"Motherfucker!" Jane screamed as she jumped down from the bed, taking a step back from the window with a face of pure anger. Saren also stood up and immediately started putting on his robe.
There wasn't only one reaper, there was more. A whole swarm of them appeared behind the Citadel, swimming in the vacuum. Their lasers crossed the sky, hitting the arms of the Citadel, and in minutes the station was in flames. Alarms went off all over the place, and thousands of shuttles flew out of the depths of the Wards.
Jane put her hands on the glass, taking a short moment after getting dressed. The machines looked like dark insects taking over everything in a matter of seconds. She swallowed her nerves as she realized how angry she was. Her hands were itching for blood now, and the sensation of love turned into a monstrous wrath in her.
Was this it?
Was this the moment they were trying to avoid?
"Here, grab this." she heard from behind her back, and saw Saren handing her a gun. It was a heavy hand cannon, glowing with mods on the side. She looked at it, then at him. Her eyes were filled with a fire that he knew all too well. "Where's your armor?" he asked, looking at her tight red dress. Not really suitable for fighting.
"On the Normandy, obviously.." she replied.
"All right..." he sighed "Just make sure you don't die."
She said nothing to that, she wasn't in the mood. She passed him and went straight for the door.
They ran out of the apartment without hesitation, getting into Saren's shuttle and in a minute they were up above the buildings, soaring through the chaos. But flying to the eye of the storm was not easy. The reapers mostly targeted buildings and shuttles, resulting in a chaos where every move was potentially deadly. His driving skills were put to the test as he was avoiding burning shuttles and reaper lasers, and some military ships flying out from the hangars already.
Jane was fiddling with her omni-tool, trying to reach the Council.
"Come on!" she shouted, concentrating on the little phone icon on the screen and the name written there.
"Who are you calling?" Saren asked, but there was no time to reply.
The shuttle turned on its head, evading a burning wreck flying right in their direction. The vehicle exploded, sending a shockwave around that caught their tail as well.
"Fuck!" Saren cursed, holding onto the wheel with as much power as he could.
[Shepard! We're under attack!] came from Jane's omnitool, the picture of Sparatus popping up on the screen.
"I know goddamnit!" she screamed frantically while Saren brought the shuttle back to its head, turning around and trying to navigate other routes. "Where is the fleet?"
[The defense force is already here, but they were obliterated immediately. The fleet is incoming in five minutes.]
"We need to evacuate the station!" Jane said, looking into his eyes and trying to focus on coming up with some plan to save the station.
[We have already started that, but we need to get rid of the reapers first!] he said, the connection breaking as a throbbing noise emanated behind his back. [Ahh, this fucker is blocking comms!]
"Where are you?" Saren asked, dragging the wheel left, evading a chunk of laser ripping through the buildings right in front of them.
[Destiny Ascension. We're coordinating the fleet's efforts once they're here.]
"All right." Saren nodded "Can you make sure to evacuate as many as possible, and hold the reapers up? We need immediate diversion."
Jane looked at him.
Diversion? He was planning something.
"What's your plan?" she asked. Saren did not look at her to concentrate on the route, but he quickly made a comment.
"We should use our biggest allies, this is the time."
[We don't have time for this! What are you talking about?] asked Sparatus over the comms, fed up, trying to keep in place as the whole ship around him was shaking.
"Do we have any Leviathan artifacts on the station?" Jane asked, looking straight at the video feed. Saren smiled. He loved her brain.
Sparatus on the other end of the line looked in his lap, hesitant to reply.
[Yes, but only one. It's in the Council chambers. The rest are being used on the battle theatres on the homeworlds.]
"Will one be enough?" Jane asked, grabbing onto the door of the shuttle as they turned one more time, avoiding death. Everything was happening so fast, she had no time to let the fear creep into her mind.
"I have no idea." Saren said with a heavy breath "But it's our only chance."
[What do you want with it?]
"You keep the reapers occupied and try to save the peoples while we sneak to the globe." started Saren.
"We use the globe to take control of the reapers" finished Jane "So we can get away."
The turian on the other side of the line went silent for a second.
[We can't leave the Citadel…]
"We can't, you're right." Saren said "But if we stay and fight, we'll all die and then lose the Citadel. This station is gone either way. We need to make the most of it."
Sparatus sighed, giving his answer after a second of silence. [Do it. I'll do my best.]
And with that the omni tool went silent and the call ended.
Their shuttle soared through the battlefield, now directly turning towards the Citadel tower that housed the Council chambers. It was more than hard to pilot this small vehicle through the fire and the flames, the shockwaves and constant fire. They were nearing the Presidium ring, when Jane managed to reach EDI.
[Where are you?] hummed EDI, seemingly upset, no background noise around her.
"I'm with Saren. We'll try to kick the reapers with a Leviathan artifact and then get the fuck off this station. Are you on the Normandy?"
[Yes, all accounted for, except for you Commander, and Saren.]
"Then come to the Citadel tower immediately, and join the distraction. We'll need an extraction once done here. The fleets are-"
Another wave of force hit the shuttle, this time from the front, and as she looked up, she noticed that the whole space around them went grey with the metal armor of spaceships popping out from nowhere. It was the fleet, finally arriving. They used the diversion to descend down to the Presidium entrance.
And the Presidium was completely changed.
Reaper scouts roamed the place, corpses, turmoil and wrecks everywhere. This place was taking its last breaths, void of the life that inhabited it once. As they made their way through the crowds of enemies, trying to come up on top without armor, constantly forced into cover, she felt her chest sinking in, filling up with emptiness and anger.
But she had to be strong.
She came so far, and it was not the time to fall apart. She saw Saren blowing through the swarms of husks, never missing a shot, moving forward always. They eventually got to the elevator and took it up to the Council chambers.
It was slippery from the blood, dark, none of the lights working.
When they entered and the doors closed, a dark quiet fell on them like never before.
"Are you okay?" Saren asked, his voice as low and beautiful as ever. It fit the darkness perfectly.
"I'm standing in a pile of blood of my society.." she replied sharply, not moving an inch. "How do you think I am?"
"The woman I know doesn't give up this easily..." he replied. She felt his eyes on her, almost glowing in the dark.
"Do you think I'm giving up?" she snapped, looking at him angrily, pain in her voice. She was standing there, bloody, her dress spilt with various coloured blood, her feet hurting from even standing there from the disgust. She projected a feeling of darkness that he could only feel, but never actually see in her eyes until now. Now it was present, sharp in her look. She took her anger out on him and she realized it already. A deep sigh escaped her chest. "... Sometimes I wish I could be as cold as you are."
"There is no such thing as a cold fire." he replied almost instantly, calmly, like he just presented a fact.
That whole sentence sounded romantic… weird from Saren. But even if it was just a stupid metaphor, it got her thinking. But there was no time to think now, the elevator doors opened. And what was waiting for them, was the Council's chamber in ruins. The reaper scouts ruined everything in the complex, and they were all over the the pedestal where the Council used to reside. It was so strange, knowing they separated. Sparatus remained to control the Citadel, while Valern went off to oversee the Crucible's operation. And Tevos… handled tragic asari matters. And now none of them were here, filling her with a sense of finality.
And they fought through them.
The fighting was always so smooth between them, they worked together as if all they've done in their life was fighting alongside each other. But now it became even smoother. There were no unnecessary moves, no mistakes, just killing, moving from target to target seamlessly working into each other's steps. They cut through the scouts like a hot knife through soft butter.
And when they reached the pedestal, Saren jumped to the computer and started looking for anything that could tell them where the artifact was within the chamber. Jane stepped over the corpses of the husks to look out at the battlefield. And something was very wrong.
Saren stopped.
A feeling in his chest arose, and his fingers crept away from the console. It was a feeling that he felt long ago, when he first set foot on the Normandy. It played the same sour, dark tone in his mind, flowing into his brain. He looked up.
A dark shadow loomed over the hall, reminding him of glasses shattering, a fluid darkness. He saw black, metal plates clouding the vision through the giant window behind the pedestal, and Jane stepped back from it, almost tripping in the corpses on the floor as a red, crushing light gleamed onto them.
It was a face of a reaper, ascending from the shadows, crawling onto the Citadel tower. It was bigger than anything else.
"Harbinger..." he whispered, looking right into its targeting core that was an eye of madness, a hot, burning core of lava.
"Quick! The artifact!" Jane screamed, backing away still, taking her place next to Saren, who resumed his work quickly, trying to hush his thoughts. The eye of the reaper ascended from them, letting them see it move higher, raising its metal claw to cling to the tower.
The fingers tapping the building shook the tower, cracking the ceiling as it moved, and they saw another leg, coming straight for the hall.
"Saren..." Jane hasted him, her voice worried, seeing the trajectory of the claw was right through the Council chambers. It was going to hit them. "It's gonna crush us!"
"Got it!" he said, as the console suddenly retracted, making way to a little opening in the ground. Saren reached in and pulled out the artifact: a glowing orb of glass, with darkness flowing inside.
Without hesitation, he pulled her to his side, and offered her the globe, and so they held it together. He looked at the reaper's claw, coming closer and closer to them, and he looked into her eyes.
"Do you remember this place?" he asked, whispering almost, his eyes locked in with hers. His hand squeezed her waist, pulling her in, keeping her with him.
She remembered this place.
It was where she first saw him when talking to the Council and telling him he was a traitor. It was where she promised to find him and kill him. It was also the place where the glass fell to millions of pieces after he pulled the trigger three years ago.
It was the place where she shed her first tear for him.
"Let's change its history." was all he said, a cold smile on his face. It was the kind of smile she loved the most on him: where his mandibles parted, his eyes glowing. He breathed:
"Leviathan."
A wave of shock travelled through the hall with a speed faster than light.
Time stopped for a second as they felt Leviathan's mind rushing through them and extending into the space around them. It was a short moment, bringing vacuum into their lungs, and releasing a force stranger than indoctrination. Jane saw the sea creature, its glowing eyes looking right into her, and through her…
Harbinger.
A second later, she found themselves standing in front of the orb that was now floating in the air, frozen, only its mist circling around it. She looked outside and saw the reaper's claws stop. She looked at Saren agan, who stood there, flabbergasted, but slowly realizing what happened.
[Commander!] came suddenly from Jane's comms, it was the voice of Sparatus [The reaper stopped! It's not moving, it's not shooting, it's just sitting on the Citadel tower! Did you find the globe?]
Jane sighed, a small laugh escaping her, voicing her disbelief.
"We did" came from Saren. "It's frozen."
[All the rest are still moving Commander, we have to get the hell out of here, even if the biggest one is gone.]
She screamed into her omni tool as an idea popped into her mind: "Close the arms! Harbinger is trapped, he has no access to the keepers, or the Citadel, it's completely out! Leviathan trapped him! So if it keeps him here, the rest will be without a leader! That might win us the war! Close the arms and get the hell out of this place! We'll regroup afterwards and find a plan to destroy them once and for all!"
He did not argue.
[Now closing Citadel arms.]
"That's my girl." Saren said, and when Jane looked at him, she moved so fast, all he noticed was that she was kissing him.
"Let's go." she said, and pulled him down from the pedestal while radioing the Normandy for extraction.
"You froze Harbinger?" came from Javik, whose jaw just dropped. "And you didn't try to blow it the fuck up?"
"The fleets have tried, believe me" replied Saren, crossing his arms. They were in the war room with the full crew, discussing what just went down half an hour ago. "They couldn't do it. It's carapace is… indestructible. It's not like any of the other reapers."
"I saw that" Joker jumped in "It's twice the size of Sovereign."
This time Kaidan stepped forward. "I cannot believe we just left the Citadel there. Probably millions have died."
"And if we and the fleets die, their sacrifice will be for nothing." Jane replied.
"They did not want to sacrifice themselves!" Kaidan argued "Those were millions of innocent people, and you left them to rot there!"
"Kaidan, you know that is not true!" Tali intervened.
"I didn't sacrifice them! The Citadel evacuated as much as they could! Half of the station was dead within minutes, how can you tell me I let them there to rot?!"
Jane was furious. She was on the verge of losing it all, trying to push the thought back, that just minutes ago millions of people died. And Kaidan…
"If you think I'm responsible for their deaths, you can go jump out of the fucking airlock now, or I will toss you out with my own hands!"
Kaidan stepped back. He remained silent for the rest of the conversation.
"Ok, so EDI" Jane turned to her "Please tell me we have something on Vendetta…"
"I couldn't recover the data itself" she said, raising her head "But they were sent to Cerberus HQ. The data tracks left led me to the location. We know where the Illusive man, and Vendetta is."
She turned around fast, still pumped from the action and the trauma, and looked at the galaxy map.
"Send the coordinates to Joker to set a course to wherever that is. We're going there. We'll rip his heart out, and finish the Crucible."