~Author's Note~ Welp. I think that's all she wrote, guys. According to an app released by SpikeTV's "manager" (not sure what you call the person in charge of a TV channel) called Final Hours of ME3, it seems pretty clear that the Indoctrination Theory isn't what Bioware intended. Apparently, they actually thought that p.o.s. ending we got would make most of the fans happy, since it left the ending wide open.
I'm not sure what's wide open about dooming the entire galaxy to the dark ages, or letting the quarians, turians, and krogans be "extincted" as my 12-year-old friend put it, and I don't know why they would do that and then turn around and tell us they would not leave it wide open, they would not pull a Lost on their fanbase, and they *would* give us answers... but apparently, that's exactly what they did. I am completely floored that the fanbase can come up with a better ending in one week than Bioware could over two years. Yeah us? Anyway, this fic will remain head-canon for me, even though I like Anomaly as well, Mindgames actually fits with the ending we have, (better than the one they gave us, lol).
Just to clarify something that will become semi-apparent in this chapter. I had to retcon the origin of Banshees. In Mass Effect 3, it is said they only come from Ardat-Yakshi or Asari with predisposition to becoming Ardat-Yakshi, (whatever the heck that means). However, there are supposed to be, according to Samara in Mass Effect 2, only 3 Ardat-Yakshi in existence. So... in this fic, any Asari that is in the Matriarch stage is capable of being turned into a Banshee. The other asari, the younger ones, are not quite as strong, and the Reapers turn them into Wraiths. Basically, they're a weaker version of the Banshee, without the ability to teleport- and with no scream, but with long range biotic attacks. I felt it necessary to explain this, since Shepard would of course have already fought them, and so to have her explain it just seemed forced.
And on that incredibly long note- Enjoy.
"First things first here. We need to find a working radio, let Alliance command know we're still here but that the beam is shut off. Then we need to get Tali to a medical unit." Katelyn looked around at her little troop.
"Shepard, I-"
"That is not up for debate, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy." Shepard stressed the last part, just so Tali would know she was pulling rank on her.
"Shepard, I am not going to sit out the rest of this war merely because the Reapers took my arm."
Oh yes she was, if Shepard had anything to say about it. She could do plenty on board a ship without coming ground-side. "How exactly are you planning to fire a shotgun with one hand, Tali?" It was a little cruel, but she needed to end the debate now.
Tali glanced down at her hand. "I... oh. I... I guess I see your point."
Shepard laid a hand on the quarian's shoulder and squeezed. She had perhaps gotten a little too sharp with her. She always forgot how young Tali was. "You'd be surprised what they can do with-" Shepard cut off, gaping at Tali's right elbow. "Tali, what the FUCK is that?" There was something *growing* on the quarian's arm.
Tali looked down and saw what Shepard had. The rubble she had fallen in when the Marauder dropped her to the ground after dragging her out from the Mako had formed around the end of her elbow and was... building something. "Keelah! What... what is going on! What did they do to me! I don't-" She stopped abruptly, as if someone had said something to her. "Oh. Oh my."
Shepard stood there, still gaping as the rubble formed into a crude... well, arm. Complete with the three fingers that quarians had at the end of it. A green shimmer seemed to flow out from the edge of Tali's suit, right where her arm ended, and coalesced into what seemed to be a glowing shield around the rubble, holding it together. All right. *Now* she had seen everything.
Tali looked up at Shepard. "It's the geth. They... he... said that he believes he can handle the 'extermination of non-compliant life-forms.'" Tali brought her new hand up in front of her face and turned it over, inspecting it. A small, sad laugh escaped her. "My people spent 300 years trying to destroy their race. Yet they hold no grudge, no distrust of us. Keelah, Shepard, it's like they've completely forgiven us for... everything." The quarian's tone was the saddest Shepard had ever heard, except when she found her father's body. "Imagine what kind of race the quarians would have been if we had worked with the Geth, if we had helped them along in their quest to become sentient beings, instead of panicking and trying to wipe out their entire race? It's already told me that it has completely purged the infection from my system! I'm not even going to get sick at all, after half my arm was cut off!" She shook her head. "We were so... foolish. So stupid. We took the greatest scientific advance we had ever made- our children- and we tried to... we tried to murder them."
Shepard squeezed her shoulder again, unsure what to say to help her friend.
Tali's voice hardened and her new hand clenched into a fist. "But now, fighting together, we will destroy the Reapers. Come on, Shepard. I need to get back to Rannoch in time to claim some beach-front property before it's all bought out."
She started picking her way through the rubble, heading back the way they came, towards the ground HQ the Alliance had set up.
Garrus and Shepard looked at each other. Garrus rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his face. Shepard just shook her head.
"You heard Ms. Vas Normandy, Garrus."
"Oh good idea, Shepard. Let's follow the crazy quarian who's listening to voices in her head!"
"I heard that!"
They made it far closer to Alliance HQ without opposition than Shepard would have laid odds on. But they were still only about halfway back when Tali's shotgun announced at least something had found them.
Tali shuddered. "Cannibal. Or at least, what was left of it. You know, I have no love lost for the Batarians, but that is just a horrible fate."
She looked up. A dozen pairs of eyes were riveted on her not ten yards away. "Oh, ancestors."
If it weren't for Garrus, she would have died before Shepard ever made it to her side. The turian was already bringing his sniper rifle to bear as soon as he heard the shotgun blast, and no less than three times he dropped a cannibal right as it was about to reach her. Without their omni-tools, she and Shepard were down to only two weapons- the pistol Shepard had picked up off of the Marauder, and Tali's shotgun. It was way too close for Shepard. The last shot in her pistol only staggered the last Cannibal. It straightened up for a moment, and then had its head blown in by Tali.
"I'm down to five shots, Shepard." Tali said shakily, looking around to make certain that was all of them.
"Better than me. I'm out. Why are none of these abominations courteous enough to at least leave a lady another weapon?"
"What bosh'tet decided that it would be better to make guns use ammunition instead of heat-sinks? I prefer the old days. Maybe I couldn't fire six shotgun blasts into something in two seconds, but I could keep up the fight a hell of a lot- Keelah!"
Shepard had been fidgeting with her omnitool, trying to get some semblance of functionality to return to it. She glanced up at Tali's exclamation. "Garrus! Banshee!"
The twisted semblance of what had once been an asari matriarch shrieked, and a cadre of half a dozen wraiths came swarming over the hill behind it.
Garrus' voice was slightly panicked, Shepard could tell. Tali probably wouldn't know the difference, but Shepard had never heard Garrus sound like this before.
"Um.. Shepard, I only have four shots. Not even I can take out seven enemies with four shots!"
"Focus on the banshee! Tali and I will deal with her escort!" She called back.
Tali looked at her, her voice incredulous. "We will?"
They ducked down as one of the wraiths opened up with its biotics. Shepard had no intention of getting caught in the open with those things.
Garrus' first shot slammed squarely into the banshee's head, or rather it would have if the biotic field it had thrown up didn't absorb the entire thing. It jerked its head up from where it had been looking at Shepard and Tali, tracking where the shot came from.
Shepard felt completely helpless. There was nothing she could do, she was out of ammo, her omni-tool was fried. She doubting throwing rocks at the banshee would do anything but piss it off. If it noticed them. Tali's shotgun blast dropped a wraith that ventured a little too close to their hole in the ground.
"Bosh'tet. Any ideas Shepard?"
"Don't rush me here."
"Oh by all means take your time. Maybe you'd like" - a second shotgun blast- "to hurry it up just a little, though."
Garrus' second shot penetrated the banshee's barrier, knocking off a chip off of the thing's face. It shrieked again, disrupting Shepard's concentration.
"What was that?"
Shepard looked over at Tali. "I didn't say anything."
Tali threw Shepard her shotgun. "Give me your omni-tool. I have an idea. And that idea requires me being in one piece, so keep them off me, would ya?"
Shepard's face lit up. "Garrus never would let me near one of these things. Something about being afraid I would enjoy it too much." She passed the omni-tool over to Tali, and popped up over the edge of their hole to see where the wraiths were. "HOLY SHI-" One of them was not two feet from their hole. As soon as it saw Shepard it clenched its fist, powering up a biotic attack. Shepard didn't give it time to finish whatever the hell it was trying to do. The shotgun blast knocked her backwards across the hole, but it blew a crater in the chest of the wraith, as well as knocking it back a good ten yards, where what was left of the thing turned to ash. "I LOVE THIS THING!" Shepard was grinning ear-to-ear.
She was sure Tali was rolling her eyes under her mask. "Just remember you only have two shots left, Shepard. Make them count."
Garrus's third shot was the first to make a significant impression on the banshee. A bad impression, if its third shriek was anything to go by. It still didn't drop though. Not only that, but it warped across the battlefield, obviously having figured out where Garrus was sniping from.
Not that it did it much good. Only her Garrus could make that shot- hitting the banshee mid-warp, directly in the head. The rest of the body carried forward and slammed into the wall behind Garrus, but the head was blown off by the turian's last bullet.
Shepard smiled for a split-second, but quickly turned her attention back to the three remaining wraiths. They were circling around, keeping behind cover. Not that she had any intention of using one of her two remaining shots while they were far enough away she wouldn't be absolutely certain it would kill them.
Garrus was out of ammo, if she had counted correctly. Four shots from a Black Widow to take down a banshee sounded about right, in any case.
"Got that fixed yet, Tali?"
The drone that appeared on the hill, directly behind the wraiths, was her answer. A volley of rockets shot out from the machine, taking them completely by surprise. Two dropped immediately, and the third had only just turned to examine the new threat when a blast of fire twisted down from the sky and slammed into its face.
Shepard turned to regard the quarian next to her.
Tali looked at her, and though she couldn't actually see the quarian's face, her voice let Shepard know she was grinning.
"Well. That was fun."