If you've seen it somewhere else, I don't own it.
Hello, everyone, just wanted to add a few details about this story before I begin. This is a colab between Storylover213 and myself. It is a semi-SI, as in the characters themselves are made up, but they are intended to reflect both myself and him. SI's certainly seem to by all over the place for Mass Effect nowadays, but I hope this puts a new 'spin' on things. So here we go...
0000000000000000
Driven by Circumstance
1st Edition Transcript
Foreword
February 4, 2313
Fate is an odd creature. It touches all of us. Each of us have a part to play. Some become great leaders of nations, others experts in medical science, others stretch the boundaries of our understanding, but few…very few are chosen to accomplish what others would consider impossible.
Some might call them heroes. Others may say leaders. These individuals rise above us all. They stand larger than life, inspiring all who stand around them. They are the first and last line of defense against the consuming darkness that watches hungrily from above.
I had the honor of meeting and fighting alongside many such individuals. At one time I thought them to be but pixels on a screen, characters belonging in the realm of childish dreams and foolish hopes. Perhaps it is still true. Perhaps these passing years have been all but a great dream. Maybe I shall wake on my dying day to find myself back in my own bed, with the nineteen-year-old body that I used to possess. I remember the six foot, 150 pound frame so vividly. I remember the emerald eyes and silver hair and face sparkling with unspoiled youth. It seems a betrayal, though, to think of that now. After everything we've done, after everything we've lost…it cannot have been a dream. I watched bullets ruthlessly rip apart men on the battlefield. I have heard the cries of the wounded as they beg for help. I have seen innocents slaughtered and changed till nothing remained of their former selves. It can't have been a dream, I lost too much, changed too much, for it all to be a dream.
The ones I fought beside, the friends and comrades I came to trust with my life, could not have been a figment of my imagination. A bond connected us in a way none could understand. A bond that only soldiers…brothers on the battlefield could forge. They all fought for their own reasons. Not one was similar to another, a few were even openly hostile to one another. Yet, when called, these individuals…these heroes, stood against the greatest force this galaxy had known. They created a team more deadly than any other before them. Several of them have since fallen to eternal rest, some in peace, some in war…and now I do this in honor of their memory.
Above them all stood the one who led them all. The Commander who only had to speak and they would follow, even unto hell itself. The Leader who faced death on many an occasion, only to spit in its face as it passed by. The Soldier who stood tall and proud even when the world seemed arrayed against us all.
Time may pass. Memories may fade. Scars may heal. The world may forget what they…we…have said, but it can never forget what we've done. The blood of those fallen has sealed that memory beyond all reproach. I hope, that through this, we might be remembered for who we truly were…not as unapproachable heroes mounted on a pedestal of courage and steel, but as men and women who stood because the world depended on them. Duty held us to our guns. The hopes and fears of billions of hearts carried us forward even in the darkest of nights.
Our story…my story…begins differently than one might expect. In another time…another life I lived in New York, born to a Russian father and American mother. Zander was my name, Zander Makarov, though friends called me Zane. The bustling streets and throngs of people remain a fond memory of the past…of what could have been.
Perhaps it was just chance that I was taken by the Geth in their attempts to reach my world. Experiment 614238-7194 they called me. Hell, they didn't even ask me my name, they only tossed me in a cell with what I thought would be my death. Afraid…alone, they left me. They changed me into what I am today.
I may not like what they did to me…and to him, but they did give me the tools so that, when the time came, I could stand when so many others fell…
The perfect soldier…that's what they wanted. Devoid of emotion and subservient to their will. As a good friend of mine once said, "They can take your body, they can take your family, they can take your freedom, but they can never take your heart."…they never succeeded in their endeavor. I made sure of it, and now here I am, my final days rapidly approaching. A mind full of memory…
…and hope for the future.
00000000000000000
R&R!