Chapter 4
"A defense system may still be active," Fenrir continued, "if it is, fall back to the transport." Still struggling with certain terms, omitting 'Tel'Tak' from the plan.
"What happens if it isn't?" Hassir asked.
Fenrir smiled and shrugged his head to onside, "I would suggest praying but your god is dead. And they wouldn't take you seriously with that tooth whistle." As he left the Tel'Tak with Brishin and Baxtza, beginning their trek into the very heart of Nnin'ois grove, a center of foliage so thick, it was rumored one would choke upon the various toxins, vines and insects by walking as softly as an ant. The Tel'Tak was left only with Btahm and three other warriors, but it will be cloaked constantly until they manage to effectively camouflage the vehicle.
Bravado aside, the main group were moving into an area that was undoubtedly as treacherous as it was arduous.
Fenrir was more than prepared for it. It had been two days since they fled the outpost, barely less than that since he tested his reproductive abilities. The travel to this point had to be both cautious as well as slow. The Ha'Taks's, motherships, in orbit can track vessels by velocity and a Tel'Tak's cloak would begin to be disrupted when it reaches higher speeds, making this tracking feature to apply to them.
In that time, Fenrir had regained his strength and more, feeling his Thorough-Field return to functionality, his strength being able to crush spines in his hands, rip bones from flesh and was more then eager to test his abilities to their fullest in the days ahead.
Despite his optimism, he felt severely under-dressed for this. When all the party, save him, were furnished with a staff weapon and armor, he was clothed only around his mid-section, the clothes so graciously salvaged for him being only able to cover up so much, the loin cloth on reaching above his knees, and pale chest exposed to the rogue elements of an overgrown world, and only a rusted machete given to clear a path if the vegetation was too thick.
As they made their travels deep into the thick, pathless foliage after many hours of something just short of complete silence, Fenrir was approached by one who he has not held some form of communication with, whether it was combative or verbal.
"Excuse, Fenrir, a word if you will." Kanyto asked, voice inquisitive if light from either insecurity or uncertainty.
As Fenrir slashed through a set of thick vines and branches, he took notice of her and nodded, "Speak your mind."
"How are you aware of these structures? Of their contents?" She asked, unsure if Hassir or another has asked these same questions but she did not hear the answer. "And why have you come now?"
Fenrir laughed a bit at the last question, "Was too busy waiting." Cleaving down with his steel short sword, "I am aware of these facilities because I put them there. They are mine."
Kanyto turned her head in a manner that denoted a great deal of confusion. "How? If what you have said of these structures is true, they were made long before the gods came to this area, thousands upon thousands of years ago. Even then, they were not known."
He shrugged, "My negligence of belongings is somewhat lengthy then."
"But... what does that make you? Not human, clearly. A Goa'uld would not have wandered blindly into this conflict knowing who was likely stationed at the Chappa'ai."
Fenrir squinted briefly at her, "That was you?"
Bashful, she looked away, "It was my hand that led to your capture, yes."
Against her expectations, he chuckled, "Have not had a woman get me on my back so effectively."
That made Kanyto blush, thankful that her mask had covered up enough that it was not visible, making her forget the question. "What is your purpose then? With these tools that await?"
"Reclamation." He stated simply, "I will reclaim my old territories, reactivate the lost ClanTech in the area." He bit his lip in sour taste, "But I doubt it will be that simple. Something tells me that your kind and these Goa'uld own more of the local stars then I presume."
Kanyto nodded, "Indeed." Quickening to his side when the rough path ahead grew narrow, "What would you do with us? Would this reclamation...? Would it see us harmed?"
"Only if you stand in my way."
"What of the Goa'uld?"
Fenrir detected just a whiff of desperation from the question, "These beings worshipped as gods would be deposed. If they do not do as I will, they will die."
Kanyto paused and blinked, "These weapons can see this done? Truly?"
"Tools are only as strong as those who wield them." He looked her in the eyes, "I would see it done."
"Then..." She quickly looked to her flanks, noting they were out of eyeshot, and she quickly knelt before him, shocking his features into a surprised gape, "I would swear my life to your cause if you would see the Jaffa free from the Goa'uld!" She swore.
Fenrir was momentarily shocked before he rushed to Kanyto and lifted her to her feet. "Stand up, stand up." He ordered quietly, "Not the time or the place, you jump to conclusions, youth. If you and your fellows worship the Goa'uld as gods then I would have to face yours as well. This alliance is temporary and beneficial in the short term. Do not cling to me in short sightedness."
"T-Then maybe you will consider having others fight alongside you?" She quickly added quickly, "I am certain of others who wish for the Goa'uld's demise as I do! Hear me, please!"
Fenrir could detect in his telepathic periphery that others were aware of her talking to him, but he was intrigued nonetheless. He looked at her and nodded, "Be quiet about it, you understand?"
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"Seems the young blood has made a friend." Brishin commented to Hassir. "Worried about your apprentice getting used to following someone else?"
Hassir didn't look at the poorest of jesters as she rolled her eyes, "She follows me by her choice. If she believes another is better suited to her, so be it."
"Ever the stoic master." Baxtza commented with enough venom to bring down. "You preferred her over many others to train, but would hand her off so freely?"
Hassir looked back at Baxtza, "I prefer her over many, perhaps, but above all, I preferred her over you." Hassir continued forward, "You may be the older, stronger sister, but you are half the Jaffa she is."
Baxtza clenched her jaw, fingers gripping her staff till knuckles whitened, "You are incorrect. Her father was a half breed. She is literally less Jaffa than anyone else on this world."
Hassir shook her head, "Genetics are one thing, but spirit is quite another. Where it leads her, I believe it to be where any true Jaffa should tread. A true path."
Brishin chuckled, "So if he happens to bed her, would you keep that in recommendation for a Jaffa's 'true path'." Hassir managed to glare at the quartermaster but said nothing as she continued with, "So is she a third human? A quarter? Was never good at counting."
Figa scoffed, "And she's quartermaster. No wonder we have been losing, she probably gives two Va'Toks for every one warrior."
"Only when I like them." Brishin smiled. "Or I hate them. It is so easy to mix them up these days."
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"... and that is where we are now, in the yoke of slavery from false gods." Kanyto ended her retelling of Jaffa history.
"You were once human? Taken by aliens and made weapons, tools for their own ends?" Fenrir smiled at her.
She glared back at his expression, "You find my people's history amusing?"
"I find it familiar."
The statement stumped the young warrior, 'Familiar? How? In what way?'
Fenrir's smile descended into a smirk, thinking back in her own mind, 'I can show you, if you wish.'
Kanyto stopped mid pace as she heard his voice within her own head. "You can...?" She stopped verbally, asking mentally, 'You can read thoughts?'
'Among other things.' He sent a quick flash of him ravishing several women and all the sensations he had experienced during the session.
Kanyto's mouth was a wide 'O', her mask hiding a majority of his face from him, but could feel the mix of both his own arousal, her own and that kernel of both fear and utter fascination from this talk. 'Y-you... what are you? This should be impossible! Are you...?' Her thoughts flooded with tales of her father telling her the tales of Dakara, Kheb, of the holy places the Great Others have touched and of the possibility that, maybe, this man was one of them.
"Come, do not let me waste in silence." Fenrir continued his sly smile, "Your friends would not wish to think you an unworthy host of conversation." Gesturing with his machete forward.
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Ix-Chel looked over the assembled throng of prisoners, all muttering curses at her Jaffa, at the forces she brings, her very divinity.
She sighed softly, swiping her fingers horizontally across the horizon to her First Prime, Sahahni. "Dispose of them, add their hearts to the pyre."
Sahani bowed her Crone-Helmeted head, "Your will, my Queen." Before barking orders to the lieutenants, who in turn dispatched their respective troops, knives in hands.
Ix-Chel rose a hand from her throne, forcing the slaves to lift the throne-podium and proceed back into the palace. Some seventy slaves struggled to turn and move forward herself, her two servants and lastly her Jaffa Lord-Marshal. Ix-Chel lifted her golden glass, a young servant quickly tipping a pitcher of dark violet wine into the goblet. As she raised the golden draught to her lips, she swiped her opposing hand forth, the metallic clicking of her Lord Marshal's armored boots ending as he both knelt and bowed to her queen.
She glimpsed to him, and smiled privately at the armor her wore. The black, stone like metallic pointed ears and the sapphire blue eyes of the jackal. One of the gifts given to her, thousands of years passed, by Anubis. She had given a clutch of malleable spawnlings to his domain, before his exile. He replied by giving one of his greatest Jaffa to her.
He, his children and their children have served as her right hand for countless generations. They have been bred and groomed to be something even greater than a First Prime. The fact that they always must be sons to wear the armor amused her boundlessly.
"My Queen?" His voice echoed through his helm.
"How fares my planet, Hijin?"
"The Jaffa are dedicated to their false god, even in death. They have denied subjugation from the forces we have sent."
Ix-Chel tapped a finger nail on her gaublet. "Then they will die and be eternally tormented." She whispered, "How does one define the difference between defeat and victory?"
The Jackal headed Jaffa lowered his helm's neck further, "My Queen, I would not impose an answer that would insult your greatness."
"But nevertheless; you know the answer?"
He hesitated for a second before he continued as if he were reading it straight off a scroll. "Victory is of whom stands atop. Defeat, of what or who the victor stands atop of."
"If we leave that world be, the world of a stargate, we would retreat, having let them claim more of my Jaffa then us of theirs. They would have been the victor." She placed the cup on her arm rest, the slaves taking her throne a slightly elevated path that will lead to the palace's main room. "We make ourselves victorious no matter the cost." Standing up, the light of dusk glowing her umbra black hair and sandy skin. Her robes highlighting her generous cleavage, and long legs. Eyes glowed briefly as she looked upon this system's capital world, a vast network of housings, forges and barracks, close to the palace, with hobbles and stone huts for the slaves beyond them, and in the distance; vast caverns like holes in the earth, constructing Hat'Taks at a slow but purposeful pace.
"Take my Grand Army. Lead them to the victory atop the rabble dead." Glancing to her Lord Marshal.
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Two days later
"We CANNOT unbury this... thing!" Figa yelled, "This entire excursion has been a waste of bloody time!" Swiping another maggot-nat off her arm.
They found the construct, buried in many layers of dirt, soil, minerals and, what seems to be, a radioactive material that would deny a ring-teleporter enough that it could not penetrate.
Hassir was quiet, but raged internally as she relooked at the sensor, the orb's display showing what an obstacle they could not pass. She sighed and asked aloud enough that others could hear, "Where is the bastard?" She squinted further as she also noticed the absence of other, "Baxtza? Kanyto? Brishin?"
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Baxtza lifted her armor over her head and slid her head and the neck hole, buckling straps to her.
"I must say; you have an awful amount of energy for one who has walked many miles." Fenrir chuckled as he also re-donned clothing, "It is quite a... entertaining quality."
Baxtza did comment, not even moving a muscle on her face at him.
"My dear, why did you initiate this session when we are so close to the goal?" Fenrir asked, curiosity masking the scent of suspicion.
"Why do you complain?" Silence broken.
"Not complain." He said, "Merely cautious. Prefer such exercise AFTER the goal is met." He padded his clothing down, but stopped when his hand reached a curious bulb, no bigger than a finger section, tied to his belt. He ripped it out, the small, golden globe had a single blinking pin prick of red light. "What miracle is this?" He asked aloud.
As soon as Baxtza's eyes fell on what he had in hand, her eyes grew to the size of dining plates and she yelled, "Destroy it! Crush it! It is a tracker!"
He quickly did so, being met with a pop, dropping the fragments onto the ground.
Kanyto, after several seconds, emerged from the tree line that circled the clearing that he and Baxtza had had sex within, accompanied immediately by Brishin, "We lost you two. Why did you leave?"
Baxtza immediately walked towards Kanyto, "'Little sister', we have been tracked." Pointing to the pile of debris at Fenrir's feet. "This device has been found upon him! In his clothing! They were once Kim'ra's and I prepared them for a man's form and would have noticed it!"
Kanyto squinted at her half sibling, "You accuse me?! Why would I betray us?! You know what my lineage would demand of others if Ix-Chel's soldiers capture me!"
Brishin blew a raspberry, "It could have been you two." She pointed briefly at Fenrir with her staff, "Especially you. You came out of the Chappa'ai. Ix-Chel could have sent him with the device from another stargate. He could have led us to a kill zone!"
"I serve none other than myself, you sow!" Fenrir growled, "You would accuse me? Knowing I can kill you all here without sharing a shard of what I have offered!"
Brishin laughed at what he said, "You? Oh of course!" She added sarcastically. Then she gestured to Baxtza, "Then there is you. The denied child. You would have pleasure in seeing Hassir dead and you and your children elevated in the Crone's dominion."
Fenrir immediately asked, looking in shock at Baxtza, "You have children?"
"I would enjoy her dead, yes." Baxtza explained, ignoring Fenrir's shock, "But I would sooner die myself then risk the future of my children under the yoke of the Crone."
A tense moment filled the clearing. Kanyto, unwilling to raise a weapon to Baxtza but the later more than happy to do the same to her. Brishin, a tone of both ease and humor did not dampen the accusation of Fenrir being a spy, the later damned willing to break their covenant and kill them out of spite and frustration, his telepathic abilities unable to pry secrets loose.
"KREE! Something emerges from the ground!" They heard Figa scream half a mile away. They all kept weary, suspicious eyes at one another as they made way for the emerging artefact.
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"What is this? Hm?!" Hassir demanded, pointing to the dirty, metal heptagon column that sprouted from the ground. It was nearly five feet tall, with a flat, sloped top and had seven sides, the sloping side having the most uneven. It had a pile of dirt on it, shouting like a root and breaching the earth.
Fenrir grinned from ear to ear, "I was curious of how long it would take to send the probe." Walking to it and swiping clear the dirt on the top, revealed a handprint like indent on it. Pressing his own upon its surface, a blade like edge popped up from the side, with the print disappearing into a hole or opening.
Hassir was near inquiring again, but stopped when Fenrir pressed his wrist against the blade and dragged it horizontally across it, the blood falling into the new opening which closed snap when it reached its desired weight of life fluid and fell back into the breach from whence it came.
"What was the meaning of that? Tell me!" Hassir marched up to Fenrir, holding her staff like she was going to attack him with the club, "Or I will bash the answer from your lips."
"Your threats are unnecessary, my dear." Fenrir eyed her slyly with a smirk, "I was merely distracted. This keyed in that one of the Blackheart is both alive and wanting to summon its creation. More so now, because I am the clan that had created it."
Not a beat after his explanation ended, did a pyramidal shaped mass, the length of a tall man break through the surface. It was the color of iron, with spots rusting and some oddly sublime. One side of the building, a triangle folded out onto the ground revealing a red, swirling oval of water like energy, not too different from a Chappa'ai.
"I'll go first and make sure that the defenses are down." He smiled as he began his stride towards the portal, but was stopped when Hassir grabbed his shoulder.
She stared into his eyes, "I would accompany you." He knew full well what she meant, 'I will see that you are not going to shoot us in the back, and kill you before you do.'
Fenrir nodded, "As you wish." Proceeding into the swirling crimson, and teleporting to the depths below their feet.
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Fenrir chuckled as Hassir sputtered from the overwhelming euphoric confusion from using a Portal at first. "Focus on your hands. I was told that it helps."
Hassir's wandering aimless eyes tried to track the manipulators at the ends of her arms, mouth drooling from being overstimulated and overwhelmed. The dizzying sensation began to fade, her senses returning.
Fenrir did not wait for the veteran Jaffa to recover, proceeding into the dim hall, his eyes quickly adjusting. The walls, a once sleek copper, now dusted and aged, leading him further into the long abandoned crypt.
When he met the first door, he hesitated, looking around for any marking of defense screens or sentries. If there was a chance that a Clansman managed to gain access to the crypt, they could have obscured the defense systems to attack all, regardless if access was given to deprive any rivals of its resources.
He saw no evidence of a hostile defense, and slowly pushed the doors open, revealing a large workshop, with the dim glowglobes beginning to lighten the room, albeit barely.
All manner of glorious tools and mechanisms were placed along tables, the sides of walls, or hung from the ceiling. But most important of all was what lay at the center. A sarcophagus of what he believe to be the man or woman who owned this workshop made mausoleum, had upon his tomb an Energon Module, as large as a well-built man's torso and held a promise as great as its size. It was powering the installation, and can spark anew a fire long dormant.
Fenrir looked to the right and saw an Armorer's Alcove and smiled deviously at its prospects. He quickly pressed his back to its opening, flipping him into its confines, where a deep voice asked him in Gjin-Ai, the tongue of the clans, "By what armor would you be clad and what weapon would you bear?"
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As Hassir unsteadily rose to her feet, leaning at first with her staff then gaining way to the wall and following it down.
Se cursed, seeing a door open wide and slowly brought herself through the doors. What she was met with was a cavern of alien devices, all separated into seven different corners, centered on a smooth, almost cocoon like object in the middle, a giant green-blue crystal jutting out of its center that swam with various colors like an endlessly moving liquid in a still case.
She slowly approached it, feeling it draw her in like a light to a moth and as she reached out to touch it, she yelled out in pain as an invisible hand grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She cursed, thinking that the pressure would render the hand useless and as she looked around, spotted nothing of the grabber's owner.
"Let me make this abundantly clear to you, Jaffa." Fenrir's voice boomed, voice amplified by his armor. "I will remove the Goa'uld from power. They will die by my hands." She felt herself being lifted from the ground, and she came face to face with a pair of angrily angled, ruby like eyes and a plain bronze face with no features. "Will you join me? Will you follow me into fire? Into oblivion? To kill your gods?"
She struggled, "I... uh!" She grabbed his arm as it de-cloaked, orange taloned digits leading up to armored plates and bare left shoulder and chest, but his right was fully armored. "I will not let my people be run astray or threatened by something like you!"
He leant his armored face towards hers, "I have yet to tell my plans for your people." Before she could respond, he ripped the armor from her belly, her Sybiote's womb exposed and pries his fingers into it, making her scream. As his talons dug and finally wrapped around the Prim'Ta, he partially pulled it out. "I would not seek this for your kind! Who are so much like my own! I have one plan for your kind." He boomed as he leant his face past hers and whispered to her ear, "Elevation. The Jaffa exceeding and expelling their former masters."
Hassir's eyes opened further as he removed his hand from her Prim'Ta and released her to the floor, "But if only you would follow me, and help me make a dominion the universe has not yet seen! One of strength, wisdom, discipline and honor! All of which has been deprived of your kind for too long!" He pointed at the fallen elder, "Your shackles freed! You and all of your kin!" He then held his hand in front of her, palm up and fingers out in welcoming help, "To be a people, by my hands and lead, greater then all else that has come before." He explained in short of whisper.
Hassir looked between her Prim'Ta, receding back into its womb and the hand in front of her. She knew it would soon need to leave, to take a human host, then she must do it again, and again until she was too old for another.
She stared at the taloned hand then to the man who owned it.
His armor was of a dark bronze, its texture almost like it was hammered in the forge, but plates knelt seamlessly together, not made from any primitive hand with no sense of aesthetics. His face, featureless and haunting with those deep red gems for angry eyes, helmeted and neck plated. It all spoke of truth in a sense, it was all made to kill, to intimidate, and to be thrust into fire and blood.
She and all Jaffa were no different than the armor he wore. They all were made to protect the Goa'uld, to nurture them, to kill for them.
We... are not tools. We are Jaffa.
Hassir grasped the hand by its wrist.
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Friga shook her scanner-orb and scoffed, "That... cannot be right."
Baxtza moved to her side and looked upon the image. She saw the eight or so dots that represented their party and around them and moving in fast were what looked firing lines. Numbers moving in perfect unison towards their position. Then more beyond them.
Baxtza yelled out, "Jaffa! Kree!"
Then the Portal to her rear lit to life and out strode Hassir and another. She quickly pointed her Staff at the stranger and demanded, "Who is this?!"
The being chuckled, scanning the horizon. Unbeknownst to her, his scanning equipment was detecting movement in the forest and tracking it on his heads up display. "Remind me, after I kill all these people..." He reached behind his back, pulling out a small staff that extended into a polearm, the tip, flexing metal into an axe which heated to a point that it glow a warm red. "To ask about your children." Fenrir held the Particle Halberd in hand as the enemy approach and opened fire.
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This chapter was hell to write haha
Anyways, I got a cover artist, made an amazing picture on deviantArt called Seth's Guard by Unded. Look in my profile and it will have a link to his site! He's got some awesome stuff!
