Ranma ½ Divine Blood

Thrythlind · May 30, 2011

"Naiki, can I talk to you for a little bit please?" Ranma said, gesturing for the girl to follow her out of the room.

"Ummm..." Naiki said, looking toward her brother and sister. "I guess I..."

"...have to go," Eija said nodding.

"We'll meet back when we go talk to your other relatives, Eija," Ranma said. "Deimosu, how's Yonjuu?"

That wasn't telling at all.

I think my mother is going to want to talk to us later, Deimosu warned Yonjuu.

What would she have to talk to us about?

Twelve.

Oh, Yonjuu noted in embarrassment. But we already talked about that...oh, we talked, but not with her.

"Both of you get some rest, this thing isn't over by a long shot," Ranma said, drawing nods from each of them before walking out into the halls with Naiki and waiting a bit before saying anything on subject.

"I haven't done anything with Lusca," Naiki said quickly, as she saw her mother opening her mouth. "And I'm a bad liar, so you know it's true. I mean I'll bet it's fun like when I...."

"Please stop talking about it," Ranma said calmly but quickly. "I don't need to know that. And try to give Tessa a break when your fantasizing while we're at it? Try practicing now."

"Hmm practice what?" Naiki asked.

Privacy, Naiki, Tessa's voice told her. Tell your mother I'll stop listening on this end.

"Umm, Tessa says something about privacy and stopping listening on her end," Naiki said.

"Okay, good," Ranma said, waiting a moment. "So with that, on to a connected subject: What do you think about Lusca?"

"What?" Naiki asked.

"What do you really think about Lusca?" Ranma repeated.

"She can be a pain, but...I don't know, since Tokyo," Naiki looked around. "I'm just...worried about her. I mean she wasn't supposed to be at Kyushu in the first place, and I think I just missed her being around when I was fighting Nike instead of hanging around Eija to see if I'd show up."

Ranma thought back to when the girl had said the Behemoths weren't funny and nodded. As the words were leaving her mouth, the pishogue in her had suddenly burst to overflowing. Compared to the candle flame that she was most of the time, that had been a volcano building up. Probably hitting the top end of what the Immortals called category two.

And she'd come out as monster over a hundred feet tall that was a cross between Gojira and an octopus. She thought back to her first conversation with Lusca.

"Naiki," Ranma said, "she's never going to be easy to deal with."

"She'll get better...I mean when she becomes a kid, right?" Naiki asked hopefully. "She didn't do anything to herself that'll go past that, did she?"

"I haven't seen that process yet," Ranma said. "So I don't know. Besides you're sixteen, are you going to wait for her to grow up again?"

"Hmph, sixteen going on a million," the green-haired demoness said. "I'm going to have a lot of time, aren't I? Just got to keep her alive."

Ranma smiled briefly. Of the three of his children, Naiki was the most innocent and naive. If she thought about it, she would realize that there was a chance of her dying at any given time in one of these battles, and she'd seen good people die who didn't deserve it. She'd also been forced to kill more than her share.

But her first instinct was still to think like a sixteen year old kid who thought about fun, games and pretty people.

"Putting aside your stalker for the moment," Ranma said. "Mara's said she's going to putting you with Moloch when they invade Nifelheim. You know what you're doing, right?"

"Right, Tessa's eyes and ears," Naiki said. "I got it. How are they going to get any big guns over there? I mean...are they going to do the cruise missile thing through a gate?"

"I'm not the one to ask about those weapons," Ranma said. "You'll be hearing Tessa's plan later, I think. The important thing, how are you planning on acting?"

"You mean am I going to be acting like an idiot like with Balor?" she asked. "Umm...I don't think so. I hope not anyway."

Naiki reached up to scratch the back of her head and stretched out.

"So the other Demons ain't full up and they only got a few people like me left who trained to really fight," Naiki said. "But if I die then everybody trying to get in to Nidhog except Demons and some Gods will get cut off, right? Gotta be careful and watch Moloch's back."

She grimaced in frustration.

"And let everybody else do their thing," Naiki said shrugging. "But that doesn't mean there won't be a violent, tumultuous, overwhelming flow if something's stupid enough to come my way. I ain't going to lose, I'm your daughter after all."

Thrythlind · May 31, 2011

Ranma had not quite accepted the fact that Persephone had basically established that she be considered a member of the Goddess's family. She wasn't sure whether Macaria truly accepted it either, or whether the Goddess was merely being polite when she'd referred to Ranma as "sister." However, as old fashioned as the offer was, the exorcist had to admit that it had been made in a legitimately compensatory manner.

And Eija had had an affection for Persephone for the couple of months that they'd actually known each other before the Goddess had died. Died at the hands of her own daughter's spiteful ghost.

As expected, Eija was present already outside the area that the DisPaters had requested for this purpose.

Ranma had to marvel again at how incredibly huge Atlantis was. From what she'd heard, Nifelheim was about the same size, smaller once the surrounding waters were taken into account, and Asgard wasn't much larger.

Eija turned to look toward her and waved politely.

Mother is here, Eija noted to Kaname and Sousuke.

Okay, should we be giving you some privacy? Kaname asked.

I don't think it should be a problem as long as we're quiet, Eija noted.

Which involves not talking and therefor not really listening in, Sousuke noted.

Eija nodded as her mother walked up to her.

"Are you ready for this, Eija?" Ranma asked, not commenting on the little nod she was sure meant Eija was speaking to Kaname, Sousuke or both.

"I believe so," Eija said. "I simply decided to wait for you before moving inside."

Ranma nodded at that and turned toward the door of the room in question as she saw Belldandy walking down the hallway toward them bearing a mana-construct that appeared to be some sort of document or book.

A divine kindle perhaps.

"Oh, hello, Ranma, Eija," she said with a quiet smile. "I hope I am not late. I was just meeting with Mara."

"Nah, I just got here myself," Ranma said by way of soothing Belldandy's worries. "Let's go in."

Belldandy nodded and gestured for Ranma and Eija to move ahead of her.

Inside the room were a handful of Gods and Goddesses. Macaria stepped up from where she was sitting by two other women whose expressions Ranma could read fairly well.

"I am glad you could make it," Macaria said to Ranma with a smile. "But I thought you had two other children."

"I thought this was about the DisPater family," Ranma said.

"Mother did make it clear that you and yours are all to be considered members of the family," Macaria said looking a bit discomforted. "Is there a way you can quickly get in contact with them?"

"Naiki is probably with Moloch and Captain Testarossa now," Ranma said with a frown. "Deimosu is meeting with Hermes and O'Neil."

"This is disturbing, Sister," Macaria noted. "We cannot put this off any longer, but two of your children are not here."

Eija looked toward the dark skinned woman and blinked, noting that she looked somewhat familiar.

Indeed, she looks like you do in the mindscape, Sousuke said, responding to her visualization.

Yeah, definitely, Kaname added. All black with red eyes.

As the brief exchange occurred, several sets of eyes turned toward Eija who flushed nervously.

"Hello," she said. "I am sorry, were we being...loud."

"It is probably best to move forward," Belldandy said softly interrupting the attention on the young Goddess. "Eija and Ranma can act as representatives. I did check on the protocol for...this sort of thing, and such is allowed."

Macaria nodded but still looked a bit out of sorts as she turned toward the others.

"These are my other siblings and nieces and nephews," she said. "Eija met Thanatos during her brief visit to Asgard, these are his sons Morpheus and Hypnos. And this is my sister Melinoe and our neice Nyx."

"So where's mother's seal?" Nyx asked stepping forward and moving to face Eija.

"Pardon?" Eija asked.

"Where did you seal our mother?" the woman repeated.

Eija narrowed her eyes briefly.

"You ask about that here and now?" Eija asked.

"Let us put that aside right now," Belldandy said quickly as Nyx opened her mouth to speak.

"Yes," Macaria noted, putting an arm on the younger Goddess's shoulder. "This is not the time for such arguments."

"Please sit down," Thanatos said pleasantly.

Belldandy waited for everyone to be seated before she started again looking over the construct in her hand.

"If everyone is ready," she said. "I can break the seal on this and begin delivering Persephone's final instructions."

Eija and Nyx exchanged looks briefly as they both sat down and then turned to look forward. Belldandy looked about and then nodded before channeling a brief amount of mana into the rectangular item in her hand, almost immediately she let it float out into the air, drifting slowly down to reveal an illusion of Persephone standing there.

Several of the people in the room felt a catch in their breaths as the image appeared, and Ranma noted her daughter's hands clenching.

"My greetings to my family," Persephone's image said. "I assume that there is some surprise that I had such a measure as this prepared. Unfortunately, I fear this conflict will share more in common with the first Demon-God war than the second."

There was a brief pause in the message.

"To the first matter, Macaria, Goddess of Final Blessing, shall be the new Head of the House," the image noted. "Should this not be possible..." she paused painfully, clearly having not wanted to consider that, "...Thanatos shall be next in line, Melinoe following."

"How...how bad did she expect things to get?" Hypnos asked.

"You may wish to adapt your Domain should the chance occur," Persephone noted. "The next matter for concern is that of my husband, the founder of our house. Hades and why he has not appeared from his retirement in the face of current matters."

She paused again as if steeling herself.

"Hades is not retired, he is in stasis," Persephone stated succinctly.

"What?" Morpheus said aloud. "What does she mean by that?"

"Shhh," Macaria said, focusing.

"There was a virus situation some three hundred years back," Persephone noted. "Hades was one of the Gods infected and apparently it proved stubborn to remove from him specifically. Hades made the decision to go into stasis before it ended his life and the Doublet System took someone else with him."

The image wrung her hands.

"He did not want to seek help from the other Gods," Persephone explained. "I have my suspicions why, but that is immaterial now. If this is being seen, my seal is being undone. It shall soon be possible to reach his place of rest. The reasons for the promise of secrecy are now likely moot, as is the primary reason of the stasis. The physical link to his sanctuary is within our estate in Asgard, the large sphere of obsidian that decorates our great hall."

"Which was looted," Melinoe noted in a quietly thoughtful tone of voice.

"That means some rebel has access to Father," Thanatos said.

"I do not think I have to tell you what to do with this information," Persephone said. "Perhaps with help from both Demons and humans, the virus might be defeated now. I also suspect the creator of the virus is dead which might mean that the virus itself is no longer so strong. Though that is most likely an empty hope."

"If you wanted to hide where a virus came from, you wouldn't design it to be dependent and there for attached to you," Nyx noted quietly, looking away from the image of Persephone as she thought about where such advice had come from.

"There are two final matters of importance I must leave you with," Persephone said. "First, I am in the hopes that Ranma Satomi and her children are present for this. Ranma has been offered a position as a child of this house, she currently has declined the privileges this entails, but I would ask that you treat her and her children as children of this house regardless."

The various Gods turned to look at Ranma and nodded toward her.

"And last is Hecate," Persephone said. "I fear she might not have crossed over and I fear it will be difficult to convince her to do so. She cannot be allowed to hurt anyone else. If she cannot be convinced to move on, she must be sealed."

"Already done," Nyx said, looking toward Eija.

"Yes, it is," Eija agreed in a controlled tone of voice.

"Girls," Belldandy cautioned, motioning to pause the message.

"Calm down," Ranma told Eija quietly before continuing in a whisper. "She hasn't done anything to us and..." Ranma looked uncomfortable, glancing to where Macaria and Thanatos were similarly calming Nyx down.

"Shall we continue?" Belldandy asked.

"I think we are okay to go on," the newly ordained head of house DisPater said exchanging a look with Ranma to confirm it.

Belldandy nodded and started the message again, which moved into a series of personal messages before ending with a final message.

"I hope you do not see this message for many centuries," Persephone said. "In particular, I hope to have more time to get to know our youngest and perhaps any future children, but war has erupted we do not have assurances of survival as we did in the past. Please, do your best to survive and move past this unpleasantness. And hopefully the world will not end a third time in our recorded history."

Macaria stood up and looked toward the assembled members of her family before glancing toward Ranma.

"We are going to be heading to Okinawa to deal with the ghosts there," she noted. "Will Eija be coming?"

Ranma looked toward her briefly.

"I am helping guide the Demon and Ainur medics as to finding basic healing spells," she said. "But I will be in Okinawa by the end of the day."

Macaria nodded and glanced toward Nyx momentarily before looking forward again.

"And...I am afraid that we do need to know where you sealed Hecate," she said in a kind tone. "It is best that her prison be under our control...and, at sometime, we might make an attempt to purify and cross her over."

Eija grimaced briefly before releasing a breath and sighing.

"Do you have a vial or cup, or the like?" she asked. "Preferably something that is durable and can be closed tight."

"Allow me to make one," Morpheus said, gesturing and gathering mana together to bring forth a dream of a flask made real. "Shall this do?"

Eija nodded and pulled up her arm before pushing a finger nail into the skin and gashing a deep cut into the skin, out of which blood flowed at first as weakly as would be natural for such a shallow wound. Then, with a look of concentration, it flowed more free, but seemed to move back into Eija.

At last a dark thread of blood slipped out of her body, into the air and deposited into the flask, which Eija then closed as people looked at her.

"I told her that if she wanted to drown in blood, I could make sure that she did," Eija said quietly before passing the flask over toward Macaria.

"Go ahead to talk to the doctors, Eija," Ranma said calmly. "I have to hang back a bit."

Eija nodded and bowed toward Thanatos, Macaria and the other DisPater's in general before walking out of the room to head for her task.

Most of the others left as well, Macaria hanging back briefly until it was just herself, Ranma, Melinoe and Nyx.

"Shall I be all right to leave you here?" Macaria asked.

"We'll be fine alone," Melinoe said.

"Yeah," Ranma noted. "This will be best to stay private."

Macaria nodded and left the three in alone.

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

It was sometime later that Ranma was walking through the halls, feeling more than a little tired even so early in the day as it seemed to be. She blinked as she found Belldandy around the next corner, apparently just waiting for her.

"How did you know I was going to come this way?" Ranma asked.

"I didn't," Belldandy said. "But there are mirrors or the equivalent everywhere here."

She pointed to the highly reflective walls.

"All right, and what did you need to say?" Ranma asked.

"Persephone had a private message for you," Belldandy said, handing over another rectangular mana-document for Ranma to take.

Hesitantly Ranma reached up to take the square, note-pad like thing. As soon as she touched it, the thing flashed into a small burst of light before appearing as a smaller, more private image of Persephone looked up at her.

"Ranma, I have been suspecting something since our second meeting," the image said, "but have not wished to say anything in case I might be wrong. Most death seers would not have noticed since few spend the time to note how far away a death might be if it is not going to happen in the next few weeks, much less years."

She paused and waited for that to sink in.

"When first we met, I would have put your predicted life-span at about five centuries," Persephone said. "Unusual but not unheard of for a mortal. On our second meeting, it felt more like seven centuries. On our third, I spent some time watching you. You are not getting closer to death. You are getting progressively further from a natural death of old age."

"I have met others like this," Persephone said. "But only two. Once when Arthur hosted a prisoner exchange and one a woman by the name of Diao Chen who resides in Asgard. Arthur is dead or at least sealed, I do not know which, but perhaps Diao Chen might have some idea of what this means. I had hoped to find more information and answers before broaching the subject. Clearly if this is being delivered to you, that is no longer possible. I hope this helps."

The message ended with the image of the woman fading away.

"That is odd," Belldandy said with a frown.

"Not the oddest thing I've heard someone say about me," Ranma said. "Lusca once said she saw me at a tea party before her thirtieth birthday."

"That is odd," Belldandy agreed.

theunderbolt · Jun 1, 2011

Wait Arthur as in King Arthur? And Daio Chen from Romance of the three kingdoms? If its those two i don't see an obvious connection between them.

Thrythlind · Jun 1, 2011

save they're both legendary figures....

the implications in the past of the fic were that Nifelheim was fostering Camelot sometime before they gave up the propaganda battle

theunderbolt · Jun 1, 2011

Touche good sir.

However I meant in terms of ability/history/etc. Other than that they where legendary figure and in a war like period.

Thrythlind · Jun 1, 2011

theunderbolt said:

not really, but one of the issues is that "eternals" have had is that no one really knows how one achieves the status, most haven't been able to compare notes...at least within this timeframe

Thrythlind · Jun 3, 2011

I got a little bored today:

Thrythlind · Jun 3, 2011

And more Arkham Horror stuff:

PCHeintz72 · Jun 3, 2011

Hmmm... pretty good images.

Now you just need perhaps a playing card of Ranma and perhaps Mao... and perhaps a group image of Ranma/Mao/Mara and perhaps Yomiko Readman (even if you are not doing a multiple pairing to Ranma, it could be a representation of the group, or perhaps even a weird reflection of Mao's drug enduced ideas).

Thrythlind · Jun 5, 2011

PCHeintz72 said:

Le Sigh

current limited funds are going to summer bills and a cover art for the Bystander sequel I want done this year

PCHeintz72 · Jun 5, 2011

Ah well... was just a thought. Obviously, necessity over luxury.

nick012000 · Jun 5, 2011

Thrythlind said:

Well, Merlin was supposed to be half-demon, right? I suppose that makes sense.

Thrythlind · Jun 6, 2011

"I'd like to renew my concerns that the United States has been colonizing other dimensions," one of the representatives of the two Chinese factions protested as the collected dignitaries and military personnel came in to sit down.

"It's not really another dimension," Jackson said. "Dimension is probably the wrong word anyway. The records we've uncovered imply that it is more of a bit of folded space-time that..."

"Daniel," General O'Neil said wearily. "I don't think that's the main problem he has."

"If we can hold off on such concerns until everyone is here please?" the secretary general asked.

The Chinese representative growled irritably as he took a seat at the table in the Atlantis facility. He recognized the uniforms of Mithril officers sitting across from him, having worked with Mithril in the past. He didn't recognize the particular officers, and passed over the lavender haired teen who was writing down some notes while talking with the other two obvious members of Mithril's tactical division.

Mithril also had Intelligence officers present, more than usual, including a Japanese woman in a red business suit making her own preparations for the meeting.

The full UN was not present of course, instead it was primarily military personnel and some civil representatives of the associated groups. People directly involved in the actions that were taking part around Earth.

And that included the so-called "Gods" and "Demons".

It took a little bit more time for the remainder of the involved people to arrive and for the group to come to order.

The last groups in, he noticed consisted mostly of the aliens that were currently attacking the planet. He'd already noted that several of the American and Japanese contingent, along with a handful of others, had green facial marks similar to those of the "Gods" and "Demons."

"To start with," the secretary general said standing up. "The matter of the United States' exploration of other realms has been discussed and handled and will be treated as per the handling of space exploration. This is not what we are here to discuss."

"And let's not talk about whether or not we should include the Gods and Demons or not," a South African general said. "This is a meeting to discuss military operations which you nitpicking diplomats are observing. Observing, not talking."

"Thank you," the secretary general said to the the man. "Now if we can get on with matters. Dr. Weir, as this is your facility, if you'd please?"

Elizabeth Weir stood up and walked toward the center of the room and the hologram that rose up there.

"First of all, excuse me for being one of the nitpicking diplomats," she said, to a handful of laughs. "But I'll get straight to matters. We have essentially four matters of concern."

The hologram indicated Earth and showed some of the major shards in the dimensional pockets around the planet.

"First, we have the continued occupation of Japan by rogue Gods formerly under Zeus," she said. "Second the Demons that have taken over places all across Africa, South America and parts of Asia. Third, the retaking of Nifelheim, and the fourth, the repair and control of Nidhog."

She paused on the last. Various portions of the hologram had lit up as she named them but the last location did not.

"Nidhog is not going to show up on any map," she noted. "It is not a physical location but rather more like a sort of internet. That was in your briefing, and it will be discussed later. For now, I'll turn the floor to General Natsuki of the JSDF who is in charge of the retaking of Japan."

She indicated toward the named man and stepped aside for him to take the floor, staying on simply to handle the hologram which moved in to focus on Japan.

"Since the cracking of Zeus's wall around the country," he started. "We've been able to get in and out of Japan with relative ease and have already been engaged in numerous actions to secure the safety of the civilian population as well as acquire intelligence."

He nodded toward Dr. Weir who brought up several videos culled from intelligence operations.

"The Gods are arguing amongst each other," he explained. "If you can call it arguing. It's opened several openings and there are already some places that have been cleared, though we've suffered some casualties."

A casualty list started scrolling next to the intelligence videos. Some noted that despite the logical overwhelming numbers of JSDF personnel, that Mithril and Demons appeared fairly often on the list, with the occasional God.

"The major cities and much of the country are still held by any of a number of developing factions," he said. "But we doubt that with the loss of their leadership that they will not present even near the resistance they did at Kyushu. Our main concern is in identifying human supporters and cults and making sure that the civilians are safe."

He smiled then and gestured toward Dr. Weir to move to another video that showed a trio of Mantles being investigated by various engineers.

"We've also made some significant acquisitions," he said with a smirk.

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

"Take a rest, Seina," Wraith ordered.

The girl looked down at her and then looked back out down the slopes of the hill that led up to their cavern hide-away. Wraith had to admit, Satomi was damn good at picking safehouses. The Gods still hadn't been able to find them.

Granted that was half because they were fighting each other as much as themselves.

Not the issue at the moment and she knew it as she climbed up to stand beside the young Ainur.

"If I pull this chi stuff right," she said. "I'm good for the rest of night on guard duty."

"You were part of today's action," Wraith noted. "Everybody involved in that is resting."

"I can see better than anybody else right now," she said. "Better I can stay on watch."

Wraith snorted.

"You're falling closer into what Director Satomi would call a 'mystic'," Wraith said. "You think you're are only weapon? Your not. And if you're a broken weapon I'll send you back and you can forget your little quest for redemption."

"What are you talking about, my plan failed," Seina muttered. "What do I have to redeem myself for."

Wraith leaned down and pointed out toward where fresh smoke was rising on the horizon.

"For thinking you wanted this," Wraith said in a harsh whisper. "You think you're the only one whose tried to accomplish something dark. Girl, I've killed more people with my hands than you've probably ever fought in any way."

Seina grimaced and looked out toward the smoke in question.

"I have three operations tomorrow," the North Korean woman said. "I want you on one of them. But if you keep acting like this, I'll send you back. I can't use a weapon that can't recharge its batteries."

"But..." she gestured to her eyes.

"We have cameras every bit as good as anything you can borrow from a Ni," Wraith said. "Satellite coverage. And if I thought I needed someone with supernatural power, I have three psychic sensitives with about ten more years experience than you and two of Geisthexe's shadows. All of whom, you'll note, rested when I told them to. The people I'm replacing you with haven't been up twenty-four hours already. So they are actually aware of what they're seeing."

She took a deep breath.

"Do you understand?" Wraith asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Seina said bitterly.

"Good," Wraith noted. "Now, rest."

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

"We've captured twelve of these enemy vehicles," he said. "A drop in the water, indeed, but Asgard has allowed us to keep these three for research purposes."

Captain Testarossa and Mara didn't betray their surprise at this, though Ranma frowned and glanced toward Hermes a moment. Though the most obvious of the surprise came from Belldandy at his side.

"Yes, well, Lady Amaterasu is free to do what she wants with her own house's arsenal," the Greek messenger God noted. "You can thank that she apparently keeps good records of her house's military assets even at her current age."

He certainly sounded irritated, even if he was trying to hide it.

"We're moving into Japan at Tokyo within the week," the General ended. "As before, we're trying to lure the Gods into duels so that we can drop heavy artillery on the enemy. Before, to minimize risk we were using entirely Immortals and psychics for the task of drawing them out. However, that limited the number of places we could push an attack at Kyushu."

He crossed his arm and looked about.

"But during the Kyushu invasion, during Zeus's viral attack," he noted. "We had several units that had to defend the Immortal with them. The JSDF and marines that were on site have tested and developed numerous tactics for handling the same task with enemies of the rogue Gods' power levels."

He didn't mention that the number of people that had died in that exchange had increased tremendously while the tactics were being figured out.

"I also have word that Director Satomi of Mithril's Psyche division has negotiated some increased reinforcements for us," he noted, getting a nod from Ranma.

He continued from there into other details before turning the floor over toward Colonel O'Neil.

"So, for the rest of the problem on Earth," O'Neil said. "That's going to be me. This is more of a matter of handling dozens upon dozens of anti-terrorist activities than one coherent battle, but I think I've got cooperation from most of the Generals in here, right? Despite being a measly colonel and all."

He paused and started indicating the different hot spots that had been identified.

"With any luck," he said. "We're going to take these guys out before they know we're there. Though we got a couple of other things in this action. And those couple of things are Zeus and, well, Zeus. Which is why we have a whole fekking lot of the guy's kids running around the planning area. Information we have says he has some sort of reality bending curse such that only one of his kids can kill him."

With that he glanced toward Hermes and arched an eyebrow, the God ignored him.

"Anyway," O'Neil said. "I'm less in command here, then acting as a go-fer for the lot of you Generals here with the countries in the area we're looking at it. Heya, Colonel O'Neil, go for this Demon here, now go for that Demon there...etc...etc."

He took a breath then and continued.

"That sort of makes us a reserve for the rest of you," O'Neil said. "If need someone highly trained to deposit on a target behind lines. Or if lightning-head pops up anywhere in your territories."

From him, the talk moved on toward Mara who stood up and walked to the center, nodding at Dr. Weir.

"Okay," she said. "For those that don't know, Nidhog is like the internet of Demons. In fact, there are three connections to it right here."

She pointed to herself, Moloch behind her and then Naiki next to him.

"Though admittedly," she said. "It's more appropriate to say that we can connect to Nidhog than that we are Nidhog."

A picture rose up showing a massive snake, miles in length and thousands of feet in diameter. The last fact proven by an individual shown to scale.

"This is Nidhog," she said. "It is a living, organic computer capable of operating on the same psychic wavelength as a Demon. It's where a great deal of our power comes from among other things."

"Nidhog is currently frozen, maybe crashed," she explained, "due to all the hacking and counter hacking involved the past months. Unfortunately, the last instructions it received were from our criminals. Worst case scenario, we'll have to destroy Nidhog and rebuild it later, but we're hoping to be able to cleanse it, recover control and return those of us that are supposed to have power to it."

"Might I ask what you normally do with that much power?" someone asked.

Mara looked up and smiled.

"Well, for one thing, that meteor shower you enjoyed last year was a lot bigger before we reached it," Mara said. "And I believe Belldandy and Hermes could note some commentary about Yellowstone. Stuff like that's normally routine for us. Currently however, given the number of us that are dying and no longer adding to the combined power we have...let's just hope that we don't have a natural doomsday to worry about coming up."

That quieted people down a bit.

"Anyway," she said. "All three of the psychic networks have a point of connection now. So we're making use of that to get more than just a handful of people hacking in through one of us that's letting someone link in."

She pointed to the diagram on the screen.

"This is how Nidhog used to be set-up," she said. "Right now it's pretty much all garbage. We've got units set up to map out the connections, we're putting a command segment in Silmaril near the bridge between Nidhog and the Ainur network and we're going to start cleaning from there. I'm also maintaining an overwatch in case Zeus or the rogue Demons try any sort of cataclysm crap again."

The hologram shifted about.

"The goal is to find the category assignments that the rogues have altered and clean them out," Mara said. "As soon as we do that, giving me and mine the proper authority and power comes next. But I think getting the criminals who have world-ending power dropped back to where they should be takes priority."

She grimaced.

"As to Nifelheim," she said, "I'm leaving my homeland in the hands of Captain Testarossa and General Hammond."

She gestured and the General glanced over toward the Mithril contingent.

"If you would Captain," he said. "I believe it is your right."

The lavender haired girl stood up then with a slight nod as she walked to the center of the room much to the surprise of several onlookers.

"I know," she said idly. "I look like a secretary. I hear this quite often, now. Nifelheim. The Demons there are more personally powerful than the Gods we were facing in Kyushu, but as I understand it, most do not have the sort of skill usually associated with that level of power."

She looked toward Elizabeth who controlled the hologram to show a map Nifelheim.

"Our first objective is to capture the Abyss here," Tessa said. "We have information that somewhere around one-hundred thousand civilian Demons have taken refuge there and the information is that the Abyss is dangerous even if designed to be non-lethal."

She cleared her throat.

"Our main issue is that our normal plan for this situation is going to be difficult to accomplish early on," Tessa said. "We'll be able to gate in troops and men at first, as well as some ASes, we have several units worth of chi-enhancing Sciroccos ready to go in the near future and we are building a new proto-type assault level AS that might be used, but aside from that, the heavy artillery and cruise missiles will take some time. To help in that regard, I've already asked for help in developing 'affinities' for the Ainur."

"What's the overall benefit of that?" a general asked.

"As I understand it, Demons and Gods have almost complete control over their Domain or Realm," she said. "For example, Naiki Satomi, behind me is the Demoness of Torrent. Typically, she has to borrow a power through a spell in order to move objects..."

She didn't mention Naiki's innate ability to cause minor, local earthquakes.

"...however, when faced with a large number of fast moving objects moving in one direction, she can take complete control all herself. She can stop it, slow it down, direct it, scatter it. Anything she wants. Her sister a Goddess has similar control over blood. Nike, Goddess of Victory, had to be tricked into no longer desiring victory on a conscious level in order to be beaten."

She took a deep breath recited a high speed series of numbers and breathed as a pencil flew to her heand.

"Now, I had to borrow that," she said. "Cast a spell if you will. However, Ainur spells are incomplete. To get one effect beyond basic powers, we have to basically cast multiple incomplete spells from different places in order to complete one effect."

She looked around the room.

"If we successfully develop 'affinities'," she said. "Each individual will have at least some level of telekinetic or telepathic ability within themselves without having to borrow it and the calculations required for various borrowed effects will be much simpler."

Tessa glanced back toward the hologram.

"It will let us hold on long enough to bring our artillery into Nifelheim before we're overwhelmed and forced back," Tessa said. "We plan to time our assault along with Geisthexe's action to cleanse Nidhog. In the best case scenario, our enemy will lose their power and make the playing field more even well before that anyway."

"And how quickly do you think you can develop these 'affinities?" Dr. Weir asked.

"I am working with some scientists from Asgard and Nifelheim," Tessa said, "And they've suggested that it might be possible to speed things up if we could research a human or Ainur that already essentially has an affinity."

"And you have such a person on hand?" General Hammond asked.

"Actually, yes," the Captain said, turning to look toward Ranma's direction. "However, I still need to ask her about involving herself."

Yomiko blinked and wondered what Captain Testarossa was looking at her boss for, but on looking down to Director Satomi, found Ranma looking at her.

Along with everybody else in the room.

"Oh, you mean me," Yomiko said hesitantly.

bissek · Jun 6, 2011

It would be faster if Mithril requested the information from the British. After all, Yomiko is the 19th Agent Paper, and there have been Paper Masters who didn't get assigned that code name. Most of them were created by the British Library.

Of course, given their schemes for world domination, Gentleman and Joker might not want to share.

blackkyuubi · Jun 7, 2011

bissek said:

It would be faster if Mithril requested the information from the British. After all, Yomiko is the 19th Agent Paper, and there have been Paper Masters who didn't get assigned that code name. Most of them were created by the British Library.

Of course, given their schemes for world domination, Gentleman and Joker might not want to share.

You mean IF there are a Gentleman and Joker.

Thrythlind · Jun 7, 2011

Yaku sat at the corner of a table in Atlantis's cafeteria and typed along playfully onto the holographic keyboard in front of her. A small crowd of off-duty techs, researchers and soldiers was gathered around her watching her playing her game.

"Okay, that's a rush of protoss templars," someone noticed. "But are those Night Elf hippogriff riders?"

"Crap, I just saw a Total War kensai over there," another commented. "Damn, I didn't even think geisha could be deployed to the battlefield in that game."

"Arcanoi?" a third noted. "That makes Rome: Total War now."

"And Age of Mythology," the first said. "Just saw mummies and minotaurs. But I have no idea what those other things that everybody's fighting are."

"So basically," the second said to the little girl. "You've hacked together at least five different RTS games into a mass free-for-all scenario?"

"Huh?" Yaku asked. "I just let everybody link to the same server. The map here is really cool and stuff. This is hard, hard level."

"She programmed a compatibility matrix so she could have reinforcements from the net for a single player level," a person noted. "And she's using a laptop-version of a supercomputer for this."

"I don't know whether this is disturbing or awesome," Captain Lorne said, shaking his head. "Oh, look out over there, kid, aren't those resources?"

"Mmhmm," Yaku said, swinging her feet under her. "I got it."

"How long have you been playing this level anyway?" Lorne asked.

"Ummm, last week, I found it on the network," she said. "And I went to it and sent it to my computer and sent it out to the internets and people started coming and then we really started cleaning it."

The major looked over toward the "percent complete" and watched it tick over from 0.5% to 0.6% complete.

"Someone had a lot of time on their hands when they made this," he noted shaking his head.

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

Eija looked out over the devastated Okinawan city and shivered at the ghosts she saw wandering about in and among the rubble. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands or more. Ghosts of Gods, Demons, humans and a few Ainur. Ghosts that had died in the blast, old ghosts that had wandered out of Avalon or old seals and been drawn to the site of massive death.

"Everyone, do not act alone," Macaria said. "If possible, pair with one of the mortal or Ainur death seers. Or Eija. As they have more training with the recently dead."

Eija closed her mouth and nodded quietly at the comment and glancing around to see some of the other groups of death seers that were in the area.

"Excuse me," she said. "I believe I shall go help out with her. Grandmother and I were training her recently in any case."

Macaria glanced in the direction Eija was pointing and saw a crippled girl with a crutch beside a human with a cybernetic prosthetic. Old habit and reflex had her flinch as she recognized the child-form of Hel there, but she forced it down.

Hel was no longer an enemy.

"All right," she said. "I shall leave you to that. And we shall start in our path."

Eija nodded and started to walk over toward where Hel and Natsume stood with another death-seer. The human woman didn't have the blood-eyes, but she had a certain pale, ethereal quality about her. All of them seemed to notice her coming and turned to face her as she did.

"Eija," Hel said in surprise and a little bit of relief.

"Hmm," Natsume said. "It's good to see you. We heard rumors you were hurt."

"I'm beginning to feel that is more a default condition than I like," Eija sighed before turning toward the human with them. "Hello, I am Eija Satomi, Goddess of Blood, category 2."

"Hel has mentioned you and your grandmother," the woman said. "I'm Melinda Gordon. It's a pleasure to meet you."

She held out a hand which Eija took respectfully.

"Melinda Gordon?" she repeated. "No, really? That's you?"

"Wow, I've been getting that reaction a bit," Melinda said nervously. "It's a bit different reaction than I'm used to before everything went public. I didn't realize even Goddess's had heard of me."

"I was born half-human," Eija said quickly. "Mother made sure that I had a grounding in my abilities. Your name is well known amongst death-se...I mean ghost whisperers."

"So I'm discovering," the woman said with some chagrin.

Hel was watching the exchange between one of her tutors and the human, eyes widening slightly as she took in that this human woman apparently deserved the respect the other death seers on hand had for her.

Any further discussion came to a close as the air about them started getting thick and heavy around them.

"Come on out," Melinda said. "We're just here to talk."

The three of them held their reactions calm as several images flickered into view around them on and off. Burned, blistered and blackened, several figures simply drifting in the air about them.

"I'm assuming that there are more of them," Natsume said cautiously, keeping in mind a handful of exorcism rituals that she knew.

It was a grotesque display that had both the elder death seers stepping around Hel as they spoke.

"Hello," Eija said in the cool, soothing tone of voice she'd been taught to use when speaking to possibly skittish spirits. "My name is Eija Satomi, we'd like to help you."

"Help us," one of the spirits said harshly. "We're dead, what is there to help?"

"I can't be dead...I can't be dead...I'm only one hundred years old," another was saying in a shell-shocked tone. Eija could just barely make out a fragment of a red mark on a rare, unburnt portion of flesh. "How can I be dead? I'm too young."

"You're lingering here is not doing you any good," Miss Gordon noted, though she was somewhat taken aback by the hundred years old comment. "There was a terrible thing just days ago and you were all caught in it. Can you tell me what you remember doing?"

"I was working," the angry voice said through crack, bleeding lips. "Just taking some lady's money when there was this flash and then I'm here, like this!"

"Listen, listen," the Demon's ghost said. "There was a little boy, I think he was one of the Gods, is he all right? I think he was lost. Is he all right? I need to find him."

Several other ghosts in the area started also speaking about things that they had been doing, or concerns that they had and needed to deal with. It rose like a cacophonous wave of psychic noise that had her reaching up to cover her ears momentarily.

"Please," she said insistently. "Quite down."

"We'll do what we can to help you," Melinda noted, "but we need to have everything come in an orderly manner."

"Would all of you shut up!" Hel snapped, tempted to use her Realm to shunt the lot of them into a prison.

Not that she actually had that much power right now, however.

"If you want to help me," the first ghost noted bitterly as things quieted down. "Just direct me at the guy that dropped the bomb so I can haunt him the rest of his life."

"He's dead," Eija noted. "He was actually dead before this bomb went off."

"Then find me his ghost so I can tear him apart!" the angry ghost shouted as the world about him seemed to grow darker and thicker, pushing down on the living people around him.

"Will that help you any?" Melinda asked.

"It'll make me feel better," the ghost snapped.

"No, it won't," Eija said. "It'll be hollow."

"At least he won't hurt anybody else," the ghost noted bitterly.

Eija exchanged a look with Hel and then remembered to glance toward Melinda.

"That would be a good motivation, if it was what you wanted," Melinda said.

"I do not know that his ghost would be here," Eija said. "I felt no sign of it when I arrived at his death-site."

"What about the little boy?" the other ghost asked, getting impatient. "Can't you help me find him?"

Thrythlind · Jun 7, 2011

Yomiko looked around at the people in the room with her. Several boxes of blank paper lined one wall.

Tessa looked across at the individuals that were helping her primarily with this. Dr. Carolyn Lam and Dr. Beckett from the Socrates Group had come along with a nervous looking woman with bat wings who consistently turned to look toward the present Gods. That delegation consisted of Inari and Anansi. The Demons included a seventeen year old Lilith and....

...Lusca.

Everyone present stared at Lusca meanwhile as she hummed and played with the molecular design models that she'd found on the side of the room.

"I'm aware of Lusca's...credentials," Inari said, the fox currently sounded like a feminine man. "But in her current condition..."

"She is not here at Mara's request or mine," Lilith noted quietly.

"She came in talking about a 'surprise'," the succubus whispered. "And then went to one of the stations."

They watched as she pulled out a little octopus statue and powdered it to stone to reveal a trio of oval objects. One of them looked like a silken ball, another a small rubbery pearl and the last a long leathery object.

"Are those...eggs?" Tessa asked.

At which point, Lusca tore open the white, silken object and reached into to pull out a mass of what looked like incompletely developed and twitching spiders and casually shoveling them into her mouth, still humming pleasantly as some of the spiders tried to get away and dying a few inches past.

Everyone watching shivered and looked away from the humming Demoness as she started examining the other two parts of what was apparently her lunch and eating spiders like popcorn.

Naiki, I would be very cautious if Lusca's surprise for you is something to eat, Tessa noted.

Huh? Naiki asked.

"Human DNA is fairly well understood on our end," Anansi, Uncle Spider, said as his eyes kept drifting towards Lusca. "Both Demons and Gods have been dealing with mortals on a genetic level for thousands of years."

"Including successfully altering us to match your own race," Dr. Beckett noted with something like disapproval.

"Volunteers," Inari assured him, sounding a bit more masculine this time. "And this is not the issue. I believe you have already taken some samples from Miss Readman, and we have a selection of case studies."

"Miss Readman, do you mind if we take some blood?" Dr. Lam asked.

"Certainly that would be perfec..."

"Ooo, that one was wriggly! SQUEEE! So ticklish!" Lusca declared.

"...tly...fine...Dr Lam," Yomiko said slowly as she quivered in a bit of disgust and embarrassment.

Most of the others in the room shared her problem.

The succubus reacted a bit more violently by covering her mouth and darting out of the room, almost barreling over Jonas Quinn as he entered.

"Whoa, what's Etna's problem?" he asked.

"A disagreeable lunch," Anansi said. "Probably on top of other stress."

"Oh, right," Jonas said casually. "Your people sent Morrigan to eradicate hers a while back. I'd bet succubus kids are raised to think of you as the bogeyman."

Inari and Anansi both grimaced at the description as the man moved to sit down.

"You'll have to excuse Jonas," Dr Lam said as she prepped a syringe and Dr. Beckett was rolling up Miss Readman's sleeve and wiping her arm with an alcohol swath. "He has little to no sense of tact."

"This is fine," Lilith said. "It's not like we're any better."

"Yes, well, if we can get over the centuries of mutual warfare and genocide," Dr. Beckett commented, standing up to look around as Dr. Lam took the blood sample behind him. "We have some excellent facilities here and back on Atlantis, but I thought Psyche's Dr. Magnus was supposed to be taking a hand in this particular venture."

"We might as well get some initial studies out of the way before we move to her facilities," Tessa noted. "I'd originally suggested Asgard, but..."

"The Searching chamber is damaged," Inari said in a sweet soprano voice.

Everyone noticed that the fox God's essential face and body structure didn't seem to perceptibly change even as the voice fluctuated.

"Right, I'm sure the first thing they did was target facilities you consider to be basic needs for your species," Dr. Lam said under her breath.

"That said," Lilith noted. "Perhaps Miss Readman can give us a brief demonstration as we watch and analyze the way the energy is used in the body."

"All right, I can do that," Yomiko noted.

She looked around the room and suddenly a cloud of paper swirled in from about the room and started pasting to her, shifting in color and building in height until her appearance changed. The Socrates Group personnel stared a bit impressed as a life-sized replica of Teal'c stood before them.

"I hope this will do for a demonstration, Ma'am," the Teal'C-alike said in a very Yomiko voice. "Or perhaps there is something more I can do."

"A little bit more please," Jonas Quinn said with a smile as he drifted back toward an intercom button. "Maybe try keeping the Teal'c disguise up as you do it?"

"Certainly," the not-Teal'c's-voice-by-a-long-shot said.

She stood up, moved a couple of steps to the side and, in her very-Teal'c-alike form, sat down in a chair that appeared in a swirl of paper underneath her. Meanwhile another swirl of paper came out of the boxes of blank paper and coalesced into the form of Yomiko who reached out to grab a clipboard forming out of paper and started to scratch something into the surface with a paper pencil.

"That is fairly impressive," Lilith noted with a nod. "Do you have any conceptual control?"

"Quite," spoke the Teal'C disguise that was wrapped around the real Yomiko. "I am capable of reading incredibly quickly and experiencing the contents as if firsthand. Of late I have been reading quite a few works by such authors as Michael Crighton, HP Lovecraft, Ian Flemming and Tom Clancy."

As she finished the speech, Colonel O'Neil came into the room, followed by Daniel Jackson and the real Teal'c.

"This had better be very imp...or..tant..." O'Neil said as he laid eyes on the second Teal'c. "What is going on here."

"Oh, hello, Colonel O'Neil, sir," Yomiko said, still inside her Teal'c disguise, which stood up to regard the newcomers. "Your doctors and the researchers from Asgard and Nifelheim were requesting that I demonstrate my skills as a paper master."

"So you thought you might demonstrate a matter of disguise?" Teal'C asked, glancing from the duplicate of him to the speechless Yomiko standing nearby.

"Quite," Yomiko said. "This is a good likeness, I hope."

"Except for the voice," Daniel said.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed with an arched eyebrow.

"You are recording this," O'Neil asked, trying to hide a smile at the very effeminate and semi-British sounding Teal'c in the room. "For the research, right?"

"I'm done!" Lusca said, holding up a purple octopus plushy proudly. "Sort of...anyway...gotta go!"

She puffed into smoke and vanished as people turned to see.

A moment later, Etna wandered back in holding her stomach.

"I'm sorry Dr. Lam, I told you I'd be fine to..."

There was a puff of smoke and Lusca reappeared with half of the rubbery white egg she'd had.

"Oh, I couldn't finish all this one," she looked around and thrust it into Etna's face, not noticing the succubus's face paling. "You can eat it, It's fine! Because this one I couldn't use or finish, all right?"

And she puffed back out into smoke.

Etna stared at the white surface and oozing pale greenish fluid that had been in the former egg which was now collapsing messily in her hands.

And the succubus research assistant gagged and zipped back out of the room, dropping the half egg to the floor.

"There's something wrong with that girl," Jonas noted sagely.

PCHeintz72 · Jun 9, 2011

247484

I thought this a bit odd, while the scene was interesting, how the heck would reporters know to single her out for interviewing?

This is obviously a stupid person, reporter or not, to come across as unbelieving with the mountain of evidence.

247695

I find that humorous every time it comes up.

Bummer

'leave there' s/b 'leave me there'

'to go for' s/b 'to go to', otherwise it is awkward wording.

As a note, I like these info dumping scenes on stratagy, but you only really seem to hold them in detail with the humans and demon viewpoints... the God ones not so much, or so it seems to me.

I like McKay as a character, but I really do think he needs some dressing down in this story. Oh well...

'it's a' probably should be just 'it's'

247780

Oddly, while I had thought she would getbetter, you actually seem to be having her get worse.

247841

If this is a reference to the device on Amazon.COM, should it not be capitalized?

Kind of surprised that meeting was not written.

One thing to occur to me... do the remaining Dispaters know of Ranma's dual nature?

May just be me, thought came across as fairly cold or confrontational. Even if he was not earlier in the episode.

Considering this story has reincarnation in it, and Ranma in canon and OMG in canon have done time travel, is it really that impossible?

247872

Poor Tessa

This sentance is very confusing in the way worded vs. the obvious intent, might want to redo.

Reinforcements? such as?

I like the way you portray O'Niel.

248078

Unless her past is different, it would seem unlikely a human Gordan would desire to link up with demons, or a phychic organization.

What about her friend that can hear them?

Heh... it would be just like him to stay to torment Souskae...

248108

Hey... there are human cultures that eat spiders... though to my knowledge at least, they eat them after they are dead.

You have Lusca acting very unstable and incoherent here, more so than seems normal. Not certain why.

Hmmm... I am pretty sure you had much earlier in story Mara explaining they experimented with their own DNA to look more like us, not the other way around.

Hmmm... based on context, I think 'This' should be 'That'

One minor issue I have with this is I cannot recall a single instance she changed the color of the paper being manipulated. I suppose it could be argued though, that since she did not have a need to do so does not mean she could not do so.

248112

Hmmm... has everyone been keeping that tidbit from her?

Hmmm... I thought Belldandy was supposed to be inside Nidhog like the others, that is what was stated in a earlier episode.

Keep up the good work... look forward to more.

Thrythlind · Jun 9, 2011

just randomly picked out in interviewing witnesses in the local area

Sarcasm was less a doubt of Gods than a doubt of the effectiveness of this one...still stupid...

the comments that it isn't uncommon leaves it up in the air...but not going to definitively settle that in fic

This is true, hmmm, mostly that's because the Gods as of yet haven't initiated much aside from taking Asgard, which I did show....Belldandy is taking leads from Mara and Tessa...and a lot of Gods are taking leads from her

Given the increased stress levels, she's doing well.

When she was introed, the situation was mostly calm. More recent situations have been throwing her in the deep side over and over again. She's actually probably handling it better than most in her situation and condition would have

was not intended that way, hmmm...should have added a "casually" or "curiously" to that

Considering this story has reincarnation in it, and Ranma in canon and OMG in canon have done time travel, is it really that impossible?[/quote]

I like the fact that people thought that when she said she'd had 93 reincarnations and 57 Reincarnations that she was differentiating between in the prison and out, not realizing that her problem right now was she wasn't able to reincarnate in the prison due to a lack of people to take care of her child-self

247872

Poor Tessa

This sentance is very confusing in the way worded vs. the obvious intent, might want to redo.

Reinforcements? such as?[/quote]

Well, Amazons, Musk, some Phoenix (though they took some major damage already)

I think the fact that she doesn't know her own reputation indicates she's not with Psyche so much...but they would have put a call out to anybody that did have the ability and she likely would have come

Oh, there are a lot of people we've seen the end of that we haven't seen the end of

well, more unaware, she actually has a specific thing she's doing, and she didn't need two of the three eggs in the storage seal, so she ate them

yum yum

And they have machines that can turn people into Demons or Gods

I was mostly making an allusion to the fact that canon Beckett came up with the virus that turn Wraith into humans temporarily

Dialect choice

"this" as in "this situation"

I like giving characters vocal quirks, and that particular one is one of mine anyway

One minor issue I have with this is I cannot recall a single instance she changed the color of the paper being manipulated. I suppose it could be argued though, that since she did not have a need to do so does not mean she could not do so.
[/quote]

one of the things repeatedly pointed out to me for a measure of paper mastery flexibility is that a paper mastery once used paper mastery to make himself a disguise as Yomiko's old lover and sleep with her

also, she made an entire office building out of paper and when it started falling apart the text specifically mentioned the objects losing their color.

original plan, then realized...oh crap, we need some cat 1s outside in case they try something again....

Thrythlind · Jun 10, 2011

The instincts from when Kaname was just a Whispered still worked in the unconscious, even though the thoughts and calculations no longer rammed into her conscious mind and give her either headaches or near nervous breakdowns.

For which she was very thankful given her few brief encounters with such an experience during the short time between her powers first waking up completely and when she'd become Ainur. Especially now as her mind worked through the calculations and analysis for just how a video-chat could be sent from Earth to Atlantis across dimensional boundaries without much interference.

"Hey," she said to the image on the screen in front of her, soundproofed doors behind her. "How are you doing."

Her younger brother looked at her for a moment before deciding to answer.

"You have stuff on your face," he said.

"I know," Kaname said, reaching up to her forehead. "It's kind of like a tattoo that grew on me."

"Are you like them, now?" her brother asked.

"Like..." she paused, "who?"

"Like the people that blew up New York?" her brother asked.

Kaname grimaced and bit her lip as she considered how to respond to that.

"Can I do the same things?" she asked. "A lot of it yeah. But no, none of us here are like them. Nobody here wants to hurt people if they don't have to."

Her brother nodded in thought.

"You heard about Dad?" he asked.

Kaname was silent for a long space of time.

"Yeah..." Kaname whispered just loud enough to be heard. "I'm still freaking out about it sometimes. Are...are you okay?"

"I broke my arm, and the doctors say I'll be fine," her brother said.

"That's not what I..." Kaname took a deep breath. "Are you feeling okay, having..." she looked over her shoulder. "Nightmares?"

"I had a couple," he said nervously. "The people here are really nice."

"Where are you, anyway?" Kaname said, taking in the background. "That looks a little nice to be an orphanage or refugee camp or something."

"It's a big house, like a mansion, the...uhh...Rossa Mansion? I can't get it right," came the answer. "There are a bunch of people here from New York. Some of them are kids like you."

He pointed to her forehead again.

"Well, have you talked to them?" Kaname asked. "Friends can help with...being sad."

"Why should I talk to them when they blew up places?" he asked harshly.

"They aren't the bad people," Kaname said. "They're probably feeling just as sad, because they've lost parents and siblings and children and been kicked out of their home by bad people."

She pointed at her head.

"This isn't how you tell if someone is good or bad," she said. "You gotta see what they do for that."

"But..."

"I'm your sister, am I bad?" she asked.

"...sometimes," her brother said. "And I haven't talked to you in a while."

"Would I try to hurt or kill a bunch of people?" Kaname asked, mentally adding the qualifier of people that weren't trying to hurt her or her friends.

"No..."

"Everybody is hurting," Kaname said. "I don't want to see anybody hurt anymore and I'm trying to help with that. When I'm done, I'll come get you and let you meet my friends. Okay? And then you'll live with me, okay? Does that sound good?"

"Yeah, it does," her brother said.

"Do you...do you know when they're...saying goodbye to Dad?" Kaname asked.

"I don't know," the boy said. "They haven't told me or anything. Could you find out?"

"I'll try," Kaname said. "You try to make some friends to help you, okay? You can try to call me...but..."

"But you might be fighting the bad guys," her brother said. "I saw the soldiers when the call was answered."

"Right, I might be fighting bad guys," Kaname said. "See, your sister is training to be a superhero, so she can make everything fine. Just you wait!"

She pumped her fist encouragingly and smiled when it got a laugh out of her brother.

"So what's your superhero name then? Princess Harisen?" her brother asked, giggling. "Captain Tsundere?"

Feeling happy despite the suddenly put out expression on her face as she crossed her arms and huffed, Kaname responded to the suggestions.

"Not all superheroes have a silly codename," she said. "Though...I think I actually do have a code name around here...haven't been told what it is though."

"Seriously?" her brother asked.

"Yeah, seriously," Kaname said with a smile before checking her watch. "So...I'll take to you again, soon, all right. And hopefully all this will already be over."

"Okay, Kaname," her brother said. "I'll...I'll see you."

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

Ranma was waiting when Kaname came into the room she had been sent to, and she saw Sousuke already there, sitting down calmly.

"How's your brother?" Ranma asked in concern.

"He's going to be fine, I think," Kaname said. What are we going to be training in?

She has not yet stated that, Sousuke responded. I have not been able to contact Eija yet, as she is on Earth at the moment.

"I'm guessing," Ranma said as Kaname sat down. "That your first question is 'what are we training in?'"

She looked over at Sousuke.

"As I've said, your battle skills and judgment are exceptional," Ranma noted. "Your chi manipulation is getting better, but still very raw and I haven't seen you do much outside of that robot of yours yet."

She looked over toward Kaname.

"You are a rank amateur," the red-head noted. "You have talent and bullheadedness, but you're going to get in over your head eventually. Now, if this weren't war going on around right now, I'd be getting somebody to drill Soldier Boy on how civilians actually act and why. Granted, they're frustrating still, but at least you should understand where they're coming from."

"Hey, what's so frustrating about us civilians?" Kaname asked.

"Kaname," Ranma said. "As I recall, you've were actively involved in at least three major conflicts and numerous skirmishes. You've helped organize the psychic diver group with Mara and Belldandy. You've helped add some design features to the Whisper of Souls, the Silmarillion and put in some ideas for Sousuke's next AS. You've been neck deep in this war since a bit before it started. You're civilian only in the most technical definition of the word."

"Well, when you put it like that," Kaname muttered.

"Which means you have no excuse to be as untrained as you are," the exorcist said. "But physical stuff isn't going to help you as immediately. And Sousuke came to me with the physical side of things."

"Then what are we going to be training in?" Sousuke asked.

The door opened and Kyoko came in limping with her cane and holding a transparent bag full of printed photos, most likely from her camera.

"All right, Miss Satomi," Kyoko said. "I found all the photos I could in my files. Some of these should be a little bit embarrassing. Why do you need embarrassing photos?"

Ranma smiled and turned toward Kaname and Sousuke without answering the brown-haired girl immediately.

"Whether you're going to be fighting physically or psychically, you're going to have to have a firm control of your emotions," she said.

"I am already aware of this," Sousuke said.

"I'm not talking about burying your emotions, Sagara," Ranma said. "I'm talking about experiencing them...calmly. A calm intensity of emotion that is completely stable and in your control."

The smile on the woman's face broadened.

"A Soul of Ice, even," she said.

theunderbolt · Jun 10, 2011

Ah the soul of ice good times

Ranma is now channeling his/her inner cologne. And i can only imagine Kaname trying the breaking point XD.

Thrythlind · Jun 12, 2011

Creating a shard or other sealed space did not involve actually crossing potential timelines into other dimensions, despite the tendency to refer to Asgard, Nifelheim and the other such places other dimensions. It was more like folding the existing space time.

So travel between one and the next, even through such things as a teleportation or gate, was less like moving a straight distance and more like playing pool with moving sideboard, a randomly uneven table and lopsided balls. Or else trying to perform origami with drywall while floating in the ocean.

Moving a single person or even small groups to large vehicles was reasonably simple. There were numerous nicks and corners that could be passed through between dimensional boundaries. However, there was a reason that it required either highly complex Gate spells and circles or else the extra processing power of a few hundred thousand minds in order to accomplish even something that simple.

Peorth and the other Gods responsible for trying to move Yggdrasil so that if folded back into place with Asgard were finding that the task was much more difficult than they had imagined. It was even hard to say what the relative distance they'd come was. They could have been half way, or they could be decades away from completing the task. Or Asgard could appear without warning and they'd have less of a clean merger and more of a collision.

Peorth shook her head as she recalled that Kami-Sama had moved the tree away in less than half an hour.

She turned about as Athena and Hermes came into the door and smiled at them before gesturing for them to sit down as she leaned back on her own desk. They were in her old office, a level below Kami-Sama's own office.

"Well?" she asked.

"We were separate too long," Athena said. "Lacking instructions, most of the Gods on Earth followed Belldandy's lead and took their cues from the humans and Ainur. Perhaps no one's given up Asgardian sovereignty the way Mara did, but the effect will likely be the same."

Peorth nodded and wiped a trace of sweat from her forehead.

"Are you advising that we follow the Demons' lead?" she asked.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary," the Goddess of Wisdom said. "However, if we push the issue now, we might find that many of our people choose to remain on Earth."

"It is probably best to refrain from forcing a choice in the matter," Hermes agreed.

"When are they liberating Japan?" Peorth asked

"Fairly soon," Athena said. "We'll be suffering more casualties when that happens."

Peorth nodded and sighed.

"If at all possible, when you catch a rogue?" she said. "Leave them alive, but take everything else."

Hermes exchanged a look with Athena.

"You mean, obliterate their mind so some new person can grow out of the blank slate," the messenger said.

"We can't force them to reincarnate," Peorth said. "If we're going to have to seal or kill them anyway, might as well do it in a way that leaves a person who can be salvaged."

"There will be consequences," Athena warned. "This is something our civilians are much better able to comprehend than a physical death, and they will not be happy with the decision."

"I understand this," Peorth agreed. "But it is either that, or simply kill them."

"And any information that they might have?" Athena asked.

"I doubt any of the remaining criminals and rebels have much information on the way things stand," Hermes said. "They likely only have rumors."

"Make a reasonable attempt for any information if you have them controlled and contained," Peorth said. "Offer them reincarnation, and if they refuse. Take their minds away, they can find a new identity."

Thrythlind · Jun 22, 2011

Jim Clancy was relieved when he saw a familiar face in the form of Professor Rick Payne.

To a point.

Rick was the guy who'd gotten them called in on this thing, after all. If Melinda's good friend hadn't been a part of this Psyche thing which, until this, Melinda had thought was a scam of some sort, they'd probably not been called out of their small town New York home half-way across the world to talk to the ghosts of people dead in a nuclear disaster.

"Hey, Rick," he said. "Have you seen Melinda?"

"Hmm?" the professor said. "Oh, yeah, she went to Hel."

"What?!" Jim snapped suddenly. "Hell?"

"Right," Rick said, far too casually and with a vague smile on his face. "Eija wanted a bit of help."

"Yes, that's why we're here, to help Asia," Jim said. "What did you say about Melinda going to Hell?"

"I just told you, Eija needed help with Hel and Melinda went to them," came the answer with a twitchy smirk on his face.

"So Asia and Hell are at the same place?" Jim said.

"Right, and Melinda went there," Rick said.

Jim looked around at the blasted landscape and frowned getting very close to deciding to choke the annoying professor until making some sense.

"I'm not sure the people here would like you saying that Asia is in Hell," Melinda's husband said irritably.

"You know, I really don't think either would be into that sort of thing at all," Rick said. "In fact I'm fairly certain it would squick out both of them."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jim demanded.

"Of course I'm talking about, Hel," Rick returned. "That's what we started this on."

A third member of the group, looking rather tired and drained, walked over at this point in the conversation.

"Isn't Hell where a lot of the bad guys are?" he asked.

"Well there got to be a few too many for Hel, so Eija helped," Rick said. "And then called over Melinda too."

"Wait, Melinda's in Hell?" Eli said.

Rick gave an over-dramatic shiver.

"What is with you people thinking about that stuff?" he asked. "It's just disturbing to think about anybody in Hel."

"Huh, to hear some of the Demons around here," Eli said. "Hell's pretty nice normally."

Rick snorted.

"In a bratty sort of why maybe," he said.

"Look!" Jim snapped. "All I want to know is where my wife is! Can you tell me that or can't you?"

"I told you," Rick said. "She went to Hel and Eija."

At this point Jim did grab the smirking man by the collar and looked about ready to do something when a group of people slipped by at a speed that was something of a rush but controlled and calm.

Jim was very relieved to see Melinda with the other three women, or woman and two girls, especially as his wife slowed down to talk to him as she passed. Ahead of her, the woman with the metallic arm was carrying a little girl towards one of the warded rest tents. A teenager at her side was carrying a crutch.

"Jim, Rick what's going on?" she asked fervently as she looked at her husband and two of her closer friends.

"He was asking where you were and got confused or something," Rick said with a shrug.

"He said you went to Hel," Jim protested.

"Well, Hel did get a bit separated from the group and Eija and I had to help her out," Melinda said. "Too many ghosts found her at once for her to deal with."

"Hell is a her?" Eli said.

"Yeah, that was her being carried by Natsume, the woman with the prosthetic," Melinda said. "Jim, do you think you could come with me? Eija's medically trained, but I don't think she's a full doctor or healer or whatever."

"So, if I understand," Jim said. "Eija is the teenager and Hel is the nine or ten year old."

"Right," Melinda said.

Jim took a deep breath, released Rick's shirt and gripped his forehead.

"You're a pain," Jim said with a sigh.

"That's stating the obvious," Professor Rick Payne said with a smirk.

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

"I am fine," Hel insisted. "Aside from an odd desire to curse someone for eternity, I am perfectly okay."

She was currently gripping the edge of the cot in the warded tent hard enough to whiten the knuckles on her good hand. Her bad hand was barely gripping, but the fact she was gripping at all was a sign in and of itself.

"She is not any danger of dying," Eija noted.

Melinda nodded at the girl's comment, being somewhat aware of that herself. Eija had most, if not all, the referenced abilities of a death-seer. She herself was mostly just a ghost-whisperer, but her ability in that regard was stronger than most, or so she'd been told by practically every medium she'd run across here, and she'd started developing the other abilities.

"Yeah, well, things can happen that don't cause death," Jim said in concern as he felt her pulse. "You're not human are you?"

"Of course I am not!" she snapped. "I am Hel Lokidottir, Demoness of Prisons!"

"Demons, right," he said, thinking back to the seminar some of the refugee Demons near New York had given health professionals in the area. "Well, haven't treated too many Demons, but if I remember right, I guess what you're dealing with is a mild case of shock."

"Perhaps it would be better if you were to stay in this tent for some time," Eija suggested.

"Agreed," Natsume said firmly. "This is one shock too many."

"But I can help!" Hel protested. "I am a major, category one, Demoness, as soon as I pass the tests again. I can help!"

"Think for a moment," Natsume said quietly. "There are times to help and there are times when it is...not a good idea."

Hel winced and then started withdrawing into herself.

"I'm doing that again, aren't I, Natsume-san," she asked. "I'm going to get someone hurt again."

"We're going to make sure nothing like that happens," Melinda said calmly. "Just rest, there's plenty of people to do the work here."

bissek · Jun 22, 2011

All that chapter needs to be complete is someone asking who is on first.

Thrythlind · Jun 26, 2011

"So all we have to do is travel along this spiral path to the center?" Kaname asked.

"This does not seem to be a difficult task," Sousuke noted. "I'm not sure what the difficulty is."

The semi-maniacal gleam in Mao's eye gave Kaname more than a little concern, while Sousuke was paying more attention to the way Kyoko was chatting with Mizuki.

"Well, there might be a few problems distracting you from your goal," Ranma said casually as she walked to the start of the spiral were Sousuke stood. "But just a second, gotta see if everybody's ready."

She glanced over her shoulder towards the audience, also known as her training assistants.

"Just a moment, Satomi-san," Kyoko said. "I'm almo -"

Kyoko's comment was cut off as Ranma, still looking over her shoulder, casually lashed her foot out in a graceful roundhouse that Sousuke barely ducked under, stumbling backward.

"Sousuke!" Kaname called out, starting to move from where her own spiral was.

"Awesome!" Mizuki called out laughingly.

She started to move away from where she had been asked to stand when suddenly Eija's mother had landed down in front of her and snapped a fist up into Kaname's face that stopped half an inch from her face a full second before she noticed.

At which point she stumbled back landing on her rear as Ranma was already leaping away.

"You've gotta keep aware of things," Ranma noted idly as she landed in front of Sousuke and snapped a trio of short jabs at him, at speeds that were rather slow for her. "Right Kyoko?"

Ranma stepped back and turned toward Kyoko who was staring slack-jawed...

...at exactly the right time to side-step Sousuke's counter attack.

"Uh, right, Satomi-san," Kyoko said.

"Sousuke, that's going the wrong direction," Ranma said casually as she stepped a foot outward to send him spilling out of the spiral. "Oh, Kaname, you might want to stand and start moving."

"HuH?" Kaname asked before a soft wave of chi moved across the room from Ranma's hand to settle into the powdered crystals that formed the edges of the spiral.

Immediately an arch of white energy ripped upward ans started moving along the spiral paths, prompting Kaname to shuffle backward and scramble to her feat.

"Oh just a warning," Ranma commented. "Don't cross the lines Kaname."

Mizuki and Kyoko winced as one of Kaname's feet passed over the powdered crystal and the chi filling the lines latched up to her leg and provoked a quick shriek followed by a poof.

Her hair frizzed out in all directions and she fell back out of the spiral onto her back.

"Kaname!" Sousuke said getting back to his feet and moving over to see that she was okay. "Are you all right?"

"What. The. Hell?" Kaname gasped as she rose up from the ground on her elbows, looking at the spiral she'd been in.

"The Hell A Failure," the red-headed exorcist noted idly.

Sousuke stood up and turned around to march over toward Ranma's face.

"You did not warn us about what this training would entail," he said. "How..."

"Sergeant!" Mao snapped. "Attention!"

And reflexively Sousuke went into attention.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Ranma said playfully, crossing her arms. "Hey, Kaname, why do you think I didn't warn the two of you about what was going to happen?"

Kaname paused in the process of discovering that she had a hairstyle similar to the bride of Frankenstein's and looked over.

"Why the hell are you asking me?" she asked.

"Because Sergeant Sagara already knows," Mao noted idly. "Or at least he should."

Sousuke frowned visibly as he stood at attention.

"Well," Ranma asked.

"You wanted to surprise us?" Kaname asked.

"Exactly," Ranma said looking to Kaname. "Sousuke's hard to take by surprise, and he's trained to still react. You froze."

Then she turned toward Sousuke.

"And you forgot all about the goal," she said. "You got worried about Kaname and angry at me and you went the wrong way."

Sousuke frowned deeper in response.

"Okay, okay," Kaname said irritably. "I figured it out."

"Not okay," Ranma said seriously. "He's gotta trust you to handle things. You've gotta be able to handle them. You've gotta keep your eye on the goal, cause eventually it's going to be something important."

She paused to look at them both.

"Imagine a situation where you both have to get something done, or someone dies," Ranma said. "Like, say...my daughter."

She leaned over to look at Sousuke pointedly as both he and Kaname thought about that.

"There is a time to set aside someone else's goals for your own," she said. "So don't think I'm telling you to be a robot and just follow orders. I know you're about as new to this sort of emotion and connection as Kaname is to battle. But realize, people can use that against you, no matter how admirable it is. Got it?"

Sousuke reluctantly nodded and seemed to relax a little.

"And you gotta realize, the world isn't always going to give you time to think things through completely," she noted.

"Did you tell that to Naiki?" Kaname asked.

"Ah, yes, she has truly mastered the family art of leaping without looking," Ranma agreed sagely.

"Isn't that phrase, leaping before looking?" Kyoko asked.

"I didn't misspeak," the exorcist said with a smirk. "Though she's learning the look part now at least."

Then she turned around and clapped her hands.

"Now, some other warnings," Ranma said. "You let your emotions get too out of control, your body temperature is going to go up and there'll be another unpleasant surprise for you. You try to just bury and ignore those emotions, you're just going to have the same problem."

She looked between her two trainees.

"You need to let the emotions flow, but flow where you want them to flow," she explained. "You want to be making conscious, free willed decisions. You don't want to be following some program, habit or routine. Without both instinct and intellect you aren't getting to the center of this spiral. So, let's get started again."

Kaname and Sousuke cautiously returned to their starting positions as Ranma turned to look at Kyoko.

"Are you guys ready?" she asked.

Everybody stared at her expectantly.

"All right, then," the redhead said, smiling.

And then she started the exercise up again, leaping between Sousuke and Kaname at insane speeds and a more or less casual expression which they both hoped was feigned.

It was on the third attempt through that Director Satomi put another twist through.

"So, Kyoko-chan," she said. "Mizuki-chan. What was going on in that picture you had, anyway? How'd Kaname get the imprint of a volleyball on her face?"

"What, you're not going to tell her -" Kaname started to protest as she looked toward Kyoko and Mizuki...

...and a tap on the back sent her sprawling forward and re-poofing her hair as she passed the lines.

Fairly soon afterward...

"Yeah, Ranma, Sousuke purchased something from a weapons dealer he knows and ended up with completely the wrong item..."

"NOOOO!!!" Kaname, Sousuke, Kyoko and Mizuki all shouted.

And then...

"Hey isn't this just the most beautiful picture ever?" Kyoko asked. "Where'd you get a photo of this, Director Satomi?"

"Wow, it's an important haircut straight out of manga," Mizuki declared.

"Wait, wait! Someone was taking pho -"

Kaname stopped as she was zapped.

After a long string of humiliatingly failed attempts, the two were resting again and panting somewhat heavily. Sousuke was sporting a number of martial artist induced bruises while Kaname smelled of ozone.

"So, this leads to one of the chief weapons of the Satomi family arts," Ranma said with a calm smile. "As demonstrated several times now: embarrassment. It's so ridiculous that no one takes it seriously...which makes it a great distraction, don't you think?"

Both Sousuke and Kaname glared at her.

"I think this might take long enough for us to need some lunch," MAo said.

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