TRANSFORMATIONS

By Hydraa

This takes place after "Eden". This does have spoilers to Volume 8, though I'm taking it in my own direction.

---000---

Chrno fell, tumbling end over end as the platform receded above him, tangled in his limp wings and tail. Pain brought him out of darkness for a moment, but he couldn't make most of his body respond. The hole in his chest continued through his back and his legions struggled to repair his spine, even as blood poured out, trailing in the air above him.

Dazed and deep in shock, he watched Eden shrinking above him and couldn't figure out why. Rosette was up there though, and he reached out, wanting to go to her. He could smell her on him still and gasped, wanting her.

She wasn't the one who came for him. Dozens of demons speared out of the darkness, howling as they dove to catch him. Chrno reached for them, but none of them were Rosette. She wasn't with them.

Chrno's eyes fluttered closed and he relaxed, drifting back into that warm, sleepy darkness.

Unconscious, he fell.

---000---

Dafau cursed as he dove, his wings angled back behind him so as not to slow him down. The Sinner was at terminal velocity already, his body plummeting straight down with no sign that he was able to help himself. If they didn't catch him soon, they wouldn't have enough altitude left to save him.

Over fifty years they'd been trying to catch a Sinner alive and their orders were clear. Chrno was no use to them dead. To not obey an order was incomprehensible, something that only a Sinner would do.

Dafau personally had never expected to see Chrno the Broken Horn again, and certainly not to see him in Eden itself. The rest of the Sinners knew it was being watched, that they were monitoring any attempt to use the computer, but Chrno wasn't with them anymore, was he? He'd had some sort of falling out with his brother, which made it at least the second time he'd disobeyed orders given to him by his master.

Both brothers were failed experiments. In Dafau's mind, they should have been killed at the moment of their unnatural birth.

For now, though, Pandemonium demanded a Sinner. Especially she wanted this one and Dafau wasn't prepared to fail her. He pulled his wings closer together, trying for more speed, and drew level with the Sinner as Chrno rolled bonelessly in the air, his body just unaerodynamic enough to slow him down.

Dafau drew level and grabbed the smaller demon's arm, his claws biting deep into the flesh before he spread his wings to act as brakes. Chrno swung around him, his momentum still too high, and Dafau clearly heard his arm snap from the strain. He didn't wake though, his head hanging limply, his wings and tail dangling down. Dafau preferred him that way. Chrno and his brother were failures, but they were lethal ones.

Kalv flew down beside him, his pig face flushed from the fight. "Still alive gigigi?" he asked.

"I don't know," the demon General admitted. He'd meant to obliterate the girl with that blast, not hit Chrno. He might have done more damage than the younger demon could take. He could feel how weak his legions were, his astral dwindled nearly to nothing from both the fight and the injury. "Damn." While the other demons circled around him, he pulled Chrno up and locked his mouth over his, breathing astral into him. Chrno hung motionless in his arms, his nude body slick with blood. His ability to heal himself was severely curtailed without his mind controlling his legions and Dafau felt most of the power going to waste.

"Give him some of your astral," he ordered Kalv, handing the boy over. In the end, Chrno was passed between almost all of them, until his tissues were so saturated that he stabilized, his wounds still terrible, but so infused with energy that it almost didn't matter. He was still bleeding out though and Dafau could tell he didn't have a lot of time left.

Chrno stirred as the General took him back, groaning and lifting his head. He stared at him with no comprehension for a moment, and then recognition flooded through his face. Without even bothering to say anything, Dafau slammed a fist against one of the caps covering his horn stumps, and the boy went limp again.

"Get ready to shift back to Pandemonium!" he yelled, one arm hooked around Chrno. The others gathered, focusing their energy, and found the path through the astral that would take them where they wanted to go. It could only be used if the demon knew exactly where they were going, or if a human summoned them and thus gave them a landing place, but they knew Pandemonium very well.

They glowed, all of them flashing brightly in the darkness, and then they were gone.

--000---

"No," Rosette whimpered, kneeling on the edge of the platform and staring down at the darkness. Tears poured down her face and dripped off her chin, falling after the demons like diamonds. "Oh, God, please, no."

Like usual, God didn't answer her. She didn't see any flashes of light or hear any sudden explosions that would show Chrno was still fighting. She didn't see anything, other than a few campfires so far below, the militia settled in for the night. They couldn't help her though. They couldn't help Chrno.

"NO!" she screamed and kept screaming until her voice broke.

Her eyes during the scream, she didn't see the flash of light far below.

---000---

Chrno woke again lying on his back, his wings crushed underneath him as he was dragged by one arm across a floor. His eyes opened, his head hanging back, and he had a confused, upside-down look of a huge corridor made of glowing metal and a mass of demons, all crowded together and roaring. It was a continuous noise that was non-stop, and it took him a dazed minute to realize it was half the roaring in his ears and half their cheers.

He was in Pandemonium, he realized with absolute horror. They were cheering because he'd been brought back.

Everything hurt. Chrno was in so much pain he could barely think beyond that terrible recognition. Agony speared through his entire body and he felt the blood covering him helping to slick his skin and make it easier for his captor to drag him. They didn't even bother to carry him. He was treated no better than a sack of waste being taken to the recyclers.

Everyone was screaming in triumph, the demon who dragged him shouting out his own name as he yanked Chrno across the floor. The other demons who'd attacked at Eden walked all around them, sucking up the accolades from the thousands of other demons who never left Pandemonium and usually hated those who did. They were all united in one thing now though. His capture.

Rosette, he wondered. Where was Rosette? Was she all right? Once Dafau had him, they had no need to bother with her, but how was she going to get down from Eden? She was going to die there without him, he realized, and with a scream he whipped his tail around, bringing the sharpened end down on Dafau's wrist, cutting right through it.

The General howled, his hand still gripping Chrno's arm but no longer attached to his body. Chrno's half conceived notion of leaping to his feet and flying desperately to the transport chambers, dodging and fighting whoever got in his way, didn't happen. He dropped against the ground, his skull hitting with a distinct thud, and couldn't move. His tail crumpled against the floor a moment later.

There was shocked silence for a moment and then the cheers resounded again, twice as loud.

What was he doing? Chrno tried to remember. It wouldn't quite come to him. It was getting dark and he could hear Rosette laughing. Where was she?

Dafau cursed and turned, his wrist already starting to repair itself as he grabbed Chrno by the throat and hauled him up. The younger demon came limply, whatever fight he'd managed to find already gone out of him. He was very close to death, the last of his astral leaving him. Dafau had done his job though. He'd brought him back alive.

"Good riddance," he growled and threw him across the room that had opened before them, right to the foot of a dais that rose high above the main level. Huge windows stood behind it, showing a watery darkness on the other side. Chrno landed on his front and slid, his head coming to rest against something massive and chitinous.

The pain of it brought him back to himself for a brief moment. Choking out blood, he looked at the thing he'd landed against. It was similar to an insect's foot, only huge; fifteen inches across and five feet long.

The little blood still remaining in him went cold. Something grabbed him and Chrno was hauled up, lifted off the ground and brought high until he came face to face with what might once have been a beautiful woman. Now she was a blind, twisted facade with massive horns on each side.

"CHRNO," she intoned, the sound of it echoing in his head as much as his ears.

"P-pandemonium," he managed and fainted.

---000---

Rosette wandered around Eden in a daze, shivering in the cold air. Chrno had been right. It was cold up here, but she barely felt it, or noticed she was still nude. She circled the platform, her hair blowing in the wind, her arms limp at her sides and covered in goose bumps. Her breathing was short and shallow, her eyes unfocused. She didn't recognize the symptoms for shock, or anything else for that matter. Only a miracle kept her from unwittingly walking off the side of the platform.

All she could see was the image of Chrno standing there, most of his chest gone and a huge hole in his back. She'd been able to see the sky through it before he fell. She whimpered, circling past the place where he'd been hit again. He was dead, he was dead, he'd left her, he'd promised he would never leave her. He'd just finished promising he wouldn't leave her. He lied!

Rosette screamed, her fists clenching. He lied! She wanted to go after him, after the demons who took him, wanted to change shape the way he did to have wings and follow them. She wanted to rip them apart and get him back. She wanted it, but the legions inside him didn't belong to her and wouldn't obey.

The girl panted, staring up at the stars above her and trembling. She could make his legions hers, Chrno had told her. She could change them so they recognized her and become a real demon, not just a fake who couldn't fight back when her ammunition got destroyed. She could get them, and find her brother, and Azmaria…

…and find Chrno, so she could tell him how much she loved him and how pissed she was at him for lying.

She turned, sprinting across the platform and back to the building. The doorway was in ruins, but she scrambled through it and ran for the stairs into the basement lab.

"Hey!" she yelled as she ran in. "Wake up!"

"User Rosette Christopher recognized," the voice said flatly.

"I want to use those coffin things!" Rosette snapped. "The ones with the goop in them."

"Terminology not recognized."

She ground her teeth together. "I want you to take the legions inside me and make them so they recognize me as their master. Got it?"

"…extrapolation required… understood." One of the coffin lids opened, showing the gel inside clearly. It sloshed lightly against the sides and smelled metallic.

Rosette swallowed. "What do I do?"

"Enter the tank. The process will take approximately 2.7 days."

Rosette blinked, wondering what she was supposed to do during that time if she needed to go to the bathroom. Stubborn though, she stepped forward. There was nothing else to do but try it.

The goo was warm and thick. Rosette climbed into it and eased herself down, sitting in it like it was a bathtub. "Now what?" she grumbled.

In answer, the lid of the tank swung back over. Rosette yelped, putting her hands up against it, but it had surprising leverage, pushing her back into the tank. "I'll drown!" she gasped, just before it pushed her underneath and locked.

She held her breath, banging on the lid and trying not to scream, but the lid was sealed. Around her, the gel heated up even more and she struggled not to inhale, only her lungs were burning and she couldn't hold her breath forever. Finally, she gasped, even knowing it was useless, and gel flowed into her lungs.

The pain eased. Rosette blinked, shocked to find she was breathing anyway. She was getting sleepy as well and before she could figure out what was happening, she was dead to the world.

---000---

Dafau's job had been to bring the Sinner back alive. The job of the healer demons was to keep him that way.

It didn't look like it was going to be easy. For hours, they hurried around him, trying to stabilize him, struggling to jump-start his legions and, when that didn't work, inject him with new ones. Usually when a demon was this badly injured, they were euthanized, but this one was needed. For what they didn't know, they were just aware that Pandemonium ordered it and her law was absolute. To fail was to die.

They operated for hours, using skills not needed in centuries and referring to texts in desperation as they rebuilt his chest and spine from raw matter, feeding him oxygen and astral in huge, wasteful amounts to keep his mind from slipping away. He lay unknowing throughout all of it, his legions directed by the main computers to do what needed to be done.

Finally, they put him in a tank of legions, immersing him completely in the desperate hope that he would heal.

Dafau came to see him there. His own hand was still regrowing, the new appendage small and stubby, next to useless. He stood in front of the restoration tank, frowning.

Chrno floated limply inside, his long hair waving in the liquid around his face, most of which was hidden by a full sized mask that fed him pure oxygen. His wings were half unfurled behind him and his tail hung down motionless. His chest was a mass of writhing tissue, the legions glowing orange as they worked on him. More were at his temples, recreating his horns.

The General shook his head. He'd had his debrief with Pandemonium and he knew what she wanted with the Sinner now. A very large part of him was insulted she didn't trust this to his troops, but he couldn't argue, wouldn't even if he could. They'd already tried and failed many times. Chrno was unique, matched only by Aion. Dafau would have killed them at birth, but Pandemonium refused it, directing instead that the twins be raised like any other demons. Only they weren't like other demons. Aion was meant to be a soldier but became more independent than even the Generals, actually drawing other demons away from Pandemonium to obey him instead. Chrno was more submissive, but could change his allegiance whenever he wanted, going through Dafau didn't know how many masters by now. Worst of all, both of them were the most powerful demons Pandemonium had ever seen, Chrno able to freeze time, Aion to change it, both of them to destroy on a level never matched before or since.

Neither of them had been conceived as demons at all, though; that was the rub of it. After the crash that brought them to this world, the Pandemonium core had been damaged. They'd been forced to interface her with human women in order to prevent any further degradation. They only lasted a while before needing to be replaced, barely a few centuries, but there were so many available. One of them had been pregnant when she interfaced and the twins she was carrying were changed along with her. Dafau wondered sometimes if it was the woman who became Pandemonium that ordered their survival. Whatever it was, that change made them both different.

Aion knew of his origins, having learned them when he broke through Pandemonium's security into her most top secret files.

Chrno, as far as Dafau knew, had no idea.

The new human interface to Pandemonium had no relation to the twins' mother. Aion had ripped her head off when he rebelled and taken it with him, including her remote access to Pandemonium's core. The new interface didn't have any compassion for either of them, or so he hoped. She was sparing Chrno after all, though it wasn't really a reprieve. She had a mission for him that only he could do.

The General hated the truth of it, but he had to agree. He just hoped she could control him this time.

"You'll wish we killed you," Dafau told him. Eventually they would, once he'd done what they wanted. Pandemonium had already ordered that Chrno be put down when he was finished. Thank the stars she didn't want to use him for breeding stock. Dafau didn't want to imagine an entire generation like him.

Soon enough he'd be dead, they both would, and this could be put behind them all. No future mothers would be taken to be Pandemonium, and if any were, this time they knew to kill their offspring immediately. Pandemonium would be quiet again, everything under control.

It was something to look forward to.

---000---

Rosette came awake as she heard the sound of the lid lifting off her tank. Something pushed her up and she came free of the gel, eyes opening sleepily.

A moment later, she was leaning over the side of the tank, puking her lungs up.

"Procedure complete," the voice said.

"Oh, God," Rosette gasped. "I feel sick."

The voice didn't answer, apparently not feeling it had to, and she dragged herself out of the tank. She was dripping with slime, her hair slick and gross. She'd never felt more disgusting in her life.

Other than that, she didn't really seem any different. Like she wanted a shower, sure, and she felt a real kick to the gut when she thought about Chrno, but that was pretty much it. There was just a strange tingling inside her now that she couldn't describe.

"Has Chrno come back?" she asked softly.

"Negative."

Rosette started to weep again, wondering if she'd ever be able to stop crying. It didn't look like it. Chrno's loss was killing her and the anger resurged inside her. "Is there anyone else here?" she grated.

"Negative."

"A bunch of demons attacked us, led by someone named 'Dafau'. Where would they take Chrno?" If he was still alive. He had to still be alive.

"Unknown."

"Guess, you piece of shit!"

"Pandemonium."

Rosette went cold. "Where's Pandemonium?"

"Current location unknown. Extrapolated position midway through Atlantic Ocean."

The Atlantic? How was she supposed to get out there? "Is it floating or something, like here?"

"Negative. Pandemonium is located approximately three miles beneath the ocean's surface."

Rosette blanched. "What?!" She tore at her hair. How the hell could she get there? "How do demons get in there if it's at the bottom of the ocean?"

"Transport along the astral lines."

Rosette stood up. "How do I do that?"

"Impossible without precise targeting coordinates. You would need to accompany someone who knows them."

Someone who's been to Pandemonium. Rosette's eyes narrowed. "Where's Aion?"

"Unknown."

"Extrapolate!"

"Eighty-two point four percent likelihood he is within the city designated San Francisco."

"Then I'm going to San Francisco." She was going to get her brother back and then Aion was going to take her to Pandemonium if she had to kill him first.

She stormed out of the lab and up the stairs to the second floor. There she showered in a room that was about the size of the orphanage back home and grabbed her clothes. They were torn, but she didn't care. Pulling them on, she stomped to the very edge of the platform and looked down. It was an awfully long way to the ground.

"Right," she swallowed. "I am a demon. I can change shape, just like Chrno." She braced herself, waiting for it, but nothing happened. "Crap."

How did he do this, anyway? She'd never got around to asking him. Rosette thought of the times she'd seen Chrno change his shape, how his features seemed to flow, and focused on that, imagining her own features doing the same.

The buzz inside her grew and she started to tingle. Realizing she was holding her breath, she made herself take a breath and the tingling exploded inside her.

Rosette screamed, nearly falling off the edge of the platform as something buckled out from her back and her limbs snapped straight. She shuddered on the ground, writhing, but the change continued on, the buzz flowing through her until it felt like every part of her body was stinging, just like her foot would after it was asleep.

Just when she thought it would never end, it was over. Rosette lay there for a moment, panting, and dragged herself over to one of the pools of water.

Her eyes were the same, though ridges had grown along her cheekbones and her horns were a little longer, about two inches in length. Her ears had become pointed and her hair was thicker. Her hands were clawed as well.

It was the wings that made her gasp. They started like Chrno's, shaped like a bat's, but the sail turned to feathers at the joint, framing them in a halo of softness. They were as golden as her hair.

It took her a couple of minutes to figure out how to move them, her body unused to having two extra limbs. After that, it took her hours to get the hang of running across the platform, jumping in the air and flapping to try and get aloft without crashing. When she had it down right two out of three times, she went back to the edge of the platform, her teeth gritted.

"Okay, Joshua, I'm going to find you now. And Chrno? I'll be coming after you next. You better not be dead or I'll never forgive you."

Chrno had said that getting down from Eden was easy. All you had to do was jump.

Rosette jumped.

---000---

Chrno woke to the sound of hysterical screams of pain that weren't his own. They lanced through his mind, making him wince from the horror of it. He couldn't move though. He could feel his lower body again, but that meant he could also feel the chains that were wrapped around his legs and arms, making him about as maneuverable as a slug. He moved fairly rapidly though, two demons dragging him by his bound wings across the floor. He stared down at the polished surface for a moment, blinking at his reflection, and then looked up.

Pandemonium was mating. Shaped like a huge, bulbous insect with a human torso on the top, she had a demon clenched in her pincers, her ovipositor pulled around and imbedded in his body. She was draining him of seed and spiritual vitality both, her organ making a sickening, sucking noise as it pulled everything the man was into her to inseminate her eggs.

His screams grew less, his agony so great that his sanity was already gone. A moment later the last of his life vanished as well and she dropped him, turning away in disinterest. A small demon scurried out and collected the remains, hurrying away with them. They looked like all his insides had been liquefied and sucked out, which they had.

Chrno went cold, wondering if he was next. Pandemonium resettled on her throne, her ovipositor off to one side as something rippled down inside it and she lowered the mouth to the ground, depositing an egg. A second servant demon hurried out to collect it.

Desperate, Chrno started to fight against his chains, trying to break the legion-strengthened things before he was brought within reach of her. The one around his legs snapped loudly and something hit him so hard that he choked out his breath, convulsing.

Pandemonium stared down at him. She didn't touch him at all, but her mind was in his, forcing its way past all the barriers he had up normally, down the routes that Rosette cradled so gently when she made love to him. Pandemonium wasn't nearly so delicate though and he screamed in absolute agony, trying desperately to deny her.

"THERE IS NO DENYING ME," she said into his mind and he convulsed again, knowing she was right. He was going to die here.

"NO. DEATH IS NOT PERMITTED." She pulled back slightly, her hooks in his mind but not so deep they would kill him. Chrno collapsed against the floor, sobbing. "YOU WILL OBEY."

Chrno wept against the ground, uncaring of how he looked as his horns ached. He'd barely realized he had horns again when she was in his mind again, using those horns as a direct link. It was why Aion had torn his own out. Pandemonium used them to control them all.

"YOUR PURPOSE IS TO OBEY ME, CHRNO. MY WILL IS NOW YOURS. YOU WILL CONFORM." Her mind drove deep again, reprogramming him, and he felt everything he was tumbling away, his memories falling into the distance. He could see Rosette in his mind's eye and reached for her desperately, but Pandemonium had her claws in him and she pulled him back, burying him in her darkness. Moments later, he couldn't remember what the blonde girl looked like, or her name, or why she'd mattered so much to him in the first place.

Dafau walked into the audience chamber, bowing to Pandemonium as he crossed over to Chrno's side. He looked down at the shuddering wreck, his eyes rolled back in his head and froth on his lips. His face was white, his mouth twisted with pain. Dafau had no sympathy for him.

"THE OTHER SINNERS ARE IN SAN FRANCISCO," Pandemonium told him. "I HAVE PINPOINTED THE REMOTE'S LOCATION."

Dafau bowed again. "Yes, liege." She narrowed down the head's position every few years, but none of them were strong enough to take on Aion, even in force. They hadn't even tried in decades. He looked back at Chrno. He didn't look to have the slightest awareness of what was going on around him and the General wondered if there was anything of the old Chrno left inside. It wouldn't really matter though, not so long as he did what was needed.

Aion was in for a huge surprise.

---000---

Apparently, flapping along level ground was different from diving off a cliff that happened to be miles high. Rosette plummeted straight down, her wings beating madly, only she couldn't get her body at an angle good enough for it to be of any use. She just threw herself around, out of control.

"Applesauce!" she shrieked. "This isn't faaaaiiiirrrr!!!!"

She tumbled through the air, trying to get control of her fall, and somehow ended up on her stomach, her arms and legs bent up uselessly as she fell. At least she wasn't rolling around anymore and she cautiously spread her wings, trying to control things. Immediately, she was swooping, gliding away from Eden, and shrieked, rolling a little and unwittingly turning herself in a circle. Somehow, she didn't understand how, that slowed her down and she held herself in that position, circling gently in the air above the desert. Gradually, she descended, circling constantly over the same patch of air.

It would have been fascinating if it hadn't also been so bloody boring.

Once she got Chrno back, she was going to have to make him give her flying lessons, after she apologized for the time she forced him to fly her from New York to Pittsburgh. Her natural resilience back now that she was actually doing something, she tried really hard to believe that he was still alive. He was a demon after all. Demons were insanely tough. Chrno would be okay. He had to be.

Slowly she dropped in altitude, her wings aching from the unfamiliar exercise and translating that feeling into her shoulders and back. Muttering under her breath, she kept circling, not quite brave enough to try and narrow the circle and maybe end up falling again. It gave her lots of time to see the militia moving below her though.

It was obvious they'd seen her. They'd set up a camp in the desert and it looked like they were working on assembling a hot air balloon, though she doubted it would make it all the way up to Eden. Right now they were running around, arming themselves, and she was glad that she could see a man with crutches hobbling out of one of the tents. Remington didn't listen any better than Kate.

"I don't know how to land!" Rosette screamed once she circled low enough for him to hear her. He waved at her and pointed at a stretch of sand beyond where they were camped. Rosette made a face, but it was far less rocky than the rest of the ground and there were fewer cactuses. Carefully, she tried to angle herself towards it and screamed all the way in as she came in for a crash landing that ended with her skidding on her belly for twenty feet, sand pouring down the top of her shirt. Finally coming to a stinging stop just shy of one of those cactuses, she let her forehead rest on the ground. "Ow."

Footsteps in the sand sounded all around her, militia running in. They sounded scared, most of them not knowing what she was. Rosette let her wings flop down on the sand to either side of her as she heard her name called and levered herself up, expecting to see Father Remington.

Instead she saw Sister Kate, sweating in her nun's habit as she pushed her glasses up her nose. The woman's face was pale. "Rosette?" she said again unbelievingly.

Rosette's bottom lip started trembling. "Sister Kate!" she wailed and hurled herself at the older woman, throwing her arms around her waist and burying her face against her stomach as she started to cry.

THE END

To be continued.

Come on, people. Can I get some reviews? Please?