Hello everyone. This is my first attempt at writing a fan fiction, and I am
still going through a steep learning curve. This story is based on Ah!
Megami-sama by Fujishima-sensei and the music of Glenn Danzig.

Some things to be aware of:

1. I am not a professional writer, and therefore appreciate any suggestions
on format, grammar, and continuity.

2. I am not an Ah! Megami-sama scholar in any way, so comments on
characterization, goddess abilities, and other details are welcome.

I wrote this story on the premise that up to this point, the goddesses had
never faced true evil. Sure the Lord of Terror wanted to, and almost
succeeded in, destroying the universe, but still and all, he(she) was still
a comedic villian. I wanted to write something as raw and disturbing as an
encounter with the forces of Hell would be. As such, there are things in
this story that do not conform with the loving, cheerful nature of the
original series. I hope you will take this with a grain of salt, and enjoy
(or hate) the story on its own merits (if any). Without further ado, here
is Part 1 of A Twist of Cain.

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A Twist of Cain

By Mark Turek

A Fan Fiction
Inspired by Ah! Megami-sama by Kosuke Fujishima and the music of Glenn Danzig


	"You know, I bet when you woke up this morning you had no idea that your
day was going to suck this much." A dry laugh rolled along the room and was
swallowed by the rolls of carpet stacked against the far wall. "I mean, if
you had known, you would have tried to prevent all this. However, this
seems to be your fate, and fate of course cannot be denied. It gives me an
philosophical headache. Do you believe in fate?"
	A slight wet gasp escaped from somewhere within a pulsating column of deep
red light.
	"I’ll take that as a no. Well, I have it on good authority that the
Goddesses of Fate do indeed exist, and according to my boss, they are going
to be up to their ancient eyeballs in trouble very soon. I’ll tell you
something, it blew my mind when I found out just how many gods and
goddesses there are. I grew up being taught there was just God and the
Devil. Actually, it seems there is a whole pantheon of minor deities who
just sort of muck about doing the dirty work of the Big Boys. The whole
concept is enough to make anyone’s brain core dump! … Am I boring you?"
	The red column winked out of existence accompanied by the hollow thud of
the young man’s body hitting the ground.
	"I don’t know why I bother talking to you. As a conversationalist, you
really need work."


	"This is NTN Headline News, thanks for joining us. Our top story: Treaty
talks between North and South Korea broke down today under accusations of
nuclear arms violations. The South Koreans accused the North Koreans of
amassing nuclear weapons in direct violation of the recent disarmament
agreements. North Koreans have refused to let United Nations weapons
inspectors enter military bunkers and say they are being unfairly
discriminated against by South Korea and the U.N. because of past
‘differences of opinion’."


	Belldandy dried her hands with a dish towel and checked the clock.
"Keiichi, don’t forget your lunchbox in the kitchen!" Keiichi was running a
bit late, and snatched his lunchbox (and gave the cook a quick squeeze) on
his way out the door. "Thanks Belldandy. Are you going to stop by school
today after shopping?"
	"Yes I should be there around 10:30 if that is ok."  Over the roar of his
bike Keiichi yelled "Sounds good. See you then."
	After cleaning up around the house, Belldandy went to the market.
Belldandy always took her time getting the groceries. It was a lot of work
to find the perfect vegetables she needed, but the people she was shopping
for were worth every effort. By the time she had gotten everything she
needed, she was a little behind schedule.

	Belldandy phased out of the mirror at her usual spot, and Keiichi was
waiting for her. He had a solemn look on his face and the entire campus was
subdued. Catching his mood immediately, Belldandy gave him a hug and asked
what was wrong.
	"Thank God you’re all right. I was worried about you when you were late.
One of the boys from my class has died. They just found his body behind
some bushes."
	Belldandy gasped. "How horrible! Did you know him?
	"No, not really. His name was Johji and I saw him a couple of times around
campus. … The rumor is that he died of natural causes. No marks or anything
on his body. The police are outside taking care of things right now."

	They walked slowly out of the building as the ambulance drove past them.
Belldandy squeezed Keiichi’s arm and shivered violently. "What’s wrong,
Belldandy? Are you cold?" As they walked around the corner to Keiichi’s
next class, she stopped as suddenly as she started. 
	"Oh it’s nothing, I’m sure. I just got a terrible anxiety attack. I’m
fine, really" she sighed.
	Keiichi looked at the slight sheen of sweat on her forehead and frowned.
"Anxiety attacks aren’t normal. Are you sure you’re not getting sick or
drained of your power?"
	"I feel just fine now. I don’t know what happened, but it’s over. Thank
you so much for your concern."  She smiled up at him and gave his arm
another squeeze. "We’d better hurry now, or we’ll be late for class."

	The news of Johji’s death was announced in the school paper the next day.
"Hmmm, it says preliminary autopsy results indicate the he was in good
health, didn’t smoke, and had no apparent external or internal injuries.
They are still waiting for the toxicology results." Keiichi sighed and
tossed the paper on the table. "I didn’t even know him, but I can’t help
but feel bad for him. He had his whole life in front of him."
	Urd shrugged and turned back to her soap opera. "Sometimes it is just your
fate to die prematurely."
	Keiichi blinked. "Why would he be fated to die before he accomplished his
life’s work? It seems like a big waste of his life, and those that cared
about him are hurting because of his death. It’s cruel."
	"Cruel? Death causes pain, true. However it is also a necessary step in
one’s life. The old make way for the new." Urd muttered absently.
	"I understand that, but he wasn’t old! He was almost the same age as me!
Why do some people arbitrarily live and others die? It doesn’t make sense."
Keiichi flopped over on his back and scratched his head. Belldandy came
over to the table and began to clear it for dinner.
	"Actually Keiichi, the job of arranging fates belongs to Yggdrasil now.
The goddesses used to do it long ago, but since the computer came online,
it has freed us up for other duties." Belldandy smiled and folded his paper.
	Keiichi sat up and looked at her with wide eyes. "YOU used to arrrange
fates?"
	"Well not me personally, but the goddesses who had our jobs before us. My
counterpart was Lachesis. Her job was to determine the individual threads
of the Tapestry of Life and weave them together. Urd’s predecessor was
Atropos, who cut the threads of people’s lives, determining how long they
lived."
	Skuld entered during Belldandy’s explanation and took her usual seat
between Keiichi and Belldandy. "The lady who came before me spun the
threads of life that Lachesis used. Her name was Clotho."
	Urd stood up and stretched. "Yeah they had hard jobs, but they weren’t
nearly as cute as us. Atropos was just plain old and really kind of grumpy.
Lachesis was middle-aged and reminded me a lot of your mom, Keiichi."
	Skuld caught Keiichi giving Belldandy a loving look, and elbowed him in
the ribs. "Clotho was young and pretty, I suppose, but she didn’t have my
winning personality." Urd snickered, prompting a basilisk glare from Skuld.
"Anyway you should see the subroutine for determining fates. It is
positively HUGE! You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to debug the
source code for it!"
	Urd scowled. "I believe it. I also remember how you corrupted the
executables and I had to recompile the whole damn thing! The fate backlog
took months to catch up!"
	A vein bulged slightly on Skuld’s forehead, and her hand inched slowly
towards her jacket. "That wouldn’t have happened if you protected your
storage blocks better, Miss No-Revision-Control!"
	Keiichi spoke loudly to avoid a meltdown at the dinner table. "So what
would happen if the fates subroutine locked up?"
	Urd gave Keiichi an odd look . "You mean if it just stopped responding to
the system? I don’t know honestly. Whatever happened would not be pleasant.
People’s fates would no longer be under the control of Heaven, I suppose.
For the first time since the universe began, humanity would control its own
destiny. Lord, there’s a terrible thought!"
	"What’s so terrible about allowing humanity to control its own destiny?
Wouldn’t that be for the better? I mean, people wouldn’t be fated to die
prematurely." Keiichi asked.
	Skuld smacked her hands down on the table and shook her head. "Humanity
can’t even control their pollution emissions, much less every aspect of
every person’s life from birth to death! With Heavenly control, we can keep
humanity on more or less a straight path to keep the planet from utter
destruction. Without our control, humans could do WHATEVER THEY WANT,
including blow their entire species into a fine red mist."
	"I see what you mean. Good thing everything’s running ok." Keiichi
breathed. "It’s just so tragic what happened to Johji, it just really gave
me a taste of our own mortality."
	"Hah! Speak for yourself, mortal!" Catching Belldandy’s frown, Urd sighed.
"If it’s worrying you, Keiichi, I’ll check the system tomorrow."

	"This is NTN Headline News, thanks for being with us. Our top story
tonight: The Korean Weapons Crisis. More hot words were exchanged today by
the North and South Koreans. South Korea has demanded that the United
Nations use ‘appropriate force’ to investigate alleged nuclear weapons
buildup by the North Koreans. The government of North Korea made their
position clear. In a news conference today, they stated ‘We are innocent of
the allegations against us, and will consider any forceful actions by the
United Nations or South Korea as a direct threat to our nation which will
be dealt with by any means necessary.’ In a strange twist, the country of
Iraq announced its support of North Korea and denounced the ‘attack dog
mentality’ of U.N. inspectors. In other news: unusual deaths are being
reported across Japan and many other countries. The victims have no
apparent wounds or other obvious causes of death. No drugs or chemicals
have been found in the blood of the victims. The Center for Disease Control
in the United States is doing a full investigation into possible viral or
bacterial links to the deaths."