Some weeks later.
In another part of the Galaxy, beneath the ground of an otherwise abandoned planet, a webwork of crystal tunnels stretched.
This was the base of the Tok'ra(one of them anyway), a resistance movement of rebel Goa'uld symbiotes The vast majority of them had been spawned by the Goa'uld Queen Egeria, who hadn't liked the path that her race was taking and decided to rebel against them. The Tok'ra, like their mother, wanted no part in the evil perpetrated by others of their kind and their goal was to end the reign of the Goa'uld. Not through war or open military action, but through infiltration, sabotage, subterfuge and assassination.
Despite being in operation for thousands of years, they had only limited success in accomplishing this goal.
The biggest hurdle was the Supreme System Lord himself. As Ra was powerful enough to force all the others into compliance, he incidentally also kept most of the other System Lords from open war with each other, which was the exact opposite of what the Tok'ra wanted.
Assassinating Ra would have been a crowning achievement for them, causing the loosely aligned Goa'uld Empire to collapse into infighting and allowing them more opportunities to whittle away at their power.
Unfortunately, Ra was well aware of this and justifiably paranoid about it. Intensely so, especially after he had captured Egeria and presumably killed her. He never interacted with his underlings face-to-face to prevent Tok'ra who managed to infiltrate his ranks from having even a chance at killing him, he had all his food tested for poison and the only Jaffa allowed to be in his presence were the ones that he chose personally when they were children.
Worse still, for a Tok'ra to even enter his service as a minor Goa'uld was a feat, as Ra tended to be a lot more careful in the selection of his underlings than other Goa'uld.
They did manage it every so often though, and they happened to have an agent among Ra's underlings at the moment. An operative that had just recently passed on some very interesting information.
"What is so important on Saral that it would prompt an attack such as this?" Grand Councilor Garshaw, the second highest ranked Tok'ra asked, unable to remember anything of importance ever happening on that particular planet. She had barely been aware of its existence before this had happened.
"Nothing." Anise, a scientist and historian rather than a field operative, answered succinctly. "It has no naquadah deposits or any significant amounts of other precious metals, nor was there any technology being developed there. Saral has been deep in Ra's dominion for millennia and has never even been invaded by a rival Goa'uld. By all accounts, it was just a minor trade planet with almost no value."
"Could Ra have been hiding something on it that another Goa'uld somehow learned of?" Delek, another member of the Tok'ra high council, asked.
"No, if that were the case then Ra's reaction would have been much stronger. He is angered over the loss of face it caused him, but is not mobilizing a fleet." Selmak dismissed.
The others nodded their agreement with the logic. Though Selmak was not on the council(because he had repeatedly refused when the position was offered), his voice carried a lot of weight due to him being one of the oldest and most successful Tok'ra operatives.
"What cause would anyone have to attack it then?" Garshaw said, repeating her earlier question.
The meeting descended into silence as they tried to think of what possible purpose that attack could have had.
"They took the only thing of value from the planet, its people." Selmak finally said.
"I agree, but why Saral? There are thousands of worlds that would have been easier targets, many of them completely undefended save for the threat of retribution." Anise spoke in support of Selmak's analysis.
"To show that they could of course." Delek said derisively. "I am sure that whichever Goa'uld did it would have been gloating already if they were not so afraid of Ra's vengeance."
His was not an unfounded claim, as the uncontrollable arrogance of the Goa'uld had in fact been their greatest asset since the very beginning. It was a rare Goa'uld indeed who managed to do something without bragging about it, making the lot of them quite terrible at any kind of subterfuge. Their ego simply didn't let them be anything but flamboyant.
"We should not be so quick to assume that it was another Goa'uld." Garshaw cautioned. "None of our other operatives have reported such movements among those who we have infiltrated."
"We do not have spies among them all." Delek pointed out in turn. "Not to mention that it was supposed to have been executed by Jaffa."
"True, " Garshaw conceded. "but remember what our agent heard. Despite the presence of Jaffa, whoever led them does not sound like a Goa'uld. Aside from the complete lack of any sign of who had done this, the physical features that Ra's trackers reported the invader to have..."
"You do not seriously believe that rumor that he has claws that can cut through stone do you?" Delek asked with some incredulity.
"That rumor had to have come from somewhere." Garshaw countered. "Aside from that, there are enough other inconsistencies to cast doubt on the idea of it being done by a Goa'uld."
"Could it have been the doing of our brethren?" Anise asked, knowing that there were other Tok'ra cells scattered across the Galaxy. Having all of them in the same place would be far too dangerous.
She knew that the Tok'ra sometimes assassinated Goa'uld and freed the populations ruled by them, though it was not done for entirely altruistic reasons. Since the Tok'ra did not take unwilling hosts, recently freed and grateful populations were often the best places to find willing ones.
"No, we do not have the means shelter that many humans." Selmak explained. Anise had never been in a situation that would require her to understand the logistics of moving so many people. "Such a thing would require an already established infrastructure."
They all went silent for a time, all thinking the same thoughts. If it was neither them nor the Goa'uld, then it had to have been a third party. The problem was that none of them could think of any established power that would do this.
The Asgard would not have been subtle, they would have asserted their will by openly attacking with their overwhelmingly powerful ships. But the Asgard rarely did so unless the Goa'uld violated the Protected Planets Treaty that had been brokered some centuries ago.
There were some human worlds out there that were at least moderately advanced, but they were highly isolationist and wouldn't have provoked the Goa'uld like this.
"I do not believe we will be able to solve this mystery just yet." Garshaw finally spoke up, clearly ending the meeting. "Selmak, you will inform the other cells of this. Anise, consult the historical records to see if you can find any mention of a similar event happening."
The two Tok'ra nodded their assent and left the council chamber, leaving the two councilors alone.
"I wonder if this new player, if it is a new player, would be open to an alliance." Garshaw mused.
"For all we know they are just as bad as the Goa'uld." Delek countered. "And we have no way to contact them either way."
"True, though I suspect we will solve this mystery soon enough." Garshaw said. The Tok'ra received intelligence from across the Galaxy after all, both from their own operatives and from various human informants. There was only so long that anyone could hide before becoming known.
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Several months later.
Entirely uncaring of the fact that he'd kicked over an anthill with his little stunt and all the clues he'd left behind, Naruto let out a pleased rumble at the soft hands kneading the muscles on his back.
While it hadn't been quite as fast paced as that first week, he and Xanna had still had a lot of work with all the new people he'd brought from Saral, but the worst was finally over. Everybody had a home and aside from the mild cheating that had been done with the food supply, they hadn't needed to use their powers much.
Semi-predictably, Ra's priesthood was trying(and failing) to incite rebellion. The people were firmly on his and Xanna's side now, so they didn't have much to work with. Still, they were being watched to prevent them from trying anything reprehensibly stupid, such as killing anyone. Most of them had simmered down and accepted their new situation, but there were always those few diehards that were determined to cause trouble, so they were being observed in case another tragic fall down the stairs needed to happen.
He definitely wasn't doing raiding another planet with so little preparation even if things were under control now though, it had messed up everything else and set back their plans to build a school by several months.
At least things were mostly back on track, except for one little detail.
"Does it please you my lord?" The girl sitting on his lower back and massaging him asked.
"Yes Tia, you're very good at this." He complimented in a near mumble without opening his eyes.
He'd been only mildly surprised to hear that his wife had appropriated over a dozen girls as masseuses while he'd been...distracted...with Akitsu. He certainly had no problem with it. Banaded had sent them back to the human settlement once they got too old for his tastes or sometimes even killed them, but he intended to start them up as the next batch of potential teachers. They would just happen to be masseuses at the same time.
Besides, school had always been a good place for matchmaking and they might find someone they liked during that time.
Tia was the would-be assassin that Xanna had told him about. They'd been playing games with her ever since, never quite allowing an opportunity to present itself. It had been fun playing hard to get with her attempts at seducing him.
She wasn't the only one trying to seduce either him or Xanna, but she'd been the most fun to play with because she wanted to kill him. Though the other girls assumption that Akitsu was a favored concubine had been rather amusing, especially their adorable attempts to replace her. That kind of power jockeying shouldn't have surprised him, but it had.
Xanna had laughed at him and told him that he was too used to women that would sooner die than live as part of a harem.
Eventually they'd gotten bored of frustrating Tia and Naruto had decided to give her a perfect opportunity to attempt killing him since she obviously wasn't intending to give up. He had to admire her persistence at least.
This time instead of getting a group massage along with Xanna and Akitsu, he'd asked Tia to follow him somewhere nice and private to let her have a shot at him.
They were in one of those seemingly useless rooms that every overblown palace had. Comfortably furnished and decorated, but nobody could tell you what exactly it was good for. This particular one was full of furniture, some of which wasn't exactly native to this dimension.
Naruto was currently laid face down on a large pillow type thing, while Tia sat on his back and massaged him.
"Thank you my lord." She replied and continued kneading.
After a few more minutes of silence, Naruto pretended to doze off to make her more comfortable.
Tia forced down her slight nervousness and focused on her anger at this 'man'. Though he'd been kind and had never so much as glared at her, she just couldn't forgive him for killing Banaded. She was certain that her dead master had loved her, he'd favored her and taken care of her ever since she was a child after all!
Silently but quickly so as not to arouse suspicion, she drew a small dagger from a hidden pocket that she'd sown into her clothing herself. A weapon was remarkably hard to come by on this new world, but she had fortunately taken this dagger from Banaded's palace.
After taking a deep breath to fortify herself, Tia stabbed the dagger downward with all the force she could muster, eliciting a grunt and tensing from the horned man under her as the blade sank into his flesh. Within moments, his body slackened and he let out a deep exhale.
With shaking hands, Tia stood up, before the blood welling from the wound reached her. She'd done it! She'd avenged her master and now this pretender was dead by her hand!
"You missed." Naruto said in a bored tone and pushed himself to his feet.
Tia yelped fearfully and backpedalled.. "B-b-but I killed you!"
"Pro tip: If you want to kill someone, you should stab them in the heart or lungs, not the spleen." He replied in the same bored tone. "Besides, didn't you see me walking out of a ship that I deliberately crashed into the ground?"
Seeing that the terrified woman wasn't going to answer him, he turned his back on her to present the handle of the knife buried in his back. "Could you pull this thing out? It's getting a bit uncomfortable."
Robotically, she approached and grabbed hold of the handle and pulled it out...only to slam it back in with an enraged yell, followed by an escape to the symphony of frustrated female crying.
"Ah, the wonders of Stockholm Syndrome. That should be fun." Naruto commented wryly to the empty room. "At least she hit my liver this time."
The room failed to answer him.
Undaunted by the silence, he grabbed hold of the dagger, ripped it out and continued speaking. "What do you think? Is it going to be fun to play therapist with that one?"
"Impressive that you can see me even when I do not wish to be seen." The room seemed to reply in a female voice.
"No it isn't." Naruto said dismissively, turning to the now visible visitor.
It was another one of the ascended, though this one was slightly older in appearance than Ganos Lal had been, perhaps in her late thirties at the most though. She had auburn hair and was wearing a modest white dress of a similar design as the one Ganos had worn.
"So... who are you?" he asked flippantly he'd taken in her appearance.
"I am Oma Desala." The ascended woman answered serenely.
"And you are here because?" He prompted, crashing heavily into a nearby couch and sprawling into it bonelessly.
"Curiosity." Oma answered shortly, remaining in a standing position despite there being a comfortable looking armchair available. For one thing, she didn't have a physical body so it didn't really make any difference and for another, she hadn't been invited to do so. "You and your wife caused a mild panic among the Ascended when Ganos suddenly vanished from their senses."
"You don't say?" He snorted with some derision. "Did you decide to come talk to me instead of my wife because you're intending to ride me like a pony?"
Oma was unruffled by his innuendo, having expected something of the sort. "No, I merely estimated that out of the two of you, you were more likely to speak to me amicably."
"Translation: You were afraid she was going to wrap you in leather and shove a pinecone up your ass." Naruto snickered.
Oma remained silent while he laughed, fighting the urge to cringe at the mental image. Not exactly something she'd considered, but Xanna was far too much of an unknown to be considered safe to approach. Despite his outwardly abrasive manner and downright insulting form of speech, the horned blond seemed to be the less volatile of the two.
"Heheheh..." Naruto's amusement trailed off with a sigh. "Didn't Ganos convey our message to you stiffs clearly enough? We're not going to stop and you can't make us, so I really don't see what possible reason you could have for wanting to talk to me."
"On the contrary, I would like to see you continue doing as you have done so far." She said with a small smile.
Naruto's eyebrows climbed higher on his forehead in surprise and a grin began to pull at his lips. "Go on..."
"The Ascended are not united in their belief that non-interference is the best policy. There is a small minority of us who are of the opinion that it was our carelessness that enabled the Goa'uld to rise to their current dominance of the Galaxy and that we should work to correct this. Unfortunately, the others will not allow us to act, save in the most minor of ways. You however, are not so restricted and have already liberated thousands from slavery."
"I hate to break your heart princess, but I didn't do that out of the goodness of my heart, or because I felt sorry for them. We just needed the numbers to speed the expansion of this empire of ours." He responded flatly.
He couldn't afford to care about anyone that wasn't in his immediate vicinity. When you could instantly travel anywhere and help anyone, while simultaneously realizing that there existed an infinite number of people that could use that help, you could drive yourself insane in an awful hurry if you cared too much.
And he just wasn't that nice either.
Oma's smile faded somewhat at the blunt admission, but she wasn't dissuaded just yet. "Regardless, you have been treating them well, helped them build homes, educated them and not attempted to force them to worship you despite claiming to be a god."
"Being a god doesn't mean I want anyone groveling in front of me and the people are a means to an end, I just have no reason to treat them like crap." He retorted.
"And yet, many would have been overcome by the temptation of power when they felt the spiritual strength of their worshippers flow to them." Oma argued. "There are many who worship you and your wife even though you have not demanded it, surely you felt your power increase?"
"Big whoop." He rolled his eyes sarcastically. "As if I need any more power when I already have everything I want. At this point everything is just a big game to me and more power isn't worth diddly squat. And it isn't even much of a power boost in the first place."
"Irrespective of your reasons, you are a much better alternative than the Goa'uld." Oma finally said after a few moments of silence. Perhaps not the champion she had been hoping for, but he was at least not interested in committing pointless atrocities and she had a feeling that he was deliberately trying to make himself sound worse than he actually was.
"If you say so." He replied airily. "Personally, I get the feeling that you're just hoping I'll take care of Anubis for you."
That one was a nasty piece of work and Oma was a gullible idiot for letting herself get tricked into helping a Goa'uld ascend. So much for the wisdom of the ascended. The inevitable encounter with Anubis promised to be quite interesting due to his unique situation though.
Oma stared at him in shock, not just because of his words, but because he'd spoken them in Alteran. His accent was fairly terrible, but it was still clearly understandable. She had no idea how he knew about Anubis or when he'd learned their language, but it left her too surprised to respond for a few moments.
"You're wondering how I'm able to speak this language and how I know about your screw up with Anubis." He stated with certainty, still speaking Alteran and his pronunciation improving with every word. "You weren't getting to the point, so I got bored and took it from your mind."
Mastering her surprise, Oma replied with the same calm tone that she had been using thus far. "I see. I suppose you do not care that such a violation of a person's privacy was considered a high crime in the Alteran civilization?"
That he was capable of doing it so easily and without her notice was another thing that shook her quite badly.
"Not in the slightest." He answered in the same airy tone he'd used before. "You're the one who came to me, not the other way around."
Before the ascended woman could offer any kind of reply, a thoughtful look crossed his face. "While we're on the subject of coming..."
The next thing Oma knew, there was a sudden feeling of vertigo and she found herself sitting in the previously noted armchair. More worriedly, she was also feeling long forgotten sensory input that relied on physical senses rather than spiritual ones.
"There we go, so much better than talking to a floating ghost thing." Naruto said in satisfaction.
"You've descended me." She said numbly, still feeling more than a little dazed at the abrupt transition. She could perfectly remember all of her experiences as an ascended being, but all the power available to one was out of reach. It left her feeling vulnerable in a way that she'd never felt before.
"Nah, I've just shoved you into that puppet body and temporarily shackled you to it. You're still ascended, but your power has been hijacked to keep the body alive, that's why you can't shoot lightning around and shit." He said dismissively. "Tea?"
A tea set materialized between them and Naruto busied himself pouring it into her cup and dumping the rest into a tankard for himself. Like hell was he going to bother with a dainty little cup, a man can't even sprawl properly without spilling it on himself with those damn things.
Oma didn't notice this, busy as she was staring at her arms. It felt decidedly strange to use physical eyes again after being used to not having them for thousands of years. After the initial shock wore off, she noticed something a bit...odd.
"Yeah, I made your body younger. I figured 'Why would I look at a middle aged woman if I could look at one in the prime of her life?'. Naruto admitted before any questions could be asked. "Have a look."
A mirror appeared in front of her and Oma stared at the image of a young woman that stared back at her. It was her face, but without the signs of age. She hadn't been particularly old when she'd ascended, but the beauty of youth had already started abandoning her.
She also noted that her clothing had changed to something a bit less modest. It was still the same dress, but it was noticeably tighter and the neckline lower. Not that the dress had been anything but a projection of her will earlier, but he'd obviously altered it to suit his own preferences.
Taking a calming breath so steady herself at yet another abrupt shock, she gave her 'host' a level look and spoke with as much of her shattered serenity as possible. "You are doing this to keep me off balance."
"Among other things." He admitted with amusement. "Drink your tea woman, you don't want it getting cold. Not to mention how rude it is."
Finding it strangely difficult to resist the urge to make a scathing retort on the subject of rudeness, Oma nonetheless reached for the offered tea and brought it to her lips.
...and promptly spilled it when she was reminded that physical bodies generally do not like coming into contact with hot liquids.
Naruto roared with laughter at how inept the 'wise and powerful' ascended were when you shoved them back into physical bodies. Thousands of years of of experience as fleshless spirits wasn't going to vanish in a few minutes after all.
Oma considered herself a very patient person. Millenia of life, and more importantly, millennia of putting up with her fellow ascended restricting her at every turn when she tried to help people on the lower planes demanded a lot of patience. Then there was the occasional mortal that stumbled across one of her sanctuaries and started learning the secrets of ascension. Some of them could be incredibly irritating at first.
Dealing with Naruto required a different kind of patience altogether though. None of those previously mentioned disrespected her so blatantly her or engineered situations where she would make a fool of herself, only to laugh in her face when it happened. It didn't help that she once again had adrenaline, estrogen, testosterone and various other hormones, along with biologically driven emotional reactions.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that once again having such biological factors influencing her after thousands of years without them, in combination with the gratingly annoying giggling and juvenile pointing of the horned man caused her temper to snap.
"You are an immature child!" She surged to her feet and snapped angrily, face flushed red and her scalded lips throbbing painfully in tune with her heartbeat, serving only to worsen her temper.
"If you say so granny." He snickered back, even more amused that this was her best effort a throwing an insult. "Te'lok is nearly twice my age after all."
The off handed statement shocked Oma badly. Bad enough that her anger was completely forgotten. Ganos had of course told of what had happened to her and what Xanna had told her with that 'presentation'.
There had been much speculation among the Ascended about these horned newcomers, but they didn't know anything for sure. Their self-classification as 'Primordial Forces of Creation and Destruction' gave the impression of vast age, so to hear that this man was younger than the Jaffa that acted as his First Prime was shocking in the extreme.
"But how could you have come so far at such a young age?" She whispered. "Some of us have sought further enlightenment for tens of thousands of years and have been unable to progress to the next level."
"Lets just say that I'm a perversion of nature and leave it at that." He said reassuringly, forcing down another laugh.
Enlightenment my ass. Ascension has about as much to do with enlightenment as it does with my balls.
Oh there was certainly a mental component to it, but judging from the minds of the few ascended he and Xanna had scanned, as well as the fact that a fucking Goa'uld had managed it, 'enlightenment' was most definitely not a requirement.
And what was enlightenment anyway? An arbitrary scale of knowledge? A subjective scale of how much contentment a person feels in their existence or something similar? If that was the case, then the secret of enlightenment might as well be found in his balls, because it was as good an explanation as any.
While Naruto was having his philosophical moment, Oma said something that he didn't catch and wasn't interested in enough to ask her to repeat it, so he started a new thread of conversation. "Say...you've got that nice young body now. How would you like to put it through its paces and I'll fill you up with my enlightenment juice?"
Oma balked at his sudden leering expression as he looked her over like a piece of meat, not to mention the proposition that had nothing at all to do with what she'd just asked him.
"I have no interest in having interc-"
"Don't be hasty now." He interrupted with a creepy crooning voice, taking a slow step forward. "If you agree I'll enlighten you so hard that it'll leak out of every hole. You'll reach the next level in no time at all."
Starting to get genuinely scared and creeped out by the predatory stalk and coaxing voice, Oma backed away warily and spoke as strongly as she could, though a tremor of fear still made it into her voice. The way that her newly physical body was reacting with instinctive fear to the threatening approach wasn't helping, not to mention how terribly unused she was to any kind of threat.
"I'd like to leave now."
Naruto stopped and gave her a smile so mild that she found it nigh impossible to reconcile with the sexually driven threat he'd emanated just a moment ago. "Alright, if that's what you want. The fast way or the slow way?"
Oma understood that he was asking her about the method of disengaging her from the physical body she was currently occupying.
Unfortunately, Oma hadn't lived in a culture where everyone knew that picking 'the fast way' was often a bad idea. She just knew that she was in desperate need of some solitude where she could get her equilibrium back after getting one shock after another, followed by behavior that had made her truly fear that she was about to be violated.
"The fast way."
She barely saw the flash of steel that came at her neck and only had time to make the briefest flinch as the Kusanagi took her head off, ejecting her forcefully from the fleshy prison that Naruto had stuffed her in.
Back in her ascended form, Oma flew away as fast as possible, ignoring the phantom sensation of steel parting flesh.
Naruto didn't try to stop her and merely snickered to himself after a few seconds. "I wonder how long it'll take her to figure out that she never got to the point of her visit...and how long it's gonna take her to come back."
When his amusement subsided, he took a look around the room that had now seen one attempted murder and one quasi-murder in the space of an hour, paying particular attention to the rapidly spreading pool of blood that the meat puppet he'd made for Oma was leaving on the floor.
He picked up the head and balanced the bloody, severed neck on his palm as he raised it into the air. "Alas, poor Oma, for I knew her well...but not as well as I'd hoped if you know what I mean."
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