Gods, I haven't posted anything here in the longest time. Anyway, here's a little speculative piece on what might happen to an relatively ordinary citizen of the Citadel if Shepard really messed up and let the Reapers destroy it. Cheery, I know. Oh, and if you're interested as to just who this Allison Drew person is, she's my character over on the Cerberus Daily News RP forums. And the character of Dan isn't mine - he belongs to Gunny from the same forums.
The End
It had been a quiet sort of day. Well, quiet for the times, at any rate. Everyone on the station knew the Reapers were coming, of course, but most residents maintained some façade of normalcy. If only to stop themselves going insane from the waiting.
C-Sec Officer Allison Drew was no exception. She'd almost been thankful for the initial surge of looting and riots when the news first hit the Citadel - it had kept her mind busy and free from more morbid thoughts. But now, like so many others, she was just tired. Tired of walking that beat like nothing was wrong; tired of handing out false assurances of safety; tired of just waiting for annihilation.
Ironic really, she mused, flopping down onto the couch in a less than dignified manner. A few short months ago and I'd have killed to see some action. 'Course, I was probably hoping for a scenario in which we stood a chance in hell of winning...
Allison closed her eyes at that, stretching out along the length of the sofa and trying in vain to find some inner peace in the silence. It was the futility of the situation that frustrated her the most - the knowledge that no matter how hard she fought, or how good she was, she was still going to end up dead. A rather depressing thought, really - you couldn't exactly blame her for a bit of despair.
But she couldn't afford to wallow in it. Gods knew how many more days of this she'd have to endure, and thinking about your impending doom is a good way to go off the rails. She just needed something else to occupy her thoughts - some menial task to tide her over until Dan returned home. Living each day as if it were your last did have some benefits, at least.
Turns out the solution for boredom and mild depression was drink. And lots of it. A bleary-eyed Allison awoke to find that she'd somehow managed to drain most of the liquor left in the apartment, and earned nothing but a splitting headache for her efforts. A low groan escaped her as she rubbed at her temples, suddenly regretting her previous actions.
The thud of her boots on the hardwood floor seemed impossibly loud as she stumbled her way across the room, clumsily avoiding the discarded bottles strewn about. She needed something, anything, to get her focus back.
A handful of painkillers and several cups of coffee did the job well enough, though she still didn't feel up to anything particularly energetic. Maybe just some light extranet browsing... Reclining on the couch again, her uniform now crumpled enough to be barely recognisable, Allison brought her omnitool's display up, instinctively navigating to-
Wait. That wasn't right.
The time display clearly indicated that she'd woken up in the middle of what was her and Dan's 'night'. He should definitely be home right now, yet there was no trace of him. Not even the pistol he'd leave on the coffee table when he came in.
That was enough to put Allison on high alert. She supposed he could have gone out again after finding her in a drunken stupor, but Dan wasn't the sort. Not at this hour. Unless it was work, but he'd have left a note or something. Another check of the apartment revealed that no such note had been left.
Shit.
She scrambled for her own weapon, an un-modded Stiletto VIII. And caused an almighty racket as she did so, knocking aside piles of assorted clutter in her haste. Barely managing to stay on her feet as she came out of her half-dive, she whipped around, pointing the pistol randomly at empty air.
Silence.
With an audible sigh of relief, Allison let her arm drop to her side. Whatever had happened to her partner, it hadn't happened here. Not that that was particularly comforting. Still, she felt much safer now the weapon was in her hands. Of course, she'd feel even safer had she got access to a proper hardsuit, but for now she'd just have to trust in her kinetic barriers.
And if things get really messy, I've always got the tactical cloak to fall back on, she added mentally, setting the device to trigger with a single button press on her omnitool. If it would even work against husks or omnipotent machine gods. But here's hoping it won't come to that.
Despite the small bubble of apprehension rising in her chest, Allison was going to find out what in hell was going on, proper equipment or no. She'd be damned if she was going to die alone.
The last traces of haziness long since shaken off, Allison made her final preparations for her rescue mission. Barrier harness calibrated, shield booster programs installed and ready, painkillers and stims packed and ready to apply... All the tactical advantages she and Dan had planned for their last stand, sans the hardsuit. Something told her she would suffer for that omission, but her mind had been set. For someone who had given up hope, she sure was showing a lot of resolve.
One last check, and she was off. Or she would have been, had she not chosen to stop and take what was most likely going to be her last look at the apartment that had been her life for the past year or so. Suddenly, everything was a memory of happier times: that holo of Dan and her brothers from when she'd first introduced them, that plush moxie a friend had given her when she was in the hospital...
Allison couldn't deny that tear, wiped hurriedly away before she turned her back on her life.
Only to be met by her death. Or what might well be if she didn't deal with it very, very quickly. The husk was hunched over in the doorway, its claw-like hands brought into painful focus in Allison's mind. Better to think about those than stare into its cold, dead eyes, wondering who it might once have been.
The pair stood transfixed for a moment, until the husk let out a rattling moan, charging wildly forward as if someone had cracked an invisible whip. It moved far faster than Allison thought was possible, barrelling straight towards her with that unsettling lopsided gait.
A moment of fear flashed through her, but she regained control just in time to throw herself to one side, landing rather painfully on the floor. Several shards of newly shattered glass bit into the flesh of her right arm, but Allison was beyond caring. Scrabbling clumsily to her feet, she fired off a few rounds at the confused creature - a futile attempt to stop it before it closed the distance between them once again.
This time, Allison didn't dodge. Instead, she moved forward to meet its charge, knocking both combatants to the ground. Fighting to maintain her position on top, she unleashed a flurry of fast punches with her good arm, each blow rubbing her knuckles raw, until the husk relented long enough for her to pull the pistol round again.
A single shot was enough to end it. Straight through the thing's head. The lights in its eyes went out as Allison collapsed forward onto its lifeless body, muscles relaxing as she took some much needed gulps of air. She almost passed out there and then - though she wasn't a stranger to life-or-death situations, this was something new entirely.
Though also something disturbingly familiar.
An old memory played through Allison's head before the pain kicked in, doing a fine job of bringing her back to reality. There was more - thousands more - of those things out there - out of all the times to have a flashback, this certainly wasn't it. Giving the dead husk one last thump with her bloody knuckles, she rose to her feet, staggering over to the medigel dispenser in the corner.
The last few drops of blood dripped onto the floor as Allison pulled the dressing tight over her right forearm, teeth gritted in determination. Though she'd sealed the gashes with medigel, it didn't hurt to take extra precautions if it meant she wouldn't bleed out at a crucial moment. A necessary precaution too, if the dark shadow already forming under the fabric was anything to go by.
Holding her arm in front of her face, she clenched and opened her fist a few times, watching for anything unusual beneath the bandage. It was crude, but it would have to do. The wounds were deep, but she'd been lucky enough to avoid hitting any major muscles or tendons - as long as the medigel's anaesthetic held, she could still hold a gun and fight if she had to. The same went for her left hand: it was a mess, but still functional. The combat skin weave she'd had installed was doing its job, at least.
Gods, I am not ready for this...
Allison shook her head in frustration, an attempt to remove the doubt from her mind as she got to her feet once more. It seemed to work - her face set in a stony grimace, she strode to the door with new resolve. Only to be knocked back to the ground by a nearby explosion. The jagged edge of what used to be a datapad caught on her cheek, drawing more blood, but she shrugged it off, knowing that there was far worse to come.
Looking every bit the battle-scarred warrior she was pretending to be, Allison Drew picked herself up off the floor, her new-found determination undiminished.
Bloody typical this is, she thought, her steps slow and deliberate as she crossed the threshold into the ruins of what used to be the corridor. You finally get over the whole wanting to go out with a bang thing and then this goes and happens.
Another explosion shook the building, as if to reassure Allison that 'blaze of glory' was indeed the only option left to her.
Allison had to admit, this wasn't what she'd expected the end to look like. There was no people running and screaming for their lives, no wailing of sirens... Not even the sound of gunfire to combat the distant moan of the massing husks. There was only the ever-present Reapers, looming over the Ward as they casually fired bursts of devastation into the cityscape.
Which, of course, only served to make things worse. Zakera Ward was dead. Unmistakably. This wasn't like the Battle of the Citadel - even if people survived this... apocalypse, there would be no rebuilding this place. Allison had been out on what was left of the streets for the best part of six hours, and had only been met by rubble, husks, and more Dragon's Teeth than she cared to think about.
If it hadn't been for her tactical cloak, she'd have been on one of those machines herself. She'd watched as the few people who hadn't been killed outright by the attack were dragged, sobbing, to the platforms and impaled, their very essence drained from them before they joined the ranks of the husks below. And though her mind screamed at her to do something, to save those people, she knew she was helpless.
Despite it all, though, Allison still had hope. A stupid, stupid hope that she and Dan would somehow come out of this alive, that the Reapers would be fought off and the Citadel saved. That this somehow wasn't the end of days it was supposed to be, and that maybe Shepard would actually come through and save the galaxy.
For a short moment, it seemed as if her silent prayers had been answered. The sound of gunfire - of retaliation - echoed ahead of her, just around the street corner. Allison quickened her pace, hurrying to the source as more shots rang out. More than one weapon. More importantly, people were fighting back!
The reality of the situation was slightly less inspiring. People were fighting back - an entire team of them, in fact - but they weren't winning. The circle of husks closed in on the group, its members dropping like flies as Allison tried desperately to close the distance between them.
She barrelled into one of the weaker-looking husks, taking it down with a quick pistol shot just in time to see a human stagger backwards, letting out a roar of pain as another husk caught him in the shoulder. But there was no time to think about that - a stray claw caught Allison across the eye, sending her crashing to the ground with a shriek.
Or so she thought. A sturdy turian arm stopped her descent, before flinging her straight back into the war-zone. Blinking through the blood with her one remaining good eye, she charged towards the pack of husks, vocalising something between agony and fury as she fired her pistol indiscriminately into the horde.
When it was over, Allison barely recalled what had transpired, almost collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Instead, she merely stood there, trembling slightly as the blood trickled down her face. Without even thinking, she applied painkillers, stims, anything that would keep her fighting. She didn't even notice the two figures approaching her from behind until a familiar voice called out.
"Christ on a bike, that's Allie!"
An embrace might not have been the best idea, given the state that both of them were in, but Allison wasn't exactly working with a rational mind at the moment. She threw her arms around Dan's neck, muscles relaxing as she remained blissfully unaware of the turian in the background. Who, for his part, merely gave the two a quizzical look before returning his attention to his injuries.
Unfortunately, the happy moment would not last for long. A low groan signalled the arrival of yet more husks, this time led by a scion. The hug broke, and Allison tensed once more. Bracketing her target with her remaining eye, she levelled her pistol at the bulbous mass of the scion's back. Blaze of glory time.
The shockwave hit before she could open fire, sending her and Dan flying in opposite directions as they dove for cover that didn't exist. Though disorientated, she managed to fire off a few clumsy shots at the culprit, not noticing the husk that had broke free from the pack until it was far too late. She yelled out, sprinting towards the creature as fast as her tired legs could carry her.
She wasn't fast enough. Mere seconds before she collided with the monster, Dan howled in pain, the sound of fracturing electronics barely audible as a clawed hand tore through the left side of his face, shattering the HUD sunglasses and leaving three ugly gashes behind. As he stumbled backwards, Allison threw herself at the husk, bringing both it and her crashing to the ground.
One quick shot to kill it, and she was already whirling around, just in time to see the scion aim its cannon at her reeling partner. She couldn't stop it, she knew that. But that fact didn't stop her from scrambling to her feet, dashing madly to intercept the shot with her own body.
One thing that did stop her, however, was Dan's arm, thrown wildly out to the side and knocking Allison back. It was impossible to tell if the move was deliberate or just a natural consequence as the man staggered backwards, but the effect was the same either way. The blast hit him square in the chest, his body hitting the ground with a sickening crunch.
And yet, he was still breathing as Allison rushed to his side. Barely. Sense would dictate that she leave him here, perhaps activate her cloak and flee so that she could live for a few more hours.
But sense would not reign today.
Struggling with his weight, she dragged Dan over to the closest wall, propping him up against it as she crouched beside him. Only when she looked up did she see that the crowd of husks around them had grown, slowly advancing on the wounded pair.
Allison took a deep, ragged breath, closing her eyes briefly as she mustered the last reserves of her strength. They flashed angrily as she opened them, one hand bringing up her pistol as the other clenched around Dan's.
Blaze of glory time.