This is still rough. I need suggestions. Thanks!

			PROLOGUE TO CHAPTER FIVE


    "'Tis time to put away thy toys."

    A bright light, shooting through a tall vertical crack, pierced the
darkness, its elongated triangular-shape expanded and highlighted a
silhouette; the shape resembled a young child kneeling with her back to
the light.  Gripped by another's hand, the crack of light widened
before another silhouette appeared from the edge of the darkness. 
    
    "It is past thy bedtime," the voice continued, originating from the 
newest shape.  It appeared to be a young girl, perhaps in her teens, with 
long hair that formed a continuous line down to her hemline, just about 
above the knees.  

    The other form continued to sit without a word.  The child's head 
seemed abnormally large, even round with two protrusions where her eyes 
should have been.

    "Please," the standing girl pleaded.  She momentarily appeared to
double in her width before splitting into two.  The newest shape then
spoke with a lower, still feminine, pitch. 

    "Thou canst not fool the whole family having the lights off..."

    The shaft of light paraded across the floor, parting the sea of
black, before washing the opposite wall with a pale glow.  Acting as a
spotlight, the shine exposed the mathematical formulae-ridden
surface--Boolean algebra, Abelian number fields, trigonometric
equations--all scribbled in crayon. 

    The lights came on, revealing a small child clutching metallic pieces
and whose face was obscured by a plastic helmet with two extended lenses 
from its visor.  By the door, two girls, the youngest with golden hair 
and the oldest with platinum tresses, stood awaiting the little child's 
reply. 

    The oldest spoke once more. "And we figured thou wouldst use thine 
infra-red goggles."

    "Shut-up, Urd!" the sitting child said defiantly.

    The girl called Urd gave the child a sneer before walking away. "I
give up!" 

    "It is just a phase, Urd. She shall grow out of it," the other girl 
said.  "The time shall come when she will put away her toys." 

    "Will not!" said the masked child.

    "All right, Skuld. Just finish up what thou art doing and I shall come 
back to tuck thee into bed."  She gently closed the door and walked away.

    Skuld removed her visor but continued her assembling of various
mechanical parts.  With some further tweaking of a construct with parts
built from what looked like a Mechano kit, she managed to get it to
function; it's jaws opened and closed like some mecha-raptor.  She had
also built a second, similar one. 

    Proudly, she placed the two facing each other about one meter apart.  
"Make friends, okay?"

    The two objects whirred to live and proceeded to cross paths.
However, the two began to grapple each other, and tore each other limb by
mechanized limb. Shards of metal expulsed from battle scene as wires
tore, and electricity charged through the holes, while the frenzied
constructs fought to render the other inoperable. 

    "No, no, no!" the girl cried as she tried to pry apart the
aggressive, brutal bloodletting between machines.  But it was all in vain
as the terminally damaged robots collapsed, each giving a resigned hiss
for its final breath.  All was silent save for the escalating sobs of a
young child. 

    The door opened and the titian-haired girl returned into the room.  
"What is the matter, Skuld?"

    "Big sister!"  Skuld ran to her, sobbing heavily into her sister's 
bosom.  "Why does ev'rything hafta fall apart?"



			OH MY GODDESS! META-MATICS
			CHAPTER FIVE: MACHINE MESSIAH



    The ubiquitous decay continued.  Concrete and brick crumble to sand,
surrounding vegetation withered, died, and dissolved into the putrid air. 
The sky grew increasingly red as the dying sun expanded into a giant,
threatening to engulf its solar system. 

    It took Skuld all of her concentration to reform her physical body,
preventing it from evaporating into gas. She moved back toward the
relatively cooler sanctum of the FTIC building--which was still
unaffected by the outside pandemonium--away from the burning air. 

    "Oh no.  The collapse of galaxies in accelerating."

    Matter would quickly sublimate into gas, progressing onward to ionize
into plasma.  Soon all will be engulfed in a sea of neutrons, as matter
completely breaks down. 

    "But shouldn't it be phenomenally hot? Unless all energy is being 
drained, depleted by some force."



    "Entropy has taken a foothold," Urd warned. "In a closed 
system, like the universe, heat death will occur, and we'll all be left 
with a luke-warm cosmic bath unless the Yggdrasil continues to regulate 
the system."

    Rohki had other ideas. "Once I'm in control, _I_ will re-regulate
the system. The old way is archaic, full of errors.  The system is 
collapsing because humans were left to their own devices."

    "That's free will."

    "It's chaos!" he retorted. "Isn't that what you're fighting against?" 

    The exchange is interrupted by the arrival of a sandy-haired man, 
dressed in a grey business suit.

    "Hello, father," said the newcomer.  

    "What?"

    It was the former child, Kosuke. "Thank you," it said as it came in
contact with the chair, creating a forcefield that encased them.  Kenji,
trapped in the chair, could only scream as he was overwhelmed by the
psychic influx. 



    "Kenji?" Skuld had looked around in reaction to the distant sound.
Her heart began to palpitate as she instinctively jumped up to run to
him. She stopped herself and frowned.  "No, it's not," she convinced
herself. 

    Shaking with her back leaned against the wall, she slid down to the
corridor floor.  "No, it's not." 

    She pulled out a cigarette.



    Belldandy appeared through the bathroom mirror, much to the utter 
surprise of Kikuko who was combing her black hair.

    "Wh-what the--"

    The goddess had fully re-corporealized in front of the row of 
sinks, next to the stunned mortal.  Belldandy smiled apologetically.  "I 
am sorry, miss, but I mean no harm.  Which way to the conference?"

    Kikuko stood there unable to speak for a moment.  She raised an 
eyebrow before she finally spoke. "Uh, how'd you do that?"

    "Forgive me for being so rude," Belldandy realized, "My name is 
Belldandy.  Could you tell where the conference is?  It is very important."

    "Belldandy?" Kikuko said in shock. Her wavering index finger pointed to 
the right.

    The voice was familiar, the goddess suddenly realized.  She 
remembered the night before, when she got the mysterious phone call.  
The voice was hers. She was Kikuko.

    Belldandy felt sick inside as various emotions, mostly ones of 
seething hatred, collided within her gut, churning like a vicious brew 
of fire.  Her friendly tone cooled to a frosty breath, her mouth the 
passage to Neflheim.  "You are Kikuko, are you not?"

    "Yeah, I..." she managed before she discovered that it wasn't in 
her best interest.

    "How dare you turn my Keiichi against me?  How dare you destroy 
the happy life we had together? How dare you lie to me!" she screamed at 
the terrified human.  "You bitch!" she wailed before slapping Kikuko who 
crumpled to the ground without further response.



    "It's not him."

    Skuld mulled over fate. You chose this fate, she thought, I won't stop 
you.  She was not being fair--let him live his life.

    Yet another scream pierced her ears, but this time the surge of an 
emotional ocean nearly drowned her before she made a dash for the 
conference room. All she could think about was how Kenji should be allowed 
to live his life.  To let him live.

    As she made her way through the seemingly endless corridor, she had 
changed into her de-bugging outfit without conscious effort, and she 
clasped her hammer above her head. 

    Skuld charged in the room which appeared isolated from the chaos 
outside.  She saw Kenji and rushed over to rescue him but the forcefield 
rejected her.  Almost automatically, she pulled out her hammer and started 
to bash away at the field.  The creature's form shifted and transmogrified 
as it absorbed the psychic energy of everyone connected on the 'net. It 
laughed in pleasure.  

    Its flesh bubbled as it bloated up as if being filled with air, tearing 
the business suit into shreds.  As the form became less humanoid and more like 
a shapeless lump of artery-covered flesh, it rolled over some of the 
machinery, acquiring some of the technology into its body. Cables protruded
from the hybrid, connecting themselves to a multitude of input terminals
and the entire computer system in the room; it resembled a grotesque 
cocoon. 

    Now plugged in, the creature began to siphon energy from all the
humans connected, reinforcing its own ring of reality separated from
Yggdrasil, slowly absorbing its domain and leaving the tree impotent, its
branches blackened from lack of nourishment. 

    Kenji screamed.

    "I'll get you out!" Skuld pleaded.

    "Stop!" shouted Keiichi, "It'll kill him."

    Kenji managed to speak with the pain. "Skuld?  Thought I told you...
to get lost." 

    "But I love you!" Skuld realized the grave situation. "I always did."

    Rohki stood watching in disbelief.  For once, the situation was 
completely out of his control. 

    "I..." Kenji tried to speak.  He noticed that Skuld had stopped her
attack.  She was looking at him intently, tears streaming. "I have to be
honest; I didn't want to get married to her--she was an omiai that my
parents set-up." 
 
    "How could I stop you? You deserve someone young and innocent, not
one who has seen the darker side of life. You wouldn't want some used
girl like me." 

    The faceless being created a concussion blast which knocked Keiichi and
Urd unconscious while it left Rohki and Skuld dazed. It decided that Skuld 
could not be allowed to live.

    The bloated mass of flesh and metal absorbed additional metal parts as 
it approached.  Lifting its psuedo-cranium which was a similarly 
related extension from the body, it stretched out a prosthetic limb of 
twisted steel.

    Kenji cried out helplessly as it grappled the weakened Skuld.

    With all of his will, he caused the minimal motor function of the chair 
to collide with the creature which was about bite off Skuld's head.  It
relented its grip upon Kenji's impact.  In retaliation, the flesh-metal
hybrid jabbed it's mechanical arm into the chair, narrowly missing Kenji; 
however, the improvised double connection between the abomination and the 
chair forged a feed-back loop, causing the thing to scream from the 
information overload.

    The creature retreated to lick its wounds; however, the attack was too 
much for Kenji who laid motionless in his chair. Silent.

    "You're going to be okay. It's up to you, Kenji," Skuld pleaded. "I'll 
stop bothering you--get married and be happy."

    Kenji opened his eyes. Other than his lips, the rest of his body 
remained still. "That's what I want..." He spoke in a nearly inaudible
whisper.

    "Miki is better than an ice goddess like me; I'll just go back..."

    "Not Miki. I meant you. That's what I want...with you."

    Skuld made startled gasp when she realized what he meant. She finally 
understood.  "But..."

    Kenji, suddenly feeling peaceful, told Skuld, "It doesn't matter if 
you were a virgin or not. I was jealous because I couldn't always be with 
you. Forgive me."

    "I--"

    He saw her face looking at him.

    "Tears, Skuld? But we're finally--" He smiled slightly.

    Then Kenji was silent.

    "Kenji?" Skuld demanded.  She frantically checked for a pulse.  
"There's a heartbeat. Oh, Kenji, you're alive!"

    "He's a vegetable. His brain has burnt out," corrected Rohki while
examining the chair's connection. "He's alive...somewhat, but he may as
well be dead." 

    Skuld froze in shock until the lacerating sensation of desperation 
overcame her and propelled her to lash out.

	"BASTARD!!!!" Skuld swung both fists down at Rohki's chest, knocking 
him down. She had hit him hard but, despite the cascade of unresolved 
feelings pumping through her veins, she didn't feel the impact and had 
expected to pass through his body.

    Urd gave her hand to Keiichi who had just recovered, and she pulled him
upright.

    "Skuld, stop it!" Urd, still clasping the hand of a dazed Keiichi, 
yelled at Skuld, "We've got the world to worry about right now."

    Skuld wasn't listening to reason. "Damn you all!" She now smashed away 
indiscriminately.


    All the people in the chairs were now catatonic. The being, absorbing 
the minds of thousands of humans, began to build a physical body, reforming
its accumulated mass of machines and computers. Blackened metal coiled 
itself, meshing with flesh, into a colossal anquineous body. In place of 
arms, triangular membranes laced with iron scales stretched outward by
steel frames like a giant kite, the points of which augmented by large,
thorny claws. Its reptilian skull, imbedded with glowing, ruby eyes, 
cracked open its mouth, flickering its prehensile forked-tongue, dripping 
with glutinous saliva, between bared hypodermic-like fangs. Its tail with
its razor-steel stinger stood erect, poised and tense.

    Rohki felt weak. "What's happening to me?"

    "Monster!" Skuld screamed as she rushed forward with tears trailing 
from her face.

    "What is that thing?" asked Keiichi, feeling his head.

    "Of course! Nidhogg. Nemesis of the ash tree, Yggdrasil.  Since the 
dawn of creation it has been gnawing on its roots," Urd said.

    "But no longer," it said,  "Rohki's, as well as Belldandy's, 
tampering with the functioning of the Tree,  allowed its supplantation
by the new master of time and space. The tree is no more."

    "What about me?  I helped create you, create the ultimate 
infrastructure for you to fulfill your directives. You need me!" Rohki 
said.

    "You?  You are god: Aesir, Vanir--it does not matter.  Enemies you are
all, thus die you must.  Of your precious Midgard, there is no need."

    While it was distracted, Skuld charged it with mallet swinging.  The 
snake sent a charge that forced her away from it.

    Rohki was rather upset that he'd been left out the plans. "This is not 
what I envisioned. What's the point if there's no world left to rule?"

    "See what you've done? Now you'll die just like the rest of us," Urd 
said.

    "Impossible."

    "Do you truly believe your separate from all of us? Your a child of
the Tree and now that it's dead, you will decay with us all." 

   Rohki's face dropped and he began to panic. "But I don't want to die. I 
only wanted to by-pass the Yggdrasil not destroy it."

    "Then help us find a way to stop it," Urd suggested.

    "Stop how? The forcefield is regenerative due to its link with the 
internet which is separated from this reality," explained Rohki. "Although 
this 'thing' is here, it's really everywhere yet nowhere. 

    Urd suddenly remembered Megumi.

    Rohki continued. "If it's head is cut off, it would just grow another."

    Keiichi was surprised.  "How would you know that?"

    "Give me some credit--I designed the system that way."

    "All right.  How can we cut it off then?  How _do you_ break apart the 
Internet?" Keiichi wondered.

    Rohki pondered for a moment. "Of course! The satellite. If we shut-down 
the satellite, the snake will be cut off from the rest of the system." 

    "But how will we deflect the satellite?" wondered Keiichi. "It's 
directed by a telemetry but it's enclosed within the snake's shield. We 
can't reach it."

    "Not if someone can get up to the satellite and do it manually."

    Keiichi allowed his head to slump. "It's hopeless."

    "I'm going," Rohki replied. 

    Urd was perplexed. "But how can you go without your powers?" She 
thought about how she was completely incapable of making the journey 
herself.


    "I may have been banished by Kami-sama, but I might have enough for 
the journey. I'll have to convert into pure energy to travel the entire 
wavelength."

    "Might?" Urd didn't like the sound of the odds.  "I'm coming with you
then." 

    "All right, then." Rohki gave her a knowing wink.

    Keiichi was alarmed. "Don't! You can't trust him."

    "Don't you worry--I'll take care of her," Rohki grinned. "Urd and I go 
way back."

    Keiichi wasn't convinced. They were fighting against him only moments 
before.

    "He's right, Keiichi," reassured Urd. She had an unusually tender look 
on her face. "We don't have time to explain the whole story, but Rohki and 
I share a special bond."

    "She and I used to play with the giants of Jotenheim, on the other
side of the tracks," Rohki explained. "I tried out my tricks and Urd was
always eager to learn." 

    "That was before I realized that you were hurting people." Urd looked 
as if she was about to laugh, as if she were thinking a particularly 
amusing anecdote. "We'd better get going."

    "Just like old times," Rohki responded as they clasped their hands
together. 

    "You might be absorbed by the snake," Keiichi warned.

    "That's a risk I'll take, my friend," Rohki said.

    Urd chuckled. "You were always the smug one."  She looked to Keiichi, 
"So long, Kiddo!  You weren't so bad after all."  

    "Wait.  You're not coming back?" Keiichi was worried.

    She didn't answer. She did not know. "Look after my sisters, okay?  
You're great guy. Sorry for interfering. I guess I wasn't cut-out to be 
cupid."

    "Isn't there another way?"

    "Niord be with us," Urd said before they disappeared in a flash of 
energy.

    Keiichi shouted after them, even though he knew they couldn't hear
him, "Good luck." 

    Belldandy walked in.  She felt the child continuously draining her.

    "Belldandy!" Keiichi cried.

    She recognized the aura around the snake. "My baby," she gasped before
she collapsed to the floor.  Keiichi rushed to her side. 

    "Belldandy," Keiichi began, "It was Rohki. He's responsible for all of 
this."

    "Rohki?' a confused Belldandy slurred.  She remembered a time...a
time back in the Heavens; she sat under the cool shade of a tree. She had
felt so serene, so peaceful that she had started to drift into blissful
sleep, yet she became aware of a rustling sound, at first so subtle as
the natural sway of the branches floating in the summer breeze that it
had become more persistent and frenetic by the time Belldandy opened her
eyes. Between two large branches, the face of a teen with ornately 
braided and platinum-coloured locks peered at her with large 
inquisitive eyes. He stopped shaking the tree but continued to stare.

    "Yes?" the young Belldandy asked.  

    "Thy beauty is breathtaking," he replied without missing a beat.

    "Thou art very kind." He was a strange boy, she thought, but it still 
made her smile.

    He smiled back. He was silent again. And he continued to stare.

    "Yes?" she repeated.

    "I am transfixed by thee. I cannot break thy spell, and the only 
antidote is a date with thee."

    Belldandy was surprised by the sudden proposition. "What? Oh, I am 
sorry..."

    "I cannot figure thee out. The Superunified theory and all the forces 
in the universe are rudimentary compared to thee."

    "What doest thou mean?"

    "Thou art kind and generous and good with people.  Thou canst have any 
many thou desire, yet thou keep thyself.  Wherefore doth thou?"

    Belldandy dropped her smile and looked down as if toward Midgard. "I 
cannot. I... promised."




    "I cocked up," Rohki said as he examined the computers within the 
claustrophobic confines of the satellite. The two gods were hard pressed 
for space in the claustrophobic confines.  Oscillators, silver-zinc 
batteries that received converted energy from solar panels outside, and 
infra-red scanners surrounded them.  Rohki examined the antenna coupling 
network before approching the computer mainframe.

    "Can we fix it?" Urd asked, her leathery skin now dominated by liver 
spots, her face sagging from her skull with thinned hair.

    "If I can re-direct the radio signal to Earth, the telemetry", Rohki
said. He looked at her intently. "By the way, I appreciate you coming with
me. Thank you."

    Urd blinked but quickly smiled. "Y'know. Old friends..."

    Rohki said nothing but maintained his stare. Noticing Urd became 
uncomfortable under his fixed gaze, he smirked before examining one of the
monitors. 

    "The satellite is still unaffected by the chaos outside due to his
link to Nidhogg and its 'order'." Rohki keyed in a few commands and
cursed to himself.  Without looking up, he continued, "But, like most
connections away from the FTIC, it is far enough away to be not protected
by an energy shield." 

    "Then why go all this trouble? Why not dismantle one of the connections 
on Earth?"

    "Because it would re-route itself through another connection. We
don't have the power to destroy every connection, where there are
millions.  However, the satellite is Nidhogg's only connection to this
vast network. Destroying this would reduce its sphere of influence to a
local area, the FTIC compound." 

    "I have to admit you're a clever fellow," Urd admitted, "like when you 
tricked me into kissing Baldar under the mistletoe.

    "He didn't have a single redeeming vice, the crybaby," Rohki flippantly 
replied. 

    "I was severely reprimanded."

    "Yet you came back for more."

    "I understood who was teacher and who was student," Urd grinned.

    Rohki paused.  He had a stern look upon his brow as if in deep thought.

    "What? Is something wrong?"

    Rohki looked at her. There was a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Yes. You 
never intended to help me."

    "What are you--"

    "I mean about your sister. I never understood until now."

    Urd didn't know what to say.

    "I spent most of my life alone. Only you understood me.  And I now 
realize you cared but I never shared that sentiment.  It's been fun, Urd.

    "You make it sound--"

    "But there's no time left for regrets. The universe must die because
Nidhogg must not be allowed to win," Rohki said. "Good-bye."

    Urd did not have time to react. Suddenly, Rohki blasted an energy
bolt from his hands. A powder-blue glow enveloped Urd's body, searing her 
body into its component molecules. The propulsion of the blast sent, away
from the satellite into space on a journey to infinity, the cloud of
particles that once belonged to Urd.



END OF CHAPTER FIVE


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omega@torfree.net     -     Proud member of #SkAS# 
Skuld Appreciation Society, Goddess of De-buggers!
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