AN:- Now it's time to meet a real, live Prothean!
Chapter Twenty-One: Awaken
Shepard keyed in the same sequence she had seen in her vision and the pod cracked open, emitting a hiss of cryo gases. It juddered and clanked, clearly damaged from the ages and the excavation. The doors couldn't open fully, but they could open enough for her to see the prothean inside.
He looked exactly as she remembered from her visions, more than that she was sure on some unconscious level that it was the prothean she had seen. The commander of the others and the one who had seemed to be leading the defence. It was all she could do to stare at him, feeling a deep rooted unease to imagine what he represented. The very last of a dead race, 50,000 years extinct and now before her.
"Goddess," Liara breathed. She coughed and tried to sound more professional. "It may take him some time to fully regain consciousness."
Even as she said it his eyes were opening and he tilted his head to look at them. Before she even thought to say something he roared and let rip with a biotic punch that sent her flying back towards the edge of the platform, crashing hard on her back, the breath knocked out of her.
She rolled onto her front, scrambling to her feet as the prothean rolled out of the pod, hitting the deck hard and struggling to his feet. He started to run, but tripped and fell, his legs unsteady and uncoordinated.
Garrus moved to intercept him but Shepard waved him off. "Be careful! He's confused."
The prothean had made it to the cliff edge, where he stopped, and rose slowly to his full height, staring out across the landscape. Shepard didn't need to look to know he was staring at the ruins that lay before them. Now she looked at them again she could see just how truly little had been left from what had once been a city. She wondered if he would even know it was the same planet.
She made her way over slowly, careful to tread heavily, trying to make him aware of her presence. Liara was close behind her.
"Remember, it's been 50,000 years for us." Shepard couldn't think of anything else to do but touch his shoulder. She reached out, hearing Liara behind her. "For him, it's only been…"
Her glove touched his armour, and she was seized by a vision, but this went far deeper than the previous ones. Direct contact put her inside his head, watching from his eyes, feeling the raw emotions coursing through him. Anger flooded her as she rounded on the glowing green VI.
"No, the bunker is falling. There is no other option."
"There are pods online!" She shouted. "Those soldiers are still alive!"
"Their sacrifice will be honoured in the coming Empire." The sting of her own words felt like a shot in the gut. She growled, a fist clenching and flaring into biotic power. But it would do no good against the holographic construct. "Preparing neutron bombardment." Victory said. "Get to your lifepod now."
She ran for the only pod left open, lowering herself into it. As she settled down to rest she felt the bone-deep ache that she had carried with her for weeks now. There had been one last chance, and she had failed. The last hope of the Prothean Empire now burned with the planet. As the doors closed and the pod began to slide into the wall she closed her eyes and uttered a silent prayer for the trillions who were now surely doomed.
"Neutron bombardment underway." Victory was incapable of emotion, incapable of understanding how its actions now doomed them all. The chamber rattled and shook as she neutron bomb exploded, wiping out the husks of what had once been friends, fellows. When it ended the VI spoke directly to her. "The bunker is secure, Commander Javik."
"What is left of it. A few hundred people. How am I to rebuild an Empire from that?"
There was a short pause, and she could almost imagine the VI felt sorry for what it had to say. "Further adjustments may be necessary. The neutron purge compromised the facility."
"Clarify."
"Sensors are damaged. Automated reactivation is not an option." She didn't understand. Some part of her knew that automated reactivation had always been the plan, but she shied away from accepting what its absence would mean. "You will remain in stasis until a new culture discovers this bunker. This may lead to a power shortage."
No! She slammed her fists against the pod doors, but they remained steadfastly closed. "Do not shut off more pods!" She hammered against the door, beating it until her fists bled. "I need the few that are left!"
"Power needs will be triaged appropriately." A wave of drowsiness swept over her and she knew the cryo sleep was oncoming. However many centuries the Reapers would pillage, then millenia before any society became even advanced enough to develop sentience. As she began to drift into the darkness she heard the VI. "You will be the voice of our people."
I will be more than that.
Shepard's head jerked backwards and she stumbled, falling to her knees and throwing up onto the grass. She had never experienced anything like that before. The beacons had been an invasion but that had been something else entirely. Her hands shook and she looked around wildly to see familiar faces, looking down at her in concern. Eden Prime. Cerberus. Prothean. A confused jumble of thoughts bombarded her as she tried to push away the memories of the emotions that had coursed through her. They weren't hers, but they stung as though they were.
She turned to see the prothean on his knees as well, still staring out at the ruins. He felt her gaze and spoke, softly.
"How many others?"
"Just you." She crawled back to her feet. "You can understand me?"
"Yes." He rose as well, turning to her. "Now that I have read your physiology, your nervous system. Enough to understand your language."
"So you were reading me while I was seeing…" She couldn't put into words what she had just experienced.
"Our last moments. Our failure."
There was nothing she could say. How could she hope to comfort the last vestige of an extinct race? She felt that rage and fear and uncertainty in her still. Words wouldn't be nearly enough.
Cortez broke into the moment. "Shepard, whatever you did got Cerberus interested."
Javik had been looking at her companions. "Asari. Human. Turian. I am surrounded by primitives." He saw Edi, and obviously knew what she was as well. "Synthetic. This is not a good beginning."
Shepard stepped up next to him. "It's not safe here. Will you join us?"
"You fight the Reapers?"
"Yes."
"Then we will see."
She held out her arm, expecting some sort of greeting, but he only stared at it, then turned and walked away from her, heading back to the cliff edge.
If nothing else, she thought as Cortez brought the shuttle in close for pickup. This is going to lead to one hell of a debriefing.
/|\
"A living Prothean?"
Shepard nodded, finding she actually quite enjoyed the look of shock on Hackett's face. It wasn't often he emoted. "That's correct Admiral. But he's not quite what we expected."
"Captain our scientists barely understand what they need to do here. If the prothean can help us construct this device, we need his cooperation."
Right back to business I see. "Understood Admiral. How's the rest of the front?"
"We're losing colonies faster than we can evacuate. We've never seen a force like the Reapers."
"He has Admiral."
"Can he help us?"
"I intend to find out." She had a feeling he would help even without prompting, but she needed to know if his help was going to be to her aid or detriment. She didn't need another Cerberus situation on her hands.
"Good. Cerberus slipped up and gave us a new weapon. Don't let it go to waste. Hackett out."
As Hackett's hologram dissolved Liara buzzed her. "Shepard I need you down in the Port Cargo Hold. It's about our new guest."
"On my way."
When she got to the cargo hold she found Javik surrounded by Alliance guards she hadn't ordered there. They were all armed, their weapons trained on him.
"What's the problem?" She asked the head of the guard, a man named Comly.
Liara spoke up from behind him. She looked as grumpy as Shepard had ever seen her. "I've tried to make the room more accommodating but they're not letting me talk to him."
"Apologies doctor." Comly sounded more put out than apologetic. "Contact protocol with a new species, assume hostility. We had to dust off the regulations."
Shepard looked past him to where Javik was kneeling quietly, apparently deep in some sort of meditation. Aside from the one confused biotic attack he hadn't shown a single sign of hostility to any of them. And didn't assuming hostility work out so well for us in the past.
"But he's not new," Liara argued. "I've spent my life studying protheans."
Comly opened his mouth to protest but Shepard cut him off, holding up a hand. "At ease. I don't think our guest will be a problem." She looked past him again to Javik, who was rising slowly up from his kneeling position. "Will he?" She stepped past Comly to meet Javik.
"That depends on you." He moved like lightning, snatching her wrist and holding it up. Every marine trained their weapon on him but she was obstructing their line of fire. "I can sense fear in you. Anxiety and distress." He let her go. "The Reapers are winning."
She was vividly reminded of when she had woken Grunt up and been similarly attacked. She suspected this situation was going to be a bit more complicated. "What do you mean, you sense?"
"All life provides clues for those who can read them." He stepped quietly over to a table where he had set up some sort of reflecting pool. "It is in your cells, your DNA. Experience is a biological marker."
"Then what exactly did I experience back on Eden Prime? That was a hell of a flashback."
"The battle left its own mark on me. I communicated this to you." He turned to look at her. "It can work both ways."
"Like your beacons?"
"Yes. Which…" He gave her a look she couldn't read, then shot forwards again, grabbing her by the shoulders.
The vision forced itself into her head, with enough force to make her cry out. Pain blasted through her and she saw worlds burn. Alien creatures writhed in agony as flames consumed her. He let her go and she dropped to the deck on her hands and knees, gasping for breath.
"You saw it all! Our destruction, our warnings!" He shouted it at them. "Why weren't they heeded? Why didn't you prepare for the Reapers human?"
She got to her feet, massaging her arm where he had grabbed her. "It's Captain. And nobody could understand your warnings. The beacon nearly killed me."
He gave an unmistakeable sneer. "Then communication is still primitive in this cycle."
"We pieced together what we could," she shot back. "And used it to stop a Reaper invasion three years ago."
"Then the extinction was delayed?"
Shepard looked back at Comly, who still had his marines on guard. She waved for him to leave. As he passed Liara Shepard saw a flash of a blue tongue being poked out at him. She raised an eyebrow at Liara, who was back to being the picture of sweetness and innocence.
"We have your plans for the device," she said, walking over and bringing up the display on her omni-tool. "We're going to build it."
"Device?"
Shepard felt her heart sink as Liara closed out the display. "The weapon your people were working on. We'd hoped you could tell us how to finish it."
"We never finished it. It was too late."
At least he knew about its existence. "Then I take it you don't know anything about the Catalyst?"
"No. I was a soldier, not a scientist. Skilled in one art: killing."
He went back to stand at his reflecting pool. Shepard sighed and glanced at Liara. She looked crestfallen, and Shepard knew it was because of more than just his lack of knowledge about the device. This Prothean wasn't shaping up to be anything like they had imagined their forerunners.
"What was your mission?" She asked.
"Among my people, there were… avatars of many traits. Bravery, strength, cunning. A single exemplar for each."
"So what are you?"
"The embodiment of vengeance. I am the anger of a dead people, demanding blood to be spilled for the blood we lost. Only when the last Reaper has been destroyed will my purpose be fulfilled. I have no other reason to exist." He turned back to look at her, his expression fierce. "Those who share my purpose become allies. Those who do not become casualties."
He sounded like a fanatic. In fact he sounded dangerously close to the Illusive Man. "Nothing in our fight against the Reapers has been that cut and dried."
"Because you still have hope that the war will end with your honour intact."
"I do." I have to. She felt Liara's hand briefly clutch hers.
"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honour matters." He stared her down, and under his gaze she found she suddenly had nothing to say. "The silence is your answer."
Thankfully, Liara broke the tension, walking past them both to where a small piece of Prothean technology had been placed. "We found this at the dig site," she said quietly. "I assume it belongs to you."
"It is a memory shard."
"Could it help us with the Device?"
"No, it contains only pain." He seemed to be calmer now, turning back to his reflecting pool without even glancing to the memory shard. "But I will help you fight. And the last thing the Reapers hear before they die will be the last voice of the Protheans sending them to their grave."
Shepard turned to leave, but Liara stayed.
"If you don't mind, I have a few more questions I'd like to ask."
I should have known. "Here it comes," she said, earning herself a glare.
"I've written over a dozen studies on your species. I've published in several journals tha-"
"Amusing. Asari have finally mastered writing."
"I'm sorry?" Shepard had to cover a smile at how affronted Liara looked.
"Never mind. What do you wish to know?"
"Is there anything more you can tell us about the device your people were trying to build?"
"We heard only stories. They said our scientists were constructing a great machine that had the power to defeat the Reapers."
"You never saw it?"
"By that point the Empire was smashed into pieces. None of us knew what the others were doing."
"Well if we don't finish it soon, the same will be true of us." Shepard drawled. "What about your war?"
"Many of the details were lost. The conflict lasted for centuries. Those that faced the Reapers in the beginning were long dead when I was born. There were memory shards however, passed down from soldier to soldier. They gave us fragments of what happened."
"Several years ago we found a Prothean VI that called itself Vigil on the planet Ilos. He was the caretaker of a research project."
"During my life, Ilos was only a rumour. It was said we had cities there, built on the ruins of a civilisation before us, the Inusannon." Shepard remembered suddenly the statues they had found on Ilos. She had wondered at the time if they were Prothean, but had barely given it any thought after they had found the Collectors. Now she thought about it it was obvious that those statues couldn't have been anything Prothean. Javik was still talking though. "If our scientists did have a research facility, whatever they were doing was secret."
Liara nodded. "Yes, Vigil said they wiped all traces of themselves from the records so the Reapers couldn't find them."
"The scientists eventually went into cryogenic stasis," Shepard told him.
"More of my people survived?"
"No." She regretted having mentioned it. For a moment she had almost felt the hope radiating off him. "But they did stop the Reapers from taking control of the Citadel in this cycle, delaying their invasion."
"I never saw the Citadel. It was captured long before I was born."
That was an astonishing thought. No matter how bad their war was going, they still had that central bastion. She hadn't realised just how much of a difference those Prothean scientists had made all those milllenia ago. If they hadn't prevented the Reapers from using the Citadel as their entry point, the war could have gone very differently.
"I…" Liara stammered. "I don't think I have anything else to ask." Shepard couldn't believe that, but if Liara was even half as overwhelmed as Shepard then it was no wonder she needed some time to process.
"Thank you for talking with us." Shepard said. "I never imagined actually meeting a prothean."
"This has been amusing."
"Oh?"
"To discover the most primitive races of my time now rule the galaxy. The asari, the humans, the turians."
"There's also the salarians."
"The lizard people evolved?"
Shepard wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic, but if anything could survive the millenia she was sure it would be a sense of sarcasm. "I believe they're amphibian."
"They used to eat flies." Now she was certain. Fantastic. Another snarky alien. "Captain. You may count on me. I am known as Javik."
It only then occurred to her that at no point had he introduced himself formally. "Then welcome aboard the Normandy Javik."
He only nodded to her, but after her experiences with the emotional feedback, she was quite glad of that.
AN:- I was tempted to leave the bit when he wakes up on the end of the last chapter, but it would have made that chapter 5000 words, which is about where I start getting itchy to cut it. Also, it would have left me wondering what to put in this next chapter. This way they're both around 3000 words and neatly contain the whole mission between them. I do think about things like pacing when I'm writing.
I decided to go the full route of having Shepard feel as though she is Javik for when he touches her. This isn't how she experiences most of the visions, but then she's never had direct contact with a Prothean before, only beacons. It stands to reason that the direct process, especially from a disoriented Prothean who from his perspective literally just watched his people die, would be a bit more intense. In the game it even knocks Javik to his knees.
Again I wrote up this entire conversation, but edited it down. It doesn't make sense they would bombard Javik will all their questions at once, like they do in the game, so I'll be saving them up to ration out in other conversations over the next few chapters.