Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I have put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)

Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course

The Ghost in the Team

Jack had been through a lot in his time as the leader of SG-1, and had read some interesting reports passing across his desk after he'd been promoted to head of Homeworld Command- the stuff he'd received when he was looking up additional information on Spike had kept him up for a couple of nights as he tried to go over it all; if a vampire was joining his old team, he was going to make sure he knew something about the guy-, but this was definitely one of the more complicated situations he'd been in.

He might know what they were apparently trying to do and why they were doing it, but he still didn't know where Daniel actually stood in this whole situation; he might have restricted his activities since breaking out away from the anti-Prior device to beaming away the Odyssey crew and taking Jack away with him, but the fact that he was a Prior in the first place still wasn't making Jack entirely comfortable with this whole mess.

As much as he wanted to believe in his friend, the stakes were just too high…

Then the Odyssey had come out of hyperspace to find themselves facing two Ori battlecruisers around the Supergate, and Jack's fragile hopes were dashed; one battlecruiser was something he might have anticipated, considering that the Sangraal was being built on one, but two was something he wasn't ready for.

"I was afraid of that," Daniel said solemnly. "Adria must have anticipated my plan."

"They're gonna detect us," Jack said, looking anxiously over at his friend; their ship-building capabilities might have come a long way since the days when the Prometheus could bypass the Replicators' sensors because it was so primitive, but they were definitely no match for even one Ori ship in a fight, never mind two…

"We're cloaked," Daniel said casually.

"This ship doesn't have that," Jack pointed out; he might not pay attention to all of his briefings, but he knew that he would have remembered installing a cloaking device on the Odyssey.

"It does now," Daniel said. "Having a ZPM helps."

With nothing else to say to that, Jack glanced around the bridge, trying to see if any of the monitors indicated that something was different about it, but all seemed to be in order based on what he could see from his current seat…

"When the time comes," Daniel said, standing up and walking to the forward section of the bridge, "give the order to Daedalus."

"We'll see," Jack said, stuck for anything better to say as his friend and former teammate activated a set of controls on a nearby panel and beamed away from the ship.

Whatever was about to happen, right now, it was all in Daniel's hands…

If there was one thing Spike was grateful of right now, it was the fact that he hadn't been holding anything when they'd been discovered by the remaining Ori soldiers on the ship; he just hoped that Mitchell had managed to get to Vala before the Ori found him (He'd run into the guy after leaving the Sangraal room and directed him back to Vala in case she needed back-up).

Coming out of hyperspace to find the last remaining active Ori battlecruiser waiting at the Supergate might have just been an inconvenience on its own, but when added on to the sudden appearance of Adria and another wave of Ori soldiers they'd missed earlier re-taking control of the bridge, any possible advantage they could gain over Adria had to be a good thing, so long as he found the right time to use it.

He was focusing on giving the impression that he wasn't trying to attack anyone because there wasn't much that he could do in his 'condition', but there was only so much he'd let the rest of the team go through before he'd lash out, and he needed a plan before he tried anything else; if he tried to attack Adria, she might try and hit back on instinct, and then she'd learn that he'd lost his major asset in a fight against her…

Fortunately, Adria's glare was directed away from him when Daniel suddenly appeared in the control room, close to the central chair, hands unthreateningly behind his back and a neutral expression on his face.

"I should never have trusted you!" Adria said, glaring furiously at him.

"They're about to shut down the Supergate and allow our ships through," Daniel said, looking over at Sam, Spike and Teal'c in a disturbingly neutral manner. "They've assembled the weapon, and the Ancients didn't interfere. Right?"

Sam and Teal'c could only stare at the archaeologist in shock, and Spike was suddenly stuck for what to do next; was the archaeologist playing for time, or had he actually betrayed them…?

"You did exactly as I said, right?" Daniel said, his tone persistent as he stared at them.

"Daniel, what are you doing?" Sam asked, staring at him in shock even as Spike began to move; so long as he was careful and focused on the main target, no matter what side Daniel was on, this could still work...

"We can destroy the Ancients right now, and the Ori won't even have to fight," Daniel said, turning back to Adria. "I've done all of this for you."

"Your mind is closed to me," Adria said, after staring silently at him.

"And mine was never open, so that works," Spike commented grimly. As Adria turned to look at the source of the voice, she just had time to see Spike standing behind her, the vampire having moved while she was distracted, before he grabbed her neck and twisted it, stepping back as he heard a satisfying crack to let the Orici fall to the floor in a lifeless heap. Taking a moment to examine the body, Spike raised one foot and stamped down on Adria's head as hard as he could, wincing at the resulting blood and brain matter the impact left on his foot.

It was a decidedly unpleasant way to kill someone, but when dealing with a being with Adria's mental powers and a lack of anything else that he could guarantee would get past her defensive shield, Spike would take what he could get.

"Wasn't sure if she could think faster than I could leap; had to wait 'til she was looking at something else," he said, shrugging slightly as he looked at Sam and Teal'c- they were looking at the fallen Adria in obvious distaste, but nobody seemed to disapprove of what he'd done- before his gaze turned to Daniel. "Uh… you are on our side, right?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, breathing with effort as he moved his hands from behind his back, revealing that one hand held an anti-Prior device. "Was going to take her out… once I'd confirmed this worked… but you beat me to it."

"An impressive plan, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, nodding in approval at the archaeologist before he looked at Spike. "And your own efforts are to be commended, Spike; such an attack was a most… efficient way of neutralising the Orici."

"Thanks," Spike said with a shrug. "Bloody, I know, but I had to be sure-"

His focus shifted back to his friend as Daniel suddenly fell to the ground, prompting Spike and Sam to hurry over to him while Teal'c took up a position that would allow him to keep an eye on his friend and the command centre's door.

"Are you all right, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked, as Sam took the anti-Prior device from Daniel's hand.

"Yeah," Daniel said, gasping weakly as he settled into the chair. "Little dizzy… Look, I don't have much time left. Go arm the device."

"But… hold on, won't we get-?" Spike began, as Sam and Teal'c looked suspiciously at Daniel.

"Jack's on board Odyssey under cloak; he's gonna shut down the Gate and get us off," Daniel said firmly. "Now go!"

Nodding in understanding, Sam set down the anti-Prior device, grabbed her weapons, and she and Teal'c hurried from the room, leaving Spike to look apprehensively between the fallen Adria and the clearly exhausted archaeologist; she might seem dead, but he couldn't be sure with something that powerful, and his friend didn't look that well…

"Jack," Daniel said, as he tapped a button that Spike thought activated a radio, "give the command."

For a moment, there was no response to that request, the archaeologist-turned-Prior lying gasping on the floor as Spike watched, stuck for anything to say, until Daniel spoke again.

"Please…" he gasped, clearly straining to get each word out, "I'm running out of strength to do this!"

After a few more moments had passed with no sign of activity, Daniel sitting in the chair as though every moment was a monumental effort, Spike's gaze shifting between the dead body he couldn't quite bring himself to believe was dead and the massive wormhole before them that continued to remain active, the vampire's anxious waiting finally paid off as the massive blue water-like ring before them vanished, leaving nothing within the Supergate but the view of the stars behind it.

"The weapon's armed!" Vala's voice suddenly came in over the radio. Nodding grimly, Daniel concentrated, and the Supergate began to charge up, the Ori ship moving towards it as a new wormhole formed before them.

"So… we're set to drop this thing off in Ori turf, right?" Spike said, looking anxiously back at Daniel, only to find his friend slumped over in the command chair, head bowed and hands clasping the armrests, apparently exhausted by the effort of what he had just done.

"Daniel?" he said, running over to look at his friend, crouching down to anxiously examine Daniel's pulse; slow, but not at a danger level, and when it came to blood matters Spike knew what he was talking about. He glanced up as he heard approaching footsteps, but relaxed as he realised that it was only the rest of the team; he could probably do some damage to any Ori soldiers, but right now he wanted to make sure his friend was safe.

"What happened to her?" Vala asked, looking over at Adria's battered body while Sam went to check on Daniel.

"Had to bash her brains in to ensure she didn't do anything… Ancient-ish," Spike said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable as Vala looked at him; she might have said she'd be relieved if her daughter died, but it wasn't exactly great news for their relationship if she saw how brutal he could be…

"She's dead?" Vala said, pointedly not looking at Adria's body as she kept her gaze on Spike.

"Brain's… well, it's pretty messed up, I'll say that for definite," Spike said, feeling suddenly optimistic at her obvious refusal to look at her daughter's body. "Not sure what that'll do to someone who's meant to use as much brain as she might be able to, but I think it'll be enough."

"Enough to ensure that she won't be able to Ascend back to life?" Mitchell asked, looking curiously at the vampire.

"However much I took out, if she's not dead already, she won't find it easy to think, I'll tell you that for nothing," Spike confirmed, before turning his attention back to Daniel, who was now very obviously human once again. "How's he?"

"Tired, but I think he'll be all right," Sam said, before she pulled out her radio. "Sir, the weapon's primed and we're all here; beam us out!"

With that command, the room was filled with bright light, and Spike found himself standing on the bridge of the Odyssey with the rest of the team, Jack O'Neill standing at a nearby control panel and the window in front of them displaying the Ori battlecruiser advancing through the Supergate. As the massive ship vanished through the equally large wormhole, the gate shut down, leaving it as nothing more than a circle in space (Albeit an extremely large circle).

"So," Jack said, looking at the rest of his team, "anyone care to fill me in on what happened there?"

"Can we get Daniel to the infirmary before we talk about that?" Sam asked, as she picked him up by slinging one of his arms over her shoulder, Teal'c doing the same with Daniel's other arm.

"Sure thing," Jack said, nodding at his two original teammates. "You get Danny-boy somewhere he can rest; I'll… chat with these guys."

As the astrophysicist and the Jaffa carried the unconscious archaeologist away, Jack turned to look at the remaining three with a slight smile; Spike wondered if he was just uncomfortable talking to the half of SG-1 he hadn't worked with full-time, or if it was something to do with the history of the individuals he was facing.

"OK," the general said after a moment's pause, looking between the three before his gaze settled on Mitchell. "Care to fill me in on what happened over there?"

"Well, sir," Mitchell replied, "we got the weapon together easily enough- Jackson's instructions were fairly clear on that score-, but then we got cornered by a bunch of Ori soldiers led by Adria before we could send any messages about shutting down the gate."

"Adria was holding me, Sam and Teal'c on the bridge when Daniel showed up," Spike said, picking up the story himself as he was the only one of the three present who'd witnessed the most relevant details. "He kept her talking while I sneaked up behind her- he'd brought one of those anti-Prior things along; said he would have attacked her himself if I hadn't beaten him to it- and while she was looking at him, I broke her neck and stamped on her skull."

"Huh," Jack said, looking at Spike in surprise. "Very hands-on, huh?"

"Had to ensure maximum amount of damage; probably would have killed her with a weapon, but I didn't want to risk shooting her in case I didn't damage the right bits of brain or something," Spike explained. "Don't know much about biology, but I've seen enough to know how hardy the brain can be; when we're dealing with someone with those kind of mental powers, best to be thorough."

"Fair enough," Jack said, clearly trying not to look at the vampire's bloodstained boot as he looked at Mitchell. "I assume you activated the weapon?"

"Once Sam and Teal'c took out our guards," Mitchell nodded in confirmation. "We then headed back to the control room, and…"

He shrugged. "Well, here we are."

"OK," Jack said, turning back to look at the deactivated Supergate before them. "So, our Ori presence in this galaxy is now down to one active battlecruiser, one Supergate, and our captured white elephant-"

"White elephant?" Mitchell asked inquiringly.

"It's big, valuable, hard to capture, and inconveniently hard to use for anything useful; it's a white elephant," Jack clarified as he looked at the colonel before his attention returned to the window. "The point is, they're down to just the battlecruiser out there, which means-"

A sudden beeping from a nearby console distracted Jack from his current speech, prompting him and the crew to walk over to the relevant console.

"Communications?" Mitchell said in surprise. "Who'd be calling us?"

"They're not," Jack said grimly as he glanced over the instruments. "If I'm reading this right, we're just picking up a broad-range transmission from that battlecruiser out there; must be trying to find someone to talk to…"

"Shall we?" Vala asked, her hand hovering over the button to accept the transmission.

"Why not?" Jack said after moment's thought, smiling at her. "Might be interesting to hear what they've got to say, anyway."

With that said, Jack reached over and tapped the relevant buttons to activate the video screen, revealing the face of the Prior that Spike recognised from the ship that Vala had been taken to during that whole mess with their first field-test of Merlin's device.

"Hi there," Jack asked, looking casually at the Prior on the screen. "We picked up your message; what's your problem?"

"Where… where are the Ori?" the Prior said, looking somewhat lost in a manner that Spike had never seen him reveal back when he'd last been on the Prior's ship.

"Excuse me?" Spike said, looking at the Prior in surprise.

"They… they are silent," the Prior said, looking almost scared as he spoke. "I am charged with communing with the Ori, but they are now silent, and the Orici is dead… why have our gods abandoned us?"

"Ah," Jack said, looking over at the rest of his team before he looked back at the Prior. "Well, long story short… would you accept that we cut your gods off?"

"What?" the Prior said, looking at Jack with a harsh glare, his initial fear replaced by anger at this statement. "You dare-!"

"Hey, you attacked us first, remember?" Jack said, glaring back at the Prior. "We've got no problem with you guys preaching about Origin most of the time- some of the stuff I've heard about it actually could be pretty good-, but when you start trying to make us worship your gods or we'll end up dead, we're going to take a stand, OK?"

"The word of the Ori must be spread-" the Prior began.

"At the cost of everyone with a different opinion?" Mitchell asked, glaring at him. "You're going to have to think for yourselves now, buddy, so answer this; are you really prepared to go to war and destroy entire planets whose only crime is saying 'No' to your efforts to preach about a bunch of gods who aren't speaking to you any more?"

"We're all willing to consider sharing knowledge and striving towards ascension, but I think we'd all be happier if we were able to get there at our own pace," Vala said, picking up the explanation as she addressed the Prior; only Spike noted that her fingers were crossed as she spoke. "Just ask yourself this; now that the Ori aren't actually… in contact with you… are you that invested in continuing this crusade?"

"Your defiance must be punished-!" the Prior began, his hostile expression suggesting that he hadn't even been listening to what they were saying.

"Once again, you all started attacking us first; it's not like we were already sworn to obey you before you came storming in here wanting to be in charge," Jack interrupted. "I've got a friend who's better at this kind of thing, but what he'd say boils down to this; we should all strive to do better without wanting to kill people for disagreeing."

"Fire!" the Prior said, looking at someone offscreen, clearly angry at Jack's continued defiance. "Fire on that ship at once!"

"My lord Prior," a voice said from off to the side, "they have not attempted to attack us, and are merely talking; should we not at least listen to-?"

"They have defied the word of Origin; they must die!" the Prior said.

"Because we're pointing out things you don't like?" Vala asked firmly. "Where in the Book of Origin does it say anything about burning the unbeliever?"

"The only reason you're asking other people to attack us is that it's the only way you can get your jollies anymore," Mitchell said, smirking at the Prior. "Feeling a bit drained without your gods in your ear, are you?"

"The power of the Ori is with me-!" the Prior began.

"Not any more," Jack said, smiling in satisfaction as he looked at the screen. "We just took your gods out of the picture, which I'm guessing means you're not as powerful as you used to be; you want to do anything, you'll have to do it with your bare hands."

"NO!" the Prior began, storming off the screen, followed by a burst of energy that was clearly a staff weapon being fired. After a moment of tense silence, a man Spike recognised as Tomin walked up to the screen, looking uncertainly at the group of four on the other side.

"The Prior is dead," he said solemnly, looking at Vala in particular as he spoke. "He was… twisting things to suit his own desires; he was not fit to continue in his position."

"Good for you," Jack said with a nod. "I always prefer the subordinates who are willing to tell me I'm wrong rather than the guys who'll just do what they're told without asking questions."

"…Thank you," Tomin said, looking uncertainly at the screen for a moment before he spoke again. "The Ori are… truly gone?"

"We're pretty sure they're gone, yeah," Jack said, nodding at the man.

"But that doesn't mean your entire way of life has to be forgotten, Tomin," Vala put in, looking sympathetically at her husband. "The principles of Origin are good even if the intentions of its creators weren't; focus on the wisdom and morality of the message, rather than rely on the leaders who used it as an excuse to try and conquer anyone who disagreed with them."

Tomin stood in silence for a moment, staring at the screen, before he smiled slightly at her.

"I will… give it some thought," he said, smiling at her. "We shall attempt contact with our home; you will hear from us later."

"Take your time; we're not going anywhere," Jack said, nodding politely at the other man. "Just… don't do anything while you're waiting, OK?"

Nodding in acknowledgement of Jack's request, Tomin ended the connection, leaving the crew to look at each other before Jack shrugged.

"Well," he said at last, smiling at his friends, "I'll just make sure everything's in order here, and then we can head down to check on our recovered archaeologist, huh?"

"Sounds good to me," Mitchell said, the rest of the team nodding in agreement.

After a couple of hours of waiting in the infirmary, Sam, Mitchell and Jack alternating turns to monitor the ship's bridge and the still-operational cloak, Daniel finally began to stir just as they were about to switch roles once more. With the Ori battlecruiser still hovering in position by the Supergate and Earth too far away to be contacted, the rest of the team had simply taken up positions around the infirmary to wait for Daniel to recover, talking about various things to keep themselves occupied before the archaeologist recovered.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Jack said, grinning at Daniel as he reached over to tousle the younger man's hair just as Daniel's eyes opened. "What took you so long?"

"What happened?" Daniel asked, looking wide-eyed at Jack.

"Weapon armed, gate dialled, Sangraal sent through, and we just got a call from the Prior on that battlecruiser out there saying that he doesn't hear his bosses anymore before that Tomin guy took him out for being a fruitcake; add in the fact that I smashed Adria's brains in, and I think we call that a win," Spike said, grinning as he looked at the rest of the team.

"Yeah, I remember what happened to Adria," Daniel said, nodding briefly at Spike. "Excessive, but… effective, I'll give you that."

"As we are discussing the weapon, I must inquire about your own well-being, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, looking inquiringly at the archaeologist. "Is Merlin still within you?"

"No, it's just me," Daniel said after a moment's thought. "Merlin's gone. He sacrificed himself for this to work."

"Yeah?" Jack said, standing up as he looked at his friend. "Prove it."

In response, Daniel raised one hand and waved a couple of fingers at Jack.

"What was that?" Jack asked, after a few moments had passed with nothing happening.

"If I was Merlin, you would know," Daniel said, before he looked at Spike. "You said that the Prior on the other ship contacted us?"

"Asked why the Ori had gone silent," Spike replied with a grin. "Guy was ranting about blowing us up until Tomin knocked him out, but he seemed to be doing that mainly out of habit rather than because he genuinely thought the Ori were behind him; I saw the prick in action when Vala got abducted by them when I was turned invisible, and he just seemed to want to blow things up while using religion to give him an excuse."

"Ah," Daniel said, sighing slightly as he looked around the room. "Well, hopefully we'll encounter a few more… reasonable… Priors later; even if they're powerless, they're still leaders."

"From what the one we spoke to said, it sounds like the Priors have been aware of the Ori on some level after they become… well, what they are; they might be more open to listening now that they're on their own," Vala said, looking curiously at Daniel. "On that topic, did you ever…?"

"Hear anything like that?" Daniel finished for her, shaking his head. "There was a sense of pressure sometimes, but Merlin was able to deal with it; I never thought about what it was, so I didn't ask."

"Well, we have hope," Jack said, shrugging out of a lack of anything else to do. "Don't know anything for definite, but we have hope.

"And," Mitchell said, grinning as he looked at his friends, "whatever else we've got to deal with, the Ori soldiers left on this side of the gate are down to one battlecruiser, and not only do we have someone who knows the guy in charge, but we've got enough evidence to suggest that nobody on the home front's going to be that interested in continuing the war because everyone who's meant to be leading the charge is suddenly having a crisis of faith."

"You don't think they'll send more battlecruisers through?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at his new team. "I mean, their gods were commanding them to conquer us…"

"And their 'gods' have all snuffed it without leaving further instructions; I'm willing to bet that the Priors have grown so used to being able to directly chat with the Ori- or Adria, over the last year- that they've not got the nerve to continue something this big on their own," Mitchell said, smiling hopefully at his team. "I mean, considering the lengths they went to trying to keep the truth secret, the Ori probably never bothered preparing for the idea that they might not be there some day, right?"

"We can't exactly get complacent, but if the Goa'uld set any kind of precedent, I'd say you've got a point there," Jack said, nodding in confirmation at the colonel. "I mean, the Goa'uld were all after power, but none of them ever seemed to come up with a plan greater than 'take over everything' even if they adjusted the fine details of how they'd do it; once we took out the 'gods' themselves, their armies always seemed to just stop unless someone gave them something new to fight for, rather than anyone trying to do it themselves…"

"Look, let's stop worrying about what might happen later and focus on the positives, shall we?" Spike said, looking around at the rest of the team. "We launched the Sangraal, took another ship out of this galaxy, I bashed Adria's brains in, and we got our resident archaeologist back; all in all, pretty good day's work, in my book."

"Yeah," Daniel said, smiling slightly as he looked around the team before his gaze settled on Sam, a slight smile on his face as he looked at her, the astrophysicist returning the smile almost automatically before the two of them seemed to realise where they were.

"Well," Sam said, looking at Daniel with a more awkward smile, "it's… it's good to have you back to normal-"

"OK, that's it," Spike said, walking up to Daniel's bedside as he glared between the two scientists. "I get that I've not been here long, and I'm probably about to break various rules, but I've seen enough of this kind of crap- to say nothing of what I've heard from both of you over the last few months- to know that this is the best thing I can do right now."

Before anyone could say anything else, Spike grabbed Sam by the back of the head and practically forced her down towards Daniel, her lips meeting his as she opened her mouth to protest. For a moment, the room was simply frozen in shock at Spike's action, but then Sam and Daniel seemed to realise that neither seemed interested in cutting the kiss short and simply relaxed into each other's lips.

"What?" Spike said, his satisfied smile faltering as he noted the incredulous stares of the rest of the people in the room. "Like I said, I've heard a few things from 'em since I've been here; thought this'd be the best way to cut out the crap."

"Huh," Jack said, looking at the two scientists for a moment before he awkwardly indicated the door. "Well, I'm gonna go… fill out a report."

"I'll do mine," Mitchell said.

"I have business elsewhere," Teal'c said solemnly.

"We'll… do what they're doing," Vala added, grabbing Spike's arm and hurrying down the corridor towards the nearest cabin, Spike allowing himself a broad grin as his last sight of Sam and Daniel confirmed that they had no interest in stopping what he'd started.

It was probably an abrupt decision for him to make for his friends, but when Daniel had been virtually the first thing on Sam's mind during their time in that parallel universe when she wasn't working on getting home, or Daniel asking Spike to give Sam a message if he didn't make it, he figured that it was only sensible for him to give them a chance to cut out the middle-man and get on with things.

They still needed to work out what they were going to do about that last Ori ship, of course, and there was the issue that another galaxy was going to need some time to get back on their feet now that the entities they'd worshipped for millennia didn't exist any more, but Spike would leave that issue to more interested minds; right now, his priority was enjoying his private celebration with Vala before they returned to Earth.

He'd just been part of a team that saved two galaxies from religious oppression by a bunch of highly-evolved beings, he had friends who trusted him, and he was involved with a brilliant, wacky woman who wasn't comparing him to anyone else.

It might have been a bizarre fluke and a mistake on the part of Captain Cardboard that brought him here, and he had spent most of his time as a ghost who couldn't do much of anything, but becoming a member of SG-1 was the best thing that had ever happened to him…

Then Vala pulled him through an open door into a vacant crew quarters, and Spike's only thought, apart from returning her kiss, became making sure they weren't interrupted. As they each reached for a control panel with one hand, Vala's free hand was all but tearing Spike's coat off as Spike practically ripped Vala's BDU top away, the door closing behind them as Spike began to remove her shirt.

He'd never imagined that he could move on from Buffy, and he'd never envisioned his current life, but, for the first time, he felt like he could look to the future and feel good about what was coming up for him.

AN: If anyone feels my idea about the Priors drawing power from the Ori to access their own abilities was a cop-out, I would like to point out that, between 'The Shroud' and 'Ark of Truth', we never actually saw any Priors active, so it's not unreasonable to assume that the Priors were limited in their power following the 'death' of the Ori until Adria ascended to take their place even if they were still following her orders to continue the invasion due to her status as the Orici (If you still doubt this theory, I would like to speculate that the Priors only retained power in 'Ark of Truth' after the Ark was activated because Adria still existed to provide them with energy even if she wasn't able to take independent action and the Priors weren't giving her anything in return)

AN 2: Well, that's the end of that story; hope everyone enjoyed it (I have a plan for a sequel exploring some of the team visiting Los Angeles, but I've got some other things I'd like to finish first; keep an eye out for updates).