Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all its characters belong to Bioware.
Author's Note:
Hey all. This is my first attempt at a fanfic and basically it takes a Shepard who's cold and ruthless and morally questionable and molds him slowly into a character that's more opened and engaged in his relationships with his crew. ME1 starts at the chapter entitled Nightmare and ME2...not quite there yet. So read on!
This Is It
Terminus Systems, 2183
So this is how it ends, Shepard thought to himself.
The Normandy convulsed again; whether it was the alien ship landing another successful blow or the explosions rocking the Normandy seemingly from all sides Shepard didn't know. He watched as his hand, outstretched in front of him, was shaken free of any hold on the entrance to the escape pod.
The blast wave threw him against the interior hull. I guess taking down the Reapers was someone else's fate. Shepard's back screamed with pain and his vision flickered between the blinding explosions all around him and a dim, heavy void.
His eyes scanned the room before him. Everywhere the Normandy was consumed in flame or reduced to debris. There was nothing he could do to save himself, nothing to grab onto, no small miracle to be had. Accepting his fate, Shepard began to draw a deep breath and give in to the…Ahh, just one more thing. He opened his eyes – a deep, amaranthine blue - and looked over to Joker. Over the sound of the Normandy being torn limb from limb and over the sound of his own slow breathing he could hear Joker screaming "Shepard, no!" But it was too late. Shepard twisted around and reached out for the control panel, sealing the doors and launching the small pod out into the Attican Traverse.
Earth, 2166
As far as Shepard knew, joining the Tenth Street Reds was his zero point. Before that, he didn't exist. Tired of being tossed between orphanages, of packing what few items – necessities really, no sentimental bullshit – into a single garbage bag and carrying them between institutions, and of being looked at by prospective families only to hear them whisper that something about him was a little off….a little empty, he left.
For a long time he lived hand to mouth. He wandered the foul underbellies of Earth's great cities. Above him, in their Asari inspired towers, crisp air, and extravagant lifestyles lived the rich. Beneath them lived the middle classes; they were those without luck. Beneath them lived the poor; they were those without money. And beneath them, beneath miles of scaffolding, support beams, and the decrepit apartments that once housed the rich before they decided they had to be even higher to taunt the heavens, were the rats; they were those without hope.
He did the odd job here and there: fix this pipe, do that cleaning, deliver this package (but don't ask, and more importantly don't look). In return he received an old couple's table scraps, a pubs spoiled stocks, a bakery's old bread crusts. The older he got the more regulars he had. Eventually he, then a lanky teen of almost six feet, was moving hot merchandise, shaking down shopkeepers who had missed a payment, and breaking the fingers of those who had missed two.
And he accepted it. He, who had lived so long only because he knew nothing else, had found purpose.
Did he ever feel regret? Why should he when he had never been taught it? If anything, life below had taught him that regret got you killed or worse. Life above had taught him that everything around him – the unrelenting human filth – was a blight on society better 'disappeared' than let live. He was, he concluded, doing humanity a favor.
Such favors the Tenth Street Reds were more than willing to oblige.
The Reds, in fact, had come into existence very much because of Shepard. He was naturally inclined to operate alone, eventually only accepting jobs through the Broker, the master of all places in the City too low to the ground for natural light to penetrate. Yet others always seemed to gravitate towards him. His physical presence was commanding: years of navigating the steely guts of the City made him both incredibly agile and well-built. His every movement was confident, deliberate, and precise. His voice, only ever heard when delivering curt responses and blunt commands, seemed to surround you. His eyes...were terrifying. They were cold and empty. Not the eyes of a killer – such eyes are drained of light by the murderous atrocities they commit upon their fellow man – but the eyes of a man whose soul had never known light nor warmth.
Thus Shepard became the Reds' uncontested leader. The Reds' were rats of all types: those who were born in the City's underbelly and those who had fallen there, those who were educated and those who were not, those who feared Shepard and those who respected him. But there was one thing every Red could agree on: no matter what the task, Shepard could get it done.
Author's Note:
For anyone who made it down here, thanks for reading! Suggestions, criticisms, praise….I welcome them all. If anyone actually ends up wanting to read another chapter I can tell you this much: I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go for a good ten chapters or so. Mostly I plan to explore Shep's character through his decisions in ME1 but I don't want to novelize ME1. My ultimate goal is to get into ME2, use his rebirth to challenge his existing accepted notions, and from there I'm not sure yet. I plan to update relatively frequently but I do have an upcoming midterm and paper due for next week so I guess we'll see.
Edit: 11/1/11
Just want to throw a few things out there now that I've posted a few more chapters. These chapters do get longer, there is more dialogue and tracing the inner thought process of Shep, action scenes can get pretty sweet, and though this is a Shep/Miri fic there is Tali and Ash interaction that I think fans of all pairings can appreciate. Yup, so that's it. R&R.