Kaia the Argent Wing

Chloe was a lot quieter on her feet than me, so I couldn't actually find her in the darkness. The sounds of combat continued ahead, though, so they were my beacon.

I heard when she arrived on the scene, because there was a series of shrill, terrified animal cries. A dull thump echoed through the trees a few moments later, to be quickly followed by a strange hissing sound.

Scrambling over a log, I tried to get a better fix on where the sounds were coming from. Was it— a staccato howl pierced the night in a way none of the other sounds had, up until now. It was followed by more, coming from multiple different directions… crap. That was a coyote howl, but way louder and with a wheezing, guttural quality that was new.

I ran faster, leaping and dodging around trees, trying to catch up to my friend… and then I did. I burst into the clearing like a clumsy puppy and stumbled to a halt. Chloe was bleeding and her left arm hung limp at her side. She had leaves in her hair, and mud was smeared up one side of her body like she'd fallen at some point.

Beside her, quivering with fear, were four little raccoons. Two were just your typical furry dumpster divers, but the other two had sharp pointed sticks… hah, and one had the knife I'd left behind. Unfortunately, there were five more raccoons dead or wounded in the clearing.

Their tormentors were arrayed in a loose semi circle around the group. Coyotes, but they were at least twice their usual size, with huge bone spikes running the length of their spines. Their tails had more spikes sticking out to either side, and from them dripped a strange, sizzling green liquid. They were monsters through and through, unlike the raccoons.

Taking a knee as fast as I could, I took aim with my crossbow and fired. My bolt took one of the coyotes in the jaw, and it screeched and yelped with pain. The others, alarmed by their packmate’s pain, lunged forward towards the defenders. Crap!

Chloe swept her large wicked dagger at an attacking coyote, while her other hand, still somewhat limp and bleeding, let out a rapidfire barrage of eldritch bolts. The coyote hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, all momentum negated by the vicious assault.

That wasn't the only monster to go on the assault, though, and the raccoons guarding my friend’s back came under assault. I rushed forward, desperate to reach them before snapping jaws could close.

The raccoon with my knife stepped into the rabid animal’s attack, screeching with fear even as its eyes lit with an unearthly glow. Ethereal steel flickered into existence between it and the coyote. It rang like a gong when the snout of the coyote impacted.

I swapped my crossbow for my axe, and leapt in to hammer a blow down on the neck of the stunned predator. The axe caught on a bone spike, and it skittered off without causing damage. O-oh shit!

Chloe screamed, bringing my attention over to her at the worst possible second. Her right arm was caught in the maw of one of the monsters while she desperately stabbed at it with a knife in her injured hand.

The distraction was all a third coyote needed to spin and swipe its tail into my side. My breath left me in a painful rush, and I was thrown into the dirt. The spike missed impaling me through my waist by inches, instead catching on and tearing through my leather armour.

I was only stunned, at first. Then the caustic liquid that coated their tails began to work, and I screamed. The pain was hideous. It burned my nerves in a way that not even white hot metal could have, and my vision dimmed as I lost all thought. There was nothing but the pain.

No. No! I couldn't… oh god, it hurt. It hurt, but… Chloe…

Forcing my eyes open, I rolled and pushed myself into a limp crouch. One of the raccoons was on the ground, writhing from the same awful toxin that was eating at my skin. Its poor little cries…

Chloe’s arm was free of the coyote now, but it was mangled and bleeding, completely unusable. She desperately slashed with her wounded left arm, then fumbled for a hex bag and threw it haphazardly towards her adversary.

It bounced and exploded, unleashing a torrent of dark thorny vines that lashed the coyote to the ground— no… it howled and shook them off. How did it do that?

Chloe choked out a cry of despair, and she glanced in my direction. I could see the apology in there. She all but screamed it with her eyes. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run off. I'm sorry.

I didn't get an opportunity to reply. A fourth coyote, seeing downed prey, leapt for me, jaws wide and teeth shining with saliva. With a wordless cry of pain, I swung my axe into the side of its head. Blood flew, and it rolled and hit the dirt, limbs flailing—

Everything blurred, and I hit the ground again, with a skull rattling thump. What… what… how…

Kaia. Enough. Use the powers I have given you, before you lose the opportunity forever.

No! I couldn't… Chloe…

Chloe was going to die, unless the others got here, and both she and I had stupidly run off without even trying to get some backup.

I couldn't… but I had to. I had to.

I pushed myself up onto a knee and roared with pain and anger.

Then, I transformed.

Soft moonlight filled the clearing, and my body shifted, becoming briefly immaterial as every fibre of my body rearranged itself to fit the angelic essence that a dying angel had gifted me.

My tattered clothing was loose enough that it still fit me as Silver, but the straps on the armour snapped one by one. It didn't matter. The pain of the toxin was fading, replaced by a singular strength and clarity of mind.

Reaching out, I ignored the wide eyed and shocked look on my friend's face as I pointed my axe at the coyote that was threatening to close its jaws around her neck.

Teeth bared with a fury so pure that only an angel was capable of experiencing it, I screamed, “Burn, vile creature!”

The wrath of angel and goddess descended from the night sky like a hammer. Fur ignited and bone snapped, sending the coyote into the ground belly-first.

Behind me, my nascent wings— which were nothing more substantial than moonlight scattered through drifting dust— flexed, and I crossed the clearing in a burst of speed. The fingers of my left hand caught in the eye sockets of the monster, and I lifted it as I flew. It whipped across the clearing and hit a tree so hard that leaves showered down around its twitching body.

My heels dug into the dirt to arrest my momentum, but I didn't wait. Hefting it over my shoulder, I whipped my axe at the coyote threatening the brave little raccoon with the knife. Glowing with Cynath’s light, it clove deep into its skull, spraying brains out into the night air. The crackling caustic lightning that burned black marks in the ground as the axe returned to me were redundant, but undeniably intimidating.

The violence of my transformation and assault on the coyotes was so sudden and vicious that the monsters, raccoons, and Chloe all froze while I slid to a halt in a spray of dirt.

My wings burned out a second later, but unlike previously, I could still feel them in the back of my mind… recharging.

Two of our foes were dead, but the one that hit me last was still on the other side of the clearing, and the one I deflected was rising from where it’d landed beside the raccoons. I rushed the second one before it could properly stand and my axe bit into the unmarred side of its head. This time, the sound of breaking bone could be heard loud and clear.

One left. The one that hit me.

My moonlight blast, caustic strike, and weapon recall were all still on cooldown… but I had my crossbow. I pulled it off the holster on my back and ignoring the crank, I pulled the string back and slapped a bolt in place.

Goddess, but I was fast in my Silver form. Chloe was still staring at me with mouth agape, while the little raccoons had terror in their eternally anxious expressions.

Raising the crossbow, I very calmly and methodically put a bolt directly between the eyes of the last living coyote. It dropped with an aborted whimper, and rather abruptly, the fight was over.

My strength seemed to flee too, or exhaustion and my wounds were finally catching up with me—I wasn't sure which.

I still had one important ability left, though… and one of the fallen raccoons was still breathing, if only shallowly. Feet heavy, I crossed the intervening space and knelt. Gods, my hand was so big beside its furry little body. Silvery light pulsed, and the worst of its wounds were stabilised.

Only then, when there was nothing else I could do for half a minute, did I look up and meet Chloe's gaze. “I… I'm sorry.”

She blinked, then shook her head slightly. The movement jarred her ruined arms, and she hissed with pain. It seemed to give her some clarity, however, and she stumbled over to me. Her forehead hit my chest with a gentle thump, and suddenly my cooldowns were all refreshed.

Chuckling softly, I placed my hand on her shredded right arm and pulsed my healing touch through it. She sighed with relief, then stepped back from me and reached for one of the hex bags in her bandolier. She threw it to the ground, and black dust puffed up as it burst. The black dust sought out my burned stomach and side, easing the damage there. It wasn't just me, either, the dust went to her too, and the raccoons as they gathered together into a tight group.

The one with the knife watched us fearfully, but also with awed curiosity. I smiled, then remembered at the last second to keep my lips covering my teeth. Most animals considered bared teeth to be a sign of aggression.

“Saved them… some of them,” Chloe said wearily.

I shifted my attention to her, utterly confused. She wasn't freaking out. Why wasn't she freaking out? She did see me transform, right?

The one with the knife, who I suspected was a leader of sorts, shook his little sharpened stick at us in a manner that made me think it was done out of respect. Chloe copied its movements, and so did I a moment later.

The raccoons blinked beady eyes at us, then, with the healthy ones helping the wounded, they slowly backed away towards the edge of the clearing.

Before they completely left, and because my brain always had a section dedicated to crafting, I reached for the nearest dead coyote and hacked off one of the scythe-like bone tail spikes. Damn, but I was so much stronger as Silver. Then, I tossed it gently to our scared little friends.

They stared at it for a couple seconds, until one got the courage to approach it. The bone still dripped with toxic goop, but the alarmingly intelligent little dude used a nearby leaf to wipe most of the gunk off. When it could safely carry the spike, it hefted and shook the prize briefly in my direction. Then, along with its fellows, they disappeared into the night.

“I love them.” Chloe declared quietly. “They got smarter, and their thumbs…”

“I noticed it too…” I said, once again staring at her like she was going to suddenly explode.

She noticed, and to my utter shock, she smiled up at me. “So… you've been Silver the whole time?”

“Um… yes?” My agreement came out as a sort of strangled question. I was so confused. I'd built this up to be some huge thing in my head—convinced that she'd be unimaginably upset… but she wasn't.

“That explains so many things,” she said, shaking her head in wonder.

“I… was honestly starting to wonder if you knew,” I said sheepishly. “I really suck at lying.”

She shot me a glance that was both amused and exasperated. “Silver… Kaia… Why would I even consider the idea that two different people are actually the same damned person with a fucking magical girl transformation? That shit is not normal.”

“Oh.” I mumbled. I guess she had a point…

“Still,” she giggled, looking awestruck and amused again. “Now that I know… your goofy ass was definitely not subtle, huh? Oh my god, the time you left with your friends as Kaia to go to the woods, then came back with the Bandoners as Silver? Yeah… phew, you were utterly saved by the fact that nobody in their right mind would suspect what the truth actually was.”

I think I was going to pass out, or maybe just wake up. Had I actually fallen asleep on watch again? This couldn't be reality, could it? She wasn’t angry… she was actually, like, laughing about it? What the heck?