The Perfect Weapon

"I need to stop the Reapers. Do you know how I can do that?" Shepard asked, looking to the glowing spectre of a dead child for direction. There was no one else to look to. She didn't care that her body was broken, her mind probably not far behind. They had sent her to fire the Crucible. The galaxy looked to her to lead them against the Reapers, she wouldn't falter now.

"Perhaps. I control them, they are my solution."

This thing, this child, AI, whatever it was, controlled the Reapers? This was the source of all this death and destruction? Then she would kill him too.

"You have completed the device. You have done so much faster than the other cycles."

"What do mean? You're saying other cycles have finished building it? but…"

"Some of them. Not all, but they did try." the child's face almost looked to be smirking.

"What happened to them? Did they build it wrong? Why didn't they fire it? It should have killed you!"

"Of course not. Though each cycle has added improvements to the design, it hardly matters. If it had posed a threat to my solution I would have destroyed it."

"No, you underestimate us. And now, now it's too late, I'll fire it and you and your reapers will be wiped out. The Harvest ends today."

"You are not the first to think so. But I would not have given you the blueprints for a device that could damage us."

"What?" Shepard paused, uncomprehending, the pain from all her injuries forgotten.

That wasn't right; it couldn't be. The reapers had nothing to do with the Crucible! "No! We got the blueprints from the Protheans! It… it's not your design, why would it be?"

"We gave the design to the Protheans, just as we gave it to you."

"No… no, you can't have." she shook her head. It wasn't possible. The Crucible was designed by… by someone else...

"Just as we gave it to every cycle before that. As the harvest begins, you find the plans for the perfect weapon. Passed down from your long dead predecessors, it appears tailored specifically to the Reapers. You devote all of your resources and your best minds to building it."

Shepard closed her eyes, as though that might block out the despair being delivered in a mild synthesised tone.

"You sacrifice fleets, worlds, entire systems, in order to complete the weapon."

Shepard sank to her knees.

"Your scientists, engineers, and mechanics, they spend their last days toiling on a weapon that can never harm me, while your defences crumble around them."

In the distance the remains of sword fleet was being shattered in silent battle.

"You did well; few have rallied together as you did. An admirable effort." his voice was cold and analytical, as it demolished all of Shepard's hope. The galaxy's hope.

"You were warned, Shepard. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything." The glowing child looked at her, its voice deepening as it dealt the final blow.

"You exist because we allow. You will end because we demand it."

A/N: This fanfic is brought to you by Admiral Akbar. I think I might have just made the ending worse. Surely that's an achievement?

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Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect