#v:protector

To: ERROR_CONTACT_ENCRYPTED

Subject: Need your help.

First of all, I got these contact details from T’Soni. I knew you’d done some work together and it took enough arm twisting to get this much. You didn’t exactly leave a calling card after the Collectors so I had to make do.

Next time I’m back on Citadel, I want to meet. Any location, any conditions; I’ll let you decide. If I don’t hear back I’ll delete this contact information. I won’t chase up on you any further.

Thanks.

By the way, it’s Garrus.

He’d still check up on that message every now and then, even after he’d gotten a confirmation back on his little meet up-- even now, while he was standing around on the Citadel waiting for them. It was best to look busy, especially when the aforementioned person could arrive in the literal blink of an eye.

The very first thing she was aware of was the throbbing pain that consumed her head. Then it was the acute pain in her ribs, followed by the gradual realization that she had been stripped of her armor. She couldn’t remember all that happened before she blacked out, but she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been hit by a bus– Or worse– Charged by an angry krogan.

Groaning, she gingerly picked herself up off the floor, a number of other injuries making themselves known with the movement. The light was nearly blinding when she opened her eyes– eye? God, one was swollen shut. Shit. Once she adjusted to the light, she realized she wasn’t alone.

“Garrus?”

“That’s private security for you.”

He’d sat in the adjacent corner, biding time with a hand clamped down on the dark patch spreading from the collar of his undersuit; his armour may have already looked like hell but they’d stripped him of it all the same, right down to the visor. “Ferocious, sloppy-- and they’ve made a serious mistake.”

His vocals are hoarse and tighter than usual, distorted by the one mandible pressed tightly to his jaw. The bandage across one side of his face is still sticky and warm-- and excruciatingly sore. “They brought us both in alive.”

   Working with the quarian marines, now that’s a new one. A joke way back in basic was that a ‘quarian marine’ was something of an oxymoron. Garrus had learned better since then, he’d fought alongside one tougher than half the soldiers he’d trained with—and she was an engineer.

   Kal’Reegar didn’t seem too bad. He wasn’t Tali but—he knew it was too optimistic to expect her to be a part of this volunteer mission. Haestrom was too brief (and too damn hot) for a proper introduction but at least he’d already seen Reegar in action. Their shuttle was closing in on the drop-point now and they’d hardly said a word between them. Maybe he should change that?

    Things were calm in the during the winter season. The woods were barren and quiet as the birds had all migrated and many of the animals and monsters were hibernating, even the Deku scrubs hid away from the cold weather. However Mido was not able to spend his time in his tree-house wrapped up in the blankets like he normally would have wanted. Fado and some of the other girls saw a stranger running around the lost woods, and as the leader it was Mido’s job to go find out what was going on.

   He just didn't expect... it to be some foreign looking kid.

     So this was the source of all the new bugs appearing in the forest, Mido didn't really care for them too much. They scared some of the children, and a lot of them found their ways into the homes and in some cases the beds of the Kokiri children. He was of course happy to find where they were all coming from... But he didn't quite expect it to be... a girl?