Angel Monarch

Kim stared at the little girl in awe and terror. It was obvious that she was strong and important, but Kim never imagined her to be on this level.

"T-the... The Phoenix?... You... Y-you are her... C-child?" said Kim with a stammer.

The white-haired girl turned her head to the side thoughtfully. It took her a few seconds to understand Kim's question.

"You call her 'The Phoenix'?... You people are strange."

After saying that, she teleported away again. Kim prepared herself this time and faced Vicky before she reappeared.

The little girl held a sandwich, and she happily devoured it. Somewhere nearby, a man's deep voice echoed... "Hey! Who took my sandwich?!"

Hearing that, Vicky giggled and continued to munch on her stolen food. The little girl looked very cute, but Kim couldn't think of her as anything but terrifying.

She was only Sera's adopted daughter, but Kim was still scared of her other mother, Bea. Whoever that she was, Kim had no intention of meeting with her.

"Okay... Victoria... Uh... It was nice talking to you, but I have to leave..."

The girl stopped in mid bite and looked at Kim with sad puppy eyes.

"You have to leave? But weren't you having fun? We can go and play some game? This place seems really uncomfortable."

Kim was about to reject her, but the kid looked so sad that the words stuck in her mouth.

She sighed... "Dammit, I'm going to regret this!" she mumbled to herself, then turned towards Vicky with a fake smile.

"Fine, you can come too, but stay close to me. Understand?"

The girl's face instantly brightened, and while they crawled through the vents, she continued to eat the sandwich.

They reached the main vent soon, but Kim stopped there. She didn't want to endanger the kid, so she tried to think of a way to move to the level above.

"Hey, Vicky. How on point is your teleportation?"

"My mom said that I shouldn't reveal the extant of my abilities to anyone!"

Kim sighed in annoyance, then rephrased her question... "Can you teleport to a level above, into the other ventilation shaft?"

She didn't answer, just closed her eyes, and in the next second both of them got teleported. Kim looked around with confusion, then bumped her head into the much lower ceiling.

"Fuck... Could've warned me before you do that!"

She said while looking straight into the little girl's white eyes. She had a mischievous smile on her face, and Kim felt like she wasn't the first victim of her sudden teleportation.

Vicky looked around the cramped ventilation shaft... "Uh... Kim? Why are we here? Can't we just use the corridors to move around? I'm pretty sure they were designed for that."

Hearing this question, Kim really wanted to punch herself in the face. The reason they were still inside the shaft was because there were no exits nearby, but Vicky could teleport them out anytime!

She sighed in frustration, then asked Vicky to teleport them away.

...

Astrid, Joan and Eula were still waiting under the ventilation shaft. A few people moved past them and asked what they were doing, but the twins easily lied.

"Where the fuck is she?" asked Eula, while staring at her watch and typing the thousandth message to Kim.

"Do you think she got caught?" asked Joan, while doing the same as her sister.

Next to them, Astrid was leaning onto the wall, acting nonchalantly. But under the surface, she was anxious for her friend.

Few people knew Astrid before joining the Angelic Order. She was from Northern Europe, from the Scandinavian Peninsula.

She and her family lived in a very small city, its population not even reaching a million.

They were living fine. Few monsters were located so far up north, so their life was easy for most parts.

She was 19 years old when a large goblin horde destroyed the city. Most of the survivors got either killed and/or eaten, but the 'lucky' few got taken as prisoners.

Astrid was one of these survivors. She spent 3 years with the goblins. They traded slaves between tribes, and at one point she became part of the harem of a smaller goblin tribe's leader.

Her miserable life was about to turn from bad to worse, when Sera went and killed every single goblin in that camp.

On that day, she made two silent vows. A vow of fealty to Sera, as well as a vow of celibacy to herself. Having been abused by goblins for years, she had no desire to ever lie with either men or women.

She wasn't alone with this vow. Many of the goblin camp's survivors made similar promises to themselves.

Unfortunately, the Angelic Order is both a very social and very familial society. They are very monogamous and also push people into marriages with the people they love... There is a reason there are so many children down here.

Therefore, Astrid never felt she belonged here. Even though she had lots of friends and people who looked up to her, she always felt like an outcast.

That was until she met Kim, the small, pale Asian teenager. At first, she believed they wouldn't get along well, but learning more about Kim quickly changed her mind.

She was a great person, but also somewhat broken. Astrid saw her past self in her, before she got past her traumas.

She also knew that Kim's trauma differed from hers, but it didn't matter. There was a connection between them, a mutual understanding of the world's reality.

Using this bond, their friendship got ignited fast, and now Astrid loved to spend time with her new friend Tiny!

But this connection also meant that she became worried more easily. She didn't want to get Kim into trouble, and at this moment, she was thinking about writing a message to Lilith.

She was quite close with her, too. That's why she gave Astrid the job to both keep her eyes on and look out for Kim.

As she struggled with this idea, a noise came from around a corner. It was small and high pitched, like a little girl. Astrid and the twins looked at each other in confusion.

The children are supposed to be in the lower levels of the living areas, not nearly as close as where they were.

Their confusion only deepened when they spotted the two girls rounding the corner.

"...And then she turned her sword into a lance, and let the bird monster fly into it! The beast exploded into bloody mist, and it rained down on Sera!"

Vicky was explaining, in an awful lot of detail, how Sera killed some Tainted monster. She had been talking about the different creatures she had killed as an Evolved, from the time before the war.

Kim was very interested, and wanted to learn more, but at that moment they reached their destination, and she found another problem... 'How the fuck should I introduce her?'

They stopped a few meters away from the trio. They were looking between Kim and Vicky, but before anyone could speak, the little girl stepped forward.

She showed off her big, bright, gap-toothed smile, and reached out her hand.

"Hello There! My name is Victoria! Nice to meet you!"

The twins were so overwhelmed by her cuteness that they didn't know how to react, but Astrid wasn't as emotional.

She firmly, but also gently, grasped the child's small hand, and introduced herself.

"Nice to meet you Victoria! My name is Astrid! And the twins here are called Eula and Joan. Eula is the one with the longer hair..."

She whispered the last part, like it was a secret. The pair looked ridiculous next to each other.

Astrid was well over two meters in height, while Vicky barely reached her stomach. She was around one and a half meter tall, and still growing.

After the handshake, she moved back towards Kim and seeing them next to each other caused the twins to burst out into laughter.

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With confusion, Kim looked towards Vicky, and realized why they were laughing. The girl was much younger than Kim, but they were close to the same height, with only about half a head difference between them.

"Yeah, funny I'm small. Can we move on?" said Kim while rolling her eyes.

Hearing this, Vicky looked Kim up and down, then turned towards the twins with a pout... "What do you mean she is small? We are the same height, and I'm tall!"

This did nothing to calm down the pair, and at some point Astrid joined them too. Kim watched them for a few seconds, then turned away and talked to Vicky.

"So Victoria. What do you want to do?"

The little girl jumped up and down from joy, while saying over and over again... "I want to see my mommy's city!"

When the trio heard this, their laughter stopped, and they stared at the little girl in both awe and terror. Seeing this display, Kim smirked at them, then turned back to the girl.

"Then we will do exactly that! Joan, where is the closest exit!" she said while pointing at her.

The shorter-haired twin stammered a bit, before giving up on speech and just showed it on the map.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"Oh... That's quite far... Wait! Victoria, couldn't you teleport all of us to the surface, preferably somewhere out of sight?"

The girl didn't even answer. Just closed her eyes and in the next moment, the five of them appeared in an alley on the surface...