Two months.
It had been two long months since Zak had disappeared. Angel never forgot what had happened that day, when Zak had saved her and sacrificed himself in the process. Two long months of being alone; and two long months with no one around to keep her company. Angel lay on her bed in silence. She held in her hand the card that had saved the world; Chaos Number 88: Goddess of Light Shine. Using this card, she had defeated the dreaded overlord of all Numbers along with her partner Zak. They had been a team 'til the end, fighting against Kite the Number Hunter, the Numbers and even in an alternate timestream.
And now he was gone. Angel hadn't seen nor heard from him since the portal had closed on him two months ago; trapping him within the alternate timestream. Angel just hoped that, even with the degradation of the alternate timestream, Zak was okay. She'd visited the roof of the Heartland hospital every day for two weeks after he'd been trapped there. But each and every day was all the same. Zak hadn't been there and there was no trace of him having escaped. Angel turned the Chaos Number card in her hand around and around. It was a powerful card, being a Chaos Number, and it had taken advantage of Number Zero's weakness.
Which had led to victory over the Numbered Overlord. Even where Zak's own Chaos Number had failed. It had been an impressive duel, with Zak and Angel's opponent hardly even taking a scratch of damage until the end of the duel. Angel sighed; she missed the days of running abut with Zak and Number Hunting. She tossed the Chaos Number in her hand onto the desk by her bedside, where several other cards lay. Among them were her ace cards and all the Numbers she'd collected while hunting with Zak only two months before.
Numbers 88, 53, 72, 18, 73, 43 and Chaos Number 88 were all the Number cards Angel owned. Zak had owned more than she had, with a grand total of 8 Numbers and his own Chaos Number. That was before he'd been trapped. Now she didn't know what had become of him or his Number cards. Another card resting on the deck was a Synchro monster known as Ancient Sacred Wyvern. This kind of card was rare in Heartland and Zak had been the one to teach Angel how to use it. Angel sighed again; why couldn't Zak be here?
Then Angel sat up and took in a deep breath. She told herself that now was not the time to be worrying and remembering about what had happened two months back. Now was the time to put on her duel disk and go outside and hunt for Numbers or even take down one of Barian's henchmen. After the World Duel Carnival, the Barian invasion had begun. Members of the Barian World had come to Earth in an attempt to find and subdue Numbers and their holders. While small and unnoticeable at first, the Barian invasion had become a real threat with many duelists having become brainwashed by Barian forces to do their bidding.
At the forefront of the resistance though was Yuma Tsukumo, the reigning champion of the Heartland World Duel Carnival and his two friends Kite Tenjo and Reginald 'Shark' Kastle. The trio all had their own powerful monsters to take on the Barian forces and had been successful in many of their battles. Angel herself was a fighter against the Barians and had taken down a few brainwashed duelists on her own. Yuma was a user of Number monsters against the Barians, with his deck being headed by Number 39: Utopia and its Chaos counterpart; Chaos Number 39: Utopia Ray.
Kite Tenjo didn't use Numbers that Angel knew of and instead opted for a one of a kind and very powerful archetype of cards: Photon. His deck focused on controlling the field and disrupting the opponent's strategies. Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon and Neo Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon were two unbelievably strong monsters which spearheaded Kite's deadly deck. Finally, Shark used a water deck with a single Number card and a Chaos evolution of it as his ace cards: Number 32: Shark Drake and Chaos Number 32: Shark Drake Veiss respectively. Together, the trio made a very powerful and feared resistance of the Barians.
Angel herself only possessed the six Numbers she had as well as her Chaos Evolution. While the Barian forces weren't after her specifically, she had had her fair share of duels against them. Occasionally she had seen a member of the trio battling a Barian controlled duelist and the member had acknowledged her as a warrior against the Barian threat. But they left her alone for they knew about Zak and what had happened to him. They let her fight alone because that was what she wanted. If she was willing to battle the Barian forces; then Yuma, Kite and Shark were not ones to complain.
And now Angel felt like battling against Barian forces and their Chaos Xyz monsters. She grabbed her duel disk and packed up her deck before putting on a jacket and heading out of her apartment. The Chaos Xyz monsters that the Barian controlled duelists used were powerful methods of subduing Numbers. They were created with the very card that controlled the duelists themselves: Rank-Up Magic – Barian's Force. Angel had faced the card a few times and knew exactly what it meant when a duelist used it against her. It meant that she was in a powerful battle against a powerful duelist with a powerful monster; a Chaos Xyz monster. But they weren't invincible, and Angel had successfully beaten them each time they'd come at her.
Angel descended the elevator from the apartment complex and headed outside. It was just past midday and it was quite a sunny day. Angel had no idea where to start looking for a Number or Barian duelist so she headed down toward the main part of Heartland City. The Heartland Tower had been destroyed in the end of the World Duel Carnival Finals, but the rubble had been removed. It was unknown whether or not the Tower was to be rebuilt but Angel thought nothing of it. It seemed that the only thing that could help take her mind off losing Zak was a duel. And so a duel was what she was looking for.
Then Angel felt an all too familiar feeling; a feeling of darkness close by. After being with the Numbers for so long, she had learned to detect when other Numbered Duelists were in the vicinity. She used this sense to hunt down Numbers, well, what was left of them anyway. As it turned out, after the World Duel Carnival Finals, Yuma Tsukumo himself was thought to have at least 50 Numbers on his own. Due to Yuma having half of the Numbers and Zak taking his with him in the alternate timestream, Numbers weren't all that common anymore. In fact, Angel hadn't actually taken a Number since her days of Hunting with Zak. Whenever she had sensed a Number card Yuma, Kite or Shark had been there first to acquire it. But Angel didn't mind; as long as the Numbers were in the right hands, she didn't care who had them.
Angel turned off a street into an alleyway to see a duel taking place. She saw that one duelist had a Number monster on his side of the field. He was a young man no older than thirty and the Number monster resembled a dark octopus of sorts. Angel guessed that the man was an ocean lover. The symbols for Number 55 glowed brightly on the man's left shoulder. His opponent was a Barian controlled duelist and Angel gasped. The Chaos Xyz that the duelist was using had just destroyed the Number monster and Angel watched in horror as the Numbered Duelist's Life Points dropped to zero. The Barian duelist then held up his Rank-Up Magic – Barian's Force card and absorbed the Number from the young man with it. The latter was knocked unconscious as the dark Number was removed from his soul. The Barian duelist grinned wildly before noticing Angel watching from behind the corner. He glared at her intently.
'Hey you! What're you looking at?' He demanded.
Normally Angel would have run off from the cruel duelist and tried to have not thought about it. However, after she had met Zak and fought against the Numbers, running was not an option. This duelist was a Barian duelist with at least one Number card; so Angel wasn't about to back off. She walked toward him and activated her duel disk.
'I'm looking at you,' Angel replied coldly, 'And I'll be taking that Number from you.'
'Oh really now?' The man said with a laugh, 'Fine then! Come and try.'
Angel watched as the man reactivated his duel disk and waited for the duel to commence. Angel was ready for anything now. And her Numbers were going to prove it when she destroyed this man's Chaos Xyz and removed his Number.
[Angel: 4000] [Harper: 4000]