Disclaimer: Ah! My Goddess and all its associated characters are owned by their creator, Kosuki Fujishima ( © 1988 – 2007 ) Any other characters specifically created for this fictional work are fictitious. Any similarity to any persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

My personal gratitude goes to Mr. Kosuki Fujishima for creating the wonderful Manga, characters, settings, and plots that this fiction is based on.

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Mara's Lair, Present time.

"Resurrected again!" the blond wavy haired demon exclaimed, popping out of her coffin. "I HATE this!" she continued, "no matter what I try, those pesky Goddesses always find a way to defeat me!" She teleports to the surface and sees a Sake bar across the street, she crosses the street while thinking 'I have to think of a way to beat those Goddesses. Maybe some booze will do the trick.'

She entered the bar and glanced around. To the far wall was a typical bar, various whiskey's lined some shelves, and a very bored bar tender sat on his stood with his balled up fist supporting his chin. The lights were dim and the place was almost completely vacant, except for a table of rough-necks who were sitting drinking their beers and watching the new arrival as she entered.

"Hey Babe! Lookin' for some action?" one of the guys yelled over to her.

Mara glanced over their way and continued advancing towards the bartender. When she reached the bar, she dryly asked, "Gimme the strongest thing you've got."

"Sure thing. I think you'll enjoy this one." He said pulling down a square looking bottle filled with something of a dark color. He reached behind him and grabbed a shot glass of the shelf and started to open the lid.

"I'll just take the bottle if you don't mind." she said whisking it away from the man.

"Hey doll face!" the same guy yelled over to Mara, "We need some company over here!"

Mara turned and glared at the man, gripping the bottle tightly by its neck, she raised it up and said, "Buzz off. I need to do some thinking." She pulled out the closest chair she was near with her foot and slid into the seat, opening the bottle with a quick twist of her wrist and as she threw the cap behind her she taking a nice long swig of the fermented fruity substance.

"Really? That's too bad. Why don't you tell us your problems and we'll share ours, and maybe we can all figure something out together?", he said again

"Dude!" another man whispered loudly, "we can't talk shop with her around. It's bad for business."

"You're probably right, but when was the last contract you had? Hmmm? Two months? Three? It's a dry season, and we can use all the leads we can find, brother." the first guy countered.

"You wouldn't understand." Mara said back.

"Oh, I don't know about that. We—" the first man replied but was cut off by the third guy.

"Hey, I've got an idea. Let's have a drinking game. We'll roll this die here, assigning a number to each of us. Then we'll each take a turn and roll the die. If the die lands on your number, you have to tell us something about you, and if the die lands on a number that's not taken, you have to slam a drink down." He pulled out an odd eight-sided colorful die with number boldly printed on each face. "Besides…It's no fun drinking alone anyway." He concluded.

"Fine. Since you insist on not leaving my alone, I'll join your corny little game." Mara almost shouted as she kicked the chair behind her as she stood up, grabbing the liquor by the neck and paced over to their table where she slammed the bottle on the table and pulled the chair out from under the table, making a loud screeching sound. She sat down and eyed the three guys.

"I'm glad you finally came over here. I'm Terry, to my left here is Andy, and to my right is Jeff.

Terry looked like a big guy. He wasn't fat or anything, just very muscular and he sat tall, his mass consumed the space around his chair. Andy was kind of small compared to Terry. He had long blond hair that was held up in a manly tail. He sat there puffing on a cigarette, with an uneasy look in his eyes. His arms were folded on his chest and he sat back, leaning backwards on the back legs of his chair. Jeff on the other hand, had a short crew cut done to his black hair. He looked tough, his eyes yelled intimidation. His arms had various black and grey tattoos on them. He too was leaning back on his chair, but he had his black boots resting on the table. The treads had particles of stones and dirt stuck inside them.

"I'm Mara." She said, leaving off the First Class Demon part, as she took another swig of her booze.

"Alright, now that the pleasantries have been dealt with, we each roll. If a number comes up that's already taken, you roll again." Terry said rolling the die. It bounced on the table in random directions until it finally stopped on a 5. Andy took his turn next, as he swiped up the die, and loosely threw it back down on the table. It came to a sudden halt in front of Mara with a 2 facing upwards. Mara took her turn, just lifting up the die and dropping it straight down onto the table top, causing it to finally stop on a 7.

"EERRRRRR!" Mara growled staring at the 'lucky' number.

"What's wrong, don't like lucky number seven?" Andy asked dryly.

"You could say I have an ugly reaction to that wretched number." Mara explained away.

Jeff finally took his turn with an underhanded toss of the die, it bounced several times, and just about when it was about to fall off the table, it stopped with a 1 displayed.

"All right, let the games begin." he said taking the die and rolled…

(Several hours and quite a few bottles...)

"Alright…." Terry laughed hysterically, "you're a demon and you….", more laughter, "want to get rid of some goddesses?!", Terry laughed so hard he fell out of his chair from laughing so hard. His brother Jeff picked him up off the floor and dumped him back in his chair.

"Hey, call me crazy but… I think we can help you." Andy suggested discreetly. He had the least amount to drink, and he could smell a fresh contract being written in the air.

"You…can?" Mara confirmed with Andy. Terry was too busy slamming his open palm on the table and Jeff was too busy beating the crap out of Terry.

"Yup." Andy smiled, for three 'goddesses' the going rate is…" he paused and quickly crunched some numbers, "Three hundred and fifty thousand."

"Three hundred and fifty thousand yen?", Mara exclaimed at the high cost.

"No. 350,000 American greenbacks." Andy corrected.

"I don't have that kind of money. What about just one?" Mara countered.

"How much ya got?" Andy returned.

"I can get you… fifty thousand." Mara concluded.

"For that much….yeah, we'll do the kid. Nice and easy target." Andy suggested.

"What if her sisters stop you? What happens then?" Mara hesitantly asked.

"They will be dealt with." he paused. "only if they stop us from completing the contract." Andy said coldly.

"Excellent!" Mara exclaimed.

"Where's this place at?" Andy asked.

Mara filled in Andy about where the temple was, and gave him basic information about the place, along with it's enhanced security features. She also gave him a picture of the target.

Andy studied the photograph of the young black haired girl. He noted her odd blue tattoos on her forehead and cheeks as well as her large brown eyes.

"We'll have the job done in a couple of days. Give us the money now and consider it done." Andy said as he held out his hand.

"I don't have it with me. Give me a few days, and I'll give you half, and the other half when she's taken care of." Mara replied.

"Alright. I'll see you in a couple of days then. Meet us right here. We're usually here all day." he said standing up and grabbing Terry and Jeff by the neck. "Hey, come on you ding dongs. We've got work to do."

The three men left the bar leaving Mara alone at the table. She smiled and rubbed her hands together before teleporting back down to her lair. Once there she grinned evilly saying, "Perfect. In a couple of days those goddesses will be too wrapped up with that brat, making an attack on the others will be a piece of cake!"

She let out a maniacal bit of laughter and the scene faded to black.

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(A couple of days pass and everything appeared as though it was a normal sunny Spring day.)

Mara returned to the bar, to find it nearly packed.

"What the hell?" she said out loud with a confused tone. From behind her Terry popped up and grabbed her wrist saying only, "Over here." Leading the way to the table.

She took a seat and a beer was poured for her by the bartender. She looked up at him with a quizzical eye and then dropped her gaze to the guys in front of her.

"It's happy Thursday. Free beer with the purchase of any menu item over 1000 yen." Jeff explained quickly.

"Did you bring the money?" Andy interrupted, cutting Jeff off.

"Yeah.", Mara stated as she shoved a brown paper bag over to the three men. Andy peered inside. Seeing several wrapped bundles of hundred dollar bills he nodded and closed the bag back up again and placed it on the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

"Okay, consider the job done tomorrow night." Andy said with a stern look on his face. The three men got up from the table and went to the back of the bar, exiting out a back door. Moments later a scratched up gun-metal grey van left the parking lot.

Mara got up from her table and guzzled the beer down. She also went towards the back, and when out of site, she teleported back to her lair.