Feel us breathe upon your face…
Feel us shift, every move we trace…
Hunt you down without mercy…
Hunt you down all nightmare long...
- Metallica, All Nightmare Long
Though Life Support was dry and arid, Shepard was unable to shake the cold shudder that ran down her spine. She was distressed and visibly trembling, reeling from… her incident… replaying the traumatizing episode over and over again in her mind, flinching every few seconds at the thought of the pistol's metallic barrel pressed hard against her own skull, at the memory of her finger tight against the trigger, ready to blow her own brains out as the disembodied voices plagued her sanity, wreaking havoc and making her question everything she was… or better yet, the person she used to be. Could she have pulled the trigger, if Garrus hadn't intervened? Should she have? Everything would have ended, the voices would have ceased, and she wouldn't have to endure living in this madness any longer.
From the corner of her vision she saw her mother, Detective Vakarian and Vega whispering amongst themselves (no doubt about what they had just witnessed in Liara's office) as Garrus stood in the corner, arms crossed and brow plates arched, keeping a watchful and ever concerned eye on her, as she continued to wage the furious war within herself.
Everything they had fought for over the years, would be all for naught had she decided to end it there. It would have the coward's way out, dying by her own hand. Even if her crew had gone on without her and defeated the clone, Cerberus would send yet another to replace her, and then another, and another, until at last, they would learn from their mistakes, and send a Shepard so perfected and lethal that no one would be able to stop it. Each time, the Alliance would squash any rumors of Cerberus activity, and classifying each occurrence and mission from the general public, just as they had always done, until all control was lost, and the balance upset.
Giving up would allow Cerberus to gain an unprecedented amount of power, thereby taking control over the Alliance and shattering remaining agreements with the other races. The galaxy needed to know of the terrorist group's brutality. They needed to be exposed to the public and destroyed… just like the Reapers.
By the time Garrus climbed up on the table and poked his head into the ventilation shaft above them, Shepard was resolved. She would not allow Cerberus to dictate her course of action any longer, no matter how many mind control chips they installed into her head… no matter how many clones they sent after her… no matter how many times they rebuilt her. Had she anything to do with it, Cerberus would not win… not today, not ever. She would continue to fight them to the last man standing. She would continue to fight them until her dying breath.
Her body quaked once more against the chill she couldn't shake, and instinctively, she wrapped her arm around herself for warmth.
Garrus stooped down, careful not to catch his fringe on the hole in the ceiling, and offered Shepard his hand. Allowing herself a weak smile, she took his outstretched claw, and he gently hoisted her up to stand next to him.
"Where exactly does this lead?" he asked, jerking his head upward, gesturing toward the vent above them.
"The conference room, one level up," Shepard stated. "Joker used these tunnels to evade the Collectors when they attacked."
"Ah," Garrus nodded in understanding.
"Thank God you didn't ask me to go clambering around in them this time," Joker chided over her earpiece. "I think I cracked both my kneecaps…"
"At least you didn't have to crawl through the vents in the Collector Base," Tali chirped over the comms, out of breath, and gunfire ringing in the background. "I was almost burned alive on several occasions while Shepard played footsies with Harbinger."
Shepard mustered up her remaining strength, and put on her best Commander's visage, ordering, "Cool it you two. Tali, what's your status?"
"We're slowly making our way through Engineering, but it's taking some time…," Tali said hesitantly.
"Yeah… that may have been partly my fault…," grumbled Wrex irritably.
"Why…?" Shepard asked timidly, imagining the krogan chasing down a merc and head butting his way through the hull.
Tali snorted, "Wrex got stuck in the shafts, so we had to neutralize the Port Cargo Area and seal it off while we pried him loose."
"I bet that bruised his ego," snorted Shepard casting a sideways look at Garrus, smirking.
"Damn right it did," Wrex muttered under his breath, but audibly enough for it to be heard in her earpiece. "Don't tell Bakara…"
Still grinning, Shepard replied, "I'll take it into consideration. Tali, notify me when Engineering has been cleared of hostiles, and you're ready to jump start the drive core."
"Got it,"
"Shepard out," she said, ticking off her earpiece and placing her good hand on Garrus' shoulder.
"Ready?" he asked, stooping down and cupping his hands together.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself and nodding, she said, "Let's finish this."
Garrus counted to three, then lifted her into the vent opening, where she landed with a heavy Oof! spread eagle on her stomach. Arms flailed out in front of her, she scrambled into an upright position to make room for her mother, who pulled herself through with more grace and agility than she did. Sticking her head back through the hole in the ceiling to look down at her crew, Shepard commanded, "Garrus, I want you, Vega and Detective Vakarian to go up through the elevator shaft. With any luck, we'll clear them all out before they figure out what hit them."
Barely five minutes later, Shepard found herself crawling through the vents clumsily behind her mother. Dragging the dead weight of her left arm was proving to be more of a challenge than she would have preferred. Every few yards, she would grunt and mutter a string of curse words together as she would stumble over her arm and nearly face plant onto the inside of the shaft.
"You're making a hell of a lot of noise for a stealth attempt," Hannah scolded as she stopped to glare at her daughter.
"Mother," Shepard groaned. She wasn't in the mood for a lecture. "I'm not an infiltrator. I'm a soldier… This is what I do."
Moving forward, Hannah continued to chastise, "I wasn't going to reprimand you in front of your crew because they obviously hold you in high regard, but you can't go barrel rolling through every situation, Aurora… You're careless, reckless and you don't think before you act… look where it's gotten you…"
She rolled her eyes. This was a long standing argument between the two of them and the reason she typically kept so much distance between her and her mother. She did not want to be having this discussion at the moment. In an attempt to squash the conversation, she lashed out, "Saren, the Collectors… the Reapers… I did what no else was willing to do, and I did it to the best of my abilities."
"Not what I meant," Hannah snapped. "You died! Almost twice! Because you make decisions before you think about them..."
She doesn't believe in you… None of them do…
Aurora closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, "We'll talk about this later."
You are alone... Forever alone…
The voices had returned, though barely a whisper in her head.
Don't you ever stop? she thought angrily to them.
We await you arrival Shepard…
What are you?! she screamed silently at them.
... We are eternal… said the most prominent voice, chuckling darkly.
What do you want from me?!
An unnerving few moments of silence passed with no reply before she realized her mother was still talking, "-jumping around, from ship to ship… Perhaps I should have raised you in a more stable environment…"
"I'm sorry, mom…," she blurted out.
Hannah whirled around to face her, "Whatever for?"
"For not being the daughter you wanted… I know this wasn't the life you had wished for me…"
"You're right…," Hannah sighed. "I should have retired when my four years were up… I would have been able to give you the life you deserved… You could have gone off to school… Become a scientist… an engineer… anything… but…"
"But?"
"But I didn't…," Hannah paused, searching for the right words. "Aurora… I want you to understand… I know I wasn't around a lot when you were growing up… You spent most of your young life playing with other military kids… I should have been there more often… I regret…"
"You had a duty to the Alliance…," Shepard interrupted quietly… reassuringly. "You did what you could… I certainly don't regret any of it… And for all intents and purposes, I think you did a fine job in raising me…"
"I did, didn't I?" Hannah snorted. "Though, I still can't condone your brashness and recklessness…"
"I did learn from the best," Shepard chided with a grin.
"That godforsaken trait comes from your father… not me," Hannah retorted, shaking her head. "And your nose…"
Aurora continued to smirk, "It's been broken so many times, you can't even tell."
Both mother and daughter chuckled in spite of everything wrong with their current situation.
They continued to make their way through the vents, their banter dying down into silence as they drew closer to the CIC deck, and Shepard was more careful to not allow her bad arm to thump against the metal insides of the shaft. At long last, they finally caught a glimpse of light beaming down the ladder like a beacon in a dark fog.
Hannah motioned for Shepard to halt when they heard the pacing of footsteps above them. Aurora watched as her mother stood up in the opening and put one foot gingerly on the ladder rungs and slowly climbed upwards, disappearing into the light.
The next ten seconds seemed to tick slowly onward in an unsettling calm, as Shepard waited with baited breath for her mother to reappear. All of a sudden, she heard two gunshots, a loud grunt and the cracking of what sounded like bones breaking.
"Mom?" Aurora called out in a whisper, her heart thundering in her chest. What if a guard had caught her? What if she was hurt? In a flash, she felt an overwhelming sense of fear take hold of her.
Maybe they disposed of her…, the voice jeered once more. That would be… enticing… add a little twist into our game…
"Mom?" she repeated, ignoring the hissing.
More silence.
It wasn't until a body came thundering down through the opening, did she get an answer. The noise the body made crashing to the bottom of the vent caused Shepard to jump nearly five feet backwards, startling her half to death.
The corpse, thankfully, belonged to a Cerberus guard, head and arms bent at all the wrong angles. Stepping over the form, Shepard looked up to see her mother standing above her, hands on her hips.
"What?" said Hannah, cocking her head to the side.
"Now who's making too much noise?" Shepard said. "Nevermind that. Just help me out of here."
Hannah reached down and locked wrists with her daughter, heaving her up the ladder and into the conference room.
Glancing around the room, searching for more bodies, and not seeing any, Shepard asked, "Just the one?"
"No… two more are dead in the War Room," Hannah said, inclining her head toward the next room.
"Hmph," muttered Shepard. "That was fast."
Retrieving her pistol from the floor, Hannah responded, "Honey, there's a reason I'm an Admiral."
Their banter was cut short by a thunderous explosion in the small vestibule where Privates Campbell and Westmoreland used to be stationed. Hannah grabbed Aurora by the arm and yanked her down behind the conference table, pulling it over on its side as cover, just as a second detonation tore the sealed door asunder, splintering it apart. Without regard for her own well-being, Hannah instinctively flung herself over her daughter's body like a protective cocoon. Shrapnel flew in every direction, shattering the glass walls around their small barrier. Shards rained down on them in a violent torrent, the larger pieces cutting and biting into their exposed skin. Four Centurions funneled into the conference room, guns blazing.
One guard pulled the pin from a grenade and chucked it in the Shepard's direction. The grenade skipped across the floor and came to a halt against Aurora's knee.
"Oh shit!" she shouted, and carelessly picked it up and lobbed it back across the room toward the Cerberus enemies. It detonated in midair, directly in front of a Dragoon charging through the doorway. The heavily armored soldier's head disappeared in a shower of blood and brain matter, his body landing with a thud on the ground.
Shepard blind fired her pistol over top her cover, emptying an entire thermal clip at their adversaries, and not hitting a single one.
"Pistols aren't going to do much damage against these bastards!" she yelled to her mother over the gunshots, as bullets attempted to penetrate their makeshift barrier. An Assault Trooper and a Phantom followed through the entryway and stepped over the dead soldier.
"Damnit," Shepard groaned. They were pinned down, with no heavy artillery and nowhere else to go. It was turning out to be an uneven fight, one in which she would more than like have to unleash her biotics, something she was a little less than willing to do. She hadn't used them since her father had experimented on her. The biotics had done considerable damage to the scientists working on her, but… She flinched at the thought. Her father had punished her for the outburst and for not being able to control it. Not to mention what it took out of her. The last time she did use them, she had passed out from the significant increase in power than what she was typically accustomed to.
"Cover me!" she yelled, standing up. Biotics crackled around her torso, up her chest, and over her shoulders, throwing everything into a haze of indigo and crimson light. She felt the heat and static electricity jump over her skin as it ripped down the length of her right arm, forming into a ball at her fingertips. Taking aim at the Phantom who had moved its way into the center of the small squad, Shepard cried out, unleashing her Reave.
Instead of just hitting the Phantom, the Reave hit every Cerberus troop in the small room square in their chests. Weapons clanged to the ground in unison as the enemies were lifted off their feet and into the air, their bodies and faces twisting and writhing as their nervous systems were assaulted from the inside. Shepard could sense their life forces flickering out one by one as they were tossed about like rag dolls by her biotics, and she began to revel in it.
You can feel that… can't you? Their lives being snuffed out like tiny candles… You DO enjoy this…
When two Centurions and the Phantom remained, struggling to remain alive, Hannah unleashed a devastating Slam that detonated the Reave and blasted the combatants into the walls, where they slid down, unmoving and never to fire another shot.
"What the hell was that?!" exclaimed Hannah, eyes wide in alarm. Shepard collapsed to her knees, winded . Fighting to stay conscious, she said with a humorless, dark smirk, "Cerberus… just… got a taste… of their own medicine…"
Hannah swallowed as she furrowed her eyebrows, "He did this to you?"
Shepard nodded, drained. The Reave had taken a huge toll on her, more than she cared to admit, but she couldn't hide it… not when her eyes kept rolling back and her head lolled forward as she fought off blacking out.
"What would warrant doing… this… to someone… let alone his own daughter?" Hannah said, clenching her fists in vehemence. Head hanging between her shoulders, Shepard shrugged, "Maybe he was trying to create the perfect soldier…"
"No such thing," Hannah said, shaking her head in disbelief as Shepard slowly hoisted herself to her feet. Legs trembling, she stumbled sideways before she was able to recover some sort of balance.
Head pounding, Shepard regained her composure and marched from the conference room, into the CIC, her mother in tow.
Upon entering the Combat Information Center, Shepard spotted three Assault Troopers, and immediately took them out with well placed bullets to their heads.
At the same moment, the elevator doors opened, and Archangel leapt from the darkness, Geth Spitfire roaring to life as he began to mow down Centurions, Troopers, several Dragoons, an Engineer and a couple more Phantoms. Vega followed suit, shooting everything that moved. Bullets flew every which way, hitting Cerberus troops, consoles, and the walls. She definitely didn't regret upgrading the ship's armor now. Body parts and scarlet blood showered down over the Normandy's main deck.
Not a single soul will make it off this ship alive, Shepard vowed to herself. From the corner of her vision, Shepard saw Detective Vakarian hang back, looking rather uncomfortable.
Ignoring the elder turian, she looked up just in time to see the clone disappear onto the bridge with her lieutenant and another Centurion, shock and dismay written all over her face. The lieutenant and the Centurion forcing the door shut behind them, locking themselves on the bridge.
Slipping through Cerberus ichor, Shepard strode across the CIC with all the ferocity and fury of hell. Calling out to her double in rage, she shouted, "You can't hide from me!"
Silence.
"Come out and face me like the big, bad Cerberus operative you are!" she yelled, waving her gun wildly in the air. "Or are you too afraid?!"
She gestured for Garrus and Vega to come forward and pry open the door. As the two of them worked as one, Shepard continued to taunt and lay insult to the clone, "Daddy would be so disappointed with you! You failed!"
Still no response.
"You're still only second best, clone!" she goaded. "I said, COME OUT AND FACE ME!"
Unexpectedly, the door slid open, seemingly on its own accord, leaving Garrus and Vega scratching their heads. The clone's two guards stepped out, chins up and standing tall, like actual military men, blocking the double from view.
Shepard rolled her eyes in exasperation, "Enough of this!" She fired off four rounds in rapid succession, double tapping each soldier, once in the chest and once in the head, murdering them in cold blood, without remorse or guilt. The execution left the double standing very much alone on the bridge.
She heard her own squad ready their own guns, but she signaled for them to lower their weapons. This was between her and this… mirage… this delusion standing in front of her.
"So it comes down to this, then?" the clone seethed, gesturing between the two of them. "You plan to kill me?"
Shepard laughed, "You're damn right I do."
The doppelganger shrugged, "It doesn't matter… He'll just send another one… and another… and another."
"I'm not stopping at just you… No, no, no… Cerberus will fall… I can promise you that," snarled Shepard.
It was the clone's turn to chuckle, "You really have no idea, do you?"
Shepard frowned, "No idea of what?"
"Yeah… Didn't think so... You're so caught up with your insignificant qualms that you don't even realize you are contending with something bigger than you, or your friends… or anyone, for that matter, understands. Bigger than even the Reapers. The Illusive Man only began to scratch the surface of it,"
"The surface of what?" demanded Shepard.
Still grinning, the double said, "All you have to do is a little digging into your precious Alliance, and you'll see the Light."
Shepard rushed her, closing the distance between them swiftly, barreling into her like a freight train and slamming her into the Normandy's controls. Pointing her gun into the other's face, Shepard growled, "Stop speaking in riddles, and I'll ensure your death is a quick one."
"You chose wrong, organic...," the clone laughed. Shepard pulled away, taking a step backward, and placing her hand over her mouth, unable… or unwilling to comprehend what she had just heard.
"What did you say?" she said, blinking at the other Shepard.
"We await your arrival, Shepard…," the other hissed, winking at her.
How did she know? The voices… they had said the same damn thing… They couldn't be one in the same… could they? No… impossible… An engulfing wave of dread washed over her. She didn't know what to make of it…
Her breath quickened, and she staggered under the weight of what the clone had just uttered to her. She didn't know if her squad had heard any of it… Maybe it was just her…
Maybe the whole ordeal was taking place inside her very head… Perhaps she was the delusion…
Her head began to spin once more… voices… voices everywhere screamed at her… shouting, yelling, urging her to turn the gun on everyone aboard the ship, including herself. They were relentless… stronger than before… more enticing…
In the background, she could hear the clone laughing maniacally at her… or was she the one cackling like a mad woman?
She heard the click of a thermal clip drop into the chamber come from behind her…
"NO!" she roared, coming to and spinning on heel, charging the clone for a second time. The voices died out as she raised her hand to strike the double. Her omni-blade flared to life in a flash, throwing a soft, orange glow around the cockpit, as she drove the blade home, deep into the clone's abdomen.
Twisting the weapon slowly as it entered the other Shepard's gut, and with the taste of vengeance upon her lips, Aurora whispered, "Feel that?"
The double's mouth twisted into a wry grin, as the blade was thrust deeper and further. Somewhere… somehow, another gunshot went off.
"That's for every person that has ever been subjected to Cerberus…," she said, yanking the blade from the clone's stomach. The other fell to the floor with a clatter, clutching her abdomen, as blood leaked through her fingers.
Omni-blade still unsheathed, Shepard raised her pistol and directed it between the double's eyes.
"And this is for me, bitch," she sneered as she pulled the trigger. "Give the Illusive Man my regards."
The clone careened forward, landing at Shepard's feet, her own pistol falling from her hand.
At least that was over… God, she needed a vacation.
Turning back to Garrus and her the rest of her squad, Shepard looked down her front and saw more blood… the clone's? She pressed her hand against it, and it came away warm and wet, glistening in the glow of the emergency lighting on the bridge…
She stumbled toward Garrus, as the blood oozed down her shirt and onto her pants. No… it was most definitely her own.
The other gunshot she had heard…
Just as she was about to keel over, Garrus caught her gingerly in his arms, and they both sunk to the floor.
"Shepard? Shepard!" he shouted at her, shaking her to keep her awake.
"I'm… I'm fine, Garrus… J-Just let me… let me rest," she mumbled, closing her eyes for just a moment. She didn't feel so well… maybe it was Chakwas' stims finally wearing off…
She heard him order someone to hit a button… she heard Tali… she heard all familiar voices… all friendly voices… accept for the one…
We await your arrival…
"Shepard, stay with me," Garrus said… his subharmonics were trembling…
He really did care about her…
How did she get so lucky?
She'd be lost without him…
Garrus...
He was the last thought she had before diving headfirst into total darkness once more...
Updated 6/7/14