Chapter 7: My dead best friend and the… boss baby? (Annabeth)

I should have known after 3 nights of blissful sleep that it wouldn't last. I found myself floating through unfamiliar corridors, rectangular and metal, lit in calm blues and grays, with intricate markings and symbols on the walls. One repeated at every bulkhead though, a staff with a blue pearl at the top, the symbol of the Ori. Soldiers patrolled the halls, staying mostly silent. Eventually I spotted some of the captured souls from the underworld, being read verses from a book by one of the priors, The Book of Origin I quickly recognized. Most of the souls were unfamiliar, but as I inspected them a pair in the front row looked vaguely familiar. Before I could investigate further, however, I heard a familiar voice. "Annabeth," it whispered. I followed the sound through the corridors. After many twists and turns, I reached a small room and I saw him. The blonde hair, the scar across his face, his eyes were closed in concentration, but there was no mistaking it was Luke. "Annabeth!" he suddenly opened his eyes. I tried to yell his name, but I could make no sound. He then quietly spoke "If you can hear me, you followed us. Knowing you, you've probably figured out what they're planning to do. Don't worry about us, Jason and I have a plan, but we may need your help to pull it off. You need to-" he stopped abruptly as I felt a presence closing from down the hall. Luke shot me a look I'd seen many times Run!. He quickly dove onto a nearby bed and made it look like he was resting. I bolted out of the room, but time seemed to slow down as I saw who was coming. Adria seemed to glow with a fiery aura, like just being near her felt like standing by a furnace. She saw me and I froze in place, physically unable to move. She locked her eyes to mine, and I saw literal fire in her eyes. I felt something pressing its way into my mind, and the scene shifted. The cool metal halls were replaced by a wretched sulfur smell and a familiar red sky, Tartarus. Percy was standing next to me as Arai, flying demons who embodied curses attacked from all sides. Percy was doing his best to fend them off, but every time he killed one he nearly collapsed, each death transfering a curse onto him. One dove at me, and I instinctively dodged, before grabbing a rock and bringing it down on the creature's head. Almost immediately, my sight began to rapidly fade. I stumbled backward, completely blind within seconds. I screamed Percy's name, I felt useless, unable to so much as navigate. Percy grabbed my hand, and as he guided me. I felt a presence watching me, enjoying what she was inflicting.

The Percy in my dream was suddenly replaced by the real one as I bolted upward. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust, okay, SGC quarters, not Tartarus. The room was almost totally dark, and I turned to see Percy with his hands on my shoulders, pure concern in his eyes. "Nightmare," he asked quietly. "Yeah…but it wasn't just a bad memory. I think…I think Luke tried to reach out to me,". Percy nodded his head.

"Anything useful?"

"Maybe, he said he and Jason had a plan,".

"That's good, any idea what it is?"

"Nope,"

"Naturally,"

I turned to the clock next to the bed. I was still a few hours before the base's "day shift" would start, but I doubted I could've gone back to sleep. I caught Thalia and Nico shooting me concerned looks, I guess I must've been screaming and woken them up. I flashed them a thumbs up, but the concerned looks didn't go away. To pass the time, I took another look at the collection of files I'd picked up. While there wasn't too much information about Adria/ the Orici, I did manage to find some concerning ascension. It referenced another report from 2002 and an incident involving Daniel? I made a mental note to ask him about it ASAP. I went back to searching for information about Adria, and after some more examination I realized something. I checked the dates on all of the mission reports she was mentioned in. The first was from just a few months ago, detailing the aftermath of the beginning of the Ori invasion. I'd already seen the report on the battle for the supergate. While I was tempted to nitpick their tactics, they had done the best they could under the circumstances. The humans and their allies had numbers, better positioning, more room to maneuver, and the time to fire the first shots, but in the end it didn't matter. The Ori ships were so powerful they made a 4 to 1 numbers advantage look like a minor inconvenience. But what I was searching for had to do with the aftermath. Vala, who had been transported to the Ori's home galaxy, was on one of those ships, and was rescued later. This was also Adria's first appearance, where she was described as…A small child? I frantically flipped through to a more recent report. There, Adria was described almost exactly as we'd seen her, a grown woman spouting the will of Origin like she'd been doing it all her life. Maybe she has been doing it all her life. An idea began forming in my head. Vala, as charming as she was, was a former con-artist, and her first encounter with stargate command had been when she tried to steal one of their ships. Then, she had wormed her way into sticking around by putting a device on Daniel that connected their life forces, which nearly killed him when she disappeared. Then, when she finally returns, Adria appears, and goes from child to fully grown in months? Something was left out of the information Daniel had given me, and I needed to find out what.

When breakfast hour finally arrived, I practically yanked Percy out of bed. "Go away mom," he murmured, "I'm still sleeping,".

"Get up Seaweed Brain we've got to talk with Daniel and Vala,"

"Uh ok, why? You mean about your dream?"

"Yes…kinda, look just trust me,'

Percy must've realized I was on to something, and he quickly (but begrudgingly) picked himself out of bed. 20 minutes later, we were both making our way quickly to the mess hall, and after waiting in line for a few minutes, I spotted Daniel and Vala sitting down at one of the tables. It seemed like Daniel was just trying to eat in peace, and despite shifting his body away, Vala was undeterred. Once we had our food, we walked quickly over to the table. Daniel spotted us and relief flashed across his face. "Annabeth! Percy! How are you two doing?".

"Good, pretty good. I actually wanted to ask you about something," I replied.

"Go ahead,"

"Well I was looking through some of your guys' old mission reports, and I came across an interesting one regarding Langara in 2002,"

Daniel's face tensed up a bit. "You ascended?" I asked. After a brief moment of hesitation, Daniel replied "uh, yeah, twice actually,". Percy nearly choked on his food "Say what?". Daniel quickly explained. "I was there overseeing an experiment one of their nations was conducting on a special isotope of Naquadah, the mineral the stargates are made from. Something went wrong, and I ended up jumping into the chamber to shut it down but…the stuff is radioactive,". Of all the creations of the mortal world, intentional or not, the idea of being irradiated made my skin crawl. The particles literally destroy your cells and DNA while remaining completely invisible. Percy looked simultaneously worried and impressed, and so was I. Jumping into a sealed radioactive room was simultaneously inspiring and incredibly wreckless.

Daniel quickly continued "I managed to shut it down but, by the time they pulled me out I was beyond the help of our medicine. Before I died, though, one of the Ancients, Oma Desala, came to me, and offered me a way out, so I took it,". I could only assume Vala knew about this already, but even so she seemed in awe of what had happened. After an awkward silence, Percy finally spoke up, "how, why did you come back?".

"Remember how I mentioned the Ancients had a policy not to interfere? (I nodded) Well the next year we were dealing with the system lord Anubis, who because of a mistake by the ancients, possessed some ascended knowledge. He broke a promise he made to me not to attack one of our allies, and when I tried to punish him…" "They kicked you out?" I guessed. Daniel nodded. "Do you still have any of that knowledge, or the fancy powers?" Percy asked. "No, when they sent me back the Ancients locked away everything I'd learned while I was Ascended.

So Daniel had effectively given up godly power and immortality to try to protect people. Huh! I guess a last name wasn't all he and Percy had in common. I turned to Vala and saw she had relaxed somewhat, perfect. "Speaking of people with Ascended powers, what's with you and Adria?" I asked her. Vala froze, her normally bubbly and charming persona replaced with a look that resembled a deer in headlights. "What do you mean?" she asked, almost tripping over her words. Percy looked at me, simultaneously upset I'd ambushed her and also understanding why. "You were the one who called her Adria, not Orici, and every time her name came up you looked like you wanted to hide," I reasoned.

"Yes, but-"

"And she didn't appear until you came back with the Ori fleet,"

"You can't seriously think that-"

"And she somehow grew from child to adult in the span of a few months. You have to know something,".

Daniel's expression had shifted to one of concern. He looked concerned and almost protective? "Look, I can understand where you're coming from, but if you're suggesting that she's an Ori spy-" Daniel tried to defend, but Vala cut him off. "No, no, she's right to be curious. She did read my file after all,". She looked a little heartbroken, and I felt guilty for ambushing her.

"She's my daughter," Vala explained.

My pupils must've doubled in size. "How? How is that possible?" I asked. "You know about how I ended up in their home galaxy right?" she asked. I nodded. "Well, while I was over there, the Ori themselves must've realized where I was from, and came up with a little scheme to bypass the Ancients' rules. They…gave me a child, who I delivered just after that first battle. She had as much power and knowledge as they could give a human, and she was genetically altered. She was fully grown within a few days, ".

I wanted to throw up. Even the gods, for all their faults, at the very least seduced their mortal partners before conceiving demigods. But the idea of being given a child without any kind of consent by immortal, non corporeal beings? The violation? I wasn't surprised Vala looked like she wanted to hide in a corner any time the issue came up. Not only that, but the gods leaving afterward meant the mortal parent at least got the chance to raise their child (if they could manage). Adria wasn't an accident, or a "gift", she was a weapon.

"Vala, I'm so sorry. I didn't-"

"No, she took your friends. I suppose you had a right to know,".

There was another awkward silence, and (again) Percy managed to break it. "So they used you to smuggle one of their own over the border. Wow. I hate the Ori even more now,". We all giggled a little. Percy's ability to make people laugh with DUMB statements like that really was a gift. We then continued to make small talk for a few minutes before Sam arrived. "Oh good, you guys are awake,". "What's up?" Percy asked. "I just got finished examining that blood sample, you should probably take a look at this," she replied.

A few minutes later we were standing in the lab, and Sam beckoned me toward a microscope. "Take a look," she invited. Percy tried to jump in front of me. "Seriously?" I asked. "What? It's my blood," he replied.

"Do you seriously think you'll actually know what you're looking at?"

"How do you know that I won't?"

I allowed Percy to look through the microscope. After a few seconds, he remarked "yep, it's definitely blood,". I rolled my eyes as he stepped aside. I hadn't looked through a microscope in a hot minute, but from what I remembered the blood seemed pretty normal. "What am I looking for here?" I asked. "Look at the lining of the cells, does anything seem abnormal?" Sam replied. I did as she suggested, and after a moment I noticed a very slight gold sheen. "What is that?" I asked. Sam turned off the normal light and lowered in a blacklight. When she turned it on, the cells seemed to almost glow gold, reflecting the light. I backed away and Percy took another look. "What in the Hades? Why are they glowing?". After a moment of thinking, I realized why. "Ichor," I said, "the blood of the gods,". I hadn't really thought about it before, but it would make sense that there would be traces of our godly heritage in our blood.

"That isn't even the best part," Sam explained. "The gold coating isn't just for show, your cells are actually more resistant to high frequency light, heck they're more resilient in general," Sam walked across the lab as she continued "Throughout all of the tests I've run, that's been the one constant. Even your DNA is tougher than most humans! Your cells can survive exposure to radiation for over twice as long, and they heal a lot faster,". Sam was the happiest I'd seen her, she was genuinely happy to be discovering all of this. "Do you have any…scientific explanation?" I asked. Sam's enthusiasm seemed to fade a little. "That's the strangest part, I haven't yet. There's no other life form we know of that is biologically compatible with humans that has anywhere close to this effect,". Sam paused for a moment "I haven't been able to run the tests to prove this yet, but I think there is something connecting all of you to the very fabric of the universe, literally,". "What makes you say that?" Percy asked. "Well, your powers are tied to your godly parents right? But even though they don't seem to exist in this universe your powers remain. Your parents, maybe all gods from your universe, have an innate power over some facet or facets of reality, and they pass that on to their children. It seems to defy logical sense, I've never seen anything like it,".

Sam's tangent of amazement was halted when Teal'c appeared in the doorway. "Colonel Carter, we have received information from the Tok'ra regarding the whereabouts of the captive demigods,". Percy and I practically bolted out of the doorway, and had to wait for a moment for Teal'c to catch up and show us the way. He led us to the control room, where the rest of SG-1 and Landry were already assembled. The rest of our group arrived moments later as I examined the room. There were numerous computers and monitors arrayed throughout the room, with one in the center displaying a wireframe of the Stargate with a set of empty boxes, labeled 1 through 7 on the right side. I could see that the gate was active, and there was a video feed on one of the adjacent monitors. An unfamiliar human on the other end was speaking with Landry and SG-1.

"Are you sure that's where they're headed?" Landry asked.

"We are certain. The soldiers in the city have set about preparing for the arrival of their Orici. Additionally, they are tasking the miners with searching for deposits of Neutronium," the Tok'ra explained.

"Why in the hell are they doing that?" Mitchell asked.

"We do not know, but we believe this is the only planet the Ori control where the element can be found,".

The Tok'ra bid the humans goodbye, and the Stargate was shut off. "Good news?" Piper questioned. "Yes," Landry responded. "We've received reliable intel regarding the whereabouts of Adria, and most likely the other demigods,".

"Where?" I asked.

"P4X-117. The planet's populations willingly converted about a month ago. The soldiers there are apparently preparing for Adria's arrival," Daniel explained.

"When?" Thalia asked.

"Sometime within the next day or two," Landry explained. He turned to SG-1 "I want a plan ready by 1300,".

Mitchell and Carter saluted, the rest of the team nodded, and the combined group made their way swiftly toward the door, only to be stopped by a bald man in a business suit holding a briefcase. "I'm afraid that will have to wait, General," he said, "the IOA has concerns that need to be addressed,".