Mission 10: Mixed Nuts
Rating: PG-12/K+
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
[Disclaimer: The badfic Immortal belongs to To’M’L Kuran. Stargate belongs to MGM, not us. The PPC does not belong to us either. Thanks go to Caddy-shack, Tranum, and Miah for beta duty. This mission is a collaboration between Guvnor Of Space and Pretzel.]
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Agent Thomas Greenwall was busy hanging a sniper rifle on the wall of his Response Center when the alarm went off.
[Beeeeeeeep beeeeeeep beep beep beep beepbeepbeep beep. BEEEP beep beep beep beep beep]
Orken, who was sitting in front of the console and cleaning his P-90, shut off the alarm. He began examining the report. “Hmm. It would appear to be another Stargate fic. I wonder why Upstairs does not vary our missions more.”
Thomas, who had finished hanging the sniper rifle, shrugged. “I don’t know Orky. Maybe they like having me watch my favorite canon torn and defiled by Sues and having me bang my head on the wall.”
“I doubt very much anyone Upstairs has a personal vendetta against you, Agent Thomas.” Secretly, he thought his partner might have a point. Thomas was a very annoying young man.
Orken reached the end of the report and frowned. “Hm. It says we’ll be working with other agents on this one. Let us hope they are professional, competent individuals.”
~/~
The inhabitants of RC 6237 were enjoying the brief quiet of their home, with Lee nursing a headache caused by overexposure to mint tea and Ian trying to keep out of her way. Lee was curled up with her blanket over her head. Mariposa, her cat, was trying to play with Lee, but was so far being studiously ignored.
“Go play with Shepard, ‘Posa, and leave me alone,” Lee muttered, pulling the blanket even tighter over her head. Ian sighed, setting down his book and getting up from the chair he’d been sitting in for the past half hour.
“Lee, are you sure you don’t want any pain meds?” he asked, looking down at the blanket-covered lump that was his partner.
“The pain meds wouldn’t help relieve this burning sensation of embarrassment I’ve got, so no, I’ll suffer through it,” Lee replied. Ian rolled his eyes and shook his head in amusement.
“Well, once you’re done dying of shame in there-- which, as I’ve told you repeatedly, is an entirely unnecessary thing to do --you can come and eat something with me. I’m going to see what we have in the fridge.”
Ian had only taken a few steps towards the kitchen area when the console started blaring its customary [BEEEEEEEP!] at them, which was interspersed with the [Bip! Bip! Bip!] of an incoming message. Lee swore heavily at the obnoxiously loud machine, fighting to muffle the sound with her blankets. Ian ran over to the console and slammed the “mission accept” button, cutting off the alarm in mid-BEEP.
“Hey, Lee, it’s a Stargate mission,” Ian said, scrolling through the report. “SG-1, or so it seems.” He took a look at the accompanying message, one eyebrow briefly rising as he read. “Apparently, we’re going to be partnered up with another DMS team. Let’s see... RC 16202535.”
Amid various mutterings against sadistic Flowers and the evils of mint tea from Lee, the two grabbed their gear and headed out, leaving their RC behind. Lee’s rant continued on as she and Ian wandered the halls, making for a great distraction. They managed to find the appropriate RC within fifteen minutes, Lee falling silent just as the door appeared.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said, and then knocked sharply on the door several times.
It was promptly answered by a young man wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. He held out his hand to the two agents. “Hey Orky! The dudes we’re doing the mission with are here! My name’s Thomas, and that dude in there is Orken.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “He likes it if you call him ‘Agent Orken,’ so please don’t.”
Ian shook Thomas’ hand, saying, “I’m Ian, and this is Lee. Don’t mind her; she’s a little grumpy at the moment. We just came back from a particularly annoying NCIS mission. Anyways, it’s good to meet you, Thomas.” He stepped inside, Lee following along behind him. Ian nodded at Orken. “Agent Orken, it’s good to meet you.”
Orken nodded back. “Likewise, Agent Ian. Please, come into our response center. I trust you have read the report on this fic?”
Ian smiled. “You can just call me Ian, and yes, we’ve read the report. Out of curiosity, how much experience do you have with the Stargate fandoms? Lee and I are pretty conversant with them-- Lee more than most with the Atlantis fandom --but the report didn’t say anything about you and Thomas.”
“Please don’t ask why I know Atlantis better than most,” Lee said, speaking for the first time since she and Ian had arrived. “It’s a very long story, and honestly, not something I want to share right now.”
Thomas piped up. “Don’t worry dude, I’m the expert here. Orky has some familiarity with it, but I’m definitely more knowledgeable. He also understands not wanting to share things, what with that thing he had with Luxur-”
“Agent Thomas!” Orken shouted.
“Fine, dude. I won’t tell them about you and--”
“That is enough!”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “He’s touchy because she sent him a message recently about meeting up again.”
Orken grumbled under his breath. Ian and Lee exchanged glances; Luxury was a legend throughout HQ, and both counted themselves lucky to have never caught the Bad Slasher’s attention.
“Maybe we should get started on the mission,” Lee suggested. “I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible.”
Orken nodded quickly. “Excellent idea, Agent Lee.” He grabbed his already packed back-pack. Thomas did the same, and also grabbed his AK-47. Orken, who was still trying very hard not to think about Luxury, did not comment. He began fiddling with the console. “Hmmm. Do you think we should go with Air Force personnel or Abydonian villagers on this mission? Or does one of you have a DORKS?”
“Well, we do have a DORKs,” Lee said, ignoring Orken’s awkwardness. “But I think we’ll be safe with Air Force personnel. It’s what Ian and I normally go as in SG-1 missions, anyways.”
Thomas grinned. “We usually pretend to be Russians.” He hoisted his AK for emphasis. “This fic is early though, so no Russian SG teams for me to pretend to be a part of... hmm. I can be some sort of liaison officer!”
Orken rolled his eyes. “That would be a major canon violation. Just leave it here.”
“But--”
“No buts.”
“Dude--”
“No ‘dudes’ either!”
Dejectedly, Thomas hung his gun on its wall pegs. Orken handed him an MP5A3 from his gun cabinet, and grabbed one for himself. Thomas looked at it with confusion. “Why not- oh, right. They used these things for the first few seasons of the show.” He glanced at the other two agents. “You dudes need guns?”
“We’re good, thanks,” Ian said, patting the Beretta he used on Stargate missions. Lee had a similar one already in a thigh holster, while Ian kept his gun in a belt holster. It wasn’t exactly canon, but he preferred it over the thigh holster. “Berettas were used in most of the entirety of the series, so we’ll fit in,” Ian continued on. “Oh, before we go, could you make sure that my hair’s going to be regulation? I’ll attract far too much attention with the dreads.”
Orken gestured at Thomas. “His isn’t either. I have the disguise generator set to automatically shorten hair to regulation length.”
Thomas nodded sadly. “He takes away my hair. My beautiful, beautiful hair.”
Orken rolled his eyes. “Shall we get going?”
“Yes,” Lee said, rubbing at the back of her neck. She was starting to get tense there, a sure sign that she probably should’ve taken Ian up on his offer of painkillers earlier. No matter. She had Bleeprin in her pack if things got too bad.
Orken opened up a portal and stepped through. Thomas followed him. Ian and Lee trooped along behind their fellow DMSers, both ready to get back to work in a familiar fandom.
The agents emerged what looked like an empty museum. No time had been spent on describing it, so all that was present was one loudspeaker, a young woman, Major Samuels and his men, and the four agents. Orken gestured towards the group, indicating they should pretend to be a part of it.
"The museum will be closing in five minutes," a voice through the loudspeaker said.
"Major, do you really think that's her?" one of the men with Major Samuels asked. "She looks too young and at too boring a job to be this accomplished doctor we're looking for."
Thomas groaned, and using the body of one of the airmen in front of him as cover, noted down charges. Lee glanced ahead in the Words and sighed. “Well, at least she’s older than the last one,” she said. “Seventeen’s a bit young for a doctor, though.”
“Just a little,” Ian agreed sarcastically. He hated Sues that held higher academic titles than they should at inappropriate ages, having worked hard just to get his bachelor’s degree when he’d attended college back home. “She would’ve had to gone to college at-” He did a little mental math and then scowled. “Nine years of age, if she didn’t just skip middle and high school all together. Glod, that’s annoying.”
Thomas nodded, commenting “I suspect I know the reason she’s good at ‘getting things that to work that no one else could.’ It most likely involves either plot holes or her Aura of Smooth. Why do some Sues have to be so obvious?”
Orken nudged him. “She’s not as obvious as that secret Australian O’Neill daughter.”
Thomas shuddered. “Don’t remind me, dude.”
The fic, meanwhile, was marching on. The Sue led Samuels and his men into a conference room, where they were to discuss just why the SGC needed her help. But first...
The Sue climbed on the chairs and disabled the security cameras.
"Okay, now no stupid security guard will stumble across whatever you gentlemen are about to reveal to me."
Thomas whispered to the others. “How... how... they’re cameras. Not microphones...” He looked longingly at one of the conference room walls. “Hi there, Mr. Wall. I would love to introduce you to my forehead...”
Orken nudged him. “Not right now. We need to stay unnoticed.” He turned to the other agents. “I apologize for my partner’s behavior. I promise, he will not do anything stupid, no matter how much he may threaten to.”
Ian shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “And as for the cameras... well, maybe some of the guards could read lips?”
“Ian, please don’t try to make sense of her actions,” Lee pleaded. “I’ve got enough of a headache as it is.”
As they talked, there was a sudden temporal-spatial shift that took the agents from the unnamed generic museum and plopped them into the SGC. They landed right outside of General Hammond’s office, and Ian quickly opened a nearby door and pulled Lee inside, trusting Orken and Thomas to follow after them. The room he’d found was an empty office, something Ian was grateful for. It meant less of a chance of being noticed by the Sue, something that probably was good, considering how speshul she seemed to be.
Lee took a seat on a nearby rolling chair, while Ian leaned against a wall, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused as he read along with the Words.
Thomas groaned as he read the Words. “Of course she knows O’Neill. Of course he has a cute little nickname for her. Dude....” He began banging his head on the concrete wall.
Orken gave the other two agents a glance. “Ignore him. This is better then hearing him spout gibberish about vegetables and Roman emperors.”
“Vegetables and Roman emperors? That must be quite a story,” Lee said, carefully ignoring the fact that not two hours ago she’d been in a mint-induced stupor that had severely incapacitated her, though she had managed to help fight and then tie up the Stu she and Ian had been chasing.
Orken shrugged. “I don’t know the story either. Thomas hasn’t said anything about it. He overdosed on Bleeprin soon afterwards, so I didn’t get a chance to ask. I’m not sure he knows why, and I’d rather not dredge up traumatic memories.”
“Oh, for the love of- Why is she tied to the criminal underworld?” Ian asked, fingers tapping rapidly on the butt of his gun, as if he sorely wanted to use it on the Sue right then and there. “I mean, what possible reason could she have for having sources with ‘connections and secrets to the top of the criminal food chain’? Does it actually help in any way with her work?”
Orken was also looking at the words and rolled his eyes. The Sue was examining the Jaffa bodies that had been captured during Apophis’ raid of the SGC. “The Sue has now officially inserted herself without good reason into a canon event. Charge for that.”
Orken suddenly said "What’s this all about?" He frowned, but no-one else seemed to notice the brief second of possession, so he ignored it. He would have Thomas write down the charge later.
Thomas stopped his headbanging long enough to write charges. Orken was worried when he heard what sounded like a muttered ‘hail to Julius.’
Two mini-Mastadges appeared in the conference room. Orken gave them a single glance, before turning back to the words. “And those two must be Kowalski and Ferrdie.”
“They’re adorable,” Lee said, wincing when Jack said, “He sneezed a lot! Basically he was a geek, Sir. You, Selene, are not. You're cool. And you don't sneeze your brains out."
“Okay, while Jack said something similar to that, why would he think that Selene was “cool” when he didn’t like Daniel?” Ian asked. “I mean, what did she have that Daniel didn’t?”
“Breasts?” Lee suggested, and then dodged the ball of paper Ian threw at her in response. “What? You asked a stupid question, you get a stupid answer.”
"So you didn't have time for him?" the major asked.
"I didn't say that! He also found the way home for my men, Selene, and m; something like that kind of makes a person grow on you."
Thomas backed away from where he as pounding his head against the wall when a large capital ‘M’ appeared in front of him. It jumped about on its three points of contact with the ground. “EM!” it yelled.
Orken gave it an appraising look. “I have never seen an animate letter before. Most interesting.”
Lee gave the ‘M’ a wary look; its high-pitched voice had a British accent that reminded her of Judi Dench’s in her role of “M” in the most recent James Bond movie. “What are you going to do with that?” she asked as General Hammond took Selene and Jack to the Gate Room, where the bomb the General was planning on sending to Abydos was being prepared.
Orken shrugged. “Keep it if you want. We have enough things hanging around our Response Center.”
“I’m good, thanks,” Lee said, returning her attention back to what was going on. Selene was talking with General Hammond about the bomb about to be sent to Abydos.
"General, you can't do that," She protested.
"The count down's already started…unless either of you have something to add."
"General Hammond," Jack said, "I regret to inform you that my report was not entirely accurate."
"You didn't detonate the bomb."
"Well yes and no," Selene said.
"I did detonate the bomb," Jack said. "But it was aboard Ra's spacecraft when it went off and eliminated the threat. However it was in orbit at the time. Nothing on the planet was destroyed."
“Thank you, brief interjection of canon,” Ian muttered. “Of course, it’s basically just copy-pasted from the transcripts of the episode, but something’s better than nothing.”
Canon continued from that point, with the Sue making almost no impact. She was dragged to a holding room with O’Neill, and here was were things got odd.
Selene missed Skaara. What they had had on Abydos was special.
Thomas had taken a break from banging his head on the wall, because of a lack of anything awful, but his eyes bugged out as he read this. “Wait. She has a relationship with Skaara? Dudes, that’s a first.”
Lee nodded. “I don’t think I’ve come across anyone with Skaara as an LO. At least she’s not going for Daniel Jackson like most Sues do.”
General Hammond came into the holding room a few minutes later, giving his canonical talk about how he wasn’t going to be sending the bomb to Abydos. The Sue, of course, would be joining SG-1 and SG-2 on the mission to Abydos, and was thinking about how much she missed Skaara and Daniel.
Selene was excited about going back to Abydos: she missed Danny; she missed the hot, dry air of the desert; she missed the feeling of the sun on her face; she missed the smells of the Abydos village; but, most of all, she missed Skaara and what they'd had when they were together on Abydos. Since she was always ahead of her own age group, and therefore never with people her own age, she had never had a boyfriend before, and, after meeting Skaara, she didn't want another one. She wanted Skaara; no one else.
Orken frowned. “Hmm. Skaara is from a primitive tribe. Why would she feel more of a connection to him than anyone else if she is claiming her intellect separates her from her peers?” He grumbled under his breath. “Sue logic. Shouldn’t be questioning it...”
Suddenly, Orken ran from the room. Thomas looked after him. “Where are you going, dude?”
Orken shouted back. “I’m possessed! Get out the Dummy, Agent Thomas...” His voice faded as the distance between himself and the other agents grew.
Thomas ran out of the room. “Come on dudes! We’ll leave the M and the minis here. We need to catch up with Orky!”
“Damn, he runs fast!” Lee said, sprinting after Thomas and Orken. Ian kept pace with Lee as they ran through the halls of the SGC, but was unable to stop himself from crashing into Lee and Thomas as a sudden scene change sent them to Abydos and the gate room there. Luckily, they were in the shadows, so the resultant pile-up went unnoticed.
There was a moment of silence, and then Lee said, “Ian, as much as I like you, please get your elbow out of my stomach. And whoever’s hand that is, you’d better move it. Otherwise, you’re in danger of losing it.”
Thomas quickly pulled his hand back against his body. Ian and Lee got to their feet, Ian holding out a hand for Lee to brace herself against before brushing himself off.
Orken was standing with the canon characters, and another mini-Mastadge, Ferredi. Suddenly, he went running forwards.
"SKAARA!" he yelled, tackling Skaara in a giant hug. He had a disgusted look on his face, and Thomas couldn’t help but giggle. Orken hated hugs.
"Selene?" after a moment of confusion, he hugged me back.
“No wonder he’s confused.” Thomas giggled some more. Ian and Lee exchanged glances, Lee fighting a smile before she had to muffle her laughter with her hands.
“You know, I would’ve thought the Sue would have possessed Lee, since she’s the only woman around besides Sam,” Ian said, chuckling softly at the situation. “I wonder what made the Sue pick him.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out,” Lee said as Orken went over and hugged Daniel Jackson. "I missed you Danny." Orken said, looking absolutely mortified at what he was doing.
"I missed you too."
There was some discussion about going to see the hidden room with all the gate addresses when Skaara asked, “Selene, will you come with me?”
Orken got a rather pained smile on his face and took Skaara’s hand. He looked desperately at Thomas. “Get the dummy!”
Thomas gulped. “Oh yeah, that.” He dug through his back, eventually finding the dummy. “Got it dude!” He threw it on the ground and... nothing happened. He realized he had forgot to repair it after the last time he had used it. “Uh oh, dude.”
Orken had moved to the entrance of the cave and was cuddling with Skaara.
Thomas dug desperately through his pack. “I know I probably have duct tape in here somewhere...”
Ian turned to Lee. “Do you still have a Dummy in your bag?” Lee shook her head.
“No; I cleaned everything out before we went on the NCIS mission,” she replied. “I put the Dummy in the storage cupboard because we didn’t need it. Sorry.”
Meanwhile, Skaara and Orken were talking about a girl Skaara had asked his father for permission to marry.
"I have asked my father permission to marry."
Orken sat up and blushed. "Anyone I know?" he asked awkwardly.
"I think you do. I met her long ago, but she left this place. My father gave me permission to ask her to marry me if she ever came back."
"Has she?"
"Maybe."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Maybe..."
"Skaara!"
"I'll tell you...if you can catch me!" he smirked and as he got up and ran.
The two ran around the pyramid, which gave Orken a chance to give the broken dummy a look of dismay. “Agent Thomas! Get that thing fixed!”
Thomas continued searching his pack, when suddenly the scene shifted. Apparently, they were in a flashback. Skaara and Orken talked about how Skaara had rescued him and “his team” when suddenly, they kissed. Thomas’ mouth fell open. “Dude... I am so, so sorry.”
“I think I might have some duct tape in here,” Lee said, rooting around in her bag as the flashback ended and the fic shifted back to the previous scene. Skaara and Orken talked for a little bit, and then Skaara did something that made Lee stop mid-rummage and stare at him with her mouth open: he proposed.
“I- What?” She turned to Ian and Thomas. “What good reason would she have for getting married at seventeen? I mean, I know Skaara’s culture would likely have him marrying young, but why is she going along with it?”
Thomas groaned. “I hate ‘true wuv’” He reached the bottom of his bag and realized he did not have any duct tape. He did, however, have two seasons of Stargate SG-1. “Dudes... I think we’re going to have to leave him like that. We can exorcise him, maybe.”
Predictably, the Sue accepted the marriage proposal, and Orken kissed Skaara on the cheek. Skaara put a half moon necklace around Orken’s neck and Thomas grumbled, “No fair. I want a necklace.”
Meanwhile, the important canons left to go look at the cartouche Daniel had found, and the Sue stayed behind. Everyone began drinking a local drink, a mini-mastadge by the name of “Colnel” joining the agents as they did so. Some was even given to Orken, who looked grateful; that was, until “his insides were on fire.” Then he looked alarmed. “AGENT THOMAS, WHY ISN’T THAT DUMMY WORKING?”
Lee resumed her frantic searching, swearing when she pulled out everything but a working Crash Dummy and duct tape. “Why don’t I have any tape? Even Scotch tape would do!” she said, and then quickly stuffed everything back into her satchel. As she shoved a particularly obstinate three-foot long walking stick into her bag-- the insides of the bag had been enchanted with a near-limitless Spell of Holding --the Gate started up and the Abydonian women and children ducked for cover and the rest of the others in the room grabbed a gun and aimed it at the rotating gate.
The defense they mounted was sort of pathetic, since everyone in the room was trying to grab a single gun. Thomas was not surprised when people started being captured, but when a young man with glowing eyes looked with surprise at Orken and said "You have been running for a long time, Nut, but I have finally found you,” Thomas got a worried look on his face. “Uh... this Sue is obviously a long lost something. Let’s hope it’s not something that has powers.”
There was a flash, and suddenly the agents found themselves in a dream.
"You have betrayed me Nut," a cold voice.
"I was never yours."
"Ra gave you to me."
"I do not take orders from Ra. Nor should you brother."
"You may not like the ways of the System Lords, but you are still bound to them."
"See this is why Father liked me best: I made my own path. He thought I would be the one to overthrow his father and take Ra's place as a System Lord. You are too obediant Geb."
"And see where your disobediance has gotten you: chained up like a dog."
"Yes about that: UNTIE ME AND GIVE ME BACK MY CHILD!"
"That is not up to me. Enjoy dying for all eternity in a cage Nut.
Thomas paled. “Uh oh. I think Nut’s a Goa’uld. That means... how would that even work? How could... I’m confused...”
“Well, traditionally, Nut- pronounced “newt” -is the sky goddess in Egyptian mythology,” Ian said, assuming a teacherly air. “Given that the Goa’uld in the first few seasons tended to lean towards the Egyptian pantheon, I think we can safely say that she’s a Goa’uld. I think we were lucky that she chose an actual figure from Egyptian mythology.”
“She’s still a Goa’uld, Ian, no matter if she’s from the Egyptian pantheon or not,” Lee said. “I wonder how Orken is dealing with this.”
The dream ended, and the three agents found themselves in a generic room. Orken was in the center of it, and the young man from earlier was standing over him. Orken was wearing a dress, and looking panicked.
The Sue asked outraged questions (using Orken’s voice) and demanding answers. The only useful part of the conversation was that the young man identified himself as Klorel. Then...
(Oh, I'm just going to point out this: I know you're probably all reading Nut the same way as the food like almonds and peanuts and what not, but every book I've read when doing reasearch on the Egyptian religion said her name is pronounced NOOT like the animal newt. If this doesn't make sense to you, then just remember that its a different language and its not Latin based so there are different vowels than English.)
Ian blinked. “Does she honestly think we’re that stupid?” he asked. “We all know Ancient Egyptian is a different language. It predates Latin by several hundred years; of course it wouldn’t be Latin based.”
“Okay, now you’re just showing off, Ian,” Lee said, faintly amused. Ian gave her a look, and then shrugged.
“Hey, I might as well use my linguistics degree for something.”
Thomas rolled his eyes as they hit another scene change, this time taking them to the prison area where Skaara, Daniel and O’Neill were. Orken was still wearing a dress.
The four of them discussed what was happening, and it was revealed that the Sue used to dream about Geb and Klorel. Thomas grumbled about overused cliches.
“Hey, what’s a “compony boys”?” Lee asked as the chapter ended and the next began.
“Some sort of ‘My Little Pony’ offshoot?” Ian suggested as the doors opened and in walked the gou'uld and their possy of jaffa.
"Kneel before you gods!" one ordered and they started forcing people to the floor.
“And yet another mini,” Lee said, beckoning the mini-Unas gou’uld towards her. “How many of these do we have now?”
Thomas shrugged. “No idea, dude.”
Skaara-his face full of furry-refused until Jack convinced him.
Thomas sputtered in rage as Skaara’s face became covered in fur. “GAH! No! That’s wrong. Dudes!”
“Oh, definitely,” Ian agreed, wincing at the sight of Skaara’s face. “Let’s hope it fades soon.”
“Yeah,” Lee muttered as Orken said, "I love you Skaara. I'm so sorry."
He looked at Orken with confusion, but before Orken could explain he was roughly grabbed by his hair. Orken, with his short hair cut, was making this difficult.
“Oh, that looks like it hurt,” Lee said, wincing at the look of vague pain on Orken’s face. “That’s why I keep my hair short. It’s harder to pull that way.” While she had had long hair during her time in the “Stargate Atlantis” continuum, she’d gotten it cut back to its normal bob soon after her arrival back at HQ.
After protesting from the Sue possessing Orken, the Jaffa dragged off Orken and Skaara. Thomas looked at the other two agents. “Uh dudes... we should portal to the next part of the story. I don’t want to have to wander around the palace, and Orken had my RA.”
“Don’t worry; I’ve got ours,” Ian said, producing said equipment from his pocket. He opened a portal to the next part of the story. Skaara and Orken were laying stomach-down on a table, though thankfully their clothes had been kept on. Skaara and Orken began talking, with Orken saying, "It's my fault you were taken."
"How can you say such a thing?"
"Because it is true," Klorel said as he entered the room. "Leave," at his word, the jaffa in the room got up and left. "Had she not been hosting Nut, I may have passed her by without second thought. Although maybe not: you are very beautiful. But I just could not pass up the opportunity to mess with her mind some more. That is where you come into this little game."
“Overdramatic, much?” Lee asked, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, I know he’s a Goa’uld, but still.”
“I think he’s turned into the stereotypical Card-Carrying Villain of this fic,” Ian said. “Of course, that’s the whole point of the Goa’uld in SG-1, so I don’t know if that trope really applies here.”
Thomas was ignoring the other two agents and staring at Orken. “I think I figured out why the Sue’s possessing him. It must be because of Nut. I think Nut recognized Orken was a fellow brain stealing alien dude, or something like that.”
Then, as Klorel told Nut it was time to wake from her sleep, Orken began screaming, and clutching his arm hard enough to draw blood. Thomas worriedly yelled, “Orken!” He was about to rush forward to help his partner when he was grabbed by Ian, who, by dint of having at least four inches on Thomas, was able to hold back the younger agent with ease.
“I know you want to go help Orken, but now’s not the time,” Ian said, holding Thomas in a tight bear hug. “We’ll exorcise him, but we have to keep getting charges. Now, if I let you go, do you promise not to try and run?”
Thomas was getting really tired of being grabbed by other agents. Fighting never did him any good, so he just slumped and resignedly said “Yes...”
“You should not have awaken me,” Nut-as-Orken said, his voice carrying the double-timbre of a Goa’uld.
"Welcome back Nut," Klorel said with a wicked smirk.
"Are you mad? Everything was going so well! She had finally gotten the life she should have had back and you took it from her!"
"Her life was never going to be normal; you should not have tried."
“Why would a Goa’uld care about the life its host did or didn’t have?” Lee asked as Ian carefully released his hold on Thomas.
“It wouldn’t,” Ian said. Lee nodded and then added this latest charge to the list.
With Orken no longer in obvious pain, Thomas had begun thinking. He was not accustomed to thinking while in badfic, but he was worried about Orken. He realized that Nut might not be part of the possession. If Nut was an actual Goa’uld, extracting him was going to be very difficult. He did not voice his concerns, however, because he had no experience with possessions and did not wish to appear foolish after his recent outburst. His zoned out state allowed him to see the words, which instantly wiped all thoughts from his head and replaced them with anger.
“Gah! Dudes, look at the words!”
I remembered now. I was born hundreds of years ago in Greece, but my family had been exiled and we were going to Egypt to live. When Ra invaded Earth, I was one of the people he'd taken. I was host to his granddaughter Nut. She was head-strong and rebelious. Everything Ra told her to do, she disobeyed. That's how he tricked her into being with Geb. Everything that was recorded by the ancient Egyptians was recorded as Ra had instructed. Nut wasn't happy until Klorel had come along and they'd fallen in love. At first, it was competition: who could have the bigger ambition. But they got close. They'd had a child, a child that I was awake for instead of Nut. I suffered Ra's abuse, but I never told him who the father was, not because of the threats that Klorel had given me, but because I cared for the child. Even though it had not been my will to have the child in the first place, it was still my child. That child was killed in front of my very eyes. That's where the story of the separation of Geb and Nut came from: we-Nut and myself-were locked away and forced to die over and over and over until a servant came and let us lose and escape to earth while the humans rebelled against Ra. With the help of the Asgard, Nut was able to reduce my age, seal my memories, and keep me safe and young until a time when I could find a family that would take care of me. She felt she owed me that much. Daniel's family had found me in a dig in Egypt and I was only a child with no memory. They took me as their own daughter and Danny and I grew as siblings.
“Oh, for the love of- Infodump, much? Also, why the hell would the Asgard help a Goa’uld? That totally goes against their policy of not getting involved with the Goa’uld!” Lee snapped, growling under her breath at the audacity of the Sue. “And why is this Goa’uld so philanthropic? Unless she follows Egeria’s mindset of the Goa’uld being power-hungry gods is a bad idea, she has no reason to do all of this.”
Thomas shrugged. “I guess that’s what the author was going for. But dudes, the Asgard can’t de-age people either. That’s a blatant charge right there!” He looked at his list. “Actually, I think that’s all we needed. If you guys don’t object, I want to kill the thing that’s been hurting my partner.”
“No, but keep in mind, we’ve got to deal with Klorel, Skaara, and the rest of the canons,” Ian said. “Not to mention charge the Sue, which will be interesting, given the fact that she’s technically your partner at the moment.”
Lee ran a pensive hand over her face. “How are we going to separate Nut from Orken? We don’t have the Tok’ra device, and I don’t feel comfortable bringing a Season One Sue to a post-series canon location at the Tok’ra homeworld.”
Thomas shrugged. “Orken always does this kind of stuff with the two of us. Uh... we can portal to this one beach in Florida we use with Orken. I’d say the first thing we do is exorcise the Sue out of him. I don’t know after that. I just really want her dead.” Thomas adjusted the magazine in his sub-machine gun. “So, on the count of three, we take them. One, two, THREE!” Thomas, not waiting for the other two agents, charged forwards, his gun firing wildly into the air. That got the attention of everyone in the room. With all eyes on him, he pointed the gun at Klorel. “Alright canon dudes, don’t move.”
“Flaming Denethor!” Ian said, throwing Lee an annoyed look before following after Thomas. Lee was right behind him, drawing her Beretta with a practiced movement. She leveled her gun at Klorel as well, keeping an eye on Orken and Skaara as well. Ian, moving quickly, untied Orken and hauled him off the table. Nut-as-Orken struggled a bit, but Ian held on the best he could.
“Lee, Thomas, the charges!” Ian snapped, and Lee nodded.
“Thomas, do you have the charge list?” she asked, keeping her gun steadily trained on Klorel.
Thomas nodded. “Yeah dudes! Portal us somewhere remote. I don’t feel like trying to perform my first exorcism while pointing our guns at the canon dudes.” He gave Klorel in his not!Skaara host body a brief glance and said, “And the marginally canon ones.”
“This is your first exorcism?” Lee asked, cautiously holstering her gun and then activating the portal device to a deserted beach in the middle of nowhere. “Oh, and we’re going to have to get Skaara and Evil Overlord over here to Medical so everyone can be in their proper place.”
Thomas shrugged. “I haven’t even been here a year yet, and I’ve spent the entire time killing Mary Sues. So... yeah, this is my first.” He gestured to the portal, and gave the struggling Orken a sad smile. “Shall we go?”
“Yeah,” Ian said, grunting slightly as Goa’uld!Orken caught a lucky blow with his elbow. He dragged the struggling ex-Yeerk through the portal, dumping him on the sandy beach with little ceremony.
“He’s a fighter,” Ian noted, rubbing at his ribs where Orken hit him. “That’s a good thing, I suppose.”
“Definitely,” Lee said, shoving Klorel through the portal, with Skaara close behind. “Let’s get this over with quickly.”
Thomas kept his gun trained on his partner. “Uh... you two dudes can set up for the exorcism. I’m more than capable of charging her.” He cleared his throat.
“‘Doctor’ Selene Nikolas, you are charged with having a highly implausible level of education for someone your age, inserting yourself into canon events from the Stargate movie, inserting yourself into canon events from the Stargate pilot episode ‘Children of the Gods,’ disabling security cameras to keep from being overheard, having Jack O’Neill give you a cute nickname, having same canon character find you inexplicably cool, having connections to the criminal underworld that are mentioned and never brought up again, inserting yourself into the family of Daniel Jackson, finding all persons your age boring and not intellectually stimulating, yet falling for a member of a primitive tribe, creating a sentient letter M, creating the minis...”
Thomas glanced at the list and groaned. “Creating a lot of minis. You are also charged with having a romantic relationship with Skaara, accepting his marriage proposal for no good reason, having only one gun for all of the Abydonians, being possessed by an oddly kind, non-canon Goa’uld, creating the grouping “compony boys,” covering Skaara’s face in fur, having the Asgard age you down, in violation of canon Asgard technology, having the Asgard help a Goa’uld in the first place, possessing my partner, making him wear a dress, and being a Mary Sue. The penalty is death, usually, but in this case we’re going to have to exorcise you, and then kill you.”
While Thomas was busy charging Selene, Ian and Lee were setting up the containment circle and candles. Lee finished drawing the circle in the sand around Orken with a stick she had picked up, while Ian lit the last candle.
“Ready,” Ian said, glad that there wasn’t much of a wind at the moment. “Do you have your canon sources?”
Lee nodded. “I’ve still got some season one DVDs left in my pack from our last mission here.”
Thomas still had his gun pointed at Orken, who began protesting. “This is insane! I’m just a brilliant young archaeologist! And Nut’s a good person!”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “You’re a Sue, sue. Also, I’ve got two seasons of SG-1 in my pack. Six and Seven, I think.”
“That’ll work,” Ian said. “Just follow along after a while.” He turned to Lee, who handed him a few of the DVDs she’d pulled from her pack. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Lee said. After a silent count of three, Lee signaled Ian to start. “Out, demons of Sueish powers!” Lee shouted, waving her DVDs at Orken.
“Begone, spirits of character possession!” Ian chimed in. “In the names of Brad Wright, Jonathon Glassner, Dean Devlin, and Roland Emmerich, get out of this canon!”
Thomas, feeling rather silly, let his gun hang on its shoulder strap and pulled the two box sets from his backpack. “Uh... begone, unclean... Sue thing. In the name of Robert C. Cooper and Richard Dean Anderson!”
A stream of urple smoke escaped Orken’s mouth as the Sue!wraith was driven out by the application of canon, making Orken pass out from everything he’d been through. Lee threw her DVD cases at the Sue!wraith before it could say much more than “Why are you being so-”, dissipating it efficiently.
“Now for the canons,” Ian said, turning to Thomas. “Do you want to take care of Orken? Lee and I can get Skaara and Klorel back to normal.”
Thomas nodded, and glanced at his dazed looking partner. “Yeah dudes.” He walked over to him, and squatted next to him. “Orky? Dude? You okay?”
Orken sat up. His eyes flashed, and the augmented voice coming out of his throat spoke confusedly. “Where... where... what happened to my body? Why am I male? And... what’s a Yeerk?”
Thomas groaned. “Uh... Nut. That body belongs to my friend Orken. I would like to talk to him.” Thomas was hoping Nut’s good will towards her hosts was still there.
Orken’s normal voice returned, and he held a hand to his head. “Agent Thomas? What’s going on? Why is there a Goa’uld symbiote in my head? Shouldn’t the exorcism have taken care of that?” His eyes flashed, and Nut spoke. “What exactly was being exorcised from me? How did I suddenly end up in this...” ‘She’ grimaced. “Why is he yelling at me to give him control? Does he not know how generous I am being?”
Somewhere, the Ironic Overpower was laughing.
Ian and Lee finished sending Skaara and Klorel to Medical- Doctor Fitzgerald and his team would send them back to their proper places in canon once Klorel was back in his proper host -and then turned back to help Thomas and Orken.
“Um, Nut, Orken is from somewhere that had bad experiences with mind-controlling beings,” Ian said, trying to remember as much as he could about the Animorphs universe. “As I’m sure you’ve already found out by accessing his memories, he actually used to be one of those beings. For right now, it might be best if you gave him control back.”
“Yeah, think of it like being a To--” Lee began, but Ian nudged her with his elbow to quiet her.
“Just until we can figure this out,” Ian continued on. “Please?”
Nut seemed to think this over. “All right.” ‘She’ said grudgingly. “I have been accessing this host’s memories-- against his protests, he wishes me to add --and... am I not real? I have not looked deep enough to understand...”
Thomas stood up and held out a hand to his dress wearing partner. “Like they said. Give Orken control for now, until we finish up here. You can look over his memories and get a better idea what’s going on. Sound good?”
Nut said nothing. Orken, however, had much to say. “Agent Thomas! Agents Lee and Ian! We must get this thing out of my head. I have no privacy, even if it is giving me control. Please.”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “Let’s finish up the mission. We have a lot of canon characters to neuralize, and I’m sure you’d rather do that than have me risk doing something foolish. Right dude? We’ll talk about what we’ll do with Nut back at headquarters. Also, we need to get your gear back.” He smirked at the dress his partner was wearing.
“Yeah, we can’t leave non-canonical equipment here,” Lee said as she finished cleaning up the candles and scuffing out the circle in the sand. “The Flowers would have a fit.”
Once everything was cleaned up and Orken’s gear retrieved, Ian opened a portal to the holding cell where the rest of the SG away teams were being kept. The canons had gone still, as was normal when the Sue driving the story wasn’t around, and weren’t even trying to escape. With a sigh, Ian slid on his sunglasses, Lee following his lead. Of course, this turned the already dim chamber near-black, but the two DMSers were used to it.
“Sunglasses,” Lee said to Thomas and Orken.
Thomas put his sunglasses on. Orken had put his on as soon as they entered the chamber.
Orken nodded and spoke. “Proceed.” When he spoke, his voice was shaking but he seemed to be regaining some of his composure. Thomas rolled his eyes behind his dark shades. Ian shrugged and then pulled out the neuralizer. With a piercing whistle, Lee drew the attention of the entire room. Ian immediately activated the neuralizer, holding it as high as he could in order to maximize the effects.
“Okay, so, you’ve all been captured by the Goa’uld Apophis,” Lee began, taking off her sunglasses and pocketing them. “Colonel O’Neill, there’ll be a time to escape, and it’s coming soon. You’ll know it when you see it. None of you have ever met a woman named Selene Nikolas in your life, and we were never here. Thank you.”
The canon characters looked confused for a second, and then they were no longer looking at the agents. Orken pulled his restored remote activator from his pocket. “Now, agents, I would like to get back to headquarters and get this...” his face contorted, as if something was resisting what he wanted to say, “...parasite out of my head.”
Thomas shrugged. “Okay dude, but where will we put her?”
Orken frowned. “Put her, Agent Thomas? Anywhere but my head!”
Thomas gave him a pointed look. “You mean stick her somewhere where she’ll be helpless,and nearly deaf and blind?”
Orken glared. “What do you care? She’s just a Goa’uld.”
“A Goa’uld I think we should recruit.”
Orken looked shocked. “What? Agent Thomas, she’s wholly unsuitable...”
“Priyala, dude. I didn’t like that, but you did it anyway. As far as I know, she hasn’t brought about the downfall of the PPC.”
Orken looked pleadingly at the other two agents. “Please, Agents Lee and Ian, I need help talking some sense into my partner.”
Ian and Lee exchanged glances, and then Lee shrugged. “As much as I’d love to, Orken, Nut is already aware of the PPC just by being in your mind,” Lee said. “We can’t exactly neuralize her- I’m not sure it would work on a Goa’uld symbiote who’s not blended with a host -and until Medical extracts her, we can’t kill her without killing you.”
Ian gave Orken a thoughtful look, tapping his fingers idly against his hip as he did so. “You know,” he said after a moment, “We do have a Tok’ra Agent at HQ. Maybe it would be a good thing to talk to them before you make any decisions. And anyways, from what I’ve seen, Nut is acting more like a Tok’ra than a Goa’uld.”
Orken grimaced. “Nut says that she is very confused right now. She...” His voice changed and his eyes flashed. “I would have spat in your face for calling me Tok’ra not an hour ago. But... it would seem I am not really Goa’uld. I think I would like to discuss this with this Tok’ra agent of yours.” Orken shook his head. “I would like to think that I am capable of conveying your messages! Taking control like that is strictly unnecessary, no matter how frustrated I am making you.” Realizing he had spoken out loud, Orken’s face turned red. “Uh... I would like to talk to this Tok’ra. Perhaps they know of someone who would be willing to host Nut. Do you know them personally?”
Ian shook his head. “No, but we do know her partner,” he said with a grin. “I’ll call Orion when we get back and talk with his partner. Maybe she can help you figure out what to do.”
With that, Ian opened a portal back to HQ, making sure to open it directly to Medical, as it wouldn’t hurt for Orken and Nut to get checked over. He and Lee went through, their disguises fading and turning back to their normal clothes.
“As much as I like the military-style fandoms we go into, I like my dreads better,” Ian said to Lee, running a hand through his hair and making the beads decorating it hit one another.
“I’ve always liked the dreads,” Lee told him with a smile, her voice fading away as they walked out of earshot.
Thomas and Orken stood in the middle of the the hustle and bustle of Medical, neither saying anything for a while. Finally, Nut decided that she had had enough and announced. “If we’re just going to stand here awkwardly, I’m going to go get examined by one of your doctors.” Thomas just nodded. Feeling awkward, he shouted after his retreating partner, “I’ll meet you back at the RC, dude!” Neither Orken or Nut turned around to acknowledge him. Feeling strangely unsatisfied for having just completed a successful mission, Thomas left Medical.
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
[Disclaimer: The badfic Immortal belongs to To’M’L Kuran. Stargate belongs to MGM, not us. The PPC does not belong to us either. Thanks go to Caddy-shack, Tranum, and Miah for beta duty. This mission is a collaboration between Guvnor Of Space and Pretzel.]
~/~/
Agent Thomas Greenwall was busy hanging a sniper rifle on the wall of his Response Center when the alarm went off.
[Beeeeeeeep beeeeeeep beep beep beep beepbeepbeep beep. BEEEP beep beep beep beep beep]
Orken, who was sitting in front of the console and cleaning his P-90, shut off the alarm. He began examining the report. “Hmm. It would appear to be another Stargate fic. I wonder why Upstairs does not vary our missions more.”
Thomas, who had finished hanging the sniper rifle, shrugged. “I don’t know Orky. Maybe they like having me watch my favorite canon torn and defiled by Sues and having me bang my head on the wall.”
“I doubt very much anyone Upstairs has a personal vendetta against you, Agent Thomas.” Secretly, he thought his partner might have a point. Thomas was a very annoying young man.
Orken reached the end of the report and frowned. “Hm. It says we’ll be working with other agents on this one. Let us hope they are professional, competent individuals.”
~/~
The inhabitants of RC 6237 were enjoying the brief quiet of their home, with Lee nursing a headache caused by overexposure to mint tea and Ian trying to keep out of her way. Lee was curled up with her blanket over her head. Mariposa, her cat, was trying to play with Lee, but was so far being studiously ignored.
“Go play with Shepard, ‘Posa, and leave me alone,” Lee muttered, pulling the blanket even tighter over her head. Ian sighed, setting down his book and getting up from the chair he’d been sitting in for the past half hour.
“Lee, are you sure you don’t want any pain meds?” he asked, looking down at the blanket-covered lump that was his partner.
“The pain meds wouldn’t help relieve this burning sensation of embarrassment I’ve got, so no, I’ll suffer through it,” Lee replied. Ian rolled his eyes and shook his head in amusement.
“Well, once you’re done dying of shame in there-- which, as I’ve told you repeatedly, is an entirely unnecessary thing to do --you can come and eat something with me. I’m going to see what we have in the fridge.”
Ian had only taken a few steps towards the kitchen area when the console started blaring its customary [BEEEEEEEP!] at them, which was interspersed with the [Bip! Bip! Bip!] of an incoming message. Lee swore heavily at the obnoxiously loud machine, fighting to muffle the sound with her blankets. Ian ran over to the console and slammed the “mission accept” button, cutting off the alarm in mid-BEEP.
“Hey, Lee, it’s a Stargate mission,” Ian said, scrolling through the report. “SG-1, or so it seems.” He took a look at the accompanying message, one eyebrow briefly rising as he read. “Apparently, we’re going to be partnered up with another DMS team. Let’s see... RC 16202535.”
Amid various mutterings against sadistic Flowers and the evils of mint tea from Lee, the two grabbed their gear and headed out, leaving their RC behind. Lee’s rant continued on as she and Ian wandered the halls, making for a great distraction. They managed to find the appropriate RC within fifteen minutes, Lee falling silent just as the door appeared.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said, and then knocked sharply on the door several times.
It was promptly answered by a young man wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. He held out his hand to the two agents. “Hey Orky! The dudes we’re doing the mission with are here! My name’s Thomas, and that dude in there is Orken.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “He likes it if you call him ‘Agent Orken,’ so please don’t.”
Ian shook Thomas’ hand, saying, “I’m Ian, and this is Lee. Don’t mind her; she’s a little grumpy at the moment. We just came back from a particularly annoying NCIS mission. Anyways, it’s good to meet you, Thomas.” He stepped inside, Lee following along behind him. Ian nodded at Orken. “Agent Orken, it’s good to meet you.”
Orken nodded back. “Likewise, Agent Ian. Please, come into our response center. I trust you have read the report on this fic?”
Ian smiled. “You can just call me Ian, and yes, we’ve read the report. Out of curiosity, how much experience do you have with the Stargate fandoms? Lee and I are pretty conversant with them-- Lee more than most with the Atlantis fandom --but the report didn’t say anything about you and Thomas.”
“Please don’t ask why I know Atlantis better than most,” Lee said, speaking for the first time since she and Ian had arrived. “It’s a very long story, and honestly, not something I want to share right now.”
Thomas piped up. “Don’t worry dude, I’m the expert here. Orky has some familiarity with it, but I’m definitely more knowledgeable. He also understands not wanting to share things, what with that thing he had with Luxur-”
“Agent Thomas!” Orken shouted.
“Fine, dude. I won’t tell them about you and--”
“That is enough!”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “He’s touchy because she sent him a message recently about meeting up again.”
Orken grumbled under his breath. Ian and Lee exchanged glances; Luxury was a legend throughout HQ, and both counted themselves lucky to have never caught the Bad Slasher’s attention.
“Maybe we should get started on the mission,” Lee suggested. “I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible.”
Orken nodded quickly. “Excellent idea, Agent Lee.” He grabbed his already packed back-pack. Thomas did the same, and also grabbed his AK-47. Orken, who was still trying very hard not to think about Luxury, did not comment. He began fiddling with the console. “Hmmm. Do you think we should go with Air Force personnel or Abydonian villagers on this mission? Or does one of you have a DORKS?”
“Well, we do have a DORKs,” Lee said, ignoring Orken’s awkwardness. “But I think we’ll be safe with Air Force personnel. It’s what Ian and I normally go as in SG-1 missions, anyways.”
Thomas grinned. “We usually pretend to be Russians.” He hoisted his AK for emphasis. “This fic is early though, so no Russian SG teams for me to pretend to be a part of... hmm. I can be some sort of liaison officer!”
Orken rolled his eyes. “That would be a major canon violation. Just leave it here.”
“But--”
“No buts.”
“Dude--”
“No ‘dudes’ either!”
Dejectedly, Thomas hung his gun on its wall pegs. Orken handed him an MP5A3 from his gun cabinet, and grabbed one for himself. Thomas looked at it with confusion. “Why not- oh, right. They used these things for the first few seasons of the show.” He glanced at the other two agents. “You dudes need guns?”
“We’re good, thanks,” Ian said, patting the Beretta he used on Stargate missions. Lee had a similar one already in a thigh holster, while Ian kept his gun in a belt holster. It wasn’t exactly canon, but he preferred it over the thigh holster. “Berettas were used in most of the entirety of the series, so we’ll fit in,” Ian continued on. “Oh, before we go, could you make sure that my hair’s going to be regulation? I’ll attract far too much attention with the dreads.”
Orken gestured at Thomas. “His isn’t either. I have the disguise generator set to automatically shorten hair to regulation length.”
Thomas nodded sadly. “He takes away my hair. My beautiful, beautiful hair.”
Orken rolled his eyes. “Shall we get going?”
“Yes,” Lee said, rubbing at the back of her neck. She was starting to get tense there, a sure sign that she probably should’ve taken Ian up on his offer of painkillers earlier. No matter. She had Bleeprin in her pack if things got too bad.
Orken opened up a portal and stepped through. Thomas followed him. Ian and Lee trooped along behind their fellow DMSers, both ready to get back to work in a familiar fandom.
The agents emerged what looked like an empty museum. No time had been spent on describing it, so all that was present was one loudspeaker, a young woman, Major Samuels and his men, and the four agents. Orken gestured towards the group, indicating they should pretend to be a part of it.
"The museum will be closing in five minutes," a voice through the loudspeaker said.
"Major, do you really think that's her?" one of the men with Major Samuels asked. "She looks too young and at too boring a job to be this accomplished doctor we're looking for."
Thomas groaned, and using the body of one of the airmen in front of him as cover, noted down charges. Lee glanced ahead in the Words and sighed. “Well, at least she’s older than the last one,” she said. “Seventeen’s a bit young for a doctor, though.”
“Just a little,” Ian agreed sarcastically. He hated Sues that held higher academic titles than they should at inappropriate ages, having worked hard just to get his bachelor’s degree when he’d attended college back home. “She would’ve had to gone to college at-” He did a little mental math and then scowled. “Nine years of age, if she didn’t just skip middle and high school all together. Glod, that’s annoying.”
Thomas nodded, commenting “I suspect I know the reason she’s good at ‘getting things that to work that no one else could.’ It most likely involves either plot holes or her Aura of Smooth. Why do some Sues have to be so obvious?”
Orken nudged him. “She’s not as obvious as that secret Australian O’Neill daughter.”
Thomas shuddered. “Don’t remind me, dude.”
The fic, meanwhile, was marching on. The Sue led Samuels and his men into a conference room, where they were to discuss just why the SGC needed her help. But first...
The Sue climbed on the chairs and disabled the security cameras.
"Okay, now no stupid security guard will stumble across whatever you gentlemen are about to reveal to me."
Thomas whispered to the others. “How... how... they’re cameras. Not microphones...” He looked longingly at one of the conference room walls. “Hi there, Mr. Wall. I would love to introduce you to my forehead...”
Orken nudged him. “Not right now. We need to stay unnoticed.” He turned to the other agents. “I apologize for my partner’s behavior. I promise, he will not do anything stupid, no matter how much he may threaten to.”
Ian shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “And as for the cameras... well, maybe some of the guards could read lips?”
“Ian, please don’t try to make sense of her actions,” Lee pleaded. “I’ve got enough of a headache as it is.”
As they talked, there was a sudden temporal-spatial shift that took the agents from the unnamed generic museum and plopped them into the SGC. They landed right outside of General Hammond’s office, and Ian quickly opened a nearby door and pulled Lee inside, trusting Orken and Thomas to follow after them. The room he’d found was an empty office, something Ian was grateful for. It meant less of a chance of being noticed by the Sue, something that probably was good, considering how speshul she seemed to be.
Lee took a seat on a nearby rolling chair, while Ian leaned against a wall, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused as he read along with the Words.
Thomas groaned as he read the Words. “Of course she knows O’Neill. Of course he has a cute little nickname for her. Dude....” He began banging his head on the concrete wall.
Orken gave the other two agents a glance. “Ignore him. This is better then hearing him spout gibberish about vegetables and Roman emperors.”
“Vegetables and Roman emperors? That must be quite a story,” Lee said, carefully ignoring the fact that not two hours ago she’d been in a mint-induced stupor that had severely incapacitated her, though she had managed to help fight and then tie up the Stu she and Ian had been chasing.
Orken shrugged. “I don’t know the story either. Thomas hasn’t said anything about it. He overdosed on Bleeprin soon afterwards, so I didn’t get a chance to ask. I’m not sure he knows why, and I’d rather not dredge up traumatic memories.”
“Oh, for the love of- Why is she tied to the criminal underworld?” Ian asked, fingers tapping rapidly on the butt of his gun, as if he sorely wanted to use it on the Sue right then and there. “I mean, what possible reason could she have for having sources with ‘connections and secrets to the top of the criminal food chain’? Does it actually help in any way with her work?”
Orken was also looking at the words and rolled his eyes. The Sue was examining the Jaffa bodies that had been captured during Apophis’ raid of the SGC. “The Sue has now officially inserted herself without good reason into a canon event. Charge for that.”
Orken suddenly said "What’s this all about?" He frowned, but no-one else seemed to notice the brief second of possession, so he ignored it. He would have Thomas write down the charge later.
Thomas stopped his headbanging long enough to write charges. Orken was worried when he heard what sounded like a muttered ‘hail to Julius.’
Two mini-Mastadges appeared in the conference room. Orken gave them a single glance, before turning back to the words. “And those two must be Kowalski and Ferrdie.”
“They’re adorable,” Lee said, wincing when Jack said, “He sneezed a lot! Basically he was a geek, Sir. You, Selene, are not. You're cool. And you don't sneeze your brains out."
“Okay, while Jack said something similar to that, why would he think that Selene was “cool” when he didn’t like Daniel?” Ian asked. “I mean, what did she have that Daniel didn’t?”
“Breasts?” Lee suggested, and then dodged the ball of paper Ian threw at her in response. “What? You asked a stupid question, you get a stupid answer.”
"So you didn't have time for him?" the major asked.
"I didn't say that! He also found the way home for my men, Selene, and m; something like that kind of makes a person grow on you."
Thomas backed away from where he as pounding his head against the wall when a large capital ‘M’ appeared in front of him. It jumped about on its three points of contact with the ground. “EM!” it yelled.
Orken gave it an appraising look. “I have never seen an animate letter before. Most interesting.”
Lee gave the ‘M’ a wary look; its high-pitched voice had a British accent that reminded her of Judi Dench’s in her role of “M” in the most recent James Bond movie. “What are you going to do with that?” she asked as General Hammond took Selene and Jack to the Gate Room, where the bomb the General was planning on sending to Abydos was being prepared.
Orken shrugged. “Keep it if you want. We have enough things hanging around our Response Center.”
“I’m good, thanks,” Lee said, returning her attention back to what was going on. Selene was talking with General Hammond about the bomb about to be sent to Abydos.
"General, you can't do that," She protested.
"The count down's already started…unless either of you have something to add."
"General Hammond," Jack said, "I regret to inform you that my report was not entirely accurate."
"You didn't detonate the bomb."
"Well yes and no," Selene said.
"I did detonate the bomb," Jack said. "But it was aboard Ra's spacecraft when it went off and eliminated the threat. However it was in orbit at the time. Nothing on the planet was destroyed."
“Thank you, brief interjection of canon,” Ian muttered. “Of course, it’s basically just copy-pasted from the transcripts of the episode, but something’s better than nothing.”
Canon continued from that point, with the Sue making almost no impact. She was dragged to a holding room with O’Neill, and here was were things got odd.
Selene missed Skaara. What they had had on Abydos was special.
Thomas had taken a break from banging his head on the wall, because of a lack of anything awful, but his eyes bugged out as he read this. “Wait. She has a relationship with Skaara? Dudes, that’s a first.”
Lee nodded. “I don’t think I’ve come across anyone with Skaara as an LO. At least she’s not going for Daniel Jackson like most Sues do.”
General Hammond came into the holding room a few minutes later, giving his canonical talk about how he wasn’t going to be sending the bomb to Abydos. The Sue, of course, would be joining SG-1 and SG-2 on the mission to Abydos, and was thinking about how much she missed Skaara and Daniel.
Selene was excited about going back to Abydos: she missed Danny; she missed the hot, dry air of the desert; she missed the feeling of the sun on her face; she missed the smells of the Abydos village; but, most of all, she missed Skaara and what they'd had when they were together on Abydos. Since she was always ahead of her own age group, and therefore never with people her own age, she had never had a boyfriend before, and, after meeting Skaara, she didn't want another one. She wanted Skaara; no one else.
Orken frowned. “Hmm. Skaara is from a primitive tribe. Why would she feel more of a connection to him than anyone else if she is claiming her intellect separates her from her peers?” He grumbled under his breath. “Sue logic. Shouldn’t be questioning it...”
Suddenly, Orken ran from the room. Thomas looked after him. “Where are you going, dude?”
Orken shouted back. “I’m possessed! Get out the Dummy, Agent Thomas...” His voice faded as the distance between himself and the other agents grew.
Thomas ran out of the room. “Come on dudes! We’ll leave the M and the minis here. We need to catch up with Orky!”
“Damn, he runs fast!” Lee said, sprinting after Thomas and Orken. Ian kept pace with Lee as they ran through the halls of the SGC, but was unable to stop himself from crashing into Lee and Thomas as a sudden scene change sent them to Abydos and the gate room there. Luckily, they were in the shadows, so the resultant pile-up went unnoticed.
There was a moment of silence, and then Lee said, “Ian, as much as I like you, please get your elbow out of my stomach. And whoever’s hand that is, you’d better move it. Otherwise, you’re in danger of losing it.”
Thomas quickly pulled his hand back against his body. Ian and Lee got to their feet, Ian holding out a hand for Lee to brace herself against before brushing himself off.
Orken was standing with the canon characters, and another mini-Mastadge, Ferredi. Suddenly, he went running forwards.
"SKAARA!" he yelled, tackling Skaara in a giant hug. He had a disgusted look on his face, and Thomas couldn’t help but giggle. Orken hated hugs.
"Selene?" after a moment of confusion, he hugged me back.
“No wonder he’s confused.” Thomas giggled some more. Ian and Lee exchanged glances, Lee fighting a smile before she had to muffle her laughter with her hands.
“You know, I would’ve thought the Sue would have possessed Lee, since she’s the only woman around besides Sam,” Ian said, chuckling softly at the situation. “I wonder what made the Sue pick him.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out,” Lee said as Orken went over and hugged Daniel Jackson. "I missed you Danny." Orken said, looking absolutely mortified at what he was doing.
"I missed you too."
There was some discussion about going to see the hidden room with all the gate addresses when Skaara asked, “Selene, will you come with me?”
Orken got a rather pained smile on his face and took Skaara’s hand. He looked desperately at Thomas. “Get the dummy!”
Thomas gulped. “Oh yeah, that.” He dug through his back, eventually finding the dummy. “Got it dude!” He threw it on the ground and... nothing happened. He realized he had forgot to repair it after the last time he had used it. “Uh oh, dude.”
Orken had moved to the entrance of the cave and was cuddling with Skaara.
Thomas dug desperately through his pack. “I know I probably have duct tape in here somewhere...”
Ian turned to Lee. “Do you still have a Dummy in your bag?” Lee shook her head.
“No; I cleaned everything out before we went on the NCIS mission,” she replied. “I put the Dummy in the storage cupboard because we didn’t need it. Sorry.”
Meanwhile, Skaara and Orken were talking about a girl Skaara had asked his father for permission to marry.
"I have asked my father permission to marry."
Orken sat up and blushed. "Anyone I know?" he asked awkwardly.
"I think you do. I met her long ago, but she left this place. My father gave me permission to ask her to marry me if she ever came back."
"Has she?"
"Maybe."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Maybe..."
"Skaara!"
"I'll tell you...if you can catch me!" he smirked and as he got up and ran.
The two ran around the pyramid, which gave Orken a chance to give the broken dummy a look of dismay. “Agent Thomas! Get that thing fixed!”
Thomas continued searching his pack, when suddenly the scene shifted. Apparently, they were in a flashback. Skaara and Orken talked about how Skaara had rescued him and “his team” when suddenly, they kissed. Thomas’ mouth fell open. “Dude... I am so, so sorry.”
“I think I might have some duct tape in here,” Lee said, rooting around in her bag as the flashback ended and the fic shifted back to the previous scene. Skaara and Orken talked for a little bit, and then Skaara did something that made Lee stop mid-rummage and stare at him with her mouth open: he proposed.
“I- What?” She turned to Ian and Thomas. “What good reason would she have for getting married at seventeen? I mean, I know Skaara’s culture would likely have him marrying young, but why is she going along with it?”
Thomas groaned. “I hate ‘true wuv’” He reached the bottom of his bag and realized he did not have any duct tape. He did, however, have two seasons of Stargate SG-1. “Dudes... I think we’re going to have to leave him like that. We can exorcise him, maybe.”
Predictably, the Sue accepted the marriage proposal, and Orken kissed Skaara on the cheek. Skaara put a half moon necklace around Orken’s neck and Thomas grumbled, “No fair. I want a necklace.”
Meanwhile, the important canons left to go look at the cartouche Daniel had found, and the Sue stayed behind. Everyone began drinking a local drink, a mini-mastadge by the name of “Colnel” joining the agents as they did so. Some was even given to Orken, who looked grateful; that was, until “his insides were on fire.” Then he looked alarmed. “AGENT THOMAS, WHY ISN’T THAT DUMMY WORKING?”
Lee resumed her frantic searching, swearing when she pulled out everything but a working Crash Dummy and duct tape. “Why don’t I have any tape? Even Scotch tape would do!” she said, and then quickly stuffed everything back into her satchel. As she shoved a particularly obstinate three-foot long walking stick into her bag-- the insides of the bag had been enchanted with a near-limitless Spell of Holding --the Gate started up and the Abydonian women and children ducked for cover and the rest of the others in the room grabbed a gun and aimed it at the rotating gate.
The defense they mounted was sort of pathetic, since everyone in the room was trying to grab a single gun. Thomas was not surprised when people started being captured, but when a young man with glowing eyes looked with surprise at Orken and said "You have been running for a long time, Nut, but I have finally found you,” Thomas got a worried look on his face. “Uh... this Sue is obviously a long lost something. Let’s hope it’s not something that has powers.”
There was a flash, and suddenly the agents found themselves in a dream.
"You have betrayed me Nut," a cold voice.
"I was never yours."
"Ra gave you to me."
"I do not take orders from Ra. Nor should you brother."
"You may not like the ways of the System Lords, but you are still bound to them."
"See this is why Father liked me best: I made my own path. He thought I would be the one to overthrow his father and take Ra's place as a System Lord. You are too obediant Geb."
"And see where your disobediance has gotten you: chained up like a dog."
"Yes about that: UNTIE ME AND GIVE ME BACK MY CHILD!"
"That is not up to me. Enjoy dying for all eternity in a cage Nut.
Thomas paled. “Uh oh. I think Nut’s a Goa’uld. That means... how would that even work? How could... I’m confused...”
“Well, traditionally, Nut- pronounced “newt” -is the sky goddess in Egyptian mythology,” Ian said, assuming a teacherly air. “Given that the Goa’uld in the first few seasons tended to lean towards the Egyptian pantheon, I think we can safely say that she’s a Goa’uld. I think we were lucky that she chose an actual figure from Egyptian mythology.”
“She’s still a Goa’uld, Ian, no matter if she’s from the Egyptian pantheon or not,” Lee said. “I wonder how Orken is dealing with this.”
The dream ended, and the three agents found themselves in a generic room. Orken was in the center of it, and the young man from earlier was standing over him. Orken was wearing a dress, and looking panicked.
The Sue asked outraged questions (using Orken’s voice) and demanding answers. The only useful part of the conversation was that the young man identified himself as Klorel. Then...
(Oh, I'm just going to point out this: I know you're probably all reading Nut the same way as the food like almonds and peanuts and what not, but every book I've read when doing reasearch on the Egyptian religion said her name is pronounced NOOT like the animal newt. If this doesn't make sense to you, then just remember that its a different language and its not Latin based so there are different vowels than English.)
Ian blinked. “Does she honestly think we’re that stupid?” he asked. “We all know Ancient Egyptian is a different language. It predates Latin by several hundred years; of course it wouldn’t be Latin based.”
“Okay, now you’re just showing off, Ian,” Lee said, faintly amused. Ian gave her a look, and then shrugged.
“Hey, I might as well use my linguistics degree for something.”
Thomas rolled his eyes as they hit another scene change, this time taking them to the prison area where Skaara, Daniel and O’Neill were. Orken was still wearing a dress.
The four of them discussed what was happening, and it was revealed that the Sue used to dream about Geb and Klorel. Thomas grumbled about overused cliches.
“Hey, what’s a “compony boys”?” Lee asked as the chapter ended and the next began.
“Some sort of ‘My Little Pony’ offshoot?” Ian suggested as the doors opened and in walked the gou'uld and their possy of jaffa.
"Kneel before you gods!" one ordered and they started forcing people to the floor.
“And yet another mini,” Lee said, beckoning the mini-Unas gou’uld towards her. “How many of these do we have now?”
Thomas shrugged. “No idea, dude.”
Skaara-his face full of furry-refused until Jack convinced him.
Thomas sputtered in rage as Skaara’s face became covered in fur. “GAH! No! That’s wrong. Dudes!”
“Oh, definitely,” Ian agreed, wincing at the sight of Skaara’s face. “Let’s hope it fades soon.”
“Yeah,” Lee muttered as Orken said, "I love you Skaara. I'm so sorry."
He looked at Orken with confusion, but before Orken could explain he was roughly grabbed by his hair. Orken, with his short hair cut, was making this difficult.
“Oh, that looks like it hurt,” Lee said, wincing at the look of vague pain on Orken’s face. “That’s why I keep my hair short. It’s harder to pull that way.” While she had had long hair during her time in the “Stargate Atlantis” continuum, she’d gotten it cut back to its normal bob soon after her arrival back at HQ.
After protesting from the Sue possessing Orken, the Jaffa dragged off Orken and Skaara. Thomas looked at the other two agents. “Uh dudes... we should portal to the next part of the story. I don’t want to have to wander around the palace, and Orken had my RA.”
“Don’t worry; I’ve got ours,” Ian said, producing said equipment from his pocket. He opened a portal to the next part of the story. Skaara and Orken were laying stomach-down on a table, though thankfully their clothes had been kept on. Skaara and Orken began talking, with Orken saying, "It's my fault you were taken."
"How can you say such a thing?"
"Because it is true," Klorel said as he entered the room. "Leave," at his word, the jaffa in the room got up and left. "Had she not been hosting Nut, I may have passed her by without second thought. Although maybe not: you are very beautiful. But I just could not pass up the opportunity to mess with her mind some more. That is where you come into this little game."
“Overdramatic, much?” Lee asked, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, I know he’s a Goa’uld, but still.”
“I think he’s turned into the stereotypical Card-Carrying Villain of this fic,” Ian said. “Of course, that’s the whole point of the Goa’uld in SG-1, so I don’t know if that trope really applies here.”
Thomas was ignoring the other two agents and staring at Orken. “I think I figured out why the Sue’s possessing him. It must be because of Nut. I think Nut recognized Orken was a fellow brain stealing alien dude, or something like that.”
Then, as Klorel told Nut it was time to wake from her sleep, Orken began screaming, and clutching his arm hard enough to draw blood. Thomas worriedly yelled, “Orken!” He was about to rush forward to help his partner when he was grabbed by Ian, who, by dint of having at least four inches on Thomas, was able to hold back the younger agent with ease.
“I know you want to go help Orken, but now’s not the time,” Ian said, holding Thomas in a tight bear hug. “We’ll exorcise him, but we have to keep getting charges. Now, if I let you go, do you promise not to try and run?”
Thomas was getting really tired of being grabbed by other agents. Fighting never did him any good, so he just slumped and resignedly said “Yes...”
“You should not have awaken me,” Nut-as-Orken said, his voice carrying the double-timbre of a Goa’uld.
"Welcome back Nut," Klorel said with a wicked smirk.
"Are you mad? Everything was going so well! She had finally gotten the life she should have had back and you took it from her!"
"Her life was never going to be normal; you should not have tried."
“Why would a Goa’uld care about the life its host did or didn’t have?” Lee asked as Ian carefully released his hold on Thomas.
“It wouldn’t,” Ian said. Lee nodded and then added this latest charge to the list.
With Orken no longer in obvious pain, Thomas had begun thinking. He was not accustomed to thinking while in badfic, but he was worried about Orken. He realized that Nut might not be part of the possession. If Nut was an actual Goa’uld, extracting him was going to be very difficult. He did not voice his concerns, however, because he had no experience with possessions and did not wish to appear foolish after his recent outburst. His zoned out state allowed him to see the words, which instantly wiped all thoughts from his head and replaced them with anger.
“Gah! Dudes, look at the words!”
I remembered now. I was born hundreds of years ago in Greece, but my family had been exiled and we were going to Egypt to live. When Ra invaded Earth, I was one of the people he'd taken. I was host to his granddaughter Nut. She was head-strong and rebelious. Everything Ra told her to do, she disobeyed. That's how he tricked her into being with Geb. Everything that was recorded by the ancient Egyptians was recorded as Ra had instructed. Nut wasn't happy until Klorel had come along and they'd fallen in love. At first, it was competition: who could have the bigger ambition. But they got close. They'd had a child, a child that I was awake for instead of Nut. I suffered Ra's abuse, but I never told him who the father was, not because of the threats that Klorel had given me, but because I cared for the child. Even though it had not been my will to have the child in the first place, it was still my child. That child was killed in front of my very eyes. That's where the story of the separation of Geb and Nut came from: we-Nut and myself-were locked away and forced to die over and over and over until a servant came and let us lose and escape to earth while the humans rebelled against Ra. With the help of the Asgard, Nut was able to reduce my age, seal my memories, and keep me safe and young until a time when I could find a family that would take care of me. She felt she owed me that much. Daniel's family had found me in a dig in Egypt and I was only a child with no memory. They took me as their own daughter and Danny and I grew as siblings.
“Oh, for the love of- Infodump, much? Also, why the hell would the Asgard help a Goa’uld? That totally goes against their policy of not getting involved with the Goa’uld!” Lee snapped, growling under her breath at the audacity of the Sue. “And why is this Goa’uld so philanthropic? Unless she follows Egeria’s mindset of the Goa’uld being power-hungry gods is a bad idea, she has no reason to do all of this.”
Thomas shrugged. “I guess that’s what the author was going for. But dudes, the Asgard can’t de-age people either. That’s a blatant charge right there!” He looked at his list. “Actually, I think that’s all we needed. If you guys don’t object, I want to kill the thing that’s been hurting my partner.”
“No, but keep in mind, we’ve got to deal with Klorel, Skaara, and the rest of the canons,” Ian said. “Not to mention charge the Sue, which will be interesting, given the fact that she’s technically your partner at the moment.”
Lee ran a pensive hand over her face. “How are we going to separate Nut from Orken? We don’t have the Tok’ra device, and I don’t feel comfortable bringing a Season One Sue to a post-series canon location at the Tok’ra homeworld.”
Thomas shrugged. “Orken always does this kind of stuff with the two of us. Uh... we can portal to this one beach in Florida we use with Orken. I’d say the first thing we do is exorcise the Sue out of him. I don’t know after that. I just really want her dead.” Thomas adjusted the magazine in his sub-machine gun. “So, on the count of three, we take them. One, two, THREE!” Thomas, not waiting for the other two agents, charged forwards, his gun firing wildly into the air. That got the attention of everyone in the room. With all eyes on him, he pointed the gun at Klorel. “Alright canon dudes, don’t move.”
“Flaming Denethor!” Ian said, throwing Lee an annoyed look before following after Thomas. Lee was right behind him, drawing her Beretta with a practiced movement. She leveled her gun at Klorel as well, keeping an eye on Orken and Skaara as well. Ian, moving quickly, untied Orken and hauled him off the table. Nut-as-Orken struggled a bit, but Ian held on the best he could.
“Lee, Thomas, the charges!” Ian snapped, and Lee nodded.
“Thomas, do you have the charge list?” she asked, keeping her gun steadily trained on Klorel.
Thomas nodded. “Yeah dudes! Portal us somewhere remote. I don’t feel like trying to perform my first exorcism while pointing our guns at the canon dudes.” He gave Klorel in his not!Skaara host body a brief glance and said, “And the marginally canon ones.”
“This is your first exorcism?” Lee asked, cautiously holstering her gun and then activating the portal device to a deserted beach in the middle of nowhere. “Oh, and we’re going to have to get Skaara and Evil Overlord over here to Medical so everyone can be in their proper place.”
Thomas shrugged. “I haven’t even been here a year yet, and I’ve spent the entire time killing Mary Sues. So... yeah, this is my first.” He gestured to the portal, and gave the struggling Orken a sad smile. “Shall we go?”
“Yeah,” Ian said, grunting slightly as Goa’uld!Orken caught a lucky blow with his elbow. He dragged the struggling ex-Yeerk through the portal, dumping him on the sandy beach with little ceremony.
“He’s a fighter,” Ian noted, rubbing at his ribs where Orken hit him. “That’s a good thing, I suppose.”
“Definitely,” Lee said, shoving Klorel through the portal, with Skaara close behind. “Let’s get this over with quickly.”
Thomas kept his gun trained on his partner. “Uh... you two dudes can set up for the exorcism. I’m more than capable of charging her.” He cleared his throat.
“‘Doctor’ Selene Nikolas, you are charged with having a highly implausible level of education for someone your age, inserting yourself into canon events from the Stargate movie, inserting yourself into canon events from the Stargate pilot episode ‘Children of the Gods,’ disabling security cameras to keep from being overheard, having Jack O’Neill give you a cute nickname, having same canon character find you inexplicably cool, having connections to the criminal underworld that are mentioned and never brought up again, inserting yourself into the family of Daniel Jackson, finding all persons your age boring and not intellectually stimulating, yet falling for a member of a primitive tribe, creating a sentient letter M, creating the minis...”
Thomas glanced at the list and groaned. “Creating a lot of minis. You are also charged with having a romantic relationship with Skaara, accepting his marriage proposal for no good reason, having only one gun for all of the Abydonians, being possessed by an oddly kind, non-canon Goa’uld, creating the grouping “compony boys,” covering Skaara’s face in fur, having the Asgard age you down, in violation of canon Asgard technology, having the Asgard help a Goa’uld in the first place, possessing my partner, making him wear a dress, and being a Mary Sue. The penalty is death, usually, but in this case we’re going to have to exorcise you, and then kill you.”
While Thomas was busy charging Selene, Ian and Lee were setting up the containment circle and candles. Lee finished drawing the circle in the sand around Orken with a stick she had picked up, while Ian lit the last candle.
“Ready,” Ian said, glad that there wasn’t much of a wind at the moment. “Do you have your canon sources?”
Lee nodded. “I’ve still got some season one DVDs left in my pack from our last mission here.”
Thomas still had his gun pointed at Orken, who began protesting. “This is insane! I’m just a brilliant young archaeologist! And Nut’s a good person!”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “You’re a Sue, sue. Also, I’ve got two seasons of SG-1 in my pack. Six and Seven, I think.”
“That’ll work,” Ian said. “Just follow along after a while.” He turned to Lee, who handed him a few of the DVDs she’d pulled from her pack. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Lee said. After a silent count of three, Lee signaled Ian to start. “Out, demons of Sueish powers!” Lee shouted, waving her DVDs at Orken.
“Begone, spirits of character possession!” Ian chimed in. “In the names of Brad Wright, Jonathon Glassner, Dean Devlin, and Roland Emmerich, get out of this canon!”
Thomas, feeling rather silly, let his gun hang on its shoulder strap and pulled the two box sets from his backpack. “Uh... begone, unclean... Sue thing. In the name of Robert C. Cooper and Richard Dean Anderson!”
A stream of urple smoke escaped Orken’s mouth as the Sue!wraith was driven out by the application of canon, making Orken pass out from everything he’d been through. Lee threw her DVD cases at the Sue!wraith before it could say much more than “Why are you being so-”, dissipating it efficiently.
“Now for the canons,” Ian said, turning to Thomas. “Do you want to take care of Orken? Lee and I can get Skaara and Klorel back to normal.”
Thomas nodded, and glanced at his dazed looking partner. “Yeah dudes.” He walked over to him, and squatted next to him. “Orky? Dude? You okay?”
Orken sat up. His eyes flashed, and the augmented voice coming out of his throat spoke confusedly. “Where... where... what happened to my body? Why am I male? And... what’s a Yeerk?”
Thomas groaned. “Uh... Nut. That body belongs to my friend Orken. I would like to talk to him.” Thomas was hoping Nut’s good will towards her hosts was still there.
Orken’s normal voice returned, and he held a hand to his head. “Agent Thomas? What’s going on? Why is there a Goa’uld symbiote in my head? Shouldn’t the exorcism have taken care of that?” His eyes flashed, and Nut spoke. “What exactly was being exorcised from me? How did I suddenly end up in this...” ‘She’ grimaced. “Why is he yelling at me to give him control? Does he not know how generous I am being?”
Somewhere, the Ironic Overpower was laughing.
Ian and Lee finished sending Skaara and Klorel to Medical- Doctor Fitzgerald and his team would send them back to their proper places in canon once Klorel was back in his proper host -and then turned back to help Thomas and Orken.
“Um, Nut, Orken is from somewhere that had bad experiences with mind-controlling beings,” Ian said, trying to remember as much as he could about the Animorphs universe. “As I’m sure you’ve already found out by accessing his memories, he actually used to be one of those beings. For right now, it might be best if you gave him control back.”
“Yeah, think of it like being a To--” Lee began, but Ian nudged her with his elbow to quiet her.
“Just until we can figure this out,” Ian continued on. “Please?”
Nut seemed to think this over. “All right.” ‘She’ said grudgingly. “I have been accessing this host’s memories-- against his protests, he wishes me to add --and... am I not real? I have not looked deep enough to understand...”
Thomas stood up and held out a hand to his dress wearing partner. “Like they said. Give Orken control for now, until we finish up here. You can look over his memories and get a better idea what’s going on. Sound good?”
Nut said nothing. Orken, however, had much to say. “Agent Thomas! Agents Lee and Ian! We must get this thing out of my head. I have no privacy, even if it is giving me control. Please.”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “Let’s finish up the mission. We have a lot of canon characters to neuralize, and I’m sure you’d rather do that than have me risk doing something foolish. Right dude? We’ll talk about what we’ll do with Nut back at headquarters. Also, we need to get your gear back.” He smirked at the dress his partner was wearing.
“Yeah, we can’t leave non-canonical equipment here,” Lee said as she finished cleaning up the candles and scuffing out the circle in the sand. “The Flowers would have a fit.”
Once everything was cleaned up and Orken’s gear retrieved, Ian opened a portal to the holding cell where the rest of the SG away teams were being kept. The canons had gone still, as was normal when the Sue driving the story wasn’t around, and weren’t even trying to escape. With a sigh, Ian slid on his sunglasses, Lee following his lead. Of course, this turned the already dim chamber near-black, but the two DMSers were used to it.
“Sunglasses,” Lee said to Thomas and Orken.
Thomas put his sunglasses on. Orken had put his on as soon as they entered the chamber.
Orken nodded and spoke. “Proceed.” When he spoke, his voice was shaking but he seemed to be regaining some of his composure. Thomas rolled his eyes behind his dark shades. Ian shrugged and then pulled out the neuralizer. With a piercing whistle, Lee drew the attention of the entire room. Ian immediately activated the neuralizer, holding it as high as he could in order to maximize the effects.
“Okay, so, you’ve all been captured by the Goa’uld Apophis,” Lee began, taking off her sunglasses and pocketing them. “Colonel O’Neill, there’ll be a time to escape, and it’s coming soon. You’ll know it when you see it. None of you have ever met a woman named Selene Nikolas in your life, and we were never here. Thank you.”
The canon characters looked confused for a second, and then they were no longer looking at the agents. Orken pulled his restored remote activator from his pocket. “Now, agents, I would like to get back to headquarters and get this...” his face contorted, as if something was resisting what he wanted to say, “...parasite out of my head.”
Thomas shrugged. “Okay dude, but where will we put her?”
Orken frowned. “Put her, Agent Thomas? Anywhere but my head!”
Thomas gave him a pointed look. “You mean stick her somewhere where she’ll be helpless,and nearly deaf and blind?”
Orken glared. “What do you care? She’s just a Goa’uld.”
“A Goa’uld I think we should recruit.”
Orken looked shocked. “What? Agent Thomas, she’s wholly unsuitable...”
“Priyala, dude. I didn’t like that, but you did it anyway. As far as I know, she hasn’t brought about the downfall of the PPC.”
Orken looked pleadingly at the other two agents. “Please, Agents Lee and Ian, I need help talking some sense into my partner.”
Ian and Lee exchanged glances, and then Lee shrugged. “As much as I’d love to, Orken, Nut is already aware of the PPC just by being in your mind,” Lee said. “We can’t exactly neuralize her- I’m not sure it would work on a Goa’uld symbiote who’s not blended with a host -and until Medical extracts her, we can’t kill her without killing you.”
Ian gave Orken a thoughtful look, tapping his fingers idly against his hip as he did so. “You know,” he said after a moment, “We do have a Tok’ra Agent at HQ. Maybe it would be a good thing to talk to them before you make any decisions. And anyways, from what I’ve seen, Nut is acting more like a Tok’ra than a Goa’uld.”
Orken grimaced. “Nut says that she is very confused right now. She...” His voice changed and his eyes flashed. “I would have spat in your face for calling me Tok’ra not an hour ago. But... it would seem I am not really Goa’uld. I think I would like to discuss this with this Tok’ra agent of yours.” Orken shook his head. “I would like to think that I am capable of conveying your messages! Taking control like that is strictly unnecessary, no matter how frustrated I am making you.” Realizing he had spoken out loud, Orken’s face turned red. “Uh... I would like to talk to this Tok’ra. Perhaps they know of someone who would be willing to host Nut. Do you know them personally?”
Ian shook his head. “No, but we do know her partner,” he said with a grin. “I’ll call Orion when we get back and talk with his partner. Maybe she can help you figure out what to do.”
With that, Ian opened a portal back to HQ, making sure to open it directly to Medical, as it wouldn’t hurt for Orken and Nut to get checked over. He and Lee went through, their disguises fading and turning back to their normal clothes.
“As much as I like the military-style fandoms we go into, I like my dreads better,” Ian said to Lee, running a hand through his hair and making the beads decorating it hit one another.
“I’ve always liked the dreads,” Lee told him with a smile, her voice fading away as they walked out of earshot.
Thomas and Orken stood in the middle of the the hustle and bustle of Medical, neither saying anything for a while. Finally, Nut decided that she had had enough and announced. “If we’re just going to stand here awkwardly, I’m going to go get examined by one of your doctors.” Thomas just nodded. Feeling awkward, he shouted after his retreating partner, “I’ll meet you back at the RC, dude!” Neither Orken or Nut turned around to acknowledge him. Feeling strangely unsatisfied for having just completed a successful mission, Thomas left Medical.