Kaia the Argent Wing

The doors creaked open, pulling an ice scorpion thing into the room. Its tail, still lodged in the door, was hacked off by a burly firefighter. The cold entered at the same time, blasting us with a wave of icy knives that chilled flesh and bone in moments.

My lungs burned when I took in a breath, but I fought through the discomfort and bolted forward. My wings helped in the charge, flexing and scooping the air in a rush, all based on instinct. My armoured body collided with the first monster through the door, which was now several feet inside, and snapped the hard exoskeleton of its front legs.

This was the first time I'd gotten a proper look at them, and they were just… weird. Vaguely transparent, most of their mass was in their four powerful crablike legs. Their body was little more than a flattened orb with a small mouth and emotionless eyes, and out of the back sprouted a massive whiplike tail that was almost ten metres long. Unlike the rest of it, the tail wasn't clad in an exoskeleton. Instead, it was bound within a thick leathery hide.

A second tail whipped out towards me, but I shouted angrily and stepped into the blow. The point of its stinger shattered as it hit the armoured plate that covered my upper chest.

Watching it reel in confusion when its simple animalistic mind couldn't comprehend why it didn't pierce my armour was extremely satisfying. With my free hand I grabbed the tail and pulled the whole beast towards me. The legs tangled with my still living first victim, and I stomped down on the second while hacking at the first with my axe.

The other fighters of Edgewood were right behind me, and together we dispatched the few monsters who'd made it into the gym. The door still swarmed with countless foes, however, and I ducked and pulled my wings close to my back. We needed a beachhead beyond the door.

My heavy footfalls drummed against the varnished floor but the noise was nothing compared to the racket I made when I flew bodily into the writhing mass of icy scorpions. Ice and carapace ruptured. My axe fell, then rose, then fell again.

Everything was a blur as I used my armoured bulk to shove, crush, and smash the monsters out from in front of the door, all while covering my vulnerable face with my free forearm. The weight of their numbers was too much, and I slipped to one knee. Shit. Shit. I bit off more than I could chew! I…

Clenching my fist, I aimed all around me and cried, "Burn!"

Moonlight pulsed out from my body in a wave, melting snow and burning my enemies. It hit them with an intensity that caught me off guard, and I feared for my allies… but when I glanced backwards, I saw Ollie glowing with moonlight while she brought her reinforced baseball bat down in a vicious blow that splattered a monster.

Yes! Thank you Cynath! Letting my moonlight buff my allies instead of harming them… perfect!

To my surprise, Chloe was right behind me, her knife flashing in the snow swept night as she efficiently executed stunned monsters. Our gazes met for the briefest moment, and she grinned at me. It wasn't even like, fiery or vicious… it was just excited, happy even. I returned the smile, then rose to my feet and swept my axe upwards, cleaving through as many scorpion limbs as I could manage before I lost the momentum of the swing. Spoiler alert—it was a lot of limbs.

Sweeping my wings out, I launched myself up into the air, and taking a moment to assess the situation, dove back down. Scott, my friend and Ollie's bff, was struggling with a scorpion who wouldn't let him get a good swing at its torso with his axe. My feet ended the stalemate by crushing its thorax into gross gunk.

"Gotta hit the tail and legs, bro," I said, and leapt back into the air.

Flying was… incredible. I could flex my wings and shoot up into the sky, then use that vantage to find the next struggling Edgewood fighter and intervene. The wind whistling past was colder than ice, literally, and yet it felt so good as it stirred my feathers. It was so… natural.

Very quickly, my comrades got the door under control, partially due to someone organising a tight shield wall around the doorway. Gods, we were lucky the scorpions were too stupid to go for the other two external doors while an obviously open one was within sight. My friends were in amongst the fighting too, healing, pulsing with support magic, or blasting spells.

Waving hands caught my eye as I looked for the next place to intercede. Who… ah, the Captain was waving me on. I had to consecrate the school.

Angling my beating wings in battle against the relentless wind, I soared over the writhing mass of monsters and dove for the corner of the rear brick wall. I hit the snow covered pavement outside with a crunch and bent to touch the lowest corner brick.

"I bless this land in Cynath's name," I chanted.

The moment the last syllable rolled off my tongue, a beam of moonlight stabbed down through the clouds. It stood there, proud despite the blizzard that raged around me.

"Next one," Cynath whispered in my ear. "You are doing well, little one."

"Thanks," I smiled, and shoved off with a surge of power from my wings.

I went for the next rear corner, this time sliding to a stop and overshooting my target a little. A straggling scorpion decided to try its luck with me, but I lopped a foot of its tail off with my axe, then stepped past the now harmless appendage to deliver a killing blow with the spike.

Despite never having formal combat training, I was getting pretty good with my axe. I guess I was fighting unintelligent beasts most of the time… but regardless, I was proud of myself.

As I was chanting the next blessing, I noticed I'd gained another level. I was up to level seven now, with a substantial amount of growth towards eight. I wasn't expecting much from the level, but I was pleased to find that I had something hovering in my stormsense. Ohh, stormsense was a good word for it, too.

Anyway, I had this little spark of power inside me, and when I inspected it, it practically begged to be used in upgrading one of my abilities. Tentatively, I pushed it into my moonbeam smite spell. Immediately, its reservoir of mana grew larger, and I could feel that it was perhaps five, maybe ten percent more potent.

Eagerly, I took stock of my 'character sheet' while I flew to the front of the rectangular plot of land the school was built on.

I'd put one orb into strength, none into speed, one into precision, two into toughness, two into intelligence, none into wit, one into perception, and none again into energy. Of course, they were all actually effectively one orb higher than that because of my angel form… but… Ugh. My head spun trying to make sense of the synesthetic status screen thingy.

Maybe I should try to order my thoughts a bit better… okay Mr Stormsense… Give me my list of abilities.

Weakeningtauntaura.Touchyfeelyheal.Holystrikewithcausticaftertaste.Bigmommyskylaser-leveltwo.Forcepullbutonlyforaxes.

What.

Never mind then, I guess I couldn't sort my class into an easy to parse format.

I guess I'd have to make do with—

Every nerve in my body burned. My muscles clenched as one. The passage of time hit a brick wall, then slowed further until each second was eternal agony.

Dimly, I was aware of just two things outside my own mind. The smell of burnt flesh and burning feathers… and the titanic, echoing cry of a mighty eagle.

"No!"

Soothing silver light enveloped me, and when my back came to rest in the snow, it was with the delicacy of a dropped feather.

Fearfully, I looked down at myself, expecting to see my own charred flesh… but instead I was met with soft skin. My old tattered clothing was back, and my wings were gone.

"Thank you, Cynath," I gasped, struggling to my feet. "Did that fucking thunderbird just shoot me out of the sky?"

"You're most welcome," her voice said in my head. "And yes, it did. I've always had a dislike of the more animalistic demigods. They act too much like gods, without any humanity to temper their actions. That is by the by, though. You must hurry. I burned a lot of energy giving you that transformation and saving you just now. Plus, your friends are killing the bird's children by the dozen. If the safe zone isn't up by the time she turns her eye to them, nothing will save them from her wrath."

"Right," I nodded, and… shit, where was my axe? If what Cynath said was true, I did not have time to search for it. Oh, and I would be filing away the fact that we had a demigod out for our blood… I could freak the fuck out about that later.

Reaching out my hand, I summoned my axe back to me. It flew out of the snowdrift it'd landed in, spraying snow everywhere, and then smacked into my waiting palm. My goodness, I was glad I chose that ability. Finding my axe would've been impossible without it.

Unfortunately, the axe was also back to normal. If only April and I had the skills to recreate the axe and the armour.

Right, I had two more corners to consecrate. Time to run!