A New World, a Mass Effect + Avatar Crossover fanfic

Hey all,

This is a one off story I wrote when bored. It's an Avatar (James Cameron) Cross with a ME character. I hope you enjoy it.

"...External.. toxic... required." A voice says in a monotonous fashion before repeating itself.

What feels like hours later, the voice speaks again, this time with a little more clarity, "Warning, external... extremely toxic.. breather..." Liara drifts from consciousness to unconsciousness, seemingly without a care in the world.

"Warning, external atmosphere extremely toxic...," Avina says again, and this time, Liara awakens with a startle and takes note of her surroundings once the bleariness leaves her eyes. She is in an escape pod, one her mother paid for and installed into her private research ship. The escape pod was the newest item on her entire rickety research ship by a few decades, and Liara remembers complaining about it at the time, but those complaints are silent now.

"Warning, external atmosphere extremely toxic, atmospheric breather required."

Liara groans, a splitting headache rapidly forming in her forehead, "Avina," She says after a moment, "Medical diagnosis."

"Scanning...," The VI responds, "Scanning.." As it scans, Liara peers out the escape pod's window; the outside looks like a jungle; trees and dense greenery are everywhere. This would suit the planet she knew she would crash land on.

After a few moments, it then gives her an answer, "Medical analysis complete; Lady T'soni has suffered a grade 2 concussion. 2 applications of Glavaihar recommended."

A small hatch to her right opens, and Liara looks as a small medical compartment opens, of which a spray of Glavaihar is present. It is presumed that those who use escape pods will suffer from a standard set of medical injuries, with concussion being at the top of the list.

After grabbing the bottle, she squirts two sprays of the concoction up her nose, the sensation is beyond foul, but she manages to overcome it. "Avina," She then asks, "Did the emergency beacon activate?"

"Negative. No emergency signals detected from the Avian."

Liara raises a hand to her head, a real feat in the cramped emergency pod, which she is securely strapped down in, "Where is my ship?"

"Searching," Avina responds. "Searching in progress."

After a few moments, it answers, "The Avian is located 173km away."

"Only 173km," Liara answers with hope, knowing it could have landed on the far side of the planet, before then asking, "How much air do I have in the breathers?"

"Calculating," The VI answers again, causing Liara to scowl. An AI would have been proactive with this type of information. "The Breathers will enable safe breathing for 2347 Hours. After this point, the filters will no longer permit sufficient oxygen to flow into the mask."

More than ample time, Liara thinks to travel 173km. "How many days rations do I have?"

"14."

Enough time to cross 173km. "Water?"

"Asari require 3.7 litres a day. This capsule carries 50L. In the external storage bays are 200 purification tablets, enabling 200L of dirty water to be rendered safe for consumption."

With how green this part of the planet seems to be, finding water must be as easy as finding a Krogan in a bar fight.

With some hope slowly building that she will get off this planet, she asks, "I need a bearing to the crashed ship."

"Bearings not possible. Magnetic anomalies detected on this planet."

Liara scowls slightly. She can use a map, but bearings would make life easier, a million times so on a jungle planet, which may have few distinguishing features to navigate off. "A map?"

"This region is uncharted. No maps exist."

"Planet scans from descent?"

"Please accept a download from EPSN07441B on your personal electronic device."

Liara raises her omni-tool and quickly accepts the download. The scan provides a barely usable map, but it is functional and can provide her a heading.

Liara studies the scan before blinking to herself, "Avina, I need you to open this capsule." The route will be long and filled with mountains, ravines, and who knows what else, dangers and fantastic sights alike. But most importantly, she can use the mountains as reference points on the horizon.

"Warning, external atmosphere extremely toxic, atmospheric breather required. Confirm request to open pod."

"I confirm."

"Warning, external atmosphere extremely toxic, atmospheric breather required. Pod opening."

Liara reaches for a breather and pulls it over her mouth and nose just as a hiss can be heard, and the toxic outside air can slip past the pod's atmospheric seals. It's not until the pod hatch is fully open that Liara can sit up, revealing the whole alien world around her. In her pod, she could see out of a 5" diameter hole, which showed a thriving forest, but now free of her pod and looking around, that forest is magnitudes denser than she could imagine. The forest may be the densest forest she has been in, and if it isn't, it is undoubtedly a contender for the second spot. Liara is also not prepared for the sounds from the forest. Compared to the silence in her pod, the outside world is deafening; the amount of wildlife howling away in the distance would be breathtaking on Thessia.

Groaning, she stretches her limbs and then rolls out the pod and onto her feet. The ground beneath her is soft, sponge-like, and much like the rest of the forest, the ground is green with plants and shrubs. Looking up, she inspects her pod's external shell and searches for the external storage bays. With a few blinks and bobs of her head to assess the pod, she opens a few exterior panels; the first gives her a small, fully automatic SMG, heat sinks, machete, and a day sack. The second exterior storage bay gives a few water pouches, water purifiers, and ration packs, and the third has a few supplies: piezoelectric fire starters and gel that can start a fire no matter the weather conditions. Finally, there is a wind-up radio transponder.

Grabbing what she can carry in a day sack, she then looks at her omni-tool, "Where is my ship?" She muses to herself as she scrolls the downloaded map. After a moment, she finds it, then scrolls the map till she can find a few mountains that she should be able to see from her current location.

Looking around again, she notes she will not be able to see anything from her current location, the forest is too thick. "Up," She says to herself, "I need to go up."

None of the trees around her are scalable, but she imagines that if she could climb them due to their vast size, she could see as far as her eye's physical limitations would let her.

Realising that she needs some means of direction in the meantime, she creates her own idea of North, West, East and South. North being the direction the pod landed in.

With supplies in her backpack and rifle slung to her back, she sets off, slowly but meticulously making her way through the world. The rifle does not stay on her back for long, however. In only a few minutes of walking, she hears animals scurrying in the undergrowth and can't help but feel like predatory eyes are watching her every move.

As she walks, she discovers the beauty of the world, the colours that pop, the flowers and plants that own the forest floor, the ultimate dominance of life. Life here is everywhere, in the sky, in the ground, and all around.

As she navigates the world, Liara loses count of the times she raises her rifle at the rustling of leaves or takes shelter in thick bushes. A loud mating call here, a growl there, or the sound of snapping twigs and tree branches over there. Sometimes, a few white whispery plants landed on her, and other times, plants reacted to her, as if sensing her presence and withdrawing from her. Should she ever get off this planet, she would love to return and study it, and the more she travelled the world, Liara decided the Asari must return here and commission a research team; this world is full of exotic life ready for study.

Her first run into the local sentient wildlife is with a six-legged creature as big as a house, a sizeable hammer-like head that must be as big as a sky car if not bigger. It seemed to eye with caution as it chewed some tree branches, so not wanting to antagonise the animal, she backed into the forest's shadows and withdrew, finding a way around it and its herd.

Eventually, she comes across a tree that she is determined she can climb, its branches are close enough for her to clamber branch to branch, and the tree is tall. Its roots take her tens of meters from the ground before the branches even start, and twenty minutes later, after securing her daysack at the bottom of the tree, she breaks the canopy, only to squeak at the sight of the planet. She is in a jungle as far as the eye can see; rocks as large as islands are inexplicably floating in the sky, trees hundreds of meters tall touch dominate the jungle, and the planets of this solar system are visible and huge.

The planet also puts a sense of dread into her; there is little but trees and wildlife, and her trek to her ship will not get any easier. Setting her eyes on one of the mountains, she notes which direction she must travel and then starts the perilous descent until she reaches the top of the roots. Looking at her bag hung on a small branch, she tilts her head in curiosity. The bag is semi-open, and it is obvious to even the dumb something has been investigating it. Taking her bag from the branch, she looks inside, and while nothing is missing, it is apparent everything was removed from the bag and placed back in. Items neatly folded are scrunched, and valuable items need to be secured again.

Looking around the tree, she wondered who or what found her bag, but only trees and plants greeted her.

Knowing that staring into the trees will get her nowhere, she repacks her bag and stands before heading in the direction she knew she must travel. 2 Hours later, hot, bothered, and supporting many minor cuts and scratches from wading through the forest, she comes across a wide river tens of meters across, its depth is unclear, but she would bet its deep.

Knowing getting wet is a terrible idea, she follows it downstream till she comes across a part of the river where it widens. A few roots from local trees spread across some of the river's width, leaving only a short hop from the root to the far bank.

Getting onto the root takes work, considering its size, and once she is on it and a half across the river, she decides it is a relatively safe spot; she can see along the root and up and down the river. Sitting on the root with her legs dangling over the side, she opens her bag and pulls out some rations. Her journey has certainly drained her energy reserves.

As she is about 3 quarters the way through a ration, she spots some movement on the far bank, a blue six-legged creature easily four times the size of a Varren. She can feel its eyes following her every move as it stalks her.

Swallowing the food in her mouth, Liara seals her unfinished ration, places it in her bag, and then closes the zip. Then, with careful, slow movements, she stands and pulls her bag on before checking her weapon. Some dirt is in the barrel, but she is confident the sand-grained size bullet will make little work of it.

Keeping an eye on the animal as it jumps onto the root on the near side of the river, she slowly backs up, being extra careful not to trip over her feet or any rogue roots. Despite backing up, the animal gets closer and closer; its long legs can far outstride her own. At the end of its feet, she can see long claws and nails like razors, and in its mouth is a complete set of teeth; most importantly, however, the two long curved teeth almost look somewhat transparent. A classic sign of venom.

As it gets closer, she can also fully appreciate its size. The top of its head is above her own, and its length is that of a medium-sized skycar, at least 2m tall and 5m long.

All of a sudden, Liara felt her foot snag. She lost her balance, and the next thing she knew, she was in the water, the current dragging her downstream. Her clothes want to drag her down and under, and her backpack is heavy. Knowing that she would be in great trouble should she lose her backpack, she uses one arm to cling to it, while her feet and legs flail, trying to keep her above the waterline. Her head constantly bobs up and down, her breather constantly going underwater and filling with liquid, causing her to gulp water back.

As she goes under yet again, she sees a hand, a blue hand reach for her and then drag her out of the water and toss her against the river bank, where she lands face down. Tearing her breather off with urgency, she then retches water onto the muddy bank, and then gasps for breath, only to remember the atmosphere is toxic, so she forces her breather back on despite still feeling ill. With its filters soaked, breathing is noticeably hard but not impossible. As the filters dry, she knows it will get easier to breathe.

As she gets oxygen back into her system, she dares look up and notices a very tall blue creature hissing and chirping at the Varren-like creature which has stalked them to the river bank. A large bow occasionally waves back and forth in an attempt to scare it off. Liara can only look on in amazement.

A few moments later, a large green sky beast descends, and as it comes to land near the riverbank, it extends its wings and screeches to the high heavens. The combination of the primitive creature and the bird, for lack of better words, seems enough, and the Varren wannabe withdraws into the woodline, but not before giving Liara a long hard look, as if fantasising about its missed meal.

The Pirmate hisses a few times into the woodline before turning to the bird and patting it on its snout, and it is only now Liara notices the harness on its back, which suggests the Primate rides the bird. Reaching into the harness, the primitive grabs something before passing it to the bird, which happily eats it. Liara swears she can hear some soft words being exchanged, but she knows she will never understand them.

The Primitive itself is also interesting, female in form, it wears few clothes that mostly cover sensitive areas, has a large swishing tail, a long set of fur draping from the back of her head, and is probably twice her height. On its back is a quill full of relatively huge arrows, no doubts they could take her down with a single shot. Its form is muscular but lean; it obviously has a very active lifestyle living in this world.

After another moment with its bird, it turns to her and tilts its head as it assesses her; it looks her up and down from toe to tip of her head but does not make any overly threatening gestures.

Liara pushes herself onto her feet, but feels tiny next to this primitive, "Thank you," She says aloud, knowing it wouldn't understand her.

The primitive sniffs the air a few times and walks around her in a large circle, being careful not to get too close, and Liara notices it looks anything but scared or even off put by her appearance. Most tales of people coming across natives end with arrows launched and one dead explorer. The natives are always wary and scared of said explorer.

This native is anything but. Maybe it is its dominating size, or maybe it knows she is almost helpless without this primitive. Circling to her side with where her rifle is slung, the primitive points to it, before curling a finger to herself. As if gesturing and saying, "Give me it."

Liara pauses for a moment before complying; she still has her biotics.

With her weapon in hand, the Primitive carefully takes it, making sure its barrel is always pointed away from her or itself, and looks it up and down before placing it into her bird's harness. From how it handled the weapon, Liara would not question if it had used one before. The problem is, however, it looks like a toy in the primitive's hands.

After another moment to inspect her, the primitive turns to her bird and rubs it on the nose once more before dismissing it. Then, turning to Liara, it gives a 'Come with me' motion with its hand and sets off down the river bank.

The primitive almost glides across the riverbank, with its tall stature traversing large rocks and deep ravines is easy work, not so much for Liara, who quickly gains a sweat trying to stay up with it. Every now and then, the primitive would stop, its ears perked, and would then make some chirping and hissing sounds into the woods, communicating or scaring something.

An hour later, as Liara can hear a raging waterfall approach and notices the river has turned to white waters, she glimpses something on a rock, a very clearly manufactured machine, and... smaller people with guns. Pink and brown people.

The primitive approaches them casually before speaking to a few of them in greeting, the language used is very fluid and quick, but uses no chirps or hisses. After a few moments the primitive gestures back to her and gives a 'Tadaa' gesture. It is all very embarrassing.

The smaller second creatures give her a very cautious look before one of them turns back to the primitive and exchanges some more words. As they gesture to one another, the primitive makes some more chirps and its bird descends from some unseen spot. Eventually, one of the smaller aliens gestures to another small creature sitting in the machine and the turbines begin to spin. "Come with us," They gesture, and Liara cautiously mounts into the helicopter with them.

The primitive, however, simply mounts her bird and takes off without much fanfare. As the helicopter takes off, Liara can't help but think, 'What a strange and wonderful world I have stumbled across'.