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

She found herself careening through a space filled with swirling, sparkling lights. She knew it was the in-between dimension, but she had only ever seen it through her goddess's eyes. Now her own eyes were wide as she fell headlong toward a rapidly growing black hole in the center of the light.

All too soon she was falling through the hole, and suddenly the lights had disappeared, and the hole and the lights had been replaced by a very solid-looking linoleum floor rushing up toward her face.

Holy Bell gasped and crossed her arms in front of her face as she gave her wings a strong flap. She stopped herself just before impact. After a few seconds she slowly lowered her arms. When she saw how close she had come to a crash, she smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.

Then she heard something else crash, and then someone yelling "Whooooaaa!" Before she could turn to find out what it was, one light and one very heavy impact drove her into the floor anyway.

"Owww," Gorgeous Rose moaned. She sat up and looked around. "Where is this place…and what did I land on?"

She jumped when Holy Bell's muffled voice said, "I'd be happy to tell you if you'd get off of me…"

Rose flew up immediately and then helped Bell to her feet. Bell checked herself over and shook off the impact, then crossed her arms and frowned at Rose. Rose blushed and looked embarrassed. "Sorry…" she said.

Bell just shook her head, then looked down. The smaller object that hit her had slid off her back as she got up. She reached down to pick it up and held it so that she and Rose could look at it clearly.

Rose blinked. "It's a little mirrored bowl!"

Bell nodded. "It's a cover. Mr. Keiichi explained once that some places have cameras put in to watch people." She looked up and took off, taking a second to reach the ceiling. Rose followed her and they came to a hover flanking a camera pointing down at the floor. "I must have come out of this," she explained, holding up the cover, "and then you must have come out of this camera lens and knocked it off…and then landed on me."

"I'm really sorry," Rose said, looking sheepish.

Bell sighed. "It's okay. I guess we need more practice if we're going to travel like that."

"But I thought it would come as naturally to us as it does our goddesses!"

"Using the jump, maybe, but we might have to more deliberate about our re-entry."

Just then there was someone screaming "YAAAAHHH!" and another loud crash. Bell and Rose turned to find World of Elegance sprawled over a pile of plastic chairs next to an overturned table.

"Case in point…" Bell muttered as she and Rose flew over.

"I'm'kay…I'm good…" Elegance slurred as the other angels lifted her out of the pile up. She shook her head to clear it and stretched to work the aches out of her body. It was a minute or so before Bell and Rose let her hover on her own. "Thanks," she said with a smile, then looked around. "Well, we're in a cafeteria all right." The surroundings were typical. Rows of tables covered with plastic chairs arranged across a linoleum floor. There was a serving station for hot food at one end of the roughly rectangular space and soda, coffee and tea dispensers in a nearby corner. There was another serving station for ice cream in another corner and racks filled with things like microwave ramen in cups and other quick snacks. "Hey…where did I come from?"

Bell pointed to another part of the ceiling and smiled. There were several wide-screen televisions hanging from frameworks mounted in the ceiling.

"Are we sure we're in the right cafeteria?" Rose said, thinking out loud. "Where are Scarlett and the…"

Girlish screaming in stereo interrupted her before she could say the word "twins." The screams and the crashing of more chairs and tables announced the arrival of Spear Mint and Cool Mint, falling in from slanted windows high above the cafeteria. The elder angels rushed over to help them. "I think we have to practice that more," Spear Mint whined as Rose and Elegance helped her up.

"That's what I said," Bell said as she helped Cool Mint.

"Hey, we need to find Scarlet!" Rose said. "Who knows where she might have ended up in a place like this?"

"She needs hot water," Bell thought. "She may be in the kitchen!"

"Let's go!" Elegance led the way again, flying through the window of the serving station and into the kitchen in the back. All the angels looked around, but the only obvious source of water was the big sink in the back. The angels spread out, trying to think of where to look next.

Then the faucet in the sink started rattling. Cool Mint heard it first and flew back over to the sink. The rattling grew more violent as the others joined her. Then, faintly, there came the sound of a tiny voice that grew in crescendo as the rattling grew more violent. The voice was also saying words that no young goddess or angel should say.

Elegance giggled as she reached out and turned on the hot water knob. A heavy spray of hot water rushed out of the long faucet…then Noble Scarlet emerged from the hot water with a gasp. She hovered in the air surrounded by the other angels knocking water out of her ears. "Stupid, stopped-up pipes…" she muttered.

"Maybe you're just not skinny enough to get through them," Elegance said as she checked her nails.

Scarlet glared at her for a moment, then wondered aloud, "Did we make it? Are we there?"

"We weren't sure," Bell said. "It's a cafeteria, but we weren't sure it was the right one."

Without another word, Scarlet flew out of the kitchen and looked around the cafeteria. "Ya-hoo!" She cheered. "This is it! We did it!"

"You're sure?" Gorgeous Rose asked.

"Yep! This is the main cafeteria at Nekomi Tech. When my goddess goes to school with Miss Belldandy and Keiichi their classmates bring her here and buy her ice cream! And look! It's closed!"

"That's a good thing?" Elegance said.

"Of course it is! That means that there's not many people around campus now, so we can have the run of the place and not many people will see us!"

"Then that really is a good thing," Bell said.

"All right, so we have the run of the place," Elegance said, "but what's there to do on a college campus?"

There were suddenly stars in Scarlet's eyes. "We can play 'School!'"

"We could," Gorgeous Rose said, "but why would we want to?"

"Come on, it'll be great! We can be the students, and Holy Bell can be the teacher, and she can teach us everything she knows and stuff!"

Rose crossed her arms and huffed, "We're both the angels of First Class Goddesses. I already know everything she knows."

"It's just pretend, you big dummy!" Scarlet snapped, then she turned to Bell and spoke more reverently. "Pleeeease? Can we do it, Big Sis?"

Bell smiled at her and said, "I think it sounds like fun. Let's do it."

"Ya-hoo!" Scarlet called out again!

"I've never been to school before," Cool Mint said.

"I want to raise my hand and get called on," Spear Mint said.

Rose sighed. "I guess we're outvoted, Elegance. We have no choice but to be bored to death for the next hour or so."

Elegance huffed and rolled her eyes. "All right, fine…but listen, little miss play-schooler, where exactly do you expect to have this pretend class? Here in the cafeteria?"

"No!" Scarlet said. "In a classroom!"

"Aha! And just how do you propose we get to a classroom without anyone seeing us, hmmmm? Will there be mirrors and faucets for us to jump through when we get there?"

Holy Bell thought about it. "Actually, if it's a chemistry lab…"

"Nope! No helping, Bell! Let's let our little sister tell us her brilliant plan!"

Scarlet crossed her arms and smiled smugly at Elegance. "You're not so smart! It just so happens I know exactly how to get to one!" She grinned and spread arms, and with a poof! she was just an inch tall. "We can become mini-angels," she said triumphantly. "We can fly through the corridors near the ceiling so nobody will notice us, and even if they do, we'll be so small we'll look like butterflies! So there!"

Elegance smirked. "Leave it to a squirt like you to want to be smaller," she quipped. Before Scarlet could respond, Elegance twirled and poofed and became Mini Elegance. Then she put up her fists and acted like a prize fighter. "Come on, pick on somebody your own size!" She said to Scarlet. Scarlet just shook her head.

Bell was grinning. "That looks like so much fun," she said to her sisters before she shrunk as well. "I haven't been a mini angel since the last time Miss Belldandy was a mini-goddess!"

Spear Mint and Cool Mint had to concentrate a little before they managed to shrink to the proper size. "Lind-sama never does anything like this!" Spear Mint said.

"It feels kind of weird," Cool Mint said with her face scrunched up.

The mini-angels all flew around a still full-sized Gorgeous Rose. The vine-covered angel was hesitating. "Come on!" Scarlet said. "Change already!"

"Well, I just don't see how this is a good idea!" Rose fretted. "You said we'd look like butterflies!"

"Yeah…so?"

"So? So, don't you know that mortals like to collect butterflies? And pin them to pegboards? And cover them in stinky formaldehyde?"

The others just stared at her for a moment, then Elegance said, "You are one sad, strange little angel."

Rose was indignant. "I'm just trying to keep us safe! I can't help it if none of you know the real dangers of the mortal world! And anyway, you listened to Holy Bell when she was worried about mortals seeing us!"

"Bell had a legitimate concern," Elegance said.

"Yeah. You're just paranoid," Scarlet said.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said as she shrank, then pointed at Scarlet, "but if I end up in some bug enthusiast's net and get mounted on a screen with needles, I'm blaming you!"

Elegance slid up and whispered in Scarlet's ear, "Yep, her ditzy behavior is other people's fault, just like her goddess."

"You keep out of this!" Rose yelled at Elegance while Scarlet giggled.

Bell decided to get everyone back on track. "Well, shall we go? I believe the nearest building to this one with classrooms is Sakuraba-Ameno Hall."

"Oh, yeah!" Scarlet said. "I think I remember that!"

"But first, we should clean up in here," Bell said. "Could you all lend me some of your power?" Bell extended her tiny arms out over the cafeteria while the other mini-angels reached out to her. Bell started singing and the entire cafeteria began to glow. The glow dominated the space for about a minute, and when it dissipated the damage they had done when they re-entered reality had been repaired.

"Cool!" Scarlet said. "That was just like Miss Belldandy!"

Rose harrumphed. "I could have done that too if everybody was helping me…" she muttered.

"Yeah, sure," Elegance said. "Come on, squirt. This was your idea so you lead the way."

Scarlet grinned. "Okay! Everybody follow me!" She soared off and led the others out of the cafeteria and through the halls, keeping close to the ceiling. There were actually very few mortals around, and the few they passed as they left the building and headed toward Sakuraba-Ameno Hall didn't notice them.

"Still no sign of them?" Keiichi asked. He'd left the sitting room soon after the angels had disappeared. He'd tried to get some homework done, but his mind kept coming back to the idea that six powerful angels were on the loose in Nekomi.

"Not in the five minutes since the last time you asked," Skuld sang.

"Keiichi, we promised we'd tell you if we found out anything," Urd said, "and we will. So just don't worry about it, okay?" She swept her hands toward the TV. "See? It's just people talking."

Keiichi watched the screen. The anchor had a guest with him at the anchor desk and was interviewing him. "So now, you say that the angels must be trying to deliver some kind of message. Can you tell us who might be sending the message, and what might that message be?"

The guest, a studious looking man in glasses and a bow tie, folded his hands on the desktop and began his lecture. "Well, of course, we still don't know for sure that these were genuine angels, but if they were, then it only makes sense that The Almighty One is sending the message. Angels, after all, are the Almighty's harbingers, so he must be trying to talk to us through them. Now, as to what he's trying to say, there must be clues for us in the Destroyed Car, The Accosted Rich Girl and their disappearance after trying to get into the Yanada Avenue stores. There is a complex puzzle in their activities that we are tasked to solve, and I'm afraid our mere mortal brains might not be up to the task."

"Ah…so will we need a supercomputer then?"

The guest nodded. "Yes, yes…perhaps more than one."

Peorth put her hands on her hips and huffed. "See that? Idiots!"

"They really don't know how things work, do they?" Skuld said.

"Well, not everyone is privileged to know the workings of Heaven," Belldandy said as she brought tea and cookies in from the kitchen. "I made something for us to snack on while we wait for the angels to be on TV again."

Skuld beamed as she headed for the table. "Thanks, Big Sis!"

"Well, I for one don't want to watch the silly mortals just talk about them until they come back," Lind said, "and I get to choose what we watch…um…so what should we watch, Urd?"

Urd pounced. "Turn it to channel six! They rerun this really hilarious show where the audience cosplays and the host offers them deals which are either great prizes or utter crap!"

"Merde!" Peorth hissed. "You're bastardizing the whole point of the competition, Lind. Just get the TV listings and choose what you want!"

"You keep out of it!" Urd said. "My friend Lind asked me for help and I, being a proud goddess, couldn't refuse!"

"And don't you pretend to be doing it out of the goodness of your heart!"

Lind ignored Peorth's fussing and just did as Urd said. Soon all arguments were forgotten while all the goddesses watched attentively as a mortal dressed in bunny pajamas tried to pick between curtain number one, two, or three. Keiichi just sighed and went back to his room.

Only Urd noticed him leave, and his concerns made her think, What will you do with all my power and none of my limits, my beautiful angel? A sly smile crossed her face. She looked at her fellow goddesses. It seemed the game show was a perfect distraction. She would wait until they were all truly engrossed in it, then she would make her move.

The angels snuck into one of the empty lecture halls in Sakuraba-Ameno complex through one of the skylights above the doors, then made sure there were no mortals in the hall when they popped back to full size and turned on the lights. Scarlet, Rose, Elegance and the twins took places in the bleacher seats and got ready for the lecture.

Holy Bell descended in front of the blackboard and thought out loud: "Let's see…I'm supposed to be a teacher, so I think I should dress like this." She gestured with her arms and the winding shawl around her legs rose up and transformed into a light blue suit, complete with knee-length skirt, frilly blouse and tailored suit jacket. She added matching pumps and horn-rimmed glasses for the full effect. "That's better," she said, then turned her attention to the others. "Good morning, class! I'm Holy Bell, and I'll be your teacher today."

"Good morning, Bell-sensei!" Scarlet, Cool Mint and Spear Mint said in unison, smiling as they got into it.

"Yeah, yeah," Elegance and Rose groaned, already bored.

Bell went on: "Well, I'm so glad to meet all of you. This is my first time as a teacher so I'm a little nervous, but I'm sure if we all work hard together we'll have a great year. Now, I think we need to have a class rep and assign responsibilities. Who wants to…?"

All the younger angels were waving their hands frantically. "Can I be class rep, pleeeease?" Scarlet said.

"We'll do the cleanups!" Cool Mint said.

"I can make the board spotless!" Spear Mint said.

Elegance just groaned again and rolled her eyes.

"All right, all right," Bell said. "Miss Scarlet, you can be class rep, and Miss Mint and Miss Mint can clean up."

The younger angels cheered. This time Gorgeous Rose rolled her eyes.

"Well, now that that's settled we can get on with our lesson for today, which is…" She had to think about it for a minute. She grinned when she had an idea. "Angels' Wings!" She turned to the board and picked up a piece of chalk, then drew – at, like, hyper speed – a mechanical-style drawing of a pair of wings, complete with little notations for the important parts like control feathers. "Angels' wings are used to control speed and direction, not to gain lift, which is actually provided by a goddess's magic. In order to provide enough lift, the goddess must possess a minimum magical volume level of 1.21 gigahaloes, as noted in file 334-567-8BD of the Special Information Section of the Yggdrasil System…"

Rose tried very hard not to yawn. Elegance yawned freely, thinking that her sister angel could at least teach something she didn't already know. Though she looked bored – and she was, utterly - her mind was actually racing, trying to find a way to bring excitement to this otherwise dreary meta-cosplay. She perked up and smiled when something came to her, and with a snap of her fingers, she poofed! herself into another new outfit.

Holy Bell stopped lecturing and looked at Elegance over the top of her glasses. "Miss Elegance," she said sternly, "What are you doing?"

"I'm being the class clown!" Elegance said proudly. She was dressed in a white-with-really-big-red-polkadots jumper with a frilly pink collar and frilly pink cuffs. She was also sporting a matching dunce-cap and a big, red rubber nose, which complemented her harlequin-painted face. She grinned happily while she tooted the obnoxious bicycle horn she was holding in her left hand. "Every class has one!"

Rose giggled. Everyone else just looked on in amazement until Scarlet said indignantly: "Not literally! There isn't literally a clown in every class!"

"Well…I think there should be!" Elegance said. "I think it would be a privilege to be the first ever Literal Class Clown!"

Bell sighed. "No," she said.

"But, Bell," Elegance pleaded.

"No," Bell said again.

Elegance pouted and switched back to her normal appearance. Bell nodded and went back to the boring lesson about the boring angel wings and just making a boring spectacle of herself. Elegance stewed a little in her seat until she thought of something else to be. She snapped her fingers again.

Bell stopped again and sighed. "Elegance…"

"But this is even better!" Elegance said. She jumped from where she was sitting down to the floor so everyone could get a good look at her. She was wearing a tattered pop-band t-shirt, a leather jacket and miniskirt and boots, complemented with fishnet stockings and sunglasses. Everything was black, and her hair was sticking straight up and spiked. "See," she said, "I'm the Fighting Class Rep!" She did a couple of really bad karate stances to emphasize the point. "If the Fighting Rep from another class comes and challenges us, I'll defend us with my Number One Class-A fighting skills!"

"That only happens in manga!" Noble Scarlet screamed.

Gorgeous Rose ignored her. "I get it! I get it!" She said. "I'm going to be something too! I'm going to be…" She thought a little, then said "…I'll be The Girl Prince!" Then she jumped to the floor and poofed into a man-style cavalier's uniform, with a rapier in a sheath hanging from a purple sash around her waist, jodhpurs tucked into her tall black boots and a short bob hairstyle. She drew the rapier and confronted Elegance. "And I will be the one to defend all these charming angels from the likes of ruffians like you."

Elegance got into another silly fighting stance. "Don't you know how this defender thing works? It's like that movie. There can be only one! If you want this job, you have to challenge me!"

"Very well, knave!" Rose said. "I accept your terms and challenge you for the right to be class champion!" She raised her sword and started to maneuver around. "En Garde!"

Elegance maneuvered around right along with Rose, She was spinning her fists in the air aimlessly, but with great determination. "Come on! Put 'em up! Put 'em up! I bet you're not so tough without that sword, girlie!"

Noble Scarlet huffed in frustration and raised her hand high. "Sensei! Sensei! Elegance and Rose are disrupting the class!"

Holy Bell, who'd actually been watching the little cosplay drama with strange interest, suddenly came to her senses. She cleared her throat and said: "You're right, Miss Scarlet. Miss Elegance, Miss Rose, stop this right now!"

Elegance and Rose stopped in place and turned to her. "Aww, come on, sensei," Elegance said. "We were just starting to have fun…"

"No, no," Bell said, "you've disrupted the class, and as your instructor I must set an example. That means I must punish you, so I'm going to…hmmm…" She thought about it a moment, then beamed as she came to a decision. "I'm putting you in detention!"

She reached her hand toward Elegance and Rose. There was a flash of light, and suddenly the two adult angels were bound shoulder-to-toe in coils of heavy chain (a visual representation of what were actually very powerful angel trapping spells).

"Hey!" Elegance exclaimed as she squirmed in her bonds.

"That was just like Miss Belldandy too!" Spear Mint said.

"But I don't think that's what detention means…" Cool Mint said.

"It works for me," Scarlet giggled.

Bell kept her hand extended until Elegance and Rose floated back to their seats bound in the chains, then she went back to teaching, with the twins and Scarlet looking on attentively and Elegance and Rose looking away.

Rose was trying to think of the right spell to counteract the trapping spells she was being held by, but it was no use. Lady Peorth could easily counteract this spell if she were here, she thought wistfully, but, of course, her goddess was back at the temple and out of touch.

Elegance was too busy fuming to try and think of a counterspell. How dare she imprison me in this undignified manner? Elegance thought. Her mind ran through all the ways she might get revenge on Bell, but all of them required getting out of the trap first, which she might not be able to…

Then it hit her: Why should she have to do it at all? She started bouncing around in her seat and put an embarrassed look on her face as she called, "Bell Sensei!"

Bell sighed again. "Yes, Miss Elegance?"

"I have to go to the bathroom," Elegance said sheepishly.

Bell's eyes widened. "You do?"

"Yes, I have to go really bad, so may I please be let out of detention so I can go?"

Rose, who wasn't really as dumb as she looked, caught on and started squirming around. "May I go, too?" She pleaded. "Please, sensei?"

Cool Mint, Spear Mint and Noble Scarlet threw the elder angels sidelong glances. Suspicious…they all thought.

Bell found it odd herself. Angels didn't have the type of metabolism that required "going to the bathroom," so it didn't make sense for Rose and Elegance to be desperate to go. Then again, they were all pretending to be students in a mortal classroom, and she supposed mortals went to the bathroom all the time, so maybe Rose and Elegance were just getting into playing their parts. With that in mind, she said, "Very well. I'll release you, but just so you can go to the bathroom." She stretched out her hand, and with another flash of light, Elegance and Rose were free.

"Thank you, sensei," the pair said with wide grins on their faces, then the grins turned evil when they looked at each other.

"Let's get her!" Elegance said.

Holy Bell screamed as World of Elegance and Gorgeous Rose leaped into the air and pounced on her, throwing her to the floor. Then Bell squealed with laughter as Elegance and Rose trilled their fingers swiftly and delicately up and down Bell's sides. They were merciless in their attack, making Bell squirm and writhe and beg, "Stop it! Stop it! It's not fair, two against one!"

Noble Scarlet agreed. She stood up at her seat and raised a finger in the air and declared, "I'll save you, Big Sis!" Then she was flying through the air. Her flight ended as she rolled World of Elegance away from Holy Bell, and then it was Elegance's turn to squeal with laughter as Scarlet traveled up and down her body rapid-tickling all her vulnerable spots. Then Elegance caught Scarlet on one of her passes and the littlest angel howled as the black-and-white got her vengeance.

Cool Mint and Spear Mint looked at each other and nodded, then they joined in by pouncing and double-tickling Gorgeous Rose, which distracted her enough for Holy Bell to squirm away and start tickling World of Elegance, which gave Noble Scarlet an opening to resume her ninja tickle attack. Undaunted, Elegance reached out with her hands and wings to teach her sisters how angel tickling was done. Meanwhile, Rose's tickle battle with the twins was steadily moving closer to the sister angels, until Rose was close enough to reach out and resume her torture of Bell. Bell tried to fight back, but caught Cool Mint instead, and Spear Mint stretched herself so she could still tickle Rose and avenge her sister against Bell.

And thus did the Greatest Angel Tickle War in Angel History evolve and grow, with six angels decisively engaged and laughing their wing feathers off.

And at the temple house, while the goddesses watched mortals make fools of themselves on television, someone chuckled.

Peorth perked up and turned to Urd. "Was that you?"

"No…" Urd said, but there was a strain in her voice, and sure enough she let out another chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Skuld said. "The mortals are silly, but not laugh-out-loud silly."

"I'm not laughing…" Urd rasped, just a moment before she let out a loud guffaw.

Skuld and Peorth traded sidelong glances. Suspicious…they both thought.

"Are you ill, Urd?" Lind asked. Urd was kneeling on the floor and holding her sides, and her face looked flush.

"Can I get you some tea, Sis?" Belldandy asked, genuinely concerned.

"No…" Urd began, "I…I can't…" She fell all the way to the floor, unable to keep herself from laughing out loud. She laughed so hard it was hurting her, and she squirmed around and hugged herself the whole time.

"Geez, what got into her?" Skuld said.

Peorth examined Urd closely, trying to find a bug in Urd's program. What she found instead made her gasp. "She's connected to World of Elegance! Urd! You know that's against the rules!"

"Sorry…I just…they're…" Urd couldn't talk anymore. She was simply overcome with laughter.

"So what's so funny about being connected to her angel?" Skuld said.

"There's only one way to find out." Peorth reached out and gently touched Urd's shoulder…then she was doubled over with laughter!

"Peorth," Belldandy said, "what is…?"

"Tickle fight!" Peorth blurted out between laughs. "They're having a tickle fight!"

The remaining goddesses looked at each other, grinned and reached out to touch Urd. Soon all five goddesses were experiencing the same tickle torture as their angels. Belldandy and Peorth's laughs were lady-like but persistent. Skuld's laugh was raucous. Urd was giggling like a madwoman. Even stoic Lind was beset by chuckles that made it hard for her to breathe.

All the laughter drew Keiichi out of his room again. As he got close to the sitting room, he said, "Hey, did you guys find a comedy to watch? Can I watch…?" He face-faulted at the sight that greeted him. The goddesses were all piled up on the floor and wiggling around on top of each other, laughing as if they were being tickled by invisible perverts.

"I'm letting go!" Urd screamed from the bottom of the pile. With that she broke contact with World of Elegance, releasing them all from the sensation. They all started to breathe normally again, but were gripped by residual laughs as they calmed down and disentangled themselves. They all wiped tears from their eyes.

Lind gasped as she sat up and drew her knees to her chest. Then she floated up and flew out of the room, barely avoiding a collision with Keiichi. "Excuse me!" she called as she sped down the hall and into the bathroom.

"I don't think I've laughed that hard in ages," Peorth said, "and I know Lind hasn't!"

"She must have had it especially rough," Belldandy said, "if both her angels were being tickled."

"What's going on?" Keiichi asked.

"Urd cheated and made contact with World of Elegance while the angels were trying to tickle each other to death," Skuld said.

"So all of you were…" Keiichi blinked. "Wait…you were in contact with your angel? But you said…!"

"Yes, yes, I know…" Urd said. "I was just curious about my angel. Don't worry, it won't happen again."

"That's not what I'm worried about! Where are they? What were they doing besides tickling?

"I don't know, Keiichi! It wasn't like I could see through her eyes! I just made close enough contact to tell what she was feeling!"

"Well…can you do it again, and this time…?"

"Didn't you hear what I just said? I was wrong for doing it that time and I'm not going to do it again!"

Keiichi growled, "Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

Belldandy spoke before Urd could react. "It's a matter of trust, Keiichi. Our gift of freedom to our angels is incomplete if it doesn't include our trust in them to use that freedom wisely. Besides, if all they're doing is tickling each other, then they couldn't be hurting anyone else or causing any damage, could they? So, it's for the best if Urd keeps her promise and we all leave the angels alone."

Keiichi didn't look convinced, but he let the matter drop and left, trudging back to his room. On the way he passed a more-composed looking Lind, but she couldn't keep from blushing as she passed him, and she had a small grin on her face when she rejoined the other goddesses.

"That was the greatest feeling ever…" she said softly.

In the lecture hall, while the angels were recovering from the battle, Scarlet asked, "Say, did everybody feel something? Like our goddesses were with us?"

"They were," Holy Bell said. "They were laughing with us for a brief time. I though it was wonderful."

"Still, they shouldn't have been connected with us at all," Rose said.

"Yeah!" Spear Mint said. "It's against the rules! Right?"

"Well, it is," Cool Mint said, "but what can we do? It's not like we can punish our goddesses."

Elegance put her hands on her hips. "And who says we can't? On a day that we can do whatever we want? Don't worry. There's only one goddess that really needs punishing, and I'll take care of her." She grinned wickedly and stretched a hand into the air.

The goddesses were discussing the tickle fight when the sound of two sharp slaps rang out in the sitting room. "Yow!" Urd yelped.

"What is it now?" Peorth said.

Urd was rubbing her backside and had a shocked look on her face. "I think…I think World of Elegance just spanked me! That little minx!" A grin crawled across her face. She wasn't really angry. After all, she did want to know what to know what her angel would do with her power. Punishment received, but I'll get you at the end of the day, kitten.

"Mission accomplished," Elegance told the others. "So, what's next?"

Scarlet didn't hesitate. "We have to start a club!"

"A club?" Rose said.

"Yeah! We had class, and now we have to have a club!"

"What kind of club?" Spear Mint asked."

"Um…I dunno…any kind of club."

"Okay, well let's start a club and get it over with," Elegance said.

"We can't start it here!" Scarlet huffed.

"Why not?" Rose asked.

"This is our classroom! We have to have our club in a club room! Don't you know anything?"

"I know I'm already tired of the college experience…" Elegance grumbled.

"It should be fun," Bell said, "and we still have plenty of time left in the day, don't we? Let's do it. Where should we have our club, Scarlet?"

Scarlet changed into a min-angel again, prompting the others to do the same. "Everyone follow me!" She led them out of the lecture hall and on to their next destination.