***SPOILERS contained in this story for the ending of ME3***
1. Tooth and Nail
"There's too many of them!" Garrus shouts, slinging his sniper rifle over his back before equipping his assault rifle with incendiary ammo.
"Shepard, they're trying to flank us from the left," Liara warns in between shots at the incoming swarm of husks and cannibals with her heavy pistol. The warp ammo stopping the husks, but only slowing down the cannibals.
Commander Shepard hurls a grenade in their direction, resulting in a splattering of gore. "EDI, we're getting overrun out here. What's going on?" she asks adjusting her earpiece.
"The reaper is too close to the beam, Commander," the highly advanced and self-aware AI replies over the communication link. "It is interfering with control of the missile guidance system."
"Damn it!" Shepard says with frustration. "So we need to get that reaper away from the beam...and closer to us."
"Sure why not? Evading disintegration lasers while getting stomped into the ground by a brute sounds like fun," Garrus muses as he reloads his gun from behind cover just a couple yards away from her.
"Hang on Shepard!" Admiral Anderson's voice in her earpiece cuts through the sounds of her own gunfire. "We're closing in on your location now!"
"Get into the buildings now!" she orders her squad. "I'll draw the reaper's attention. Just focus on crowd control."
"Shepard, get to cover when you hear the reaper charging it's attack," Liara calls to her from inside of ruins of what used to be a small diner.
After a quick glance to confirm Liara has made it to the relative safety of the building, Commander Shepard calls out to Garrus. She spots him sniping a banshee from the inadequate protection of a pile of debris near the diner. The banshee unleashes a biotic blast just feet from him.
She draws the monster's focus away from the cornered Garrus with a couple concussion rounds, giving him time to roll away and fire a round right between the banshee's eyes. It crumples to the ground as a final biotic blast discharges from the corpse.
The sound of the reaper's laser charging up catches Shepard's attention.
"Reaper attack incoming!" shouts Liara from the diner as she continues battling the seemingly endless swarm of enemies with her biotic abilities.
Before she can react to the warning, two brutes close in on Shepard amidst the chaos. She tries to roll out of the way quickly but not fast enough to dodge the massive arm of the closest beast. The force flings her into a brick wall as the other brute charges at her.
"Shepard! Watch out!" Liara uses her singularity attack on the formidable brutes. Shepard takes the opportunity to fire a barrage of explosive rounds with her Scorpion at the brutes before taking cover in a destroyed store front. Across the street, Liara and Garrus were holding off enemies as best they could while helping to finish off the brutes and give Shepard a second to catch her breath.
Her heart nearly skips a beat when she hears EDI's voice come through on the comm link. "Commander, the targeting systems are now online, but you must initiate the launch manually from the tank's console."
She glances out of the storefront window to the tank's console. There are just too many hostiles. There's no way to completely sweep the street in time. She would have to just make a run for it. As if he could read her mind, Garrus yells out to her, "Shepard, go now! I've got your six. Liara, clear her a path!"
Shepard can feel the adrenaline rushing through her body. Just a few yards away, Shepard. GO! She rushes out of the store and sprints towards the tank, her focus set on the glowing console screen.
"Take cover!" Liara warns her as the reaper unleashes another laser attack.
Shepard dives for the cement divider in front of her just a fraction of a second too late. The red laser catches the outer edge of her left arm causing her to cry out in shock and pain. Her vision blurs for a moment as she grips her arm. The armor pliable, partially melted. The force and heat from the blast undoubtedly did some damage to her arm, but it wasn't broken and she could see the console. It was so close.
Three cannibals advance on the commander's location only to be enveloped my Liara's singularity powers.
"Shepard!" Garrus calls from his position, his voice pulling her focus away from the excruciating burn of her arm and back to the task at hand. "Shepard, talk to me!"
"I'm OK!" Shepard yells back before continuing her dash to the tank. She regains her speed by the third step, sprinting towards console just a few feet away. Everything is a blur of noise and movement. She's vaguely aware of a pair of marauders that open fire to her left, but just as quickly she hears Garrus's sniper rifle take them out. Liara throws up a barrier to cover her has she enters the command.
"Targeting system is now online. Reaper within range," EDI announces.
Shepard exhales not realizing she had been holding her breath. "Fire!"
"Launching missiles," EDI confirms as the vehicle's artillery function fire the precision-guided Thanix missiles at the looming threat above. Detecting the pending hit, the reaper begins to close its armored plates covering the vulnerable red energy core but not before the missiles hit their target.
"It's going down!" Major Coats says over the comm link.
"Hit it with everything you got!" Team Hammer launches their assault at Commander Shepard's order. The reaper soon crashes to the ground, stirring up clouds of debris and dust from the battle-scarred streets.
"Destroyer terminated," remarks EDI.
"Nice work," Shepard remarks over the comm link before searching for her squad. "Garrus! Liara!" They run over to her location and look a little worse for wear but they are ok. Liara looks especially exhausted having expended a tremendous amount of energy using her biotics. She leans on the side of the vehicle for support. Garrus's armor is in lousy shape, but he was fine. His icy blue eyes flare with alarm when he gets closer to Shepard. The armor plate covering her left upper arm is badly damaged from the laser blast and he can smell her blood.
Shepard sees the look on his face and touches his arm with her right hand before he can examine the injury. "I'm fine, Garrus," she says with a small tired smile. "Trust me. It looks worse than it is." His tense expression softens a bit at her reassurance.
The remaining Hammer convoy of three tanks finally catches up with them. Coats and James leading the push and taking out the remaining enemies. Anderson leaps out of the second vehicle as it slows down and walks toward her.
"Shepard! Thank god you made it."
"It didn't look good," she admits, falling into stride as they walk over to the area perimeter. The reaper transport beam glowing in the distance. The blue tower of light seems to slice through the smoke and clouds and for just a moment Shepard wonders how anything so evil could look so beautiful.
"It gets worse," Anderson states.
"Of course it does," she mutters under her breath. The adrenaline rush of the battlefield is wearing off and she feels the searing pain in her arm return with a vengeance.
"Hackett just reported in," Anderson continues. "Several Soverign-class reapers including Harbinger have broken off from the battle with Operation: Sword. They're headed here."
"Harbinger?" Shepard can barely hide the exhaustion from her voice. She didn't remember being this drained during the Skyllian Blitz or even after destroying the collector base. It all seemed so long ago.
Anderson nods. "It can provide an opportunity for Hackett to get the Crucible in place but we have to get a team on the Citadel to open those arms and we have to do it now."
"Commander," says Kaidan over the comm link.
"Major Alenko, what's the situation?" she asks.
"We're holding a position as close to the beam as we can get. There are hostiles on the ground but we're holding them off," explains Kaidan. "We should have be able to cover you as you make the final push to the beam but it's gotta be before the reaper ships converge on the location."
"We still don't even know what we'll find when we get on to the Citadel," says Coats shaking his head.
"Then that's our job," Commander Shepard replies. "To find out just what we're up against."
"Alright. This is it. Saddle up everybody!" Anderson announces to the group of soldiers, setting everyone into action.
Anderson walks off with Coats, but James hangs back with Shepard, Garrus and Liara.
"Damn Commander," he says with a smile. "That was one hell of a fireworks show by the way."
Shepard lets out a small chuckle. Garrus's mandibles flare as the turian flashes his classic smirk. "Stick around, Vega. We've got a hell of a finale coming up." A blue light blinks on the side of his visor indicating an incoming communication. "EDI, do you have any status updates on the rest of the squad?" Garrus asks as he walks a few feet away from the group.
An engineer checking out one of the tanks waves James over. He gives a quick nod to Shepard and Liara then jogs over to the vehicle.
Liara turns her attention to the commander. "Shepard, let me take another look at your arm." Shepard turns so the asari could take a closer look at her injured arm. Liara carefully takes the damaged upper-arm section of armor off. Shepard looks at her arm to survey the damage. It's not a pretty sight. Several lacerations and severe burns. She didn't want to think what she would look like if the laser had hit her directly. Liara applies a generous dose of medigel which eases the burning pain almost immediately.
Shepard sighs with relief. Though the pain was still there, it's dulled considerably. "Thanks Liara. That feels better already."
"We should really bandage this up properly and replace this damaged armor," Liara observes, still concerned about her friend's injury.
Shepard just shakes her head with a reassuring smile. "This will do. We don't have time for anything else. I'll be ok." Liara helps reset the armor plate in place. It barely latches on to the connecting pieces with all the damage it sustained.
"I've just received updates from the rest of the team," Garrus announces heading back towards Shepard and Liara. "Javik is with Major Alenko and the biotics squad. With Hammer's front ranks and Wrex leading the krogan ground troops they are clearing the path to the beam."
"What about the others? Any word on Cortez?" Shepard asks.
"Tali and EDI caught up with him with some help from Grunt and Aralakh company. Their location is relatively secure and the shuttle is repairable, but no word yet on how long until it's operational."
"Good." She nods at Garrus. "I want EDI and Tali back on the Normandy ASAP. Aside from Joker, they know that ship better than anyone and can help Sword within range of the Citadel. Like Major Coats said, we really don't know what we'll find once we get there. I want them to be at the ready."
"Will do."
She pauses to look at the fallen reaper. They are not invincible. They can and will fall. We can end this war tonight. Right here. I feel it. Turning back to her squad, Garrus and Liara, the two people that she trusts most in the entire galaxy, Commander Shepard feels a rush of hope return to her.
"Let's move then. We don't have much time and we're only getting one shot at this."
"It's now or never," Liara adds.
"Shepard!" Anderson calls out to them from the second vehicle. "We're ready to move out."
They run for the tanks, climbing in quickly and the convoy continues towards the mysterious blue beam, the only hope for unlocking the Citadel and using the Crucible to rid this galaxy from the reapers once and for all.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! So this is my spin on the Mass Effect 3 ending. This chapter was just to set up the action of the finale. I'm expecting this to run about 7-8 chapters. The Shepard in this story is a spacer/war hero/paragon/solider in case you're curious.
After playing through ME3 twice, I'm still not happy with the ending so I decided to write my own. I don't think it was a very fitting ending to such an epic series. So I hope you enjoy this revamped version. Oh and expect some epilogues at the every end. :)