She meowed.
“No, you wait here.”
The kitten narrowed her bright blue eyes at me.
“It’s just not practical to fly with a cat in my arms.”
She turned around and walked away from me, her tail high in the air. I knew Angel wasn’t happy with me. She really didn’t appreciate being left behind. I’d have to find a way to make it up to her later.
For now, I swung my legs over the rail and jumped down from the edge of the ship. My wings caught the wind. I hovered there for a moment, my feathers rustling, then I dove toward the ground. I loved flying, feeling as wild and free as nature itself.
My flight was over far too soon. I landed beside Leila Starborn, who was busy checking out the Magitech wall outside the base. Colonel Starborn was the Angel of Storm Castle and the Fire Dragon. It was her link to the Earth’s fire magic—and her link to the other three Dragons—which kept our world’s elements in harmony.
“I was wondering when you’d get here, Leda,” she said, turning away from the wall to greet me.
Leila had turquoise eyes that shone like a tropical ocean and long, silky hair the color of a vibrant sunset. Matching sunset accents kissed her white-and-gold wings. Her cheekbones were high and her eyelashes thick and long. It wasn’t hard to see how she’d come by her unofficial title: angel hottie of the Legion. She had more admirers than I had snarky remarks, but her heart belonged solely to Basanti Somerset.
“Glad to see you’re all right,” I said to Leila. “Since the disaster, we haven’t been able to contact Storm Castle or the Desert Rose base.”
“The problems with the Magitech barrier seem to have wreaked havoc on most devices, especially phones,” she replied. “They sometimes work. But usually they don’t.”
I looked around. “What exactly happened?”
“I haven’t yet received the full report. I just landed here and wanted to first check out the Magitech barrier for myself.”
“Then let’s go pay Major Horn a visit together,” I said.
We walked through the gate, entering the base. The Desert Rose base was very barebones for a Legion stronghold. In fact, it resembled an old Frontier town more than anything. A stone wall covered in barbed wire surrounded two rows of buildings that lay on either side of a single dirt road. An uneven breeze blew sand and tumbleweed across the ground. The big building at the end of the road was blanketed in both.
Major Horn was there. As soon as he saw us, he quickly moved to meet us. I’d met him before, back when I’d taken part in my elemental training at Storm Castle. He was a very orderly man dressed in a neat uniform. Today he was wearing a pair of glasses that he hadn’t had on last time. Since Legion soldiers had better-than-perfect vision, his eyewear was clearly just for appearances. And I had to admit that the glasses did make him look particularly sage.
I considered teasing him about his new eyewear. Leila must have read my intentions in my eyes because she quickly spoke before I could.
“What happened here, Major?” she asked him.
“We’ve been having minor fluctuations in our Magitech barrier for about a week. None of my technical staff were able to figure out the source of the problem.”
Leila nodded. “That’s why I sent you two witches, specialists in Magitech barriers.”
“The witches arrived last night,” said Major Horn. “It was just after twenty-two hundred hours when they began a diagnostic on the base’s Magitech system.”
“What did they find?” I asked him.
“Nothing. Five minutes into their diagnostic, several Magitech generators overloaded, opening up a few holes in the barrier. At the same time, a burst of concentrated magical energy pulsed off the controls and hit the two witches, knocking them out instantly.”
The Magitech generators packed quite a punch. The witches were lucky to be alive.
“And the barrier?” Leila asked him.
“My technicians made it to the control room and managed to seal the holes in the barrier before the monster horde made it through.” He turned and looked toward a small town that neighbored the base; the town hadn’t even existed the last time I’d been here. “One monster, however, did make it out of the Western Wilderness.”
“Given the circumstances, a single escaped monster is far better than things could have turned out,” said Leila. “Many more could have made it through the holes in the barrier.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Colonel. “No monsters made it through the holes in the barrier. We already had the barrier back up when that beast scrambled up the Magitech-charged wall. Then it ran across the base and disappeared into town.”
“That shouldn’t be possible,” said Leila. “The barrier is supposed to keep all monsters out.”
“That’s not all,” Major Horn told her. “The monster is still here. It doesn’t make any sense. When we sealed all holes in the Magitech barrier, its magic should have vaporized any monsters still inside its borders.”
“There have been monsters on this side of the wall before.” I looked at Leila.
“That was different, Leda.” She frowned at the reminder of her earlier unsanctioned experiments. “Those monsters were engineered to have a perfect light-dark magic balance. The beasts that hail from the plains of monsters are not balanced.”
“Maybe this one is,” I suggested. “I guess we’ll figure that out when we find it.” I turned to Major Horn. “Though I’m surprised you haven’t found it already.”
“We tried.” He looked embarrassed. “But we couldn’t find the monster. You see, it can make itself invisible.”
An invisible monster? Who could also survive on this side of the wall? That sounded like a recipe for double trouble.
“The beast was last seen in Inspiration.” He pointed at the neighboring town.
Ever since I’d been named the Angel of the Plains of Monsters, ever since the founding of the first-ever Legion Frontier office a few weeks ago, there had been a noticeable shift in the population. Towns along the Magitech border were growing. And new towns had been popping up all across the Frontier. People said the Frontier was the place to be, a place of opportunity, where a bright new future was just over the horizon.
Inspiration, the town beside the Legion’s Desert Rose base, was one of these new towns. Even its name reflected the people’s optimism and faith in the new Frontier. Historically, Frontier names had always had dark and dour names. Take my own home town of Purgatory, for example. I was glad the people of the new Frontier were so full of hope.
Unfortunately, that hope was being thoroughly tested already. I had to hunt down that monster before it killed anyone—and before people here fell back into despair.
“I’ll take care of your monster,” I told Major Horn.
“We will take care of it together,” Leila amended, giving me an encouraging smile.
And with that settled, we left Major Horn here to supervise the remaining Magitech repairs.
“How does one hunt an invisible monster?” Leila wondered as we set out toward Inspiration.
“Well, I guess we can either patrol the area, waiting for it to attack,” I said. “Or we can try to flush it out of hiding.”