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Stargate: Know Thy Enemy

Written by Leo_Todrius and TaigaStar

A cool wind filtered through the ancient ruins, tumbling and shifting dust through the labyrinth of deteriorated buildings and forgotten roadways. It had once been a jewel of sophistication, of advancement, of culture and determination… but that had been centuries ago. Time in the Pegasus galaxy was a fickle thing, and it seemed that the time of silence on this particular planet had come to an end.

Near the edge of the ruins, something far older than the city rested. The bluish violet stone ring had been dormant for years, but the centuries had no hold over its majesty. Snapped out of its dormant state, constellations illuminated in sequence, a bright icy blue filling the chevrons. As the ring of symbols reached its zenith, a massive vortex of energy shot outwards, suspended in mid air for a moment before snapping back into place.

A rippling of azure light played across the stone steps before the event horizon was disturbed and a young man emerged, looking around with wild eyes. He was no more than twenty two or twenty three, his dark hazelnut brown hair worked into dreads and pulled back into a ponytail. He had a half healed cut on his left cheek and a number of scars on his right ear. His leather garb was battle worn, protecting his joints while still trying to remain light.

The young man took a breath before he broke into a sprint, heading into the city ruins, looking for cover. It was never a good idea to seek refuge in the ruins of a forgotten society, it was always the first place they looked… But maybe there would be a chance to rest, a chance to hide, a chance to heal… Maybe there would be some small remote possibility for a moment's peace.

He found it in the form of a dark hole hidden in a crumbling building. At the edge of the young man's awareness he heard the Stargate snap off. With luck, no one would have noticed. He moved on instinct, not relying on technology, moving deeper into the building and then downward. In theory, this path would lead to sewers which would be beneath the clutches of his Wraith pursuers. A few turns in the darkness, and it seemed that his assessment was correct--that he was in a tunnel leading to sewers. The slant seemed off, but that was expected in a city that was thousands of years old. How could anything survive the wear of time without maintenance?

In the back of his mind, Thane missed the sounds of the surface; the wind, the distant birds. Even moonlight was better than no light at all. The tunnels made him claustrophobic, reminded him of the few times he'd been caught by the Wraith and narrowly made it out. He slowed down as his boots hit water, running water. The city had to rely on a natural water source to keep working after so much time. He turned and started following it upstream, his leather boots sloshing through the water.

After some time, it struck Thane that there should have been something more in the wet tunnel, like debris or waste matter, some sort of muck. But this pipe was clean; he was thrown off by it, and remained aware, but was grateful his escape seemed cleaner than usual so far. Perhaps it was an aqueduct, or maybe just a sign of how long the city had been lost. Not like his home… not like Sateda.

The water was the only sound besides his splashing boots, no other sounds. There was no whine of ships, no weapons fire, no marching or chattering between soldiers. Just his breath, the pulse racing in his ears, and the sounds of the watery pipe. Thane allowed himself a sigh of relief that maybe, just maybe, this was a clean getaway. Not that it dulled the Satedan's awareness of his surroundings; in Pegasus, letting one's guard down was a quick way to meet one's demise.

It seemed like hours that he wandered in the darkness until he saw something very distinct--a soft green light coming from a wide crack in the ceiling of the pipe further ahead of his position. He didn't stop his advance right away, but modified his footsteps so the sound faded away as if by some ripple or eddie in the current. Sometimes people reacted too fast and gave themselves away. If the light was a trap of some sort, then Thane's slower advance might draw out any pursuers first, though the light seemed steady and calm. It seemed a natural silence in the illuminated chamber, not the forced silence of an ambush.

Against his better judgement, Thane approached the break in the ceiling cautiously. He maneuvered carefully against the side of the tunnel wall and stretched up, glad that his lankiness was an asset. With a brace and a hand hold, he pulled himself up and tried to get a better look at just what he'd wandered beneath.

The chamber above was vast and empty. The light seemed to emanate from a single glass beam at the apparent center of the room, casting its light on consoles that were long dormant from whoever had built and dwelled in the now-ruined city. There was a door that was sealed off from the world, and another that was covered in miscellaneous furnishings, nothing of consequence. The only item that truly seemed to stand out was a large glass tube ringed in metal and wires, situated near the center of the room. The contents of the tube were the most shocking; inside was another human, seemingly alive.

Thane grunted, pulling himself the rest of the way up into the room, stumbling across it. The shear angle of the floor was an obstacle in and of itself, but Thane was too caught off guard. He ran across so few humans while he was on the run, partly so he didn't lead the Wraith to any population centers… but this, this didn't seem like Wraith tech. This was something else. He moved up to the tube, resting his hand on the glass, trying to get a better view.

The human inside was slender and naked, a young male with light hair on his head and smooth everywhere else. His body seemed to be wrapped in wires that connected to a metal band around his head. Faintly, his chest rose and fell, revealing that he was asleep in some sort of stasis, and not dead. There was very little to note about the young man, who seemed to be a few years younger than the Satedan. But without clothes or tattoos or the like, it was impossible to tell if he was Athosian, Hoffan, Genii, Satedan, or any other human race in the galaxy… even one of those strange visitors that had taken the city of Atlantis itself! Though the latter was doubtful--the technology was older than the alien presence in the galaxy. There was even a small chance that this young man was a living survivor of the Ancestors themselves.

What was clear was that time was running out. The technology was either a remnant from the forgotten ancestral city, or salvaged from it. The power would not last forever, and if it failed there was no telling if the human would ever wake. Survival instincts told Thane to run, to flee this potential complication… But he couldn't leave someone there, alone, unguarded. Thane reached down to his belt and withdrew his long, curved, blue metal knife. If the human was breathing, he hoped he could free him without consequence, but technology had never been a strength of his.

Thane circled around, looking for controls, his eyes drawn back to the captured human every few moments. He was so innocent looking, so unblemished, his hair the color of the sun. Thane pushed the thoughts from his head, trying to figure out how to free the captive. As he drew near a small node of wires plugging into the glass tube, the green pillar changed to a pale blue and the node burst to life in a flash of colors accompanied by a soft hum.

The room began waking up, a few consoles illuminating, and the tube itself lighting up from within. The band around the sleeping man's fair head lit as well, and his eyes opened slowly. As suddenly as the room came to life, the tube let out a long hiss and began to open. If this had been a trap, the Satedan was now officially caught in it, but still he didn't run. Long seconds dragged out, but nothing happened; the sealed door remained sealed, nothing emerged from the place he entered from. The tube had simply reacted to his presence and opened up to reveal its contents like some kind of gift.

Thane stood there, knife in hand, not sure what to do… Though awakening to a weapon wielding wild man certainly wasn't the most relaxing of visages. Thane hastily returned the knife to his belt and looked at the young man, at the wires, at the tubes, feeling his heart race… for once, it wasn't racing for his own survival.

The young man blinked, his vision nonexistent as part of his time in stasis. He let out a gasp as his lungs took in the first breath of fresh air in ages, and he let out a yelp of terror as he looked at the stranger in front of him. Waking up to a stranger, armed or not, was still a fright for anyone, after all.

“It's alright, I mean you no harm." Thane said, his voice a little deeper and a little more sinewy than someone of his size might normally have. The young man reached up and gently removed the band with the wires. If anything, his comfort with the tube and its mechanisms indicated he knew what was going on with the room before his stasis. He blinked, his green eyes eyeing the Satedan warily.

“You scared me," the young man admitted, slowly emerging from the opened tube, his legs unsteady. “One question: have the Wraith been wiped out?"

“That is a dream unrealized…" Thane murmured, “Were you in there to hide from them? To escape a culling?"

“No," he said as he shook his head. “I've been in stasis for a long time, but when I came here, the Wraith had long abandoned this world. There were no people here when I came, and if it's only you, we are the only two humans on the planet."

“I think we are… Bad idea to go to populated worlds with a tracking implant, even if it is damaged…" Thane murmured, aware that this fact alone might alarm the human.

“Not to fear," the naked man said with a smirk. “This room is very special--the only room that can block Wraith scans in their entirety." He approached a console, as if double checking, and nodded. “A Wraith would have to be in the room to know it existed."

“How? Even with a hole in the floor?" Thane asked. It sounded too good to be true, but then again this boy had managed to survive all this time. If there was something there that he could use, something that he could take with him, there was a chance to have a more peaceful life, to break from the cycle of running. Thane was looking around with almost a frenzy in his hazel colored eyes.

“Yes, even with a hole in the floor," the young man nodded. “My name is An'dal, by the way." He walked over to the pile of debris and opened a derelict cabinet. rummaging through its contents.

“Thane, Thane Derrian." The Satedan replied. He had to admit, while the kid looked innocent he dripped with education, with knowledge, with a sophistication that seemed in short supply in the Pegasus galaxy.

An'dal retrieved a strange device from the cabinet and held it out to the Satedan. The object was definitely similar to the rest of the technology in the room--more advanced than the Genii could ever be, still less advanced than the Wraith or the Ancestors. Whoever lived in the city, they possessed a far superior advantage to the other races in Pegasus, and still they fell.

“This device will help shield us when we leave," he explained, proffering it to Thane. “Make sure to hold it by the outer ring."

Thane was hesitant. Everything was happening so fast, but he had no reason to distrust this human. He carefully took the object, ensuring that he only grasped it by the outer ring, looking down at it. Had this been how the boy was spirited away to the tube? Thane looked back up suddenly.

“Where are we going?" he asked.

“Nowhere," he answered cryptically. He drifted casually to the console again and pressed it. The device in Thane's hands began to hum and send jolts of electricity into his skin, the metal already laced with a reactive chemical neurotoxin. Together, they would render any human unconscious for at least an hour. The electricity crackled and Thane snarled, baring his teeth animalistically. He didn't drop right away, not like the others An'dal had seen. Thane took a step toward the blond boy, then another before his hazel eyes rolled into the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground. His muscles still twitched for a few moments longer.

An'dal was impressed by the Satedan. He was definitely stronger and more durable than the others he'd encountered. After a moment, the device went dead again, and he approached Thane's body. With a surprising strength, he managed to pick Thane up and carry him back to the tube, placing him inside of it. He set to work stripping the Satedan naked, tossing the clothes aside. It proved to be far more laborious than it first seemed with countless layers and hidden weapons.

He hurried in connecting Thane to the tube. If he lasted longer with the neurotoxin device, he likely could recover faster. Once An'dal was satisfied the bindings were secured, he touched the console adjacent to the tube and it closed, sealing itself. Now all he had to do was wait for his captive to wake up. The first thing to return was the scowl on Thane's face. He tensed, pulling against his restraints before his eyes snapped open, feeling a pressure on his temples. Even the metallic headband had settled into place

“Let me out!" Thane demanded, his voice muffled in the tube. He had escaped countless Wraith traps, only to be captured the moment he awoke this strange human.

“Let me tell you a story, Thane," An'dal said kindly, ignoring his protests, “This city was once the great capital of a world called Erdria… It had been so long since the last culling that some were calling the stories myths and terror dreams… but that all ended. So many darts filled the skies that day turned to night… They didn't even bother destroying the city, they just swept it clean." An'Dal explained.

“It's a story repeated on a lot of worlds…" Thane all but hissed. An'Dal continued on, undaunted.

“While most wraith came here only to feed, there was one that was interested in what the humans had managed to accomplish in such a short time. There was one scientist who claimed this as his favorite world, taking one of the last survivors as his slave. When the wraith finally left Erdria, he remained behind to perform his experiments without the war interfering. He made such progress, amazing advances, but he too needed to feed. Sadly, my master chose the wrong target, a human poisoned by a hoffan drug. He put me into stasis and tried to find a cure, but just in case he failed, he left me with a way to carry out his last, greatest experiment.

“Immortality," he concluded. “Not perfect, but good enough to reunite me with my beloved Master once again. And you shall be the one!"

“Your master is dead… Your master is gone. This is your chance to learn who you were, who you really are. This is your chance to be free. I'll help you, you just have to let me out of here." Thane whispered. It was a lie, of course. Wraith worshippers were insane. There was no dealing with them. He'd have to cut his losses and escape the first chance he got, but how he'd manage that at the moment was beyond the runner.

“Master is dead, yes. But someone needs to continue his work, and he left me specific instructions on what to look for in a candidate. You're a good enough match," he admitted. He pressed a button on the console and the tube began to fill with a strange, dark blue liquid. “The Ancestors were fools who believed technology would save them from the Wraith. The Wraith were foolish to think their numbers could keep them in power forever. Master… Master had the perfect solution--conversion."

The liquid filled the tube, laced with a retrovirus that was specifically designed to alter a living body on a cellular level, tweaking DNA and genes, enabling the person locked in the tube to become anything, even a different species.

“You can't do this! I'll make you pay! I'll make you regret this!" Thane howled, banging on the glass tube as the liquid seeped ever higher, soaking into his skin, his pores, his flesh. The screens around the rest of the room were snapping to life with readouts, projecting detailed information, even highlighting the damaged Wraith tech wrapped around the base of Thane's spine. The process had started. The perfect specimen had walked right up to An'Dal.

The process was long, An'dal knew. Especially as it first had to convert DNA across species. Luckily, the retrovirus was sophisticated, and adapted to each new host. The human smiled as he watched his Master's legacy in action--the retrovirus rewrote the biology, and the machine would start turning Thane into a Wraith mentally. Sadly he would not be An'dal's old Master, but he would have the same intelligence, ingenuity, and perseverance. Thane would be something closer to offspring with inherited memories.

The Satedan kept thrashing, trying to break free, but already his movements were becoming more languid, more fluid. He felt dizzy, sick, disoriented and lost. There were movements around the room, swirls of light and color. Thane knew them all too well. They were wraith hallucinations, projections and refractions - but this time was different. Where he looked, they followed, always tied to his focus. It was just the distraction the machine needed.

The liquid in the tank gurgled as a mechanical arm dropped down from above, following the Satedan's spine, bone by bone until it locked in on the tracker implant embedded in his flesh for so many years. A long, sinister looking needle emerged from the armature before it plunged into Thane's back. Thane jerked in the fluid, but the machine had already hit its mark. More screens around the room snapped on, showing the history of Thane's body while he was on the run. It marked every injury, every illness, every recovery. A comprehensive scan of his DNA appeared, slowly being replaced gene by gene with the ancestral elements of the Iratus bug.

With little else to do, An'dal knelt on the floor and watched as hints of his deceased Master began to resurface on the Satedan. It was not the same, he knew, but belonging to a son was better than being alone. He knelt almost in reverence, simply staring up as the metamorphosis took place. Little by little, the Satedan was being eroded away and replaced with something… more.

As the process continued, Thane became aware of a strange sensation, something he had never quite considered. There had been a pervasive ache, or pressure, or weight in his limbs. He'd never paid attention to it, tuning it out almost like the buzzing of the blood passing over his eardrum through veins and capillaries… But as it eased in his legs, as they felt truly calm, he felt an odd sense of peace. It was a peace that was combined with the most drastic change so far.

Thane's flesh had been well tanned, like most of his people. There had been blends of caramel and cinnamon, but those elements were fading away, bleaching out and leaving a sickly pale color. It was almost as if the flesh had died, but after a few more moments it started to take on more subtle tones of blue and green. The skin on his legs tightened. The hair that had been there sloughed off, and the pores became almost miniscule. The sickly color crept upward towards his knees, and dozens of old injuries faded from Thane's mind as that odd, constant pressure was lifted away.

An'Dal looked at his changing captive, surprised that it had started in the feet. He watched the human's toenails become more elongated and claw like. His heel was becoming a little narrower, the muscles along the back of his legs more agile… but the change wasn't simply from the bottom up. Other changes were developing too, changing the human in ever more perverse ways.

Thane's eyes were squeezed shut, trying to close out the echoes and the whispers around him. The way his face curled up into a sneer of discomfort, he could feel how rubbery his cheeks were getting, how stiff and alien they felt. His nostrils flared and contracted, but the skin grew toughest part way out from his nose, beneath his eyes as two new ducts opened up.

Suddenly the fluid he was submerged in took on an entirely different feeling… He could smell it, taste it, almost recollect times he had come across those smells before. It smelled acrid, like a bug infested cave. It smelled earthy and peaty, like a forest. It smelled sinister and dangerous like a predator. Thane's hands pawed at the glass, his fingernails darkening, growing thicker and longer, taking on a curve.

An'Dal had read about his master's research and he had listened to hours of him talk about the potential, but seeing it come to life was truly something else. Thane's human shell was dissolving before An'Dal's very eyes, becoming something more powerful, more beautiful, more true. He knew that Thane would understand in the end, even thank An'Dal for what he had done. It was instrumental in resurrecting the master in one form or another.

The lightness reached Thane's groin, the painless tingling mixed with something more heady. The sickly colored flesh swept across his ass, his cheeks becoming impossibly tight. The color drained from his pubic bush, the hair turning white, growing softer and a little more sparse, but his manhood… That took on a life of its own.

Blood rushed into the member, stimulated by the metamorphosis. It didn't matter that his brain was full of fear and shock and anger. All his body knew was that he was excited. Thane's member hardened and tightened, but as the retrovirus started working on it, something else was happening too. The short lived cells in his cock were changing, losing their inhibitor proteins, becoming immortal. The flesh turned from a rich flesh color to an alien greenish blue. The mushroom shaped tip elongated and sharpened into an alien looking point. Ridges and bumps appeared, tracing backwards from the tip to the base just as Thane thrashed again suddenly, his back arching. Starting just below the implant the machine had tapped into, Thane's vertebrae started to extend and push against the greying skin. It was a ridge, a line of cartilage bumps following the spine.

Thane's abdomen tightened, his already impressive muscles forming into an eight pack. His pectorals flattened and broadened, the skin draining of color as the skin took on a far more impervious quality. Even Thane's arms had not been spared the onslaught of the changing retrovirus. The color seeped out of them with each pump of his heart. The tattoo looped around his right elbow in four dark bands remained, but looked almost purple instead of black as the flesh beneath altered.

An'Dal knelt before the tube, watching and waiting, his own body feeling the rush of his master's return. With every second Thane was looking more like the master that the human had loved so much, that the human craved to be reunited with. Even if it wasn't him, there had to be something, some connection between them that survived death.

Thane was wriggling and shifting more, his body feeling far more powerful than it had before. His hand clawed at the class, his legs kicked about the solution they were suspended in. His body felt so strong, so agile, so perfect.

Thane shook his head, trying to fight it all off. It was a terrible trick, an evil trick. The wraith were monsters, feeding on and culling civilizations, destroying worlds that dared to resist their fate. He couldn't become one of them, he'd rather die. Thane gurgled, bubbles escaping his lips. The tubes that plunged into his skin had to work harder, keeping his blood oxygenated.

The spreading tingling finally reached Thane's scalp, settling in deep into the hair follicles before branching outward. Like cosmic grow out, the roots of each strand turned ashen white and the color was leached out inch by inch. His ponytail of rough and wild dreads became a mane of knotted white wraith hair.

So far the changes had mostly been corruptions of his existing body, changes to Thane's existing hair or features… but an odd pressure began to throb on his chin, a tingling and burning, building ever more until thick white hairs pushed outward, growing longer and longer. First there were a few, but then dozens, then more, sweeping down, swaying in the water. Thane had tried to grow out some facial hair before, but this was so different. He could actually feel it, the hair, past just the root. There was a strange, almost phallic pride in having the twin strands of the wraith goatee hanging down from his chin.

Thane's eyes snapped open in the tank, the hazel irises warped and stretched into vertical slits. He bore his teeth as they stretched and sharpened, elongating into fangs. He traced claws along the glass, feeling only primal urges to escape, to exact revenge, to feed… It was that last urge that triggered something in him. His mind clouded and his eyes swept shut.

It felt almost like a dream, images of Thane running through the trees on yet another desolate forest world. Blue fog drifted between the trees, there was the sound of a Stargate's event horizon rippling in the distance… But Thane wasn't running away from something, he was running after something. He was the hunter, not the prey. He was the predator, he was the creature on top of the food chain. He was a wraith.

The headband nearly glowed as it incorporated what the master had recorded, imprinting it onto the human's mind. All at once, the thrashing and the fighting stopped. Thane slowly relaxed in the fluid, curling up as his body understood what it was to hibernate, to wait, to sleep and to rest. The last traces of his human skin had faded away. One hand rested against the tube, the palm looking strange as a slit formed and beneath the surface brand new proboscis started to wriggle.

An'Dal smiled and rose, pressing his hand to the other side of the glass tenderly. His palm was smaller than Thane's, but it was still reminiscent of the adoration he'd given his dead master. Now, the young man smiled happily, reverently to the creature in the tube. He was so perfect, so strong, so god-like.

“Soon," An'Dal murmured to himself.