Chapter 29: Memories of the Dead
A lifetime ago…
Aboard the Citadel, the Council's chambers.
It was all coming to a climax, he thought. All the grand schemes and bloodshed in the name of his cause was about to bear fruit. Of course, this had to be the point where that bastard would show his face, spoiling his victorious mood.
"You..." He hissed coldly, venom laced in his voice as he stared down the man who has been a thorn in his side for far too long. "You self-important little pest." The trees around them burned, filling the chamber with red-orange haze and covering the ceiling with thick, gray smog. "Once again, I find you meddling in my business."
"It's hard not to meddle when your 'business' is putting innocent lives at risk, Saren." Shepard countered, stepping over the fallen Geth he had killed as he and his team approached the stair case leading up to the Council platform. "It's over, Saren." Shepard continued, approaching the rogue Specter, flanked by his squadron of miscreants; the turian and the quarian. Their guns were all trained on him, and he could sense their fingers practically itching to pull the triggers. They should have, but Shepard just kept on talking. "There's no way I'm going to let this happen. You're done for."
"Done for?" Saren's fringe bristled with indignation at the implication. "DONE FOR?!" he roared. "You think you can stop me? You think yourself my equal when you are nothing but a filthy human!? You and your species need to learn your place!"
"This madness has gone on for long enough." Shepard replied calmly "I'm going to stop you."
"Why?! Why do you insist on stopping me, Shepard?!" Saren demanded. "I'm trying to save us all!"
"Save us all? Everything you've done says otherwise!" Shepard roared back. "You didn't save Nihlus! You didn't save all the innocent lives that died for your twisted crusade! You're not even saving yourself!"
Saren started to shake, his eyes quivering in feral rage. "Do you dare think that they died in vain, Shepard?" The turian seemed like he was about to snap, heaving deep breaths to maintain control over his flaring temper. "They are heroes, Shepard. Heroes! Their sacrifice shall be remembered in the coming Golden Age... The age of techno-organic synthesis!" He declared, tech implants shimmering their circuitry pattern across his exposed skin. "I am living proof of this… I am the first step in the union between organics and machines. I possess the strength of both, the weakness of neither. Soon the light of this glory shall spread across the entire galaxy!"
"By turning every living being into a Reaper slave?!" Shepard snapped at him. "Look at yourself, Saren. You're just a puppet to Sovereign's will! Is that the future you want?!"
"This is the only way to assure that some life survives in this damned galaxy!" Saren insisted, but he knew the accusation was not untrue. The 'upgrades' Sovereign had endowed him with did indeed make him a far superior being. But the cost of such power… He shook the thought from his mind, determined to stay his course. He couldn't help but wonder, was doing so because of the indoctrination? Impossible, he thought; He wanted this to happen. He needed this to happen. "Or would you rather the alternative, Shepard?" he demanded. "Would you rather have trillions upon trillions of lives be extinguished in a futile resistance against forces they could not possibly even begin to comprehend?! The Reapers are unstoppable. I've seen them, Shepard. Their sheer scale and magnitude, numbering as countless as the stars in the sky…" he urged, turning around and spreading his arms, gazing outside the windows and into the expanse of the Citadel. "They are gods, Shepard. Gods! Compared to them, we are but mere insects, barely even fit enough to be crushed under foot..." he said, turning back around to face them. "It is not the strongest, but those most adaptable to change that survive! It is either servitude or extinction, Shepard!"
"You give the galaxy too little credit; There's always a better way." Shepard countered. "We can stop the Reapers, Saren. I know it. But not like this. You're not saving anybody… You're only damning the galaxy to a fate worse than death!"
"A better way? Isn't this amusing…" Saren scoffed. His hover platform hummed into life, levitating him a few feet above the ground. "I'm being lectured by the 'Butcher of Torfan' on choosing a better way?" He threw his head back and laughed. "This is bad comedy, Shepard."
"I'm not the one laughing, Saren." Shepard replied, unperturbed.
The light smirk that was playing on Saren's face dissolved completely. "No. No you are not." He said, hefting his gun and rising higher into the air. "Talk is cheap. Let us finish this, Shepard. I have a galaxy to save."
"Right back at you." Shepard said, tracking Saren's movements with his rifle and keeping the turian in his sights.
"Now then… Die!" Saren said, opening fire.
Thus, history took its course in one of the most defining moments of the galaxy's future. The firefight that ensued was fierce and violent. But in the end, Shepard and his squad triumphed, blasting through Saren's geth and ultimately through the rogue Spectre himself. The turian fell several stories from his hover platform, impaling himself on a shard of broken glass. A bullet to the brain would ensure his demise and end his crusade of terror.
Or so the galaxy thought…
Present day, the office of Dr. Viktor Zsasz.
It was strange, Saren thought as he clutched the annoying human by the throat. It hadn't bothered him up until now, but since becoming aware of it, having five fingers in one hand felt… alien. True, there were other more urgent and or otherwise immediate matters for him to attend to, but for some reason this bothered him the most. As much as it was starting to annoy him, he pushed such thoughts aside and focused on the task at hand, namely interrogating this Dr. Zsasz. And it was really saying something that that was the least of his problems. "Now I'm only going to ask you this once." he said, his voice carrying the message in such a way that Zsasz would understand that pain was going to follow if he answered incorrectly. "What did you do to me?"
"You mean other than giving you your life back?" Zsasz shot back with an amused grin, earning him a thunderous punch in the gut.
"This isn't my life! Why am I a human?" Saren asked. "No, better question: Why am I in his body?!" He bellowed at Zsasz's face. The doctor coughed, face contorted in a grimace of pain from the blow, shaking as he gasped for breath. At first Saren thought he was sobbing, but the shaking quickly gave way to a booming laughter. Saren frowned, throwing the doctor bodily across the room and into the wall. "You think this is funny?!"
"I- hahaha! I think it's- haha!" Dr. Zsasz tried to say in between bouts of laughter as he lay slumped against the wall. "I think it's hysterical!"
Saren felt a vein throb in the back of his head as he walked over to where the man lied in a heap. He found himself forced to wear the face of the man who killed him and having to deal with this fool responsible for it. This must be hell, he decided as he picked the man up by the collar of his labcoat. "I have to live with the fact that every time I speak, it's Shepard's voice that I hear." He said menacingly. "And you find that funny?"
"What? Is that what you-? Oh, no dear brother…" Zsasz replied, that manic grin still plastered on his face. "I find it hilarious that you think you can threaten me at your stage of development."
"What are-?" Saren was cut short as the smaller man head-butted him full on the nose with a satisfying crack. The world went black for a moment as he fell backwards towards the floor, only for Zsasz to catch him by the shoulder. He could only watch helplessly as the doctor drew an arm back, poised to strike at Saren's neck. He had braced himself for the impact of a punch, so it was more surprising than painful when Dr. Zsasz buried his fingers deep into the side of his neck, tearing into his flesh and obliterating his carotid artery and jugular veins that lay there.
"There we go." Dr. Zsasz said casually, withdrawing his bloody hand as the sticky crimson fluid spurted from the wound on the side of Saren's neck. "That should calm you down long enough for me to properly explain your situation." He said, wiping his hand unceremoniously on his lab-coat, smearing the immaculately white fabric red with blood. "I would love nothing more than to regale you with tales of grandeur whipped with a hearty side of embellishments, but I shall spare you the agony, little brother. You have already gone through so much, so I suppose telling you the plain and simple truth would be best."
Saren felt the blood cascade down his body, painting one side of his chest a bright red as the bleeding showed no signs of waning. His hearing was dulled and his vision was darkening making his head feel lighter than air as Zsasz left him to collapse on the floor. Instead of slamming against the cold, hard steel floor however, his head somehow managed to find a warm and soft landing spot. Saren looked up to see Silence's quiet gaze staring right back at him as the odd turian cradled his head on her lap. She tilted her head to one side and ran a hand gently across his brow, tracing it with a talon. Saren wondered what she was doing when Zsasz's booming voice grabbed his attention once more.
"It is best that we start at, well, the beginning." Zsasz said, sheepishly shrugging. "Or rather, it's best if you saw the beginning for yourself! The floor is yours, dear sister."
Before he could ask what the man meant, Saren felt Silence's razor sharp talon plunge into his forehead, piercing through flesh and bone and burying itself deep into his brain.
It was dark, but the pain was gone. Suddenly Saren found himself standing, or rather he felt like he was standing, in the middle of nowhere.
Zsasz was gone.
The turian called Silence was gone.
He was all alone.
He looked around trying to find his bearings, but his surroundings were a bleak white void that stretched into every direction as far as the eye could see. "Hello?" he called out tentatively. His voice caught his attention as it was no longer Shepard's rather diminutive human tone but his own raspy, deep turian voice that he heard when he spoke. He looked at his hands and felt relief wash over him when he was greeted by his own pair of three-clawed hands. He grabbed his face and immediately felt for his rough fringe and spiny mandible. He could barely suppress a grin of relief at the revelation that he was him again. It was almost too good to be true.
But wait, he realized, reeling in his enthusiasm and looking at his hands again.
He had both his hands.
He sighed. This probably was too good to be true.
"Do you like it?" said a timid female voice behind him.
Saren turned to see that it was Silence, standing there in a white dress and smiling at him pleasantly, eyes unable to meet his. His reaction to her presence was decidedly less pleasant. "You." He said dangerously as he approached her. "What do you mean if I like it? Where am I?"
"Your… body." Silence said almost sheepishly, rubbing her hands behind her back. "I recreated it as best as I could by memory… As to where we are…Well actually, we are in your mind. More specifically a room I made inside your mind."
Saren forcefully grabbed her by her chin and made her look at him. "Don't you play games with me, woman. That bastard said you couldn't talk. What gives?" He sneered. Silence smiled at him, but her eyes seemed cold and distant, a stark contrast to her otherwise pleasant demeanor. Suddenly, she was gone, vanishing into thin air. Saren whipped back and forth, looking for any sign of her. "What's going on here?!"
"I don't like games." He heard her voice say, but couldn't figure out from where it was coming from. "That's more of Viktor's style. I can talk in this realm. And when I can talk, I love telling stories. Would you like to hear one? I promise you'll like it."
"Stories?" Saren turned on his heel, muscles tensed and arms raised in front of him, ready to strike at a moment's impetus as he searched for the source of the voice. It was more of a reflex than an actual defensive strategy, however. The girl had said they were in his mind. After everything that he has been through, he was surprised at how calmly he was taking this bit of information. "Do I have a choice?"
"We always have choices." Silence replied, her voice coming from behind him.
He whipped around to face her, and suddenly found himself in the middle of a garden on a nice sunny day. There were flowering shrubs and vibrant green hedges that shone vibrantly in the sunlight. "What the-?" Saren mused, keeping his guard up despite the bizarre situation.
Silence's voice seemed to resonate from all directions. "I am the Archivist, the keeper of secrets, bearer of the Father's memory."
"Wait a minute… this garden…" He said, taking a better look around. "I…My mother took us here when we were little. Long before I was conscripted into the military…"
"I've recreated it all by memory." Silence said, appearing from behind a tall hedge. She bent down and daintily plucked a yellow flower from a patch. "I wanted to make you comfortable…"
In a flash, Saren was upon her, talons flashing in the sun light as he swiped at her neck. His hands didn't make contact however, as he harmlessly phased right through her.
Silence sighed, giggling as she sniffed at the little yellow flower in her hand. "You never do let your guard down." She said endearingly.
"Have… Have we met?" Saren said backing away, puzzled by how she spoke of him.
"No. Well, maybe…" She said, nonchalantly plucking petals from the blossom. "But I can see into your heart, thanks to our Father's gift to me."
"Who is this Father?" Saren said, lowering his arms but not his guard. "I don't understand any of this at all."
"I can help…" Silence began, "I can explain mostly everything, but only if you listen to my story."
"You are a very persistent woman." Saren said flatly.
Silence merely smiled back at him, letting the petals she plucked float in the light summer breeze.
Saren regarded her impassively. "Fine." He finally relented, "Let's hear your story, then."
"Wonderful." Silence beamed. The flower in her hand was robbed half of its petals, but it was still moderately attractive. There was a faint sound of cracking glass, and a fissure of sorts appeared on the flower.
Saren tilted his head and took a closer look, taken aback when the cracks seemed to extend into the air surrounding the flower. The fine fissures snaked across the surroundings, into the vibrant foliage and up towards the blue sky. There was a foreboding sense of dread that filled the air and seep from between the cracks as reality around him warped.
"Our story begins long ago, during the death throes of a once mighty galactic empire." Silence announced. At those words, the very fabric of reality seemed to shatter. Gone was the serenity of the garden and blue sky, and was instead replaced by the chaos of burning ruins and the screams of people dying by the thousands. "The Reapers, god machines from a time long forgotten, have come to lay waste to this cycle."
"By the spirits…"Saren felt the heat of the flames and the debris underfoot. He felt the scent of burning flesh and heard the wails of slaughtered children. All around him, charred corpses burnt black and barely recognizable piled the ground as far as the eye could see. The sky up above was red where the black smoke didn't obscure it, and full of countless Reapers, raining death and destruction. Saren felt a chill go up in his spine and a pit in his stomach. It was despair at its most primal. This was what he was trying to prevent. "Where is this?"
"Not where… But when." Silence said, appearing beside him. "This was millions of years ago during the death of this forgotten empire, before the Protheans themselves crawled out of the primordial soup."
"Millions?" Saren asked. "The Reapers have been doing this for millions of years?"
"Maybe even more. Who says ours is the only galaxy they ravish?"
"Why are you showing me this?"
Silence merely looked at him with those mysterious eyes of hers and pointed out into the distance towards a towering structure. Judging how far they were from it, the building was massive, reaching high up into the sky with its sloping peak. It was almost a mountain really.
Saren looked at the humongous building she was pointing at and was surprised when it moved, making the very ground quake. Was it collapsing? His question was answered when it rose up even higher, boosted by a set of massive insect like legs. It was no building, he realized, it was a Reaper. A rumbling metallic shriek filled the air as it roared into the heavens, its red eye glowing violently, charging up with barely contained energies. "How do you fight against something like that?" He mused more to himself than to Silence. Not even the combined might of the galaxy could stand up to an entire swarm of these god-machines. He scoffed to himself as the beast lumbered forward, crushing buildings underfoot. Shepard was a fool if he thought he could fight against this.
"This cycle had technology that far exceeds our own in roughly the same span of time." Silence said, "They had sciences that bordered on the arcane by our standards. Because of this, they held out for roughly a few thousand years against the Reaper forces. Still, the Reapers are not some army that can be countered by tactics and psychological warfare; they are a force of nature. Even against the most valiant defenders, the Reapers eventually washed over them like a swarm of locusts. Ravishing. Devouring."
"I wanted to stop the same thing from happening to our own cycle." Saren said as the Reaper rampaged across the landscape. "Where are the militaries? The resistance? There must be somebody fighting against them?"
"They are all either dead or dying, or worse; turned against those they were meant to protect." Silence said. "All save one."
"One?" Just as Saren spoke, a booming thunderclap filled the air as a lance of gold light hurtled towards the Reaper, connecting with tremendous impact and sending a massive shockwave that kicked up debris for miles around. "Cannon fire?" He said, protecting his eyes from the clouds of dust that now swallowed them. When the dust settled, the Reaper lay on the ground with a smoldering hole through its massive chassis. "That's some heavy ordinance!"
"Not quite. Look over there." Silence said next to him.
Across the ruins from where they were standing, a figure strode across the field where millions upon millions of dead lay, contorted in the pain and agony of their final moments. The man, or at least that was what Saren thought, was wreathed in golden aura so bright, it was as if the sun itself had descended from the heavens to avenge the dead.
The Reaper, not quite dead from the blast, roared in their general direction, charging up its laser to vaporize the newcomer. Before it could gather enough energy though, there was another thunderclap, and a golden lance of light was sent right through the Reaper's eye. There was a brief silence, as if time stopped to ponder upon the moment of the machine-god's death, before the Reaper exploded in a violent blaze of blue flames that scorched the land for miles around.
Saren felt his heart skip a beat as the flames swallowed him, only to remember that this was only a memory. The blaze only lasted mere moments, receding to the Reaper wreck's immediate area. "Who was that?" he asked as the flames subsided, looking at the golden man in the distance.
"That was the avatar of the Father, god-emperor of this cycle." Silence said.
"The Father? The same one you keep talking about?"
"Yes." Silence said, pointing to the sky. "His power is great, but even he could not save this cycle."
Saren looked up to the sky to see countless shimmers in the sky. They were Reapers. Thousands upon thousands of them, lighting the heavens like stars in the night. Bright red flashes erupted from them, raining countless crimson lasers around the one Silence called Father.
The very ground quaked as the blasts made contact, rippling with the force of impact and erupting in an inferno of catastrophic proportions. The brightness of it all blinded Saren, and when it was over, he and Silence found themselves standing in a barren wasteland, devoid of any of the ruins or corpses that surrounded them just moments before. Instead, there were little motes of glowing embers that floated about in the air.
"His true origins are a mystery." Silence said, a hint of sadness lacing her voice. "In the end, the Father could not stop the Reapers."
"Looks like he was not so great at all, it would seem." Saren snarked, earning him a look of disapproval from Silence. "What?"
"Show some respect. He is our Father, and His blood binds us as brother and sister."
Saren cocked his brow, looking at her snidely. "Blood? We do not share any kind of bond, woman, much less by blood."
Silence merely smiled and shook her head, as if she was explaining something to a child. "Oh, but we do share his blood." She said, caressing his cheek with her hand.
Her touch felt warm at first, soothing even. That warmth spread slowly across Saren's body, pooling up deep inside him. Then the temperature started to rise until he started feeling hot. He swatted her hand away and distanced himself from her. "What did you do to me?" He said as he felt his skin burn.
Literally.
Sparks of energy erupted out of his skin, tracing out rune like markings all over Saren and burning them into him. He screamed in agony as his body started to catch fire, the blazing aura wreathing him in a cloak of primal fury.
"I did not mean what I said in any symbolic sense, brother." Silence said, watching his sufferings with casual curiosity. "Our Father's blood is literally coursing through our veins."
Saren was barely registering what she was saying as the flames consumed him, bringing him to the height of agony.
"Our Father was mighty. He had foretold of the Reaper invasion and was able to prepare his empire for the war to come." She continued, ignoring his suffering. "Our Father had devised the perfect plan to defeat the Reapers. He fought valiantly, but for all his preparation, it was not enough. The war was lost. His people were lost. He realized that, and with nothing left to lose, decided to live to fight another day. So when the Reapers thought they had struck the killing blow, he tore his own body into dust. These glowing embers you see around you are actually pieces of our Father." She said, cupping her hands and allowing one of the embers to settle in her palms before billowing into the distance by a sudden gust of wind. "When the Reapers realized what had happened, it was already too late. Our Father had spread his being across the galaxy. The process however rendered him helpless and unable to coalesce back into his true form." Silence said, her tone dipping into a more somber note. "So he watched. For millions of years, Father watched cycle after cycle of innocents butchered by the Reapers. He wanted to save them all, but he could not will himself back together. So he swore to avenge each and every soul that he was unable to save."
The fire surrounding Saren continued to burn, but he found that it started to hurt less with each passing second. It was like he was regaining control. He clenched his fists and willed his body to move. This power that coursed through him was beyond description. This sensation was somehow different to how it felt earlier. It wasn't the raging torrent that drove him into violence. Instead, the power felt like a calm stream that slowly filled the core of his being, clearing his thoughts and focusing his mind. "This… You know this is the most unbelievable story I've ever heard, right?" he asked.
"Hush, brother. The story is not over yet." Silence said. All of a sudden, their surroundings started to shatter just like it had done so earlier. When the pieces of the last memory fell, they were now floating in the void of the cosmos, surrounded by the heavenly bodies of space. "And then one day, something amazing happened. The dust that our Father had become finally started to coalesce. It was only a little at first, but slowly and steadily, the dust gathered into small clouds of shimmering gold spread across different parts of the galaxy. But still this wasn't enough to allow Father to enact his plans. That was, of course, until he found Viktor."
Their surroundings changed once more into some kind of laboratory. Instruments and consoles beeped and flash, and in the center of it all was the golden dust, suspended in a stasis tube. A younger Viktor Zsasz stepped into the light, working on his datapad as he observed the swirling dust.
"It was only a little while since the end of the First Contact War, and human interest in the cosmos sky-rocketed after it discovered it was not alone." Silence began. "Viktor was part of a movement to discover more about this new frontier of the galaxy. He had found the strange cosmic radiation the dust emitted intriguing and was determined to understand it's secrets. Little did he know what the Father had in store for him or the grand part he would play in his plans."
The stasis tube holding the dust shattered and the swirling cloud spread across the lab. As if blown by an unseen gust of wind, the dust started to coalesce around Viktor.
"What Father could not achieve in his weakened state, he would achieve through his chosen vessels. Through Viktor, he gathered more of his self; the dust scattered across the galaxy, and blessed several others with his love." Silence turned to Saren and approached him, arms spread. "We are those vessels, brother. We are his Children." She hugged him, burying her face in his shoulders. "And you are the greatest of us, the Messiah. With you, we can finally achieve Father's vision."
"Messiah?" Saren asked skeptically, pushing her away. "Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I buy this whole charade for even a second?" He sneered, eyes narrowing as the flames surrounding him receded, but the newly scorched runes burned brighter. "Your stories may be entertaining, but I can't just take your word as fact. I've been used once before and I will not be used ever again."
"My… I don't blame your skepticism. I said the same thing when I first met Viktor." Silence giggled. "But just like mine, your eyes will be opened brother. The Father's vision is glorious. It is a privilege to take part in such a grand scheme."
Saren scoffed. "Another thing, that didn't explain anything about my situation." The psychotic tendencies were gone from his head, but it was replaced by a cool and calculated viciousness that was arguably much more frightening. "Why am I alive? Why am I in Shepard's body?" he asked, approaching her deliberately. He knew he couldn't kill her in this realm, but if he could feel pain, odds are she could too. "What is your game?"
"The purpose of this little foray into memory was not to answer your questions brother." Silence said as she turned her back on him. Whether it was because she was unaware of his evil intents or because she did not care for them, Saren was not sure. "It was to tell you the history of our God."
"He is not my god." Saren spat annoyed, nearing her, his talons shining in the light.
"We shall see." Silence replied in the infuriating self-assured manner of a mother telling off a child. "Also, this was mostly to distract you while Viktor finishes with the ritual."
Saren stopped. "Ritual?"
"Thanks to those accursed Reapers, you woke up prematurely from your sleep, brother." Silence explained, "You are stable, yes. But Viktor has to apply a few minor touches if you are to stay that way."
Saren was almost unwilling to ask the next question. "What kind of minor touches?"
Silence looked at him over her shoulder and disappeared.
Saren whipped around to look behind him at her disappearance, only to see that she was somehow upside down, her face inches from his. He tried to back away, but his back suddenly felt cold, as if he was pressed against a wall of metal, but his head lay on something soft. He was laying down he realized. Silence wasn't upside down; she was just hunched over as she cradled his head on her lap. The room was dark, with only the hazy orange lighting from the holo-consoles illuminating what little it could. He was back in Dr. Zsasz's office, he realized.
Saren tried to get up, but Silence's surprisingly strong hands lay on his shoulders and pinned him down. Her eyes suddenly burst into bright yellow orbs, gazing into his very soul. He tried to speak but found his throat to be too dry for the task. The cold was giving way to other sensations as the feeling slowly came back to his fingertips. His back felt sticky and wet. His nose wrinkled. There was a strong pungent scent that seemed to permeate in the air.
It was blood, he realized. He was lying down in a pool of blood.
A pool of his own blood.
Slowly, almost fearfully, he raised his head and looked down to his chest. He instantly became regretfully aware of the pain surging through his body.
He was greeted by glowing blue eyes on a withered, grey face. Despite the scraggly white beard, Saren could recognize a husk when he saw one. This one was different though. The creature was straddled on top of him and from its back erupted a dozen of thin, sickly looking arms that ended with long, skeletal fingers that seemed to sway to and fro to the gust of an imaginary wind. But that was the last thing on his mind right now.
His entire torso was ripped open, rib cage pulled apart by spindly fingers as the bearded husk ran its dozen hands through his innards. Blood spurted from various ruptured blood vessels and his organs pulsated in the open air as the husk went about its macabre work. To Saren's dismay, one of the husk's hands morphed into a long needle like instrument, stabbing into his still beating heart and pumping a fiery concoction straight into his bloodstream. His mouth gaped open as he shut his eyes and let out a silent scream of anguish.
It was only for a few moments. When Saren opened his eyes again, his surroundings were drastically different. The gaping hole in his chest was gone, and instead of the many-armed, bearded husk, it was Dr. Zsasz's cheerful face along with Silence's placid expression that greeted him. Bolting upright, he put some distance between himself and the pair, surprised at how his body felt somewhat rejuvenated. A chill ran up his spine as the two said nothing but continue to look at him.
Was it fear?
He ran his hand across his chest, feeling it to be perfectly intact while not letting his gaze linger from Zsasz or Silence. It took him a moment to realize he had five fingers again. Quickly feeling his face, he realized he was in Shepard's form once more and gazed at his five fingered hands.
It wasn't a nightmare, he thought to himself, opening and closing the human hands experimentally. This was somehow reality, cruel as it may be. It only took that one moment of him taking his sights off of the pair for them to appear beside him, Zsasz to his left and Silence to his right. They were seemingly looking over his shoulders to join him in his inspection of his hands.
"I find that having five fingers very versatile." Zsasz said, causing Saren to look over his shoulder in surprise. "It's a rather miniscule difference really, but it is the little things that adds up."
Before Saren could do anything, he felt the tickle of Silence's breath run across his neck on the opposite side. He felt a pit in his stomach, realizing how vulnerable he was in this position. Without thinking, he whipped around and sent the two flying with a biotic field.
Instead of crashing into the wall behind them however, the pair seemingly stopped midair and slowly settled back down on their feet.
"Very good, little brother." Zsasz said with light applause, of which Silence mimicked. "You are getting the handle of your Aspect abilities fairly rapidly, although a bit more practice would be advisable."
"What are you?" Saren glared, keeping a defensive posture against them. "What do you want from me?"
"We are your family. You are now one of us." Zsasz said nonchalantly. "We want only for you to fulfill your duty as a member of this family."
"Is nobody in this damn space station willing to give me a straight answer?!" Saren snarled as he rushed towards them, arms crackling with power. Sweeping his arms in front of him, a violent biotic field warped into existence and rushed towards Zsasz.
Instead of reacting defensively, Zsasz just stood there idly as Silence jumped protectively in front of him, raising a palm towards the incoming warp field. As soon as the field came into contact with her, it started to react violently before it slowly collapsed into a small sphere of energy that Silence crushed with her hand.
Undeterred, Saren lunged at them, fists clenched and ready to smash his way through her just to get to Zsasz, prepared for anything she might throw at him. He wasn't prepared for when she sidestepped out of his way, revealing a grinning Zsasz brandishing the business end of a shotgun at him.
Zsasz pulled the trigger, the plume of muzzle flare heralding the thermal rounds that crashed right into Saren, stopping him in his tracks and knocking him back from the impact. "Calm yourself, brother. I am not an unreasonable man. If you wanted to know so bad, you should've said so." Zsasz mocked, walking up to Saren's prone form. "When Sovereign transformed your entire body with tech upgrades, your mind was converted into data to accommodate the enhancements."
Saren was on the floor, trying to catch his breath as his bleeding wounds closed and mended themselves. It wasn't exactly how he had envisioned getting his answers, but he wasn't complaining. Much.
"So when your body expired, that data remained in stasis. It was through sheer chance that a piece of your cortex was found by me in the aftermath of Sovereign's assault on the Citadel when Cerberus was picking through the Reaper's remains." Zsasz continued explaining. "At first, I tried to cultivate you in a body cloned from your original one. You look surprised that I had some of your DNA." Zsasz observed as Saren gave him a quizzical look, getting back up to one knee while clutching his gut. "You were a Specter; finding your DNA was just the matter of identifying the correct blood smear on the wall after one of your assignments. But alas, your mind was rejecting the cloned body we gave it. The Reapers must have altered it that it was so advanced that it could not operate on something as comparatively primitive as an organic brain. It could not thrive and remained in its comatose state. At the same time, I was busy undergoing Project Gemini, back then it was one of the proposal projects to resurrect your rival, John Shepard. Just by being in proximity to his DNA, your mind was reacting. It is only a theory, but when Shepard interacted with the Prothean VI, his own body must have been fundamentally altered at a genetic level that somehow attracted your Reaper modified mind. After some trials, I predicted that your mind, though not normally compatible with a human's body, would flourish in Shepard's. It seems as though I was right."
Saren was panting, but his body was completely healed as he got back up to both feet. He fancied the thought of assaulting Zsasz again, but wanted to squeeze out as much from him as possible. "But why me? Why not somebody like Shepard? I have the blood of thousands on my hands." he said, looking down at his own hands stained with his blood. "I was helping the Reapers. Sovereign couldn't have achieved anything as quick as he did without my aid."
Zsasz looked at him for a moment before replying. "True. You were the Reaper's herald; every cycle they select an agent with which they directly commune with, an Arch-indoctrinated if you will, that engineers the downfall of the cycle in preparation for the Reaper's coming." He explained. "We need you because that connection you have will prove necessary for our plan against the Reapers."
"I don't understand, wasn't I purged of my indoctrination?"
"The Father's blood is merely suppressing it. Right now, you are practically shining like a beacon, signaling the Reapers from the dark void beyond the Milky Way."
"For what end?"
"To lead them into a trap of course. A trap that the Father had devised for millennia. One that will kill all the Reapers in but a single stroke and bring true peace to the galaxy. We can only achieve that through your unique connection with the Reapers, which is why you are our Messiah."
"That… sounds good to me, actually." Saren relented. "In fact it sounds too good to be true. You could've done this without reawakening me. Like you said, I was this 'arch-indoctrinated'. I'm no hero let alone a Messiah. If anything, John Shepard would be your best bet for this little idealistic crusade you're waging."
"The Father saw your intentions." Zsasz replied. "He saw how you tried to bargain for not just your life but the entire galaxy. You tried to save us, through any means necessary. That alone made you worthy. But the Reapers cannot be bargained as you cannot bargain an incoming storm from the coast. They would have eliminated each and every single man, woman and child in the galaxy, regardless of your actions. Our only solution is to destroy them. Also, we cannot rely on Shepard…" Zsasz trailed off.
"What do you mean?"
"You do not just stand in a Reaper's presence and expect to come out unscathed." Zsasz said. "Unbeknownst to the commander during his encounter with Sovereign, and recently his encounter with the one known as Harbinger… he became indoctrinated. Right now, he is being used to stop our Father's glorious plans."
"That doesn't make any sense…" Saren reasoned. "None of this does."
"Saren Arterius." Zsasz addressed him. "You were dead and brought back to life. The galaxy is at stake and all you care for are the little details? I am offering you a chance to be what you were meant to be, a savior. Only through you can the Father achieve victory over the Reapers." And then, Zsasz did the last thing Saren expected him to do and dropped to his knees, bowing his head on the floor. Next to him, silence did the same. "Please, you must help us."
Saren took a step back and cautiously looked around him. He didn't believe a word of it, but his curiosity was piqued. They easily overpowered him; that much was for certain. So he couldn't just deny their request or just simply run. These people were up to something, he could feel it in his gut. The question is what part did they truly need him for? He would test the waters, he thought, see how deep this rabbit hole went and make his move from there. "Alright." He said out loud. "I believe you. I'll aid you in your mission… siblings." He added the last part reluctantly.
Zsasz and Silence rose, a relieved smile on their faces. "We knew you would come around, brother." He said, approaching Saren and putting a hand on his hsoulders, beaming jovially. It took all of Saren's willpower not to knock it off of his face. "Well, now that that is settled, we must prepare to leave immediately!"
Saren rose an eyebrow. "Where are we going?"
Zsasz was still smiling, but Saren noted a vicious glint appear in the corner of the man's eye. "Omega."