Interesting start. It is a bit disconcerting how you keep changing tenses in this chapter, however. It makes it hard to read. I'm always interested in reading stories with Dru in them, so I'll stick around, but you need to watch the present tense suddenly going to past tense and vice versa. Most people write past tense and it's probably the simplest one to adopt.

I know, I tried to do that in my later stories, but I didn't quite manage in this one. Now that you mention it, I'll go through and fix that.

Thank you!

It feels too simple and tastes of missed opportunity. In fact, though it's nowhere near as big a disappointment, it reminds me of how Holly Evans and the Spiral Path crashed and burned at the end because the author tried to force the story arc to wind down before it was ready.

EDIT: You completely missed the point in the same way the author of HEatSP did. You can't force a story arc to wind down this way without causing the perceived quality to take a nose-dive... and you probably made the same mistake he did too. (Accidentally using a series-level conflict as your story-level driving conflict, then trying to jerry-rig on a break in the tension.)

This particular kind of issue is probably the closest modern equivalent I've yet seen to the original ancient greek use of Deus Ex Machina.

Thus... the sequel(s)!

EDIT: I know it wasn't the smoothest wind down, but I ran out of ideas for this particular arc. However, there will be more involving Caelus.

Quite satisfying.

Oh, Caelus -- you've messed up big time!

Hmm, interesting chapter, keep up the excellent work. :)

Ooh, good show. Now I'm not sure whether to root for or against Caelus. On the one hand, his goals are good but, on the other, his methods may kill the main characters. He created the vampires, but one could argue that it was a case of self-defence against an unjustified attack by the Alterans. He wants to commit mass genocide, but against the Ori and a bunch of meddlers who, it could be argued, have committed crimes against weaker beings en masse by manipulating their memories, forcing Caelus's hand, and rendering him incapable of guiding the Goa'uld down a more peaceful path.

In short, I hate black-and-white situations and you've created the grayest character I've encountered since the first few seasons of X-Men: Evolution. Bravo.

Uhm, okay, that's a new one. Considering they'll basically be doing something similar near the end of the series with the san gral. Although that's just the ori, I assume this'll be on a much bigger scale.

Villains have to monolog. It's in the Villain Code. He's got a bad case of it. Oh well--if he takes out all the Ascended, there go the Ori, too. So it's not all bad. Just 99%. Maybe the Alteran Ascended will intervene?

So, a long, LONG time before Merlin, Caelus developed the equivalent of Merlin's Grail-weapon to kill all ascended beings? Interesting.
Too bad that it requires the sacrifice of so many people to activate it, though. Also, nothing powered by the Hellmouth can be an considered a genuine good, I suspect.

Nice work tying the vampire origin myth to Caelus.

Really nice chapter (though short ;) )

I'd really love to see that Willow vision written as a full story by someone... (Not me... not anywhere good enough to try it)

hmm

I'll toss this up as another review.

Yes, I realize that Anubis wasn't an Ancient.

I'm guessing either the Altaran's or the Ori imprisoned the guy.

As for unbelievable... He's basically a partial presence... that escaped his prison as I understand it... I wouldn't think he would have all that many strange abilities... most of the nearly ascended characters we saw only had a couple at most. But basically he seems to have more than he should, some of the stuff looks more like magic than ascended power we've seen before. I guess you sort of covered that by saying that Willow had the gene... (so maybe magic makes sense...) still depending on how long he was imprisoned... some of the stuff seems weird. The healing devices... were presumably based off of the ancient's box (the origin of the fountain of youth.) study of that was what built the sarcophagus... and I'm assuming the healing device... so the idea of a banished so long that he fell out of memory goa'uld knowing how to do something we've never seen with the device... He's too knowledgeable in certain ways and in other ways it just seems like it's questionable. Possession didn't seem to be an ancient ability, (if it was then the priors would have functioned differently)

Then again maybe I'm missing something, but I wouldn't think he would have had time to build the tech needed to pull off some things. I think the closest we've seen was the goa'uld clone like thing that they ran through the ascension machine... He had some interesting powers but not to this level.

Basically he comes off as a big bad from the stargate side of things according to his words but he's got Buffy demon style of powers but claims to be totally on the Stargate side of things... The mix of powers and abilities just seems too strange (to me) so he comes off as sort of unbelievable and flat. Sort of the oh please... go ahead and blow up the world because we surely can't stop you... go ahead, we'll take it up with our union president after we're dead. I'm not sure what exactly makes it the Mary Sue of villains but that's just my thoughts on him. Sorry.

As for the healing, yes I can see the healing though transferring the wounds would take more energy than just healing the wounds. Close and open verses just close. Anyways, good luck on the story.

Well I thank you for this, but I can't actually go into more detail in a review, I'll put it into the next chapter.

You have valid points, and all will be made clear.

Anubis as I understand it was a partially ascended go'auld your OC seems to fit strangely. A bit too much magic and transferring wounds... I just don't see the point. The dreams... I can't see Jack killing his friends over Jaffa so that one rings hallow. I can't see Carter not beaming herself off or at least ejecting... basically the dreams sucked. The OC was unbelievable and the whole thing smacks of Railroading plot bitch. If they could stab him then they could stab him... there is no reason that Buffy couldn't pull her hands off. Basically your big bad big what ever he is is rather unbelievable on so many levels... So the fic is losing interest. I guess I'll have to wait to see what's really going on for the final judgment but yeah... basically things rather aren't making sense and I can't see him having ascended powers without the rest smashing him down after what happened with Anubis. Basically your alien has too much stuff that smacks of magic rather than the psi powers that ancients (Altarans) had. Just goes down the wrong way.

Anubis was never an Ancient, he merely partially ascended. Therefore, in addition to being proscribed by the others, he never had the powers that a pre-ascended Ancient would have had. Also, my OC hasn't ascended, so there's no reason why the Ancients would stop him - they didn't stop the Priors. Although, just as a point, who do you think imprisoned him?

Also, at no point did I mention that the dreams were realistic. Nor did I claim they weren't. I merely said they were possible outcomes. Although, you can't beam or eject in hyperspace, and by the time Sam left it she was burning up in the atmosphere. Just a point.

As for magic - Khalek, who essentially was a pre-ascended being, had powers that stopped bullets. The Ancient found in Antarctica could heal others. Essentially, the only different thing is the transference of wounds, and the vampire-Goa'uld-Alterran thing, which, as you will see, are linked.

As for Caelus being "unbelievable", would you care to elaborate on that?

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Great new chapter, keep up the excellent work. :)

Interesting chapter, keep up the excellent work. :)

I love it when Buffy kills the bad guy in mid-boast (like when she easily tossed 'Doc' off of the scaffold on her way to rescue Dawn, when Doc thought he was 'all that' because he'd been able to cut up a little girl and down Spike with a cheap shot). Of course, being an Ancient with a Goa'uld inside him, I suspect Caelus might not be as dead as one could wish . . . just yet.

I'm continuing to enjoy the Sam-and-Spike 'sympatico' vibe, too.