The Mass Effect universe and main plotline do not belong to me, they belong to Bioware and EA. I thank them for the amazing story.
Flames.
One minute everything was normal, just an average day on the Citadel. Then alarms started sounding. Geth dropships began to land on the outside of the Citadel, and within minutes the geth soldiers were breaking in. Ships began fighting outside, trying to counterattack whatever hell of an invasion this was, but they stood almost no chance. There was a really big ship with the Geth, and he'd been watching the news, he could piece things together: It was a Reaper. There'd been plenty of rumors about a 'Commander Shepard', recently the first human spectre. Lots of speculation, almost no facts. But he could see through the lies and the heavily classified bullshit that the media put on as a show. This was a reaper, and it was real. He could tell just by looking at it, this thing wasn't something the Geth were capable of. It was nothing like they'd ever seen before.
Within minutes, his life collapsed. He hadn't had much of one in the first place, no, but now he had to fight for his life and block out the screaming he could hear around him.
It was time to put his training to use.
He ran into his home, which wasn't much more than a small shack at the back of an alley. He threw on an omni-tool that he had managed to get his hands on and pulled up a loose floorboard, revealing a small metal locker. Pulling it open, he revealed two pistols and a long, very artistic looking sword in a sheathe. It was fairly long, the sheathe was a pitch black color with strange runes and symbols etched into its sides.
He holstered the pistols against his chest, inside a loose black coat he was wearing, before strapping the sword to his hip. He turned to a mirror on the wall, seeing the normal mask staring back. Yes, he wore a mask. A very sophisticated looking, white mask that had one eye socket tinted a very dark orange, faintly glowing. A small respiratory system similar to a gas mask extended off of the front where the mouth and nose would be, a very dark gray color. More symbols were drawn in red and black on the mask, a large red line cutting diagonally across it from top to bottom. The mask is attached to a very strong plastic extension that covers his entire head, extending down his neck and inside of his coat. His dark brown hair was visible through the plastic, somewhat messy and unkempt. He pulled up the hood on his coat, before turning and jogging out of his house, one hand on the sheathe of his sword.
Exiting the alley, he looked to his right and immediately saw two Asari friends being chased by three Geth soldiers. The Geth momentarily stopped moving, raised their assault rifles and opened fire. The Asari screamed and one grabbed the other by the shoulders, diving down behind some boxes off to the side.
He sprinted forwards towards the boxes, dodging to the left and then to the right to avoid the oncoming bullets after the Geth had noticed this odd man. He jumped off of his right foot as he reached the boxes, and then leapt off of the boxes with his left foot, towards the right. He landed with both knees bent on a small store's stall, the Geth trying to adjust their aim to shoot him during his jump but having some difficulties, and leapt towards them. He twisted his body as he leapt, spinning into something of a sideways flip, his body turned horizontal in the air. He unsheathed his sword as he did this, the edge of the blade glowing a faint dark blue color, and cut a Geth's head clean in half vertically as he passed over it. The soldier fell to the side, motionless, its lights dimming. He landed behind the other two, which immediately turned towards him and began to fire.
He ducked low to avoid both streams of oncoming bullets and kicked one of them hard in the stomach, causing it to stumble back and lose its aim. He twisted and stabbed his sword straight through the chest of the second, and tore it out sideways through its hard metal torso. A huge gap was left in its body, and it quickly fell over, bullets spraying upwards. He then spun around and threw his sword at the last Geth as it was regaining its aim, the sword piercing through its neck like a spear and severing most of the circuits. It twitched a few times, the lights on its head exploding, and fell to the ground, the man tearing his sword from its lifeless body as it fell.
He immediately sheathed the sword and then bent down, picking up one of their assault rifles and strapping it to his back, scrounging what ammo he could from the bodies. Meanwhile the two Asari walked cautiously over to him.
"Goddess, thank you!" One of them said, the other remaining silent.
He turned to them, giving them his full attention, and nodded. He took a few moments before he spoke. His voice was unusually deep and somewhat hollow, the mask apparently included some kind of voice changer.
"Not a problem. Just get to safety immediately, I'm going to try to make sure more survivors are safe." He responded simply.
They nodded, before the one that spoke grabbed the others arm and they ran off together.
The man turned to the nearest window, gazing out from it at the chaos unleashing around the Citadel. Flashes of light and flames could be seen around all the arms of the Citadel, and the fighting being done by the spaceships in the space between was intense. He lingered a few moments longer, watching his crumbling home, before turning left and jogging down the street. Most of the security systems were entirely offline, and he knew what to do. He had a destination.
Meanwhile..
"Shepard!" Garrus yelled. "Incoming Geth on our left flank!"
Shepard turned the cannon of the Mako to the left, seeing a small squad of Geth, a few armed with explosives, that his Turian friend had just warned him about. Two well placed shots into the squad and their bodies scattered, sparking and dying.
"Commander, down there, at the bottom of the ramp!" Tali yelled.
Indeed, at the bottom of a very massive ramp guarded by at the very least a dozen Geth armatures and several dozen soldiers, most armed with missile launchers and other explosives, was the link to the Citadel.
"Everyone hang on, this is gonna be a hell of a lot rougher than usual!" Shepard shouted.
"Rougher than usual? That's hard to believe with your driving-" Garrus started jokingly before Shepard put the pedal to the metal, the Mako lurching forwards and racing down the ramp. Bullets and missles whizzed by the Mako, a few smashing into its sides, while the Makos own cannon blew out the legs of one armature and tore the head off another.
"Commander, this thing isn't going to hold for much longer-!" Garrus shouted, and at the same moment Shepard unleashed the Mako's boost, propelling forwards.
"Everyone hang on!"
Back at the Citadel...
Two Geth soldiers stood just on the other side of a closed door of a security room. There was a large system on the wall that had access to security cameras among other privileges.
The door clicked, whirred and then swung open, the Geth turning towards it and aiming at it. There was, however, nobody on the other side.
One Geth glanced at the other before walking forwards through the door, its gun raised, aiming down a short hallway.
That's when he lunged from the corner around the side of the door, plunging his sword straight through the Geths chest, its shields shattering. Its circuits broke and it began to malfunction, but remained upright. He sprinted backwards towards the other Geth, which opened fire, the bullets smashing into the back of his impaled teammate.
He kicked the Geth off his sword into the other, causing it to stumble, and made a clean decapitation, sparks flying and both bodies crumpling.
Moments afterwards he dashed to the dead body of a C-Sec security and removed an omni-tool from him, which he then used to access the large system and gain access to the security.
He glanced around on the security cameras. It was definitely chaos everywhere, a lot of the cameras were offline. He worked on the system for several minutes and managed to get most of it back online, at least in the area he was in. He even found access to the security mechs and turned them back online, which he saw began to fight the Geth on the security cameras. The Geth slowly began to get pushed back out of this civilian living sector.
He noticed something very interesting on one of the security cameras footage, however. Mere minutes ago, a military vehicle, a Mako, apparently appeared out of thin air, crushed two Geth soldiers and then rolled over several times before coming to a stop on its back.
And then, lo and behold, out stepped Commander Shepard himself with a Quarian, a Turian and an Asari, all of them armed to the teeth with military armor, weaponry and equipment. They immediately began advancing towards the council chambers. He checked the security cameras of the Council Chambers, and saw some interesting footage of Saren, the rogue spectre turned Reaper minion, messing with some kind of system in there.
Apparently, Saren had also locked the door to the council room, and seemed to have blocked out security room access. He couldn't access it via the console he was at. But he knew what he could do.
He punched in a few buttons on the communications panel, opening a clear com link through his omnitool, and prayed he would pick up.
Seconds ticked by. A full minute.
"Come on..Come on...I know you're there, you don't die that easy, old man.."
A few seconds later, there was a click. The com link was established, some faint gunfire could be heard in the background.
"Kind of a bad time-" An adult male voice began to shout through the other end.
"Good to hear you too, father. Location?" He asked calmly.
"Civilian sector nine." The adult man responded, calmer now. Serious.
He immediately pressed some buttons and slid a few screens around, revealing a set of security cameras labeled 'CS9'. A serious looking man with short, jet black hair wearing civilian clothing could be seen ducking behind a crashed hovercar, shooting an SMG over the hood at a squad of geth. There were two rocket troopers and three normal soldiers with assault rifles, and they had him pinned down quite well.
He pressed a few buttons, before speaking into the comm again.
"I've sent a few mechs to your location, stay down until they arrive." He said quickly.
"Like hell I'm staying down!" The man actually laughed after saying this. "These guys are no problem!"
He immediately stood up slightly, aiming over the hood and shooting one of the soldiers straight through its glowing eye, the glass shattering, and the soldier exploding immediately afterwards, killing a rocket trooper to its right. He then ducked down again, avoiding oncoming bullets.
"Now, what is it you wanted?" The man asked rather casually.
"I need a way to bypass a security override, Saren has me locked out of the controls to higher access doors, specifically the council chamber. I am unable to access it from this sectors terminal." He said, still speaking quickly.
"Hmm. Only way I can think of is through the main system down in C-Sec. These god damn things are everywhere, wait for me at that terminal and we'll head down together." The old man spoke, somewhat happily.
"Heh. As much as I'd love to work with you, father, it can't wait. Shepard's on his way to the door, and I have to make sure the red carpet is rolled out for him by the time he reaches the door. You handle survivors, I can take care of myself." He replied.
His father visibly nodded on the security camera.
"Yeah, I trust you. Good Luck." The old man then stood up, firing more rounds, killing a second soldier.
Moments later, a shot rang out, and a sniper bullet went straight through the mans chest.
"No!" He shouted.
The man collapsed onto his back with a groan, grabbing his chest. The remaining two geth quickly advanced.
"I'm so sorry..Son, I love y-"
He didn't have time to finish before the remaining geth soldier unloaded three assault rifle bullets into his neck and head, his body twitching before laying still. Then the comm went dead with a static hiss.
His one visible, ocean blue eye was wide as he screamed again.
He stayed for a minute to mourn him, staring at the security camera. The mechs arrived far too late. He didn't stay too much longer, though, for he had a job to do. He shut down the system, removing any trace that he had been in there, and disappeared into the shadows of a ventilation system moments later.