As people looked at one princess, and then the other…
"My Lady Chancellor!"
Kaep' perked on hearing her signals officer call out. "What is it?"
Eyes locked on him as he saluted her. "Forgive me for the interruption, but the Lady Kachnuk is signalling. She, the Lady Kingch'eng and the Lady K'ekhech are currently approaching on the Lady Kachnuk's star-schooner with friends to assist in this matter."
Everyone blinked. "What the heck could Kyech, Kuohu and Kyekkyek do?" Ataru asked.
The lieutenant stared at him. "Quite a bit, Most Venerable." He then turned back to the Chancellor of the Outmarches. "With your permission, My Lady Chancellor?"
Kaep' nodded. After controls were tapped, a multi-way transmission was opened up. The new image revealed the spacious pilotage of a Noukiite star-schooner, a smaller version of the battle sloops normally used by the Imperial Dominion. Standing there were three very familiar faces to all the Noukiites and their guests. They weren't alone.
"MOM!" Lum cried out.
Staring at her daughter, Redet Chim could only smile, though her eyes were filled with tears of grief and shame. "My beautiful daughter," she said, her voice clear and fully understandable (much to Ataru's surprise given that in all the previous times he had met Lum's mother, he couldn't understand a word she said). "Are you alright?"
Lum blinked, and then her jaw dropped before she gazed on the red-haired Noukiite free warrior in the white-and-grey uniform to her mother's left. "Kyech, what did you do?!"
Seu-P'ye Yesu-Re Hechnich'-K'ekhech — "Kyech" to her closest friends — smiled her normal reserved smile. "Zōju and I simply went to fetch your mothers so that they can learn the truth about what happened to you, Lum."
Ataru and Lum gaped. "OBĀ-SAN?!"
"That's right!"
Everyone blinked as a silver-haired elderly humanoid came onto the screen. "Lady Zōju," Sheko's voice grumbled from the bridge of the Eternal Oath. "Hisri'hilm. You grace us all with your presence."
Hearing that, the Old Lady of the Oak Forest asteroid could only laugh as she gazed on the many images before her. "Stop dipping for compliments, you randy old snake-eater!" she said with a mischievous grin as she gazed with a knowing eye on the Yehisrite overlord — who had the sense to look sheepish — and then she sighed as she focused her attention on Ataru and his companions. "I just discovered what happened with that damned curse I foolishly once forced on poor Lum." She then turned to Kaep'. "With your permission, child, we should move this to the Arizona. Ataru's sister is approaching with the Slayers of Ra accompanying her and there's still the question of the Oath of Zipilna that needs to be addressing."
Sheko perked. "Excuse me, my Lady, I mean no offense, but…'Slayers of Ra?'"
The Old Lady smiled. "It was a group effort."
On Arizona, passing Uranus' orbit…
Daniel clicked his tongue. "We're known, Jack."
"So I noticed," Jack said with a grin.
"Indeed."
Guess who that was?
A half-hour later…
"Oh, mighty Prince of Princes, this lone warrior humbles herself before you and requests your shield in alliance against enemies that threaten to destroy all those I seek to protect," Hiromi said as she knelt on one knee on the main hangar deck of Arizona before the stern-looking Sheko. Her arms were now splayed out to both sides of her, one of them holding the Dragon Jade, the other a drawn Noukiite sword, a straight, single-edged blade with a chisel-tip similar to that of a katana's. "I seek not a formal absorption of my lands unto your realm. I seek merely a blood-alliance so that those who would destroy us all will face a united front that will overwhelm them all and cast them to the Pits of the Afterworld where they all belong!"
The prince of Kyotos gazed on her for a moment, and then he gazed on his companions. Seeing all of them gaping in awe on seeing that this pale-skinned outworlder knew the ritual greeting of the Oath of Zipilna, he then smiled before drawing one of his swords and resting the flat of the blade on her left shoulder. "That you, Lady Hiromi, come to me of all the potential allies you could have sought throughout the galaxy to plead the case of your world, which now grasps the attention of many selfish and self-centred leaders, does me great honour." Raising his sword, he allowed the edge of the sharp blade to run across his palm, drawing blood to seal the deal. "I accept your offer of alliance and extend the protection of Kyotos over Earth. In this battle, we will march together, we will fight together and if such is our fate, we will all dine together in the Three-Faced One's Court!"
Hiromi gracefully stood, tossing the Dragon Jade in the air. As eyes watched the gold ball soar towards the hangar deckhead, she allowed her now-free hand to slide over the edge of Sheko's blade to draw her own blood. He offered his hand to hers. She took it, tossing her sword to Ataru, who caught it single-handedly as she allowed the Dragon Jade to fall into her now-free hand. As the beautiful crystal began to glow, her own eyes seemed to sparkle with energy. "Then let us have a feast when that day comes."
Sheko blinked, and then he roared with laughter as his companions all clapped hands and slapped each other's backs as they howled their approval at what they had just seen. Watching this off to one side, the members of SG-1 exchanged looks. "Boisterous bunch, aren't they?" Jack mused as Hiromi moved to greet Sheko's companions.
"It is a sacred oath that was just sworn by young Hiromi to the old snake-eater, young man," the aged voice of the Old Lady of the Oak Forest mused as she came up to join them, accompanied by Lum's mother and three other women: Queen Samui; a brown-haired, grey-eyed Fukunokami woman in battle bikini that had been introduced as Benten's mother Shigaten Miroku; and a more graceful-looking version of Mrs. Invader with longer green hair, who had been introduced as Ran's guardian, Seq Yedris. "As long as there aren't those forces on your world that would seek to sabotage it, Earth and Yehisril will become quite close allies." She nodded. "Which is fate, I believe."
"Why are you so convinced, great lady?" Teal'c asked.
A cackle. "Your ancestral race developed in many different ways in comparison to the other sentient hominoids across the local cluster, young Jaffa," the aged sorceress said. "Such is the same on Yehisril. Even if these days, most of them share the same basic attributes, they cling onto their ancestries and ancient traditions with grips of neutronium. I suspect that the United Nations will remain as it is even as Earth expands beyond the frontiers of its solar system. An alliance of independent governments that share certain duties and responsibilities, but always acknowledges the nations as the truly sovereign power, not the planet as a whole."
"And Yehisril is the same way?" Daniel asked.
A nod. "Sixteen principalities. Sixteen imperial princes that decided that having a unifying emperor over their heads was not to the benefit of those they ruled, so they removed him and put in place a lord protector that speaks for all beyond the borders of the Royal Kingdoms, but does not force his will on those within the Royal Kingdoms."
"Especially when the emperor eventually became such a dullard that any true drive for success was being retarded with governmental stupidity," a voice said as Sheko came up to join them, one of Hiromi's arms wrapped around his. "Be wary of that, Lord Colonel O'Neill," he said as he gazed with respect at Jack, who gave him a nod in return. "That you possess the gift of the Stargate to aid your people in advancing beyond the borders of your world is something that can be both a great gift…"
"And an even greater temptation…" Sam added.
"WHAT?!"
Eyes locked on a wide-eyed Invader, who had been grudgingly invited aboard with Fuyu and Yethis (though Mrs. Invader, Samui and Yedris had promised their husbands/brother would be on their best behaviour lest they be turned over to the mercy of the Dragonspeaker). As everyone else waited, the large Oni then pointed at the American colonel. "You have a STARGATE?!" Lum's father bellowed. "When were the Men In Black going…?!"
"Dear!"
He jerked as he felt his wife's icy gaze rake over him. "Behave," Mrs. Invader said with a growl in her voice that made her husband wince and all the other men in the room gaze sympathetically at him. "I'm already upset at you for what you allowed to happen to MY daughter! Don't push your luck!" Her eyes then focused on Yethis. "Ditto with you, sir! If you and your friends didn't push to stop all stargate research, we might have actually met the Terrans on a much more peaceful and diplomatic setting than what that FARCE a year ago ultimately provoked! Believe me, General Lana will be told EVERYTHING of what's been going on here! And I assure you, he won't like it a bit!"
"General Lana is your president?" Sam asked.
"Yes, he is," Mrs. Invader said before she turned back to glare at her husband. "And given how much — pardon me, how LITTLE! — he's been kept up to date with what's been going on with Earth, he'll be quite upset when the full truth of what happened between Lum, Hensō and Hiromi's brother gets to him!"
Invader awked as Yethis shuddered in helpless outrage as they also faced the annoyed glare of Seq Yedris. "Indeed, we'll ALL have to have a long chat with our husbands concerning what happened to our children, Chim," Samui said before she gave her husband a VERY disapproving look. "I'm not sure exactly what made you decide to follow Invader in this matter, husband, but believe me, I will find out."
"So when exactly will the uneducated amongst us learn what happened here?"
Eyes locked on Jack O'Neill, and then Sheko roared with laughed. "Well, since we've got the true formalities out of the way, let's go to the main lounge where Grandmother here can finally tell us what's been haunting my brother and my future sisters-in-law for so long," Hiromi said as she gazed on the Old Lady, who nodded in understanding…
Later…
"Now, let me see if I get this straight: You put a curse on Lum to ensure she'd never know true love all because you never got invited to the BABY SHOWER?!"
The Old Lady sighed. "I agreed, young Jonathan, that was a foolish reason to do something like that," she lamented before Ikusawa Kyōko handed her some tea. Everyone was relaxing in Arizona's main forward lounge. While some of Sheko's aides were chatting with Kaep's companions and the Canadians currently aboard, many sat around the old sorceress as they learned of what happened all those years ago. "Given my power and skill, I am something of a celebrity in the eyes of mainstream Federation social circles. It became quite normal for me to be invited to party after party for all sorts of occasions." She then smiled before sipping her tear. "I actually was looking quite forward to the birth of your daughter, Chim. You and your husband did work long and hard to have her. But then…" She closed her eyes. "It was a rather bad day for me. I had been engaged in deep metaphysical research that didn't bear the fruit that I had hoped it would. And then…" She shrugged. "I heard over the news that Lum had been born. And it just got to me."
"Thus, the curse," Sam said.
"The curse." A pause. "As is done among most mystics in this part of the galaxy, I prepared a controlling orb with the necessary enchantments needed to ensure my wishes were enforced on poor Lum. I then dispatched it to the organization which helps enforce such curses throughout the Federation, the Milky Way 'Curses-R-Us' Management Organization." As Jack nearly broke out in laughter on hearing that title and Ataru simply rolled his eyes, the Old Lady sipped her tea before continuing, "Shortly after, I learned that an invitation to the baby shower HAD been sent, but lost in the mail. So I contacted the people I asked to help in enforcing my curse to cancel it." Another shrug. "And that, I believed, was the end of it. No one would be hurt."
She closed her eyes. "Little did I realise…"
"What transpired?" Teal'c asked.
"Five years ago, the Vosian free warrior Nassur, his wife Cinba and their friend, Shogai Dakejinzō of Fukunokami, came to my home with four devastated young girls," the Old Lady said as she gazed with pain-filled eyes at Lum, Benten, Oyuki and Ran. "And I learned that the curse I thought I had seen cancelled had, in fact, not only been activated, but WARPED into something that was totally beyond even my experience!" She sighed. "After I confirmed what Nassur, Cinba and Dakejinzō knew of those poor girls, we went immediately to the Organization concerning that damned curse. And learned that somehow, some way — when, by all that was truly right and holy in this Universe, that curse should have never BEEN! — the curse had not only been somehow activated, but ENHANCED to a degree that made it unstoppable!"
"How could that have happened?" Daniel wondered.
She gazed on the archaeologist. "How familiar are you with the general concepts of time-travel, young Daniel?" she asked.
A nod. "I understand some basic ideas."
"Good! That makes this easy to explain. The controlling orb that was lost found its way to a garbage dump on Yūbinsei, the base planet of the Galactic Mail Service. There it remained — or, if you may, it WILL remain! — until the middle of the twenty-third century as you tell time. There, it was found by someone."
"And the curse possessed this one?" Sheko asked.
"Yes," the Old Lady replied. "It gave him command of forces that, for the sake of convenience, I will call 'magic.' It also gave him the power of time-travel. So he traversed through the barriers of Time to shortly after the curse had been forged and lost. And since I made the curse to attack Lum…"
"He went after me."
Eyes locked on Lum. "Yes. The first incident happened when you were five or so," the Old Lady said. "He did nothing to you then, I believe. He was a young one, about Tsukihana's age." As eyes locked on Kōgetsuei for a moment, she added, "And in some ways, he was protected by his youth from the curse's power. He would not harm you or see you harmed, Lum. But he would do all to ensure you would be protected, shielded — even ISOLATED if he felt it necessary! — from even the one you loved and who loved you in returned." She closed her eyes. "As I so cursed you."
"So what eventually happened?" Sam asked, her eyes wide.
"Those set of circumstances caused a resonance effect." The Old Lady raised a finger in emphasis. "Remember now, in this case, there are TWO controlling orbs in the same time period. One lost on Yūbinsei. One in the hands of our young time-traveller. Magic seeks like magic to grow and live. And what is more like than two versions of the SAME controlling orb, though one, in a way, had been allowed to fester on some garbage heap for nearly three centuries!" A sigh. "And with a guiding sentience now tied to the curse, it triggered the supporting power provided by the Organization. And the curse that I never really wished was now active upon young Lum."
"So how did it wind up with Lum and her double switching bodies, much less that happening to her three best friends?" Jack asked.
"It was to protect us."
Eyes locked on Oyuki, who had an "I got it!" look on her face. "Oh, I understand!" Ran then breathed out. "If this really happened to us…"
"What have you concluded, Ran Aruka?" Teal'c asked. As he spoke English as his primary Earth language, he always used Western naming conventions, even with those who normally put their family names before their given names.
"It's easy!" the Seishin-turned-Avalonian stated. "Hensō, Kamen, Mienai and Damasu were created to be our literal body-doubles. To stand in our place whenever Nassur or our guardians felt we ourselves were in danger. Now, remember at the time, everyone thought they were just androids. Robots in humanoid form." As the members of SG-1 nodded in understanding as they recalled their own android replicas that had been created on Altair during their first year working together as a team, she continued, "But if the curse was influenced by this boy who wanted to protect Lum, it would look on our doubles' bodies, discover they were organic, and then…"
"We went through our body-swaps," Benten finished.
"Exactly!" Ran shrugged as she waved to her three lovers. "What better way to 'protect' Lum — and us — by…!"
"Making you all disappear. Literally."
People gazed on Sheko. "Exactly," the Old Lady stated.
"So what of this time-traveller?" Sam asked.
A sigh. "From what my own divinations have revealed to me, something happened three months ago that saw the orb from the future destroyed and our time-traveller forever returned to his proper place in the continuum," the Old Lady announced. "But, thanks to his constant trips through time to visit Lum as she matured, the energy in the controlling orb that he had in his possession allowed the other orb's energy to build up to the point where it is now fully self-governing." A shake of the head. "Sadly, the Organization's supporting unit to the curse — the Time Measurement Device that would ONLY activate when the curse itself was activated — has now built up enough power within itself that it could sustain the curse indefinitely."
"Wouldn't destroying the Time Measurement Device help?" Daniel asked. "At least try to find some way to drain it cut off the curse's source power."
A shake of the head. "Sadly, those devices were built in such a way that they can NEVER be tampered with in that manner," the Old Lady stated. "The only true way to forever rid Lum — or rather, rid Hensō — of the curse is…"
"To kill her."
Eyes locked on Jack. "Yes," the Old Lady affirmed with a nod.
"Then the matter is easily resolved."
Eyes locked on Negako as she came up to join them. "How so?" Benten asked.
The grandmaster of Saikō Jinseijutsu turned to gaze on the old sorceress. "The curse you created, Zōju, is locked on Lum's old body, remember?"
Everyone blinked as we…
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