Young Writers Society

I unsheathed my dagger the second the cuffs hit the ground.
Aegeas unsheathed his sword from the body of a Wraith. Upon witnessing his pure elemental ferocity, I elected to assist in clearing out the foes that were a bit further away from him.

I locked my sights onto a Wraith who was preoccupied with firing bolts of light at my companions. I ran at him, and deftly slit his throat as a physical reminder to keep mindful of his surroundings. The black blood splashed into my face, and I was caught off guard by the claws that slashed at my chest.
I did not wait for my vision to refocus. I drove the dagger deeper and deeper into his flesh, until it was irretrievably lodged in his collarbone.

There was nothing like the unique satisfaction of repaying blood for blood.
Normally I was the impersonal brand of murderer, but my ire had been wrought, and my thirst had been whet. I disregarded the shock of my wounds, and the frenzy of desperation. There was no time to lose in waiting for them to wear off.
I drew my preferred dagger, the one I had brought from home, and rejoiced at the chance to christen it once again.

The next Wraith was headed directly for me.
The hand that had been holding a firearm had been blasted off, but the other was still intact, and ready to feed. He lunged.
I lunged at him in return, and deftly ducked under his wide swipe. I went directly for his torso, leaving a sizable gash in the lower abdomen.
I did not wait to see if that was enough to bring him down. I averted another flash of claws, and twirled 'round to his back. I plunged my blade into the side of his neck, severing the tendon. I pulled the dagger out, and kicked his body down, where the severed artery sprayed black blood all over the floor.
This did little to dissuade my nerves, but it did wonders for my vigour.

I allowed myself a brief look at my chest. I couldn't accurately feel just how deep the cuts were, through the pain and shock of it, but they looked fairly shallow. Good.

I surveyed the battlefield, looking out for any companions who required assistance.

Something bizarre was going on here, and he wasn't thinking that just because of the talking bipedal otter. It was all just a little too convenient - a group that had been captured but not feed upon, ones that also seemed to have their weapons still on them from the way they were attacking the wraiths who had just been their captors. To make things even more confusing, there was the wraith who had shouted "Jesus Christ!" after getting hit, and wraiths didn't even know what Christianity was.

Oh, and one of the wraiths had just thrown the dead wraith beside him into a wraith trying to approach the former prisoners. Which was really confusing him, but he wasn't going to question it in the moment. He dodged a couple of stun shots and made his way over to the wraith he had paralyzed.

The wraith was hesitantly pushing himself off of the ground just as he approached. As battles continued on all around them, he came to a stop before the wraith and towered over him. The guard scrambled back in what appeared to be fear, which confirmed his suspicion - he wasn't dealing with a bad guy at all.

"Don't worry," he said, firing two shots from his zat'nik'tel as another wraith lunged at him. The limp body fell to the ground only feet away from him, which caused the wraith he was talking to scoot noticeably farther away. "I won't harm you unless you give me a reason to."

The wraith came to a stop, got to his feet and promptly shot at a wraith that had tried attacking him from behind. What followed the action made his jaw drop in surprise - the wraith turned into something that was decidedly not wraith and not even human.

He's an Asgard?

And he can shapeshift?

Bo had never really been shot by anything quite like that before, but it was almost like being knocked out without being unconscious. He was momentarily surprised when Nadira had the strength to prop up his massive frame - at least, in comparison to hers - but he quickly remembered she wasn't just an average girl. She was a robot. So technically, she was metal. Which made the act still impressive, but it made a little more sense.

He would've laughed to himself, but he couldn't really move. It was really obnoxious actually - to be paralyzed, unable to even praise Nadira for saving him and getting the task done all so quickly and so well. And he wasn't even able to fill up the tense silence to potentially distract her from the stress of the situation either. He mentally sighed, letting himself be dragged by the young girl until finally, as they started getting closer to where they'd left the others, some feeling began to return. It started with his head. He was able to prop it up. And he was able to blink, finally.

"EeeeeeeEEeeeYy," he finally said, starting to roll his head on his neck. "I think I can move again soon, but thanks so much for saving my back back there. Sorry I couldn't keep 'em distracted longer. But man, you're a badass lil chick, Nadira. You took 'em all out like that. Great job."

The sudden sound of Bo talking from behind her almost made her drop him in surprise, but she just barely managed to keep a grip on him. Now that he was giving her praise for something she was never really praised for - seeing that she and Codix just did what they had to in order to survive, and that they were both too busy counting their lucky stars after escaping from dangerous situations - she found herself blushing in embarrassment.

"Thank you," she said, ducking her head down so he wouldn't see how red her face was getting.


Back in the control room, the battle had almost come to an end. Though he was understandably confused about the presence of an Asgard in Atlantis and said Asgard's apparent ability to shapeshift, he was able to put his mind back to the conflict at hand. Soon only one wraith was left standing - the one who had thrown the dead wraith earlier. He had plopped himself down into the nearest chair with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief.

Seeing that the Asgard wasn't trying to attack him, it looked like this wraith was oddly on their side. He couldn't have been like the Asgard; he would have changed his form back to its natural one by then. "Thank you for helping us," the Asgard said from beside him, but his attention was solely on the wraith.

"Who are you?" he asked incredulously, furrowing his brow. He knew the Atlantis expedition had a strange relationship with a wraith named Todd that kept showing up, but he didn't even think this place was his Atlantis.

The fun of dealing with wormholes.

"I should be asking you that," the wraith replied. "You're not supposed to be here."

He wanted to argue that technically none of the people in the room except himself were supposed to be there, but he didn't want to explain alternate realities to a bunch of people who probably wouldn't get it. "I'm Leo," he said. "It's short for Leonardo Cartwright."

"Well, Leo, you can call me Kartiel," the wraith said. "And I'm the god of souls."

He blinked. "...You're a goa'uld?"

"What? No. I'm a god of-"

"Gods are goa'ulds," he said. "Gods don't actually exist."

Aegeas stood in the middle of a pile of bodies, breathing deeply. The last few minutes had been a blur. He'd torn his way through the wraiths, slicing off limbs and removing heads. Soaked in blood, victims at his feet, the red mist kept on consuming his vision and thoughts, demanding more. Though he'd lost both his swords - they were now stuck in the chest of one wraith - he had his fists. And there was one wraith left, resting on a couch.

That wraith seemed familiar. A brief flash of clarity worked its way through Aegeas's mind, sneaking past the loud drum that was his heartbeat. "I know you," Aegeas said, voice stammering and unsteady.

The otter scrunched up his face. "I hate you," he went on, before the clarity disappeared and left him with wrath. "Die.

He lunged towards the wraith on the couch.

Kartiel hopped to his feet and easily dodged the attack. It seemed like he was taking things more carefully now that he only had one body left here, which was one of the strangest things that Codix had ever thought.

"Oh, sh*t," Kartiel said. "I forgot about your anger issues."

What occurred next happened in a blur: Kartiel grabbing onto Aegeas' arm, pushing it behind his back, knocking the otter to the ground and, as a final touch, putting his foot down on his back.

Bo, regaining feeling in his arms, moved his hand to pat her on the head. "You're very welcome," he said with a little smile, patiently waiting for feeling to return to his lower body. "And thanks for carrying me by the way. I know it's not so easy cause I'm so big."

Aegeas, in times like these, was dumb as a brick. He made up for that with pure hatred and sharp reflexes. Now, however, Kartiel moved far too fast for Aegeas to react. One second, the otter was lunging towards Kartiel. The next, the otter was lying on the ground, a foot on his back.

Aegeas struggled, trying to flip onto his stomach and grab the offending foot. But, the more he pushed, the harder Kartiel pushed back. That would've ordinarily made him worse, but he'd just been through the middle of a fight. He'd burned through his adrenaline. The red mist faded from his eyes, accompanied by a darkness that inched towards the center of his vision.

A few seconds later, he slumped over, arms falling to his sides.

In hindsight, I felt as though I had rather overreacted.
I mainly referred to my earlier despaired hysterics, but I felt that my indulgence in my vengeful tendencies was also a little overly passionate. Honestly. The threat of excruciating death was no excuse for hysterics. I felt a little embarrassed for having lost my composure.

When the drama had died down, I approached our new companion and shook his hand. I hoped he was not put off by the black and red bloodstains that drenched my coat.

''Leonardo Cartwright, was it? I'm Boris Dietrich. Much obliged for your rescue, our odds would have been much the worse without your intervention.
There is much I'd like to speak with you about, but I'd best head off to the infirmary to stop this, er, bleeding.''

I looked down, in Aegeas' direction.

''Oh, Aegeas isn't in the best condition either. Would someone kindly help me carry him there? Or will he be alright on the couch?''

Kartiel suddenly gave a sharp cry of pain from where he was standing and clutched his legs, letting out a steady stream of swears underneath his breath.

"I guess ibuprofen doesn't work on wraiths all that well," Codix commented. The response was a glare on Kartiel's part, and another pained noise when he tried to walk over to where the others were. To think that he had been scared of him when they had first met; now he didn't really seem all that terrifying.

"I would bring Aegeas to the infirmary," Kartiel said, wincing as he gently placed his foot down on the stair in front of him, "but this body isn't in good state right now. Could someone else make sure my test subject doesn't die on the couch over there?"

Leo walked over to Aegeas and lifted the otter up with ease. But he tried to find a comfortable way to hold a giant otter, he sent a concerned look in Kartiel's direction. "You said they're your test subjects."

"They are," Kartiel confirmed.

"He cloned us here and put our souls in the bodies of our clones," Codix said, speaking before Kartiel had the opportunity to gloat about his plan. "Apparently we're just a test run for whatever he has planned."

Leo looked between Codix and Kartiel. "I have my zat'nik'tel on me," Leo slowly said. "He's not moving fast. I could just shoot him with it-"

Codix sighed and shook his head. "He'd just leave and find another body to put his soul in." From the look on Leo's face, he hadn't been expecting that particular response. "I could explain it on the way to infirmary-"

"What happened?"

He spun around to see Nadira standing in the doorway of the control room, dragging a mostly immobile Bo behind her. The sight apparently shocked Leo so much that he nearly dropped the unconscious Aegeas. "Nadira!" Codix exclaimed, a grin growing on his face as he rushed over to her. "You're alright!"

"How is she even carrying him...?" Leo asked, bewildered.

Codix glanced behind him at the human. "I'll explain everything on the way to the infirmary, since I think we all could use a little fixing up."

"I'm so confused right now," Leo muttered, sighing.

A lot of things had happened since Raiden was last paying attention. It was as if his body went on autopilot after they put the cuffs on him. And as soon as they were released, he had bolted. He ran straight past, dodging the wraiths and the blasts as Aegeas raged like a mini-hulk.

Once it was all over, he peeked out from behind a pillar.
"Huh. Welp, sorry I was useless guys. I uh...sorta just yeeted out of there." He walked over to them with a hand raised in apology.

Bo was finally able to fully use his arms, and waved with one hand to Codix as he ran up.

"Hey guys, I kinda can't move anything below my waist right now, but I'm slowly regaining feeling. I got shot by some stun gun and my whole body decided to stop working. But Nadira did the thing so the shields should be back up or something. And -" he paused, looking over at the new stranger, and all of the dead wraiths on the floor.

"It looks like you guys uh, had a time in here."

I squinted at Bo, who was looking unusually fuzzy.

"Indeed we...indeed, we did. You performed spectacularly, I'm sure." I told him weakly. I smiled, and turned to Raiden.

"Don't fret about it, everyone came out alive, and with minimal, minimal injury. I'm certainly glad you were not injured, injury is... it's such a bother."

Consarn it all. I was beginning to repeat myself, which was the newest in a series of troubling signs. Which included dizzy, mild lightheadedness, to say the least.

"I really do hate to make a fuss of things, but I...I'd be grateful if we could get going."

"You travel the universe?" Codix incredulously asked as they entered the infirmary a short time later, turning to look up at Leo with wide eyes. They had spent most of the walk filling each other in on what had happened, and now it was Leo's turn to explain just how he had ended up there in the nick of time.

"It's more like the galaxy," Leo sheepishly corrected as he searched the room for a bed to put Aegeas down on. "And it's not as much as I used to - I've been working with a group on Earth for a while, so my exploration's been limited by what missions they give me."

"Were you on a mission when you came here?" Nadira asked.

He shook his head. "I was just coming to get some of my old things from Atlantis. It's been awhile since I was here." He looked at the hallway behind them, nostalgia twinkling in the eyes that were peeking out from behind his sunglasses. "It hasn't changed that much, even though this is a different reality."

Leo finally seemed to find a bed. He carefully brought Aegeas over to it and gently placed him down on said bed; Codix was impressed by how well he was taking the sight of a bipedal otter. But considering that he was used to exploring all sorts of planets, Aegeas probably wasn't the strangest person he had seen before.

As Codix and Nadira waited excitedly by Leo's side, eager to hear more stories about his life, Kartiel moved about in the background. He grabbed a small container filled with a variety of medical supplies. As he brushed past Leo to get to the next bed, the strange stand balancing precariously on the pile of supplies went crashing to the ground. The eight blue stones on top of the platform went everywhere - the floor, another one of the beds and even in Aegeas' hand.

Everyone went to grab the stone closest to them. Kartiel even bent down to grab the one that ended up at his feet, wasting no time in returning it to where it belonged. The others did so as well. It happened so quickly that Codix honestly paid little mind to the incident as Kartiel went to the closest table and started to work on bandaging the wounds in his legs.

"What's the Earth group you mentioned called?" Codix questioned, hoisting himself up onto the nearest bed to Leo. Nadira joined him at his side, also watching Leo with inquisitive eyes.

Leo smiled, gently leaning against Aegeas' bed. "We're called Stargate Command. I'm part of its most active team, SG-1. Some of the most influential people in the stargate program worked there." The smile grew far larger. "I've even got to meet some of my heroes by working there! I met this man who helped free his entire people from an oppressive race, all because he decided to turn against his oppressor and join SG-1. And then I met this famous archeologist who had some pretty interesting theories..."

Leo continued to ramble on, clearly glad to talk about his idols.

Having retrieved some bandages and a wet sponge, I made myself comfortable on the bed adjacent to Bo, and removed my bloodied coat, waistcoat, and shirt. I frowned.
There would be no getting the stains out of those.

''And how are you feeling?'' I asked Bo, as I proceeded to clean myself up.