She was a girl of 18 summers
Innocent
And when she died a second time
The angels cried

/18 Summers: Girl of 18 Summers/

'And, your last option is to alter all life to a synthesis of artificial and organic. I can do that. Which option are you going to choose?...'

The apparition's words dissolved and became one with the nauseating, swirling wall of gray mist all around. The visuals had faded completely, the departure of Serena's sense of vision accompanied by the monotonous voice of medical monitoring system behind her ear. 'Warning. Blood loss approaching critical. Seek medical help immediately'.

Commander Shepard, Butcher of Torfan, Spectre of the Citadel Council, hero of the Battle for Citadel, defender of Earth - slowly dropped to her knees in front of the holographic childlike figure.

'You are free to choose any of these options.. Each has its own consequences' the voice continued.

'Choose…choose… choose… choose' resonated each of the darker wisps of smoke, standing out on the gloomy gray background of the mist, which for some reason had assembled in a likeness of a forest.

The superheated bullet wound in her side gave a sharp jolt of pain, passing like a shockwave through her entire body. She tried to shelter the wounded spot with her hand but couldn't. Her arm simply refused to move, remaining rooted to the gray ground.

'choice…choice…choice…it's…up…to…you…Commander'

She looked at her hand, powerless to move, powerless to do anything. She looked at the tissue rejection scar intersecting her hand, ending at the bare metallic knuckle of her index finger, the red machine lights glowing inside her like smoldering embers. She looked at her traditional Old Earth thumb ring engraved with a runic symbol standing for Sol and the first letter of a name…name trying to resurface in her tortured mind…beckoning…calling. A chilling realisation hit her like an asteroid. She had understood all of it. She really did.

Her pose, on her knees, feeding reinforcements from her body language back into her brain. The fact that if she was fainting from blood loss she would not be able to see her hands. The dark wisps of smoke, just sufficiently humanoid-like to be subconsciously recognised as such. The whispers….

It… was too strong.

'This is my gift to you…my dear friend…A gift of a moment'

Serena had no strength to resist – but it was not Catalyst, it was another voice, familiar and warm, derailing her mind from the whispers of oblivion. Bright indigo wisps of a smokelike mass effect distortion rose from her hands and body and the gray forest started to disperse, giving way to pure, black starlit space…and Liara, clad only in the writhing emanations of her biotic majesty, bringing her mind back to that day, right before the last confrontation with Saren and Sovereign…the dimly lit cockpit…and finally herself happy and relaxed sitting on the table and dangling her legs. Her mind was sliding down the association chain faster and faster, the graphic thoughts derailing her further away from the claws of the black reaper projections. The cold metal of the Thanix cannon pressed against her back, one of her feet on the railing…the cool, soft Turian skin underneath the armour and her vision failing in a magnificent whiteout of bliss…the same cockpit of the new Normandy on three different occasions the last of which….

Samantha! She was waiting for her on the Normandy…she also recalled her worries about Liara behaving strangely and underperforming lately and how the suspected implications could affect her and Samantha. If things were the way she suspected them to be, there was only one word for the situation. The word was 'hairy' and not in a way she would consider appetising. But even that was overshadowed by the infinitely more immediate – she won't get to worry if ….fucking Reapers, fucking indoctrination. They were going to get what's coming for them, by the fucking book. And to be honest she, Serena Shepard, was plain awesome – if someone brought her back once, why not another time?

Serena Shepard rose to her feet and stroked back her short, pomegranate hair with little touches of silver at their roots . It was NOT too strong. And it never will be. Her mind shook off the torn web of Reaper indoctrination as she lifted her comms bracelet to her lips.

'Admiral? Anyone? '

'Commander Shepard? What's your status?'

There was a brief pause as the wounded, middle-aged woman straightened up to her full height.

'United Fleet Command, this is Commander Shepard. All guns open fire on Citadel. I repeat, all guns open fire on Citadel. It's the boss Reaper. Take it out at all costs. This is an order. L…Samantha. I love you. Shepard out.'

Serena looked defiantly at the hologram, her eyes becoming narrow slits of red light.

'Believe it or not you're going down. This is a strange, strange aeon we live in, isn't it, Catalyst?'

'You will regret this. Your actions have brought extinction upon the galaxy. Without me, life will turn on itself. Your children will watch it unravel before their eyes. Was that what you wanted?'

'They will do just fine. They have a good example to follow. Me. But you're gone.'

She aimed her shotgun at the hologram and demonstratively pulled the trigger.

'The combined knowledge of thousands of cycles, all…'

A cascading fusion explosion the brightness of an average sun did not allow Catalyst's sentence to be finished.

Tears blurred Samantha's vision and she did not even see the explosion. She felt a slight tremor from Normandy's shield generators as they reacted to the hard radiation shockwave – a tremor that took away her Serena. She felt like half of her own heart was ripped out and thrown away, into the vast blackness of space. She slowly collapsed on the floor. Someone's hand touched her shoulder – Samantha took hold of the hand - and lost it, breaking into uncontrollable tears…

She was surprised that the outstretched hand belonged to the one person on Normandy she did not consider her friend but did the pettiness matter now? It didn't. Samantha was thankful for the compassion. And maybe she had been wrong about the asari after all…

'Wait'

'We should attack! The frigate squadron has distracted the destroyers'

'No. I would wait more, Primarch'

'It's a perfect opportunity…'

'I think I understand them. They…have lost their strategic perfection since Citadel went down. Now! Main guns, full fire on destroyers, distributed evenly '

'What are you doing Admiral? We have an opportunity. The dreadnought is unguarded….what?'

'All capitals fire at the dreadnought, save the 13th squadron cruisers. 13th continue pursuit.

'I don't understand, Admiral Vakarian. The destroyers should have fallen back into formation. Why didn't they?'

'Primarch. My guess is – they now know something they didn't before. They know fear. And they will know more than that. Our vengeance.'

Pontifex, known among its own kind as Mechaton, the Living Conduit, Key and Protector of the Conduit glided silently through the blackness of space, encircled by a tattered group of smaller destroyer shells.

Defeat.

Chaos.

Emptiness.

Silence.

Loneliness.

Abandonment.

The largest and most powerful of the Reapers now, that Sovereign/Nazara had not returned from its mission, Harbinger and three other dreadnoughts present in the final operation in the orbit of the human homeworld had gone silent and even relays had stopped responding, Mechaton was on the brink of panic. For a very simple reason – it was not used to making decisions. The Living Conduit, Key and Protector of the Conduit was not a vanity title. It represented what Pontifex was…or more precisely had been. There had always been answers right there, beyond the miniature Conduit within its shell – and all it had to do was voice them. Now there was only silence and static. But its decimated armada was turning to it for leadership, strategy, all those things that had been so trivial when it could simply ask the Conduit.

Pontifex had to think.