"I'd like to renew my concerns that the United States has been colonizing other dimensions," one of the representatives of the two Chinese factions protested as the collected dignitaries and military personnel came in to sit down.
"It's not really another dimension," Jackson said. "Dimension is probably the wrong word anyway. The records we've uncovered imply that it is more of a bit of folded space-time that..."
"Daniel," General O'Neil said wearily. "I don't think that's the main problem he has."
"If we can hold off on such concerns until everyone is here please?" the secretary general asked.
The Chinese representative growled irritably as he took a seat at the table in the Atlantis facility. He recognized the uniforms of Mithril officers sitting across from him, having worked with Mithril in the past. He didn't recognize the particular officers, and passed over the lavender haired teen who was writing down some notes while talking with the other two obvious members of Mithril's tactical division.
Mithril also had Intelligence officers present, more than usual, including a Japanese woman in a red business suit making her own preparations for the meeting.
The full UN was not present of course, instead it was primarily military personnel and some civil representatives of the associated groups. People directly involved in the actions that were taking part around Earth.
And that included the so-called "Gods" and "Demons".
It took a little bit more time for the remainder of the involved people to arrive and for the group to come to order.
The last groups in, he noticed consisted mostly of the aliens that were currently attacking the planet. He'd already noted that several of the American and Japanese contingent, along with a handful of others, had green facial marks similar to those of the "Gods" and "Demons."
"To start with," the secretary general said standing up. "The matter of the United States' exploration of other realms has been discussed and handled and will be treated as per the handling of space exploration. This is not what we are here to discuss."
"And let's not talk about whether or not we should include the Gods and Demons or not," a South African general said. "This is a meeting to discuss military operations which you nitpicking diplomats are observing. Observing, not talking."
"Thank you," the secretary general said to the the man. "Now if we can get on with matters. Dr. Weir, as this is your facility, if you'd please?"
Elizabeth Weir stood up and walked toward the center of the room and the hologram that rose up there.
"First of all, excuse me for being one of the nitpicking diplomats," she said, to a handful of laughs. "But I'll get straight to matters. We have essentially four matters of concern."
The hologram indicated Earth and showed some of the major shards in the dimensional pockets around the planet.
"First, we have the continued occupation of Japan by rogue Gods formerly under Zeus," she said. "Second the Demons that have taken over places all across Africa, South America and parts of Asia. Third, the retaking of Nifelheim, and the fourth, the repair and control of Nidhog."
She paused on the last. Various portions of the hologram had lit up as she named them but the last location did not.
"Nidhog is not going to show up on any map," she noted. "It is not a physical location but rather more like a sort of internet. That was in your briefing, and it will be discussed later. For now, I'll turn the floor to General Natsuki of the JSDF who is in charge of the retaking of Japan."
She indicated toward the named man and stepped aside for him to take the floor, staying on simply to handle the hologram which moved in to focus on Japan.
"Since the cracking of Zeus's wall around the country," he started. "We've been able to get in and out of Japan with relative ease and have already been engaged in numerous actions to secure the safety of the civilian population as well as acquire intelligence."
He nodded toward Dr. Weir who brought up several videos culled from intelligence operations.
"The Gods are arguing amongst each other," he explained. "If you can call it arguing. It's opened several openings and there are already some places that have been cleared, though we've suffered some casualties."
A casualty list started scrolling next to the intelligence videos. Some noted that despite the logical overwhelming numbers of JSDF personnel, that Mithril and Demons appeared fairly often on the list, with the occasional God.
"The major cities and much of the country are still held by any of a number of developing factions," he said. "But we doubt that with the loss of their leadership that they will not present even near the resistance they did at Kyushu. Our main concern is in identifying human supporters and cults and making sure that the civilians are safe."
He smiled then and gestured toward Dr. Weir to move to another video that showed a trio of Mantles being investigated by various engineers.
"We've also made some significant acquisitions," he said with a smirk.
"Take a rest, Seina," Wraith ordered.
The girl looked down at her and then looked back out down the slopes of the hill that led up to their cavern hide-away. Wraith had to admit, Satomi was damn good at picking safehouses. The Gods still hadn't been able to find them.
Granted that was half because they were fighting each other as much as themselves.
Not the issue at the moment and she knew it as she climbed up to stand beside the young Ainur.
"If I pull this chi stuff right," she said. "I'm good for the rest of night on guard duty."
"You were part of today's action," Wraith noted. "Everybody involved in that is resting."
"I can see better than anybody else right now," she said. "Better I can stay on watch."
Wraith snorted.
"You're falling closer into what Director Satomi would call a 'mystic'," Wraith said. "You think you're are only weapon? Your not. And if you're a broken weapon I'll send you back and you can forget your little quest for redemption."
"What are you talking about, my plan failed," Seina muttered. "What do I have to redeem myself for."
Wraith leaned down and pointed out toward where fresh smoke was rising on the horizon.
"For thinking you wanted this," Wraith said in a harsh whisper. "You think you're the only one whose tried to accomplish something dark. Girl, I've killed more people with my hands than you've probably ever fought in any way."
Seina grimaced and looked out toward the smoke in question.
"I have three operations tomorrow," the North Korean woman said. "I want you on one of them. But if you keep acting like this, I'll send you back. I can't use a weapon that can't recharge its batteries."
"But..." she gestured to her eyes.
"We have cameras every bit as good as anything you can borrow from a Ni," Wraith said. "Satellite coverage. And if I thought I needed someone with supernatural power, I have three psychic sensitives with about ten more years experience than you and two of Geisthexe's shadows. All of whom, you'll note, rested when I told them to. The people I'm replacing you with haven't been up twenty-four hours already. So they are actually aware of what they're seeing."
She took a deep breath.
"Do you understand?" Wraith asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Seina said bitterly.
"Good," Wraith noted. "Now, rest."
"We've captured twelve of these enemy vehicles," he said. "A drop in the water, indeed, but Asgard has allowed us to keep these three for research purposes."
Captain Testarossa and Mara didn't betray their surprise at this, though Ranma frowned and glanced toward Hermes a moment. Though the most obvious of the surprise came from Belldandy at his side.
"Yes, well, Lady Amaterasu is free to do what she wants with her own house's arsenal," the Greek messenger God noted. "You can thank that she apparently keeps good records of her house's military assets even at her current age."
He certainly sounded irritated, even if he was trying to hide it.
"We're moving into Japan at Tokyo within the week," the General ended. "As before, we're trying to lure the Gods into duels so that we can drop heavy artillery on the enemy. Before, to minimize risk we were using entirely Immortals and psychics for the task of drawing them out. However, that limited the number of places we could push an attack at Kyushu."
He crossed his arm and looked about.
"But during the Kyushu invasion, during Zeus's viral attack," he noted. "We had several units that had to defend the Immortal with them. The JSDF and marines that were on site have tested and developed numerous tactics for handling the same task with enemies of the rogue Gods' power levels."
He didn't mention that the number of people that had died in that exchange had increased tremendously while the tactics were being figured out.
"I also have word that Director Satomi of Mithril's Psyche division has negotiated some increased reinforcements for us," he noted, getting a nod from Ranma.
He continued from there into other details before turning the floor over toward Colonel O'Neil.
"So, for the rest of the problem on Earth," O'Neil said. "That's going to be me. This is more of a matter of handling dozens upon dozens of anti-terrorist activities than one coherent battle, but I think I've got cooperation from most of the Generals in here, right? Despite being a measly colonel and all."
He paused and started indicating the different hot spots that had been identified.
"With any luck," he said. "We're going to take these guys out before they know we're there. Though we got a couple of other things in this action. And those couple of things are Zeus and, well, Zeus. Which is why we have a whole fekking lot of the guy's kids running around the planning area. Information we have says he has some sort of reality bending curse such that only one of his kids can kill him."
With that he glanced toward Hermes and arched an eyebrow, the God ignored him.
"Anyway," O'Neil said. "I'm less in command here, then acting as a go-fer for the lot of you Generals here with the countries in the area we're looking at it. Heya, Colonel O'Neil, go for this Demon here, now go for that Demon there...etc...etc."
He took a breath then and continued.
"That sort of makes us a reserve for the rest of you," O'Neil said. "If need someone highly trained to deposit on a target behind lines. Or if lightning-head pops up anywhere in your territories."
From him, the talk moved on toward Mara who stood up and walked to the center, nodding at Dr. Weir.
"Okay," she said. "For those that don't know, Nidhog is like the internet of Demons. In fact, there are three connections to it right here."
She pointed to herself, Moloch behind her and then Naiki next to him.
"Though admittedly," she said. "It's more appropriate to say that we can connect to Nidhog than that we are Nidhog."
A picture rose up showing a massive snake, miles in length and thousands of feet in diameter. The last fact proven by an individual shown to scale.
"This is Nidhog," she said. "It is a living, organic computer capable of operating on the same psychic wavelength as a Demon. It's where a great deal of our power comes from among other things."
"Nidhog is currently frozen, maybe crashed," she explained, "due to all the hacking and counter hacking involved the past months. Unfortunately, the last instructions it received were from our criminals. Worst case scenario, we'll have to destroy Nidhog and rebuild it later, but we're hoping to be able to cleanse it, recover control and return those of us that are supposed to have power to it."
"Might I ask what you normally do with that much power?" someone asked.
Mara looked up and smiled.
"Well, for one thing, that meteor shower you enjoyed last year was a lot bigger before we reached it," Mara said. "And I believe Belldandy and Hermes could note some commentary about Yellowstone. Stuff like that's normally routine for us. Currently however, given the number of us that are dying and no longer adding to the combined power we have...let's just hope that we don't have a natural doomsday to worry about coming up."
That quieted people down a bit.
"Anyway," she said. "All three of the psychic networks have a point of connection now. So we're making use of that to get more than just a handful of people hacking in through one of us that's letting someone link in."
She pointed to the diagram on the screen.
"This is how Nidhog used to be set-up," she said. "Right now it's pretty much all garbage. We've got units set up to map out the connections, we're putting a command segment in Silmaril near the bridge between Nidhog and the Ainur network and we're going to start cleaning from there. I'm also maintaining an overwatch in case Zeus or the rogue Demons try any sort of cataclysm crap again."
The hologram shifted about.
"The goal is to find the category assignments that the rogues have altered and clean them out," Mara said. "As soon as we do that, giving me and mine the proper authority and power comes next. But I think getting the criminals who have world-ending power dropped back to where they should be takes priority."
She grimaced.
"As to Nifelheim," she said, "I'm leaving my homeland in the hands of Captain Testarossa and General Hammond."
She gestured and the General glanced over toward the Mithril contingent.
"If you would Captain," he said. "I believe it is your right."
The lavender haired girl stood up then with a slight nod as she walked to the center of the room much to the surprise of several onlookers.
"I know," she said idly. "I look like a secretary. I hear this quite often, now. Nifelheim. The Demons there are more personally powerful than the Gods we were facing in Kyushu, but as I understand it, most do not have the sort of skill usually associated with that level of power."
She looked toward Elizabeth who controlled the hologram to show a map Nifelheim.
"Our first objective is to capture the Abyss here," Tessa said. "We have information that somewhere around one-hundred thousand civilian Demons have taken refuge there and the information is that the Abyss is dangerous even if designed to be non-lethal."
She cleared her throat.
"Our main issue is that our normal plan for this situation is going to be difficult to accomplish early on," Tessa said. "We'll be able to gate in troops and men at first, as well as some ASes, we have several units worth of chi-enhancing Sciroccos ready to go in the near future and we are building a new proto-type assault level AS that might be used, but aside from that, the heavy artillery and cruise missiles will take some time. To help in that regard, I've already asked for help in developing 'affinities' for the Ainur."
"What's the overall benefit of that?" a general asked.
"As I understand it, Demons and Gods have almost complete control over their Domain or Realm," she said. "For example, Naiki Satomi, behind me is the Demoness of Torrent. Typically, she has to borrow a power through a spell in order to move objects..."
She didn't mention Naiki's innate ability to cause minor, local earthquakes.
"...however, when faced with a large number of fast moving objects moving in one direction, she can take complete control all herself. She can stop it, slow it down, direct it, scatter it. Anything she wants. Her sister a Goddess has similar control over blood. Nike, Goddess of Victory, had to be tricked into no longer desiring victory on a conscious level in order to be beaten."
She took a deep breath recited a high speed series of numbers and breathed as a pencil flew to her heand.
"Now, I had to borrow that," she said. "Cast a spell if you will. However, Ainur spells are incomplete. To get one effect beyond basic powers, we have to basically cast multiple incomplete spells from different places in order to complete one effect."
She looked around the room.
"If we successfully develop 'affinities'," she said. "Each individual will have at least some level of telekinetic or telepathic ability within themselves without having to borrow it and the calculations required for various borrowed effects will be much simpler."
Tessa glanced back toward the hologram.
"It will let us hold on long enough to bring our artillery into Nifelheim before we're overwhelmed and forced back," Tessa said. "We plan to time our assault along with Geisthexe's action to cleanse Nidhog. In the best case scenario, our enemy will lose their power and make the playing field more even well before that anyway."
"And how quickly do you think you can develop these 'affinities?" Dr. Weir asked.
"I am working with some scientists from Asgard and Nifelheim," Tessa said, "And they've suggested that it might be possible to speed things up if we could research a human or Ainur that already essentially has an affinity."
"And you have such a person on hand?" General Hammond asked.
"Actually, yes," the Captain said, turning to look toward Ranma's direction. "However, I still need to ask her about involving herself."
Yomiko blinked and wondered what Captain Testarossa was looking at her boss for, but on looking down to Director Satomi, found Ranma looking at her.
Along with everybody else in the room.
"Oh, you mean me," Yomiko said hesitantly.
Yaku sat at the corner of a table in Atlantis's cafeteria and typed along playfully onto the holographic keyboard in front of her. A small crowd of off-duty techs, researchers and soldiers was gathered around her watching her playing her game.
"Okay, that's a rush of protoss templars," someone noticed. "But are those Night Elf hippogriff riders?"
"Crap, I just saw a Total War kensai over there," another commented. "Damn, I didn't even think geisha could be deployed to the battlefield in that game."
"Arcanoi?" a third noted. "That makes Rome: Total War now."
"And Age of Mythology," the first said. "Just saw mummies and minotaurs. But I have no idea what those other things that everybody's fighting are."
"So basically," the second said to the little girl. "You've hacked together at least five different RTS games into a mass free-for-all scenario?"
"Huh?" Yaku asked. "I just let everybody link to the same server. The map here is really cool and stuff. This is hard, hard level."
"She programmed a compatibility matrix so she could have reinforcements from the net for a single player level," a person noted. "And she's using a laptop-version of a supercomputer for this."
"I don't know whether this is disturbing or awesome," Captain Lorne said, shaking his head. "Oh, look out over there, kid, aren't those resources?"
"Mmhmm," Yaku said, swinging her feet under her. "I got it."
"How long have you been playing this level anyway?" Lorne asked.
"Ummm, last week, I found it on the network," she said. "And I went to it and sent it to my computer and sent it out to the internets and people started coming and then we really started cleaning it."
The major looked over toward the "percent complete" and watched it tick over from 0.5% to 0.6% complete.
"Someone had a lot of time on their hands when they made this," he noted shaking his head.
Eija looked out over the devastated Okinawan city and shivered at the ghosts she saw wandering about in and among the rubble. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands or more. Ghosts of Gods, Demons, humans and a few Ainur. Ghosts that had died in the blast, old ghosts that had wandered out of Avalon or old seals and been drawn to the site of massive death.
"Everyone, do not act alone," Macaria said. "If possible, pair with one of the mortal or Ainur death seers. Or Eija. As they have more training with the recently dead."
Eija closed her mouth and nodded quietly at the comment and glancing around to see some of the other groups of death seers that were in the area.
"Excuse me," she said. "I believe I shall go help out with her. Grandmother and I were training her recently in any case."
Macaria glanced in the direction Eija was pointing and saw a crippled girl with a crutch beside a human with a cybernetic prosthetic. Old habit and reflex had her flinch as she recognized the child-form of Hel there, but she forced it down.
Hel was no longer an enemy.
"All right," she said. "I shall leave you to that. And we shall start in our path."
Eija nodded and started to walk over toward where Hel and Natsume stood with another death-seer. The human woman didn't have the blood-eyes, but she had a certain pale, ethereal quality about her. All of them seemed to notice her coming and turned to face her as she did.
"Eija," Hel said in surprise and a little bit of relief.
"Hmm," Natsume said. "It's good to see you. We heard rumors you were hurt."
"I'm beginning to feel that is more a default condition than I like," Eija sighed before turning toward the human with them. "Hello, I am Eija Satomi, Goddess of Blood, category 2."
"Hel has mentioned you and your grandmother," the woman said. "I'm Melinda Gordon. It's a pleasure to meet you."
She held out a hand which Eija took respectfully.
"Melinda Gordon?" she repeated. "No, really? That's you?"
"Wow, I've been getting that reaction a bit," Melinda said nervously. "It's a bit different reaction than I'm used to before everything went public. I didn't realize even Goddess's had heard of me."
"I was born half-human," Eija said quickly. "Mother made sure that I had a grounding in my abilities. Your name is well known amongst death-se...I mean ghost whisperers."
"So I'm discovering," the woman said with some chagrin.
Hel was watching the exchange between one of her tutors and the human, eyes widening slightly as she took in that this human woman apparently deserved the respect the other death seers on hand had for her.
Any further discussion came to a close as the air about them started getting thick and heavy around them.
"Come on out," Melinda said. "We're just here to talk."
The three of them held their reactions calm as several images flickered into view around them on and off. Burned, blistered and blackened, several figures simply drifting in the air about them.
"I'm assuming that there are more of them," Natsume said cautiously, keeping in mind a handful of exorcism rituals that she knew.
It was a grotesque display that had both the elder death seers stepping around Hel as they spoke.
"Hello," Eija said in the cool, soothing tone of voice she'd been taught to use when speaking to possibly skittish spirits. "My name is Eija Satomi, we'd like to help you."
"Help us," one of the spirits said harshly. "We're dead, what is there to help?"
"I can't be dead...I can't be dead...I'm only one hundred years old," another was saying in a shell-shocked tone. Eija could just barely make out a fragment of a red mark on a rare, unburnt portion of flesh. "How can I be dead? I'm too young."
"You're lingering here is not doing you any good," Miss Gordon noted, though she was somewhat taken aback by the hundred years old comment. "There was a terrible thing just days ago and you were all caught in it. Can you tell me what you remember doing?"
"I was working," the angry voice said through crack, bleeding lips. "Just taking some lady's money when there was this flash and then I'm here, like this!"
"Listen, listen," the Demon's ghost said. "There was a little boy, I think he was one of the Gods, is he all right? I think he was lost. Is he all right? I need to find him."
Several other ghosts in the area started also speaking about things that they had been doing, or concerns that they had and needed to deal with. It rose like a cacophonous wave of psychic noise that had her reaching up to cover her ears momentarily.
"Please," she said insistently. "Quite down."
"We'll do what we can to help you," Melinda noted, "but we need to have everything come in an orderly manner."
"Would all of you shut up!" Hel snapped, tempted to use her Realm to shunt the lot of them into a prison.
Not that she actually had that much power right now, however.
"If you want to help me," the first ghost noted bitterly as things quieted down. "Just direct me at the guy that dropped the bomb so I can haunt him the rest of his life."
"He's dead," Eija noted. "He was actually dead before this bomb went off."
"Then find me his ghost so I can tear him apart!" the angry ghost shouted as the world about him seemed to grow darker and thicker, pushing down on the living people around him.
"Will that help you any?" Melinda asked.
"It'll make me feel better," the ghost snapped.
"No, it won't," Eija said. "It'll be hollow."
"At least he won't hurt anybody else," the ghost noted bitterly.
Eija exchanged a look with Hel and then remembered to glance toward Melinda.
"That would be a good motivation, if it was what you wanted," Melinda said.
"I do not know that his ghost would be here," Eija said. "I felt no sign of it when I arrived at his death-site."
"What about the little boy?" the other ghost asked, getting impatient. "Can't you help me find him?"
Yomiko looked around at the people in the room with her. Several boxes of blank paper lined one wall.
Tessa looked across at the individuals that were helping her primarily with this. Dr. Carolyn Lam and Dr. Beckett from the Socrates Group had come along with a nervous looking woman with bat wings who consistently turned to look toward the present Gods. That delegation consisted of Inari and Anansi. The Demons included a seventeen year old Lilith and...
...Lusca.
Everyone present stared at Lusca meanwhile as she hummed and played with the molecular design models that she'd found on the side of the room.
"I'm aware of Lusca's...credentials," Inari said, the fox currently sounded like a feminine man. "But in her current condition..."
"She is not here at Mara's request or mine," Lilith noted quietly.
"She came in talking about a 'surprise'," the succubus whispered. "And then went to one of the stations."
They watched as she pulled out a little octopus statue and powdered it to stone to reveal a trio of oval objects. One of them looked like a silken ball, another a small rubbery pearl and the last a long leathery object.
"Are those...eggs?" Tessa asked.
At which point, Lusca tore open the white, silken object and reached into to pull out a mass of what looked like incompletely developed and twitching spiders and casually shoveling them into her mouth, still humming pleasantly as some of the spiders tried to get away and dying a few inches past.
Everyone watching shivered and looked away from the humming Demoness as she started examining the other two parts of what was apparently her lunch and eating spiders like popcorn.
Naiki, I would be very cautious if Lusca's surprise for you is something to eat, Tessa noted.
Huh? Naiki asked.
"Human DNA is fairly well understood on our end," Anansi, Uncle Spider, said as his eyes kept drifting towards Lusca. "Both Demons and Gods have been dealing with mortals on a genetic level for thousands of years."
"Including successfully altering us to match your own race," Dr. Beckett noted with something like disapproval.
"Volunteers," Inari assured him, sounding a bit more masculine this time. "And this is not the issue. I believe you have already taken some samples from Miss Readman, and we have a selection of case studies."
"Miss Readman, do you mind if we take some blood?" Dr. Lam asked.
"Certainly that would be perfec..."
"Ooo, that one was wriggly! SQUEEE! So ticklish!" Lusca declared.
"...tly...fine...Dr Lam," Yomiko said slowly as she quivered in a bit of disgust and embarrassment.
Most of the others in the room shared her problem.
The succubus reacted a bit more violently by covering her mouth and darting out of the room, almost barreling over Jonas Quinn as he entered.
"Whoa, what's Etna's problem?" he asked.
"A disagreeable lunch," Anansi said. "Probably on top of other stress."
"Oh, right," Jonas said casually. "You're people sent Morrigan to eradicate hers a while back. I'd bet succubus kids are raised to think of you as the bogeyman."
Inari and Anansi both grimaced at the description as the man moved to sit down.
"You'll have to excuse Jonas," Dr Lam said as she prepped a syringe and Dr. Beckett was rolling up Miss Readman's sleeve and wiping her arm with an alcohol swath. "He has little to no sense of tact."
"This is fine," Lilith said. "It's not like we're any better."
"Yes, well, if we can get over the centuries of mutual warfare and genocide," Dr. Beckett commented, standing up to look around as Dr. Lam took the blood sample behind him. "We have some excellent facilities here and back on Atlantis, but I thought Psyche's Dr. Magnus was supposed to be taking a hand in this particular venture."
"We might as well get some initial studies out of the way before we move to her facilities," Tessa noted. "I'd originally suggested Asgard, but..."
"The Searching chamber is damaged," Inari said in a sweet soprano voice.
Everyone noticed that the fox God's essential face and body structure didn't seem to perceptibly change even as the voice fluctuated.
"Right, I'm sure the first thing they did was target facilities you consider to be basic needs for your species," Dr. Lam said under her breath.
"That said," Lilith noted. "Perhaps Miss Readman can give us a brief demonstration as we watch and analyze the way the energy is used in the body."
"All right, I can do that," Yomiko noted.
She looked around the room and suddenly a cloud of paper swirled in from about the room and started pasting to her, shifting in color and building in height until her appearance changed. The Socrates Group personnel stared a bit impressed as a life-sized replica of Teal'c stood before them.
"I hope this will do for a demonstration, Ma'am," the Teal'C-alike said in a very Yomiko voice. "Or perhaps there is something more I can do."
"A little bit more please," Jonas Quinn said with a smile as he drifted back toward an intercom button. "Maybe try keeping the Teal'c disguise up as you do it?"
"Certainly," the not-Teal'c's-voice-by-a-long-shot said.
She stood up, moved a couple of steps to the side and, in her very-Teal'c-alike form, sat down in a chair that appeared in a swirl of paper underneath her. Meanwhile another swirl of paper came out of the boxes of blank paper and coalesced into the form of Yomiko who reached out to grab a clipboard forming out of paper and started to scratch something into the surface with a paper pencil.
"That is fairly impressive," Lilith noted with a nod. "Do you have any conceptual control?"
"Quite," spoke the Teal'C disguise that was wrapped around the real Yomiko. "I am capable of reading incredibly quickly and experiencing the contents as if firsthand. Of late I have been reading quite a few works by such authors as Michael Crighton, HP Lovecraft, Ian Flemming and Tom Clancy."
As she finished the speech, Colonel O'Neil came into the room, followed by Daniel Jackson and the real Teal'c.
"This had better be very imp...or..tant..." O'Neil said as he laid eyes on the second Teal'c. "What is going on here."
"Oh, hello, Colonel O'Neil, sir," Yomiko said, still inside her Teal'c disguise, which stood up to regard the newcomers. "Your doctors and the researchers from Asgard and Nifelheim were requesting that I demonstrate my skills as a paper master."
"So you thought you might demonstrate a matter of disguise?" Teal'C asked, glancing from the duplicate of him to the speechless Yomiko standing nearby.
"Quite," Yomiko said. "This is a good likeness, I hope."
"Except for the voice," Daniel said.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed with an arched eyebrow.
"You are recording this," O'Neil asked, trying to hide a smile at the very effeminate and semi-British sounding Teal'c in the room. "For the research, right?"
"I'm done!" Lusca said, holding up a purple octopus plushy proudly. "Sort of...anyway...gotta go!"
She puffed into smoke and vanished as people turned to see.
A moment later, Etna wandered back in holding her stomach.
"I'm sorry Dr. Lam, I told you I'd be fine to..."
There was a puff of smoke and Lusca reappeared with half of the rubbery white egg she'd had.
"Oh, I couldn't finish all this one," she looked around and thrust it into Etna's face, not noticing the succubus's face paling. "You can eat it, It's fine! Because this one I couldn't use or finish, all right?"
And she puffed back out into smoke.
Etna stared at the white surface and oozing pale greenish fluid that had been in the former egg which was now collapsing messily in her hands.
And the succubus research assistant gagged and zipped back out of the room, dropping the half egg to the floor.
"There's something wrong with that girl," Jonas noted sagely.
The pristine mathematical nature of Silmaril surrounded Kaname everywhere she could look about on the mindscape. The data flowed about in shapes and rivers like the terrain of a vast, well planned city formed out of shifting numbers. Though occasionally that pattern was broken in places were someone had visualized a construct so firmly as one thing that it appeared as that thing.
This was especially true of the preparations in the physical room made by various exorcists and carried over through their minds into the collective terrain about them.
It looked more like the Matrix, with large patches of the illusion replaced by the flowing numbers underneath, than Tron. Though Kaname was a bit embarrassed to be comparing this real-world construct to anything out of the movies. Especially as she and the others walking around in it appeared so solidly real as they walked or floated about the area encompassing various tasks.
Megumi Morisato and Sarah Miller, involved as they had been in writing Silmaril's base coding, were taking the forefronts as they built in protocols and firewalls and security checks with help from those around them. Skuld was running about programing and altering the landscape as well, bulging the protections around these links.
Start building the other side's defenses, Mara ordered, gesturing to a group of Gods supplemented by Kaname and a handful of Demons.
Okay, here I go, Kaname said taking a breath and stepping past the building defensive measures.
It wasn't as if she hadn't been into Nidhog before, but the fact that she was essentially skimming past Tessa and Naiki's minds to get there still somewhat gave her the creeps sometimes. Worries about permanently linking to either of them always fluttered to the surface.
Nidhog, in comparison to Silmaril's crystalline city of mathematical elegance, was an overgrown garden of fractal growths that had overturned their normal boundaries to turn the whole view into something more like a garden.
Here and there, spotted amongst the Demon numbers which formed the calculations here, somebody had very strongly visualized something such that a recognizable island of seeming reality could be found in the sea of data.
Silmaril's islands of illusion-coated data had a high-tech, glittering feel to them that seemed to have been influenced by cultures from all over the globe. It was fluid and adaptable, shifting all the time even while it appeared solid and still.
Yggdrasil structures branched off much less. Instead of rivers of data branching off at each point of choice, it was seemingly based on a series of beautiful triangle-based trellises and mosaics that might have lacked some of Silmaril's fluidity but was inherently stable and difficult to change or undermine.
The defenses about Naiki and Tessa's minds and link seemed more or less a compromise between the three flavors. Ainur fluidity and adaptability, Divine stability and the organic power behind the Demonic calculations. It fit together well with only a few rough patches where others were coming in to correct matters.
Nidhog's patches of apparent physical reality were much less coherent.
There were patches of storm, left over fragments of Zeus's virus that escaped purge and were just waiting to find a mind to latch onto. There were places of overgrown jungle and there were anomalous structures dotting the perceivable terrain from the link. What wasn't blasted heath or overgrown jungles seemed to include western castles sat across from high-tech foundries and bamboo forests with near hidden tea-houses. Free data flowed about, anti-viral security measures gone out of hand and attacking practically everything they could. Fortunately, it didn't look like it was following any distinct path.
Everyone remember, Mara said. Captain Testarossa and Naiki might be a permanent link between Silmaril and Nidhog, but as soon any of you Gods or Ainur step into this place, anybody that catches you can get in through your mind. So stay here where we've got numbers until we can...gear up.
Kaname nodded at that and set about the task of helping the groups around her fortify what would be the standing defenses.
Mara faded out occasionally, connecting with what was going on in the physical world and trying put enough category ones on call in case some Demon or another decided to raise something spitefully world-ending.
Director Satomi is requesting our presence, Sousuke noted to her and she nodded, glancing over to see if she could find Mara anywhere.
A burst of smoke behind her accompanied the Demoness's arrival within a few "feet" of Kaname, prompting her to turn about and see Mara looking at her.
Kaname, Director Satomi is looking for you, Mara told her.
Aren't I supposed to be helping out here? Kaname asked hopefully.
Listen kid, I'd feel for you, I really would, Mara said. Save that you knowingly screwed the...err...well, you know. Not to mention that training with a feng shui shih and exorcist capable of obliterating a hopped-up category one for a week should get you above talented-amateur-I-can-make-use-of into something reasonably nasty.
Mara's unstated thoughts ran towards the belief that Kaname was a prophet, which would mean that her skill increase should have been monumental in a short time. All the signs of how quickly the Ainur were adapting pointed to the existence of a prophet, and Kaname seemed the most likely candidate.
And Mara had noticed that her own people and the Gods seemed to be experiencing a trickle of the same benefit.
One prophet to advance them all.
Mara's mouth quirked into a smirk at the little bit of referential humor and nodded.
Anyway, you got a call from New York too, Mara noted.
That would probably be your younger brother, Kaname, Eija noted.
Kaname nodded and closed her eyes, or tried to, given the data stream nature of the mindscape in the computers. Since she had neither eyes nor eyelids, and senses just came in through all of her, closing the decorative eyes really did nothing. All she could really do was hide the data from her awareness slowly, like a cloud spreading over the stars.
But then she was in the Labyrinth, in one of the larger rooms and areas that had been grown out from the Labyrinth proper, which itself had mostly been taken over by Silmaril. The formerly dark, dry tunnels were now glittering passages of translucent crystal carrying with it veins of water to feed both the crystal and anybody walking about the computer to repair it.
Around the room, she saw hundreds of people meditating in the midst of circles lined with powdered crystal. Mara was visible in the room, they'd made sure to put Kaname in with most of the important people.
"Chihiro said the temple was intact when she was there," Keiichi commented.
"Oh, I hope it is," Belldandy noted. "I suppose we can repair it if not, but I hope it is fine."
"We'll be fine no matter what," the Ainur engineer said comfortingly.
"Yes, yes, and I should stay focused," Belldandy noted. "We're watching for attacks that need to be countered. And...oh, hello."
Belldandy looked up from the conversation with her husband and smiled at Kaname as the young Ainur stood up and stretched the kinks out of her system.
"So, you're getting trained by Eija-chan's mother?" Keiichi asked.
"Yeah," Kaname said. "That's going to be...interesting I think."
Oh! Uh, Kaname...might you...uh...mention to Belldandy-san the...situation Okaasan asked me to see to? Eija asked with clear embarrassment. If that's not too embarrassing...
Kaname's face blushed briefly as she considered Eija's request.
"Is there something you or Eija need?" Belldandy asked, having felt the echoes of the conversation.
"Well, her mother asked her to look into...health and...reproductive issues for a uhh...Goddess," Kaname said, eyes darting about.
"Oh, oh yes," Belldandy said surprised. "We should have thought of that right off, but there was so much other things to concern us. And then the war...indeed. I shall arrange a time to speak to her as soon as I can."
"Probably a good idea to include me there as well," Keiichi said with a flush. "Just in case something..."
Belldandy started to flush then too.
"Oh, indeed, uhh, hmm," Belldandy said in a flustered tone. "Well, we'll arrange that."
Kaname, at least relieved she wasn't the only embarrassed one nodded her head and headed for where the gate to Atlantis sat. Better to trust the stable gate than try to recalculate for the fact that Atlantis and the Labyrinth were both moving.
The instincts from when Kaname was just a Whispered still worked in the unconscious, even though the thoughts and calculations no longer rammed into her conscious mind and give her either headaches or near nervous breakdowns.
For which she was very thankful given her few brief encounters with such an experience during the short time between her powers first waking up completely and when she'd become Ainur. Especially now as her mind worked through the calculations and analysis for just how a video-chat could be sent from Earth to Atlantis across dimensional boundaries without much interference.
"Hey," she said to the image on the screen in front of her, soundproofed doors behind her. "How are you doing."
Her younger brother looked at her for a moment before deciding to answer.
"You have stuff on your face," he said.
"I know," Kaname said, reaching up to her forehead. "It's kind of like a tattoo that grew on me."
"Are you like them, now?" her brother asked.
"Like..." she paused, "who?"
"Like the people that blew up New York?" her brother asked.
Kaname grimaced and bit her lip as she considered how to respond to that.
"Can I do the same things?" she asked. "A lot of it yeah. But no, none of us here are like them. Nobody here wants to hurt people if they don't have to."
Her brother nodded in thought.
"You heard about Dad?" he asked.
Kaname was silent for a long space of time.
"Yeah..." Kaname whispered just loud enough to be heard. "I'm still freaking out about it sometimes. Are...are you okay?"
"I broke my arm, and the doctors say I'll be fine," her brother said.
"That's not what I..." Kaname took a deep breath. "Are you feeling okay, having..." she looked over her shoulder. "Nightmares?"
"I had a couple," he said nervously. "The people here are really nice."
"Where are you, anyway?" Kaname said, taking in the background. "That looks a little nice to be an orphanage or refugee camp or something."
"It's a big house, like a mansion, the...uhh...Rossa Mansion? I can't get it right," came the answer. "There are a bunch of people here from New York. Some of them are kids like you."
He pointed to her forehead again.
"Well, have you talked to them?" Kaname asked. "Friends can help with...being sad."
"Why should I talk to them when they blew up places?" he asked harshly.
"They aren't the bad people," Kaname said. "They're probably feeling just as sad, because they've lost parents and siblings and children and been kicked out of their home by bad people."
She pointed at her head.
"This isn't how you tell if someone is good or bad," she said. "You gotta see what they do for that."
"But..."
"I'm your sister, am I bad?" she asked.
"...sometimes," her brother said. "And I haven't talked to you in a while."
"Would I try to hurt or kill a bunch of people?" Kaname asked, mentally adding the qualifier of people that weren't trying to hurt her or her friends.
"No..."
"Everybody is hurting," Kaname said. "I don't want to see anybody hurt anymore and I'm trying to help with that. When I'm done, I'll come get you and let you meet my friends. Okay? And then you'll live with me, okay? Does that sound good?"
"Yeah, it does," her brother said.
"Do you...do you know when they're...saying goodbye to Dad?" Kaname asked.
"I don't know," the boy said. "They haven't told me or anything. Could you find out?"
"I'll try," Kaname said. "You try to make some friends to help you, okay? You can try to call me...but..."
"But you might be fighting the bad guys," her brother said. "I saw the soldiers when the call was answered."
"Right, I might be fighting bad guys," Kaname said. "See, your sister is training to be a superhero, so she can make everything fine. Just you wait!"
She pumped her fist encouragingly and smiled when it got a laugh out of her brother.
"So what's your superhero name then? Princess Harisen?" her brother asked, giggling. "Captain Tsundere?"
Feeling happy despite the suddenly put out expression on her face as she crossed her arms and huffed, Kaname responded to the suggestions.
"Not all superheroes have a silly codename," she said. "Though...I think I actually do have a code name around here...haven't been told what it is though."
"Seriously?" her brother asked.
"Yeah, seriously," Kaname said with a smile before checking her watch. "So...I'll take to you again, soon, all right. And hopefully all this will already be over."
"Okay, Kaname," her brother said. "I'll...I'll see you."
Ranma was waiting when Kaname came into the room she had been sent to, and she saw Sousuke already there, sitting down calmly.
"How's your brother?" Ranma asked in concern.
"He's going to be fine, I think," Kaname said. What are we going to be training in?
She has not yet stated that, Sousuke responded. I have not been able to contact Eija yet, as she is on Earth at the moment.
"I'm guessing," Ranma said as Kaname sat down. "That your first question is 'what are we training in?'"
She looked over at Sousuke.
"As I've said, your battle skills and judgment are exceptional," Ranma noted. "Your chi manipulation is getting better, but still very raw and I haven't seen you do much outside of that robot of yours yet."
She looked over toward Kaname.
"You are a rank amateur," the red-head noted. "You have talent and bullheadedness, but you're going to get in over your head eventually. Now, if this weren't war going on around right now, I'd be getting somebody to drill Soldier Boy on how civilians actually act and why. Granted, they're frustrating still, but at least you should understand where they're coming from."
"Hey, what's so frustrating about us civilians?" Kaname asked.
"Kaname," Ranma said. "As I recall, you've were actively involved in at least three major conflicts and numerous skirmishes. You've helped organize the psychic diver group with Mara and Belldandy. You've helped add some design features to the Whisper of Souls, the Silmarillion and put in some ideas for Sousuke's next AS. You've been neck deep in this war since a bit before it started. You're civilian only in the most technical definition of the word."
"Well, when you put it like that," Kaname muttered.
"Which means you have no excuse to be as untrained as you are," the exorcist said. "But physical stuff isn't going to help you as immediately. And Sousuke came to me with the physical side of things."
"Then what are we going to be training in?" Sousuke asked.
The door opened and Kyoko came in limping with her cane and holding a transparent bag full of printed photos, most likely from her camera.
"All right, Miss Satomi," Kyoko said. "I found all the photos I could in my files. Some of these should be a little bit embarrassing. Why do you need embarrassing photos?"
Ranma smiled and turned toward Kaname and Sousuke without answering the brown-haired girl immediately.
"Whether you're going to be fighting physically or psychically, you're going to have to have a firm control of your emotions," she said.
"I am already aware of this," Sousuke said.
"I'm not talking about burying your emotions, Sagara," Ranma said. "I'm talking about experiencing them...calmly. A calm intensity of emotion that is completely stable and in your control."
The smile on the woman's face broadened.
"A Soul of Ice, even," she said.
Creating a shard or other sealed space did not involve actually crossing potential timelines into other dimensions, despite the tendency to refer to Asgard, Nifelheim and the other such places other dimensions. It was more like folding the existing space time.
So travel between one and the next, even through such things as a teleportation or gate, was less like moving a straight distance and more like playing pool with moving sideboard, a randomly uneven table and lopsided balls. Or else trying to perform origami with drywall while floating in the ocean.
Moving a single person or even small groups to large vehicles was reasonably simple. There were numerous nicks and corners that could be passed through between dimensional boundaries. However, there was a reason that it required either highly complex Gate spells and circles or else the extra processing power of a few hundred thousand minds in order to accomplish even something that simple.
Peorth and the other Gods responsible for trying to move Yggdrasil so that if folded back into place with Asgard were finding that the task was much more difficult than they had imagined. It was even hard to say what the relative distance they'd come was. They could have been half way, or they could be decades away from completing the task. Or Asgard could appear without warning and they'd have less of a clean merger and more of a collision.
Peorth shook her head as she recalled that Kami-Sama had moved the tree away in less than half an hour.
She turned about as Athena and Hermes came into the door and smiled at them before gesturing for them to sit down as she leaned back on her own desk. They were in her old office, a level below Kami-Sama's own office.
"Well?" she asked.
"We were separate too long," Athena said. "Lacking instructions, most of the Gods on Earth followed Belldandy's lead and took their cues from the humans and Ainur. Perhaps no one's given up Asgardian sovereignty the way Mara did, but the effect will likely be the same."
Peorth nodded and wiped a trace of sweat from her forehead.
"Are you advising that we follow the Demons' lead?" she asked.
"No, I don't think that will be necessary," the Goddess of Wisdom said. "However, if we push the issue now, we might find that many of our people choose to remain on Earth."
"It is probably best to refrain from forcing a choice in the matter," Hermes agreed.
"When are they liberating Japan?" Peorth asked
"Fairly soon," Athena said. "We'll be suffering more casualties when that happens."
Peorth nodded and sighed.
"If at all possible, when you catch a rogue?" she said. "Leave them alive, but take everything else."
Hermes exchanged a look with Athena.
"You mean, obliterate their mind so some new person can grow out of the blank slate," the messenger said.
"We can't force them to reincarnate," Peorth said. "If we're going to have to seal or kill them anyway, might as well do it in a way that leaves a person who can be salvaged."
"There will be consequences," Athena warned. "This is something our civilians are much better able to comprehend than a physical death, and they will not be happy with the decision."
"I understand this," Peorth agreed. "But it is either that, or simply kill them."
"And any information that they might have?" Athena asked.
"I doubt any of the remaining criminals and rebels have much information on the way things stand," Hermes said. "They likely only have rumors."
"Make a reasonable attempt for any information if you have them controlled and contained," Peorth said. "Offer them reincarnation, and if they refuse. Take their minds away, they can find a new identity."
