AN: Okay the delay on this has been absolutely ridiculous and I apologise for that. Partly that's because I simply lost interest in OMG for a while and am only now getting back into it. In addition this chapter was an absolute pain to write and I'm still not entirely satisfied with it.
Chapter Seven
Urd held up a flask of faintly glowing blue liquid, examining it critically before taking a cautious sniff. Nodding in satisfaction she then took a single drop and placed it carefully in the analyser before closing the lid and turning it on.
As she waited for the results she remembered how enthusiastic Skuld had been when making the machine, and how annoyed she'd been when she realised that Urd had tricked her. The demoness smiled wistfully at the thought, wondering how her sisters were doing. Her recent training of Kasumi had only intensified her longing to see them, being so close to them and yet so far. As a trainee her actions on Midgard were closely monitored. Even had she not been expressly forbidden from contacting her siblings taking a detour to Nekomi would get her into serious trouble.
An insistent beeping pulled her out of her thoughts and Urd studied the results for the potion she had just created with a critical eye. Satisfied that they were all within acceptable parameters she began to weave a familiar spell of her own making.
Under her control the potion rose from its container, separating as it did so into individual globules, each containing a single does. Then they began to crystallise, forming clear, hard shells around a liquid centre.
Pleased with the result Urd gestured slightly and the spheres settled into a glass jar which she then sealed with the ease of long practice. Sticking on a label with the name of the contents and instructions for use she then placed the jar inside a padded container which already contained several other potions in both liquid and crystallised form.
She glanced over at the shelves, a slight frown on her face. Her recent work for Mission Supply, while profitable, had seriously depleted her stocks of ingredients. She only hoped that she could find replacements in Nifelheim, or she would have to seek special permission to obtain them elsewhere. And while she'd been getting on better with her mother recently that didn't mean Hild wouldn't extract a price for her request.
A week later Urd sighed as she left the last potion store in Nifelheim. While she had been able to find most of the ingredients she wanted some of the more unusual ones had been impossible to obtain.
The problem lay in the fact that the realm a plant was grown in could affect its properties in unexpected ways, some of them subtle, others not so much. For example while Midgard grown Hemlock was a poison if grown in Nifelheim it made, when combined with certain other ingredients, a rather potent love potion.
It was possible to mimic the effects by filtering the relative levels of mana and pishogue that reached the growing plants but unfortunately it seemed that none of the local potions stores bothered to do so. Rather short sighted of them really but then again few studied potions seriously and even fewer had her level of skill.
Unfortunately knowing that didn't get her the ingredients she needed.
Which left only her solution of last resort.
Two streaks of light twisted across the sky, smaller streaks passing between them as the red gradually gained on the blue. Finally the blue was hit, and began to fall, as the red disappeared entirely.
Falling towards the ground, only half conscious, Peorth hoped that Belldandy and Skuld would be able to cope with what was coming.
"Potions ingredients?" Hild asked in surprise. Of all the things she had expected her daughter to ask this was not one of them. "Can't you get what you need here?"
The reply was a pained grimace. "I've looked."
Judging by Urd's tone of voice she had looked for so long she was thoroughly sick of the process.
"Very well," she conceded. "You may use Saturday afternoon after your lesson with Kasumi to search for your ingredients. I'll excuse you from lessons to do so."
Urd looked surprised by her generosity. "Thank you, Hild -sama."
A little annoyed by Urd's tendency to avoid calling her mother Hild added, "I'll expect you to make up the time on Sunday."
The resulting groan cheered her up considerably.
In the Morisato residence an otherwise normal morning had been interrupted by an unexpected phone call.
Skuld listened carefully to the voice on the other end of the line, her expression becoming more and more serious as it continued.
"Onee-san I've been called back to Asgard," she reported when she hung up.
"Just you?"
"Hai. It's a minor problem with Yggdrasil, that's all."
"Alright then. But call me if you need any help."
"I will, Onee-sama."
As she dived into the portal she created in the pond Skuld wished, for once, that Urd was here. While her oldest sister was annoying she was pretty good with a computer. She could use the backup on this one.
Keiichi watched the kid suspiciously. He had appeared only minutes after Skuld had left and if it wasn't for his age he would swear the boy was flirting with Belldandy.
It was downright odd. He seemed to know her but she didn't have a clue who he was.
The mechanic was glad of the excuse of being late for work, allowing them to get away from the boy.
"Jealous?" the kid asked as they left.
Not really. He was too worried for that. Something felt off.
Urd smiled sadly as she watched Kasumi carefully draw a rune over the cauldron, her young student's face a mask of concentration. Although invisible to mortal eyes, save those of the most spiritually adept, the faint strands of magic that gathered within the vessel were quite clear to the demoness.
While it would, as was normal for mortals, take many years for the girl to build up any significant reserves of power Kasumi had otherwise proved an adept pupil. Although weak the spell was impressively well formed for a raw beginner and she had taken to Urd's beloved potions as if she had been taught from birth.
And Urd had the years to wait. Kasumi's contract stated that any aid her lessons gave to her family (defined as her father and sisters) must be repaid by giving equal aid to Urd. While it might seem fairly innocuous in principle it was far from it and the balance fell decidedly on the demon's side. Every meal Kasumi cooked, every time she cleaned the house, washed the clothes or slipped one of her family one of the basic healing potions Urd had taught her to make only added to her debt. Her teacher was not looking forward to the day Kasumi realised this. It would undoubtedly mean the end of the pleasant relationship they had been building. Which was a pity because she liked the kid.
Deliberately turning away from such gloomy thoughts Urd frowned thoughtfully, determined to make the most of the time she had. Perhaps she should take Kasumi with her when she went to harvest the ingredients she needed? It would give her some practical experience and at the same time introduce her to magical transport, which might be useful someday.
After a moment of further consideration she shook her head. No, it was too early for that.
At that moment the phone rang, causing Kasumi to flinch and mess up the final stroke of the rune. Shaken out of her thoughts Urd moved to answer the call, even as Kasumi's potion exploded with a muffled boom, sending plumes of thick smoke into the air.
Picking up the phone she absently cast a spell to clear the smoke, even as Kasumi opened a window.
"Hello?"
There was a moment's silence, in which she could hear what sounded like inhumanly fast paced whispering before someone spoke. "Urd, have we sorted out the time differential?" Kayla asked urgently.
Time differential? "What time differential?" She'd felt something strange in the air but if Midgard time was drifting...
Kayla interrupted that thought before she could think through the problems it would cause. "Good. We need you back here, now,"
Urd suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. "Details?" she asked urgently.
"Someone on our side has hacked Yggdrassil and is slowing time on Midgard drastically. Hild-sama wants you back here, pronto."
Urd paled. "Hai."
This was bad, really bad. If her mother not only wanted her back on duty but had taken charge personally…
She placed the phone back on the hook, and began to summon her power, not bothering to seek an appropriate medium but instead using raw force to create a passageway. It was inefficient and would alert every magic user within a ten mile radius to her presence but time was of the essence.
"Kasumi, clean this up and go home," she ordered, before disappearing, Kasumi's notes rustling as air rushed in to fill the space she had once occupied.
Urd entered the control room to find a scene of organised chaos. Every station was occupied, operators staring intently at the screens in front of them as their fingers flew over the keyboards, while others frantically called in those demons on Midgard, under the stern gaze of the supervisor, who had descended from her chair to move frantically between the stations.
The centre of the room was completely dominated by Hild, multiple screens floating around her as her hands moved at a blur, occasionally barking out orders. So intent was she on her activities that her voice lacked its usual edge of barely repressed maliciousness.
"Urd-chan, get up here!" she barked when Urd stepped inside. She gestured to the empty chair near her, which usually belonged to the supervisor. "I want you to link with Yggdrasil and stabilise the time flow."
"Hai, Hild-sama!"
The noise of the control room faded from her perception as Urd focused all her attention on the screen in front of her, where the complex codes that defined the functions of both Yggdrassil and Nidhegg stretched out in all their complexity.
With the ease of long practice she negotiated her way through the miles of coding, searching for the anomaly that would…
There!
A virus, the trail it left behind clearly visible to one as familiar with the systems as she was…
"Urd!" Hild snapped. "We will trace the source. Get the time flow stabilised."
"H…hai," Urd stuttered, brought out of her trance as she turned away from the virus's path to deal with its effects
Peorth glared at the little brat of a demon who had hacked Yggdrasil's files, attacked her and nearly killed Keiichi. If she had been just seconds later...
"Tell me," she demanded once the obligatory explanations were past. "Why did you alter time?"
"Actually I didn't particularly want to alter time," he admitted casually, hands in his pockets.
"Then... what were you...?" All this was a side effect?
"I was waiting." He withdrew his hand from his pocket, revealing a surprisingly innocuous device, a simple cylinder with a button on the end. "Waiting for my virus to spread to the furthest reaches of the system."
Holding the device up high he pressed the button.
"What have you done?" Whatever it was she knew it couldn't be good.
Skuld felt like screaming in frustration as the files locked on her one by one. Where was Peorth? She'd even settle for Urd, anyone who could help right now. She couldn't stabilise the time flow and unlock the files at the same time.
"Need a hand, brat?" a familiar voice asked as a screen opened to her left to display an image of her oldest sister.
Speak of the devil…
"Urd! What are you doing here? I need to concentrate."
"Helping," was the grim reply, Urd's fingers flying over her keyboard even as she spoke. "Nidhegg as been compromised but it's not in nearly as bad shape as Yggdrassil. Hild-sama is tracking down the perpetrator. You concentrate on getting Yggrasil operational, I'llsynchronise the systems and use Nidhegg to manage the time flow."
"But…" Skuld protested, rather thrown by the abrupt reappearance of a sister that she hadn't seen in over a year.
"Just do it Skuld," Urd ordered, eyes narrowing. "Argue later."
"H…hai," Skuld stuttered, as Urd's expression momentarily echoed her mother at her most frightening.
"Sorry kiddo, times up for you," Peorth declared, grabbing hold of the demon boy from behind.
He seemed completely unconcerned by this, turning his head to look at her. "Actually...when I hacked into the system I found a very interesting program so I swiped it."
Peorth blinked at the apparent change of topic. "So?"
His wrist twisted round in hers and suddenly Peorth could feel herself shrinking, his hand slipping out of hers as she fell to her knees.
"The power to reverse time," he said triumphantly.
Peorth glared at him, one arm over her chest to keep her clothes up. "So what?" she said defiantly. "If you think you've won you're wrong!" She thrust her hand into the air. "Come forth, La Rose Manifique!"
There was complete silence for a moment then Peorth's expression faltered. Oh... right... She didn't have enough power to summon an angel in her current form.
Skuld glanced over to the screen that showed Urd working, and blinked in shock as she saw the image of her oldest sister surrounded by programming code, manipulating it too fast for her to follow.
She stared for a moment in awe, finally understanding why it was her often lazy and rarely serious half-sister had gained the exulted position of Administrator for the entire Yggdrasil System, as she saw Urd's full capabilities for the first time.
"Sugoi," she said softly before returning to her own work.
Belldandy had thrown herself in front of the spell to save Keiichi but as she watched him argue with the demon she realised that deaging her had had another effect.
She smiled gently as she recalled that long ago day when they had first met.
"Thou who art with me always," she whispered, her voice gradually growing stronger as she continued, "Guardian of Shadow, Guardian of Light."
She had been a child, walking up the long stairway to the room where he waited for her, the chamber in which they would be bound together as doublets, part of the pact that kept Heaven and Hell from outright war.
Both children, one Goddess, one Demon, with a gift for working with winds. The closest of strangers, the most distant of twins.
And the doublet pact had not been the only promise made that day.
Her smile brightened as she remembered. "Welsper!"
And before her was no longer the child but the man.
Skuld looked up from her screen at the sound of beeping.
"The files," she said in relief and awe as the displays began to clear. "They're opening!"
Around her the other gods and goddesses began to cheer.
"The time subsystem is returning to normal," Urd reported, as cheers came through the communications channel from Yggdrasil.
"Disengage the Systems," Hild ordered. "I have the culprit." She smiled suddenly, mischievously. "It seems that your sister has another admirer."
Urd groaned as she began the complex process of disentangling Nidhegg from its divine counterpart.
"Marller, Loki, arrest the First Class Demon Welsper for infringement upon the Yggdrassil system. You will find him at the Nekomi Temple," Hild ordered.
The demons in question, recalled temporarily from Midgard in response to the crisis, bowed in response and left the room.
"At least the deaging spell isn't permanent," Belldandy pointed out helpfully as Peorth prepared to return to Asgard. "At this rate we should be back to normal within a few days."
The now adolescent Peorth grimaced. "Oui," she admitted grudgingly.
Urd stood in the shadows at the far side of the courtroom, watching as Hild declared sentence on Welsper. Strictly speaking she wasn't supposed to be present at a sealed hearing but her mother had ordered it, and she was curious enough that she might have sneaked in anyway. It wasn't every day that a demon nearly destroyed existence just so that they wouldn't forget her younger sister, based only on a brief meeting as a child.
"For infringement upon Paragraph One, Clause Four of demonic law…First Class Demon Welsper, you are stripped of your power and sentenced to reincarnation as a Class Four Lifeform," the Daimakaicho decreed. "However, given that you have freely admitted to your crime, you may, if you wish, choose your reincarnation."
Urd almost laughed aloud at the answer Welsper gave.
"So what do you think?" Hild asked from beside her.
Urd blinked, looking between the two versions of her mother. While she was used to split-forms, and indeed was more adept at them than almost everyone she knew, she had almost never seen two full-sized, adult versions of a person at the same time. It just took far too much power to accomplish for it to be practical for anyone but Hild (and Kami-sama, of course).
"Well?"
She returned her thoughts to the topic at hand. "I think he's up to something," she replied.
Hild smiled. "Of course he is, Urd-chan. The question is, how entertaining will it be?" There was a twinkle in her mother's eyes, the kind of look she got when she was about to let the cat loose amongst the pigeons, just so she could see how much damage it would cause.
"I'm sure we'll find out in due time."
Hild sighed. "So serious, Urd-chan." Then her own expression sobered as she watched the scene in front of them.
"I'm giving you control of the time based programmes Welsper created," she said, even as her other self banished the demon in question to Midgard. "They fall under your domain, after all. Other than myself you will be the only one to have access to them."
"Hai," Urd replied seriously. That showed a lot of trust on her mother's part – those programmes could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands.
"The ability to reverse an individual's aging permanently could be useful," Hild pointed out. "Although even the current short-term version was quite effective."
Urd nodded thoughtfully. While the effects were temporary the spell had rendered Peorth almost useless in the fight between Welsper and the goddesses. If that period could be extended…. A small smile graced her features as her mind began working through the challenge, ignoring the small part of her that screamed she shouldn't be thinking of ways to help Hild. It was a part of her that grew smaller every time she faced that situation.
"It will take time," she said eventually.
Hild smiled. "There's no need to rush," she replied easily.
"You saw Nee-san?" Belldandy asked.
Skuld nodded.
"How is she?" Keiichi interjected.
"She seemed fine," Skuld replied. "But I can't believe she managed to synchronise Nidhegg with Yggdrasil. Was she always that good?"
Belldandy nodded solemnly. "Hai. If anyone other than Father and Hild-sama were capable of such a feat it would be Nee-san. After all, she was responsible for much of the basic programming of Yggdrasil in the first place."
Skuld's eyes widened in surprise. "Urd? Really?" Despite what she had witnessed today it was hard to connect that information with her memories of the sister that she constantly fought with.
With Welsper dealt with and the spell safely secured Urd was eventually able to get on with her original task – finding those ingredients. To that effect she had come to a remote area of wilderness in North America.
She smiled, feeling the odd tingle of static mana as she passed through the edge of the concealment spell. She had set up this area shortly after she had been banished to Earth for meddling with Yggdrasil. Knowing that her opportunities to renew her supplies of Asgard and Nifelheim grown plants would be limited as long as she was confined to Earth she had set about to grow her own.
In front of her stood three greenhouses, each of them carefully spelled to replicate specific conditions.
The first was by far the simplest, the spells solely concerned with modifying the temperature, humidity and soil to produce the optimum growing conditions for her Midgard based plants. The other two had the same enchantments, combined with a far more complex set of spells that replicated the mana and pishogue conditions in Asgard and Nifelheim, carefully filtering and concentrating them as required.
Walking over to the Asgard greenhouse Urd let herself inside and walked through the rows of greenery to the storeroom at the back, smiling in approval. Tended by a family of brownies that she had struck a bargain with they remained in top condition despite her long absence, the plants harvested since her last visit stored carefully in the jars she had provided for them.
Carefully placing the full jars she needed in the storage basket she had brought with her Urd replaced them with empty ones before placing a second basket containing the payment she owed the brownies on the table in the centre of the room.
Leaving as silently as she came she made her way towards the next greenhouse. She may as well stock up on all her ingredients while she was here. It could be some time before she next got the chance to do so.
AN 2: Way too introspective and more or less filler - although I've tried to show how Urd's personality has been changing during her time in Nifelheim. Still, I'm sure you can guess why I'm not entirely happy. Hopefully next chapter will be better - it's 2/3 written and fully plotted so I'll try not to leave it so long before updating again.