The darkness felt thick. Which made it impossible for Shepard to move. Object Rho had taken her by surprise and if the same glowing eyes she saw on the Collectors, now upon Dr. Kenson and her team were of any indication, she was in deep trouble.
Immediately, the words of the late Matriarch Benezia came back about how the subtle techniques the Reapers used to break down and control their slaves.
However, there was something wrong. Something different. The whispers were muted. She could not hear a single thing the Reapers said.
Nor could the clammy grip on her mind take hold. It continued to slip through their grasp.
The needles attempted to pierce into the base of her neck, but were broken. Her skin was galvanized against their venom.
But why? She was no one of import. She was merely at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The answer to her question came abruptly.
"Wake up, you fool!" Echo said irritably.
Nora's eyes shot open, looked to her left to see an armed guard and a lab assistant. She was tied down, however, she did not feel the anxiety one felt normally.
"Allow me," Echo whispered before Nora felt her biotics flare and immediately felt a stream of connection from herself to the armed guard.
To her surprise, the armed guard took out his pistol and placed the barrel at the other man's head, who looked on in shock before his blood left a noticeable stain on the wall behind him and fell to the floor, lifeless.
"Release me," Echo, with Shepard's voice, ordered the man.
Obediently, the guard approached her and untied the captive Shepard, who took the gun from his hand.
"It's the least I can do for you," Echo said as she raised the gun to the man's forehead, who remained placid, and pulled the trigger.
"Now, before you complain as if it was really necessary, the man, along with everyone here, is Indoctrinated. They all must, and will, die. Are we clear?" the Prothean grumbled as she relinquished control of Shepard's body to its original owner.
"I didn't say anything," Nora replied with her own voice. Besides, she was angry at Kenson. If she had any access to her reports about the Reapers, she would have known better to stay as far from *any* Reaper tech as possible. Now, in a revelation that almost sickened her, she had good reason to kill the woman.
In a rampage that would have made Jack proud, Nora, along with Echo's own apparent mastery of biotics, tore the station apart. A point at which Shepard had to remind the Prothean to leave enough of the station intact so they could collide the asteroid with the Mass Relay.
"As reluctant as I am, you have a point," Echo, who again used Nora's voice, muttered.
"Good. And here I thought for a second we weren't going to get along." Nora frowned as she dodged another spray of fire from the guard detail.
"Hah! We get along far better than you realize," Echo said as she Dominated another soldier and turned it against his compatriots.
"What do you mean?" Nora asked, uncomfortable with the insinuations.
Echo chuckled mischievously, "Silly, little Nora Shepard. You never know a good thing when you have it."
The agitation in Nora's face grew as she fended off another group of soldiers as Echo continued.
"The asari was willing to go to hell and back for you. And you told her to leave as you saved that worthless pilot, which, need I remind you, resulted in your untimely demise."
"Don't you start!"
"I already have! And now, here you are with Cerberus. A group that seems to be the only ones with their eyes open."
"And their heads up their asses! I left them, remember?"
"Indeed you did. And now, you seem to be doing this alone, as always. Especially when there are those who are more than willing to go far for you, and you alone."
Shepard snarled her face as she routed another squad. "Talk! What do you mean?"
"The yeoman. Kelly Chambers. She would have been there for you, had your contacts in Cerberus not given you that information about the Shadow Broker. She cares deeply for you, after all."
"...I know."
"Ah, but you don't know the extent. She yearns for you. So much that during one of our... encounters... I took her for my own."
"WHAT?"
Echo growled as she held two technicians in a biotic field in mid air by their throats, "That's correct, Nora Shepard! I took her in your cabin, on your bed. And you know what she had the audacity to do? Scream *your* name! YOUR NAME! She's mine! Mine! You hear me, Shepard? MINE!" She angrily clenched her fists and the sound of broken necks filled the room. The Prothean then threw the limp bodies at another squad that entered.
"You manipulative bitch! How dare you!" Nora spat as she gunned down another soldier.
"Yes, I dare and do far more! And you can do nothing about it!" Echo raged as her shockwave broke a window, which sent another squad to their doom in the vacuum of space, a moment before the emergency windows closed.
Shepard began to snarl as her methods for killing the Indoctrinated soldiers grew more and more brutal. The last of another squad flailed in a biotic field helplessly as Nora pulled out her combat knife, plunged it into his throat and yanked it out of the side.
"Yes, Shepard. Hate me! Loathe me! Think of your precious, little Kelly Chambers; weeping, naked, and *thoroughly* used like some cheap streetwalker! Her tears were delicious!"
Nora bellowed like an enraged beast as her biotics flared hot and hurled four soldiers against the wall with enough force to crush their bones.
Though Nora did not feel the affection towards Kelly the way she did her, there was a special kinship with the yeoman. And the thought of Echo, who used her body, to have sex with Kelly under false pretenses, drove Shepard into a murderous rage.
"Yes! You seethe with anger. Just as I do. You have no idea what it was like to be bereft of your very body for all those years within the Beacons! The taste of a fresh food. The warm skin of a lover. The brightness of the sunrise. You and all that you know have that and I hate you for your indifference!"
"Just as I hate you for what you've done to me and Kelly!" the commander shot back.
"Yes, indeed you do, Butcher."
Nora stopped in her tracks. "Don't call me that! I'm not a Butcher."
"Suit yourself, but you will be called the Butcher for as long as you live."
A moment of silence passed as Shepard pushed the last coolant cylinder to stabilize the core. The title had still bothered her. However, now that she heard it in her own voice, it seemed to lose its power. Perhaps recent events had given her a perspective she had not considered and with the Reapers coming, the title meant little, if anything at this point.
"If that's the case, then so be it. If they keep calling me the Butcher and using that as a basis to judge me, then they're not worth my time. I'm not a butcher or The Butcher of Torfan anymore."
Echo was strangely silent as they continued back to the core where Kenson was helpless to stop the acceleration of the asteroid base.
"No. No! NO!" Kenson screamed.
"Yes, Kenson. It's over. Now, as much as I want to shoot you, you're coming with me. I'm going to find out exactly how Indoctrination works, and if you're lucky, we just might find a cure. Even if it means tearing your twisted brain apart!"
The mad doctor shook her head wildly as she brandished a detonator in her hand.
"No! I will not! I will die and never know the blessings of the Reapers! You will just die! How can you be so foolish as to..."
"SHUT UP!" both Echo and Shepard yelled and fired at Kenson's shoulder.
Nora was about to approach the injured doctor and collect her when she noticed Kenson's last act of defiance. Kenson hit the trigger and exploded. Not long after that, Shepard awoke and knew her time was short. She had to get out of there.
"PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE ARRIV..." the Reaper droned before Shepard interrupted it.
"No! You listen to me!" Shepard announced through the vacuum of space.
Whether it was Shepard's bravery or haughtiness, the Reaper listened.
"You know. I hate you. I hate you for what you and your kind have done and what you're doing. At the same time, however, I also pity you."
"WHAT?"
"Sovereign told me once that you consider yourselves the apex of evolution. Which means you no longer have anywhere else to go. You're stagnant. You're dead."
"EMPTY WORDS FROM A FLAWED GENETIC ABNORMALITY."
"No. They're true. It's just that you and the rest of your kind have deluded yourself thinking that you're gods. When, at the end of the day, you're just machines. Machines that are flawed. Machines that can be broken."
Shepard noticed the Normandy on approach.
Echo then took over, "And that is all you will ever be!" and sent a biotic pulse which Harbinger, and by extension, the rest of the Reapers, felt. A fact that had not gone unnoticed by Nora and Echo. She turned to the general direction of their location and, in her minds eye, saw the Reapers approach.
To anyone else, it would have felt like a gentle slap across the cheek.
To the Reapers, it was the greatest insult they ever experienced.
Shepard turned around and ran as Harbinger's roar reverberated throughout the base. A moment later, she was back inside the Normandy as the Bahak system was doomed.
"And that's what happened," Nora said in the med bay as she sat across from an astonished Kelly.