121Ragnarok
(Valkyrie: Part 4)
Author's (rather long) Introduction:
So, Mass Effect 3...
This game astounded me.
Fan feelings about the final game in the Mass Effect series are strong and they are mixed. A number of people loved the game, no qualifications needed. Many hated it, starting at some point in which things went south for them: a point in which auto-dialog took over their vision of Shepard, or where their Mass Effect 2 romance suddenly got hit by a giant plot bus, or where the great deus ex machina that would take over the ending began to rear its pointy little head.
Others, like myself, were lucky (or unlucky) in that the game played out perfectly every step of the way...right up until the absolute head-trip that is the last 5-15 minutes of the game.
I envy the optimism of the first group and I sympathize deeply with the second. For myself, my experience with the game put me more in the third camp. I loved Mass Effect 3 right up until the end. As I played along, I was amazed and delighted. I kept thinking that the game was just what I'd hoped for, just what I'd imagined it would be. At times I almost thought I was dreaming it up, it fit my vision of the story so perfectly.
And then the ending hit me like a punch to the gut.
If you haven't finished the game, I won't spoiler it for you. If you have, I won't go into long details about the ending. You know what the endings were like, and you can read about them in articles, blogs (including my own), forums, etc. Heck, you've probably had your fill of speculations and theories.
At the time of writing this, ending DLC has been promised, but it's still pending. And honestly, I wonder how well a DLC will be able to 'fix' what is wrong with the game. On that score, I go from irrational hope to irrational despair and back again - often in the same day. I felt (and feel) a little stupid about how much the ending of Mass Effect 3 bothered me. After all, it's just a video game, right? But on the other hand, I'm obviously a little invested in it. Obviously.
But two things have helped me crawl out of my sadness. One was that several people wrote to me asking me to continue my fanfic. I was really honored and touched by this. Your comments mean a lot of me, so thank you. I appreciate that you'd like to see my fanfic continue, and that you'd like me to co-opt the ending of Mass Effect 3 and smooth out the wrinkles of the story.
And I thought... yeah. Yeah, actually, that's the beauty and travesty of Mass Effect 3 right there: There is so much amazing and convicting about the story and the world, and that that's why the ending hurts me so much. There were clues all over the frickin' map - or codex - whatever. Point is, the ending just doesn't fit the Mass Effect universe at all. But it could have. I still can't quite understand how the same folks who crafted this sci fi world with such care and pride could destroy it so thoroughly in so short a time.
Alright then. Enough introduction:
This is the final chapter of the Valkyrie's story: Ragnarok, the end of the world.
As always, Mass Effect and all aspects thereof are the creation of BioWare (sidelong look with narrowed eyes). Commander Kyrie Shepard is my own creation, born out of the first two games and Jennifer Hale's amazing voice acting. And in this last story, I'm gonna claim her as mine. After all this time writing her, I think I can reasonably do that.
-Sage
Chapter 1: Breathe
The sky burst in an explosion of clean white silence. Her body flew backward and struck something. Her body then fell forward and landed on a solid surface that might have been another wall or maybe the floor. Pain roared through her limbs and her vision danced with stars. For a moment, she rolled, shoulder over shoulder. The world stopped shaking and she came to a halt. She lay there, dazed, uncertain if it was her body or the world around her that had been blown apart.
Breathe, Commander Shepard told herself. Just breathe.
Her lungs sucked in air; her head felt heavy as a stone. She was alive, she realized. The pain was indication enough of that. Grunting, she tried to sit up, but found she was too disoriented to move. She thought she heard someone call her name, but she couldn't quite tell through the bright ringing in her ears.
"Shepard!"
This time, she was sure of the voice. A hand found hers and she clutched it tightly. The world pitched as someone hauled her to her feet. She nearly collapsed again, but that same arm held her upright. A moment later, her center of gravity returned and she found her bearings. Shepard opened her eyes and almost wished she hadn't.
All around her was wreckage: torn metal, torn bodies and blood. A moment ago, those admirals had been alive, asking her how they were going to fight off the Reapers. She had told them the truth, but that hardly mattered now.
They were dead.
Shepard swallowed hard as a shard of icy guilt and rage seemed to slide into her stomach. For six months, six goddamn months, she had tried to get an audience with these people. For six months she had petitioned the Defense Council for a hearing. For six months she had sent them every scrap of intel she could scare up, wrote them repeated warnings, shown up every day in her dress blues demanding an audience. And for six months, the brass had ignored her.
And now they were all dead.
Shepard's gaze slid along the floor and up to the world beyond the broken windows. The scene outside was like something from her nightmares. Great machines slid down from the skies: shapes as large as twenty ships, vaguely roach-like in appearance. The Reapers had come at last, numerous as locust in a Mindoir drought. Their great, claw-like bodies dwarfed the Vancouver skyscrapers, twitching as they touched down upon the earth. In her mind, they appeared to be feeding from and yet mating with the city.
Other images assaulted her in a rush: bodies clutched together in agony as they melted into one, cities burning, torn flesh, a child's scream.
Prothean visions flooded her mind. The beacons had once given her a warning of what was to come, and now, it felt as if every ancient memory was rushing to the fore at the same time. The sight outside was lost in a blur of pictures: chaos and carnage as seen by a thousand eyes, pain as endured by a thousand souls. Shepard fell to the ground, clutching her head, vaguely aware that she was vomiting her breakfast onto her knees.
"Come on!" A hand under her armpit yanked her to her feet. A good shake seemed to break up the barrage in her mind.
"We need to get out of here." A voice told her. Admiral Anderson solidified before her face, his expression grim and determined.
The sight of that face, that familiar, human face, broke Shepard from her shock. The Prothean vision began to melt away, like rain wiped from a pane of glass. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and nodded, forcing herself back to the present.
"Take this," Anderson said. A gun found its way into her hand and Shepard's fingers reflexively curled around the grip. After months without a firearm, the weapon was both heavy and familiar. Shepard felt as if the weight she had been carrying around on her shoulders had suddenly dropped into her hands.
"We have to get to the Normandy!" Anderson yelled to her. "This way!"
He leaped out of the window, onto the ledge and into the fight.
Shepard walked to the edge and looked out at the city before her. The deep mechanical roar of the Reapers groaned as if echoing through her skull. For a moment, courage failed her. Surely there was no resisting so many. Earth had no plan, no real weapons. Humanity was nothing more than children with sticks fighting canons. But then again, she told herself, the future was still unwritten. If there was any chance that humanity could survive, she had to fight for that chance. She had failed to prepare Earth, but she would stand by her own words:
She would fight, or she would die. There was nothing else to be done. Checking the heatsink on the pistol, she readied herself for the jump out onto the battlefield.
Breathe, Shepard told herself. Just breathe.