"Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you."
Garrus watched in awe as Saren Arterius, the legendary Spectre, fell through the glass floor.
He really had to hand it to Shepard. Only she could talk a stubborn-as-hell turian Spectre into putting a bullet through his own head.
I don't know if that's supposed to be admirable, or disturbing as hell. . .
"All righty, then!" Shepard said cheerfully as she marched to the central control panel.
The rest of the team followed her, sharing uneasy glances. Garrus supposed that they too were feeling a little concerned over their Commander's casual dismissal of the whole situation.
Hmm. . . . I wonder how Kaidan would have reacted if he was here. Shame his leg didn't heal in time. It would've been really entertaining. . .
"Alright people! Looks like Vigil's data file worked. I've got control of all systems," Shepard declared.
"That's great, Commander!" Ashley said excitedly. "Quick! Open the station's arms. Maybe the fleet can take down Sovereign before he regains control of the station!"
"See if you can open a communications channel, Commander," Garrus suggested.
Garrus saw the whole conversation between Joker and Shepard play out just as he remembered. Once again the burden of command fell on her shoulders, with thousands of lives hanging in the balance.
"You can't sacrifice human lives to save the Council!" Ashley exclaimed in anger. "What have they ever done for us?"
"This is bigger than humanity," Tali argued. "Sovereign's a threat to every organic species in the galaxy!"
"Which is why we can't throw away reinforcements to save those Council pyjacks!" Wrex barked. "We have to hold them back until Sovereign's exposed!"
"And what about the crew of the Destiny Ascension, Wrex?" Liara asked. "Do we leave those ten thousand innocents to die as well?"
All four of them got into a heated discussion. Shepard merely arched an eyebrow at Garrus, who was uncharacteristically silent. He shrugged but didn't say anything.
This wasn't his decision to make, after all.
Garrus had spent hours trying to weigh the pros and cons of saving the Council. He knew that uniting all the species against the Reaper fleet in the future would be much easier if they were to save the Destiny Ascension now, but then he remembered that in the previous timeline it hadn't done them much good at all. He was also aware that letting the Council die and focusing on Sovereign would tremendously boost the importance of humans on the galactic stage. And while he personally had no problems with that, he had no way of knowing what kind of effect that would have on the events of this timeline; it was quite possible that his entire knowledge of the future might become completely useless because of such a major shift in galactic power.
In the end Garrus had been forced to concede that his knowledge made him just too biased to make an effective decision. So he decided to once again place his faith in Shepard, as he always had.
Joker chimed in again, a note of urgency in his voice. "What's the order, Commander? Come in now to save the Ascension or hold back?"
Everyone fell silent at once to regard the Commander warily. Shepard took a deep breath and then started tapping at the controls. "Opening the relays now, Joker. We need to save the Ascension - no matter what the cost!"
"Aye, aye Commander!"
"Commander, you're not seriously. . . !"
"This isn't just about the Council, Ash," Shepard said wearily. "The Ascension is the largest ship in the Citadel fleet, which means it's also got the biggest guns! We need that firepower to help the Alliance take down Sovereign. Besides, I'd rather not give the Geth fighters an opportunity to flank our ships when they're engaging Sovereign; better to get rid of them first and then move to take out that fucking Reaper!"
Garrus silently marvelled at his superior. With a single statement she managed to satisfy all four of her teammates, and still made the most tactically viable decision.
Well, this is Shepard we're talking about.
The Commander then met his eyes and jerked her head towards the bottom. "Make sure he's dead."
He nodded and walked away.
Garrus dove behind a small pile of rubble, narrowly avoiding Husk-Saren's energy beam.
"Damn it, Vakarian!" Ashley snapped through the comm. "You had one job! One fucking job!"
Oh, so it's back to 'Vakarian' now. . . .
He'd made sure to use Sledgehammer rounds while firing into Saren's skull, knowing full well that his Reaper-reinforced head would easily be able to take it. If only Shepard had agreed to share some of her Inferno ammo or High-explosive rounds with them earlier, they wouldn't have to fight this abomination right now.
'Serves them right,' he thought viciously. Damn Shepard, always hogging the good stuff. . . .
"Less talking more shooting, people!" Shepard barked angrily. "Ash – suppressive fire! Tali – overload that zombie's shields. . . "
"What's a zombie, Shepard?" Tali sounded puzzled.
"Not now, Tali!" Shepard groaned. "Liara – lift that sucker into the air! Wrex. . . . AAAAAGH!"
"Shepard!" Garrus was horrified by her pain-filled screams. "Shepard, what happened? Are you alright?" He tried to sneak a peek over his cover, but was forced to duck again.
"I-I'm fine. But. . . but m-my HMWA. . ."
Garrus blinked. Did he hear that correctly?
"M-my HMWA X! He fried it! That zombie bastard fried it!" She sounded practically hysterical now. "I spent months. . . months saving up to buy that thing and he. . he. . . YOU GODDAMN BASTARD!"
Garrus peeked out of cover just in time to see a near-rabid Commander Shepard launch herself at Husk-Saren, screaming in fury.
What followed was the most one-sided fight Garrus had ever seen in both his lifetimes.
The entire squad stopped firing and watched, stupefied, as Commander Shepard proceeded to tear apart Husk-Saren with her bare hands, bellowing obscenities that would've given a hanar a heart-attack. It was easily the most sickening and fascinating thing any of them had ever seen.
Ashley clutched her stomach and look away, muttering prayers under her breath. Tali once again proved she was the smartest of them all by immediately turning off her audio receptors and making her mask opaque. Behind him, Garrus could've sworn that he heard a small 'Eep'.
Urdnot Wrex would later swear until his dying day that he most certainly had not 'eeped' like a little pyjack. It was only four centuries later, lying on his death bed on Tuchanka, that Wrex would share the truth with his eldest and favorite son (incidentally named Shepard in honor of his battle-sister). In his defense, it had been a rather manly 'eep'.
Liara T'Soni would continue to have nightmares five hundred years after this day. She would stubbornly refuse to share the cause even with her beloved daughter Benezia, who Liara had conceived with Shepard's help. Benezia would never understand why her mother, the all-powerful Shadow Broker, absolutely refused to let her wield an assault rifle under any circumstances; and any attempts to question her reason for doing so would result in her battle-hardened mother putting on a thousand-yard stare and consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
As for Garrus Vakarian. . . well, he figured that someone had to watch the whole thing to back-up Shepard's report later. So he grit his teeth and watched the stomach-churning spectacle unfold before his very eyes.
He would later note that several times Husk-Saren had actually attempted to crawl away from the mad human woman. After the fourth attempt however, Shepard had actually ripped off his metal leg and proceeded to do things to him that should never be mentioned aloud in polite company.
Jeff 'Joker' Moreau would later swear on his life that, just before delivering the coup-de-grace to Sovereign, the giant Reaper had actually spread out its limbs and welcomed the missile to its core; as though it had seen and experienced things no Reaper should ever have to bear. Naturally, no one believed him.
Anyways, twenty horrifying, mentally-scarring minutes later Commander Shepard was standing over the mangled corpse of Husk-Saren, breathing heavily.
"Er. . . Shepard. ." With the same suicidal bravery that saw him trying to take on Omega's entire mercenary population single-handedly with a sniper rifle, Garrus Vakarian slowly approached his superior.
"What!?" she snapped, bits of Husk-Saren still dripping from her fingers.
He flinched slightly at the manic gleam in her eyes. "He's. . . he's dead now, see? So you can. . . I don't know. . . stop, I guess."
"What?" she frowned. "He's dead? You sure?"
"I'm sure, Shepard."
"Really?"
"Yeah, Commander," Ashley nodded weakly from behind him. "Totally, completely, utterly, absolutely dead."
"Oh." Shepard scratched her head for a few minutes. "Hey Tali, could you. . . ?"
"No, Shepard." The quarian crossed her arms and spoke in an unusually severe tone. "I am not going to restart him simply so you could do it again."
"Damn!"
Garrus sighed heavily, glad to see that she was back to normal. He then cocked his head to the side, feeling like he'd forgotten something.
"Its shields are down! Now's our chance!" Joker's voice came through the comm. Everyone immediately fell silent and listened intently.
"Hit it with everything we got!" came Admiral Hackett's gravelly voice.
"This is Matriarch Lidanya, Captain of the Destiny Ascension." A crisp voice chimed in. "We've got your back, Fifth Fleet. Do what you have to!"
Ten seconds later, Joker again spoke. "Hard on my flank! We're going in!"
"Come on, Normandy," Shepard whispered quietly.
Go Joker! Hmm, still feel like I'm forgetting something. . .
The ground beneath them shook violently, just as a loud cheer rang through the comms. They'd done it!
"It's over?" Liara asked in surprise.
"It is." Shepard confirmed happily. "Sovereign's down! We won!"
The entire group burst into loud cheers: Wrex was firing his shotgun into the air, Tali and Ashley were practically dancing, Liara was weeping in gratitude, Shepard and Garrus were beaming widely at each other, no words to express their joy. . . .
Until a huge shadow fell over them.
Garrus whipped around and froze as a giant chunk of Sovereign flew straight at them through the window.
Oh crap. That's what I forgot. . .
"Go!" Shepard yelled.
Garrus' last thought as he threw his arms around Shepard, just as everything around them exploded, was that the Spirits really had it in for him sometimes.
". . .rrrus. . .hear me. . .Garrus. . . . Garrus, can you hear me? Garrus!"
He blinked slowly, trying to regain his bearings. "I'm right here, Shepard," he mumbled automatically.
"Thank God!"
A part of him wondered why Shepard's voice sounded so very loud. It was like she was right on top of him.
Or maybe. . .
He snapped his eyes open, only to realize that it was the other way around.
"Shepard!" he gasped. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," the human lying underneath him muttered.
"Oh." Garrus blinked a few times. "Um. . . . good then."
"Yeah, I bet it is." Her voice sounded awfully strangled.
"Oh. Here let me. . . OW!"
"What's wrong?"
"My leg hurts. Think it's broken. . . ."
"Yeah? Well, my entire body hurts! Though that might just be because of the giant armored lizard lying on top of me. . . "
"Racism is unbecoming of you, Commander." Garrus slowly rolled off her. "And for the last time, turians aren't. . . "
Shepard groaned softly. "Not the time, Garrus!"
"Oh, and you're welcome by the way. You know, for pulling your ass out of the fire. Again."
"Yeah, yeah. Suck it up, asshole."
"You see that!" Garrus huffed in indignation. "That's human gratitude for you, right there."
"Hey, I'm Commander-fucking-Shepard, Savior of the goddamn Citadel and all organics in the galaxy! I'm allowed to be a little ungrateful!"
They both laughed loudly, still high on adrenaline. Slowly though the excitement wore off and the two best friends simply lay there, under the piece of debris hanging over them like a canopy.
Garrus cocked his head slightly as the sound of voices grew louder, along with the noise of debris being shifted. "Looks like the rescue team is here."
"Good."
"Think we should just stay here and let them find us, or should we walk out on our own?"
"Hmmm. . . let's see." Shepard stuck a thoughtful pose, though the effect was ruined significantly since she was lying flat on her back. "We're both the most badass members of our respective species, lying here after our battle with a giant cuttlefish AI hell bent on causing the apocalypse. . . hmm, yeah I think we should walk out of here on our own."
"Thought you'd say that," Garrus grunted as he slowly got to his feet and held out his hand to the Commander.
Shepard also winced slightly. "Damn, think I broke my arm. . . "
The turian chuckled slightly, gripping her around the waist. "We make one hell of a pair, don't we?"
"Yeah." Shepard grinned as she threw her arm around him. "Yeah, we do."
AN: So, what d'you folks think? Reviews please :)
I decided to give the whole Saren-zombie fight a humorous edge, since I figured that'd give the Reapers a real reason to fear Commander Shepard.
Next up is the final chapter of this installment. But not to worry, the sequel is already in the works ;)