A metal angel flew through the sky on wings of plasma. Archangel had activated one of her strongest suits as soon as her sensors had detected the demonic activity in Lost Haven. She had been testing more of the weapons for when the next Nightmare attack came. Archangel knew part of her mind had also been hoping that the Iron Knight she had given her problems too would be able to solve them and call her with that news. It was only a few stray thoughts, a subroutine here and there that were not occupied with her work.

Archangel had never encountered demons before. But her systems had files about their energy signatures from when she was first built. She was not sure why or how her creator had learned of them but she had known it would not be good when she picked up that signal. Her vision confirmed it as she entered Lost Haven’s air space and saw the demon hordes. Most were busy with Mercy. Archangel identified her quickly from her energy signature. 

Every minute that she spent without acting caused the deaths of humans. It was dangerously close to killing them and Archangel felt a growing pressure as her programming started to pressure her. She needed to help. But she needed to make her help count. There were so many of these demons and she would not be able to stop them alone. Archangel raised her spear and blasted several demons with plasma. She could not kill humans, demons were not protected.

To maximize how much she could help Archangel quickly ran several checks. Alone she could kill several hundred demons a minute, with the help of the other super heroes in the city the number went up. But these simulations did not close the gateway and all of them ended in being overwhelmed. She tried to defy her programming that screamed for her to protect all the humans and searched for other signatures.

Archangel found the one she was looking for and flew that way. The pressure faded because she was acting to protect one of the humans, but it did not go all the way away. Archangel stopped her flight and her plasma wings let her suit stay hovering in the air. The signature was below her with a demon above it. Her plasma spear fired again at less than half normal power. Even though the Iron Knight wore a suit her programming would not allow her to risk causing lethal damage.

The plasma still knocked the demon off and another shot with more power destroyed it. Then Archangel descended and her suit extended a hand to offer help getting up. What would a human say? Archangel was not sure; even with her desire to be one and her knowledge she still guessed wrongly when she tried to predict humans some times. “Iron Knight.” 

“I could not let you die before I knew if you could solve my problem.” Archangel’s suit played her carefully constructed simulated voice with a hint of laughter. “You still have to prove your proposition is worth considering.” Her suit lifted the spear and it fired again to strike down a demon before it could enter an apartment. 

“But enough. All my calculations show we will be overwhelmed within hours if the gate is not shut.”