#azranox

“Beep, beep, beep, beep.” A heart monitor is the first thing she hears after that crash of red slammed into her. Then the pain sets in. Every single piece of her screams even laying perfectly still. Her eyes flutter open to darkness, then the right side flickers on before fading again. The left tries and fails. She can’t feel her right arm or leg. The parts she can sense feel weak and atrophied. Did I do it? Is it over?

Blind she calls, barely a whisper, “Anyone?” It’s all she can get out. If not for the heart monitor she would think she’s deep in rumble waiting for death to take her once again.

A voice she never expected greets her, “Commander! You are awake!” Javik? She feels his fingers graze her left arm. “It is as the doctors said, you cannot see… Then the blast destroyed your eyes as well. No matter, we shall fix that.” There’s a kindness in him that feels wrong, but then she gets the best news she every has, “You did it Commander. The Reapers are dead. You are truly the Avatar of Victory.”

Delirious with pain she groans, “Free. No more loops.” Before passing out.

It’s another day as Shepard’s arm for Thane Krios. His heart and mind have been pulled and twisted in the last several days in ways he never expected. On a rare streak of impulsiveness he sought out information on his estranged son, only to quickly receive the worst of news.

He sat in his tiny arid room contemplating what to do. He could easily take a shuttle and intercept his son on his own, but he did not wish to abandon this mission. So he called the Commander to join him for tea ahead of schedule.

She listened to the few details he provided with care and attention. He only gave what was necessary, as he still didn’t not trust the Cerberus AI listening to everything. Neither did she. She set course for the Citadel immediately, and while his son must serve a short sentence of a few months; it was better than the alternative. For that he could only thank Shepard. He did not know if he would live long enough to see his son freed, but he would be free in time. Free, alive, and with hands unstained.

That leaves him here peering down his scope. Another crew member had requested her help soon after he did, and that is what they’re now doing. A meeting framed as a positive for the target, but he had betrayed Vakarian who now sought blood. The stain of revenge is one he knows all to well, but it is not his place to interfere with another’s.

Unarmed and unarmored the Commander waits in a shadowed hall away from prying eyes. Vakarian was stationed at the prime location they’d discovered whilst scouting. At Shepard’s request Thane himself had taken another position at a different angle. She could protect herself, but there’s no reason not to be prepared.

The clock strikes the hour and the target moves into sight. He listens to the turian beg for his life with excuses. He watches them both through his scope as Shepard moves with the pacing man. Then she turns and catches his scope for a moment. Bright eezo violet eyes flash in his scope as she shifts to face Vakarian, pushing him to abandon this bloody path. Memories of defiant sunset eyes fight to come forth, only his training keeps them away.

Shepard looks down at her terminal at the message from her mom. Such a simple message, “Hi dear, I haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything okay on your ship?”

All she wants to do is call and talk to her mom. Tell her that no it’s not okay. She’s been stuck in a timeloop for decades and keeps remembering more and more deaths that sent her back to the start. Her partner is dead and she has to control the Reapers to end this. Thats she exhausted and wants to come home and just have a meal cooked by her.

But she can’t drag her mom into all this. She already shares a last name and surely gets so much attention for it. “Your daughter the first human Spectre? Your daughter that destroyed a star system? Your daughter that’s leading the charge to save that galaxy? That Shepard?” To involve her with this hell is to much, she can’t put her mom through that.

So she lies, “Hi mom. Sorry I haven’t called. There’s just so much to do and it keeps slipping my mind. I heard you got promoted. Could never be me. I’m just a Commander through and through Rear Admiral. xD! I miss you, and wish I could see you.

Love,

Vibrant green contrasts the cold gray metal around him. Each row of plants sing with strength as he adds fertilizers to hydroponic beds. A lifetime of war, a rebirth into a new cycle already at war, no chance to cultivate life outside this small room aboard the Normandy.

The prefab’s living room is adorned in gaudy silver and rainbow decorations as the small family and their friends gather around the birthday girl. “Come on Sparky, open up the box!” cries one of the younger kids.

The freshly 14 year old unwraps a small box with bright curious eezo eyes. Within sits a small bracelet made of black string with nine beads on it. Her mom smiles as she puts it on her wrist for her. “Your father and I had this bracelet made just for you honey. It’s Earth’s system and the extra is Mindoir. You were born there, but this is home, always. You’ll always have a place here.” She tussles her daughters long black hair before fixing her glasses as they fall askew.

The teenager grins as she tries to dodge her mom’s affections in vain. “Mom! You’re embarrassing me!” She grabs the bracelet and twists it around. Yellow, gray, orange, blue green , red, marbled red and tan, tan, pale blue, dark blue all sit together in a row. On the other side sits a lone green bead. “It’s beautiful Mom. Thank you!”

The birthday girl opens a few more gifts, painting supplies, new clothes and school supplies lay on the table as the homemade birthday cake is brought out. As she blows out the candles all she wishes for is for life to be like this forever.

- - - two years later - - -

She sits in the tree silently crying as the screams echo in the distance. It had been hours and they hadn’t stopped. She was powerless to help. She imagines her family laying dead in their prefab home, blood covering the walls as gunshots ring out. She pulls dark energy into her hand. Maybe if she believes she can hard enough she can actually save everyone. She’s watched enough videos to know the techniques. Pain shots through her as the purple sparks fade out.

The air is still as she stands at split paths. The past decade flashes in her mind with their flashes of red and that blip of green. The only choice she has yet to make stands there waiting for her. Deep in her soul, she feels the strings of fate pulling her, tying her to those blue washed bars.

She looks to the burning green. What if it’s a test? To see if she’ll succumb to the temptation of power faced with what seems like no other choice? She’s thrown herself into the light before, and all it brought was memories, but it brought something. The knowledge that she had lost, the lives full of tragedy that brought understanding and better outcomes. Maybe it is the key to getting out of this. A choice made twice. Maybe she can finally tell Thane all the things she wrote and never sent. Those lives at his side facing down the impossible time after time, with or without knowing.

The glowing humanoid stands watching while this extraordinary specimen stands at only two off its three paths, completely disregarding the path it expected it would take. It waits these brief moments for the organic to do something. It choses the final step in its great solution, but not with excitement, but calculated testing. Strange but no matter. Organics act strangely when faced with difficulties, this one is no different.