Ok, I shouldn't be doing this, mostly because I'm going on vacations today but what the hell? Never had I had a semi-humorous chapter that went so smoothly out of my mind.

This story occurs in an AU where the Reapers don't exist. Commander Shepard will appear though, and so most of our beloved Normandy's crew. Also this is my first attempt of fanfiction in English that sees the light, so if you see any mistake or could point me towards something in my speech that could be improved please let me know.

I'll try to make the next chapters more interesting, can't promise anything though, once created the characters usually grow a mind of their own, even the ones that doesn't belong to me!

.Mass Effect and everything within it belongs to Bioware, however the OCs and the plot are my own.

Enjoy the reading!

The Travelers

Chapter One: Rude awakening

Malcom 1

He awoke out of the blue with the feeling of his back not comfortably resting against his soft mattress.

It wasn't the first time in his life when he woke up on the floor, nor the first time he felt like someone had beaten the shit out of him – it was his usual hangover after a good night of party –, but it was the first time his senses felt actually numbed and his body was not answering his commands of actually wake up and find something to dull his headache. He just saw blurred forms instead of things and the surface on his back was the only solid thing he could pinpoint with his senses out.

He closed his eyes, waiting for them to recover if he just lied there a little before actually trying to get up. That went partially well, his body still sore and numb but it was moving at least. He sighed when he stood in a sitting position, and brought his hands to his face to rub his face, his hand felt a little too delicate but they had never been rude for a start so he didn't care if his friends had decided to get him a manicure.

It was when her hands trailed up to his hair when it all went to hell: there was no hair and his scalp seemed to have changed in form and texture from day to night.

Thinking that it was all a crazy machination he opened his eyes. Little time had he to relieve in the fact that now he could see properly.

His hands were blue, and… were actually boobs the things in his chest?

The morning just kept going better and better.

He looked around him, looking for some of his friend to yell at them and obtain a goddam answer on why his skin was blue, his new boobs and his hair, but the scenery around him just took the breath away from him in the form of a sentence.

"You've got to be shitting me!"

He was sitting in the grey concrete floor of some kind of cell, and while that may had been reassuring in some weird and sick way – it wouldn't be his first morning in a cell after a party –, the two unconscious fucking dinosaurs in the cell had broken every pretension of normality he could had had. Also his voice was that of a female – why in the nine circles of hell had he a feminine voice?!

He just knew one thing for sure: whoever had done this to him, was going to die regretting it.

He lost the account of time after checking his body and find out that he was actually in a female body, but that wasn't even the worst of it: his ears were gone, his skin either was painted with a water-resistant paint or was blue for real and his scalp prolonged into a weird crown of tentacles. And after touching them, feeling them, he was pretty sure that it wasn't a fake.

On the record this has already been marked as the weirdest day in his whole life.

He tried to put his mind at ease singing some good ol' rock song, while playing with the edge the tunic that covered otherwise his body – he would be found dead before admitting he was wearing a dress –, but nothing seemed to work so he started to examine his cellmates.

The smaller one was pretty dinosaur-like, with long and lithe scaly limbs and theropod feet. It was completely naked but there was no way for him to guess if it was a he or a she. The scales were of deep ebony with a metallic glint to them, and the skin between them was few tones lighter. It's most impressive feature however, spurs, weird mouth and claws aside, was the fact that it had only three fingers. He didn't knew why, but that had been what had struck him harder about the creature: despite its general humanoid shape, that thing was not a human.

The other subject was bigger, a lot bigger that any of them. It seemed to be a bigger – and scarier – brown Ninja Turtle, it didn't help to soothe is mind the fact that the bulky beast just wore a loincloth. It had a weird head; it seemed too big for that body, and some strange carapace in its back. Now that he thought about it, the other thing also had some kind of carapace. Maybe they were the same species? But no, this other thing had four fingers in its feet while the other one just had two, and their legs and arms were constructed far too different to belong to the same species: sexual dimorphism was weird sometimes, but he had never seen it that weird. Its scales were a brownish grey with no glint, but its forehead wore a dark green plate that reminds him even more of a Ninja Turtle.

A noise that seemed to come from outside caught his attention and it wasn't long before one of the metallic walls seemed to open to let a pair of people come in.

Thanks God! He thought before he smiled to the men and spoke with the clear-as-water, smooth-like-silk feminine voice that was already started to hate.

"Good god guys! Could anyone of you tell me where the hell am I? And what about the dinosaurs? Has Jurasic Park actually came true? And most of all, why in the seventh hell am I in a weird blue woman body?!"

His light and sarcastic tone was perfectly hiding his nervousness and fear. He didn't liked this situation at all, and the gun that one of the men had reached when the talked was making him rethink his intelligence at not playing the dead like and animal does to deceive a predator. He couldn't stand against them if he could not move alright yet.

The unarmed guy advanced, and he then saw the lab coat he wore. His gut yelled that that was a bad signal, recalling him of every mad scientists movies he has seen since he was a child. He thought the other man was going to poke him, take blood samples or something else, but instead he gave him a self-satisfied smile before letting a trey with three food containers and three glasses filled with water.

"Good to see one of you is awake, I was starting to hate being on feeding duty of you all. Glad to see that you speak out language, asari, that will make things easier" He signaled the container in the middle, marked with a red ex "This one, is for the girl over there" said pointing to the lithe dinosaur "the others are for you and your pal"

The man stood and turned to go, but he realized that none of his questions had been answered.

"Hey, you can't let me here! My lawyer is gonna know of you and soon your mad scientist career will be the last of your concerns!"

The man just chucked and started to talk with the soldier before closing the door behind him. At least now he knew he was an asari – whatever in hell that were – and that the small one was a female.

Still, he ate the weirdest food of his life – a purple steak – in complete silence, trying to figure out how many drinks had had the last night to induce this hallucination.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he woke to the sound of something big moving. His eyes opened to see the Ninja Turtle trying to put its arms under its body and try to lift its impressive mass from the floor.

It wasn't working. The thing was trying to fold its arms in a way that didn't seem possible for its species, and he was pretty sure that it would end up hurting itself if left on its own.

With a courage that he didn't really feel, he stood against the wall with his new, thinner legs and limped to the beast using the wall for support. Once he was near enough he extended a trembling hand and caressed its carapace with a touch that he hoped was soothing.

"Easy there buddy, this bodies doesn't seem to be used to move and if I have problems I don't even want to think what would be for me if I was a heavy tank like you"

A grow-like sound left the creature's mouth, but it seemed to understand and with his poor help it was soon in a sitting position against the wall, looking around with big amber scared eyes. The beast seemed as surprised and unsettled by this situation has he had been. He went to look for the food and when he came back he looked that it was looking at its arms with obvious panic while flexing his three fingers awkwardly.

"Here, some mad scientist let some food for us. Can you speak? Were you human too? Can you remember how you ended up here?"

Ninja Turtle had a clear understanding of his words, because it opened its mouth and moved it like to speak and answer, but from it scaly lips came no sound more than a scared squeak. He soothed the creature with some calm non-worded sounds, and then, when it had had a gulp of water, he asked again.

"Are you human?"

With the big scared eyes that were unsettling against its strong frame, it moved its head in a nod. He couldn't help but to smile.

"I'm too, human I mean, and a man despite my appearance. I woke up here as you just did not knowing where the hell I was. I can speak, but that maybe is because I had human lips. Are you a man or a woman?"

It tried to vocalize again, but then resigned and just held up a finger.

"So you are a he. Do you have a name?"

There was no need for words as the newly found male told him with his gaze to go fuck himself before centering on his food and try to ignore him. He just smiled and kept talking.

"Well, you will need a name. I'm not calling you Ninja Turtle forever… maybe Rafael?" The gaze was a murderous one this time, and he held his blue hands up "Okay, okay. Then I'll just call you Tank. I'm Malcom by the way, and how would you like to call the spikey dinosaur of a lady over there?" A growl was his answer "Yeah, I think Spikey will do"

He saw Tank roll his eyes and he couldn't help but laugh. It was going to be a long way out of hell, but at least now he wasn't alone.

They stood there for an unknown quantity of time, he asking yes-no questions and Tank answering or trying to talk with gestures that were not well translated because of his alien form. When the other figure in the room started to stir and move in her sleep, they both hauled themselves near of the other's lithe frame.

The sound of her groans were weird, her voice was feminine indeed almost as soft pitched as Malcom's new one, but rude in a way that reminded him more of Tank than of a human woman. It also had a double quality, like if there were two people groaning simultaneously instead of one. It also seemed to resonate in her chest before getting out.

It was unsetting at least, but never more than the yellow avian eyes that met his gaze when the strange creature opened them.

She emitted a weird screech before starting to blink furiously and that remind him of his own awakening and numbed senses, Tank hadn't had problems with that though. But even with her unsteady gaze she still tried to move with desperation that none of them hadn't expected.

He got near of her as he had done with his bulky friend before, and lend a soothing caress to the top of her head, that was free of the spikes that decorated its sides.

"Everything's alright princess, just a rude awakening in a body that doesn't seems to belong to you. Just the usual after a hangover"

She went still after that, and a rumbling chuckle accompanied by a weird sound he barely heard became the only sound that grazed the room. It soon changed into a hysterical roar of laughter, and even with the woman's weird vocals he could trace two emotions: joy and desperation.

When he tried to calm her again with a caress she stopped and tried to intersect his hand with one of her clawed ones – she didn't seemed to notice that fact though –, but her body was as irresponsible as theirs were and she gave up soon enough with them at the sight of her own hands. He decided to bring her food while she examined herself.

"So, I've been told you're a woman. Are you human?" Her eyes seemed to scream that he was very stupid and Tank just chucked at the scene while he left the food and the water at her feet before lifting his hands in defeat "Just sayin' babe, seems like I'm the only one this bastards had changed his sex"

Her head turned to the side out of curiosity and he couldn't help but remember his dog growing up and his tendency to do that gesture everytime he spoke to him. Still, it was quite impressive the fact that she was having more success communicating with corporal language that Tank, maybe it was because she was a female?

He sighed at her obvious question.

"I don't know what happened and I'm still clinging to the chance that this is a sick trick my pals pull into me. I'll try to get answers from the mad scientist when he comes back, but don't expect much"

After that the room went silent. He stood against the wall and did some stretching exercises while Tank tried to get his legs to work and Spikey tried to dink her water without it seeping in the open sides of her mouth, the things around it baring her strange mandibles and her sharp teeth.

When it became obvious that none of them was accomplishing their task today, they made a strategy circle, where with their growls and his words they decided to take watches while the other two slept, and the order of it.

So he went to sleep as well as the Ninja Turtle while Spikey mounted guard above them. The hard day caught up with him pretty soon, and he drifted into a dreamless sleep before he could register the harness of the concrete under his new too-soft body.