Ilias, goddess of light, creator of the universe and protector of mankind was, according to all human documentations, the most powerful entity in existence.
Her beauty was such that not even the finest marble of the greatest sculptor could give justice to even a fraction of her splendor.
She kind and wise, the epitome of benevolence and her mercy and was the only reason mankind could prosper despite the threat of monsters.
And finally, she was powerful. Her holy thunder could strike the heretics and heathens anywhere on earth at any moment. She was omnipotent and omniscient, knew all that was, is and will be.
From her throne in Heaven, Ilias usually monitored all of what was happening below. Except for this moment. Because the all mighty goddess of light, protector of mankind and creator of universe was currently taking a nap.
While it was true that Ilias was a very powerful entity, she was still subject to fatigue. Not the ordinary kind of fatigue though. Her body was made of pure light and such was ageless and knew not tiredness born form excessive exertion or lack of rest.
Her mind however was not as immune. As her countless plans and calculations were processed in her head at the same time of her careful monitoring of the earthly matters, Ilias overworking mind was slowly accumulating fatigue. Adding to that were the incompetence of her minions and the unpredictability of some of her pawns. So it was no wonder that even goddess herself needed some time of rest.
Obviously noone knew of that. She was the epitome of perfection to the point that it was surprising that the word itself didn't come from her name. Nobody knew she needed rest and nobody should ever. Even her first daughters should not even know that.
For that reason, mere days ago, she pretexted the need to seclude herself to work on important matters to shut herself in her own quarters in heaven where noone should (and could) bother her.
BOOOOM !
However, the goddess rest was not meant to last as a huge explosion came rockning Heavens itself.
The occurence should not have bothered her sleep. It was not so rare to have explosions happening between uncareful young angels or quarreling ones. The sound itself could not even bother her since she cutted herself from any external disturbance.
So what woke her up was not the sound or the tremor but the feeling that someone as trespassed the gate of Heavens which was a feat in itself since the gate was fused to a powerful cherubim.
At the realisation Ilias exited her quarters to go to the source of the disturbance. She crossed the distance quickly and found Eden and a small army of valkyries already on the spot, facing and surrounding the intruder.
Ilias was surprised by the appearence of the trespasser. She first assumed that it was the Monster Lord or her knights who had launched an assault.
Instead of the infuriating snake there was a human girl. Physically wise, she had nothing extraordinary. She was of medium height for a teenager, had short brown hairs with an headband, black and white top and skirt and brown eyes. The only thing strange about her was the massive array of metal contraptions fixed on her body and the confident smirk she displayed despite being surrounded.
"You dare trespass in the holy domain of the Goddess ?! I will let you name yourself before executing judgment for your crime !" seethed Eden, positively furious.
Ilias stayed back for the moment, choosing to observe.
The girl was definitly an anomaly. She was powerful enough to break into Heavens and more importantly Ilias didn't know who this person was. As the goddess of light, her impecable memory let her remember every being that existed and existed. However the sight of this girl didn't ring any bell and it was at best worrying.
More than that though, something was strange about the aura of the teen. As a goddess Ilias was knowledgable about all forms of lifes in existence, she even knew a few things about the monsters she dispised so much, be it to better eradicate them.
That meant that she was able to make the difference between beings of Lights like angels, of Darkness like monsters or even beings which are not aligned to any elements such as mere animals.
And this girl, despite looking human, she didn't feel like one. As she tried to look deeper, the goddess could feel the smell of smoke and iron. She could taste something salty on her tongue.
The girl, no, the creature, was definitly not human while obviously related to them. She didn't even felt like it was a living thing, Ilias realised. She seemed more similar to a ghost or another spiritual entity.
While trying to unravel this strange enigma from afar, the goddess musing was brutly interupted by the very voice of the object of her interest.
"I am the first ship of the Shiratuyu class, Shirastuyu ! Yes the first ship !" exclamed the girl, putting emphasis to the word "first" for some reason.
When she noticed this, Ilias let out a sigh of exasperation, predicting that Eden would bite to the unintentional bait.
"I don't know anything about you but it doesn't matter. Know that you have the privilege to lay your eyes on the first Seraphim," said proudly Eden, presenting her naked body. "Now prepare yourself to be punished," she added as she gathered holy energy in her hands.
In response the girl aimed a metal box with two tubes to the seraphim figure. However it wasn't all as elsewhere on the metal part on her body, smaller similar looking tubes moved and rotated to aim at the angels surrounding her. From her spectatory state, Ilias noticed the presence of minuscules figures, humans looking and dressed in white as them manned what was probably an array of weapons.
As the two were about to attack each other, Ilias was about to step in. However, another explosion near the entrance of even attracted the attention of everyone.
The black smoke didn't even disappear that redish small projectiles were fired in rapid succession at airborn angels who were in the vinicity. The valkyries in the air dodged to the best of their habilities but were quickly forced to withdraw and scatter lest they would be hit.
As the black smoke cleared, another figure came rushing at the gathering of angels surrounding the teenager. She had the same clothes and metal arrays but had long pig-tailed light brown hairs and orange eyes.
The new girl didn't stop and kept charging at the angels while, at her sight, the Shiratsuyu girl changed her taget to aim at the angels separating them.
The tubes on Shiratsuyu hand metal contraption fired two fast projectiles at the feets of the angels, then the cloudy ground exploded, projecting the winged warriors of heaven around.
Not waiting to let her chance pass, the girl ran through the hole in the lines and joined with her comrades. They then turned in direction of Eden and the majority of the angels force, aiming their metal weapons in their direction.
"You really put us in a huge mess this time onee-san", said the new girl as even more angels came to Eden side.
"Haha, sorry. I just hope that the admiral would not be too mad", answered Shiratsuyu.
"We will be lucky if we are not court martialed on the spot when we get back", sighed her companion.
"If we go back", first girl added before hardening her gaze as the first line of valkyries, spears at hand, began to charge them. "Prepare all guns to anti-personel and AA-fire, Murasame !"
"Yes,yes".
At her words hellfire broke loose. Hundreds of shots were fired in mere seconds, with bigger projectiles coming from the hand weapons tubes with loud noises and countless others of smaller scale came from smaller metal tubes divided on the metal contraption on the back, legs and other body parts of the girls.
At the sight of the onslaught, the angels stopped their charge to brace themselve or try to evade. However it proved uneeded as a huge shield of light appeared before them.
The countless projectiles hit the shield and exploded on its surface but dispite the number and force of the explosion, the assault didn't even scratch the surface.
"Damn, we can't penetrate it ! It's battleship armor or what ?!" exclaimed Shiratsuyu.
"I think we should consider to retreat now. There is nothing we can do here !" proposed the Murasame girl.
Shiratsuyu nodded and guickly turned her back in direction to Heaven's Gate. their attacks didn't cease though as the small tubes on the other parts of their bodies still spitted their lead on the shield of light, preventing the angels troops to follow them.
Unfortunally for them, Eden wasn't going to let them escape. While reciting a prayer in the goddess name, the seraphim released the gathered holy energy at the fleeing teens. A massive ray of golden light shooted and traveled at high speed to their target. It was only due to the timely reaction of the Shiratsuyu girl that saved them from being vaporised as she dropped herself on the cloudy ground while pulling her companion with her.
However Eden was already readying another attack and this time it was not likely to miss the downed girls.
"Cease this foolishery at this instant, Eden", a firm yet sweet voice echoed in the Heavens.
Immediatly the energy gathering in the seraphim hand dissipated and she knelt before the winged figure descending at her level in a pillar of light.
Shiratsuyu and Murasame quickly got up and turned around to see why her foe stopped her assault. What they saw took their breath away.
The woman named Eden and all the winged women they briefly fought were all kneeling in a circle. At the center, landing surrounded by golden light was a woman of unmatched beauty.
She had long blond hair like gold reaching to below her waist. On her head seated a golden tiara and a red precious stone ornated her forehead. Her two big blue eyes were like gems and attracted so much attention that her long pointed ears were almost unoticable. On her body she wore a simple but graceful white dress which gave her an air of humility without dwindle her majesty while leaving her shoulder and a large portion of her legs bare, enough to let her beautiful skin be admired. A golden ornament circled her waist and blue and golden bracelets on her wirst were the last of the jewelery she wore. Lastly, on her back were a pair of large wings of pure white feathers.
Ilias smiled at the two girls as she gawked at her presence like most humans did. She then turned to the bowing Eden who was probably expecting to be admonished. Admonishing, she will receive for her lack of restraint and foresight but not was not the time.
"While I am grateful for your diligence in the defense of Heavens, you commited a grave fault at harming our guests", the goddess simply said with a gentle voice.
She could feel that the seraphim wanted to retort but Eden knew better that to show any act of defiance and simply accepted her remontrance. After this, Ilias dismissed her and the rest of the host of angels and in short order she was left alone with the two young girls.
"Now, I wish to offer you an apology for the unbecoming behavior of my underlings. Eden had always been quick to judge others despite my attempt to teach her temperance. I hope you will find it in yourself to forgive her one day", declared Ilias as she was the incarnation of humility itself.
The two girls seemed quite surprised of her behavior and shared a glance before the Shiratsuyu girl first spoke.
"Yeah... Well to be fair we are kinda to blame too." she said as she scratched the back of her head in embarassement "We didn't meant to barge in your place like this. It's just that when we reached the top of that mountain we were attacked by some strange beast with wings and then we stumbled on that door lady and ended in a fight." She then explained.
"Anyway ! We apologize too for the problems we caused, we were supposed to keep our head out of trouble too." She ended even as the end of her sentence morphed into a whining.
"We won't hold any grudge against you for an honest mistake." Answered the goddess. "Now I think it is time that I present myself. I am Ilias, goddess of Light, creator of the universe and protector of mankind. I have already gathered that your names were Shiratsuyu and Murasame. I must confess it is the first time that I meet peoples I know Nothing about. An odd experience but a refreshing one."
"What do you mean ?" quickly asked Murasame.
"As a goddess I know the name and the face of every man, woman and children living on th earth. However I know nothing of you which is why I must ask you of who you are, and what you are." Said Ilias with an inquiring gaze that sent chills to the spine of the two girls.
"We... We are naval personnels. We belong to the Japanese Navy. I can't really say anymore than that without the consent of my superiors" déclared hesitantly Shiratsuyu.
At this moment Ilias took an instant to think about those words. "Naval personnel". Even if the words were unfamiliar, Ilias quickly deduced that those girls were some kind of soldiers that were versed in naval warfare.
While she didn't detect any lies in their sayings, the goddess knew no navy which used young girls geared like them. However, if they were part of a military organisation, it meant that they were probably more of them and since they were from a navy, they had to be situated near the seaside.
Quickly, Ilias gaze fell on the surface of the earth, Following the coast lines.
In an effort of efficiency, she quickly discarded the shores of Hellgondo as she doubted anyone could settle on the rocky cliffs of the accursed continent of Monsters.
She first began scrying along the coast of Ilias Continent because the landmass named after her like nearly anything that was on it, was the smallest of the landmasses and didn't have much habitable shores. However, after swiftly sweeping the coastline, she found nothing out of place.
So she moved her gaze north, toward Sentora, expecting to review a vast area before finding what she looked for. She began with Port Natatia, the distateful mermaid den and moved east, following the sandy beaches on several kilometers. Then, to her surprise, she suddently found it.
The installation wasn't what she expected. It was the size of a small coastal settlement with most of the buildings made of stone instead of wood. From her aerial glance, she couldn't phantom the use of most of their facilities with only the familiar sight of docks assuring her she was indeed looking at an naval base.
She didn't loiter on the look of the buildings long. Instead, she quickly looked at the people roaming between them, moving with purpose. The goddess was quite surprised to find that a great number of young girls and women among them. Some of them had similar metal contraption that the ones who intruded her realm while others were free of them. She also remarqued the variety of clothing that these maidens wore with a lot of different types and color paterns. The only real uniformity was that nearly everyone wore short skirts.
However those who dwelled in this settlement were not only girls. There were also some men in some kind of uniforms, she guessed. Most of them seemed to be relegated to menial task and logistics as they carried huges crates, drove strange carriages and seemed to write down the inventory of what they possessed.
Yet, young maidens and men alike, their number was dwarfed by that of the minuscule creatures that she seen manning the weapons on both Shiratsuyu and Murasame riggings. Their presence was easily unoticable for their small size maked them nearly invisible to anyone who wasn't paying attention. However Ilias was paying attention and her divine gaze was having difficulties to track the numerous little things that walked, trotted, runned on the ground, on the roofs, entering the buildings by the doors, the windows and even cracks on the walls. Their clothing was even more varied than that of the girls and these differecies seemed to imply their own roles and tasks.
More intriguing, Ilias discovered that an oddly high proportion of them seemed to be linked with the girls. Most of those wore white uniforms with white little caps. They climbed and moved on the maidens bodies without caring of their host movements, entering and exiting the metal riggings strapped on the girls with specifics tasks in minds like carrrying crates and even tidying the weapons.
Ilias could have stayed longer to try to unravel all the secrets of these strangers but even if her mind worked faster than the other beings, it didn't meant that the time actually stopped and she had still the two girls in front of her waiting for her to speak.
However she still had the time to learn what she needed to know to sort this situation. By the look of this, it was obvious to her that these people were not from her world. The girls and small creatures that haunted them were beings which didn't even exist in her world and she didn't recognize any of the men working with them despite them being humans.
The most logical conclusion was that these foreigners were from an alternate dimension or an entire other universe. And the thought was worrying to say the least. While even as an all-mighty goddess there was things that even her wasn't keen to do such as messing with time-space and dimensions. To Ilias and to the world, the presence of these people were akin to an foreign organism in the body and like in an organic body, the consequences of their mere presence could as well be benign or catastrophic to the fabric of the universe itself.
And it wasn't even considering the potential disruption they could cause to her plans. She spent many centuries slowly moving pieces and after some setbacks, the conditions to her final victory were already nearing completion.
Truly, Ilias considered wiping them out from existence. It was the most prudent solution, for the safety of her plans and for the world. And it would also wipe away to embarassment to have let such occurrence slip her monitoring.
However Ilias actually pondered the question. From what she gathered, this strange girls were siding with humans. Maybe not her humans but they were humans altogether. It did mean that it was only a matter of time before these foreigners were exposed to the dangers this world offered to humans. And at that moment, they will have to choose to crawl to the ground in fright or face it with courage and rightful retribution. If the actions of the two girls who broke into heavens were of any indications, the goddess had no doubt that they would make the right choice.
And at that moment, Ilias would have made a new set of allies.
Powerful allies, she thought as she looked at the still smoking entrance of heavens.
"Then you must be part of the denizens dwelling on this strange settlement which appeared on the shores of Sentora not long ago", declared Ilias like she knew of their presence for a long time. Both girls flinched at her statement, assuring her that she was right in her assomption. "I must confess that this occurrence is unprecedented. I would like to be enlighted to the reasons of your presence in this world but I understand that you are willing to keep your secrets".
"Sorry about that", meekly apologized the Shiratsuyu girl while her companion silently bowed slightly like those people in Yamatai.
"Worry not. I am the goddess of light and Good. My comprehension is only matched by my mercifulness and so I understand that you trespassed into heavens without any bad intent", Ilias nodded with a gentle smile. "For this reason I pardon you and will let you leave safely", she Added while extending an hand to the entrance of heavens.
"Also know that my mercy know no bounds. As such I am willing to help any lost lambs, be they come from this world or not", she finally said, radiating with benevolence.
"Tha-thank you ! Then we will be leaving", exclaimed Shiratsuyu, probably not expecting to be let off easily after all the damages she did.
"We will be sure to tell this to the admiral", added Murasame with another little bow, obviously more composed than her companion.
Ilias watched as they both silently exited heavens. Fortunatly, she sensed that while badly damaged and out of cold, Heaven's Gate has not be destroyed. It saved her the trouble to fuse the entrance of her realm with another angel.
After a while, Eden came to her again. She was obviously worried that she discontented her inadvertantly and as a result was so meek that Ilias found her almost cute. The thought of admonishing her to have taken such initiative without her explicit consent briefly flashed in her mind but she didn't act on it. Eden didn't do anything wrong and only the circonstances made her decision a rash and poor choice. Had it be anyone on else such as a monster or a human penetrating her holy realm, Ilias would have approuved their removal.
"If these people were to return again, what should we do ?", asked hesitantly the seraph.
"Let them in and treat them well. Their appareance was unexpected but they actually might be useful to my plans", responded the goddess, her tone much less gentle than before.
"May I ask in which way ?", requested Eden, obviously not convinced.
"In due time", bluntly answered Ilias as she looked upon the earth again. She saw the two girls begining their descent of the mountain along the path. Around them the landscape was ruined with still smoking deep craters, unrooted trees and destroyed columns.
A nasty smile crept on the Goddess of Light face. If the played her cards well, the Monster Lord will not know what will fall upon her.
A/N :
Sorry for the wait, exams got in the way and I had some problems with writer block. Also I was confronted to my own lack of vocaulary in English. Any way, dispite all that, I produced the longest chapter so far.
Now I will answer some of the reviews :
Guest : First thank you again to your interesting reviews. About the advanced techs in MGQ, I will only displays those of the original trilogy. So no secret laboratory in San Ilia. However there is still one peculiar character who distribute her advanced techs to various persons and I don't plan to remove it so there will still be advanced techs. However this technology is restricted to certain circles and don't seem affect MGQ societies which remains roughtly late medievalish.
As for the interactions between main characters of the two series, I plan to include them, I just wait for opportunities. Like you probably seen, I try to associates characters that interact with each other in a special way. For example I first set Shiratsuyu and Eden together because they both have an obsession with being "First".
THE GREAT AARON : Thank you.
I took a little bit of time to write this chapter but this fic is not dead yet. I have ideas for at least half a dozen chapters. Thank you for reading and following. Tell me what you think about this story.
See you for the next episode !