Leda’s Log. A behind-the-scenes, slice-of-life look into the Legion of Angels, hosted by Leda Pandora, the Angel of Chaos.

Warning: may include abnormally-large cats and adorable baby angels.

In this entry, Leda travels to Storm Castle to tackle a new crisis.

Leda’s Log

Part 2: Storm Castle

Angel’s pointy ears perked up at the word trouble. Cats had a deep-seated mistrust of any trouble that they weren’t the cause of.

“What’s the nature of the emergency?” I asked Alec, grabbing my sword from the wall stand.

“Basanti mentioned something about abnormally-large and adorable baby ducklings?” Alec frowned in confusion. “And then the line cut off.” He shook his head. “Honestly, it didn’t make much sense.”

“Since when has life at the Legion ever made sense?” I pointed out. “Ok, I’ll bring a team to Storm Castle to check it out. Get an airship prepped for departure. We leave in five.”

Angel rose to her feet with a long, languid stretch.

“Oh, and get a babysitter for Sierra,” I added.

“No!” my two-year-old protested. “Wanna come with!” She stomped her foot. “Wanna see duckies!”

Angel meowed in agreement.

I squatted down so I was eye-to-eye with Sierra. “You can’t go. It’s too dangerous.”

“Duckies!” When she stomped her foot again, all the lights in the room flickered.

“You will get to see duckies,” I promised her. “While I’m gone, Lucy will bring you to the big pond in the park, the one with all the duckies. There’s a pack of dried bananas in my desk drawer. You can feed them to the duckies.”

I felt magic ripple through me, and then the bag of bananas was in Sierra’s hand. The little rascal had teleported it out of my locked snack drawer. She tucked the bag into her cute little satchel. One hand grabbed mine, the other squeezed Angel to her like an oversized teddy bear. Space folded in around us. My office blurred out. A familiar room faded in.

I rose out of my crouch, my eyes going wide as they panned across Storm Castle’s throne room. “You brought us all the way across the continent,” I muttered in disbelief. “I didn’t know you could teleport that far.”

Sierra grinned at me.

“Leda?”

I turned at the sound of Basanti’s voice.

“Wow, you got here fast.” Her gaze dropped to Sierra and Angel. “But I have to admit, when I asked Alec to send backup, this isn’t what I had in mind. Does Nero know you brought his daughter into battle?”

“I didn’t bring her into battle,” I replied in frustration. “She brought me here. And, hey, she’s my daughter too, by the way.”

“Yeah, there’s no doubt about that,” Basanti said when Sierra giggled, and all the curtains in the room burst into flames.

“In any case, what is this emergency I heard about?” I asked as Basanti’s soldiers rushed to put out all the fires.

“That.” Basanti pointed at the throne room’s massive double doors.

“Doors. How terrifying,” I said drily.

The closed doors shook, like someone with a very big fist had just knocked.

“Duckies?” Sierra wanted to know.

“Among other things,” Basanti said warily.

There was a loud snap against the door, like the crack of a whip. And the next moment, a perfect cylinder of wood about the size of a wine cork hit the floor.

“Well, that doesn’t look good,” I commented as smoke started oozing through the newly-made hole in the door.

“Pretty,” Sierra cooed, pointing at the growing cloud of mist in front of us.

She was right. The smoke was bright purple and very sparkly. It’s what I imagined amethysts would look like if they turned into a gas.

“Yeah, it’s pretty all right. Pretty dangerous.” Basanti lifted her sword.

The sparkling purple smoke rumbled like thunder, then spat out a sparkly purple duckling. The duckling was bigger than my massive cat.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Three more sparkly smoke creatures peeled out of the mist: an emerald squirrel, a turquoise turtle, and a sapphire stallion. Sierra jumped up and down, clapping her hands in delight.

“Easy there, little one,” Basanti said. “They might look pretty, but they will zap you if you get too close.”

“What are they?” I asked her as the mist popped out a swarm of ruby butterflies.

“No idea.”

“What do they want?”

“No idea.”

“Where did they come from?”

“The Elemental Magic Lab down the hall,” Basanti said. “Leila had a team running experiments aimed at increasing the amount of elemental magic the Legion’s standard enchanted weapons can hold.”

“Where is Leila? Please don’t tell me the mist ate her.” I cringed.

“No, she’s away from the castle at the moment. She left this morning to repair some damage on the Elemental Expanse, and she took most of our soldiers with her. When all hell broke loose here, I tried to contact her.” Basanti’s brows crinkled with worry. “No response.”

I set my hand on her back. “I’m sure Leila is fine.”

“Yeah, but we won’t be if we can’t stop this mist.”

The smoky squirrel scampered past one of the soldiers. It must have gotten too close because the soldier instantly toppled over like a felled tree.

“Yeah, so in case this wasn’t already obvious, you don’t want to touch that weird mist,” Basanti said as two soldiers pulled their fallen comrade to safety.

“Is he all right?” I grabbed Sierra before she could run off after the purple duckling.

“He’ll be fine. Just unconscious. The mist has knocked out a few of my guys, but as long as we get them away from it right away, they recover within a few minutes.”

“So what happens when you don’t get them away from the mist fast enough?”

“I really don’t want to find out,” she said darkly.

I clutched Sierra tightly to me. We were running out of time—and space. The sinister fog was quickly filling the room, from floor to ceiling. So we couldn’t even fly away.

“Sierra.” I set her down but kept a firm grip on her shoulders as I crouched before her. “I need you to teleport out of here.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Can’t leave Angel.” Her voice shook. “Can’t leave Mommy.”

My heart crashed against my chest. “Sure you can. Think of it like a game.”

“A game?” She perked up.

“Yes, a game. You and Basanti are a team.” I set her hand in Basanti’s. “You need to teleport the two of you to Daddy as fast as you can, ok?”

Sierra nodded vigorously.

“Good girl.” I kissed her on the forehead, then looked at Basanti. “Tell Nero what’s happening here. Bring back help. I’ll hold off the mist until then.”

“Hold it off?” Basanti’s eyes went wide. “How?”

Before I could answer her question, Angel leapt at the flock of butterflies, swiping her paws through the air, batting at the mysterious creatures. Unlike the soldier, she didn’t pass out when the smoke touched her. In fact, she pushed it back. I’d always known my cat was special.

“We’ll manage,” I told Basanti. “But please hurry.”

“You got it.” Basanti swooped up Sierra into her arms. “Ready to go, Mini Pandora?”

Sierra gave me a little wave, then the two of them vanished from the throne room.

“Well, it’s up to us to hold off the mist until reinforcements arrive,” I said, looking at Basanti’s soldiers.

“What are we supposed to do against that?” one of them asked me when the fog spat out a bright orange dragon.

He had a point. There were only seven of us. And one of us was currently lying on the floor unconscious.

“Hey, don’t worry, guys. Have you all forgotten who I am?” I said as Angel trotted up to my side. “I am the Angel of Chaos, and I’ve beaten far worse odds.”

To be continued…

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Kitten Tackle! Baby Nero & Baby Savannah.