I had Risha remotely pilot our MIST to our spot atop the city wall and once it had arrived, we headed inside to run sensor sweeps, produce more ammunition for those of us who needed it, and eat something while there was a lull in the fighting. Kelsie was still inside, monitoring Maryn’s group, and she was able to tell us that her training team was doing well. None had taken any serious injuries and they had cleared out the Demons in their assigned area and were currently cremating corpses and doing one last sweep for any Demons that may have been missed by them or any of the other teams.

We took advantage of the lull to use the mobility of the cloaked MIST, and its food dispenser, to help resupply the two other Wings and roaming training Wings in the capital as well, and to drop off meals for them to eat. Once we had done that, we returned to our spot at the western gate so Lisbet could use some incendiary grenades to start burning the Demon corpses there. We didn’t encounter more Demons cropping up in the western slums or coming from the forest by the time the teams west of us gave the all-clear just before dawn.

Even those in the forest just west of the city had cleared out the Demons and were now just working on disposal, so we were free to start combing the slums and the city proper to cremate Demon corpses and look for any other Demon activity that we might have missed. We were all ready to get doing that when twilight was beginning to light the sky, but Sira had different orders for us when I contacted her to give an update. -= Snow, I want your team to start scouting to the east of the city walls and begin cleansing the area. The westernmost teams along the path of the storm have finished their cleanup operations and will be en route to join you once they have had a meal and a brief rest. =-

“What about the city?” I asked with a frown. “We need to dispose of any Demons or Seeds that might still be alive.”

-= Risha’s micro-drones will make you more useful for scouting east of the city and let you get a start on cleansing the area, =- the AI told me. -= Torchlight Wing will be arriving soon by veetol and they will do a flyover patrol of the capital so Tamsyn can use her Demon-sense gift to check for any Demon activity. It will be far quicker than having Risha’s drones scan every nook and cranny. Kelsie will return to the Academy to help coordinate with them and direct the other teams in the city to kill any Demon stragglers that they find, and then clean-up operations can begin. =-

A look from Heather, prodded me to ask, “What about the Queen and Princess? Risha has had a look at Queen Sabine’s crown, and it was definitely concealing some kind of Tinker device on the inside, probably the one stolen from Desra’s mother.”

There was a moment before Sira responded and I had to wonder whether she was considering the situation or her response. -= Abbadine will continue to watch over them until we are certain that the city is clear of Demons and then she will escort them to the Academy where Marti can examine the Queen. Please drop the crown off with Marti so they can attempt to figure out what it is, and how it may have affected Queen Sabine. We will delay sounding the all-clear alarm for the city until after the Queen can be moved and properly examined. =-

Thankfully, there were no slums to the east of the city due to the eastern wall being built hard on the river, and with the bridge retracted; it would prevent most Demons from crossing and getting into the city. Risha sent her micro-drones through the farmlands to scout for Demon activity as we made our trek slowly eastward in the MIST and watched the ground below. The farmers had been given plenty of notice to get their animals into their storm shelters and close the Seed shutters, so there weren’t too many Demons there to deal with.

It was the forest beyond where things became concerning. We had cloaked the MIST and landed so we could do a proper search of the forest with the micro-drones spreading out looking for movement or other traces and so those of us with acute senses could use them to our advantage as well as we raced through the trees. I had been hoping that with the sun rising, our search might become easier, but while we had found traces of Demons, we had yet to see any Demons in the flesh. At least, not any live Demons.

We saw and smelled the occasional blood, saw various types of Demon tracks in the snow, and sometimes I could hear rustling sounds in the distance. Most of the tracks were a couple of hours or so old and seemed to end when they encountered another type of footprints that were unfamiliar to me and my companions, leaving the mostly eaten corpse of the Demon that we’d been following. Time after time, we discovered the same situation and as we crouched down at the latest find, Karina frowned.

“Something is feeding on these other Demons and, judging by the tracks, it keeps getting bigger. So it’s probably feeding to fuel its transformation still. These tracks that we keep finding though, they just suddenly appear, and I don’t want to think about what could take a Direwolf by surprise. Is it some kind of teleporter like me?” the Devilkin wondered aloud as she looked at the tracks.

“I am not sure whether we should be thankful that it’s doing most of our job for us, or worried that it’s probably growing more powerful with each kill,” Lisbet contributed with a frown of her own.

“Be afraid, be very afraid,” Risha grumbled as she looked around nervously. “I’ve never seen tracks like that before.”

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised since it was not that unusual for the stronger Demons in a newly seeded area to grow and fuel their transformations by feeding on the weaker Demons or wild animals. What was surprising was that we were definitely seeing one type of Demon’s tracks repeating as it grew larger and stronger. Whatever it was, it was wiping out all of the other Demons in the forest that we had seen traces of, and leaving very little of them behind for us to have to burn. I was also concerned about Karina’s thought that it might be a teleporter.

Whatever it was, I could smell something out there in the forest. Something that had my tail bristling and my ears back flat against my head. It wasn’t a familiar scent, but something that every instinct told me was extremely dangerous. I looked over the tracks beside the latest kill as I continued to scent the cold air around us with deep breaths. No, Karina was wrong, it wasn’t a teleporter, the few tracks that we had found had been very deep as if the creature weighed a lot or…

That burgeoning thought hit me at the same time as the scent became stronger and I heard a faint whistling sound. It was moving through the trees! “Move!” I shouted as I dove to the side to tackle Heather, narrowly avoiding the attack of the creature that hit the ground by where she had been standing only seconds before. By the time I had righted myself atop the pink-haired Fay an instant later, the Demon was gone once again, having avoided one of Karina’s chain scythes and a dagger thrown by Risha.

Whatever it was, it was as fast as I was, and it could jump. It had managed to graze me with its claws when I moved to cover Heather, and I was relatively sure that the only reason that I had managed to only get grazed was because I had caught its scent in time, and I had speed and reflexes enhanced by my nanites. I had barely managed to knock Heather to the ground to prevent it from gutting her.

-= Alert! H.E.S.S integrity compromised. Repair in progress. Estimated time to completion: Three minutes and twenty seconds. You have received minor slashes to your back and a toxin has been detected. Breaking down the toxin and initiating dermal repairs. Estimated time to completion: Two minutes. =- Connie reported.

“What the hell was that thing?!” Autumn asked as she nervously scanned the treetops.

“It was some sort of huge monkey-like thing,” Risha offered with a grim expression. “I barely got a look at it, but it was enough to freeze frame and figure out what we are dealing with. I have never seen anything like it before, not even in the Demon archives. It is huge and vaguely monkey like, but it has four arms with talon-like claws, a huge mouth that is almost like a shark’s, and spikes on its back. Whatever it was, it is fast, strong, and agile and given its small eyes and bat like ears, it probably hunts by sonar, travels by the treetops, and then gets the drop on its prey from above.”

“Did any of you hear the whistling sound?” I asked. A hiss of pain escaped me as I got off Heather to stand up and help the pink-haired Fay to her feet.

“Not until it was almost on top of me,” Heather replied bitterly, earning a nod of agreement from Lisbet, Autumn, and Risha. Then the attention was on me as my teammates all turned to look at me with a concerned expression. “Are you okay, Snow?”

“It tore right through your HESS armor,” Risha muttered in concern. “It doesn’t look serious though.”

“Yeah, it just grazed me,” I replied while trying to smile and cover up another hiss of pain as I shrugged. “Apparently, those talons were poisonous too, Connie’s working on it though, and I should be back to one hundred percent in a couple of minutes. Risha, can your drones track that thing?”

“Yeah, I already tagged it with a micro-drone, follow me,” Risha said as a beam of blue-white energy burst from her hand to vaporize the remains of the small Demon that we had stopped to inspect before being attacked. Then she looked eastward and took off at a run. I could smell the Demon’s scent clearly now and since it seemed to be going in the same direction that Risha was leading us I quickly followed, with the others right on my tail.

“We’re going to have to go all out; we attacked almost as soon as we saw it and it still managed to avoid our attacks,” Karina said with a wary look up at the trees as we ran.

We did encounter a few other Demons as we tracked our prey, but they were easily taken care of. We all ended up stopping in our tracks though as a bright flash of light erupted ahead of us and Risha cursed. “Shit! Something just eviscerated that monkey thing, and almost got the micro-drone I had on its tail too.”

I didn’t like the look of that flash of light at all, something was all too familiar about it. “What are we dealing with, Risha?”

“It’s a Fenris,” she muttered, gaining everyone’s attention.

I let out a long sigh. I had been worried about that, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t beaten one before. “Risha, are we within range for you to use the Minimax?”

The Avatar nodded as she unslung the cumbersome weapon from her back and loaded one of the micro missiles. “It’s at the base of a large ridge about two point five miles ahead of us. Ready to fire on your command, Wing Commander.”

“Fire,” I told her with no hesitation. I would rather not have to fight a Fenris up close and personal again if I could help it and Risha’s weapon had been designed with large and durable opponents in mind.

The missile streaked into the sky and toward its target, but another burst of light had Risha cursing again. “Dammit! It blasted the missile right out of the sky; the heat signature must have given it away. We’ll need to get closer, and I’ll have to try and take it by surprise.

“Damn, we’ll need to do this the way we took care of the last one then. So let’s get close enough for Heather to take out its eyes. At least we’re downwind,” I grumbled.

We moved slowly, making sure to stay downwind of the Fenris’s position as we made our way toward it. About half a mile away, I stopped us so that Heather could climb a large oak tree to try to get in a decent firing position. I also had to send a general broadcast along the Corps’ FTL comms frequency to warn any veetols and MISTs away from our position until the Fenris could be dealt with.

Teams that had finished their cleanup to the West were being moved to the capital to clean up there and several were already en route eastward to join us in taking patrol zones to kill any Demons that had cropped up from the storm. There was too much chance of the veetols being shot out of the sky if they came too close while the Fenris was still active, and I was worried that the same would go for the MISTs as well. They could cloak themselves from normal sight, but they still gave off heat.

Once Heather was able to confirm that she had eyes on the Fenris, the rest of us moved into position not far away. I wanted to be ready in case Risha’s follow-up attack didn’t work or Heather wasn’t able to take out both eyes, but I didn’t want to get too close yet and risk it seeing our heat signatures or catching a whiff of us if the wind suddenly changed. “Okay, Heather, you can fire when ready,” I called out on comms once we were in position.

A familiar howl of agony from our prey’s position was the first confirmation, followed quickly by Heather’s voice. -= Its left eye is taken out; I’ll need to wait for it to stop thrashing and look in this direction again before I can take out the right. I don’t think Risha will be able to get a clear shot at its weak spots either, not with it moving around like that. =-

“Good work, Heather. Lisbet, hit it with the red pepper and flash-bang grenades. Everyone else, get ready to move,” I commanded.

Lisbet was also above us in a tree that would let her have a clear line of sight on the massive wolf Demon, and she was not comfortable with it, going by her mumbled complaints about Harekin belonging on the ground. She had never tried using her grenade launcher mode at this distance, even though it was rated for twice that far, but the moment that I issued the order, a pair of grenades sailed above us and toward the Fenris one after another. The Demon howled in pain and fury once again and I was primed to move as fast as I could once the cloud of red pepper cleared.

Another reason that I had kept us so far from the target was so we wouldn’t be affected by the grenades, and it would likely be feeling the effects for long enough for us to move in and finish it off if Risha couldn’t manage to do it with her Minimax. Karina, Autumn, and I were the last resort, just in case. -= The smoke is clear, =- Lisbet called out.

Another pained howl in the distance was punctuated by Heather’s voice. -= Got the right eye, you’re clear to fire, Risha. =-

That was our cue. I rushed alongside Karina and Autumn toward the Demon’s position even as I heard Risha calling out, -= Firing. =- We were barely a quarter of the way there when a loud explosion rang out ahead of us. -= The big bad wolf is down, girls. =-

When we arrived, the Fenris was laying still at the base of a small cliff with a gaping bloody hole in its massive chest. “Huh,” Karina sighed as we got close enough to see that it was good and dead. “That’s kinda a letdown. I was looking forward to fighting one of these again, the last time was fun.”

“Says the one who was safely out of reach on its back last time,” Autumn retorted dryly.

“Yeah, that was the fun part,” the Devilkin shot back with a grin. “I suppose there are plenty more Demons in the woods though, if they haven’t all torn one another apart trying to fuel their changes.”

Yeah, we’ll move on once the others catch up,” I confirmed. Several minutes later, I found myself sighing as I looked at the massive corpse. “This is going to take forever to cremate, we might have to bring the MIST here and produce some more incendiary grenades for Lisbet.”

“Just give the coordinates to Raven; it’ll be easier and quicker for her to just use the plasma turrets on her veetol,” Risha suggested as she strolled up to us with Lisbet and Heather behind her. “She’s one of those waiting for the all-clear to take teams east of here anyway, and the plasma turrets will make short work of it.”

I considered the idea for a moment before nodding in agreement. “Good idea, we’ll keep an eye on the corpse to make sure that no wild animals or birds try to eat it until she arrives. Take a break, girls, you deserve it.”

Once the all-clear was given and I had sent my request to Raven, who would be dropping off three Wings of Angels to patrol areas east of our own; we just needed to wait for her to arrive on her way east. We were nearly at the eastern edge of our patrol zone now and Risha’s micro-drones had been a huge boon to us in looking for any Demon activity so far. Except for the northeast corner of our patrol zone, we had already killed what Demons that we had found still alive and disposed of the remains.

While we waited for Raven to arrive, I had Risha start sending her micro-drones to scout out the area north of us and along the Eastern edge of our patrol area for any signs of Demon presence. Our break wasn’t quite as long as I had hoped since Raven arrived after roughly ten minutes, and once she had started putting her turrets to work on the Fenris corpse, we gave her our thanks and proceeded northward. We found a few more Demons than before, but nothing near as big as a Fenris, and they were all taken care of with some solid teamwork.

It was lunchtime when we had Risha pilot the MIST to us remotely so we could all enjoy a good meal while Lisbet fashioned enough incendiary grenades to dispose of the last of the corpses. Our area was officially cleared and, once Lisbet had finished cremating the corpses, I would call Sira to let her know of our success and receive any new orders. The last corpse was a fairly small fox Demon and was well on its way to becoming ash when I heard the scream.

It sounded like a person, a woman. Heather, Autumn, and Risha had obviously heard it as well because all three of them turned in the direction that it had come from with looks of concern on their faces. You all heard that, right?” Heather asked uncertainly.

“Heard what?” Karina asked, looking at the four of us in confusion.

“Yeah, that was definitely a woman’s scream,” Autumn confirmed. “There was something odd about it though, it was almost animalistic.”

That’s outside our patrol area,” Risha pointed out, though I was sure that she wanted to check it out as much as I did.

“It doesn’t matter, someone needs our help. It could be a Demon attacking, and the patrol areas are just guidelines. Let’s go.” I didn’t wait for the others to reply as I snatched up my Goliath and bolted in the direction that the scream had come from. The ground was a bit treacherous with it being rocky and uneven under the snow, but it wasn’t too much trouble for me as I made my way into a small valley northeast of our patrol area.

The disturbingly familiar attack howl of a Direwolf ahead of me spurred me on faster and I rounded a bend only to stare in shock and confusion at the sight before me. A woman was staggering to her feet, clutching her side as she glared at the Direwolf in front of her with a look of pure defiance. There was a small cave in the ridge behind her and she seemed to be keeping herself between it and the Direwolf.

The woman was naked and mostly covered in blood, and she spared a glance toward the small cave behind her before a barrage of hisses and long growls erupted from her mouth to warn the Demon away. That wasn’t the strangest thing about the scene before me though. The strangest thing was that the woman, who stood upright but carried herself more like a wild animal, looked just like me.

The others practically crashed into me as I stopped dead in my tracks to stare are my apparent twin. Sure, we weren’t identical, there were some differences in our builds and faces and her hair was much shorter, but she had the same pale skin, white hair, cat ears, and tail; and the same golden eyes, claws, and cute little pink kitty nose too. “What the hell? Two Snows?!” Karina sputtered as the others stared at the scene before us.

I was too occupied with watching the scene unfolding before me to respond. Neither my ‘twin’ nor the Demon was paying us any attention yet, too busy challenging each other. She watched the Demon warily as she clutched her side and continued to emit long warning growls. I could have sworn that I felt movement in the snow and ice around us, but at first, I was too stunned by the sight to think about what that might mean.

The spikes on the Direwolf’s back began to glow crimson as it prepared to let loose another sonic howl. Then the glow faded suddenly as the Demon began to struggle against the ice that now coated its forelegs up to the knee joints in an attempt to break free. She was much faster though as she dashed in and began to claw and tear at its throat. It couldn’t back away from the attack and its throat erupted in a spray of crimson.

“By the Great Spirits, did my feral copy just use ice magic tactically and on purpose?” I wondered as the Direwolf collapsed to the ground with blood bubbling from the remains of its throat. My copy turned to look warily at us as she collapsed to her hands and knees, issuing another long growl of warning.

“Huh, that thing is like Snow’s Demon twin,” Risha commented as I slowly approached to make sure the Direwolf was dead. My copy warned me back with another growl though and I was concerned to see that the side she was clutching was a bloody mess. How had she even kept standing for so long? Let alone attack?

“Wait, a Demon Snow?” Lisbet asked with a noticeable nervous hitch in her voice.

“More like Kasala, or rather whatever you Animen based the Great Spirit of the moon and snow off of in the first place,” Risha replied uncertainly. “It does look an awful lot like Snow and is probably best adapted to hunting at night or with a heavy snowfall. That, its use of ice magic, and relatively Catkin appearance were probably what the stories of Kasala were based on. Maybe Kasala was even a real person like Snow, someone who was able to keep her higher brain functions when she changed. Snow might even be her actual descendant since she carries the genes.”

“If it looks like Snow, how can we possibly kill it?” Lisbet asked, her ears twitching furiously in uncertainty as I tried to tear my eyes off my Demon copy. I don’t know if it was the Demon itself, the fact that it looked like me, or that hers was one of the Animen tribes that honor Kasala, but Lisbet wasn’t thinking clearly. Not that I thought that I could kill it in cold blood either. She looked like she could be my sister and she hadn’t done anything but warn us to stay back yet.

I wasn’t the only one to notice Lisbet’s uncertainty, as Autumn gently placed her hands on the Harekin’s shoulders and told her in a calm voice, “Calm down and think clearly, Lisbet. We wouldn’t be killing Snow. She’s the one wearing clothes and carrying the big sword.”

“Yes, I can confirm that the doppelganger is quite naked,” Risha offered with a smirk. “It’s not like they are identical twins either. They may have the same coloring and feline features, but their faces and builds are slightly different, and the Demon’s hair is much shorter.”

I was more concerned about the idea that it incapacitated its opponent with ice magic first. “Do you think she’s as smart as we are?” I asked our resident AI.

Risha considered the possibility and sighed. “It could be possible, there was a theory among the researchers studying Kiley that certain types of Seed-borne, did not actually resist their change into Demons and retain their human minds as was commonly believed. I mean, the theory allowed that that can happen, but only rarely and among complex and intelligent lifeforms. It was believed that some species, like the Fay, are the apex of the branch of evolution based on the genes that the parasites in the Seed used as a basis for change, just like any other fully changed Demons. That apex evolution just happened to have a lot of parallels with Humans. It explains why there are some far more common variants, and might explain some of the old world’s mythology. It was why Humans were so hostile to all Seed-borne. You are all Demons in their eyes.”

“So, she could be part of my species, and we’re just rare?” I asked.

“Snow, even if your species is meant to be that way, that kind of brain development could take a while. With the sounds it has been making so far, it probably started out as an animal or lost any humanity that it might have started with.”

“It thought ahead to try and immobilize the Direwolf before attacking,” I pointed out. “It used ice magic tactically.”

“As I said, it might be possible that it is getting smarter, or will eventually, but right now it’s hostile and it could just be acting on its instincts. It is like how other Demons instinctively use whatever gifts they have from their extraplanar connection and how people with Seed-borne gifts instinctively or accidentally use them once they have developed them. While it is hostile, it is dangerous though,” the Avatar said with a sad shake of her head.

“She’s only warned us away, she hasn’t attacked us yet,” I quickly countered. “I’m not even sure how she found the strength to attack the Direwolf in that condition. She’s just watching us, and she only warns us away if we get too close. I think she’s trying to protect herself.”

Risha shook her head and wrapped her arms around me tenderly. “I get it, Snow, but even if it resembles you, it is probably a Demon. Its blood will carry the parasites to change others. It is not like people who are born Seed-borne and whose immune systems have purged any traces of the parasites. If it bleeds around other people, it could cause a Demon outbreak.”

“She has lost a lot of blood too; she is going to die anyway,” Karina pointed out candidly as she gestured at my lookalike. “Look at her, Snow. Even if Marti were here, I don’t think there’s anything that can be done for her, especially if she won’t let us get close, she’s lost too much blood. There isn’t much life left there for you to try to protect.”

My copy had continued to watch us warily during our exchange, and she was looking worse with each passing minute. Her ears were turned in our direction, but the others were probably right, and it was unlikely that she could understand anything that we said. She had yet to do anything but growl and occasionally hiss. Her face was scrunched up in pain and her breathing was becoming ever more haggard as she half-growled, “Pro…tect…”

None of us could be sure if my lookalike understood the word or if she was just parroting what Karina had just said, but it was her first word and her last as well. We had all turned to gape at her when her haggard breathing ceased, and she went still. As she breathed her last, she was looking directly at me. It was in the silence that followed that we heard a cry from the cave that she had been guarding from the Direwolf, a cry that sounded very much like that of a baby.