A/N: Hello everyone! This is a collaboration piece between myself and 07's disciple, who also just so happens to love mass effect and I urge you to go and read his fanfictions as this fic would not be possible without his input :)
Commander Lillith Shepard stood at the crossroads on the crucible with the Catalyst standing next to her a million thoughts rushing through her.
On her left was a power conduit, a reddish glow emanating around it: Destroy. It would end the war, but there was no way to ensure peace if she chose that and there was no guarantee that another race would create synthetics and in turn be harvested by them, just like the Leviathans had many millennia ago.
Directly ahead was the blue beam of light connecting the conduit to the citadel: Synthesis. She couldn't choose that as it was forcibly changing every life form in the galaxy to being both organic and synthetic. Forcing all life forms to take on a new DNA in the hopes that the reapers would stop.
This left her only one option, two pylons coursing with electricity, a blue light surrounding them: Control. The Illusive Man was right, it was the only way to ensure lasting peace, peace though superior firepower.
Even if it meant becoming the catalyst and never seeing Traynor again, it was the only choice that Lillith could see herself making. She slowly walked to the terminal, ignoring the protest of her muscles that kept screaming for her to lie down and sleep forever.
When she reached out to grab the pylons, her arms ached and felt heavy, but the moment she grabbed them, that mild ache seemed trivial as blistering, white pain swept through her, almost pushing her away as the current surged through her body.
Eventually the pain began to subside and be replaced by a strange feeling that Lillith had never felt before. She felt as if she were in a million places at once and felt only the overwhelming sense of her new power as she assumed control of the Reapers.
She quickly pulled the Reapers away from the many planets they had invaded and the indoctrinated forces were sent back into the drop ships, leaving the injured and dying soldiers alone.
With the reapers successfully under her control, the war was over but Lillith knew that this was only the beginning.
She had tricked the Krogan, not trusting Wreav enough to allow his species to freely reproduce (heck, she wouldn't even have trusted Wrex, and she considered him a friend until he pulled a gun on her when they were on Virmire), and they would be out for blood when they find out and she wouldn't let that happen.
She also wouldn't let anyone lose a brother like she had. If anyone from any species attempted to attack a colony, she would wipe a planet that the attacking species had colonised off the face of the galaxy, not caring about who was killed in the process.
She would make sure that if anyone betrays their friends, like Jacob had by beginning a relationship with another woman without informing Lillith that they were no longer a couple, would be punished.
Most of all she would make sure that the war ends on her terms, not those of the politicians that she had grown to hate over many years, and Lillith now knew what she had to do.
She had fought the Reapers and now she controlled them.
And she was going to use them.