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The Guardian and the Gate
Much to Jack's relief, after everything they'd been through getting onto that island, getting down to the boat in the pool was perfectly simple despite the snowy hill between them and it. Jessie, James and Meowth reached the boat before the rest of the group, but to their credit, the three didn't take the boat for themselves; Jack chose to interpret that as them wanting to wait for their current allies rather than them being too petrified with fear to do anything.
"Uh… are you sure this was a good idea?" James asked, the young man clearly on the verge of panic as SG-1 gathered in the boat with their new allies while the three birds continued to fire attacks at each other above them.
"Funnily enough, my instructors never covered exactly how to get away from a trio of birds that could burn me, shock me or freeze me," Jack countered, glaring over at James even as he finished checking the engine; the boat wasn't quite what he was used to from Earth, but there were enough similarities for him to be sure he hadn't done anything stupid. "I'm having to improvise my way through this mess in the name of staying alive, so maybe you could stop criticising the way I'm doing that and help me make sure we all live through this?"
Jack was suddenly grateful that he hadn't said the part about doing something stupid out loud when a loud crackle of electricity was accompanied by the jerking sensation in his stomach that signified that the boat was moving. He just had time to realise that what he presumed was Zapdos had damaged a wall in their small pool before the boat was falling off the mini-waterfall that had just been created, heading towards the frozen sea at the bottom…
Jack had just managed to grab James' collar with the goal of dragging him to the other end of the boat, in the hope that they could let the front part take the worst of the upcoming impact, when what he could only call a whirlpool suddenly erupted from underneath the frozen sea, catching the boat mid-air before it began to carry them through the ocean.
"What the hell?" Jack yelled, looking over the side of the boat before turning back to the other kids. "Can any Pokemon do this?"
"Well… some Water Pokemon can summon whirlpools as an attack, but I can't think of any that can do it on this kind of scale," Misty said, anxiously clutching Togepi with one hand even as she held onto the railing with the other while glancing over the edge of the boat.
"Hey…" Daniel said, looking curiously around the boat as he cocked his head to one side. "Can you hear that?"
"Indeed," Teal'c mused, his own head tilted thoughtfully as he took in the strange music around them.
"It… it's familiar…" Melody mused uncertainly.
"We're coming in!" Carter yelled, drawing their attention away from the music to focus on the sight in front of them, the boat now approaching another island with a series of stone pillars arranged in a circular format that put Jack in mind of a professionally-crafted version of Stonehenge. He had no idea what would make a whirlpool send their boat in one specific direction, but it was clear that they didn't have any real choice in what they were going to do next.
"Get to the front and get ready to run!" he yelled over at the rest of their makeshift crew. He lost track of Jessie, James and Meowth as the boat reached the edge of the island, but the rest of their temporarily-expanded team joined him at the front of the boat in time to run to safety, leaving the boat to fall to the icy ocean below while the four kids, three adults, one Jaffa, and two Pokemon landed on the ground, leaving all of them shaking at the closeness of their latest escape.
"That was the most unique escape we have ever experienced," Teal'c put in as he got to his feet.
"And that's before you start thinking about how we're dealing with those birds on top of everything else," Jack noted, before he turned around and noticed something standing in the middle of the Stonehenge-like circle. It was obviously another Pokemon, standing on its hind legs, but this one had a red-and-white ruff around its neck, wide eyes that put Jack in mind of Misty's duck, and something on its head that put him in mind of some kind of strange combination of a shell and a crown
"Take the treasure," the creature said, turning to point at a large stone altar in the centre of the stones behind it, "and put it there."
"You can talk?" Ash said, staring at the pink thing in surprise for a moment, before a comment from Pikachu reminded the boy that he had actually been given an instruction. Getting to his feet, Ash ran towards the altar, which from the other side resembled a gaping mouth for some unknown creature with some kind of fancy crest on its head, where the view from where they had landed had made it more like a tall throne. After examining the altar for a moment, Ash placed the two orbs he had collected in two of the slots in front of him, his gaze settling on the third and only empty slot.
"So, you're Ash," the pink thing said, walking up behind the boy as he stared at the third slot. "You're one treasure short."
"Yeah, I am," Ash said, looking at the creature in confusion. "But… how'd you know my name?"
"And who- or what- are you?" Sam asked, SG-1 and their new allies now standing at the other side of the shrine (Jack only just noted that Jessie, James and Meowth were missing, but this wasn't the time to worry about three people he'd only just met when he still had four kids to protect).
"Slowking," Melody explained. "This Slowking has been the keeper of the Legend of the Chosen One for years; that's speculated to be the reason he can talk-"
Further explanation was interrupted when a loud screech tore through the air. Looking in the direction of the noise, it was soon clear that the three birds were fighting once again, Zapdos firing a massive thunderbolt at the sea below that had clearly been intended for Articuno before the other bird moved out of the way. Articuno and Moltres were initially firing attacks at each other before flying away, prompting Zapdos to try and attack them itself before they moved above it to attack each other once more, but soon the three birds 'settled' into a weaving pattern, all three of them trying to get above each other to mount new attacks. As they drew closer to the shrine, Jack was once again torn between trying to find cover and trying to fight them off, but the sheer power displayed as the three birds destroyed the frozen sea was enough to discourage both ideas.
"Cut it OUT!" Ash yelled, running to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, as though he could command those three birds to be silent with the power of his words. As the birds' attacks came closer to the shrine, Jack raised his P-90 out of a lack of better ideas, but any thoughts of firing were cut short when another sudden whirlpool appeared from the sea between the island and the birds, knocking the three legends backwards.
"O'Neill!" Teal'c called over to the team leader even as he raised his staff weapon, ready to try something even if it would likely be pointless. "There is something within-!"
Teal'c's statement became irrelevant as the whirlpool seemingly exploded and vanished, leaving a fourth bird apparently floating in the air between them and the other three, only occasionally flapping its long wings. A glance at its appearance revealed that this bird's wings almost resembled arms, with what looked like hands on the ends, and it had two large blue markings on either side of its head, as well as an elongated point at the back of its head that gave the impression it was wearing a helmet. There were strange blue plates on its back, as well as two larger plates on the end of its tail, and it was flapping its strange wings so slowly that even Jack knew enough about biology to guess that something else was keeping this bird in the air.
"The Great Guardian…" the pink thing said, staring up at the bird in awe. "Lugia!"
"I can't believe it," Melody said, staring at the bird in awe.
"Lugia?" Ash said uncertainly.
"The water's great guardian…" Daniel muttered, half to himself, as the fourth bird let out a strange-sounding roar and flew towards the other three. Zapdos launched the first attack, but Lugia weaved around it, starting a rapid aerial assault as the newly-arrived Lugia weaved around the attacks from the other three. Once Lugia had moved further away from the island, it dived down below the frozen surface of the ocean, before erupting upwards through a new whirlpool. Another blast from Articuno froze the whirlpool solid, but Lugia erupted from the heart of the whirlpool before SG-1 or their allies could react. For a few moments, the first three birds continued to try and attack the fourth, but after weaving around the attacks again, Jack briefly glimpsed some kind of bubble form around Lugia, followed by a burst of energy that Jack could only think of as the attacks being reflected back towards their sources.
"'Though the water's great guardian shall arise to quell the fighting, alone its song shall fail'," Melody said, her voice low as she watched the battle unfolding before them, Lugia once again weaving around the attacks its fellows were firing at it.
"So we're relying on that prophecy for ideas now?" Jack glanced at the girl.
"I thought you said we shouldn't take that seriously?" Misty looked at Melody, although there was no real edge to her statement, making it clear that she understood that nobody could have expected this scenario to be real.
Melody's next words were never voiced as the battle they were watching escalated, Lugia barely evading the attacks as they drew closer to the island. Taking up a position above the shrine, Lugia wsa able to deflect the first few, but then a thunderbolt struck it, followed by attacks from the other two birds.
"NO!" Jack yelled, he and Sam raising their P-90s as Teal'c held up his staff weapon. Even as they moved, it was clear that there was nothing any of them could do but watch as Lugia fell into the sea below the shrine, followed by the three birds freezing the hole in the surface once again.
"No…" Daniel said, staring at the assembled birds in apprehension as they flew away, resuming their deadly conflict.
Jack was still trying to work out exactly what was going on here, but if he'd interpreted that prophecy Melody had recited earlier correctly, they'd just seen their best chance to stop these birds tearing the planet apart get blasted into unconsciousness, and they still had no idea what to do to stop things getting worse, and that was before he took Hestia into account.
He had never felt so utterly confused about how he could solve a problem, and the Goa'uld were only playing a small part in the reason this was so complicated.
