by Anne
Disclaimer: The characters of Daniel Jackson, Jack O’Neill, Sam Carter, Teal’c, General Hammond, Janet Frasier, Apophis and anybody else you recognise from the SGC do not belong to me. Neither does the concept of the Stargate, SGC, and the Goa’uld and any thing else related to the series Stargate SG1. They belong to Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Products.
The characters of Methos (a.k.a. Adam Pierson), Joe Dawson, Connor MacLeod and Duncan MacLeod belong to Panzer/Davis, Rysher/Gaumont Television. So do the concepts of Immortality, the Game and the Watchers.
Likewise the characters of Adam Newman, Megabyte Damon, General William Damon, Ami Jackson, Jade Weston, Kevin Wilson or any names or events linked to the Tomorrow People TV series do not belong to me either. They are the property of Roger Damon Price, Thames/Tetra and ITV Television.
General Hammond was not feeling particularly happy. From his point of view the situation had just got worse. Instead of Ramiis having two hostages, if you counted Doctor Jackson that is, he now had four.
Methos and Adam had appeared in the gate room a couple of minutes after they had disappeared from the control room. Methos was now wielding his sword in his right hand - Hammond guessed they must have made a detour along the way. He remembered the immortal mention his sword to the young Australian boy before they had disappeared. Obviously he had been fully aware of the extent of Adam’s teleportation powers and taken advantage of them. He shook his head. Hindsight was a wonderful thing.
Ramiis smiled as he noticed Methos and Adam appear in the flash of white light that accompanied teleportation. “Methos!” he exclaimed. “How nice of you to accept my invitation. I see you have brought me the other telepath as well. How considerate.”
This man is a lunatic, thought Adam to himself. The sooner I get Megabyte out of here the better. He noticed his friend was stirring, and felt a light telepathic touch in his mind. The effects of the Medusa Stone were obviously wearing off.
[Megabyte? Are you okay?]
[Adam?] Megabyte’s telepathic reply was very faint. He switched to speech. “I see you’ve brought the cavalry.”
Adam noticed his friend’s expression change. “Adam, teleport!” He looked behind him and noticed what the other boy had seen. He closed his eyes to teleport and reached for Megabyte at the same time.
“Megabyte, it’s not working!” Adam began to panic. They were still in the Gateroom, and the room itself seemed to be spinning. He felt the same sickening feeling he had felt in base reception area except this time it seemed to be affecting him a lot faster. He heard Methos’ voice from a long distance away, saying something he couldn’t quite make out…
“Ramiis, give me the box. It’s me you want, not them. They’re only children.” Methos tried reasoning with other immortal.
Ramiis put the box down, next to Adam and Megabyte, who had lapsed into unconsciousness. He stood in front of them. “Only children?” he jeered. “Only children? Their kind prevented my lord Apophis’ plans once before. I will not allow them to do it again. When I take your head and the force of your quickening destroys the Stargate my mission will be complete and Apophis will be well pleased with me.”
Methos realised that he would have to defeat Ramiis before he would be able to save the Tomorrow People. Time wasn’t exactly on his side, either. He remembered the effect the stone had had on them the last time they were exposed to it, and that had been from a distance. At this short range, he surmised, the whole process would probably be accelerated considerably.
The stone itself, sitting in the open box, was emitting an eerie green glow. It looked as though it was drawing power directly from the two unconscious forms in front of it. As they grew weaker, the light from the stone seemed to get brighter, increasing in power.
Methos and Ramiis circled each other, both looking for an opening to strike the first blow. Methos saw his chance and lunged. The other man fell backwards, catching his foot on the ramp behind him, the ramp leading up to the big circle that was the Stargate. He had drawn blood, he noted with satisfaction, as a thin red line trickled down Ramiis’ arm.
That had been a bit too easy, he thought to himself, suspiciously. It was almost as though Ramiis had opened himself up for the blow.
Ramiis smiled, a thin cruel smile, which reinforced Methos’ opinion of the other man’s mental state, or rather the lack of it. “I am sure that Doctor Jackson will thank you for mutilating his body when I return it to him. Remember it is not me you will kill if you take a head, it is your friend. You already have my quickening, if you kill your friend, you will achieve nothing, my consciousness will simply return to my own body, and I will continue the work of my lord Apophis.”
Methos glanced up at the figures in the control room. I could do with a bit of help here, people, he thought to himself. He knew he had told Hammond that mortals couldn’t interfere in the Game, but hell, this fight wasn’t exactly being played by the standard rules anyway.
“Okay, then. If I already have your quickening, how come you’re not dead? How come you are still immortal?” If I can distract him maybe I stand a better chance of disarming him without hurting Daniel he thought to himself.
“There is more than one type of immortality,” came the cryptic reply. “Do not try and distract me by conversation. Your young friend tried that tact earlier and did not achieve anything by it.” He moved off the ramp and towards the two boys. “They look so defenceless do they not? I could cut one of them with my sword…” He ran the tip of his sword lightly along Adam’s arm, as though to reinforce his intentions.
He’s trying to goad me, Methos thought to himself. Making me choose who I am going to let die, whose death I will be responsible for. Either I fight Daniel or…
“No,” he yelled. “If you want to kill me, Ramiis, you’re going to have to fight me, not play mind games.” Methos moved away, towards the big steel doors at the entrance of the room, inviting the other man to follow. He hoped he wasn’t backing himself into a corner. He looked again at the control room. He didn’t want to cause the death of any of his friends, he’d lost far too many over the years as it was, but he was running out of options, fast.
O’Neill was pacing the floor in the control room, feeling frustrated. There must be something they could do. He hated feeling so helpless. Usually he was in the thick of the battle, not on the sidelines watching. They had already ruled out breaking through the doors into the Gateroom. The doors had been designed to keep enemy forces coming through the Gate in a contained space and unfortunately it worked just as well in reverse. Even if they could burn their way through, timewise it would be too late.
“Come on, you guys. This is your base. Can’t you do anything? “ Damon could see Megabyte and Adam, whom he’d come to think of as a son as well, dying before his eyes. Damm, he couldn’t cope with this. He’d thought about contacting Ami, Jade or Kevin, after all they would be able to teleport into the room, and then had decided against it. After all, Adam had done the same thing in an attempt to save Megabyte and now they were both in trouble.
“Got it!” All eyes in the control room focused on Sam Carter. “I think I’ve found an answer to our problem. The box the Medusa Stone is housed in, it’s partially made of naquadah, the same element that’s in the Stargate. I had suspected as much since we found the box, but now I’ve confirmed it.” While everyone had been watching the unfolding drama taking place in the Gateroom, Carter had been keying equations into the base computer.
“And this helps, us, how?” asked O’Neill. “I’m sure that’s a great discovery, Carter, but I really don’t see how it solves the current problem.”
“Actually, Colonel, it does. Adam and Megabyte are being affected by the Medusa Stone right? Remember last time when we placed the stone back in the box, they recovered…”
“So if we can get the stone into the Stargate itself, it should work the same way as the closed box and they should start to recover,” finished Damon.
O’Neill coughed. “Kids, I hate to put a damper on things here, but if it were that easy, surely we could just shut the box. We seem to be forgetting one very important fact here, we can’t get into the Gateroom, remember.”
Carter answered him, her blue eyes shining with excitement. She leaned back in her chair. “But don’t you see, if we activate the Stargate from here, the Stargate itself should negate the power of the stone. It won’t matter if the box is closed or not. It’s the naquadah itself that negates the stone, I’m assuming, not just the box.”
“But the box will still be there. From what Megabyte said that’s what is allowing the bad guy to control Daniel. We still need to lose the box. I think the old guy is a bit busy at the moment to worry about destroying a box as well as fighting off Ramiis, Daniel, whatever.” O’Neill was still feeling a bit sceptical about the whole idea. “Besides if this box is made up of naquadah, it’s going to be a bit hard to destroy anyway.”
“That’s why we need to send it through the Stargate. Then, once we close the Gate, Ramiis’ hold on Daniel should be over.”
“We…you’re still forgetting something, Carter. We’re in here, the box is in there, spot the problem.” O’Neill noticed Carter was smiling at him, he wondered what he was still missing. He smacked himself on the head. Of course, it was obvious…
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