103 Interlude Toph

"Clan Jorgal will never bow to some clanless upstart!" Some dressed up chump tried to tell me as I discreetly covered him in a dim purple field.

"Kil..." Was all he got out before a jagged earth spike jutted out of the ground launching him at terminal velocity into the men and walls behind him. Instantly turning them all into a red smear on the cavernous walls. The hall fell silent as I stepped up onto an elevated platform.

"I'm Toph, the leader of Clan Beifong. The clan you all now belong to. If anyone's got a problem with that you better have the quads to say it now."

"You bet..." "There is..." "I'm going..." " Right here..." "This cave..." "We're not..." Huh, only six this time. I wonder if they've already heard of me or if my opening has gotten better. Or I guess they could just be weakling cowards. I force the six of them into stasis and then launch myself from target to target using consecutive biotic rushes. Delivering a shotgun double tap as I arrive at each dissident. I finish with a final charge back to where I started.

"Anyone else!?" I roar out hiding a slight pant in my breath. This time they stay silent. "Good. Men, you know what to do. A feast to the growing strength of the clan"

"Yes, Clan leader!" They parrot back rushing around trying to make themselves useful.

Ugh, how did everything go so wrong? I only came to Tuchanka to collect a few biosamples. Which is the only thing that's gone right since I've gotten here. It wasn't hard to find a handful of samples and broadcast the data back to the Vault. They told me that adjusting the nuclear fallout recovery tech would be simple. I don't know what an Arizona is, but if it's a near-perfect match for Tuchanka, I'm fine never knowing. I've already used some of the modified G.E.C.K's they sent me in my new territory, but it's still too soon to notice any results.

Everything that's happened after that has just been one problem after another. It started when I wandering the planet by myself. Two Krogan men found me and decided I made an excellent target to kidnap. After they realized their mistake they started blabbing all about how their clan operates by snatching all the female Krogans they can, and I couldn't very well leave that alone.

I soon found myself in charge of a group of captured female Krogan and a few of the men who "weren't that bad". Which is also when I found out Tuchanka is a complete shit hole. I've seen Earth Kingdom slums nicer than this home planet of an advanced space-faring race. People mostly live in caves and ruins. There's almost no water. All the food is either prepackaged and imported or recently dead vermin. The clans are always at each other's throats and never do anything productive. These people have completely given up on making their lives better in any way.

I started to set up a basic settlement just to set these people I rescued on the right path. Then we got attacked. I defeated them and incorporated some of the more agreeable ones into my settlement. This happened repeatedly the only outlier was the Varet Clan, the entirely female clan, that joined peacefully by choice. The more people that joined and the larger the clan got, the more apparent to me that I couldn't leave.

I originally planned to use a genophage cure to bring back hope and set up a functioning society. I quickly realized that wasn't going to work, and that the baby murderers on the Council may have a point. If I suddenly gave away a cure, assuming the citadel didn't immediately come to kill us all, we wouldn't have earned the cure. Not that we haven't suffered because we have, but it would be like giving a child throwing a tantrum what it wants. The reason the council used the genophage in the first place is that we were a society based on endless consumption, conquest, and violence. Our culture has regressed since then. We used to have a government, scientists, and even a little bit of culture. Now we only have violence and hatred for every other species in the galaxy. If I just hand out this cure they'll either kill each other to extinction or try their best to restart the Krogan Rebellions.

Of course, I dream my entire life about becoming what I am now, a massive unstoppable warrior, but now that I have a chance to live out that life I'm being dragged back to my old life harder than ever. My father would have never given me the responsibilities of running our family estate. He probably would have married me off and then had my husband run it. I ran away from that life to avoid all of that. I ran away as far as I could and then further still. Yet, somehow I find myself in a position where despite having everything I want I'll have to live the life I've run away from. What is a clan chief if not a noble, and once I become the only clan chief I'll basically be a Queen. Sure, there will be a fair amount of violence to get to that point, but also too much bureaucracy and diplomacy. It'll be Krogan diplomacy, but still.

As tempted as I am to just leave, I can't. They've had hundreds of years to fix some of their problems, but everything has just gotten progressively worse for them. I don't have it in me to just abandon them to their fate. The Krogans are too badass to go extinct in such a sad and pathetic way.

"Clan Leader!" Oh, look at that another problem.