Title: Goa'uld the Vampire Slayer
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author
Spoilers: Post BtVS Chosen and during Stargate SG1 Season 7.
Summary: Before Willow, some Potentials were never Chosen for a very good reason. Here is one of them.
Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to whoever owns them. I'm just too lazy to look up who they are.
She was dreaming. Or was it her host that was dreaming? The question was moot anyway because she wasn't aware enough to tell the difference. She was merely the passive recipient of strange images.
A primitive human girl was battling strange creatures. The creatures were human but somehow not at the same time. They seemed familiar, as if should recognize them. The girl battling them was doing well, but eventually succumbed to superior numbers.
Another girl, bored and surrounded by paper books, was listening to an elderly male human drone on. The man was listing the ways to kill... something. This particular vision had started late in the lecture.
Another battle, this one featuring more girls armed with primitive weapons, most of them bladed in some way. A similarly armed horde of ugly humanoids descended upon them.
Yet another girl, this one was hard to see because of the object held in her hand. The object was even more obscured. Both were because of the near blinding radiance of the object. The radiance grew until there was nothing could be seen but the light.
It slowly dawned on her that the light was no longer being seen with her mind's eye. She was awake.
She sat up in her sarcophagus. Her eyes flashed. Her voice was commanding, arrogant. It was only natural. After all, she was a god.
"Jaffa! Kree!"
***
Her name was Arcana. She was Goa'uld, a god. In her mind, the two were synonymous. Her kind ruled whole worlds. Thousands of mortals served them, living and dying at the whim of their gods. Some mortals were even honored by being chosen as the vessels of their gods essence. Few challenged them, and none in the domains of the Goa'uld.
Although she had heard rumors of Tauri running rampant across Goa'uld space, Jaffa in rebelling en masse against their rightful gods, and powerful System Lords falling from power at the drop of the proverbial hat. But that was all they were to her: rumors. She was supremely unaffected by any of those events.
Honestly speaking, those events had not affected her because she was too minor to be bothered with. She served the System Lord Argus, whose entire domain consisted of one system, which effectively meant one habitable planet. Arcana's own domain consisted of her own personal chambers plus a few labs buried somewhere in a wing of Argus' grand palace. She had a grand total of five mortal worshipers allocated to her by Argus, her personal servants.
But she was a god. So what if her peers thought that she was meek? So what if she was she was at the bottom of the local Goa'uld hierarchy? Being a god was what counted. Really.
***
Her host was dreaming. This sometime happened when Arcana was awake, but the dreaming seemed more constant now. Normally, she wouldn't have let mere dreams bother her, but the constant parade of girls battling strange creatures was distracting. Arcana hoped this didn't mean that her host was becoming defective. She liked this host. After five centuries in this one, she didn't want to break in a new one.
Speaking of distractions, Arcana realized that she should be paying more attention to what she was doing. Looking at the broken memory crystal in her hand, she wondered how it got that way. She couldn't have snapped it in two with her bare hand. The crystals were supposed to be tougher than that.
"My, my, aren't we clumsy today?" someone behind her mocked. The reverberating voice proclaimed the speaker to one her fellow Goa'uld.
"Iago," she identified, turning around to glare at the newcomer. "Don't you have something better to do?" Arcana seriously did not like the other Goa'uld. Iago was a newcomer to Argus' court, his service to another System Lord terminated by the System Lord's death at the hands of the Tauri. That's what he claimed anyway. Personally, Arcana thought it more likely that he had been on the losing side of a coup. Since his arrival, Iago had risen quickly in status. This was mostly because he had something Argus most desired: news.
Sometimes, Arcana thought her lord's priorities were a bit skewed.
"Watch your tongue, girl," Iago sneered back. "You should show your superiors proper respect."
"Oh, I do," Arcana replied sweetly. "I just don't see any of them here." Abruptly, she turned to leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a replacement crystal." She made an imperious gesture of dismissal. "You go about whatever trivial errand Lord Argus has you running."
"Trivial errand is it?" Iago replied to her back, more amused than annoyed. "So says the glorified technician!"
A phrase bubbled up in Arcana's mind, an insult from one of her host's dreams.
"Bite me, Iago!" she called over her shoulder.
***
Although she didn't know it, Arcana's simple insult had created a great deal of concern in "Iago".
Bite me? Bite me? the host wondered. Selmak, where the hell did a Goa'uld that's never been offworld learn to say that?
Calm, Jacob, the symbiote replied. Her master is known as Argus "of the Many Eyes" after all. It should not surprise us that she may have picked up a few phrases too.
Jacob just replied with a mental grunt. Oh, really? Well, mister Optimistic, has it occurred to you that maybe she's figured out that we're Tokra and wants to blackmail us by threatening to reveal to Argus who we really are?
The Tokra were a splinter group of Goa'uld that had splintered away from the System Lords millennia ago. They were nominally "good guys" insofar as that they didn't take unwilling hosts, going so far as to share the "driver's seat". The Tokra were dedicated to bringing down the System Lords, operating mainly by infiltration.
Jacob Carter and Selmak were currently assigned to infiltrate Argus' court. Back in his glory days, Argus was renowned for being a spymaster and information broker among the System Lords. Supposedly, Jacob and Selmak's job was to see how much of Argus' spy network remained and to funnel any intelligence from it to the rest of the Tokra. Personally, both Jacob and Selmak agreed that they had been exiled to this backwater because of major disagreements they'd had with the rest of the Tokra leadership.
Leave the conspiracy theories to me, Jacob, Selmak advised. Besides, how would she know that we're Tokra?
Because of our chosen alias?
Jacob, most of the Tokra wouldn't recognize Shakespeare if you hit them over their collective heads with it, Selmak argued. And I seriously doubt that there are any closet thespians among the SG teams.
Still, we ought to keep an eye on her, Jacob said, just in case.
Of course.
Still, she is unusually sassy for a Goa'uld.
Don't get attached, Jacob.
***
The memory crystal was forgotten.
Jaffa were training in one of the many palace courtyards. From the sidelines, Arcana watched in fascination as Argus' First Prime put the Jaffa through their paces. She had seen Jaffa training a thousand times before, but it had never grabbed her attention before.
The Jaffa were doing hand to hand and close staff combat today. Arcana could not help but compare their technique to that of the girls in the dreams. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of staff play, and even a few Intar blasts. Intars were training weapons, firing a nonlethal bolt of energy that hit like a hard punch. Several stray bolts shot this way and that. One even came straight toward Arcana.
Without even thinking about it, Arcana leaned over at the waist. The Intar bolt shot harmlessly through the space she just occupied, expending itself on a convenient wall.
The training came to complete halt.
"Milady! Forgive us," Argus' First Prime called, dropping to his knee in submission, his subordinates following suit. What was his name again? Arcana realized that she had never bothered to learn. It never seemed important before.
Of more concern to Arcana was how she dodged the energy bolt. It was like nothing she had experienced before except... in the dreams.
Hmm...
"You, Jaffa," Arcana said, pointing to the First Prime. "Attack me."
"Yes, milady!" he said fervently. "But it was a training accident you see..."
"Jaffa! I told you to attack me!" Arcana commanded, eyes flashing as she assumed a classic ready combat stance. "Now, obey your god!"
"Er, yes milady," the confused First Prime said as he rose to his feet. "Is milady feeling well?"
Arcana flashed a most unGoa'uld-like grin.
"Five by five."
***
Arcana was down on her knee, head bowed in submission.
"You summoned me, milord?"
"Yes, Arcana," Argus replied. "Tell me what you have been doing to my Jaffa for the past week."
"I have been training with them, milord."
"Is that what you call it?" Argus growled. "While you are allowed to punish Jaffa for minor transgressions, what you are doing goes too far."
"Milord? It is only combat training, not punishment," Arcana protested.
"Indeed? And why is it that most of the Jaffa that have 'trained' with you come away with debilitating injuries?" Argus asked, glaring at Arcana. "At this rate, I will soon no longer have a Jaffa army! I cannot have that, not with Anubis attacking every minor System Lord he can find."
"Milord..."
"Be silent!" Arcana complied, practically radiating annoyance. "From now on, you are no longer allowed to 'train' with the Jaffa. Is that understood?"
"Yes, milord."
***
"Bang! You're dead."
"Milady?" the startled Jaffa guard said, spinning around when he was tapped on the back of his head.
"You're a poor guard, Jaffa," Arcana scolded him. "You must be more watchful."
The poor guard gawked as she strode off. How had she gotten behind him? His back had been to a blank wall.
***
"...heard the latest?"
"What is she doing now?"
"She's taken to carrying around a staff weapon, as if she were some common Jaffa."
"No! Is it true?"
The two Goa'uld had names, Selmak was sure of that. Jacob, on the other hand, had decided to nick name them Heckle and Jeckle.
Selmak was feeling a bit of dissonance. Arcana's antics were causing a minor uproar in Argus' court. The Jaffa were all looking shell-shocked. Many of the courtiers were complaining that her behavior "did not befit a god's dignity". As if gossiping like high school girls was dignified. But they were all careful not to say anything to her face.
There was an undercurrent of fear. The general consensus was that Arcana had lost her mind.
Selmak wasn't so sure. While Arcana was behaving strangely, there seemed to be a method to her madness. Aside from the sprinkling of Earthisms that kept creeping into her speech, she sometimes started talking to herself in different languages, some of which Selmak recognized from Jacob's memories of Earth. Something more than simple insanity was at work here.
"Oh, it's quite true," said a third Goa'uld. It was Arcana, joining them. In one hand, she carried what appeared to be a shortened version of a standard staff weapon. "But this a special staff weapon," she continued, the epitome of Goa'uld arrogance, "one fit for a goddess such as myself."
"How so?" Damn. Had he said that?
Arcana smirked at him, holding up the weapon for inspection. She opened her mouth and... was drowned out by suddenly blaring alarms.
***
A tall figure encased entirely in black armor, strolled in through the front gates of Argus' palace. It was met by a hail of staff and zat fire. The armored being hardly noticed being shot at, pausing only to shoot back with its own weapons to clear Jaffa out of the way.
***
"Milord, it is definitely one of Anubis' super soldiers," Selmak told Argus.
"We must get me...er, you out of here," added Heckle frantically.
"Yes, yes," agreed Jeckle. "Your life is most important."
"Of course. Let us..." Argus paused, examining the entire Goa'uld population of his world, all half dozen of them. "Where's Arcana?"
Double doors flew opened. The super soldier strode into the throne room. It raised an arm in their direction to fire.
Dropping from the ceiling, Arcana hit it like a whirlwind.
***
Arcana hit the super soldier with a flurry of kicks, punches, and staff strikes. She had observed that energy attacks were largely ineffective, so she didn't even bother with those. She stuck to the basics. Still, the soldier's armor seemed impervious to her blows. Anubis' super soldier attempted to strike back, but it was slow and ponderous in comparison. Arcana easily evaded its arms.
With a single command, blades sprouted on one end of her weapon, turning it into an axe. She tested the blades against the armor, trying both blows and slices.
The soldier was definitely Goa'uld. She could feel it. But there was something off about it.
In the back of her mind, her host's dreams continued unabated. Over the past few weeks since these dreams had started, Arcana had managed to discern a pattern to them. Although sometimes nonsensical, they always presented some means of defeating an opponent. Right now, there was a running deluge of images of girls fighting different kinds of armored opponents.
A hard blow to the leg caused the soldier to stagger, even limp momentarily. Seeing that, Arcana suddenly discerned the meaning of the dreams. The soldier's armor wasn't all rigid. The flexible parts may stop penetration, but were less effective against blunt trauma. She could do blunt trauma.
Dropping in front of the soldier, Arcana lashed out with a foot She struck the soldier's knee hard enough that it broke with an audible snap, actually bending backwards. She rolled out of the way as the soldier toppled forward. Arcana brought her weapon's blade down on the back of the soldier's neck with all her might.
The head did not fly off. The blade did not find a seam between the soldier's helmet and the rest of its armor.
Its neck did snap however, killing the Goa'uld wrapped around its spine.
***
Arcana slid the memory crystal into its slot. It lit up like it was supposed to.
"That was an impressive bit of fighting you did the other day," came Iago's voice.
"Of course it was," Arcana replied without looking as she continued working. Modesty was not in any Goa'uld's nature.
"I'm curious about something, though," Iago continued. "Given everything you can do, why haven't you deposed Argus and taken over?"
Arcana paused what she was doing and looked over her shoulder at Iago. "What makes you think I need to?" She went back to work. "Besides, he knows things. Argus of the Many Eyes watches everything." She paused again. "Hey, does that make him a Watcher?"
She burst into a giggling fit, amused at some joke that Iago was not privy to.
***
Slayer.
Argus knew he had a Slayer on his hands. He knew the legend of the Slayer, learned millennia ago when the Goa'uld had ruled the world of the Tauri, Earth as it was called now. A Goa'uld had once before attempted to possess a Slayer. That way had led to madness and death.
But Arcana's host had been activated as a Slayer while possessed. As such, Arcana had struck a balance with her host's Slayer nature, becoming a part of it even. She still seemed to have been driven half mad.
Still, the Slayer selection mechanism should not have chosen a Goa'uld host. Something had changed and Argus didn't know what it was. That was unacceptable to him. He intended to find out what was going on.
Earth, the world where it all began, seemed like a good start.
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author
Spoilers: Post BtVS Chosen and during Stargate SG1 Season 7.
Summary: Before Willow, some Potentials were never Chosen for a very good reason. Here is one of them.
Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to whoever owns them. I'm just too lazy to look up who they are.
She was dreaming. Or was it her host that was dreaming? The question was moot anyway because she wasn't aware enough to tell the difference. She was merely the passive recipient of strange images.
A primitive human girl was battling strange creatures. The creatures were human but somehow not at the same time. They seemed familiar, as if should recognize them. The girl battling them was doing well, but eventually succumbed to superior numbers.
Another girl, bored and surrounded by paper books, was listening to an elderly male human drone on. The man was listing the ways to kill... something. This particular vision had started late in the lecture.
Another battle, this one featuring more girls armed with primitive weapons, most of them bladed in some way. A similarly armed horde of ugly humanoids descended upon them.
Yet another girl, this one was hard to see because of the object held in her hand. The object was even more obscured. Both were because of the near blinding radiance of the object. The radiance grew until there was nothing could be seen but the light.
It slowly dawned on her that the light was no longer being seen with her mind's eye. She was awake.
She sat up in her sarcophagus. Her eyes flashed. Her voice was commanding, arrogant. It was only natural. After all, she was a god.
"Jaffa! Kree!"
***
Her name was Arcana. She was Goa'uld, a god. In her mind, the two were synonymous. Her kind ruled whole worlds. Thousands of mortals served them, living and dying at the whim of their gods. Some mortals were even honored by being chosen as the vessels of their gods essence. Few challenged them, and none in the domains of the Goa'uld.
Although she had heard rumors of Tauri running rampant across Goa'uld space, Jaffa in rebelling en masse against their rightful gods, and powerful System Lords falling from power at the drop of the proverbial hat. But that was all they were to her: rumors. She was supremely unaffected by any of those events.
Honestly speaking, those events had not affected her because she was too minor to be bothered with. She served the System Lord Argus, whose entire domain consisted of one system, which effectively meant one habitable planet. Arcana's own domain consisted of her own personal chambers plus a few labs buried somewhere in a wing of Argus' grand palace. She had a grand total of five mortal worshipers allocated to her by Argus, her personal servants.
But she was a god. So what if her peers thought that she was meek? So what if she was she was at the bottom of the local Goa'uld hierarchy? Being a god was what counted. Really.
***
Her host was dreaming. This sometime happened when Arcana was awake, but the dreaming seemed more constant now. Normally, she wouldn't have let mere dreams bother her, but the constant parade of girls battling strange creatures was distracting. Arcana hoped this didn't mean that her host was becoming defective. She liked this host. After five centuries in this one, she didn't want to break in a new one.
Speaking of distractions, Arcana realized that she should be paying more attention to what she was doing. Looking at the broken memory crystal in her hand, she wondered how it got that way. She couldn't have snapped it in two with her bare hand. The crystals were supposed to be tougher than that.
"My, my, aren't we clumsy today?" someone behind her mocked. The reverberating voice proclaimed the speaker to one her fellow Goa'uld.
"Iago," she identified, turning around to glare at the newcomer. "Don't you have something better to do?" Arcana seriously did not like the other Goa'uld. Iago was a newcomer to Argus' court, his service to another System Lord terminated by the System Lord's death at the hands of the Tauri. That's what he claimed anyway. Personally, Arcana thought it more likely that he had been on the losing side of a coup. Since his arrival, Iago had risen quickly in status. This was mostly because he had something Argus most desired: news.
Sometimes, Arcana thought her lord's priorities were a bit skewed.
"Watch your tongue, girl," Iago sneered back. "You should show your superiors proper respect."
"Oh, I do," Arcana replied sweetly. "I just don't see any of them here." Abruptly, she turned to leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a replacement crystal." She made an imperious gesture of dismissal. "You go about whatever trivial errand Lord Argus has you running."
"Trivial errand is it?" Iago replied to her back, more amused than annoyed. "So says the glorified technician!"
A phrase bubbled up in Arcana's mind, an insult from one of her host's dreams.
"Bite me, Iago!" she called over her shoulder.
***
Although she didn't know it, Arcana's simple insult had created a great deal of concern in "Iago".
Bite me? Bite me? the host wondered. Selmak, where the hell did a Goa'uld that's never been offworld learn to say that?
Calm, Jacob, the symbiote replied. Her master is known as Argus "of the Many Eyes" after all. It should not surprise us that she may have picked up a few phrases too.
Jacob just replied with a mental grunt. Oh, really? Well, mister Optimistic, has it occurred to you that maybe she's figured out that we're Tokra and wants to blackmail us by threatening to reveal to Argus who we really are?
The Tokra were a splinter group of Goa'uld that had splintered away from the System Lords millennia ago. They were nominally "good guys" insofar as that they didn't take unwilling hosts, going so far as to share the "driver's seat". The Tokra were dedicated to bringing down the System Lords, operating mainly by infiltration.
Jacob Carter and Selmak were currently assigned to infiltrate Argus' court. Back in his glory days, Argus was renowned for being a spymaster and information broker among the System Lords. Supposedly, Jacob and Selmak's job was to see how much of Argus' spy network remained and to funnel any intelligence from it to the rest of the Tokra. Personally, both Jacob and Selmak agreed that they had been exiled to this backwater because of major disagreements they'd had with the rest of the Tokra leadership.
Leave the conspiracy theories to me, Jacob, Selmak advised. Besides, how would she know that we're Tokra?
Because of our chosen alias?
Jacob, most of the Tokra wouldn't recognize Shakespeare if you hit them over their collective heads with it, Selmak argued. And I seriously doubt that there are any closet thespians among the SG teams.
Still, we ought to keep an eye on her, Jacob said, just in case.
Of course.
Still, she is unusually sassy for a Goa'uld.
Don't get attached, Jacob.
***
The memory crystal was forgotten.
Jaffa were training in one of the many palace courtyards. From the sidelines, Arcana watched in fascination as Argus' First Prime put the Jaffa through their paces. She had seen Jaffa training a thousand times before, but it had never grabbed her attention before.
The Jaffa were doing hand to hand and close staff combat today. Arcana could not help but compare their technique to that of the girls in the dreams. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of staff play, and even a few Intar blasts. Intars were training weapons, firing a nonlethal bolt of energy that hit like a hard punch. Several stray bolts shot this way and that. One even came straight toward Arcana.
Without even thinking about it, Arcana leaned over at the waist. The Intar bolt shot harmlessly through the space she just occupied, expending itself on a convenient wall.
The training came to complete halt.
"Milady! Forgive us," Argus' First Prime called, dropping to his knee in submission, his subordinates following suit. What was his name again? Arcana realized that she had never bothered to learn. It never seemed important before.
Of more concern to Arcana was how she dodged the energy bolt. It was like nothing she had experienced before except... in the dreams.
Hmm...
"You, Jaffa," Arcana said, pointing to the First Prime. "Attack me."
"Yes, milady!" he said fervently. "But it was a training accident you see..."
"Jaffa! I told you to attack me!" Arcana commanded, eyes flashing as she assumed a classic ready combat stance. "Now, obey your god!"
"Er, yes milady," the confused First Prime said as he rose to his feet. "Is milady feeling well?"
Arcana flashed a most unGoa'uld-like grin.
"Five by five."
***
Arcana was down on her knee, head bowed in submission.
"You summoned me, milord?"
"Yes, Arcana," Argus replied. "Tell me what you have been doing to my Jaffa for the past week."
"I have been training with them, milord."
"Is that what you call it?" Argus growled. "While you are allowed to punish Jaffa for minor transgressions, what you are doing goes too far."
"Milord? It is only combat training, not punishment," Arcana protested.
"Indeed? And why is it that most of the Jaffa that have 'trained' with you come away with debilitating injuries?" Argus asked, glaring at Arcana. "At this rate, I will soon no longer have a Jaffa army! I cannot have that, not with Anubis attacking every minor System Lord he can find."
"Milord..."
"Be silent!" Arcana complied, practically radiating annoyance. "From now on, you are no longer allowed to 'train' with the Jaffa. Is that understood?"
"Yes, milord."
***
"Bang! You're dead."
"Milady?" the startled Jaffa guard said, spinning around when he was tapped on the back of his head.
"You're a poor guard, Jaffa," Arcana scolded him. "You must be more watchful."
The poor guard gawked as she strode off. How had she gotten behind him? His back had been to a blank wall.
***
"...heard the latest?"
"What is she doing now?"
"She's taken to carrying around a staff weapon, as if she were some common Jaffa."
"No! Is it true?"
The two Goa'uld had names, Selmak was sure of that. Jacob, on the other hand, had decided to nick name them Heckle and Jeckle.
Selmak was feeling a bit of dissonance. Arcana's antics were causing a minor uproar in Argus' court. The Jaffa were all looking shell-shocked. Many of the courtiers were complaining that her behavior "did not befit a god's dignity". As if gossiping like high school girls was dignified. But they were all careful not to say anything to her face.
There was an undercurrent of fear. The general consensus was that Arcana had lost her mind.
Selmak wasn't so sure. While Arcana was behaving strangely, there seemed to be a method to her madness. Aside from the sprinkling of Earthisms that kept creeping into her speech, she sometimes started talking to herself in different languages, some of which Selmak recognized from Jacob's memories of Earth. Something more than simple insanity was at work here.
"Oh, it's quite true," said a third Goa'uld. It was Arcana, joining them. In one hand, she carried what appeared to be a shortened version of a standard staff weapon. "But this a special staff weapon," she continued, the epitome of Goa'uld arrogance, "one fit for a goddess such as myself."
"How so?" Damn. Had he said that?
Arcana smirked at him, holding up the weapon for inspection. She opened her mouth and... was drowned out by suddenly blaring alarms.
***
A tall figure encased entirely in black armor, strolled in through the front gates of Argus' palace. It was met by a hail of staff and zat fire. The armored being hardly noticed being shot at, pausing only to shoot back with its own weapons to clear Jaffa out of the way.
***
"Milord, it is definitely one of Anubis' super soldiers," Selmak told Argus.
"We must get me...er, you out of here," added Heckle frantically.
"Yes, yes," agreed Jeckle. "Your life is most important."
"Of course. Let us..." Argus paused, examining the entire Goa'uld population of his world, all half dozen of them. "Where's Arcana?"
Double doors flew opened. The super soldier strode into the throne room. It raised an arm in their direction to fire.
Dropping from the ceiling, Arcana hit it like a whirlwind.
***
Arcana hit the super soldier with a flurry of kicks, punches, and staff strikes. She had observed that energy attacks were largely ineffective, so she didn't even bother with those. She stuck to the basics. Still, the soldier's armor seemed impervious to her blows. Anubis' super soldier attempted to strike back, but it was slow and ponderous in comparison. Arcana easily evaded its arms.
With a single command, blades sprouted on one end of her weapon, turning it into an axe. She tested the blades against the armor, trying both blows and slices.
The soldier was definitely Goa'uld. She could feel it. But there was something off about it.
In the back of her mind, her host's dreams continued unabated. Over the past few weeks since these dreams had started, Arcana had managed to discern a pattern to them. Although sometimes nonsensical, they always presented some means of defeating an opponent. Right now, there was a running deluge of images of girls fighting different kinds of armored opponents.
A hard blow to the leg caused the soldier to stagger, even limp momentarily. Seeing that, Arcana suddenly discerned the meaning of the dreams. The soldier's armor wasn't all rigid. The flexible parts may stop penetration, but were less effective against blunt trauma. She could do blunt trauma.
Dropping in front of the soldier, Arcana lashed out with a foot She struck the soldier's knee hard enough that it broke with an audible snap, actually bending backwards. She rolled out of the way as the soldier toppled forward. Arcana brought her weapon's blade down on the back of the soldier's neck with all her might.
The head did not fly off. The blade did not find a seam between the soldier's helmet and the rest of its armor.
Its neck did snap however, killing the Goa'uld wrapped around its spine.
***
Arcana slid the memory crystal into its slot. It lit up like it was supposed to.
"That was an impressive bit of fighting you did the other day," came Iago's voice.
"Of course it was," Arcana replied without looking as she continued working. Modesty was not in any Goa'uld's nature.
"I'm curious about something, though," Iago continued. "Given everything you can do, why haven't you deposed Argus and taken over?"
Arcana paused what she was doing and looked over her shoulder at Iago. "What makes you think I need to?" She went back to work. "Besides, he knows things. Argus of the Many Eyes watches everything." She paused again. "Hey, does that make him a Watcher?"
She burst into a giggling fit, amused at some joke that Iago was not privy to.
***
Slayer.
Argus knew he had a Slayer on his hands. He knew the legend of the Slayer, learned millennia ago when the Goa'uld had ruled the world of the Tauri, Earth as it was called now. A Goa'uld had once before attempted to possess a Slayer. That way had led to madness and death.
But Arcana's host had been activated as a Slayer while possessed. As such, Arcana had struck a balance with her host's Slayer nature, becoming a part of it even. She still seemed to have been driven half mad.
Still, the Slayer selection mechanism should not have chosen a Goa'uld host. Something had changed and Argus didn't know what it was. That was unacceptable to him. He intended to find out what was going on.
Earth, the world where it all began, seemed like a good start.