If Shepard had a corporeal body, she'd be sitting on chair, with a half drained bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy, with her arms crossed, and an annoyed expression on her face.
Annoyed because as she was, she couldn't get a decent buzz going since she had no body.
What a damn rip off.
Sure, she shut down the husks and made the Reapers go away, however, it lost its thrill really fast. What was worse, being the deity of a bunch of galaxy destroying cuttlefish wasn't as exciting as one thought.
Damn, what she wouldn't give for a drink right now.
"Hey, Herb," she called out to the collective Reaper consciousness.
Like a sulking child, Harbinger's consciousness appeared in front of her. She had named him Herb, since Harbinger was too cumbersome of a name to use to describe a whipped little bitch like he was. Miniscule. Pathetic.
"WHAT IS IT?" he bellowed, despite the fact he was only a fraction of her size now. She snorted, then kicked the image of the once fearsome Reaper in its face.
Outside in real space, the craft known as Harbinger lurched backward as though Shepard's blow had hit it directly in the face.
Not expecting such a thing to happen, she blinked in surprise. Then, a devilish smile grew on her lips.
"Ok, Herb. First things first. You and the rest of the Reapers are gonna start fixing up those Relays that got busted."
If Harbinger had arms, he'd be crossing them in defiance and if he had a face, he'd be pouting.
She started to pace in front of the miniscule Reaper. "You guys got the reserves to fix them, so no complaining. Now, once that's done, I want you to start getting supplies to start rebuilding the major planets, followed by the smaller colonies that need the aid."
"ANYTHING ELSE?" he asked, attempting to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
Shepard put her hand against her chin in thought. She blinked when she remembered the Normandy and her crew. However, it was unlikely they'd accept her inhabiting one of the Reaper craft. Probably scare them to death. And as funny as that would be, she had more control over her more dickish impulses when she was sober.
So, she decided that she needed to find a means to get good and drunk again. Then she could send the Councilor's prank onmi-tool calls, asking them if their refrigerators were running. If they had refrigerators. Regardless if they had one or not, it was the principle of the thing!
"No, Herb. I need to speak with Vanity and Aestheticism," true to its namesake, the former was the vainest Reaper ever, born out of a cycle where the civilization was obsessed with beauty to the point of their own destruction that the Reapers were actually doing them a favor. Jerks. The later was another cycle that almost beat the Reapers a long time ago. They just forgot to plug the catalyst in. Idiots. "I got something special in mind. Something more important than the Relays and the rebuilding projects."
Harbinger, unable to resist the will of his Reaper Lord, left to gather the rest of the Reapers as the aforementioned duo appeared in his place.
"How are ya?" the lankier, and much older, of the two said with an inexplicable Brooklyn accent as she moved forward and took both of Shepard's hands with two of her tentacles. "What can we do for ya, hun?"
Shepard refrained from forcefully pulling her hands back and beating up the acerbic sounding Reaper and instead got right to the point. To Aestheticism's credit, he simply said nothing and would have nodded if he could.
"Now, my genetic material's still intact when I got absorbed into the collective, correct?"
"Yes, my Lord," the second Reaper said simply. Shepard sighed in gratitude. Finally. A Reaper that had no desire to be a pedantic cipher like Harbinger or Sovereign was.
"If I had the inclination to reconstruct myself could it be done?"
"Oh!" Vanity noted energetically, "what dimensions are we talking about? Are you going for the design the Collectors were making, because, hun, if you're doing that, you're only asking for trouble. I mean, honestly, four eyes on a creature with only two? What the hell was Harbinger thinking? Was he suffering from an inferiority complex and needed to project just how ugly he was on another race? Oi!"
"I assume she means a mobile platform similar to her human form before she took over the collective consciousness," he said to his companion before Shepard decided to punch Vanity in the face.
"You," Shepard said with narrowed eyes and a finger pointed at Aestheticism, "I like you. You shall live. So, can it be done?"
Vanity scoffed. "Hun, listen, we've been designing new Reapers for over nineteen hundred cycles. You may as well be asking us if we can walk in an atmosphere without toppling over from out own weight."
Satisfied with herself, Shepard proclaimed, "Good! Now make it snappy, you two. There's brandy to be drunk!"
Unbidden, Harbinger appeared, "IT WOULD BE FAR MORE PRACTICAL TO CONSTRUCT A REAPER VESSEL LIKE THE REST OF US, WHICH WOULD REQUIRE-"
*WHACK!*
Shepard's blow across Harbinger's big, fat gob caused the Reaper dreadnaught to careen into an asteroid. While it didn't destroy him, it did hurt like the dickens.
Shepard made a note to inform Harbinger when he woke up that until morale improved on his end, the beatings would continue.
Not that she she'd mind it.
