Mimi stood on top of the roof of one of Rogueport’s many ramshackle buildings, examining the door to Flipside carefully. People had started moving in and out of it regularly, ranging from those annoyingly upstanding Starfleet Officers to the sleazy Rogueportians themselves. The door was right there and Mimi was so bored.
She transformed into a goomba and hopped down to the street below, stretching her legs. She hated this two-legged form, but it was the most inconspicuous option in Rogueport, since nobody cared about goombas in the slightest. She walked through the doors behind another goomba and was luckily followed by yet another goomba. They looked like a little troop when first arriving, so nobody singled her out.
“Welcome to Flipside!” Cream said, handing out little brochures. Mimi remembered her, her and her eternal innocence and her excessive cuteness. It took all of Mimi’s restraint to take the brochure, mumble “thanks,” and scurry away without letting some snide comment out.
The top platform of Flipside was not all she’d been expecting, admittedly. It was just some block of stone with doors on the edges. All of them had people going in and out, even the red one, where some bald kid with an arrow on his head was introducing a group of people to a bunch of talking badgers.
If I couldn’t already go to any of the worlds just by thinking, this would be useful. Mimi giggled to herself. But these doofuses have to use doors! Plain ol’ doors! She walked forward, listening for any juicy rumors going on on the platform.
“I hear there’s a ghost pirate that wants to go to space,” a Romulan was saying.
“Hmm… a silly image,” the Cardassian responded.
“Apparently he’s really set on it…”
Boring, Mimi thought, jumping into the elevator. The goomba who had been behind her when coming through the door came with her. Ugh, he thinks he’s with me, doesn’t he? Can’t be having that…
The elevator took them directly to the inhabited city level of Flipside. Most people who came here were struck by the sheer variety of people and customs meshing together. Mimi was not—she was obsessed with finding an easy place to duck and cover. She jumped behind a Starfleet storage container, transforming quickly into a raccoon-esque Mobian and walking out as if nothing was the matter.
Now she could do some real snooping.
A goomba with swirly glasses walked by, talking with a raven Mobian. “Now, I did warn you about Rogueport, did I not?”
The bird grumbled. “Yes, yes, gloat, why don’t you.”
“What I’m curious about is why you aren’t doing anything about it. Why, anyone could come through that door and steal your possessions!”
“We don’t have any government. Can’t exactly do that, the ‘Council’ is just a bunch of representatives that don’t do much.”
“Then formally establish something. You can’t just keep letting yourselves be robbed!”
Mimi would have continued listening, but at this point she noticed she was being followed by an orange Mobian. Ugh, I just shook that goomba, now these animals are being too friendly. She speed-waked to a niche between buildings, hopping into it and transforming into an elegant deer. Trotting out, she noticed that the Mobian that had been following her was gone. Wait… what?
She suspected something was up now, but she couldn’t see anything wrong at the moment. So she moved on to find another interesting conversation.
“Iroh, Iroh!” a human said, holding a microphone with a Federation symbol on it. “You were the first of the Council here, do you agree with the people’s consensus that Flipside needs organization?”
Iroh grinned. “Well, certainly!”
“What place does the Federation have in that organization?”
“Better question!” a Cardassian shouted—a cutie-pie of a Cardassian, if Mimi had anything to say about it. “What place does the Cardassian Union have?”
Iroh forced a nervous grin. “I couldn’t tell you what place the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation had, it is not just my decision! I… all I really wanted to do was sit and serve tea to the tired adventurers who passed through, but that’s clearly not an option anymore.”
“What do you think it should be?”
Iroh waved his hands in mock surrender. “I haven’t thought about it enough to form an opinion!”
“So you admit t—”
“Hey!” Amy shouted, swinging her hammer. “Buzz off!”
Mimi wanted to watch a fight, but apparently Amy’s threats were enough to get the reporters to back away. However, Mimi did notice that a smaller deer was right behind her. It was time for a confrontation. “Okay, what’s your deal?”
“What’s my deal? Slick, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re following me.”
“Psh, be real, I’m just a lowly deer doing lowly deer things.”
An actual deer trotted by them. “It’s obvious that neither of you are real deer.”
“Nobody asked you, Slick!” the other deer shouted.
“Yeah, scram, Doofus!” Mimi added.
The deer rolled his eyes and trotted off.
The other deer transformed into Iroh, grinning. “Well, the jig is up!”
“Can you only turn into things you’ve seen? I’ll show you…” Mimi transformed into a three-headed dolphin with dinosaur legs. “Hah!”
“Oh, wow, I’m soooo impressed.” He transformed into the Cardassian Mimi had seen earlier and started clapping slowly. “Looks like you smashed several dozen things together from a child’s toy box.”
She transformed into a snake with brilliant red eyes and scales made of precious gemstones. “Doessss thissss look like a toy?”
“Too much edge.” He transformed into a direct copy of Amy. “Maybe you could try something a little less extreme? Oh, wait, you don’t have subtlety.”
“Neither do you!” Mimi shouted, transforming into an octopus creature with numerous blades on her tentacles. She attacked—only for the shapeshifter to match her form and meet every tentacle. “You… You idiot!”
“I think I’m rather clever, don’t you?” He chuckled. “Slick, I’ve got you, anything you can do I can do be—”
“True Mimi!, come forth!” Mimi transformed into her little girl form and cracked her neck she usually did to begin the transformation.
“Ugh!” the other shapeshifter dropped back. “Freak!”
“I’ll show you freak!” Mimi’s spider legs burst out of her head as the rest of her body decayed into nothing. “MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI!”
He tried to copy her—but his transforming powers failed him, reverting him to his true form, a simple humanoid creature that looked like a child wearing a bedsheet to look like a ghost.
“Hey, Freak-in-a-sheet! Try this on for size…” Mimi scrambled toward him and easily tossed him to the side with her legs. He transformed into the Cardassian again and shot her with the gun that came with the form, but it bounced right off her aura of invincibility.
“Uh, h-hey Slick, let’s calm down.”
“MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI!” She leaned in, laughing in his face. “My name is Mimi, freak.”
“It’s Doopliss…”
“Freak,” Mimi repeated, refusing to acknowledge his name. “You are nothing, you’re just full of tricks. I have actual power.”
At this point, a nearby table became the consistency of orange syrup and shifted into a humanoid shape with a simple face and a brown uniform. In its hand was a device Mimi didn’t recognize. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you two in for questioning.”
Mimi tilted her chaotic head. “Who are you?”
“Constable Odo, Bajoran Security.” He tapped the side of the device. “One of Doctor Eggman’s little toys. I’m not sure what it will do, admittedly, but he says it should at least immobilize you.”
“Oh ho ho ho!” Eggman said, strolling out from an alleyway. “This is such an excellent duel of the shapeshifters! The ghost, the spider, and the Constable in a three-way!” He pulled out a camera. “I’ve got to get this on tape.”
Odo grunted. “Doctor, this is a breach of security, we need to take this seriously.”
“And you’re a stick in the mud.”
Odo let out a “Humph.” He turned to Mimi. “Now, are you going to come quietly?”
Nope. Mimi jumped into the Void before Eggman’s machine could do anything, appearing back in Castle Bleck. “Ugh! That was terrible! Terrible! Ugh, pointless, agh! AGH!” She kicked the wall with her spiderly legs and continued screeching in an unnatural tantrum.
She had no intention of going back there anytime soon.
Stupid sheet freak.