Cyba_Zero

Disclaimer: Borg and  Star Trek belong to CBS Paramount; Geth and Mass Effect belong to EA/Bioware; OFAS belongs to Hermione of Vulcan; the concept of minis belongs to Miss Cam and the PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia. Nathonea  and Luxury are part of the general PPC canon, and are not mine either.


Chapter 7: Interlude - A Tale of Two Hives (wherein Joke lives up to his name at Cyba's expense, and brings Mess along for the ride, naturally).

Cyba Zero returned to the RC with a much better opinion of psychologists than she had expected. Eagrus was out somewhere, and apparently Zouh was with him, so Cyba settled down and tried to put the advice she had been given into practice.

She, Sigma and Phi had all been thoroughly convinced, once Eagrus had managed to trick them into going through a portal to FicPsych, that they were in for a terrible ordeal of American-film-style 'circle time' and supposedly soothing voices that actually only made you drowsy. It had not exactly started well, with the three of them having been locked in a Collective-proof chamber until they had threatened to start singing because they were bored, at which point it had been decided that maybe they were free of hive influence from their previous mission after all.

Then they had been introduced to a lovely person called Nathonea Dewstan, who had managed to evaporate their triple-strength Very Sceptical Look just by coming into the room and turning out to have Borg implants just like they did. True, most of hers had been removed, but the fact that she was sort of Borg too went a good way to letting her off for being a psychologist (albeit a nurse-level one). It also meant she had a good angle on their situation, despite the fact that she had gained her implants the old fashioned way... by getting assimilated.

There had not been any psychologist-talk, either.  After verifying all the facts of the disguise generator incident and the events of the Trekverse mission (despite the influence issues after restoring the canon, the influence had only really consisted of 'get Eagrus' rather than 'how to use one's implants'); Nathonea had taught the three of them how to meditate World One style. The hope was that the technique would bring them more in tune with their new bodies, which would in turn enable them to learn how to perform the basic necessities like sleeping. Apparently it was not something that could be explained without networking.

She had also explained that, once they finally succeeded in entering regeneration, that their dreams might be affected. The machine that shielded the inhabitants of HQ from the fangirl dreams filtering through apparently did not work when Borg alcoves were involved - presumably because the latter promoted networking.

Then Cyba, Sigma and Phi had gone their separate ways, to gain different experiences. Sigma had joined DoSAT, muttering something about fixing up the space-ship they had crashed in the middle of OFAS' dinner-hall. Phi had gone off to DMSE&R with the two mini-Stus, who had suffered a similar fate to their progenitor - minus the being assassinated part. The duo had made it known - in unison - that they wished to improve their spelling, as well as changing their names to Caprt and Captin One of Five. Extensive testing later, it became apparent that the usual rule of minis applied: their networking range was only a couple of rooms (and not strong enough to cause influence problems), and their nanoprobes were not capable of assimilating much. (Okay, so the little they had managed to assimilate had been the back of Eagrus' hand, so even though he had been in disguise at the time, and his subsequent reversion to Easterling form had completely fixed it, he wanted the pair kept as far away from him as possible.) Besides, their transformation seemed to have done them the world of good: their over-active hormones were completely gone, and the whole quest for perfection had left them rather more amenable to the idea of using good English. Needless to say, Phi was training them and studying the general effect of their condition, perhaps in the hope that Borg nanoprobes with modified programming might be a way to reduce Mary Sue blood-glitter concentration.

Cyba, of course, had returned to DTE, and was now standing in her alcove, trying to meditate. Unfortunately, stray thoughts kept creeping into her head, like how Mess and Joke had been uncharacteristically well-behaved for the last few days.

It was at that point that Mess - at least, she thought it was Mess - sauntered into the room in his four-legged form... and sat watching her intently.

Cyba smiled at him, then closed the eye she could and resumed meditating. She relaxed, allowing her senses to spread, heightening her oneness with her surroundings. She could hear the soothing hum of the machinery nearly, the tap of Mess Efekt's feet as he came closer. She let her awareness extend, reaching forth to...

For a moment, there was some sort of connection, but she did not get the chance to tell what kind, because suddenly her senses turned off and reactivated.

She was lying on the floor, and while her senses were back, they felt wrong. Her body also felt different - if possible, even more solid than previously. She groaned, but the sound that came out was definitely not what she had imagined. Had she fallen out of her alcove again? She tried to get up, but it was like trying to walk on all fours, on stilts. She crashed to the floor, which at least was not that far, and looked around instead. The room seemed to be her RC, but it was a lot bigger than she remembered. Worse... she could see herself standing in her alcove, watching with a look of amusement.

Forcing her panic down, she concentrated on getting up - one leg at a time. She managed it this time, albeit remaining very wobbly. Steadying herself, she managed to get a look at part of her body, which to her horror was the blue-silver metal of...

Mess!

 She was now petty sure what had happened: Mess had swapped their bodies. That little horror of a mini had found a way to hack her networking abilities and link them up to his and Joke's, probably via her alcove.

That does it! Although... where's Joke? Maybe I can get him on my side.

She could not see him anywhere in the room, so she headed for the main RC and the console, where her minis could often be found charging. To her credit, she managed about two steps before she fell over, accompanied by Mess snickering. Focusing hard, she got back to all fours and stumbled a bit further.

If this is Mess and not Joke, maybe I can work out how to transform...

Planting her feet firmly, she concentrated with all her will and stood up on her hind legs. Plates shifted, realigning, and balancing abruptly got a whole lot easier. A quick check told her that she had been successful, so she looked pointedly at Mess-as-her, who in turn looked a bit put out and maybe a little impressed.

So there!  she tried to say; what came out was a smug-sounding bleep.

Mess-as-her stepped out of her alcove, extended her nanoprobe injectors and began inspecting them with interest.

Hoo boy. He's better at this than I am.

She turned around and resumed her search for Joke. Ignoring Mess-as-her, Cyba walked out into the RC proper and headed purposefully towards the console, where the minis could often be found charging. Sure enough, Joke was curled up in a shutdown position, charging from the open port she had left there.

"Joke? Joke?!" she called. It even came out sounding vaguely like what she was trying to say, but Joke remained asleep. She poked him, but nothing changed. When she poked harder, and the little mini toppled over, Cyba realised the real truth: Joke was not at home, he was busy co-piloting with Mess. In fact, knowing the minis, it had probably been Joke's idea. She should have known better.

Heavy footsteps and a snicker sounded behind her, as Mess-and-Joke-as-her walked past and headed out of the trapdoor.

Great. Where are Eagrus and Zouh when I need them? Regardless, I can't let those minis get up to mischief. I don't what to imagine the trouble they could cause in my form - and I'll get the blame!

She ran over to the trapdoor, but was soon faced with a new problem: the ladder was not built for minis. The rungs were too far apart for her to reach! How was she supposed to get down to give chase?

Mess-and-Joke-as-her looked up, guessed what she was thinking and shrugged, flashing her an evil grin before striding off down the corridor.

Cyba racked her brain, and mentally kicked herself for being so silly. She was in a Geth body, and in Mass Effect, Geth could drop from orbit without taking damage. One floor would hardly stop her, mini or not, so she composed herself and jumped.

She landed in a half-kneeling position with a slight thud. Mess-and-Joke-as-her looked over their shoulder and began walking faster. Cyba began running after them, bleeping furiously, but it took four of her steps to equal one of theirs and they were leaving her behind easily.

However, Geth Primes were armed - even miniature ones. It would not cause any damage, but it ought to sting a bit.

Take this, you naughty minis, thought Cyba with relish, aiming the energy cannon she was holding in one hand. Cyba knew her body still registered such things, if not in quite in the human sense, and it ought to be enough of a shock to slow them down.

Mess-and-Joke-as-her jumped as the little blast hit them squarely in the back. Cyba caught up a few steps, peppering them frantically with energy bolts. They faltered, holding up an arm to shield themselves... and then a green shield flashed into life around them.

Oh darn: adapted. I forgot about that.

However, she had closed some of the gap. There was only one thing for it: she leapt at them with all her might (well, Mess Efekt's might, anyway), bleeping a battle-cry that was the closest she could get to screaming.

Mess-and-Joke-as-her retaliated by charging up the gizmos in her body's mechanical arm.

Ah, I don't actually know what that does, thought Cyba, as the black metal realigned and suddenly emitted a beam of green light. The next moment, all forward momentum ceased and she found herself hanging in mid-air. Ooh, tractor beam. Nice! I have to find out how that... aaaaaaagh!

Mess-and-Joke-as-her had reversed the beam, sending her flying back down the corridor in the direction she had come. She was so glad Geth were resistant to falling damage... and pain. As she got to her feet to see the pair of minis wearing a rather satisfied expression on her body's face - before disappearing around a corner - she felt her resolve strengthen.

Right, that's it! This calls for backup! Eagrus and Zouh might be away, but I have other allies you don't know about, Mess and Joke. The Collective of Three protects its own. Hey! Why am I even thinking of us by that name Eagrus came up with, anyway? Aaaaagh!

Concentrating on shaking her thoughts into line, she sauntered in a random direction. She was careful not to hurry, else the Ironic Overpower would ensure it took hours to get to either of the places she wanted.

About five minutes later, she passed a door bearing an irrelevant number and a rather more relevant name: Phi Six. There were also several more notices hanging beneath the first, which read:

1. No royal purple allowed beyond this point.

2. Red is also best avoided, especially if worn on a shirt.

3. NO BUGE. ANYWHERE. AT ALL.

4. Oh, and beware of the minis.

Aiming another jump, Cyba-as-Mess swung from the handle and the door opened, swinging inwards into Phi's RC. Cyba landed and shoved the door shut, taking point. After all that, and it was empty. Phi must have taken her minis somewhere, presumably to educate them.

Oh well, I'll have to find Sigma's RC, thought Cyba.

She turned around, preparing to swing on the handle this side and leave... except there was no handle. She supposed it was to keep Phi's minis from wandering around HQ and causing trouble - after all, they had the potential to cause more trouble even than Mess and Joke. However, it did not help her in her quest to stop the trouble Mess and Joke were causing right now. Nevertheless, she had no choice but to wait until Phi and the minis got back. At least the minis were out, too...

That was, of course, when she noticed the red laser dot on her chest.

Her eyes followed the laser back to its source, and saw Caprt One of Five peering around a table leg about a metre away. She started edging into the room, giving the little cyborg-dogman a wide berth. While Phi's minis followed the rule of diminished power, she did not really want to find out whether that diminishment still worked when the target was also a mini. She was glad that her whole red problem seemed not to affect her when the red was on one of the Borg, though. Speaking of which, she could not envisage Caprt being alone - where there was one, there was the other, surely? So where exactly was Captin?

She stopped and thought about it. Where were the Borg always when you were trying to keep an eye on all of them nearby?

Oh blast. He's behind me.

She dodged sideways, and a pair of injectors missed her by millimetres.

I guess they have a certain word beginning with 'a' on the brain. Big surprise. Bet they still can't spell it, though.

She ran for it, with Caprt and Captin in hot pursuit.

How do I get Mess' voice working properly? A spelling test would probably slow them up enough to buy myself a bit of extra time. Darn it, where are you, Phi?

She dodged left, right, left again. She was faster and more agile, but there were two of them and they were taking advantage of it. She really hoped they did not have tractor beams. Even so, it was only a matter of time before they caught her. She had to get out of reach somehow... Geth thrusters?

She waited until she had gained a bit of ground over them, then stopped and aimed her single-eyed gaze at the tabletop above and in front of her.

I want to be up there. I need to be up there!

Hoping against hope, she jumped and believed she could do it.

At the height of her jump, her thrusters fired. She glided upwards, wobbled slightly, but managed to land clumsily on the table. She had probably scratched Mess' paintwork, but it served him right. He would not be able to scratch hers back, either - hers regenerated.

She lay on the table, gazing around the room for a moment. There was a lot of apparatus visible, all sorts of implements  and stationary stacked on shelves and presumably more in the cupboards standing against various walls. The table she was on was a central workbench, and she could see the entrance to a side-room that presumably housed Phi's alcove.

Standing up, Cyba-as-Mess saw Caprt and Captin's scaled-down alcoves by one wall. She suspected the minis had been trying to back her into them, too. The minis themselves were both staring up at her, but it was tough luck for them that they could not reach her.

Ha, thought Cyba, and concentrated very hard on blowing a big, fat raspberry. It was a bit tinny, but it was definitely a raspberry. The advantage of Mess' body (at least in his Prime form), was that it was quite intuitive - most of his abilities roughly corresponded to a human body. She was getting the hang of this! If only she could figure out the cloak...

Caprt and Captin's leg plates opened slightly, and Cyba was suddenly a lot less smug.

Please tell me they're not... adapting, her thoughts trailed off and she retreated just in time for Caprt and Captin to fire thrusters of their own and land on the edge of the tabletop. Rule number one of the PPC, Cyba reminded herself, the IO is out to get you!

Concentrating again, knowing it was perfect or bust, she suddenly pointed her finger at the pair and instructed: "Spell 'assimilation'!"

Both of them immediately stopped dead, suffering from a conflict of programming. Their quest for perfection demanded that they assimilate this intruder in their RC. However, their quest for perfection also demanded being able to spell.

"A-S-S," they began to recite, then paused. What was the next letter?

Ha, thought Cyba again. Got you. I bet you'll be pondering that for plenty long enough for Phi to get back.

What is the next letter? thought the One of Fives. What is the... Then their programming resolved its conflict. The intruder knows the next letter. A-S-S-what-ever-it-is it!

Both mini-Stu-drones abruptly went back into motion.

"You have the answer," they stated together.

"Oh, bleeping BLEEP!" cried Cyba, and the chase began again.

You should have expected that, she scolded herself mentally, while making the jump to the shelves. The pair jumped a moment after her, but she had already picked up a bottle of - something - and used it as a bat as the drones came in to land. The first one went flying, but the impact of the second smashed the bottle as it was deflected, spilling its contents everywhere.

Cyba tossed the broken bottle away, grabbed another, and dropped it on the heads of the mini-Stus as they made another attempt from below. Cyba moved to the next one, and continued bombing them until she ran out of bottles.

It was at this point that the drones managed to join her on the top shelf, one on each side.

Cyba squeaked, giving up the high ground in favour of not getting caught, and dropped to the next shelf down. This shelf contained apparatus, most of it glass beakers and the like, which was of little use to her. It was also covered with all manner of liquids from the broken bottles - that while apparently unreactive - had rendered the shelf very slippery.

Cyba planted her feet as firmly as was possible, and prepared to defend against the onslaught from above. The upper shelf should provide her some cover, so she only had to watch the edges.

CRUNCH!

Caprt and Captin had decided to go through the shelf to get to her. Luckily, in the final moment, Cyba had decided to duck.

Looking up, a pair of injectors had punched through just above her head. Cyba took the initiative: she grabbed hold of the stingers and bent them back on themselves... hard. Sure enough, when whichever mini they belonged to tried to retract them, he found himself well and truly stuck.

There came the sound of struggling from above, then a massive CRACK as with their combined strength, Caprt and Captin broke off part of the shelf. Caprt then proceeded to bend Captin's injectors back the right way, then the pair of them came down on Cyba-as-Mess' head.

Cyba sidestepped and lost her footing, sliding down the length of the shelf, knocking all of the glass beakers and such off ahead of her, where they then bounced off the shelf below and shattered all over the floor.

Cyba fell after them, but managed to catch the third and lowest shelf and roll under the cover of the middle one. There she found the lid of a tin of some sort, and proceeded to use it as a shield. Caprt landed on her shelf and she rammed him, knocking him off. Captin then landed, bracing himself better than his companion, and tried to reach around the shield to get her. Cyba angled it so he was unable to reach, but was pushed to her knees in the process. She swiped a pencil and prodded the drone's feet with it until he lost his footing, then turned so he rolled off. Unfortunately, the pencil caught on one of his cables, and yanked her off too.

She landed on top of him and tumbled off quickly, trying to get to her feet only to be tripped by his tail. With a lot of scrambling, she finally regained her footing. She managed to get the pencil free, too, and armed with that and the lid, she was slowly backed into a corner by the pair, feeling like a very bizarre hoplite.

Her back touched metal, and she realised they had just backed her into one of their alcoves. She raised her 'spear' and 'shield', but what she really wanted was to just disappear...

To her surprise, Mess' cloaking system came online and she did disappear. It would not last long, but it might just be enough. Caprt and Captin had been confounded, she stepped between them and...

THUNK!

She wobbled, her vision sparking, a blaring warning of system damage going off somewhere in the back of her mind. Caprt looked at her and withdrew the arm he had stuck out at head-height. Cyba felt herself falling back, right into the arms of Captin, kicking herself for forgetting that Borg were notorious for seeing right through cloaking.

Warning: system damage! Platform shutdown imminent. Repair mode activating, said her systems.

Bother and darn and blast and... Cyba's mind was saying. She knew what she would be when she recovered, and it would be properly this time. Caprt was already reaching for her. Darn and blast and...

"Hold it right there!" commanded a voice.

The mini-Stu-dogman-drones both froze, and their heads turned to face the speaker.

"Queen Phi?" they queried.

"Let him go," commanded Phi, and Caprt and Captin immediately dropped Cyba-as-Mess. Phi picked her up and laid her on the main table. "Mess Efekt? What are you doing here? Are you alright?"

Cyba felt her systems coming back online, and managed to bleep-groan: "Queen?"

Phi sighed. "I keep telling them not to call me that, but they're being most adamant. And since when could you talk, Mess?"

"I'm not Mess, I'm Cyba," said Cyba.

"Nice try Mess. Did Joke put you up to it?"

"I am Cyba, Joke put Mess up to swapping our bodies and now they've run off as me. I dread to think what mayhem they're causing..."

"More than you've caused here?" asked Phi, eyeing the complete devastation zone that had been her RC.

"They tried to assimilate me!" protested Cyba.

"Mess making a mess, why am I not surprised?" commented Phi.

"I'm not Mess!" cried Cyba. "I'll... I'll tell you something Mess and Joke don't know: I ended up in HQ after falling through a plothole while LARPing! You know that! You have my memories, for goodness' sake!"

"Cyba could have told you that since then," countered Phi.

"If you don't believe me, come and see for yourself!"  bleeped Cyba.

"Oh fine," said Phi. "It's not as though this RC isn't already a scene from a disaster movie, even if Joke is waiting to sneak in here the moment I'm gone."

With that, Phi caved in and sat Cyba-as-Mess on one shoulder, and Caprt and Captin on the other. Both parties eyed each other carefully for any sign of weakness, but Cyba doubted the One of Fives would try anything with Phi around - hopefully.

It took them about half an hour to relocate Mess-and-Joke-as-Cyba, who had ended up somewhere in the vicinity of the Department of Bad Slash, apparently having raided a store-room on the way and acquired a large number of paint-tins (at least some of them Suvian colours), as well as something that looked suspiciously like 'food' leftovers from the canteen (shudder). They were now using these objects, in conjunction with a certain inbuilt tractor-beam, to apply 'modern art' to the walls.

"I... see..." Phi managed to get out, then immediately drew a standard-issue PPC phone and called Sigma. "Sigma... this is Phi. We have a situation with Cyba, Mess and Joke in the Department of Bad Slash area, and could use reinforcements. Please come ASAP."

Sigma hung up and beheld the stylised image of a wolf with a laser eye, which she had etched onto the back wall of the bridge of her new ship, the Silver Hound, with her own eye-laser and a focusing lens. It looked quite good, in her opinion.

However, her sisters-in-arms needed her help, and she was not going to abandon them. The Collective of Three had to stick together.

Blast Eagrus for coming up with that name, she grumbled to herself mentally, and hurried off thinking very hard about everything but where she was going.

Sigma arrived to find Phi, Mess and the One of Fives stalking Cyba, who appeared to have gone completely mad and was redecorating the corridors - and any agents unfortunate enough to be walking past.

"Has she cracked?" asked Sigma, worriedly. "Are we here to hide the flamethrowers?"

"No, she's right here," said Mess, much to Sigma's surprise. "That's Mess and Joke doing that."

"What? Hold on a moment?" questioned Sigma, bemused.

"Cyba appears to be in Mess Efekt's body, while Mess and Joke are in Cyba's, causing merry mayhem," explained Phi.

"They're spilling - paint - all over my lovely black plating," spluttered Cyba-as-Mess furiously.

"Somehow, we need to get Cyba's body back to her alcove and convince Mess and Joke to transfer everybody's consciousnesses back where they should be," Phi gave Sigma the rundown.

"Preferably before Luxury... oh, too late," groaned Cyba.

Luxury had just appeared from a room to the left, presumably to investigate the commotion. She looked like she was dressed for visiting the beach, and Mess-and-Joke-as-Cyba were right in her sights.

"We need a distraction," muttered Sigma.

"Phi?" suggested Cyba, taking hold of the end of Phi's cable-hair. "Fling me will you, please?"

"We could send Caprt and Captin," Sigma offered an alternative.

"No," said Cyba. "We don't need that much of a distraction."

"Ready?" asked Phi.

"Do it," agreed Cyba.

Phi turned her head sharply, causing her 'hair' to whip around, effectively acting as a slingshot to launch  Cyba right at Luxury. Luxury noticed.

"EEEEEEEEEE!" she squealed excitedly, right as Cyba opened fire with her energy cannon. The "EEEEEE" quickly became "OWOWOWSTOPIT", much to Cyba's satisfaction as she landed on Luxury's head.

Mess and Joke readied their tractor beam, but then Sigma and Phi came around the corner. The expression on the face of the body the minis had borrowed was quite a picture; they had not expected Cyba to return with reinforcements in the form of, well, two more of her. They immediately aimed the tractor beam in Sigma and Phi's direction, giving Cyba the opportunity she needed to jump from Luxury's hair to Mess-and-Joke-as-her's cables, to which she latched herself firmly.

This in turn allowed Sigma and Phi to get close enough to grab Mess-and-Joke-as-Cyba's arms and commence the dragging of Cyba's body back to Cyba's RC, while Cyba-as-Mess provided covering fire.

"I really hope Caprt and Captin aren't getting ideas from Mess and Joke," muttered Phi as they went. "I will be taking precautions."

Eventually, they arrived back at Cyba's RC. Sigma and Phi managed to manhandle Mess-and-Joke-as-Cyba up the ladder, and forcibly shoved them back into Cyba's alcove.

"Right," said Cyba, hands on hips. "Now, Mess and Joke, you fix this immediately!"

The minis looked a bit dejected, but realised they were caught and the game was up. With a sigh, they leant back in the alcove and Cyba felt her senses switch off. When they reactivated, she was thankfully back in her own body, and Mess was back in his. A moment later, Joke wandered in.

"Thank you, Mess and Joke," she told them. "And don't you ever do that again!"

"Or you," Phi added pointedly to Caprt and Captin, who were sitting on her shoulders.

"Ah, but our plan worked!" came the response from Joke. "We left a monitoring subroutine in unit Mess' platform, and now we can speak properly."

"Why you little..." Cyba began.

"In return, we can show you how to regenerate - though you more or less had it by yourself," spoke Mess. As promised, he immediately sent the information to Cyba via her alcove. The tweaks to her method were minimal, but they made Cyba kick herself that she had missed them.

"Is that all?" gaped Cyba.

"All you have to do is open yourself to the possibilities, Cyba-Mistress. Then the method of using your implants is quite logical," they explained. "Your problem lies in your over-complication of the processes."

"Hmmm," mused Sigma and Phi thoughtfully.

"Can you show me how to use the rest?" asked Cyba hopefully.

"Yes, but it would be better practice for you if we do not," they replied.

"Oh, fine," Cyba sighed. "Thanks, though it was a shame you had to cause mayhem along the way."

Mess and Joke snickered. "Heehee, but that was half the fun!"

Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to CBS Paramount; oliphaunts, Eru and Lord of the Rings belong to the estate of JRR Tolkien; lightsabers and Star Wars belong to George Lucas; Left 4 Dead belongs to Valve Corporation; neuralysers and the Men in Black belong to Columbia Pictures; the concept of minis belongs to Miss Cam and the PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia.

The fic being sporked, 'Star Trek Voyager: Love and War', belongs to Jack Russel, and can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7726723/1/Star_Trek_Voyager_Love_and_War

For those brave/insane enough to read it, here is some Bleepolate to take away the shock.

Thank you to Firemagic and my readers on the Board for beta-ing this.

Chapter 6: Mission to 'Star Trek Voyager: Love and War' (wherein a hormonal Gary Stu's plot-warping powers are turned against him).

Agent Zero's note: for possible further research, this mission report has been forwarded to Phi Six, Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research. Sigma One, Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology, also has a copy for reference.

Thud! Thump! Clang!

Eagrus pricked up his ears, wondering what was going on outside his bedroom door.

Thud! Thump! Bang!

It could have been an oliphaunt, perhaps - except one would not fit in the RC. Maybe it was a small one. Maybe there was an invasion.

He opened his door a crack and peered through to see... Cyba... dancing. After all the Star Trek he had watched on Dr Fitzgerald's advice, he knew that the Borg did not dance. As such, seeing his agent partner dancing was quite ridiculous - even knowing that she still had the mind of a (somewhat insane) World One female. The fact that she was unused to her new body - and thus rather ungainly - only made it worse. Then there was the fact that said new body was heavy, clunky and metal - and totally not built for dancing. It certainly explained the noise.

He was just about to retire, snickering, when she started singing. Moreover, she started singing, if possible, even more terribly than the last time she had tried it, the effect being no doubt exacerbated by the fact that she was singing with the Borg's Collective voice. It sounded... absolutely awful.

He opened his door and marched out. She immediately stopped and looked sheepish.

"Sorry!" she apologised guiltily, raising her hands in surrender. She was still doing the voice.

"Er, Cyba... why are you talking in that voice?" he questioned her.

"Um... I tried to get some sleep... it didn't work... I tried working out some of my other implants... and I worked out how to do the voice! But... I ... er... I can't turn it off again."

"Alright, first request: please don't sing in that voice."

"Can I sing once I work out how to turn it off?"

"No!"

"Ohhhhhhhhhh..." Faux-whiney and that voice did not mix well, either.

"How did you manage to turn that voice on, anyway?"

"Ummmm... by accident."

"Oh dear. So... why were you dancing?"

"I found some good music, of course!" She tapped her headphones meaningfully.

"Any luck learning your own strength, yet?"

Cyba pushed his bedroom door open gingerly, and it swung into the wall with an almighty crash.

"No," she answered.

"Well, you didn't break the hinges this time," Eagrus pointed out.

There came a short silence, broken a moment later by the sound of Eagrus' door falling off its hinges.

"I take it back..." Eagrus corrected himself.

"Don't you come near me!" cried the talking gate, which now separated the main floor-space of the RC from the corner containing the trapdoor.

"Oh, what's the point of enhanced strength if all it means is you break everything you go near?"

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPEAGRUSFORGOODNESS'SAKEGET OVER HEREFIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eagrus sauntered over to take a look at the new mission... and gulped. Noticing Cyba closing in behind him, he turned to face her and spread his arms to keep her from seeing the screen.

"Nothing to see here! Nothing at all!"

"Eagrus, what's the mission?"

"What mission?"

"The one you're hiding from me. On the screen."

"No mission. Really!"

"Eagrus, you're only making me want to know even more."

"Really, you don't want to know."

"So there is a mission!"

"Oh, fine - but we're going to regret this." He moved aside and took cover.

"HE DOES WHAT?! THERE IS NO WAY HE IS GETTING AWAY WITH THAT!" Her voice had changed back, but she did not appear to have noticed in light of the horror she had just witnessed on the console's screen.

Ignoring the disguise generator completely, she snatched up the remote activator, opened a portal and marched through.

"Uh oh..." gulped Eagrus, just as someone banged on the trapdoor.

"Hello? Hello! This is FicPsych! Open up in there!" called a voice.

"FicPsych at the door," announced the talking gate, as if that were not obvious.

"Thank you," said Eagrus, flustered, as he quickly opened both the gate and trapdoor. Below stood one of the FicPsych psychologists, together with the broom-handle he had been using to bang on the trapdoor.

"Agent Khan is it? We're here to see your partner, Agent Cyba Zero. She's been referred to us by Medical regarding her recent assimilation, but she missed her appointment."

"She hasn't been assimilated; it was a disguise generator accident," corrected Eagrus. "And she had an appointment?" His eyes narrowed. "She kept that one quiet."

"Is she in?"

"No, she just dashed through a portal to the badfic we just received as a mission. Without any equipment. In the Trekverse. And the Borg proper are in this fic! Her condition might only be the result of a disguise generator accident, but if I don't hurry up and follow her, she really will be assimilated."

"Ah, you'd better go then.  But we would be grateful if you were to get her to come when you get back."

"I'll give it a try," replied Eagrus. "Just be warned: she doesn't like psychologists." With that, he secured the trapdoor, shut the talking gate, set his disguise, grabbed a bag of equipment and hurried after Cyba.

"Be careful who you're slamming!" the gate's voice followed him.

He came out in a default-sci-fi, shiny, silver corridor, which was clearly under-described. After a glance at the Words, he changed his decision to simply un-described, before wondering where Cyba had gone. His unspoken question was soon answered, however, by the sound of snickering from further down the corridor, broken only by the words 'Jack Russel'.

"What do you think you're doing, dashing in completely unprepared like that?" he scolded her when he caught up.

She was too busy giggling to answer.

"What?" he questioned.

Cyba pointed through the shiny, silver, automatic door to the room beyond - a shiny, silver, default-sci-fi starship bridge.

Eagrus followed the direction she indicated and saw a - creature - sitting in the default-sci-fi captain's chair, flying the ship while drinking some kind of apparently alcoholic beverage, which for some reason issued the irritating noise of a mosquito.

"What is that? And what is it drinking?"

The creature was more or less man-shaped, except it had curly fur covering much of its body that wasn't hidden under the black coat it was wearing, a dog's pointed ears atop its head, and a human face. Somehow, it still managed to look handsome.

Eagrus pointed his CAD at it.

Jack Russel. Dog-man? Male. Non-canon. Gary Stu! Kill it with fire!!!

As if to make a point, the CAD promptly exploded.

"He's drinking a glass of 'whine'," Cyba managed to force out between giggles.

"But why is he part dog?"

"Jack Russell Terriers are a type of small dog in World One," spluttered Cyba, still having a giggle-fit. "They are known for their tenacity. This Captain Jack Russel isn't described, so the Word World must have defaulted to a dog-man."

Eagrus took another look at the Words. "I take it you have noticed the spelling," he said cautiously.

"You mean the mess that has been made of it? Yes," replied Cyba. "Nice armour, by the way, Eagrus."

Eagrus paused, then remembered he was disguised as a Klingon - complete with full battle-armour and a Bat'Leth. "Yes," he agreed. "At least I didn't go charging in without a disguise."

"My appearance is native to this continuum," said Cyba with a grin. Then she fixed him with her very best Disconcerting Borg Stare, which failed miserably when she started chuckling a moment later.

"I'm afraid that needs practice," Eagrus informed her, with a false seriousness that set her off giggling again. "Cyba," he continued, "this ship doesn't look very Star Trek."

"That's because it isn't," she told him. "It's a ridiculous non-canon vessel that, regardless of what the fic says about its speed, is actually only that fast because it can fly through plot-holes."

"And you know that, how?"

"How else could it get between the different continua its captain claims to have gone to?"

"I think that still gets a charge," said Eagrus.

"Too right it does. And the Flowers won't be happy about somebody using their tech. Do, please, give me that charge list."

"Tech. Pff. Who wants a spaceship anyway? It's for travelling through space, for goodness' sake!"

"Good news: this entire fic's set in space."

"Flaming Denethor!"

Cyba started snickering again.

Suddenly, a woman appeared beside the dog-man and put her hand through a plot-hole that had opened up beside him. Apparently the Word World did not know what a 'solger' was any more than the agents did.

"Who exactly is this ship crewed by, besides Mr Stu, here?" queried Eagrus.

"Mr Stu's girlfriends, as far as I can tell. This one's called Sertana and is apparently hot and 'a sitting'."

"Well, I'm hot too; this ship is baking. But a sitting what, exactly?"

"Sitting duck?" suggested Cyba evilly.

"Well, there is that," agreed Eagrus.

"Then there's the matter of the captain's coat..."

"No description, so he's in some kind of black, generic captain gear," Eagrus shrugged.

"Not that. I want dibs on it. HQ's freaking cold."

"Fine by me."

Meanwhile, Captain Jack Russel laid back in his chair, lit a cigar, and uttered the word: "Grovey."

"Grovey?" asked Eagrus.

"I think that's what 'groovy' sounds like when you're half-dog."

Suddenly, the ship shuddered, and a massive jolt landed the agents on their backsides.

"What was that?" pressed Eagrus urgently.

"Wormhole," stated Cyba matter-of-factly. "One just 'apeared' in front of the ship."

"Somebody's going to wonder why a load of fruit is floating through space," observed Eagrus.

"GREAT MEN where are we now," said Jack Russel.

"Men?" Cyba raised her non-existent eye-brows.

"Question mark anyone?" wondered Eagrus aloud, catching the lonely piece of punctuation as it appeared next to him.

"I'll have it," said Cyba. Eagrus handed it over, and she promptly lobbed it at the back of the Stu's head. Fortunately she missed, and it skittered across the floor, but it caught the captain's attention anyway.

"What's that," he said, immediately spawning another.

"It's a question mark, you moron," muttered Cyba.

"Cyba," spoke Eagrus seriously, "you know punctuation is alien to Suvian entities - at least those we get sent to deal with."

"Having punctuation thrown at him is the least of his worries," Cyba responded grimly.

"Just which charge exactly has your hackles up so, Cyba?"

"Oh, you'll see."

A spatial lurch hit them, and they abruptly found themselves standing on the bridge of the USS Voyager.

"Argh, I don't feel so good," groaned Cyba.

"Is that body capable of being sick?" pondered Eagrus aloud.

"Well, if that happens much more, we'll soon find out."

The duo looked around, seeing themselves surrounded by the main crew of Voyager, just like the episodes.

"Wow," breathed Cyba, staring about in awe. Then a sort of trance came over her as she saw: "Ooooh... red... pretty..." She began wandering vaguely towards the captain for a closer look.

"Er, Cyba? What are you doing?"

"Such a beautiful colour..."

"Cyba! Snap out of it!" he called in hushed tones. When she paid him no attention, he grabbed her cable-hair and it pulled taut as she tried to take another step forwards.

"Ow! Eagrus! What'd you do that for!"

"Ssshhhh! Now... just... edge... this... way..." said Eagrus under his breath, so only Cyba could possibly hear him. He placed his hands on her metal shoulders and carefully steered her backwards into a corner. "Won't... do... for them... to trip over you... and notice... what you are... in the middle of their bridge."

At that moment, something very small, furry and round landed on his head. Eagrus caught it and held it out in front of him with the utmost suspicion.

"Is this... a mini?" he checked with Cyba, as a second appeared.

Cyba checked the Words, and the parts of her face that could move contorted into a scowl.

"Voyger? Turok!" She whipped out the pad of paper acting as the charge list and pointedly wrote:

Misspelling the name of the main ship and characters, and spawning mini-Tribbles - and you EVEN managed to spell Voyager correctly elsewhere!

"This Jack Russel's a legendary hero?" gaped Eagrus incredulously.

"I think you'll find that is 'legendry'," corrected Cyba.

"Heil him" Janeway said to 7 of 9 and 7 of 9 heiled Captain Jack Russel's ship.

Captain Jack Russel apeared on the screen and said "Russel Captain Jack Russel here." "OMG Captain Jack Russel!1" both Kes and Seska said and fainted.

"May I come abored" Captain Jack Russel said. "We whould be honored to have you abored Captain Jack Russel" Captain Janeway said to Captain Jack Russel.

Captain Jack Russel than entared the ship and everbody cheered. Than Janeway gave Captain Jack Russel a tour of the ship as he is one of her favrate heros.

Also the L4D surviers came to the ship as well cause Capt Jack Russel was going to drop them of at DS9 before the wormhole came.

So the Left for Dead guys were waling round voyger.

A shiny, silver, generic-sci-fi ship appeared on the view-screen. Funnily enough, the usually empty void of space had developed a storm of mixed punctuation - although the majority were definitely commas.

Punctuation storms... grrrr, wrote Cyba.

Meanwhile, two mini-Tanks appeared: Left for Dead and Loius.

"'Heil' him?" mouthed a bemused Eagrus. "And why has Seven of Nine got an accent?"

"Because 'heil' is German for hail," stated Cyba. "Poor Seven."

Kes and Seska fainted as the dog-man appeared on screen.

"Since when was 'OMG' Trekverse language?" asked Eagrus.

"Since when would Kes and Seska faint over a dog-man?!" pointed out Cyba furiously.

"Oh look, he wants to come 'abored'," snickered Eagrus.

"I'm bored of his bad spelling," muttered Cyba.

The view-screen abruptly cut out, and the agents exchanged glances.

"He just 'entared' the ship," spluttered Cyba. "No wonder the screen went dead. I guess the sensors are clogged."

"It's what he gets for smoking," shrugged Eagrus. "I don't understand why they're cheering, though - he did just coat their ship in tar!"

"Who in the Trekverse are they?" questioned Cyba, as a group of men carrying surveying equipment also appeared alongside the 'Stu.

"I don't think they are from the Trekverse," stated Eagrus. "'L4D surviers'? This sounds like a case of interdimensional snatching, to me."

"No wonder they're wailing!"

"'Waling', surely?"

Cyba made sure to shake the Sar-Plasm off over its progenitor, as the duo followed the 'Stu while Captain Janeway gave him a tour of the ship.

It was at this point that Jack Russel started trying to persuade Seven of Nine - despite the fact that they had barely met - to sleep with him. Even over the retching noises Cyba was making, Eagrus noticed that this 'Stu had no sense of subtlety whatsoever. He also noticed that, unlike most cases, the target of the 'Stu's 'affections' (although afflictions might have been a better word) was putting up resistance.

Cyba even paused her retching long enough to say: "Go Seven! You tell him!"

They followed him back to his room, only to discover it was full of medieval armour. Cyba immediately opened a portal and shoved a nice set of full plate through to the RC, before hiding behind the stand next to where it had been.

Jack Russel did not even notice, either because the armour was only there thanks to his having a 'knight's' sleep, or because his limited thought capacity was completely occupied by his hormones.

"Uh oh, squick coming up," warning Cyba as 'Torries' arrived, spawning another mini-Tribble. The two agents quickly slipped through a portal to the next scene, making mental notes that there would be a lot of memories to wipe when this was done. Another mini, Kilngon, followed them through.

"I see this Jack Russel is falling back on the old Gary Stu's pastime of getting into bed with every woman he can. Is this what got you riled, Cyba?"

"Only part of it. Shockingly enough, his hormones are not his biggest crime," hissed Cyba.

"Oh dear..." gulped Eagrus. "So, when do we get him?"

"Not for a while yet. This is only the first chapter of three."

"Our longest yet."

"Cyba, you're not planning to get him on the..."

"... Borg cube? Where else?"

Eagrus thought that the Borg were bad enough when they did their expressionless stares - but the evil grin currently on Cyba's face was downright terrifying.

"Oh, he's got it coming. I just have to think of a suitable fate for him," mused Cyba... evilly.

"I thought you were neutral about Suvians,"  observed Eagrus.

"Some things," explained Cyba, "cannot go unpunished. For those Suvians responsible, I can make exceptions."

"Cyba, you are not going to get him assimilated."

"Me?" protested Cyba innocently. "Nah, I already ditched that idea; it wouldn't be fair to the Borg."

"That's... one way of putting it."

Suddenly, one of the surveyors ran into the scene and began shouting about Kasons kidnapping several crewmen, some of whom were presumably other surveyors, but also 'Paries'.

"That's Paris, you dimwit," muttered Cyba.

"But this is Paries!" chuckled Eagrus, holding up another mini. Another, Arry Kim, joined the first a moment later.

The agents portalled after Jack Russel, who had apparently acquired a small armoury of weapons while beaming aboard the Kazon ship.

"How can he carry all those at once?" wondered Cyba aloud.

"Because he's a Gary Stu," was Eagrus' inevitable reply.

Carrying an entire armoury's worth of weapons without being weighed down or otherwise  encumbered in the slightest, scrawled Cyba.

"Yer! Yer! Yer!" said a voice.

"Eagrus?" quizzed a bemused Cyba.

"Not me," shrugged an equally bemused Eagrus.

It took them several moments to trace the source of the rocker-esque 'yer'-ing to the 'Stu's lasers. A moment after that, they doubled up in hysterics.

"'Laseryer' guns!"

"That's a good one!"

"Wait for it... he's using a 'rocket luncher'!"

"How is he fighting them with that? It sounds more like a defensive device than a weapon!"

"Yes, it eats rockets for lunch!"

"Bahahahaha!"

Captain Jack Russel then saw a kason army gurding a door so he gut out hislight saber and killer them with it. Capt Jack Russel than kicked down the door and saw the pepole he had to rescue he than took them to his ship and set of the self destract system on the Kason ship.

"Hold on a moment, is that a lightsaber?"

"'Hislight saber' apparently, and that's a mini-Rancor," noticed Cyba, pointing to a little sandy-brown, bipedal monster with large claws.

However, Jack Russel had just produced a metal handle, extended from it a blade of silvery light (with no given colour, it had defaulted to sci-fi silver), and was now using it to fight the entire army of Kazon guarding a single door.

"That must be one very important door," observed Eagrus.

"Does he have any canonical weapons in his portable armoury?"

"Charge!" laughed Eagrus heartily. "And dibs on that lightsaber!"

"Another charge for defeating an entire army single-handedly. Have you noticed they're not even hitting him?"

"Why is he rescuing a pole covered in pea plants?"

"Why," added Cyba, "does the Kazon ship have a self distract system?"

"Well it isn't working very well," snickered Eagrus, as the 'Head Kason leader' set about covering the corridor in tar, and taking on Jack Russel. With all the mini-Tribbles already there, he had not noticed the appearance of Kason and Kasons.

Captain Jack Russel was just about to leave when the head Kason entared to corridoor and said "Time to dye Captain Jack Russel". They then forted epic battle to the deaf. But just then the head kason leader set off explosives and blew Captain Jack Russel into space.

"HA HA HA I won" The Head Kason leader said with evil. "NOOOO" Yelled Zoey. The Head Kason was luthing when Captain Jack Russel came into surfing on a metorite.

"Time to dye Captain Jack Russel," said the Kason.

"Yeah, with red dye!" voted Cyba.

"Where are these forts for the epic battle, then?" pondered Eagrus. "And who's gone deaf?"

KABOOM!

"Ah, so that's why they're deaf," mouthed Eagrus, as the agents' ears recovered from the explosion.

"Eagrus," Cyba mouthed back. "You're not going to believe this... but he's surfing on a meteorite."

"What!?"

"Without a space suit."

"Why the god-moding little..."

"But that no make sense" the Head Kason leader said.

"Agreed!" chimed in Eagrus and Cyba in unison. Unfortunately, with Jack Russel's meteorite incoming, they had to portal out back to the USS Voyager.

"When in time are we now?" inquired Eagrus.

"End of chapter one, after he commits mass genocide on the Kazon."

"Nasty."

"Quite. And the Federation do not approve of that sort of thing."

"Yet here they are, giving him a heroes' welcome."

"Exactly."

Cyba pointed a spare CAD (that Eagrus had given her) at Captain Janeway.

Captain Kathryn Janeway. Human female. Canonnoncanon OOC: 49.9999% Character rupture imminent!

Meanwhile, Jack Russel was making advances on Seven of Nine again, who resisted once more with a very gratifying: "NO."

"HA!" Cyba poked her tongue out at the 'Stu's back.

Seven of Nine. Liberated Borg/Human female. Canon. OOC: 15%... and holding.

"She might be part tech, but go her!"cheered Eagrus.

"Uh, Russel/Seska squick coming," warned Cyba.

"Really?" asked Eagrus, fishing something out of his backpack.

"Well, a bit after he gets back to his room."

"Shall we give him a little surprise?"

"What kind of surprise?"

"Your choice, but I have a nice selection of prickly plant material here..."

He opened the box he had pulled out of the backpack and showed Cyba what it was full of. She could make out holly, roses, teasels and brambles.

"Roses for the irony, teasels for good measure," decided Cyba.

Using a portal for a short-cut, they reached Jack Russel's room ahead of him and hid the aforementioned items in his bed.

 Then they portalled outside, waited for the howl, then sped ahead to chapter 2, satisfied.

Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all of its contents belong to EA/Bioware, Star Wars belongs to Lucasfilm, Easterlings and the Lord of the Rings belong to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien, Borg and Star Trek belong to CBS Paramount, CMC-300 powered combat suits and the StarCraft universe belong to Blizzard Entertainment, Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling, soulgems and The Elder Scrolls series belong to Bethesda, the fic being sporked ('Mess Efekt: Atak of Geths') belongs to MightyBadger.

The PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia.

OFUM and the concept of minis belong to Miss Cam.

Thank you SeaTurtle for the permission gifts for my agents.

Thank you also to Sevenswans for beta-ing this.

Chapter 1: Mission to 'Mess Efekt: Atak of Geths' (wherein Cyba Zero gets a baptism by fire in the matter of bad spelling).

Cyba Zero was looking for a Response Centre. Well, technically she was not exactly looking very hard, mainly because all her concentration was taken up by trying to control the shiny, new power armour she was wearing. This was good in two ways: firstly because not looking for the RC was just about the best way to find it, and secondly because she was thoroughly enjoying herself. HQ was like that; thinking about where you were going was a sure-fire way not to get there. It was odd, therefore, that Cyba Zero had yet to spot the door to RC #−273.15. By all the normal idiosyncrasies of PPC HQ she had actually heard about so far, she ought to have walked past it at least ten times already.

However, Cyba Zero did not really care. She was having far too much fun. Earlier that day, she had spent a long while wandering erratically before finally discovering the post room and the delivery that she had been notified needed picking up. That had been the armour, a gift from a very nice person called SeaTurtle for completing her training. The label had also mentioned that it was  a CMC-300 powered combat suit from the StarCraft continuum. It had then taken her about an hour to figure out how to get the armour on, and about another half an hour to work out how to make it move.

A couple of agents coming the other way took one look at her and quickly took a side-passage. In fact, it was about the seventh time in twenty minutes that had happened. It probably had something to do with the way she was weaving her way down the corridors, at times flailing wildly to maintain her balance and nearly hitting the walls. To be fair, many agents had probably seen worse - but they were not taking any chances. She was also giggling with absolute glee, which, through the helmet, sounded rather disconcerting, sinister, and perhaps borderline maniacal.

"Halt!" yelled a voice.

Cyba jumped... and started wobbling as a result.

"I have you outflanked! Surrender now!" The voice was male and coming from behind her.

Cyba attempted to stop and turn around, but fell over instead, achieving a pirouette on the way.

"I surrender!" she squeaked, raising her arms in some semblance of above her head.

"You do? Oh. You must be an agent." It was difficult to tell whether he sounded relieved or disappointed.

Cyba was waving her limbs about a somewhat futile manner, like a beetle on its back. She heard a sword slip back into its sheath and a man in full Easterling armour from the Lord of the Rings came into her field of view.

"Nice gear," Cyba complimented him. "Speaking of nice gear, mine isn't scratched, is it? Does it look good? Oh, and would you mind helping me up? I think I'm stuck."

"Ah. Female PPC agent," the Easterling concluded. "It was difficult to tell from the voice through that helmet, but the words... Also, no, it isn't scratched." He paused, making a brief check over his shoulder in case somebody was sneaking up on him. Satisfied that there was no-one, he turned back to Cyba. She could just about make out a pair of blue eyes through his helmet. Maybe he was not an Easterling after all.

His eyes narrowed.

"You're Cyba Zero, aren't you?"

"Hold on a moment... how did you guess that?"

"I'm supposed to be looking for you. Oh, and RC #−273.15."

"You're Eagrus Khan?"

"Yes."

"Do you usually creep up behind your new agent partners and make them jump out of their skin - or worse, their armour?"

"Sorry about that. I thought you might be an invader."

"An invader? In HQ? You know that hasn't happened in years bar the odd person falling in through a plothole?"

"Did your training tell you that?"

"No, background reading did. Well, the first part, anyway. The second is how I first got here - while LARPing, incidentally."

"Right."

"And I am still stuck, you know."

"Ah, yes," he said. "We'd better retreat to a defensive position."

"Eagrus, you know I strongly doubt..."

"You can never be too careful."

"Do you even know where the RC is?" asked Cyba.

"As a matter of fact, I do," he responded, pointing at the ceiling. Then he finally got around to helping her up, acting mostly as a balancing aid. "I had been wondering, " he said, "why you were going around in circles. You must have passed this point at least ten times."

Cyba looked in the direction he had indicated. Above them, neatly inlaid into the ceiling, was a trapdoor bearing a small plaque denoting it as RC #-273.15.

"How do you suppose we get up there?" queried Cyba.

"I don't know if I can lift you in that armour," admitted Eagrus. "You might have to take it off. I'll watch your back while you do."

"No need," said Cyba, "this is power armour. It might be able to lift you. Or you could just climb onto my shoulder, which might be safer. Just don't scratch anything."

Eagrus climbed onto her shoulder and managed to stretch up and get the door open. The pair of them wobbled, but he caught hold of the frame and pulled himself into the room above. He disappeared and Cyba heard the sound of pacing as he presumably checked the room was empty. Then the footsteps came back and a rope ladder bounced off her helmet.

"Hey! I said no scratches!" She contemplated the ladder for a moment. "Oh, and that IS going to collapse the minute I try to climb it in this armour." At least if Eagrus ever climbed it, his armour was lighter. There was no way it would take the weight of a suit of power armour, though.

"Ah, give me a moment," came Eagrus voice. Cyba waited  - then the floor promptly gave way and she found herself lying in a heap by Eagrus' feet.

"Ah, the Portal Generator works."

"Thanks," said Cyba. "Although, I would appreciate it if you gave me warning next time." With that, she fumbled around a bit and finally got her helmet off. Beneath was a grey-eyed young woman with her black hair held back in a low ponytail. She started pulling off other parts of her armour and placing them - with great care - on the floor. Knowing how she had eventually got it on made removing it again a little easier. Eagrus took the opportunity to pull up the rope ladder and wind it onto a drum that appeared to have been built for the purpose. That done, he shut the trapdoor.

"We should be safe here," he proclaimed. "The enemy are unlikely to use portals."

"Oh, you can never be too sure..." said Cyba, earning a glare from Eagrus.

"Don't worry," he countered, "I have something to use in case that happens. Speaking of which, I need to fetch the rest of my things."

He did not bother with the door, using the Portal Generator instead. By the time Cyba had succeeded in removing her armour, standing it decoratively in a corner and, most importantly, checking it for any scratches, Eagrus had reclaimed a medium-sized collection of swords in various styles from his old RC. There was also a large crate containing goodness-knows-what.

"You know, we have a rather decent RC here," commented Eagrus once they had both finished. Cyba, satisfied that the paint on her armour was tougher than expected, was now poking around the small suite of rooms they had been lucky enough to land up in. Aside from the main room, there was a small bedroom each and a shared shower and toilet. All were fairly bare, containing only the basic furniture, the belongings Cyba and Eagrus had brought in and the compulsory contents of an RC: one Console, one Portal Generator and one Disguise Generator.

"Spacious," agreed Cyba.

"Somebody must have extended it at some point," Eagrus mused. "Not only that, nobody's getting through that trapdoor easily without us noticing."

"Somebody's even freshened the air for us," observed Cyba, sniffing. "Mmmm, smells fruity." Eagrus scowled beneath his helmet.

"Unfortunately not," he corrected her. "That would be...me."

"You?"

"I'm an Esterling, bit character, recruited from a badfic approximately a year ago. My race was misspelled, so this smell of fruit follows me around courtesy of some...Kemmis Tree. Apparently that isn't one of the Flowers, either - or it's good at hiding."

"Wait, Kemmis Tree?" Cyba giggled and earned another glare. "It's not a tree! It's a science! Chemistry: one of the three main branches of the pursuit of knowledge!" She spelt the word 'Chemistry' for him. "Esters are a group of chemical compounds that commonly smell fruity. They're organic, based on two carbon chains with a specific group of atoms linking them together..."

"Alright! Alright! Enough of the tech-speak already!" cried Eagrus. Then, more quietly: "I prefer magic."

"Do you know any magic?"

"No."

"Do you have access to any?"

"Actually, I do."

"Oh yeah?" pressed Cyba. Eagrus went over to the mysterious box.

"A kind person named SeaTurtle sent this to me as a good luck present. I guess they knew what partnering new agents can be like."

"Hey, that's the same person who sent me my armour!"

"Well this is Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, straight from the Potterverse." He extracted a few handfuls and placed them carefully in a small pouch on his belt. Then he took a tiny pinch and cast it into the air. A small patch of darkness appeared in the centre of the room. Cyba stuck her head into it for a moment.

"Neat," she said, "but I prefer my armour."

"Tech lover," muttered Eagrus.

"Magic lover," she retorted.

"That's because magic is better."

"It is not."

"Magic beats tech any day."

"Tech is more accessible."

"Magic!"

"Tech!"

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

"Oh no!" they exclaimed in unison. Both agents dashed for the console. The shortest route happened to be through the cloud of darkness. Both agents tripped over each other, landed in a tangled heap and attempted to extricate themselves with no mercy for the other. Both lunged for the console. Eagrus got there first.

They stopped.

They looked.

Their eyes narrowed.

"Bad... spelling..." they said together. A common enemy called for a truce. Magic versus tech forgotten, they both scanned the text on the screen.

"Have you ever heard of 'Mess Efekt'?" Eagrus asked Cyba.

"No. The closest thing I know is Mass Effect," she replied.

"What's Mass Effect?"

"Science fiction, third person, RPG/shooter video game," stated Cyba. There came the sound of gauntlet meeting helmet from next to her.

"I really don't like science fiction," moaned Eagrus. "Well, except maybe Star Wars. I've heard they have swords...and something a lot like magic."

"I love science fiction." Cyba was snickering, now.

"Great. PLEASE tell me this one doesn't involve space."

"It involves space."

"Oh, Flaming Denethor!"

There was a silence.

"I know what's going on here," concluded Eagrus after a while. "I know exactly why the Flowers have paired me with you."

"Why?"

"I teach you the ways of the PPC, and you teach me science... and science fiction."

"Sounds efficient," Cyba observed approvingly.

"Do you like fantasy?" Eagrus changed tack.

"Yes."

"Lucky you. At least we'll both be happy if we get a fantasy mission, then. Speaking of which, we ought to get on with it, and don't think I haven't noticed you're wearing jeans and a T-shirt rather than your uniform."

"Oh. Yeah... I kind of got distracted by the whole armour thing..." admitted Cyba sheepishly. "Although, you don't seem to be in uniform either." She disappeared into her room, fumbled about in the cupboard there and came back out with the plain, black uniform draped over her arm.

"My uniform is under my armour," Eagrus informed her upon her return. "Besides, its properties seem to have spread to my armour, anyway." Cyba raised an eyebrow. "Oh," Eagrus explained casually, "the people over in DoSAT said it was something to do with a species called the Borg."

Cyba suddenly yelped and flung the uniform across the room as though it had bitten her. Eagrus started laughing. Cyba glared at him.

"They also said a lot of people react like that when they find out."

"That isn't funny."

"I haven't actually heard of them apart from the name."

"Watch Star Trek."

"I think I'll pass."

There was another silence, during which Cyba used the nearest long object - one of Eagrus' swords - to poke the uniform very tentatively from as far away as possible. Nothing happened.

"Are you sure it's safe?" asked Cyba.

"It hasn't done anything bad to me." Eagrus shrugged.

"That depends on what's under your helmet. I've noticed you haven't taken it off yet."

"I'm also not going to. You know there are plenty of other agents who wear these uniforms and are fine."

Cyba caved in a little, then retrieved it warily and disappeared back to her room. About a minute later, she re-appeared wearing it and looking very nervous.

"Now," spoke Eagrus, "you probably already know we have to go into other continua in disguise."

Cyba nodded. "Yeah, and I vote as soon as possible." She was almost dancing.

"Anyone would have thought somebody had put ants in it," commented Eagrus.

"Don't mention ANTS!" screeched Cyba.

"Bees?" tried Eagrus.

"No HIVE ANYTHING!"

There was a pause.

"You know the Mass Effect continuum: what would you recommend being disguised as?" Eagrus asked calmly.

"Um..." She glanced back at the badfic on the console screen, still hopping from foot to foot. "Geth? Human? Husks might do. "

"Human," decided Eagrus. "Now, we need a Canon Analysis Device each and the Remote Activator. We'll also need the bell, probably a torch and - er - a bit of canon material." He pointed to a cupboard near the console and Cyba pulled out the necessary items: two CADs, a small hand-bell, a torch and a case holding a disc for the first Mass Effect game. In that time, Eagrus had got the portal up and taken the Remote Activator. "Through we go," he said, and shoved her in the right direction.

Cyba stumbled through into...a mess. It was a mess in the sense that it looked vaguely like the interior of a space-ship, except everything was distorted.

"Eagrus... why does it have ancieeeent graaaaphiiiiics?" That was all she managed to force out before she just stood, gaping in horror, until Eagrus appeared behind her. He was wearing a suit of combat armour common among the human soldiers of the Alliance. This spurred her on to check her own disguise and she discovered she was wearing a similar suit of armour. Both suits were red and black with full helmets and reflective visors that each concealed their wearer's face.

Eagrus placed a gauntlet on Cyba's armoured shoulder.

"Looks bad, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," she stated. From her voice, she was still stunned and also not best pleased.

"That would be the spelling," Eagrus explained. "I'm afraid, Cyba, you're in for what some from World One call a baptism by fire."

"Yippee," said Cyba with utmost sarcasm, followed rapidly by: "Urgh! What's that? There's gunk in my helmet!"

"Probably Sar Plasm," stated Eagrus matter-of-factly. Cyba took a quick look around to see whether anybody was watching before lifting her helmet off to wipe the inside with one gauntlet. "The canon characters won't notice you unless you draw attention to yourself," Eagrus informed her. "Non-canons and possessed characters will, though. Also, if you sort of... unfocus your eyes, you can read the Words."

Cyba gave it a few tries, her eventual success punctuated by:

"Yay! I did it! But hey, I'm not sure I really want to read these. Look at the SPELLING!"

"Apparently we're in the 'engin room'," said Eagrus.

"Who's that guy wandering around?" asked Cyba, as there was indeed a strange man - wearing Turkish costume - wandering around the room, apparently oblivious to everything.

"Probably Engin. He'll disappear just as soon as we fix this."

Cyba looked around more carefully and suddenly noticed something - something she had apparently missed before, thanks to the distorting effects of the bad spelling. There was a small, four-legged robot with a curving neck and a single eye, standing on the floor. It looked like...well it looked like a Geth Colossus, albeit a rather small one.

"Eagrus?" she asked quietly. "What exactly is that?"

"I was wondering when you'd notice," Eagrus told her. "That appears to be a mini. There are two more over there." Cyba followed his nod and spied two more in a corner. "They spawn when somebody misspells something canon-specific."

"Something like 'Mess Efekt', 'Gets' or 'Geths', then?" As she said this, each of the minis seemed to perk up in turn and come over. "Are they dangerous?" asked Cyba quickly.

"No."

"Good - because they're soooo cute!"

Eagrus face-palmed.

At that moment, the door opened and the fic began with 'Sheperd' entering the room, another mini in tow. His appearance was that of the default male Shepard, as much as Cyba could make out with the pixilation. She pointed her CAD at him.

Commander Shepard, human, canon. OOC: 10% Warning: character possessed!

"He's not that out of character, though," observed Eagrus in a hushed voice.

They were pressing themselves into a corner, the engine room not being best designed for hiding places. Fortunately, 'Sheperd''s attention was taken up by the engines. Fortunately for the man called Engin, it did not look like anybody apart from the agents was going to notice him.

"They are so big like stars I pas by to save galxy from rapers lik sawvrin" he said. "Somtime I wunder if I was farmer would life exsist or rapers kill everything"

Eagrus had a clipboard that he had apparently picked up after shoving Cyba through the portal. It was on this clipboard that he was already scribbling a charge list.

1. Misspelling the name of the continuum.

2. Spawning three minis before the fic even started.

3. Misspelling in general.

"What's a 'galxy'," asked Cyba, listening rather than reading the Words, "and why is he saving it from rappers? Does he mean 'galaxy'? I might not be into rap music, but I didn't think it was a galactic threat! Or is that supposed to say Reapers?" She prodded Eagrus. "And don't forget 'Geths' in the first title - that's spelling AND grammar. Geth are Geth!" She clearly had not been reading what he had been writing.

Two more minis appeared: Rapers and Sawvrin.

"Capitalisation, comma, full stop all missing..." muttered Eagrus as he jotted more charges onto the list. He seemed to be concentrating hard on said list in an attempt to block out the atrocious spelling all around him.

Tali ten walk into rom. "Sheperd I hear you talk, and I love" she said with romancing. "I cannt stay away from you sence you are soulmat" and they go to kiss but helmet in way so they cant and are depresd.

For some bizarre reason, what looked a CD-ROM suddenly appeared in the middle of the room. Not one but TEN Talis then came in through the far door and each walked into the CD-ROM in turn. That done, the extra nine promptly vanished.

"Eagrus...I can feel my sanity slipping awaaaaaay..." moaned Cyba, leaning on a wall for support.

"What sanity?" came Eagrus' reply. That earned him an elbow in the ribs, although all it did was bounce off his armour. Fortunately, none of the characters noticed the slight clink over the whirr of the engines.

Cyba pointed her CAD at the remaining Tali.

Tali, Quarian, canon. OOC: 1.239999%

"That was...unexpected," said Eagrus.

"The Tali/Shepard romance is a legitimate option in-game," explained Cyba.

"What's a 'soulmat'?" wondered Eagrus. "Is it like a soulgem in The Elder Scrolls continuum?" His question was answered by 'Sheperd' turning into one. Watching Tali try to kiss a black-, blue- and orange-patterned doormat was really quite bizarre. Cyba's helmet thumped against the wall.

"More missing commas," she muttered, attempting to block out the sheer nonsensicality of what she had just seen. "Also apostrophes, spelling..." She thumped her helmet again. "You know, this is actually quite therapeutic."

The canon gave a horrible lurch as it reached 'go'.

"What was THAT?"

"Shifting tenses," said Eagrus aloud as he wrote it on the charge list.

"Once day I take off your helmt and we kiss but untell that day I fite fore all of hoomendum so we can exsist with lif!" Sheperd swore determinedly.

"Sheperd untel that day I mis you and fite with for love." Tali said also determinedly and they hug.

"I wonder how you 'untell' a day? Is that like eating your words?" Eagrus wondered aloud. At least 'Sheperd' had reappeared on top of the soulmat, which was apparently re-usable. When he stepped off to embrace Tali, Eagrus took the opportunity to quietly grab the mat as loot.

"Bleurgh!" was Cyba's only response. The canon had lurched twice more in quick succession and her stomach was not enjoying it.

Another CD-ROM appeared in the middle of the room, except it was bigger this time. Both agents eyed it with extreme suspicion.

Then Urdent Rocks run in rom and they stop hug cause lov secretly away from Rocks. "Sheperd we have atackers in ship! I brot your riffle for shoting at bad guys!"

Cyba abruptly forgot all about feeling sick. 'Urdent Rocks', who should have been Urdnot Wrex, appeared in the CD-ROM and started running as though in a hamster-wheel. He also did not look much like a Krogan. Cyba was absolutely beside herself.

"Urdent Rocks! URDENT ROCKS! He's turned Urdnot Wrex into a pile of animated RUBBLE! LET ME AT HIM! LET ME AT HIM NOW!" Eagrus had to physically restrain her to stop her charging Possessed!Shepard there and then.

"We will get him," he assured her determinedly. "We just have to wait to compile the entire charge list. I say we get him in the most tactically viable location - namely when he visits the cockpit."

Meanwhile, another two minis spawned: Rocks and Urdent Rocks. 'Sheperd' called his thanks and left the room with the rock monster, leaving Tali attempting to hide in the giant CD-ROM that 'Rocks' had just vacated. Cyba's infuriated intake of breath prompted Eagrus to point his CAD at Tali.

Tali, Quarian, canon. OOC: 49%. Character rupture imminent!

"She might not have a gun but she still has her TECH POWERS!" yelled Cyba. Tali jumped and looked around just in time to see Eagrus drag Cyba out of the room, trailed by eight mini-Colossi.  Fortunately for the minis, Tali was OOC enough to just stare in confusion rather than destroy the Geth she had just noticed were on the ship.

"Please try not to shout," Eagrus chided Cyba once they had left the engine room. "We don't want everybody noticing us."

"Sorry," Cyba apologised.

"Oh, and watch out for the... too late."

Sheperd run to check on Joke and run pass Andeson who was shot but not ded yet cuase he had mishun. "Sheperd I shot in leg so cant go nowheres without hurt." Anersin sed to Sheperd with sad. "I well res in heer until I can fite with you, go save Jocker."

Cyba tripped and fell over a mini just as it appeared. The mini looked round with its single eye and emitted a bleeping sound a lot like laughter. Eagrus chortled, too.

"That must be Joke." He looked further down the corridor. "And presumably those three are Andeson, Anersin and Jocker."

Cyba pulled herself up, but saw the funny side. It was not every day one got laughed at by a miniature Geth Colossus.

"You have a sense of humour, don't you?" said Cyba to Joke. The mini blipped excitedly and did a little skip. Cyba giggled.

"All right, all minis this way! Fall in behind us and keep it orderly!" Eagrus had taken the tone of a military officer. Cyba supposed they DID have a small army of minis, now. The minis formed up except for Mess Efekt - who deliberately sidestepped so as NOT to be orderly - and Joke, who had decided to stay close to Cyba.

"Come on Mess Efekt!" called Cyba. "You can come up here, too, if you want." The mini-Colossus in question tip-tapped its way over eagerly and took up a position by Joke. "Awwwww, aren't they just adorable, Eagrus?" Then again, she was also mentally betting the Esterling was rolling his eyes right now.

Eagrus rolled his eyes behind his helmet and made a metal note that Cyba was easily distracted. She had been so taken by the minis that she had forgotten about being furious and feeling sick - even though there had been more tense shifts. This was getting so bad that even his veteran stomach was starting to complain - not that he was about to tell his fellow agent quite yet.

"I will ser" Sheperd say and salute because this before he was comminder.

"Bleurgh!" Eagrus stomach had finally come to the end of its tether, but was conveniently covered by Cyba getting reminded of the same thing.

"Can this GET any worse?"

"Cyba...don't tempt the Ironic Overpower..."

The punctuation storm that had been threatening since the beginning of the fic chose that moment to hit in force. Torrential downpours of commas started sweeping through the corridor, smatterings of apostrophes and the odd full stop among them.

"Now you've done it! You've gone and triggered the punctuation storm that was brewing!"

"EEEEEEK!" screamed Cyba. At least, over the noise of the storm and the ruckus now coming from the next room, nobody heard it. Commas were pinging off the duo's armour and bouncing in all directions. Little black apostrophes crunched underfoot. Commas and apostrophes were also rather sharp; if the pair of agents had not been wearing armour, it would have hurt. Instead, Eagrus was simply waiting for the second storm to hit.

He waited.

He waited.

He waited some more.

Then it hit.

"They're scratching my ARMOUR!"

Eagrus sniggered into his helmet. Women would be women. At least it was armour and not dresses.

Making a quick check behind, he led the growing mini-hoard onward to a larger room. Thanks to the descriptions, it was not full of 'Geths' or 'Gets' - rather, the ship was actually under attack by Generic Bad Guys. Possessed!Shepard had also done away with his 'riffle', which was pink, soggy, and as useless as its name suggested. He was now using lasers produced from apparently from nowhere. 'Rocks' still seemed to be having more effect, though.

Producing objects from nowhere, wrote Eagrus. He had done away with the numbers long ago.

"You know..."Cyba spoke right by his ear. He jumped. She snickered. "...at least he misspelled 'commander'. Otherwise, we'd have a time paradox on our hands."

Nearly causing a time paradox, saved only by bad spelling, Eagrus added to the list. Then he scanned the room, noting enemy numbers and the fact that the Generic Bad Guys had not exactly come through the storm unscathed. Still, it was not worth it. He pulled out the Remote Activator.

"I don't know about you, but I've had just about enough of this," he said.

Using the portal, they reached the cockpit before 'Sheperd' did. Joker - or 'Joke', anyway - was hiding under a plothole because the Word World either could not decide who or what a 'cher' was, or was too messed up to bother trying. At least it was keeping the falling punctuation off him.

Outside, everything had quieted down apart from 'Sheperd' and 'Rocks', who for some reason were exchanging the word 'hi' five times. Eagrus took the bell and torch, then motioned at Cyba to hide on the far side of the door. Beyond, the somewhat strange 'hi' conversation ceased and Possessed!Shepard came in. He began yelling at poor 'Joking', wondering who the bad guys were. Needless to say, there were now two people hiding under a rapidly-expanding plothole. Rather unexpectedly, a mini fell in through it - presumably Kaddin, who was the last word of the fic.

Eagrus, now with the torch lit, motioned again.

The agents moved. With his normally acute combat senses dulled by the wraith, Possessed!Shepard did not really have a chance. With Eagrus clanging the bell in his ear and shining the torch into his eyes on one side, and Cyba whacking him with the case containing the canon disc on the other, 'Sheperd' was completely disorientated.

"Quick, invoke the name of the canon's creator!" cried Eagrus.

"By the power of EA and Bioware!" shouted Cyba. She got the impression that nobody was going to complain about her shouting this time, especially not with the racket the bell was making.

"We cast you OUT!" yelled Eagrus.

"BEGONE, FOUL SUE-WRAITH! GET OUT OF COMMANDER SHEPARD! AND THAT'S SHEPARD WITH AN 'A'!"

"THE POWER OF EA AND BIOWARE COMPELS YOU!"

'Sheperd' slumped and the wraith gradually coalesced above him.

"How dar you!" it hissed. "I wil mak Mess Efekt spel rong!"

The mini-Colossus of the same name made an annoyed-sounding bleep and shot a tiny energy ball at the wraith, which jumped.

"Well done, you." Cyba patted the mini fondly before rounding on the wraith. "You, shut up."

"Do you want to do the honours?" Eagrus asked his agent partner.

"Yes, please!" she said with gusto. She swapped the canon disc for the charge list and began to read what was beneath the copious amount of notes.

"Evil, Sue-wraith - well, Stu-wraith - you are hereby charged with possessing Commander Shepard; completely pulverizing the English language with utterly terrible spelling; misspelling the name of the continuum; misspelling words in numerous different ways, including the fic's title..."

"If you must spell atrociously, at least be consistent about it!"

"... making the continuum appear to have ancient graphics as a result of said bad spelling; turning Urdnot Wrex into a pile of animated rubble, also due to bad spelling; exchanging the word 'hi' with this rubble, five times; creating enough minis to staff a small OFU - within a mere three-hundred and fifty-seven words, incidentally, AND THREE OF THEM BEFORE THE FIC EVEN STARTED; making various characters collide with random CD-ROMs; appalling grammar; lack of certain full stops, apostrophes and especially commas; causing punctuation storms; SCRATCHING MY ARMOUR; making Tali hide - even without a gun, she has TECH ABILITIES!" Cyba took a quick pause for breath. "You are also charged with calling the Geth 'Geths' and 'Gets' - Geth are Geth, singular and plural; with replacing said Geth with Generic Bad Guys; giving Eagrus a headache - what, really?" Eagrus nodded and Cyba carried on. "In addition, you are charged with frequent tense shifts; making us both sick; making objects appear out of nowhere; using a 'riffle'; creating a 'soulmat' from 'Sheperd'; creating ten Talis, two Andersons and two Jokers; not knowing who the bad guys are after fighting them; trying to create a 'cher'; inconsistent capitalisation; spawning a man called Engin; attempting to cause a time paradox, foiled only by your own bad spelling and with really, REALLY ANNOYING PPC AGENTS!"

"Your sentence would be execution, but apart from making Tali hide and at the very end ruining Shepard's powers of observation, you actually did not cause that much OOC-ness. A wraith that almost only causes technical errors is rather unusual..." He turned to Cyba. "Do you know where they might have a jar on this ship?"

"There's a mess area downstairs - as in kitchen, specifically." Eagrus opened a portal, reached through and extracted an empty jar from a cupboard. Then he addressed the wraith again.

"Your sentence is to be removed from this continuum and kept for study. You don't get any last words, because we've had QUITE enough of the lack of spelling!" Eagrus opened the jar and the wraith was sucked into it.

Cyba was about to comment when the continuum abruptly noticed the Stu-wraith's containment. It snapped back into place with enough force to land both Cyba and Eagrus unceremoniously on their backsides. All at once, everything was pristine and gleaming. The world returned to high resolution, sharp and well-defined; the characters became their canon selves and the minis began inspecting their smooth, polished plating with pride. Shepard was elsewhere on the ship, the pile of rubble by the cockpit door was a Krogan again, Anderson was back on the citadel where he should have been - in full health - and Joker was busy flying the ship. Everything was back to normal.

"Wow," breathed Cyba.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

"That it does."

There was a silence.

"Just one question: can I keep the armour?"

"No."

"Do you think they have any spare on the ship?"

"I said no. Maybe if we meet a Mary Sue wearing armour - a corporeal one, rather than a wraith - that's another story."

"I call dibs!"

"Okay, you get dibs."

"Woot!"

Nevertheless, Eagrus still made sure Cyba went through the portal to HQ ahead of him by giving her the soulmat to put by the trapdoor.

"I've got another question," piped up Cyba the moment he came through. He hoped it did not have anything to do with the fact they were no longer in disguise - and worse, now in uniform.

"What is it?" he asked warily.

"What are we going to do with all these mini-Colossi?"

"Well, we have enough to start a small Official Fanfiction University, if there isn't one for Mass Effect already."

"Nah. This is more fun, if a little insanity-causing. And hey, you coped well considering you don't like space."

"That's because I couldn't see the space," explained Eagrus. Now Cyba came to think of it, the shutters in the cockpit had been closed. "As for the minis, we have an area for them in HQ. We can take them there and they'll be looked after until somebody adopts them. We can swing by and drop this wraith off at the Department of Mary Sue Experiments and Research on the way."

"You can adopt them?"

"Yeeees..." Eagrus was internally kicking himself, now.

"Can I adopt them?"

"Even with our roomy RC, we don't have space for fourteen minis."

"Seven?"

"One."

"Two?"

"Oh, all right: two. I suppose they do seem to like you."

"Joke? Mess Efekt? How do you like the idea of staying with me?" The two minis blipped eagerly and started chasing each other around Cyba's feet.

"I suppose that solves it," muttered Eagrus.

"Yay!"