A/N: Sorry for the long delay, holidays and whatnot. By the way, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!

Also, don't forget…the story is not over until it's over.

Disclaimer: if you are imagining an evil grin on my face right now, I can neither confirm nor deny that one exists.

On we go!

The Citadel was a tiny, metal flower hanging in the darkness of space. Behind it, the serene sapphire glow of Earth and the even more distant white flare of Sol etched the extended arms of the station in a rainbow of light, a brilliance of color.

Despite the Admiral's order, ships were still flashing past in tiny burps of blue, desperately passing through the still open Citadel relay to join those ships on the other side. As the last one vanished, the open relay quietly closed as Irie and Pio did their best to make sure the energy that was about to fire didn't disperse to the extra-galactic relays as well. If they did, the sheer amount of energy hitting that system could destroy not only that relay system as well, but would wipe out all the ships clustered around it, safe in dark space-defeating the entire purpose of sending them there to begin with.

For a long minute, the station remained in silence and color. Then a twinkle of violet light began to glimmer.

In a moment, the glimmer turned into a fountain, then a raging sword of purple and white that swept in a tornado around the Crucible, seemed to focus to a point at its tip, then bellow out in a silent thunderstorm of awe. Even as it began to rage outward, the Crucible began to swell and then to shatter, the already damaged weapon tearing apart under the sheer volume of energy rocketing through it once more. Explosion after explosion ripped it apart, debris scattering like glitter into the night.

The energy it had fired had taken two forms. A focused lance of it swept toward the Sol relay like a bullet fired from a gun, moving at FTL speeds. This was the bulk of the energy which had been focused through the Citadel's own relay system, allowing it to both be targeted and to go far more quickly than it would otherwise. The rest, the energy that could not be contained or focused into this 'bullet', had grown into a dome-shaped wave of chaos that began to grow as it swept outward at the speed of light itself, rapidly closing in on Earth and the Moon.

As the Citadel was equidistant from both bodies, it reached them both only a second later, that wave crashing on their surfaces and bending itself around them as a river would as it swept over a rock in its path.

There was not much on the moon save an Alliance training base, which had been fully evacuated. As the wave reached the surface, the gray silt rippled and shifted and then blasted in a torrent, columns and whirlwinds of dust being swept up in its path and into orbit as entire craters in the dust were erased, rock being exposed in several deep places. The shaky ring that surrounded the satellite from a Reaper impact during the War was distorted in the wake of the impact, the force of the passing wave shifting the orbital path of the rocks and thin debris while it simultaneously added more dirt and debris to it.

Those standing on Earth who looked upward in hope and anticipation, saw a sight that no eyes- human or alien- had ever before seen.

The station was on Earth's day side at the moment the Crucible fired. Those looking upward with worried anticipation saw a bright blue sky that suddenly rippled as if it were a still and perfect pond a stone had just been cast into. As the first edge of the wave struck the atmosphere, the sky turned ever so briefly into silver, as bright as a newly minted coin, then rippled into every shade of purple, blue, silver, and violet as any eyes had ever witnessed. To some, it seemed as if the sky was dancing, to others as if it were wobbling and bouncing, like gelatin that had been flicked with a finger. Aftereffects of this light show would remain visible for potentially weeks after the Firing; by day as a faint shimmering distortion in the sky, and by night as a dancing and rippling cavalcade of color and mist and illumination and an entirely new form of aurora.

Those on the night side of the planet told of waves of silver that closed around over the sky like the curtains shutting after a play, leaving the stars to dance and distort in the distance before they were greeted with a light show in rushing and flashing kaleidoscope of changing color.

On the day side, the impact side, less than a minute after the flash of silver that punctuated the wave hitting the atmosphere, it hit the surface. The bulk of the force struck nearly the center of the Atlantic Ocean, creating more than a few tidal waves and minor tsunamis. Where it struck land the ground shook, trees abruptly bent or snapped, and people were knocked to the ground. Windows as far away as a hundred miles from the coast of the Atlantic shattered. Millions were injured, thousands were killed, and for several months after several minor to major earthquakes spotted the planet as the fault lines rumbled their irritation…but the Earth did not shatter. Cities did not fall. If they were given the chance, mankind would do as they had always done from the beginning. They would collectively stand back up, dust themselves off, and continue.

The wave kept on, undaunted by the minor pebble in its path that was the planet Earth, the exobiotics feeding on every trace of dark energy or eezo, no matter how infinitesimal, as it went- transforming it atom by atom in a chain reaction. It reached Sol itself eight minutes after it left the Crucible, but the sun seemed as unconcerned with its passage as it was with much of anything else that happened to hit it over the course of its existence. If there was an increase in solar flare activity, that would take the scientists time to determine or observe. What was certain was that the corona did not fold like a house of cards, the core did not collapse, and the sun was in no more danger of going suddenly nova after the wave than it had been before. Clearly, either the wave was of much less force to the one that had torn apart Anadius, a much younger sun was in far greater shape to handle it, or exobiotics simply didn't have the same terrible destructive potential when meeting a massive nuclear reaction as dark energy did.

Meanwhile, the 'bullet' was speeding toward the Sol Relay, where it would be accelerated even further, transferring to all the connecting relays in nanoseconds and then continuing on from there in an ever growing web of exobiotic energy that would, in a few days, cover the entirety of the galactic system and the majority of the galaxy itself. By the time the wave hit Earth the 'bullet' was hitting the distant relay, a journey that would have taken over five hours to accomplish at mere light speed.

As it struck the relay, the relay shook. Even as it automatically 'caught' the bullet and fired it, its own eezo core was flashing and flickering dangerously, sending out lances of white light that for a moment, seemed to threaten to tear the structure apart. Then, the core dimmed, the spinning rings slowing like a wind-up toy whose coil was slowly unravelling.

Finally, the rings stopped as the light seemed to die altogether. For a long few minutes, there was dark silence. Then, a flicker of purple and white could be seen in its 'eye', and ever so sluggishly, the rings began to slowly shift again.

Standing in the Council Chambers, Melara looked at the huge windows that dominated the far wall, beyond which she could see just the glowing edge of the Earth. Her father had stood here before she was born and looked out those same windows just in time to call a warning to her squad, as a piece of the destroyed Sovereign had ruptured through them and crashed into this room.

Later, her father had once again stood, broken and beaten and dying, and had looked out those windows yet again, seeing flashes of the enormous battle between the Galactic and Reaper fleets, the broken ships, the wounded Earth in the distance.

Now Melara stood here, in the same spot, looking through the same windows. Outside them, all she could see was peaceful darkness and the edge of a calm and beautiful Earth. There was no ongoing battle, no death and destruction in sight, but the fear, the anger, the hope…those were all the same.

In her hand, she could feel the edges of the cube biting sharply into her palm as she looked at Pio, standing at the console shoulder to shoulder with Irie.

"On my mark, Captain," it said.

"Ready," she said, though she knew in the deepest part of her soul there would never be any 'ready' for this.

"Then let's light this fucker up," Pio replied, as its hand landed with almost feather-like gentleness on the control panel. "Now."

With every ounce of her will, fist shaking as she gripped the cube with monumental force, Melara wished the Cinch to release all of its energy.

A great rumble trembled the floor and a high-pitched sound, like a power saw singing against steel wires, seemed to cut with force right through their ears. With immediate reflex, unable to halt the motion, Melara dropped the cube and hunched forward, slapping her hands over her ears in concert with every other organic in the room.

The sound lasted only a moment, and Melara's eyes lifted again just as the windows went bright with light - so bright that sight was instantly robbed, and her eyes slammed shut in a futile attempt to protect themselves.

A breath later, the hand of a giant reached down and grabbed her hard enough she felt it squeeze every inch of her skin with tremendous pressure, before it threw her.

Softness came down then, and darkness, and silence.

A blurry, rippling, smearing image of her hand was the first thing she saw. It was laying in front of her face, nearly lost in a swirl of colors and negative shapes that seemed almost burnt into her retinas. Blinking her aching eyes, trying to clear them, she remembered she had a body and tried to test it.

Her muscles and skin ached dully. Her sinuses and chest burned and her mouth felt set on fire. Peeling her tongue off the roof of her mouth felt like peeling paper apart that had been glued together. She was more desperately thirsty than she could ever remember being.

Dull, cottony, repetitive sounds were in her ears, like the rhythmic thump of a mallet into a leather covered feather pillow six rooms away. It took her a while to realize she was hearing her own heartbeat. Lifting her fingers, she found her right ear was dripping blood. There was no blood on her left ear, and an irritating ringing was beginning to lift there, swallowing up the rhythmic thump.

Grimacing, she weakly pushed herself up, wobbling on her hands and knees a moment and still blinking rapidly. Tears were running in a steady stream down her face but her eyes were clearing some. She looked around as best she could.

Great swathes of black charred the marble of the Council Chamber floor in front of her. Nearby, a potted plant was smoldering, glutting smoke into the air. Melara realized with stupefied shock she was at the bottom of the stairs, some hundred feet from where she had been before. The press of her fingers to an odd sensation above her eye produced more blood, and she could feel a flap of skin hanging loose.

Unsure how bad she was hurt, Mel got to her feet and almost immediately wobbled and fell again, her head spinning wildly. Gritting her teeth, sucking in a deep breath, she did so again. Still wavering like a drunk on the deck of a ship at sea during a storm, she managed this time to stay upright.

She turned around and looked behind her.

The windows were gone. Half the wall was gone and the entire ceiling was gone. Beyond a shimmering veil of energy Earth and the stars could be seen, veiled by a thick debris field.

Earth. Earth is still there.

The master console and the promontory were twists of ruined, blackened equipment at the top of the steps. Seeing motion, Melara forced herself to move, weaving her way over to another figure trying to gain her feet.

"Vina?"

She knew she said the word, felt her lips and tongue form it, but to her ears it sounded as if she had spoken it from another room, with her hand over her mouth. The ringing sound in her non-bleeding ear had grown louder, but she was pretty sure no sound at all was coming in the other.

As she caught hold of the wounded turian, she was almost immediately waved off. "I'm fine…" Vina said with a thick, ragged cough…all of which Mel got more from seeing her motions than hearing her. "The others…"

Vina had been one of the small group standing furthest away from the console when it had exploded. Though she looked rattled and in some amount of pain, she was right-she was probably the least hurt out of everyone. Melara was already turning away from her and heading toward the steps, her heart speeding as adrenaline reminded her who had been standing right at the controls when that explosion had happened.

By the time she got halfway up the first flight of steps, the ringing in her ear had clarified into actual sound, and while her hearing still felt jammed with cotton, she could hear on that side. She was also seeing more moving forms in the smoke and haze. She closed in on Essien, helping the bleeding Admiral to her feet. Eír was next, mildly burned and blinking at Melara for a moment as if she'd never seen another asari before. She threw her physical shock off faster than the rest, her vorcha genetics no doubt helping, and they located Zyara and Nevil in short order. The quarian engineer was more badly hurt, pale and barely conscious, the stump where most of his left arm had been not bleeding only because it was badly burned.

"There should be some medi-gel kits on the wall over there," Admiral Nessien told Eír as Melara crouched at his side, then touched her arm. "I'll take care of him…find the others," she said.

Melara didn't want to leave her crewman in that condition but she had little choice, and continued up the next set of steps, fear now well and truly gripping her.

EDI lay, badly burned and unmoving in the smoke. Melara barely glanced at her as she limped past. EDI would have maintained the bulk of her systems in Goruba, not the chassis. The chassis could have been completely destroyed and not so much as given EDI the equivalent of a paper cut. The same with Pio.

They're probably already trying to get help to us, Mel thought, if not coming themselves in spare bodies with the rakir on their heels.

She reached the ruined console without finding anyone else. Heart now racing, her throat ragged and eyes running with more than just the smoke, she half-shouted and half-screamed into the gloom. "Irie!"

The action tore a painful cough out of her and she half bent, nearly dropping to her knees, struggling to both not vomit and to get the cough under control, then tried again.

"Irie!"

No answer, but her seeking eyes spotted something in the distance, far off to the left. Staggering to her feet again she hurried that way as much as she was able, limping and stumbling. The form was badly burnt, still smoking, and utterly limp. The first sob tore out of her as she dropped down to its side, gripping hold of it.

"Irie!"

As she bent over it, however, she realized it wasn't Irie at all, it was Pio. It's synthetic skin was so badly burned it cracked and flaked away under her fingers.

"Oh, Goddess…" she moaned raggedly, her grief not for Pio who wasn't really harmed anyway, but for her sister. They had been standing all but shoulder to shoulder. If Pio had been this badly damaged, the hope for Irie was…

"Irie!"

Her voice was so rasping and weak and tight that the call couldn't have made it further than a few feet. She looked around again, forcing herself again to her feet, away from Pio's charred form.

Then, she saw her.

Her legs carried her forward almost before her brain could command them to. She ignored the sharp stabs of pain through her knees as she fell hard to them at her sister's side, reaching out to grasp her, hope and horror both ringing through her veins.

"Irie!"

The older asari was lying face-down about twenty feet away from Pio, near the wall. As Melara reached her, she was stunned to see how burnt Irie wasn't. Pio had been horribly charred, but while Irie was burnt, it was nowhere near to the same level. Her temple was badly bruised, bleeding and swollen, and blood trickled from her lip, but the burns seemed to be isolated to part of her side and her shoulder, the cloth of her dress blackened and charred, the flesh underneath scorched and swollen.

The side it was on suggested that Irie had been, in fact, turning away from the console when the explosion had occurred, forcing the brunt of it to hit her on that side- but even that motion shouldn't have saved her. The heat would have been too intense, the impact of the concussion wave alone enough to shatter every bone in her body, steal her life.

But she was alive. She was hurt, and she was unconscious, but Melara could see her breathing, and as she touched her, Irie grimaced and made a muffled sound of pain.

"Shh, shhh," she said, unsure if Irie could hear her. "I'm here, Irie. You're going to be all right."

Looking toward the others she tried to shout at them, as best as she was able. "Admiral! Admiral! Vina! I need help!"

Her eyes returned to her sister and she checked her over again, still astounded at her condition. Then, awareness began to dawn in her eyes and she looked over at the Pio chassis, then back at her sister.

Could it be Pio saved her? she thought.

It could be that they had a split second- Irie and Pio- to realize the explosion was about to happen. They could have seen something on the console-something that allowed a single reflexive movement but didn't happen fast enough for them to warn the others or get further away. Irie had begun to turn away from the console out of that reflex, but Pio's reflexes-being synthetic-were much faster. It had turned and perhaps had even grabbed Irie, putting its expendable chassis between her and the brunt of the explosion and the fire. Perhaps it had even had time to push or throw her further away.

It wasn't enough to stop her from being badly injured, perhaps, but it had been enough to save her life.

Irie made another faint sound of pain, and her eyes began to shift. Realizing her sister was regaining consciousness, Melara once again called as best she could for the others, then bent over her sister, whispering in a voice turned into a stranger's by the heat and smoke.

"Shh, it's going to be ok, Irie. You're hurt but you're alive. Don't move…you're going to be ok…"