Five species fought through waves of geth drones and indoctrinated geth soldiers. They had hardly worked alongside each other, mostly going along as adjuncts to the various Shepards. But Garrus' tactical training and Wrex's experience bore them up, fighting furiously. Tali hacked auto-turrets taken offline by the geth, while Liara's biotics sent opponents flying off into the vacuum around the station.
At last, they reached the entry to the Council chamber, after a furious ten minutes of blood-pounding combat. It was empty but for Saren, standing at the terminal where the Council normally stood. "That's far enough, Arterius," Garrus said, his sniper rifle centered right at the back of the rogue Spectre's head. "Time for you to stand down."
He turned around, taking in the five of them, surprise clearly written across his face. "What is this? No Shepards? Not a single one?"
"They had better things to do, and we don't need babysitters to take out garbage like you," Wrex threatened.
"Don't be so sure about that," Saren countered, reaching for his weapon as he threw himself sideways. Garrus' bullet still impacted his shields as Ashley's assault rifle followed his dash to the side. Tali was already busy running to the opposite side of the room, trying to get around him to the terminal to upload the code.
Their firefight was surprisingly brief, with four of them turning massive amounts of bullets and biotics on the rogue turian. When at last he lay on the ground, bleeding, Williams walked up to him, her face stony with cold, hard rage. "I want Alenko back, you son of a bitch," she said, leveling her assault rifle at his head, and holding down the trigger until the overheat warning started beeping. She jumped in surprise as Wrex put one comforting hand on her shoulder, staring down at the ruined mass that had been the face of the galaxy's most notorious Spectre.
"The code's uploaded," Tali said. All of them looked up through the clear panels on the ceiling, the battle between Sovereign and the turian and asari fleets barely visible as flashes of light.
"This is Normandy can anyone read me?" Joker's voice suddenly broadcast through all their omni-tools, almost unintelligible with static. "The Destiny Ascension is nearly destroyed. What should we do?"
"Joker, get in there and save the Council," Garrus ordered.
"Garrus? Where's Angela? Or any of the other Shepards?" Joker asked in confusion.
"They're elsewhere on the station," Garrus said grimly, and cut the channel. "I just hope they're accomplishing whatever they set out to do," he said grimly.
Twenty-six Shepards emerged out of the Keeper maintenance shafts into a large walkway at the bottom of the tower area. Surprisingly, most of the area was walled with transparent panels, giving them a clear view of the nebula below. Other paths connected with theirs, several pieces of unfamiliar technology glowing with sullen light. They started forward, only to be stopped by a hologram, flickering unsteadily between an image of a small boy, and a suited man with glowing trefoil eyes. "You shouldn't be here," the boy said.
"WHAT ARE YOU?" they thundered.
"I am the Catalyst," the boy said. "From here, I – control the Reapers, Shepard!" Mid-sentence, the hologram shifted to the man, pointing a finger belligerently at them. "They are the solution to the chaos of organic life. You are an anomaly."
"I AM COMMANDER SHEPARD. I AM A PROTECTOR OF HUMANITY, OF THE GALAXY. IF YOU CONTROL THE REAPERS, YOU WILL BE DESTROYED." They stepped forward in unison, weapons and biotics raised in an instant.
"If you destroy me, you consign yourselves to extinction," the boy tried to threaten. "Synthetics will destroy you. I can use them, control them," the man flicked back into being, then back to the boy.
The group of Shepards paused, momentarily, then shook their heads in perfect unison. "THE REAPERS WILL NOT EXTERMINATE US. WE WILL SURVIVE. YOU WILL DIE." The entire station shook with the force of their declaration, and the boy fuzzed and blurred, clearly affected by their reality-warping declaration, but still functional.
Out in space, ten kilometers past the points of the wards, Sovereign suddenly cut off his battle with the organic forces, diving past the Citadel. Its master was in trouble. "DIE." It slowed, whirling around, as the very structure of the tower threatened to tear away from the Citadel. Sovereign charged up its beam weapon, preparing to fire a short burst, even as it commanded every geth unit still in the station to rush to that place.
"DIE."
On the third utterance, the hologram shredded away. Every power source on the Citadel went dark. So did Sovereign. The heretic geth on board, bereft of leadership, evacuated hurriedly to their dropships in the confusion, fleeing back into the dark reaches of the Perseus Veil.
In the dark, empty space outside the Milky Way, twenty-thousand light years from the edge of that galaxy, a lone red dwarf star blazed inside a Dyson Sphere. Every Reaper, save for one, was shut down in hibernation mode, only the first among them drowsing through the ages, waiting for the signal to come. But when the Catalyst went dark, so too did Harbinger. The Reapers would sit there, unmoving, until the relentless solar radiation finally shut them down for good.
Alpha Universe, six months earlier
Jack Harper inhaled sharply, opening his mouth as he sucked in air, coughing hard. One hand reached inside his jacket, feeling the cracked armor plate underneath it. "That bastard," he hissed out, remembering the moment just moments before when John Shepard ignored his order, pulling the trigger on him.
He carefully rose to his feet, looking over at Anderson, slumped on the floor, dead from the round through his guts. But Shepard was nowhere to be found. What he did find, stumbling over it, was one of the large floor tiles missing. There was nothing underneath it, so after a moment he looked up, spying where the elevator panel had gone.
Scowling, he focused the dark energy he could now use, and started to lift off the floor, pausing to check his gun first. Then he yanked the panel down, lifting himself four stories into the air, landing heavily on the walkway above. Shepard was there, stumbling towards a set of power conduits, pistol already raised. Harper simply knew what was going to happen here – he would open fire, and then the Reapers would be destroyed.
For a brief moment, John Shepard just thought he had tripped over his own feet, watching the pistol fly out of his hand and skitter down the walkway to bounce off the power couplings. Then the pain and the sound caught up to his exhausted brain, and he looked over his shoulder, gritting his teeth against the sudden pain of the bullet wound. To his surprise, the Illusive Man stood there, staring at the hologram. "You will stop now," the Catalyst ordered him.
The leader of Cerberus gritted his teeth, dark energy gathering around him. "No," he said simply.
"We control you!" it said again.
"No," TIM said again, stepping forward again, then moving down the path towards the control rods.
Unable to help himself, John started laughing, a broken, desperate sound, causing both of them to turn and stare at him. "Why are you laughing?" the Catalyst asked, clearly confused.
He grinned harshly, starting to pull himself forward on his elbows. "Half a billion years of studying organics, and you don't have the first fucking clue about evolution," he taunted. TIM had slowed to listen, still holding the gun warily, even if John doubted the terrorist kingpin could hit him from forty meters away. "There's no such thing as a 'final stage' of evolution." He even paused to do his best Udina air quotes.
"This thing actually said that?" TIM asked incredulously. "That's what the green beam is?"
"Oh yeah. Wanted me to throw myself in and turn us all into some kind of organic-synthetic fusion. Just like Reapers are." John scoffed, scooting himself forward again. His pistol was ten meters away, but TIM was only a few steps from the control rods. "Instead, it's spent the last eon selectively exterminating every species that didn't display one important trait."
"Resistance to Indoctrination," Jack said, more to himself than to Shepard.
"Impossible. Organic life cannot resist our control. It is what makes the cycle possible," the Catalyst insisted again.
"Not anymore," Shepard said, lunging for his gun. Harper hesitated just a moment, long enough to fire one wild shot, then dropped the gun, grabbing desperately for the upload option. "Our destiny is our own! Fuck your cycle!"
Shepard didn't realize that the resistance to Indoctrination that TIM had was only partial, so as he uploaded, the man's mind and the machine overlord put more and more power into trying to fight each other. So much dark energy, in fact, that when Shepard pulled the trigger to destroy the machine, the very universe was unraveled between the trigger pull and the bullet striking.
This entire scene went through Angela's head in the split second of the Catalyst's death, and it made her realize one very important fact – the Catalyst was the Citadel. In the moment of its destruction, the dark energy snapped, causing all of the other Shepards to disappear. And caused the panoramic view she had of a now dead Sovereign to shatter, atmosphere blasting out harshly.
She was thrown through the debris, hundreds of fragments striking her suit, breaking both its integrity and her body. Her last thought, as her lungs labored to breathe vacuum, was, At least everyone is safe from the Reapers.
Author's Note: So, here is the end of A Fistful of Shepards. I wrote this fic as a total crack-story, meant to be nothing more than laughs and silliness as a veritable army of Shepards rampaged across the face of the galaxy. Thank you to everyone who made this a Favorite or Follow; it's one of the highest ranked stories on the Mass Effect category! I hope everyone will tune in next week when I start the sequal: For a Few Shepards More.