The challenge was:
- Something must happen (I don't care how you do it!) which creates Daniel Jackson's evil twin.
- Teal'c must instruct aerobics in front of unwilling teenagers. He must also look like my gym teacher while doing this. Bonus points if you use The Step, extra bonus points if he's wearing spandex.
- The sentence "Noooooo! You can't dissect him! He's my friend! Go dissect your own digestive system!!" must be used by one of the four members of SG-1.
- General Hammond must do the macarena.
- Teal'c must learn a valuable lesson involving innuendo and double-entendres.
- Jack must learn about a place he never knew he had.
- You must make an individual reference to the following people (The reference must show that you know who these people *are* and things they've done/been in): Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Pryce, Tony Slattery, Clive Anderson, Michael Palin, Glenn Quinn, Andrew Creeggan, Jude Law, and Thorin Oakenshield.
PART ONE: BEHIND THE SCENES
There was shock! There was disbelief! At the very least there was an extremely unhappy O'Neill...
"General," he said, "You're telling us we have to go to this planet in fancy dress?"
"Son, there's nothing I can do about it. The invitations specifically requested that the Earth delegation attend in fancy dress."
"And the rest of the delegates are coming in evening wear I suppose?" O'Neill grumbled.
Carter looked thoughtful for a moment, "Actually, it's a good idea."
"It is?" said O'Neill.
"Well, if you think about it, Sir, it means that none of the delegates stand out too much. Their national dress isn't going to give them away. Everyone's equal."
Jackson pushed his glasses up his nose. "And it probably looks less scary than a team in combat gear with huge guns and... and... baseball caps."
"Exactly," said Carter.
"Well, there's NO WAY I'm going in fancy dress."
"Oh go on, it'll be fun."
"In what possible universe could a fancy dress party ever be fun?"
"Am I detecting a bad party experience here, Sir?"
O'Neill mumbled something at Carter. It wasn't a complimentary sort of mumble, if they ever are.
General Hammond stood up to leave. "I'll be expecting you all in the gate room at 14:00 hours." He glared at O'Neill, "And I'll be expecting you to arrive in the fancy dress costumes of your choice!"
"Sir...!" pleaded O'Neill.
"That's an order, Colonel!"
A while later the team began to assemble in a room full of costumes.
"Now what happens," said Carter, "Is we put on a costume and an adventure begins."
"Eh?" said Jackson.
"You know. We take off our suits and bowler hats, step into the shop, talk to the shopkeeper, get a costume, and..." she trailed off. "This is that problem with fantasy and reality thing again, isn't it."
Jackson sighed. "Sam, I wish you'd go and see someone about this. And if you stopped watching British TV in the middle of the night you might limit this confusion at least a little."
O'Neill walked into the giant wardrobe. "Hey," he said in greeting. "Now we push the coats aside and step into the icy wonderland..." he trailed off. "What? What's your problem?" he asked Jackson, who seemed to be glaring at him.
"I thought you'd know better... ah, never mind. Where's Teal'c when you need some sanity, that's what I want to know."
Teal'c arrived. And was horribly sane.
Lifting huge chests full of clothes, SG-1 began to search for the perfect costumes. Quite why there was a cupboard full of fancy dress costumes in an Air Force base no one knew. It was one of those things that appeared suddenly and seemed as if it had always been there. As if by magic. Either that or General Hammond had some stuff going on he didn't like to talk about.
Rummaging through some beige tunics, Carter had an idea. "I want to go as Obi Wan."
Thinking through the problems with this, O'Neill hesitantly says, "He's...a bit older than you."
"He is also a man," said Teal'c.
"Wow, Teal'c, that explains such a lot!" exclaimed O'Neill. "Boy, to think for all these years..."
Carter looked affronted. "I want to go as Obi Wan. The young and handsome Ewan McGregor version, not the Alec Guiness version."
"Carter..." started O'Neill.
"Obi Wan."
"But..."
"Obi Wan."
"Fine, go as Obi Wan." He turned away, muttering.
Jackson sifted through the clothing. "You know, I'd like to go as that Irish guy in "Angel". Glenn Quinn I think the actor's name is."
Getting together the elements for her Jedi costume, Carter replied, "He's a bit obscure, though."
"Maybe," admitted Jackson.
"Like that matters. For crying out loud, we're going to another planet!" snapped O'Neill.
"So what are YOU going as, Sir?" asked Carter.
"I was thinking maybe media mogul. The one in "Tomorrow Never Dies". Played by...um...Jonathan Pryce."
Carter didn't say anything. She just gave out disapproving vibes.
"Yeah, maybe not. How about... that guy in "Existenz", oh, Jude Law."
"He's a bit young, Sir."
"Are you saying I'm...? Hmm, maybe that guy in the Barenaked Ladies then. Andrew Creeggan."
"It wouldn't be very FANCY fancy dress, would it."
"No, I suppose not. Well then Major, any suggestions?"
Carter was looking at a rather tasteful handkerchief she'd plucked from nearby. "I think you'd make a great gumby."
O'Neill frowned. "Michael Palin I like, but gumby? You're trying to make me look stupid. I KNOW you're trying to make me look stupid."
"Okay then, how about... Tony Slattery. The one out of "Whose Line is it Anyway". The slimy one."
"So I'm stupid, slimy AND old, am I?" O'Neill sounded hurt.
Quickly Carter suggested someone else, "Okay then, Clive Anderson."
O'Neill snapped, "Look, I know he's old too, you're not fooling anyone. Have you been using the base's communications equipment to watch British TV again? You're a naughty little girl, aren't you?"
For a moment they were both quiet.
"How about I go as the tin man?" O'Neill asked.
Carter shook her head.
"Scarecrow?"
She shook her head again.
"Cowardly lion?"
"Sir, you're not trying!" she exclaimed.
"Okay. I'm thinking fantasy, classic fantasy. I'm thinking cool warrior types. I'm thinking... Thorin Oakenshield!"
"Well, I think you could be a little tall."
Jackson came up behind Carter and put his hand on her shoulder. "Let him go as the dwarf. It's not going to hurt anyone, is it?"
"I jolly well hope not," she said before turning to O'Neill. "Sure, go as the dwarf." She rolled her eyes before glancing over at Teal'c.
Teal'c was a silent brooding force. He didn't like the idea of fancy dress. It all seemed a bit, well, silly. Come to think of it, he didn't really like the clothes he usually had to wear. Trousers, who on Earth invented THEM?
After leaping enthusiastically into a heap of clothes, Carter reached something that looked hopeful and threw it to Teal'c. After looking at it disdainfully, he walked off slowly.
The team disbanded, each having found what they were going to wear. The first part of their ordeal was over...
PART TWO: BREAK A LEG
When they arrived in the 'gate room, clothed in their unearthly apparel, they were somewhat surprised to see General Hammond. Especially since he appeared to be wearing a postman's outfit. That was about as outlandish as he was prepared to get. At least, it was about as outlandish as he was prepared to get when accompanying SG-1 on official business! He'd figured that since everyone in the US obviously respected postmen as a symbol of authority, what better guise in which to attend an interplanetary congregation?
After looking at each other for a few moments, each one afraid to say anything in case it resulted in a severe beating, the five people stepped through the Stargate.
The party was actually quite fun. They were welcomed, given food and drink, and the dancing was wild! General Hammond was soon dancing the macarena with some beautiful ladies. O'Neill was lurking, being suspicious, and Teal'c was frowning, but Carter and Jackson seemed to be joining in whole-heartedly.
Quite a few of the young ladies couldn't take their eyes off of Teal'c. This was unsurprising as the outfit Carter had chosen for him was, shall we say, somewhat revealing. After standing around observing him from a safe distance, one of them made a move.
"Hello there stranger. I think you could be just the man I'm looking for." She ran her finger over the muscles on his arm, which showed clearly through the shiny spandex. "Would you like to come with me?"
Teal'c hesitated. He could see O'Neill was watching him with interest. "I am not sure what purpose I would serve."
"Oh, I'm sure you'll be useful," said the woman. A few of her friends giggled. "I want to show you my big jugs."
O'Neill snorted. Striding over, he pushed the women away.
"What is the meaning of this?" asked Teal'c angrily.
O'Neill whispered, "They don't mean jugs. They mean... hooters."
Teal'c looked confused.
"Boobies."
"Birds?"
"No." Sighing, O'Neill gestured.
"Oh," said Teal'c. "Thank you for saving me from such dreadful embarrassment, O'Neill."
Was Teal'c being sarcastic? Even to this day no one is really sure.
O'Neill patrolled the room. He really didn't like parties. And he really didn't think things would go off without a hitch. Things always went wrong. Sometimes he entertained the notion that things went wrong because he was in the room. But that would be stupid, wouldn't it?
Happy that he'd saved Teal'c from a fate worse than... who was he kidding? That was the sort of thing people hoped would happen at parties, wasn't it? Well, if he couldn't be happy, why should anyone else be? For all he knew he'd eat some sort of cake, end up sleeping with someone and then age rapidly. Yup, he was all for packing up and getting out of there while the going was good. He saw Carter dancing erratically, and went to join her. She looked a bit too happy.
"Sir!" She exclaimed. "Swinging party, man!"
"Yeah baby!" he replied. He joined her in her "dance", if that was indeed what it was. It was actually quite fun. Maybe this time things would be different. Party on, dudes.
Jackson had abysmally failed to get into the party spirit. Some woman had tried to dance with him, but she'd given up when she kept treading on his cape. All in all, things weren't going well. But he'd found something interesting, and he reckoned it could keep him interested for, oh, a few hours at the very least.
The structure was huge; it towered up towards the incredibly high ceiling. It had a thing that looked like a blender on top of it. And people kept going into it and coming out looking unbelievably happy.
Jackson looked at it for a while before realising he was not alone. He hadn't strictly been alone before, as he was at a party. But now he was joined by someone he recognised as the host of the party.
"You're one of the Earth delegation, aren't you?" said the man.
Jackson was somewhat distracted by the scantily clad woman clinging to the man's arm. She was staring at him with a look he decided he didn't exactly feel comfortable with.
"Yes, that's... right." He replied hesitantly.
"Admiring my invention?" the man turned to gaze up at his creation. "It's capable of creating fully interactive holographic fantasies. Step inside and..." he gestured wildy.
"Oh," said Jackson. "The people coming out of it sure look happy. But if you can put things into people's minds, what's to stop you taking things OUT of people's minds?"
"You should try it," said the man. "Unless you're scared," he added.
The man walked off, leaving Jackson alone with the machine and the strange siren. (As in woman calling men onto the rocks, not thing on top of emergency service vehicles.) He walked over to the control panel, and looked at the various lights and buttons.
"Looking for something?" the woman asked.
"Um, how do you turn it off?"
"Like this," said the woman, taking a glowing green baton out of a socket and handing it to him with a smile. Her smile sent shivers down Jackson's spine.
"Thanks," he mumbled, before stepping into the machine.
Smiling evilly, the woman slipped another baton from the stuffed animal she was holding and slipped it into the panel. She waved nonchalantly at the host. He waved nonchalantly back.
Inside the machine things went a bit pear shaped for Jackson. It was like nothing he'd ever imagined possible. Quite what went on I won't reveal, as that would be an invasion of privacy. Suffice it to say it was a once in a lifetime experience.
Elsewhere in the hall, Teal'c had just been propositioned by another of the young ladies. They finally managed to get him to carry their big jugs. Their jugs were heavy, especially once filled with wine, and they'd been unable to carry them without a muscular man to help. They were extremely grateful once he'd finished.
One of the young ladies took his arm, giggling. "Thanks, Teal'c. How about I show you my melons now?"
"I would do anything to oblige such beautiful creatures," replied Teal'c, allowing himself to be led away.
Now all of the members of SG-1 (and General Hammond, who was still dancing the lambada) were occupied. None of them expected the Stargate to power up, sending an explosion of blue out into the hot and noisy room. Then some Jaffa stepped through the 'gate and began shooting bolts of energy around the room! A Goa'uld stepped forward and ordered them to collect valuables from the guests. Then he greeted the distraught host.
"You shouldn't have come!" the host wailed. "I was so close to delivering what you wanted!"
"Well, we were tired of waiting," said the Goa'uld. His face was split into two, as if he'd had some terrible accident. Basically, he looked scary.
O'Neill knew this guy, and he knew he was trouble. Jogging off to find Teal'c, he tried to think of a plan. Teal'c staggered out of a doorway, gasping.
"They... wanted... me... to..."
"Teal'c, we've got problems. Ol' Two Face just showed up."
"They... tried... to... show... me... their..."
"Well, I hope you've learned your lesson," snapped O'Neill. "We have bigger problems!" He looked around at the crowded room Teal'c had just come from, and promptly pushed him back into it. "You have to keep these people busy. I have a feeling things are going to get worse out there before they get better."
Pulling himself together, Teal'c frowned. "And how am I to accomplish this?" he enquired.
"Oh, you'll think of something," O'Neill answered, gingerly patting Teal'c on the shoulder.
Returning to the main room, the panic had subsided into a horrified silence. O'Neill looked around him for Jackson, Carter and Hammond. All of a sudden something crashed through the domed glass ceiling. A figure descended to the ground with shiny black material billowing around it.
"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's gatecrashers!" it said, pointing a gloved finger at the Jaffa gathered around the Stargate ramp.
The host turned to Two Face. "Your entrance was good, but his was better. The difference - showmanship," he said.
Two Face was not pleased with the strange direction things were taking. "Seize him!" he shouted at the Jaffa.
The Jaffa strode towards him, but the figure fought fiercely, using every trick in the book. O'Neill realised that the figure was Jackson! Somehow he seemed different. Evil. The real Batman wouldn't fight dirty, no matter how badly things were going. However this had happened, Jackson had bought him some time.
Thinking that he had to enlist some help, he returned to where he'd left Teal'c. Teal'c was making the youngsters do aerobics. Teal'c later explained that it was the traditional Jaffa art of silent stair climbing and jumping, otherwise known as tic'tac'tu'cal'n'kit'kat'bad. The young ladies looked like they'd rather be doing things that weren't really suitable for people of their tender age. They certainly didn't want to be climbing flights of stairs that didn't really exist.
Sighing, O'Neill realised he'd have to look elsewhere for help. But General Hammond had been forced to retreat into the chill-out room. And Carter was behaving very weirdly. The state she'd been in lately, she probably thought she was in a film of some sort. The goings on were certainly strange enough to merit that. She was striding towards Two Face, calmly saying, "These are not the Earth people you are looking for". Her plan was even worse than the plans O'Neill had thought of. He had to do something.
With a sense of impending doom, he realised that a separate force of Jaffa warriors was heading his way. Pushing through the crowds, he arrived at a door. Thinking he had little choice, he went through it.
PART THREE: EXIT PURSUED BY A PURPLE DOG
Inside the room strange things started to happen. Yes, you've guessed it, he'd gone into the strange machine that Jackson went in all those hundreds of words ago. The contraption seemed to talk to him, but it wasn't making any audible sounds.
"Jack," said the machine in a sexy voice, "I can see the only thing on your mind is the defeat of the evil one."
O'Neill telepathically nodded.
"Your Earth brains seem to be chemically slightly different to those of the people I was designed to work with. This has had an unexpected effect. Instead of me reading your minds, and creating a personalised fantasy, we are creating projections. The evil caped crusader is a projection of your friend's innermost thoughts. His hatred of the Goa'uld leader in tangible form."
Oh, thought O'Neill, thinking that that explained a lot.
"In order to defeat true evil, you must use something other than evil. You must use overpowering good."
Oh, thought O'Neill, this time more negatively.
"You must go to your happy place."
I wasn't aware I had a happy place, thought O'Neill.
"Think of things that you like, things that make you happy."
O'Neill thought of hockey.
"Try thinking of something non-violent?" pleaded the machine.
O'Neill thought of purple dogs. He liked drawing purple dogs.
Things went to hell outside of the quiet booth. It started raining purple dogs. Two Face began to retreat. He obviously wasn't a big fan of purple dogs, especially ones that tried to lick you to death. Slimy purple slobber covered anyone within ten metres of one of the strange quadrupeds.
"I'll be back!" yelled Two Face, as his Jaffa guard hauled him to safety.
And so, as the real Jackson drifted back into the real world, the evil Batman disappeared. Still inside the strange contraption, he realised that tendrils emanating from the walls were wrapped round an unmoving O'Neill. Then other tendrils with sharp tools arrived on the scene. With horror, Jackson realised the sentient machine was about to conduct experiments on O'Neill! The machine wanted to get to the bottom of the "Earth effect", and it figured the answers had to be inside the Earth people somewhere...
"Noooooo! You can't dissect him! He's my friend! Go dissect your own digestive system!!" yelled Jackson, as he hacked wildly at the tendrils using some sort of bat device.
Then Carter arrived on the scene. "Holy big green wiggling tendrils, Batman!" she cried, before spraying the snake-like extensions, which consequently began to wither and retreat. O'Neill fell to the floor, where he opened his eyes and groaned.
"What IS that stuff?" asked Jackson.
"General purpose sci-fi monster killer. You never know when something evil's going to try and take over the world. Just the other day I was trying to tell Colonel O'Neill about the impending triffid attack on Earth..."
"Hey," interrupted O'Neill. "Give me a hand here, will you?"
After Jackson and Carter had helped him to his feet, he sighed. "However much I appreciate your triffid spray at this moment in time, I'm not saying I ever believed in that triffid attack thing."
"But it's all true! Everything's true!"
"Carter, you need help. In real life you don't get super heroes leaping out to save you. And you don't get weird aliens attacking Earth. And it never, ever, rains purple dogs."
"But it DID, don't you see?"
Dazed and confused, O'Neill was forced to admit that in fact, nothing seemed real any more. I mean, in a room not far away, a strange alien with a worm in his gut (wearing incredibly revealing spandex), was forcing teenagers to do aerobics! He began to wonder whether he was living in the real world or in some sort of fantasy world. Perhaps he WAS like Jude Law, and he was still inside some really complex computer game. Or perhaps he was really living in the Matrix. I would tell you what that is, but no-one can tell you, you have to experience it for yourself. Or perhaps he'd gone into a virtual reality world to save his friend who was trying to defeat a computer virus and he was stuck in there, convinced it was all real. Perhaps he wasn't really a Colonel, but a dork with stupid teeth. Perhaps he had teeth so stupid that he could open beer bottles with his overbite. Or perhaps he'd just developed whatever crazy mixed up thing Carter seemed to have. Perhaps he just needed a holiday. Perhaps...
THE END