Chapter 2: There's No Kill Like Overkill

So one day I get called up to Heaven and summoned to Tyr's private office.

Tyr is the ruler of Asgard. He's called the Daitenkaicho, which means 'President of Heaven'. I report to directly to him, as I am the leader of the combat Valkyries, called the Fighting Wings - basically Heaven's elite military attack force. I am the strongest and deadliest of all the Valkyries in Asgard.

I reported to his office as instructed, and he gave me my mission briefing. Wait, you want me to do a hit job? On a mere mortal?

C'mon, Tyr, just tell Thor, Odin's son, to do it. You remember Thor, right? Just have old hammer-brains chuck a lightning bolt down at the guy. But noooo, Tyr says there is no such thing as a lightning storm in space. No can do.

But why me? It seemed like so much pointless overkill. Being the leader of Asgard's combat Valkyries, I usually don't wrangle with anything less than a first class demon. It was insulting.

So I told him I'd delegate it to one of my subordinates, Chrono. You see, Chrono switched from Peorth's sysadmin team to my combat team a year earlier. She's still pretty green, but I felt that a hit job would help toughen her up.

Tyr wouldn't let me. He insisted that I had to be the one to do it, personally. Fine, whatever. He handed me the briefing folder. I glanced at the photo. Yuck, this guy was ugly. I then tossed the folder aside.

He said he wanted me to cowboy the guy. Big and splashy. Good. That's my style.

Then I asked him, why the hit? He said it was to prevent genocide or some such. Something about saving 5 billion 'fuhl-cahn' lives from genocide. It seems this guy was from 'rommy-land' or something. Don't remember, don't care.

That's kind of a problem for me, I mean not reading my mission briefs. Tyr is always calling me on the carpet about it, about how I don't bother to read the rules of engagement. Don't care. You point me at something and stand back. Otherwise don't choose me.

So, I traveled forward in time about 200 years or so and popped up in front of the guy.

Eeeeewww. I was standing ankle deep in some kind of disgusting bilge water. It stank of rotting debris. My shoes got soaked. Great, those were my favorites. And the smell, ugh. Didn't this jerk ever hear of a wet vacc, or a sump pump? That stink, yuck. I will never forget it. And I still can't get rid of the athlete's foot that I contracted that day. So you see, I was already getting kind of pissed off. And hoo boy, that is never a good thing if you are my target.

So anyway, my target was sitting in a dark eggshell-shaped chair. He had some kind of rod or staff, maybe it was to symbolize his power or something. He said, "I half expected someone like you would show up."

I said, "Well, you hit the jackpot buddy. I'm as good as it gets."

"I suppose."

I had my halberd pointed at him (it's a safety feature). Tyr said I needed to talk to him first, to ask him if there was anybody else floating around with the same murderous intent against the fuhl-cahns or Earth. The rod guy must have been feeling magnanimous or something. He told me that there was such a guy, named John Harrison (at T+28 years). I thanked him for the intel. Maybe he thought it would get him off the hook. Nice try, you ain't getting out of this one, you smelly bald twit. And what's with the stupid face tattoos?

Next I bet you think I impaled him or something. Did not! I didn't.

Instead he did something completely unexpected. He pushed a button on his staff and two blades popped out. It was a toothpick compared to my number 15 halberd. Then get this, the idiot actually charged at me, going all "yyarrgghhh!" and everything. He was going to try to impale that thing into my chest. I wasn't going to impale him, he was actually going to try to impale me.

I mean, this was going beyond insulting.

I smirked and stepped aside. But then I tripped over a submerged cable or something. I fell into that bilge water face first. Argh! I think I got some up my nose. Eeewww.

Wait, my hand was inside something kinda squishy under the water. You see, I had thrust my arms in front of me to brace my fall, and one of my hands had apparently gone right through the chest of some other guy. A dead guy. I didn't do it, I mean he was already dead, and I didn't create the hole in his chest either. My hand just went through it, that's all. Gross!

Meanwhile, the loony tattoo guy stops charging and just looks at me. I floundered around a bit and worked to get out of that sewage and stand up.

I still had a snootful of that bile up my nose.

So I sneezed.

He exploded.

Oops.

Oh that's just great. Now there are ludicrous gibs all over my nice white combat uniform. Do you know how hard it is to remove bloodstains from my uniform? It's the protein. You gotta soak it in bleach for like an hour. That's why I always wear white, because the bleach won't discolor anything.

Oh! I think some of his brain got in my mouth. Eeeewwwww!

Dang it. This hit job sucked. I didn't even kill him, not intentionally anyway. I couldn't even claim self-defense.

Now, the other members of his crew were all staring at me, frozen in their places. I can understand that. They had just seen their captain explode, and from their vantage point I can see why it did kinda look like I whacked him. (But I didn't!)

Then one of those idiots took a potshot at me with some kind of laser pistol or something.

I didn't read the rules of engagement so I wasn't sure if I was allowed to do anything to them. But self-defense is always valid.

You see, I was feeling kinda pissy. I mean, Tyr drags me halfway across the galactic sector just to stand in a swamp and sneeze at a guy.

But yeah, they shot first, so hey, it's game on.

Actually it wasn't. I didn't feel like playing catspaws with a bunch of practice dummies. Like I said, I was feelin' pissy. So I just stamped my foot.

It split the whole thing in half. I was now floating in space.

It was a pity. That sucker was like 100 kilometers long. I was really sad that I broke my new toy so quickly, because I really liked how it looked from the outside. All spiky and nasty looking. It was a thing of beauty. In fact it was so nice that I had already decided I wanted to steal it. What a sweet ride. I was going to tool around Asgard with it, just for the badass effect.

You see, during the sesquicentennial parade my gals in the Fighting Wings march for review in front of Tyr and Odin. I was going to lead the parade and ride this thing from the top, straddle it between my legs, with some horse reins to steer it around.

And after the parade I'd go all Eric Cartman and refuse to share the ride on my sweet toy with Peorth or anybody else. Just to annoy them. Heh.

Oh well. I accidentally broke it, and so the thing started to fall into the sun. This is why Tyr always says that I can't have nice things.

Maybe I can ask Skuld to stitch it back together again for me? Naw, she'd just mess up the aesthetics. She'd probably glue Banpei's stupid fat smiling face on the front prow or something. That kid has got no sense of style at all. Just let it go.

And then something hit me. Something actually hit me. It hit my hair. Dang it! Do you know how hard it is to find a beautician that will cut my hair the way I want it? Asymmetrical. They are always trying to 'balance' it. I don't want it balanced, you putz!

Argh, that hit on my hair ruined the effect! You are soooo dead! Self-defense time, baby!

I whirled around to find out where it was coming from. It was a little itty bitty toy spaceship, with a round saucer section connected to two cigar shaped thingys. The little ship looked kinda trashed, and the stupid thing was shooting these little lasers everywhere. I saw the inscription on the hull, "USS Celsius" or something. Don't remember.

The point is, it took a shot at me, and like I said I was feeling pretty pissy. So it was game on.

That little ship had all these turrets shooting red lasers at me. I mean, that was sooo stupid. Not the potshots, the lasers themselves. Who arms their ship like that? I mean, really now. It looked like a bad Star Wars movie or something.

I got news for you, baby. Lasers are supposed to be invisible. There is literally no atmosphere in space for the photons to ablate the air molecules. You shouldn't be able to see anything at all. It was a pity, because that little ship could have stood a better chance against me that way (well, not really), for although I can dodge at the speed of light, I wouldn't have known where the shots were going to dodge 'em.

Those idiots should have used real space combat tactics. You almost never see that in Hollywood or on animes. Well, wait, there was this one anime series, called Starship Operators. It's the only TV show that got space combat even remotely right. It's my all time favorite space anime 'cuz of the realistic combat tactics.

You see, in real space wars, the whole thing is stealth. Peek and shoot. And it's all silent. Every shot is a one-hit-kill. There are never any survivors. And you engage from a distance of at least 100,000 kilometers or further. Range wins too.

Range and stealth. The hardest part is hiding your heat signature. Otherwise in the IR you'd show up like a Christmas tree.

Real space combat is incredibly boring. Nothing happens until the kill shot. And the recipient doesn't even have time to react with a decent death scene. Boom. Gone. Very dull.

Now for some reason, Starship Operators got crap ratings. It was like nobody wanted to watch it or something. It was a pity, because it was my favorite show. I'd watch the TV and throw popcorn at the screen, "Hide behind that asteroid, you dummy! Peek and shoot! Woo hoo!"

Peorth stayed away on my TV nights.

Anyway, on a whim I started playing with the toy ship like a catspaw. I'd zip behind it and watch all the shooting stop for a couple seconds as they tried to figure out where I went. Then it would start up again. I zipped around them like that a half dozen times. Yawn.

I didn't notice at the time that a bunch of little lifeboat crafts were fleeing from the rear cigar shaped thingy. They were fleeing, not attacking me, so I let 'em go. I didn't know the rules of engagement and didn't want to get in trouble with the Big Guy. No sense getting him mad at me. (And he's the only guy who could possibly take me in a fair fight.)

The itty bitty ship kept shooting at me. So somebody was still on board trying to piss me off. Those idiots. If they only stopped shooting I might have been magnanimous and let them all go. Pity.

So I snapped my finger and broke the little ship for good.

Ouch! That stupid thing had anti-matter inside it! I must have set it off. I got hit right in the face with a 97 megaton matter and anti-matter explosion. Great, now I'm covered in soot. I must look like Marvin the Martian in blackface. Argh!

I so hate this stupid mission!

Uhm, where was I? Oh yeah.

So anyway, I was supposed to tell you about the Bonding spell that I cast on Keiichi and Belldandy. I got kinda distracted there, sorry. It happens to me a lot. Short attention span. Ok, I'll explain it next, like right now.