"You know, when I found out the Q needed our help again, I didn't think it could be as bad as I expected," Colonel Jack O'Neill complained. "I was wrong. It's much, much worse."
"Come on, Jack," Clark Kent said with a grin. "It's not as bad as the last time we helped the Q."
"Clark's right, sir," Major Samantha Carter said as they all walked away from the transport station. "We've got our phasers to fix altered realities, just like the last time we did this."
"On our previous missions for the Q, we restored altered timelines." As he surveyed the grassy hills, Teal'c held his staff weapon in a vertical position. .
"All we have to do is persuade the people here that this is not the reality they belong in," Daniel Jackson said. "That paves the way for using our phasers to return their reality to normal."
Making a face, O'Neill lifted his arms. "And how exactly does that work, Daniel?"
Daniel shrugged. "Who knows how the powers of the Q work when they do stuff?"
They found themselves on top of a hill.
"Oh, now what is this?" O'Neill groaned.
Next to him, Carter stared. "It looks like some weird combination of Harry Potter and 'Lord of the Rings.'"
"It is Harry Potter combined with 'Lord of the Rings,'" Daniel said. Clark noted that Daniel had his arms crossed, the way he usually did when he said something authoritative. "Even without the Background, I can tell. That's the Shire over there next to Hogwarts."
"I am not familiar with any of this."
"They're from books and movies, Teal'c," Clark explained. "Magic, elves, things like that. I used to read the books on the farm, talk to Chloe about them."
"You would find the movies less violent than some things on the news," Daniel said.
"Indeed?" Teal'c said, raising an eyebrow as he wore his usual grim look. "Your televised news reports are most troubling."
"More troubling than this?" O'Neill asked as he waved his hand.
"This seems quite peaceful, O-Neill."
"It does seem peaceful," Clark said.
"It probably won't be for long," O'Neill said.
Just then, Hermione Granger approached and looked up at Clark with a shy smile.
"Hello," she said quietly. "Would you like to go to the dance with me?"
"Um." Clark glanced around uncertainly.
"He'd love to," O'Neill said.
"Jack," Clark whispered sharply.
"Yeah, Jack, what are you doing?" Daniel asked.
"How wonderful." Hermione smiled as she clasped her hands and lifted her shoulders.
"But he can't," O'Neill said. Frowning, the girl drooped.
"Unfortunately, Clark Kent will not be present for an extended period of time," Teal'c said.
Hermione looked at Daniel. "What about you? Can you take me to the dance?"
"Um," Daniel said.
"He'd love to but he can't," Carter said apologetically.
"Indeed. We are, all of us, only here for a short period of time."
As Hermione turned back to Clark, she seemed to bat her eyes.
"Sure you can't change your plans, stay for a while?"
"Sorry," Clark said.
"We're on a mission," O'Neill said.
"Besides, there's Lana," Clark said.
"Yes, there's Lana," O'Neill said. "Also Chloe and Pete and Jonathan and Martha and everyone else we're trying to save."
Immediately, Hermione darkened. "Who's Lana? Should I turn her into a frog?"
"No, no, don't do that," O'Neill said, holding up his hand.
Hermione smiled. "I'm only kidding."
"Good to hear," Clark said. He made his wrinkled eyebrow face. "Of course, if Lana turned into Isobel again, she could turn you into something."
"Lana Lang is not with us," Teal'c said. "Nor is Isobel."
"Which is good because otherwise we might be dancing in our underwar." As Daniel made a face, O'Neill waved his hand. "You're probably too young to hear that. Move along."
"Hmmph."
As a frowning Hermione turned on her heel and stomped away, Carter said, "She didn't seem quite right."
"No, she wasn't," Daniel said.
"She may be a know-it-all in the movies," Clark said. "But not quite like that. That was amped, even for her."
"She was a little uptight," O'Neill said.
"At least at the end," Carter said.
"She did indeed seem to have a large tree branch lodged within her posterior."
"Not to mention being a big flirt into older men," Daniel said with a slight wince. Next to him, Clark also winced and nodded. "Whatever evil force is behind this, I'm not a fan."
"You and me both, Daniel," O'Neill said.
"This is whack," the Guardian said in the voice of Pete Ross.
"Thank you, Guardian," O'Neill said. He looked at the departing Hermione. "Yes, imagine that. An altered world created by a crazy Q where not everything is quite right in every way."
"We do not need to imagine, O-Neill. We may observe it before us."
"Roger that, Teal'c. Guess we should just be glad that girl didn't have a naquadah bomb planted on her."
As they walked along, Carter spoke casually. "Makes you wonder: why was the Smallville we lived in so normal?"
"You mean with the meteor freaks and Kryptonians?" O'Neill asked.
"For Smallville, that's normal," Clark said.
"I suppose." O'Neill stopped and threw his arms out at his side. "What exactly are we doing here? We're supposed to be fixing worlds that combine together parts of Smallville and us."
"Perhaps if we investigate a little more, sir, we'll find just that." Carter was already moving forward again.
"Joy," O'Neill said, and he reluctantly moved forward.
Sure enough, as they approached the walls of Hogwarts-"It looks just like a castle," Clark observed-they found what appeared to be four hobbits. As the team drew closer, they saw the four were actually hobbit versions of people from Smallville, including a hobbit-Whitney-Fordman, a hobbit-Lana, and a hobbit-Clark, who was only slightly taller than the others. Each had bare hairy feet in serious need of a pedicure, and each wore a cloak and a vest in a familiar color scheme: red and blue with yellow buttons and clasps.
"Hey! What is this?" hobbit-Pete-Ross shouted. "It's a duplicate Clark!"
"Another one?" hobbit-Whitney said in a bored voice.
"It's another Clark! A giant Clark!" The voice wasn't quite Pete Ross; there was a British accent, for one thing, and his voice was a little high-pitched. Pete pointed. "Giant Clark has replaced me! With a much bigger me!"
"I am not Pete Ross," Teal'c declared solemnly but his simple statement was drowned out.
As the four Smallville hobbits chatted excitedly, O'Neill waved his hands in a "stop" gesture.
"Okay. Calm down. Take it easy. You're not actually hobbits. You're people," O'Neill said pointedly.
"You go to Smallville High," Clark said.
"We do?" hobbit-Whitney said in an Alvin-the-Chipmunk voice.
"You belong in Smallville, not the Shire." Daniel glanced off to his right where hobbits had gathered, among them hobbit-Chloe and hobbit-Nell.
"How are you folks doing?" O'Neill said with a kind of dismissive wave. "This'll sound a little strange but before we can return your world to normal we need you to kind of wake up to your real situation."
"You're people, not hobbits," O'Neill said with sharp exaggerated enunciation.
For a while, the Smallville hobbits murmured quietly then hobbit-Chloe, in a fairly normal voice, said, "Something about what they're saying seems right."
"Good for you, Chloe," O'Neill said. "You always were the smart one in the bunch."
"Thank you...whoever you are." Hobbit-Chloe frowned a little.
"O'Neill. Colonel Jack O'Neill."
"That's funny," she said. "It doesn't say 'colonel' anywhere on your uniform."
"Don't worry. We won't know each other that long."
As usual, Teal'c looked very serious as he spoke. "I believe Chloe Sullivan, of whatever world, possesses a heightened awareness beyond that of mere mortal men."
"Or women," Carter said. Teal'c bowed at the waist.
"Wouldn't surprise me at all," Clark said with a grin.
Hobbit-Clark spoke in a slightly squeaky voice.
"If Chloe believes it, that's good enough for me."
"Attaboy, hobbit-Clark!" O'Neill said.
Four other hobbits approached.
"They appear to be hobbit versions of us," Teal'c commented.
"They're like Lego us," Daniel murmured.
"Howdy," hobbit-O'Neill said in a squeaky voice.
"Who are you invaders?" hobbit-Teal'c demanded.
"It doesn't matter," hobbit-Carter said, also with a squeaky voice. "We'll use our magic to take care of them."
"Maybe we should try to understand them first," hobbit-Daniel suggested.
"Nope. Magic," hobbit-O'Neill said. He waved a wand, and all five members of the team floated four feet from the ground, gasping and groaning as they did. But this did not last long. The members of SG-1 returned to the ground.
"You see?" O'Neill said. "No more gasping and groaning." .
"How did you break the spell?" hobbit-Carter asked.
"Because once you think your way through it, it doesn't work anymore. Which is exactly what you should be doing."
"But that doesn't work with Clark," Daniel said. Clark continued to float a few feet off the ground, waving his arms as he gasped and groaned.
Daniel held up his hands. "Please. You don't have to use magic or anything else. We mean no harm. Really. We're just here to help."
"The other me makes sense," hobbit-Daniel said.
"You would think so," hobbit-O'Neill said.
"Sam, let him go," hobbit-Daniel urged. "At least until we can find out more." As hobbit-Carter made a face, Clark settled back on the ground, though he still clutched his stomach as he breathed heavily.
Hobbit-Daniel turned to hobbit-O'Neill. "Think about it, Jack. Doesn't it seem like we don't really belong here?"
Wearing a thoughtful look, hobbit-O'Neill considered. "Kind of like that time we were in those mines."
"And we had new identities," hobbit-Carter said.
"I wouldn't know anything about that. But I do think Daniel is right."
Lisa Simpson suddenly stood at the feet of hobbit-Daniel.
"Oh, that's not good," the Guardian said.
"Indeed," Teal'c said solemnly.
"If a cartoon character suddenly appears like that, this reality is about to start breaking down." The Guardian spoke in the nervous voice of high-strung physicist Sheldon Cooper.
"Tell me something I don't know, Guardian," O'Neill said. "And don't talk in the voice of Sheldon."
The Guardian switched to the voice of the robot from "Lost In Space."
"Danger! Warning! Coming over the hill."
"O'Neill," Teal'c said in a sharp warning voice.
A horde of Orcs charged down a hill, toward the open plain next to Hogwarts.
While SG-1 fired their phasers, hobbit-SG-1 waved their wands. Hobbit-Clark and hobbit-Lana went super-speeding around the plain. All this activity sent Orcs flying. Although in one case the alien fighter Titan went flying.
"More breakdown," Daniel murmured.
"That is cool," the Guardian said.
"If you think being overrun by Orcs is cool." O'Neill noticed a familiar tall red-and-blue blur speeding around. "Whatever they did to Clark, he seems to have recovered."
"We may not if these Orcs are successful in their attack."
"There's a lot of them," Daniel shouted. Waves of Orcs were coming in from all sides.
Something big and green started jumping around the battlefield.
"Oh, no. Not the Hulk," O'Neill groaned.
"It is indeed the Hulk, O-Neill."
The big green behemoth was leaping around and sending Orcs flying. The ones he wasn't landing on anyway.
"At least the Hulk isn't going after us," Daniel said as he continued to fire his phaser. "It's almost like he's helping us."
"That's kind of what the Hulk does, in spite of himself," Carter said.
"Nevertheless, we are surrounded by Orcs," Teal'c observed.
"Time to put an end to all this." As Orcs closed in, O'Neill turned to hobbit-SG-1. "We were getting through to you earlier."
"Or I was," Daniel said.
"You belong at Stargate Command. As people, not hobbits!"
Clark turned to his hobbit friends.
"You guys belong at Smallville High. Not Hogwarts."
They all nodded with looks of recognition and understanding. As phasers fired, a great blast of white energy consumed the battlefield.. The Orcs vanished along with Hogwarts and the Shire.
As the team headed back to the transport station, Daniel said, "That was odd."
"Which part, Daniel?"
"Everything. The Orcs showing up. The Hulk. It was almost like...magic."
"There's no such thing as magic," O'Neill said.
"More likely, it's just some advanced form of science," Carter said.
"If it can hurt me, it's magic," Clark said.
Daniel got what Clark called "the Daniel look," his intense gaze combined with a studious facial expression.
"This may sound crazy, guys. But I think whoever or whatever is behind this thing with Q can do magic. Or something like it."