Did you fall out of Heaven?

The cold flakes of a blizzard defied the wind and gravity and lifted upwards.

It was pretty, but actually nothing more than a trick of perspective, of course. Because in reality, I was actually falling from the sky.

Huh… How about that? An angel falling out of the heavens.

“Wait a second. This isn't a bad pickup line! I'm actually falling!”

It took way too long for that to fully set in, but the sudden shift in location had me super confused. If I didn’t do anything soon, I’d reach terminal velocity and hit someone like a meteor! And let me just say, they don’t call it 'terminal' for nothing!

-WARNING! At current velocity, catastrophic damage will be taken upon collision with the ground. Deploying wings is advised-

“Yeah, I know!” I sassed the system.

My wings materialized, sparkling out bright and prevailing against the force of gravity and wind. I took a second to ease back into reality and catch my breath.

“Holy moly…” I closed my eyes and slumped my body over. “It’s just one thing after another today. Did I really need to drop out of the sky?”

There was no response from the heavens, so I assumed that this was just part of the plan.

“Oh well. Get used to it, Yalda.” I said, then looked toward my bangs. “Sammy, you good up there?”

“Sss…?” he hissed.

“Oh, sure. Next time I’ll ask for a limo back into the world.” I rolled my eyes. That snake was fine. The harsh cold up here wasn’t any good for him, so I hid him in my pocket. I used to hide him like that whenever Uncle and I had snowball fights up in the mountains of Elysium.

What I wouldn’t do for those times again… Uncle was so good at dodging and making it hard to hit though that it reminded me of the bobbing and weaving I did when playing online shooters.

Anyways, I was mostly convinced that I made it back into the real world and out of that trial place.

“That vision was weird. It felt so real.”

I had a little souvenir from it too. The silver Pier token. Up to now I was clutching it tightly in my hand, as if it were some lucky charm. The situation wasn’t lucky I’d say, but at least I was alive.

“Man, it sure is pretty.” I looked it over, admiring the really shiny surface. “I wonder what this is supposed to-”

*Fweeeoo!*

*Fwink!*

An arrow hit my right side wing!

The sharp pain caused me to let out a blood curdling scream and force my mind back into the very crappy situation of dropping like a rock. That thing stuck in there pretty good!

-WARNING! Mild sedative has been injected into right side wing!-

-Advisory: Exceed wings are susceptible to toxic substances due to their organic design. It is recommended to avoid excessive damage or toxins until properly conditioned-

“Shut up!” I shouted to the system, flapping my left wing like crazy to slow my descent. “That’s not helping right now!”

Was I just screwed, like a bird with one wing clipped? What was I supposed to do now?!

And if things weren’t bad enough, more arrows were coming in hot.

“God! I need some help here!” I cried out toward the sky again, taking haphazard maneuvers to make myself harder to hit, relying on my good wing to fly me around as best it could. “Please! I don’t know what to do! I’m too scared!”

My hands were really tightly cupped around that coin as I shouted my desperate prayer. Maybe I had plenty of failsafe protections for situations like this, or powers I could even call upon at will, but the fluster and chaos was too much all at once while I wasn’t ready.

This was a war zone. I didn’t have time to be frazzled or idle. One wrong move could cost me another wing, or far more.

Arrows continued to fly by like anti air rounds. None of them were hitting me. It was almost like they weren’t even aiming my way anymore.

Bowalkers! Had to be them. But I knew they were a lot better shots than this. So what were they actually shooting at?

There was nothing above me but clouds and snow. But below me…

It was Uncle! He caught me mid-air!

He summoned a portion of a bubble shield below us, protecting from the arrows as he hovered stationary. “Now, how did you end up like this?” he asked, but I couldn’t draw out a quick enough answer.

Uncle swiftly flew me back to the ground, dodging arrows by the dozens until we were out of their sights.

Once we touched down on an asphalt street that was out of their view, I saw the others standing around, keeping on alert for any threats nearby. Marek was still out like a light.

“My wiiing!” I cried, pointing to the wound while still in Uncle’s arms. “It huuurts!”

It actually didn’t hurt at all because of the sedative. But I was too scared to say anything else.

“Was your wing the only thing that got hit?” Uncle asked, scanning the wound with his hand.

“I think so…*sniffle*”

*BANG!*

Emily fired off a bullet into the fog of shadow!

My motion tracker was picking up a lot of movement all over. Were those more bowalkers? In response to the danger, my body activated its combat mode.

“Uncle, what’s going on? Why are there so many enemies everywhere?”

“Small demons are after us. Can you move with that wound?”

Fortunately my wing was the only thing hurt from the arrow, but I couldn’t dematerialize it while it was in this condition.

“I can’t put it away, but I can move,” I replied. “Will it heal?”

“It will. Either with time, or your spells. But I can’t remove the arrow until we have a safe place to do it.”

*BOOM!*

Indena launched a fireball, hitting something in the dark.

“Old Man!” she yelled. “No time to chat! We have to run!”

*Skitter Skitter…*

Something crawled out of a manhole in the road, it kept to the shadows. Many more little things followed, scattering out and staying just at the start of the dark fog of war.

Oh… Please be rats and not demons… Can't believe I'm hoping for rats!

They moved so fast, my IFF’s couldn’t catch what they were. But Indena and Emily were quick to take pot shots at them.

“Should we head deeper into town?” Emily asked.

“They’ll have the advantage there,” Uncle said as he put Marek over his shoulder again. “There’s plenty of buildings they’ll be able to get the jump on us from.”

*FWINK!*

An arrow just missed us! The bowalkers were moving in.

“It’s not like being sitting ducks is any better!” Indena commented.

With that recommendation, we decided to head for the buildings. The denser part of town was only about two blocks away.

As expected, the little demons followed us, catching up quickly and scurrying ahead to ambush.

“Scree!” went their horrible little cries.

As they jumped down from heights, they prioritized the humans, trying to grapple onto them

Emily shot one in its tiny gut, causing it to hit the ground and roll around in pain. I got a good look at it now.

It looked like a gremlin with black skin, sharp teeth and creepy red bug eyes. It was ugly.

-WARNING! DEMON SIGHTED!-

-Night Hag type Demon tagged; Foe-

Night hag? Very creepy.

With my motion tracker, I could just barely pick out what direction they’d try to spring down on us from.

“Up there!” I pointed, prompting Uncle and Emily to attack the ones jumping from the right.

“Down under that car!” I shouted to Indena, who shot a fire ball at them.

We could take them on in small numbers, but their war of attrition gave them a big advantage. They easily swarmed us and caused everyone to get separated all over the road. I got close to Uncle, who was very limited while holding Marek.

Indena used waves of fire to blast our foes. The flames would violently burn away the flesh of the demons all the way down to the bone, but it didn’t kill them. Only stardust could finish the job properly.

“Spear of Destiny!” I shouted, spawning my spear and jabbing the terrible tiny demons. One jab was enough to turn them to dust, especially the ones my friends had already weakened.

A spear wasn’t ideal for attacking multiple enemies at once, so Uncle had to do the bulk of the work, sweeping his longsword across many at a time.

“Low on ammo!” Emily shouted, reloading one of two final clips of ammunition she had on her belt.

“Yeah, there’s too many of these buggers!” Indena shouted.

We had to escape this mess and forget fighting them for now, otherwise they’d gain the edge over us eventually.

Uncle cut a path through our enemies' front lines that allowed us to move forward. Indena sent up a short wall of flame that kept them at bay for a few seconds. We ran like our lives depended on it, which was the case, but those night hags were hot on our tail.

When we turned a corner, there was a woman laying in the snow, just mindlessly staring up into the air. She didn’t look corrupted by any demon, but her skin was turning brittle from frostbite.

There was a night hag sitting quietly on her, pulling a glowing blue string out of her chest. It was stealing her mana energy.

I quickly jabbed my spear at the little freak and he evaporated into ash. The woman finally gained a small amount of animation and looked at me, but closed her eyes to slumber.

Emily quickly picked her up, then turned to Uncle.

“Do we have room for one more?” Emily asked, now holding both the woman and a gun.

“Not if we can’t find shelter soon,” he answered.

So far we hadn’t found anywhere that felt safe enough to take shelter in. Those Night Hags were right behind us too. But I did have a weird inkling… A feeling that caused me to open up my map.

Once I opened it up, the whole thing was pretty much covered in the demon fog of war, making it impossible to get a reasonable layout of the town. But there was one icon up in the corner not far from us. This icon had seven tiny stars surrounding something that looked like a trophy in it. What did it mean?

When I told the others, they figured it would be worth checking out. The only issue now was finding a safe way there…