1And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

3And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

4And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

5And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

7And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

8And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Pestilence

Shepard was tense, as was everyone else around her. The figure drew closer to them and gradually the outline of a female form could be seen. The closer this person drew, the clearer it became this was no normal human.

What was once a woman was now just a tool, portions of a person but totally at the whim of greater masters. Half of her body still retained human flesh, as if clinging to her as clothes, but the other parts were blue, almost cybernetic as husks were. Her face had no beauty, but what was left of its feminine features was twisted. Her teeth were no longer in her mouth, but stuck out of one half of her jaw in rows while the other half was limp, an almost permanent sorrowful face as all of indoctrinated husks bore.

"That is what becomes of those who are taken…each night they come for a new harvest from the living and the dead…" Salazar whispered to Shepard.

The Husk was alone, and seemed no threat despite her hideous form. Everyone stood ready as if at any moment she might lash out and reveal some unknown power. Then, the thing spoke.

"Shepard, I given been bidden to give you a message." Its voice did not match its figure. It was flat, robotic but powerful as Sovereign and Harbringer's had been. This was not her speech

Suddenly, the creature stopped and its eyes glowed orange, its body shone out a great light. She was being taken over, as the Collector General's were. Again, it spoke.

"I see she who was slain and reborn, the Chosen among the multitude and the sounder of the trumpets of our coming…"

"I know what you are! What do you want with these people! How…how did you get here?!"

Shepard was at a loss for what to truly say to such a creature. She was still confused as to how a Reaper could be found so far from dark space. She had assumed Sovereign had been the only guardian in the Galaxy…now it seemed that had been a dangerously wrong thought.

"The names you give us are of no concern and I will give you none. I am known for want, poverty, famine and chaos. I bring low the mighty civilizations and turn their people into the beasts that they are. Your food becomes ashes in your mouths, water as poison, and all the trappings of your glories turn into naught. Our song is one of sorrow and loss and soon every world will hear my voice preparing them for salvation from their agony…"

"We want nothing from you! You failed at the Citadel, your slaves the Collectors are extinct, and we will defeat you wherever you show yourselves! I beat you before and I will beat you again!" Shepard said as she stepped forward, almost to bring herself in front of the creature in defiance.

A terrible laugh came out of the Husk and everyone cringed. The sound seemed to be burrowing into the very skulls of those who heard it.

"You truly understand nothing. Every age has had one such as you, Shepard. We seek you out. One who separates the strong from the weak, the wheat from the chaff. You have had many names and many faces, but always you die and are reborn, and by that act become a sacrifice that triggers our true purpose. Your death brings us forth, your blood our glory…."

Shepard rubbed her head. What was this thing telling her? She felt a beating pain in her mind, as the voice of the Reaper was causing her great distress. Liara stepped forward, putting her arm at Shepard's back.

"You heard Shepard! We are not afraid of you and we don't listen to your lies! We will sta…" Liara's speech was interrupted. The Husk turned itself towards her and now the booming voice addressed her fully.

"Liara T'Soni? Yes. I have seen you in our dreams. Your mother sought to make her people the Chosen, to show us the worth of the Asari. What a disappointment you were to her, hiding from the honor she prepared for you since birth…"

Liara's face dropped. What could this monster know of her mother?

"Benezia. I remember now. Even as you hid from your birthright she tried to protect in your stubbornness. She wanted you to remain as you were, innocent and untouched by what she was becoming. She would have shielded you from us if she could, from the Galaxy and its fate…but now look at you."

"I won't listen to you!" Liara screamed. Suddenly a terrible screeching sound tore across the sky and everyone crumbled to their knees. The sound was overpowering and Liara was left alone standing, sadness and pain erasing what confidence she might have had.

The voice continued.

"You are no longer Liara. I give you the name Fallen Star, for how low have you come. You were once so beautiful, so pure…" The Husk stepped forward, it reached its deformed hand and touched Liara's face. The contrast between its hideousness and the young and soft skin of the Asari was jarring. Yet, Liara seemed frozen with a tear rolling down from a single eye.

"Now look at you. I can see what you have done…I see what you have become. What happened to you, Fallen Star? Your mother failed us and now you have failed her. All she wanted for you and now you are so dirty; I can see it on you. The filth, the death, the blood that will never come clean…"

"Leave her alone!" Shepard cried, holding onto her own head and trying to fight the terrible, pounding pain. Liara seemed transfixed. Her lower lip was trembling. Something was happening inside of her, Shepard could FEEL it. She felt as if tentacles of some hidden beast were inside the Asari, exploring her depths and drawing out every pain, massaging into life every secret and self doubt. Her being were being violated and she could not resist.

"Always overshadowed…" the creature continued, its hand still holding Liara's face, gently, as its words cruelly pierced her, "always outclassed. Even now your lover shines brighter than you ever will and it is her race chosen amongst the many. Even now you are a lesser daughter of a greater house, bereft of a mother's love and insufficient to give true comfort and companionship to…"

The Husk never finished its sentence. With one mighty push against the pain in her head, Shepard stood. In a fluid motion she drew her pistol. Two shots rang out and hit the beast's chest. As it fell back one more pierced its skull, silencing it. It crumbled to the ground, empty, its eyes now showing no more light.

There was silence. Shepard looked at Liara. She had not seen her so distraught in some time. Gone was the icy strength she had on Illium or the steely determination she showed at Shepard's side. Her whole face betrayed a terrible sadness.

"Shep…Shepard…" she said as she turned to her lover. It seemed as if she would fall herself.

Shepard ran to her side, catching her in her arms. She held Liara tightly.

"That thing did horrible things to me, Shepard. It felt so ugly…it was inside of her, tearing at me, speaking to me!" Liara whimpered.

"It's alright Liara. I am here now."

The two stood there for some time. Salazar broke the silence.

"What do we do now, Commander?"

Shepard's eyes narrowed. Still holding Liara close she turned to Salazar and all the soldiers before her.

"That thing cannot be allowed to leave this world. It's indoctrination is unlike any other I have seen. It will spread famine, plagues, and do what it did to the colonists here a billion times over. It dies HERE!"

Shepard spoke with a rising fury. Her face revealed a barely contained rage. She was angry. Angry by what she saw here. Angry about what the monster had done to Liara. Angry about the whole goddamn situation since Saren and the Geth.

"What can we do against so much power? They will come at us now, with greater force than they ever have…" Salazar said.

The troops behind him began to mutter, sounds of fear emanating from the crowd.

Shepard was silent for a moment. Then she spoke but a few words.

"Prepare for battle!"

Drawing the Line

"Normandy, I need the entire squad but Miranda at the barricades with me…" Shepard was speaking quickly into her communicator, "Miranda, you are in command aboard the Normandy. Power up the engines and at my signal you bring the ship to bear against the Reaper itself. It is too weak to leave…yet. It cannot be allowed to reach a Mass Relay or we may never be able to stop it."

Shepard's plan was relatively simple. Lead an assault against the ruins that covered the buried ship, infiltrate it, and kill the Reaper core while it was still recovering. She figured that if the ship had not left yet, it had not the power to do so.

What worried her more was the fact that IF the ship truly was in a weakened state, and was still able to devastate an entire colony, she could only imagine that at full power what it might be able to do to cities or even entire worlds. Worse, if the Mass Relays were the Reaper's invention, and somehow it could amplify its powers…

She didn't even want to think about it.

Her plan fell apart quickly. It seemed the Reaper intended to strike first. The earth began to shake and in the distance a great cloud of dust rose up.

"It is moving!" Garrus said.

A great thrashing sound was heard in the distance and more and more dust rose into the sky. The Reaper was struggling, gathering its powers. As the dust settled, in the distance thousands of shapes were coming towards the small force of defenders.

"How many colonists died of starvation?" Shepard asked Salazar.

"500 died of starvation. About 1000 remain in the facility, safe, but sickly. The rest…"

"That leaves nearly 2,000 that are…transformed…" Shepard's face now revealed a look of concern.

Shepard sighed. The rest of her squad had arrived and she had little time for preparations.

It had been a long time since Shepard commanded a larger force. She had few men, but at very least husks had no long range weapons. It would come to close combat, eventually, and the enemy would slam into her ranks like a hammer. Looking at her forces she divided them into a long line. Her flanks would be commanded by Garrus and Grunt. Each one would be reinforced and her center, led by herself, would be purposefully weak. Her hope would be to funnel the enemy directly into the heart of her lines, then collapse her stronger flanks in on them, catching the husks in a deadly crossfire and swallowing them whole.

So that was the plan, at least. The soldiers were tired and their morale was low. As she stood in front of them and looked at their faces, she could tell they were on the last of their strength. She also began to realize the colonial "garrison" was made up of very, very young men and women. Some looked as if they were still teenagers.

As Shepard inspected the line, one such young man stood out. He had boyish looks, sandy blonde hair, and his armor looked entirely too big for him. She could see him shaking in fear; his eyes at any moment could burst into tears. She came towards him.

"What is your name, son?"

"Da…Daniel, ma'am," He said meekly followed by a shaky attempt at a salute.

She looked at his weapon. It was an old assault rifle that had seen better days. Scratched, battered, but it still looked as if it could fire a shot, which was all that mattered.

"Let me see that." She said. He handed it to her carefully as if afraid she was going to criticize it.

She looked it over and aimed it into the distant plain, looking through its scope. She then returned it to the boy.

"It seems a fine weapon. I imagine it has seen many battles…"

"It was my fathers. He served in the Alliance."

"He would be proud of you now."

The boy's face sank. "Him and my mother…they wanted to make sure I lived. They gave me all their food rations…what was left. They…they di…" He began to shake again, looking towards the ground in shame as he tried to hold back tears in front of a great war hero.

Shepard put her hand on his shoulder.

"Today you will do them honor. You will avenge them and everyone else who has suffered here. I need you to be brave, though. Can you do that?"

She was looking directly at him. His face rose and he looked her in the eye.

"Yes, Commander!" He said it with as loud a voice as he could muster. He was still shaking, but he seemed more resolved. Just a boy, though. He had no business in a place like this.

With that Shepard's eyes swept across her lines. Mingled in with the soldiers were members of her squad. It was an odd site really, rows of humans with the odd krogan or turian thrown in. At the center stood Liara, surrounded by men in bulky armor. She insisted that she stay near Shepard when the battle began. The Commander stood atop the centermost barrier and began to address her forces. She struggled with the right words to say or even if it would matter.

"I have looked at this force and for its small size I have never encountered a braver group of men and women. You have resisted a power that would have caused others to crumble. Yet, I see in your faces, you are tired, you are afraid. You have every reason to be. I have faced the Reaper's before, and their power is terrible, their appetite for destruction insatiable…"

She saw hundreds of eyes looking up at her, for any glimmer of hope she might offer.

"I do not come here to tell you we will survive. In fact, I would say we put all such thoughts out of our head. I would ask you instead to think of all of those who you loved, who have suffered and died. I would ask you to remember their faces, who they were and what they meant to you. I ask you not to fight for your lives, but for theirs. I ask you not to fight for our safety, but for their vengeance. The force before us would swallow the entire Galaxy, but it was humans who defeated Sovereign. At every turn our species has raised its fist in defiance of their plans and today it is no different. This is the first true battle of the Reaper War, and I would say that for all of those who have fallen and those who are in danger, not just humanity but asari, turian, krogan, drell, and all the other races of this Galaxy, that in their names we will drive a knife into the heart of the Reapers again. We will show them that this Galaxy will not accept our fates without a struggle. Humanity will strike the first blow and your names will be remembered for a sacrifice that once again spared so many from suffering. Know also that today, Victoria Shepard, a hated name among our enemy, will stand with you unto death. Will you stand with me? Will you turn your hearts hard, fan your hatred, and pour it on our enemy?!"

Suddenly the soldiers roared to life. Vengeance! For the fallen! It seemed that for the moment their weary bodies now were reenergized.

Liara looked at Shepard. She had seen her lead before, but this time it was different. The soldiers hung on her every word, they saw her anger, her strength, and she gave them the same. The Asari felt something stirring inside her. Pride? She was proud of Shepard. She smiled.

Shepard returned to her place at the center. Kneeling in front of a barricade she aimed her weapon. The enemy was drawing nearer now, closing the distance quickly.

"Hold your fire until my command!" she yelled.

"Make every shot count!"

Liara reached out and touched Shepard's shoulder.

"I am not letting you out of my sight, Victoria. Don't you go running off into danger without me."

The Asari smiled at Shepard. Victoria looked at her and stole a quick kiss on Liara's forehead.

The force that was before them was horrifying. There were husks, but far different than any Shepard had encountered. Some were as red as blood, flesh still clinging to them, their eyes burning with a hidden fire. Their claws were long and crackling with power. There were scions, but they were more monstrous, larger and they moved with a terrible speed. Moans could now be heard from the mindless horde in front of them

"Hold!" Shepard said again.

They came closer.

"HOLD!!!!!!!"

The soldiers' willpower held.

Now you could see even the minute details of the enemy. They were rushing now, right towards Shepard. Right into their deaths.

"SEND THEM BACK TO THE DARKNESS!" Shepard roared.

Suddenly the front of her line fired, all at once. A steady stream was being poured into the husks, but it seems there shields were more resilient. Rather than withering away as they might have before, they withstood far more shots than Shepard had remembered them capable of. Suddenly, from their midst abominations ran out, rushing into the lines of her troops. One made it in range of a group of soldiers to Shepard's right and exploded, sending bits of flesh, human and husk, flying in all directions. Men in her lines began to scream in pain. Then, the enemy was upon them. There was the great cracking of bone and flesh as the enemy pressed into them. The great chorus of battle could be heard. Grunting, smashing, shooting. Her lines held though, so far.

Slowly Shepard had her center give up ground, falling back further and further behind different barricades. The enemy pressed forward, deeper and in deeper into her lines. So far the plan was working; they were taking the bait mindlessly and following Shepard right into the heart of her forces.

Just a little bit longer. They just had to hold a little bit longer until all the enemy fell into the trap. Men in front of her were using their guns as bludgeons, smashing husks left and right. Shotguns were now the weapon of the moment for those who had them, and when they fired entire groups of the enemy would fall backwards. Liara's hands were flashing with biotic power. She was throwing, pushing, pulling, and blasting in every direction. Her eyes glowed blue, a field of raw power surrounded her.

Then Shepard saw a scion in the midst of her enemy. The scions were the slowest of the opponent's troops, and if they were now approaching it must mean the enemy was totally committed against her.

"Garrus, Grunt, up and charge them! Push forward and fall in on the enemy!!!"

With that, Shepard gathered her own biotic power, she glowed blue and then in a flash she charged directly at the scion in front of her. As she charged, husks fell in her wake until she smashed into her target, sending any around flying.

Liara saw Shepard out ahead, surrounded now by the enemy.

"Shepard is alone!!!" she yelled, as she now ran forward, sending forth shockwaves with both her hands and clearing a path to the Commander. Behind her soldiers followed firing and smashing any in their way.

Everything seemed to be according to plan. The husks and scions were so boxed in that the enemy barely had room to move. As Grunt and Garrus moved forward, they were cutting down the immobilized enemy in great swaths. It seemed as if a great wave was crashing and soon none of the Reaper's forces would survive this weight of this force.

Victory was upon the defenders, and the spirits of the troops now soared. Then, the ground shook beneath them. In the distance a giant tentacle rose, then another. The Reaper ship was pulling itself up, trying to rise into the sky.

"Normandy! Fly now! Use everything you have against that ship! It cannot leave the atmosphere!"

"Affirmative, Commander!"

The Reaper must have realized its delaying tactic was failing, Shepard thought. The enemies that had not been swallowed up were now being pressed back. Rather than falling in anymore, her line was reforming and pushing forward. The enemy was being scattered into the wind. Shepard was ahead of them all, charging back and forth between targets and picking them off one by one. The thrill of victory filled her and had overtaken her senses. She didn't realize how far ahead of her allies she was.

As the enemies lines thinned it seemed as if the entire affair was almost over. Then in one moment, everyone's heart skipped a beat.

A great, darkness came crashing down in front of Shepard. As it cleared, she looked upon a nightmarish site.

It was a Reaper, a real Reaper. The glowing avatar of the sleeping God ship. Its bottom half was like that of a man, legs as wide as tree trunks, arms muscular and strong. Its hands were long tentacles, each one looking like a terrible collection of whips. Its face was that of the statue, animal like with a tongue slithering in and out of its mouth. Four wings emerged from its back and a symbol of weighing scales was etched into its chest.

Everyone was frozen, the sounds of battle silenced.

Then it spoke, its voice booming and echoing across the plain.

"Why do you seek to stop the ascension of your own people? Do you not see the futility of your current existence? The pain, the death, the sorrow and sickness? With our power we will show you your frailty and we could spare you such. We would raise your species up to a level of being beyond your reckoning. You would become as we are, Chosen, immortal, forever ruling in the Heavens. Your rapture is salvation! We would glorify you and yet you still spit at our gifts!"

Shepard was in no mood to engage in a philosophical debate. Her adrenaline still pumping, she cocked her Claymore shotgun and aimed at the enemy, firing. The shots were absorbed by an unknown shield, pitter-pattering helplessly against the monster.

"You will kneel by your own will, in time. For now, I will force you to!"

Suddenly, the Reaper raised its terrible hands, and from each tentacle sprang forth terrible biotic force. Raw sheets of energy fell on Shepard and she crumbled to the ground.

"Only a taste of our power. You forget we control the very energy behind your biotics…" the Reaper mockingly said.

Lt. Salazar rushed forward, firing his rifle at the beast in an attempt to distract it. Waving its hand, almost dismissingly, the Reaper caused the soldier's body to rise into the air. Suddenly it seemed as if his very blood was boiling, his skin sizzling. He screamed and then his body exploded with his flesh and insides spraying in every direction.

Shepard tried raising herself up slowly, her strength waning. The Reaper's tentacles came down upon her, slapping her to the ground again.

Liara could take no more. She rushed towards her beloved, even as a soldier tried to hold her back. Raising her hands she put forth a biotic shield over Shepard's body.

"You will die in this place! Don't you see you are defeated?" the Asari yelled at the great beast before her.

The Reaper raised its hands again. Red blasts of energy shattered the shield, causing Liara to reel back. Suddenly, Liara herself rose into the air.

"What a mewling weakling you are, Fallen Star. Like your mother before you, ever a failure. Go now into the same oblivion that took her …" with that, the Reaper once again waved its hand.

Liara let out a terrible scream. Then her body was flung, hitting a small outcropping of rocks. There her body fell. She moved no more.

Shepard had managed to stand now. She looked up and in the distance she saw the Reaper ship as if it were standing on all of its tentacles now. It was rising, slowly. The Normandy flew by, its forward batteries firing. She now looked at where Liara had fallen. The Asari was motionless, a trickle of blood running down her mouth.

Shepard's whole body ached. Voices, names, places were running through her heard. She had only a small reserve of strength left. Her body glowed blue, biotic power building up.

It was a suicidal maneuver. A biotic charge against so large a being. She had no choice. She was going to end this here, one way or the other.