Mass Effect 30 Day Challenge: Day 28
Prompt 28: Opinions on the Reapers
SPOILERS: Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut
Ultimatum
The Crucible, 2186 CE
Three different colours: red, green, and blue. The ghostly child-avatar of the Catalyst standing in front of her, its last words hanging over her head, a dire ultimatum.
The paths are open, but you have to choose.
Kara Shepard stared at the three paths in front of her, trying to get everything straight in her head. Control the Reapers, stop the destruction, fly them into a sun, whatever she wanted. Join all synthetic and organic life together, create a new DNA and break the cycle. Or Destroy. All synthetic life, wiped out, the Reapers gone forever, as well as the Geth, as well as EDI.
She coughed, and tasted blood.
This wasn't a decision for her to make – something this huge should be decided by vote, or by committee, people should have a say in whether or not the entire universe is rewritten, or if synthetics should die, or if a single person should have ultimate control over an unstoppable army of machines.
She took a deep breath, then groaned as she felt what had to be her entire ribcage screaming in protest.
She looked at the options, and remembered the child's other ultimatum, the sacrifice she had to make.
She swallowed and felt a few of her teeth dislodge.
So this was it. Death. The big sleep. The last hurrah. The End, written in capital letters and underlined in permanent ink.
Whatever she chose, each of these three options meant her death.
She gritted her teeth. Her mind cast back to the first time she saw Sovereign on Eden Prime. Saren and his Geth. The colonist becoming liquefied on the Collector Ship, more food for the Human Reaper. The Illusive Man's indoctrination. Earth burning. Watching the shuttle that held the child whose face the Catalyst wore like a coat get sawed in half by a laser.
Anderson, sitting down next to her just minutes ago, and not getting back up. Legion, giving his life to end a war that had lasted hundreds of years, in the hopes of stopping a much worse enemy. Thane, his prayer for her ringing in her ears as he breathed his last. Mordin, riding up the elevator, because someone else might have gotten it wrong. Kaidan, left behind on Virmire.
So many lost, fighting this desperate war. So many gone.
Kara Shepard began to move forward, every step sending pain through every nerve in her body. She clutched the pistol in her hand like it was a lifeline, guiding her forwards, and she stood between all three choices, stopping once again.
Years. Three years, and it came down to this. Three choices and three different colours and three was to change the course of history.
All down to her.
Kara thought about Earth, below her and in flames. Palaven, burning, as they watched it from the moon. Thessia, decimated. The Citadel now nothing more than a tool instead of the pinnacle of civilization it had once been.
She took a sharp turn to the right. Everything in front of her glowed bright red, and she took some more shuffling steps forward.
Three years. So many lost. Hell, even she had died once. Not like this. Her first death had been the result of a leaky oxygen tank. This was, what the warriors of old would call, a good death. A noble sacrifice. A worthy cause.
Kara Shepard shuffled forward again, her resolve firm.
This must end.
She hadn't given up her life once, and given every breath of her new existence, for anything but an End. Anything but the destruction. The cost had already been so high, and it would be high no matter what.
Nothing was going to change her mind. Nothing ever would. The End, once and for all, that she set out to do three years ago.
Destroy the Reapers. Whatever it took.
Even the loss.
I'm sorry EDI, she thought, then fired three shots at the panel. She gritted her teeth as Garrus's words echoed in her mind.
Come back alive.
Kara Shepard planted her feet firmly on the ground beneath her, and fired one final shot into the panel. Her own ultimatum. Her promise to try.
It wasn't the first time she'd gone up against certain death, after all.
And here, at the end of all things, she would not give up.
The panel exploded, and everything flashed red.
Answer: Destroy them, no matter what the cost
Yeah, we're not Reaper Fans here at Kara's Stories. Kara fully expects death to get her this time, but she has what some refer to as a bullheaded stubbornness about her, and when Garrus Vakarian tells you to come back alive, even in the face of certain death, you never give up.