A/N: I said I would have the actual First Chapter up soon so here it is guy's I know it's a little short but I wanted to get the ball rolling. Let me know what you guys think

Chapter One: I'm not your dinner

I felt something nudge me. In my sleep deprived state I swatted at the offending nudge and mumbled something. Only to be prodded a second time. This time I heard someone speak, but I couldn't understand it. It was harsh and raspy.

"What?" I mumbled and cracked my eyes open.

Standing over me was something strait out of a nightmare. The . . . creature had pale yellow skin that was stretched tight and I could see exposed muscle. Its lips were stretched back revealing a mouthful of sharp pointed teeth.

"GHAAAA!" It screamed at me.

"Whoa!" I said and scrambled back. Only to find out the bench I had been sleeping on ran out of room and I tumbled to my back. I landed in an ungraceful sprawl with my feet way up in the air.

"GHAAAA!"

"Get away from me you freak!" I yelled. I pulled my foot back and smashed it into its face. Breaking several teeth.

I rolled back and scrambled to my feet. The thing was laying on the ground clutching its mouth. Orange blood dripped onto the metal plates beneath its feet. Not wasting any time I stepped forward and kicked the thing's face. Whatever it was, it couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds because it flew back at least three feet.

I've studied four martial arts over my life, tae kwon do, karate, jujitsu, and krav maga. Meaning that I'm fairly confidant in my ability to defend myself, but I've never been in a real fight. The one thing all of my teachers stressed was that if you didn't have to fight, run. So I did just that and channeled my inner run fu.

I've never been a thin guy. After all I have a gut, but it wasn't a beer gut, more like something you'd see on a football player, a thick slab of muscle. I wasn't fast, but I could run five miles without stopping at an eight minute pace.

I ran through back alleys and streets that looked worse than a garbage dump. I saw a number of creatures like the one I left behind. Something about them seemed familiar, but I couldn't place them. I also saw humans living in these slums, I knew something wasn't right.

I came out into a square of some kind and I gasped in shock at the sight before me. Turns out I knew this place, I knew it very well, only in a video game. Right there in front of me was the skyline of Omega.

"Oh shit." I said softly. Now I remembered what that thing was in the alley, it must have been a Vorcha. How the hell did I end up in Omega? What the hell is going on?

I heard a soft musical voice behind me. I turned and saw a young Quarian approaching me. She looked to be fairly young and nervous. She stopped well outside my arm's reach and said something again.

"I'm sorry." I said. "I don't understand you." I had no idea what was going on at the moment I was trying to keep myself from panicking.

I saw that young woman tilt her head at me as if she was trying to see if I was telling to truth or not. Finally she made a 'Follow me' gesture and turned around. I quickly followed her and tried to keep myself from staring at everyone around me. I saw more than a few Batarians give me the stink eye. Not wanting to make trouble I quickly caught up to Quarian as she led me deeper into Omega. Finally she stopped and brought me into what looked like a shop. Granted it could have been a garbage dump for all I knew with all the trash hanging around.

She opened the door and I followed her inside. The inside of the place not only looked much cleaner it also smelled it too. You don't realize just how bad a place stinks until you've smelled something fresher. Looking around I realized that we were at some kind of weapons and armor dealer.

Behind the counter was an angry red and black Salarian. He gave what could only be described as an exasperated sigh and pinched his nose, face, thing. He then began talking at the Quarian a hundred miles an hour. He didn't raise his voice, but it was clear he was upset at her. She started talking back and waved her arms a couple of times. I had no idea what they were saying but I felt like one of those lost kittens that my niece would bring home every once in a while.

The two finally seemed to come to an agreement over me when the Salarian threw up his arms and pointed at me and said something. The Quarian grabbed my arm and led me back behind the counter and into a back room that was a workshop.

I followed her to a shelf that had what looked like a bunch of forearm protectors. Grabbing one of them off the shelf she powered it on and it lit up, suddenly I recognized that she was holding an omni-tool. She fiddled with it for several moments before I could hear it humming. I watched in awe as the micro fabricator spit out two hearing air looking devices. She handed them to me and mimed putting them in my ears. Trusting her, I did so.

"Can you understand me now?" She asked.

"Yes thank you so much." I said. You have no idea how unnerving it is to be unable to understand anyone around you.

"I'm glad. Are you alright? You were looking a little confused outside." She said.

Even though I just woke up less than an hour ago I felt a bone deep weariness in my body. What could I say to the girl that wouldn't make me sound crazy? She'd helped me out quite a bit just by making me a translator. I didn't know what scared me more that this might all be a hallucination and that I was simply crazy or that I was actually somehow in the Mass Effect universe. I decided that I could at least tell her a partial truth.

"Last night, or at least what I hope was last night, I went to sleep in my own home. Next thing I know I wake up with a Vorcha in my face looking at me like I might be a good meal." I said tiredly.

"Kheela, really?" The Quarian gasped in shock.

"Yeah." I said. "I've always been tolerant of other people, but even I have issues with those things, they're creepy." I said with a shudder. I couldn't get the image of that Vorcha snarling at me out of my head.

The Quarian beside me chuckled a bit. "Do you have any Idea how you got here?" she asked.

"Not a one." I admitted.

"And I'm guessing you don't have any credits on you, because you didn't have an omni-tool or even a translator implant." She continued describing just how grim my situation was.

"Two for two." I said.

"So what's your plan?" She asked.

"I guess I'm going to try and find a way off this rock and get back to the colony or even the Citadel I suppose. Something tells me that's going to be easier said than done however."

"Yeah Omega's not the easiest place to make a living. It's also not the easiest place to live especially if you're dressed like that." She said gesturing to me.

I looked down at myself. However I had come here, I came with my shirt and jeans. On my feet was nothing more than a pair of flip-flops. "Eh. Got to start somewhere." I said.

"Alright." She said. "Wait here." She turned to leave. When she reached to the door she stopped and called out. "And don't touch anything." Tone deadly serious.

When she was gone I turned around to look. I was apparently in some kind of shop. She and the Salarian must work out of here and sell their wares up front. Everything in this place spoke to the engineer in me. I graduated about year ago with a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering so I had a great understanding of machines and their components. I wanted to tear everything apart around me and figure out how it worked, but I was mindful of the Quarian's words. Looking over I could see a milling machine slowly cutting layers and layers off a solid block of metal. Sitting on a table next to the milling machine was an assault rifle that had been stripped down to its bare parts.

I leaned down to take a closer look. I was pleased to recognize that even though I was in a different universe mechanical parts were still the same, even if they were designed a little differently. I could clearly make out the power cell as well as the tungsten ammunition block. The trigger assembly was fairly self-explainable. So was the barrel. I looked at all the components and realized the head sink was missing however.

"That must be what they machining over there." I said. I was fascinated by the gun, but something kept nagging at the back of my head. Something wasn't right about the design.

"I thought I said to not touch anything." I looked over and saw the Quarian, standing there with her arms folded around her chest. I could see she had a slight glare behind her visor.

"I wasn't." I protested, "I just wanted to take a look."

"Did you learn anything?" She said.

"Yeah I know why this guy's gun keeps melting heat sinks." I said.

"Oh really?" She said.

"Yeah. Come take a look." I said motioning her over. "If you look here at this capacitor ring here you can tell that these were added on as a modification to the existing design. My guess is whoever made these changes originally had a great understanding of electronics but not mechanical systems. The problem is this thermocouple here," I said gesturing to the inside of the casing, "is behind the capacitor ring. Originally when they were smaller it didn't cause any problems, but-"

"But when they installed the larger capacitors to increase the power draw they inadvertently cut the thermocouple off from the heat sink." Turning I saw the black and red Salarian standing a few feet behind us. "I'm impressed, human. It took Neeta here six minutes to make that deduction."

"I'm very good at designing mechanical systems. Not so much at coding." I said. Back in college I had suffered when we were required to learn coding. I barely managed to scrape by with a slightly above passing grade.

"Alright Neeta he's your responsibility." The Salarian said and walked off quickly.

"What does that mean?" I asked turning towards the girl.

"I told Hurk about what happened to you. I managed to convince him to let you stay her for a bit and let you earn your keep. You'll have to work off the omni-tool he's giving you, and if you want you can get a cot set up in here like me, he'll dock your pay a bit to cover rent but at least it's safe here and he's very fair about how he treats me so I can't complain."

"Just like that?" I asked.

"Yeah he's funny like that. When I first came to Omega a pair of Batarians nearly killed me. My suit was punctured and I was bleeding. Then Hurk just showed up killed them both and brought me to a clinic. When I was patched up he gave me a job here working for him." She paused for a bit before grabbing my arm. "Come on I need to start showing you what we do here so you can help out."

"I can't thank you guys for helping me out like this." I said.

"Don't mention it." She replied.

"So your name's Neeta?" I held out my hand. "My name's Marcus."

She looked at my hand in confusion.

"Sorry human thing. You shake it. It's a greeting."

"Oh." She quickly held out her hand and I took it. Hers was much smaller than I'd imagined.

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Marcus S*******."

"I'm Neeta'Kili nar Quib Quib."

So I had been here for less than a day been given a job, have a place to stay, and now I have a Quarian that's willing to teach me. All in all not a bad day all things considered. "Hey Neeta, what's the date?" I asked.

"By the human calendar its 10.16.2180."

Perfect. I thought.

Chapter One

It's been two months since Hurk and Neeta took me in. I had to give them some kind of back story so I ended up telling them that my parents had been part of a group of people that wanted to get away from the 'modern world' and that they had forsaken most technology that people had taken for granted. Shortly after Hurk brought me to a friend of his that ran a clinic here on Omega. The woman had been nice, and by nice I mean a complete she devil, and given me every single immunization I could ever possibly need. She then implanted a translator and everything I would need to interact with the haptic interfaces prevalent throughout the galaxy. I didn't find out until later that Hurk had gone ahead paid her to also give me a battery of gene therapies to correct issues with my cardiovascular system and my eyesight. She said if I wanted to undergo bone weave or muscle weave treatment I'd have to come back. I made a promise to my self to come back and do that as soon as I could afford the first two weeks I was a little put off about what had happened to me, but I made my peace with it. As an engineer working in the industry, I got thrown curveballs all the time. Most people would panic, but I learned how to take them in stride, often times I was the one that would handle any changes in design simply because I was the most adaptable person in the office. My managers told me that I would make an excellent project manager one day. That adaptability helped keep me sane, that and Neeta was a good person to talk to.

They wasted no time in bringing me up to speed. Most of the time I would work on the simple mechanical parts, stuff that had to be fabricated by hand either on the lathe or the milling machine. I love it. Back home I would never have access to the tools and equipment I have available to me now. At some point Hurk brought me to the firing range at the back of the shop at started drilling me on shooting, and I am pleased to say I was not a complete buffoon when it came to guns. I had shot before, so I knew how to hold a gun how to aim and all that, but Hurk was relentless.

"Shooter ready." I called out.

"Beginning exercise."

Suddenly a group of holographic targets appeared in front of me. Keeping my hand steady in a standard two handed pistol grip I lined up my shots at started plugging away. I quickly switched from target to target, I wasn't a pro but I was proficient enough to be dangerous. One of the first things Hurk taught me was to properly space my shots so I never had to worry about my gun overheating. As the targets got further away I found myself missing more and more. Having to take two shots instead of one. Just as I was about to hit the last target my gun screamed at me as the heat sink finally gave in.

"Crap!" I cursed. I watched woefully as the exercise counter clicked down to zero. The one remaining target mocked me at the far end of the range.

"You've shown remarkable improvement, but your accuracy drops by 56% past a range of twenty-two meters." I turned and looked at Hurk as he walked up to me.

"I know." I said. "I can't seem to keep the target and the sight's lined up past that point. Either I lose sight of the target or the sights."

"I know I watched." Hurk said. "You have a classic human marksman problem. You're right handed, but your left eye is dominate."

"Okay. So how do I fix it?" I asked.

"I'm not familiar enough with humans to help you, however I do have a temporary solution. Hand me your sidearm." He said holding out his hands.

I handed the gun over grip first. It was an early version of the Carnifex, called a Silletto I, that I remembered so well from Mass Effect 2. I love that gun, Neeta had helped me mod the thing to give me and even sixteen shots before overheating and we upgraded the barrel and firing chamber to increase the slug size by a factor of three. That meant the gun would have a slower response time between shots, but after seeing the effects it had on an armored target, I figured it more than made up for itself.

My other weapon of choice was a shotgun. It was an Executioner II manufactured by the Batarian State Arms. A couple of gang members had come into the shop one day to try and press Hurk for protection money. I didn't know until after that Hurk had a deal with Aria. He would help her men maintain their weapons and armor at a discounted rate, and in return she would leave him be. Hurk had calmly stood there with a pair of Batarians yelling in his face until one of them made the mistake of reaching for Neeta.

I reacted instantly and broke the Batarian's wrist before he even got close to my friend. Before he could react I stomped down hard on the guy's thigh knocking him down to his knees. Before he could get up I swung my left fist and connected with his jaw just as my right hand cupped the top of the Batarian's head. There was a sickening pop and the attacker hit the floor like a limp doll. I hadn't killed him, but I had partially severed the guy's spinal column with that move. He would live as a quadriplegic for all of three seconds until Hurk put a couple of rounds in him. I had been pretty shaken up over what happened, not because I had basically killed the guy, but because I had done it so easily. That's what krav maga does to people it trains them to react instantly without hesitation, often time with lethal consequences. I had studied martial arts because I liked the challenge. I hoped I would never have to use them in anger. The shotgun like so much else of our equipment was provided by the dead Batarians.

"Here try this." Hurk said holding out my gun. I could see a black box that had been attached to the bottom of the lower barrel. "And put this on." He said holding out a helmet. It was a full breather mask that the Alliance currently uses. I wanted to see what he'd come up with so I did as Hurk asked.

I put on the helmet and on board VI booted up. In my lower right field of vision I could see a motion tracker showing me and Hurk standing right next to each other and Neeta as she moved around in the shop. Opposite of that were my bio-rhythms. In the bottom middle was a read out of my current kinetic barrier system. Since I wasn't wearing the full suit at the moment it read zero.

The next thing I noticed was the fact that my gun had a neon blue laser coming out the mod that Hurk had installed. "What is this, some kind of infrared laser sight?" I asked.

"No no. Nothing so primitive. Custom targeting VI I created-"

"Ahem!" Neeta coughed from across the room.

"Sorry, Neeta and I created works in concert with modification to gun. VI then uses holographic imagers built into helmet and projects image of laser sight on inside of visor. Can't be seen by enemies, although it is susceptible to enemy hacking so be mindful."

I tested out how the new sight worked and I admit it was awesome. I already felt more in control over my weapon. "Alright Hurk let's try again."

A wave of the omni-tool later and the firing range was back up.

"Shooter ready."

"Begin exercise."

Chapter One

It was another two weeks before Hurk declared me proficient enough to join him and Neeta when they left to 'gather' materials. Read gather as 'strip the bodies of dead gang members for all they're worth'. It was pretty risky. Most of the time we'd wait until two of the gang's would get in a fight. When the smoke cleared we'd come in salvage what we could, melt the rest into omni-gel and get out. The problem was sometimes one or both of the gangs would come back and they weren't too happy to see us.

"Neeta, Marcus. Get your armor. The Crimson Tide and the Eclipse just had a shootout six levels below us." Hurk said.

I instantly jumped up from my table and grabbed my armor, and started armoring up. After two and a half months here I finally ditched the t-shirt and jeans and managed to get myself a decent set of clothes. But I always wore the under suit to my armor underneath that in case we had to get up and go in a hurry. Soon enough I was in my armor. It was a set of medium armor that we'd cobbled together from a couple of different sets. The shields were decent, especially after Neeta got ahold of them, but the actual armor itself would only withstand a couple of shots before it failed.

I slapped my pistol on my right thigh and put the shotgun on my left rather than my back. My job was to hold the pack that Neeta and Hurk would fill up and I didn't want to have to fight with my weapon to get the gun clear if I needed it in a hurry.

As soon as I was done I called out. "Need any help Neeta?"

"If you wouldn't mind helping me with the visor I'd appreciate it." About a week ago I had machined a set of curved plates that bottled on to her helmet, like the ones Tali would where in the later games. I cut down on her field of vision, but it protected her visor.

"No problem." I grabbed the plates and slid them into the slots and I grabbed one of the tools from my kit and tightened them down. "You're good to go." I said after giving them a pat to make sure they were secure. "Just don't head-butt a Krogan. They're tough but not that tough."

Neeta giggled as she grabbed her guns. She then threw the pack straight at my chest. "Just keep your eyes open 'pack mule.'"

"Neeta you wound me." I said laughing.

We joined Hurk out front and he locked up the store. We sprinted off to the nearest sky car and hacked it.

A/N: I know it's a little short the rest will be of a more reasonable length. I hope you guys like it. Let me know what you think