Disclaimer: This story is written purely for entertainment, I own nothing and definitely am not getting any money for this!

Chapter 01 - Crucible

Commander John Shepard stared in silence at the apparition before him - a small glowing figure, taking the appearance of a child. A child which had just bluntly informed him that he now had the choice of destroying all synthetic life, become the new controller of the reapers, or somehow merging all life in the galaxy into a new hybrid life form.

"Choose. You Must Choose, there is no other path" stated the glowing child figure, as the combined Council, Quarian and Geth fleets fought desperately against the massive Reaper Dreadnoughts surrounding Earth and the Citadel.

So this was it? This was what it came down to? Years of pain, death and terror for millions, building a galaxy wide alliance (after surviving death itself) to fight the Reapers, only for some sort of alleged Super-AI holographic projection to claim the Crucible / Catalyst super-weapon could somehow perform galactic space magic, and these were his only options? Oh, and of course, he would have to die to make any of them work?

"Oh yes, choose! of COURSE there is no other path, no other option, you must believe and trust that, that...THING"

A second voice interrupted Shepherds thoughts, he lifted his eyes to focus on the source of the sarcastic and disgusted statement. An apparently middle aged human male, taller than Shepard, clad in a burgundy and black uniform of some type was stalking down the walkway, Shepherd realised the man wasn't finished talking and was heading directly towards him - and the glowing child thing was recoiling from the man as he approached.

"Normally I wouldn't bother with this reality, but you humans have such potential for improvement, and for FUN, and watching these machines butcher the galaxy again is getting rather dull. I really can't interfere too much, the rest of the continuum may get a bit upset, reality might collapse, that sort of thing, but that has not stopped me before and - I'm sorry, too fast?" The man looked around, apparently noticed the vast space battle outside for the first time and stared at the devastation taking place. "Oh no, that won't do at all", clicked his fingers - and time slammed to a halt.

Shepherd was definitely struggling to keep up with recent events, but with the last action, his jaw dropped and ice crawled along his veins. What the hell just happened? Who the hell was this man? Was he a man? Was he...even human?"

"Q. You can call me Q. No, not human, you can probably think of me as a god. Not THE god, well, probaby not anyway. Let me just fix that hole there, stop you leaking everywhere. And no, not reading your mind, just the 99.999999% most likely thoughts at this time. Bit of shock, yes, I get that a lot. Mostly." The man - Q? - looked critically at Shepherds side and he realised the pain had stopped.

"Now, where was I? Yes, yes, you will have a thousand questions, none of which I'm going to answer. Well, maybe one. Or two. I am a Pan-Dimensional being, pretty much eternal and all powerful. We normally don't interfere with events, but one aspect we do monitor is the development of life in the realities and how it evolves and progresses..."

Q turned and stabbed his finger at the glowing child, and then at the space battle frozen in time outside.

"This little abomination of an AI has been butchering civilisations in your reality for several hundred million years, so they can be 'preserved' as reapers, effectively stagnating their own evolution, and locking in the evolutionary path of any successor civilisations. A cycle they have repeated time and time again."

Q then turned back to Shepherd and waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the machinery the glowing child had been urging Shepard to interact with.

"And this choice the AI is giving you? Won't do anything. They were just learning from you, manipulating you, educating themselves so they can bait the trap better next time. They would probably skip a cycle this time, until they are sure they have hunted down every bit of evidence of their existence, repaired the keepers, and harvested everything they need - and then replace the collectors with one of the current species. Probably yours."

Shepard's mouth closed as he absorbed this information and his face tightened as a thunderous rage filled him, the hand holding his Carnifex pistol waved at the AI Child and Q.

"Everything we have done will have been for nothing? The Crucible was worthless? Earth and Humanity are not only doomed, but are going to probably be replacement Collectors?! WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT?!"

"Absolutely. And waving a gun at me isn't generally a good idea. Actually, it's a terrible idea, but as you can't hurt me with that, or even with, well...anything, I'll ignore your rudeness. This time."

Q dropped his head slightly forward and pinched his forehead "If I Wasn't Q, I am sure I would be getting a headache around now. Maybe Q was right, and I shouldn't be doing this...no, no, no. She might be Q's mother, but I am certainly not giving her the satisfaction of being more right than me". Q's head popped up and looked slightly flustered at Shepherd.
"Sorry, woolgathering, where were we - oh yes, making things right. Well, not right. Less wrong? Give you guys a chance, a real chance to not just stand against the Reapers, but to remove their stranglehold on the evolution of this reality".

Shepherds blood pressure eased off a little, and his pistol hand dropped back to his side. He stared at Q for a second before he mirthlessly chuckled. "Sure, but can you at least explain a little of what you intend to do before clicking your fingers and sending me off to visit the great and wonderful OZ in his emerald city?".

Q blinked "What? Oh no, wouldn't be any point sending you there and why are you staring at me like that again? Pan-dimensional? Infinite realities? Of course it exists somewhere" Q waved a hand and four comfortable seats appeared, three of which were arranged in a semi circle to face the fourth, which Q gently lowered himself into "please, take a seat".

Shepherd rubbed his face, decided to take this latest display of power at face value - Q had apparently stopped time, so hey, creating a few chairs out of thin air was pretty easy in comparison, right? - and took the middle of the three seats, and with a quick glance at the battle to reassure himself that yes, apparently time was still stationary, allowed himself to relax back into it. A side table appeared next to him with what looked like a glass and jug of water, and a plate of cookies. Tearing his gaze away from the plate, he instead turned it to Q, who, with his elbows resting on his knees and hands resting together in a steeple, was leaning forward eagerly.

"As a Q, I can do pretty much anything. But if I do too much, I can destroy the fabric of a reality, or potentially worse, turn it into just a plaything. Which would be pretty bad for those who lived in that reality. I want to change things just enough, so that the current races - Human, Asari, and the rest of you, will get the chance for an honest fight against the Reapers - if you win, if you can stomp them hard enough, you will pretty much be able to develop as you want"

Q paused, considering his next words "Sure, that means all of the surviving races will then have the opportunity to turn on and slaughter the other races, or turn inwards on yourselves, or make your own version of the Reapers maybe fifty thousand years in your future, but that will be the point"

Q smiled and nodded "Once you can get rid of the Reapers, your races future and evolution and development will be up to yourselves, not dictated by genocidal genetic harvesting machines."

Q leaned back and stared at the frozen AI Child for a few seconds before turning back to Shepard.

"John, you did a fantastic job. With the time limits and handicaps you and the others had to deal with, the probability of it being bettered in a straight rerun are minimal. The outcome would be very similar, which is why we are going to the root of the problem. You have knowledge of the Protheans in that skull of yours, and the Reapers. You have the knowledge of a number of dirty little secrets of the council races. You know how big the Reaper fleet is, about the Collectors, about Mars, about the Citadel, the Alpha relay...a huge amount of knowledge."

Q tilted his head slightly and asked a question "John - by the way you don't mind me calling you John do you? John, if you were returned back in time, say...4 years back. Think you could make a difference?".

Shepherd's mouth opened with the obvious answer, then paused, revised his answer, and responded - "sure, I could save more lives - Nihlus for example, record everything we see and grab physical evidence to present as proof of the Reapers, hell, even give the Cerberus base locations to the alliance and lead an assault on the Shadow Broker, but none of it would be enough, would it?"

Q nodded. And flashed a quick smirk at Shepard "Exactly. And even if you had every ship in the Citadel and Terminus regions available, think you could take the Reaper fleet? Of course not. Their armour and weapons are too much for your current ships designs. So you need better ships. More ships. Definitely more powerful than what you have. Different weapons maybe? And what about combating indoctrination? What are your thoughts on that - and please, don't feel rushed. This second of time will last as long as I say a second lasts...?"

John picked up the glass and took a long drink, the first in hours he realised. Actually, he suddenly realised, considering he had been fighting non-stop for several hours, smashed into the ground by some sort of Reaper beam, been forced to shoot the man he likened to a father and then sat with him as he died and eventually meeting two god-like entities, why did he feel surprisingly refreshed, healthy and, well - sane? He shot a questioning glance at Q, who nodded.

"Yes, I healed your physical damage, and I have also helped to cushion your mind from the recent reality shocks. Otherwise, you might have, well, snapped. The human mind is both a fragile and infinitely resilient instrument, quite the paradox. I can also assure you that there is zero evidence you have been indoctrinated by the Reapers, on any level, which is impressive."

Shepherd nodded, the Prothean beacon at the Asari temple had confirmed he was free of any influence at that time, it had certainly reacted to the arrival of Leng. Just like Vigil on Ilos had been able to apparently identify none of his team as indoctrinated or synthetic. Which meant that...

"Which means that it is possible on some level to detect indoctrination, if we can work out how that is done, we can incorporate sensors into security choke points, even maybe remote or handheld scanners...and if you can detect something, then maybe you can test what shields against it, but that would mean.."

Q watched Shepherd s reaction carefully "would mean finding an indoctrination source, and deliberately exposing your test subjects to it - a little like what Saren was doing"?

Shepherds hand squeezed on the glass, shattering it into fragments which cut into his flesh "I. AM. NOT. SAREN."

Q nodded. "No, I suppose you aren't" and replaced the shattered glass, healing Shepard's hand. "But it is an unpleasant reality you will have to examine. Unless you can find the information you need elsewhere, Saren's methods might be the only available avenue of research to determine appropriate countermeasures - for now though, seeing as you appear to be getting ready to do something monumentally foolish with that gun, let us move on..."

Q waited a moment for Shepherd to regain his equilibrium, then continued to talk "What I am proposing, is to send you back into the past. With your current knowledge, and with maybe a blank hole or two also filled in. But it won't be anywhere near as 'simple' as you might think. I am going to hurl you back 200 years into the past, at the dawn of humanity's journey to the stars, and you will have help. A couple of frie...well not friends. At least one would be. The other, not so much."

Q waved his hand and the seats on either side of Shepard were suddenly occupied, to his left - his friend, his mentor - Anderson.

And on his right, Jack Harper - The Illusive Man.