Eve Shepard tried to raise her carnifex, but the pistol felt so heavy in her weary hand. The insidious whispers taunted and belittled her efforts. How much had been sacrificed, how many had died to give her this chance? She could feel the icy tendrils of indoctrination slivering into her brain. She took another step forward, it was the single most arduous task she had ever undertaken. Taking another step she knew, even before her foot made contact with the floor, that her knee would buckle. The floor rose up to meet her as she crashed into its metal surface. It's icy cold felt so pleasant against her battered body. The whispers grew louder and more insistent.
"Why do you fight so hard against the inevitable?" They said.
Eve wanted to denounce the whispers. To rage and resist them, she wanted to experience and learn all she could. She wanted to live, but she was exhausted in mind and body but she had never given in before. The end was in sight, so tantalisingly close and she was going to fail. For the first time in Eve Shepards life her spirit, twisted by betrayal, battered by compromise, and warped by her first brush with death finally cracked, a single chink in the armour of her indomitable will. A moment four entities working in concert seized upon.
Eve opened her eyes, or at least she thought she did. She was standing beside and looking down at herself sprawled out on the floor. The almost healed scars on her face showing a slight blue glow. It was like time had almost stopped, looking up she could see the the battle in space, a reaper beam crawling towards a Turian ship. She was sure this had not happened when she had died above Alchera. Then she noticed, for the first time since Earth was attacked, there were no whispers nor pressure building in her mind. It was such a relief that she almost wept.
Suddenly she knew something was behind her. Spinning and raising her gun she saw four coloured orbs, red, blue, pink and green, orbiting around a single point of swirling colours. Each of the orbs was the size of a melon and they maintained an equal distance from their neighbour and the centre. Then whatever this was spoke.
"Eve Shepard." The entities said. "We wish to speak with you."
She heard four voices each talking at once, but somehow each was clear and they had all said the same words. She had no idea what these entities were, yet somehow knew they had no connection to the reapers. Just standing before them she had a feeling she was looking a but a single atom of whatever greater whole they were a part of. That for her, a mere mortal, to look upon any more of their forms would fundamentally change her, possibly destroy her. She wanted to speak but found that standing before even this much of whatever these entities were, was too much for her to do so. She bobbed her head and the voices explained their offer.
As the entities finished she knew that this was a terrible deal, that she didn't know enough to make an informed choice. But if she didn't accept, every sacrifice she and everyone else made up to this point would be for nothing. What was one more persons life if it means the end of the reapers, after all she had already killed armies of beings, how much more could she damn herself.
Gathering her determination she looked into the orbs and gave a single nod.
"Very well." The four voices said.
She looked down and saw something happen to her body, a spark of something pulled her body up into the air, then her body convulsed slightly and then it was placed on its feet. A look of blank determination on her face as she staggered forward raising her carnifex and fired into the strange equipment that powered the whole facility. In slow motion the machinery exploded, sending shrapnel into her body and tearing it apart.
Eve stared in a trance she watched herself die, again, with no more feeling then when she trimmed her nails or had a haircut. Then she felt herself be drawn away towards the central orb and as she was sucked inside. She heard the four entities laughter and knew nothing more.
The four Gods felt their power diminish slightly as they laid the mark of their unity on the mortals flesh. Each knew the others would try and sway the mortal to embrace but one of them, but for this brief time they worked together. After all, the plan called for it.
It was a plan conceived and tried multiple times over uncountable millennia. Which was as close to nothing for these immortal beings and cost them nothing but a sliver of power to keep from destroying the mortal as they communicated. Only a few mortals had ever accepted and none had achieved anything worthy of their notice after.
The plan was simple, find a mortal who exemplified all their disparate aspects but was also a paragon of virtues inimical to their ideals, then at the moment of greatest weakness the four would offer them a bargain. They would offer enough power for the mortal to finish whatever task they deemed so important, then the mortal would be brought to their realm, to bear their mark, to assist them in their tasks, and to battle against their enemies. Their honeyed words offered the mortal power, treasures, gifts and even the potential of bodily and spiritual immortality, all they had to do was accept their helping hand.
Of course the powers failed to mention that just by accepting the godlike entities would receive more power that it cost them to aid the mortal, and the subsequent fall from grace of such a paragon would generate far more. Nor did they mention that should they die in their service the mortals soul would become nothing but a tortured plaything for them, or that their gifts could warp the mind and body into an immortal blob of mutating flesh endlessly screaming in impotent rage.
Should the mortal succeed in whatever tasks they gave it, well it was just more power for the entities.