6 AC: Parnitha System, Thessian Orbit

This wasn't the first meeting of the new galactic Council, but given that they still hadn't settled on a name, it was pretty close.

Twelve races had representatives at the table, which was still onboard the Destiny Ascension. The only galactic races without a seat were the drell and the vorcha. The drell had given permission for the hanar to speak for them, and the vorcha did not yet have enough organisation to choose a representative.

The hanar delegate had argued about Humanity and the Ascendant having a seat each, which had been countered by the fact that each separately still had greater numbers than the other races, and perhaps the honoured hanar representative would prefer seats be given on a population basis for fairness?

The honoured hanar representative would not.

Three unofficial power blocs existed in the new Council. The original Council races, as well as the volus, were one. Both Humanities, as well as the geth and batarians, were the second. The third were the rest, mostly independent but also approximately split between the two main blocs. The krogan and quarians slightly favoured Humanity, while the hanar and elcor preferred the Old Council.

Tevos glanced around the table, a feeling of discomfort still lingering. The loss of status that the war had brought was unsettling, but it was an unquestioned fact that any race that stood alone would have been eliminated by now. Only their unity had slowed the Reaper assault on enough fronts to actually be effective. They had all fought together, buying time for something, anything.

They had it now.

"We can trust these...turncoat Reapers?" she asked.

Atkins shrugged. "We can trust them to kill other Reapers. Remember, these are the Reapers who most remember being races like us, before being...processed. Revenge is a hell of a motivator, and they've got just enough gratitude to not swipe at us while they're hunting."

"So as trustworthy as a rabid pyjak," rumbled Urdnot Bakara. The krogan clans had argued and fought for so long about which warlord to send that the female shaman had just sent herself, and announced she'd give up her seat and come back when they had a majority vote to oust her. So far, her seat looked pretty safe. Both Humanities had vouched for her as the krogan representative.

"And slightly more useful," said Sparatus. "Their intervention may save us, but they're not organised. We've received reports that the rest of the Reapers are forming hunting fleets to exterminate the rogue ones."

"The rogues do not work together. There have even been reports of them attacking each other," said Valern.

"They bought us time. Vital time," added Atkins.

"Time to do what?" huffed the volus representative, an ex 'financial advisor' named Barla Von, who was well known to most old Citadel diplomats. "They give us breathing room, yes, but we still do not have a plan to survive this war."

Quietly, the batarian representative cleared her throat. One of the new guard in the batarian government taking full advantage of Transcendent Humanity's offers, Challa was young, female, and outwardly unassuming. People who underestimated her rarely lasted long, however.

"We do know that they have no reinforcements. If forced to retreat, even through the Citadel Relay again, they will not have the resources to rebuild," she said in a light and high pitched voice.

"True," nodded Atkins. "They need other beings, millions of them, to make more Reapers. If we force them back, we will still have to be careful of any future attacks, but they simply cannot regain numbers."

"Are we sure of that?" asked Admiral Zaal'Koris, a quarian moderate who had mixed support among his people, but was willing to work with the geth and Humanity. "The structure the expeditionary fleet encountered was massive, larger even than your own Shell I believe?"

"Correct. It seems to be an ancient Shell, though of a very different design than ours. It completely consumed the star at its centre, which would have been a rogue on the extreme galactic edge," said Atkins. "For all its size, the Reaper Web is almost invisible at range, producing next to no heat or light despite its significant energy generation capability. The perfect stealth base."

"With nervous curiosity: what is the energy generation of the Web?" asked Calyn, the previous elcor ambassador to the Citadel, and current elcor representative.

"Extraction of galactic rotational kinetic energy through dark matter turbulence," answered the Ascendant, still represented by its Udina aspect.

After a moment's silence, Atkins coughed lightly. "More details please?"

"Dark matter is non-interactive with normal matter except gravitationally, hence why it tends to clump near black holes. The rotation of our galaxy drags dark matter along with it, and at the boundary into exogalactic space, there is turbulence between the rotating and non-rotating dark matter. The dynamics involved are complicated, but it seems to cause something similar to observed behaviour in superfluids, with localized turbulence of great intensity that does not spread beyond the immediate zone of contact between the two dark matter states. The thin, planet-sized mass effect fields between the Web's struts are essentially membranes that are disturbed by the turbulence, and leech energy from it," said Udina-Ascendant calmly.

A long silence followed as the Council digested the additional details.

"That is...most impressive," said Valern. "The technology required to do such is almost beyond imagining."

"Is it? We mainly thought it was rather expensive to build, time and energy-wise," said Udina-Ascendant. "An excellent choice for long-term energy generation while remaining hidden, but otherwise a waste of a perfectly useful star."

"You could do better?" asked Sparatus.

"We plan to, when the war is won," said Udina-Ascendant.

"I think that's still an if, not a when," said Admiral Koris. "And my original question, about Reaper numbers?"

"We have both high-intensity scans and retrieved logistics from the Reaper Web. Combined with our own observations, and those of the Doctor, we believe we can account for at least 98% of Reapers," said Atkins. "Admittedly, that margin of error leaves hundreds of Reapers as unknowns, but I think that is a significant enough percentage."

"If we can be relatively certain of Reaper numbers, what then is our plan for surviving them?" asked Tevos.

Sparatus shifted forwards slightly. "Between the joint efforts of this Council's forces, the Ascendant's assistance, the Doctor's...predations, and now the rogues? Reaper numbers are dropping to within defeatable levels. A joint military effort has produced a possible plan," he said, nodding to Atkins.

Atkins returned the nod, and said "The plan relies on several things. First, we let the rogues continue to reduce Reaper numbers. Current projections suggest the rogues will be destroyed by their more organised cousins within a month, but will inflict heavy losses. Once the rogues are defeated, the Reapers might decide to either rush our homeworlds, or retreat. To focus them on a more predictable path, we plan to leak intel to them."

"And they won't suspect it?" asked Barla Von.

"Doesn't matter if they do," said Atkins. "It'll be of vital importance, and they'll have no choice but to respond."

"What intel could make them do that?" asked Challa.

"Us," said Udina-Ascendant. "We are unsure whether the Reapers are truly aware of our nature. Given the impact the knowledge of the slumbering Voice had on them, our existence could drive them to a frenzy."

"And what's to say they don't already know, and are just planning on finishing you off later?" said Bakara.

"They may indeed already know. So we're sweetening the pot, so to speak. We will begin construction of an Avatar body," said Udina-Ascendant. "A physical form to house us."

"Don't you already have that? The, ah, Flock units?" asked Admiral Koris.

"Those are tools, drones that we house aspects of ourselves in. This would be a permanent physical body for us. With our full consciousness housed, the power we could bring to bear on the battlefield would be immense. But more than that, it would, in fact, be directly analogous to a Reaper," said Udina-Ascendant.

"And they hate the Voice for being almost like them," said Tevos. "Your manifestation would be…"

"Both a threat they can't ignore, and an existential problem that won't be able to," said Atkins.

"So we can draw them to one system," said Sparatus. "At which point, we meet them with everything we can muster."

"We may not win, given what we face," said Barla Von.

"True. But we'll have a few surprises to stack the deck. It's going to be close, but we're hitting them when they are at their weakest, and where they are irrational. To be perfectly honest, if we can't win under those conditions, then we never had a chance," said Atkins solemnly.

6 AC: Exodus Cluster, Asgard System

In the weeks since the Council meeting, the plan had been put in motion. The Asgard System was chosen, its location near three different Shells making the construction of the Avatar body easier. A decent Human fleet already protected it, and its combination of well-defended and out of the way had kept it safe for most of the war. It was far enough from major defensive lines to be a valid target for the Reapers, but not too obvious.

The Reapers had almost finished their conflict with the rogues, their numbers reduced to a bare thousand or so. They were still the most powerful force in the galaxy, so a few additional traps had been set.

First, the Avatar was much closer to completion than would be leaked. Ideally, they would have waited until it was truly finished, but the need to strike at the Reaper's lowest point was essential.

Second, were the forces arranged against them. A small group of a dozen rogues had been convinced to join, their sanity intact enough to wait limply until the Reapers arrived. The Doctor's arrival with a similar number of Reaper bodies had been an uncomfortable and difficult moment in keeping the rogues calm, but they'd quieted, slipping into what was almost a fugue state as they waited. Next, the Shells had been rapidly building and repairing ships and decoys. More and more 'well defended' systems housed drone fleets with enlarged hulls and energy signatures, shepherded by small teams of Uploaded and galactic pilots. It was another reason they had to strike now. Too many of their forces had been quietly moved here, too many systems only lightly defended. A push by the Reapers anywhere else but Asgard would be disastrous.

Finally, there was the Relay. It had been towed in-system, and put in a close orbit with a small planetoid roughly the size of Ceres. With the last reinforcements confirmed, and the intelligence leaked, the assembled fleets opened fire, cracking the planetoid into hundreds of thousands of rocky chunks. The resulting debris field was far denser than any natural asteroid belt, and the Relay became lost in it, new asteroids the same size as the Relay shielding it in a dense and dangerous cloud. It wouldn't last long, astronomically speaking, but until it was dragged out again, the Asgard Relay would deposit any incoming ships directly into chaos.

To help that along, antimatter mines, scrambler nodes, and decoy drones had been seeded as well, even including some stolen Reaper IFF provided by the Doctor. It wouldn't get them all, but a more confusing Charlie Foxtrot couldn't be imagined.

The fleets would wait outside the debris, hopefully to pick off isolated and disorganised Reapers as they emerged from the debris field. The Ascendant Avatar was within sensor range, the visible bait to lure the Reapers in that direction, and the majority of the fleets gathered before it.

Everything that could be arrayed against their enemy was, and they waited for the Relay to activate.

XXXXX

The first sign that their enemy had arrived was a burst of radiation as an antimatter mine went off, the flare pulsing out of the debris field. More quickly followed, before slowing. For several long minutes, an occasional blast echoed out, until they eventually stopped.

Tension rose in the silence, the debris making in depth scans next to impossible.

A single destroyer-class Reaper emerged, and was quickly engaged and destroyed. Another few long minutes passed, when suddenly the debris field swarmed. Reapers emerged from it like ants from a nest, their black metal bodies slipping out from asteroids, all of them emerging from the same side and heading to the Avatar.

At their head was one Reaper larger than the others, its running lights a baleful gold.

The unified galactic fleets moved to engage. Upgrades in technology and tactics had resulted in specially made Reaper-killing parties, each consisting of larger ships, such as a Human dreadnought or several galactic dreadnoughts, guarded by smaller ships. For their size, Reapers were too maneuverable for most other dreadnoughts to target, and far more powerful than anything smaller. The groups covered weaknesses, protecting the bigger ships until they could wear the Reapers down.

The groups were eclectic, with krogan/salarian and geth/quarian pairings hardly being the oddest couples. Transcendent Human ships were spread out, adding their massive size and firepower to any group that needed it, while several Flocks nimbly swirled through the battlefield, swamping Oculus swarms and shredding unlucky destroyers.

Roaring in from behind the galactic lines, the rogue Reapers were almost more threat than help, but their berserker tactics hit the Reapers hard, quickly claiming over a score of the dark ships before they were in turn destroyed.

From several outlying asteroids from the debris field, more Reapers emerged, their running lights the same cold blue as the greater fleet, their IFF hissing their allegiance. It was only when they closed in like a pack of wolves and started tearing into the Reaper's rear lines that the deceit was realised, and the Doctor's laughter echoed over the comms.

For all the planning, deception, and power brought to bear, the Reaper force was strong. Fighting with fanatic zeal and millions of years of experience, they escaped what should have been fatal engagements, turned organised attacks into near routs, and pushed further towards the Avatar's incomplete shell.

Grinding the galactic forces down inch by inch, they advanced, the golden light of Harbinger a beacon of destruction. It cost them, and though they left more than enough crippled or destroyed galactic ships in their wake, their own numbers dropped.

Finally, after the bloodiest few hours the galaxy had seen in 50,000 years, their final push broke through the line.

With a booming roar, Harbinger and almost fifty other dreadnought-class Reapers strafed the incomplete Avatar shell, tearing it apart.

In seeming shock, the broken galactic fleets pulled back, many heading to rescue what they could of those left in the wake of the Reaper advance. They were still able to fight, and many of their homeworlds still had defensive fleets that could stave off the Reaper remnant, but they no longer had the local firepower to overcome the Reapers.

Roaring across comms, Harbinger called out its triumph.

Your attempt at defiling apotheosis is destroyed, your defiance broken. You will not end us. We are eternal, each of us a nation. You believe we cannot rebuild? That we do not know of your attempt to desecrate our home?

The galactic fleet, floating still and wounded outside weapons range, could only listen to the First Reaper's rage.

You have failed. We will seal the Citadel, and return in time. Your children will burn, as you did not. They will receive the salvation you refused. The cycle will not end, and all trace of your heresy will be scoured away.

"Oh. How disappointing," came a calmer voice. Though it too rang through every comm in the system, it was conversational, not apocalyptic. "We do hope you didn't think that was truly us?"

Your Shells will be broken, your refuges sundered. We are older, stronger, more pure than you, abomination.

"We can make do with one out of three. Purity is stagnation with ornaments, and age is only useful if you change, Reaper. You may be older, but you have done nothing with that time. As for strength, well, let us test that."

Behind the ruins of the Avatar shell, space distorted. A great standing ripple formed, and its outer edges flared with blinding light. Its centre warped and thrashed, and with a wave of energy it pulsed outwards, vanishing.

In its wake, was a ship. It was an ellipsoid twice the size of a Relay, slightly thicker on top, with massive curves of armour like drifts of snow on a mountain.

"That was not our Avatar. You claim to be stronger? Then come, little Reaper. I AM HERE," boomed the voice, its last words sounding inside heads and bones rather than across comms.

The outer layers of the true Avatar body of the Ascendant began to shed, falling like scales from the wings of a moth. In their millions, Flock units disengaged from its surface and swarmed around the great mass, revealing a more angular shape beneath.

WE HAVE BENT SPACE AND TIME TO OUR WILL. WE WILL DEVOUR STARS TO FUEL US, AND PLANETS TO FEED US. YOU ARE SMALL, OLD GOD. WE LOOK UPON YOU WITH PITY, AND DECLARE YOU UNDONE.

No matter your size, you are a hollow creature. We have been the shepherd of this galaxy for a billion years. Our might will- responded Harbinger, before being interrupted.

THAT WAS NOT A THREAT. THAT WAS A STATEMENT.

Again, space distorted. First, ripples of blue light flashed from doppler-shifted photons down the immense length of the true Avatar, before leaping in sparks and streams to Harbinger. In seconds, the shields of the First Reaper broke, and tethers of gravitational force wrapped around it.

At either end of the struggling sapient construct, a ring began to form.

BEGONE.

The rings rippled, and two mass channels opened, each attempting to fling Harbinger across the galaxy. With a horrible echoing roar, the First Reaper vanished, a thin trail of plasma arrow-straight and light-seconds long appearing where the oldest entity in the galaxy once stood. Its path lanced through the rest of the Reaper fleet, tearing many apart. A scant handful of dreadnoughts sailed clear of the wreckage, and a barely equal number of destroyers.

The Avatar's focus turned like a spotlight to the remnant Reapers, its Flock spreading like great wings as energy once again flared over its length.

POWER DOWN, OR JOIN YOUR KIN.

The Reaper fleet hummed, communication sparking between them. As they did, the galactic fleet and the few remaining Doctor-Reapers moved closer, the tide of battle turning again.

One Reaper began to move, only for a pulse from the Avatar to send it sprawling, shields gone and hull cracked.

The rest stilled, and after an eternal wait, began to go dark one by one.

One long minute later, on encrypted and point-to-point comms, the Ascendant spoke to the galactic fleet.

"We're glad they bought that, because we're down to fumes here," its once again conversational voice said.

Warrens was the first to respond, the Endure Peace badly scorched but still moving. "Glad you could make it," he said.

A soft laugh rippled through the ship before the comm spoke again. "This thing is rough even for a prototype, and we cut it down to the wire to even get it ready for the jump here. To be honest, we gave it a 10% chance of arriving as noncontiguous particles."

"You all did your part," said the eerily calm voice of the Doctor. "And now, you get to decide what happens next.