"Get your ass over here Shepard! Kalros will be back soon, and I don't plan on dying today!" Wrex shouted over the comm.
"You heard him, double time it people!" Shepard shouted as the group ran towards the tank which was waiting for them.
"Everybody in, go go go!" Shepard shouted before getting in herself.
"What about Wreav?" Eve asked.
"That pyjack was useless, maybe now we can use our food to feed more useful Krogan." Wrex said dismissively.
"So we're going to have to summon Kalros huh? Sounds dangerous, but I've had more then my fair share of danger in the past two years."
Wrex chuckled. "Haha! That's the Shepard I know, even death just pissed you off, you'll be fine at taking down that reaper."
"We're going on foot for the final stretch to the shroud, since we're smaller targets when outside of the vehicle." Shepard said.
"Old lab ahead, will use to finalize genopahage cure transmission, will finish cure from there and use old transmission strain."
"Sounds like a plan, anything else I should know?" Shepard asked, but nobody spoke up.
"Let's do this then." Everyone piled out of the tank, the reaper looked ominous, even from a distance.
"Rachni behind us!" Kaiden shouted.
"I'll take care of them Shepard, go on ahead without me, I'll be fine!" Wrex shouted before pulling out his Claymore and going to town on the insects.
"Let's get moving people!" Shepard said.
Reaper ground forces were no problem, since there weren't many of them. EDI and Kaiden had all tech and biotic powers and Shepard was packing heat, this well rounded combination resulted in the doom of the reaper's ground forces.
It wasn't fun though when the reaper started attempting to shoot Shepard with it's destructive laser beam, which almost hit Shepard on the bridge.
"Get behind cover when the reaper's weapon charges!" EDI shouted.
"But what happens if there ISN'T any cover?!" Kaiden shot back, they probably wouldn't have made it if the Turian fighters came back to distract the reaper.
"We'll keep this reaper off you Shepard!" One of them said over the comm.
It was significantly easier to progress after the reaper was distracted, but it was also significantly more terrifying being right under the bloody thing.
"Screw those brutes, just run past them with me!" Shepard shouted before dashing right past them. He almost got crushed by the feet things holding the reaper up when he made it to the first hammer. The he dashed right back and made it to the second maw hammer where he again had a near death experience by another close encounter with the reaper's crushing feet things.
"Get to the shuttle you two! I'll get the cure dispersed with Mordin and meet up with you on the shuttle!" Shepard commanded, and both EDI and Kaiden were happy to comply to the order to get the heck outta there.
Meanwhile
Tom awoke again, this time he actually had a decent sleep, he didn't feel as sick as before either, but he was definitely still sick.
"Are you alright Tom?" Dr. Chakwas asked.
"I'm feeling a bit better now, and I didn't have any nightmares this time."
"That's good, unfortuenly it's the ship's night cycle now and everyone's going to be sleeping, so you might be a little bored for a while, this might keep you entertained for a while." Dr. Chakwas picked up a datapad from her desk and handed it to Tom.
"The codex, isn't this a compilation of the general knowledge of the galaxy or something?"
"Yes it is, you should fine many interesting subjects on there, that should keep you entertained for a view hours."
"Thanks." Tom hid his disappointment well, he had already seen 90% of the codex anyway, so none of this stuff should be new. More out of showing respect to Chakwas then anything else, Tom went into the know associates category, since that one was his favorite. Interestingly enough, there was actually one new one
Garrus Vakarian
EDI
Dr. Chakwas
Commander Shepard
Tom selected Commander Shepard's entry, since this one was never in the games. It made sense though, since Shepard had his own part of the codex that broke down his or her's history.
John Shepard is an Alliance Commander and Citadel Spectre. Shepard was raised on many military ships, both of his parents were in the Alliance when he was born, and he was never on the same ship for longer then 6 months since his parents transferred often. He followed in his parent's footsteps and enlisted with the Alliance when he turned 18.
Shepard was on shore leave on Elysium when the first wave of batarian slavers, warlords and criminals attacked, this attack is know as the Skyllian Blitz. Despite overwhelming odds, Shepard not only survived the attack, but rallied the civilians to hold back the attackers and when their defensive line was breached Shepard himself sealed the breach, and after hours of grueling fighting reinforcements came and the attackers fled, throughout the alliance Shepard is regarded as a true hero, this is the main reason Shepard was promoted to Commander so quickly.
Shepard is extremely proficient with all modern firearms, he is a notable sharpshooter as well, and was the first ever human Spectre. He is also part of the Alliance's N7 program of special forces, and he passed the entry exam from N6 to N7 with flying colors.
Commander Shepard is directly responsible for stopping Saren when he attacked the Citadel as well as saving the Council from Sovereign. Some of his less know missions are when he formed with a temporary alliance with Cerberus to stop the Collectors. Right now he is currently working with the Alliance and Council to stop the reapers.
That was definitely interesting to read, all things considered, he had never thought that Shepard actually had his own codex entry, but it did make sense.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Mordin, are you sure you want to do this?" Shepard asked.
"Yes Shepard." The elevator door closed. "Someone else might have gotten it wrong."
Mordin's elevator accelerated to the top floor, where a damaged console waited for him. "Error! Temperature malfunction detected! Error!" The automated VI said.
Mordin easily fixed this issue and entered the cure solution into the machine, there was a failsafe but he bypassed it.
"Class bypasses, old failsafe, excellent work, yes yes." He smiled as the cure started dispersing into the atmosphere. "Genophage cured, Krogan free, new beginning, for all of us." Mordin smiled as the top floor exploded, killing him instantly. Shepard watched the top floor go up in flames sadly, although he knew there was probably no other way for this to end.
...
"Thank you Shepard, thanks to you the genophage was cured, and now we can finally fight the reapers at full strength." Wrex said.
"So you'll be deploying troops now?" Shepard asked.
"Yep, I'll be deploying Krogan to Palaven immedietely, and when you're ready to hit Earth just tell me."
"Thanks Wrex, I need to be going now, good luck with organizing the clans and such."
"Haha! Make sure to kill a couple reapers for me out there, see ya Shepard!" This definitely ended on a good note, it was neat to know that Eve's actual name was Bakara, he had not expected to be told that when they were riding back in one of the tanks.
...
"Shepard, I understand that you've cured the genophage." Counciler Valern did not look pleased.
"So what? We need their help in the war."
"It's not that I didn't approve, it's just that our Dalatrass is rising a lot of trouble over it, but that's not the reason I'm here, there's something else I need to talk about."
"What is it?"
"I've found some evidence that points to Udina doing some illegal things, but it would better if we could talk in person."
"I'll get to the Citadel as soon as I can, we can discuss this there, I knew that guy was going to do something traitorous one day."
"That'll be acceptable, Valern out."
"Joker, get the Normandy to the Citadel when you can, I have a meeting with a Counciler."
"Yes Commander, setting a course now."
Shepard walked out of the war room, waiting paitently as he was scanned by the two privates that were STILL camping the door.
"Don't you two ever get tired of camping the door?" Shepard asked.
"Nah, we get to see the saviour of the Citadel on a daily basis, and with the things you do on this ship, I doubt we'll ever get bored.
"Well, I guess that's true, keep at it, you two.
"Sir yes sir!" Both of them said with uniform precision.
Shepard smiled, the banter those two talked about was either very true or very funny, it was funny to listen to them sometimes. Humor was always welcome in a desperate war, especially since the last mission was so exhausting. He didn't feel very energized, so he decided to sleep for a bit, since it would clear his head of this pounding headache, he could see Tom after that.
...
Shepard exited his quarters and entered the elevator for the crew deck, he had to talk to Tom. He arrived at the crew deck quickly, and made his way to the medbay. Tom was on his Omni-tool when he entered the room.
"Oh hey Shepard, come to check up on me?"
"Partly yes, how are you doing?"
"Well I'm ok, but it isn't fun having radiation sickness."
"I hope you get better soon, but this wasn't the only reason I came here, is your AI, Section available?" Shepard was lucky Dr. Chakwas happened to not be in the room at the moment.
"Of course, what is it you want?"
"I've come to an executive decision that we should introduce him to the crew, but of course you won't be there to talk about it, so I was just making sure that you would feel comfortable about this decision."
Tom looked surprised. "Why are you asking my permission, if you feel it's nessasry then I'm not going to stop you, just ask Section himself, here I'll link him to your Omni-tool so that he can communicate when ever he wants."
"Can't he just do that himself?"
"Well, he's an AI on a very small piece of software, so he can't do too much at a time without overloading my Omni-tool and although my Omni-tool has somewhat better processing power then yours, if he did more then three things at once he would probably overload it, so it's easier on my Omni-tool if I just link him myself, here you go, he should be able to communicate with you at any time without any significant drop in either mine or your Omni-tools performance.
Hello Shepard, you called?
"I did, I was wondering if you'd be comfortable if I introduced you to the rest of the crew?" Shepard asked.
I believe that would be beneficial since I would be able to exchange data with the rest of the crew, yes.
"Ok, I'll arrange a meeting an-"
"Uh, Shepard we're 20 minutes from the Citadel, you might want to come up here since none of the normal channels are responding to my hails."
"I hear you Joker, I'll be up momentarily." Shepard sighed. "I swear he has the WORST possible timing, I'll introduce you later Section, duty calls." How long had he been asleep for? It felt like a quick nap, but in reality had probably slept for longer then 6 hours, which he did not intend to do.
...
"Uh Shepard the Citadel isn't responding to my hails at all, what should we do?"
"Check emergency channels, this might be one of those situations." Shepard seemed calm, although inside he had no idea what was going on and was a little worried, but he had to stay strong for everyone else.
"This is Commander Bailey, Cerberus troops have taken control of the station and C-Sec headquarters, we need immediate assistance!"
"Joker, ask Kaiden and Garrus to get to the shuttle bay with full combat gear, and get James to gear up."
"Yes sir."
...
"Do we have any idea on what's going on down there?" Kaiden asked as the shuttle disembarked from the Normandy.
"No, all we know is that Cerberus has taken the Citadel and C-Sec HQ, which is where we're going now, C-Sec is critical if we want to retake this station."
"What the hell is that Illusive bastard thinking? This doesn't do anything to help us in the war, and you told me that he apparently has 'humanity's' best interests in mind." James said, he was raring to go.
"Ask him, not me, I only worked with him because he gave me all the supplies at the time, but Tom told me that he had bugs all over the ship, including my personal bathroom, so you can bet I have a bone to pick with him."
"When I find him, I'm carving the names of all the he's killed civilians into his skull." Garrus said, he wasn't joking.
"Commander, we're entering C-Sec HQ." Cortez said.
"Open the hatch." The scene outside was chao, C-Sec defenses were getting slaughtered as Cerberus pushed forward aggressively, and Shepard could barely make out Bailey getting shot in the stomach right next to the door to C-Sec HQ.
"Let's get out there and do some damage, Garrus set up with your sniper, I want someone watching our flank, Vega, Alenko, on me." Shepard ordered.
It has hard fighting a slightly uphill battle, but Cerberus wasn't expecting another attack on their flank so that gave Shepard's squad a small advantage at the start of the skirmish.
There were a lot of Cerberus troops, and many of them tried to flank Shepard's position, and this was the exact reason why he had chosen Garrus, many of the troopers died from a single head shot, or if they had shields, an overload, followed by a head shot. James was going crazy with his grenades, throwing them at anything that looked at him funny, and Kaiden was just providing general biotic, tech and fire support for anyone that needed help.
After several minutes of combat Shepard wiped some sweat from his brow as the last trooper got shot in the head. He jogged over to Baliey, who was injured, but it fortunately wasn't life threatening.
"Bailey, are you alright?"
"Yeah, those bastards missed my heart, I'll be fine."
"Can you get us in?"
"As long as no one interrupts me with a bullet this time."
The door opened, showing a very damaged and dirty reception desk, Cerberus, no doubt. Shepard sighed, he had a lot of ground to cover.
A/N: Prepare yourselves for canon divergence next chapter...
Reviews:
BrotherCaptainSheperd: Yeah, that's right, you better deny it.
general-joseph-dickson: It's just going to get better, mate.
redcollecter: Like I said in the author's note, prepare yourself...
(Massive SSB4 reference here if anyone gets it)