Author's Note: Okay so lemme just get this outta the way right now. I hate the original ME3 ending and I think many of you guys did to, all three of the endings feel unsatisfactory to me with something that feels like a net negative about each of the endings, especially with just one ending you have in theory three clear cut moral decisions that would easily reflect the decisions made throughout the trilogy: Control.

Rule: Shepard takes the Reapers and uses them to rule the Galaxy.

Protect: Shepard takes the Reapers and uses them to protect the Galaxy.

Destroy: Shepard takes the Reapers and have them destroy themselves.

Look at that? Three clear cut morally unambiguous endings reflecting the levels of 'Renegade/Paragon' quite nicely and all the people that you worked your ass off to save or allowed to be destroyed are still alive or dead. It took me like five minutes to write too? You're off your game Bioware. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!


Chapter 34: Asari Territory Part 3

Thessia was widely considered the Jewel of the Asari worlds, rightfully so, after all Thessia was the Asari home world, they've spent centuries worth of time and resources building cities and designing landscapes like artists painting a canvas. Currently a massive crowd was gathered around the Temple of Athame, normally a sight for pilgrims across the galaxy, not just the Asari but also anyone who worships the Protheans, resulting in a massive amount of Hanar in the crowd alongside another lizard like race of aliens, the Drell. Currently though the entire city had been up in arms, a path leading from the nearest road into the temple had been prepared complete with a red carpet and omni-dividers separating the hoard of reporters and photographers from the VIP's that would soon be approaching the temple.

The familiar muscle car turned hover craft belonging to High Lord Xidre drove up to the carpet in question. Leo once again left the driver's seat and opened the back door to release High Lord Xidre. Currently the Lich was wearing a formal suit over his containment suit, his cane in one hand and a bouquet of colourful flowers in the other, and while the sight of the Lich himself on Thessia was a photo worthy even it was immediately followed by him sticking his hand back into the car to help the woman inside step out. Sha'ira was wearing a black backless dress with six inch heels, and immediately hooked her arm onto the Highlord's own. Leo acted to clear the path for the pair of them, his sheer bulk interrupting nosy reporters holding out microphones and attempting to shove data pads in their paths to obtain a statement.

The three of them ignored the gaping masses as they walked along the path and into the temple itself. Finally the trio stepped forward into the temple proper, deathly silent as per the High lord's request the temple had been made off limits so that he would have the chance to pay his respects to the people that his once knew. Athame, Janiri, Lucen, the Asari people knew them as the goddesses of wisdom and mathematics, Seasons and Agriculture, and Astrology and Navigation respectively. The ancient Zroni knew them as the leading scientists of the Asari Uplifting program, a project that was similar to many of the other projects that the Protheans had conducted in order to raise 'allies' in their ever constant fight against the likes of the Zha'til and later on the Reapers.

Xidre wasn't in any position to scold them, his lot had done things quite similarly with the Flerkin to aid their own survival, to this day he still catches some of them praying to him as he walks by. Personally, he wished that they'd stop, but that is irrelevant. The two smaller statues of Janiri and Lucen got one flower from the Bouquet each, Athame's three story high tower of a statue on the other hand got the rest.

"You probably think that it's silly, paying respects to three women who have been dead longer than most civilisations." Xidre stated as he backed away from Athame's statue and gave a bow.

"You speak as if you knew them but to us these three were our goddesses, they worked to save us from plague, starvation and space born threats." Sha'ira spoke as she approached.

"That's a nice interpretation yes." The Asari as they are today were born in a time in which the race that these goddesses came from had been fundamentally broken on a physical, social and spiritual level, it's hard to know what they were thinking back then. "I knew Athame, she wasn't fond of grand standing such as this, not unless she had something to hide."

"I grew up on Thessia." Sha'ira countered as she walked forward. "I visited this very statue as a child, I sincerely doubt that-"

The statue cracked, a green glowing light underneath.

"You didn't have the Prothean cipher then." The Cracks continued to progress, Leo moved both the high lord and Sha'ira behind him as pieces of the statue gradually fell away revealing a green glowing crystal as it rose into the air, similar to the beacon that was found on Therum. From the crystal more green light coalesced, taking on Athame's appearance, not the Asari goddess whom the Asari worship, but rather a armour and long coat wearing four eyed creature, a Prothean.

"I am the VI Vendetta." Even if Xidre had been allowed a measure of privacy in the temple it didn't stop people outside from gawking at either the collapsed statue for the green ghost that had appeared in the middle of the temple room. "A digital construct created in the image of the one that you know as Athame. Behind me is a beacon containing the sum total knowledge of the Prothean race from the final months of the war against the Reapers." From the crystal a beam came down and hit Sha'ira on her forehead. "We give this to you in the hopes that you will be able to defeat the ones we could not. We called them Harvestors, self proclaimed preservers of the Galaxy." Designs slowly filled Sha'ira's mind as the schematics took form, assembling into unique compounds, compounds into technology, technology into components, and components into a Megastructure. "The megastructure you're seeing in your mind would've been our magnum opus. A product of cycle after cycle of design and construction, with the intention that once completed and installed into a final catalyst the Reaper threat would be ended, the Crucible." Xidre narrowed his eyes at the mention of the term, something familiar to him. "We hope that you will have more success than we did." The Hologram died down, going dormant, already Xidre could imagine the Thorian receiving requests for more of the cipher to be put into people's minds while he walked back to the car, intending to leave this waste of his time behind him.

"Help the girl into the car."


It was a long ride back to the ship, Sha'ira had to finish sorting out the information that had been stuffed into her brain before she would be in any kind of decent shape to do anything. In the mean time he would be holding a discussion with not only the fellow heads of the Union but also the Citadel Council, and bluntly tell them not to waste any of their valuable time or energy on this blatant waste of time. Xidre sat inside of the Chamber around him was holographic terminals as different faces appeared, Udina, the Kahn, the faces of the Councilors were there too, the others were likely busy.

"The only thing of note we found in the temple was designs for the Crucible."

The Kahn let out a sigh.

"I have real problems to deal with." With that Cherrel Kahn severed his transmission.

"Shall I tell them or you?" Udina asked looking at Xidre disappointed.

"Go, go. There's no reason why both of us should waste our time." Udina severed the transmission next.

"What is it?" Tevos understood that this entire situation was a massive political folly for the Asari, after the founding of the Council there were very strict laws put into place to share all the Prothean technology they had found, laws that she knew the Asari had been ignoring since day one. A situation that it was starting to look like happened and that they would gain nothing of value from it if Xidre's reaction was any indication.

"We called it the Crucible. As each cycle nears its end point and the Reaper threat looms each race desperately scrambles to assemble every means possible to create a weapon that can defeat them, including the records in the final days of previous cycles. For reasons that were unknown to us in the past cycle the Crucible's designs always survived. At the end of the previous cycle in the period of time that we started to rebuild our civilisation our top priority was to build the Crucible, even if we had to build from scratch."

"Did you?" Tevos asked hesitantly, realising why the visit to Thessia was a 'waste of time.' All that the trip told him was things that he already knew.

"Yes, and once we were finished and actually had the time to figure out what the blasted thing actually did we also understood why the Prothean's destroyed it." That raised all kinds of red-flags with Sparatus.

"The Prothean's destroyed their own weapon to kill the Reapers?" The general asked sounding like this was the scene of a horror movie.

"It was never a weapon, certainly never meant to be used against the Reapers, after all they spent far too much time cultivating it." And the Horror's stack onto horrors. "We call it a gene-forge, which emits a light that is capable of remaking an organism on the genetic level. Scaled down we used them to fix up the Quarian's immune system so that they can adjust back to their home world, nothing extreme, just realigned their immune system back to their home world, probably any day now a similar device will be used to fix up the Krogan's own reproductive cycle. We used the original Crucible to uplift the Flerkin's ancestors to fit our biological needs before we destroyed it." Xidre explained as he let the council figure out the implications themselves.

"A device that can alter the genetic makeup of an entire world?" Esheel already had a thousand ideas on what she would do with that.

"Transmitted through the Mass Relay Network the signal can remake all life in the entire galaxy, or at least it could've back before the Mass Relays were still so wide spread. I suspect that they would have to alter their plans yet again now." Xidre stated bluntly.

"Meaning that the Reapers intend to remake all life in the entire galaxy?" Sparatus asked sounding horrified.

"That is what we don't understand." Xidre stated making his opinion known. "'Why does the Reaper's need the Crucible?' 'If they have the technology why trick other races into building it instead of building it themselves?' 'If the Reapers desire some kind of specific life form why not engineer it themselves and spread it throughout the Galaxy?' These are the questions that we do not know the answers to and have plagued us since the dawn of time. Frankly I don't care, I know there are people who think that there is some worth in deciphering the madness of these abominations but I am not one of them."

"Then do you have a plan to kill the reapers?" Sparatus asked going straight for the tough questions.

"Kill them." Xidre replied shrugging his shoulders as if the question was obvious. "To be specific we're going to kill more of them then they are going to be able to replenish by harvesting us." By Xidre's calculations during the last cycle it took on average two-three million mid-sized sapients to build a single reaper. Between the two governments there was a population of over six hundred billion in the galaxy, meaning that currently there was enough sapients throughout the galaxy to theoretically create three hundred thousand Reapers, give or take whatever they turn into Husks to attack with and whatever they kill or destroy in the process of their genocidal campaign. "Then we're going to ensure that the generation that comes after does the same thing, and after that, and after that. And we will do this via whatever means we deem necessary." The Councilors stared ahead in horror.

"You're insane!" Esheel snapped backing away in the hologram.

"Absolutely!" Xidre stated letting out a chuckle. "It's also irrelevant. The Reapers have waged war on all of creation, and all of creation shall rally to fight back! So have a nice day: however many nice days are left for you that is." Leaving that vaguely ominous statement Xidre pressed a button and hung up on the Councillors and went looking for a nice glass of something for him to drink.


Lessus had been an embarrassment for the Asari, and also a massive boon. The Ardat Yakshi had officially climbed to the top of the list of the Asari's worst secrets made known to the public, arguably worst than the fact that the Asari had been violating their own treaty concerning the sharing of Prothean technology since day one. And yet they had secured something that they had been scrambling to get for months now, Union Technology, lots of it. The Krogan had profited nicely from the deal they made with the Union, being paid to fight the Prethoryn in Solar Credits, and provided armour and weapons for free which chiefly consisted of the tactical gear technology for the duration of their time in the military. For the newly formed Justicar Cabal this was a huge boon. Right now a group of Turian instructors were overseeing a tactical exercise of the three Tactical Gears that the union had provided. Fenrir's performance had already been witnessed by the Justicar's during the fight with the Grotesque, leaving only the Hugin and Kraken models left to be seen in action.

Kraken resembles a giant Cephalopod like unit, crawling along the ground on eight long arms, one extending from each limb and the other four attached to a head like mount strapped to the back, it overall closely resembling the custodians while the body of the Asari in question dangles from below, encased in a armoured hard suit. The Kraken was fully capable to flow through the air on a powerful biotic field, much like it's name sake was said to flow through the water. Each of the tendrils in question were lined with tiny suckers with their own grasping and stabbing claw, if necessary each of them are capable of operating and firing a gun, operated by a sophisticated VI Program of course, holding onto the weapon via the suckers and operating the trigger with the claws. Most damning of all though? A fully operational active camouflage skin, thousands of micro-camera's taking in light from all directions and changing the pattern on the hard suit's skin meaning that she could turn invisible and maintain barriers at the same time. And yet the most impressive feature of all, the tips of the arms were equipped with highly sophisticated holographic emitters, not enough to produce solid hard light constructs, but definitely enough to fool the unwary, over all the Kraken was a highly formidable stealth unit.

Above the testing area another Asari was flying around strapped to a exosuit, aside from the built in hard suit most of the technology made up a pair of leg extensions and a large contraption strapped to the back, the purpose of which might be confusing up until you see the blades that were flying around slashing drones. The Blades themselves were floating on a zero G cloud via built in mass effect generators while being guided around via telekinesis, the telekinesis itself was two complex for the Asari operating the weapons but it was nothing that the built in AI helper couldn't handle. The Asari was using three built in weapons, the latest model of Rail gun anti-material rifle, the Widow, was in her hands, attached to one leg was a particle beam rifle, currently under the influence of warp ammo to increase the force by which said particles hit the target. With that done the rifle folded back into the leg and the left leg unfolded into the latest mode of Plasma caster: the Claymore. A singularity was cast, drawing in all the omni-drones into one spot and followed up with a shot from the claymore blowing up the singularity. With that done the various blades of the suit assembled themselves into a pair of wings on the back of the Hugin Exosuit and the asari testing it flew down to ground level.

Both women pressed the switches on their helmets to take their helmets off revealing Rila and Falere's faces. The Thorian was being worked like a dog to help them produce more enhanced Ardat Yakshi. Mere days after waking back up Falere went through the same augmentation process as her sister, with the aid of the Rachni the Thorian was able to augment the process. Having the Thorian mimic Vorcha cells they were able to duplicate the Vorcha's adaptability and were subjected to Suen's instant combustion level temperatures, fixing that with the Baol's photosynthesis process to turn the intense heat and light into psionic energy, which was then transmitted to Lessus via Rachni entangled particles.

The massive energy meant that they could sufficiently power the augmentation process for all of the Ardat Yakshi on Lessus, right now they were going through the process one by one to correct the Ardat Yakshi's condition. Not all of them had chosen to become valkyries, but many of these women grew up listening to stories of the Justicar's and their adventurers, of course they'd take the chance to be like them.


The Genophage research had progressed rather smoothly on Tuchanka, the animal testing with the Varren had yielded a seven out of ten success rate. Okeer wanted to be proud of that, but with the Tebrids it was rather hard. With thousands of Tebrid's from around the galaxy every protein in the Krogan body had been completely unraveled, that was then followed up by a sophisticated AI program assembling the data into precisely constructed digital Krogan models, following that bio-chemical alterations were introduced to each of the models and begins rapid testing across the ten different types in order to pick out the correct Genophage cure. Even without this, the infertility problems have already been eliminated from the tank born Krogan infants he's been working on, the Genophage is effectively cured for the next generation, The little monsters and their AI technology can probably crack the cure for this one in a fraction of the time that Okeer could do it using the proper methods that he's become accustomed to, and he's insured that there's enough clansmen with medical knowledge of Krogan to handle any future medical emergencies, which means that he can move on to his pet projects with the Lich.

"Explain to us what you're planning on doing again." Wrex instructed standing next to Bakara as he glared at Okeer.

"Correcting the damage done to us by the Salarians. My work with the Genophage was part of that, now I just need to work on fixing the rest." Okeer stated packing up the last of the equipment and computer files he's been working with.

"Many would argue that the Genophage pretty much covers that category." Bakara stated simply.

"Many are fools." Okeer closed a suitcase as he sighed deeply. "My father was a scientist. Once upon a time people could be told that and not react with shock. The Salarians stripped us of that, and a great many other things as well. Once upon a time our clans were about breeding people strong enough to survive this hellish place, instead we're just breeding." Okeer picked up his research notes as several drones carried away the rest of the equipment he'd be taking with him. "But rebuilding our people is about more than just inflating our numbers, I've done what I can here, I need to move on." Okeer walked by several tubes where fetal Krogan were growing five to a tube, a basic cybernetic package of grey boxes were in there with them.

While the tubes might seem strange in fact thanks to the redundant reproductive organs Krogan possessed it's actually quite normal for a single pregnant female to be carrying several children at once, it's even considered healthy to have several at one time. Wrex even got to feel all special because he had an entire wing of the newly established fertility clinic all to himself, and not just because it was named after him. After the work around to their fertility issues was revealed every woman on Tuchanka wanted a piece of Wrex. It wasn't just that he was the clan leader, when he was barely considered an adult Wrex slaughtered a Thresher Maw, on foot, as part of his rite of passage, on his first mission against the Rachni Wrex personally tore the throat of a Queen out with a omni-blade, he then followed that up with countless legendary feats as a mercenary, by the time he had returned to Tuchanka he had collected first blood of a enemy that rivalled the Rachni in their sheer ferocity. Most important of all Wrex has what few other Krogan have: an actual brain for tactics and management.

So after sticking his quad into a extractor until his balls hurt they had enough of Wrex's manly seed to fertilise thousands of embryos, for the time being they kept the 'good stuff' for use in trying to develop more biotic Krogan, for now, which limited the amount of 'work' that Wrex would have to do. Also it would help improve genetic diversity if only a couple thousand Krogan born per batch were Wrex's offspring. As Okeer went for the surface he passed by the Thorian cluster for Tuchanka, it would take a few generations but the seeping psionics would add to the power of the Krogan. Okeer however knew the truth, they didn't have a 'few generations' they probably didn't even have one if the lunatic Lich's had their way, so when offers we made he accepted. The Lich ship took him up to a laboratory, where the trio of Tebrid assistants were already waiting for him, alongside hundreds of cloning tanks, not for birthing new borns, but for manufacturing fully grown warriors.

"Alright you punks we've got a lot of work to do!" The Tebrid's chirped in the affirmative.

Okeer wondered how they interpret this? Deciphering the Krogan genome and reassembling it for producing warriors at the peak of ability? Within weeks there'll be thousands of them, Grey Boxes in each and everyone of them, their memories backed up digitally, getting the bodies back will be easier with the support of the lich's, as long as the Grey Boxes can be salvaged and re-installed in a new body? An entire legion of immortal Krogan warriors, raised from the pinnacle of Krogan genetics, raised on the pinnacle of Krogan culture from before their downward spiral, with the parts that led to that spiral culled, supported by the finest technology he can get his hands on.

"They will be formidable." A suited hand grasped Okeer's shoulder, Skeletor.

"I'm aiming for a lot higher than just 'formidable' you bloody skeleton." Okeer replied in a scathing tone of voice.

"Then we better get started." The Lich ship, Kruban, carrying its cargo of mad science and bad ideas flew away, soon to be replaced by another ship, a civilian one albeit one that was quite frankly massive.

Simply put, it was a civilian transport ship, one that would be taking students from newly added Union Signatories and Union allies and taking them into Union space for boarding school, not all of the children mind you, but enough to make a difference. Obviously the first stop would be the Krogan, a transport ship touched down in the middle of the city that the Tebrid's built for clan Urdnot. Wrex already wasn't happy that their mad scientist was leaving to go mad science with the skeletons, so seeing as how Bakara was the only in fit state to be civil she was greeting the ship and Wrex was off with the offspring. Shepard had warned that she was tall for her species thanks to the augments shoved into her bones splitting them apart and her muscles growing to compensate.

That said, this woman was tiny, her short hair on the sides of her head exposing the plugs for the cybernetic implants that everyone in the union seemed to have, aside from that she was currently wearing a black track suit. That said, the heat appeared to have been bothering her, so she removed the upper portion of the suit and tied it around her waist, the white under shirt doing nothing to hide the numerous colourful tattoos that went up her arms and across her collar bone. So not someone unaccustomed to pain then?

"You would be 'Jacqueline Nought' then?" Bakara asked recalling the name of the person that the union was sending over to get their kids.

"Ah everyone calls me coach Jack." 'Coach Jack' extended a colourful arm to shake hands with Bakara. "Hope you don't mind that I brought some of the ankle biters along." From the ship a figure emerged, taller than the human but composed almost entirely of orange stone, one of the Golema the Union Codex mentioned, and since they were about half the size of what she's given to understand Golema are the size of, that would make them children.

"The 'Ankle biters' I take it?" Bakara would like to see the ankle that they bite.

"They're a little big and heavy, so they don't have a lot of people that they can wrestle with." Jack stated letting out a grin. Are all humans nut-cases or just the ones that she knows?


Review Section:

RonaldM40196867: Probably, but it won't have anything to do with the Salarian's making a Thorian for them. Disentegrator.

Gianfranco Cembran: Thank you for saying so.