So I've been reading plenty of Mass Effect fanfics and self inserts, so I thought "Why shouldn't I try one?"
After thinking about it a bit longer I thought "Why not do two?" this is one of the results, a "traditional" Mass Effect self Insert I'm going to try to write alongside with one called Mass Effect Contingent where the cannon is quickly thrown to the metaphorical wolves.
So if you're looking for a fic that throws a poor unassuming teen into the chaos of Mass Effect 1 then keep reading.
I hope you enjoy!
"Urgh, I swear today was the absolute worst!"
There a sigh from the other side of the line, "Oh come on, it wasn't that bad was it?" Rob asked, already knowing the answer, this isn't the first time we've had this conversation.
"Yeah, it was. I mean really what is the point of even going to college if when we get there the teacher just shows us a PowerPoint and makes us take notes? We could do that from home!" I argued as I opened the front door to my parents' house.
"Alright you got me there," he admitted before it sounded like he was distracted by something, or more accurately someone. "Huh? Yeah, ok. I gotta go I'll see you around tomorrow."
"Yeah see ya mate." I ended the call and placed my phone back into the pocket of my red hoodie, which had basically become my signature look by now.
I moved into the kitchen and grabbed a can of coke from the fridge, desperately needing some sugar right about now. After that I made my way to my room, knowing full well that I had the house to myself the better part of the rest of the day.
The advantages of college only having half days on Friday.
Walking into my room I set down the can and booted up the good old 360.
I'm feeling old school today.
Turning to my 'modest' collection of games. "Right let's do some RPGs today." I began talking aloud to myself.
I do that.
A lot.
It gets a lot of weird looks.
"Hmm… Fallout? Not today, Skyrim or Oblivion maybe… Nah, how about Mass Effect? Yeah, I'm always down for that."
I grabbed the three cases from the shelf and looked at the one on top, "3? No. Not for that shitty ending." I flung said game onto my bed and held up the remaining two cases, "2 or OG? Hmm…"
This was a tough decision to make, I do love running around as Cerberus in ME2, sometimes even equipping the Kestrel armour and giving it a Cerberus colour scheme, and there were the Tali and Garrus romances too.
But something inside of me felt a longing to play through the original.
Again.
"Eh, nothing beats the classics."
Booting up the game and opening the loads I ran through the dozen or so entries, before reaching the bottom. Jane Shepard.
That was odd, I don't remember ever using the pre-set name, I always changed the name to something like; Jenifer or Alex or Heather, even when I used the pre-made appearance I changed the name.
This was enough to get me to open the career.
Eden Prime
Autosave
Time spent playing: 00:05
Strange I always played to at least the Citadel before stopping.
Now fully determined to solve this little mystery I opened the save, and watched as the game went to the loading screen, after a few seconds the screen began to glitch out. "Crap!"
I began to hit the home button on the controller, dropping it on the bed and jumping up when that had no effect.
"Damn it! You idiot, it was probably a bug or something and you just had to open it and crash the game!"
I set my hand on the Xbox to eject the disk in an attempt to save it from corruption, I swear to god if I lose all my save data.
The moment my hand touched the surface the console the TV screen flashed white and began emitting an awful high pitched shirking white noise. I clasped my hands over my ears, but the sound persisted to dig into my head, causing an awful headache which quickly led to dizziness.
I squeezed my eyes shut to try and block out the pain, but it only made it worse. A moment later I was falling to the floor and losing consciousness.
Everything hurt like my head was trying to split open so my brain could run laps freely. Pulling myself into a sitting position I slowly opened my eyes, shielding them from the bright light.
After a moment my senses started coming back to me, and the world turned from painfully bright to unearthly dull.
I looked up to the orange sky seemingly full of smoke and cinders, standing up I realised not only that I was now outside, but I was stood at the top of what seemed to be a cliff in an opening of a forest, the view of a few large towers standing over what looked like a series of fields and forested areas in the distance.
Wait, I've seen this view before.
I quickly put together that this was the view you got of Eden Prime in the game. "Wow. I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore." I said aloud as I turned around taking in my surroundings.
This has to be a dream, right?
Yeah, of course. This is a dream, I mean it can't be real. So if this is a dream, then all I can do is ride it out. I started walking in a random direction, making my way through the forested area slowly but surely.
After what felt like ten minutes or so, I came across another opening, a decently sized mostly white metal prefab building that overlooked a pretty steep hill being the only landmark, as I approached the building the was a slight rustling to my right I turned just as a Geth emerged from the denser part of the forest.
In an instant, it looked to me, and I looked back tilting my head slightly.
Ok dream, now this Geth is gonna turn out to be a rough one, ala Legion, and we're going to go on epic adventures across the galaxy.
And I shall call it Beth the Geth.
The sheared look lasted only a moment before the Geth aimed its rifle at me, out of a sense of self-preservation I threw myself to the side as the bursts of plasma shot towards me. Most missed but one was just close enough to skim my lower leg, burning through the jeans and scorching my skin.
Shit! That hurt… that fucking hurt! What the Fuck Beth?!
Wait… that hurt.
Dreams don't hurt you!
Hold on, there is NO way this is real! Right?
Before Beth the Geth fired another series of shots I pushed myself into a sprint towards the building, managing to dodge the onslaught of plasma being fired at me, I rushed through the, thankfully open, door barely staying on my feet, before turning and smashing my hand on the glowing green pad to the side of the door, which quickly changed to red as the door slammed shut. Before turning and resting my back against the metal surface of the door for a moment.
"Ok calm down. You're just in a really realistic dream… that hurts."
Shit, that's a lame excuse and you know it.
"What else could it be?"
You've read enough Fanfics to guess.
"Yeah 'cus that's a great thing to base a logical conclusion off."
I sighed to myself, I was not in the mood for an internal/external debate right now.
I glanced up and took in the interior, there were a couple of desks with terminals against the furthest corner to the side and serval lockers lining the wall, some of which were knocked to the floor, and a large window on the furthest wall letting light into the otherwise dark room.
So some kind of security outpost if the lockers and pieces of armour cast across the floor were anything to go by.
A loud bang distracted me from my thoughts and caused me to rush from the door and drop to the floor behind some of the knocked down lockers.
I never said I was above hiding when I get scared.
I glanced around frantically, trying to find anything that might help me, one thing was a pistol lying on the floor just in front of one of the overturned lockers, quickly grabbing it and pulling it close to my chest for some comfort I continued to look around until I found the second thing, a belt with metal boxes around it, taking a wild guess that it would be helpful I grabbed it and clipped it around my waist. As the front of the belt clipped together, a transparent blue field materialised around me for a few seconds before vanishing. Trippy.
A shield harness. Yes!
Picking the pistol back up just in time for the door to open revealing the Geth, in a moment of panic I raised the gun and fired at the Geth until it stopped, making a beeping and releasing a stream of hot air.
Shit! I forgot, no thermal clips yet.
Most of the shots had impacted the wall, only some hitting the Geth itself, but it seemed I got lucky as one of the shots had managed to hit it right in its flashlight face. The Geth slumped to the ground against the wall whilst letting out a wired wiring noise.
"Yes! Take that Beth!" I screamed lowering my new pistol and doing a small jump of joy.
Calming myself down I made my way through the door, only to dive back through it a moment later as a group of Geth approached, guns at the ready. A FUCKING GROUP!
In another moment of panic and adrenalin, I thought it would be a good idea to shoot at the window before diving through it, smashing the glass on impact, with shards slashing at my exposed arms.
Why did I have to roll my sleeves up?
Fortunately, the adrenalin dulled the pain from the cuts, what it didn't dull the pain of was falling down a damn hill!
After at least a minute of rolling, and smashing into the ground over and over down the hill I reached the bottom.
And I just lay there. The adrenalin was wearing off, the pain was setting in, and frankly, if a Geth wanted to off me, I wouldn't complain.
After a minute of lying on the hard ground, I heard voices not that far away.
"Commander there's a survivor over here!"
Letting a deep groan out, I pushed myself off of the ground just enough to look at the three approaching figures. "Urgh, Shepard?"
"Do I know you?" the commander looked at me with a mix of concern, caution and curiosity.
"Umm… no, I'm a… fan, kinda." I answered it wasn't like it was a lie.
She seemed satisfied with that answer. Even offered me her hand to help me to my feet. How nice.
I took this chance the examine her.
That sounded weird.
I just mean that I looked at her for a bit to see what she looked like.
Still weird?
Yeah, still weird.
She looked like the pre-set, only real. And with slightly longer, redder hair that came just past her neck, green eyes, slight hints of makeup, and a small scar over her left brow.
Wait aren't they supposed to have her helmet on for this mission? Odd.
Ok, enough staring.
Although she was looking me over too, probably just seeing a scared beat up teen in dirty clothes, all just screaming out 'Please help, more useless than lost puppy'.
"Are you alright? How badly are you injured?" she asked with genie concern present in her voice, even if her face remained mostly stoic.
"Yeah, just a few cuts and bruises. Oh, and a Geth got me in the leg with a shot of plasma. Nothing really to the naturally badass like us." I stated placing my hands on my hips, straightening and puffing out my chest a little. Before groaning as I slacked down and held a hand to my aching ribs.
"Lieutenant get some medi-gel on that wound," Shepard ordered, and the good lieutenant quickly moved over to me. "So you already know me, that's Kaidan Alenko, and this is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams." I offered the two a wave as she motioned to them, "And you are?"
"Jason, Jason Knight." I answered as Kaidan placed a hand on my shoulder gently pushing me down on the ground, assuring me that it would be alright and a coolness took over the stinging pain of burnt flesh as he began dispensing a translucent gel on to the exposed skin through the hole in my jeans.
Oh well, that'd probably be considered stylish in a few months. Or maybe that should be a few centuries ago.
"You mind if I ask you some questions?" Shepard asked crouching down next to the two of us, while Ashley kept guard.
"Sure shoot. Not literally, I'm not a horse!"
She cracked a small smile at that. Yay, we're bonding.
"Do you know anything about this attack?"
"About as much as you, Geth attacked to get the beacon for-" I stopped myself from talking quickly reminding myself that she doesn't know about Saren or the reapers yet. Spoilers much!
Unfortunately, she caught that and decided to chase up on it. "You know about the beacon?"
Fuck!
Ok play it cool, the beacon would probably be common knowledge to the colony. Right?
"Umm, yeah. They dug it up and moved it to the spaceport." I answered being purposely vague.
"The spaceports just up ahead, we should move Commander." Ashley called over her shoulder catching our attention.
Shepard glanced back down at me as she stood, "Can you take care of yourself?" she asked. Shit, she was leaving, I needed to keep with her.
Not sure why, but if hours of reading all those fanfics were anything to go by sticking with her should turn out well.
"Wait!" I called out, catching her attention just as she began to turn away. "Let me tag along with you."
The three snapped their attention to me, making me more than a little self-conscious. "I barely took down one Geth before I smashed through a window and fell down a hill!" I quickly added pointing up to the said hill. "If you leave me on my own I'd probably end up tripping and blowing my own head off."
Shepard made a look that showed she was at least considering it.
"Sorry kid you'd only slow us down." Ashley cut in with a rather dismissive tone. Lovely woman.
"Actually the medi-gel will hold till we can get the beacon back to the Normandy." Kaidan pointed out, earning a sharp glare from the pink armoured gunnery chief.
Hearing that I pulled myself to my feet, suppressing a wince. "See I can keep up."
Shepard scrunched up her nose a little as she thought, before finally speaking. "You took down a Geth alone?"
"Yes!" I answered, nodding my head furiously, and probably a bit too enthusiastically. "Found a shield harness and pistol in a security building," I said nodding to the pistol that lay on the ground.
She hummed as she picked up the gun and turned it in her hands examining it, "Standard issue service pistol." She muttered to herself as she moved towards me, fixing me with that steely gaze of hers.
I started messing with my hands to try and elevate some of the uncomfortableness.
After a moment she handed me the gun, "Stick close and stay behind us."
"Got it," I answered eagerly as I began to follow the three, leaving just enough distance as to not bother them.
The group of highly trained soldiers (and one seriously out of his depth teen) made our way up a hill, fortunately not as steep as the last one, and quickly reached the top, well they did, I was bringing up the rear a few seconds later panting like a dog.
I glanced to the left and saw a bunch of metal spikes with what looked like decomposed corpses impaled on them.
Dragons' teeth… shit.
After a moment the spikes began to retract.
"Umm… guys!" I called over to the group who had already moved over to the buildings, they all turned to look at me as I rose a shaking hand pointing at the husks as one began to pull itself off the dragons tooth.
So, you know how you think if there was a zombie attack you wouldn't have to worry because you've played enough zombie games to basically be trained and conditioned to deal with it.
You'd be wrong.
It's fucking terrifying!
As soon as one of the husks began to shuffle towards me I raised my pistol and began to fire at it, a few shots impacted its torso but just as many missed completely. Fortunately, it was enough for the husk to die.
Thank god these things are so weak.
I then began to fire at another one that was sprinting around a cluster of rocks towards me. This one was significantly harder to hit, not even one of my shots hit the thing, and then the gun stopped firing as it emitted that awful beeping sound.
Uh-oh.
There was only just enough time to raise my arms to protect my face as the husk collided with me, forcing us both to the ground, it began to swing its arms at me, it bone like fingers slashing at my already cut up arms, sending waves of stabbing pain up into the rest of my already pretty beat up body.
After what felt like an eternity the husk stopped its attack as a shot impacted its head, ripping it in half and sending its black ink like contents spewing all over me. I brought my hand to my mouth to fight back the urge to vomit.
"You alright Jason?!" Someone called rushing over to me.
I managed to push the dead husk off of me by the time they arrived. It was Kaidan, "Just peachy." I groaned out as I took his offered hand and let him pull me to my feet, catching my shoulders before I went flying forward.
Man, these people are strong.
"Good come on, let's catch up."
The two of us moved over to the building that Shepard and Ashley were in, taking care not to step on any of the husk corpses, just we entered we heard Shepard speak as she moved towards one of the scientists. "Say goodnight Manuel." Before she smashed her fist into the poor scientists head, knocking him to the ground.
"That may have been a bit extreme Commander."
"Excellent right hook Shepard."
Wait, a renegade action? When she's been acting like a natural or paragon so far.
To be fair there are a few renegade choices I always make, for effectiveness or humour.
This one falls into the latter category.
As we made our way out of the shack I took a moment to consider the rest of the mission, let's see there are the bombs those a pretty easy to spot and stop, the farmers and the guy hiding behind the crates holding out items on Shepard, I could help with that, and there was… wait. Nihilus! He's still alive.
Until…
We reached the top of the hill where the cutscene starts.
"SHIT!" I began sprinting as fast as my legs would carry me completely ignoring the shouts from Shepard.
Everything seems to slow down and most everything turned into a blur, the only consistent thought going through my head was that Nihilus was about to be shot in the back if I didn't move.
I vaguely realised that I had run past a group of husks, fortunately still pulling themselves off of the dragon's teeth, as I ran up a ramp that leads up to two Geth aiming their rifles at me, in my current state of tunnel vision I didn't even register the threat.
An explosion suddenly materialised just to the side of the Geth tearing them apart, I was forced to come to a skidding halt at risk of being caught in the fireball
I blinked a couple of times as the ringing in my ears began to die down, I stood still for a few seconds, surprise temporarily overpowering the single-minded drive that dominated my mind. Until an ear-piercing gunshot echoed throughout the entire area as if a loud crack of thunder emanated right on top of me.
My eyes widened once again as my mind raced too quickly to keep up with, my body moved on its own accord yet again pushing forward completely disregarding any and everything else.
As I rounded the corner I looked over the scene that greeted me, Nihilus lay on his back, as a puddle of blue blood began to accumulate underneath him, with no sign of anyone else.
A mass accelerated round priced through the last of the husks, killing it.
Shepard continued her quick but cautious dash after Jason. She'd lost sight of him just a few moments ago as he ran off ahead, and had to hurry before he got himself killed.
What the hell was he even thinking?
Then Shepard reminded herself that he likely wasn't thinking, she knows she hadn't been in his situation. Watching the place you called home burn and people you lived with slaughtered had a certain way of screwing with the human mind.
Shit. Shit! SHIT! SHIT!
I dropped to my knees by Nihilus.
OK, what to do? Shit, what do you do when someone's been shot?
Check for breathing? Get help? Stop the bleeding? Check for a pulse? How the hell do you even check a turians pulse?
My mind was reeling, too many thoughts rushing past to keep track of. As a result, the only thing I was able to do was to press my hands against the hole in his torso.
My brain not entirely registering that in the game it's pretty obvious he gets shot in the back of the head, or the fact that he wasn't moving or making any noise.
As I said the only coherent thought was; SHIT!
I should have been faster. I should have realised sooner. I should have done… something!
Blue blood began to seep through my fingers as I applied more pressure to the gunshot.
I didn't notice.
The noises of gunshots slowly died down in the distance.
I didn't notice.
Footsteps moved towards me.
I didn't notice.
A voice called out my name.
I didn't notice.
A hand gripped my shoulder.
I looked up at Shepard with her and on my shoulder and her steely gaze fixing on me. "There's no time to waste, we have to move."
"But,"
"No buts." She cut me off, and if we were in a different situation I might snicker like a five-year-old. "There's nothing we can do for him now, we have to focus on the Geth and the mission. Can you do that?"
She gripped my shoulder slightly harder as she pulled me to my feet, still staring at me with those eyes that made you want to jump up and charge after her into the gates of hell itself.
Man, this woman is inspiring. And I don't think she's even trying.
I wiped my hand over my eyes, I didn't even realise I'd started welling up. "Y-Yeah, yeah I can do that."
She offered a small kind smile as she pats me on the shoulders and moved to lead the team towards the tram, I spaded one last glance to Nihilus before whincing and moving to follow.
We reached the tram and made our way to the front, fighting through Geth as we went, or at least the others did, I was cowering behind some cover.
"Knight! You wanna try shooting that gut at all!" Ashley called over a brief pause in the firefight.
I took a deep breath before raising out of cover and firing in the direction of the Geth.
"Argh… Shoot at them not me!"
"Sorry!"
I tried to line up a shot on the Geth destroyer running towards us, but when I fired the shot completely missed, instead of hitting the Geths' torso it whizzed past it and ended up hitting the explosive canister, which then proceeded to explode taking out the destroyer's shields and a group of Geth using cover towards the front.
I blinked in a moment of surprise before falling back down behind the metal outcrop as the shots began to impact my shields.
After a few more seconds of continuous firing, I heard Kaidan call out, "Clear!"
I quickly moved forward after the others, but before I knew what was happening I was flying forward and hitting my head on the VERY hard metal floor, which knocked me out cold.