Somewhere outside Los Angeles, Earth.
Standing in front of a mantle of black and red candles stood an old haggard woman in black tattered robes. She went down on both her knees, which were against the cold hard surface of the stone floored chamber. Her head was bent down in reverence as she prayed to a creature that existed in what was known to her and others like her as the primordium age. The time when Earth was the home of demons and monsters… the time when the old one, one of the pure original demons, known as Illyria walked the Earth. A time when Hell was present on Earth and pure dark magic permeated the atmosphere.
It was only three months since the woman sensed the arrival of a dark energy to Los Angeles. A dark energy that she was able trace back to a customs warehouse at LAX. The being she worshipped had somehow arrived in the United States. A being she wanted to return to the world so that it could erase the disease that was humanity. The night after sensing its arrival, she used her dark magic to walk through the warehouse the dark energy was emanating from unmolested. The woman forced the guards to fall asleep and, as they collapsed onto the floor, and the cameras in the warehouse cut out, she found what she was looking for.
It was a sarcophagus. A stone sarcophagus that had crystals of different sizes and colours embedded on the cover. The woman placed her hand on the cover and closed her eyes. She opened her lips in pleasure as she felt a dark energy flow from the stone into her body. She saw Illyria standing in front of her in her mind's eye. And the woman went on one knee and lowered her head in reverence.
The woman then vanished from the warehouse with the sarcophagus which, by right, should have ended up at the law firm of Wolfram and Hart. Instead, it now lay in a dimly lit chamber behind the praying woman as she bent her head at the candles in front of her.
"This world is different than the one you know, my lord," the woman said looking back up at the candles and then getting onto her feet before she turned and stared at the sarcophagus behind her, "humanity is a diseased species that needs to be cleansed. Once they have been destroyed, you and I will bring about a new race that we will rule over… a new race that would worship you without question. A race we will control." The woman then walked around the stone sarcophagus, "I have been waiting until the right vessel has been found. A perfect vessel that I could mould after you have taken it over. The perfect vessel which could learn as I teach you how humanity has forgotten you, how it has become a diseased version of itself."
The woman then smiled as the flickering light from the candles reflected on her wrinkled face.
"I have sensed beings of magic, very powerful beings that would do well as your vessel," the woman said, "but they cannot be controlled. You will take over their bodies and then deviate from the plan I have for you and I. No, there is a way to control you. The very same way the god known as Glory was put into her human prison. I just needed a powerful vessel for you."
The woman could feel the sarcophagus shuddering in anger. But her smile widened before she cooed at the sarcophagus like a mother soothing her baby.
"You are but a child in this new world, my lord Illyria," the woman said, "you must be able to see that humanity will not bow down. You will see their spirits must be ground to dust. You will then build up a new race of humanity that would worship you… a knew race I swear to help rule by your side."
The woman smiled more when dark energy poured out of the stone sarcophagus. She felt a chill of fear go through her body, and she loved it. She welcomed it.
"I have two vessel for you, Illyria," the woman said as she placed both hands on the cover away from the crystals, "two vessels that would be born in a few months. The children of a Slayer born on the Hellmouth. Children of power… babes that you would choose as your vessel. A vessel I will educate. A vessel that will serve as a prison for an Old One."
She then stepped back, "you will be my child, my lord Illyria, mine. All mine. You will grow, and then rule. And I will be right by your side."
Planet Designated P4M-328..
Faith took the lead, with Teal'c in the rear with Daniel between them as they cautiously walked through the dimly lit hallway. The red lights shining from emergency lights near the ceiling were the other things that gave the hallway an eerie glow. They three of them were in radio silence, the sounds of their boots hitting the carpeted floor with a soft 'thump' no drowning out Faith's enhanced hearing. The dark-haired Slayer was on the look-out for any one, either guards or whoever it was fired the automatic weapons they heard, walking towards them.
So far there was nothing to hear. The three of them were staying close to the wall, their Zats in each of their hands; the weapons were activated and pointed downwards as they walked. The three of them were on the second floor of the museum, and as they edged toward a hallway, Faith raised her hand and closed her fist- signalling Daniel and Teal'c to stop. She looked back at the others behind her and signalled that she could hear soft voices and footsteps heading their way.
The soft sounds were coming from an adjacent hallway that led to the one the three of them were in. Faith, Daniel, and Teal'c controlled their breathing as two shadows were moving towards them, the shadows lengthening as they crept up the wall opposite from where Faith and the others were standing in cover by hugging their backs against the wall. Daniel and Teal'c crouched down after Faith signalled them to, just as two people wearing black light amour with tactical uniforms underneath, balaclava's over their heads and glasses walked into view.
The two of them noticed the figures to their left, and were startled as they turned and began raising their weapons. However, both Faith and Teal'c were faster… the both of them firing their Zats at the two strangers whose voices were muffled- all they could say was "who?" before being struck by the blues energy bursts which crackled over their bodies as they fell down to the floor. Hitting the floor with a 'thud', Faith looked out the corner of the wall into the hallway the two newcomers came through while Daniel and Teal'c dragged their unconscious bodies away.
Faith could see the dimly lit hallway they were walking through, and heard other voices coming from the hallway. Particularly the area in the middle of the hallway on which wall lights were flickering. She stepped out into the hallway and saw a large opening that seemed to look out to the floor below.
The Slayer then took cover again before turning to the two people who were unconscious.
"Cam," Faith whispered into her radio, "any luck on the Stargate?"
"We're still carrying the case," Colonel Mitchell said after he and Vala, both panting from hurriedly walking towards the Stargate whilst carrying the bomb between them, placed the case of the floor when getting the radio call from Faith. "He looed down at the case while Vala crouched down and placed her hands around the case before looking up at the Colonel, signalling at him to pick up the case with her once again, "will contact you once we start making a connection."
"Better be quick," Faith said as she stared at the weapons that Daniel and Teal'c were taking off the two unknowns. They then laid the weapons on the floor, "these guys are armed to the teeth."
Suddenly, the three SG team members rushed to the hallway the two unknowns walked through upon hearing two short bursts and a lot of loud screaming. Faith, Daniel, and Teal'c then crept forwards towards the opening that looked out down to the lobby. As they moved closer, the muffled voices caused by the full face coverings the newcomers were wearing could be heard much clearly.
"Any of you even flinch, then you die like those two."
Faith was already crouched against a wall before she shifted her body slightly and looked out through the glass railing, which formed part of the hallway-turned-balcony, that looked out to the lobby below. She made out seven people in the tactical uniforms surrounding the guests who had originally come to party. Faith scanned saw that the newcomers were fully armed, with one of them being flanked by two of the terrorists while two bleeding bodies lay on the floor in front of him.
"You," the central man in between the two, the one Faith believed was the leader from how the others seemed to defer to him, "you're the Viceroy."
"I…"
"I've seen you," the man said stepping forward before raising his weapon at the man, "stand up, your coward."
"Coren," Faith saw another man running into the lobby, 'so, eight… plus the two we took out. Total of ten goons. This is so not fair – for them.' Faith then turned her head back and signalled to Daniel and Teal'c there were eight people with weapons in the lobby. At the same time, the three of them could hear the muffled male voice belonging to the one who just rushed into the lobby saying that the power cut must have alerted the security forces, "they have gathered outside." Faith then turned and looked through the glass railing while remaining crouched behind a wall and saw the figure giving the leader a radio, "they contacted us."
"This is Coren Salve of the People's Alliance," the man said in his muffled voice, "I don't really care who you are. What you need to know is that if any of your people even knock on the doors to this building, we will kill all the hostages. Even the Viceroy."
"What do you want?" a male voice said curtly over the radio.
"Free all the Alliance prisoners," the man called Coren demanded, "you have thirty minutes to comply. If you do not, I will kill…"
"The government does not negotiate with terrorists," the man who Coren identified as the Viceroy said."
"I will kill one person at the end of the thirty, and every fifteen minutes after that," Coren smirked underneath the mask as he spoke to the negotiators while armed police started to gather "starting with the Viceroy."
"What you are asking will take time, and…"
"Thirty minutes," Coren repeated, "and then the Viceroy is the first to die." Faith saw the poor Viceroy shudder before she went back to cover and leaned her back against the wall before standing up. She then signalled that the three of them should make their way to the other end of the hallway, the very same one where the unconscious bodies of the two terrorists lay.
"We can't just leave," Daniel said in a whisper.
"We cannot," Teal'c agreed as he and the others reached the end of the hallway and stared at the two bodies.
"Cam," Faith said as she reached for her radio while Teal'c and Daniel walked towards the bodies and took off their helmets. Faith walked towards them and stood over the unconscious man and woman while Colonel Mitchell responded by saying that they were close to the Stargate. The dark-haired Slayer could hear the Colonel panting as he spoke. The Colonel placed the case on the floor again when Faith contacted him on the radio for the second time… this time to tell him that terrorists had taken hostages in the museum. The Colonel and Vala stared at each other in concern before he responded on the radio.
"We need two more minutes to get the case to the Stargate and then we need…." The Colonel trailed off before looking at Vala and then leaning forward. He then whispered, "how long to get the power source in the bomb connected to the Gate?" Vala made some calculations in her head before saying that she'll need twenty minutes to open the case and then disconnect the detonator from the timer to the explosive. That would be followed by another twenty minutes to separate the power source from the bomb to the Stargate. The Colonel looked at her with a confused expression before waving his arms and exclaiming that it couldn't take that long.
"Do you want good work or…"
"We need to leave this planet before we make ourselves known to the locals," hissed the Colonel at a smirking Vala.
"Fine, fine," Vala said, "you know, I try to do good work and…"
"There's a time for good work and a time to get the hell out of Dodge," the Colonel whispered while waving his arms, all the while Faith was waiting for an answer to her initial question of how long it would take to get the power source connected to the Stargate. Back upstairs, Vala shrugged her shoulders before saying it would take twenty minutes, "as long as we don't argue."
"Arrrghh!" the Colonel whispered at the smiling Vala before he notified Faith and the others that it would take twenty minutes, and that they should do what they can to prevent any deaths. Once he talked to Faith, the Colonel bent down and picked up the case with Vala on the other side.
"I was thinking," Vala said as she walked carrying the case between them, "dinner, tonight?"
"Fine," Colonel Mitchell sighed. In the meantime, Faith scratched her head while wondering what they could do in the meantime to prevent any more deaths. Teal'c and Daniel were crouched down looking at the uniforms when the radio on the male's belt started to buzz before a voice came through.
"Kessel, Tomyn," said the male voice that sounded like the leader, Coren, "where are you? Is the floor secure?"
Faith and then others looked at each other for a few more seconds, wondering how to answer, before Daniel reached down and grabbed the radio. He brought it up to his lips and spoke in a deep voice, "yes, the floor is secure." He then coughed into the radio, and then released his finger from the transmit button. Faith and Teal'c were staring at him, Faith having her left eyebrow arched up, as Daniel shrugged.
"Aris and Sessie?" asked Coren as Daniel looked up from the bodies and stared at the surprised Faith and Teal'c. Immediately, Faith went on her radio and contacted the Colonel while Aris and Sessie said that they were still searching for other guards. Coren then called out two more pair of names before signing off. Faith relayed that information to Colonel Mitchell and Vala who were just a few steps away from the Stargate while carrying the bomb between then. He listened to Faith saying that she knew he and Vala were in a hurry, and that they couldn't answer, but that they needed to keep an eye out for three more pairs of terrorists that were patrolling the hallways.
Once the message was relayed, Faith stopped transmitting and then asked if anyone had a plan.
"My plan was to take these guys outfits so that Daniel and I could put them on while Teal'c backs us up from the hallway looking down at the lobby," Faith whispered, "but if there's three more pairs somewhere in the building then… well…"
"Wait, didn't we pass a display one floor up that had some Goa'uld artefacts?" Daniel asked, "I think there were a few ribbon devices that we can't use and…"
"A Sonic grenade," Faith said as Teal'c nodded his head silently. He then said that he and Daniel would head up one floor and retrieve the grenade while Faith ran up the hallway and to one of the stairwells. Teal'c asked her to go to the floor with the Stargate so that Colonel Mitchell and Vala could have some backup in case they were found out.
Faith nodded her head and then turned and rushed towards a stairwell door at the end of the hallway. She opened the door and then rushed for the stairs before looking up through the space between the stairways. She used her enhanced hearing to listen for any footsteps other than her own. And she did not. But Faith cautiously rushed up the stairs, and then crouched down from the glass window on the door that looked out into the hallway beyond. She then walked up another flight of stairs ad then another before reaching the exhibit floor. Faith then stepped into the dimly lit hallway, the only light coming from the emergency lights at the top of the walls nearest to the ceiling. She had her Zat out in hand, activated, as she crept forward towards the Stargate exhibit.
"Hey, who are you?" demanded a woman's voice Faith didn't recognize from several feet in front of her and around a corner in another hallway, "put your weapons down and your hands up."
"You! Get away from that ring!" yelled a man's voice as Faith rushed down the hallway. Faith reached the corner and leaned her back against the wall before peeking around the corner to see Colonel Mitchell with his hands up and the Zat on the ground. She then saw Vala a gun to her back, being led out of the hallway that led to the Stargate exhibit.
"Aris to Coren," said the masked man who had his gun to Vala's back, "looks like we have some guards here. They were in a exhibit doing… well… I don't know what they were doing. But they have weapons. Looks military."
"Get them down here," Coren growled.
"Okay," Colonel Mitchell said after the masked Aris put his radio back into his vest, "you guys are making a very big mistake."
"Oh?" asked the one that Faith though was Sessie, the one pointing a weapon at Colonel Mitchel while Aris walked around her and then next to her while pointing his weapon at Vala, "and why are we making a mistake?"
"Well," Vala said as Faith readied her Zat before she slowly crouched down while listening to Vala saying, in a serious tone of voice, that they had nothing to do with the people of the planet, "what I'm trying to say is that we're from another planet. We travelled through that ring in the exhibit which creates an artificial subspace wormhole that lets us travel from one planet from another."
The two terrorists just stared at the Colonel and Vala.
"I think you broke them," Colonel Mitchel whispered just he noticed a shadow to his left. Or at least what seemed to be a shadow. He turned his head to see Faith roll on the floor and then, on one knee, fire her Zat at Aris and then at Sessie. The beams hit the two of them, who groaned audibly, and then collapsed onto the floor.
"She broke them," Vala smirked nodding at Faith who got back up to her feet and approached her and Colonel Mitchell. She then said that she needed to get back to disconnecting the power source from the bomb, and then connecting it to the Gate. Waving at Vala, Faith then turned to the Colonel and said Daniel and Teal'c were grabbing a sonic grenade they had seen in one of the displays in the floor above them.
"That's one way to end this," the Colonel said nodding his head, "but we need to be prepared to get out of here by the time Teal'c and Jackson activates the grenade." The Colonel then said that he was sure the leader, Coren, would wonder where Aris and Sessie had gone with himself and Vala, "he did say that he wanted these two to take us to him."
"And if not, then he'll sent people over to find out what's going on," Faith nodded her head.
"Yea," Colonel Mitchell said. It was a few minutes later, when Vala had disabled the bomb and taken out the power source so that it could be connected to the Stargate, that Daniel contacted them via radio saying that they encountered another pair of the terrorists. Daniel continued to say that they had been Zatted and were knocked unconscious.
"We've had to break the glass for the display, but we have the grenade in hand." Daniel said before adding that Teal'c was able to activate, arm, and then deactivate it, "we're ready on this end. How about your end?"
"Vala's still working on the Gate," the Colonel said over the radio before he hurried back into the exhibit while signalling for Faith to remain outside in the hallway. Getting into the large chamber when the Stargate was being kept, the Colonel saw Vala working to connect the power source to the Stargate, "Vala, how long?"
"We are…"
"Cam," Faith said as she rushed in, "I'm hearing footsteps coming at us."
"Teal'c, Jackson," the Colonel said into the radio before he looked back at Vala, and told her that she had less than five minutes.
"But…," Vala said shaking her head before she was interrupted by the Colonel once again.
"Less than five!" the Colonel exclaimed after telling Daniel and Teal'c to arm the grenade and then use it in the lobby. He knew that the sound and light from the grenade would overwhelm everyone's senses, the terrorists and the guests included, before they collapsed to the ground unconscious. The Colonel heart Faith firing her Zat while, at the same time hearing bullets hitting the wall as he ducked before peeking behind cover to fire alongside Faith.
In the meantime, while Faith and the Colonel were in a firefight. Daniel and Teal'c rushed down the stairs to the lobby where they opened the stairwell door and entered a hallway. Teal'c armed the grenade in his hand while Coren's voice carried through the hallway as he yelled into his radio. He was calling for Aris and Sissie, demanding to know why they still hadn't arrived with the prisoners. He then yelled at the other group of terrorists, who were now trading fire with Colonel Mitchell and Faith, and demanded to know why they weren't answering him.
With the grenade armed, Daniel watched Teal'c crouch down as he approached the party area where he peeked around a corner and saw the guests seated in the middle of the large room. He then rolled the grenade to the man, who was shouting in the radio with is back to Teal'c, and then went back into cover before getting up to his feet. He and Daniel then rushed to the stairwell they came through just before bright white light and a deafening sound incapacitated everyone. Teal'c and Daniel were waiting in the stairwell behind the heavy steel door as the lights and sound went off in the lobby, while Colonel Mitchell cam back on the radio to say that the attackers were unconscious.
Faith then came on the radio while Teal'c and Daniel opened the stairwell door and walked out into the hallway. She said that Vala was nearly done with connecting the power source to the Stargate. Teal'c acknowledged while Daniel and he crept through the dimly lit hallway and into the main lobby where everyone lay on the floor unconscious. Teal'c then took out his Zat, much to Daniel's surprise, and shot one of the terrorists. Daniel asked Teal'c what he was doing as he shot another man; Teal'c then replied, as he shot another, that the beams from the Zat would prevent them from waking up for hours since they were already unconscious.
"They will still be unconscious after we have left, and the security forces enter the museum to arrest these people." Teal'c said as he shot another while Daniel shrugged before shooting one of the unconscious terrorists. It was five minutes later, after checking the status of the guests, that Daniela and Teal'c were told that Vala successfully connected the power source to the Stargate.
"We are on the way," Teal'c replied into his radio as he and Daniel rushed through the hallway and then up the stairwell. As they were going up the stairs, Vala, Faith, and Colonel Mitchell were spinning the inner track of the Stargate manually. AT the same time, a gruff voice came through the radio once again, this time it was the Special Forces negotiator who claimed to have a better deal for the terrorists. However, he wasn't getting an answer no matter how much he spoke into the radio.
As the Stargate activated and Colonel Mitchell typed in the IDC, security forces began making a move after several seconds of non-responsiveness from the terrorists. By the type the security forces had broken doors and cut the metal gates that dropped when the terrorist first cut power, the Stargate was turned off after SG-1 returned to Earth, along with the MALP.
Except for the unconscious bodies around certain areas in the hallways, there was no sign of any alien presence in the museum.