A live grenade arced from the walls surrounding Mother Brain's palace. Three pairs of eyes watched from atop the walls as it landed outside the gate and lay there, waiting to explode. As soon it did, Lucca sprang from the wall into the castle grounds. The explosion unfolded behind her, framing her against a background of pyrotechnics as she drifted to the ground with her trenchcoat billowing out dramatically.

Yuffie climbed down the hall and joined Lucca inside the palace. She really had no idea what Lucca was up to now, but she had learned by now not to dispute the method to Lucca's madness.

"Perimeter's quiet..." Lucca observed in a low snarl.

"Yeah, a little too quiet," Robo said. "Did our, ahem, Bothan spies manage to discern where the execution grounds are?"

"No, but we can just play Toucan Sam and follow the smell of marijuana to where Vibri is." Lucca placed a Zapper in Yuffie's hands. "Yuffie, here's a phallic symbol. It's really powerful, especially against bad guys."

Yuffie stared down at the weapon without really taking it into her hands. A weird lightgun? This didn't seem quite right. She would really have preferred her boomerang. She was accustomed to that, and, Gawd, did she ever hate new things. Yuffie flopped the Zapper back and forth in her hands as if it some alien device that couldn't be trusted. She'd never used a gun before. Why did they have to make things so confusing?

"Look, it's not complicated," Lucca said, noticing Yuffie's obvious discomfort. "Just point your symbol of male domination at something and pull the trigger. Your gun shoots white beams; all the bad guys' shoot black beams. So if you see anything that makes black beams, point the gun at it and kill it. Okay? This isn't exactly psychoanalysis here; all you have to do is blow up as many bad guys as you can. And try to look cool while you do it."

"What if I, like, shoot myself or someone else on accident, though?" With her luck - or her clumsiness, as everyone liked to call it - that was bound to happen.

"Don't worry, nothing can kill you. You're not black, you're not the romantic rival of someone more important, you don't have a tragic past. You don't have anything to worry about. As for the other people, well, if they're not heroes crusading against evil like us, they couldn't have been too important, right?"

Yuffie scratched her head, still feeling a little out of sorts. Why weren't Lucca's reassurances very, well, reassuring?

"Everything's going to be fine, Yuffie. Trust me; you'll escape every danger at the last second and save the world." She paused and winked at Yuffie. "And get the girl."

"Okay, okay," Yuffie said. "Wait, what girl? Huh?"

A deep sigh. "Never mind."

The trio finally advanced across the castle grounds. No guards or soldiers rushed to intercept them. Kefka and Hanpan - that was to say, Team Meshach - must have been doing their job well.

Lucca jumped back in an instinctive response to an engine noise. Just as she did, a fleet of hoverbikes swooped by in front of her. The hoverbikes did a U-turn and returned, slowing to a halt in front of the intruders. Yuffie and Lucca could now see the bikes' numbers -- five -- and their pilots -- Dominia, Kelvena, Tolone, Seraphita, and Tron. All had exchanged their previous outfits for matching leather bodysuits that bore "B.R.M.V." and "Carlin's Angels" insignias.

"Oh dear, it looks like an element of danger and excitement has been added to our smoothly-proceeding mission by the arrival of the bumbling recurring minor villains," Robo said.

Dominia's merciless gaze fell on Yuffie - and from her higher perch, she looked even imposing. "The long arm of the law has finally caught up with you, Kisaragi. The FBI's shutting down the Dricas network. So much for your little hiding place."

The five minor villains stared down the heroes, relishing their moment of superiority. Lucca stared back at them, though her attention was drawn to somewhere below their heads. Whoa! She raised an appreciate eyebrow. "Nice outfits."

"Just a little safety measure," Dominia explained with an air of smug victory. "We figured if we're sex symbols, no one will dare hurt us."

"No, they'll probably just have us turn good instead," Tolone said bitterly. "You know, 'cause if we're attractive human females, we're obvious good at heart."

"I like strawberries!!" Seraphita exclaimed.

Yuffie stared at Lucca. "I thought we were supposed to be fighting these guys!" she hissed. Then again, she didn't really know anything. No, she was just lost, and Lucca was probably right again. Gawd, I'm such an idiot.

Lucca squinted. "Why do you guys have those 'Carlin's Angels' patches?"

Kelvena shrugged. "Well, you know, we work for the Commander, and we're all named after angels..."

"You are???"

"Yeah," Kelvena said. "Like, I'm the Cherubim."

"Dominions," Dominia introduced herself.

"Thrones."

"Seraphim!"

"Metatron."

Lucca's face glowed with childish glee. "Whoa, that's so cool!" They were Important! She broke ranks and ran into the middle of the cluster of bikes. "Do you guys have, like, actual wings? Where did you get your names from? Did you become a team because you were all named after angels, or did you change your names afterwards? Can I have autographs?"

Yuffie elbowed Robo. "Robo! Are these good guys or bad guys?" she whispered urgently.

"They're bumbling recurring minor villains," Robo replied.

That didn't really answer her question. "Well, like, what color beams do their guns shoot?"

"Are you going to add any more members to your line-up? You need a Power and a Virtue and a Principality. If I change my name, can I join? I could be Power. Lucca, Princess of Power! That sounds pretty badass."

Yuffie crept up behind the bikes and yanked Tolone's Zapper gun out of its holster. The white-haired Element did not even notice. Well, at least I can still do one thing right. Yuffie carefully pointed the gun at the ground and fired it.

Tolone jerked around at the zapping sound at the same time that Yuffie saw a black beam came out. "Aha!" Yuffie cried. A black beam! That meant they were bad guys! She was right!

"Hey!" Tolone shouted simultaneously. In one continuous motion, she jumped off her bike and hit Yuffie's chest with a flying kick just as Yuffie was firing the stolen gun. Jarred by the combined impact of Tolone's kick and the recoil from the gun, Yuffie let go out of the gun just as it was firing again. Tolone jerked out of the way as a second black beam was released, then caught her flying weapon. Yuffie regained her balance and lunged forward to deliver a punch.

Then Lucca was there, grabbing Yuffie's wrist and forcing her hand away. "Hey! She's a hot angel chick in revealing clothing, so keep your Power Glove off her, huh?"

"But their guns shoot black stuff!" Yuffie protested. "They're bad guys! Look!" Her free hand reached and grabbed hold of Tolone's Zapper, trying to yank it back. Tolone's cybernetic arm clung tightly to the gun. The two wrestled for control of the weapon, until Yuffie managed in a brief opening to push the trigger. A white beam shot out of the gun and hit the castle walls some distance away.

The other Elements froze.

"TOLONE!" Dominia gasped.

Yuffie quickly gave up her struggle for control of the weapon. She looked pleadingly to Lucca. "Uh, it was black the last time! I swear!"

Tolone looked just as embarassed as Yuffie. She stared at her Zapper like it was some sort of secret shame. Dominia narrowed her eyes. "Did you just turn good, Tolone?"

"Your innner goodness and humanity must have shone through your misguided aims," Kelvena explained.

"I told you, it's the skintight leather!" Tolone defended herself. "You can't stay evil if you're hot. Well, unless you're male, and then only until someone writes a fanfic about you."

Noisy bickering erupted amongst the Elements. "Dammit, whose idea were these, anyway?" Tron said. "This bites."

"I'm sorry," Kelvena, the culprit, whimpered. "I was only trying to protect us."

"Awww, yeah, Kelly was just trying to help out!! She's the bestest!!"

"We need new uniforms, stat!" Dominia said. "Back to base!"

Tolone jumped back on her hoverbike and the five Elements revved up their vehicles. "WAIT!" Lucca said. She let go of Yuffie's hand and ran futilely after the departing vehicles. She soon gave up on the chase and sighed.

"Gawd, Lucca," Yuffie said. For once she hadn't been the one at fault! "You almost got us all caught."

"Whatever," Lucca snapped. She didn't like having her genius disputed, and she was a little annoyed that the angel girls were gone. "I think it's time for us to split up. Team Abednego - that's you, Yuffie - move out!"

* * *

In front of the queen's castle, there was the queen's croquet lawn. In front of the queen's croquet lawn, there was the queen's hedge. In front of the queen's hedge was the queen's gate. And in front of the queen's gate were the queen's guards. "I am anticipating the results from our new black mages!" Thorn remarked to Zorn.

"Yes! Indefeatable, the Black Foxtrot is!"

Kefka dropped out of a nearby tree. "Huh huh, your mom, like, sucks 'n stuff!" he shouted.

Thorn and Zorn exchanged quizzical glances and then hopped towards him. Kefka immediately took off.

"Wait!" Thorn cried, accelerating his pursuit.

Kefka looked over his shoulder. "Huhuh, you said 'wait.' Do I look like a waiter?"

"Nohow!" Thorn cried.

"Contrariwise!" Zorn shouted.

Kefka continued running with the two jesters bouncing after him. He led them away from the lawn and around the side of the castle walls.

Meanwhile, Yuffie came meandering up to the gates of the croquet lawn. She looked around, saw no one about to shoot her, and slipped inside.

* * *

Lucca and Robo followed their noses around the side of the castle.

"Hold it right there!" Two figures sprang out of an upstairs window and landed in front of them.

"Egads! I do believe it is Alex Kidd and Psycho Fox!"

"Whoa! I haven't seen those guys in, like, thirteen years!"

The two heroes stood in a silent face off with Alex Kidd and Psycho Fox until a large garage door on the side of the castle opened. Ryo Hazuki drove out in a forklift. He picked up Alex and Fox with the forklift and hurled them against the castle walls, smashing them into a pulp.

"Whoa! What's going on?"

"Mwah ha ha ha!" Ryo laughed. "I had to execute our own henchmen just to prove how evil we are!"

"Whoa! That's pretty evil!" Lucca agreed. "Killing people is bad! But I will prove that I am good by killing you, evildoer!"

Robo was so upset his head whirled about. "Are you sure we stand a chance against them?"

"Don't worry," Lucca said. "I brought the heavy artillery." A quick tap of the up arrow on her NES controller sent her soaring thirty feet into the air. She aimed her Super Scope 6 downwards and rained bazooka shells down on the forklift until it exploded.

"Where do you keep all those guns?" Robo asked as Lucca touched down.

"Sometime when you're sitting down, I'll tell you."

* * *

"BOGEY!" Queen Brahne exclaimed, raising aloft the stunned chocobo she held in her right hand. "I get free run of the bonus field until you find the vortex peg!"

"My Lady! I thought you said you could only get into the bonus field by scoring three field goals while the other player is standing on the penalty stone!" Beatrix protested.

Brahne scowled and pointed an angry arm at her. "OFF WITH HER HEAD!" she shrieked. A couple of soldiers made out of playing cards grabbed and dragged Beatrix away. Brahne turned and smacked Sonic the Hedgehog with her chocobo mallet, sending Sonic rolling through another wicket.

"The things I put up with these days," Sonic mumbled. "What happened to my career?"

Yuffie had been watching all this from the entrance to the field. She needed to blend in here, but she hadn't a clue what was going on! It was a lot of bunch of shouting and arguing and running around in circles -- sports always confused her so. She scratched her head. "Gawd, what's going on here?"

"Maybe if your IQ was higher than your shoe size, you wouldn't have this problem," Cait Sith poked his head through an opening in the hedge. "I hear brain surgery is getting cheaper and cheaper."

Oh no, not him again. Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Gawd, don't tell me you're still trying to sell me that book of yours."

"Hell no. Dude, did I tell you what happened?"

"Um, no, but -"

"They totally gave me the shaft!" Cait Sith's tirade quickly built up steam. "The Clancy deal fell through, but I still had another book in my contract with Shinra Books, so they paired me with Danielle Steel and in my next autobiography my kids were gonna be kidnapped by Luna's abusive ex-boyfriend and she had a big court fight to regain custody of them and I wasn't really in that much but it was going to be an Oprah Book Club selection and would end up being turned into a Lifetime Original starring Meryl Streep. They had like all the contracts and press releases and stuff written out and Rufus told me that if I didn't sign I could bite him. So I did. Right on the kneecap. I hope it gets infected."

Thorn and Zorn came hopping by on their rounds. "Hey! I don't remember seeing you two hear before!" Thorn said. "Who are you?"

"My name is Roy G. Biv, Esquire," Cait Sith asserted.

Damn! They found her! Yuffie raised her hands, pleading innocence and praying they'd leave her alone. "Uh, I'm just looking for someone."

Zorn arched a suspicious eyebrow. "Found someone, you have, yes?"

Kefka jumped over the hedge and landed in front of Thorn and Zorn. "I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate you!"

"Nohow!"

"Contrariwise!"

Thorn and Zorn scrambled to catch him as Kefka took off running again. The racket attracted Brahne's attention, and she turned to see what was going on. It was not immediately obvious. There was a cat head, and a strange girl, and her retainers pursuing a clown on speed. But the solution was clear. "OFF WITH HIS HEAD!" she cried.

"Whose head?" Thorn asked, continuing to chase Kefka in circles.

"ALL OF THEM!"

"You can't cut off my head," Cait protested. "I don't have any body. I'm just this floating head attached to the hedge. Sorta like that guy in Shadow Madness."

Gawd. What was she supposed to do? Yuffie thought this mission revolved around her - she was the hero, right? - but she seemed completely irrelevant to this chaos. Pay attention to me! she wanted to shout. They were supposed to be confronting and threatening her, and she was supposed to devise an escape! Then she mentally kicked herself for feeling like that. Gawd, she was starting to think Lucca. She wanted to be ignored. She didn't want people paying attention to or trying to kill her; that just made her life more complicated. If they could save the world without her, then she could go home and take a nice, long nap.

Kefka tripped and fell to the ground. Thorn and Zorn gleefully gathered over him like vultures, knowing they had the final kill. Kefka quickly reached into his robes and flashed some sort of ID card at the jesters. They came to an immediate halt. "He's comic relief!" Thorn gasped.

"Kill him, we cannot!"

Thorn and Zorn looked at each other, frowned, and walked away.

"Huh, huh, score!" Kefka exclaimed.

"Wait a second!" Yuffie said. It had finally clicked for her. She pointed an accusing finger at Brahne. "You must be Mother Brain! Right? Am I right? I am right, aren't I?"

Brahne guffawed. "I was wondering how long it would take you to put the pieces together! Well then, Yuffie, now that you have found your way to me, there is much I have to show you. There is more to this than the black-and-white vision Lucca has presented you with. Go to my quarters inside my palace and step through the looking glass. I will be waiting for you there." She turned to the card soldiers surrounding her. "Guards, let her pass."

* * *

Vibri found himself handcuffed and surrounded by a crowd of black mages, all of whom were brandishing rocks to hurl at him. He frowned. "Dude, I am SO stoned."

Suddenly, laser sounds rang out and some of the black mages fell to the ground. Vibri ducked and covered his head as Lucca vaulted over the mages and into the middle of the circle. She tapped the pause button on her NES controller to freeze the scene until she could think of a witty one-liner. I come for the rabbit ... and your heads? No, she needed something more forceful. Dodge this? Done to death. This party's OVER? Nah, not witty enough. Then inspiration struck. She unpaused time and landed in the middle of the circle. "Ever heard of a Mexican showdown?" she asked the mages. She held up a bottle that, like all of her equipment, had materialized from nowhere. "No one draws 'til this hits the ground."

In the dead silence that followed, Lucca chucked the bottle into the air. It arced upwards...

Lucca immediately grabbed her guns and laid waste to all the mages IN A HAIL OF GUNFIRE.

...and hit the grass with a slight clink.

"Draw," Lucca snarled. Oh, she was just that damn cool.

Vibri picked himself up off the ground. "About time you got here, baka-chan-sama!"

"Sorry, I had to take care of a forklift," Lucca growled. She surveyed the carnage with some disappoint. "I was hoping they were planning to crucify you. That would have been cool."

"Maybe in your opinion," Vibri said. "Mind getting these handcuffs off me?"

Lucca shot the chain connecting them. Vibri threw them off with a whoop and started running in circles. "I'm free! I'm free! Waiii!"

"Well, I'm glad you're looking hale and hearty."

"I'm a methamphetamine achiever, Lucca." He finally came to a stop. "Man, that was a close one, though! Alex Kidd and Psycho Fox jumped me when I was looking for Big Joe! I hit one of 'em over the head with my hookah, but they swiped all my shit and took me into a jail cell and wouldn't give me any of the wacky tobaccy for my last meal!"

"Sad story. Got a smoke?"

"Good thing I thought to order one of those unlimited refill drinks," he continued. "I managed to stall them by refilling it sixty times before they finally caught on and yanked me out here. I almost got sent to the big marijuana farm in the sky as it was!"

Lucca raised an eyebrow. "Sixty times? You must be close to bursting!"

Vibri spread his arms. "Do I look fat to you?" he screeched.

"Point taken."

Vibri's pocketwatch buzzed. He pulled it out of nowhere and examined it. "Hey, Lucca, guess what time it is!" he giggled.

Lucca shrugged. "I'd say it's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of ass." She popped a stick of gum in her mouth and started chewing.

"No, it's 4:20!" Vibri cackled. "I smoke weed!"

* * *

This must be what she was talking about. Yuffie had located a full body-length mirror standing in the side of the queen's room. But, Gawd, what was so important about this?

Yuffie stared into the mirror. A full-bodied, color version of her peered back at her. How very peculiar. Yuffie looked down at herself. Nope, still a stick figure.

Yuffie waved. Her reflection waved back. Aside from the fact that it showed her in color, not in a black-and-white simplification, this seemed like an ordinary mirror. So why did Mother Brain want her to see this? To show her that she wasn't really a stick figure? But she already knew that! Like, duh! Dangit, what if this was all a trap? What if Mother Brain had lured her here to corner her and was waiting outside the room with all sorts of guards. Gawd, that was probably it. Damn her for being so gullible! Yuffie pounded her fist against the mirror in frustration - and was terribly shocked when her fist passed right through the mirror.

"Whoa!"

Yuffie quickly retracted her hand. She tried her foot next. It too passed through the looking glass. She moved her foot around, carefully exploring whatever was on the other side. Her foot did not find anything solid to rest on, but neither was it completely unsupported - it was like water or something. Yuffie tentatively pressed her face through the glass. "Gawd, it's full of stars!" Indeed, there was nothing but deep space on the other side: an infinite emptiness dotted with the occasional constellation or nebula. But it seemed like it could support her, so she stepped on through.

Next chapter: Everybody in Angel Wings