Cold, clinical lighting.
The sound.
The smell.
The pain.
The machines.
It was all a reminder.
A reminder of war, lost before it was fought.
A reminder of tainted hope. Of delusions of grandeur. Of the victory that seemed to be at hand, when it never was close. Never even a possibility.
Faces, voices. So many people, dead, tortured, yet still fresh.
It was all so terrifying.
They had believed. All of them. Believed in their chances. Believed in the fact that they could, and would fight, and win.
And the Reapers had let them believe in it, for all they were worth.
Nothing they did could bring victory.
"you will end, because we demand it"
Sovereign had uttered those word, not like death sentence, but as a statement of fact.
And it had been proven right.
Stopping the activation of the Mass Relay in the Citadel had not even been a setback.
On the contrary.
It was a test.
It was all a test.
How far the races would go.
How much they would slow a calculated advance.
How many of them would "die".
As if.
We are each a nation.
Again, Sovereign had told them, yet not.
No Reaper has ever died.
Nor will they ever.
For no reaper has any identity. They are. Powerful, eternal. Truly, their existence transcended everything the Turians, the Salarians, the Asaris, the Humans, ever could imagine.
They are.
Aspects.
Reflections.
A game of mirrors.
And as Shepard is slowly transformed into part of the collective, everything is made clear.
Slowly.
Because there is no need to hurry.
Because the Reaper won. Absolutely.
Because they will show the entirety of their might to the champion of those new races.
Because, even if the process can go faster, why should it.
The Mass Relays were their technology. Truly Sovereign had told them everything.
Why did they not understand?
Every Mass Relay could be fired at will. Detonated at will.
Recalibrated at will.
And there were more than those few across the galaxy.
Their entire advance had been a game.
And there was no way to stop them.
Once it had gone on for long enough, the game had come to an end.
No movement had become possible.
For the fleets of the allied races, that is.
The Reapers had no such limitations.
Picking of the planets became trivial.
Especially when their vessels stopped playing around. And showed just how much more advanced they were.
Joker once said that Sovereign had pulled a turn that would "shear any of our ships in half".
All of them were able to do that.
And more.
The war had been won with practically five Reaper ships.
Because no fleet could go up against them and win.
Especially not when there was no way to do any more than try and survive an attack.
An attack that never stopped. That cut through shields. Through ships. Against targets they could not even hope to stop.
The Reaper played of a month.
Then won in a week.
They played around the Earth.
They won the Galaxy.
As a mark of ultimate irony, the Normandy would serve as the basis of Shepard's new ship.
And would include the whole team.
The Reapers did not find it amusing. Simply fitting.
Ruined Reaper ships would be left in the vastness of space.
Messages were being created.
Mass Relays were once again set under defined patterns.
The citadel was emptied of all but the Keepers.
Seed were planted.
The Reapers would sleep.
Eternal.
Endless.
And the cycle would never be broken.
Only Shepard would stay awake. Waiting. For the next iteration.
Because they are the order on genetic evolution.
Life exists, because we demand it. And it will end, because we demand it.
Short, and not that good. But I wanted to get rid of that.