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Shepard is a genius, violent machine, ready to bring his boots down on the corrupt, the evil, and the genocidal machines. What inspired me to write him in such a manner was Thairon, the protagonist of my original story, Arrival : Ruptures. Comments, likes and reviews are appreciated. Here are the links for : AO3, Spacebattles, Royal Road and Webnovel.
—
The Citadel
"Hey Commander, we got the food ready," Kaidan called out from the kitchen. He, Ashley, James, and Liara were busy making the small feast ordered from a nearby restaurant presentation ready.
One by one, the guests began to arrive.
"Samara, girls, come in."
"Shepard, glad to see you once more. Thank you for the invite."
"We brought dessert."
"Thanks, ladies."
Right as he showed Samara and her daughters inside, the bell rang again.
"Jacob, Miranda, there you are."
"Hey boss, good to see you again."
"Thanks for the invite."
"Get in and make yourselves comfortable."
Zaeed and Wrex brought drinks separately; Thane and his son had drell music and food safe for other races, and Legion did not know what to bring, so he bought several desserts.
The party was a blast. With most of the crew, both previous and current, joining the festivities, there were a lot of activities to do.
Catching up with friends, dancing, shooting practice, gossip, turning guests away with Grunt, and getting into a pointless three-way act of calling each other's names.
Javik made jokes regarding the races of his cycle, which no one understood. James got into a losing argument comparing physical prowess to biotics. Following that, he started to flirt with Ashley.
Jack came late, but with a bang. She broke up the dance floor like a total party animal.
Lost in the moment, they were barely able to wake up in the afternoon the following day.
—
Shepard held Tali's hand, watching the Normandy.
"This is it. The battle of our lives," Tali said, laying her head on her boyfriend's shoulder.
"Worried?" he asked, grinning.
"A bit. But I know we'll win."
"We will."
"I was thinking, how about we have a single ceremony, the four of us? After the Reapers are gone, of course," Garrus interrupted, holding hands with Hailey.
His sister shrugged. "Not like any of us like fancy stuff. It works for me."
"Sure, why not?"
"If the ladies are fine with it, I am in."
"Though, I still haven't gotten a ring, Vakarian."
"Don't worry, I will take you to the finest jewelry store so you can choose."
"How generous."
"Don't look at me like that, Tali. I'll get you a ring too."
"No, I want a blackhole projector of mine."
"Hah!" Wrex slapped him on the shoulder. "She has the spirit of a krogan."
—
Artemis Tau
Athens
SSV Normandy transitioned into the system by itself.
All preparations were ready. Penumbra Apex had left the docks, outfitted with two massive blackhole projectors, laser bolt cannons across the hull, and an enormous reserve of anti-proton torpedoes.
Three enormous stations were arrayed to provide fire support. One was the former station of the collectors that his team had taken; the other two were built by the Geth.
Every available ship was at the system, ready to end the threat of the Reapers once and for all. Stationed so their collective weapon range would reach just the edge of the system where the Reapers would arrive, they awaited the enemy.
Calculations have been done so when the second Reapers began to come out of FTL, they would face laser bolts, anti-proton torpedoes, and miniature black holes.
The Crucible was kept as a backup plan in case the battle was lost.
"Attention all ships. Reaper arrival is in less than two minutes. Fire your armaments as instructed."
"Joker, let's not keep them waiting."
The best pilot in the galaxy grinned. "Hell yeah."
The first ship to fire the first shot against the Reapers was SSV Normandy, the one ship, and her crew, whose contributions to the war effort eclipsed all others on an individual basis.
The spark of the torpedoes grew with each second, becoming a tide of nuclear forces that would annihilate all that stood in their way. The Reapers were no exception to this. The first cuttlefish-shaped ship to arrive took three torpedoes to the hull, dead before its advanced, synthetic mind could comprehend what had happened.
EDI's predictive algorithm based on all the data they had on the Reapers bore fruit. The exact distance between ships and the exit formation meant most of the shots were on target.
The Reapers defeated the organics by understanding how they fought. Yet, in this cycle, the tables were turned on them.
The combined firepower of over two hundred thousand ships on an enemy that most likely considered them dead was devastating. The three hundred thousand strong Reaper force had lost thousands in the first seconds of the engagement, starting with the Oculi carriers meant to create a protective screen.
The miniature blackholes fired by Penumbra Apex created two gravitational anomalies that blocked the Reapers from entering into FTL within a hundred astronomical units of each blackhole.
Within three minutes of the engagement, a third of the enemy was gone.
Trapped like rats with nowhere to go, the Reapers chose to fight.
Dreadnoughts and destroyers burned hard for the allied fleets, trying to get into range. The smaller ships retreated behind the dreadnoughts slowly while continuing to fire. The sheer volume was overwhelming the Reapers and the remaining Oculi.
By the time the first enemy destroyer opened fire, two-thirds of the enemy were neutralized.
The reflectors held under the magnetohydrodynamic cannons far better than mass-effect shields could hope to. The crimson beams slammed into the dark blue fields, finding no purchase.
At close range, the battle intensified.
Half the frigates and destroyers weaved between the enemy ships, delivering precise payloads. The rest, along with cruisers and dreadnoughts, acted as enticing targets. The Reapers chose to open fire on them first.
The spacecraft carriers, lounging at the back, finally released their complement of space fighters. A bomber or an interceptor would not make a difference by itself, but fifty thousand at once made more than a difference.
The interceptors protected the bombers against the Oculi, while the latter fired their complement of torpedoes. Hundreds went down to the wave, dead from a thousand cuts.
Each minute, more of the crimson lances of the Reapers flickered out.
The United Command was not without losses either. Cruisers, frigates, and destroyers went down in flames to protect the dreadnoughts. Interceptors and bombers were shot down by the more maneuverable Oculi, suffering not so insignificant losses before eradicating the enemy.
Harbinger, the leader of the Reapers, was the last one left. It charged at the Normandy for a suicide attack, deciding to die trying to take down the human who had pulled the entire cycle to victory.
The Normandy weaved between its attacks and returned fire in kind. A torpedo struck right as the Harbinger was preparing to fire. The firing chamber detonated, causing an internal explosion that tore the eldritch ship in half.
The Normandy started the battle with a torpedo and ended it with another.
When the guns were silent, the crews stood still, waiting for the hammer to drop. These machines had been slaughtering the organics for a billion years, yet they had been destroyed in less than an hour.
The silence was broken aboard each ship with screams of victory and joy. Crews hugged, slapped, shouted, and did everything else to show their happiness.
Aboard the Normandy, it was with long, messy kisses between couples.
—
Following the allied victory over the Reapers, cleanup efforts began in earnest. Even dead, the Reaper technology posed a danger. The eezo cores were separated, and the remaining parts were towed to the star of the Athens system.
The dead were gathered to be given a funeral on their worlds.
The ease at which they had won was unbelievable to the people of the Citadel space.
—
Shepard and his crew were lauded as the greatest heroes, the ones who had pioneered this victory against the Reapers.
For months, his team had to attend various celebrations across the galaxy and were granted the greatest honors each nation had, from the Star of Shepard to Nova Cluster and beyond.
While the war was over and the galactic crisis averted, issues plaguing the galaxy did not end.
Mordin Solus, the ex-STG agent who had taken over the Salarian Union, was expected to stand down. He did so by holding a referendum, allowing the Salarians to elect their new type of government.
A competitive democracy where the individual looking to become the new president had to have reached certain thresholds in management to be eligible to run for the office was the popular choice.
Mordin was petitioned to run for the office, but citing his age and lack of interest, he had refused.
Another revolution was happening in the Krogan Clans Assembly.
Overlord Urdnot Wrex had taken inspiration from the election system of the democratic institutions. Every thirty years, a short time compared to the Krogan lifespan, a tournament would be held.
Each clan who wanted their own to be the new overlord would present candidates. They would have to be vetted by the female clans, who did not share the rivalries of the males, to be fit to be the overlord as an administrator.
A local, a regional, and, finally, a planetary tournament would take place. The winner would challenge the current Overlord for the position, and the better warrior would emerge victorious.
While it was met with mixed reactions, an issue quickly popped up in the galactic community. The krogan were cured of the genophage under the assumption they would be necessary for ground operations, yet the entire battle was over in space.
To gain political clout, Wrex sent volunteers to Khar'shan, the dying homeworld of the Batarians, to help evacuate survivors hidden in underground bunkers. The freezing environment was challenging for the other races, but the Krogan pushed through, acting as saviors instead of destroyers.
A year after the end of the Reaper threat, the AI hidden in the bowels of the Citadel was unearthed. It had taken the image of Shepard and, upon being questioned, had revealed information that correlated with what the Leviathans had presented.
Upon finishing its tale, its systems had gone dark. The AI had chosen to end its existence on its own terms rather than be left to the mercy of the organics.
Its core and other components were studied and then destroyed to prevent a possible surprise.
The galaxy seemed to be heading towards an era of peace never seen before.
Until a crisis reared its head in the Asari Republics. An unknown source had revealed how the asari had possessed a hidden prothean beacon in the Temple of Athame. As the pioneers of the laws oversharing technological discoveries, the hypocrisy of the situation almost united the galaxy against the asari.
Which required Shepard, as the Galactic Arbiter, to step in.
The asari would immediately move the beacon to a neutral planet so it could be accessed by researchers from every nation. In addition, they were tasked with covering the cost of batarian resettlement and making hefty donations for the rebuilding efforts on Tuchanka.
It had damaged their image, but the asari would survive.
Shepard, the greatest galactic hero, had finally proposed to his quarian lover two years after the war as the galaxy began to slow down. He had wed her in a private joint ceremony on Earth with his sister and Garrus Vakarian, along with a surprise union.
Jeff Moreau, the legendary helmsman of the Normandy, proposed to his girlfriend, EDI, an AI. While the concept was novel and weird, none would stand in the way of true love.
It marked the first wedding between a human and an artificial lifeform, though by no means would it be the last.
His honeymoon on Rannoch was cut short when word of mysterious, multicolored orbs arriving all across the galactic space reached him. Rather than suffer the trouble of going after the orbs, Shepard had chosen to destroy 2181 Despoina with his blackhole projector.
The extinction of an entire race was met with celebrations in this case.
Speaking of extinction, the rachni, a race once thought to be dead, which had been brought back to life through a single egg in an effort by Sovereign to weaponize them, had finally changed their isolationist stance.
While their small fleet was a part of the United Command and the Rachni workers had assisted in the construction efforts regarding the crucible, they had chosen to retreat after the end of the war.
Years later, they returned in peace.
Amendments were made first. Under the influence of the Reapers, the ancestors of the current queen had caused much damage to the galaxy. While the damage was repaired long, long ago, they still felt the need to make a public apology.
Their sincerity was also shown with actions. Examples of prothean technology they had discovered were shared with the galaxy, and the queen had gone as far as to extend an olive branch to the Krogan. She had offered to send workers to Tuchanka to help the rebuilding efforts, and in turn, invited krogan to the less hostile words for the same.
Many saw the Rachni as enemies due to the war stories. Wrex and Shepard had released a joint statement on Tuchanka, threatening violence on anyone who started a war with the Rachni over ancient history.
It led to an unlikely friendship between the krogan and the rachni. Both were races that had proven to be too much for the rest of the galaxy. Both had almost gone extinct.
Both were rebuilding now.
Seeing how the galaxy was changing, the Hanar made the decision to seek a new, more habitable planet for the Drell. A desert planet was not difficult to find, and with wormhole tech available, the Drell would be but a call away, yet in the comfort of a planet fit for their biology.
—
Shepard had spent the years after the war acting as a galactic peacekeeper for only the most important of issues. As he and his wife could not conceive children, they had opted to adopt two human and two Quarian children, just as Hailey and Garrus Vakarian had done.
While he was away from the battlefield, he, along with his family and friends, championed for a better galaxy for everyone. People were lifted out of poverty by national and galactic initiatives. Corruption was stamped out in every corner. Free healthcare, education, and public services were made into galactic standards every nation had to obey.
The last remains of piracy and illegal activities in the Terminus systems had faded. Even the Queen of Omega, Aria T'loak, had turned to more legal businesses. Slavery had become a thing of the past, and indentured servitude was banned, much to the ire of the Illium corporations.
Decades later, when invaders arrived from the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, trying to transform the peaceful races of the Citadel into their own through biological weaponry, they were stamped out with the collective fury of the United Command.
An exploratory mission was sent to where the Kett had come from to put an end to their abominable practices.
One step at a time, the galaxy continued to evolve, to become better as a collective.
—
Notes: So here it is, the end of Commander Shepard: The Greatest to Ever Live. Now, I won't lie, this story did not get as much attention as I hoped, so the ending is a bit rushed.