Author's note: It has been pointed out to me explicitly, and I have inferred from some of the reviews, that what happens is confusing to people who don't know one or the other milieu. Fair enough, I can do more 'splaining. Also, I have no beta, and I do most of my work while walking to or from work, so my text can be disjointed. I will work on that as well. I want to do more writing as it is now NaNoWriMo, but I have several stories I'm banging away on.
On a side note, let me know if anyone is interested in me listing the sources I use for the quotes and references Shepard uses.
Regardless, forward!
Elysium
Sixty hours into the ritual, Janice was starting to get tired.
She knelt alone in a small room. Off the beaten paths of the forest, the old cottage was used as a backup way station and wintering location for the forest rangers. She had moved out all the furniture, and stripped the walls bare a week before. Since then, she spent the remaining time before the ritual etching patterns into the floor, ceiling, and walls. Now kneeling in the center, sweat poured off her as her soul infused the room. The smell of boiling lead filled the air, and pulsing glows of quintessence passed through the carvings, twisting and wrapping into each other in an endless dance across the boundaries of the room, sealing the room off from consensual reality, and manifesting a physical presence for Janice's soul.
She was alone, but then again, Jane Shepard was never truly by herself. Kneeling next to Janice in the triangle carved at the heart of the ritual was her Avatar. Wings extended outwards, flickering into reality; at one moment made of fire, then of feathers, then of iron. The small girl's face was turned up, a smile of wonder and anticipation on her lips. Small tracks of melting lead and brass dripped down her face and off her bloody hands, vaporizing before they hit the floor.
In the third point of the triangle was Janice's big sister Amanda. Legs folded up underneath her, Amanda's eyes were closed as she breathed deep, meditative breaths. The light swirling around the room pulsed in time with her breathing.
Amanda opened her eyes. Janice stood. They were ready. The room they were in was now no longer physically in the southern range of the Michaelson forest on Elysium. The room was now a representative of their soul; a physical demarcation of their will. The walls were covered with their blood, and powered by their life. The air was saturated with their essence. At this moment, the room was Jane Shepard.
This was their last day of furlough before Shepard shipped out for active duty, and finally she was ready to say goodbye to her older sister.
"Amanda, you are the architect of our redemption. We are here only because of your faith in our self, and your willingness to sacrifice yourself for our soul. I hold you in my heart, and will always honor you." Janice knelt before Amanda, placed her hands on the ground, and touched her head to hands. She knelt in full dogeza for several minutes of genuflection before rising.
Janice reached her hands out, and Amanda and their Avatar both extended theirs as well. They held hands, forming their own triangle within their soul. The energy flowing through the room sped up, brightening.
Janice spoke.
"O heaven above me, thou pure, thou deep heaven! Thou abyss of light!
Up to thy height to toss myself—that is MY depth!
In thy purity to hide myself—that is MINE innocence!"
Their Avatar spoke, "I am who came before; Mercedes."
A pulse of light appeared above them, pulsing, growing.
Janice smiled at Amanda, and continued,
"We have been friends from the beginning: to us are grief, gruesomeness, and ground common; even the sun is common to us.
We do not speak to each other, because we know too much—: we keep silent to each other, we smile our knowledge to each other.
Art thou not the light of my fire? Hast thou not the sister-soul of mine insight?
Together did we learn everything; together did we learn to ascend beyond ourselves to ourselves, and to smile uncloudedly:—
—Uncloudedly to smile down out of luminous eyes and out of miles of distance, when under us constraint and purpose and guilt steam like rain."
Their Avatar spoke again, "I am who came before; Amanda." Her wings now blazed a white fire, and grew larger with each moment. The point of light above them burned with a clear brilliance, light of their highest soul.
Janice spoke again, voice rising into glorious proclamation.
"And wandered I alone, for WHAT did my soul hunger by night and in labyrinthine paths? And climbed I mountains, WHOM did I ever seek, if not thee, upon mountains?
And all my wandering and mountain-climbing:
a necessity was it merely, and a makeshift of the unhandy one:
—to FLY only, wanteth mine entire will, to fly into THEE!"
Their Avatar's wings of white fire merged into the room, becoming the floor, ceiling, and walls. Soul cradled in the wings of their Avatar, they floated. Above them, the point of light shone even brighter. Coruscating colors started to appear within it, iridescent.
Janice and Amanda were now holding each other's hands, their Avatar enveloping them with her presence. Janice and Amanda hugged, and their forms began to drift into each other.
From all around them, the voice of their Avatar spoke.
"I am who comes before; Janice."
Their soul echoed, as the nature of their existence strengthened and changed.
Together, Amanda and Janice spoke, their voices blending until they spoke in one voice.
"So, show me righteousness which I continue to invoke.
I am well accompanied by serenity.
Ask us what we want to ask you.
An inquiry by you amounts to an inquiry by the strong,
because the Ruler makes one
strong and powerful through you."
Amanda and Janice's floating figure drifted up to the point of light shining at the center of their soul. They plunged into the light, rushing up into it, smashing down upon it, breaking apart, and coming together.
Whole. Untainted. Pure.
Thus Amanda lay down her burden of shepherding her soul to redemption, and finally reincarnated into her living self. The twisting braid of their lives had finally joined together, and they were one. In spirit, flesh, and mind. Corruption may continue to seep into them, but the heart of their soul was clean.
The next day, Jane Shepard set out on her mission to Akuze; all contact was lost with the pioneer team, and Shepard's platoon was tasked to discover the reason. Less than 2 weeks after she left, batarians attacked Elysium in what would be called the Skyllian Blitz.
Akuze
When the thresher maws burst from beneath her platoon, Shepard was the first to die.
The ground shook, and the earth opened up. Towers of scales rose into the sky. Keening cries of rage split the air. Acid poured down in rivers from jagged mouths. Rending teeth pulled apart everything unscathed. The initial attack lasted for less than two minutes, then the giant worms tunneled back underground. The screams of the dying chorused in the darkness. Figures crawled in random directions, or rolled on the dirt clawing at the acid eating into their bodies. A few had their weapons out, some shooting into the sky. Then the thresher maws rose out of the ground again, acid and teeth tearing away at the remaining marines. A few moments later, the maws returned below the earth. Then again they rose. Again, and again, and again, until nothing moved on the plains of Akuze.
Shepard felt fate press down upon them as soon as they entered the valley, and knew they were all supposed to die. There was no time to lead her men to escape. No means to cheat fate. When the earth opened up around her, Shepard dove into the chasms. As death rained down on them, Shepard stepped through the Shroud.
Akuze's penumbra was exactly the same as Akuze; dark and desolate. A cold hunger permeated the atmosphere. Rent souls appeared around Shepard, her dead troops convulsing with the shock and trauma of their deaths. Shepard gathered them up, soothed their grief, and comforted their rage. She took their last requests, and opened up the path to great wheel of life, where they would go to reincarnate.
Shepard stopped.
"Where is Corporal Toombs?" She glanced around her platoon. Everyone else was present and accounted for; 48 ghosts, leaving only her and Toombs unnumbered among them.
No one remembered seeing him die.
Jane guided the dead to the wheel, and then turned back to the living. Her katabasis was an enduring solitude; no ghosts, spirits or seekings challenged her on her grinding trudge back to life on the empty fields.
When she arose, she was alone. She wandered the plains for hours, unable to find any sign of her missing Corporal. Shaking with exhaustion, she barely made it back to the landing zone before the Alliance rescue crews arrived. They weren't able to find any survivors either. Shepard sent them back twice before they sedated her.
Office of Alliance operations, Skyllian Verge
Captain David Anderson carefully watched the young marine in front of him. She watched him back. Quiet. Patient. Predatory.
"You've been through all the psych, so let's just cut to the heart of the matter."
She blinked. "Sir?"
He grabbed a paper from off his desk, and read from it. "…Shepard presents no psychological deviancy or abnormal decision making indicators regarding the action of extra-homid presence upon maneuvers taken in the field, or upon direct or indirect contact with elements presenting or signifying any interest in the processing of mandatory manual labor apprehension or acquisitioning."
He dropped the psychological profile to the side of his desk, and stared into her.
"Will you go apeshit on batarian slavers?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"You know all the right answers to give to the shrinks. They all say you're completely fine, but I can see through that. I want to hear it directly from you."
His eyes bored into hers.
"Will you be alright being on the assault on Torfan?"
She took a deep breath.
"Sir, I joined the Alliance so that other children wouldn't have to go through what I went through. If that means that I take part in the assault on the slavers on Torfan, I will do so to my fullest ability. If it means playing an assisting role, so be it. If it means taking another post somewhere else so a more qualified person can be part of the assault, then I am happy to serve elsewhere."
He looked at her. Several minutes passed in silence. She stood straight, and looked back at him the whole time.
He tossed a pair of golden oak leaves to her.
"Congratulations Commander Shepard. You're the new C2 for the assault on Torfan. Good luck."
Torfan
"We're not going to get of this in one piece."
Her lieutenants turned to face Shepard. Hard faces, pale beneath the grime and sweat. As part of the original plan, her battalion had pressed the batarian flank hard, and now they were deep in enemy territory.
"Without further backup, the current operation is a failure. Backup will not arrive in time."
Shepard's omnitool lit up, and displayed a tactical map of Torfan. Alliance troop movements across the entire line of battle were either pulling back or being enveloped by enemy icons. Reinforcing companies were delayed and out of position; the batarian counter offensive had taken Major Kyle by surprise and significantly delayed response time for all Alliance units across the entire front. Without rapid redeployment, the entire Systems Alliance assault force would be thrown back from the batarian defenses, and the batarians would either entrench, causing further assaults to become negligible, or they would retreat completely, allowing them to regroup and continue pirate raids across the entire Skyllian Verge. This could not be allowed.
Her team nodded back at her.
"We need to strike the slavers now, and drive them to rout. We can't let them gain enough time to either disengage or coalesce. This means a direct strike at their C3."
Her finger struck down, highlighting a portion of the batarian defenses.
"This is the schwerpunkt. Striking here can do all of that."
Her voice was grim. They could see why. Nestled around Shepard's finger were the icons for the batarian heavy weapon emplacements. They would have to assault into the teeth of the batarian line to reach the point Shepard pointed out.
No one disagreed with Shepard's declaration of where the focus point was. She had consistently demonstrated a talent for seeing points of vulnerability, and the ability to ruthlessly take advantage of them.
The only question now was if they willing to pay the price to get there.
Shepard continued, "There's no one else in range who can assist us within the launch window. It's either we go all in, or we pull back and see if we can meet up with the remnants of the 3rd and 5th for the next assault." Her finger traced the route they would have to take, and pointed out the Alliance units that were currently falling back. The 5th battalion was almost fully extracted, but the 3rd was about to be overrun; already several of their companies were isolated and taking heavy fire.
There was no discussion; everyone knew that retreat would not only cause more casualties in the long run, but the failure of their mission to crush the slavers trapped on Torfan would result in continued raids across human colonies causing thousands of deaths and billions of credits of damage.
Shepard opened the comm. channel to the entire battalion. "Your sergeants have your specific orders. We must engage the enemy in full speed. We cannot stop for the enemy's surrender; ensuring their pacification will slow us down, and if we just disarm them they will regroup to strike us from the rear. We cannot stop for our wounded. No quarter. We must push. The regiment is faltering, and it's survival is on us. The only way out is forward."
She bowed her head. The channel was still open, broadcasting Shepard's countenance to her entire command. She raised her head, and continued in a softer voice.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. We spend not money alone. We spend the sweat of our labor, the genius of our scientists, and the hopes of our children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
She took a deep breath.
"Slavery takes the hungry. Slavery makes the cold. Slavery stills labor, silences genius and crushes hope. We soldiers hang on the cross of iron so others can live free from such thieves.
There is a moment of silence across the entire battalion.
"Advance."
When her men died to the batarian heavy weapon emplacements, Shepard pushed them forward. When they broke through despite their casualties, the batarian elements tried to surrender. Shepard did not accept. Her troops killed them all, and they pushed forward. When the batarian command broke under Shepard's assault, the batarian counter offensive became a rout. Shepard did not stop to regroup, but pushed her troops forward. When she caught the batarian civilian cartels and slave masters boarding their escape shuttles and trying to escape, Shepard ordered her troops to fire. They pushed forward again, over the batarian dead.
They pushed forward, continuing to gather momentum. She crushed any and all resistance, and pursued the batarian forces until they were wiped out.
Her battalion took over 70% casualties during Shepard's implacable advance. The regiment was able to extricate and regroup, but still received massive casualties of almost 18%. Without Shepard's advance, the figures might have doubled.
Though an exemplary officer, the loss of so many men under his command was too much for Major Kyle to cope with, and he was given an honorable discharge after a psychiatric evaluation showed he was no longer fit for duty.
Jane Shepard became known as the Butcher of Torfan. Her willingness to complete the strategic mission despite the lack of support, and her tactical management under pressure raised flags with Alliance high command.
The batarians' defeat at Torfan marked the beginning of their withdrawal from Citadel space.
4 years later Shepard was selected as a candidate to become humanity's first SPECTRE.