IV: HOLOCAUST - END OF THE OMEGA ARC

The following chapter outline is how the Omega arc would have concluded.

Chapter 57: Fight for Omega Part 2:

Section 1:

Chapter would have opened with Petrovsky's POV. Petrovsky cancels Operation Invincible, as he is informed of Grunt's attack on the assembly zone, and the slaughter of several of his regiments by Colwood, who managed to escape during the evacuation. UGC air strikes have begun throughout the Dyuko district, although Cerberus AA batteries are cutting many of their aircraft down. Raymond Air Base has fallen, and the Hades Line has been outflanked, stopping Petrovsky from ordering a retreat and cutting him off from the vast majority of his troops, trapping them, leaving him only 5,000 men left out of the 30,000 he originally had. Things get worse when he realizes the districts are in open rebellion, and Petrovsky expresses outrage when he finds out many of his men opened fire on civilians. He blames Wchest, but ultimately excepts the colonel's logic when he explains the civilians were uncontrollable and that his men had no choice but to open fire in order to retreat. Aware that New Order HQ could be cut off from the docks, Petrovsky orders Banes to take the Deliverance and link up with the Cerberus Fifth and Ninth fleets, not wanting to risk the UGC capturing such a valuable vessel. Banes agrees, contacts Randall (ordering him back to the ship), and prepares to disembark. Petrovsky orders the remaining Cerberus forces under his control to retreat to the Dyuko district, but to cease all aggression against the civilian populace. With his back against the wall and left with no choice, the General contacts the scientists of Project Adversity and orders them to deploy their available adjutants into the district, hoping that the ones they have will be able to turn the tide. Knowing the Normandy squad will likely be spearheading the UGC assault, he has the entirety of the 9th "Greywolves" Shadow Force company redeployed to defend New Order HQ in the event of being breached. Petrovsky orders his colonels to prepare for one final assault.

Section 2:

This section would have been from Shepard's POV. Nyreen splits off from the group to rally her troops, while Shepard's squad, followed by Aria, reach the upper levels and link up with UGC forces assaulting an undermanned Cerberus checkpoint guarded by sentry guns. A rocket launcher blows a hole in the wall, allowing krogan and vorcha soldiers to outflank the checkpoint and slaughter the Cerberus squad manning the checkpoint, while the turrets are disabled by Moses, with the help of Tali. Moving through the checkpoint, they are joined by Grunt and Jack. Nyreen eventually joins them as well, accompanied by a squad of Talons, as they continue to push towards New Order HQ, now firmly advancing through the Apex: Grunt informs Shepard that his forces have successfully pulled off a pincer movement, cutting off 25,000 Cerberus troops and pinning them between two opposing UGC assault groups, trapping them and effectively taking them out of the fight. They finally reach the barracks, where they are quickly pinned down in a battle with a defending Cerberus battalion, but are close to breaking the stalemate.

A passing airstrike of geth fighters breaks through the Cerberus anti-air cover, and bombard the barracks, obliterating the front of the barracks and killing nearly a hundred Cerberus soldiers, with dozens more wounded. The pinned down forces storm the barracks, quickly overrunning their positions and commandeering abandoned equipment, including two Atlas mechs and heavy weapons. A pair of UGC shuttles land and drop off reinforcements, one of the quarians being a red-visored female wielding a massive M-9 Usurper rifle: this is Nyareth'Kannos vas Xonna, from the Quantum Error series, and these reinforcements join the attack on the barracks. Shepard orders Grunt and Jack to stay behind to hold their rear (in case the Hades Line forces successfully break through), and Nyreen does the same with her squad, before following Shepard, his team and Aria towards New Order HQ. They quickly reach it, finding the area overrun by UGC forces, who have moved on elsewhere after clearing the area of Cerberus. They find a squad of Talons waiting at the steps to New Order HQ, only for the Adversity adjutants to suddenly appear from the doorway. These adjutants slaughter the Talons with ease, turning them into more adjutants. Nyreen freezes up in fear.

After a moment of Shepard fruitlessly engaging the adjutants from a distance, but only succeeding in gaining their attention, Nyreen steels herself. She turns to her daughter and proceeds to 'kiss' Sata on the head, whispering something in her ear, causing Shepard to frown. She then turns and snatches the bandolier from James' chest and rips it off, sprinting towards the adjutants. Aria screams at her to stop, but Sata remains silent, nodding with reluctant acceptance at her father. Nyreen blocks out Aria's desperate yelling, and dumps the bandolier infront of the adjutants, but not before priming it. The grenades explode, but only manage to severely wound eight of the adjutants, and they quickly begin to heal. Now completely surrounded, and with civilian lives at risk with adjutants loose, Nyreen attempts to fight them off. One of them manages to bite her in the back, much to Aria's dismay and Nyreen's dreaded realization. Nyreen realizes she is doomed to transform into an adjutant, and with the process taking place, looks to Aria one last time, whispering into her comms regrettably, "Look after our daughter, damn you." She then primes the napalm grenades on her waist, forming up a biotic dome around her and the adjutants. They detonate, the explosion consuming her and the adjutants, killing them all.

When the smoke clears, Aria runs over and falls to her knees to find only a few dismembered limbs and bloody stains. Shepard grimly notes that the adjutants are dead, ending the threat they temporarily posed. Aria hangs her head low, hands landing in the pool of blue blood and becoming soaked in it, as Shepard and his squad watch on: Shepard orders his squad to spread out, while he watches Aria with growing concern, not liking her sudden silence. The remaining three Talons from the slaughtered squad that Nyreen sacrificed her life for are then killed suddenly as the doors to New Order HQ open, with a Shadow Force squad emerging to meet Shepard's squad. Filled with a new fury, Aria stands up, still covered in Nyreen's blood and wipes her face in it, before brimming with biotic energy and charging forth, the force knocking Shepard and his squad over and onto the ground. Aria grabs the side of the building with her biotics and rips it down, using the concrete and plastisteel to swat aside the entire Shadow Force squad, crushing them, and then uses reave on a single surviving operative, before dropping him and impaling him on a piece of rebar, right through his skull. She then storms through the door, bashing through it effortlessly as she charges into New Order HQ, screaming, "You're fucking dead, Petrovsky!"

Chapter 57: Fight for Omega Part 3:

Section 1:

This section would have been from Shepard's POV. The squad duck down as the rain of debris from Aria's attack rains down around them, nearly killing them. They stand back up just as Aria gives her furious declaration from before as she storms through the doors, the sound of screaming and gunfire being heard shortly after as she proceeds to massacre the rest of the Shadow Force soldiers. Shepard orders his squad to form up on him and pursues Aria, telling James, Liara and Moses to stay behind and cover the doorway in case of reinforcements. In the corridor, they find nothing but the contorted and bloody remains of dead soldiers, with entire limbs and parts of their bodies missing in a mess of gore and damaged wall panelling. They enter New Order HQ to find it almost entirely decimated, with the bloody corpses of the rest of the Greywolves littering the command center. Colonel Amish lies across the command center's holo table with a snapped neck, a piece of bone jutting from his neck where a geyser of blood is spewing across the table, causing the holo projection to stutter violently, panicked Cerberus comm chatter emitting from the comms. Colonel Colwood is on the ground crushed under a slab of concrete, literally pancaked. Colonel Wchest's upper torso hangs from the ceiling, dripping blood everywhere, while his lower torso lies lifeless on the ground near the vidscreen, which was clearly smashed from the impact of the lower torso hitting it: the scene is a nightmarish bloodbath.

Colonel Kirk Farland is the only one still alive, wielding a pistol in one hand as blood leaks from his lips, both of his lower legs broken from shotgun blasts taking out his kneecaps, bits of splintered bone jutting out. He raises his weapon and fires harmlessly at Shepard, and Shepard orders him to stand down, as the war is now over. Farland nods, stating "indeed it is", before raising his pistol, pointing it at his head and pulling the trigger, blowing his brains out. Shaking his head, Shepard and his squad move upstairs to Petrovsky's war room, where they find Aria, her hand wrapped around Petrovsky's throat as she holds him over his chessboard, choking the life out of him. Shepard rushes up to her, ordering Aria to let him go. Aria initially refuses, confused as to why Shepard wants him alive, but Shepard explains that while he worked with Cerberus, any intel he has on the organization would greatly aid the UGC in eventually defeating them; because of this, Shepard would rather take him alive to be interrogated. When it almost seems like Aria isn't going to let go, Shepard feels the urge to raise his weapon at her, only for her to hesitate for a moment and finally let go, taunting Petrovsky and telling him to remember her 'mercy.' She turns to Sata and nods, looking almost sad as she looks at Shepard, Nyreen's blood having dried on her face. They both turn to Petrovsky, who huddles over a console, broadcasting to all Cerberus forces his orders to surrender, effective immediately. With this, the Second War for Omega is brought to an end, and General Golo reports that all Cerberus troops on the Hades Line and Dyuko district have surrendered, with a few of the commanders committing suicide to avoid capture. A few continue to fight, but are dealt with easily.

Petrovsky sighs and rips his uniform off, taking time to specifically rip the Cerberus logo off, before placing the uniform on his desk and placing the logo in Shepard's hand, a symbol of Petrovsky's surrender of his forces into Shepard's custody. He bends the knee before Shepard, not Aria (a pointed and spiteful message stating that he doesn't recognize Aria's authority), lowerds his head and declares that he hands himself over to Shepard's custody, and that he awaits his judgment. Initially confused, Shepard declares he will be arresting the General, before having a few Talons place omni-cuffs on him and have him escorted to the Normandy's brig for transfer to Alliance authorities. Aria is not happy with the decision, but is cowed and begrudgingly accepts it. As Petrovsky is taken away, he admits to Shepard that he wishes "they could have been allies", before warning him that the Illusive Man has dispatched two fleets to reinforce his garrison, and will not be aware of his surrender. Shepard quickly catches onto Petrovsky's wording (the General is effectively defecting to the UGC), and nods. Aria overhears this and tells Shepard she will deal with the fleets, and believes she has a suitable plan to take care of them, laughing as she states, "Cerberus left us some toys to do just that."

Section 2:

This section would have been from Aria's POV. A few hours after the end of the war, Aria gathers civilians and Talons in the command center, having cleared it of the bodies, although some blood is still present. The Talons demand to know where Nyreen is, and Aria informs them that she sacrificed her life to save her men. To their shock, Aria declares she will honor Nyreen's sacrifice by creating a new and better Omega, much to Pike's bafflement. Afterwards, she informs Shepard that, with Omega now free for the UGC to use as a naval base, all facilities will be made available to them and dedicated entirely to the war effort. The new Talon leader, Walter Pike, states that the Talons will now join the UGC, but will not join under Aria's banner. This changes when Aria gives a speech about how wrong she was to believe that a lawless Omega was a safer place. She therefore announces her intention to turn Omega into the respectable, self-sustainable state that Petrovsky had started to form, and officially establishes, in Nyreen's honor, the Omega Republic, with Aria as its provisional ruler. This shocks Pike, who changes his mind when Aria offers him the status of making the Talons the Republic's quasi-police/military force. Pike agrees, and declares the Talons for Aria. Everybody cheers, with Aria proudly proclaiming "We are Omega!" Shepard realizes that perhaps Nyreen's death did more to change Omega than she did in life.

Section 3:

This section would have returned to Shepard's POV. With the war on Omega over, Shepard says goodbye to Aria, Ahz, Jarral, Dreg and Bray. He remarks to Bray, although privately, that Aria is "one piece of work", to which the batarian chuckles, Bray having found a new found respect for Shepard. He says goodbye to Sata, reassuring her that Nyreen loved her greatly, and wouldn't want her to waste the opportunity she has been given. Sata agrees, and decides to honor Nyreen's decision by making her own. With that, Shepard heads for the Normandy in preparation to leave, concluding that Nyreen's death gave Aria the final push to change. He overhears Aria announcing that she will keep Cerberus' particle cannons, and will have new generators constructed to bring them back online, making sure the Illusive Man will never retake Omega. As he approaches the airlock, he overhears Nya being told by her commander to load her shuttle and prepare for dust off. He finds Garrus and Tali waiting for him at the airlock, the former remarking that the smell is unbearable, while Tali asks where they'll be heading next. Shepard gives a solemn grin, reminded once again of the cost of victory, before following the two onto the Normandy.

Section 4:

This section was from Sata's POV. Back in her quarters on Omega, Sata muses on the words Nyreen last spoke to her. She realizes that Aria can never change, and that if true change was to come to Omega, she would have to succeed her mother. With that in mind, Sata laments on the future. This storyline would have been continued in V: Ultimatum as the 'Sanctum plot.'

A/N:

Might release a part of the outline each week, as I've got to tweak the outline so it reads more naturally. The outline I had was originally meant for my-eyes-only, and thus its clipped and to the point, and often has repetitive sentencing because its not meant to be a final product. The outline you see here has been majorly tweaked so it reads more smoothly and cohesively.

Again, I'm sorry about the cancellation, guys. Nobody wanted to see this story finished more than me. But some things just don't end the way you want. Rest assured, I will not allow this to happen to future stories: especially not Equilibrium or Flashpoint.

Please continue to review each outline post, because I would like to hear your opinion on what you think of where I was going with this story. Mostly, your opinion on key story decisions, character moments, villain motivations, etc. I also especially want your opinion on Holocaust's ending when its posted, because I want to know if I did it better, worse or on par with ME3's endings.

Basically, Holocaust's outline will be released in nine separate parts (including this one, which leaves 8 to go) and are separated based on arc and plot.