The Head of the Collectors
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I am the last Prothean, and I am in hell. My people are now nothing more than puppets, and I spend my days forcing them in our 'sacred duty.' Once we were great, the champions of the galaxy, masters of an empire that boasted over ten thousand years of peace and prosperity. Now we are the Nursemaids in this abomination. Preparing for the birth of another monster that will consume the Universe.
If I could I would tell my people to run, to jump out into vacuum, to press their guns against their heads and pull the triggers. I cannot though. Raizla will not allow it. He...It...They...honestly it doesn't matter what I call it anymore. Raizla, Crafter of Life, Harbinger, the thing that is in my head has many names. I just know it as my jailor. It is what controls me. When I move my claw, it is because It wills it. When I enter into one of my brethren it is on Its desire. There is nothing I do that is not Its will. I wonder why it keeps me as I am, and not change me into the unthinking shells that were my people.
I must know something, or there is something about my body that requires me to remain. I am proud to say that I have been fighting since the beginning of this nightmare. For 50,000 years I have screamed at It, insulted It, pushed and prodded every part of my mind to try and find a way in. It has all been for naught. There was a small victory. For 10,045 years I sang a catchy advertisement jingle I remembered in my youth over and over again. It went into my mind and forcibly removed the memory of that song, along with any other musical knowledge I once had. I must have annoyed him. That thought helped keep me sane.
Now however, I feel despair creeping up on me. The time has come for a new harvest, for the harvest to begin, and the birth of a new Reaper. Raizla contacts Nazara, the other monster that still remains in this galaxy, saying that we are ready to receive. Nazara sends out the signal and then the end begins.
Only...this time it doesn't. There's no signal response from the Citadel! The two Reapers are completely baffled. For four glorious months that try again and again to send the signal. Then for three months they argue with each other as to what just happened. I just laugh and laugh. Then I make a mistake. I wonder idly as to how this could happen.
The answer comes swiftly, I had a relative who worked there after all, Ilos, The conduit, of course. Those clever bastards must have done it.
As soon as the thought emerges I know I have made a horrible mistake. Raizla and Nazara are there in my mind, extracting all that I know of my people's last heroic gasp. Thankfully, I do not know much. It was after all a secret project. However, I do know enough for the two monsters to form a plan to destroy my people's great work. I despair again.
* * *
I am jolted out of my despair by a howl of anguish, the likes I have never heard before in my life. The impossible has happened. Nazara is dead. One of these new species that has reached the stars and the Citadel have killed a Reaper. Raizla refuses to believe it for a full week. Then it despairs and mourns. It had been...I suppose the only word you could use with monsters like these would be 'friends' but I doubt it is the same as I would consider the term. The despair then turns to anger. Nazara made one last transmission before it died, a picture of a ship Normandy. I see the image of that odd looking little craft sending a weapon straight into Nazara's core. Then another picture, of a strange looking creature. Pink skin, only two eyes, no wings, strings coming from the head, poorly advanced muscular structure, and its exoskeleton is artificial. There are other images of similar creatures and other odd looking creatures behind it. Nazara tells Raizla the names of all these strange creatures and there is a surge of hate in each title.
However, that is NOTHING compared to the utter loathing and hatred that comes with the name of the first creature. This, Nazara says, is the one whole murdered it. This is the one who took the final gasp of my people and made it into a battle cry. This is the one that Raizla now loathes beyond all comprehension. The being known as Shepard. That is the name I whisper into Raizla's mind every chance I get. Reminding it of how Nazara and Raizla are failures because of this Shepard. When my people succeeded in hurting these monsters I felt a spark of joy...now I feel hope.
* * *
Raizla makes me watch the Normandy, burn. I see the figure known as Shepard float out into space, struggle, and then lay still. The only victory these Humans, as I have learned their name, have caused is that now they are the species Raizla will 'Ascend.' My hope dies along with that small human.
* * *
The planet is called 'Horizon' by the humans, we called it something else when my people settled there. I forget what it was though. Raizla is taking humans from there to be used to create that thing that is forming below. However, this one is special. This place has one of Nazara's murderers there. Raizla is going to enjoy finding them and then slowly making them pay, before processing them. Things are going like they always are...and then suddenly I notice that there are losses on our side on the other side of the colony.
Raizla takes control and neither he, nor I can believe what we are seeing. It is the one called Shepard! Standing there with the Turian from before and another human is the one person Raizla hates beyond rage. I scream with happiness and I start taunting the monster again. Raizla then dos that horrible act where it invests the body of one of my people. Burning them from the inside out, this was only ever done back before as a last resort, and never like this. Raizla fills the husk of a creature with all the power it can…and it fails! Shepard kills Raizla with total ease. The monster suffers no harm, but I hear in its mind the rage building to something beyond white hot.
Later the Shepard actually walks inside the trap Raizla set. Then escapes with no harm, and knowledge. Raizla is in disbelief, it keeps coming up with rationalizations. Shepard isn't human. Shepard is being helped by other species and is 'cheating.' My people are incompetent. I am incompetent. Never mind that my people, not to mention myself, can do nothing without Raizla's orders.
I just laugh and laugh and laugh at Raizla. No matter how much pain it puts me in, I am still in joy. For now Raizla is learning fear.
* * *
Raizla does not understand fear. I doubt it understands anger really, not as I do at least. Now however, I hear it scream at Shepard. I know that the Reaper curses that name, over and over. This is the being that killed Nazara, that slay the damaged, but sleeping, Coalai, and caused a still-birth of the 'child' Raizla was bringing to life. Reapers have no concept of Divinity, no sense of morality, they only have their will. Now, however, they have a figure of Pure Evil. The name Shepard fills the monsters with emotions and see a creature of destruction. I see the small light my people hurled into the future, built into a white hot pyre. It wasn't for nothing. We mattered. The Protheans mattered.
Raizla shouts nonsense and rage into Shepard's mind. The Cypher translating for it. I wish I could give Shepard a message, but it is not possible. Anyway, what else would I say but 'Thank You,' and that just cannot do to express my gratitude.
"You have failed. We will find another way." Those are Raizla's last words to me, blaming me for its failure, before it departs my body to return to whatever being lives within that hideous shell. I sag with exhaustion, but there is one last thing I must do, and do it quickly. The soul of Shepard's ship, it has talked to my ship's soul before when Raizla set its trap. I send it as much information I can. Most of it is on Raizla's form and of its brethren. Some of it gets through, maybe it isn't as important as the contribution those on Ilos gave, but I want the Divine to know that I did my part when I am called to answer.
I turn and see the approaching fire that will end this monstrosity. I'm too tired to smile or react. I can barely move without Raizla making me move. Here ends the last Prothean mind. Plunged into a fiery death.
I feel relief.