Jane Shepard: Combat Elegance by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Jane-Shepard-Combat-Elegance-1217611369

Jane Shepard: Combat Elegance ANIMATION

The Glass Garden of Thorns

The night over the Citadel’s Presidium Gardens was drenched in an impossible calm. The fountains whispered. The artificial sky glimmered with simulated stars—too perfect, too still. Commander Jane Shepard leaned on the marble railing overlooking the reflective pools, watching the light ripple in mechanical rhythm.

Even at midnight, the place had visitors: lovers speaking in hushed tones, turians strolling with military stiffness, and an elcor couple discussing philosophy beside the lilies. But the illusion of peace unsettled her. Shepard had spent too many nights staring into quiet skies before something unholy tore them apart.

Her omni-tool flickered faintly orange on her wrist as she scrolled through encrypted reports. Disappearances. Unexplained power surges. Distorted footage from the garden’s security nodes.

At first glance, it was nothing unusual. The Citadel had a habit of hiding its nightmares behind manicured elegance. But this—this felt deliberate. The reports described shapes in the glass, reflections moving when no one stood before them.

And then there was the witness: a volus groundskeeper found trembling near the reflecting pools, mumbling that “the plants had learned to speak.” He was now under psychiatric observation in Huerta Memorial, his mind a puzzle box of terror.

Shepard exhaled. “Great. First the Reapers, now haunted botany.”

“Talking to yourself again, Commander?”

She turned. A tall asari in sleek diplomatic robes emerged from the shadows of an archway, her face luminescent under the artificial moonlight. Her eyes gleamed a tranquil shade of silver.

“Councillor Tevos,” Shepard greeted, voice steady but wary. “Late for a walk, aren’t you?”

“I might ask the same,” the asari replied, her tone honeyed but cool. “You’ve been spending too much time in dark corners. The galaxy’s peace doesn’t rest solely on your shoulders anymore.”

Shepard’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You didn’t come here for a friendly chat.”

“No,” Tevos admitted softly. “I came because I’ve seen it too.”

The commander straightened. “Seen what?”

The asari gestured toward the largest reflecting pool—a vast oval of water surrounded by glowing flowers and marble cherubs. “A presence in the glass. I dismissed it as stress, but… lately it’s been whispering. It knows my name.”

Shepard studied her. “You’re serious.”

Tevos’s composure faltered. “More than I wish to be.”

A breeze passed through the garden—too cold, too deliberate. The fountains slowed, as though the entire Presidium exhaled. Shepard’s omni-tool flickered again, showing interference across every nearby frequency.

“Power surge,” she murmured.

Tevos shook her head. “No. A pulse.”

Then the water stirred.

Something like ink blossomed beneath the surface of the pool—slow at first, then swirling with predatory purpose. The ripples formed a shape, vaguely humanoid but boneless, fluid, shifting with each shimmer of light.

Shepard drew her pistol. “Step back.”

Tevos obeyed, though her eyes were locked on the dark reflection. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

The black shape rose. The water bulged upward, and from its surface erupted a figure—glass-skinned, elegant as sculpture, eyes like shards of diamond. Its limbs refracted light, bending it into impossible spectrums.

It smiled, though the motion cracked its crystalline face.

“Shepard,” it said, its voice a thousand echoes through a tunnel. “I was waiting.”

Shepard aimed her weapon. “That makes one of us.”

The creature tilted its head. Its movements were delicate, seductive—each gesture fluid as water. “I was born from reflection. From every glance you’ve ever thrown at the glass and wondered if the woman staring back was truly you.”

Shepard didn’t blink. “If you’re trying to flirt, you’ll have to do better.”

The creature’s crystalline lips curled. “Flirt? No. Merge.”

Tevos took a trembling step forward. “What are you?”

The thing smiled at her. “You built me. Every thought you denied yourself, every suppressed wish—polished into existence by this place’s light. I am the Citadel’s secret envy, its shadow of perfection.”

The words slid through the air like silk soaked in venom. Shepard’s instincts screamed.

“Stay behind me,” she warned the asari, activating her kinetic barrier.

The
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