When Rake reached the site he had last spoken to Raya he was sweating, the world had stopped spinning and his breaths were now more even but every now and then he flinched as if pricked by a needle.

After sitting for a while the sensation stopped and he could finally enjoy the view. The sound of wings had him raise his head, Raya was gliding through the air above him carrying a small bundle in her feet.

Expertly she sat it on the ground before landing behind it on a small rock.

“Hello Rake!” She greeted him with a smile, when she looked at him a bit longer the smile disappeared from her face.

“What happened to you?” Raya asked concern in her voice as she jumped a bit closer.

“Hello to you too Raya, I just was in the Angel Factory, the training is rough there.” He answered, the smile reappeared on the bird like creature in front of him.

“So you are going to be an Angel? Like Sarah, our lord protector is?” Rake had heard the name Sarah before, but never understood what she had done.

“I never heard about Sarah before, would you mind telling me about her?” Raya lit up, she clearly liked the subject.

“So, the whole thing started a couple of hundred years ago when the we sent probes out into space to see if we were the only creations of the Allfather. One of those probes found your planet, where humanity lived in fear of the great dragons.

We sent you the technology we could translate through the probe, and you sent us the build up for your DNA. After years of development we created the first soldiers of the Allfather, the bodies of humans are after all, well built for war.”

Raya sounded like she had learned the story by hard, and Rake had heard part of it during his studies but he kept quite entranced by the enthusiasm Raya showed.

“When the land you called Soulheart was under siege of the Imperium of Blackwing we built a ship to save your people. For twenty year it traveled through the void and when it arrived on your world you were under attack by the cursed Godslayers.

Sarah lead the Angels against the false Gods and their lakey battling the Blackwing personally when he managed to get onto the ship, after a heroic battle she threw the enemy of all life from the ship and sent him spiraling back to the planet where we thought he died during the entrance into the atmosphere.

Our new soldiers were better equipped and trained but vile magic kept the Godslayers from dying until the Blackwing used his wretched power to damage our ship forcing us to retreat with only a few thousand people on board.

Sarah was mortally wounded by the Blackwing but the mercy of the Allfather saved her. When the ship returned the Ercinee had expanded into hundreds of worlds, and the refugees were split to find their new life among the stars. Our council declared a state of emergency and began preparing for another attack to finish off the Blackwing.

Then our world Tiber was attacked nearly ten years after our ship returned with your people, the Blackwing had brought the Vengeance and burned the entire planet.

The angels fought but the rage of the featherless devil was too much and we had to leave the world behind.

From this day on the identity of the Homeworld has been a secret, the place of our ancestors protected at all times. Sarah and the angels protect our world till this day, every angel is worth thousands of regular troops because they are the only ones that can fight the Godslayers one on one. Sarah still commands the First Wing one thousand of the best Angels in the Ercinee federation.”

Rake waited and then applauded Raya, he had indeed not known a lot of what she had told him, especially not about the Fall of Tiber, the topic had been avoided during his studies.

“Angels, huh? I hope I don’t fail the tests.” Rake mused, Raya smiled at him.

“I think you will become a great Angel, the left arm of the Allfather himself, next only to Sarah!” she nodded frantically and Rake had to smile the Ercinee surely knew what she was talking about.

The sun was setting in the distance and Raya had to leave again, Rake waved her goodbye before he returned to the barracks. The way was long, he had to stop multiple times for the world began spinning around him again, he just hoped it would stop in time for his next session.

When he passed the Angel factory the truck from before was back again and something was being loaded into the back, damp hits sounded as whatever was loaded into it struck the metal walls.

Rake walked closer to it and heard two humans talking.

“By the name of the Allfather what the fuck are they doing in there? There is even more than usual!” he spit on the floor as more of the things were loaded into the truck.

“Hey, stop it we are filled up!” the woman in the truck yelled but the man outside didn’t hear her, an alarm sounded and cursing the man hit a control panel the chute through which whatever was being loaded retracted spilling something over the truck.

When Rake got closer he could see what had just struck the floor, the body of a woman was lying in front of him, cuts had nearly severed her arms and one eye was missing, the face was frozen in a scream.

At first he thought it was Leaf but then he saw that she was missing the scar under her right eye. The woman did look exactly like her in every other aspect though.

So she had not managed to stay alive during the procedure.

“Shit, another of the skinny girls… they are fucking everywhere these days.”

Rake didn’t really understand what he was saying, another one?

“Hey get the bastard from the roof! He is a big one.” The woman yelled.

The man got up and pulled at the leg dangling over the edge of the truck roof. When the body came lose it struck the ground with a crunching sound.

“Fuck! What did they do on that guy?” The man asked as he looked on the face of the man before him.

Rake looked down and saw himself, lying on the ground, blood running from his eyes teeth deep red.

“Look at that the bastard bit his own tongue!” The man said but Rake had to get away, he stumbled backwards away from the corpses and towards his bed, he wanted to do nothing but sleep now and forget, this could not be happening.

The Ercinee had to have a reason for all of this, a reason for the dead. Leaf’s face appeared before him dead as the other woman had been this was all so wrong, they were the defenders of the Allfather! Loved and respected by the Ercinee there was no way they would be killed like this driven mad by the factory.