Chapter 17

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

-Chapter begin –

For SG1 and the rest of of those attending the briefing such a focus had been given on Raiden's fleet just because it was the most unique. Briefings on Yu, Olokun, Heru'ur, Cronus, Bastet, Kali, and Baal had been far shorter simply because they all had largely traditional fleet structures, though all had adopted some new ships. It was Sokar, and Anubis to whom the rest of the summit focused on.

Sokar employed massive mobile armors, generally piloted by one to three people. Though thus far these massive assault craft alone weren't for destroying top of the line Ha'tak in groups they were exceptionally dangerous to them. Anubis seemed to be considering a similar venue. Anubis also seemed to share Raiden's ship design philosophy switching to producing more specialized ships, though without the mass production of dozens of separate ship classes. Of course for the moment that was probably the result of Anubis simply not having the established resource, and industry base.

The briefing however heralded bad news as well. The tauri were stepping back from things for the moment. They simply didn't have the choice to openly confront the system lords. For congress the Earth had been threatened too many times, so while the Stargate would remain active the main focus was now the construction of offworld bases, and hold out positions in the event earth was threatened.

It'd been explained that the Prometheus-class ships were intended to help protect Earth, but also to help transport supplies to bases. They'd been doing the same with Earth's Ha'tak. There was yet some good news, the Tauri had introduced their own techniques to the staff weapons, turning them into crudely concealable carbines with primitive folding iron stocks. It was crude development yes, and while traditionalists adhorred such, it was also true that the Tauri were merely introducing their own version of what some goa'uld were giving to their Jaffa guard. The tauri however had a large contribution of weapons that were of earth make, that too drew some criticism from the traditional jaffa, who had hoped for proper staff weapons, or zats, as the Tauri called them, at least.

Still the Jaffa appreciated the shelter, and the rapidly growing fortifications. The Tauri had traded a bit of naquadah from the Anubis asteroid to the Tok'ra for a collection of tunnelling crystals.

Rumor was the Tok'ra had built a series of bombs to strike Raiden, Sokar, and Anubis. All three attacks had failed mysteriously the result of warriors in black, but the Tok'ra hadn't said anything, only hoping to acquire more naquadah. The crystals though had been put to good use tunnelling deep down into the local mountain range. Eventually they would relocate the stargate there for now though, it would stay were it was.

"We appreciate the Tauri efforts on our behalf, but surely pulling from the field so early is a mistake," Bra'tac cautioned, "The rebellion against the false gods grows daily, but I fear the youngsters will demand action, even though we are wise to caution patience in these times when the System Lords prepare to set the whole galaxy to blaze."
Major Davis frowned, "We don't have the resources to commit" He ignored another of the Jaffa rebellion's leaders protest about how the Tauri claimed their armies numbered in the tens of millions, yet could not spare a force to aid the jaffa who were dying, "Our world has been invaded once a year at least for the last five years in a row. Our government has decided security now means we can better help with the rebellion later," That actually shut up the Jaffa, for the Goa'uld planetary invasion was a messy business, most goa'uld were not afraid to hold the high ground, and crash land transports near keys points laden with thousands of men regardless of losses on either side.

-scene break—

For the Order of the Phoenix well the last year had been a mess. They'd finally swallowed the alien pill, and started in depth research, even looking at ancient Thanagarian artifacts and some goa'uld artifacts, and comparing them. It was big step due to wizards having separated themselves from 'muggles' for hundreds of years, but even they had noticed the fighting. Not surprising considering it was a little hard to miss warships hundreds of meters long flying over cities and giant robots fighting in said cities.
The real way hogwarts students had known about were the flashing lights in the sky. There also been astronomy classes as well, and when you could see the glow of a single ship from orbit was one thing, being able to see the glow of many dozen was another. With telescopes students could make out actual shapes as ships fought high above.

"Welcome everyone." Albus greeted the members of the order, "Mungdungus, and Alastor both have information they have brought to us. Gentlemen." He gestured to the two men in question.

"We'll I don't have much Albus but I know that building got a whole lot buisier recently," He proclaimed with a slight slur, "especially after all those Thanagarians got driven off." They'd kept a distant watch on the Foot Tower for the last few years, it had seemed a wise course of action.

"Thank you Mr. Fletcher." He had hoped for a more detailed report, but for the moment it would have to suffice. He imagined a place being a great deal busier could mean a lot of things, "Alastor if you would go ahead, while Mr. Fletcher composes himself?"

Alastor didn't like this but he'd already given up hope trying to dissuade them on just how much of a bad idea this was. "Well seeing as you all are determined to find Sithis come Hell or High water I feel I should brief you all," He stated, his tone announcing just how stupid he thought this endeavour. "Its been confirmed the forces that drove off the Bird People belonged to the New God Raiden, additionally just prior to the fleet arriving an older ritual of summoning was used in an area where there are no known members of the brotherhood, but that alone wouldn't justify assuming there aren't any. As I have said before," Moody declared loudly banding his hand on the table, "Raiden is tied with Sithis, as evidenced by our confrontation," It'd taken some time but they'd finally been able to convince Dumbledore to come around to fully explaining to the whole order, what had happened. They hadn't really been convinced. "bringing an army of that magnitude. Sithis was offered something in Gotham city to intervene, and Raiden came with an army the likes of which we've not seen since ancient times." He knew, Moody certainly did that Sithis valued something enough to send an army, perhaps not his army but one he could call for. "Raiden though has a violent and bloody feud going on with the vampires who opposed Voldemort in France. Now Sithis himself has no problem with Vampires, in fact its not uncommom for a member of the Dark Brotherhood to be a vampire." His fellow knights were fearful of just what concession Sithis could have gained that he would intervene like this. Isaac feared a childe, or godchild, and the whole of the Knights shivered at the thought of a full blooded heir of the dark god being born on earth. As if Azura's line on earth wasn't trouble enough.

The Order's resident archeologist spoke up. "So are we looking for something particular, an item, a person, a location?" Bill knew he could handle research.

"Wouldn't Harry come himself? Surely for something so important to," Albus Dumbledore inquired trying to think up a plot. The headmaster was old, and truthfully though he'd seen the lights in the sky it was hard to comprehend such things as spacefleets and such. Still he knew about naval ships, and broomsticks and flying carpets so he rationalized his understanding like that.

"The accords would prevent. In any case he isn't likely to remain on Earth any longer than he needs to. The accords are all that keep the Gods from War, it is all the spares creation from a battling of Aedra and Daedra. If not for the Accords he would otherwise likely he would be far more discreet about this search." Moody paused, he knew from talking with the other chapters of knights that supposedly another accord, this one between the New Gods exited, "There are rumor still of Earth being sheltered under agreements between the New Gods, as well."

Albus nodded, that made sense even if it was troublesome. Treaties were very important amongst wizards and magical beings so it did make sense. Moody wasn't completely sure whether said information was accurate, but then the Aedra had yet to speak about the situation of the new gods. "Sithis cannot act without proper provocation, like a ritual, but those rituals that actually summon Sithis himself have been well guarded by men since before the fall of the Roman Senate to corruption."

The accords between the Aedra and Daedra 'signed' at the conclusion of the last War in Heaven, long before the goa'uld had evolved, specifically outlined the self imposed limits of the gods. Amongst the rules were non interference clauses in the mortal realms without due reason. Reasons such mortals toying with things they were better off not getting even remotely close to.

His fellow knights were worried about this situation, and he wasn't able to impress onto Dumbledore the seriousness of this. Sithis as the god of death was amongst the most dangerous of the Daedric lords, and if he was beginning to act it would not bode well for those who served the Aedra.

The scarred man continued, "But that's not what you need to know since you are so insistence on pursuing Sithis, I'll brief you on what we know." He declared, "As I mentioned previously the Dark Brotherhood, the Brotherhood has several ranks the lowest are entry level members, The next tier are known as Slayers, followed by Eliminator, and then Assassin and between the Black Hand and the regular members are the judicial members of the Brotherhood they are given the rank of Executioner, finally at the top of these are ten members per world these ten are the elite of the Dark Brotherhood, known as the Black Hand, there are three ranks within the Black Hand five Silencers one for each member, they serve as aids, bodyguards and as the next in line to succeed a member of the councils, they are sometimes likened to each member of the hand as to each finger the silencer is the talon. The Silencers members hold one additional task amongst there duties carrying out the Ritual of Purification, though it is unknown what this ritual entails exactly, nothing good is what I would speculate. There are four speakers on Earth the next to highest mortal rank in the brotherhood, they report directly to the mortal head the listener. The Listener reports to Mephala she informs him where the Brotherhood is needed, above her is Sithis himself at times he will appear and bequeath tasks to a member of the brotherhood."

Albus nodded, acknowledging the dearth of information. In truth Moody's information was nearly flawless... nearly yes those were the ranks of the dark brotherhood, but he was wrong about the number of Dark Hand per world, ten that was ridiculously small.

A magically projected image of Raiden appears. "As you have seen this is Raiden, when Sithis assumes another identity he uses a different form of fighting, the order has no such information on this alter ego, however…"

The image changes to Sithis's image, older and regal, with black scelera eyes with emerald slits, and dressed in a robe similar to the classical images of the Black Hand but there were two Daedric style silver pauldrons and the robe was worn open, revealing a blood red Tunic underneath. The projection wore black pants and Daedric greaves and his hands were covered with heavy Daedric gauntlets. On one side Raiden has a single Black Katana and on the other a Dagger, not unlike the Blade of Woe presented to each member of the Brotherhood at their initiation. "We know that normally Sithis can't operate quietly on Earth without us finding him for the sheer amount of magic he exudes. The environmental signs are too obvious. We suspect the same is true for all of the Gods who can freely manifest on Earth, though its possible they have some way of restraining there powers to prevent unnecessary influence, as we potentially saw in new york." He paused before continuing on, "Well we detected a brief surge in energy in the States, during the negotiations for the treaty chartered by the Asgard, according to the Rumors Thor, Cronus, and Sithis, were all present."

Dumbledore nodded recognizing the names but also contemplating the information, "Concerning the Dark Brotherhood, would it be possible to have the Listener make contact with Harry?"
Moody's eyes bulged, including the magical one. "ARE YOU BARMY?" He declared, "You actually want to ask a Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, a Listener who is arguably going to be amongst the strongest of the Death God's servants to actually ask the same god something."

The result of the killing curse had propelled Harry through time and space back to the days of the Ayelied millions of years into the past. In those years he had a great deal of time to build his Dark Brotherhood.

"It was just a question Alastor, relax old friend," Dumbledore replied eyes twinkling, so asking the Listener to contact Harry was out well that complicated things, "Perhaps contacting his alter ego Raiden we could ask the Japanese ministry," He suggested.

Moody grudgingly admitted to the rest of the Order that yes that might just be a slightly better idea.

-scene break-

The ninth ship of the class's name translated to Justice and Morality. Where the nineteenth of the Rashomon class was used to pioneer new technologies and design the latest warships, the ninth of the Rashomon class the Gi, named for one of the guiding virtues of the Samurai and by extension Raiden and the other Japanese cultured system lords' Jaffa, purpose was to build these warships. The Rashomon's numbers had never been intended to be obvious about their purpose, in fact it had changed over time.

Even now the giant Rashomon class ship docks were working on building Gondwana class super carriers, which though almost equal in length to the Shinku Rai Tatsu class carried three times the number of mobiles suits. That was some six hundred as opposed to the two hundred carried aboard the more heavily armed battleships.

The Gondwana were expressly designed as carriers and lacked the vast arsenal of heavy weaponry that the Shinku Rai Tatsu's possessed in abundance, not to say the ships were lame targets quite the opposite, the Gondwana possessed powerful shields which would hold under even a sustained Asgard attack at bay for a time, and while the ship lacked the powerful positron weapons the Supercarrier was armed with a massive amount of missiles as well as cannons.

The design was complete, a Battleship, which surpassed even the large Kite shaped Peacemillion, which was three thousand meters in length. The Peacemillion's nearest competitor previous had been the twenty eight hundred meter Granshiro battleship at least four hundred meters longer than the Alteran Aurora class used during the last attempt by the Alteran to rebuild their empire.

The new ship would be eleven hundred meters longer than the an Aurora, making it some thirty five hundred meters in length, it would carry detachments of mobile suits exceeding that of the Peacemillion by some thousand suits, the ship would be outfitted with an improved and larger version of the Shinku Rai Tatsu class's main cannon. Raiden glanced at the Stargate. "Libra. The scales of Judgment." He murmured elated at the completion.

So it was to be the name of the new ship, after a moment he frowned he really needed to stop using Greek references lest certain subordinates egos get even larger than they already were. Even better his fellow goa'uld should adore the new ship class.

A war was approaching the galaxy, Anubis's return guaranteed that a conflict was going to occur. The system lords were not quite as stable as they had been since Ra had been slain by the Tauri and his power base broken, and with Anubis's return things were complicated.

Once upon a time Anubis had been apart of the same ambitious group as Raiden, which had evolved into the present coalition of system lords the Shinto Kami and Sokar belonged to. That had been long ago though before he had been exiled by the combined forces of Apophis, Ra, and Yu, with the later going so far as to attempt to kill him directly.

Yu was amongst the oldest of the System Lords and amongst the first to evolve to possess magic, true magic anyway. Most of the System Lords only claimed to be gods, but through magic and the appropriate rituals it was possible to actually become gods. Yu had been dangerous before then, but now he was even more so, luckily his patience was great usually.

There in was the problem with Anubis's return Yu was readying his forces for war against the former exile. Yu's curse had probably prevented Anubis from achieving true godhood due to the sheer power behind the old man's magic, but Raiden didn't thing this coming war would involve titanic battles of magic no that was something which would leave them to venerable to other factors.

Ships he would build, and he'd present Yu Huang Shang Ti with the Libra plans, Cronus, and Sokar as well, as well as Heru'ur. In a year he'd give them to the entirety of the system lords, those whose remained anyway. The foolish ones would try to replace their whole fleet with such monstrosities, and he'd laugh.

-scene break-

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes: .