Here's my first attempt at any kind of fanfiction, so please let me know how it goes. It is my hope that you will find it enjoyable!

Disclaimer: Oh My Goddess!/ Ah! My Goddess! does not belong to me.

Acknowledgements: Much of this story is based upon the universe spun by Davner in his series Blessings: Broken Bow. His material used by permission, with a sincere thanks from myself.

And now, Chapter one...

The place had never been given a name. The data entry listed its designation as M11397X4.

Rota took in the bleak scenery of the realm impassively as her team members set up a preliminary perimeter. There really wasn't much here to give this place distinction. It was just a jumbled collection of rock and dust—the leftover fragments of a thousand different worlds, or perhaps the seeds of those worlds far into the future.

The valkrie shook her head. That was ultimately up to the Almighty, and was of no importance to her or this mission. What she did note, however, was that the realm's 'scenery' could provide excellent cover to a host of enemies, if any were out there.

It was a three-dimensional realm, and a fairly unremarkable one. Uninhabited, forbidding, and utterly barren, it had been deemed unsuitable for colonization or even anything more than marginal acknowledgement.

She touched her hand to the communicator on her collar, speaking louder in response to the wind's howl. "Command, Windrunner Actual. We have arrived on station and are setting up preliminary defenses."

888

Back at the tactical operations center, a junior goddess on the comms board logged the report.

"Roger, Windrunner," she replied. "We'll stand by for further word." She turned her head to the side, her blond tresses shaking with the movement as she examined the impassive expression of the god standing to the left of her seat.

Celestin folded his arms across his chest. The dark-haired god had been in the TOC ever since Windrunner had departed, hovering near the comms panel.

"Lord Celestin, perhaps you would feel more comfortable with a chair to sit on or something of that nature?" the goddess asked. "It might be some time before Windrunner has anything of interest to report."

The god continued to stare ahead, seemingly lost in his thoughts. She wondered if he had even heard what she had said.

"No," he finally spoke. "No, I'll be fine like this." The goddess didn't question him further. She was slightly uncomfortable with the presence of the councilor. He was distant, speaking only when necessary, and his presence in the TOC was highly irregular to begin with. Having him looking over her shoulder for the whole day had only heightened her unease.

Behind them, the entrance to the TOC opened. In strode a company-grade officer with a young goddess in tow. He made his way purposefully towards the comms board.

"Lord Celestin," the captain bowed courteously, "It is a pleasure to have you here to observe our duties here."

Celestin bowed his head slightly. "Gwydion. I'm glad I finally have a chance to meet you. Your skills are… renowned." He turned slightly to face Gwydion's companion. "And you, Lind…I have heard of you as well."

Gwydion suppressed a flash of anger. Celestin's subtle barb towards his student's one-winged angel and the deformity to her soul it implied disgusted him.

The corner of Celestin's mouth quirked upwards in a nearly invisible smirk before smoothing back down into a mask. "Is something upsetting you, Gwydion?" he asked.

Gwydion let his emotions cool. There was no reason to be upset by the councilor's verbal sparring. "No, my lord," he replied softly. Turning to face the comms board he glanced over the screens. "I simply wanted to see if anything had progressed with the Windrunner probe, and give my student some experience with how missions are run."

"I see," Celestin turned back to the display himself. "You anticipate no difficulties in tracking down the spike of energy Yggdrasil detected in M11397X4 days ago, then?"

Gwydion shook his head. "No. I'd say that about ninety-nine percent of the time, this sort of event turns out to be rather harmless."

The councilor pondered that. "And the other one percent?"

The avenging angel's lip twisted slightly. "That's the reason we send out a combat-ready team. We don't believe in taking chances." Anymore than we have to, that is…

Celestin nodded thoughtfully. "A wise attitude, that." He turned his head towards the officer. "The council has heard your name mentioned more than once, Captain. I confess, I was curious, so I pulled your service jacket. It makes for…fascinating…reading."

Once again, Gwydion suppressed a surge of anger and annoyance. Celestin's tone made it sound like he had vivisected the avenging angel and was looking to see if he measured up to expectations. "Words very rarely tell the whole story," he managed to say.

Celestin surprised him by smiling ever so slightly. "As well they shouldn't. Though I must say I was impressed. That business with the demon attack was superbly handled. Your commission was well deserved. You do credit to the Gatekeepers." The god paused to let the compliment sink in. "It seemed all too fantastic to me, so I hoped I would be able to meet you and judge you for myself."

A brittle smile formed on the officer's face. "And do I measure up?" Gwydion asked, realizing he was bordering on insubordination. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lind paying close attention to the conversation. He felt slightly ashamed in the example he was setting, but this politician was pissing him off.

Celestin was enjoying his game. "So far I've seen nothing to make me doubt your excellence—"

A squawk from the comm interrupted the bloodless duel. "Command, Windrunner Actual."

888

Rota struggled to hear the reply over the wind.

"Go ahead, Windrunner." She thought she recognized Gwydion's voice over the link.

"We've established a perimeter at Point Aleph on the outer edge of the anomaly zone. So far our scanners haven't picked up anything, so I'm prepping a patrol to move in towards the center. Hopefully we'll get a reading soon, and I'll have real news. Windrunner out."

The energy pulse had appeared and vanished in an instant. It was an anomaly for a world without significance to register a pulse large enough to be noted by Yggdrasil. One of the councilors, Celestin, had asked 1CD to take a look. In the interest of currying political favor, they had agreed.

The valkyrie beckoned to two of her subordinates. "Shen, Helvan, grab the scanners! We're going to head in further to see if we can get a reading." The double-As shouldered the equipment wordlessly and fell in. The other three member of the probe would remain on guard duty.

888

The goddess Belldandy set her quill to the side to review her latest paragraph. Sitting back in her chair, she lifted her manuscript off the writing table to bring it closer to her eyes.

"If gods and goddesses are truly celestial and divine beings, desiring goodwill towards the entirety of Creation, then the division between economics and true Altruism is thin indeed. By performing altruistic deeds, divine beings act to satisfy their own internal desires—their very nature, to put it bluntly. The give-and-take relationship, the basis of an economic system, is clearly apparent in such actions as those taken by Heaven's relief agencies. This is made possible by the aloof nature of wishes in correspondence to the 'granters.' In the majority of cases, the granter is impassive, uninfluenced by the wish or its outcome. Each side simply reaps its reward. Only when the granter is directly influenced by the wish is altruism clearly distinct from economics, because the granter must consider a third factor. In this situation, Mercy is an essential trait…

She had put her heart into this book for the past month, hoping that it would help her secure a permanent position with the Goddess Relief Office. Her writing had been well-received so far, and this latest work was her best yet.

Hearing the door open behind her, the Norn turned around in her chair. She half expected to see her mentor, Celestin, coming to check up on her writing. Instead, she was greeted with the sight of a young woman, bronze-skinned and silver-haired.

Belldandy smiled happily. "Neesan!" Setting down her writing, she rose from her chair and embraced her sister. "I heard you'd been promoted to one of the system administrator slots for Yggdrasil! I'm so happy for you!"

Urd smiled as well, but more reservedly. "I was surprised as well," she admitted. "When I decided not to pursue my first-class license, I thought it was all over… But I guess they still need someone who isn't a bootlicker to bring competency to the administration."

"Urd! That's a rather mean thing to say about the Yggdrasil workers…"

Urd smiled. Belldandy was just so…willing to only see the good in people. However, the comment had been a jest… "I was just joking, sis! I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful goddesses maintaining the system."

Free of Belldandy's embrace, Urd walked over to where her sister's paper was lying, the ink still slightly damp. "This is your latest one, right?"

"That's right. I'm calling it Mercy in the New Age."

Urd read through a couple paragraphs. "This is great writing, Belldandy. You've put a lot of thought and effort into this"

Her sister's fair complexion reddened in a blush. "Thank you, I'm glad you like it!"

Urd nodded as she continued reading. "This is pretty heady stuff. You have to dive in pretty deep to understand these concepts, but I guess that's a part of the reason why you're writing this."

Belldandy nodded. "Hai. It's very important to me. Selflessness is something that even the divine need to strive for, and work to have. Much as we'd like to believe otherwise, we're not perfect…"

Urd nodded at the simple truth of that. Despite being a goddess, she would never be fully accepted by all of Heaven due to her mixed parentage. She felt a wave of bitterness wash across her mind. Who is more 'imperfect', my mixed self or those who would judge me by that?

888

"I must confess, I am curious as to why an operation such as this one would garner your attention, my lord." Gwydion tried to read the hidden thoughts behind the hard eyes of the councilor. "Small-scale probes are rarely of any interest to the council."

"I was the one who requested that the gatekeepers investigate the anomaly. It piqued my interest, you might say." The god didn't bother turning to face his fellow.

Gwydion smiled. "Have you lost interest in your other realm of choice? Perhaps looking for a new one to sponsor?"

Celestin shook his head. "I'm not quite ready to give up on Earth quite yet. The people there are in need of our help—more so with each passing day. They are violent creatures, bent on 'learning the hard way' in everything they do. I pity them deeply, and yet our only contribution to their happiness as a race is through the 'wishes' our relief offices grant.

The younger god digested that. Celestin, distant as he was now, had been known on more than one occasion to have spoken of Earth with a fierce passion at council, and had even been reprimanded for speaking out of turn. "Then why did you want to investigate this realm?"

Now the god turned to face him. "M11397X4 is a deserted realm. As far as heaven was concerned, there was nothing there worth noting. For such an anomaly to occur, something must have caused it. If the means to create the anomaly were present in the realm itself, then it would have been noted by the survey. This leads me to three possible conclusions."

"The first and most simple is that the survey team sent to evaluate the realm missed something." The god pursed his lips in thought. "I find this to be unlikely, but it's the easiest explanation."

Gwydion caught on quickly, his thoughts darkening. "The other option would be that something, or someone, from outside the realm caused the anomaly. We had no activity there…"

"…and there's only one other power in Creation that has mastered the trans-dimensional jump." Celestin finished for him.

Gwydion's eyes widened. He reached for the comms board, but quick as lightning Celestin snapped his hand out and grabbed his arm, preventing him from activating the communicator. From beside him, Lind started to move…

"Stop." Celestin's command carried a ringing force. Lind froze. The tension in the air was almost palpable. The blond goddess at the board looked fearfully at her superior.

Gwydion's face was set in a mask of anger. He stared into those hard eyes for a long moment. Finally, he pulled his hand back.

"One minute, Celestin." the officer bit out. "You have exactly one minute to tell me why I shouldn't call back the patrol immediately!"

Celestin released his grip on the man's hand. "There's a third option, you see. It's called 'birth'."

"What?"

"M11397X4 is a lifeless realm. It has little shape, little definition. Little purpose."

Gwydion suddenly felt as if the room had chilled. There was something in the way the god had just spoken that had made him patently uncomfortable, even more so than the threat of demonic activity near his team.

"What if it was given a purpose? What if the anomaly we detected was the beginning of the birth of a new world, unknown to all of us?" Celestin closed his eyes as if experiencing a vision. "The Almighty could have created this new world, untouched by all that has transpired so far. A brave new world. This anomaly could be nothing more than the birth cries of this new world."

Gwydion shook his head. "Even so, why would you want the probe to stay on station? If this is indeed the will of the Almighty, it is not our place to interfere with his designs."

"Do you really believe that, Gwydion?" Celestin opened his eyes slowly. "I don't think you do." The god smiled craftily. "If that was the case, the Division would never sortie outside of Heaven. These costly wars with demons would never be fought. No, you know that with our hallmark of divinity, we have the authority to influence the world over which the Almighty holds dominion. Not only the authority, but the responsibility to do so."

"We influence the world to aid it. To further the Almighty's plans! Not to interfere with them!"

"And what if we could improve on that design?" Celestin asked. "You've seen the result of our work so far—heaven is under constant threat from the demons and we've nearly abandoned those realms that need us most. Tell me," he asked, "have you ever been to Earth, Gwydion?"

"No."

"Then you don't realize the suffering they experience there. Death, destruction, sorrow, fear—they abound like no other place beyond Hell itself. No," Celestin finished, "sometimes we cannot leave the fate of worlds to the Almighty alone."

Gwydion stared at him for a full ten seconds. "I'm recalling my team. Now." He nodded to the blond-haired goddess. "Send the recall immediately."

Celestin only smiled. "It would be wise for you to consider what I've said. In all, I consider it more likely that Hild has sent her people to M11397X4. Fine. You can drive them out, and then negotiate territory as part of the treaty. But eventually, the time will come when we will need to act for the greater good."

The communications officer flipped as switch. "Windrunner, this is Command, abort abort abort. Your signal is Omega. Acknowledge." Silence. "Windrunner Actual, this is Command, over."

Gwydion didn't hesitate. "Councilor, I'm placing this facility on a level two alert. I'm afraid that nonessential personnel cannot remain in the TOC." The underlying threat in his tone was unmistakable.

The god nodded. "You must do what you feel is right, of course." He turned and made for the door as the first alarms started sounding in the TOC. "Send me a copy of the after-action report when you get things sorted out."

Gwydion would have thrown a glare at his back, but the young officer stopped himself. He's not worth it. Right now you need to make sure your team is okay. Instead, he bent over the comms display. "What's the report on our communications, Sergeant?"

"Long-range communications down for voice traffic, but I'm still picking up their transponder signals."

"Very well. Keep trying to raise them. And try and figure out why we've lost communications." Gwydion ran over his options. "Get a tactical display running!" he shouted to the TOC staff. "I want to see a map of their positions plotted, and vector data to figure out what's going on. Air Ops?"

"Sir!" A god further down the line called.

"Do you have anything available that can transfer to realm M11397X4? I want eyes on Point Aleph."

"Working on it right now, sir!" The avenging angel's fingers danced across his keyboard. "We're limited due to the few hardline options for transfer, but I can have two birds on station in fifteen minutes!"

"Do it!"

The operations center quickly evolved into a scene of organized chaos. Watchstanders worked feverishly at their monitors as various valkyries picked up communicators or called to other stations: "Showtime Flight, this is Starbase, launch the alert five-", "Activate secondary tracking system!", "That's already activated-", "Picking up evidence of a jamming field-"

Lind just tried to take it in. Gwydion had rushed over to the plot center to see the tactical display, but she had stayed rooted next to the communications panel, almost fearful that if she moved she would disrupt the collective concentration of the operations center. Gwydion had hoped to show her a little of how the TOC was run. Now she was an island in a storm of activity.

888

Rota crouched behind one of the piles of rubble in the unnamed realm, desperately trying to work her communicator. "Command, this is Windrunner Actual, over!"

Next to her, Shen popped up and fired over the mound before ducking back down. "We can't stay here!" the avenging angel cried. Helvan was thirty yards away, his body sublimating into a wisp of smoke. Already the demons were moving in, flanking them.

"Command, this is Windrunner! I am not receiving but I say again, under attack by three-zero-plus hostiles, need immediate air support, over!" But there was no response, and only five minutes into this running firefight and she was at the brink of despair. Demonic blasts zipped over their heads as they lay flat behind the mound.

Her communicator crackled, but it was the other members of her team. "Rota, we've reached an outcropping close to Point Aleph. We'll pop smoke to mark our position. Then just give the word and we'll cover your withdrawal!"

Rota shook her head. "There's no way we could make it back to you. Withdraw back to the hardline; we'll cover your escape!"

"We're not leaving without you!" The Gatekeepers were tight-knit bunch, but Rota didn't want to see any more of her people dead even as they didn't want to leave her.

"That was an order, Sergeant! We'll be right behind you—wait!" Overhead two streaks of light crossed from over the realm's horizon.

Once again, her comm crackled. "Windrunner this is Showtime inbound. Mark your position, and we can give you one, maybe two passes."

Rota could have almost cried for joy. "Showtime, we're right here! Popping smoke!" She reached for her belt and yanked off a marking canister, activating it. Purple smoke rose from her position. A similar plume marked the rest of the team 200 meters behind her.

"Into attack," her communicator relayed. "Keep your heads down." Rota and Shen flattened themselves as the world literally blew up around them.

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM. The ground shook as dust and chunks of rock were blown into the air. Their ears were assaulted by the crash of the heavy weapons around their position, and splinters of superheated rock stung their bodies. Rota pressed her body into the ground, willing herself to flatten as she rode out the storm.

Abruptly, it was over. The world turned strangely silent. Rota picked her head up, realizing her ears were ringing slightly. She shook her head as if to clear it. Shen looked to her. "What do we do now?"

Rota looked around at the air full of dust and dirt. "The smoke will give us cover! This might be our only chance. We'll break cover and dash for the hardline. Keep your head down! Ready?" The double-A nodded.

"Go!" With a flash Rota was off, Shen right behind her. Running across the uneven terrain, she struggled to pick out her footing through the smoke. The wind had picked up again and was moving the dust like a sandstorm. Staggering against the wind, she made for the direction of the hardline at Point Aleph.

She broke through the dust cloud to see the base camp only a hundred meters away. Realizing it was now or never, she dashed forward as fast as her training-honed body would drive her. Up ahead, the rest of the team was assuming defensive positions at the hardline.

From behind her, she heard Shen stumble and fall. Turning, she saw the avenging angel on his knees, clutching a blackened spot on his chest. "Go!" he hissed. "Go!"

Wordlessly, she turned back and ran as she had never before. As she ran up to the rock outcropping that marked Aleph, the defenders opened up with covering fire all around her. Making to safety, she turned around. "Shen!"

Galvin pushed her down as a blast sizzled where her head had been. "He's gone, Rota!"

She pushed off the flood of grief threatening to overwhelm her. She had a job to do. Hitting a control on her communicator, she opened the hardline, causing a column of blue light to rise up from the ground. Then they were diving through it to escape to Heaven, but not before she felt the first drop of steaming water slide down her cheek.

888

Gwydion stared at the display in horror. Two of the IFF beacons had gone silent after reporting catastrophic damage to their wearers. In other words, he had two dead in a botched operation, and one that he now suspected should never have been launched in the first place.

Why? he asked himself. Seal, I can understand. Why would they kill? Have the demons done away with Doublet? What the hell is going on here?!