When we entered the clearing where the dragonfly-like craft had landed in I let out a small gasp. It was larger than I had expected and with it close up and sitting still I could make out a lot more details. It was indeed shaped vaguely like a dragonfly, but instead of legs, it sat on three large black wheels. Its large bulky body had a long straight tail at the rear that boasted three large fish-like fins at the end, one upward and the other two to either side. Large bulky and sturdy-looking wings stood out from the sides of the body at the top with big bulbous egg shapes at the ends. Just forward of the wings there was a rectangular door

“What is it?! How does it fly without hot air or propellers?” I asked excitedly as I drank in the sight.

“Our Tinkers call it a veetol,” Jacinda explained with a smile. “It’s something from before the old world fell that they have been able to get working for us. The parts and the fuel are hard to reproduce so we were only able to restore a few working models. They told me that those egg shapes at the ends of the wings are something called turbines. They swivel to provide lift or thrust as needed and the whole thing is powered by something called Hydrogen fuel cells.”

I didn’t have time to ask anything more as I was ushered through the opening in the side and the others followed me, sliding the door shut once we were all inside. Toward the front of the craft was a closed-off area that I was later told was where the pilot controlled the veetol. Toward the back was an open area where four other people were doing something with something shiny and metallic. Along the walls between the two were the strangest-looking chairs that I had ever seen, over twenty of them in total.

“Have a seat and get strapped in, Snow,” Telas told me in what I guessed was supposed to be a friendly tone as he gestured to lines of odd-looking chairs along the walls. The large Human made me nervous though and I quickly scampered away to sit in the closest seat, careful not to pinch my tail as I sat. It was made of a material that I wasn’t familiar with and it had these strange straps with unfamiliar metal clips but it was at least somewhat comfortable as long as I kept my tail in front of me and resting in my lap. After a quick conversation with the others, Aunt Abby came over to show me how to get strapped into the harness, adjust the straps, and secure the metal clips and buckle.

Once I was strapped in she took the seat beside me and quickly got herself settled as well. Then she turned to me and smiled. “Try not to be so nervous, Snow. We’ll be underway soon. As soon as Rose and her team are done with securing the cargo, she’ll let the pilot know that we’re ready to take off.”

“Cargo?” I asked uncertainly as I glanced once again toward the back of the craft and the four unfamiliar Angels who were securing some sort of net.

“There are some things that we can’t burn to ash when dealing with Demons, like the feathers of that Razorwing that I fought. They’re some sort of otherworldly metal and we can’t produce a fire hot enough to melt them in the field. We’ve found uses for them though, so we bring them back to base,” my aunt explained.

It wasn’t long before the other team was finished securing the cargo. A short, buxom, redheaded, and pretty Harekin with blue-grey eyes stepped away from the other three to approach us. She wore scandalously skimpy black shorts, a crimson top that covered less than the swim tops I’d seen some of the other girls wear during the summer, some sort of thick armor on her lower legs and forearms, and a black leather belt and harness holding more knives than I cared to count. I briefly wondered how she wasn’t freezing as she stopped to give a curt nod toward Aunt Abby.

“Everything is locked down and we’re ready to take off on your command,” she reported to my aunt. Then she suddenly turned to smile at me. “And you must be Snow, I saw what you did to that Direwolf. I can’t wait to see what you’re capable of once you’ve had the Angel Elixir. I’m Rose. And these are my teammates; Krysta, Sarin, and Taddick.”

Krysta was a tall and curvy Foxkin dressed in shimmering green robes with billowing sleeves and I couldn’t see any obvious weapons on her other than a simple metal staff. She had a big fluffy black tail tipped with silver and big matching ears poking out from her waist-length, wavy, black hair. Her eyes were a startling ice blue and she had a very nice smile as she offered her hand for me to shake awkwardly. “It’s nice to meet you, Snow, welcome to the Angel Corps.”

Sarin was a tall and muscular Devilkin wearing a sort of sleeveless chainmail dress with a large Warhammer hanging from her hip. She was also kind of scary-looking even without all of that. Her skin was dark blue, she had glowing red eyes, and big spiraling silver horns emerged from her forehead and swept backward above her pointed ears, contrasting her ebony hair. When she gave me a quick, “Welcome aboard,” her voice was like shifting gravel.

Taddick looked like a normal human male, about the average height of an adult Animan male with dull brown hair and eyes and carrying what I thought might be some sort of large gun. He wasn’t nearly as large or imposing as Telas and the thing that stood out most about him was his attitude. He flopped back into one of the seats across from me, legs splayed lazily as he looked me over and sniffed rudely. “What’s he doing here, I thought we were waiting for a girl.”

The words were like a knife to the heart and I found myself suddenly trying to hold back tears, my ears lowered and my tail twitching in my lap where it had been resting. I was so busy trying to blink back tears that I never saw what happened in that brief instant. The sound caught my ears though and when my eyes snapped open again there was a quivering dagger embedded in Taddick’s seat, a hair’s breadth from where his splayed legs met in the middle.

“She is here to become an Angel, Tad-dick. Look at how she is dressed, her body language. She’s not the first two-spirited Angel we’ve had and she probably won’t be the last either. She may have been born in the wrong body but that won’t be a problem for long, not once she’s had the Elixir,” Rose chastised him.

My ears perked up at that, but Taddick quickly killed any excitement that I could feel over Rose’s revelation. “Hmmph, maybe he just needs to man up a bit. Why any guy in his right mind would…” I had barely seen Rose move but a second dagger was now embedded beside the first, this time close enough to have sliced through the leather of his pants.

“Enough, Taddick! If you misgender her or say anything stupid like that again, then I will talk to one of the Archangels and you’ll be off my team and working at the most remote border outpost that I can find. Maybe in the Brown Valley so you can be close to your family? How do they treat non-humans or people with Seed-borne gifts in Dakoda again?” the Harekin said in a tone that left no doubt that she wasn’t joking.

Taddick had gone white and near-whispered, “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” Rose answered, her stern tone not wavering in the slightest as she glanced toward my aunt. “We have an Archangel right here. I know that you’re a product of those who raised you, but maybe you should remember what it was like being persecuted before doing it to someone else just because you can’t wrap your little mind around something. It doesn’t matter what she is, she’s going to be an Angel, and we don’t treat our own like that.”

Confusion was beginning to shove my discomfort at Taddick’s words aside. Taddick had a Seed-borne gift? He was Human though and everything that I had heard said that all of the Seed-borne were changed and became the non-human races. What was an Archangel? She couldn’t have been talking about Aunt Abby, could she? I had so many questions.

Rose turned to me with an apologetic look. “Sorry about him. Now you can see why we stayed with the veetol rather than coming to your village. We’re not exactly the team you want on meet and greet missions. Sarin is one of the sweetest people I know but she can be damn scary to people meeting her for the first time. Taddick is… well, Taddick…”

“And Rose gets stabby when she’s angry,” Krysta added with a playful grin, cutting off whatever else the Harekin was about to say. Then the Foxkin’s tone and face turned serious as she told me. “It’s a good thing you won’t need to go to the academy for testing, it’s in the city and a lot of Humans don’t really understand or tolerate two-spirited people there so you could be mistreated. You’ll be able to come straight to the base with us and get your dose of Angel Elixir and you won’t have to go to the academy until the process is complete and you’ve been assigned gear.”

“You’re an Animan too, and with you, it’s not just the ears and tail either. You have those eyes, fangs, and claws. Your coloring is outside the norm too, even for Animen, so Humans could be assholes until you’ve had your dose of the Elixir. Once you’re officially an Angel, even one in training, you’ll have the mark and be under the Queen’s protection so people will be less likely to mess with you. It can still happen, but it won’t be as likely to get violent. Trust me, I’ve been there,” Sarin offered sympathetically in her gravelly voice.

“Is it really that bad?” I asked, swallowing a lump that had suddenly taken up residence in my throat.

“Sadly, yes it is, Snow,” Rose cautioned. “Animen, Devilkin, Fay… most Humans treat us like garbage. Don’t get me wrong they’re not all like that, and with so many of us becoming Angels that kind of attitude is beginning to change in Misota, or at least the capital. Many still think that we’re no better than Demons though, and they’re afraid that we’ll all turn on them. It’s one of the reasons that we all separated ourselves from the Humans and made our own communities after the longest night in the first place. It’s also why Animen and Devilkin discarded our human family names at the end of the old world and took new ones, related to our changes.”

“We Fay discarded our human family names too,” Talea chipped in. “We don’t even have official family names anymore; we give our children names connected to nature. I was named after a type of rose. Some of us have only one name, some two or more, but I’ve heard of a few with entire phrases as their names. Two names seem to be the most common though.”

Something felt off to me so I asked, “Umm… if Humans hate us so much then why are so many of us becoming Angels?”

My aunt decided to field this question herself. “Because of our gifts. All Angels were born with Seed-borne gifts. You would have to ask Sira or the Tinkers in the lab for a more specific explanation but we’ve been doing it that way since almost the beginning of the Angel Corps. The other light-bearers sent to the capital today will become Angels only if they have a gift and can pass the tests given by a senior Angel. Those who don’t are free to join us and attend the Academy but they will be training for support roles within the organization. The Elixir is only rarely given to those without gifts and only in dire circumstances. But even those people will never be Angels.”

“And since all Angels need to have Seed-borne gifts, most of us aren’t going to be Human. There are Humans with gifts but they’re not as common as with other Seed-borne races. Most who were affected by the original Demon Seeds were changed into Demons, mindless savage beasts. Others were affected to different degrees. In addition to getting gifts, some became Devilkin, some Fay, and some Animen but some showed no outward changes at all. Nobody outside of the Angels knows this, but the Queen’s bloodline is descended from one of those,” Telas pointed out.

Jacinda nodded in agreement. “With those of us who still look completely human, gifts are rare. There can be several generations between children being born with gifts. Our mother thinks that the only reason that Telas and I both got gifts is that we’re twins. It’s probably why our gifts are so similar too.”

Krysta quickly added, “It’s not like that with those of us who are visible Seed-borne. Devilkin gifts are hereditary; they inherit the same gift that one of their parents had. Almost half of the Fay are born with some kind of gift. As for us Animen, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. In any given generation you can have Animan villages where only one child is born with a gift, others where most of them are, and the rest are somewhere in between. Kids like you, born with additional non-human features or unusually colored hair and eyes, are extremely rare but seem to always have a gift.”

“Well, I think that’s enough explanations until we get her to the base and put her in Sira’s hands. She’ll be able to answer any other questions that you or the others have. Believe me, once you meet her, you’ll have questions, even if you don’t have any more just now. We need to go pick up three more light-bearers, so get strapped in everyone,” Rose said, putting an end to the discussion for now.

With the conversation over and Taddick now keeping his mouth firmly shut, Rose went to talk to the pilot for a moment and everyone got strapped in for the short trip to the next village. I felt a slight lurching in my stomach as Dorthea placed her hand on the wall of the craft and a look of concentration settled onto her pretty face. “Dorthea’s gift is to create a camouflage bubble around herself or anything that she’s in physical contact with. It makes it look like there’s nothing there,” Talea explained for my benefit.

Aunt Abby nodded beside me, looking pensive as she watched the Squirrelkin. “Almost the opposite of my gift then. She makes others not see things that are there while I make people see, hear, and even smell things that aren’t. Can she keep it up for long?”

“Using her gift on something this big is taxing, but she’s been practicing. She can manage the short hops we’ll be making to the other villages, but we’ll have to land somewhere secluded so that she can rest between trips,” Dorthea’s Fay team leader replied.

We had landed in another secluded clearing and were waiting for the others to return from giving blessings and getting to know the village’s light-bearer. Apparently, Aunt Abby planned to give them some sort of test as well before bringing them to the veetol so we could be waiting a little while. Most of Talea’s team had gone with her to help but Rose’s team had stayed behind in the veetol again since they weren’t really suited to meet and greet situations. Dorthea was with us as well, so she could rest before having to use her gift again.

As for the reason that I was stuck behind, I wasn’t officially an Angel and we couldn’t be sure how they might take my appearance. This first village was a Devilkin village and some of them considered white an unlucky color. I probably wouldn’t be allowed to go to any of the other villages either though since my aunt didn’t want me accidentally giving something away before she could approve of the other light-bearers.

As we waited, Rose had her team members and Dorthea all perform routine weapon maintenance and reloading. With a seed-storm happening so close last night, it was possible that more Demons may show up in other nearby areas and they could be called to take care of them, being the closest available teams. Rose wanted everyone to be prepared in case that happened.

Krysta only had a staff so I figured that she might be able to talk to me for a bit while we waited but as I was approaching her the weapon seemed to collapse slightly and thicken at one end with a series of whirs, clicks, and shifting metal. Now I was looking, no staring, at a gun that vaguely resembled my aunt’s. “Wha…” I was so stunned that I couldn’t even get the question out.

The Foxkin looked up at me and smiled once her eyes settled on me after leaving their brief unfocussed state. “Well, she’s in good condition, so I guess I just need to load some clips,” she said as she gathered some odd-looking bullets from a hidden pocket in her voluminous robes and started to insert them carefully into a rectangular black object like the one my aunt had used in her gun.

I was watching Krysta and that weapon so intently that I almost missed her saying, “Never seen a mode-shift before? Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it once you get your own weapon and training team assignments. Mine isn’t too different from your aunt’s. I think she’s using the G-2 Shadowstrike but I’m using the QS-4 Suppressor. Both are a type of gauss sniper rifle in their long-range mode but hers is a glaive in close combat mode while mine is a quarter staff. You don’t see many glaive users, that thing is nearly twice as long as my staff and that and the heavy blade at the end can make them hard to handle.”

“Well, to be fair, Archangel Abbadine likely had to keep everything about her old life a secret while raising the kid. Standing orders and all,” Rose’s voice pointed out. I turned to see her very carefully loading what looked like carrots into slots that had opened up in the sides of the armor she wore on her lower legs and forearms. “I use good old-fashioned M-1 mini-missile launchers for long-range and knives when I want to get up close and personal. Not every Angel uses a mode-shift weapon or even one with standard long and short-range options, and some of us like to personalize what we do use.”

I followed her pointing finger to where Dorthea was loading her bulky-looking gun with something that looked like huge acorns. The Squirrelkin looked up at me and winked before speaking. “I’ve gotten used to my GL-5 Storm and I can choose between high explosive or gas grenades. I don’t really like close combat, I prefer heavy artillery, so having a pulse cannon as its other mode is nice.”

I was so busy staring at her loading the weapon that I almost missed what she said completely. “Nuts?” I mumbled in confusion as I turned back to Rose.

“No, I’m nuts, she’s carrots.” Dorthea offered with a giggle. “Like she said, some of us like to personalize once we’ve gotten attached to our weapons and if we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?”

I continued to watch them in silence until they finished, tired from my long night and lost in my thoughts. I had nearly fallen asleep when Aunt Abby and the others returned with a Devilkin girl who looked around the same age as me. She looked as tired as I felt, but we had both had a very long night, being light-bearers.

She was pretty with raven hair, lightly tanned skin, and crimson eyes. She probably could have passed as human if it weren’t for those eyes, the cute little white horns poking out from her hairline, the long spaded lavender tail, and the tiny matching draconic wings. The wings were so small and cute that I wondered if they were just a useless demonic feature or if she could actually use them to fly, her arms would stretch out further than them, hell they wouldn’t even reach as far as her elbows.

The girl didn’t seem uncomfortable with my appearance and once Aunt Abby had helped her to get settled in the seat beside my own and safely buckled in she turned to give me a weary smile and extended her hand. “So, I guess that you’re the other girl they mentioned who’s going to become an Angel? I’m Karina, Karina Lorelei.”

“Umm… Snow, Snow Bengal,” I offered nervously in return. I quickly pushed those nerves aside and smiled back since she was probably as nervous as I was. To try and lighten the mood I joked, “You look tired, long night?”

“Not quite the longest, but pretty damn close,” she joked back with an easy grin. “Then that Angel with the huge spear insisted on testing me on the way here. I had to try to avoid her attacks with that thing for five minutes. If it weren’t for my gift I’d have been screwed.”

“It’s not a spear, it’s a glaive,” I offered, sharing knowledge that I had learned whole fifteen minutes earlier. “What’s your gift?”

“I actually have two, I got both my mom’s and dad’s gifts. Mom calls her gift Temptress, but I… don’t like using it. My Dad calls his Brimstone Bailout. We can disappear and reappear in another place, but only over short distances, and I need to see or be familiar with the place that I want to appear.”

“Cool, I wish that I had something useful like that. Speaking of useful can you fly with those wings? Sorry if it’s rude, but I’m curious.” The last was offered in apology after I blurted out my question.

“A curious kitty, huh?” she teased, her grin not fading in the slightest. I liked her already and I really hoped that we could become good friends. “I can’t fly with them, but I can hover for short periods. My gift isn’t really that useful, maybe more than my other one, it only works on guys and I don’t feel comfortable using that on someone. So, what is your gift? Maybe it’s not as useless as you think.”

I felt myself blushing from her teasing but I could definitely see the two of us becoming good friends. “I can make and manipulate ice. Pretty stupid for a kid named Snow, huh? It doesn’t really have a name or anything.”

“It does too have a name!” Krysta chimed in far too cheerfully as Dorthea concentrated on keeping the veetol hidden and we took off once more. “It’s called Frozen Fury! We all saw what you did to that Direwolf after all.”

We had two more stops to make before making our way to the capital. Rose’s team and Dot again stayed behind with us light-bearers but at least this time I had Karina to talk to. We were both tired from our long night, but the excitement of going to the capital to become Angels had given us our second wind. Neither of us wanted to fall asleep and miss something important or exciting.

The first of the two villages was a Fay village and they returned with a tall and willowy elfin girl with bright red hair and mesmerizing green eyes with slitted pupils like my own. Her ears were long, pointed, tilted backward, and sticking out from her hair which had been shaved at both sides just above the arch of her eyebrows while the rest was woven into braids with dark green beads and leaf-like ornaments entwined. The braids swung wildly with each movement of her head and reached down to her hips. She was quiet, calm, and friendly and though she seemed as shy with the Angels as I was at first, she seemed comfortable talking to me and Karina. Her name was Autumn Dawn and her gift was pretty weird.

Neither Karina nor I believed her at first but Autumn could change the way that gravity affected her. During the last stop, she demonstrated by walking on the walls and ceiling of the veetol. It was a bit disconcerting but it was also the coolest thing I had ever seen. Krysta immediately and excitedly dubbed the ability New Horizons. What was it with her and naming things?

The last stop was another Animen village and as Aunt Abby and Talea’s team went to go do their thing the three of us grilled the remaining Angels on what we could expect when we got to the capital. Well, not Taddick, because he was a jerk and Rose kept giving him warning glances every time that it looked like he was even thinking about saying something nasty. The others were more than willing to enlighten us though.

First, they confirmed something that they had only hinted at before. The Angel Elixir could give me the body that I always dreamed of, or at the very least could make me female in every way. I squealed in excitement at that news and Karina and Autumn seemed happy for me too, it took a while before we stopped dancing. This was the best Kriss-Mass ever.

They also told us that we would be assigned to training teams, with a senior Angel as our official trainer, after the elixir had done its work and we had been issued our weapons. Normally, light-bearers were taken to the academy first, where they would go through vigorous testing to see if they were Angel material or if their skills could be used elsewhere. Once everyone was sorted, those who were selected would go to the base for a few days to get their dose of Angel Elixir, wait for the changes to finish, and then be assigned to teams and return to the academy.

Since we were skipping the first part, we would likely be finishing our changes when the other new Angels-to-be arrived at the base. We also would be spending a lot of time together while the elixir did its thing so it was pretty likely that we would all be grouped together rather than assigning us to teams of kids we wouldn’t meet until starting classes at the academy, unless we ended up hating each other or something. All of our physical training would be with our official trainer but we would also have to attend a variety of other classes for book learning and other things that Angels needed to know.

With all that we had been told, we could hardly contain our excitement by the time the others showed up with a slightly short and chubby Harekin girl with dark brown hair and eyes. Her ears were twitching nervously and her hands were clasped behind her back but she took a deep breath and approached the group. “Umm, hi? I’m Lisbet Angora.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Lisbet. I’m Snow Bengal, this is Karina Lorelei, and Autumn Dawn,” I offered. “We’ve been getting to know each other, talking about becoming Angels and our gifts and stuff.”

Lisbet’s lips turned upward into an uncertain smile. “It’s umm nice to meet you all. My gift… well, it’s kind of common, I’m a Tinker.”

I wasn’t the only one who was slightly confused. I could see the question in Autumn’s eyes too. It was Aunt Abby who answered it. “Some people; like me, Snow, or Autumn get unique gifts. Some are a little more common. Tinker’s and Alchemists are the two most common gifts except for the hereditary gifts among Devilkin. They are also the most diverse. Mostly, those two gifts occur among Seed-borne Humans. They’re not flashy as long as the person doesn’t show off, they can be easily disguised, and there aren’t a lot of either overall, just enough that many people just think they have knowledge and training that nobody else does, passed on from master to apprentice. In Misota we try to encourage that thinking to keep them safe and many come to work for the Corps in one way or another.”

Rose didn’t give us long to think about it as she snapped out, “Everyone, get strapped in! Next stop, Eden!”