Funniest 'Ending? What Ending?' ME3 fanfic I've seen so far
Title: Hero of the Hour
Word Count: 1,070
Characters: MShepard, Garrus Vakarian, Morlan
Rating: G
Spoilers: Ending fic
Summary: THIS IS NOT MINE. I found it here and the author kindly allowed me to share it. Please go there to leave comments.
Hero of the Hour
“You remember Sovereign, on Virmire?”
“Not the sort of thing you forget.” Garrus said dryly.
“Suppose not.” Shepard smiled slightly, wincing slightly as he reached for his drink. “Well, that’s what I was thinking of. How arrogant it had been. What was it that it said to us? You exist because we allow it? And staring at the damn glowing… thing, I remember thinking the same thing I’d said then. They’re just machines. And machines can be broken. No matter how old, no matter how powerful, no matter how confident they are.”
“So what happened?” Garrus asked.
“There was…” Shepard rubbed his forehead, as he remembered the nightmare of those moments on the Citadel, his whole body aching as he tried in vain to find another solution, some way to break free of the nightmare. “There was an exposed tube. Looked like a power conduit of some sort. I figured… hell, I don’t know what I thought it would do. I just knew it was the only way I could hurt that thing, that maybe it would make a difference.”
“Too stubborn to go down without firing a few shots first?” Garrus grinned, his mandibles flaring.
“That too.” Shepard laughed. “Yeah, honestly, that was pretty much all there was too it. I couldn’t see clearly - blood loss, cybernetics malfunctioning, I don’t know. I was almost crawling by the time I got near it, and then I fired a dozen rounds into it. Last thing I remember was seeing the glass shattering, seeing a red burst of energy, thinking, that’s it, I did it. At that point… hell, I was barely holding together, I couldn’t have told you what I thought it was I’d done, just that it was over. And then-“
He sighed, glancing across the bar at the hero of the hour, telling his own story to the almost worshipful crowds thronging to him.
“Next thing I remember was waking up in the Citadel’s hospital, and hearing what really happened from Dr. Michel.”
He shook his head. Even at the other end of the bar, he could hear Morlan’s voice, the Salarian merchant basking in his fame.
“…was when we realised they’d moved the Citadel itself!” Morlan said. “We didn’t know what the Reapers had in mind, but we knew they had to stop them! Fortunately, husks don’t recognise quality merchandise, so my famous shop was still untouched. Once I’d distributed my special equipment to what was left of C-Sec, we knew we had a fighting chance!”
Shepard sighed as he finished his drink. He’d heard the story before, from Bailey and from Kolyat. How the Salarian merchant had risen to the occasion, helping fight off the husks that had overwhelmed the station and organising the final push to take back the Citadel as the battle for Earth raged around them. While he’d been facing the Illusive Man, the Salarian had been deep in the bowels of the Citadel-
“Well, communications were being jammed - but! I knew a few tricks of my own - and had the equipment to pull it off. Never throw anything out, that’s always been my motto - you never know when that seemingly useless junk will prove valuable to someone - or, in this case, necessary to cut through the interference and find out what was going on outside!” Morlan was continuing his own story. “That’s how I found out the Crucible was in place. And once I started putting the pieces together - well, there’s not many people who know the Citadel better than I do! Comes of spending years doing business here, you see. You need to know things - information’s as valuable as anything else! Immediately figured out why the Crucible wasn’t working. That’s when things started getting dangerous!”
Shepard didn’t need to hear the rest of the story. He’d heard it from Bailey. Morlan had realised the Crucible’s failure was due to a flaw in the Citadel’s power systems - Bailey had said he suspected the only reason the Salarian knew about the flaw was because he’d used the station’s maintenance tunnels to hide smuggled goods in the past. In the end, though, regardless of how he’d obtained it, the Salarian’s intimate knowledge of the tunnels proved the key to the allied fleet’s victory. Bailey had fought off husks while the Salarian crawled through the tunnels, rewiring the faulty power systems until finally the Catalyst’s systems were properly integrated into the Citadel’s generators.
Meanwhile, Shepard had been on the other side of the station, debating a virtual intelligence and shooting at a tube-
“So what was it you destroyed?” Garrus finally asked.
Shepard shrugged. “Liara’s managed to cajole Javik into taking a look at that whole area. He says it’s older than the Protheans, and beyond that, he doesn’t know what it is or what it was supposed to do. Liara… Liara thinks it might have been built by one of the previous cycles, one of the first to design the Crucible. Maybe some sort of prototype, or a testing lab. It’s not connected to any of the Citadel’s systems, that’s why nobody ever noticed it before.”
“It wasn’t the Catalyst, though.” Garrus said eventually.
“No. No it wasn’t.” Shepard said. The whole thing had left him feeling rather foolish. He’d been at the wrong end of the Citadel entirely, completely irrelevant to the fight. The child, virtual intelligence, whatever it was, was probably nothing more than some extinct species’ version of Avina. He should have realised at the time how little sense it had been making - a virtual intelligence struggling to deal with input completely outside its programing parameters.
He sighed. His supposed great act of defiance against the Reapers had achieved nothing but destroying out the power supply of what could have been one of the great archaeological finds of all time. The real victory had belonged to a Salarian shopkeeper and Citadel Security…
“Now you know how I feel working with you all the time.” Garrus said, as Shepard glanced back and Morlan, the Salarian and his audience not even noticing him.
“Hmm?”
“Irrelevant.” Garrus said.
“We’re never irrelevant, Garrus.” Shepard grinned. “That someone else ended up doing everything? Just means all of this was beneath us. Morlan can have his moment of glory. We’re just waiting for something that really needs us.”
“To actually facing a challenge.” Garrus laughed, raising his glass in return.
“To Shepard and Vakarian.”
Word Count: 1,070
Characters: MShepard, Garrus Vakarian, Morlan
Rating: G
Spoilers: Ending fic
Summary: THIS IS NOT MINE. I found it here and the author kindly allowed me to share it. Please go there to leave comments.
Hero of the Hour
“You remember Sovereign, on Virmire?”
“Not the sort of thing you forget.” Garrus said dryly.
“Suppose not.” Shepard smiled slightly, wincing slightly as he reached for his drink. “Well, that’s what I was thinking of. How arrogant it had been. What was it that it said to us? You exist because we allow it? And staring at the damn glowing… thing, I remember thinking the same thing I’d said then. They’re just machines. And machines can be broken. No matter how old, no matter how powerful, no matter how confident they are.”
“So what happened?” Garrus asked.
“There was…” Shepard rubbed his forehead, as he remembered the nightmare of those moments on the Citadel, his whole body aching as he tried in vain to find another solution, some way to break free of the nightmare. “There was an exposed tube. Looked like a power conduit of some sort. I figured… hell, I don’t know what I thought it would do. I just knew it was the only way I could hurt that thing, that maybe it would make a difference.”
“Too stubborn to go down without firing a few shots first?” Garrus grinned, his mandibles flaring.
“That too.” Shepard laughed. “Yeah, honestly, that was pretty much all there was too it. I couldn’t see clearly - blood loss, cybernetics malfunctioning, I don’t know. I was almost crawling by the time I got near it, and then I fired a dozen rounds into it. Last thing I remember was seeing the glass shattering, seeing a red burst of energy, thinking, that’s it, I did it. At that point… hell, I was barely holding together, I couldn’t have told you what I thought it was I’d done, just that it was over. And then-“
He sighed, glancing across the bar at the hero of the hour, telling his own story to the almost worshipful crowds thronging to him.
“Next thing I remember was waking up in the Citadel’s hospital, and hearing what really happened from Dr. Michel.”
He shook his head. Even at the other end of the bar, he could hear Morlan’s voice, the Salarian merchant basking in his fame.
“…was when we realised they’d moved the Citadel itself!” Morlan said. “We didn’t know what the Reapers had in mind, but we knew they had to stop them! Fortunately, husks don’t recognise quality merchandise, so my famous shop was still untouched. Once I’d distributed my special equipment to what was left of C-Sec, we knew we had a fighting chance!”
Shepard sighed as he finished his drink. He’d heard the story before, from Bailey and from Kolyat. How the Salarian merchant had risen to the occasion, helping fight off the husks that had overwhelmed the station and organising the final push to take back the Citadel as the battle for Earth raged around them. While he’d been facing the Illusive Man, the Salarian had been deep in the bowels of the Citadel-
“Well, communications were being jammed - but! I knew a few tricks of my own - and had the equipment to pull it off. Never throw anything out, that’s always been my motto - you never know when that seemingly useless junk will prove valuable to someone - or, in this case, necessary to cut through the interference and find out what was going on outside!” Morlan was continuing his own story. “That’s how I found out the Crucible was in place. And once I started putting the pieces together - well, there’s not many people who know the Citadel better than I do! Comes of spending years doing business here, you see. You need to know things - information’s as valuable as anything else! Immediately figured out why the Crucible wasn’t working. That’s when things started getting dangerous!”
Shepard didn’t need to hear the rest of the story. He’d heard it from Bailey. Morlan had realised the Crucible’s failure was due to a flaw in the Citadel’s power systems - Bailey had said he suspected the only reason the Salarian knew about the flaw was because he’d used the station’s maintenance tunnels to hide smuggled goods in the past. In the end, though, regardless of how he’d obtained it, the Salarian’s intimate knowledge of the tunnels proved the key to the allied fleet’s victory. Bailey had fought off husks while the Salarian crawled through the tunnels, rewiring the faulty power systems until finally the Catalyst’s systems were properly integrated into the Citadel’s generators.
Meanwhile, Shepard had been on the other side of the station, debating a virtual intelligence and shooting at a tube-
“So what was it you destroyed?” Garrus finally asked.
Shepard shrugged. “Liara’s managed to cajole Javik into taking a look at that whole area. He says it’s older than the Protheans, and beyond that, he doesn’t know what it is or what it was supposed to do. Liara… Liara thinks it might have been built by one of the previous cycles, one of the first to design the Crucible. Maybe some sort of prototype, or a testing lab. It’s not connected to any of the Citadel’s systems, that’s why nobody ever noticed it before.”
“It wasn’t the Catalyst, though.” Garrus said eventually.
“No. No it wasn’t.” Shepard said. The whole thing had left him feeling rather foolish. He’d been at the wrong end of the Citadel entirely, completely irrelevant to the fight. The child, virtual intelligence, whatever it was, was probably nothing more than some extinct species’ version of Avina. He should have realised at the time how little sense it had been making - a virtual intelligence struggling to deal with input completely outside its programing parameters.
He sighed. His supposed great act of defiance against the Reapers had achieved nothing but destroying out the power supply of what could have been one of the great archaeological finds of all time. The real victory had belonged to a Salarian shopkeeper and Citadel Security…
“Now you know how I feel working with you all the time.” Garrus said, as Shepard glanced back and Morlan, the Salarian and his audience not even noticing him.
“Hmm?”
“Irrelevant.” Garrus said.
“We’re never irrelevant, Garrus.” Shepard grinned. “That someone else ended up doing everything? Just means all of this was beneath us. Morlan can have his moment of glory. We’re just waiting for something that really needs us.”
“To actually facing a challenge.” Garrus laughed, raising his glass in return.
“To Shepard and Vakarian.”