Disclaimer - I do not own Ah! My Goddess.
-oOoOoOo-
Deep within the night, yet hours before the morning, Urd was typing away at various keyboards. Wires were attached to her goddess marks. She could feel… something reach inside her Norn abilities as she continued to write her program.
There were reasons why neither gods nor demons meddled with the marks. There was a rumor or two that the demons were once Gods who messed with their divinity marks to become something…more. They had wound up with more power, but gained weird weaknesses like music or water.
Urd placed no stock in that rumor, as it sounded stupid.
"It won't be long now. Once I'm done, I'll wake up as a full goddess. Sure, It'll be a a bit… very sad when I'm no longer related to Hild, possibly even very dangerous, but…" Urd muttered as she took a moment to stretch. "It'll be worth it to see myself with two white wings."
She reached for a cup of coffee, pausing when she saw a picture on her desk. The picture was of Belldandy, Skuld, Keiichi, and herself. A brief, yet strong, moment of guilt went through her.
Urd's fingers curled and uncurled. Her eyes looked all over her desk as a weaker feeling of guilt remained, like it was a snake wrapped around her in a deathgrip.
'They never judged me,' Urd thought, looking off to the side with a wince. Then she reached over and put the picture facedown. With a determined expression, she thought, 'But they'd understand… and if they don't, they'll at least never know.'
After taking a deep breath, Urd finished the last few lines and held her finger over the Enter key.
Urd almost could swear she heard Belldandy, Skuld, Keiichi, and even World of Elegance plead for her to not go through with her plan. That she was risking losing her known happy life for another life that may not even be worth it.
She shook her head right before pressing the button and her world vanished in a bright flash.
-oOo-
Urd slowly blinked her way back to the world of consciousness. As she slowly sat up, she muttered, "Eugh… What did I drink last night?"
She raised her hand up to brush her hair out of her face…
Only to pause when she saw her hand was no longer caramel-colored. Urd began to emit a high-pitched whine of horror until she recalled what she did last night and began to smile.
She leapt out of her bed with a flip and landed on her feet, holding her hands up in the air. With a bright smile on her face, she cheered, "I'm not half-demon anymore!"
She looked around and saw she was in her room in Heaven, though she shrugged. She did sometimes stay here when she was too tired to head back to Earth after a long task.
She looked in the mirror above her desk and saw her hair was now very dark brown. As Urd made a few poses, she said, "Well, I look closer to Skuld than Belldandy, but Skuld did base her hairstyle more on mine than Belldandy."
She grumbled when she saw that she was still a Goddess, Second Class.
Urd giggled. "Well, Might as well see what kind of adventures we had!"
And so Urd closed her eyes to review her memories.
The big bright smile began to erode the more memories she saw.
The attempt to become a Goddess First Class was the same.
She spent more time at the office, than with her sisters. She chatted more with Lind about Chrono than with Skuld. She spent more time getting into spats with Peorth than singing with Belldandy.
Actually, she found a lot of memories involving Peorth. An equal amount of good and bad memories.
A little too much for her liking.
And way too few of any memories of Skuld or Belldandy. Other than Peorth talking about him, Keiichi was completely absent
So Urd opened her eyes and looked around her room for some pictures. When she found one, it was of Peorth's parents, a younger Peorth, and a younger Urd, all posing like they were a family.
A sick feeling passed through Urd before she ran to the terminal in her room. She quickly logged on and checked anything she could find.
Urd whimpered, "I'm… I'm… I'm not Belldandy and Skuld's sister? I'm not even a Norn anymore?"
Her thoughts went to that of Tyr and Ansuz. The guilty horror feeling wasn't as strong, as it felt more like an existing divide had merely expanded between them. Her mind returned to her sisters and the unwanted feeling returned as well.
Several tremors ran through her before she shook her head in an attempt to clear it. "No! I'm on good terms with them at least. I've gotta be! It's impossible to be on bad terms with either one of them for long!"
Urd stood up, put her hands on her hips, and let out a good old belly laugh… trying her best to laugh away her doubts.
She put on one of her modified Qipaos and strutted out of her room. Peorth had finished putting breakfast on the table and glanced at Urd before she said, "Did your alarm clock have another 'short'?"
Urd chuckled, "Nope. Just a long day yesterday. One long problem-fixing night, too."
Peorth uttered an 'Hn' grunt as she and Urd sat down. "I'm going to go down to Earth in a few hours. It might be related to the Time Control Program issues as of late."
'Welsper?' Urd thoughts as she glanced at a nearby calendar and saw what the date was. She recalled the events that would happen in a few weeks and how he had a weakness to water. "Get Skuld or any goddess who can control water. I suspect it's a demon who has a water weakness and that they are a stalker towards Belldandy. They might even try to kill Keiichi."
Peorth looked shocked before calming herself. "Are you certain?"
"Ever hear the name, Welsper?" Urd asked.
"Only that they lost their flying broom to Hild. Rumors run the whole gamut of a bet to him purposely using it as bait to escape her for some reason, Peorth answered.
"Well, my sources told me he's cursed himself to be in a child form. That he's trying to either be with Belldandy or make sure no one else does,' Urd said.
"Why would he curse himself like that?" Peorth asked.
"He's her doublet and fell in love with her at first sight," Urd answered.
Peorth nodded in comprehension. "Oh! So he's a crazy stalker! I gotcha!"
"He's also very fast, just like Belldandy when she wants to," Urd said, feeling a sense of pride about Belldandy.
Peorth frowned. "I see… I'll keep that in mind and ask for help…"
The Rose Goddess looked away and muttered, "I really need to get back into racing. I think I'm out of practice..."
"Hey, you know plenty of people who could help you. You just have to decide whether it's on your own magic power, magic broom, or flying cloud," Urd said.
Peorth nodded. "Now if only I could find someone who could help make you less impulsive."
Urd let out a snort. "Look who's talking."
Peorth narrowed her eyes at Urd. "I resent that remark."
Urd raised an eyebrow but Peorth corrected herself before she could say anything.
"Only a bit though." Peorth brought her fingers up and only a tiny bit apart.
"As a magnificent, beautiful older sister, I can take it from a clearly jealous younger sibling."
Peorth's eyes narrowed. "But keep that up and we'll see if I get you any romance visual novel from earth."
"Oh yeah?" Urd said as she produced a vial.
Peorth looked scared as she hissed, "Don't do it!"
Urd was confused, but a quick memory check told her about one time that she, or rather this version of her, had gotten furious at Peorth and used a growth/animation potion on some Ramen… and things got out of control and neither could eat or even look at Ramen for a few weeks.
As Urd put away the vial, she thought, 'I miss Skuld and her bombs.'
"What have we talked about when it comes to potions?" Peorth spat, her anger returning.
"You're not the boss of me," Urd replied with a glare.
"I am a Goddess First-class, Second Category, Unlimited. You are a Goddess Second-Class, Limited license," Peorth replied before drinking some tea.
"I am in the Management category. I do have say over you," Urd spat.
"Not as much as you think," Peorth stated before eating a cookie.
"Let's get out the whips and see who cries first," Urd replied.
"Sounds like a fun contest, but sorry. We have important jobs at the moment. I, on the mortal plane and you with the Time Control Program," Peorth replied back.
Urd quickly ate, missing Skuld more and more.
-oOo-
Thanks to her memories, Urd quickly resolved the Time Control Program problem on her end.
The Welsper issue wound up ending the same way, as did Child-size Peorth.
As Peorth walked into their home, she glared daggers at Urd before she said, "Don't you dare say anything."
Urd smirked before she said, "So you went from the Rose Goddess to the Polyantha Rose Goddess."
A furious Peorth quickly ran around Urd and rapidly whipped Urd's rump. No matter how Urd tried to dodge, Peorth kept moving and whipping. Peorth only stopped when she passed out.
As Urd floated over to the fridge to grab some ice, she muttered, "Worth it."
During one of their ablutions, Urd swore that Chibi-Peorth either changed or looked just like Skuld.
-oOo-
When time came where Peorth decided she needed to go back down and ask Belldandy for help, Urd said, "I'm going with you. I wanna see the others."
"Don't you need permission?" Peorth asked, looking annoyed.
"Yup!" Urd replied, holding a sheet of paper that showed she had it. Peorth rolled her eyes.
-o-
Urd knocked on the door.
Keiichi opened it and said, "Peorth! You're back to normal! I see you changed your hair!"
"Ahem!"
Urd pointed downward and Keiichi looked down to see a very annoyed child-sized Peorth. He uttered an embarrassed, "Oh! Um… I'm sorry, Peorth."
He then looked up and asked, "And who are you?"
Multiple feelings of guilt hit Urd as she said, "I'm Urd, the sister of Peorth."
Keiichi politely smiled as he said, "I'm Keiichi Morisato. I'll let the others know the two of you are here."
As Urd followed Peorth and Keiichi, she looked around. 'Still the same. It's like me not being here didn't change anythi-'
"I'm telling you, my machines can beat your little Ninjas!" Skuld's voice said from the living room.
"Heh! They won the races, the mazes, and even the matches! You can't even deny that because Belldandy refereed all of them!" A very familiar voice replied with a cackle. Urd froze in shock..
"That's because they had more experience! If my machines existed as long as your ninjas had lived, then they'd win!" Skuld spat.
'Heh! Augmented biology will beat machinery any day of the week!" The voice cackled back.
'No…' Urd thought, barely holding herself together. As soon as they entered the TV room, Urd's jaw dropped. 'MARA!? MARA TOOK MY PLACE?!'
Indeed, Mara was sitting on the couch. She was dressed in a tank top, a denim jacket, and shorts. Her skin was caramel-colored and her hair was a shiny platinum blonde. Skuld was sitting on the floor, dressed in her usual outfit…
But her hair had been styled to be a little bit like Mara's wavy hair.
Skuld smiled at Urd and said, "Welcome to the Tarikihongan Temple, Urd!"
It was the tone.
"Oh? You know her?" Keiichi asked.
It was the tone that scared Urd the most.
"In a way. We've met a few times, but not many. Urd's the System Administrator of Yggdrasil," Skuld said.
It was friendly.
Skuld added, "I've gone to her for a few lessons about programming, but you know how busy Administrators can get, right?"
It was friendly in a way that one would be to a complete stranger.
'I made a huge mistake,' Urd thought as she kept a fake smile on her face, barely aware of the conversation.
Peorth said, "Enough about my sister! We need to find a way to fix me!"
-oOo-
The next few days were a bit of a blur to Urd, or perhaps she claimed it was to herself.
Mara fought with Skuld like Urd did, but took time out of her day to make sure Skuld could defend herself without magic or tech.
That puzzled Urd for a time, until she recalled when Mara claimed to have wrestled Bears. Urd thought, 'I guess that's how Mara would act towards a younger sister. Making sure she could still fight, even if they had no magic or weapons.'
Urd was sitting at the back of the temple, looking towards the forest to avoid looking at the temple.
"You seem bothered by something, Urd," Belldandy said as she sat down beside Urd. "May I be of help?"
"It's nothing you can help with. Only a bit jealous of Skuld and Mara. I mean, Peorth's my sister, but we're too much alike to be close," Urd replied. Her words tasted like ash.
Belldandy nodded. "From time to time, I get jealous of those two and how close they are."
'You could have stabbed me in the back and it would have hurt less,' Urd thought. "Yeah. Any… headway with Peorth's situation?"
"We might have to call Mara's mother," Belldandy answered.
Urd felt like the ground was crackling under her, threatening to drop her into a void.
-oOo-
Things continued to go the same way, making Urd feel more guilty. Enough so that she had to back off and get some fresh air.
Once she was alone, Urd hugged herself and shivered. 'A mistake. This was a huge… No, I made a mistake with the coding. I can fix it.'
"Penny for your thoughts, System Administrator?"
Urd turned around and muscle memory nearly had her ready to attack, but she caught herself.
In both timelines, Urd held a Goddess Second-Class, Limited license.
In the old timeline, Urd was Hild's daughter, with all the power that entailed. Sure, it wasn't enough to defeat Hild, only enough to get a good hit in.
But now? She was Peorth's family, with all the power that came with it.
Urd felt very, very, very vulnerable. "H-Hello, Hild. what brings you here?"
"Oh, I'm here to help your sister. A naughty little thing meddled with the Time Control Program not so long ago," Hild said as she slowly walked around Urd, like a tiger around possible prey. "We both know that carelessly meddling with time is very dangerous and carries big punishments, right?"
"Right," Urd quickly said with a nod.
Hild nodded back with a bright smile. "And even if they tried to escape punishment from Heaven or Hell, Time itself will find a way to punish them. I can imagine that for the little meddler, their punishment probably would be seeing their idea of paradise, but unable to enter or fully enjoy it. They could physically leave it forever, but never mentally."
Hild stopped right in front of Urd and tilted her head. Her smile went from friendly to dangerous-looking. "That sure does sound like an awful fate for the time meddler, doesn't it? Getting caught sounds kinder, doesn't it?"
'Maybe," Urd said, sounding more of a squeak.
Hild let out a brief 'Hn' before walking off to join the others to help Peorth.
'I'm… not needed here,' Urd thought before heading towards the TV and leaping in. 'I have to undo this!'
-oOoOoOo-
Notes from HotelKatz - This is a two-parter.
Worldbringer of Joseun helped betaread this chapter.