Disclaimer: I don't own bioshock or any of the characters associated with it.

Orson Steele had often considered himself a great man. Growing up, his parents had regaled him with stories of their place in the glorious city of Rapture. He had never once doubted that he was a god among men.

When the civil war broke out, Orson had embraced it fully. Finally! A chance to show his greatness in its fullest! And show he did, with Adam coursing through his blood he felled countless lesser men. Time and again his allies would be utterly wiped out on either side of him. Time and again he would stand in the maelstrom, untouched.

Once the titans of Rapture fell, and the Family rose to power, he had decided to take things into his own hands. After all, who could make a better leader than he?

Through brutality, cunning, and a total lack of self-doubt Orson had built his own miniature empire in the back alleys of the desiccated city. Lamb couldn't be bothered to hunt him down so he had free reign to bring in whatever cast-off scum she discarded.

The day Delta tore Rapture apart was one of the happiest of Orson's life. Lamb was gone, probably split in half by the metal giant. His own forces quickly took the opportunity to expand their operations, recruiting or killing anyone that got in their way. The future held so much promise; truly nobody had a prayer against him now.

Or so he thought.

The broken man sprinting down the abyssal halls of Rapture was a far cry from the former conqueror. His breath came out in ragged gasps as he fled like a man possessed. He didn't dare stop, didn't dare even slow down, despite the agonizing protests of his limbs.

Orson was running for his life.

It had all been working out so well! His band had destroyed a small group of competitors, successfully bringing the remains of Adonis Resort under their control. He and his lieutenants broke into an old wine stash to celebrate in the banquet hall. Two dozen of the fiercest, strongest, and all around deadliest splicers he could find had drunk deep on the succor of victory. Little did they know it was the last thing they would ever do.

Without warning, their revelries were interrupted. Men and women fell to the ground, clutching their ears as the horrible screech of the damned ripped through them. The hellish scream that heralded only one thing.

A big sister was coming.

Orson wasn't worried. He had taken on big daddies before without too much trouble, and they weren't stupid enough to announce their position. As the second, closer, howl tore through the air, he and his forces prepared for battle. Two dozen hardened killers against a single metal freak.

They never stood a chance.

The big sister had blown the doors right off their hinges, repurposing them into deadly projectiles that turned Hector and Bethany into bloody smears on the ground. The rest of them had opened fire immediately, a veritable wall of lead flying through the air with the sole intention of chewing through the monster's armor. There was one thing Orson hadn't counted on however, the big sister was fast.

By the time they started shooting, she had already crossed the distance to their position. The few bullets that managed to connect only served to enrage her further.

The next few minutes showed Orson just how wrong he had been. His lieutenants, the vicious champions of Rapture, were mercilessly torn limb from limb by the bastardized product of Lamb's ambition. He could hardly stand to watch when that cruel harvesting needle impaled Geoffrey; the poor fool screaming out his last breath as his viscera was liquefied and forcibly removed from his body.

Orson did the only sane thing he could. While the monster slaughtered his forces, he ran. He ran faster than he had ever run before. He had faced down inhumane beasts and gargantuan death machines, but nothing compared to the sheer terrifying carnage that this one had unleashed upon them.

He had fled as though hell's own hounds were baying for his blood, taking turns at random in the hopes of eliminating any chance that thing had of tracking him. Before long, Orson had become hopelessly lost.

Tears of helpless terror streaked down his Adam-ravaged face, as he frantically searched for territory he recognized. Despite his best efforts, all he managed to find were empty hallways and rotting corpses.

After a while, he began to notice something. He didn't hear screaming, either that of his men or the malformed creature killing them. For a moment he stood, not daring to even breathe as he strained his ears.

Silence was all that greeted him.

Orson let out a shaky laugh as relief replaced mortal peril. His laughter increased until he was lying in a puddle on the ground, clutching his sides. He had done it! He had escaped the clutches of death once again. He wasn't even worried about being lost anymore. He was a survivor, and this was just another setback.

Getting to his feet and taking several breaths to steady himself, Orson began to wander in the direction he thought that the tram stations might be. He would recover, of that he was sure. No screeching freak of nature would be able to keep him down. Adonis Resort was a worthless piss-hole anyway, now he would be free to set his sights on bigger targets. He shivered in anticipation. All of Rapture lay before him, now all he had to do was reach out and take it.

His dreams and ambitions came to a crashing halt as he entered the bulkhead into the next room. It looked to be a large reception are, with a statue of some Greek god he didn't recognizing filling up the center. The entire place had been ransacked and looted by whoever had passed through it before him. Bullet holes and scorch marks scarred the walls, telling the story of the bloodshed that had occurred.

None of this mattered to Orson however, as the only thing he saw was a single figure. Perched on the shoulders of the stature, she was there. Waiting for him.

The glaring red porthole fixed him to the spot with murderous intensity.

"No…" She stared down at him with absolute judgment. In that moment she had become far more than just a monster. She was the very manifestation of wrath come to punish him for his sins.

"No… please…"

An angel of death.

The big sister ignored his pleas. Letting out another ear-splitting shriek, she launched herself off of the statue towards him.

In a feeble attempt to stave off the inevitable, Orson raised his arms to protect his face. They did nothing to save him. With the force of truck, she slammed into him causing them both to go crashing to the ground. He felt several of his ribs splinter under the impact.

As he lay blinded by agony, Orson was entirely unprepared for her follow up attack. He managed to open his eyes just as her needle was falling towards his exposed stomach. Pain beyond anything he had experienced before exploded inside his body as the needle pierced him like an insect on display.

Orson hardly even had time to scream when he felt a slight tugging. This was all the warning he got before the harvester activated.

With a horrific sucking sound, his howls of suffering were reduced to dying gurgles. Orson Steele died in that empty room, all his dreams of glory and power being struck down by a living engine of destruction.

Feeling the adrenaline fueled thrill of the hunt begin to dissipate, protectorate M2 Epsilon-04 sagged heavily in her armor. She hardly noticed the electric sensation of the harvester injecting Adam into her bloodstream.

For so long now, she had been almost totally alone. None of her younger sibling sang their carefree songs while gathering. None of her battle-sisters joined in her hunts for the maddened animals known as splicers. The only remnants of her once proud family seemed to be the metal daddies, and they were getting fewer and fewer with each passing day.

When was the last time mother had spoken to her over the radio? When was the last time she had been directed towards an enemy of the family? How long would she have to patrol the empty hallways alone?

Alone…

It was times like this, just after a hunt or extermination, that Epsilon would feel the weight of her solitude most deeply. No matter how well she did; there were no words of praise from her mother. No matter how badly she was hurt; there was no comfort from her siblings.

Letting out a half-hearted growl some rats who were eying the new corpse, Epsilon returned to her usual rounds. She needed to keep the way clear for when her family returned. They would come back eventually.

They had to…

The empty stores and containers of Rapture had been fairly well stocked when its citizens lost themselves to their crazed Adam addictions. A skilled scrounger should typically be able to find enough food and supplies in useable condition to live comfortably.

Davian was apparently not a skilled scrounger today.

The young man sighed in frustration as he opened up the latest in a long line of boxes containing useless assortments of junk. What was held inside this one?

One dead rat? Check.

A single moldy sock? Check

Two bottles containing suspicious yellow liquids? Check and check.

All in all, it was the picturesque example of what he had been finding for the past several weeks. No food. No supplies. No nothing. It was all beginning to paint a very scary picture for him. The back alleys of the Chimera housing complex were running out of useable supplies.

Sooner or later, he would have to move.

Davian got to his feet with a groan. His back ached after bending over boxes for so long, and his left foot was asleep. He didn't look forward to the walk back to the little hovel he called home.

Davian wasn't a coward. He had faced his fair share of dangers in the past, but even so the idea of moving to a new location frightened him. Even if he didn't run into any other insane inhabitants of the dead city, the sheer weight of the unknown was a deadly force in its own right.

Especially when you were protecting someone particularly vulnerable…

The walk home was fairly uneventful. He only ran across a single splicer, and thankfully the shifty looking man hadn't been in the mood to start trouble. Both of them gave the other a wide berth as they went their separate ways.

As he rounded the next corner, Davian arrived at his home. Very early on he had learned that living on the ground level was essentially painting a 'please kill me in my sleep' sign over your forehead. Nowadays, he had become a bit more inventive with his housing.

The entrance to his place was three stories up, blown out of a high wall courtesy of a discarded grenade launcher. He had personally ensured that the hallways inside the building were destroyed so that his room could only be accessed by the outside. It had been an immense pain to get furniture inside, but it had all been worth it in the end. Very few splicers ever found out where he was hiding, and even fewer ever tried attacking him there.

Rolling his shoulders to ease the sore muscles, Davian prepared to ascend to the top. He stood still as a stone for several moments, before, without warning…

He vanished.

A puff of red smoke was the only sign that he had ever existed in the first place.

After a short pause, another gust of smoke signaled his return to the waking world. He now stood at the precipice of his inner sanctum.

This was what made assaulting him in his home so difficult. Davian had designed the location in such a way that only a Spider, or another Houdini splicer could actually reach him. In this part of Rapture both of them were few and far in-between.

As he worked the door open, he thought about where else he could possibly go if he was forced out of this place. No places immediately came to mind. Every section of Rapture he knew of outside the Chimera housing complex was either drowning in splicers, or drowning in the ocean.

Sometimes both.

Davian would have to worry about that later. He still had enough supplies for a little while, and right now he wasn't feeling up to the task of planning ahead. Shaking his head to dispel the unpleasant thoughts, he stepped inside.

Almost immediately he knew something was wrong. Davian didn't live alone in his fortified hiding place, and his miniature roommate had a habit of rushing to greet him at the door. Today however, there was no sign of her.

"Wren?" He called out into the apartment.

There was no answer. Living in Rapture had instilled him with a keen sense of paranoia, and Wren not answering was something that was very out of the ordinary. With a rising sense of dread, he ventured deeper inside.

"Wren? Are you there?" He ventured again. Once more there was no answer.

Very slowly, Davian entered the main living area. He fully expected to see the gruesome aftermath of a deadly struggle. Oddly enough, the sight that greeted him was nothing of the sort.

There were no splattered bloodstains, or scattered furniture. Everything looked to be in the same place it had been when he had left it that morning. Well, almost everything.

Someone had taken every cushion and pillow he owned, and piled them in the center of the room. The tension eased out of Davian's body as he realized what was going on.

"Hmmm. Where could she be?" He thought out loud, slowly moving through the room while making as much noise as possible.

The pile shook slightly, as a muffled giggle came from underneath it.

"Could she be…? In here?" His hand shot into the cushions and latched onto a tiny leg. Hoisting her up, she very nearly deafened him with a squeal of delight. Two glowing yellow eyes flashed as she squirmed in his grasp.

"Put me down! Down! Put me down!" She ordered between fits of childish laughter. Davian put his free hand to his chin in a gesture of mock consideration.

"What's that? You want something? I'm afraid I didn't understand you, you'll need to use the magic word."

When it became apparent that she wouldn't be able to wiggle her way free, Wren relented.

"Put me down please." She asked, giving her best wide eyed plea (which was only made more impressive by the fact that she was doing it upside-down).

"That's better." He said before righting her, and placing her back on the mound of cushions. "So is this what you've been up to while I was gone?"

Wren slumped down on the pile, blowing out a sigh. "It's so boooooring when you go out." She said. "There's nobody to play with."

Davian took seat next to her. "You know that if I don't go out, we don't get to eat right?" He asked. She grumbled slightly, not wanting to concede the fact to him. After a few moments, she turned her luminescent gaze back to him.

"Did you bring me a present?" She asked with cautious hope.

Davian smiled to himself. "As a matter of fact I did." Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a length of vibrant purple lace he had salvaged from a damaged dress. "I found this ribbon and I remembered how much you missed your old one, so I made sure to keep it safe just for you."

Her eyes opened wider than he would have thought possible as she gasped. She launched to her feet and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.

"Thank you mister M! Thank you! Thank you!" Not waiting for a reply, Wren snatched the ribbon from his hands and ran to her room to try it on.

As she left, Davian's smile fell. This was the biggest fear he had about moving. If it was just him, he would be able to slip through Rapture largely undetected. With a little sister at his side however, such a hope would be beyond impossible. Splicers would practically, or even literally, run each other over for a chance to get at her. And if she was struck by the need to gather while they were out…

Davian knew that this journey was going to be a rough one. He couldn't leave her behind, but at the same time he couldn't keep her safe like a real protector could.

He didn't know what to do.

Getting to his feet, he began putting the apartment back into working order. He would figure out how to survive the coming struggle when they got going. Right now he had to put on a brave face for Wren; she shouldn't have to worry if she didn't have to.

Forcing his smile to return, Davian got to work.

This is a story I've been thinking about for a while, but only recently got around to writing. It will involve a fair number of OCs, but I'll be doing my best to write them in a human fashion. If I ever end up making someone too powerful/weak/etc. then please let me know. I really do want to improve as much as possible.

Reviews and criticisms are appreciated, and thanks for reading.