Written 02/27/11.

Disclaimer: No I do not own Mass Effect, but they may have set up an illegal occupation in my head.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

-Mohandas Gandhi

Omega

So walking down the street from class in a snow storm is never fun. Wearing too many clothes, a cowl that cuts off peripheral vision, and glasses that, as consequence of the cowl, fog up and make it very difficult to see, was never my favourite part of winter. I felt very fortunate that I had not been an unwitting participant in a hit and run yet, emphasis on the yet, but everyone's luck runs out some time. The time my luck ran out was just about when I ran into the Vorcha. Definite lack of luck right there.

It was, not to be clichéd, a very ordinary winter day, as in it was cold, wet and slushy. It was a few weeks after my 21st birthday and after spring break. I was sloughing my way back and forth to classes, trying desperately to push my GPA up every miniscule point I could. That is, when I was not immersed in whichever story that had caught my attention at the moment. I was at the time quite enamoured with Mass Effect 2, though I had never played the first game. Something about the game spoke to me, which is fair. I have always thought that important memories do not just reverberate forward in time, but backwards as well. I once met a dear friend that way, I recognized her, but she said we had never met before. It led to a beautiful friendship. So, it was fitting, that the stories of the Mass Effect universe were going to become very significant to me.

That day I was focused on the fact that if I was a second late, I would end up waiting at the bus stop for an hour, in the dark, in the snow. I had already caught the flu once that year and was in no hurry to repeat the experience. So when the universe shifted, and where before there had been another classmate I had been trailing, there was a blurry, yet skinny figure blocking my path, running directly into him, I think, was excusable. Of course I can understand why the vorcha did not agree with me.

"Stupid human!" It, or was it he? Snarled and pushed me back. His very warm and pointy hand slammed into my shoulder, my leather jacket muffled the hit, a little. I stumbled a bit, but caught my footing. Despite being dressed for the weather I'd worn my running shoes, I was getting really tired of boots.

I looked up at him my glasses still foggy, the vorcha still concealed by an indiscernible fog. "Sorry," the apology came to my lips without hesitance. Of course it also came out high pitched and breathy as an asari dancer looking for a big tip, but that was just me being surprised, honest. Okay, so I was a little embarrassed I had run into someone, I never run into people.

"Go away human," the blurry humanoid hissed. Now I was not completely oblivious. Something strange was going on. Not every day a person gets addressed as "human," like it's a dirty word. I whispered another apology, embarrassed, and walked onwards, my glasses clearing up very quickly. I was a bit surprised by what I saw... Okay I was verging on a panic attack but I like to remember handling it with more grace.

I was on some kind of main road, there were people everywhere. It was dark and claustrophobic, people were pressed closely together, pushing through each other or moving with the traffic, it felt like a New York City subway tunnel. And when I say people, I do not mean humans, sure they were there and there were a lot of them, but they were not even a quarter of the mass of bodies pressing together. The moment I saw an alcove on the path, I stepped in. I tore off my cowl, pulling my hair into the rough formation of bird's nest, and furiously wiped my glasses off on my shirt hem.

"Shit." It did not help. From my tiny alcove, so close I could reach out and touch, I was being passed by a few turians dressed in armour, suspiciously blue and white armour, a couple Asari in long dresses, another turian who seemed to be following the Asari, two very frightening batarians, and an honest to the Cosmos elcor.

A freaking elcor. With a bright blue hat.

I was in some kind of tunnel. It was dark, dirty, loud and smelled terribly like an open sewer. And even though my perspective was a little off, it looked terribly familiar.

Now despite that fact I had not realised I was on Omega yet, I probably should have had better sense than to just sit down. Rendering oneself prone on a busy Omega street is not generally thought of as good survival instinct. But my brain was reaching critical mass and all those extra functions, like standing up and blinking, were using up valuable processing power. And when I went down I went down hard. I think that bruise on my butt lasted a good month. I was gaping at the crowd, like a slack mouthed yokel, I was just so shocked.

I was staring, at aliens, from a video game. I had run into one, and my shoulder still felt the sting from the push the alien, the vorcha, had given me, so I did not think I was hallucinating. Probably. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and slowly, ever so slowly opened them again. Nope still there, oh and I also saw my first Salarian, and she was female. Female Salarian, so by that point I was pretty sure I was not dreaming. I do not think my mind would have come up with what she looked like. She was as amphibious as the male of the species, yet lacking the horns and much more petite. She was actually kind of cute to be honest. Just to be sure I closed my eyes again, stood up carefully, and pinched myself, hard. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I felt the sting.

There was a blue krogan in heavy black armour looking at me, okay glaring but in my defence krogan almost always glare.

He was still glaring at me, and not moving, forcing the foot traffic to divide around him, like water around a stone.

"Uh, sorry," I apologized again in what had probably been ten minutes, "Is this your... spot? I'll just go, I didn't mean to..." I spoke breathily, trying to smile. You see, I am Canadian. Very, very Canadian. And I fully embrace the Canadian identity of polite and kind. It had always seemed to work out very well for me in the past. Of course that was not a day of things working out for me.

"Give me your bag human," the krogan growled. Now he was by all means a very intimidating example of krogan, big, very big, but not many scars. He was a full head taller than me, not counting his prominent hump. Unexpectedly it was quite off-putting to be spoken to by a blue person.

"What?" I asked, still a little dazed. I was adjusting to the moment but not quite quickly enough. In hindsight maybe the fact I was a little dazed and confused, okay a lot, led to my obtuse act of stupidity, but then again I have been told insanity runs in the family.

The krogan stepped forward, reached out and grabbed the strap of my backpack. His claws scratched my coat as he clenched the strap. "Give me your bag human, or I will take it," he growled at me. Surprisingly merciful for a krogan I have always thought since then, especially on Omega. So my response probably was not indicative of a healthy self preservation instinct.

"No. Let me go," I told the krogan. The forcefulness of his grab had jerked me close to him and quickly inspired the more aggressive side of my personality. I had no weapons, no chance of fighting the krogan, and apparently no common sense. I looked the Krogan in the eye, deep and black, glaring.

"Don't be stupid human, I will kill you," the krogan told me, thundering at me, growling. I could feel his hot breath on my face, it was not pleasant. My heart was pounding, my shoulder throbbing, but my mind had stilled. I do not mean I had collected my thoughts, quite the opposite actually. The only thing between my ears was my pulse.

"I said let me go." It came out low and soft. My face was calm. I reached up to grab his arm that was holding me. I looked up at his face, my was body almost pressed flush against his, we were separated by a scant few centimetres of air. I was off balance, my weight was mostly being supported by the krogan. I should have been terrified, but I was not. My mind was empty then, but I look back and wonder, what if that had been it? In that moment I caressed my death like a lover, for the first time. It was intimate and arousing, terrifying and debilitating. But in that moment I was nothing but a very stupid girl, staring down a large and frightening krogan. Over her backpack.

The world had faded around us. My focus had been consumed and conquered by the Krogan towering over me. He leaned closer to me, pulling me up to the level of his eyes. I stared him down as best I could, I think I focused on his right eye, they were so far apart. The eyes was black, deep and large. He spoke again, revealing his very sharp teeth. "What did you say human?" He growled his words at me, his breathe a noxious gas.

For a moment we stared at each other. It was a single moment in time, infinite and instantaneous. He wanted my possessions, but more than that he wanted my fear. I gave him neither. It was a very small, very important moment in my life.

And then the moment ended and the krogan's head exploded.

"She said let her go. Twice."

The Krogan fell limply back from me, a look of stunned surprise on his face. His claws cut at my bag, nearly pulling me down. The world around me flooded back into my senses, the noise, the smell and the heat hit me like a grenade, overwhelming me. I was covered in the Krogan's hot orange blood and tissue. The smell was awful, like acid crawling into my nose. I let out a strangled sound and wiped at my face, desperately trying to remove the gore.

"Wait! Here. Use this!" A cool cloth was pressed into my hand. "Treated with medi-gel. Will prevent rash."

I wiped furiously at my eyes and face. The cloth tingled coldly against my skin, relieving the sudden sting from the alien blood. I cleaned off my glasses as best I could with a clean corner of the cloth. I put my nearly clean glasses back on and looked at the ground, at the dead krogan at my feet. Or he would have been dead if he had not been a krogan. One side of his face was scorched and blackened with a small orange hole, and the other side of his face was a much larger and messier hole. His intact face, stared up at me in disbelief and then unconsciousness. I drew a deep shuddering breath, and looked at the person who had shot my krogan.

"Hello. I am Dr. Mordin Solus. Are you all right?"