Mass Effect 30 Day Challenge: Day 21
Prompt 21: Favourite piece of music.
SPOILERS: Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut
Over
The Crucible, 2186 CE
Shepard's pistol barked four times as she ran forward. The exposed panels and circuits crackled, sparked and erupted into flames. She did not stop running. She simply tumbled backwards in the wake of the sudden explosion, and the floor beneath her gave way. She let the pistol fall from her hand –
The Crucible, fully open in a five-pointed star, flashed bright red, a rolling wave of electric crimson flooding out from all of its points, sweeping across the sky and down over the planet below –
She had always wondered if her life would flash before her eyes this time. The first time she had died there had been nothing but a simple fade to black, maybe this time the vid of her life would have a secret scene at the end of the credits –
Husks fell like dolls to the ground, the monstrous machines above them doing the same, albeit more slowly. The soldiers, shocked into stillness, stared at the wreckage. As one, they looked up and saw the Crucible and the Citadel, a beam of violent red energy pulsing from its point straight out into the blackness of space –
It was less of a flash and more of a memory. The day she'd walked into the AI memory core, waving armed guards away, and the ship's AI was suddenly standing before her, EDI was able to stand, had a body, a face capable of giving her a smile or uttering a joke.
After everything they had been through, EDI had been just as human as the rest of them.
And there had been so much for her to look forward to on the other side of this war.
Shepard couldn't see anything but blackness. As she plummeted downwards, succumbing to gravity, she felt her hands reach out to the synthetic in her mind.
I'm sorry…
"EDI?"
Joker was focused on trying to get the Normandy out of the range of the pulsing red ray that cut across the blackness of space like a laser, but he heard Liara's cry.
"What's going on?" he called behind him, unable to look. "Liara, what's wrong?"
The Asari fell silent. Joker saw Ashley jump up from the copilot's seat and run behind him. He couldn't turn around, he had to get them out of this, whatever this was, before it was too late…
… Another vision, this one as painful as the last. Shepard would have preferred the re-run of her life to these specific memories. First EDI, and now this, the love of her life, sitting down on a pile of crates and taking off his helmet, revealing himself to be far more than a vigilante called 'Archangel', standing in the doorway of her cabin with a bottle of cheap wine, sweeping her up in his arms on top of the citadel, promising that if there was a heaven, he would meet her there.
She continued to fall. And she hoped that he would live long enough that she'd be waiting for him for a very long time.
Meet me at the bar…
"Garrus!" Tali yelled, pounding on the doors of the main battery. "You have to come out! There's something wrong with EDI, and the Normandy, she's spinning out of control!"
Silence. Garrus sat within, back resting against the locked doors. He couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe without his insides twisting in pain.
He shouldn't have left.
He shouldn't have let her go alone.
He should have been there with her.
He clenched his hands into fists and shut his eyes, refusing to let himself believe, denying the very notion of it.
She's Commander Shepard. She'll survive. She always survives.
Always.
He stared across the main battery at the crate where she had always liked to sit and listen to him tell his stories about the 'old days', and he felt tears begin to fall.
Come back alive…
She couldn't remember what death was like. She remembered it hurting, and this definitely hurt. She wondered when she'd reach terminal velocity. She wondered why she hadn't hit anything yet. She wondered how she was still capable of wondering.
As long as its done…
Garrus made it up to the cockpit, but only by the time they were on a crash course. The rest of the crew was hunkered down under tables and clinging to bulkheads, and he saw Joker hitting every button on his console he could reach. Just behind him, Ashley and Liara had fallen over sideways, and between them EDI lay, unresponsive, a pile of old circuits and metal.
As long as the galaxy is safe.
"Hold on!" Joker yelled behind him. "We're out of control!"
Garrus stumbled and landed beside Liara. He examined the artificial body, trying to ignore the shaking panels above them and the sparks that showered down.
"What's wrong with her?" He yelled over the wail of emergency sirens.
"I don't know!" Liara yelled back. "It's… it's like she's gone!"
No matter the sacrifice.
The Normandy spiraled across the sky of the lush planet, landing in a series of violent 'thuds', bouncing over hills and crashing into trees. After an age of screeching metal and glass and groaning machinery, she came to a stop.
Shepard wondered if dying was just falling forever. She'd fallen the first time she'd died too. Then she'd woken up on an operating table. Maybe this time she'd just keep falling.
The crew shakily got to their feet. Joker checked for broken bones but couldn't feel any right away. "Made it again," he muttered, softly punching the air. "Master pilot, that's me." He slowly got out of his seat and turned around to see if the rest of the crew was all right. He looked down at Liara, Garrus, and Ashley, and his face slowly crumpled.
"…EDI?"
She couldn't feel anything, not her arms or her legs or her face, but if she could have, she would have smiled.
As long as its over.
Once and for all.
Answer: An End Once and For All
This was the first piece of music I heard off the Mass Effect 3 soundtrack. Every time that piano melody plays, I can't help but tear up. Clint Mansell, you're a mad genius. This piece of music is forever haunting me, and so I wrote a scene that takes place right around when the music plays, that could be considered similarly haunting. For maximum feels, listen to 'An End Once And For All' as you read this piece, though be warned, it might result in tears.