\\\ The Mirror Universe, 29th Century \\\
"Tell me, was it fun, thinking you could take her away from me?" a Man asks, grasping Braxton by the throat, as most of his officers remain petrified around them, as if stone. The man closes his grasp on Braxton's throat, who chokes defiantly at the madman before him, not giving him any pleasure in this death. "Of course Braxton, you think I wanted her dead?" the man begins to laugh after he says this, before calming down, "Oh, no, no, no, that was just a failed experiment by my scientists to erase a problem, before he ever grew up; I'm sure you know who..."
Suddenly the man pulls out a flat metal disc from a pocket in his robe, which lights up to show a three dimensional view of a single strand of time. "We managed to disrupt his timeline, of course, by infecting him with an experimental chroniton nanite that was supposed to collect and expose his body to stored chroniton energy," the robed man says, "Of course, some rogue Krenim man with goals of fixing his love life, happened to interfere and take a temporal clone of him, right before he was supposed to return to the future and die, aged to dust." Now trying to pull the mans fingers apart, Braxton merely struggled in his vain quest to breath.
"Please,. this is the quietest I've ever seen you be in forever, and don't worry, I won't let you die, yet..." the man says, "You'll be useful to me, much like James O'Brien was, even though he failed to eliminate Gregs ancestor..." At that the man chuckles, and closes the disk. "He thought if he used the device we were looking for, he would be unstoppable, he never understood it's true value to us..." At that the device in his palm lights back up, revealing a massive stone, pulsing a rainbow of colors, yet always seemingly dark red as a human heart, "Now tell me Braxton, can I trust you to retrieve the seed I need for a new pet project of mine?" Braxton merely nods, and is let go, collapsing to the floor.
"Good, good, the order could always need a man from a dead timeline like yours," he says, grabbing Braxton's left hand and scratching the top, "Welcome initiate, into the Ophidian Order, bow to your God, worm, because Typhon shows you mercy this day." The Greek man removes his hood, as Braxton writhes on the floor screaming, the scratch burning into his hand and reconfiguring into a burning scar, bearing a resemblance to an infinity symbol. "Now, let us go home..." Typhon says, raising a staff towards the ships view screen. It shows the space in front of the ship, which ripples before bursting into a harsh, blue spatial anomaly, which glows golden at its center. "Onward, my new pet, into the anomaly," Typhon says, "It's been far too long since I've been home, and I wish to see how the work progresses on our machine..."