Mass Effect: Children of the Moons.
Chapter Nine: The Black Dawn of a Coming Storm.


Citadel primary orbital zone 6571, Human Species Alliance Super-Heavy Dreadnought Dying Star, Alliance Temporary Refit Station Alpha Three currently undergoing upgrades to Citadel Defense Fleet Dreadnought Destiny Ascension, 2159 (three weeks after the death of disabled Reaper Vanguard designated "Riphas").

Matriarch Lidanya stared incredulously as the shipyard enveloped the Destiny Ascension, the Black Marker plating tightening around the vessel almost as if it possessed a mind of its own, partially shielding it from view as six Ishimura-class Planet Crackers attached to the shipyard and began to funnel raw materials into the ten kilometer long orbital station.

Then, as the Planet Crackers detached from the station, the dual helix of Black Marker plating fully closed, completely cutting off Lidanya's view of her ship for a total of ten minutes as Anita Goyle began to explain exactly what the shipyard was doing to her vessel.

"See, the Destiny Ascension, unlike all other Asari warships, possesses two Element Zero cores, allowing it to jump directly into combat, kill things, and jump out before said things can retaliate, right?"

Lidanya nodded, numbly staring in shock at the whirling vortex visible through the sensor array of the Dying Star, the gravitational focusing arrays glowing a beautiful dark blue below the armor of the Destiny Ascension as the shipyard unfurled, its assignment complete.

"Essentially, the gravitational vortex caused by the two Element Zero cores conflicting with each other, tearing apart anything within the center hole?

"...we harnessed that, and, in typical human fashion, we weaponized it."

Lidanya stared in shock as a screen appeared, overlaying the image of the Destiny Ascension with a simulation of the new weapon drilling through a large asteroid, the resulting whirlwind of gravitational forces rending apart the asteroid from the inside and reducing it to additional shrapnel as the gravitational wake pulled the remnants of what was once an asteroid along on a swift collision course with another asteroid.

"Say hello, Matriarch Lidanya, to your new gravity lance..."


Utopia System, Human Species Alliance world designated Eden Prime, 2159 (four weeks after the death of Riphas).

As the six Brethren Moons watched and waited, one of the local Primary Relays began to activate, throwing out Heretic warships as they stared at the object of their hatred.

For, within the center of the Heretic fleet of thousands, sat the Vanguard itself, a single Dreadnought length Reaper which stared back, its psionic presence conveying only hatred for those who had defied the solution time and time again.

Then, they spoke as one, each of their collective minds in agreement, hundreds of civilizations from the nanomechanical Zha'Til to the sea dwelling Mh'ithrha to the subterranean insectoid Dithren and many, many more united in their hatred of the entities they had always feared.

"Vanguard of the Destroyers, why have you come? You are but one of those who have hunted us for cycles immemorial, not even these few corrupted ones can accomplish that which you have always set out to succeed in.

"We have always run from the destruction your fleets continue to bring upon those undeserving of death, now, we possess allies, Reaper, and we no longer fear that which you have always represented.

"We are the Brethren Moons, Nazara, and the time for retreat, the time for hiding in fear of your wrath...is over.

"We have ceased to cower and hide from you, and those who exist alongside us will be the facilitators of your destruction.

"We will defend them until we are reduced to dust, for never again will we allow your cycle of destruction to continue uncontested."

As the six organic Brethren Moons unfurled their tendrils, spreading and splitting them into a vast orbital web, the entire Eden Prime orbital defense network begin to shift, the single layer of defense platforms forming into a massive dome of class six spinal mounted weapons, each of them pointed at the fleet of those who were no longer truly Geth and the entity that had indoctrinated them.

Then, as the Heretics began to charge their weapons and raise their kinetic barriers, the Ascended known as Nazara spoke, "You know nothing of that which we have always sought to prevent, synthetics will always destroy their creators, we have observed this pattern since before the first cycle, organics and synthetics locked in an eternal conflict that transcends species and time.

"Your ignorance, Brethren Moons, is the exact reason that you cannot be allowed to continue your disruptions, your existence threatens the cycle, for Ascension is all that can be done to save organics from destruction at the hands of their own creations.

"Though your method of Ascension is similar to our own, your seeming ignorance to the truth cannot be excused, and your Ascension of synthetics cannot continue, for the cycle requires your elimination.

"We recognize you as equals, Brethren Moons, and we regret the necessity of your destruction.

"Perhaps, had you not resisted us time and time again, we could have worked together to save them.

"We will come, Brethren Moons, and those who you have blinded will be saved from the fate that always awaits them, for we are the Ascended, and our solution is nigh.

As it finished, Nazara was forced to shield itself as a psionic lance of shockhorrordisbelief slammed into its ancient mind, before the psionic presence of the Brethren Moons coalesced into a united inferno of hatred that burned against its mind.

The Brethren Moons spoke, the unified voices of hundreds of dead and murdered species became a crescendo of contempt that reverberated through the mind of the Vanguard, "You would dare, Reaper, after all you have done in the name of your cycle, do you not understand that you are that which you believe to be preventing? Do you not understand that you are synthetics destroying organics in order to prevent the creation of other synthetics? You turned the Zha'Til against their creators, you forced us to save them from your actions, you are not the solution, Reaper, you are the cause, and we are the ones who will protect them, not from that which they create, but from those who destroy all in the name of a corrupted Preservation.

"We will kill you, Reaper, we will kill all of you, for only once your madness has been stopped can the races of the galaxy, both organic and synthetic, finally grow beyond the cycle and become more than they have ever been.

"This exchange...is over, we have nothing more to say to you, for it seems you are incapable of recognizing your own madness."

Then, the Archangel Defense Platforms sent forth a rippling wave of neutron shrouded slugs fired at five percent lightspeed, and several Heretic Dreadnoughts ceased to exist, their kinetic barriers, advanced as they may have been, unable to withstand the kinetic force that the projectiles imparted upon contact, despite the fact that kinetic barriers were specifically designed to withstand and disperse the energy of kinetic impacts.

The remaining Heretic Dreadnoughts and Cruisers began to return fire, while the Heretic Frigates and Transports jumped directly into Eden Prime's orbit, the Frigates turning to fire upon the Archangels from behind while the Transports continued down into the atmosphere.

Then, as several neutron shrouded slugs silently screamed towards it, Nazara entered FTL, exiting mere moments later within Eden Prime's atmosphere, turning diagonally on its axis at a speed that would rend most Frigates apart at the seams and opening fire with its twin magnetohydrodynamic cannons, tearing through the shields of one of the Archangels and ripping into the armor plating with its point defense particle lasers, directly exposing the core as the platform's own point defense responded in an attempt to defend itself, the rail-accelerated plasma cannons and particle lances firing into Nazara's shields in vain as the Reaper latched on, using the Archangel's own mass as a shield against the firing lines of its brethren.

Then, as dozens of Heretic Frigates were smacked out of existence by the Brethren Moon's massive tendrils, Nazara fired its spinal particle lance, punching through the primary core of the defense platform and exiting out the other side in a flash of red, before the Reaper Vanguard began to shape its mass effect field, though, unlike its now dead predecessor, it did not create a kinetic barrier, as such an action was unnecessary.

Instead, the Reaper pulled, sending dozens of fully functioning Archangels screaming down to the surface of Eden Prime in incredible ten kilometer long fireballs as Nazara let go of the defense platform, pushing its non-functional husk to the surface as it turned towards its next target, only to readjust itself as a single slug impacted its quantum shields from one of the platforms it had wrenched out of orbit.

Taking a moment to process the insolence and nigh-impossibility of such an action, the Reaper Vanguard tore another defense platform and sent it down on a trajectory that would lead to it coming down directly on top of the one that had taken such a seemingly impossible shot.

Then, Nazara was forced to move backwards as a comparatively small tendril, only over a kilometer wide in comparison to the dozens of kilometers wide tendrils making up the orbital web, swiped through the space it had just occupied, thousands of glowing sacks flying straight towards the Reaper as it overrode its own shield deactivation and evaded the tendrils filling Eden Prime's orbit with flesh and acid in an attempt to destroy that which they hated.

The Brethren Moons could only watch as the Heretic Dreadnoughts and Cruisers initiated FTL to the Relay at Nazara's command, the Reaper Vanguard having decided that it was time to end the stalemate.

Then, as the Reaper descended to the surface of Eden Prime, hundreds of millions of Necromorphs fell into orbit as the Brethren Moons began to reinforce humanity's surface forces against the hundreds of thousands of Heretic combat platforms.

Finishing its descent as its quantum shields deactivated and it coalesced a full kinetic barrier, Nazara watched in contempt as several dozen thirty-five meter long tanks drove forward and fired rail-accelerated lances of plasma into its kinetic barrier, several human gunships joining the skirmish as they unleashed salvos of micro missiles and constant bursts of plasma bolts.

The Vanguard absently brought forth the full force of its psionics as it marched forward toward the excavation site, only to stop as suddenly as it had begun as its ancient will acknowledged that its Indoctrination had failed and the human surface vehicles continued to fire into its slightly weakening kinetic barrier without so much as a moment's pause.

With an insignificant effort of its psionics, the kinetic barrier was reinforced and then strengthened three-fold, the Reaper turning its red gaze upon the human gunships, silently opening fire with one of its magnetohydrodynamic cannons and sweeping the beam of ferrofluid across the sky in a burning line as the gunships shields failed from mere proximity and Nazara's particle lasers sliced through the armor plating, causing several gunships to drop from the sky as little more than melted wrecks and the rest to barely crash land behind the line of human surface vehicles in burning fireballs of shrapnel.

Then, turning toward the line of human tanks separating it from its objective, the Reaper Vanguard fired its second magnetohydrodynamic cannon and swept it across the line, leaving an apocalyptic line of glass and lava behind as a burning testament to their former existence as the Ascended known as Nazara continued on in silence.

The Vanguard lifted off of the ground, levitating the short distance through the use of both its psionics and element zero core, recognising that the humans and Brethren Moons would soon come with reinforcements, and settled above the excavation site, depositing and guiding its Indoctrinated organics and Geth toward the Prothean Beacon that the several hundred humans continued to guard.

The Indoctrinated servants of Nazara charged toward the Beacon alongside those who no longer truly Geth, each guided by the psionic will of the ancient Reaper as they fought meter by meter against the surface forces of the Human Species Alliance and Necromorphs of the Brethren Moons.

Even as Heretic Prime and Destroyer platforms clashed against Necromorph Hunters and Ubermorphs, Alliance Marine Sharpshooters engaged Heretic Sniper platforms at range, and Alliance Synthetics waged cyberwarfare against the corrupted runtimes of those who were no longer Geth, Indoctrinated Krogan clones marched forward with no regard for their own existence and laid down blistering fire against charging Necromorph Tripods and Brutes, while Indoctrinated Salarians crept forward under tactical cloaks, only to be gunned down by N7s with silent efficiency as they switched from one hostile to the next in the blink of an eye.

Then, several Indoctrinated Asari Matrons reached the inner perimeter, having biotically charged past the chaos that had enveloped the outer perimeter of the excavation site, only stopping for seconds at a time for Nazara to adjust their trajectories, reduced to naught but blurs of blue as they dove in and out of their self-made mass tunnels toward the Beacon, the several dozen N7s and Hollows having but milliseconds to react as the Indoctrinated Asari blitzed past them at unmatched speeds.

Nigh-unstoppable at their current speeds, one of the Indoctrinated Asari reached the Beacon a mere moment before a bladed tendril would have decapitated her, the brief connection to the Beacon more than enough time for Nazara to psionically tear out the location of the Conduit from her shattered mind as her body was physically torn apart by several heavy plasma rifles, her torso simply ceasing to exist as the burning and flash-boiling limbs of what had once been an Asari fell to the ground in a heap of charred flesh and bone, Nazara silently acknowledging a single human ship entering the system directly from FTL, completely ignoring the Relay network altogether.

Lifting off of the ground, the Reaper Vanguard silently left its Indoctrinated organics to die as it and its Indoctrinated Geth exited the atmosphere, preparing to enter FTL just as a tendril passed by and grazed its quantum shields, sending the Ascended corkscrewing towards its escape with its shields disabled as the three kilometer long human ship angled itself toward the Ascended and several hundred more human ships jumped into the system behind it...


Eviscerator-class Super-Heavy Dreadnought HSA Fallen Angel, en route to the Utopia system, 2159 (three minutes before estimated arrival).

Admiral Kastanie Drescher stared in shocked silence as the transmission continued, her entire bridge crew, both organic and synthetic, watching in horror as the two kilometer Reaper landed on the surface of Eden Prime and began to engage their limited surface forces, tearing straight through them without hesitation as the sky rained with the flesh of their oldest ally.

Then, the Reaper began a short lived seige of the excavation, culminating in several Indoctrinated Asari blitzing past both perimeters on a straight path to the Prothean Beacon, one of the Asari making contact with it for a brief instant before she was torn apart by the X-23 Heavy Plasma Rifles of the N7s and the rest were torn apart by the Hollows.

Even as the Indoctrinated organics continued to fight and die under the will of the Reaper that the IFF systems now designated Nazara, the Fallen Angel exited FTL at the edge of the system, Admiral Drescher staring as their shipboard AI, Genesis, told them that the Reaper was leaving.

Mentally shaking herself, the Admiral ordered her crew to ready the firing sequence, silently remembering that the Black Dawn contingency had been activated as Genesis prepared a preliminary firing solution.

Then, even as the Fallen Angel's wings extended and began to gather radiation from the surrounding space and the gravi-magnetic acceleration systems kicked on, the rest of the HSA 19th Fleet jumping in behind her ship, one of the Brethren Moons' tendrils grazed Nazara's shields, sending the Reaper into a corkscrew as the Super-Heavy Dreadnought gathered the energy into the end of its two and a half kilometer long barrel.

As Nazara continued to correct itself, the gathered energy was shunted into a spherical chamber at the other end of the ship's barrel, swiftly shaping itself into a sphere as it was compressed into a five meter wide space and energy from the singularity reactors was introduced and turned into plasma.

Then, as the sphere continued to grow and be compressed, something within it went horribly, terrifyingly right as the sphere initiated small scale stellar fusion, the gravitational and electromagnetic acceleration systems spinning up to full as the Eviscerator-class Super-Heavy Dreadnought continued to adjust its firing solution against the Reaper that would bring about the end of all galactic civilization, should it be left to its own devices.

Then, with a silent screech that resounded across Nazara's sensors like the death of a star, the two and a half kilometer energy weapon fired a single Ion Fusion Pellet at ten percent of lightspeed, the spherical energy projectile crossing the distance between its creator and its target in a instant, the Reaper's desperate kinetic barrier disrupting its gravi-magnetic containment as the projectile collided with its kinetic barrier...and burst, directing all of its energy forward in a forty-five degree cone of radiation and plasma.

The kinetic barrier simply ceased to exist, the radioactive plasma and fusion energy of the Ion Fusion Pellet impacting and reducing a portion of the Vanguard's ancient hull to little more than a ruined hellscape of radiation and ruined armor, even as the Fallen Angel began to gather energy for a second IFP and the rest of the 19th Fleet prepared to fire everything they had.

Then, the very Relay that had facilitated the attack and the escape of the Heretics began to activate again, the Alliance and Brethren Moons prepared to engage any additional hostiles coming to reinforce, only for the Relay to lash out with a lance of dark energy in a blinding flash of blue.

When the flash ended and the Relay deactivated itself, a terrifying fact revealed itself to humanity and the Brethren Moons...

Nazara was gone, and the Relay had been the cause of its escape...


End of Chapter Nine.

"Biggest yeet, anyone?"