A/N: TL;DR: This is my first ever fanfic. Rated M for language, violence and (maybe) sex. SI/Self Insert.

Hello and welcome, dear readers!

This is the first work of fiction I've ever written, so please bear that in mind when you call me names in your reviews! I also don't have a beta reader yet (if you want to be my beta, let me know in a PM!), so there may be some errors. If you spot any blatant ones, don't hesitate to hit me up and letting me know!

This will (hopefully) eventually be a series spanning the entire ME 1-3 series, with this first installment covering the time period from around the time my Self Insert gets transported to the ME-Verse until around the time ME 1 starts. It's rated M for language, violence and possibly sex, mainly depending on if I can actually write a sex-scene worth a damn. It'll probably include a bunch of references to pop-culture, memes, etc. Pairings are still undecided. OC's will appear (aside from myself). It's not going to be review driven; I'll post a chapter as soon as I think it's done. However, getting nice reviews aren't exactly going to make me write less. With that said, LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

9:02 AM, September 1st 2014, Royal Institute of Technology – Main Courtyard, Stockholm, Sweden

"The Zerø sure ain't pretty this year huh, VP?" I said loud enough for everyone to hear as I glanced over the crowd of freshmen.

The Vice President of our branch of the student organization, as well as my best friend, Michael Shepard, looked over at me before answering, just as loudly. "Yeah, Prez, they look like shit." He didn't even skip a beat, immediately getting what I was going at.

This was all part of the hazing all new freshmen have to go through. Of course, they didn't know that, which made the entire thing that much more fun.

I started speaking to the crowd again. "You may be wondering why me and my Vice President are speaking English when we're all Swedes at a Swedish college. That's where you're wrong, my VP is actually a foreign exchange student, so in order for him not to feel excluded, you will all be speaking English whenever he's nearby." He wasn't. He moved over here from Canada when we were 10, and we were best friends by the time we were 11. He spoke perfect Swedish. But the freshmen didn't speak perfect English, so we used any means available to humiliate them further.

"Uhh, excuse m-" A girl at the front of the crowd began. I'd have none of that.

"Oh, I'm sorry, you must be mistaking this college for a place where you're allowed to speak when not spoken to." I quickly interrupted while walking over to her, getting a few mere inches away from her face. She recoiled like a .44 Magnum – hard and fast. "Now, to answer the question you surely was going to ask without permission, The Zerø is you." I pointed to the freshman who had asked the question. "And you." I pointed to the one next to her. "And you." I pointed to a third, a ways away from where I was standing. "And The Zerø are every one of you, as a collective. It's what you'll be called until we, " I turned and pointed between Michael and myself. "find you worthy of using your normal names. Until then, you will also wear these stupid-ass-looking hats." I pointed at one of the hats that every one in the crowd was wearing.

"Now, I think it's time The Zerø had their first lesson, don't you think, VP?" I continued as I walked back to stand next to Michael.

"Yeah, sounds good, Prez." He answered with a grin. "Some of you fatso's look a bit out of shape, how about everyone runs a couple of laps around campus?" This was met with groans from just about everyone in the crowd. I understood their feelings; the campus was HUGE. "I must have misheard you, because it sounded like you didn't say 'Sir, yes Vice President, sir!'"

They just looked at us for a moment, not really understanding what to do. "In case it wasn't clear, you will answer any command given by us with 'Sir, yes, "our title", sir', IS THAT UNDERSTOOD!?" I took mercy upon their misunderstanding souls, if only to get a chance to yell at them again.

This time most of them got it, it seemed. "Sir, yes President, sir!" More than half of them shouted, before jogging off, as per our instructions.

"And don't cut any corners, trust me, we'll know!" I shouted as the last of them disappeared. It didn't take long before we couldn't contain it anymore and burst out into laughter.

"They- They're so gullible." Michael managed to wheeze out between laughing fits. "I bet they believe we have the power to make them do this shit!"

"Hey, it's all for a good cause, right?" I asked him with a smirk. We'd tell ourselves that if they couldn't take the mental stress our first couple of weeks caused them, they couldn't take the stress that their now not-so-future education – one of the hardest there are – would bring. We were just saving them time, essentially. At least in theory. In reality, we were just abusing our pseudo-power.

"Yeah. Let's go grab a beer while they're working their asses off."

"I love it when it's you who suggest that, it makes me feel less like an alcoholic."

My first name is Eric, and since I've never really liked my last name I'm just going to use the name I ended up using later in my life, Anderson (which also accidentally is one of Sweden's most common last names). My hair is rat-colored and quite short, just around two inches. I have greenish-blue eyes, and am about 6'5". I was 24 years old and had just started my senior year at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, one of Sweden's most prestigious colleges, where I was the president of my program's branch of the student organization, and had been since my sophomore year. This meant that I was in charge of hazing the new freshmen for our each year, or 'zeroing' as we call it in Swedish (hence the term 'the zerø').

My vice president was Michael Shepard, who'd been my best friend since we were both 11. He was about my height, but had black hair and dark green eyes. During the summer break between high school and college we went through the Swedish Basic Military Training (BMT) together. We reached the awesome, high rank of Private. Neither of us actually considered a military career, but it looked good on your CV. It also helped when we were hazing the freshmen, having gone through the real deal ourselves.

Michael and I acted all tough and cool, but deep down we were just a couple of nerds who loved gaming. We both loved the Mass Effect series (except for the ending of the third, obviously), and had many good laughs at how his last name was the same as the protagonist's in Mass Effect.

As we walked, albeit a tad bit unsteadily from our beers, back to our rendezvous-point, we noticed a lone girl standing there, waiting, apparently done way before she should have been.

"Looks like The Zerø cheated." I said to Michael, loud enough for the girl standing there to hear.

"I didn't cheat." The girl, who was according to her hat named Jane, responded, not even sounding out of breath.

"Oh, so you just happen to run marathons in your spare time?" I said, my voice laced full of sarcasm, grinning at my best friend.

"Well, yes."

"Oh yeah, Ms. Marathon, how many have you run, then?" Michael asked her, sounding as disbelieving as I was.

"Well, I've run the Stockholm Marathon for 5 years in a row now, and last year I ran the London Marathon, too." We stared at her; shock clear in our faces. At this point, she took up the smile that we had dropped. "What? Studies show that students who are physically fit also do better intellectually."

"Allright, whatever, just go sit over there on the grass, while we wait for the rest of The Zerø." I said to her, before quickly whispering to Michael as she walked away. "Dibs."

"Dammit, Eric, imagine if we got married, she'd be Jane Shepard. Think about how epic it would be!" He whispered back.

"You two are not getting married."

"Why?"

"Because I called dibs first."

"You know what, fuck you." He replied with a grin, showing he wasn't completely serious. "I'll get you back for this, you know that, right?"

"I'm counting on it."

The rest of the two initiation weeks went about the same way, us abusing our power, and the freshmen accepting their fate. We didn't go too overboard – they didn't come to any real harm – but that's not to say they had it easy.

A few days before their hazing period officially ended, we had a gasque; a sort of party that starts with dinner and ends with one hell of a party. That particular one was at the student organization's "sports cabin", situated about an hour from central Stockholm. Since it was so far away from the city, it was custom for must people to spend the night there too, going home the day after.

During the dinner, Jane was conveniently placed next to me, whereas Michael sat next to just the next-best looking girl from that year. My plan was to not get shit faced that night, so that I could 'seal the deal', so to speak. Alas, one does not simply drink one beer.

By the time dinner was over, I was pretty drunk, and it seemed like a good idea to go out to the cliffs to watch the sunset with Jane. Which it would have been, had I not been that drunk. As it was, I was barely hanging on by a thread, and we even brought a six-pack out with us. After drinking that much, nature is bound to call. I went into the woods to take a piss, leaving her behind on the cliffs, all alone.

Around here my memory starts to get a bit foggy, but I remember standing in the woods, peeing against a tree when I see a flash, and then it all went black.

The next thing I knew, I was lying face down in the grass somewhere. With the worst hangover I've ever had.

"Uuuuuunngh…" I tried to put my confusion into words, and I'm not really sure if it was an extreme success or an epic fail.

After a couple of minutes of me trying to get myself together enough to actually sit up, I managed to muster the strength to do just that. To call what I saw when I properly sat up shocking would be the understatement of the year. I was flabbergasted.

I was sitting in the courtyard in the middle of RIT campus. But it was… Wrong. There was no one anywhere – it was completely deserted. Everything looked withered and old, none of the trees that were here the day before were left, and there was a layer of dust over everything.

'What the hell happened yesterday?' I thought.

I looked around, before making my way towards the closest major road, thinking that was the best way to figure out what was going on. As I walked through the archway leading out of the courtyard, I was dumbstruck yet again. Everything was in ruins.

The major road I was headed for was littered with large cracks and there were debris all over it; there was no way any cars were going to drive on it any time soon. Then I saw the buildings on the other side of the road. Some had large holes in them, on others entire sides had collapsed and laid scattered at the base of the structure in the form of debris of various sizes and shapes.

I needed to check this out more closely, so I made my way down towards the road. As I came closer, I noticed the buildings were littered with small holes. Walking up to one of the buildings, it was obvious they were bullet holes.

'What the fuck? Did I sleep through World War III and wake up in some post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland?'

I still very much recognized the landscape; all the houses from before were there, they were just in ruins and full of bullet holes.

While I stood and inspected the house, wondering just what had happened, I suddenly felt something poke me in the back. "Hands up, and turn around slowly" I heard a man say from behind me. I did as he asked, not wanting to get shot.

When I had turned, I got a look at his gun; it looked like nothing I'd ever seen before. He also had two considerably larger partners who stood just behind him, to his left and right. They all wore mismatched armor, but only the guy in the middle had a gun. "You think you can just waltz into Viking territory, just like that?" He continued, pointing the gun up at my face.

"Wha- Vikings, what are you talking about? And what happened to all the houses? And the fucking road?" In retrospect, it probably wasn't that smart asking these questions to the man holding me at gunpoint. At the time, though, I was too confused to think straight.

"What the fuck are you talking about, fool? You live in Stockholm and haven't heard of the Vikings? You gotta be kidding!" He started laughing, and his friends soon joined him, probably out of fear, considering their laughs were as fake as they get.

'So he is the leader.'

"I'll tell you what, I'm feeling generous today. I'm not gonna kick your lying ass for disrespecting us. Just give us your credit chit and your omni-tool, and you can be on your way." He continued while lowering his gun somewhat, in some show of good faith.

'Omni-tool? Credit chit? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!' I thought before answering him. "I- I don't have an omni-tool. Or any credit chit…"

"Well, it looks like this idiot wants to get beat up. Boys, do your thing." He backed up a few steps; apparently wanting to get out of harms way while the thugs softened me up.

Sure, I had gone through basic, but there was no way I was going to take down two guys with upper arms the size of my thighs, especially not ones who wore armor while I was just wearing normal clothes. Still, the last thing to leave a man is his hope, so I had to try.

I shifted to a CQC stance we'd learned at BMT. As they closed on me, a blue light flickered in and out of existence around me. 'Biotics? Stasis? I'm not paralyzed, though. If anything, I feel more powerful. But I'm no biotic…'

Trust me, I'd tried that many times when I was laying at home in my couch and my drink was just out of reach. My non-existent biotics never worked.

By now they were just a couple of feet away from me. Seconds later, I was within their range, and the left one took a swing at me, which I deftly dodged under, coming up to counter-attack his midsection while he was out of balance. I was prepared to dodge his next attack, but was surprised when my punch was accompanied with a blue glow, and was even more surprised to find him flying away towards a block of concrete with reinforcement bars sticking out at random places and angles.

I was so dumbstruck at what had happened that I didn't notice the other goon readying a brutal punch of his own, until it was too late. I could only close my eyes and hold up my hands in defense, hoping to mitigate some of the force. When I didn't feel blinding pain, but instead hear a crunch, I opened my eyes to see the second man lying in front of me in a heap of flesh, with bones sticking out.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" I heard the leader shout, standing just a couple of feet away from me. He raised his gun as he continued. "You lifted him up 5 yards in the air and smashed him down to the ground again?! I didn't even know biotics could do that!"

At this point, I was absolutely clueless about what was happening, but notice the one I first punched had landed somewhat unfortunately. For him. His head was impaled through the right eye-socket on one of the rebars sticking out of the block of concrete, with his ocular nerve twisted around the bar, making the eye hang from it like an ornament.

The leader looked over to see what I was looking at. His face instantly turned into a snarl. "I was going to be nice to you, but killing my friends tends to make me do un-kind things." His voice was just cold; he didn't even sound angry.

"Look, I- It was an accident, okay?" I tried reasoning with him.

"An accident? You killing my friends was an ACCIDENT?!" It didn't work.

If pleading didn't work, intimidation might. "If you don't let me go, I'll do the same to you."

"Hah! I have a gun, kid, what are you suppose-" He didn't get to finish his sentence as I threw up my hands on pure instinct, with my palms facing him. Out of my hands flew a ball of blue light, hitting the man square in the face. He fell to his knees, screaming and grasping at his face in pain.

Within seconds, his outer skin layers had disappeared, and you could now see the muscles and veins in his face. The entire thing was eerily reminiscent to The Raiders of the Lost Ark.

He soon stopped twitching and just laid there, bleeding out while his face melted off.

A shot rang out, ending the man's suffering, while I heard a man speak from one of the floors on the building behind me. "Impressive. Where did you learn that level of biotics?"

I walked a ways away from the house so I could see the man properly. Behind him stood two-dozen other people in mismatched armor. In fact, the man at the front, apparently the leader, was the only one who had matching colors on his armor.

"Normally, when someone kills one of my lieutenants, I make them suffer before they die." He apparently didn't expect an answer to his initial question. "However, I might be willing to make an exception for you."

I swallowed. There was no way I was taking out this entire crew, biotics or not. I was forced to play nice. "What do you want from me?"

He laughed before responding. "Why, I want you to join us, of course!"

He seemed more and more crazy by the second. 'I killed this guy's people, and he wants me to join his gang? I've never been in a gang. I've always been a goody-two-shoes.'

"I… Who are you people, even?" I asked him, not sure if I'd get an answer or not.

"We?" He asked incredulously. "We're the Valhallavägen Vikings."

A/N: Wooo, first chapter done! :D

Chapter two is mostly done, just needs some finishing touches and to be proofread and we're good to go! It'll probably be up within a couple of days.