AN: Ahh…yea…*coughs* Happy new years? I know this is out 2 weeks AFTER the new years, but I hope everyone's was enjoyable, as was the rest of your holiday season (for those of you that read authors notes. ^-^) You guys are going to hate how this chapter starts off…but I promise, something interesting WILL happen. ^-^

ANYWAY, on to the chapter…you know, what you all have been waiting for. ^_-

And to those of you who can find the Dresden Files (mild) reference in the first half of the story...kudos to you. ^-^

PS: Title inspiration came from the Bleach OST…which I am currently listening to as I am finishing this chapter up for you all. ^-^

~*~On the Precipice…~*~

"Unscheduled off-world activation!"

The klaxons started blaring, and lights started flashing everywhere. Yoruichi darted out from under the table and jumped back into Ichigo's bag just as he grabbed the strap. She peaked out of the bag at the sandy-haired, glasses wearing man who had been identified as "Daniel Jackson." That man was a strange one, in nearly the same way she thought that Chad and Orihime were strange. He had spiritual power locked up inside him, and as usual only Ichigo was ignorant of the fact. But…it was strange. It wasn't that he was holding it in himself, but like someone had put a limiter on his abilities and made him more…vanilla-human as opposed to the other "flavors" that were out there.

She was soon pulled out of her musings, however, once her favorite Substitute threw the bag's strap over his shoulder to run with the others to, as she would soon find out, the command room.

Thankfully, the run to the control room was a short one. Just as the large group entered, the on-duty head called out, "Finally receiving IDC…it's SG-10!" The man spun around as he noticed that the door had opened, and his eyes asked all the question that was needed.

"Do it, open the Iris." The General walked up to a microphone as the man running the computers entered the code to open the iris. "Clear the gate ramp, but train weapons on the Stargate! SG-10 is coming in hot!" As he said the words, "SG-10," the iris shot open, and just in time. Mere moments later, the four-man team came darting out of the event horizon, three weapons trained on whatever had been tailing them and one man supporting what appeared to be a Tok'ra. The man with the Tok'ra made a hand-sign to the viewing window. "All units accounted for, close the iris!" the General barked, walking towards the door out of the control room.

As they all marched out of the control room, the General turned and look at his followers. "Looks like today is going to be an eventful one…I guess it's your official welcome to the SCG, gentlemen." Jack barked out a laugh, and grumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, "never a dull moment," but Ichigo (the one closest to him) couldn't be certain.

They took a few stairs down to the level that the Stargate was located at, and all Ichigo could do was stare in wonder at the giant metal…ring. Really, a giant ring…it was just crazy enough that he had no issues believing that this device could facilitate interstellar travel. It was a helluva lot more believable than his usual day-to-day life of exorcizing evil hollows and sending holes to the Soul Society.

Oh, he did catch the phrase, "Off-world activation," when it was said over the intercoms. And to his poor, frazzled brain that could only mean one thing: this device is how they found out about life on other planets and how they managed to get to those planets.

He glanced back at the rest of SG-1 and the General to discover he was standing by his lonesome, staring at the metal contraption. The rest were all talking to the team who had come through the Stargate as they loaded the injured man wearing significantly different clothing onto a stretcher. To sate his curiosity, he joined the SG personnel and Urahara.

"…and like it was first identified as, the place was empty of sentient life…until the Goa'uld dropped out of the sky following the Tok'ra who had escaped from their ship that was in orbit around the planet. Their names, by the way, are Ka'raal and Simoń. They were spies for the Tok'ra on board the supply vessel that he was taken prisoner upon and was in orbit. Before he started to kinda fade in and out of consciousness, he said that he had delicate information for the Tok'ra if we could…kindly…return him to his people."

The General patted the man on his shoulder, and said, "Good work. Go ahead and take your team to the infirmary as well…just in case."

The soldier—obviously the leader for SG-10—snapped a salute and followed his team to said infirmary.

Turning around, the General looked at Urahara and Ichigo, smiling. "Well, like I said…eventful. This is what we call the embarkation room, where we keep the device known as the Stargate." He gestured behind Ichigo and Urahara to the giant rings. "Where we were previously was the control room for our Stargate, where everything happens that allows us to travel to other planets. This is how we found the strange stones and artifacts that you two will be studying during your stay here."

Daniel looked at the two scientists and spoke up. "Yea, that was about my expression when I first saw it and found out that interstellar travel was possible. And a little known fact: this particular ring was buried by the Ancient Egyptians…so it's been that long at least since it's been possible."

Urahara pulled out his fan from his sleeve again, and waved it in front of his face. "Maa, maa…that's incrediable. It makes you wonder about other dimensions, too…"

"Oh, other realities are very real. We have had two encounters with them so far…kind of makes you glad that we're living in this one, to be honest," Sam spoke up, looking at Urahara with a strange glint in her eyes. "We also know that there are other planes of existence. The Ancients, the people who built the Stargate, did what we call Ascend, and shed their physical bodies in order to live as a kind of energy-,"

Jack started laughing, cutting Sam off in the middle of her fun. "I think that you can explain the physics of our risen friends another time, Sam. The poor kid looks like his head is going to explode."

Ichigo quickly shut his mouth, glancing at Urahara for a moment before turning a pointed look at the Colonel. "Look, in the last 24 hours I just found out that aliens exist, and that we have been traveling to other planets for a few years now, and oh, yea, other REALITIES have been proven to exist and oh! There was another race of beings that made this Stargate and have transcended what we mere humans call life. Excuse me if I find the whole thing a little much for my poor head." As Ichigo spoke, Yoruichi poked her head out of the bag he was carrying. Her head was soon followed by her body as she hopped out, and trotted over to the Stargate. She walked up the ramp, making certain that she didn't trip any officers up there, and proceeded to smell and poke at the metal. Taking a spiritually-enhanced claw, she tried to scratch the metal of the Stargate and…nothing. A bit alarmed, her head shot back a bit before she hissed at the metal and ran back to Ichigo's bag.

As she was jumping into said container, she noticed that Daniel's eyes had been on her the whole time.

As Sam, Urahara, and Jack talked about the physics of the gate and why the female scientist shouldn't waste their time at the moment (with the General chuckling at their antics), Daniel watched the black feline that had jumped out of Ichigo's bag. The creature was strangely intelligent, dodging around the feet of the officers like it was a ghost. Once it got to the Stargate, it seemed to investigate it thoroughly. For a moment the…feel, kind of, since there was no other way to explain it, of the cat changed. A slight flash of blue centered around the cat's paw that batted at the 'Gate. Once it made contact, the cat jerked back and hissed, running back to Ichigo's bag.

It was as they decided to leave the gate room and head their own separate ways that Daniel realized no one had even glanced at the cat as it made its investigation, nor acted like it even existed at all.

It was later that evening that Daniel found the time to track down Jack and ask his opinion about their foreign scientists. The man was sitting in his office, looking at his television, watching Star Wars Episode IV, drinking what appeared to be a Pepsi and eating a bit of popcon, obviously relaxing before finding his bunk in the base and resting up for the night.

"Hey, Jack, do you have a minute?"

Jack swiveled around in his office chair and, on seeing Daniel, waved him in with a smile. "Sure! Just let me pause this…what's up?" He set the remote down on his desk, placing the bag of popcorn next to it and gave Daniel his undivided attention.

Walking up to the desk, he pulled the spare chair from the wall and sat down. "Nothing, really. I was just wondering you opinion of the guest scientists. I think that they're nice and all, but…I don't know. Ichigo kind of gives me this strange feeling that I should avoid him, and Urahara the feeling that I should know who he is." Daniel leaned forward and grabbed a handful of popcorn, popping a buttery kernel into his mouth.

Jack looked actually thoughtful for a moment before he answered. "Well, to be honest, I feel a bit wary of them both. I talked to General Hammond earlier today about the vibes I got off both of them, and found out that Ichigo is more than Urahara's assistant in the sciency fields. He is also his protégé in martial arts and, believe it or not, sword fighting. I mean, real sword fighting like you would see in the old days in Europe, or like the Samurai. Or that one time on PX-367-"

"I get the picture, Jack. They can fight with swords," Daniel chuckled, popping another kernel in his mouth. "That may also explain the cane that Urahara has on him constantly."

Jack got a puzzled expression on his face for a moment. "Cane? What do you mean? Maybe he just didn't have it when he was around me."

Now Daniel looked a bit confused. "No, he had it with him the whole time, perched in the crook of his arm," here, Daniel gestured, mimicking how Urahara held his arm and gestured in a way to show something in the crook of his arm. "He even took it with him to the briefing and into the 'Gate rom. It's made of a light wood?" Jack kept shaking his head, and gave Daniel stranger and stranger looks.

"Are you sure our last off-world trip you didn't hit your head or something?"

Daniel looked a bit offended. "No! And I didn't come into contact with any strange alien tech, as you well know, since it was a deserted planet. So then you're now going to tell me that you didn't see that black cat hanging around Ichigo then, too?"

Jack shook his head in the negative again. Then a grin popped on his face. "Seeing portents of death now, since you came back to us from being Ascended and all?"

Daniel blushed momentarily, glaring at Jack. "I'm not that superstitious. I-"

There came a knock on the partially-ajar door to the colonel's office. "Uh, excuse me guys." Ichigo, of all people, poked his head in at that moment, and looked at Daniel. "I'm sorry to intrude, but Urahara sent me because we don't know which file you want us to save our computer work in, and all the others that were in the lab have left."

"That's fine, Ichigo, I'll be up in a moment."

"Hey, kid, wait a moment," Jack called to him as he started to pull his head from the doorway. It soon reemerged fully, and with his body as well. "Maybe you can settle a small debate that Daniel and I are having. Your boss, does he carry a cane around at all?"

The first emotion that Jack saw flash across the kid's face was alarm, then suspicion and curiosity. But it was his initial reaction that the Colonel was looking for, and it told him all he needed to know. "Uh, at home he sometimes does…but he left it there as far as I know. Why?" Ichigo stuffed his hands in his pockets, seemingly unable to make direct eye contact with the elder man.

"Oh, no reason. Daniel seems to think that your boss is the kind to carry one around for style is all."

Ichigo snorted a little. "Yea, he's vain enough. But his cane is actually a sword that the local government gave him permission to carry. Why, I have no idea, but he seems to enjoy freaking people out with it."

With a wave, Ichigo took his leave of the two SG-1 members.

"Did you see that, Daniel?"

"Heh, yea, I did. He just lied to us, didn't he?"

"I think he just did. But the real question I'm wondering is…why can you see his cane, and this black cat, and no one else besides the kid and his wooden-shoed boss can."

Jack looked at Daniel pointedly, and thought, 'Well well…we should probably inform the General about this development.'

AN2: Well, as always if you see any mistakes, just let me know and I will do my best to fix them. I have the rest of this story planned out, and as long as I don't get any MORE stray ideas from my picky Muse, this should take another 4-5 chapters to finish...and I'[m contemplating a sequal. ^-^ As the story progresses, if ANY of you have ideas what so ever for said sequal or this fic, let me know. ^_- I usually try to take any and all ideas into account when I'm writing (either my outline or the main story itself,) AND you will get a mention in the story. ^-^

A BIG BIG BIG HUGEthank you to all of you Reviewers and Faves/alerts out there! You have no idea how much it makes my day to see a new remark, fave, or alert in my inbox. ^-^ It gives me the warm and fuzzies. ^-^

Special thanks to torreto whose review got me off my butt and finishing this chapter. Even though it wasn't much, it was enough to get me going again! Thanks!