A/N: So…it's been a while. Sorry. This story…it's one I need a certain mindset to write, and I sometimes find it hard to get back into that mindset. The disadvantage to reading fanfiction is that we starving writers aren't getting paid, so we don't have to write stuff when we don't feel like it.

On the bright side, I think I've recaptured that mindset, so the former Chapter 12, now Chapter 13, is in development as the first readers arrive to this omake. Yes, you read that right, this chapter is non-canon. It's a what-if scenario that will hopefully make the plot bunnies in my head calm down and let me focus some more attention back onto SG-Harry.

It's also a teaser as to what my plans are for Harry and Atlantis in general, but I promise they won't get lost amid the multiverse in the canon timeline…probably.

SG-Harry Omake 1: What if Altantis visited Earth Bet? (After Harry fixes it up, of course. Wouldn't be fun landing in that hot mess in a 10,000 year old city with engines that can technically function…on a good day.)

Atlantis

Lantea

2011

"And you're sure this…Wormhole Drive will work?"

Harry eyed Dr. Weir as he contemplated the question. He'd learned how to beat around the bush with her during his time on Atlantis, but he'd also learned when to drop the nonsense and be perfectly honest. This was one of those times. "I've run the numbers. There's a less than chance, less than one in a million, that something could go wrong. There's an even smaller chance that something could go so catastrophically wrong that explosions enter the picture. But realistically speaking? I'm confident that this will go without a hitch. I've been consulting Lantis extensively and working on this drive system, both for research and refurbishing purposes, for the last year and a half. Even in the very, very unlikely scenario that something starts to go wrong, I know the systems well enough that I can manage any problems before anyone's life is in danger."

Dr. Weir was quiet as she absorbed that. Then, after several seconds, she said, "Being able to transport Atlantis over such vast distances would be a very valuable tactical advantage for any number of reasons, some of them more administrative than military. But I do feel the need to ask; could you replicate the technology?"

"Of course I could, Doctor, I would just need the right materials," Harry said. Modesty would get him nowhere in this situation. Nor would dishonesty. "But you and I both know that I won't do that. Not until your scientists prove to me that they can replicate the technology. I'll fabricate a beginner's guide to Wormhole Drive FTL, and I certainly won't stop Atlantis staff from studying the drive itself, but I draw the line at producing completely overpowered drive systems for a civilization that already has a way to get everywhere they need to go."

Dr. Weir smiled in understanding; this was a conversation that they'd had in many forms over the years. "I do have to ask, though, as you well know. If I don't ask then the politicians back home will chew my ears off until I do."

Harry matched her smile. "We all have our parts to play, and theirs is to eternally vie for more and more power until they find that there's no more power to be had. But I take it from your tone that you'll authorize a test run?"

Dr. Weir nodded. "I'll work on the official paperwork and letting Stargate Command know we're coming. How long should it be before we can start the test?"

Harry grinned mischeviously. "Give the order, ma'am, and we can be on Earth before you could blink."

Weir blinked, almost carefully, her face going blank. "You're being serious, aren't you?" she asked. She'd learned a long time ago not to doubt him when he got mischievous. And not to take anything he said lightly, either.

"Yes. The drive system isn't exactly voice-activated, but Lantis could override manual controls, provided she receives a direct order from someone she respects."

Weir smiled softly. "Well then. I'll be careful what I say on the subject until we're ready to start the test proper."

Harry nodded. That was one of the reasons she'd earned Lantis's respect.

"Stargate Command, this is Atlantis Home. We're fully checked out, preparing for liftoff."

"…I read you, Atlantis Home. Safe travels, and we'll see you soon."

Harry grinned. "Here's hoping, Walter. We need to get out of the gravity well first. Calculating a 4-dimensional trajectory is hard enough without dealing with that can of worms."

Suddenly, O'Neill's implacably dulcet tones interjected. "Cut the chatter, Atlantis home. If you're free enough to be chatting about your 4th-dimensional whatevers, you've got the spare time to run one last triple-check."

Harry cleared his throat, just managing to avoid a chuckle at the general's unflappable attitude. "Yes sirree Jack, General," he said aloud. The subspace link cut out in what Harry couldn't help but interpret as an irritated fashion. He grinned again. It'd be a cold day in hell before he treated a General with proper military courtesy, but O'Neil's boundless patience for his antics had long since earned his respect.

"You know, you could follow proper radio protocols, Harry." Dr. Weir said from behind him.

Harry chuckled at that. "They understand the message I was communicating, and that's good enough for me."

He no longer had to look to know that Weir was shaking her head in bemusement. He agreed with the sentiment, though his bemusement came from a slightly different perspective on the situation.

"All right everybody, look alive, I'm bringing the engines online in 5," he said, pushing down the humor in favor of piloting the city-sized spaceship. He'd done some pretty daring stunts in his time, but by his reckoning this beat all of those combined for the sheer spectacle alone.

Sinking deep into Lantis's systems, casually turned on the initial dampers, calibrated them for liftoff velocity, added the appropriate safety margins for sudden engine failure, and then brought Atlantis's long-silent engines to full-bore. The city began to rise at 10 meters per second. He absent-mindedly smiled at the shocked noise the command crew was making at their speed. He might have neglected to give them any accurate idea of just how fast a Lantea-class City-ship could move when adequately motivated.

One voice broke through the chaos, in shrillness as much as anything else, as Rodney exclaimed, "Holy shit! We're accelerating at a little more than one G!" The chaotic noise quieted briefly as the command crew absorbed that, and then began talking amongst themselves more quietly.

"You didn't think they covered the city in a bunker-class energy shield just for shits and giggles, did you?" Harry asked, absently noting the increase in velocity as they crossed into the upper atmosphere and air density dropped noticeably. The inertial dampers automatically increased system loads to compensate, and Harry couldn't help but admire Lantis's incredible aptitude with the city's systems. She could almost fly the city herself, aside from her general inability to perform complex maneuvers or any secondary tasks if she was forced to focus on such a strenuous task. Even Inter was quietly bearing the brunt of Harry's mental load so that he could do more than just pray that the city flew in a straight line and didn't hit anything. Lantis was simply doing the AI equivalent of looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn't somehow mess up while he piloted the honking massive ship whose systems he still didn't fully grasp even with Inter's help.

Honestly, he appreciated the guiding hand. He might be a natural flier, but the difference between a broomstick and a City-ship was so massive it took his breath away to contemplate exactly what he was flying.

Quite suddenly, he noticed that they had left the exosphere and were accelerating toward an eccentric orbit at nearly 3 Gs. He cut the engines, increased the inertial dampers to max, and grinned. "All right. Who wants one last look at Lantea?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, he casually performed a kick-flip turn, inverting the ship in 10 seconds flat. And the only shock he heard from people was because the little blue marble looked small from this distance. Harry shook his head in amusement. Even Rodney's highly analytical mind hadn't noticed the .3G maneuver he'd just pulled.

Well, everyone remembered their first time seeing a planet from space in person, he mused to himself as he carefully maneuvered Atlantis into an Earth-like orbit. This jump would have enough variables without adding orbital velocity into the mix. Think this is far enough, Lantis?

This distance should be adequate. We are orbiting the planet below, but according to my calculations we will arrive in orbit of Earth, so that is ideal. You should, however, adjust our orbital velocity to match something which will keep us in a stable orbit once we reach Earth.

Harry performed a quick mental calculation, and then suppressed a wince. Can't do that. We'd be in an eccentric orbit here, and that'd be no good for having a relatively constant speed on arrival. We'll just have to adjust the wormhole trajectory to compensate.

Lantis blew meaningless static into his head for 1.5 seconds, the digital equivalent of a sigh. You say that as if it will be easy.

Harry grinned. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Lantis was silent for several seconds. You have a point, she allowed.

"All right," Harry said aloud, "we're calculating the trajectory now. We should be ready for Wormhole Jump in…"

30 seconds, Lantis provided.

"…in about 30 seconds."

Dr. Weir raised an eyebrow at him as she turned away from her spot near the exterior window. "And what about your claims that you could do this at the drop of a hat?"

He had made claims to that effect, hadn't he? "Well, we could probably get you somewhere in the neighborhood without any real effort. Lantis still has Earth's location and galactic velocity stored in her memory banks, so we'd only have a margin of error somewhere around…a light year or so, given the time that's passed."

"A light year."

"In any given direction, yes. 10,000 year old navigation data is notoriously unreliable. What we're doing right now is using data I gathered from the Milky Way gate network to get a precise enough read on Earth's current location that we'll leave orbit here and come out in orbit around Earth." Theoretically.

Calculations complete.

Thanks, Lantis. "And we're ready to go. Everybody ready to make history?"

"Didn't the Alterans already use this technology though?" Rodney asked.

Well, not very often, no. But that wasn't the point. "We'll still be the fastest moving object in the entire known universe, matching the speed record set 10,000 years ago. That's historic enough to count in my book."

Adjusting calculations to compensate for elapsed time, Lantis said pointedly.

"Ahem, yes. But in any case, we should really be off." Ready, Lantis?

Yes.

Harry looked to Dr. Weir. "If you would give the official order, Doctor?"

Weir smiled. "Take us away, Harry."

Jump, Harry commanded the Lantean systems. And then the universe folded in on itself.

Vancouver

Earth Bet

2011

Dragon was idly monitoring the S-class threat monitors during the early morning when it happened. There was a sudden alert in the orbital monitoring dedicated to monitoring the Simurgh. A facial expression, and wing movements that looked…defensive? Shocked? Why was the Simurgh frowning?

The question was answered as, mere seconds later, sensors that had last seen use during Professor Haywire's subjugation blared alerts into her systems. A hole in reality had formed in Earth orbit, nearly a quarter of the way around the world from the Simurgh's current position. Even as she activated the Simurgh sirens across all jurisdictions that accepted her influence, she noted a near 16% increase in the Simurgh's confirmed detection range. Primarily because that meant that the Simurgh was perfectly aware of the satellites that monitored her orbits of the Earth, and she hadn't shot them down yet. That probably wasn't a good sign.

10.9283 seconds after the Simurgh alerts went out, the Triumvirate opened a channel.

"Where?" asked Alexandria, wasting no time.

"Orbit," Dragon said, also wasting no time. "And either she's playing to an audience, or the interdimensional wormhole that just opened has her worried."

"Explain," Alexandria ordered. Dragon would have been offended under any other circumstances.

"The detectors that alerted us of Professor Haywire's actions shortly before his death just picked up an interdimensional wormhole in low-earth orbit. Whatever it is, it lasted precisely one second before vanishing, and may have disgorged something during that time. The anomaly was approximately 25 kilometers in diameter."

"Good God," Eidolon muttered. Even Alexandria was speechless for a moment.

"We need exact coordinates for the anomaly," Alexandria stated after taking a single second to gather her thoughts.

Dragon quoted the orbital figures. "I have a satellite telescope moving into position as we speak," she said, "One of the Simurgh detection network. I will have a visual in 5 minutes."

Dragon's facial processing registered a brief hint of reluctance in Alexandria's impassive features. "Keep us informed," the titular Alexandria package said simply, "we'll leave this line open."

Because that was the best even the Triumvirate could do. Even if Eidolon conjured up a power to survive the vaccum of space, Alexandria could neither breathe in space nor fly at orbital velocity, and even Legend had to leave his breaker state to use his lasers. And that wasn't even mentioning the folly in personally investigating something that made the Simurgh nervous.

4 minutes and 55 seconds later, the diverted Simurgh detection satellite rose above the curvature of the Earth and had a direct line of sight on the location of the wormhole. When she saw what had emerged and calculated the approximate size, her software stuttered for a second as it struggled to compensate for the sheer improbability of a city floating in space, surrounded by…was that a force field with a surface area of over 150 kilometers?

Forcibly suppressing the instinct to calculate the absurd energy requirements of such a thing, she spoke into the channel the Triumvirate had left open. "Houston, we have a problem."

Considering the circumstances, she had calculated that humor was necessary to maintain morale.

Harry shook himself blearily. Lantis, was that normal distortion, or did something go wrong?

There was a worryingly long pause. Calculations indicate a 20% likelihood that destination coordinates were reached successfully. Spacetime distortion was .001% outside of established tolerances.

Oh no. Lantis…which variables are off?

Temporal coordinates indicate readings similar to those found in your transdimensional wormhole. All special coordinates, including velocity, have returned no anomalies.

"Fuck," Harry said aloud.

The generally congratulatory air in the command center ground to a halt. "What's wrong, Harry?" the techie on the scanners asked, "I'm reading our current location as Earth orbit, 500 kilometers up."

We're not in Kansas anymore, Harry thought, but damned if it didn't look like they were. "I have reason to suspect that…" he hesitated. Should he voice his concerns aloud? Yes, they would only be hurt worse if they didn't know right away. "…to suspect that we're not in orbit around the correct Earth," he finished.

Dr. Weir's eyes widened, even as Rodney gaped at him. "You mean…" Rodney asked.

Harry locked eyes with Dr. Weir. "There was an anomaly approximately a thousandth of one percent outside of tolerances in the temporal calculations. And rather than travel forward or backward along the timeline, we went sideways, unless I miss my guess."

"…sideways." Dr. Weir said faintly, keeping an admirable amount of composure under the circumstances.

"Yes, Dr. Weir," Harry said, "sideways. I came from an Earth that was all but identical to your own using a 5-dimensional wormhole. Unfortunately, even a 4-dimensional wormhole like the one we used to cross the space between galaxies can exit its timeline of origin if things go exactly right…or in this case, exactly wrong."

Even Rodney looked confused by that, so Harry simplified things. "Time travel is nothing more than exiting the traditional 3 dimensions at one 4D coordinate and entering back into them at a different 4D coordinate. Wormholes, like the one we just used to move the entire city between galaxies, do exactly the same thing, except we calculated the variables specifically to prevent movement through the 4th dimension. But then something pulled us a fraction of a percent off our calculated course through 4D space, which resulted in…a step to the side on arrival, essentially. Correct coordinates in every axis aside from the 4th one."

Dr. Weir's face paled just a shade. "How certain are you of this?"

Lantis? Harry prompted.

I have examined your memories of modern Earth's landforms. The islands you call 'Newfoundland' and 'Kyushu' are both absent from this planet.

Bloody hell. "Dr. Weir, last you heard, Newfoundland still existed, correct? The large island off the East coast of Canada?"

She nodded hesitantly.

"The planet below us doesn't have a Newfoundland. Or Kyushu, for that matter."

"…what?"

Harry looked around, but there were no geography majors on the command crew. He supposed that was fair, considering that Earth geography was worse than useless on an entirely different planet. "Neither island is particular big by American standards, but there are several US states which take up less space than either Newfoundland or Kyushu. If they were present, they would be hard to miss with sensors as sensitive as the ones this city is equipped with."

Dr. Weir was quiet for a long time, and so were the rest of the command crew. He knew how they felt. He had once felt much the same, once he'd realized the final price of his immortality ritual. This situation, however, was different from his in one significant way.

"On the bright side, Lantis calculated the course that brought us here to a degree of precision that means retracing our steps, at the very least back to Lantea, shouldn't be terribly difficult."

There it was, Harry thought as he practically felt the hope return to the room. He understood that hope all too well, because he was experiencing something similar, if tempered by 500 years of failed attempts. This was the hope that, just maybe, there was a way home.

Harry, something is approaching! Something the likes of which not even my creators ever recorded!

Harry sighed. And there it was, every damned time. Just this once, it'd be nice if the proverbial other shoe didn't drop.

Dragon's network notified her instantly when the Simurgh, displaying a worrying disregard for the laws of physics and momentum, abruptly went from orbital velocity on a counterclockwise trajectory to orbital velocity on a clockwise trajectory.

"The Simurgh just pulled a turn that should have generated forces in excess of 1,600 Gs and is heading straight for the city," Dragon informed the Triumvirate. And at that news, even the three most powerful heroes on the planet began to worry. Dragon could relate. If the Simurgh used her telekinesis to fly, as many speculated she did, that meant that she could flatten all but the strongest brutes like a pancake with telekinesis alone, and all her throwing buildings about was nothing more than a façade.

"What is the city doing?" Alexandria demanded.

"Apparently, nothing. It has maintained orbital velocity, but I can't be sure they even know the Simurgh can see them."

Alexandria's eyes narrowed. "You are under the impression that this city is from an alternate reality, and not a Simurgh plot." It wasn't a question.

"It is the most likely scenario considering the structure of the anomaly the city arrived from," Dragon said succinctly.

The Triumvirate shared a glance whose meaning escaped Dragon, and suddenly Alexandria was no longer in the frame of the visual transmission.

"Where did she go?" Dragon asked.

Eidolon's mask turned briefly toward Legend, before the second most powerful parahuman on the planet said simply, "She went to consult the oracle."

Dragon wondered at the fact that Eidolon himself wasn't using a thinker power to serve as the proverbial oracle himself, but was quickly distracted by a sudden explosion of lights from the orbiting city.

Cauldron Base

Unnamed Earth

2011

Alexandria stepped through a doorway even as Contessa said, "The Path is useless."

"What do you mean, the Path is useless?"

Contessa sighed. "There is a man aboard the city. I believe he is manning the helm, in whatever sense a helm exists on a vessel so large. No Path I can create fails to result in my immediate capture by this man through methods which my passenger cannot seem to understand, let alone counter. Any time he captures me, the Path simply ends."

"So it is possible to open a Door on the city, and the city is crewed by humans?"

Contessa nodded.

Alexandria considered what Contessa had told her for nearly a minute, practically a lifetime by her standards, and then left through a Door to the Triumvirate's Endbringer meeting point.

Contessa relaxed. The Path hinted at action by the Simurgh, assuming the interference wasn't from Scion himself, but this was the best course of action she had found. She could only hope that it would work as intended.

"Doorway," she said, and the Doormaker knew where she wanted to go. She'd already spent 5 steps of the plan convincing him that opening the door there was a good idea, after all.

Even as Harry heard the scanner operator notifying the command crew about the incoming object, he was submerging his senses in the readings to examine it for himself. What he found baffled him, and so he ordered Inter to categorize and log each sensor reading, before filtering out all the ones that made sense. Less than 30% of the readings disappeared. Great. He was just beginning to puzzle through the contradictory mass readings two different sensor arrays were receiving when alarm flooded his mind and his attention was forcibly pulled to a small anomaly right in front of the Stargate. Remarkably, even though the anomaly read as a wormhole itself, it hadn't conducted onto the Stargate like Harry's had all those years ago, but that thought was pushed aside as a woman stepped through and the wormhole neatly shrunk into nonexistence. There was really only one option here, under the circumstances.

"Intruder, state your intentions and drop any weapons you possess," Harry demanded calmly. The command crew, who hadn't actually noticed her yet, started at his command.

The intruder, however, merely reached into her jacket and pulled out a single pistol, which she slid across the floor away from her. "I come in peace, seeking aid which I have reason to suspect you can offer," she said.

Harry, there is something guiding the woman's movements, and it is uncomfortably similar to the approaching object.

Without hesitating, Harry apparated directly behind her and cast a binding charm…which she dodged as she calmly turned to him and said, "We do not have time to fight, Harry Potter. The thing approaching this city does not merely cause destruction, but twists the minds of those she fights so that their futures are full of pain for themselves and everyone they love."

Harry paused as he took that in. "Okay, so let's just say you're not playing the long game and planning to stab us in the back when she's about to lose. How do we fight her?"

"I can See many things, Harry Potter. Your arrival here was not one of those things, but neither is the thing that now approaches. All I can do is hope that my previous blindness to your impact on the timeline means that you have enough power to defeat her when the greatest heroes on the planet below have failed to do so in the decade since she appeared to terrorize humanity."

Bloody hell, but Fate never did play a subtle game around him, did she? "All right then. Do you know what must happen next, oh mysterious intruding Seer?"

The woman smiled. "Yes, Mr. Potter, I do. And you may call me Contessa." And then, as Harry was about to escort her to a containment cell, she stepped through another door-shaped wormhole. He caught a glimpse of the exact containment cell he'd been planning on apparating her to before the wormhole closed. Bloody smartarse seers. Lantis, activate that containment cell, and be sure that you add E1 energy to the shield frequencies. That should, theoretically, block her wormholes. But keep an eye on her anyway, just in case she saw that coming and knows how to counteract it.

Lantis broadcast unfiltered amusement into his mind. You are not the first teleporter I have had aboard, Harry. And my creators were no strangers to beings that knew the future.

Right. Harry was still getting used to that. Distance and speed of the approaching object?

300 kilometers, gaining on our orbit by 2 kilometers per second while maintaining our trajectory.

Hellfire and damnation, that should be impossible without…that wasn't important. Harry opened a line to the secondary command room. "Sheppard, prepare for combat conditions and drone support. I'll focus on navigation up here."

"Yes sir," came the response.

Harry apparated back up the command deck. "The incoming object is gaining fast and likely hostile," he said even as he tilted the city away from said threat and increased both the inertial dampeners and engines to full power. A casual subroutine from Inter ensured that their path around the planet would remain circular. "There can be no doubt it's coming for us, because it's matching our orbital trajectory. I recommend a flight of drones for suppression, followed by a diplomatic attempt if conditions allow it."

Dr. Weir considered that, and then nodded.

"Sheppard, one flight for suppression, shoot only to disable," Harry said, quietly instructing Inter plot several hyperspace trajectories around the planet and solar system out of habit.

The flight of drones lit up the sensors as they flew toward the pursuing object. It was in visual range, so Harry projected a magnified holographic view of the object just in front of the command deck. Then he swore profusely as the oddly angelic figure danced through a thousand drones as though they weren't even there. Bloody seers were practically impossible to fight. At least they seemed to be able to slow the angel-thing's gain on them to a mere meter per second. Though it was a truly desperate situation when an enemy gaining ground at a meter per second was the good news.

Inter, hyperjump around the planet in 10 seconds. Lantis, coordinate and input calculations to navigation. It was a tactic he'd used before to great effect. Most people didn't realize that the presence of a gravity well actually made curved trajectories easier to calculate because they'd never been desperate enough to try. Harry…no longer considered such a maneuver an act of desperation.

The drones made admirable attempts to pin down the angel as it chased them, using their small mass and superior numbers to achieve several near-misses. But whatever simulation of reality the thing was using to see the future could apparently calculate multi-phase energy weapon trajectories without batting an eye, and had practice countering swarm tactics. "Sheppard, don't bother. We'll need more than just drones to hit this one."

"What?!"

"Just set them to detonate all at once when we jump, I have plan."

Sheppard barely had time to do so before the city jumped through hyperspace.

Dragon swore viciously in every language she knew, simultaneously. Then she unmuted the transmission to the Triumvirate. "The city just teleported halfway around the planet. They are now in orbit over the Pacific Ocean, assuming their portals preserve momentum. I'll have a satellite in visual range in 3 minutes."

Eidolon swore and Legend grew pale, but Alexandria simply asked, "And the Simurgh?"

"She pulled another 1600 G maneuver and is on course to meet them halfway. Whatever the missiles were, they detonated as soon as the city left the area, and I'm detecting hints of singeing on a few of her longer wings."

Alexandria contemplated that for 2 full seconds. "So they will meet in less than an hour."

Dragon nodded her CG avatar. "Yes, roughly over the Indian subcontinent."

"How many of the parahumans who have volunteered are capable of surviving and fighting in a vacuum?"

Dragon checked the numbers and power classifications. "11, unless you or Legend have been avoiding spaceflight for reasons other than the obvious."

Alexandria, the cape who almost never showed emotion, clenched her teeth in frustration. Then, with a visible effort, unclenched them to say, "Order them to stand down. That would be suicide for everyone involved. Have any blasters who are effective at a distance greater than 150 miles transported to India via Strider."

Dragon checked the numbers. "The only people who will admit to that kind of range are Legend, Eidolon if he gains the right power, and Scion could probably manage it simply because there's nothing we've found yet that he can't do."

Alexandria gave Eidolon a look Dragon couldn't interpret, and then the feed cut out. Checking the connection, she found it was still secure and intact. The Triumvirate had simply stopped broadcasting any useful data.

How rude.

"All right," Harry said after quickly scanning local space to make sure the damn angel hadn't followed them somehow, "We're half of an equatorial orbit away from the object, which I'm going to call the Angel for nomenclature's sake. At current speeds, and assuming the Angel doesn't have any more tricks up its sleeve, we'll intersect her most probable trajectory in…less than 40 minutes. From the engagement, I can tell you with some confidence that she's either cheating by looking into the future or experiencing time at a stupidly dilated rate. Maybe both, who knows. Either way, Atlantean drones are much more maneuverable than anything that size should be, and she was dancing between the raindrops anyway. So…does anyone have a better plan than just running the hell away until the Angel stops following us? Because honestly I have no idea how the Angel is doing half the stuff it's doing, and all I can gather from the things I do know is that the Angel is way too unpredictable and powerful for any location within a light second or so to be what I would call 'a safe distance.'"

Harry examined the command crew as they took in what he'd said. Most of them were civilian staff, and they looked incredibly shaken by the news that the Drone weapons that had once defended their Earth from an entire fleet of warships were essentially useless. Even as worried muttering started to fill the deck, however, Dr. Weir stared him down.

"What are the odds that we'll still be able to find our way home if we run?"

And suddenly, everyone was silent again as they realized the enormity of the implications of such a question.

Harry just grimaced. "Not good. I've spent 500 years trying to find my way back to a single, specific Earth and I've never had any success. I've never had access to a Lantea-class city-ship, either, but I can tell you that running will only add more variables to a set of calculations that are already more complicated than I'm technically qualified to deal with. I can jump all over the galaxy, even the universe, if you give me the right ship. But the multiverse is a different matter entirely."

Dr. Weir visibly braced herself against Harry's answer even as she asked, "And what do you make of our odds in a confrontation with this…Angel?"

Harry sighed as he contemplated the options. Against a Seer like this, with so many anomalous readings? He didn't like those odds at all. "I'm not going to lie; I think we could survive a direct conflict. The Angel is at most 30 feet tall, probably less than that. There's only so much damage something that size can do, theoretically speaking. Unfortunately, the sensor readings make sense literally one third of the time, if that, when we scan the Angel. And given that two different sensors were reading density at wildly different values, it's very possible that there's more crammed into that little package than we can see. Honestly, the only way to tell how effective our weapons are would be to get a solid hit with one, and we won't be able to do that without resorting to tricks that may or may not work."

"What sort of tricks-" but Dr. Weir was cut off as the entire city lurched wildly and everything was suddenly lighter before the inertial strain was compensated once more by the inertial dampers. Harry frowned. The sort of deceleration required to overwhelm the dampers at the level he had them set to should have been functionally impossible to achieve in a city this size.

"What was that?" Dr. Weir asked.

Harry dipped into the sensors to find out, and was completely baffled by what he found. "We've…stopped?" he said hesitantly, furiously double and triple checking the readings, but they didn't change. He ran a diagnostic on the sensors, and it came back green. Bloody hell, they'd gone from orbital velocity to zero in less than a second. In a ship that was 20 kilometers wide. And then Harry realized what else the sensors were telling him, and he began to worry.

Harry hadn't really been worried, before. Even if there was a freaky angelic anomaly that didn't follow any of the laws of reality as he knew them, he'd honestly dealt with worse. They could just hyperjump away and never look back if worse came to worst. But when he saw the second anomaly, a larger-than-life, fat, black-as-midnight humanoid with features that clearly only resembled human ones for form's sake, he began to suspect that this situation would be difficult to escape.

After all, the engines were still running at full power, and this creature had somehow managed to stop them in their tracks with nothing more than an outstretched hand.

Contessa lay in the middle of her cell, idly wondering how badly it would hurt if she touched the energy projected between the bars of her cell. She knew only that the Path told her to avoid touching anything other than the floor, and that she couldn't escape now, she could only wait for a chance to speak to her captors. She had to wait precisely…precisely…oh no.

The sudden lurch caught Contessa by surprise. That, and her Path's sudden lack of reliability, meant that one of four possible threats had just interfered with her future, and she was well and truly on her own. Path to find out who is attacking? Well, that would get her out of her cell, but then the path disappeared into the fuzz she had come to associate with the Endbringers. Path to ask Harry to precisely describe the physical characteristics of the attacker and get a useful answer? Contessa felt her face drain of blood. Atlantis was such a big threat that the Simurgh was calling in help? And from an as-yet-unseen Endbringer? Just how many of them were there?

And that was the question that Contessa truly regretted asking, because this time she got an answer. Apparently Atlantis had sensors capable of detecting the Endbringers while they were dormant. All sixteen of them. And the Harry on that Path took one look at the readings, wished her luck in dealing with that problem, and then began working on a way to get Atlantis out of this universe as quickly as possible. She tried to find a Path where he didn't leave, and the Path once again grew indistinct, but this time as though she were dealing with a hostile Thinker. Further investigation revealed that Harry did, indeed, have a way to combat Seers. And though she tried her hardest, she couldn't find a Path that convinced him to attempt to use those methods on the Simurgh. The Path didn't simply grow indistinct; it split into 27 different Paths as if to illustrate just how many ways there were for her to fail.

The last time the Path had done that, it had seemed to be cautioning her against any kind of direct conflict with Glaistig Ulstaine. The fact that Harry merited a similar response from her Path did not help Contessa's growing panic.

And then the energy flowing between the bars of her cell flickered and disappeared. Contessa jerked up into a sitting position in shock, and saw the very object of her frustration staring down at her.

"…Mr. Potter," she said cautiously.

Harry tilted his head oddly. "You weren't expecting me? That's strange."

Contessa shook her head. "The thing which has stopped the city, we call it an Endbringer. There were three before you came. This is the fourth. It…" for the first time in 20 years, Contessa faltered. She didn't use the Path for everything, not even nearly, but a conversation this important was something she simply wasn't used to doing without help.

"It what?" Harry asked impatiently.

"It…blocks my Path. My Agent cannot predict their movements, and I only know that it isn't one of the three I am familiar with because I asked you to describe it, in one of the Paths."

"Well," Harry muttered, "That's less than helpful." Then, louder, he said, "I don't suppose you know of anyone who can accurately predict their actions, either, do you?"

Contessa's hopeless expression told him everything he needed to know.

"What about engineers? People who could potentially work on the drive system that Atlantis uses to create wormholes, or even just the sublight engines?"

Contessa found a Path almost immediately which allowed her to collect 23 individuals who fit those descriptors. "I know of several, but gathering them would take time."

"How long?"

The Path split when she asked for speed instead of quantity. "Seven within the hour. The rest are all villains, and would take much longer to persuade."

Harry eyed her carefully. "And by persuade, you mean abuse these 'Paths' of yours to the maximum?"

Suddenly, the beginning of all of the Paths she had active began to fade into uncertainty, only returning to normal once she left Harry's presence. Contessa schooled her expression as well as she could under the circumstances. "Yes. I…I suppose you might not approve of the actions I take to see the future come to pass, but I work only to save humanity. When that much is at stake, even a billion lives are a small price to pay." Contessa knew she had misspoken, because abruptly all of her paths went dark, most with odd flashes of red light.

"And what, exactly, are you saving humanity from, Contessa?" Harry asked her in a voice made of ice.

The Path she had seen when she first got her power flashed before her eyes, the Path the Entity had plotted out for itself using the ability to create any victory it wanted.

"Extinction," she said simply, bracing for the red light that had ended her Paths. But suddenly, the Paths flickered back into existence, hardly altered at all, as though nothing had gone wrong. Her eyes widened. "What…what are you?" she asked the man standing in front of her.

Harry sighed, and his expression grew distant. "I guess you could call me Fate's chew toy. I am a wizard who reached for the stars, and then when I finally grasped them, I became a wizard who had lost everything he loved. I don't know what it is that you Saw in my future that scared you so much, but I can assure you that I've survived worse. You don't live to be 700 years old by being easy to get rid of." Suddenly, his eyes refocused. "Which is why I need your help. I don't have the luxury of distrusting you at the moment, and it sounds like you're in just as much trouble as we are. So…I'll leave you to your own devices. Even in the worst case, your fate shouldn't be linked to this city simply because you had the misfortune to be here when it got destroyed. If you decide to help…well, those engineers you mentioned might be useful in the near future. If we survive. So keep that in mind." And then he twisted and vanished with a quiet pop.

Somehow, even despite the absence of any useful Paths to force honesty from the wizard, Contessa knew that he wasn't deceiving her. That thought scared her even more than the revelation that his future changed based on her action in ways even her Path to Victory couldn't account for.

As Harry apparated back up to the command deck, he carefully hid his emotions behind his usual friendly smile. He hated it when Seers looked at him like that. It wasn't even the look of someone who knew all of his secrets, or someone who thought the understood how difficult his life had been. No, that look was the fear that every Seer who had ever examined him for any length of time felt when they realized that he got into and out of dangerous situations like most people drank water: easily and with only minimal choking when he somehow managed to mess up such a simple activity.

Speaking of dangerous situations.

"Lantis, what do you have for me?" he asked aloud, silently encouraging her to share any good news out loud as well. Morale was a valuable resource in situations like this.

"I have determined the method the second entity appears to be using to arrest our motion, and also the reason we haven't yet fallen to the planet below. The entity is using some form of temporal manipulation to accelerate time outside of the city's shield. While we are apparently stationary from our perspective, we are objectively still maintaining orbital velocity on a timescale of approximately 1,000,000 to 1."

Well, that did count as good news. If you squinted. "So we're trapped in a time bubble?" he clarified.

"Essentially, yes. The temporal shield that protects the city from the unsavory results of faster than light travel is keeping our perception of time consistent with the universe outside of the 'bubble,' however, something which I doubt the entity expected."

Yes, that would explain why it hadn't done anything other than hold them in place. It was hoping entropy would to the hard work for it. How ruthlessly efficient. But unless Harry missed his guess, there might actually be an easy way out of this one. "Is the entity keeping itself within the effects of its time bubble?" Weir looked at him sharply, questions clear in her eyes. He ignored her for now.

"No, it is not. However, due to the 'bubble' surrounding our shields, and attack attempting to reach the entity would expire long before getting close," Lantis said, as brutally honest as ever.

Harry grinned. "That, Lantis, is because you lack imagination."

Dr. Weir's face grew guarded as she asked, "Harry, what are you planning?"

"Oh that's simple," he said as he turned to face her, "we just open a wormhole inside the shield and outside of this thing's time bubble and use that to land an attack. Preferably a decisive one, because it's effectively cut off all communications with the outside world and it might be able to pull its time bubble around itself defensively if it realizes we're actually capable of getting attacks past its current defenses."

"Can we actually do that?" Rodney asked, "Stargates don't even work at this range, even if there was another one to connect a wormhole to."

Harry sighed, and then apparated through a classic starburst defense form, as written in chapter 3 of the auror's handbook. Hitting five points of a 10 meter-wide star before rapidly apparating back and forth rapidly between the points so quickly that he almost appeared to be in five places at once. When he finished and apparated back to where he'd started, he simply said, "You seem to be forgetting that I can literally teleport across a planet, Rodney. Getting something to the big black fellow out there isn't the problem. The problem is hitting it hard enough that it lets go."

Rodney, and indeed everyone who'd witnessed his casual apparition in the past, looked no less awed than those who hadn't been aware that he could teleport at all. To be fair, he had just demonstrated one of the most complicated apparition techniques known to the British Ministry without batting an eye, but he'd had a lot of practice over the years.

"Right…" Rodney said, for once unable to come up with a snarky response.

Now…Lantis, do you think we can use the Astria Porta as a delivery mechanism, or is it incapable of projecting wormholes without a fixed target?

Lantis was silent for several seconds, no doubt calculating the answer to that question. It may be possible, she said eventually, but it might be better to generate a wormhole yourself. You would have more control over the resulting folds in spacetime that way.

Bloody brilliant, Harry groused to himself. All right then, blank the shields, he told Lantis, I don't want these things seeing me carve wormhole runes into the city. That would rather give away our plans. And…do you have a way to block the Sight of Seers like the Angel?

Lantis once more projected amusement at Harry. As I said, Harry, you are far from the first of your kind that I have needed to contain.

What? But he was pants at divination! Harry pushed the thought from his mind, resolving to wonder about it later. "Okay," he said aloud, interrupting the quiet conferring that had been going on while he spoke with Lantis, "I have a plan."

Dr. Weir, long used to Harry's hijinks, sighed with relief. "Good. I don't know if we could get out of this without your help this time."

Harry considered that briefly, before admitting, "You probably couldn't. But I'm the one who fixed the wormhole drive and got you into this mess, so it's my responsibility to get you back out of it. And…you might want to gather all personnel to this tower. If the worst should happen, we're going to need to evacuate in a hurry."

Weir nodded. "So what's your plan?"

Harry grinned. "It's actually very simple this time, we wait for the right moment and then hit them as hard as we can…"

"Any news, Dragon?" Legend asked.

"The Simurgh has arrived at the border of the field holding the city in place, and is now hovering in place," Dragon said, wondering what on Earth the two Endbringers were waiting for. "Her wings are still held in a posture I would call defensive, but you know as well as I do how worthwhile that information is."

"Actually, this is the longest the Simurgh has ever maintained a defensive stance," Alexandria said, reminding Dragon that she had a Thinker rating to match her Mover and Brute ones. "It's possible she is genuinely cautious when confronting this city. The Thinker I consulted was of the opinion that any attempt at boarding the city itself would be met with overwhelming force of the likes this Thinker had never seen."

Legend looked at her sharply. "Really? You mean not even-"

"Yes," Alexandria said simply, cutting off Legend's question.

"But what about-"

"Getting aboard was not the problem. Capture was inevitable once boarding had occurred, however, despite the fact that such a thing shouldn't be possible."

Dragon didn't fully understand what Alexandria was saying, but from Legend and Eidolon's shocked looks she gathered that this 'oracle' of theirs had never given such a bleak prediction. Interesting.

"Wait, something's happening," Dragon said, "the city's shields just turned opaque!"

"The Simurgh also shifted her head," Legend said. The Triumvirate was watching the live feed from the satellite for lack of anything better to do. "I think she's looking at the new Endbringer."

Alexandria's frown, if anything, grew more pronounced. Eidolon looked lost. Dragon, for her part, couldn't help but wonder why the city's shields had only darkened now of all times. Surely if the Endbringers could have blinded the city before, they would have done it? And if it was instead some sort of defensive measure, why had it not been taken earlier?

One of Dragon's sensor's tripped an alert.

"The Simurgh's is moving…she appears to be slowly backing away from the city," Dragon reported.

"So this was a defensive measure?" Legend asked. No one offered an answer. None of them could make heads or tails out of the situation.

And then, quite suddenly, both Endbringers literally exploded, a storm of plasma replacing them at temperatures that even the Sun couldn't match. Dragon frantically reviewed the footage, only noticing on a third viewing that, for a single frame, both Endbringers were bisected by some sort of…portal. "The city just launched an attack on both of the Endbringers at once!" she exclaimed incredulously. Seeing the looks of disbelief from the Triumvirate, she replayed the relevant frames of the live feed. "Do you see the portal appearing in the very last frame before the explosions? If that didn't come from the city, then I'm not a Tinker."

Eidolon frowned, looking back to the live feed, where the explosions where the Endbringers had been continued to block and view of what was happening to either one of them. "Are you telling me that they managed to surprise the Simurgh?"

"The evidence would suggest so, yes," Alexandria said, "And considering that the city could outwit even our strongest Thinker, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised."

Quite suddenly, the city which had for the past 47 minutes hovered in place shot forward at orbital velocities, the shield casually shrugging off the explosion that had replaced the Simurgh. Dragon frantically repositioned her sensors, trying to keep track of the city as it went from stationary into a stable orbit just as suddenly as it had stopped in the first place. She noted almost absently that the field created by the new Endbringer had disappeared, and that there was now simply no trace of either Endbringer anywhere to be seen. And just before the city once more dropped below the horizon relative to her sensors, she saw the shield lose its opacity.

A Doorway opened behind the Triumvirate. A woman stepped through the doorway, wearing a neatly cut business suit and fedora. "The Endbringers have been destroyed. No, I do not know how, you will have to ask the commanders of the City of Atlantis yourself. Now that their shield has been recalibrated to allow communications to escape the city, they can be contacted by conventional means. Doormaker, exit." And the Doorway behind her shifted somehow, revealing a featureless white hallway. The woman stepped through, and the Doorway shrank shut behind her.

Notably, none of the Triumvirate looked terribly shocked by her appearance. "That was your oracle, I presume," Dragon asked.

"Yes," Alexandria said, "And you are the fourth being on the planet to have more than rumors of her existence, so I must request that you keep her existence quiet. I will make it a legal order if I have to, as this is a matter of national security."

Dragon couldn't feel chills, being an Artificial Intelligence. But suddenly, she felt quite unnerved by the idea that the Triumvirate had known, all this time, that legal orders could bind her more strictly than they could any organic being thanks to her father's shackles. "I'll keep my mouth shut, Alexandria. No need to put it in writing. I'm sure you don't want this getting out any more than I do." Or, in other words, now that I know you know, you would be unwise to abuse the shackles placed on me any longer. From the irritated twitch of Alexandria's mouth, Dragon gathered that the message had been received loud and clear. "Now, your oracle friend mentioned that we should get in contact with this city of…Atlantis, did she say?"

Harry carefully picked himself up off the floor. Suddenly resuming orbital velocity had been a nasty shock, but at least it meant that the damned thing holding the city in place was gone. Lantis, any signs the Angel survived? he asked, not wanting to take any chances.

None at the moment, but given how anomalous the readings on it were in the first place, I wouldn't lower your guard if I were you, Lantis said.

Harry nodded in agreement. He wasn't going to be relaxing anytime soon. Probably not until they'd returned to the proper timeline. Because this one had truly terrifying monsters in it, and he really didn't want to stick around to see if any more showed up. After all, if those two were the welcoming party, he didn't even want to think about what the rest of the planet was like.

"What the…Dr. Weir, we're being hailed," the comms officer said.

"We're being what now?" Harry asked, "They send those unholy abominations from hell after us, and only hail us after we've destroyed them?"

"Open a channel, Wesley," Weir said, giving Harry a look. He decided to keep to himself. Unless he was right, of course, because then they'd have bigger problems to worry about. Like just what in the name of sanity those things had even been.

"…on behalf of the planet below, calling the city in orbit, please respond." a female voice said, "I repeat, this is the Triumvirate speaking on behalf of the planet below, calling the city in orbit, please respond."

Well, that was friendlier than Harry had been expecting.

A/N: Did anyone else wonder why the Endbringer with time powers of all things was the one that teleported around the planet? 4th dimensional physics, that's why. Also, if Khonsu wasn't holding back with those polite, slow-moving time dilation fields I'll eat my own foot.

So…this was a long omake. Still, I needed to write this, I think, as much to get an idea of the endgame for Atlantis as to get all the damned Worm plot bunnies off my chest.

Here's hoping you leave reviews and…stuff. Next chapter should, theoretically, be up soonish. Probably.

Best of wishes,

~feauxen