Part Three: Registration or Kneel before your God!

As the little group approached the registration tent, a downhearted looking figure trailed through the tent flap. Mattie realised that this was the first male fanfic writer they'd seen so far.

He stopped when he saw Mattie and the rest of them and jerked his head back towards the tent.

"Going in there?"

They all nodded in unison.

"Best of British luck then. They crucified me. I'm damaged. I might never be able to dredge another fic about the possible uses of naquadria using Major Carter as my primary character from my imagination." He wiped his hand across his eyes in a very dramatic gesture and then glared accusingly at the five women. "And everyone knows that Carter has special knowledge from her blending with Jolinar. EVERYONE!"

He staggered off in the direction of a building which now had a queue forming outside the door.

"Technophobe?" Asked ColonelSam.

"And a 'Major Carter the astrophysicist' fan with a touch of the Jolinar syndrome." Chuckled Marty. "I bet his fics read like technical manuals and Carter is about as sexy as a split atom in them."

"Reckon I can spot a bit of Marty Stu in him as well." Said ColonelSam.

"Marty Stu?" Asked Mattie. She was beginning to tremble a little now. This all just seemed too real for comfort somehow.

"Male version of a Mary Sue. I'd bet my bottom dollar that he makes himself into the scientist type who helps Carter do something with the naquadria."

They hovered outside the tent flap. From inside they could hear the murmur of voices. Mattie ventured a peek inside and then withdrew her head abruptly.

"Oh my god. I am not going in there. No way, not now, not ever in fact."

The others stared at her.

"Why?" Queried ColonelSam. "Who's in there for blurbing heck's sake?"

"System Lords." Mattie blurted out.

"Really?" Said Marty. "Which ones did you see?"

Mattie shuddered. "Apophis, Yu, Ra, Hathor and Heru Ur. I think Cronus might be in there too."

"Apophis?" Cooed Chloe. "Oh he is so darn cute, I just love the way he puts his make up on."

Daniellzgurl turned to Marty. "Is she for real?"

"I'm afraid she probably is." Said Marty in an apologetic tone. "So who's going to go in first?"

Before anyone could say anything at all, a tiny version of Cronus, complete with big ears and horns appeared in the opening. He stood there in his tiny Greek tunic and fur cloak, holding a clipboard and tapping his exquisitely booted foot. Incongruously, he also had a pencil stuck behind his ear, just like O'Neil with one L, except that his pencil was sticking through his long hair. He also had a badge pinned to the front of his tunic, just like the midget Danyell, only his wasn't a heart with a Cupid's arrow, it was ornate with a Greek key border in gold leaf and said 'KRONOS' in huge black letters.

He looked Mattie up and down. "Name?"

"Er. Mattie. My name is Mattie Hollingworth." Said Mattie, swallowing nervously.

Kronos took out his pencil and consulted his clipboard. A terrible smile split his face.

"Aha. Unrealistic and unreasonable enemy construction eh? Oh they are going to just love you in there. Follow me."

He disappeared through the tent flap and Mattie turned to face the rest of the group.

"NOW HUMAN!" Bellowed the little Kronos in an astonishingly loud voice, given his size.

"Good luck." The group all chorused in Mattie's direction.

Mattie shuffled reluctantly through the tent flap and froze as six pairs of glowing eyes turned her way and fixed her with a steely glare. Her knees started to wobble.

"Who wishes to begin?" Enquired Ra, leering evilly at Mattie.

"We are the wife of Ra and a breeding queen." Said Hathor haughtily. "We should be the one to start this."

Cronus sighed. "You did it last time. In fact you say that every time. It is definitely wearing a little thin now. Anyway.." He looked down the list in front of him. "This student hasn't ever written anything about you, so I don't see why you should start."

"Do not squabble!" Said Ra in a smooth and deadly tone. "Which System Lords has she written about?"

They all immediately consulted their lists, then they went into a huddle. Mattie strained to hear what they were saying, but to no avail. They were talking in Goa'uld and she'd never bothered to even access the WebPages with Goa'uld dictionary sections. Now she wished she had. At one stage Apophis popped his head up and stared hard at her. She blushed and tried a small smile, but he simply went back into the huddle again. Finally they broke away and faced her.

"So." Said Ra. "It seems that your portrayal of the Goa'uld is so sketchy and ludicrous, that we cannot actually ascertain who it is you've tried to write about. Therefore we are all going to conduct the registration interview. Do you have your papers?"

Mattie silently handed her forms over to Kronos who then took them to Ra. He flicked through them.

"What is your excuse for this pathetic portrayal of our illustrious species?" He said in a silky voice.

Mattie flushed to the roots of her hair.

"I didn't. I mean, I never thought. I didn't think it mattered." She stammered. "I mean, the scriptwriters don't bother doing anything with you either."

Cronus leant back in his chair and raised his eyebrows. "So you just thought you'd compound the omission and marginalise us even further?"

"Er, well, yes. It's the team, they're the important ones not you." She blurted out before she could stop herself. "It's all about them."

Even as she said it, she found herself acknowledging that without the actual enemy, the team would have nothing to fight against and would never have existed in the first place. She hung her head.

"Well I for one resent being turned into a one dimensional puppet." Snarled Heru Ur. The others grunted in agreement. "There is more to me than just demanding that people kneel before me to worship me. I have feelings."

They all grunted agreement again.

"I'm terribly sorry." Whispered Mattie miserably. "I didn't mean to offend anyone, I just wanted to write fanfics about the team. I never thought that I might be hurting anyone."

"Oh puhleeese." Sneered Cronus. "You knew fine well what you were doing when you wrote us in such a hazy fashion. You just could not be bothered to come up with a better portrayal. You were too busy making Sam and Jack hold hands and gaze at each other across rooms. I could make allowances for the writers who write specifically about us and get it totally wrong, but you could not even be bothered to do that. You just skated around the subject. You do not even give the Goa'uld in your fics names. Do you have any idea what lack of identity can do to a character?"

Mattie shook her head.

"No." She whispered.

"The damned scriptwriters kill us off!" Roared Cronus. "That is what happens. We are expendable. I do not like being expendable. How would you feel if someone killed you off because they thought you were expendable?"

"I don't know." She whispered. "It would probably be horrible."

"Are we going to get Ba'al to torture her for her crimes?" Asked Hathor eagerly. "We do so enjoy a really thorough torture session."

Mattie's heart sank into her shoes. This had definitely ceased being just a weird and slightly amusing dream and was rapidly taking on the proportions of a nightmare. She tried to remember what the information on the forms had said about torture, but all she could recall was that she had picked the Nox for resurrection should she die during the course. Then there was the torture thing to do with writing a fanfic after being banned, but was that the only reference?

"I do not think that will be necessary just yet, although of course it is definitely an option." Said Yu, baring his teeth at Mattie in a smile which was possibly meant to reassure, but which actually had the opposite effect on her. "She will have to do Torture 101 in any case as part of her remedial classes, one of which is "The One Dimensional Enemy 101: How to construct enemies that don't suck": I am lecturing on those courses along with Cronus, Baal, Anubis and Osiris."

"And why were we not invited to lecture on these subjects?"

Hathor leapt to her feet and rattled the table. Goblets and plates crashed over, spilling their contents over the assembled System Lord registration panel. Cronus and Apophis jumped up cursing as their pristine outfits were splashed with a purple coloured liquid. Heru Ur and Yu tried to rescue some of the goblets.

"In the name of everything sacred in this universe including me, would you please sit down Hathor?" Said Ra in a bored tone. "You are making a terrible mess."

"You have ruined my cloak." Yelled Cronus frantically dabbing at the now purple spotted fur. Mattie let out a little snigger but smothered it quickly as Cronus' basilisk gaze settled on her.

"You are nothing but a tart Cronus." Snapped Hathor immediately.

Cronus looked completely bewildered at the 'tart' reference and Heru Ur buried his face in his hands.

"Oh here we go." He groaned. "Mother, you really have to stop reading those British fanfics. Cronus has no idea what you are talking about."

Cronus drew himself up to his full height.

"I know what a tart is!" He said haughtily. "It is."

He turned to Yu and said in a stage whisper: "What is it?"

Now it was Yu's turn to look bewildered.

"I do not know." He whispered back. "I always thought it was something you ate, but I could be wrong."

"ENOUGH WITH THE TARTS!" Roared Ra in exasperation.

Mattie nearly jumped out of her skin and everyone else sank back in their seats, Cronus grumbling to himself. Kronos peeked around the corner to see what the commotion was about.

"You screamed my Lord?" He asked politely.

Ra shuffled Mattie's papers together and thrust them at Kronos.

"Get this. this human out of here and bring the next victim, er, student in."

Kronos bowed his head. "As you command my Lord."

He immediately hustled Mattie away, but she stopped dead and refused to move.

"Oh now what?" Asked Ra in that bored tone.

"My registration. I mean, am I registered now or what?" Asked Mattie nervously. The tears were starting to well up in her eyes. "I'd really like to wake up now if it's okay with everyone."

Ra frowned and looked around the table at the other System Lords.

"Wake up? Do any of you have any idea what she's snivelling about?"

Five heads shook in unison. Ra turned to Mattie.

"I do not know anything about you waking up, you look quite awake to me, more's the pity, but this is certainly the registration panel. I have told you to go, therefore consider yourself registered. Kronos will do whatever else is necessary."

He then turned away to his colleagues and they all started to talk and squabble among themselves, leaving Mattie to be led away by Kronos, who clucked and shook his head disapprovingly.

"Not good." He muttered. "All that arguing and speaking out of turn with the System Lords. It's not good at all. All it'll do is put a black mark on your record."

He led her out of a tent flap on the opposite side to where she entered. A Jaffa warrior stood there with a suitably stoic expression on his face. Mattie's mouth dropped open again. This was the first Jaffa she had seen.

Kronos looked at her quizzically.

"You know, you really should do something about the mouth dropping open thing." He said not unkindly. "It makes you look like a complete moron."

Mattie shut her mouth immediately. Whereupon he brought out a rubber stamp and an ink pad from behind his back, lifted her hand and stamped the back with a number - 546.

"What's the number for?" She asked numbly.

Kronos handed her an information pack and started to read off his clipboard.

"Everything you need to know is in here. Course list, accommodation allocation, meal times and information on the Induction Course tomorrow. That'll be a treat. You get to meet Miss S, Mrs Annette and all the rest of the teaching staff.

"But what does the number stand for?" Mattie just looked bewildered. "And what exactly are you? I mean, I can see you're a small version of Cronus with horns and big ears, but how and why?"

Kronos sighed. "You are the 546th student to be registered here today, hence 546. It's your number, it's specific to you and it's in indelible ink that will stay on for the duration of the course. To answer your question about me, I am what is created every time a fanfic writer spells Cronus' name incorrectly. In fact one gets created every time any character's name is misspelled or misused in a fic. We are called Stargate Mini Trolls and I for one am very sensitive about the size of my ears by the way. There are quite a few of us around, you've probably already met O'Neil with one L and Danyell?"

Mattie nodded.

"I am Kronos with a K and our job is fetching and carrying for the Teaching Staff." Continued Kronos. "Well there you have it. Now, if you have no more pointless and ridiculous questions I have to go."

He beckoned conspiratorially to Mattie who bent down closer.

"They get quite restless you know, and then the pranks start, not to mention the petty squabbling. And the complete and utter lack of fashion sense! They're just a laughing stock in the fanfic world now, and they don't like it, not one bit. That's why Miss S lets them have first crack at the newbies. It keeps them happy. What a pity the scriptwriters didn't show a bit more depth when they decided to create them, we wouldn't have had these problems. Anyway, enough of that, too late now to pull it back, all we can do now is limit the damage caused by the fanfics. The next stage in the registration is kitting out. The Jaffa will show you."

As Kronos looped back the tent flap she could hear that the next 'victim' was already in there and being grilled by the System Lord Panel. Muffled sobs could be heard quite clearly. It was Chloe, poor pretty little Chloe being torn apart by those aliens. Mattie took a firm step in the direction of the tent and found herself come up short with her nose pressed against shiny grey leather armour. She looked up and tried to smile winsomely at the Jaffa, who stared back at her with no expression whatsoever.

"I just wanted to." She began.

The Jaffa said nothing. He merely pointed with his staff weapon at the building Mattie and her group had seen the male fanfic writer head towards earlier and she had no choice but to start walking in that direction. She stopped after a couple of steps and looked back, but the Jaffa just waved the staff weapon menacingly in the general direction of her and the building again. She got the message. However, as she trudged wearily she heard a commotion behind her, so she stopped and looked around curiously.

The registration tent flap was literally ripped open and an extremely vengeful looking Chloe came stalking out, followed by Kronos with a K scurrying after her as fast as his little legs would carry him and a very harassed look on his face.

"Oh just BITE ME!" Screamed Chloe with a backward glance of sheer loathing at the tent. Her pretty little face was practically purple with rage. She kicked at one of the tent pegs and had to be restrained by the Jaffa. "Nasty, horrible SNAKEHEADS!"

Mattie shrugged, shook her head and resumed her path to the next part of the registration process.