#kallipyro

Fandom: Mass Effect

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Politics

Relationship(s): Lexi T’Perro/OC (Thaia Kallistrate), Benezia/Aethyta, Benezia/Aethyta/Shiala

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate (OC), Aria T’Loak, Matriarch Benezia, Suvi Anwar, Nakmor Drack, Vetra Nyx, Cora Harper, Matriarch Aethyta, Shiala

Additional Tags: Minor Character Death, Politics, Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Original Characters

Summary: 55,000 years ago, the protheans won a Pyrrhic victory over the reapers. From the ashes of the Prothean Republic and the rusting hulks of the reapers, the ancient asari grew into a galaxy-spanning empire. Two people on opposite sides first meet during an abduction that threatens to upend the tenuous armistice between the Asari Empire and the Terminus Systems. Decades later, they face each other again as forced allies and unwitting political pawns when the galaxy’s three major factions collide.

Chapter 2: Sphere of Influence

55 Tevos 437 Forty years later, one of the last things Thaia had ever expected was to see Aria T’Loak and her most trusted lieutenant, Soraya T’Perro, again. On Omega. On friendly terms. With Thaia being assigned a job by Aria. And Thaia accepting it because she had no choice if she wanted to stay on Omega while waiting for the Omega-4 Relay to be cleared of sabotage from the human terrorist group, Cerberus. All she wanted to do was study it and continue her work with designing and building a prototype relay for the asari, yet here she was, about to be working for Aria T’Loak. “—and I can’t have you idling on my station,” Aria was saying while standing across from Thaia, the large operations table between them. A technical model of Omega’s structure slowly rotated above it, two sections near the mine highlighted, and a third highlighted section at the opposite end. “You’ll be pulling some guard duty.” Please not any of the clubs. Aria signaled to Soraya, who lifted a bag from the floor and set it on the table in front of Thaia. Then she unzipped it, revealing a full kit of low-profile body armor, clothing manufactured from ballistic cloth, and other sundries commandos on personal bodyguard details often used. “I had my people pick up your weapons. Your pistol is in the bag. Your other weapons and belongings are currently being moved to more secure and far better lodgings,” Soraya said, and then studied her for a moment. “Bit of a shithole you were living in.”

Fandom: Mass Effect

Relationship(s): Original Asari Character | Thaia Kallistrate/Lexi T’Perro; Cora Harper/Janae (background)

Rating: M

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate, The Entire Tempest Crew, Lots of People from the Nexus, Also the Initiative People in General, And Some Outcasts, Everyone, Basically.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Not So Secret Crush, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Longfic

Summary: After becoming fast best friends—if she’s sharing the jail cell with you, she’s your best friend—in the weeks before the Initiative’s departure from the Milky Way, Lexi and Thaia agree to resume their friendship in Andromeda. With Lexi assigned to the Hyperion and Thaia to the Nexus, they know it might be difficult to find each other again. Then everything goes to shit in the Heleus Cluster. In the mess the Initiative’s become and the mission to salvage it, they both have to recover who they were as they discover what they are.

Ark Paarchero, 2820. It was easy to forget—at least for Ryder—the sheer size of the Initiative’s arks. Without trams and elevators, it was a slow, unsettling slog through a ship sixteen football fields long containing two arkholds that were almost three football fields tall apiece. Plus each of those arkholds held thirty decks apiece. Ryder got tired just thinking about it. The dim standby lighting and the kett equipment scattered through the eerily empty corridors didn’t help it be less creepy, either. Another thing that didn’t help was the unease building up in her gut at not having heard from Thaia and Cora for the entire trip from arkhold to arkhold. Ryder and her team had finished their morning PT-like group run and drawn to a collective halt at the entrance to the cryobay containing the pods for Jeks Arlan and Vadim Escondar and still nothing. “We should’ve heard from Armali by now,” Ryder said as they walked through the doorway into the sterile, empty medical bay lit only by emergency lights. “What if they’re dead?” Drack shrugged. “Archon would’ve been bragging already. They’re fine.” “That doesn’t help me feel better.” “I dunno,” Peebee said, checking over equipment covered like it would have been during transit, labels and seals indicating an intact stasis state. “I think he has a pretty good point. Whenever the Archon gets one over on us, he doesn’t really keep it to himself.”

Fandom: Mass Effect Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Politics Relationship(s): Lexi T’Perro/OC (Thaia Kallistrate), Benezia/Aethyta, Benezia/Aethyta/Shiala Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate (OC), Aria T’Loak, Matriarch Benezia, Suvi Anwar, Nakmor Drack, Vetra Nyx, Cora Harper, Matriarch Aethyta, Shiala Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Dating, Slowburn, Original Characters Summary: 55,000 years ago, the protheans won a Pyrrhic victory over the reapers. From the ashes of the Prothean Republic and the rusting hulks of the reapers, the ancient asari grew into a galaxy-spanning empire. Two people on opposite sides first meet during an abduction that threatens to upend the tenuous armistice between the Asari Empire and the Terminus Systems. Decades later, they face each other again as forced allies and unwitting political pawns when the galaxy’s three major factions collide.

Chapter 1: High Salinity

It was bugging the ever-loving fuck out of her. The dossier Thaia and the rest of her squad had been given indicated that their target, Lexi T’Perro, was a pirate. But Thaia had met a lot of pirates over her centuries of service to the Empire, and Lexi wasn’t anything like any of them. Something was off. And it bugged the fuck out of her. After getting the attention of her squadmates, Thaia gestured toward the smallish cell holding their irate captive. “I’m telling you, she doesn’t look like a pirate.” “Why’s that?” asked Paion, their sniper. She was a Specialist Third Class a couple centuries younger than Thaia, but still had the full set of commando face tattoos like everyone else. Hers were red where Thaia’s were white—the only element of the mandatory tattoos that was theirs to pick. “Pirates don’t usually wear lab coats, for one,” Thaia said. Lexi finally spoke up for the first time since they’d reached the prefab base. “I’m wearing a lab coat because I’m a physician. Tell me, do you each possess one lonely brain cell? Or do you share a single cell between the three of you?” Lovely as Lexi’s voice was, the things she said hurt more than getting fucking shot. “Also,” Thaia said, “pirates usually eviscerate people with sharp knives, not sharp words.” “I’m good with a scalpel. Would you care for a demonstration?” Lexi asked.

Read the rest of Chapter 1 on AO3

Note:

This started with an “enemies to lovers” prompt from@skyllianhamster for Thaia and Lexi. Right after came a ton of brainstorming for a situation that would have these two start as Actual Enemies, which is how this AU was born. Initially, it was supposed to be more Mirror Universe like, but I discovered that the constant dark anxiety of getting backstabbed (often literally) that is the atmosphere of a mirror universe was too much for me to handle. Trust doesn’t really exist there, and I wanted an alternate universe where there could be trust and love that wasn’t practically guaranteed to be duplicitous. Well, once the work’s put in on both sides. So the asari are an Evil Empire, but we aren’t talking something like Star Trek’s Mirror Universe. More like adjacent to it. Some characters are still fundamentally themselves despite changes of circumstance or at first glance (and second or third, in some cases) appearing different from how we know them in whatever canons they exist. Others are absolutely the complete opposite of who they would be in other stories. Matriarch Benezia, Liara, and Skyham’s OC Fejla Na’vis in particular. As in, canon Fejla would burst into tears if she stepped on a bug, which, well. Not at all so much here. This fic was also supposed to be a one shot and so I’d started it on a writing app on my phone. Even though it grew beyond a one shot, its first draft was still exclusively written on my phone, writing time on my laptop being reserved for my main fic.

Anyway, on re-reading it, I figured it’s time to share.

art by @rackofages

Fandom: Mass Effect

Relationship(s): Original Asari Character | Thaia Kallistrate/Lexi T’Perro; Cora Harper/Janae (background)

Rating: M

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate, The Entire Tempest Crew, Lots of People from the Nexus, Also the Initiative People in General, And Some Outcasts, Everyone, Basically.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Not So Secret Crush, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Longfic

Summary: After becoming fast best friends—if she’s sharing the jail cell with you, she’s your best friend—in the weeks before the Initiative’s departure from the Milky Way, Lexi and Thaia agree to resume their friendship in Andromeda. With Lexi assigned to the Hyperion and Thaia to the Nexus, they know it might be difficult to find each other again. Then everything goes to shit in the Heleus Cluster. In the mess the Initiative’s become and the mission to salvage it, they both have to recover who they were as they discover what they are.

Ark Paarchero, 2820.

“We’re in, Kallo,” Ryder said as Liam, the last of the team through, began securing the maintenance airlock hatch behind them. “Let us know if the Verakan does anything weird.” “Like firing those big guns,” said Liam. “I think you would know before we would,” said Kallo. Once the hatch was shut, the airlock started depressurization. The group crowded inside—Ryder, Jaal, Drack, Peebee, Liam, and Vetra—were crammed shoulder to shoulder. The fit was tight enough that Ryder’s chest rose and fell with a bit of a struggle. She double checked the oxygen levels in her armor: normal. So, just a touch of claustrophobia caused by one bulky krogan taking up a full third of the airlock, a tall turian taking up another quarter, a broad-shouldered human male, an even more broad-shouldered angaran male, an average-sized human female, and the thankfully small Peebee. Vetra was the first to comment. “We’d be doing this in two groups if Peebee wasn’t a—what does Sara call you?—a peanut for an asari.” “Being pint-sized has its advantages,” Peebee said, grinning as she peeked out the airlock’s inner hatch window into the vestibule beyond. “But don’t forget flexibility. We could probably fit the other two in here in a pinch. Keep an open mind. Wanna know what I heard? The—”

art by @rackofages

Fandom: Mass Effect

Relationship(s): Original Asari Character | Thaia Kallistrate/Lexi T’Perro; Cora Harper/Janae (background)

Rating: M

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate, The Entire Tempest Crew, Lots of People from the Nexus, Also the Initiative People in General, And Some Outcasts, Everyone, Basically.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Not So Secret Crush, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Longfic

Summary: After becoming fast best friends—if she’s sharing the jail cell with you, she’s your best friend—in the weeks before the Initiative’s departure from the Milky Way, Lexi and Thaia agree to resume their friendship in Andromeda. With Lexi assigned to the Hyperion and Thaia to the Nexus, they know it might be difficult to find each other again. Then everything goes to shit in the Heleus Cluster. In the mess the Initiative’s become and the mission to salvage it, they both have to recover who they were as they discover what they are.

Chapter 38

Tafeno System, 2820.

From the crowded bridge of the Tempest, Ryder stared at the ships outside. The rest of the crew, having all crammed onto the bridge when Kallo had announced their arrival in Tafeno, did the same.

The good news was that they’d found the Paarchero undamaged. Neutral news was that everything on it aside from cryostasis facilities was on standby. The bad news was that the ark was currently tethered to the Verakan.

“Well, everything just got a lot more complicated,” said Ryder. “Those tethers are going to be a problem.”

Thaia, who’d been studying the tactical display’s projections of the initial scans of both ships from a position to Kallo’s right, finally uncrossed her arms to point at the Verakan. Then she immediately crossed them again. “Those big-ass guns aimed at the ark might also be a problem.”

tessellated art by @rackofages

Fandom: Mass Effect

Relationship(s): Original Asari Character | Thaia Kallistrate/Lexi T’Perro; Cora Harper/Janae (background)

Rating: M

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate, The Entire Tempest Crew, Lots of People from the Nexus, Also the Initiative People in General, And Some Outcasts, Everyone, Basically.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Not So Secret Crush, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Longfic

Summary: After becoming fast best friends—if she’s sharing the jail cell with you, she’s your best friend—in the weeks before the Initiative’s departure from the Milky Way, Lexi and Thaia agree to resume their friendship in Andromeda. With Lexi assigned to the Hyperion and Thaia to the Nexus, they know it might be difficult to find each other again. Then everything goes to shit in the Heleus Cluster. In the mess the Initiative’s become and the mission to salvage it, they both have to recover who they were as they discover what they are.

The Tempest, 2820.

“Rotate it in the opposite direction. Now there should be a square notch on the edge,” Skaelv said over the vidcon.

“Yes, I think I see it,” Jaal said.

The constant chatter from Ryder, SAM, Jaal, and Gil had extended from the afternoon through most of the evening, floating down to the research table a half-deck below for the entire time. The group in the meeting room were still tinkering with the kett transponder they’d dug up on Kadara in an attempt to back-trace its signal to the Archon’s flagship, the Verakan. Without success, from what Thaia could tell. They’d even called in help from Aya in the form of the Resistance’s top kett hacker, Skaelv, along with the Moshae, uniquely knowledgeable in kett technology. Evfra was also in the Moshae’s office, offering the occasional idea given in grumbles.

“You think?” Evfra asked, snapping yet again. “Jaal, do you or do you not see it?”

Jaal growled and then said, “I have it.”

“I am ready to initiate the signal trace,” SAM said, as he’d pointed out eleven times over the past few hours. Thaia had kept count.

Fandom: Mass Effect

Relationship(s): Original Asari Character | Thaia Kallistrate/Lexi T’Perro; Cora Harper/Janae (background)

Rating: M

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate, The Entire Tempest Crew, Lots of People from the Nexus, Also the Initiative People in General, And Some Outcasts, Everyone, Basically.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Not So Secret Crush, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Longfic

Summary: After becoming fast best friends—if she’s sharing the jail cell with you, she’s your best friend—in the weeks before the Initiative’s departure from the Milky Way, Lexi and Thaia agree to resume their friendship in Andromeda. With Lexi assigned to the Hyperion and Thaia to the Nexus, they know it might be difficult to find each other again. Then everything goes to shit in the Heleus Cluster. In the mess the Initiative’s become and the mission to salvage it, they both have to recover who they were as they discover what they are.

The Nexus, 2820.

A faint, acrid whiff of smoke greeted Sula when she stepped inside her apartment, which struck her as odd. Thaia had been the best cook of her four daughters, a fortunate pairing to the voracious appetite she’d had since adolescence. Maybe it’d just been a while? Or was she mad enough to deliberately fuck up dinner? Sula hadn’t seen her kid that pissed in person in literal centuries. While Thaia fucking up food on purpose was statistically improbable, it wasn’t impossible either. She had to tread lightly.

By the time Sula got to the kitchen, the smoke had dissipated, and she was inclined to attribute it to a minor, though puzzling, error. Still best to choose her words and actions more wisely than usual, so she entered the U-shaped kitchen at a leisurely stroll. Windows along the ‘west’ facing wall brought early evening’s slightly golden light into the large combination kitchen and dining area. Most Initiative apartments had smaller tables meant for smaller families. Their elongated oval table took up as much space as the working area of the kitchen, and with the threshold between living room and dining area at one of its ends, it naturally drew one’s attention.

Sula skipped over the table and concentrated on the kitchen itself.

On the leg of the U closer to the living area, Thaia stood at the induction cooktop that had a couple skillets in front and a large covered pot at the back. Several ingredients and a few spices were within easy reach on the counter. Her movement was smooth as she checked on the pot in the back, jaw set in concentration. No teeth clenching, no jerky movements, shit at hiding when she was pissed, so not angry enough to deliberately fuck up dinner.

“You burn something?” Sula asked, light as her stroll.

Fandom: Mass Effect

Relationship(s): Original Asari Character | Thaia Kallistrate/Lexi T’Perro; Cora Harper/Janae (background)

Rating: M

Characters: Lexi T’Perro, Thaia Kallistrate, The Entire Tempest Crew, Lots of People from the Nexus, Also the Initiative People in General, And Some Outcasts, Everyone, Basically.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Not So Secret Crush, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Longfic

Summary: After becoming fast best friends—if she’s sharing the jail cell with you, she’s your best friend—in the weeks before the Initiative’s departure from the Milky Way, Lexi and Thaia agree to resume their friendship in Andromeda. With Lexi assigned to the Hyperion and Thaia to the Nexus, they know it might be difficult to find each other again. Then everything goes to shit in the Heleus Cluster. In the mess the Initiative’s become and the mission to salvage it, they both have to recover who they were as they discover what they are.

The Nexus, 2820.

By the time Drack and Nomi arrived at the apartment to start the process of seeing to the bodies, Sula still hadn’t calmed down. She hadn’t done much of anything else, either. Furniture still sealed up. Living room a maze. Anti-grav cart still in the fucking middle of everything. Crates still on it, too. Sula scowled at them like she couldn’t do with her fucking kid.

When she let her two friends inside, her shoulders ached from how fucking tense they were but the scowl was gone.

Nomi, curiously, held a mass relay model in her hands.

Sula pointed at it while doing her best to sound lighthearted. “Taking up a new hobby?”

“Kesh asked me to bring this.” While Nomi didn’t roll her eyes, it was a close thing. “Where should I put it?”

“Any one of the crates with the kid’s name on it. We didn’t exactly get the chance to unpack anything.” Well, some shit had been unpacked, but it hadn’t been household items. Fucking stubborn child of—

Drack took a good look at her and said, “Told her about the Tann decision, did you?”