The asteroid facility shuddered with each passing moment, its stabilizers groaning under stress they were never designed to handle. Emergency lighting bathed the docking platform in crimson waves. The air itself had been vented—a desperate measure Shepard had initiated to deal with the indoctrinated guards who'd been foolish enough to be caught without their helmets.
Now the platform was exposed to vacuum, a silent killing field where only those in full armor could survive. Shepard's hardsuit systems displayed minimal oxygen reserves and dropping temperature warnings, but she'd fought in worse conditions. Her hands gripped her assault rifle with practiced ease, the weapon trained on the holographic projection that materialized before her.
Harbinger.
The Reaper's form coalesced from distorted light and corrupted data streams—a towering silhouette of terrible purpose. Its voice, when it spoke, resonated not through air but directly into her mind, bypassing her helmet's audio systems entirely. The sensation was invasive, wrong, like fingers of ice pressing against the inside of her skull.
"Shepard." The name rolled off what passed for the Reaper's tongue with the weight of cosmic disdain. "You have become an annoyance."
She wanted to fire, wanted to unload every thermal clip she carried into that smug hologram, but bullets couldn't hurt something that wasn't truly there. Her jaw clenched behind her helmet's faceplate.
"You fight against inevitability," Harbinger continued, its form shifting with each word—angles that shouldn't exist, colors that had no name. "Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed." The hologram gestured, and the viewport behind it displayed the asteroid's trajectory—an unstoppable missile aimed at the heart of the mass relay. "But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us."
Shepard's finger tightened on her trigger, a futile gesture that brought her no comfort. But she straightened nonetheless, standing tall despite the exhaustion that weighed on every muscle, despite the knowledge that this thing—this ancient machine god—spoke from a position of terrible certainty.
"Maybe you're right." The admission tasted like ash, but she forced the words out anyway. "Maybe we can't win this." Her voice grew stronger, fed by a defiance that had carried her through impossible odds before. "But we'll fight you regardless. Just like we did Sovereign. Just like I'm doing now." She took a step forward, closing the distance between herself and the hologram as if proximity could somehow make her threat more real. "However insignificant we might be, we will fight. We will sacrifice. And we will find a way."
A pause, heavy with the weight of species-wide survival.
"That's what humans do."
"Know this as you die in vain: Your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourself for the Arrival."
Harbinger's final words echoed in her skull long after the hologram flickered and vanished, leaving only the dying glow of the projection and the steady pulse of the station's failing power grid. The silence that followed was absolute — no wind, no breath, no sound save the faint vibration that thrummed through the soles of her boots as the asteroid's engines drove it relentlessly onward toward the relay.
Shepard stood there for one heartbeat longer, then she turned and ran.
================
Across the viewport, Lelouch saw the relay flare to life—bright arcs of harmless-looking cerulean energy crackling with rising tension.
Then a small dark shape shot forward at impossible speed, a streak of steel and blue engine burns disappearing into the heart of the relay.
Then the real show began.
Above and behind the relay, in a flash of light... something appeared.
Red Queen focused the sensors instantly, magnifying the distortion until a silhouette appeared—curved plates, long limbs, a massive space quid in cold gleaming metal.
"A Reaper," Red Queen said, voice perfectly steady. "Deceleration terminated. Range… two hundred sixty-seven kilometers from the relay."
"Not alone... merely early." Lelouch remarked.
"For the moment."
He nodded. "And the asteroid?"
Red Queen shifted the display. Lelouch watched the massive, crater-pitted rock hurtling forward like a thrown spear, engines on its aft surface burning white-hot. Its course was direct. Precise. Irreversible.
And it was seconds from impact.
The Reaper turned toward the relay. Its limbs unfolded like knives, bright light igniting along its underbelly.
But too late.
A moment later—
Impact.
Light erupted from the relay, first as blinding golden-white, then shifting to violent blue as the mass effect fields collapsed. The asteroid shattered into incandescent fragments before being swallowed by the expanding detonation.
The first Reaper didn't have time to react, not physically at least... not that it could do anything even if it did.
It simply ceased.
One frame of the sensor feed showed it intact.
The next frame was only expanding plasma and metallic vapor.
The explosion bloomed outward, forming a sphere of annihilating radiance that surged across the Bahak system. It tore through the void in a perfect circle tipped with rotating waves of fused subatomic debris.
Alarms shrieked. Sirens flashed across the Invictus.
"Brace for impact!" shouted the clone commander from the bridge pit into the coms. "Shockwave inbound!"
"Unnecessary," Red Queen said at the very same instant, her voice calm. "Observe."
Lelouch didn't move.
He simply watched.
The wavefront raced toward the Imperial fleet—dozens of Arquitens, a line of Munificents, a dual-column of corvettes, and the Invictus leading the formation.
And then—
The wave split.
Like a blade had cut it.
The explosion divided around the fleet, passing above and below in a perfect arc. The explosion soared past, spreading behind them into the dark.
Not a single ship so much as flickered.
Silence hung in the bridge.
Absolute.
Then Red Queen began speaking again, her voice lighter, almost analytical.
"Five hundred thirty-nine signals appeared during the explosion—short-range, high-energy, consistent with Reaper subspace communication bursts. All have since ceased."
"All destroyed," Lelouch commented.
"It is the most probable conclusion," Red Queen confirmed. Then she paused… and her eyes flickered. "More signals incoming. New arrivals. Their deceleration profiles match confirmed Reaper patterns."
"How many?"
"Two thousand… two thousand one hundred thirty… two thousand four hundred. Count rising rapidly."
"Vector?"
"Directly toward our position."
Lelouch inhaled once through his mask, slow and centered. Beside him, Red Queen tilted her head, observing him. She did not need to ask what he was thinking. She already knew.
"The tactical solution," she said gently, "is immediate retreat. Their numbers are sufficient to overwhelm this battlegroup."
"Yes," Lelouch agreed softly. "That's the logical decision. The safe decision."
Then he lifted one hand, palm open. The holo-projection of the incoming swarm expanded, dozens—hundreds—thousands of crimson signatures filling half the system map.
"But logic," Lelouch said, "is not always the weapon we need."
Red Queen's luminous brows arched. "You intend to remain?"
"I intend," Lelouch corrected calmly, "to be of use. I intend... to set an example."
Red Queen understood immediately.
"You mean to retire your Alan Spacer persona."
"Not retirement," he said with a soft chuckle. "Sacrifice. Gloriously, of course."
He watched her as he spoke—Red Queen, force entity and absolute intelligence, standing before him with that faintly amused expression she wore only in his presence.
"The new generation of commanders," Lelouch continued, "must understand loss. They must learn that Imperial Knights are not untouchable. That they can and in time will... bleed, fall, die."
His voice lowered.
"And that even we serve something greater."
He turned toward her fully.
"How many clone troopers are aboard the fleet at this time?"
Red Queen paused only for an instant—she knew such questions carried consequences. "Seven hundred twenty-three aboard, including pilots, engineers, and specialists."
"Order them," Lelouch said softly, "to board a corvette and return to Imperial-controlled space. Immediately. "
She blinked once.
Then her eyes glowed.
Seconds passed.
Red Queen looked at him.
"They have all declined."
Lelouch closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, something warm flickered behind the visor.
"A direct order," he murmured. "And they declined."
"Respectfully," Red Queen added. "They are citing combat loyalty doctrines and stating their desire to remain at your side."
Lelouch laughed—low, genuine, full of old memory.
Turning his head slightly he looked at the commander of "Alan Spacer's" personal guard, the clone taking a moment to salute as the droids also followed suit.
"Stubborn bastards," he whispered. "Just like their predecessors."
Red Queen smiled faintly. "Should I attempt to override their refusal?"
"No," Lelouch murmured, his tone firm yet weighted. "I have already imposed upon them the meaning and necessity of their sacrifices… I will not also strip from them the freedom to decide where they meet that end."
His gaze lowered, a faint, bitter smile tugging at his lips. 'How fitting', he thought, that he who preached purpose and dignity in sacrifice so effortlessly sculpted others' fates to suit his grand designs. He let out a quiet breath.
"I am, after all," he admitted, "a man of profound and unapologetic hypocrisy — and I have long since made my peace with that."
He turned toward the viewport again, toward the growing storm of Reapers descending upon the Bahak system.
A storm he intended to meet.
A storm he intended to die in.
But only as Alan Spacer.
He stood tall, hands folding once more behind his back as Red Queen watched him in silence.
"Alert the fleet," he said. "Prepare for full engagement."
And, quietly—soft enough that only Red Queen heard:
"Let this crucible truly begin."
A.N : Had to work through last Saturday so i had to delay this, but finally got some breathing room. Anyway, we are slowly approaching the end of the stay on ME universe, mostly because i'm running out of cool battles here... and also i can't really think of any reason Lelouch would interact with any cast given his position... Originally i had Lelouch interact with Shepard during her speech to Harbinger... but why would he even bother. I have some ideas... anyway, hope you all enjoy, expect another 2 chapters before next sunday.