Commission for  stellarvulpine
A new arrival to the Citadel fails to make it in C-Sec, but ultimately gets in another way.
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“The Citadel. I can’t believe I actually made it here.” Ian lies in his bed, staring out the “window” which, in reality, was a digital screen that projected an image from one of the Citadel’s external cameras to give the illusion that one was directly looking out into space. Though he applied for Citadel Security, he was ultimately rejected citing not enough experience. Ian had always considered this unfair as he had more experience in Earth’s military than some of the other applicants that made it. Despite this, Ian managed to get a job aboard the Citadel working at a small retail store in the Upper Markets of Zakera Ward.

The next morning, Ian wakes up to his alarm and gets dressed, rushing to the elevator. He makes the elevator just before it closes and heads up to the Upper Ward, then to the market. The market is quite busy, even for an early morning as stores are just now opening. Many shops of different kinds offering their wares, some of which never close. Ian stumbles around the market, trying to stay out of everyone’s way until he finds it. Marty’s Junk. An odd name for a store, he thought, but it wasn’t really his problem as long as he got paid. He walks up to the closed stall and checks the time. It was 7 AM, and the shop was supposed to be opening now. He knocks on the gate and after a few moments of silence it slides open, and the owner, Marty stares at Ian.

“Oh, you must be Ian! Come on in, sorry about that, I got a little distracted and didn’t get the gate open for ya.”

“Oh, no problem at all. So, what exactly will I be doing here?”

“Oh, just standard retail work. Stocking, selling, things like that. Everything has a determined price, and I don’t haggle. If someone tries to haggle, tell them they can pay or bugger off.”

“Oh, alright! Easy enough! So, when do I start?”

“Now, we open in a few minutes. You’ll work until 7 PM. Lunch at 1. Any other questions?”

“No, seems pretty straightforward.”

“Good, I’ll be in the back if you need me, but don’t bother me unless it’s actually important.”

“Alright, I’ll try not to.”

“Good, get going I see people lining up now.” With that, Marty disappears into the back, leaving Ian alone with the line of customers waiting. Ian starts up the register and calls for people to come in and start shopping. Surprisingly, the day goes by without incident, and before long it’s lunch time.

Ian locks up the store and starts browsing the different shops, looking for something to eat. One place in particular stands out as it offers foods from various cultures. He stands just outside the stall and looks over the menu. Not only do they have various human foods, but they have foods from Turian, Asari, Drell, and Salarian culture as well! One item in particular catches his eye from the Turian section of the menu: Palaven Kebabs. Based solely on the picture, it appears to be a pair of standard skewers with chunks of well-seasoned meat. Ian decides to be adventurous and try it, despite rumors that eating food meant for Turians is harmful to humans. He decides to go ahead and order the kebabs and finds a table to eat at.

Ian takes one of the chunks of meat off a skewer and looks it over, turning it over in his hands. He starts wondering what sort of meat it is, where the meat comes from, and so many other things. He then thinks to himself, “Well, the more I think about it, the colder it’s gonna get…” and takes a bite. He nearly coughs it up because of how spicy it is. Ian quickly goes for a glass of water and chugs it. He wonders if he should cut his losses and try something else but decides he already paid for it, might as well finish it. The second bite he takes, oddly enough, doesn’t taste nearly as spicy. In fact, it tastes quite good! Ian doesn’t even notice that he’s grown a few inches and his body has slimmed down. He happily continues eating the kebab, not noticing anything. People begin staring as it becomes very noticeable to the others that he’s grown, now a good foot taller than he was before. His shirt is now far too small for him, though it doesn’t feel too tight on him as his body continues to slim down and lose muscle.

Ian finally realizes something is off when he feels a pressure in his chest as it begins to swell. He looks down to realize that everything around him seems smaller, and further away. He drops the skewer he’s holding as his fingers begin to merge together and fingernails grow longer, thicker, and sharper. “Holy shit, what the hell was in those kebabs?” Ian scrambles to his feet, nearly stumbling as his toes merge together in a similar fashion to his fingers, and toenails grow out much longer and thicker. Ian runs back to his room, stumbling a few times as his heels rise out of his shoes, and he kicks them off. There’s a pressure on the back of his leg as two large growths, one on each leg, appear and start pushing against the legs of his pants.

He finally makes it to his apartment in the Lower Wards and rips his clothes off, revealing the changes. He continues growing, passing six feet in height, and he can hardly see all of himself in the full-body mirror. The growths on his legs grow longer and longer. He focuses on the growths on his chest, staring at them right when there’s a series of loud cracking noises. His skin begins to feel much harder, and almost metallic to the touch. Ian is nearly thrown backward with surprise as it grows thicker all around his body. Around his neck, a large metallic plate appears to attach itself out of nowhere, looking like a large plate of armor around his neck and back. But when Ian tugs at it, it feels painful, like it’s part of his own body. His jaw stretches forward, teeth sharpening, and two mandibles grow in on either side of his mouth, growing longer until they go past his chin. His nose flattens against his face and grows longer, narrower. His vision sharpens far beyond what he could see before as a human, and his ears shrink away until only ear holes remain. The metallic armor-like carapace finally reaches his head, covering it. On the sides of his face, two additional growths stick out from his cheeks and grow back. His face appears to be ashen white now, and where his hair used to be a darker grey.

“I…I’m…” Ian stops herself, startled by her voice. It sounds somehow deeper and higher pitched at the same time. “I’m a Turian?” She reaches up to feel her head and realizes that she’s missing the horns that every male Turian has. The realization hits her like a brick. “I’m…a woman?” Ian goes to sit on her bed, drawing her legs closer to him. “What am I going to do now? I have no clothes, I’m a Turian…if I go out there, I’ll probably land get in trouble…” Ian gets up and starts walking around, and she still has trouble walking. Every step is shaky and unsure. She stumbles a few times, getting used to not only digitigrade feet, but only having three digits and large talons. However, each step instills experience and after spending a good hour practicing, she finally is able to walk normally. Ian spends the next few hours contemplating what to do when her phone rings. It’s Marty.

Ian answers the phone, “H-Hello?”

“Hey, get Ian for me, this is Marty at the shops, we got a problem.”

“This is Ian…”

“Don’t play games with me, I know he’s dodging work and if you’re covering for him I’ll nail your ass to the wall too!”

“Just…okay I’ll tell Ian to come down.”

“That’s better.” And Marty abruptly hangs up.

Ian takes a few deep breaths and heads up to the markets. Ian timidly knocks on the locked gate, and it slides open. Marty looks the Turian up and down and sighs.

“I thought Ian was coming down here…and where is your armor? I thought all Turians wore armor all the time.”

“I…it’s me, Marty. Ian. I turned into a Turian. If you don’t believe me, the camera just outside your shop can show you.”

“…Fine, let me call C-Sec…” Marty calls up security and an officer comes by and reviews the security footage with them. Sure enough, right on camera is footage of what happened just hours ago, followed by the scared Turian running off. “Shit…you weren’t kidding!”

“Yeah…can I please go?”

“Yeah, go find some clothes or something…”

Ian gladly leaves and the C-Sec officer follows shortly behind and grabs Ian’s attention.

“Look, I can take you to a group of Turians I know in the ward here…I’ll explain what’s going on and they can help you out, alright?”

“Really? That’d be wonderful! Thank you!”

“Not a problem, just follow me.” The C-Sec officer leads Ian back down to the Lower Ward and to a particular apartment complex. The officer knocks on the door and after a few moments, a female Turian with blue face tattoos answers.

“Oh, hey John—why’d you bring a naked Turian around?”

“Oh, well, can I come inside? There’s a lot to explain.”

“…Fine, just make it quick.”

The officer leads Ian inside, who is looking very shy, and Ian sits down on a couch.

“Alright, here’s the deal. This Turian is Ian. He used to be human, he ate some kebabs and then he just turned into a Turian right in front of everyone in the market.”

“John, I’ve never known you to lie before…” The blue-faced Turian looks down at him, then to Ian, “…but even still that sounds impossible.”

“I’ll show you!” John takes out a holographic tablet and shows the camera footage to what seems to be the lead Turian of the group.

“Damn…I never would have believed it without seeing it myself…” She turns to look at Ian “You poor thing…don’t worry, we’ll help you out. My name’s Salovia. I live here with Furinea and Volunea.”

Ian looks up at Salovia, then to the other Turians. She feels a bit more relaxed but still nervous. “T-Thank you…what happens now?”

“Well…we will have to make you look the part. John, you may leave now.”

“Of course, thanks for taking him in.” John quickly leaves the apartment, leaving the four Turians alone.

“Alright, Ian, first thing is we have to get you some clothes. You seem to be about Furinea’s size…go ahead and take some clothes from her room and we can get you more later.”

Furinea begins to object but realizes that this is the best course of action given the circumstances. Ian heads back and finds a door with Furinea’s name on it and enters. She opens the wardrobe and finds a nice set of black and grey clothes, along with what seems to be a piece of neck armor and shoulder plates with a dark red trim. On the front and back of this armor piece hangs a long, black cloth with red trim on either side of it. After struggling to get the clothes on with her three-digited claws, she looks herself over and smiles. “This is perfect!”

Ian comes back out to the main common room. The other Turians seem to be more relaxed now that Ian is clothed.

“You look wonderful, nice choice in clothes!” Salovia says warmly. She then takes out a small kit and opens it up. Inside is several colored pads of ink, as well as some sort of applicator device. It looks like a pen that has a tank attached to it. “Now then, every Turian needs markings on their face. It represents where they are from and who they are. I think red will look good on you.” Salovia fills the tank with red ink and holds the pen up to Ian’s face. “Close your eyes, now.”

Ian obliges and closes her eyes as Salovia goes to work. Ian is then given a mirror where she sees the markings on her face, red in color and an upward-pointing chevron with another pointy shape in the middle. It actually looks rather similar to Salovia’s own markings.

“There we go…this should identify you as being from the same colony I was in…if anyone questions it, I’ll take care of it so don’t worry about that. Oh, and it also identifies you as belonging to my clan. You don’t want to be alone as a Turian.”

“You’re bringing me into your clan? Oh my gosh, thank you so much! You’re so kind!”

“It’s not a problem, really. Us Turians are all about putting others first…it’s all about the group. And you’re part of that group now. I take it you have a place to live, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve got an apartment not too far from here.”

“Good, feel free to come over anytime…oh and you’ll probably want a new name. Ian doesn’t fit a Turian very well…how about Seicia?”

“Oh, that sounds nice! I like that name!”

“Excellent, that will be your new name now. I’ll pull some strings with C-Sec and get you a new ID card made, as well as get you a key to this place.”

“Really? Thank you again so much!”

“Of course, now then, go ahead and go home and get some rest. Tomorrow, come over again and we can help you learn about being a Turian.”

“Okay! See you tomorrow, Salovia!” Seicia gets up and heads back for her own apartment and lies in bed, smiling. This wouldn’t be so bad after all; she’s got new friends to help her through this. She’ll just call in tomorrow and take off work.

The next day, Seicia calls in sick to work and heads for Salovia’s apartment. They spend the day going over Turian culture and society. Soon enough, Seicia has a good enough idea on how to act as a Turian. She decides to apply for that security job she was originally wanting to get, and the next day she gets accepted! Seicia and her new friends spend the rest of the day celebrating, then Seicia begins her first day at C-Sec academy, fully content with her new life.