Oh! My Brother!

Chapter 4


All Oh! My Goddess (Ah! My Goddess, Aa! Megami-sama, whatever) characters
owned by Kosuke Fujishima.  I'm poor, don't sue me.

***

As I saw that boulder fly towards Skuld, my mind went into overdrive.  Even
to this day I shudder every time I think of that moment, and I can remember
every word that went through my head.

*OH my god Skuld's gonna get hit by that boulder oh why did I ever let her
watch us fight I should have practiced somewhere else and now Skuld's gonna
get hurt I'm gonna kill Modi if she's even bruised I'm supposed to protect
her from stuff like this how could I be so stupid damn it Modi I'm gonna
murder you I wonder what Belldandy's making for dinner GOOD GOD how could I
be thinking about food at a time like this I'm such scum OH GOD please make
it stop MAKE IT STOP!*

And it did.

I don't know how else to say it, the world just froze.  The boulder was
hanging in midair.  Tyr's eyes were locked on it, Skuld was in the middle of
a scream, Modi was frothing at the mouth.  Everything was absolutely still.

I stared at the boulder for maybe a fraction of a second, then dove to knock
Skuld out of the way, and did.

From maybe twenty meters away.

But it didn't end there.  The moment I touched Skuld, the world started
moving again, and I barely got her out of the way in time to avoid both of
us being smashed by that rock, which ended up demolishing Skuld's latest
mecha.

I got myself off of Skuld, and stood up, making sure she was OK.
Thankfully, she was fine.  That settled, I had more important things to deal
with, like that bastard Modi.

Now, you're probably wondering about two things.  One, how the hell did I
freeze the world that way, and two, how the hell did I make a twenty meter
dive?  Good question.  I didn't think about it at the time.  Apparently, I
was the only one.

You see, to the others, this is what they saw:  I suddenly disappeared, and
then re-appeared in the midst of shoving Skuld out of the way.  Pretty neat
trick, considering none of the gods can actually teleport for real - they
all need some sort of medium.  Anyway, it was impressive enough that it
shocked Modi right out of his rage.  Lucky for me, else I wouldn't have
gotten away with what I did next if he hadn't.

I walked up and decked him.  (Good thing I remembered to dispell my armor,
it might have been messy otherwise.)  He fell on his ass and just stared at
me.  "Get lost," I hissed at him through clenched teeth.  "I don't ever want
to see your face again."  Modi continued staring at me, so I grabbed the
front of his shirt, lifted him to his feet, and shoved him towards the
house.  "GET LOST."  He shook himself out of his reverie, found an
electrical socket, and disappeared.

It was right about then the adrenalin rush I was on died, and I, for lack of
a better term, crashed.  I felt like I'd just run the Boston Marathon,
twice, carrying a twenty-kilo backpack.  Translation: I was completely,
utterly, wiped out, and fell to the ground and promptly fell asleep.

***

I woke up a little later on the couch.  I like that couch.  After a few
months of getting the crap kicked out of me by the war crew it had a nice
me-shaped set of curves in it from all the times I regained consciousness on
it.  It was awfully comfortable.

As I woke, I saw Skuld looking down into my face.  She smiled happily and
hugged me tightly, burying her face in my chest.  "Thank you, Oniichan, I
was so scared!"  Reflexes kicked in, and  I sat up and held the girl
tightly.  Looking around, I saw Urd and Belldandy berating a rather
apologetic Tyr.  Well, Urd was berating, Belldandy merely had a frown on her
face, but for her, that's about as bad as it gets.  Hearing Skuld, they
turned to me and came over.

I smiled wearily up at them, "Umm, I assume that aside from me getting
floored, everything's OK?"  I got to my feet, and swayed a little, Urd and
Skuld catching me.  I felt a sudden migraine, and groaned, holding my head.
"Owww, stop with the pounding and the hurting of the head."

"Chris," Tyr began, "about what happened today..."  I scowled at him.

"I mean it, Tyr, I don't ever want to see that creep again.  How you can
actually want a guy like that on your side I'll never know."

Tyr shook his head.  "Not about that.  I was talking about what YOU did."  I
was confused.  What did I do?  "How exactly did you teleport?"

"Teleport?  I didn't teleport, I just dove and pushed Skuld out of the
way..."  The meaning of my words hit me.  *I dove and pushed Skuld out of
the way, from 50 feet away?*  Neat trick, that.  I shook my head.  "I don't
know what I did, but I didn't teleport."

I won't bore you with the rest of the details of that conversation, mostly
because it's full of Tyr and Skuld trying to convince me I DID teleport, me
trying to convince them I didn't, and Belldandy finally figuring everything
out, thanks to some excellent deductive reasoning (I was SO proud of her), a
few tests, and Urd's back door into Yggdrasil.

The gist of it is this: when I want to, I can 'leap out' of time.  However,
if I come too close to someone, roughly touching distance of the girls or
five feet of anyone else, I automatically 'leap in'.  As I put it, I can set
cosmic breakpoints in Yggdrasil's code.  As for the dive, that was pretty
easy.  During one of the tests, I tripped while walking around, and didn't
hit the ground.

Yep, you guessed it, when I've leaped out, I can fly.  As far as I can tell,
I top out at just under Mach 2.  Fun for days when you're late.  Just freeze
time, fly where I need to go, and let it go again.

Unfortunately, that's also my 'special' travel medium.  It doesn't sound
bad, until you realize while it seems instantaneous to everyone else, it's a
real drag for me.  I mean, it takes me what feels like an hour and a half to
reach Heaven that way.  When you consider that I can't listen to music, read
books (I found that one out the hard way, stupid 747) or entertain myself
any other way while I've frozen time, you see why I hitch rides as often as
I can.  There's other reasons I try to avoid using that power now, but we'll
go into that another time.

Anyway, after we figured it out, it was early evening.  Tyr made me promise
to keep practicing, and show up every once in a while for workouts, but in
his opinion, all I needed now was experience.

***

I'd like to make it quite clear that I wasn't spending all my time at work
and in practice.  To misquote a popular phrase, 'All work and no play makes
Chris a dull boy.'  I'm already pretty dense at times, last thing I needed
was to be dull.

The first thing I think needs discussing is the evolution of my relationship
with the girls.  I got along reasonably well with all of them, especially
Skuld.  Maybe it was because she and I had similar interests (somehow, the
fact that I share most of my hobbies with a goddess who acts like a twelve
year old should bother me, but it doesn't}.  Oh, we had our differences, for
example, the girl sympathizes FAR too much with Akane Tendo for my liking.
But then, she doesn't get why Ryoga and Mousse are my heroes either, so
fair's fair.  Although we did agree the similarities between Belldandy and
Kasumi were just scary. (Belldandy never did get why we spent a week calling
her Kasumi and Keiichi Tofu.)

You'll notice back there Skuld called me 'Oniichan.'  I'll quite happily
blame that one on Urd, she started it.  She's never said it out loud, and I
don't think she ever will, but of all of them, Urd was the gladdest to have
me.  She latched onto the idea of 'big brother Chris' much faster and much
more firmly than the other girls.  In retrospect, I think I know why.  Can
you imagine spending eternity dealing with men who only interacted with you
like a sex object?  I can't, but that's more or less Urd's life.  She's
drop-dead beautiful, she's rather open about her emotions, and has a dark
side that essentially makes her more mischievous than sinister.

All that adds up to make Urd a favorite one-night-stand for a lot of the
gods.  The only non-sexual relationship she's had with any of the gods she
knows is, well, Boss Himself.  I think Urd wanted, no, NEEDED to have a male
figure in her life that she could trust and that she could care about
without bringing sex into it.  That didn't stop her from teasing me with
sexual innuendo so thick I could cut it with a two-by-four, but we both knew
it was just that - teasing, not serious.

As much as I didn't get as close to Belldandy as I did to Skuld and Urd,
there was something about her that brought out the need in me to take care
of her far more so than with the others.  Don't get me wrong, I'd go take on
Loki himself for Skuld or Urd, but well, for Belldandy I'd stand up to the
Boss.  She has this quality, this innocence about her that I can't help but
want  to protect.  I suppose that's why Keiichi and her make such a great
match.  He has much the same quality about him.

So what did we do when I wasn't busy with work?  Well...

***

"Why did I let you drag me into this?" I complained as Skuld and Urd dragged
me along.  I actually knew the answer, Skuld pulled her ultra-kawaii routine
and Urd pulled an ultra-sexy routine on me and I had absolutely zero chance.
The fact that those two have me completely wrapped around their fingers
bothers me to no end, but hey, it's fun.  At times.

This was not one of those times.  I HATE sporting events.  Almost as much as
I hate Mondays.  I mean, the only game I ever liked was football, and that's
because I was a half-decent offensive/defensive linesman.  They're just
so...so BORING.  Well, that's not true, they're not bad if you have a book,
or a magazine, or a game, or anything to do while you're sitting there being
bored.

Unfortunately, they didn't let me bring any of those to the races.  Oh no,
Chris had to suffer through watching bikes race over and over and over and
over...  There were some high points, though.  I got to meet Tamiya and
Ootaki.  Now there's a twisted pair.  One's on an emotional roller-coaster
you just have to see to believe - how does a guy go from towering rage to
tears of joy in a fraction of a second?  The other's a leftover from the
punker generation.  Somehow, they work together perfectly.  It's just shy of
terrifying.

Anyway, Keiichi was stuck being the designated victim for their Motor Club's
latest monstrosity, a bike that looked like it was something out of a Mad
Max film.  Nasty, but effective.  Skuld promised me it'd run like the wind,
but I would never ride on it.  Not in a million years.  Well, maybe if I had
Balder's invulnerability, but that's only maybe.

It was while he was going through some pre-race checks (I thought he should
have been writing his will, but I kept to myself) that I got to meet that
wonderful paragon of humanity called Aoshima.  The sleaze walks over, and
these are the reactions I see: Belldandy stiffens, Keiichi gets this dark
look, Urd growls, and Skuld scowls.

What a recommendation, eh?  I took a risk and decided not to like this guy
off the bat.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Belldandy-sama," he greeted her.  Man,
you could feel the sleaze ooze of off this guy.  He turned to Tamiya.  "Same
bet, sempai?"

Warning signals went off in my head as the giant of a man got a guilty look,
glanced apologetically to Keiichi and Belldandy, and said "Uh, yeah."

I leaned over to Urd and asked her to fill me in, my mood deteriorating as
she talked.  "HOLD IT!"  Tamiya and Aoshima turned to look at me.  "Bell,
did you agree to this bet?"  She shook her head.  "Good.  Bet's off.  No one
uses my sister as a trophy."

"But Oniichan, we must abide by our promises," she protested.  I sometimes
wonder about her sense of honor.

"Bell, YOU didn't agree to anything.  Tamiya," I favored him with a glare,
"does not own you.  This disgusting bet is off, understood?"  I turned my
gaze on Aoshima, and he smiled.  It didn't reach his eyes.

"Of course.  I apologize for any insult," he bowed to me slightly.  "My
apologies, Belldandy-sama."  He bowed to her, and walked back to his team.

"Thank you, Oniichan," Belldandy said softly, giving me a light hug.

"No problem," I said, hugging her back slightly.  "It's what big brothers
are for, right?"   Keiichi and I locked eyes, and I could see the thanks
there as well.  I winked at him.  "Hey, don't you have a race to win?"
Belldandy let me go and went to help Keiichi wheel the bike to the track.

No sooner were they out of sight than did Skuld glomp on me.  Even Urd gave
me a small squeeze.  I was a little flustered.  I mean, all I did was what
any guy would do, right?  I promised myself I'd talk with Tamiya later, I
don't appreciate people using my friends and loved ones (I did love the
girls - don't be surprised) as bargaining chips.  Speaking of which... "Be
right back, I have something to do."  I extracted myself from their grasp
and went to find that scum Aoshima.

I REALLY didn't like that guy.

I found the creep sitting in the shade at his team's tent.  "Ah hello,
Christopher-san," he greeted me.  I wondered how he found out my name.
"Care to join me for a drink?  I would like to speak to you about Belldandy
and Keiichi.  As anyone can see, I am a much better man for your sister than
that person."  I stared at him in shock.  He just tried to win her in a bet,
and now he was trying to convince me he was a better match for her than
Keiichi?

Now, people tell me I have a temper.  I disagree.  People who lose their
temper do things they regret.  I've never regretted anything I've done when
I've lost it.  I didn't regret decking Modi, and I didn't regret what I was
about to do just then, either.

I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him out of his chair, bringing
his face to mine.  "Listen to me, you ass.  I don't tell Belldandy who to
date.  If I did, I'd sure as hell not tell her to date a piece of shit like
you.  She doesn't like you.  Skuld doesn't like you.  Urd doesn't like you.
_I_ don't like you.  You keep the hell away from Belldandy and Keiichi, or
you'll regret it."  He nodded wordlessly, his eyes wide with shock and (I
expect) a little fear.  "Good.  Remember that."  I dropped him back in his
chair, noting with satisfaction that it broke, and stormed off to where the
girls were cheering Keiichi on.

As I walked up, Urd noticed my lousy humor.  "What's wrong?"

"I don't believe that guy!" I exploded.  "He actually tried to get to
Belldandy through me!  What a..." I struggled for a word to describe
Aoshima, but at that point, my opinion of him was so low words couldn't hack
it.  I told Urd as much, and her temper went downhill as well.

"I'll kill him!" she raged.  It suddenly occured to me what I just did to
Aoshima, and I laughed.

"Don't bother, sis," I soothed her.  "I just put the fear of God..or rather
a god, into him."  I grinned at her, and told her what I said to Aoshima,
and that seemed to mollify her somewhat.  I wasn't surprised that he had
really bad luck for the next month or so, however.

Skuld ran up and asked where I had been, but I decided not to tell her about
what had just occured.  Skuld's version of revenge tends to involve large
hammers and severe cranial trauma, and I didn't think Aoshima deserved that.
OK, I'm lying, I did think he deserved it, but I wasn't up to dealing with
the police right then.

After that the rest of the afternoon went a lot better.  Incidentally,
Keiichi's team came in first.