Chapter 1

A/N: This story takes place technically somewhere before the final three episodes. ZONE has been defeated, but the gang hasn't split up yet.

Angelique left her classes feeling pretty good about herself. Her teacher had told her that her shields were the best of any Chaotian in the village, and that her kinesis was doing decent. She also had plenty of basics to deploy if she ever went to Earth, not that she had any plans to do so. The one thing she hadn't done yet was summoned her spirit monster; her teacher hadn't deemed her quite ready for that.

She knew she was attractive, and as such, needed to keep her bright green eyes open for any trouble on her way home. At eighteen, she cut a lovely figure, and her mid-back-length brown hair had at least three inch-wide stripes of white through it.

Then…

"What's an elegant lady like yourself doing out all by her lonesome?"

She rolled her eyes in the direction of the voice, very pointedly not actually looking at him, letting her mind work off her peripheral to see a shadowy-cloaked man. Who's that, a throwback from the Nitsupar incident? Ignoring him, she continued walking.

"Hey, that's not nice."

Her shielding dropped just a tad, just enough to let herself be aware of what he was doing. And then a chill went down her spine.

She couldn't sense him. At all. Either his shields were better even than her teacher's, or…

She never finished that 'or.' She broke into a run instead, kinetically directing her hair so that it was incongruously blowing ahead of her instead of trailing behind like a banner begging to be grabbed.

He didn't grab her hair. He grabbed the back of her shirt. "You're a tricky one, aren't you? You'll be perfect for my plans."

She struggled to get away, and then she decided to just lash out with her powers.

However, the first explosion of mental energy she let out didn't release her shirt! It was like he just ignored it!

Struggling to get loose, suddenly she felt a second energy wave building inside her. Huh? I thought I gave that one everything I had? Where's this second wind coming from?

When it exploded into being, she lost consciousness.

When she awoke again, she was face down and her surroundings, though incredibly clear-cut, weren't familiar at all. Then she realized she was in the air – way too high!

She tried to catch herself with her mind as she started falling. Her weight was well within her kinetic range…but nothing happened!

She knew she screamed. She knew she started thrashing as she continued trying to use her telekinesis. She was moving forward somehow, but always down. Then she went past a strange metal post, and she thought it was a complete miss, but suddenly a sharp pain lanced through her and she went into a spin as she blacked out again.

"Blah blah blah."

She woke up to strange voices saying words she didn't understand. She was face-down, again, but this time she was on a table and everything was holding still.

"Yada yada, yadayada yada yada."

Was that someone different? How many people are in here? Still…apparently she'd made it to Earth somehow. Which was strange, because she hadn't even covered teleportation in any of her classes; it wasn't supposed to be something she could do.

"Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah."

Well, the first thing to do is to tune into their heads and pick up their language. Her eyes hadn't really been open to begin with, but she let them close again as she entered the meditative stance she'd need.

"Yada yada, yada yada yada, yadayada."

…Wait. Why isn't this working?! I can't even sense how many people are in the room!

She started trying to move. Forget move, she started trying to thrash! There was a weight on her back preventing easy movement, but now she was determined to get off this table and out of here!

"AAAH! Oyoy, oyada!"

"Blah-blah, blah blah!" She felt hands catching hold of her, trying to hold her still.

She got her hands flat on the table and gave herself a good shove, managing to push herself up, though that took some extreme effort. Then suddenly…

"Rrr, blah blah blah blah!" And a hand suddenly cracked across her cheek.

Her eyes snapped open and took in defined lines, bright colors, way too bright lights…

"Aah!" she flung herself backwards, straightening her legs and snapping her hands up to cover her eyes. She stumbled, stepped on something sort of rounded (which could almost have been a cat, except for some reason it hurt her), and started toppling backwards…

Straight into someone's arms, who grabbed her around the chest in a tight – though strangely awkward – hug. "Yadayada, yah."

"Blah blah blah blah, blah?"

"Oy. Oy!" A hand caught her wrist and shook lightly. "Ayoyah?"

She sighed, and let the owner of the hand lower her wrists. Even through her eyelids, she could see that apparently someone had turned the lights down.

"Oy oy?"

He must want me to open my eyes. Well, since I don't speak his language… She slowly, carefully, opened her eyes again.

And stared straight into the gray-brown eyes of a rather punk-like boy right in front of her face.

Suddenly, his thoughts and memories poured through her, completely overwhelming her, and she closed her eyes again and struggled to gain her feet under the onslaught. Whaaaaa…

The arms of the boy holding her – Yusei – tightened. "Easy, easy, you're fine. We're not going to hurt you."

The boy in front of her – Crow, and what kind of a name was that? – scoffed. "Too bad nobody said that before Jack hit her."

"She wouldn't stop fighting, you asked for help, what was I supposed to do?" The third voice, who had to be Jack, retorted.

"Ow…do I ever have a headache." She struggled to set her hands to her temples, trying to will the headache away.

"Because of the light?"

"Probably, Crow."

There was silence. Then Yusei spoke again. "Um…nobody had said his name. How'd you know it?"

"It was in his head when I made eye contact."

"Wait," Crow sounded a bit panicked. "You can read minds by staring into someone's eyes? I mean, your eyes are already beautiful and unnerving, but…"

She carefully opened one eye and looked at him where he'd danced back to. "I've never heard my eyes described that way. And I should be able to read minds without making eye contact." She took the time to size him up.

He had strange yellow marks on his face, including one on his forehead that looked like an M – remnants of his days as a criminal outcast – and his red hair was standing on end. His clothes were nothing like what she was used to.

Just beyond him was Jack. Blond hair, white jacket, a very stern face, and she deliberately avoided looking at his eyes.

She sighed. "So how'd I get here?"

Jack was the one to answer. "Considering you don't even look like you're from Earth, could you be more specific?"

"Answer what you want. How'd I get to Earth when I wasn't even trying to come, I don't think any of you know. Where I am specifically and how I got here, that's a simple enough thing to answer."

"Yusei's pad, technically," Crow waved a hand. "As for how you got here, well…Yusei brought you. You were unconscious, and we had to fix your busted wing."

She stared at him, straight at his eyes. And with that connection, she saw herself as he'd seen her, as he was seeing her now.

A teenage girl with torn brown clothing, gripped tightly about the chest by a boy she could only barely see with yellow-striped black hair and a blue jacket - or at least long blue sleeves, and Crow's memory filled in the rest - with intense golden eyes, shock-white hair and white wings just peeking from behind her right shoulder and hanging down outright on her left. As his gaze moved down a bit, she saw that her feet had changed into some wicked-looking claws, still with five toes pointing forward but now long enough to grab stuff to some extent. And what she'd stepped on that had caused her to lose her balance, what she was still gripping in her left foot, was a long tail with a bulb of long feathers at the end.

Her eyes fell shut as she let out a moan, all of her energy just draining out of her.

"Whoa, whoa, hey, get your feet under you!" Yusei spoke from behind her head as his arms frantically tried to keep a hold of her. "Crow, help me!"

Crow dashed over and caught her arms. "Come on, on your feet…" he lightly tapped her left foot with his right boot, somehow managing to trigger it letting go of her tail, and then kicked her tail out from under her foot.

Once Crow had a hold of her and her feet were firmly planted on the floor, Yusei let go. "I'm going to take a wild guess here and say you didn't originally look like that?"

"Bingo."

"So what's your name, anyway?" Jack asked.

"…Angelique."

"That's a pretty name," Crow answered, "but, ah, do you mind if we call you 'Angel'? You kind of look like one now, so at least it'd fit…"

She blinked at him. And once again, made eye contact.

In his imagination, she had a shining aura about her in many colors. Even her clothing had changed to a flowing gown.

"A fallen angel, Crow." She shoved her right elbow backwards and winced as the impact caused pain in her wing.

"Still an angel! Speaking of that, though, do you think you can manage to get your left wing closed? It'd kind of be in the way if it were hanging open around here."

Angel – oh, thinking of herself by that nickname was actually kind of fun – turned to her left and studied how her wing was flopped open. Glaring at it, she tried to think it into moving.

Jack scoffed. "What, you can't get your own wing closed?"

"Of course not, Jack. My brain hadn't initially been wired for wings or a tail." After a minute of glaring, she got it to twitch. Latching onto the trigger for that with both figurative hands, she got another twitch, and then lifted her wing up. Once it was fully spread, she studied it.

A long bird-wing with white feathers. Nothing too special, except it was tapered such as to allow for speed. Cocking her head, she told it mentally, close.

After a moment of quivering, it folded.

"Okay, that's good." She bent slowly and picked up the tail, draping it over her arm. "I'm not going to consciously try to move this until keeping the wing closed is second-nature."

Yusei walked around in front of her. "That's probably a good idea. You got a shock to your systems, and trying to do too much at once will probably cause problems."

She looked up at him and accidentally locked eyes. And what she saw amazed her.