Title: Atlantis

Author: Tonia Barone

Rating: Teen

Spoilers: The Storm, The Eye, a small one for Underground in the sense you know who the Genii are, a minor one for Trinity (basically name dropping)

Disclaimer: If they were mine, do you REALLY think Caldwell and Kavanagh would still be in Atlantis? Didn't think so.

Notes: First I'd like to thank jakisbishlygay for beta'ing this monster. Second...I made a boo-boo. I've searched and searched but I can't find out who. The idea for the indentifcation system Atlantis mentions herein, I got from someone else (with permission)'s fic. Thing is, I can't find the note I made as to who it was. All I remember is that the ID system she uses in that fic is what helps John find Rodney, I believe. So if whomever it was reads this, please speak up and I'll credit ya. is totally ashamed of her book-keeping skills. Or lack thereof Sorry.

Summary: For there to be darkness, there must also be light. I am most proud that my Favorite can provide that light.

She tried to warn her Protector, but he was too focused on the current crisis to listen to her. She watched helplessly as they were captured and the one who killed the guards began making his demands known. They raided her Children's supplies and took them through the Doorway. There was naught she could do to stop them because of the adjustments her Protector had made to maximize the collection of power from the storms.

While the Leader was taken to the healing rooms, her Protector was questioned using very cruel means. She gives what comfort she is able, and he is brave, her Protector, but he was not trained for such painful trials and he eventually told them what they wanted to know.

Oh! Oh, but her boy was clever, wasn't he? It isn't a lie if it holds a grain of truth, now is it? She can see he got the idea from a series of moving pictures his people watch for entertainment. Yes, it is the truth, from a certain point of view.

If she could, she'd smirk.

Her Favorite has been made aware of the Genii through an ingenious ruse performed by her Protector. He goes to a puddle jumper for supplies and she offers him the life signs detector; he'll need it for what he plans to do and she will give him any advantage she can.

Not long after, he is rushing to beat the Genii to the room they use to house the C-4 explosive. She watches with pride as he takes it all, leaving only one of their short-range communication devices. She wastes no time guiding him to a place where the Genii cannot enter to hide the precious material. Only her True Children and nothing short of a vacuum energy weapon such as Project Arcturus could enter this room—not even those the Healer has Gifted.

The look on the Genii leader's face is such a treasure that she uses the internal monitoring system—yet another system her Children have yet to 'discover', but is easy enough to power—to preserve it. Now her Children—her Favorite and her Protector especially, she thinks—will be able to look upon this image and laugh. No, there is no question in her mind that they will survive and that they will overcome the Genii occupation. When that time comes they will need something to laugh about, she thinks.

At the puddle jumper the Athosians have finally arrived but it is far too late. They must remain where they are if they wish to keep safe; this is something the Second doesn't seem to care about. The young Second has been taught to aide his fellow soldiers and now that his commanding officer, her Favorite, is in trouble he wishes to go help. Both the Healer and the Warrior out-vote him in the desire to leave and he reluctantly backs down. She can tell, however, that it is not something he does easily.

She feels for this one; he is one of the youngest of her Favorite's men and it often shows yet for all the faults of youth, he is loyal in a way not often found in one so young. He has the Gift of the Healer so she can Feel him to a degree and she knows that he will bring it up again. She is tempted to sever the connection their communication devices have, but she realizes that if she were to do this he would only worry more.

In the end, she works to sooth and calm the young Second and the Healer's fears. She would touch the Warrior and her people, if only she could. The most she can do at the moment, however, is increase the shielding protecting the puddle jumper and allow a sub-sonic hum to permeate the interior. It has the relaxing effect she was hoping for and soon the Athosians are settled.

The Warrior, Second and the Healer are far too worried for their friends for it to affect them, however, and for this she is sad. If anyone needs comfort, it is these three for they are closest to the Leader, her Protector and her Favorite. They feel that their family is in danger and wish to assist them and that simple impulse endears these new Children to her all the more.

Her Favorite has arrived at the last grounding station. While she was checking on the puddle jumper he and the Genii leader had come to an agreement where her Favorite would disconnect the grounding station. She senses the ambush before he does and has him check the life signs detector just before he disconnects the grounding station.

A fire fight and two dead Genii later find her Favorite trading harsh words with the Genii leader over the now-destroyed control station. Her Protector could repair the damage with her help, but even she is not certain she wishes that. If the Genii were to wrest control of her from her Children...

Well, she shuddered to think of what these uneducated younglings would do. She can detect minute traces of radiation all over the Genii—part of how she is able to track them so well. She knows from her Protector that they are not even close to the technological level needed to understand her systems. They would most certainly destroy her in their desire to control her systems—and that is only if the Wraith do not arrive and kill them first. None of the Genii are open to her senses as her True Children and the Gifted are.

Nothing her Protector or the Leader says seems to be able to make them understand this simple fact.

Two and a half hours remain before the full force of the storms hit. The Genii leader feeds her Favorite lies about the fate of the Leader, saying that he has killed her. She tried to tell her Favorite different, but his grief was so great that he was not open to her. Not even when he mourned the merciful killing of his commanding officer or the lies the ascended people of the 'Mist World', as her Children now call it, had the effect on him as the thought of losing the Leader.

She is distracted by one of the Genii breaking into her systems. This is not good, not at all, she thinks. While she has control over the majority of her systems, there are some systems she has little or no control over. These are mostly the ones that only require one of her True Children to activate it so that everyone may use them. The day-to-day functions systems plus the inter-city tracking systems; the systems that tell where everyone within her walls is located.

It is this set of systems that the Genii have hacked into. She is thankful now that she is not at full power. If she were at full power then she would have had to identify each individual; granted they would be using her designation system, but they would be identified. As it stands at present, the individuals show up as white dots; autonomous and indistinguishable from each other. In short, it only shows where a living body is, not who it is or what they are doing.

When she looks in on her Favorite she is glad for this lack of her systems. The Genii can see where her Favorite is, but not what he plans. She watches with a malicious glee that is most unusual for her, but these are special circumstances. These Genii have invaded her sanctity, killed two of her Children, and threatened the lives of three others plus herself.

These are not acts which she can forgive.

So when her Favorite ambushes the three Genii chasing him and slaughters them without mercy, she praises him. She praises him and then guides him to the next task: the power sources made of the Doorway's ore.

Not all has been idle during this altercation, however. In the puddle jumper on the mainland, the Second once again argues with the Healer and the Warrior to return to her halls in order to add her Favorite in battle. One of the large trees nearly falls on the puddle jumper just then and she guides the Healer in adjusting the inertial dampeners. This will ensure the ever-increasing winds will not lift the puddle jumper as a child would a toy. It has been so long since she has faced these storms; she had forgotten their full force. The tree the winds uprooted had not been small nor was it young.

Shortly after the Healer adjusts the inertial dampeners, the skies around the puddle jumper clear. She listens as the Healer explains about the 'eye' to the Warrior and the Athosians while silently urging him to return home. This will be his one chance before the storms reach her location. If he leaves now, he just might be able to make it to her before the full force of the storms hit. He might be able to aid her Favorite in his campaign against the Genii.