[open] I don't have any song lyrics for this

[thebioticwoman]

Who| Shepard & Anyone
What| A newbie settles in
Where| Around Legion World
When| Post-GAA/OM/TH&TH
Warnings/Notes| In thread headers where relevant

A - Training Room

Target shooting, beating the crap out of hard light dummies, practicing with her biotics--without a ship to run and an endless string of crises to resolve, Shepard spends a lot of time working out. The harder she presses herself the more relaxed she gets, movements loose and fluid whether she's reloading or tossing a holographic krogan across the ring. It's all a comforting throwback to when things were much less complicated, and after her enforced idleness back on Earth, she needs to get her edge back. Her team and the people she's serving will never get less than her best, and while that's always been damn good, it can also always be a little better.

She occasionally comes up for air and a drink of water, or in the case of biotic practice, a long pull from her energy shake. She looks over at her fellow Legionnaire as she takes her break.

"Hey."

Shepard makes friends with anything that doesn't get out of her way fast enough, and today? That's you.

B - Mess

Shepard can do her self-assigned homework anywhere, and today it's in the mess, over a lunch big enough for three people. The opposite of a picky eater, she's got her tray piled with whatever the cafeteria staff suggested, some of it unrecognizable. While she works her way through the meal, she's reading from a datapad, more attention on starship stats than food...until she hits something even her undemanding palate can't quite handle, and she looks down at her plate as if it's betrayed her personally. She trusted you, food.

Oh well, some problems have easy solutions.

"Pass the ketchup, would you?"

Comments

Kid Q | warning for mass deaths/war/general unpleasant mil sf crap

[thebioticwoman]

Everything about Legion World is just recognizable enough without being truly familiar for Shepard to find it all unsettling, like she's in a dream that won't quite give way to wakefulness, and she glances around the office in a reflexive threat assessment before taking her seat. She'll have to get around to relaxing sometime, but not right this second, not until she gets an answer to the question no one else yet realizes is hanging over her head.

"Thanks for seeing me." Best to get it over with. If they're going to kick her out of the Legion, better now that once she's settled in.

[relativityspeaking]

Shepard isn't the first person to do a threat assessment of her office before sitting down and Kid Q is sure she won't be the last. The number of people who have joined the team but still feel like they have to do so breaks her heart a little, but perhaps with time they'll come to think of this space as one of the safer ones.

"Of course," she answers, pushing her omnicom aside so as to demonstrate she's giving Shepard her full attention. "What did you want to talk about?"

[thebioticwoman]

"My service record." Shepard leans forward, elbows on knees. She thinks every action she's taken has been justified, but her recent involuntary vacation courtesy of the Alliance proves not everyone agrees with her. "Before I arrived here, I was under house arrest pending a decision on whether to try me for terrorism and war crimes."

She can't quite keep all the bitterness out of her voice at the thought of standing a political trial to keep the Batarian Hegemony at bay. Under any circumstances she'd find it a betrayal by her superiors, but with the Reaper threat looming, jerking her around like they've been doing is unforgivable.

[relativityspeaking]

Kid Q's eyebrows fly up toward her hairline, which probably isn't a surprise.

"Okay," she says after a deliberate pause to ensure that her voice remains steady. "I'll skip the "did you commit terrorism and war crimes" line of questioning and start with "what did you do"?"

A

[savinglives]

It was almost terrifying, how familiar this whole scenario was. Landing himself in an organization claiming to do good, and coming across a redhead firing at targets with scary accuracy. It was enough that Raynor had to do a double take, swearing for a moment that he just saw Kerrigan. But of course, he knew that wasn't right. No, this was someone else... even if the similarities were uncanny.

"Hey."

He answered, leaning against the door frame. Arms crossed, as he just stood there, watching her. In retrospect, it was probably a bit creepy, especially coming from a total stranger. But hell, too late to do anything about it now. "You know, I reckon you might be the second most terrifying redhead I've ever met."

[thebioticwoman]

Don't be ridiculous, Jim. The hair's too short and Sentinels don't get the Tactical Cloak ability.

"Oh? Guess I have to start trying harder." It takes more than a weirdly backhanded compliment to get under Shepard's skin, and she returns Raynor's volley amiably. If she finds being watched creepy, it doesn't show.

[savinglives]

That's fine, he can do playful banter just fine. If anything, it suited him perfectly, especially after all the information he had dumped on him when he woke up in the medbay. He needed time to process it, time to come to a decision. But until then...

Well, he wanted to explore.

"Don't try too hard, darlin'. Last redhead I knew, had a hell of a time fighting off her admirers." Which was a severe oversimplification of Kerrigan's assimilation into the Zerg, but he wanted to keep this light. "Could put a bullet between just about anyone's eyes though. You'd get along great. Or hate each other. Hard to tell, sometimes."

Finally, he reached for the pack of cigarettes on his sleeve. Opening it up, and pulling one out, before putting the pack back.

"Name's Raynor, by the way. Jim Raynor." He pulled a lighter from his pocket then, lighting the cigarette. Taking a puff, before going back to addressing her proper. "I'm new around these parts."

[thebioticwoman]

Shepard visibly cools at the endearment, and at the implication she might not be professional around someone she didn't like on a personal level. It's not fatal, but Jim sure didn't do himself any favors there.

Still, she offers her hand to shake, tapping her other one against the nearest metal surface in a reflexive gesture to discharge any extra charge she's carrying rather than shock him. "Shepard. I'm pretty new myself."

b im sorry

[pffft]

"Pass the what?"

Prowl is indignant at the question vaguely thrown in his direction. He didn't sign up to get familiar with organic food. The only reason the Cybertronian was in this area was to net multiple stocks of synthesized energon for when he'd eventually lock himself up in his quarters for weeks at a time to attack one difficult problem or another. Several of the cubes sit nestled at the crooks of his elbows.

Somehow, in the bustle of the busy Mess Hall, his approaching footsteps seemed to be lost, as was his large robot ass attempting to shuffle his way out of the room without creating an intergalactic incident.

[thebioticwoman]

Shepard, this is what happens when you don't actually look at the person you're talking to.

Taken aback by the strangely hostile tone in reaction to a perfectly normal request, she glances over at Prowl. Or at his shin, anyway, which is the part of him that's about eye level to a seated human.

Huh. Usually when she has to crane her neck this much to look at someone, she's about to kill them.

"The red stuff." Shepard leans way over to grab bottle and holds it up. Now Prowl can identify ketchup in the future.

[pffft]

"I see."

He squints at Shepard with an investigative eye. If she could reach the bottle herself why did this human find it necessary to ask for assistance? Was it a cultural thing?

One arm lets go of the crate of energon cubes to gesture to the infernal demon hot sauce sitting nestled in the grouping of condiments.

"And what is the difference between that bottle and the smaller red bottle also placed on the table?"

[thebioticwoman]

Jeez, Prowl, reaching is rude. Were you raised by turbofoxes?

"Ketchup is a mixture of sweet and tangy," Shepard says, dumping a generous amount of the condiment in question onto her plate. "Hot sauce is spicy."

Ketchup is also associated with children and adults with bad taste, but ask her if she cares about that.

B

[unrecovered]

Wash is passing by with a bag of orange slices and spacefuture Capri Suns when he hears the request - hand-to-hand class with the kids is due to start soon, and he's making preparations. (Never mind that none of them are actually kids - mental shorthand is a bitch to edit, and he's not really bothering.) Still, he pauses for a moment - "Sure, let me grab some." - before actually seeing what's on Shepard's plate and stopping completely. "Okay, I don't know if anyone told you this, but that-" He points to the traitorous food. "-is generally not safe for human consumption and tends to explode on contact with ketchup and/or table salt, so...I wouldn't."

[thebioticwoman]

"Seriously?" Now that he mentions it, it does have a distinct tang of ammonia.

Shepard grabs her napkin out of her lap and scrapes the offending food onto it, but instead of heading for the garbage, she leans way over...and still can't quite reach the ketchup. She wrinkles her nose, and then starts to glow blue-white, and the bottle floats the last few centimeters into her hand.

Good job, Shepard, your biotics instructors would definitely be proud that you're too lazy to move six inches.

[unrecovered]

"Seriously." Not everyone can recognize a brand new face, and not everyone in the kitchen notices when someone grabs food that doesn't agree with their species. It's just a little busy in here, after all.

It's his finely-honed I've-Been-Living-With-Idiots-For-Months instincts that inform him of what exactly Shepard is planning to do, and he slams a hand down on the ketchup bottle - probably not hard enough to stop her if she really pulls on that bottle, but enough to make a point. "Take it to the hab deck," he says, with all the resignation of someone who's seen way too many unnecessary kitchen explosions in his life.

[thebioticwoman]

Shepard can definitely out-pull a normal human with her biotics, but what kind of idiot starts a ketchup tug-of-war in the mess hall?

"I was only gonna use a drop," she says, unrepentant but copping to her plans amiably enough. Positions reversed, she'd have stopped herself, too. "If I ever want a real explosion, I know a whole lot of better ways."

[thedreamisdead]

America's down in the training area quite often when she's got free time. When she's not in the sim rooms solving cold cases, pestering the techs to up the yield on her explosive rounds, or planning out her next Applied Violence course, she's keeping herself as sharp as possible here.

It's grown pretty popular with certain members of the staff. Largely because of all the explosions. Sometimes for pure bile fascination. Fortunately, she hasn't yet started when Shepard says something. She's still counting rounds as she loads them into magazines. It takes her about twenty seconds, and then she looks up. "Sorry. Yes?"

She didn't see all of Shepard's workout, but she saw enough to realize that the woman's dangerous. Probably military, given how she holds herself. Seems to be common here.

[thebioticwoman]

"What kind of rounds are those?" As much trouble as she's having adjusting to the idea of rounds at all, Shepard wants to be familiar with any weapon she might need to pick up in the field. Living in a civilization not built around element zero and the mass effect is like falling into one of those old futurist pieces about the World of 2100, back before the Mars Prothean finds and the Charon Relay.

[thedreamisdead]

"These ones right here?" She indicates the ones she's just finished with. "Armor piercing." ...That doesn't explain much. Given the number of people here from the future, how many of them still use solid rounds? She's not sure. It hasn't really come up, except with North that one time. "Goes through about two centimeters of steel, then fragments into fifty pieces. They're recommended for use on robots."

Not that she's never used them on squishier targets, of course.

"You know your way around a gun." It's not a question. She'd just seen a bit of Shepard in 'action'. But, hey, when someone comes up and asks about bullets...

A

[fantasykiller]

Under normal circumstances, Touma wouldn't be here. He had no real interest in trying to sharpen his skills or strengthening his body. However, his hand-to-hand combat instructor had strongly recommended that he should start focusing on improving himself outside of class and assigned him a training schedule to help him achieve his full potential. As much as he didn't want to train, he understood why his instructor was pushing him like this. His ability, Imagine Breaker, was useless outside of specific circumstances and limited to his right hand. Since he can't rely on his ability like many of the other Legionnaires can, the most pragmatic solution would be to gain power by training his body.

Of course, it was only a recommendation. He was free to ignore any extracurricular activities outside of his required combat lessons. In the end, Touma decided to at least do enough to keep himself fit.

Before he could even begin, Touma found himself being greeted by a red-haired woman.

“ Umm... Hey.” He responded in turn, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Although they have never interacted before, she might recognize him as the newbie who got his ass kicked during hand-to-hand combat training. His distinct spiky hair does a good job of making him stand out.

[thebioticwoman]

After the warm-ups, which never get her so much as breathing hard, Shepard always peels off early with the advanced group. Her enhanced strength and years of training mean only a handful of Legionnaires can match her in the ring, and that elite little group spends most of its sparring time either on abstruse points of technique or cheerfully tossing each other around like rag dolls.

"I noticed hand-to-hand was a little rough on you," Shepard says from her seat on a weight bench, where she's been drinking her water and thinking about punching. "You want a few pointers? It's easier one-on-one than in a big group."

[fantasykiller]

“I know that. This might be hard to believe given how poorly I performed, but I do have a lot of experience when it comes to fights.”

Unfortunately, experience was all he had when it came to fighting. His complete lack of any formal training made itself quite evident during the practice spar to assess which group to place him. At the very least, he had the basics down. His form was passable and he knew to protect his face when he wasn't attacking. However, outside of making right jabs and uppercuts, his fighting style left a lot to be desired. At best, he was at the level of a competent street brawler.

A

[hallaifyouherd]

Marjara glances up from where she's been leaning, catching her breath, a staff resting against her left shoulder. In response to her greeting, Shepherd gets a wry smile and a nod.

"Hello there."

Stripped down to only pants and a modesty band around her chest, there's no way to hide the way her left arm terminates abruptly above the elbow. She's been in here, re-learning all the old moves with only the one arm. It can be done, of that she's certain.

It's just exhausting, after the third hour or so.

[thebioticwoman]

Grievous battlefield injuries come with the territory in Shepard's line of work, amputations being a type that happens more often than anyone would like. The lack of a prosthetic throws her for a second...but really, the weird part is the ears. Fortunately, Shepard knows manners, and even chooses to exercise them most of the time. So, mostly she's staring at the staff, an obviously primitive item in the otherwise familiar, high-tech world of the 31st century.

"Is there a reason your staff is designed that way?" Don't get her wrong, she approves of strapping a giant knife to one end. That's the sort of initiative she likes to see. It's the other side that doesn't seem all that useful.

[hallaifyouherd]

This staff happens to have no such giant knife attached. Sorry Shepherd. It's simple, smooth wood from start to finish, definitely simple in a realm where guns and lasers are the preferred weapon of choice.

Guns. Still something a marvel, one she intends to learn all she can about. But another time, perhaps.

Marjara glances towards the staff once before rolling her shoulders in an idle shrug. "What's wrong with it?" he counters with a faint arch of her eyebrow, and maybe there's just a touch of tension around her eyes now that wasn't there before.