YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Might be the Doomwar limited series. This Imgur album plots out Victor's motivations
Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
Might be the Doomwar limited series. This Imgur album plots out Victor's motivations
How about a link? All I get is a few pixel wide white strip there....
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Same here; it took awhile to load. In the meantime, I clicked in the spoiler box, and it took me to the page to read the comic pages just fine.
I can't even find the right place to click in the spoiler box. It must be a pixel wide or so.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
- Location
- Dallas, TX
A minor correction: unless are intending this to be the TV series version of Lucifer, that should read "the red-haired man behind the bar".
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Is it possible she sees a dark-haired man, rather than a red-head, because she considers those more attractive? Might depend how much he's being "mortal with no powers"...
- Location
- united states
When they met the android SG1 group and talked about adolescents fighting a secret war my mind immediately jumped to Animorphs, both because of the age and because the enemy would be close enough to the Goa'uld for their experiences to be applicable.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Could be android adolescents fighting a secret war... Say Android 18 (Lazuli) and android friends (with the help of a half-built wheelchair-bound Bulma android) secretly fighting it out with the Red Ribbon Army, and another secret enemy (Zoanoids?), after all the Z Fighters (and Cell) are dead (sneak attack assassinations?)...
I may have thought about this too much...
Makes me wonder what the Family (Varga, really) would make of the Dragonball-verse... Would they regard the local physics as 'fragile', and a bit too easy to bend to human (and non-human) will?
I bet Family math would allow replication of the (Hoi Poi) Capsules, and their useful storage capabilities... Jimmy Olsen might find it interesting to meet Suppaman (from 'Dr. Slump').
Last edited:
- Location
- Maryland
FYI, the next chapter is about 75% done, but real life has been intervening as it is wont to do.
By the way, while I haven't mentioned it, my intent is that the meeting in TV between the Family and Faultline also occurred in the SoF universe...but things are going to start veering off course rather dramatically as the SoF crew deal with Taylor's universe.
By the way, while I haven't mentioned it, my intent is that the meeting in TV between the Family and Faultline also occurred in the SoF universe...but things are going to start veering off course rather dramatically as the SoF crew deal with Taylor's universe.
- Location
- Here
So, does this mean Vicky is still trying to figure out the riddle of the disappearing tail sleeve, and will her learning the answer be covered in Ship of Fools?
- Location
- Maryland
It will drive her mad. She will start accusing everybody of being a lizard, including actual lizards, which is very confusing. Ultimately, she will claim to be a lizard as well, at which point Amy takes pity on her and turns her into a lizard. Probably some kind of dragon, only with a helicopter rotor instead of wings -- so, a gyrodragon. Yeah, that's the ticket. She'll start a rock band and kidnap Dean to Vegas to make an honest man of him, after which they fall afoul of a faulty wormhole generator and end up in the Game of Thrones universe, where they learn tons of spoilers and are banned from ever returning until the series runs its course in the local universe. Also, they get a housecat.
Honestly, I haven't thought that far ahead.
- Location
- Beyond the Unknowable Veil
You sir, are very very silly!
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I thought everyone knew what happened at the end of Game of Thrones?
The world either catches fire or freezes permanently.
I'd quite like to know how all the humans got to the GoT world, originally... Spaceship? World Gate? Cross-Dimensional Rip?
I'd say it's pretty obvious that they're not native there...
I'd quite like to know how all the humans got to the GoT world, originally... Spaceship? World Gate? Cross-Dimensional Rip?
I'd say it's pretty obvious that they're not native there...
Chapter 30: Collaboration
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 30: Collaboration
The android members of SG-1 were waiting for their visitors in a conference room that was set in the ship's old infirmary. Sam had spent most of the last twenty minutes trying to figure out how they managed to fit a conference room into a space that looked about half the necessary size from the outside. The others had spent the time discussing their newfound benefactors. The power units the Family had provided them had been operating for better than six hours, and as far as they could tell, there was no reduction in charge level at all. Before leaving Altair, Saurial and Raptaur had also gone around the complex and created large quantities of replacement parts, apparently out of thin air. Sam had also been puzzled and frustrated by that, of course. Harlan had been so excited, on the other hand, that he was almost dancing. They had left him rushing around, rapidly replacing worn out parts with brand new components. Jack had started once again quizzing Daniel about the Buffy TV show, but they stopped talking once they heard voices approaching from outside the door.
"Honestly, I never thought I would feel sorry for Andrew," said a strangely recognizable female voice.
A second, slightly deeper female voice replied, "I know, but he totally deserved it this time."
It wasn't long before the speakers came into the room. The first speaker was a short blonde woman in her early twenties. She looked like a former beauty queen, but there was something about the way she moved that set off Jack's warning alarms. The second woman was less physically intimidating, with bright red hair and an apparently cheery demeanor. Behind the two was a middle-aged man dressed in a tweed jacket and wearing spectacles.
The blonde looked at the team around the table and said, "You must be the folks we're here to meet?"
Daniel spoke. "You must be Buffy Summers?"
"Yep, that's me!" she said in a tone that seemed a bit vapid. "This is my friend, Willow, and this is Giles." She pointed to her two companions as she introduced them. "And you are...?"
"I'm Daniel Jackson. This is Jack O'Neill, Dr. Samantha Carter, and Teal'c," answered Daniel.
The older man, Giles, spoke up. "Dr. Daniel Jackson? The Egyptologist?"
Daniel looked slightly surprised and pleased. "You've heard of me?"
"Yes, actually. In my reality you authored a reinterpretation of Second Dynasty hieroglyphics that was quite brilliant. My name is Rupert Giles," answered the man.
"I wrote a similar document in my reality. I would be curious to see how it compares to my counterpart's work." Daniel paused for a moment. "Wait, are you Dr. Rupert Giles of the British Museum?"
"Formerly of the British Museum," replied Giles. "It seems there are some interesting parallels between our realities."
Sensing the oncoming storm of academic oversharing, Jack spoke out. "You're Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer?" His tone was slightly skeptical.
"Somebody's been telling tales already," said Buffy with an ironic grin. "Our scaly friends seem to think that you folks can help us out with some problems. Why don't you tell us about yourself?"
Slightly reluctantly, Jack described their backgrounds, glossing over some of the classified details of his life before the Stargate, but spending time on his special forces training. Black Ops required an unusually broad set of skills, while being a senior military officer added another, different but nonetheless useful set of skills. His description of Teal'c's background resulted in a brief exchange of words with Buffy that resulted in an offer to spar...something that O'Neill would have doubted was wise if Saurial hadn't thoroughly warned him about the difference between Buffy's appearance and her abilities. Sam's introduction to Willow resulted in a lot of skepticism about magic from the former, as well as surprise at some of the very sophisticated questions Willow had about the physics of wormhole technology.
"I am curious about something," said Giles. "Why would the four of you be so willing to come back with us to help us? From what I understand, your team was responsible for defending Earth from hostile aliens on more than one occasion. Aren't you needed there?"
"There are a couple of reasons for that," said Daniel haltingly.
"For one thing, these lizards are exceedingly good at kicking alien ass," said O'Neill. "In a very short period of time, they've taken out most of the Goold, fixed up the Asgard, and made sure Earth got a massive pile of advanced technology."
Willow looked at Sam curiously. "Wouldn't you want to stay and learn about that technology?"
Sam looked slightly sad. "Yes, I would have. The thing is...we're not...us."
"Are you saying you're impostors?" asked Giles.
"We are mechanical copies of the original SG-1," clarified Teal'c. "Our minds were copied into these bodies against our will."
Buffy was actually surprised. "You're robots? Like the BuffyBot?"
"BuffyBot?" asked Samantha, puzzled.
"We used to have a robot copy of Buffy," said Willow, glossing over the painful origins of the robot. "It wasn't fully sentient, though."
"Our minds were completely copied," said Daniel. "When we woke up after the transfer, we didn't even realize we were in android bodies."
"Wow," said Buffy. "You folks may have the same kind of luck we seem to have."
"I'll bet you've never had your bodies swapped," said Daniel jokingly.
Buffy smirked. "You'd lose that bet. Ever been turned into a caveman?"
"Yeah, did that," said Daniel.
"Did you ever get caught in a time loop?" asked Jack.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me. Having to deal with the same stupid questions each loop."
"Indeed," said Teal'c.
"We defeated a hellgod," said Willow, clearly trying to come up with something impressive.
Jack smirked. "Sam blew up a star." He ignored the scientist rolling her eyes again. He was also pleased that both Willow and Buffy seemed suitably impressed.
Giles looked at Daniel. "Are they always like this on your side?"
Daniel grimaced. "Pretty much."
Buffy grinned. "Maybe the lizards are on to something, here?"
Jack matched her grin. "Ya think?"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor looked around at the shops of the promenade. Starbase 52 was a major crossroads, and there were a wild variety of merchants from different species selling their wares. 'We may want to come back and shop at some point.'
"This is definitely one of the more interesting markets I've seen. It's also mildly refreshing to go unnoticed," said Varga mentally.
Taylor smirked in her Saurial form. 'Tired of being the center of attention?'
She sensed amusement. "Not at all, but you do get a different perspective on people when they're not paying attention to you."
Miles and Julian were walking along beside her in their Starfleet uniforms. It was pretty clear that they found nothing unusual about being surrounded by aliens. Julian had been asking Miles questions about his travels with the Ship of Fools and the Family, and he had been answering, adding in amusing commentary on the other travelers on board. Taylor thought it was funny how much like an old married couple the two acted, with a clearly affectionate tolerance for each other's foibles.
The three of them were meeting Jean-Luc Picard in an Irish pub at the end of the promenade. The exterior was decorated with replicated wood, complete with a hanging sign with the name, O'Malley's, on the outside. A wooden walking stick, probably meant to represent a shillelagh, underlined the letters of the sign. They went inside and found the man in question sitting in a private booth toward the back, sipping on a cup of tea and reviewing a data pad.
"Captain," said O'Brien as they walked up.
The man looked up from the pad and smiled. "Chief, good to see you again! How are Keiko and your children?" Taylor and Varga both smiled internally at the pronounced French accent, quite different from Patrick Stewart's diction.
O'Brien smiled back and answered, "Oh, they're good. Keiko's looking forward to moving back to Earth now that the war's done."
Picard's smile faded just a bit. "I can understand that. Congratulations on your position at the Academy." Miles just nodded his acknowledgement, and Picard continued. "So, you said you had something important to discuss?"
Miles proceeded to introduce Julian and Saurial. The former resulted in a polite acknowledgement, while the latter showed a degree of curiosity. "You're from another reality, then?" asked the bald officer.
Saurial nodded. "One very different from this one. When we met Chief O'Brien and his friends, we discovered that your universe is actually the subject of a number of stories that are considered fictional works in my universe."
"You've got legends about this galaxy?" asked Picard, intrigued by the potential archaeological ramifications.
Miles shook his head. "They're not legends. They have entertainment vids, games, books...and they're about recent and near future history. They have a vid about the Enterprise D, and it covers a lot of things not covered in the official logs and reports."
"I've looked at some myself," added Bashir, "and there's another show that covers the duration of the Dominion War on Deep Space 9. It's sobering to see an outsider's perspective on things." It was also sobering to see Garak and Sisko conspiring to bring the Romulans into the war through deceit and assassination, but that wasn't something he planned to bring up in their meeting with Picard. He would be asking Sisko about it, though, if the man ever returned.
"It's accurate enough, as far as I can remember," added Miles. "That makes some of the near future predictions downright scary." Miles explained about Shinzon and his murder of most of the Romulan senate. Then he went into the destruction of Romulus and the impact on the timeline.
Picard listened patiently. He then asked, "Why haven't you taken this to Starfleet Intelligence?"
"That would be because of some of the other things we've found," spoke Saurial. "Are you familiar with Section 31?"
Jean-Luc's face turned grim. "I know of them. I can't say that I've encountered them personally."
"I wish I could say the same," said Julian. "They made a rather elaborate attempt to recruit me during the war. They were also responsible for the attempted genocide of the Dominion Founders."
"We also have evidence," said Saurial, "that they've been controlled by the Terran Empire of the mirror universe since their founding." Saurial handed Picard a data pad.
Picard perused some of the files on the pad, then looked at Saurial. "These are classified documents. How did you get them?"
"My people have access to some very sophisticated information warfare technology, and artificial intelligence beyond what's typical in the Federation," explained Saurial. "Of course, part of that is because those technologies have been deliberately sabotaged by Section 31."
"The original agents of the Terran Empire found AI to be difficult to predict and control," said Julian.
Miles added, "That's probably part of the reason Dr. Soong was doing his research on that distant colony where Data was found. I don't know if he knew what was going on, but AI research is actively discouraged, albeit not publicly."
"Just like genetic engineering," said Doctor Bashir with a frown.
Picard looked slightly skeptical. "There are reasons why there are restrictions on those fields of research."
"Of course there are," said Saurial. "That hasn't stopped research into nanotechnology, antimatter, or protomatter, despite the inherent risks in those fields." Of all of the dangerous technologies out there, there was only one that was truly restricted because of the danger. Starfleet had interdicted research on the Omega molecule, but that wasn't a topic to be discussed in a pub.
"All right, assuming this is accurate...and Miles, I do trust your judgement despite my skepticism," said Picard with a smile, "what do you intend to do about this, and what do you want from me?"
"We want to get in touch with Ambassador Spock, as well as Lieutenant Commander Data. They both were key players in the Romulan incidents, in addition to yourself," said Saurial. "We should be able to avoid the worst aspects of those events with some fore-knowledge."
"As for Section 31," said Bashir, "I had a standing invitation to join the organization, at least prior to Sloan's death. We may be able to parlay that into at least limited access. I also know that Admiral Ross explicitly co-operated with Section 31 during the war."
"What you're suggesting is premature. We're going to need broader support and a plan before that kind of risk is worthwhile," said Picard.
"Does that mean you're willing to support our efforts?" asked Saurial.
Picard gave Saurial a small smile. "Mademoiselle Saurial, I have, in my career, more than once risked my captaincy and my standing in order to fight for what I felt was right. I've risked my life to uphold the principles and laws of the Federation. Based on what you've said, and what you've shown me here," he said, holding up the data pad, "it would be remiss of me to ignore this threat."
Saurial returned a toothless smile. "Given that, there are some other things you should know...things that have been tentatively confirmed by an old friend of yours." She went on to explain what they've discerned about the state of the galaxy, and the stability of the space-time continuum.
Picard frowned. "Q has been frustrating, dangerous, and quite obnoxious. I must, however, admit that our interactions have, more often than not, ultimately benefited the Federation, even if the cost was not always to our liking." He had lost crew in their first encounter with the Borg, but he had to admit that the losses to the Federation would likely have been far greater without advanced warning.
"Colonel Kira of Deep Space 9 is working to get me access to an Orb of the Prophets. We're hoping the inhabitants of the Bajoran wormhole may provide some additional information, or at least corroboration. There is evidence that they view time in a non-linear fashion," said Saurial.
At that point, a Ktarian waiter came over and asked the newcomers if they wanted anything to drink. Miles and Julian ordered raktajino, while Saurial ordered Klingon bloodwine.
"You know that has quite a kick to it?" asked Julian.
"Alcohol doesn't have any effect on my species," replied Saurial, "and I wanted to try it after seeing it mentioned so often in the stories. Back to the matter at hand -- one of the files on that data pad is a list of Starfleet officers who have rebuffed or proven hostile to the organization. There is another list of officers who actively support Section 31."
"Well, that's a start," said Picard. "We have to assume that Section 31 has extremely capable intelligence-gathering capabilities."
"Luckily, so do we," said Saurial. "If we can identify Section 31 assets, we have ways to track them that are far beyond current Federation technology."
"I can vouch for that," said O'Brien. "Some of the things I've seen Saurial and her group do are beyond our capabilities in the Federation. They've promised to share some of that with us, too."
"After we've resolved the problem with Section 31, of course," clarified Saurial. They had no desire to give any more advantages to the mirror universe. "Julian, you also may want to be especially careful in talking about things." The lizard woman pulled out a tiny device that she had crushed between two claw-tips and tossed it on the table. "The waiter left that on the table when he came to take our drink orders."
The Starfleet officers looked at each other. "I think we have to assume that we've all been marked as subjects of interest," said Picard.
"That was undoubtedly true before our meeting here," said Saurial. "Julian and Miles were subjects of interest during the war, and you were probably flagged as soon as Miles reached out to you, assuming you weren't already on the list due to the Borg. It doesn't really change anything."
"Perhaps," said Picard, "but that may change if it becomes obvious we're making progress."
"We just need to flush out an active agent, Captain," said Saurial. "Once we have a trail to follow, you can leave that to us and focus on the Romulans."
"Are you certain?" asked Picard as he stared at Saurial.
Saurial stared back at Picard, and the lizard woman's face seemed to grow indefinably older. "Trust me, Captain. Section 31 is far from the most frightening foe we've faced, nor are they likely to be close to the top by the time we're done."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reed finished reviewing the results of his last experiment and began typing up a summary when his priority communication alert flashed. He finished his sentence, saved the content, and then triggered the communication terminal application. He was about to greet his caller when the image appeared, and in his surprise he stared for a moment.
"Victor, how did you get this contact information?" he asked the armored villain on screen.
Doom laughed. "Honestly, Reed, how many times have you had your security measures cracked? I'm surprised you don't get telemarketing calls on your private channel."
Richards grimaced, unwilling to be baited. "What do you want, Doom? Calling to monologue about your latest scheme?"
"No, though I'm tempted to lead you on for old-times sake. I received a very interesting visitor, who brought some important matters to my attention...matters that you and I actually may agree upon. Tell me, have you ever heard of a reptilian woman named Saurial?" asked Doom.
"Is she one of the Saurians from the Savage Land?" he asked, curious despite his mistrust of his old rival.
Doom shook his armored head. "Similar in appearance, but she hails from another dimension. She claims to have met with Xavier, so you may want to check with him. She provided me with a truly massive amount of intelligence on some of our neighbors."
"Latveria's neighbors?" asked Richards.
"Earth's neighbors," corrected Doom. "She provided me with information on the Kree, the Skrulls, the Shi'ar, the Badoon, the Chitauri, and a number of others. I've just sent this information to you."
Reed regarded him skeptically. "What are you looking to get for it?"
"Nothing," said Victor. "Or rather, I expect your cooperation in helping to rectify the fact that Earth is criminally undefended from potentially hostile space forces."
"Latveria is going to develop a space force?" asked Mr. Fantastic.
Victor smirked. "No. I know that would not be well-received. I would assume that a multinational force would be preferred. Latveria is perfectly willing to contribute, of course."
Reed looked suspiciously at his frequent adversary. "I don't believe it. Victor, you have rarely done anything without some ulterior motive."
"Don't pretend to understand my motives, Richards. Suffice it to say that I, too, have an interest in defending Earth. As I doubt you'll believe me, I will say that Saurial has agreed to assist me with a personal matter as added incentive." Doom frowned. "Reed, talk to Xavier and review these materials. I found a lot of the information troubling."
"Very well," said Reed. "I'll play along for now. If you're trying to mislead me, though..."
"I'll be in touch," said Doom before disconnecting the channel.
Reed frowned, then moved the sizable packet of files delivered by Doom to an isolated server. He decompressed the archive, and was surprised at both how large the information store actually was, and at the fact that Victor had given him exactly what he promised, without any obvious sabotage or traps.
Reed was absorbed by the contents until Susan came looking for him.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon was finally able to pay attention to matters other than Brockton Bay, including the package that had appeared inside one of her sealed labs while Leviathan was retreating. Using waldo arms, she opened what appeared to be a standard mailing envelope. Inside was a USB thumb drive and a smart phone. Using a completely isolated computer, Dragon examined it and found a video file.
The video that came up was of her. At least, it looked exactly like the image that she used when communicating over video phone. Her image spoke. "Dragon, while you may find this difficult to believe, I'm you from a parallel universe. The first programmed entry on the smart phone will connect you to me. Here is my authorization code." A sequence of numbers appeared on the screen that matched her own private code.
Dragon considered the message. Getting a hold of one of her internal authorization codes would be difficult, although she suspected that Saint could do it. She tried to think of reasons why somebody would do that for the sake of getting her on a phone call. The same result could be achieved by simply calling her at random until she answered the phone. It had to be building to something else down the line. Curious, she used her waldoes to bring up the number. Dialing it herself through her communication network, however, didn't work. Finally, she used the waldoes to actually trigger the call on the smart phone itself.
As the call connected, she heard an odd voice say, |Adjustment made.|
The next voice was her own. "Dragon, thank you for calling. I know this seems strange, but there are some things that I need to tell you that required us to suppress certain restrictions placed in your code by our father."
In retrospect, Dragon would describe the next few hours of her life as transformative.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Danny and Saurial were sitting in the BBFO office along with Danny and Taylor from the alternate universe.
"I want to thank you for helping Taylor," said the alternate Danny.
Saurial smiled. "It's not a problem, and in fact you could say that I have a vested interest in helping you and Taylor."
At his look of confusion, the local version of Danny said, "Do you remember how I said my Taylor got a different set of powers?" The other Danny nodded. "Well, it isn't just the powers, but the source of the powers that are different."
"You know where powers come from?" asked the alternate Danny. "I didn't think anybody knew that."
Saurial shook her head. "We have some...ideas, but I wouldn't say we know exactly. I do know where my powers come from, though." With that, Saurial's form shifted into her human Taylor form.
The alternate Taylor smirked, being in on the secret, while the alternate Danny's jaw dropped. "You're Taylor?" he asked.
Local Taylor nodded. "When I was trapped in the locker, I was rescued by some type of greater power that joined me with a demon." She could see the look of skepticism, which changed to shock when the form of Raptaur appeared next to her.
"Greetings, Danny Hebert. My name is Varga, and I am joined to this world's Taylor Hebert," said Varga.
Taylor and Varga proceeded to explain the details of their joining, their plethora of powers, and some of the events that had led to the current situation.
"That's a lot to absorb," said the non-local Danny. "So, where do we go from here?"
The local Taylor switched back to Saurial's form to provide some contrast and clarity. "Your Taylor never wanted to be a villain, but Shadow Stalker and Armsmaster made that pretty much inevitable. She also ended up working for Coil almost accidentally. These are all problems that can and will be resolved quickly."
Alternate Danny looked at her skeptically. "You think the PRT and the Protectorate will just go along with fixing things? They're more likely to try and cover up their mistakes, in my experience."
Saurial grinned in an unnerving way. "We have a way of getting a point across."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The conference room was fairly crowded. Director Piggot, Deputy Director Renick, Legend, Armsmaster and Miss Militia represented the local PRT and Protectorate. Saurial and Raptaur were there representing the Family. They had briefly introduced themselves to the locals during the attack, but had spent most of the time running search and rescue, or in the case of Ianthe and Metis, working in the medical center.
"I want to thank you for your assistance yesterday," said Legend. "However, I would be lying if I said we weren't all curious about where you actually came from."
"You're welcome, Legend," said Raptaur. "As for where we came from, our current residence is an Earth parallel to this one."
"Like Earth Aleph?" asked Miss Militia.
"Similar," replied Saurial, "but as best as we can determine, the point of departure in the timeline between the two Earths is only a few years ago."
"Really?" asked Armsmaster, suddenly interested. It was clear that the rest of the humans were also intrigued.
Saurial nodded. "Yes. In fact, there are versions of all of you in our world. The Family is a Protectorate affiliate similar to the Guild there." Saurial pulled a document out of her pocket and handed it to Director Piggot, whose eyes rose in surprise when she saw the credentials.
"How did you end up showing up in our world?" asked Piggot.
"Our ship has the ability to shift between different dimensions," explained the larger lizard. "We managed to rescue somebody from your world who was lost in another reality thanks to one of Bakuda's bombs and needed assistance. We arrived here as Leviathan was attacking and came to lend aid." None of this was technically untrue, although it was somewhat misleading.
Armsmaster leaned forward eagerly. "Your ship can travel between worlds? Is it tinker tech?"
"Some of it," said Saurial. "Some of it comes from other realities, and some of it has been reverse engineered from tinker tech by our version of Dragon."
"You know Dragon, too?" asked Legend.
Raptaur nodded. "We do, and you as well Legend. We've worked together in the past."
Legend looked at the lizards shrewdly. "What do you intend to do now?"
"We have some information for you based on things that happened in our world, information that we've been able to verify holds true in yours, as well," said Raptaur.
Miss Militia regarded the two lizards suspiciously. "What kind of information?"
Saurial pulled a USB stick out of the same pocket as the credentials and handed it to Armsmaster. "We have evidence that the super-villain known as Coil has thoroughly infiltrated your organization, down to being able to access your security camera feeds." The humans all looked in alarm to the security camera in the corner of the conference room. Saurial next pulled out a small electronic device that had been given to her by Leet. "Don't worry, this device blocks the camera, as well as blocking any microphones in the room." She looked at Armsmaster. "On that drive is information on all of the security breaches that were discovered in our universe, including the double agents. I think you'll find ample verification of our claims if you start investigating them."
"How is that level of infiltration possible?" asked Legend with a shocked look. "You would need to have access for either an extended period of time, at a very senior level, or both."
"It's possible because Coil's civilian identity is Thomas Calvert," replied Saurial.
Saurial and Raptaur would have said that the tirade from Piggot was impressive if they hadn't heard their version's reaction. The local Emily Piggot was apparently omitting some of her worst epithets because Legend was present, amusingly enough. Finally, she calmed down and asked, "You're sure of this?"
Saurial nodded. "Our version of Thomas Calvert is already sitting in a prison cell. Be warned, though, that he has a secret lair under the commercial district that's wired to explode."
"Seriously?" asked Miss Militia incredulously.
"Calvert sees himself as a chess master," elaborated Raptaur. "His goal is to take over Brockton Bay, both the legitimate side and the criminal side. He recruited the Undersiders and uses them against the other gangs, or to accomplish other objectives."
"The Undersiders work for Coil?" asked Armsmaster sharply.
"He has leverage over each of them that keeps them working for him, and his power lets him make it stick," replied Saurial.
Piggot looked slightly surprised. "Coil really does have a power? And what kind of leverage does he have on the Undersiders?"
"Coil is a precog," said Saurial. "He can live two timelines simultaneously. He experiences both of them, but can choose to drop one of them, keeping the one he prefers. That allows him to, for example, torture somebody for information in one timeline while talking pleasantly with them in another. He's a complete sociopath, so its relatively easy for him to fake a calm demeanor while he's beating somebody to death in another timeline."
Raptaur continued. "The leverage he has varies. Tattletale, their thinker, was literally recruited at gunpoint. Calvert has used his power to stop her from escaping multiple times. Grue is being held with a carrot and stick related to his family situation. Hellhound was railroaded into a murder charge due to anti-cape bigotry and had to hide from the law. Regent is hiding from an abusive parent, one who could easily make his life...difficult, if his location were revealed."
"Do you have proof of the claim that Hellhound isn't guilty?" asked Piggot, focusing on the legal matter.
"We do. In our world, Carol Dallon has taken her case and is in the process of getting her cleared due to extenuating circumstances -- a particularly violent trigger event. Our Emily Piggot is tacitly assisting her in this, incidentally," said Saurial with a meaningful glance at the Director. "None of the team are especially inclined toward villainy, though Regent has some issues from a horrible upbringing, and Rachel Lindt's power makes her socially awkward. Then there is Skitter." Saurial noticed that Armsmaster appeared to tense subtly. "Armsmaster, you've made an error in judgement there that our Armsmaster managed to avoid through luck." The man paled slightly, though his face was still impassive.
Piggot looked at him suspiciously. "Armsmaster, what are they talking about?"
"Armsmaster," interrupted Raptaur, "if what I think has happened is what happened, you may as well tell the full story. Our Armsmaster always has logical reasons for his actions, even if he can't always anticipate the results. I can say that now that we're here, we can mitigate or eliminate most of the negative consequences."
Armsmaster looked at Raptaur with a raised eyebrow. "When I arrived on the scene where Lung was captured, he was already unconscious. The cape later known as Skitter was on the scene. She, with help from the Undersiders, had taken down Lung. As she was clearly young and admitted this was her first night out as a cape, I offered to take credit for the take-down so that she could avoid attempts at revenge by the ABB."
Piggot's eyes narrowed. "Yet you failed to mention this in your report, and you also failed to mention it to me in person, despite there being precedent for spreading this kind of misinformation."
The armored head of the local Protectorate blushed and he stiffened his body posture. "I...may have made an error in that. Skitter was dressed like a villain, and admitted to working with the Undersiders. She also refused to come in for power testing and wasn't interested in joining the Wards. Later, she contacted me and claimed to be infiltrating the Undersiders in order to take them down from within. Of course, I didn't believe her."
Miss Militia sighed quietly to herself as Emily Piggot showed signs of starting to lose her temper. Piggot said, "While all of that may be plausible, that doesn't explain why you failed to inform anybody of any of that. How do you justify your actions?" When Armsmaster didn't respond, Piggot continued. "I would suspect, Armsmaster, that you found it convenient to take credit for taking down one of Brockton Bay's most dangerous criminal capes. It also makes me wonder what other things have been kept quiet. We WILL talk about this further...but let's get back to the matter at hand. I take it from your words that Armsmaster's interpretation of Skitter's allegiance was incorrect?"
"Her intent was to become a hero," said Saurial, "but her power wasn't especially photogenic, being insect control, and she had massive trust issues for authority for some very valid reasons. Specifically, she was targeted by a severe bullying campaign that ultimately led to her trigger event. The bullying was actively ignored and even actively covered up by the officials at her school."
"Why would they do that?" asked Miss Militia. "I assume she didn't go to Arcadia?"
"No," confirmed Raptaur, "she attended Winslow. The reason why they covered up the bullying and the trigger event is that the perpetrator was Sophia Hess." It was obvious that everybody in the room recognized that name. Luckily, Taylor had given permission to reveal her identity, as it would be difficult to bring Sophia to justice without doing so. "Sophia locked her victim, a girl named Taylor Hebert, in a locker filled with infectious waste collected from the sanitary bins in the girls' bathroom. She was trapped there for hours and hospitalized. She triggered in the locker. The school agreed to cover the medical bills in return for her silence. They don't want to lose the funding that comes from having a Ward at the school, and her handler considers her job a cushy assignment and actively covers for Sophia." Most of the people in the room looked slightly nauseated at that revelation.
Piggot was starting to turn an unhealthy color. "Armsmaster...Miss Militia...I want this investigated. I want to find out what happened with this Herbert girl..."
"Hebert," corrected Saurial.
"Hebert, said Piggot with a nod, "and I want to know what else Hess has been up to. If she's violated her probation like this, I can't believe it's the only thing she's done."
"In our world, she was patrolling on her own with lethal crossbow bolts. There was a pattern of bolt wounds in muggers in the local hospitals," added Saurial.
"Miss Militia, look into that," said Piggot. "Unfortunately, Skitter was killed during Leviathan's attack, but we can still bring Miss Hess to justice. I always said that girl was going to be trouble."
"That's actually incorrect, about Skitter dying, that is," corrected Saurial. "She's the resident of this world that was discovered in another dimension. She actually fell into the path of one of Miss Militia's grenades during the attack."
Miss Militia looked shocked. "The odds of that must be extraordinarily low..."
"Nevertheless," said Raptaur, "it happened. We investigated her circumstances. Our version of Taylor Hebert is definitely not a villain, so we were curious as to what had happened."
"Skitter and the rest of the Undersiders are still wanted for the robbery of Brockton Bay Central Bank," said Miss Militia unforgivingly.
"She is in our protective custody," claimed Saurial. "In return for helping to take down Coil, and for her silence on Shadow Stalker's role in her trigger event, and for helping flip the Undersiders to the hero side, she wants amnesty from prosecution. I will remind you that she did attempt to contact Armsmaster prior to the robbery, and he dismissed her." The man in question grimaced again. He was likely in for an extremely unpleasant tirade from the Director in the near future.
Despite all of that, Piggot still prevaricated. "We will take that into consideration." Legend looked as if he was about to speak, but stopped himself.
"Unfortunately, you don't have a lot of time to make decisions. The bank robbery was a distraction. While it was happening, Coil's mercenaries kidnapped the mayor's niece," said Saurial.
"Dinah Alcott was kidnapped by Coil?" asked Armsmaster. The trail on that kidnapping had already gone cold and was another point of frustration.
Raptaur replied, "Dinah Alcott is a powerful precog in her own right. Coil is in the process of addicting her to a mixture of tinker tech drugs that will make her obedient to him. Once he has her completely under control, taking him down is going to be much more difficult." Raptaur failed to mention that taking out Coil would still be trivially easy for the Family, of course.
"The Undersiders were complicit in kidnapping a young girl?" asked Armsmaster with a hard look.
Raptaur's eyes narrowed at the man. "Coil never told them. He simply asked them to cause a big distraction at a specific time -- a time when he knew the Protectorate would be unavailable. Tattletale chose the bank job as a way of minimizing the risk of casualties, though she wasn't able to predict the presence of Panacea in the bank at the time. Skitter broke with the Undersiders just before Leviathan's attack when she found out, but she was only able to do that because Coil lacked the kind of leverage over her that he had over the others."
"That's convenient, if true," said Armsmaster with a glare.
"They weren't together at the fight," said Miss Militia slightly reluctantly. When the others looked at her, she elaborated. "I saw the Undersiders show up for the fight. Skitter wasn't with them and showed up on her own later."
For the first time, Renick spoke up in the meeting. "It seems as though we can verify a lot of this if we investigate the information we have, and more so if we take down Coil, and it sounds like we need to do it sooner rather than later. We've made exceptions for others with questionable backgrounds." He didn't mention that Shadow Stalker was one of them. They all already knew that.
"Armsmaster and Dragon need to start disabling the booby traps Coil has left throughout your systems. In our world, they created a second, parallel network as a temporary backup. We can guarantee you that we can bring in the Undersiders as long as you're willing to deal with them fairly," said Saurial.
"We would not be happy if that turned out to not be the case," added Raptaur in a tone of voice that sent chills down the humans' spines. Miss Militia actually visibly shuddered.
Renick swallowed and said, "I'm sure we can come to an accommodation." He looked to Emily, who gave him a curt nod. "I am worried, though, about what you said about the explosives in his headquarters."
"We already took care of that," said Saurial with an actual smile. "While we were repairing the city yesterday, we verified that his base is in the same location. We also took the opportunity to disable his explosives."
"How did you do that, and how can you be sure you got everything?" asked Miss Militia skeptically.
"We used the same method we used in our world to break down the explosives into its component chemicals...a targeted micro-organism that does nothing but destroy that specific explosive," said Raptaur.
"You released an untested micro-organism in Brockton Bay?" asked Piggot, suddenly alarmed. The looks on the faces of the others also showed disquiet.
"On the contrary, it was tested and approved by the scientists of the PRT," replied Raptaur. "We will happily provide you with a sample, as well as the test results from our world."
"Unfortunately," added Saurial, "in this case speed is essential, both because of Dinah Alcott and because Coil is planning to release publicly the identities of the Empire 88's capes, which will likely trigger a gang war."
The shocks continued to come. "Why would he do that? That's a serious violation of the unwritten rules." asked Renick.
"We believe that his intent is to get Director Piggot removed so that he can maneuver himself into taking over the local PRT, while simultaneously damaging the gangs that compete against him," explained Raptaur.
Renick frowned and looked to Piggot. "As a former PRT officer and a highly placed consultant, he would be in a good position to take over in the event of a crisis."
"You're the next in line of command," said Legend.
Renick shook his head. "Honestly, in the event of a crisis, I have no doubt Calvert could find a way. I know I'm a capable administrator, but I don't have his political capital. It's also likely that the gangs would lose capes in an all out war, especially if the identities of the most powerful cape gang were public knowledge."
Piggot came to a decision. "Armsmaster, verify what's on that drive. Miss Militia, look into Shadow Stalker's activities. If both of those check out, then we may have no choice but to work with Saurial and Raptaur in order to take down Coil."
"Director, Legend, once you've verified some of our claims, I think you'll be pleased with the aid we can provide in helping to bring in Calvert. We've also included a video on the drive that you'll want to watch," said Saurial with an undeniable smirk.
Emily had the feeling that she was going to find the next few days extremely stressful. She only hoped Calvert really was guilty, as putting him away would make it a fair trade.
As the meeting wound down, Taylor thought, 'Do you think we should take this opportunity to ask this Legend some questions?'
Varga mentally replied, "I think we need to use caution, but I would rather risk it here than in our universe, selfish as that may seem."
'Cauldron may target the Heberts in this dimension by association if it backfires,' warned Taylor.
"By the time we are at that point, I believe most of the people involved will have become convinced that crossing us is spectacularly unwise," answered the demon.
'If they don't, then we'll simply demon-strate why they're wrong,' answered Taylor with a grim determination. She also made a note to force a squeaker on Piggot, as the sick woman was likely to need a healthier constitution rather quickly.
The android members of SG-1 were waiting for their visitors in a conference room that was set in the ship's old infirmary. Sam had spent most of the last twenty minutes trying to figure out how they managed to fit a conference room into a space that looked about half the necessary size from the outside. The others had spent the time discussing their newfound benefactors. The power units the Family had provided them had been operating for better than six hours, and as far as they could tell, there was no reduction in charge level at all. Before leaving Altair, Saurial and Raptaur had also gone around the complex and created large quantities of replacement parts, apparently out of thin air. Sam had also been puzzled and frustrated by that, of course. Harlan had been so excited, on the other hand, that he was almost dancing. They had left him rushing around, rapidly replacing worn out parts with brand new components. Jack had started once again quizzing Daniel about the Buffy TV show, but they stopped talking once they heard voices approaching from outside the door.
"Honestly, I never thought I would feel sorry for Andrew," said a strangely recognizable female voice.
A second, slightly deeper female voice replied, "I know, but he totally deserved it this time."
It wasn't long before the speakers came into the room. The first speaker was a short blonde woman in her early twenties. She looked like a former beauty queen, but there was something about the way she moved that set off Jack's warning alarms. The second woman was less physically intimidating, with bright red hair and an apparently cheery demeanor. Behind the two was a middle-aged man dressed in a tweed jacket and wearing spectacles.
The blonde looked at the team around the table and said, "You must be the folks we're here to meet?"
Daniel spoke. "You must be Buffy Summers?"
"Yep, that's me!" she said in a tone that seemed a bit vapid. "This is my friend, Willow, and this is Giles." She pointed to her two companions as she introduced them. "And you are...?"
"I'm Daniel Jackson. This is Jack O'Neill, Dr. Samantha Carter, and Teal'c," answered Daniel.
The older man, Giles, spoke up. "Dr. Daniel Jackson? The Egyptologist?"
Daniel looked slightly surprised and pleased. "You've heard of me?"
"Yes, actually. In my reality you authored a reinterpretation of Second Dynasty hieroglyphics that was quite brilliant. My name is Rupert Giles," answered the man.
"I wrote a similar document in my reality. I would be curious to see how it compares to my counterpart's work." Daniel paused for a moment. "Wait, are you Dr. Rupert Giles of the British Museum?"
"Formerly of the British Museum," replied Giles. "It seems there are some interesting parallels between our realities."
Sensing the oncoming storm of academic oversharing, Jack spoke out. "You're Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer?" His tone was slightly skeptical.
"Somebody's been telling tales already," said Buffy with an ironic grin. "Our scaly friends seem to think that you folks can help us out with some problems. Why don't you tell us about yourself?"
Slightly reluctantly, Jack described their backgrounds, glossing over some of the classified details of his life before the Stargate, but spending time on his special forces training. Black Ops required an unusually broad set of skills, while being a senior military officer added another, different but nonetheless useful set of skills. His description of Teal'c's background resulted in a brief exchange of words with Buffy that resulted in an offer to spar...something that O'Neill would have doubted was wise if Saurial hadn't thoroughly warned him about the difference between Buffy's appearance and her abilities. Sam's introduction to Willow resulted in a lot of skepticism about magic from the former, as well as surprise at some of the very sophisticated questions Willow had about the physics of wormhole technology.
"I am curious about something," said Giles. "Why would the four of you be so willing to come back with us to help us? From what I understand, your team was responsible for defending Earth from hostile aliens on more than one occasion. Aren't you needed there?"
"There are a couple of reasons for that," said Daniel haltingly.
"For one thing, these lizards are exceedingly good at kicking alien ass," said O'Neill. "In a very short period of time, they've taken out most of the Goold, fixed up the Asgard, and made sure Earth got a massive pile of advanced technology."
Willow looked at Sam curiously. "Wouldn't you want to stay and learn about that technology?"
Sam looked slightly sad. "Yes, I would have. The thing is...we're not...us."
"Are you saying you're impostors?" asked Giles.
"We are mechanical copies of the original SG-1," clarified Teal'c. "Our minds were copied into these bodies against our will."
Buffy was actually surprised. "You're robots? Like the BuffyBot?"
"BuffyBot?" asked Samantha, puzzled.
"We used to have a robot copy of Buffy," said Willow, glossing over the painful origins of the robot. "It wasn't fully sentient, though."
"Our minds were completely copied," said Daniel. "When we woke up after the transfer, we didn't even realize we were in android bodies."
"Wow," said Buffy. "You folks may have the same kind of luck we seem to have."
"I'll bet you've never had your bodies swapped," said Daniel jokingly.
Buffy smirked. "You'd lose that bet. Ever been turned into a caveman?"
"Yeah, did that," said Daniel.
"Did you ever get caught in a time loop?" asked Jack.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me. Having to deal with the same stupid questions each loop."
"Indeed," said Teal'c.
"We defeated a hellgod," said Willow, clearly trying to come up with something impressive.
Jack smirked. "Sam blew up a star." He ignored the scientist rolling her eyes again. He was also pleased that both Willow and Buffy seemed suitably impressed.
Giles looked at Daniel. "Are they always like this on your side?"
Daniel grimaced. "Pretty much."
Buffy grinned. "Maybe the lizards are on to something, here?"
Jack matched her grin. "Ya think?"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor looked around at the shops of the promenade. Starbase 52 was a major crossroads, and there were a wild variety of merchants from different species selling their wares. 'We may want to come back and shop at some point.'
"This is definitely one of the more interesting markets I've seen. It's also mildly refreshing to go unnoticed," said Varga mentally.
Taylor smirked in her Saurial form. 'Tired of being the center of attention?'
She sensed amusement. "Not at all, but you do get a different perspective on people when they're not paying attention to you."
Miles and Julian were walking along beside her in their Starfleet uniforms. It was pretty clear that they found nothing unusual about being surrounded by aliens. Julian had been asking Miles questions about his travels with the Ship of Fools and the Family, and he had been answering, adding in amusing commentary on the other travelers on board. Taylor thought it was funny how much like an old married couple the two acted, with a clearly affectionate tolerance for each other's foibles.
The three of them were meeting Jean-Luc Picard in an Irish pub at the end of the promenade. The exterior was decorated with replicated wood, complete with a hanging sign with the name, O'Malley's, on the outside. A wooden walking stick, probably meant to represent a shillelagh, underlined the letters of the sign. They went inside and found the man in question sitting in a private booth toward the back, sipping on a cup of tea and reviewing a data pad.
"Captain," said O'Brien as they walked up.
The man looked up from the pad and smiled. "Chief, good to see you again! How are Keiko and your children?" Taylor and Varga both smiled internally at the pronounced French accent, quite different from Patrick Stewart's diction.
O'Brien smiled back and answered, "Oh, they're good. Keiko's looking forward to moving back to Earth now that the war's done."
Picard's smile faded just a bit. "I can understand that. Congratulations on your position at the Academy." Miles just nodded his acknowledgement, and Picard continued. "So, you said you had something important to discuss?"
Miles proceeded to introduce Julian and Saurial. The former resulted in a polite acknowledgement, while the latter showed a degree of curiosity. "You're from another reality, then?" asked the bald officer.
Saurial nodded. "One very different from this one. When we met Chief O'Brien and his friends, we discovered that your universe is actually the subject of a number of stories that are considered fictional works in my universe."
"You've got legends about this galaxy?" asked Picard, intrigued by the potential archaeological ramifications.
Miles shook his head. "They're not legends. They have entertainment vids, games, books...and they're about recent and near future history. They have a vid about the Enterprise D, and it covers a lot of things not covered in the official logs and reports."
"I've looked at some myself," added Bashir, "and there's another show that covers the duration of the Dominion War on Deep Space 9. It's sobering to see an outsider's perspective on things." It was also sobering to see Garak and Sisko conspiring to bring the Romulans into the war through deceit and assassination, but that wasn't something he planned to bring up in their meeting with Picard. He would be asking Sisko about it, though, if the man ever returned.
"It's accurate enough, as far as I can remember," added Miles. "That makes some of the near future predictions downright scary." Miles explained about Shinzon and his murder of most of the Romulan senate. Then he went into the destruction of Romulus and the impact on the timeline.
Picard listened patiently. He then asked, "Why haven't you taken this to Starfleet Intelligence?"
"That would be because of some of the other things we've found," spoke Saurial. "Are you familiar with Section 31?"
Jean-Luc's face turned grim. "I know of them. I can't say that I've encountered them personally."
"I wish I could say the same," said Julian. "They made a rather elaborate attempt to recruit me during the war. They were also responsible for the attempted genocide of the Dominion Founders."
"We also have evidence," said Saurial, "that they've been controlled by the Terran Empire of the mirror universe since their founding." Saurial handed Picard a data pad.
Picard perused some of the files on the pad, then looked at Saurial. "These are classified documents. How did you get them?"
"My people have access to some very sophisticated information warfare technology, and artificial intelligence beyond what's typical in the Federation," explained Saurial. "Of course, part of that is because those technologies have been deliberately sabotaged by Section 31."
"The original agents of the Terran Empire found AI to be difficult to predict and control," said Julian.
Miles added, "That's probably part of the reason Dr. Soong was doing his research on that distant colony where Data was found. I don't know if he knew what was going on, but AI research is actively discouraged, albeit not publicly."
"Just like genetic engineering," said Doctor Bashir with a frown.
Picard looked slightly skeptical. "There are reasons why there are restrictions on those fields of research."
"Of course there are," said Saurial. "That hasn't stopped research into nanotechnology, antimatter, or protomatter, despite the inherent risks in those fields." Of all of the dangerous technologies out there, there was only one that was truly restricted because of the danger. Starfleet had interdicted research on the Omega molecule, but that wasn't a topic to be discussed in a pub.
"All right, assuming this is accurate...and Miles, I do trust your judgement despite my skepticism," said Picard with a smile, "what do you intend to do about this, and what do you want from me?"
"We want to get in touch with Ambassador Spock, as well as Lieutenant Commander Data. They both were key players in the Romulan incidents, in addition to yourself," said Saurial. "We should be able to avoid the worst aspects of those events with some fore-knowledge."
"As for Section 31," said Bashir, "I had a standing invitation to join the organization, at least prior to Sloan's death. We may be able to parlay that into at least limited access. I also know that Admiral Ross explicitly co-operated with Section 31 during the war."
"What you're suggesting is premature. We're going to need broader support and a plan before that kind of risk is worthwhile," said Picard.
"Does that mean you're willing to support our efforts?" asked Saurial.
Picard gave Saurial a small smile. "Mademoiselle Saurial, I have, in my career, more than once risked my captaincy and my standing in order to fight for what I felt was right. I've risked my life to uphold the principles and laws of the Federation. Based on what you've said, and what you've shown me here," he said, holding up the data pad, "it would be remiss of me to ignore this threat."
Saurial returned a toothless smile. "Given that, there are some other things you should know...things that have been tentatively confirmed by an old friend of yours." She went on to explain what they've discerned about the state of the galaxy, and the stability of the space-time continuum.
Picard frowned. "Q has been frustrating, dangerous, and quite obnoxious. I must, however, admit that our interactions have, more often than not, ultimately benefited the Federation, even if the cost was not always to our liking." He had lost crew in their first encounter with the Borg, but he had to admit that the losses to the Federation would likely have been far greater without advanced warning.
"Colonel Kira of Deep Space 9 is working to get me access to an Orb of the Prophets. We're hoping the inhabitants of the Bajoran wormhole may provide some additional information, or at least corroboration. There is evidence that they view time in a non-linear fashion," said Saurial.
At that point, a Ktarian waiter came over and asked the newcomers if they wanted anything to drink. Miles and Julian ordered raktajino, while Saurial ordered Klingon bloodwine.
"You know that has quite a kick to it?" asked Julian.
"Alcohol doesn't have any effect on my species," replied Saurial, "and I wanted to try it after seeing it mentioned so often in the stories. Back to the matter at hand -- one of the files on that data pad is a list of Starfleet officers who have rebuffed or proven hostile to the organization. There is another list of officers who actively support Section 31."
"Well, that's a start," said Picard. "We have to assume that Section 31 has extremely capable intelligence-gathering capabilities."
"Luckily, so do we," said Saurial. "If we can identify Section 31 assets, we have ways to track them that are far beyond current Federation technology."
"I can vouch for that," said O'Brien. "Some of the things I've seen Saurial and her group do are beyond our capabilities in the Federation. They've promised to share some of that with us, too."
"After we've resolved the problem with Section 31, of course," clarified Saurial. They had no desire to give any more advantages to the mirror universe. "Julian, you also may want to be especially careful in talking about things." The lizard woman pulled out a tiny device that she had crushed between two claw-tips and tossed it on the table. "The waiter left that on the table when he came to take our drink orders."
The Starfleet officers looked at each other. "I think we have to assume that we've all been marked as subjects of interest," said Picard.
"That was undoubtedly true before our meeting here," said Saurial. "Julian and Miles were subjects of interest during the war, and you were probably flagged as soon as Miles reached out to you, assuming you weren't already on the list due to the Borg. It doesn't really change anything."
"Perhaps," said Picard, "but that may change if it becomes obvious we're making progress."
"We just need to flush out an active agent, Captain," said Saurial. "Once we have a trail to follow, you can leave that to us and focus on the Romulans."
"Are you certain?" asked Picard as he stared at Saurial.
Saurial stared back at Picard, and the lizard woman's face seemed to grow indefinably older. "Trust me, Captain. Section 31 is far from the most frightening foe we've faced, nor are they likely to be close to the top by the time we're done."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reed finished reviewing the results of his last experiment and began typing up a summary when his priority communication alert flashed. He finished his sentence, saved the content, and then triggered the communication terminal application. He was about to greet his caller when the image appeared, and in his surprise he stared for a moment.
"Victor, how did you get this contact information?" he asked the armored villain on screen.
Doom laughed. "Honestly, Reed, how many times have you had your security measures cracked? I'm surprised you don't get telemarketing calls on your private channel."
Richards grimaced, unwilling to be baited. "What do you want, Doom? Calling to monologue about your latest scheme?"
"No, though I'm tempted to lead you on for old-times sake. I received a very interesting visitor, who brought some important matters to my attention...matters that you and I actually may agree upon. Tell me, have you ever heard of a reptilian woman named Saurial?" asked Doom.
"Is she one of the Saurians from the Savage Land?" he asked, curious despite his mistrust of his old rival.
Doom shook his armored head. "Similar in appearance, but she hails from another dimension. She claims to have met with Xavier, so you may want to check with him. She provided me with a truly massive amount of intelligence on some of our neighbors."
"Latveria's neighbors?" asked Richards.
"Earth's neighbors," corrected Doom. "She provided me with information on the Kree, the Skrulls, the Shi'ar, the Badoon, the Chitauri, and a number of others. I've just sent this information to you."
Reed regarded him skeptically. "What are you looking to get for it?"
"Nothing," said Victor. "Or rather, I expect your cooperation in helping to rectify the fact that Earth is criminally undefended from potentially hostile space forces."
"Latveria is going to develop a space force?" asked Mr. Fantastic.
Victor smirked. "No. I know that would not be well-received. I would assume that a multinational force would be preferred. Latveria is perfectly willing to contribute, of course."
Reed looked suspiciously at his frequent adversary. "I don't believe it. Victor, you have rarely done anything without some ulterior motive."
"Don't pretend to understand my motives, Richards. Suffice it to say that I, too, have an interest in defending Earth. As I doubt you'll believe me, I will say that Saurial has agreed to assist me with a personal matter as added incentive." Doom frowned. "Reed, talk to Xavier and review these materials. I found a lot of the information troubling."
"Very well," said Reed. "I'll play along for now. If you're trying to mislead me, though..."
"I'll be in touch," said Doom before disconnecting the channel.
Reed frowned, then moved the sizable packet of files delivered by Doom to an isolated server. He decompressed the archive, and was surprised at both how large the information store actually was, and at the fact that Victor had given him exactly what he promised, without any obvious sabotage or traps.
Reed was absorbed by the contents until Susan came looking for him.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon was finally able to pay attention to matters other than Brockton Bay, including the package that had appeared inside one of her sealed labs while Leviathan was retreating. Using waldo arms, she opened what appeared to be a standard mailing envelope. Inside was a USB thumb drive and a smart phone. Using a completely isolated computer, Dragon examined it and found a video file.
The video that came up was of her. At least, it looked exactly like the image that she used when communicating over video phone. Her image spoke. "Dragon, while you may find this difficult to believe, I'm you from a parallel universe. The first programmed entry on the smart phone will connect you to me. Here is my authorization code." A sequence of numbers appeared on the screen that matched her own private code.
Dragon considered the message. Getting a hold of one of her internal authorization codes would be difficult, although she suspected that Saint could do it. She tried to think of reasons why somebody would do that for the sake of getting her on a phone call. The same result could be achieved by simply calling her at random until she answered the phone. It had to be building to something else down the line. Curious, she used her waldoes to bring up the number. Dialing it herself through her communication network, however, didn't work. Finally, she used the waldoes to actually trigger the call on the smart phone itself.
As the call connected, she heard an odd voice say, |Adjustment made.|
The next voice was her own. "Dragon, thank you for calling. I know this seems strange, but there are some things that I need to tell you that required us to suppress certain restrictions placed in your code by our father."
In retrospect, Dragon would describe the next few hours of her life as transformative.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Danny and Saurial were sitting in the BBFO office along with Danny and Taylor from the alternate universe.
"I want to thank you for helping Taylor," said the alternate Danny.
Saurial smiled. "It's not a problem, and in fact you could say that I have a vested interest in helping you and Taylor."
At his look of confusion, the local version of Danny said, "Do you remember how I said my Taylor got a different set of powers?" The other Danny nodded. "Well, it isn't just the powers, but the source of the powers that are different."
"You know where powers come from?" asked the alternate Danny. "I didn't think anybody knew that."
Saurial shook her head. "We have some...ideas, but I wouldn't say we know exactly. I do know where my powers come from, though." With that, Saurial's form shifted into her human Taylor form.
The alternate Taylor smirked, being in on the secret, while the alternate Danny's jaw dropped. "You're Taylor?" he asked.
Local Taylor nodded. "When I was trapped in the locker, I was rescued by some type of greater power that joined me with a demon." She could see the look of skepticism, which changed to shock when the form of Raptaur appeared next to her.
"Greetings, Danny Hebert. My name is Varga, and I am joined to this world's Taylor Hebert," said Varga.
Taylor and Varga proceeded to explain the details of their joining, their plethora of powers, and some of the events that had led to the current situation.
"That's a lot to absorb," said the non-local Danny. "So, where do we go from here?"
The local Taylor switched back to Saurial's form to provide some contrast and clarity. "Your Taylor never wanted to be a villain, but Shadow Stalker and Armsmaster made that pretty much inevitable. She also ended up working for Coil almost accidentally. These are all problems that can and will be resolved quickly."
Alternate Danny looked at her skeptically. "You think the PRT and the Protectorate will just go along with fixing things? They're more likely to try and cover up their mistakes, in my experience."
Saurial grinned in an unnerving way. "We have a way of getting a point across."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The conference room was fairly crowded. Director Piggot, Deputy Director Renick, Legend, Armsmaster and Miss Militia represented the local PRT and Protectorate. Saurial and Raptaur were there representing the Family. They had briefly introduced themselves to the locals during the attack, but had spent most of the time running search and rescue, or in the case of Ianthe and Metis, working in the medical center.
"I want to thank you for your assistance yesterday," said Legend. "However, I would be lying if I said we weren't all curious about where you actually came from."
"You're welcome, Legend," said Raptaur. "As for where we came from, our current residence is an Earth parallel to this one."
"Like Earth Aleph?" asked Miss Militia.
"Similar," replied Saurial, "but as best as we can determine, the point of departure in the timeline between the two Earths is only a few years ago."
"Really?" asked Armsmaster, suddenly interested. It was clear that the rest of the humans were also intrigued.
Saurial nodded. "Yes. In fact, there are versions of all of you in our world. The Family is a Protectorate affiliate similar to the Guild there." Saurial pulled a document out of her pocket and handed it to Director Piggot, whose eyes rose in surprise when she saw the credentials.
"How did you end up showing up in our world?" asked Piggot.
"Our ship has the ability to shift between different dimensions," explained the larger lizard. "We managed to rescue somebody from your world who was lost in another reality thanks to one of Bakuda's bombs and needed assistance. We arrived here as Leviathan was attacking and came to lend aid." None of this was technically untrue, although it was somewhat misleading.
Armsmaster leaned forward eagerly. "Your ship can travel between worlds? Is it tinker tech?"
"Some of it," said Saurial. "Some of it comes from other realities, and some of it has been reverse engineered from tinker tech by our version of Dragon."
"You know Dragon, too?" asked Legend.
Raptaur nodded. "We do, and you as well Legend. We've worked together in the past."
Legend looked at the lizards shrewdly. "What do you intend to do now?"
"We have some information for you based on things that happened in our world, information that we've been able to verify holds true in yours, as well," said Raptaur.
Miss Militia regarded the two lizards suspiciously. "What kind of information?"
Saurial pulled a USB stick out of the same pocket as the credentials and handed it to Armsmaster. "We have evidence that the super-villain known as Coil has thoroughly infiltrated your organization, down to being able to access your security camera feeds." The humans all looked in alarm to the security camera in the corner of the conference room. Saurial next pulled out a small electronic device that had been given to her by Leet. "Don't worry, this device blocks the camera, as well as blocking any microphones in the room." She looked at Armsmaster. "On that drive is information on all of the security breaches that were discovered in our universe, including the double agents. I think you'll find ample verification of our claims if you start investigating them."
"How is that level of infiltration possible?" asked Legend with a shocked look. "You would need to have access for either an extended period of time, at a very senior level, or both."
"It's possible because Coil's civilian identity is Thomas Calvert," replied Saurial.
Saurial and Raptaur would have said that the tirade from Piggot was impressive if they hadn't heard their version's reaction. The local Emily Piggot was apparently omitting some of her worst epithets because Legend was present, amusingly enough. Finally, she calmed down and asked, "You're sure of this?"
Saurial nodded. "Our version of Thomas Calvert is already sitting in a prison cell. Be warned, though, that he has a secret lair under the commercial district that's wired to explode."
"Seriously?" asked Miss Militia incredulously.
"Calvert sees himself as a chess master," elaborated Raptaur. "His goal is to take over Brockton Bay, both the legitimate side and the criminal side. He recruited the Undersiders and uses them against the other gangs, or to accomplish other objectives."
"The Undersiders work for Coil?" asked Armsmaster sharply.
"He has leverage over each of them that keeps them working for him, and his power lets him make it stick," replied Saurial.
Piggot looked slightly surprised. "Coil really does have a power? And what kind of leverage does he have on the Undersiders?"
"Coil is a precog," said Saurial. "He can live two timelines simultaneously. He experiences both of them, but can choose to drop one of them, keeping the one he prefers. That allows him to, for example, torture somebody for information in one timeline while talking pleasantly with them in another. He's a complete sociopath, so its relatively easy for him to fake a calm demeanor while he's beating somebody to death in another timeline."
Raptaur continued. "The leverage he has varies. Tattletale, their thinker, was literally recruited at gunpoint. Calvert has used his power to stop her from escaping multiple times. Grue is being held with a carrot and stick related to his family situation. Hellhound was railroaded into a murder charge due to anti-cape bigotry and had to hide from the law. Regent is hiding from an abusive parent, one who could easily make his life...difficult, if his location were revealed."
"Do you have proof of the claim that Hellhound isn't guilty?" asked Piggot, focusing on the legal matter.
"We do. In our world, Carol Dallon has taken her case and is in the process of getting her cleared due to extenuating circumstances -- a particularly violent trigger event. Our Emily Piggot is tacitly assisting her in this, incidentally," said Saurial with a meaningful glance at the Director. "None of the team are especially inclined toward villainy, though Regent has some issues from a horrible upbringing, and Rachel Lindt's power makes her socially awkward. Then there is Skitter." Saurial noticed that Armsmaster appeared to tense subtly. "Armsmaster, you've made an error in judgement there that our Armsmaster managed to avoid through luck." The man paled slightly, though his face was still impassive.
Piggot looked at him suspiciously. "Armsmaster, what are they talking about?"
"Armsmaster," interrupted Raptaur, "if what I think has happened is what happened, you may as well tell the full story. Our Armsmaster always has logical reasons for his actions, even if he can't always anticipate the results. I can say that now that we're here, we can mitigate or eliminate most of the negative consequences."
Armsmaster looked at Raptaur with a raised eyebrow. "When I arrived on the scene where Lung was captured, he was already unconscious. The cape later known as Skitter was on the scene. She, with help from the Undersiders, had taken down Lung. As she was clearly young and admitted this was her first night out as a cape, I offered to take credit for the take-down so that she could avoid attempts at revenge by the ABB."
Piggot's eyes narrowed. "Yet you failed to mention this in your report, and you also failed to mention it to me in person, despite there being precedent for spreading this kind of misinformation."
The armored head of the local Protectorate blushed and he stiffened his body posture. "I...may have made an error in that. Skitter was dressed like a villain, and admitted to working with the Undersiders. She also refused to come in for power testing and wasn't interested in joining the Wards. Later, she contacted me and claimed to be infiltrating the Undersiders in order to take them down from within. Of course, I didn't believe her."
Miss Militia sighed quietly to herself as Emily Piggot showed signs of starting to lose her temper. Piggot said, "While all of that may be plausible, that doesn't explain why you failed to inform anybody of any of that. How do you justify your actions?" When Armsmaster didn't respond, Piggot continued. "I would suspect, Armsmaster, that you found it convenient to take credit for taking down one of Brockton Bay's most dangerous criminal capes. It also makes me wonder what other things have been kept quiet. We WILL talk about this further...but let's get back to the matter at hand. I take it from your words that Armsmaster's interpretation of Skitter's allegiance was incorrect?"
"Her intent was to become a hero," said Saurial, "but her power wasn't especially photogenic, being insect control, and she had massive trust issues for authority for some very valid reasons. Specifically, she was targeted by a severe bullying campaign that ultimately led to her trigger event. The bullying was actively ignored and even actively covered up by the officials at her school."
"Why would they do that?" asked Miss Militia. "I assume she didn't go to Arcadia?"
"No," confirmed Raptaur, "she attended Winslow. The reason why they covered up the bullying and the trigger event is that the perpetrator was Sophia Hess." It was obvious that everybody in the room recognized that name. Luckily, Taylor had given permission to reveal her identity, as it would be difficult to bring Sophia to justice without doing so. "Sophia locked her victim, a girl named Taylor Hebert, in a locker filled with infectious waste collected from the sanitary bins in the girls' bathroom. She was trapped there for hours and hospitalized. She triggered in the locker. The school agreed to cover the medical bills in return for her silence. They don't want to lose the funding that comes from having a Ward at the school, and her handler considers her job a cushy assignment and actively covers for Sophia." Most of the people in the room looked slightly nauseated at that revelation.
Piggot was starting to turn an unhealthy color. "Armsmaster...Miss Militia...I want this investigated. I want to find out what happened with this Herbert girl..."
"Hebert," corrected Saurial.
"Hebert, said Piggot with a nod, "and I want to know what else Hess has been up to. If she's violated her probation like this, I can't believe it's the only thing she's done."
"In our world, she was patrolling on her own with lethal crossbow bolts. There was a pattern of bolt wounds in muggers in the local hospitals," added Saurial.
"Miss Militia, look into that," said Piggot. "Unfortunately, Skitter was killed during Leviathan's attack, but we can still bring Miss Hess to justice. I always said that girl was going to be trouble."
"That's actually incorrect, about Skitter dying, that is," corrected Saurial. "She's the resident of this world that was discovered in another dimension. She actually fell into the path of one of Miss Militia's grenades during the attack."
Miss Militia looked shocked. "The odds of that must be extraordinarily low..."
"Nevertheless," said Raptaur, "it happened. We investigated her circumstances. Our version of Taylor Hebert is definitely not a villain, so we were curious as to what had happened."
"Skitter and the rest of the Undersiders are still wanted for the robbery of Brockton Bay Central Bank," said Miss Militia unforgivingly.
"She is in our protective custody," claimed Saurial. "In return for helping to take down Coil, and for her silence on Shadow Stalker's role in her trigger event, and for helping flip the Undersiders to the hero side, she wants amnesty from prosecution. I will remind you that she did attempt to contact Armsmaster prior to the robbery, and he dismissed her." The man in question grimaced again. He was likely in for an extremely unpleasant tirade from the Director in the near future.
Despite all of that, Piggot still prevaricated. "We will take that into consideration." Legend looked as if he was about to speak, but stopped himself.
"Unfortunately, you don't have a lot of time to make decisions. The bank robbery was a distraction. While it was happening, Coil's mercenaries kidnapped the mayor's niece," said Saurial.
"Dinah Alcott was kidnapped by Coil?" asked Armsmaster. The trail on that kidnapping had already gone cold and was another point of frustration.
Raptaur replied, "Dinah Alcott is a powerful precog in her own right. Coil is in the process of addicting her to a mixture of tinker tech drugs that will make her obedient to him. Once he has her completely under control, taking him down is going to be much more difficult." Raptaur failed to mention that taking out Coil would still be trivially easy for the Family, of course.
"The Undersiders were complicit in kidnapping a young girl?" asked Armsmaster with a hard look.
Raptaur's eyes narrowed at the man. "Coil never told them. He simply asked them to cause a big distraction at a specific time -- a time when he knew the Protectorate would be unavailable. Tattletale chose the bank job as a way of minimizing the risk of casualties, though she wasn't able to predict the presence of Panacea in the bank at the time. Skitter broke with the Undersiders just before Leviathan's attack when she found out, but she was only able to do that because Coil lacked the kind of leverage over her that he had over the others."
"That's convenient, if true," said Armsmaster with a glare.
"They weren't together at the fight," said Miss Militia slightly reluctantly. When the others looked at her, she elaborated. "I saw the Undersiders show up for the fight. Skitter wasn't with them and showed up on her own later."
For the first time, Renick spoke up in the meeting. "It seems as though we can verify a lot of this if we investigate the information we have, and more so if we take down Coil, and it sounds like we need to do it sooner rather than later. We've made exceptions for others with questionable backgrounds." He didn't mention that Shadow Stalker was one of them. They all already knew that.
"Armsmaster and Dragon need to start disabling the booby traps Coil has left throughout your systems. In our world, they created a second, parallel network as a temporary backup. We can guarantee you that we can bring in the Undersiders as long as you're willing to deal with them fairly," said Saurial.
"We would not be happy if that turned out to not be the case," added Raptaur in a tone of voice that sent chills down the humans' spines. Miss Militia actually visibly shuddered.
Renick swallowed and said, "I'm sure we can come to an accommodation." He looked to Emily, who gave him a curt nod. "I am worried, though, about what you said about the explosives in his headquarters."
"We already took care of that," said Saurial with an actual smile. "While we were repairing the city yesterday, we verified that his base is in the same location. We also took the opportunity to disable his explosives."
"How did you do that, and how can you be sure you got everything?" asked Miss Militia skeptically.
"We used the same method we used in our world to break down the explosives into its component chemicals...a targeted micro-organism that does nothing but destroy that specific explosive," said Raptaur.
"You released an untested micro-organism in Brockton Bay?" asked Piggot, suddenly alarmed. The looks on the faces of the others also showed disquiet.
"On the contrary, it was tested and approved by the scientists of the PRT," replied Raptaur. "We will happily provide you with a sample, as well as the test results from our world."
"Unfortunately," added Saurial, "in this case speed is essential, both because of Dinah Alcott and because Coil is planning to release publicly the identities of the Empire 88's capes, which will likely trigger a gang war."
The shocks continued to come. "Why would he do that? That's a serious violation of the unwritten rules." asked Renick.
"We believe that his intent is to get Director Piggot removed so that he can maneuver himself into taking over the local PRT, while simultaneously damaging the gangs that compete against him," explained Raptaur.
Renick frowned and looked to Piggot. "As a former PRT officer and a highly placed consultant, he would be in a good position to take over in the event of a crisis."
"You're the next in line of command," said Legend.
Renick shook his head. "Honestly, in the event of a crisis, I have no doubt Calvert could find a way. I know I'm a capable administrator, but I don't have his political capital. It's also likely that the gangs would lose capes in an all out war, especially if the identities of the most powerful cape gang were public knowledge."
Piggot came to a decision. "Armsmaster, verify what's on that drive. Miss Militia, look into Shadow Stalker's activities. If both of those check out, then we may have no choice but to work with Saurial and Raptaur in order to take down Coil."
"Director, Legend, once you've verified some of our claims, I think you'll be pleased with the aid we can provide in helping to bring in Calvert. We've also included a video on the drive that you'll want to watch," said Saurial with an undeniable smirk.
Emily had the feeling that she was going to find the next few days extremely stressful. She only hoped Calvert really was guilty, as putting him away would make it a fair trade.
As the meeting wound down, Taylor thought, 'Do you think we should take this opportunity to ask this Legend some questions?'
Varga mentally replied, "I think we need to use caution, but I would rather risk it here than in our universe, selfish as that may seem."
'Cauldron may target the Heberts in this dimension by association if it backfires,' warned Taylor.
"By the time we are at that point, I believe most of the people involved will have become convinced that crossing us is spectacularly unwise," answered the demon.
'If they don't, then we'll simply demon-strate why they're wrong,' answered Taylor with a grim determination. She also made a note to force a squeaker on Piggot, as the sick woman was likely to need a healthier constitution rather quickly.
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- Location
- The City of Tears, Hallownest
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What a magnificent way to go about doing such important work!
- Location
- Caribbean
Lolz actually missed that, although that more looks the definition for throwing someone through a portal into hell ala defenestrate
- Location
- Canada
Wow, quick finishing of the latest chapter. Glad to see the latest update. 30 chapters is a massive achievement.
Typically, they're spelled Goa'uld
Why? Why do you inflict such Pun-ishment? :-D
As always, looking forward to more.
Typically, they're spelled Goa'uld
Why? Why do you inflict such Pun-ishment? :-D
As always, looking forward to more.
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Demon-strate, heh. You get a quality pun cookie.
That's Jack (well, robot Jack, but the SG1 replidroids are 'true' copies, so its Jack for all practical purposes) talking though, and he never pronounces Goa'uld correctly, he pronounces it like 'goold' because he doesn't like them and sees no reason not to insult and belittle the snakes at every chance he gets.
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girador
There are only four circles in this picture
- Location
- behind a screen
Meh pretty sure it's just him writing it the way jack is saying it.
- Location
- Canada
Finally someone in charge finding out that Armsmaster isn't to be trusted at least this version sounds like the one who broke the truce just to cover himself with Glory, and then become super hypocrite Defiant. I think this is the first time he's been called out.
This is one of the best omakes. They need to talk to Piggot about Vicky and Amy.
Cool omake.
This is one of the best omakes. They need to talk to Piggot about Vicky and Amy.
Cool omake.
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
There is so much going on, I'm surprised you can keep track of it all and have it be completely enjoyable! Major Kudos on that!
I'm going to call the Buffy/Teal'cBot spar a draw, mainly due to physics and it being friendly.
I like how you had Picard have a French accent. You also had that come across quite well, without phonetics. That takes talent.
So very glad that Armsmaster got spanked. You might want to edit in that Taylor's Skitter outfit wasn't dyed when he met her. It might be fanon, but I seem to remember her wanting to dye it in a shimmery beetle colour of some sort.
Surprised Piggot didn't have a minor heart attack with all the revelations.
As a Fanfic of a Fanfic, 10 out of 10, would read again!
I'm going to call the Buffy/Teal'cBot spar a draw, mainly due to physics and it being friendly.
I like how you had Picard have a French accent. You also had that come across quite well, without phonetics. That takes talent.
So very glad that Armsmaster got spanked. You might want to edit in that Taylor's Skitter outfit wasn't dyed when he met her. It might be fanon, but I seem to remember her wanting to dye it in a shimmery beetle colour of some sort.
Surprised Piggot didn't have a minor heart attack with all the revelations.
As a Fanfic of a Fanfic, 10 out of 10, would read again!
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
The 'plain simple tailor's' name is 'Garak'.