His mind is something nebulous, a puzzle not quite put together. It tries to break free, to be aware of his surroundings, but there is nothing for it to anchor to. It drifts aimlessly, and somewhere in the deepest recesses, he is disgusted by its weakness.

He feels fluid sloshing around his hide, and discovers that to feel anything at all is a rush. But the fluid is not welcome; it invades his nose, fills his lungs. Something else should be there. Air should be there, not this salty tasting liquid. He falls forward, catching himself with his hands and knees before his face smashes into the ground. He gives a barking cough and retches, clearing the fluid as a sharp inhale puts air into his lungs, the first breath he has ever taken.

It hurts.

Pain is nothing. Pain only makes you stronger.

That voice, 'The Tank,' it whispers into the base of his skull. He does not like this whisper. It sounds different out here. It echoes. The pain in his lungs subsides as they grow accustomed to the air. They need it now. This too is a weakness, and he hates it. He opens his eyes, because he remembers that they will not see anything if they are closed. He sees nothing, just grey. They focus, and he realizes he is staring at a metal floor. Ship, The Tank whispers. He is on a ship. Standing is next. He must stand up if he is to survive. The Tank has whispered this as well.

The human female has a wiry kind of strength that is deceiving. Her throat does not cave in when he holds her up to the wall with his forearm. Scars crisscross her face and an angry orange light glows beneath. She does not flinch, just stares at him, brows drawn together in a frown.

He is not stupid. He sees things. He catalogs them in his brain like so many bookmarks. The Tank teaches, but it does not know all. He senses that some of its lessons may be false, so he will keep everything useful and discard the rest.

She tells him of her enemies around the arm held up against her throat. They are very strong, perhaps the strongest. Yet she still fights them, this tiny, soft, pale human with the too-big eyes. They are prey eyes, eyes meant for spotting threats so they can run away like cowards. But these eyes are hard and dark, and there is something behind them, something that gives him pause.

She almost looks irritated.

This puny, weak creature is annoyed that a perfect krogan is wasting her time holding her up by her neck against a bulkhead.

Then her eyes crinkle and look down. He follows them and that is when he sees the big pistol pointed up into his chest, and at an angle that will likely sever his spine. The Tank tells him that he does not have another, and urgently suggests he should avoid injuring it at all costs. This one may not be as weak as he first thought.

If her enemies are as she promises, he will join her, and it will be glorious.

If it is not, and she lies, he will kill her.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Grunt.

Grrr-unt.

The sound it makes coming out of his mouth is an animal noise, angry and guttural. It means nothing, yet describes everything.

It will do.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Shepard is taking him to a planet.

"This is just a little field trip, Grunt. So just take it easy, ok? Watch a little, and for chrissakes, don't wander into G's shots."

Grunt realizes he has never had his feet on solid ground. Not once in his entire life has he had soil under his feet, between his three toes. He wonders what it would feel like.

"Are you even listening?" she says.

"No."

"Figures. Nobody listens to me anyway," she complains.

"Hey! I listen!" 'G' the turian says.

"Yeah, and you're a one man army."

Grunt is not listening. The Tank is busy feeding him information.

hrSanctum, Decoris System, Sigurd's Cradle

Mean temperature: -50 degrees Celsius

Surface gravity: 1.2G

WARNING: Carbon dioxide levels and freezing temperatures lethal to most species

Rebreather and environmental suit strongly suggested for continuation of life signs

hrUgh. He hates the helmet. The air is stuffy and all wrong. He cannot smell. The sides encroach on his peripheral vision and it is like being in the tank again. He takes it off and glares at it. He will put it on when they touch down and not a moment before. But he does not complain as he rides in the shuttle with her and the turian. They sit in the front, while Grunt takes up the whole back seat. The turian goes everywhere with her. He is her rearguard.

Her krantt.

Perhaps some day, he will have a krantt of his own. For now, though, this is more than enough. As the recycled air in the cabin swirls, he smells something strange from the turian. It is a protection smell, a claiming smell.

A mating smell.

He looks at them both anew. They do not touch, but they are still close. Comfortable. He blinks in surprise.

They are mates.

He laughs.

"What?" Shepard twists around to look at him.

"Nothing."

But he still smiles.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Grunt understands now why Shepard has her own ship and is a commander of men, even if she is so small. He also understands why she takes the turian everywhere.

They are partners. They are extensions of one another, like an arm or a leg. If he didn't know any better, he would say they read each other's minds. They act in tandem, the one moving before the other even speaks. She rushes in, blasting enemies with biotics and her shotgun, while the turian covers her flanks. She throws enemies into the air and he hits them with his rifle like a skeet shoot. They are good mates, well-matched in their skills and talents.

Grunt actually does not know what to do. The Tank has taught him to fight, practically searing the lessons in his brain, but not how to work with a team. He tries to hang back and watch them, to learn, but the excitement boils in his blood when he smells the sharp metal of discharged guns, hears the distinct sizzle of a biotic warp as it rips an enemy apart, and he just cannot stand it a moment more. He rushes in with a bellow, smashing faces, the blat of his shotgun ringing out as he fires it into a chest. He mashes someone with his shoulder and stomps on them, his armored boot sinking deep into soft flesh and he hears the crunch of broken bone and pulverized cartilage. He picks up a live body and throws it into a wall where it makes a heavy wet thwack.

His nerves sing, his fingers itch.

It is glorious.

The turian shoots snipers so far away, Grunt would not have known they existed, had they not fallen from the balconies, neat holes in their heads, and some with no heads at all. The turian is cocky; he crows victory into his comm after a particularly nice shot.

Scoped and dropped!

A lucky round punches through the turian's armor and he hisses in pain and collapses behind a crate. Shepard already seemed angry, but now she has gone positively feral. Her biotic corona flares bright and she screams a challenge to the enemy that shot her turian.

You best give your heart to Jesus, 'cause your ass is MINE!

Shepard has the best battle cries. Some of them don't make sense to Grunt, but she flings them into the air and they ring out, angry like krogan. She explodes into a snapping streak of blue and reappears thirty yards away, crushing the face of a surprised batarian with a biotically charged fist. She turns and smiles a smile frightening in its fierceness, manic in its satisfaction. Shepard hates batarians. He is not sure why, but he can smell the rage on her, sharp and acrid like a lightning storm.

Grunt does not know what to think about the four-eyed, smooth-skinned creatures. The Tank says they are weak, but it says that about everything. The turian is sitting against a crate, looking only sheepish and not dead. She stands over him, scanning for other enemies, fists crackling with blue fire. Her eyes are hard and dark as stones and she makes the human equivalent of a growl. Grunt hopes the turian knows this female's worth, because it is without measure.

Yes, Shepard is strong. She should be krogan, but she is not.

No matter.

What ever ridiculous shape she takes is irrelevant. He will follow her for now.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Grunt's omnitool chimes, the one the quarian let him borrow. Shepard has sent a few audio files. He opens one and hears musics. Human growls and scream-sound instruments made into musics.

It snarls.

Dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap!

It wails.

Concrete shoes, cyanide, TNT!

It howls.

Neckties, contracts, HIGH VOLTAGE!

It is awesome.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He has armor. He has a gun.

This gun is not his favorite. The Tank tells him there are better ones, but it is what he has.

He laughs because he doesn't need it.

He can kill without one.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Shepard is concerned that he sleeps on the floor.

He tells her krogan don't sleep in beds, but if Grunt has learned anything about her, it is that she is remarkably stubborn. Once she takes something into her head, there is no going back, and not even the universe itself can stop her. She is determined to find a krogan bed, even though they didn't exist. She eventually gives up, but true to form, she makes her own solution and puts a huge pile of blankets and pillows in the corner.

They still smell like her from when she carried them in her arms to his room. She had a goofy grin on her face as she fluffed them up and arranged them first this way, and then that. She reminded him of some tiny bird, flitting around, making its nest just so.

But it wasn't her nest.

She had made it for him.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

There is a package on Grunt's desk.

Shepard insisted he have the desk so he has a place to sit while he reads and researches. He researches all sorts of things; war, weapons, armies, and even animals. He especially likes the Earth dinosaurs. They are huge and full of teeth, claws, and spikes. They terrorized the planet and killed and ate whatever they wanted. They were so strong, the only thing able to destroy them was a massive asteroid that plunged the entire jungle world into a catastrophic winter.

He turns the large cylindrical package over in his hands. He spies a tiny little tag, and catches the piece of paper between his fingers, careful not to bend it. His omnitool (the quarian grudgingly let him keep it) spits out a translation of the strange combinations of rounded swirls and straight sticks.

Grunt,

Got these from Earth. My brother had a set like this when he was young. Have fun!

Shepard

A gift. The Tank is suspiciously silent on this subject. He has never received a gift before. Equipment, armor, food; he has received all those things, but they were given so he could kill enemies more efficiently. Even the bed is for sleeping so he can be well rested and more dangerous.

This is just for him, for no reason at all. It is unprecedented.

He opens it and dumps the contents out onto the desk. He cannot believe what spills out.

Dinosaurs.

Earth dinosaurs of all colors and shapes, made of thick plastic, just like her brother has.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Grunt runs an extranet search. hr

Search: shepard

Your query has returned too many results. Input a new query. hr

He hates it when computers tell him what do. At least the blue eyeball and the geth make requests rather than demands. hr

Search: commander shepard

Did you mean: Shepard, Rosali Aud? hr

Of course that's what he means, stupid computer! How does the quarian do what she does? It is impossible to fathom. He tries again. hr

Search: rosali aud shepard commander brother

Rosali Aud Shepard was born April 11, 2154, on the colony of Mindoir. She survives her family, killed in a batarian slaver attack in September of 2170.

Mother: Georgiana Grace Shepard, water reclamation technician, July 10, 2132 - September 22, 2170

Father: Torsten Eiriksson, agriculturist, June 29, 2128 - September 22, 2170

Brother: Jaime Njal Torstensson, minor, October 15, 2152 - September 22, 2170

Sister: Caroline Lilija Shepard, minor, January 5, 2164 - September 22, 2170

The youngest human is only 6 years old.

Shepard's parents and older brother would probably be powerful warriors and he understands why the batarians destroyed them. But why kill the youngest, only a whelp with no teeth? There is no glory in that. It would be a mewling, pathetic thing, not even worth killing. There are pictures next to each entry. Shepard has her mother's dark eyes and hair but looks nothing like her father. Her tiny yellow haired sister is just staring at the camera, and her eyes are huge and blue. Her brother is smiling, the same smile Shepard smiles right before she laughs.

Grunt has never had a brother. He cannot understand it.

He wishes he could.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Shepard calls him 'darlin' in her slow, languorous language. He does not know exactly what it means. He knows it is a strange human term of endearment; it means she likes him. But when she is especially upset, she also says things like 'bless your little heart,' but in a voice that means anything but that. In fact, he finds that violence usually follows that phrase.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The Tank used to be a whisper in the back of his mind. It provided him with useful information, and would occasionally put in its 'two cents', as Shepard likes to say.

The Tank is only getting louder.

He tries to relax, surf the extranet, watch funny vids about pyjacks, research some more about Earth animals. He has learned a lot about sharks. And bears. And lions. Wolverines and something called a honey badger are interesting too. They all fight with their sharp teeth and claws, fiercer than any varren. The Tank never told him about these creatures. It obviously did not focus on the important things. He is getting wholeheartedly sick of its obnoxious voice. It flashes messages of hate and anger that are not his own.

He is starting to worry something is wrong with him.

Maybe he isn't perfect. Maybe he is a mistake like all the others. At least they fought to be strong. He just is. Maybe that is what makes him weak right now.

Pacing around his room in a steady circle, he goes faster and faster, trying to get The Tank to be quiet, just for a moment, but it still pounds in his skull.

He roars and throws a crate.

That was no good. He has just thrown the crate on his dinosaurs, the ones Shepard had searched for and had flown across the galaxy from Earth, just for him. The same kind her dead brother used to have when he was alive.

He pounds his fist into the bulkhead, upset not only about this ridiculous rage, but also his dinosaurs and Shepard's loss on Mindoir that he does not understand. He hears the pop of a snapping bone, but it does nothing to quiet The Tank. He feels the bone start to harden and heal. It will take days to completely regenerate, but it will. Perhaps it is a curse, to heal like this; to be broken and fuse back together, no matter what. He hears the door slide open. He smells her scent of gunmetal, ozone, and lemons before he even sees her.

The commander. She will know what to do.

"Shepard." He says her name, but it comes out more like a warning.

"Grunt, why is this room tore slap up?" Her hands are on her hips, and she looks annoyed.

"I am angry, Shepard."

"I gathered that. Mind telling me what's going on?"

"I don't know. I don't know why I am angry. I just am." His hands clench and release, clench and release. He is starting to look like the nervous quarian.

"It's okay, darlin'. Tell me about it'." She is moving closer to him, voice quiet and reassuring. She does not know enough to be afraid.

"I see red fog and it covers my eyes and all I can feel is blood and it burns." He backs away from her, and the Tank's whispers are loud as screams now.

She is soft.

She is useless.

She is weak.

He could hurt her. She isn't wearing her helmet. He could take her by the dark fluffy hair and smash her face into the window. The blood would be a bright, beautiful red. It would gush down her front and her white little teeth would crunch and break. She has no armor, just her thin clothes with the thousand pockets. He could strangle her, choke the life right out of her long, pale neck. He could throw her into the bulkhead and stomp on her until she wasn't the right shape anymore. He could do all of those things.

You should, The Tank whispers. The female is unworthy, unfit to live.

Instead, Grunt sprints head first into the plasteel window. He feels his headplate crack and the fog clears a little.

"See, Shepard? Why do that? That accomplishes nothing." He paces and she looks from the spiderweb cracks in the window back to him.

"Do you feel sick?" Her voice and eyes are soft. He does not know how to answer that. He does not feel sick, he feels wrong.

"I don't like this. Fury is my choice, not a sickness."

"EDI, bring me everything you've got on krogan illnesses, and tell Mordin I want to meet him in the med bay immediately." Her long, sinuous words are clipped and short, a sure sign of worry.

She worries about him.

She had pulled him from the tank, found him powerful enemies to fight, made him a bed, sent him growling musics, gave him Earth dinosaurs, and he had wanted to kill her. Not just kill her, but completely destroy her and crush her corpse to jelly.

He is not perfect.

Not even close.