The Truth- Illusions
Shepard's vision began to blacken, and she shook her head, but it didn't help. The last goodbye she heard from Ash, the sound of the nuclear blast rocking through the planet, the feeling that hung through the Normandy after her death- it all flashed through her mind. Shepard's already damaged legs gave way, and her arms pressed into the ground to stop her head from being damaged. Her mind felt murky, and she tried to make sense of things.
It couldn't be Ash. Ash died on Virmire, and her body would have been vaporised in the blast. It was the Reapers, trying to destroy her reason. She got to her feet and forced herself to look, and she began to focus, where she saw the bodies of more Alliance soldiers, rather than the multiple corpses of Ashley Williams.
Shepard saw a dark shadow pass over her, and knew Harbinger had rejoined the fight above Earth, and the run to the conduit was clear. Shepard limped out, and stepped towards the beam, where she could feel the energy start to whip around her face. 3 husks stepped out from behind a steaming piece of metal. Quick as a flash, a bullet entered each of their heads, and they fell to the ground, the gruesome features of the once-humans illuminated by the beam. Shepard stepped over each body, and thought to herself, how many creatures had she killed? Geth, Collectors, Cerberus Forces. With the exception of the Geth Heretics, almost everything she had killed had been acting against it's own will. The Collectors were simply Prothean husks, being controlled by the Reapers, forced to do it's malevolent bidding. And the Cerberus forces were all given Reaper implants. They were being controlled by The Illusive Man, who is in turn being controlled by the Reapers. There was no other reason to tell the Reapers about the need of the Citadel. The Illusive Man believe he can control the Reapers, and fight them on his own terms, but he's wrong. He also believed that he could control Shepard into doing his bidding, but that attempt failed, and the Collector Base in the Galactic core was destroyed. Even with the added power of the Crucible, it would be harder to dominate the Reapers than to dominate Shepard, and everyone had seen how Illusive Man had failed at that. No, destroy was the only way. She was sure of it.
A Marauder popped out of the shadows, and before Shepard could react, fired his pistol at Shepard. The first bullet pierced her shoulder, and she stepped backwards with the impact, as a second round flew wide. Shepard lifted the Predator, which felt like it was becoming heavier, and fired two bullets. The first bullet hit the Marauder in the chest, and destroyed it's shields. The second round entered the Turian equivalent of it's forehead, and the body fell to the ground. Shepard looked at it. Originally it was a Turian, with a life, and friends, and maybe even kids. But the Reapers had converted it, and the corpse beneath her boot was nothing more than a shell. A psychological tool of the Reapers, to make people think twice about shooting a comrade. And it was that kind of thinking that could destroy galactic civilisation. One second of hesitation...
Shepard stepped towards the beam. The light began to blind her, so she shielded her face. The force began to pull her in, so she began to step quicker to regain her balance. Finally, she staggered into the centre, and she was fired into space.