Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I have put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)
Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course
The Ghost in the Team
"Run!" Vala yelled, voicing the thoughts of all of the group as they turned around to hurry back along the still-open passage behind them, narrowly avoiding the subsequent blast of flame that followed them as they hurried around the first available corner.
"OK," Mitchell said, glancing back as the dragon's flames beat against the wall behind them, "looks like Draco's too big to fit through this, but we should probably keep moving..."
"Looks like an exit this way," Sam added, indicating another passage that seemed slightly lighter at the end than the others. "Come on, let's go!"
After a few minutes' more hurried movement, the group finally found themselves back outside the mountain, shaken by this latest turn of events but all still clearly alive.
"OK, what the hell just happened there?" Mitchell asked, indicating the cave they'd just left by.
"It was a hologram," Daniel explained. "The Sangraal wasn't real."
"What?" Sam said, looking incredulously at the archaeologist. "Are you saying we came all this way for nothing?"
"Given the way these things work, I'm betting that Puff back there is our final test to get what we're after," Spike said, jerking his thumb back at the tunnel they'd been running through only moments ago.
"You are joking, right?" Ba'al asked, glaring over at Spike. "You may be able to cope with an unusual amount of physical damage, but it would be madness to challenge that thing!"
No sooner had Ba'al finished speaking, then the sound of rocks breaking prompted the group to glance up just in time to see the dragon emerge from the top of the mountain, its wings spread as it began to dive towards them with a loud screech.
"I don't think we're going to have a choice..." Vala said, swallowing slightly at the sight before them.
With that, the group of five turned and ran towards the nearby tree line, a few brief efforts at firing their P-90s at the dragon just serving to confirm that the creature wasn't vulnerable to their weaponry.
"So..." Vala asked as the group took up position behind some of the nearest available trees, "what's the plan now?"
"It can't see us as long as we stay in the trees," Ba'al commented. "We should be able to make it back to the village."
"Oh, real big of you, Bally-boy," Spike said, glaring sarcastically at the Goa'uld. "No wonder you sods lost your empire; the first time you face something you can't stop on the first try, you just go and sodding quit?"
"Spike's right," Daniel said resolutely. "The dragon's the final test; we've come too far to give up now."
"It's just that kind of noble sentiment that's going to get us all killed," Ba'al said sarcastically.
"Y'know, if we're tossing around criticism, I thought you said you knew that bugger's name?" Spike asked, glaring at the ex-System Lord.
"Spike makes a point," Mitchell pointed out, looking over at Ba'al with a slight smirk. "That is the reason I didn't shoot you earlier, after all..."
"Ah, yes..." Ba'al said, looking slightly awkwardly at the rest of SG-1. "I may have exaggerated about that slightly..."
"In other words, you lied," Spike groaned. "Bugger..."
"In any case, you didn't think that just by calling out its name, you'd suddenly be able to control it?" Ba'al countered, regaining his composure as he looked over at the vampire.
"I don't know," Daniel said, shaking his head thoughtfully. "Name magic is common in most mythologies; to know something's secret name is to steal its power..."
"Any chance that parchment thing had some kind of clue we could use so that we don't just have to guess what to say right now?" Spike asked, waving a hand impatient. "I'm not exactly keen on you sods getting torched by Daryl over there, you know!"
"OK, hold on a minute," Daniel said, holding up a hand as inspiration began to gleam in his eyes. "The Parchment said that the Sangraal would belong to 'he who speaks the Guardian's name'; maybe the clue's in that?"
"We've already guessed that the dragon's name will let us control it-" Ba'al fumed.
"No, that's the point; the 'Guardian' is not the dragon!" Daniel said, looking around at his teammates in what Spike was tempted to call a 'Eureka' moment. "The Guardian is the person who set this whole thing up... the 'Guardian' is Morgan le Fay!"
"Right!" Vala said, promptly getting to her feet and running towards the dragon as it stood on the ground, 'glaring'- as much as something whose face seemed to be stuck in a permanent grimace could be said to be glaring- in her direction.
"Wait!" Daniel yelled, he and Spike breaking from the trees to hurry after her. "No!"
"What the Hell?" Mitchell groaned, reaching into his pocket to pull out a couple of rounds of C4 before hurrying after the vampire, the archaeologist and the thief; maybe if he could catch up to them, he could do some damage to the dragon by throwing this thing down the dragon's throat...
"Hey!" Vala yelled, as she took up position in front of the dragon. "Morgan Le Fay!"
As the dragon turned to look at her, Vala swallowed anxiously as she took in the sight of the massive creature in front of her, its wings lifting it up off the ground once again.
"Darryl?" the ex-space-thief said, looking apprehensively at the creature, just before the archaeologist and the vampire reached her position.
"Ganos Lal!" Daniel yelled upwards at the dragon still hovering above them, just as the dragon was opening its mouth to launch another fireblast at them.
As soon as Daniel had spoken, the dragon's entire body suddenly seemed to glow with a brilliant light before it folded in on itself like it was made of paper before it vanished into nothingness, with only the singed trees around them serving as any indication that it had been there in the first place.
"Wow..." Mitchell said, as he came to a halt beside his teammates, looking at the empty space in the sky where a dragon had been earlier before looking at Daniel. "'Ganos Lal'?"
"It was Morgan's name before she Ascended," Daniel replied.
"Yeah... I know," Vala said, nodding awkwardly at the archaeologist.
"Thanks for the assist," Mitchell said, turning to look grimly at Ba'al as Sam and Teal'c walked up to join their teammates, staring slightly sarcastically at the former System Lord.
"Well, to be honest, I wouldn't have been much use to you," Ba'al said nonchalantly. "My strengths lie in strategy and command, whereas yours lie in armed combat and dealing with..."
"Dragons?" Sam finished for him.
"Clearly," Ba'al said, shrugging uncertainly at him.
"Yeah, great way to cover up your inadequacies, Bally-boy," Spike said, before he clapped his hands together and indicated the mountain before them. "Anyway, with that out of the way, let's try this again, shall we?"
With that brief exchange, the group turned around walked back into the mountain cavern system they'd just left a few moments ago, the cave entrance still open and unsealed as the group advanced into the underground network that would lead them back to the Sangraal.
Finally arriving back in the cavern where the dragon had originally appeared, the seven of them advanced carefully along the narrow bridge to gather around the glowing red orb of the Sangraal; with the last trap having been dealt with, nobody saw any point in staying back at a moment like this.
"OK," Daniel said, as he reached out to take the object before them. "Let's get this..."
His voice trailed off as his hand passed through the red orb once again.
"Oh, come on!" Sam said in frustration, looking almost like she was prepared to shoot something for their continued inability to find what they were looking for.
Spike was just about to voice his own exasperation with this continued lack of progress when he saw the diamond-shaped stone formation on the obelisk behind them glow a brilliant blue, followed by the rest of the people around him suddenly disappearing in a burst of white light.
"What?" the vampire said, looking around himself incredulously. "I don't believe- AARGH!" he yelled, as he felt a sudden sharp tugging at his chest as though something was trying to pull his heart and spine out of his chest...
As the pain faded, Spike found himself standing in a new room with a similar rock structure to the caverns he'd been in earlier, looking around himself as he tried to regain his focus (Fortunately he'd materialised a short distance behind Ba'al, in approximately the same position he'd been in when they'd gathered around the Sangraal; at least that meant the guy probably hadn't noticed anything 'funny').
Glancing around their new location in more detail, Spike had to admit that it didn't look like that bad a place. Unlike the caverns they'd been exploring for the last several minutes, this cavern appeared to be more like a private study than a simple cave, with wooden torches around them- the torches lighting up almost as soon as they arrived in the room-, along with various books stacked on shelves and a chest of drawers up against the wall, as well as a desk and a couple of chairs that seemed to have been chosen to relax and work in respectively.
A few jars and what looked like a crystal ball were positioned on top on the chest of drawers beside the books, but the most obvious anomaly in the room was a strange circular metal table near the centre of the room with metal bars sticking out of it and a relatively smooth upper surface, with no chairs near it or objects on it to give any sign that it was used for anything.
"OK... what just happened?" Vala asked, looking anxiously at her surroundings.
"It looks like we were... transported to another chamber," Sam said, she, Daniel and Mitchell pulling out their torches to better examine their surroundings. "It's probably a last security measure Morgan installed."
"I dunno," Mitchell commented, indicating Ba'al with his torch. "It let him in."
"I don't think Morgan was too concerned about the Goa'uld," Daniel pointed out. "It would have been the Ori she was worried about; maybe the teleportation system was designed to prevent anyone loyal to the Ori gaining access at the last stage if someone like Adria managed to find the way."
"You know," Mitchell said, as he shone his torch over the books on the nearest shelf, "I'm still not seeing anything here that looks like a Sangraal; why did she go to all this effort to send us somewhere that doesn't have what we're looking for?"
"I think I know," Sam said from the corner of the room, prompting the rest to turn and look at what she was now staring at; an alcove in the wall filled with what looked like thick green ice, glowing with a faint gleam even as they stared at it, containing an old man with long grey hair and an equally-long beard in grey robes, a slab of rock to the figure's right decorated with Ancient writing.
"'Here lies Myrrdin, Archmage of the Round'," Daniel said, leaning over to read the writing as the assembled SG-1 members gathered around the figure, Mitchell and Spike standing slightly at the back to both examine the rest of the room and keep an eye on Ba'al.
"Just to clarify..." the male lieutenant colonel said, indicating the figure before them with his torch, "that's not a hologram; he's the real McCoy, right?"
"I think so..." Daniel muttered, staring at the figure before him in barely-concealed amazement.
"How long has he... been in there?" Mitchell asked, looking uncertainly at the figure.
"Well over a thousand years," Daniel reflected.
"We have encountered Ancient stasis technology such as this before," Teal'c commented. "General O'Neill was kept in a similar pod in Antarctica."
"Really?" Spike said, looking over at the Jaffa in surprise. "Why did he do that?"
"Long story involving Anubis's attempt to attack Earth that isn't really relevant right now; what's important is how we get this guy out," Mitchell said, studying the frozen 'wizard' before them.
"I have no idea..." Daniel began.
"Hey, guys!" Vala yelled, prompting the group to turn around as she walked over to a black octagonal shape on the wall near the circular table they'd noticed upon their arrival. "Look at this!"
"Vala, be careful!" Daniel yelled, just as a cylindrical object suddenly protruded outwards from the shape; apparently, whatever it was had been activated by Vala's close proximity to it.
"I..." Vala began, looking awkwardly back at the others, clearly confused about what had just happened (Not that Spike could blame her; he had a few questions about that thing himself).
Before anyone could say anything else, a sound behind them prompted the group to turn back to look at the stasis chamber as the 'ice' receded away from the occupant. The old man inside only had time to weakly open his eyes before he began to fall forward.
"Hey, Jackson!" Mitchell yelled, grabbing one of Merlin's arms as Daniel grabbed the other.
"Clear the sodding desk!" Spike yelled, Teal'c promptly sweeping the books off the nearby table before Mitchell and Daniel half-carried, half-dragged Merlin over to lay him down on the table. As he was stretched out before them, Merlin weakly opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, his eyes flicking from one figure to the other, before he leant back and closed his eyes, his body slumping slightly as he did so.
"Bloody Hell..." Spike groaned, rolling his eyes as he looked up at Daniel. "If this bugger just went and died on us-!"
"No, he's alive," Daniel said, leaning over to place his fingers on Merlin's neck to check his pulse. "He probably just needs some time to revive completely."
"All right..." Sam said, nodding briefly at Daniel before she indicated the cave behind her, which appeared to lead to another part of the cavern system they were in. "In the meantime, we should see if there's a way out of here."
"Let us know what you find," Ba'al said as Sam and Mitchell turned to walk towards a nearby passage, only for Teal'c to grab Ba'al by the collar and drag him along with them, Ba'al's pathetic attempt to save his own dignity failing to make a particular impression on Spike as he vanished down the corridor.
"So," the vampire asked after a few moments of silent contemplation, Daniel looking around the study while he and Vala just stood around, Spike indicating the unusual black object that Vala had activated earlier, "what does that thing do that got you all worked up?"
"Well... if it's what it looks like, it's an Ancient Repository of Knowledge," Daniel answered, looking back at the vampire with a slight shrug. "We've encountered two of them before; when activated, they download the knowledge of the technology and history of the Ancients into a person's mind."
"Really?" Spike said, looking at the device with an appreciative smile; if what he'd heard and remembered about the Ancients was correct, those things were definitely useful. "Nice..."
"Both times the download took place we almost lost Jack- General O'Neill- when the knowledge he'd been given almost destroyed his mind," Daniel added grimly.
"Huh?" Vala asked, looking at Daniel in confusion. "How does that work?"
"At our current evolutionary level, the human brain just isn't designed to cope with the sheer amount of information inside that thing," Daniel explained. "It's the equivalent of putting too much in one bag; it might hold for a while, but it won't last forever. Jack only survived his encounters with one because the Asgard were able to extract the knowledge before his brain totally burnt itself out, and the second time around we had to put him in suspended animation in an Ancient base we'd found on Earth to keep him alive long enough for them to get to him."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly as he studied the object once again, his enthusiasm dampened by this new. "So, neat bit of tech, but really dangerous to use for too long, eh?"
"Which is why we shouldn't use it," Daniel confirmed, before he turned to look contemplatively at Merlin, his thoughts evidently shifting to another topic. "You know, it's amazing how similar this is to the myth..."
"Hmm?" Vala asked, having moved to sit in a chair near to Merlin's still-resting body.
"Supposedly, Morgan trapped Merlin in a cave and left him frozen there for all eternity," Daniel clarified. "Only in reality, I think she was trying to protect him."
"From what?" Vala asked, as Daniel walked around to stand on the opposite side of the apparently sleeping sorcerer, leaving Spike to stand at the top of the table.
"Well," Daniel continued, "I'm starting to think that maybe Morgan did destroy the Sangraal after all. I mean, she probably figured she had no choice; that if she didn't do it, the other Ancients would have just sent someone else."
"So, when she couldn't save the thing itself, she gave us the only guy who could put it back together later?" Spike concluded, looking at the man lying on the table before them with a slight smile. "Neat way to get around the rules, I'll give her that."
He was trying to remain calm, but even with the best will in the world he thought it would be impossible for any supernatural creature to be totally nonchalant about the current situation; he was in the same room as Merlin, for crying out loud!
"Well," Mitchell said, as he, Sam and Ba'al walked back into the cave, "the good news is that we're safe, but the bad news is that we're stuck in a desert on what we're assuming is another planet-"
"Hold on; another planet?" Spike cut in, looking in frustration at Mitchell. "How'd that happen?"
"Given that there's a Stargate just outside the cave, my best guess is that we weren't just sent to another chamber, we were sent to another planet," Sam explained. "The obelisk near the Sangraal must have teleported us through the Stargate after activating it by remote control; the fact that there's another obelisk here that supports that theory, anyway."
"And?" Vala asked, looking at the other woman curiously. "What else is wrong?"
"We can't dial out," Sam answered, her expression grim. "Somebody tampered with the DHD."
"I can fix it," Ba'al said, an Angelus-like smirk on his face as he looked at the others. "Reprogramming dialling devices is my speciality."
Spike didn't need to have read mission files to know from Ba'al's tone alone that he'd caused them some problems in the past with that particular field of expertise, but further discussion was cut off as Merlin suddenly sat up, Vala automatically moving to place her hands around his shoulders, helping him to sit up, his legs now over the side of the table as he stared uncertainly around him.
"Where... where am I?" the elderly Ancient muttered, his voice low from lack of use.
"Good question..." Sam admitted slightly awkwardly, prompting Merlin to turn and look in her direction, leaning forward slightly as he stared at her.
"You look... familiar..." he muttered, standing up and walking towards her, a smile spreading across his face as he spread his arms wide.
"Guinevere!" he said, his hands pressing against her shoulders as he hugged her to him, smiling broadly as he pulled back. "Oh, my dear, it's been too long..."
"Uh... it's... good to see you too," Sam said, nodding uncertainly back at him, clearly uncertain if she should bother correcting his misapprehension about her identity or not.
"Percival and Kay!" Merlin continued, looking over at Mitchell with a further smile before he turned to face Daniel, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder as he looked at the archaeologist. "And Galahad! Fortune does indeed smile upon me to see your faces again!"
"Hold on; I'm Kay?" Spike said, looking incredulously at Merlin. "I'm the guy who only got a seat because he was Arthur's adopted brother? That sucks-!"
"I hardly think that is an issue you should be concerned about, 'Spike'," Ba'al said, a mocking tone to his voice as he studied Merlin. "Looks like Merlin's drawbridge no longer goes all the way across the moat, if you catch my meaning."
"What's that?" Merlin said, turning to look hazily at Ba'al, an expression of contempt quickly settling on his features. "Mordred... I might have known it."
"We're wasting our time with this old fool!" Ba'al said "We need to get back to the gate so I can start reprogramming-"
"Be silent!" Merlin interjected, waving one hand at Ba'al dismissively, the Goa'uld continuing to move his mouth for a few seconds before realising that no sound was coming from his lips.
"Well, how do you like that?" Mitchell said, smiling briefly at the sight. "The old boy still has some tricks up his sleeve."
Spike may have seen more impressive things in his time with the Scoobies back in Sunnydale, but even he had to admit that what Merlin had just done was a neat trick, considering that the guy hadn't even needed to say a thing to cast the spell- there was a definite edge of something in the air to what remained active of Spike's supernatural senses in this form- and he'd only just 'woken up' after a long 'nap'.
"Merlin?" Daniel said, walking over to stand in front of the dazed Ancient. "Myrddin! We need you to remember; about the Sangraal, about Morgan, and about how you got here."
"Morgan..." Merlin muttered uncertainly.
"You also knew her as Ganos Lal," Daniel added promptingly.
"I haven't heard that name spoken in a very long time..." Merlin said, looking at him in an uncertain manner.
"We're not Knights of the Round Table," Daniel continued.
"Though we are flattered by the comparison," Mitchell added.
"Speak for yourself..." Spike muttered, rolling his eyes in frustration; only the sight of Ba'al fuming silently in the corner lifted his mood, particularly when he remembered how much the other guy had reminded him of Angelus at his worst.
"A thousand years have passed," Daniel continued, ignoring Spike's interruption. "We know who you really are, we know about Atlantis, and we've encountered the Ori."
Merlin stood in silence for a moment, until he finally seemed to focus as he looked at Daniel.
"Tell me more," he said intently.
"I... don't know where to begin," Daniel said after a moment's pause (Not that Spike could blame him; this wasn't exactly a situation that any of them had planned for). "This is going to take a while..."
"All right," Mitchell said, nodding briefly at the archaeologist, "we'll get started checking out the cave."
With that said, he turned to look at the still-silent Ba'al with a nonchalant shrug.
"Unless you have any objections to that?" Mitchell asked, smiling nonchalantly at Ba'al. "No? Great; move out."
As Spike watched his teammates move on into the cavern, he briefly thought about going on after them, but a quick glance at Merlin was all he needed to ignore that thought; even with his old relative disinterest in the mystical side of things, the chance to spend any kind of time with the wizard wasn't exactly something he felt overly inclined to pass up...
