A/N: So here it is. The following is Johnny Shepard's story. It may stray from canon but will follow the same path. We're at Earth, now, so the finish line is in sight. Thanks to stnemele for the editing and Bioware for owning Mass Effect.
(The chapter title is based off of the operation name of the Normandy invasion of occupied France in 1944.)
FYI, I updated the first chapter...the author now has a name (although never stated by Shepard).
Deeeelicious. Nothing like some scotch to get you ready for the finale. The end of my Mass Effect, Pully...
It was a straight run from the Cerberus base to Earth...the Citadel was the last piece of the gun...I mean Crucible. The Prothean VI let us know shit. Blah fucking blah, it was time to fucking go. Two fleets, one as a pure offensive force, one as a shield for the finished part of the Crucible. Ha, appropriately named "Sword" and "Shield" respectively. Staging zone was behind Neptune.
Yes, I just said "respectively." My vocabulary gets better with some fire water inside, heh?
The Normandy rode with Sword, which was made up of Alliance, Geth, and Citadel fleets. Fucking ships the size of fighters all the way to the massive dreadnaughts... The Geth even had their biggest ship leading the way, fully prepared to fuck shit up. Our big guns were up front, ready to go... Scouts said the Citadel was parked in orbit with a wall of Reapers around it. Hackett had to punch a hole through those Reapers so I could land and fuck up the Reapers on the ground. So we swung the first punch, the first dent in that fucking Reaper wall.
If we would've been in atmosphere, the fucking world would have shaken with all the firepower going at once. Shockwaves caused by the MAC cannons from those two famous cruisers Forward Unto Dawn and Pillar of Autumn would've devastated cities, but barely crippled the biggest Reapers. Red and Gold groups made slashing runs through the enemies, dodging the little laser eyes the whole time... Blew up a Reaper, but only three of the original thirty made it out. Some hero kid, Walker, made the final shot. The madness of the battle though, it was incredible...I honestly had never been involved in a space fight before.
The interviewer expresses surprise.
I know, right? I do work on the ground I suppose. Biotics and a shogun don't do shit in a starfighter, though... But hey, don't interrupt, I really want to tell this part! Two fleets this big, a battle this big, it won't happen again. While Cortez flew circles around the fucking Reapers, I watched and listened to the battle. I got to hear heroes and cowards, cries of happiness and of despair...but it was my fleet and I wanted to hear it.
Geth ships were transmitting in robot gibber-jabber so I couldn't tell what was happening...the Reaper upgrade made them more efficient, though. Taking losses, sure, but dealing massive fucking damage to the enemy. Beep boop beep, explosion!
Saw some freighter, the Nostromo, set off it's eezo core when it slammed into a Reaper. Beautiful blue explosion, if you ask me. Split the squid in half...
Comment.
You heard of that one? Ha, there were only seven crew and a fucking cat and those fuckers took out a Reaper...Hell of a story there...Could you imagine if a Rachni got loose on that ship? I bet those badasses would've killed it in ten minutes... Shit.
Anyway, there were ships like that everywhere, fighting I mean. For every explosion there was a burst of static ending someone's transmission forever. For each Reaper, fifty ships lost, both big and small. I wasn't going to lose though... I had to get to the surface...that's where the war would be won. Fighting on the ground, Johnny doing what he does best. Fucking up Reapers. We got some scrub pilot from a freight called the Aluminum Falcon to fly our Kodiak to the surface with the legions of others. Landing zone was Vancouver, my fucking city. Time to die, Reapers...
Damnit, that was fucking lame. Shit, it's like I'm in some goddamn movie... I'll try not to do that again, Pully...
A question.
Why? Oh yeah, we had to go to ground because the fucking Reapers closed the Citadel's arms. Find a way to open it from below? I don't fucking know, I'm no scientist. I was just leading the goddamn charge. We had to open to the goddamn station to use the big space gun...how anyone knew how it fucking worked is beyond me, but I bet T'soni could've told you. Ha, mentioned her again...
But yeah, going to ground to go back up into space...I know, sounds crazy, doesn't it? Crazy is my thing, though...
Fuck, another lame line. Shit, I must be tired or something...
Shepard finishes his drink.
Theeeerrreee we go. Went into the whole fight pretty damn confident...sure it was "impossible," but I did it before. Two suicide runs, fucking death...getting into a locked down Citadel isn't shit to Johnny... So off we went. Stepped onto the Kodiak with Alenko and Vega...scrub pilot shot us towards Earth with a few thousand troops for all kinds of species.
Ha. I got a funny feeling when I left the Normandy. Something like I wouldn't see it again. And I was damn right. Those fucking asshole Reapers blew up my goddamn ship.
We zoomed off the in the Kodiak for Earth... Heard the Normandy call an SOS...and the drive core blew, taking out a few ships with it. No radio contact when Alenko called back. No more Cortez. No more Traynor... No more fucking AI... That fucking fish tank, that fucking security checkpoint...
Shepard sighs.
I know, Pully, I know. Maybe Joker would have kept my boat in the air. Maybe he wouldn't have. Doesn't matter now...the fucking thing is gone now. It was a little bit more fuel on the fire?
My ship wasn't anything, though, in the big picture. I had bigger fuckers to deal with, the giant Reaper bots that were tearing up my goddamn city. Vancouver was burned to shit...before I even fired a shot I was already tunnelling...time for some fucking payback. If my city was going to burn, everything would burn. The first things to catch fire? The goddamn Reapers.
The three of us, Alenko, me, and Vega, we all jumped out of the Kodiak just in time for it to take a Harvester shot to the side. Poor bastard flying the thing died as soon as the shuttle hit the ground. Blamo. We had a bunch of tactical shit to do...first was taking out the anti-air batteries the Reapers put up. Fucking cannons were covered with husks from all species. Would've fought them the normal way, but we found some heavy weapons in the rubble dropped by a dead marine squad. Big old Cain, one shot and a massive fucking explosion. Vaporized the shit troops around it and knocked over every building in a ten block radius... Johnny was eleven blocks away, so I got to see the whole thing. Had my helmet on so the fucking blast didn't blind me.
Met up with some Elcor with auto-fire weapons strapped to their backs. Fucking tanks, Pully. Those slow bastards aren't anything to fuck with...sure, you'd think you could just walk up behind them, but the goddamn guns they carry track you everywhere. Ha, would've been interesting to have a few Elcor on my team way back when. Probably would've died because they're so goddamn slow, but still... It'd be cool, you know?
The interviewer is skeptical.
Fuck you, Pully. I'm not saying that...well, the Elcor never fucked humanity, so they aren't that bad in my fucking opinion. Their pudgy Volus buddies were fucking trash, though. Bunch of gas breathing cowards...
Comment.
God damnit! I don't need your fucking back-talk, Pully. Fucking shit head...Sass bastard.
So we're fighting along, setting up a forward base to "regroup." Nursing wounds and shit. Alenko took a couple shots in our landing zone, but other than that we were golden. Final objective was a few klicks away...some grav lift that the Reapers set up to enter the Citadel. Probably harvesting organics and shit, so not exactly sanitary, but it was the only way in. Fucking Reapers...the fuckers just...
A question.
Are you fucking kidding me, Pully? Of course I was furious. My goddamn city was burning around me. My city. I wasn't worried about civies or anything, but everything was fucked. The river a fucking mess...towers knocked over. A fucking Reaper goop pile in the goddamn park. They ruined it, Pully. They ruined my goddamn home. We happened to pass the hospital where Widow shot me...the thing was levelled. I mean... it was all of Earth was like that, but.. Fuck the Reapers. Fuck them. Assholes just...
Hesitation.
They took Jackie, fucking took my city, my goddamn planet. They should've known not to fuck with Johnny... No one fucks with Johnny. They made it personal all the way since Saren... Johnny versus the Reapers.
So it was me across the wasteland to that fucking sky beam shit. Up the to the Citadel, activate the Crucible, and fuck up the Reapers. Alenko was ready for anything and so was Vega. I mean anything. Death, too. I saw them make their peace with whoever they knew. The guys talked to whoever through some comm terminal. Vega had some buddies, Alenko actually had some girl he talked to. Must have been fucking her...
Ha, I had no one. Probably because everyone I ever met fucking died...
Hesitation and a comment.
Yeah, the final charge. I had a fucking force behind me, going straight up the middle, straight towards the beam. A squad of krogan, some Elcor tanks... There were vorcha and geth covering our flanks. Good old Alliance grunts speckled between. A few salarian gunships for cover. This was legit, Pully. A real fight, the last hope and shit. Everything was expendable, everyone was expendable and they all knew it. Fucking krogan were looking forward to death, the geth emotionless. Vorcha smelly and doing their weird smile shit. The jabber of salarians above...and off we went.
Immediate resistance from all directions. The vorcha crawling through buildings taking down snipers, krogan charging into krogan husks, Elcor shelling the bigger enemies, Alliance marines screaming as they charged.
And me? Raging as always. Biotic charge into a group of turian husks, shotgun flying through clips like there was no tomorrow. There was no tomorrow. Alliance biotics tossing Reaper shits all over the place, assists out the ass. Taking heavy losses as I ordered everyone forward... The vorcha were getting slaughtered on our flanks...who fucking cares about them? Krogan weren't exactly brilliant and they kept dropping. Salarian gunships going down everywhere. The Elcor were dead in minutes.
But I kept going. Humans kept going. Fuck aliens...humanity showed that it's the best of the best that day. Number one species. Even the grunts did their duty. I respected them for once. No questioning my authority, no questioning what to do, what I did. Blasting through to the end. Blasting through bad guys. Sure, there were cowards that took cover, that retreated. Shot them on the spot as motivation to keep others going forward...
An exclamation.
What? Pully, they were already dead.
Huh... I guess all of them were by the time we made it to our next stop. A fucking Reaper parked itself in our way, so we moved some Thalinx... thalanx... Whatever they're fucking called, missiles. Didn't have a decent firing solution, though, so beep boop beep, aiming in would take a few minutes. By the time the missile trucks pulled up, it was just the three of us. Kaidan Badass Alenko, James um...Badass Vega, and Johnny Fucking Shepard. Almost like three horsemen... Those were the days.
Pully, could you imagine if I had my full team? Holy shit, that would've been unstoppable...
Sarcastic reply.
Fuck. You. I didn't kill them, they fucking betrayed me. You shut the fuck up...
So it's up to the three of us to hold down the position around the missile launchers. Alenko and Vega, they were with me one hundred percent...hurt and fucked up to all hell, but ready to go. Judging by the radio we were in for a fight. We knew it wouldn't be a contest for kills this time, Pully... As lame as it sounds, it was really just a fight for our lives. Ha, in hindsight, that was the most important point in the war. Shepard's last stand...
We took cover, stocked up on as much ammo as possible and waited...
Interjection.
Tense? You fucking kidding me, Mr. Pulitzer? Of course it was fucking tense. Hell, maybe even nervous. Yes, the exalted Johnny was nervous. You would be too if there were fucking hundreds of Reaper husks bearing down on you with big Reapers off in the distance staring you down. The Reaper blare, that bass goes off... A banshee's shriek... A roar from a Brute...
And here they came. All three of us swore as we opened fire. There wasn't any charging here, no Rage. Just focus. Sure, I already had a nosebleed from over-using my amp, but it was mostly grenades and shit...seemed to go on forever. Heard radio contact from a hundred different people. Anderson yelling "Hold them off!" and "We're being overrun!" from random Alliance grunts. Geth beeps and whistles...I fought the whole time. Dip, duck, dive. Shoot, punch, shockwave. Movement, colors, bullets. Pain, burns, broken arm. Missiles...
Then, all of the sudden, it was over. Vega lay ten yards away under a pile of Reaper husks he took out. Barely alive, but still functional. Alenko was covered head to toe in Reaper goop from the banshees. Apparently I was covered with a mix of red, blue, and green blood. We'd just fought off a fucking platoon...batallion...whatever the Reapers call it. A horde?
The interviewer sits in silence.
Speechless, Pully? We were too. Fucking Anderson and his convoy pop over the hill as soon as we killed the last Reaper husk like the fuckers were waiting for us to finish. Bullshit if you ask me... I was too goddamn tired to argue, though.
One last run, then. Missiles took out the Reaper and then...We were almost at the finish line.
I finally got to the beam. Well, the hill above the beam that'd would take me straight to my enemies. The Illusive Man was up there, the key to destroying the Reapers was up that crazy shaft of light. One final step...
Pully, I was goddamn exhausted...one last run, though, one last push. There was literally a finish line a few hundred yards away. So close that tactics went out the window... The plan was "run at the beam" and that's exactly what we fucking did. Sure, there were Reaper reinforcements, but we were so goddamn close. Hell, Harbinger even showed up. But this was the end... Now or never, as they say.
Every human, every salarian, every krogan, every geth...well, let's just go with anyone that could move...was going to make the charge. It was short and simple, similar to Torfan. Vega and Alenko were still with me somehow, determined and badass as ever. So we went. There wasn't even and order...I just started running. The whole fucking galaxy following Johnny into battle. Something like that will never happen again. Someone like me will never happen again... You'll never see anything like me again, Pully. Johnny Fucking Shepard, leading the charge. Hell, I was leading the fucking galaxy...
Tunnel vision...explosions...I saw guys all around me get vaporized by the Reaper beams. A few husks jumped out, they took down some salarians. Alenko and Vega flanked me...at first. We spread out...Vega got crushed by a crashing Kodiak. I saw that for sure...felt a bit of regret there. He was one of the rare good soldiers the Alliance spits out. The poor bastard didn't even get to die a worthy death. Alenko...
A quiet question.
No. I don't know what happened to Kaidan...his life signs just disappeared on my HUD like he wasn't ever there. No shout, no static, no beeps...just gone. He was my last teammate, the final one to die. Stuck with me through Saren, dealt with me socking him on Horizon, forgave me for killing the Council... I definitely changed the fucker for the better.
He just … vanished. Poof... I'd like to pretend he just fell over or some shit, but my last friend was gone for sure.
But...yeah. I didn't stop for a second. I led the charge through it all. I kept running... Down the hill, closer...
Shepard hesitates.
And then the big Reaper, Harbinger, fired... I felt myself fly into the air, slam into the ground, and everything went dark.
A long pause.
Wow, that was fucking lame. "Everything went dark?" No, no, that's some shitty novelist's version. How about "I passed the fuck out..." Yeah, I passed the fuck out from the mighty beam of fucking asshole death. Threw me into the air, knocked the breath out of me. Johnny survived, though...I always survive.
A/N: And that's Earth. Hope you all liked it. Lots of fun in this chapter, I thought. Hope you got some of the references.
Unfortunately for you readers, next week will be the end. The last bit from Johnny and there will be a minor Epilogue provided by the interviewer; also, I'll be posting my thoughts on this "adventure."
Once again, favorite/follow/review...you know the typical stuff. And for one last time, until next Tuesday!