Heaven is a great place. Good architecture, and pleasant cafes are the rule. There's good food and the waiters are cheerful and polite. If you really enjoy something, that doesn't hurt other people unnecessarily, you can find it here. If you enjoy the other kind of behavior… Well there's a place for that too, but it isn't here. Nice people and other entities abound and the weather is always best suited to whatever you had planned for the day. Spanning over all of this is the silver city of the angels. Blink and it becomes Yggdrasil the great world spanning ash. Another blink and it becomes something else; the metaphors are endless and depend mostly on what you expect to see. However you view it, this is the awe inspiring system that defines, runs and connects all the realities of the universe together. Deities, spirits and the kami of your choice inhabit and run it and keep reality from tipping over into chaos. It's not a perfect system and it wasn't created to be. Keeping that in mind, and to that end, there are a lot of checks and balances to ensure none of the competing forces in the universe get too far out of balance with each other.
My partner Bob, and I work here. In our particular case we're agents of the intrinsic chaos department. Don't mistake us with any pigtailed martial artist with whom you may be familiar. Ranma has his own problems and is more a victim of chaos than a manufacturer thereof. No, my partner and I are sent in when the forces of order get too uppity. Now these people aren't necessarily evil. They're just those people who think they have the whole system figured out and want to rearrange things to better suit their own views. You know the type; grandiose plans for either conquering the world or saving it. In these persons viewpoints people are generally viewed as cogs and the universe as making sense. We get as many Hitlers as we do Charlemagnes. The truth is that the universe is set up so everyone gets a chance to do his, her or its own thing.
Our job is to go in and shake things up. Maybe tweak their notions of reality a bit. Most often we're called the finagle factor. We're that bit of sand that mucks up even the most perfect scheme. Most of the time you don't even realize we're there. Remember that plan you didn't believe could fail? All the factors accounted for etc. Then one little thing goes wrong and the whole house of cards falls down around you? Depending on how prideful you were and the scale of the plan you could have been left embarrassed or looking like Wile E. Coyote after the bomb goes off. Of course, making that one little thing go wrong without leaving any evidence of supernatural involvement is a lot of work. You really think things would have been better if Gendos plans had worked out like he hoped? Me neither and it was major pain in the ass to make sure it didn't. Oh, you're from a reality where it did? Sorry to hear that. That version will probably get pruned and the souls recycled. But, just like any other job, you do get tired of it from time to time. Bob and I were both burnt out and due for a vacation when our boss called us into her office.
Sanity Check… failed
A BubbleGum Crisis Spamfic/self-insert
Original Idea by Bob Wade and Charles Stitman
Based on Bubblegum Crisis
Copyright 2006
Bob dressed in his usual jeans and slacks met me outside the golden apple marked door of our boss. The hallway, busy only a moment ago, now appeared completely deserted as those entities around us realized which door we were preparing to enter. I didn't blame them I'd been here for almost a hundred and fifty years in this incarnation and opening this door still caused me more than a bit of trepidation. Despite being only 10 years old in her current incarnation our boss has already made a name for herself as being just as mischievous as any of her past selves and neither of us relished the idea of walking in there cold. Anything from a cream-pie to the face to the threat of imminent corporeal dissolution could be on the other side of that door and even working for her we never knew what to expect. The scariest times were those when everything seemed eerily normal. That was our boss at her most subtle.
Let me put it this way. A previous incarnation of our boss had been on vacation a couple millennia back and had decided to tweak a few goddesses. She'd rolled a golden apple marked with the words "TO THE FAIREST" amongst them. That's our boss, subtle. Given that the goddesses in question were Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite she'd have caused less damage with a holy hand grenade. Next thing anyone knew Paris had Helen spirited away to Troy and the whole Trojan War fiasco started. I've talked to her since and found out she considered the whole thing a big disappointment. She'd expected something bigger. Despite my best warning Bob had asked her what she'd anticipated. To this day I'm not entirely sure what her answer was. I'd dove out the door before that point. However, Bob had gone around afterwards muttering something about Atlantis and grape jelly for a year before I managed to smack some sense back into him. Nowadays he distracts himself by making sure that Mihoshi disrupts Washuus experiments.
Having lost the traditional quick game of rock, paper scissors I cautiously opened the door and peeked inside. I glanced around the interior of the office and was semi-grateful she hadn't redone it since the last time I saw her. It was a western traditionally done office with 60 kitsch everywhere. There wasn't a normal light in the place being almost entirely lit with lava lamps and if you think the lava in those lamps is just hot wax or plastic you haven't been paying attention. The ones marked Pinatubo and Herculaneum are the ones that catch my eye the most. There was no sign of the Lady herself but that didn't make me feel much better. Still, it wasn't like I could put things off. Pushing the door all the way open I walked to the couch in front of her desk and crashed through it like it wasn't there. Not odd, I saw as I got up, as it wasn't. Bob, more quietly than usually slunk through the door behind me and gave me a smirk. I glared at him and brushed myself off as I stood. Still it wasn't as bad as the time there'd been a trapdoor in front of the door that dropped us into Nifelheim. In truth this was pretty lightweight stuff. As if summoned by the thought our boss bounced up from behind her desk and gave us a gamine grin. I don't mean to let you think she's a practical joker. That's just the way she works with those that know her. Her job is to make sure WE don't get too complacent that is to say higher entities. She's even been known to rile the big guy on occasion.
Now that the traditional 'cut them down a notch' sequence was over I summoned up a real couch and sat down gingerly. Even though I'd summoned it myself I wouldn't put tampering with it past her. Seeing I'd made it through unscathed Bob jumped the back of the couch and plopped down next to me. I gave him a pro-forma glare when a whoopee-cushion or hand-grenade didn't go off underneath him and turned my attention back to the boss.
To look at her you wouldn't think she's a Class One, Unlimited deity but she is. In her current incarnation she's a blond moppet about four feet high with a freckled face and golden curls. The classic little girl blue dress with bows, bobby socks and puffy shirt is, in my opinion, overkill. In short she looks like the perfect innocent, until you see the grin. The grin is disturbing to say the least and I've never really been able to quantify why. She's not insane or malicious but you'd be hard pressed to find a more unpredictable entity. The only thing you can count on her for is a devotion to duty that rivals the big guys. I'm not sure if it just because she loves her job or is just a workaholic but her job is first in her life. Bob and I on the other hand do this because it's a job. A fun job sometimes but a job nonetheless.
All this flashed through my mind in the moment I looked at her before she spoke.
"You two look like shit."
I shrugged and Bob looked down at his clothing. She wasn't really talking about our appearance so much as our auras and we both knew it. We'd just come off a five-year tour trying to keep a multi-layer plan by a group of terrorists from eliminating all life in a pretty promising dimensional thread. It was a lot of work and well worth it but we'd been run ragged.
She smiled. "I know you two are tired so I arranged a little working vacation for you."
Bob and I both groaned and covered our eyes. Working vacations are the worst you don't get to really relax and your bosses think they can put you right back in the grinder afterwards.
Eris frowned. "Now don't be that way. This one will actually be fun I promise."
Yeah, sure it would. I didn't bother to hide my doubt and Bob looked like he was considering bolting for the door and to heck with the consequences.
Our boss sat back exasperated. "Really guys I've arranged something cool this time. No limiters."
Bob blinked and sat up and I took notice. Remember what we said about working behind the scenes? No limiters meant we'd be free to be much more overt in our actions. This assignment was beginning to look better.
Bob leaned forward. "So what's the op?" he asked hopefully.
The moppet flicked a finger and two folders appeared in our hands. "A BGC-verse number 23X-498 is about to destabilize and merge with another dimensional thread. I've been asked to keep it around as a test site for a cycle or two so we need to separate it sufficiently from its merging thread. Since we're eventually going to recycle it anyway there's no need not to have some fun. I want the two of you to tweak the primary nodes on the thread.
Bob and I looked at each other and grinned this was going to be fun.