"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when Death comes, we are not." - Epicurus
There was nothing. No light, nor darkness, heat or cold, not even the beating of his own heart could be heard let alone felt. Suddenly…thip…like the turning of page. This was the only sound Commander John Shepard heard. He looked around, nothing but darkness.
Thip.
"Is somebody there?" He called out, his voice making no sounds in the dark.
"I AM HERE, COMMANDER. DON'T WORRY, TAKE YOUR TIME. I HAVE A BOOK TO KEEP ME ENTERTAINED."
Shepard looked around again, but once more saw nothing."Where…where are you?"
"WHY, WHERE I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MY FAITHFUL COMPANION. AT YOUR SIDE, THROUGH ALL OF YOUR TRAVELS."
Shepard looked to his side, following the sound of the voice. Upon finding its source he scrambled away from the visage before him. A skeletal human, skull hidden by a deeply hooded robe sat in a folding chair, a light illuminating him that came from nowhere, but somewhere. A book in its hands as it turned the page with athip that drifted off into the dark.
Shepard stared at what had to be an aberration to his mind. "Are…are you real?" He couldn't believe it, this thing sitting calmly before him. It looked just like the popularized image of of the Angel of Death that the Westernized Humanity had adopted for centuries.
"AS REAL AS YOU ARE AT THIS MOMENT."
"But you're…"
"YES."
"Does that mean I'm…"
"NO. YOU ARE, TO PUT IT MILDLY, ONLY MOSTLY DEAD, COMATOSE, HAVING A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE. "
"Mostly dead? But how, the Citadel tore it self to pieces above Earth! If I didn't burn, I would have been spaced! Again!" His voice cracked, emotion flooding through him as everything that had happened hit him at once. When the Intelligence had given him the three choices he refused to believe that was it. His entire life, from his childhood jumping across the galaxy with his parents to his long military career he had always found a way. He had on Elysium, Ilos, and the Collector base. He always found a way to complete his mission. To win.
The Crucible had forced the Intelligence to look at every viable option to defeat the Reapers and Shepard forced it to relay those to him, to allow him to decide. His final decision, his choice, was to unleash what was in essence a virus. A virus that forced the nano-bots that filled the Reapers, like the blood in an organic body, to turn on their hosts eventually killing them from the inside out. A secondary effect of this was the swift and sudden degradation of the Reaper's shields and armor as the nanites ate away like a cancer.
"How?"
"A WELL TIMED BIOTIC BARRIER COMBINED WITH A STASIS FIELD ON YOUR SELF. QUITE INGENIOUS ON YOUR SUBCONCIOUS' PART, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF."
Shepard looked around him at the darkness, "Where are we?"
"IMBETWEEN. BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT YET DEAD, I CAN NOT COME TO TAKE YOU ON. BUT YOU ARE CLOSE, OH SO CLOSE JOHN. YOU TEETER ON THE PRECIPACE OF LIFE AND DEATH AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO TILT THE BALANCE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. ALL THERE IS TO DO IS WAIT, AND TALK."
The red and black colored varren made its way through the rubble of the destroyed city. Its owners had brought it along when they left the home cavern to come to this strange world and fight the metal-meat creatures. It sniffed along the ground, a sent toying at his memory. One of sweet Pyjack meat and a kind alien that the masters had liked. It followed the scent, ignoring the calls of its handler in the hope of more Pyjack meat.
Commander Shepard breathed. Painfully, slowly, constantly. Unable to move, unable to think, but he was breathing. It was raining; cold drops of water splashing his face. Suddenly the rain was blocked; a hot panting filled his ears as he felt a blunt nose push against his arm.
"Urz! Urz where the Hell did you go?" Grunt shouted as he clambered over the rubble. He'd led the reformed Aralakh Company against the Reapers in London, earning great honor not just for himself and his company but for all Krogan as well. Now he was chasing after a damn varren through the rubble. He swore that he'd shoot the damn critter once he caught it. He let out a grunt, a bit of humor not lost on him, as he pulled himself over a fallen slab of concrete. "What did you fin-" His sentence cut off as his voice caught in his throat. There lay his Battle Master, burnt and bleeding but breathing with a varren panting beside him. Grunt turned to shout over his shoulder calling for his comm specialist, a human marine, "Get on the radio and call in a medevac. We just found the Savior of the Galaxy."
Turian Communications Specialist Auerillius Breton had spent the better part of the battle for London doing a job that he felt was better suited, in his opinion, for a Geth: fielding the influx of field medical requests from units fighting across the island and in the northern coast of the state of France to the south. It was boring, and he hated it. He'd rather be out there fighting with his brothers in arms. He shifted in his field chair, trying to stay awake as the radio crackled to life.
Dust Off 34 this is Aralakh 18, how copy? Over.
"Aralakh 18 this is Dust Off 34, we read you Lima Charlie."
Dust Off 34, we have located codename Sheepdog. Prepare to receive 9-line medevac, over.
With that Auerillius sat up. Sheepdog was the code name given to Commander Shepard for Operation HAMMER FALL. He had been MIA since the Crucible had fired almost ten hours prior. If Shepard needed a medevac… "Send it, Aralakh 18."
Jack sat on the ground, her back against the tent wall as she pressed her knees to her chest, her head resting on her knees as she waited for the message she hoped would come. She wouldn't pray. It wasn't her way. It had been hours since her all too brief conversation with Shepard, when she told him he'd damn well better come back alive. "I won't leave you again, Jack." he had promised her. And what did that mother fucking King of the Boy Scouts go and do? Left her to go play soldier, to be the god damned hero everyone needed him to be. She hated him for it, loved him for it. The same loyalty he had shown the Alliance he had shown her, never giving up on them. She had marked him, tattooing him so everyone would know that he was hers. So that if anything happened, he could be ID'd. ID'd and brought back to her.
"Jack? Jack are you in here?" It was Kahlee Sanders, her boss back at Grissom Academy and immediate superior in combat.
"Over here, Sanders." Jack responded, her voice a raspy croak from hours of shouting orders over the din of combat. It had been a rush, as it always was, bringing back that good feeling she always got when she fought. And then…and then the news came. Shepard had made it to the Crucible, and minutes later it had lit off like a giant roiling fire ball of pure white light. The Reapers had bellowed and lifted off, and she could have sworn that pieces had started to fall off of them as they rose into the sky.
Sanders made her way over to Jack, stepping over and around the packs and boxes that littered the floor of the tent. Sanders sat on a cot in front of Jack, brushing a lock of golden blonde hair back behind her ear. "Jack, you've been sitting here for hours. You need to get up and get back out there. The Reapers may be on the run but they're still out there, and your students need you."
"No they fucking don't. They're fine, just let me be." Jack said into her chest, not even bothering to look up.
"No, they're not. They look up to you, they need you out there leading them and protecting them." Sanders reached out a hand, only to have to swatted away.
"Don't touch me! What part about leave me alone do you not understand, bitch?!" Jack shouted, scrambling to her feet.
Kahlee took it all in stride, it wasn't the first time she'd been on the receiving end of one of Jack's legendary tantrums and it certainly wouldn't be the last. "What's wrong, Jack?"
"What's wrong? WHAT'S WRONG?!" Jack was screaming at the top of her lungs, the blue mist of her biotics flaring around her clenched fists. "Everything is wrong! Every god damned, mother fucking, thing is wrong! I want to go out there and kill every mother fucking Reaper piece of shit I can get my hands on! I want to make them pay!"
"Pay for what?" Sanders was pleading, trying to calm Jack down before she hurt herself, or worse; the entire FOB.
"For taking him from ME!" With that she stumbled back into the tent wall, sliding down to the ground as tears flowed freely. Her chest chest began to heave imbetween sobs as she began to hyperventilate. Sanders quickly knelt, gathering Jack up in her arms, holding her like the daughter she never had. "Oh, Jack…" She tried to think of something to say, to ease the pain that Jack must be feeling, unable to save the one man she had ever truly loved. "I'm sure that he's…" Before she could finish the thought she was cut off by a rush of noise outside the tent, shouts and cries of "They found him! They found the Commander!" From soldiers of all races as they ran past the tent the two women sat in, clinging to each other in a moment of disbelief and shock.
"They found…He's alive." A laugh rang out as Jack leaned her head back against the tent's fabric wall. "I'm going to kill that asshole."