by Sailor Sedai (Ellf) » Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:21 pm
Three choices stood before her, three impossible choices. All her hard work, all the building up, all the gathering led to this single point of failure. Her and her choice. Any choice she made now could save the galaxy or doom it, but regardless of what happened, she wouldn’t be around to see the results. The Catalyst had impressed that upon her. If she chose destruction, she would wipe out the Reaper threat for all time, but that had the downside of undoing two important things she had accomplished in her quest to get here. The geth were allied with their creators, the quarians. They were at peace, and her friend sacrificed himself to allow that to happen. In addition, there was the budding relationship between her ship and its pilot. Joker and EDI had started to get closer ever since she’d managed to obtain a body of her own, and she’d encouraged it. She wanted her crew to find happiness, and though it was strange, she’d heard of stranger relationships. If she chose destruction, these efforts of peace would be for naught. The geth would be gone, and EDI would be destroyed. The threat of the Reapers would be no more, nor would any synthetic life form. She couldn’t let that happen.
The second choice, as she looked to the left, was one that ate at her. Control. The Illusive Man wanted it; he’d wanted humans to stand atop the galactic scene and rule. He’d thought that humans deserved it. That they deserved the best. The power of the Reapers would allow much under the control of the right person. She could stop wars, enforce peace, prevent slavery. All she had to do was trust that by controlling the Reapers they were not controlling her. That she was not given over to indoctrination. The Catalyst said that the Illusive Man was too far under their control for him to successfully control them. While she wasn’t, that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t be if she joined them. Controlling an armada of Reapers was a tempting prospect, but not if it meant giving up whom she was in the process. She was willing to die for her beliefs, but not give up her identity.
The third choice was by far the strangest. Synthesis, the Catalyst had called it. Somehow due to the synthetic parts that Cerberus had put into her body, along with the biological parts, she was the perfect template for the Crucible to create a new form of life. To convert the peoples of the galaxy into a life form that was both synthetic and biological. She’d no clue how that was possible, and it would probably take years of study for someone to explain that to her. Years that she didn’t have. The longer that she took to make her decision, the smaller the window was to make it.
The final choice was to make no choice at all. To leave the situation unchanged. The races of the galaxy were outgunned by the Reapers, as she hadn’t had enough proof to get them prepared. The hopes of the galaxy rested here on this Crucible, and if Shepard failed to act, the Reapers would win, and the cycle would continue. The next cycle would be more prepared though, as Liara had set up information caches to pass on. They would be prepared. They would win.
She shook her head. The point of this was to break the cycle now. So she chose. The path that would not undo what she had worked toward. The path that would not cause her to lose who she was. She threw away her gun and ran along the middle path of the Crucible, ignoring her injuries. They didn’t matter anyway, not with what was going to happen. She leapt off the platform at the edge of the Crucible, and her body fell toward the gathering arc of energy.
I’m sorry, Liara. Guess I won’t be coming back after all. Thane, I’ll be seeing you soon...
As she hit the energy, she could have sworn she heard an echoing of mad laughter... and Andrea Shepard died.
The wind forced itself out of Shepard’s lungs as she struck the ground. Intense pain wracked itself through her as the fall aggravated her injuries, but she managed to force her way through it and climbed, ever so slowly to her feet. Initially, all she saw was darkness and her ears rung something fierce from the fall. Blinded and deafened, she waited for her senses to adjust, and as they did, she almost wished they hadn’t.
The ringing stopped first and agony replaced it. Not Shepard’s agony, but a chorus of tortured screams and yells that echoed out from around her. After thirty seconds the screams stopped as quickly as they began, and her eyes began to adjust. Gray was the first thing she noticed, a world of gray that surrounded her, but slowly her eyes began to add detail, and as they did, the screaming began anew.
Shepard stood on the edge of a platform that seemed to float mid-air. Stone railings lined the edges, but she could see over; there was no support nor ground. A yawning chasm extended below the platform, infinitely deep yet she could see walls in the distance, leading up to an arched ceiling above her. The platform itself was lined with what looked and felt like marble, but upon closer examination, Shepard saw faces below her. She stood on the stone faces of people, and they moved. Their expressions matched the sounds of the echoing screams, and she almost swore that they pleaded with her. They wanted her to end their suffering. There were dozens in this area of the platform alone.
“Hell. I’m in Hell.” Shepard shuddered. You’d think that sacrificing yourself to save the galaxy merited Heaven, but she couldn’t deny what she saw. “No weapons, still injured and alone...”
Ahead, the platform continued, and she could see statues that lined the edges. Despite her apprehension, Shepard pushed forward, each step bringing a note of change to the screams. Shepard refused to look down and see the source.
She approached the first statue and examined it. The workmanship must have been fine once, but now it stood at half the statue it used to be. The upper half was utterly destroyed, as if someone had intentionally taken a sledgehammer to it, but the bottom half was somewhat recognizable. The subject of the statue had been wearing some sort of classical armor and a set of sandals, and as Shepard’s eyes drifted lower, she saw that the statue had an engraving, “P. Augustus.” The second statue, on the opposite side of the platform from Augustus was more intact. A girl, dressed in the clothes of some tribal dancer, stood with a look of fear on her sculpted face. The statue was labeled “Ellia.” The next down the line was of a longhaired man in his twenties, also sculpted with a look of fear, “Anthony.” More statues lined the rest of the walkway: a heavy set man in Renaissance clothing, “R. Bianchi,” an Arabic-looking man with a turban, “Karim,” a man dressed as a Franciscan monk, “P. Luther,” a man in British colonial-era clothing, “M. Roivas,” and a man wearing a twentieth century suit, “E. Roivas.” Each statue had two things in common: they were perfectly sculpted, and each subject had a look of perfect fear sculpted into his or her face.
Shepard let her eyes flit to beyond the last statue and she saw what lay at the end of the platform. A pedestal shaped like a skeletal, desiccated hand reached out of the ground and the fingers closed tightly around what was in its grasp. Cautiously, Shepard approached the pedestal as she had nowhere else to go, and ever so slowly, with a moaning creak that could be heard over the screams, the fingers of the hand opened. A hidebound book laid on the pedestal, proffered by the hand for her taking. Shepard approached and examined the book. Shrunken bones decorated its sides, likely human, given her location. The clasp of the book laid prominent on its cover and etched into it was a black rune that she was certain that even if her translator was working right now, she wouldn’t be able to identify it.
Shepard stared at the book for a couple minutes, trying to drown out the cacophony of screams that surrounded her. There was no visible way out of wherever here was, Hell, or otherwise. She supposed she could chance the yawning chasm, but that didn’t seem too bright. However, there was this book. She could hardly call it a book with how old it looked and its size. This tome might be more accurate, offered to her by forces unknown in a place unknown. She should be dead.
“If I’m already dead, and there’s nothing else here...” Shepard psyched herself up a bit. “I might as well grab it. “
Shepard reached out and lifted the book from the pedestal. A familiar sensation overtook her, one like what she’d felt before on Eden Prime. Visions assaulted her mind.
*Flash*
Stone pillars drove themselves into the massive pulsating purple flesh of a beast made up of multiple eyes and sharp-toothed maws.
Shepard reeled at the image, somehow she felt for the beast. It didn’t deserve that.
*Flash*
Hundreds of humans were stacked upon each other, and cement was poured over them, a pillar of flesh and stone.
Shepard gagged. Who could be so cruel?
*Flash*
In the vacuum of space, a massive creature the size of a dreadnought floated. Its gaping maw glowed with bright red light. It had two claws... Shepard couldn’t even find words to describe the creature, her mind barely comprehended its presence. Twin beams of light lanced at it, shots from a Thanix cannon. Cephalopod shaped ships floated up to the abomination, some smaller, others larger... Reapers. Reapers were attacking it. Leading the attack was Harbinger.
Shepard couldn’t... no. This vision...
We are your salvation by your destruction.
*Flash*
In the ruins of an ancient city, a blonde woman dressed in jeans and a tank top fought a skeletal creature dressed in Roman centurion armor. As she goes to make the final blow, he blasts her back.
“The Darkness... shall be... Eternal!”
Andrea Shepard blacked out.
**********************
Shepard woke to the sounds of life sign monitoring equipment around her. The rhythmic beeping of the machine monitored her heart rate, and she could feel the tube in her throat forcing air into her lungs. In and out, up and down, like clockwork, her breaths were forced to be steady. She tried to identify where she was. Obviously, she was in a hospital bed, the acrid sterile smell told her she was in an actual hospital and not some makeshift one that was set up for war casualties.
Her eyes flicked to the wall. While it was mostly barren, there were a few bits of writing. “Intensive Care Unit: Section C.” The text was clearly in English, not translated by her translator. So that placed her... Well, somewhere that English was the primary language. If she assumed she was on Earth, she could be anywhere in the United North American States, or she could be in Europe, or even in Oceania. There was no way to tell until someone came by to see her, and even then, they might not have an accent for her to grip onto.
Anderson hadn’t had one himself despite being from London. She recalled him telling a story about how when he joined the Alliance, he’d worked to lose the accent so that he could rise in ranks. A bout of pain tore at her heart as she remembered her CO. He had lain next to her as he died, giving his last bit of good advice. He was definitely the best CO she’d ever had. It wasn’t fair for her to be alive and him dead. Of course, he probably would tell her otherwise. She could almost hear him now, telling her to get better and to...
“... be aware? I see you’re awake now, aren’t you?” Shepard’s eyes flicked to the source of the voice. No, that was impossible. She’d felt him die. He was right next to her when he passed, but she couldn’t deny what was right in front of her. David Anderson stood next to her hospital bed in full Alliance blues. He looked a few years younger, quite a few years at that, and not nearly as war weathered as the last time she saw him. The bars on his uniform identified him as a captain, not the admiral he had been when she last saw him. Something was off here. She made a vaguely affirmative sound to answer his question. “Good. It’s good to see that you’ve managed to wake up. I’ll go get the doctor.”
He went out the room the way he came in, and Shepard only just now noticed the door. She kept her eyes trained on it, waiting for Anderson’s return. She couldn’t be dreaming. David Anderson was alive, and somehow younger. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but at the least it meant she was in Alliance hands. That was better than being in the hands of any Cerberus remnants.
“I’m telling you, she’s awake, Karin. She shouldn’t have that tube in her any longer.” Anderson’s voice came from out the door, and it was getting closer.
“Is that your medical opinion, Captain Anderson? Might I remind you who has been in medical school and who hasn’t? The girl was barely alive when you brought her in.” A familiar female voice answered her CO back and entered the room. Shepard couldn’t believe it, but Doctor Chakwas walked in through the room’s door. Well, she thought it was Doctor Chakwas. The woman who walked through the door sounded like her Medical Officer, but she had black hair and much smoother skin. It was as if the woman had lost a decade of her age. Still, if this was Doctor Chakwas, she knew she couldn’t be in better hands.
“You know what I mean, and you’ll see it when you see her, Karin.” Anderson followed the younger Chakwas into the room, and Shepard ached to do something unprofessional. “See, there she is.”
Chakwas rushed over to Shepard’s side and brought up her omni-tool. “It would seem that her lungs have re-inflated, and her brain activity seems to have returned to normal. Miss, can you hear me?”
Shepard answered the question with a grunt. It was unsurprisingly hard to talk with a tube down your throat. It was, however, surprisingly unpainful to have it there. It must have been lined with medigel or some sort of anesthetic.
“My name is Doctor Karin Chakwas, You were brought in with several serious injuries, barely clinging to life and you have been in a coma for at least a week and a half. It appears that you may be able to breathe for yourself. I’d like to remove the tube from your throat so that we can have more of a conversation than one of grunts. However, if it looks like you’re having issues, I will have to intubate you again. There is a possible danger of suffocation with this. Do I have your permission to proceed?”
Shepard grunted in the affirmative. She wanted to be able to talk properly... and get a drink of water.
Chakwas nodded and prepared to remove the tube. “Please hold still, miss.”
Removing the tube from her throat was at best uncomfortable, but it was hardly worse than any of the injuries she had suffered prior to that. It definitely was not worse than dying of asphyxiation in the vacuum of space. Still, it was uncomfortable enough that once the tube was removed, she gasped for air for a few seconds as her body started regulating her breathing again. Shepard’s respiratory rhythm returned to what could be called normal after about thirty seconds, and she shook her head as Chakwas made to start putting the tube down her throat again.
“N-no... I’m fine. I can breathe.” Shepard said with a smile. “Thank you.”
“Well, Doctor Chakwas is the best doctor I know, and I’m glad to see that you’re alright now. “ Anderson began as he looked over Shepard.
“Captain Anderson, she’s not fully better yet. She’s still got a bit more healing to go through, but it will go faster now that she’s awake.” Chakwas scolded.
“Yes, but she’s at least able to talk to us now, which is more than we had before.” Anderson replied and then turned to Shepard. “So I suppose there are two major questions to ask. The first would be if you remember how you got injured.”
Shepard nodded. “And the second?”
Anderson’s face turned a bit grim. “The second is the most important. Who exactly are you?”