Alright, a pretty unusual (I think) Mass Effect/Halo crossover for now, this is the first story I ever wrote, so comments and suggestions are welcome.
Ugh, my head "What did Tim put in those drinks last night" I groaned. "Wait, where the hell am I?"
Then it all came back to me, the mission, the program, the war.
Shit
I look around. It was definitely not. It suddenly became apparent that I was in an alley, in who the hell knows where. I sit up, rub my head, and realize that the alley is mostly metallic looking. I start to get worried. I suddenly hear voices, and they appear to be arguing.
"Where's the Shadow Broker?" said a female voice.
"He'll be here" replied a rougher and deeper male voice.
"No way, deal's off"
I realized that it was becoming a tense situation very quickly. And because I don't like secret deals, I decide that now I should get involved. I check my equipment. I'm wearing my full combat load, power armor and all, with my M43a1 on its sling, my M1911a1 In its chest holster (I have a friend to thank for that one), and my combat knife in my boot holster. I walk towards the source of the sound, and am about to open the door, when it opens automatically.
"Well that's new" I murmur to myself.
Holy shit! Those are fucking aliens!
"Is there a problem here?" I say before thinking it through.
Then I see the arguers, they say "No, no problems here" calmly says an avian-looking alien with facial tattoos.
"No problems! You broke the deal! Forget it, I'm leaving!"
The other one replies. "All right then, kill them both."
Forget that for now, they're pulling guns; my SEAL training automatically kicks in and I feel the cool rush of adrenalin and the slight tingle of my nerves as the augmentations take over. I pull up my M43, pulling the trigger.
Oh shit.
I put a bullet into the center of the angry ones chest, but a blue oval forms around it. Unfortunately for him though, my second and third bullets goes right through his head. I quickly snap off 6 more bullets into the other two, with the same results. I start to relax with the silence that comes from dead bodies.
Then I hear a weak voice, "die you son of a bitch!" Oh Shi-BANG! I had been shot before, this time in the upper chest in between the neck and chest armor; I think it hit an artery. The black appears on the edges of my vision, I blacked out.
Commander John Shepard and his squad had just exited Chora's Den when he heard noises that answered his first question.
"Sir, that's gunfire!" exclaimed Kaiden.
"Move!" replied Shepard.
They all rushed to the origin of the shots to find a scene of complete carnage. There were two dead Salarians, a literally faceless Turian, and an unconscious heavily armed and armored human lying on the ground with a small hole in his chestplate, surrounded by a pool of blood, and a Quarian female standing beside him looking worried. She looked up, and practically screamed "Well, are you going to just stand there, or are you going to help him!"
"Commander John Shepard, Alliance Military, what happened here?"
"These people" she motioned towards the dead aliens, "were going to kill me, but then he came in shooting, killing them all."
"What happened next?" Kaiden asked, but Ashley blurted out "Sir, this wound looks serious; we need to get him medical attention now!"
"Alright, Kaiden, Ashley, I'll carry him. And you, uh, miss?" Shepard said, motioning to the female Quarian. "Tali Zorah nar'Rayya" she responded.
"Alright Miss.. eh… Zorah, you should come with us, we need to talk to you anyway." said Shepard.
"How is our patient doing, doctor?" Shepard asked.
"Good actually, he'll recover soon, but, I need to talk with you in private."
"Alright." As he closed the door, Shepard asked "What?" "Well, when I checked his ID card on the Alliance database, it turns out he doesn't exist. Jacob Armstrong, 1st Lieutenant, is not in the Alliance. At least, not on record, yet he possesses rather… advanced gene modification, which are probably illegal, as well as some form of nearly indestructible substance coating his bones, possibly more, and too much more to list off, I'll send you a report later." Said Doctor Chakwas, "anyway, when I checked his injuries, I found the entrance and exit wounds, but no internal damage, so I checked his blood, and I found something."
"Um, what did you find?" asked Shepard.
"Well, have a look."
She brought up some images on her Omni-tool. On the display, there were several black dots scattered throughout the image as well as the normal cells. The next was more magnified, showing they resembled mites, or maybe grey cells. The next one showed they were in fact nano-bots of some form.
"Nano-bots? I thought they are just experimental?" asked Shepard.
"I know, they appear to be keeping the cells alive and repairing damage ones, as well as stimulating growth in damaged areas." doctor explained. "Hey doc, he's waking up!" called Chief Williams from the Med Bay.
Ugh, my chest.
Again. Second fucking time I wake up and something hurts, though this time it's my chest. As I open my eyes, I take in my surroundings; lots of equipment (probably a hospital) and a young woman, probably twentyish.
SHIT.
I sprang out of the bed towards the woman, while simultaneously reaching for my knife. I grab it, get behind the woman and get her in a headlock. My bootknife is at her throat, but before I can ask who the hell she is, I feel the cold, hard, barrel of a gun at the back of my head.
"Drop the knife and back away" the cold voice of steel commands.
"Judging by where I am, you should already know that will only give me a nasty headache".
"No way, the only one that can walk off a gunshot to the head is a kro-
He didn't even finish his sentence before I spun around, releasing the woman, and twisted the pistol out of his hands, and into mine.
-gan… oh." He said, seeing the pistol, now in my hand.
I get a good look at him; brown hair, brown eyes, slight stubble on the chin, a small scar next to his eye, otherwise fairly normal.
"You want this back?" I ask, "Than give me your name and the year, then I'll give you mine."
"You're on the SSV Normandy, and I'm Commander Shepard."
"I'm 1st Lieutenant Jacob Armstrong, United States Navy SEALs." I told him.
"That's impossible," comes yet another new voice from behind me, "The United States Military, and all of its branches, was dissolved when the Systems Alliance was created in 2113."
"Bullshit," I replied, "The last thing that I remembered was sitting in an APC just inside a combat zone in China, in 2029." I say as I turn around to see the speaker.
My enhanced mind raced through possibilities, enemy ploy, a trauma induced dream, or even an alternate dimension.
"Kaiden!" Shepard asks at the newcomer "I thought you were in the mess hall?"
"I heard struggling, so I came to help." He responded.
"Okay, Lieutenant Armstrong, meet me in my office in five minutes, with a little less violence this time" Shepard said.
"Alright, but I going to run a few more tests." said Doctor Chakwas.
"Alright Shepard, what did you need to talk to me about?" I ask as I walk into his office. Luckily, Chief Williams told me where to go. As I enter, I see an open chair, and I take it. I look around, and notice another guy. Shepard answers the obvious question for me.
"Captain Anderson, meet Lieutenant Jacob Armstrong. He 'says' he's a Navy SEAL."
"Check the database" I say.
"We can't gain access to U.S. military records without the codes" said Anderson "the Alliance won't even acknowledge that you exist yet."
"Give me a sec, I can use… mine."
"Now then, Lieutenant, it says in the database that you enlisted in the military in 2019, you excelled in basic, showed excellent leadership skills, and was recommended for officer training. Your first mission went well, no casualties, injuries, or anything wrong. However, your second mission went badly. Two injuries, a fatality, and you had to carry one of the wounded back to the LZ. You received multiple bullet and shrapnel wounds in the leg and arms, and you and the wounded Chief Petty Officer Timothy Powell then held off the remaining troops for two days until backup could find you," Shepard took a deep breath, and continued, "You received a Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart, and Powell got a purple heart and a Silver Star."
Flashback…
"SNIPER!" I yell as I drag Private Kyle behind a wall, "everybody get to cover!" Bullets began to zip over my head as I check his wounds, I knew he was already dead, the bullet went clean through his heart.
"Tim, Haverson, flank that son of a bitch!" I say as I bring my up XCR-M and begin firing at the windows where the opposing fire came from.
"Aaaaah! Shit, he shot me!" I hear over the com.
"Tim, you okay?" I ask.
"Yeah, sir, He'll be fine, just a flesh wound" Private Haverson responds after checking Tim's wound.
All of a sudden I see a grenade bouncing over past my cover.
"GRENADE!" I leapt backwards in an attempt to avoid any and all serious shrapnel wounds.
"Ah, shit", I hissed in pain, while I felt the hot lances of pain in my legs as shrapnel cut through them ,going inter the armor plates. I saw a dark shape looming over me through the smoke from the explosion...
Anyway, he continued "After a few fairly successful recon missions, you were promoted to 1st Lieutenant and transferred to a... very highly classified project."
"Does this have anything to do with these augmentations?" asked Anderson.
"Sorry sir, classified information," I said, the truth.
"Continuing on, several years later, you were reported MIA and presumed dead in northern China on a search and rescue mission to find a downed pilot. Anything more is classified, we don't have access," Shepard added.
"Is this true, Lieutenant?" asked Anderson.
"Yes," was my answer.
"OK, we have two options here." Said Anderson "One, due to your expertise and occupation, we can let you join the crew, give you an Alliance ID, fabricate a service record for you, and you can join the crew on our mission to find and stop a rogue SPECTRE, sorry, a government agent, named Saren. Or, second option is we drop you off at the Citadel with your antique weapons."
"I'll probably be better off just sticking with you, Sir," I said.
"Okay, we can supply you with guns and armor, but any upgrades will come with your own money."
"Actually, sir, I would like my own gear back," I asked.
"Very well, also," said Shepard as he handed me a small device that looked like a sticker "it's an omni-tool. I'll get Kaiden to explain it to you. It has the mission parameters and should answer most of your questions."
"Thank you sir" I say and begin to walk towards the door.
"Welcome to the crew." I hear behind me as I leave.
As you can very well see, I edited the first chapter a little bit so to make more sense.
As for the augmentations, they will be explained shortly after the introduction of good'ol Master Chief, who will probably be seen by the third chapter.
By the way, thanks to Mattmaster112, he pointed out a few key mistakes.