Avengers of Mass Effect

Shanxi arc chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own either mass effect or the marvel cinematic universe, if I did I would not be writing this story, but making changes to the games or sitting besides Stan Lee during his moments in the movies.

'' Talk'' is regular oral communication/talking out loud

'TALK' Is mental communication such as telepathy or communication with things that are controlled through brain waves. Might also be used in situations dealing with possession by some kind of being/force.

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Planet: Shanxi, Location: a farmstead roughly 20 kilometres north of the capital city. Time: POV: Lieutenant Armstrong

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Ok, they should be coming out of that forest any moment, there they are. Ok, I know the satellite control personnel told us that they looked like a strange bunch, but this is way more extreme than what I expected. I expected maybe jumpsuits in very strange colours or something like that, not what seems to be a 7 foot tall man dark blonde/brown haired man in a heavily modified black combat jumpsuit who is holding a shield in his hand, while standing in front of the others as if to shield them from damage.

Hell the others are nearly as strange if not even stranger, a 6 foot something black haired man in some kind of ancient armour, with what seems to be energy sparking between his fingers, a person of unknown height in what looks to be body shaped power armour that is aiming a palm that is glowing with blue energy at us, and last but not least another 6 foot something black haired man, but this one has some kind of black combat uniform, and what seems to be a metal arm.

However what is nearly the strangest about their appearance is just how many scratches, cuts, dents and burns can be seen on not only their armour and clothing but also all types of slight wounds on the visible parts of their bodies, on top of the kind of look I would think you would get from non-stop fighting for hours on an end. Were they part of some kind of battle before they entered the portal that lead them here? Also who were those two that they were fighting that didn't switch sides?

Well, once again I hope they are not going to attack us. If that blue energy on that power armour is any indication, their gear is probably a lot more advanced then what it looks like. Well, let's make contact. I suppose I'll try English first, then French, then Russian, then Chinese, and Spanish after that. If none of that works I can try Latin or German, but I am not sure how well I can hold a diplomatic conversation in either of those languages.

''Good afternoon, my name is Thomas Armstrong and I am a lieutenant in the Systems Alliance military. The Systems Alliance is the overarching organisation of all Terran governments, functioning as not only a defensive alliance against all others but also a point of communication and diplomacy between Terran nation states, both internal and external. We saw how you stepped out of what seemed to be a portal, and we would like to know what your intentions are and why you came here.'' Now let us hope I did not just gravely insult their culture or something like that.

''Good afternoon young man, I am Captain Steve Rogers, formerly United States armed forces, current leader of the Avengers and officer in the Wakandan Defence Force. Loki here '' and with this he indicated the black haired man behind him that had the strange energy held in his hand ''Says that his scans show that the population of this planet is human, and as you already just told us, not the home planet of this dimensions human race.''

Wait a moment, he said 'Loki', as in the God from Norse mythology? And 'This dimensions human race'. Shit we either have to do with super powered crazies, or we just stumbled upon something we have no defence against. At all. And something I can also see no possible way to truly defend against.

Let's hope these people are just escaped experiments from some shady organisation that thought their test subjects were re-incarnations of ancient Gods or something. Never thought I'd think of a sentence like that with hope, but anyways I should resume contact, and assume that at least a decent part of what he's telling is the truth, since there was a portal-like object at their entrance and unless intel has fucked up really badly there isn't any organisation in Terran space that can actually use those things to travel. And we've only just now made contact with those aliens at the relay, the chances of them already having human infiltrators somehow is low enough to be considered non-existent.

''Yes sir, this planet has as far as I am informed a near only human population. And as your scans show, it is also not the home planet of the human race. I apologise, but would your companions please be so kind as to introduce themselves to us?'' That would make this go a while lot easier on the communication front. He nods gesturing to his companions for them to introduce themselves.

Ok, so far so good. I don't fully believe the 'from another dimension' thing yes, but they can at the very least be reasoned with so even if they are crazies this doesn't have to end in violence. Which we would most likely loose in any case so that is a very positive thing. I'll have to ensure it is kept that way. ''Whom is interested in starting off the round of introductions?''

The one in the fully closed suit of powered armour froze for a moment and I could hear a very soft murmur, he's probably contacting them on comms and the only reason I can even hear that fact is because it is almost completely silent outside of that and well for me my own heartbeat though that last one is caused mostly by just how much this situation stresses me out.

''Well, since you asked so nicely, my name is Tony Stark, a very humble engaged billionaire, creator of the Iron Man suits and also the sole manufacturer of Arc Reactor Energy.'' The newly named Tony Stark said while the face-plate of his suit slid up, though grief entered his tone at those last words, they most likely remind him of a person he cared for that he now won't be able to see any time soon possibly even never again if the portal story is actually the truth.

As for looks, he seems to be a middle aged handsome black haired man, that while not having a baby face of any kind also isn't quite as rugged as the other three are. He also seems to be charismatic, his words sound inviting and he has a voice that most people wouldn't mind listening to. However that sadness and grief is just nearly overwhelming.

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Loki POV

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The grief is just pouring out of him, either I or sergeant Barnes need to intervene otherwise, our opponents might notice and try to take advantage of it. ''And I am Loki of Asgard, a prince of said people.'' At this the ''Systems Alliance'' group, whatever that means, turned towards me. ''Wait of that people? Isn't it supposed to be a realm, a location?'' And now this is making me grief once more, damn it. Too much happened in a way too short amount of time.

''Until shortly ago, Asgard was also the indication for a location, a very big city the size of a small planet. However, for some reason, a family member of mine called Hela decided she wanted to be a dictator and overthrew our government then went on to kill most of our soldiers. A while after that she and Surtur decided they wanted to have a fight in the middle of the city, and we barely managed to evacuate whomever of our people was still alive before they destroyed it and the planet with it.''

Nothing of that banter is happening yet sadly enough, though it is understandable, I myself am also not up to it. We really should have thought this meeting through more before we stepped out of that forest. And we should also have understood more about how much all the tragedy of the past weeks would affect us.

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Thomas Armstrong POV

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Ok, now I'm starting to believe their story of being from another dimension more. You cannot fake the amount of grief and sadness there is in his eyes, or the emotion in his voice when talking about his people. Also, the sadness that this Tony Stark had about him while he was talking about the energy? Only now I realize that there was also this pride in it, possibly some people he loved were part of the project to create that energy and he is very proud of them and their work. But he is grieving because they died a recently?

I heard the brown haired man that hadn't been introduced yet clear his throat ''My name is James Buchanan Barnes, alias the White Wolf, formerly the Winter Soldier and before that sergeant in the U.S armed forces. Now that we've all been introduced, can we maybe go inside that farmstead? Please do talk to the civilians hiding in there first so they don't have a heart attack upon seeing us walking in there with you.

I with how good I look, Steve with the fact that compared to normal people he's a giant, Loki well, he can talk his way into the pants of a completely lesbian woman or a completely straight man if he wanted to, so he would probably get them to hyperventilate by complementing them.'' here the soldiers started laughing thinking it to be a joke, but most fell silent at Loki's wane smile, which told them this might actually have happened before.

''And Stark, well he looks like a rip-off terminator, anyone who hasn't dealt with him or our brand of crazy in general before might start running for their lives.'' I could hear the man called Tony Stark yell an undignified voice 'Hey!' While the troops laughed again, with Barnes continuing ''You know it's true Stark. The first time your fiancée that had worked with you for years saw the thing she nearly had a heart attack, let alone some old farmers that live in a small out of the way community.''

Ok, that at least makes everything less tense, though the slang use of terminator is very classic instead of more recent. ''Lieutenant Armstrong? If I may be so bold as to ask you the current date?'' Says the man named Steve Rogers. Let's see, considering what they were saying, if the thing of them being from another dimension is really true, they are probably from an dimension that while having more advanced energy technology, is mainly caused by a few individuals and might actually be as much as a full century behind us chronologically.

''Well, we might want to go inside and let you sit down before I tell you?'' He growls ''Tell me the year soldier.'' At the frightening idea of angering a 7 foot tall man that is now wielding some kind of fireball in his right hand, I say ''The year is 2157, sir.'' And I'm more afraid of what might happen next then that I've ever been in my entire life.

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Planet: Citadel, Location: Citadel Council chambers, Time: The same time at which the Avengers and Systems Alliance have first contact with each other. POV: 3rd Person

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If one could look into the citadel council chambers at this moment of the day, one would come upon a very strange scene, with the Asari councillor swearing in every language she knew, the Turian councillor ramming his face-plate against the table and the Salarian councillor taking multiple head-ache relieving pills while stress-eating some fried snacks.

The reason behind this scene was that a fleet of more than 120 Turian ships had less than an hour ago ceased communications, after sending a message that could pretty much be summarized as ''Underway to bring a race of primitive apes to heel by occupying their home-world.'' Beforehand said fleet had requested at least another 50 ships as re-enforcements including a number of troop transport ships and ground forces, who were on their way to join it as far as the council knew, also without them being able to contact this group.

The problem with this all being that the council needed only a few minutes minute to figure out that the world indicated wasn't the home-world at all seen nor were the race primitives in either the technological or the economic sense.

This could be seen by the fact that the race had ships that while worse in the Mass Effect department then Turian military ships, still equalled most of those in use by military of the less quality oriented minor species such as the Batarians and Hanar. On top of that the race had a strong enough economy to then use more armour on those ships then even the Krogan did back when they still had a fleet and laser weaponry that was stronger and more advanced than those currently in use by any of the Citadel militaries.

This was after they found out from what information they could get from the data sent with the message that the world the Turian fleet was heading to not matching descriptions of said home-world from that same data. It also appeared that the group that the Turian fleet had faced was unlike what the commanding officer thought not their second fleet or a home defence fleet, but instead a patrol/exploration flotilla.

Since the race had enough ships to assign what appeared to be a dreadnought, admittedly a small one, to an exploratory or patrol flotilla, it would be reasonable to assume that they themselves had at least a few, but probably a lot more than 'a few' actual dreadnoughts. And usually, especially new races, had entire fleets to accompany a single dreadnought because of how much easier it is when using Mass Effect technology to make more than twenty smaller ships in comparison to 1 big one of the same size as only 4 or 5 of the smaller ones put together.

This meant that when said race would come to either free their colony or avenge the deaths of their people, Arterius would have awakened and enraged what would most likely be a sleeping giant that would strike back at either the Turians, or the council in its entirety.

With them already facing enough problems with the Batarian Hegemony supporting pirate raids stretching their navies thin, and with most of their client races barely having a big enough fleet to defend their own territories, let alone the territories of other races any war of a scale bigger than one with a decently sized and well organised group of pirates would end up becoming a disaster, both PR and resource wise.

''Why was this general actually given command of a 120 ship fleet at all in the first place!'' Tevos, the Asari councillor could be heard yelling. The sound of her actually raising her voice in anger at all, instead of it being the calculated, but relatively welcoming and diplomatic tone she always used was enough for the Turian councillor to sigh and finally stop slamming his faceplate into the table.

''A patrol consisting of 5 ships had noticed a mass relay that was defunct only an hour beforehand being registered as active by their relay scanners, and once they headed there a small group of some 4 ships was flying around, having come through it shortly beforehand. The commanding officer sent this information to the nearest Turian patrol quick reaction force, which just so happened to be a 40 ship quick reaction force of ships assigned to deter large mercenary and smuggler groups from settling through the area.

Contact was lost, with the patrol group moments after this and with the QRF a few hours afterward, so command assumed that whatever came through the Mass Relay was hostile, at the very least equal sized to the Turian QRF and also technologically near our level.
After this a group of 120 or so ships was scrambled together, plus the closest officer that had anywhere near high enough rank to actually assume command of the fleet, which happened to be Arterius.

Later reconstruction on hand of whatever evidence we could gather though showed the opposite, with the patrol group intentionally ceasing all communications to make it look like there was an attack and said group then attacking the vessels coming out of the Mass Relay, and winning the fight against the surprised opponents, but being defeated by a 20 or so ships big flotilla that came through to find out what had happened to the group that went through before them.

The patrol flotilla entered the area shortly after this and saw a fleet with multiple destructed ships near them, some of those ships being Turian, and decided to attack straight away under the assumption that the non-Turian group were the ones to initiate conflict, but had only won at great cost through luck. It turned out however that as we already noticed, the ships were of a relatively high quality, much better armoured then their Turian counterparts and had as much as I am ashamed to say it, a more competent commanding officer then the Turian flotilla did.

This fight continued towards mutual destruction, until Arterius entered the area while flanking the non-Turian fleet, and immediately attacking them too. Caught off-guard and with nearly everything except their biggest ships already dead, they were quickly destroyed after that, but not before Arterius managed to capture a cruiser grade ship, and pull this information out of their partially deleted information storage.

He quickly called upon re-enforcements fleet wise in the form of another 40 ship QRF, and deciding he needed to invade the world after the Relay to force them to comply, also called upon an invasion force of near 20000 infantry troops to supplement those he already had on his fleet + the freighters to transport them and some in atmosphere support vehicles such as a number of hover-tanks, low altitude APC vehicles and gunships. Not deeming anything stronger then this necessary with his complete confidence in having orbital superiority. Most of the lower officers of this invasion force are fanatics, either in their loyalty to him, or in how they treat everyone who isn't a member of one of our three species.''

Tevos looked thoughtful for the moment ''Is there any way a local Salarian STG team can do anything about this?'' The Salarian councillor shook his head ''The local team went silent with the fleet, so either they agree with Arterius or he somehow managed to convince them that they are working on council orders.''

Tevos sighs, finally sits down and says ''Is there anything we can do, outside of gathering the Destiny Ascension, hundreds of ships from the councils personally assigned fleet, go towards that Relay as fast as possible and hope we are in time to make enough of a difference for these, what did they call themselves anyways that seems to not even be included in the message sent, to be willing to talk to us instead of fight us for years in a war possibly nearly as devastating as the Krogan rebellions were?''

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Planet: Shanxi, Location: shield generator guard post, Time: At roughly the same time Gen. Williams hears the news of his brother being in command of said post. POV: Lieutenant Williams

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Unlike what his brother probably thought, Lieutenant Williams was not actually doing nothing. No, he and the other guards stationed at the shield generator were fighting for their lives against enemy infiltrators that would pop up from under some kind of cloaking device every once in a while and try to kill them, though they oft did not succeed in such attempts.

That last part was heavily related to the fact that the IFF's they were using to not hit eachother were picked up by the System Alliance AI working to support the defenders, causing them to be able to see the enemy if the enemy decided to come somewhat close to their current position.

The problem with this however was that they were still pinned down by the enemy with no cover anywhere near them outside of the walls they were hiding behind. After a few more moments of this lieutenant Williams received a message on his wrist-computer that the shield generator was being accessed by an unauthorized user.

''Damn it we need to get to it before they damage it too badly for us to repair it.'' He said, while thinking about a way that would give him and his troops the chance to actually hit their opponents. He had an idea, grimaced, but after looking at the message once more, steel entering his eyes. It was all or nothing right now, and with nothing they would probably be dead soon anyways. He turned towards the only still combat effective sergeant under his command.

''I'm going to do something incredibly risky, but since we have no communications, no exit and no grenades it will be necessary. I will go into the open, taking all their attention and trying to take out whomever is sabotaging the shield. Your group will deliver cover fire for me, and try to take out as many of the enemies in this room possible while our AI support ensures they will not be able to open the door after I manage to go through. Understood?''

''Understood sir. For what it is worth it's been an honour serving with you sir.'' The lieutenant nods ''Thank you sergeant, but I have a lot to make up for, now let's go.'' Oh well, let's hope this goes according to what goes for the plan in this situation. The shield generator room is straight ahead, through that door, then the second door to the right.

From there I have to go through a small hallway to the armoured door in front of the generator room. I get up, fire a few salvo's at where the heat sensors of my armour tell me the enemies are, run as fast as I can towards the door, its somehow working! Once inside I close the door behind me, a nice metal shield against the enemy shots, wait why does my left arm not respond to commands anymore?

Shit I somehow also didn't notice that I dropped my rifle because of it while in that room and my side-arm is the standard non-detachable heatsink model, which is really useful as a backup weapon with near infinite ammo as long as you can rest it moment after using it, very much a pain in the ass during a close quarters fire-fight. I quickly break the opening mechanism of the door, which should close off the possibility of them opening it manually while the AI can shut down any chance of it being opened through hostile electronical means.

Hopefully this will hold them for long enough for the others to take care of them or re-enforcements to arrive. The second door to the right opens, with a somewhat amphibian alien stepping out and asking something in a language I do not understand, stopping surprised as soon as he sees me.

I step forward, pressing my pistol nearly into his chest and fire the last of its heatsink into him, and luckily enough the shields these aliens seem to have didn't activate due to how close to him the gun was. After feeling horrible pain in my stomach area, I look down. While completely surprised he somehow managed to get a shot off into my stomach in the exact location while my armour was still weakened from the explosion of a grenade earlier. I need to get to the generator and take out whomever is trying to destroy it right now, before I fall over dead because of blood loss. No time to wait for the pistol to cool down.

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3rd person POV

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The mortally wounded form of Lieutenant Williams could be seen moving through the door that the Salarian STG operative had just left. After which he moved through the hallway as fast as he could and opened the heavy door that lead to the shield generator room, where he saw another Salarian about to enter some commands into the screen that controlled the shield generator.

With whatever energy he had left, he jumped the remaining distance just as his opponent was turning around towards the sound, and stabbed him in his side while tackling him, hoping to hit something important. Both fell to the ground, with the Salarian beneath cursing himself and Arterius for underestimating this race and with Lieutenant Williams being at peace, though he knew he would die, he had potentially saved hundreds if not thousands of people.

He felt that his death was a small price to pay for that. 'Thank you brother for having cared for me and all your attempts to give me a good life. I just hope that he doesn't take my death too hard, he needs to be able to continue on, this place will now need a strong commander more than ever.' Were his last thoughts before he died.

A few minutes after this, the troops sent by the general to man the shield generator arrived, and with their assistance the guards they managed to take out all surviving Salarians. The base's AI opened the door for them, behind which they found the dead Salarian in the first room, and the corpse of both the Salarian and the Lieutenant in the shield generator room.

After having somebody check the shield generator, they found out that while damaged and thus degraded the shielding function is still functional, meaning that if the Lieutenant had taken even a few seconds longer, they would instead of just being able to repair it within a few days, actually have to replace the entire generator the parts for which would have to be shipped there from either Earth or the Hydra system.

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I end this now, because I need to stop somewhere and wanted to keep this chapter below five-thousand words. In case you have any advice, please review and I will try to work it into the story if it seems like it could cause my work to become something of higher quality.

Edit 7-5-2019: And I'm done with writing this in the word version, I'll upload it as soon as I have both the time and a stable enough internet connection to work out whatever problems converting it to a doc will cause. I hope once again that it is an interesting read.