User blog:Harold Burned-Mane/Mass Effect 3 - True Ending: Chapter 1

Well I would just like to start out by saying that I am a huge Mass Effect fan. I played all the trilogy games at least 2 times each and loved them all. Though the biggest problem with the games was the last 10 minutes of Mass Effect 3. As the final conclusion to the trilogy it not only dropped the ball but it shat all over the hype built up since the first game. It was the worst video game ending I have ever played through. As such I decided that to commemorate the fact that Mass Effect Andromeda is going to be coming out this month, I will be writing this fan-fiction story about how I think the ending of ME3 should have gone.

Without further ado, here is my take on the ending. Fell free to leave your opinions below. I will probably post Chapter 2 tomorrow.

Gasping for air, Shepard’s eyes shot open. His entire body ached. The Commander could barely see as his helmet was cracked and part of the visor was missing. Blood was dripping over his right eye, which only worsened his vision.

Still, he looked around, trying to get a grip of what had just happened. The last think he remembered was…''I, I was aboard the Crucible. I fired it, the…the Catalyst. That boy, the one from my dreams...I…'' His mind was hazy, he was having a hard time understanding what happened and where he was. He couldn’t see with his helmet damaged so he pulled it off, wincing as his pained arms hurt while moving.

When he got the helmet off he could finally see. He was laying down, rubble all around him. For a moment, he remembered the Citadel exploding and thought that he was laying in its rubble, but that thought quickly vanished when he heard the indistinguishable sound of battle. He pushed the rubble off his legs and grabbed a hold of a piece of concrete to his right to stand up. To his shock, he was about half a kilometer off from the Conduit. The white beam had been shut off, but the structure was still there. The Reaper that had been his main foe was standing not far behind the beam.

“Harbinger.” Shepard muttered. As he looked closely at the Reaper, however, he noticed that something was wrong with it. It stumbled a bit, almost losing its footing for a second. Despite this it was still firing off in the distance. “What is…it is weakened.”

In his mind, Shepard was beginning to put the pieces together. He was still on the road to the Conduit because he had just barely escaped death after being shot by Harbinger’s main lasers. He and the other Alliance forces had been in a suicide run towards the Conduit. Everything that he remembered after that wasn’t real. That was why the trees from his dream were suddenly beside him on the road to the Conduit. That was why the Citadel didn’t look or behave like it had during his fight with Sovereign. That was why Anderson had somehow managed to beat him to the main console that for some reason wasn’t the one inside the Council Chambers.

The talk with the Catalyst, the three choices, the Crucible firing, the confrontation with the Illusive Man, none of it was real. It then clicked in his mind. What was happening to Harbinger right now sealed it for him. “It’s the same thing that happened to Sovereign when Saren killed himself and broke the Indoctrination…Harbinger was doing the same thing to me. That means…this is our best chance to kill it.” The Commander looked around for the rest of the Alliance forces. Those that had made the suicide run with him where all dead around him. Like he had been, they were covered in rubble, some completely disintegrated and others partly charred from Harbinger’s laser attack. Pieces of vehicles and dead bodies littered the road. He was alone, standing among the dead.

A sense of dread filled Shepard as he realized that he had been running with friends. Garrus, Tali, Anderson. He was about to yell out for them when he stopped himself upon remembering that he had called for Joker to evac the injured Tali with Garrus carrying her into the Normandy, and Anderson, he had been much farther behind from what Shepard remembered. He and his two comrades had been the vanguard in the charge towards the Conduit. Anderson was more coordinating the operation than actually participating in the final charge. ''I’m…I’m sure they’re safe. I need to trust that they are, because my mission isn’t over.''

“I need to contact the Alliance, we need to strike now.” He said to himself. He instinctively reached for his helmet’s communicator but he had thrown it on the ground. He grabbed his helmet again and tried to use it, but was busted. He tried using his Omni-tool, which barely functioned in the state that he was in, but his limited knowledge of the tech as a Soldier made it impossible for him to fix it now. “Damn it. Harbinger won’t stay weakened for long. We need to strike now that its shields are down.”

Thinking quickly, Shepard headed to the wreck of a nearby M35 Mako, the one that almost crushed Tali and caused her to get injured during the charge. Shepard had a hard time moving too much, his body being in pain and him still bleeding from numerous wounds. However, he pushed past the injuries and reached the vehicle. The turned over tank was heavily damaged from Harbinger’s laser, but the Commander managed to forcefully open its doors.

The interior was cramped and with the Mako being upside down it was difficult to move through it, especially since he had to get over the bodies of the dead soldiers inside the vehicle. Once he made his way into the cockpit of the tank, he began examining the upside-down terminal and controls. “Please work, I just need the comms systems to work.”

To fidget with the controls, he had to remove the pilot from his seat. He unlocked the man’s restraints, which caused him to call from the chair, and carry him to the side so he could get to the terminal without trouble. As he pressed the controls he could hear Harbinger outside, he had stopped firing off in the distance. “I won’t have much longer.”

Then, as he pressed one of the buttons on the terminal, the lights inside the cockpit lit up, though they quickly began to flicker. With the terminal, he accessed the communication systems of the tank and connected it to the Normandy. He sent up a transmission.

As soon as the transmission was picked up, Shepard called out. “Joker, do you read me?!”

There was silence for a second, before Joker’s voice replied. “Shepard…”