Love and War

First topic message reminder :

"Maggie, you were attacked." Kandros replied firmly, though he still didn't open his eyes. "I never hated you, only what that bastard did to you."

"Brave? That woman?" Quinn snorted. "I hardly think so. She was a brainless idiot who only cared what would make her dear husband happy."

"Quinn..." Lori's voice was gentle and chiding. The way it had often been when she'd found her sister doing things she s shouldn't.  "What happened? Why are you here?"

Quinn didn't lift her head, only allowed her gaze to look up from beneath her dark hair at her eldest sibling. "Might've known you would show up. Perfect princess Lori, here to look down on the common folk." She sneered, anger dripping from every word.

Lori looked down at the floor, her sister's words hitting their mark. "Quinn, you're in alot of trouble. You know what killing the General means. The Higher ups dont take kindly to killing their leaders. For heaven's sake, what were you thinking?!" She glanced toward Brutus, watching his dark expression.

"Does it look like I care?" Quinn replied. "You all need someone to blame, I'm always only too happy to fucking oblige." She added, not even caring what it was she had been arrested for, no matter how serious Lori had just told her it was.

Lori shook her head and started to stand. This move was made impossible by the drell that appeared from nowhere with a dagger to her neck. "Check." He hissed in her ear. "It's the queens move on the chess board now."

Brutus didn't move just yet. This was going south, fast. Like Maggie's own lover, he was blaming Quinn for all this sudden misfortune. He may be right, it seemed to follow her wherever she went. 
Quinn had risen to her feet without anyone seeing and was now at the front of her holding cell, glaring hatefully at the man with a knife to Lori's neck. "What's this? One fuck was all it took to make you Betty's bitch?" She sneered.

Tyros' webbed fingers curled into Lori's azure hair, pulling her head back to further expose her neck. 
"Do it." She said softly. "It would make them all happy. Betty, Maggie...Quinn especially." She kept her eyes on her sister as best she could, wondering if she would finally be happy with her death. 
Tyros said nothing, he didn't look up. Even as a small line of blood trickled down the elder woman's neck he didn't look up.

"This is your grand plan?" Quinn asked, her hateful gaze not on her sister, but the man who had finally broken her. "You fuck our whore mother, and now you want her most prized daughter too?! Why don't you let me out and pick on someone who could actually kick your ass, worthless piece of shit!" She was pacing now, her rage coming off her like waves of scorching heat. Quinn wasn't broken, not really. Betty had been right all along, misery and pain only seemed to make her stronger.

Tyros still didn't move, though the blade did dig a little deeper into Lori's skin. 
The eldest of Betty's children, turned her eyes on the turian she'd fallen so hard for. He'd ripped her heart out and stomped on it. Why was it so hard to let go? She should be happy this drell was so willing to kill her.

"So that's it? You came here to kill some helpless mouse because bitch Betty told you to? What a good little lap dog." Quinn sneered, able to see Brutus moving in her peripheral vision. "No wonder I had to keep saving your ass!" 
Brutus knew he couldn't rush Tyros, not with a blade already cutting into Lori's neck.

"She doesn't want me to. This one is the child she loves. I'm punishing her." Tyros moved slightly, cocking his head to show that he was watching Brutus. "Now she can hear the whispers too."

"There are no whispers." Quinn replied thinly, seeming almost... jealous. "Not for her."

"When Betty brings her back there will be." Tyros hissed, cutting yet deeper. "Tell me...when your mother died...just how badly was her neck severed?"

"You really have lost it. I think last nights performance was proof enough that Betty is all too alive and kicking." Quinn sneered.

Lori kept her eyes on Brutus wondering if Maggie would still pay him if she was dead. There was so many things going through her head. His words about her being his light. Had he meant those? Had Tann paid him to say them? Why did she care? Her father was dead. She was alone. 

Tyros looked toward Quinn and snorted. "How can you be so stupid? It's like you've been asleep."

"Hard to see anything when I have to keep sacrificing everything to drag your sorry ass out the fire." Quinn growled, her cybernetic hand pressing against the force field that kept her locked away. Causing it to spark and hiss. If it was causing her pain, she wasn't showing it.

"Look, clearly this is between you two freaks, just let Lori go and we won't stop you tearing each other apart." Brutus told Tyros.

Tyros turned his head toward Brutus and sneered. "It has nothing to do with Quinn and I'm not letting her go. Not until Betty shows up. Back off turian. Or I shall kill you too."

It was ironic that just as Tyros announced that Quinn was worthless that the field holding her at bay spluttered and died. Quinn wasn't as worried at Brutus about being careful. She smiled darkly at her former lover before she smashed a fist into the nearby console, plunging the room into darkness as the electrics shorted out. There was no sound for a painfully long few moments, but finally Tyros would feel familiar full lips brush his cheek. "She doesn't love you, assassin. Betty loves no one." She breathed before a blade slid neatly between his ribs. Brutus wouldn't have even felt Quinn relinquish it from his belt in the darkness.

The knife that was digging into Lori's neck clattered to the floor. Though no one could see it, Tyros was smiling. Betty had let Quinn go. It was all he had asked for. They were done. 

Lori stumbled to her feet, her blood flowing freely now. She couldn't see anything in the darkness. She hit something that was too warm to be a wall but just as unforgiving. She was simply too tired to try and move around it.

Brutus scooped Lori up the second he felt stumble into him. He didn't even wait around to see what happened to Quinn or Tyros. The large turian was soon running through the halls shouting for a medic as Lori's blood slipped over him.

By the time the emergency lighting kicked in, Quinn was gone. Typos was left alone with the blade still in his ribs. Between them, he and Betty had finally pushed Quinn too far. 
That didn't mean he would be left to die, however. Betty was soon right there, holding his head in her lap as she promised his pain hadn't been for nothing.

"What is this?" Brutus wouldn't make it to the medic hall. Standing in his way was the very thing he'd been having night mares about since being abandoned in Eos. Reegar. 
"You have brought me a present. No? A bargaining chip. How kind of you, boy. Bring her here." 

Betty was not alone. Connor had found his way to the blood and he was looking it over with great interest. "Do you suppose his insides look the same as the out?" He purred.

Brutus skidded his halt was sonsidden. Reegar was the very last person he needed here right now. "I thought you were playing happy families." He growled, clutching Lori even tighter. 

Betty's yellow eyes narrowed as she looked up at the young man watching her and tyros. "Do yours, child?" She asked thinly, though there was still a somewhat regal tone to her voice.

"Oh I am. My grandson wanted to see the Nexus and I needed supplies and my bodyguard back." It wasn't hard to guess the old man was wearing a jackle's smile beneath his mask. "And with he comes with a gift...the gods smile on me..."

"I have never looked. But the voices tell me they do." Connor was not afraid of his darkness like the others.

Brutus backed up slightly when he heard the disturbing tone in Reegar's voice. "We severed our arrangement he moment you abandoned me on that planet." He growled. 

Betty's bravado faltered when she heard Connor speak of the voices. "Who brought you here?"

"Our arrangement will never be over boy. I promised your father I would give you a better purpose here. I believe I have. You are not so wild and useless anymore, are You? Now bring the girl and let's go. The General is expecting me."

"My grandfather." Connor said. "He told me to find a turian called Brutus. Have you seen him?"

"No." Brutus replied simply. "We're through, my contract is with someone else now, and I don't back out of deals." He added.

"I avoid their kind." Betty replied with a sniff. "Boy, where are your parents?" She asked, not liking how familiar his scent was to her altered senses.

Reegar laughed at him. "You mean the one with that pathetic excuse for a granddaughter of mine? Considering that she is dead. It will be hard get your credits from her much less complete a contract. Come now boy, you are not a fool, your father raised your better than that."

"My father is on Eos, mourning the death of my mother. My greatgrandfather forced me to kill her...her insides were not that color. They are not the same color as mine." Connor told her.

Brutus took another step back. "And you came all this way, just to take back a body guard? Clearly you need one." He growled, able to see blood splatter on Reegar's suit.

"I can fix that." Betty replied with a hiss. "You like to spill blood, child? It would seem your guardian is a poor tutor if seeing blood is his only concern. Such a waste."

Reegar nodded. "You are the best at what you do, my boy. I need you to train my grandson. Do it and I will destroy your contract for good. Hell, I'll even forget you tried to kill me."

"The voices wont stop telling me what to do. They talk to me about blood. They tell me to look for it. I can't help it." Connor told her.

"No." Brutus replied simply. "My contract was ended the moment you left me on that shit hole planet."

"They told you to kill your mother?" Betty asked. "I doubt that. They never ask such a thing, they want to explore and understand. Mindless violence is not in their nature."