Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, Stargate SG-1, Reign, or anything else I reference.
Chapter Five: Shattered Love
(Paris, France)
"This is really interesting." Danny said to himself looking over the information the ship had gotten from scanning Raki and the other werewolves. The reason that they were capable of such strength and speed was because their bodies were filled with nanites. These nanites were coded only to activate when a wielder activated the "curse". They would enhance the strength and speed of the individual, but it seemed that those lines of code had been accidental and merged onto the programming over time, so they did not have a static point of increased strength spread out to the species. It varied with each one. These werewolves did not remember how this all originally started but they knew how to increase the benefits between groups without damaging the code and causing death or horrible mutations. Even Nirrti had not figured out how to manipulate human d.n.a. without errors with her millenniums of experimentation. The main point of the transformation was to bring pain on to the group and turn them in to savage monsters unable to control themselves on the full moon. It was only because of them uniting their abilities were they not taken out by predators/hunters.
The vampire Laurent knew that there had been werewolves around a long time before the vampire species had come around. Vampires as a species themselves had been around for the last five hundred years. Maybe if he went to the Other Side and asked the werewolves over there, if he found something old enough then he might get the answers to the questions he sought. It was supposed to hold the spirits of every dead "supernatural" creature in the world. The witches were supposed to be in charge of that place with free reign to move around. The only complication was there could potentially be a spirit old enough to remember the Jaffa and the Goa'uld. The Strix had not told Laurent how long the Other Side had existed so it could be possible.
He would deal with it eventually, but he could put it off for a while.
"Let's go see what is going on in the castle." Danny said as he put his data pad down and started stretching his limbs. It had been almost a month since he started living in the castle and he was ready to explore. The nobles and servants spread rumors about him when they thought he could not hear. They paid no attention to the strange birds that hung by the windows or flew through the castle.
France was talked of in the history books of his old universe as a place of hedonism, secrecy, and murder. It was not that different from back on Dinai. The Goa'uld loved spying on each other almost as much as they loved killing each other and even though Nirrti was no longer a System Lord there were still plenty of people that would love to torture and or kill her.
He went with a simple dark shirt with a blue line going down from the neck to wrap around the bottom along with dark pants.
There were two Jaffa currently guarding his door to prevent people from trying to attack him. Lykta and Jneri had been part of the group stationed on the Ha'tak but he felt better if every so often he switched the Jaffa that were in the castle with him. He used the same system when he was ruling Dinai. Change the guards every so often to prevent boredom, laziness, and so that it became difficult for an enemy to learn any of his secrets. It was best to not underestimate Queen Catherine. That was how Count Vincent ended up dead.
As he walked down the path, he could hear their footsteps as they followed behind him at what they considered a respectable distance. The servants moved to either side of the wall as they passed by. They were busy but none would make the mistake of getting in his way or causing them to gain his attention.
"Hello My Lord." A voice said to him gaining his attention. She was a tall woman with long blonde hair and a dress that drew attention to her chest. She had a smile on her face, but he could sense her nervousness. Just like the rain pouring outside he could hear the beat of her heart and it was pounding like a rabbit running being chased on a dog track.
"He is king, and you will address him as such." Lykta said anger in her voice before he could even say such a thing.
Jaffa loyalty was such a wonderful thing.
"I apologies for my mistake. I was just wondering where you were going and if I could join you?" She asked as she put her hands behind her back. He noticed that she still did not refer to him as king, but he would let it go and see what was going on. He could look into her mind and see that Lady Gabrielle had been sent by Queen Catherine to find out where his ship that was holding her son was. Lady Gabrielle was one of Queen Catherine's Ladies-in-waiting. They were called the Flying Squad. Their role was to seduce men for their secrets and report their findings to Queen Catherine.
"I was heading to the Salon to see what sort of fun could be held in this castle." Danny said as he held his arm out for Lady Gabrielle in open invitation.
"I would love to show you the joys of Paris and French Court." Lady Gabrielle said as she accepted his invitation and his arm.
"Did you hear that the Archduke of Bohemia is visiting right now?" Lady Gabrielle asked him as they started walking.
"Yes. Something about French ships firing on a Bohemian trading vessel?" Danny asked already knowing how the story would go. The Archduke of Bohemia Ferdinad was set to become the next Holy Roman Emperor. King Henry would seduce the Archduke's sister and toss her out of his bedroom's window to her death but would frame a dead father to prevent the truth from being learned. He wondered if he should save her from that fate. He was not sure it would be worth the effort as he was already going to have to fight the temptation of killing the Archduke over his infatuation for Lady Kenna.
"Such a terrible thing to happen?" Lady Gabrielle asked.
"Tragic. Sometimes life is just so random and chaotic." Danny said looking at the nobles that passed by him. He wondered how many were Catholic? How many were Protestant? He also wondered how they would react to what he knew if he started speaking without Nish'ta to force their loyalty.
"Have you lost people in your life recently?" Lady Gabrielle asked as they walked around the salon looking for a place to sit.
He eventually saw Queen Mary and her ladies. That seemed like a good a place as any to sit.
"Hello ladies would you mind if we joined you?" Danny asked as he ignored her question and brought chairs over to their table. He looked over them all with a smile especially Lady Kenna who was wearing the bracelet that he got her.
"You ask questions, but you only ever accept your preferred answer. They are less questions and more demands." Queen Mary said.
Cleary she was mad about how they met and his holding of Prince Francis.
"You sound upset Queen Mary. I am sorry for that, but we should not let that affect our friendship." Danny said. They were going to be involved in each other's lives until the day Queen Mary died.
"What friendship? You are holding my husband hostage." Queen Mary said as she started to stand up.
He could feel her anger rising as she got ready to yell at him.
"Calm down Mary you are going to draw attention." Lady Greer said trying to calm her queen down.
"How about we stay nice and calm and play a game of Uno and we talk. Any question you have for me I will answer." Danny said conjuring a deck of Uno cards before them.
"How do we play?" Lady Kenna asked him and he gave them the instructions.
"Where did you learn of such a game?" Lady Greer asked him.
"I invented the game." Danny said lying without a care. No one could prove anything he said was a lie as the game would not have been invented until the 1900s.
"You must have a lot of time on your hands when you are not kidnapping people." Queen Mary said as she placed a blue four on the table. The turns started with him then Lady Lola after her it was Lady Gabrielle followed by Queen Mary and finally Lady Kenna.
"I am a very good multitasker. You have to be with the amount of land that I rule." Danny said. Since the moment he had teamed up with Nirrti and was named king of Dinai he had been focused on making sure that his empire was protected from any that would to bring it harm. This universe was full of beings that would see his worlds burn and try to gain the knowledge he had. There was Anubis, The Wraith, The Ori, The Replicators and so much that he could be unaware of. He may have had to conquer other worlds and turn other in their systems into colonies, but he tried to make sure that his people were safe and cared for.
"What land are you from? You claim to be a king, but no one had ever heard of you before you took Francis and I hostage." Queen Mary said.
"That is a complicated question Queen Mary. You know tales of the land my people come from. You know of the land my soldiers' ancestors come from. Beyond that though is where the tale gets complicated." Danny said being vague on purpose as he put his cards face down and looked at the group before him. They stared at him nervously because his eyes had started glowing the more he talked and thought about the Lantean city-ship that was remembered here as Atlantis. It may have been a long time since he woke and even longer when the Lantean city-ship fell, and he entered hibernation in the ghost zone, but it still hurt to think about.
"Are you alright?" Lady Kenna asked concerned and nervous about what was going on as she was a devout Catholic and he was an admitted pagan with powers beyond her understanding.
"I will be fine in a minute. You servant bring me and the woman some wine." Danny said as he pointed at Leith. He felt bad about what happened to Leith's love life but that would not stop him from snapping the young man's neck if he hesitated in confusion any longer. He had a starving vampire on the ship and there were plenty of experiments he had wanted to perform. The only reason he had yet to do so was that nobody had annoyed him enough.
"Right away milord." Leith said as he went to the table where wine was being stored.
"May I sit here?" a physically older looking man asked as he came to the table. Danny looked into his mind to consider it for a few moments.
"Go away." Danny said to Montcourt and watched as he backed off as soon as he came. Montcourt was a snake. He had read the man's mind the first time that they had met. He had no loyalty to anyone, and he was the type to hold a grudge. He had killed people on his lands for petty reasons and felt no guilt about it. He was not someone Danny wanted to sit at his table let alone breathe the same air.
"How do your eyes glow?" Lady Lola said gaining his attention.
"It is because of my abilities. Whenever I get excited or angry about something they start glowing." Danny said taking the wine from Leith cleaning it of any possible poisonings. Just because Queen Catherine was concerned with her son's fate it did not mean the same for others. Or that accidents would not happen. Nobles had been coming down with a habit of being poisoned long before he showed up. Some for money to inherit, others because they wanted a better position at court, and some because of spurned love. He learned that from Lady Gabrielle's mind.
"Do you enjoy the wine? It comes from one of King Henry's favorite vineyards from Champagne." Lady Gabrielle said.
"It is not bad. I may have King Henry give me a tour of it later on." Danny said.
He felt an intense surge of hatred coming their way and turned to see who it was.
"Queen Mary the King has summoned you and your ladies. He wants you to meet the Archduke of Bohemia." Alxandre Bontemps the valet of the king said as he arrived at the table.
"Am I invited?" Danny asked Bontemps while knowing that if he wanted to follow them no one could stop him.
"My King pardon the interruption." Lykta said as she and Jneri came to the table.
"What is it?" Danny asked.
"We have found one of the targets you desired." Lykta said gaining his attention.
"Which one?" Danny asked completely focused on the Jaffa. He could feel curiosity coming from the others, but they had no clue what was going on as he switched from French to the language of Dinai.
"We have found the temple that houses the god Osiris and goddess Isis." Lykta said.
This was a very good find. The two of them had been imprisoned for thousands of years. Setesh had betrayed them back when the Goa'uld ruled the Earth. The main reason he wanted them found was so that he could Study the canopic jars that kept them imprisoned. It was near impossible to study them as only Ra could give the order for a Goa'uld to be imprisoned in one and he only did that for those that really annoyed him. The technology was hidden, and he did not want the Goa'uld to get paranoid because of his desire for the technology.
"Alright I was bored anyway. Let us go and capture us some gods." Danny said as he stood up and prepared to get ready. He had a lot of plans once he understood how the technology worked. The Original family of Vampires were one day going to regret what he found this day.
"I am sorry ladies, but this is where we part ways." Danny said as he switched back to French and turned to the people at the table. They were each curious but also terrified at what his conversation might have meant.
"May I see you off on this journey My Lord?" Lady Gabrielle asked coming up to him and rubbing his hand.
He could sense that she was focused less on flirting and more on the task that Queen Catherine gave her.
"Sure, you can come to see us off." Danny said as he walked to the courtyard to wait for the Tel'tak that would then take him to his Al'kesh. He wondered how Queen Catherine and King Henry would react to being told that he had ships that could fly through the sky.
0-0-0-0-0-0
Danny sat on the floor of his ship in a meditative position as he focused on projecting his consciousness in another dimension. His Al'kesh was traveling to Egypt to retrieve the Goa'ulds and since he had free time, he figured he would look into the other dimension that existed alongside the earth. The Other Side was not a higher plane of existence which meant he would not have to deal with the annoying ascended and their rules. The Other Side was an alternate dimension that occupied the same location in the universe. He focused on the feelings he received when Raki had brought the knights close to death.
As he took a look around, he could see that he was still standing on the ship, but he could still feel the connection with his physical body. No matter how far he traveled his physical body would remain in the same place.
"Now it is time to find me some witches." Danny said. The royal family so far had been very unlucky in this regard. All the people brought before him were simple villagers sacrificed by their neighbors for some gold or because of some grudge. For an age that was known for its witch hunts these people were very bad at finding actual witches and so he decided to go to the one place he knew had witches.
"Can anybody hear me! I want to speak with a witch!" Danny yelled using his power to amplify his voice through the dimension. "Any witch that feels like talking I am a great listener."
There was no response to his calls, so he decided to find them on his own. He pressed the button on the wall and the door slid open leading him into the hall. He could see the Jaffa patrolling the ship, but they did not react. They walked right through him as they continued their tasks.
"This must be what limbo feel like." Danny said as he took a seat at the capstone of the ship and watched as it travelled through this alternate dimension. Despite how fast and far they were moving he could not see anybody else besides him. For a supernatural purgatory it was surprisingly empty. It explained the feeling he got when he first felt this place.
"What are you doing here?" A voice asked from in front of him causing him to turn his head forward. It was a woman that looked to be a bit older than him. She had long black hair, tanned skin, and wearing a dark flowery dress with sandals. Looks like someone finally decided to answer his calls. Hopefully, it was someone important and old enough to answer his questions. She was speaking French very well but just like him she could not get rid of her accent. So, a foreign witch had decided to answer his calls. It was good either way.
"Who are you?" Danny asked the lady floating in the sky.
"I am Qetsiyah. I created the other side and you do not belong here. What are you?" Qetsiyah asked him.
"How did you manage to do that?" Danny asked. This person was a lot more important that he originally thought. If she was able to create an entirely alternate dimension, then she must have had a lot of power when she was alive or had access to some truly incredible information. The ability to create pocket dimensions were something that the Lanteans/Alterans had been working on for a while before they found a way to ascend and even that was only possible if they focused on keeping it in one location. Qetsiyah somehow managed to make one that wrapped around the entire planet.
"I will not tell you that. I want to know why you have trespassed into my realm?" Qetsiyah asked.
"I am called Danny. I have many questions for you." Danny said to Qetsiyah as he gestured for them to go inside of the ship.
"Here is fine." Qetsiyah said.
"Alright then. How long has this place existed?" Danny asked because the amount of knowledge available to Qetsiyah was more than likely relative to how long such a place has existed. The Goa'uld had arrived on the planet in 17,000 B.C. and left the planet in 10,000 B.C. and there were no records of vampires or werewolves back then. The only known monsters were the Goa'uld and their creations.
"I created this place over a thousand years ago in what people now refer to as the 1st century B.C." Qetsiyah said.
Good now he had a point of reference. This dimension was over a thousand years old. Long after the Goa'uld and Jaffa had left but also long enough to hold important information. She could tell him how the vampires were created. Who the Original Vampires were? Where he could find them. Maybe who had created the werewolf curse? Most important of all where he could find Setesh.
"Is there anything you want in the world of the living?" Danny asked. She had been watching events all over the world since the moment she died. There had to be something that she would want. Her story and deeds remembered throughout history, A village that worshipped her name and built statues to her, A way to come back to the world of the living, her descendants taken care of and given everything they could possibly want in life.
Something.
"You want to make a deal with me?" Qetsiyah asked hm.
He could rip the knowledge from her mind, but he figured that it would be better to have tried and be friendly first to get what he wanted. If Qetsiyah proved to be as annoying as the ascended were then he would destroy them. Something was keeping them tied here so if she started getting on his nerves then he would just have to get rid of the power source for this place.
"Yes. Is there anything you want?" Danny asked and watched as Qetsiyah started thinking. It looked like there was something she wanted.
"There is a certain man that I want you to kill. I had agents of my own to hunt him down, but they have failed again and again over the centuries." Qetsiyah said.
"What did this man do to you?" Danny asked. He probably would do it for this deal to happen, but he would still like to know what the reason was this man was dying for.
"He left me at the altar." Qetsiyah said with a glare on her face and a feeling of deep hate in her heart.
Seems like she was not the type to let things go.
"If you built this place and died over a thousand years ago how is anyone you knew still alive at this point? Did he figure someone way to leave this place and come back to life? Did he possess a vampire?" Danny asked. There were a lot of questions to ask at this point. Given who she was he doubted that this guy she wanted him to kill was a baseline human.
"No, I died long before the Vampire species was created. Silas on the other hand has never died. The bastard is immortal." Qetsiyah said actually shocking him. A lot of interesting this have happened to this planet since the Goa'uld had left.
"This sounds like a long story." Danny said.
"Our story started back in Greece. Silas and I were part of a tribe of witches that are now called travelers. We were to be married and Silas asked me to create an elixir that would let us, and our love exist for eternity." Qetsiyah began.
"What happened?" Danny asked her. Given the situation things did not work out.
"I created the spell. I went against my duty as a witch and rules of our tribe. I created the elixir for the both of us to drink on our wedding night. I even created a special garden for the wedding ceremony only to learn that Silas had no intention of marrying me." Qetsiyah said.
This Silas guy would definitely be nominated town the award for worst fiancé in the world.
"Duty as a witch?" Danny asked.
"Witches are servants of nature. We are to make sure that nothing breaks the natural order. Silas wanted to break the rule that everything that lives must one day die." Qetsiyah said.
He could feel his fingers beginning to twitch. These witches were beginning to sound more and more like the ascended. With their abilities they decided what was right and what was wrong, but unlike the ascended it seems like this group was fine with messing with the lives of those still living. These people could be a threat though it seems that they are confined to this planet. So, if he left it, they would have no way to follow him or his army.
"He took the elixir by himself?" Danny asked as it was something a Goa'uld would do. Make a promise for some treasure then once they got their hands on it, they would break the promise and take it for themselves. More than likely killing the other Goa'uld in the process. Maybe that was how she ended up dead?
"For his crime I gave him the option of apologizing and getting back together as long as he took the cure. It is another elixir I made before I died. This one to take away his immortality and become a mortal witch again. He refused my offer and so I buried him in a tomb with it unable to leave. I waited for him to take the cure and join me once his life ended naturally." Qetsiyah said.
"You are a lot more forgiving than I am." Danny said. If someone tricked him out of immortality like that there was no world, they could run to that would protect them from his wrath. There would be no price too high to get revenge.
"I waited for Silas to take the cure. To admit that he was wrong to have tricked me and we would live our natural lives out together. Over a thousand years have passed and he is still remains stubborn." Qetsiyah said.
"This world's longest argument." Danny said with a smile.
"I want you to go to Silas and force the cure down his throat and kill him." Qetsiyah said looking at him.
"Why has he not escaped this tomb?" Danny asked.
"When I found him, I had him desiccated and buried with a spell. He cannot leave that tomb. The only blood he has had for the past thousand plus years have been small drops fed by foolish humans he has managed to trick." Qetsiyah said.
That just proved he had to be careful when dealing with the witches. He may have had more power than most of them, but one determined enough could make him suffer even if they could not kill him.
"Give me the location and I will do it for you. In return I want the information that you witches have. The events that you have seen with your unobstructed view of the world of the living." Danny said.
"Very well." Qetsiyah said sticking her olive-skinned tone hand out for him to shake.
"I hope we can work together well Qetsiyah." Danny said as he shook her hand.
"Well seems like I have another task." Danny said as he opened his eyes back in his physical body. He went to his desk and activated the contact orb. "Kada how fare are we from the destination?".
"We have just arrived my king." Kada said.