Welcome to this attempt at writing. I have never written anything like this, and do not know how well this will go nor for how long.

This is somewhat of a self insert fanfiction, mixed with an OC, and a crossover at that. I've not yet decided whether it will be in first or third person, but either way I might change it for narrative reasons whenever needed.

I do not own the Warhammer 40000 nor the Mass Effect universe.

Now, try to enjoy this, and be kind on your comments, if you leave any.

Half a millennium of service. 482 years to be exact. Forced to leave behind everything and everyone I loved and cared about, everything that defined me. And all for naught. All the sacrifice, all the learning, all the teaching, my whole life, thrown out of the window by the ambition and corruption of a few, very powerful traitorous scum.

And that is not taking into account the quadrillions of innocent souls delivered into the maws of the Chaos Gods. How unfitting for a soldier, someone trained and sworn to protect those who can't do so themselves, to focus on his own problems and nuances instead of concerning himself with the well-being of his charges. Yet nobody is expected to be selfless their entire life, much less at their time of death. Or after it, for that matter.

Wait.

How am I conscious? How am I having these thoughts? I was a Pariah, an Untouchable... a Soulless one. I have no soul. I shouldn't be conscious. I was vaporized when the battlebarge's core destabilized, there is no possible way I still exist. Yet, somehow, I am.

All I have, is my thoughts. I can't feel anything right now. Can't see. Can't hear. I feel absolutely nothing. All I can do, is mourn my losses, and think about what could have been but ultimately wasn't. Remember what it was like when I still had a soul, or perhaps when I had both arms, and had sensitivity in not just one of them. And also that time... ok.

Now things are getting more interesting. I'm starting to see something. Light, brightness. And hearing wind, and rain. I do not know how much time I was floating in that void, but it felt like eons. And being able to use my senses again, even if I end up somewhere horrible, is a breath of fresh air.

That joy lasted a microsecond. A blinding light, a thunderous blast, and I pop into existence two meters over a pond of mud. That breath of fresh air I mentioned? Midways it turned into choking on a blob of pasty dirt. Horrible taste, utterly disgusting. But I can taste again. A silver lining, if there ever was one.

As I lay there in the mud, under the rain, I feel like I have been born again. But I am surrounded with familiar feelings. The absence of my soul, and also the lack of sensibility in my right arm. More importantly, I take in the reassuring weight of my heavy Carapace armor, the same I was wearing when I died. Even more important, if I'm exactly the same I was when the ship was vaporized... why am I not wearing my helmet? That incident with the mud could have been avoided, I would have had a somewhat smoother arrival on this place.

Where is this place, that's the best question I can come up with. What happened, why it happened, those questions can wait. "Think about what is directly in front of you, not what came before, not what may come after", my mother used to say. In short, prioritize. Can't change the past, immediate or otherwise, and there are a myriad of possible futures for every choice one makes, so focus on the here and now. Or on the now, since I don't know where here is yet.

I can breathe, so there is oxygen in this atmosphere. Gravity reminds me of Holy Terra, or Earth, as I knew it during my early life. There is flora, and some flying animals, so fauna as well. Not much to say about the smells in the air, although there are some hints of vanilla. Almost willing to bet that it's an artificial fragrance, which would mean somebody is close by.

Somebody definitely is near me. Near enough to watch me.

A good guardsman is always aware of their surroundings, and an Imperial Tempestus Scion is aware thrice as much. I can only chalk it up to being disoriented after my unusual spawning for my attention slip, because who was watching me is standing right behind me. If only there was only one...

I turn around slowly to find myself on the receiving end of ten firearms, of unknown design and origin, wielded by the same number of beings. Unknown humanoids most of them, human at least in form the rest. Could be Eldar, but something tells me they are far from being something familiar, those that aren't human. My only consolation, if there is one, is that they seem confused by my apparition, and not willing to start a confrontation. My best guess, they are just being cautious. Nevertheless...

Feth. As I chalk up my mind thinking of a good way of breaking the ice and avoid an unwanted conflict, I can't help but wonder what they might be thinking and what they are certainly saying to one another on closed channels. The fact that I'm drawing blanks on the matter of a peaceful approach is starting to unnerve me, something that hadn't happened in centuries. So improvisation it is...

I make sure to show that my hands are empty and nowhere near any of my weapons, so as to not scare them into opening fire, and spit out the least smooth thing I could ever have said given this situation:

"Hello there"

GLOSSARY:

Warp: A sub-dimension present in our Universe, where the Chaos Gods reside and from which psykers draw their power. Known as the Immaterium by the Imperium, it is used as a mean of Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel. Without proper (psychic) protection, the Warp on itself is harmful to most living beings, causing strange mutations, insanity, and death. A soul leaving a dead body ends up in the Immaterium, so long no foul heretic ritual keeps it on the normal plane, and sentient beings emotions make a deep effect on the Warp.

Chaos Gods: A sub-product of the turmoil in the Warp caused by the ever-increasing number of sentient beings in the Galaxy, each Chaos God is an abstract idea and emotion personification, gaining sentience themselves thousands of years before the events of the story. They feed on the souls "freed of their earthly existences" in their names, simple rituals that usually involve some of their many worshipers and a poor, innocent being unlucky enough to find itself in that situation. The favor they grant to those that prove worthy enough have incredible power and terrible curses on the same proportion.

Psyker: Being born with the ability to manipulate the powers of the Warp. Some species, like the Eldar, have every member with some level of psychic capacity, while humanity has only a low percentage at best. Psykers can tap into the Immaterium and wield astonishing powers, to varying degrees of success depending on how much training they had, but are constantly in danger of being possessed by a Chaos Deamon or other denizens of the Warp.

Eldar: Basically space Elves. A species similar in anatomy to humans, barring the everyone-is-a-psyker portion, but capable of living thousands of years if left to their own devices. A dying species, who were once in dominance of the Galaxy but have since fell from that place of power, they refuse to accept they are no longer the ones in control, and antagonize humanity because of that. Take note that some Eldar groups care little about who is the dominant power in the Galaxy, they just want to live in calm; likewise, there are Eldar who don't mind the change in power and are willing to aid humans when needed.

Pariah: Also called Untouchable or Soulless, these people afflicted by a genetic disease are, for all intent and purposes, beings lacking a soul. This means they are immune to the effects of the Warp and Warp-based powers, and are an anathema to psykers, who find painful to be near them, and may be lethal for them to make physical contact. (For narrative purposes, in my fanfiction the Pariah condition will not be limited by being only acquired by birth, but also induced in a manner I will reveal later on. Also, a Pariah will be vulnerable to the abilities of an exceptionally powerful psyker.)

Emperor of Mankind: The most powerful human psyker to ever have existed, united all the planets and colonies stablished by humanity up to the 30th millennium, and ruled as their God-Emperor for the following 10000 years (aprox.) before being ultimately betrayed and murdered by former underlings.

Imperial Guardsman/woman: The generic title of any soldier in the formal military of the Imperium. There are billions if not trillions of them, form every corner of the Galaxy, fighting for the survival of humanity.

Tempestus Scion: Imperial Storm Trooper, or Special Forces in other words. The best and most loyal unaugmented combatants humanity has to offer, the vast majority of them raised form childhood to fulfill this role, with very few exceptional cases being adult veteran Guardsmen/women who prove themselves in combat and gain sponsorship form someone in a position of high authority.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it. Leave any comment you want, as long as it is respectful. Criticism is welcomed, but only constructive one. With enough reviews, I will update more.