The Reaper lays, broken upon the battlefield. Parts of its collapsed hull emit black smoke. All but one of its many red eyes are silent and dim, several burst and leaking blue, glowing liquid on the grass. It struggles to one long, spiked leg. And then it collapses, the metal groaning in time with the Reaper's own.
Focused Expedient Seeker has fallen. As Jane Shepard approaches it, however, she cannot shake the feeling that it is not yet dead.
"Pria." A barely audible click in her armor. "Give me a status report."
Silence, from her overly critical godly companion. Almost as if in response, almost as if baiting her, a section of Seeker's hull opens, to reveal a doorway just big enough for her.
No, scratch that. It's definitely baiting her. "I'm going to guess that if I want to kill it, the...core? It's inside there."
She turns to find her crew assembled in front of her. Normally, the prospect of walking inside a Reaper, into possible, more than likely death, would be something that would give most people pause. She sees none of that hesitation on them. Instead, she just extends a hand, and catches the rifle that Vega tosses to her.
"Saddle up. We have no idea what's in there. Three man squads and cover each other's backs." She checks the thermal clip, rolling her neck. "Let's kill a Reaper."
She walks in, silent, taking the lead. Even before this, even before all...this...this is what she did. Lead from the front. Acted as the tip of the spear, the blade of the sword. She went in first, hoping on her barriers and her training to save her if it were a trap. And this is no different. Into an abyss, with what she brings with her the only defense she has.
For a brief moment, as the darkness overtakes them, the flesh of the Reaper becoming something...else...she sees something. She feels warmth on her face, feels exhilaration not her own. Feels relief, and triumph at the same time, standing on a massive, grand platform before...something. Something she has no words to describe.
A great roiling mass before her, before the others. It shrinks, it shudders. It begins to coalesce into something. Something smaller. Something they can comprehend, put into words. Before two feet lower themselves upon the stage before them, and he stands as equal, extending four arms to their cheers.
And Jane steps forward, into something wondrous. Something massive. Something far, far bigger than the Reaper on the outside.
By entire measures of magnitude. What should be six hundred meters instead disappears into the horizon. What should be a simple interior of a ship becomes a great factory of infinite arms. Equally infinite assembly lines curve and spiral into the vanishing point, where liquid shapes are pounded and poured into drone form.
The uncountable machines filled every space and surface. Working and churning in perfect step. But the noise was nothing. But silence. Which cracked their faceplates. But then they realized that the noise was absolute, deafening to the point where they could not hear it. Save for
The tone
Of violins.
"Welcome," Pria says, despite the noise, somehow, "To the Infinite Factory. We shouldn't be here."
And at once, the noise ceases. The sound of violins stops with a single shriek. Turning, Shepard jabs her fingers. "Kaidan! Liara! Get back outside and warn the Militia!" She turns to the sole quarian and she realizes she has no idea where Tali is. "Reegar, recon! Garrus, Prothy, you're with me."
The prothean narrows his eyes. "I am Javik."
Despite standing on her tip toes, she barely reaches up to his eyes. But still, she jabs her finger in his face. "You took over a colony and punched me across it. Be glad I'm calling you Prothy the Prothean and not Giant Alien Asshole."
Garrus sighs, extending an arm between them. "Let's save this for after we are outside of the giant Reaper factory." His mandibles click. Black eyes dart from side to side. "Are we going to be indoctrinated? Near a Reaper is bad. Inside a Reaper may be worse."
Pria appears in front of them. Tapping her fingers together, eyes wide, she shakes her head. "Heroic willpower keeps the Indoctrination from taking effect. As well, the Exaltation instantly makes you immune. Their passive field will have no effect on any of you." She waves her hand. Behind them, the wall parts, yellow liquid dripping off the edges like fresh blood. Its ends jagged, filling the room with the scent of salt and meat, it allows a clear view of the field outside. "Go," the spirit says. "Go now."
Kaidan grabs Liara by the crook of her arm, running through the opening. A split second and it closes, just as the interior lights go from red to gold. Pria's eyes go wide like saucers, and she turns just as the ceiling opens into a sky not of Eden Prime. "Oh. Now we're all going to die."
A great golden shape descends. Roiling fire around a single sphere, a great ball of magma and plasma that burns the room without heat. Radiating with light, radiating with glory, Shepard finds her eyes going wide at distant memories not her own. Javik stares directly at it. Garrus averts his gaze, and James clenches his fist.
"Shepard." The voice is bass, and booming. Like a Reaper's roar forming into words. "You have become an annoyance." The shape folds out. Hollow, made of sunlight, it looms over them and fixes them with eight eyes. "But your efforts are in vain. We are the victors. We are the secret masters of the universe. We are Harbinger."
The entire factory radiates sunlight. Each berth, each tool, shifts to gold and crimson. "You struggle before us, like countless before you have. Each have believed themselves to be invincible." The ceiling and floor shudders. Something begins to descend, massive and shaking the plates beneath their feet. "And each before you have learned the limits of their invincibility."
It clears the horizon. The ceiling parts, the infinite factory stretching itself open to accommodate its bulk. A great red sphere, seamless and solid. It ripples against the edges of the factory floor. It flows above Harbinger, a bass roar shaking the plates as it acknowledges the golden giant.
"So ends the entertainment you have provided," the golden giant booms, "The last Prothean, the Zenith, and the Lunar. Time was your greatest resource. But you have squandered it." The bottom of the sphere flows open, an iris of blood becoming black. "Seeker. Destroy them."
Something launches out of the sphere. It hits the plates and makes the factory not shake, but transform. It becomes wider, spread out. The closely packed tools and benches and berths become distant specks. The packed floor becomes an open field as the sphere bursts and blood begins to rain down upon them.
The shape moves. It sits on one knee, one long, four fingered hand extended to the floor. Its skin is gray and black, bleached and marked with gray and red. Lines of blue run up a long, lithe frame which becomes more apparent as it- as she stands. As she stands, the factory transforms once more, becoming something else. Something greater.
Something extends into the distance. Ribbed and massive, broad and tapering to the tip of a great scorpion's tail, it stretches into the infinite horizon. Legs rise around them. Pointed and thin, with cables of rainbow metal strung between them that hum with a violin beat. As the music begins to fill the world, as the steady thrum fills their ears, Jane turns to Pria.
"The Hell are we?"
Pria turns to the sky as the clouds run red with raining blood. "Elsewhere."
As the woman in the distance rises, Jane turns to her and lays eyes upon her face. Pointed ears. Thin features. Blue eyes tinged with red, hair falling over her face in strands. Features which Jane can't help but find very familiar. "Pria. Tell me I'm seeing things."
"You aren't, Shepard." The spirit wrings her hands. Her own features reflect upon those of the Reaper's core before them. "It is exactly as you see it. The Exalt, the Sidereal from which Focused Expedient Seeker was crafted."
A pillar of crimson Essence surges around the woman. Blue eyes center on Shepard, and a predatory smile crosses her features.
"Was me."
