#mentions of blitz: midnight strikes again

[toolatetofall]

Before

Okay, I am so fucking excited. I’ve finished the first draft of part 1 of 6 of my mass effect fanfic. Going long-term, it’s going to be a ShepShep fic, but I think I’m going to characterize their relationship more as queerplatonic than sexual. It’s a 2 Shep AU (obviously) where male Shep is the “main Shepard”, but it’s told from femshep’s POV.

Anyway! It’s in second POV for femshep, and the events in the prologue are prior to joining the Normandy. She has the Earthborn/Sole Survivor background. This is a rough draft, so I haven’t posted it on AO3. To that end, I’d really appreciate hearing thoughts on characterization, writing, any minor mistakes, etc. Please feel free to message me!

I’ve never done a TW before, so if I miss something, please tell me and I will add it! I think the things that need a TW have to do with the backgrounds, so death, physical violence, gang activity. Again, if I miss something, PLEASE tell me. 

Before

The memory of your mother is a hazy one. You know you loved her- her face is harder to conjure. You have the vague memory of citrus perfume, too-blonde hair, shoulders shaking with laughter. You have a holo from her case file, and you suppose you look enough alike, mostly around the nose, but you just... you can’t place her in your childhood. 

It was a Tuesday evening when you found out she was missing. You’d been staying with your neighbor while your mother was at work, parked in front of the TV munching crackers as the characters on screen sang a song about friendship.You can remember every stupid word. 

Amanda, your neighbor, had been getting testy; your mom was late. It was almost three hours past when she got off work when Amanda got a call and chaos broke.

The rest of the evening comes only in flashes now.  The itchy, pink and yellow jumper you’d been wearing with snot-drenched sleeves. The worn, leather seats in the back of your caseworker’s car. An unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar place. 

It’s a blur; you didn’t understand completely what was happening. You were six. You knew that mom was gone, but you didn’t understand where or why. You asked when she was coming back. 

They didn’t have an answer.

----

Your mother was never found. Maybe she died, either back then or since, maybe she’s still alive somewhere, a survivor of the Reaper war. You have no idea, and frankly you aren’t sure that it matters. At least now. It mattered then. 

Because your mother wasn’t declared legally dead, at least until you were fourteen, you couldn’t be adopted. You didn’t have any family to take you in either- not your mom’s family, she’d never talked about them, and certainly not your father whose name wasn’t even on your birth certificate. Instead, you floated from home to home every few weeks, months, years, hauling all your worldly possessions in trash bags along with you. Some placements were better than others. There was one where you’d only lasted two and a half weeks, but there was another that was almost 18 months. 

The Shepards. You’d liked them; Nick and Silas. They were an eldery couple that you’d moved in with after your 9th birthday. They moved off-planet when you were ten. They’d petitioned to adopt you and take you with them, but your mom was still legally alive, and you were moved. 

You found it hard to settle after that; nothing was comfortable. It couldn’t be. The moment you got comfortable was the moment you’d be moved again. 

The Reds were different. You don’t remember how you fell in with them, not specifically, but you do remember having that aching need to belong somewhere, and that they fulfilled that need.

You were useful to them. You could crawl into places that the others were too big to get into. You could get into a building and squirrel away cargo, or let others in. You weren’t a bad pickpocket either. You were a child; if (when) you got caught, you could play innocent, not like the others. You could claim ignorance, youth. The Reds protected you. You were indispensable. 

Until you weren’t.

----

Your biotics announced themselves with an explosion of blue light. You’d been in the middle of a job with Miller, trying to sneak some cargo out of a warehouse outside of Vancouver. He’d said something (you can’t remember what now, but it had pissed you off), and suddenly there was a flash of blue, he’d been thrown into the shelves a few meters away, and the bones in your arm had wrenched themselves apart. You’re sure you screamed, that both of you did, but you don’t remember. The pain had been so blinding that you’d passed out in seconds. 

When you woke up in the hospital, you weren’t alone. Your caseworker, Cecil, was there, accompanied by a dour faced person in navy blue. Sargent Blake, Cecil had told you. Sargent Blake was there to invite you to the Alliance. 

The System’s Alliance needed biotics; they’ve always needed biotics, and the state wasn’t really equipped to handle them. The Alliance had a program for biotic children. They’d taken care of the criminal charges you’d faced, and they would provide food, lodging, and education. You were a ward of the state, and the state transferred your custody while you’d slept. Invite. Feh. Like hell. The decision had already been made. 

Still, you were luckier than Miller. You found out later that he was comatose for almost eight months, and arrested after he awoke. To say the Reds would no longer welcome you would be an understatement. They would’ve loved to get their hands on you. 

Didn’t matter. The Alliance had you.

----

“Jane Shepard? The doctor will see you now.” You’d hesitated before following the nurse out of the waiting room. Shepard. It felt so odd. You hoped the change would keep the Reds from finding you, and you knew Nick and Silas wouldn’t mind. 

Still, there were a lot of changes in a short amount of time. New ability, new name, and now new place and new species. Well, new to you anyway. As your salarian nurse took you to your exam room, you’d tried hard not to stare as they ran you through a standard medical battery.  The alliance had brought you and all of their other new trainees to the citadel to get your physicals and your implants. It was surreal. You’d never seen an alien before, at least in person. Everything was so new, you’d never felt so... off balance before. But this was your new normal, and you had to adjust eventually.

----

You officially enlisted in the Alliance on your eighteenth birthday, to the surprise of no one. You’d already been engaged in their biotic training program for almost two years, and you were close to completing your secondary education under the program. 

Every single teenager in that program ended up enlisted. Sometimes you guys liked to think of what you guys could do outside the Alliance; teachers, writers, cops, scientists, everything, but for the life of you, you’d never been able to imagine anything else. The Alliance felt inevitable; biotics weren’t exactly welcome in civilian life, and you didn’t have the money or support system to try to strike out on your own.

Basic was split, biotics separate from the others. It was weird. In this place of training and strength, there was an underlying understanding. The biotics were more dangerous. They had had training before. They didn’t need a weapon; they were weapons. But at that point you weren’t sure how to be anything else.

----

Nomination for ICT wasn’t a surprise. You’d worked your ass off for the Alliance and anyway, if there was a push for biotics to join the military, there was a shove to get them into special forces. You’d been a good little biotic; kept your head down, temper in check, taking and conquering even the most basic assignments without problem or complaint. 

Despite the competitive atmosphere of Vila Militar, you’d ended up making friends for the first time in years. Or maybe they made you. Shaw, a too-energetic, puppyish engineer, was never going to let you shrug off his friendship, he was too damn persistent. John Shepard had also been pulled into his orbit, and the two of you had bonded over your exasperation with Shaw, mutual love of shit beer and competition, and frustration at sharing a name.

The three of you were an odd group, but it worked. Shaw was excitable and personable, keeping you together with sheer will. John (not Shepard, you’re Shepard) was responsible, a group mom through and through, trying in vain to keep you out of trouble. And you? Well, you’ve always been a bit... brusque, but they balanced it well. 

They were family, or the closest you’d had in a long time. The rest didn’t matter.

----  

John-fucking-Shepard, the big-fucking-hero. Of course he was on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz, and of course he kicked ass to the point he was getting the Star of Terra, not to mention his damn N7 commendation. 

“Just in the right place at the right time,” he’d said sheepishly when you and Shaw had caught up with him after the ceremony. You’d never rolled your eyes so hard. John always had a lucky streak a mile wide and it wouldn’t end anytime soon. 

“That’s okay,” Shaw had replied with a grin as you pulled John into a headlock and messed his hair. “We’ll get you next time.”

He’d laughed because of course he did. “I look forward to it.”

----

When you had landed on Akuze with your unit, you’d expected pirates. Slavers. A straightforward explanation to the missing colonists. Instead, the only thing to greet you were empty, undisturbed buildings. It was like everyone just got up and left. 

Your platoon, all 49 of them plus you and Shaw, searched the colony on your commander’s orders, but there was nothing. The terminals were all wiped clean, the data pads were gone, there weren't any tracks. Hell, there wasn’t even dust. 

You all made camp nearby as the sun sunk below the horizon. None of you would say so but there was something eerie about the lost colony. Haunted. Like the planet was holding its breath.

The first maw came near midnight, announcing itself with a roar and with trembling ground that shook you out of sleep. They caught you by surprise. You may have had guards and scouts, but there was no warning. 

You don’t remember much of the attack, dammit, you don’t remember. There are flashes of chaos- gunfire, screams, thresher maws pulling whole ground transports full of soldiers beneath the Earth. You remember running so hard your breath was just quick gasps, the cobalt corona of your biotics expanding around you, flashes of Shaw’s face contorted with resolution, the red of viscera everywhere you look. 

You’re not even sure if those are real memories, or just echoes from your nightmares. Maybe it’s your brain filling in the gaps from what you’ve been told. 

You were found 11 clicks away from camp, splattered with blood and armor corroded from acid, and passed out from pain (or so you were told. You don’t remember). Both of your arms had broken during the ordeal, likely from over-extending your biotics. You were alone. No platoon, no Shaw, not even a single body. The team that found you said that the colony was in a maw nest, that six thresher maws had attacked the camp. They destroyed the colony, the camp, and your platoon. In return, the unit only managed to kill two of them, but the bastards had the element of surprise. 

You didn’t put it together until you were in a hospital, but something was wrong. More wrong than losing your whole platoon, losing Shaw, to fucking worms. They’d said the colony must have been destroyed by the maws, that they must have killed the colonists, but that’s not right. Those buildings were spotless. There were no bodies. There was no anything. The maws didn’t kill the colonists. They’re not that clean. 

You tried to tell the brass. They’d given you your N7 commendation for surviving that hell; you thought that meant they’d trust you. They didn’t. 

“You’ve been through a lot,” they’d told you at the memorial. “Maybe you need to take some time.” Maybe they were right, but you still knew what you saw. If you wanted answers, you’d have to find them on your own time. 

----

You hit a lot of dead ends fast, and used up most of your leave following up leads that took you nowhere. It’d barely been a year before you only had one path left.  The Shadow Broker.

It took every last credit you had, but they agreed to send an agent to meet you. 

John agreed to go with you to the meet up point on the Citadel, in some hole in the wall cafe. It felt like time was slowing down as the agent approached. You were finally going to get answers. Then time stopped with a loud CRACK, and the contact fell dead, a hole left in the middle of their head. 

You were paranoid; you’d always been paranoid. That day, it’d saved your ass. You’d been trying to get the fuck out of there when another bullet ripped through your barrier, bruising your back but, mercifully, nothing more.

You’d been far from the door. There had been two shooters, above, out of sight. 

You and John didn’t say so after you’d escaped, but it had been a warning shot. Any snipers worth their salt could have killed you. 

Stupid, you were so stupid.

You’d returned to your apartment, head pounding. Before you said a word, John had pulled you against his chest, squeezing hard. You remember looking him in the eyes, seeing the naked fear there.

“Stop looking.”

You’d promised you would.

You didn’t.

----

Well, at least not intentionally. When you contacted the Shadow Broker again (or their intermediary anyway), you were informed the price for the information had doubled. You were already broke, you couldn’t afford the information. You tried to double back and get your hands on the report from that day in the cafe, but there was nothing solid to follow, no leads. 

What you got instead was a new assignment. 

Operation Adrestia. The words tasted odd in your mouth. It’s internal affairs, sort of. Monitoring and chasing leads on operations led by humans that would wreck Alliance credibility with the Citadel. Monitoring and thwarting fringe scientists, extremists groups, keeping tabs on category sixes... 

You didn’t do the investigation, just acted on information the brains gave you. If you were honest, you actually liked it. At least it was more interesting than your service had been. Lead to some good stories at least. 

Disrupting a Terra Firma attack on a predominantly salarian transport. 

Stopping colonial governments in the Traverse from antagonizing batarians to trigger Alliance/Hegemony conflicts. 

Even the less ostentatious operations like quietly discharging an Alliance attache who’d looked a little farther than legal into AI.

It kept you busy, but it was work you loved.

----

It was 2183 when you were contacted by Admiral Kahoku. He had found out his squad was lured to their deaths with a false distress signal in the middle of a maw nest and correctly assumed you’d be interested in following the thread. Akuze was common knowledge, and Kahoku was the first member of the brass to even humor your idea that it was anything other than a tragic accident. 

He’d gotten in touch with the Shadow Broker. They’d given him a name and a location. 

Cerberus. 

Binthu in the Voyager Cluster. 

Finally, a chance for answers. 

He was planning to go and wanted back up. Probably smart, considering how Cerberus disrupted your previous contact with the Broker. 

It was quick and quiet, like everything you did for the Alliance. Scans of the planet reveal three active Cerberus strongholds. 

The two of you decide that time was of the essence, that you needed to be quick to get information before they noticed you. 

You decided to split up. 

That was a mistake.

[thenextchapterbegins]

I posted 7,394 times in 2022

That's 2,363 more posts than 2021!

2,739 posts created (37%)

4,655 posts reblogged (63%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@winters-club

@murdxrxfcrxws

@shadowofthehost

@winters-clubarchived

@ladiesofhell

I tagged 4,370 of my posts in 2022

Only 41% of my posts had no tags

#ooc - 1,358 posts

#musings - 387 posts

#blitz: the o is silent fuckface - 307 posts

#vox: televised pride - 286 posts

#answering anons - 258 posts

#lucifer: the apple of all sin. - 231 posts

#link: the hero of twilight - 215 posts

#izuku midoriya: the little emperor - 201 posts

#freddy: your my superstar - 158 posts

#blitz: midnight strikes again - 137 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#promoing and not liking because i am true friend that understands liking a promo post does nothing to actually promo it -dabs aggressivly-

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

@rodeoblitz​ {mentioned}

“Sir is the only “number 1 boss” because he has managed the feat of running a business for longer then 2 hours. Its both an impressive and highly disappointing feat for imp kind.”

27 notes - Posted February 20, 2022

#4

Springtrap overlooks his new space it wasnt as pristine as the old pizzeria but it would stop  people just fumbling down and finding him and...well it was isolated...only people that could find him now were his allies once he showed them.

Ironically his secondary location was just another building that had forgotten underneath the pizzaplex who knows how many these abandoned structures were down here.

He slowly thuds to the floor the only thing cutting through the silence was the sound of nearby generators as he runs a hand along his face. “i miss my family....i-i-i miss my sons, and daughters...a-and my wife...it doesnt hurt m-most of the time but now..i-in this silence it hurts the most...” He sighs.

30 notes - Posted January 19, 2022

#3

who gon give link a smooch?

who will be courageous enough to do the smoochin.

because here he is

waiting.

32 notes - Posted April 13, 2022

#2

@winters-club vox leaned back in his chair a low hrmm escaping him for a moment. “Alright vel, i think its about time we had a talk about our little pimp. I dont think i need to say it outloud but our pimp hasnt been..as productive as he was in the past.”

43 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

A soft sigh fogs up the cafe window, another shitty cold day as summer turns to fall turns to winter..another month or two and the city will be covered in a blanket of snow…a sheet of white blanketing neon..it was nice though in a way, it made the city look different..if even for a short while.

He doesnt know..or cant remeber who told him about this spot..a small cafe..tv chattering some news or ad in the distance, looking down at a warm cup of coffee bringing it to his lips..some warmth to fight back the cold.

Tune out the city for a bit..the klilling, the running, driving, talking, high stakes, endless drama that threatens to shatter the mind and chrome only fuels that spiral faster..

Just a few hours..alone with his thoughts watching the rain and watching passerbys..it was no brain dance..but maybe for a bit he needed to unplug..who says you cant take a small break?

91 notes - Posted September 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[thenextchapterbegins]

🌻

insane man rants

i think i mentioned this before in slight but blitz new tag is actually a reference to a hoi4 mod TNO or "the new order" that sees a germany victory in the worst timeline during ww2. "midnight strikes" is based off a russian unifer in komi

i dont want to spoil too much of "funny clock man" but essientially the entire campaign is a slow crawl of insanity, madness, and turning russia into a total and utter hellscape and when the clock finally strikes 12. like a spell thats lost its magic russia once again breaks into total hell breaking into dozens of warlord states.

blitz in a way has "reached midnight" and the facades of his life have cracked and broken leading to a self destructive path of utter chaos and destruction.

its a good mod i recommend it if you have hoi4.

[thenextchapterbegins]

Special bulletin with vox himself

and guest

in continuation to this event with @melanrolli​

“Welcome all, sorry to pull all my lovely viewers from their televisions for whatever you were just watching we have breaking news that some of you may have seen last night but forgotten about, playwright having to strike again, this time with a living target, proclamations that a reign of terror has hit our streets and i am beginning to believe him or her. We have a special warning but we will save to the end of our showing, we have a guest today the detective that started investigations on the playwright killer when we were both younger and less tired.”

“Thank you for joining us mr?”

The camera pans to the tired grizzled detective rubbing the brow of his nose before reaching for a cup of coffee. “jack..jack irish, thanks for having me...if you had told me a few weeks ago an old killer would prop up again i would have said your crazy now im wishing that person was right.”

Vox chuckles softly. “trust me, i don’t think any of us want to fear walking around right now, so lets get to the brass tactics what can you tell us about this killer?”

Jack leans back. “not much, they always been slippery, but we have made some new finds since i began my investigations of this killer, we believe the killer is using magic specifcally time and blood its the reason why our dna tests keep coming back different each time it also could explain why he’s lived for so long whilst using blood magic or maybe he truly took a break we cant know for sure.”

vox raises a brow. “blood and time how you mean?”

“blood from what we have found out requires sacrifice to work memories, feelings, emotions, etc..you could technically use time, nothing is more important to ones livelyhood then time decades, minutes, or hours could power blood magic to little or incredible extremes..could kill ya real easy too...time magic requires life to work..without life time cannot age or reknew something...so, use blood to kill, use the blood of those you kill to use time to reknew yourself...give yourself back those hours you wasted...time never becomes useless because the killer always has to worry about not sacrificing too much time. In a sense he could be the first to claim to master blood magic with time magic...its not a good sign though.”

Vox listens intently nodding along before letting out a sigh. “what about the killer, the imp found alive gave a name right? how likely is it that the name given could be our killer?”

Jack takes another sip of his coffee. “its...not as likely as we hope, the name given is from what we can find a rival of the victim found, the suspect is an imp that would have no real way to master any of these magics nor the ability to find the books to acquire these magics...the suspect is hated by most and is clearly from what we can see too dysfunctional to pull out the mere siphosictations of these killings..we will of course look into it but we believe the victim is using the chance to witch hunt a rival they hate...the search goes on.”

Vox taps his fingers against the desk. “thats a shame, with how things are going do you have warnings or tips for the public or an idea of what the killers end goals could be.”

“dont go out at night if you dont have too, dont go out alone if you need to go out at night, avoid alleyways if you can, run dont confront the killer, just be smart as for end goals...we believed the killer was working himself up to eventually try and take on bigger prey..overlords, princes, icons...insane as it sounds..they stopped luckily but if their back they may feel they now have the ability to take these larger preys, if the killer does take an overlord or hell a prince down...we maybe looking at a new overlord and if he becomes an overlord it becomes out of our hands...” Jack finishes.

“Well thank you for joining us and good luck in your search.” The cameras pan to focus on vox fully. “as the detective stated please be careful out there, for all intensive purposes the killer has enacted his reign of terror, the streets of hell arent ours right now. their a playground for a killer who knows what he is doing and we can only hope he is caught or fucking just becomes an overlord and stops this shit because its costing us all alot of fucking money...alright, stay safe out there hell, vox signing out.”