Battle Cry
Flux had changed in the past 2 years, Shepard recalled the laser lights and beating music she had been indulged with on her previous visit, now it was more like a lounge, easy beats sounded out from mini speakers, the floor had a few designer lounges around with artistically dressed dancers, moving abstractly against the walls. A type of plant vine hung beautifully from the walls, they looked to contain hundreds of tiny lights as they sparkled and lit up the dancers bodies – Shepard had recognised the plant from one of their off world trips where Liara had mentioned it, it was called Dersitia or Luna Vine, apparently it was extremely hard to maintain and relocate, kudos to the owner Shepard thought. Shepard was seated at a secluded table towards the end of the club, it was just past mid-day and the club only had a few patrons, a Turian hanging out at the bar, the Human male bartender who had guided her to her seat, and the petite Asari waitress who from her terrified expression was new. She swirled the drink in her hand, watching the alcohol blend with the soda, shore leave was going to make her fat...
She saw Miranda enter the lounge, Miss Wong infront of her with a distressed look on her face, Shepard wondered what crazy story Miranda had come up with to get the reporter to drop her current assignment, Shepard was sure what she had in store wasn't going to disappoint the girl but Miranda had yet to know her plan so would have to have thought something up; 'non-monotone Elcor' perhaps? Shepard smirked.
"Shepard, this is definitely a surprise, possibly a better one than what your 'friend' offered", Wong said as she sat down, definatly the Elcor Shepard laughed to herself. Miranda remained standing, keeping a lookout though it was not interely nessersary for their converstation to be so closely guarded.
"Emily I need your help. You're a reported, I bet your've heard a lot of what has already happened"
"I heard a rumour, a 'disturbing' rumour that you betrayed the Alliance and worked for the Illusive Man". Shepard frowned at this, this very rumour caused the rift between her and so many, between her and Kaidan...
"It's not entirely true…" Wong's eyebrows raised, begging her to go on "I did work for Cerberus, but not as a part of their organisation, I had my own objectives, which was to prevent the abduction of anymore human colonists, an objective the Illusive man shared, he funded me where the Alliance could not (Shepard thought it best to leave out the 'dying' part), I achieved my objective and cut all ties to the Illusive man and Cerberus. He wasn't to happy about this as you can imagine" Shepard saw Miranda flinch, "But his methods were extreme, we no longer have any contact".
"Ok" Shepard saw Wong pull out a datapad a scribble a few notes, "Shepard you've already given me enough to have a hit story on the extranet but I'm guessing there's more"
Shepard lifted her eyebrows "How did you know?"
"There's always more with you" Emily eyes gleamed with the thought of what she was about to hear, her reporters head going into overdrive with the possibilities.
"I need you to help me spread news of the Reapers"
Wong immediately looked confused, "The Reapers? That thing that attacked the Citadel? That was just a one-off crazy alien thing wasn't it?" Shepard frowned thinking how far the council had gone to cover up any hint of the Reaper threat.
"No, the Reapers are real, I have evidence, the human colonists that were being abducted were being processed by collectors to create a new Reaper, and whats more, theres a whole heap of them out there in dark-space, about to come and destroy every living creature in our systems".
Shepard watched Wong, the reporter looked ill, Shepard knew right to go to her, Wong had no reason to mistrust Shepard, after all she had helped her multiple times with organised crime on the Citadel. Wong raised a hand and called over the Asari waitress, who returned minutes later with a drink which Wong practically inhaled.
"So what's the plan" Wong finally spoke
"I need to get the word out, I have friends people I trust, the council refuses to believe the Reapers exist even though I've tried to convince them time and time again, I need an Army Wong, the Reapers will be here whether we are ready or not, and I'm here to make sure we are."
Wong stood up in her chair, her eyes gleaming with inspiration, "follow me!"
Shepard and Miranda followed Wong to her office, it was in a large news building not far from where they were.
"Hey Emily good to see you back so fast, what happened with that rouge transmission case, you off it already?" A messy looking human said, he had a hovercam in his hand.
"Brian get the gear, the crew, everything!"
"What? Emily whats going on?" He turned then to see Shepard "...Wholly fuck… 5minutes" he yelled as he ran out the door.
"I always knew you'd give me that exclusive interview Shepard" Emily smiled at her, she looked like a child at Christmas.
"wheres is your network hub?"
"The back wall at that terminal, why?"
"We need everyone to see this, not just Citadel space".
Wongs face lit up further, the idea of breaking the law was apparently appealing to the young reporter.
"EDI" (Shepard opened her omni tool and the blue glymph erupted out of it)
[Yes Shepard]
"I need you to hack into as many different extranet networks as possible through this terminal to allow direct transmission of a video"
[One moment]
A new terminal opened and thousands of locations and names began popping up on screen, Shepard heard Emily gasp with excitement, and cameramen and crew began to fill the room.
Another window opened and Legions face poped up on screen, "Shepard Commander, AI has informed us of the situation, offering assistance"
"Offer accepted"
With that several other task bars emerged with more and more locations loading.
"Shepard… was that a geth?" Wong asked, her face slightly sour.
"Legion is a friend" Shepard answered worried that Legion may have frightened the reporter out of her help
"…Can I interview him next?" The girl asked with glistening eyes
Shepard laughed
"Everything's set up and ready to go boss" The boy who's name she now knew to be Brian called out
"Ok! Let's do this!" Emilys enthusiasm knowing no bounds.
With everything now being ready Shepard began to feel anxious, what if this didn't work again, what if the galaxy betrays her like so many had before… Shepard looked around the room, various employees of the building had come to see what the fuss was about and all the faces of the room were on her, she looked to see a small child wrapped in her mothers arms, she remembered the thought of Vancouver, the children playing in the yard, their smiling faces, their laughter, the fire, Kaidan kissing her head. Her dream worth fighting for, the child noticed her staring and her mouth opened with a wide smile revealing her missing front tooth, Shepard smiled back. Then with a deep breath…
[And 3…2…1…
My name is Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance Vessel SSV Normandy. Many of you may have believed me dead, or a traitor to humanity, neither of these are true. I stand before you now as ever a Paragon of my people, willing to fight for humanity and her friends till the death, a fight which is now upon us.
Wong cued one of the techs to begin rolling the Reaper clips
This is a Reaper
Shepard saw in the corner of her eye the footage of the human based reaper, lying dormant in the collector base
Built from the corpses of hundreds of thousands of humans, humans which I failed to save...
Shepard cringed as the vid went on to play the colonists getting processed
You may also remember the Reaper which attacked the Citadel 2 years ago
More footage was played of the destruction of the Citadel
Me and my crew managed to defeat it, though it was no easy task, many lives were lost that day, even the lifes of the council were nearly taken from us. But thanks to the sacrifice of many, we survived.
However the threat is not over, and to admit otherwise is to spit on the graves of those who died that day. The Reapers are coming, with one goal, to destroy all organic life. There is no escape, no hiding, and we know this because the Proteans tried.
A seen from Iios poped up on screen
Their people were slaughtered, down to the last child, but we have something they didn't, diversity.
Human, Asari, Turian, Krogan, Salarian and all others, all formidable races, all proud, and strong, I ask you now how will you take this threat?
More footage – this time of the collector swarms hunting down the colonists
Will you hide?
Falter?
Or will you fight?
I will fight.
Fight till my dying breath, because I have something to fight for, I fight for my homeworld, this unity of races that inspires beauty such as the beauty I see in my ships design, I fight for my friends, my family, I fight for the people I love!
But I cannot do it alone, help me, and in doing so, help yourself.
…and 3…2…1] "that's a wrap!"
Shepard exhaled, her body was shaking, her chin trembling, it was done – her battle cry, now all the remained was waiting for the cavalry to arrive.
"A toast to our new celebrity!" Garrus called out. Everyone in the mess cheered as bottles popped open and smiles were all around. Shepard couldn't help but smile, finally they could begin fighting back.
The noise hallowed out as 3 men entered the mess, Shepard couldn't initially make out their faces due to the crowd, their uniforms indicated they were Alliance. The men were close now and all that stood between them and Shepard was Grunt, a large enough barrier one might say. "Move Krogan!" An angry voice called out from behind Grunt. Shepard rose and placed a hand on his back telling the giant she was ok, not wanting a fight to break out. Grunt moved aside with a humph, he probably wished for the opposite. And there he was, Kaidan, and two Alliance soldiers. She caught his gaze and he instantly broke it, she could see in his eyes in that moment that he was tormented. He regained himself and looked up to her again, this time collected. "Commander Shepard, you have been summoned to Alliance HQ".
Ohohoho hope you liked it, sorry to leave you all on a bit of a cliff hanger... I promise there will be another chapter out as soon as i get some of these pesky assignments out of the way. And yayyy Kaidans back - and oh so angsty... And i sticked to the original name Jane Shepard as its probly the one you can all most relate to, even though my Shepard is called Selene :")
Thanks for reading :3