Kaia the Argent Wing

When Charles was sure the hammer would work, we all stopped to watch when he put the first heated tooth down on the anvil. The hammer came down a little lethargically in my opinion, but when it rose again, the tooth was noticeably flatter.

The old man kept going until he was happy with the tooth, then dunked it in oil for quenching and laid it down in a metal tray. Whenever the hammer wasn’t being used, one of the others would disengage our makeshift gear system. From there, I would get the axe heads hammered into a split in the axe haft, then bind them with steel ties and glue. They weren’t the most amazing weapons in the world, what with the haft being attached in a way that meant they’d get stuck if you swung too hard. However, they’d do the trick for now.

Honestly, once the hammer was set up, it was a very fast process. We had twenty-eight axes finished in under two hours.

As we were finishing up, I turned to our impromptu leader and asked, “Do we have the gear to melt down the squirrel iron?”

“Squiron,” April corrected me, and we all groaned.

Charles appeared to like the name, because he began to cough and laugh. “Do we have a forge that could do it? No. Could we build one? Absolutely. Do we have the fuel to do it? No.”

“If we tell the Captain what we need, I reckon he might be able to send out a party to get it later,” I said. “That way we can test if melting down the… Squiron keeps its magical properties or whatever lets it kill monsters. If that’s true—”

“Whoa there, kiddo,” Charles said, interrupting me with a wave of his hands. “We need to take things a little slower here, get a feel for our situation before we go building an industrial process and sending out looting parties. The government might still be functioning somewhere, and we don’t all want to get arrested for organising a heist of the local barbecuing shop.”

“Oh.” I said, deflating a little.

“If this turns out to be a permanent deal, you bet your enthusiastic little noggin that we’ll be setting up something like that,” he said placatingly. “For now, though, let’s focus on getting these axes to the firefighters and setting up more lighting for the survivors in the gym.”

This is definitely permanent. The storm is a natural part of the formation of the universe’s true form. The structure-front might’ve been pushed here by malicious forces, but in another million years or so, this entire galaxy would’ve been consumed regardless.

I gulped and tried not to let on that a goddess was talking in my head again. “Okay. It’s chill if I make preparations for this though, right?”

“Aye, it’s perfectly fine, so long as you’re also doing your part with the regular work,” he smiled. “We’ll need to be able to see at night just as much as we need weapons, after all.”

“Fine, fine,” I sighed, and began to load the axes into my pack.

April hopped up beside me. “I’ll help.”

“Thanks.”

She was quite a bit older than me, now that I had time to really look. Probably mid-twenties, if I had to guess. Her smile was nice too.

The bag was actually really heavy once all the axes were stowed, but April grabbed one strap and together we carried it out the door.

Once we were out of earshot of the workshop, she threw me a sideways look. "You're right. Shit like this doesn’t just happen and then unhappen, so if we want to live through it we need to move fast and secure as many advantages as we can."

"Yeah, but how are we meant to get this stuff? It's not like either of us is a fighter who can go scavenge the rest of Edgewood for supplies." She didn't need to know that I actually could do that as Silver.

She grinned and leaned over to whisper, "Yeah, but we know people who can right? That Silver chick was thinking fast, she knew to get those teeth and use them. If we can find a way to talk to her, maybe she can get us what we need."

I groaned. “Nobody even knows where she is. She just ran around saving people and then sent the last one back with a bunch of loot. How are we meant to find her?”

She leaned in further, and the light of the only lamp in the room played shadows across her face in a rather menacing way. “Come on, Kai. You’re really good, but my ex was a pathological liar. I can spot when someone isn’t being entirely truthful.”

Oh boy. Okay… stay calm, Kai, stay calm. Keep a straight face.

“I’m sorry about your ex, I hope he didn’t leave you with too many issues,” I said, trying to divert the conversation away from the subject of Silver.

“She, but nah, I was too strong for her manipulation tactics,” she grinned. Now she looked almost demonic in this light. “Come on, Kai. Tell me what you know. Let’s talk to Silver and get this industrial revolution rolling, yeah?”

“I don’t—” she gave me a stern look, and I wavered... then blurted in a hushed whisper, “I’m Silver. I can transform like a fucking magical girl, okay?”

“Ha ha, very funny. Come on.”

My stupid face began to betray me as I felt a blush come over me, and then waves of hot and cold panic began to oscillate through me. Why did I tell her that? Come on, Kai! She could tell anyone and you’d be completely fucked. Even if some people were chill, others definitely wouldn’t be.

“Oh… shit, you’re freaking out,” April said softly. She eased the weapons down onto the pavement and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, it’s okay, I won’t say anything to anyone. I know what it’s like to be queer in this place.”

Swallowing my panic, I let myself have a few breaths to calm down. "Thanks. I don't know what I'm going to do…"

She gave my shoulder an awkward but kind pat and withdrew her hand. "I don't know about the social stuff, but if you're her, then we can gear you up in some amazing shit and you can go out and scavenge what we need."

"Oh… okay," I mumbled. I think I'd just reached my limit of shit I could process. Today had been a wild ride, and now I was getting tired.

"We'll refer to Silver as a separate person, though," she said after a little more thought. "That way if anyone overhears us it isn't so bad. So in that vein… what class is Silver?"

I grimaced when I thought of my other class. Steve was right. It definitely sounded main-charactery. "Fallen Angel."

"What the fuck? How did y— she get that?"

"An actual angel crash landed in uh, in her backyard," I shrugged, getting more and more embarrassed by the second. All this stuff kept making it look like I was some amazing person, but I was so mediocre it wasn't funny.

April motioned for me to keep going, so I did. "The angel worships some goddess that was trying to save Earth from this apocalypse thing. They call it the storm? Anyway, the angel was dying and decided to give her power to Silver and suddenly she could transform into a girl with bunny ears and that class. Because of what the angel said before she died, um, Silver had a better idea than most of what was happening. She figured it was her duty to go out and use that knowledge to save people."

My new friend listened to my story silently for several seconds, then shook her head in quiet amazement. "Sounds like that angel picked right. Thanks, by the way. It was one of Silver's refugees that saw me and told me where to go."

"Oh… um, you're welcome," I mumbled. "We should get the axes to the fighters, though."

"Very true," she smiled. "Ready to keep going?"

"Definitely."

As we closed in on the front of the school, we heard a shout from up on top, where they obviously had lookouts. “There’s a herd of squirrels coming!”

“Oh shit, we took too long!” I said, and together we picked up our pace.

We got to the defenders just in time, and waved out to the fire captain. “Weapons, we got the weapons!”

He took one look at the bag and shouted, “Finn, help these two distribute the axes! Let’s go, let’s go!”

The barricade of cars was not completely covering the front of the high school, while beyond it the parking lot was eerily empty. The high school occupied an entire block, so at each corner of the lot stood a crossroads.

In one of those crossroads, a group of squirrels were congregating, staring inwards at us. Oil soaked torches had been placed at regular intervals around the perimeter of the parking lot, and their light danced in the eyes of the monsters, highlighting their insane intelligence. It was like looking at a pack of the most murderous wolves, rather than a bunch of mutated squirrels.

I rushed down the line passing out the axes, but as I did so, the squirrels did something entirely unexpected. They turned around and left. No attack, not even a single probing pass at the barricade. One moment they were sizing us up, and the next they must’ve decided we were too tough of a nut to crack.