A/N: Well, with all my Frozen writing, I lost sight of my roots: action games. I can think on many levels, medieval warfare to full on space battles, but I prefer Sci-Fi, and it kinda shows. So, I thought I would let rip with something that has been sitting idle on my HDD for months:

Mass Effect: Reality Locus

Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Of Bored Gods and Reptiles

Let me introduce myself; I'm Atreyu Alexi Daniels, and I was a soldier, and a damn good one. I had survived three tours in Iraq and was promoted and then poached into black ops missions, and had a record for getting them done quickly and quietly. I never slipped up, at least until Intel dropped a major landmine in my path.

Literally; they missed the fact that the camp we were raiding had a fucking minefield. And so, as I belly-crawled across some scrub to get a better look at the base, the *click* and subsequent explosion was… unwelcome. My last thought wasn't of family; I had none. It wasn't of friends, either- they were all in my original unit, and were safely away from here. No, my last thought in this life was rough and crass, like me:

'Oh, motherfucker.'

The first thought I had after my chest was blown open said landmine was: Why am I alive?

It was followed shortly by: Oh. Everything is white light; I'm not.

My third thought was going to be 'Will I go to heaven or hell?' but I was interrupted by a voice in the stark white nothingness.

It wasn't holy, or the incarnation of evil- it was mischievous. In my head, I had already named it 'Loki', mostly because it sounded like what I had imagined him to.

Secondly, it fit in with what was said to me.

"Well well, my new entertainment has arrived! Took you long enough, I thought I might have to grab someone else!"

I start to open my mouth to ask a question, but the voice interrupts me. "Nope, I'm not gonna say why I chose you, or any such nonsense. No need; I simply felt like it! Hehehe."

A pause and the voice continued. "Well, I always want to be entertained, and your reality has come up with so many unique ideas for universes and so on that I really need a test pilot to cause some havoc in them!"

My confusion must have broadcast loud and clear, as the voice addressed me again. "Yes I mean you. Keep up! You see, being a nigh-omnipotent being is boring… I can make anything happen, but I really don't want to exert too much effort- it makes things too predictable. So, I grab promising, young, and chaotic individuals like you and toss them into universes as I see fit. You, sir, are going to the 'Mass Effect' universe, but I'm gonna give you a pit stop into two others, first. Give you a leg up, eh? I'm not too cruel, you know."

Before I can ask what the hell he meant, my vision starts going grey, and I hear only one last thing before I pass out, and wake up anew.

"Don't expect to be your old self!"

Oh, joy.

-First Shift-

When I awake, it is to the distinct unpleasantness of being submerged. I almost panic, thinking I would drown, but as I come fully awake I notice the ventilator tube in my mouth and relax.

Marginally; I still have no idea where I am, and from that being's description, I might just be a mad scientist's guinea pig. I don't do well with needles, so I really hope not.

A fait beeping sound begins, probably in reaction to my wakefulness, and a face appears in my view. The face is blurred from the liquid, but I can make out two things right away:

It is green…

And has scales. Oh, boy.

The liquid drains away, and as such begins my adventure in this universe.

Over the next few months, I learn the local language and discover what they had done to me. When I had arrived- via a glowing gate at a local physics lab-, I was severely irradiated, pretty much dead already. This race of reptilian humanoids- they call themselves reptoids- were luckily very proficient in gene splicing, and they essentially made me a half-breed, gaining me their native resistance to hard radiation. I learned about my new body over the course of those months, and the knowledge was welcome. I had no more health issues; my new immune system was ridiculous- the combined human and reptoid systems made me a juggernaut of good health. My muscular and skeletal systems were shaping up with diet and exercise, and topped out at approximately eighteen times the durability and strength of a human's. Also, my body was growing new redundant organs, just like the local reptoids, so I was even harder to kill. My appearance changed slightly, and I was grateful not to turn green. My previous condition was pretty good; I had stood at six foot three and was three hundred pounds of juggernaut muscle. I had a square jaw, and average looks for a guy- nothing really special, until you saw my eyes and hair. I had Heterochromia- two different colored eyes. One was blue, the other a very unusual red. My hair had always been a target of teasing and ridicule- I was born with pure white hair, and people always believed that I had bleached it.

Now, I was a seven foot one monstrosity. Light, orange tinged soft scales were on my face and chest, changing to rough, toughened scaling on my arms and legs. My new muscle and bone mass made me weigh almost eight hundred pounds, and I could free lift three times that with little effort. What really threw me was the addition of a recessive trait I caught from my reptoid DNA donor- two sets of twinned horns sprouting from just underneath my hairline and continuing back across my skill, flaring out at the end into wickedly sharp points. Both were bone, and were bone-white, giving me an almost demonic appearance. As a final farewell to my humanity, my pupils became slitted like a cat's, flaring and narrowing reflexively in addition to advertising my moods.

When I had acquired a grasp of their language suitable enough for a long conversation, I was questioned. And questioned… and questioned. The military of this world really wanted to know how I got there, where I had come from, and so on and so forth. When it became apparent that I had no clue, or was unwilling to admit I had a clue, they finally backed off, and I was introduced to their world.

Lemme put it this way; when people write about how much they hate fanboys/fangirls, they mean it. Crazed stalkers? Scarier than fifty pissed off men with RPG's breathing down your neck. Finally, after I was released from all major observation, I got around to visiting my arrival spot.

Bad idea- that is what sent me on my next trip, without as much as a fare-thee-well. Just walk in and pop!

Gone to the next place on Loki's agenda.

-Second Shift-

This time I was awake for the trip, and Loki gave me some info in the form of a snarky note. I was headed to an interdimensional marketplace to buy some equipment and a ship to arrive in Mass Effect with. The note was as follows;

"Dear mister playtoy-

Enjoying your new body? Hope you like lizards, don't really care if you don't, ha-ha! Anyway, get yourself loaded up here, on me! Just buy what you want; you have three local days for it. Remember to get a ship, or we get to see if lizards pop in a vacuum!"

I found out that if a being like "Loki" sponsors you, the marketplace knows and will just bill him. I don't know how an all-powerful being pays bills, and I don't really care to know. So, I wander and buy. First, I look for power armor, like the T-5V suits from Mass Effect, but better.

…

I underestimated the proliferation of different tech types here; every other stall seemed to offer armor or weapons, and it took a while before I narrowed it down to three choices.

One, a heavy armor with twin machine guns on each arm, running off of 'flatspace' tech, so I could have near unlimited ammo and quick reload for no real weight cost. It sported good accuracy, great protection and a frankly ridiculous amount of firepower. Once I learned that it could switch weapon types at a thought, all with the dexterity of my old BDU gear, I decided I liked it. A lot.

Two, a medium armor that was all about long range combat. The helmet looked more like a crazy collection of scopes when viewed as a diagram, but in reality it was streamlined and was a simple reflective black. This armor was offering good protection and insane tactical advantages- it could produce gravity changes better then Mass Effect tech, it could create mini-turrets, it could auto hack consoles and databanks, and best of all?

Unlimited jetpack and wrist-mounted flamethrowers.

And number three, the ninja armor. It was a light-ish armor, more of a light-duty medium armor, and offered increased strength, invisibility, sped-up reflexes, auto targeting, and had built in light, silenced/suppressed handguns and bladed weapons. It was also built on flatspace tech, so I liked that as well. But the real selling point? It could fly under its own power via gravity drives and minor thrust nozzles on my feet. Not a real jetpack, but meh. Flying. Oh, did I mention that it can remain invisible even while flying?

I ended up getting all three, and a wide variety of weapons. From handguns to crew served rocket turrets, and from small poisoned daggers to monstrous, energy bladed greataxes, I got enough exotic weapons and their blueprints and ammo specs to outfit a whole army.

The ship I got was the real beauty. It was, outwardly, the size of three Mass Effect Kodiak drop ships, but that was all armor around the engine blocks and weapons arrays- the entry and cockpit were all flatspace based, and I had as much room as I wanted here. The engines were FTL capable, in much the same manner as the Mass Effect counterparts, but it used a different gravity drive to reduce the ship's mass. It also had a wormhole drive for long distance, so if I wanted to, I didn't have to use the mass relays.

The weapons and power systems made me drool, though. The weapons ran the gamut from "Showy, but harmless" all the way to a beauty called the Juggernaut Cannon.

The Juggernaut Cannon was, well, like a Mass Effect dreadnought's main gun… turned to eleven. To the power of two hundred. It fired a projectile of Orihalcum- a digitally synthesized metal flatspace constructed onboard- that was weighted about the same as a small neutron star via the mass drives. The projectile moves so fast that it actually causes a small time-warp, always impacting the target as soon as it leaves the muzzle of the gun. The Orihalcum is a temporary construct from flatspace, and disappears as soon as time catches up to it in the real world, so no evidence is left of my weapon except the massive field of dust left behind by the offending ship… or planet. The ship generated power by pulling it from the curvature of space-time, so I had as much power as I ever wanted, or needed. It could stealth, becoming invisible to heat scanners, optical detection, and even gravimetric sensors.

It was awesome!

I got all my shopping done the second day, and I decided to wander on the third, jut to look around and see if I saw anything special. For hours I walked and looked, but nothing really stood out to me, until I decided to head back to my ship. As I turned around, I caught sight of a weapon, sitting on a rack outside a run-down stall. It seemed to call to me, and I walked over to take a look.

It was a run-down looking, high-tech crossbow. It wasn't really a bow, it fired excited energy shots, but the operation was like a repeating crossbow and I loved it. It even folded up like most ME tech did, so I was happy. What really made my day was the fact that it could fire specialized bolts, and so I bought my favorite weapon. Taking it back to the ship, I sealed the hatch behind me, closing myself off from the outside until the flatspace opening was triggered again. As I did, I felt the psychic interface of the ship acknowledge my presence and begin preparation for a wormhole jump, just in case. I flopped on the bed, and while I waiting for the final shift, I began designing me some trick bolts.

I didn't wait long, and soon I was off on my journey into the battles of Mass Effect.