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 Colbourne
World of Elegance crossed her arms and pouted as she floated over the sidewalk on Yanada Avenue. "Well," She huffed, "this certainly bites."
She was glaring at the window of her goddess's favorite shop on the avenue…the one with the industrial strength crime gate covering it. It was the third such obstacle she'd led the others to in her bold quest to take the shopping district by angelic storm.
Gorgeous Rose shook her head. "I can't believe you actually thought the stores would be open this early…"
"Some are," Elegance said, "just not the really fun ones, I guess."
Cool Mint had her face pressed against the gate. "It's really hard to see the stuff in the window through this thing!" She called out.
"You're not supposed to," Rose said. "You're supposed to wait until the gate is up" – she glared at Elegance – "like normal people!"
"Oh, pipe down," Elegance said. "It's not like I've done this without Mistress Urd before!"
"So when will they pull the gate up?" Spear Mint said.
"Yeah!" Noble Scarlet worried aloud. "Will it be like hours and hours??"
Elegance rolled her eyes. "One hour. Two at the most, and then we can window shop to our hearts' content."
"But what do we do until then?" Spear Mint said.
All the angels thought about it, then Holy Bell finally spoke up. "Well, I was thinking that…"
She was interrupted by the sound of a mortal woman screaming "WAIIIIIIIIIIT! ANGELS, WAIIT!" The sound drew their gaze to two women running up the street at them. One was dressed in a business suit and carrying a microphone, the other was in jeans and a turtleneck and carrying a really big video-camera. The woman with the microphone was looking at them wild-eyed. The sight made Noble Scarlet dart behind Holy Bell's legs.
The women skidded to a stop near where the angels were hovering. As soon as she caught her breath, the microphone lady turned to the camera. "Are we still on?" She said. "Okay! Ladies and Gentlemen, this is unprecedented! I am standing, right now, within the vicinity of real angels! I will now try to speak with them." She turned to the angels and had to look up because they were all still hovering. "I welcome you all," she said, "on behalf of the people of Earth. Is there a statement you'd like to make to the world?" She stretched her arm up, hoping one of them would be willing to talk.
After hearing the question, Scarlet felt brave enough to poke her head out and peek at the strange woman and found the microphone stretched right in front of her face. She looked at it a little cross-eyed, then looked up at Bell. "Does she think we're aliens or something?"
"I don't know," Bell said. She had a hand on Scarlet's shoulder and was holding her own chin with her free hand, regarding the reporter and camerawoman thoughtfully.
"There they are!" Skuld yelled gleefully. The goddesses had been watching the news intently since Keiichi left the room and were overjoyed when the camera panned up and their angels showed up on-screen again. "Noble Scarlet looks so cute!"
"Mon Dieu!" Peorth exclaimed. "Gorgeous Rose looks so…well, gorgeous!"
"Well," Urd said, "none of them stand out as beautifully as my World of Elegance."
"Well, duh," Skuld huffed. "What do you expect on a black and white screen, you big cheater…"
"It's not like I planned to watch my angel on this thing when she was born, Skuld…!"
"Now, now," Belldandy said, "they're all beautiful, and we should consider ourselves lucky to have them." She suddenly became very serious.
"What's the matter, Big Sis?" Skuld asked.
"I just wonder what Holy Bell is thinking right now…"
Reika Tanaka kept the microphone in Scarlet's face as she tried a different tack. "My Name Is Rei-ka. I Am A Re-por-ter. I Will Tell Your Message All Over the World. Are You Just Visiting, Or Are You Here To Conquer Us in the Name of God?"
The angels all looked at her like she had three wings (an angel phrase). Elegance scratched her head. "What is this moron babbling about?"
"And why is she trying to talk to us at all?" Rose huffed. "Doesn't she know that we can't talk to mortals?"
"What makes you think she knows?" Spear Mint asked.
"She says she's a reporter. Don't they know everything?"
"To hear them tell it," Elegance said.
Reika turned back to the camera. "They seem to be reluctant to communicate," she said into her microphone, "so I will try to talk to the child-like angel to show them all that I mean them no harm." She turned back to the angels and beamed her prettiest smile at Noble Scarlet. "Hello," she said, "I'm Miss Reika. What's your name, Angel Dear?" Then she shoved the microphone back in Scarlet's face.
Scarlet frowned, and her sudden aggravation made her just brave enough to come out of hiding and stare the reporter down, and with a crescendo of a scream, she screeched into the microphone, "Angels can't talk to mortals, You Big STUPID-HEAD!"
Of course, since angels really can't talk to mortals, what the reporter, the cameraperson and the gathering crowd of onlookers heard was a shrill, high-pitched wail that hurt their ears and caused electronic feedback that shorted out the mike and the camera's electronics.
After a brief moment of static, the view switched back to the news studio. "It appears we're experiencing technical difficulties," the anchor said, "but we'll get back to Reika Tanaka as soon as we can to provide live coverage of these amazing events…"
Keiichi came rushing in just at that moment. "What was that inhuman wailing?" He cried.
"Oh, that was just Noble Scarlet," Skuld said dismissively. She turned to Belldandy and smiled. "She really told off that dumb reporter, didn't she?"
Belldandy smiled back. "She certainly did."
Holy Bell was saying much the same thing to Noble Scarlet. "I think you got your message across to them after all," she said, smiling down at her sister.
Scarlet looked up at her and grinned, then turned back to the silly reporter and smiled a triumphant smile.
Bell frowned again as she looked around and saw the rapidly growing crowd of onlookers and then saw that the cameraperson was trying to fix both the camera and microphone. "But I think we still have a problem," she said to the others.
"What is it, Bell?" World of Elegance asked.
"I was just thinking about Mr. Keiichi…" Bell began.
"What's he got to do with anything?" Scarlet said.
"He doesn't realize how in tune Miss Belldandy is with his feelings…well, maybe he does, but he has no way to describe it. He worries about so many things, but he worries a lot about people finding out that Miss Belldandy's a goddess. He thinks people might try to attack her or exploit her if they found out. She won't lie about it if she's asked, but she knows it worries him."
"Well, all right," Gorgeous Rose said, "he's worried about Miss Belldandy, but what does that have to do with…?"
Elegance gasped suddenly. "I get it, Bell! I get it!" She turned to others. "Mistress Urd is the same way! She sometimes hides her godliness because she has the same worries as Keiichi! She wants to protect Belldandy, so she doesn't go around announcing she's a goddess, and she is willing to tell an occasional lie to protect the secret!"
"But I don't see why…"
Elegance grabbed Rose's shoulders. "If mortals would go crazy if they found out normal-looking girls are really goddesses, then what do you think would happen if they all saw a bunch of angels flying around??"
Rose's eyes bugged out then, and suddenly all the angels were nervously aware of the many mortal eyes that were looking up at them, and the cameraperson was still working on her equipment.
Spear Mint and Cool Mint flew around and flanked the group, glaring at the sightseers. "Don't worry!" Cool Mint said.
"We'll protect all of you!" Spear Mint said. The twins had taken on fighting stances.
"No, No!" Elegance told them. "We can't hurt any of them!"
"Now that bothers you?" Rose said. "You wanted to hurt that mortal in the apartment."
"I just wanted to play a few pranks on her! I don't want the twins to beat her into submission!"
"But then what should we do?" Scarlet said.
Holy Bell saw that Elegance was scaring Noble Scarlet again, so she tried to calm everyone down. "I don't think it's a problem that these relatively few people have seen us, or if the whole city sees us, but that reporter said she would show us to the whole world, and I don't think we should let that happen."
The angels watched blankly as the cameraperson tested her equipment. "We could wreck the camera," Cool Mint offered.
Elegance grinned. "Now that plan I like!"
Bell smiled at her sister, then said, "Let's try something else first. Why don't we go somewhere where she can't follow us?"
"But reporters can follow you anywhere!" Rose protested. "They have vans and helicopters and spies everywhere! They may even have spaceships!"
Scarlet took a moment to consider that Rose might be the only angel dumber than Elegance before she brightened up. "I know where we can go!" She told them.
Elegance shook her head. "They can easily follow us there, Scarlet."
"Well, at least I'm trying!" Scarlet shot back. "I'm not just standing here worrying about reporter spaceships!"
Bell put her hands gently on Scarlet's shoulders and said, "You know, it might not be about where we go, but how we get there. We just have to make sure they can't follow us."
Elegance thought about it for a moment, then called out, "Huddle!"
The angels gathered around and put their arms around each others' shoulders until they were in an American Football style team huddle. Of course, it would normally be strange to see a bunch of angels huddling, but the fact that they were doing it a few feet off the ground made it stranger still. Most of the onlookers around them watched in utter shock (except for the hentai in the crowd, who were just ecstatic to see a bunch of cute angel butts floating at eye level in front of them).
"All right," Elegance said. "We'll go where Scarlet says, but we have to find a way to do it so the crazy reporter lady can't follow us!"
"Can't we just fly really high in the air?" Spear Mint said.
"But it's really cold up there," Cool Mint whined.
"And then the spaceships will get us!" Rose whimpered.
"Would you knock it off with the spaceships, already?!" Scarlet yelled.
"I already know what to do," Bell said calmly. She told them her plan, and then it was the other angels' turn to be shocked.
"Do you really think we can?" Scarlet said.
"Absolutely," Bell said. "We should try it anyway, and if it doesn't work, we'll be no worse off."
"Everybody agree?" Elegance said.
"Yes! Let's do it!" Rose said enthusiastically. "I want to try it!"
"Us, too!" The twins said.
"Got it!" Someone else said. The angels broke their huddle and turned. The cameraperson was handing the microphone back to the reporter.
"Is it working?" Reika asked. "Are we live?"
"Yes, yes," the cameraperson said, "you're on!" She adjusted the camera as Reika made herself presentable and listened to the question being asked via her earpiece.
"Well, as you saw, Isoroku, the angels can apparently use their voices as weapons of destruction. We must be very careful not to provoke them, or they could send our fair city back to the Stone Age."
Scarlet threw up her hands in exasperation. "What is this woman's problem?"
"Don't worry," Bell said. "We'll take care of her."
"What I'm going to do is try to get the microphone close to them and listen in on what they're saying to each other. Here we go." She turned and eased the mike closer to the group of angels, trying not to startle the child-like one into attacking. Then Reika was startled when one of the tall, blond angels bent low. Though she didn't know it, this angel was Holy Bell. All Reika cared about was that Bell was bending low enough to speak into the microphone. She held it up eagerly, waiting for the first real words from this strange being.
Instead, just as Bell was close enough to speak into the mike, she looked at the camera, smiled and waved, then turned into a stream of energy and streaked into the side mirror of a nearby parked car.
"Wait…what did she…?" Reika said.
Trying to figure that out distracted her from Gorgeous Rose, who also smiled and waved into the camera, then she turned into energy and streaked into the camera lens.
"Wh-what's going on…?" Reika sputtered.
Noble Scarlet ignored the stupid reporter lady as she looked around for something useful. She found it when she saw one of the onlookers was clutching a cup of hot tea. She shrugged and streaked into that, scaring the man into dropping it on the pavement.
Cool Mint and Spear Mint followed Holy Bell to the car on the street and each of them picked a rolled-up window to streak into.
Now Reika was utterly flustered. "What's Happening?!!"
Distracted as she was by the other angels, the cameraperson didn't realize World of Elegance had snuck around behind her until a streak of energy flew over her shoulder and into the camera's monitor.
When Reika saw that, she turned back to the camera and twitched a little. She and those around her looked like they had seen ghosts, and now nobody was sure they hadn't. Every time one of the angels streaked into something, she'd disappeared, and now they were all just…gone.
Reika gulped and said in a weak voice, "I believe we've…lost track of the angels momentarily…but we'll stay on the story. For Nekomi Two Morning News, I'm Reika Tanaka. Now back to the studio."
At the Tariki Hongan Temple, the goddesses and Keiichi Morisato were blinking in surprise at the TV screen. "Did they just…?" Keiichi said.
Peorth said it out loud. Someone had to. "They used our dimension jumps!"
"Can they really do that?" Urd asked Belldandy.
"Why not?" Belldandy said with a smile. "Especially today."
"Why especially today?" Keiichi said.
"All Angels Day is a day when angels get to do whatever they want, so if they wanted to use our dimension jumps, or any of our powers, they can do that today."
Skuld looked back at the TV with an amazed grin. "That is so cool!"
"That is not cool!" Keiichi yelled frantically. "Don't you understand what this means?? There are six angels loose in the world with all of your powers and no restrictions whatsoever, and now we don't even know where they are!!" His heart and breathing quickened with the realization, and his nervousness quickly ramped up to sheer terror…until he saw the goddesses were looking at him as if he were a madman, so he calmed down and bowed his head and said softly, "And I guess you're not as worried about that as I am."
Belldandy sighed and went over to comfort him. "Keiichi, I know you're worried, but you shouldn't be. Everything will be all right. Maybe our angels will be able to access all our powers, but I'm sure they'll do their best not to do any harm. As you know, an angel is an extension of her goddess's soul, so they all share our motivations. I'm certain that Holy Bell, even with all my power available, would never use it for anything I'd never use it for, and I'm just as certain the other angels will act the same way. All right?"
Belldandy was smiling now, and it was always hard for Keiichi to resist her smile. He smiled back and said, "Well…I guess I can trust Holy Bell then, and the twins are probably safe too…but," – he lowered his voice to a whisper – "are you sure there is anything Urd, Peorth and Skuld wouldn't do?"
He wasn't quiet enough. "HEY!" The named goddesses called out in unison, glaring at Keiichi.
"We're sitting right here, y'know!" Skuld blared.
"I'll have you know that World of Elegance and I can show tons of restraint when we want to, Mister! Tons!" Urd said indignantly.
Peorth just growled something in incomprehensible French through her teeth at him.
Lind just looked at them all in confusion. Wow. And the day's barely started.
Thanks if you're sticking around! Review responses:
LokiLeysmith: I hope you liked the latest chapter!
Nena Camadera: Actually, you're not the first to tell me something of mine reminded you of Invader Zim, which is odd because I've never seen Invader Zim in my life. What made you think of it?
Gaian Knight: That was the plan. I think there's entirely too much angst in this fandom.
Shinkicker, Brocky, risingsundynasty: Thank you!
OldSpice2625: Remember at the end of the "Fighting Wing" arc, Lind learned how to smile and seemed to want to come back and learn how to have as much fun as the other goddesses, so I don't think my characterization is that far off.