Wish's End



Prologue: Terror



OMG AU/Divergence Fanfic



by Tremor3258



Disclaimer: Dark Horse and Studio Proteus have the American pieces to this, and Fujishima-sama wrote and inked it originally. This work isn't intended to subtract from any of their rights. Now if they'd just reprint Love Potion No. 9 so I could finish off my collection...



Notes: This fic's direct divergence point is simple: Skuld got recalled to Heaven after she created the Rice Cooker of Doom a.k.a. Mr. Bug Zapper, but before the 'Terrible Master' storyline.



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Yggdrasil was typically a relatively calm place. Not really sedate, as the various technicians were engaged in a constant struggle, even with godly speed factored in, to keep up with the ever-expanding demands on the universe's most advanced computer system. However, the seal had been broken, and the Lord of Terror had risen again. Last time, it had been a desperate battle right outside the gates of the central core of the computer itself, in which Kami-sama had barely been able to stop the Lord of Terror and seal him away, suffering horrible injuries in the process. Even so, the Lord of Terror had been able to spread his program through the demons, waiting for the day of his unsealing.



Skuld worked frantically at a control system, trying not to gawk at Kami-sama being in Yggdrasil's main operation room, fully girded for battle. She hadn't been alive at the last battle, it had been two previous holders of the domain of the future; and the Almighty rarely came into Yggdrasil. The fact that Kami-sama was expecting a major battle that he might not win was something Skuld was trying very hard not to think about.



Better to focus on the work. Skuld was currently weaving together a new set of protocols to help Belldandy. Her dear sister was busy fighting for everyone on Earth with little support, as the gods were unwilling to open a connection between heaven and the mortal realms that the Lord of Terror could simply walk through. Well, Urd was there, for whatever good that did, but Skuld had heard some disturbing whispers.



Skuld shook herself. The lord of creation had entrusted her with this task, and she would succeed. The new programs Skuld were putting into place would allow almost all of the mighty computer's resources to be cleared easily. Keeping the system off-line for too long would lead to more bugs being generated through reality, but with all of the Yggdrasil system, then Skuld presumed Kami-sama would be able to open a secure gate to allow heaven's armies to help Belldandy.



Suddenly, the system status board changed, but Skuld didn't notice it, too enmeshed into her work and visions of her being the great heroine who saved the universe. Peorth, one of the few unlimited first-class goddesses, did, however from her status of running the operations room with most of the Offices shut down to conserve resources. "Midgard program has been unleashed! Vaccination proceeding." Most of the deities relaxed as Fenrir disappeared from their scans, but things got twice as chaotic when the program was detected again, within the Serpents themselves.



Peorth slumped over. She couldn't help it, as it didn't take a goddess to see what would likely come next. Midgard was very nearly the last hope before they would be forced to go into a battle that would probably destroy a great deal of the solar system. The vaccine program had been modeled after Yggdrasil's Midgard operating system, the serpent that held reality in its coils, and it had been a greatly desperate maneuver when it had been tried last time by feeding Yggdrasil through the Lord of Terror. Luckily, the antithesis of reality had been no match for the raw power unleashed, but it seemed the Lord of Terror had learned subtlety. Now, the super-string had been unveiled, and if Midgard could cut it, all their efforts would be for nothing.



Kami-sama, however, remained calm despite the aura of hopelessness that hung over the room. After all, he had instructed Belldandy to read the manual. His hopes were confirmed. Midgard may have been granted a different will, but it would still respond to its old programming. The highest of the high allowed himself a small grin when he saw Midgard's icon began to fluctuate.



Belldandy, down below, had slight tears in her eyes as she played the serpent's funeral dirge. Midgard had been unleashed by her, and now it was being pulled from the world and existence due to her mistake. She should have been faster, or more careful, but Keiichi was reduced to a handy carrying size, and Urd's power had been drained by the Lord of Terror. Right now she was unconscious, having fired off what few bolts she had left to buy Belldandy some time to confirm she had the right song.



The virus, desperately, swung around for a new host, spotting Urd's sleeping form. She had been an easy target last time, and as the serpent continued to wither, it lunged towards her, fangs extended. However, it discounted the presence of one shrunken mortal. With a tiny battle cry, Keiichi rammed the snake in the snout, disorienting it sufficiently to allow Belldandy to finish. Keiichi tumbled to the rubble-strewn ground, holding a hand up in a victory sign. Urd, still sleeping, took that moment to roll over. Keiichi shrieked and Belldandy barely managed to get to him before he suffered a most humiliating death.



"Are you all right?" Belldandy asked, tears in her eyes. Keiichi had gotten hurt, a fall from that height in miniaturized form couldn't be healthy.



"Heh, heh!" Keiichi said, weakly raising up a victory sign again, "Did it!"



Up in heaven, cheers broke out from all assembled. The virus had vanished from their screens. Peorth, however, wasn't inclined to think things would go that easily today. "Why's the super-string program still visible?" Peorth demanded.



Chrono, a young goddess with brown hair, though completed with her training, unlike Skuld, flashed her hands across the keyboard in front of her, "I'm not sure. I don't usually have access privileges to something that high!"she practically wailed, "I can't bring up any diagnostics to it. I'm locked out!"



Peorth grimaced and flew across the room, knocking the operator aside with only a slight apologetic gesture, focused on the details. When Peorth tried to bring up the diagnostic, she only got static. Peorth started to try again frantically, but a deeply powerful male voice cut her off.



"Enough," heads turned throughout the room as Kami-sama frowned at the readouts. "The Virus may still be active. Try and get a connection through to Belldandy. Skuld, I believe we may need that program after all." Skuld's expression was set with determination, though her faced warmed at being singled out.



Back on Earth, things had apparently been proceeding nicely. The flute was tucked under one of Belldandy's arms with Urd being guided (assisted by a levitation spell) in the other, with Keiichi riding on her collar. They quickly managed to reach the old temple grounds. Belldandy made a mental note that the front walk needed sweeping and the entire house needed reconstruction, she would get to those quickly, as it wouldn't be too much of a problem at full power.



Urd awakened relatively quickly after a quick power transfer, and told Belldandy the password to set Keiichi back to his usual size. Belldandy frowned. For the system administrator to the most important computer in creation (or rather, OF creation) to rely on one old password seemed dangerously negligent, but this wasn't the time. Keiichi stretched once upon achieving full growth, and that's when everything went south.



Alarms Skuld didn't even know they HAD were going off through Yggdrasil. The virus had been found again, and Peorth was cursing fluently when the system picked up that the Ultimate Destruction Program had figured out how to jump to mortals, giving it plenty of choices. Kami-sama's face was set with hard lines. "Skuld, run your program. I want all possible system resources freed up." Skuld responded, eyes shut as she punched in the last command, hoping that a planet would still be around for her sister to stand on when she opened them.



She cautiously raised one eyelid and barely refrained from cheering. Most of the readouts were black and deactivated. Skuld made sure her hammer was with her. The whole system would probably have to be debugged from the root out, and Skuld wished she hadn't eaten her last pint before this happened, because it was very likely she would be needing the recharge and have no time to acquire more. "Long hours without chocolate fudge," whimpered the young goddess.



Skuld's current focus on dairy products meant she was possibly the only person in the room who missed what happened immediately next. The Lord of all creation didn't need to inform the computer for access. Root privileges had a whole different meaning at this level. Peorth's eyes had widened involuntarily as she stammered out, "Lord, that's the Gungnir program." She let out a small shriek when she saw a second icon join the first.



"I know," Kami-sama merely replied, "We've run out of choices. And thanks to Skuld, we have enough power to get both targets. We can't let the Lord of Terror run free. Yggdrasil. Target both demonic power sources."



"Complying," came back an electronically modulated voice. "Releasing all command locks on program. Authorization granted. All circuits devoted to firing procedures."



"Lord," said Peorth urgently, "I studied with Belldandy for several years, and though she's occasionally annoying, she's a model to us all. She won't let anyone die if she can help it. Gungnir will just tax resources." The first-class goddess was cut off by a brusque word.

"Enough! I have taken Belldandy's nature into account here. Thus, a well-timed blow is almost more important than a well-placed blow." With that, Kami-sama slammed down on the first firing trigger, and closed his eyes for two seconds before slamming down on the second one.

Keiichi, possessed, and triumphant, cackled madly, "The flute is in my hands! The superstring is unveiled! There's nothing you can do to stop me." In response, the skies crackled with energy, and a bolt of light appeared. "Ah, so you decided to take a more personnel role, eh, Lord? Planning to crush me like a bug?"



Belldandy traced the light path and gasped in horror. One of heaven's final weapons was into play, and it was headed towards the somnolent Urd. Evidently heaven still thought she was possessed. Belldandy leaped over, ignoring Keiichi as she glomped around her sister. Gungnir had surprisingly narrow targeting profiles, and Belldandy's access protocols were high enough for Gungnir to dissipate rather than harm her. Against the proper target, if Gungnir made contact with whatever it had been targeted against, it would prove fatal in all cases, no matter what the target was. Belldandy, however, merely grunted slightly as the energy bolt's dissipation knocked some air from her, despite cracking like thunder, echoing rather loudly.



Belldandy's eyes widened. The first echo had sounded easily as loud as the thunder crack from the energy bolt dissipating. Belldandy looked around frantically, wondering if Keiichi had gotten burned possibly by the bolt.

There was some ash in the area, but no sign of Keiichi. Where he had been standing, there was a slight blackening of the old wood, and an inch-thick bore dug in, like a projectile moving at insanely fast velocities.



"Keiichi! Keiichi!" Belldandy said more and more frantically, as she crumpled to the ground, her world shattered before blackness mercifully enveloped her.



"I'm detecting a massive energy reaction at the site!" Chrono said urgently, "We can't contain it! Most of Yggdrasil's resources are still being diverted back from," Chrono swallowed. She had been part, a small part, but one nonetheless; of an intelligent being's murder. She found her voice after a moment, "The Gungnir strikes," she finished lamely. Skuld, watching the devastation whose heart was her sister, broke into tears.



Peorth turned to see Kami-sama's reaction, but he had already left the room, the bloody deed done. The only sound in the stricken control room was the sobbing of a young goddess.



To be continued...



Author's Notes:



Yeah, this is going to be dark. It got inspired a lot by recently seeing the movie. Specifically, Morgan, who somehow struck me as what Belldandy could possibly turn out as if Keiichi was lost to her. So, I thought of a possible situation to what could cause it. Technically, this is a possible time line, a dark one, that the characters will try and change. The actual change: what if there were a few less bugs running around, leaving Skuld no real reason not to be recalled back to preforming maintenance on the system.



Gungnir, the spear of Odin's name comes from the movie, but the way it's deployed is more similar to how it was deployed in the manga during the Terrible Master arc. There, Belldandy shielded Keiichi, possessed, with her body, and evidently the Almighty wasn't quite ready to sacrifice a goddess first class. Skuld clearing out the system in this time line allowed two shots, as the movie evidenced that Gungnir took a lot of resources (and I'm assuming Yggdrasil got upgraded a bit while the system was down post Lord of Terror, which is why it takes nearly everything here but Yggdrasil pulled it off at six percent power in the movie). And everyone's favorite mechaphile would do very well at this sort of thing is she had someone debugging her code (she does tend to get impetuous).



Skuld didn't contribute a lot up to this period, besides giving Urd some extra firepower through the Terrible Master arc. Without Skuld, Urd drained herself rather than throwing all the Skuld Bombs at once. Skuld later saved the day with the floppy, but not before failing to read the manual, critically slowing things down enough to allow the superstring to be revealed, and constructing the scythe. As Skuld also wasn't there to help dig Belldandy out of the rubble of Mara's lair, Fenrir got enough time to reveal the superstring in this time line prior to his defeat. Everything else went pretty much how it went up in the manga right up to heaven's last ditch attempt against the Lord of Terror.



One of my favorite surprise moments in the early manga was when 'Keiichi's' victory sign after stopping the snake turned out to be the Ultimate Destruction program crowing its save from being destroyed. This doesn't have to do a lot with the story, but I enjoyed the scene enough to leave it in when it doesn't add much at all to the story.



Belldandy losing control of her powers to strong emotion wasn't revealed at this point, but considering it occurs several times later (and that's when she's sealed up), a minor jealousy wave at full First-class level firepower would probably level half of Tokyo without her 'divine surge protector' to handle that sort of problem.