Disclaimer: I do not own Angelic Layer.

Hey readers! Welcome to my first AL story! Just to say this is Rated T for language and some sexual innuendo later on.

Enjoy!

Rin Furishine sighed to herself, annoyed, flicking a strand of her hair out of her face. Her second class off the day was about to start, and already she was bored. She stared disinterestedly out of the window, tapping her bitten fingernails on the surface of the desk.

A group of girls and some boys were all standing or sitting around a clump of the scratched wooden desks, talking excitedly. Rin didn't join them, because she knew what they were talking about.

"It's so cool-"

"Defeated with one punch!"

"Wish I had one-"

"Genius tactic!"

Rin groaned and threw her head backwards, staring at the plain, grimy ceiling. Rin wished her stupid classmates would just shut up about Angelic Layer, but it was all they ever seemed to talk about, like a bunch of sheep.

"I heard she's got ninety different angels-"

Rin groaned even more loudly and said,

"Do you guys ever talk about anything else?"

That got some attention. The people who were standing turned and stared at Rin with mixes of surprise, curiosity and indignation. Rin usually made a point of not talking to the people in her class: They thought she was a freak, she thought they were a bunch of idiots. Fair trade, considering that both of these immature judgements were true.

"Do you always have to be so bitchy?" one boy with messy brown hair asked.

"Yeah, what's your problem, exactly?" another put in.

Rin sighed and sat up straight, staring her famous deadpan stare at her classmates, who were all now looking at her.

"What's so great about Angelic Layer?" Rin asked, raising her eyebrows, "It's a completely pointless! At least with other sport it's humans actually doing it, but all it is are little plastic models running around. God, it's not like they're real things! A chimpanzee could figure out how to do play it."

"Angels aren't made of plastic!" a girl with her hair twisted into a topknot exclaimed, annoyed.

"I'm not the slightest bit interested in what they're made of," Rin snorted, folding her arms behind her head, now pushing the chair up with her feet so that it balanced on two legs, making an unpleasant scraping noise against the floor and stood up, letting it fall back with a bang.

The group winced, collectively, and Rin's limited patience wore thin with this simultaneous gesture. Grabbing her bag, Rin swung it over her shoulder and headed for the faded green door.

"Hey...where are you going?" asked the brown-haired boy.

"You can tell Miss Chiemi I feel sick." Rin responded, gliding out of the classroom and slamming the door behind her.

Rin walked quickly down the silent corridor, floor gleaming with polish. Her footsteps suddenly seemed to be very loud, making scraping noises on the floor. Rin didn't hesitate: she stretched out her hands and pushed the doors open, running away and out of sight.

Rin stopped running when she reached the outskirts of the area, pausing near the big shopping centre. She paused, leaning over to get rid of the stitch in her side, panting. She considered grabbing her inhaler, but thought against it.

A few people gave her strange looks as they passed her, which Rin tried to ignore.

Rin generally didn't care about being stylish or neat, which was maybe why her appearance was so outlandish. That or it was the enjoyment she got from shocking people. The most noticeable thing about Rin was her hair. She had coal black hair, with a few purplish-pink parts at the ends, dyed in, so it looked like she'd dipped her hair in paint. But it wasn't the colour that was most strange, it was the length.

On one side of Rin's hair, her hair skimmed her elbow like a shiny black waterfall. But on the other side of her head, the hair was short and spiky, hanging in uneven strands, barely reaching her neck, let alone the elbows. It looked like she'd hacked at it with nail scissors, which she probably had. She presumably left the long piece hanging because she couldn't reach it, or gave up trying to.

Her clothes were equally as wild and mismatched, too, although when she was wearing her creased school uniform, she had tried to be as inventive as possible.

Her skirt was the shortest she could manage it without looking like she was wearing a strip. Safety pins, ribbon and even a badge or two were clipped or stitched all over it. Her tie was black and pink striped, definitely not regulation. As for her shoes, she had long ago ditched the ones everyone else wore and chose to wear the combination of boots and fishnets.

Rin had a compact body, although she wasn't especially fond of it. Typically she was pale and her eyes were dark green, old eyeliner smudged beneath them. Once upon a time, they used to glimmer with a mischievous energy.

They didn't anymore.

Rin sighed, the stitch fading. She wondered what to do now. She certainly wasn't going to go back to school, but she couldn't go home, either. So she decided to head into the shopping centre.

She didn't have a lot, but she had enough just to buy something cheap to amuse herself. Rin stood on the escalator, biting her fingernails, which proved difficult as they were already bitten down to the edges of her fingers as it was.

Rin wasn't really bothered about where she went, so she ended up wandering into one of those big department stores that seem to sell everything. She let her feet take her to wherever they wanted, almost in a daze, until she ended up in a strange part of the store. It looked like it was a toy section, but Rin couldn't be sure what it was.

"Hmm?" Rin mumbled, searching through the boxes, frowning, curiosity getting the better of her.

Then she spotted something that was so strange she dropped everything that she was doing and walked over to look at it. On the self, there were eggs, and inside each egg was a small model. She recognised them from somewhere. Picking up the box and peering at it, Rin saw the model even had the beginnings of a face set on its tiny head. She titled it, trying to remember where she had seen it.

"You seem to be very interested in these."

Rin felt a jolt at the voice and turned to see a man standing behind her. He was wearing a lab coat and had spiky black hair.

"What are they, anyway?" Rin asked, despite herself, poking one of the eggs. "What is that in them?"

"Those are Angel Eggs, of course!" The man replied, as if this was obvious.

Rin scowled at the incredulity in his voice. That suddenly it dawned on her and she suddenly froze, her face stiffening.

"You mean...this is…Angelic Layer?!" Rin cried, disgusted.

"Well yes," the man responded, startled, "What's the problem?"

"I HATE Angelic Layer!" Rin shouted, clamping her hands over her ears as if the words burnt her, and she began to speed away.

"Hey! Where are you going?" the man called after her, completely befuddled by this strange reaction.

"I'm going home!" she yelled over her shoulder, without meaning to.

But when Rin got home, she might as well have been a piece of meat dipped into a tank full of sharks.

"Where have YOU been?"

Rin's mother, Kura shouted this as soon as Rin walked through the door. Rin glared at her mother, who was almost the same height as Rin, about an inch or so shorter. The temptation to say something outrageous, like, "Oh, I was off snorting coke," was so tempting Rin had to bite on her tongue to stop herself. Eventually, however, she realised she was required to answer.

"Out." Rin responded petulantly, knowing that this wasn't going to pacify her mother, but she didn't care.

"Out," Kura repeated, staring at her daughter with unbridled frustration and incredulity. "Rin, why do you insist on doing this? Why did you suddenly decide to walk out of class, AGAIN?"

"Because I felt like it!" Rin replied, angrily.

Rin's younger sister, Yukiko, was peering out of her bedroom, which was visible at the top of the steps. Even from the living-room door, Rin could tell that Yukiko was crying. She hated arguments, which Rin thought odd, considering they seemed to happen daily these days. Yukiko shook her head very slightly, which Rin pretended not to see.

"Just what I need!" Kura declared, raising her hands to the ceiling, "Another one of your episodes! Another act of complete thoughtlessness! Rin, why do you always want to cause trouble for everyone around you? Do you want to end up like-"

Rin took a step back, her eyes suddenly looking shocked. Kura suddenly realised what she was about to say, and softened slightly, reaching out,

"Rin-"

"SCREW YOU!" Rin shouted, and pushed past her mother, past Yukiko, who shrank back against the door as she ran past.

Rin, burning with anger, kicked the door open to her room, flopped down on her bed and did not come out of her room for the rest of the day.