A/N: I don't know why, but the temptation to have Cole and Ash break up after all of this is... Hard to resist, to say the least...

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Joker

"SSV Normandy, this Anderson. When Hammer goes on the assault to the beam, I want you staying back, but watching. Keep an eye out for anything and everything."

"This is SSV Normandy, we read you loud and clear. Aye aye, Admiral.". Well, guess this is it. He'd briefly considered playing 'Stayin' Alive' over the ship's comm, but decide against it at the end. He preferred to be killed by an oncoming Reaper beam rather than have a group of very annoyed and irritated crew members storming up the bridge.

His short, momentary reverie of nonsensical situations was quickly broken at the screams and hails over Hammer team's comm chatter. "Holy shit, we've got a Reaper over here!", he heard a marine shout. One glance was all it took for Joker to recognise what it was. Harbinger.

"Push forward! We can't retreat! Move, move!", Anderson ordered.

Joker temporarily lost the ability to react as the entire strike team, be it air support or ground troops, got decimated within seconds. He thought he caught a glimpse of Shepard's bright pinkish-red tech armour moving towards the beam, only to be obscured under a ton of rubble. No... His mind flashbacked to three years ago, when Shepard had sacrificed himself to save him aboard the SR1. Shepard can't die... He-

His thoughts were disrupted when the SR2 suddenly did a full flip. "Joker!". Only then did the pilot realise he had been sitting like a rock at his seat, which also meant that the Normandy had been floating like a sitting duck. It would've been shredded to pieces by Harbinger's laser if not for EDI. "Joker, what the hell are you doing? ", Garrus yelled over the comm.

It hit him that his daydreaming had almost cost all of them to die. No. No one dies. He piped up over the comm. "Alright, people! We got a Reaper to take down! Taking evasive manoeuvres!". He set the frigate's thrusters to maximum, and soon, they were circling the Reaper, skirting around its powerful beams. Time to go on the offensive. "Come on, Vakarian! Don't tell me those calibrations were useless."

"Heh. Don't worry about that. These Thanix cannons can do a fuckton of damage. Watch!". The Normandy fired, but to no avail. The Reaper could probably stand ten Collector beams at once.

It was going to be a long fight.

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Colburn

"Hammer is down! I repeat, Hammer is down!". What?

"Coats, what are you talking about?"

"Hammer... It's gone! All of it! We have no choice, we're pulling back!"

"What about Shepard? Anderson?"

"Negative. I doubt anyone on the ground survived. All our shuttles were taken out within two minutes."

Fuck it! Tossing his overheated rifle on the ground, Colburn started to sprint. "This is Colburn. I'm heading towards the beam!"

"Are you crazy? Get back here!", Ashley demanded over the comm.

"What are you gonna do? Bite me?". Come on, just two clicks to go.

"Cole, we all want to save Shepard, but you have to wait for backup! That place must be crawling with Reaper forces right now!", Ashley spoke breathlessly. That means she's running too.

Now he was getting irritated. "Don't you get it? The Crucible! If Shepard didn't make it, we'll lose this war! I'm going there to activate it!"

"Wait-", he disconnected the link.

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Colburn

Damn it. The situation was worse than he had imagined. Chunks of concrete were all about, creating mini mountains. God knew how many soldiers were crushed and buried underneath it all. Smoking, charred shuttles were laying about everywhere. More often than not, they were in the form of broken bits and pieces, the insignia of the Alliance impossible to see. Oddly enough, the whole place was deserted, with no signs of movement.

Crunch. The sound of boots on gravel from behind got his attention. Slowly, his hand inched towards the pistol on his left hip. "Don't even think about it.". His eyes widened at the voice behind him, along with the unmistakable sound of a pistol unfolding, as he raised his hands up.. "That's a good boy."

Colburn tried to summon his biotics, but they couldn't seem to activate. Fucking dampeners. Guess there's only one way left. Immediately, he activated his Omni-blades, and slashed wildly behind him. He'd managed to disarm his opponent, and would've killed him, had he not backstepped in the nick of time.

The vanguard soon found himself staring at his father, or rather, the cybermetically fused and enhanced Greg Hutcherson. "What the hell have you done to yourself?". For the first time in a long while, Colburn found himself speechless. The question wasn't anything more than a mere mutter.

Hutcherson laughed loudly, which sounded more like a rumble of thunder, in actual fact. "I may have, well, gotten a few upgrades for myself.", he mused.

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Ashley

"Can't this thing go any faster? Damn it!"

"We're going as fast as we can, ma'am. The Mako isn't built for speed."

"I know, marine..."

Ashley was frustrated. Very frustrated. Nothing ever seemed to go smoothly since they arrived on Earth. Joker and Garrus, along with the rest of the crew, were on the SR2, fighting off Harbinger. Colburn had ran off to the beam, alone. Chakwas was complaining about the lack of meds and beds at the medical centre. And now, both Shepard and Anderson were nowhere to be seen. All those defences, decoys they had so painstakingly set up so that Hammer could succeed, went down the drain in minutes.

"Ashley, you might want to hear this..."

She turned her head towards Liara. "What is it?"

The Asari linked Ashley's comm frequency to whatever was playing on her Omni-tool.

"You're not human anymore...". It was Colburn's.

"And you think of that as a bad thing?". The second voice sent a small shiver down her spine. It was Greg Hutcherson's, except not quite as human. "Yes, this isn't exactly pleasant to look at, but it's a small price to pay for eternal life. Oh, have I introduced you to the perks?"

There was the sound of something, or rather, someone, being slammed against a hunk of metal. She heard Colburn start to breathe heavily. "Biotics.", the menace declared. "You should be familiar with them, shouldn't you? How's it like, being on the receiving end?"

Meanwhile, the outline of a human's body on the screen of Liara's Omni-tool, labelled with the Captain's name, started to flash red around the torso. God... Both women stared silently with each other.

Bam! That dreadful noise came through the comm again. This time, the area of red flashed even more urgently.

"Come on, son. I think it's time we did some relationship bonding."

A/N: Well, there ya go. Actually, I'm thinking of killing quite a few characters for the ending. I won't lie to you, Ash, Cole and a lot of others are on that list, though not together. For example, if I really do kill Ash, Colburn's probably gonna live. I always like my stories to end with a bit of tragedy.

Ps: I wasn't lying about breaking the both of them up.