Disclaimer: I own no characters from Stargate SG-1 or Stargate: Atlantis, and have no affiliations with its creators. Sage Griswold and the aspects of her world were invented by me, unless stated otherwise in a footnote.

A/N: YAY! Sage finally gets to do some REAL MAGIC! I beat her up pretty badly to do it, though.

CHAPTER NINE: LET THE HUNT BEGIN

There was a hush over the infirmary. Daniel sat beside his wife, one of her hands gripped firmly in his. Her other hand was clasping Sage's hand, as she lay unconscious and battered. Two weeks ago, when they'd brought Shar'e in, Sg-1 and Sage watching from the control room, they had hoped to contact the Tok'ra to remove the parasite, so no one had paid much attention when Sage said in a shocked voice, "I know what to do."

And then the Tok'ra never answered their calls. Daniel tightened his grip and Shar'e's hand, remembering the sick, blistering rage he'd felt. The days had gone by, and still no answer. General Hammond began taking pressure from the NID. And the whole time, Sage had been a transparent figure in the background, muttering about werewolves and schizophrenics. Finally, just over four days ago, she had told them firmly that it was about time she started earning her keep.

"I'll need my hands free at first, but then you'll probably need to restrain me."

That had been an understatement. She had entered the room from behind Shar'e, weaving golden threads of light that seemed to trail from her fingertips and walking as if she were a cat stalking a bird. Then she just sort of draped the whole thing over herself and Shar'e. The light mesh had been absorbed by their bodies and Shar'e dropped into a dead faint, while Sage had seemed to go insane. They only barely managed to get her into a containment room. The Goa'uld parasite hadn't left Shar'e's body – it was there now. But it seemed to be… catatonic. From what they could tell, Sage had somehow pulled its consciousness into her own mind.

The next three days had been hell. The Goa'uld had merely seemed incensed to begin with, especially since it apparently had imperfect control over Sage's body, but it had rapidly degenerated into first fear, then terror, and finally at the end, insanity. It had beaten itself – and Sage – against the wall, against the floor, it had clawed, bitten and anything else it could think of. Janet had been nearly frantic, but they just didn't dare open the door. It was only a little over six hours ago that Sage had finally dropped into unconsciousness, and Shar'e had come to. After Janet's examination, she determined that the Goa'ul was dying. Unfortunately, it appeared Sage just might be as well.

Shar'e had insisted on sitting with her until they knew one way or the other. Daniel asked if she had experienced any of the turmoil that Sage had undergone, but she just shook her head and gripped both of their hands more tightly.

"What was that?" asked Shar'e, bewildered.

"What trick is this?" snarled the Goa'uld, vibrating with rage.

Shar'e was startled to realize that it was a separate thing from her. She could look over and see it – if 'see' were the right word. It wasn't in her head. Of course, she didn't seem to be in her head either – she didn't seem to be in any kind of body at all. The Goa'uld was a greasy miasma a little way off, but Shar'e could perceive herself too, as a brightly colored cloud with mosaic-like patterns. That was a new experience, being able to see all of herself at once.

"Welcome to my head, both of you," said a new voice – except Shar'e realized now that 'voice' and 'heard' were as inappropriate as 'looked' and 'saw' – they were just familiar words to attempt a description of what was really going on.

Shar'e and the Goa'uld were joined by another shapeless form – or was it a formless shape? – that was full of greens and blues and earth tones and sparkled like sunlight on water. There was a cave Shar'e remembered visiting once with Dan'yel. It was cool and wet, with only filtered sunlight; mosses and ferns grew there like nowhere else on dry, arid Abydos. If Shar'e could have had a sense of smell at the moment, she would have said that this presence smelled like that.

"Who are you?" she wondered.

"I'm… a friend of Daniel's." Somehow Shar'e could tell that Dan'yel's friend had shifted her attention to the nasty smoke that was the Goa'uld. Whatever form of communication they were using – it certainly wasn't speech – allowed the coldness to permeate what seemed like the entire world. "And I'm here to hunt."

The creature sneered. "Idiot human, you think you can play mind games with me? My race practically invented them." After a moment's pause, shock emanated from the foggy presence as strongly as contempt had done before.

The mossy presence projected amusement.

"We're in each other's head, so we can all hear the thoughts and feelings of the other…" thought Shar'e.

"We'll see about this," and the Goa'uld presence disappeared.

"Shar'e, it's time for you to go to sleep. I need to be free to hunt that thing down; there are some very, very dangerous places here, and I can't be looking out for you."

"But, aren't we in your head?"

"Huh, yeah, that's why it's so dangerous. Look." A landscape suddenly materialized around them, and Shar'e found herself – now looking like a human instead of a highly decorative cloud – standing in the middle of a circle on the ground. "Stay in there and you'll be safe. Not that you'll have much choice."

As a loss of awareness descended on Shar'e, she heard one last thing from the presence that was like a cool, mossy cave. "Let the hunt begin."

Jack walked past a room of NID analysts studying the tape of the Goa'uld possessed Sage and shuddered. He couldn't drown out the high pitched voice. "Please, she's your kind – you have to help me get away from her – I'll do anything… she's mad, she –she's trying to kill me –" there was that and a lot worse. Pleading threatening, bargaining, the whole works. Occasionally there would be periods where no one seemed to be in control of the body; even rarer were times when Sage came to the surface, but she would dive back down relentlessly. Eventually there was just screaming, and hands beating against the wall until they left bloody trails behind them, like obscene finger painting. It was the analysts' third time through.

Entering the infirmary, he found Daniel and Shar'e sitting to one side and Carter trying to stay out of the way while Janet did her crazed doctor thing, darting around and giving orders. Something must have changed. Then he noticed Sage's eyes were open.

It was the end of the hunt. She had chased the quarry through murky cloud-scapes, riding on the back of Gray Dawn, her dragon spirit. She had followed it over desolate, barren hillsides, carefully shepherding it with the help of her wolf spirit, Bright Sun. And finally she had pursued it into the dark ghost woods, filled with white skeletal trees, the borders of which were guarded by Black Midnight, her panther spirit. They were all four in at the kill, the animal spirits given to her by Baba Yaga standing in a patient semi circle, ready to protect her if necessary.

The cloud of smog that was the Goa'uld shifted exhaustedly. "How can you be so – so… are you what the humans call an evil spirit?"

"Don't you just wish I were." Sage said, and ice formed on the skeleton bows overhead. "No. What you're seeing isn't evil. Having darkness inside you doesn't make you evil; it's what you do with the darkness."

"Don't tell me – I know about darkness," the Goa'uld said with one last spark of life.

"What, you?" sneered Sage. "Years of mindless violence and casual cruelty? That's not darkness – that's not even evil, it's just stupidity. Because you didn't know any better – because you didn't even try to know any better. Look at your trueform. Dull and transparent. You don't have enough depth to be evil."

The Goa'uld considered itself: An oily splot on the impenetrable darkness all around it. It saw the truth of everything Sage had said, and despaired. Death was a release.

"Mistress," said Gray Dawn, twisting in the air above her head. "You should go."

"Mistress," said Bright Sun, bristling his ruff at the surrounding forest. "This place could take you as easily as it took – that."

"Mistress," said Black Midnight, rubbing his head consolingly against her hip. "Someone is calling you."

Returning to consciousness felt more like passing out of it. "SAGE? TALK TO ME, DAMMIT!"

The thought was oddly distorted until she realized it wasn't a thought. Oh, we're back to using those squidgy things in our mouths then?

"Janet?" she asked in a whisper. She saw Sam off to the side, and Daniel with Shar'e, who was looking at her in a way that made her want to go back into her head. Oh, great. Now I'm going to have to let her be grateful to me.

"Heya, Griswold," said Jack from the doorway.

"Hey yourself, O'Neill."

"You gonna be up for a visit from your double in the next few days?"

"Colonel!" snapped Janet. "Alright, that's it, all of you out. Right now! Sage needs to rest – and she doesn't need any more surprises for the time being."

"Is it true?" Sage croaked as the others filed out of the infirmary, giving Jack dirty looks and reproving comments. Poor Jack.

"Yes, but don't worry about it."

With the last bit of strength she had available Sage conjured up an accurate mirror image of herself, about six inches high. Beside it, she conjured an image of Nana, the other Sage. Sleek, well-dressed and confident next to someone who looked like a frumpy recluse at the best of times and who now looked like she'd been through a food processor.

"I want to die." she informed the ceiling sadly. Nobody else seemed to be listening.