I had struck a friendship with Sonavok and an assimilated Cardassian woman named Eshett Ziddet. We usually had meals together, each one of us assigned a day when we cooked. I must admit, Romulan and Cardassian cooking is quite good, and they seemed impressed with the dishes I made so far. It was breakfast time, and I was the chef. I made some chocolate and banana pancakes (real healthy, I know. I had fruit prepared as well.) and set the table. The door chime then rang. “Enter,” I said. Sonavok and Ziddet came in. Ziddet sniffed the air.
“Do I detect chocolate?” she asked. “Hardly the healthiest of breakfasts.”
“Well,” I replied, “the Lords have been expanding quite nicely. Why not celebrate?” Ziddet chuckled.
“Fair point,” she conceded. I then served up the pancakes. Sonavok then put ketchup on his stack, like he does on all his foods, something Ziddet and I found odd.
“You’d be surprised how tasty it actually is,” remarked the assimilated Romulan.
“Well, you do you, I guess,” I muttered. “For me, though, I prefer the good old fashioned Vermont Maple Syrup.”
“I was under the impression that Canada produces better syrup,” mused Ziddet.
“Ah, don’t listen to them! Vermont’s the best!” The syrup came in a can, and I poured it all over my pancakes. Ziddet did the same with a different can (I don’t remember replicating two cans of syrup) and took a bite. As she chewed, her expression changed to one of confusion. It then turned into a look of panic as it looked like she was trying to open her mouth!
“M! MM MMMM M MMM!”
“What did you say?” asked Sonavok.
“MM MMMM M MMM!”
“That’s what I thought you said!” Sonavok then stood up and went to assist Ziddet.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Her mouth’s stuck!” replied Sonavok. I got up and the two of us tried to get her mouth to move. Our efforts were just like the Borg usually called resistance; futile.
“Maybe it’s something she ate,” I muttered. Ziddet then pointed at her plate. I got the hint! “Not my pancakes!” I took her plate and took a bite out of one of her pancakes to prove there was nothing wrong. …Didn’t work out too well. “Okay, I admit the pancakes ain’t exactly hot, but this is Vermont Maple Syrup! You can’t say no to that!” I scraped some of the syrup and gulped it down.
“Wait, which can did you use?” Sonavok asked Ziddet. She pointed to the can she used and Sonavok read the label. Just then, I noticed something was wrong with my mouth. Sonavok’s eye then popped open. “Er, which part of this ‘Vir-mont’ does Stix-fast glue come from?!” Glue?! Oh no! I had a can of glue out to work on an art project! I didn’t put it away. Ziddet read my thoughts through the transceiver and mumbled a flurry of Cardassian curses and swears. I mumbled an assurance and put the kettle on. The steam should melt the glue. The steam came out, then Sonavok took the kettle. Confused, I followed him. “Good idea, Khan!” he said. “The hot water should do the trick!” Ziddet and I read his thoughts and tried to stop him! He managed to hold us both down and poured the contents of the kettle all over our mouths! The glue melted enough to let our screams of pain out! “There, you see?” chuckled Sonavok.
“Got something against Cardassians, do you?!” snapped Ziddet.
“The steam would have been sufficient!” I supplied. “What did you think we were, lobsters?! You trying to boil us?!” We were about to continue berating him when an alert rang through the Collective.
“Target universe located,” reported the Collective’s voice. “Incursion ready.” I replicated ration bars and the three of us abandoned breakfast to get to our stations.
I had a small spy probe, shaped like an octahedron, fly into the universe and look at what was going on. Right now, it seemed like a cul-de-sac within a barren wasteland with people just wandering the area. The probe looked around and saw what looked like red, yellow, and blue clones of a man and a woman wearing dresses of the same colors. They seemed to have the personalities of eager psychiatrists, but I had a feeling that, given the nature of the universe, they were actually prison guards. The people WERE Oni (Japanese ogres). The men in dresses acted rather flamboyant, but very affectionate with everyone, man or woman. The ladies were just as affectionate and flamboyant as the men. The rest of the people were various villains wearing some form of ankle bracelet. I could spot Lord Dominator (the main antagonist of Wander Over Yonder’s second season), Aku (the big bad of Samurai Jack), Fire Lord Ozai (the villain of Avatar: The Last Airbender), Sauron, Saruman, the Nazgûl, Starscream, Skywarp, Sunstorm, the Terrorcons, Primacron, Oyed, Dr. Borg and her fellow Councilors, Intrag, Lord Vortech, Hiro, Igura, and a woman in a pink dress. “They’re all milling around,” remarked Ziddet as our cloaked cube hovered over the area. “I’m giving the order to attack.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” called an assimilated Bajoran woman.
“Why not?”
“Those ankle bracelets deaden the powers of everyone wearing them. We won’t be able to test their skill.”
“We’re not testing their skill,” I interjected. “We’re recruiting them as free agents. We won’t be assimilating them.”
“Why not?!” protested Ziddet and the Bajoran.
“They’re a little against assimilation. I won’t add them to our Collective if they don’t want it.”
“Won’t they work better as part of us?!” asked the Bajoran.
“…I was under the impression your old Borg programming was deleted.” That silenced her. “But you ARE right in that the ankle bracelets are a problem. The probe’s saying that they have a means of tracking their wearers on top of deadening their powers. The Oni are also a problem.”
“Especially their combined forms,” remarked Ziddet. …That was new to me.
“Combined forms?”
“According to the probe, the reason the men and women look the same is because they’re each twelve parts of one man and one woman. The women are all Rallamtan Ferkelturgytqen and the men are all Yemtorpai Uromefyekgufkeh. They can each combine into orange, green, and purple versions of themselves, and they all combine into a black version that makes up their greater whole.”
“There is a potential ally to help cause some chaos in that regard,” observed Sonavok through the Collective. Jatturlan Najkutlentawyug, the butler for the Oni running this place.”
“He has designs?” I asked.
“Designs of civil war in this universe. Particularly this sector.” I couldn’t resist a smirk.
“A Civil War among the damned,” I chuckled. “Sonavok, Ziddet, work your manipulation magic. I want Hiro and his family, Dr. Borg and her councilors, Intrag, and the Terrorcons ready to join us. The rest can squabble to their hearts’ content.”
“As you wish.”