"You could have resisted. You could have fought! Instead, you surrendered. You quit." Shepard's words are accusing, hard. You had a way of stopping this but you didn't. The galaxy will fall because of you. She is so small compared to him, barely half his size and inferior in everything but she has still hunted him across the galaxy, found his secrets and plans and obliterated them to the point where even the synthetic creature she set out to destroy became intrigued. The words falling from her lips are poison made to weaken your resolve ringing so true that they penetrate his thoughts, wrap around his mind like they did on Virmire and he wants her to be right, wants it more than he ever wanted power.
"Maybe you're right... Maybe there is still a chance for... for-" Saren feels his insides twisting as he finally accepts her words, feels a physical bone-crushing pain rush through his body. "The implants... Sovereign is too strong. I'm sorry. It is too late for me."
"There is still one way to stop this, if you've got the guts." She lowers her pistol and meets his gaze. The resolve in her eyes gives him strength to resist the unnatural urge to shoot her, kill her, destroy this organic vermin that thinks it can oppose us.
"Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you." The older Spectre raises his gun, placing it just under his jaw. The voice in his mind is too powerful to fight. He has to accept that Shepard was right all along, that he was nothing but a tool. At least through the human's persuasion he can die with his mind being his own, not a... a madman like the other one. What was his name...?
"Don't."
Shepard slowly walks forward, thoughtful gaze never leaving the turian ahead of her and he pauses, a flicker of hope in his eyes. Saren doesn't want to die. He has been thinking so much about Shepard's words on Virmire, has been wondering about her conviction about the Reapers and why it strikes a chord within him and now it seems as though she is offering him salvation despite what she's sacrificed to end him. But how can she possibly undo the infection in his thoughts?
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"Shepard, what are you-" Kaidan starts, but interrupts himself when it is blatantly obvious that he will be ignored no matter what he says. He wishes she would explain, though, because this... she's been so focused on spilling Saren's blood ever since Eden Prime and the one-eighty is a bit too strange. Doubt settles in his mind; is Shepard, too, indoctrinated? Have all these Ciphers and visions and contact with Sovereign taken her mind away? If so, can he pull the trigger? He's not sure. He's not sure Garrus will be able to, either, and so he just watches his commanding officer, scared he will have to choose between her life and his own.
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"You can fight this", she says and steadily approaches Saren. She is like a blazing fire, burning with even more intensity than the pain in his mind and for an instant he forgets that she is human, that she has been opposing him for months. "As long as you fight them there's a chance. Just let me get to the control panel. I can override the systems." She holds up an OSD, the surface of it reflecting the light of the flames and even though it is so small it looks bright enough to shine into any black hole; a beacon of salvation. "I can fix this. I can still save the galaxy from those machines."
Saren does not speak, just takes a step forward, forgetting about the glider beneath his feet. He falls, but just for a second because she is a biotic too and has enough presence of mind to pull him to the platform where she stands and he sits at her feet as she opens the ward arms, commands a fleet, saves the Council.
He is fighting a battle too - a battle for his mind now that he truly realises that it is not his own anymore. A thousand thoughts compel him to grab Shepard's ankle, pull her down and strangle her. A thousand more tells him to shoot her, as he still has his gun. Another thousand commands him to kill the other two standing a few feet away, just to catch Shepard off guard (and he thinks that he should know the turian because it is the one who tried to investigate him - him, a Spectre! - but Sovereign has not paid attention to that detail and so the name is currently missing). All the while, Saren resists, his body reacting with agony. He feels feverish, helpless as he groans and falls over without any of the three standing above him even attempting to lend a hand.
One thought suggests that all the human wanted was for him to suffer, because they're all like that, aren't they? Didn't he see that time and time again during the battle for Shanxi?
One thought tells him that if Sovereign is destroyed, the whole galaxy will perish. Saren is the only hope for organic life everywhere.
One thought whispers that he is already part synthetic and that makes him so much stronger, so much faster, so much better. Should he not allow others to experience this pinnacle of evolution?
"No."
His voice is so much stronger than he expected, clearly audible despite the sounds of battle, alarms, raging fires. The other three step away, looking down at him. The male human looks to Shepard, a question on his lips.
"This isn't our battle. If he wins, we all win, because then we prove to the Reapers that their indoctrination isn't absolute", she replies. "If he doesn't... Garrus, you know what to do."
Garrus. The turian. Garrus... Vakarian. The name comes back to Saren, clear and sharp like a shard of ice. Other names pour in, names that belong to faces that have gone blurry since Sovereign got a grip of him. Desolas. Sanders. Harper. Sha'ira. Those names used to mean something, used to make him feel something - regret, fury, anger, relief. He hadn't much cared for the Consort, but she is an expert at making people wind down and most Spectres spend some time around her every now and then, even if just for a quarter hour's conversation. He hasn't seen her since... since he first got a fixed location on Sovereign. Had the Reaper looked into his mind and found how perceptive the asari is, deeming her a threat? Possibly. And now, that he sees things clearly, he pieces old memories from nearly thirty years ago together with the sounds and feelings of Sovereign itself, put what he had seen in Temple Palaven together with the husks. He lost his brother to the Reapers more than to the humans and their war. Why hasn't he seen that before? Why-
He moves to support himself. One hand brushes against the tubes hanging by his side and he knows why, is repulsed by how easily he was convinced to allow the ancient machine to do this to him. He believed, truly and unquestionably believed that he could save at least his own people from annihilation but now it seems that the poison of indoctrination is in too deep, wrapped around his spine.
The human resisted. Will I be lesser than her?
The thought is clearly his own, angry and hard. He knows the answer, the only possibly answer, and with a groan he grabs the tubes and rips them out. It is not much but it's something, an action of defiance, resistance and the world goes dark as Sovereign growls inside Saren's head and screams outside of it as its shields flicker and fall.
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Garrus keeps his rifle trained on Saren's head, mandibles flickering with fury. He wants to pull the trigger, just end it all, but Shepard has earned his trust and he will only do it if there is a reason to... not that allying oneself with the Reapers and planning the destruction of all organic life isn't a damn good reason as it is. He glances up at Shepard, who stands by the console with her eyes on her omni-tool, her mind with the fleet attacking Sovereign.
He could shoot. Claim Saren was reaching for his own gun. Kaidan is looking at Shepard, too, and wouldn't be able to support or deny it.
He should shoot. For everything the Spectre has done. For everyone on Eden Prime. For Chief Williams. For giving that asari to the Thorian. For letting the geth kill so many colonists on Feros. Shepard should want him to shoot - she's assured them all that she would kill Saren, make him pay, and now she's just standing there with the other turian still breathing in her presence. It is wrong on so many levels and Garrus' finger is gently brushing the trigger as the man by Shepard's feet moves his hand. The shot goes off on instinct, a bullet piercing the kinetic barriers and burying itself in Saren's shoulder and while there is a cry of pain, it is nothing compared to the noise the Reaper makes.
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There is so much destruction, so much fire and blood where there used to be shining white metal and green grass. Even the synthetic sun glows with a colour that is all wrong, orange like a sunset rather than the constant bright daylight.
David Anderson is running, a human C-Sec officer just ahead of him. The security feeds told them that Shepard's signature was picked up in the Council chambers before the destruction of the Reaper and he hopes that she will still be there, breathing and proud and one of the best damn soldiers he has ever had under his command. The geth, lying inactive all over the Presidium, doesn't worry him for a moment since he is fully aware of his own capabilities and Shepard is better because what she lacks in subtlety she more than makes up for in force and raw power. No, what worries him is that she seemed to have such a clear goal which can only mean that she knew where Saren was. Is? It is not impossible that the turian won their fight; very little movement has been detected for the past half hour and if he somehow got away...
Shaking his head, Anderson gets into an elevator and punches the button that will take him to the Citadel tower, wishing he could just know what happened instead of standing there, unable to do anything, as he slowly ascends and once he's at the right level he hurries out with his heart in his throat. It still takes too long before Alenko and Vakarian are found and Anderson immediately asks for Shepard.
He might not ever have been good at reading turian facial expressions, but Garrus' eyes and the way his mandibles curve down tells him more than he ever wanted to know and he has to force himself to look at the chunk of Reaper that (supposedly) makes up her headstone.
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Saren stirs as too many fingers are by his throat, pushing gently against the rough skin beneath his jaw in search for a pulse. They withdraw as soon as he moves, and as he opens his eyes his vision is filled by the muzzle of an assault rifle and his mind feels hollowed out.
"You all there?"
It's Shepard's voice, though he doesn't recognise it at first because instead of being loud and angry it's low and dangerous, filled with venom instead of conviction. There is something else, too, like he hears it differently; as if it comes through unfiltered.
"My mind is my own", he says, using the same words he shared with her on Virmire but they feel like truth this time and he wonders at that.
"Not sure if that's an improvement", she says, lowering the gun, "but I'll take what I can get."
He glares up at her. She is framed by the warm glow of several fires and the cold light of Widow. Parts of Sovereign lie scattered all around them. It looks as though she brought the Reaper down herself, tearing it apart with her own two hands and that determination and rage that almost matches Saren's own. If it really was his at the end. He almost considers appreciating the image despite the fact that she belongs to such a sad species, but doesn't because-
because there should be a voice there, interrupting this train of thought with hot whispers about how inferior organics are to synthetics, words burning away his resistance, suggestions that increases his hate for humans. It has been there for so long and Saren feels fearful when he realises that his mind was stolen from him many, many years ago and hateful when he thinks that Shepard was the one who broke Sovereign's hold. He had thought it would be too late when he gave in to the Reaper because he could feel the changes in his bones, around his skull, deep in his lungs and on the tips of his talons.
But she saved him. Saved him and doomed the galaxy and he is not certain what to make of this woman whose back is turned to him and whose leg is obviously injured as alien red blood drips onto the floor from a crack in her armour. He finds it strange, strange that Shepard bleeds like every other organic.
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Kaidan doesn't know what to think. First he sees Shepard, alive though it should be impossible, one of those incredibly rare smiles on her lips and he cannot help but smile himself despite the grief that held him firmly moments ago. Then he sees Saren, also alive though it is detestable and his smile falls at the same time as Captain Anderson's.
Shepard notices and turns her head to the turian Spectre, her expression thoughtful for about a second before she moves closer to Anderson with determination in her gaze.
"If Saren hadn't broken free from the indoctrination Sovereign wouldn't have dropped its shields. We caught it off guard."
She has this way with words... or, really, with the way she says them; like there isn't any other truth and Kaidan can't help but believe her. It's part of what makes her a leader. It's why people follow her all the way to hell even if it means death, like Williams. There wasn't any trace of regret in the Gunnery Chief's voice when she said her last words because she believed in Shepard, even as she knew she wouldn't draw many more breaths and Kaidan feels like he would let Ashley down if he doesn't trust his Commander now, listens to her reasoning. It's not like saving the world comes with rules; he knows that now, knows that you have to adapt to whatever the galaxy decides to throw your way and trusts that that's what Shepard does right now.
"I don't understand, Shepard", Anderson says. "What are you going to do with him?"
A couple of other C-Sec officers arrive, their radios buzzing with people trying to organise police and medics on every section of every ward to maintain some kind of order and take care of the wounded. There are still geth moving about in the Presidium ring and on the lower ward levels, but the panic has subsided and people are really fighting back after Shepard proved that even unknown enemies can be defeated. The officers stare at Saren, uncomprehending and the whole Council chamber seems to hold back.
"It's in the Council's hands now", Shepard says, and Kaidan shakes his head as Garrus puts words to his disbelief.
"You're just going to turn him over? What will they do? Put him away in a cell somewhere?"
She looks at him, one corner of her mouth almost curling into the shadow of a smile. "Killing him would be too merciful."
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Saren doesn't quite listen to the conversation, lost in his own mind. He tries to shape coherent thoughts, to make sense of the fractured memories but finds it difficult. It feels as though there is something in the way, but also as though he can think and feel clearly for the first time in years and it catches him off guard enough for it to be a surprise when the C-Sec officers move cautiously towards him.
"So this is it, Shepard? You defeat me and throw me into prison. I almost thought you were a worthy opponent", he hisses. He doesn't bother resisting when he is handcuffed; there is nowhere for him to go and there is no doubt in his mind that should he flee, Shepard will hunt him down again, this time without any offer of mercy.
"I thought about killing you", she says, back turned again as she moves toward Anderson and her two squadmates, "for Ashley. For Benezia. For everyone in Zhu's Hope and on Eden Prime. But that'd only give me satisfaction."
She treats him in a way no opponent ever has before. Like he is no real threat now, no one to pay attention to. He glares at her as she turns her head enough for him to see her eyes, cold but still furious. There is no mercy there. There never was, he realises, and hates her because they are more alike than he thought. "And this?"
"I figure you'll have a trial. I figure it'll be broadcasted via the extranet and that everyone with avid screen will be watching because it will feel like justice to them."
"You are aware that there is video surveillance here? They could watch you kill me from ten different angles." He is not eager to die, but suddenly not being in control of anything feels worse than asking her for this.
"Yeah", she replies, and maybe there is a trace of something new in her voice, as if she is considering it. "But I think you'll suffer more behind bars than with a bullet in your head."
And with that she leaves and he is left behind and a part of him wants her to remain because she is the only solid, the only constant, the only thing he can rely on without seductive whispers and trickles of new tech along his veins.