What We Fought For
This story functions under the premise that the Indoctrination Theory is true, and begins immediately after Shepard is given his choices of destroying the Reapers. This follows the final assault of the Reaper War, led by my own Shepard. This is a male, mostly Paragon Shepard who saved the Rachni Queen; let Kaidan die on Virmire; romanced Liara at first, then Tali afterward; let the Council die during Sovereign's attack; survived the assault on the Collector base with each squad member alive; preserved the base for Cerberus' usage; allowed Mordin to sacrifice himself to cure the Krogan genophage; brought peace between the Krogan and the Turian, with Wrex and Eve as the leaders of Clan Urdnot; allowed Thane to sacrifice himself to save the Salarian councilor; allowed Legion to sacrifice himself for the geth collective; brought peace between the geth and the quarians, and chose to Destroy the Reapers after the dialogue with the Catalyst.
I wrote this assuming and following the general BioWare style established in the Mass Effect universe. All of Shepard's dialogue in this story is either Paragon, Renegade, or neutral, but it's up to you to guess which is which. Similarly, the scenes described in the final assault are ones I imagine would be different if your Shepard made different choices (as we expect from BioWare), so the scenes I describe reflect the choices my Shepard made, described above. Feel free to imagine for yourself how those scenes would be different under your own Shepard's choices.
Please enjoy "What We Fought For"
Shepard stumbled towards the Crucible's junction; several layers of pipe lay exposed under the thick metal, sparking and hissing. The pain that had been wracking Shepard's body for the last several hours was going unnoticed now, as he limped toward his goal.
This is it he thought, raising his pistol a full arm's length away and lining up the sights as best he could through his blurry vision. This is the end of the Reapers.
He fired. The recoil sent shocks of searing pain up his arm that dissipated trough his torso like lightning spreads through a cloud. The loud bang echoed through the chamber. Taking another step forward, he noticed his shot had missed.
His other arm which had been dead weight up until now came up to grasp the bottom of the pistol, stabilizing his aim. He fired again. This time it hit. The shrill clang of ruptured metal flailing about told him one of the pipes had burst.
"That was for Anderson."
Another shot.
"For Mordin."
Another.
"Thane. Legion. Kaidan."
As his shots damaged the arm of the Crucible, the names he spoke echoed in his mind. The faces of his fallen companions flashed before his eyes, smiling, encouraging him. Their sacrifices were what brought him here, and now he would bring them, and the galaxy, peace.
The thermal clip ejected. Shepard's steps grew bolder, straighter, faster.
Shot after shot continued to shred the piping apart. Each one carried the name of someone taken by the Reapers and the chaos they spread. Shepard knew he was coming to his own end, and he fired one shot for himself.
"Tali."
Tali, the quarian, the light of his life, was in the Normandy now, tending to the injuries she sustained from Harbinger's assault on their ground team before Shepard made it into the Citadel. She was alive, and waiting for Shepard to come back to her. As a tear slid down Shepard's face, running along the grooves of his cheek left by years of battle, he squeezed the trigger one more time, letting the whisper of Tali's name carry the bullet that would end the Reaper threat once and for all.
The shot connected, releasing an inferno from the depths of the ancient weapon that filled the apex of the Citadel in wreaths of orange flame and bloody light. Shepard felt consumed by the fire.
So this is what an instantaneous death feels like he thought. He had always wondered what an instantaneous death was. How long is an instant? As it turns out, it's quite long, when that single moment is filled with an excruciating pain, a life matched with horrific experiences and the greatest happiness imaginable flashing before your eyes. It was strange how, at the dusk of his life, the sun simply refused to set. He waited for life to leave him, and it would not. Finally, the instant had ended.
As the pain left his body and the unrest left his mind, Shepard closed his eyes for what he knew would be the last time.
It's over he thought.
Then, he woke.
Garrus had found Shepard's body first. After escorting Tali to the Normandy's medical bay, he demanded Joker drop him back off at the beam site. The Citadel arms had not been opened and Garrus knew that it meant Shepard hadn't made it. He owed it to his friend to throw himself back into the fires of battle and pull him out, dead or alive.
Under the rubble of what used to be a tactical assault vehicle, Garrus spotted it; albeit dirtied, scorched, and peeled, his keen sniper's eye could not mistake the N7 shoulder greave.
"Shepard!" he shouted.
Garrus broke off into a sprint. The Reaper forces had been successfully purged from the beam site, at least for now, and Garrus took advantage of that to storm the field toward the wreckage that had pinned his commander.
"Shepard!" he called again, hoping against all hope that a heart was still beating under all that armor. With a mighty effort, the turian collided with the debris and lifted it, using his foot to push Shepard away and set the crumpled metal back onto the ground. The dirt was stained with blood; Shepard's armor was crushed at the chest and punctured at the thigh, causing profuse bleeding through the overlapping plates. The faintest murmurs of breath from bloodied lips told Garrus that his friend was unconscious and badly wounded, but not dead.
"Vakarian to Normandy." Garrus spoke into his headset whose comms fed directly to the ship. "Vakarian to Normandy, do you copy?"
Through the static of cyber warfare, EDI's voice responded immediately. "This is Normandy, over."
"We need immediate evac. Shepard is wounded and unconscious."
"On our way." This time it was Joker who responded.
It wasn't even a second later that the turian spotted the streak of blue emitted by the Normandy's engines line the sky. The ship had taken a few shots to the hull but appeared to be otherwise undamaged and stable. As the Normandy was brought to a low hover over the scarred ground, members of Shepard's squad hopped out to help carry their Commander to safety. Liara held up a biotic barrier to block stray fire while Javik assisted Garrus in lifting the armored Commander out of the dust. Medigel was hastily applied to Shepard's grievous wound. The squad quickly stepped back into the Normandy's shuttle bay and the bird lifted up back into space.
"Joker, make sure Dr. Chakwas is ready for us in the med bay." Garrus said to the pilot over his comm as the shuttle bay doors closed. He felt odd barking orders at the Normandy's crew, but he knew that in situations where Shepard was compromised, his authority was next in line and he would use it first and foremost to keep his friend out of death's grip. If that was wrong, he didn't want to be right.
The elevator doors slid open to greet them. Javik opened the interface and called up the fourth floor where the med bay was. Liara stood by quietly, watching the Commander's bleeding, partially staunched by the gel, and she wondered whether he could come back from this like he had so many times before.
She and Garrus made eye contact briefly. As he saw fear well in her eyes, Garrus made a decision he would never have wanted to make without the Commander's input, and certainly never in his place.
"EDI" he spoke into the comm again. "Order a full retreat. Send it right up to the top, right to Hackett and the others."
"But…"
"Trust me, EDI, we're not going to win this war the way it's going right now. We need a retreat."
"Right away."
Liara's blue eyes watched apprehensively. She knew what Garrus was doing and why, but she wondered whether the Commander would approve once he awoke. If he awoke. Draped over Garrus' shoulder, he stirred slightly.
The elevator doors slid open, and Shepard was once again unceremoniously dragged through the curved hallway toward the med bay. Dr. Chakwas ran out to intercept them.
"You can't go in yet." she explained, taking the load of the Commander off Garrus' shoulder and upon herself. She held him up surprisingly well, but then again, she was a military doctor and likely had to carry wounded soldiers constantly during her time with the Alliance. "Tali's suit has been punctured, we need the room and anyone in it to be completely sterilized. Follow me through the disinfectant chamber in a few minutes."
The doors closed between them, with Shepard and Chakwas on one side and Garrus, Liara, and Javik on the other. A hissing sound filled the room as the microbes on their bodies were exterminated. In the meantime, Chakwas examined Shepard as best she could. The bleeding was severe and the gash was deep, but it appeared that the femoral artery wasn't severed, and that meant he could be saved. She was unsure of the state of the thigh muscle. The chest area was significantly crushed, but there was no way to see the bodily damage well through the metal and weave.
The room flashed green once the sterilization was complete. Chakwas pulled her commanding officer along to the nearest bed. Tali was in the next one over. Her suit had indeed been punctured at the hip and shoulder. The apparatus on the bottom of the mask seemed broken, likely from a collision with the ground when Harbinger's beam touched down. Her visor was caked with dirt and dust. The quarian was speechless at the sight of her lover, but she rose from her prone position immediately to be at the Commander's side as he was set onto the silver surface. Once Shepard was lain down, Tali and Dr. Chakwas stripped his injured thigh and chest of the crumpled metal. The bodysuit beneath the armor was shredded to ribbons in the affected areas. Chakwas examined the thigh first, as it was definitely the more serious injury. Tali stood by quietly, with one three-digit hand on Shepard's brow.
The muscle was damaged severely, but it could be restored to a functional state. Functional, but not perfect. The bleeding was, for that moment, staunched by the liberal application of medigel but it wouldn't hold for very much longer. Dr. Chakwas turned her attention to the chest area; several minor lacerations from the punctured armor, and a heavy torso-wide bruise, spreading as high as the clavicle and as low as the abdominal muscles. The left shoulder was more affected than the right. The heartbeat was regular, though slow. Breathing was shallow and labored, but also regular.
Tali tried to speak, but the damage to her mask made the speech garbled and unclear.
Dr. Chakwas reached for a respirator as she responded. "Tali, I insist you take that silly thing off. I cannot understand a word of what you're saying, and the room is completely sterile."
Tali's eyes glittered in surprise from behind the mask. The mask was such a part of her own body that she hardly realized that such a device actually stood between her and the outside world. The few times that she removed were so short and…surreal…
Tali's hand reached for a pair of clasps at either side of the violet glass which she could comfortably reach with her long fingers. A short hiss followed as the system depressurized and the visor slid off. The significance of the moment was not lost on the doctor, who glanced upward curiously but politely from her work applying the respirator. After all, this is the first time Tali's face would be revealed to anyone aside from the Commander.
Her features were distinctly alien, but also recognizably feminine and her beauty truly undeniable and exotic. The skin was a soft shade of gray, and seemed smooth and soft. There were no visible pores or fine hairs to be seen along the surface that stretched across the high cheekbones and over a thin, shallow nose. Her eyes were of an intense black centered around a small and bright dot of violet. It was these eyes, cat-like in shape and function, that had gazed from behind her mask for so long, their bright color visible even through the tint of her visor. Though it was difficult to see around the quarian's face, Dr. Chakwas observed briefly what were definitely thick strands of lustrous black hair.
Odd thought the doctor. Hair is not something we have seen on any of the other alien species. She quickly ran a mental list. Turian, asari, krogan, salarian, vorcha, volus, prothean…none of them. It had always seemed to Chakwas that hair was a distinctly human feature. Noting now that the quarians had it as well, it's possible that they are the closest alien relatives to humans, genetically speaking. If the two species were genetically close enough, it would make mating…well, not viable, necessarily, but possible at the very least.
The Commander will find that interesting.
"Is he going to be alright?" Tali spoke, the damaged mask finally out of the way of her vision and her speech.
"I certainly hope so, Tali."
The room flashed green as the second round of decontamination took place. Liara, Garrus, and Javik assembled in the med bay, taking up positions around the bed.
"Doctor, I ordered a retreat" Garrus started. "The ground team has been largely decimated and the Crucible is no closer to mounting the Citadel than it was before our strike. We need a better plan and I think the Commander can give it to us." He stopped briefly, his eyes scanning over Tali's newly exposed face. The others took note of it as well, silently but appreciatively. Tali noticed as well, and a deep violet color briefly painted her cheeks.
Liara spoke next. "Doctor, you have to wake him. Admiral Hackett will be calling any second to figure out what happened and what to do next. I'm rather surprised he hasn't already, to be frank."
"Absolutely not." The request made the doctor cross. "He will be in far too much pain to make any kind of decision. I'm sorry, Garrus, that burden is on you while I tend to the Commander."
A wave of debate and protest was about to rise from the group, but they were silenced immediately.
"He is a soldier, Doctor."
Javik was the speaker. He had not been with the group long, but they knew well now that the prothean's wisdom (and wit) far outmatched theirs, and they would all do best to listen in those infrequent moments when he chose to share it.
"A soldier" he repeated. "His life is pain. If you were to wake him, he would be able to withstand it. This is nothing held against the pain he has already suffered. As have we all."
The prothean's voice was a deep, sonorous rumble that seemed to echo inside their bodies as well as out. For the humans, the sound was translated in their comm links to what would on Earth be considered an authentic African accent. It was an odd but understandable functionality. Something as ancient as a prothean had never been translated by their comm links before Javik's revival. The protheans themselves were the source of much of modern galactic civilization's knowledge and technology about the Reapers. For the humans, the oldest traces of their civilization came from the African continent. In an odd way, the connection made sense.
He continued. "I believe the Commander would want to be a part of what may be his final battle, the one upon which rests the fate of his planet, and our galaxy."
Dr. Chakwas felt it would be wrong to argue, though she still disagreed on some level. "Very well" she said, applying as much local anesthetic as she could to the Commander's grievous wounds before injecting him with a reagent that would force him into the waking world.
They waited, their breaths barely making a noise, watching the Commander's eyelids flutter haphazardly before opening slowly. He blinked once, then again in quick succession. The pupils contracted rapidly, focusing his otherwise blank gaze. The rhythm of breath elevated from its resting state as the Commander gathered his wits, processed his surroundings, and his own physical condition. His eyes found Tali first, and a ragged breath escaped from the smile that her presence gave him.
"I came back, Tali" he spoke, continuing their broken dialogue at the beam site, where Tali spoke the words to her lover that broke his heart just before they parted for what Shepard believed would be the last time. Those words echoed between them now, unspoken, but remembered. The very air seemed charged with her parting words; "I have a home" she had said. "Come back to me."
And so he did.
"Commander?" It was Garrus who spoke up first. "How do you feel?"
In truth, the anesthetic had not yet acted to its full potential, and the Commander could still feel the fire of his injuries in his nerves and fogging his mind. Nevertheless, he was never one to succumb to something as trivial as physical pain.
"Lucky to be alive." Shepard sat up, acknowledging Garrus' question. He turned to Chakwas next. "Thanks for your help, Doc." She nodded in response. "Can someone tell me how I got back here? What happened on the Citadel? What happened to the Crucible, and the Catalyst?" Shepard was aware that something about his experience on the Citadel wasn't right, but his brain was still far too muddled to make sense of it.
Liara answered him. "Shepard, you never made it to the Citadel. Nobody did. Whatever you think happened after the beam, didn't."
"Everything you saw was in your mind, Commander." Javik continued. "But what did you see?"
Shepard wondered. This information wasn't…new, necessarily, but it was still shocking. Shepard spent the next several minutes telling them what happened on the Citad-…in his mind. About Anderson, the Illusive Man, how they both perished from the latter's gun, Shepard's discovery of the Catalyst, their conversation about the origins of the Reapers, and finally, the choices the Catalyst gave to the Commander.
"I chose to destroy them" he said. "And after I blew up the Crucible, the fire consumed me and…and I'm back here."
Tali was the first to respond to the chilling story the Commander had just told. Her lips barely moved as she spoke; spending nearly her whole life under a mask removed the need for complex and ornate mouth movement.
"Shepard…" she said in an accent that the translator likened to that of Arabic on Earth "…it sounds like you were fighting the indoctrination effect, but on a very personal level. The personifications of the Admiral and the Illusive Man were pieces of yourself that perished in the struggle, and your destruction of the Crucible was your rejection of the Reapers' hold over your mind." Her eyes met Shepard's as she completed her rationalization. "Otherwise, you would not have woken." Her fingers closed around his.
"How would a quarian know something like this?" Javik retorted.
"I don't, prothean" Tali's voice took on a scathing edge, mocking Javik's inability to grasp the concept of an individual's name. "It's called a theory, but I suppose a species that believes it knows everything doesn't have any use for theories."
Javik's nostrils flared at spoken jab, but his voice retained its composure. The prothean was well-versed in verbal jousting, especially among his crewmates. "If it does not add definitive information, it is not worth saying."
"You should remember those words next time you feel the urge to share your wit."
The four eyes around Javik's ridged head narrowed, but he stayed silent. A warrior knows when he is defeated. The quarian's eyes flared with a dim purple light, and the bottom of her mask concealed the slightly lifted corners of her mouth.
"So what was happening in the real world while I was out?" Shepard tried to sit up, but Chakwas pressed him back down in an effort to reduce the exacerbation of his wounds.
"The assault went…poorly" Garrus said. "Heavy losses on all fronts, the Crucible is no closer to the Citadel, and we still have no way of getting those arms open to dock it anyway. Not to mention we haven't made a dent in Harbinger." His mandibles twitched as he spoke, whether from exhaustion, or fear, or disappointment. In any case, the turian felt visibly defeated.
There was a pregnant pause as everyone waited for Garrus to get to his point, which he was apprehensive to do. "I ordered a full retreat to regroup" he said finally.
Shepard was shaken at the report, though he tried to hide it behind the eyes that were weathered by war. He knew only some of his squad would fall for it…and none of them were in the room with him now.
"I trust your judgment, Garrus."
The turian continued. "Thank you, Shepard. Now that you're awake, we're waiting on your orders." His hand glided over the sidearm on his hip to punctuate the statement.
"And I would give them to you, if I knew why we're getting our asses handed to us."
Liara's hand was now on his shoulder, a move that did not escape Tali's gaze. "We knew this battle would not be easy, Commander. We knew many of us might not make it out alive."
The frustration of the conflict was finally getting to Shepard. After months…years, of the tragedy of the impending Reaper war consuming his soul, he couldn't handle it anymore, and his resolve snapped.
"We've done everything right! We can't lose this!" A spark of pain surged through his chest as the excitement in his voice raised. The anesthetic, though effective, was only temporary. He felt Tali's fingers close around his, and surprisingly, it was enough to ebb his despair. "What do we have to do…" he said, softer and to no one in particular.
"We have to fight as one." Javik said simply.
Every eye in the room turned to face the prothean. Usually it was in admiration, but this time it was in disbelief.
Shepard drew breath to retort, but Liara took care of it for him.
"What? How can you say that?" The asari's biotic aura flared up around her as her rage grew at Javik's insensitive comment. "All of us, every last person on this ship, especially Shepard, has been doing nothing but trying to unite every sapient species in the galaxy against a common threat, and you…you have the audacity to say that we-"
But Javik raised a hand to interrupt her. "You misunderstand me. We are united, but we are not one."
Now they weren't just watching. They were listening too. The glow of Liara's aura dimmed.
"Back in my cycle, as the Prothean Empire grew to include the other species of the galaxy, we extended our name as well as our sovereignty to them. We gave them a choice to become one of us. The Prothean name does not belong to any one species; it is a description of our allegiance. In this cycle, you have no such allegiance. When we fight the Reapers, we fight as humans, as asari, as krogan, and geth, and drell, and others. We are united, on the same side, against a common threat, but when we look at the end of this war, we are divided again, with our own causes and our own interests."
Tali spoke up again. "If that was the answer, why did your cycle fall?"
"We lacked many of the advantages you have, but you in turn must realize you lack the advantage that we had; a bond that transcends not just our species, but our goals as well. A true unity. That is the greatest achievement of my empire. We created one people from a galaxy of thousands of different peoples."
A slow realization came over Shepard and the others as they saw that Javik was right.
"So what do we call ourselves?" Garrus asked.
Javik shrugged. "It does not matter. Call yourselves the primitives for all it concerns me. The name is irrelevant. In fact, the name is entirely unnecessary. What is important is the idea, that we are life, and they are death. Any further subdivision breeds weakness among us."
Liara was about to speak next, until Joker's voice came over the comm.
"Commander, it's good to have you awake. Admiral Hackett is in for an urgent message."
Shepard smiled at the sound of his pilot's voice. "Good to be awake, Joker. Patch him through to my omnitool."
The holographic orange interface appeared on Shepard's right forearm as the transmission came through, and he lifted it across his body so that it would be visible to the others. The smartly-dressed miniaturized figure of Admiral Hackett stood out of the buttons and keys and looked up at the Commander.
"Shepard. Glad you're not dead." He spoke quickly and gruffly. Though his emotions may be genuine, they were still in the middle of active combat, and Shepard understood completely. "We thought we were done for when your second-in-command called off the ground assault, but we finally have a piece of good news."
"What is it?" Shepard asked.
"Anderson made it to the Citadel."
The tense silence returned to the room, as if that were its natural state.
"He seems injured, but not enough to keep him from moving. He's going to get the arms open for us to dock the Crucible, then he's going to get the hell out of there."
"Why?" Liara asked.
"We have reason to believe that once the Crucible fires, it'll destroy the Citadel and presumably everything inside it." Destroy the Citadel? It was a cost Shepard was willing to pay if it meant the end of the Reapers. After all, I didn't have a problem with it last time. Hackett continued. "If you want Anderson alive, you're going to need to get back on the ground and do an extraction."
Shepard made a move to rise immediately, but Tali pressed him back down. "The Commander is wounded" she spoke to Hackett.
"I'm fine. Where do you want me, sir?"
Hackett paused. "Shepard, if you are not fit for duty, I'm going to ask you to stay on the Normandy and send your squad instead."
Shepard's brow furrowed. "With all due respect, sir, this is going to be my last fight regardless of its outcome."
Hackett sighed. "Understood, Shepard. Get ready for a ground extraction."
Garrus stepped in. "Admiral Hacket, we need to discuss the possibility of regrouping before we make this run. The last one did not end so well. I would like to call an emergency war meeting to reassess our standing and our next move or I'm afraid this will not end in our favor."
Hackett's hologram face turned to the turian, then back to Shepard. "Do you agree with this, Commander?"
"I do." He now addressed the rest of the room. "Everyone, you are all going to be present and offer all ideas and assistance you can. Follow Garrus' lead." His eyes fell on Tali's, the intense brown irises meeting the concerned purple ones. "I won't be there. I trust your decisions."
He rose from the table, with some assistance from Tali and Dr. Chakwas. Pain surged through the shredded thigh muscle as his weight rested above his legs, and his eyelids fluttered momentarily as the sensation burned through his nerves and he adjusted to it. With a rhythmically consistent limp, the Commander walked out of the medbay, his squad both in front and behind him.
"Joker, I want you to drop me off at the back lines, then take the rest of the squad including yourself and EDI back for the meeting. Garrus' is in the charge while I'm on the ground."
"Understood, Commander" came Joker's voice over the intercom. "I'll make sure the talking trash can doesn't decide to destroy all humans while we're all locked in the same room."
EDI's voice took over. "And I will make sure that we get ourselves a decent pilot while we're there."
Ouch…
They had reached the elevator. Garrus and Liara piled in immediately, Chakwas followed them reluctantly, concerned for the Commander's health. Tali lingered, holding her hands in Shepard's and a long meaningful eye contact between them.
"Shepard, you need to get your armor fixed" she said, concern showing in her voice.
"Look who's talking." He smiled at her. He tried to retain an air of professionalism between them, as they were being watched by their colleagues and friends. "Seriously Tali, you do need to get your suit repaired."
It was Tali's turn to smile. "I will, Shepard. But really, I'm feeling good. I'll feel better if I knew I'd get to see you again after this."
"I swear on my life."
That got a giggle out of her. "I bet that sounded more reassuring in your head." With that, she leaned forward to peck him, which almost didn't work because of the shape of the mask. As she stepped into the elevator, Javik called for the Commander's attention.
"Commander, I have a favor to ask of you in the event that we do not see each other again."
"We will, but go ahead, Javik."
"I need to borrow a weapon."
Shepard was puzzled. "Borrow? What weapon?"
"The Cain."
"What for?"
The prothean's ancient face spread into a malicious grin. "My people have a score to settle."
The Normandy dropped Shepard off behind the barricade built by the Alliance military before taking off once again into the sky that was streaked with fire, like bleeding wounds of war that threatened to tear the very stars apart. Several humans of his former company, whose services he no longer required but always desired, namely Ashley Williams, now a Spectre like himself, and James Vega, the aspiring N7 meathead...with the best at heart, of course.
"Commander!" they called almost in unison as he stumbled down toward the featureless concrete building that made up the armory of the block. Dr. Chakwas had attempted a rapid sewing job on the split muscle in his thigh, aided with copious medigel. The solution was temporary and incomplete, but sturdy while it lasted. It would last. The din of war surrounded them. Even in the safety of the presence of their allies, they were all reminded that this conflict was everywhere, and everything was riding on it.
"It's good to see you" Shepard spoke as he approached them, accepting a professional handshake from both Williams and Vega. "Any word from Anderson? How's he doing?"
"Alive and moving" said Vega. "The Citadel is totally empty except for the Keepers. He's sure to get those arms open, we just need to decide what our plan is going to be once he does."
"That's what our summit is for. I take it that while Anderson is up there, I'm going to be in charge of you guys. Any complaints?"
"None, Commander" Ashley said, punctuated her statement by ejecting a thermal clip from her weapon.
"Agreed" added James.
Shepard was prepared to comment further, but spotted an old friend behind the human couple approaching quickly.
"Shepard!" he heard the excited growl, just before the mass of armor and scaly muscle collided past his squad and right into his shoulder.
"Wrex!" he managed to squeeze out past his rapidly compressing ribs. The krogan was not aware of the Commander's injury, but luckily the gel held and the wound was not exacerbated. Once Wrex had released his embrace, he clapped a large paw on Shepard's shoulder. "It is good to fight at your side again, clan brother."
"This will most likely be the last time, Wrex. Let's make it count." Shepard had just returned the friendly clap onto the krogan's shoulder, when his comm began to buzz.
"Shepard, come in. This is Hackett."
A finger pressed against the transceiver. "Shepard here. What's happening at the summit?"
"There isn't going to be one, Commander. Anderson has opened the arms. We have to strike now, hard and fast."
Shepard took his finger off the speaker wedged in his ear and looked up, shielding his eyes from the fiery explosions that dotted the sky, while Ashley, James, and Wrex followed suit. The silhouette of the Citadel flashed into visibility periodically, and there they were, clear as day; slowly, a cleft appeared between the outstretched spindles of the massive space station as they grew further apart.
"Commander," Hackett buzzed back to life on comm. "We have no time to form an attack plan. The Reapers have noticed, and they're coming on a full assault now. We're sending the Crucible in to dock, but we need everyone. Everyone." He repeated the last word with such emphasis, such weight, that the Commander felt like it had turned into an electrical current that ran from the base of his spine and spread like a spiderweb through his skull. A simultaneous numbness and fire crashed through every bone in his body.
Everyone...
Almost as if he were in a trance, Shepard retuned his comm so that it transmitted to every open channel. Every starship in every fleet of every species, each turret and outpost and barricade, every last soldier, commander, admiral, and general with a functioning headset. Everyone heard his next words.
"This is Commander Shepard. Report in."
What followed was a stream of announcements said by everyone and heard by every one else. One after another, in no particular order, each group proclaimed their presence and, by extension, their readiness to do battle.
"Aralakh Company, reporting." crackled the voice of Grunt.
"Grissolm Academy, ready." snarled Jack.
"Blue Suns, Eclipse, Blood Pack, and all of Omega, locked and loaded."
As the proclamations continued, Shepard closed his eyes, visualizing the speakers as they buzzed in and out, letting their willingness to fight fuel him. His eyelids parted, and the veritable horde of Reaper forces that were swarming to meet him no longer seemed daunting or the least bit challenging. There was no way they would lose this. Not together.
Wrex ejected a thermal clip from his shotgun, replacing it immediately with a fresh one. Shepard followed suit. They turned to each other.
"For Earth!" the krogan roared, lifting the shotgun over his head. "For Tuchanka! For Palaven, and Thessia, and Rannoch!"
It was the last comm transmission the Commander would ever send. He raised his finger to the headset.
"Everyone; attack."
There is no correct or even accurate way to describe war. It is a deeply personal affair, and varies for every individual. Most can agree that there is something surreal about participating in mortal combat, whether it be the horror of taking life, or the thrill of extending your own by abolishing your enemy of theirs. But Commander Shepard, in his final charge, flanked by his closest companions, backed by every able and willing soul in the galaxy, fighting for not only their survival, but for the existence of all organic life present and future, could swear; it felt the same for all of them. In his later years, Shepard would not be able to claim that he remembered every detail of the last attack. Only brief and vivid scenes, flashbulb memories, remained.
Wrex charged the first Cannibal, burying the end of his shotgun deep in its scalp, and blowing it out the other side. He was quickly swarmed from the side by smaller attackers that threatened to pierce his armor. As he fell to his knees and appeared to be consumed, Wrex felt possessed. A creature far stronger than any krogan living or dead assumed his spirit, and Wrex broke free of his captors.
"You will not take my future away from me!" he cried, swiping them away and blasting those in reach. "You will not take my children from me!"
Shepard remembered being separated from his squad less than a minute after he had opened fire. He did not know his destination, his location, or his plan. He only knew what the final result had to be, and that he would die sooner than not realize it.
On the battlefield, he thought he saw ghosts. One in particular, Thane, holding two rifles in his hands, pierced the Reaper soldiers repeatedly with ammo that shredded through their hides effortlessly. The bottom of his black coat swirled in dust as he lined up sight after sight and obliterated foe after foe. Only after he ran past did Shepard realize it was not Thane he spotted, but Kolyat, wearing his father's jacket, wielding his father's weapons, defending his father's friends, and fighting his father's war.
A brief glance skyward revealed the krogan armada bearing down on the point of the Reaper formation. Garbled transmissions revealed that Aralakh Company, Grunt among them, and many other groups, were hijacking the Reaper ships through vacuum of space and storming through them, causing as much damage as they could before bursting out and repeating the process.
Stopped behind a rock outcropping, Shepard saw a heavily reinforced line of Geth Prime holding a Reaper ground squad at bay. Tali herself stood at their front, shouting orders while cutting down at least a quarter of the adversaries that approached the troops under her command. When a path cleared, she raised a fist skyward and proclaimed, in her own language, a cry that Shepard had never heard before. It resembled keelah se'lai, but shorter, and grammatically different. As he continued his sprint toward the beam to defend the position, he pieced together what little he knew of the Quarian language and deciphered the cry. Where keelah se'lai meant "by the homeworld I wish to see", Tali's new call to arms translated, more or less, to "for our homeworld".
The Normandy swung by low overhead. Without stopping even to hover, Garrus and Javik hopped out, hitting the ground running, weapons already unholstered and muzzles blazing. Liara soared out as well, supported in the air by her biotics which flared about her in a dazzling aura. After the drop, the Normandy lifted back into the sky, Thanix cannon firing toward the hull of the nearest Reaper ship, tearing through it before banking to the side. "Bullseye!" he heard Joker exclaim. Although he couldn't see it, Shepard knew the prodigious pilot was flying the ship with only five fingers at the controls. The other five were wrapped around those of his copilot, EDI; if there was any chance either of them would not survive, they would go down together in flames, satisfied.
The battle raged. Aria T'Loak coordinated dropships for the merc squads, who continued to wear their primary colored uniforms, but fought in unison, almost as though they had rehearsed. Aria herself joined the fight, wielding biotics and sidearms with a deadly fluency.
Behind a near outcropping, Dr. Chakwas tended to the wounded under a barrier projected by Jack, who yelled toward her students lined in ranks and firing into the crowd with their own biotic powers. With every volley, more Reaper forces fell, more commands were shouted by Jack, and the students quickly developed a fierce system of retaliation and retreat that kept the impromptu medical facility safe. As a cannibal attempted to come up behind Jack in a surprise attack, an omniblade bloomed out of its chest accompanied by a fountain of blood. As the creature fell, it revealed Kasumi, decloaking, behind it.
He spotted Javik, Zaeed, and Garrus, matching each other shot for shot, counting their kills in friendly competition, despite that their conflict with the Reapers was anything but friendly. The Prothean, as was his modus operandi at this point, was cheating rather cleverly at this impromptu game; while Zaeed and Garrus were clocking in roughly 40 kills each, Javik was scores ahead, evidently counting his kills from his own cycle.
An explosion bloomed above. Shepard glanced and saw it was a Reaper ship going down in flames. That kill belonged to the drell and hanar fleet. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the Citadel, its arms now wide enough to allow docking of the Crucible, which was being escorted by the turian and human fleets in an impenetrable formation.
Wave after wave of Reaper forces swarmed around the beam, and wave after wave of sentient life, organic and synthetic alike, matched them in number and ferocity. The struggle lasted for what felt like eternity. Many of the soldiers were convinced that this is all their life would ever be; few were able to imagine the conflict ending. There was no longer any division between them; human and krogan and asari and turian and geth and many others fought side-by-side, as a single resistance, a single force, with a single goal...survival.
As Shepard mowed down one enemy after another, the individuals by his side and covering his back constantly changing as he maneuvered about the field, he realized this very synthesis, this wholesome allegiance of every sentient species in the galaxy. He, Commander Shepard, was instrumental in uniting them, not just in their alliance, but in their very spirit, and this fusion's last and perhaps only stand was here and now. In a strange way, this comforted him. It meant that he would see the conclusion of his greatest achievement, whether for better for worse. There would either be everything or nothing after this fight, and he would know which it was before he died. This was his last fight, and theirs, no matter what the outcome.
"It's in!" Hackett's voice crackled in once more, this time heralding a deafening cheer that immediately followed. Shepard glanced skyward again after taking cover behind a fallen wall. The Crucible was, indeed, docked to the Citadel. The arms now pulsed with a red light that seemed to emanate from the junction between the sphere of the Crucible weapon and the central hub of the Citadel. The effect was immediate; Reaper forces became slow and disoriented, many falling over. The larger troops continued to fight, but haphazardly and without any sense of tactic or caution. It was evident why, after all. The Crucible was radiating some sort of energy that was adversely affecting the Reapers, and that in turn proved detrimental to their army.
The Reapers themselves shrieked in what was clearly defeat. As the sequence of pulses continued to grow brighter and wider, Reapers within its range fizzled over with red bolts, as if their armored hulls were cracking. Many exploded, popping like insects and decorating the sky in explosions. This was, however, a minority. The larger ships remained intact, though adversely affected, and continued to shoot down their enemies in the opposing fleet. Shepard spotted an explosion that signified, to his horror, that the quarian flagship had been destroyed.
"I'm increasing the power now!" Anderson's voice replaced Hackett's. The human and turian combined fleet retreated from the Citadel, while the pulses continued, now accompanied by a deep hum that seemed to shake the planet. The larger Reapers were now landing, many of them crashing, and their spindly legs crushing under their weight. Red sparks danced over their surfaces, sapping them of energy and powering them down. Harbinger descended among many of his fallen brethren and fired his main cannon upward, towards the Crucible.
"Anderson, look out!" Shepard exclaimed into the comm, but he was too late. The laser hit, and Anderson's final cry could be heard echoing through the connection before it went dead. The blast threatened to separate the Crucible from its holster, but the structure seemed to hold. Harbinger in the meanwhile, prepared to fire again.
All of the ground troops concentrated their fire onto the first Reaper, but their bolts reflected off the hull as if they were merely arrows. The glowing red eye gazed down at them, as if to mock their efforts.
"The cycle cannot be stopped. You all will die. My brothers will rise again from your ashes and..."
Harbinger never finished its sentence. A great shape, much like that of a Reaper, collided with it, knocking both to the ground kicking up a cloud of dust and debris that threatened to sweep away many of the ground forces. The new arrival, which seemed to be larger than Harbinger, and most certainly not synthetic, tackled the adversary again, clamping enormous tentacle-like appendages about the hull and forcing the ship into the ground.
"No, Harbinger, your ashes will be added to those of your brothers, and your victims." The voice of the Leviathan rippled through the air like a lightning strike and Shepard felt as through the earth were about to be torn open. This was a might greater and more ancient than the Reapers themselves; their creators.
And now their destroyers.
The Crucible was now separated from the Citadel. Wielding it as though it were a weapon, other Leviathan descended closer to the planet, aiming the Crucible's docking site at Harbinger. The impact was tremendous. Another veritable storm of dust and debris consumed the entire battlefield, and likely miles far beyond it in every direction. The beam was gone. All structures, both human and Reaper were gone. The only shape in the flattened landscape was of a crumpled and defeated Harbinger, red static like a spiderweb around its body. The Leviathan lifted off, their massive shapes casting Reaper-like shadows over the barren land, feeling that their part had been done, that their poetic justice had been realized, after countless eons of hiding and waiting.
"Harbinger!" A single voice cried through the wasteland. Javik stood roughly a quarter of a mile from Harbinger's face, flanked on either side by the crew of the Normandy, past and present. The Normandy itself was landing just behind them. Shepard ran to join them, ignoring the achy weariness that his whole body was heavy with.
"Harbinger!" Javik yelled again. At the second call, the Reaper's great red eye opened, focusing its gaze at the Prothean.
"You are defeated, Harbinger."
"A prothean...How interesting" rumbled the ancient machine. "You will be destroyed as well. The cycle demands it."
"Your cycle is over!" roared Javik. "I am not just a prothean, Reaper. I am the last of my kind, the last of a people you obliterated 50,000 years ago."
"And you are proud?" Harbinger seemed to be regaining strength. Enough so to be carrying on conversation.
"I am. I have been granted a second life to rectify the mistakes of my first. I am the last voice of the Prothean Empire, a testament to your failure!"
"I have not failed. You will be destroyed, if one cycle too late."
"No. There were hundreds of protheans you never found. You failed to destroy me and them in the previous cycle, just as you have failed to destroy us in this one. The time of the Reapers is over."
Javik unholstered the weapon from his back, the Cain he had been carrying through the whole battle, anticipating this moment when he would face the annihilator of his people, and reveal himself as a monument to their immortality.
"And I, Javik, the last of the Protheans, the avatar of their vengeance, and the voice of the empire that refused to die, will extinguish you."
Harbinger's eye narrowed, and the creature spoke for the last time.
"Let it be darkest where you are, Prothean."
"Let it be darker still where I send you."
He pulled the trigger, and it was over. The combined damage that Harbinger had taken from the Crucible, the Leviathan, and the Cain, was too much. The last Reaper was destroyed.
And with that, Shepard collapsed.
It didn't matter where he was, or who he was with, or where everyone was now. Shepard finally felt at peace. He would rest, for a long while, and then he would wake. He would find his friends waiting for him when he did, and they would be alive, and maybe even happy. They were not without injury, of the body, mind and soul. Shepard wasn't either. They had all come out of this conflict scarred, but they were forever grateful to have come out of it at all. Shepard would see them again, but not on the battlefield.
There would be funerals to attend. Sessions of physical therapy. The bedsides of those who were not ready for neither one nor the other. It would take years, if not decades, to rebuild, and it would take longer still to recover. At the very least, now there was no danger. Pain and suffering, yes, but not danger.
Shepard had lost many things coming out of this war. But he had gained many things as well. Love. Friends. Legacy.
And a home. A home he would build himself, on Rannoch, just like he promised.