Chapter 4: The Vorcha Problem
POV: Marc Wayne
Day five began with Marc taking out trash in the alley behind Afterlife, trying to master the basic task without his System offering helpful suggestions like "optimal disposal angle for reduced splatter" and "recommended lifting technique to minimize strain indicators."
The artificial morning light of Omega's day cycle cast harsh shadows between the towering structures, and the air carried its usual cocktail of industrial chemicals, alien cooking, and the lingering ozone scent of the station's atmospheric recyclers. Marc had almost reached the dumpster when he saw the body.
Vorcha. Male, young by the species' rapid aging standards. Blood pooled beneath him in dark red streaks, and the wounds along his torso spoke of systematic punishment rather than random violence. Someone had worked him over with methodical precision, then left him here to die as an example.
Standard Omega protocol, according to his brief education in local customs: walk past, don't get involved, let the cleanup crews handle it when the smell became problematic. The unwritten rule that kept civilians alive on a station where stopping to help marked you as a target.
But Marc's regeneration gene pulsed with sympathetic recognition, and he found himself kneeling beside the dying alien despite every rational thought screaming at him to walk away.
"Hey," he said softly, checking for a pulse. The Vorcha's breathing was shallow, rapid, but present. "Can you hear me?"
Yellow eyes opened, unfocused with pain and shock. The Vorcha tried to speak, managed only a weak rasp that might have been words in his native language.
Marc looked around the alley—empty, as everyone with sense had made themselves scarce. He could help or he could follow Omega's rules. The choice felt inevitable.
Using the medical supplies from his mysterious benefactor, Marc worked to stabilize the worst of the bleeding. His movements were clumsy—he had software engineering experience, not medical training—but the Vorcha's natural regenerative abilities did most of the work. Marc just provided the initial push needed to get the healing process started.
As the Vorcha's breathing steadied, his eyes focused on Marc with growing clarity. When he spoke, his voice carried the broken but understandable English common among Omega's residents.
"You... help? Why help Vorcha?"
The question carried genuine confusion, as if kindness was a foreign concept requiring explanation.
"Because you needed help," Marc said simply, then realized how naive that sounded on a station where altruism was often fatal. "And because I know what it's like to be dying alone."
The Vorcha studied him with intelligence Marc hadn't expected. Game lore portrayed them as little more than violent scavengers, but this one's eyes held calculating awareness.
"You adapt too," the Vorcha said suddenly, his gaze fixing on Marc's hands where small cuts from handling medical supplies were already healing. "Like Vorcha. You... family?"
"Family." The concept hit Marc unexpectedly hard. This creature recognized him as kindred not because of species or culture, but because they shared the fundamental trait of adaptation and survival.
"I suppose we are," Marc said, surprising himself with the honesty.
The Vorcha struggled to sit up, wincing but managing the movement. "Name Kreek. You?"
"Marcus."
"Marcus-friend." Kreek nodded solemnly. "Kreek remember debt. Pack remember debt."
The next morning brought consequences Marc should have anticipated but somehow didn't.
He was restocking bottles when the bar's front door burst open and eight Vorcha poured in like an enthusiastic, feral parade. They moved with pack coordination, spreading out to cover exits while chattering in rapid bursts of their native language mixed with broken English.
Kreek appeared in the center of the formation, looking healthier than someone who'd been dying twenty-four hours earlier. He spotted Marc and let out a series of excited yips that might have been joyful or threatening—Marc wasn't familiar enough with Vorcha vocalizations to tell the difference.
"Marcus-friend!" Kreek called out, bouncing on his feet with barely contained energy. "Kreek tell pack about adapt-human! About help! Pack come to help too!"
Marc felt his stomach drop. Behind him, Anto made a sound like grinding metal that probably indicated despair in Turian emotional expression.
"Kreek, that's very kind, but—"
"Brought gifts!" Kreek interrupted, producing something that had once been a rat but was now more of a partially-decomposed protein source. "Fresh! Only little bit dead!"
The bar's handful of early patrons took one look at the assembled Vorcha pack and found urgent business elsewhere. Marc watched his new employer's customer base evaporate in real-time.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: VORCHA DIPLOMACY]
[REPUTATION GAIN: +50 VORCHA FACTION]
[REPUTATION LOSS: -30 GENERAL OMEGA POPULATION]
[ANALYSIS: USER SOCIAL DECISIONS CREATING COMPLEX CONSEQUENCES]
"This is a disaster," Marc muttered, watching Anto's mandibles twitch in what was definitely not amusement.
"Pack protect Marcus-friend!" Kreek announced proudly. His pack members nodded and chittered agreement. "Bad people come, pack fight! Pack very good at fighting!"
One of the pack members—smaller than Kreek, with fresh scars across his face—approached a nervous-looking Salarian who'd been trying to read news feeds in the corner. The Vorcha leaned close and announced in broken English: "You suspicious! Might be threat to adapt-friend! Pack watching you!"
The Salarian fled, leaving his drink unfinished.
"Kreek," Marc said desperately, "I appreciate the offer, but this is a bar. People come here to drink quietly, not to be... protected."
"Quiet is boring," Kreek replied with the logical certainty of someone who'd never considered that boredom might be desirable. "Pack make interesting! Pack tell everyone how great Marcus-friend is!"
What followed was the most surreal hour of Marc's life as the Vorcha pack appointed themselves his informal advertising department. They regaled anyone who entered with tales of his healing abilities, his kindness to dying strangers, and his obvious qualification as an honorary pack leader. Their enthusiasm was touching and absolutely catastrophic for business.
Anto finally intervened when three Eclipse mercenaries entered looking for quiet drinks and were immediately surrounded by helpful Vorcha offering to sniff them for concealed weapons.
"Everyone out," Anto said with the flat authority of someone whose patience had been atomized. "Marcus stays, everyone else finds somewhere else to be helpful."
Kreek looked stricken. "But pack protection—"
"The pack will wait outside," Marc said firmly, trying to channel the leadership the Vorcha seemed to expect from him. "Keep watch from the alley. I'll call if I need help."
The pack reluctantly withdrew, but Marc could see them through the windows, still maintaining what they probably considered subtle surveillance.
"So," Anto said once they were alone with the Eclipse mercs, "this is your life now. Congratulations."
The retaliation came that evening, just as Marc was beginning to hope they might escape consequences.
Five Blood Pack members stormed through the bar's entrance: three Vorcha in gang colors, a Batarian with a shotgun, and a Krogan who wasn't Garm but carried the same aura of barely contained violence. They moved with military precision, spreading out to control the room while the Krogan approached the bar.
"Human," the Krogan said without preamble. "You harbor Blood Pack deserters. Return them, or face consequences."
Marc felt his System flood his vision with tactical assessments and threat warnings, but the information felt useless when facing armed professionals. This wasn't like the confrontation with Garm—this was immediate, violent, and probably fatal.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Marc said, his voice steady despite his hammering heart. "I just work here."
"Vorcha pack follows you. Vorcha pack attacks Blood Pack property when we try to discipline deserters. Simple mathematics, human."
The logic was insane but internally consistent: Kreek's pack had interfered with Blood Pack operations by protecting Marc, who'd helped Kreek, who'd become a deserter by accepting help. Therefore, Marc was responsible for everything that followed.
"They're going to kill us," Marc said to Anto, intending it as a warning.
What came out was: "They're going to open a bakery with us!"
The confused pause that followed would have been funny under other circumstances. The Blood Pack members exchanged glances, obviously wondering if the human had suffered some kind of neural damage.
That pause lasted exactly long enough for Kreek's pack to realize their adapt-friend was in danger.
The windows exploded inward as eight Vorcha burst through in a coordinated assault that spoke of pack tactics refined by a species that survived through cooperative violence. They moved like a single organism, each member knowing exactly where the others would be, creating overlapping fields of fire and mutual support.
The bar became a war zone.
Marc dove behind the bar as gunfire erupted overhead. His System went into overdrive, highlighting weak points, suggesting flanking maneuvers, and providing tactical analyses he was completely unqualified to use. But as adrenaline flooded his system and his regeneration gene activated in response to stress, Marc found himself moving with coordination he'd never possessed.
A Blood Pack Vorcha rounded the bar, weapon raised. Marc grabbed a bottle and smashed it across the alien's skull, not elegantly but effectively. The Vorcha dropped, and Marc stared at his bloody hands in shock.
"I just hurt someone. I just deliberately caused harm to another living being."
The moment of self-reflection nearly got him killed as the Batarian's shotgun tracked toward him. But Kreek appeared from nowhere, tackling the four-eyed alien with berserker fury while shrieking what sounded like very unflattering commentary about the Batarian's ancestry.
[COMBAT TUTORIAL ACTIVATED]
[TIP: VORCHA REGENERATION ALLOWS AGGRESSIVE TACTICS]
[TIP: PACK COORDINATION MULTIPLIES INDIVIDUAL EFFECTIVENESS]
[WARNING: USER COMBAT SKILLS MINIMAL - RECOMMEND SUPPORTING ALLIES]
Marc crouched behind cover, trying to process the tactical information streaming through his mind. The Vorcha pack was holding their own against the Blood Pack forces, but they were taking damage. His regeneration could keep him standing longer than normal humans, but that didn't make him a warrior.
The fight lasted three minutes that felt like hours. When the smoke cleared, three Blood Pack members were down, one was unconscious, and their Krogan leader was backing toward the exit with professional recognition of a lost cause.
"This isn't over," the Krogan said, his eyes fixed on Marc. "You've made enemies. Dangerous ones."
After they left, Marc surveyed the wreckage. His bar was destroyed. His peaceful existence was definitely over. And Kreek's pack was looking at him with expressions that mixed pride, expectation, and absolute loyalty.
"Marcus-friend fought!" Kreek announced happily, apparently unbothered by his various bleeding wounds. "Fought like pack! Very good!"
[COMBAT EXPERIENCE GAINED: +300 XP]
[TOTAL PROGRESS: 700/1000 TO LEVEL 2]
[BATARIAN FOUR-EYED VISION: SCAN PROGRESS 67% (PROXIMITY DURING COMBAT)]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: FIRST BLOOD]
Anto emerged from behind the bar, checking his rifle. "Well, that settles it. You're not just a bartender anymore, Marcus. Question is, what are you?"
Marc looked at the destruction, at the Vorcha pack waiting for his next decision, at his hands that had drawn blood in defense of people he'd known for days. The System's assessments painted a clear picture: he was evolving from victim to participant in Omega's violent ecosystem.
"I'm someone who helps people," Marc said finally. "Even when it's stupid."
[QUEST COMPLETED: SURVIVE YOUR FIRST WEEK]
[COMPLETED 2 DAYS EARLY]
[REWARD: +500 XP - LEVEL UP!]
[CONGRATULATIONS: LEVEL 2 ACHIEVED]
[NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED: UNCOMMON GENE SYNTHESIS]
[+5 BONUS STAT POINTS AVAILABLE FOR ALLOCATION]
The rush of advancement hit him like a physical wave. His body felt stronger, faster, more resilient. His mind processed information with greater clarity. He was becoming something more than human, one gene at a time.
But as he looked at the devastation around him and the expectant faces of his new Vorcha pack, Marc realized that power came with responsibilities he wasn't sure he was ready for.
Outside, Omega's neon chaos continued unaware that somewhere in its depths, a software engineer was learning to be something the galaxy had never seen before.
can you keep the seaching notice in libratry and these
+1 CHAPTER AFTER EVERY 3 REVIEWS
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
To supporting Me in Pateron . PS (One patreon member can make this or any of my fanfic update weekly since some will stop after hiting 20 to 25 chapters.)
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