"So what are we expecting down there?" James was raring to go.
"We're trying to find an ancient species, they're called the Leviathan, but it's hard to find where ever they are on a place like this." There was a raging storm outside, and by the looks of it, not much landmass to land on.
"Is this why I'm here?" Liara questioned.
Shepard turned to her. "Yes, just because I believed that your previous experience as an archaeologist might be handy."
"So what do we know about these Leviathan?" James asked.
"Apparently they're strong enough to disable a Reaper easily, which is something you can think would be useful if we had it on our side."
"Do we know anything about their origins, or their motives?" Liara asked.
"No, I didn't get much information about them, in fact I'm not certain that they're even on this planet, but we have to try and find them regardless of that."
"Commander I'm picking up a Reaper signature in orbit, it's coming down to the planet's surface now."
"Cloak our heat emissions, even if they can see us we're not going down without a fight, I don't plan on dying today."
"It's far enough away to prove a minimal threat, but we can't get too close without getting shot down, I believe it's seen us, but it appears not interested in us at the moment. "
"Well, I guess this is the right place then if a Reaper's interested enough to investigate, I'm going to assume it's also after the Leviathan."
"Commander! I'm picking up some sort of pulse originating from deep below the water, it's trajectory is right in the path of the Reaper, orders?"
"Let's just watch this happen, don't stay close, fly a bit further away so we don't have to worry about getting hit by it."
Everyone watched in the cockpit as the pulse instantly disabled the Reaper in a single shot, the Reaper fell into the water, sinking down to the murky depths where it would lay forever, the pulse was barely visible when it hit, but when it did the red sparks of energy sparked across the Reaper's hull before it fell into the water.
"Holy hell! It disabled that thing in a single shot! It didn't even take a year for it's shields to break, it just died!" James was surprised.
"I'm more concerned about another thing, how are we supposed to get down there? The Leviathan itself is probably a thousand or something feet below the surface, how are we going to get down there?" Shepard evidently was more concerned about the task at hand.
"Commander, this shuttle was built to withstand extreme heat, cold, and believe it or not, it can withstand the pressure of being underwater for prolonged periods at once, in theory we should be able to go deep enough to see the Leviathan, at least if the manual is to be believed."
"Well, there's only one way to find out, Cortez, take us in." When the shuttle actually survived under water Shepard let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"What are we supposed to do when we find them?" James was pacing slightly, he had energy which wouldn't go away, he was expecting a fight, not a shuttle ride.
"Relax, you're going to wear out the floor the way you're pacing, why is that?"
"I'm just full of nervous energy, Commander. A death at the bottom of some random planet's ocean is not how I wanna die."
"Dying wasn't on the agenda, I'll make sure we get out of this, it'll be fine." Shepard reassured. He looked out the window, they were getting very deep under water, he could see some alien flora and fish, there was barely any light down here, the lights on the shuttle were the only thing that had light down here, it was slightly unnerving.
"Commander, we can't go much deeper, only a little bit longer and the pressure will start to break this thing."
"Take us as far you can, but not any lower, I was tasked to find the Leviathan, but I'm not going to kill myself trying."
"Yes Commander."
Shepard turned around, only for everything to be grey. He spun back around, everything was gone, there was nothing, where was he? He didn't remember dying or any of that, where the hell was he? He suddenly felt the sensation of being in dark, cold water, it was extremely unnerving.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" He called out.
"You are an anomaly, but that's enough to be different, to defy the odds."
"Who's there?!"
"We are the Leviathan." Shepard turned around to see Bryson's lab assistant.
"Hadley?"
"Simply someone to visualize in your mind. We are the Leviathan, and you are an anomaly."
"What do you mean?"
"You defied the odds by destroying the one known as Sovereign, you've destroyed other Reapers, this has never happened before."
"What do you mean?"
"We have been here since the beginning, before the cycle started, before the Reapers began their harvest."
"I've heard that one before, what's this harvest you speak of?"
"The harvest is a cycle which repeats itself every 50,000 years, at the end of every cycle the Reapers come and scour the galaxy, taking all organic life and storing it in the shell of a Reaper, one Reaper which you would consider Sovereign class is the equivalent of a dominant and fruitful species. In scope a civilization like this would be similar to the Asari."
"Why do they do this?!"
"It's a system of our own make, turned against us, when the Reapers didn't exist we were the Apex race, but we realized a pattern over the lesser species, synthetics would always rebel, so we created an AI to stop that from happening, in the end we were foolish enough to treat it like a tool like everything else, in the end the one you know as Harbinger was the first Reaper, created from my brethren and in the image of our species."
"Seems awfully a lot like the other races creating their own synthetics who then turned against them, that's awfully ironic for an 'apex' race."
"It was our own arrogance that was our downfall, we assumed we could easily destroy it if it turned agaisnt us, in the end we didn't have the foresight to think about the consequences of our own actions, but regret is a waste of time."
"Can you help me? We could use your help in the fight agasint them, we could never win this fight conventionally."
"We cannot provide any sort of tactical support in this war, the Reapers would hunt us to extinction, but we have seen your plans for the Crucible, it has been completed before, but it has never fired before, indoctrinated agents made sure of that."
"Then can you tell me what the catalyst is? That would at least help us build it."
"The catalyst is the Citadel itself, it draws energy from the Reaper's own creation and turns it against them, but the intelligence would ensure that any attempt of destroying the Reapers would ensure massive collateral damage, we've uploaded a virus onto your primitive Omni-tool which will disabled the intelligence long enough for you to make a decision without it interfering."
"Thank you, is there anything else I should know?"
"No, this exchange is over, finish the crucible and destroy the Reapers and end the harvest."
"My only question is how the hell can I trust you?!"
"The Reapers slaughtered us as well as everyone else when they cycle began, we want revenge, just like all of you, finished the Crucible and destroy them, this cycle has the best hope of destroying the Reapers."
Shepard couldn't remember when he woke up, but they weren't on the shuttle anymore. He had a bad headache and his nose was bleeding.
"Commander, are you alright? You were unconscious for a little over 3 hours and James made an executive decisions to bring you back to the Normandy, are you alright?"
"Yeah, hell of a headache though, I'm going to go debrief them, they deserve to know what happened."
"You also had some of the most unusual brain activity I've seen, your brain waves were changed it such a strange way, mind if you can tell me what happened?" There was no point in lying.
"The Leviathan...they spoke to me, they had mind control properties similar to the Reapers, but a bit more...refined, I still have a bad headache though, so it obviously isn't perfect."
"You'd better include this in your report, the Alliance will want to hear about it, you're free to go at the moment, the only issue I see is a headache and I didn't see anything detrimental to your brain or health while you were unconscious."
"Thanks Doc, I'll be going now."
...
In hindsight the catalyst being the Citadel was actually a genius move. How could you destroy a force so massive with a single shot from a weapon? Simple, turn the their own relay system against them. That was actually a genius plan.
"EDI, get me Admiral Hackett on Vid Comm." He said purposely as he speed walked down the CIC.
"I'll try my best to raise him."
...
"Shepard? What's going on?"
"I know what the catalyst is, sir."
"How did you find this information?"
"My report has the details, all you need to know is that the catalyst is the Citadel. Think about this, the only way we could defeat the Reapers is by using their own relay system against them, and the Citadel is the Relay control, in hindsight it's a genius engineering move from what I can tell."
"This information can definitely win us the war, thank you Shepard, you're saving a lot of lives."
"Just doing my duty."
"Also, there's one thing I've been meaning to talk to you about."
"Sir?"
"You know those advertisements about Sanctuary? The one on Horizon?"
"I've only heard it through eves dropping on some scared colonists that wanted to move there."
"Apparently it's a Cerberus facility run by some Lawson's father, that name doesn't mean much to me, does it to you? We lost contact with the mole shortly after she mentioned looking for her sister, does any of this hold any weight?"
Shepard's expression hardened. "This is Cerberus alright, they're probably up to no good, I'll stop them while you coordinate with the engineer's working on the Crucible."
"Get to it Commander, Hackett out." He ended the call.
"Joker, set a course for Horizon, we have a Lawson to save."
"The Ice Queen? Setting a course now Commander, I figured she probably be trying to do some damage to Cerberus as this point."
"You bet, I just hope we're not too late."
...
It was a slaughter when Shepard and his team consisting of Garrus, Kaiden and Tali stepped out of the shuttle which had landed close to the landing pad where a couple of Cerberus troops were gunning down fleeing citizens.
"Garrus start sniping, NOW! Tali stay on me, and Kaiden try to distract them while me and Tali flank them, this is going to be messy." Shepard said as he drew his Claymore.
It was a quick and bloody fight, Cerberus troops fought as hard as they could to buy time for their scientists to pack up, they were dug in and had superior position, but with Shepard and Tali flanking, and a sniper to keep the troops in cover they dealt with it quickly, they were getting hit on all fronts and didn't last long.
Shepard wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead after shooting the last solider. "That was tough, but stay frosty, we've got more Cerberus goons to clean up."
Any civilians that were fleeing were getting gunned down by any Cerberus troopers in the vicinity, they were making sure no one left, alive or dead, most bodies were burned as well as shot. There was a rough firefight when Shepard and co. got past reception, it seemed that they were specifically tasked to stop Shepard as they were packing heavy weapons and sniper rifles for brutal long range fights that were riddled with explosions and AP rounds.
They were pinned down for a while until they got help from an unexpected source, one of the sniper's suddenly stumbled back before screaming, and then promptly got lifted in the air before being smashed, triggering a biotic explosion from the combination of a warp and a slam. This decimated the two heavies and the other sniper that had the high ground.
Shepard holstered his gun when he saw who it was. "Miranda, you're the mole?"
"Let's just say I had contacts that let me get inside undetected, I assume you got my message?"
"Hackett didn't know what to make of it, but you got it across pretty clear, what's the situation?"
"Cerberus has killed 90% of the civilians, the rest are either hiding or captured, my father himself is holding Oriana hostage on the top floor, we've got to get up their before he kills her."
"That's just great, do you know how to get up there?
"Of course, I'll lead the way."
...
Resistance was fierce, but not very strong, the soldiers fought hard, but there weren't many of them, it seemed like they were running out of manpower and reinforcements, it seemed like the Illusive man had decided to pull the plug on this operation, and that everyone here was going to be discarded as useless. At the elevator they tried to use an improvised bomb that Garrus and Tali both quickly disarmed, they were definitely desperate.
There was some nervous shouting when they reached the top of the elevator.
"What are you doing? Don't leave me here! I'm useful!"
"Your projects didn't yield and interesting results, Lawson, my research made much faster progress and was much more cost efficiant, your operation is over, you better hope Shepard has enough mercy to spare you, but I doubt that, goodbye Henry."
"You asshole! I'll-" The door opened, Shepard and co. entered, weapons drawn.
"As expected, Shepard I'm walking out of here, Oriana is coming with me." He was clearly trying to mask his nervousness as he held Oriana at gunpoint.
Shepard chuckled. "This is what you get, a deal with the devil always ends with him abandoning you, did you really think I'm going to let you out of here? You're a dead man Henry, and now that fact is going to ring true."
Shepard aimed his shot and fired.
A/N: This chapter seems a little rushed, at least to me, but you can be the judge of that, I've tried to not leave any plot holes because I want my story to be somewhat believable.
Reviews:
redcollecter: I'll be getting to that.
general-joseph-dickson: Glad it passed as a good chapter to you.
Guest: If you're talking about Dr. Bryson then the answer is yes, I hated how he died right as you talked to him as it would've been cool to save him in the DLC as he could've saved us like 3 missions worth of searching for the Leviathan, plus his character is really cool.