Event Horizon || Garrus Vakarian x FemShep

Chapter Four: Nova

-TRIGGER WARNING-

Physical/Some Sexual Violence. Read with caution.

***

"... Get up! Kat, get up now!"

Someone was shaking Katriana violently, and she moaned into the dirt, hands curling into the soil, "Jimmy...?"

She coughed, spitting out mud and struggling to push herself upright. A pair of hands grabbed her under her arms; rough, but desperate to help her stand: "Yeah, it's me. I've got you."

The girl winced as her knees creaked with effort, but stood, leaning against her brother and taking in her surroundings: Mindoir was burning. Screams and gunfire could be heard in the distance, and foreign cruisers were descending quickly through the boiling air. She tried not to notice the bodies around them - the ones of her asari tutors - but she couldn't hide the tears beginning to fall.

"What's happening...?"

She heard a metallic click, and her eyes widened as she saw Jameson's hand reach to his side, where a carnifex pistol was shoved into his belt: "Batarians, Kat. They're hitting us hard; it looks like the bombs were dropped over residential areas on purpose, to drive us into the fields and towards the port."

She glanced up, and her brother looked down to her, mouth grim, but eyes filled with as much fear as hers were.

"Our estate was hit first. I was out with friends, but Mom and Dad..."

His voice cracked, and Katriana leapt to embrace him, terrified of the way her older brother was shaking, "You don't know that.... W-we have to get out of here. I'm sure they had a plan; they always did!"

The young man was quiet, but he squeezed his sister affectionately, backing up to look her over, "... You're right, Kat, like always. Come on; can you move alright? We're gonna have to run for the edge of the colony."

The girl nodded decisively, taking a few tentative steps; she was sore, and blood was caked into her hair and fingernails, but she felt like she could run if necessary. Her brother smiled.

"Good. Let's go."

One of Jameson's hands reached for hers, while the other pulled the pistol from his belt and carried it as his side, his grip shaky and unused to the weight of the weapon. The two began to skulk through the wreckage of their home, darting in and out of alleyways and staying in cover where they could; as they approached the edges of the residential zone, they had to dodge more and more groups of batarians speaking in a language that Katriana couldn't understand. She had only begun to learn the asari tongues, and hadn't received a translator implant yet; Jameson, however, had, and as they passed a group that seemed to be laughing, she whispered a question.

"Jimmy... What are they saying? What are they doing?"

Her brother's grip on her hand tightened, and he grimaced, moving to push her down another shadowed alley, "It's what you'd expect. They're raiders, just here for money and supplies--"

Suddenly, a scream - a female scream - sounded out from behind them, followed by begging as the laughter grew louder. The girl's stomach twisted, and she looked back, but the boy outright shoved her forward: "Keep moving! Don't you dare look back!"

The pair kept running, eventually leaving the housing communities behind and coming to the edge of Mindoir's spaceport. They took shelter under an awning, crouching behind some cargo as the older Shepard sibling looked out across the mix of burning civilian vessels and those belonging to the incoming batarians: His expression lifted some.