My attention was drawn immediately to the cave, and the cry that had emerged from within. Without a word to the others, I walked over to the large crack in the surface of the ridge to peer inside. The cave was larger than I expected, easily large enough inside to fit my whole team comfortably. It wasn’t just the size that took me by surprise though, but the atmosphere of the cave as well.

In the center, a small pit had been dug out and the dying embers of a fire sat within, keeping the cave somewhat warm, though that warmth was now fading. A pile of wood for the fire had been stacked against one wall to protect it from the elements, and I could see cooking implements and eating utensils placed on a roughly made shelf on the opposite side of the cave, along with a Tinker-made fire starter and a few other small items. A worn dress that had seen better days was draped over the end of woodpile nearest the fire, probably to dry, alongside what looked like roughly made nappies that had been fashioned from material torn from the now scandalously short hem of the dress. I guess that explained why she had been naked.

At the back of the cave was the source of the crying, a pile of furs from various animals and some worn wool blankets. I carefully parted the furs and nestled inside to stay warm was not one but two infants with the same pale skin and white feline ears and tail as their mother and I had, as well as tufts of white hair on their heads. They bore the same pink little kitty noses too, and the one that was crying displayed the same golden eyes as well. Their claws were barely stubs and they had no teeth yet, but I was sure that they would have the large and sharp canines one day as well.

I could only stare for a moment, hesitating to pick up the bawling infant who, from the smell of it, needed a nappy change. They had just been orphaned and yet they reminded me so much of myself that I could feel a connection, a desire to help them. I was barely aware of Autumn saying, “Still think she was some kind of animal, Risha?” as the others entered and looked around the cave.

“No, from the looks of it, she’s been living here for months. If I had to guess, the babies are no more than a few weeks old. She’s put thought into how to care for herself and her children out here, so why did she seem so feral? What changed? I don’t believe that she was turned during the Seed-storm, not with the children inheriting the same traits…” For the first time since I had met her, the Avatar sounded genuinely confused.

I picked up the bawling infant, though I couldn’t be sure if it was for its comfort or my own as I swallowed the lump lodged in my throat enough to say, “Mother Darkness.”

There were several sharp intakes of breath from my teammates, but it was Karina who cursed aloud at the name. “Shit. Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about, Snow?”

I nodded slowly and quietly, unable to find the words for a moment. Then I reluctantly told the others about my mental encounter with the ancient creature, what I had learned from her, and what she had asked of me. Thankfully, they were more worried about my current state of mind, and what I had learned.

As I told them the story behind when I had collapsed during the seed-storm, I attempted to keep myself busy by changing both of the infants’ nappies. They were both girls and the second had awoken in a similar state as the first. Since I didn’t want to see how my friends looked at me when I told them about the voice inside my head, and I didn’t want the screaming to draw any other Demons or wild animals to the cave, I thought it best to take care of them as best I could at the moment.

If the mother of these babies was like me then Mother Darkness may have tried to speak to her too, but touching her mind had driven others mad long before me, and it had nearly done the same to me as well. Even in her savage madness though, my lookalike had defended her children to the death. She had been trying to warn us away as well, even when fighting the Direwolf, to keep them safe. Her last word was ‘protect’ and she had been looking me right in the eyes as she died.

Risha’s voice interrupted my thoughts and broke the long silence that followed my story. “Snow… that is… big. I mean, if you really talked to the Darkness itself and she was telling you the truth, then this is huge news. It explains a few things about why the paths of Seed-storms have changed over the years and about the Seeds and Demons themselves. It also tells us that she doesn’t want to still be here anymore than we want her here. If there really is something keeping her here, then we can possibly find out what and stop it long enough for her to leave our world. Maybe it can stop her from coming back as well.”

“Do you have any idea how lucky you are, Snow?” Heather asked in a concerned tone. “We’ve all heard the stories about the people who start hearing the Darkness.”

She wasn’t lucky, she’s an Angel,” Lisbet quickly countered.

“Lisbet is right,” Risha agreed. “The Angel nanites are designed to optimize their hosts’ bodies and to keep them in that state; it is why you can heal so fast and even regenerate limbs, given enough time. That includes the brain. Snow’s species might be more biologically compatible to hearing the Darkness, but her instincts kept her looking away from anything too dangerous. That helped, but her nanites were probably healing any physical damage or chemical imbalances that she was sustaining from that mental contact. Even if she had lost it, the nanites probably would have returned her mind to its optimal state in time. So it was probably a combination of two factors that let her come out of that conversation unscathed.”

“So, the woman outside?” Autumn asked, before letting her voice trail off uncertainly.

“She was not your standard case of the Dark-touched,” Lisbet replied thoughtfully after a moment. “In all the stories that I’ve heard they’re batshit crazy, yelling about the voices in their heads and attacking anything that moves. She wasn’t like that. Snow was right about her just protecting her den and the babies, I think that she was probably running on instincts, and it was hard for her to focus her thoughts. If she was an Angel, she probably would have made it through too.”

Karina looked outside and shook her head sadly. “Why even talk to her at all? I mean, Snow got the message, didn’t she? And the storm passed here after the capital, so she’d have known that she had someone who had listened.”

“Redundancy,” Risha pointed out practically. “What if something happened to Snow while fighting Demons and she couldn’t do as she was asked? If she wanted to be sure that it would be done, then she couldn’t afford to put all of her eggs in one basket and hope for the best. Talking to more people who could hear her voice and possibly stay somewhat sane increases the chances of her desired outcome.”

I sighed as I looked down at the pair of infants in my arms. I was pretty sure that they were both hungry and I couldn’t really help them with that at the moment. Their mother’s body and that of the Direwolf were almost completely cremated and I had the others exploring the cave while Risha and Lisbet burned the bodies and I cared for the twins.

I was the only one that the babies would let near them without bawling and screaming. Risha was pretty sure that was because I had a similar scent to their mother, being of the same species. If they were like me then they probably had an extremely powerful sense of smell, and babies are usually heavily reliant on that sense until their eyesight and long-term memory improve. The AI was hoping that she could help by doing an analysis of my scent and trying to replicate something similar for her Avatar body but right now, I needed her to help Lisbet dispose of the bodies by using her particle beam weapons to clean up anything that the plasma grenades might miss.

I had already reported to my grandmother and Sira about our current situation and as soon as Lisbet and Risha were done, we could be on our way back to the capital. Twinvale was now given the all-clear, but they wouldn’t be sounding the safety bells to let residents know until after Marti could do a thorough examination of the Queen and Princess to determine their condition. I could use that time to take the children to another Marti for a checkup and to ensure that they weren’t carrying any Demon Seed parasites in their blood.

I was rocking the infants and trying to make reassuring hushing sounds to calm them a bit when Autumn and Heather approached. The pink-haired former princess was carrying something in her hands that looked like a Tinker-made rifle, and she had a frown on her face as she said, “We found a clue as to who the mother out there might have been, or at least where she was from.”

I looked over the rifle in her hands, but since my arms were currently full, I couldn’t give it a complete examination. Given her grim expression, I let a sigh slip unbidden between my lips before asking, “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Heather pointed to an unfamiliar symbol on the butt of the rifle. “This is the town crest of Mattden, a small town of Humans northeast of the capital. The Lord for the area and the mayor of the town were two of my father’s cronies, and a few years back they had a Tinker make two hundred of these rifles and some weapons like those that the capital has on the city walls to protect the town. A little over seven months ago, they had a Demon attack after a Seed-storm passed north of them. The town was wiped out because the mayor had his people try to fight off the Demons with their new weapons instead of using the farspeaker to call the Angel Corps and going to the shelters.”

“I just had my NCI look through the reports in the archives, and the Corps only discovered what happened several days later,” Autumn added with a solemn shake of her head. “I guess that they were investigating the area after a nearby village did follow procedure. They cleared out the area of the village but then followed the signs of Demon activity to what was left of Mattden. The only survivors were some half-starved children whose parents had the sense to send them to the shelter.”

“I can just imagine my father gleefully reading the reports,” Heather spat bitterly. “It would have been a win-win for him if things had gone to plan. Either he could have proven that Humans didn’t need the Angel Corps, or he could blame the Corps for not showing up to do their duty if the town was wiped out. I remember how pissed that the servants told me he was when one of the surviving kids, a boy close to our age, revealed what had happened and publicly dragged the name of the mayor and the Lord of the region through the mud.”

“So she was probably a survivor who got exposed to Demon blood or a Seed during the attack, grabbed what she could carry, and ran until she settled in here. Given the age of these children, she was probably already pregnant then. I would imagine that her mind was left intact too, given the setup she had here, at least until Mother Darkness came calling,” I replied pensively as I looked down at the babies in my arms.

Karina and Lisbet piloted the MIST back to the capital while Risha and I fed the pair of hungry babies. The Avatar had been able to produce something loosely resembling my scent so one of them would allow her to hold it and had used the food dispenser to produce two bottles filled with something that she called baby formula. It wasn’t their mother’s milk, but Risha assured me that it would have everything that they needed to stay healthy until they were ready to eat semi-solid foods.

It was strange and yet fulfilling holding that infant in my arms and feeding her, something that I didn’t think I would ever get to experience. It was less so when I had to burp her and she spit up on my shoulder, but Autumn and Heather found the whole ordeal very entertaining, at least that was what it sounded like going by the noises they were making as they watched us. At least Autumn helped clean my shoulder and the baby’s face after the burping incident, and now I was back to feeding her to try to get her to finish the bottle before we touched down in the Academy courtyard.

With the capital cleared, all of the older and more experienced units were now working on clearing the path of the storm eastward of any Seeds or Demon presence. Those of us who were still students, or needed to recover from injuries, were being recalled to the Academy to get some rest. Depending on the state of the Queen, and if Marti could do anything for her, Sira wanted my team and Maryn’s to be ready in case we needed to pull people out of the capital quickly and unseen. Her consort was going to be ready to take power as soon as he could once the safety bells were rung, so we would need to be ready to act.

I was burping the baby again, with something covering my shoulder this time, when Karina landed us in the main courtyard. To my surprise, Sira was waiting for us, along with the Marti who was wearing her hair in pigtails. “Good work out there, Storm Wing,” Sira offered with a smile. I could almost believe there was real emotion behind it, but unlike Risha who genuinely felt them, Sira could only simulate emotions for our benefit and comfort. As for the Marti collective, I had no idea what was going on with them. It was probably best to just leave it at admitting that they’re quirky.

With that in mind, I wasn’t really surprised when Marti practically bounced over to us to look at the babies and let out an excited squeal. “Oh! They are soooo cute! They look just like Snow!” She giggled and started making cutesy sounds as she attempted to tickle the baby in my arms. “Who is the cutest little snookums? You are! Yes, you are.”

“Marti, please focus,” Sira ordered. “I need you to give them a check-up and ensure that they are not infectious. Children changed in utero while their mother was turned by a Seed is not a common occurrence and not something that we have been able to study. I want to be sure that they are safe before we decide what to do with them.”

“Oh, alright, you big sourpuss,” Marti complained with a pout before turning to me and Risha. “Let’s take them into the MIST and lay them on one of the cots so I can look them over, take some scans, and take a blood sample.”

I turned back to head into the MIST as the rest of my team, Sira, and Marti followed. Once Risha and I had placed the infants gently on one of the cots, Marti started by drawing blood from each of them and placing the samples inside a small device. Neither baby was too happy about being poked, so Risha and I had to try to calm them down and get them to stay calm for the short physical exam that followed.

Once the examination was over, Marti turned to me with a grin and giggled as she said, “Congratulations, Snow! You’re now the proud Mommy of two very healthy baby girls.” She turned to look at the device that she had placed the blood samples in and gave a pouty frown. “Well, you will be, once we get rid of those nasty parasites.”

I was too flabbergasted to speak at first, and then my heart raced as she mentioned the parasites. We couldn’t just abandon these babies. Sira was frowning as Marti practically dove into her medical bag and came up with a pair of small devices with needles at the end. “They are carriers?” the senior AI asked.

“Well, duh, sourpatch! They were in the womb when their mother was infected, and they wouldn’t have turned out like this if she hadn’t passed the infection on to them. But that shouldn’t be a problem for long!” Marti rambled as she brandished the needle-like devices. “Don’t worry, Snow, we’ll get your babies good and healthy.”

I tried not to facepalm as the erratic AI again called them my babies. Wait, nope, face-palming was good, it hid my burning cheeks. Sure, the twins looked a lot like me, and I certainly didn’t want to kill them or anything, but it wasn’t like I was their actual mother. Since I wasn’t capable of saying anything due to the embarrassment, Sira prodded the other AI. “Explain please, Marti.”

Marti only grinned as she set aside one of the little devices and took a cap off the second to free the needle. “Oh! You see, this injector gun contains a small dose of nanites that target, kill, and break down the Demon parasites! It was developed to keep people from turning, but in an adult, it needed to be injected within five minutes at the infection site to be effective and stop any major changes. Even then, it only worked fifty percent of the time because those parasites reproduce so quickly when they first infect someone.”

“I’m pretty sure that those two have been infected a lot more than five minutes,” Karina pointed out sarcastically.

“Well, of course, they have,” Marti agreed with a giggle. “But they are both very small and since their genetic changes are stable and complete, the parasites have stopped their active reproductive phase. The count of parasites was much lower in them than in someone who is going through changes still, so between that and their size, what is in this gun should be plenty enough to target all of the parasites in their adorable little bodies.”

Sira considered the suggestion for a moment before nodding. “How long will it take?”

“It will probably take a couple of hours to destroy all those nasty bugs, but I would recommend keeping them quarantined in here until tomorrow morning to be sure. I can examine them again then to make sure that they’re all clean,” Marti suggested.

Sira looked from Marti to the babies, and then to me before finally nodding. “That should be fine. Snow, your team and the infants will remain here in the MIST until Marti can come to do a checkup tomorrow morning. I would like to limit exposure until we can be sure they cannot infect any of our support staff, or the Queen and Princess. We weren’t planning on sounding the safety bells until tomorrow morning anyway. It will give us time for the teams following the storm to remove any possible Demon threats to the east and allow Marti to determine a diagnosis for the Queen.”

“H… how is she? And how is my sister?” Heather asked hesitantly as Marti injected the doses into first one infant and then the other.

Sira placed a hand gently on Heather’s shoulder. “Princess Lisa is confused and shaken up, but physically, she is fine. As for Queen Sabine, Marti has been keeping her unconscious for now while she runs some scans and other tests, and while one of her counterparts examines the crown. I hope that they can determine the extent of how her mind has been affected, if there is any long-term damage, and what can be done for her.”

“You can probably visit them tomorrow morning. If anything changes then we will let you know over comms immediately or one of us will come to let you know personally,” Marti suggested chipperly as she put away the injector guns, and Risha and I picked up the now screaming infants to try to calm them down again, gently rocking them and making cooing noises. The poor little tots weren’t having it though and continued screaming at the top of their very healthy lungs.

Marti, meanwhile, was packing up her medical bag and getting ready to leave. She slung it carefully over her shoulder before turning to me. “Snow, I have messaged Risha with some baby care products that your food dispenser should have the recipes for, and some basic infant care tips that should help you. I will need names to put on the babies’ medical records though.”

Why was she looking to me for names? In fact, everyone seemed to be watching me expectantly. It wasn’t like I was their mother or anything, I just happened to find them and they kinda looked like me. I guess I was the team leader, and I did feel a bit responsible for them after watching their mother die. I’m horrible at naming things though, just look at my NCI. “Umm… I dunno… maybe… Kassie and Kallie?” Yup, horrible at naming things, I tried to name them after my patron spirit, who we all resembled, but the names still seemed lacking.

To my surprise, nobody argued what had been suggestions, at least from my point of view. Instead, Marti nodded and far-too-cheerfully replied, “Got it! Kassie and Kallie Bengal. If you need any advice beyond the basics, I have sent to Risha, please do not hesitate to ask! I’d love to help!”

Wait, what? Did she just give those kids my last name? Before I could find the words to correct her, she was suddenly waving as she left the MIST with Sira to go check on her other patients. It was only after the ramp sealed shut behind the pair that I turned to my teammates and hissed, “I am not a mother!”

“I don’t know, Snowy, I find the thought of us raising babies together, wonderful,” Autumn said with a smile and a happy sigh. “Sure, we’ll have to wait until we’re eighteen and have graduated training to full Angel status to become mates legally, but if we ever want kids, we would either have to adopt anyway, or allow a male to join our mate-group for a short time. For that, we would have to find someone that You, I, Risha, and Heather are all comfortable with.”

“Hey! I… uhhh… haven’t agreed to anything yet…” Heather protested though I think we all saw that it was mostly for show, and she was blushing bright red as she did it.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Karina muttered with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, they are cute, and they’ll only allow you to hold them. I guess Risha too, now that she’s altered her scent,” Lisbet said as I plopped down on one of the cots, still trying to calm the baby that I was calling Kassie for now.

Risha sat down beside me with Kallie in her arms and hesitantly supplied, “I hate to break this to you, Snowy, but technically, you are their mom, at least until you decide whether you want to find someone else to do the job instead.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, now both frustrated and confused.

“You’re not the first Angel to bring home foundlings, maybe the first student, but finding orphans is actually somewhat common in our line of work. Just look at Kyra, she’s a foundling, right? It happens enough that there are rules about it that align with the rules for Angels who have children the old-fashioned way. Basically, since you found them and brought them in, they are your responsibility. You could choose to find someone else to adopt them instead, or you can raise them and find someone to watch them for you whenever you’re away on missions or getting lessons,” the Blonde Avatar clarified as she rocked and coddled Kallie.

“That was not in the Academy rules!” I protested, a little louder than I meant to. That only caused Kassie to become more upset and I had to focus on trying to settle her down again.

Risha looked thoughtful for a moment before replying as she rocked Kassie’s twin. “Well, no, it’s in the Corps rules and regulations. I should know since I have both sets of regulations downloaded and stored in my neural net for reference. I doubt that they ever expected this to happen to a student, but technically, even students are members of the Corps.”

“You could probably get out of it if you’re that determined, Snow,” Karina suggested with a carefully neutral expression that quickly turned to a somewhat somber smile. “I think I know you well enough to know that you feel responsible for them though. We’ve all seen the way you’ve been watching them like a hawk. If you do decide to keep them, you’ll have plenty of help.”

“They’ll get used to the rest of us as our scents become more familiar,” Autumn agreed with a nod. “I’ll happily help you to care for them, Snowy, my love.”

“I… guess… I could help too. I mean, as part of the team, of course,” Heather offered, her face red as she stumbled over the words. “Maybe I can help find someone to care for them while we’re on duty until you make a final decision.”

“It’s not like I actually need sleep, so I could always take any late-night feedings and such, though if they both wake there might need to be two of us,” Risha said thoughtfully.

“There are plenty of us to take turns,” Autumn said with far too much enthusiasm as she looked pointedly at me and Heather.

I looked down at the babies in my and Risha’s arms. Karina was right about me feeling responsible for them. I also felt a sort of connection with them because of our similarities. This wasn’t a decision that I wanted to rush into though. The others were voicing that they would support me should I decide to keep the twins, but I also knew that they would respect my decision either way. I also suspected that Sira had quarantined my team along with the infants to allow me to get a feel for the situation and help me make a decision.

My grandmother was absent and hadn’t said a thing about the babies, other than acknowledging the situation, and I think that she didn’t want to influence any decision I might make. She was far more interested in getting Risha starting to research the information that I had gotten from Mother Darkness. That was Corps business, but this was essentially personal, and she had always taught me to be my own person and make my own decisions. She might offer me options occasionally, but the choices were mine to make. I knew what she would have done in my situation; she had come to raise me without a second thought, after all. Though the circumstances there were quite a bit different.

“I need to think about this,” I finally said. For the rest of the night, we tried to just have a normal evening in one another’s company, but the twins made that a bit harder than I thought it would be. They did go back to sleep for a while but woke up as we all ate dinner. Then there were nappies to change, feedings to take care of, and a variety of other things that I once took for granted, such as just spending time soothing them back to sleep.

The night was long, and several times one or more of us had to get up to take care of something baby-related. At one point, both twins were up, and it took Risha and me two hours to soothe them back to sleep after both changing and feeding them. On one hand, in my exhaustion, I wondered how anybody would willingly take on such a responsibility and debated with myself whether I wanted the little terrors gone. On the other hand, holding Kallie as she nuzzled against me while feeding and having her fuss for anyone else who tried to take over while I tried to get her back to sleep, made me feel connected with the twins in a way. I could even tell the difference between the two from a very subtle difference in their scents.

Risha tried to tell me that she would take over and hold both of them while I went back to bed, but they were my responsibility, and I didn’t want to leave it on her shoulders alone. I guess that they were starting to grow on me a bit too, but I dare anyone to look after a baby for a day and not feel some kind of connection. In the end, I fell asleep with Kallie held protectively in my embrace.