Disclaimer: Ah! My Goddess and all related characters are the property of Kodansha LTD. and ADV Films. No copyright infringement is intended. This work of fiction is for entertainment purposes only and no money has changed hands. The story and all original characters are the sole property of the author and may not be used or archived without permission.

AH! THE GODDESSES AND THE ROMPING ANGELS

by Darrin A. Colbourne

World of Elegance led the angels on a ballistic flight high and fast into the air, then back to the ground so fast they were a mere blur to the naked eye. They ended their crash dive in an alley between two stores in the business district, pulling into a hover just before hitting pavement. While they got their bearings Cool Mint and Spear Mint peeked out of the alley and onto the street.

"I don't think anyone saw us," Cool Mint said.

"Me either," Spear Mint said, peeking in the other direction.

"Well, we're here," Gorgeous Rose said, "so what's your brilliant plan for getting us around unnoticed?"

"It's simplicity itself," Elegance said. "Everybody gather around."

The twins rejoined the group and all the other angels formed a semicircle around Elegance, giving her their full attention.

"Okay, since we have all of our goddesses' powers today there are several things we can do that we would normally need them to do for us. Now, the first thing we have to do is make our wings invisible, like they are when we're in our hosts' bodies." With that, she pointed at her own wings and made them disappear. "Next, we turn off our ethereal glows." Elegance closed her eyes and concentrated and the heavenly glow that accompanies all angels turned off, leaving her standing there with normal looking skin and hair.

"And the final step? We just dress they way our goddesses dress." She smiled and gestured with both arms, and the wisps that surrounded her lower body crept up and began to transform, shifting and melding until they became a black and white skintight minidress. Parts of the outfit continued to shift until they turned into a pair of black and white pumps and a pair of black and white sunglasses. Finally, she coaxed her hair into falling straight down and flowing the way Urd's did. When she was all done, she propped the sunglasses on top of her head and posed for the others.

Holy Bell actually applauded. "Oh, that was wonderful, Elegance! I want to try next! Let's see...make my wings invisible…" Bell took on a prayerful stance for this step, but the result was the same. "Now, I turn off my glow…" She hugged herself this time. Her glow turned off a second later. "And...I dress like my goddess…" She mimicked Elegance's arm gesture. Her wisps transformed into a more chaste earth-toned short dress with matching square-heeled shoes. As for her hair, she used a few hand gestures to reshape it into a ponytail similar to Belldandy's. All done, she posed for the others. "How do I look?"

"You look super, Big Sis!" Noble Scarlet said. "My turn!" Typically, Skuld's angel tried to do everything at once and flubbed a few times, but ultimately she got her wings vanished and her glow turned off, and finally stood before the others wearing a denim jumper with an idol band t-shirt and blue sneakers. Her blond, curly locks were much too short for her to make them like Skuld's, but she made sort of an homage by turning one of the curls into an antennae curl.

"Nice job, squirt," Elegance said. "Now, as long as we're careful to-yeeek!"

"What?" Rose asked, not understanding why Elegance was reacting to her and the twins like she'd seen a ghost. "We just did what you told us to do."

"Actually, Elegance," Bell whispered to her, "you did tell us…"

"...To dress like our goddesses, I know…" Elegance said with a face-palm. That was, of course, the problem, as Gorgeous Rose was now wearing the same cutout black bikini and bondage strap ensemble as Peorth, while Cool Mint and Spear Mint were wearing teen versions of Lind's battle-suit.

Elegance huffed and rolled up imaginary sleeves. "I'll just have to take care of you three myself," she said.

The way she said it and the way she approached them made Rose and the twins take a step back, but after a whirlwind of gestures all Elegance really did to them was change their clothing. Now Rose wore a skintight rose-colored minidress and matching high-heeled sandals, while the twins each wore white sandals and pin-striped sundresses, Spear Mint in green-and-white and Cool Mint in blue-and-white. Just for fun Elegance also gave the girls side ponytails, each one on the opposite side from the angel's wing.

Elegance took one final look at her handiwork and said, "Okay, as I was about to say, as long as we're careful not to fly or use our powers overtly, we can walk around like this and no one will look twice at us...except maybe the occasional pervert."

"They're still not perfect disguises," Rose huffed. "Even today we still can't talk to mortals, so what if one of those perverts wants to have a conversation with us 'normal girls', hmmm?"

Elegance waved off the concern. "Don't worry. You'd be amazed at what you can say to a mortal without actually speaking. And anyway, I'm sure that if we leave the mortals alone, they'll leave us alone, and that's the point, isn't it?"

"Okay…" Cool Mint said, "but do we have to walk everywhere?"

"Not absolutely everywhere," Elegance said. "We're right around the corner from the main shopping district. We'll just walk a few blocks and check out the shops along the way, and then we'll find another alley and change back to normal. Then we can fly off wherever we want." She clapped twice. "Now enough stalling! We're young girls on the town and there's window shopping to be done! Let's get to it!"

Elegance turned and strutted out of the alley like the fashionista she considered herself to be. Bell giggled and fell in step with her. Again, with a shrug, the rest of the angels followed soon after.

When they were gone, the drunken homeless man who'd been hiding behind the alley dumpster stood out in the open and contemplated what he'd just seen. Six angels came down from heaven and disguised themselves as schoolgirls?

He took one last look at the half empty bottle he'd been clutching, then he tossed the thing in the dumpster, put his hands together and made a solemn vow to his ancestors: "Never again." With that done, he went off in search of an AA meeting…

What am I going to do? Keiichi wondered as he stared blankly at his Statics textbook. It felt like ages had passed since Urd had made contact with her angel and then backed off, and there hadn't been any news on TV about any of the angels since then either. He was trying to trust them like Belldandy said, but images of the most horrifying - or most embarrassing, anyway - scenarios kept filling his mind, sapping his concentration.

Should he have refused Belldandy's request when she asked to do this? Would he have put his foot down, especially if he'd been given a better explanation about what was going to happen? He sighed as he concluded that he could never have refused Belldandy, so today's events would likely have happened anyway. Acknowledging that bit of helplessness just depressed him, so he made himself get up and head out of his room, determined to make an effort to join the goddesses in their celebration of the angels' exploits.

On the way to the common room, Keiichi heard the phone ring, so he called out "I'll get it!" and passed the common room to answer the phone in the hall. "Morisato Residence…" he said when he picked up.

"MORI-SA-TOOOOO!" Tamiya and Otaki screamed in Keiichi's ear.

"Ahh! Seniors!" Keiichi called out in a panic.

"Lissen, Morisato," Tamiya said, "me and Dai had us some divine inspiration!"

"Yeah, Divine inspiration!" Otaki said.

"What kind of divine inspiration?" Keiichi asked warily.

"We saw a bunch'a angels in da clubhouse!" Tamiya said.

Keiichi blanched. "You saw angels in the clubhouse?" He squeaked.

"Das right! In da clubhouse! Dey was all on the floor and ticklin' each udder!"

Keiichi face-faulted. "They...were...tickling each other?"

"Yep, and dat's how we figured out what we're doing for the next club festival!"

"Yeah!" Otaki said! "We're going to do ticklish angel cosplay!"

Keiichi fought the urge to say the million things that immediately came to mind because they would likely have gotten him killed. He forced his voice into a neutral tone as he said, "You're going to dress up like angels and tickle each other?"

"Dat's right," Tamiya said, "and you're gonna rig up harnesses so youse can make us fly like little birds!"

"Yeah, little birds!" Otaki said.

"You get back to us once youse worked out the details!" With that the seniors hung up.

Keiichi just stood for a moment holding the phone and twitching, then he hung up, turned toward the wall and lowered his head until it touched. Then he just stood that way contemplating his existence. A minute later the phone started ringing again. Keiichi ignored it.

"I got it!" He heard Skuld say. She came trotting out of the common room and reached for the phone. "What's the matter with you?" She asked Keiichi before picking up. "Morisato Residence."

"Hey, Skuld, It's me!" Sentaro's voice said.

"Hi, Sentaro!" Skuld said. "What's up!"

"I saw your angel this morning. She was traveling around in a pack or something."

"Yeah, me and my sisters gave them the day off so they're exploring the city."

"I didn't know angels could have the day off."

"Sure they can. They just usually have to stay in heaven, so this is unique."

"That's so cool! I'm glad I saw them today. They helped me practice for my next race."

"They did?"

"Yep...and Noble Scarlet told me for sure that you'd be there."

Skuld suddenly face-faulted. "Uh...she...told you that?"

"Yeah! That's so great!"

"Yeah...it is...I mean, of course it is! I can't wait to go!"

"Cool! Well, I gotta go. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Yep, see you later." Sentaro hung up, and Skuld hung up and groaned, then she stood next to Keiichi and put her own head against the wall.

"What happened?" Keiichi said.

"I was going to surprise Sentaro by showing up at his race at the start, like I did last time, but Noble Scarlet totally ruined it." She sighed. "You?"

"The seniors want to be ticklish angels at the next festival."

They stood silently for a moment, then Skuld said, "You win."

"Thanks. Want to go get some ice cream?"

"Okay."

The two of them turned away from the wall and went to the kitchen to commiserate over rocky road.

The angels made their way down Yanada Avenue, peeking in clothing store windows and commenting amongst themselves about the fashions they saw. It turned out to be a lot more fun than everyone expected, except Elegance, who already knew how much fun window shopping could be. It was especially enjoyable when they used their powers to transform their outfits into ones they'd seen. Amazingly, no one noticed them magically switching their clothes on the street, or if they did they didn't make a big deal. Elegance had been right again. Stripped of their heavenly traits, the mortals on the street paid them little mind.

They didn't only look into clothing stores. All the things mortals could buy in stores fascinated them. They watched otakus buying manga, bibliophiles loading up on books, cosplayers purchasing materials for their costumes. The few restaurants on the avenue were in the middle of their breakfast rushes. The angels were both intrigued and appalled at what mortals would put into their mouths.

At one point as they were headed for a small boutique Gorgeous Rose stopped in her tracks and peered into a window in shock. "This is a flower shop!"

The others joined her and Elegance stood next to her and looked into the window. She hit Rose with a raised eyebrow and said, "Um, yeah...it's a shop with flowers in it. Mortals have those."

"I know that, Elegance! Look inside!"

"I am looking. I don't see what your problem is."

"My problem is there are no roses!"

Elegance took a better look. "There are roses. See? They're in the back."

"Those are white roses! There are no red ones...and even with the white ones there's only that one little tray of them."

"So? Maybe the shop owner couldn't buy enough roses to stock more trays."

Gorgeous Rose balled her fists and put a determined look on her face. "Well...we'll just see about that." She marched away from the others.

"Rose, what are you doing?" Elegance said. Rose ignored her. She just marched right into the entrance.

The shop owner, an older man with a salt-and-pepper beard saw her walk in. "Good morning, miss," he said. "Can I help you with something?"

Rose glared at him for a moment, then she spread her arms and yelled "Storm of Roses!"

And once again she used her borrowed powers to create a tornado of red roses, her goddess's signature attack. The roses filled the air inside the shop and their thorns scraped and scratched everything they came in contact with, including the shop owner, who ducked behind the tray of begonias he'd been spritzing.

The storm died down after about a minute or so, leaving every surface of the shop covered in a heavy layer of rose buds. Rose surveyed the place and nodded, then she turned around and marched back out.

When she rejoined her fellow angels, she smiled at them and said, "There! That's much better."

Bell, Scarlet and the twins just stared at her. Elegance did a face-palm. "What the hell is wrong with you?" She groaned.

"What?" Rose said. "You said the mortal couldn't afford proper roses. Now he doesn't have to. It was a good deed." This made perfect sense to her.

Elegance fought the urge to strangle Rose. "Come on," she said, "let's get out of here before someone calls the police on a pretty eco-terrorist."

"Mon dieu," Rose said, exasperated. "You keep saying we can do what we want today!"

The angels continued to argue as they walked away from the flower shop, leaving the shop owner to wonder what exactly just happened. As he surveyed all the roses around his shop, he decided to do the only thing he could think of. He went into the storeroom in the back and came out a few moments later with a sign to tape in the front window:

RED ROSES: ½ OFF.

The angels reached the boutique and used their powers to try on the beautiful hats they saw in the window there. They spent a few minutes in front of the place, then Elegance wanted to check out a jewelry store across the street.

As they approached the front window a well-dressed man stepped out of the store and he stopped cold, eyes locked on the angels, specifically World of Elegance. He gasped at first, then he stepped right up to her. "Pardon me, miss. I'd like to have a word with you."

Elegance glanced at the others and whispered, "Watch this," before turning back to the man. She put a surprised look on her face and daintily touched her chest.

"Yes, you. May I please have a moment of your time?"

Elegance stood demurely and nodded.

"Thank you. First, I would like to say that you are one of the most beautiful young women I've ever seen."

Elegance smiled an embarrassed smile and looked away as she waved off the compliment.

"No need to be modest. It's quite true. I knew that as soon as I saw you, and I think you would be perfect for my magazine."

Elegance looked at him curiously and raised an eyebrow.

"Allow me to introduce myself." The man reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a business card. "My name is Hanaoka and I am the associate publisher of a magazine that features gravure idols."

Elegance feined recognition with a smile, even though she had no idea what he was talking about.

"Now, I believe that if you let me feature you in my magazine, you could have a very long and lucrative career as an idol."

Elegance went wide-eyed and grinned and clasped her hands in front of her chest.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure of it. Would you like to give it a try?"

Elegance looked away with her eyes and bit her lower lip.

"Of course, take your time to think about it, talk it over with your loved ones and get in touch with me. All my contact information is on that card."

Elegance looked at the card, then she smiled at him and slightly bowed.

Hanaoka smiled back and bowed. "It was a pleasure meeting you, and I hope to hear from you soon." He waved and walked away to go about his business, smiling and humming.

Elegance turned to her companions with a triumphant smile and took a theatrical bow.

The other angels were stunned. "I gotta admit," Scarlet said, "That was impressive."

"How did you do that?" Bell said. "Did you find a way to communicate with mortals?"

Elegance shook her head. "It's actually easier to communicate with mortal men without talking. They look more than listen anyway."

"You don't seriously intend to appear in that magazine do you?" Rose said, pointing to the card.

"Of course not," Elegance said. She tucked the card into her dress. "I'm going to give this to Mistress Urd so she can make us both rich! Now come on. There's an awesome lingerie shop a few blocks this way."

They set off again, but only got about halfway before another store grabbed Scarlet's attention. "Ooh! Electronics!"

The other angels gathered around. Scarlet was staring into the front window of an appliance and electronics rental store. "This stuff would appeal to a little gearhead like you," Rose said.

But it drew Elegance's attention as well, for predictable reasons. "Look at that TV!" She sighed. "That has to be forty inches! I wish there was something like that back home…"

"It's okay," Scarlet said, "But it's not the biggest TV ever. What we really need is a monitor like our goddesses use in heaven."

"Well, sure, but it's not like we could get one of those in the surface world. Mortals don't make monitors like those here."

"I don't see why not. I can see from here that they've got everything they need. It just needs a little more science."

"And maybe a little angel's touch...?" Elegance wondered aloud.

Rose put her hands on her hips. "Elegance, what are you thinking?"

"I'm not thinking anything. I was just talking to Scarlet."

"You can't fool me! I know you're plotting something…"

"Me? Says the angel who just buried some poor man's shop in roses for no reason! I was just having a hypothetical conversation with Scarlet."

"Yeah," Scarlet said, "we're just having a hypo-pathetical conversation!" Then she beckoned Elegance to bend down and said quietly in her ear, "And, hypo-pathetically, if we were completely invisible…" She went on in a whisper, but Elegance listened intently and nodded at several points, then her eyes went wide at one point and she said, "Ooooooh…" Then she and Scarlet smiled and nodded at each other, and then Elegance used her power to turn them both invisible.

"Elegance!" Rose said, fists at her sides, but Scarlet and Elegance had already snuck into the electronics shop.

Bell and the twins looked in the front window curiously. "I wonder if anyone will notice them," Bell thought out loud.

She got her answer when the people in the shop started running around and screaming, then started pouring out of the front entrance. "Ghosts are in the storeroom!" One of the escapees yelled.

The entrance to the storeroom was visible from the front window. All the angels looked and saw lightning and smoke pouring out and filling the store. Everyone standing outside the storefront looked on with awe, until there was a blinding flash.

And when the smoke literally cleared, sitting in the center of the store was a 90-inch, crystal clear, shimmering heavenly monitor. It suddenly came on on its own and started displaying a local baseball game. The sight made the jaws of the mortals in the crowd drop and they slowly started to drift back into the store as Scarlet and Elegance walked out dusting off their hands and smiling smugly.

"Elegance!" Rose said. "You ruined that shop!"

"Oh no we didn't," Elegance said. "We just used a bunch of spare parts to make a really cool TV."

"Yeah," Scarlet said. "We used a bunch of extra stuff and made something awesome!"

"And a really cool TV is a benefit to mankind, so like with you and the roses, good deed." Elegance said triumphantly.

"It's not the same thing at all," Rose said. "Roses actually help mankind feel good."

"And so does seeing a world series on widescreen with digital sound," Elegance countered. "Now let's go! I still want to see that lingerie shop."

The angels went back to their window shopping as the customers and staff of the electronics shop filed back inside and gazed in wonder at the angel-built TV. At one point, a customer whispered to a nearby employee, "What are you asking for this thing?"

The employee, an assistant manager with yen signs in his eyes, whispered back, "Let's talk in the office..."

Back at the temple, Urd called out, "Hey, everybody! It's a special report! Maybe they'll talk about the angels again!"

The others had drifted away from the TV after coverage of the angels died down. Now they came back into the common room at run.

Keiichi and Skuld were just finishing their ice cream. On hearing Urd, Skuld gulped down what she had left and rushed to get close to the TV. "Aren't you coming?" She asked Keiichi.

"Fill me in later," Keiichi said. He continued to eat his ice cream, having finally decided he was better off not knowing what the angels were up to.

Skuld got to the TV just as the anchor was handing it off. "...now we go to our reporter on the scene, Miss Reika Tanaka. Reika?"

Reika Tanaka was back on screen. "Well, folks," she said, "it seems like today's strange events in our fair city are going to continue. I'm here at the Watanabe Florists on Yanada Avenue where the shop owner claims that a possessed young girl made a mess of his business." She turned to the stout man standing next her. "Mr. Watanabe, can you tell us about this girl you saw?"

"Ah...she was quite beautiful," he began, "and she was blond and dressed in red, but she had a stern look on her face. Then, she screamed something in an ancient language, and suddenly there was a storm, and it blew red roses all over my shop!"

"I see...and do you think there is a significance to the red roses?"

"I do not know, but" - he turned to the camera - "at Watanabe's we are having a sale on Red Roses, long stem, priced to move, while supplies last." Then he smiled, turned to get something out of frame, and returned with a bouquet of long stemmed red roses for Reika. "These are for you, for being so thorough in your reporting."

"Ah, thank you very much!" Reika accepted the bouquet with a smile, then turned back to the camera. "So now we must ask: is the possessed girl related to the angels we saw earlier today? Is she possessed by one of the angels, or is this an entirely new phenomenon that's hit Nekomi? We will stay on this story, wherever it leads us!"

She was about to sign off when the sound of screaming outside drew her and Mr. Watanabe's attention to the front window. The screaming grew louder and louder until a frantic man rushed into the flower shop and saw Reika. "It's you!" He said. "You're the one reporting on the angels, right?"

"Yes! Have you seen them?"

"No, but you must come...it's ghosts!"

"Ghosts?"

"Yes! Poltergeists have taken over my favorite electronics store and have built a ghostly TV! You must come report on this!"

"Right!" She turned to the camera. "Isoroku, we are going down the street to cover this latest development." She motioned to her cameraperson and darted out of the flower shop.

As the view cut back to the studio all the goddesses seemed lost in thought. Peorth broke the silence. "Hmm...blond hair...storm of roses...y'know, I believe that that possessed girl was actually Gorgeous Rose in cosplay."

Urd looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Ya think?"

"Poltergeists in an electronics store?" Lind wondered aloud.

Urd and Skuld sighed at the same time.

"Gotta be Elegance…" Urd said.

"And definitely Scarlet…" Skuld said. "We'll never be able to show our faces in that store now."

"Maybe we shouldn't have let the girls fly off without setting a few constraints after all…"

No one said anything for a time, then Keiichi screamed, "THIS JUST OCCURRS TO YOU NOW?"

Soon after the lingerie shop the angels found themselves in another alley. "See?" Elegance said. "I told you window shopping could be fun!"

"That was fun," Bell said. "Almost as much fun as real shopping!"

"But without emptying your wallet!" Scarlet chimed in.

"Well, fine, it was fun," Rose said, "but can we move on to something else now?"

"What should we do next?" Spear Mint said.

"We have plenty of time to do a bunch of stuff!" Cool Mint said.

"Well," Elegance said, "we haven't really done what Bell wants to do yet…"

"Hey, yeah!" Scarlet said. "What do you want to do, big sis?"

"Well," Bell said, "there is something I was looking forward to doing today...but first, we should change back. It was fun to pretend to be a mortal girl, but it's better to be angels, isn't it?"

"Well of course it is," Elegance said, and all the angels poofed back into their normal appearances.

"Now what?" Scarlet said.

"Now, follow me!" Bell took off with a giggle and the others flew off right after her.

And the homeless person in the alley followed them with his eyes till they were out of sight, then he turned and looked down at the half-empty bottle in his hand, then he got up to put it in a dumpster...

TBC...