Hi folks!

I'm a huge fan of both Halo and Mass Effect, but I personally find Master Chief John more sympathise-able then Mass Effect John (or Jane –I debated with myself if I would use M or F Shep). And that's just because within Canon material, we see Halo John suffer a great deal more and stay much more resolute despite the suffering he personally goes through and witnesses. His personality is expanded upon a whole lot in the books.
But to the point; whilst going from playing ME to Halo I was inspired to write a story for one, and I came up with nothing, mostly due to being so content with the story of each, so a crossover was the natural next best choice. : -)

Should there be a romance? Between Shepard and who? What kind of shade would this romance be in?
Should Halo John have a romance of some description?
Please share your thoughts.

Should it be Rated T or M?
For now it will be M

I have a very loose and general plan for where I want to take this story, but please do review your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. If you do not like this story and it's for any explainable reason, please also review as constructively as possible.

I can't promise that I will update quickly either. I own a food business so especially this time of year work can get a little hectic. But in saying that, I rather enjoy writing, and my holidays are right around the corner, so I will seek to write however much I can whenever I can.

I hope you enjoy! : -)

Fraught With Peril

Chapter One

:: From Where, Exactly? ::

His heavy brow was set firmly in a frown. His vibrant blue eyes were shrewdly looking at nothing as he solely focused on his thoughts, his pain. A steady frown held control over his facial features. Lips that were once full and stress-free were taught with upset. Skin that was once smooth and unmarred was wrinkled and scarred, cheeks sunken with stress and sadness.

John wasn't the picture of a man that any mother would want for her son.

The thought very briefly made him wonder of his mother; his real mother. Not Catherine Halsey. Not that he held anything against Halsey for what had happened to him and his adoptive brothers and sisters. He was sure that he'd have been melted into the slag of a Covenant bombardment on one of the many human worlds lost if not for his timely abduction.

A ping sounded through his helmet speakers, rousing his attention from his wandering thoughts and to the environment beyond the tech-infused hardened glass of his golden visor. There wasn't much to see, as he'd expected, he was floating aimlessly amidst a cloud of debris.

He blinked his left eye in two rapid successions, and the microsensors responded appropriately by bringing a display of his suit's systems across the visor. 'Good.' He thought to himself, seeing that everything was in perfect condition. That clashing with the Didact and falling through a nuclear explosion hadn't compromised the integrity of his armour or any of its inbuilt systems.

Again the ping sounded. John blinked both of his eyes in exaggerated rapid succession again, and his suit read out vanished, to be replaced by his communications system. A radio signal was pinging his personal frequency, seemingly in an attempt to make contact.

John frowned at the oddity, temporarily pushing his upset at the very recent loss of Cortana from his mind. He couldn't fathom why any UNSC vessel would need to ping his frequency as a handshake for communication, especially when they knew he'd been in conflict aboard the Mantles Approach.

Out of habit, he sent a frequency ping back to whoever was trying to handshake him.

The result was instantaneous; a distinctly female voice spoke through his helmet speakers. "You have entered Omega space if your flight suit is not disabled please either dock at the main port or vacate your location. You are in a freight zone."

John's left eyebrow rose in surprise and curiosity as his right stayed in a confused frown. He pulled the facts he was aware of together quickly. Omega was a word typically used within UNSC military call signs and code names, but he was not aware of any space station above or around Earth named as such. Someone clearly had eyes on him to ascertain that he was in some kind of suit. But most concerning of all, being told as a warning that he was in a freight zone.

The last he'd known above Earth, any and all freight zones had been abandoned and suspended in the wake of the Didacts attack. The woman who'd spoken to him was clearly not UNSC, and clearly not privy to his very recent conflict.

Both of his eyebrows climbed his forehead as his eyes widened, a result of his mind jumping to a conclusion. 'I fell into the slip space portal!'

"This is Sierra 117, my suit's thrusters have insufficient capacity to carry me to dock."

A moment of tense silence tempted John to nudge a tiny burst from his thrusters to bring him slowly around. The sight of the massive, sprawling space station built into a rock was revealed to him, and he instantly drew comparisons to High Charity. The thoughts of High Charity quickly vanished as he realised that this station was barely a fraction of the Covenants former mobile home world.

"Sierra 117, a shuttle is on the way to collect you. You're lucky that Shepard's with Aria right now!"

The answer only made John wonder more. To him, it almost sounded like code. Aria was clearly the individual or group who commanded the station or its ship logistics, and the statement that he was lucky about this 'Shepard' being present implied that Aria didn't much care for the safety of anyone around the station and that Shepard did.

John couldn't help but wonder if it was code or just coincidental names. The chances of someone called "Shepard" bringing him into safety were incredibly small; given his history.

"Acknowledged," He replied simply into his mic.

His HUD shifted into a new setting, and the hundreds of tiny service shuttles and vessels buzzing around the station were lit up in green. Several other frigate classified vessels were highlighted in white with an overlay of their trajectory heading away or to what was clearly the main port, and several larger freight vessels moving in his general direction from the station were highlighted red.

It barely took a minute for one of the greenlit shuttles to veer away from the station and zip in his direction. As it drew within a hundred meters of him, he peered closely at it, trying to draw comparisons to anything he knew. He came up blank. The vessel, thankfully, didn't look Covenant or Forerunner remotely, and it did have an oddly Human design to it with its blocky shape, despite it being so incredibly different to anything he knew in the UNSC.

He sidelined his thoughts on what faction he was dealing with when the side hatch slid back along the blocky structure, and a woman in a form-fitting suit with a full head helmet was revealed. Her visor was a sleek, thin strip of glass directly over her eyes, leaving John guessing if the suit and its accompanying helmet were simply enviro suit or body armour.

The woman gently dove from the safe confines of her craft and within moments was within reaching distance of John. He instantly drew the comparison that she was within normal human build, which was small compared to his large frame.

"You're a big guy, aren't ya?" She mused with a joking tone over an open com channel.

John didn't react. He didn't know how.

Sensing his lack of interest in her comment; she reached out and grabbed hold of his outreached right hand. Obviously satisfied with her grip, she gave the tether attached to her hip a tug, and it started reeling them both back toward the open transport bay of the shuttle.

"Where are we?" John asked suddenly, noting the total lack of insignia on the woman's suit.

She angled her helmet to be looking into his visor and cocked her head slightly to her left. Clearly, she was confused by his own confusion.

"Omega," She repeated the name he'd heard earlier, as though it were obvious.

John instantly questioned himself if it should be obvious, and he could find no reason for it to be. He distantly remembered one of his earliest missions being an infiltrate and snatch and grab mission in an Innie asteroid base called the rubble, but he was one hundred percent certain that the Rubble had not evolved into being this "Omega."

And of the many, many, many, asteroid based munition stores and probe bays, the UNSC had he was certain that none of them were remotely like this.

"Am I in UN- Human, space?" John queried as they entered the confines of the shuttle and the door slid shut behind them, but not before the subtle inertia of their acceleration made him brace against the ceiling as the crafts artificial gravity kicked in.

Again, the woman cocked her head at him. "Human space? You're a long, looooooong way from Human space."

John was silent and stood statue still. His eyes darted back and forward in thought as he strung information together to draw conclusions about where and how he was. There were a rare few Human colonies that had escaped the war, and now claimed their independence from the UNSC, but they still considered their space Human space.

His eyes snapped to the woman in front of him, 'Does that mean she isn't Human?'

John very subtly shook his head at the thought, 'How else could she speak English, if she wasn't Human?'

He justified to himself, hoping that she truly was Human. 'What else could she be? We don't know any species that physically resemble Humans so much, besides the Forerunners, and they're dead.'

"Hey, are you alright?"

John's vision refocused on her.

"How did you get out here, if you don't know where here is?"

'I don't know,' The super soldier immediately answered in his head, but his mouth moved before his conscious mind could understand, "Slip-Space."

"Slip space?" The woman repeated. "Some kind of drug or booze?" She continued after a moment of clear thought.

Her attempt at trying to understand what Slip Space was only served to concern John further.

"Are you Human?"

Again, the female figure struck a 'What,' pose. "Of course not."

John stiffened at her nonchalant answer, barely registering that she was already continuing.

"I mean, I shouldn't say it like that, there are plenty of Human's on Omega these days. But no, I'm still true to my blue." She finished with a short chortle of laughter.

John's eyes narrowed at her, he was passed the point of incredulity and was now simply trying to make heads and tails of the facts around him. This woman was an Alien, point and fact. She spoke English, fluently. She was confused by his own confusion. She was familiar with Humans, even making what seemed to be some kind of joke that he didn't get regarding colour. She had no clue what Slip Space was.

His mind was diving from one thought, one answer, to the next. Vain attempts at understanding this strange place he found himself in. The Galaxy was big, huge, unimaginably vast; and Human space was confined to around half of the Orion Spur. For him to be told in such a nonchalant fashion that he was a long way from Human space with such familiarity was an impossibility.

A deep part of John's mind woke up with an instinctive answer that he didn't want to listen to but felt it best to. "I'm not from this world."

She laughed again, this time much more openly, "That makes two of us! Thank the Goddess! Being from THIS world would be hell!"

Her joking answer filled in a surprising amount of gaps in John's assumptions about this station, and he didn't resist the slight smirk that took his lips. "No. I am not from this," He paused, seeing her visor looking right at him, he swung his arms around as though to generally gesture at everything, "WORLD."

Silence reigned in the small room, made especially small by John's monolithic presence.

"You mean-"

"-Docking, doors opening in a second!" The pilot's voice cut off the woman. But John answered her with a nod nevertheless.

True to the pilot's word, the same doors that he'd been fished from space through mere minutes earlier opened to a thrum of a busy civilian docking bay. John instinctively looked out toward the bustling bay, his hand carefully hovering over the Magnum clamped onto the top of his right quad guard out of habit toward unknowns.

Upon a moment of further observation, John corrected his opinion of the docks being civilian. They were thrumming and humming with civilian traffic, Humans in a range of different styled clothing, dresses, skirts, pants, cloaks, armour. Blue skinned women with cuttlefish-like growths on their scalps similarly garbed, Human-sized and shaped aliens which looked like a hybrid of bird and crustation in their own version of the same clothes. Large hump-backed reptilian creatures, slender and small amphibian looking bipeds with fleshy horn-like growths on their heads, and gnarly skinned demonic looking aliens sticking in small groups.

All of them seemed to be here on their own private agendas. Some collected fruits, meats, and other consumables from crates that were being unloaded from freight ships and bartering with the crew, also of mixed species, but distinctly different in their state of being more heavily and obviously armed, and with logos stamped on shoulders or painted on skin.

"This is a pirate station?" John asked the woman still standing beside him in the open shuttle.

She stepped forward and made a slow, deliberate show of removing her helmet, revealing ocean blue skin with sky blue eyes peering curiously at him. The same cuttlefish like scalp growths that the blue female aliens beyond the shuttle had were likewise on her head, obviously a feature of her species.

"No, well not exactly."

John did his best to ignore the fact that she was an alien, and simply paid attention to her. She'd not shown him even the most remote sign of hostility, and he truly was the alien here.

"Aria-" She paused and gestured up and down her own body, "One of my kind, is the leader. I guess the most accurate description of Omega would be calling it a criminally organised government which enables criminal and mercenary factions to do business here. If those factions get out of line, Aria and her men bring them back into line. Civilians are allowed to live here as they would anywhere else, but crime is definitely worse than anywhere else."

John thought on the description, and the righteous part of him wanted to draw issue with the principled part of it, but he had to admit that it was essentially the same foundation that most civilisations came from.

"Look," The blue woman started again. "You're obviously a Human, like no Human I've ever seen with your size, but Human. If you are from a different- World. All I can do is take you to Aria and see what she thinks could be best for you."

At this John did completely settle his hand over the grip of his Magnum, while his left now hovered over the Forerunner bolt shot on his left quad guard.

She held up her hands pleadingly. "Woo woo woo, I get that you're probably military too. Special forces or something, right?"

John made no verbal response.

"I used to be military too, so I know how it is with the whole being principled thing, but Aria isn't a criminal." She very noticeably cringed at her choice of words. "Well, she is, but not like you'd think. She keeps the entire terminus systems in check, and relatively safe."

John didn't like the sound of a crime lord distributing justice, but he released a tense breath inside his helmet and released his grip on his pistol. "Okay."

"Okay." She reflected back, taking a quick step out of the shuttle and onto the grubby concrete of the port, "Follow me."

John did as told, and instantly moved into formation behind her, taking a moment to nudge a button in the chin on his helmet the increase the magnetism of the clamps holding the various weapons, grenades, and ammunition around his body as he caught the odd greedy glance sent his way irrespective of his daunting hulking mass.

"If you can take care of yourself, Omega isn't actually such a bad place to live." The blue woman leading him began to explain, clearly trying to make small talk to alleviate any tension.

John was sure that any tension that there was between them was entirely single sided. He was long accustomed to silences.

"I mean, you get here, you either get a job with one of the crime gangs which keeps you pretty safe, and there are plenty of great apartment blocks, or you just get an honest to eezo job and know how to defend your own personal space and make a decent scrape." She gestured to an Asian man and a girl who would appear to be his daughter behind a steaming trolley next to a doorway they were heading to.

"That's Mister Chang and his girl, they run Tokyo Grub and Grill. You'd be amazed by how well they do setting up here every day, but you can't let him know that some of us Asari know there's a difference between Chinese and Japanese." She laughed again and looked over her shoulder at John.

John was indeed impressed with the docking bay. Not militaristically or logistically, but culturally. It was a marvel, a melting pot of alien and human cultures, where the shores met the new lands. He ignored the grinding unease running through his blood of the thought of Humans living so comfortably with any Aliens. He'd spent the better part of his life in a genocidal war against an Alien Empire.

They came to a halt at the door next to the Chinese man and his trolley outfitted with a grill and bench. A green holographic interface spun in response to a hand gesture, and the door slid open with a hiss of pressure. A moment later and the hustle and bustle of the docks were behind them, replaced by the background hum of machines and electronic ads.

"My name's Theia, by the way, what's yours?"

"Master Chief Petty Officer 117," John replied on instinct and habit.

They came to another door and quickly passed through, instantly revealing to John that the docks and the hallway they'd just traversed were drilled through the exterior of the asteroid and that this internal space was a completely mined out complex.

"Isn't that a rank?" Theia questioned, interrupting John's gaze wondering around the distant ceiling and the numerous clusters of towers, and the flying cars zipping through the air in coordinated madness.

"Yes." Came his flat reply.

"Definitely special forces then," Theia confirmed to herself, not looking back at him as she continued onward past a new type of alien preaching the end of days toward a large building with flashing lights and advertised dancers with the name "AFTERLIFE" imposed over and entryway.

"No. Not exactly."

"Aren't you cryptic." She shot back quickly.

John could understand her frustration. Obviously, she was a social person, and he assumed that most the people on this station were, to an extent, and he was clearly a new element in her world. Her curiosity was peaked, and he was taking the cap off that peak without even trying.

"Sorry, Ma'am. I am from a special branch of the military, Spartan Ops." In his own reality, John would have never told anyone besides a good Navy Captain or Admiral. But he was quickly drawing upon thoughts of how he could ever get back to his own universe, and even the philosophical point of- if his universe even needed him anymore.

"The other soldiers in your unit as social as you?" She joked.

John genuinely thought about his response as they slowed for the doors to After Life to slowly open to a neon-lit beyond. "We were all relatively social with one another, but there were a few who could fit into a normal crowd."

Theia laughed again and smiled as she gestured for him to enter through the next door with her. "I suppose you don't take sarcasm so well, do you?"

His shoulder rose and fell a few centimetres in response. He supposed she was right in that observation. He'd had practically no experience with civilians or civilians who'd been soldiers for that matter, or the same vice versa.

Theia nodded to a platform suspended above a living dancefloor. "Aria is up there!" She shouted over the roar of the music and the crowd.

"This way!"

Again, John followed her, but this time from by her side, around the edge of the room toward a staircase that followed the wall upwards. He took note absently of the complete comfort of the aliens and humans mingling together. Of the blue-skinned alien women and other human women in dancers outfits on platforms gyrating above the crowd.

He felt as though he'd just stepped into a totally different kind of cultural melting pot.

"Aria is hundreds of years old, and she is the queen and ruler of Omega," Theia said as quietly as she could to him as the neared the top of the stairs. John made no gestures or sounds of understanding, so she continued, "Don't upset her in any way."

John figured that advice made sense, so answered with a subtle nod just before one of the armoured and armed hump-backed reptilian aliens stepped in front of the pair.

"No one past this point!" He growled in a deep guttural tone.

"We need to speak with Aria!" Theia cried angrily and jabbed a finger toward the booth turned platform not far beyond the bouncer.

"Aria has had enough annoyances today, get lost!"

Theia's eye shot wide as in an instant the circumstances of her life were threatened. The Krogan made to shove her back with what would have been something between a punch to the gut and a shove, but his fist never made contact.

John's hand blocked the strike with impossible speed and strength, stopping the Krogan's fist dead.

A part of Theia was ecstatic that she had been saved from a moment of pain and humiliation, but the rest of her was much more afraid of being in any kind of scrape with Aria's men and then being executed. But she clearly had zero control of the situation now, as the Krogan's eyes went wide in surprise and rage, and a guttural roar erupted from him as he moved to send his right fist into John's helmet, which Theia only now just realised stood comfortably taller than the Krogan.

John's twofold defence and offence was sickeningly swift and effective. In the instant that the Krogan sent his right fist towards his helmeted head, he tightened his grip on the aliens left fist that he still held in defence of Theia. As he tightened his grip, he viciously twisted his own wrist with the result of an audible snap of bone before the Krogan had any chance to react to what would have been crippling pain John's right fist impacted the side of his temple from a lightning fast jab.

Theia felt sickened seeing and hearing John's fist hitting the Krogan's head with a meaty 'THWACK' and the bone structure beneath simply giving way as though it were made of card. The bouncer dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The entire "fight" had only lasted a matter of seconds.

She felt a wave of horror waft over her. Firstly from the fact that she was just involved in the very public killing of one of Aria's men, so public that Aria was witness to it. And secondly from the fact that the killer was a Human who'd killed a Krogan as though it were nothing.

Her mind spun in fear, and she registered a faint clapping sound in the background, gulping at the sound thinking that it must be thermal clips being slapped into weapons. John's shadow loomed over her, another protective action that she was sure was bound to only make matters worse.

But the sound of clapping was quickly joined by a melodic chortle of laughter. "It's nice getting a new show every once in a while."

A shiver visibly went down Theia's spine, but John remained completely unmoved, blocking her from view. He wasn't being overprotective. But his initial reaction in defending her had been sheer instinct in protecting a non-combatant from an unprovoked threat. Then his follow-on assault on the alien was a simple matter of neutralising a threat, as he'd spent his entire life doing.

"So, I don't think you're a mech?"

Mech was a word that even people in his reality used, commonly in a civilian capacity, but John understood quickly enough. "No Ma'am-"

"-Ma'am, oh!" Aria stepped closer yet to John, her words coming out a coo.

The shiver that had gone down Theia's spine seemed like an insignificant reaction compared to the dread she felt when she felt the slight shift in air from Aria's biotics flaring like a blue flame around her body, even seeing the glow from behind John's towering frame.

"Soldier boy, is that it?"

John understood this kind of person, in his younger years this kind of approach would have made him grit his teeth but comply. In this case, he nodded his head without issue or fault, "Yes, Ma'am."

"I don't think he knows who I am!" Aria claimed with a sarcastic and mirth filled voice, spinning on her heel to face her assembled guard, each of them at the ready. "No one fucks with Ar-"

Theia wanted to kick herself for her timing in finding her backbone as she stepped out of John's shadow. "-Aria, he really doesn't know who you are. You won't believe where he's from!"

Aria smirked at having been cut off by the much younger Asari and rounded John's frame very slightly to take in the girl who had escorted the unknown to her abode. Her flaring biotics continued to ripple over her body menacingly, Theia had the good sense to feel terrified by the power that the matriarch exuded, and was more than happy to let it show the paling of her skin and the cold sweat that lined her brow and scalp.

"So, little usurper, is it? Where is this-" Aria stepped boldly closer to John until just a few inches separated their bodies, "Thing, from?"

Of course, Theia wanted to contest being called a usurper by her dangerous superior, but debating anything would only make her situation worse. "He's not from our world."

Aria squinted. First at John, and then at Theia. "Of course not, if an alien this strong was from MY world, I'd know about it."

Once more, Theia wanted to kick herself for the situation she found herself in. She didn't one hundred percent believe that this –Master Chief- was from a different reality, but she couldn't deny that the dots fit together, and his own declaration of it was obviously filled with facts comparing where he'd come from to where he was presently.

"Which world is he from, little usurper?"

Theia paled further, and Aria's gaze burned into her menacingly. But John spoke before Theia could further bring blame upon herself, "I am not from this universe, Alien."

Theia grit her teeth at John's choice of words. Calling Aria an alien was clearly not meant to antagonise and meant to reiterate the fact of him being from a different reality, but it had Aria instantly narrowing her eyes at him, and all of her thugs present were standing with their rifles aimed squarely at John.

But if Theia thought things couldn't get worse, she was exceptionally wrong.

Aria smirked, extended a hand, and the blue biotic energy that had been menacingly dancing across her body leapt forward and swirled around John's armoured form. Theia had heard tell that Aria could crush heavy mechs with her biotics, and a wave of powerlessness washed over her.

But contrary to all expectation, John advanced. Aria wore even more surprise on her face than Theia and the thugs. But she wasn't granted any luxury in her surprise, and in moments of what should have been Aria killing this unknown, an armoured glove closed around her neck and hefted her into the air like a toy.

He hadn't been immune to the effects of her biotic hold, he had very simply overpowered it with sheer strength. Aria coughed and spluttered as his grip tightened, she kicked desperately to try and dislodge herself from his grasp but was met with only impacting an impossibly solid chest.

Her eyes watered, and her face darkened from the lack of oxygen and the biotic power she'd wielded vanished as she was reduced to instinctive powerless attempts to survive. Her hands slapped and fumbled at the fist around her neck to no avail, her legs lashed out in more attempts at kicks, striking only unyielding armour.

Her words came out in garbled rasps. And she felt a moment of utter humiliation at the thought that this was how she, the great and powerful Aria, queen of Omega, was going to go out. Her vision began to darken, and then suddenly a new uncomfortable sensation came to her in the feeling of something striking her knees. 'Going to mutilate me before I die?'

But a moment after the morbid thought flashed through her mind's eye she realised that precious oxygen was filling her lungs, and the impossible grip around her throat was gone. Her hands found purchase on solid floor, and she realised the brief pain in her knees had been her being dropped onto the floor.

Aria's vision spun as she attempted to gulp in all the pure oxygen she could. First, she made out the armoured boots of the behemoth who'd so easily overwhelmed her, then the reality of her situation struck her. She'd been completely and utterly bested in front of her personal guard detail. But her assailant hadn't killed her, it had been a move to neutralise her as a threat.

In a civilised society or government, his actions would have made perfect sense, and made strides toward re-establishing a dialogue. Here, it just made her, the all-powerful leader look weak and vulnerable. The witnesses needed to die.

She took a deep breath, cleared her head as much as she could, and harnessed her power once more. She pounced up, away from her attacker, and toward her own men. As she did her biotics took hold of them and raised them ever so slightly from the floor before slamming them back into it.

The four Batarians and the two Asari who had been her guard detail for the day were dead from internal injuries before they could have even known that their leader had turned on them.

John swung his right leg back slightly, bracing himself for a further fight with this leader of Omega. But once more, he was treated to another Asari raising her hands in a placating gesture. She coughed as she opened her mouth to speak, her throat still feeling bruised from Johns assault.

Aria lowered her hands, took a deep breath followed by a hoarse cough, and then spoke, "Okay, you're not from around here."

Aria wasn't exactly sure if she was agreeing with the stranger's assessment of him being from a different reality or simply complying with his stance to save her own life. Both answers unnerved her.

"Why did you kill your men?"

While Aria was feeling unnerved about him, he was feeling unnerved about her nonchalance in killing her own soldiers. He understood why, he had heard of cases like this all through Human history, even within the ranks of ONI and some rare cases in the upper echelon of the UNSC. But never having witnessed something like this first hand, he needed to hear her answer.

"There are a lot of people on Omega who would strike if they knew I'd been beaten. I couldn't risk anyone talking."

Theia slunk back into John's intimidating –and protective- shadow once more; fearing Aria's weakness more than her strength. It had an edge of desperation to it that she wasn't too fond of.

"What do you want?" Aria hissed after the silence between them stretched longer than she'd like.

That was a good question. What did he want? John literally hadn't had one moment to take stock of what he could ever possibly want since right before the fall of Reach. And back then, what he had wanted was simple. He wanted to win the war with his Spartan siblings. He was born to compete and win, seeing beyond winning was impossible.

But he had won, unfortunately at the loss of almost all of his Spartans. The Human-Covenant war was over. Humanity had built itself into a great power in the time of his disappearance after the Ark and his fight with the latest and greatest threat. The Didact, an ancient enemy of Humanity, was defeated.

And in the defeat of the Didact he had been cast into an entirely new world. So what did he want?

"Who is Shepard?" John's gravely voice ground out. 'Intel first, decisions later.'

"Commander Shepard?" Aria's brow furrowed in confusion. It was clear she couldn't make out why he, a totally alien element would either know Shepard's name or want to know anything about the man.

"He's an Alliance Soldier. Hero of the Citadel, Butcher of Torfan, first Human Spectre." Aria continued as the armoured behemoth didn't move at all in the lack of an answer.

The titles meant nothing to John. But as always, he logically and tactically analysed all the information fed to him. Shepard was a Human man, obviously associated with this Universes Human Military. He was given respective titles, despite them not meaning anything to him, they gave the man meaning in honourable distinction. The distinct point about him being the 'first' Human Spectre made it clear that Spectre was perhaps some kind of cross-species title given out at great honour, further giving John faith that this man, who was responsible for his safe retrieval into the harbour, was to be trusted –at least to an extent.

"Where is he?"

The sheer heft of authority in his voice both enraged and terrified Aria. She would be willing to bet her life on the fact that she was older than this intruder, but she wouldn't bet a single credit on thinking that she had ended more lives than him. The man radiated the power of an ancient warrior, steeped in the blood of thousands, haunted by horrors that she couldn't imagine.

She wanted to lash out at him but knew that she had no means to. He'd already proven that he could shrug off her biotics like nothing, and her physical strength was nothing compared to his. That left only armed combat, and all she had was a pistol on her hip, while he had two very large handgun style weapons on each thigh, and the butts of two rifles were visible over his shoulders.

She quickly stowed the idea of lashing out, at least for now. The next thought to spark into her mind was the polar opposite of the initial desire to kill. Could this alien, this man, whatever his origins, be shackled to her authority? To her goals? Once more, the overly ambitious thought vanished from her mind with an internal snarl.

"He's either in the luxury apartment district or in the VIP section of Afterlife, he's looking for an Ardat-Yakshi." Aria found herself giving him direction to his apparent goal before she could check herself. Another instinct simply wanted him gone, just like she had wanted Shepard gone, and just like Shepard; he wasn't a kill or buy option.

His daunting reflective golden gaze eerily turned from Aria, still crouched defensively like a cornered animal, to Theia. "Do you know those locations?"

This far less dominant of the Asari present nodded the affirmative.

"Take me to this VIP section."

Once more, Theia simply nodded, passed Aria a final shocked expression, and turned on her heel and headed back the way that she'd come ten tense minutes earlier.

Aria found the golden gaze back on her, and she instinctively knew that she was being assessed and analysed by a superior predator. She glared angrily back into the faceplate defiantely for the moment that he sized her up, the moment felt like an eternity to the pirate queen. With the assessment seemingly done, he turned and fell into step behind Theia in three impossibly large strides that cleared the steps like they hadn't been there and was soon parting the crowd with his imposing size.

John stepped up beside Theia as they exited Afterlife and took a left along a pathway that gave a scenic view on Omega's upside down skyline. Theia released a long sigh and flicked her wrists, obviously released tension from the standoff. She stopped and leant against the railing, shaking her head to herself. "Goddess, next time you want to get into a fight with a Matriarchal dictator Asari, please give me a heads up?"

The super soldier stayed silent and directed his body to face some oncoming aliens of the variety that looked like they deserved to be sculpted on the corners of a gothic church. Theia noticed his silence and looked to where he was looking. She straightened and waved a dismissive hand at the aliens.

"Don't worry about them. They're just Vorcha, they won't attack you unless there's a lot of them, probably."

John looked at them a few moments longer as they neared and then passed by him, their eyes glued to the weapons on his thighs momentarily. He fought the urge to send his gauntleted fist crashing through their exoskeletal skulls, or to grab them and chuck them off the edge of the platform.

But his discipline won out, and he turned back to Theia with a grace that would normally defy a body his size.

She realised that he would stay silent, and turned back to the view once more. "I might as well enjoy this view one last time. It is beautiful."

John looked from the back of her still very alien head to the skyline. He had done his normal tactical scan before he allowed his emotional section of his mind to visually appreciate it. It was an indeed unique and stunning view, but he couldn't help but compare it to any of the other alien views he'd been granted in the past few years. The Unyielding Hierophant, High Charity, either of the Halo's, The Ark, Requiem, even the burning skyline of Reach, all of them spectacularly more vast and vibrant than this view.

But he kept his thoughts to himself as she continued on.

"After I've shown you where you need to be, I'm gonna leg it back to Thessia. Accidents happen to people who piss Aria off."

John did register a sensation of disappointment in himself at her words. His eyes travelled back from the skyline to her head. He was responsible for supplanting her from her home; even if she'd said herself that it wasn't the most perfect place to live. He thought back to the confrontation with Aria and knew that he could have been a lot more diplomatic if he'd followed Theia's prompting.

But he was raised to be an offensive fighter. The instant a threat presented itself, and it was beatable he went on the offensive to destroy it. If not for that, he'd have died a thousand times over during the war. He checked the thought and shuffled his weight from one armoured boot to the other, with the slightest sound of his weight touching the ground that he never normally made.

Theia seemed to take the sound of his motion as prompting to move, and then straightened her posture and started toward a door next to the one that they'd entered the commons area from.

"So what's your plan?"

John regarded her for just a moment before refocusing on the opening door ahead and stepping through, taking in the scene of what appeared to be a marketplace at a glance. New species caught his eye and he instinctively tensed. A creature that had exactly the same stature as a Human male, but his head was where the similarities ended, four dark eyes surveyed the marketplace darkly.

John's eyes settled on the white logo emboldened on the creatures blue armoured chest and picking up on his silence Theia caught the direction of his faceplate. "That's a Batarian, he's a Blue Suns merc."

The explanation of this new creature didn't serve to make John any less tense, and sensing this, Theia continued. "Human's and Batarians don't get along. Batarian slavers and Pirates like raiding Human colonies in the Terminus systems."

John wasn't surprised by the information that the resident Humans of this Universe didn't get along with these specific Aliens. Every instinct he had told him not to trust this creature. He grit his teeth in frustration of his lack of understanding of the Universe that he found himself in, squared his shoulders ever so slightly, and made to answer Theia's first question.

"I'll ask that he direct me to this," He paused, recalling what Aria had called them, "Alliance, so that I may find a way back to my reality."

Theia allowed a short chortle of laughter out, "Not going to find a place to fit into Omega?"

John glanced at her again momentarily and decided that it must have been a joke. They continued on through the market without talking further, John observing the different aliens around him, with the odd Human mixed into the crowds.

Within a few minutes of navigating the market, Theia halted, and pointed to a closely shaven head visible a dozen meters from them that stood slightly taller than the rest of the crowd. "That's him!"

John quickly stepped passed Theia, his large mass parting the crowd like a boulder in a stream. A surge of happiness streamed through him at the lifetime familiar sight of a Human man with a military haircut and who walked with the posture of an experienced soldier.

The sense of ease the sight brought him was quickly halted as another Asari stepped into his path, a very clearly deliberate blocking manoeuvre. Instantly he was in combat mode, his fists clenched and his muscles tensed to throw himself at his obstacle, but seeming to sense the looming threat that he represented, the blue-skinned alien woman in her red and black skin tight body suit quickly, yet gracefully, delivered her reasoning for halting his progress.

"Whatever your needs of the Commander currently are, they must wait."

'Not a hostile – An ally of Shepard.' John's military mind surmised, recalling that Aria had only just told him that Shepard was hunting something called and Ardat-Yakshi, and linking that this Asari must be an ally within that hunt. "You're with Shepard?"

She nodded an affirmative, "We are hunting a dangerous woman, he is the bait."

John didn't quite know what to make her her succinct explanation. Clearly, an Ardat-Yakshi was a woman, perhaps of some particular species, he couldn't be sure. He found himself missing fighting the Covenant and the Flood. The enemies were much clearer.

"Are you friend or foe?"

To John's left, Theia narrowed her eyes at the clearly matriarchal Asari. She'd just seen the almost alien-Human totally conquer one of the most powerful Asari in the Galaxy, so she didn't want to see this ally of Shepard make the error of labelling him a foe.

"I need to speak with the Commander," John answered neither positive nor negative.

The elder Asari hummed in response and glanced over her shoulder, "You can follow me, please do not interfere."

John didn't reply in any capacity; taking that as a positive the woman spun on her heel and merged into the crowd in the direction Shepard had gone in. John made after her a moment later, with Theia trailing slightly behind him.

Within several minutes they had cleared the market area and had turned up a flight of stairs which lead to a hallway lined with doors with the same holographic interfaces he'd seen earlier. A holographic sign marked the wall as the luxury apartment district.

John halted at the top of the stairs, seeing the Asari woman holding her hand against one of the red interfaces several doors along, an orange hologram surrounding her wrist and hand, turning in time with the red interface on the door. Suddenly a chime sounded, and the colour shifted from red to green, granting the woman access. She wasted no time in stepping through the door in a long stride.

John likewise increased the length of his stride to make it to the doorway. He stepped around the corner to bear witness to the same woman who'd just led him here being thrust against a scenic window in a swirl of blue energy, and another Asari who looked remarkably like Shepard's ally making a dash in his direction.

A momentary expression of surprise crossed the hunted woman's face before it being steeled into resolve. The same blue energy used by Aria collected around her as she charged toward John, and the door he was blocking.

The rules of this confrontation become instantly clear to him, and in a moment he took in the scene. Shepard, the Human male was making to heave the allied Asari back to her feet, she had clearly been attacked and bested by the second Asari, whom clearly intended to use violent force to make her escape: She was a threat.

She lashed her arm in John's direction, and ball of blue energy raced across the distance between them. It impacted him square in the chest with enough force to make him take the slightest step back, but like Aria, her surprise at the ineffectiveness of her attack didn't give her a single moment to prepare for his imminent retaliation.

It was far too late for her to slow her momentum, and John took advantage of that with his far greater reflex speed by stepping forward to meet her with his right arm extended, aiming for his forearm to connect with her chest. As always, his aim and choice of motion were accurate, and she hit his extended arm as though it were a steel beam and was thrown heavily to the floor.

She coughed from the force of her own momentum knocking the wind from her lungs and quickly made to roll back to her feet. The instant that she did turn her body over to seek her footing a gloved hand seized the base of her skull and lifted her off the ground with frightening ease.

"Ahhh!"

She screamed in pain as he clenched ever so slightly, and her hands reached for the hand that held her so painfully aloft. Her legs kicked back, just like Aria's had, to drive back her attacker, but to no avail.

"Who are you!"

John's eyes met Shepard's through his faceplate at the demand, and he instantly had a measure of respect for the man. He recognised a military leader when he saw one, someone similar to himself, to Lasky and Hood, even similar to Commander Palmer.

"I am an ally."

The woman whom John had followed stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder, "He is someone who seeks to speak with you. But first," She took a deep inhalation of air, "I must deal with my daughter."

At this, the woman dangling from John's grasp stilled all movement, and her eyes shot wide. She'd never been placed in such a helpless position before, especially not before the one woman who'd hunt her to the ends of the Galaxy.

"I didn't choose to be this, Mother!" She snarled angrily, her grip on John's wrist tightening to no avail. "I am the genetic destiny of the Asari!"

"You will find peace in the embrace of the goddess, Morinth!" The elder Asari paced forward gracefully, blue energy encircled her fist an instant before bringing of crashing into the side of Morinth's head with enough force to turn her head far enough for the audible snap of her vertebrae, even within John's grasp.

A moment of tenseness was all there was in her body before it went limp, and John, as he had done with countless Covenant soldiers over the years, dropped the limp form to the ground without any ceremony.

"Samara, are you okay?" Shepard asked to the solemn Asari's back.

Her shoulders rose and fell in a deep intake and exhalation of breath. "What can I say? That I am glad for killing my strongest and brightest daughter? Please, let us leave this place?"

Shepard nodded, more to himself than Samara, before fixing his gaze back on the titanic man before him. "What did you need to speak to me about?"

"I require you to put me in touch with someone from your Alliance." John dictated, all military precision in his purpose.

"What for?"

"The circumstances of my being here are beyond anything in known history, I require assistance from the Humanity of this universe."

Shepard expression instantly shifted his frown one of confusion rather than anger. "Of this universe?"

At this point, Theia stepped into the doorway and made her presence known, "He's not from our reality. And I need a lift too."

"Shepard," A synthetic voice interrupted from the suddenly glowing holographic device around the Commander's wrist. "There are theories of parallel realities, it is possible." The voice explained away the brunt of Shepard's doubt.

"So I assume you're Human?" Shepard asked more cautiously, looking from boot to helmet up John's stature.

"Yes, I am a Spartan. Rank; Master Chief Petty Officer of the United Nations Space Command, acting in place of the United Government of Earth, which may now be active again." John's voice once more spoke out in precise military tone.

"Special forces?" Shepard inquired.

"Something else, Sir."

Shepard nodded, the vague answer seeming to fit well in Shepard's own visual analysis of this new presence. "Alright, both of you can follow us back to the Normandy; we'll get you both where you need to be."

John offered Shepard the same respect he offered to every officer who acted respectably, he nod in appreciation.