Chapter 1: Time toaster?

It was a fairly peaceful day in Megaton when James, aka Lone Wanderer, decided to pay a visit Moira Brown at Craterside Supply. When he entered, the shops owner wasn't behind the counter, only her hired mercenary was there. "You might wanna turn back while you still can." said the mercenary to him. This was surprising to James because he never really said anything only other than 'I'm keeping an eye on you.' routine. If he was warning him, then Moira was up to no good. "Uuu! Is he here?" said Moira while appearing from a room around the corner. "Perfect timing! You once again get to be my super research assistant in my latest project. I'll be right back" Moira then went into the room and came back carrying a toaster that had a few light bulbs and series of dials on the side.

"Moira, what is that?" asked James.

"It's a Time Toaster!" said Moira in, excited manner.

"A Time Toaster?"

"A Time Toaster. Like a time machine but it's made out of a toaster."

James rubbed his forehead and asked. "Where did you get this idea exactly."

Moira began to explain. "Well, a week ago a man wearing a blue suit and carrying a briefcase came to my shop and he offered me this weird orange crystal. He was kinda odd. Had a low, raspy voice, made strange pauses, and his pitch also kept changing awkwardly. Most weird thing about him was that he almost constantly stretched certain letters, especially the letter S, like an snake."

"And please, tell me you didn't take that crystal of his." said James worryingly.

Moira replied. "No, listen you big silly. That man explained that he heard about me and the crystal showed me has the potential to travel through time. He couldn't do t, but he hoped I could. He gave me his notes and told me that I basically need something that can give a lot of power to the crystal to create a time portal. I've been working on it ever since."

James pointed at the toaster. "You're telling me that crystal you mentioned is inside that toaster right now?" Moira nodded in response. "And that thing is supposed to go through time?" Moira nodded again. "IF, by some miracle, that thing works, how do you plan to use it?" Moira stared at James and said with enthusiasm. "To stop the Great War. To prevent the bombs from dropping down on us, to warn people about the future if they keep going on the current path. To make a better world. With your help, it's completely possible." James was silent for a moment because the way Moira was into her project was the same way how she was working on Wasteland Survival Guide. He decided to humor her and agreed to help her. "Great. Now just to make your skepticism go away, I'll demonstrate that my toaster works." she picked up a coffee mug and placed it right next to the Time Toaster, turned few of the dials, and said. "Now when this starts, that mug will travel 5 minutes into the future and appear back on that counter." Moira pushed the toasters lever down and moved back. The toaster hummed for a few second, then it sparks began to slowly surround it. "Is that normal?" asked James. "Oh, it's perfectly normal." said Moira. The sparks covered the mug and a bright flash suddenly appeared and the mug was nowhere in sight.

5 minutes later, another flash appeared and the mug was right back where it was. James was impressed. "Looks like you're on to something Moira." Moira then grabbed his arm and pulled him next to the toaster. "And now for my next demonstration, we'll perform same thing on us." James immediately put his hand front of Moira's face. "Now hold on, you're planning to use it on us? Is it even safe for organics?" Moira assured him. "Don't worry, I've tested this on mutfruits and molerats and those worked out fine. The only real problem is that it takes an hour for it to cool down."

After an hour has passed, Moira asked James. "Are you ready? Super research assistant?" James looked at the mercenary and he merely showed pity for him. "Let's get this over with." said James. Moira pushed the lever and as the toaster hummed, Moira said. "Same as before, we go 5 minutes into the future and we'll be back right where we were." the sparks slowly covered James and Moira, getting a static feeling on their skin.

"Moira? You sure this is safe?"

"To be perfectly honest? I have no idea."

"You can't be seriou-AAAAHHHHH!"

Both began to scream as the sparks violently circled around them. A bright flash appeared and they were gone. The mercenary was hiding behind a wall and decided to carefully to take a closer look. There was burned spot where Moira and James was standing and he noticed that the toaster was gone as well. He waited 5 minutes and said. "They're not coming back, are they?"

Meanwhile in the Normandy.

Grunt was in his room, making his kill list, until he heard a small boom in the hangar. He grunted and made his to the hall. Zaeed was also at the hall and spoke to Grunt. "Did you also hear that noise?" Grunt nodded and both decided to look through the window only to see two humans in there. Kenneth, Tali, and Gabriella came out the engineering with Tali saying. "What was that noise?" Zaeed turned around and said. "We don't know, but we do know that we have uninvited guests." the engineers looked at the window and the two people at the hangar. Zaeed then told them to get Shepard while he and Grunt would go take care of them.

Meanwhile at the hangar, James and Moira wondering where they are. "I have a feeling we didn't exactly go through time here, Moira." said James. "But hey, we're still alive!" said Moira with optimism. "I wouldn't count on that lass." said Zaeed while holding his assault rifle and Grunt pointing his shotgun. James and Moira lifted their hands in the air and Moira then said to them. "We come in peace?" Zaeed laughed. "Ain't you a cute one." suddenly a small electric burst appeared above, revealing the toaster, dropped on Zaeed's head, knocking him, and landed at Moira's feet.

"Hey, there it is." said Moira while kneeling down to reach it. Grunt pointed his shotgun at her and James instinctively rushed towards him, pushing his shotgun in the air. "Run Moira!" shouted James and Moira picked up the toaster and ran to hide somewhere. James managed to pull off Grunt's shotgun from his hands but he then shouted. "I am KROGAN!" and ram James against on the generators, causing him to drop the weapon. Grunt put James in firm hold and said. "You put up a good fight human." James replied. "I'm hard to kill." James then added. "No offense, but what are exactly? You look like an overgrown iguana." Grunt was baffled. "What? You're telling me that you never heard of krogans? A mighty race of warriors that are dying out?" James replied. "Nope."

"Very well white haired man, my turn. Who are you?" asked Grunt. "Name's James. Some folks like to call me Messiah because of the good deeds I've done for them. Now let me go, or else."

"Or else what?" said Grunt who wasn't impressed by James' words, but he began to notice the killing intent in his eyes.

Patrice Shepard, Garrus Vakarian, Miranda Lawson and Jack arrived at the hangar, and just as Shepard was about to call for Grunt, he flew across the hangar. "Well, hello." said Jack in surprise. "It's not everyday you see a flying krogan." joked Garrus. Shepard pulled out her shotgun and said. "Get ready people. I have a feeling that we're not dealing with regular thugs here." the rest armed themselves and moved towards Grunt. Garrus examined him and said. "Grunt looks to okay, but seems like he just received a nasty blow and that can't be good."

Shepard heard something behind her and turned around. There she saw James standing, flicking his sunglasses open and putting them on. "Sorry for hurting your teammate. Pure self defense." Shepard took a good look on him and the first thing she notice was his white hair and a white military uniform that was white as well, and it looked fairly old fashioned. "Yeah, helluva self defense if I ever saw one." said Jack sarcastically at him. "We've been told that there were two people in the hangar. Where's the other one?" said Lawson in her usual demanding attitude. "I told her to run since she's not the fighting type, so she's most likely hiding somewhere." he replied.

Then Kasumi appeared while holding Moira with her. "Hey Shep! Look what I found." Moira had a nervous smile on her face. "Heh heh, Sorry, I got caught." James sighed. "And apparently not good at hiding either." Zaeed came behind the generator while holding his head. "Bloody hell, that hurt." James pointed his thumb to Zaeed's direction. "His case is purely an accidental, I swear."

Zaeed and Grunt were put into medical bay while James and Moira were interrogated at the communications room. There they explained Moira's toaster and her attempt at traveling through time. Shepard, Miranda, Jacob, Mordin and Tali were taking part with the interrogation. "So you people tried to go through time by using this device?" asked Miranda. Mordin was observing the toaster, being very fascinated by it. "Why yes." said Moira. "So? What year were in?" Jacob answered. "2186 ma'am." James said. "Not only we went 100 years backwards, we also ended up in a whole different world."

Shepard asked him. "Then what year is it in your world?"

"2279. I'm pretty sure that this isn't our world because we haven't achieve this level of space flight."

"I wonder what caused the machine to put us in another world instead of going through time?" said Moira, wondering the toasters function.

"You also mentioned a different world. How is this different?" asked Miranda. James sighed and said. "Here's the short version. In our world, 200 years ago, a lot of countries got mad because of the rapid decline of resources and nobody would share. So they thought it was a good idea to drop nuclear bombs at each other, hoping they would survive in the process." Mordin stopped observing the toaster and said. "Nuclear war?" James nodded. "We call it The Great War. Funny thing is that it lasted only two hours, but it blew everything to oblivion. To this day, humans still continue to survive in a world we now call the Wasteland." the room was silent until Shepard began to speak. "With those circumstances I can understand the attempt." she then spoke to Moira. "If you don't mind, Doctor Mordin will take a look at you device here. He could figure out what might have happened, he might even possibly make a few upgrades to it." Moira agreed enthusiastically, having a chance to work with technology and aliens.

"If I were to offer a suggestion commander?." said Miranda. "I would suggest that we should let them use our showers first. Judging from the smell they hadn't had one for a long time." Jacob agreed. "I agree with Miranda, commander. They almost smell worse than the corpses at Omega during the plague. No offense." short time later, James was at the Armory while Moira was at the crew quarters, preparing herself for the shower. She was accompanied by Kelly Chambers who volunteered to assist the two. Moira came from the crew quarters with a towel around her body.

Kelly spoked to Moira. "I see you're ready. The women's showers are to your right. It has all the shampoo and hair care products you need. I'll also bring you spare clothing to the crew quarters while your jumpsuit is cleaned as well. So, do need any help?" Moira shooked her head. "No need silly, I'm sure they're the same what we got as well, but thanks for the offer Kelly." Moira then made her way to the women's showers and when was done bringing the spare clothes, she then went to the Armory meet up with James. At the Armory, James was going through all the weapons that was displayed on the tables. "We don't have these sort of weapons in our world." said James while examining M-5 Phalanx. "Then what do you use?" asked Jacob.

"We got conventional weapons like pistols and SMG's. We also have energy weapons like plasma, laser and tesla."

"Plasma and lasers?" said Jacob in disbelieve. "Humanity's tech has advanced a lot, but we haven't got even close to make plasma or laser based weaponry."

"Really? Next thing you're telling me that you don't possess hologram technology, androids, or medicine that flushes radiation out from your system and makes you more resistant to it."

"No, but we do use technology that can alter one mass and able to travel at speed of light. Our weapons use what we call mass accelerator that greatly increases bullets overall deadliness."

James and Jacob were getting along as they explained each other how their tech worked. When they finished, James asked Jacob. "Hey, do you have a place where I can place my stuff?"

"You can put them over there." said Jacob, pointing an empty table.

James went to the empty table and placed there his items. Mirelurk meat, 10 Nuka-Cola's, 20 Quantum's, Softshell mirelurk meat, 12 punga fruits, Med-X, Rad-X, RadAway, stimpaks, 44. Magnum, Lincoln's Repeater, Terrible Shotgun, 10mm Ultra SMG, Nuka grenades, Plasma grenades, Metal Blaster, Xualong assault rifle, mines, plasma mines, MPLX Novasurge, Man Opener, Deathclaw gauntlet, Double-barrel shotgun, Railway rifle, Reservist's rifle, Fatman, Tesla cannon, and Jingwei's Shocksword.

Jacob's jaw dropped from the amount of weapons he carried, especially the Fatman and the Tesla cannon. Shepard came to the Armory. "Hey Jacob, I came to see how you two are doing. What the?" Shepard's jaw also dropped but with different reasons. "Is that 44. Magnum what I'm seeing?" James replied. "Yes, yes it is." Shepard went to the table and grabbed the 44. and started to examine it. "I haven't seen these ever since my colony got attack by slavers. My father liked to collect guns from 20th century" said Shepard

"I'm sorry to hear that." said James.

"Don't worry." said Shepard. "I've learned to deal with it."

Kelly appeared in the Armory, calling for James. "Well, looks like it's my turn. Feel free to go through my weapons, just one rule though."

Jacob asked. "What is that?"

"Don't touch the Fatman, or the Tesla cannon. If you do, boom. Goodbye ship."

Jacob let off a nervous 'right' and James followed Kelly. Shepard took the Terrible Shotgun and said. "I'm going to try this baby at the range."

Author's notes: Got his idea when I was working on my other works, so leave a review and tell me your opinion.