Author's Note: Computer broke down. While running maintenance on 3 computers at once, I must of lost some parts or switched some, because none of the three now work. That stinks. Well, fairly big chapter to make up for missed time.
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
Scraps threw a metal shot as hard as he could down the next path and ducked behind a large pillar. The shot clattered as it bounced down the path, the sound drawing the valkyries down towards a large park and past the pillar where he was hiding.
He turned to see where he was and saw himself face to face with a goddess, who seemed to give off a sense of authority.
"Oh, your quite a mess. Forgot our little appointment until the last minute, hmm? Well, better late then never."
She turned and motioned toward the stage of a large outdoor amphitheater. The seats were filled with young gods and goddesses, from those starting to leave childhood to those who appears to be young men and women.
A sense of understanding could be seen in his eyes. He turned and smiled at the goddess. "I apologize, madame. The seminar completely slipped my mind. Well, no harm done, quiaff?"
He walked up to the front of the class and took in a deep breath.
"You all wish to become warriors. I must ask, who among you will fail? Who will fall? Who will strive for victory and succeeded. Every one of you is willing to try, because it is better to fight for something then live for nothing." His voice, filled with passion, began to rise steadily.
"Those of you that are true warriors can always be picked out early on in the training. True warriors do not follow paths, they make them. It is not just our desire, nay, it is our nature."
"If will no longer be your teacher if you manage to complete the trials. Neg, you will have a new teacher, the enemy! There is no teacher greater teacher than the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. The enemy will aid you the most in your strive for perfection as a warrior."
Scraps stepped down from the table, and silence veiled the room for several moments. Then one girl raised her hand.
"Yes? Do you wish to know about young godling?".
"Pardon my bluntness, but what does this have to do with Yggdrasil protocol?"
"What!?" Scraps boomed, "Is this not the Valkyrie recruitment seminar?"
"No, I think you must have the wrong room." The goddess who met him at the door finally spoke up.
"Ah, pardon me, I must be off! I'm late!" Scraps quickly left the open courtyard and into the closest building he could see.
He grinned madly in triumph, his bluff working magnificently. He then casually strolled down the hall in search of Urd. As he rounded a corner he found himself staring down an poleaxe.
He sat down, glanced at the goddess who still pointed the poleaxe at him, and smiled.
"You have a name?"
"Rind."
"Well, Rind, shall we dance?"
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Ring, ring.
Ring, ring.
"Hello, Morisato residence."
"Bell! It's Urd! You have to come to heaven right now. It's about Scraps."
"Oh he's--"
"In trouble."
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He dodged as an poleaxe nearly did him through. He jumped back wards and threw a metal shot at Rind. This shot visibly ripped through the air, zipped passed her head and made a 'snap' as it embedded itself deeply into a nearby wall.
Rind saw this, and by the time she turned back to her opponent, a shot was heading towards her, straight and true. She only had the chance to move both her poleaxe heads to block the shot before it contacted.
Rind was knocked back wards as the shot pierced one poleaxe head, while the other poleaxe clattered as it hit the floor down the hall.
She looked up and saw Scraps standing over her. She quickly threw up a shield, looked up at him when he didn't attack. His hand was extended, offering her a hand up.
She glared at him, but then she saw in his eyes he wasn't preparing to attack. After a slight hesitation, she took it. He pulled her to her feet, then they stood face to face, eye to eye for several moments, before Rind finally spoke up.
"What are you doing? Aren't we supposed to be fighting?"
"I'm the mad and unpredictable intruder. I can do damn well whatever I bloody want. You're the guard, so you were just doing your job. Or rather, not doing your job." He tilted his head slightly and said, "The real question is why did you stop? Aren't you supposed to be hauling my assets down to a prison?."
He slid downward against the wall until he was sitting.
Rind had retrieved her remaining poleaxe and was leaning on it in deep thought. "You know, I'm still going to have to capture you."
"I know."
"Your might be imprisoned for eternity."
"Too bad."
"Or executed."
"My loss."
"..." Rind sighed. "You know, I wouldn't feel so bad about turning you in if you would fight or run."
He laughed, stood up, and pressed something into her hand. At first she thought it was a shot, but rather than rough grey metal it was transparent. Inside could be seen thousands of tiny specs of light against a black background, as if one were looking at the galaxy from a god's (or goddess') point of view, no pun intended. The object was enclosed in a metal casing, which was fastened to a piece of string, as if it was meant to be worn as a necklace.
"Hold on to this for me. If they are as bad as you claim, make sure nothing happens to that." He then stepped towards her, closed his eyes, and brought her in an embrace for a long moment, catching her off guard. He then released her from the hug, and began down the hall with his hands behind his head.
"Right. I get a five minute head start." He then broke into a run. "Better make it ten, so you won't feel as bad" he called out behind him.
Rind, who had been in a daze, snapped back to reality. "Wait... what did he say?"
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Somewhere in heaven.
"Hey Blackjack, where are you? Yoohoo, Blaaaackjaaaack."
A young man stepped out from behind a tree. He was very lean and pale, very much like someone who was suffering from an illness. His hair was dark, like Scraps', but was worn short, reaching down only to the base of his neck. He wore a black overcoat, like Scraps did, but his was done up, concealing his neck up to his chin. His face was in a neutral state.
"Blackjack, you spawn of a tramp. Long time." He smiled, gave him a hug and a pat on the back. However, if Blackjack noticed, he didn't show it.
"What?"
"I need a favour..." Scraps smiled.
Unlike Scraps, Blackjack's eyes were grey-green and seemed neutral. His eyes moved in an analytical way over his surroundings that revealed a living mind behind the seemingly broken shell of a man.
Blackjack took one last glance at his surroundings and nodded.
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Scraps casually strolled up to the main Yggdrasil building and waved at the two Valkyries there.
"Hi. I give up. This game isn't fun any more."
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"Intruder alert canceled. All units stand down and return to duties." A voice chimed throughout the heavens.
Four goddess floated above a plaza in conversation.
"Do you know where he could be, Peroth?" Belldandy asked, worried.
"If they caught him he will probably be taken to the council for questioning, since he is the first human to break into heaven."
"To the council chambers then!" Skuld flew ahead of her sisters.
"Wait up!" Urd took off in pursuit followed by Peroth. Belldandy took one last look around, and flew off in the direction of her sisters. If she had been looking hard enough, and knew what to look for, she would of seen the faintest of vague outlines, one shaped like a man.
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Scraps sat in a cage with bars made out of solid light. Before him sat a council of gods and goddesses.
"How did you get up here?" One god demanded.
"I guess a bribe won't help me up here, neh?"
"Address the council!" A nearby Valkyrie hissed, "For your own sake."
"Or what, they'll kill me?"
"I demand that--" The god boomed once more.
"By Blake, shut up already. Kill me now. I dare ya!"
"Your fate will be decided after we discuss in private. Before we can do that, however, we need to hear your story."
"My fate? Don't you dare touch it."
Scraps stood up in his cage, and brushed a bar with his finger tips. The bars hissed as if hot iron when they contacted his fingers. Then grabbed two bars with his hands and grunted in exertion.
"Don't bother, those bars are..." The valkyrie trailed off.
"Solid..." he said through gritted teeth as the bars began to bend " ...light." he released the bars and squeezed through through the gap.
"So? No 'Seize him!' or anything?"
"That won't be necessary."
A figure with long white hair entered the chambers.
"Your not another uptight, holier-than-thou, son-of-a-statesman, are you?"
"My Lord, you need not worry about a simple intruder."
"He is neither simple nor an intruder. And yes, they do tend to be uptight sometimes, don't they? Would you like join me for a walk?"
"Absolutely on all the above. You're the first decent person I've met all day. You have a name?"
Together they left the council chamber into the bright sunlight.
"Just call me Kami."
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"Hey, what's wrong Skuld? Why did you stop?" Urd asked.
"It's Scraps... and he's with someone... Oh. My. Goddess."
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"Well, actually, using the revised chaos theory you can actually prove otherwise." Scraps said as he glanced at a passing goddess
"Ah, but the chaos theory wouldn't be able to give any solid proof due to the different outcomes caused unpredictability of human emotions and freedom of choice. That, and an infinite number of other variables." Kami replied as they stopped at a large fountain.
"If you had a very, very powerful calculator like a network of quantum computers, or maybe Yggdrasil, you could crunch the numbers down until you have only one to four major outcomes. In theory, if you had a method of information retrieval to match a computer like that, you could narrow it down to one solid outcome. But no one has yet to build anything like that, so it's just theoretical."
Four goddesses landed in front of them as Kami and Scraps turned to meet them.
"True, but the initial cost of the computer, the hundreds of cameras and sensors, maintenance cost of the information network and the people to run it, coupled with it's inaccuracy would make it impractical." Kami turned towards the goddesses.
"This coming from the people who run a whole bloody planet using a computer." Scraps turned towards the goddesses. "Oh, hey. I was looking for you, Urd. Hey Bell, Skuld, Peroth." He nodded to each.
"My lord, I apologize for this--"
"Peroth, I now leave him in your care." Kami hovered off the ground, waved, and flew off into the sky.
"Well, he seemed nice enough."
"'Nice enough?' Do you know who that was?" Peroth gave him an 'are-you-insane!?' look.
"He said his name was K-something. Kammy, I think. Didn't really seem important at the time."
"That was Kami. Kami is the head of heaven. The boss. God. The big guy."
"Oh. Ooooooh. That does explain a lot."
"You have some explaining to do." Urd angrily poked him in the chest.
"Oui, mon chéri. A lot of explaining."
"I'm just glad that no one was hurt." Belldandy smiled in relief.
"Glad that no one was-- oh no..." Scraps visibly paled.
"What's wrong?" Urd asked, apparently worried.
Scraps began to look over each of them, one at a time. "When in hostile territory, it always pays off to have a backup plan." His gaze landed on Peroth.
"Watch out!" He shoved her as something impacted his shoulder, causing his left arm to stiffen, and blood to flow freely.
"Great Kerensky's ghost! Stop shooting, god damn it! If you do that again I'm going to rip out your guts and feast on your entrails! You hear me!? You spawn of a-- !" His cursing then escalated to a point it where it made all within earshot blush.
A Blackjack then appeared out of a shadow smiling holding an old bolt-action rifle.
"Damnit! What in the seven lower depths of hell are you smiling at! Go disarm the charges before I gut you like a fish."
"What?"
Blackjack pointed to a tower that erupted in fire a moment later, followed by second and third explosions on separate buildings.
"Hey Blackjack, what's that game you usually mention at times like this?" Scraps asked inspected his wound.
"Craps."
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"Sithorium." Blackjack held up a crystalline bullet.
"Damn."
"You know, we could just heal you magically." Skuld suggested.
"That would be nice but..." Belldandy began chanting and lay her hand on his shoulder. He then blacked out before she could finish.
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"That's never happened before." Belldandy pointed out, then turned to Blackjack. "Will he be OK?"
"Give him an hour."
"Until he wakes, you're coming with me to answer some questions."
"Fine."
"And no more 1 word answers, pal. Who are you?"
"An acquaintance of Jade."
"Who?"
"Him." He pointed to Scraps on the bed.
"How did you both get up here?"
"We just did."
"How?"
"We just did."
"But how!?" Urd demanded.
"You tell me."
"... Are all of you as bad as Scra-- I mean Jade?" Urd sighed. "I need a drink."
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Scraps awoke to find himself staring into the face of Belldandy.
"I'm so glad you're awake! I'm sorry about what happened."
He sat up and saw several figures standing around the room.
"Your all still here?"
"We weren't sure if it was alright to move you after you blacked out when Bell healed you."
"We've had a discussion. Blackjack has agreed the best punishment would be for both of you to make a public apology." Peroth said.
He turned to Blackjack. "Firstly, doesn't the fact I took a bullet for you mean anything? Secondly, Blackjack only says a few words at a time, and occasionally short sentences. I'll end up doing all the talking."
"Well", Peroth began as she wrapped her arms around him, "I could always reward my hero some other way." She purred in his ear. "Anyways, you should be lucky that you got off the hook easy."
"No, he's the one that gets off easy." Jade gave Blackjack a angry glare. "Semper fi, wanker." Blackjack only grinned in reply.
"Well, good to see you up... " said a figure from the doorway.
"Oh Rind, you know Jade?" Belldandy asked, surprised.
"We've met."
"Jade? Damn it, Blackjack, I can't be unconscious for an hour without spilling company secrets."
He simply shrugged.
"That's it! I'm going to kill you! Twice!" He then withdrew a pistol and open fire.
Every goddess in the room threw up shields and ducked. Blackjack moved quickly dodging each shot until Rind knocked the gun from Jade's hand.
"What are you doing!?" Rind yelled
"Err... My bad."
"Your bad!? No, your insane! You could of killed someone!" Urd cut in
"Here." Blackjack handed Jade the gun, which shocked everyone even further.
"Thanks."
"Are both of you mad!?" Peroth cried.
"Absolutely." Jade grinned.
"Of course." Blackjack nodded.
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