DISCLAIMER: I don't own Mass Effect or any Characters / Societies / Races / Organizations / Ect. presently created in the Mass Effect Universe. They belong to BioWare and Co. The OC Characters / Societies / Races / Organizations / Ect. (If Any) do belong to me however.
This story is Rated M for Mature for a reason. Lot of language (even more so than the games) and plenty of descriptions. Anyone who played the games should not be overly surprised. I don't intend any sex scenes at all really, least of all anything of the Lemon variety. I don't shun those, but I just don't plan on it. Who knows, though? Stories tend to start writing themselves.
Read and Review at your discretion. Suggestions will be appreciated. Flames will be ignored. I promise nothing.
01: HERO
"And now we come to the famous Shepard Armor Exhibit."
The suit of battle armor sat as a proud monument to the sacrifice and audacity of humanity to defy the chaos the order of the universe had degraded to – or had always been. All things considered, it was a ghastly sight. The grey color of the armor was made almost indistinguishable from the blackened patches of melted fibers; not to mention the red and white stripes that had decorated the right side of the suit. The arms and shoulders were simply gone, their absence signified by splintered holes on either side where the arms would slide through. Only the N7 painted on the right breast was unmarred, as if in testament to before mentioned defiance.
A gold plaque below the display read:
N7 Battle Armor of John Shepard
Commander of the Alliance Military
Spectre of the Galactic Council
Stand. Fight. Survive.
"This is the very suit of armor worn by Commander Shepard in the final battle against the Reapers." The tour guide continued. She was tall and slim, her sleek dark hair folded into an elaborate bow held to the back of her head by unfathomable forces. She wore a military grade suit-dress; meaning that she was dressed in formal attire while showing off her smooth, caramel colored legs.
"Shepard led the final defenders of Earth on a suicide run to breach enemy lines and reach the Crucible in order to put an end to the Reaper threat."
Leading a suicide run. When hadn't he done that?
"With the aid of Admiral Anderson, Shepard was able to destroy the Reapers and save Earth."
Anderson had been the true hero. The Alliance had wanted to sweep his name under the rug; some political bullshit about not listening to the man from the gate. Of course, it had been Shepard they were ignoring, but Anderson had been his superior and advocate. His friend.
Shepard had warned everyone about the Reapers – and before that, Saren. He had been brushed aside and left to take care of matters on his own. Only made the first Human Spectre of the Galactic Council due to finding enough evidence to condemn their favorite Spectre, the Turian, Saren. By then it had been too late, and Shepard was charged to chase Saren down – which he was going to do regardless of their orders. He had chased Saren across the galaxy, using whatever means necessary to complete the objective. It had been a close call. Saren had fallen completely under the control of Sovereign – a Reaper sent to initiate the apocalyptic invasion. They had activated the Conduit, a Mass Relay located in the heart of the Galactic Council: the Citadel. It was the perfect set-up: Invade from the Galactic seat of government, taking out all the political leaders and a majority of the military forces in one fell surprise attack from the back door. The synthetic Geth had succeeded in the invasion portion at least, but the Geth were not the Reapers, and Shepard was able to stop Saren and Sovereign, resulting in their deaths, not to mention their Geth storm troopers. It had been close, and the then Council had been sacrificed, but the threat had been stopped.
Some might say that saving the galaxy once was enough for one lifetime. Technically, it was. Shepard's ship, the SSV Normandy was later ambushed while surveying a planet thought to be the source of mysterious disappearances. The enemy ship was ready and took out the Normandy's hyper-drive and sub-light engines. Weapons were out of the picture as well. His crew was dying. Shepard ordered evacuation, forcing his men to abandon ship. Only one person left, Joker the pilot. Due to Joker's rare birth defect at the exact wrong time in humanities medical advancements, he could hardly walk, let alone run. He was going to go down with the ship. Not while Shepard breathed. Shepard was able to get Joker in the final escape pod before the final blast sent him plummeting toward the planet. Before he could find out if he would survive re-entry, the oxygen tube disconnected from his helmet. Asphyxiation hadn't been all that great.
It would seem that dying once wouldn't be enough. The rogue organization of human purist, Cerberus initiated Project Lazarus to bring back the stalwart Commander Shepard. It hadn't been just about reviving his body; they wanted him to be the same Shepard he was when he defeated Saren and Sovereign. Shepard hadn't trusted Cerberus, least of all their shady leader, the Illusive Man. But the strange aliens known only as Collectors had killed his crew, along with himself, and now they were invading human colonized worlds and abducting them; it was payback.
It was never that simple. Having been dead for two years, Shepard found old allies hard to persuade to join his cause, especially Gunnery-Chief Ashley Williams, who could not side with Cerberus for anything. Some loyalties remained, however, and became the stronger for it. Picking up some new allies along the way, Shepard managed to pass through the Omega 4 Relay – a banned Relay due to the hundreds of ships using it only to never return. On the other side was a spaceship graveyard, along with the Collector's Base.
It was another suicide mission, with the destruction of the Collector Base the main objective. There they found out that the Collectors were mutated Protheans – the little-known-about civilization wiped out by the Reapers over fifty-thousand years ago. But that would pale to the next revelation: Harbinger, a Reaper like Sovereign, was controlling the Collectors, using them to abduct humans to harvest them in order to create a Human-Reaper, in the vague designs of a mechanical human skeleton. The Illusive Man wanted to salvage it to use against the Reapers, but Shepard would hear none of it. The base was destroyed and an ignorant galaxy saved again.
Sometimes lives had to be sacrificed, however. Before passing through the Omega 4 Relay, Shepard had found a Human space station in the Batarian system. The humans had already been indoctrinated by Harbinger. They sought to use the Mass Relay of that system as another Conduit, to let the Reapers enter the galaxy. Shepard was forced to destroy the Mass Relay, wiping out the entire solar system in the process. It had been the only decision, and he would pay for it.
Stripped of his Spectre status, command, and Alliance Military rank, Shepard was taken back to Earth to be tried for genocide. But the Reapers had only been delayed, traveling through the empty space between galaxies. Sooner than expected, they arrived. Earth was hit first, postponing Shepard's death sentence. Restored to the rank of Commander by Admiral Anderson, he was sent to gather the races of the Galactic Council for a full scale rescue, while Anderson stayed behind to help the resistance. It wouldn't be that simple. The Reapers were everywhere but the Citadel itself. Shepard had to go to the Turian homeworld to extract their military leader, the Primarch. Then to the Salarian homeworld to extract a female Krogan in order to cure the Genophage. Then to the Asari homeworld to retrieve a Prothean database, only to have it stolen by Cerberus and the planet lost to the Reapers. Finding out about a package of interest to Cerberus, it was just payback to steal it first. The package turned out to be a hibernating Prothean – the last living Prothean – kept in stasis to awaken into a new Reaper-free galaxy. Irony was a bitch at times.
Shepard was successful in bringing the races together to save Earth; and in bringing Cerberus to its knees; and finally, eliminating the Reapers and putting and end to inter-galactic travel through the Mass Relays, cutting off all the aliens who had come to Earths rescue from their home, perhaps forever.
Suffice it to say, being wrong about the near extinction of life-as-we-know-it wasn't something the governments of any of the races were willing to let become public knowledge.
"…the support of the Alliance Government and Military, Commander Shepard gained the allegiance of many alien races; the most noteworthy being the Asari, Turian, and Krogan armies, as well as the Salarian scientists."
Plenty of flavor, some flowery praise, but mostly Grade-A Bullshit. He was impressed.
"Now if you'll follow me to the Reaper Representation room." The guide suggested, gesturing them foreword. The group moved in a buzz of indistinguishable murmurs. "And we're walking."
"Not sure I buy any of that m'self." Came a voice colored in a London accent. "I rather think that suit'd be too big for the Shepard I knew."
Shepard turned to find a tall man in military uniform, cap resting underneath one armpit leaving his buzzed head exposed to the sun.
"Major Coats." Shepard said in an identifying greeting. "Thought you'd have been promoted by now."
Coats smirked. "Never was any good at kissing ass, Sir."
Shepard shook his head. "None of that now; I'm retired."
Coats gave him a knowing glance. "A man goes through half the hell you have is never retired, only on vacation." Shepard merely smiled. Coats nodded to back to the armor. "Where's the real one?"
"Broken down and redistributed into children's toys." Shepard said with a shrug. "I don't have a damn clue."
"'Stand. Fight. Survive.'" Coats added somewhat mockingly. "A bit overdramatic, eh?"
Shepard snorted. "I would have had it say 'I told you so.'"
Coats let out a chuckle. "But coming to your own exhibit? A bit pretentious, wouldn't you say?" Coats began moving away from the display.
"A bit pretentious." Shepard agreed, following; trying to hide the pain in his limp. "And very egomaniacal."
"Megalomaniacal?" Coats offered.
"Sure." Shepard accepted.
They reached a corner of the room that gave them more privacy.
"Okay Coats, what's this all about?' Shepard demanded, his tone losing the friendly banter.
Coats turned equally serious, taking a quick survey to confirm their privacy. "Ever heard of Dr. Nikolai Bardzecki?"
"No," Shepard answered honestly. "Should I have?"
Coats frowned slightly. "Depends. He was the assistant of Dr. Sergey Holender."
Shepard did not feign his surprise. "The creator of the N7 Program?" He thought a moment. "What do you mean 'he was'?"
Coats nodded. "He disappeared around three years ago. Brass assumed him dead."
"Three years ago?" Shepard repeated, curious. "Around the same time I was killed by the Collectors."
"Just so." Coats confirmed. "He took files on your performance with him, but Brass thought nothing of it, due to the circumstances. Then you came back two years later."
Shepard felt a moment of clarity as a piece of a puzzle he hadn't even known he had been working on slid into place. "That explains a little more why they were hesitant to believe I was me."
Coats turned away, rubbing the back of his head.
Click. Another piece. "They're still unsure." He couldn't have kept the heat out of his voice even if he had wanted to. "I get my ass shot off pulling theirs out of the fire; not once, not twice, but three times!" He all but yelled. "I save the whole of goddamn humanity-"
"Cured the Genophage." Coats cut in, keeping his voice level. "Listen, I saw what you did – saw what they did. You put your balls in the grinder for us, and I put mine in one for you. But cured Krogans on Earth has got us all trigger happy."
Shepard turned his head away. Besides himself, only Moridin Solus knew the truth of that. He thought of telling Coats, but liked the idea of Brass getting sweaty knuckles and the politicians filling their catheters.
"So why haven't they done anything before now?"
It took Coats a moment to shift back into topic. "Too much happened. First the Collectors rounding up humans; the interference of Cerberus. They were ready to nail your balls to the wall after that Mass Relay took out an entire Batarian solar system, but the Reapers attacked. Since the completion of the rebuilding process, they've dug back into it."
"And?' Shepard urged.
Coats hesitated. "Nothing yet."
Shepard waited for a moment before tightening his brow and glaring at Coats. "So I passed your inspection?"
Coats sighed. "I'm no bloody expert." He walked away, calling out without turning back. "Thought I'd warn you, mate. Watch your back."
Shepard didn't move for a very long time. The more he thought about it all, the more he fumed. The bastards were happy to sit him on a pedestal and parade him about as the fucking hero of humanity, but when the enemy from outside had been vanquished; they turned to the perceived enemy from within. Masochistic parasitic bastards.
The walk home was slow and agonizing. His right knee had never been the same since his fall from the Crucible. Surgery had seemed to help at first, but the pain and limp always returned; something to do with interference from all the Cerberus tech riddled through his body from Project Lazarus. A lot had been lost in the Reaper invasion: technology, records, lives. He had taken to using a cane, but had left it behind because he was a bitter, stubborn asshole; even to himself.
He started thinking of the aftermath of the Reaper Invasion to ignore the pain. He had been found by Coats in a search for any survivors. They told him he had been in bad shape, and they couldn't fix everything. He spent months in intensive care and more months in physical therapy. He was still going through physical theropy, damn knee. The Mass Relays were gone. There had been no sign of anyone beyond the Local Cluster. If his crew aboard the SSV-2 Normandy had survived, they were MIA. But that was not much worse than hundreds more. The bigger issue became the remaining alien races that were now stranded on Earth. And Coats wasn't kidding when he was talking about how nervous the remaining Krogans made humans in general. The knowledge of the Krogan Rebellion was wide spread, and trust was strained both ways. It didn't help that the Krogans were forced into confinement called "Galactic Consulates". Of course, letting Krogans roam free would be like to giving Cerberus the key to the city.
He missed his crew. Joker, Garrus, Liara, Tali, Vega, Ashley. Hell, even EDI and Javik would be a welcome sight. Some of his old crew had been on Earth when the Relays blew; Jack and Zaeed had visited Shepard during his therapy, telling him to 'man the fuck up'. They didn't really kept in touch after that, all of them too stubborn in their badassedness to be the first to call. As for Grunt and Wrex, they were busy keeping the Krogans from outright rioting, and Brass wouldn't let him near the Krogans anyway, not with their suspicions of him. Coats had been his only contact from those days in five months, and Shepard couldn't consider him a friend, not anymore. Too much had changed, and not much for the better.
When he finally stumbled up the stairs to his mini-mansion – curtesy of those rotting dumbasses in Brass – the sun had begun to set. When he was inside he locked the door and made his way to the liquor cabinet. Nothing like a shot of Jack for the pain. He was eyeing his cane evilly – silently demanding why it had let him stumble outside without kicking him in the ass first – when the phone rang.
Growling, he threw his cane across the room and limped over to the phone. "Who the hell is this?" He nearly shouted into the mouthpiece.
Static.
He was about to hang up when he heard breathing on the other end. Then an indistinct male voice said, "John Shepard, Major Coats didn't tell you everything. I'll be there in one hour."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yeah, I know this chapter serves mostly as a big "Previously On…" Info-Dump chapter. I felt it was necessary, just to establish the events of the past in (IMO) Shepards voice. This chapter also serves foreshadow purposes. Anyone hoping to see more relevant old faces other than Coats will have to wait. And some people won't be showing up at all as they are lost on that unknown planet since the Mass Relays blew up. Also, the Genophage was not cured. I always felt that that was the only real choice to make. Like it or not, a repeat of the Krogan Rebellion would not be ideal, especially with Krogan's apparently trapped on Earth (Yikes). Sorry Eve, sorry Grunt. sorry Wrex, but your race just can't be trusted. Not until you show us you can cultivate a farm, in the least.
I base my knowledge on playing the three main Mass Effect games as a Renegade Character, which was just overall more fun than Paragon. I have not read any novels / comics, seen any movies (though I eagerly await the live-action movie planned), nor played any Mass Effect games other than the main three. Any questions I had I sought out the Mass Effect Wiki page. If you find any inconsistencies or continuity problems, please let me know. I am trying to make this as believable continuation story as possible. Oh yeah, I also have not played the ME3 DLC's Leviathan or Omega.
If anyone is interested, my Romance choices were: Liara, Quickie with Jack, Miranda, Miranda. Yeah...Not the best story-wise choices, but I'm a sucker for a skin suit, and Ashley didn't get it the first time and flipped me the bird in the sequel - no respect! Sorry for you die hard shippers out there, my Shepard is kind of an ass with relationships.
This story all began as a personal back-story for my first ME3 Multiplayer Human Soldier.