Chapter 2: Into The Abyss

Shepard eagerly approached the crumbling throne. She didn't care much for the rotting shithole the krogan called Tuchanka, but she did care for the lumbering jerk currently tossing aside his guard to meet her.

"Shepard! My friend! You look well for dead. I should have known the void couldn't hold you." He rumbled.
She gave a goofy grin and slapped her hand into his claw. He squeezed, she squeezed back, and suddenly Tuchanka was bearable.

"You don't look half bad yourself Wrex, but you must be getting soft. I only see two new scars since I last saw you."

The world began to quake, the walls around them melted like sands in an hourglass, falling into an abyss of darkness. Shepard gasped and stumbled. Wrex stood still as a statue, smiling as if nothing was happening.

"Ha! You made the rise of the Urdnot possible. Virmire was a turning point, though not everyone was happy about it."

"Wrex! What are you doing? The ground is unstable, we have to leave!"

The world continued to disappear around them until only the small platform around the throne remained. Shepard frantically began searching the edges. It was all gone. The krogan, the Normandy, gone.

"Destroying Saren's genophage cure freed us from his manipulation. I used that to spur the clans to unify under Urdnot." Wrex continued.

Screaming in frustration, she stomped to Wrex and grabbed him by the shoulders. He didn't move. No matter what she did he didn't seem to see the devastation. Why didn't he react to the world around him?
Then Wrex exploded into red light, sending Shepard tumbling backwards off the edge of the platform. She screamed. Flailing in mid air, a familiar face blinked into existence.

"ORGANIC LIFE IS NOTHING BUT A GENETIC MUTATION, AN ACCIDENT. YOUR LIVES ARE MEASURED IN YEARS AND DECADES. YOU WITHER AND DIE. WE ARE ETERNAL." Sovereign roared.

Shepard clutched at her ears, trying not to panic even as she felt blood spill between her fingers. More voices began to join the massive reaper.

"Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"

"They did what they could, but you're going to have some scars. I'm sorry."

"Some women find facial scars attractive. Mind you, most of these women are Krogan."

She could feel herself fall faster… and faster… more and more voices cried out at her. Cursing her. Praising her.

"Shepard-Commander, I must go to them. I'm... I'm sorry. It's the only way." The metallic voice echoed in the darkness.

"Legion, the answer to your question… was 'yes'."

"I know, Tali, but thank you. Keelah se'lai."

It was bad enough that she was hearing voices. To see their faces… What was going on? Why was this happening?

"After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began."

'Tali!'

Shepard choked out a sob. The darkness flashed once more, and all that remained was Sovereign.

"YOUR WORDS ARE AS EMPTY AS YOUR FUTURE. I AM THE VANGUARD OF YOUR DESTRUCTION. THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER…"

She convulsed, and the word pierced her. She hissed, she gasped for breath. Then everything faded away, leaving nothing but a lone woman falling to darkness.

Shepard awakened to blackness and the cool sensation of water all over her body. With an inaudible groan she attempted to move… Only to find her muscles wouldn't respond. This should have been troubling perhaps, she couldn't breath underwater, but the only thing she could feel was an all encompassing peace. There was a sluggishness to her mind, like the morning after shore leave on Omega, only this time Jack wasn't here to...

'Harbinger!'

The thought of her enemy pierced her like a bullet, bringing some energy to her thoughts. The last thing she remembered was the Harbinger's attack, and then… nothing. Where was she? What happened to the fleet?
Struggling to turn Shepard snarled at her rebellious limbs.

'Ugh, why is it so difficult to think?'

Almost a decade had passed since Commander Shepard graduated from the Alliance N7 program. Her body had been hardened with intense conditioning, gene therapy, and cybernetics. She had been taught how to survive on harsh worlds, kill in countless different ways, and most importantly she had been taught to never give up. This lesson had saved her life on many occasions, and she was not about to break tradition now.

Shepard turned her head and scanned her surroundings.

'Yup, still dark.' She sighed.

She could see no further than a few yards in any direction before the murky water clouded into an oppressive, black, curtain. The only source of light, the dull, red, illumination emanating from her implants, served only to enhance the claustrophobia of the environment. A glance at her body explained the intense cold she felt, she was naked.

She was vulnerable, alone, and slowly sinking into a seemingly endless abyss without an oxygen supply. It suddenly struck her that she hadn't needed to breathe the entire time she had been conscience, but she couldn't seem to muster the energy to react to that fact. She was tired. How long had she been fighting the reapers? How much suffering had she gone through? How many lives had she ended just to delay an enemy that destroyed everything anyway? There were only so many times one could fight indoctrinated civilians before the nightmares came.

All she wanted to do was to rest. Yes, just letting go sounded good. All she had to do was let herself fall. Let gravity do its work and carry her, she had done enough hadn't she? All she needed to do was rest.

Rest.

"Ah, and what is this?" An oily voice broke the silence, snapping Shepard out of her trance. "For as long as I can remember I have lurked here, between the worlds. I have witnessed countless curiosities fall into my province, blissfully unaware while I watched their slumber."

Shepard felt something stir the water behind her, and it grabbed her leg. A thick black cord, its outline glowing an angry red, grasped her with crushing strength as the unseen entity laughed. "Poor things, pathetic things, all I have to do is wait patiently and you fall right into my grasp. However…" Shepard screamed as the the branded her with an icy burn. The cold coursed through her veins and filled her mind and body with the freeze, her skin frosted and the intensity of the cold threatened to make her blackout.

"I have seen the fall of civilizations and witnessed the birth of countless new life. And yet, they fall here. They always come here in the end. And yet, none have sparked my interest nearly as much as you. You scald where others are merely lukewarm. In this darkness you burn with something I have never seen before! I want this power, I need this power! You will be my vessel as I feast on your strength. You will receive my brand, and I will drink your soul. Now, scream for me!"

Immediately Shepard twisted to face her foe, lashing out with a biotically charged fist, striking harmlessly against the soft skin of her assailant. It chuckled in response, a huge mouth splitting into a menacing smirk. It was a creature of sharp angles, with skin as black as the dark water s crisscrossed with bright red patterns that glowed with mesmerizing pulses.

Shepard kicked with her free foot and struck the tentacle wrapped around her leg. The thick appendage only tightened in response, and pulled her closer to that monstrously toothy grin.

"YES!" The creature pulled Shepard through the water. "You are a fighter, a leader of armies. You see yourself as a champion against the things that lurk in the dark, don't you?"

Shepard tried to reply, but only managed to fill her lungs with frost. She whipped around, her body filled with painful energy, and clawed at the cords now crushing her chest. Her hands scratched uselessly against its oily skin, only managing burn her hands from the cold.

"Look at you." It said with glee. "I can feel it, once you stood among those you called friends. Once you stood before nations, and led them to battle. Now look at you! You have fallen, a lost soul like any other. You challenged the gods and were struck down. But I can make use of you. I will not let you fall to your rest. When I am done you will be my thrall, you will remember your defeat, you will remember the scope of your failure, and how completely pitiful it was. When I am done, I will use you to find those you care for, and you will know you helped feed them to me. Everything drifts through here eventually, after all."

Shepard bit back a curse as blow after blow struck against her. She would struggle out of its grasp for a moment, only to be caught again as two more appendages appeared from the darkness to bind her wrists, and constrict her neck. She resisted, but her strength was nothing compared to the behemoth before her. She could feel her consciousness slipping, and raged inwardly as her struggle proved ineffective.

Then, lights appeared.

The lights were small, dim, points blinking against the endless darkness like distant stars. They drifted slowly, and approached from all directions. The creature didn't notice at first, its focus was on her. One dim point brightened more, and more until the light filled Shepard's vision and blinded her, causing her to shut her eyes. She could hear the monster scream in pain and feel it thrash with rage. The light radiated intense heat that boiled away the water around her, but left her unharmed.

Shepard convulsed, her limbs thrashed, and she was released as her assailant recoiled.

Slowly, the pain subsided and Shepard drifted free in the water. Her muscles feeling as if she had just ran a marathon; her heart pounded intensely in her chest. Gently, she could feel several hands grasp her body and steady her. A loud, electric warbling filled her ears. It somehow sounded familiar, and it filled her with hope and dread in equal measure.

She raised her head as something drifted forward into the light, water boiling and foaming furiously around it. It was humanoid, tall and grey with metal plates and tubing snaking throughout its form. Its head curved forward like a hood, and where its face should be was a single ocular light. A large hole was punched through its chest, though it didn't seemed particularly bothered by this fact. The hole looked like it was patched haphazardly with what seemed like old Alliance armor.

The frozen touch of the demon was gone, and with it the painful energy it inflicted. Shepard's eyes drooped as fatigue hit her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to let go for a moment… The world could go one without her.

The being droned then, and the electrical warbling blended into recognizable words…

"Shepard-Commander." The eye shifted and focused upon her. Plates around its "face" moved, and furrowed like a brow. "Situation is hazardous. I do not recommend entering a low powered state."

"Legion!" Shepard cried in surprise, snapping herself awake. Confused Shepard grabbed at her throat. Her mouth moved, but no sound escaped her lips.

Legion peered at Shepard. Its eye locked with hers and she felt a puzzling rush of reassurance, and then confusion. This should not be possible. Legion had died in the battle of Rannoch, she had seen his body disintegrate with her own eyes.

"Shepard-Commander." Legion turned, and looked out into the abyss. "Time is short. We cannot engage it for long."

Shepard froze, not understanding. "Legion, what the hell is going on?"

"I repeat, time is short."

A commotion behind Shepard drew her attention. Countless geth, each similar to legion, although in a much better state of repair, knelt to her. Two of them were next to her, and held her gently, but firmly, keeping her from free floating into the abyss. Their glowing lights shone like beacons through the darkness, and each exuded a sense of peace. Behind them in the distance, the creature howled in rage as geth raised rifles and fired chittering shots into its oily hide. It lashed out, swiping its deadly coils into the crowd, every stroke seized a wailing synthetic and crushed it. Their bodies disintegrated into ash, and clouded the water in a way that played eerily off the light of the geth's eyes.

Shepard suddenly wished she still had her gun.

"The Old Machines search for you. The creatures in this place search for you. We have come to encrypt your data, Shepard-Commander."

Legion opened his omni-tool. After a moment, a tear in the water appeared. Shepard watched as the gash spread, and felt a gentle tug as water flowed into the rift.

"There is little time. We will hold the demon at bay. Shepard-Commander must prioritize entering the rift."

"Legion, no! I can't let you sacrifice yourself again. I… I don't know what is going on or how any of this is even possible, but I will not abandon you to that thing!"

"You misunderstand." Legion drifted against Shepard. He seemed taller than Shepard remembered. He now stood much taller than her by many feet, which forced her to crane her neck up at his face. "You do not abandon the geth. The geth choose to self-determinate. We await the creators. We will guide them when they come, just as we chose to guide you. We are not a sacrifice. We have achieved consensus." He stated firmly.

Tightly, but gently, Legion grabbed Shepard by the shoulders and pushed her backwards toward the rift. She now had a full view of the battle that raged before her. The geth fought with perfect coordination. Countless rifles fired in tandem at the demon, and the weapons created countless wounds that oozed glowing ichor into the water. The creature bellowed angrily, but fought back with no sign of slowing. Now the red marks pulsed with a dangerous radiance, and white beams shot from its coils, the rays carved a line through the synthetic swarm with gut-clenching ease.

"If you won't tell me what is going on, then tell me something." Shepard swallowed, a strange feeling for being submerged underwater, a pit filled her stomach. "Am I dead?"

Legion considered the question for a moment, an eternity in synthetic time Shepard knew.

"No. Shepard-Commander, you have a soul."

legion turned to join its synthetic brethren, rifle in hand. Before the current obscured her vision with foam, Shepard watched the last faint glimpses of wailing synthetics united as one to fight the demon.