Fruit Loops are for Krogers (quadpower) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-10-21 12:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, commander tyra shepard, wrex |
"Is the king of all the Krogers scared?"
Who: Shepard. Wrex.
What: Teasing, then finding something under the Ranch
When: A few weeks ago, before this post
Where: Urdnot Ranch
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13
Status: Complete!
Shepard was inspecting some of the recent work on the ranch. The bulk was done, just finishing touches and soon a lot of the kids and residents would be able to move back in. She made a mental note to buy Elena a huge dinner - she didn't think they could have taken care of all those kids in the interim without her work.
She thought she saw something odd about the tennis court, but when she glanced at it again, it looked normal. She shrugged a shoulder, and made her way over to the main office, stepping inside and looking for Wrex. Assuming he wasn’t in Kasumi’s arms - which amused the hell out of her.
The office had only just recently been finished rebuilding, and Wrex was settling in. Getting his gun safes back in order, tidying up his desk. He hadn't invited Kasumi in yet, because he was fairly certain that would lead to sex on his desk. He wanted to make sure the desk was ready for that.
He tried not to think about any of that too much. Kasumi was a good thing that had happened to him for some reason, and he didn't want to jinx it. He poked his head out of his closet when Shepard entered, and waved, "Shepard."
The desk is never ready for that. The desk simply has to deal with it when the time comes! And if Wrex does it right, when the time comes again, and again and again.
"Wrex," She replied, walking over to the aforementioned desk and leaning on it. "I'm liking how everything turned out. Kind of homey and ranchy with a dash of the modern. The tennis court is new, I like it. When you think we'll resume full ops?"
There was a pause, then she added, "Assuming you don't have your hands full with Kasumi Goto."
"I'm surprised it took you this long to start teasing me about that," Wrex snorted, and walked out of the closet he'd been setting up. There was a set of blueprints in his hand, which he set down on a nearby table. Mainly, because there was something off about the tennis court, and he needed to figure out why.
"Ms. Goto has a job, too, and can't always be around here to keep me distracted. Which is probably good for all of us. But I like how everything's turning out. I'm hoping to open our doors officially by November."
"I wanted to give you a few days to settle in so you weren't scared off," Shepard replied, a teasing smile on her face, "November? I think we can pull it off. As fun as it is to bust Ms. Frost's ass, It'll be nice to work fully with the kids again."
She shifted to get a better look at the blueprints.
"I might still be scared off. You know how skittish us Krogers can be," Wrex joked. He smoothed the blueprints out and set a few books down on them so they'd stay unrolled while he examined them, "There's something off about the tennis court. Its design does not match the blueprints we drew up."
Skittish Krogan? Shepard laughed at the absurdity of the idea. Wrex tended to be one helluva ladies man, and she wondered how that might start to affect him as he remembered more. It would be interesting to watch. Different life experiences had certainly affected her in some ways different from the dream world.
"Yeah, you're right. There seems to be an extra court over here, that's not on the blueprints." She tapped the blueprints.
"I think we need to go inspect it," Wrex decided. He rolled the blueprints back up and started carting them back to the closet.
He definitely had not had any dreams where he was a ladies man. Him and ladies were complicated and often it just ended in tears. He was hoping that this time it would be different, but what Kasumi and he had aside from the mutual enjoyment of cupcakes was anyone's guess. He certainly didn't want to scare her off with a label.
Shepard pulled her gun and checked it, then placed it back inside her coat. She nodded at him, "Ready."
What? You couldn't be too careful.
You never could be too careful, especially after what they'd all gone through with Garrus recently. Wrex figured it was only a matter of time before Cerberus decided he was next on the list.
He nodded at Tyra, and started heading out to this mysterious tennis court. He didn't bother getting out the shotguns though. One gun was enough of a 'just in case'.
They approached the tennis court, and it looked like any normal tennis court. There were three nets, and high fences to hold back stray balls. On the blueprints there were only two nets, and it was half the size. Shepard didn't remember the court being this big the other day, "This is really strange."
The underground tunnel system led through this area, but it was just one of the quick accesses between the main house's substructure and the training area beneath the gym.
"This isn't what we planned to build here. The weird thing is I swear it looked like the original plans as early as last week. No one's been assigned to this area to go changing it." Wrex scratched his head as he inspected around the place.
"That's fucked up," Shepard said, moving around the tennis courts. "Someone has been messing with things?"
It was a sobering thought, and one that put Shepard's nerves on edge. This was Wrex's baby, and that pissed her off.
Wrex certainly didn't like the sound of it. Who would go messing with his stuff? He couldn't imagine a reason for it that wasn't in some way malicious. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but he couldn't find anything out of the ordinary about the court, aside from the changes.
"I really don't like this. I don't like where my thoughts are headed with this. There's tunnels under here, maybe we should go check them."
"Yeah, I think you're right." Shepard nodded towards a small maintenance building nearby. There was a secret door that led down a ladder into the tunnels below. It was heavy, and secured by passwords and biometrics.
They'd spared no expense where security was concerned. He nodded and headed to the building, submitting his biometrics to the scanner and keying in the password before heading down the ladder. Sure, Shepard had the gun, but she could cover him. He was taking point, this was his building and his property.
And cover him Shepard did. When Wrex wanted to take point, you generally didn't argue. You did sometimes, with the right reason and under the right circumstances, but these weren't the right circumstances or the right reasons.
She waited for Wrex to go down the ladder, then slid down herself. The door above them shut with a resounding clang.
Automated lights came on in the tunnel, and Shepard looked around, "Nothing out of the ordinary. The tennis courts are in that direction."
She pointed at a wall.
Farther down the hallway was a door that looked like a simple access door for electronics or plumbing.
"Right," Wrex nodded. That wall shouldn't really have had anything behind it - there were no bunkers that he was aware of planned for under the tennis courts. But there wasn't supposed to be an access door down that hallway, either.
He eyed it suspiciously, then slowly headed in the direction of it. It looked like an ordinary door, one of many they'd already installed there. Wrex shrugged, and opened it. He wasn't really prepared for the fact that it opened into a tunnel through the wall that seemed to lead right towards the tennis courts.
He also wasn't prepared for the retina scan and thumbprint required to open the door on the other end of the tunnel. He glanced back behind him at Tyra, "This wasn't here. None of it. What the hell is behind this door that needs my eyeball to get in?"
"Something dangerous," She replied, examining the biometric scanner. "Doesn't look like it'll roast our eyeballs if we try to access it. Want to give it a shot?"
As a precaution, she pulled her gun. You never knew, and she would rather be on the safe side.
Wrex nodded at her after she pulled the gun out, and submitted to the scan. A computerized female voice came through an intercom located somewhere on the device, "Access Granted, Urdnot Wrex."
He blinked a few times, then shrugged a shoulder and edged his way in through the door, which had opened on its own quickly after the computer had finished scanning him. Lights started to come inside the room he'd been given access to, and he stopped walking to stare at what the lights were revealing.
"Holy hell."
Shepard followed him in, and stopped up short. Before them was an airplane. It was non-reflective black, and looked large enough for a dozen people. It also resembled the fabled SR-71 spy plane in shape, but was much larger. Her eyes followed lines on the cement floor, "...it comes out at the Tennis Courts. But what the hell is it doing here?"
She stepped closer to get a better look.
"... I don't know what it's doing here." Wrex was still staring. He wanted to warn Shepard away from the thing, since it wasn't clear who had put it there or if it was dangerous, "Careful. That thing could be weaponized or God knows what else."
"Someone or something put it here," She said, coming to a stop. She thought she could see the gaps where doors might open to reveal weapons, or a boarding plank. It didn't appear to be accessible from the cockpit like a normal Blackbird would be. She ran her fingers through her hair, "It's not the Normandy, or anything from a fleet I've ever seen. It looks more like an old spy plane."
"Definitely not the Normandy, Shepard. Way too small to be the Normandy. I figure I'd recognize her if she was in my bunkers under my tennis courts." Wrex approached the plane cautiously, trying to look for a way onto it, himself. He wasn't sure it wouldn't somehow magically come to life if people got near it, but it seemed dormant.
Shepard started to walk around it, trying to see if there was a way in for them. She spotted a fueling assembly against one wall. As Wrex approached the back, the gangplank lowered.
She stopped in front of it, next to Wrex, "I'll be damned."
"Part of me wants to investigate the inside. Part of me wants to get out of here before the mysteriously appearing spy plane eats us both alive." Wrex joked a bit, while peering inside of the plane.
It looked like it had seats for transport inside, and didn't appear all that sinister or menacing, but still.
Randomly, he wondered aloud, "I wonder if Summers has something to do with this."
"Is the king of all the Krogers scared?" Shepard asked, strolling past him and up the ramp, inside the plane. She counted three rows, with two seats on either side, "Twelve seats, plus two up front. Some room in the back for wounded or extra people. Bit of a low clearance."
She glanced back at her old friend, "I wouldn't be surprised. Look at the X design on the back of the chairs."
"The King of the Krogers doesn't want to die trapped on a plane in his own damn bunker," Wrex corrected. But since Shepard had managed to enter the plane safely, he figured it was alright to head on in, himself.
He took a look around the plane, himself, nodding at the X-details and the things she'd observed, then took a look at the cockpit and let out a low whistle, "This is definitely a custom set of controls on top of the usual ones. Look at this. It has a cloak device and supposed weaponry. I'm trying to remember if Summers ever mentioned some super secret aircraft they used. Seems likely."
"Bunkers of fun," Shepard remarked. She peered at the cockpit, "Stealth? Seriously? Think it's a mirror system, or what?" She didn't touch any controls - she didn't have any flying experience and really, do we really want Shepard at the helm of an airplane? Any airplane?
"There are people that would love to take this thing apart."
"Well we're not going to let that happen. Someone put it here, and now it's mine. Or Scott's. Ours. My tennis court, my plane." Wrex nodded. He wasn't about to go touching the controls, either.
There wasn't much else to see on the plane - there were a few places to store things like emergency medical kits, blankets, and the like, and Wrex took all of that in before making his way back down the gangplank, "I don't even know anyone who has the credentials to fly it legally."
Because he sure as hell wasn't trusting Shepard to that. Driving around in the hummer was a completely different thing.
"I doubt anyone has the credentials to fly it legally," She said, following him. "Twenty bucks says one or more of Summers' squad probably can. I know I'd train as many as possible for emergencies."
Little known fact. Shepard did in fact know how to operate the Normandy flight systems. She just never wanted to be in a position where she'd have to.
"That's not a bet I'm willing to take. I'm pretty sure they all know how to fly it." He wondered what it would take to get some training in flying it, himself. That would have to wait until he made sure the plane belonged to the X-crowd to begin with.
He stepped away from the plane and took a long look at it again, like he was trying to figure out if there was mirror plating on the outside of it that made the cloak work. But he didn't have the know-how to really tell, and ended up shrugging, "Well. At least we know what's under here now."
"Yeah. Lets make sure no one else finds out about it who shouldn't," Shepard said, watching the hatch close after she stepped onto the ground.
It did give her a sense of hope. Maybe the Normandy was out there somewhere. But with that hope came a sense of dread. She suddenly felt like it wasn't if, but when, a Reaper arrived. She shook the paranoia off, "Come on. Lets get a drink."