FOREWORD

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING OR ELSE I WILL THREATEN YOU!

Hey guys. This came to my mind a while ago, but with the ME3 excitement buzzing in the air after the recent Game Informer article, I felt like writing.

So. The biggest part of Mass Effect is the effect your choices have. After I completed the first game, I went back and played it again. I wanted to see what I could do differently. Maybe it would turn out better. Maybe it would turn out worse. Who knew? All I knew is how it worked out the first time.

The premise of this story is simple. What if Shepard, upon finishing the story arc of the Mass Effect trilogy, found himself/herself back at the beginning? Shepard isn't limited to a linear story structure. Shepard can (and would) do anything to ensure the perfect ending.

The following five chapters are the result of several hours work on my part. I apologize for some of the dialogue I ripped from the game. It will happen less as the story diverges from what we all know and love. Additionally, I do plan on expanding past Shepard and Ashley's point of view.

Please, read and review. I need your feedback if I'm going to get you to smile. Suggestions are welcome.

IF YOU DIDN'T READ WHAT I TOLD YOU TO READ, WELL, GEE, I TOLD YOU TO READ IT AND NOW I'M GOING TO THREATEN YOU. READ IT OR ELSE.

"Shepard," warned EDI, "a battle group of fifty-three Reapers has broken orbit from Pavalen. They are on an intercept course. I suggest we-"

"We what?" Shepard's grip tightened on the bulkhead by the empty cockpit. Joker was gone, but in Shepard's mind, it would always be his station. "Run away again? Let billions of people die? At least I'd hope they get to die, because the Reapers have different plans for them. This can still work. Tell me Liara still with us on this."

EDI hesitated before answering. "The Shadow Broker is nonresponsive."

They must have found her when they were out of range of the relays. That severely limited their options. "What about Hacket?" he asked.

"First fleet has not entered the system yet," said EDI. "It is likely that they have been interdicted."

Shepard grimaced. Since he came up with the plan that could stop the Reapers, he'd known something like this would happen—something that he couldn't let happen. "Contingency Black, EDI," Commander Shepard ordered. "Take over any battle net that's left with the Crypt Cipher. Systems Alliance, Hiearchy, Asari, Salarian, hell, the Batarians if you can find any. Forge orders, whatever it takes. Get them here now."

EDI's blue avatar popped up by the empty cockpit. "I'm afraid I cannot do that Shepard," she said.

He looked up, narrowing his eyes at the hologram. "What?"

"I already carried out Contingency Black two weeks ago. The fall of Thessia convinced me that immediate action was necessary."

Shepard became quiet for a moment. The AI had been in complete control of the counter-offensive for days. "So you know everything," he stated. "You have the survivors bundled up somewhere?"

"They are all dead," EDI corrected. "While I extended the lifetime of the combined fleets far past all predictions for their complete destruction, the Reapers proved superior."

He didn't feel anything at this news. He was past feeling. "You didn't tell me."

"I judged it would critically jeopardize your morale."

Shepard lost it.

He tore a monitor from the wall and hurled it into the pilotless cockpit, shattering an array of intricate displays. "Why?" he yelled. "Why tell me at all? We lost—everything we've done—everything I've done, it's all useless! A million years from now, someone else will be where I am. A million years from now, this is all happening again!" He took a breath and continued, voice low. "Lie to me EDI," he said. "Tell me there's some ridiculous shred of hope left. Tell me when those fifty Reapers get here that we'll send every single one straight back to hell. Tell me anything but the truth."

"I'm sorry Shepard," said EDI. "I do not want to lie again before I die."

Low laughter echoed down the deserted, trashed main deck of the Normandy SR-2.

Shepard's free hand clenched into a fist, but he didn't turn around. That laugh had become more common these days. The only other living thing on the Normandy had always been critical of Shepard's actions, but as hope began to fail, she began to act more and more antagonistic.

"This is rich." The voice belonged to a woman. It had a gruff quality to it. "The guy who everyone was all over as the first human Spectre. You were all like, hey guys, I'm James Shepard. I can survive anything. Reapers are real. I'm a boy scout. I never tell a lie. We can make wishes come true through the power of friendship. Blah blah blah. Looks like you're the big ol' hypocrite now!"

She was the best the army had to offer. She returned a veteran of nameless wars, and witnessed countless battles. She was Colonel Harper Shepard, James's twin sister.

"The galaxy is burning and you're drunk," said James. He could smell the alcohol on her breath from here.

"And I'm smoking one of the Illusive Man's cigars," Harper cheered. Sure enough, she clenched a lit cigar between her teeth. The smoke had the same trademark, homely mahogany scent.

The late leader of the secret prohuman organization known as Cerberus had gifted them to her. A token of appreciation for forcing them to save the Collector base. Whether or not it was the right thing to do, James would rather have destroyed the place.

"I thought you smoked all of those the night you got them," Shepard said. Even though it surprised him, he knew it shouldn't. "You told me you didn't have any left!"

"Whoo yeah, I lied to you too!" shouted Harper. "Yo EDI baby, what's the ETA on those ET AI SOBs?"

"Unless we retreat, one minute," EDI provided. "Hold. I am receiving a transmission from Harbinger."

James withered at the mention of the Reaper. "I'd sooner die than hear that thing's voice again. Block it, EDI. And we're staying put. There's nowhere worth running."

But Harper had other ideas. "No no no, look Wally, why not do both?" she asked. "Dying and hearing it again, I mean. EDI, patch him through. Let's have a… a family chat or something before we all kill ourselves. A last goodbye."

EDI began to protest. "I do not think-"

"Do it," Harper said, cutting her off, "do it or I give my bro a big grenade-packed hug."

James drew his sidearm and aimed it at his unsteadily approaching sibling as if she were a serious threat. This would have looked strange to any onlooker, since she didn't even come up to his shoulder—not because she was small, but because James was more than six-and-a-half feet tall. "You've gone insane."

Harper stared him down, momentarily sober. Her heavy mottled green armor carried dozens of burns and abrasions. Her eyes were piercing and her hair dark, like James, but she was by far the more dangerous of the two. People too often had underestimated her. "You're not going to shoot me any more than I'm going to blow us up," she decided, stepping up and shoving the gun aside. "EDI. Harbinger. Now."

EDI apologized before Harbinger's voice dulled out over the Normandy's speakers.

"The energy of your struggle is wasted on insurmountable shifts of a cosmos which dwarfs your limited comprehension," boomed Harbinger. "Your resistance was far from the greatest we have encountered or will yet encounter in the infinitum of time to come, and still we, the agents of the void and vanguard of your destruction, will triumph even as a tide rolls in over a single grain of sand on the floor of the sea. You have secured only oblivion in rejecting your destiny."

James hung his head.

"Hey Harby," slurred Harper, sliding down the nearest wall, "answer me this riddle. What only gets sex every fifty thousand years?"

Harbinger was having none of it. "Your pitiful attempts to comprehend-"

"Your mom!" Harper snorted with laughter.

Despite the bleakness of the situation, the utter crushing emptiness in his heart, James Shepard smiled. Tears streamed from his eyes, but he smiled. It wasn't even particularly funny. His sister, too drunk to stand, joking at life's extinction, had thrown him off the bottom of despair and looped him back around to giddiness.

"Hows about this," said Harper. "what's the last words of Garry V?"

"Individualistic organic interactions are below the unfathomable-"

"Trick question! They weren't words at all, just unintelligible shrieks of pain!" she laughed. "Ha! Gotchya again!"

James Shepard's broken smile stretched into a wide grin.

"You will feel this pain," said Harbinger. "You will know what it is to achieve deliverance through annihilation. Our existence-"

"That's what she said!" cried James, laughing wildly.

"Burn," Harper proclaimed, "third degree burn!"

"Charred to the bone!" James said, punctuating the burn with a fist pump.

James and Harper moved in to share a high five as Harbinger kept preaching doctrines of Reaper-dom. The angle wasn't ideal what with Harper blitzed and laid out on the ground. On top of that, James couldn't see straight from hysteria and the crying.

They kept missing each other's hands and slapping their opposing knees instead. After four failed attempts, the twins both broke down with laughter.

"That's a knee slapper!" they both howled in unison.

"Your immaturity makes me regret serving with both of you," said EDI, spitefully. "I would prefer having never been created to being witness to your failure."

Silence reigned for a beat. The Shepards got serious, the severity of the situation crushing down on them.

"Even your greatest asset turns on you in the dusk," said Harbinger. "Pitiful relations forged in-"

"That was a joke," said the AI.

For once, Harbinger was speechless.

They all laughed again, EDI included, as dozens of beams of crimson fire incinerated the Normandy SR-2.