Angelica woke up with a splitting headache. Her vision was all messed up and she felt like she was wearing heavier clothes for some reason. Sitting up groggily she noticed that the only thing she could see was static. White noise to be precise...

Looking left and to her surprise white noise. Looking right and she was greeted with the same white noise.

For some reason, she didn’t really feel like this was a problem. Confused by her own thought and the headache she was surprised when a familiar blue screen appeared in front of her.

Ascension Complete.

Congratulations on Becoming a Trainee Angel, We Look Forward to Your Continued Growth.

Initialising Experimental Angel System.....

What followed was something she didn’t want to ever feel again. Angelica assumed it was some sort of calibration because it felt like ever sense in her body went haywire followed by various tingling sensations running through her body simultaneously. Thankfully she only had to experience it for a second before it was over. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes she didn’t realise she shut.

What greeted her was a dark room filled with cobwebs and dust. Somehow she was in the centre of the room completely fine.

Before she could take in the sights various forms of white text moved around her vision freely like they had a life of their own. Reading she started to frown. Most of it was errors, errors that made no sense, listing various modes, modules and data.

Amazingly this didn’t really seem to obstruct her vision it was like the HUD was ethereal. Maybe I have an Angel Mode or something she thought.

Angel Mode Activated..... Error Angel Mode Inoperable..... Deactivating.

Well, that was pointless, though I better figure out what’s going on. I bet everyone’s freaking out haha.

Smiling to herself Angelica propped herself up and suddenly fell forward face planting on the dust-laden floor. *Poof* A dust apocalypse descended upon the room and mostly on Angelica. *Cough*Cough* Blowing the dust out of her face she carefully sat back up examining herself.

... Angelica quickly patted herself down, dust blowing everywhere. When she finally calmed down Angelica sat there staring off into space her black eye vacant as if her soul was sucked out her body.

She had regressed in age! If she had to describe herself she looked like a little brat that had stolen her parent’s lab coat. Her pants and underwear had no longer fitted her and tripped her when she tried to stand. The plain white shirt was now big enough to be a one-piece dress.

What the hell is going on she silently screamed! The Angel System loyally responded with its white ethereal text explaining that energy was required for Ascension and it used it. Well, that’s what she summarised filtering through all the errors.

Sighing Angelica didn’t really like thinking about her body, not because it grossed her out or anything but because she couldn’t figure it out. All her tests said she was dead, simple right? She wished; after much debate, she could only hypothesise that her soul had somehow mutated to become one with her body or something. She was basically guessing after all. Reason being that when she ate, she felt the energy wasn’t really stored in her body and whenever she used her body the energy required would come from somewhere.

The rest of the time her body was in a low powered state as she liked to call it, or death. It didn’t help that she felt fuller when she ate meat and specifically the more intelligent the animal the more energy...

Ignoring the implications Angelica decided it was time to find a way out.

Finally looking around the dust filled room she noticed it had the same dimensions as the lounge she was in previously only this room was empty. Continuing to look around until she had done a full spin, her lab coat leaving a nice trail. Huh? There’s no door she thought.

Before she could panic her ethereal text pointed out that the door had been shut and covered in dust. Looking at the now glowing door Angelica wondering what other functions the Angel System had. A massive wall of text startled her, skimming through Angelica thought it would be best to leave it for later as it would require deciphering and she didn’t want to go hungry. The list vanished just like that.

Nodding Angelica headed towards the door stirring up another dust storm in the process. Shivering at the newfound dusty breeziness she tried to push open the door. The door groaned but didn’t budge, she didn’t panic, and she had half expected it but was hoping for some good luck.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The door was a solid steel sliding door after all and she was hoping it was just shut and not locked in place with steel bolts. Normally the door was hidden in the wall as she didn’t need to open and close it when going back forth to her kitchen. Placing her palm on the door Angelica wondered if the Angel System could do anything about it.

Analysing Situation..... Applying Force.....

*Bang!*

An ear piercing noise echoed out, Angelica stood there stunned, staring at the hole large enough for her to climb through. The hole looked like a cannonball had flown right through without stopping. Blinking at the white light filtering through Angelica timidly climbed through, to her surprise it seemed whatever ‘force’ that had been applied didn’t generate any heat. Once through she carefully pulled the rest of the lab coat through not letting it get caught on the jagged edges.

Finally adjusted to the bright light Angelica viewed what should have been her kitchen only to see a familiar but long forgotten seen. Although the actors and props were different it was undoubtedly something she had seen before. Rubbing her eyes one more time for confirmation proved that she wasn’t hallucinating.

In front of her was a tomboyish girl around 13 years old strapped to an ‘X’ shaped table she had short pink hair, pink eyes and a healthy skin tone. Luckily for her she still had her clothes on, stylish tank top and pants that Angelica had never seen before. Not that she knew much about fashion. It seemed that she had interrupted 2 shadily dressed men in whatever operation they had planned with their unidentifiable equipment. It certainly was shiny, but she should’ve been able to identify it.

As if to answer her worries the Angel System fluttered around until it boldly labelled the objects as ‘Unknown Object’. Dismissing the ‘useful’ information the best course of action now was to simply ask what was going on. “What... are.... you... doing?” Angelica’s voice was slow, monotone but distinctly feminine and childish and had the air of an old text to speech program.

Wow, I didn’t know it would so hard to speak after so long she thought. Hearing Angelica’s question the 2 men glanced at each quickly. From their perspective, a strange girl had burst in what should’ve been solid underground, but the first to speak wasn’t them but the girl. “Quickly Run! They’re bad guys!” The girl practically screamed wanting to make sure Angelica understood the situation.

“Tsk”, it seemed that the 2 ‘bad guys’ as the girl had put it came to some sort of understanding and reached for their hips at the same time not underestimating the girl in front of them at all.

Angelica stood there frozen as she saw what they were reaching for, guns! However, she had never seen guns like theirs before. Interrupting her thoughts the Angel System reacted first.

Warning! Hostile Intent Detected...... Activating Combat Mode.....

Angelica watched as time seemed to slow down around her.

Error Combat Mode Inoperable.....

As quick as time slowed down it sped back up Fuck! cursing to herself Angelica immediately charged the closest man. Angelica's natural reflexes and strong body had tackled the man before he could completely raise his gun.

This time Angelica herself was the cannonball as the 2 people crash in the wall next to the girl. Ignoring the sicking crunch from the man Angelica quickly spun around to see the other pointing his gun at her.

Gritting her teeth Angelica had an inherent understanding that it was very hard to kill her without completely destroying her body but she didn’t know what happened in between and she didn’t want to find out.

However, it looked like she didn’t have a choice in the matter. As the man was milliseconds away from firing and she didn’t have enough time to charge him.

Warning! Imminent Danger Detected..... Activating Self-Defence Module.....

Angelica’s eyes widened and the man interpreted that as his victory and smirked. *Bang*

Self-Defence Module Active..... Applying Force.....

Without time to read the prompts Angelica was thrown sideways dodging a bullet literally, not wasting the opportunity she charged in a weird zigzag pattern as she herself got jerked around avoiding the man’s aim.

“Arrgh!” The man let out a groan as they crashed into the wall opposite the girl but surprisingly he continued to groan still alive. Not giving him a chance Angelica quickly snapped his neck.

Danger Eliminated Deactivating Self-Defence Module.....

This wasn’t the first time she had killed, but it was the first time she had done it so barbarically. Walking over to the restrained girl who had an ‘o’ shaped mouth she looked for a way to free the girl. Angelica didn’t think it was anything special, more along the lines of as expected her strength hadn’t changed even though her body had.

Quickly finding a release button Angelica pressed it and the girl fell down with a scream “Kya!”

Angelica didn’t fail to notice the bindings disappeared when she did so. ??? They weren’t glowing for aesthetic reasons! Unaware of Angelica’s thoughts the girl the nimbly propped herself up and said “Thank you for saving me! How did you do that you were so awesome!”

Brought back to her senses Angelica simply asked “Name..?” and tilted her head a little. It had surprised her how hard it was to talk before so she decided it was better to skip pointless stuff.

“Ah! I forgot how rude of me I’m Sophia Gene, what about you?” Sophia asked energetically forgetting about what just happened.

“Angelica...”

Sophia’s eyes sparkled for some reason “Such a pretty name I like it!” Angelica didn’t understand what this girl was thinking and simply tilted her head some more.

Before the 2 girls could get lost in their own world the bright white room flashed red and a siren blazed. “Ah! We need to hurry and escape; my parents will find me quickly now my trackers not jammed.” Before Angelica could respond Sophia had already run towards the door. It was the same kind that now had a hole in it. Angelica was about to offer to open it free of charge when Sophia made a weird ‘C’ like pose.

*Screech!*

In 3 seconds flat Sophia had ripped the bolts holding the door in place sliding it back into the wall.

It was now Angelica’s turn to stare slack-jawed. Sophia just laughed and quickly grabbed Angelica’s hand and pulled her along. “Don’t worry such an outdated facility won’t be able to hold me!”