Vhorin hated the life of a mercenary. He pined to be back in a laboratory environment again, like the one he'd enjoyed for so long back on Noveria. But there was no longer any going back there while he had Council Spectres sniffing around his favourite haunts trying to pick up his trail. His research had been judged amoral and dangerous. An accusation that struck him as particularly galling, because on Noveria one would be hard pressed to find a scientific enterprise that didn't qualify for either of those definitions. If they were going to arrest him, then they ought to have arrested half the residents of the planet on the same charges!

He saw no reason why he should be singled out in particular. Except for the fact that these matters usually came down to money... perhaps he hadn't paid out for the proper protection, or someone else had donated with the interest of removing him as a rival? He'd make it his business to get to the bottom of that particular mystery sooner rather than later. For now though, he found himself on Omega. Reduced to hunting down a bounty on someone's head just to make a few credits.

The target's name was Grukh. A krogan member of the Blood Pack. Vhorin had never fought a krogan before outside of combat simulations, but he knew their reputation all too well. As a further complication the client had requested Grukh be taken alive. Something Vhorin felt he was in a better position to accomplish than the majority of other mercenaries on the market, given the advances in weaponized cryogenics he'd personally pioneered.

He planned it all out ahead of time as best he could. Attempting to bridge his lack of live combat experience against a vastly more seasoned foe by obsessively creating backup plans within backup plans. His assault on Grukh's private estate had started off smoothly; with a few icy blasts from his cryosuit he'd frozen solid the pack of varren the krogan kept as war beasts and shattered them all into pieces with a few rounds from his M-9 Tempest. Vorcha had quickly come out to investigate, but he'd hacked into and overloaded their flamethrower packs all from a position of cover.

The resulting explosion though had drawn the krogan's personal attention... Grukh had quickly flushed him out of his cover with grenades, pinpointing his exact position faster than Vhorin could have anticipated. The turian fell back, retreating to a position fortified by sentry turrets he'd set in place beforehand. Only to be forced to desperately scramble out of his improvised sniper nest on all four limbs as the krogan hurled a skycar at him with a terrifying display of biotics, almost being crushed beneath it the way his turrets were. He'd started firing cryo blasts then, attempting to freeze Grukh before the fight could continue any further.

But krogan unpredictability was a variable that couldn't be easily accounted for. Grukh had casually emptied his shotgun into the exposed underbelly of the vehicle he'd just tossed, detonating it in an expanding fireball that set the surrounding area ablaze. The krogan had then dived headfirst into the inferno, melting away the fingers of frost spreading across his armour. Vhorin had no choice but to fall back to another position. Grukh would advance on him again and flush him out each time. The area of slums they were fighting in was quickly becoming a patchwork of burning buildings and patches of flash-frozen ground. A clash of fire and ice, soldier and engineer, krogan and turian. And with the deciding factor being experience, Vhorin was losing ground.

What should have been a quick mission devolved into a game of cat and mouse lasting hours. Both combatants depleting their reserves of medi-gel and ammunition completely. It came to an end with Vhorin cornered, Grukh advancing into melee with the intent of throttling the turian with his bare hands, and the engineer's summoned combat drones buzzing through the air in a desperate attempt to distract the enraged gang member. Left arm outstretched, from the palm of Vhorin's hand a cone of freezing air blasted itself against the krogan's chest, his cryosuit on the verge of overloading as he poured out all of his remaining reserves into one last desperate attempt to stop the charging warrior in his tracks.

Although he watched his capture target's limbs crust over with frost, and heard the furious roar abruptly cut out as the krogan became encased in ice... it was a victory that came too close for comfort. The product of good fortune and a technological edge over his opponent rather than his own skill.

"If I'm going to keep doing this, I'm going to need some backup next time." the reluctant mercenary mused as he staggered up to his feet on wobbling legs. Thoroughly exhausted and eyeing the statuesque form of the frozen krogan warily, paranoid that at any moment he might suddenly break free of the cryogenic stasis, Vhorin's mind wandered to the thought of other mercenaries. Trust did not come easily to him. Yet having some muscle of his own around the next time he had to deal with a charging krogan was steadily becoming a more appealing prospect.

*****

Some further development for my Turian OC, and an action scene at that since I haven't gotten one in quite a long time!   Palavenmoons absolutely blew me away with the level of detail in this one. They were able to capture very well how it feels when you're playing an incredible squishy class like the Engineer and an absolute juggernaut of a krogan comes charging into melee range with you ready to make your flimsy shields crumple like styrofoam. x_x