"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!"

Angel Johnson ignored the pounding on the wall of her hotel room and the shout for her to be quiet. In the face of this issue, she couldn't care less about how loud she was.

"What a rip-off! I can't believe I paid so much for this useless piece of crap!" She tossed the object of her ire across her bed and buried her face in her pillow to muffle her scream of frustration. Should have known, she thought. I mean, that guy was super shady. But he really seemed to know what he was talking about! She looked up and glared at the object resting at the foot of her bed.

It was a laptop, and a rather nice one at that. Even an old man stuck in the days of floppy disks and gray-scale television could have seen that this was a rather impressive piece of technology. Sleek, thin, and with a battery that was advertised to last for a week before needing to be recharged, it was a marvel of modern electronics. Angel had been more than happy to pay a meager 2,000 dollars for it at the anime convention. There was just one problem...

"I mean, who sells a laptop in Texas, and switches the language to Japanese?! How am I supposed to do anything with this? Ugh!" Angel rolled over, brushing the white hair from her wig out of her eyes. "I don't even know anyone who speaks Japanese. I mean, there's probably some program that will let me change the language that everything's in, but how am I supposed to find it?" She spared the laptop one last glare before sighing and heading for the bathroom. Screw it. I need to cool off a bit. Entering the cramped hotel bathroom, she turned on the faucet and splashed some cool water onto her face. Drying it off, she took the chance to look herself over in the mirror.

At least this trip wasn't a complete waste, she thought, smirking at herself. I'm a shoe-in for the cosplay contest. She stepped back and admired her costume. She wore an off-white japanese school uniform with a brown skirt. Her white wig fell all the way down her back, and the gold contacts in her eyes gleamed almost unnaturally. Apart from her winning smirk, she was the spitting image of Kanade Tachibana (aka, Angel) form Angel Beats.

"Hmph," she grunted, turning back into the main room. "No way anyone can beat this. They might be more flashy with all of their weapons and props, but no-one else has accuracy down like I do. Really, there's no competition this year. Nothing can bring me down!"

Another series of knocks on her wall and an annoyed shout made her cringe. "Well, almost nothing." She glared at the walls and, in her mind, at the inconsiderate jerks on the other side. She then turned her glare to the laptop that still sat open on her bed. "And then there's you," she said, walking over and picking it up. "I swear, I never should have..."

Angel trailed off as she noticed something on the screen, a text box that hadn't been there before. And, most surprisingly, it was in perfectly legible English.

Proceed? Proceed with what? Angel shrugged and selected "Yes". Another small window appeared, showing a download progress bar that was slowly filling up. Very slowly. Seeing that it likely wouldn't finish until about midnight, Angel set the laptop on a nearby desk, the only other piece of furniture in the room, and flopped down on her bed. "Not like I had any choice," she muttered. "Stupid thing was the only thing in English." She let out a large yawn before snuggling into her pillow.

Right as she was about to fall asleep, a buzzing noise sounded from her pocket. She groaned and brought out her phone, flipping it open to see a text from her mother, asking how she had enjoyed her first day at the con. Angel smiled and typed out a quick reply, telling her mom that it had been fun and that she'd call the next morning to tell her all about it. Message sent, she snuggled once again into her pillow, quickly drifting off to sleep.

The hours passed as Angel slept, the light of the rising moon blocked out by her curtains. The only light in the room was that of her new computer screen, the download bar slowly filling. It finished filling at midnight, just as the full moon reached its zenith. A new window appeared, a two lines of text standing ready to be read when Angel awoke.

Police sirens blared in downtown Dallas in the early morning before dawn. Police had set up a barrier surrounding a cheep hotel, allowing no-one in except for the ambulance that arrived on-scene a moment later. Officers swarmed the place, taking statements from everyone there, staff and guests alike.

A detective from the DPD stood on the ground floor, observing the wreckage in front of them where room 113 had been.

"What do you make of it, detective?" asked a nearby officer.

The detective sighed and shook his head. "Honestly, I have no idea. There isn't nearly enough debris here for two rooms, and no sign of this rooms occupant. It's as if the room here just up and vanished, and the one above collapsed when the support beneath it disappeared."

"Do we know if anyone was staying here?"

The detective nodded. "A young woman named Angel Johnson. Age 16. She was staying here alone for the anime con. Lives up north in Plano. Her family will have to be told about this. It's possible that she wasn't in her room at the time, but unlikely. The receptionist remembers seeing her come in, and her neighbors were complaining about the noise she was making last night. There was no reason for her to go out. We'll go over the security footage to be sure, but..." He sighed again. "Whatever happened to that room, probably happened to her too." The detective walked away, leaving the officer to stare at the pile of rubble.

A changeling crawled southward, away from the sleepy village behind him. His wings were torn to ribbons, and he was bleeding from several deep stab wounds. The moon above was his only companion as he slowly made his way through the blessedly cool grass.

"Curse them," he muttered, dragging his body a few more inches across the ground. "Curse them to Tartarus. Twelve years I've lived there and never caused a problem. Just took enough love from the air to stay healthy. But do they care? Feh, should have ditched town as soon as the Tyrant's student moved in. Should have known they'd be more active. Should have known."

The moon overhead became blocked as he crawled beneath a massive cloud house. Well, cloud mansion probably would have been a better description.

Maybe I'll just rest here for the night, he thought. Yeah, just change into a dog at dawn and let myself be discovered. I bet whoever lives here will be willing to help me. Ponies are good like that. They help anyone who needs it. Eveypony except them, that is.

The changeling grew dizzy as he lay there, staring up at the mansion above him. His eyes drifted down and across the field, taking in the distant forest, the grass rustling in the breeze, the cottage on the ground next to him, the...

The changeling snapped to attention, instantly regretting it as the dizziness threatened to take him down for the count. He slowly crawled his way over to the cottage that he was sure hadn't been there a moment ago. Using most of his remaining strength, he pulled himself up to look through the window. The curtains were closed, only a small crack allowing him to see inside. Inside the cottage was dark, except for a rectangle of light that glowed brightly. In this light, there was a second, smaller rectangle with two lines of words printed on it.