Pain is irrelevant.

Seven of Nine’s blunt wisdom echoed through her mind as she slid her fingers into the sticky-wet hole, parting flesh, muscle, and fat with an obstreperous sucking sound. She couldn’t control the tears or the resulting shrieks and jerks as she ripped herself down to the slick, smooth whiteness of the rigid framework that composed her very being.

Her body shudder-shaking, her throat spasming, her guts threatening to vacate, Seven of Nine’s words whisped through her head again.

You will adapt.

With a whimpering cry she blindly fumbled over the floor, grasping a handful of scrap metal ripped from the womb of a long abandon ship. Seven of Nine’s cool metal wrought physique was permanently etched in her mind. Human amalgamated with machine, the epitome of flesh and technology. Pure unadulterated perfection.

Who’s currently fucking the shit out of your first officer.

A long, shapeless sound of sheer anguish issued from her throat as she tucked the filthy metal into her leg. Her breath was wet and ragged, hands unsteady and trembling, her nakedness sheathed in a film of sweat. Her spine gave out and she flopped backwards on the grody floor beneath her, leg convulsing erratically.

She lay for an undetermined amount of time, a small croak of amusement her only offering to the staunch night air. Was this a Starfleet Admiral? Hailed as one of the most brilliant Captains in all of the Federation? The Kathryn Janeway? Naked and shuddering, ripped and torn in her own puerile grief over a silly girl. Dying, immobile in the middle of a filthy floor, her blood caked form illuminated by the fluorescent crackling lights of a deserted old fleet garage. Legs puffy with great black and blue pockets of flesh filled with obsolete parts from ancient machines and sewn shut with rusty industrial wire in a futile attempt to mechanize her self.

To be just like her.

We are Borg.