Chapter 2: The Demolished Man
Skuld flew up to the main Valhalla gate. It was a roundish portal gilded by complex cosmic symbols. "Hello! Gate! This is Skuld. Please connect to the Japan gate and dilate for me?"
Skuld waited. The gate remained closed.
She waited some more.
"C'mon! Open up already!"
The gate transformed into its humanoid form: a cute little blond girl wearing a ridiculously oversized black robe like a tent. "I'm sorry, Skuld. I am rather new at this. I think I misdialed the destination gate coordinates. Let me try again."
Skuld did a facepalm while floating. After the battle ended, restoring the primary gates and their interconnects was one of Skuld's earliest and highest priorities. She went to work on it immediately after she finished doing medical triage and emergency transport of the wounded survivors, many of them critical.
Regrettably there were few survivors left alive to transport, so it did not take her long to ferry them all to receive medical attention. Doctor Nie had also survived, and his heroic medical efforts had saved all of the casualties that were able to reach him in time.
Next, Skuld went to the proctors and she ordered them to decant five new gates. She technically had no official authority to ask them that, not yet anyway, but those strange beings must have sensed her future role and they obeyed her without question.
Skuld made a small grin as she watched the poor gate flounder around. It reminded her of herself when she was but a child. And because of that mental image of herself, she took pity on the gate. She said, "It's okay. Take your time. Learn how to do it. Takes practice, I bet."
"Thank you.. Yes. I am sorry. Reconnecting."
"No sweat. Say, why don't you keep practicing? Start practicing all the different interconnects with the other gates. That way in the future if you need to make a fast emergency connection, you know you can can do it. All of you should do that."
"Skuld, that is a great idea! Thanks! I'll communicate that to the other gates. We'll all start practicing together."
"Great! You know, you're all doing really well. So.. keep up the good work!" She hoped her words of encouragement sounded sincere.
The young gate replied, "Wow, Skuld, coming from you that means a lot, thank you! Connected. Ah, there we go. Dilating."
Skuld maintained her cheery composure. "That's wonderful! Thank you, gate."
"Have safe travels!"
"I will. Thanks. You take care now. Bye!"
Skuld continued to show a benevolent smile to the gate as she went through the portal. The smile disappeared as soon as the gate closed behind her. She was grateful that she had learned enough self-control to prevent her temper from exploding while talking to the malfunctioning gate. There was no point in reprimanding the young inexperienced gate for a rookie mistake. She knew how difficult it was for her to give positive soothing encouragement to her subordinates, something that would be second nature for someone like Belldandy or Keiichi.
While flying through the living bowels of the gate tunnel, she had some time alone to think.
The gates all seemed to be working as best as can be expected, but Skuld was still worried about security protocols, or rather the lack thereof. In the past a demon would sometimes go disguised as a goddess and attempt to gain entry into Asgard that way. The gates still needed programming for friend-versus-foe identification. But that won't start working until Yggdrasil Mark II was online.
And then there were all the other tasks: the reconstruction of Valhalla, the design of the new defensive systems and security structures, the reassignment of duties and promotions to the surviving goddesses, the long-term strategic planning, ... the list seemed endless. Ugh, there was so much work to do!
She knew that her highest post-war priority was the negotiation of a new peace treaty. That had to be done as soon as possible. But she was not a good diplomat, and she needed a shrewd negotiator when treating with the enemy. She sighed again.
Keiichi, I need you so much right now.
She looked forward to making her plea to Keiichi in person. She had not seem him since before the war.
Skuld wondered about her motives for going on this little excursion herself.
Why didn't I send someone else to fetch Keiichi? Ere was right, I am needed in Asgard. So much work to do. So why am I going personally on this little joyride? Ex also was right, it is against the rules for me to leave Asgard like this, especially without a Valkyrie escort for security. Eh, don't need an escort, I'm a Valkyrie myself, and a pretty good one. I kicked ass. I can protect myself.
So why am I doing this? I really do need Keiichi's help. No question about it. Or do I have an ulterior motive for this trip?
Admit it, you still love him. No, wait. That's not true. It was just a crush. Just a young girl's secret crush on a grown-up that was living under her roof. Happens all the time. It's no big deal. And now? I don't feel that way anymore. I literally don't have time for it. I have a duty. This is just business. Remember that.
Yeah, I admit it. Back then, whenever Keiichi got even remotely close to Big Sis, I would go ballistic. I was totally obsessed with keeping them apart. Was it because I was.. actually jealous of Belldandy? Naw. Ok, maybe I did have a secret crush on him. I was just a kid. I'd throw bombs at the poor guy. That was so juvenile, so stupid. I mean, I didn't know about his half-elemental protection against broken bones or fatalities. For all I knew I could have killed him. Was I that pathetic? Did he think of me that way? Pathetic? And what about now?
I don't have the luxury of indulging in those childish feelings anymore. And if he sees me now? If he sees my brand new smokin' hot babalicous supermodel body? Then I will tell him to cool his jets, you pervert. He can look but he can't touch. Heh.
I know that Keiichi doesn't have to help me. He has his own life now. I am going to his home myself, personally, as the Daitenkaicho, to emphasize the importance of the request, to make it personally to him, face to face. This is just business.
Hmm.. what if he demands a price. What if that price is.. little old me? Oh c'mon, enough fantasies silly girl. This is Keiichi we are talking about. Mr. Goody Goody Two Shoes himself. And besides, my request for help will be deadly serious. I'll describe to him the awfulness of what happened, the whole ugly thing. Like how.. how Peorth died.. I don't want to think about that. But I will tell him. I won't hold anything back. And I will let him know why I need him so badly. And I'll go down on my knees if necessary, to beg him for help. I don't care if it diminishes the office or whatever.
Like I care about pomp and circumstance, honor and all that crap. I'm pretty much ego-less that way. Probably a good thing. People in a position of power shouldn't want it for power's sake. Yeah, to him I'm just Skuld, his former step-daughter. I'll just ask him, as a favor to his step-daughter. And he's Keiichi. The lovable squish. He's a pushover. Of course he'll agree to help, even insist on it. He'll grab his stuff and go. This is no big deal. So why am I so nervous?
She flew on.
The exit dilated and she flew out at 100km altitude directly above the Tariki Hongan temple. She flew straight down.
As she descended, she took the opportunity to get an eagle's eye view of the area and do a damage assessment. Hmm, very little damage. It looked like the dismounted AC-130 Spectre 'Spooky' gatling guns must have fired, because she could see the mowed down trees in arcs around them.
Before the battle, she had borrowed four of the 50mm gatling guns from a set of soon-to-be decommissioned AC-130 Spectre 'Spooky' gunships that were parked at a US Air Force base. Nobody would miss 'em, she thought.
This had all happened before. The last time, the built-in GPS homing beacons on the borrowed CVS-65's Phalanx CEWS guns had allowed NCIS agents Anthony Dinozzo and Ziva David to track down the stolen weapons' location: Nekomi Japan. They then went to MTAC and had the NSA task a KH-11 spysat to confirm the guns' exact location, the Tariki Hongan Temple in Nekomi Japan. So they personally flew to Japan to visit the temple to try to retrieve them, after getting permission from Japan's Ministry of the Interior and the Japan Self Defense Force (JSDF).
However, agents Dinozzo and David could not retrieve the weapons because the temple had what Agent David said was 'diplomatic immunity' from a very high authority. The highest, actually. So they went home empty handed, with Agent Dinozzo totally disgusted with Ziva and her weird Israeli connections in the Mossad that had contacted their secret counterparts in Japan and the US to explain why they must not touch the temple.
So it had happened again. The Pentagon, of course, was notified immediately. A KH-11 spysat again confirmed the guns' location at that rotten little temple in Nekomi, Japan. The Air Force then contacted NCIS, and it got kicked upstairs to NAVSEC, and eventually up to the Secretary of Defense.
But soon the Secretary of Defense and the entire DoD would be totally distracted by another incident that would happen very soon after, regarding the incredible events that were happening in the Pacific Ocean. Some massive .. something.. had ravaged thousands of square miles of the empty ocean between Hawaii and Japan. It included the largest and most violent typhoon that the Earth had seen in the last 10 million years, along with evidence of multiple detonations, air bursts measured at over 200 megatons, but with no nuclear radiation. Impossible. And no seismic activity was detected under the sea bed. No earthquakes. And yet the resulting tsunamis would again flood Japan's eastern shores, along with much of the rest of the Pacific Rim. The floods would extend even into San Fransisco Bay.
[A/N: The great events described above happened during the battle of Ragnarök. To learn more, please read the prequel to this story entitled The Fifth Kind of Love. To find that story click on my handle above (HuuskerDu).]
In the aftermath, the entire US Pacific and Indian Ocean naval fleets would be involved in rescue and humanitarian missions for months afterwards, with the US Air Force sending in most if not all of their C-5 cargo planes on humanitarian missions with shelters and medical supplies. And other countries in the region, including South Korea and India, would also assist. It would be one of the largest humanitarian rescue missions in human history. Fortunately this time the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor would not be in danger of melting down again, as it was safeguarded after the last tsunami, and the remaining good reactors were still offline anyway.
And then, after a secret phone call from the Israeli Prime Minister, the little incident with the gatling guns would be quietly shelved. The file on the incident would be classified Top Secret, Q-Clearance, Compartmented (X-3).
But it would not be forgotten.
Skuld entered the front gate of the temple.
She looked around. The place was a mess. The lawn was overgrown with weeds, and the garden and the flower beds were untended and dead. Several bags of trash were stacked up just outside the front door of the temple. Apparently raccoons or some other animal had torn open some of the bags and had strewn the contents around. Skuld picked up some of the refuse and looked at it: dirty TV dinner trays, empty packs of cigarettes, and bottles of beer. Lots of bottles. And not just beer.
She knocked on the door. No answer. She saw the door was unlocked and unlatched. She gently pushed it open and peered inside.
Trash was everywhere. She saw two mice scurry away down the hall. She smelled rotting food. The odor was disgusting.
"Hello? Anybody home?"
No answer.
She slowly walked down the hall.
"Hellooo? Keiichi? It's me, Skuld. You here?"
She checked each room as she proceeded down the hallway. Belldandy's old bedroom appeared to be untouched. Her own old bedroom was messed up a bit, the bed appeared recently slept in, and was unmade. Urd's old lab was also messed up quite a bit.
She checked the common room. It was an absolute mess. It looked like the aftermath of a wild party: Lots of pizza boxes, beer bottles everywhere, several full ash trays, scattered couch cushions on the floor, several blankets and mats thrown around. But nobody was there.
She approached the last room at the far end of the hall, Keiichi's bedroom. She had butterflies in her stomach. She was so nervous. Why was that? She was less nervous when she faced the Great Maw of Hell.
She quietly peered inside.
Keiichi was there.
He was not alone.
He was passed out, laying naked on his stomach on the tatami mat. And there, sprawled out on top of him crosswise, was a naked woman with scruffy blond hair. She was also on her stomach and passed out. Tattoos covered her shoulders and arms.
Then Skuld saw that her spindly arms were covered with needle marks.
Then she saw Keiichi's arm. She raised her hand to her mouth and gasped.
It had needle marks too.
Oh Keiichi, what has happened to you? Who is this, this witch? What has she done to you? Poor Keiichi!
And then it occurred to Skuld that she would not be the one asking for help.
It would be him.
Or so she thought.
She was wrong.