Me: Hello everybody and welcome back to Delta Effect! The show where changes are made, alliances are forged, guns are cleaned and wielded, things are killed, robots get rights-

Delta: and Donuts are eaten to the ire of Tim!

Me: (sighs) Dammit Delta, I was on an epic roll there.

Delta: I'm in your mind dude. It was all downhill from the robots get rights thing.

Me: Hey hey, I have plenty of good ideas and things going here! Why just last night I-!

Delta: (eats a donut) whatever. Silver! Do the disclaimer! I feel a Zero rant coming along!

Silver: Acknowledged. Beginning evasive protocols for copyright infringement.

Disclaimer: Zero612 does not own the rights to any portion of the Halo legacy or the Mass Effect trilogy. He does own a shiny mac. Oooh, shiny.

Change in Origin

"DELTAAA!" Shepard yells, stomping into the armory.

"(mumble) 5 more minutes mom…" was my entirely lucid, in no way half-asleep response.

It sounds like Shepard pauses for just a millisecond before yelling again "Delta get up! What is this!" She holds up a bag that I see out of the corner of my eye before I shut it tightly.

"Not now Shepard, I'm on LA time…"

"It's 2 pm in LA."

"Then I'm on Palaven time."

"Palaven's roughly… 11 AM now."

"Then I'm on Tuchanka time!"

"On Tuchanka its GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED BEFORE IT GETS KICKED TIME!" Shepard flips the cot over and throws me onto the floor.

"OW! Merda, my head!" I curl up, clutching my oft-beaten body part.

"What is this Delta!" Shepard shoves the bag in my face now.

"…It looks like weed."

"Why is there weed on MY SHIP!?"

"I had some for Grunt. Didn't I tell you? Yesterday?"

"I thought you were joking!"

"About giving it to the whole of Krogan society. Imagine how much that'd cost us to buy weed every day for em." A kick in the shin is my answer. "Ow! How'd you find it anyway?"

At this point fate decides to explain things to me as Grunt ambles into the room, eyes half-closed and bloodshot while he keeps sniffing the air like a bloodhound. He heads straight over to Shepard and tries to grab the bag of weed.

"B…B… Battlemaster, can I have more of that magic herb? I feel better than when I charged all those Blue suns mercs…"

…Holy fuck, Grunt is high as a goddamn kite! "Holy crap, Grunt's high as a goddamn kite!"

"Yeah I noticed! So did Jack, Tali, Zaeed and Gardner." Shepard bats away Grunt's lazily moving arm which kinda floats away before moving back to try and grab the bag. The cycle repeats and is kinda funny to watch.

"Well now we know what to do if the Krogan attack. Bomb em with weed smoke, packs of cheetos and blankets." Oooh, Shepard's glare promises unhealth.

"Delta…"

"That's the only weed I have, I promise. I don't know how he got it so early, I wasn't planning on giving him it until we left the Citadel. The place does drug tests right?"

"Delta, I have some important things to do here. Do not cause any problems, are we clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good." Shepard tosses the bag to me and I catch it she then pushes Grunt once he turns to follow the bag. "I'll see you later Delta."

"AGH!" Grunt is pushed off-balance and crashes into me, pinning me to the ground under 300-pounds of pure, stoned krogan muscle mass. Grunt is merely wriggling and rolls over comfortably while opening the bag to make another joint while I'm yelling and feeling my ribs cave in.

Eventually, Mordin and Kelly came in with Silver and together all of us shoved Grunt off my body. I'm about 3 inches thinner in my chest area but Chakwas says I'm just imagining it. Anyway later I head out with Tali and Kasumi by my side to the Citadel, looking around at the various shops. I don't know why Shepard appointed me babysitters but she did. Like I'm the most dangerous one here. Grunt might be high until the next mission but Jack is still rampant. Good luck Jacob. Wait he has to deal with Zaeed too. He's fucked.

"Delta?"

"Hmm?"

"It's nice to see you again, how are you?" Oh it's Lia.

"I'm doing pretty well, how about you Lia?"

"Not too bad really. I have a job with the cleanup engineering and managed to get a small room in a sort of hostel by the shelter."

"Nicely done Lia. Glad to see you're doing well. You remember Kasumi right? Well this is Tali Zorah vas Neema Nar Rayya, another friend and squadmate."

"It's nice to meet you Lia. Kasumi has told me about what Delta has done for you."

"It was very nice of him. I haven't had much trouble since either. He made a bit of a spectacle about it."

"I'm flashy, what can I say."

"Yes you were rather flashy with your plasma blade around that volus." Kasumi says.

"I was a little ticked off too, so sue me." Kasumi and Lia laugh a little, and Tali seemed to have gotten a little more comfortable and less stiff. We chat with Lia for a few minutes more before going on our way. I'm headed to a warehouse where I have to sign off on the delivery of my new armor. I can't wait to open it in the ship. Once it's signed off and headed out we walk over to the stores to see if there's anything good to get. I can see a nice tray of donuts over in that pastry shop there.

"…Trevor?" I hear the name muttered a second before someone suddenly hugs me from the side, light sobs coming form my shoulder. I jerk my head around to the noise and see a black man about my height, his face pushing into my shoulder as he keeps sobbing. He's balding a little, and some of his scalp is visible but there are few gray hairs. He's wearing a blue shirt and dark blue pants with a silver lining to both pieces.

"I thought I lost all of you guys. I'm so glad you're alive Trevor. I didn't know what I'd do with the rest of the family back home." The man pulls away with a smile over his face, not even seeming to notice Kasumi and Tali behind me who are just as confused as I am. The man grabs my arm and drags me with him down the street a bit. "Come on, the house is only over here, you remember right? Sure you do, You haven't been gone that long." A door opens and I'm dragged inside even more surprised at the homely family room we've stepped into. The man lets go and heads to the kitchen.

"So Trevor, what'll it be? A Pepsi, Sprite or some Naked Juice? I suggest the juice, one more week and it would've gone bad."

"I'll have the juice…" I walked over tot eh wall and stared at it, seeing the man standing there with another that looked like him, likely his brother. There was a woman too, she had a wide charming smile, thick curly locks of hair and a slim figure. It was a mixed family but the scariest thing was the child. He looked young but had my features. I looked at the other pictures, finding more of the brother's, the man and his wife, and my lookalike. The most recent one seemed to be taken when the 3 were getting aboard a shuttle. I picked this picture up and looked at it, feeling something important was here.

"Alright Trevor, here's your juice. Green machine, your favorite huh? Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't notice you had friends." I hold the cup the man passes to me and watch him walk by to Kasumi and Tali. "Hello you two I'm Gerry Johnson, nice to meet you." Kasumi and Tali both introduced themselves to him then looked at me.

"Delta, are you alright?" Kasumi asks.

"Delta? Who's Delta?"

"He is."

"I don't remember Trevor ever having 'Delta' as a nickname… Trevor, is this a new one for you?"

"No, I've had that nickname for years. Trevor's the name that's unfamiliar."

Gerry frowns. "What are you talking about Trevor? I've been calling you that and Trev for years. We've lived together almost all your life."

I turn to the man, the picture and frame still in hand. "That's impossible, you don't even seem all that familiar to me and I'd definitely know you if we've been living together that long."

Gerry seems shocked at this but then gets a 'eureka' face "Ah I see, you've suffered amnesia from the accident!"

"Accident?"

Gerry smiles sadly and walks over, taking the picture out of my hands "The accident. The one that made me think I lost all of you. A long while ago, close to half a year, you, your mother and father, my brother, left the Citadel on a shuttle to Freedom's progress. I stayed back, the Citadel was enough of a stretch for me anyway. Your parents though, they loved to travel. That was one of the things that made Jeremy and I so different. He would go anywhere, explore the areas around our old home as a kid and always take some time off from work or school to visit some new place. Those two heard about a frontier colony in the Terminus systems and wanted to go there, make a small home and help out with establishing the colony. I saw you all off at the docks, you were so excited that day. I was too, and happy for you guys until I heard the news."

Gerry turns to us and the smile goes away. "3 weeks later, I heard that your shuttle crashed in a mountain adjacent to the colony. The pilot tried to land in a small snowstorm but apparently the winds in one area were completely unlike the ones beside it. The shuttle was thrown into the side of the mountain and everyone was either dropped down the cliff or slammed against the rockside. An avalanche covered it and most of the bodies but it was said that they were all recovered. The rest were unrecoverable down that cliff. We assumed your body had fallen down there with your parents. I was heartbroken. I just couldn't believe you were all gone."

He smiles again, putting the picture down and wrapping me in a hug "But now you're back. My favorite nephew is back amongst the living when I had almost given up hope! You can enroll in that robotics school you dreamed of attending!"

Oh man oh man oh man! What is this? "Wh-what, What?! No! I can't!" I say, pushing away from Gerry. My shock is evident and so is his. "I, I can't stay here with you. I mean, it's not that you're bad, I-I just have a job already. I'm helping Shepard, she needs my help and I can't leave her. Besides I'm, I'm not Trevor…"

"What?" Gerry chuckles, a smile in his face but disbelief and growing sadness in his eyes. "Of course you're Trevor! You have his face, his body, his smile. I know my nephew better than every other person in the galaxy besides his parents. I know with a single glance that you're Trevor. Green Machine is your favorite flavor of Nakéd juice, your favorite video games are FPS or RTS games, you borrowed $50 from me to pledge to that new game on kickstarter called Planetary Annihilation, you like tinkering with machines, you always had a LOKI mech or two in your room to work on, the best food to bribe you with was donuts. Am I right?"

…Holy crap he is right. Except for the mechs and the borrowed money, but I do want that game, it's gonna be epic.

"How-how do you know all that?"

"Because you're Trevor, my nephew. Geez, you're never this dense." He chuckles.

"But that's just it I'm NOT Trevor. My name is Delta, I don't have an uncle Gerry, my dad wasn't named Jeremy, and I'm certainly not dead or a zombie!" Calm down Delta, calm down. There must be some kind of reasonable explanation for all this. "Trevor… Trevor was a doppelganger, that's it! There's that theory that everybody in the world has someone that looks like them!"

"You don't just look like him. You act like him, you talk like him. Every time Trevor was confused he would get a little flustered and angry because he was always nervous about not knowing the right answer to something and hated it even more."

"Stop naming the similarities! I'm not Trevor!" I walk off to the side, a hand on my hip and one pressing the palm against my forehead while my fingers scratch my scalp. "dammit" I mutter. I can't be Trevor, I'm ***** for crying out loud! Well, mainly Delta here but I was ***** when I was back home in LA. Ok, so apparently I have a lookalike here in the ME universe and he recently died. That's well, horrible to be honest but this is just a bad hassle. I mean I feel for the guy, really I do, but this is…too much. I can't worry about anything besides the Collectors and the Reapers now. I do know what it's like to lose a family…but Gerry's the only one here that can have some closure.

"I'm sorry. I'm not Trevor. Your nephew's dead." I turn and look at him while I say this. His eyes lose some luster and he stares at me with his head shaking some.

"No, no you are-"

"I'm not Gerry." I sigh. "Trevor's gone. I might have his body but he's not here. Trevor's dead and he isn't coming back. I don't want to say this but I have to because it's the truth and you need to come to terms with it. I am very sorry and you have my deepest condolences but I can't bring the dead back to life. I would if I could but it's impossible."

The man's crying now. It's silent but obvious. The tears are like glistening rivers running down his cheeks. I bow my head sadly, remembering my own brothers and parents. My lost family. "Believe me, I know what it's like to lose your family. Mine is gone too. The problem here is that if I could go back to them, would I? I'm needed here. I have a purpose and job too important to go back to them even though I love them with all my heart. Gerry, you're a grown man, you know what lies in this world, in this universe. You also know where Trevor is right now don't you?"

He sobs. "He's, he's in heaven isn't he?"

I nod. "That's right. Right now your brother, your sister in law and your favorite nephew are up in heaven, in paradise and they are safe from the horrors and temptations of this world. Do you really want him to come back down to this world where the shadows are just outside the light, and its so easy to look away from it?"

Gerry sobs a bit longer but its less pained. His shoulders sag as if a weight is lifted. "No. He's safe now. He's under God's wing and he's helping to look over his family, I know he is." Gerry says this as he sits down on the couch, a small smile on his face.

I step over and place a hand on his shoulder. "That he is. Now you make a promise. Not to me, not to you, but to God and to Trevor. You will live celebrate their lives by happily living out your own. You will live happily and enjoy life until God finally calls for you to take you up to your brother his wife and your nephew. Then you can be together again in paradise for all eternity."

Gerry's eyes shine and he places a hand firmly on my shoulder "I promise." He looks up to the ceiling. "I promise I'll live my life out happy Trevor, Jeremy, Aaliyah."

We smile at each other before letting go, he stands up and gives me a hug. "Stay safe *****. I'll pray for you and your family."

"Thank you Gerry. Live well."

"I will."

Kasumi, Tali and I walk away from Gerry's home. I'm smiling widely, because hell, I was scared as shit that he was gonna be overcome with grief again and do something drastic like kidnap me or kill himself or something. You have no idea how happy I am that actually worked out well.

"You handled that pretty well Delta. I didn't know you were very religious either."

"I was raised a Christian. Methodist to be exact. I've never been the most devout or seasoned but I like to believe I understood the most important message of Christianity and faith in God. To be nice to all, offer mercy where it's needed, inspire others to live well, that sort of stuff. I try not to be openly obvious or be a pretentious prick about it either."

"I've only seen Shepard spin words like that. Very well played." Tali says, seemingly impressed.

"Thank you Tali. I'm glad I didn't have to skimp out on the message to get all my desires across." What worries me though is what he said about Trevor's death. If it turns out I shoved Trevor's soul out of his body when I came here I don't think I'd ever forgive myself. I hope to God and whatever made this happen if it wasn't him that I didn't too. "Let's go to the bar. I could use a drink."

Kasumi laughs a little and we head over to the elevators to take them down to the Dark Star lounge. We spend some time in there, trading drinks and chatting. Pretty soon a couple hours have passed and we get a message from Shepard saying that shore leave is nearly over and everyone should make their way to the Normandy now. The three of us shrug and get up, paying for our drinks and heading out the lounge. We reach the docks and I wave to Shepard while breaking out in a slight jog over. We get into the docking tube and are partially into the airlock before disaster strikes.

My head catches fire. Not literally but my mind suddenly burns and I black out. Naptime again it seems…

I wake up in a blank expanse and look around. I find nothing but white and the small splotch of brown my skin makes. On that note it seems I'm naked. Uh oh… Oh god please don't make me give a speech to the school or something! Oh, color. I look at the floor and see more brown spreading out from my feet. The color is lighter and the texture soon tells me it's a wooden plank floorboard. I watch as a table seems to rise up from the ground as connected black lines and is then colored in to reveal a circular glass top. A keyboard, bookcase, two cabinets and a sofa rise up the same way along with- MY XBOX! You bastard you shoved me into this world, I'm gonna kick your goddamn metallic ass with my…intangible…foot. Wtf, I can't touch anything in here!

I look around in confusion knowing I'm back in my home, my living room to be exact when I hear the front door open. Oh my god… my family. My mom walks in with my brothers, all 3 of them, all of them smiling and laughing at some joke Beej and Q must have made together. M**** seems to be in a book again, probably his Nicolas Flamel series with a plastic target bag in his hands too. Man, I wonder how long it's been since I've been gon-

And I see myself coming out of the room. WTF!? I'm there?! But I'm here and-

"This is you in that dimension."

"HOLY FREAKIN CRAP!" I jump as a green bug looking thing comes up beside me. It looks like a thin collector… wait, is that a Prothean?

"Yes, I am a Prothean. This is why your conciousness was needed. You possess information of the future that is crucial and are the perfect conduit because of your interests in the world of our brothers as well."

"I'm…what?"

"Follow yourself boy." I look as he points at me, and see a wide smile on ym face as I see what my brother gives me out of the bag. Mass Effect 3. I'm gone fast enough for me to imagine a dust cloud in my image. I head back to the game room immediately, phasing through the walls of this dimension and see me pop the game in and get down to playing it immediately.

"I'm…shocked. How am I in two places at once?" I ask the Prothean.

"There was great need in our world. We Protheans had managed to do many things our predecessors couldn't even while building on their own achievements. One such thing was expansion across dimensions. After we began the first successful tests the Reapers attacked however, and our brothers were lost and we assume dead. For an emergency we set up this contingency but it required the assistance of our brothers. Seeing that it has worked however proves they are still alive, or at least their prodigy are. You have been given a Prothean cipher and their own as well but it seems it has been inactive. They should re-activate soon and even more will become clear to you. I can't explain what you want because I cannot last long here, and for that I am sorry. You must find me if you want the answers you haven't found yourself but if my calculations are right…those will be few. Goodbye, Delta." The green Prothean faded away and I was too shocked and busy absorbing what he told me to really try to stop him.

I stood there for what seems like eternity watching as myself plays the last game of the series, the one holding the results of all the choices I had made up to the end of ME2 and held the end of the world as we know it as a totally viable option should he fail. What I'm more concerned about though, is what that Prothean said. I have a cipher? And what does that mean that his "brothers are alive. Or at least their prodigy are?" Damn, I can't really think when I'm asleep and trying to remember all of ME3. I'll think about it later, holy crap that's a big Thresher Maw! We need a freaking Thresher gun, that'd be fucking awesome. Hmm… if we had slipspace… oh my god, evil idea brewing, store it away now! More research is needed for that. I smirk evilly and then continue to watch myself, not noticing the whiteness flow over everything slowly until it reaches the TV and myself. I reach out and touch myself on the shoulder. For one second it seems that I and my other self are connected and I can only think of one thing to tell myself.

"Don't leave that game unfinished." And then I'm gone, in both senses.

Back to pure darkness. Oh hey glyphs. These ones seem familiar and I recognize a few but not many at all. Then I see more glyphs of a different color come up beside them and I can read them all. Oh my gosh, those are Prothean glyphs! The cipher's active! Then these ones that are similar are the ones of the Prothean "brothers". Wow, I wonder what race they are… Hey what do these glyphs say? 'Beware the Reapers, they seek your death in Flood'. A flood? So the Reapers followed them huh. Guess they have the same situation as us.

The glyphs suddenly move away and I see the familiar schematics and files of the UNSC. Finally, something I can understand. Hey what's this? EVA Booster Frame? Well it certainly does look very, very cool. Halo tech is awesome, as is Mass Effect. So much tech I can't use though, I doubt I can make a MAC orbital defense platform or make use of these covenant plasma torpedoes or the mass drivers…. But they'd all be useful for the Reapers. And this galaxy needs all the useful help it can get! Forget personal use stuff. Let's get these projects filed between what I can use and what I can share.

I just hope to God I don't have to let Tim take any of these schematics.

Me: And that's another chapter done! Why is Delta here when he's also at home? You'll find out later. Maybe. I don't know, I'm still wondering if I should let you all figure it out while he does off-paper.

Delta: Don't fuck around with that Zero, exposition's important!

Me: Geez, fine…killjoy.

Delta: Anyway, now with the Prothean cipher active in my mind, things are going to get cool. Especially when I figure out how to activate the cipher of their brothers. Even more knowledge and tech will be at my command.

Me: Don't go power hungry… So, until next time beloved readers,

Me & Delta: PEACE!

Me: Stop that, that's my thing!

Delta: no. ):D