AN: Yet another short story I wrote up to entertain myself, and maybe some other people.
Each chapter can be treated as an individual look into the setting. Expect a non-chronological progression from chapter to chapter. Tone, themes and narration may also change from each chapter, so feel free to make a request. It may just inspire me to do something else completely :D Each chapter should be able to be read on its own as well, because... well, contiguous story-plotting is hard. Much more interesting to just get right into the random.
But first!
I do not own any of the Bioware properties or characters depicted in this story. And as much as I wish otherwise, I'm not getting paid for this.
Right, let's get started!
The Shepard Gospel
Shepard 303: World-Shattering Words
The Prophet stood before the Wise, his eyes and face ablaze with holy light. In their gilded halls, the four great pillars of the world looked down upon our lord, and listened carefully to his words. He told them of the storm that was to come, the destruction that would rain down upon them all as the Demons returned to claim their lives. He told of those who had already fallen to their onslaught, the holy martyrs who died so that we may live.
When he had finished speaking, they gave their answer to his pleas for aid.
One by one, the wise men and women of the Council denied our saviour.
"You come before us with no proof." Said the Cunning One. "I do not believe your words."
"You come before us with tales of destruction." Said the Kind One. "I will not believe in so cruel a fate."
"You come before us after forsaking your own people." Said the Ambitious One. "I cannot believe in you."
"You come before me with lies." Said the Fool, who had spoken against our lord from the beginning and damned them all with his hubris. "You are banished from this place."
And the Prophet bowed his head, and knew that he could not sway them from their course.
"Then I will leave you in peace." He told them. "I will take with me the chosen people, those who would listen. For I am their Shepherd, and I will not forsake them."
And so it was that the Prophet left the Citadel, bringing with him the Six Peoples, and never returned.
As he promised, he has never forsaken us. Even as he dies he is born anew, so that even time is laid low by our Saviour. He is the light around which our worlds revolve.
For The Shepherd is our guide to the safe places of the galaxy, and it is only through his holy judgement that we prevail against the Demons of the Void.
The boy who would grow to be The Shepherd (and it was all but impossible to say the title without the capital letters sliding into place with an audible lilt in the conversation) was sleeping.
Which was unfortunate, considering that he was in the middle of being taught his heritage. As the three-hundredth and third reincarnation of The Shepherd, it was his duty to pay attention to his tutors as they spoke to him of the man he had been before the regrettable detail that was death claimed him.
It was unfortunate, but it was also quite understandable considering the subject matter, the almost forty-thousand year biography of, technically, one person. Most of which could be roughly summed up as: Didn't do anything, killed/saved a few people, shouted at a lot of others. The most interesting period, the one which featured the First Shepherd, had yet to be touched upon. Which was a shame, as that might have been enough to keep the boy awake.
You must first hear the Words of the Prophet before we can tell you of his deeds. His instructors would parrot at him like a looping audio file whenever he asked them about it.
But today, in just a few hours, he would at last hear the apparently world-shattering words of The First (again, otherwise perfectly normal words were robbed of their mundane meaning when they were used in context with the subject matter and given the status of a name) that would supposedly give him, and only him, the necessary insight to understand everything he needed to know about what He had done, and what was expected of him.
He'd stayed up all night in anticipation of this moment, the time when his life changed from being the 'boy who would become The Shepherd' to 'The Shepherd Reborn'. The Elder, the one who had been before him, had passed away quietly a few days before. It had been expected, of course, but the death of a Shepherd was always mourned on Sanctuary.
The boy, for his part, was mostly unaffected by the grief most of his peers seemed to have been consumed by. According to what everyone kept telling him, after all, he was the Elder. He just hadn't gotten old enough yet, and didn't know what the other had learned throughout his long life. But that was beside the point.
With the Elder gone, the boy would have to become the Shepherd. The People needed their guide, and so he would soon be shown what would irrevocably change him.
He'd been waiting for this moment his whole life.
Today, everything would make sense.
The Prophet would personally tell him everything he needed to know, a message that only he had all those who had come before him would know about.
He hoped that the Prophet could fit in why he was starting to be so nervous around girls somewhere in his cosmic truth. It was really starting to get worrying.
Our saviour spoke to the Wise once more, just as the Demons of the Void revealed themselves in a whirlwind of fire and ruin and death. They pleaded with him to save them from their folly, begged his forgiveness.
But our lord was resolute.
"Three times I told you of what was to come. Three times you denied me, and then banished me from your halls. I will not risk my people for those who would not hear my warnings."
Each of the Wise spoke in turn, hoping to sway our lord with their words.
"We have seen the Demons you spoke of." The Cunning One admitted. "We will fight for you."
"But I will not fight for you, and risk all that I have saved." Our lord answered.
"We have ever been your friends!" The Kind One pleaded. "Would you leave us to die?"
"You did not protest when I was banished. You are no friend of mine." Our Saviour proclaimed.
"We are of the same flesh and blood." The Ambitious One cajoled. "Would you condemn your own kind?"
"I have already saved my people, those I have chosen." The Prophet refuted.
"I have seen my folly." Said the Fool, who only repented when it was far too late. "Please, save our peoples from this fate."
"I already tried to save you from the destruction that is to come." The Shepherd told them all. "Your fate is what waits for all who would not heed me."
And that is why we scorn those not of The People. Whether they are Batarian or Hanar, Turian or Elcor, Salarian or Raloi, Volus or Drell, they are not welcome in our hallowed halls. For their faithlessness cost The People the Citadel, the holy birthplace of civilization.
The boy who would become the Shepherd was ushered along by the silent Daughters of the Shepherd, Asari descendants of one of the previous incarnations of The Shepherd. Mostly they tended to the records of the various Shepherds, and by extension the history of The People. They were one of the most powerful people in the Sanctuary Worlds, the unspoken leaders of a faith that had been so deeply ingrained into their collective society that nobody could even conceive any other way to live.
Azure hands and smiles urged him on, past the holographic archives of information that flared and danced with light as the various Daughters or acolytes accessed them, all while Geth supervised. Its ever-changing face would appear or vanish from various terminals in rapid succession, listening for a moment before offering guidance and flitting away to listen once more.
No, the hands gestured as he made as if to look closer at the scene. This was not where he was supposed to be. With a disappointed look on his features the boy moved on, annoyed that his curiosity had been curbed. With a disappointed look on his features the boy moved on, annoyed that his curiosity had been curbed.
He was pushed gently along, past the luminescent halls of the Archives and into the Halls of the Chosen, where the various women (and, a lot less spoken of though nevertheless remembered, the few men) whom the various Shepherds had 'chosen' to love were remembered. Their many faces stared sightlessly down at him, each one a carefully constructed statue.
The boy tried not to look at them. It worried him that earlier incarnations had felt such a way about other people, but upon looking on those men and women he felt nothing. Would his next incarnation feel the same way about those he cared about? Or would he be indifferent?
Thankfully, he was spared further debate as he and his guides arrived at the Vault, where only he and those before and after him were permitted to enter. They drew away as he approached, suddenly feeling very small in the face of such a large and, seemingly, impenetrable object.
Light seared across his body as he drew closer, and for a moment he feared what would happen if whatever program that guarded the Prophet's secret message deemed him unworthy. Would it kill him, burn him to dust with holy fire and then await a new reincarnation, one that was perhaps more like those that had come before? Or would he simply be locked out, forever, denying The People the guidance that only The Shepherd could provide.
His speculation was proven unneeded a moment later when the scan abruptly ended, and the huge vault door slid open with only a quiet hiss of air.
The boy cast a worried glance over his shoulder, wondering if perhaps there was some way the Daughters could further prepare him for what was to come, but he was alone. Alone, with his back to the hundreds of faces of those who had died.
With a shrug of nonchalance he did not feel, the boy entered the Vault, peering into the gloom with a rising feel of worry.
Thick steel doors slammed shut behind him with a loud clang of metal as all light died.
Disorientation set in quickly as the boy who would become The Shepherd found himself thrown into a blinding darkness. He was alone with his thoughts, panicked as they were.
And then The Shepherd appeared before him.
The boy watched as the man appeared in a construct of light, a memory of what had been. Radiantly red eyes glared down at him even as cracked, blazing lips curled into a knowing smirk. The boy had always assumed that the descriptions of The Shepherd 'ablaze with holy light' had been an exaggeration, an embellishment that others had tagged on to the legend that was the man to make him seem all the greater. Perhaps there was some truth to it, though.
Looking on The Shepherd, his face a mess of cracks in his flesh from which light spilled with angry red luminescence, did not look particularly holy. He looked...
Cruel.
"So it's that time again, hmm?" He asked, and for a moment the boy could only stare dumbly at the construct. "Silence means yes."
Despite himself, the boy felt somewhat indignant. It hadn't even waited for him to answer before supplying his own! What kind of-
"Now, I suppose an introduction is in order, though if everything went according to plan it should be unnecessary." The hologram continued, heedless to what was going on in the boy's mind. "I am not 'The Shepherd'."
That certainly got the boy's attention, who then settled himself down to listen.
"I'm not even John Shepard, the man whom the title refers to. I am merely a VI projection of his consciousness, constructed by a coordinated effort from Geth and Quarian engineers." The hologram smiled toothily at him, and suddenly the boy knew what the term 'a shark's smile meant'. "It was Tali's idea. But for the purposes of this message, consider me the real thing. It will make more sense that way."
Dimly, the boy recalled the name of Tali'Zorah, one of the blessed Matriarchs. A faceless woman shrouded in mystery, the first name in the long line of those who were remembered as 'chosen'.
"In any case, I'm supposed to relay to you an important message:" The boy leaned in closer , as if that would allow him to better understand what was to come. "You will never be as awesome as me."
For a moment the boy could only stare, his face a mask of complete incomprehension as the hologram leered at him. Sure this wasn't the message the holy Prophet had meant to pass on to his reincarnations, was it?
"That's right, you heard me." It taunted him, laughter in his voice. "You may be my genetic clone, but you won't even manage a fraction of what I accomplished. I quite possibly have the largest kill-count in the galaxy. I literally have to beat women away from begging to service my man-rod. I set the foundations for the society you live in, and I wasn't even trying particularly hard. I am the alpha and the omega and everyone wants a slice of my pi!"
The hologram zoomed in suddenly to focus on The Shepherds face, which stared straight at the boy with his blazing, hateful eyes that seemed entirely too happy to insult him.
"The moral of this story? I breathe victory and I shit excellence. "
The boy could only watch with a small frown as the hologram insisted on continuing its vulgar tirade.
"You may be wondering why I would punch a hole in your inflated ego like this, when I could instead be telling you what you need to do."
Thank you, insulting-mind-reading-VI! The boy thought angrily, by now consumed by a mixture of indignity, fear and confusion. This was not how things were supposed to go.
"Because I, John Shepard – saviour of the galaxy - decided I couldn't win against the Reapers."
The boy's translator module picked up the ancient word, and repeated it back to him in a more familiar term: Demons of the Void.
"Think about that for a moment." The hologram advised. "Even I couldn't beat them. And they're still waiting out there, beyond the galactic disc, for the time to 'harvest' us. And now, they're even stronger."
Gone was the mirth, replaced instead with grim seriousness.
"I fed almost every sentient form of life to those monsters, just so you and everyone else would have a chance at beating them. Trillions of people, dead, so that you can stand here now and listen to me tell you how hopelessly overmatched you are."
And now The Shepherd grinned again, full of malice.
"But when they come back, they won't know you'll be waiting for them. Quarians, Geth, Asari, Krogan, Rachni, Humans and whatever else that emerges. You'll have millennia to prepare for them. And you, my little clone, will have to lead them. Try not to fuck it up too much, yeah?"
And with that, The Shepherd vanished.
The Vault lit up dimly as the door slid open once more, bathing the boy in light where he sat upon the ground.
For the first time in his brief existence, the boy who would become The Shepherd felt like he truly knew the man who many hoped he would become. Everything made sense now.
The Shepherd was an ass.
But the boy knew what had to be done. That much was certain.