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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Saga A Forfeited Miracle (ME3 xover + Halloween fic)

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction- Before, Saga, and Beyond' started by Harpalyce, Oct 19, 2012.

  1. Harpalyce

    Harpalyce Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Jun 19, 2010
    Even if I'm miserably behind on all the rest of my proper fanfics, I do try to do a vaguely Halloweeny excursion into the horror genre every October-ish. Last year it was Some Unholy War, and this year I'm playing around with a Mass Effect 3 crossover.

    A basic summary for this is that ROTJ gets interrupted by Mass Effect 2's events through shenaniganery and Luke gets swept up onto the Normandy. You can think of this as the worst case scenario 'bad ending' for my ongoing proper crossover.

    Hopefully you'll be able to enjoy this even if you don't know much about Mass Effect. The important things to know are that the Reapers are out to destroy all organic sentient life, and they're some real scary mofos who gain troops by killing their enemies and then turning their corpses into half-synthetic ground soldiers.

    So, in crude summary, highly intelligent space zombies.

    ...HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (...?)

    Anyway, let's get the ball rolling for real. This is going to come in 3 parts (long, short, long) and each will get their own post.

    Some sound effects/soundtrack for you.
     
  2. Harpalyce

    Harpalyce Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Jun 19, 2010
    Luke can’t stop crying.

    He sees through the tears just fine but he can’t stop them running down his face, cutting paths in all the mud and concrete dust and dried blood the same way the first flood signals the end of the dry season and onto fertile rain. But this is the opposite, and he knows it.

    It has been two months since he looked Shepard in the eye and was full of hope for victory. It has been two months since he saw Shepard go and never return. It has been two long, long months he has spent scrambling among the rubble, fighting alongside every pocket of resistance he finds. He has had to fight every one twice. Once with them, once against them after they are dead and taken by the Reapers. That is how the Reapers work and Luke has wished for months now that they would just learn the Empire’s mercy and let the dead stay dead, but this is a different universe.

    He still can’t stop crying.

    But overhead there’s something large - the wind’s beating his hair into his face. He turns off his lightsaber, because he knows that the green glow is too easy a target spotted in the jagged concrete rubble. Loud noises behind him. There’s a harvester, its many wings beating, trying to sniff him out in its search for corpses to turn into more Reaper soldiers. He is the last thing truly alive for miles, but he can’t stop crying, so he closes his eyes and holds his hand over his mouth. Everything tastes like blood. No time to go back and look for that tooth he’s surely lost. The harvester gives an unholy noise, and finally turns its back. Luke doesn’t open his eyes right away.

    He’s losing it. He’s lost it. Oh, sure, they had all recognized the hairline fractures in each other on the Normandy, but suffering with support was so different than suffering alone. He had tried so hard to be the hero everyone needed but one hero against a multitude did nothing. Now bits of his psyche are strewn in among the bombed-out houses. It is such an oddly empty wasteland. Maybe if the Reapers were kinder he would be able to take some comfort in tending to the corpses, setting funeral pyres, saying makeshift prayers for the dead, but it is just them and him. The world will not rot because he knows that it is just another step on the journey to rebirth. There is no rebirth once the Reapers take you. It’s a fate he knows is coming for him.

    Six hours since he last found any fresh water good enough to drink. Two and a half days since a proper meal. Five since he was able to sleep for more than an hour. Two months since Shepard. Numbers. So many numbers. Maybe his fever-dream is right. Maybe he is turning into one of them despite all this fighting. He spent last night tucked into a corner trying to mediate a mental war, trying to pick out hallucinations from reality. Take it off, they said. Your father burdened you with this handicap and now the Reapers will use it as the foothold to get inside you, to infect you with machinery, to make you soulless. Too much of a coward to use his lightsaber, he had spent the evening clawing at his own wrist, shaking, trying to decide. Now the synthskin’s peeled back. He sees the familiar machinery. Pistons and gears. Not the glowing blue lights and snaking power coils every Reaper husk chokes on. Good enough.

    Six, two and a half, five, two. Still can’t stop crying.

    Three hours ago. Had it been three? He wasn’t sure. But he had been desperate. On his knees, blood in his mouth, he had begged for someone to hear him. Maybe it was a hallucination. Luke didn’t care. Still doesn’t. Ben was there.

    “Luke -“

    “Please, I need to know something. Just - just tell me. I know I’m going to die.” It’s true. He knows this but he still keeps fighting, mostly out of adrenaline and instinct. There’s no way this is ending well. “But we win in the end, right?”

    Ben says nothing.

    “Life goes on? Please. Please tell me that people survive, that things are rebuilt. Maybe not here but in our universe. They’re stopped, aren’t they?”

    His eyes are so sad. Luke doesn’t remember them ever being more sorrowful. It is a complication the Jedi in all their wisdom never suspected, one universe’s problem becoming big enough for two. Luke knows in that instant that it’s not going to be all right. The Reaper fleet is going to make it to their universe. It is not going to be stopped by the Imperials or the plucky Rebellion. It is going to be a massacre. There are no contingency plans. There is no silver lining.

    “I’m sorry,” Ben whispers, and Luke starts crying.

    That was three hours ago.

    Grown men are allowed to be sorrowful. Luke knows there isn’t the deep shame in it that others would like to tell him that there is. But he weeps a child’s tears. It’s the sobbing of a scared farmboy who just wants to go back to Tatooine, where things were simple and boring. The farmboy who doesn’t want to die alone and unmourned thousands of lightyears from friends. The farmboy terrified of being a monster as soon as his life ends.

    Six, two, five, three, can’t stop crying, he’s choking on numbers, numbers, goddamn numbers (goddamn? He’s been around Shepard too long). Reaper calls out to the west, a long and damning unholy noise that makes the world shake. He could take his own life, but that’s not honorable. Just easier for the Reapers.

    In that moment he closes his eyes, draws in another shaking breath, tries to center himself. There is no more himself. Not that he can find. That is a freeing thought. He understands what it means to be dead. He is already gone. He is lost. Luke Skywalker is dead; long live Luke Skywalker. He resists the urge to laugh because nothing makes sense anymore. It’s all in vain! All useless scurrying.

    Light and dark sides don’t matter when the Reapers make sure you are theirs in the end.

    What is that Asari phrase? He squints at the ground in-between hiccuping sobs, tries to remember. Embrace eternity. Yes, that’s it. That is their farewell. Maybe this is how you die in this universe. Embracing it. Arms open. Another lifetime of being something twisted awaits him and he is tired (so tired!) of running. His exhaustion is finally giving way to anger. He has been such a good Jedi acolyte, staving off this moment, but he’s laughing because nothing makes any sense, and then he’s lighting his lightsaber again. The green glimmers in his eyes, and he reaches up, wiping at his face with his mechanical hand. Synthskin gone, one of the pistons grazes his cheek, cuts, brings fresh blood. Pain is good, it’s a good motivator, it’ll keep him going. Now he doesn’t cry. He’s smiling. A truly terrible peace has settled onto his shoulders.

    Luke Skywalker steps out of his hiding spot and makes eye contact as best he can with the Reaper crawling through the rubble that used to be a skyline. He is going to die. He is also going to make sure many of them die, too.