Sophie crossed her legs. "You had no way of knowing, of course; you were just doing your job--excellently as always, I might add."

Electa felt like throwing something at her. "Great, so theres this thing called marshaling, and no one even bothered to tell me about it? So that I could maybe not kill angels who are on our side? How exactly did you guys manage to lose control of things so badly? No, scratch that--how did you even get your jobs in the first place?"

Sophie sat impassively. "The angel spotters were aware of this information for the past year, which is how long Nate's been with us. None of the hits authorized by us since that time were against sympathetic angels. And probably very few prior to that; there just arent that many of them."

Electa let out a breath. "Okay," she said after a pause. "Sorry."

Sophie inclined her head. "If this news didnt bother you, then you wouldnt have been fit for the job in the first place."

Nate leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Look, we need to deal with whats going on right now, not with the past. If we dont act quickly, things are about to get a whole lot worse. Which brings us to the next point." He paused as his gaze went to Vexin. "So, it really is true that youre a half angel," he said.

Vexin nodded shyly. "I-I am..." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"I knew it already, but actually seeing it for myself is..." Nate trailed off. "You should be impossible, you know."

He looked himself up and down, then back to Nate. "Then h-how am I... this?" He doubted Nate could answer his question.

Nate shook his head. "I have no idea. Do you know why the angels think you can destroy them?" he asked.

"I-I don't know." He said.

"Well, I know a little more than you, then," said Nate. "Among the angel community, the consensus is that Paschar's vision had something to do with the gate."

"Start at the beginning," interrupted Sophie, her crossed leg jiggling.

"Right," said Nate, linking his fingers together. "The first thing you have to understand is that most angels in this world are here because of something called the Crisis. Our world is similar to yours, except that there we can feed off the ether itself. Being a predator isnt our natural state."

"Yeah? You give a great imitation of it," said Electa before she could stop herself.

Vexin gently put a hand to Electa's shoulder.

Nate shrugged. "It's true, there have always been angels who liked to come across here and feed off humans. They liked the buzz, the excitement of it. But their numbers were relatively few, overall. You'll just have to trust me when I say that most angels had no interest in it. However, then the Crisis came--though no one knows why, our ether started to fade. Currently, theres no longer enough energy left to support all of us, and its getting worse. Soon our world wont be able to sustain any of us at all."

Electa listened intently. They'd been right, then--something had gone wrong in the angels' world, bringing them to this one.

"The Seraphic Council decided that our only hope was to start an evacuation." Nates eyes flicked to Electa's. "To here."

"The Invasion," said Electa

"The Invasion," confirmed Nate. He took a breath, tapping his fingers together. When he spoke again, he sounded as if he was choosing his words carefully. "The evacuation has been planned in waves. What you call the Invasion was the first; there are still several more to come."

"What? S-several?" He probably looked way too pale at this point.