Stargate SG1 Fan Fiction / Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction / Stargate: Atlantis Fan Fiction ❯ April Ninth ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Well, you guys asked for it. And I aim to deliver.

Now, on the rampant crossing over of other Final Fantasies? All I can say is, within Stargate, it could work. Very well, in my humble opinion. (shrug) Maybe it's me?

Warnings: Spoilers for Season 10 of Stargate: SG-1, and lots of back-story I haven't written yet. That is all.

“So… The applications for Presidential Medal of Freedom?”

“Didn't go through.”

“I won't ask about the Medal of Honor, then. How about the Legion of Merit?”

“Again, too much red tape and secrecy.”

“Can't you just not put them down on the registry?”

“Nope, because then the medal makers would report over a dozen of them missing from their stocks, and people would ask why.” Daniel groaned, rubbing his forehead. General Landry smiled, leaning back a bit more in his plush leather chair.

“Relax Doctor Jackson… AVALANCHE's heroism wasn't overlooked that last time. It won't be here either. As a matter of fact, General O'Neill's planning the whole thing.” Daniel blinked.

“… Beer and TV?”

“No. Party. Cake. Ice Cream.” Daniel breathed a sigh of relief.

“Maybe some roman candles.” The startled look on the archeaologist's face was soon replaced by a deadpan expression. Landry's smile grew.

“And he wanted it to be a surprise, too, but he can't have everything.”

“He wanted-? Nevermind. Of course…” The `Gate activation alarm went off, as Walter's voice sounded through the small office. Landry raised his brow at Daniel, who rose.

“Now then, Dr. Jackson, I believe you have a few heroes of the galaxy to welcome in the Gateroom.” Daniel smirked.

“Always wondered how it felt to be on this end..."

Daniel soon arrived at the gateroom, the security detail nodding to him respectfully. He nodded back, and watched as three figures emerged from the active Stargate.

"Honestly! Why didn't those morons listen to me until they'd nearly blown up the continent!" Ranted Dr. Rodney McKay, as he stalked down the ramp. The ever vigilant Ronan Dex, a specialist in the now-destroyed Sateadan military, followed close behind. The last figure brought a broad smile to Daniel's face.

She seemed so delicate. Slim and pale, her long brown hair tied up in a long ponytail behind her. A red jacket over a pink dress revealing her teenaged figure, and in those large, clunky brown boots she seemed almost like a child playing dress-up.. Large, expressive green eyes, a cupid's bow mouth in a seemingly perpetual smile, and a light blush to her cheeks, however, revealed her for the woman she was. A woman who had seen things, done things, that Daniel had done. Where they had dulled Daniel, however, it only made this woman shine even more brightly.

This was Aeris Gainsborough...

"Miss me?" She asked quietly, almost teasingly. Daniel nodded.

"Yeah..."

"Uh, sorry to interrupt the loving gazes, but can you direct me to the nearest vending machine? I'm about to fall over, I swear to God," McKay huffed. Daniel smirked.

"I think we've got something better, Doctor..."

“Well, there we were, trapped in the Wraith hiveship,” McKay was relating to a throng of eagerly listening women, later, in the SGC commissionary as the party was now in full swing. “When Michael busted us out. He then took Ronan and myself to a secondary control room, where I was able to interface with the Wraith computer and started using some of the backdoors I'd made into their systems. But! We had no time to, say, start an overload, so I just altered their navigational systems to head for Planet, instead of Earth, before we…”

Nearby, Samantha Carter, Aeris Gainborough, and Daniel Jackson observed the Canadian scientist's tale, Carter in particular looking amused.

“He's actually getting most of it right this time,” Sam noted with a grin. “Rather than, you know, exaggerating certain parts.” Aeris hid a giggle.

“Well, he did execute a brilliant plan… To rely on the Planet's Lifestream to destroy anything it perceives as a threat to its life. Which the Wraith qualified as.” She winced. Daniel smirked.

“Of course, he forgot that the Lifestream can only be activated as a weapon when it's under the direct control of someone with an Ancient gene.” Aeris shrugged.

“Honest mistake…” Sam sighed and shook her head.

The four were silent for a few moments.

“… How is Cloud?” Mitchell asked out of the blue. Aeris turned to the colonel and shrugged.

“He married Tifa… They look after orphans now in Midgar. Run a delivery service, too.” Mentally, Mitchell kicked himself. He'd just risen the awkwardness meter by an order of magnitude.

“… Oh.” Aeris nodded, smiling sadly. Daniel tensed nearby and Sam discretely rolled her eyes.

“They're very happy together… Though they wish you would come visit them more often.” An impish smile came to her face as she shot Daniel and Sam a look. “Preferably, not just when Sephiroth's clones start trouble and Shinra goes ahead with stupid ideas.”

“About Shinra,” began Mitchell. Daniel groaned mentally. “Um… How're things with them?”

“They've opened the Stargate up to public usage,” Aeris explained. “Anyone with 100 gil can go visit other worlds. They had to get it out of Hojo's lab, though-Not an easy thing to do.”

“Where is it now?” Asked Daniel. Aeris smiled.

“In Midgar's new “spaceport”, where the Wall Market used to be.” The former flower girl giggled a bit. “Most of the former residents now work there, just moving their shops into the terminal and resuming business like nothing happened.”

“Must be quite a commute for out-of-towners,” Mitchell mused. Aeris shook her head.

“Not really… There are two sets of rings-One for Costa Del Sol, and one for Wutai. It's done wonders for tourism. And, of course, airships run around the clock.” She turned and smiled at Sam. “None of which would have been possible, if not for you.”

“Well, er,” Sam began, smiling. “I did have help.” Mitchell grinned as Daniel shook his head in bemusement.

“I loved that file… In your fifth year of operation, you accidentally gated to the world P1F-124, otherwise known as Planet, while escaping Anubis's forces. The Stargate was in the lab of the psychotic Dr. Hojo, who worked for Shinra, a corrupt company that basically ran the whole world, and was killing it by sucking the Lifestream, kind of like Planet's circulatory system, out for power.”

“You'd think that Shinra wouldn't have been that stupid. The Cetra died because they had been connected to Planet through the Lifestream so long that when Planet suffered, they suffered,” Sam sighed, shaking her head. “I mean, Planet is alive. If it dies, everything on it dies!” Aeris shrugged with a sad smile.

“The Cetra, unfortunately, weren't able to warn the humans they saved from the Goa'uld that had come to Planet to settle. The first Meteor had forced many to either “disconnect” from the Lifestream and live more or less as a normal human, or die. Too many years, too few who remembered…”

“So, wait… I thought that the Ancients just created humans, they weren't, um…” Mitchell coughed, and looked over at Daniel. “Little help, Jackson?” The archaeologist turned and smiled at the flower girl.

“Thanks to Aeris, we found out that the Ancients used early human DNA to clone themselves new bodies… In order to survive the plagues of the Ori. Since the Cetra were isolated from the rest of the galaxy when the second wave hit, three million years later, they met what their bodies would have evolved into when they defeated the Goa'uld Susannoo.” Aeris nodded, shrugging a bit.

“If it isn't broken, don't fix it,” she said with a smile. The old excitement of relating a discovery emerged in Daniel's voice as he went on.

“I mean, this explains why the Ancients used the Dakara device well before modern humans ever appeared! They were reshaping the galaxy to suit human life. Originally we'd thought that this meant that they were the original humans, but it turns out that we were the originals, they were just the first to have this form,” Daniel concluded, indicating himself. Mitchell whistled.

“Yeah, but what about the fact that there are humans in the Ori galaxy?” Daniel pursed his lips, letting out a frustrated breath.

“Well, that's the problem, isn't it?”

“It wouldn't be very hard for the Ori to gate here, steal some of the Ancient's human tech, and use it to create, well… Batteries,” Carter suggested, then tilting her head. “Not like we'll be able to ask any of the humans there right now about it.” Aeris nodded thoughtfully.

“If the Holy Materia was still working, we could provide enough power to the Stargate on Planet for such a mission… But we drained it.” Sam smiled wanly.

“Yup… Just like the ZPM we used in Earth's defense the last time. Speaking of which, we've been working on some ways to use our naquada reactors to power the chair.” Aeris shrugged.

“Think you could use them to power Planet's defenses?” Carter grinned wryly.

“Considering how powerful Holy was? Not a chance.” Mitchell frowned, and raised a finger in question.

“One thing I don't get… Materia's, like, what? Little Ancient ability balls or something?” Sam smiled, and took a deep breath. Lecture mode fell upon her.

“Not exactly… Due to the unique radiation and dimensional-bending properties of the Lifestream, thoughts and experiences of those beings connected to it get “imprinted” on ordinary crystal, like quartz, or small desposits of naquada, and shape them to “absorb” the “stray thought” energy. It's akin to electron capture theory within the Dirac Sea, only instead of a vacuum you use a field of leptons and other base particles spatially aligned with the…” Mitchell's eyes began to glaze over as Carter went over the physics of psionically-produced particle waves and various quantum reactions of elements to subspace radiation. Daniel and Aeris discretely slipped away, leaving poor Mitchell to his doom.

“Sorry about-“ Daniel began, but Aeris held up a hand to stop him. She smiled kindly at him.

“It's allright. He is always eager to learn… It's actually rather cute.” She shrugged. “And besides… If I mope around and get offended by people talking about my past, I'm going to be a very grumpy person.” Daniel couldn't help but laugh, as the half-Ancient girl joined in, both hearts lightened considerably.

“God, I still can't believe I trusted them,” Elizabeth Weir sighed, standing in a corner next to Jack O'Neill. The general smiled wryly.

“Believe me… Neither can I. But, don't beat yourself up about it, Weir. We all screw up.” He took a sip. “What counts is that you made sure it won't happen again.”

“Did I?” Weir asked sadly. “Michael escaped. He has a Wraith ship capable of inter-galactic hyper speed. And he still knows the location of Earth. And John…” Jack sighed, and rubbed the back of his head.

“Yes… He does… But we'll deal with it when the time comes.” Jack looked Weir in the eyes. She hesitantly looked back.

“And about John… Don't worry. The Daedalus got a lock on his emergency beacon. They've tracked it to a small solar system on the edge of Pegasus.” Elizabeth felt tears of joy coming on, but managed to keep control. She smiled at Jack warmly.

“Thank you, General. Thank you.” Jack smirked.

“Thank Colonel Caldwell. He's the one who found it.” Jack stretched, and popped his neck. He winced.

“Ow… Damn, I hate getting old,” he sighed. He rummaged in his pocket, muttered something, and an instant later he was smiling again. Elizabeth blinked.

“Exactly what…?” Jack grinned, and pulled out a small, glowing sphere from his pocket. Elizabeth gasped.

“Materia?” Jack shrugged.

“I learned how to use it back on Planet. When you're off Planet, you can only use it if you have the ATA gene. But, I didn't know that until a few weeks ago.” He smirked. “Why do you think I came back to active duty here so fast?”

“So… It's helped your knees, huh?” Weir asked with a small smile. Jack nodded.

“Oh yeah…”

Sorry that we're not getting to the attack on Spira, but I wanted to take a breather chapter before plunging back into the action.