SOMEWHERE on Midgaard...


I bet you're just dying for an explanation. Am I right? Well, I dunno what to
tell you. It all happened really quickly. I was walking down the street,
minding my own business, when SHE appeared, floating in midair, like it was
the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing. I just stood there,
my mouth ajaw - I mean, ajar.

She announced herself as Urd, Goddess of The Past, and (self-proclaimed)
Goddess of Love, and that she had been assigned by the Goddess Relief Office
to grant me a wish.

You'll have to pardon my behavior at that point. I'm usually an extremely
polite person, but right then, all I could do was goggle. Urd was, well,
gorgeous! Long platinum blonde hair, semi-tanned skin(it even looked
natural!) and a figure most women would die for. The first thing to pop out
of my semi-paralyzed mouth was "Nice legs." I wanted to shoot myself.

"Thanks," she beamed. "I work out... hey!" she protested. "Can't you think of
anything better to say than 'nice legs'? I mean, I'm a real honest-to-Goddess
Goddess! Don't I deserve something a little more..." she gestured helplessly,
"worshipful?"

"I'm stunned by your heavenly beauty." My mouth could always be counted on to
come to the rescue in case of total brain shutdown. Fortunately, this time it
chose deadpan instead of hentai to break the ice. "I'm sure once I've
recovered from terminal meltdown, I'll have something appropriate to say."

"That's more like it." She nodded. She was clearly not used to doing whatever
she was supposed to be doing - something about a wish? - and probably felt as
out of place as I did. She crossed her arms, my poor helpless male brain not
helping but notice how her elegantly smooth arms slid sinuously under
perfectly rounded brea- I mentally slapped myself. She smirked and jiggled
her torso experimentally, then laughed as my eyes, locked in synch with the
gainax motion, bounced in tune. I started to smile goofily.

"I think the shock is beginning to wear off now," she noted ironically. "So
make your wish. I haven't got all day."

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say a word, everything went...
weird.


ALEFGAARD, Yggdrasil Central Control Central


An alarm blared. "Pure chaos energy is leaking into the mortal realm!"
Someone shouted over the alarm.

"Track it down and contain it!" Yelled another. "And someone turn off that
stupid alarm! I swear, I'm never letting that imp of a Goddess near the
emergency protocols again!"

"It's no good! We're looking at a..." the alarm stopped abruptly. The speaker
cleared her throat and resumed in a normal tone of voice. "...Class A
Catastrophe." Everyone in the room shuddered. Class A ranked up there with
Ragnarok, Armageddon, The Apocalypse, The Reckoning, The Coming of The Great
White Handkerchief, and the like. But those catastrophes at least had
structure and a formula for the world's eventual rebirth. With this,
literally ANYTHING could happen.

"Wait," one technician noted calmly, "Urd is down there."

"It doesn't matter. Urd doesn't have the required access or the power
necessary to effect the change. There's nothing she can do."

"She was about to grant a mortal a wish. If we boost her access to first
class, unlimited, disable her inhibitors, and induce a structured wish, she
can access the wish power to absorb the chaos energy and convert it into
order." Everyone looked at her.

"Are you nuts?" "You've been watching too much Star Trek."

"Do you see any other way?"

"...Alright, let's do it."


MEANWHILE, back on Midgaard...


"Urrrrrrrd!" I yelled, the sound distorting with everything else. Practically
the only thing not doing Saturday morning calisthlinics was the Goddess, and
even she seemed to be having difficulty resisting the impulse. I lunged
forward and, frantically grabbing, I made contact with something soft.

It was an accident, I swear!

She looked irritated by the(unintentional) grope, but she still grabbed my
hand and hauled me in.

Let me pause for a moment to note that while, as a normal human male,
proximity to this divine beauty would have ORDINARILY send me into catalytic
shock, the adrenaline already in my system blocked out most of the effects.
In short, I was bloody terrified and screaming for my mother.

While I was doing my screaming, Urd was receiving instruction. Her facial
markings glowed briefly, and a surprised look crossed her face. Grabbing me
by the head, she hauled my face up to eye level. "Make a wish!" she yelled.

"What kind of wish? And why are we yelling?" I shouted back.

"Anything! It doesn't matter what! And we're yelling because it increases the
dramatic tension of the story!" she bellowed.

"Oh!" I roared, and thought for a second. "I really wish this wasn't
happening!" I screamed. It was, after all, something I really REALLY wanted
right now.

Urd looked shocked. "Not that!" She screamed(so sue me, I'm out of good
verbs). A bolt of pure light lanced down from the sky and hit her square on
the forehead.

After that, it got REALLY weird.


ALEFGAARD, Yggdrasil Central Command Central


"Something's wrong with the wish." The deities, having no use for dramatic
tension, were talking calmly. "It's absorbing the chaos energy."

"That is what we wanted, is it not?"

"Not exactly. We wanted Urd to absorb the chaos energy and convert it using
the wish power. The wish is taking it in directly now. Apparently, the wish
was so open-ended that the chaotic elements are dominating the matrix. We're
looking at a type two fusion now." Delicate hands worked furiously at the
controls. Eventually, they gave up with a sigh. "It's no use. We've lost
control of the system. The best we can do is set up a firewall to prevent
changes in this timeline from corrupting any others." Tap, tap, tap. "There.
I'm sorry Urd."


MIDGAARD, an exceedingly popular vacation spot this time of year...


The first thing I noticed when I woke up was how GOOD I felt, totally out of
proportion to having survived The Apocalypse. The second thing I noticed was
that 'things' were different. I did some checking.

Changing gender isn't really a new concept in fiction. To use the popular
phrase, it's 'been done'. However, I doubt changing into a stunningly sexy
self-proclaimed Goddess of Love has been done too many times.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a guy. I'm very proud of that fact, but I think I
surprised myself by how well I was taking it. I wasn't freaking out, tearing
my new platinum blonde hair out, running around in a fit, or whatever. It was
more like: 'Right. How can my day get any worse?'

Then I took a look around.

Everything was in Japanese(Nihongo, my mind nagged). Kanji and Romanji
everywhere, with some English words widely dispersed. I was about to ask
someone where I was, when something odd happened. I found I could read the
signs. I could understand the chatter around me. I knew Japanese. Odd, since
I'd never studied the language in my life, but there you have it. I read the
sign on the stone wall in front of me. 'Nekomi Technology School'. I shrugged
and entered.

The place was pretty quiet. Every so often, a student would wander by. They
all looked awful. 'Must be exam week,' I thought wisely to myself, then I
turned thoughtful. 'Just like...' "Zombies," I groaned. "If this is a stupid
Negaverse plot to take over the world, I'm gonna puke." I looked up. "Yo, big
guy, I know I haven't been very big on religion, but if you could see your
way to giving me a hand, I'd be grateful." I stopped praying and looked
around. No big bolts of lightning, no divine inspiration... I shrugged. "Oh
well, it was worth a shot." I turned around and started to walk out, when I
noticed a small white cat in the doorway.

He had a crescent moon on his forehead.

Nonononononononononononono...

"Sailor Venus?"

Nonononononononononononononononononononononononono...

"Sailor Venus, it's time for you to come forth! I'm getting major Negavibes
from the gym over there. You must defeat this evil in the name of Venus!"

Nonononononononononononononononononononononononononononokay whatever.

"Gimme the pen." I held out my hand, thinking that Kami-sama had a really
weird sense of irony.

Artemis blinked, flipped and the pen plopped out of wherever he kept it(I
don't really want to know) and fell on the ground. I picked it up. At least
it was clean. I raised it high and shouted, "Venus Power, Make Up!"

That transformation was probably THE most embarrassing thing I've ever done.
Fortunately, there wasn't anyone around in a condition to notice. All the
people were too busy being zombies to care about much. That left... I glanced
down at Artemis, who had a slightly glazed look in his eyes. "Snap out of it,
you! You're a cat! You're not supposed to care about human nudity!" Artemis
just mumbled something about wishing he could figure out how he managed to
change into a human way back when, then he started to ramble on about
something decidedly hentai. I stepped on him on my way to the gym.


THE gym, very close by...


"Ha ha ha ha ha! Soon, my Queen will have gathered enough energy to RULE this
world!" Cackled the Youma. Looking like some kind of racecar driver clown,
the Youma held within its hands a ball of glowing dark purple energy. Every
so often, a student would enter the gym and get drained, turning into a
zombie.

"Hold it!" I shouted, jumping into the room. I tugged at my miniskirt.
Feeling a little silly, I struck a dramatic(I hoped) pose. "I am Sailor
Venus, the Goddess of Love! College is a place of learning and
self-expression; to adulterate it for evil gain is unforgivable! In the name
of love, I will punish you!" God that was embarrassing.

The Youma started off predictably by sending the zombies after me. Not
wanting to hurt them - every Sailor Moon show I'd ever seen stressed that the
heroes never won by hurting innocents - I leaped to the rafters and fired off
a crescent beam at the Youma.

It's funny... the beams were a lot... bigger... than I remembered from the
show. Maybe it's the Goddess power... anyway, the Youma was fast, I'll give
it that. It dodged my blast and shot off one of its own. "Oil Slick!" It
screamed, shooting twin streams of dark fluid up at me. I dodged.

"'Oil Slick?!'" I shouted incredulously. "This isn't a Greenpeace commercial!
You'll have to do better than that!"

"Nitro Burst!" And then the Youma was right in front of me, pummeling me with
about a million punches. I sailed backward and hit the wall. It cracked a
bit. I cracked a lot, or at least, that's the way it felt.

"Nice hit," I coughed, gripping my sides in pain. Even with extra powers, the
pain threshold of this body wasn't very high.

"Oil Slick!" And I couldn't dodge this time. Thick gooey stuff all over.
Yuck. "Afterburner!"

"Oh, shit," I muttered as I saw the Youma barreling toward me again, wreathed
in an aura of fire.

I didn't particularly want to find out what would happen if this stuff caught
fire. Firing off a trio of crescent beams, one of which actually hit and did
some damage, I scooted out of there. I pulled back and took stock of the
situation. I knew that Goddesses had access to a lot of magic power, but I
didn't know any spells. Except...

I did have a pretty solid repertoire of AD&D spells from my role-playing
days. I didn't know if they would work, but it couldn't hurt, right?
"Hiyoke!(1)" I yelled, hoping.

"Exhaust!" Shouted the Youma. Flames washed over me. When they stopped, there
was nothing left but me, grinning evilly. I decided to go for broke.

"Tenbatsu!(2)" I screamed, lunging forward, arms pushing forward, fingers
splayed wide. A massive bolt of energy arced from my hands to the Youma, who
gave a loud wail before collapsing to the round, turning into a young man.
Having seen a little bit of 'Ah! My Goddess!', I recognised Keiichi Morisato.
Checking his wallet for an address, I found it, but... "Isn't he supposed to
be living in a temple or something? Maybe he hasn't met Belldandy yet..." I
mused. Shrugging, I hoisted him up into a fireman's carry and made my way to
the dorms.

After finding his dorm, I snuck in. Apparently, the dorm super doesn't
approve of strange women entering the boy's dormitory. How wierd is that?
Dumping him on his bed, I experimented a little with the phone. "I know he
did this at least once in the series," I muttered as I punched about fifty
numbers at random, "God help him when he gets the long distance bill." When I
finished, I waited an eternally long time for the call to go through.

"DING We're sorry. The number you have dialed is not, will not, and never has
been 'in service' please do not dial again. GoodBYE."

"WAIT! It's 'URD'!"

"*Thump* (gimmethatmoron) Urd? That you?"

"Not exactly. It's a little complicated. I'm at Keiichi Morisato's dorm room.
Could you put me through to Belldandy?"

"Hang on a sec." Muttered whispers. "What do you mean by 'not exactly'?"

"I mean that I, being the guy who got the wish from Urd, have been
placed(involuntarily, I might add) within the body of Urd. Foremost on my
mind is where's Urd, how did I get in this body, and WHAT THE HELL IS GOING
ON?" I screamed. It seemed the appropriate time to freak out.

The thunderclap blew me off my feet. When I got up, neat little words were
etched on the ground. "'No Swearing'. Oh, haha," I groused. "Listen," I
resumed once I had picked up the phone again, "I'm not asking for much here.
Just get me SOMEBODY to help me out here!"

*Ding Dong* "Hang on, there's someone at the door." Putting the phone down,
I peeked through the eyehole, and there you were, smiling and waving.
Quickly opening the door, I grabbed you and yanked you inside, and here we
are. Now can you help me out, Belldandy?

----------

(1)Hiyoke - Protection from Fire
(2)Tenbatsu - Divine Retribution

Author's notes:
I decided to use Japanese names for my spells, but it's tricky. There are
a lot of different forms for the same thing in English. If I have made a
mistake regarding this, or have chosen incorrect usage, PLEASE let me know.

This idea just came to me. I don't know where from. Do you like? Dislike?
C&C please! But don't just blow me off saying my work sucks. Give me
pointers! I like pointers.

Amberion A.K.A. Thomas Hood
current email until I get POP access again: thood3@hotmail.com

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