Young Writers Society

Nadira quickly ducked her head and blushed. "Thanks," she said. "You're cool too, Bo."

Bo grinned. "Aw, shucks. You say that but you haven't even seen my monkey impression."

Codix clung to Kartiel's side. He tried to do it as discreetly as possible so as not to arouse suspicion, but he was absolutely terrified. He had never faced any sort of enemy remotely like the wraiths before him, and he had never had to rely on someone like Kartiel before to make sure things would be alright.

They came to a stop when they were only a handful of feet away from each other. It was far too close for comfort.

"Hello," Kartiel said.

The apparent leader of the group nodded his head in greeting.

"We arrived here on a scouting patrol before you," Kartiel explained when he saw the wraith giving an inquisitive look in the direction of their purported prisoners. "We found this group wandering through the halls."

"I see," the leader said. God, even his voice was terrifying! "Where did you find them?"

Kartiel hesitated. This was something he apparently hadn't thought out prior to this meeting, and Codix wanted to cry out in frustration when he realized he could do nothing to help the situation. "We found them in the control room. They put up a good front there, and managed to wipe out all but the two of us."

The wraith leader mulled over what was said.

"I'd like to see this control room," he said. "It would be useful to have a ship like Atlantis at our disposal, even though ours are far superior."

Atlantis is a ship!?

Kartiel ducked his head. "Of course."


"You have a monkey impression?" Nadira asked, giving a small smile at the joke. She turned her attention back to the hallway they were in as she looked for something that would indicate they had found the right room. They had to be almost there, right?

"Oh yeah," Bo said with a grin. "I'll have to show it to ya after all this."

Uh-oh. Who would've thought that this city could be a ship? It was certainly far larger and more complex than any ship he had ever seen before. The thought startled Aegeas, causing the fur on the back of his neck to stand on end. To say nothing of the fact that Kartiel had just agreed to lead the Wraiths to the control room.

"Let's hope he leads them the wrong way," Aegeas whispered to Boris in a desperate attempt to fight back against the red mist swirling around his eyes. "Or we can hack at them when they get too close to the control room." He desperately hoped Nadira and Bo would fix things before the Wraiths arrived, because neither plan sounded all that great in his mind. Or outside it, for that matter.

I smiled a bitter smile. It was just like Aegeas to try everything, to resist to the very end, despite what he was up against, despite, or perhaps because of, these unknowable demons that resided within him.
I knew that he had only turned to me because of proximity, but it warmed my sorry heart all the same.

If only I knew how to help Aegeas. I wished that I could. I honestly did.
But there was nothing for it. We could not attack, if we could attack, we could not win, and even if we could devise a good plan on our own, we could not safely communicate it. Anything we tried could only be trusted to worsen our odds.

There was nothing for it but to wait, to watch the minimal control that Kartiel held over the situation slowly slip from his hands, to pray for the chariot to slow down, and having that prayer granted, beg it to make haste and deliver us from the languid slog that was this goddamned corridor.

My spirit had left me, and even if I still possessed the will to speak, I had nothing to say. I could only look back at Aegeas in shame.

I hoped that he could see through me, see that he was not alone in this.
But I would not blame him if he saw nothing at all.

Nadira caught sight of the room they were looking for out of the corner of her eye. She immediately made a beeline for it, with Bo hopefully following her. The room wasn't exactly what she had expected - it was just a series of containers with the ZPMs in them, and a small screen in front of it to control the way the system worked - but she didn't spend much time looking it all over. She hurried to a small pile of boxes in the back; she was certain that would be where they were.

But just as she went to open one, she heard footsteps from the hallway outside of the room.

She turned and stared at Bo with wide eyes.

The group of Wraiths had split apart, and now they were heading for them.


Codix was growing increasingly more terrified as they headed towards said control room, because he was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that Kartiel was improvising their entire plan. He wanted to press the button and let everyone go, but he was worried that he would be doing it too soon. They had to wait for the perfect moment. He knew that.

But he desperately wished he didn't.

Kartiel did end up leading them to the control room. Every scenario that he thought of ended poorly. They'd either get killed, actually captured or the control room would get destroyed by the fighting. Even if Nadira and Bo succeeded with their part of the plan, it wouldn't do them any good if the control room was blasted to pieces.

"This is the control room," Kartiel said, gesturing at the devices with a sweeping motion. "I did a small bit of experimenting, but there's still so much I don't know about the functions of Atlantis."

The leader of the wraiths gestured for his men to flank the "prisoners" on all sides, something that Codix was sure would only result in Aegeas growing more and more frustrated with their plan - though he hadn't heard what he had said, it was clear to see that the bipedal otter was far from enjoying this.

He joined Kartiel where the controls were, running his hands across the device. His gaze seemed to linger on the circular device in the center of the room - a stargate, if the information Codix had received back when they first arrived was to be trusted. "That stargate can go anywhere in the universe, can't it?"

Kartiel ducked his head. "I believe so. It is, after all, the lost city of the Ancients. The only thing we would need to achieve such a feat is a fully powered system."

The wraith smiled. "I already have my men on the way there. Though it will take some time to figure out, I'm sure they will be able to restore power to the systems."

Codix's eyes widened in horror behind his mask.

"Good," Kartiel said. "Then we can-"

There was a loud noise from the direction of the stargate. They all turned to watch as the inner ring began to spin. It would pause every few seconds, and one of the lights would glow above a specific symbol before it started moving again.

The wraith leader turned to Kartiel. "Are you expecting more forces?"

Kartiel shook his head just as what looked almost like a burst of water shot out from the stargate. "No."

Codix stared at the stargate. He knew that it was used as a method of transportation, but who could possibly be coming through it?

Bo had heard them too, and was guarding the door with his guns poised and ready. He thought for a moment how, in this situation, he would probably be the only one to suffer if the wraiths got him. Nadira wasn't human, and apparently didn't have a soul for them to feed off - or, not like humans did. Or something. So she would probably be taken captive if they couldn't make use of her as a meal. Which... could arguably be a worse fate.

A fate that he was going to do everything in his power to make sure didn't happen.

Nadira still had her job to do, and he had his. He nodded to her.

"I've got them," he mouthed, barely speaking words. "You do what you gotta do."

Aegeas tried to remember some of the more memorable moments of his life. He'd been tossed into a dresser - which had then been set on fire - in the middle of a coup d'etat. He'd been pulled into a collapsing castle by a bunch of vines. He'd fought in two of the largest battles in the history of the world.

And, somehow, this felt worse than any of those times.

He couldn't find any of his friends. He was surrounded by monsters and people he barely knew, in a place he couldn't begin to fathom. The red mist grew thicker by the second. Aegeas swore he could hear it calling to him. Only the portal that had just appeared was keeping him from shattering his handcuffs and ripping the first wraith he saw to pieces.

Worst case scenario, it was more wraiths. Better case scenario, it was somebody who hated wraiths as much as he did. Best case scenario, it was Kellach.

Hopefully, he could wait long enough to find out.

She nodded, then hurried to open the container. She had to do this quickly, and she had to do this quietly - otherwise she would alert the wraiths to their presence before Bo had the opportunity to surprise them.


They all stood and stared at the stargate, waiting for someone to emerge from the portal. The wraiths all clutched their weapons in preparation of a foe. Codix fingered the device that would set his friends free. If whoever stepped through that proved that they were a foe and not an ally, he would waste no time in pushing the button.

But the person who stepped through wasn't a foe, and they weren't an ally.

The man was a complete stranger. He stood tall and intimidating, his entire outfit black - his long leather jacket, his boots, his pants, his shirt and the sunglasses in front of his eyes were all that color. His face was inexpressive the first few moments. He was trying to digest the sight he saw, while the others were trying to digest the sight they saw.

Then the wormhole closed behind him.

He looked from the immobile rims of the stargate to the group crowded around the controls, and then promptly pulled out a strange weapon Codix had never seen before from the depths of his jacket.

"Let them go," he said.

I blinked, hard. There was a nebulous blue rift pulsing in the middle of the control room. I could have sworn by heaven that the hallucinogens I had taken the previous night had most definitely worn off when I awoke here, hours and hours ago.
Besides that, Kartiel and the Wraith were clearly able to percieve it, so it was most assuredly corporeal.

Then a man, a man stepped out of the portal, nonplussed, dressed stranger yet than anyone else I had met here. I stopped to check, once again, that the others were seeing what I was seeing. Once again, they were.

''Let them go.'' said the dark stranger.

I hadn't the foggiest how he knew just the right moment to appear, what that bloody blue portal even was, if he was somehow part of our plan, or anything.
I did not care. Salvation was nigh, and I was ready to fight for it.
My despair, if not my desperation, had been consumed entirely by feverish hope, and an arduous rage.

With great fervour and renewed spirit, I awaited release.

Aegeas wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but this stranger wasn't it. Dressed completely in black, armed, and threatening the wraiths. If Aegeas had ever recognized that weapon before, he would've assumed that this person was an ally. At that moment, he couldn't tell. For all he knew, even if the stranger did fight off the wraiths, he could be just as horrible as the wraiths and Kartiel. And this nightmare would keep going on.

He closed his mouth; he hadn't even realized he'd been laughing. Aegeas blinked the tears from his eyes. Fortunately enough, they took away some of the red mist in the process.

Bo didn't dare peek his head out for fear of being seen, since he was already terrified of being sensed as it was. He didn't know enough about his enemy to know anything other than what he had going for him was surprise, if they didn't know he was already there.

He took in a few slow, deep breaths as he tilted his head up to quiet his breathing. He listened closely for the steps... heavy feet against the metal floor were easy to hear as they marched forward in a unified pattern.

Though he would've wanted to look back at Nadira, just to check, he couldn't bring himself to. His focus remained solely on the proximity of the enemy and just how quickly he needed to -

there. They were just about to pass the door, and Bo caught sight of the first one in the lead, ahead of four others. They were even more ugly and horrifying than he could've imagined. It was nothing like Star Trek, or the things he'd see in Star Wars. It was more like some sick combination of the two with vampire aesthetics thrown into the mix. But nonetheless, he leapt out at them, and he shot at the lead Wraith's feeding appendage (he didn't know what to call it, he just knew that's what it was) and blasted it into a bloody, stubby, mess.

He knew he had only about two seconds before they would charge him, and potentially overcome him. He shot at another. He didn't miss. That meant three still had the ability to feed, but the other two would just be like fighting really strong people. Or at least, that's what he told himself.

He backed up quickly, sending out more shots, though with less accuracy as the five began to advance. That's when he pulled the smaller, high-tech gun, and aimed it with one hand while he used the big gun as something of a shield.

Several of them began to shoot at him, and he knew he couldn't stay by Nadira anymore. He dodged, barely, and blocked two shots with his gun by some miracle. It made the gun mechanically useless once damaged, but he still used it to deflect the shots. He finally managed to get in a kill shot at one of the Wraith he'd already damaged, but he had to kill them all fast, otherwise, he wasn't going to make it. So he rushed the leader, which - if even for a second - took it by surprise and he made another kill shot.

That leaves three. All within a few feet of him too, since he'd run into the midst of them. Okay, that was dumb. He ran away. A shot zipped past his head. His arm. He shot back, hitting one, but not fatally. He threw himself into the wall, behind a jutting out pillar for cover.

"YA'LL NEED TO CHILL," he shouted, though he knew they wouldn't bother listening to the pleas of their next meal.

He peeked out and sent another shot out. He got lucky. He shot one in the head. But they were coming closer and his cover was only momentary, and his big gun was a lousy shield. At the very least, he was glad he equipped himself with armor.

He waited until they were close. Then he shot out with his lightsaber, and sliced one of them in half. Unfortunately, in the process of doing that, the remaining wraith rushed forward and knocked him down. Mid-fall, he aimed back up at it and shot it's feeding thing. It screeched. He rolled out of the way just in time to miss a shot, but as he hopped up to his feet he felt a hit at a space in his armor, between his shoulder and his chest.

It wasn't like a regular shot. He felt his body begin to feel... paralyzed. In the deciding moment before he fell to the ground, he sent one more shot back at the wraith and yelled.

He shot it through the heart. If it even had one in the same place.

"Nadira!"

"Jokes on you," she wanted to say when the remaining wraiths turned their attentions to her, now that Bo had been incapacitated by whatever they had shot him with. He had to be alright - he didn't look like he was in pain, but he was undoubtedly stunned. But she had to ignore him for a moment and switch out the ZPMs, which was an increasingly difficult task when she was dodging blasts from the stunners of the wraiths.

It wasn't hard to switch them out, thank God. All she had to do was pull one out and put a new, recharged one in. To make things even better, she only had to change a few of them. But apparently the wraiths just couldn't wait for her to finish her task before they started to rush towards her. They were going to go with the shots first, and feeding organs second. As long as she could dodge the shots, she would be good - they wouldn't be able to feed on a giant piece of metal.

She put the last ZPM in. As one of the wraith lunged towards her with feeding organs extended, she grabbed the depleted ZPM and chucked it at his face with every bit of strength she could muster. Considering she was a robot, that was a lot. She grabbed his stunner and made quick work of the remaining wraiths. She didn't know how long she had left, so she had to act fast - just a quick few shots with her blaster, and they were dead.

Now that they had been taken care of, she rushed over to Bo. The paralyzing shot had fully kicked in now, and he couldn't even move. At least he was alive. After a moment of hesitation, she got him to his feet and started to walk him towards the door.

It was time to return to the others.


No one had told him that the once lost city of Atlantis would be swarming with wraiths before he stepped through the stargate. Considering the notable lack of personnel stationed in the control room, and the lack of uniforms of the body, he was beginning to get the feeling that the stargate had malfunctioned.

But before he could even decide if he wanted to remain here or return to the place he had come from, the stargate closed behind him. So he did what he thought was the best option - muster the most intimidating voice he could come up with, and threaten the wraiths with the sole weapon he had on him. Not his best plan, but also far from his worst.

And now the otter man - which was something he needed to address later - was laughing hysterically at what was going on. He must have truly come at the nick of time, although he still wasn't sure how he was going to deal with this.

One of the wraiths joined in on the laughter, though he suspected it was for very different reasons. "You think a weapon like that could defeat us, Alteran boy?" A jab that would have been funny in any other scenario, considering that he easily had thousands of years on the wraith in question.

He didn't answer the question. It was probably rhetorical, anyways. He raised the weapon, shot at the wraith and watched him fall over to the ground with a loud thud. Chaos immediately broke out. As the wraiths fumbled for the weapons, he continued to shoot them down - one shot to stun, and a second to kill.

He aimed for the one standing closest to the group of prisoners. The shot hit its intended target, but just barely. The wraith dived out of the way with a startled cry of "Jesus Christ!" which definitely wasn't something he had expected to hear. But he could worry about that later - there was a clink as the handcuffs were abruptly unlocked, likely by the device that the wraith was holding hitting the ground.

Aegeas stared at his hands. The handcuffs had fallen off. Perhaps the device Codix had been holding had hit the ground when he'd been shot at by the stranger. And that was the reminder the otter needed to tell him that he was a. in the middle of a fight, and b. someone he knew and cared about had just been hurt. Any second now, if he didn't respond, he'd probably get the life sucked out of him by one of the wraiths. There was really only one way to respond in his present state.

"Ugh," he said, as the red mist obscured the last of his vision. "Sorry."

He fell to the ground.

What came up blinked, revealing bloodshot eyes. He swiveled in time to see a wraith lunging for him, feeding organs stretching out. In one quick and fluid movement, Aegeas pulled out his swords, chopped off the wraith's hands, and plunged one sword through the wraith's head.

Yanking the sword out, Aegeas looked for his next target. Fortunately, there were targets all around him. If he had his way, not for much longer.