10 Tuchanka

"A thousand credits says the salarian is cooperating with Weyrloc." I stated during the briefing for our incursion into Tuchanka.

"Impossible." Mordin denied from across the conference room, "Maelon part of team that corrected the Genophage. Would not cooperate with krogan clan."

"I think I may have ruined your frame of reference on the krogan species." I told him, "Most of us are dumber than the varren we keep, and the rest are too dumb to domesticate varren. Are we to believe that a pack of mouth breathing knuckle draggers managed to nab one of the STG members that worked on that project? The salarians would have seen them coming long before they ever got near a VIP like that. Maelon did all the work disappearing himself."

"Agree to disagree." Mordin dismissed my point of view casually.

The ground teams loaded up on our shuttle and descended on Tuchanka, the broken krogan home world. The ancient krogan were thorough in their destruction of our planet, and even close to 4000 years later, the world was a barren wasteland. Life found a way on this world somehow, but only the gnarliest and most hardcore of creatures remained. I'd soon prove myself to be close to the top of the food chain. Not the tippy top considering Kalros exists, but if it takes a kaiju to beat me out then I could swallow my pride.

In the months since my birth I'd added 36 kilos to my body. Broader shoulders, deeper chest, thickened limbs and neck. I'd even managed to shift my posture to a more upright stance, something I'd continue until my plates finally fused. I was almost a quarter again as big as the average krogan, but I knew I was nowhere near fully grown. The biggest krogan got up to 400 kilos and I knew that was where I was heading. I couldn't wait to be big enough to choke out a yahg.

The rapid growth made keeping my armor fitting a nightmare, but with Tali now helping me the hassle cut considerably. Unfortunately the beautiful quarian and Captain Palavin would be going with Alpha Team to rescue Mordin's missing student, so only Jack and Zaeed would be available to act as my krantt during the Rite of Passage. I was tempted to take the Rite alone, but I also wanted to make sure I killed the thresher maw, and I had no idea if I could put out enough damage alone to kill it. The M-920 Cain I was now lugging around might just one shot it, but why take the chance when clout is on the line.

We touched down in the dilapidated bunker occupied by Clan Urdnot and Shepard's old pal Wrex. The place reeked of destitution.

"What a shit hole." I commented.

A team of krogan stopped us from entering.

"Move or die, just be quick picking." I growled at them.

"Keep your rutting pet on a short leash, Shepard." the over captain in charge of these idiots snarled, "Get him the Rite or put him down. Either way, the clan leader wants to speak with you."

"You got a favorite female?" I asked the over captain while I got in his face, "I'll be sure to visit and show her what a real male feels like."

He behave like any self respecting krogan would and we butted heads with the predictable result of him reeling back clutching his aching dome.

"Bitch." I snarked as I turned to walk away.

As we closed in on the Urdnot encampment, EDI let us know that both the clan leader and chief scout would have information on Maelon's location. Shepard made a beeline for Wrex, who sat his big krogan ass on a broken concrete throne while he listened to the complaints of Gatatog Uvenk. He just pushed the fool aside and came right over to us.

"Shepard!" He shouted while grasping her hand, "My friend."

The way he said 'my friend' always struck me with its sincerity and care. This was how a reunion should go, not that bullshit Williams or Alenko pulled in the games.

"You look good for dead. Should have known the void couldn't hold you."

Shepard and the scared battlemaster reminisced on how happy they were that they didn't have to kill each other back on Virmire, and how Wrex used what happened there to rise to greatness here on Tuchanka. Uvenk spoke up again and got a well deserved head butt for his sass. They shot the breeze about the destruction of the original Normandy.

"Takes me back to the old days. Us against the unknown, killing it with big guns, good times." Wrex said as he cemented his place as my favorite krogan besides myself. The blue rose of Ilium guy was a close second, but we hadn't met him yet.

Shepard spent some time asking Wrex about his plans for the krogan and how the krogan operate as a people. She was genuinely surprised to learn about the huge decision making power the females clans possessed. It shouldn't have. We were an endangered species. Any suggestions made by the females that could lead to increased security would be followed by all the males. Any action carried out against the females was treason. As stupid as I may believe the krogan, they apply practical survival policies.

"I've got a krogan here for the Rite of Passage." Shepard stated as she pointed to me.

"Where are you from, whelp?" Wrex asked me as I stepped forward and looked him in his red eyes, "Was your clan destroyed before you could learn what was expected of you?"

"I was made by Warlord Okeer using all the bloodlines of the krogan he admired to be his version of perfection." I explained to the once more seated clan leader.

"He is the product of a syringe!" Uvenk spoke up again.

Krack!

"And I am endlessly superior to all you phage lucky weaklings." I growled at the reeling Gatatog clan leader.

"Good attitude." Wrex complimented me while Uvenk silently retreated, "Speak to the Shaman, you'll get your chance to prove that statement."

"You all get to handling your Salarian business." I announced while propping my shotgun over my shoulder, "I've got violence to commit."

Jack and Zaeed followed me away as I laughed maniacally.

"What did I say about krogan leadership?"

"Anybody doesn't listen, smack them around." Jack smirked.

"Does have a simplistic beauty." Zaeed commented.

We found Uvenk again as he tried to convince the Urdnot Shaman to refuse me the Rite of Passage. Another headbutt cleared up that obstruction.

"The boy gets what it means to be krogan." the Shaman spoke with derision to the Gatatog chief, "Perhaps you should reflect on that lesson."

"I'm here for the Rite of Passage." I told the krogan who had abandoned his name to take up his duty, "Brought my krantt with me."

"Tank-bred and humans!" declared Uvenk, "You cannot allow them to pollute the Rite!"

"You dare!" The shaman shouted at the green and shelled krogan, "I was a warrior before your mother was even born! I speak with the authority of centuries. I determine who is worthy, not you!"

Uvenk backed away from the heated shaman, "I have other ways to oppose this." he declared like a lizard version of Draco Malfoy and left.

"You've provoked them." the Shaman told me, "I like that."

"We are ready to take on the Rite." I said.

"Excellent." He practically sang.

We loaded up in a Tomkah tank and drove off to the site Urdnot uses for the Rite, the last surface city to fall during the Rebellions and the massive Keystone Maw Hammer used to attract the various predators of Tuchanka. After we arrived I set out and looted the area while putting down frag mines. I placed four out of the twelve I brought and activated the hammer, starting a prerecorded message and summoning the various critters.

Unlike in the games, the hammer rose and fell three times in secession, and I needed to fight until a thresher maw arrived and survive five minutes after it first emerges This could take an undetermined amount of time, but at least one maw would come. Eventually.

We battled varren, klixen, and a pair of harvesters. I chewed through my mines and grenades, but overall we had a great time. The varren and harvesters retreated when the ground started to shake, and a neon blue appendage stuck out of the ground nearby. I sent a ball of superheated plasma its way with a quick incinerate and with a squeal of pain a giant eldritch abomination sand worm exploded up from below. If it didn't like incinerate it would hate the payload from the M-920 Cain I sent its way. The mushroom cloud produced by its strike gave me the warm and fuzzies and the big worm went down.

"That was disappointing." I said.

The maw quietly drug itself back into the ground and I waited and waited for it to come back, checking the three areas it used in game. But instead of popping back up to spit acid at us, the damn thing exploded out of the earth coming straight for me. I lamented tempting fate with my thoughts about From or Capcom doing the boss fights as the thresher maw charged me like a supersized diablos.

The fight only lasted another sixty seconds as we scrambled and unloaded everything we had at the damn thing's head. When it finally stilled and the dust settled I didn't see either Zaeed or Jack.

"Did anyone else survive?" I asked aloud.

Zaeed fired off his rifle from the other side of our kill and Jack sent up a blue biotic sphere. We met up and a small ship flew overhead. We followed it to the landing site and found Uvenk and his krantt waiting for us.

"Speak your words then die with some dignity." I ordered the bitchy clan chief.

"You are a mistake, but your strength proves you have value. No one has killed a maw during the Rite since Urdnot Wrex." Gatatog Uvenk began his sales pitch, "This gives us reason to accept you. Your strength can tip the current balance of the clans."

"No." I grunted, "I invoke the Rite of Authority. Now draw your gun and die knowing you are helpless against me."

"So be it!" He yelled and we all began shooting at each other.

Uvenk did not expect me to give no fucks about his krantt as I charged him faster than he'd ever seen a krogan move, slamming him into a fallen concrete column and knocking the air out of his lungs as he tumbled to the ground. I reached down and grabbed one of his ankles and twisted around, whipping the smaller krogan over my head and smashing him face first into the edge of the column. His head exploded like a ripe melon and I roared in joyous victory as the fighting stopped around me. I beat my chest like an armored gorilla.

"Kneel." I commanded Uvenk's stunned krantt.

They obeyed me quickly and I laid down the law.

"Uvenk was weak and now I am in charge!" I yelled, "Now fly home and tell everyone that Gatatog is backing Urdnot's plan for the future fully. I'll come back to lead you people after I am done genociding the Collectors!"

I didn't know it at the time, but my words and deeds that day would light a fire in every krogan that heard of them. By the time I returned to Tuchanka after my adventures with Shepard, hundreds of young Krogan took the Rite of Passage for Clan Gatatog in hopes of following me into battle. But that is a story for later.

My triumphant return to the Urdnot base caused a massive celebration. Fortunately, Zaeed had a canteen full of scotch because ryncol would have torn him and Jack up like ground glass. By the time Shepard and crew came and got me, I'd bred halfway through the score of breeding requests that came my way.

Children was something Jack and I discussed during the quiet moments alone together. I wanted them, and krogan breeding was all cruel math. Jack would have to find a donor if she ever wanted children of her own, but I would have to lay with whatever females were willing and pray one of our eggs would hatch. Krogan culture didn't have intrauterine fertilization, so we were dealing with a pretty steep double standard, but both of us knew life wasn't fair and neither of us would ruin our happiness over it.

Before we returned to the Normandy, Wrex handed me a krogan battle hammer. I never knew how deprived I had been until I felt the powerful weapon in my hands. I'd gut it when we got back to the Normandy, removing the parts that could store biotic power and doubling down on the components that constituted the Electrical Hammer ability. In the end, I maxed out the number of charges it held, the radius of the explosion, its power against barriers and shields, and added a powerful fire effect to burn anyone stupid enough to live through my initial strike.

"What you got there?" Jack asked me as I stared at the hammer like a starving man at a sandwich.

"Fucking Mjolnir."