[OMG][FanFic] Drunkard's Walk V, Chapter 5 (2/2)

[Bob Schroeck]

(Continued from Part 1. Start of Part 2.)


* * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 23, 1997, 7:25 PM

"No, I can't, sorry," Keiichi replied regretfully. "The sempais
need me at the clubhouse tonight." His voice was filled with
obvious resignation.

He stood in the temple yard with Chris and Doug, and glanced
anxiously over his shoulder at the gate. Inside the house behind
them, Belldandy was cleaning up from a dinner that had included
Megumi. From what he understood, the goddesses and his sister
were planning on some kind of private talk, during which Chris
and Doug had planned to go out and celebrate Doug's new job.

Chris rolled his eyes. "What do Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber
need you to do this time? MacGyver up a formula one racer from
paper towel rolls? Clean the work bays with a toothbrush?"

"Cut down the mightiest tree on the campus with a herring?" Doug
added, garnering a deeply puzzled look from Keiichi and an
annoyed one from Chris. Doug simply grinned insouciantly.

Keiichi shrugged. "They never tell me until the last moment," he
sighed.

"You've got to stop this, man." Chris pointed a finger at
Keiichi's face; having gotten used to the Canadian and his habits
over the previous year, Keiichi didn't flinch or frown at what to
a native Japanese was at the very least an impolite gesture.
"Every time you pull off the impossible for them, they up the
ante. They're going to get you killed."

"I am what I am," Keiichi said with a lopsided grin. "I must be
true to my nature, as Belldandy says."

Doug clapped him on the shoulder. "You're a better man than I
am, Hunka Tin. Me, I'd've strung them up by their ears after one
too many of those stunts. Then again, that's being true to *my*
nature." He looked thoughtful. "You know, I *could* do that for
you right now, if you'd like. So you can come on out with us,
that is." He cheerfully ignored the glare that Chris shot him.

Keiichi couldn't tell if Doug were joking or not. He quickly
shook his head and waved his hands rapidly in front of himself.
"Oh, no, no thanks. That's okay. It's really not a problem."

"Oh well." Doug suddenly put his hands on Keiichi's shoulders,
spun him around to face the gate, and gave him a gentle push.
"You go have fun then."

"Don't stay out too late," Chris added with a sudden burst of
mischievousness.

"And call so we know where you are."

"And don't spend too much."

"And don't leave with anyone we don't know."

"And don't drink anything that anyone you don't know gives you."

"And don't drive with anybody who looks like they might be
drunk."

"And don't..." Laughing, Keiichi dashed out the gate before he
could hear any more of the mock-parental litany.

Back in the yard, Doug shared a grin with Chris. "Nicely done."

"Thank you."

"I didn't think you had it in you," Doug continued with a smirk.

Chris pulled himself to his full height in simulated offense.
"I, sir, am a wild party. I happen to be a pretty relaxed and
funny guy when I'm not busy reacting to Captain Jumps-to-
Conclusions."

Doug winced and cringed. "Ow. I guess I deserve that." He
straightened. "So, relaxed and funny guy, do you know any good
places we can celebrate?"

Chris nodded. "Follow me."

* * *

"...and then suddenly I just *knew* -- I had to turn it just
*so*, and then say *these* words, and then twist it like *so*,
and turn it like *so*, and say *those* words." Chris shrugged,
then took a long swig from his beer. "The scales leveled out,
and Mara started swearing a blue streak. Keiichi came back to
his senses, and we got everything cleared up right away."

"Huh." I shook my head, and took a good pull on my soda. "And
you still don't know who it was who told you?"

"Nope," Chris leaned his chair back on two legs as he took on a
speculative look. "No one's talked at least, and believe me, I
accused just about everyone whose spheres include magic, might
relate to magic, or even hint at magic. I even badgered the poor
sod who watches over *stage* magicians, just on the off chance."
He made a sort of "oh well" gesture with both hands. "I'm sure
someone's pulling a fast one on me, probably the Boss himself,
but hey, I'm not arguing with the results."

I nodded and drank more cola. "I still can't believe I can take
Mara out with *disco music*." I shook my head again, but this
time with a grin. "Next time I run into her while I've got my
helmet, I know exactly what I'm going to do."

Chris looked dubious and a little pitying. "You've got disco in
that thing?" He paused. "My sympathies."

"Disco, blues, jazz, rock, classical -- you name it. Just like
Sister Mary Ocarina." I grinned wider at the confusion on his
face.

"Sister Mary say what?"

I made a dismissive gesture. "Extremely obscure less-than-pop
culture reference. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so." He brought his chair back down to all four legs
and looked at his watch. "Ten o'clock," he announced. "You may
not have to work tomorrow, but *I* have early classes to slack
through. And speaking of your work, congrats again."

"Thanks," I said, and lifted my soda up to him in something
halfway between a toast and a salute. I waited until he clinked
his mug against it, and then drained it dry. "Time to call it a
night, then."

Chris drained his beer in one sustained gulp, and went to slam
the glass mug down on the tabletop, only catching himself at the
last moment. "Damn," he said, and then burped slightly. "Excuse
me!" He lifted the mug again and studied it. "I've really got
to stop drinking with Thor. This stuff is like *water* to me
now."

* * *

Tarikihonganji Temple Complex, Friday, May 23, 1997, 10:27 PM

In their rush to get back out the front door of the house, Doug
and Chris both tried to go through it at the same time, got
wedged in it together, backed up, tried to go through it at the
same time *again*, and got stuck again.

Feminine laughter echoed down the hall behind them.

Growling at each other, they twisted sideways so that Chris
spilled out the door onto the engawa, while Doug fell backwards
onto the hallway floor. He immediately launched himself
headfirst through the door, did a forward roll, and came to a
stop seated on the edge of the wooden walkway.

On the other side of the stone block that served as the step up
to the house, Chris was settling himself down as well. "That
was..." he muttered, more to himself than to Doug.

Doug heard him anyway. "Disturbing? Scary? Something Man was
not Meant to See?" he offered.

"No," Chris snapped, glaring half-heartedly at the older man.
"Something I didn't want to get caught up in. At all."

Without looking at him, Doug nodded and shuddered theatrically.
"Agreed."

* * *

As Keiichi pulled into the temple grounds at close to eleven PM,
he spied Doug and Chris sitting together on the engawa, a little
to one side of the main entrance. From what he could tell, they
were apparently engrossed in a conversation. He parked his bike,
dismounted, and strolled over.

As he got closer, he realized that he could hear shrieks of
feminine laughter from inside the house. Both men, he noticed,
were looking at him and wearing bemused smiles. "You don't want
to go in there," Doug said before Keiichi could greet them.

Keiichi stopped with one foot on the step. "I don't?"

A throaty squeal that sounded suspiciously like Urd drifted out
into the yard, and the two men traded glances. "No," Chris
replied. "You don't."

Keiichi gave the entrance a dubious look. "Why not?"

"The Fates," Doug intoned dramatically, "are having a pillow
fight."

One foot still on the step, Keiichi goggled at him.

"And when the Fates have a pillow fight, mortals *die*," Chris
concluded in an ominous rasp.

"Really?" In spite of himself, Keiichi felt his eyes go wide.
Then he fell over backwards when a down-filled, queen-sized,
medium-firm ComfortSoft flew through the door and smacked him
square in the face.

They watched him lie there for a moment. Then Doug grinned and
said, "Nah. But it sounds good, doesn't it?"

Keiichi removed the pillow from his face, slowly rose to a
sitting position, and considered glaring at their guest.

"Oh, dear!" Belldandy appeared at the door, a stricken look upon
her face. Megumi peered out from behind her, one hand over her
mouth obviously smothering giggles, the other holding a pillow by
a corner. "I'm *so* sorry, Keiichi! I didn't mean to hit you
with that!"

As she helped him to his feet, Chris stood up and stretched.
"Okay, that's it. You four have been enjoying yourselves for the
last half-hour or so and that's *more* than long enough. I'm
exercising big-brother privilege -- it's time for bed for all of
you."

"You're not *my* big brother," Megumi said defiantly.

Chris stared down at her tiny form from his full six-foot-plus
height. "I'm a brother, and I'm big. That's good enough for
*me*." His expression softened. "Look, guys, fun is fun, but
I've got *classes* tomorrow morning!"

"And *I* have big-brother privilege over you, Megumi," Keiichi
interjected quietly but with a gentle good humor. He had one
hand in Belldandy's and the other still clutched the errant
pillow. "C'mon, it's late."

Megumi deflated, then snorted and smiled. "Yeah, I guess you're
right."

"Of course he's right," Doug offered from his seat on the engawa.
"It's the word of god, after all."

Megumi growled playfully and hit him in the face with the pillow
she still carried.

* * *

Sunday, May 25, 1997, 9:43 AM

I suppose that Skuld's workshop was bespelled so that it would be
reasonably comfortable to work in no matter the weather outside.
That's just a guess, not a declaration; my magesight was -- and
still is -- too crude for me to identify specific spell effects;
all I could tell was that the shed was thoroughly warded and
enchanted. And having seen her furnace and forge appear from a
simple wooden wall and floor, I knew that already *without*
taking the time to see if it glowed on the magical level.

In any case, the point was moot -- with the shed door open, the
late May morning was the perfect temperature for light labor,
which was (fortunately) what we were doing. The forging of the
new frame components had been finished a few days earlier, and
after a day or so of careful welding, it now sat completely
assembled on a stand in the middle of the floor. Skuld had
cobbled the stand together from handy chunks of scrap steel -- it
didn't need to do much more than hold the cycle steady at a
comfortable height to work at, but it did it well.

The sunlight streaming through the open doors set the bronze-hued
metal all a-sparkle, and bathed Skuld's raven hair, turning it
into a gleaming sable halo. Accompanying the torrent of light
was a fresh spring breeze, which somehow combined with the scents
of oil and hot metal to produce an improbably pleasant blend,
like an exotic perfume intended for a gas station attendant.

The task before us that morning was installing (and in some cases
*re*-installing) the various cables and lines and wiring that ran
the length of the bike. As per our agreement, Skuld was once
again hard at work, although by this point I think that the
promise I'd forced out of her was no longer her primary
motivation -- the excitement of the project, especially in the
wake of the ideas she and Megumi had come up with, had taken hold
of her and was now driving her.

Chris and I were both there, freshly showered after a morning
kenjutsu lesson. Our role thus far had mostly been watching
Skuld's energetic work, but occasionally we'd provided an extra
hand or two for particularly complex or recalcitrant parts of the
job.

Megumi was also present, but was not directly involved in the
work on the floor -- Skuld had her at the back of the shop
fabricating some parts. I hadn't paid attention to what she was
supposed to be making, but she was working at the metal lathe on
and off. There was some kind of aural dampening field around the
machine so while she had on heavy ear protectors (along with
shatterproof goggles), only the faintest droning whine reached us
where we sat in the middle of the floor ten feet away.

I glanced over at Skuld, who was on her knees with her head
practically inside the frame of the motorcycle. A thin bundle of
brightly-colored wires was looped several times around one small
hand, while the other was busily engaged in stuffing the end of
the bundle somewhere deep within the bike. Turning my head, I
looked at Chris, who took that same moment to lift his eyes from
the wiring harness he was working on and look back at me.

I grinned and waggled my eyebrows mischievously. His went up a
little, as if to say, "Okay, what are you planning?" I turned
the grin into flash of a smile, and then shifted my attention
back to Skuld. She'd been so focused that she'd completely
missed the byplay between us.

I waited a couple minutes, then idly, conversationally, I said,
in English, "You remind me of the girl." It had to be English,
it wouldn't work in Japanese.

Skuld's head popped up and she looked at me over the top of the
frame. Her mouth opened and she shot me a curious look, but
before she could ask, Chris did. "What girl?"

I turned slightly and looked him straight in the eye, wondering
if he'd get the reference. "The girl with the power."

I saw the light come on, and he grinned at me. Skuld saw it and
scowled, realizing already that we both had a script and she
didn't.

"What power?" he asked knowingly, and I smiled conspiratorially.

I turned back to Skuld. "The power of voodoo."

"Hoodoo?" she asked in spite of herself. As I'd expected she
would, she used English because we were.

"You do."

"Do what?" she demanded, exasperated.

"Remind me of the girl!" Chris and I chorused together.

Skuld stared at us for a long moment. Then she growled and went
back to work.

I couldn't help it. I started laughing at the expression of
confused outrage on her face. Chris joined me, and after a
moment, Skuld herself began snickering. We didn't get much work
done for the next few minutes, but you know, I don't think any of
us cared. What was built in those few minutes I think turned out
to be just as important as my bike.

When we had managed to trail off to simple chuckles, Chris turned
to me. "You, sir, are a very silly person. I respect that."

I inclined my head with a smile. "From you, sir, I shall take
that as a compliment of the highest caliber."

"Oh, cut it out, you two!" Skuld groused, only half-seriously.
"I think I liked it better when you were nasty to each other all
the time."

I rolled my eyes melodramatically, which got me a broader grin
from Chris. "So," I asked, ignoring Skuld's complaint, "which
movie did *you* know that routine from?"

"*Labyrinth,*" he replied. "Bowie's 'Magic Dance' number."

I nodded. "Too dangerously musical for me, more's the pity from
what I hear. *I* got it from the original source -- 'The
Bachelor and the Bobby-soxer'."

Chris nodded. "You can't go wrong with the classics," he intoned
sagely.

"What are you two *talking* about?" Skuld enquired testily from
the other side of the motorcycle.

"Where the routine we just pulled on you came from," Chris
answered.

"Surely you didn't think we came up with that on the fly, did
you?" I added.

"No, I didn't. And don't call me 'Shirley'!" She smirked at us
over the top of the frame.

"Oooh... She's got potential," I said to Chris.

"But she needs training," he replied.

"There're a lot of gods of time, but none for comedy," I
volleyed.

"We can petition to have her reassigned," he offered.

"But only if she can do the job."

"It's a difficult job, but I'm sure she's up to it."

"'Skuld Punchline-maker'. What do you think?"

"Mm. Could work."

"You think your boss will go for it?"

"He does like a good joke..."

"Talk about comedy," Skuld groused. "*You two* sound like a
stand-up team." She looked like she couldn't decide whether to
laugh or snarl.

I flicked an amused look over at Chris. "So, who's on first?"

He didn't miss a beat. "What's on second?"

"I don't know!" I zinged back.

"Third base!" we crowed together, and started laughing. Skuld
looked disgusted at first, but the laughter was infectious, and
it took only a few seconds before she was giggling with us again.
It was a good, comfortable group laughter, the kind you share
with friends.

It took a minute or so for us to settle back down, with only the
occasional snicker. Chris, who had laughed perhaps the most of
the three of us when he saw that Skuld had joined the fun, rubbed
his eyes. "Whoa," he grunted. "Overdid it some there, I'm a bit
woozy."

Skuld's eyebrows shot up and her smile vanished. "Woozy,
'Niichan?"

He grimaced, still rubbing. "Yeaahh... like I just stood up too
fast. Laughed too hard, I guess. I..." He stopped short,
dropped his hand, shook his head, and blinked his eyes several
times as if trying to clear them. "I..." he tried again. "...I
feel weird."

"Oh, no..." Skuld breathed.

I shot a glance at her. "'Oh, no'?"

"'S nothing..." Chris continued, his voice slurring slightly. I
was already turning and reaching for him when he added, "I..."
and his eyes snapped open wide. I barely had time to catch his
shoulders and keep him from cracking his head on the floor as his
body went stiff and started convulsing violently. Skuld was
there at his side barely a moment after me. I laid him down as
gently as I could before the force of his gyrations tore him out
of my hands, and stepped back, helpless in the face of what
looked like a grand mal epileptic seizure.

"Megumi!" Skuld bellowed as she tried to cradle Chris's wildly-
shaking head in her arms. There was a palpable pulse of power in
her voice. "Get Belldandy! Now!"

* * *

Megumi most expressly did *not* whistle while she worked under
normal circumstances, but these were *not* normal circumstances.
The precision machining task that Skuld had set her to was both
critical to the rebuild and a challenge to her skills, but she
was meeting it with a glee that she'd only barely felt in
previous projects. *This, *this* is what it means to serve
Technology,* she realized. *To build the future with my bare
hands and the tools of a master.*

She glanced over to the center of the shop, where Skuld, Chris
and Doug were seated on the floor, laughing, as they surrounded
the still-skeletal frame of what was going to be the most
advanced motorcycle in the world.

She smiled at that thought. The most advanced motorcycle in the
world.

And *she* was building it.

Well, part of it.

Still smiling, she turned her attention back to the wave guides
Skuld had asked her to fabricate. She was still roughing this
one out, but in a minute or two she'd have to pay special
attention to make sure it came out exactly right.

She was intently concentrating on the delicate work at hand when
Skuld's voice suddenly rang in her ears, impossibly cutting right
through the acoustic field, the howl of the lathe, and the
professional-grade ear protectors she wore.

"Megumi! Get Belldandy! Now!"

As if Skuld's voice had hooked directly into her nervous system,
Megumi found herself involuntarily spinning away from the lathe,
the cutting tool in her hand sending up a shriek of protest as it
sliced across the once-pristine perfection of the half-formed
wave guide, leaving behind a coiling length of spall and a
hideous gouge. On its own, one of her hands reached out and
slapped the lathe's huge red emergency shut-off button as the
other ripped off her the hearing protectors. The next thing she
knew, Megumi found herself dashing around the motorcycle and out
the door. Something had been going on -- out of the corner of her
eye she had seen Chris laying on the floor shaking and writhing --
but she couldn't stop to look, because all that mattered to her
was getting to the house and finding Belldandy.

Once in the sun she sprinted full speed across the yard and flung
herself into the house. Belldandy was in the kitchen, Megumi
knew it almost instinctively, and she skidded to a halt at the
door. "Bell!" she gasped. "Workshop. Skuld needs you. Sent
me," she added between heaving, panting breaths.

"Oh my!" Belldandy laid down the knife she'd had in hand, and
immediately stepped to Megumi's side. Graceful, delicate fingers
gently touched her face. "You have served your mistress well,
Megumi," Belldandy whispered. "Rest now."

Exhaustion suddenly flooded her body as Belldandy swept past her,
and Megumi collapsed, clinging desperately to the doorjamb in an
effort to remain vertical. For the first time since Skuld's
voice had... "grabbed her brain" was the only way she could
describe it -- for the first time since then, she could actually
*think* of something other than finding Belldandy.

*Skuld gave me an order.* The thought ran through her brain as
she slowly brought her breathing under control. *And it just...
*took me over*. I had no choice, I was just... executing her
command. Automatically. Until Belldandy released me.* For the
first time she truly realized what the goddesses and Chris had
meant about losing some of her free will.

Suddenly it didn't seem as though she'd made that great a deal
after all.

* * *

Megumi was out of the shop like a shot, and a short eternity of
convulsions later Belldandy showed up, dashing through the door
in a way that somehow blended worried haste and utter graceful
serenity in a single efficient pace. A panicked-looking Urd was
right behind her, which was fortunate because it took all three
of the goddesses working together to stop -- or at least calm --
Chris's seizures.

I was expecting that they'd tap me to carry the big lug back to
his bed, but I was pleasantly surprised when they levitated him
instead. I trailed along behind and at the door I met up with
Megumi, now devoid of her ear protectors and goggles. She looked
a little freaked out and more than a little shaky. Having felt
the power in Skuld's voice when she'd told the older girl to get
Bell, I figured I had a good idea why she was disturbed.

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked, her eyes following the
floating Canadian down the hallway.

"I don't know. We'll have to ask the girls." I offered a
supporting arm, and wrapped it around her shoulders when she
accepted. I was momentarily surprised to realize how tiny she
really was -- the top of her head barely reached my shoulder.
Together we continued onwards to Chris's room, arriving just in
time to see Urd cast a spell that swapped his clothes for sleep
wear. (One tiny, snarky corner of my mind was far from surprised
that Urd had such a spell in her repertoire.) Then they
levitated him into the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

The goddesses then each took a turn kissing Chris's forehead
before quietly slipping out of the room. To my utter surprise,
Megumi wriggled out from under my arm and added her own, before
staggering back to reclaim my support.

Before the goddesses closed the door behind them, I got a glance
at his face -- he looked peaceful, like he'd simply fallen asleep.
For all I knew he *was* asleep by now. I hoped he was.

A few minutes later I was seated at the low table in the dining
room. Megumi, still shaken from what I could tell, had chosen to
sit on the engawa and after seeing to it that she was okay, I
went back in. I found the goddesses all in their accustomed
places, with fresh cups of tea in front of them, tea Belldandy
could *not* possibly have had time to prepare.

A fourth was placed at my usual seat. I nodded at the implicit
invitation and dropped down onto the cushion. I wrapped my
fingers around the little ceramic cup, letting near-painful heat
of the tea seep into my hands.

"So," I said after a few minutes of the kind of silence you find
in hospital waiting rooms. "What was *that* all about?"

After a moment's hesitation, and a shared glance between the
sisters, Belldandy told me.

It took her nearly ten minutes.

"You've got to be shitting me," I said when she was done, despite
her oath to me. "You *can not* be serious."

"We're very serious," Belldandy said gravely. "This is as things
are, and as they must be."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. "<I'll take your
word for it, Scarlett, ma'am,>" I said in English. "But trust
me, every time I learn something more about the life and habits
of the gods, it just gets stranger and stranger."

She smiled, a little sadly I thought, even as Urd snickered and
Skuld emitted a brief little giggle. "If you think so,"
Belldandy said. "But you must admit, mortals sometimes look
almost as strange to us."

"But most of the time, we don't get the chance to sample your
side of things," I pointed out, involuntarily glancing in the
direction of Chris's room.

"True enough," she replied, nodding. She paused a moment, then
went on in a softer voice. "I would ask you to give me your oath
not to speak of this -- to Chris or anyone else -- until it's
complete."

I hardly thought about it before I answered, "I so swear."

It was only because it was Belldandy asking, of course.

* * *

Monday, May 26, 1997, 6:14 PM

I'm not sure exactly what the three of them had done to Chris,
but he woke up the next morning completely fine, and completely
unaware that he'd lost an entire day. I'm not sure how his mind
handled that -- and I didn't question him at all for fear of
messing up whatever delicate balancing act Belldandy and the
others were performing with his mental state. While he seemed to
acknowledge that there *had* been a Sunday, he didn't seem to
know or want to dwell on what might have happened therein, and
switched immediately and seamlessly to any other topic at hand.

If I hadn't known what was going on, I'd probably have been
furious at what was clearly mental manipulation. But as
improbable as it seemed, Belldandy had sworn blood-oath to tell
me Truth, so I had to trust her description of the problem and
the needfulness of what they were doing.

But, brother! What a way to run a railroad!

Accepting the truth of what she told me, and not worrying about
it, those were two different things, though. I spent the hour or
so between getting home and dinnertime on Monday sitting on the
engawa just turning the whole ferkokter mess over and over in my
head. Mind you, I wasn't looking for an out to the oath I made
to Belldandy. I was just trying to find some kind of sense in it
all.

I couldn't find any.

I really hate the word "ineffable". As far as I'm concerned,
it's the ultimate weasel-word, a cop-out for people who don't
want to explain something, and don't want you to question their
lack of explanation. The very concept that something is beyond
human understanding offends me in a way that few things or people
ever have. But it was looking more and more like the only thing
to call the reasoning behind what Chris was going through.

Either that, or Chris's Boss was a 24-karat lunatic.

Or both.

So there I was, on the Group W bench... Sorry, I mean, there I
was on the engawa, trying not to blow any (more) mental circuit
breakers, and basking in the enticing scents starting to drift
out of the kitchen. I was just starting to give up on useless
theological speculation for the evening when I heard it.

An Ami-Rachel argument.

About two blocks away and approaching fast, judging from the
volume.

I groaned and dragged my hand down my face. Chris *so* didn't
need their shit right now, even if he didn't know it.

* * *

Rachel and Ami both paused for breath as they pushed open the
gate and stepped into the temple yard. They glared at each
other, more out of force of habit than for any actual reason, as
the stepped through together almost in lockstep.

Behind them, the gate slammed shut, and the wooden latch fell
into place with its distinctive clatter.

"Do you two do this crap *all* the time?" came an irritated male
voice from behind them. Rachel yelped in surprise, and Ami spun
about, her fists clenched.

Behind them, leaning against the wall next to the gate with his
arms crossed and one knee bent to put a booted foot up against
the stone, was Doug Sangnoir. "I mean, *really,*" he continued.
"It's annoying, tedious, *and* unattractive." He wearily pushed
off from the wall and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I mean,
yes, you guys have a bum deal, and yes, it sucks, and yes, you
don't like it."

"What do you *you* know about it, huh?" Ami demanded.

"Yeah!" Rachel added. They shot each other a momentary nasty
look.

He tilted his head and gave them a look that clearly said, "are
you idiots or what?" "I know *everything* about it. None of you
three were all that reticent about telling me, remember?"

Ami unclenched her fists and reached up to rub the back of her
neck. "Oh, yeah, right."

"Look," Doug said softly, fatigue in his voice suddenly plain.
"Can I give you guys a little advice?"

Ami fixed him with a suspicious look. "What's that?"

Doug sighed. "It's suggestions offered by one person to another
in an attempt to be helpful, but that's not important right now.
You told me that you two are stuck until you either give up or
Chris makes a choice, right?"

"Right," Rachel said, trading brief glares with Ami.

"Okay." He rubbed his eyes. "Try being, if not friends, at
least *civil* to each other. From my privileged outsider's point
of view, your mutual sniping just irritates him. He's not going
to pick either of you if he's irritated at *both* of you, you
know."

"I suppose," Ami grudgingly admitted, and Rachel echoed her.

"But!" He held up a finger. "Don't go all the way in the other
direction by trying some stupid sitcom 'who can be nicer'
competition. That's going to irritate him just as much, because
he's going to see it's exactly the same behavior, only with fake
smiles pasted over it. Just... treat each other with a little
respect, and try to leave the other person with the dignity you
would like them to leave you with."

"Well, that's all well and good until he decides," Rachel
grumbled. "Then what good is dignity?"

"It means less pain," Doug said gently. "It means you at least
won't have to suffer a twist of the knife if you lose. And maybe
you get to keep two friends afterwards.

"Then again..." he added thoughtfully. "Tell me, girls, do
either of you know anything about Boolean algebra?"

They shared a glance of mutual puzzlement at the radical change
in subject. "A little," Rachel admitted. "From a programming
course I took."

Doug nodded. "Then you know the difference between XOR and OR,
right?"

"Sure! XOR is 'exclusive or' -- A or B but not both. And OR
is..." Her eyes suddenly widened and she started shaking her
head. "Oh, no. Oh, no no no..."

"'Oh no' what?" Ami demanded. "What's he talking about?"

"No!" Rachel shouted. "No way!"

Doug shrugged. "It's possible."

"What is?" Ami asked in growing agitation.

Rachel pointed to her. "I'm *not* sharing!"

Ami's eyebrows shot up into her hair. "*What*?" she shrieked.

"There are two different kinds of 'OR' in computer programming,
*and* in language," Doug explained calmly. "One that allows only
for one alternative or the other, and one that allows for either
alternative -- or *both* together. From what you've told me of
Belldandy's analysis of the wish, it seems to me that you've got
a simple OR situation here, not an XOR. You," he pointed at
Rachel, "might be Chris's true love. Or *you*," he swung his
hand to point at Ami, "might be it. *Or*," and he raised both
hands to point at the two of them simultaneously, "you *both*
might be his true loves together."

He winced at the resulting dual shriek of outrage, and waited
patiently for the flood of objections and accusations to subside
somewhat. "Look," he finally said. "If it *is* both of you,
that doesn't require that you two feel *anything* for one
another, since it's *his* feelings that are the linchpin. But
wouldn't it be better if you were at least polite to each other?
It would make *him* happier, and presumably, his happiness is
important to you.

"And as far as sharing him is concerned, isn't half a happiness
better than no happiness at all?"

Then he frowned. "On the other hand, if you want to be *really*
self-centered about it, it's entirely possible that until the
situation is resolved, the two of you are effectively immortal.
And since you both have to be around for that, wouldn't it make
things better for everyone -- not the least *yourselves* -- if
you were on good terms with each other between now and the end of
time?"

* * *

They walked off together quietly, both looking to be deep in
thought. I found that a little surprising -- I would have
thought that surely *someone* must have brought *some* of those
points up to them before, but apparently not.

I wondered what would have happened if I'd mentioned my final
speculation -- that the two of them acted more like squabbling
best friends than rivals who hated each other's guts.

They probably would have killed me.

There's only so much truth the human mind can handle, after all.

Still, whatever that wish *really* did in the long term, it
*would* be better if they were friends -- or at least polite to
each other -- through it all.

In the mean time, I now had at least some hope that they would
stop screeching endlessly at each other. That was sufficient
payoff for meddling, as far as I was concerned. Playing the part
of the all-knowing grandfatherly advisor was *so* not my style,
and I intended to do as little of it as possible. Except, of
course, when it made my life easier or a little more pleasant.

* * *

As soon as they were out of sight and earshot of Sangnoir, Rachel
and Ami shared a glance and a nod, and went into a huddle. Their
conversation was marked by a quiet, serious intensity thoroughly
unlike their usual interactions.

After a brief but furious discussion there was a pause followed
by a round of jan-ken-pow followed by another shared nod, and
then they shook hands. Had there been an observer nearby, he
would have noted oddly identical expressions of mixed reluctance
and determination on both their faces.

* * *

Chris glared at the lawnmower, and went over the checklist in his
mind. *New spark plug. Done. Drain last year's oil and fill
reservoir with new. Check. Top off gas tank. Duh.* He half-
heartedly kicked one of the large wheels at the back of the
mower, then double-checked the throttle for the fifth time. "Why
the fnord won't you start?" he growled.

"Oh, Chriiiis..." two familiar voices sang out with a surprising
harmony. Chris's danger senses pinged and he shot up straight
from where he had been studying the recalcitrant four-stroke
engine. Spinning in place, he spied Ami and Rachel approaching
him, in perfect step with each other and wearing broad, inviting
smiles.

And not a word of argument between them. No snide comments, no
snipes, no veiled insults. Just a pair of smiles aimed at him.

*DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!* a little voice blared at the back of his
brain as Ami latched on to his left arm and Rachel his right. To
his shock and enjoyment, he found himself pinned firmly between
two sets of generous endowments.

"To..." he started, but his throat was suddenly dry. He stopped,
swallowed several times, and tried again. "To what do I owe the
pleasure of your company, ladies?" He hoped it sounded
nonchalant and relaxed, but to his ears it just seemed incredibly
lame.

"We're asking you out on a date," Rachel breathed into his right
ear.

"You're... what?" he stammered.

"Both of us," Ami murmured into his left.

"At the same time," Rachel clarified.

"We'll go dutch, of course," Ami continued.

"Can't expect you to cover two dates at once."

"So we'll pay our own ways."

"Friday night."

"Dinner at seven."

"Movie at nine."

"We'll come by to pick you up at six-thirty."

"Got it, loverboy?" Rachel punctuated this with a playful lick
of his ear.

Chris's higher brain functions had already short-circuited; all
he could do was nod and stammer, "S-s-s-sure."

"Great!" A small hand was laid against his cheek and gently
turned his face to Rachel's. "We'll see you then." She kissed
him, softly but with obvious passion.

Another hand laid against the opposite cheek and turned him to
face Ami. "Dress nice," she said and kissed him with an almost
identical blend of passion and gentleness.

Then, as if they had rehearsed it, they stepped away from him,
turned and walked off -- once again in step with each other,
their hips and derrieres swinging and rolling in perfect,
delightful unison. A few meters away they stopped, put their
heads together for a moment, giggled, and turned to wave at him.

"Bai-bai!" they chorused, then giggled again before resuming
their slow, deliberate exit around the house.

Chris stood, stunned into silence, until he heard the temple gate
slam shut. He blinked, took a long breath, and then murmured,
"And I thought they were scary when they were *fighting*."

* * *

Out on the sidewalk, as the gate banged shut behind them, Ami
drew a deep breath and risked a glance at Rachel. Her heart, she
was surprised to note, was pounding as though she'd just finished
the department fitness course.

She found that Rachel was looking at her, wearing an uncertain
expression that Ami was sure mirrored the one on her own face.

"So," she said as a passer-by glared at them and stepped around
the pair.

"So," Rachel echoed.

Nothing else was said for several long seconds.

"We need to decide where we're taking him, you realize." Ami was
surprised to hear herself speaking.

Rachel nodded slowly. "Want to discuss it over dinner? I know a
good ramen place near my dorm."

Ami nodded, and surprised herself further by smiling at her
rival. "Sounds good. Let's do it."

Rachel smiled back. "Cool. C'mon, it's this way." Without
thinking about it, the college student grabbed the police
officer's hand, and led her down the street. Without thinking
about it, the police officer let her.

* * *

Friday, May 30, 1997, 6:41 PM

I think I must have forgotten the simple but fulfilling pleasure
that comes from doing what you love at a job you like.

Don't get me wrong. I have no regrets about being a Warrior.
I'm needed, I'm good at what I do -- one of the best, in fact --
and I like to think that my actions in the Warriors made my home
Earth a better place overall.

But when the battle's over, when the bad guys are dead or locked
up, at the end of the day, I'm not a cop or a soldier or -- god
help me -- a hero. I'm an engineer. That's the career I chose
for myself, it's what I studied very hard at a very prestigious
university to learn. And it's something I love to do. I love
the thrill of creating something, whether it's a machine or a
program, that fulfills its purpose with efficiency and elegance,
that I can admire when I'm done. I love solving problems and
turning the solutions into things that other people can use.

Which is why I was coming home a bit late that Friday night.

I'd been almost an hour overtime at Dr. Morozumi's lab, not
because he was a slave driver (although some of the other
assistants called him as much behind his back), but because I was
hip-deep in a challenging robotics problem. This might be a
surprise, because with the difference in the state of the art
between Homeline and this world you would think that there
wouldn't be a problem Morozumi could throw at me that I didn't
already have an answer to. You'd be right -- mostly -- but it
wasn't finding the *answer* that was the challenge. It was
implementing the solution I knew using only local materials and
methods, and *without* letting my touch-enchantment "help" any.
*That* was testing me, pushing me.

And I was enjoying the hell out of it. So much so that I lost
track of time a little.

Of course, as soon as I saw that it was quarter after six, I shut
down and cleaned up and made a break for the door. No way was I
going to miss Belldandy's cooking.

Mama Sangnoir's favorite son is *not* stupid.

I skidded to a halt a few blocks away from the temple, though,
when I turned a corner and saw a sight that stopped me cold:
Chris arm-in-arm-in-arm with *both* of his bookends. And wonder
of wonders, he wasn't trapped in the middle of a fight between
the two of them. Rachel and Ami were, as far as I could tell at
that distance, being reasonably courteous to each other, and
actually smiled and laughed together once as I watched.

*Holy shit.* I was truly and honestly stunned. *They actually
took my advice.* I'd been hoping they'd at least try to be
friendly, but this was *way* beyond anything I'd expected. As
the three of them closed the distance between us, I forced the
surprise down and schooled my face into an honestly pleased
expression. "Chris," I said, nodding a greeting when they got
close enough, "Ladies. Going out for the evening, I take it?"

Chris turned a smile of mixed confusion and pleasure (leavened
with just the tiniest amount of dread) upon me. "We are on a
double date," he declared. "The three of us," he added
unnecessarily.

"Well then, have a good time," I smiled broadly, "and do not
allow me to delay you any further." I made a broad, sweeping bow
to usher them on their way.

"Thank you, kind sir," Ami said with mock solemnity as they
passed, and then the two girls broke out into giggles. Ah, young
love.

As I straightened up, I called after them, "Enjoy yourselves!
I'd say don't do anything I wouldn't do, but you're already well
past me on that count."

That got me more giggles and a bark of laughter from Chris as
they continued on down the street. I stood and watched them for
a few minutes, then turned back towards the temple and dinner,
and took off again, my face threatening to split wide with the
grin I was wearing.

* * *

One block west of and three hundred feet above the temple
complex, Mara sat in a rough approximation of seiza and fumed.
"What kind of penny-ante operation is Garnash running?" she
growled into the brisk wind, which would have chilled her had she
been mortal. As it was, all it did was whip her hair into a
frenzied mass that she tried to ignore as long as it didn't get
into her eyes or mouth. "*Ten damned days* for a wardbreaker!
They ought to be *stockpiled*!"

They probably were, she realized, but Garnash was a little prick,
liking to play his dominance games. He was probably sitting
there in his tiny, run-down office in Niflheim, getting off on
giving her a hard time, just because he could. "That's the
problem with working for Hell," she growled through gritted
teeth. "Everyone's just looking for a chance to screw everyone
else!"

Including her, to be absolutely honest. Garnash was only getting
even for the last time she screwed *him* over, which had snagged
Mara her plum assignment on Earth right out of his scaly little
hands. Of *course* he'd want to screw with her requisitions,
just to make her life harder.

Like it wasn't hard enough.

At least disco had been dead for almost fifteen years now, thank
the Pit. She was never going to forgive Garnash for *that* one.
Hues Corporation, her ass. She knew a demon-backed recording act
when she saw one. Without even leaving Hell, Garnash had managed
to set in motion with one hit song no less than three social
trends that benefitted their side, *and* made her life a misery
for most of a decade. *Someday... someday...*

Mara ground her teeth and seethed. She hated waiting. She hated
playing politics. She hated having to fight her way through
Garnash's little vendettas just to get her job done. It was
killing her inside. She needed to vent. Just walking among the
animals and ruining their days wasn't enough any more -- after
her run-in with Morisato's sister it seemed like all the joy had
drained out of it. She needed something new, something big,
something...

Something like that blasted mage, who was coming down the street.
Coming down the street without so much as a shield spell up and
nary an item of enchantment on him.

A thin, evil smile slowly spread across Mara's face. He was so
complacent and undefended that he was practically *inviting* an
attack.

It would be terribly bad manners to turn down an invitation, now
wouldn't it?

* * *

I was only about ten meters from the temple gate when it
happened.

Back home, the metabiologists call it "class 1 post-natal
acquired precognition". We in the Warriors just call it a
"danger sense". Sooner or later everyone on the team develops
one.

And at that moment mine popped up for the first time in a while,
tapped me on the mental shoulder, and said, quite simply, "duck."

Not being in the habit of ignoring my danger sense, I ducked.

Hell, I dropped flat to the ground.

An energy bolt screamed over me, about where my chest had been to
judge by the sound and the heat it radiated. It hit the wards
around the temple with a sound like a thrown rock hitting a water
tower, and they flared momentarily into visibility, all glowing
white arcs, Norse runes, Enochian characters and binary code.

Somewhere overhead a female voice -- a *familiar* female voice --
swore in a language I didn't know.

*Shit,* I thought even as I rolled onto my back and kippupped in
time to avoid a second bolt sizzling past me. *It's Mara.* And
there I was without helmet or armor or *anything* -- just my bare
hands and my oft-maligned wits.

I didn't even consider calling for help. The muffling effect of
the wards was enough to all but block out nearby traffic noise;
my voice didn't stand a chance. I was on my own.

"Shit," I repeated out loud. I tracked the bolts' trajectory
back and spotted her, hovering a good 15 or 20 meters in the air.
I ran a quick tactical evaluation.

Weird. This was a demon first class, unlimited? Really? Had to
be that power-down thing Belldandy had mentioned, because I was
pretty sure I could take this bitch out all by myself.

Right, then. Time to use some of my time-honored strategies.

"Marie! Sweetie honey BAY-bee!" I called up, ducking another
bolt as it zorched by. "You're not still mad about that lunch,
are you? Honest, I didn't mean to stick you with the check!"

"I'll give you a check!" she shrieked, and rained down a torrent
of smaller energy blasts upon me. I dodged and rolled, and when
I came back up on my feet again, I realized ruefully that she'd
cleverly herded me away from the temple gate. I glanced up over
my shoulder at the walls, but that option was closed to me, I
knew -- the wards were keyed to allow entry only through the
gate; trying to vault over them would have zapped me just as
thoroughly as it would have her. Industrial strength magical
protection -- gotta love it, except when it screws your life up.

"Oh, great! How much? Because I've got rent due in a couple of
days!" I couldn't dodge forever, though. I needed to get her
into hand-to-hand range, then I could beat her down long enough
to dash through the gate. I quickly scanned the ground for a
rock or something else I could throw. No dice. The Japanese
keep their streets too clean.

Dammit.

Double dammit, because she took advantage of my momentary
distraction to lob another levinbolt at me, and this one I didn't
see in time to dodge. I threw myself back anyway and resisted
the urge to wince at the anticipated pain, and was pleasantly
surprised when it hit my field and simply fizzled out with a
long, low farting whistle, kind of like a deflating balloon.

Mara's eyes grew wide for a moment, and then she shrieked to high
heaven. She seemed to swirl in place for a moment before hurling
herself down, hands outstretched into claws before her as she
stooped like a hawk at me.

Well, I'd wanted her to get within arm's reach...

Tactical had suggested no real hand-to-hand skills. Couple that
with what looked like a monumental, almost mindless rage now
consuming her, I realized that what was coming next wasn't going
to be pretty.

Easy, yes, but not pretty.

I batted her hands away from my neck with my left forearm, and
drove my right fist into her face with the combined power of her
momentum and my strength. I heard and felt a muffled crack just
as I followed up with a full-force palm-thrust into the center of
her chest. She was still flying, and the rapid one-two
combination to targets well over her center of gravity not only
knocked her backwards, but literally flipped her ass-over-
teakettle a couple times before she plowed shoulders-first into
the sidewalk across the street.

Shaking out my stinging hands, I used all the speed I had to dash
across that street before she could get back up. I gave myself a
split-second to check out my handiwork -- she had a broken nose,
and it was bleeding out all over her face -- before I delivered
as hard a kick as I could into her ribs. I felt something snap
under my toes, and she shrieked, this time in pain rather than
anger, as the impact lifted her partly off the ground.

* * *

In her lab Urd paused, a beaker in one hand, a pipette in the
other, as an unfamiliar sound reached her ears. A soft, rhythmic
tapping, gentle at first but slowly growing more insistent, was
coming from... somewhere.

She laid down the implements of her craft, took care to bank the
various burners and capped the more volatile reagents she had
been using. Then she turned away from the workbench, eyes closed
and head cocked, trying to locate the source of the sound.

It couldn't be any kind of vermin -- they stayed away from the
whole complex at Belldandy's request. Urd briefly considered the
possibility that an imp like Mara's flunky Senbei might somehow
have gotten in, but with the wards running at a level they had
never seen before, it was a virtual impossibility.

Slowly she crossed to the center of the outbuilding that served
as her lab, and listened carefully, trying to identify the
direction the soft, repetitive "thud, thud" came from.

* * *

I'm certain I've mentioned elsewhere how I feel about demons, but
let me just reiterate it so that the hypothetical reader of these
journals can understand. They're celestial creatures that prey
upon mortal suffering, and who do everything they can to
*increase* that suffering. They're sadists, predators. Scum.

I hate them, pure and simple.

Combine that with the stress I was still feeling despite the
recent improvements in my life, and I suppose it would adequately
explain why I'd completely forgotten my plan to run inside the
temple as soon as I'd gotten a momentary respite in the fight.
Instead, I dropped to my knees to straddle Mara's torso, and
began pounding her face in. Not as hard as I could -- without my
gloves and their polykev plates I could conceivably break my
fingers if I used too much force -- but hard enough that I
smashed her already-broken nose flat, and possibly broken one or
both of her cheekbones. Her face was already starting to swell,
and blood had smeared all over it, running into her blond curls
and staining them deep crimson-brown.

It was a savage beating I gave her, savage and uncontrolled. All
my anger, all my frustration, all my fear and hate and despair
welled up out of me and I pounded them all into the demon's face,
one furious blow after another.

"How do you like that?" I grunted between hits. All the while
she was hissing and spitting at me, sounds of pain but not of
surrender. "How does it feel to be the victim?" Flesh smashed
against flesh. "How does it feel to be the helpless one?"
Again.

She was trying to worm her hands up toward her face. I brushed
them aside with each strike. "And here I thought you would be
tough!" Her hands slid past mine and covered her ears, where a
pair of complicated little earrings hung and jingled merrily with
every one of my blows. "So much for the fearsome demon first
class!"

And at that moment she screamed as she tore the earrings right
out of the lobes of her ears.

Well, the next thing I knew, a plasma grenade went off in my
face, and sent me flying. I hit something *hard*, and my sight
blacked out.

When I could see again, a few moments later, I found myself in a
heap at the base of the temple wall, the sidewalk beneath me
swimming and filling my somewhat-blurry vision. Out of the
corner of my eye I could see a blob of familiar color that could
only be the front gate. *How nice of her to deliver me right to
the door,* I thought muzzily.

I shook my head a couple times and slowly forced myself to look
up.

On the ground where Mara had been were the earrings, sitting in a
drying puddle of blood.

An almost entirely uninjured Mara floated a meter or so above
them cloaked in fire, the two slashes of red on her forehead
blazing like the heart of a furnace. Insane rage twisted her
face into something inhuman. Her shredded earlobes were the only
visible wounds left on her body; they were streaming blood that
sizzled and vanished in little black flames.

Shit.

My mental fuzz burned away under a surge of panic-driven
adrenaline. Suddenly clear-minded, I ran another tactical on
her.

*Double* shit.

Belldandy had mentioned "limiters" in discussing Chris' little
problem; I realized too late that Mara's earrings had been
limiters, suppressing the full extent of her power. Now I was
finally, truly, looking upon a demon first class. Now I saw the
opposition I had been expecting.

Not that I was happy about it, mind you. The last time I'd faced
an enemy of that power level, I'd been part of an eight-person
dogpile, and I only managed to get one hit in. Worse, one-
quarter of that dogpile had been Hexe and Shockwave, two of the
most powerful single individuals on Earth at the time.

By myself? Well, the best I could hope for was to last long
enough for the goddesses to notice what was going on outside
their front door and come to my rescue.

And that was going to be a longshot.

An irreverent part of my mind whispered, *She's going to take you
apart. This is what you get for not controlling your temper.*

I did not deign to remind that part of my mind that she had
attacked first. Instead, I hunkered down and set myself to
receive her charge as she screamed and hurled herself at me
again, her hands streaming fire and the ground under her rippling
and cracking from the wake of her passage.

* * *

As Urd followed the banging across her shop, it grew louder and
more insistent, leading her to the wooden box of junk Skuld had
brought from Asgard weeks before, still carelessly perched on the
end of her secondary worktable.

She stopped an arm's length away from the box, tilted her head
and eyed it suspiciously. "Now what's gotten into you?" she
muttered, and reached for it.

With a *crack* the box exploded into a shower of wooden shards
and random flotsam. Urd flinched back with a wordless cry,
unharmed but more than a little startled. The agitated banging
had stopped, and bits of junk -- a fractured gem, a broken
cogwheel, a dozen or two other items of random divine kipple --
lay scattered on the floor in a fan-shaped pattern whose narrow
end started below the now-broken box, and whose wide end was
defined by one of the lab's exterior walls.

A wall, Urd realized when she looked up, that now had a neat,
round, 2.5-centimeter-wide hole punched into it.

A sudden foreboding ran through her body like a chill, and she
dashed out into the yard.

* * *

CRACK!

Belldandy nearly dropped a saucepan when a sound like a gunshot
went off in her kitchen, followed by a wind that set the pages of
her cookbook frantically fluttering.

* * *

CRACK!

Keiichi threw himself backwards as a gust of wind went past and
the seat was torn off his motorcycle. Eyes wide, he slowly
raised and studied the sheared-off stub of the carbon steel
wrench he held in his hand.

* * *

CRACK!

In the temple yard, Skuld yelped as a shockwave knocked her off
her feet.

* * *

CRACK!

Megumi dropped the circuit probe and clamped her hands over her
ears as a cannon-shot rang out across the temple yard, vainly
trying to block out the far louder Symphonic reverberations that
assailed her: drowning out all the other themes around her for a
moment were a dozen voices howling their agony to the skies -- in
perfect, heartbreakingly beautiful harmony.

* * *

Just before the stone wall surrounding the temple, it struck the
wards.

They flared white for an instant, then shattered.

* * *

It all happened too quickly at the time. It wasn't until much
later that I slowed all the action down in my mind and figured
out what occurred when.

Mara was coming at me like a meteor -- and I mean that literally.
She'd all but turned into a creature of living flame, barely
humanoid, flying at me again with arms outstretched. Her face
had warped and distorted into something animalistic, its fanged
maw open like a shark's.

She was little more than a meter from me when there was a crack
like a miniature blast of thunder simultaneous with a sound like
a sledgehammer smashing a boulder. As what felt like sand and
gravel pelted me from behind, something slapped into the palm of
my hand. Reflexively, my fingers closed on it -- it felt to be
about the same size and shape as the hilt of my bokuto, and I
squeezed my hand tight around it. I felt a pulse of energy
ripple through me like a wave of heat.

And then two thoughts rang out in my mind at the same time:

*Mine!*/*Mine!*

One of those thoughts came from me.

One of them didn't.

Almost reflexively, I flicked my eyes down toward my fist. In it
I was holding a cylinder of wood, warm and smooth, a couple-three
centimeters across and no more than 15 or so centimeters long. I
barely had time to recognize the tsubo stick from Urd's lab
before there was a sound like a branch breaking. As if spring-
loaded, those 15 centimeters of wood exploded out into a two-
meter quarterstaff, with my hand at its exact midpoint. One end
had buried itself in the ground, and the other...

The other had punched into Mara's chest just below her left
breast, and jutted out of her back just under her shoulder.
Unable to stop her headlong flight at me in time, she had
skewered herself on it like a charging cavalryman upon a set
pike. Her flame-beast form guttered like a candle in a strong
breeze and the fire vanished as her arms dropped limply to her
sides. Left behind was a blood-soaked blonde whose eyes, wide
with shock, slowly traced the line of the staff from my hand all
the way up to her chest.

She opened her mouth, and a small trickle of blood ran from one
corner. "Oh," she rasped in a near-whisper, "hell..."

There was a faint sizzling sound, and I looked at the entry
point. For a moment, I thought I saw something like golden
sparks crackling around the edges of the wound, but I blinked and
they were gone.

Behind me, I heard the gates of the temple burst open with a
rattle, but I paid it no heed. With a sudden, graceless yank I
pulled the staff up and then out of her body. Mara, her eyes
still wide, fell to her knees with a cry of pain, and clapped a
hand over the gaping hole in her chest.

I brought the staff up to my eyes and for several seconds studied
its plain, uncapped shaft of pale cream-colored wood, down which
ran rivulets of black blood. A faint glimmer of orange-golden
light limned the end of the staff and extended thirty centimeters
or more beyond -- a long, flat, pointed shape like a spectral
spearhead.

Interesting.

As the wounded demon at my feet mewled in pain, I shifted my grip
to hold the staff with both hands, aimed the ghostly point back
at Mara, and raised the weapon over my head in order to deliver
the coup-de-grace.

* * *

Chris settled into his seat and made himself comfortable. The
girls' plan for the evening was simple -- dinner and a movie.
Dinner itself was simple -- a small, informal restaurant on the
far side of the street that marked the eastern edge of the NIT
campus. It was a step up from a ramen joint or a kissaten, but
not so much so that Rachel's share of dinner would strain her
college student's budget.

Rachel and Ami sat on the opposite side of the table from him,
chatting animatedly about the movie choices for the evening. He
wanted to shake his head in disbelief, but limited himself to a
bemused smile -- he'd never seen the two girls acting like, well,
like *friends* before. It was a pleasant change, and Chris hoped
that it wasn't just an elaborate act put on for his benefit.

*If it is, it's a freakin' good act,* he thought, then watched as
a minor disagreement between the two girls nearly launched one of
their usual arguments -- only to have both girls back off and
control their tempers with visible exertions of willpower. *No,
not an act -- something they're working at.* He nodded
approvingly. *If they can keep this up...*

He never finished the thought -- a sensation stole over him, one
that he'd felt only a few times before. "Oh, no," he muttered.
"Not now!"

Across the table, both Rachel and Ami had gone quiet and were
staring at him, their faces pale with sudden worry.

He felt his Full Manifestation surge its way forward through his
mind and take control, shoving him to the back of his own head
even as he railed at it from within.

"Marller!" it whispered, and stopped time.

* * *

"Marller!" Chris whispered, and vanished from the table.

"Marller?" Rachel turned to Ami with a mystified look. "Who the
hell is Marller?"

"I don't know and I don't care," Ami spat as she began gathering
up her belongings. "Let's just get to the temple!"

"The temple? Why the temple?" Rachel demanded.

Ami gave her a half-lidded look of disgust. "When is it ever
*not* the temple?"

Rachel closed her eyes and grimaced. "Right. Stupid question."

* * *

The one advantage his travel medium gave him over most of the
other gods, Chris mused as his body shot across the Nekomi sky
under the control of his Full Manifestation, is that he never
teleported cold into an unknown situation -- or worse, a
crossfire. Arriving in a timestop allowed him to study his
destination as though it were a wax museum diorama and work up a
plan or two for dealing with things once he released time to its
normal flow again. Of course, that sometimes meant he had to
guess at who was doing what to whom, and why, but his intuition
on such matters had never failed him yet.

Well, hardly ever.

So Chris's mind went into overdrive when he dropped down into the
street in front of the temple gate. A wounded Mara lay at Doug's
feet; a furious Doug stood above her, about to drive a
*quarterstaff* through her? He felt his Full Manifestation blink
in surprise when they both realized that even though she was
still grievously wounded, apparently at Doug's hand, Mara's
power was unrestricted by her limiters. His eyes flicked up to
the sign on the temple door above the pair, the sign he'd placed
there a few weeks earlier as a joke:

"Beware of Doug."

The Manifestation's attention turned slightly to the side, where
his sisters, Keiichi and Megumi all stood, frozen in position.
Varying expressions of horror and shock painted their faces, save
for Megumi, whose vicious grin betrayed an unholy glee.

To the other side of Doug and Mara, the temple wall had been
shattered, as if someone had fired a howitzer through it. He
narrowed his eyes and engaged his mystical senses, and realized
that with the physical wall, the mystic barrier behind it, the
wards that had been so laboriously raised and reinforced, had
been destroyed as well.

He also realized that the staff in Doug's hands was more than
just a piece of wood -- he could feel its ambiguously powerful
aura pulse at him even without looking at it.

He turned his attention back to Doug and Mara. After a moment's
thought, he stepped forward and restarted time.

* * *

With no warning, I suddenly felt a sensation of presence next to
and a bit behind me. I didn't even need to look out of the
corner of my eye to know who it was.

Mainly because Belldandy cried, "Chris! Stop him!" at pretty
much that moment.

I tried to drive the staff forward, but Chris must have used his
no-time thing, because before I'd even finished formulating the
*intent*, his hand was already clamped around my wrists like a
vise.

"Bad idea," I growled. "Move it or lose it, Chris."

* * *

Belldandy's order galvanized his Full Manifestation in a way that
surprised Chris from where he watched in the back of his own head.
For a moment he worried, but he realized it wasn't a compulsion,
but more an instinctive reaction -- if he'd wanted to, he could
have ignored it.

He briefly wondered why he hadn't wanted to ignore it.

Doug growled a vague threat when the Full Manifestation grabbed
his wrists with one hand, but Chris dismissed it. As Doug
struggled in his grip, he tried to take the staff from him with
his other hand.

A low-powered but painful shock, something more than just
electrical, made Chris draw his hand back involuntarily. "Ow!
Son of a..." he muttered.

As Belldandy called out, "Please, Doug, don't kill her!", he grit
his teeth and tried again. He managed to wrap his hand around
the staff before a longer, more powerful shock forced him to let
go, the muscles of his hand spasming open.

"No... freakin'... way!" Chris swore under his breath as he tried
once more, and a third shock, far more powerful than the previous
two, seared into him. The jolt was so intense that his vision
almost greyed out and he was barely able to hold onto
consciousness. Reluctantly, he relinquished his weakening grasp
on the staff -- but not his hold on Doug's wrists.

"Bell," he grated angrily, "I don't think it's going to let me
take it away from him."

* * *

Chris ignored my threat, and his grip on my wrists kept me from
finishing Mara off. He couldn't take the staff away from me,
though, and when he gave up, I thought I could almost feel a
sensation of ... well, *smugness* coming from it.

"What are you going to do, Chris?" I asked in a low, dangerous
voice. "The moment you let me go, I'll kill her, I swear it.
Take her away first, and I'll hunt her down."

"Don't, please!" Skuld screeched. Somewhere beyond her, I could
hear Megumi softly chanting, "Do it! Do it!"

"Why?" I snarled. "Tell me why I shouldn't destroy a demon."

Skuld didn't answer, and I turned my head just enough to catch
sight of Belldandy, who had one hand curled up before her mouth
and mixed fear and worry in her eyes.

"By your oath to me, Belldandy," I demanded, "tell me true why I
should not kill her now."

For a moment there was no sound but the traffic noises around us.

"Because she's doubletted, and killing her would kill a god
somewhere in Heaven," Belldandy whispered. "And because..."

She took a deep breath. "And because she's our sister."

END OF CHAPTER FIVE

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

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 2007, by Robert M. Schroeck
and Christopher Angel.

"Oh! My Goddess", and the settings and the characters thereof,
are copyright by and trademarks of Kosuke Fujishima, KISS and
Kodansha Ltd., and are used without permission.

"Douglas Q. Sangnoir," "Looney Toons", "The Loon" and any
representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Robert
M. Schroeck.

"Christopher 'Paradox' Angel" and any representations thereof are
copyright by and trademarks of Christopher Angel.

"Maggie 'Shadowwalker' Viel" and any representations thereof are
copyright by and a trademark of Peggy Schroeck.

"The Warriors", "Warriors' World", "Warriors International" and
"Warriors Alpha" are all jointly-held trademarks of The Warriors
Group.

Lyrics from "I Want To Be Sedated" recorded by The Ramones,
written by Douglas Colvin, John Cummings and Jeffrey Hyman,
copyright (C) 1978, WB Music Corp. and Taco Tunes Inc. (ASCAP).

The above is quoted in this fiction without permission under the
"fair use" provisions of international copyright law.

For a full explanation of the references and hidden tidbits in
this story, see the Drunkard's Walk V Concordance at:

http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/dw5conc.html

Other chapters of this story can be found at:

http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/dw5.html

"Oh! My Brother!" can be found at:

http://www.yggdrasil.org/omg/index.html

The Drunkard's Walk discussion forums are open for those who wish
to trade thoughts and comments with other readers, as well as
with the author:

http://p202.ezboard.com/bdrunkardswalkforums

Many thanks to our prereaders on this chapter: Kathleen Avins,
Nathan Baxter, Ed Becerra, Andrew Carr, Kevin Cody, Logan
Darklighter, Helen Imre, Josh Megerman, Berg Oswell, and Peggy
Schroeck.

Thanks to Rob Kelk for telling us about NIT's Dr. Koichi Morozumi
from volume 18 of the "Aa! Megami-sama!" manga.

C&C gratefully accepted.

(End of Part 2 of 2.)