Ch 1: Invaded


Alex Mercer died in 2098.

After the death of his creator/mentor/friend, John acquired work at the protean Research base (after devouring a few physicists of course), and began researching the properties of element zero.

After a decade or so, the first FTL engine was born. Utilizing a mass-effect core, and a mass-effect altered ion engine, the modified shuttle was able to hit 1.1x lightspeed by the year 2132. Within less than a decade, slow chemical-drive spacecraft were replaced and retrofitted for the new mass-effect cores, and colonization began.

Luna was one of the first, colonized in 2138, with mass-effect based manipulators able to manipulate matter in sufficient quantities to construct massive refineries within less than a year, enabling domed cities to be built with astonishing rapidity. People soon learned that the moon had a decent supply of eezo, and they began mining it, for the growing boom of starships.

In 2140, Venusian colonies were built, harvesting gas for the newer ion-engines that propelled their ships through the void.
In 2149, the Charon relay was extracted from the ice, and was activated.

Through all this, John continued to acquire doctorates, in the fields of mechanical, electrical, and aerospace engineering, and in several fields of high-energy physics. He began to feel disquieted by how easy everything seemed, and how quickly the principles of mass-effect technology had been picked up.

When there was a report of other habitable like-earth planets beyond the relay, John was one of the many colonists to travel out to a new world, designated Shanxi.
After five years of teaching mass-effect principles to engineering students, the first-contact war begins (2157).


John had been working on this design for some time now- an alcubierre drive- FTL- that would require minimal eezo, and allow humanity to bypass any potential reliance on the relays. His miniature prototype was nearly done, and, as he picked up the calipers to check measurements on the magnetic bottle distortion coil, a small girl's voice spoke up right behind him, as well as a tug on his (mostly) white lab coat.

"Watcha doing?"

"Working." His voice was terse, but that was mostly because he wanted to form some better tools than he had available. "Want to see?"

He slid his chair over and the girl pushed a stool up to the workbench, sunlight streamed into the room rough the roof, and illuminated the workbench where his new drive was taking shape.

John helped her onto her stool, before moving the more dangerous tool away. She was the daughter of one of his neighbors, native-born to Shanxi, dressed in a small pink dress, with a little blue bow in her raven hair.

"Ooh! What's that do?" She pointed at the bulbous sphere on one end of the device.

"That's the power-plant. It takes helium-3 and uses fusion to turn it into power." He pointed at another part of it. "And here is where that power gets used to power the faster-than-light drive."

"Wow!" John thought her eyes could not get any bigger. "But don't we have the pass-expect enginene?"

He chuckled. "Yes, we have the mass-effect engines. But we need the relays for those to go anywhere far, and I wanted to make a different sort of engine."

She clapped, smiling in the harmless way that only children can. "Does it work yet? Can I see it work?"

John grinned. "It should work. Come on- let's go outside."

He grabbed a few things off the table: alcubierre drive, parachute, rc module, test probes, and then walked out of the workshop, followed closely by the little girl.

Behind John's workshop, the grasslands began. Shanxi had been developing well since it's discovery, but humans could only expand so fast.

John carefully set the drive down, and began making slight adjustments.

The girl walked up. "Can I help?"

John didn't look up. "Yes. Miri, could you grab the parachute? It has the orange stripes."

The three-year-old picked up the conic object, and handed it to John.

He smiled. "Thanks little one."

"So..." She persed her lips, "what is it going to do?"

John fiddled with the remote control mechanism, and a small hum was heard coming from the device. "We might want to step back..."

He picked her up, and jogged back to a nearby building. "Little one, this may be very, very, VERY loud, so keep your hands over your ears, ok?"

Miri nodded, and covered her ears, staring at the small device in the field.

"Right... Interlocks disengaged, mass effect core activated, and magnetic bottle activated. Increasing constants in situ..."

The device began hovering, as the mass-effect field reduced the effective mass of the device to a minuscule fraction of what it had been. It oriented, turning the pointed parachute to the sky, with it's three long beams with their minuscule engraving rippling like some otherworldly jellyfish.

There was a pulse of light, and suddenly there was a small, sliver marble hovering at the bottom of the device.

There was a slight whine of servomotors, and the three arms began opening away from each other, the silver sphere deforming into a disk.

John looked down at the control panel. Everything looked good- the computer on the device was smart enough to activate the drive, and pulse it out some 20 light-years or so- if his math was right- deploy the small probes to gain an image of the surrounding starscape, then return back into orbit where he could pick it up later.

Then warning lights began flashing on the touch-screen remote control.

"Nononononon..." He started in-putting shutdown commands, trying to prevent the device from exploding this time. "Don't do it. I am so close..."

The silver disk began rippling, and the arms began to fold up and over the probe, encasing it in the silver incongruity in space time. Suddenly, before it had been completely engulfed, there was a massive THOOM noise, and suddenly there was a clean hole, almost like a probe-sized well shaft, where the probe used to be, and a tornado-like windstorm flowed into the hole.

After a minute or so, the wind stopped, and Miri took her hands off her ears. "Was that supposed to happen?"

John glared at the control panel, noting that at lest the probe would not be coming back, potentially punching another hole through the planet. "No. Yes. Sort of- it was not supposed to go backwards, and the shield hadn't even sealed. Still, it proved the concept easily."

Miri walked over to the hole, and looked down. "How deep does it go?"

John placed the rc control pad in a pocket, and picked up a small stone. "Let's see..."

He dropped the stone into the hole. After a minute, they didn't hear anything.

"I don't know. The probe is not responding, but I think it is at the bottom of that pit." He gestured at the deep hole- walls looked compacted from some significant force. "Well... Too late now."

He turned to Miri, as she picked up a stone, and dropped it into the hole. "Shouldn't you be heading home? I know your parents will miss you."

Miri stamped. "But I want to drop some more stuff down the hole!"

John shook his head. "Fine. One rock, then you head back."

She giggled, and tossed the rock into the hole, listening to the small impact noises as it hit the walls.

Miri ran off, and John saw her mother, watching from the doorway to her little pre-fabricated house. Miri ran up, and hugged her mother. "Did you see it mom? Mr. Gardner made a hole in the ground just like that!" She clapped her hands.

Her mother laughed. "Yes I did." The two walked back into the house, and closed the door behind themselves.

John sighed. Five years. Five years he had been maintaining this disguise in public, the shape of Dr. Lenard Gardner, mass-effect field physicist, and he was getting weary of it. Feeling the hunger as he walked among the people of Shanxi, and not doing anything about it, save the occasional mugger, and that one guy who had been high as a kite and had broken into his tiny home.

He gagged as a he remembered how bad that guy had tasted. Drug addicts had never been on his menu of preferred people, but that guy had been dosed to the gills on heroin, and had been disgusting.

John looked around, and, seeing that he was not observed, began to change. Two fingers on his right hand merged into a single red-black tendril, which extended into the hole. He closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of shape-shifting again, and a small eye formed on the end of the tendril, along with a set of small insect-like limbs.

After a few minutes of lowering, the eye-tendril saw that the hole had curved, and John landed the little eye on the bottom of the curved surface.

His eye was using infected vision- low-light, heat-based vision, and he directed it to crawl along the tunnel. Several minutes passed, and then the eye found the probe.

It was distorted, almost as if it has been partially liquified, and then rippled. There was a smooth overall distortion to the original shape, and although one if the manipulation-legs was broken, the fusion core was still mostly intact.

Back on the surface, John stroked the beard of Dr. Gardner. The bubble must not have distorted evenly to cause a turning in thrust, but the rippling effect... The inside of the bubble must not have been stable before the thrust-distortion was engaged.

He shrugged, and sent a ripple of material down to the eye-tendril. Within a couple seconds, the eye had retreated into the tendril, and the tendril thickened enough to form pseudopods, like fingers, which he directed to grasp the small test engine.

A few minutes of pulling brought the probe up to the surface, and he re-absorbed the tendril, feeling his mass squirm and settle as it had to compress all that material back into the arm of the dark-haired Asian doctor's shape.

He hefted the probe, and walked back into his workshop- the probe was unceremoniously dropped onto a workbench, and he closed the door to the cluttered building.

John sighed, took off his lab coat (he had not morphed that- he liked the lab coat too much) and relaxed, letting his form revert to his original shape. Male,~20 years old, red hair, and wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants- what he looked like before he became Evolved. Tendrils- small ones, the thickness of his fingers- extended from his flesh, and began to put the components of his work away.

He laughed- he must have looked like a lovecraftian nightmare doing some spring cleaning, but it was less boring than doing such work with only two limbs. Red-black tendrils placed tools on their hooks, picked up extra screw and other parts and placed them into the proper boxes. Other tendrils pulled elastic bands around the blueprints he had for the device, and others began to pull out a folder from a nearby file cabinet. The folder contained his notes on the alcubierre principle, and how it could be developed without eezo.

After a moment's thought, John put the folder away. That's a job for tomorrow, he thought. He retracted the tentacles, and walked into the home-y part of his housing. It looked like all the other pre-fabricated houses, but he had put in blinds on the first day of his arrival, since shape-shifting where people could see was usually a way to cause a panic. He flicked a thin tendril over to the tv controls, and activated the projector.

The device whirred to life, and John grabbed a glass of water while the reporter talked.

"- reports have been coming in that the majority of the relay activation team has been killed by aliens." The announcer's voice seemed calm, but John wasn't really paying attention to her words. She just looked so delicious, and after not eating anything live since that burglar a few weeks ago, He was hungry. Wait- aliens?

"The Frigate Syracuse has docked within the station, and it seems to be the only one of the relay activation scout fleet to survive the initial encounter. As you can see," the camera panned over the frigate- two of the three engines (primary maneuvering engines) were damaged, and there were alarmingly-large holes in the hull. "Whether these rumors are true-"

The camera pitched wildly, and another window came into view- larger ships, built like blocks with large angular wings providing support to glowing engines, decelerating close to the station.

There was an audible 'thud', and a tiny speck of white light- the drive of a long-range message drone- was visible momentarily, flying straight at the relay.
The alien ship fired- and the lights went out.

John remembered that there was a couple-second delay on the feed, and, pausing only to morph back into the skin of Dr. Gardner, ran outside.

There was a supersonic boom, as a single-stage-to-orbit fighter flew lower over the colony, before accelerating straight up- riding on a fusion-assisted turbo-scramjet. As he looked around, several other fighters were visible, their engines like ascending sparks, visible from miles away.

Miri's family ran outside, as did everyone else nearby. Her brother -he must be 10 by now- spoke up. "Are we in danger, mom?"

His mom, holding Miri, pulled him to her. "We will be fine." But John could hear the fear in their voice. "We will be fine- the navy will protect us."


In orbit, the Turian fleet had destroyed the Syracuse, and had been effortlessly shooting the fighters down.
The ships turned on the planet, locating military installations, and began firing mass-accelerator cannons towards the surface.


Every city on the planet had been built near a major military installation, or an eezo deposit. The installation near John's home had a total of 20 men. All friends if his- maintaining the mass-effect cores that the ships utilized for their surface-to-orbit capability was essential, and difficult. John was acting as their teacher, primarily keeping the group appraised of more recent updates in that rapidly-expanding field of physics. However, the aliens had decided that even a small fighter installation like that would be a potential threat.

All of this flashed through John's mind as an arc of white light fell from the sky, and hit the base, lighting up the sky like a nuke.

Then the shockwave hit.

Buildings crumpled, and people were blasted aside. John saw the world tumble as he felt himself get picked up like a toy, and thrown into a piece of building that had been deformed in just the right (or wrong- depends on your point of view) way, to cut through him like a butchers knife.

Both sides of his head said "Fuck..."

Being bisected is not fun for anyone.

After extracting himself off the edge (much swearing was had doing that), he began looking for survivors among the rubble.

Flicking on the infected vision as easy as breathing, he started looking around, finding only the cooling bodies of the other colonists. Every human he came across was dead- they were a kilometer from the base and the over-pressure of the blast had still killed them.

There was a sonic boom, and John switched off his infected vision in time to see small vehicles- probably landing craft- beginning a wide, curving descent towards the intact part of the colony.

They meant to invade. That may make things complicated...

He took off running, dropping his shape as Dr. Gardner for a smaller, female form, and was soon in the colony proper.


Private Aktis Tulian was eager on his first combat drop. He had finished training just in time for this mission- pacifying a relay-activating species-, and was rather excited. Also nervous. And apprehensive. But mostly excited. He took a breath to calm himself.

One of the other troops placed a talloned hand on his shoulder. "You good, shiny?"

"I'm good." Aktis's mandibles twitched. "Just ready to go is all."

"Well get ready!" The pilot shouted from the front. "Landing in 5."

The troop leader stepped up. "RIGHT SHINYS- WE HAVE A LANDING ZONE TO SECURE! FIND ALL SURVIVORS, AND BRING THEM BACK TO THE LANDING ZONE! AM. I UNDERSTOOD?"

"YES MA'M!" The troopers yelled as one, and as soon as the door opened, they rushed out of the shuttle.


Night fell.

John hid among the larger buildings, as the aliens began collecting civilians and rounding them up. They were bipedal, with silver-grey scales, and with talons instead of fingers. Their heads were almost bird-like, and they had only two finger and a thumb.

Another important fact - every single alien he saw from his vantage point was carrying a weapon.

The invaders were disciplined, and obviously a war-faring species. Now all he needed to do is see if he could consume one...


Private Aktis was bored. The prisoners they had collected had not done anything to try to escape, (at least, he thought, not with women and children in harms way), and it had been a couple hours since they had landed.

Orders had just came down the chain of command that all the groups of humans they had collected were to be concentrated in a primary area, where one of the smaller ships could land and bring them to a temporary holding location on Paleven.

Then he saw movement in one of the alleyways.

A female, relatively young-looking, with green eyes, peaking out from behind some refuse containers. She saw him staring, and ran back around a corner in the alley.

"Hey sarge" Aktis spoke to one of the squad who came down with them. "Is that alley a dead end? I thought I saw movement."

'Sarge' checked his omni-tool. "It is. I will call a squad to check it out."

"Sir," Aktis spoke up again, mandibles twitching even faster, "My motion detector is reading only one human. I can do this!"

"Really?" Sarge looked skeptical. "Remember that volus in the bar? He blindsided you with a bottle."

"I will not be blindsided by a human." Aktis almost spit out the word.


"Go then." Sarge waved at him. "I will notify our superiors that you may have caught a straggler."

John waited for the bird-head to come down the ally. Acting the scarred female was easy- the memories of how to move, and how to speak and act were imbedded in the shape he wore. All his disguises were flawless- having more than a century to practice holding subtle differences in the shapes had been worth it for moments like this.

As the alien walked into the alley, he poked his head out from around the corner. Just long enough for the soldier to notice him, then duck back around the bend.

The alien came around the corner, weapon at the ready. As it came closer, the expression on it's face was, John guessed, one of annoyance. It spoke, multi-layering in it's voice that sounded absolutely alien.

John pretended to cower against the back wall, eyes wide, braced against the wall, whispering words of mercy and appearing to cry a little. In his experience, emotions were universally understood between races on earth- hopefully, it would bypass the language barrier.

Apparently it did- the alien stepped closer, lowering the barrel of the weapon, and reaching out with a clawed hand. John reached for the hand, then hesitated, and, as he took the alien's hand, smirked.

The alien's face shifted expression, going from open (or so it looked- horizontal-motion mandibles on a face with a vertical jaw? Really?), to surprised, as John slammed him into the wall, and shifting back into his own skin.

The alien's eyes widened as John grinned, shifting his free hand into a scalpel-like blade, and he began to babble in a voice that John remembered from the old days, of hunting and killing his targets.

-Mercy! Have mercy! I won't tell a soul! Just let me live!-

John stabbed the alien, feeling a blue, flickering barrier that tracked and broke like thin glass attempt to impede his strike. He struck right under the mandibles, and felt his blade cut through multiple layers of muscle and bone. He softened the hand, and extended feeder tendrils, feeling the alien twitch as he began to absorb it's body, green eyes watching black eyes, get absorbed into the black-red mass that was John.

John hiccuped, and was immediately confused. He had not ever done that since, well, since he had eaten a rabid raccoon that one week he had gone a bit nuts, over a century ago. He hiccuped again dropping the now-empty armor, and closed his eyes, feeling the new biomass in his body almost fighting his digestion...

Oh.

The alien was composed entirely of right-handed molecules! John relaxed, and felt his essence, his base self, begin to re-arrange into a new form to compensate.

He knew, like all the children of Mercer, that now he was, without his mind, nothing more than a virus. An incredibly advanced virus, but a virus nonetheless. Something that hunted, destroyed, consumed and modified everything in it's path, and without a mind to guide that power, he was no more than a natural disaster waiting to happen.

John concentrated, feeling the modifications already. Redundant DNA system, in both right and left-handed proteins to compensate for the new life-forms. He would need to have to digest faster, to detect the proteins faster, if he wanted to consume more right-handed aliens.

Then the memories hit him.

At first, they were incomprehensible. Sensations that didn't make any sense, memories that had no baseline, and word-ideas that didn't mesh with the way he thought. It took a moment or two, but he began to understand the memories.

Ships, huge numbers of them, were seen by this alien- no, is turian, John remembered, as the name of their species came to him. The language, which had been gibberish, suddenly shifted focus, like changing the focal lens on a camera, and the meanings were clear. The strength of the turian armies, the money system, the strength of their armor and shields, the proper way to hold that weapon- a Daedaloks Shotgun, double barrels with mass-effect accelerators, and oversize heatsinks to negate the requirement for thermal clips.

He felt the new form ready, waiting, in the back of his mind. He shifted into a swarm of tendrils, and inserted himself into the empty armor. Then he pulled the new shape on, feeling the plates form on his head, mandibles extend from his jaw, eyes re-form, and hands defined by their two fingers stabilize in the armor.

He stood up, feeling the body move, and felt just a bit wrong. Alien- like trying to put on a shirt that was just the wrong cut.

Now all he needed to do was get off the planet- maybe to this 'Illium'. It looked like an interesting world. Or this 'Citadel'. At least until humanity got onto the galactic stage, he should lay low.

Maybe chew on some Asari- the memories this turian had of them made the species look very enticing...


End of chapter 1.


Right- I will need to ask for some reader participation now. I have been trying to decide whether to make the next part of the story continue in ME1 or ME2.
Cast your vote now! It will decide where the story heads from here.