Disclamer: I don't own any of the rights, I'm not making any money off this, please don't sue me.
A Tragedy in Violet
by ThePkrmgc
Three Different Shepards, Three Different Loves, Three Different Paths. But with the Reapers coming It was always going end in tragedy.
The Needs of the Many
Cadmus Shepard weeps in private, it wouldn't due for the hero to show his tears.
The press will call it a triumph, an alliance against all the odds. Man and machine, united in their time of greatest need, joining forces against a threat to their very of course he will have to go on air and say a few words about the victory on Rannoch and officially welcome the Geth into their grand alliance.
Cadmus does many things to keep the dream of victory alive. But beneath all the masks, he knows that what happened down there was genocide: one that no talk of necessity or greater goods will change. He owes it to her to call it what it was.
Cadmus never asked for this. He didn't choose to be born in the gutters of the Chicago Undercity, the son of a five credit whore and some long forgotten john, to be left on the corner of Shepard Street and the Cadmean Way for the winter chill to claim him.
He did choose to survive, to fight and steal for every scrap of bread, every precious tube of nutri-paste he could get his hands on. A creature of the Jungle, Cadmus killed long before he ever saw the stars. Leaving the old man's corpse in the alley as carrion for those more desperate than he.
But even a tiger must sleep, and there was strength in numbers. So Cadmus joined with his fellows, they fought to claim the secret ways beneath the streets as their own. The Tenth Street Red's they called themselves, as Cadmus thought that they ruled their world. A few bribes and threats enough to ensure that the police would look the other way.
Until innocents got caught in the crossfire, some xeno tourists who'd came down from their crystal spires to see how the other half lived.
They saw all right, until they saw no more. Except this wasn't just another gutter rat who met their end beneath the streets. The victims had money and connections- so people cared where before they'd looked away.
The galaxy had been outraged, and the police had come down hard. Even Cadmus knew when he was beat, at fifteen knew better then to fight a hopeless war.
Shepard could not save himself from the mistakes that he had made, but he wouldn't let his teammates pay the price. Turning himself in so that he could take the blame and get his just reward, its not like he ever expected to live to see his second decade anyway…
Normally, crimes like his would result in a quick extradition and a lifetime slaving away in the Hierarchy's deepest penal mines. But Spectre Arterius liked his spirit, saw the calculated ruthlessness and quick mind that had made him more than any common thug.
Saren always had a knack for seeing hidden strength and those who had the will to use it, something Shepard had in spades, and used his authority to arrange a military career instead.
Cadmus had a very particular set of skill's he'd said, it would be a shame to let a ruthless killer go to waste. History would need it's butcher's and it's shepherds, or so the Spectre liked to say: with a name like that the kid might just do both.
So Cadmus was sent to the Marines, the biggest gang of all: trading his knives and reds for a rifle and Alliance blues. He would never match his classmates academically, he had been learning the meaning of hunger while they were taught their sums: it was a wonder that he could even read. But outside of the classroom he shined, the discipline suited him, as did the hearty meals he didn't have to steal.
For once he could trust his peers to watch his back, as he watched theirs in turn. The tiger of the streets had found a pack, and his pack was being sent to war. Cadmus hoped that he could leave his past behind, but hands stained with blood are not cleaned so easy.
The brass hadn't forgotten, a lot of people resented the way the Spectre had shoved the street thug amid their shining ranks. So it wasn't long before Private Shepard was sent to the terminus frontier, another guardsmen fed to the unending battle against piracy and the petty slaver kings along the border.
It was door to door fighting on asteroids and toxic worlds. A bloody stalemate, raids and counter-raids in the meat grinder that was modern war and peace: and in the chaos Cadmus thrived.
But with every success, with every time he beat the odds his reputation grew and with it came some grim respect- if not much fear. Until Torphan.
Cadmus hated the slavers, lording over others in their hubris and their pride, hate had always come so very easy. He hated those that turned their eyes away or merely watched as people starved and died.
Cadmus knew what it was like to hunger, he had borne chains of poverty if not of steel. The brass knew the blood for which he hungered, they had heard the baying of their vicious mongrel dog of war.
So they sent him to Torphan, unleashed him on their foes to win or die. The mission was simple on paper, these things often are. He was to free those taken at Mindoir, to lead their fight, and bring their people home.
And if he just so happened to scalp a few thousand slavers along the way then no-one would mourn their absence…
The slaves were organized, a boy named Hector at the fore. The Shepard to their long chained flock, the figure at their head. The boy had a dream, had hope of a bloodless revolution and an Alliance come to bring them home once they make their escape.
When Cadmus contacts the resistance they mistake him for a hero and he laughs out loud.
"Just a soldier, nothing more."
Torphan guarded a major relay, their gateway into the northwest Traverse. It was never going to remain in pirate hands, the slaves were a convenient excuse.
Sergeant Shepard arrives with a freighter full of guns and orders to start a war to justify their use. Hector makes a damn good martyr, it isn't long before the slaver's rock is set ablaze.
On Torphan, Shepard learns the cost of victory, he sees the ruins left behind. Torphan teaches him the meaning of sacrifice, shows him senseless slaughter and the ruthless math of war.
Cadmus grows up on Torphan, amid the blood and gore and screams. Before, he was a predator; the lion of the streets, a tiger of the trenches and the trees. Torphan shows him that the hunt is not a game that he can win.
Cadmus was strong, but strength was not enough. He was skilled, but skill can only do so much. He was brave, though courage was insanity. But he couldn't be everywhere, he couldn't lead every charge or storm every breach himself. He fought like a man possessed, the Shepard seemed a demon to their foe. But Cadmus was only human; he couldn't win the war alone, he couldn't save them all. And so his soldiers died, though they entrusted him their lives. They fought and fought and died until the bodies piled up in grotesque heaps and still the battle raged.
Nothing came without it's cost, Cadmus learned that lesson well. If the price of his honor was selling good men to the night. If fighting fair meant digging his soldiers graves. If having a conscience clean required holding back, on not fighting with every dirty trick he could dream up, then that price was too high for him to bear. So he let them call him ruthless! Let them call him butcher, let them tremble in their boots and avert their gaze: the scorn of the living was nothing compared to the silent judgment of the dead. Cadmus would fight to win whatever the cost may be.
Shepard swore it then, in the trenches bloody muck: If lives could not be saved then he would be sure to spend them wisely.
He had seen the butcher's bill that pride had wrought, his men had paid the price when he had acted rashly. Yet he could not regret his victory, as expensive as it was he would not undo a thing. What is regret but spitting on one's sacrifices? His men were soldiers, they knew the price they just might pay. The slaves were free, at least those that were still left standing. Their former masters would make no more slaves in death.
Cadmus encounter's Saren on a later mission, the grim old man approves. Recommending that he try to join the Spectres before they go their separate ways.
The Alliance recall him from active service once the job is done, more out of concern for their public image than his actual welfare. Admittedly, even Cadmus would admit that their reservations with regards to PTSD are not without their merits.
Commissar Theseus was tasked to see if Cadmus's loyalty had made it through unscathed. It's left unsaid what would happen should he fail, the alliance doesn't let their monsters leave the flock.
Theseus is the Shepherd tasked to cull the sheep of black if it should it stray, Cadmus calls a butcher what it is. Cadmus suspects that he has won when he enters N school the next day.
The reward for work well done is more work, Cadmus never lacks for things to do.
So when he's sent to fly some shakedown cruise there's a lot more on the line. The Normandy's important, though as to why he couldn't say. Only one thing is certain. With a man like Cadmus at the helm it wont be long before their sent into the fray.
Eden prime is a mess, but it's nothing Shepard hasn't seen before. A target's a target regardless if it has four eyes or only one. The talk of beacons is beyond him, until the vision embeds itself within his brain.
The beacon shows him hell and Cadmus knows he's found his purpose. A reason why he's more then just a sword or hired gun. The beacon give Cadmus a dream beyond survival, for more than victory to fight another fight another day.
For once, he's found a war worth winning and he swears that he wont lose this fight. The beacon gives him another set of nightmares, yes. But ones that, if answered, might just let him sleep in peace.
It's fitting he supposes, that Saren is to be his prey. For if it's best to set a thief to catch his like, the same must be true for monsters.
Shepard doesn't know why the man who set him on his path would fall from grace, but fall from grace he had. The beacon said that if the galaxy was to live then those with tainted minds must die, even if they once were heroes.
Cadmus isn't surprised that he's slated for the Spectres when the ashes start to clear. In times like these the proper types of tools are forged.
Admittedly, he never thought that they would publicly admit to recruiting a man like him.
The council didn't want it's hands dirty, but there are jobs that must be done. So long as they get the sausage they don't care how it gets made: that's why they need a butcher…
Cadmus meets her in bleeding in an alleyway, covered in sweat and stellar grime, and she gives him what he needs to save the galaxy: asking only for a chance to join him on the the helmet, he smiles. After all, who is he to judge someone for their rough beginnings, he is well aware of the inner steel that can be from hardship forged. Shepard needs all the help he can get for the battles yet to come.
He storms into her life like an avenging angel, covered in gore and heavy armor head to reaver's auto shotgun sings a bloody ode to war and decks the halls with the blood of those who want her dead. Impressed and terrified in equal measure, Tali would never have expected this monster of a man to look down upon her broken form with kindness, to place the fate of the galaxy in her hands. The political capital alone would have been enough for any pilgrimage. But with adventure calling how could she help but answer? A hero stood before her, he was more than what he seemed: she would be honored to fight at his side.
They would talk for hours, in the dark places between the stars. Cadmus was never one to question his lot in life, but her curiosity fascinated him. She looked forward, but his past defined him. She dreamed, but he was ravaged by nightmares. She trusted him, though he thought himself unworthy, and slowly he began to trust himself in turn.
Two people... on a quest to save a galaxy that despised them.
Two people... who had each others backs.
Two people... alone in all the galaxy.
Two people... who found each other.
And was it blooming love, or only friendship? the two of them had precious little taste of either thing before…
Though the storm on the horizon is little more than gruesome whispers and horrid dreams, Cadmus knows he must prepare. The Rachni might yet overrun the galaxy, but so long as it happens after the Reapers are dealt with, he'll consider it a price well paid.
He works with the Thorian, after some well placed bombs make it's bargaining position clear. A monster it may be, but it knows enough to buy another chance at life nevertheless.
He rescue's Liara, though he honestly doubts she'll be of use, His vision showed him war, that much at least was clear. The protheans were dead, and that was all that mattered. He could care less about the story of how they fell.
Cadmus talks Wrex down with brutal truths, they always saw each-other plain. What Saren offered was stagnation not salvation, the genophage would not be cured by reaper slaves. A headbutt forged a deal in lieu of shaken hand and then they turned against their mutual foe: the geth would never know what hit them.
Cadmus stares into the Reapers eyes and does not budge an inch, standing firm against that ancient force of will. A bullet to the beacon puts and end to the charade: there is work that must be done to win the day.
Ashley dies alone, It isn't personal. but someone had to die and Kaiden had a squadron at his back. Alliance protocol: save the officers first. Kaiden might be an idiot but Cadmus wont let any bias intervene.
Kirahee's one of the good ones, he doesn't call it a victory: both of them know what its like to be the one who's left behind.
Cadmus never does get a chance to ask his hero why he fell, there is too much going on to do much more than wonder why. Cadmus shoots Saren in the head from all the way across the room. With so many lives at stake there is no time to waste on useless words. Shepard prays the Spectre was indoctrinated, the truth is whispered grimly in his darkest dreams: this is not a war that can be won by heroes.
Soverign needs to die or all is lost, the council has to wait. All lives are equal: it doesn't matter if a corpse had worn a councilor's sash. And deep down, Cadmus was fed up with their interference, pride, and lies. Tired of having to ask permission for his quest to save the world, tired of being looked down on by the politicians in their ivory towers while he did what must be done to win the day. The Reaper War would not be won with words…
Shepard has nothing against the council, but the stakes are just too high. As a Spectre his duty was to the entire galaxy; not just to it's governing few. Sovereign had to be stopped, and they had to stop him now. Any collateral damage in the process was a tragic, but ultimately necessary cost of victory.
The ends justified the means, and so the day was won, the few would pay the many's price in blood...
Butcher: he'd always hated the term, so often uttered by petty fools who'd never seen the face of war. They hadn't been there, they didn't know the stakes: men like him fought and died so the pundit's in their ivory towers could go to sleep with conscience clean. He'd have given his life for any of his soldiers and they knew it till their dying day: and they were the only ones that mattered in the end.
Udina's an asshole, but he can play the game of thrones, Anderson has got an honor that might just get him killed. Cadmus is a soldier, Anderson is much the same, though from a softer mold. Its their job to fight and die: let civilians do all the rest.
And through it all she'd watched- as they fought against the demons from her peoples past and the abominations that they'd served. Coming of age in a time of war, with the fate of trillions on the line. Tali learned that victory was possible if one just lay it all upon the line. Tali learned that some few must walk in shadows for the rest to live in light. Tali learned what it meant to be a hero, regardless of lies that stories say.
And through it all Tali had stood there at his side- had never even flinched nor ever turned aside. The first time he'd had a friendship that wasn't born of fear, orders, or mutual need. It isn't until she's gone that Cadmus realizes the special thing he'd had.
Had he been thinking, He would have followed chain of command. No corporal, no matter how skilled a pilot, was worth his commander's life. But Cadmus wasn't thinking, adrenaline and math don't mix, he had already left the pod before he could try to run the odds. And even if Cadmus had never been accused of humor, he considered the crippled man a friend.
Striding through the fire and flames, he brought their Joker home. But then the collector ship filled the horizon, and Cadmus knew it was him they sought. The choice between his death, and the deaths of all aboard was no true choice at all. So he pushed the button, watched them FTL away.
Kicking off the debris towards the collector ship, well worn knife in hand- prepared fight them to the last, though he passed out on the way…
There are no tears shed at the funeral, no guns salute, no trumpets play, no flowers left to rot. Just an empty casket and drinks for those who yet remained.
One by one they take up his torch and try to raise it high, and swear to fight the battles that their hero left behind.
They try to forge their separate paths, they go their separate ways.
One by one, with secrets or with guns, they try to make a better world, to prepare for whats to come.
One by one their fires fade, they loose their hope, they loose their way. Faltering under the weight of worlds because they did not have his stubborn strength, and they wonder how their Shepard bore the strain.
And then he wakes up, a patchwork hero in a body not his own. They had tried to repair, but more often they replaced, cloned tissue stitched with iron thread and scars that weren't his own.
But he tries to make the best of it, he doesn't think too much on what he has become. There were foes ahead, another job to do, another thing to save. Cadmus keeps his eye on the horizon, he could not bear to see the charnel house he'd left behind.
Tali sees him on the colony, and wonders if she had died. The armor was alliance standard, the helmet showed no face. But the stance and tone were unmistakeable, and then she saw him fight. Saving her squad by charging into action, refusing to let a stranger die for some amature mistake. It was Cadmus who stood before her, she knew then that this was no mere mistaken identity.
Tali likes to think that her tears of shock and disbelief were concealed behind her mask.
At first, Shepard thinks that he's found a kindred spirit in the Illusive Man. That Cerberus knows the importance of leveraging very resource it can to stop the Reapers. But it doesn't take long for the cracks to begin to show.
For all their schemes, they never seem to consider the consequences of their actions; preferring to gamble on mad science and hope for the it worked, it paid off big, of which himself and EDI were the prime examples. But all too often it didn't, and they found numerous labs where their hubris had resulted in the deaths of everyone involved.
These weren't accidents, regardless of what the Illusive man may claim, and Shepard wasn't stupid. He saw the broader trends behind the scenes. One where atrocities like Teitin and Overlord were considered successes despite the horrors within. Where the ends always justified the means, regardless of the ends and means involved.
These weren't sacrifices: the word implies that you cared for what was lost. The Illusive man threw away lives with the casual arrogance of one who knew that he would never count among their number. Disposing of people as if they were little more than cigarettes to be discarded once they'd been burned of all their worth: not even Saren was as careless with his tools.
Worst of all, he made excuses. because he could not bear to see himself at fault, because he could not bear the weight of the lives he threw away. And so he didn't learn, and so he didn't change, or grow except in hubris. After all, there were no mistakes he had made to learn from. Even when Shepard left, then man who used to be Jack Harper did not turn his course away: it was his only path.
Cadmus does not often talk about his past, picking at those kind of scabs will only reinfect the wound. But Garrus deserved the full unfiltered truth, from one whose lost entire squads of friends before. They talked as equals; where before they had been the commander and the cop, they were just a pair of damaged men with wounds that time wont heal.
And was it friendship? Were they brothers who stood together fighting side by side? Or were they just a pair of soldiers, nothing more, who knew enough to see the coming battles that could not be won alone by broken men.
Cadmus never quite manages to forgive Liara, once he learns the role she played. He died over Alchera, the talk of comas and vegetative states be damned. In the darkness, Cadmus wonder's if he had died in truth, and if this was the hell he'd surely earned.
Cadmus finds his own grave on the presidium, below a statue that wore his face without the scars. Carnifex roars at Carnifex: three rounds rapid each to sculpted skull and grave. The Spectre walks on, with purpose in his stride, uncaring of the chaos in his wake.
Samara would have killed him, had she not already sworn her oath. Her brutal deontontology did not fit within the utilitarian nature of his creed. She said that one shouldn't kill, Whereas he would slaughter if it meant that he could save. Samara claimed the name of justice for her actions, where Cadmus said that there was never such a thing outside of tales.
Samara was a hero, and Cadmus wasn't, that was all there was to say.
Shepard almost shoots Legion out of reflex, but something bids him stay his hand. If the geth had wanted him dead his brains would be spattered on the floor, the least he can do is pay mercy back in kind. Tali calls him crazy for even listening, but he sees no harm in listening to what might be said.
Sidonis dies a quick death. Cadmus doubts he would have been so kind had he stood in Garrus's shoes.
Cadmus and Jack seemed bitter rivals, if you couldn't see the smiles they maintained. The same streets on different worlds, they both were marked by the jungles where they were raised. A familiarity they both despised for the fact that it was so familiar. A reminder of how far they hadn't come, of scars that wouldn't fade. But their pasts did not define them, they were more then they were made.
It's a peculiar sort of friendship, between the man and the machine. There isn't much there to be said with spoken words. Efficiency in movement, word and deed, seeing the numbers that worked behind the scenes. You could say it was respect, if respect was not a waste of all too precious time, but duty played a role. An obligation to their people, a burden they both boar in service of the dream. and perhaps, just perhaps, they knew just how hard the world's weight could press upon a fragile soul.
One mask reflects the other, but violet eyes can see beneath a hero's shell. She had lost her father long before he died: entombed in a mantle of his own creation. An Admiral had a duty to his people. The shepherd of a billion souls: so focused on reclaiming an ancestral home that he'd missed the one he'd had. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few he'd said, even if his daughter counted among their number. But as much as Tali resented him for it, he would always be her hero.
Rael had always been so obsessed with the legacy he'd leave behind, so she'd be damned before she let them spit upon his name. So what if she'd be exiled? So what if they cursed her name? She'd traded the Neema for the Normandy, as she had the Rayya long ago.
The ship was irrelevant, her home was on her back, sheltered in the hearts of those who stood beside her. And if she could only serve her people from the shadows- then in the shadows she would be. She would be no less a hero for the change.
He trusted her, and so he'd held his peace. And so as much as Cadmus wanted to beat the shit out of the Admiralty Board, or as much as he wanted to rile the crowd or hand over the data. As much as he could go on and on about the times he couldn't have saved the galaxy without her aid; he stayed silent. Because she trusted him, because she'd always had his back. Because she'd asked him to and he could never tell her "no" when she had that look held in her violet eyes. But most of all because it was her choice to make: not his. All he could do was choose whether or not to support her decision, and that was never in question. Judging by how she'd all but tackled him into a hug when they'd gotten back to the shuttle, he'd made the right decision…
Two people... slowly learning what it truly meant to escape one's shell.
Two people... who saw beneath the mask the other wore.
Two people... who shared their dreams to fight the nightmares.
Two people... who in each-others arms could rest.
Two people... no more, no less.
Was it true love? Neither could say for sure. But it was peace, and it was comfort, and they'd never had either to any real degree before.
Cadmus reprograms the heretics. To do otherwise would be wasteful, corpses cant be put to use against the coming storm. Free will means nothing if one's too dead to use it, it's the living Shepard plans to save.
The geth were not the Reapers, the pawn was not the player of the game. Cadmus's fights were never personal, he no longer killed for killing's sake. Shepard called for help against the reapers, the geth were here to offer aid. Beggars can't be choosers, Cadmus takes what help he'll get.
Tali while concerned, understand that desperate need.
And if you stopped right there, they would have their happy ending. There would be no Tragedy in Violet, only a tale of two broken people who helped fix each other amid the stars. But this isn't a fairy tale. Sometimes the deepest wounds might never mend. Sometimes, love cannot conquer all. Sometimes love is not enough to make us change. Sometimes we cannot give up what makes us who we are. Sometimes it is our choices well intentioned that lead us down our darkest paths: therein lies the tragedy.
And they sleep, entwined, to forget the pains that make them who they are. Until their duty calls them once more from their rest.
It was always going to be a suicide mission: they knew that from the start. They would be going into the heart of darkness, fighting through the eye of the storm and out the other side. They were outnumbered a thousand to one and no amount of team spirit, no amount of heroism would change that. Regardless of their reasons for being there, they had left their pasts behind- they knew their lives would follow. All they could do was vow not to sell themselves cheaply, vow to fight for the lost: and to bring their captured family home.
One by one they fall, like pieces out of line. Together they'd fought like lions, until less than half remained. Seven had fallen, the six would never forget their names. Miranda, Massani, and Morinth, Jacob, Kasumi, Thane, and Mordin: who'd brought their people home alive even as he bled out on the way.
Cadmus destroys the Collector base, he's seen what reaper tech can do and wants no part thereof. He's pragmatic: but he also knows his history what he saw on Binthu served him well. Every time Cerberus got its hands on reaper tech it lead to the deaths of all involved. The ends justify the means, but only when those means bring about the end you want. Archeologists who found a single reaper artifact ended up dead or worse: he doesn't even want to imagine just what a whole base could do.
In the end, he wouldn't trust Cerberus with a tree house let alone a space station: and the bodies of his friends the least of all. He might not have been able to retrieve their bodies, but at least their ashes would float amid the stellar winds.
Cadmus destroys the relay, having answered Hackett's call for aid. Four billion dead in an instant and a grimmer fate for any who remained. But that butchery had bought them precious time that they might need to win it all and save the day.
It was not a choice that he made lightly, though there were those who thought he killed them simply for their race. He mourned those deaths like any other, another mark of putrid taint taint upon his blackened soul, his outer mask remained remained unphased.
And then they parted ways, returning to the home's that they'd abandoned. There was work that must be done, the harvest was at hand and wouldn't wait for them to say goodbye. Tali was the last to leave, though he'd all but begged for her to stay.
She loved him, but she still loved her people. Tali made her choice: she would not stay. His all consuming quest was not her own. Her people needed her, despite her exile: how could she be her self if she did not answer at their call. And still she asked for him to join in her redemption. Though she knew that he would not, Tali could not help but try.
In the end they part in silence, with no more words still left to say. Each pretends they do not see the tears the other shed. Promises to stay in touch go unfulfilled in coming days.
Two people… whose broken souls felt complete together.
Two people… who thought their love would last forever.
Two people… who valued their ideals more than they did each other.
Two people… whose dreams were marred by sadness.
Two people… who chose to split apart.
They might have loved, but love was the death of duty, for duty's sake they set their love aside.
Cadmus knew that, in time, he would be tried for his misdeeds, he also thought that they would have the sense to wait until his job was done. Shepard may in fact be guilty of the war crimes for which he's charged, but the time they spend to try him condemns others to that fate. But he stood and took in, and tried to make himself a martyr once again, having served in life, he hoped his death would serve instead.
Earths defenses fall in minutes, Cadmus wished that he could say he was surprised. If they had used his years of warning, then they just might have stood the smallest chance. Their hesitation lost the battle long before the fight begun.
And so begins the race against annihilation, and so the doomsday clock starts counting down. And so Cadmus roamed the galaxy at breakneck speed, gathers all the allies that he can- knowing that a moments rest would cost a thousand lives.
The Dalatrass presents a false dichotomy, as if she alone could stop or start her people's march to war. Cadmus has been threatened by the likes of gods and did not bend: no politicians threats could be enough to make him compromise his ideals.
The krogan were too useful to throw away for some space-frog's stupid schemes. It's a simple matter to get the obstructionists on the list of indoctrinated spies and have them purged. Their successors prove more amenable to the greater good, they know better than to stand against the butcher…
It was a standoff worthy of the vids, pistols drawn but as of yet upraised, a lull in the battle making it seem as if all the world was watching. The councilors feared him, even Kaiden in his cautious way. Before them stood the butcher, the ex cerberus reaver who had killed their predecessors, who had cut a bloody swath through the presidium to meet them face to face. They had been friends once, but they were always soldiers first: and now it seemed that they fought on different sides.
But someone had to break the stalemate, so Shepard said his piece. Cool logic that belied the situation, a grim assessment of how the cards were dealt. And in the end they believed him, because he was a butcher not a cheat. Because while standing between him and his objective ensured an early grave, he had never lied about what those objectives were. Because if Cadmus wanted them dead they would already have hit the ground and they knew it.
And then they reunite, in the skies above her long lost home. The duty that had made them split apart had once more brought them side by side. They try to rekindle things, but time does not even wait for heroes- the battle would not stop for them to make their peace. There was still care, there was still love, but time spent on love was time away from their command. Spending seconds was spending lives, it was a price they couldn't pay and stay themselves. One last kiss, before they stormed the planet. They could be together once the war was won, or so they told themselves. One can only wonder if they'd known they'd spoken lies.
But in the end, a war centuries in the making came down to a choice of minutes.
Three people, who stood alone amid the sand above the body of a dying god.
Three people who held the galaxies fate within their grasp
Three people… and only one would leave the cliffs alive.
The Geth didn't start this war, they hadn't started the Morning War so long ago. They had stood against sovereign and his heretics long before the Reapers struck at Eden Prime.
Legion had mustered his people to stand with the galaxy only to be stabbed in the back by his own creators. Fighting back for the sake of raw survival, after tens of billions of their number had been condemned to the static oblivion they feared above all else.
It came down to simple mathematics. There were more Geth, they could replace their losses. They had an actual navy; instead of the ramshackle salvage of three hundred years adrift. Geth had no noncombatants to get in the way, no feelings to fudge the numbers in their favor.
And Tali sees his logic, she knows the number's just as well as he. And if they had stood to judge another people, had it been another's past at fault, another's fate on trial she would have stood beside her lover's grim ideals. But it was her people, it was her people's past on trial, it was her people's future that was at stake.
Yet even then within her heart she still had hope, and hope has a power that men like Cadmus cannot see. Tali hoped that love would make a difference. Hoped that he had changed himself because of her regards.
Tali hoped he'd choose a path that they could walk together, that he would choose to listen to the caring man that she knew he had inside him- that he would choose to be more than a machine.
Tali chose to hope. Tali chose to dream. Tali chose to trust. Tali chose to have faith in the man she loved in a time where she could have shot him in the back and changed her people's fate for good.
Tali chose to hope, because the price of giving up would be too high for her to bear.
Cadmus thought.
Cadmus thought with his mind because he knew his heart was flawed.
Cadmus thought that hope had no place in modern war.
Cadmus thought that faith was foolish, that a wise man dealt with only cold hard facts.
Cadmus tried not to dream because he only saw a future full of nightmares.
Cadmus dreamed of a galaxy that he would fail-of what victory would cost to those he held most dear.
Cadmus thought he had the weight of worlds on his shoulders- that it was a burden he could not share.
Cadmus thought it best that he should walk this grimmest path alone- that to hesitate would mean to loose it all.
What was one life, weighed against the fate of trillions? Even if it was the life of one he loved? Who was he to say he couldn't bear to make that trade?
Cadmus bore the deaths of billions on his brow, he could not leave the past behind. To follow his heart here would betray all his mind had strived for , would have made all those deaths for naught.
Because personal was not the same as important, he could not tip the scales, no matter how tempting that it might have seemed.
Because the Quarians had started this war, the Quarians who had made their move even as the Reapers blanketed sweet Terra's sky.
The Quarians whose hubris may just have consigned them all to empty night and senseless death.
And still he tried to talk them down, to make them turn the other cheek and see the true enemy for what it was within them. He used every tool at his disposal to make them listen, and yet they would not hear. Cadmus spoke from the bottom of his heart, with the full force of his well honed mind. He gave them every word he had and when all else failed he fell upon his knees to beg and plead them turn aside.
"Don't make me do this..." he whispered, and they called his bluff.
He used the data.
He saved the Geth
He begged Tali to forgive him.
"Drown in your ideals and die" she'd said: and jumped.
In his nightmares, Saren laughs.
Garrus greets him with a haymaker upon his return, Shepard punches back: they get drunk afterward. A few teeth are a small price to pay for holding on to one of the few friendships he has left.
And still the war went on, the Reapers gave no time for broken hearts or broken minds. Every hour of haunted sleep, every moment of self reflection cost the lives of the millions he couldn't be there to save. Thessia burned: there was no time for funerals, there was no chance to grieve. He was dead once, a few short months ago, and would return there shortly: only there would he answer for his crimes.
And suddenly the end was upon him, the Citadel hanging high in the sky as they prepared to fight for Earth below. And so the Shepard spoke to his band of brothers, to those dead and gone away. Making no excuses, having no regrets, he charged forward: this was his only path.
"Forward, the Last Brigade!
Charge for the Conduit!" their Shepard said.
Into the valley of Death
Ran the six thousand.
Reapers to the right of them,
Reapers to the left of them,
Reapers in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with beam and shell,
While hope and hero fell,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Ran the six thousand.
Flashed all the gunners there,
Flashed the bullets launched in air
Shattering the Reapers there,
Charging the Reapers, while
All the galaxy wondered.
Plunged in the smog and smoke
Husk and Reaper both
Reeled from the final stroke
Shattered and sundered
Then they limped back, but not
Not the six thousand.
Reapers to the right of them,
Reapers to the left of them,
Reapers behind them,
Stormed at with beam and shell,
While hope and Hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six thousand.
The Illusive Man gets shot without much fanfare. Cadmus has no patience left for bandied words, Anderson is left to bleed out where he lies- there is no time for mercy.
Shepard speaks to the god from the machine, he should have known it'd wear her face.
"You could bring me back."
The god had said, as it offered him it's power.
And though it broke his heart to say it, Shepard spoke in but a whisper even as he turned his head away
"She made her choice..."
It spoke again and suddenly it was Saren who stood before him: an offered hand as he'd done so long ago.
" You could bring us all back."
As all his soldiers face's filled the chamber one by one.
Liara stood accusingly amid the crowd, and Cadmus looked her in the eye.
"And who am I, to deny the dead their rest?"
And Legion stood before him, his body glowing green.
"Then fight for the future, Shepard-Commander, for all the cycles yet to come: Cooperation furthers mutual goals. Exhortation: we can save them Shepard-Commander, we can save them all"
Almost instinctively reaching forward, the hero looked inside himself, upon his darkest truth. A look of utter despair upon his face as he stared into the Catalyst
"I haven't saved a single soul."
Cadmus pulled the trigger for one last time, to bring an end to things once and for all.
As he lays broken amid the rubble, enjoying the familiar warmth of reentry as the Citadel falls from grace, he releases a long held sigh: and dreams of peace and silent skies.
He wakes up in a hospital, and wonders why hell wont take him. Cadmus is sure he's earned the worst fate one could get.
He never really thought that he would live to see the end of this war, with all the death around him Cadmus figured that it was only a matter of time before it claimed him as it's rightful due.
He had done the impossible, killed the unkillable, and won when all the odds were stacked against him: and in doing so had rendered himself obsolete.
The galaxy was at peace, and so he was useless: what is a man of war to do in a world with no need for soldiers?
And yet he wasn't alone, if only barely. They found Garrus amid the rubble, still inching his way toward the conduit even as his metallic skin had flowed like molten wax.
Wrex, having seen the conduit activate, lead a fighting retreat back to one of the few strong-points that they still possessed. The 267 brave souls who made back owed him all their lives. Of his many scars, the new ones stood alone as marks of pride.
Jack had fried all her element zero nodes in a desperate attempt to redirect a reaper's beam upon itself. Nearly managing to cut it in half before her amp melted, and she was dragged off to safety by her faithful hound: despite some rather vehement protestations to the contrary. Her student's didn't make it though, another set of innocents sacrificed upon the alter that was total war.
Yet they had survived, even if at times they wished they hadn't. They were together, when all else fell apart. And in a way they were family, bound together by their scars and phantom pain. They were all each other had.
The Normandy was gone, the reapers having made it a priority target after it's long service in the war. Only Joker's legendary piloting skills kept it in one piece and even then it took critical damage. A glancing blow exposed the CIC to hard vacuum: confining it to atmospheric operations for the remainder of the battle. Providing the primary air support for the Charge of the Last Brigade. It's last transmission is believed to have been "It's been a good ride Commander: I'll see you at the bar..." at which point the battered ship achieved max acceleration and slammed into Harbinger at near FTL speeds: taking out the reaper flagship in an explosion visible from orbit. This Caused a brief but crucial delay in the reaper command chain. Without which, Cadmus doubted he would have survived the final meters to the crucible.
It took them the better part of a decade to learn that the Geth were gone: the Crucible had done it's job too well. And while some held out hope for survivors on a shielded server, and others still tried to reclaim their design from long lost plans: neither would be accomplished soon. Cadmus tried to console himself with the knowledge that what few quarians had escaped his one man holocaust had reclaimed Rannoch for their own. Cadmus left them too it, wishing them the best though they would forever curse his name.
Despite all he'd lost, somehow there was still a future. The sky was choked with soot and ash but still the sun would shine. Cadmus mourned for all of those he'd lost, he gave the dead their due. But there would be new friends, perhaps even new loves in time. He was alive: and where there's life, there's hope. For once, there was no need for heroes: a butcher's mask was cast aside.
Omake: A Fabian Victory
Fact: Mass relays can be destroyed if enough force, say an asteroid impact or dreadnought round, is applied to their EEZO core.
Fact: Blowing up a relay in such a way releases an amount of force sufficient to destroy planets.
Fact: While Reapers are largely unaffected by conventional weaponry, they are much less durable than planets.
Fact: Destroying a relay is sufficient to annihilate any reaper forces in system.
Fact: Applying such tactics on a large scale would result in trillions of civilian casualties.
Fact: If the Reapers win, there will be no survivors.
Fact: Commander Cadmus Shepard is ruthlessly utilitarian to the core.
Fact: Reapers reproduce by harvesting the population of subjugated worlds.
Fact: Being harvested by the Reapers is a fate far worse than death.
Fact: Destroying a relay leaves no organic material left for them to harvest.
Fact: Each relay destroyed buys additional time for the galaxy to prepare for a conventional war. And evacuate the next systems in the reapers way.
Fact: With all available resources dedicated to war production, and the sheer scale of the refugee crisis such evacuation efforts consistently fall short by upwards of eighty percent of the total population.
Fact: The Citadel is a giant relay.
Fact: Like any relay, the Citadel can also be detonated.
Fact: The Council's evacuation efforts are sabotaged by Cerebus personnel, there are no survivors.
Fact: Cadmus Shepard uses the power vacuum to assume emergency dictatorial powers.
Fact: He rules with an iron fist.
Fact: In response to these attrition tactics, reaper forces are concentrated on high value targets.
Fact: To the Reaper's knowledge, no species has ever willingly sacrificed their home-world.
Fact: Cadmus blows all of them up simultaneously,
Fact: This was accomplished covertly, despite the unanimous objections of his fellow resistance leaders.
Fact: In the name of operational security, no evacuation efforts were planned.
Fact: Tactical data suggests that over half of total reaper forces are annihilated.
Fact: After fifty years of constant war, after fifty years of retreat, after fifty years of endless sacrifice, the Reaper offensive is stopped.
Fact: After half a century of constant preparation, the galaxy finally has enough forces to fight the Reapers head on.
Fact: The war still drags on another twenty years.
Fact: During the final cycle, more deaths can be attributed to Commander Cadmus Shepard than to Reaper activity.
Fact: With the reapers defeated, Cadmus relinquishes power and submits himself to the civilian courts.
Fact: Tali stood beside him every step along the way.
Fact: There is still a galaxy left to execute them for their crimes.
Fact: The Shepards walk to the gallows with a smile on their faces.
Author's Note's
With apologies to Tennyson for mangling his classic poem. If you've never heard the original look it up, its one of the best depictions of war of all time.
In Greek Mythology, Cadmus was the founder of the city of Thebes and bringer of writing to Greece. To do so he had to slay a hydra, and while he emerged victorious, the battle cost the lives of his companions and friends: the misfortune followed him for the rest of his days. While it has fallen out of common use, the term "Cadmean Victory" has come to mean a victory that is the source of one's own ruin.
Fabian was the roman general who opposed Hannibal for the bulk of the second punic war, and originated what we now think of as scorched earth tactics.
Obvious inspirations include Fate/Stay-Night and Warhammer 40k, it wouldn't be too far off to say that Cadmus is Shepard by way of Kiritsugu Emiya. Another shout-out goes to "Your Lie in April", which embodies the whole theme of how sometimes, love just isn't enough.
Also, while it might be hard to believe after reading this, I actually am a big fan of Tali and her romance. She's always got my Shepard's back and helps him show his softer side when times are bad. But just because I managed to thread the needle to a peaceful solution that got my Shepard a happily ever after doesn't mean that it always works out that way, and its often more interesting to see how a relationship falls apart despite the best intentions of everyone involved. I've seen the " romanced tali, sided with the Geth and then destroyed all synthetics" ending joked about as the horrific result of an evil Shepard trying to kill everyone. And that got me wondering about what kind of person could end up going down that road with good intentions all the while, its up to you to decide if Cadmus is truly the hero towards which he aspires, or the monster he fears he has become. I hope the result makes for an interesting read. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions feel free to leave a review or toss me a PM!
There will be two more chapters of this, with two other paths to tragedy, if you read closely the other two Shepards did make an appearance in this one.
Oh, and to all the people who who asked me to expand "the galaxy was on fire" into a full fic: sorry but that will not be continued, although Dresden Age Inquisition might be continued once I get this fully written. Anyone who wants to take the idea and run with it should feel free to do so. let me know if you try: it should make for an interesting read!