Hello again and welcome back.

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Kansas doesn't even come close.

Heavy gunfire thuds against the wooden crate that separates me from a certain death. My meager cover shakes and groans from the assault and I know that I have to find a new shield soon if I want to survive this onslaught.

The gun in my hand shakes in trepidation but I force myself to take deep breaths. I would do no good to anybody, especially me, dead. And dead is what happens to those that panic during a fight.

Beside me there are two others seeking shelter from various inanimate objects. There is Owen, ducking behind a large metal canister with what he called an assault rifle in his well-trained hands, seeking out opportunities to leave cover and return fire. And then there is Jane.

There are little words to describe the majestic way Jane fought. If I didn't know any better I would have thought that she comes from a background of fighters, and not farmers. With her lips set in a grim line and her gorgeous green eyes flashing with determination, she is a force to behold and a sight to treasure. Despite hating, hating all forms of confrontation there is a certain beauty in the way Jane moved, hurdled and retaliated that made it difficult to tear your eyes away.

Then again, why should this surprise me? She is after all the Shepard – Saviour of the Citadel, killer of Saren, destructor of the Collectors, etc. Still, watching her perform in reality is all together different from what can be seen behind a computer screen. The past month of practice had definitely brought out her raw and true talent.

All three of us are armed in a variety of weapons that we managed to pick up along the way. In my own grasp is a fairly simple handgun that is sufficient enough in power and offers little recoil. We decided that it was the best choice for someone who had no experience with guns (or any other form of violence) at all. Even though Owen claimed it was the lightest and easiest to use, until now the gun still feels heavy and foreign in my thin hands. Jane however opted on a shotgun and something called a hand cannon. It looks like a slightly larger version of my own gun but definitely packs a bigger punch.

A week has passed since the Shepards found me - half dead and unconscious in the hands, no, jaws of a pack of varren. Upon waking I was given the largest shock of my life; that somehow I managed to wind up in the world of Mass Effect.

Now let me explain a few things.

Although I had often fantasized about the glories of fighting by Sheparrd's side when I was indulging in what I thought was the best third person shooter of all time I never thought all this was even possible. To be fighting by her seventeen year old side before she even understands her true potential is a mind blower. After waking up and about 30 minutes of face-in-palms disbelief later I realized that I had no choice but to wing it, there has to be a reason why I'm going through this bizarre experience. Maybe if I died I would end up right back to my own world, my own bed, but that is a theory I did not want to test. So until I find the answers to my questions, I will have to do my best survive.

And it helped to discover I am actually a rather good shot.

"When you're taking a photograph, you have to breathe out. If you hold your breath, your hands will shake. Breathing out gives you the stability to be accurate." The voice of my high school photography teacher resounds in my head. Perhaps it isn't wise to apply the same lessons to both photography and shooting. But it hasn't failed me so far. There is a break in the rain of gunfire and the clatter of equipment being reloaded. Taking the opportunity, Jane, Owen and I lean over our covers to return fire on the attacking batarian slavers. At the beginning the sight of the six-eyed aliens scared the living bejeesus out of me. Fortunately I had time after that particular experience to go over my ME knowledge to prepare myself for the different aliens I would most likely encounter in the future. Still, the way all six eyes blinked at the same time was far more irking than anything I've ever seen. But after a week of running and shooting a number of them to death- I don't even want to think about the first time I killed an alien- I overcame that discomfort quite quickly

I tell myself to think of it as a dream. A long, really bad, really really horrifying dream.

Bringing my thoughts back to the present. Exhale, and shoot. One down, about seven more to go. Jane brings down two other batarians while Owen manages to take out one. Just four more left. Remember, breathe in, exhale, shoot. There are shouts of rage as their comrades fall down around them, and the remaining four began to fire at us once again. My cover gives out the smallest creak of protest, almost like a dying breath before it explodes around me. Yelping in surprise I do a barrel roll and hit a brick wall to my right. I quickly duck next to Jane, panting from the exertion. Damn, now I'm going to have to spend some time removing those splinters out from my skin.

Jane shoots me a look of concern before returning her attentions to the enemy. Unsurprisingly the female Shepard and I got along very well in the past week. She accepted me as part of their small group quite readily and we became fast friends. Owen however is still a work in progress, although he is starting to begrudgingly admit that I am not as much as a burden as he originally thought I would be.

Score for me I suppose.

"Status!" Jane barks. Her cousin bends further into his cover and takes out a small walkie-talkie resembling device. From the little that I could understand it was something that Owen had tinkered with to sync with the Alliance's frequency. Or however it worked at this day and age.

"ETA, 20 minutes."

Jane grits her teeth in frustration as she peeks over her cover for a millisecond. She sighs. "It feels like we have been in this same spot for ages. They haven't been so incessant about pining us down before, what changed?"

The 20-year old frowns, "maybe they're getting desperate? Maybe they know that the help is coming and they want to round up as much of us as possible before heading off?"

"Risky though, especially with the timings so close… Maybe they don't know? Or at least not for sure?"

"It's possible, although doubtful." He hesitates, glancing over his shoulder before gesturing towards the other end of this make shift battlefield. "Heads up, we have reinforcements."

At the enemy's side twenty other batarians joins their mostly fallen crew. I start to sweat a little more due to the nerves; we have never come across such a large group of them at one go before. Twenty-four versus three, the odds are most definitely not in our favour.

"Goddammit." Jane swears, wiping the sweat off her brow using the back of her hand, and then tightening her grip on her weapon. "Okay, we only need to hold out for a little more than twenty minutes. We've managed to survive this together for a whole week. Twenty minutes will be nothing."

I nod at her words, saying nothing throughout their interaction. Being the newbie there is little I can offer that they didn't already know so I prefer to just listen to their advice and do the best that I can. My own grip tightens to an extent where it becomes almost painful. Just another twenty minutes. After a week in hell, this should be easy.

Two minutes later I am swallowing my own words. When the hell is anything ever easy? For you see, they decided to bring out the big guns. And I mean really, really big guns.

And then everything goes to hell.

There is a silence and then a high pitch noise, like something is being powered up. I watch, confused as Jane's eyes steadily widen in horror. It is so different from the usual calm and calculating mask she normally has on that it caused a sinking feeling in my gut and I know something horrible is about to happen.

Several things then occur at once. Jane immediately breaks cover and sprints towards her cousin. Caught in the surprise I lean over to provide her with as much distraction as I can, scattering gunfire towards the general direction of the enemy. My heart constricts painfully as I watch one of the batarians let loose a rocket from the large launcher he is holding at Owen. Time slows down as the projectile hits the canister that O is hiding behind, causing a large explosion and flinging him across the area, body alight in such a way that just didn't seem natural. A rain of fire shower down upon us and without looking I know he is gone, assault rifle flying and clattering to a stop at my feet.

Jane looks defeated, numb in horror as she sinks down to her knees, mouth open in disbelief. I know my expression rivals hers. The fight is over. Neither of us having the will to even make a noise of protest as the batarians come over, forcefully grabbing us by our arms, hauling us towards them. The shock of losing Owen is just too much. For the past week we grew to believe that we were powerful and almost unstoppable for we never failed. We took each victory too much to heart and this is what we get in return. Our mortalities slapping us in the face.

Oh Owen…

The batarians show no remorse and force us on our knees, removing the weapons from our grips as they cackle ad laugh in some foreign language that I didn't care to pay attention to.

I steal a glance at my friend. Tears streaming silently down her dirt-covered face. None of us could afford a shower in such conditions and I'm sure that we smell worse than we look, but none of that matters now. The broken and defeated look in her eyes feels extremely foreign on her. I want to shake her and tell her to wake up, that our battle wasn't over yet. But she just lost her best friend, a brother figure, and for someone who had already lost everything this was probably the last straw.

I shoot a hard glare at our captors, now jeering at us and nudging us with the butt of their guns. It seems like they are waiting for something, transportation perhaps? One batarian gestures at Jane, laughing and pats his crotch in a foul manner. The rest nod in agreement, large grins stretching across their ugly faces as they shove her to the ground. Again, laughing at the way she did nothing to defend herself. It did not take a genius to realize what was going to happen next as one particular batarians began to strip off his pants.

I nearly choke in terror.

No no no no no. This isn't the way things are supposed to go. We're supposed to all survive this, meet the Alliance army, get famous, save the Citadel, and then save the galaxy. Or at least, Jane is. No one mentioned rapes or deaths or what Shepard had to go through in the past. Not once in the game did she even show a hint of weaknesses and yet here she lies, about to get defiled in the worst way possible without a hint of defiance. I hate reality for being so damn literal, for everything to suck so much.

The batarians rips her shirt off and I knew I had to act fast. Scrambling from my position I pull out a hidden knife I had strapped around my waist. Following instincts and allowing my natural hatred and disgust for rapists as well as the fury from the deaths they had brought upon the peaceful people of Mindoir. 'Oh Owen…' I stabbed the pants-less batarians straight in his goods, causing a spray of blood and a bellow of agony to erupt from the said alien. He falls on his back, clutching his wound as he cries in pain.

"That's for Owen." I spat.

I had acted too fast for the rest of the monsters to respond but they were on me as soon as the shock wore off. There was nothing else I could do but slash, bite and scratch at the enemies. In terms of being realistic, this is me; a young seventeen inexperienced skinny ass girl armed with only a knife against over twenty large, muscular batarians slavers. The first hit came in the form of a rifle butt to the face, causing me to fall back as a flurry of stars flood my vision. Several kicks, punches and hits follow soon after. There is a sick crunch of my right leg snapping into half followed by the most agonizing pain in my life. A square punch to the face causes another sickly snap and I know my nose would never be the same again. Blood invades my vision as the beatings continue, rage and helplessness overwhelms me. I didn't know how long the torture went on for but I felt relieved as my vision began to bleed into black for the second time in a week.

There is a flash of bright blue and then the pain went away as I welcomed the darkness of death.

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Enjoyed it? Hated it? Let me know why or how I could improve. I know I skipped quite a lot between what happened last chapter and this one but I really just wanted to get into the actual story of everything else. Perhaps I'm being too impatient but do bear with me, I think it'll get better from here. Also, the almost-raping scene. Too much? I love hearing from my readers to do tell.

More character development coming up next chapter!

That's all for now,

Xx

Fee