Archangel Evolution (12 page)

She picked up speed.

Ahead of her, Gabriel had stopped to watch
what she was doing. When she resumed her pursuit, he turned and
raced off, moving faster than Taylor thought possible. But Taylor
was faster, narrowing the gap by half, and then by half again,
until she was less than five body lengths from catching him.
Sensing her, Gabriel looked back and smiled. “Good luck!” he yelled
gleefully.

With reckless abandon, he twisted his body so
that he was flying blind and upside down and then dove for the
ground, arcing his trajectory so that when he pulled out of the
dive he would be heading in the opposite direction. Taylor dove
after him and realized too late that he was attempting to go under
her, and because of the way he had positioned his body he would be
able to seamlessly complete the maneuver, whereas she would have to
come to a stop or slow down to turn. Taylor only had one option:
speed up. Mustering all the energy she had absorbed, while
continuing to soak up more power, Taylor increased her speed. When
Gabriel was directly beneath her and just coming out of his arc,
she burst towards him, grabbing his waist as she collided on top of
him. “Oommf!” he groaned, absorbing the impact.

“Gotcha!” Taylor declared victoriously as
they plummeted towards the ground. Thrown off balance by their
midair meeting, Taylor was spiraling out of control. She tried
everything in her power to stop the spin, to stop their fall, but
her body just wouldn’t respond. Evidently her reserves of energy
had been expended. She felt a jerk in her back and heard a zipping
noise and she knew her wings had retracted.

Holding on to Gabriel’s back for dear life,
she used him as a landing pad as they smashed into the field. They
sank deep into the soft grass, leaving a two-foot crater that would
require more than just a few panels of pre-grown grass to
repair.

Climbing out of the hole unscathed, Taylor
looked back and said, “You okay?”

“Uhhhh,” Gabriel said, still face down in the
dirt.

“I guess I got a little carried away,” Taylor
said.

Rolling over, Gabriel said, “Ya think??” His
face was covered in splotches of dirt, and bits of grass clung to
his nose, chin and ears. Taylor clamped a hand over her mouth to
stifle a laugh.

Muffled by her hand, she said, “You
look….good, Gabriel.”

Before he could respond, Taylor heard a
girl’s voice say, “Hey, Tay.”

Turning her attention away from her battered
boyfriend, Taylor saw her best friend jogging up to meet her. Chris
was next to her. “What are you doing here, Sam?”

Smiling, Sam said, “Clifford told us about
your training and recommended that we come and see if you needed
any help.”

Chris winked. He said, “It seems like you’re
doing just fine though. That was an incredible maneuver, especially
for your first time flying.”

“Second time,” Taylor corrected. “You saw
that?”

“We saw the whole thing, Tay, but didn’t want
to interrupt. You were amazing,” Sam said.

“Tell that to the Training Master of the
Universe over here,” Taylor said, motioning to Gabriel, who had sat
up, poking his head out of the hole like a gopher on the
prairie.

Frowning, Gabriel said, “It was a really,
really impressive display of flying, Taylor.”

“But?” Taylor said.

With a wry smile, Gabriel said, “But….it was
also extremely reckless. In a real battle you could have been badly
injured. Not to mention that you completely exhausted your stores
of energy, which would have allowed your enemies to destroy or
capture you as soon as you hit the ground. This isn’t a game,
Taylor.”

“Hmmm, let me remember….I think your exact
words were: ‘Tag, you’re it.’ Is that right?”

Gabriel froze. “I, uh, well, I was just
trying to make it fun for you.”

“You’ve been tough on me all day long and
suddenly you wanted to make it
fun
?” Taylor said
incredulously. “You egged me on and I responded.
And…..I…..beat…..you.”

A voice said, “That’s why he’s so mad.”

Taylor turned to see who the newcomer was. A
white tank rolled their way. It was Sampson. And next to him was
Kiren, whose neon pink hair looked even brighter next to her bulky
boyfriend.

“Hey, guys,” Taylor said.

Continuing his previous line of thought,
Sampson said, “In angel training, Gabriel was always the top of the
class—First Angel. His best subject was flying, and during our
breaks we used to play a game called Flying Tag. In all the years
I’ve known him, Gabriel has never lost. Until now, that is. And let
me tell you, us kids were far more reckless than Taylor was today.
We tried everything: teaming up, daredevil moves that we hadn’t
even learned in school yet, free falls; but nothing worked. Despite
our desperate desire to dethrone the king, we never could. That’s
why he’s so pissed, not because you were reckless.”

Taylor turned to look at her boyfriend, whose
face was already turning red. “Is that true?” she asked, a smile
widening across her face.

“Maybe,” Gabriel said.

“Definitely,” Sampson said.

“I dethroned the King of Flying Tag?” Taylor
asked to confirm.

“Fine, yes, whatever,” Gabriel said.

“And bruised his ego,” Sampson added
helpfully.

In a blur of movement, Gabriel was on top of
Sampson, pinning him to the ground. “Slow as ever, buddy,” Gabriel
said.

“Hey, you’re messing with someone who is
still recovering, that’s cold, man,” Sampson said.

“I saw what Taylor did, you’re in perfect
shape.”

“What did Taylor do?” Sam asked.

“Saved him,” Kiren said.

Shaking her head, Taylor said, “Look, guys,
I’m no hero and I didn’t save him. My new body did. It can do
things…things I can’t even seem to control. I just let my body help
him, that’s all.”

“Semantics,” Gabriel said, “but all that
matters is that he’s okay now. I’m glad you’re okay, man.”

“Glad enough to get off of me?” Sampson
asked.

“Never,” Gabriel said, laughing. He pushed
him hard into the ground before releasing him.

When Gabriel regained his feet, Taylor
punched him hard in the shoulder. “Oww!” he said, wincing. “What
was that for?”

“For being an egotistical jerk sometimes,”
she said.

“Can we kiss and make up?” Gabriel said,
reaching for her.

But Taylor was already gone, her wings
spreading and lifting her off of the ground. She was flying…and
loving it.

T
wo months
later.

Dionysus smiled. They were ready. After two
months of hard training, the New Archangels had mastered their new
abilities to the greatest extent possible. They could fly faster,
attack more powerfully, wield swords more precisely, recover from
injuries more quickly—basically do everything they could before but
at a much higher level. While they had all progressed
significantly, the greatest change was wrought in David. He had
been a mere child before evolving; he was First Angel in all of his
courses, yes, but only at a fifteen-year-old level. Now he was
fighting with a strength and skill near—if not equal to—Dionysus’s
own.

His smile was prompted by the sparring match
he was watching. Even to a sword-master like him, the display was
impressive. Even better was the suspense as to who would win.
Johanna versus David—it was the grudge match he had been waiting
for days to see. Johanna had been reluctant to fight the boy at
first—using all sorts of excuses, like she didn’t want to hurt him,
and he was only a boy, and blah, blah, blah—but Dionysus had
eventually convinced her. Like him, her ego was her weakness. A few
well-placed lies about how the boy had said he would easily defeat
her and that she was too scared to fight him did the trick, and
soon she was begging Dionysus to schedule a duel between them. All
in the name of training.

Now the two were locked in an eighty-minute
struggle that showed no signs of ending. Dionysus watched as
Johanna slashed and David parried and counter-slashed. Johanna
easily blocked the attack. Using her non-sword hand, she fired a
light orb at David’s feet, but he hopped over it casually, like he
was jumping rope. While still in midair, David swung his sword at
her head, and at the same time kicked at her stomach. Johanna
blocked his sword with her own blade, but was thrown off-balance by
his foot, which connected solidly below her ribs.

Falling backwards, she led with her arms,
which she threw back over her head, using them to catapult herself
into a back-handspring. But her escape move was too slow, as David
sprang forward, poking at her legs when she landed on her feet. His
sword pierced her skin in three or four places, and white geysers
of blood erupted.

In desperation, she went back on the
offensive, erratically whipping her blade at David. He casually
ducked under the first two swipes and then caught the sharp metal
in his hand during the third wave. Milky blood dripped from his
fingers, but still he held on. While Johanna was still hobbling
from her injuries—and with her sword temporarily restricted—he
kicked her damaged legs out from under her. As she fell, David
wrenched the sword from her grip, although he paid a price, his
fingers slicing off one by one as the pressure from the blade edge
tore through his hand.

Before she could move to stand up or roll
away, David had his foot on her chest and the point of his sword on
her throat. His face was full of rage—maybe from the pain of his
lost fingers, or from the excitement of the battle, or perhaps from
something else entirely—and for a moment Dionysus thought he might
finish the job, run her through, kill her. Rather than making a
move to stop him, Dionysus just watched with interest. A trickle of
blood dribbled down her neck as the razor-sharp blade cut into her
skin.
Would he do it?
As the seconds ticked away, his
suspense grew. Dionysus almost found himself wishing that he
would
do it, even though that would leave him another
Archangel down, and a powerful one at that.

His face still contorted in rage, David
finally lifted his white-hot sword from her throat; in seconds, the
blood had dried up and the minor wound had healed. Stepping off
her, he said, “Good fight,” and stooped down to collect his
dismembered fingers. Then he walked to the training room door and
exited, leaving a trail of blood from his damaged hand.

Dionysus was speechless. The boy was so
strange, so unlike anyone that he had encountered before, that he
didn’t know what to make of him. Clearly, he had his uses. The
anger, the hate, the rage: If he could manage to harness the boy’s
fury and direct it at his enemies, it might be the edge that he
needed to win the War. As long as the boy didn’t destroy the New
Archangels first, Dionysus was happy.

Johanna was still lying on the ground,
breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling. Dionysus watched
her.
Wait for it, wait for it
, he thought.

One second she was on the ground and the next
she was in his face, having used a karate-style kick to regain her
feet in one swift motion. “What the
hell
was that!?” she
roared, inadvertently—or maybe purposely—spitting in his face as
she spoke.

Using a sleeve of his robe to casually wipe
the spittle from his cheeks, Dionysus said, “No harm done.”

“No harm done! The boy nearly killed me, was
going to kill me, I could see it in his eyes. He’s freaking crazy,
one of these days he will kill one of us and it could be YOU!”

Remaining calm, Dionysus said, “I am aware of
the risks, Johanna, but at this time his benefits are greater. Now,
if you don’t get out of my face and calm down RIGHT NOW, I may
order the boy to KILL YOU!”

Before she could react or respond, Dionysus
pushed past her and exited the room. His smile had returned; in his
mind, a little dissension in the ranks was a positive thing.
Fingers could be regrown. Yes, they were definitely ready. All that
remained was for them to find out where the girl went each day. Two
months earlier, Dionysus had contacted his last demon spy with a
special mission: to follow the girl everywhere she went.

On day one of the mission, the demon reported
that he had followed Taylor to class and then back to her dorm. For
the next eight hours he waited, but she never came out. The next
day, the same thing happened. And the next. He knew something
strange was going on, but despite the demon’s attempts to get the
latest gossip from within the army, no one seemed to be able to
give him any straight answers about the human girl who had turned
into an angel. Evidently, anything related to her was highly
classified, only known by the demon Elders and their innermost
advisors.

Dionysus had to know what she was up to, so
he instructed his spy to take whatever measures were necessary to
find out the truth. The spy continued to tail her daily and stake
out her dormitory whenever she was there, but her curtains were
always drawn, preventing him from gaining any insights. Eventually
he realized he was going to have to do something drastic. And to
his credit, he did.

Earlier that day, Dionysus had received an
excited call from the spy. The mystery had been solved. While
Taylor was at class, the demon had broken into her dorm and hidden
under her bed, behind some boxes. When she arrived home, he heard
voices discussing whether it was time to go. He recognized one of
the voices as being that of Christopher Lyon, a high-ranking
officer in the demon army. Another voice was clearly that of
Gabriel Knight. While even the thought of the traitor had made
Dionysus want to punch something, between gritted teeth he asked
the demon spy to continue.

Based on the conversation he heard, the spy
knew they were about to leave the room, but not via the door. They
were going to teleport, which explained why the girl was never seen
coming out of her dorm after getting home from class. The demon
explained to Dionysus how there was a risky form of teleporting
that could be performed in dire situations. Demon children were not
taught this technique, but those in the army received remedial
training in what was called
drop-porting
, and were advised
to only use it if there was no other way to accomplish what was
needed. In this case it was the only option. The technique involved
teleporting to the exact spot where another demon had teleported
just before, thus dropping in on the other demon’s teleport. The
window of opportunity to perform the maneuver was extremely short,
and the risks to the dropping demon were many and deadly. In some
cases, the dropping demon had been known to disappear, never to be
heard from again. There were other tales of the demons being
transported to faraway places, like deep under the ocean, or into
outer space, although no one knew how anyone would know about the
stories if they were true. In any case, the demon spy took a
chance, peeking out from behind the boxes to watch for the perfect
opportunity. When Chris, Taylor, and Gabriel had teleported from
the room, the spy had dropped in, and was sucked into the same
teleportation tunnel as them.