New Tricks to Learn

"One more time, Glarge. I'm getting close," I said.

[Of course, of course... let me return to the core and get a breath. I will come back to help.] the Jaculus that identified as Glarge replied.

"I'm not an idiot. If you didn't need it refilled, I would not have gotten you out here in the first place. Without access to your realm, I have no way of calling you when I need your help," I retorted, firmly holding onto the shell.

[Fine. Watch closely, Nabaro.] Glarge relented.

The mana in the Jaculus's body gathered and focused at its clawed hand. There was a certain pitch, a certain vibration, a certain frequency of the Space mana as the spell reached its peak, and Glarge pushed out its hand slowly, releasing the mana carefully. The Space in front of it rippled with mana with twenty-seven points along the outer end of the portal that connected through three lines to form a complex pattern. This was the key to opening the gateway between the real world and their pocket dimension.

Glarge slipped into the portal and let it close behind it. I knew it would not leave the shell for long, so I focused on the memory of the Spatial Sigil. Slowly, I gathered my mana into my mana and made it shift into the Space element, gathering in the twenty-seven points. Just as I started to form the lines, the doors of the Aeroponic Bay opened, distracting me and causing the Sigil to collapse.

"Damn," I huffed with annoyance as I felt that I had been close.

"It must be nice to sit around all day," said a familiar crewman.

Maxwell Burke, the former First Officer of the Equinox and general asshole that was worse than his Captain; Ransom felt some guilt for his actions before things were doomed. Burke led a munity against Ransom that led to the destruction of the Equinox and only seven crew members were rescued, in the episode anyways. Of course, with the influence of my group, all seventeen surviving crew members of the Equinox were onboard, including this jackass and Ransom who should have been dead.

All of the members of the Equinox had officially joined Voyager two weeks ago after the Equinox was scrapped for every valuable piece of technology and resources. All of them had been stripped of their ranks and were assigned the most menial tasks. While bringing vegetables to Neelix did fall into that list of duties, Engineering usually had dibs on them, so I never had anyone come here before, but that also explained it. Maxwell had history with B'Elanna, so she had probably let him go early with this last task which saved him from crawling through jefferies tubes for the last hour of his shift.

"At least I've earned my luxuries and not used an ex-girlfriend to skimp out on my punishment for mass murder," I mocked.

Before he could say anything else, Glarge reappeared from a new portal next to me. While it likely was about to spout some other creative way to ask for the shell, it froze as its eyes narrowed on him. The mana in its body began to stir and, as amusing as I would find it to let Glarge kill him, I did not need the trouble.

"Hey, no killing," I chided, poking Glarge's side.

[Torture?] Glarge asked, looking up at me, while Maxwell scoffed at my words.

[No. You can't do anything that would tie you back to an attack on him or the others.] I sent back silently.

"Freak," he spat as he picked up the two baskets of vegetables.

"Maybe, but I get a hell of a lot more sex than you," I retorted with a smug smile.

[Twist Fortune?] Glarge questioned.

[Anything visible?] I asked.

[Nothing.]

[Do it.]

I snickered as I felt Glarge quickly gather its mana and point a tiny, clawed finger at Maxwell's back as he walked out the door. Someone without mana, like most people in the universe, would not be able to sense the spell, but my group would be able to 'see' it coming. Once it settled on him, the spell hid itself and I could no longer sense it, so I was sure that it would be hard to remove.

"So, did you just 'curse' him with 'bad luck'?" I asked while sharing my meaning of the words telepathically.

[Yes, it was a curse.] Glarge agreed.

My eyes widened as I realized that a new form of magic may have opened up to us, but I needed to know more. "Is that the only type of curse you can do? Can you 'bless' someone since you can curse them? Are there any other forms of magic that you know how to use?"

[No blessing. Only Space, Curse, and Drain.] Glarge replied.

"Drain, huh? You're referring to those attacks that you launched on the Equinox crew which drain their vitality," I questioned.

[Yes.]

Although the Drain magic would not too helpful to me, the Curse magic and Space magic would certainly help. If Glarge could be talked into teaching the others, they would certainly be able to expand their repertoire and make our sparring sessions more annoying. With Dragon Age or Skyrim as our next destination, I knew both Curse and Drain magic would be something we would face, so the sooner we started getting used to them, the better.

"Alright, you take this back, but if you would like this," I instructed as I held out the shell with one hand and, above my other hand, I conjured a ball of my Chaos Storm, making Glarge's eyes widen to a comical degree, "you need to come to me tomorrow and return to teaching me how to open a gate to your realm."

[Understood.] Glarge replied with a greedy look at the ball of Chaos mana.

It was not until I dismissed the wisps that Glarge focused on anything aside from them. Glarge grabbed the shell a moment later and then retreated back to its own realm. Shaking my head at its greedy antics, I chuckled lightly and returned my attention to my work.

Echo 'overheard' my conversation with Glarge about the different forms of magic. Aside from obviously wanting to learn the new form of magic, she used Voyager's internal sensors to keep an eye on Maxwell to figure the full effects of Glarge's curse. Over dinner, Echo shared everything unusual that happened to Maxwell throughout the rest of our shifts.

When he dropped off the vegetables in the Mess Hall, Neelix had him come to the back and the burner suddenly malfunctioned, setting his uniform jacket on fire and burning half of his hair off before they could put out the flames. That event led to him going to Sick Bay and, despite the Doctor being the one on duty, the vials for the hypospray somehow got mixed up with nitric acid, not dangerous but much like rubbing salt in a wound. After the Doctor properly treated him, he returned to his quarters, where his other five roommates were already resting, and went to sit down with a ration packet... only for his chair to break and drop him to the ground as he sat down.

Obviously, the Curse magic was very effective, and we could all see the potential that it would have... as well as enjoyed a few laughs at Maxwell's expense. Glarge returned to my side the next day, ready to start teaching me properly. I was able to open the portal to their realm before the end of my shift, though the plants in the Aeroponics Bay did not get as much of a boost as normal.

I trained with Glarge regularly in my free time over the next week, now that I could access their realm. Unfortunately, I had made little progress with learning the Curse magic, though the Drain magic came to me easily as it was similar to how my Chaos Storm broke down mana and absorbed it, except this stole the victims' vitality, restoring stamina and slightly healing.

I had been working on the Bridge when Harry picked up a space station on long-range sensors and they were even broadcasting a welcoming message. It was no surprise when Janeway decided to change course and head to the station after a short conversation with the overseer of the station. He was polite, introducing his race as the Markona, and transmitted a list of regulations that anyone visiting the station would be expected to follow; there was nothing crazy on it, so Janeway had no problem agreeing to his terms.

The space station was absolutely massive, like a floating city out in the middle of nowhere. It had plenty of docking spaces with over twenty huge ships already docked, and room for at least twenty more, and at any given moment, you could see freighters, warships, and private cruisers coming and going. The exterior was a mix of reinforced plating and docking arms, glowing with navigation lights as smaller ships zipped around like busy insects. From a distance, the whole thing looked less like a station and more like an artificial planet, sitting out in the void, holding together a whole ecosystem of travelers, traders, and crew.

After a bit of negotiation and docking at the space station, Janeway allowed the crew to take shore leave and even opened Voyager to the different aliens on the station. My group quickly shifted to graveyard shifts in our various departments as we did not need to sleep much, which allowed more of the crew to enjoy their time on the station. Of course, I wanted to go out and see the sights, so I dragged my whole group out, including Seven, to her light annoyance.

The station was alive with energy. Neon-lit bars were packed with pilots, smugglers, and traders swapping stories over stiff drinks. Recreation halls offered everything from combat simulators to zero-G sports, giving people something to do between long-haul trips. The massive trade center was always buzzing, filled with vendors selling everything from high-end ship parts to black-market tech scavenged from abandoned colonies. The admin sector kept things running, air traffic, docking permissions, station security, while the lower levels housed staff quarters for the permanent crew. Then there were the gardens, a rare spot of green in all the metal and machinery, where people could take a breath of fresh air and forget, just for a moment, that they were drifting in the middle of space.

By our second day at the station, I realized that we were on the brink of an episode, only needing a couple more days. Thankfully, there was nothing that threatened the ship as a whole, but a few ghosts from Seven's past would come and find her. The three ex-drones had been members of her unimatrix and were searching for her because they were locked in their own collective, just the three minds.

My experience with Echo before we learned how to divide our minds allowed me to know just how difficult it must have been for the trio. Constantly, their thoughts would be mixing in their minds, blurring the line between individuality among them. Sadly, their only option for survival was to return to the Borg as removing the secondary cortex that linked them would cause them to die in a month at most. It came down to Seven's decision in the episode and, doing her best to honor their wishes, she told the Doctor to remove the second cortex and allow them to be individuals again, even if it was for a short time.

The incident that led to them being linked together was caused by Seven herself. They had been on a Borg sphere which crash landed on a planet with only the four of them surviving, but they were damaged and their link to the Collective was severed. While they were able to slowly recover their memories and regain their desire for freedom, Seven had been assimilated as a young, frightened girl and all she knew was life in the Collective. In her fear, she reassimilated them to get them under control until they were rescued since she was scared to be alone.

Even if Seven had not joined our group, there was no way that we would ignore the situation that she was in and the guilt that she felt over it. Thankfully, Katye's knowledge of Borg assimilation technology was second to no one but the Collective, and she had far more tricks than them to handle any problems that could arise. This whole event was a great chance for Katye to practice on real people for the day that she would remove the technology from Echo and me.

A few days later when the trio of ex-Borg confronted Seven, I caught them similarly to how Tuvok had in the episode, stopping them as they were trying to mess with Seven's alcove. Their story was the same as in the episode and, with Katye, the Doctor, and Danara there to work together, they managed to remove the second cortex from their brains safely. Two of them, native to the Delta Quadrant, decided to stay on the station when Voyager left while the third, a Bajoran woman named Marika Wilkarah, asked to join Voyager and Janeway restored her previous rank and position as a lieutenant in Engineering.

While I would not call it anti-climactic, the events of the episode were handled easily, including the bar fight that Tom and Harry had been in. Echo and L'Naan made a point of being there for it and were kind enough to restrain any use of mana. Of course, they went through multiple body refinements during our time in Sancu's twisted game in the underworld, so they were still overpowered compared to a normal person, but they enjoyed themselves anyways. It was yet another sign that we were overpowered for this universe now.

A/N: I have released my new original story, named "Job Title: Goddess", and have 5 chapters out. I'm not exactly sure on the release schedule, but I will try for once a week until I have a good stock built up.