Shepard shoved the barrel of her blaster into the chest of one of the few remaining Husks and pulled the trigger. The hyper concentrated plasma easily burned a clean hole in the cybernetically enhanced flesh and the techno-zombie fell dead. With the last of her immediate enemies dealt with the Spectre was free to look around and see how the rest of her team was doing and was unsurprised to see that while most of them looked like they were starting to feel the strain of constant combat, none of them were getting overwhelmed by the swarms of undead just yet.

Honestly she was also starting to feel the strain, despite her Cerberus provided implants drastically improving her stamina. Thankfully their mission was almost done. The Cerberus science team had managed to not only identify the Reaper IFF, they had been able to remove and isolate it before they all fell to the Reaper’s Indoctrination completely.

The surprisingly small device was currently safely sitting in an armored pouch on Shepard’s belt so the only thing left to do was find a way to bring down the kinetic barriers keeping them from the Normandy and escaping before they fell into the Brown Dwarf below them.

Which meant shutting down the damn thing’s Mass Effect Core.

Which according to EDI was just up ahead. And speaking of helpful AI…

“Anyone get a glimpse of our weirdly helpful Geth sniper recently?” She asked as everyone took a small break to check over their equipment.

“Nothing, Commander.”

“No signs.”

“Do we even want to find it? We should just shoot it on sight.”

Shepard spared Tali a glance, knowing the Quarian’s issue with Geth as a whole. “Well, it’s helped us a couple times now and it seemed to know me. I’d like to at least try and figure out what it wants and why it's here since it’s definitely not helping the Reapers.”

“Personally, I want to know why it’s running around with some scrapped human armor.” Garrus added. “Never thought I’d see that happen.”

“Fine, we can try talking to it. But when it starts shooting at us I’m going to say I told you so.”

The team moved quickly towards the center of the wreck but despite coming across fewer and fewer Husks, Shepard was only feeling the sense of tension in the air increase. They were getting closer to something…

She did her best to shake off the feeling and focus on what was in front of her as Tali finished hacking through another security airlock.

The door opened but the blue kinetic barrier just beyond it remained in place.

“Tali?”

“Working on it, Shepard. The controls are on the other side of the door. I have to get a little…creative.”

The Commander looked past the barrier and scowled. “Might want to hurry up. Looks like we found our Geth and it has friends.”

At the base of the truly massive Mass Effect core was the Geth sniper that had been one step ahead of them for most of the journey through the Reaper derelict. The first sign of its presence was when it picked off a few Husks that had managed to sneak up behind the ground teams and from then on it had occasionally assisted them with long range sniper support only to disappear before they could contact or corner it.

Now the Geth was doing something to the core and the Husks were aiming to stop it.

Shepard and the others could only watch as the Geth gunned down several of them with a sidearm before the thermal clip was forcibly ejected. The synthetic must have been out of replacements because it ignored the last couple further away and returned to what it was doing at the console. To everyone’s surprise, the kinetic barrier blocking their way was disabled just as one of the Husks managed to reach the Geth unit.

It turned to confront it, but the Husk managed to get a hand into the large hole in the unit’s front armor.

Something sparked and the Geth fell unmoving to the ground.

“Garrus, secure that Geth! I want to know what the hell was going on with it. Tali, the console. Find out what it was doing. Samara, watch her back.” Shepard ordered as she started picking off the remaining Husks. “Revan, can you scout the area?”

The Sith nodded and started to walk off to the side before a voice rang out behind them.

“Is this what you have been doing during your time here? Playing soldier? I’m disappointed Revan. It’s like you forgot all about us.”

That tension Shepard had been feeling earlier was now almost a physical thing pressing down on them. The Spectre could practically hear reality screaming as anger seemed to radiate off the elven woman along with an aura of power that made the walls shake around them.

”Bastila…” Shepard had never heard someone inject so much…raw hatred…into a word as Revan did right then.

“Revan, wha–” The Commander was interrupted as an invisible shove cut her off and threw her further into the room.

“I’ll deal with her. You deal with the core.” Revan snapped as she stalked back down the way they had come, both lightsabers ignited.

The instant the Sith passed the threshold, the kinetic barrier sprang back to life and the door closed. Leaving Shepard and her team trapped.

“...but there was no one there…”

-o-

The Force shook under the weight of Revan’s rage as she once again clashed with her former friend turned sister turned enemy. The walls seemed to vibrate as red and blue lightsabers crashed into yellow.

“Is this the best you can do, Revan?” Bastila asked, seemingly disappointed as she effortlessly blocked and dodged through the infuriated Sith’s attacks. “You’ve gotten soft. Too much time without someone to challenge you?”

“Shut up, traitor!” Revan snarled. “How are you even here?!”

“Do you want me to be quiet or to answer you? I can only do one.” Bastila replied, placidly cutting through the section of the wall Revan had ripped from their surroundings and attempted to crush her with. “But it wasn’t that hard. You left quite the trail, afterall.”

“Not possible. You couldn’t have followed me!”

“Obviously I could. I needed to. I had to make sure the galaxy was protected from you. And I was right! Here you are, waiting for the perfect chance to grab power for yourself. Even when a vastly dangerous foe is just over the horizon you keep the most useful technology and designs for yourself. Just so you can rebuild your kriffing Empire!”

“I kept them to myself because no one else could be trusted with them! The people here aren’t ready!”

A veritable wall of lightning filled the space they were in but Bastila came out looking relatively unharmed from the assault. So Revan moved in close. A stab was blocked by one end of Bastila’s saberstaff and the following counterattack was knocked aside by Revan’s other blade with some effort.

“You really have slowed down.” Bastila mocked even as she twirled away from Revan’s onslaught. “The old you would have had a small army eating out of her hand by now. Is that why you’re on this ship right now? To find the Indoctrination technology? I wouldn’t bother, you aren’t smart enough to use it.”

Revan caught both ends of the saberstaff in a bind and kicked Bastila in the chest hard enough to fly through the air. “I don’t need something like that!”

“Clearly you do if the only thing you managed to do is secure a temporary alliance with a single ship filled with terrorists after handing over some half-decent blasters.”

-o-

Shepard cursed as she felt the deck shudder underneath her from whatever Revan was doing. If the Sith didn’t snap out of it, it might not even matter if they managed to destroy the core. Not if she destroyed the wreck while they were still on it.

“So, any clue why she decided to go crazy?” Garrus asked as they held off another wave of Husks while they waited for the armored panels protecting the main part of the core to retract again.

“It’s been said that all Sith are inherently unstable.” Samara said. “The Reaper might have been the final push into madness.”

“If it was, then we’re all fucked because I heard the voice too.” Shepard cut in, with the others nodding in agreement. They had heard it too. There just hadn’t been anyone there to say the words. “Tali, any luck with the console?”

“None. It’s locked down somehow. The Geth set the core to cycle through a maintenance loop but I can’t enter any new commands.”

Shepard held back a curse. “Okay, hard way it is. Keep those Husks back and focus on the core when it’s open.”

The remaining ground team quickly fell into a comfortable pattern. Garrus and Tali would blast away at the core while Shepard, Miranda, and Samara would use their combined biotics for crowd control.

Unfortunately, it seemed like what remained of the Reaper’s mind had recognized the danger it was in and was sending unending waves of the techno-zombies at the crew.

“This might not be the best time but what are we going to do about Revan, Commander?” Miranda asked during one of the lulls. “She could be compromised.”

“...We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.” Shepard finally replied after a brief pause. “Revan was able to undo Indoctrination before. We’ll just have to see if she can do it to herself.”

Miranda nodded before visibly steeling herself in a way that made the Spectre think she wasn’t going to like whatever she said next.

“It might be…better…if we left her behind. Safer certainly.”

It was only the clear distaste in the Cerberus officer’s voice regarding that option that kept Shepard from snapping at her XO. And it was her job to offer differing solutions that Shepard herself wouldn’t have come up with. But still…

“We don’t leave teammates behind.”

Another quake shook the derelict.

“I just hope Revan still considers us teammates then.”

-o-

Something was wrong.

That was the growing feeling Revan wasn’t able to shake the longer this ‘duel’ went on.

She feinted low to bait out an attack but the Jedi didn’t take it. Another slash with her saber was parried by a twirl of the saberstaff. Several times Revan aggressively assaulted her enemy and not once did her opponent manage to take advantage of the small openings beyond probing with her own lightsaber.

Bastila was always the more defensive fighter between the two of them, a result of her Jedi training, but never to this extent. She wasn’t using the environment to distract or disrupt Revan’s attacks. She wasn’t even using Force techniques beyond some basics for movement and to keep up with Revan’s strikes. The only offensive option she had tried was a subtle mental probe to trip up Revan’s control at certain points.

Amethyst eyes widened behind her visor as Revan realized she was being an idiot.

The shock of seeing her sister and betrayer and the emotions that had come with it had blinded her to the fact it was impossible for Bastila to be here at all. So much so that the Sith hadn’t realized that not once during the ‘fight’ had she felt any danger or warning in the Force.

It was almost like she had been fighting a hologram or…

“...an illusion.” She muttered aloud.

Now that she wasn’t fighting like a Rancor in a blood rage, Revan could see only her sabers had left behind any tangible marks. Even the wall Bastila had ‘cut through’ was perfectly intact. It was all just an illusion. An incredibly insidious and subtle one, but an illusion all the same. And now that Revan was aware of it, a simple flex of her will would be enough for her to break it. But first…

“Giving up, Revan?” The illusion sounded almost surprised when the Sith extinguished her lightsabers.

“You can stop pretending.” Revan said tiredly. “You aren’t Bastila, just an image created by my mind. I’m not sure if I should be impressed or disturbed that a braindead wreck was able to fool me for even a little while.”

“You really are insane. A ship being able to create illusions? Preposterous.”

Revan could only smile bitterly at the pale shadow in front of her. Bastila, the real Bastila, had tried to kill her because of the corrupting influence of a space station. A ship being able to create illusions wouldn’t have been surprising in the slightest. Especially not after some of their other adventures together.

“Yes, something like a mix of Force Persuasion and Domination.” Revan mused, ignoring the illusion. “And channeled through a passive field generated by Reaper technology rather than a targeted attack. That way it wouldn’t tip off a Force user about the danger…”

“You still think I’m some kind of fake?” The illusion barked, its composure now nothing like Bastila’s normal calm demeanor. “Then why haven’t you, the all-powerful Darth Revan, managed to get out, huh?”

“Because I wanted to say something to you. Rather to Bastila, but you will do for the moment.”

Revan took a deep breath and examined her feelings.

“I don’t think I’ve hated an individual more than you in that moment I realized I was a galaxy away from everything I fought and sacrificed for.

“I couldn’t understand how you could throw everything we had been through together away for something so unreliable as a vision.

“But after I saw how much this galaxy has been touched by ours, I started to wonder. Was the vision you told me about really what you saw? Or did you just lie so I would act as you wanted and wind up here? Had you seen something about this place? Another galaxy with a threat just like the Vong and just as unprepared.

“Either way, I have to live with the result. So yes, I may have taken my time figuring out the factions of this galaxy. But I’m going to force them to cooperate and face this Reaper threat, even if I have to drag them kicking and screaming the whole way there. And then?”

Even through the visor Revan’s glare was something terrible to be faced with.

“Then I’m coming for you.”

With that there was nothing more to say. She waved her hand through the illusion and it broke apart like smoke, leaving her alone in the even more ruined wreckage of the Reaper.

-o-

“Shepard, the core is done for! We need to get out of here!”

The Commander acknowledged Garrus’s shout with a nod. “Okay, someone give me a hand with the Geth. We’re taking it with us. No arguments.” She snapped when she saw Tali about to protest. “Joker, pull the ship around. Core’s been destroyed and we’re going to need pickup, quick!”

Then she took a deep breath and called Revan, praying to any gods willing to listen that the Sith hadn’t gone crazy and was about to try murdering them all.

“Revan, the core was destroyed. We’re falling back to this location for extraction. Don’t keep us waiting.”

All she got back was a single click on the radio. Revan had heard her but she had no idea if the elven woman was still on their side.

But there was no time to dwell on that. Shepard sent a dozen Husks flying through the air with a well placed Shockwave as she and the rest of her team raced through the opening…but that was hardly worth noting as hundreds of the things had finally arrived instead of the waves of a few dozen at a time and were pouring in from every nook and cranny.

Samara creating a Singularity to block off the door they rushed through helped some. But that only bottlenecked the Husks, not truly stopping them. So Shepard was rightfully concerned when they made it to one of the massive rents in the Reaper hull where they could see open air…and the Normandy was nowhere in sight.

“What’s the hold up, Joker?” The Spectre wouldn’t deny she sounded nervous. Nearly everything was out of her hands at this point.

”Working on it. Joker sounded stressed too. ”If you want to try matching velocities with a falling wreck and not get pasted against the hull by atmospheric winds you’re welcome to try this yourself.”

“If I was in a position to try that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She snarked, but kept moving towards the extraction point. There was still a horde of zombies right on their heels after all.

They passed the final door installed by Cerberus and then there was nothing but open space and a few catwalks between them and the Indoctrinated forces. And to make things worse, the same winds Joker was complaining about threatened to pull the team off their feet. Revan’s provided blasters were once again a god-send as a bolt or two was usually enough to put down a Husk for good. But even those weren’t going to be enough to keep the horde off them forever. At least not until a shimmering purple barrier fell over all the members of the Normandy crew and physically pushed the husks backwards.

“Great job with the barrier!” Shepard cheered, not particularly caring which of her teammates managed to pull it off. “Can you keep it up?”

“Commander…we didn’t do that.”

She turned to see Samara had paled to a sickly gray color.

Following the Justicar’s gaze, almost against her will, Shepard saw exactly what had frightened the Asari when falling to their deaths while thousands of undead descended on them was met with perfect stoicism.

It was Revan. But unlike Shepard had ever seen her before.

Shadows seemed to cling to the woman as she…sauntered seemed to be the best word…closer to the group, while small arcs of electricity occasionally crackled around her.

“...Revan, you feeling okay?” Shepard hesitantly greeted her fellow ground team leader. If the Sith had wound up Indoctrinated…

…they were fucked. There was no way they could do anything to stop her and still get off the Reaper before they were swallowed by the gravity well.

“No.” The Sith’s response was not helpful for her blood pressure. “The Reaper’s attempt at swaying me picked at some mental wounds. I’m not the most in control of my emotions at the moment.” There was a crunching sound and a quick look at the source showed that Revan had flattened the dozens of the Husks pawing at the barrier like a Hand of God.

“I’ll need to meditate on that later.” Revan continued idly.

The appearance of the Normandy seconds later was a huge relief. But even as the ground team rushed to board the Frigate and climb to safer altitudes, Shepard couldn’t shake the feeling that even if it wasn’t Indoctrination –and the Elven woman was going straight to Medical to make sure there were no nanites hitching a ride– something had changed about Revan.