The next morning at breakfast, the three members of Pike Wing came to our table to apologize to my grandmother and our team in general under the watchful eye of their Trainer, Dalen. Two of the three were still healing from various broken bones and it was probably only the fact that their nanites were numbing the pain that had allowed them to leave the infirmary at all. It wasn’t hard to see that they weren’t happy to be there, and even less happy to be apologizing to a bunch of girls who had kicked their asses, so my teammates were left grumbling after they had quickly left our presence.

“Those jerks didn’t learn anything at all, did they?” Karina muttered darkly.

“They were saving face,” I told her with a shrug. “They didn’t like admitting that they were wrong, and we beat them fairly but as the losers, they were honor bound to abide by the terms that I set. So at least they’ll leave us alone now and listen to their trainer.”

“Well, if they’re just doing it because they’re supposed to, then they didn’t really learn anything at all, did they?” Lisbet spat bitterly in the direction of their table.

“They did learn at least one thing, they learned to fear us,” I said with a satisfied smile as I shook my head. “Their scents were rife with fear, so I think that they may have learned not to judge by appearances as well. Maybe now that honor will force them to listen to their trainer, they might become halfway decent Angels eventually.”

“Fear is always a good lesson for boys like them,” my grandmother agreed with a nod. “They come here thinking that they are at the top of the food chain and have the illusion that they have nothing to fear. Fear is important though; it tells us when we might be out of our depth. Angels who face Demons without a healthy sense of fear do not respect the fact that Demons, any Demons, can kill an Angel who is overconfident and does not properly assess their enemy. They tend to fail their first training missions, and for Angels failure means death. You either become an Angel or you die trying.”

On the other side of the table, Risha looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking up. “There was a President, a leader of the country that Misota was a part of in the old world who once said, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.’ I think that that applies to most of the other recruits we have met. They are scared of the thought of fighting Demons, but they realize that protecting others from them is important, and something that only we can do.”

“Well, maybe those guys can learn that lesson too,” Heather said thoughtfully. “I don’t like them, but they are Angel recruits too. We might have to work together some day and it would be nice if we could do that with the same goal in mind instead of being at each other’s throats.”

Phantom Wing and their trainer, Kelsie, arrived to join us for breakfast as we all made murmurs of agreement to Heather’s statement. As they sat down, Maryn inclined her head in the direction of Pike Wing’s table. “So those jokers are dealt with, then?”

“They apologized and they’ll leave us alone, I guess that will have to be enough for the way they treated my Snowy,” Autumn piped in with a frown. As unhappy as she was with not being able to pursue further vengeance, she was trying not to dwell on it too much and was going along with my decision on the resolution between our team and Pike Wing.

Orchid gave her fellow Fay a sympathetic look while Peter’s gaze was settled on Lisbet. When she caught him looking, the poor boy blushed, and his eyes left his fellow Harekin to focus on his meal. Peter seemed to be the quiet one of the group. Kyle on the other hand let out a snort of distaste before saying, “They were complaining enough about it in the boys’ dorm. They kept trying to convince the rest of us that you girls only won because you cheated.”

“Nobody believed that though, I doubt that even they did. They were mostly trying to talk themselves up,” Peter said with a shrug. “Everyone saw that if you really wanted to you could have just taken them down quickly along with Stone Wing but while you were toying with them you also kept the fights one on one, kept to close combat, and gave them a sporting chance. You didn’t have to do any of those things, and you still annihilated them. Tomas is scared shitless of Snow now and trying to find out how she got so strong.”

“I guess the nanites had good genes to work with,” I offered with a shrug. “I wasn’t an average Catkin even before I got the Angel Elixir.”

Once again, after breakfast, the morning was dedicated to practice battles between teams, followed by an assessment of what the various teams did right, what they did wrong, and where they could improve. Storm Wing was again pitted against two other teams who had a quick discussion among themselves before our match to discuss strategy. I could have listened in but that would have been cheating and I wanted to see what their strategy was in combat.

I told the others that our strategy could be decided on the fly, and we would communicate by having our NCIs sending text messages rather than using vocal communications since there was the option to have our NCIs relay text messages in audio rather than in our field of vision. That way we wouldn’t be giving our plans away by using the regular comms system. The only thing that we planned in advance was for Lisbet, Heather, and Risha to fall back to a position where they could provide ranged support.

As soon as the battle started I could see our opponents’ plan, and their mistakes. They seemed to consider me the biggest threat and were trying to overwhelm me and keep out of melee combat with me by having three of their number pepper me with ranged weapons. The problem was that their aim was terrible at first and I was able to either dodge using my feline agility or deflect the shots with the flat of my large blade.

Apparently, they thought that by taking me down hard and fast, they could then assist the rest of their group. They had sent their two quickest and most agile after Autumn and Karina, attacking hard and fast as they tried to keep the pair occupied so they couldn’t come to the aid of the rest of our team. The last three of their number attempted to close the distance quickly on Risha, Heather, and Lisbet to take out our ranged options.

Their plan was based on far too many assumptions. The first was thinking that my strength, my gift, and my big sword were the only things that I had going for me. The second was thinking that our ranged units were incapable of fighting close quarters or too hesitant to. The third mistake was thinking that they could take us all down fast enough to be able to overwhelm Karina and Autumn with sheer numbers.

I grinned as I deflected a shot that came close to hitting me and then I taunted my opponents. “Hey boys, are you sure that three of you is going to be enough? One of you actually came close to hitting me there though so I’m going to let you all in on a little secret. Connie, engage shield mode.”

As soon as the words left my lips my sword began to shift as Connie’s voice responded in my mind, -= Affirmative. Hardlight shield mode engaged. =- After seconds of clicking, whirring, and parts shifting, my Goliath was turned into a ten-foot in diameter shield of golden light that I held out before me to absorb their fire.

“There you go, try hitting a bigger target,” I teased as they poured on the fire from laser and pulse pistols.

One of them, a Devilkin, was actually growling at my taunts. “Come on guys, that shield has to use up a lot of energy, she can’t possibly keep it up for long!”

I barely kept from rolling my eyes. They were underestimating me again. My shield might take a lot of extra planar energy to start up, certainly more than most Angels could channel, but after that, the energy requirements were fairly low. They would likely run out of energy for their weapons long before my shield gave out, depending on how strong their Seed-borne gifts were. Also, there was a blatantly obvious tactic that they were missing. It’s a shield, not a dome, so if they had been using a real strategy instead of just trying to overwhelm me, they just would have needed one of them to try and go around it and shoot me.

Since they seemed to think that brute forcing their way past my shield rather than going around it was the best solution, I decided that I had some time to see how the others were doing. At the moment, Lisbet was holding back the three attacking her, Heather, and Risha with suppression fire from her pulse cannon. They were hiding behind a pile of rubble that still hadn’t been cleaned up from yesterday’s battles and Lisbet’s fire was keeping their opponents pinned down and trying to retaliate with their own long ranged options.

Meanwhile, the last two were trying, unsuccessfully, to put pressure on Karina and Autumn. My Devilkin friend was just constantly teleporting out of the way of her opponent’s attacks, while my Fay girlfriend was running along the wall and deftly avoiding the small fireballs that her Devilkin attacker kept tossing her way. Both aggressors were so focused on their opponents that they weren’t paying attention to what else was going on in the massive courtyard. That was when I had Connie relay my plan to the others.

Even as the others were confirming the plan, I was backing up and putting a faux-strained expression on my face. They fell for it. “Come on guys, she’s almost out of energy, keep pouring on the pressure!”

I spared another glance back at our ranged combatants at the rear of the courtyard, trying to look tired and nervous. I was just in time to see Lisbet shift weapons modes and launch a smoke grenade at their opponents. As their opponents staggered out of the cloud of smoke coughing and wheezing the girls made their move.

Risha moved swiftly toward one of the two Human girls who was rubbing at her eyes, not as fast as she was capable of but as fast as any other Angel could. Before the girl realized what had happened, her weapon had been knocked out of her hand and she had a knife to her throat. The girl quickly surrendered and fell to her knees. The other Human girl was taken down as she emerged from the cloud of smoke by Lisbet, who had switched back to pulse cannon mode as soon as she’d fired the grenade.

Heather managed to get close to the Devilkin girl, but she hadn’t seemed as effected by the smoke as her friends and was able to attack as Heather got close. Heather avoided the blow in an impressive display of Fay flexibility and agility, bending over backward and then going into a glaive-assisted backward cartwheel to put some distance between them. Then she thrust her tip of her glaive at the girl and while she was stepping out of the way, Heather dropped to the ground under her counterattack and used the haft of her weapon to sweep the legs out from under her opponent.

Even as the other girl was hitting the ground, Heather called out, “Risha, knife!” and dropped her glaive to jump on top of her opponent. Good eye there, she realized that by the time she got up and got her glaive into position, her opponent would probably be recovered too, and she would lose the advantage. I was pretty proud of our former princess as she snatched the knife that Risha tossed to her out of midair and placed it at the Devilkin girl’s throat, and gave a cold smile as she said, “Time for you to surrender.” The girl didn’t argue and played dead as per the rules.

That just left Karina and Autumn, and they were both frustrating their opponents to no end by not being easy targets. They were also just about in position to make my plan work. Sure, I probably could have taken these guys on my own, but I wanted them to learn something, that was why we were training after all. Today’s lesson was battlefield awareness and keeping an eye out for possible friendly fire.

That point was made clearly when both Karina and Autumn suddenly stopped almost in the same instant, trying very hard to look like they were tiring. Whether they believed it or not, their opponents were too focused on pressing their ‘advantage’ to stop. Karina teleported out of the way of the pulse pistol blast that had been aimed at her and instead, it caught one of my three opponents in the head and knocked him out. It was a good thing that those things were set to stun in training mode, or he’d have been dead. As it was, he was going to be feeling queasy for a while, from what I had been told about headshots from a pulse blast set to stun.

Karina reappeared behind the shooter, switching the punch dagger on her left wrist to chain scythe mode and whipping it out to wrap around him, pinning one of his arms. Then she yanked back hard enough to bring him sprawling to the ground at her feet, losing his pulse pistol in the process. The punch dagger on her right wrist quickly found its way to his throat and with a look of frustration as he finally looked around and took in his team’s situation, he surrendered.

At the same time that that was happening, Autumn dropped flat onto the ground and the little fireball that was meant for her sailed over her to strike another of the boys trying to overwhelm me in the back. That wasn’t as harmless as the pulse blasts though and the boy screamed in pain as he fell to the ground and the smell of burnt flesh made me wrinkle my nose. That burn was going to be painful while the nanites healed it and I didn’t doubt that the Devilkin who had been tossing them recklessly around would be hearing about it from his teammates and Trainer.

He had other problems at the moment though. As soon as had she hit the ground, Autumn had increased her relative gravity and switched it to the wall behind her attacker. She ‘fell’ fast along the snow-covered ground before crashing into the Devilkin’s shins and knocking him off his feet. Autumn’s momentum had carried her past her opponent before she restored her gravity to normal and she leaped to her feet to end their standoff. She didn’t even need to put her Light Foil to his throat though since he had been knocked unconscious when he slammed face first into the icy flagstones.

My last opponent had turned his head to the sound of his companion’s screaming and I didn’t waste that time, calling upon what energy that I had remaining for my gift. Snow and ice gathered, forming into spikes which shot from the ground, stopping just short of impaling my remaining opponent in several sensitive locations. Looking down at the sharp point of the large ice spike poised at his chest, my opponent swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and his scent was rife with fear as he gasped, “I surrender.”

Soon, those of us who were still conscious were seated again on the benches as my grandmother and the other Trainers dissected and critiqued our battle. They pointed out all of the mistakes that I had seen our opponents make, as well as a few that I hadn’t. We had made a few minor ones as well but some of those had been made on purpose, such as not being aggressive from the start and taking them down hard and fast. I pointed out that the other team wouldn’t have learned anything if we had beaten them as soon as the battle started though, and the Trainer who brought it up seemed satisfied with that.

After that, it was Phantom Wing’s turn to fight, and they were up against Pike Wing. After their last battle with all of the misdirection and distractions, and with their gifts being ill-suited to a frontal assault, nobody expected what happened. Especially not Pike Wing, a couple of whom were still nursing injuries from our fight the day before. The trainers felt that we needed to learn to fight even when injured though and I doubted that their pride would have let them try to get out of it anyway.

Right out of the gate Peter, Maryn, and Kyle started laying down suppression fire, forcing the three members of Pike Wing into taking cover. That was when Orchid went to work, moving stealthily into position and taking down all three members of Pike Wing with headshots before they could even mount any kind of counter-offensive. It was a mortifying defeat that took only minutes. The members of Pike Wing were very lucky that our NCIs were determining if shots would have hit for weapons that would normally use ammo and that blank rounds were in Orchid’s clip.

As the current four members of Phantom Wing sat down beside us to watch the last match, I grinned at them. “Nice work, nobody expected that after your last fight.”

“Yeah, well, it was Orchid’s idea,” Maryn admitted. “She wanted to completely humiliate them.”

Phantom Wing’s resident Fay nodded to Autumn and winked. “I figured that I’d get some extra payback in your place, Autumn. The rules say that you can’t hold grudges after a decision has been made but they say nothing about a fellow Fay getting some extra payback for a friend. I know that wouldn’t be enough for me if someone messed with my Maryn.” She put an arm around her team leader and snuggled up close.

“Thanks, Orchid, I owe you one,” my Fay girlfriend said as she did the same with me.

Maryn turned bright red but didn’t deny anything. Instead, she changed the subject. “That shield mode of yours is incredible, Snow. What the hell was it made of?”

“It’s something called Hardlight,” Lisbet explained with a huge grin. “And just wait until you see the Goliath’s other mode.”

“It has another mode?! Isn’t that enough?!” Peter squeaked, looking toward my massive claymore with wide eyes.

After the practice battles were finished for the morning, my grandmother announced that Storm Wing and Phantom Wing had both been selected for a special training mission. She claimed that it was because of our solid performances in the training battles the past couple of days but I had a feeling that I knew the real reason. We would still be going into the city to explore like the others though since we didn’t have to report to our Trainers for the mission until after dinner. Since Autumn and I had attracted a little too much attention from a certain lord the night before, his time Heather and Risha would be the ones drawing attention while the rest of us followed and watched from a distance.

While the others went to wait for us at The Rusty Halo, Autumn and I took Heather and Risha to meet the Woodward girls and get outfitted. The two didn’t have much to pack for their evening trip and would be bringing some personal keepsakes, their good sewing supplies, and all of the cloth made from Kyra’s wool. They planned on closing up the shop and starting to pack as soon as they were done with us.

As promised, the pair of Seamstresses made outfits that matched the ones that Autumn and I had worn the night before for Heather and Risha since they were our potential mates as well, and Heather was technically Fay herself. Luckily, they were easier to create than mine was. Heather was similar in build to Autumn and while Risha was as curvy as I was, they didn’t have to worry about a tail hole for hers.

It took nearly as long to make the outfits as it had the day before but Heather and Risha were dressed in the form-fitting Fae clothes and cloaks in time for a late lunch with the others. Maryn had stopped in briefly as well to say hello to her future teammates and to drop off pairs of gray-colored winter moccasins and gloves with fur trim that nearly matched the ones she had bought for Autumn and me the day before. So, the girls were both completely outfitted when we went to join the others for lunch at The Rusty Halo.

After another delicious meal at Uncle Jarl’s restaurant, we got down to business. I took Risha’s weapon for her while Karina took Heather’s and we both followed them with Autumn along the rooftops to keep an eye on them while the others followed further behind and watched from a distance while trying to look like they were taking in the sights of the capital. After last night, I had a bad feeling about this could go, even though Risha looked Human.

If I had been expecting them to get treated better because of Risha’s presumed humanity, I would have been sorely disappointed. Some of the comments that the others were hearing from the crowds that the pair had passed were mixed, as they were the night before, but the nobles in particular were very open with their disdain. They weren’t even waiting until the pair was out of earshot and some of the wealthier-looking merchants were refusing to sell to them, Heather in particular.

It would seem that while the idea of two Seed-borne in a same-sex relationship was disgusting to them, they expected as much from ‘Demon-spawn’. Seeing the same between an obvious Seed-borne and someone who looked Human though was too much it seemed. As the pair strolled the wealthier end of the marketplace, I could hear people saying things like, “Damned Demon-spawn should go back to the ruins where they belong,” or, “using witchery to corrupt our children.”

One young nobleman went as far as to try to ‘save’ Risha by trying to drag her off while having the four people with him jump Heather. That was when we had to get involved and Autumn, Karina, and I jumped from the rooftop we were on, brandishing our Angel insignias and dispersing the crowd. After that, we decided to head straight back to the Academy. We had all seen and heard enough.

Heather had gotten some bruises but those were healed by the time that we got back to the Angel Academy. One of her attackers had tried to stab her as well but fortunately, the clothes made from Kyra’s cloth had prevented the blade from piercing and doing any damage to her. I was honestly more worried about how this might affect the former princess mentally, though she seemed more angry than scared. She was actually agreeing with Autumn’s furious grumbling about getting them back, as well as Lord Nelson from the night before.

If this had been an isolated incident, it could have been attributed to any number of causes, but it was the second incident in two days that we had personally been involved in where Humans were willing to attack or try to kill a Seed-borne in public. With this in mind, as soon as we were back on the Academy grounds, both of our teams went straight to our Trainers to report what had happened. To say that my grandmother was angry at the news would be the grossest of understatements.

We were all quiet and a little bit tense during dinner, though both Storm Wing and Phantom Wing were a source of interest to many of the other first-year students. Most of them wanted to know what our special training assignments were, of course. We answered honestly by telling any curious parties that we wouldn’t be told until we were either wherever we were going, or en route.

Since we had had nearly an hour before dinner after reporting to our respective Trainers, we had had plenty of time to get our things packed before eating and were ready to leave as soon as dinner was over. It was dark by that point, and we made our way swiftly out the Academy gates and toward the clothing and seamstress shop where the Woodward girls waited with Kelsie and my grandmother leading the way. I wasn’t the only one who breathed a sigh of relief as Fawn answered the door, seemingly safe and sound.

The pair only had four bags, mostly filled with the cloth woven from Kyra’s wool, clothing made for their parents, and various other sewing supplies and implements. The sewing machine would be harder to carry due to its size and weight, but they thought that they needed it and it had been built especially for them and had sentimental value as well. It wasn’t all that heavy to me, so I just offered to carry it for them. I didn’t want to spend any time arguing about it, after the past couple of days I was eager to leave this cesspool of a city.

The city gates were closed when we approached and my grandmother had to show her Angel insignia, identify herself, and tell them that she and Kelsie were taking recruits out of the city on a training mission before they would open the gates to let us through. I didn’t like the way that they were looking at us suspiciously and I could smell the alcohol on them, among other things. Finally, we were able to pass through the gates though and we made our way quickly across the farmlands and toward the forest, setting a brisk pace that Fawn and Kyra had a little trouble keeping to.

Once we were in the forest, we followed my grandmother around meandering paths for over an hour. Fortunately, most of us had some degree of night vision and were able to guide those who didn’t but it was becoming readily apparent to me that we were not taking a straight path to wherever we were going. I didn’t blame my grandmother for taking the roundabout way though since we were being followed.

He had been upwind, and I could smell the familiar mix of body odor, smoking weed, and alcohol from one of the guards from the city gates. Those of us with sensitive ears could all hear him tromping through the brush behind us, wheezing as he tried to keep to the pace we were setting, and occasionally letting out a muttered curse. Thankfully, we managed to lose him and set him on a false trail thanks to my grandmother’s gift and by being very quiet.

Finally, we entered a small clearing where Raven was leaning against one of the new veetols. At our approach she turned quickly in our direction, aiming her weapon in our vicinity before recognizing us and lowering it just as quickly. “You’re late, Abby.”

“We were being followed,” my grandmother replied with a shrug. “I wanted to make sure that we lost him before following your signal.” Then she walked up, kissed the dark-skinned pilot, and smiled. “I’ll make it up to you later, beautiful.”

“I can’t wait,” Raven replied with a face-splitting grin. “Everyone, get aboard and get yourselves and your gear strapped in. Woodbury base awaits.”