Chapter 16

Soon, a goddess appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the room where the discussion was being held. Peorth stood up recognizing the goddess as one that worked in taking care of the mainframe.

                "Peorth, the system is out of control. There is a virus deep in the system. Ere, Chrono, and Ex are trying to keep everything under control, but it's getting to be too much seeing that the source is unknown."

                "Could that be?" Morgan looked up upon hearing the news, "Melusina…through Mythalia she was able to input the virus…"

                "I thought that she has not been allowed to use it at all, let alone activate it…" Keiichi gave his input.

                Peorth thought about the situation. "Cyrene, do you have any idea or clue as to which sector it's coming from?"

                "It's penetrated all levels of security, even those of your Superiors."

                "Only one person can use that system though." Urd explained, "It's you Peorth. My guess is that using a dormant virus Melusina was able to use Mythalia as a medium to penetrate through the system using your file. With your file, she would have access to the most important of information, especially those of your Superiors."

                "What? No way…" Peorth shook her head in disbelief, "You all go on ahead and assist Celestin and Mythalia. Cyrene, move on ahead of me. Prepare a manual scan of my system information."

                "Huh? Yes…I understand." The goddess with long earthly brown hair disappeared, as Peorth followed, but was stopped by Urd.

                "Be careful. Try to avoid the penetration of another virus. She might have downloaded more than one." Urd watched as Peorth disappeared.

Meanwhile, in the forest, birds flew from their nests in response to a dark and cold feeling that dwelled in the heart of the forest. With zombie-like eyes, she walked, lost through the forest heading to the overpass of the river, where Celestin was waiting and watching as she passed by.

                "Mythalia…" He looked up at her figure, which swayed while walking to the bridge. Turning her head looking at him, she flashed open her eyes, and outstretched her hand. As a wave of dark energy pinned him against the tree, a scythe of the dark energy sliced open the sleeve of his clothing and punctured his skin. Lowering her hand, her gray eyes grew darker as she stared into Celestin's eyes. "You've sided with the evil haven't you?!" No answer was heard from Mythalia, as she stood still then moved on while her angel, Serenata Jade, emerged from her back, and fully formed into its own individual angel. "That's…impossible!" He watched in astonishment, tearing himself from his pinned down position against the tree.

                "Celestin! What the…?!" Urd called to the god, who stood face-to-face with Mythalia's angel, "That's impossible for her to accomplish alone. Only demons can achieve such a feat. This is definitely the work of Melusina…"

                "What is it?" Skuld ran forward, but halted when she saw the vision before her two eye, "Oh my goodness!" She looked at the angel decked out in a style of her own. Everything was black against her pale skin, and her eyes were shielded by the darkness.

                "The darkness has begun to take over her…it's only a matter of time. Celestin, Aurora! Move on ahead! The rest of them will take care of her here." Morgan called to the two closest to Mythalia, "Follow her!" Morgan called out to Celestin and Aurora, as Mythalia turned a corner to an empty circle in the middle of the forest.

Meanwhile, at headquarters, Chrono, Ere, and Ex sat before the system screen as red dots multiplied increasing their surface area tenfold by the second.

                "Peorth!" Chrono called quickly glancing over at their leader, as her hands glided down the strings and the bar in her left hand moved quickly and with accuracy, "What should we do about the virus? We can't find its source, which is making it much harder to trace."

                "…" Peorth looked forward at the screen watching as the three technician goddesses worked diligently, but slowed down for a second when no reply was heard from Peorth.

                "Miss Peorth. The manual scan is prepared and ready…"

                "Peorth?" Ere looked up at her commander, who kept her head bent as a solemn expression fell upon her face. "What is she talking about?"

                "Is it…? Was it downloaded onto your system?" Ex inquired, never removing her gaze from her controls.

                "Yes it was. A dormant virus that made its way through the most sensitive of all systems…my own." Peorth looked up, and stepped down off of the elevated platform, "Ere…I want you to keep a check on any information that is flowing in from my system. There might be another virus hidden. "

                "Yes ma'am…" Ere looked up from her work and saluted her commander.

                "Let's go…" Peorth said to Cyrene, as the both of them walked into a room on which engraving spread out, looped and curled. Stepping in the middle of the platform, Peorth placed a glove on her hand specially made for goddess computer work. As a ball of light energy covered her, she allowed the system to de-fragment her as she kept her arms held up. Taking her left hand, she began the manual scan and magnified and minimized the size with the plucking of the strings.

Meanwhile, back in the forest at Flower Point, Belldandy, Urd, and Skuld tried to take care out the angel that was before them.

                "Don't kill her Urd…" Belldandy called to Urd, as she began with a chant. Dark gray clouds surrounded the area and thunder roared, while lightening began to strike. As she raised her hands, a platform for lightening absorption formed, and gathered in energy and power. Bringing down her hands, she focused her lightening attack at Mythalia's angel of nature, which dodged her attack with great speed aiming for Urd, who quickly separated with her angel, World of Elegance. In her assault, Serenata Jade removed a blade of grass from the ground with her hand, and made it into a deadly spear, with which she positioned to attack World of Elegance. As she projected forward, Belldandy removed an earring from her ear, and made a staff to use as a defense weapon against the spear protecting World of Elegance.

                "Skuld! I need your assistance. She's too much to fight alone!" Belldandy screamed holding Serenata Jade off with her staff, as her angel, Holy Bell appeared to assist her in holding the enemy off.

                "Huh?" Skuld watched as a storm kicked up suddenly, and the trees began to move. Suddenly, like a cry of death, the trees cried a sorrowful tune, and the branches attacked Skuld, who dodged the assault in the nick of time, but failed to see another attack aimed at her. Like a needle in a haystack, a piece of grass elongated and formed a javelin aimed right at Skuld's back.

                "Skuld!" Urd cried, as another javelin was aimed for her as well, but was well protected by her angel. As the weapon edged closer, something appeared out of thin air and disappeared with Skuld later re-appearing next to Urd.

                "…Who are you?" Skuld asked looking up at the astonishingly good-looking man with turquoise eyes, and dark brown hair like that of the rich, fertile earth.

                "A friend for now…" he said with a smile on his face, as he lit his finger with a small ball of flame. Blowing across the flame, it ignited and engulfed another spear, which turned to ashes. "Belldandy! Keep her feet off of the ground…"

                "Alright!" she responded luring the enemy into the air, and fighting an air battle. Using her angel of wind, Holy Bell, Belldandy threw her enemy off balance, but then it vanished into thin air. Looking around for a minute, no attack came. "Could it be?" she exclaimed as she lowered herself to the ground. "Mythalia!" The three goddesses and one god ran in the direction Celestin, Morgan, and Aurora had gone in before. Turning behind the corner, they saw…