Rising from the Ashes of Ascension

Chapter 24

Disclaimer: As much as I might wish, I do not own Stargate: SG1, Highlander: the Series, or any recognizable characters from either show. If I did, I wouldn't be working in the public schools system. However, any characters that are not from either show are mine and I will use and abuse them as I see fit. Everyone else will be returned eventually, for I am only borrowing for awhile, but they might end up a bit scuffed.

Warnings: Potty language, violence, and occasional sexual references

No words were exchanged between the three combatants. There was no need for shouting or useless bluster. They were beyond any sort of need for such tactics.

Kali, as odd as it looked for her to be wielding two swords with four arms, it was a study in efficiency. She dropped two of her hands, therefore only one hand on each side held a sword. The remaining hands, far from useless, she used as weapons, punching, clawing, and swiping at her attackers, doing her best to throw them off their game.

What Kali did not count on was that her two opponents were two of the oldest Immortals on Earth and expert swordsmen. Methos and Danil slashed and hacked at Kali, fueled by anger and rage (but not madness). They had both been violated in horrible ways. Their enemy knew their secret, endangering the lives of every Immortal on Earth. Death and Hades wanted her dead in a bad way

The Goa'uld queen, far from being a slouch, an impotent figurehead in her medium sized realm, could fight like a banshee from hell. She hit the pair in their heads, chests, necks, doing anything to make them stumble or falter.

They took the pain, absorbed it thanks for adrenaline and focus, and ignored each blow Kali delivered. Danil and Methos, each on opposite sides of the Goa'uld played out an intricate and deadly ballet. Blood flowed down their faces, from their noses and mouths, giving them a gory visage.

Kali managed to get a swipe in, slashing Danil across his middle; catching Methos in his thigh. Luckily neither wound was serious. They stumbled slightly but were quick to recover, going at it like they had never gone after an opponent before in all of their long years.

Meanwhile, as Danil and Methos were preoccupied with their little differences with Kali, Jack, Sam, and Teal'c watched in fascination, careful to stay out of the way of the combatants.

"Um, Sir," Carter piped up, watching her friends fight Kali, amazed at the beauty of their deadly dance. "As fascinating as it is to watch the guys host a battle royal with Kali, we do have to worry about Jaffa showing up, not to mention Adam's baby Goa'uld. We have to destroy them. Can't we just shoot them all and be done with it?"

Jack shook his head. "Remember the Shavadia?"

Carter shivered. "Like I could ever forget that nightmare," she snorted.

"Remember how you beat the crap out the Chief? Even though you didn't kill him, remember how you could have? You had the power of life and death over the man."

"I fail to see the connection here Sir," Carter said.

"The connection is that the act of facing your oppressor in battle helped you deal with everything afterwards, when we got back home. It wasn't fun, but by taking back the power he had over you, it made it easier for you to regain a sense of yourself and feeling secure."

"But they," she gestured towards the three locked in combat, "aren't looking for a chance to show Kali that they have power over her, yet show her mercy in the end. They want to kill her."

"Same principal, just with a different ending to the story," Jack disagreed. "Daniel and Methos were violated pretty badly. When Daniel had his encounter with Hathor, it wasn't fun because he didn't have a sense of closure until over a year later. For their sake, this needs to be done."

"Are you sure O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, watching the fight closely.

"Very sure. This will help them get their anger issues worked out. You heard Daniel ask Methos if he were up to some horse riding. He was referring back to their dark and homicidal days. You saw the Danil mask pop up right?"

Teal'c nodded.

"Daniel will be able to bleed off some of that anger and hopefully Methos will to. Do you really want to have to worry about dragging two homicidal mass murderers back through the gate and explaining it to the people in charge, least of all Hammond, why two members under his command have gone totally bonkers?" Jack asked.

"Indeed O'Neill, however living well is the best revenge," Teal'c quoted George Herbert.

"Yes, but revenge is a more punctual paymaster than gratitude," Jack shot back, quoting Charles Caleb Colton.

"That may be, but revenge does not long remain unrevenged," Teal'c pulled out a German proverb.

This would have continued probably indefinitely, but Carter broke in. "Guys, we have more pressing issues right now," she reminded her teammates.

Jack glared at his second-in-command for ruining his chance at out-quoting Teal'c. His next move was to pull out something really witty by George Carlin. "Okay, going on, we do have to 

destroy the baby Goa'uld. You and Teal'c find her whirlpool of love and destroy it. I'll worry about the Jaffa. Go!"

"Sir," Carter nodded and with Teal'c in the lead, they went off in search of the "whirlpool of love." Teal'c assumed that it had to be in the vicinity of Kali's bedroom, which made their search a little more realistic in finding results.

Jack, staying out of the Immortals' and Kali's way, yelled at the two. "Would it kill ya to hurry it up already?" He could hear the metallic thumping of boots on stone that indicated that Jaffa soldiers were headed their way.

Sure enough, Jaffa came running down the hall. Jack made sure he waited until he could see the proverbial whites of their eyes before starting to fire on the soldiers. He continuously fired, picking off targets, but new ones kept popping up.

"Guys I can't do this all day," Jack yelled above the blasting. "Get it over with and kill the bitch would you?"

Danil and Methos renewed their fight, their swords flashing even faster, making Kali work for every block and parry. Finally, Methos was able to get a strike in somehow and managed to cut off one of the extra arms that had been punching and grabbing at him ever since the fight had started.

Dark blood squirted everywhere, shooting out of her body like a fountain, covering Methos in the rotten smelling liquid.

Kali screamed in rage and pain, allowing Danil to take advantage of her distraction and cut off her other arm. Blood shot out of the stump that was left behind, weakening the Goa'uld even further.

Blood was everywhere, coating their faces, hair, clothing, the floor, Kali herself. It was a macabre scene that not even the Hollywood horror masters could recreate.

She continued to fight, but was clearly not able to continue the fight; her life was literally pouring out of her. Eventually she didn't have the strength to hold up her swords which fell to her sides and clattered onto the stone floor. Kali dropped to her knees, unable to stand upright anymore.

"You want it?" Methos asked Danil.

"Do you?" Danil asked.

"So I had freaky sex with an alien. I've had worse things done to me in my life. She snaked you. I got first blood out of the two of us. That gives me a bit of happiness," Methos replied.

"Don't tell me you're going all chivalrous on us now," Danil snarked. "Your time with the Highlander must have really screwed you up."

"Bite me."

"She killed your teammates," Danil reminded him.

"Guys! Just do it for Christ's sake!" Jack yelled at the two of them, exasperated.

"She's all yours," Methos smiled and backed away, letting Danil have the honors.

Danil smiles and steps over to Kali's kneeling form, running the tip of his sword across Kali's neck, ignoring the look of hatred emanating from her blood red eyes. "Even without a Quickening, I'll enjoy this," he hissed.

Raising the sword high over his head, he brought it down and across, severing the neck. The head rolled away from the crumpled body. More blood pours out of the body and the Goa'uld, badly damaged, squirms out of the head. It squeals in indecipherable rage then dies.

Kali is dead.

"A little help here guys," Jack yells.

The Immortals look over to see Jack crouched down close to the ground, using the inside of the doorway as cover, pinned down by staff fire.

Danil picked up the severed head and walked over to Jack.

"Gah!" Jack yelped when Daniel held the head a bit too close to him for his comfort.

Danil, ignoring Jack's ever so manly protests, chucked the head down the hallway like a bowling ball. "Here's your goddess. If I can kill a god, what do you think I'll do to you?"

Methos lugged the body over to the doorway and tosses it out for the Jaffa to see.

The Jaffa horrified and stunned to see their goddess beheaded, stopped firing.

Teal'c and Sam came running up, having completed their mission. Teal'c seeing the bloody figures near the door stops so abruptly, Sam ran right into his back. She bounced off and hit the floor, landing in a pool of blood.

"That is gross," she said and hopped up quickly, wiping her hands on the front of her pants. While the front of her pants weren't exactly clean, they were cleaner than her blood-soaked backside.

Teal'c eyebrows reached new heights in shock.

"So what's it going to be boys? We keep shooting at each other and I turn these two loose on you, the ones that killed Cauliflower or you can be good kids and surrender?" Jack bellowed at the Jaffa.

They could hear staff weapons hitting the floor.

Cautiously, with Daniel and Methos out in front, the team stepped into the hallway.

"Where are the bodies of my teammates?" Methos asked his voice as cold as ice.

"Jaffa, kree!" the First Prime barked and then sent three of his men off to recover the Tau'ri bodies.

Teal'c gave them his standard speech about being free of Goa'uld oppression and invited them to join the Free Jaffa movement. He didn't get much of a response. Everyone was too shell shocked at seeing their System Lord dead before them.

Jack arranged for transportation back to the Stargate. They were taken in an Al'kesh, along with the bodies of SG-12 (Methos did not want to leave them behind) to the Gate. There they dialed up a world that was friendly to them – PX5-286. From there they would go to the Alpha Site. While the Jaffa that had been loyal to Kali hadn't tried anything once the Goa'uld was dead, they didn't want to risk revealing the location of the Alpha Site to a bunch of Jaffa that when the shock wore off, could possibly seek revenge upon the Tau'ri.

Once at PX5-286, Sam quickly dialed up the Alpha Site. Methos, Daniel, and Teal'c were carrying the bodies of the deceased while Jack provided cover (you never knew, even on a friendly world).

Back at Stargate Command, they were relieved of their weapons and the bodies. Hammond met them at the base of the ramp, appalled at the site of three of his men dead and seeing Daniel and Methos carrying swords that were shoved in their belts, covered in blood.

"This is going to be one hell of a story. Go see the infirmary and we'll debrief in one hour," Hammond said, watching the five file out of the Gate room, looking like hell.

SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1

During their post-op physicals, Janet discovered the blood soaked bandage. She peeled it off, revealing the wound that hadn't healed yet.

"What happened?" she exclaimed, dabbing at the wound with antiseptic, causing Daniel to wince in pain. While he was Immortal, that didn't make him impervious to being sore. "Why isn't your neck healed?" she asked in a whisper

"Neck wounds don't heal as quickly or as nicely as others. If you stitch it up, it will help and minimize scarring," he whispered back. Then louder, he answered her other question.

"Oh you know how it is Janet," Daniel replied tiredly. He was exhausted enough that he wasn't paying attention to his words. "We got captured by a freaky Goa'uld who wanted to turn SG1 over to the system lords as a way to earn brownie points with them. She also made herself a friend with benefits with Adam and stuck a Goa'uld symbiote in me. I guess you could call it the average SG1 milk run."

Daniel suddenly found himself looking down the barrels of several guns, all pointed at him.

He allowed the sword to be taken from him and he raised his hands in surrender. "But I got better," he finished lamely, his protests falling on deaf ears as he was quickly handcuffed and hauled off for an MRI scan to see if he was indeed possessed by a Goa'uld.

A/N: Well, what do you think? Crap or not? Hit the shiny review button and let me know what you think?

Okay, yes, it has been awhile since my last posting. Vacation was great and quite the adventure. We survived with only minimal scarring (I tore up my ankle on Mt. Vesuvius and two Air France officials made me cry). While vacationing, I did manage to write up several chapters – what else are you going to do while thirty-seven thousand feet in the air and have SARS boy next to you (he was blowing his nose into his blanket – ewww!).

Thank you to everyone who continues to read and review (or at least read). Another big thank you to Lorilei for her awesome proofing, catching my mistakes. I hope that this chapter lives up to your expectations. Well, off to some more typing and watching Continuum again.

Cheers!