The mako burst out of the other side of the Conduit's mass relay, appearing in mid-air in the center of the Presidium. Shepard lost all control of the vehicle as it careened forward, crushing two geth as it landed, before rolling over twice and landing upside down.

The crash rattled the crew, they went flying against each other and Shepard wound up pinned beneath Garrus and Tali in the front seat. Kaidan was the first to get his bearings, standing on the ceiling of the mako, legs wobbly.

"Is everyone all right?" He asked.

"If you don't hurry and open the door, I'm going to crush Shepard's ribs," Garrus called. He was struggling to pull even a small amount of his weight off of her, a task made harder by Tali's weight on top of him.

Kaidan attempted to open the hatch on the side of the vehicle, but it was stuck. He rammed his shoulder against it a few times, and when that failed to work, he blasted it open with a mass effect field. Once outside, he helped Liara and Wrex out, then pulled Tali off of Garrus so that the turian could free himself. Shepard was the last one out, gasping for air as she was freed.

Outside of the mako, Garrus took in the surroundings. The Citadel had been plunged into chaos with Saren's arrival. It seemed Sovereign and the geth were launching a full-scale assault from outside, geth being dropped from ships all around the Presidium. Fires burned where taxis and shuttles had crashed into the walkways, people ran screaming, hoping for safety in the wards.

The Citadel was in the process of shutting itself off to the invaders, drawing in the five points of the wards to form a shell around the Presidium, but the mechanism that allowed the protection was slow-moving and more geth ships streamed in by the minute.

An Avina terminal was short-circuiting nearby, and Shepard ran up to it, just in time to be set upon by husks. One of them leaped onto her, clawing at her shoulders, and she spun around and rammed against the wall to shake it from her. Garrus rushed to help her, yanking the husk from her back and smashing its head in with his boot. They took out another three, approaching from near one of the burning cars, blood splattering against their armor as they shot.

When the problem was dealt with, Shepard turned back to the malfunctioning VI unit.

"Avina, where is Saren?"

"Rogue Spectre agent Saren Arterius is approaching the Council Chambers. A warr…warrant has been put out for his arrest, but Citadel Security is not available available available available to handle the re…request," the VI's hologram image flickered in and out as it attempted to speak.

"No kidding," Garrus muttered.

"What about the Council?" Shepard asked.

"In accordance with standard evacu…evacuation protocols protocols protocols, the Council has left the Cita..Cita…Citadel on the Destiny Ascension."

"We need to get to the Council chambers before Saren can grant access to Sovereign," Garrus said.

"Shepard, there's an elevator over here that's still functioning!" Tali called from a few feet away.

They ran over to it, all of them piling in to the cramped space. Garrus wasn't sure how the machine was still functioning with the Citadel in such a severe state of emergency, but he wasn't complaining. Finding any other way up to the Citadel tower seemed impossible.

The elevator moved slowly and Shepard twitched impatiently as it made its ascent. She, Garrus, and Tali were pressed against the glass side of the elevator, allowing a view of the entire Presidium as they rose. Normally a gorgeous sight, all Garrus could see now was destruction and death. He looked up to where the wards were closing and saw some sort of massive ship gliding through just as the points came together.

"Shepard, look!" he pointed.

She followed his gaze to the ship. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, huge metallic arms jutting from its front and sides, moving with as much dexterity as a finger might move on a hand.

"Sovereign," Shepard growled.

"A Reaper…" Garrus said in disbelief.

"It's huge."

Sovereign reached its many arms out, descending slowly toward the Citadel Tower at the center of the station. It grasped onto the tower and took hold. At the same time, the elevator shook and ground to a halt, the green access light on the door flickering off.

"Great," Wrex sighed. "Now what?"

"Saren must have shut the power," Shepard looked around. She exchanged a look with Garrus, who understood what she was thinking.

With the Citadel closed, the artificial gravity field would be skewed. The only way out was to break the glass and climb along the side of the Presidium toward the tower.

"Everyone, put your helmets on," Shepard said.

"Why?" Kaidan asked, though he still grabbed his helmet off of his back and clipped it onto his head.

Garrus sealed his own helmet on and watched as the rest of the squad did the same. Once everyone's helmet was securely attached, Shepard lifted her gun and fired a shot into the glass side of the elevator. It shattered into a thousand pieces, each shard floating slowly away from them in the weakened gravity field.

Stepping out of the elevator was momentarily nauseating for Garrus. The ground of the Presidium seemed far below, but as soon as they climbed out, his feet locked on to the side of the elevator as though it were the center of gravity. Shepard hurried forward, as fast she could muster in such low gravity, bouncing off of the walls toward the tower.

The squad followed obediently.

Unfortunately for all of them, they weren't the only ones taking advantage of the skewed gravity fields. The geth were swarming the walls in force, rapidly approaching them, while in the distance, Sovereign hammered its huge metallic fingers down on top of the Citadel tower.

A fire fight in low gravity proved to more challenging than Garrus would have thought. As the geth drew closer, and with limited cover to speak of, the squad let their bullets fly. The impact of firing his assault rifle pushed him back a few inches every time he fired, and he would have to move forward and correct himself every time he replaced a thermal clip.

The geth didn't seem to suffer the same effects. They were machines, not organic, and they could self-adjust their own gravity centers readily. Despite their best efforts, Garrus was afraid they would be overrun by geth before they could ever gain access to the Council chambers, but Tali turned out to be their savior. Thinking quickly, and observant enough to notice the Citadel's defense turrets a few hundred yards off in either direction, she hacked into their interfaces and turned them against the hordes of incoming AIs. This cleared the path for them, and they pushed forward, closer to the tower every moment.

When they finally did reach the entrance to the Citadel Tower, the elevator up was malfunctioning, likely another roadblock from Saren. There was no way they would be able to climb all the stairs inside to reach the top before Saren succeeded in his task, but Shepard wasn't giving up. Together, she and Tali reprogrammed the elevator switch and it chirped back into operation.

Once inside, they removed their helmets and turned to face each other. Garrus had never, in his life, experienced a slower elevator ride than the one that took them to the top of that tower.

"When we get to the chambers, we stop Saren by any means necessary," Shepard said. "We have to prevent him from granting access to Sovereign. I guarantee that nothing anyone in this elevator has done up to this point in their life will ever surpass the importance of this mission. We do this together. I'm damn proud to call myself your commander."

"Let's kick Saren's ass!" Kaidan said, surprising them all. He shrugged, "It's what Ash would have said."

The elevator doors swung open onto the Council chambers and they all fell silent. Fires burned throughout the room, filling it with the sight and smell of smoke, while the emergency alarm sounded over and over again. Shepard inched forward and they followed, one by one, behind her.

Two human civilians and a turian C-sec officer lay dead near the room's central fountain, gunshot wounds on their heads. Taking in the destruction surrounding them, Garrus found it hard to believe that not that long ago he had met Shepard for the first time in the very same spot. He couldn't have fathomed that their meeting that day would culminate in anything like this.

They moved slowly up the stairs leading to the heart of the Council chambers. There was no sign of Saren, which made Garrus' stomach twist in knots. Something wasn't right.

His fears were confirmed when a grenade went flying out from the center of the room. Reacting instinctively, he grabbed Shepard and dove out of the way, the grenade exploding as it hit the floor. The blast sent them all flying; he and Shepard rolled behind a piece of railing and lay there, dazed.

Shepard recovered first and shuffled for cover behind a piece of the platform that jutted up above them. She dragged Garrus with her and he narrowly avoided a shot from Saren's gun.

The turian in question was hovering behind them on his disc-shaped hovercraft, level with the Council's observation platform. The rest of the squad had taken cover on the lower levels, hopefully still conscious. All Garrus could see was the edge of Wrex's armor jutting out from behind a rock a few feet away.

"I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time, Shepard," Saren said, his subharmonics gravelly. "Of course, you're too late. Soon the Citadel will belong to Sovereign and the Reapers will return to wipe out all of this meaningless existence."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Shepard said, not flinching from her spot behind cover.

Garrus' heart was pounding in his chest as Saren's hovercraft moved in slow circles around the room.

"I had been thinking about our chat on Virmire endlessly," Saren said. "Wondering if what you said could be true. All of your talk about Sovereign's control and indoctrination. Sovereign sensed my hesitance, my…doubt. It improved me. How could I have questioned my loyalty to the machines? I was made stronger, better."

"What did it do to you?" Shepard demanded.

"I was implanted. To strengthen my resolve. Enhanced with cybernetics. Organic and machine intertwined. All of the benefits of both systems," Saren's voice was full of a sickening glee as he spoke, blind to his own indoctrination.

"Sovereign used you. It made you stronger to suit its needs. When you've finished what it sent you here for, it will devour and spit you out, just like it did to the Protheans."

"THERE WAS NO CHOICE!" Saren bellowed, his voice reverberating through the circular room. "You saw what happened to the Protheans yourself, Shepard. They had the option to surrender and they refused. And so, they perished. Every. Last. One of them. I refuse to submit to the same fate. If I'm a tool to the Reapers then so be it, that means I have worth to them."

"Until your worth runs out." There was an almost imperceptible quaver to Shepard's voice, but Garrus could hear it, betraying the fear coursing through her; the same fear Garrus felt. "Think deep down, Saren. You're still in there. Don't let the Reapers do this. There's no hope for any of us when they return. You have the power to prevent that. Think about what you're doing."

"No…" Saren faltered. "No I…you're wrong! They'll be our salvation if only we…no…"

Shepard stood up, to Garrus' alarm. He rose as well, but felt frozen to the spot. Watching as the commander carefully inched her way out into the open where Saren could see her. He was grasping his head in his hands, tortured by his thoughts.

"This can end now," Shepard said. "All you have to do is fight it. Don't be a coward, Saren. Fight. All of organic life has existed to keep fighting to survive. Don't give up now."

Saren fell to his knees on the hovercraft, "It hurts…every moment…the machine is inside of my thoughts…" he gripped the edge of the hovercraft with his sharp talons. "It's such agony to fight this, Shepard."

In that moment, he wasn't an evil agent of the Reapers anymore, he was just someone who had been too desperate for power, too greedy, willing to do anything to have more of it. That desire for power had been how Sovereign lured him in, how it continued to control him. He wasn't a threat, if only for the moment, he was just a scared turian in pain.

"Fight it, Saren," Shepard said again. "I can't imagine how it must hurt, but you can do it. Stop all of this needless destruction. We can help you," she reached a hand out to him.

With difficulty, Saren stretched his own arm out, pain clouding his eyes. His subharmonics sounded at an awful pitch and Shepard looked to Garrus with concern, but Garrus knew the sound well. Saren was crying. Unable to produce tears, turians' subharmonics would oscillate at a nearly unbearable frequency. His whole body shook with the sound.

"I'm sorry," Saren said, lifting his gun.

For a heart stopping moment, Garrus thought he was going to fire on Shepard. Instead, Saren pressed the gun against his chin and pulled the trigger, the bullet flying out the top of his head, the contents of his skull spraying in a silhouette against the fire burning behind him. He slumped off of the hovercraft, shattering the glass below the platform and falling down to the floor below, where a small tranquility garden had been planted.

Shepard's shoulders slumped with visible relief.

Tali was the first to come forward, appearing from the stairs, she rushed past Shepard to the terminal at the center of the room and began to run Vigil's data file in the system.

Garrus approached Shepard slowly. "You did the right thing," he told her.

"I know. I knew what would happen. But it had to end. Better that he die of his own will than to be gunned down by us fighting for Sovereign," she sighed. "That noise he made…"

"He was crying," Garrus said. "He must have been in unimaginable pain."

"Shepard, Vigil's file worked. I have full access to the Citadel," Tali reported.

"You should open the arms so the fleet can move in to attack Sovereign," Garrus suggested.

Before she could respond, Liara, Wrex, and Kaidan reached the platform and a transmission came in through the open comm link at the terminal where Tali stood.

"Come in. Come in. This is Normandy. Commander? Please tell me you're in there," Joker sounded over the system.

"We're here, Joker. What's your status?"

"We're in the Andura sector with the entire Arcturus fleet. We just received a distress call from the Destiny Ascension. We can answer the call, but we need you to unlock the relays around the Citadel to let us in."

"You let them in and half the fleet will be destroyed," Kaidan growled. "For what? To save the Council? The same Council who wouldn't listen to what you had to say when you warned them this would happen?"

Garrus nodded. "Kaidan's right. Don't waste human lives for them. Conserve the troops and open the arms to attack Sovereign. The Council deserves whatever they get." He was not one to wish death on people needlessly, but in his mind, it wasn't worth saving them after all the warnings they had ignored, if other lives could be lost in the process.

"Shepard, think of the Protheans. They lost the seat of their entire government in one day. Saving the Council could mitigate some of the losses here and create some sense of normalcy in all the chaos," Liara argued.

"Fuck the council," Wrex said.

"What's the decision, Shepard?" Tali stood at the ready.

Shepard shook her head. "I'm sorry, but Liara's right. I don't like the idea that we could lose human lives to save those bastards, but if we let them die, aren't we letting the Reapers win? We can retain our sense of galactic civility and governance, something the Protheans never had the opportunity to do. Open the relays, Tali, send them in. When the Destiny Ascension is out of harm's way, open the Citadel and have the troops focus on Sovereign."

Garrus let out an involuntary growl of disapproval. He understood Shepard's level-headed line of reasoning, but he didn't agree with it. He supposed that's why she was a commander, and a Spectre; she made decisions that weren't easy, that wouldn't please everyone, and despite her own preferences.

Tali tapped on the terminal interface to open the relays. "The relays are open and ready for travel," she said.

"Heading through," Joker replied.

"You better get your ass out of there alive, Joker," Shepard said. "And with my ship in one piece."

"Your ship, commander? We need to have a talk about terms of custody when this is over."

Joker's communication cut out as he entered the mass relay.

"Anybody want to argue about my decision?" Shepard asked, turning to face the squad.

"Nothing to be done about it now," Kaidan scowled. "But I don't agree with it."

"That's why Shepard's the commander and you're the lieutenant," Wrex said, slamming a meaty krogan palm against Kaidan's back. "I still say 'fuck the council', but I also like the idea of them owing you their lives. That's gonna be good to hold over their heads for the rest of eternity."

Shepard was distracted, and didn't respond to Wrex's comment. Instead, she walked up to the edge of the platform facing the Councilors' overlook and peered down into the tranquility garden where Saren's body lay.

"What is it, Shepard?" Tali asked.

"We need to make sure he's dead," she answered.

"He shot himself in the head, Shepard. A krogan might withstand that, but not a turian," Wrex told her.

Garrus understood Shepard's concern. Saren's last words had been an admission that Sovereign had implanted him with cybernetics. A turian couldn't survive a point-blank bullet to the brain, but a machine might.

"I'll check him," Garrus volunteered.

He would be happy to fire off a few more shots to ensure the machinery within Saren was as dead as he was. Maybe the old turian hadn't deserve his fate, but even before he'd sided with the Reaper, Garrus had seen him for what he was. His constant criticism of the Spectre had not been well received. Even his father had chastised him for his behavior, and his father's distaste for Spectres was notorious. Garrus felt vindicated by the fact that he had been right about Saren, though he also felt guilty for taking pleasure in such suffering. Given what had occurred because of Saren, he wished he'd been wrong.

He shimmied down the side of the wall next to the platform, where some debris provided a makeshift ramp down to the garden. Saren's body lay motionless in a pool of blue blood. He stepped over to the body and fired off three rounds into the corpse. The cybernetics gave no sign of activity.

"He's dead, Shepard." He called up to her.

The words had barely left his mouth when the ground began to shake, threatening to send him toppling.

"Sovereign must be moving," Shepard said, the whole squad looking up toward the ceiling. "Tali, open the gates," she called up Joker on her comm link. "Joker, what's your status?"

"Destiny Ascension has been moved to a secure location commander, we're looping around to confront the Reaper. We took some heavy losses, but the Council survived and we have enough vessels to stand a chance against Sovereign. I like our odds," Joker replied.

"Just try not to shoot the tower when you're aiming for the reaper," Shepard said. "Keep me updated."

"Aye aye, commander."

Tali programmed the Citadel structure to reopen just in time for the ground to shake beneath them again. Garrus wasn't so sure it was Sovereign. He turned to inspect Saren's corpse again only to find it was gone.

"Shepard!" He called up to her. "Get down here! Right now!"

"Is that an order, Vakarian?" She laughed, peering down into the garden. The smile slid quickly off of her face. "Garrus…you need to run."

Garrus turned and looked behind him in time to see Saren, or what was left of him, racing toward him on all fours. It was a turian skeleton, brought to life by the cybernetics implanted in the bone, red tendrils of electricity flowing through them. Garrus couldn't move fast enough to get out the way. Saren leaped onto him, knocking him face-first to the ground. His talons ripped through the shields on Garrus' armor with inorganic strength, tearing off a chunk of the protective metal covering Garrus' back and digging into his flesh. Shrieking in pain, his voice flanging to a higher pitch than he thought possible, Garrus clawed his way toward his gun, which had gone flying off of him on Saren's impact.

"I am Sovereign," Saren's skeleton spoke in layers upon layers of guttural voices. "This station is mine. You cannot win."

"Hold your fire!" Shepard yelled from above. "You'll hit Garrus!"

Garrus thought he might prefer to be shot when Saren's talons ripped at his exposed shoulder, digging deep into his flesh, blue blood gushing from the wound. Liara attempted to throw the cybernetic skeleton off of him with a mass effect field, but the creature's shields were too strong.

Shepard wasted no more time. She secured her gun to her back and took a running jump off of the platform, landing on top of Saren and Garrus. The impact felt like a ton of bricks, but a moment later, the hybrid creature was off of him. Shepard had a hold on Saren now, tumbling through the garden trying to avoid his razor-sharp talons.

Wrex fired off a shot which narrowly missed Shepard's head and managed to strike Saren, blowing him back into the wall and momentarily dazing him.

"You could have killed her!" Kaidan growled.

"But I didn't."

"I can't sabotage his hardware!" Tali cried. "It's too foreign. The Reaper tech is impenetrable…"

Garrus lay useless in a pool of his own blood, watching Shepard grapple with the enemy. He could barely move, his arm limp beside him, shoulder exposed to the bone. Looking at it made him dizzy, and he was never one to shy away from gore in the heat of battle.

Liara floated down into the garden using her biotics, a skill he didn't think she would have been able to pull off just a few months earlier when they'd first encountered her. Unable to stop Saren with a biotic throw, she shot up barriers to block him from moving in certain directions, leading him into Shepard's gunfire. Kaidan assisted with the task from above while Wrex and Tali fired off shots when they could.

"Garrus, you still alive?" Wrex called down.

Garrus wasn't quite sure. He waved his good arm to signal he wasn't dead.

"Good. Stay that way," the krogan replied.

He hated being sidelined almost more than he hated the excruciating pain coursing through his shoulder into his back. He watched, his vision blurring, as Shepard fired off round after round, deftly avoiding Saren's attacks. Whenever she needed to reload a thermal clip, Kaidan and Liara would reroute Saren away from her.

They had the upper hand, and Shepard had barely taken a hit. But Kaidan's barrier faltered as his nose began to bleed, and it was just the window Saren needed. He burst through the barrier, colliding with Shepard and sinking his teeth into her thigh. She shot him off of her, but he took a chunk of her flesh with him.

Bleeding profusely, she limped to her feet. Slapping some medi-gel on the wound, she pursued Saren once again.

Weak, close to passing out, Garrus remembered his gun. He resumed his crawl, inch after painstaking inch, coating the ground in his blood as he moved. When he reached the gun, he leaned onto his side and lined the scope up, struggling to catch Saren at a standstill.

Liara saw what he was doing and shot out barrier after barrier, desperately trying to catch the cybernetic creature in one. She succeeded after several tries, her energy levels failing, but the barrier only held for a millisecond.

It was enough time for Garrus. He fired at Saren's skeleton and finally, with a howl of anger, the cybernetics failed and what remained of the turian fell to the ground, well and truly lifeless. Garrus fell back against the ground, the last of his energy spent.

A moment later, an explosion outside the window shook the entire building. Looking up, he could see one of Sovereign's massive metal fingers careening toward the window. He was vaguely aware that it was headed directly for them, his vision fading. The last thing he saw was Shepard throwing herself on top of him to shield him from the impact, and then all was black.


The Citadel's emergency alarm sounding on repeat was the first thing that came back to Garrus as his senses returned. He struggled to open his eyes. Debris flew from his face as he let out a weak cough and looked around. Pieces of Reaper and the Citadel tower lay strewn across the floor, huge hunks of metal and stone had fallen into the tranquility garden.

The bone of his shoulder was still exposed, but someone had placed medi-gel on it, temporarily relieving the pain and allowing him to at least sit up. When he moved, Shepard slumped off of his chest and into his lap, motionless. A heavy piece of stone about half the size of Garrus himself had fallen onto Shepard's lower half.

A rush of adrenaline hit him as he got up and struggled to pull the stone off of her. Voices sounded in the distance, but he could only focus on Shepard, pinned beneath the rubble.

"Captain Anderson! They're over here!"

Flashlights beamed toward them as a group of humans rushed into the debris. Suddenly, more hands were helping Garrus to lift the stone off of Shepard's body. When it had been tossed aside, he dropped down to the ground and cradled Shepard against him, shaking her.

"Wake up!" he yelled. "Shepard!"

"Garrus, you're badly injured," A familiar voice sounded behind him. "Let me get you and the commander to the hospital."

Captain Anderson was there, trying to pry Shepard away from him.

"Is she breathing?" Garrus cried. "Is she breathing?"

He was vaguely aware of his other squad mates being pulled from beneath the rubble. Liara was the first to emerge, followed by Wrex, then Tali, and finally Kaidan. They were bruised and scraped, but alive. Only Shepard remained immobile.

"Her pulse is weak," Anderson said.

"Give her something. Do something!"

"Someone get him out of here!" Anderson barked. "His arm's about to fall off and he's out of his mind. I can't help her if you don't give me space, Vakarian!"

Garrus didn't want to give him space. He had to know if Shepard was alive. The thought that she wasn't felt worse than any physical pain he'd ever felt. He would have hacked off the rest of his shoulder right there if it could save her.

A medic moved in, scanning his omni-tool over Shepard's body. He injected something into her arm and a moment later she gasped and sat up, choking and spluttering, but alive. Alive…

"Shepard…" Garrus reached a hand out for her and promptly fell against the ground unconscious, his last thought: pure relief.