Mass Effect: Requiem
By Jackie Almasy
Chapter 1
The world around her was anything but the peaceful sleep she had been trying to have less than twelve hours ago. Through the pain of her burned body and broken bones, Shepard was granted no rest for now. She could hear a faint voice gaining volume through the haze of her mind.
It was anything but quiet.
"Shepard!"
Her body begged her mind to ignore the voice. It had been months since she had slept, much less rested. The constant nightmares of the endless black forest haunted her dreams night after night. It was always the same actions but varied time to time in context. Shepard would look up to the continuous chorus of whispers around her. Out of the corner of her eyes would be shadows constantly evading her. They became illusive but never far from her. Always whispering and accusing her of their lives and the actions she took that impacted them.
She had always heard of post traumatic stress but had never imagined herself to ever be a victim of it. Like clockwork, the ghostly image of the child back from Earth would look up from his playing and run away. Her heart ached every time she saw his scared face and run from her in terror. This wasn't what she wanted. No, it was far from it.
She had fought all those years for all of them: humanity, turians, asari, and more. She had bled, been scarred, and sacrificed everything to protect the galaxy she called home. Yet, the boy would only run away from her in fear. Her reaction was always the same. She would begin running as fast as her body would allow her though it never seemed fast enough.
As she would run, Shepard would hear the accusing whispers grow in volume. She tried desperately to ignore their anger and sadness but as time wore on in her running, it grew heavier on her heart.
"SHEPARD!"
"No, please, just let me sleep. I'm so tired."
"Shepard, wake up!"
Just as she would reach the child in her dreams, reality won her over and tore her from the desperate rest she needed. The pain of her injuries returned to the forefront of her mind and it took all she had to not scream in pain. Not that her injured lungs would allow it to happen anyways.
She looked up to the view of space above her. The battle of the Fleet against the Reapers was raging above her. Every second or so, a small red light would burst to life among the millions of stars across the view of the cosmos. Shepard knew that each time she saw that light it was most likely another ship being destroyed.
With more lives being lost every second, it was a reality the marine was accustomed to seeing but never got used to. If the day ever came that she did, it would mean that essential part of her humanity would be gone.
"Where am I?" Shepard asked out loud without realizing she was until she posed the question. A silvery blue light caught her eye. With more effort than she knew she had left, Shepard pushed herself up onto her feet. Her left arm immediately cradled around her stomach. She could feel the dripping blood along her injured arm and drenched tattered clothes.
What she questioned was, were they drenched from sweat or blood from open wounds?
The silvery light flickered continuously feet from her. An array of voices and different species of the likes she had never seen flashed before her. Was this a VI? If so, how old must it have been to continue cycling through these many unheard of languages and species before?
"I don't understand you." Shepard attempted to communicate and hoped she would get an answer back she could understand.
The image of she could have only dreamed about appeared in front of her. Some of the languages only seemed liked gibberish to her while others sounded like numbers, mathematical equations almost.
Suddenly sending out a beam of light that scanned Shepard up and down for a few seconds, the VI went offline for a few seconds. It came back to life in the form that nearly made Shepard throw up.
The little boy from Earth stood before her.
"Can you understand me now?"
"Yes but how did you do that?" Shepard asked. She watched the boy turn and look around at the Citadel before him and the ongoing battle in the background.
"Biometric scans on the molecular level introduce valuable information to your neural communication systems. I take this information and apply it to my own protocols."
"What do you mean 'I'?" Shepard voiced as her eyes widened. "Are you an AI?"
"No. I am more than that. I have always been here since the beginning of the chaos." The young boy boldly stated as if it had done so numerous times before
"Who are you?"
"I am the Catalyst."
Shepard almost shook her head in disbelief but then again, at this point, she was ready to believe anything she saw before her eyes. "How can that be? I thought the Citadel was the catalyst?"
"The Citadel is a part of me as I am a part of it." The Catalyst explained as he began walking down the smooth path to the ray of energy being generated before them. All of Shepard's instincts were telling her to turn the other way and run. But what if her gut instinct was wrong this time?
"I need to destroy the Reapers." The marine looked up to the mechanical AI giants above her. "Can you help me? Do you know how to end them?"
"Perhaps." The Catalyst stated. "The cycle of the created rebelling against the creators will continue. It is inevitable. Your species will be assimilated into the continuous solution."
She didn't like where this conversation was going. She didn't like it at all.
"What do you mean solution? Are you saying the Reapers are part of your solution?"
"Yes. They are the agents of my will. They will help all organic life ascend and leave the next species to grow." The young boy stopped walking and turned to face Shepard fully. The smile on his face sent chills of dread down her spine. "We will stop the chaos. We will enlighten you."
"Enlighten us? By harvesting all organic life in the galaxy? I don't think so!" Shepard venomously responded. "I think we'd all rather keep our forms than join you."
"You cannot. Species have proved time and time again that the synthetics they create will always challenge their creators. It is a never ending chaos." The Catalyst countered, firmly standing its ground. "Without us, there will never be an ending."
"You're taking away our future, our hope! Without it, we are no better than machines." Shepard shook her head in sheer disbelief. Part of her couldn't believe she was actually having this conversation while the battle above her raged on. "How can you justify a massacre of an entire galaxy to stop chaos?"
"We leave the lesser species alone. Only the advanced species are harvested. Thus ensuring life in the galaxy continues." The young child stated as if speaking to an idiot.
Shepard opened her mouth to continue stating her case when she stopped momentarily. A persistent buzzing was echoing in her ears. She groaned and held her head for a moment before the sounds stopped. Perhaps it was merely that she had bumped her head in being transported up to the Citadel?
"What you think of as a solution only seems like galactic wide murder to me!" She spat out, narrowing her eyes defiantly at the Catalyst. The buzzing came back and her mind seemed to be in more pain momentarily. What was this buzzing sound and why did it hurt her mind every time she heard it?
"You cannot fight this. We will help your species ascend. We will add you."
"Like hell you'll add us!" Turning around, Shepard stared momentarily up at Earth. "I'll keep fighting and I will find a way to end this war!"
As she began walking away, Shepard made it no more than three slowly steps before stopping dead in her tracks to a voice she never thought she'd hear again.
"Hold on Skipper! Let's talk this over."
Looking over her shoulder, Shepard felt her heart stop. The anxiety of Virmire returned and the ghosts of her past that she never hoped to face again returned from their graves.
"Ashley?" Shepard questioned.
This is a collaboration effort between author Seracen and myself. We were discussing how we would have like to rewrite the Mass Effect 3 ending so, here we are. Both stories will be titled the same thing. Seracen will be posting this story from the perspective of default male Shepard and mine will be default female Shepard. The link to his story is on my Favorites Author page so please feel free to check out this page!
We're very excited to see where this leads and we hope you enjoy the ride.
Till next time,
Jackie Almasy
Mass Effect 3 is copyrighted by BioWare and EA. I own nothing.