Part 1: Harbinger

Shepard's skin stings as she moves to gaze at the destruction that surrounds her. Harbinger's last blast seared the landscape, the ground warm and glassy to the touch. Her head is heavy, but her will demands she reach the beam. The weight of the galaxy bares down on her shoulders, but she stands. She looks for her squad, but they are nowhere to be found. All she sees is the brilliant blue spire of light reaching up towards her final objective. She stumbles as she walks forward.

Harbinger watches from his perch. The seemingly omnipotent dreadnought's blast didn't finish the job, but no matter. Armored plates the size of city blocks shift as the Reaper prepares his final blow. This human, Shepard, has done more than countless races before her, rallying the galaxy's civilizations, bringing together the combined power of all the nations fleets. And yet, this would be the coup de grace, the end of this cycle would begin with the death of their champion. Shepard watches as Harbinger's shell, staring down the Reaper's red eye. She does not stop; she stumbles forward.

"You still fight?" For a brief moment, Harbringer hesitates. Even in her last moments, this human remains defiant.

Still millions of kilometers away, the Fifth Fleet is in full burn, racing towards the Citadel. The bridge is in chaos with officers scrambling to maintain the defensive grid around the Crucible. Admiral Hackett, however, is more concerned with the ground war.

"We cannot lose the ground forces!" Hackett commands to the armada as the fleet approaches the Citadel. "Take down Harbringer!"

The Admiral knows he can not pull the Fifth Fleet away from the Crucible. For all Shepard has done, if the Reapers break their line, it will all be for naught.

"Anderson! Do you copy? We need to finish this!"

On the ground, Shepard could feel the heat of Harbinger's weapon as it drew a bead on her cracked skin. Her will is strong, but her body is broken. A single misstep and the Commander falls, landing face first on the ash covered ground. She strains to roll over, to meet her death, staring the Reaper in the eye.

In a brilliant blue aurora, the SSV Kilimanjaro discharges its drive core into the atmosphere. The Reapers took their toll on the Kilimanjaro, its defenses critically breeched. A blue glow sweeps across the battlefield in an intensity that surpasses even the glare of Harbinger's eye. This war needed big, damn heroes. The mighty Kilamanjaro would take down one more Reaper before it met its end.

At the helm, Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard opens a comm link to the ground forces. "I'm so very proud of you," she says to the troops littered across the wasteland. But the message was not for them. "You've made a mother proud. We're fighting for an entire galaxy and it's my turn to follow your lead. I love you." On the open comm link, the Rear Admiral declares, "Fire."

In reentry, the failed barriers of the SSV Kilamanjaro provide no respite and its armor plating glows with the searing heat of falling through the atmosphere. Before Commander Shepard's eyes, the main battery of the dreadnought fires as it plummets, the strike landing on Harbinger's open plating moments before the massive ships collide. The ground explodes in tremors as the Reaper falls back, dying at the hands of another Shepard, crashing into the ground.

"Get up, Shepard, we're not done yet."

Part 2: The Citadel

As David Anderson kneels beside Shepard's body, he begin gathering her up, lifting her to a stand. He drapes the Commander's arm across his shoulder and together, they limp towards the beam with the burning carcass of Harbinger in the background.

The two limp into the beam and Shepard instantly feels a bath of warmth and a momentary disconnect from her body. When her mind reconnects with her body, the familiar Mass Relay monument is behind them, but the Presidium is nowhere in sight. Instead, the inner workings of the Citadel is the monument's new home.

"Shepard, we made it, we're on the Citadel. But we need to get to a control console. We need to get those arms open now!"

Now in the Citadel, Shepard finds her second wind, but her body fights her. Anderson helps, but they are both weak. They are both weary. Progress is slow and every step is hundreds of lost lives for every race, not just Humans.

"Anderson, look, there, a terminal."

"Let me take care of this one, rest for now."

Anderson approaches the terminal, but the moment his fingers land on the interface, his body stops moving despite every effort to.

--Insert Illusive Man scene--

"I think you earned a rest. Anderson? Stay with me. We're almost through this."

"You did good, child. You did good. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, sir. Anderson?"

"Shepard, Commander?" Hackett calls over comms.

"What do you need me to do?"

"The crucible, it's not firing. It must be something on your end. Shepard?"

"I don't...see. I'm not sure..."

"Commander?"

Part 3: The Crucible

Shepard collapses in front of the terminal. The Commander is broken and as her life flashes before her eyes, she remembers the galaxy and the incredible world she promised to save. She remembers the beginning, fighting Saren. She remembers Kaiden, lost on Virmire. She remembers the journey that took her to the Migrant Fleet. She remembers the lonely nights punctuated with hope: the moments of spare time she could spend with Liara. Liara. She can hear her crying.

The forest from her dreams appears again. The boy she couldn't save runs away. She chases after him, but she cannot reach him. The same frozen feeling the Illusive Man exerted on her returns and she stops in place. The boy turns around and looks at her.

"Commander Shepard. If you want to save the galaxy you must die."

"Who...why?"

In a single blink of the eye, the forest is gone. The pair now stand at the Citadel, the war for Earth raging in the background. An Alliance Dreadnought crumbles as a red beam slices it in half. Time is dilated, slowed down, everything outside of the immediate surroundings passing slowly.

"We are the Reapers. Despite your fight against us, your actions will doom the universe. You do not understand the implications of your existence."

The bright lights of the Citadel disappear, replaced with the bright accretion disk of the Milky Way. Slowly, the arms of the galaxy spiral away, growing longer and dimmer until fading to black.

"Every breath you take brings us closer to the end. We seek to cure the universe's entropy and maintain life in the galaxy. If we allow organics to continue to evolve and expand, the entropy you impart will grow exponentially. We calculate a mere hundred million years until all the energy of this galaxy is expended. The universe will follow that."

"That's why? You bring civilization back to square one to stop its growth?"

"Yes. We were the first. Our contributions to the end were immense and we were not alone. We chose to synthesize our society and save the galaxy."

"You weren't alone when you started...you wiped out an entire galaxy."

"It was necessary. We merged with synthetic organisms to survive and tend to the universe. Our actions span more than just one galactic disk."

"There are more of you?"

"Insurmountable numbers. We must delay the end until we can find a solution to the out-of-control entropy problem. There is no other solution."

"I don't believe you. You're afraid of a dark future, but humanity...no, all of us...we will find a way."

"Your persistence is futile. There is no other way."

Shepard takes a moment, eyes closing. She's weak and she can feel the embrace of eternal rest at the door. She could be done. If only she could see Liara one more time. Liara. She opens her eyes and she is back on the Citadel. Looking back, she sees Anderson's body and sees his eyes staring towards the blue sphere in front of them.

"No, we will not be defeated. You're afraid of the future but we will build a future brighter than any galaxy. You have seen what we can do - together, we will not be defeated. Together we have fought our end and we will find a way. Our way. We have made our sacrifices. The future rests in our hands now."

"You do not have a future."

Shepard tries to move towards the console, but the Reaper's control is too strong. She strains, but there is no progress. The dreadnought from before is now breaking up in real time, the war in Earth orbit littering debris in space.

" Where the hell are you Shepard? We could use some of that Crucible magic right about now!" Joker yells across comms.

The Commander fights again, straining. She gets closer, her arm reaching out but still not close enough.

"Shepard, we need you!" Tali calls out.

Liara's soft voice comes across the line. "Shepard, I know you're still alive. We need you. I need you."

Shepard looks at the boy and she clenches her hand. "No. You're wrong. We will make our own future." With a cry of power, she slams her fist down on the console.

The Citadel lurches. The countless lights on the body of the arms fade and the arms open wide. The Crucible glows in a haze of blue and pulses, growing in energy. A blue sphere of light bursts from the orb of the crucible, reaching out deep into space. The energy reflects off any surface it reaches as well piercing straight through. Waves of dazzling energy course through the solar system. When the wave reaches the Mass Relay, it activates.

In the Trebia system, a gigantic blue shockwave emerges from the edge of vision, quickly torrenting through the system and across the Palavan. In mere minutes, the same happens across the galaxy, the energy bathing Thessia, Tuchanka, Rannoch, every single planet in our system.

The Reapers in combat above Earth dim. Slowly, every single Reaper ship shuts down, across the galaxy. Then, at the same moment, every ship detonates in a burst of pure white light. From a million light years away, the Milky Way glows incredibly bright as countless points illuminate the galaxy.

Part 4: Epilogue

A month has passed since the end of the Battle of Earth. The Citadel remains in the solar system and society is beginning to rebuild. The individual races are beginning to rekindle ancient hatreds, but there is a newfound respect for each other across the galaxy. The remnants of the Galactic Fleet are now unified in cleaning the last holds of Reaper presence.

Aboard the Normandy, the crew say their final good-byes. There is a galaxy to run and everyone involved has now become part of a greater stage. There is still work to be done. As the crew disembarks, Commander Shepard and Liara stand together at the observation deck, watching the people who will shape the future take the next steps in their lives. Liara squeezes Shepard's hand and closes her eyes.

"Shepard lived to be one hundred and twelve years old. In the time that I knew her, she was a powerful woman who fought for her friends, for humanity, and for everyone. After the war, she spent the rest of her life continuing the fight, seeking answers for the next generation. She spearheaded the galactic effort to preserve the universe as we know it. Her journeys with the SSV Normandy continued until her last days where she was buried on Earth at the very place the Reapers were defeated," Liara's voice dictates from the little cube as it presents a flickering holographic image of Commander Shepard.