Ancient Legos

Chapter 5

Skynet? But She's So Nice!

It took two whole minutes for them to respond.

"Will," Missy nearly whispered, "did you just kill the Simurgh?!"

I locked eyes with the young heroine. I had a choice here. I could lie, say I had defeated the Simurgh...

To anyone else that statement would seem like confirmation despite it not being so.

No, Ziz, I corrected myself, not 'The Simurgh'. She's a victim. Most likely. Gods I hope I'm right.

Or I could tell them the truth.

…

Given I'd been plagued by a lack of common sense so far that day, going with the opposite of my initial gut-reaction fueled idea was probably a prudent, if cautious, course of… well, action.

"My ship defeated the Simurgh," I neutrally answered my fellow Ward.

Missy's eyes widened and she shuddered. "How?"

"Lots and lots of Drones," I snarkily responded.

Missy abruptly smiled, her eyes taking on a wet sheen, and she sighed with relief. "Yes!"

The look of awe on her cute face left me with even more guilt to add to the slowly evaporating pool I'd received when I thought I'd killed Ziz. Regardless of my feelings I pumped a fist in the air. "Hooray!" was my contribution to the celebration.

"Weldon," Dragon interrupted us, "something's wrong with Vista."

My tiny little good mood evaporated. "What." I flatly growled. Now that I was paying attention again, she did have a far paler complexion than she should. She was also shaking and, as I'd previously noticed but become distracted from, holding onto Dragon's suit leg with a death grip.

"Vista," I sharply said with a commanding tone, forcing her to straighten up as much as she could, "Report."

Hey, unlike a certain clock-based co-worker of mine, I did read the PRT manuals. In the absence of a Protectorate or Wards superior, the eldest member of either was the boss, with Protectorate obviously winning out by default due to the minimum age of eighteen. Dragon was a Guild member, not Protectorate, and thus didn't count.

I was four years (ish) older than Missy. That made me The Big Boss even if my level of experience was peanuts to hers.

"S-sir," the shaking space warper stuttered, "My powers are gone. I can't balance. My entire sense of space is gone. And…," she trailed off with a wince, "I'm pretty sure I've got migraines."

A mental command caused the Hyperion's internal life detectors to focus all their sensors on the young girl. What I found made me pale. I rocketed out of my seat. No time for pleasantries.

"Dragon," I snapped out, "will you take orders from me without any kind of even a guarantee of an explanation?"

Her suit's head inclined slightly as if she was astonished at my audacity. "You are not a government official. You do not have that clearance."

Then before I could reply she jumped a little, shock clear throughout her suit. Three seconds passed.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

Missy looked confused.

Dragon growled at me. "How did you figure it out?"

I opened my mouth and raised a finger as if to respond before realising something. "Out of curiosity exactly what do you think I figured out?" As I said this, I discreetly had the Hyperion beam a certain device to my other hand, the one behind my back.

I really didn't want to have to use it, but if I had to do so to save Dragon's life from the no doubt observing watchdog program embedded within her code, I would. If it was there, all it would take is my acknowledgement of Dragon's state of being for one of the many potential triggers a Skynet fearing programmer could have made to go off.

After all, an AI that self destructs when someone learns it's an AI is totally within the paranoia profile. It's what I'd do.

If I was a racist prejudiced against digital beings, of course. I wasn't. I was just really, really good at putting myself in other people's mindsets to then develop a counter for their counters.

If I happened to be wrong and there wasn't an external or internal killswitch for her?

Meh. I'd apologize later.

After healing Missy.

Who was watching the whole exchange between us like a fan at a football game.

On another horrifying thought, I shut down the Porta Relay built into the shield. I did not need whatever gave powers relaying a signal to Dragon. If there really was such a thing. Better to be paranoid and safe than sorry, right?

The relay shutdown had the both lucky and unlucky side effect of making Missy collapse. Lucky because Dragon cut off her glare at me to look down and try to catch the girl.

Unlucky should be self explanatory.

I took the split second her attention was off me to fire my 'weapon'. A conic wave of blue energy erupted out in a cone from five inches in front of my hand. It expanded as it traveled, getting just enough area to include the entirety of Dragon's suit.

She froze, all the lights in her armored form fading entirely.

I pulled the barrel of the gun-like emitter up to my mouth and blew imaginary smoke off it.

I'd always wanted to do that.

"Will!" Missy shrieked. I peered around the dark green 'body' of Dragon to see her. She was angry.

Why was she angry?

I glanced between my emitter and Dragon several times before it dawned on me how this appeared.

I'd just shot a world famous Hero in front of her on my second day as another one.

You say I'm not world famous? PHO and the fact I'd just soloed an Endbringer like a mid game farming boss disagree.

Back on the 'just shot Dragon in front of teammate' note…

Whoops.

"Uh…," I tried, "I swear, this is not as bad as it looks."

My teammate gaped at me for a good ten seconds. Then she continued yelling. "IT LOOKS REALLY, REALLY BAD!"

"As I've already told you, Missy, she's an AI," I repeated for the umpteenth time, trying to drag said AI's ridiculously heavy suit towards the transport booth right outside the Bridge.

My fellow young hero was watching me like a hawk to ensure I didn't, as her abrupt yelling session accused me of, 'do anything weird' to Dragon. The Cute Ward has a set of lungs on her, no question.

And the idea that she's innocent?

HAH.

Let's just say the PR machine of the PRT must be really good at their jobs. The only other explanation is that Missy has a lot more self control when she's not giving me a thorough lesson on how expansive her vocabulary is.

I'm not sure which option is more terrifying, to be honest.

"And I still don't believe you," she shot back. The poor girl was taking every step next to me very carefully, to keep both her accusing glare on me and her balance.

Almost there. I saw the transport booth doors open as they detected our presence. "How can I prove to you that I'm telling the truth?" I sent her way.

Just five more muscle cramping tugs to go. Come on, Will! You can do this!

My internal cheerleader wasn't really helping at the moment, but A for effort.

Missy narrowed her eyes at me. "You can't. Dragon never leaves her base, wherever that is, and so you can't."

I knew this, of course, just like most cape geeks (and I guess capes too? Huh. Possible opponent threat assessment or worldwide dick measuring contest?) knew it. But that actually made it easier for me to prove it to her than any other idea.

"Okay, Missy, let's say you're right," I began, humoring her while shoving the still fucking heavy Dragon suit into the transport booth. "If you are, then Dragon must have been remote controlling her suit up until I disabled it, yes?"

How was I going to do this? There wasn't enough room in the transport booth for a suit and me, much less with Missy squeezed in alongside us. Just her and Dragon could barely fit uncomfortably in the rather large cubicle that was the booth.

"Right. Dragon remote controls her suits. Everybody knows that," Missy agreed. She was still glaring at me, even if her face had become thoughtful.

Apparently she liked to debate. Who knew?

"What's your point?"

"My point, Missy, is that Dragon was incapable of controlling her suit remotely ever since we breached the shield of the Hyperion," I explained absently, only a small part of my mind in the mostly useless discussion.

"What are you talking about and what is Hyperion?"

I opened my mouth to respond, realized something, and spun around. "You don't know what the Hyperion is?" I asked, confused.

The Cute Ward brought her cuteness factor up another notch by crossing her arms and furrowing her eyebrows. Frak, no wonder the PR team made her so… cute and adorable as a superhero image. She really didn't have the disposition or mannerisms to offset her raw cuteness.

It was like watching a puppy try to look mean. I had to resist my instinctive urge to cuddle her up in my arms and snuggle my face into her hair, as I was quite sure such action wouldn't be appreciated at that moment in time.

Later…? Meh. I'd try and get the other Wards in on it too so she couldn't rain her wrath down upon me alone.

"No, Will, I do not know what 'The Hyperion' is," she growled.

I blinked, even more confused. "Why not?"

"Because you probably think you told me and didn't," she offered, a smirk gracing her lips.

My eyes widened and I let out an embarrassing "Ah." Yeah, now that she brought it up, I'd only thought of the Hyperion in my own head and written it into a log I composed from the Throne Chair, neither of which were necessarily verbal communications methods. I cleared my throat awkwardly and gestured to the deck below us. "Yes, well. Sorry about that. The name of this ship is the Hyperion."

Missy's glare only lessened a tiny bit. "Uh huh. Great. Can we get back to the fact you shot a hero in the back now please?!"

I rolled my eyes at her melodramatic tone. "Fine. Like I said, ever since we breached the Hyperion's shield, Dragon could not possibly have been remote controlling her suit."

"Why not." Uh oh. Missy's patience was starting to run out.

Dennis had warned me that if I ever heard that tone from her I was to either apologize or run the hell away.

Option A was out because I didn't do anything wrong and B because she could just warp spa-

Wait.

Could she do that now that whatever was providing powers was blocked?

"WILL!" she yelled, her face coming back into abrupt focus right in front of my face.

"Gah!" I cried out, jumping back.

Several things happened in the next five seconds.

I hit Dragon's precariously balanced suit in the very open transport booth doors.

It lost any semblance of stability I'd managed to coax out of the inactive servos.

We both collapsed to the floor outside the booth, Dragon's incredibly heavy suit on top of me. The limbs of it that met the floor expressed their irritation with me by letting out several ear-splitting CLANGs.

The Hyperion, sensing I was in danger, automatically used the Asgardian Beaming Arrays to move the inactive suit off me and to the floor next to me.

Missy jumped back and got into a wobbly combat stance at the sudden light and sound.

I groaned on the ground, brought a palm to my face, and banged my head against the floor.

I'd completely forgotten about those.

"Will!" Missy called out.

"I'm okay!" I called back, coughing a little at the damage my ribs had received from the momentary collision between a several hundred pound mech and my vulnerable body. Those were gonna need a patch job. "I'm also an idiot!"

"Why?"

"I just remembered that the Hyperion has beam arrays. We don't need to use the transport booths!"

I expected her to be happy, or even relieved.

I did not expect the Tone of Death, another warning Dennis gave me.

"WHAT."

Uh oh.

A/N: Hello everybody. Sorry I've been away for so long, but here's why I was. It's a simple list of the things that happened to me.

My state went up in flames.

I got a massive allergic attack. Maybe due to the first thing, who knows.

I got a cold virus. Not that lovely little bacterial version that goes away in a week, the nasty S.O.B. that takes a minimum of 10 days and maybe even up to 20 to go away and makes you about 300x more miserable during the time you have it. Guess which extreme I ended up on?

XMas. Nuff' said. Oh, and it was XMas sick, too!

New Year's/Yuletide

SO! All of that up there is why this is so delayed, why it's so short, and why… I don't actually have a third why, but it's there. It's *why.* Period. Now time to catch up on some reviews!

Looks at review count since last chapter.

Oh Zeus effing Hera that's a lotta posts.

-RoyalTwinFangs: Thanks! No PHO yet, I want to try and go for minimum 3 chapters, then a PHO, then minimum 3 chapters.

-AnFanNMore: Thanks, I tried. Glad you liked it.

Given the Endbringer was engaged high enough in the atmosphere not to glass the East Coast, I'd imagine the number is 'not many'. There might be a couple new people coming soon, though, with some rather… interesting powersets.

Thanks! The reactions are going to be legendary and even better than the first PHO interlude would suggest. Remember, the world is still *just now* hearing about this up-and-coming new Tinker in Brockton Bay. Now they're going to get extremely rushed news that less than an hour after their debut, this Tinker scratched the Simurgh off the world's threat list. China is probably shitting their pants right about now. As for him having traits of the gods?

Not yet ;)

It is indeed getting real.

I don't think anyone is going to dare even telling him off for anything he's done. He just 'killed' an Endbringer. The guy essentially gets a "you do whatever you want" card. Nobody can stand against him now and they *know it*.

Emily's health is going to be handled in a left-field way.

PanPan will have an interesting meeting with Shipyard quite soon.

Read that fic, was indeed badass.

Thanks! I hoped people would read responses to reviews that aren't theirs, you've just confirmed it for me! And as for Taylor...

WE ARE THE SWARM. RESISTANCE IS DENIED. HALF OF THESE SPIDERBOTS ARE FROM LUNG'S TESTICLES.

-Eddie Drood: Then fast buildup it shall be!

As for my Stargate knowledge; Thy challenge has been heard and the arena prepared. The Debate hath begun!

I don't buy the original replicators having nothing to do with the Alterans. There's a lot of evidence to support my position, but most of it is from… reading between the lines, so to speak. The biggest piece of evidence is that we have not once, not *once* seen evidence of Replicator-esque technology from anyone but the Alterans or their descendants. But get near Alterans and suddenly they pop up everywhere. There were at least three different kinds of nanobots before nanites on Atlantis. Asurans are Alteran. And yes, you bring up a good point that they were built to fight the Wraith.

But.

There is a subtle, and if not intentionally included by the Stargate writers then extremely coincidental, progression of development present for Alteran Constructors, the possible true name of Replicators big and small.

Where does this all start? On one of the only full intact and original relics from the time before the Alterans were really, really old.

Destiny.

You see, on Destiny, a 50-million year old ship, there are these repair bots. Constructors. And what do they look like?

That's right. Spiders.

Fast forward a lot. Alterans come up with the blocky replicator design to build their things for them. Eventually they discover nanites and the technology is abandoned, all samples reclaimed for other uses, and the designs left in databases because they're the same to the Alterans as knives are to us. Not necessarily a danger and something everyone knows about and not to misuse.

Fast forward. The Alterans leave for the Pegasus galaxy and, eventually, create the nanobots that cause hallucinations. Modular nanobots.

See the pattern yet?

Fast forward only a little. Asurans are created. The ultimate form of this technology, the end stage of its evolution. They don't do what it's creators wanted them to. They try to get rid of them.

Then the Alterans lose. They traipse back to the Milky Way and go into hiding. Some stay on Earth, others go to other planets.

Fast Forward. At some nebulous point, Reese is created. Who she's created by is unclear, but it is probably not an Alteran. Most likely one of their descendants that happened to luck out in their ancestors' database and find plans for Asurans, or their prototypes, but was unable to understand them and so got close.

Sometime later, Reese finds the Constructors, the block-type Replicators, in that same database and thinks they'd make good toys.

Cue destruction of her entire world and river-in-Egypt fueled slumber.

Fast Forward to somewhen near the time Earth opens it's Stargate again in the SGC, probably thirty or twenty five thousand years or so.

Some Asgard (probably Loki) finds this world and the Constructors on it, or some of the blocks. Beams em' up. Takes them back home to Ida. Probably to one of his secret labs.

Replicators eat his ship, he narrowly escapes, and the Asgard-Replicator War begins.

I say these last two events happened soon before the Earth SGC Stargate opening because of the rate of losses we see happening to the Asgard in the show. It's fast, on a galactic scale. Really fast.

The Goa'uld are important to this theory because they have only been able to do their Empireing without the Asgard interfering for a relatively short time, most likely the exact same amount of time. This is when they rose to power. Now we could assume they had Unas hosts and built their empire for a long time that way, then somehow found Earth, pushing back how long the Asgard-Replicator War has been going on, but it seems unlikely. And Ra showed up in Egypt in 22,000 BC. In fact the Wiki seems to believe it was only 6,000 years before that they discovered Alteran technology caches and uplifted themselves into a spacefaring race.

But all of this isn't really important until we get all the way to Reese being used to bait the Ida Replicators to Hala. The time dilation reversal allows the Constructors to undergo dozens of millions of years of evolution. And what do they turn out as?

Not Reese.

Reese had physical components. She wasn't just a blob of nanites. Yes, she had nanites in her and used them to repair herself. But she isn't a Replicator.

And more importantly, she's not an Asuran either. The Hala Replicators are.

Now one could blame Convergent Evolution for this phenomenon. It's possible that, given enough time, nanites will always form into metallic blob beings.

But I think that's far too simple an answer. Way too easy. Moreover, even if that was the case, the technologies would have some differences.

Wait, there's actually one really key piece of evidence here that I've overlooked. Not discussed.

The ARG Disruptor weapon developed by the Alteran-Databasified Jack to fight the Ida Replicators works on Asurans.

Well, I think I've just proved my point with that last one. There is no reason, none at all, that the Disruptor Weapon that neutralizes Keron Pathways should work on the Asurans as well as the Nanite and Block versions of the Replicators. And it doesn't just work as well as it does on them, the results are identical.

Unless they're the same technology.

And given the Asurans were created by the Alterans, and all the other evidence seems to match… Well.

Also keep in mind that the Galactic Scale Matter Manipulation Wave Generator on Dakara, something eerily similar to Jack's ARG weapon, took out the Replicators without any modification at all. They just had to reconfigure it. And we've seen them reconfiguring the ARGs when the Replicators/Asurans adapted before too.

So yes, given all this evidence, my headcanon is that the Replicators are Alteran technology. Old, outdated, but still Alteran. And Shards are no match for their technology.

On the topic of multidimensional superheroes; Eh. I'll think about it.

-KyonSmith13: You and others are making it very hard to resist making Ziz Chief Engineer of the Hyperion and having Weldon and Taylor ride into battle on her back. Very, very hard.

And yes, Weldon smells something fishy and doesn't like it at all.

Yeah, Weldon is going to accidentally a lot of things. Ascalon is just the first evil thing to fall under his plot armor wonderful magnificence.

-yukicrewger2: Ziz is the ultimate waifu.

-edboy4926: Thanks!

-eddyforty: You're welcome. Here's some more.

-SkyCaptain502: But Friendbringers are Bestbringers! Especially if they're fluffy, feathery Snugglebringer waifus!

-ultima-owner: Wouldn't you be? As Dragon so greatly puts it in one of my unpublished fics; "Wouldn't you be? Mastered your whole life? Forced to attack, ruin and kill millions of people?"

-WrathOfTheSunDeity: Firstly, awesome name bro. As for crossing over into the actual SGU? It's in the cards I want to deal, that's all I'll say so far.

-jdboss1: Update get! +1 Update!

-Vandenbz: Who else is stupid enough to fire at someone who controls the gigantic, power-defeating ship hovering above "their" city? Nevermind that they didn't know that second part until later nor that they believed they would be able to shut down the timeline so that it never happened. Funny thing, precognition. When it's data-based and the data becomes corrupted, what can the program do but crash? :)

Weldon and Tattletale trolling Coil sounds neat, but let's get PanPan, Dinahberry and Our Lady of Escalation in on the fun, shall we?

Ziz on the Internet? Whatever could you mean? Cold sweats, waking up from a nightmare, hundreds of feathery wings enfolding the wor- Sounds like a great idea!

Ziz, Vista and Weldon Love Triangle is now canon.

Waifu Hero Ziz with shield is probably going to be canon too.

Ooh yes, the Mastering debates have only just started to hint at their existence.

The question here is whether to make the religion push Weldon to have a harem. I don't want to make a harem fic (mostly because I'm really, truly terrible at them), but he has Vista, eventually Ziz, and even more eventually Taylor plying for his affections.

Uhh….. what ungodsly abomination have I created?

Weldon will probably treat it like a field trip for his team and anyone else who wants to come. "Now people, this is what happens when you become an S-Class Villain. I get called to come in from my vacation home on Mars to deal with you. It's boring. Stop." (Weldon says as the S9 are glasses into sand)

Pretty sure I answered the others here in PM, but feel free to poke me if not.

-Guest(FireZeMissiles): more like FIRE EVERYTHING!

-Bob: PHO losing their minds, feathery chief Engineers, and nightmarish, Techno-Queen Nilboggery Taylors, oh my!

-Eljin1: Dragon was not remote controlling her suit. That's a lie she perpetuates. She is limited to one instance, no way would Richter let her get around that via remote control. She's in the suits she's 'controlling'. That's my headcanon anyways.

-WannaFirewhiskey: Hey! Welcome! You're welcome, LEGO SPACESHIPS ARE COOL!

-Bobboky: Thanks!

-EnderTheMultiverseDetective: Yowza!

-stephenopolos(1): Checks chapter this person is reviewing from Oh boy, you've got no idea just what you're in for.

-stephenopolos(2): But now you do! I'm happy that you approve! I'm generally not very happy with worm canon either, but the Fanon base universe is fun to build things off of. You're very welcome!