The paths are open. But you have to choose.

This was it. The final step. The key to end it all.

John Shepard looked up at the beam that emanated from the Crucible. After all the hard work, all the twists and turns, seeing all the horrid images of pain, agony and hardship, the key to stop the Reapers was in front of him. All that he needed to do was activate it.

The blue prints of the Crucible spoke of something called the Catalyst. It was said to be the key component in activating the device once it was completed. What exactly the Crucible would do was anyone's guess. Most, like him, hoped that it would destroy the Reapers once and for all. With the plans in hand, Hackett and the rest of the Alliance fleets got to work decrypting the blue prints and got to work building it.

As war raged across the Galaxy, Shepard got his crew back together and travelled across the stars to rally allies to fight the Reapers together. The century-old feuds between many of the species made things very hard for everyone to get along though. But he, John Shepard, managed to pull off so many unbelievable feats to get nearly every specie in the galactic community to fight the Reapers as one.

He never cut corners when it wasn't necessary. When the Dalatrass tried to talk Shepard out of curing the Genophage in exchange for their fleets and their best scientists to build the Crucible, Shepard refused. He did what he did because it was the right thing to do and it would benefit everyone in the long run. Even with the Dalatrass's disappointment and refusal of giving support, some of the Salarians still came to fight alongside the Alliance after the failed Cerberus coup of the council. With the coup, the eyes of the populace of the Citadel were opened to the severity of the war. The populace got to work in helping with the war effort and the Asari and Salarians, even with the disappointment of the Genophage cure, started giving their support for the war effort.

With the Turians, Krogan, Asari, Salarians, Drell, Hannar, Volus, Vorcha, Elcor, and even the Rachnii and Batarians in the bunch, what was next were the Quiarians. Getting their help came at the worst possible time when they got embroiled in conflict with their creations that drove them off of their homeworld so long ago. But in the end, Shepard managed to not only save the Quairians from their own destruction, but he freed the Geth from the Reaper that had controlled them. In the end, Rannoch was not only reclaimed, but the creators and their creations finally were able to make peace with each other. And both the Quairians and geth offered their fleets and engineers. A major gain for the war effort.

With every specie in every corner of the galaxy fighting together, all that mattered now was to figure out what and where the Catalyst was so the Crucible could do whatever it would do. The Asari councilor gave Shepard a potential lead that could help them find it. The secret that the Asari kept hidden was one of their most sacred temples. With the Reapers baring down on the Thessia, Shepard and his crew rushed to the temple and discovered what the secret was. A Prothean beacon. In this one was a functional VI who contained the knowledge of what the catalyst was. But before the VI could say what it was, it was stolen right under Shepard's nose by the agent of the Illusive Man. At the end of that day, Shepard had failed and Thessia had fallen.

But after tracking down where the bastard went with the VI, and after a time to sit down and enjoy an, at first, upside down shore leave, Shepard and his crew followed the assassin to the heart of Cerberus itself. Once there, Shepard fought to the center of the station and found the VI and it's thief. Shepard faced against him and this time he slew him with and Omni-blade right to the heart. With station now out of action, Cerberus was no longer functional.

He retrieved the VI and it told them what the Catalyst was: the Citadel. It was then that the reports came in that the Reapers had just taken over the station and they somehow moved the entire structure to Sol.

Earth.

After leaving his homeworld behind, Shepard was coming back. All the people he was ordered to leave, he was coming back to them. It was at Earth that the final battle would be fought. He and every specie would fight harder than any one of them had ever before. They would all be fighting not for their own people, but for every race that stood beside them. Every man, women and child of every civilization on every world was counting on them every soul.

Shepard led the tip of the spear. After all the falters and the heavy casualties they took both in orbit and on the ground, they were within a hundred yards of the beam that lead to the closed Citadel. They charged as hard as they could. They fell one by one until none stood. The assault failed.

But somehow, someway, Shepard was still alive, but only just. Burned and battered, he grabbed his Carnifex and, with whatever will and strength he had left, limped his way to the beam. He made it to the beam and arrived inside the structure. There he saw what the Reapers were doing. Gathering the humans on the planet and sending them up to be processed. They were planning to make another Reaper after he destroyed the one still in development at the Collector base.

Shepard heard Anderson calling him on the radio. He followed him up but they were in different places. Shepard moved down the corridor and met up with him. But they were met by an uninvited guest. The Illusive man. Shepard saw the man's face peeling away to show a twisted bionic face that only showed hunger for power hunger. He had an influence over both men. Shepard could feel the darkness slithering in his body causing him to be bent to the mad man's will like a puppet. But Shepard used the one weapon the Illusive man couldn't control, his tongue. The battle of words started and it escalated quickly until the Illusive man forced Shepard to put a round into Anderson's torso. Shepard felt the pang of guilt from seeing Anderson's face but he had to shrug it off until he somehow stopped the crazy man. And in the end, Shepard did stop him. Like what he did to Saren, he managed to convince the Illusive man that what he was doing was not his own motive but the Reapers'. At that moment, he took Anderson's side arm and put the round into his head.

Now free from the dark hand that held him, Shepard limped to the counsel and activated it. He watched the arms of the Citadel open and he saw Alliance cruisers escorting the Crucible on it's path. He walked back to where Anderson had fallen. He sat down beside him. Together they looked out to the beautiful scene of Earth itself. Humanity's home. His home.

In his last moments, Anderson told him the words that meant everything to Shepard.

"I'm proud of you."

All that had to be done now was to activate the Crucible. When Shepard passed out, he found himself here, the point where the crucible could be used. And it was here where he met the Catalyst itself: the intelligence that controlled the Reapers. The intelligence the ancient Leviathan had created millions of years ago to solve the problem of the conflict between synthetics and organics. The solution it came up with was the creation of the Reapers. Leviathan was the first race that was harvested. The harvests then repeated every cycle. The advanced civilizations who used the Mass Relays were all hunted down and harvested until non remained so they wouldn't create synthetics that would not only destroy their creators, but all other organic life. For millions of years, it had happen again and again.

But now, the tide had turned. Shepard had beaten the odds and altered the variables to bring the people of this cycle closer to defeating the Reapers than any cycle had before. Now that he was here, the Crucible could now be activated and the war would end. But only if Shepard activated it himself.

This was it. Shepard looked up at the three options to activate the Crucible. He limped forward toward the three-way fork in the road that lead to each one.

He looked up to his right. The choice on that side was the option that every specie, both in this cycle and the previous cycles, had been searching for: a way to destroy that Reapers. The Reapers would be no more and the galaxy would be free. But this choice would come at a cost. The blast from the Crucible would surge through the galaxy but the Reapers would not be the only ones who would be destroyed. Every synthetic being would be targeted and they would die with the Reapers. The Geth, who Shepard had fought so hard for to free them from the Reapers' influence and get the Quairens and the other species to accept them as allies in the conflict, would all die. EDI, the Artificial Intelligence of the Normandy SR-2 who contributed invaluably to the suicide mission against the Collectors and against the Reapers, would be erased. It would be a very terrible cost to pay.

Shepard looked up ahead at the beam that streamed down from the Crucible. It was the "Ideal solution" as told by the Catalyst itself. By throwing himself into the beam, his energy would cause a chain reaction that would cause the Crucible to alter every life form in the galaxy. Because of his synthetic implants that were given to him during his reconstruction, the energy of his body would somehow merge both synthetic and organic life together into a supposable new DNA. The Catalyst said it was the ideal solution because it would give a solution that it had been looking for. By merging both forms of life, organics would gain the perfection through technology they had always been striving for. Synthetics, in turn, would gain full understanding of organics. It would mean that peace between organics and synthetics would happen indefinably. The Reapers would also cease the harvest and all the harvested civilizations before the Protheans that were preserved inside them would be connected to everyone. Vaults of knowledge would be unlocked for everyone to explore and integrate into a new society.

He looked over to his left. The last option was the option that he didn't think was possible until now. It was the option to control the Reapers. The Illusive Man had told him to win the war, controlling the Reapers was the solution. But Shepard and all the others that fought beside him disregarded it as a twisted and insane idea that was impossible to achieve. But the Illusive man and Cerberus pursued this goal indefinably. He said he was doing what he did ever since he created Cerberus to bring humanity to the apex of evolution. To dominate the galaxy. But all he did was give humanity a worse name to the other races while inflicting horrible pain on his own species. The Cerberus facility on Horizon was proof of that. It turned out in the end, he was indoctrinated just like the other species who wanted to control the reapers in the cycles before.

But Shepard himself, no one else, could control the Reapers if he activated the crucible this way. He could end the war and he would be able to save EDI and the Geth from destruction. He would lose his body but his mind would live on and he would see what the Reapers saw. Instead of having the Reapers continue their harvest, he could direct them to rebuild what they destroyed. Perhaps he could even use them to help the races expand out to the stars and protect them when threats arose in the future. It would be a gain for the galaxy with the advanced technology that the Reapers used without altering the very DNA of every specie.

Shepard came to the three-way fork in the platform. It was time to choose how the war would be ended and choose the future for the Galaxy. Shepard looked up at the three paths, shifting his gaze to each choice again and again. He did so until he locked his gaze on one of the choices. He moved his foot to the left. But the other foot stayed where it was. He bent his head down and tightened his fist and his grip on his Carnifex. He turned around and proceeded up the right ramp. Once he reached the top, he turned toward the power conduit at the end of it. All that had to be done was to destroy it with a few shots from his side arm and the Crucible would be primed and fire. With the rest of his strength, he brought up his Carnifex and aimed it at the conduit. After everything he fought through, all the hardships and battles, after all the painful choices and sacrifices he had to make, it was finally down to this.

He squeezed his finger on the trigger. The round left the gun and impacted the glass casing. He readjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger again. Again and again he sent the rounds into the coupling. He stood straighter as he walked closer and closer to make sure the rounds hit it in the right spot. The casing was broken and the last rounds in the extended clip broke into the coupling causing a violent break in the structure. He popped the used clip out and inserted the last one he had. Another and another came out of his gun until the damaged conduit was overloading with the energy seeping out of it. One final round would do it. He adjusted himself to deliver the final blow. Before he did, he thought of the one person he wished he could talk to before it was done. He wanted so badly to tell her that he was sorry for breaking his promise and to tell her how much he loved her.

"I love you Liara." Shepard whispered. He closed his eyes...

...and pulled the trigger.