Shepard glared daggers at the pale blue hologram of the boy he'd been having nightmares about.

"You know these endings suck, right?"

The hologram shrugged. "They are what they are. Suck it up and pick an ending."

Shepard put a hand up to his mostly melted ear. "What's that? I think I can hear a thousand fan-boys crying out in anger – "

"And then being suddenly silenced?" The Catalyst finished.

The tired and mostly dead soldier shook his head. "No, before typing a thousand revenge fanfics."

All throughout Earth's orbit, the raging and almost completely one-sided space battle had taken a turn for the bizarre. The special effects departments of dozens of film and game departments were competing to see just how many ways there were to make a ship appear in space.

After all the tears, sudden appearance, stretching to infinities, bright flashes and what not, space was filled with thousands of communications directed at the general area of the Reapers.

"We are the Dar-leks! You are off-en-sive to us! You will be ex-term-in-ated!"

"This unholy travesty shall not stand! Fire all Lances and Nova Cannons! FOR THE GLOY OF THE IMPERIUM!"

"We are the Borg. You are not worthy of assimilation. You will be destroyed. Resistance is futile."

"Super-MAC's locked on. All UNSC forces open fire!"

"I… am Unicron. Proceed… on your way to oblivion."

"JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!"

"I have made a huge mistake." The Catalyst admitted sounding rather comical announcing in his child voice.

He and the rest of the Reapers then very quickly ceased to exist.