Mangled- The Steel Fortress: Chapter 2

Rocket launched a Nova grenade at the battle hologram. It was programmed to do whatever a real soldier would do in its circumstances- which was double over coughing, slowly dying.
She spun around and pulled a knife from a calf belt wrapped around her ankle. She began to spar with the hologram next to her. After a bit of dueling, Rocket slashed open the hologram's neck. She stood panting where she was, planning what she would do next. She decided on man-to-man 'stick fighting', as she called it, where two soldiers fought with long, sturdy bamboo stalks until one got the other into a position that would be a kill in a real fight. Rocket took off her grenade-covered uniform to reveal a white tank top.
A high-ranking stealth agent stood against her in the arena. He gave a fair fight. 
Now I'm in the library, reading my story of fighting to young excited children. They had small bamboo stalks of their own and tried to fight each other. One whacked herself across the face trying to face off against a small boy, and he laughed so hard he had to clutch his sides. This resulted in the little boy hitting himself in the no-no spot, resulting the girl to laugh even harder. Even I have to chuckle at this. I check the girl to make sure she wasn't too badly injured. I'm in a comfortable t-shirt and sweats- my lazy clothes. I was about to call Doc to make sure the boy's future children weren't just killed when my phone started buzzing as I typed in her number.
I see the name 'Ace' on the screen. I groan and answer. "I swear to God, Ace, if this about another adorable rabbit you think the kids should have, the answer is still no," I say.
"What a pleasant hello for such an important thing," the phone says in Ace's voice. "You should probably get down here."
"Ace- ow- I'm with- OW- the kids!" Kids begin hitting my shins with the tiny bamboo sticks, and they have me dancing. I hop from one foot to the other, trying to dodge the blows. It never hurts this bad in training.
"I WANT A FRUIT SNACK," a little boy shouted from the crowd.
"How adorable," Ace's voice chuckled from the other end. "You can kick some serious butt against tanky seven-foot tall warriors in their thirties and you can't face off against a couple of four-year-olds."
"Ace, I swear." I jump towards a shelf at the side of the room and shuffle through the cardboard boxes stacked on it, holding the phone up to my ear with my shoulder. My hands find a smoother surface that was still cardboard, and I drag it down.
A box of Chewy Granola Bars.
I rip it open and toss it into the middle. The kids start screaming, and they all drop their sticks. "I want it!" "No, I wants them!" "Gimme me's gwanola bar! Rocket!!" 
"SHARE!" I shout from the shelves. I grab another box full of fruit snacks and toss it down. What else do they want, Fruit Roll-Ups?
Ironically, the next box I grab is a box of Fruit Roll-Ups. I grab a berry one for myself and throw the rest down with the others.
"Wow, that's, even more, pandemonium than last time," Ace remarks.
"I got this," I reply. Rushing out of the room, I grab a soldier by the collar of his shirt and point to the room where the kids are. He looks, does a double take, and points at himself.
"You want me to go... in there?" he asked. "I would rather fight in Voyna's arena."
"Do you want me to deploy you into Voyna's territory because you refused to babysit some kids?" I growl at him. "Because I'm sure he'll love a good laugh before he rips out your eyes."
"No," he denies, crossing his arms.
"Ace, say the most menacing thing you can when you hear a snap," I whisper into the phone. I hand it to the soldier, who holds it up to his ear. I snap my fingers, and seconds later, the warrior's eyes go wide and he nods, disappearing into the room, handing me my phone.
"What did you say to him? It was very... convincing." I rush into the hangar, where indeed a helicopter was landing. The unmistakable shape of Ace's baseball cap was easy to see, and she leaped out of the helicopter. She stopped a soldier and said something to her. The soldier nodded, saluted, and darted away into a hallway.
She comes up to me. "You... really don't want to know," she chuckles. Suddenly, Ace whirls around and rushes to the back of her helicopter, the section for transporting... wounded soldiers?
It makes a lot more sense when Ace opens the door and drags someone out by their legs. They're unconscious, eyes closed. They slump out, and Ace catches them with the person's arm over her shoulders. I quickly dart over and wrap her other arm around my neck. Oh, dear lord, I think, that is a heavy girl. She doesn't look overweight, but she certainly feels like she is.
"Rocket... look." Ace takes off a leather jacket loosely strung across the soldier's shoulders. I bite back a gasp.
Tan wings partly hidden by the jacket suddenly spring up. Stiff feathers stretch out from softer, more flexible feathers. The wings are massive- at least three times the size of her body. My eyes widen, and Ace slips the jacket back onto the girl's shoulders. "That isn't her... is it?" I gape as Ace nods.
"I found her halfway into a stream, two of Voyna's soldiers dead about fifteen yards away. It looks like they hit her with a shotgun, but it wasn't an average weapon." Ace digs her fingers into a bloody spot on the edge of the wing and rips out what looked like a tiny piece of lead, but when Ace drops it into my hand, I can see the glimmering edge of a dark brown crystal. "We need the research team on that," Ace murmurs to me. "This wing, though... it hasn't stopped bleeding. Maybe it's some kind of chemical crystal."
"You're probably right," I whisper back to her. "We should give it to-"
"OUT OF THE WAY!" Prof sprints through the crowd holding a stretcher that rolls along the ground on wheels. He grabs Helvete and pushes her onto the device. Her wings flop to the side, and Prof arches an eyebrow.
"We don't have time to explain," I growl impatiently. Ace and I follow Prof to sick bay. He grabs a blood bag and hooks it up to a machine that pumped it into Helvete's arm.
Stay with us, Helvete, I pray, stay with us.