'Achoo!'

Samantha Carter felt the sneeze coming, turning her head into her sleeve and letting it go. Odd, because she wasn't much of a sneezer, nor did she have allergies but it was well within the realm of possibilities to find something she was actually allergic to. More likely it was the dust being knocked off the ruins above them by some agitated crows. Big ones too.

"Someone thinkin' about you, Carter?" Jack teased as he relaced his boots. Just like the Colonel to bring up an old wives tale like that. Sam flashed a grin and shrugged.

"I don't know, Sir. If I sneeze every time someone thought about me in this galaxy I'd probably be on antihistamines. We're pretty popular these days." Sam joked back. Although their notoriety wasn't necessarily with their allies.

"You'll have to bond with Daniel over kleenexes if that were to happen. Speaking of which, you figure out what's the story about these ruins?" Jack said, raising his voice to get Daniel's attention.

"I'm starting to! The language is a derivation of what scholars believe to be the root of the Gaelic language group. That doesn't mean much considering how we don't have a direct translation but it might be close enough that I can get a rough idea of what these writings say. More importantly, it's what is on the rock faces around the corner." Daniel explained rapidly as he started moving towards the tall hill that these ruins were nested under. The hill was covered in trees, but in many areas, it seemed scarred, and while there was green there were entire areas with no trees left growing.

When Sam turned the corner, she saw why. It looked like something out of a fairy tale storybook. One queen vs another, one with black hair and one with red, with ravens behind them. Sam's eyes were drawn towards the top of the mosaic, where something like a somewhat abstract looking Goa'uld mothership behind the one with red hair.

"I think two Goa'uld fought over this planet. From the looks of it, the people had revolted and came under the support of this figure." Daniel replied.

"Not a Tok'ra?" Sam asked hopefully, though she had doubts about that. More than likely it was an internal territory conflict.

"It does not appear so," Teal'c replied, gesturing to the jaffa indicated behind both figures with his staff. "However it appears it had happened many years ago."

"Any idea who they are?" Jack asked, loosely holding his P90, his attention on the path they had taken and surveying around. Teal'c likewise was also paying more attention to the area around them.

"I believe the Raven is the symbol used by the system lord Morrigan." The Tok'ra had shared their intelligence of the system lords, at least in regards to 'whos who' of which Goa'uld they were most likely to encounter. While it was useful, the SGC was still left wanting as far as meaningful tactical intelligence.

"Carter, stick with Daniel," Jack said with a frown. "Teal'c n' I will head out to do a recon patrol. We'll hike out to the excavation site for your mineral samples after we get back."

"Yes, sir," Sam said automatically, glancing down at the image again and taking in the details. It was looking to be a pretty straight forward recon and given their recent adventures, it was probably good to have an easy one for the books. The possibility of a Goa'uld encounter had the Colonel on alert, but so far there was no indication that anyone had been on this planet for thousands of years. Sam somewhat wished there were people here to put all of this in context. She wasn't an archeologist, but the painting of the two women in the conflict had stoked her curiosity.

'Don't you walk away from me, Kylee.'

The words still stung, replaying in her mind even a day later.

Her mother had given her an earful, more than that really but it wasn't something Kylee Harwood really wanted to think about. Was she a bad daughter? Maybe, but nobody was keeping score. Yes, of course. She could have been more mindful of her mother, and even a little more obedient and conscientious. At the same time, her mom could have been more understanding and accommodating. Then again, it was probably asking far too much of her.

Considering how she just found out her daughter was a metahuman and that does take some time to process. She pieced it together, her mom, from gumption and wit that came with being a state attorney. Then there was the matter of Kylee's grades and finances which admittedly, were not in the greatest position.

Her mom was footing all the bills her scholarship didn't pay for so there was an issue of accountability. Her grades had slipped, but there were forces at work that were beyond her control. The resulting conversation had been rather heated.

She always knew that her team's actions might eventually have consequences, but Kylee never thought it would be so personal. Never thought she'd wake up one morning with cryptic texts telling her to get to the house immediately, or the heated argument she'd find herself in once she showed up. She wasn't surprised that her stepdad was 190% behind everything that her mom said, although in the 'intervention' he proved himself to be reading into the meta hysteria. Her mother at least didn't go that far. That's why she didn't tell her dad, who had known her secret for months now, that her mom found out. She didn't want to hear it from him, her confidant, that her mom was right.

When Dusty, her little brother, got wind of it too, he started going full fanboy and drew some fanart of her hero persona, Hightail. If nothing else, it brightened her day this morning when she saw it. Kylee loved him, even if he was a little goober. The cat was out of the bag now, but as long as she was going on patrol, why not return the favor in the form of a selfie?

The intrepid speedster practically flew up the side of her favorite building in the skyline and pulled out her phone to take a picture. It was something she shouldn't have had on patrol, but given the night she had, she didn't mind breaking the rules. Holding out the phone, she snapped a few photos, flashing a big grin in one and winking in another. Kylee then turned it so she could see the results.

"Oh…" She raised her brows at the photo she'd taken and pivoted, but not before getting hit with a gust of wind that knocked her clear off the building.

It was Zephyr, another speedster like her but who could manipulate pockets of wind instead of electricity as she could. One could say he was a blowhard. The dude had some hipster/punk mohawk and considered himself a mercenary while dressing as a motocross Xgames reject. That said, as self-centered as Zephyr was, he was appreciatively not complex and tended to get straight to the point.

That meant trouble, for her mostly, since she was the only one fast enough to keep up with him.

Gravity was doing its thing, pulling her to the ground. Speedsters, however, had a knack for defying gravity. Terminal velocity was a joke. She angled herself around, like the gymnast she was, and began running her legs. Thankfully she was close enough to the wall to get traction, which slowed her descent. It tended to be rather tricky to pull off, but she'd practiced it before and knew how to lean her body. She sped up, zipping back up the building only to see Zephyr taking off.

Hesitating, she wondered why the green bean was trying to pick a fight with her, until she realized that she had dropped her phone. A quick run about later, the only conclusion she could come to was that Zephyr had taken it. From there, she raced off in pursuit of her foe.

Zephyr had an advantage, given that he could reach his top speed without trying, whereas Hightail had to generate that energy via kinetic absorption, but the gap always closed quickly, and her top speed was much faster than his. Which meant he only had the edge for a short amount of time.

While heading in the general direction she thought he'd gone in, she realized that he'd circled around and started running at her side.

"Taily! You drop something?" he asked, teasing her phone out in front of her and pulling away, yards ahead with his speed when she grabbed for it.

"Hand it over, y'jerk!" Hightail said, dashing for him and throwing out a small arc of electricity, with just enough power to stun just in case someone else was nearby and she missed. She had to be careful with that, she knew.

He evaded, she pursued, growing ever faster as she drove forward, generating more and more energy, but he was still running ahead, taunting her with every jab and evasive maneuver. A sound cut through their bickering as they ran, a supersonic shriek that even they could hear.

They both paused their argument, glancing towards the sound. What looked like a meteor hurled towards the ground heading for a nearby city plaza prompting the girl into hero mode, breaking off the chase as the safety of the people took priority over her personal life. Besides, she could always brick it remotely the moment she got home.

She targeted a mother and her children first, moving them a block away, the guy in the hotdog suit came next, deposited quickly on the other side of the road followed by nearly a dozen businessmen, some of which weren't exactly pleased with her actions but it beat becoming street pizza.

It crashed into the middle of the plaza only an instant after she pulled the last man out, sending rubble and debris into the air along with lots of dust. Diligently, she raced around warning people to stay away until the police came given that meteors falling like this out of nowhere wasn't exactly a common occurrence, she wasn't about to let these folks take a chance. For her part, she just hoped it would be a more interesting headline than her scuffle with Zephyr, and that it didn't turn out to be more eventful. Seriously, who had time to deal with space blobs '? This definitely fell under the rather large spectrum of sci-fi nonsense she just didn't want to have to deal with.

Casually dropping out of speed and skipping a step, Zephyr stopped on a dime next to her and grinned as though he had any business being there. Was this jerk just messing with her for kicks or was there some ulterior motive? She regarded him with a long-suffering sigh.

"Yo Tails, you-Whoa…" He'd said, looking down into the crater. Ky saw it too, at first glance it looked like a meteor, but the outer shell cracked and fell off revealing an artificial construct beneath, about the size of a beach ball. And like the genius he was, Zephyr went straight down to check it out.

"...You know, Zeph, you might grow a little extra 'something something' if you get too close to that thing." Ky needled, watching him cautiously since it was his sorry butt she was going to have to pull out of the fire.

Would it be so wrong to let him get vaporized? She didn't want to buy a new phone, but that wasn't as bad as her personal life in the hands of a villain. No, no, that wouldn't be the heroic thing to do, so she'll have to save him.

"Or I start glowing in the dark, and get rich, which is more likely, smartass?" Zephyr yelled back with a grin.

He really wanted to get blown up, didn't he? Zeph went to stick his hand out, and while Kylee was still debating the ultimate ethics of allowing Zeph to proverbially stick a knife into an electrical outlet, the idgit reached out for it. Luckily, it didn't take more than a second to get an answer to the question of whether it was dangerous, or not so lucky. A robotic hum erupted from the machine under the rubble followed by what looked and sounded like a scifi phaser. It hit Zephyr in the chest and it knocked him off his feet. She, too, barely managed to avoid being shot even from her position at the edge of the crater. No small feat when up against a speedster.

Another blast went off and Zephyr cried out.

Not so lucky in the fact that now, Kylee really would have to bail the loser boy out and save his sorry ass. As much as she detested her long-time rival and villain she wasn't about to let him be tortured by that thing's defense system.

While keeping an eye on the meteor, she navigated down to the crater and modulated her speed, darting for Zeph to grab him and drop to the ground to avoid another shot aimed at her, but when she roes to her feet it got her in the shoulder.

"Ah!" Ky yelled as she took the blast, then pushed up, almost dropping Zephyr before he managed to start moving his legs and they ran out of range together. At a glance, it seemed very advanced, which was saying something considering that she was enrolled in a research and development program at her tech school, and she had encountered all kinds of laser weapons in the field ever since she'd gotten her powers. It wasn't all too uncommon to pull out a weapon that didn't deal with typical projectiles and the police were experimenting with nonlethal energy weapons these days. Then there was the superhuman arms race, to come up with technology to shut down people with powers. That was all kinds of fun.

It's just she'd never seen anything that sleek, that compact, without any visible panels and perfectly round.

A police officer approached them and she raised her good arm. "Keep everyone back. No idea what it's going to do." Most of them listened, it was just her lucky stars she was one of the super heroes with good PR.

Turning her attention back to Zeph, he was stunned, though rapidly gaining sense about him. She took that as an opportunity to frisk him for the phone, and once she found it, she pulled it out and moved to stand only to feel a hand moving up her leg.

"Wow, Taily, if you wanted to get down like that you shoulda said something earlier." Ky stared at him, static crackling off of her before she pointed her finger at him and pulled the proverbial trigger. His body seized as if being shocked by a taser and Kylee withdrew away from him, brushing herself off.

"I should have left you down there, you creep," she very nearly growled at him, her hand still crackling with energy.

Grumbling, he climbed to his feet and stared her down, and for a moment she debated letting him go so she could deal with the new problem.

"What is it?" Zephyr asked.

"A weapon, obviously," Kylee started, then looked back down the crater. "Looks more advanced than anything else I've seen, but it can't be your trap, so who-"

"Uh, why would I set a trap just to get caught in it myself? You'd have to be some kind of idiot," the screwball said, and Kylee shot him a look.

"You are some kind of idiot, you're right," Kylee said with a smirk then shook her head. "It's not your style anyway. I'm going to try to deactivate it." She'd deal with Zephyr after the current situation was dealt with. As problematic as he could be, he was, at this point, still least concerning in the hierarchy of evil around here. This piece of junk was definitely a higher priority.

"Hey, I-" Zephyr turned his head upwards, then pointed. "Uuuuh."

She heard an engine rumble, saw the shadow, and whipped around. A space ship? Crap, it WAS a trap.

It fired an energy blast at them, but she darted to him to knock him out of the way, and while they avoided it as dust and debris flew up everywhere. It was almost like they weren't even trying to hit them. Stormtrooper much?

To make matters worse there were bystanders now, most of them with cell phones out trying to get footage to go viral on the net. Great. Mom was going to love that.

Ky turned sharply to see a large form approach her from the dust cloud, then rushing at her with a chunk of debris, slamming it into her. If it wasn't for the fact that she was a human punching bag due to her ability to absorb kinetic energy, she might have been curb-stomped. Might have even broken her jaw. She was lucky, her goggles weren't.

Knocked back a few paces, she righted herself and sent energy coursing into her fists. Once, twice, and the third time she hit him she jumped into the air, bringing both fists down to create a concussive kinetic strike with her powers. The quicker she took this guy down, the better.

Her hits barely phased him, and for her trouble, while she was in midair executing her attack, a mace like arm swung into her stomach, but there was really no stopping her attack, given that she was trying to make a flashbang to send her foe back.

As a result, the two of them went flying in opposite directions

The dust cleared, revealing their attacker's hulking form. Tall, muscular, grey skin with orange markings. Sort of looked like a mix between a dragon and a gremlin with a face like that and those reddish-orange eyes. He grinned wolfishly at her when he got to his feet. It wasn't inconceivable that this guy could have been a metahuman, but the aircraft made her think he was alien in origin.

Jumping to her feet, she loosened up and flexed her hand, allocating some of her power to her hands so she could zap this goon. "Alright big guy, how about you tell me what you're doin' on our planet before I kick you off of it?"

He barked a laugh. "Haha! You are a spunky one, but I would love to see you try, human!"

This was the sort of attitude she didn't need to deal with today. She darted forward, and Creepzilla aimed a projectile weapon at her, looked like bolas, so when it was fired at her, Ky jumped and spun, nimbly dodging and pressing on to close the distance.

Kylee drew her arm back and jumped at him, but something struck her in the back, hitting her with such an impact that she overshot her attack and tumbled to the ground. She didn't stick the landing, but she managed to fall as safely as she could.

What she hadn't counted on was the bola coming back like a boomerang or heat-seeking missile. It snapped around her legs and she was down, flat on her face. Ow... She could still feel it, whatever it was. She reached back behind her to grab at it and found it moving downwards, then coiling around her legs. Wha- No! Rolling onto her back she reached down to the snake-like device and tried to use a pulse of electricity to blow it away. Instead, the energy she put out was fed back into her resulting in excruciating pain. The pain caused her to curl into herself, stunned enough that the robotic cord managed to wind itself around her knees, and up to her hips. She managed to sit up only for her to have to wrestle it away from her torso, but the weakness in her shoulder from that blast earlier, her arm gave out and in no time, she was immobilized.

The cord managed to pin her hands to her chest and wind around her palms, and her neck as well. For all the good it did her, struggling only earned her another shock of her power being sent back into her, but the panic of the very real prospect of being abducted was starting to overrule reason.

For whatever reason, maybe to not lose his favorite rival to torment, or maybe to pay her back for the two times she had saved him in the past few minutes, Zephyr came back on the scene and sent a gust of wind in their direction. Ky was glad she was close to the ground else she'd have been blown away. Didn't seem to so much as phase the dragon-faced, gremlin eared cretin.

It probably wasn't a good idea for him to come back. In his condition, Zephyr's injuries were far worse than hers having been shot multiple times by the turret, this guy was just toying with him. She wondered if their enemy was just that tough or if they had been so poorly mismatched against him. It didn't take more than a few blasts thanks to Zeph's weakened state for him to go down as well.

The alien walked over to her and lifted her by the cord, and she struggled despite the jolts, but her endurance waned. The bundled speedster was dragged over towards Zephyr who was scrambling to get away from their assailant. He was picked up by his neck and held up in the air. Zeph kicked and tried to pry the alien's hand off of him. All that seemed to do was please the big space dragon, as he grinned in a way that reminded her of cartoon villains. Hungry eyes surveyed his catch before he began to drag them both towards the ship.

Even while barely conscious, Kylee had seen the people who were looking on in a mix of terror and excitement. People with their phones out to get the latest meta fight for cheap internet views. This was going to make the evening news, wasn't it? Knowing her mom and her dad were going to see this, to know she'd been so decisively defeated… It was hard to take. Despite her efforts, her last attempt to free herself with an electric pulse ended in her seeing stars.

When she woke up, there were still stars. This time, real ones right outside the ship's cockpit. Stunning and beautiful, far as the eye could see. It didn't excite her as it should have, and while Ky wanted to appreciate the wonder of being in space, she knew what it meant. They were in space. Far away from anyone who could help them.

Next to her satZephyr, looking like a dumb, sad, broken dog. He was conscious as well, his mask and goggles pulled from his head, arms and legs bound. They didn't say anything as they felt the engines reverberate beneath them, the ship preparing to take off.

The Earth grew further and further away and Ky looked on with a tightening of her throat as she realized exactly what was going to happen. If she had only listened to her mom and faced the music like she should have, she wouldn't be here right now. Wouldn't be going to wherever the hell dragon-breath was taking them.

The engine came to life and propelled them into the starry blackness of space.

The Infinity Cascade. That's where that alien ended up bringing them. It was effectively a 'Nexus', a place where the delicate borders of the realities converge. There was a massive facility, taking advantage of the easy access to thousands of universes, which made it easy to access their participants. These 'recruits' and 'volunteers' were all forced to be entertainment for the masses of spectators brought from all over the multiverse. It seemed like villains from near and far, but maybe that was naive. It was all about feats of strength, wit, cunning, they were involuntary serving as warriors, champions, and clowns.

It was humiliating, dangerous, and Kylee was pretty sure she's died at least once.

The facility itself looked like a collection of space stations, with an open-air colosseum in the middle set in the middle of what could only be described as a cosmic storm with energy flowing off into the depths like waterfalls. Forcefields held it all together, which was the only way they could hold it all together, or it would probably be torn apart by entropic forces, or something. That was Kylee's best guess, she was an engineer, not an astrophysicist.

They had the spectator stands to loop around the arena blocks, which were hexagonal honeycomb-style areas, with all kinds of different environments, anything they wanted to throw at them. After experiencing what equated to the set of a 'survivor' reality show, with the desert island, scorching sun, the complete package. There were no limits of what they could produce. And they had plenty of unwilling actors to fill the stage.

Above it, all stood a citadel like structure; the well-fortified command center. It resembles a flying saucer at least in regards to its shape. Its shell was obsidian and uninviting, but considering how the massive jumbotron screens usually drew the attention and play by plays being shown at any given time, most people didn't seem to notice.

Kylee spent much of her idle time observing from her window between her matches. There was no real way to tell how much time had past and it wasn't like there was a clock in their room. She counted the days, but when weeks turned into months she just sort of stopped bothering. It wouldn't help her any to ruminate on time.

Their quarters, which she shared with Zephyr, were about the size of a small apartment, and the only privacy they had was in the washroom. On the far side of the room, they had the window, and a TV showing the latest matches or challenges. On the third wall, there was a panel which was usually a one-way mirror, but on the occasion they allowed the competitors to interact with their audience. It was really hard to gauge who they were, how many of them were just the multiverse's oligarchy, privileged and rich, standing next to those with a more sadistic bent. Like, seriously, there was this spandex-clad man dressed in a butterfly outfit with a crown on his head. What the hell was up with that?

If the powers that be were trying to send her some kind of message about the importance of family, or this was some kind of cosmic karma for some crime she wasn't aware of, she got the message, but it didn't do her any good. Not here.

Zephyr wasn't much help, and he seemed split about getting home and enjoying the spoils of victory whenever the pair of them performed well. Sometimes he called her a party pooper, others he was banging his head against the wall trying to scheme his way out. He wasn't entirely stupid, at least when it came to certain skill sets and strategies he was fairly cunning, but his personality gave her the impression he was a vapid airhead with nothing between his ears. This is why when she found out he was trying to cut a deal with one of their interested onlookers she was wondering what the hell he knew that she didn't.

None of that mattered considering where they had ended up. The big gilded prize that they were all playing for was their freedom. Supposedly only a handful won the right to return home, or even stay as they wished to be treated like champions, hall of fame, and never losing status even if they were defeated in battle. Nobody knew if that was a real thing or if it was just a lie to motivate them. Losers got dropped a rung on the ladder and received fewer privileges, so the motivation to maintain your status was pretty strong, even if you didn't ask for anything beyond your basic needs.

Bottom line was that she wanted out. She wanted to go home, and at that point, she had to try something else. The scientific method would have to do, at least in the testing phase, if this were all just a big cable channel then what would happen if she stopped being entertaining? It started out with simple acts of defiance, failure to respond to orders or ignoring them completely and doing her own thing, all in effort to be as uninteresting as possible. That earned her and Zeph a trip back to the starter quarters, and the most basic of sustenance. Space goo, in tubes. Sure, it had all the calories they needed but it tasted awful, sort of like the gruel from Oliver Twist.

As much as Zephyr hated her for it, her and her backward sense of heroism that quote: "didn't mean a damn thing here", they had least learned something which was more than they had before. That while they were circus monkeys performing for amusement they did have a very short leash, and the program had to continue. Why? Who knew. If nothing else, they had a wrench to throw in the system now.

It took about a week to get back to being able to be in the common area, to be in the place where they could communicate with the other warriors. It took even longer to convince the others of her plan, to follow her to what could be their last fight. They were heroes, most of them, and they had to do something or risk being stuck here their entire lives. Kylee wanted to go out fighting.

When they finally decided on a plan, they took it to the arena. They stopped fighting each other or participating. Acting only when it meant life or death for themselves or the other, Kylee and Zephyr taking the responsibility of playing defense for most of their allies. It was mostly a matter of fending off rivals who were onboard with the agenda of the powers that be, or they thought the only way out was to cooperate. They had too much to lose to believe in their hail mary scheme.

Their lack of cooperation landed them in the citadel to be punished. She expected a spanking, a slap on the wrist. Sadly, that wasn't the case at all. Instead, they were brought to the head honcho. Discount elder god, Predator-Chutulu. At least that's the name she'd come up with, because how else should she describe this semi cyborg squid lord? It was maybe thirty feet tall, Cthulhuwannabe, Lovecraftian fan character made by some edgelord on the internet. That didn't even begin to describe the smell of the thing, cloying and disgustingly sweet, like rotted flesh, its skin was a patchwork of mottled, putrid green that made her want to vomit.

Was it too much to ask to just be granted a voyage home? Were they worth that much to this guy? This thing that called itself the 'Host.' If she knew this was waiting for her at the end of this gambit she'd have just stuck with the program like a good little pawn. Ky glanced at Zephyr, who looked about as scared as she was because they'd just been brought before the big bad and there was no guarantee they were going to be fighting their way out of this.

Being this close to the sorry excuse for a Lovecraftian creation, she could barely hold her breath as the stench filled her lungs. The body seemed to be partly mechanical, as were his arms, as the base at the shoulder seemed to be a tentacle attached to some kind of bionic arm, and his hand made of the same calamari like flesh, only rough like a shark's hide.

Zeph didn't seem to like scene himself. "Tails, I'm going to remind you that this is your play - your idea." He was unusually subdued, the arrogance and assholery faded over the weeks or months they've been here. She'd come to appreciate his comradery, but he was right. There was no backing down now, not for her. If anyone was going to face the consequences for this, it would be her, if not the rest of them.

"If I'm going out, I'm going out fighting." She said to her former enemy turned ally. "Anything is better than being part of this."

"Including death? Look, like, I get you're all selfless and heroic, but what's the point if he just kills us all?" Zeph asked.

"Hopefully he won't, then we'll know something we didn't yesterday," Kylee replied in a hushed tone. She righted herself and walked forward and sucked in a breath. No more running. The only thing she could do was face it.

"Hey! Squid face! Do you hear me? We're done! We're not playing your stupid game anymore!" Kylee stepped up and yelled with all the conviction she could muster.

The voice, if you could call it that, more like nails on a chalkboard mixed with a howling typhoon of noise, but there wasn't any sound. It was all in her head, and it was agonizing.

"You dare…?" Was all it said with chilling indifference as though they were insignificant specks. It was enough to send shivers down her spine.

No turning back...

"Yes!" Hightail yelled in defiance. She didn't expect fanfare, but she did hope that her comrades weren't cowering in fear because all that tension made it hard to double down on something courageously stupid and reckless. It was stupid, they all knew it, and maybe it was the rest of the group's lack of team spirit that led to what came next.

Its eyes glowed

They were blown back by a force, some unseen psychic force, like being hit by a whip. She managed to roll back to stand and watched as one by one, the others were levitated into the air with some kind of pink energy enveloping them all. All except her.

Singled out as to make an example of? That was something she had considered could have happened, of course again, even if she went down as a martyr the others might be able to take something out of this, or it'll shatter any hope they ever have going forward. In hindsight, she was beginning to doubt her plan had any merit. That didn't mean Hightail was going to bow down and take whatever he was going to throw at her. So she ran. She used her speed to avoid his advances since they let her use her powers. Dodging his attempts to grab her, to crush her, to flay her with his bladed tentacles that were hiding under his knee pad.

Gross.

After a few rounds of 'try and catch me, he finally got her with some kind of white laser that shot out of the palm of his hand impaling her in the leg, drawing her in like a yo-yo. She screamed from the searing hot pain, her cry cut short when the fingers closed around her torso and squeezed. Winded, she opened her wet eyes to look at her foe. That was it, huh? Was all she had to give? No.

She had more. Kylee dug deep from the depths of her stored energy and let it all go at once, an indiscriminate discharge of all of her electricity. The monster snarled when it shot up his arm with what the girl assumed was a mild annoyance, but the fact that it reacted at all, that it responded to her attack gave her hope. She made it flinch. Looking back to her friends, she met with Zephyr's eyes. ' You CAN hurt this thing. Figure out how,' she thought.

The voice came again, but this time there were no words, only a sense of pleasure and amusement from the pain he was afflicting on her. She could almost sense the satisfaction he had in her suffering. It made her sick, almost physically nauseated at the aura he was putting into her, and she roared out in frustration, struggling and fighting in the monster's grip despite the pain.

The monster savored every moment and made sure she knew. It gave her a reprieve for a few moments before she felt him lifting her higher. Towards the area above his throne. She'd studied the citadel for a long time, she'd long since figured out that there was some mechanism in this place that held the place together, or channeled energy here somehow. Maybe it even fueled the place, she had no idea, no chance to put her theories together much to her chagrin.

It raised her closer and closer to the matter stream, and her eyes widened with fear, not knowing exactly what was about to happen to her. Vaporized instantly? Probably not considering how this guy seemed to like his suffering served to him cold and extra spicy. Then again it wasn't like she hasn't been revived from the dead before, but this seemed like a very specific punishment she was about to endure or suffer through before an untimely end. The final curtain.

Time seemed to slow, similar to the effect she could employ by moving at sonic speeds, but this was more of a dynamic effect. She could just barely make out what the others were saying, calling out her name, slowed down to the point where it was almost comical. Above her, the energy swelled and pulsed, and she began to see images in her head. Images of herself in different, alternate timelines, realities where she never got powers. There were perhaps one or two where she didn't have the confidence to use them, choosing instead to stay on the sidelines and be a mousy support team member. So many different variations, the ebb, and flow of the multiverse was more than overwhelming, it was a swarm of endless possibilities. She screamed, crying out, begging for him to stop, before she was plunged inside.

And then it all went dark.

Jack saw the disappointment from nearly a mile away once he saw the two heading back from his vantage point. Daniel had that slight slouch in his shoulders, like a kid who didn't get to stay at the park. As much as Jack would have loved to indulge Daniel's curiosity, there really was no further purpose to the team's presence but in all honesty it just looked like the weather was about to turn sideways. The wind picked up about a half hour after Daniel and Teal'c left for the ruins and like hell he was going to get stuck in another typhoon while Carter and Daniel futzed around.

"You could have given me ten more minutes," Daniel called out as they reached comfortable shouting distance.

Jack raised his brows at the Archeologist. As much as he enjoyed watching a good storm roll in while the sun beams still dotted the landscape, he could feel the change in pressure in his bone, but the low rumble of distant thunder informed his decision. "Yeah, sure, because I want to be stuck here when that thing hits and the game gets rained in. Let's GO campers!"

Carter was on her feet, hauling the strap of her case over her shoulder, nodding to Daniel. "I'm pretty sure they'll be sending another team to this planet, given the trace amounts of trinium. You'll get another chance to look at those ruins, but given how unstable the ground was on our way up here? It's best we get ahead of this storm."

Daniel turned his head upwind, squinting, holding his hat as it threatened to blow away as another gust blew at him. "Yeah, aah… on second thought, let's go."

The passage of time meant nothing as Kylee… drifted. There wasn't really another word for it. . Her awareness was spotty at best, but the fact that she had awareness at all as a disembodied… for lack of a better word, 'soul', lost in the multiverse, that was pretty neat. She didn't mind it so much in this state, didn't mind much at all. Just being aware of having awareness, and then drifting back into oblivion was almost preferable to the broken memories she had of 'before'.

Kylee didn't much mind the fact that she didn't have to feel more than vague thoughts about her state of being, or perhaps passively dream of these other possibilities she was peripherally aware of. The dreams came and went, the visions of what might have been existing, but immaterial as she was. It didn't matter considering she was only a disembodied mass of… something that was once a person.

Was this what being a ghost felt like? Must have been, and she had to admit to herself, despite the fact that she was no longer among the living, it was kinda cool just being able to float around and occasionally consider big questions. Was what she did worth it? Did the others make it out? Was anyone going to come get her? There was also an inordinate amount of time dedicated to useless trivial considerations such as the chemical structure of the ingredients of pop tarts and why a supposedly advanced society allowed their children to consume what was essentially glucose tablet cardboard and sugar gel.

Thankfully, such thoughts tended to slip away as quickly as they had come.

At some point, a light came into her perception along with a face. A beautiful face that she couldn't help but appreciate, very lovely. And this lady in white, offering to return to corporeal form? At least that was the general idea, as the woman didn't actually speak (which was likely a good thing as she didn't have ears at the moment). That's what she usually was, corporeal. As in, not this. Sure. It would be nice to go back to that. She agreed to do it. Agreed to take the kindness of this woman in white and allowed herself to be sent back. Back to Earth.

And all at once, she was real again, physical. Stumbling out into a large, concrete room. Energy pulsed behind her, people, blurry people stood in front of her. Everything seemed so bright and vibrant she couldn't focus quite yet, and her senses hadn't returned either. Kylee didn't exactly have any expectations but she certainly didn't expect whatever this was. All in all, she just felt some intense feeling of relief, but she couldn't understand why.

She took a step forward, and relearned a fun fact about gravity (that it existed), toppling forward only to be caught by a strong arm from a very large man. Through the ringing of her ears she heard shouts of 'Cease fire!' and other things she could barely make out. The world spun, but she tried to force herself back to her feet with the aid of her new friend, the quarterback lookin' dude with a gold stamp on his forehead.

Kylee was happy to cling to him, something stable and warm for the moment while she got her land legs back, letting her brain catch up to her new situation. Ky's mind became a little clearer, her thoughts reminding her of who she was, that she was on earth, that she was home. Then she looked up to see who was there, men with guns, people staring at her with shock and awe. Not exactly a terrific reception.

That was when she noticed the other three people standing nearby, watching her carefully. Two men and a woman with blond hair and a striking – and all too familiar – face. The dizziness was getting to her, and her jelly legs had turned into mush. Ky felt herself begin to go down and knew she couldn't do anything to stop it. Instead, she reached out towards the familiarity, barely able to focus on that long enough to speak one word before the world went dark.

"Mom?"