smart and funny and easy to get along with. His stoicism when I was unjustly unhappy with him or just venting to him was refreshing. He had already mastered the ‘don’t take shit from anyone” attitude and made it an art. Sometimes after a long day, when I left the club my first thought was ‘What do we eat for dinner?’ and my second ‘What are we watching tonight?’.  He was always showing me his projects when he was done with them, searching for validation and I didn’t mind giving it. So when he called me ‘mom’, it felt natural. It just… fitted.”
“How did your daughter react to that?”
“In insight… rather well. At first she asked me to put him back where I found him…”

“Okay.” Rick said. “Think you can bring me there?” he asked Aria with mischief in his eyes. She immediately understood where he was going with this and smirked. Raising her hand, she used her biotics to make him float and landed him on her couch.
“There. Happy?” she said to her confused daughter.
“What?!”
“My couch, that’s where I found him.”
“Stop messing with me!”
“She’s not, Bluenette. That’s where she found me one night when she came home.”
“And I decided to keep him. Isn’t he cute?”
“Hey! I’m entering puberty! It’s handsome now!”
“Sure, sure.”
“MOTHER! EXPLAIN, RIGHT NOW!”
“Don’t take that …”
“Mother?! That rude bitch is your daughter?!”
“Rick, meet Liselle. Your… older sister I guess.”
“Rude bitch?! Who do you think you are, kid?”
“Didn’t you hear? Your little brother, duh!”
“Goddess! You're not joking at all!” Liselle said in realization as she looked at her mother.
“No.”
“Kid, you need to go. Run and don’t look back.”
“Why?”
“Because there are better mothers out there!”
“Well, duh! There is always someone or something better. But I’m very happy with mom, way better than the whore that gave birth to me so I’m staying.”

“I’ll never forget her face at that moment. She was so flabbergasted.”
“Not a good relationship with her, huh?”
“No. I admit I wasn’t the best mother to her. With Omega to take and then rule, that left little time for me to take care of her properly and I wasn’t much of the motherly type to begin with. More often than not I left Liselle to her own devices, not interfering with what she was doing.”
“Hands off parenting then. Rick must have loved that.”
“He did, though, I learned from my mistakes with Liselle and made some time for him. From that moment, Liselle visited at least once a month to make sure he was doing alright and that I wasn’t fucking him up when she and I weren’t in bad terms. She was his total opposite. An extravert very fond of hugs. He ran away every time she showed up and she just chased him around the apartment for a while until she caught him.” Aria said, her look far away, reminiscing perhaps the best days of her long life since she became a mother.
“How was she? With him I mean.”
“Very overprotective, always berating me for this or that concerning how I raised him. As a result  he loved her but… from afar. When I told her he had left omega to lose his virginity she blew a gasket.”
“He said he was sixteen when he left, why didn’t you stop him?”
“He was old and strong enough to leave and if that was his choice to do so, then who am I to oppose it?”
“His mom?!”
“I scolded him for it when he came back but he would have left anyway though on bad terms. In truth I didn’t even know he had left until I went home that day and found a note. It said: ‘ Since you won’t pop my cherry I’m going to find another badass to do it. See you later, love you mom.’ “
“That sounds like him.”

Aria was about to say something when Anto entered the room.

“What is it?”

“We’re almost done opening the district’s entrance door.” answered the Batarian.
“Why would you do that?! The adjutants are contained!  Rick died to…”
“Oh, he’s still alive.”
““What?!””

Flaring his omni-tool he shows a map of the area with red dots and one blue dot. The blue dots appeared and disappeared as if it was teleporting and each time it did a red one faded away. There were less than half a dozen red dots left.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Aria shouted.
“I thought you knew.” replied sheepishly Anto.

Standing up with a snarl she ran out of the room following Jane who was already a dozen feet ahead of her. They meet Nyreen on the way and clued her in. When they reached the entrance’s door a sizable group were there , weapons drawn, ready for anything that would go through. When the tech guy opened the way, Aria and Jane were the first to go on the other side and the sight shocked them. There were plenty of adjutants' corpses everywhere, or part of them. They saw a blue light coming from a corner far away and half of a creature crossed the room from the same direction. Getting closer, they saw Rick walking out of the same corner, covered in blood and grime.

“Hey.”

That little ‘hey’ was costly as Aria used a Throw that he barely dodged.
“Seriously?! I’m tired as hell after killing them all and this is what I get?!”
“That’s for breaking the first rule of Omega!” the pirate queen replied, sending another.
“Oh! Come on!” he shouted, dodging again.

Jane simply laughed at the scene then proceeded to send some Throw his way, joining Aria and wanting to teach him that he couldn’t mess with her like that too.

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