“Okay,” Alan got out. “You know the rukh… the butterflies. What they look like. What they feel like. What you want to do is kind of… pattern what you feel, closer to them. Like – matching a tune you don’t know on the radio. Kind of hum along with it, until it comes in clear?”
“It whispers.” Sarah’s face wasn’t clear through the tank, but he could see her shudder of disgust. “It’s – not all friendly.”
No; with a bunch of slavers and magoi-drainers lairing here, it wouldn’t be. “Stay away from the dark stuff,” Alan said firmly. “Think happy thoughts. Quiet. Like sunrise.”
That’s not going to be enough. Not in a place this dark.
He still wasn’t sure of all the ways Aladdin had changed the rukh in those long centuries of sleep. But based on what he’d seen so far, and what he’d seen in the past with Hakuryuu-
Dark rukh is still from dark emotions. Hate. Despair. Something gone terribly wrong.
It was awful and agonizing and tried to drag you down, like an anchor into the deepest ocean – but deep down, dark rukh was a cry for help. A demand to be heard.
Alan lifted his head, and stared back at fluttering darkness. I can hear you.
It was like wading into sizzling acid. The lava-rush of anger, the electric shock of betrayal, the slow agony of souls crumbling in utter despair….
‘I’ll see you burn in hell, Shays!’
‘Leagued with the devil all along, y’ bloody sassenach? We trusted you – I trusted you-!’
‘I want to go home! Mama! Papa! Mama!’
Ancient voices. Modern voices. Accents of Guatemala and Ireland; of London’s ancient poorhouses, and all the back streets of Boston. Anywhere, everywhere, lost souls might vanish, and never be missed.
The voices were horrible enough. The memories-
Fading every day in the darkness, too tired to eat even as he starved.
Yanking at chains until wrists tore and bled; it couldn’t end this way, it couldn’t-!
Screaming at violating hands; three held her down while a fourth lurked in the shadows, drawing in fluttering power–
‘We hate them,’ the rukh hissed. ‘We hate them, we hate them, we HATE THEM!’
I know, Alan tried to whisper back. I’m going to stop them.
Disbelief. Mocking laughter, in a shiver of black wings; did he even believe he could save himself?
Yes. I do. Alan blinked, letting the tears slip free. I’m not alone. I will get us out of here.
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Well, we knew that some of their victims could not have survived. The Shays didn’t design their tools to stop once it hit a certain point. Because they don’t care if their victims lived or died. And that trust comment tells me that they have betrayed people who thought them ally – not a positive sign of a certain alchemist’s long-term health. Probably good thing for him that this place and its operations are slated for some earth-shaking kabooms.
Alan reaching out to the angry spirits doesn’t surprise me. He’s compassionate enough. Besides kings are supposed to fix problems and you can’t fix problems if you don’t know what’s wrong.
Something tells me it wouldn’t be too long before the Shays are introduced to the Fire Prince. By the way, does Alan know those stories? If not, someone needs to tell him. Due to various changes over time, I think he’d be a combination of embarrassed and “what the? how do people come up with this stuff?” and maybe someone helpfully pointing out that if he thinks some of the official variations of those stories are bad, he doesn’t want to see the fan fiction.
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*Snrk* Morgan probably has a book of the legends. Alan will facepalm. A lot.
And yes, fanfic can be very scary!
Big booms should start in the next chapter. 😉
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Alan…. So brave! In a way, he’s blunting the rukh that Simon will feel when he comes through, but he’s reaching out, and the pain has got to be excruciating.
And the metaphysical part of my brain started gleeing all over the landscape when Alan said, “I will get us out of here.” Because my brain says he’s referring to the spirits as well, freeing them from being trapped within the Shays tower of horrors. I know he’s talking about Sarah and Matt, but that is so Alibaba, just like the Desert Hyacinth. Only now Morgan will beat anyone who tries to leave Alan to the man eating plant.
Still, if he can get Sarah to the light stuff, if he can persuade the rukh towards light, he can save more then the three of them.
And now, for some very strange reason, I want to see an AMV for Magi set to “Dark Ending” by Mercedes Lackey. Oddness.
I think that one of the freakier things about the rukh is the *age* of some of the voices. It means that the Shays have been at this since before the advent of WMD.
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Simon’s not going to have a fun time of it nonetheless. But it could have been so much worse.
And yes. Alan has every intention of getting everyone he can out – alive or dead.
(There’s a point in the next chapter where Aladdin tells some fairly stubborn dark rukh they’re dealing with Alibaba. Some of it runs.)
Heh. My headcanon is that the Shays have been dealing in Tools a long, long time, yes. Though up until the modern age, it was more along the lines of good-luck talismans for cargo ships, etc. Do that in conjunction with trade, you can rake in a pile… But as things moved away from wind power and travel became much, much faster and less risky, they started losing “market share”, so to speak.
…So they found other options. Brr.
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Kinda getting an impression of Hohenhiem from FMA… him and his stone.
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I’ve only read the first FMA manga and a lot of fanfic. But I can see where there’d be similarities.
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You know the whole Sinbad/Fire Prince thing is going to be a massive source of hilarity when the SGC arrive.
From what’s been said in story these are well known myths/legends including what the movies and/or TV series that Simon played as himself are based on. 😀
Now when the SGC gets the hint that the stories are more than just tall tales (hah, they probably downgraded some of the insanity Sinbad and Alladin’s crews got up to) they’re going to try and put it into their existing framework: Goa’uld, Asgard or Ancients.
Now I’m not sure how the various timeframes line up but Jake and co are probably going to default to Goa’uld. Sinbad they’ll probably slot into some Joe that got his mitts on a bit of Goa’uld tech and proceeded to carve out a kingdom or something. That or the ‘djinn’ was a Goa’uld and it was using Sinbad as a host.
The Fire Prince is going to be the problem. Not because of his abilities but what he did.
“The royal son who descends into the Underworld to save those lost to darkness and hate. The warrior against Al-Thamen, who stood against their hate to the last.”
To the SGC, that’s not ancient human or Tok’ra behavior. And then there is this bit:
“The Fire Prince broke her chains, and swore she would never be a slave again.”
Combined with the supposed exploits of his ‘Red Lioness lover’ it would seem like not only were there Hok’tar running around (probably more mentions of the Red Lions) the Prince was also against slavery of any sort.
Of course poor Daniel will be expected to figure all this out even though A: there will likely be a metric ton of old stories etc to work through and B: It’s not his field of expertise.
Not that the military part of the base will get that.
After all Egypt, Proto-Undo-Europ- eh whatever. It’s all the same thing right?
Daniel: (in the privacy of his office) ARRRRGH!
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*Dies laughing at Daniel-reaction* Oh man. Oh yes, he so would be wanting to bounce various very heavy textbooks off people’s skulls.
Ooo, and now the bunnies say Morgan needs to tell Aladdin about the whole Fire Prince legends – or maybe Malachy does – and I could see the whole crew putting their heads together to read up on what is currently in the literature.
Alan: “They think I did what?”
And now the bunnies are wondering if Callimachus has a cover identity active in the archaeological community…
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>>Alan: “They think I did what?”
So when are Alan and Morgan getting pulled/conscripted for a Hancock High/XYZ studio production spin off/continuation of the Sinbad films: Birth of the Fire Prince (or whatever title works)
Simon: Come on man look at these two, they’re perfect for the roles. It’s like they were born to play the parts of the Red Lioness and the Fire Prince! (he’s saying this completely straight faced of course).
Producer who previously worked with Simon: I don’t know Simon. The girl sure. She’s kitten cute while still giving off the aura of ‘I can kick your ass with both hands tied behind my back’. The Ryans kid doesn’t seem to fit though.
Simon: How so?
PwpwwS: Well the gold-blonde works but the Prince is supposed to be this big badass heroic savior of those in need and banisher of evil etc etc right?. This kid looks like a stiff wind could knock him down, and don’t you think portraying the Fire Prince as a little bishounen teen just doesn’t fit with the character?
-In the back Aladdin has both hands clamped over his mouth and trying not to die laughing-
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Oh man. Oh, man. That would be so Simon…. *EG* Especially if he tells the producer they’re doing a reinterpretation of the story, everybody likes those – make the characters more human, less perfect legends….
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>>make the characters more human, less perfect legends….
Ja’far: So does that mean you’re going to be toning down some of Sinbad’s antics as well?
Simon: Heck no! Why would I do that? Half the reason a lot of people watch the ‘Sinbad’ series is to see the sorts of insanity the man gets into, what he pulls to get out on top, and the resulting fireworks.
Ja’far: Yes of course, how silly of me.
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At which point Aladdin can’t hide the giggles anymore. *G*
Alan: Grab. “What, you think you’re getting out of this? If we’re going to get magic out there where people can say, ‘Oh, that’s how it works’, we have to have a magician!”
Simon: “And I have to get in Instructor Myers. Now there was a woman!”
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>>Simon: “And I have to get in Instructor Myers. Now there was a woman!”
-Googles Myers to be sure of which character that is-
-sees amv link, clicks, watches 😀 😀 –
google: Myers Will Make A Man Out Of You and click the youtube link
It’s hilarious.
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Yep. *EG* That one’s by PinkSweetLady too; that artist does a lot of cool Magi vids. And that was exactly what I had in mind as “reasons why Simon would want her in a movie….”
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Is Ja’far going be dragged into this film too?
I’m sure he can play the role of Sinbad’s second-in-command and the Only Sane Man.
*Simon who is playing no attention to Ja’far standing behind him.*
Simon: “And Ja’far could play First Mate Sane Man Assassin . . . .”
Producer: “I don’t know. He doesn’t look scary enough . . .”
Simon: “Oh nonsense. Ja’far is plenty scary. Just look at the dirty look he’s giving me right now.”
*Producer is doubtful since Simon isn’t even looking at Ja’far but looks over anyway. And gulps.*
Ja’far (growls): “Simon.”
Simon: “Someone might convince me to swim in lethally cold water. Again. Or something equally crazy.”
*Dirty look intensifies*
Ja’far: “Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you are doing.”
Simon: “Won’t dream of it.”
*Ja’far looks over at the rest of the group, especially the snickering fellow Generals and smirks*
Ja’far: “Don’t forget the rest of Sinbad’s loyal crew.”
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Well, Ja’far has decided that all the Generals in range are going down with him. And he would explain any missing Generals as being out on missions, so that when they show up, he can *drag them down too.* Besides, they’ll all be eyeing the director for suspicious behavior and trying to corner someone about the ‘swim in lethally cold water.’
The only major question in my mind is how many Generals does Simon find before being confronted by the SGC? Because not only is that a two King problem, but the rukh is giving Simon all the help it can, and shoving as much magoi at them as is feasible to jog old soul memories.
Well, that and how soon Aladdin and Alan move in with Simon. Or if. And if Simon is going to call Malachy in a panic asking how to tackle some aspect of parenting or other.
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I’m hoping for at least Yam and Hinahoho to be found – there’s a reason the bunnies want to wreck Thule….
Hmm. Aladdin and Alan’s living arrangements will probably depend on a few interesting factors, one of them being how well Richard handles having Kids of Mass Destruction under his roof.
…Edna, BTW, is totally fine. She raised toddlers. These kids are at least old enough to listen to reason!
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*Snrrrk* “If I go down, I am taking you all with me!” Yep.
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In a similiar vein to trantos01 about mistaken assumptions – but not SG’s assumptions as I think trantos01 has that pretty well covered and covered beautifully but the bunny noddle about River of Stars Saiyuki crossover with Around Magi – I wonder if the first thought that Saiyuki crew will have at seeing some of the Magi crew’s jewelry would be “Limiters” but “They smell human, except for the redheads. Sort of. Mostly human.”
Mostly because I’m a full supporter of Vathara’s headcanon that most of the Magi crew isn’t completely human. The Fanalis are just more obvious about it. And since their bodies are at least partially changing back to how they were before . . .
Through I do wonder how the Magi crew will interpret the oddness of SG-1 before they have enough details. Beyond government spooks. Because if Teal’c is where the Magi crew can observe him, that is going raise serious question marks. The Fanalis can smell that he isn’t human and can probably smell Junior. The rukh probably has things to say about them too.
Given the situation, it wouldn’t surprise me if once the rukh gets them in that direction the rukh around Cheyenne Mountain all but leaps at our Kings (because that mess is definitely at least a two king situation) in “thank goodness, finally someone is here who can fix this mess!”
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SGC as a two-king situation.
…Wow. I think that really sums up the “eep” of the whole mess, yes.
*snrk* It’s Magi canon that “humans” on that world are “other creatures transformed into human shape”. Except for the Tran. And we have no idea how many Magi main characters might have Tran ancestry – if any!
Bunnies actually think the whole team would set off Fanalis-nose alarm bells. They’ve been exposed to a lot of weirdness!
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Personally I think the only one in the main cast who is at all Trans is Aladdin. The others are various mixtures of other creatures transformed into human shape. Which does explain a lot. Like maybe another reason Drakon turned into a dragon when he assimilated was not just that was the familiar spirit’s form but because there were human-shaped dragons in his family tree . . .
Someone Magi: “What’s wrong?”
Fanalis: “They smell weird.”
Someone Magi: “Define weird.”
Fanalis: “Except for the one guy, they smell human but they have all of these strange scent all over them. I don’t know what most of those scents are! I’ve never smelled anything like this.”
*looks over the other Fanalis who all nod in agreement.*
Someone Magi: “‘Curious and curiouser, said Alice.'”
They are going to be curious. And since many of them have embody the Rikki Tikki Tavi school (“Run and find out”) of satisfying curiosity . . . .
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*Snrrrrk* Simon being the most blatant example of “Run and find out!”, yes, but the rest of them are nearly as bad.
Teal’c: O’Neill. We are being stalked.
(Heads disappear behind brush.)
Jack: We’re being stalked by high school students?
Teal’c: Indeed.
Jack: …Somehow, that worries me.
Daniel: You didn’t hear them stalking us, did you.
Jack: And that would be why I’m worried….
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>>“thank goodness, finally someone is here who can fix this mess!”
Problem is that they can only really fix the local situation.
Only way they can potentially make the planet even semi-safe is to acquire enough magical or technological solutions that any hostile fleet that comes close to Earth gets blown up.
Djinn Equipped Kings are in the OMG Blizzard Pls Nerf category when it comes to any sort of planetary or atmospheric warfare but I don’t know if they can go into space.
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Considering how much of a mess the local situation can be . . .
Just think that part of that mess is that Stargate is it. If they fall, Earth is not only toast but blind-sided toast because most people have no idea the danger even exists.
And as the Sindria people can testify, being the only line of defense against the bad guys – it can go very horribly wrong. Not least of which because there is no one to take up the slack when you are too tired or too hurt to keep going. No one can be on guard all the time. But you don’t have a choice if there isn’t anyone else.
It also automatically puts the odds in the bad guys favor. You have to survive every attack. They only need to succeed once.
Stargate needs allies who are more helpful than the ones they’ve got. Because I doubt the Magi crew are going to refuse them magical / technological solutions because they are obviously primitive children who would just hurt themselves and besides these are our toys and we don’t want to share them with poopy-heads so there.
Or ones whose idea of protection is a treaty that prevents the bad guys from destroying the planet until they reach a certain technological level – a cut off point determined by said bad guys . . . .
Don’t know if they can go into space either.
But I’m confident that our heroes from all involved series can come up with something together that would ruin the invading space army’s day . . . with back-up plans in case Plan A doesn’t work as intended . . .
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I suspect the Hancock crew’s main concern is not getting shanghaied. “Look, we live on this planet too, there’s no way we won’t help. But we’re just figuring stuff out ourselves. And we’ve got a lot of scared people to worry about. You want help, let’s talk."
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Well, if magic gets spread wide enough by the time the SGC falls, or there enough people who’ve snuck in and out of Dungeons, then it wouldn’t be as critical, Tau’ri can still bite back. The Dungeon crawlers would be better equipped for it, being used to the idea of otherworldly beings jumping you for a meal, but the idea of a Go’auld slamming face first into a Borg, or getting sliced in half by one, is a warm fuzzy. And though Baal might have the most, er, upset (wrong word, history?) over the idea of his King being possessed by an overgrown tapeworm, none of the rest of them would be happy. After all, they picked the human, not the tapeworm.
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Hmm. Off-world defenses to take out stray asteroids would also be critical, though! 🙂
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But … what if, in the distant future, a Djinn DID pick an overgrown tapeworm, how would that work? Hm…
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I’m not actually sure that could happen unless the Goa’uld were actually cooperating with the host to get to the treasure room. Djinn tend to be picky about things like that.
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I was thinking of diiiistant future with A Star to Steer By levels of cooperation…
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*Thoughtful nod* That would be interesting!
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*Thoughtful nod* I have to admit a Djinn Equip in space would be tricky. First – if you don’t have wind or water to work with, that’s two main categories of power wiped out right there. Second, between what we know about Alma Torran and how magi and Djinn work, rukh is apparently generated by a living biosphere. Someone in Djinn Equip can draw power off their Djinn, since the Djinn is a large piece of rukh, but a Magi would have no one to “borrow strength from” outside of the living beings with him. Ouch.
That doesn’t make dealing with an invading fleet impossible. Teleportation spells are a Magi thing. It does, however, mean that it’d be tricky – you’d have to time your destruction carefully, know exactly who was going to swat what, know where the bad guys were to pop out in the right place, and have a portal set to take you back really quick, before you run into problems. Like, say, lack of air.
Which means dragging the Magi characters into the situation is not an Instant Fix, which suits my bunnies’ tendencies toward Equal Opportunity Awesome. So there. 🙂
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Maybe for potential in space stuff, our Magi need to employ Yamraiha’s trick of having stored magoi in a Tool and use that stored energy when they run out of their own.
Saying that, I definitely want to see some awesome from the Stargate characters. They pulled some pretty neat solutions out of their behinds before. It’d be neat to see what they come up in a situation where they can plan the mayhem ahead of time . . . and with all of these new toys . . . . And they understand the value of making sure the Gao’uld keep to their usual puny humans cannot possibly stop us. It’s inconceivable! (Never mind that they have stopped you. On several occasions.). Not that inspiring that kind of arrogance in a Gao’uld is difficult as it seems to be their default . . .
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*Wry G* Tiburon: “I wanted to know why you two thought charging magoi storage items for Kings was a good idea. What on Earth would need Djinn Warriors active for more than a few minutes?
“…Well, now I know. And I wish I didn’t.”
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>>Teleportation spells are a Magi thing. It does, however, mean that it’d be tricky – you’d have to time your destruction carefully, know exactly who was going to swat what, know where the bad guys were to pop out in the right place, and have a portal set to take you back really quick, before you run into problems. Like, say, lack of air.
That’s a very Magi/SG-1 way of thinking about using them. I suppose I’m kinda different, because I was thinking of using them as, essentially, guns. Set a teleportation spell to home its destination locus on concentrations of life/energy in the void, toss a big bomb (on a very short timer) through. Lacks the Heroic Fantasy “fighting the enemy face-to-face” bit, though. Of course, the setup might need a “spotter” group to infiltrate a ship so that they can target all the others in the fleet – which would lead to messiness when they’re discovered and have to keep spotting while also fighting for their lives. (And trying not to break the ship they’re on.)
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Hmm. Using it as “guns” would work, and in the best of all possible worlds would be a good idea. However, it’d take a lot of deliberate cooperation and trust on both sides. This is very tricky to manage under stress, and nothing you want to depend on in an actual combat situation. If you can’t be absolutely sure you can trust your allies to have your survival in mind… let’s just say, the reason the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople instead of the Holy Land was the Byzantine court’s addiction to stabbing the European nobles in the back.
Zipping out as a “spotter” group would be a lot easier to pull off on short notice, because neither side would have to be counting on the other for pulling them out of the fire. Definitely something to think on, though!
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I’m mainly thinking of the tricks Solomon and Ugo pulled out of their hats in the flashback arc on Alma Torran. It looked at least like gravity or just plain force manipultion was in there. The whammy on Judar implies that Alladdin is at least capable of some of that stuff. Though the first impression that he left the planet completely and turned up on another one turned out to be false. If it hadn’t been false then the fact, that the borg of a magi protected him during the journey might have implications on magi surviving in space.
The sheer size of the default magi planet with the parts on the other side of the rift included do seem kind of strange compared to a normal planet. But Hugo more or less constructed it from scratch, with some parts of the rift and beyond implied to be in some kind of under construction state.
Long story short whatever Alladdin learned from Hugo in my opinion has probably a lot more potential in the planet defense business than anything a normal magician or even a vessel user can manage.
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Well, from what I’ve read Judar was indeed blasted off the planet. He only got back because Ugo altered his trajectory!
Strength magic versus spaceships. Interesting…. *G*
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The thing that gets me is the how, in the SGC encountering Hancock etc.
So Tiburon knows black ops, maybe Jack? And high-schools get rented out in the summer for professional development and so on. What kind of professional development would the SGC run at Hancock? First contact practice – students briefed to pretend to be a completely alien culture, SG teams interacting etc. Except, maybe that mess up in Boston went on a bit long, so Jafar and Simon fall back on Tran and MagiWorld common language/customs in their set design… Cue Daniel starting to believe that maybe the actors aren’t acting, Simone waving the ‘suspension of disbelief’ wand, and the less credulous going, come one, it’s a high school, we know that they’re not really aliens. Until Anubis drops by, (or Baal! Canon puts him on earth, right?), and everything gets crazy.
Not sure if this is where you’re heading, but part of me keeps cackling to myself over the potential mayhem, so I wanted to share it 🙂
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I have a few different ideas for how the SGC could contact Hancock, one of which does include Tiburon’s habits as a trainer in knifework. The bunnies seem to think the story would work best if there are at least 2 points of contact, so SG-1 has a decent chance of figuring out, “Wait, this is no coincidence!”
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Question: Isn’t there a System Lord named Baal running around Stargate?
Somehow I doubt the Djinn of Wrath and Heroes will be happy about the shared name given what most Gao’uld are like . . .
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Oh dear. Oh dear, where has my brain been to have missed that…
To quote that Weather Guy image meme I keep seeing:
“Well. That escalated quickly….”
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I sincerely hope that the Hancock Crew and the SGC work out that neither of them are Go’auld before Baal the Djinn comes up. Baal the Go’auld, fine, the Magi crew is practiced at holding their fire. No pun intended. If Baal the Djinn comes up, the SGC would be firing before the next word came out of their mouths.
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Hmm. Well, given the Magi crew is unlikely to mention Djinn at all in the hearing of people they don’t trust, much less their names… not likely to be a problem. I hope!
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There’s a recording of all named Goa’uld on the wiki. Just google ‘List of Goa’uld’.
From a quick look, Ba’al seems to be the only one that has a similar name to the Djinn but don’t quote me on that.
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I don’t know about the wiki, but Arduinna’s Stargate Guide is another good source. And it’s likely Baal is the only possible point of confusion – the Djinn are named from the Key of Solomon, and I’m pretty sure Baal was the only deity-name in the list.
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…the Goa’uld (canon) stole their names from deities/mythical figures on Earth.
What’s the chances there is a minor goa’uld running around that calls itself Sinbad?
(Our Il Ilah…)
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Huh. Good question. OTOH, Sinbad and the Fire Prince are folklore characters, not gods. So… maybe not?
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Folklore characters with phenomenal cosmic powers . . . . probably at least one version out there that paints them as demi-gods . . . . maybe Goa’uld who are too low in the pecking order to warrant a deity’s name have the names of demi-gods and the like?
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Huh. Possible. If only we knew more about lower-order Goa’uld!
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