Yes, yes, I know. But when inspiration speaks, you gotta listen.
n.n; Even for a 5 year old once-abandoned piece of silliness.

  SI = self-insert = self-indulgence. I blame this all on my boredom. :)

  I actually started this back in undergrad--around 1998 or so--but hit a
wall and forgot about it for a while. I've come back to it recently,
hopefully with a bit more luck. Some influences from Brett Handy's "Oh My
God??" and Chris Angel's "Oh My Brother" fics, but hopefully different
enough to be interesting.

  Final pre-note: where in AMS continuity does this begin? I'm, er, not
completely sure yet. But pretty far along, at least all the way up to
what's been commercially translated by Dark Horse mangawise.

************************************************
  An Oddzilla Productions fanfic, by Andrew Huang.
  Guard the Future, chapter 1.
  Based on Fujishima Kosuke's "Aa! Megami-sama!"
************************************************

  I died on a Monday....

  Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating. Always wanted to say something like
that. Let me say...I almost died on a Monday. Or, is it, I _should_ have
died on that Monday?

  I was bleeding badly. Cuts from flying glass covered my face. My eyes
were intact, thankfully; my glasses hadn't fallen off, and had deflected
the shards. The lower half of my body was crushed, it seemed. I wasn't
exactly sure about that, because I couldn't quite feel much of anything
down there.

  When a guy goes to work in the morning, he expects gridlock. He
doesn't expect an eighteen-wheel truck to fall off the above overpass
and flatten four lanes of traffic, particularly when one lane contains
what was once his legs.

  I had the feeling that my seventy-plus-hour-a-week investment banking
job was going to be the death of me, but this wasn't what I had in mind.

  The cellular phone. Right. Call for help, though it's probably too
late. Ow. Reach. Ow. Ah, got it.

  9-1-1. Or so I thought.

  "Hello! You have reached the Goddess Relief Office. Please--"

  I dropped the phone. "Oh. I guess I am dead after all. Where's the guy
who TALKS LIKE THIS?" I slumped in my seat. Everything felt cold.

  Next to me, on the vinyl passenger seat, the puddle of coffee from my
spill-proof travel mug started to bubble a bit. I weakly turned to look.

  *splish* "Hihi! So, is there an Andrew Hua...oh."

  Yep, I had to be dead. Cute girls don't come out of pools of java when
I'm alive. Not unless there's a healthy dose of Kahlua mixed in, and I
don't drink quite that much alcohol. Well, not in coffee, anyway.

  "I thought...isn't there supposed to be this seven foot tall skeleton
in blackowowowOW!"

  The girl was suddenly in tears. "This isn't supposed to happen! I
mean, you're hurt, and you're not supposed to be hurt! I'm supposed to
be giving you a wish, and you're supposed to be thinking it over nice
and calm so you don't say something stupid like what happened before,
and, and, and--!" She stopped. "A wish! Of course!"

  "What?" I asked, intelligently.

  "Andrew Lee Huang, you are entitled to one wish. Sorry, the whole
thing is supposed to be longer and more formal, but I don't think you
have the time...."

  If I weren't in enough pain to be functionally drunk on endorphins, I
would have thought this was crazy. As it was, I didn't argue. Much.

  "A wish?"

  "Yes! Quickly!" She looked to be near tears again. "And you have to
say, 'I wish,' and then what you want!"

  I could have wished for all of this to be undone. That was the most
obvious thing, right? But, there was this little whisper in my head....

  "Er. Ow. I wish, I wish, I...."

  "Hey! Wake up! You can't die yet!" She was wailing at this point.

  "Ugh. I wish...I...I could prevent stuff like this? Yeh."

  The world finally faded. Before it went completely gray, I thought I
saw a flash of light.

------------------------------------------------

  My eyes opened.

  "Hi," I said.

  "Hello," answered Death.

  Wow. Death is really pretty.

  At that point, I woke up for real. I struggled to sit up, but only
managed to prop myself up on my elbows.

  "No, I am not Death," said the vision of beauty. She blushed. "And
thank you."

  My jaw hung open. I closed it, and finally asked, "Did I miss
something?"

  "Don't worry. We'll explain everything to you soon. My name is
Belldandy." She nodded slightly. In that nod was conveyed a flourishing,
elegant welcome. I just blinked some more. Belldandy turned, and called
out. "Skuld, he's awake now."

  I finally got a good look at the room I was in. I had never seen such
pure a shade of white. The walls, the floor, the bed that I was on, the
sheets I was under....

  Bed? Sheets? Not crumpled steel and shattered glass?

  "Er. If I were to lift these sheets, what would I see?"

  "Yourself," she answered, with a faint, odd smile. I thought I spied a
slight reddening on her cheeks.

  While I puzzled over that, and refrained from looking beneath my
covers, someone entered the room. She looked familiar.

  "Hi! Are you feeling better?" Despite the bright voice, the young girl
seemed a little worried.

  I nodded. "I...feel fine."

  The one named Belldandy turned to the one called Skuld. "I need to go
back, now. I promised him we'd go out this evening, and Andrew-san _is_
your responsibility. But if you need help, just ask, okay?"

  Skuld frowned a little, but didn't argue. "Okay. See you later,
Oneesama." Belldandy walked...no, glided out of the room. Skuld stepped
up closer to me.

  "Um, what exactly do you remember, Andrew?"

  "I think I should be dead."

  "Oh, no! You're just fine, now, just fine."

  Something about the way she said that worried me.

  "Could you tell me what's going on?"

  Skuld opened her mouth, but an older voice issued forth:

  "I wouldn't ask her; she doesn't know all that much herself."

  That voice came in through the door, stole into my ears, bypassed my
brain, trickled down my spine, and yanked me by a part which had been,
apparently a short while ago, under a pile of twisted metal.

  Urgh. I really didn't need to think of it like that.

  Skuld's face wrinkled in a most non-cute manner. "Urd...."

  "Is that any way to greet your oldest sister?"

  Bickering ensued between Skuld and someone who was standing just
outside of my line of vision, beyond the doorway. I would have
interrupted, but I just wasn't mentally together enough to do much of
anything at all, if that weren't already noticeable. I just pulled the
sheets up over my head and hunkered down.

  Okay. I thought I was dead. I should be dead, actually, right?
Instead, I was lying in a rather comfortable bed, waking up to the
paradigm of all that is good and beautiful, then greeted by a familiarly
cute young girl, and finally, this voice that dripped with, er,
sensuality revs up some motors waaaay down inside me.

  Oh, yeah. I also wasn't wearing anything underneath these sheets.
But, at least, my legs and all were back in one piece.

  I poked my head back out. "Could I have some clothes, pl--urk."

  I ducked back in. The source of the other voice had walked in, and I
was reacting.

  "No need to be shy, Andrew-kun. Or...might you be frightened of me?"
The older one's voice grew a pout, somehow.

  "Frightened isn't quite the term," I squeaked back. "Please, I'd like
to get dressed, somehow...?"

  I guess I must have pitched the pitiful echoes in my voice just right,
because the next thing I knew, I was encased in the clothes I had been
wearing at the time of the accident. They were also repaired, of course.
Thankfully. Ack.

  The sudden appearance of clothing should have surprised me, but I had
used it all up already. Anyway, I stuck my head back out again, thinking
of the frozen tundras and of glaciers. "Er. Hi. You are, um, Urd?"

  The dark-skinned, platinum-haired lady nodded, and grinned. "And _you_
are Andrew Huang. Welcome to Heaven."

  My brow wrinkled. "I thought, um, Skuld over there said I wasn't
dead."

  Urd laughed...throatily. Yes. That's the only way I could describe it.
Ice cubes, I thought. Cold showers.... "You don't have to be dead to be
in Heaven, you know," she said. "You could be, oh, say, a guardian
angel."

  "Eh?"

------------------------------------------------

  It's not fair. I mean, one ought to get some sort of warning when
things like this are going to happen. Especially the wish part. I mean,
BAM, I'm lying in a pool of my own blood, someone comes along to give me
a wish, and zap, I make a wish. I guess it did save my life, but one
would really like to have a bit more preparation for such things. On top
of that, I was feeling a bit like I had been robbed, that I shouldn't
have had to use a wish that I could have gotten anything I wanted with
to prevent my own death.

  Oh well. Sigh.

  The two sisters had coaxed me out of bed, promising that I would
finally get to find out what was going on. They were taking me to see
someone who could explain much better. As I stumbled along a long, high-
ceilinged hallway, thoughts continued to jostle each other in my head,
fighting for my attention.

  Damn, that lady is hot. The first one, too. An' that little one, in a
few years I bet, whistled one of those thoughts.

  Another said, don't say "d*mn", it just feels wrong to say that here.

  Arctic Ocean, freezing water, baseball scores, mumbled a third one,
like a mantra. Don't think about that stuff, all right?

  We finally reached a huge doorway. Urd paused a moment, looked at me
speculatively, then knocked, gently.

  Without a sound, the gate (it could only be called a gate) swung open.
Graciously. Majestically.

  With a bit of apprehension, I walked in, nudged by Skuld.

  I can't describe the room, because no matter how much I try, I can't
remember it. There was a throne, I remember that. And light. And a
presence of utter peace.

  Meet someone who could explain better, indeed? This was the Lord.

  "Hello, Father," said Skuld.

  "hello, skuld, urd," said a still, small voice.

  Ah. Yes.

  "and hello, andrew, my son. you are confused," said the voice.

  My jaw was hanging open again, I realized, so I shut it. "Ye...yes.  I
am, Lord. Um."

  "my child, you made a wish, as you do remember. you wished to be able to
prevent occurrences similar to that which happened to you, did you not?"

  I know He didn't actually have to ask, but He did, anyway. Probably to
make me feel somewhat more at ease. Actually, it worked.

  "That's right, Lord."

  "you see, my child, what happened then was not merely another accident.
there were forces not of nature behind that."

  "Eh?" Somewhere deep inside, a piece of me started to cry from the
sheer stupidity of that response.

  "yes. there are things moving, things beyond the comprehension of Man.
you wished to prevent these things, and these things threaten the
Future."

  Beside me, Skuld stiffened, and Urd blinked.

  "you must, then, guard the Future." The light from the throne shifted,
and seemed to come near me.

  Suddenly, within my mind, several things were made clear. Urd,
Belldandy, Skuld, all were sisters. Urd, the Past; Belldandy, the
Present; Skuld, the Future. The Future....

  "you are skuld's guardian angel. protect her, as you have wished."

  I struggled for words. "...okay."

  That little piece within me wept. I told it to shut up.

------------------------------------------------

  "Um, Andrew, are you okay?"

  "Give me a moment or two. Actually, give me about a year. I'm still
trying to understand this all."

  We were now walking outside of the halls. They felt that I needed a
breath of fresh air, so here I was. Of course, the air inside had been
clearer and sweeter than anything I had breathed in my entire life, but
this, oh this! On later reflection, I just wished I hadn't been in such
a daze so that I could have enjoyed it a bit more.

  Urd spoke. "Okay, Andrew-kun, we might as well start explaining these
things now. You have been given a position which is rather rare--that of
guardian angel of a goddess."

  "Don't think I need a guardian angel," grumbled Skuld, but her heart
wasn't completely in it. I understood; if God said that things
threatened the Future, with a capital F, and she was the Future, with a
capital F, then--

  "Never mind that, Skuld," said Urd. There was an edge to her tone, but
I think I could hear that she was genuinely concerned herself. Maybe
that's what the edge was from.... "Anyway. We need to bring you up to
speed on things. Well, then, here we are."

  I looked up. And up. And up. It was a tree which we now stood in front
of.

  "This is Yggdrasil," said Urd. "The world tree, and the world
computer." She touched the bark, and a door appeared, which opened. We
all entered.

  Inside certainly didn't look like a tree. It did, however, look like a
control center. I decided not to question it.

  Urd walked over to a terminal, and tapped on the screen. "Here we go.
'Andrew Lee Huang. Position, Guardian Angel class I.'" She turned to me.
"Class I means you guard a divine being. Class II is for the guardian
angels of humans. Ah, here we go. 'Charge: Skuld, Goddess of the Future,
Head Debugger of Yggdrasil.'"

  Another flash. I saw and understood a scene of Skuld swinging a small
mallet and crunching a mix between a rabbit and a spider.

  Internally, I boggled, but only for barely a moment. Who was I to try
and understand Heaven?

  "Hmm...power levels not yet set. And your weapon--"

  "Weapon?"

  "Of course. You need to have something to defend her with, right?  So,
what can I find here.... "

  My nature caught up with me, for a moment, and I grinned. "How about a
Japanese sword?"

  Urd blinked. "Well...I didn't think you had a preference, but let me
check. Hmm. No, sorry...not for your position and class." She grinned.
"Especially considering who you're protecting. Let's try this."

  So, she typed a few keys, and gave me a hammer.

  This was no little debugger like Skuld's. This was a warhammer. It
looked like it was cousin to a halberd and the brother of an excavation
pick. Somewhere in its early ancestry was a boulder on a stick. And, one
could easily imagine, its mother-in-law really was a battleaxe. The head
tapered into a wide, chisel-like spike on one side, sharp enough to
cleave wood. The flat side actually wasn't flat, but was covered in
short cleats, much like a meat tenderizing mallet on anabolic steroids.

  That wasn't all. There were eldritch inscriptions all over the thing:
carvings in the wooden handle, all three feet of it, and myriad etchings
into the head as well. If I stared at them too long, they seemed to
slink away, as if uncomfortable under all the attention. It gave me the
rising feeling that I was holding a wizard's staff, complete with
industrial-sized (and terminally-shaped) Knob On the End.

  "Oh. Wow."

  "This," declared Urd, "is called Heaven's Knuckle."

  I looked up, looked at it, looked up again, then spoke.

  "Skuld, you're drooling."

  Skuld clapped a hand over her mouth. "Wath notpth," she mumbled.

  I looked admiringly at Heaven's Knuckle, holding it with one hand near
the middle of the shaft. Quite light, really...and I felt, it was quite
light, but only for me, and maybe a few others. I swung it through the
air, testing its feel. Against all expectation, there was a *whaaaaaum*
sound. I smiled. Then, I closed my eyes and sighed.

  "All right. Sorry, but this is just too much for me. Could we slow
down some? Please?"

  You must understand. I like to think that I'm pretty quick on the
uptake, you know? But really, now. I was almost killed, but I wasn't,
because I made a wish, and now....

  Wait, I already went over that, didn't I? Yeah. Anyway, here I was,
suddenly, holding a battle maul which positively buzzed with fearsome
power. I was a guardian angel, too. And I hadn't even eaten lunch yet.

  Urd waved a hand. "Right, sorry, sorry. Let's start over. I'm Urd,
Yggdrasil's sysadmin, Goddess of the Past, and of Love, too." She
smiled, slightly. I paled, slightly. "This is my youngest sister,
Skuld."

  Skuld had this look indicating an unsurety of why this was all going
on. "Oh...yeah. I'm Skuld. I debug Yggdrasil, and, um, I'm the Goddess
of the, uh, Future. Hi."

  She was still looking a bit perturbed, thoughts of my hammer having
escaped her mind, and instead returning to God's words earlier, no
doubt. Something that the Lord had slipped into my mind now bubbled up.
"Er...why don't we talk about all this over some ice cream?" I hazarded.

  Skuld's eyes lit up. Much better, yes.

------------------------------------------------

  "Oneesama--I mean, Belldandy--is the middle sister. She's Goddess of
the Present, and one of the programmers of Yggdrasil," said Skuld,
pausing in her attack on a bowl of Rocky Road.

  Fancy that, an ice cream shop in Heaven (and one that let me keep my
weapon with me, no less). Then again, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
I was currently enjoying a cone of Holy Cleansing by Chocolate. Heaven,
indeed. Mmmm.

  Something occurred to me. "Belldandy...she said she was going to be
with someone. What's that all about?"

  Urd chuckled. "Her boyfriend. A mortal, like yourself...that is, like
you were." I frowned at that, but decided not to worry about it now. "Your
position, as I said before, is interesting. Actually, most gods and
goddesses _do_ have angels. But, they are usually of the servant type."

  Skuld blinked suddenly. "Hey, yeah. What's going to happen to Noble
Scarlet, then?" Her hand crept up to a pendant that she wore on a chain
around her neck.

  "Noble Scarlet?"

  "Skuld's angel, presently in her egg there," answered Urd, pointing to
the pendant. "Skuld's too young to have her angel available, though due to
certain circumstances, Noble Scarlet appeared temporarily a little while
ago." Urd coughed, then continued, more to Skuld than to me. "Noble
Scarlet will still return when you're old enough," she said, and I spied
some relief appearing on Skuld's face. "In the meantime, though,
Andrew-kun has a position of _guardian_ angel. He's not exactly under your
command, Skuld--" here I saw a flash of disappointment, and felt a bit of
relief myself-- "but you can call him to you when needed."

  Another voice, one that rang like crystal bells, floated in. "And, it
seems, it would be best that Andrew-san does stay close to Skuld, in
general." I turned to see Belldandy.

  "How was your date?" inquired Urd, grinning.

  Belldandy ignored her sister, save for a bit of a blush. She continued
to address me.

  "As I was saying, it would be best if you stayed close to her. How would
you feel about moving?"

  "What?"

  "No, not to Heaven." She smiled. "To Japan, actually."

  How very odd.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:
  Thanks to my original prereaders, Robert "The Eternal Lost Lurker"
Morrison, Chris "God-Boy" Angel, and Christian "Flashman" Rogers.

  I must note that in real life, I am a devout Christian (Presbyterian, if
you were curious). However, I am able to separate my faith from my
fiction, and this is most assuredly fiction. After all, I never did get an
i-banking job after graduation (never even considered it), to begin with.
;) Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little mess.


Andrew Huang...Shizumaru@KawaiiMUCK
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~alhuang/
NAC MAC FEEGLE!

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