Stargate Etheria (Stargate SG-1/She-Ra crossover)

[Lightxdarkwing]

Sea-Ra. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Mermista is going to be salty that she missed this one. Sorry, I'll stop now, this isn't the plaice for water puns.

 

[Starfox5]

Chapter 242: Containment Part 4

PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 23rd, 2002 (Earth Time)

One moment, Adora was trying to recover Castaspella's equipment without damaging it or the plants that had grown around and over it; the next, the Earth split in front of her, and a column of water rose into the sky.

"Mermista?" she blurted out. They had thought about calling her, but calling someone who could control water to talk with magical, possibly sentient - or sapient - water might have been seen as a hostile act.

"No," Catra's voice replied - with a delay - over the communicator. "But I think I'd have preferred her."

"What?" Adora was still staring, the water didn't stop - it looked like it was flowing in place, if that was possible. And she couldn't see what had happened to the trees that had been there. Or the magic crystals and magitech scanners in the area.

"The water has formed a giant figure of you."

"What?" What did Catra mean? Adora looked up. The canopy hid the upper part of the water column, but a giant water figure of herself?

"It's moving!"

And so was the column in front of her - and as it was moving, the trees shifted out of its way. But she saw an enchanted crystal get swallowed up by the water, disappearing from her view.

That couldn't go on. Adora clenched her teeth and jumped to the highest branch she could spot, then jumped again, breaking through the canopy above her - and almost failed to land safely on a treetop at the sight in front of her.

"It really is a water figure of myself!" she whispered. And a giant one - that was… a lot of water. It towered over the forest here as Gaia towered over the trees near her. "They must be a protector!"

"Yeah, we kinda figured that out," Catra replied. "Think you can contact them without a ritual?"

"I'll try." Adora wasn't sure, not at all, but she had to try. And wasn't the fact that the water was using her form a good sign? If it didn't work, they would have to find an alternative, and she didn't think it would be easy to find or create a working ritual.

"Whatever you try, don't jump into the water!" Catra said.

"Ah…" Adora winced. That had been her first idea.

"Adora!" Catra yelled.

"That seems to be a very dangerous plan," Castaspella added.

Adora raised her sword, steadying herself with one hand on the treetop, focused and sent a wave of healing magic up in front of the figure.

The figure stopped moving - flowing - and slowly bent their toros, then her head, to look at Adora.

It was very weird to see her own face, giant-sized and half-transparent, peering at her. And a giant hand reaching for her.

Adora took a deep breath and stood her ground as fingers thicker than tree trunks slowly moved as they descended on her. Was the water trying to pluck her like a fruit?

No, the giant hand slowly turned, and the fingers steadied, forming a platform.

You didn't have to be a linguist to understand. Adora jumped and landed on the palm of the hand before her friends could urge more caution. They had to make contact with this protector before a misunderstanding happened.

"Adora!"

"I'm fine." Adora didn't think the hand could crush her - certainly not before she could jump clear.

The face above her changed her expression into a wide smile, and the palm started to move upwards.

"Don't let them eat you!"

Adora didn't know if water could actually eat and digest anything, but she wasn't going to take that chance. But, so far, at least, it didn't look like the figure wanted to eat her.

Even though they were slowly moving their hand, and Adora with it, closer and closer to their face.

But the mouth kept smiling and didn't open, and Adora found herself at eye level with the water giant wearing her form.

"Don't bring up copyright."

She snorted at Jack's joke but kept her eyes on the water-eyes facing her.

Seconds passed. The face didn't change its expression. The only thing that was moving was the water - and it flowed inside the figure, without changing their form.

"Do you think they can hear you?"

"Water should transmit sound easily, but we don't know if the water has receptors to hear sound. Or the capability to understand the meaning of the spoken word."

"I don't think water, smart or not, speaks our language."

"Can you mime?"

Adora waved. The figure slowly tilted their head slightly to the side and back. It took about half a minute but felt much longer.

"Mimicry doesn't signify understanding."

"At least, they are seeing Adora."

"Or they felt the vibrations from the air. We can't make assumptions about their senses. We do know they react to magic, though."

Adora didn't think waxing and pointing would be much help. She took a deep breath, then knelt and placed her palm on the, well, palm beneath her - and focused on her power. Her magic. Let it swell up - and then released it straight into the water on which she was kneeling.

The magic glowed for a moment, then the entire figure glowed, blinding Adora for a second.

And then the water swallowed her.

Adora tensed at once, holding her breath as the water engulfed her. Then she forced herself to relax. As She-Ra, she could easily walk, jump and fight in vacuum without any problem. This wasn't going to hurt her. But it might hurt anyone else…

"ADORA!"

"I'm OK!" she replied to Catra. She was tugged upward, she realised - carried inside the figure's arm, towards their body. Should she break free? Cut her way free? She didn't think the water could withstand her; few things could.

But she was here to communicate with the water, she reminded herself. Cutting herself free just because the water might not understand how dangerous they were to someone else wouldn't help with that - quite the contrary.

So she let herself be carried up through the arm, into the chest. And then downwards - more rapidly than before. As if she were in a raging river, or a waterfall - she saw the blurred view of the outside change from the sky to the green of the forest, and then to the dark of the ground.

"ADORA!"

She winced at the anxiety in Catra's voice. "I'm still OK!" she replied, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. "I think they're carrying me to meet their core."

"Really? You think they have a core? I was hoping they were an entity made up of networked single drops of magical water. Though a central core would probably be easier to understand. But then, if every drop could represent the whole, they wouldn't have needed to transport Adora anywhere. Except for privacy, I guess," Entrapta spoke up.

"Or to remove Adora from the field before they go after us." Glimmer, as expected, wasn't as optimistic.

"You're about to reach the aquifer we detected before," Bow cut in.

"Give the word, and I'll get you out!" Glimmer added. "We're tracking your position."

Adora pressed her teeth together. Glimmer could aim her teleports with such data, but… it wasn't the most precise method. And while She-Ra couldn't easily be hurt, that wasn't the same for Glimmer. Sheer water pressure could be lethal. And yet… if Adora refused, Glimmer would try anyway. "Alright. Wait for my signal, though."

"Of course!"

Catra just grumbled something Adora didn't catch. She smiled, though - she could imagine what her love had said. Something about idiots.

Then the water stopped dragging her along, and she found herself floating in place - the glowing aura of She-Ra showed that she was in some sort of cave. An underwater cave. For a moment, she wondered what the cave divers she had seen on TV on Earth once would say about this.

Then the cave suddenly got brighter and brighter, the water itself shining - and in front of her, another water figure was formed, made of currents moving fast enough to cause ripples that outlined…

"Another me?" she blurted out. This one was her size, though.

The figure cocked their head to the side, Adora thought she caught a smile, though it was hard to make out expressions on the water-in-water face, and reached out with their hand towards her.

Without thinking, Adora raised her hand as well and shook theirs. Gently.

And her mind was suddenly filled with pictures.

Feet walking through puddles of water. People working in a shallow stream, digging into the sand below. Sweat drops falling onto dry ground. Waste flowing into a river. Rocks forming a dam.

Then sounds joined the pictures. Lightning striking a lake, followed by thunder. A crackling noise, followed by a body falling into a puddle, screaming and twitching. A Goa'uld whip, Adora realised.

More sounds followed. People singing as rain fell on a parched field. People praying as they bowed to some unknown object or person. People crying as a body was carried away in a stream.

Whispers drowned by the sound of boots marching over a muddy field. Engines howling as clouds were pierced by Death Gliders. And a lake rippling, waves crashing against the shore and breaking, as a huge mountain descended from the sky.

A Ha'tak, Adora saw.

Then feelings were added. Pain. Fear. Short bouts of happiness. Relief. But fear and pain, both physical and emotional. Always near or in the water.

"You felt the people, didn't you?" she whispered.

Her friends asked what had happened, but she was focused on the water.

The figure in front of her nodded.

"You're this world's protector."

Once more, the figure nodded, then pointed at themselves and then at Adora with their free hand.

"And you can't speak," Adora added.

The figure nodded again, then tilted their head left and right.

What did they mean? They could obviously hear sound. And water could make a sound when it moved, couldn't it? But probably not enough to form words. And yet… Oh! Adora smiled at them. "Can you use a tablet?"

The figure tilted their head again, and Adora felt confusion.

She spoke into her communicator. "Can you send a bot with a tablet to their hand?"

"What?"

"I want to see if the water can use a tablet," she explained.

"What's the pressure like?" Entrapta asked. "The tablets are waterproof, but they can't withstand too much pressure."

Adora winced. "I have no idea."

"Alright, let's hope that the regular tablet is sturdy enough!"

As it turned out, once Adora had managed to explain things to the water, a regular tablet couldn't withstand the water pressure in the water's cave.

And as they found out, and before Entrapta had finished designing a 'high-pressure-resistant tablet', the water could move to the surface - and use a tablet.

*****
​

"...so, if we tweak the parameters here, and dedicate more processing capacity to analysing the data already gathered, and add more cross-referencing, that should help translate the water's meanings!"

Looking up from her own console in the temporary lab the Alliance had erected for this near the Magical Forest's border, Samantha Carter took a closer look at Entrapta's suggestions. They did seem to be sound, but… "I am not certain adding more cross-reference cycles is a good thing," she said.

"Why not? The more data, the better!"

"But the data that's referenced is not related to the water here, and so it might add cultural context to the process that's not applicable," Sam explained.

"Oh. Right. Data contamination!" Entrapta nodded. "So, we keep the data restricted to that set we gathered from the water so far. Though that will slow down the process significantly."

"We shouldn't limit the data that's processed to the information directly gathered from the water," Daniel cut in. "As Adora's impressions showed, the water observed and - presumably - learned from the slaves on the planet. So, their experiences and customs might help interpret the water's messages."

As far as you could call the pictures and sounds that the water produced on the tablet 'messages'. Some of it had just been the results of playing around, Sam was certain of that. Like a child with a new toy. A child that outmassed everything on the planet; even though the amount of magical water they had detected was - fortunately - nowhere near the majority, or even a significant part of this world's total water mass, it still defied belief. A creature as massive as a sizeable lake!

And, even more impressive (and frightening), the water truly could control every single drop of its mass. While there had to be limits, they hadn't found them yet. If the water could split up into single drops, or even smaller units - the thought of it controlling single molecules made Sam shudder - and use that to influence the rest of the liquid containing said drop… Humans weren't made of mostly water, contrary to popular belief, but the human body contained enough water to be very vulnerable to anyone being able to control it.

Sam hoped she was wrong about her hypotheses. Mermista, who was on standby but not on the planet yet, for obvious reasons, couldn't manipulate the water inside people or animals. So, whatever magic had formed this protector might be limited in similar ways.

They would have to ask once they had a working translator for the water's messages. As things were, Adora could pass on images, sounds and feelings, in addition to the pictures and sounds the water generated on the tablet, but that was still… Daniel had described it as playing charades with someone from a culture where puns were used for every name, without knowing enough about the language to spot, much less understand, the puns.

It certainly felt similarly frustrating at times, at least to Sam.

"So… let's run the pictures we have saved through the improved translation matrix!" Entrapta said.

"With various biases accounted for," Daniel cautioned. "We don't know enough about the water's stance on worship to interpret those."

Sam had to bite back a sarcastic remark as she started the next trial run. According to Adora, almost all the images she had seen in her mind of people worshipping had featured Goa'uld and had been accompanied by negative feelings. It wouldn't do to have the water associate Adora with the same. Fortunately, the Clones had seen reason and kept their distance. Which, incidentally, also meant Sam didn't need to handle more requests to sanctify the water.

If this world became a sort of pilgrimage destination for the Church of She-Ra, as Daniel was speculating, things could become even more of a problem.

"Oh! The translator's percentages improved!" Entrapta beamed.

Sam nodded, even though the improvement was, while not marginal, not enough to push the results out of the pure speculation range. But progress was progress. Of course, sometimes, you had to backtrack, or start anew, she reminded herself, because you had pursued what turned out to be a dead end. Or, worse, misinterpreted the data you started with, rendering the entire research faulty.

They wouldn't know until they had a workable version of the translation matrix and tested it more thoroughly. Fortunately, the water seemed to enjoy the process and hadn't shown any signs of impatience. At least, as Sam could tell - she was aware that she was projecting human reactions and emotions on an utterly alien entity, thank you very much, Daniel.

"OK! So, let's run the next data sets through it, and compare!"

"Very well. Let's start with the sea images," Daniel said.

Sam nodded in agreement. Ultimately, at this point, they were still just trying to make sense of an alien mind through shared pictures. But they were making progress, and even if it might take them more tries than Sam wanted to think about, they would manage to communicate with the water. One way or the other.

As long as it didn't turn out that Jack's joke about the water trying to sell them insurance against flooding turned out to be true, Sam could live with that. It was even a welcome distraction while she waited for more messages from the agents they had sent after Delta.

Sam would rather be able to focus on an important task than keep herself busy with minor routine things while she was stuck waiting without being able to do anything to help things.

*****
​

PT-9499, PT-9499-System, Heru'ur's Realm, April 24th, 2002 (Earth Time)

Catra scowled openly while Entrapta, Sam and Daniel made a few more tweaks to the translation matrix in the tablet.

"Don't be so grumpy."

She turned her head to glare at Adora. "You don't have the right to talk about being grumpy. Not when you let yourself be swallowed by sapient magical water and taken down to the aquifer!"

"That was my decision! I could have escaped at any time."

"Really? When you were hundreds of metres below the ground?" Catra scoffed.

"Well… I wouldn't have died before you got me out?" Adora smiled weakly.

Catra scoffed again.

"It all went well. We made contact, peaceful contact, with this planet's protector."

"That was sheer luck." Catra crossed her arms over her chest. If Adora had been wrong… "Luck runs out."

Now Adora was narrowing her eyes at her. "You don't get to talk about luck running out."

"Calculated risks are different," Catra shot back.

Adora snorted and looked at their friends working, then at the water figure watching them all. "It worked out. Sometimes, you have to take a risk."

"Doesn't mean it has to be you who takes the risk," Catra grumbled.

"This time, it had to be me. Anyone else would have probably been hurt or died," Adora pointed out.

Catra knew that. It didn't change that she had felt as if she was dying when she had seen Adora vanish into that water giant. If she had lost her… She pressed her lips together and looked away.

She still heard Adora step closer and tensed up. This was…

Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, and she heard a whisper near her right ear, through her helmet. "I'm sorry…"

Sighing, she nodded, her ear flicking as it touched Adora's shoulder. "I know. I just…" She shrugged, as much, at least, as she could when held by Adora.

"I know. And I am sorry. But there was no other way."

Catra grumbled. "I still don't like them." At best, the water was careless, like a child who didn't know any better - a child with immense power. At worst, the water didn't care at all and was just curious enough to see what they would do when left alone. They wouldn't know until the others got the translation matrix going.

"We're ready for the next try, Adora!"

Catra felt Adora tense and spoke up before her love could say anything. "Go help them! The sooner we can talk to the overgrown puddle, the sooner we can leave this planet."

As Adora walked over to the figure, which was turning to wave at her, Catra sighed. Water. Of course, it had to be magical water. Not something else. She felt her fur stand up at the thought of being swallowed by sapient water and shuddered.

"Alright! Try this time!"

"OK! I am Adora. This is Entrapta. This is… that's hair! Yes, hair. That's also hair."

According to Daniel, they weren't as much trying to translate the water's language but teaching them how to understand people. Because the odds of the water having a language of their own were low.

Whatever the reason, Catra only cared about the results. They just needed to talk to the water, make them understand that the Goa'uld and Delta were enemies, and then they could leave. The water could keep the planet safe, at least from ground-based invasions - Catra didn't think the water would fare well against orbital bombardment. There was no way the water could strike back. Even if they somehow could control water on an atomic scale - and Sam and Entrapta were quite certain they couldn't - they couldn't reach into high orbit.

Even blowing up the landscape by using nuclear fusion somehow - Catra didn't think it would be that easy - wouldn't hurt a fleet in space. It would only help the ships since the water would have to blow up part of themselves.

Catra blinked, then scowled again. She was spending too much time focusing on magical water. Not even Entrapta had speculated about such things.

Then again, even if the water could only control small drops, that would give them a huge range of options, especially if they could hear through such drops. Just the potential for recon and intel gathering would be a massive game-changer. If they could track water molecules, that would be even worse. And if they could control water inside someone's body… She shuddered again. That was even worse than what the Goa'uld did. And that was why they needed to talk to the water. And why they all were wearing sealed suits. And drinking water that was brought in from off-planet in sealed containers.

The quartermasters were screaming about the logistics of all, and the soldiers occupying the planet were complaining about NBC protocols being a hassle, but they couldn't risk rendering the entire force that had taken the planet so vulnerable to a still mostly unknown, alien force.

"...and yes, that's 'A'. Like 'A-dora'. And that's 'B', like 'B-elt'. Exactly! You're doing well! And that's 'C', like…"

Adora was still teaching the water. It would be adorable, and Catra would love to tease her about it, if not for how dangerous the magical water was. She shook her head. This would take some time even if everything went well. Maybe she could check on the latest reports, so Adora had less work to catch up to, and…

"Oh! They're typing!" Entrapta's excited announcement interrupted her thoughts.

She quickly joined the group looking at the screen mirroring the tablet's.

I am the Flow of Life. Hello.

"We did it!" Entrapta cheered.

Catra smiled wryly - she was pretty sure the water hadn't just now learned how to type. If they had, that would make them even more dangerous.

*****
​

Jack O'Neill didn't trust the magical water flow of whatever. Just as he didn't trust the magical desert tree back home. Not really, in the latter case. And not because they were magical - or not just because of that, at least.

Those spirits - or entities, as Daniel liked to call them - were alien. Even more alien than most aliens he knew, actually. The Etherians, the Asgard, even the Tok'ra and the snakes - he could get them. When it was all said and done, their actions tended to make sense. Even all the 'cultural differences' Daniel liked to explore and explain were minor stuff in the end. But the core motivations were pretty… he didn't want to say human, but it fit. Greed, pride, hatred, fear, love - for some of them, at least - he understood that.

But a giant tree? Or magical water that could think? Or a giant worm, or a living stone that ate the dead? They were different. What did a huge mass of water want?

The others claimed it was the protector of the planet, like She-Ra was for Etheria. And it fit the pattern. But Jack couldn't help feeling that there was a difference between She-Ra and the others. She-Ra was a human first. An Ancient, a small part of him he didn't like reminded him, and he clenched his teeth. Ancients were humans. As far as he was concerned, at least.

Whatever! Adora was a human, thought like a human. Saw others as fellow humans. Felt guilt and joy and love.

But what did a magical aquifer think and feel? How did a giant worm see people? Or a living rock? Did they see friends, family, fellow whatevers? Or pets? Curiosities? Food? If they were protectors, were they protecting people or just their territory?

He remembered an old Godzilla movie he had watched once. Well, parts of it - Godzilla was fighting some alien monster. For Earth, supposedly. But as far as he remembered, the friendly monster was still a monster, and who knew when the thing would turn on the humans? Or tried to protect Earth from the humans?

So, Jack wasn't as happy about making contact with the magical water monsters as everyone else seemed to be. Well, everyone else except for Catra - she was frowning openly and glaring at the watery She-Ra the Flow of Whatever was using to type on its waterproof tablet. And her tail was swishing back and forth.

He checked if his seat was still sealed - there was no way he was going to risk accidentally inhaling some magical moisture - and stepped next to her. "It's going a bit too well, hm?" he said on a private channel.

She turned her head to look at him. "They didn't learn to type whole sentences that quickly."

Ah, right. "Sandbagging?"

She shrugged.

There were good reasons not to let others you just met know exactly what you could do. It made you look less scary sometimes. And it let you gather more information. If they thought you didn't understand them, they might let slip things when they chatted in their own language. Or they just underestimated you and didn't take you seriously; Jack had used that trick far too often to count.

He wouldn't make the same mistake.

"As long as the water plays ball…" If it didn't? He shrugged as well.

Catra nodded.

"So! You have memories of the time before magic was gone? Fascinating!" Entrapta was gushing. "You must be using magical or extradimensional fields to store your data! Because without magic, water cannot hold data like that! And since we didn't detect extradimensional structures connected to your water mass, you're either using magic for that that we can't detect yet, using magic to connect to other dimensions that we can't detect, yet, or using a metadimensional technology we cannot detect, yet!"

New letters appeared on the screen.

I am magic.

"Magical," Castaspella corrected it.

Magical.

"Yes!"

"And you're the protector of this world!"

I am the Flow of Life. I protect all life.

"Even the life that wants to hurt other life?"

Good question, Daniel, Jack thought.

All life. I am life.

"There are life forms that do not need or use water, but it's probably correct for most of the life forms we know," Sam said.

"Will you stop life hurting other life?" Adora asked.

The cycle of life flows.

"Great. We got a neutral observer as planetary protector," Catra muttered.

Jack could live with a neutral entity that didn't mess with others. They didn't need magical water to kick snake butt. Or to fight Delta. But… He blinked. "What about bots? Machines that hurt life?"

Machines?

Everyone was glancing at him. Right, think before talking, he reminded himself. "Machines. Metal constructs. They don't live."

Not life?

"They're confused," Adora said. Right, she was still holding hands with the water mirror image.

Entrapta called a bot over to demonstrate machines.

Those 'bots' hurt life?

"Some do. Like Delta. Many help us, though," Entrapta replied.

The water figure flickered for a moment, and Jack tensed.

"They're angry," Adora reported.

At Delta, Jack hoped. And cursed his own comment.

*****
​

Images flowed through Adora's mind - faster than the Flow of Life apparently could type. Or wanted to type. Machines tearing up the ground, diverting rivers. Blaster fire blowing rocks to rubble and draining ponds. Factory complexes releasing waste into lakes. Plants withering on fields near landing pads.

And emotions accompanied the images. Anger. Outrage. Hatred.

She drew a sharp breath through her clenched teeth as she held on to the water hand despite a sudden urge to pull her hand and stop the exchange. She had to explain. Closing her eyes, she imagined Delta's viruses taking over people. Controlling them like puppets. Using them as disposable tools. As suicide attackers. Living bombs.

The anger and outrage turned into rage. The tablet spewed letters, but they didn't make any sense. Flow of Life was too angry, it seemed, to pay attention to the keyboard.

"What is going on? Is this a bug?"

"Did it break the tablet?"

"Adora?"

She ignored her friends' questions and focused on Flow of Life. This was crucial. The water could lose their temper, Adora realised even while she grit her teeth under the strain. Like a human.

That thought helped her bear this rage. "We can help them," she said as she thought about what they had done - examples of people getting 'deprogrammed, literally', as Entrapta called it. "We're working on finding Delta and taking them down."

The rage didn't vanish - but it faded a little, and Adora took a deep breath. "We're looking for them." She tried to think of good ways to show how they were looking, so that Flow of Life would understand. Not the spy bot network. And computer viruses would make them look like Delta. Oh. She imagined a drop of colour - of paint - falling into water, and being carried away. And eyes tracking it, as it travelled through rivers and lakes to the ocean, and then down the seabed, until it found a wreck on the bottom of the ocean, with a bot hidden in it.

Flow of Life reacted to that, and Adora suddenly saw the world they were on - through millions, billions of eyes. No, not eyes. Drops of water.

Oh.

Flow of Life was far larger than she had thought, she realised. Apparently, they could spread through all the water on the planet.

She winced. That revelation was not going to be received well by the others. They would have to change all the protocols - probably retreat most of the troops from the planet's surface, just to be safe. And all the bots, too, before Flow of Life mistook them for Delta - or for a threat.

She bit her lower lip.

"Adora?"

"What's going on?"

"Are you talking to them through your mind?"

"We made the tablet so you don't have to, idiot!"

"I have to," Adora replied. "This is too important." She closed her eyes and imagined water inside a person. Inside someone's body.

Flow of Life felt confused. Then Adora again saw through millions of drops of water. Then through one - facing the mouth of… an animal. And a tongue.

Then she saw the inside of the mouth, followed by darkness as the mouth closed. And shortly after that, nothing any more. Not even darkness.

"So, you can't control water inside bodies? Living bodies?" she asked, out loud for her friends, as she imagined water fading inside a stomach.

Flow of Life made her feel agreement - or something close enough.

That was a relief. If Flow of Life had been able to perceive, much less control water inside a person… Jack would have said something like 'nuke it from orbit to be sure', and he wouldn't have been completely joking. Catra probably too.

The rage faded some more, but it didn't go away - it stayed, simmering. Like a fire on a stove turned down but still burning. And Adora saw water splashing on a bot, seeping through cracks - and then freezing.

And the screen cleared, the strings of nonsense letters vanishing, replaced by a clear sentence.

I will help fight Delta.

Adora forced herself to smile. Flow of Life wanting to help them fight Delta was a good thing, she thought. Probably. It meant they wouldn't fight the Alliance, at least.

And it wouldn't work out, anyway, with Flow of Life on this world, and Delta being somewhere else.

"Thank you," she said.

Then she saw images of water running through a Stargate.

Oh. That might work - but it would definitely create even more problems.

*****
​

In Orbit above PT-9499, Heru'ur's Realm, April 24th, 2002 (Earth Time)

So, the magic water's - Flow of Life's - capabilities were worse than Samantha Carter had hoped for, but not quite as bad as her worst estimate. That didn't mean the offer - as much as the statement could be interpreted as an offer that could be refused - to join the fight against Delta wasn't a huge problem.

"If Flow of Life can send parts of them through an active Stargate and keep control over the water on the other side, and I am tending to assume they could, although if the other world has no magic that might turn out to be wrong, then the question is what happens if Flow of Life spreads through the other world and then the Stargate closes," she said as she pointed at a holoprojection in the middle of the flagroom. "Would that render the magical water in the other world inert? Or would the smaller part be rendered inert? Or would this cause Flow of Life to split up into two distinct entities? Which may or may not reunite if contact is reestablished? We don't know," she answered her own question before Jack could say anything.

He pouted at her for a moment, and she had to suppress a smile at his reaction.

"We have several hypotheses!" Entrapta chimed in. "But we would need a lot more data to test them. First, we don't know if Flow of Life can spread or grow by taking over water. Since they lose control over water that's ingested in a body, they either have the capability to restore control over the water after it leaves said body - which could be complicated if it does so in a different form - or it can take over all kinds of water through touch. Or it will inevitably permanently lose mass for every drop of water that's ingested by a person or animal. And that's just the first question! We also don't know if and how magic plays a part - does Flow of Life need a world with magic to exist? Was it in hibernation, of sorts, while magic was missing for a thousand years? Or did She-Ra's power recreate it rather than activate it, using a magical template that was part of this world from before the loss of magic and which endured somehow? They-Who-Protect and the Saviour of the Dead seem to indicate Protectors go into a sort of hibernation without magic, but we cannot assume that what is the case for one Protector will be the same for another; magic and worlds are very diverse. But! If, say, a world somehow could keep a memory of Flow of Life and then imprint that on water once magic returned, it wouldn't be reaching to assume that Flow of Life can do the same to all water they can reach - and we don't know if they need physical contact or if there's a magical field that defines their reach. Either would impact their ability to spread through another world's water cycle. But! All this is just hypothetical; we need testing and more data to know for certain."

"I don't think testing a magical water creature that might outmass everything we have in the system is a good idea," Jack commented.

"And I think Adora would agree," Glimmer said.

"If she were here and not talking to Flow of Life on the planer," Bow added, which earned him an eyeroll from Glimmer.

Sam agreed with Glimmer but saw no need to say anything.

"And I think I should go down on the planet and talk to this water," Mermista spoke up.

"And join forces for a watery crusade against Delta?" Sea Hawk flashed a smile and took a deep breath, but an elbow from Mermista shut down what probably would have been a loud declaration of either love, adventure or both, in Sam's experience.

"Ugh. No. But I would like to know if I can control them before I might have to fight them."

Glimmer shook her head. "That would be seen as a hostile action. By anyone."

Mermista grumbled but didn't argue the point.

Sam agreed with Glimmer about this as well; the Etherians, especially those who had been mind-controlled, had not forgotten Horde Prime's attack. She had no doubt that they would react quite hostilely, possibly violently, to such a test if they were the test subjects.

"Indeed," Daniel chimed in. "We should refrain from any actions that might be interpreted as hostile until we have a better understanding with Flow of Life."

"That's a kinda catch-22 situation, Daniel," Jack replied. "We can't understand the water without knowing more, and we can't know more without tests."

"Then we need to be subtle with our data gathering," Sam said. "I don't think Flow of Life would react hostilely if we want to test travel first to a safe destination. Such as a Stargate within a ship." Preferably an expendable one, like a Constitution II-class. That way, those design failures might see some use.

"Good idea, Sam!" Jack grinned. "Let's see what we can find out before we have to decide whether or not we want to use water against Delta."

Sam was about to nod when her computer interrupted her with a priority message - as did Entrapta's visor and Bow's tablet. A planning meeting like this wouldn't be interrupted for something unimportant, so she tensed as she opened the message.

And then drew a sharp breath at the same time Entrapta and Bow gasped.

"Sam?"

"Entrapta?"

"What is it, Bow?"

"The agents we sent have located Delta's core," Sam replied.

"That wasn't my fault!" Jack blurted out.

*****
​

 

[Starfox5]

Sea-Ra. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Mermista is going to be salty that she missed this one. Sorry, I'll stop now, this isn't the plaice for water puns.

Click to shrink...

Alas, Mermista's presence, as shown with today's chapter, might be seen as a hostile move