Mysterious Figure

by Fiddlove Enfemme


Prelude

Prelude
In which there is much exposition

My name is Commander Shepard, and I'm not the real Commander Shepard.

I had everything planned out perfectly. I had the muscle, the brains, everything Shepard had. But I couldn't get rid of him. I suppose I must explain. Commander Shepard is a Council Spectre, the first human Spectre in history. He was supposed to be Humanity's greatest achievement, but he failed. He stopped the rogue turian Spectre Saren Arterius' plot to bring the Reapers - a race of huge sentient machines that come to the galaxy in cycles of over 100,000 years to wipe out all space faring life - to the galaxy after their "Cycle" was interrupted. And then he died in an attack by the servants of those Reapers, a genetically altered ancient race called the Collectors.

The organisation that created me - Cerberus - searched for his body. When they eventually recovered it, the damage was too great. There was no way to revive him, but they funded a project to rebuild him in any way possible, the Lazarus Project. That project cloned him, and created me to use "for spare parts". Spare parts! Does this seem like a box of spare parts to you? No? That's because an operative of theirs went rogue, stole me away to some barren mining facility. There I grew under her tutelage. As it happens, the damage she did to the facilities where I was cloned forced the real Shepard to flee before his procedures had finished. And you know the worst part? He assembled a team and destroyed the Collectors in their own hideout!

He didn't do it alone, the way he should have. Oh no, he did it all with the help of the aliens. The enemy! Humanity was supposed to show how great it was! And our greatest decided to take a bunch of aliens with him as he saved the galaxy! Not once, but twice!

It didn't end there. He was brought back to Earth to face a trial for destroying an entire star system in his quest to stop the Reapers. And you know the best part? The Reapers attacked Earth while he was in the trial. He escaped while Earth burned behind him. I know why he had to leave Earth, it was the best solution that let him combat the Reapers. The rogue operative brought me to the Citadel, the giant space station that is the center of galactic power, to lay our trap. Shepard was ordered to take some shore leave on the Citadel while his ship, The SSV Normandy Sr2, got some much needed refits. I hired a mercenary group called CAT6 to kill Shepard so I could take his place, so I could be the Shepard that should have been.

We had it all perfectly planned out, the operative and I. We had Shepard and his pilot meet at a sushi restaurant. The operative entered to give some "valuable" intel to Shepard, that his identity was being stolen! Then the mercs attacked the restaurant. Somehow he got a weapon, and started to fight back. The mercs managed to force him to fall to his demise, but he survived. He was found far below the restaurant, in an area that was the sort of de-facto "Slums" place. The mercs pursued him, but he killed every last one of them that crossed his path. The operative even used his Medi-Gel reserves to soften him up for the fight, and they still couldn't kill the bastard!

Eventually, the "squad"(aliens) that "helped"(allowed) him to defeat Saren showed up to rescue him from his doom. They unraveled where the guns I had supplied the mercs came from. I had the operative kill the supplier and wipe all trace of me from his data. They eventually found the supplier, dead, with all his data wiped. Somehow Shepard's asari prostitute pieced together enough data to find out my ultimate goal.
While the operative was keeping Shepard occupied, I was planning an assault on the Citadel Archives, specifically the section where the data on Spectres were kept. My handprint wasn't the same as his. Cloning uses the same genes, but nothing quite develops the same way. I needed to change the registered handprint to mine using his Spectre authorization. I had the CAT6 mercs protect the entrance, but Shepard fought his way deep into the archives. I made a new plan on the fly, and resolved to trap him in there. I pretended to hold the operative hostage, for the operative had his confidence. He realised his mistake when he got himself imprisoned in one of the iridium vaults while he tried to save her. It wasn't quite killing him, but he'd die there all the same.

The final stage was to take the SSV Normandy Sr2 from the refitting docks. It was simple enough, all I had to do was lock down the pesky onboard AI and eject his communications officer, but he got there right after I threw the comms officer off the ship. I ignored the takeoff protocol, citing an unspecified emergency matter. That bastard managed to break in using some maintenance passageway. I ordered the remaining CAT6 mercs to hold him off while I prepared myself in the cargo bay. When he got down there I had barely prepared myself to fight. The CAT6 pilot flew the Normandy along the space station while he tried to get around a shuttle that was blocking our escape path. Shepard's alien thugs fought me and the operative for quite a while. Eventually, the cargo bay doors were opened and Shepard tumbled down the doors with me to the edge.

We dangled off the edge while Shepard's goons rescued him. The operative just looked at me and walked away. Shepard came to my aid, despite the differences between us, tried to pull me up. I had nothing to live for anymore. I had failed to replace Shepard. He told me to take his hand. I asked, "And then what?"

He said to me "You'll live"

I could have taken his hand then; two heads are better than one. But I shook my head and said "Live for what?"

I let go. Let go of everything that bound me to life. My hopes, dreams, ambitions all went away as I experienced free fall. The feeling of falling is unmistakeable, going down, fast, nothing to stop you but the cold hard ground. I made peace with myself, reasoned that I couldn't have totally replaced him, he had been too free with his help. He helped everyone where he should only have helped humans. He made himself so intertwined with the galaxy that he would never untangle himself again. I was free from the longing, free from the desire.

And then it hit me. No, literally, I hit the side of a building. Hard.