Raea sat up, brushing away strands of black silk. The cocoon fell from around her body and crumbled into dust, leaving behind the rough outline of a bed covered by darkness.

“Woah,” Cleo said and stared at Raea with wide eyes. “You look more awesomer than Palan.”

Sally flew up the stairs and peered through the doorway. “Harbinger,” she said and gasped while falling on her butt. She tried to stop herself from falling with her wings, but they had no fingers to grab onto things. “Are you still Raea?”

Raea looked down and saw that she was completely naked. She twisted her body and head to observe all the changes in her body. A layer of black scales covered the outer parts of her body: the back of her arms and hands, the back of her neck down to her tailbone, the sides of her hips and legs. Four bat-like wings with red feathers jutted out of her back, two from her shoulder blades and two from her lumbar region. They expanded to their full wingspan which were double the length of her arm span. She had an urge to preen her feathers with her fingers.

“Do you have a mirror?” Raea asked Cleo. Her voice was crisp yet melodic at the same time.

Cleo blinked as if in a daze and nodded. She reached inside her space and pulled out a piece of shiny metal attached to a block of wood. Raea took the mirror in her hands. Five claws sunk into the wooden frame like a knife through butter. She frowned at the softness of the wood before observing her face in the mirror. A pair of golden serpentine eyes stared back at her. Her face didn’t change much: only her jawline was sharper, and her ears became pointed. Her hair was still silver and flowed down to the base of her first pair of wings.

Raea returned the mirror to Cleo. “Where’s Palan?” Raea asked, slightly narrowing her eyes. Cleo thought she saw a flame flicker in Raea’s pupils.

“He’s outside,” Cleo said. “Guarding the house and fighting people. They came after the third day you started becoming a butterfly.” She frowned as she recalled the unwanted visitors.

After Elrith had arrived outside of the house, asking if Raea was inside, Cleo had chased him away by impersonating the owner of the house and threatening him. She made up the excuse of robbers tried to break into the house earlier by saying they were looking for someone and she wasn’t going to be fooled again. Elrith, already a deserter, felt that he shouldn’t break the law by barging in; after all, if Raea really was inside, he felt that the owner had no reason to lie. He offered to fix the window that the robbers—actually Sally—had broken, but was threatened with a chain of patience instead. He noticed the patch of ashes near the house, but figured it formed while chasing off the robbers.

It was quiet for the few following days, but soon a group of people showed up because their neighbors seemed to have vanished without a word. Cleo tried chasing them off like she chased off Elrith, but obviously it didn’t work since the neighbors already knew the deceased owner of the property. In the end, Palan was forced to take action and killed a few, but didn’t chase the ones that ran because he was still overdrafted. In turn, the ones that ran reported this to the nearest peacekeeping office, and they sent out a team of three regular angels to deal with the troublemaking demon that clearly had no powers.

By the time they reached the house, two days had elapsed, and Palan recovered his strength. He easily dispatched the misinformed angels, causing Cleo and Sally to rejoice because there was more meat to be had. They had just finished eating the rest of Madison’s corpse. When the three peacekeeping officers didn’t report back, the office decided to dispatch their strongest squad—seven greater angels. Palan was in the process of fighting them when Raea finished her evolution.

Cleo explained this to Raea, leaving out the part about Elrith, as she tore holes in a black robe for Raea to wear. “How long was I … asleep for?” Raea asked as she slipped the robe on. It took a while to get her wings to fit through properly. “About a week then?”

“Yeah. About a week,” Cleo said as she followed Raea down the stairs. “Are you feeling, err, normal now?” She didn’t want to bring up Selena, afraid it would send Raea back to a comatose state.

Raea sighed, and a puff of black flames escaped from her mouth. She blinked and exhaled again, shooting out more flames. Her brow furrowed as she scratched her head. “I don’t think there’s anything normal about that,” Raea said and glanced at Cleo who was looking at her in awe. “But if you’re asking about how I feel … I feel great. Sely may be gone, but she lives on inside me. No matter what I do, I know she’s watching over me.”

Cleo wrinkled her brow and glanced at Sally who had an equally puzzled expression on her face. “Well,” Cleo said and nodded, “it’s good that you’re back. That means you’re not going to be … explodey, right?”

“Me?” Raea asked as she pushed open the door leading outside. “Explodey? What have I done to give you that impression?”

“Um. Explode,” Cleo said. A shout reached the trios ears as an angel was launched into the air. A black light enveloped him, and he rapidly accelerated towards the ground. His body flattened against the ground, and his skin ruptured like a water balloon, splashing liquid in the nearby vicinity.

A lightning bolt split the clear skies and struck Palan, causing him to stumble backwards. The ground beneath his feet shifted and cracked as earthen hands and spears shot towards him. A vortex of wind was constantly circling him, pushing and pulling him off balance. Although Palan managed to kill one of the greater angels, the others had taken advantage of that to strike back. His body was bleeding from multiple puncture and slash wounds, and Danger Noodle was missing an eye. Three angels lay dead on the ground surrounding Palan. He learned the hard way that he had to kill them in a single strike, or the angel of kindness in the back would heal them back to perfect condition.

“This is bullshit,” Palan growled as he tried to catch his balance on the unsteady ground. Danger Noodle hissed in agreement. A gust of wind pushed him while the patch of earth he was standing on shifted to the side, causing him to fall over. Danger Noodle propped his body up before he could fall, but a spike shot out of the ground and impaled his thigh. He had tried using Raea’s powers earlier, but they hadn’t worked. If it weren’t for Raea evolving inside the house, he would’ve fled long ago. He wasn’t stupid enough to fight seven greater angels without the advantage of terrain or poison, but he couldn’t prepare any of that. A sigh escaped from his lips as a second spike of earth rose out of the ground and impaled his shoulder.

The only other time he felt this helpless was when Andrea had contracted the illness that threatened her life. Okay, maybe there was also that time when Michael and Tara bullied him, but that didn’t count. Ever since his mother died, he was always the one in control—of everything. He never had to fight with a disadvantage. He realized why the demons were slaves to the angels in this world. Angels worked together to suppress the demons. He had looked down on the demons despite being contracted to an angel himself, thinking his circumstances were different. If he was given a chance to fight, he wouldn’t have been enslaved, but now, he was questioning that train of thought. Was he going to die here? Whipped and beaten like a dog?

The suns shone above him in the sky. The first sun was about to hit its zenith. The second sun wasn’t as bright, but still present. The third sun was expanding in the air as if it were falling towards him. Third sun…? Palan’s eyes widened, and he fell deaf to the angels cheering about their victory. That wasn’t a third sun—it was a giant fireball plummeting towards the ground. It was black like pitch, but the sky around it burned with a blood-red glow. The fireball emitted roared as the air was set aflame, causing everyone to look towards the sky.

Two words slipped out of Sally’s mouth as her jaw dropped, “Sun’s hammer.”

Cleo’s head shifted rapidly from side to side, looking for a place that wouldn’t be hit by the fireball, but noticed Raea calmly smiling up at it with her arms spread to the side like she was about to hug someone. Cleo decided the best place to hide was behind Raea.

The group of greater angels huddled together and summoned a dome of earth above their heads, trying to escape underground. Raea’s eyes narrowed, and the fireball in the sky began to rotate until it thinned and elongated into the shape of a needle. The black needle of flames pierced through the dome of earth, leaving everything else untouched. The greater angels didn’t even have a chance to scream as their bodies disintegrated in an instant. The only thing left behind was a column of molten lava in the ground. Raea walked up Palan who was sweating from the heat of the flames. “No one touches my demon,” Raea said as she broke the spikes of earth embedded in Palan’s body. She easily lifted his body with one hand and brought him over to Cleo to be healed. She dropped Palan on the ground. “I still haven’t thanked you for assisting in Sely’s death.”

Cleo and Sally looked at each other with dumb expressions on their faces. Wasn’t this change a bit too drastic!?