Rising from the Ashes of Ascension
Chapter 20
Disclaimer: As much as I might wish, I do not own Stargate: SG1, Highlander: the Series, or any recognizable characters from either show. If I did, I wouldn't be working in the public schools system. However, any characters that are not from either show are mine and I will use and abuse them as I see fit. Everyone else will be returned eventually, for I am only borrowing for awhile, but they might end up a bit scuffed.
Warnings: Potty language, violence, and occasional sexual references; also, I just discovered that Kali made an appearance in the episode "Summit." Let us all pretend that she never showed up in that episode and go about our lives. Okay? Thanks!
Daniel looked all around him, noting how the temple that they were being marched towards looked like the Lotus Mahal at Hampi. The building before him, Daniel noted, was made out of a black stone, probably the same type that was used to construct the temple they had been examining. He was also able to discern that the building was in much better condition that the one back on Earth and was clearly inhabited. There were beaded and bejeweled curtains in the windows and servants and guards were everywhere.
The people clearly looked like they had been transplanted from the Indian subcontinent. The men and women wore what looked like traditional garb of India. The women were wearing jewel colored sarees, with pavdas and coordinating cholis made out of either cotton or fine silk. Daniel assumed that the material used denoted the person's status and position in the court. The men wore dhotis, long rectangles of plain cloth tied at the waist. For shirts they wore kurtas, loose fitting plain shirts that fell below the waist. On everyone's feet, they wore leather slippers. Some were plain, meant for functionality than decoration, while others possessed slippers that were beaded with a multitude of colors and designs. What clearly separated these people from those back home were the tattoos on their foreheads. While they looked like people scooped up off the streets of India, they were clearly Jaffa.
The guards however, wore the traditional garb of Jaffa everywhere; they also looked like citizens of the sub-continent. Grey armor, grey pants, boots, and staff weapons. Clearly while Kali was more than willing to recreate an Hindi-like society, her guards were just like the Jaffa of Anubis, Baal, or any of the other bastards they had encountered over the years.
"Move," a Jaffa barked, and shoved Daniel forward, not liking how the captured Tau'ri was lagging, looking around at the surroundings. Daniel glared at the offending guard and hurried along with the rest of the group.
They walked through the arched doorway into a hallway that was covered in beautiful mosaics made out of jewels, precious stones, and tile.
"What's up with all of the swastikas?" Sam asked, looking at the walls.
"It's a symbol of good luck and predates the Nazis by thousands of years," Methos grumbled. He too was pissed. This was his first experience of being captured off-world and he was far from being happy. "Well before Hitler conceived the Nazi movement and wrote that piece of crap called Mein Kampf, the swastika was found throughout the world, from the pre-Colombian New World to China to Finland. There are many theories as to why you can find the symbol is so many places. Maybe aliens had something to do with it."
"Aliens? There's no such thing as aliens," Jack joked to cover up the tension he was feeling as the group walked down the large hallway, closer and closer to the figure sitting on a throne at the far end.
"As an alien myself, I feel offended by your denial of my existence O'Neill," Teal'c said deadpanned, eliciting several snorts of barely contained humor.
The group was marched down the hallway, approaching a throne at the far end. There was a pair of golden chairs, complete with a halo of serpents radiating from the back of the chair, sitting upon a dais. One of the chairs was empty, except for a container that looked similar, but adorned with ornaments and jewels, to the ones at the temple where they had been captured. The other chair was occupied with a being that had only been seen in paintings and murals on walls in temples on Earth.
Kali, the Mother goddess, the goddess of death and destruction, sat upon her throne, looking fierce and terrifying. Even the Immortal once known as Death blanched a bit when he got close to her.
Her skin was black. Not just dark, but jet black. Her eyes were red and filled with rage. Her hair, long and black, was disheveled. Fangs poked slightly out of her blood red mouth and her tongue lolled out of her mouth. Kali was naked except for a garland of human heads strung around her neck and a skirt made out of human arms. Four arms sprouted out of her body; two from her shoulders like most humanoids and two more appendages from on top of her shoulders. These arms were held upright, though they moved and were clearly capable of functioning. Kali, or at least the host, was clearly not of the human variety.
"Hey there gorgeous," Jack quipped, earning him a strike to the back of his legs by a Jaffa wielding a staff weapon, knocking him to his knees.
"So after all this time, I have captured the legendary SG-1. I've done what Apophis, Baal, and even Anubis could do," she gloated as she rose from her throne, looming over the members of the Tau'ri.
"Technically, we've been captured plenty of times by your fellow snakehead buddies and this time it wasn't you, it was your toadies. You really need to learn to give credit where it's due," Jack said. He couldn't help himself. There was something about being in close proximity to a Goa'uld that brought out his smartass side. He was rewarded with a blow to the head that left him seeing stars.
"Also, we're not SG-1," Brennan pointed out. "We're SG-9."
"Would you shut the hell up," Methos hissed at his teammate, not wanting to piss the Goa'uld off any more than necessary.
"You're not a part of SG-1?" Kali looked over at the four members of the other team, senseless rage filling her face.
Everyone kept quiet.
"Then they are of no worth to me," the snake hissed then turned to her First Prime who was standing to her right. "Kill them."
"No!" everyone shouted but it was futile. The Jaffa leveled his staff weapon at the four members of SG-9 and fired off four shots in rapid succession, killing them all.
Daniel, while his heart was heavy with the knowledge that the mortal members of SG-9 were dead, inside he was quaking with fear. When Methos' Quickening kicked in and started to heal him in front of the alien, questions would be raised. Questions that he did not want answered.
"So, where were we?" she jeered at SG-1.
"I was about to tell you to go fuck yourself," Jack literally spit at the Goa'uld as he shakily rose to his feet.
Kali leaped down from the dais and struck Colonel O'Neill across the face with one of her hands hard enough to knock him back down to the ground. "I am your Goddess; you will learn your place dog."
"Don't plan on staying long enough," Jack muttered, wiping away a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth.
"Colonel Jack O'Neill, I have heard many tales of your heroics, including how you once had the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into your brain."
"Yeah, but the Asgard removed it before it could kill me."
Kali smiled a cruel smile, all the while her tongue rolled out of her mouth. "But are you sure that they removed everything? There might be something of importance lurking in your brain and I will find it."
"Sorry, dumb as a rock here. Nothing's in my head," Jack smirked.
"Doesn't matter," she shrugged one set of arms while the other continued to wave in the air. "I am sure that you do know several other things of interest, like the defense capabilities of your planet and the codes for the iris that covers your Stargate."
"Major Samantha Carter," she then turned on Sam, "you are the former host to the traitor Jolinar of the Tok'ra. I am sure we will be spending plenty of time together."
Sam at least had enough sense to not let Kali get a visible reaction from her, though she did settle for some vicious glaring.
"Teal'c, the former First Prime of Apophis, you will be killed as an example to all Jaffa who dare to defy the will of the Gods."
Teal'c glowered at the Goa'uld. "My death will not put out the fire within all Jaffa that yearn for freedom. It will only embolden them to further defy their masters and take control of their lives."
"Not when I get through with you. You will be begging me to kill you and then I will find your son and precious Bra'tac and make you watch as I torture and kill them before I finish with you," the monster growled, pissed that despite her words, she could not get a noticeable reaction from the rebellious Jaffa.
She then moved on to her next object of hatred. "Dr. Daniel Jackson, you are the man responsible for opening Earth's Stargate, the killer of Ra, the former husband of the host of Ammonet, and a former Ascended Being. Word spread quickly of your demise but just as quickly, it was known that you returned to corporeal form. I want the information you carry about the Ancients, the Gate Builders."
Daniel shrugged. "For the record, Jack helped with the killing of Ra – go team us, however I can't help you with the knowledge thing," he said in a bored tone. "The Ancients stripped me of all of my memories of my time among the Ascended. So sorry to tell you that I'm as empty headed as Jack."
"Hey!" Jack protested.
Daniel looked slightly apologetic. "Sorry, that sounded a lot better in my mind."
Kali, glaring at the two teammates, snarled at Daniel. "I doubt what you say to be true. I'll find out," she said and looked longingly at the canopic jar that sat on the throne next to her own.
Before Daniel could fully flesh out in his mind what she was planning, he was suddenly distracted by the sensation of his Immortal warning system going off, announcing the revival of Methos. All he could do at that point was to groan and pray to whatever true god that was out there that somehow he'd wake up from this nightmare, safe and secure back on Earth in his bed.
"What is this?" Kali jumped back as Methos started to revive. "What sort of trickery is this? He was dead. Did you miss, only wounding him?" she screamed at her shocked First Prime.
"My Lady, I shot him in the chest. There is no way he could have survived a direct blast like that," Kovalan, the First Prime, exclaimed as he watched the man he had killed rise to his feet. "Could he be a god like you?"
Kali backhanded the Jaffa for daring to utter those words. "Fool! Do you not think I would feel the presence of another Goa'uld? The only one I feel is my Beloved!"
Methos coughed and looked around. "What happened?" he asked then saw his teammates dead all around him, Kali standing before him, and an incredibly annoyed look on Danil's face. "Oh," was all he could say.
"Yeah, oh," Daniel agreed, feeling a headache coming on.
SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1
The members of SG-1 and Methos were thrown into a cell further into the palace.
"Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish we've landed in," Jack groused as he and the others were bodily thrown into the cell. "Why couldn't you have put off the whole miraculous healing ability until we weren't in front of a Goa'uld?" he barked at Methos.
Methos looked annoyed. "Oh yes, I planned on dying and coming back to life in front of a snake head. In fact this morning I woke up in my tent thinking how can I best fuck up mine and everyone's lives, not to mention allow the Goa'uld to know about Immortals, therefore endangering my people's lives."
"Jack," Daniel began, mindful that his words could be over heard by Kali or her Jaffa. "They don't have much control over when they come back to life. It depends on how strong the person is and the trauma of the injury."
"Peachy, just peachy," Jack grumbled and slid down a back wall, assuming a sitting position, silently calculating the odds and possibilities of how they could escape this latest disaster.
They sat there for at least an hour, according to their watches, before anyone came for them.
"You three," the First Prime indicated O'Neill, Carter, and Teal'c by waving a zat at them, "move to the rear of the cell."
"What if I don't want to?" Jack challenged the Jaffa.
The First Prime's response was to zat him, leaving Jack convulsing on the floor. Sam and Teal'c grabbed their writhing teammate and moved to the back of the cell.
"You two," Kolvalan barked at Daniel and Methos, "on your feet."
"What if we don't want to go either," Methos snidely echoed Jack.
Daniel and Methos got zatted and were dragged off to separate parts of the palace. What awaited them ranked pretty high on their lists of things they never wanted to experience in their lengthy lifetimes.
A/N: Well, what do you think? Crap or not? Hit the shiny review button and let me know what you think. Please?
There isn't a lot of action in this chapter but there will be in the next one. What I want to do next will have action and this seemed to be a logical place for a break. Also, I am sorry that this took so long to get put out. Work, lack of inspiration, cleaning the house, and (again) computer issues got the best of me. My old computer is officially dead. I haven't decided if I am going to recycle it, throw it off a bridge, or go all Office Space on it. Any suggestions?
Finally, thank you to all of you that continue to read my stuff, drop me a review, or put me/the story on your lists. I truly appreciate it all and to those of you that left me a review, but no way to respond, I want to say thank you for your thoughts and kindness.
Well, the next chapter will be up before I go on vacation and I hope you will like it. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a review and make my day a bit shinier than it was before.
Cheers!