Chapter Sixty Three: Prothean
Garrus, Liara, and Shepard were heading to the place where it all began, Eden Prime. The shuttle had video capabilities on it, so Shepard watched the colony burn. It used to be a wonderful place. Shepard had been to it before Saren had attacked. Hope used to fill the streets, and it was by far one of the most majestic places he had been. Twice now he had watched all that burn down.
"Something very important is here," Liara's voice pulled him away from the screen. "Cerberus wouldn't have mounted such a massive offensive otherwise," Liara was also watching the screen. Her eyes were hard, and showed no emotion. This war was a monster.
"Could it have something to do with the Crucible?" Shepard's mind was alive with the thought.
"Maybe, but don't get your hopes up. It could be anything Prothean," Liara's demeanor changed at that. She was now practically drooling. Garrus also noticed the change, and shot Shepard an amused look. Shepard liked to think that Liara was still an archeologist, not the Shadow Broker or a talented biotic turned soldier. It was stupid to think that way. If he dwelled on what people wanted to be instead of what they were, then he would dwell on his own misfortune regarding job choices.
"What happens to me once you find a more fascinating Prothean relic?" Shepard smiled at the reference to the early days of their relationship.
"I doubt there'll be a more dashing relic, Commander," Liara pointedly looked him over. The microphone in his ear was flooded with ahhs from the crew watching and listening back on the Normandy. He decided not to think about the fact that she just called him old.
"Truer words have never been spoken," Shepard beamed at Liara.
"Commander Colt Shepard, graciously taking compliments since whenever he was born," Garrus announced in a tone not matching his playful facial expression. "Liara, pretty sure we all agreed not to feed the Commander's ego or did you miss that meeting?" Shepard was the only one allowed to be a smart ass. Damn him and the mandibles!
"So this is the place where the Prothean beacon gave you the vision warning us about the Reapers?" Liara interrupted before Shepard could get back at Garrus. He would've much rather stayed on a lighter topic, but he was once again thrown into heavy conversation.
"Indeed it is. Ashley was actually the one who caused me to become half Prothean. She got caught in its beam, so I threw her out of the way, but then I got caught in it. Sheer luck and curiosity on Ashley's part is the main reason we ever found out about the Reapers...Not that knowing years in advance ever did anything," Shepard bitterly announced. No one had ever been more justified saying 'I told you so.'
He hated the Council for ignoring his warnings. He hated the Alliance even more - they should've readily trusted him. So many people could've been saved if they had trusted him. Something twisted had decided that he would be put in the forefront of it all, forcing him to watch the nightmares he had tried to prevent. Like it or not, Shepard had failed to stop the Reapers. He had failed. It was soul crushing.
"It did help, Shepard. Even if you think it didn't, our warnings did help," Liara looked so sure of herself. He wondered if she was naive or right.
"Something tells me that three hundred thousand batarians might disagree with you. Six months is apparently what their lives were worth and nothing happened in that time period to stop the Reapers," the words were out. Garrus and Liara said nothing. He was definitely turning into a bitter old man. "Sorry...I just get a little angry when I think about spending years of my life trying to prevent something that happened anyways." Yep, he was digging a bigger hole for himself. "Okay, you know what? Ignore everything I said. That was bitter, shit-for-brains Shepard speaking," his last sentence brought back a smile to his companion's faces.
"You were last here four years ago, seems longer," Garrus turned his attention to the screen. Shepard thought it was better not to say it seemed more like two years for him. His death was still a touchy subject.
"I remember the reports. I was busting my ass trying to get anything on that bastard Saren. When it came through that he had attacked a colony while I sat on my ass shifting through bureaucracy...mhhm," Garrus growled, which was a little scary with his sub harmonics.
"Ah, you and bureaucracy. It's a tale filled with love, laws, and mandibles," Shepard paused when he saw Garrus' face. "...You always did prefer a straight out fight," Shepard grinned at the fact that Garrus no longer had a shortage of fights.
"And you, my friend, have a talent for finding them," Garrus flared his mandibles in the turian version of a smile. Shepard grinned like an idiot right back.
"They hit Eden Prime hard. There are survivors, but anyone close to the dig site was slaughtered," Liara returned Shepard back to the situation.
"They deserved better," Shepard felt numb to the whole thing.
"I know," Liara looked at him with sad eyes. She shouldn't have been fighting in this war. None of them should have. If only people had believed him. "The Alliance tried to get as many out as possible, but Cerberus came so quickly," she trailed off in the end.
"If we find survivors, we'll rescue them," Shepard knew they wouldn't. He was far too familiar with Cerberus's practices to have any illusions about survivors. Liara and Garrus' faces told him they thought the same.
"I'm bringing you close to the dig site," Cortez's voice made Shepard walk to the shuttle's cockpit.
"Sounds smashing," Shepard refused to respond normally. Things were too tense these days to be serious. After a nod in response, Shepard went back to the main compartment.
"Alright everyone, get ready to move," he told his group, while taking a weapon off his back. He got two excited smiles in return.
Shepard jumped off the shuttle and quickly started scanning for Cerberus. There was no one in the immediate area, so he relaxed a millimeter. Cortez had dropped them on a rocky path with makeshift housing a little ways down it. One side was a deadly drop and the other side was slightly raised with long, green grass growing on it. Mountains were far in the distance, the sky was the clearest blue Shepard had ever seen, and the tops of carefully sculpted buildings rose into the sky. Eden Prime would've been a paradise if not for the silence that meant hundreds dead and countless more evacuated.
"You know what kind of makes me happy?" Shepard was moving cautiously down the path, but there was still absolutely no one.
"What?" Liara asked from further behind him.
"While I was gone the only thing Cerberus managed to do was travel back in time. Instead of inventing cool guns with lasers and shit, they decided to go with swords. Who the hell thought to themselves, 'You know what? I think swords are gonna be the thing, never mind the fact that a person with a sword can be shot down from a safe distance or the fact that modern armor stops swords effectively. They look fantastic, so lets hand them to every crazy person who can move quickly.' The Illusive Man must of hit his scotch, or whatever he drinks, hard one day. I can only imagine him waking up to an army armed with only swords," Shepard laughed at the thought of a hung over Illusive Man.
"Does seem like an odd way to take Cerberus. I would've gone with the lasers and shit," Garrus sounded so thoughtful.
"The swords aren't even that well made. I was practicing with one earlier and it was obvious how poorly constructed they are. If I hit one just right, I could break it in two," Shepard combat rolled into cover and quickly looked around. There was still no one.
"Why were you practicing with a sword?" Liara sounded slightly amused and slightly agitated.
"I get bored very easily Doctor," Shepard took on a defensive tone. Her reply was a long sigh. "I remember how wonderful this colony used to be," his words were more for his benefit than anyone else. Shepard looked towards the mountains for a second. He noted the smoke drifting in front of them.
"This colony survived Saren, it will survive this," Garrus's voice startled Shepard for a second. They had finally reached the silver pods used as housing, so Shepard was pretty tense. There were always more places for the bad guys to hide in places like this.
"It's easy to imagine the grimy city I lived in as a teenager being a war zone but this place? It's so odd, so unfair. Dammit, these people didn't deserve this!" Shepard was looking at a burnt piece of metal. Someone had probably died there.
"No one deserves this," Liara stopped next to him and gave him a reassuring smile. The awful part of Colt made a list of all the people who deserved this. It was disturbingly long.
…
Fifteen thousand credits was the final tally from a couple of research pods. Shepard didn't want to rob the place, but he needed the money desperately. So far he hadn't told anyone about his money situation, so he still relied a great deal on missions for treatment money. He also managed to gather quite a bit of information that would help the remaining colonists. Liara sent it out to the resistance. With any luck no one else would die.
The group was moving between housing pods when they all simultaneously caught sight of something Prothean. "So Liara, ever dug up any...what's the word? Dinosaurs?" Garrus was a master at ruining dramatic moments.
Liara was scanning something with her omni-tool. "No, dinosaurs are for paleontologists. I'm an archaeologist, so I study artifacts from sapient species. The two fields are completely different and... you were joking," Liara turned away from her omni-tool for a second. She glanced at Garrus with such embarrassment that Shepard had a flashback to the SR-1.
Garrus and Shepard looked at each other before bursting into laughter. Over the years Shepard had carefully cultivated Liara's sense of humor to the point where jokes rarely got past her, so this was a rarity. It was nice to see a part of the past reemerge. Also, it was kind of nice to see the all powerful Shadow Broker get flummoxed. "Maybe a bit," Garrus was still laughing through his words.
"What would I do without the two of you?" Liara finished scanning and started towards the human.
"You would probably be digging underground somewhere for a Prothean belt buckle thinking to yourself, 'Why don't I have two comedic geniuses as best friends?'" Shepard couldn't get over how funny he was to himself.
"I'm almost positive that's what would've happened," Liara replied. She was typing at the controls to an elevator Shepard had found. "Goddess!"
"Actually I'm male, but I appreciate the thought," Shepard had been waiting to use that.
Liara laughed, hard, for about three seconds before she became serious again, "This isn't a Prothean relic, it's an actual Prothean."
Shepard watched in stunned silence as a platform with some sort of pod on it was lifted to their level. Liara wasn't kidding; he could feel its presence. The part of his mind that was Prothean came alive. Partial visions, cut off words, and letters took center stage in his mind.
"Commander, Shepard, Colt!" Liara's voice steadily grew louder. "Are you okay?"
"Fine, why?" Shepard focused his eyes on her.
"Your eyes changed colors, and you started talking in a language my translator didn't pick up," Liara was looking at him like he had finally lost it. The only appropriate response was a shoulder shrug.
Liara looked over him worriedly and then jumped into Prothean culture. It was very similar to ancient asari culture. Colt managed to earn good boyfriend points by complimenting the asari people a couple of times. She also said that he probably knew as much about Protheans as she did. That was totally untrue; compared to Liara, the Protheans knew nothing about themselves. After a rather interesting lecture about Protheans from Liara, they headed out to get the information needed to open the pod.
Three of the galaxy's best almost died at the same time. A Cerberus shuttle flew straight at their position; only all three dropping to the ground saved them from getting decapitated. This only served to throw Shepard into a rage, who did a biotic charge into a trooper. The trooper stumbled back from the hit, making it easy for Shepard to finish him with a single shotgun blast. Then he did a biotic charge into another Cerberus trooper, killing him with a nova. In a couple minutes he had killed six Cerberus troopers in much the same way.
Shepard loved the noises biotic powers made, it sounded like the air around him was being warped before turning into a noise reminiscent of an explosion. The combination of manipulating dark energy and his own yells made it sound like war. An intoxicating sound. His relentless biotic attacks made the previously silent colony very noisy.
"I fucking love biotics!" Shepard announced to his companions when they got to him. Neither of them had fired a shot during that scuffle.
…
Odds things were happening to Colt. His mind was going between his native English language and Prothean language. He kept accidently ordering his ground crew to do things in Prothean. The pod data they collected from Prothean recordings certainly didn't help. Liara told him that his eyes changed colors again and that he kept muttering stuff in Prothean. Weirder still was everyone else's inability to understand the message. The crew back on the Normandy said they couldn't understand the messages either. Everyone else saw static, while Shepard saw a race being obliterated.
Even during combat he was off. He was still able to kill whole groups of enemies with only a few biotic attacks, but he wasn't entirely focused. No one else seemed to notice, so he kept quiet about what was happening in his mind.
Somehow he made it through all the confusion in his mind to the point where they opened the Prothean's pod. He would never know he fought a mech in this state of mind. Everything was on autopilot at this point. His fingers knew exactly what to type to open the pod, but if he thought about it he no longer knew. Same thing when it actually opened, Shepard saw the Prothean, but didn't really look at it.
"Goddess!" Liara was pretty much bouncing up and down when she saw the Prothean, "It might take him awhile to regain full consciousness." She barely took her eyes off the Prothean to tell Shepard this. Jealousy coursed through his veins at that.
The Prothean dude opened his eyes and looked over all three of them. Shepard smiled at him, while preparing a welcome speech inside his head. Before anyone could say anything, a biotic hit sent all three flying. Mr. Prothean's biotics mostly hit Garrus, knocking him out, but Shepard and Liara got a dose. In fact the wave caught Shepard in the stomach, making his pre-existing issue flare up. It was certainly a fight keeping himself from vomiting blood.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Liara getting up. Thank God she wasn't hurt very badly. Garrus was still out and he was still getting through a cybernetic attack. Shepard knew he was a hot-headed individual, but knowing that didn't stop from rage setting in. Pain tended to throw Shepard into a blind rage.
Colt jumped up from his position on the ground and followed the retreating Prothean. "Be careful, he's still confused," Liara called after him. Shepard jogged up to the Prothean, caught the back of his armor throwing the Prothean to the ground. Pain flared from his stomach, making him even madder. His right fist built up biotic energy for a punch that the Prothean would never forget, if he survived it. How dare he knock out one of his friends, hurt his girlfriend, and remind him of his cybernetic problem.
"Stop," Liara was behind him, with a hand on his shoulder. "You'll kill him," he turned to look her in the eye. They looked at each other for a few seconds before Shepard let his biotics dissipate. The Commander turned back towards the Prothean he was about to kill for no reason and offered a hand to him. Immediately he was thrown back fifty thousand years.
The same Prothean they had gotten out of that pod was also the star of all of these visions. This Prothean was racing around trying to get his people into life pods, but ultimately it appeared that only a few hundred would make it. A series of massive explosions secured his life pod's position. Then it came out that his name was Javik, Commander Javik.
"How am I supposed to save a people with only a few hundred members?" Javik stared at the ceiling of his pod.
"Adjustments must be made. The neutron purge has compromised the facility," another voice came through the pod.
"Clarify?" Javik was a soldier, not a scientist.
"Time reactivation is not possible, you will have to be awoken manually," the different voice responded. "You will remain in stasis until another culture awakens you. This will lead to a power shortage."
Javik realized what that meant the same time Shepard did. "DO NOT SHUT OFF MORE PODS!" Javik roared into the tiny space, trying to sit up. "I need the people who are left," this was said with more desperation than anger.
"Power will be placed where it's needed," the voice carried no emotion. Implications hung heavy. "You will be the voice of our people, Commander."
"I will be more than that," Javik growled before the vision ended. The stress of the meld made both Commander Shepard and Javik fall to their hands and knees.
"How many more?" Javik asked weakly. Colt was already back on his feet.
Shepard felt really bad for almost killing him earlier, "You're the only one." Shepard realized that they weren't speaking in Prothean, "Why aren't we speaking in Prothean?"
"I read your physiology and know your base language. We can speak in Prothean if you wish, I know that you speak it fluently, but I suspect that your companions will want to know what we're saying," Javik finally got to his feet.
"So you read me while I saw..." Shepard's mind still wasn't doing too well.
"Our last moments. Our failure," Javik seemed to have completely forgotten that Shepard would've killed him if not for Liara. Shepard was not unhappy about Javik's forgetfulness in the least.
Colt stepped around to look Javik in his face, "It was not a failure. Your people did everything they could and never gave up. None of those things are a failure."
"Shepard, you got Cerberus all stirred up," Cortez, unexpectedly contacted him.
Liara got closer and Garrus walked from where he had been knocked out. "Asari, turian, human. I am surrounded by primitives," Javik boosted everyone's self-esteem.
"We can't stay here. Will you join us?" Shepard stepped towards the Prothean.
"You fight the Reapers?" Javik looked at him with two of his four eyes.
"Actually, that's all I do," Shepard's life was revived to defeat the Reapers. That was his only purpose.
"Then we shall see," Javik turned to face Shepard completely. In an attempt at earning another ally, Shepard reached out his hand for a handshake. The Prothean stared at him, didn't take his hand, and walked away. Maybe he was still bitter about Shepard trying to kill him.