Fluttershy sighed as she finished reassembling her M-8 Avenger assault rifle. She had checked and cleaned every single individual piece of the rifle and replaced a couple of the accelerator coils that were responsible for launching the tiny projectiles the weapon fired. The coils hadn’t exactly been in need of it, but the thought of having them in peak condition was comforting to the mare.
Garrus had given her the rundown of how to perform maintenance on the gun and warned her to be thorough if she didn’t want it to fail in the field, advice the pegasus had taken to heart.
The thought had Fluttershy’s mind wander to the Turian. After her failed attempt at confessing, Garrus seemed to be avoiding her like the plague, always having an excuse to get away from her. ‘I need to do some calibrations’ was seemingly the most popular of those excuses.
What did I do wrong? Did I scare him off for some reason?
Fluttershy felt a lump form in her throat and tears flowing from the corners of her eyes as she tried figuring out what had changed. She softly cried to herself as she propped herself against the wall in the corner of the medbay’s storage room. She’d already written the report – with Chakwas’ help – and now had nothing left to do.
She sat there for a couple of minutes wallowing in self-pity before she finally pulled herself together enough to get back on her hooves. After wiping away her tears, Fluttershy got out of the medbay. There was nothing of particular use she could do while stuck in the small storage room that would take her mind off her current problem.
Knowing that everyone was probably preparing for their assault on Ilos, there was probably little chance they could spare some time for her, though she might be able to help one of them with preparations.
Looking around in the garage only revealed Wrex sleeping on a hammock. The krogan preferred his spot close to the weapons lockers as opposed to a sleeper pod on the deck above. Garrus… was nowhere to be seen.
After letting out a sigh, Fluttershy made her way to the engineering bay to see if Tali could use her help, but a glance at her regular station revealed that she wasn’t there either. Turning around, Fluttershy activated her omni-tool and opened the door to the workshop. Chief engineer Adams had given her access to the room so she could check on Tali if there was no-one to open it for her.
What she hadn’t expected was Garrus leaning against the wall of the workshop alongside a working Tali. The expression on the turian’s face betrayed that the surprise was mutual. Before either of the two could say anything Tali excused herself.
“I think engineer Adams had a couple of things he wanted me to do. I’ll leave you two to do your thing here,” she said as walked past Fluttershy, giving the pegasus a small shove into the workshop before closing the door behind her. Fluttershy briefly looked at the closed door behind her before her gaze met Garrus’. The two awkwardly looked at each other in silence.
“So, you needed Tali for something?” Garrus said, trying to break up the uncomfortable atmosphere.
“I was done with my preparations and was going to see if Tali needed some help with hers,” Fluttershy replied, her heart rate increasing as she felt panic taking a hold of her. Garrus shook his head and sat down so that he wasn’t towering over the pegasus. After letting out a deep sigh the turian spoke again.
“I know,” he simply stated. Fluttershy felt a cold layer of sweat forming on her coat as he continued speaking. “Though I guess that I probably should have picked up on the signals earlier.”
“I-I...”
“Fluttershy, come over here,” Garrus cut the pegasus off as he motioned for her to sit beside him. “Look, I had some time to speak with Tali about it and did some thinking...”
“And?” Fluttershy asked nervously. The pegasus felt as if the entire weight of the Normandy was pressed on her chest as she waited for the turian to answer.
“Why the hell not? I have no experience with any of this anyway so, if we can make it work, then… yeah definitely,” Garrus told the pegasus who jumped at the turian, wrapping his unarmored body in a hug before starting to cry tears of joy. All the stress she had built up flowed out of her along with the tears.
“Thank you,” Fluttershy softly spoke as she released the hug, a beaming smile on her face which seemed infectious as Garrus also smiled soon after.
“So, you were done with your own preparations?” Garrus asked, Fluttershy giving a nod as they separated from each other. “How about I teach you something new?”
“That’d be nice,” Fluttershy said happily, following Garrus as he made for the door only to stop at the wall that was supposed to open.
“Uhm, you happen to have the right permissions to open this thing without using the emergency button?” he asked sheepishly. Fluttershy chuckled and opened the door with her omni-tool. “Thanks.”
As they walked out, Tali turned around from her console and looked at the pair, the quarian nearly getting angry at the sight of Fluttershy’s tear soaked fur. Only the smile on the pegasus’ muzzle stopping her from exploding at the turian. Fluttershy noticed Tali looking at them and gave her a nod, something that the quarian understood very well as she made a few exited jumps and gave a thumbs up.
Fluttershy followed Garrus as the turian made his way into the garage and turned around, “So, Fluttershy, I think I can teach you one of three things. First I could teach you how to use a sniper rifle. You won’t be a master with one of those after one explanation, but everyone has to start somewhere,” he said as he pointed at the locker holding his rifle.
“The second thing I could teach you is how to use the cannon on the Mako. If you know how that thing works, you could basically shoot every stationary or vehicle-borne turret in the galaxy. They all work with similar systems.”
Fluttershy thought for a moment. It would be useful to have a basic understanding of a stationary gun if they were ever going to get stuck in a sticky situation.
“The third thing I could ‘teach’ you is something I’ve been working on myself. I’ve rigged my omni-tool to give it the ability to fire a burst of energy that disrupts shields and barriers along with being disruptive to AI and VI. A friend of mine is currently working on making it more effective than what I can manage, but until then it’ll take some practice to safely pull it off.”
Fluttershy considered her options as all the things Garrus had to offer would be of some use somewhere in the future.
1. Learn how to use a sniper rifle.
2. Learn how to use large caliber turrets.
3. Obtain [Overload]