"You!", Shepard snarled, whirling to face the new arrivals as they made their way up the steps and towards the Citadel controls. There were a couple of Phantoms, a pair of Nemeses, and a Dragoon with the Illusive Man, but it was their leader that had her full attention. "I should have known you'd stick your slimy head up here before the end."
"Of course," the Illusive Man told her. The arrogant smile he so often wore was still plastered on, but his face had changed. Dark spider webs of cybernetics ran beneath his skin and strange energies filled his piercing blue eyes. "Your case has always intrigued me."
"Well, you were wrong about it," she snapped, the rage that she'd been carrying towards this monster spilling out. "All along, it was just my prothean-altered brain that you needed. All the rest of the shit you did to me was for nothing."
"It's a price I'm happy to have paid," he replied nonchalantly, ignoring the doubt and anguish she'd suffered because of his machinations. "After all, you're going to help Cerberus achieve everything that I ever wanted it to."
"Destroying the Reapers? Yeah, I know you need me or Javik to do that, so why don't you just get the fuck out of here and leave me to it." Every fiber of her being didn't want to give him that chance. Just the sight of the bastard who had tried again and again to destroy her life and to hurt the people that she cared about, who'd been responsible for countless atrocities, was making her quiver with rage, but she couldn't take any chances right now. She had to make sure she was ready to activate the Crucible when it docked. Nothing else mattered.
"I'm afraid it's not as simple as that. Destroying the Reapers isn't the only thing that the Crucible can do. With it, you can take control of them instead. They possess nearly limitless power. Power that humanity could use to dominate the galaxy forever. That's why the Protheans altered its design. Anyone can operate the Crucible, but only a member of their race, or someone who can pass for one, can activate that function."
Her mind raced. "But, the files said…"
"Exactly what I wanted them to. I needed to ensure that you would be here at the proper time. I couldn't count on the Alliance sharing my priorities after all."
"Well, I certainly don't," she growled, her green eyes narrowing with rage. "I'm blowing these bastards to hell and if you don't leave right now, you'll be there to welcome them."
"Don't be a fool," he chided her. "Think of Earth. Think of all the people who've died there in the last year because we lacked the power to protect them. With the Reapers under humanity's control, that will never happen again."
"You mean under your control," Miranda interjected coldly, fixing a disapproving gaze on the man who had once been her mentor. "I used to believe in you and in what you stood for but how many innocent people have you slaughtered in the last six months? How much worse would you do with the Reapers at your command?"
"I wouldn't have thought you were so squeamish, Miss Lawson," he told her dismissively. "At least not until you failed me and then betrayed humanity out of concern for your so-called sister."
"Miranda's right," Shepard responded, surprised to hear herself saying those words. "Humanity can look after itself. It always has. I'm not sure anyone should have the kind of power you're talking about and I'm definitely not going to risk you or someone like you ending up in control of the Crucible after I activate it. The Reapers die. End of story."
The Illusive Man shrugged. "I suspected you would make that decision, commander. After all, someone who lacks the simple regard for their species to pass along their genes can hardly be expected to understand what I'm trying to accomplish here. Fortunately, I do not require you to agree with me. Co-opting the technology of the Reapers has allowed me to do far more than simply hide my presence from them."
The mastermind behind Cerberus raised his hand and as his eyes flared with light, Shepard felt a sudden heaviness in her limbs. She tried to lift her gun, but her arms refused to obey her commands, hanging slack and useless at her sides instead. "What the f…", she started to force out even as her mouth stopped working properly.
All around her, the rest of the Cerberus forces were starting to move. "Kill the traitor," the Illusive Man told them as he focused his attention on keeping Shepard from moving. "Leave the other two alive. They may still be useful."
Everyone always remembered to secure the guns. Even, and perhaps especially on a warship, it was hard to get a hold of a weapon without a good reason. The tools, not so much, and that was why Kelly Chambers was currently armed with an electric spanner as she made her way through the decks of the Normandy.
In all of the chaos, it had been easy enough for her to get out of her room unnoticed and as she made her way towards the bridge, she tried to steel her mind for what she had to do next. It wasn't that she wanted to hurt anyone. She hated violence, whether or not she was the one committing it, but the voices had made her a promise. If she could just shut down the Normandy, than everything would be okay. This dreadful war would end, the screaming in her head would stop, and she and the rest of the crew could all be at peace.
The lift doors opened, and she was relieved by what she found. Most of the crew had been drawn elsewhere by the battle and the those few left were distracted, attending to their duties instead of paying attention to the new arrival.
The closest person to her was Samantha Traynor, standing at her station and furiously relaying communications from the other ships in the fleet. Kelly liked Sam. The specialist had been much friendlier to her than many of the other crew members and for an instant, she hesitated, not wanting to hurt her. Samantha began to turn around, alerted by the sound of footsteps, and Kelly wanted to ask for her help.
"Kelly?", she started to ask, confused to see the yeoman there, and the voices whispered, "She won't understand." Chambers struck the specialist in the center of her chest, delivering a powerful electric shock to her unprotected body. A small yelp was the only sound Samantha made as she crashed down to the deck, unconscious, and Kelly rushed on towards the cockpit and her promised salvation.
As the powerful abomination hovered across the garden, Javik pulled himself up out of the dirt, tossing aside the potted plant he had been thrown into. His spine was a lance of pain, and when he exhaled, he felt his ribs press up against his lungs, making each breath an agony. He ignored it. Pain was a luxury for the weak and right now, he could ill afford weakness. Picking up his particle rifle, Javik fired, unleashing a brilliant green beam at barriers that glowed purple under the impact.
Energy appeared around the creature's hand but when it hurled at Javik, the prothean was ready, throwing himself with deliberate speed across the floor. It still wasn't enough. Even though he avoided a direct hit, the edges of the Collector's power still seared him, his weakened barriers insufficient to prevent the flesh of his side from starting to melt away.
Tali activated a device on her gauntlet, draining some of the power from its defenses and while it was relatively vulnerable, James struck. The injured marine hurled himself into the Collector, smashing its chest with his shoulder guard and while it was left spinning, he leveled his rifle, emptying a clip into it point-blank. A hunk of its carapace flew off, yellow fluids dripping from the wound, but the human paid a terrible price for his bravery.
The Collector grabbed a hold of his throat and energy flowed out of its hand, his flesh beginning to melt under the terrible heat. James screamed, a sound of pure pain too deep for words, and though all three of his teammates opened fire, spraying the creature will everything they had, it didn't relent, instead continuing to cook the lieutenant alive. When Liara added a powerful warp blast to their onslaught, the monster at last released James, but it was too late. The burnt corpse that fell from its grasp was barely recognizable as human, let alone alive.
Tali cried out in anger, firing her shotgun once more into the creature but it ignored her, instead resuming its movement towards Javik. The prothean met its gaze and as he looked into the black sockets where its eyes should have been, he saw a terrible reminder what had become of his entire species. The soldiers under his command who had once been his friends, to say nothing of whole planetary populations, had been turned into those creatures and then sent to hunt down the rest of their kind. And they'd succeeded. It was too late for his cycle. Too late for him.
But not too late for these people. This thing would not have them. Reaching down, Javik touched a control on his belt and then turned back to the Collector. Pushing past the fire in his side, he reached deep within himself, drawing on every last drop of power he could find. His biotics leapt forth, the field of dark energy he summoned beating down the creature's barriers and preventing them from reforming as the massive shape descended on him.
Its taloned fingers reached out, digging deep into the red metal of his armor, but even as it drew blood, Javik didn't relent, putting every ounce of his strength into this one final mission he had to complete. The creature's dark gaze fixed on him and with a roar, the last prothean lunged upwards, smashing his head into its armored face. His vision started to blur from the impact, but the mental clock he'd been keeping in his head was clear. He drew his face level, only inches away from the Collector, and as the bones of his arms began to crack under the power of its grasp, he growled out his last words.
"Long Live the Empire!"
Liara heard those words, and an instant later, everything turned to harsh light. From around the prothean, a massive explosion bloomed, filling her vision, and all she could do was throw what power she could into her barriers as every one of the biotic grenades that Javik carried exploded at once.
In spite of her best efforts, the Shadow Broker was hurled from her feet, crashing into a blood-slicked wall as her defenses lessened but did not eliminate the impact. The breath rushed out of her chest, her body going numb even as her head throbbed with the force of the crash. The asari's hands went instinctively to her stomach and she thanked the Goddess that she didn't seem to have any serious injuries there; hopefully the daughter she was carrying was unharmed.
Her vision was blurry, but as after a few blinks, she saw that both combatants were gone, little more than chunks of blood and bone and armor remaining where once the two powerful warriors had stood. Across the garden, Tali was lying flat on her back, her shotgun flung from her grasp. The quarian's face mask had been shattered by the explosion and its heat had burned a hole in her suit, exposing delicate purple flesh to the air. Forcing herself to move, Liara crawled to her friend's side, her gloves growing slick with the blood on the ground beneath her.
"Tali," she gasped, still finding her breath, "Can you hear me?"
The quarian reached up, her long fingers brushing over Liara's forehead. "You're… you're bleeding, Liara."
The Shadow Broker realized she was right, a drop of the purple liquid dripping down to land on her nose. She must have been partially in shock to have not noticed, but she was still in better shape than Tali. "I will be all right," she told her teammate, trying to sound sure of it, "But your suit…"
"Keelah," Tali groaned, seeming to become away of the extent of her own injuries, "It's bad, isn't it?"
"There is…" Liara paused, distressed by what she had to tell Tali, but needing to be honest. "There is a large hole in it."
"Medi-gel," the quarian wheezed, "And anti-biotics. In a compartment on my suit belt." Liara peeled off her bloody gloves and her fumbling fingers found the place where the drugs had been stored. Pulling them out, she gave Tali what first aid she could, these last few years having taught her more than she'd ever thought to know about treating the wounded. Tali's injuries were even worse than she'd realized, one and possibly both of her legs shattered by the explosion, and Liara wished they'd had more medi-gel left.
"Save some for yourself," Tali protested, as Liara prepared to give her some of her own to supplement the quarian's limited supply. "You have to go."
"I cannot leave you like this," Liara objected. Even treated, there was no way Tali was going anywhere. Walking, let alone fighting, was more or less out of the question.
"You have to. Find Shepard. It's the only way…" The quarian coughed, perhaps showing an early sign of some opportunistic infection. "…Only way to save us."
Liara made herself stand. Her legs were still shaky, but they worked and Tali was right. With Javik dead, Shepard was the last chance they had left to save the galaxy and Liara had to help her. Before she left though, the asari slid the shotgun back over to her friend, just in case more enemies appeared. "Hold on, Tali" she insisted as she applied the medi-gel to her head, trying to fight back the tears that were forming behind her eyes. "We will finish this." They had to. So many people had already sacrificed themselves to get this far; it could not all be in vain. Liara would not allow it.
Wow, for a story that began as a smut shot about Shepard having a dick, I feel like this really went to a dark place. Anyway, let me know what you thought of TIM's revelation, James and Javik's deaths, and all the rest. Thanks for reading.