*HAESTROM*
DHOLEN SYSTEM
FAR RIM
The descending pod's inertial dampeners engaged for the atmospheric reentry. Mira reached a hand out to steady herself against the wall, and I heard the faint click as the magnetic locks in her feet engage. The rest of my squad did the same, except for Nakmor Chell, whose bulk alone made mag-boots unnecessary. And Zynt, who wasn't wearing any boots.
The pod reached the appropriate altitude for the automated systems to engage. The massive jolt from the equally-massive parachute shook everyone for a moment, but then we resumed our silent descent.
Silent that is, until Mira cleared her throat. The fact that a synthetic was making that particular noise was enough to communicate her dissatisfaction with my simplistic plan of landing on the surface below and shooting anyone who shoots at us.
"Kasumi, you're on point," I said finally, laying out a rough formation on my HUD and forwarding it to my fellow pod-mates. "Remember, your cloak will not work against Prothean optics. Always assume they can see you."
The young Japanese thief nodded her head wordlessly.
"Zynt, Tali, you're directly behind her," I continued. "Tali, use those drones of yours to even our odds and give us a larger detection range."
"You got it," the quarian nodded.
"Morinth, you, Chell, and Muerta are with me," I said to the Nightsister standing next to me. "With everyone's biotics restored, we're going to have to keep on our toes."
"And me?" Mira asked.
"You're overwatch," I answered, gesturing to her massive rifle. "See a bitch, kill a bitch."
Zynt grunted and pointed with his chin towards the small display on the pod wall.
"Brace."
As if in answer, the pod came down hard. We apparently had come down onto a steep gradient, and the entire pod rolled over for two full rotations before coming to a jarring stop. Those of us with mag-boots gingerly detached from what was now the side wall, and in short order, with Tali's hacking and Chell's brute strength, the entry door was forced open and we exited into the glaringly harsh sunlight of Haestrom's surface.
"Oh, yeah, we're off to a great start," Morinth grunted as she took my offered hand to help her out of the capsized pod.
"Well, in good news," Tali added, "The sun is no longer bleeding dark energy that kills everything it touches. So… it's just a normal red giant star… about to go supernova."
"Wow, princess, excellent pep talk." Muerta's eyes rolled beneath her semi-polarized helmet. "Permission to shoot the cheerful admiral, Imperator?"
"Permission denied," I answered, allowing myself a grin at Tali's expense, who simply huffed in response "We need to find Petrovsky's pod and locate where the son of a bitch went to ground. Spread out, and watch for flanking movements and cloaked snipers."
"I have a signal on the other pod," Mira informed from inside the pod. A bright green circle suddenly appeared on our HUDs.
"Move out," I grunted.
We fanned out, each taking up their assigned positions. The green dot was only a few kilometers away, and with step, my anticipation grew. Every second, I was expecting to hear the thrum of Prothean Particle Rifles, or worse, the low whine of a Dark-Matter grenade.
But nothing came.
"Uh… Ko'le," Kasmui's hushed voice came over the radio. "I found them."
Seventeen red dots appeared on our HUD, in a clearing just north of the crashed pod.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"I'm…. I think… I have no idea. You better take a look."
None of them are moving, Beast rumbled from the recesses of my subconscious. I say 'Trap.'
I agree… The Seneschal concurred. There is something else going on here… Prothean commandos don't huddle together. This is VERY unnatural behavior.
It was at that moment that I crested the hill next to where Kasumi was lying prone. Beneath us, Fifteen Protheans gathered in a circle, kneeling, knives in the sand in front of them. At the apex of the circle, two other figures stood, with their backs to us.
Javik.
Petrovsky.
The knives…Mother Above, no… The Great Mercy.
In the final years of the Prothean Cycle, whole cities and planets began a campaign of total and progressive suicide of their cities and spaceports. The Great Mercy, as it was called, was designed so they could not be turned by the Reapers to kill their own comrades and family.
It was as useless as it was unsuccessful.
"STOP!" came the roar, unbidden, from my own throat.
"Ko'le, wait!" I vaguely heard someone yell, and felt a hand on my shoulder. But then in the next moment I was sailing through the air, dark biotics flaring.
Even with the impressive, ground-shaking landing, no one even so much as twitched in my direction.
"OLEG!" Beast roared, "FACE ME, YOU SON OF A WHORE!"
Oleg Petrovsky turned around, facing me for the first time, and raised his hand.
Within the hand was a black orb, pulsing dark energy.
My hand went limp, and my knees buckled.
What… the… Hell?
YOU HAVE DONE WELL, ORDAINED.
Leviathans.
Instantly, I was transported to the Mind Palace again. Or rather, the Mind Ruin that remained. Once again, the giant Cthulhu-esque creature stood, black as night and as giant as a skyscraper next to my t-shirt and blue-jean-clad form.
OUR PREPARATIONS ARE NOW COMPLETE. OUR SWORD PREPARED. OUR WEAPONS CRAFTED.
So… Petrovsky… the civil war… that was all you?
PETROVSKY ENCOUNTERED ONE OF OUR ORBS SEEKING TO FOLLOW A LEAD FROM YOUR FILES.
Knives were stabbing into my brain, or at least it felt like it.
So if you controlled Petrovsky, then why trigger a war in the Terminus? Why weaken the Conclave army?
Something like a chuckle (or a horribly out-of-tune violin) reverberated through the air.
STILL YOUR THOUGHTS ARE TOO SMALL, ORDAINED: WE HAVE DOUBLED OUR ARMY.
Javik and the Protheans…
PAWNS IN OUR HANDS. WHAT OTHER MOTIVATION WOULD HAVE LEAD THE AVATAR OF VENGEANCE TO SUCH STRAITS THAN TO HEAR DIRECTLY FROM US THAT HIS FRIEND AND COMRADE WAS A THRALL OF THE REAPERS?
AND WHAT COULD HAVE MOTIVATED YOU TO RALLY THE TERMINUS AND THE CIRCLE TO YOUR SIDE…
… than to believe that Javik and Petrovsky were trying to seize power?
Anger and bitter realization was washing across all three personalities in my brain.
And they were all pissed.
You betrayed us. PLAYED US!
They played us all, Beast.
WE MOTIVATED A GALAXY THAT WOULD NOT PREPARE FOR AN UNKNOWN THREAT TO WAR AGAINST AN ENEMY THEY COULD SEE AND GRASP.
And sacrificed millions of lives in the process….
The batarians…
Not to mention Earth.
ALL NECESSARY IN ORDER TO PREPARE FOR OUR GLORIOUS ASCENSION.
The giant cuttlefish… shrugged.
I'll let you interpret that sentence however you want.
SO what happens now?
NOW WE CLEAR THE PLAYING FIELD. YOU CAN SUFFER NO RIVALS TO THREATEN YOUR ROLE IN THE RESTORED ORDER. THESE PAWNS WILL NOW BE SACRIFICED, AND YOU AND YOUR COMPANIONS WILL BE GIVEN THE APPROPRIATE MEMORIES OF THEIR END.
DO NOT TOUCH my mind or my friends, you Lovecraftian sons of bitches.
KO'LE… DO YOU REALLY THINK ALL YOUR MEMORIES ARE YOUR OWN. LOOK WHAT THE OLD ONE DID IN THE CREATION OF KEVIN.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
What?
THERE NEVER WAS A KEVIN.
.
.
.
.
.
THERE IS NO ALTERNATE UNIVERSE.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
THIS IS NOT A GAME.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
THE OLD ONE NEEDED A METHOD OF CONTROL OVER THE SENESCHAL AND THE BEAST. AS KO'LE SENESCHAL SLUMBERED, THE CHARACTER OF KEVIN TROY WAS CREATED AND UPLOADED TO YOUR STASIS POD AS YOU SLEPT.
NO, that's not… that's not possible… I remember… I remember playing my Xbox360…
HOW MANY TIMES HAS KEVIN INTERCEDED OR STOPPED YOU FROM DOING SOMETHING BECAUSE "THAT'S NOT HOW THE GAMES WORKED?"
The voice was gentle now, like a soothing adult telling a child Santa Claus wasn't real.
KO'LE… KEVIN TROY IS A FABRICATION. A MYTH, A MEANS OF CONTROL.
Looking down, the Firefly T-Shirt and Blue jeans were gone. Replacing them was a Prothean robe of state, resplendent in its design and manufacture.
No….
NO…
That's NOT TRUE!
WHAT, THEN? YOU CREATED KO'LE AND BEAST AND IMPLANTED THEM IN KEVIN'S OWN MIND?
YOU CREATED A MENTALLY UNSTABLE AVATAR FOR THE EXPLORATION AND LIVING IN A FANTASY WORLD?
Looking down again, gone were the resplendent robes of state. Replacing it was the scarred and torn body of Beast, the Neanderthal plaything of a mad Prothean scientist. Severed wires and cut-off tubes still protruded from fresh stitches where an arm had been cut off and replaced only moments before.
WHY WOULD A TIME-TRAVELING ANCIENT ONE CHOOSE YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE?
WHY WOULD A TIME-TRAVELING LEVIATHAN CHOOSE JULY 21ST, 2015 AS THE DATE FROM WHICH TO PULL A CONSCIOUSNESS INTO THE MASS EFFECT UNIVERSE?
I don't…
I don't…
I don't….
WHY WOULDN'T THE OLD ONE HAVE INTERVENED BACK IN HIS OWN TIME WITH ONE OF HIS OWN PEOPLE, TO PREVENT THE REAPERS FROM EVER BECOMING A PROBLEM?
I DON'T KNOW!
YOU DON'T KNOW BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING TO KNOW? OR ARE YOU SO ARROGANT THAT YOU STILL THINK AN OMNIPOTENT, OMNI-UNIVERSAL CREATURE CHOSE YOU TO DO HIS BIDDING?
SHUT UP!
WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL?
SHUT UP!
I collapsed into a heap on the floor, trying with all my might to drown out the voices. And then, just when I thought my head was about to literally explode…
.
.
"Hello, Son."
I looked up. Gone was the small green valley where I had been only moments earlier. This wasn't even the Mind-Place where Ko'le, Beast, and I found refuge and solace.
This was the farm on Signal Hill Road, Manassas, Virginia. Area Code 20111. And sitting in front of me was a squatty, thick-built man in a tattered grey t-shirt, blue overalls, and a leather apron.
"Dad."
Wayne Troy sat down on the bench next to where I had found myself. I stared for I-don't-know-how long. Neither of us said anything. .
"I have to admit," I managed. "I was not expecting to see you."
My dad just raised an eyebrow.
"Why not?"
"Well… I haven't been in the best of places mentally lately."
My dad simply raised an eyebrow again. That was him all over: never prying, never forcing the conversation, just listening, and making YOU bare your soul to him.
And bare my soul I did. It came out in a torrent of emotions; like the dam that had been holding back the depths was now unleashed upon my psyche.
I laid out the mission that had been given to me by a giant space cuttlefish that had nabbed me off of a mountain.
I told him of my friends.
I wept over my failures.
"I don't know what's true and what is not", I sobbed. "Am I a Neanderthal who's been awoken fifty thousand years later with a Leviathan-induced memories of a game that never existed? Of Kevin, who never was?
Am I just a boy who has been struck by lightning in the mountains of Virginia, and all of this is just a medically-induced coma making me an Overpowered Self-Insert in my favorite game?
Or am I REALLY a Virginia boy seized by a trans-dimensional being and brought over to a Mirror Universe where the game IS reality?
If the former, where did the personality of Kevin come from? And why am I sitting down with a father I never had, mourning the loss of a family I NEVER KNEW? With memories of a game that NEVER existed?
If the latter, where did the personality of Ko'le come from? And why do the in-universe Protheans remember someone I created with Levi?
And if NONE of this is Real at all… WHY THE FUCK is wrong with me, and WHY can't I wake up already?"
"Wrong questions."
I paused mid-rant to stare at the figure of Wayne Troy, blacksmith of Manassas, Virginia. He had his lips pursed in that way he always did.
"Those are not the questions you're struggling with."
"I'm sorry, so now you're the expert on what I'm struggling with?"
My dad shrugged.
"One of the superpowers that comes with parenthood."
"I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF YOU'RE REAL, DAD!" I snapped. "OR ARE YOU just some LEVIATHAN-induced memory to control and manipulate my actions!?"
"So what?"
The angry words I was about to unleash caught in my throat, and I swallowed hard and coughed before I turned back to stare at my dad's innocuous question.
Wayne Troy held up three fingers.
"Three possibilities, son:
This is all a dream. You were struck by lightning and now you're in a coma at Prince William Medical Center. And I'm talking to you by your bedside. If this is so, then all of this," he gestured, "is your creation and imagination. Your own subconscious is holding you back, for some reason. So the only way out is forward, I reckon.
You are Ko'le, a fifty-thousand-year-old warrior, whose mind has been corrupted by the Leviathans, and all of Kevin's personality (including me) is a plant to control your actions.
If this is so, then I'm doing VERY little to convince you of my own existence. Or YOUR own existence, for that matter. But what DOES matter is that your people, who YOU awoke from stasis, you say, need their leader in this dark time they've awoken to. This… Conclave you've created, teeters on the edge of greatness, or oblivion. And you're the best qualified to fight the Reapers.
OR
You are my son: Kevin, son of Wayne, son of Charles. And for whatever reason, that video game you loved so much has equipped you enough for a interdimensional being to take notice of you, and upon your death, has interceded to bring you to another reality where your knowledge can literally save trillions of lives.
If this is so, then son, you've been given what few people ever get: a second chance at a second life. And yes, while you'll be missed by your mother, your sister, and me, you can also take comfort in the fact that you are loved, and that you didn't waste a single day of your other life. So don't waste this one.
No matter what is true, son, giving up is not in any of the cards."
A callous-worn fist reached out and playfully slugged my shoulder.
"You can knock down a Troy…"
My vision blurred, and I hurriedly wiped a tear from my eye before finishing my dad's motto:
"…but we always get back up again."
Blacksmith shop materializes around us. Dad reached over and picked up a ballpeen hammer and pointed to the archway above the workshop door.
"Do you remember what these words mean?"
Burned into the wooden beams were the Latin words:
Surge, et resurgum.
"Rise and Rise Again," I answered.
"There you go, then son. You've got work to do, people who love you, and what's more, people who are depending on you."
Wayne Troy stood up and turned back to the forge.
"So get to it."
I smiled and reach for the door of the forge, and suddenly paused.
"Dad?"
He looked up from his work and turned to look at me.
"Will… will I ever get to see you again? Assuming you're real, of course?"
"Well, I'm going to busy here for a while," my dad answered, gesturing to the anvil. "I've got six more horseshoes to make to complete the Yoder's order, and I haven't even started on that basket hilt claymore that collector in Las Vegas ordered. But afterward," he shrugged, "I don't see why not."
He picked up the hammer again and set to shaping the molten metal he held in the tongs.
"Besides, your mother says she's making meatloaf tonight. And I'll be damned if I'm going to eat it facing her alone."
I smiled and then turned and walked through the door.
.
.
.
.
I opened my eyes, and Oleg Petrovsky stood before me, eyes black as the orb touching my forehead.
"FUCK. YOU."
Beast's savage growl preceded a hand snapping up and grabbing the former Cerberus general's wrist. There was a flash of steel, and Lieutenant suddenly came up, the point driving home directly into the orb.
There was a flash of light, and suddenly the screeching, eyeball-gouging, mind-numbing noise… was gone.
I was flat on my back, staring up at Haestrom's no-longer-dark sun. With an effort, I pushed myself up to my elbows, then to my hands and knees, noticing that all the Protheans around me were doing the same.
Then the Mind-Shares began.
"Seneschal?"
"Brother, is that you?"
"Xanawe…" I sent back, confused and muddled, "Nyoka… Is it you? Is it… really you?"
"Is it you?"
"What happened?"
"How… How did we get here?"
My team came running up from the distant trees, weapons up and at the ready. With another seemingly titanic effort, I held up a hand for them to stand down. Mira was at my side in a second, her deceptively-strong arms wrapping around my torso. Her mouth was moving, and it seemed forever before I actually heard the words come echoing through my ears.
"I've got you. Sit down."
"I'm OK…" I answered, trying to shake her loose. I wouldn't realize until later that I was screaming.
"You're bleeding from your nose, eyes, mouth and ears," Mira insisted right back. "If you don't sit down, you're going to…"
I tried to listen to the rest of the sentence, but the black void came up and clouded my vision too quickly for me to catch the last part.
Author's Note:
Well… I'm back. I feel like a broken record, apologizing for my absence, but I've been dealing with some medical issues lately. The upside of all of this will be that I will hopefully have more time to write now, and I've had time to edit and piece together the ending to this story.
Looking back, writing this chapter gave me the opportunity to realize how far we've come in only two years. My thanks for all of you readers' patience, and your constant support. I feel like I embarked upon this journey alone, and completely clueless when it came to writing and story, but along the way, I've picked up a fantastic group of readers and reviewers.
Next Chapter: Chapter 22: Intermission: Deep Breath, followed by the Story Finale: The Plunge.
Rock ON, my brothers and sisters!
-Tusken1602
Reviewer Responses:
METALHELLSPWN, Tahkaullus01, general-joseph-dickson - The phrase that comes to mind is, "The more things change, the more they stay the same…"
KyuubiNodachi, BJ Hanssen, – You have my thanks, my friends. My down-time has let me go back to the beginning and see how truly far I've come. I admit I cringe at a lot of the early chapters, but I wouldn't be here if wasn't for them and all of you.
Guest – Thanks, I'm glad I'm not dead, too. Not yet, anyway.
Toothless is best – You're probably not missing all that much: Summer Camp is rather overrated.
ronnambi – We'll have to wait and see, won't we?
EstraPel, Blueowl, Pietersielie – Thanks! I know exactly what you mean, though: This has been a significant part of my life for the past two years. I plan on writing more, though probably in different stories. I have my Skyrim fanfic going, so I'd like to try and flesh that out to serious chapter-lengths and full story. But I appreciate the support!
May the Father Below accept you when your time comes, and until then, may the Mother keep you always.
EE-RAH!