It was like waking too early from a much needed sleep, his senses dulled even as his rocky confines began to flex and crack around him. Naruto was aware enough to be cautious however, sending a pulse of chakra out just in case it had been a sound nin or some other hostile that had managed to activate the release seals. He was glad he had as he instantly sensed several things that made him wonder quite how long he had been asleep, one in particular that turned his slowly waking mind to anger.

With a flex of his muscles his former prison was shattered outwards, Kushina (what he had called his spear in honour of his mother) singing with his chakra as he moved with practiced ease to combat the foes that he had sensed in front of him. Now he could see them rather than just feel their presence, Naruto was disgusted by the appearance of the experiments in front of him, obviously another experiment unleashed by Orochimaru upon the survivors of the elemental nations, if he hadn't believed in zombies before he definitely did now.

For all the horror these things no doubt inspired due to their gruesome appearance, they were slow, ponderous and had less chakra than the average civilian. So Naruto was caught slightly off guard when his spear stabbed straight into the first experiments skull with sickening ease, the fact that the former human hadn't even tried to dodge or block was off putting for someone used to fighting ninja.

Even as the other husks, he refused to call them zombies anymore as that was making them sound more dangerous than they are, turned from their pursuit to face this new foe he was amongst them. Sharpened by his chakra, Kushina decapitated another one whilst a chakra reinforced fist punched straight through the thirds chest, causing it to collapse like a sack of potatoes as Naruto spun away from the remaining two husk's grasping hands.

There was a loud sound like a whip crack and one of the husks staggered forwards, two more retorts before it's head exploded without warning, though Naruto could tell the attack had come from the human survivor he had sensed was being chased by these things when he had awakened. But he could worry about that later, the last husk suddenly beginning to glow with lightning like some of the metal men had after the invasion.

Given that such a build up of power was almost universally a bad thing, Naruto was not going to let the thing finish whatever it was preparing, but at the same time the husk was too close to the only normal human he had been able to sense around him. Judging by her injuries the woman wouldn't be able to avoid the technique and Naruto needed information as there was no way he was in Konoha anymore...

*Line Break*

Nirali didn't know where the boy had come from, but as he tore through the zombies that had been about to kill her she was very grateful for his arrival. In an attempt to aid him, not that she thought he needed it considering how quickly he killed the first two zombies, Nirali aimed her pistol and with three shots she managed to take down one of the others, leaving the one closest to her alive as her pistol clicked that it was overheated.

The nimbus of energy that appeared around the last zombie worried her even if it was facing the boy, she had seen the attack earlier when several of the monstrosities got amongst the unit she had been attached to and given the damage to her suit meant that her shield was down, there was no way she was getting out of another attack well. She shook her pistol in the hope the thing would magically cool, taking her eyes off the zombie for a moment to focus on the pistol, only for the things screech to cut off in a grunt that sounded remarkably human like.

Looking up she caught sight of the boy with his spear blade cutting straight through the things chest parallel to the ground, before with a yell of exertion he lifted the thing with his spear in a full toss over his shoulder, the resulting momentum that came with the motion causing the zombie to detach from the spear with a metallic scraping sound, it's body flying well over a dozen metres before slamming into a wall and discharging it's attack harmlessly.

Even as the dust settled Nirali suddenly found herself forcefully hoisted into an upright position, the boy now looking at her with an angry expression before he started speaking rapidly in a language that she didn't recognise. Thankfully her universal translator did a moment later as suddenly his sounds became words, though that didn't necessarily put her in any better shape given that she had no way of replying that wouldn't look like a threat to the obviously dangerous boy.

"Where are the others! What are these new monsters? Did Jiraiya send you?" Struggling for breath as his hand at her injured shoulder was causing a lot of pain, Nirali did her best to sound non-threatening or aggressive as she replied, praying the boy knew English.

"Please, I don't know anymore than you. If you would calm down I can try and help you." The blank look on his face made it clear that the boy didn't understand her, but to her surprise his grip softened and he seemed to give it some thought for a moment before nodding to himself and forming a strange sign. Suddenly there was a massive plume of smoke and before Nirali's eyes the boy multiplied, there were at least twenty of him all armed with that strange spear, most of them running off in various directions through the city's outskirts, one of them moving to the remains of the zombies whilst the closest one to her turned back to her.

"Now, it seems that you either cannot or will not speak in my tongue, so whether or not you are with Orochimaru or not will have to be determined otherwise..." The boy's tone made it clear if he did not believe her then the consequences would not be good for her, and given what she had seen of him in combat and those copies of himself it would also not be good for any other Alliance forces in the area still alive.

So, praying that the boy would understand, Nirali started speaking whilst using her good hand to mime what the words slowly in the hope that the boy would not think she was activating some tech. Judging by the way he stiffened and raised his spear at the movement she didn't have much confidence...

*Line Break*

Jane Shepard knew this mission could be going better, they were already a man down and Nihilus had dropped off the comms, idiot Spectre assuming they were all-mighty unkillable machines as per usual. If that weren't enough, when they reached the dig site where the Prothean Beacon was meant to being held the thing had been moved and the place was swarming with Geth who were doing their best to slaughter each and every human in their path, combatant or otherwise.

Luckily they had managed to save some people, Shepard's medic skills proving their use once again as she treated those she could of the survivors at the research camp, the smattering of scientists and technicians bringing hope to Kaidan and the marine they had managed to save. Ashley Williams had impressed her thus far, the girl barely into her twenties and more skilled with weapons than most of the marines aboard the Normandy.

Nothing on an N7 operative of course Jane thought a little smugly as she warp lanced another Geth trooper that had been hiding in the upper section of one of the storage units by the docking bays, dropping a husk that had been trying to rush her with a shotgun blast at the same time.

"Commander, I think you need to see this, it's Nihilus." Ashley's call as the three of them began their sweep of the area made Jane groan, that kind of request never had a happy ending to it...

*Line Break*

After finding Nihilus' body and marking the area for pick up and further investigation after the mission was over, a dead Spectre and accusations that it was another Turian Nihilus knew was the sort of thing she would get screwed with by the brass if she didn't, Jane had kept them moving towards the spaceport as fast as they could manage.

Initially when the Geth had been made aware of their presence, probably during the encounter in which they had saved Williams and some survivors that the Geth had been about to sacrifice on giant metal spikes, they had come in their droves. Jane had been forced to stop just out set up a killzone as the Normandy told her of the attackers it had detected on it's scanners, planting explosive traps and enlisting a few of the surviving militia they had saved in preparation.

Even with the foreknowledge and preparations they had barely been able to hold the line, three more dead militiamen on her hands she thought bitterly. But now they were merely encountering outposts of Geth in easily manageable numbers, so either the bastards had been forced to withdraw with their larger ship or something else was grabbing their attention.

As much as the hero inside her worried about the deaths that were probably occurring due to this distraction, Jane knew there was little she could do about it without the risk of being overwhelmed herself, which both would fail the mission and probably mean the colonists deaths regardless.

The Geth plan of destroying the spaceport with their bombs was an obvious attempt at asset denial as well as disguising the true purpose behind the attack, thankfully Kaidan was skilled enough with explosives to disarm the damn things whilst she and Ashley kept the slowly growing horde of Geth back.

They were going to struggle to make it though, with two bombs left to diffuse and both behind the Geth strong points they would need to do something risky in order to break through, and despite what some said about her brash and impulsive nature Shepard was not big on unnecessary risks. Still, desperate times meant she ordered Ashley and Kaidan to cover her as she prepared to try a close quarters assault, hopefully she would be able to break up the Geth defences enough to leave them open to the other two.

Her imagined heroic charge didn't quite go to plan, her shields failing before she had covered even half the distance and she was forced to roll behind some Plas-steel crates, Geth fire now from three sides meaning she was truly pinned. The keening screech of Husk's made her bad situation even worse, the former humans would either overwhelm her if she stayed in cover or expose her to the deadly fire from the other defenders if she tried to kite them.

She heard them getting closer and closer, readying her shotgun as she prepared to shift out and nail the first couple of them, only to get a call from Kaidan through the team comm system.

"Commander, behind you!" The call made her whirl round just in time to see a dark brown clothed figure blur past her, a spear of all things in hand as he slammed into the husks that had been about to attack her. Shepard also noted at the same moment that the fire from the Geth was slowly dropping off and decided to risk taking a look at the situation.

Looking out from her cover Shepard was shocked to see more of the same figure engaged with the Geth troopers, moving between them with a speed that she doubted any normal human could manage. His technique with the spear was horrible, the tactical part of her mind noted as one of his swings overbalanced one of the figures, leaving it open to a blast from one of the surviving Geth.

The look of pain on the boy's face had her rushing forwards towards him, warp lance splitting the offending Geth in two as she tried to work out what treatment she would need to give him, but then to her shock the boy disappeared in a burst of smoke, the remaining figures not even breaking their strides as they continued to decimate the remaining Geth.

Reservations about this strange new type of biotics aside, Jane couldn't deny she was grateful for the assistance, even if she still didn't trust their newest ally. The Cerberus sleeper agent among her N7 squad who had killed two of her comrades when he had been outed as a traitor was a definite factor in her distrust, but given the situation she didn't really have much choice.

As she signalled for Kaidan to make a move towards the bombs as the last Geth was punctured straight through it's eyestalk, Jane decided that she needed to at least try and talk with their mystery figure, the only one remaining after the others disappeared in similar puffs of smoke to the one she had seen shot. Shotgun still at the ready just in case, Jane stopped about 10 m from him as he seemed to be talking in his ear, probably a communicator.

When he turned to face her, Jane was truly surprised at how young their saviour actually looked now he was standing still. At best he was in his late teens, only just taller than her with a open face that had some strange whisker type tattoo's upon them, shaggy neck length blonde hair shifting slightly in Eden Prime's wind. Despite this there was a definite air of danger about him, even ignoring the fact she had just seen him destroy a dozen Geth and at least as many husks, so she hefted her shotgun defensively just in case.

"I am Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance Navy, who are you and are you going to be a problem?" Probably not the most diplomatic way to have put it, but given the Geth were after the beacon it wouldn't be a big jump to assume other unsavory organisations were after it as well, given his skills he might well be another attempt to create a human supersoldier.

The blonde seemed offended by her questions and gestured around in a very obvious 'really'? Then he began speaking in Japanese, her universal translator taking a moment to bring up the language conversion but it was barely noticeable.

"Whoa crazy lady don't point that at me, I just saved your ungrateful ass if you didn't notice. Here I am trying to do something nice..." He seemed to take a moment and his expression calmed, a smile crossing onto his face even as Jane glared at him for calling her crazy.

"I am Uzumaki Naruto and I won't even bother trying to tell you where I am from as that didn't work at all with the last woman, lets just say I am not affiliated with anyone or anything that you might be thinking of. As interested as you no doubt are in me, perhaps we should focus on getting rid of the rest of these metal men before you carry on with your terrible attempt to try and interrogate me."

The haughty and slightly mischievous tone in this newly introduced Naruto's voice was obviously meant to get on her nerves and put her on the back foot, but he had a point about the Geth and given his point about just leaving them to be overwhelmed she would have to trust him for now. She would get him back for his comments later and oddly, she found herself rather looking forward to it...

A/N: So, probably not what people were expecting to a certain extent, definitely it was darker than what I originally envisioned when I started writing it but I think it certainly fits better than the 'white knight' Naruto that usually appears in these kind of crossovers.

He is awakened in what he thinks is a foreign land, surrounded by enemies and humans that can't speak his language, his few remaining friends in their stasis slabs have disappeared and Jiraiya is nowhere in sight.

Of course, this means that he will react more hostilely towards people he doesn't know and this should slowly become less and less prevalent in the coming chapters, at least towards Jane and the Normandy's crew.

One of the major changes people will note is that there are more bad guys than there were in ME, which is something that needed to be addressed given that we are talking a Geth army that at the end of ME is capable of taking on the Citadel Defence Fleet quite handily and we then find in ME 2 that wasn't even most of the Geth.

Not only does this make Naruto's addition to the team less of a game changer, but it also means there will be a change in tactics on the missions, with a lot more focus on defensive fighting as the teams wear down the Geth attackers.

What do we think of this Jane Shepard? She will be my attempt to create a 'middle of the line' Shepard character, which in my opinion should give just as many benefits as either Renegade or Paragon in the game. That's the plan anyways, lets see how it all turns out!

Lastly, I need a beta reader for this, not only to check my work for errors but also to act as the first line of defence against me going too crazy with my ideas. Not in a help me write it way but more a sort of 'really?' sense check. Let me know if anyone is interested.