Michael lurched to his feet.
Before him Sovereign, grasping onto the Citadel tower, glared down at him, making him feel...insignificant.
Whether I am or not...I chose this.
Michael found his voice: "Sovereign..."
Ahead Sovereign's eyes blazed, hatred boring down at Michael, making him take a step back with the sudden pain in his skull, gritting his teeth as his eyes screwed shut.
"T-trying to indoctrinate me...?" He straightened, forcing his eyes open, to look at Sovereign. "Too late, you have lost."
It wasn't a laugh echoing in Michael's head, just a...scornful amusement: "Your resistance is futile, your galaxy will fall."
Michael took a step forward, narrowing his eyes at his foe: "No, you will fall." Behind Sovereign he could see them...the Alliance fleet coming in at full thrust...and felt his lips break into a smile.
"The cycle cannot be broken, we will come for you."
Truth...horrifying...naked...truth.
Michael shuddered, feeling an unnatural terror rush from his spine...only for him to push it aside with a growl: "We'll be waiting...and you will break."
"Arrogant insect, you cannot win." Sovereign's voice bore into Michael's skull, so full of conviction, power and...
Michael smiled past the pain in his head. "Who is the arrogant one? You have moments left to live, make peace with yourself, Reaper."
He turned to leave...
"Shepard...!" Michael stumbled mid-step, the voice in his skull, echoing within him, tearing at his insides, something...burning.
He gasped, hands moving to his chest, yet finding no injury even as agony burnt from within it and out through his body. What is...?
"You are marked, Shepard." Sovereign boomed...and Michael felt it in his blood...a searing pain...a...warping. "You will die." It burnt him, driving him to his knees even as Sovereign loomed up behind him like a giant shadow. "Your galaxy will burn."
He gasped, dropping forward, only to catch himself with his right hand, his left moving to his throat as the burning shot through it, choking all air out of him as his body shook with shock.
What is it...?
"And you will have failed." The words drove into him like a spike...driving what little breath was left out of him, making him tumble onto his left side, knees pulling up to his chest as his eyes rolled back in his skull.
Truth, naked, horrifying truth...it burned into him, tore at his insides...made him twitch and squirm where he lay, like the insect he was, pinned by Sovereign's words.
Sovereign's words...
Sovereign's truth...
Michael blinked.
Sovereign's truth...
The pain faded, the twitching stopped...and Michael struggled onto his left knee as he looked back up at Sovereign, hands curling into fists as he glared up at the arrogant machine.
"The Reapers will fail." It was but a croak escaping his throat...but it lent him strength...and Michael got to his feet, taking a slow step forward. "The Reapers will die."
There was a growl of anger in his skull, Sovereign's anger...and it drew a small smile from Michael as he felt new energy flood his battered body. He took another step forward, spotting the black little artefact Saren had used...Sovereign's artefact...and moved towards it.
Ahead Sovereign followed his every step...and through all the arrogance...all the hatred and scorn...Michael felt the tiniest amount of...fear.
His smile turned into a smirk as he came to a halt. "I might die."
His right foot rose up above the black artefact. "I might fail."
His foot came down...and the artefact broke underneath his boot. "But not today."
His smirk turned into a grin even as he felt Sovereign waver. "Today you die."
A roar...loud and full of rage as it tore into his skull...making Michael sway where he stood...and Sovereign raised one massive arm upwards...
There was no ruddy glow of charging power, no firing blast of energy...only a great black claw...descending upon Michael.
Oh...
For a moment Michael just stood there, staring at the great talon coming down at him...then he ran.
He leapt from the podium, and felt rather then heard it shatter under the great impact...as he himself came down upon the small bridge beyond, rolling to a stop on the round platform at the end. Once he had knelt there in ceremony...now he he did it to stop himself from tumbling on as he turned to look up at Sovereign...
Only to find another claw descending upon him as the first one tore itself free from a podium that was now covered in shards of glass...and that been cleaved into two.
Michael kicked off from where he knelt, arms swinging backwards as he flipped backwards...hands catching him on the bridge even as it bent with the great claw tearing the tip off as it continued down into the garden below...and then he landed on his feet.
Above him the ceiling broke apart, the first claw coming back down towards him...and Michael leaped backwards, landing heavily on the steps of the stairs as the claw tore into the ground he had stood upon. He moved to get up...only for something heavy to strike him in the shoulder and send him tumbling down the stairs as all around him there were the crashes of the broken ceiling falling upon the floor.
Another roar of rage...and Michael forced his head to turn as he looked up from his prone position at Sovereign.
An orange explosion of something striking the hull of it blossomed from the Reaper...even as it ignored it and sent yet another claw forwards. The black talon scythed through the wall to Michael's right, coming down at him in a haze of dust and falling debris...
He leapt back once more, finding himself in the small garden even as one of the boulders there was shorn in two by the claw, the remains of it painfully bouncing off an armoured leg before Michael could roll away...
Ahead another two explosions blossomed from Sovereign's hull, tiny dots of orange compared to the great hull of the Reaper...as one of its claws swept to the side, a ruddy blast of energy released from its tip, tearing apart something out of Michael's sight.
Come on...come on...
Then the ceiling gave way, all of it...and Michael found something akin to a shout and a scream escape him as he leapt underneath one of the tilted boulders of the garden, just dodging a descending claw as all around him great pieces of the ceiling crashed down on the floor, covering all in dust and debris...
Pain!
Gasping Michael's hands moved down to the great pressure against his stomach...only to find himself pushing at the boulder he had hid beneath, its great weight amplified by a sizeable part of the ceiling lying atop it...all pressing down on his stomach.
It hurt...
And kept him pinned.
Still pressing his hands against the immovable weight Michael's head craned up, looking back at Sovereign...as it with a third roar of anger raised its claw, the black talon glittering in the light of the explosions blossoming from Sovereign's hull...glittering at it descended upon him.
Tali... Michael closed his eyes, disappointment welling up within him. I'm sorry...
Only for him to open them once more as Sovereign roared within his skull for the fourth time.
Not with anger...but with agony.
Ahead the talon bent...and came off at the outermost joint, a darting shape of the Normandy zipping past the broken limb of Sovereign as it twitched. Sovereign's grip on the Citadel tower slackened as its other claws moved outwards, one of them firing a ruddy blast, the shot tearing straight through an approaching cruiser as if its armour was nothing.
The cruiser exploded, the large blast making Sovereign's armoured hull shine brightly...only for it do darken as more explosions tore into it, bending and cracking the hull of the great Reaper as it twitched and flailed under the concentrated bombardment.
Michael bared his teeth in a snarl at the sight.
See you in hell.
A second roar of agony...and one of Sovereign's middle-most claws came off right where it connected to the body...the limb spinning away as the Reaper shuddered...another claw firing a blast that struck nothing but space...
And then Michael saw it.
A whole flood of frigates, every single one in the Fifth fleet...the distinctly black Normandy at the head, coming right at the spinning Sovereign...
It didn't look like a volley of torpedoes, it rather looked like one great blast of white light...as the frigates fired as one...straight into the belly of the beast.
A third cry of agony...and Michael saw the frigates break away even as a concentrated and successive row of explosions tore into Sovereign, the torpedoes finally tearing a great hole straight through the body of the Reaper...
"Shepard...we...will..."
The powerful voice struggled...then faded...as ahead Sovereign twisted with the great impact...a motion the torn hull no longer could endure...
It came apart, the great Reaper...breaking in two.
Michael stopped struggling underneath the great weight, hands dropping back to his sides, resting as he with a smile watched Sovereign's death.
The two pieces were still spinning in space, secondary explosions tearing through them even as pieces of its insides spilled forth like that of a gutted animal...
Then the rear part of it exploded, a great bloom of dark blue light mixing with the orange...and sending the other part flying, the front of Sovereign's torn body spinning round, great parts coming off...as it descended upon Michael.
He blinked, then stared...as he saw his doom loom closer. Now, that's just not fair...
Then he closed his eyes, smirking. When was life ever fair?
The smirk turned into a little smile, him feeling...relaxed. This is it...
Acceptable.
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Thank you to Abydos Jackson for her dedication.