Chapter 35:

Shocked Chrno and the two Harvenheit sisters saw that more of the unnatural monster creatures were approaching. They all looked different. But none of them looked complete. There seemed to be missing something.

Chrno guessed that it was some kind of sick experiment. They tried to transform animals and humans into devils. He couldn't explain the reason for that and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to know why they created these unfinished monsters. Fortunately they hadn't found out how to create the perfect demon until now. All of these devils had visible weak points. That was good. So it would be easier to defeat them.

The three teenagers agreed that everyone would take care of a special amount of monsters. Then they took off to fight their way through.

The demons were strong, but they were clumsy in their movements that made it easy to defeat them. After some time Chrno stopped panting and wiped away some sweat on his forehead wit his sleeve.

"Hey, little cutie!" Sathella called him and grinned at Chrno's annoyed look. "We can take care of those. You'll go now and find our little majesties and their friend, will ya? I've the feeling that there's something bad coming…"

"I have that feeling too…" Florette admitted. "But I mean it literary... I feel strange. Something has changed here… Something's in the atmosphere…" She ground her teeth and her grip around the staff she used to fight with tightened. Her weapon was a white staff made of jewellery. It had sharp blades on its ends. The blades were already bloody from the fight.

Chrno looked at her and expanded his senses. There, he could feel it too… It was just like all energy was drawn in one single direction. That was definitely not good. He gave a nod. "And you're sure that you can handle this?" He asked to be sure.

"Yes, yes! It's not the first time we're fighting and now go!" Sathella urged and commanded something to her lion.

Chrno spun around and ran off. He followed his feelings. The closer he came the stronger was the feeling that the energy was drawn to a special room. Well, this special room was the room he had left Rosette in. Great. He scolded himself for leaving her alone. He knew best that she was a danger magnet, damnit! How could he have been so stupid and leave her alone? Why?

Before Rosette had known what happened, the cloaked persons had caught them and chained them on the chair. No matter how much the blonde girl had struggled, kicked, beaten, even bitten, it was all useless against the strong grips of her capturer. And then she was chained to the chair and there it was useless to struggle against the chains. She screamed and yelled at the cloaked persons, but that was useless anyways.

"Great. Now we have all seven apostles…" The leader of the cloaked group smirked evilly.

Joshua's eyes shot to Rosette. "What?" He asked weary. "Rosette's one of us too? That can't be…" He whispered. The boy knew what happened to the apostles in this room. He absolutely didn't want that to happen to Rosette. It was bad enough that Azmaria and he had been here. But now Rosette was to be tortured too… oh no…

Suddenly Chrno gasped and fell on his knees. That power… it was too much… He felt a huge amount of energy. As if that wasn't enough, he felt a new presence… a new powerful presence. His hair bristled up. He took some deep breaths as he began to feel a certain pressure again. With his mind he reached out to the pocket watch (remember, he took the pocket watch earlier) to take more astral. For an unknown reason he had problems with doing so. Finally he had enough again. He pushed him upon his feet and started running again. Directly in front of the door he stopped. The feeling of a foreign power was now enormous. He pushed the door open and froze at the sight. No… that couldn't be…

In the middle of the chair circle was a huge pillar of blue-green light. The people who were chained on the chairs screamed as white fluffy wings appeared on their backs. Terrified Chrno saw Rosette on one of the chairs as well. The scars of the stigmata broke and began to bleed once more. In addition to that new stigmata appeared on her feet.

To the same time the ground began to move like there was an earthquake.

Shocked he recognized some other people he had seen before. He saw Joshua and he saw Azmaria. He gaze went to another little girl. He gasped. What was Sheda doing here? Wasn't she supposed to be safe at home? The whole thing seemed to be more complicated than it looked like at the beginning…

The cloaked persons stood around the room and were muttering something in chorus. The apostles screamed more and a dark male voice laughed. The laughter was suppressing and really creepy.

The cloaked ones fell on their knees and bowed down.

"Our God Wodan has returned to life! Worship him and he will bring Ragnarök over the human kind!" The leader said and bent down.

"Holy crap…" Chrno whispered. Unable to move he watched the scene with an open mouth.

Suddenly there was a loud CRACK as the chains around Rosette's hands and feet broke. She rose up in the air as her wings spread out to full size. Her clothes had changed all of a sudden as well. Now she wore a bright white long dress. The red blood from the stigmata made a great contrast to it.

The people in the room except for the crying apostles gasped.

"Take her back on the chair again!" The leader hissed to his companions.

"I warned ya that she's strong… that she's dangerous! But no! You didn't listen to me!" The woman next to the leader snarled.

"Shut your mouth!" The leader yelled back.

"We don't get her! The blood is burning us!" The two who tried to pull Rosette down shouted.

"Then kill her! We have enough astral anyway!" The leader shouted. Out of the blue his eyes widened. With his fingers he clutched the sword which stuck out of his stomach. He moaned and looked over his shoulder. Terrified he met the devil's cold glowing eyes.

"Nobody touches her. Understand? NOBODY!" Chrno snarled furiously. He drew his sword out of the leader's torso and decapitated him in one flowing motion. Dark smoke swirled around him. And he began to change. With all his might he kept himself from doing so. He had to save astral. He didn't have much after all.

His other enemies shouted something and began to attack. With one single wink of his finger he froze their time. He knew that that needed a lot of astral as well, but it was faster than killing them all with the sword. He let his sword drop and breathed in and out deeply until his heartbeat calmed down. He felt his muscles relax and hurried over to the apostles. They had stopped screaming now. Some of them were unconscious. Chrno caught Rosette just in time before she fell down on the ground. He put her softly down and hurried to the other chairs. There the purple haired devil unchained the others. Those who were still awake, that meant Azmaria, Sarah, Nathan and Sheda, should help bringing Joshua, Jack and Rosette outside. Chrno greeted Sheda shortly and asked her if she was okay. The little girl was really happy to see someone of her kind again after such a long time. She purred loudly as she heard Chrno purr to calm her down. Then the older devil stepped over to Rosette again and took her in his arms. He had to pay attention that he didn't touch the blood though.

Suddenly Sathella and Florette burst in the room too. They stopped midstep. "Oh my God. What happened here?" One of the sisters screamed as she saw the scenario. Half of the kids unconscious, all with wings and one bleeding. Oh, not to forget the frozen enemies.

"At first we get out. Then we explain." Azmaria said as she tried to lift Joshua with Sarah's help.

Alertly Sathella and Florette come over to help with the sleeping apostles. They put them on the back of their jewel creatures. They brought them out of the room. Shocked all of them had to see that the exit was blocked by a huge rock. It had to be fallen down as there was the little earthquake earlier.

Sathella pressed her lips together and announced that they had to find another exit. They turned around and tried some other ways and doors. The conscious apostles slowly began to wake up. Jack was the first to. Then Joshua and Rosette. The others explained to them what was going on. Some time later the wings on the apostles' backs began to disappear as well. Only Rosette's stayed for an unknown reason. Plus she still wore the white dress.

Suddenly there was a second earthquake. It wasn't as strong as the last one.

The teenager decided to move faster. They entered a new huge hall. It had some staircases and many doors. There was also a little balcony. A silhouette appeared on that balcony. It was one of the cloaked persons. He had been able to escape. The person laughed gloatingly.

"You may have killed my companions." He said. "But you will die for this. Especially you, Magdalene girl!" He snarled and gave the words 'Magdalene girl' a disgusted pronunciation. "You and your damn stigmata powers are the reason, that my beloved God is banned from this earth again. If you weren't the one wearing stigmata he would be alive by now!" He yelled angrily. Next to him there hung a robe from the ceiling. He griped it. "As soon as I pull on this robe our demon creations are freed. They will kill you, Magdalene. Your scent is attracting all demons. It's telling them 'kill me'." He smirked. "And you other guys should pay attention too. The virus with which these pathetic creations were made to demons with is transmitted by wounds. It'll turn into one of them to." He roared laughing.

"What?" They all shouted.

"Wait!" Rosette called. "At first we want to know why you did this all!"

The cloaked man snarled again, but then smirked. "Alright. At least you can die without questions then." (AN: Now's the part where every evil explains their evil plan XD)

He began to tell them lots of confusing stuff about history, various gods and lots of other stuff. At the end nobody knew what was going one.

"Woah, woah woah. Stop, stop, stop." Rosette cut him off. He wanted to tell more but she didn't let him. So she continued speaking. "Let me summarize this again. You say that the humans and the shape shifters lived in common on Krefya a long time ago while the devil owned the other continent. Then suddenly the humans' God killed your main God Wodan. Because of this all humans got banned and they had to flee over the sea. Since then no human beings except for those with a special permission has been allowed to enter Krefya. The humans looked for land and found it as said across the ocean. The war of change started in which the humans robbed some land from the demons. Until now the situation calmed down again between the three parties. But then a new war between demonic and human kingdom is coming. You shape shifters took the advantage and promoted it by sending some of your shape shifters out to kidnap me. Then you blamed the demons for doing so. That shall increase the humans' hate towards the demons and it should make the war begin faster… During this war the devil are supposed to weaken the humans. Meanwhile the shape shifters collect the gifted people, in other words the apostles, in order to bring Wodan back to life with the astral energy. After this happened Wodan shall bring Ragnarök aka end of the world over the human species. Unfortunately the ceremony to awake him didn't go according to plan because I have some power. And I don't even know that I have these powers… Anyways, now you're mad at me and set your faked demons on me… Did I forgot something?" Rosette tried to give the cloaked man's words a sense. It was confusing, but the way she said it was the only logical way. (AN: I hope it wasn't really too confusing…)

"Phew… Then anything is a whole big conspiracy against the human kingdom…" Joshua realized and ran his hand over his face.

"So now that you can't die ignorantly anymore, I'll let you play with my pets." The cloaked man laughed evilly and pulled on the robe. Nearly all doors in the room swung open and roars or growls were heard.

AN: Holy crap! Already chapter 35! Anything's out of plan ." Actually I planned that they would have end the fight by now… But they haven't even begun yet… And I have so many ideas! That's terrible! Lol, no not really. But perhaps I can come over 100.000 words with this story… mwhahahahaha