Welcome to the Dragon's Lair

Chapter I

Unexpected Arrivals

Disclaimer: I do not own the Mass Effect or Temeraire I.P.s.

A\N: I don't know how far this will go, but it can't hurt to give it a go.
Besides, I've got writer's block and recently finished Blood of Tyrants.

Somehow, this idea or something very like it surfaced. It just had to be written down.

The first thing Alliance Marine Corporal Ivan Crane saw as he awoke on the beach was the back end of his M-7 Lancer.

His first action after folding the weapon and stowing it on his back was to stand, to find himself on a beach under a familiar sky, though judging from the white sandstone cliffs in front of him, he was on the opposite side of the planet to Rio de Janeiro.

A quick equipment check found that he still had his M11-Suppressor maglocked to his thigh and a full supply of medi-gel, thermal clip packs and the stim-cocktails commonly referred to as 'op survival packs.' He was out of cobra missiles though, which wasn't especially reassuring.
Not surprising considering the gambit the fire team had pulled to take down that Reaper…

With a tired groan, Crane began staggering up the beach towards the rocks. A little shelter wouldn't hurt and he needed the sleep.

It wasn't often Jeremy Rankin was seen to actually pay attention to Levitas, let alone listen to or talk to him. In fact, the simple fact the pair were going down to the beach near the Dover covert together was seeing several betting pools being collected upon and a lot of mixed feelings for the people losing out.

Levitas had been fretting more than usual recently and Rankin blamed Laurence and his ground crew chief for it. Still, they'd stopped their interference but the damage was done and now Rankin was obliged to try out what the other aviators found so wonderful about spending time with their beasts.

And apparently, Levitas had decided he was going to try swimming in the little bay near the covert.

It was nonsense, but that could again be attributed to Captain Laurence's interference and the bad influence his damnable Imperial set.
But despite that, there was something faintly enjoyable in seeing Levitas's enthusiasm for the excursion and the gratitude the little Winchester directed towards him. It was even turning out that Levitas was better company than the other aviators and a vast majority of the people of quality who were his preferred society. He was less judgemental at any rate and wasn't one to cast aspersions on his character just because of his profession.

The pair came down to the beach and made their way out onto the strand only for bullets to begin whipping past their ears at an ungodly rate and a hellish cacophony to spring up.

Levitas chirruped and took to the air in instinctive alarm, leaving Rankin wholly exposed and defenseless.

Rankin ducked and looked in the direction the shots had come from to see a group of hellish creatures coming towards him:

Creatures with four soulless white eyes and a gaping maw with some form of arm-mounted cannon and stunted limbs the colour of dried blood, tall spiky creatures hefting strange rifles and wreathing the others in dark magic and demonic parodies of humans that scampered towards him like beasts.

Rankin took one good look at the hellish pack and immediately bolted in the opposite direction up the beach through the rocks. He hadn't made it more than fifty metres before he tripped over a gentleman wearing a full suit of armour asleep in a cluster of rocks with,-thank heavens for small miracles,- a pistol in his lap!

Rankin seized the weapon as the man awoke, turned and shot one of the mockeries of humanity between the eyes.

There was no thunderous report or smoke as he'd expected, instead a muted phwit! sound that was all but drowned out by the cries of the demons coming down the beach.

Rankin had no time for relief as immediately another of the creatures loomed out of the rocks and leapt at his face.

He caught the creature mid-leap and began struggling with it as it attempted to claw his face off, acutely aware that it's fellows were also hunting him.

Then the armoured fellow was on his feet and bludgeoning the creature off of him with the length of what was the strangest rifle Rankin had ever laid eyes on.

'Who the hell are you?' The stranger growled, his voice strangely distorted by his face-hugging helm.
It was closer in form to a balaclava one might wear on an especially cold flight, but his eyes and sections of his armour glowed with an unnatural, cold blue light.

'Captain Jeremy Rankin, of His Majesty's Aerial Corps.' Rankin supplied immediately as the stranger began leading him through the rocks in the opposite direction of the hellish cacophony.

'What the hell are you doing hunting Reaper forces in that ridiculous get-up? You haven't even got a proper weapon!' The stranger demanded as he vaulted a fallen stone from a landslip a week or two earlier.

'I beg your pardon? Reaper?' Rankin managed as he scrambled over the rock himself. 'I haven't the faintest clue what you mean.'

The stranger wheeled sharply, raised his rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger on his rifle, which spat a stream of rounds which left blurred after-images in Rankin's eyes. The shots were rewarded by the sounds of pained-sounding cries and howls from the horde hunting them. The noise was far less than the effect of the weapon would suggest. And still not a trace of smoke either.

'Keep moving, we'll talk as we go.' The stranger suggested, turning and continuing on, sure footed as a mountain goat. 'What year is it to you?' He asked.

'1805. June 28th, if you must know.' Rankin replied.

'Oh, well that's just-' The stranger wheeled and thrust his arm back in the general direction of their pursuers and was suddenly wreathed head-to-toe in crackling blue, projecting a nimbus of blue force back towards their pursuers, where it coalesced into a black sphere that hung in place and seemed to distort the very air.

As Rankin looked on, several of the dark red demons ambled into the sphere's influence and were plucked off the ground.

The stranger turned and began moving again.

'Questions and answers later, right now we need to find a defensible position.' He said.

They continued down the beach, ducking behind rocks at the stranger's behest so he could continue to fire on them.

At this point, Rankin was beginning to wonder if the stranger's gun ever ran out of bullets. And all the while, out of range of the demon's weapons, was Levitas flying in a fretful circle and watching.

'Tiras?' The stranger said all of a sudden in surprise. 'Say again, the line's bad.'

Rankin looked doubtfully at the fellow as he stood back to a pillar with a finger pressed to his ear.

He caught Rankin looking at him.

'Keep firing, pace your shots so that pistol doesn't get too hot. One shot every five or six seconds should keep it cool.' The stranger said, then went back to talking to himself. 'Right,' he looked out to sea. 'Got you, but you'll have to try swimming in yourself, I've got Reapers up my ass and a Victorian soldier the Alliance would class as a civvy I'm trying to keep alive. There's a Harvestor keeping watch at the mouth of the bay and my Lancer and biotics are doing all the heavy lifting, cover is about as scarce as a competent requisitions officer as well.' The stranger said.

It might as well have been Russian as far as Rankin was concerned, it would've made about as much sense. He was too busy following the stranger's example of only leaning out of cover to shoot before ducking back down again and following his advice on pacing his shots to the letter.

So far, the thing hadn't stopped firing and through trial, he began to figure out the universal weakness of the demons: The head.

One or two shots from the strange pistol was enough to put the demons down and it wasn't especially difficult to line up shots.

Indeed, to Rankin's disgust the red ones were pausing to devour the dead.

Rankin somehow managed to swallow his bile and use the corpses to bait the red ones into leaving cover and give him shots.

'Alright, Greenie, can you swim?' The stranger asked, turning to Rankin before mowing down one of the spiky fellows with a ball of blue magic and a three second burst from his gun.
'No, why on Earth do you need to know?' Rankin asked.
'I've got a squad mate in the water and the most she can do is tread water. You don't have armour or any ammo for that pistol and you'd be more likely to shoot yourself than those fuckers if I gave you my Lancer. So, we've got to go into the drink so we can pull her out. Besides, that Harvestor is still hanging around. Soon as it gets it's act together, we'll be up to our eyeballs in husks.' The stranger replied.
'What? Harvestor? I don't know what you're-'
'The fucking dragon that's hovering out there!' The stranger replied, throwing another of those levitating sphere-things to pull in a few more of the red devils.
'I don't know what breed a Harvestor is, but that's Levitas. A Winchester.' Rankin replied. 'If you can attract his attention, then I might be able to take him to look for your friend.' He suggested.

The stranger was silent, taking a moment to coldly gun down another rush from the demons hunkering down further down the beach.

'I must've hit my head before I woke up…' He muttered darkly and suddenly an orange gauntlet sprang to life on his left arm. 'He recognise flares?' The stranger asked.

'Send up a white flare and he'll come in.' Rankin replied.
'I suggest that you move fast, I'll keep these bastards in cover, but they'll start shooting if you take too long and they notice you.' The stranger said, then raised his arm and a dazzling white light shot into the air, hung for a moment, then vanished.

Levitas hesitated, then came dashing in at speed as the stranger continued to fire on the demons.

The stranger handed something to Rankin.

'Put that over your ear.' He instructed.

It took Rankin a second to figure out how, but he managed.

'Can you hear me?' The stranger asked and oddly, Rankin could hear the stranger's voice in his ear clearly.
'Yes.'
'Good. Now get going. One last thing: My squad mate isn't human, so don't bother staring, just pull her out of the water then take up a position where she can fire on the beach.' The stranger responded as Levitas landed, doing his best to crouch behind the rocks.

At these words, Rankin wasn't sure what he was getting himself in for, but it couldn't be as bad as fighting the legions of Hell itself.

'Levitas, let's go.' Rankin said and the little Winchester was out over the sea in an instant.

Now that they were over the sea, Rankin noted that the ear-piece had also extended a monocle-like device over his eye, which was showing a name further out to sea and a countdown in what appeared to be metric distance.

His enquiry was met by a brief affirmative. Followed by a roar quite unlike any Rankin had ever heard before.

'Fuck my life.' The stranger growled.
'What was that?' Rankin asked.
'They've got a Brute. Hurry up, otherwise I'm going to get creative to the detriment of the local scenery.' He replied. It was mystifying hearing the stranger's voice in his ear as if he was right next to Rankin and he was dying to ask how the ear-piece worked, but he had a job to do.

Rankin glanced back to see a dirty black-grey mass the size of a small dragon with a massive pincer advancing towards the stranger's position.

The name 'Cprl I. Crane' hovered above the stranger's position.

'Look for orange smoke or a red flare.' The stranger, 'Crane,' said as a humming sound and sustained, almost rhythmic gunfire sounded in the background.

Rankin began doing just that and almost immediately ahead, he saw a scarlet light hovering above a speck in the water.

'Levitas, see there, look for someone in the water beneath that flare.' Rankin instructed.
'Yes, I see her, hang on.' Levitas replied, his tone making it obvious he was burning to ask what precisely was going on besides the blindingly obvious.

He kept his queries to himself however, bless him, choosing to dive towards the figure treading water in the waves instead.

Rankin hadn't known what to expect when the stranger said that this 'squad mate' of his wasn't human, but he hadn't been expecting the creature to be so…human.

She had the basic body shape, but besides the three-digit hands, back-jointed legs, bird feet and full-body suit, her proportions were remarkably similar.

Rankin leaned out from Levitas' side and extended a hand down, which was deftly grabbed by the creature.

As Levitas swooped past, the creature pulled herself up beside Rankin.

'I assume Crane dragged you into this?' She asked, again with a strangely distorted voice.

'The fellow hasn't introduced himself yet, but he did more or less.' Rankin admitted.

'Right, well if you can get us in a good firing position, I'll see about thinning out this little infestation you've got on your hands.' The creature replied, pulling a rectangular block that extended and unfolded into a rifle from where it had been attached to her shoulder somehow.

The simple action of drawing the weapon made it obvious it was advanced beyond anything Rankin could conceive, but as he urged Levitas back to where he'd been flying laps before,-well out of range of most weapons below cannons,-the creature leveled the rifle and fired on one of the red devils, which promptly keeled over dead.

Rankin was more astonished by the level of carnage displayed on the beach.

The 'Brute' was still stalking the beach, but the stranger had absolutely littered it with the corpses of the other creatures.

'How many more?' The stranger asked abruptly.
'They just keep coming, it looks like they're coming out of that distortion or rift or whatever it is down the opposite end of the beach, but it looks like it's starting to close.' The creature beside Rankin replied.
'Right, looks like we'll have to close it then.' The stranger said.
'How?'
'By evening the odds a bit.'

With that, Rankin saw the stranger hurl another blue orb, this time at the cliff, followed by a pulsing wave of energy.

When the energy struck the blue aura that was now dancing on the cliff, the result was an explosion of extraordinary force and as Rankin watched, the cliff began to collapse. The stranger was also starting to run as fast as he could away as the cliff began to crumble. The devils on the beach began to fire at his heels, heedless of the impending danger as with majestic slowness the cliff collapsed.

Abruptly, the collapse increased in speed, boulders, earth and dust flying into the air and crashing down on the beach with a deafening noise.
A moment passed and the dust settled to reveal the beach was buried.

'Crane?' The creature beside Rankin asked, a note that might have been concern colouring her voice.

A pile of rubble at the extreme right of the landslip shifted and fell away and the stranger climbed unsteadily out.

'I'll live.' Came the slightly strained but otherwise unconcerned reply. 'Let's finish up.'

As the stranger said this, another pile of rubble further into the landslip was hurled aside and the Brute roared in anger.
The stranger didn't even bother passing comment, just hurling some more magic at the brute, followed by a sustained barrage of gunfire, mirrored by Rankin's passenger who seemed to have a preternatural ability to hit the Brute in it's comparatively tiny head.

Inside of ten seconds the brute collapsed dead.

The stranger then set off over the landslip at a run almost unbroken by the uneven surface and the rubble. He vaulted over up-jutting rocks as if they were no concern until he was at the other end of the beach standing before a distortion of the air that Rankin was noticing for the first time.

'Any ideas?' The stranger asked.

The creature beside Rankin was silent a moment and pulled up an orange gauntlet of it's own which it consulted a while longer.

'Try using your biotics on it, Crane.' The creature suggested.

Rankin was on the verge of asking what 'biotics' were when the stranger hurled another blue sphere at the distortion, which promptly began twisting in on itself.

'That seems to have done it.' The creature said.
'Alright, crisis averted. Come on in, we'll pull up a rock each and I suppose Tiras and I have got some answers to give. Whether you believe them or not is up to you, flyboy.' The stranger said.

Rankin was all to happy to oblige.

There were a million questions he wanted to ask from who these two were, what the demons had been, what they'd all been doing on the beach and where they'd all come from to what sorcery did they practice and where had they acquired such ridiculously lethal weapons.

And that is chapter one.

And it's probably only going to get crazier from here.