Well, the following is a rather revised first part of my `Ragnarok' 
fanfic.

I'm not sure if my first posting got though completely; I got a couple 
of comments, but it was in the middle of the (most-recent?) ffml 
meltdown, and I didn't get a copy myself, so...!!

For those who got the original, this isn't the same as the original 
posting, its actually Parts 1 & 2.
There are some small changes in part 1, the `prefix' part of the story.

For those who didn't, an explanation.

***
Although it does have a RealWorld-protagonist as part of the
storyline, I am/have/will be trying very hard NOT to make it an
Otaku-fic, i.e. no godlike powers, wisdom, etc...

And I do have a reason (fairly vital to the plot) of requiring
the insertion of a character not from the main universe who has
certain information (which is why a crossover character wouldn't have
been too easy for me to fit in)

It will involve the `Ah! My Goddess' universe, and a few others.. :-)
Although its rather darker than the usual fic's set in AMS - no
fluffy bunnies here, unless they are roadkill!!
(er, the revengefic thing isn't still running, is it...???)

NO Ranma, NO Sailor Moon...!
***

I'd very much appreciate comments, mail, flames, whatever on this..!
Positive or negative, public or private.

Even if this isn't a Ranma fic! :P

Oh, and for the misspelling experts, I'm British, and this is not spelt 
in American, OK? :-)

All the various characters are copyright of their respective
creators, etc. etc. as usual.

David Row
(Ecchi, and still scratching...)
davidrow.ryoohki@pop3.hiway.co.uk
 

************************************************************************
************************************************************************


Part 2 - To boldly go where no-one has boldly gone boldly before 
(boldly)


Scene :
The <name?> temple, a crisp early November morning. The sky is clear, and 
pale sunshine falls across the temple's roof, shimmering rainbows 
glinting amongst the crystalline patina of frost on the ancient tiles, 
as a gentle breeze rustles and stirs the fallen leaves scattered across 
the courtyard.
The scene pans slowly left-to-right, then zooms inwards, showing us the 
interior of a kitchen. This is currently occupied by four people; two 
women, a girl, and a man.

The younger of the two women is humming happily, a pleasant lift-muzac 
sort of tune as she continues to prepare and serve a sumptuous breakfast 
for the others. Her feet hardly seem to touch the floor as she glides 
about, deftly preparing and setting out food, a small happy smile on her 
face. Belldandy is obviously a morning person (er, goddess).

Urd, on the other hand, most certainly isn't. Hands cupping a steaming 
mug of black coffee, she looks blearily at the breakfast TV/News 
programs, occasionally taking a sip and huddling a bit more back into 
her robe; despite the warmth of the stove, there is still an occasional 
waft of cold air drifting through the kitchen.

Skuld and Keiichi are busy devouring the food in front of them, Keiichi 
with the somewhat preoccupied air of someone who is torn between taking 
his time to enjoy the food, and being late for classes, with the added 
bonus of being able to take a few moments out to worry about what his 
Auto-club friends are liable to have gotten him into today. Skuld is 
just eating, neatly and efficiently, while next to her a small mecha 
holds and steadily turns the pages of the current Scientific American 
for her to read, occasional small giggles from her breaking the soft 
sound of munching as she sees a conjecture she finds particularly naiive 
or amusing.

This scene of quiet domesticity is broken suddenly by the sharp chimning 
crash of breaking china.
Keiichi looks up, alarmed, to see a broken cup at Belldandy's feet, 
while she is holding her palm against her forehead.

"Bell-chan! Are you OK?"

Urd and Skuld look over, their own concerns forgotten as they look 
curiously at their sister, each feeling a slight sense of anticipatory 
unease.

Belldandy smiled, a trifle shakily, but reassuringly at Keiichi.
"I'm sorry, Keiichi-kun, the cup was slipery with soap and I dropped 
it. I wasn't paying attention and it startled me."

Keiichi still looked a little worried, but wasn't about to argue with 
her when she sounded so certain. He nodded, and got up.

"Well, as long as you are OK. I have to be getting off"

In his preoccupation, he didn't see the covert looks that Belldandy and 
her sisters exchanged, ones of `What's REALLY the matter, you don't 
really expect us to believe that lame explanation' , and `Shush, I'll 
explain it all once Keiichi is out of the way'.

Oblivious (as usual) to all the sisterly non-verbal communication going 
on over his head, Keiichi smiled, and stretched upward slightly to kiss 
Belldandy gently on the cheek.
"The Auto club dosn't have anything planned tonight, so I'll be home 
the usual time, OK, Bell-chan?"

She smiled at him, and squeezed his hand gently.
"Of course, I'll have dinner waiting for you, Keiichi. Go on now, you 
don't want to be late"

He nodded, and grabbed his jacket from the door, pulling it on as he 
walked out into the hallway. The sisters exchanged another round of 
glances, but Belldandy shook her head slightly.
Finally, they heard the stuttering cough of Keiichi's motocycle starting 
up, followed by the sound of it leaving. Belldandy finally sighed 
deeply, and sat down, looking a little upset.
 
Urd walked over, sitting down next to her, a worried frown on her face 
as she looked at her younger sister, slipping her arm about her waist in 
reassurance.
"What was it, Bell-chan? You felt something, what?"

Skuld nodded in agreement, one hand idly playing with the handle of the 
long bug-smashing hammer on her back.

Belldandy looked up at her sisters' worried faces.
"I... I don't really know. I never felt anything like it before. It was 
as if something very evil appeared, just for a moment, and then vanished 
again - I can't think of any other way to describe it. It was so awful, 
it made me feel sick, that's when I dropped the cup. And now... I can't 
feel it, but I still have this _feeling_ that something is going to 
happen. Not evil, not like the other, but... something. Closeby. That's 
why I wanted to make sure Keiichi was gone, if it feels close to here 
he'll be safe at Nekomi Tech."

Urd hmmd thoughtfully to herself, brow furrowed in thought.
"Something happening, nearby... could it be caused by that evil, even if 
it doesn't feel evil?"

Belldandy shrugged helplessly.
"I just don't know, I can't feel that awful thing at all any more."

Urd looked down at Skuld, and nodded slowly.
"Bugs?"

Skuld bit her lip thoughtfully, and a small mech trundled into the room, 
bearing a miscellaneous selection of her favourite items. She started 
ploughing through them, yanking her PA out of her pocket with her free 
hand, muttering technical terms under her breath.
Finally finding what she wanted, she hurriedly plugged items together, 
putting on a complex headpiece, fingers flying across the PA's keyboard.

Her sisters looked at her in anticipation. For a short while, it was 
quiet but for a faint electrical hum, and the quiet ticking of the 
idling mecha, that and the muffled stacatto clicking of Skuld's typing.

"No bugs"

Both Urd and Belldandy looked surprised.
"None? But"

Skuld shook her head.
"I'm sorry, oneechan, none. In fact, there is the lowest level of bug 
activity I've ever seen, I don't think I've ever heard of them being so 
peaceful. Whatever upset you, it can't have been a bug infestation."

Urd muttered something. Both her sisters looked at her, Belldandy with a 
small puzzled frown furrowing her brow, Skuld with a frown that rather 
more resembled a scowl.

"Well, since your tech can't find anything, why don't I try a spell or 
two...?"

"Ah, Urd, thankyou, but I'm sure it's nothing"
Belldandy hoped her sister wouldn't see the sweat drop on the back of 
her head. Somehow, the thought of ones of Urds' rather-more-than-
slightly unreliable spells interfering right now was something that 
worried her somewhat more than usual.

Skuld just scowled deeper, muttering something under her breath about 
incompetant, bulls and china-shops, fortunately too softly for Urd to 
hear.

Belldandy patted her elder sister gently on the arm.
"Well, Urd-chan, whatever I foresensed, it doesn't seem hostile. And if 
it happens soon - we'll know what it is, neh? So lets just wait and 
see..."

Urd scowled a little herself, but gave in with fairly good grace. Then 
she looked upward, lost in thought, fingers absently rubbing her wrist.
"Well, if we haven't been alerted from Heaven, I guess it can't be 
anything that important..."

************************************************************************

I woke to the muffled thump of someone hammering on the front door.
Peering mole-like out from under the blankets, I tried to keep myself 
awake, and (barely) succeeded, the subconscious note that knocking on 
doors was important, and probably meant some (hopefully interesting) 
mail just about stopping me from collapsing back into a comatose state 
resembling hibernation more than sleep.

Groaning, I slid out of bed, my eyes feeling hot and gritty, grabbing 
for a robe as I staggered upright, heading for the front door. Sure 
enough, there was a small pile of mail inside the doorstep.
I shivered; even with the heating on, it was still freezing. I couldn't 
believe it was early November, it felt more like mid-January, and a cold 
January at that. Maybe the Gulf Stream's on vacation, I thought muzzily.

Bracing myself, I unlocked the front door, slipped it open, and grabbed 
the thick envelope on the mat before slamming it shut before more that a 
little of the sub-arctic air outside could get to me. Even so, and 
despite my tiredness, it was easily enough to wake me up completely.

Grabbing the rest of the letters, I moved on to more important, nay, 
vital matters, like morning coffee. Heading for the kitchen, I quickly 
sorted the letters...Bill, bill, junk, junk.. Ordinary letters into the 
basket, junk into the bin, bills into the `pending - too difficult' 
tray.

Left was the packet I'd picked up on the doorstep. As I waited for the 
coffee to brew, I examined it curiously. A padded envelope, about a foot 
square, addressed to me. No details, no return address, indecypherable 
postmark. I couldn't recognise the stamps, either, they seemed to be 
Scandinavian, but I couldn't see any customs sticker, and the packet had 
obviously not been opened.

Shrugging, I put it aside for a bit while I put on shirt and jeans, and 
got my coffee. Finally wandering back into the lounge, I found to my 
surprise that I was holding the envelope in my hand again, slowly 
turning it over and looking at it.

That was odd, I couldn't remember picking it up.
Shrugging mentally, I finally got around to opening it. Carefully 
peeling back the wrapping, I discovered the packet contained a disk of 
some sort. More curious now, I opened the inner box, and slid a polished 
disk about 8" across into my hand.

I looked at the disk with some puzzlement.
While it looked like a fairly standard LD, faint rainbow hues from the 
light reflecting off its silver surface, I couldn't make any sense out 
of the writing on the label. Frankly, inscription would be more accurate 
than writing, it reminded me of script, but I couldn't quite place it. 
It wasn't greek... it was angular? Maybe runes, or one of those old middle 
eastern languages? It didn't look like Hebrew, but I knew there were a 
lot of others I wasn't familiar with at all.
I couldn't think of anyone who'd send me an LD from there. Very odd.
Rubbing my eyes, which were watering a little as I tried to make some 
sense out of the inscription, I considered aspirin. Must be lack of 
sleep, I thought.

Well, the simplest thing would be to play it, see what was on it. I 
carefully looked at it - no cracks, not warped. OK, it can't do any harm 
to the player. At the time, I never gave any thought to what harm it 
might do to ME!
I gave the packaging and disk envelope a final close check. Nothing. And 
the postmark was completely illegible, as usual...

I shrugged, and replenished my coffee, then set the cup down and popped 
open the LD player, carefully placed the LD in the centre holder, then 
did my usual game of find-where-you-left-the-right-remote-control-unit-
THIS-time. As usual, I could find all of them but the one I wanted, 
which finally turned up tucked into the side of the couch, no doubt 
where it had crawled to keep warm at night, its avoidance of me of 
course purely coincidental.

Sighing, I settled down and pressed the play button. Looking back, I now 
realise that this wasn't the best thing I could have done, but at the 
time it seemed like a good idea...
With a faint whirring noise, the player speeded up, and after a few 
seconds an image appeared on the screen. Some sort of video company 
logo, I assumed, I certainly didn't recognise it. All the accompanying 
text was in the same strange script I had been unable to recognise 
earlier.
As the introduction faded, the picture changed into what seemed to be 
some sort of very weird special effects, audiovisual images that changed 
colour & appearance with bewildering speed and subtlety, the soundtrack 
odd, seeming to almost appear and then fade out when you weren't paying 
attention. The visuals were really odd, strange flickering colours that 
seemed to remind me somehow of flickering flames. I shivered suddenly, 
involuntarily, as something about those flames seemed - scary. Silly, I 
know, but...

I frowned, trying to make sense out of this, beginning to get a bit 
concerned. The effects were starting to make me feel a bit queasy, and 
the colour effects were getting more vibrant, an effect that seemed to 
be generating the equivalent of an unscratchable itch behind my 
eyeballs. I gulped, and tried to look away - and found I couldn't!

Now getting worried, I shut my eyes - or tried to. It felt like my 
eyelids were nailed up, even by squeezing hard I just couldn't shut 
them, despite the slowly increasing pain of my drying eyeballs. This was 
definitely NOT funny anymore.

The colour and sound shimmered, getting more and more obtrusive, and if 
I couldn't have sworn it wasn't possible on a TV set, pushed outward 
into a 3-D effect of swirling polychromatic turbulence as they pressed 
almost physically against me.

I half moaned in frustration, and to be honest some fear, and my hand 
scrabbled against the table as I tried to reach for the remote control. 
If I couldn't stop looking, maybe I could turn it off.
The images expanded wider and wider, filling my field of vision, the 
sounds loud, insistent, making it difficult to think, as I started to 
feel as if I were, impossibly, falling forward and upward into the 
turbulence, even though I wasn't moving an inch.

My hand finally touched the remote, and with a gasp of relief, I gripped 
it hard - only to find my fingers move past, not through, the unit! I 
think it was about then I started to panic seriously, but not for long, 
as the colours filled my vision, spiralling and swirling as I felt 
myself both sitting still and being pulled up into the pattern with 
increasing speed, as I tasted the red-orange flicker of the flames, and 
felt the scratching touch of the soundtrack against my skin, the images 
slowly turning to small pinpoints of coruscating brilliance, as I lost 
consciousness...

I have no idea how long I remained unconscious. I suppose if I'd been 
expecting something like this, I'd have checked my watch first - but 
who'd have expected something like THAT! That sort of thing doesn't 
happen in real life - so I'd thought.

I looked up. The colours finally died away, my vision clearing with a 
burst of polychromatic static. 
Above me, I could see a pale blue expanse. I didn't do anything, I just 
looked at it. I guess I was still shocked by what had happened to me, a 
not-unsurprising reaction. The surface I was lying on seemd hard and 
cold, but it was nice just to lie there and look up, doing nothing, 
feeling almost entranced by the clear blue translucence of the sky.

My reverie was interrupted by a dark blur moving across my vision. I 
frowned slightly, and after a few seconds tried to focus on it. Finally, 
I mustered the energy to manage what seemed an unconscionably difficult 
feat of optical control.

Then I blinked. Hard. It didn't make any difference, so I blinked again, 
just to make sure. Nope, still no change.
I was staring up at a girls - no, a woman's face.
I recognised her.
Dark tanned skin. 
Check.
Long, platinum blonde hair. 
Check.
Incredibly beautiful, not to mention sexy. 
Check.
Small markings on cheeks and forehead. 
Check
It's Urd.
Oh shit...

At this point, I decided to do the only sensible thing under the 
circumstances.
I fainted.

Fortunately (?) I didn't remain unconscious for long.
I opened my eyes to the sound of a rather heated argument.
Urd was shouting and gesturing wildly at another girl, this one young, 
dressed in red and white with long ebony hair and similar facial 
markings.
Skuld too? I thought to myself.
This was crazy. Or I was crazy. Whatever.
In my current state, I hardly worried about whether they were real or 
not. I suppose I was still in shock.

The argument seemed to be getting more than a little heated, with the 
two girls almost standing on top of me as they yelled insults at each 
other in Japanese. For once, I was rather glad I didn't understand much 
Japanese... Interesting view from down here, though. Urd is definitely the 
sole supporter of two dependents...uhh, better not follow THAT thought 
through.

Still ignoring me, the argument got louder and more violent. Urd's hands 
started to move in some strange gestures, and Skuld  (from where, I 
couldn't see) had aquired one of those hi-tech grenade-bombs of hers. I 
decided I didn't really want to be this close to the approaching 
conclusion, I somehow suspected they'd both fire first, and worry about 
innocent bystanders (and presumably by-layers) later.
I essayed a soft interjection.
"Ano...?"
Nothing.
"Sumimasen..."
Still nothing.
This time I yelled. Loudly.
"HEY!!!"



( to be continued)