--- Brian Randall <brian@azurite.org> wrote:

    Eversor Iussu Deus

Destroyer at the command of God?  Sounds a lot like
Surt, to me.  ^_^

    Keiichi was a student.

Even in the manga he's still working off that last
credit hour, I think.  Poor K1, he'll never graduate!

    It wasn't that he was a part of the motor club,
and learning things 
there, because he was. Care, maintenance, what made
his machines _work_, 
and what could make them work _better_. Competition,
teamwork, and more 
often than not, a degree of independence. Also, very
good things to learn.

Hmm, this takes place after the movie, but before
where the manga is now? K1 spends most of his time at
Whirlwind these days in the manga, and Chihiro would
have Tamiya and Ootaki's heads if they dumped that
kind of work on K1. Only SHE is allowed to do that!

    Patterns and numbers danced before his eyes at
dizzying speeds, 
finally spelling out that the engine's most
immediate death would be to 
make the already dirty filter a little more worn. He
opened his eyes, 
and stared at the construct. Shrugging, he opened up
the casing, and 
removed the filter, examining it slowly. Sure
enough, while not 
critically abused, it showed signs of aging.

Interesting. Belldandy goddess would just ask it what
was wrong (Urd would probably kick it - with the same
result, though). This sounds like it's at a lower
level of communication with Yggdrasil than the
goddesses normally employ.

    Even the engine before him had a spirit, one
that regarded him 
fearfully, as he worked on it. But he pretended he
couldn't see it, and 
did his best to ensure the engine a long, functional
life.

Yeah, those little engine spirits, 10cc each! ^_^

    "Sempai?"

    He jerked himself out of his reverie, raising an
eyebrow and turning 
to regard the girl again. No, woman, truly, simply
girlish in appearance. 

She's president of the motor club now in the manga.
Our little Sora is growing up! ;_;

    ***

    Urd was a goddess.

Though, truth to tell, she made a better demon than
most demons she knew.

    Now, however, she was offended. Why had it been
decided that, given 
all of the work they were putting into restoring
Yggdrasil, she was not 
needed to be there? More specifically, after a brief
talking to with the 
senior maintainers,

Uh, Urd IS the senior maintainer, and Skuld is her
second-in-command. When Urd went to Earth and left
Skuld in Heaven, Skuld was looking after the system
all alone. Has there been some kind of management
shake-up in Heaven?

she, Skuld, and Belldandy were
all sent back to 
Midgard, and from there, cut off from the Ultimate
Force. 'Until the 
system is completely restored,' they had said.

Someone obviously doesn't want the system fixed any
time soon.

    Well, it wasn't the first time, and --
thankfully -- they still had 
the bracelets that Keiichi had manufactured for
them. Still, she felt 
put off by the entire thing, and for that reason,
she had bribed some 
computer-access time away from Skuld, and was
examining the system remotely.

I'm not at all sure it would be possible to cut off
power to the goddesses to where they would have to
rely on moonrock bracelets unless the system itself
was completely down.

    "Oh, goody," she muttered dryly, watching
another subsystem fail. "I 
could have fixed that, but no," she grumped. Shaking
her head, she 
examined which accesses were still open, surprised
to see which offices 
were maintained. "Idiots are running the Goddess
Relief Line when they 
could devote more resources to the file system."

That's what you get when you let field techs run your
servers. ^_^

    The outermost layer bore the distinctive seal of
Kami-sama. Urd's 
eyes widened at that. It wasn't a proper security
layer at all, more 
just a label that asked in the polite way that
Kami-sama asked for 
things, 'Don't read this file without a good
reason.' Urd fumbled with 
the keyboard for a long minute, unsure of how to
deal with the 
situation. She could delete her copy of the file and
pretend that it had 
never existed. She could also read it anyway.

    But what was her reason?

    "Curiosity," Skuld answered for her, peering
over her shoulder.

    Urd resisted the impulse to leap out of her
chair and strangle the 
younger goddess. "Don't DO that!" she hissed.

    Skuld smirked, clicking her tongue. "Shame," she
chastised. "You 
come this far, and then back down?"

    Challenged, Urd tapped the keystroke that would
bypass the unsecured 
layer. "Fine," she grumbled. "Let's see what this is
all about."

Hehe. Revenge of the sys admins!

    Peorth studied a display panel, then dismissed
the problem, 
explaining, "Merely a juvenile wish. Once it reaches
Kami-sama, 
Yggdrasil will sort it out automatically -- that
fail-safe is hard-coded."

You would think Peorth would know better than to be
involved in this, but then it wouldn't be the first
time she bit off more than she could chew. Hubris is
that girl's middle name.

    "Then what will we do, Peorth?" Astar asked
worriedly. "What next?"

What happened to Chrono, Ere, and Ex?

    "Hild-sama! Hild-sama!"

    She raised an eyebrow archly, and asked, "Yes?
What is it?"

    "It's Yggdrasil!"

    She sighed, turning to regard the lesser imp.
"What about it?"

    "It's _gone_."

    Blinking lazily, she nodded. "I see. Hmm. Tell
everyone to get out 
of Niflheim. Asgard's going to need a little backup
to keep it from 
collapsing into Midgard."

    "What? Why don't we take advantage of the
situation?"

    "We are taking advantage of the situation," she
replied coldly. 
"We're going to take this opportunity to make sure
there's a world to 
exploit in the morning."

    "Ah.... I see."

Hehe. When it comes time to destroy the world, Hild's
going to get a high price the job and until then
nobody's doing it for free!

Interesting concept. Not as far out there as "Fate and
Destiny," though it shares some of its feel with the
more-to-Keiichi-than-meets-the-eye angle.

Brian W.

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