We had made it as far as the knee protectors on the greaves before we started running into trouble. It had all started with a simple question from Leresa: “What’s that sound?

I hadn’t heard anything, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances. We stopped on the armor, which was about as thick as a highway road was wide.

Hazeel, Dantae, do you feel anything? Despite the fact that my manipulation of photons was better, I had always conceded that Vanessa was far more sensitive to them than I was.

In a turn of events that made me question the kind of training I had been doing, Hazeel added herself to that list through her effort alone.

‘Jump!’ They simultaneously yelled, and I did so without thought, right as a beak broke through the flesh of the giant, skewering the air where I had been only moments before.

“What the-!?” Leresa started, but was interrupted mid-sentence as a similar attack was aimed at her.

She barely managed to get Rexir up in time to block it, but the impact caused her to fall off the plate of armor.

I watched in horror as she was suspended in the air momentarily. However, whether a feat of her own doing, or Rexir spurring her on, Leresa quickly recovered.

She did a single flip in the air to right herself, before opening a portal directly beneath her, using it to drop herself back onto the piece of armor.

Now that the immediate danger of her becoming human paste on the ground was gone, I focused my attention back towards the avians ripping through the giant’s skin.

They were large creatures, with a beak as long as I was tall. After they had stepped onto the armor, my eyes widened in realization of what they were. “Vanessa…”

‘Right.’ She responded, a hint of apprehension in her voice. ‘Rotwings.’ The name took me back to before I met Hazeel, and before Christian had ever betrayed us. It was the last mission we had gone on, when Alison, Maria, Rob, Vanessa, and I weren’t fractured, but a team.

Vanessa and I had slain the decaying bird, returning the Grand Canyon back into our dimension. I thought that was the last we would see of that variation of enemy, but unfortunately, I was wrong.

“If it’s only two, I think we can take them.” I said, moving to Leresa’s side. The rotwings watched, seemingly uninterested in fighting anytime soon now that their ambush tactic had failed. “It’s actually something I faced a while ago. We call it a-”

A rumbling sound cut me off, and I looked up at the giant’s thigh, which had bumps moving along it under the skin.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Oh, fuck!” I wasn’t sure if I had said it, or Vanessa, but the amount of rotwings that burst through the giant’s leg left me speechless.

Working up enough momentum to kill just one had been troublesome and time consuming enough, but with this many, I was beginning to doubt that we’d get out of this without any casualties.

They spread their fleshless wings, using the photons in the mist in order to propel themselves forward, appendages completely motionless save for their zombified bird heads.

‘I can do it.’ Hazeel said, likely sensing my apprehension. ‘I can cut through them.’ I grit my teeth, but decided to act on her words.

Using short-range teleportation, I charged the nearest one. It seemed surprised that I had moved despite their number advantage, and roared indignantly.

As I approached its feet, I opened a portal in front of me, and opened it above the rotwing, allowing me to cleave Hazeel downwards through its neck.

The creature didn’t even utter a sound as I decapitated it. Hazeel lodged into the giant’s armor as the rotwing dissipated into black particles.

‘Told you I could do it!’ Hazeel sent a burst of warmth and pride through our connection, causing me to smile inadvertently.

The other rotwing that had been perched on the greave growled and flew upwards to join the rest of the flock.

“So much for repeating that process.” Leresa sighed, and shot a dense cluster of photons from Rexir. Her projectile hit true, exploding the retreating monster before it reached its allies.

There was a collective growl from the flock, a low rumbling which began to make the very air itself vibrate. After what felt like ten minutes, the giant birds suddenly became silent.

I looked back up, and flung myself backwards as a similar bolt hit the armor at my feet.

I grunted as I fell, nearly letting go of my weapons. “Leo!” Leresa called, and fired some more clusters to cover me.

Unfortunately, without the element of surprise, the army of birds just moved out of the way of the shot, before returning fire of their own.

I scrambled to my feet, and followed behind Leresa as she ran around the massive piece of armor.

“What now!?” She shouted, jumping as a bolt hit below her feet. She swung around, and used Rexir’s blade to cut through another one that was aimed at her back.

I wracked my brain to come up with a plan, when a loud cry from the cloud of rotwings disrupted my thoughts.

I looked up to see the flock dispersing, chaos running through their ranks. “No way…” I uttered, looking at the sight of the Valkyrie unit coming to our rescue.

The very women we had abandoned to fight Christian alone were now fully geared up in mechanical suits, and using some sort of jetpack and foot thruster combo to navigate the air amongst the rotwings.

They were using white colored guns with bayonets on them to keep the avian dimension eaters at midrange.

The Valkyrie unit was terrifyingly effective, demolishing the rotwings with efficiency. Unfortunately, they were still spawning from the giant, but the eliminations were definitely not in vain.

The rotwings were respawning slower than the Valkyries were killing them. One of the Valkyries touched down on the armor, and slid her visor up, revealing Katherine: Rob’s sister, and the woman who found us in the other world.

“So,” she said, looking both Leresa and I up and down. “Care to share what happened since we split up at the station?”