Hello my Darlings. Feel free to skip this section if you want there won't be any important story details included here, just the ramblings of the author. I'm going into this project in a different way than I typically do. While I've never written fanfiction before, I have written more than a dozen short stories so I feel like I've got the chops to handle a project like this. Even so I'm not a master at writing and at the end of the day a side goal of mine is to become a better writer. To do this I really need feedback from my audience. I'm a huge fan of constructive criticism and I welcome any and all negative or positive reviews with open arms. That being said I dearly hope you enjoy this piece.
I do not claim ownership of any setting, characters, concepts, plotlines, and so on and so forth that are owned by bioware or any other company that had any degree of involvment in the creation of the Mass Effect Franchise. All Do own is the character William Crystilyn and a few other original characters that have yet to be introduced
The first thing I noticed when I walked into my office was the new stack of papers on my desk. I had given up on having any time for myself six months age when I'd first been stationed on the human colony Horizon.
I had been surprised at first when I was ordered by the Alliance to report to Horizon. I'd only been out of Med school for about a week when I was given the order. At the time I had expected to be stationed on a ship or something, not a permanent position at a non-Alliance colony.
The residents of Horizon weren't fond of me at first. Which I get, they had lost the last practising psychiatrist to old age, and they didn't want to accept an outsider like me. To them I was just some young hotshot trying to take the place of their friend. My biotics didn't do me any favors there either.
It took time, but eventually people started coming to my office and before I knew it I had been welcomed into the community.
Then the news about the other colonies came in.
We started getting reports of entire human colonies just disappearing, and of course people started getting scared.
After the first three colonies were hit my workload more than tripled. I was constantly helping people cope with the stress and fear being caused by whatever was happening to those colonies. Today was no different.
I ran a hand through my black hair. It felt longer than normal but I wasn't all that surprised by that. It was hard to find the time to get errands like haircuts done when it felt like I was single handedly keeping what felt like half of Horizon on its feet.
I took a seat in the office chair at my desk. I felt my weight sink into the comfortable seat. The chair had cost me a small fortune, but it was worth every cent. The rest of my office was well decorated with a number of knick-knacks that I'd picked up over my days in the Alliance. My Phd's in Human and Alien Psychiatric Medicine as well as my license to practice in an enclosed ship environment hung on the wall adjacent to the door.
I let out an airy yawn and checked the clock on the far wall. It was only 9:17am and I was already ready to crash. I felt a jolt of relief that I had refused to schedule any appointments today deciding that I needed a day to rest and catch up on paperwork that I hadn't had time to finish.
I spent the next three hour filling out various forms and other semi-important documents. Most people hate filling out paperwork, but I'd always found it relaxing. I'd filled most of them out so many times that I barely needed to pay attention to what I was doing.
After I finished the paperwork I grabbed one of the many Psychiatric medical journal I had been meaning to catch up on for about a month and settled into a comfortable position in my chair.
I didn't even get five pages in before a knock at my door broke my focus.
I sighed, disappointed that I'd have to postpone my reading yet another time this month and set the book down on my desk.
Another series of knocks pounded against the metal of the door. I bit back an aggravated barb, and waited a brief second to calm down.
"Just a minute! I locked it when I came in this morning!" I shouted towards the door. I raised my hand and snapped my fingers. A biotic field formed around my hand. With a flourish of my fingers in the direction of the door. I heard the click of the door unlocking and mentally congratulated myself. I'd been working on precision telekinesis for two months now and it was nice to see the benefits of my hard work.
The door swung open a few seconds later and an unfamiliar man crossed the threshold into my office.
He had dark eyes and hair, the latter cut short, with fair skin and a clean shaven face. He was wearing an Alliance Navy uniform with short sleeves, and combat boots. He was built like a fighter with lean muscle all along his arms.
His walk was steady and he strode from one foot to the other in smooth flowing motions that carried across his frame across my office swiftly and surely.
"Are you Doctor William Crystilyn? The Alliance Psychiatrist stationed at this Colony?" He asked politely in a tone much too formal for my tastes. His voice was deeper than I expected it to be.
"Yeah that's my name." I replied. "What can I do you for?" I really tried to be nice and pleasant to him, but even I could hear how tired I was.
"I'm Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko." He introduced himself. "I'm being stationed here under the orders of Admiral Hackett. I just wanted to introduce myself to all of the major players in Horizon."
I quirked my brow at Lt. Alenko's choice of words.
"Major players?" I remarked curiously gesturing towards the many places that I had set up in my office.
The lieutenant nodded gratefully and took a seat on the reclining chair just to the left of being in front of my desk.
"People on Horizon that the admiral thought were important." Lt. Alenko explained. "You actually weren't one of those people, but the mayor and everyone else I talked too thought I should talk to you anyway."
I hadn't known that the people here had such high opinions of me. It was touching that I'd grown on them so much.
"So you're a soldier right?" I asked him intrigued. The lieutenant nodded in confirmation. "So why were you stationed at an non-Alliance human colony on the edge of the Terminus Systems that would give the Alliance absolutely no easily discernible advantage military or otherwise?"
He winced at the question, a reaction that only served to make me all the more curious.
"Honestly?" He said not so much asking a question as asking permission to speak his mind. I gestured for him to go on.
"I have no clue." He admitted. "I was just told to shore up the colony's defenses because 'We have reason to believe that the colony will be threatened In the near future'" He said making finger quotes. "Which is bureaucratic bullshit for 'we have reasons but we don't want to tell you then!'" I laughed lightly at the amusing comment.
"Believe me I know the feeling." I replied sincerely. "Well for all that it matters I hope that you don't have too much trouble with the other colonists. They tend to be untrusting of newcomers." I couldn't help but recall my first few months at the colony and how diligent the colonists had been at generally just making life unpleasant.
"Yeah I was starting to get that impression." He said tossing a glance towards the door that he came In from. "Well I should probably get started on those defenses. It was a pleasure to meet you Doctor Crystilyn." The lieutenant got up from his seat and extended his hand for me to shake.
I smiled and took his hand In my own and shook it firmly.
"Please call me Will." I said standing up going over to get the door for him. As I neared the door I heard a buzzing sound and turned to search for the source of the sound.
"Then you can call me Kaidan." The soldier retorted heading towards the door before stopping dead while looking out of the large window beside the exit.
"You may want to take a look at this." Kaidan said in a clearly concerned voice.
"What Is it?" I asked while moving over to look out the window.
Though the clear glass of the window I saw a massive swarm of what looked like very large insects of some kind desend upon the colonists that happened to be outside at the time.
The insectoid creatures gathered around the colonists and everytime one of the things touched a colonist they almost immediately hit the ground. The bugs felled colonist after colonist continuously moving on to the next person until in less than twenty seconds I couldn't see even one single colonist left standing.
I turned towards Kaidan and we exchanged a worried look.
It was about than that I realized that maybe some of the patients that I told that they were worried over nothing just may have been more right than any of us could have possibly imagined.
So I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of The Crystilyn Twist. Bonus points if you can guess why I picked that name instead of something more thematic. I'll say again that any and all reviews positive or negative are welcomed. You can expect the next update within the week most likely, and besides that I hope that all of you darlings have an incredible day.
PS: I won't be doing anything like asking for reviews in any following chapter so anyonds that gets annoyed at stuff like that don't worry I'm not going to be that person.