It was late at night, and Kei and Nep were up to their usual shenanigans.

“Mine will go farther.”

“Will not.”

“Will too.”

Their paper airplanes both soared into the air and started very slowly gliding across the quiet aircraft hangar. By these early pre-dawn hours, even the most self-motivated pilots and ground crews had long since gone to bed, and the two of them were the only Angels actively guarding the vast open entrance.

“We should really close the hangar doors at night,” Nep mused.

“You know full well why we have to keep them open,” Kei said.

“Why?”

“Because... well... because....”

“Because they take a long time to open or close. In the case of an evacuation, the doors should be open to allow for the quick exit of our fleet.”

“I wasn’t asking you.” Nep peered around her friend’s back to see the large cicada clinging to her nape. “Auritibicen.”

“You’re just jealous that Kei was made Archangel instead of you, since she had the better symbiote.”

“You’re just going to stand and take that, Lac?” Nep asked. In response, the water scorpion climbed out of her breast pocket and pounced upon the cicada.

In their scuffle, the fighting bugs fell down the back of Kei’s shirt. “Eh?” she said. “Hold up, you two!” She removed her jacket and started furiously beating at the back of her shirt. “Stop it. Stop it!” The two insects came back up out the collar and plummeted down. They bounced off the steel girders and careened two hundred metres towards the ground below.

Nep chuckled. “Aren’t they funny?”

“Next time, they’re fighting down your shirt,” Kei muttered, rolling her eyes. “You aren’t jealous of me, are you?”

Nep shook her head. “I’m happy doing what I’m doing, Kei. I wouldn’t have things any other way. And don’t worry. You’re doing a great job as Archangel.”

“I am?”

Nep eyed her own paper airplane dipping in the air. Maybe she could give it a gentle plush to help it along? “You’re still worried about what other people will think, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Yes yes yes,” muttered Kei. In the dim evening lights, her face was cast with a warm glow. Without her Imago, Kei was a woman in her mid-thirties, with big black eyes and a rounded face. She wore her light gray uniform with pride: as an Archangel, she’d been able to choose whatever pattern she’d wanted, and had settled on one that gave the impression of plate armour, with cicada wings traced over her back. “It’s better to keep silent than to make a fool of yourself, right?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Yeah, if you opened your mouth more, everyone would know that you’re just a dork—”

“Hey!”

“I’m just kidding. Your whole... silent thing is very impressive, though. You come across as very stoic and professional. I’m sure a lot of our younger Angels look up to you a whole lot.” In the evening light, Nep herself was clearly around the same age as her friend. In attire, they nearly matched, though Nep had modified her uniform to have her own familiar long white lab coat draped over her body. “Anyways, I’m not the sort of stable leader that you guys need... now.”

“You did well in Vancouver,” Kei said, “Though it still would have been nice to know a little bit sooner.”

“Hey, I already apologized,” said Nep, throwing her hands up in the air. “Nothing more to do.”

The paper planes touched ground at the same time. Their noses both just touched the start of the sand, where the hangar opened out into the dry scrubland. Kei dropped from the rafters, transforming mid-fall into her lovely cicada Imago. Her vast, net-like wings spread out and carried her all the way to check who had one.

“It’s a tie again, isn’t it,” muttered Nep.

“It’s a tie!” said Kei. “Yet again!”

Nep tried to do the same manoeuvre as Kei, leaning back and falling down from the beam. Her transformation was a touch slower than her friends, and she scrambled to barely get airborne before scraping the ground. She hurried over to the edge on leathery wings, nearly clipping a few of the landed ornithopters as she weaved to and fro.

She nearly crashed into the sand next to Kei, who was kneeling motionless next to her paper plane. “With flight like that,” she mused, “It’s a wonder your poor little plane made it this far.”

“Showoff,” Nep said, picking up her own airplane and looking over the design a second time. Perhaps there was another way to make the wings stiffer and get better life without decreasing the total wing area. She tilted the body back and forth, running over scenarios in her head. Maybe—

“Nep,” Kei interrupted, tapping her friend on the shoulder. “Out there.”

The Echoes were easy to see in the dark. Though their outer shells had cooled somewhat, their molten interiors and skeletons glowed bright orange in the night. There were a whole lot of them this time: not nearly as much as in the incursion a when she’d first arrived, but still more than usual. In glimpses, where they cast their light, she could make out figures walking among them.

Nep and Kei took to the skies, careful to minimize the noise that they made. The hangar door was tilted and in a depression, so neither it nor its lights would be seen unless the enemy got quite close. From above, they could see a little better: the Echoes were relatively simple constructs, resembling.... birds.

Birds?

One by one, the little embers took to flight. Nep and Kei split up and swerved to avoid them, careful to keep angled such that the hangar entrance remained as hidden as was possible. Something seemed wrong about the Demons accompanying the Echoes on the ground. They were running around and shouting, but lacked the... something.

No matter. Nep swerved back to dive onto the Demons, and Kei was ready for the same. They descended upon the enemies, weapons drawn. The Echoes on their tails were the first to fall, breaking apart into bits of basalt and drops of ichor, melting the sand below into glass. Then, their adversaries were easily dispatched by Nep’s enormous scythe and Kei’s elegant blade. It was that easy. Almost too easy.

“Something’s not right,” said Kei. This blood felt different. And something....

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no....” Nep said.

“What is it?”

“These aren’t Demons. These are just humans.”