Omake Prologue: Enter the...Yggdrasil?

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: It begins!

Yggdrasil central was a pretty nice place to be. Despite the fact that it was basically a control center for the planets Earth, it had none of the business-like dreariness usually associated with other call-center/op centers. In fact, it resembled nothing so much as the aforementioned Operations Center, crossed with a brightly colored church cathedral, and a large dose of extraordinary technology thrown in.

In the middle of this scene, on an upraised dais in the middle of the room, in a chair that resembled nothing so much as stolen chair from a 'Star Trek' set, sat the goddess Peorth.  Yggdrasil was a largely smooth running machine, so, unlike the three goddesses in front of and beneath her, serving her shift as a systems administrator was more or less a babysitting job, keeping a close eye on the computer and the goddesses that ran the multiverse.

Chrono, one of the younger goddesses, recently promoted to monitor duty...barely 20 years, if Peorth recalled correctly, turned in her seat to face her.

"Peorth-sama...are there any scheduled interfaces with the quarantined universe?"

Peorth blinked and frowned. "Kami-sama does a systems check once every decade..." she replied. Chrono shook her head.

"This is incoming datafiles..."

"WHAT??? Shut down the transmission! Now!" Peorth snapped. All at once, alarms began to blare, as every computer screen in Yggdrasil Central went haywire.

"Every program in Yggdrasil has been activated, Peorth-sama!" Chrono reported, frantically working at he console. Her statement was confirmed by the other two, a moment later. Peorth growled.

"Blast it!" she snarled. "This is an invasion! Trace that signal back to its origin point! Quickly!"

"Impossible!" one of the other goddesses cried. "There's too much activity on the server to get a fix on anything!"

Peorth bit down on a curse, despite the pressure the constant alarms were putting on her thinking. This WAS heaven, after all.

"All right. Clean up the damage, and then we'll do a repair estimate."


   *   *   *

All over the world-computer Yggdrasil, faster than thought, changes were wrought over the computer that maintained the multiverse, while the goddesses charged with it's protection struggled to removed the distractions that kept them from protecting the system, or even seeing what had been done.

The changes, at first, were minor. Birds disappeared from one plane, only to reappear in another, migration patterns of animals changed, and weather became erratic.

Then.... The changes worsened.

   *   *   *

Ukyo Kuonji stepped out of her restaurant, and boggled at the Genom tower that had sprung up, seemingly overnight.

   *   *   *

Tenchi stared at the red- headed woman and the stone-faced man who had 'interrupted' Ryoko's attempt on his virginity. "Who...?"

The redhead frowned. "You can't tell me you've never hear of the beautiful, charming...."

"...And modest..." The stone-faced man put in dryly.

"...Bandit-killer, Lina Inverse?"

Tenchi and Ryoko just stared, shaking their heads in unison.

"No...."

   *   *   *

Rally Vincent blinked at the green-haired man. "No, this is Chicago, not Callisto."

"What? I've never heard of Chicago..."

Rally rolled her eyes. "Whatever. But you better get that weird looking plane off the highway, or the police will be a little cranky, Mister...?"

"Spiegel. Spike Spiegel."

   *   *   *

Dozens of Alarms went off in Central Dogma as the gleaming white robot appeared, and Misato was not taking chances.

"Eva Unit 02, scramble!"

   *   *   *

All these changes and more were happening all over the globe. But for one small event, in a peaceful temple, near Nekomi Technical University, the multiverse itself might have eventually succumbed to the chaos, and been lost, or worse, conquered by the malevolent force that had set these mind-bending changes in motion...

         *         *         *

Urd, Norn of the Past, stared, as, across the street from the temple where she lived with her sisters, and her sister's significant other. The occurrence that had grabbed her attention was that, from her perch on the roof, becoming intimately acquainted with a sake bottle, she had seen that, where a convenience store had been, only moments before, a high school appeared.
"Furinkan High School?" she wondered, annoyed. That store had carried essentials! "That can't be right...." Picking up her sake bottle, she hopped off of the roof, drifting toward the ground, as though she were virtually weightless. With a single toss of her long, platinum hair, she headed inside to consult with her sisters.

She opened the door and stepped inside the temple house, just in time to see a young man exit a room labeled "Skuld's Lab" and lean against the wall. He looked up as she came in.
"Oh, Urd..." he called, gesturing to the closed doors. "They just went to see what's going on..."

Urd smirked. "You're taking this pretty calmly, Keichii," she teased.

Keichii just smiled, self-depreciatingly. "You get used to it." He grinned, then paused. "Hey, don't they need you in there?"

"Nah, Skuld is a certified system debugger, and Bell's the Yggdrasil backup administrator. They should be able to handle things..." Urd replied, a statement that seemed to be the absolute reverse of prophetic. A split second later, twin screams echoed from Skuld's lab, and the two dashed inside...


Inside the lab, the pair was horrified to see the young, black-haired goddess lying out cold in front of her computer, and her sister, Belldandy, lying in a similar state nearby. Keichii let out a strangled cry and rushed to the side of the brown haired goddess. "Urd, what happened to them?" he demanded. The white haired woman carefully suppressed her reactions. She walked calmly over to the computer, and began examining the screen.

"It's not good, Keichii." She said grimly, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"I don't care! What happened?"

"Yggdrasil has been invaded." She said shortly.

"Is that all?" the diminutive college student replied. "Well, that's happened before, right...?"

Urd shook her head. "Not like before..." she replied. "The source was the 'Quarantine Universe'. It's completely separate from ours, on a very basic level...if the invasion was from there, Someone in the Quarantine Universe essentially has Father's level of influence over the entire multiverse..."

Keichii blinked. "Multiverse?" he asked, bewildered.

Urd shook her head. "No time to explain it all, K-1." She cut him off. "In fact, whoever this is has already begun smashing universes together...Oh, this is interesting. They were trying to recruit help from the quarantined universe...only the retrieval program got corrupted."

"Why would they bring in someone from THERE?" Keichii asked.

"Well, they wouldn't appear on Yggdrasil's tracking monitors, or be detailed in the personnel files...they'd be the only people here who could be completely free of the influence of the 'hacker'." Urd replied. "Only, the retrieval program seems to have been corrupted before they could be brought here...and only their...spirits, and no bodies came to the multiverse." The platinum haired goddess blinked.
"Oh, wait. A backup in case of defect. Not bad, Skuld...okay, the spirits were deposited in the nearest compatible host bodies from this universe..." she paused, and her expression went slack. "Two of which happen to be Bell and Skuld..."

"What? You mean...this isn't Belldandy?" Keichii stammered. "Where is she, then?"

"I don't know." Urd replied grimly, "But I mean to find out."

Keichii turned an apprehensive look at the eldest Norn. "You sure you can?"

Urd turned to him for the first time, looking away from the screen, and gave her sister's boyfriend a saucy wink. "Of course!" she said confidently. At Keichii's dubious look, her voice softened. "They're my family, Keichii. I'll do my best."

Keichii's expression relaxed slightly, though it was still nervous. "All right. What can I do?" he asked.

Urd smiled slightly. "Be patient." She answered. "And watch out for those two." She pointed at the prone bodies that had been her sisters. "Whoever they are, they'll probably wake up confused..."

Keichii nodded, and settled in for a long wait...

[RyderHakubi]

With a groan, Skuld's eyes slowly opened and she said, "Oh God, that is the last time I ever eat cafeteria food... Wait a tic... This isn't my voice!"

Skuld quickly sat up and took at herself...

"Ack! JESUS CHRIST, WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!" she screamed...

[Bean Bandit]

Keichii was stirred from his silent vigil over the two bodies,over to Skuld...or whoever that was. It sure didn't sound like the young goddess he'd come to know. He smothered a slight grin as she let out an unexpected exclamation.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked tentatively. "You aren't hurt or anything, are you?"

[RyderHakubi]

Wait a Tic... that voice sounds familiar...

Turning to Kei, she let out a shock.  There, kneeling down in front of her, was a complete impossibilty.

Skuld grabbed onto Kei's shoulders and screamed, "Morisato! How? When? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!!"

[Bean Bandit]

Keichii twitched as he was violently shaken by the slight girl. This part is a bit TOO familiar...how does she know my name?

"Urk! Excuse me, do I know you?"

[RyderHakubi]

Skuld stopped shaking Keichii and breathed deeply, to calm herself down.  After a few seconds of this, she finally said, "No, you don't know me... However, I know you quite well."

[Bean Bandit]

Keichii let out a deep sigh. "So she was right..." he mumbled, casting a distubed glance at the prone body lying beside where Skuld hat sat up.

"Well, Uh...I guess you know my name...what's yours?" he asked politely.

[RyderHakubi]

Skuld sighed and said, "Keichii Morisato, meet Ryder Angel.  I'm 17 years old, a senior at Old Mill High School, and a resident of Glen Burnie, Maryland, USA."

Ryder caught Keichii's eyes move down towards Bell, and looked herself.  And with that sight, she FROZE...

Buh..Bell!!!  If she's lying there, and I'm sitting here, and I don't see white hair... that means...

"WHAT THE ****!!!  Morisato, why the hell am I Skuld?"

[Bean Bandit]

Keichii blinked, then scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Nice to meet you. I think. As for what happened...Well, that's kind of a long story, and Urd's better at telling it than me." he admitted.

"She told me to wait until the two of you woke up, then she'd explain what she could find out as best she could. But...Uh...you sure seem to know a lot about us..." he said slowly, a question in his tone.

[RyderHakubi]

Calming down considerably, a-gain, Ryder replied to the unasked question, "Alright, I'll bite... Your life is a TV show where I'm from.  That's how I know all about you and the Goddesses..."

Taking a look down at Bell, she added, "So, the same thing happened to her too?"

[Bean Bandit]

Keichii blinked in suprise. "A TV show?" he asked, incredulously. He shook his head in puzzlement. "Weird..."

He followed Skuld's gaze to Belldandy, and his expression went grim. "Yeah, she and Skuld hatched this plan together..."

At that moment, the brown haired woman lying on the floor began to stir...

[RyderHakubi]

Skuld shifted and waited for Bell to awaken...

But, she couldn't help saying, "Isn't she beautiful Kei?"

[Bean Bandit]

Keichii nodded mutely. He looked over at Belldandy's body, and back at Skuld.

"But It's just like with you, Sk--er, Ryder-san. Someone else is in there...Can you help me with her?"

[Bean Bandit]

Bean slitted his eyes open, wincing at the light rays that stabbed at his eyes, aggravating a deep, painful headache.

"Ow..." he groaned, frowning as he realized he sounded sort of pitiful. I havent had a voice that high since second grade...

[RyderHakubi]

"Hi..." Ryder said simply, hoping whoever was in Bell would have a better reaction than she did.