Author's Note: And now we're back to something I have had no hand in outside of slight conceptual help. Jade wrote yet another chapter for this fic, but this one is special. As you can tell by the title, this is a two-parter. One of which is written by him, the other will be written by yours truly at a later date.

TUH: So, Jade, what did you try and achieve with this chapter?

Jade: Well we needed to introduce some more of the AUS2 cast, and who better to start with than Fay?

TUH: I can sense a clear bias here. But hey, at least this has the biggest number of characters introduced so far in this fic. Were they hard to write? And more importantly, feel like they came of as we wanted?

Jade: Well the new guys were hard to write since well... they're new. Feel we got across their core character at least here which is what we needed to do for the second part.

TUH: Fair enough. So, what do you want to see the most out of the second part?

Jade: How they developed as a group and more of the new guys, here we mostly see Fay and her odd set of powers.

TUH: And there you have it folks, now tune in for the chapter!

An Unfinished Scrapbook

The Third Picture

The First Wave

Part 1: Angel Wings

The sun beat down through the windows of the Branford Academy turning the turning the classroom into small hotbox. Four sets of six desk, set up in a two by three fashion, were clustered in the class room. Sitting in the front right cluster of desk on the far left side was a young girl of 15. She had silver-white hair that fell down to her back, a small pure silver floral hairclip pulled the waterfall together at her neck, causing the rest to flare out. Her dark purple eyes, hidden behind a pair of silver half-rimmed glasses, poured over the book she had laid out on the desk. Like every other student of the school, she wore the uniform of the Branford Academy. A red collared button-up shirt under a violet vest paired with a plaid red and dark violet skirt, the length of said skirt was up to the individual and this particular girl had a full length one on despite the heat. She was a well endowed girl, but the fact she wore a uniform two sizes too big helped hide this fact under the baggy look. Still her most astonishing feature was the pair of pure white feathered wings that lay folded up against her back.

Having such a pair of wings, along with her personality, had earned her the status of an angel among some of her schoolmates. Some of the more religious members of the school took it to an extreme and followed her around during breaks while others simply tried to garner her attention, and thus they hoped God's. Most people left her alone though, while not exactly a common sight, a person with an extra appendage of sorts wasn't an unfamiliar thing to those of the school and so she was just regarded as another person amongst the throng of students, which was much to her liking.

Fayette, or Fay to most, was waiting to talk with the teacher before class. Currently everyone was still out eating lunch and Fay had taken advantage of that fact, avoiding the crowds of people. What was starting to worry her though was that lunch was already halfway over with and still there were no signs of the teacher. Going over her math book and trying to make sense of what was written inside, Fay desperately wanted help understanding the recent assignment. By no means was she a dumb girl, she studied hard to maintain a solid B average. However, this did not mean she was quick to grasp everything that was taught in class, hence why she studied and sought help from the teacher now.

"Oh Elly, where's Mr. Dent?" Fay asked the small fire spirit that appeared before her. In all actuality the fire "spirit" was nothing more than a small Esper, only Fay referred to Ellylldan as a spirit due to his appearance. Being nothing more than a floating fire with a face, spirit was an apt term for how the small fire Esper looked.

Rather than give the girl a reply, Ellylldan floated down to the desk and pressed the button to bring up the holographic monitor that was outfitted in every desk throughout the school. Seeing as how Fay had already logged into the computer, one of the things that appeared was her schedule running down the side of the screen. Ellylldan floated over to the section that was labeled for her math class and found that the teacher's name was no longer Mr. Dent, but instead Miss Mist. In a puff of smoke the fire spirit vanished just as suddenly as it had manifested, going back to residing within Fay's mana stream alongside her other Esper, Wisp.

Unlike some of the other kids who had animalistic features, Fay's younger sister Iris for example had wolf features, Fay wasn't born with her wings. They were a part of the magic system that she had discovered back as a child. Small Espers like Wisp and Ellylldan were comprised of raw elemental energy and she was able to absorb them into her own mana. When she had first done so with Wisp seven years ago, she had grown the pair of wings as a result. Both Espers resided within her mana but she only was in sync with one at a time, namely the Light Esper Wisp. Should she choose to sync with Ellylldan instead, her wings would turn a combination of yellow, orange, and red to resemble a fire. Wings weren't the only thing they gave her, Fay had a hard time using magic on her own, but when she was synced with one of the Espers, using magic of their element was almost second nature to her.

"Thank you Elly." Returning to reading the instructions in the textbook Fay tried to make sense out of what she was supposed to be doing. The problem she was working on was simple, but somewhere she was tripping up and she just knew that she was getting something wrong.

The door to the classroom opened quietly and if Fay wasn't looking in that direction by chance, she would have completely missed the person coming in. She was a woman that looked to be in her early twenties with long teal hair done in a French braid. Calculating azure eyes stared straight ahead, seeming to ignore the lone body in the room. Her outfit was that of your standard researcher, only one thing on her outfit would catch someone's attention, an intricate red hairpin, an item of Mist. Judging by how she went to the board and started writing, Fay quickly assumed that this was Miss Mist, her substitute teacher for the day.

Worryingly though Fay looked at this woman. Fay's use of Espers was unique, but new ways to use summons were springing up left and right, but she had another power at her disposal, an ancient one that he recently resurfaced with the vast changes to the world. Her one truly inherent power was Empathy, not just a simple understanding of a person's feelings, no, Fay was able to read a person's emotions on a magical level. Just by being in their vicinity, Fay was able to feel the emotions of the people around her. What was worrying her was the lack of emotion from the teal haired woman. It wasn't that she was fully devoid of emotion, the feelings she gave off were just… weak. It was like they had something laid over them preventing the normal intensity that Fay was used to feeling from people.

"Um," Fay whispered, more than a little nervous to be talking to this person, as she got up from her seat and approached the teacher's desk. "Would you by chance be Ms. Mist?"

"Yes," she answered swiftly as she wrote a few math problems on the board to prep for the class.

"If you don't mind," taking a breath to gather courage to speak with this unfamiliar stranger she plowed through the remainder of her sentence, "would you help me figure out this problem?"

"Certainly," Ms. Mist responded, the joy inside her welling up.

"You're going to have to take a rain check on that Cuore," a decidedly male voice said from the classroom's doorway. A young man with silver hair that went down to his shoulders, he wore the male version of the school uniform, marking him as student. He had one addition to his uniform, a lone dark grey scarf. Blue eyes were deadlocked with the teal eyes of Ms. Mist, the young man's posture gave him an aura of confidence.

"Why is that Kaze?" Cuore asked the student.

"I had a parent-teacher conference so Mother's here and she packed a lunch for us all." Cuore physically cringed at the words. "Don't worry, Father made it, Mother just brought it."

"Sorry…" Cuore looked down at Fay remembering that she hadn't gotten the girl's name yet.

"Fayette Fuco, most people call me Fay." With a bow towards the Prince of Eblan and Cuore, Fay went to head back to her desk to set about studying by herself once more.

"Stop by the library after school, "Cuore told Fay, "I'm tutoring a few others there today and you're welcome to come along if you're serious about learning." Heading out of the classroom with Kaze, Cuore left the young silver-haired girl to her studying.

"Sorry to take my sister away from you when you needed help but, she really can't say no to Mother," Kaze apologized before he to left the classroom. It wasn't until he had said "sister" that Fay had put it together that her substitute teacher was Cuore Mist Geraldine, crown princess of Eblan.

"What am I going to do Wisp? The princess of a country just offered to tutor me." A ball of blue flames in the similar shape to the fire spirit appeared. Wisp, a small Esper composed of pure Light mana, hovered in the air. Floating down to the textbook on the desk the spirit turned the page and waited for his partner to pick up her pencil and start working before he vanished back into her mana stream.

Standing outside the doors to the library Fay felt out of place. While normally she'd retreat to the library at any possible time given half a chance, she now hesitated to go inside and be tutored by one of the smartest people in the world, least from her understanding about the princess.

"Hey, you here to have Cuore teach you to?" a little boy that looked no older than ten stood next to her. He had a messy mane of orange hair that was complimented by his equally orange eyes. Like any other student of the Branford Academy, he wore the school's uniform. Unlike some of the older kids though he didn't have any additions on it, having no real standing to do so yet. "My name's Aeolos, my parents are Refia and Luneth!"

"And how many times have they told you not to blurt that out to people you've just met?" a teen appeared behind the boy. This one had silvery-brown hair pulled back into a shoulder length ponytail, his bangs were parted slightly to the sides and hung down from underneath a bandana. His eyes were an icy blue but they still radiated a warmth that spoke of a kind nature. "Name's Sky Chere. If you know the surname, don't even try to be intimidated. This guy next to me is Kefka, he doesn't talk much, well except to Cu."

Standing next to Sky Chere was a very familiar face to Fay, Kefka Verus. His blonde hair was in the normal loose and wild manner she was accustomed to seeing. His blue eyes expressed a boredom with the introduction and this delay in getting into the library where he clearly had some business.

"Hey Fay," was all he said in response to his friend's introduction of him.

"How you doing Kefka? Coming to the library to hide from our sisters?" Fay asked knowing that after school Iris was heading over to the Verus household and that'd add more noise than Kefka probably wanted to deal with for being at home.

"Well don't I feel dumb for introducing you two."

"Aeolos asked a good question though, why are you here Fay?"

"I was having some problems in math class and Ms. Mist told me to meet her here after school if I wanted help. Honestly I had no idea that she was Cuore Geraldine when I asked her for help." Very embarrassed by this fact Fay held her books close to her chest and hung her head to hide herself from the looks of the others.

"She'll be happy that she was able to hide that fact from one person at least," Kefka said as he opened the doors to the library.

The Branford Academy's library was vast to say the least. It had to hold enough books that the youngest students would use alongside books that were used all the way up at the college level. To fit all those levels of books the library understandably had a few floors to it and countless number of shelves. The upper levels were connected by spiral staircases, a few in the corners of the building while others were scattered through the layout.

Kefka led the group through the mess to the upper levels where they found Cuore already sitting down with a stack of books so large that if it was a normal person sitting with them you'd assume that people had simply left books on the desk. Instead they were all related to Cuore's research that she was currently in the midsts of doing, when she wasn't teaching at the academy.

Sitting on the other end of the table that Cuore had procured was Kaze with a couple of old looking scrolls that he was looking over. He too had a mess of items around him, all scrolls, but nowhere near even a third of the stack his sister had.

Aeolos hurried over to the table and took a seat next to Kaze and reached over to grab one of the scrolls only to find himself floating over to the seat next to Cuore where the books had magically moved to create space for the kid and his books. While Fay was shocked at such a forward display of magic the others seemed to take it in stride, even Aeolos just set about getting his books out of his school bag as if nothing had happened.

Everyone took a spot and pulled out their own books to start studying, leaving Fay to stand awkwardly as she didn't know where she was supposed to sit. Kefka had taken the spot at the end opposite of Cuore and had been flanked by Sky so the one person she knew she couldn't sit next to. Instead she took a spot further down the table and started getting out her own homework to see what she could do.

It wasn't long into her study session that Aeolos started to get fidgety. Not only was he physically moving about but his emotions were acting up just like he was causing Fay to lose mental focus on her own work. After a few seconds of this, when his boredom became his strongest emotion he stood up and started to wander around. Much like what had first happened when he tried to sit next to Kaze, Aeolos was whisked back to his seat by Cu, who was currently explaining some of the math problems that Sky was having problems with, Fay was listening intently to information.

"Hey Kaze, what's this one about?" Aeolos asked as he picked up one of the scrolls that the teen was reading. The prince gave him a short description of the ninjutsu that was described within the scroll and how a ninja would use it. As one would expect of the Prince of Eblan, Kaze was very talented in such arts. Noticing how easily that this distracted Aeolos, Fay smiled at the young boy. In a few ways he reminded her of Iris, an abundance of energy that couldn't keep focused.

"So Kefka," Sky said while he looked directly at Fay, "this girl you know, she sure looks great doesn't she?"

"Hmm?" Kefka replied as he looked up from his books, "oh yeah, sure" was his simple reply before his nose was back in his college level chemistry book.

"Sorry, I keep forgetting he's only into older women," Sky laughed at his friend's answer. Then he noticed how Fay started to turn red, her wings outstretched and moved forward to hide her face. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." With a sheepish look on his face Sky tried to apologize but anything he more he might have been about to say was interrupted by an explosion from Aeolos' side of the table. Books, table, and scrolls had caught fire from the explosion.

Crying could be heard from the floor as Aeolos clutched his hands, badly burned by the fire. Fay got up from her seat and rushed over, she completely ignored the torrent of emotions coming off the young boy as she knelt down next to him. Taking his hands in her own Fay started to work her magic on him. Slowly the burns faded from his hands and appeared on Fay's.

Once Aeolos' hands were free of any burn marks Fay let go and stood up. Even knowing that the pain was coming Fay wasn't able to fully brace for it fully and while she waited for her own accelerated healing to kick in, her eyes started to well up with tears.

"What did you do that for?" Cuore asked as she cast the spell for Cure to help the patch up the empath's hands.

"I...just acted," Fay answered. Cuore may be a Maenad and have great magical potential, but even she needed practice for spells and as such, her Cure wasn't strong enough to fully mend Fay's hands.

Red light radiated from Fay and mixed with the green light of the Cure spell as Ellylldan rode the mana right through Cuore before heading back into Fay. During the brief instance that Ellylldan's power mixed with Cuore, Fay felt every emotion with the Maenad flare up. Once the fire spirit returned to Fay the emotional flare died down, leaving only one emotion standing above the rest, fear. Cuore was visibly disturbed by what had just occurred.

"Are you okay?" looking over at Cuore, Fay tried to sense her emotional state to get a read on what was going on in her mind. Looking around Cuore was still in a state of shock at what just happened. There was nothing around her that she could see that would have caused such a thing, her fear actually appearing on her face as she searched for the source of the flare. Kaze came running over to his sister to see what was going on, everything had gone down so suddenly that all he saw was Cuore's face go from calm to frightened in the span of a breath.

"What happened?" Curoe asked as she started to get ahold of herself. "Kefka, Kaze, did you two see anything?" Both of the mentioned boys shook their heads, they were just as lost as she was. "Sky, Aeolos, either of you?" Resorting to the others to find information Cu was desperate to find out what was going on. Of course, neither of them had any idea either.

"I know what's went on," Fay answered with a smile on her face. He white wings were replaced with the flame colored set that showed she was now linked with her fire spirit. "Ellylldan here could sense your power and was interested in you so he caught a ride on your spell and, to put it simply he checked you out."

"Fay?" Kefka asked, confused as to why she was so forthcoming with information. She was normally as shy as Priscilla around people so he wasn't prepared for her to answer so readily.

"Don't worry Kefka, I'm still me. You know how I have always had Wisp?" At the mention of his name the light spirit appeared in a flash for all to see. "Well I also have another spirit, Ellylldan. That's who's in me at the moment and the cause of this slight personality change, not to mention my wings."

"It's an Esper," Cuore deuced from the fact that Wisp was made entirely of mana.

"Yes, they're not the ones that people normally summon but they reside in the Feymarch all the same." Fay explained to the group while Wisp fluttered around everyone. Aeolos reached up and touch the ball of blue fire to find a warmth radiate over his hand from the esper's power. "Wisp there is who I normally am synced with and he gives me increased regenerative powers, it's why I didn't think twice about healing his hands."

"So if they are Espers then what do you mean that you're synced with them?" Kaze questioned. While he wasn't a summoner like his mother, more taking after his father in terms of skill, he knew what summoners could do with Espers and he hadn't heard about "syncing" with them before.

"Summoning Wisp or Ellylldan wouldn't do much, they don't have enough power to be of use to a summoner. I don't know if it's something they're unique to them or if I'm the unique one, but I can sync the mana flow inside me with them and use their powers. The trade off is that I both physically and mentally change when I do that." Fire red wings beat as Fay talked, to show just what she meant when she said she physically changed.

"You mentally change?" Intrigued by what she was talking about Cuore wanted to gain a better understanding of just what Fay meant by that.

"Yes, I'm normally shy as you guys could see but that's when I'm not synced with Elly here, it's more my natural state. Wisp gives me a more positive outlook on life while Elly…. Elly enhances all my emotions, I'm currently feeling more courageous than I normally would so I can get through this explanation, he seems to be able to pick and choose what he inflames at times."

"I see, so when he passed over to me the same thing happened, all my emotions went on a rampage." Coming to grasps with what had transpired Cuore was able to figure that the fire spirit had simply done what it normally did.

"That's the gist of it," Fay confirmed. "I didn't know that he'd do that though, I swear."

"Just don't let him do it again," with that said Curoe went back to her seat

"One more thing!" Sky exclaimed as he pointed as Fay's hands that were still covered in first degree burns from her healing. "What did you do to heal Aeolos?"

"She's an empath," Kefka supplied, already knowing the answer. Back when he had first met Fay she had played a few games of chess against her and at the time he hadn't know about her powers so she'd been able to use them to gauge his reactions to her moves and won the first couple matches. It hadn't been until Iris had informed him of Fay's powers that he had understood what was happening. At first he felt insulted and tricked but he had gotten over it, Fay had just been making full use of her repertoire of skills to play the game. Now when they played he was able to keep that in mind and tried to exploit it against her, trying to feel excited rather than worried when she was making a move that'd be in her favor.

"An empath?" Unfamiliar with term Aeolos looked at his elders for an explanation.

"She's able to read the emotions of other people." Happy to know what was going on again Cuore answered the ten year old's question easily. "Most humans can understand what another is feeling based on social cues, an empath is able to completely read the emotional state of those around them. The ability is uncommon but it would also explain how she healed. Not only are empaths able to read emotions, they can heal others by taking the pain onto themselves instead, that's why her hands were burned after she healed Aeolos."

"That's really cool," Sky said as he looked at Fay in a new light, her wings having reverted to Wisp-white. "I mean, it'd be hard for people to lie to you, you could sense their stress."

"Can you teach me how to do it?!" Aeolos exclaimed, wanting to master such an ability for himself.

The only one silent on the matter was Kaze. He seemed to keep his distance from her while Sky and Aeolos had moved right up to her with questions about her powers and how they worked. Still, while Kaze kept his distance from her, he couldn't stop her from reading his emotions and what she felt was a very familiar set of emotions, ones that she could pinpoint with deadly accuracy, she could feel the curiosity radiating off of him.

Fay looked at them in awe, once people found out about her powers they kept their distance from her. No one wanted to be friends with a person that could intrude on their mind like that hanging around them. So far the only ones that had accepted her had been Kefka and his family, people who understood what it meant to have powers that you didn't ask for.

Cuore then reminded them that they were all there to study, she looked specifically at Aeolos who just laughed as he jumped into his seat to once again hit the books. No longer worried about the people around her so much, Fay moved her seat closer to Sky and together they worked on their math homework, Cuore and Kefka offering help when the two needed it and Aeolos wasn't acting up again.

After a few more hours of studying in the library Fay's cellphone vibrated as she got a message from her mom to head home soon and to remember to pick up Iris on her way back. Fay packed her belongings into her floral purple bag and thanked everyone for their help that day. Just as she was walking down the stairs Sky called out to her:

"We're meeting up tomorrow since there's no school, you should come join us we'll be at the west entrance to the city, Cu's taking us out on another research expedition so bring a weapon if you got one. A camera too!" Sky called out to her, earning him a few deadly glares from the librarians and the patrons of the place. Embarrassed for Sky and for the looks that she was receiving from the other people Fay simply nodded and waved goodbye before dashing down the stairs to get away from the attention that she had suddenly gotten.

Reaching outside Fay looked up to see that the sun had already set and the stars had started to come out. Not wanting to deal with walking all the way to the Branford household in the dark Fay's wings unfolded and with a few mighty beats she took to the skies, flying over the buildings that stood in her way. For the first time since she had started school, Fay felt like she had finally found a group of people that she could stick around and be friends with, a group where she could be herself and not have to hide her powers, they knew and most of them seemed to accept what she was capable of.

Soon, a picture of her newfound group of friends had found its way to her bedside.

To be continued in;

Part 2: The Crystal Tower

Post-Chapter note: As you'd expect, this chapter was very much focused on introduction and setting up stuff, which is the nature of a two-part one shot most of the times. Next time I do plan on giving you the actual group dynamic and how they bounded, along with something else that the title hints at… so yeah, see you when I find the time to go back to this story!