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/-/ Time Unknown / Place Unknown /-/
/-/ Cathedral-Bridge of the Ethereal Temple Ship /-/

Jane's head pounded as she poured the depths of her psionic energy into the Ethereal device. The last few hours had been an almost endless assault against her senses, her physical and mental abilities – but the mission had to succeed. The very future of the Human race depended on the outcome of "Operation Avenger".

Mere days ago the Ethereals had begun a series of terror attacks in London, Casablanca, Rio De Janeiro, Sapporo, Minsk after years of research lead to XCOM finally being able to both track the Ethereal "Overseer" ship and then take it down with flights of Firestorm interceptors armed with multiple plasma cannons that chased the damned thing from continent to continent until it was downed quite thankfully in the middle of the Saharan Desert.

The death of another set of Ethereals always advanced XCOM's Cause, and the retrieval of the Ethereal device has left . .

. . . no, had lead. Had lead too the development of the Gollop Chamber, and the Volunteer and her allies . . . many would fall.

No, many had fallen – her friends had already died.

Jane shook her head, the pacific ocean that had been beneath the Temple Ship had vanished – so had the skies surrounding the vessel and the clouds above, the Temple Ship seemed to be within an ever shrinking cloud of haze, in the distance she could see the blue/black clouds that danced with electric sparks slowly growing closer towards the vessel.

A presence behind her made itself known – she turned and faced the corpses left behind from the final assault, there was nothing else here but her and shredded and charred dead meat. The remains of both Aliens and the corpses of the unit that used to be her friends laid strewn across the floors of the decking around her.

Yet she could feel the other mind, almost as if the words had spoken inside her head. NO – they where being spoken. Jane struggled as she lost grip on the plasma rifle in her right hand and let the weapon clatter to the floor. Something was very, very wrong with her perception of this place.

Yes new one, you have connected with us. You have seen what lies ahead.

It wasn't so much a psionic connection, like the ones the Ethereals had forced into the minds of those around them before Jane, Annette, Mikado and the others had gunned them down. It was as if the thoughts had already been thought by another presence before her, and was trying to make themselves known to her in the right order. It was beyond disconcerting – she forced her memory to replace the events as she knew them in her head over and over again to attempt to bring reality back into being.

My name is Jane Shepard.

Her name is Jane Shepard.

I AM MASTER SERGEANT JANE SHEPARD. XCOM OPERATIVE, MASTER LEVEL PSIONIC X-29101980

SHE WAS JANE SHEPARD. THE ONE WITH THE GIFT.

The more she pushed her version of reality the more the "other" thoughts would slide in alongside them, giving her thoughts the horrifying aspects of being past, present and future tense. Which was when one of the future tense thoughts slid its way through to her present tense thoughts.

Big Sky had dropped off the assault team as Xcom Firestorm Interceptors began their attack and distraction runs on the Alien fleet surrounding the Temple Ship, that big beautiful bastard had actually made strafing runs across Alien battleships in air-to-air combat in order to drop her and the rest of the squad aboard. Over the next few hours they had fought and bled together through waves of Sectoids, Cyberdiscs and Drones, Thin Men, Floaters, Chrysalids, Mutons, Sectopods and the Ethereals themselves to get to the Cathedral-Bridge of the Temple Ship.

Further aircraft from nations around the world had joined in the 11 hour battle – and the United states and China had both launched nuclear weapons directly at the Temple Ship knowing that they could not destroy it, but they could keep it distracted, it's crew panicked and give XCOM precious extra time to eliminate the Alien threat once and for all.

My name is Jane Shepard.

Her name is Jane Shepard.

You are the one who will save all from the Reapers.

I AM MASTER SERGEANT JANE SHEPARD. XCOM OPERATIVE, MASTER LEVEL PSIONIC X-12031986

She was the one who wiped out the Reapers.
SHE WAS JANE SHEPARD. THE ONE WITH THE GIFT.

I was born Wednesday March 12th 1986

Her creation was irrelevant and her humanity a co-incidence.

My parents are Hannah and Martin Shepard.

She would never see them again.

Clutching at her temples Shepard screamed, and continued to scream until she could no longer breath. Taking in a sharp breath she realised she could still hear herself screaming, she could hear herself start to scream and she could hear herself stop screaming.

Great, Here I am Trapped in an alien space ship in an electric death cloud going BUG-FUCK-SHITTING-MAD!

Who said you where going mad Jane?

After all, we're all here for a reason.

All concept of time passing evaporated as she realized exactly what, or rather whom the other presence was. Jane Shepard was talking to herself. Or maybe another version of herself, she couldn't tell – for split seconds she was surrounded by versions of herself from the future, some from the past, some male, some female. Some turned out to be psionic like herself, others Biotic, whatever the hell that meant. Out of the ghostly shadows some where covered in blood and viscera, others nearly dead. All of them where a variation on the same theme – Commander Shepard.

What the hell is going on?

It's simple – we are going to save the Galaxy.

What!?

Yep, save the whole damn Galaxy – there is one problem though.

Touch the Ethereal data-tap again.

Shepard moved slowly towards the gently floating Ethereal orb atop it's pedestal. As she moved she could both see and feel her hands moving before they actually started doing so, or in some cases see them move away in slow motion after she had already done so. Jane swallowed what little moisture she could from her dry throat and connected with the device as an armada of visions filled her head, as she had connected with it the first two times.

Visions of sorrow, death and dread filled her mind, it had never been an invasion. What Humanity would eventually call the "First Ethereal War" was nothing more than a test that unfortunately mankind has passed with flying colors.

We had proven ourselves as hardy fighters – with physical strength and stamina and the ability to perform beyond our own limits whilst under duress.

We had proven out ingenuity and creativity – the Ethereals had deliberately allowed us to capture the live samples, the corpses, their technologies and weaponry to see what we would do. They had given us a mere sample of what they had available and we had made an armoury.

We had proven our ability with The Gift – when under stress in close proximity to Elerium, Human beings would naturally become psionic at levels of power and ability on par with the Ethereals themselves.

Lastly – we had proven our genetic malleability. The bastards where dying! They would be dead in less than 50 years! All we had to do was out-live them and instead we gave them the very tool-set they needed to survive.

Even with time overlapping in the confines of the Cathedral-Bridge Shepard could now sense the other seven temple ships, she could see the future that laid ahead for the human race, the death and despair that awaited unless the Ethereals could be destroyed.

Which was when the final images appeared – the great destroyers. The very reason why the Ethereals where so willing to sacrifice entire civilizations in the first place. The image blurred and slid from her mind but she could see their forms – dark blue metallic sheens, cephalopod designed machine nations . . . millions of them waiting in the void between galaxies.

Shepard screamed, she wept, she raged uselessly and then gave into the depression of it all – the future that laid ahead outside of the pocket reality the Temple Ship now existed within had to happen, the suffering beyond had to take place if anything was going to survive within the Milky way at all. Both inside and outside the transition of time as she used to know it she watched the Ethereal occupation, the ADVENT regime, the Second Ethereal war – and a galaxy of twinkling lights.

Jane Shepard went mad.

Jane Shepard is mad.

Jane Shepard iswaswillalwaysbe angry.

But Jane Shepard always get's even.

All the Shepard's together pushed her into renegade sanity, paragon madness. Without time as a constraint she existed for millennia in an attosecond, which was precisely when the door opened.

98,000 years ago the Ethereals had set out on their voyage, their quest – enduring the psychic death-throes of the entire Insunannon race.

48,000 years ago they encountered the Prothean race, shortly before they too where devoured by the cycle. During this time the Ethereals themselves had fought a series of bloody hit and run campaigns against the ancient machines, and stole the technologies the eldritch intelligence's used to create more of themselves for something that would eventually become known as the AVATAR project.

By the time that information had entered her mind it had all happened, was still happening and was going to happen. Billions of humans processed with factory like precision for what would be the Ethereals greatest failure.

No, push that shit from your head – you need to focus.

WE NEED TO FOCUS

I NEED TO FOCUS

A world Humanity would not discover for another 157 years.

Eden Prime.

Wouldn't be attacked for another 162 years, 10 months, 14 days, 8 hours and 17 minutes.

Also visited by the Ethereals – AFTER it had fallen.

Active Prothean beacon.

And Hyper-wave decoder.

You won't remember this conversation? You won't remember any of this

You know that right?

Yesweknowthatnowshutup

Just make sure you get the date right.

The decks of the Temple ship warped and fused as the pocket reality Jane Shepard had forced it into collapsed inwards upon itself, Earth no longer needed to be saved because by the time she returned to reality it had saved itself with a price in blood 6 billion times over. Her sanity and madness had rolled into one over and over again – but she had volunteered for this mission. Now, as the fields of Eden Prime faded into her view, she could hear the chattering of Geth drones, but her knowledge of what they where evaded her, she could see the clouds of smoke, but had no idea why the fields where burning. She could feel the heat even through her XCOM issue Psi-Armor and could hear the distant crack-whine sounds of pulse lasers, and in the sky . . .

. . . In the sky, obscured by clouds of acrid smoke and wreaths of blood red lightening was a shape that was impossibly tall, floating in the sky – a vast tentacled form of dark blue metal and foul intent that shook her to her very core, filling her with fear and dread.

The last thought that passed through her mind before she passed out, was the question as to why that thing floating in the sky would shake her to her very core.