Cyba_Zero

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.

It was one night for Jack Russel, but moments for the agents. Soon enough, Jack Russel came out of his room, and right into the firing line.

All of a sudden, a paper aeroplane hit Jack Russel in the back as he started down the corridor. He picked it up, realising something was written on it. It read thus:

You want to know why 7 of 9 doesn't want you? It's because she obviously wants someone faithful and in possession of a smidgen of subtlety.

"Who threw that," he roared, but whoever it was had apparently gone, because he could see nobody when he looked. He also failed to see yet another forgotten question mark.

Hiding around the corner, Cyba snickered. She was already folding another paper-aeroplane, having written her answer. She waited until he had given up looking, sighted her target with her organic eye (the laser would have been a dead give-away, otherwise), then threw her little projectile. It hit the 'Stu right in the head. He whirled around, but the two agents had been quick to duck out of sight.

Glaring around at the empty corridor, the 'Stu gave up again and read the new note.

We are the PPC. You will be removed from this continuum. Resistance is futile.

Meanwhile, around the corner, Cyba was having a fit of silent hysterics. It was a while before she could speak again, but once she could, she told Eagrus what she had written.

"You wrote what?" It was his turn for hysterics.

"Sorry, but I just couldn't... resist!"

If anybody had come along that corridor at that moment, they would been greeted by the rather bizarre sight of a Borg and a Klingon, rolling on the floor, completely doubled up with laughter. Luckily, nobody came along the corridor.

"You know what I think we should do to him?" spoke Eagrus when he finally caught his breath.

"What?" asked Cyba eagerly, as they both hurried to keep up with the 'Stu.

"I think we should lock him in a room with Agent Lux. I'm sure even a relative newbie like you has heard the... stories."

"Muhaha!" cackled Cyba. "Actually... no, he'd probably enjoy that."

"Actually, yes... I suppose he would. Hmm."

"We could pinch his ship..."

"Well, I suppose it's only crewed by a couple of bit-girlfriends, but still: are you crazy?"

Cyba gave him a level look.

"All right, so that's given. It's just that - why would you want to steal his ship?"

"To annoy him, of course - and because it's such a silly ship. That and... I have this terrible urge to take it over."

Eagrus fixed her with a worried expression.

"What?" queried Cyba innocently. "I tell you, watching DoGA and DoSAT fight over it would be freaking hilarious."

Eagrus pondered it for a moment and came to the same conclusion. "Well, maybe later. Although... I agree it would be funny."

Meanwhile, they had finally arrived at their destination. Not too surprisingly, the 'Stu was bugging Seven of Nine again.

"Look, if you want to woo a girl, you have to understand what she likes," muttered Eagrus with exasperation. "This Jack Russel really doesn't. No wonder poor Seven isn't impressed."

"So what i do not care" 7 of 9 said. "I can fight and beet the borge" Capt Jack Russel said again. "No you carnt they we are to powerifull fo yo to fight." 7 of 9. "We sea bout that" Captin Jack Russel said back.

"Oh, I see why you're cross now, Cyba," said Eagrus cautiously. "I also don't see why Seven would appreciate that, either."

"At this point in time, I doubt she would approve. And I really don't approve."

"Did he just spell Borg with an 'e'?"

"Oui, it sounds Fronsh. ACK!" squawked Cyba, clutching her throat. "Why am I speaking with a Fronsh acsont? 'e 'as affectee mon voice-box!"

"It isn't even a good French accent! Cyba, this is really bad!"

"A petite acsont, c'est not going to stop moi! 'e est in for it extra!"

"if i defate the borg will you go out with gout with me 7 of 9" Capt Jack Russel said to 7 of 9 "No" say back.

"No wonder she doesn't want to go out with him if she'll end up with gout!" whispered Eagrus.

"Ah, phew," breathed Cyba. "Spelt properly at last, even if he forgot the capital. I might also add that we do not believe in fate, so 'de-fating' won't work."

"Wait a moment, did you just say 'we'?" spluttered Eagrus.

"No."

"You did!"

"I guess my tongue must have slipped," shrugged Cyba. "Accident."

So they took they ship thought the space until they made it to borg space. They than saw borg coming to wards them. "Surender we will assimulate you" The borg said but Capt Jack Russel loaded his experiment weepon and blew up a borg cube with one hit.

"Wards? What kind of wards? If they're wards against bad spelling, I want one!"

Cyba was standing against a wall, stunned with a pained expression on her face.

"Cyba, are you all right? Cyba?"

"They're pronouncing misspellings, Eagrus." Her voice was almost ragged. "He's making them pronounce misspellings and he's... he's one-hit-killing our ships!"

"There you go again with the first person plural, Cyba..."

"ACK! I can't help it! I feel... I feel... inordinately furious!" Her face was contorted into a snarl, and it really was not pretty.

"It's all right: we're going to fix this, remember," Eagrus consoled her. "Besides, they've run out of whatever they were doing the one-hitting with."

The Borg then suroonded them. "Were screwed, were screwed, were screwed" A guy said while running around like a mademan.

"See, he even capitalised their name for you," whispered Eagrus in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

"calm down man noones going to bee screwed to day" Capt Jack Russel said with brave.

"Except most of the women anywhere near you, 'Stu," Cyba added, calming slightly.

But Than borg whent onto the ship and stated assmilting pepole so Capt Jack Russel wet and stated fighting them but he didnt have any weepons so he used his bear hands.

The slight calm did not last.

"Assmilting? Assmilting?! MmmMMMmmMMmmph!"

Eagrus clamped his hand over Cyba's mouth and held her back until she stopped struggling, glad that Klingons could just about match the Borg for strength.

"Cyba, calm... calm..."

"The bottom of the pole holding your pea-plant will be melted. Resistance is futile," stated the Borg drones now all over the bridge.

Cyba started thrashing again, and it was all Eagrus could do to hold her back and prevent her from shouting - or worse, screaming. He was reaching the limits of his endurance when she suddenly relaxed, and that strange glazed look came over her face exactly the way it had earlier.

"Ohhh, pretty..."

Apparently, in her rage, she had quite literally seen red.

"Cyba..." he murmured into her ear, and she started.

"Huh? What?"

"Is it me, or do you get hypnotised by the colour red when it is anywhere other than on you?" After all, he had not noticed her chasing her own eye-laser yet.

"Er? What are you going on about?"

"You. Ever since that accident. First the flash-patches, then the captain's uniform, and just now - you go into a trance whenever you see the colour red!"

"I do not!"

"You do! And I have to keep snapping you out of it!" He also had to keep her talking, to make her miss the wet Jack Russel (presumably from the melted pea-pole) stating something about fighting back, growing the claws of a bear on his hands and defeating the Borg in melee.

"I don't believe you!" retorted Cyba.

At least the Borg have the 'Stu and canons distracted, thought Eagrus. "I wonder if he left his armoury on his ship... Maybe I will let Cyba take it over; I really want that lightsaber!

"Watch," said Eagrus aloud, and he snatched Cyba's flash-patch from her arm and waved it under her nose. The effect was much like a cat with a ball of string: her organic eye opened wide, her head following his every movement. Then she made to swipe it from his hand, whereupon he snatched it out of reach and pressed it back onto her arm.

"Oh," she said.

"Quite," stated Eagrus.

Cyba frowned. "You know, I suddenly have this terrible craving for peas," she said, licking her lips and eyeing up the pea-plant hungrily.

"Maybe when we get back, we'll see whether your body can process them," suggested Eagrus.

"Eagrus..." She had noticed Jack Russel again, but this time the result was not blind fury. "Eagrus, from your research into Star Trek, what would be your strategic assessment of the Borg's abilities?"

Eagrus did a double-take; that was the last question he had been expecting. Nevertheless, he did his best to answer it.

"Well, they're very strong, can see in the dark, survive in space, good endurance, regeneration, adaptive shields, tenacity..."

"And what would you say about Jack Russel's abilities?" she halted him.

Eagrus paused, realising what she was getting at.

"Is it me, or is he in denial about something, do you reckon?" Cyba was grinning very evilly.

"Well, he is a Gary Stu..." Eagrus began.

"Yes... and he has already proven more than capable of warping the Word World completely out of shape."

"Cyba, what are you suggesting?"

"Me? I'm suggesting a little experiment."

"Cyba, I already thought you'd decided against giving him to the..."

"Eagrus, we don't need to. Oh, the beautiful efficiency - he's doing a perfectly good job of it without their help. He just needs to believe it. His own abilities will work against him."

"Cyba, you do realise you're thinking just like them." He gestured to the drones still swarming the ship.

"Oh yeah - and I'm enjoying every moment of it."

"Remind me," murmured Eagrus with conviction, "never to mess with the Borg in front of you. Here was I thinking you were scared of them."

"Up close, perhaps, but from a distance they happen to be some of my favourite villains. That, and having the body of one tends to give you a new perspective."

"Eru, help us."

Eagrus' last sentence was directed at two things: first, Cyba's most recent statement, and second, the fact that the Borg Queen was now on the bridge.

"Flaming Denethor, what's she doing here?!" cried Eagrus, at which point Jack Russel returned from his little trip to the engine room and attacked. Before either agent had a chance to react, Seven had thrown the Queen out of an airlock. A moment later,  Eagrus had to restrain Cyba again.

"We have to save her. We have to save her. We have to..."

Eagrus hauled Cyba into a corridor by her cable-hair before she attracted attention.

"Get off! She must be saved, she must be saved now! It is our duty!"

"Whose duty? You and the other drones?"

"ACK!" squawked Cyba.

"I think," said Eagrus, "that your faulty implants are still picking up some of their signals, and your mind is trying to make sense of them by translating them into emotions. I also can't imagine that having her around is helping."

"The Borg are OOC, Eagrus, and it hurts," Cyba moaned. "The spelling they're being forced to endure... does not match with their quest for perfection. Their actions... are up the creek. And I HAVE A FREAKING MIGRAINE!"

"The doctor said you might have limited ability to receive their signals," admitted Eagrus.

"You said he said I had nothing to worry about!" cried Cyba.

"He didn't want you worrying further," Eagrus explained.

"Doctors," muttered Cyba. "They're no better than psychologists. Hey, look at these!" She pointed to a pair of miniature dog-men, each a knee-high replica of Captain Jack Russel.

Eagrus made as strangled sound. "Mini-'Stus."

"What?" asked Cyba.

"He must have misspelled his own name," explained Eagrus.

Cyba scooped one up and it struggled furiously.

"Let go off mee, Borge!" it protested. "You wont assmilte mee! Ill killer you firt!"

"Now that isn't very nice," Cyba reprimanded it, and it paused, surprised. "Besides," continued Cyba, "I don't melt backsides; I can spell."

"Evil Borge!" it barked back.

"Shut it!" commanded Eagrus.

"Evil Kilngon!" it snarled.

"I said, shut it!" With that, he snatched up the other mini-'Stu and shoved it into his backpack. Cyba added the one she was carrying and Eagrus shut the muffled protestations away.

"Capt, Caprt and Captin Jack Russel," stated Eagrus, scanning the words. "Capt passes for a contraction, but the others are minis. We'll decide how to deal with them after finishing the big one. Oh no, is that Seven going into his room with him?"

"No, Seven, don't give in!" begged Cyba, scanning ahead frantically. "Oh no, wait a moment... he forgot the ship's still under attack! Looks like his bit-girlfriend is about to get in a spot of trouble."

"She doesn't deserve that," sighed Eagrus, reading ahead as well. "She's only a bit. Oh, and I knew I didn't like science."

BUT THAN Captin Jack Russel saw somthing BAD. The borg was putting science into his grilfreind Sertana and turing her into a borg.

"I guess that gets around his complete inability to spell the proper word for it," shrugged Cyba, followed by: "Oh blast it, that's freaking Alan Turing."

"Who? Where?" spluttered Eagrus, confused.

"The Borg drone assimilating her is Alan Turing! From World One! Historically, he was a key factor in the invention of computers."

"We'd better get them both to Medical," said Eagrus quickly, grabbing the remote activator and zapping up a portal around a corner where the 'Stu would not notice it. "Cyba, you blend into this scene - see if you can coax them over here, will you?" With that, he stuck his head through the portal and Cyba knew he was bellowing for assistance.

Taking a deep breath, Cyba stepped out into the corridor and helped the assimilated Turing carry the weakening Sertana, steering their direction all the while. Then, as they reached the right spot, she quickly slipped round and shoved them through the portal, as Eagrus ducked out of the way.

Jack Russel had not seen the portal, but he saw Cyba and started heading for her just as Torries and Seska came into the corridor and saw only him.

I'm in trouble, I'm in trouble, I'm in... thought Cyba. No, wait...hehehe!

"You are one of us, Jack Russel," she said, somehow managing to turn on the voice she had been stuck with earlier. "Have you noticed you have our powers?"

The dog-man began to bellow as he charged: "NOOOOOO!"

"You are the only one who can see this apparition. We are in your head, Jack Russel."

"Captain Jack Russel, wait! What are you charging at?" cried Seska. Jack Russel faltered and turned, giving Cyba the chance she needed to duck around the corner before the 'Stu could properly draw the canons' attention to her.

"There was a..." his eyes scanned the corridor, finding it empty.

"There's nothing there," said Torres.

Even as they rounded an intersection and headed back toward the bridge, Cyba and Eagrus knew the look on the 'Stu's face had to be a picture.

"If nothing else," laughed Eagrus, "you just scared the wits out of him."

When they got there, the bridge was swarming with more Borg, and Torres, Seska and Jack Russel had somehow beaten them there. Jack Russel was also looking rather pale, and the agents were pretty sure it was not entirely to do with the fact that 'Caprtin Janeway' (Eagrus caught the mini) was on screen, clearly assimilated and apparently the new Borg Queen.

"She what?!" hissed Cyba, snatching up the charge list. The charges were positively etched onto the clipboard due to her continued lack of command over her own strength.

"Charge. For. Usurping. The. Borg. Queen." Cyba ground her teeth. "Extra charge for thinking a blast and a bit of space will kill said previous Borg Queen. Even if it did her drones would just rebuild her a new body. The Queen is the manifestation of the hive mind, you idiot, organic, Gary Stu!"

"And you're starting to talk like her again," pointed out Eagrus, whereupon Cyba sunk into a fuming silence.

They all agreed on a plan. They killed the rest of the borg on the ship and then they sawed that the Borg cubed with Janeway onit was going away at super warp speed. So they followed it ultra warp speed.

"Voyager cannot go that fast," growled Cyba. "Unless this is supposed to be Jack Russel's ship? Or did he upgrade the engines while we weren't looking? Besides, it's transwarp, you..." She paused. "Did that just say Borg cubed? What's he doing now, raising the Borg to the power of three?" She stopped talking, suddenly aware that she was not the only one using her own voice.

"Um, Cyba..." began Eagrus carefully.

"What?" asked three, identical voices. As one, they went silent, then their owners cautiously looked around. "ACK! There are three of us! AAAAGH!"

"My oh my," chuckled Eagrus, "the PPC would appear to have its very own Collective of Three."

"Don't call us that!" snapped the trio of Cybas in unison. Then they exchanged glares and began berating each other for saying the same thing at the same time. Of course, the berating was in unison as well. Eventually, realising their berating was pointless, they stopped speaking.

"Right," spoke Eagrus, "I'm going to need some way of telling you apart. Which one of you is the real Cyba Zero?"

"I am," they all chorused in synchrony.

Eagrus face-palmed, then had an idea. Taking the flash-patch off the closest of the three, he waved the image of a red pen at them. It was, to be honest, not a very good idea, which would probably end up with all three of them chasing it - but he had noticed a slight variation in the colour of their eye-lasers. The foremost of the three still had a generic red one, but the others had electric blue and purple respectively, neither of which was the proper colour of a Borg eye-laser; then again, it was Suvian logic and misspelling that had done this to them, so inconsistencies were to be expected.

Interestingly enough, only the foremost Cyba reacted, and the other two simply glared flatly at him for trying such a low trick.

"Aha!" he exclaimed triumphantly, quickly replacing the flash-patch. "So you are the real one."

"We're real too," complained the other two together. "We're all Cyba Zero!"

"We're all individualists," pointed out the 'real' Cyba.

"Actually, that's true," agreed the others.

"That means we need to stop saying the same things!" decided the one with the blue laser, surprised that none of the others had also said it.

"I acted on it," stated purple, reading blue's mind.

"We need our own names," concluded blue, just as purple suggested that they go their separate ways upon their return to HQ. Eagrus could not help feeling sorry for the spares in that they might not exist once the canon was restored, but he said nothing. That would not be fair on them.

"Phi Six!" voted purple quickly, no doubt to annoy Eagrus.

Blue scowled. "Fine. I'll be Sigma One, then."

Satisfied, they all turned to Eagrus. "Now where's that Jack Russel?" they inquired with glee.

Eagrus had thought one evil grin was bad. Three were downright terrifying. Today was a bad day to be Captain Jack Russel.

Meanwhile, a mini, Buge, had appeared, and the dog-man was busy planning how to get aboard the ship they were chasing.

Capt. Jack Russel thinked for a while than he had an idea "I know" Captain Jack Russel said. "Put me in a pod and shoot me out of the torpedo tube. "THATS ISANE you will get your self killered" Seska said to Captain Jack Russel with worrie.

"Now tell us, how do you plan to get from the pod to the nearest airlock without a space-suit?" asked Phi.

"He's insane, remember?" piped up Sigma, and the three snickered.

"He's going to the ship, ladies," Eagrus reminded them. "Wasn't that where you wanted to jump him?"

"Oh yes..." the trio agreed, once again producing those very scary grins.

"Remote activator, please," added Cyba, and Eagrus handed it over. Cyba tapped in the coordinates and jabbed the activation button. The portal flashed into existence, wavered and died.

"What's wrong with it now?" asked Eagrus tiredly.

Cyba held up the RA; she had pushed her finger straight through it.

"Oh, wonderful," he said, splattering her with Sar-Plasm. "Well, we could wait for the spatial wrench, but once we remove the 'Stu, we'll be stuck - and I really don't relish the idea of waiting on a Borg ship until HQ sends a rescue party."

"We're not out of plot-hole technology, yet..." mused Phi.

Sigma put the Borg voice on: "'Lower your shields and surrender your ships'," she quoted, then cackled.

"That voice is creepy enough without your cackling!" Eagrus chided her. Of course, that only made Sigma cackle even more.

"In other words: she says we should nick Captain Russel's ship, then get the Borg to nick it off us," translated Phi.

"Then once we finish the Captain, we nick it back off the Borg and portal back to HQ with it!" grinned Cyba with glee.

"Why don't I like this plan?" wondered Eagrus rhetorically.

"Do you have a better one?" asked Sigma.

"Unfortunately, no," he admitted.

"Oh goody!" smiled Phi, rubbing her hands together. "Let's go commandeer us a ship!"

"Eru, help us," muttered Eagrus.

Seeing as the plot had conveniently forgotten about the 'Stu's ship, everybody was ignoring it and beaming on board was relatively easy.  Convincing Eagrus to place his trust in a technological teleport was far more difficult, finally falling to Cyba, Sigma and Phi going anyway, and Eagrus following out of a sense of duty to protect them from their own crazy plan.

With the only even vaguely described character from the ship currently in Medical, and the 'Stu otherwise occupied, the Generic Girlfriends were practically inanimate and capturing the ship was stupidly easy. The agents simply rounded them up and shoved them onto a spare shuttle (all Generic-Sci-Fi ships have them, you know), ejecting them from the ship with the reasoning that they would simply assimilate into the canon - with a chance that it would not be in more ways than one. After all, it was not their fault they were in the thrall of a Gary Stu.

That done, the agents set about finding the controls to draw some attention to themselves. This was not hard, given that a crew of near-mindless bits and an idiotic Gary Stu had been able to fly it.

Phi hailed the Borg cube. "Good evening everybody!" she said cheerily. "This is a message to let you know that we are sitting here in this completely unshielded, highly advanced ship, just waiting to be..."

A heavy jolt racked the ship.

"I think they got the message," gulped Eagrus, grabbing the nearest railing for stability.

"Tractor beam's got us," stated Cyba.

"We are in so much trouble," muttered Eagrus.

Sigma cackled.

"One question: have you worked out how you're going to deal with the 'Stu's godmoding combat prowess?" Eagrus was trying to take his mind off their destination.

"We're female," said the three Cybas. "His hormones will do the job for us."

"Oh dear..." groaned Eagrus.

"I wonder why they haven't beamed us off already?" Phi questioned aloud.

"The canon is protecting us, thank Eru," answered Eagrus.

A clunk marked the activation of the docking clamps.

"That's our cue," said Eagrus, moving into soldier mode once more. "Go go go!"

They exited via the airlock and were greeted by hot, humid air exactly like Cyba's bedroom. They emerged onto a walkway, high up on the edge of a vast internal space. Everything was black and green and mechanical-looking.

"Wow, look at that view!" stared Cyba.

"Epic," murmured Phi.

Sigma gave a low whistle. "I like this place."

"I don't," said Eagrus pointedly.

"Why on Earth not?" asked Phi.

"This is freaking awesome!" exclaimed Cyba.

"That's those signals talking," said Eagrus flatly. "As far as I'm, concerned, it's big, bad, full of tech, and crawling with a lot of members of a certain species I'd rather not meet."

"Species 8472? Where?" squawked the three women, suddenly alarmed.

"I meant the Borg." Eagrus rolled his eyes.

"That isn't very nice," said Phi.

"Actually, it does have Jack Russel on it," pointed out Sigma.

Flash!

Eagrus put the camera back in his backpack. "There, I've got a picture of it. So, if you're done sightseeing now, ladies, we have a Gary Stu to hunt?" Eagrus reminded them.

"Oh yes. Let's get him!" decided the trio simultaneously. They slipped into some sort of super-cohesive mode as they focused completely on their task.

Phi checked the Words. "He's headed for the shield control."

"Let's intercept him at the assimilation chamber on the way," decided Cyba.

"Oh good..." smiled Sigma.

"Then I'll distract him, Sigma can get him from behind and Phi and Eagrus can watch the exits," Cyba instructed.

"This way," beckoned Phi, and the three strode off purposefully.

Eagrus did not want to know how they knew where everything was on this giant maze of a ship, but he suspected those signals again. Apprehension and paranoia mounting, he hurried after them, turning to watch everybody's backs at increasingly regular intervals.

As they went deeper into the labyrinth, more and more drones were visible, most of them regenerating in the alcoves that lined the walls, but several walking about to fulfil one function or another. If they were aware of the agents' passing, none of them acted on it. Nevertheless, Eagrus was getting ever more jumpy.

"Are we nearly there yet?" he pressed worriedly in Phi's ear.

"Close," she stated shortly, too intent on her task to say anything more.

"Here," pronounced Cyba about a minute later. "He's just about to come around that corner. Everybody pick an alcove and get ready to jump him." Cyba herself elected to wait in the corridor.

Eagrus chose the furthest empty one from the direction the 'Stu was coming, pressing himself as flat as he could to reduce the chance of Jack Russel noticing the rather unassimilated Klingon that he currently was. As he watched, Phi took one down a side passage, and Sigma set up camp beyond where Cyba was standing. He also kept surreptitiously glancing at the occupant of the alcove next to his, half-expecting a mechanical arm to start reaching round to get him at any moment. He was most certainly not comfortable standing here.

After what seemed like an age, Jack Russel came around the corner. He was still following the plot of his fic, but he was trailing a line of dog-hair as it gradually fell out, his skin was deathly white and there were definitely a few implants showing. He was also having trouble concentrating.

"Hello Jack Russel," Cyba greeted him.

"No! You! Get out of my head!"

"But you're my hero," she murmured, placing both hands on her chest and pretending to swoon like one his girlfriends. "Do, please, rescue me and take me back to your ship!"

Jack Russel blanched, confused, at which point Sigma took full advantage, stepped out of her alcove  and grabbed him from behind.

"Gotcha!" she said in his ear with much satisfaction. He struggled, of course, but Phi and Cyba were soon on the case as well. It did not take them long to drag him down the side-corridor and get him restrained on an assimilation table.

"Right," said Phi, folding her arms and looking satisfied. Cyba and Sigma followed suit.

"Shut up and listen," ordered Sigma.

"Youre not gong to assimulate me?"

"Why?" asked Cyba incredulously. "You're doing a perfectly good job of that on your own!"

"Youre not acting lik Borg!"

The three women snorted.

"You know," said Eagrus, "I'm surprised you noticed."

"You already OOCed the Borg enough as it is," snarled Phi.

"We," hissed Sigma, "are the PPC."

"You wre the ons who threew that note!"

"Oh yeah," said Cyba with satisfaction. "Anyway, now we're going to charge you and remove you from this continuum." She drew a deep breath, then began to read the list:

"You are charged with: being a Gary Stu; god-moding; being a dog-man; having a woefully un-described default-sci-fi ship, capable of flying faster than pretty much anything else in the Trekverse; giving said ship weapons capable of one-hitting Borg cubes - how dare you; providing the USS Voyager with the same weapons; crewing your ship with your girlfriends; calling said girlfriends men; interdimensional snatching; assimilating Alan Turing; drinking and flying; attempting to sleep with more women than Captain Kirk; being totally lacking in subtlety; committing mass genocide of Kazon, apart from the ones you arrested - and put where, exactly? You are also charged with doing utterly ridiculous and impossible things just to look cool - most notably surfing a meteorite!"

"You do know that they're only called meteorites once they enter an atmosphere, right?" appended Phi Six. "No wait - Gary Stu."

"As well, you are charged with: having generally appalling grammar; misspelling an awful lot; spawning a lot of mini-Tribbles; causing spatial wrenches; missing punctuation - what is it with Suvians and punctuation, anyway? I also make a special note that you are charged with spelling the word 'assimilating' no fewer than FOUR different ways."

"Not to mention making the poor Borg melt the bottom of a pole with one of those misspellings!" chimed in Phi.

"For your information," hissed Sigma, "it's spelt A-S-S-I-M-I-L-A-T-I-N-G, and if you can't conjugate that, I know exactly who can teach you."

"Sigma..." warned Eagrus.

"You are additionally charged with raising the entire Borg Collective to the power of three," said Cyba.

"For which we are eternally grateful, because otherwise we wouldn't be here," mentioned Sigma and Phi in unison.

"And with giving me a FRENCH ACCENT!"

"You should really learn to spell, spell-check and use betas," pointed out Eagrus.

"You are also charged with being a 'legendry' hero; with making Kes and Seska faint..."

"Although I don't blame them after the very un-Trekverse language you made them use," snapped Phi.

"OMG," mocked Sigma, pulling a face.

"You are charged with spawning pears all over the place," continued Cyba, "with randomly coating various things in tar; with having Janeway USURP THE BORG QUEEN; WITH GETTING RID OF THE PROPER QUEEN FAR TOO EASILY; and with carrying an armoury's worth of weapons - most of them non-canonical - without being weighed down."

"Which brings us to the reason why you're now lying there with implants," stated Sigma evilly.

"Having caused your condition pretty much by yourself," added Phi, amused.

"Yes," agreed Cyba. "You are especially charged with having Borg-like abilities."

"I dont have Borg abiltees!" complained Jack Russel, demonstrating his poor grasp of English yet again.

"Says the man with superhuman strength, who can carry an entire armoury, who can beat Borg in unarmed combat, who didn't get hit by any of the armed Kazon in the numerous armies he took on singlehandedly - and survived being launched into space without any mention of a space-suit... TWICE," pointed out Phi.

"Although, you could really do with their desire for perfection," scoffed Sigma.

"Oh, and I append: REALLY, SERIOUSLY ANNOYING PPC AGENTS!" added Cyba.

"You are sentenced to execution, whereupon your Suvian essence will be banished from this continuum, back into the Void," finished Eagrus.

"Unless you would rather we left you here for your own bad logic to take its course..." offered Sigma sweetly.

"Nooo! Dont leeve mee!"

"That's settled then," stated Eagrus.

"Throw him in the recycling," decided Phi. "Let him become resources to be used by the hive he damaged so much - and yet was joining."

"Suvians have been fed to monsters before without the latter being poisoned, so it should be fine," commented Eagrus.

Sigma cuffed Jack Russel with her metal arm, and Phi carried the unconscious 'Stu to the nearest recycling chamber. Cyba was given the honour of taking his coat and casting him unceremoniously into the pool of ominous green liquid, where he sank from sight, presumably to be broken down into his component parts.

"Well, now that's done..." observed Eagrus.

The Word World shuddered as the canon resumed for the most part, the main anchor lost but still pending the removal of any remaining non-canonical influence. Sigma and Phi, being essentially as extra-canonical as Cyba, had remained and the three of them seemed very pleased with themselves.

A moment later, a shudder also ran through Cyba, Sigma and Phi, and together they turned and fixed Eagrus with three Disconcerting Borg Stares.

"Not funny!" he told them. "You know, I really don't like it when you do that stare."

They did not let up.

"That's enough! Stop it, all three of you!"

They carried on staring, now closing in on him. Worse, Eagrus knew a flanking manoeuvre when he saw one.

"Flaming Denethor!" He dodged backwards, drawing his Bat'Leth, but tried to keep his distance as much as possible. He did not really want to fight these three.

His mind ran through all the possible battle-scenarios; he was abruptly very glad he had followed the doctor's advice. He was also very aware of his back - while he could not allow himself to be backed into a corner, he did not want any more drones beaming in behind him. He had thought battles with swords and shields were bad enough, but teleporting just plain was not fair.

As for Cyba, Sigma and Phi, he suspected the sudden reversion to pure canon had raised the power of those signals they were picking up - enough for them to lose control of it. Yet the doctor had said it was not full reception, so they might still have a chance. He just had to snap them out of it. The influence was already proving stubborn, but there had to be a way, surely...

The idea hit him so hard he frantically checked behind, thinking the hive proper had finally noticed him. It had not, and he knew he had one chance: he needed something red.

He did not dare get close enough to snatch Cyba's flash-patch - any of the Cybas', for that matter - and his own was buried beneath his armour. None of the drones' lasers seemed to have affected Cyba, but there had to be something, surely. Why, the one time he needed something red, did he have to be on a black and green space-ship?

Maybe if he could get back to Russel's ship, and coax them into following him on board, he could find something there? Although, everything had been silver...

His back foot hit a step up, and he realised they had backed him into an alcove. He ducked out quickly, knowing he really needed a distraction. Something, anything to take their minds off whatever was pervading their subconscious. Even as he moved, Cyba lunged at him. He jumped aside, parrying with the flat of his blade, but the force of the blow spun him sideways and buried the end of his Bat'Leth in the nearest alcove. Eagrus winced, leaping away from the flash of electricity that engulfed it.

"Oooh!" went Sigma, then came to her senses as the systems repaired themselves and stopped sparking. "Huh? What? Phi! Cyba! Stop it! Stop!" She grabbed them by the shoulders and they shook themselves, horrified at what had nearly happened. "Don't give into it! It's stronger than before and we've got to get away fast!"

Cyba and Phi nodded, then the three of them hurried back in the direction of the ship, Eagrus in tow. A number of times they faltered, but now they were alerted to their situation, they could concentrate on fighting it with each other's help.

At last they reached Jack Russel's ship.

"Eagrus, you have to fly it!" cried the trio.

"WHAT!" cried Eagrus.

"Eagrus, you don't have the Borg invading your mind! You have to fly it!" yelled Cyba, Sigma and Phi in unison.

"I can't fly anything, let alone a space-ship!"

"Eagrus! If a drunk 'Stu can fly it you can!"

"But..."

"GET US OUT OF HERE NOW!"

Eagrus swallowed, then took up position in the captain's chair.

"Dyou want a bevrige?" asked the ship's computer.

"Coffee! Give me coffee! I need it!" cried Eagrus desperately.

A cup of coffee appeared beside him and he downed it in one gulp - then promptly had a coughing fit.

"I said coffee, not coughee, blast it!" Nevertheless, once he recovered, it had the desired effect.

Grasping the controls firmly and with his mind accelerated, he threw the ship into full reverse thrust.

From outside, there came a terrible, grating screech as the docking clamps were torn free, followed by a massive crash as the rear of the ship hit something.

"Urgh," moaned someone behind Eagrus.

"Uh, Eagrus?" groaned one of the others. "They just noticed and... they... aren't... happy..."

A spike of fear ran through Eagrus. All that before was just passive signals? They weren't even trying to control Cyba, Sigma and Phi previously? Flaming Denethor!

He rammed the controls forward, searching for an exit.

"Gah. Put the shields up!" grunted one of the three.

"Shields activating," responded the computer, much to Eagrus' relief that he did not have to figure it out.

"Computer, prepare to jump to a position near the USS Voyager," commanded Eagrus. He hoped it had returned to where it should have been when canon had resumed.

"Negative. Jump reqwires opern space."

"Flaming Denethor!" He glanced at the trio behind him, all of whom had their heads in their hands and were putting every scrap of will into fighting what threatened to overcome them.

On what had to be the second or third lap pinballing around the interior of the Borg cube, Eagrus noticed the exit doors.

"Computer, do we have any weapons that might get through that?"

"One Generic Sci-Fi Space Weapon avilable," the computer informed him.

"Fire it, and for Eru's sake make it a good shot."

He pointed the front of the ship at the doors, thankful that it was indeed - relatively - easy to fly. The computer fired a blinding greenish flash, like something out of a cheesy old sci-fi movie filmed on a tight budget.

Eat cheese, you undead tech-monsters, he thought, clipping the edge of the bay doors on the way out.

"Computer, make the jump," he ordered.

"Addishnal distance required to prevent persoot," it replied.

He shoved the control sticks so far forward that they threatened to break, trying and failing to keep a straight course through the horrid black nothing that surrounded the ship. Thanks to his utterly atrocious piloting, his manoeuvres were probably more unpredictable than a skilled pilot trying to be erratic. Ironically enough, his being so bad at this was probably the deciding factor in avoiding the tractor beam now trying to lock onto them.

"Distance achieeved. Inishyeight jump?"

"YES!" yelled Eagrus.

A wormhole - or rather a plothole - opened in front of the ship , and Eagrus hung on for dear life. A jolt marked their arrival, and the sensors soon informed them that the plothole had collapsed before the Borg had managed to follow.

Eagrus breathed a sigh of relief, turned to the trio... and jumped out of his skin. They were all coming to, mere inches from his back.

"Er... that was close," commented Phi.

"Understatement of the century," gulped Eagrus.

"We're not completely out of their influence yet," warned Cyba. "The jump disrupted it, though."

"Oh, and you do realise that we're going to have to wipe their memories, Eagrus?" pointed out Phi sheepishly.

Eagrus, still buzzing from his caffeine intake, was quick to think of a solution: "Well, didn't somebody say something earlier about saving a queen?"

Compared to what had happened, getting on board Voyager and neuralysing the crew - including a very much human Janeway - was relatively easy. The Left 4 Dead characters were given a memory wipe and a lift to their home continuum, then Jack Russel's ship's computer recalled where the Borg Queen was floating through space, none-too-surprisingly having repaired her earlier damage. Eagrus managed to lay in wait with his neuralyser and flash it at her the moment she stepped in through the airlock. Eagrus had the ship open a plothole to a quiet patch of Borg space, through which he sent her majesty and promptly shut. He doubted it would take her drones long to pick her up, and with the residual effects of the neuralyser, they would not remember it either.

Cyba, Sigma and Phi's memories were left fuzzy as though from Bleeprin, but otherwise were unaffected.

"So, that leaves the issue of all these mini-Tribbles," said Eagrus.

"There's an OFU for this continuum, possibly two," answered Cyba. "They'll take them, otherwise the adoption centre in HQ might get overwhelmed. If the minis are anything like the larger version, they breed like rabbits. Besides, I'd rather put as much distance between us and Borg space as possible."

"I suppose that gets around this ship being a bit big for the average room in HQ," agreed Eagrus. "An OFU should have the equipment to portal us back. Now we just need to figure out the coordinates..."

That decided, they began the journey back to HQ.

Agent Zero's other note: if I, Phi Six or Sigma One catch anybody referring to us as 'The Collective of Three', we will collectively scream at that person.

Addendum: that includes you, Eagrus.

Addendum two: ESPECIALLY YOU, EAGRUS.

Addendum three: AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!

Disclaimer: Mulan belongs to Disney; Star Trek and all its contents belong to CBS Paramount; Mass Effect  and all of its contents belong to EA and Bioware; the concept of minis belongs to Miss Cam and the PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia.

The fic being sporked, 'Untitled 1', belongs to Wills Lover and can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3949306/1/Untitled-1

Many thanks to Firemagic and my other readers on the Board for beta-ing this.

Chapter 5: Mission to 'Untitled 1' (wherein Cyba screams a lot).

"An undead tech monster?" repeated Cyba flatly. She rolled her eyes - well, one of them. She also appeared to notice that only one moved, because one hand slowly went to her face on the side that that had remained fixed. She froze, the possible matches for Eagrus' description gradually reaching the forefront of her mind. When she spoke again, her voice had risen several octaves and become very shrill:

"GET ME A MIRROR, NOW!"

Eagrus interpreted this as giving her a wide berth as she went to the mirror in her room as fast as she could. Apparently, that was a quick walk, to the accompaniment of a heavy thud, thud, thud from her feet.

Cyba slammed her door.

There came a moment's silence, during which Eagrus and the minis took cover in Eagrus' room.

From Cyba's room, there came an ear-splitting shriek that the walls and door did very little to dampen. Although not fatal, the noise was so horrendous that a banshee from any continuum would have been proud of it, nonetheless. Then there came the sound of the door being thrown open, followed by a crash that marked it as possibly thrown quite literally, if not necessarily intentionally.

"AAAAAAGGGHHHH!" screamed Cyba. "EAGRUS! EAGRUS! HEEELLLLLP MEEEE!"

Eagrus gulped, coming out of his room very gingerly. The minis did not follow; in fact, he was sure he felt Joke give him a little push in the right direction with one foreleg.

"AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Cyba screamed, before thankfully trailing off at the sight of him, much to his ears' relief. "Eagrus," she said, somewhat more quietly. "Eagrus, I have cable hair." She made it sound like the horror of horrors.

"Is that it?" asked Eagrus incredulously. "Not that you're part machine, full of tech and look like some mad necro-transmuter's been at you? All that racket... over having cables for hair? Women!"

Cyba ignored that last comment, instead regarding him very seriously. That alone ought to have made him worried.

"Do you remember when we first teamed up, we had that - discussion - about uniforms?" she asked him.

"Yes..." he confirmed tentatively. "You had a complete flip about them containing technology from some species from Star Trek. The Borg, wasn't it?"

Cyba visibly flinched, taking deep breaths to try and keep herself calm.

"You said you hadn't heard of them, except the name DoSAT gave you."

"Yes..." he agreed, getting ready to dash back to his room at any moment.

"Take a good, long look, Eagrus, because I FREAKING AM ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Ah," realised Eagrus. "I'll fetch the DORKS." Keeping to the edge of the room, he darted past her and grabbed the device in question. It was currently in the shape of a very detailed, black-and-green octahedron. He did not recognise what it was supposed to be, but it got a glare from Cyba.

"A DORKS with the appearance of a tiny Borg Diamond. The Ironic Overpower is mocking me," she said. "Now hurry up and TURN ME BACK!"

Eagrus wasted no time in setting the DORKS  to return her to her natural form. Cyba waited as it glowed and began emitting its sci-fi sounds that belonged in really old science fiction movies. Her hands were clasped tightly together, one pale and mottled, the other black metal.

The glow subsided.

Nothing had changed.

Eagrus tried again.

And again.

"Er, Cyba..." He backed away carefully. "It isn't working..."

"Try turning me into something else first?" suggested Cyba, before crying in the direction of the ceiling: "Ironic Overpower, I am sorry and I take it all back! I surrender; you win! Now please don't leave me like this!" There was a touch of hysteria in her voice.

Eagrus turned her into a goblin.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he returned her to her natural form... except, when the glow died, she was back to being the 'undead tech monster'.

"DoSAT... DoSAT!" she screeched frantically, ploughing toward the trapdoor. She yanked it open - clean off its hinges - and started down the rope ladder - which promptly snapped. She ended up unceremoniously on her metallic backside in the corridor. To add insult to injury, the ladder came down on her, whacking her over the head. A Ferengi agent came down the corridor, took one look at her, and fled in the opposite direction. She let her head fall into her hands with a slight clink. Then Eagrus landed on top of her.

"Sorry," he apologised.

"DoSAT," she muttered single-mindedly. "DoSAT, DoSAT, DoSAT." Completely ignoring Eagrus, she began marching down the corridor.

"You won't get there like that," he said. "Thinking about where you're going won't get you there."

"DoSAT are in for it," hissed Cyba, her feet thumping with every step.

"Cyba, what are you going to do when you get there?"

"They are going to turn me back, or I'll, I'll... SCREAM AT THEM!"

Eagrus quickly donned the pair of Glopsnerch earmuffs he had swiped on his way out of the RC. After all, when this was over, he intended to have his hearing intact.

"Anything else?" he asked, trying to take her mind off her destination... and her predicament.

"Mostly screaming," replied Cyba. "Lots of screaming."

"Saving their ears isn't on your agenda, then?"

"Definitely not. Unless they turn me back. Then I'll think about it."

"Don't worry: they'll fix you, and everything will be fine. It's OK, Cyba."

"No. It isn't."

"Well, I don't know... that armour plating looks quite good on you..."

Cyba took a deep breath to begin haranguing him, but then realised that it could actually be a compliment or an insult, and fell to pondering it in silence.

With Cyba sufficiently distracted, they then arrived at the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology rather quickly. Cyba got to the door first, barging it open with a metal shoulder. Several technicians scuttled for safety, leaving the slowest among their number to deal with the newcomers.

The slowest happened to be the same Quarian who had come to service the disguise generator a couple of missions ago.

"Did it malfunction again?" he asked gingerly.

Cyba put her hands on where her hips would have been.

"Well, what do you think?"

"You... blew up your CAD?" he tried hopefully.

"The disguise generator exploded and turned me into...this! And the DORKS won't turn me back!"

"Here, let me try one of our spares," he suggested, fetching one from a nearby  workbench.

It did not work.

"All right, I'll try an actual disguise generator."

That failed as well.

"Stand still, I'll give you a scan."

An orange, holographic omni-tool gauntlet flared around his arm and he directed a scan at Cyba.

"Oh, that is interesting. Very interesting."

"What is?" demanded Cyba.

"Fascinating..."

"Tell me!"

"It... er... seems to have permanently changed your natural form..."

"WHAT?!"

"The form you currently have is... er... permanent. I cannot change you back. Medical could probably remove some of the hardware, but it'll only come back the next time you use a disguise generator or DORKS to return to your natural form."

"Uh, oh..." murmured Eagrus.

"So I'm STUCK like this?"

"Er... I'm afraid so, yes," confirmed the technician, and wisely ran away.

Cyba screamed. Loudly.

"Cyba? Calm down! Don't panic! I'm sure Medical can help in other ways..." tried Eagrus quickly.

"I've got a better idea," decided Cyba. "PAAAANNNIIIIIIIIIIC! AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" She started off into the corridor, her legs still stubbornly refusing to do anything other than 'walk with loud thumping'.  Abruptly they adapted, taking Cyba as much by surprise as Eagrus. She suddenly found herself sprinting, and immediately cannoned into the far wall and knocked herself out, falling with an almighty CRASH.

Eagrus dragged her to Medical, which was not easy, because she was now very heavy. He also dreaded to think how scratched her metal parts might be getting - and how furious she would be when she woke up and finally stopped panicking.

"Well, well, what have we here?" inquired Doctor Fitzgerald, upon their arrival. "Is that your agent partner? Have you just come out of the Star Trek continuum? I didn't hear the Borg alarm."

"There's a Borg alarm?" asked Eagrus.

"Yes. It goes off when an agent gets assimilated. There was a whole crisis a couple of years back, didn't you know?"

"Assimilated?" said Eagrus blankly.

"Into their hive mind."

"Oh. That might explain the panicking... and why so many people are so scared of these... Borg."

"You want my advice, Eagrus Khan? Go and watch Star Trek. Make a strategic assessment, just in case you ever end up going there. Besides, it might help when dealing with your friend here, in the future." He, Eagrus and two nurses managed to haul Cyba's unconscious form onto a bed, which they wheeled into a particularly secure-looking  side-room.

"So, Eagrus, how did this happen?" he queried.

"Disguise generator accident. We already went to DoSAT. It seems to have changed her natural form permanently. They reckon any use of a disguise generator to return her to her natural form will return her to this state."

"Has she displayed any unusual behaviour, at all?"

"Well, she screamed a lot - so, normal," shrugged Eagrus.

"How did she come to be unconscious?"

"She ran into a wall."

"Right." The doctor began scanning her with a tricorder.

"Well?"  pressed Eagrus.

"No outbound networking signals whatsoever; and her ability to receive such is damaged. It looks like the transformation wasn't entirely perfect. Oh, and her hardware appears to have taken up the properties of her uniform."

"Is she hurt?" asked Eagrus, concerned.

"No. If this change can't be undone by DoSAT, it's a good thing her hardware is imperfect. Ordinarily, we have to remove as much of it as possible to prevent the networking. If every time she removes a disguise, she reverts to this state, with perfect hardware she would become part of the hive mind every time she came back from a mission. She's actually rather lucky."

"So, she'll be all right?"

"Mostly," replied Doctor Fitzgerald. "She might still have... tendencies. It would be advisable to keep an eye on her, especially if you ever encounter the Borg proper. Oh, and don't tell her that. If she's panicking as much as you say, it's best if she doesn't know about possible tendencies. Tell her not to worry."

"So she will be all right?"

"Just the usual hazards of being a PPC agent. Her sanity might take a knock. Anyway, she should come around shortly. Oh, and she might also need some help adjusting to her new implants. Without ever having been part of the hive mind, she may not know how to use them."

"She walked and talked - and screamed - well enough," muttered Eagrus.

"Yes, but that is presumably because that connects to the same parts of her brain. Anything extra, and non-automated, she will likely need to learn the old fashioned way. I'll refer her to FicPsych."

"You can try," Eagrus told him, remembering something Cyba had said to him a few missions ago. "She doesn't like psychologists."

Eagrus stood back and took a moment to get used to his partner's new appearance. Cyba Zero still had the same basic features: female, humanoid, and the same face beneath the attachments. Her skin, however, was pale and mottled, and her human left eye had been a washed-out grey colour when it had last been open. Her other eye had been replaced with a mechanical lens and a side-mounted laser, with the metal covering about a third of her face. All of her hair had completely gone, and in its place were several thick, long, black cables woven together with strands of silver, forming the impression of a low pony-tail reaching about half-way down her back.

Most of the rest of her body was entirely mechanical, built of a dull, black metal, interspersed with the odd light. It was little wonder that she thumped when she walked. The only skin she had was on her head, neck and left hand, all else being hidden under heavy plating. Her right arm appeared to contain some kind of technological gadgetry, but what it did was anybody's guess. Eagrus was just glad it had not happened to him - being a creature of tech was not something he found appealing.

Cyba came around about five minutes later, if such a time measurement could be achieved in HQ.

"Ohhhh... where did that wall come from...?" she moaned.

"You can feel pain like that?" Eagrus queried.

"I know when I suffer damage. Even superficially. And I think my mind makes up the difference."

"The doctor says you'll be fine. He especially said not to worry about getting mixed up in any hive mind."

"You know about that?" She looked immensely relieved.

"He explained," Eagrus informed her. "So you can stop panicking, and especially stop screaming from now on, all right?"

"All right. Thanks, Eagrus." She smiled weakly and together they headed back to the RC.

When they arrived, it became apparent that DoSAT had been in while they were away. There was a new - reinforced - trapdoor and, when they opened it, a new heavy-duty chain ladder swung down for them. At the top, a new disguise generator had been installed in the main room.

"I'm cold," she stated once they got in. "Did somebody turn the heating down or something? It's freezing in here."

"Just in here? Feels fine to me," Eagrus shrugged.

"No, all of HQ," Cyba disagreed. "It feels like the Arctic."

"Agent Zero?" inquired a voice suddenly, and a technician came cautiously out of her room.

"Yes..." she replied, regarding him.

"I've just finished setting up you new sleeping arrangements, and I adjusted the temperature setting in there to something that might be more to your liking."

Cyba rushed over as fast as the 'loud and thudding walk' setting - which her legs seemed to be stuck on again - would allow her. The door had been replaced with a metal, automatic one, and the air was a lot warmer on the other side of it.

"Ahhh, bliss," she smiled. "Thanks," she told the technician. Then she noticed her new sleeping arrangements: her bed had been replaced with a Borg alcove. "Oh bother, I have to learn to sleep standing up..."

"Your new flash patch is on the table," the technician informed her helpfully.

"Thanks," said Cyba again, picking it up. "Oooooh, preeeettttty..."

"It's just a like for like replacement," shrugged the technician.

Cyba blinked her human eye and shook herself. "It's just that... wow... red has never looked so... beautiful." Forcing herself to take her eyes off it, she proudly stuck the motif of a red pen to the metal of one of her upper arms. Only then did she notice that the technician had gone.

She wandered out into the main room, and spied Mess and Joke eyeing her with what appeared to be approval.

"Blip?" asked Joke.

"Bleep?" inquired Mess.

"What?" queried Cyba, smiling.

"Bleep beep!" went Joke, pointing at her with a foreleg before doing a little skip.

"What are they on about?" questioned Eagrus, coming out of his room and joining them.

"I think... they approve of my being part machine..."

Both mini-Colossi nodded vigorously.

"Awwwwwwww," went Cyba. "What a lovely pair of cuties you are!"

Eagrus and Zouh rolled their eyes, and Eagrus muttered something about 'tech creatures'.

"Oh well, I'd better go and try out that alcove for size," shrugged Cyba, and went off back into her room, her minis in tow.

"I'd better gen up on this Star Trek, then," said Eagrus to Zouh. The cupboard had all the canon material he needed, of course, so he carried a stack into his room and began watching it.

Cyba stood in her alcove. She was not sure how this was supposed to work, but she did not feel in the slightest bit sleepy. She stuck her nose in the air and closed the eye she could. Nothing changed.

She opened her eye and regarded Mess and Joke.

"I don't feel any different," she told them.

They continued to watch her with intent interest.

She tried again, still with no success.

"Any ideas?" she asked the minis.

Joke shrugged, and Mess shook his head.

"Oh well."

She closed her eye and leant back, trying to fall asleep the old fashioned way - only standing up.

Eagrus was watching carefully and committing everything to memory for strategic purposes. About ten minutes in, however, there came a muffled thump from Cyba's room. He glanced at the wall, then carried on watching when he heard nothing else.

Thump.

"Ow!"

Eagrus glanced up again.

Silence.

He resumed watching.

Thud!

"Grrr!"

He carried on watching.

CRASH!

"OW!"

"BLEEP!" One of Cyba's minis sounded indignant.

"Sorry Mess. Are you alright? I didn't mean to fall on you!"

Eagrus glanced up again, then went back to his film.

Several minutes later:

SCREECH-THUD!

"OWIE! Sorry Joke! Maybe you two should sit further back?"

Eagrus got up and went to see what in the Multiverse was going on in there.

"Eagrus: are these legs supposed to have some kind of park function? Because I can't find it!" grumbled Cyba, before he could even open his mouth.

"I wouldn't know..." he admitted.

Cyba stood back in her alcove and closed her eyes. About a minute passed, then she started to sway and fell forwards to land with a crash on the floor.

"Urgh... ow..." she groaned.

"I see," he mused. "Well, I guess I'll just have to leave you to it. Practise makes perfect!"

Cyba glared at him. "Don't you talk to me about perfect!"

Eagrus snickered and beat a hasty retreat before she got up.

Several hours later, Eagrus finished watching Star Trek and came out into the main room of the RC. He noticed that Cyba was now camped out by the console, apparently awaiting a mission. He had thought it had gone quiet next door.

"No luck sleeping, then?" he probed carefully.

"Nope." She turned back to the console and continued coaxing it. "Don't you have a mission for us? Pleeaaaase? Pretty please? "

NO, read the screen.

"Please with shiny lettering and gemstones and red flashing lights?"

NO MISSIONS AVAILABLE. GO AND ACCLIMATISE.

"Are you sure? Not even a teeny, tiny, little one?"

"Cyba, it won't give you one if you're asking," stated Eagrus.

Bip.

"Console, I swear you did that just to spite me," muttered Eagrus.

HEY, IT'S RARE THAT AGENTS ASK SO NICELY. IT IS ONLY A SHORT ONE.

"Thank you thank you thank you!" squawked Cyba.

The details flashed up.

"Oh, well I never. Guess who?" snickered Eagrus, splattering Cyba with Sar-Plasm.

"Them again. So much for third time lucky. Let's go deal with it."

"Why do you want a mission so badly anyway?" questioned Eagrus.

"I can't sleep, I can't figure out my new body, and I'm BORED. Being something else for a while will be... a relief."

"Ah. I thought so," commented Eagrus. He opened the portal, set the disguises and off they went.

"Human again!" grinned Cyba triumphantly, as they landed behind a tree, in a comma-storm, in a generic garden.

"Nice armour too!" Eagrus pointed out, and she grinned. They were wearing Chinese sets again.

"Any plan?" asked Cyba.

"Find the wraiths. Get rid of them. Save the lovely Mulan."

"Eagrus..."

"Alright alright! Forget the 'lovely' part. Not that she isn't lovely, just forget I said it."

"Where are they?"

"Twenty guesses."

"The... comma-storm?" tried Cyba.

"Correct!" agreed Eagrus.

"How strange! I never would have thought to look for them there!"

"Cyba, please try not to flood this place out with Sar-Plasm."

"What about these others?" queried Cyba, gesturing around at the trio of characters: Bri'Aunna, Yoa and their unnamed daughter.

"Take the kids to the nursery and recruit the rest."

"Recruit them?" Cyba did a double-take.

"This fic is so short I skimmed it in seconds," explained Eagrus. "The wraiths are floating somewhere above us, trying to have more or less all of the other bit characters  killed off by Huns. They have also made Bri'Aunna want to let them. As such, they cannot have their own way. We're looking for Bri'Aunna, Yoa, Miley, two unnamed daughters, Will, Elizabeth and however many children they have."

"What about charges?"

"Just watch," spoke Eagrus, as Bri'Aunna ran to the gate and started talking to it. In the absence of any mentioned person being there to utter the other half of the conversation, the gate started talking.

"Ooh, loot!" exclaimed Cyba. "A talking generic gate! It could guard our RC!"

"I like that idea," agreed Eagrus. "We'll pick it up on the way back."

Abruptly, a generic bedroom appeared by the generic garden and Bri'Aunna ran into it. She then picked up 'her mom's favourite neckless'.

"'Neckless'?" repeated Eagrus. "Whose neck went missing?"

"Better: it's jewellery!" cheered Cyba.

"That... turns the wearer's neck invisible..."

"It's an interesting style, but I'll take it!" decided Cyba.

"Women," muttered Eagrus.

Suddenly, the grey and faded visage of Bri'Aunna became the perfect copy of Mulan.

"I see." Cyba now understood why Eagrus wanted to recruit the bit-characters.

Bri'Aunna came out of the bedroom, crossed the garden and went into the palace that appeared out of the comma-storm.

"That's it. I'm charging those wraiths with conjuring buildings," decided Eagrus. "It's their lack of paragraphing and description, again."

The agents tailed Bri'Aunna through the palace until she met the 'emporer'. The rather confused mini-Hun of the same name - who they had met on their previous mission - abruptly appeared beside them, looking rather confused. He recognised them quickly, however, and tagged along.

"Bri'Aunna your parents were the best worries and The huns are attaking china again," spoke the 'emporer'.

The mini face-palmed.

"Definitely worries," agreed Cyba. "I worry at their persistence."

"No, they just failed to learn when to quit. Typical Suvian low intelligence, I'm afraid," Eagrus informed her. "Oh no, there's a..."

"Bleurgh!" went Cyba.

"... spatial wrench coming," finished Eagrus, too late.

"YOU AGAIN!" shouted the wraiths. Being in spirit-form in the Words, the wraiths were not actually possessing anything this time. Unfortunately for the wraiths, the wrench had landed Cyba right in front of them and her ensuing belch had landed all over them.

Eagrus opened a portal to the patch of comma-storm just in front of where the bit characters were supposed to get killed by Huns.

"Bye!" grinned Cyba, and dived through after him just before the portal closed.

"Hold it!" commanded Eagrus.

The bits stopped.

"If you go any further this way, the Huns will kill you all," he warned them.

"Except Yoa, for some reason," added Cyba.

"LET THEM COME!"retorted Bri'Aunna, following her lines in the fic.

"Oh, come on!" snapped Eagrus. "I thought you were supposed to be just like Mulan, and Mulan would not do this."

"What do you know of my mother?" demanded Bri'Aunna.

"What do you know of your mother?" replied Eagrus, knowing full well the description would give her no good answer to that.

Bri'Aunna paused and thought about it.

"I... guess I don't know much at all."

"Didn't think so," said Eagrus. "Perhaps, if you were not so keen to rush to your death, you would have a chance to learn."

Bri'Aunna thought some more.

"But who will stop the Huns?"

"None of this was supposed to happen anyway," explained Eagrus. "You were created by an entity from another world, which specialises in changing what is supposed to happen. It skews fate from its rightful path. We are also from another world, but we specialise in removing these entities and keeping fate on course. Come with us and we will teach you everything."

There was a silence, during which Bri'Aunna threw off the 'neckless', disgusted. It was, of course, immediately pounced on by Cyba.

"Anyone willing to join us, step through this portal." Eagrus opened a portal back to HQ, and all the bit characters gradually went through - right into the hands of FicPsych and their dreaded (mandatory) No Drool Videos.

"Heads up! New recruits incoming!" he called after them. To Cyba he said: "Now that's done, let's deal with the wraiths."

He opened a portal to the usual patch of the comma-storm, where the two wraiths that called themselves Mulan and Shang were still floating, having been bound by their own fic into being unable to do anything.

"Right," said Eagrus, marching over to them with his hands on his hips. "Cyba, read the charges!"

"Fake!Mulan and Fake!Shang, you are charged with: well, all the usual stuff, really, as well as conjuring buildings. Oh, and trying to kill off most of the other characters for no good or even any apparent reason, and making Bri'Aunna want to die while also 'being like Mulan in every way'. That's just an ugly business in general. I liked the talking gate and the 'neckless', though."

"Mulan would not want to die," growled Eagrus. "Now, do we have to go through all the usual rigmarole, or are you just going to go away of your own accord this time?" He pointedly opened a portal to the Void.

"Never!" hissed the wraiths.

"No, I know Suvians never learn," Eagrus agreed.

"It was worth a try, though," Cyba consoled him.

They went through the rigmarole again, cast the wraiths into the Void, collected the talking gate, and went back to the RC.

"Well, that was quick," observed Cyba.

I TOLD YOU IT WAS A SHORT ONE, the console reminded her.

"I know, but thanks anyway," replied Cyba gratefully. "Now I guess it's back to the adjusting."

Disclaimer: Mulan belongs to Disney; Mass Effect, Quarians and Geth belong to EA and Bioware; 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 'Parenthood' belongs to Wills Lover, and can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3947243/1/Parenthood

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

Chapter 3: Mission to 'Parenthood' (wherein Eagrus finally gets to use his sword and much coffee and Bleepolate are consumed).

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

"Console, we don't even have the disguise generator back up again, yet," stated Eagrus, without even looking around.

The beep trailed off into an unhappy-sounding whine, before falling - grudgingly - silent.

Eagrus finished the sword he was sharpening and placed it back on the rack. Then he took the liberty of reading the Mulan badfic on the console, and prepared accordingly. He had already been off to the General Store and returned with copious amounts of coffee and Bleepolate, which he had piled up neatly in a corner. He had then gone down the RC cupboard and discovered a kettle and other useful items, including a DORKS. He had also acquired a heat-retaining flask, which he now filled with hot, black coffee, and added to the backpack beside the pile. He also packed the DORKS, CADs, neuralysers, exorcism kit, crash dummy and two pairs of Glopsnerch earmuffs.

Aside from minis, there were two other people currently in the RC. Cyba was being uncharacteristically quiet, what with being completely engrossed in polishing scorch-marks off her armour. There was also a technician from DoSAT, who was busily investigating the faulty disguise generator after it had given them Suvian-coloured disguises during their last mission.

The technician - and unnamed Quarian, apparently from the same continuum as Cyba's minis - finished first. Eagrus guessed the environment-suit-wearing humanoid was lucky that Cyba was otherwise occupied, lest he would probably have been bombarded with questions. As it was, he was working under the close eye of the mini-Hun, Zouh, who had been loath to part with Eagrus and had moved in.

"It's all checked, but I'm afraid I cannot find anything wrong with it," said the technician. "If anything is faulty, it must be an intermittent problem."

"Oh, wonderful," announced Eagrus, splattering the technician's helmet with Sar-Plasm.

The technician, being experienced enough of unsatisfied agents, wisely took his leave.

Zouh, meanwhile, climbed off the top of the cupboard (from which he had been surveying the work on the disguise generator), and took up his usual position on Eagrus' shoulder. Eagrus, it turned out, rather liked this idea, because he and Zouh had quickly come up with the system of each watching the opposite direction, ensuring nobody could sneak up on either of them without great difficulty.

Joke and Mess Efekt, Cyba's mini-Colossi, crept out from where they had been hiding - behind her bedroom doorframe. Geth and Quarians were not known for getting on well with each other, and the Geth in question had also upset their mistress, who had given them more than one haranguing over her scorched armour already. Needless to say, they were now being somewhat careful.

"BEEP?" tried the console cautiously.

"Cyba's still polishing her armour," stated Eagrus.

"No, I'm done now," Cyba corrected him. "Preferably for a long while." That was directed at Mess and Joke, who immediately scuttled for cover again. "Now," she said to Eagrus, "what are we up against? Strategic assessment?"

"Well, the summary described this fic as a 'stroy'," replied Eagrus. "Adding 'de' to the front of that gives you my opinion on the matter."

"Ouch."

"Oddly enough, beyond the summary, the spelling is better," continued Eagrus.

"Better but not perfect?" tested Cyba.

"Indeed." He pulled out a piece of parchment, an ink bottle and a quill, and scratched out the words: bad spelling in places, but I've seen worse.

"Cough - that Mass Effect mission - cough," agreed Cyba.

"I've decided you get the Remote Activator today," announced Eagrus, handing his agent partner the aforementioned device.

"Ooooh, fun!" exclaimed Cyba, eagerly.

"You do know how to use it, right? Basic training covered it?"

"Just about."

"Good. You can never be too sure."

Cyba grinned and started pressing buttons, causing Eagrus to fall through a portal under his feet. A muffled thump, followed by a rather less muffled "OW!", came from the vicinity of the shower. Eagrus then emerged, not looking best pleased. The mechanical giggling from the direction of Cyba's room only made him scowl more.

"They didn't cover it very well, then," he concluded. "Unless you intended to dump me in the shower, that is?" His eyes were daring her to say that she had, but she just cleared her throat, smiled sweetly, and refused to give anything away.

Eagrus went over to the disguise generator and set their disguises, while Cyba pressed buttons again.

Cyba abruptly vanished from the RC, landing painfully on a rock. She winced, but did at least note that her disguise was not a horrible Suvian colour this time. In fact, she was dressed a lot like Zouh, in brown furs and dull metal armour. She had just discovered she was carrying a sword when something heavy landed on her head.

The something turned out to be Eagrus, also dressed as a Hun. There followed a lot of scuffling and shoving, as the two agents untangled themselves from one another and got to their feet. Cyba was about to give Eagrus a loud telling-off, but noticed just in time that her portal had, remarkably, come out in the right place. That place happened to be Mulan's garden - in Old China, no less - and shouting would undoubtedly gain the attention of the possessed canons. She settled for removing her helmet, pointing furiously at the dent in it, and replacing it on her head. Then she turned and shut the portal, allowing Eagrus to roll his eyes without her noticing.

"This fic is written in the first person, alternating between Mulan and Shang," Eagrus told her once she was done. "As such, we set up this crash dummy, else get pulled into the role ourselves. Given that Mulan and Shang are both possessed by Sue-wraiths in this case, being pulled into their roles would result in us being possessed. Needless to say, the dummy is especially necessary."

"How do we get them, then?" asked Cyba.

"Good question," Eagrus complimented her, earning a smile in return. "The answer is, we have to exorcise the canons separately - namely, whichever one isn't using the first person at the time. Whichever one is 'I' at the time will be incorporeal, but the other one can be dealt with."

"What happens after we exorcise the first, then it swaps back to that one being 'I'? Won't that undo the exorcism?"

"Ah, but there's no possessing the crash dummy," explained Eagrus triumphantly, "leaving us free to clear out the second wraith."

"Oh, good!" smiled Cyba, then abruptly changed the subject. "Hey, this armour's nice. Not as pretty as the Chinese armour, but still passable. Lovely and warm."

"Cyba? Concentrate!" was Eagrus' only reply.

One summer day I was sitting on my new stone bench in my new garden and waited for Shang to come home. I was getting so mad Shang is never late where was he? I Finlay heard his stallion coming towards the garden. Shang got down and said "Hi sweetie sorry I am late the Emperor wanted me to see me after work." I walked over to him and gave him a hug and gently spoke to him "It is OK I was a little mad but I was mad with worry." He gently took my hand and smiled and we went in to the stables and put his horse in the stables.

"And so it begins..." Eagrus grimaced, as the crash dummy was drawn into a sitting position on the bench. That was about the only thing clear, though - the rest was just 'generic garden'.

Lack of description, wrote Eagrus.

"The sooner we start, the sooner we're done," responded Cyba, paying no attention to what her partner was writing.

"Sword-fest," whispered Eagrus, grinning as he hid in a generic bush.

"Armour-fest," Cyba whispered back, joining him.

"Hmm, it's summer," observed Eagrus.

"Yes, now I'm hot," Cyba complained. She glanced at the words, foolishly seeking some kind of solace. All she got was bad grammar.

"... Sitting... and waited? Charge!"

Eagrus added it to the charge list as a tense shift hit them, thanks to no separation of Mulan's thoughts from the rest of the prose. He added that to the list, too.

"Guess what I want to know," Eagrus challenged his partner.

"When the comma storm's going to start?" ventured Cyba.

"Who's this 'Finlay' person? I thought this was Mulan's 'prov'."

"You mean PoV, right?" frowned Cyba, glancing at the Words. "Oh no, it really does say 'prov'! What's that supposed to mean, providence?"

"Provi-dense, more like," muttered Eagrus. "Wraiths and other Suvians usually are a bit, well, lacking in the intelligence department."

"Wait for it... OK, here we go: the jumbled, comma-less, paragraph-less conversations are back in business!"

Sure enough, Mulan (via the dummy) and the newly-arrived Shang were, once again, engaged in a conversation that continually ran into itself, got into a tangle and yet still somehow carried on at a blinding pace, which was almost impossible to follow. Somewhere in the middle of it, Shang and the dummy hugged, and a missing colon dropped out of the sky and hit Eagrus' helmet.

"It's about time that was nothing to do with me," commented Cyba smugly. At that moment, of course, the heavens opened as she once again managed to encourage yet another imminent punctuation storm.

"You were saying?" replied Eagrus, equally smugly.

I remember we were at the front door ready to go in then everything went Black. I have no idea what happened. I suddenly felt Mulans body right next to me and I woke up with a startled exasperation. Mulan looked down at me and said "Are you OK??????" I said "Yeah I think so. What happened???" Mulan said "I don't know I think you just got a little weak." Mulan and I stood up and smiled at eachother. Mulan said "Come on Shang lets go out to the kitchen." I followed her and sat down on our couch. Mulan went to the kitchen to prepare dinner like she always did.

Mulan appeared on the bench and the dummy was wrenched over to replace Shang as he vanished. Then the entire world went dark - and it was the darkest dark either agent had ever seen.

"Oh great," came Eagrus' voice. "He capitalised the colour black, and now it's all Dark Black."

"Don't tell me that's another Suvian colour," muttered Cyba.

Eagrus didn't say anything.

"Well, am I right? Is it?"

"You said not to tell." The scratching of his quill on the charge list told her all she needed to know, though.

At last, the impromptu night lifted and it became plain what had really happened: Shang had fainted.

"What?!" exclaimed Eagrus, now watching in horror from around the doorframe. "Shang doesn't just faint!" Scratch, went his quill.

Amid the commas, a lone apostrophe punched a hole in the charge list, trying to make itself noticed after it had been missed out of the word 'lets'. Eagrus noted that too.

"They have a couch," commented Cyba. "What self-respecting person in Old China calls anything a couch?"

"Charge," agreed Eagrus.

Meanwhile, without any commas in the Words to give it pause, the fic was running faster and faster, like a runaway train rapidly gaining momentum downhill. The garbled conversations were now so quick that they had done what they were threatening to do from the beginning - namely, become complete gibberish. The fic looked like a movie in fast-forward mode, and all the agents could do now was pick out the odd word or punctuation error through the ever-accelerating mess.

The two protectors ducked inside as a 'young solider' came to the door, completely oblivious to the comma storm still raging around him.

"Ooooh, one of the terracotta army is at the door!" exclaimed Cyba.

"'Solider'," muttered Eagrus. "What's he supposed to be more solid than, hmmm?"

"The downpour of commas?" suggested Cyba.

"Wait a moment, did that say 'Emporer'? But it was spelt right earlier..." Eagrus looked like he was on the verge of tears. Out came the Bleepolate, as a new mini-Hun joined their party.

Meanwhile, Shang and the terracotta soldier went off to another room and began talking, before Mulan went off to join them a moment later.

"Hey, she's going 'to the living'," chuckled Cyba. "Where was she before, among the dead?"

Eagrus peered around the kitchen door cautiously, before retracting his nose in much haste.

"Disgusting!" he retched. "And that's before the smell! Cyba, you don't want to know what you could catch from her cooking. This wraith needs to see a psychologist."

Cooking among the dead, he wrote.

"Psychologist? Where?" pressed Cyba, suddenly worried.

"Don't you like psychologists?" Eagrus inquired.

"No! The best thing you can do is avoid them like the plague!"

"It's all right, there isn't one here. I said the wraith needs to see one."

"Oh, that's okay then," said Cyba, relieved.

"Cyba," Eagrus changed tack. "Are you struggling to keep up with this fic?"

"Yes," she agreed.

"Same here. Good thing I brought some coffee. We could do with a boost."

"Ooh, coffee!" Cyba squeaked excitedly, and together they drank.

"The emporer wanted me to Shang something," they heard the terracotta soldier say, now more discernibly.

"How do you Shang something?" queried Cyba, now brimming with energy.

"I don't know," shrugged Eagrus, also buzzing. "Hey, maybe you use him like a sword. I might like to try that - with the wraith."

"Haha, they're going to the 'dinning room'!" giggled Cyba, who was now blatantly hyper. "Sounds like university halls!"

Eagrus snickered too, having lost all trace of his usual seriousness.

"Whooopeee!" he said. "Let's go and make a racket! They can't hear us over the din!"

"Hey, Shang just said 'yeah'."

"Charge!" announced Eagrus, loudly. Nobody noticed. Meanwhile, he and Cyba took the idea of charging literally and shot into the room...

...just as Mulan ran out, crying.

There was a crash outside the door, followed by a tangled heap of limbs and broken by a beep from Eagrus' CAD.

Mulan. Human female. Canon. 89.9% OOC. Warning: possessed! FIZZzzzz...poof!

The CAD short-circuited and disintegrated in a puff of smoke and ash, leaving Eagrus to put out the flames on his hand.

Possessed!Mulan was the first to extricate herself, and unfortunately she recognised them.

"You! You two again I knew you were Huns!"

"Oh dear," groaned Eagrus, "the 'Sues are the ones we gave to the Huns in our last mission, back in wraith form!"

"Well," said Cyba to Possessed!Mulan, "you landed in the right time, if with no more commas."

"Why you Shang! SHANG HUNS!"

Shang was still in the 'dinning room', however, and unable to hear her.

"Let's get her now!" pleaded Eagrus, regaining his footing.

"No: rules are rules. We need all the charges," Cyba reminded him.

"I call tactical override of the rules!" decided Eagrus.

Mulan, seeing an opportunity, ran for the door to the 'dinning room'. Eagrus tripped her up with an outstretched leg, still being under the effects of the coffee.

"Keep her down while I get the exorcism kit out," he instructed Cyba.

Cyba pinned her down, but Mulan was stronger. Managing to wriggle free, she got to her feet and went for the door again. Cyba clutched at her, missed, and fell back on her final - and only - weapon:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"

Cyba's scream was so loud and shrill that Mulan stopped to put her fingers in her ears - whereupon Eagrus whacked her over the head with a case containing the Mulan DVD and roared:

"Vile 'Sue-wraith, I cast you out! The power of Disney compels you!"

Mulan's body swayed, before falling over next to the candle that was now sitting, lit, on the floor. The wraith coalesced above, furious, and Eagrus swiped it with a jar and slammed the lid shut.

"We'll charge you later," he promised evilly.

"What happened?" groaned Mulan. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?"

"Exorcising the wraith that was possessing you," stated Eagrus, sweetly.

Mulan went for a sword on the wall, and Eagrus immediately drew his, ready to parry.

"Why are you trying to help me, Hun?" Mulan demanded. "Is this some kind of trick?"

"Ah, but I am in disguise," said Eagrus eloquently.

"Don't tell her that!" Cyba squawked.

"Well, I thank you for freeing me, but I don't entirely trust you, yet."

"We still need to exorcise Shang, milady," Eagrus spoke.

"Milady?" repeated Cyba, incredulously. "Eagrus Khan! Do you fancy her?!"

"I'm with Shang," stated Mulan flatly.

"No?" tried Eagrus hopefully.

"You do!" retorted Cyba. "You're not fooling me, Eagrus. You're going to be watching the No Drool Videos when we get back!"

Eagrus winced.

"You're a woman," Mulan frowned at Cyba. "I know I have used this ploy, but it seems a little strange for a Hun to try it. Who are you? Also, what are these 'No Drool Videos' you speak of?"

"Never mind," replied Cyba. "They're a training regimen or sorts, if you must know. The fact is: we're not Huns, and we're here to fix the trauma you and Shang are being forced to suffer by forces beyond your control. When we're done, you won't remember a thing. We just need you to play along with the words, so the wraith possessing Shang doesn't notice anything untoward."

"All right," Mulan relented, "but I will be keeping my eye on this... Eagrus Khan."

"Come on," Cyba addressed Eagrus. "We have more charges to get for the wraiths."

With the disruption of the fic by the exorcism of the Mulan!wraith, Cyba and Eagrus had bought themselves a little time. However, this ran out right about then.

Shang came rushing out of the 'dinning room', 'quicker then fast can be'. The agents had, at least, already taken up position in a side-room. The bad conversations started up again - full of modernisms like 'honey' and 'boss' - and topped by the terrible crime of using 'Y' instead of 'why'. Eagrus made sure to note it all down - with vigour.

"You know," commented Cyba, "it's lucky this is set in Old China."

"Why?" inquired Eagrus.

"Because Mulan hasn't heard of the Mongol Golden Horde."

"Neither have I."

"Not even Genghis Khan?"

"Genghis Khan?"

"Yep. I'd wager that's who you're named after."

"Who was he?"

"A great military leader in real, World One History. His empire got as far as Europe."

"Ooh..." smiled Eagrus, and Cyba was sure he stood up a little straighter, with pride.

"I just thought - whoever wrote the badfic you were rescued from... bad spelling aside, maybe they weren't so terrible after all."

***

At last, Mulan and Shang went to bed, and Cyba skipped forward to the training camp. To her surprise, Eagrus immediately donned a pair of Glopsnerch earmuffs, and handed her a second pair.

"What are these for?" She stepped through the portal. "AAAAGGHH!" She clamped the earmuffs over her ears, shut the portal and dived behind the nearest tent. Eagrus followed suit. A group of soldiers came to see what the noise was about, found nothing, and left again.

Meanwhile, Mulan was still singing. With the wraith removed, she was singing quite well, but the song did not suit her voice.

"Ow," mouthed Cyba.

"Non-canonical song," Eagrus mouthed back.

The gibberish conversations started back up, and so did their accompanying comma-storm. The agents were once again glad of their armour.

"'Were' is our tent?" asked Mulan, and the continuum shivered at the misspelling that simultaneously caused a grammatical paradox.

"Yuck." Cyba pulled a face.

More gibberish followed.

"Do we have to sit through this?" questioned Cyba. "Are there any major charges left?"

"I suppose not," shrugged Eagrus, scanning the words ahead. "Misspellings, bad grammar and punctuation - oh, and Mulan being eight months pregnant after two months marriage. Skip to the end."

Cyba opened a portal, getting it a little off and catching the tail end of another non-canonical song.

Miley looked up at me and I placed her in my jacket and hoped on Kahn. "Regardless on what I promised your father Miley I am going after him." Miley giggled and I found the place and I went in hiding really well and Miley stayed quite. Shang heard me with the Keys and said "what?"

"The baby is called... Miley?"

Eagrus made a strangled sound.

"Oooh, she 'hoped on Kahn'. Your call, Eagrus!" grinned Cyba.

Eagrus strode out and took the keys from Mulan.

"Hello, Shang," Eagrus said, pulling the jar containing the other wraith out of his backpack.

"You! Filthy Hun you follow me everywhere and have it in for my wife!"

"No," corrected Eagrus, "I just have it in for wraiths with no concept of commas."

"I also have it in for wraiths who possess my husband," added Mulan.

Eagrus unlocked the cell and Possessed!Shang barged his way out, succeeding in taking Eagrus' sword from its sheath as he went past. Cyba tossed Eagrus her own sword and the two men began duelling up and down the room. Cyba had to admit that Eagrus was rather good at this; then again, he was a trained swordsman.

"Be careful! That's my husband!" cried Mulan.

Cyba stepped out of the shadows behind Possessed!Shang and grinned. The shadows flickered from the light of a candle-flame.

WHACK! DING-A-LING-A-LING!

"I CAST YOU OUT! THE POWER OF DISNEY COMPELS YOU!"

Shang slumped, Eagrus put the swords away and the wraith went for Cyba in a fury. Eagrus snapped a jar around it before it could get very far.

"No, you don't," he chided the Shang!wraith. "Honours, Cyba?"

"Nah." Cyba shook her head. "This is your fandom the most; I'll let you have the pleasure."

Eagrus took a deep breath:

"You are charged with possessing canon characters; with bad spelling in the summary; with bad spelling in places in the story, but we've seen worse; eating in a 'dinning room'; poor descriptions; bad grammar, particularly in the form of muddled tenses; causing tense shifts; not separating thoughts from the rest of the prose; with temporarily changing Mulan's name to Finlay; inconsistent and incorrect capitalisation; lack of commas and other miscellaneous punctuation shortages..."

"You know, I'm really sick of comma-storms," added Cyba, with feeling.

"Making everything go Dark Black," continued Eagrus.

"Yeah, black is fine, but don't capitalise it," expanded Cyba.

"Anyway," Eagrus began anew, "you are also charged with: making Shang faint for no good reason; having a couch in Old China, and other modern language; making the fic run in fast-forward mode; bringing a terracotta soldier to the door..."

"Solider, indeed!" Cyba shook her head in exasperation.

"... for cooking amid rotting corpses; for having both an Emperor and 'Emporer'; for creating minis; for trying to Shang something; for using the letter 'Y' instead of 'why'..."

"Despicable: modern text-speak in Old China," muttered Cyba.

"... with making Mulan cry; with making Mulan sing non-canonical songs; with making Mulan eight months pregnant after two month's marriage; causing a grammatical paradox with a misspelling of 'where'; taking a baby on a dangerous rescue mission and calling the baby 'Miley' - this is supposed to be Old China!"

"You are sentenced to expulsion from this continuum... again..." began Cyba.

"... and don't come back this time!" finished Eagrus.

They opened the jars and plunged the canon material into the wraiths, which vanished.

Mulan blinked. "I feel odd..."

"Your world's going back to the way it should be," explained Eagrus.

"What about Miley?"

"We have a nursery. We can bring her up there."

"Thank you," Mulan murmured, and promptly vanished. On the floor, Shang had vanished, too.

"Portal, quick!" instructed Eagrus.

Cyba opened a portal back to the RC, and they jumped through just in time for the non-canonical prison and its contents to cease to exist.

Emporer, the mini-Hun, applauded, and Miley started crying.

Cyba pulled a face. "Let's get this baby to the nursery quickly," she suggested.

"You're not much of a motherly type, then?"

"No," stated Cyba flatly.

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!"