Disclaimer: AMG belongs to Kosuke Fujishima.
Blessings: Shattered Sky
Chapter 2
Nature, Nurture, Heaven and Home
Dear Lenus,
It's definitely turning into one of those weeks. You think you're facing one crisis, one that affects you personally, and you think it can't be worse... and then the universe decides to one-up you.
I love you, and I miss you.
Skuld
"Science and Tech's best guess is that it spreads through the hardlines," the briefer explained, standing before Skuld and rest of the Combat Division's officers in the main briefing room. The screen behind the young god changed to show a dimensional map of the hardline network, which resembled a starfish with long, wavy arms. The map focused on the area where the Outback used to be and the Veldt still was... but not for long. "Realms 702 and 703 are in the fourth spiral arm, a line of realms connected one after another after another like pearls on a necklace."
"So for now whatever-it-is can only eat one realm at a time," Skuld concluded.
"Yes, Ma'am," the briefer told her.
"Well, that gives us some time," Shara piped up from Skuld's left. "So far it doesn't seem to be in a huge hurry."
"No, I imagine entire universes are large meals," Skuld replied deadpan. She took a deep breath and asked an uncomfortable question. "Does S and T have an estimate as to what will happen if this thing makes it out of the fourth spiral arm?"
The briefer cleared his throat. "Dr. Seshat isn't... um... comfortable with discussing such a thing without more data," he told her.
"Dr. Seshat can revise her numbers later," Skuld told him in annoyed assurance. "What does S and T think?"
The young god with every eye in the room on him took a deep breath. "If... the anomaly reaches a hardline nexus with three or more connections..." He paused and swallowed, unused to and uncomfortable with delivering statements of such gravity. "... the entire hardline network will be infected twenty thousand hours after first contact."
The room filled with awe-struck murmurs. Skuld remained silent as she digested this proclamation.
"Then I guess we need a plan," she noted quietly.
"Without more information on what the anomaly is... its construction... there's no way to..." the briefer began.
"We can starve it," Shara suggested, cutting him off. "Gather up as much tri-plutonium resin as we can get our hands on and detonate it in Realm 701. Just like with the Roundtable. It'll cut it off from the rest of Creation."
"I can think of a good reason not to do that," Skuld told her pointedly. "The seven point three billion sentients who live in Realm 701."
"There's actually a better reason," the briefer piped up. The Valkyrie leadership turned back to him. "It just won't work. You see... the Roundtable isn't actually gone. It's just been reduced to such small spatial particulates that it can't be accessed or perceived like other realms. Think of it like this: Right now, the anomaly is eating steak. It has to chew, swallow, digest... A realm like the Roundtable is going to be like baby food. It'll tear through it in a fraction of the time it's taking now."
Before Skuld could react to that statement, the doors to the briefing room opened, and a god in white and blue robes marched in. Skuld quickly hopped to her feet, prompting the other Valkyries to do the same. The god found her and made a beeline straight to her.
"Michael," she greeted with a short bow. "We were just going over the data on the anomaly..."
"I know, Skuld," the elder god told her, holding up a hand to forestall her. "And that's why I've come. I knew you would all be working feverishly on this and I did not want what I'm about to say to be lost in a communique or email somewhere."
Skuld arched an eyebrow. "Which is?"
"I have spoken with the Almighty," Michael told her. "And He has declared that we needn't worry about this occurrence."
Sighs of relief filled the room, but Skuld simply gave him a look of disbelief. "We needn't?" she asked.
"No," Michael assured her with a smile.
"Why not?" she asked. "Did he create this anomaly?"
"I would assume so," Michael replied.
"'Assume?'" Skuld said incredulously.
"He doesn't exactly explain everything," Michael told her. "Not even to me."
"Okay, well, I need more," Skuld told him. "This thing has already killed one of my Valkyries. I have two ships in the fourth spiral arm watching it. I need to know how far this thing is going to go, where to pull my people back. Did he talk to Hild? How is she going to react to this thing? I need..."
"Commander," Michael halted her. He paused and regrouped, obviously perturbed by her questions. "I understand your concerns, and I will attempt to find clarification with the Almighty. Until then, I think we should simply feel relieved that this is part of His great plan and not an impending cataclysm, yes?"
She took a breath. "Of course I am relieved," she told him, biting back her ire. "But unfortunately, my job doesn't end there. The next realm on its list is filled with sentients. I need more information, and I thank you in advance for any you can provide me."
Michael smiled and gave her a nod. "Of course." He turned and acknowledged the other Valkyrie officers. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said before turning and leaving the conference room.
The others sat down. Shara leaned over to her and whispered in her ear.
"You get the feeling we just got told to shut the fuck up?"
Skuld cleared her throat and turned to the others. "Well," she began, "It appears that we... 'needn't worry.'" She paused for a moment. "Even so, let's keep an eye on this thing as well as extra eyes on the Demon Realm. Until I get enough information to be satisfied, we're going to continue to treat this thing like a threat."
Her Operations Officer, Agrona, broke in. "The Meriadoc and the Gwydion are in Realm 700 now," she said. "Do you want them pulled back to somewhere... um... safer?"
"Tell them to hold position for now," Skuld ordered. "If things start to..."
Lt. Tryss's face snapped onto the display in front of them. "Excuse me, Ma'am, please pardon the interruption, but your sister is trying to contact you."
"Tell her I'll have to call her back," Skuld told her, already turning her attention back to Agrona.
"I have, Ma'am," Tryss told her. "Twice. She says it's very important. She seems very upset."
Skuld sighed. She had a feeling about what this was. "Okay, I'll take it here," she said, picking up the pearl-inlaid rotary phone sitting on the table in front of her. She gave it a second before speaking. "Oneesama, it's me."
"Oh, Skuld! You have to help me! Keiichi's gone!" the panicked voice of her sister came back.
Yeah, she had a feeling this was it. Her brother-in-law's death was obviously affecting Belldandy more than she anticipated. "Okay, Oneesama," she said soothingly. "Just take a deep breath and don't worry. You do what you have to do on Earth, and I'll meet him at the AOC and bring him to Mom's house."
"No! I'm at the AOC now! They can't find him! Skuld, they can't find him anywhere!"
Skuld froze. "What do you mean they 'can't find him?'" she demanded.
"He's not in the system at all!" Belldandy cried. "Not alive, not dead! Nothing! Skuld, please help me!"
"Okay, okay," Skuld said in a voice she hoped would soothe her sister's obviously racked nerves. "Listen to me. Belldandy? Are you listening?"
"Hai..."
"Okay," Skuld began slowly. "Here's what I want you to do. Stay at the AOC. I'm going to come find you, and we're going to figure this out, all right? Just stay there."
"Hai... I will," Belldandy told her.
"Okay," Skuld said. "I'll be there soon. Stay there." With that, she hung up the phone and took a breath. Looking up, she saw every Valkyrie's eyes on her.
She cleared her throat, fully cognizant of the fact that she was about to blow off what could be an apocalypse to go help her sister. In her mind, however, she simply had no choice. She knew Belldandy would do the same for her... and so would Keiichi.
Dammit, Keiichi, you baka! she thought. You can't even die right...
"D3 keeps an eye on the anomaly," she announced, nodding to Agrona. "D2 watches the Demons. If Michael, the Grigori or anyone else takes issue with what we're doing, send them to me. Questions?"
"What if it gets to Realm 701?" someone asked.
The room went silent. As Skuld herself had pointed out, there were seven billion people in that realm, and while it wasn't the job of the Combat Division to provide relief during natural disasters, which she was willing to call this anomaly for the moment, the Division was probably the only organization large enough in Heaven to respond... should her father wish it.
She cleared her throat. "At this point," she began, "We can only place our trust in The Almighty that all will unfold as he wills," she said diplomatically. "Anything else?"
"All right, back to work," she said, rising to her feet.
Shara put a hand on her shoulder. "Everything all right?" she asked. "You need any help?"
"My brother-in-law's soul seems to be missing," Skuld told her quietly. "As in, he's not in the system."
"That sounds familiar," Shara told her, equally quiet. "Coincidence?"
"Almighty only knows," the brunette told her. "I need to go help my sister. Keep an eye on things here. If something pops, call me."
"You got it," Shara assured her.
888
The sight of her sister sitting on a padded bench near the AOC's Earth gate broke Skuld's heart. She was staring at the floor while several info-techs worked at a station nearby, undoubtedly trying to figure out what the problem was.
Belldandy must have sensed her presence, because at that moment she raised her tear-filled eyes and found her there. The goddess leapt up and embraced her little sister.
"Oh, Skuld," she whimpered. "They can't find him."
Skuld embraced her tightly. "It's going to be okay," she said. "We'll find him."
"I just don't understand how this can happen," Belldandy went on. "Even if he ended up in the Demon Realm, Yggdrasil would be able to see him. How can this be?"
The fate of Lt. Kazarin, the Valkyrie who had been swallowed up by the anomaly, leapt to Skuld's mind. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "But let me tell you what we're going to do. I'm going to take you home, and we're going to call Peorth. I'm sure these techs here are very good at looking at arrival schedules, but you know they can't hold a candle to what Peorth can do. We'll ask her to look."
Belldandy nodded, her rational side knowing the futility of staying at the AOC.
"Stay here for a minute," she said. "I want to make sure these guys have our contact info in case Keiichi pops out of the gate later all confused." She gave Belldandy another squeeze and made her way to the techs.
She had been optimistic for Belldandy's sake. Out of earshot now, she was less so.
"Okay, folks, give me some good news."
Looking up and seeing one of the top five goddesses in Heaven threw the techs for a loop, but they recovered quickly.
"Milady, I have no idea what happened," one of the techs, a manager by the look of him, told her. "I'll be honest, if I didn't already know of Belldandy's reputation for being a truth-teller, I would have thought she had made this guy up. He doesn't appear anywhere in the system."
"But Yggdrasil has a record of his life, right?" Skuld asked.
"Right, but that record stops at the point of his mortal death," the manager told her. "Now, when that happens, it's just a code change to reflect his change of status and the record continues, but this time it just stopped. If his soul had sublimated there would be a record of that, but there's nothing. He simply disappeared from the face of Creation."
Skuld gave him a hard look. "Well, he went somewhere."
The manager sighed. "We're going to keep looking for him, but we only have a fraction of Yggdrasil's processing power available to us."
The Division commander nodded. "I'm going to take my sister home." She handed him her card. "If you find anything, call me."
"Yes, Milady, of course."
888
It was raining when the two of them popped out of a nexus near the home Belldandy had been preparing for her and Keiichi, almost as if someone was twisting the knife in her sister's gut. But rather than rush inside, Belldandy hesitated outside the quaint, brick house with its perfect garden and patio. She stood there in the rain, looking up at it.
"This was to be our home," Belldandy told her in a soft whisper.
Skuld put a hand on her shoulder. "And it will be," she assured her. "He'll turn up."
"In sixty years, Skuld, I've never spent a night away from him," Belldandy told her softly. "I... don't know how. All I know is that I'm going to spend the first night in our new home... and it's going to be empty."
The younger goddess bit her lip and nodded. "You're right," Skuld said suddenly, prompting Belldandy to turn to her. "So you're not going to stay here until you and Keiichi are back together again. Go inside, pack a bag." She smiled at her sister. "You'll stay with me until the two of you are ready to move in."
Belldandy smiled even as tears pooled in her eyes. "Thank you, Skuld."
"I'll wait out here, okay?" Skuld told her. "Get going."
The middle Norn walked to the front door, and Skuld pulled out her cell phone.
"NOSC, this is Calypso," a feminine voice answered.
"May I speak to Peorth, please?" Skuld asked.
"Oh... um... Actually..."
"I thought she worked this shift," Skuld pressed.
"And she does... usually..." Calypso answered. "It's just that..."
"She's a friend of mine," Skuld told her. "You can spit it out."
"Well, Ms. Peorth just ended a serious relationship, and she... um... wasn't feeling well..."
Skuld squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers. "Tell you what," she said irritably. "Let me tell you what happened, and you tell me if I'm close. Peorth got dumped, and now she's dealing with it the best way she knows how; getting wasted and singing bad karaoke in a bar somewhere."
"...and we don't know where," Calypso finished.
"Then use Yggdrasil to find her location," Skuld suggested through grit teeth.
"It's not an emergency, and so directing Yggdrasil computing power to something like that..."
Skuld had had enough. "This is a Combat Division RFI," she stated firmly. "Authorization: Skuld-one-one-seven-beta. I want to know where Peorth is at this moment. Are you going to get me that information, or do I need to send a couple of my own techs to do it?"
She could hear the woman swallow on the other end of the line. "One moment, please, Ma'am."
Skuld waited impatiently. Something she had discovered after joining the Combat Division was the difference in the level of urgency placed on tasks between a Valkyrie and a regular goddess. Valkyries considered every individual task a mission, and mission accomplishment was the driving force for every Valkyrie. For other goddesses, however, their jobs weren't the primary focus of their lives, and so were often not performed to the same level.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but we don't know where she is," Calypso told her.
A quick shiver ran through Skuld. "You mean she's not in the system?" she breathed into the phone.
"Oh! No! She's in the system!" Calypso assured her. "It's just that... well... she does this sometimes where she rigs things so she's harder to find..."
Skuld grit her teeth. She didn't have time to search Creation for Keiichi and Peorth.
"Keep looking, and call me as soon as you know her location," she said.
"Actually, Ma'am, she'll probably just turn up when..."
"Calypso," Skuld growled, "Do you know what a 'selective conscription' is?"
The other goddess paused in confusion. "Um... No?"
"It's where the Combat Division determines that a specific god's skill-set is so vital to the defense of Heaven, that that god or goddess can be forced into the Combat Division until the Division's commander releases her from service." She paused. "And I'm starting to think I really need an Yggdrasil tech working at our outpost on near the Demon Realm," she finished.
"I'll keep looking, and as soon as I find her I'll call you!" Calypso assured her quickly.
"I know you will," Skuld said just as Belldandy reappeared in the house's doorway. "Thank you very much for all your help."
She closed the cell phone and took a cleansing breath as Belldandy approached, a small red suitcase in her hand. "Was that about Keiichi san?" she asked quickly.
"No, Peorth," Skuld told her. "They're trying to track her down for us." She offered her sister a smile. "Come on. Let's go home."
888
The building nestled in the small cove had once been a tuna canning plant, but that must have been a hundred years ago. The white paint and much of the wood under it had rotted to nothing, and the machines were still, quietly rusting away. Only the moon offered any light through a large hole in the roof, illuminating where she stood and reflecting off her hair.
A mournful horn sounded in the distance. Someone, somewhere was still fishing these waters even if they brought their tuna elsewhere.
She didn't move, didn't check her watch or shift impatiently. She had decided that coming here was worth her time and was therefore prepared to spend it...
... even if he had been here for ten minutes already, watching her from the dark.
It was a matter of pride now. She had known he was there from the beginning, and he had known she knew. Now it was just a matter of who was going to let on first.
Perhaps because it was he who had asked her to come, he felt the need to step out first. It was the hospitable thing to do, after all. He stepped into another point of light made by the moon, his hands at either side to show himself as harmless.
"I have to say," he noted unctuously. "I like the new you. What is that body, sixteen?"
"Eighteen," she corrected casually, her violet eyes tracking his movements.
"Did you come alone?" he asked.
"Of course."
"Eighteen," he purred. "Nice and legal..."
"Do you have any news about my daughter?" she asked, getting right to the point of things.
"Let's not rush things," he said with a smile. "It's been a long time. We should talk."
She took a breath and shook her head. "Fine," she muttered. "The hard way then." She cocked her head to one side, and without warning it seemed as though the darkness on either side of him had come to life, reaching out with cold hands and grabbing his arms. Something struck him in the back of the legs, and he fell to his knees, the dark hands holding him immobile.
She approached him now, walking through the darkness toward his part of the light, completely comfortable with her mastery of the shadows.
He looked to either side of him at the things that held him, almost casually. Knowledge of what they were took some of the fear from their arsenal. "You said you came alone," he noted.
"And you said you had information about my daughter," she replied, leaning down and brushing a lock of moonlight hair from her forehead, displaying just for a moment the sigil on her forehead, the left half of what was once a crimson six-pointed star.
"Of a sort," he replied.
"I've no time for your games, Loki," she told him, rising to her full height. "Right now, accurate and actionable information will save your life, but I wouldn't wait too long to offer it up. My Elites are not the most patient of sentients."
"It has to do with the quote-unquote anomaly," he told her with some mirth. "Do you know what it is?"
She leaned down again. "Much better than you," she said. "And as I know that for a fact, your use to me is zero." She rose again and addressed the bodyguards holding him. "Make it quick." She turned as the Elites drew shadow-blades.
"Aren't you at all interested in how I know about the quote-unquote anomaly?" he asked, still in control of the game and knowing it.
She raised a hand, stopping her bodyguards from their ordered action. Turning back to him, she studied the god, her gaze burrowing into him. "I know what you are," she told him quietly. "You comment on my body, but at least it's mine. You wear yours like a disguise. Perhaps that's why no one in Creation likes your kind. Your very existence resides under a blanket of deception. So why should I believe that you will tell me any kind of truth now?"
"You wouldn't have come out here if you really thought that," he told her.
She thought on that for a moment. "Very well," she said. "I will listen to your story and take what entertainment from it I can. You may proceed."
He smiled, and she hated it. "Well, to begin with, as you mentioned, you have a better understanding of what the quote-unquote anomaly is and..."
"If he uses the term 'quote-unquote' again," she told her Elites, "... cut off his hand."
Loki heard the Elite on his right hiss in acknowledgement and decided to get to the point. "It's early," he told her. "And while you know what it is and how such a thing comes to be... you don't know why it's early... and that bothers you."
This time Hild said nothing.
"But for the Favrashi," he went on, "it's right on time."
888
"Please pardon the mess," Skuld begged as the two goddesses stepped into her apartment. "I don't get a whole lot of time to clean and when I do...well... I just don't want to."
Belldandy took a look at the place her sister called home and smiled. Her sister's office was clean and tidy, but this place, with its tables covered in half-finished machines and inventions... this was the Skuld she knew.
"It's wonderful," she said simply. "Thank you for letting me stay."
"It's no problem," Skuld replied. "You can have the bedroom. I usually fall asleep at my desk anyway."
Belldandy wandered around the main living area, getting a sense of the place. It was obviously maintained in a frenzied manner, and while it looked like things were simply strewn about, Belldandy instinctively knew that everything was currently in the exact spot it was meant to be.
She paused as something shiny on the table caught her eye. Stepping toward it, she leaned over for a better look. It almost look like a modern art sculpture, the head of a dragon made of golden metal and glass about the size of a football. She blinked at it for a moment, then...
'HELLLLLLLP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" it suddenly screamed at her.
Belldandy shrieked in surprise and jumped back, her hand going to her chest. As she caught her breath, she heard the sound of laughter coming from the disembodied head.
Skuld was standing nearby a second later, her finger raised in warning. "Not funny, Professor!" she admonished.
The dragon head snorted. "Oh, I do disagree," it replied with a clipped snooty accent. "Oh, come now, Skuld, I was just trying to have a little fun! It's so rare that you have guests."
"Wha... Who..." Belldandy breathed.
"Seriously," the robot head, the Professor, told her. "Months on end with no one else here, and when she does bring home guests it's always goddesses like that vile Shara woman. What would you call the female equivalent of a sausage fest? A clam bake? We'll go with that..."
Skuld rolled her eyes. "Belldandy, this is my unofficial roommate. I call him the Professor."
Content that there was, in fact, no danger, Belldandy stepped forward again. "A robot dragon's head?" she asked.
"Yeah," Skuld said. "It was kind of during the overlap between my 'dragons are awesome' phase and my 'can create life but not quite sure how to keep it from happening on accident' period. I was working on him one day and BAM! A new annoying life form."
"I could say the same about meeting you," the Professor told her.
"Why do you call him the Professor?" Belldandy asked.
"Well, as you can surely guess, there's not much for a head to do during the day while Skuld's at work, so I spend most of my time learning, getting various degrees from institutions of higher learning through a fake online identity," he explained. "I have 31 doctorates and I'm currently teaching an online course at MIT."
"Computer science?" Belldandy guessed.
"French lit," he corrected. "Just to mess with their heads I teach the entire course in German. Oh, it does piss them off so..."
Belldandy blinked. "Skuld chan... why don't you just build him a body?"
Skuld took her sister by the arm and led her a few feet away. "Do you know what kind of trouble I can get into for bringing robot dragons to life, Oneesama?" she asked in a whisper.
"So you just keep him here... like this?" Belldandy asked.
"If it makes you feel better," Skuld replied tightly, "He's kind of a jerk."
"And what is your name, young lady?" the Professor asked.
The question actually made Belldandy smile. No one had called her "young lady" in a long time. "I'm Belldandy, Skuld's sister."
"So be nice," Skuld warned him dangerously.
"Of course, of course," the dragon head replied dismissively. "Well, let me give you the tour," he said. "Behind me is the kitchen, which I never get to see because Skuld thinks me watching her eat is quote... 'totes-creepy...'"
Skuld sighed.
"To my right is the door to the bedroom that Skuld never uses, either for intended or recreational purposes..."
"I'd melt him down," Skuld informed Belldandy through clenched teeth, "except that there isn't a forge hot enough to melt the alloy I used for his skull..."
"You could always take me to Mount Doom," he pointed out. "Except you're too lazy..."
"It's not laziness," she retorted. "I'm actually smart enough to fly there rather than walk."
"She keeps me around to torture me, you see," he told Belldandy.
"Okay, tour's over," Skuld announced.
"But I didn't get to your creepy little shrine in the corner," the Professor, told her as she picked him up, tossed him a desk drawer and closed it.
"We'll live," she assured him.
"You know," he called through the metal panel of the desk drawer, "I can still make myself heard through here."
"It's not about shutting you up," she replied. "It's about sticking you in a dark, cramped place content with the knowledge that it'll slowly drive you insane." She grinned.
There was silence for a moment.
"Touche," he conceded.
"So," Skuld began, clapping the dust from her hands. "Where were we?" She turned and found Belldandy standing in the corner, studying the aforementioned shrine. Skuld took a breath before joining her there.
"I don't have this picture of them," Belldandy commented about the three dimensional image sitting atop a simple pedestal flanked on either side by a single flower. "I didn't think they ever took one together."
"They didn't," Skuld told her. "I took one of Urd and an old one I found of Sensei and mashed them together." She shrugged shyly as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn't have. "I just seemed appropriate somehow."
Belldandy smiled and nodded. "Hai, I agree." She looked at the base of the shrine and found several gold coins piled there. "Are these Gwydion's?" she asked.
"Yeah," Skuld said, turning and heading toward the kitchen to make some tea. "He didn't have any family left... not after Yazlyn, Gaeriel and Lind were killed." She put on a pot of water as she spoke. "I looked around for awhile, trying to find someone who was close to him, but it turned out I was about it." She paused. "It's kind of sad. All those years as a teacher, and I'm the only one who was close enough to inherit his memories."
"You were his student," Belldandy told her. "His last student. And he would be proud of how far you've come. Oneesan too."
"Maybe," she allowed with a smile. "He had an interesting life," Skuld went on, trying to change the subject away from her. "If you ever want to get a case of the creeps, check out the coin that deals with Moder."
"Moder?" Belldandy asked with a confused blink.
"Mm hmm," Skuld confirmed. "Turns out they knew each other before she and Father got married, back when they were real young." She broke off and cleared her throat. "Really well..."
Belldandy cocked her head. "How well?" she asked, intrigued by this new bit of family gossip.
"Well," Skuld said with a grin. "Let's just say that were it not for a well-timed deployment to the third spiral arm about a year before you were born, there would be some very uncomfortable questions about where your proclivity for writing comes from."
Belldandy nearly laughed at the scandal of it all. "You made that up!"
"Well... I embellished a little," Skuld admitted. "They did know each other, and there was definitely something between them, but he never came out and said it. You can read between the lines, though."
The older Norn laughed. "Well... now we know why Moder always trusted him."
"Yeah," Skuld replied evenly. Before she could say more, her cell phone went off. She put it to her ear. "Skuld," she announced.
"Ma'am, this is Calypso at the NOSC," Belldandy barely heard from the speaker. "We found Ms. Peorth. I'm texting you her location now."
"Thanks," Skuld said, checking her phone for the information. "Got it. Anything else I need to know?"
"She appears somewhat... um... Well.. I don't think she's feeling well..."
"She's wasted," Skuld concluded dryly. "Got it. Thanks again."
She hung up and looked to her sister. "Let's go get Peorth."
888
"Do you think he can be trusted?"
Hild didn't bother turning to him, instead choosing to hold her gaze on the "god" standing on the other side of the mirror, oblivious to their presence in the next room. Her eyes tracked him like a hawk, trying to divine reason in every move he made.
"Of course not," she spat. "His very existence revolves around fucking over as many people as he can. But..." She bit her lip in thought. "What he offers... it's not only my daughter, it could be our very survival."
The order of priorities in Hild's list was not lost on Metheus. That was simply how the world worked now, ever since the end of the war. Like every demon, he had been forced to make a choice. His choice was fortunate because this Hild had been the victor. It was unfortunate because this Hild had changed the entire way demons did business. He remembered a time when a demon's role in life was to secure shares, convert demons, and undermine Heaven. But that was under a different Daimakaicho. Things were different now.
But he did miss the old days.
"Then should we follow his proposed plan?" Metheus asked, the gray orb of his only good eye searching his mistress for some inkling of her thoughts in this. "Why not just kill him and seek our princess out in our own fashion?"
"Because he's good at fucking people over," Hild told him. "His plan will work." She turned to him. "It's worth the risk."
"It could bring down the entire Demon Realm," Metheus warned her.
"It's worth the risk," Hild repeated dangerously. Turning back to the mirror, she watched as Loki examined himself in the mirror. The trickster god, Favrashi, however one wanted to view him, smiled at the mirror and waved to them.
"We'll let him find my daughter," Hild told Metheus. "Then we'll kill him."
888
"Why do you think she came here?" Skuld asked as the two sisters entered the basement-level dive in downtown Nekomi. "I would have put money on Paris or New Orleans... Actually," she went on. "I'm not sure I would have bet on Earth at all."
"Perhaps it's a haven for her," Belldandy hypothesized. They stood in the door and scanned the dark, gritty place, searching for a familiar face. "I know that some of her happiest memories were here in Nekomi," the Norn continued almost sadly. "So if she cannot grieve in Heaven, perhaps this is the next best thing."
"There she is," Skuld told her, nodding to the bar. "Come on."
Peorth hadn't changed much in 25 or 60 years, depending on your point of view, but she at least knew enough not to wear her usual outfit to a place like this. She wanted to blend in enough to avoid conversation, so she wore slacks and a plain red blouse. The Norns took the stools on either side of her.
"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" Skuld asked her gamely.
Peorth smiled as she continued to stare into an unknown amber-colored beverage. "I should have known you would find me," she said, addressing Belldandy. "I rather hoped you would, actually."
"I'm sorry," Belldandy told her sincerely. "Had I been on Earth and sensed your grief... and had not been indisposed... I would have come to comfort you."
"It's all right," Peorth told her. "You have your own life. I should learn to live mine."
"So what's his name?" Skuld asked.
"Vazel," Peorth declared, taking a sip from her drink with a grimace. "And I really thought he was the one."
Skuld waved over the bartender and ordered a pot of coffee while Belldandy rested her hand on Peorth's. "The one will come," she assured her gently. "It just takes time."
Peorth stuck her tongue out and gave that idea a raspberry. "What do you know about it?" she asked irritably. "You met the love of your life and it just clicked!" She tried snapping her fingers, but failed, nearly falling out of her stool. "No, I have to put work into it. Find a guy, clean him up, teach him to not be such an asshole and then BAM!" She slapped the bar. "He's fucking one of my techs."
"Calypso?" Skuld asked.
Peorth looked at her. "How did you..."
"She sounded guilty of something," Skuld said quickly. "Peorth," she began, pushing a cup of coffee at her, "I'm sorry that you're hurting right now, but we really need your help."
"You should ask Calypso," Peorth answered snidely. "I have it on good authority that she gives better head anyway..."
"Please, Peorth," Belldandy begged. "It's Keiichi san."
The other goddess turned to her and blinked. "Monsieur Keiichi?" she slurred. "What about him?"
"He died this morning," Skuld answered for her sister. "And he didn't show up in Heaven."
"Quoi?" Peorth replied, stunned in spite of herself. "The Demons got him?"
"No," Belldandy said. "He didn't show up anywhere. He's just gone."
"That doesn't happen," Peorth told them, pushing herself out of her seat and wobbly standing up. "It's simply a change in his function code. Two mouse clicks and an enter key, that's it."
"Well, the NOSC can't find him," Skuld told her. "Anywhere."
Peorth grunted and reached into her purse to pay her tab. "Calypso is probably too busy giving handjobs to other goddessess' boyfriends," she spat. "Fear not, Belldandy, I will find Ke..."
Skuld sighed as Peorth hit the floor and started snoring. Belldandy knelt next to her friend and took her hand.
"I'm sorry that my grief must intrude on yours," she told her unconscious friend sadly. "I promise that once Keiichi is found, I will help you find the happy ending you seek for your own story."
"Let's get her up," Skuld said with another sigh. "We'll take her back to my place and sober her up."
The two goddesses lifted Peorth up and supported her on either side.
"Do you think she can really find Keiichi san?" Belldandy asked her sister.
"If he's anywhere in Creation, she'll find him," Skuld told her definitively, even as doubt gnawed at her.
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Peorth snorted a bit as she hit Skuld's sofa, and her eyes fluttered open. The French goddess's eyes absorbed her surroundings, and she frowned. "This doesn't look like the temple," she noted.
"It's not," Belldandy told her, placing a cup of tea on the coffee table near her. "We're in Skuld's apartment in Heaven."
"We call it the Clam Bake!" the Professor piped up helpfully from Skuld's desk.
Skuld tossed him in a drawer as she walked by and knelt next to her friend. "How are you feeling?"
"Quite awful," Peorth told her. She sat up and took the cup of tea from Belldandy. "Explain this to me again," she implored.
"Keiichi is missing, and he doesn't show up anywhere in Creation," Belldandy supplied.
"And you're certain that the Demon Realm didn't get him?" Peorth asked.
"He doesn't show up anywhere," Skuld told her. "I'm going to have my intelligence folks take a look too, and if necessary, there are other avenues I can check, but if Yggdrasil is to be believed, he simply doesn't exist."
Peorth finished her tea. "I need a terminal," she said. "It doesn't have to be in the NOSC, just something with access to the World Tree."
"There's one in the corner," Skuld told her. "Help yourself."
The goddess carefully made her way to the terminal and sat down. "There are things about Creation," she began, "That are simply too hard to explain. You learn about them as you explore the system, see how Yggdrasil does things, how the tree itself thinks."
She started typing as Skuld and Belldandy watched over her shoulder.
"And a lot of the time," Peorth went on, "You learn to do things that they don't teach in the manual, ways to look past what the tree is doing." She continued typing. "And enter this... and hit this... aaaaaaand..." She hit the enter key. "He's not here."
"We knew that," Skuld told her.
Peorth rubbed her temples. "All right, all right... So it will be harder than expected, that's fine." She started typing again. "I will need more coffee."
"I'll make some," Belldandy promised, rushing to the kitchen.
"What do you really think?" Skuld asked her quietly so that Belldandy wouldn't hear.
"Truly?" Peorth whispered back as she typed. "What you're telling me isn't even possible in theory."
"Well, that's heartening," Skuld sighed. Before she could say anything else, her phone rang. Picking it up, she placed it to her ear. "Skuld," she announced.
"Commander, this is Lt. Tryss in the TOC," the technician's voice replied. "We need you to come in right away."
"Why?" Skuld asked. "What's happened?"
"It's the anomaly, Ma'am," Tryss told her. "It's moved into Realm 701."
Skuld felt a ball of ice fall into her stomach. She took a breath. "Recall the battle staff," she directed. "And stand up the Future Operations Cell. And contact the Chief of Staff's office. Tell Michael I want to talk to him about seven billion people who 'needn't worry' about the anomaly."
"Yes, Ma'am."
The line clicked off, and Skuld took another breath.
"Problem?" Peorth asked her.
"You could call it that," Skuld said. She put a hand on Peorth's shoulder. "Stay with her, okay?"
"Oui," Peorth promised. "We will call you when I find Monsieur Keiichi."
"Don't," Skuld told her, heading to the door. At Peorth's questioning look, Skuld finished. "I'll be too busy to talk."
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There was a flash of light, and then he was falling, falling through darkness, and then...
He could have landed in grass, or mud, or water, but instead he managed to land on top of the only boulder for three hundred yards and bounce off, falling another ten yards and landing on his back in a thicket of bushes.
Rolling out of the thicket, he coughed as cold new air rushed into his lungs. He hurt everywhere, and he lay on his side, his mouth opened in a silent scream of agony before sucking in another lungful of air and coughing all over again.
He lay there for several minutes as the pain began to subside. Swallowing, he rolled onto his back, and it was the feeling of the pine needles against his back that was first indication that he was naked. Looking up at the sky, he saw stars, millions of them, telling him that wherever he was, there was no light pollution, no cities or towns nearby.
Reaching up, he gingerly grasped at one of the branches he had landed in and pulled himself up. He still ached all over, but it was better than before. He looked down at his hand but could barely see it in the starlight.
Where was he?
A forest, obviously, and a forest far from civilization. Perhaps he should stay put until daylight rather than try to run naked through the woods in the middle of the night.
The sound of rustling branches nearby threw that option right out the window. Struggling to his feet, he turned toward the sound. There... in the distance... a faint glow moving through the trees.
But from what?
He instinctively took a step back and heard a sharp crack from the twig his foot just broke. The glow stopped moving.
"Shit," he muttered.
The unearthly light started toward him, and he turned, moving quickly but carefully through the forest. He didn't know what that light was or who it might be, but until he knew more about just what was going on, he wasn't going to take chances.
He could hear rustling behind him as the light followed him. Turning to his left, he saw it bound around him, moving inhumanly fast. He put on speed, branches slapping at his face as he ran. He held his hands out in a vain effort to protect himself, but in the dark they still found him.
He almost hit the stone wall in front of him, but managed to stop just in time, slipping in the dirt and falling on his rear. Looking up, he saw the light crest the top of the wall, aiming down at him. He held his hands up.
"Don't shoot," he called tiredly.
The light dimmed, allowing him to focus on it for the first time. The light came from a ball held by a lithe figure that looked down at him, a woman, he saw now. Her short red hair fell just behind her neck. Although she wore a dark cloak, he could make out an attractive figure beneath it. Her expression was one of concern.
"Are you all right?" she called down to him, his nudity not throwing her off in the slightest.
"I think so," he called back. "Kinda cold," he said in embarrassment.
"I bet," the redhead agreed. "Do you remember your name?"
The question made him pause. Now that she mentioned it...
He started to panic. He couldn't remember his name. It was the most absurd thing he had ever heard of... or... at least he thought so. If she had thought to ask, maybe she could help.
"No," he answered. "I can't."
"It's okay," she told him. "I'll help you."
He took a breath and said the only thing he could think of. "Thanks."
The woman hopped nimbly down from the stone wall and approached him, removing her green cloak and kneeling down to wrap it around him.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The redhead smiled at him. "I am the goddess Belldandy," she said. "And everything is going to be okay."
To be continued...