The Citadel's defense fleet could only watch in horror as Sovereign almost casually tore through their main ships, heading for the Citadel. On the Destiny Ascension, the Council and the ship's commanders listened, stunned, as remaining personnel on the Citadel itself reported geth attacks that had come from nowhere and reported the absolutely impossible right before all communications went dark: they'd seen Saren walking toward the Presidium.
A few minutes later, the Citadel's arms started to close around Sovereign as it entered, seeming for all the world like it was embracing the ship.
Saren stood on the Council's platform in the spire, a glowing console before him. He tilted his head back as his master entered, slowly placing itself right on the tip of the spire itself, red lightning dancing over its form as it prepared to call through its brethren. The doubts that had plagued Saren on Virmire were gone. In most senses, Saren himself was gone except for a single, despairing cry in the very depths of his mind.
The Reapers were coming through and that was all he wanted. Was all he could want anymore.
The vertigo of complete stillness and yet the sense of rushing time filled the Mako, and then they were falling. Liara screamed in shock and Shepard shook off the disorientation of the relay jump enough to fire the Mako's rocket boosters and try and cushion their fall. They spun toward what was clearly the Presidium of the Citadel and she had a weird image of the old classic film The Wizard of Oz, one of her favorites, when Dorothy's house was picked up by the tornado and spinning through the air. Then they hit, screeching across the floor and obliterating a couple of geth along the way. They slammed into something that flipped the Mako over completely before finally coming to a halt against one of the Presidium's curved walls.
Dazed, Shepard blinked to clear her vision and groaned slightly as she undid the straps holding her in. "Ow."
"Quit whining, Shepard, you're not dead," Wrex growled.
"I wasn't whining," Shepard said somewhat petulantly. She glanced around, noting with relief everyone was dazed and probably aching something fierce, but alive. She struggled out of the seat and forced the door open so they could crawl out, stumbling to her feet and looking around. They were in the Presidium, right in front of the Relay Monument, which they had just passed through because it was, of course, where the Conduit was linked to. Obvious, really.
She helped Tali up, looking the quarian girl over for ruptures in her suit. Garrus yelled something and they turned to see those spikes...those damned spikes from Eden Prime set at intervals throughout the plaza. They were lowering, husks running toward them with that odd, limping gait of theirs. She had a moment of regret for the people they had once been before the squad opened fire. She moved to back up Garrus, motioning to Wrex, who sent two of them flying with a biotic throw, backed up by Liara.
Only when the husks were gone and there was no further sign of them did Garrus continue toward his goal: a console which was displaying a holographic asari Shepard had seen around the Citadel many times but had never paid much attention to.
She was flickering on and off, sometimes reappearing backwards as she repeated a warning over and over. "Please begin emergency evacuation procedures. This is not a drill."
"Avina. Status report," Garrus barked.
Shepard listened to the list, turning in a circle to take in the damage. Primary power gone, civilian casualties high, fires all over the place, unauthorized synthetics running rampant. Environmental controls were shot. Shit, that was going to make things hard...
"Have there been any sightings of Saren Arterius?" Garrus asked.
"Smart, you," Shepard murmured, coming up beside him.
"Former Spectre agent Saren Arterius is nearing the vicinity of the Council Chamber," Avina said.
"Of course he is...where else could it be?" Shepard turned, looking for the elevator. The odds were very good they didn't work or wouldn't be working for long, but they had to take the risk.
"A warrant has been issued for his arrest, though Citadel Security is unable to respond at this time," Avina continued.
"We noticed." Garrus logged out.
She noticed puddles with odd machinery as they moved to the elevator and realized with a jolt that they were the remains of Keepers. Of course, Sovereign...and therefore Saren...would be very annoyed with them. Up until this cycle, the Reaper merely had to send out a signal to the keepers and they would open up the mass relay into dark space. The reason Sovereign even needed Saren in the first place was because the remaining scientists under Vigil's care had found a way to break the Reaper's control over them, which meant the only way they could start this cycle properly was for Sovereign to open the relay manually. It needed Saren to get in through the Conduit and give it control over the Citadel.
But neither of them knew about Vigil. Neither of them knew they'd come through the Conduit behind Saren yet and neither of them knew Vigil had given them a way to wrench control of the Citadel back. They simply had to get there before it was too late.
Even as she thought it, the lights in the elevator flickered on and off before a soft shudder went through the compartment and the elevator glided to a halt.
His people were warriors and always had been. There had been a time, Saren supposed, before they had spread out into space and were confined to one continually warring planet...not unlike the krogan were now...when a great military leader would have stood in some impenetrable fortress and watched his troops battle just as he was now. Except this fortress was far from impenetrable and it was a race of mindless machines and equally mindless krogan battling below him as the enemy advanced. His own people were the ones dying in the air far above Sovereign.
He should have known killing the elevators wouldn't stop her. In her endless audacity, she'd simply had her people suit up and shot out the windows, making their way up from the outside instead of the inside. Sovereign perched atop the Citadel's spire was kind of hard to miss, a sort of nightmarish beacon to guide them. He'd sent the geth he'd brought with him against them but hadn't counted on them activating the defense turrets. They weren't doing any good against the Citadel's main attackers since there wasn't anyone to activate them but served quite well in destroying the dropship he'd sent and the geth within it. A small voice at the back of his mind whispered that before Virmire, he would have taken those turrets into consideration, would have disabled them...back when his mind had been working properly.
That voice died quickly enough. Shepard and her squad had disappeared, and he knew that meant they had found a way in. She was coming for him. He stepped onto his hover platform and rose, watching the entrance and waiting. For a bit of an ironic twist, he moved so he was in almost the same spot his image had appeared for the long ago hearing with the Council.
Sure enough, the sounds of gunfire echoed from the chamber beyond and Shepard came in, a human flanked by the most motley group in the galaxy. And he was speaking as a turian leading an army of geth.
Saren pulled a grenade out and activated it with a soft click as Shepard scanned the platform where the Council usually stood, gun out and looking puzzled. Her gaze swept upward and the second he saw her register the sight of him, he moved, tossing the grenade at them. He swooped back over the Council's platform to guard the activated master control panel that had been hidden there, pointing a pistol toward the spot where Shepard had rolled to cover. "I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time, Shepard."
"Sorry to have kept you waiting," came the reply. She sounded perfectly calm, even mockingly apologetic, which annoyed him.
"You've lost. You know that, don't you? In a few minutes, Sovereign will have full control of the Citadel's systems. The relay will open. The Reapers will return."
There was silence for a few, humming moments, then she spoke, her voice echoing through the chamber. "Get out of my way, Saren."
"You survived our encounter on Virmire. But I've changed since then. Improved. Sovereign has..." Taken me over... "...upgraded me."
Just like on Virmire, the bitch saw far too much. "Starting to doubt your master, were you?"
Saren shook his head to rid himself of the voices chattering in his mind. "I suppose I should thank you, Shepard. After Virmire, I couldn't stop thinking about what you said. About Sovereign manipulating me." He looked up to where the Reaper was still crouched over the spire. "About indoctrination. The doubts began eating away at me. Sovereign indeed sensed my hesitation. I was implanted to strengthen my resolve."
She didn't even miss a beat. "And to make sure you didn't start falling to pieces now that you're fully indoctrinated."
Damn her. The fact she said that so casually while she was still cowering out of sight only made him angrier, which was a nicer emotion to feel than fear. "I understand the Reapers need organics. Join us and Sovereign will find a place for you. You have...impressed it."
"No thanks, I've gotten a good look at how Sovereign treats its 'allies'." She put emphasis on the word, making it a mockery. "I think I'd rather die trying to stop it than end up controlled through implants like you."
"The relationship is symbiotic." He had to believe that. "Organic and machine intertwined, a union of flesh and steel. The strengths of both, the weaknesses of neither. I am a vision of the future, Shepard."
"Looks like a pretty pathetic future from where I'm standing," the krogan growled from off to the side. The rest of her team was still behind cover, some of them creeping forward.
He was aware of them, but kept his gaze on their leader. "It's the evolution of all organic life. This is our destiny. Join Sovereign and experience a true rebirth!" The final words came out more of a demand than a request, echoes of Sovereign in his mind coming out through his mouth.
"It wants me to replace you, then? My turn to be used and discarded, the same it's going to do with you?"
The voices in his mind surged forward, becoming louder as if to drown out the despairing knowledge that she was right and he knew it. He found himself repeating the words they spoke over and over to him before he realized it. "I had no choice! You saw the visions. You saw what happened to the Protheans! Surrender or death- there are no other options!"
"Step out of the way and I can make sure we only have to get rid of Sovereign for the moment. Stop it and they have to try a conquering the galaxy without the advantage of crippling us first, which they aren't used to."
The simple logic in those words speared through him. Having Sovereign so strong in his mind gave him the advantage of knowing more of the Reaper's thoughts, even though he couldn't act on them. He could see she was right, that this had not happened since the days before they set up the Citadel and mass relays to guide the galaxy along the path convenient for them. That the fact the Protheans had been able to change the keepers, their creations, so much, had been able to replicate mass relay technology all irritated the Reaper...and send a glimmer of unease through it. The knowledge twined through him, a single, ringing moment of clarity echoing through his head. If she really did have some way to stop the relay from opening... "Maybe you're right," Saren Arterius, the real Saren Arterius, spoke up. "Maybe there's still a chance for..."
And then Sovereign gave up all pretenses of giving him free will, surging through him, wrapping itself tightly around his mind. He struggled against it in vain. "The implants..." He'd been a fool to believe they were anything better than chains to bind him. "Sovereign is too strong. I'm sorry..." And he truly was. "It's too late for me."
Shepard leaned out from her hiding spot, her gaze rising to meet his, eyes burning. "You can still stop this, there's still a small part of you left."
He started to deny he had the strength to let her take the console when he realized that wasn't what she meant, her eyes moving to the gun in his hand. His fingers tightened around the pistol, Sovereign's roar in his mind telling him to use it against her as she rose to her feet.
Desolas
He thought of his brother, buried beneath the rubble of his temple with the Monolith and the priests he'd used it to create...priests that he, Saren, now resembled. He realized that now, that strange feeling of recognition whenever he'd caught a reflection of himself. He'd given the command himself for the temple to be destroyed...with his brother still inside it. His own words came back to taunt him, about how some secrets were meant to stay buried.
That he would mourn his brother...and avenge him.
And he had, but not against the right enemy. Instead, he'd given himself over to the same obsession, the same slavery.
Furious, Sovereign's hold on his mind tightened again, like fingers digging into his brain. He only had moments before he would step forward to battle her defending the master control panel...and the Reapers. If she truly had a way to prevent Sovereign from taking control, he couldn't help her do it. Except by stepping out of the way.
With the last of his resolve, Saren lifted the pistol in his hand slowly, staring across the platform to the human woman who was no longer his enemy. "Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you."
He wrenched his will away from Sovereign one final time and pulled the trigger.
Kaidan leaned forward in the copilot's seat, listening to the increasingly desperate calls traveling along the main communication line from the Destiny Ascension. They couldn't do a damn thing, all the mass relays had been shut down and none of the Alliance's ships had made it through in time to the Citadel.
Joker tapped a panel, frowning as there was an odd crackle on his comm. "Wait a minute..."
Excitement and hope surged through Kaidan. "That's a signal from the Citadel's comm line!"
Joker hastily tapped a few buttons on his main console. "Normandy to the Citadel! Normandy to the Citadel! Please tell me that's you, Commander!"
"Joker?"
Cheers echoed through the command deck and Joker waved at them for silence. "You caught that distress call, Commander?"
"I did."
"We're sitting here in the Andura sector with the entire Arcturus fleet. We can still save the Ascension. Just unlock the relays and we'll send the calvary in!"
"Working on it. In a few minutes, I'll have the Citadel's arms open for you too. Meanwhile, get the Council out of there and thin down the geth. Pass that along, Joker, you hear me? Do not, under any circumstances, engage Sovereign while you still have an army of geth at your back. Trust me, that battle is going to be hard enough..."
No one had any doubts about that. "You got it, Commander." Kaidan was already relaying orders through to the rest of the fleet as the mass relays suddenly flared to life again and Joker fired the Normandy up.
The Normandy led the way, the Alliance fleet slamming the geth with a surprise attack as the Citadel's arms started to open slowly. The bulk of the geth focused on the Destiny Ascension didn't have time to turn their attention to the new threat before they were destroyed, clearing the way for the great flagship. Joker bared his teeth in a grin. If he'd wanted to put the Normandy through her paces, he got that chance now. The geth fought viciously but between the Alliance's surprise attack and the remains of the Citadel's fleet, they were caught in a two way blaze of fire. The fleet lost people, there was no doubt, but the geth were losing more.
"There's Sovereign," Kaidan said quietly. The Citadel's arms were fully open again, exposing the Reaper at its center like a bug caught in a web. They heard Admiral Hackett give the order to attack and sped toward it. Vaguely, Joker had still been listening to the comm open to the Citadel, Shepard's voice fading in and out depending on how clear the comm was.
As they came toward the Presidium and the spire, the comm was perfectly clear. Kaidan and Joker both jerked in their seats as either Tali or Liara screamed suddenly. They had just enough time to hear someone cry: "Shepard, he's getting up!" before the comm suddenly went dead.
When Saren had fallen, his own bullet tearing through his head, he'd crashed through the glass below the Council's platform into the garden below. Wrex had jumped down to make certain he was dead, putting a couple of bullets into the turian's head with what Shepard imagined was no small amount of satisfaction.
She had been so focused on getting the Citadel's arms open and keeping Sovereign from regaining control until the fleet could attack it, she'd failed to notice the flickers of sick red energy coming from below.
Liara screamed and Garrus, peering down through the shattered glass, called to her, his voice filled with disbelief. "Shepard, he's getting up!"
An explosion of that red light...Sovereign's light...hit them from below and the bridge leading from the Petitioner's Stage to the Council's platform broke, tipping them downward so they joined the others below with a crash.
Wincing, Shepard shoved herself to her feet and lifted her head. Garrus wasn't entirely correct. Saren wasn't getting back up because that wasn't Saren. The red lightning burned away what flesh remained on the corpse, filling the entire chamber with the sickening odor of charred flesh and burnt metal that made everyone gag.
The lightning coalesced in the remains of Saren's ribcage, like a beating heart of light, powering the skeletal remains of the implants Sovereign had put into him. The horrific apparition leapt into the air and, as if they needed confirmation of what they were dealing with, it's voice- sounding partly like Saren's with an echo of Sovereign's voice beneath it, the sound scratching at their ears -thundered through the chamber. "I am Sovereign. And this station is MINE!"
She dove out of the way, ducking and running as red lightning stabbed through the air at them. The Saren-thing climbed nimbly over the walls...reminding her ever so much of those goddamned hopping geth...and launched itself at her. She managed to duck out of the way in time to keep it from hitting her directly but the force of it as it passed by still bowled her over. She brought her pistols blazing up, seeing the thing stumble as Wrex unloaded on it with a roar.
It spun around- it was fucking fast -firing more of that red energy. But for all its power, she and the others fell into the rhythm of the fight like a well oiled machine. The Saren-thing couldn't turn to battle one without one or more of the others attacking it from behind. Caught in that shifting, weaving circle of enemies, it slowly started to come apart.
The light in the chamber took on an odd, rippling quality as, far above them, the combined forces of the Alliance and Citadel fleets opened fire on Sovereign, the light of their blasts filling the long windows of the spire.
The Saren-thing knocked Tali sprawling and launched itself at Shepard again. This time she didn't get out of the way before it slammed into her, sending them both tumbling across the grass. She felt claws tear at her armor and cursed as one of her guns flew out of her hand. That muzziness that came from overusing her biotics filled her head but she gathered the last of her strength and shoved out, physically slamming her hands into the thing's shoulders and feeling the pulse of biotics backing it up, sending it flying back...right into the middle of a singularity. The thing was pulled, revolving through the air. It sent out blasts of energy in a circle as it went, and Shepard flattened herself to the ground as one soared over her.
Liara yelled something at the Saren-thing that she couldn't make out although she thought she heard Benezia's name somewhere in it. Dark energy clashed with red and Shepard rolled to her feet, snatching her fallen pistol up and firing at the thing again.
Liara flattened it with a biotic hit again and this time, when it tried to get up, its movements were sluggish. Shepard aimed at the remains of its head, and a blast from Wrex's gun threw it down again.
This time it didn't get back up. The red lightning at its center flared and consumed it even as a the spire shook around them. A shadow passed over the windows as Sovereign floated away from the spire. Another rumble shook the air and Shepard watched in awe as the Reaper was torn apart right before her eyes, blasts from a hundred ships hitting it at once. She caught a brief glimpse of the Normandy zipping by as it hit Sovereign somewhere in its center, finally blowing it apart completely.
The surge of triumph in here turned to alarm as one of those pieces tumbled right toward them, turning in the air. "Oh, shit..." She spun around, motioning to the others. "Go!"
The piece slammed into the spire and everything exploded into a chaotic mass before going dark.
The Presidium was in shambles. What the geth hadn't managed to destroy, the remains of Sovereign had. Fires burned everywhere, choking Anderson as he picked his way toward the Council Chambers. Besides the crackle of flames and the sounds of C-sec and Alliance personnel moving, the chamber was eerily silent.
"Captain Anderson, we've found them!" one of the C-sec men called. "They're in here!"
He hurried toward the voice, pushing is way into the Council Chamber. Most of the larger pieces that had hit were here, strange machinery standing out in stark contrast to the beauty of the chamber that was still visible through the wreckage. The quarian girl, Tali was sitting, seemingly dazed, near a chunk of rock while one of the C-sec officers looked her over. Garrus Vakarian was crouched not far away, coughing as another C-sec member helped him to his feet. Anderson could see blue blood trailing from the back of his head, trickling along the lines of his face plating. Anderson made his way over to him. "Where's the commander? Where's Shepard?" The turian shook off the C-sec man holding him and turned toward the center of the chamber.
Now Anderson could see the hulking form of the krogan, Wrex, knocking things out of the way, and the slender form of Liara T'soni. The asari turned toward him, tears in her eyes. "We can't find her."
Anderson 's breath caught. No...not now. She couldn't be dead now. Not now that they'd won. "Shepard?" He called out to her, moving toward the middle of the chamber. His voice echoed strangely off of the hulking pieces of Sovereign's remains. "Shepard!"
"What?"
They spun toward that irritated voice and the sound of footsteps on metal. The lanky, pale haired figure that emerged from around the largest piece seemed ghostly against the dark metal. She was limping, her left arm hanging useless beside her.
Anderson and one of the C-sec men hurried toward her. She looked annoyed and rather dazed, blood trickling from her temple. "My arm hurts like hell," she announced as the marched toward them.
"Well, Shepard, you kind of have a bone sticking out of it..." Liara said, sounding weak with relief.
Shepard blinked at her and looked down her arm. There was indeed a gleam of white through the skin. "Oh...will you look at that..." She tried to take another step forward and her legs gave out. Anderson made it there right in time to catch her, the krogan holding her up on the other side.
Wrex rolled his eyes, though Anderson didn't think he was imagining the relief in them. "Sit down, you idiot."
"It didn't hurt until you made me notice it," Shepard said sulkily. She noticed Anderson and tried to straighten a bit. "Oh, hello, sir..."
"Commander." He gently helped her sit.
"We won, didn't we?"
He smiled. "Yes, Commander. We surely did."
Shepard was getting her arm tended to when the Council arrived with Udina. They'd moved out of the Council Chambers into the main plaza of the Presidium. The pain of having her arm set had helped clear her mind so she was coherent again. Coherent enough she wouldn't let any of her other injuries be taken care of until she was certain the rest of her squad was okay. Garrus and Liara were sitting near her while Tali sat crosslegged nearby, helping C-sec try and get some of the systems going again. Injured and dead from the Presidium were being brought in as medics and emergency personnel started to sift through the destruction.
Shepard was watching a medic tend to a pair of salarian groundskeepers that had been wounded and knocked unconscious when Udina and the Council walked in. The medic was talking to one of them, asking him questions in a quiet voice. His friend, in better condition, insisted they could take care of themselves.
"Are you sure he's in the right state of mind to be making any decisions?" the commander wondered aloud.
"I think he's okay," his friend said.
The medic shined a light into the salarian's eyes. "Are you all right, sir?"
The salaraian nodded.
"See?" His friend insisted. "We'll just make our way over to our place." Their place might not be there anymore but he didn't seem to want to acknowledge that yet. "Right?" he said to his friend. The salarian nodded again.
"We'd like to crack your skull open and stick a bunch of needle probes into your brain, will that be okay?" Shepard asked on impulse.
The salarian nodded.
There was a moment of silence and the medic lifted an eyebrow at the other salarian. "I think maybe I better take a closer look at him." She helped the injured salarian to his feet and led him to where they had medical equipment set up. This time his friend didn't argue.
The medic who was finishing up setting Shepard's arm, wrapping the splint in medi-gel and bandages, snorted.
Anderson came up beside her, nudging her gently. Shepard followed his gaze, narrowing her eyes slightly at the sight of Udina. She pushed herself carefully to her feet as the Council came up, Garrus catching hold of her uninjured elbow to steady her.
She and Anderson listened silently, respectfully, as they were both thanked for saving both the Council and so many millions of lives. Anderson wasn't surprised when they declared humanity had proven it was willing to step up and defend and protect the galaxy, and therefore worthy of a spot on the Council, although it gave Shepard a jolt.
Credit where credit was due, this was precisely the type of situation Udina worked well in, speaking smoothly where neither soldier could, even as murmurs from human onlookers and others filled the room. "On behalf of humanity and the Alliance, we thank you for this prestigious honor and humbly accept."
"We will need a list of potential candidates for your councilor," the salarian councilor said.
"Do you support any particular candidate, Commander?" Shepard started and blinked at the asari councilor as she spoke. "Given all that's happened, I'm sure your recommendation would carry weight."
"I'm honored you'd ask, Councilor, but that's probably better left to Parliament and the Alliance diplomats, as I'm not the most objective of people," Shepard said honestly. She added with a cheerful candidness she generally didn't show: "For instance, I'm still advocating sticking the ambassador in a turret and firing him into space."
Udina glared daggers at her.
Shepard gave him an innocent look. "...Which just goes to show it's a decision with which cooler heads should prevail."
Anderson was relatively certain the asari councilor was trying to hide a smile before they moved off to meet with the people starting to clamor for their attention, Udina going with them.
Tired, Shepard sat down again and looked up at Anderson. "Sovereign was only the beginning, though. You know that, sir, yes?"
"I know." Anderson turned his solemn gaze down to her. "But it's a good step in the right direction. When they do come this time, we have to be ready to stand united." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "And together, we'll drive them back into dark space."