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"There is no greater joy for a turian than to serve the Hierarchy and its people. Well, except spending time with one's grandchildren."
Achaian Corinthus carved those words into his very heart and soul. It wasn't a fanciful statement. Many among his people would deem them plain, banal even. When spoken through grandfather's voice, aged, experienced, carrying a centuries wisdom, they never failed to rally his strength. They helped him through countless grueling training exercises. Kept him steadfast and alive against mercenaries and pirates. Gave him the courage to approach the woman who'd become his wife when he was younger and far less sure of himself.
Each task, no matter its significance, brought him joy, a sense of fulfillment. How could it not? It was for the good of the Hierarchy.
Then came the Reapers. Like numerous comrades and subordinates, Achaian was shaken but for a moment during the initial invasion. Not since the krogan had an enemy so successfully laid siege to their territories. It didn't matter what they were: advanced geth, ancient enemies come again, they would fall. The Hierarchy didn't bend to the Rebellions, and they wouldn't start now.
This was before the death tolls of troops and civilians alike reached unprecedented levels, before horrible, twisted monstrosities of humans, batarians, krogan, and turians unceasingly laid siege to every front. Before every sight in the sky was Palaven on fire, and each sound the Reapers horn. Endless battle reports detailing the instantaneous annihilation of entire platoons at a time were his only reprieve between heated assaults on their position.
It only worsened with Victus' departure some weeks ago.
His ability to think up unorthodox gambits and execute them with credible success kept the Reaper ground forces at bay more than anyone on the moon realized. Their ability to respond to the enemy was already lacking, and it never improved. Neither Achaian nor any other general left there could replicate the effect. Menae was a lost cause, everyone in command and on the ground knew it.
They could accept such a loss if the horrifying possibility of everything else, everywhere else being equally doomed, wasn't grinding their wills to dust, particularly on days such as this one.
"Keep firing men, bring them down no matter the cost!" Achaian shouted atop the main barricade, emptying the clip of his Phaeston into the front of an encroaching brute, one of two powering through their barrage.
The massive beasts advanced through the empty field between the barricade and nearby chasms across from it with deliberate, machine-like patience. Marauders used their mobile meat shields well, peppering Achain and his men with bursts of fire while mindless husks rushed past, forcing the defenders to divert precious bullets away from the primary threat. Each step the brutes failed to die was another portend to the imminent destruction of the base. They all knew this. They'd seen just what one of them could do to an armored vehicle.
His men, spirits giving them strength beyond all reason, kept firing with a hail of bullets from any gun still left operational. Or any they could carry.
What began as the assault of a single, bold Harvester escalated quickly and never let up. The Reaper forces hammered down on them from all sides for what felt like an eternity that day alone, their communication tower ripped to pieces by brutes, dispersing their fighting strength on four sides. They were a lonesome, trapped bastion of the Hierarchy in a sea of stone and monsters. Surviving not by the bedrocks of every worthwhile turian, discipline, a sense of duty, indomitable will but a focused madness.
Achaian never knew such a feeling so strongly. An almost primal, out-of-body experience where the desire to simply live long enough for help to arrive superseded everything else. It kept the hunger in the pit of his stomach away, the ringing in his ears a far away sound, the ache of his arms non-existent. They all felt it, welcomed it as unbecoming as it was to even privately admit. What else could they do? The only alternative was death.
How long can it last? A horrible voice of a reason in the back of his head kept saying, growing louder in defiance of Achain's attempts to drown it out. What if you and all your men die today? More names and statistics on some maddening casualty report?
"Not a chance..." Achaian whispered, crouching and unfastening a grenade from his belt. One of the last left in the base. "Bartus, the instant they flinch, concentrate all fire there!"
"Yes, sir!" The Sargeant shouted, waiting for his hun overheated, mounted gun at the center of the barricade to cool down.
Achaian took a calming breath, and another while his men diverted the enemy's attention, and the explosive beeped in his palm. He rose sharply moments later, flinging the grenade through a crack between the brutes, just behind their legs. He timed it well. Neither the brutes nor the marauders managed to toss the threat aside or evade it. The grenade burst in a grimly satisfying eruption, pushing marauders aside, dismembering others, and most importantly, staggering the brutes.
Their large, clawed arms fall as the beasts roared, their heads and torsos exposed. Bartus didn't waste the chance, his aim steady and retaliation ruthless. The mounted gun rounds sliced one of the brutes so thoroughly its turian head flew from its grotesque body. The other lost control, roaring and charging in an unnatural worble. With the mounted gun trained for it, already unleashing the opening salvo, it should've been the end of this fight, at least.
It wasn't.
Bartus was the first to die, burned and blown to pieces when a red streak whisked through the air and struck the mounted gun. Its explosion blasted a chunk from the barricade, taking more men with it. In a matter of seconds, round after round of cannon fire burst from the edge of the farside cliffs by some insectoid Reaper forces Achaian had never seen earlier. Marauders brazenly stepped into the open to fire. The charging brute was almost on them.
"Damn it, get off! Retr-"
A cannon round hit Achaian and would've turned him into a bloody slab of seared meat if his shields didn't survive while his instincts did the rest. He and the survivors jumped for it, landing and rolling in the dirt, ignoring the sounds of their comrades being shot, annihilated, or torn apart by husks. Or trying to.
"Tobestik!" Achaian shouted to the lieutenant overseeing the western flank, he and the survivors running to the closest, most defensible positions near his command center. "Divert as many troops as you can to the center! They're about to breakthrough-"
The screeching sound of rending metal pierced the air, followed by mechanical snarling. The brutes claw carved a massive line along the barricade, its claws grabbed through on each ending and pulling it apart until its mockery of a turian face stared back at them through the crack. Husks climbed over the barricade and would descend to ground level in mere moments. The marauders and insectoids would flood through soon after.
Then you're all going to die, The voice came back, turning his blood to ice. Just like you always knew you would.
This time, Achaian had not the strength to refute it. Why bother when it was right? It was over. All their struggles, all their sense of discipline and duty in the face of futility, was spent. They had no hope of holding the base without the barricade. There was nowhere to run for or with. No one was coming to help them.
The overwhelming sense of despair was superseded by a dull acceptance soon after. At least with death, the nightmare would end. Achaian watched the approaching enemy with dispassionate motionlessness. The calls of his men were a distant, unheeded noise in his ears. His rifle slipped from his fingers. The brutes glowing eyes almost seemed to bore into his while it succeeded in splitting the barricade open. He didn't even react to the sound of thunder overhead, a sudden gust of winding blasting at his back, or even a blur of blue and red race past him.
Some semblance of awareness only came back when the scene before him suddenly and impossibly changed.
The advancing husks were dead, smashed, and tossed aside. Their necks twisted in impossible angles, bodies strewn across the ground and barricades remnants, their faces caved in. The brute wasn't there anymore. Achaian heard it snarl and roar from afar before falling silent after another crack of thunder. Slowly, numbly, Achaian and the survivors approached tear, listening to the sound of Reaper forces fighting... Something and losing. By the time they dared to peek through, everything threatening them on the other side was crushed with the same swift force as the husks.
Thunder cracked again, and once more, Achaian saw a red and blue blur soar from the bottom of the farside cliff into the air and towards the western side of the base.
"Tobestik... Tobestik!"
"Sir, you're never going to believe this but,..."
"Something's killing the Reapers forces..." He breathed out, staring back through the tear where the overwhelming enemy forced lied. Moments later, the lieutenants and sergeants overseeing the east and south sides reported the same.
"That would be me," A distinctly non-turian voice said fifteen feet behind Achaian. He and the four men left from the barricade turned swiftly, some pointing their weapons, all of them staring dumbfounded at the sight before them. The being was a human. His skin smooth, the presence of hair and body shape proved it. Yet he wore a suit, unlike any Achaian, had seen anywhere, on any species. A blue, seemingly skintight suit covered most of his body, save for his face, neck, and hands, while his legs sported red boots. An equally red cape flowed from his shoulders, a striking feature second only to the symbol on his chest. Achaian wasn't overly familiar with human letters, but it was an s, as far as he recalled. Maybe a z?
"And you are?" Achaian asked calmly enough while his mind tried to make sense of what just happened. The only remotely sensible explanation was the human being a biotic, and even that didn't seem right. He had never seen or heard of one for any species move with speed this human purported to have.
And if the humans have someone like this, why is he here and not on Earth?
"That's..." The human said, looking uncertain. "A bit of a long, complicated story. Under better circumstances, I'd share it, but... There's more work to do, not just on this moon either, and from the sound of things, you folks look like you need my help."
"... Assuming you can do more of this, yes, we do," Achaian gestured to the annihilated Reaper forces lying about. Their mysterious rescuer looked away from them, staring at the dead husks and fallen troopers with a look that seemed to be pity. The general took a few steps forward, thinking proper introductions were in order when suddenly the human's expression changed.
He looked to the northeast, scrutinizing something in the distance. Achaian followed his gaze and saw nothing, but eventually, he did hear it. An unmistakable noise turning his blood to ice all over again.
"I'll handle this, general. You and your men just get to cover and stay safe," The human said in a voice that brokered no argument. Achaian turned and quite foolishly stared slack-jawed, and mandible spread at what he saw. "Don't worry, I've fought worse than this."
He-He's... Really flying...?! Their rescuer rose from the ground, cape billowing behind him, pebbles gently hovering like insects drawn to a fire. Up and up, he flew as though gravity itself had no power over him. Achaian could have stared at him for eternity if the soul-searing horn of the approaching Reaper didn't knock sense back into him.
"This is General Corinthus. All men return to ground level and stick to cover... Our... Reinforcements will deal with it..."
The destroyer landed in the no man's land north of the base, its arrival shaking the terrain with such force one could swear a ground quake threatened to swallow the base whole. Achaian fell on his chest and crawled toward the barricade tear. The Reaper stood immobile, its four legs spread wide, Palaven burning behind it, almost bathing it in a fiery glow. He had never seen one so close, and the mere sight was nearly enough to make him run away. Nevermind everything the battle reports told him.
That human, though... Achaian saw the results for himself, his ability to fly, to somehow spot the Reaper's arrival before anyone else did. The fact a Reaper personally chose to target them only added more credence to their mysterious rescuer's abilities. The enemy simply didn't send one of their own from another battlefield like that over nothing.
The frontal plates of the Reaper folded to its sides, revealing a red, glowing eye. Achaian had seen what the beam of one was capable of. Even their finest dreadnaughts couldn't withstand a sustained blast from them, nevermind a single human. Its horn blast reverberated through the air, sending another chill of fear running down Achaian's back, its legs shifted upward in the direction where the rescuer hovered now hundreds of feet above them.
The beam charged, and moments later flashed with such sudden light it pained to looked at it. Everyone flinched and gawked soon after. The Reaper shifted its body, aiming and failing to hit a tiny shape in the distance flying away from its attack.
Fumbling through the nearby debris and stones, Achaian managed to find a discarded Viper and trained it for the Reaper. What he saw through the scope was like something out of a dream. Their rescuer, a blip next to the destroyer, closed between them and struck it on the left side. The sound was akin to ten dreadnaughts simultaneously opening fire. The very air shook from the impact of the blow. So did the Reaper. It reeled, stumbling back with the grace of a drunken krogan. Each strike staggering, pushing it back further and further.
When it succeeded at opening fire again, it failed to find its mark. Achaian, just barely, saw something tiny and red buzz around it with dizzying motions. Something eerily similar to the Reaper's own beam flashed near its folded, frontal plates. It came off and was snatched by their rescuer.
"What is he...?" Private Tanicus whispered in disbelief. Achaian couldn't blame him.
The human, holding the plate in-mid air, started to spin in place. In a matter of seconds, they transformed into a vortex of motion, a man-made tornado gaining dizzying momentum. The Reaper's wobbling legs steadied, its eye glowing with the promise of annihilation, aimed at their rescuer. Achaian didn't dare to blink or breathe. He'd never forgive himself for missing what transpired next.
In the last possible moment, the human avoided death and stopped the Reaper's attack by gouging its eye with its own plate. The accumulated speed and force were so great, the piece of metal moved like a gargantuan bullet through the air. The Reaper reeled and howled, discharges of red energy shooting out without rhyme or reason. Explosions, small and big alike, detonated throughout its body. Its horn, once a source of fear, sounded distorted, pathetic, and afraid. The bastard finally died when a final explosion burst from its beam source.
The ground shook, a gust of wind carrying dirt and rocks struck the lying soldiers. Pieces of the Reaper of all possible sizes rose kilometers into the sky along with the fire and smoke. Its remaining legs slumped and fell in different directions.
"Holy shit..." Achaian mumbled, watching the Reaper burn with astonishment and delight. He had lost count of the number of casualties, destroyed ships, and tragedy inflicted by even a single destroyer and what it cost to bring one down. To see one fall so quickly...
Their rescuer landed gently behind them, looking no worse for wear, not a speck of dirt anywhere or a hair out of place anywhere on his person.
"W-What are you... Who are you?" Tanicus asked with the awe of a child, rising from the ground first. Not proper behavior for a soldier. However, Achaian couldn't blame his subordinate. His curiosity was hardly contained either. The sense of wonder after so much time spent around death and misery was... Welcome.
"Like I said, there's not much time to talk," The stranger said, walking toward them. "More of them aren't coming yet, but the sooner I attack someplace else, the less chance they come here to look for me. Besides, more of your people here need my help."
Achaian and Tanicus stepped aside, watching as the stranger walked past them to scrutinize the breach in the barricade. With even greater astonishment, they watched as he bent the broken steel with his bare hands, then fired some kind of beam from his very eyes. In no time at all, the tear was fixed.
Just what are we dealing with here...?
"That should help you hold out a while longer," He turned back toward them, a hint of red glow simmering down in his otherwise blue eyes. "I'm sorry to leave without answering any of your questions-"
"Don't worry about," Achaian said, trying not to sound disappointed by his imminent leave. There were, after all, far more important things at hand than quelling his curiosity. "I'm certain command will relay whatever they learn of you to us in due time."
"I don't suppose you can get me in touch with them?"
"Sadly, no, our communication tower was torn to pieces," Achaian gave a short laugh. "Unless you can fix that too?"
"I'm not familiar with the technology of... This part of space," The stranger answered, his voice momentarily uncertain. He gave a rueful smile. "Sorry."
"You've got nothing to apologize for. In fact, let me return the favor for your help. Five kilometers to the southeast of here, you should find another base like ours. Last I heard, the Reapers weren't hitting them as hard as us, so you might have some luck."
"Anything I can do to help get their trust fast?"
"Besides annihilating every husk, brute, and marauder within firing range? Sure. Tell General Antopia she Achaian says hello, that you're a friend, and she still owes me one for saving her slow ass from that Thresher Maw on Antibaar twenty years ago."
"I'll keep it in mind, general," The stranger chuckled, nodding along. When he extended a hand, Achaian did not hesitate to shake it. "Good luck to you and your men, I hope I'm enough to help you turn this thing around."
"Well, you're off a damn good start, sir."
"Superman," He smiled. "Where I'm from, they call me Superman, but here, I think Clark works just fine."