Garrus swears and struggles to free himself from underneath a pile of rubble, including a slab of concrete the size of a pool table. His face is on fire. It's even worse than when he took that damn rocket to it on Omega - he must have lost a mandible at the least, but doesn't dare reach up and check, even if he could. Concussion too, from the feel. He's probably lucky that he didn't lose an eye. And, ah yes, the plates of his chest carapace are broken. He can feel the pieces grinding together as he squirms, trying to wriggle free, and his breath leaves his mouth in one pained hiss.
He swears again, with more feeling, when he realises can't escape, not without help. One of his legs is caught on something, and he can't move it, the rest of his body or the rubble enough to get it loose. Not for the first time he wonders why the hell his people evolved to be so damn spiky. Certainly, being equipped by nature to impale your enemies upon your extremities is a wonderful thing, but it's a distinct disadvantage in tight spaces. Attempts to clear away the crap above his head prove just as futile; pinned as he is, he can't get the leverage to lift anything more than a few inches.
Panic starts to set in. He's trapped. He's trapped in the middle of a warzone to end all warzones and he doesn't know where Shepard is. He's supposed to be with Shepard. Shepard and Vakarian, storming hell together. That's how wars are won.
He renews his struggle with new fervour, and is rewarded by an agonising pain in his leg, a cascade of dust from above and a voice:
"Vakarian? Vakarian, do you live?"
"Javik? Javik, is that you? Over here!"
He hears uneven footsteps getting closer, concrete and stone crunching under heavy boots, a grunt of exertion and then a piece of sheet metal comes away. He stares up, blinking through the rain of dust and dirt, into the face of the last Prothean.
Javik looks as bad as Garrus feels. Worse, even - he's missing an arm from the elbow, and his overlarge head with its blinking yellow eyes is splattered with gore and marred by burns from beam fire.
Garrus doesn't bother with niceties. He doubts Javik would care in any case.
"Where is she? Where's Shepard?"
Javik grunts and heaves another piece of rubble away, enough so that Garrus is able to sit up at least, and points.
"There."
On the opposite side of the crater, he can see a familiar shape staggering upright, one hand to her head, the other dangling uselessly at her side. Relief washes through him as she begins to move, stumbling at first but quickly gaining speed until she is hurtling down towards the Citadel beam. That relief quickly turns to horror as he realises, first, that she's not wearing her armour and, second, that Reaper reinforcements are charging down their own side of the crater towards her.
They'll be on her in seconds, and she doesn't seem to have noticed them. She doesn't even have a gun.
"No," he breathes.
His talons scrabble furiously at the ground either side of his body and, miraculously, come up with gold: his rifle. Or, rather, the rifle Shepard had given to him. Black Widow, Spectre-issue, top of the line, she'd left it for him to find in the Battery after their impromptu shooting match on the Citadel. The bright yellow ribbon and matching bow adorning it were, apparently, her idea of a joke (Shepard has never been a natural comedian), but she'd evidently put some thought into the gift. It came pre-equipped with his favourite mods, and the stock is engraved with a short, four-word phrase in one of Earth's few remaining non-Standard dialects: L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace!
His hand brushes over the words.
Audacity, audacity, always audacity. He'd had to look it up.
"They're coming," Javik says. He doesn't mean reinforcements. Things are moving in the darkness behind them, chittering and growling. He doesn't have time for them.
"Keep them off of me."
He wipes the blood from his brow, braces the rifle, picks his target, closes his eyes and exhales.
"Come on Vakarian," he says quietly to himself. "Show her how it's done."
The husk nearest Shepard all but explodes in a fountain of gore. The next shot takes two out at once - one through the head, one through the throat - and he feels a small glow of satisfaction. He might not be able to chase after her, run at her side, but he can damn well make sure that she gets to where she's going. A cannibal appears: his first shot takes it in the shoulder, spinning it around; the second, through the back of its head and the third through its spine. He's lining up the next kill before it falls.
He can hear the sounds of battle behind him - the scream of a banshee and Javik's answering howl of rage. He ignores them, his world narrowing to the view through his scope, time slowing as his slips into the old, familiar rhythm: aim, fire, reload. Marauder. Husk. Husk. Brute - can't kill it, cripple instead. A trio of cannibals. Ravagers lining up on the crater lip. More husks.
His every shot is perfect, and none of the monsters get close enough to touch her. And then... and then his last clip is empty, his rifle hot to the touch, and she is through.
Shepard hurtles headlong into the beam which winks out instantly, plunging the crater into a sudden darkness that leaves him blinking. A few seconds pass for the change of circumstances to sink in and then Harbinger - the only word for it is screams. The very earth resonates with the explosion of sound, and the noise is such that Garrus is forced to drop his rifle to try to protect his hearing despite his combat dampeners. Even then, when the sound dies and Harbinger launches itself into the sky, he's left deafened, dazed and reeling from the assault.
He curses, because it seems appropriate, and then again, with more feeling, when he realises he can't hear himself speak. A third, much shorter burst of profanity follows when Javik's limp body hits the ground heavily beside him, rolling slightly down the incline, and he looks up, over his shoulder, into the maddened, dead eyes of a marauder.
"Ah, crap."
It's been a good life.