Stefan’s arms and legs ached with numbness, being forced to endure a one hour-long journey squeezed into what was little more than a tall box with another young man who was considerably larger than him. Stefan himself had grown considerably in the past eight months, gaining four inches in height which made him five feet and ten inches tall.
“How much longer?” Stefan groaned, noticing that the craft had become idle, the whirring of an unseen motor having ceased.
“We’re already here,” Meinrad answered. “We just have to wait for the others to get off first.”
“Aren’t we supposed to rest?” Stefan asked.
“Rest for what? The journey was going to take an hour, and it’s been an hour. Vigdis said that.”
“I… oh, right. I forgot about that.” Stefan smiled sheepishly despite his physical discomfort.
“Have you ever been on a craft before, Stefan?” Meinrad asked.
“N-No. I haven’t.” Stefan admitted.
“Ah, that’s no problem,” Meinrad chuckled. “There’s a first time for everything.”
The two boys waited quietly until they heard eight pairs of feet walk off the ramp that allowed entry and exit from the craft. Only, there was one slight problem. While seven people calmly sauntered away, one person loudly stomped toward the sad excuse for a cargo hold. Its doors flung open, and a furious young woman’s gaze met those of Stefan and Meinrad.
“So my hunches were right,” Klaudia grunted. “I did sense some stowaways aboard this craft. I’m not going to pretend to be nice like I did when you came back to the base, Stefan. Tell me what the hell you two dumbasses are doing hiding away on this flying metal carriage.”
“We weren’t hiding,” Meinrad said with a genuine smile. “We wanted you to find us.”
“Were you following me? I know quite well that you don’t know any of these other fools well enough to trail them.”
“Well, that’s not wrong—
“So it is true!” Klaudia interrupted Stefan. “Why are you doing that? I better get a good reason out of your mouths, or I’ll keep both of you shut in here for the night until we go back.”
“It’s my idea, Klaudia,” Meinrad metaphorically stepped up, because he had no space to even shift his legs within the cargo hold. “I… didn’t think you’d be able to manage yourself after being sent on an assignment like this alone, and…. Maybe it would give you some peace of mind to know that I’m here.”
“I’m 18,” Klaudia said. “I don’t need a damn babysitter. Do I look like Stefan to you?”
This bitch… Stefan grumbled in his mind. But he knew better than to put his hands on a woman, let alone one who wasn’t trained to fight.
“You think this is just about having to look over you?” Meinrad suddenly snapped, laboriously pushing himself out of the hold even though it hurt him, and unable to gauge at that moment, Stefan too. “We have a duty to fulfill! We swore that we would work together to grant our parents a future where they can live peacefully. Isn’t that why we joined the damn Black Shield?”
Klaudia’s expression remained resolute, but she took a step back as the normally cheerful man’s imposing stature loomed in front of her by mere inches.
“What are we waiting for, then?” Klaudia asked.
“Where’s that girly at? She still inside?” a Black Shield member spoke to another from outside.
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“I’ll go check.” the other soldier answered.
“You two, leave after I do. Find somewhere you can hide yourselves from the rest.” Klaudia instructed.
Once her conditions came into being, Stefan beelined for the nearest tall tree, and scrambled up it as high as he could. Meinrad looked up and down the same tree but realized that his climbing prowess was nowhere near as good as Stefan’s. Although life in the Glacial Lands had prepared him for much, anything plant-related was out of the question. He resigned himself to staying low to the ground under the shadow of the craft, but he made sure that he was in a position that allowed both Klaudia and Stefan to remain within his peripheral vision.
“And there that girl goes, hunting alone.” Eli Dam said as Klaudia paid none of her other Black Shield colleagues any mind.
“You reckon she even knows how to handle a rifle?” Eli’s companion Mikael Brand asked.
“When worse comes to worse, even a medic should at least be able to defend themselves.” Eli posited.
“Forget about her, actually,” Mikael said, tapping his friend’s shoulder. “You see that?”
“Huh?”
“All the way down there, just off of the river.” Mikael pointed to an object about 300 yards away. It was very clearly a living thing. It was just the kind of creature they had come for.
“Ah shit, take that fucker down and we can get home real fast. Not trying to spend the whole night in a creepy forest.”
“I get that. You wanna take the shot?” Mikael asked Eli. The young man eagerly held his weapon before him.
“Do Angels come from the sky?” Eli asked as he peeked down the scope of his sniper. His excitement caused him to take a few more moments to steady his aim, but once he had, he pressed his pointer finger against the trigger, and bang! The deer fell out of the scope’s field of vision, causing a small impact that Eli could just barely feel. For a very brief moment before its corpse hit the ground, a splash of blood was visible in the air where the animal’s shoulder had been not even half a second prior.
“I got it!” Eli exclaimed as he pulled his face away from the scope. “Hey, Mikey, I hit that bastard!”
A wide, proud grin on his face, Eli turned to look at his comrade who had not verbally responded. Instead of looking straight ahead with a complimentary smile, Mikael’s head was knocked back, his jaw open as he groaned either in excruciating agony, or in acceptance of his secured fate. Eli’s eyes drifted down slightly and saw a pale fist sticking out of Mikael’s stomach, his entrails spilling out over the ground.
“Mikey?” Eli nervously asked, stepping back slightly. “What’s wrong? Who just… stuck their fist through you?”
The arm attached to the fist raised itself, picking Mikael’s dying form off of the ground. Cocking itself back, the arm swiped with force at a tree, dislodging Mikael’s body from it. Eli could only watch in fear as his happiness immediately faded away. The body flew through the air until it slammed into the tree. Blood, viscera and limbs rained all over its roots.
Is that… is that a fucking Angel? Stefan thought, his vantage point allowing him to get a proper view of the assailant.
Their size and strength certainly matched that of an Angel’s. But no… something wasn’t right. Something about this Angel didn’t seem normal. No Light Pillars were seen around the time of landing, which meant that he had been there for some time. Utrium users also did attract other Utrium users, but he was alone. A whole platoon of them could have shown up by the time Mikael took his last breath, but that did not occur. This Angel was, for whatever reason, fighting alone. That was far from the only unusual observation, though. He also did not wear the typical uniform that his brethren would normally wear, instead being clad in some kind of torn-up pajamas. Angels did not fling human bodies through the air so brutally that they broke apart on impact. And this one did.
In the three or four seconds it took Stefan to make these realizations, Eli had also left the world, his throat crushed to an unnaturally narrow diameter.
Stefan held his arms close to his body as he tried not to panic while at the same time keep himself hidden. His hands felt the cold leather of his hilt, belonging to a dagger he had just happened to bring along.
“No, Stefan!” Meinrad cried. “Stay up there, don’t get out of there!”
At this point, another figure was spotted running in the direction of the craft. Soon, five others had returned to the craft. Thankfully, they were the other members of the group that were officially accompanying Klaudia. The girl herself was among them, but this was not a cause for Meinrad to be relieved.
“Stay the fuck back!” he cried. The Abnormal Angel heard him, and with an animalistic snarl he lunged at Meinrad who tried to roll away but couldn’t get far at the risk of hitting the hull of the craft. Just as he was about to get his face torn off, a barrier appeared between him and the Angel. Breathing heavily, Meinrad looked above and saw Stefan straining with his arms forward, maintaining the tier 10 barrier he had just created.
This gave an opportunity for the six other members of assignment to burst out a volley of automatic pistol bullets out against the Angel. To everyone’s utter horror, despite every single Black Shield member present being able to harness Utrium, the worst the bullets did on the Angel’s body was create some dents in its stubborn skin. Undeterred, the Angel slammed his arms against Stefan’s barrier, shattering it in three hits.