Hello! I've decided to join a contest for fun. What contest you say? Well, it's the February Contest - Original Characters! which can be found in Aria's Afterlife forum. You should go check it out and see what other authors are doing. I've never done an OC before, let alone multiples, so bear with me. Expect references to major characters in the games but no interactions with them.

For those of you who happen to be following my other story 'J & J', do not fear. I have not abandoned it, I've just hit major writer's block with it and I can't wake my dang muse up. I will be working on both my stories at the same time but this one more than the other because I have a deadline.

So without further adieu, here is my new story 'Jori', from which I own nothing.

"Former Commander Shepard, and ex-Citadel Spectre, who was taken into custody by Earth Alliance forces six months ago, is still awaiting trial for her association with the rogue human organization known as Cerberus. Ongoing negotiations between the batarian and human governments over custody rights of Shepard, continue to hinder the progress of her trial."

Jori Rannta listened to the Galactic News as he waited for the elevator to arrive and take him to level 4 of Huerta Memorial Hospital to start work. Scrolling through his datapad, Jori grimaced at the amount of work waiting for him once the elevator finally arrived. His work load had recently increased since the closing of the Sirta Foundation Firm and he was now performing double duty in the currently understaffed labs.

He paused at his perusal and pulled up a file that caught his interest. An apparent red sand overdose. Normally, he'd think nothing unusual there, but what caught his eye was the lack of symptoms of an actual overdose on the victim's body with nothing else to indicate method of death. Indecently, the victim was a C-Sec officer assigned to the third cycle at the loading docks used for mass goods transportation. With his eidetic memory, Jori could confirm that he had never seen something like this before. Sure C-Sec officers were found dead and random individuals came in from overdoses, but nothing quite like this.

The muffled sound of the elevator doors opening, drew Jori's attention to the newly arrived elevator. He sighed at the sight of the packed car and stepped forward to board. Two krogan leered at him as they stood in the back of the small crowd. A few others among the various galactic species present, didn't receive him much more warmly than the krogan did, but nothing was said. Seeing no possible avenue of mobility to reach the control panel to request his floor, Jori braced himself as he spoke up. "Huerta Memorial Hospital, level four please."

At the sound of his gravelly voice, the few individuals who weren't paying attention, expressed the displeasure he should really be used to by now. The one salarian by the control panel looked up from his data pad, offered a cordial smile, and selected the requested destination before diving back into what he was reading. At least one person in this elevator wasn't going to have an issue with him.

As the elevator crawled along its path, Jori could feel the tension slowly climb in the confined space. He silently prayed to the gods to help the elevator along at a faster pace. At the sound of the doors sliding open, Jori thought his prayers were answered, until the pleasant feminine voice welcomed the occupants to the embassies. He closed his eyes in silent frustration.

"That's our stop," one of the krogan in the back announced and everyone began to shuffle to let them exit. As they passed Jori, they both managed to knock into him, causing him to hit the frame of the doors with his face. Pride kept him from checking to see if he was bleeding. When no one stared at him more than usual, he assumed there wasn't much damage.

At the next stop, a few of the asari, the volus, and a couple humans exited with little incident, to Jori's relief. The following stop had the majority of the car emptying out but not without a couple insults cast his way.

"Damn drell."

"Why they were declared a Citadel race is beyond me."

"God they look weird."

That last comment had Jori wondering about his looks. He didn't look bad, at least he didn't think so. He had no visible scarring and only minimal facial and body markings for the average drell. He'd been complimented more than once on his coloring: soft blue and orange. Usually by asari and the occasional salarian, the two species that seemed more or less indifferent to his own species. Like most drell, he was built tall and lean compared to the average human. The plates on the back of his head tended to stick out just a little more than usual, making them moderately comparable to turians' crests. But nothing made him really stand out, except for the fact he was a drell and they were rarely seen off of Kahje unless they were on assignment. And those individuals tended to be assassins or Special Forces for the hanar.

And that explained why he wasn't a welcome sight by most on the Citadel. His species were labeled as killers, agents of the hanar. Because of this, Jori had to deal with day to day prejudice that could be as little as what happened a moment ago, to being cornered in an alley and beaten, which had also happened a time or two.

"Welcome to Huerta Memorial Hospital level four."

The elevator's voice announced his stop and he quickly stepped off before any of the remaining occupants could say or do anything. He immediately entered the security checkpoint he went through multiple times a day to find the turian guard, Kern, on duty today. Jori didn't like him that much.

"Name?" Kern asked.

Jori inwardly sighed. It looked like it was going to be one of those days. "Come on Kern, you know who I am. You only need to check on those who don't normally come down here."

Kern pretended not to know what Jori was talking about and repeated, "Name?"

Jori really didn't like this guy. "Jori Rannta."

"Occupation?"

"Pathologist."

"Destination?"

"The Labs."

"Reason?"

Jori had to suppress his growing frustration. "I work there?"

"Authorization code?"

"Seriously?" Jori asked.

Kern just looked at him.

"Fine, 625 Sierra 626 Beta 81597."

Kern looked down at his access panel and began to punch in information. "The system needs to check your authorization to this area of the hospital. This will take a few minutes."

Jori dropped his head in defeat. He was going to be late because of Kern's stupidity and he really couldn't afford to be. It wouldn't be the first time someone had hindered his progress to work and he hoped his supervisor, Salan, wouldn't reprimand him for this. Of course he'd tried informing Salan before about what was going on, but nothing happened to stop this treatment.

"Hey Chuck." Kern said when the doors to the elevator opened to offload a human male in a lab coat.

"Hey Kern," the human replied. "How's your brother doing?"

Kern smiled as he fiddled with his access panel, "Doing good. Made it through the first month of training."

"That's good."

The doors leading to the labs opened up and Kern nodded to Chuck . "Go on through."

"Thanks, Kern."

Jori began to follow Chuck when Kern stopped him, "Not you, drell. Your authorization hasn't come through yet."

Jori exhaled in frustration but kept his hyoid silent. Turians were one of the few species who could hear and interpret the sounds of a drell hyoid. He learned the hard way that venting his frustration and anger through vocal sounds was not the best idea around those with their own unique vocal communication abilities.

Suddenly, Jori jerked as the memory of that encounter replayed in his mind. To the outside world, it seemed he was concentrating on something as he stared at the opposite wall and occasionally twitched. Internally, though, he was reliving every insult, punch, kick, and degrading comment he had had to endure that day. He ended up with broken ribs, lesions and contusions everywhere, and a ruined outfit.

When he returned to the world at present, the access panel beeped indicating Jori's authorization approval to enter the labs. Kern didn't even look at him as Jori exited the room and made his way to his assigned lab. On the way he kept an eye out for Salan and prayed to the gods he wouldn't be around to see Jori arrive late.

"Doctor Rannta, you're late," his salarian supervisor, Salan, commented disapprovingly. Before Jori could form an apology, Salan turned from him and headed toward the adjoining room. "No matter. Get your coat on and follow me. I have someone for you to meet."

Jori watched his supervisor disappear into the other room as he shrugged off his jacket and replaced it with his lab coat. Grabbing his datapad and buttoning his coat closed, he followed Salan into the other room wondering who he was to meet. It didn't take him long to spot Salan, across the room, talking to someone who was crouched down by the supply cabinet, just out of Jori's view.

"No, but I would be happy to find out," a sweet feminine voice answered an apparent question Salan had asked.

Relief washed over Jori as he discovered the 'someone' Salan wanted him to meet was a female. She was more than likely an asari and she was probably assigned to his lab as a partner. Asari generally had no issues with drell because they understood how the drell society functioned and didn't judge them for fulfilling their assignments. Because of this, Jori began to look forward to working with his new lab partner and the possible stress-free environment past partners failed to create.

"Ah, Jori. Meet your new lab partner, Doctor Deena Farthing," Salan introduced.

"Oh!" exclaimed the female who had yet to stand. As she did, Jori's eager anticipation dissipated as he realized she was human.

"Doctor Farthing, this is Doctor Jori Rannta." Salan continued the introductions. As Doctor Farthing turned around she had her arms full of supplies and a smile on her face that changed to surprise when she saw Jori. He knew what was to come next as soon as Salan left the room. The suspicious looks, the quiet remarks that weren't so quiet, and the eventual dislike of each other. He couldn't catch a break in any regard today, could he?

"I trust you two will get along," Salan said before either of them could provide a cordial greeting. "I'll leave you to your work. Doctor Rannta will show you around, Doctor Farthing." With that, Salan left the room, effectively leaving them alone.

Jori watched Doctor Farthing a moment, dreading what always came next when other species meet a drell. Dislike, hate, threats, insults, they were all the norm for him. What happened next, though, completely surprised him.

Doctor Farthing seemed to shake herself out of a trance, "Oh, I'm so sorry. How terribly rude of me." She shuffled the items around in her arms in an attempt to free a hand. When she realized that that wasn't going to work she opted to place the items on the table then presented her hand to him. He took a moment to look at it before presenting his own.

"Doctor Farthing," she re-introduced herself. "But you can call me Deena. No sense in throwing 'doctors' around all day when we both know we are one."

Jori didn't know what to say. She wasn't acting at all as hostile as predicted and to top it all off, she offered to be on a first name basis. He took a moment to take her in. She was shorter than he, without measuring, she probably came up to his shoulders. Her frame was athletic for a human, as opposed to the thinner females he's seen at kiosks and help desks. She wore a lab coat like his and her not quite blonde hair was pulled up out of her face where he could see freckles, as the humans called them. She was pretty, for a human. Not that he fancied humans or anything but of all the ones he'd met, he liked the look of her the most.

Her smile widened when he realized he was staring and gave a slight shake of his head to bring him back to the topic at hand.

He cleared his throat and returned her greeting, "Doctor Rannta…Jori is fine."

To his amazement, her smile widened even further, leaving him completely confused as to why she was so happy to meet a drell. Maybe no one had told her about drell? That was probably it. Once someone enlightened her, she wouldn't be so happy to work with him. He was not looking forward to when that happened.