A/N: This is a two parter refusal/post-refusal story with my Renegade, Earthborn Shepard. Mostly angst, but there is a tiny bit of Shenko fluff weaved in.
The story starts mid coversation after the in-game dialogue.
Warning: Short, but a little graphic, Tali death scene.
"You are an illogical machine. You're broken, flawed. You're reasoning is fucked! I've proven you wrong, but you're too damn stubborn to accept it."
"I am doing what needs to be done to control the chaos," said the Catalyst.
"Bullshit! You're doing whatever the hell you want. I solved the organics versus synthetics conflict singlehandedly and I'm only Human! You are inferior! You should be taking orders from ME! I should be choosing YOUR fate."
"Then choose to control us!" demanded the white cluster of photons roughly formed into the outline of a small boy. It knew Shepard well, as did all the Reapers, and wisely took the form of the image that haunted his dreams night after night.
"NO!" replied Shepard smugly, arms crossed over his chest in typical stubborn Shepard fashion. Pain be damned!
"Choose to take your rightful place atop your thrown!" It was beginning to anger, if machines were capable of such things.
"I'd rather die a thousand, million deaths than to join your army!" Shepard yelled back. "What would stop me from doing the same exact thing you were programmed to do, or programmed them to do, and leading the charge against the next cycle? Or would I control them like some kind of god? Will I be able to order them to lay down and be destroyed? Cause that's what I'd do! How about making them self-destruct? Then I'd be the only one left and they could worship me. Reaper Shepard has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
"But I'd never choose to be one of your homicidal machines! And certainly not without proof and assurance that I could kill you all in the end, if I choose, leaving all the organic lifeforms in peace. Because I'm not willing to risk the possibility that I'd just be unleashing the fury of a Reaperized me on everyone I've ever known."
"Then destroy us!" barked the AI.
"And destroy the good machines? The logical machines? The ones that are far superior than you'll ever be? The ones that have vowed to stand by my side? The ones who joined you because they had no choice? You're crazy! Now that they do have a choice, they choose me! And your army probably would too.
"I leave no man left behind! If I have to risk the possibility of billions of lives in my attempt to save them all, than I will! Because every SINGLE one of them is worth it! And I didn't have to indoctrinate my army to earn their loyalty."
"You're emotions cloud your judgement. Or is it your ego?" it asked.
"I guess that's one of the hazards of being Human, being an organic. Emotions. They're something you'll NEVER understand, and it's why we'll fight to the death against you," growled Shepard as his face began to burn due to his rage. "Although your ego clouds your's as well. But unlike me, you don't seem to notice."
"Your only other option is to join organics with synthetics. It's the only way you can save them all! The only way your cycle survives intact is through synthesis," said the hologram. It was beginning to throw a tantrum as its patients wore thin.
"I can't make that decision for a countless trillion species! I won't. Altering every living thing in the galaxy is something that no being should have the power to do, has the power to do! It's unnatural, ungodly, unfair to them all. And impossible! What kind of life would that be? What kind of monsters would be created?
"What happens to the organisms who evolve afterward? What will stop them from creating synthetics for themselves? Or will it sterilize every possible inhabitable planet that hasn't yet established life? Or freeze every race in its technological tracks? What will keep any of them from building new machines? Newsflash, you won't, you can't! Although, none of this would be a problem if you'd use your powers for brokering peace instead of instigating war and destruction that you're so keen on.
"How is that even possible anyway? How would you, I mean, morphing living tissue into mechanical parts? Mechanical parts into flesh? Mixing them together? It's NOT possible! You're illogical AND full of shit!"
"SO BE IT!" screamed the high pitched voice as it disintegrated into nothingness.
"Come back here you little SHIT!" he yelled. "You coward! Just like the rest of the Reapers!" he spun around as the lights over the consuls dimmed. The panels began to move and a screeching sound emanated from where metal scratched against metal.
"You've waited hundreds of cycles for someone to stand here where I'm standing and all you can manage is a five minute conversation? Five minutes to decide the fate of everyone in the galaxy? Five FUCKING minutes is all I get to negotiate? GET BACK HERE AND FACE ME!"
The weight of the galaxy was on his shoulders. He spent months getting resources for the war effort and the Crucible Project, years preparing for this day. And in an instant, it was all gone. Their hail Mary, their plan Z, their only hope for survival slipped through his hands before he knew what hit him.
If he had any sort of heart at all, he may have felt remorse. If he had a conscience, maybe regret. A fleeting thought of being responsible for the lives of the entire galaxy ran through his mind, but he shook it off. The Reapers were responsible. Their creator was the culprit. He/She/It set the whole thing in motion. The choices the Catalyst offered were unacceptable.
Especially so, if he had to die to carry them out. He was okay with dying in battle, on the battlefield, but not at the hands of this Catalyst. He saw its flaws and refused to be a part of its ultimate plan. Not to mention, he had no way of knowing whether or not the entity was telling the truth.
It could have been an elaborate plot, indoctrination, an illusion. What if he was still on Earth hallucinating from his injuries? What if this was Hell? Or Purgatory? What if it was a trick to dispatch of the galaxy's only hope? All's fair in love and war, after all. And they were at war. What if it was a ruse? He couldn't take that chance.
Now, he and the entire galaxy would have to face the consequences of that decision. They would have to find another way or perish like the countless civilizations before them. He was given a choice to destroy, control, or synthesize the Reapers. He refused. He chose nothing, and in doing so, he may have condemned everyone in the galaxy to the same fate of the thousands of cycles before them.
"Commander? Can you hear me? Answer me dammit!" bellowed Joker from the Normandy. They had lost his comms signal after the last time he talked to Admiral Hackett.
"Joker, I need Tali or a Geth or someone who can hack. The Catalyst shut down. The Crucible won't fire!"
"I have you're position. They'll be there in five."
"They have three!"
Four minutes later, Tali arrived on scene with backup. James managed to get them to an airlock close by with a kodiak they picked up from another ship after Cortez went down on Earth. Shepard pointed them to one of the terminals that had disappeared back into the floor. The engineer crew hurried over to see what they could do.
"James had to leave. He was a sitting duck out there," explained Tali as she rushed passed him. "Did I say that right?"
"We have to find a way to fire this thing! If we don't..."
"We know what's at stake," she said somberly. "You look pretty bad, Commander. I think you need to get back to the Normandy. You need medical attention. Where is your armor?"
"I think it was vaporized when I was hit by Harbinger. He definitely broke some ribs. Joker, how's it looking out there?" he asked through winces of pain.
"We got this, Commander. GO!" she ordered.
He looked at her in protest before sucking in a deep breath. It stung as a rib bone dug into his lung. On further examination, he decided to do as she suggested. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"
"Of course. Especially with my two new Geth Prime bodyguards," she said smirking to herself in her mask.
"Vega, come get me," he said through the comms.
"That's a negative, Commander, another shuttle is on its way," Joker answered with a shaky voice.
"Where's James?" he asked with confusion.
"We lost contact."
"Scans indicate that he was shot down by Reaper forces," said EDI with a monotoned voice. She was not successful in conveying the emotion of the moment.
"Where? Is he okay? Send someone to get him," ordered Shepard as he limped his way to the airlock Tali had used.
"He is gone, Shepard," EDI reiterated.
It was the second casualty sustained by the Normandy crew. He swallowed hard and hoped it would be the last. There was no time to blame himself; he had to get back to his ship. He managed to drag himself to the airlock where he waited for the shuttle.
"Shepard, I...," shrieked Tali with horror out of the silence. Her voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard. The shrill sound punctured his eardrums and scraped the inside of his skull.
"Tali? What's your status?"
"THE PRIMES! THEY TURNED! Ahhh," her voice trailed off into nothing. She had managed to override the security system before the Geth were reprogramed by the Catalyst. It had hacked their Reaper codes, wiped their software, cut off communication with the Geth servers, and put them back under Reaper control.
Without warning, they turned on her. One ripped off her helmet and nearly took her head off with it. The other grabbed her shoulder and dislocated it. She struggled to break free, but they subdued her. The first pinned her other arm. She kicked the hard metal machines but it only sent pain shooting up her leg. The second gripped the base of her skull and gave a sharp twist. In an instant, she was dead.
"TALI?!" he yelled. She didn't answer.
"I'm sorry, Shepard. She is gone," replied EDI.
Three down and they were no closer to stopping the Reapers than they were four years ago. He resisted the urge to fall to his knees and weep. It would've been counterproductive. They would have wanted him to press onward and save the rest of their shipmates.
A kodiak arrived a minute later. An unfamiliar pilot pulled him onto the shuttle and another punched it to the Normandy. He grimaced and grabbed his side as he slide down into the nearest chair. It was a shuttle from one of the medical ships but was commandeered by the Normandy after James went down.
"GET ME HACKETT!" Shepard ordered.
"Patching him through," said Joker.
"FALL BACK! It didn't work. WE HAVE TO FALL BACK! The Crucible failed," he admitted. As he spoke the words, an unimaginable fear came over him. It was surreal. He wished it was a dream. It felt like a dream. But the pain was unmistakable; he was awake.
"Repeat!" ordered Hackett in stunned disbelief.
"FALL BACK to rendezvous B! EARTH IS LOST!"
"No, that can't be right!" said the Admiral. He was in denial, as were everyone else within earshot of the conversation. Earth was going to be their last stand, and now they ended up falling flat on their asses.
"The Crucible, the Catalyst, they didn't work. We have no choice! EARTH IS DECIMATED. There's hardly anyone left down there...It's worse than Thessia." His voice cracked as the images of all the fallen soldiers he saw in the last few years flashed through his mind.
"I...I, we..." Shepard was speechless. There were no words for an occasion like this. "I warned everyone. Why didn't you people listen? Now, Earth is being ripped apart. We have to retreat," he said more to himself than anyone else.
"Understood, Commander," said Hackett. "ALL FORCES FALL BACK TO RENDEZVOUS B! I REPEAT, RENDEZVOUS B!"
"But Admiral, what about Earth?" asked a man to the admiral's right. "We can't just..." Hackett looked at the man through sunken eyes. They were deadened by the weight of the words.
"EARTH IS LOST! FALL BACK!" he ordered. Their only hope now was to get as many people to the rendezvous before the Reapers noticed their retreat.
"Were all the Geth hacked by the Catalyst, EDI?" Shepard asked.
"No, Shepard. No other units are showing any sign of Reaper control. It may have been their proximity to the Catalyst that sparked their malfunction."
"Admiral, get the Geth out of here. The Catalyst hacked a few units on the Citadel. We can't risk losing them," said Shepard as they began docking procedures with the Normandy.
"Understood, Commander. Hackett out," he said as he dropped the comms.
"Joker, get us the hell out of here," he ordered as he nearly fell out of the kodiak onto the Normandy. Garrus and Doctor Chakwas were there to catch him as he stumbled onto the floor. He saw blurs of faces as they wheeled him up to the med-bay on a gurney.
"Don't put me under," he demanded after they transferred him to an operating table.
"Commander, that would be unwise. I cannot risk you moving an inch while I have a laser poking around inside you," said the Doctor.
Garrus was staring down at him with hollow eyes. Liquid stained the Turian's face; his girlfriend was dead and guilt washed over him. Garrus had promised to keep her safe. He tried to go with her when Shepard called, but she refused to let him. For an instant, he blamed Shepard before pushing the thought out of his mind.
"I need to be awake!" said Shepard.
"It'll only be for thirty minutes or so," she replied.
"I'll be right here," said Kaidan as he lightly squeezed his hand, brown eyes, warm and full of worry. How could he resist those eyes? Shepard finally nodded in approval before they shared a deep kiss. Shorty after, his lids grew heavy as he succumbed to their darkness.