Part 1Evlin was inside Dalla"s old cabin looking at her caretaker with watery eyes as she was being told by the person that had taken care of her for so long that soon she would be leaving this world.
Evlin couldn"t stop crying and hugging her. She wanted to just stay there forever and never let her go, but Dalla simply looked at her a whispered a few words to remind her that her story was not over yet.
"...If you put your mind into it, there is nothing you can"t do! You are a s.h.i.+ning star! Your place is in the sky, s.h.i.+ning so everyone can enjoy how bright you are!"
"But... But..."
"When you see your mother again, give her a big hug for me ok? Tell her she is lucky to have such a sweet kid as her daughter!"
"Dalla... I... "
"I love you Evlin!! With all my heart!"
"I love you too Dalla!!"
Part 2
Evlin didn"t want to let her friend go. Her best friend, the woman who had taken care of her when she couldn"t walk or even move. But she also didn"t want to disappoint her. Dalla expected great things from her, and she was determined to prove her right.
Her words kept ringing inside her mind.
"...You are a s.h.i.+ning star! Your place is in the sky, s.h.i.+ning so everyone can enjoy how bright you are!"
Evlin then took a deep breath and came out of her memory to return to the present reality.
Right now, she was staring at the leader of all demons who was glaring at her with its three dragon heads composed of thousands of demons merged together.
"I made a mistake... You are too dangerous... I thought I could control your power for myself but you are too dangerous of an existence to be controlled..."
Evlin glared as the demon leader continued to ramble. She noticed that he was raising his claws to squash her body using his ma.s.sive weight of several creatures.
"Something like you is too dangerous to exist... If left alone you will throw the world into chaos... I MUST END YOU NOW!!!"
The triple-headed dragon brought down his claws and smashed the ground where Evlin was standing in, completely releveling the terrain.
"Evlin!!!"
Her sister Ashley and the rest of her friends could only look in horror as their leader was buried under that pile of demons and monsters. But suddenly, a small light started to glow inside the pile and all of the demons that were making up the dragon"s hand were blown away in an explosion of energy.
After the smoke was gone Evlin looked at Ashley and released a smile towards her.
"You called?"
She stared at the dragon"s mouth that was about to release a beam of dark energy at her and aimed her arm at him. She created a crossbow out of diamonds and started to gather energy on its tip.
"My turn!"
She released a diamond bullet surrounded by raw magic energy, blessed energy, and cursed energy.
Right now Evlin was bursting with so much power that she felt like she could release thousands of these bullets, but she was focusing so hard to keep all her powers in harmony that just making one made her arm felt like it was going to explode. She needed to focus or the energy inside of her would take over her being.
The bullet clashed with the dragon"s beam and completely pierced it until it entered the dragon"s mouth and opened a hole in it.
"Gaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"
The whole group a.s.sumed that the demon leader would simply start gathering more demons to close the wound but something was wrong.
"It"s not closing... Why isn"t it closing???"
The leader started to panic as he realized that even the power of his black sword was unable to repair the damage Evlin had created.
He turned his attention around and saw that the golden-winged silver-haired girl was now flying inches away from his face. Her fists were covered in diamonds and surrounded by three kinds of energy.
"Who knows... Maybe you forgot to say please."
She punched the dragon"s head with all her strength and completely blew it off into pieces. And much like the damage she had made before, the head was not regenerating.
The remaining two heads started to charge their dark energy into their mouths and tried to blast her from both sides.
Evlin opened her arms on both directions and created a pair of diamond energy-s.h.i.+elds to block both attacks.
Once the two blasts of energy were fully depleted, she changed her s.h.i.+elds into crossbows and released a rain of energy bullets into the dragon"s entire body.
"Guaaaahhhh!!!!"
The demon leader was being pierced by bullets all over his body and since these bullets were covered in all three forms of energy, none of the wounds were regenerating.
"No... No!!! I can"t die here!!! I came too far to be defeated now!!!"
The leader started to rampage in despair trying to blast Evlin with his mouth"s cannon or smacking her with his tail, but every time he tried to do so, she simply repelled it with a combination of diamond constructions surrounded by energy.
"I can"t be stopped now by a mere servant of the G.o.ds!! I will be the one to rule all!!!!"
"... I"m sorry... What did you just call me??"
Evlin flew towards the dragon head while flapping her gigantic golden wings and releasing raw energy from her boots to gain speed and started to grab it while speeding towards the sky carrying the entire creature"s body with her. Thanks to her boosted strength provided by her combination of energies, the dragon weighted as a feather.
There was something that Evlin wanted to make it very clear with the demon leader. Ever since she entered this new world people have been coming at her non-stop trying to use her in one way or another with complete disregard about her own opinion.
People tried to capture her all the time. To use her power, to make her their lover, to find out where Marcus was, to take advantage of her situation. No matter when, where, who, or why, she was always treated as something anyone could just try to take possession of.
And now the demon leader just dared call her a servant of the G.o.ds. Once again she was being treated like she just a tool. The leader was fighting Evlin, but at the end of the day he wasn"t even looking at her, he was looking at who he a.s.sumed she belonged to.
"Listen to me now Chuck..."
"Huh!!??"
Evlin glared at the leader with her multi-colored eyes and raised her voice so he could not miss a word she said.
"I. DO. NOT. BELONG. TO. ANYONE!!!"
"Wh- What!!??"
"I do not belong to the G.o.ds, my sister doesn"t belong to you, my friends don"t belong to West, and Marcus doesn"t belong to East!!"
"What are you talking about??"
The demon leader was finally properly looking at Evlin.
"We are not tools, we are not weapons, we are not something that people can just come and try to take possession of as if we do not have free will! We. Are. Alive!!"
[...]
She kept rising towards the sky while carrying the ma.s.sive monster with her.
"We are people with feelings! We have our own goals, our own desires, our own plans on how we want to live our lives..."
"Let me go!!! I"m going to kill you!!! I"m going to kill you!!!!"
"So try to put something into that thick-headed skull of yours..."
She started to spin the dragon in the sky over and over again until she reached a certain amount of speed. And once she finally felt she had reached enough, she launched the beast towards the ground.
"Stop trying to decide who I belong to!! I belong to myself!! Now, and forever!!"
She created the biggest crossbow she has ever created, a large object made of diamonds that was twice her own size. She took target of the falling demon and released the largest diamond bullet that all of her combined power could create.
"I am the crossbow magician, the queen of recreation, defender of free-will, professional face-puncher, aspiring future teacher, my life and goals are too big for anyone to just try and hold me down! And starting from now on... I declare that anyone who tries to steal the freedom of others... WILL HAVE TO ANSWER TO ME!!"
She released her giant bullet alongside all of the power from her body. The object flew at an absurd speed towards the dragon completely covered in energy, looking like a shooting star with all the different types of light surrounding it, and once it touched its body an explosion of magic energy, blessed energy, and cursed energy started to spread all over the sky.
"GUAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
The crossbow family who was watching the explosion from the ground noticed all of the demons from the leader"s body being spread out all over the air due to the impact until the only thing remaining was a humanoid creature covered in dark energy carrying a black sword.
["It"s the demon leader"s true body!! And that"s the sword!! Evlin!!!"]
"I got it Marcus!!"
Evlin changed her crossbow into a giant fist of diamonds and started to fall from the sky like a missile.
The demon leader could only watch as a girl with ma.s.sive wings charging at him with an enormous gauntlet kept coming closer and closer.
"Stay back... STAY BACK!!! Don"t come any closer!!"
"What"s wrong Chuck? Didn"t you want my power? WELL HERE IT IS!! ALL OF IT!!!"
Evlin smashed the leader into the ground and raised a colossal pile of snow into the air from the impact.
"AAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH!!!!"
The demon leader, as well as the sword of nightmares, were completely destroyed by Evlin and her full combined power of three different types of energy as she engulfed him in an explosive pillar of light.
The pile started to disappear and the rest of the group observed as the girl emerged victorious from the smoke and walked towards them with a huge smile on her face.
Ashley couldn"t help but release tears from her eyes at the sight of her hero coming out victorious from the biggest battle of her life.
"Evlin!! You... You...!!!"
Evlin then raised her hand making a "stop" sign to interrupt her sister while she was talking.
"We!"
The rest of the group rushed towards her side and they all shared a group hug to celebrate their victory.
"WE DID IT!!!!" X 7
Evlin then looked at the sky which was returning to normal now that the dark energy that was surrounding it was gone and looked at a small star that was s.h.i.+ning very far away while whispering a few words.
"Bright enough for you Dalla?"
Part 3
"Ready Gustav?"
"Ready!!"
Evlin was using the last remains of her triple energy power while still lasted to increase the scale of Gustav"s blessing.
"The third ability of healing magic... Power sharing!"
Gustav started to feel a huge boost of power coming towards his body. He felt stronger than ever before as if he could take on ten demon leaders by himself.
"Now Gustav!!"
"Purification!!"
Gustav released his blessed energy all over the country and every single demon and monster that was still alive after being controlled by the demon leader had all its cursed energy repelled from it.
Several animals started to appear in all shapes and sizes. The group observed as all the cursed energy kept being expelled and flying towards the sky until it vanished completely.
Some of the demons, however, were too far gone to be affected. Others had their bodies merged with the energy so much that when the curse was repelled there was nothing left.
The group tried to search if there were any humans among those, but Ashley said that since humans provide negative emotions the cursed energy would be too strong for the old body to remain. Any humans that were turned into demons simply died when the power was removed.
Luckily, Daren still wasn"t a demon for too long and simply returned to normal when Gustav blasted him.
"Huh... Hi..."
He was really surprised though when he spotted a black lion sniffing him around like a domesticated cat.
"Huh... Guys...?"
After Gustav used his blessing on Daren when he was in his beast form, the demon inside of him was removed. But after the demon himself was blasted again, the cursed energy was removed, leaving only a black lion left.
Lilith approached him with a curious look.
"You want to keep him?"
"I don"t know... You think I might be a cat person?"
"Did... Did you just make a joke??"
"Haha, maybe? What about you?"
"Me? What about... Oh!"
Lilith was so shocked that she didn"t even notice a red hawk resting on her shoulder.
While these two were distracted, Ashley kept looking around trying to find someone among the group of purified demons. Evlin noticed her uneasiness and came to her side.
"Hey sis... What are you looking for?"
"... I... I need to make sure she is gone..."
Evlin held her hands and tried to comfort her.
"Don"t worry... Gustav"s blast spread itself throughout the whole city... She probably returned to being a weed right now..."
Ashley started to relax a bit and began to stare at Evlin"s golden wings.
"Yeah... Yeah, you must be right... By the way... When did you get over your fear of heights? You were flying around the air like it was your playground!"
"I just figured that my fear of losing my family was stronger than my fear of falling from the sky."
"G.o.d, you"re the best sister ever... How can I keep face when my little sister is so much cooler than me??"
"I don"t know... Just tell people that you"re part of the reason why I"m so cool!"
"Part of the reason?"
"Well yeah, the other part comes from my natural awesomeness!!"
"... Never mind, I forgot how much of a dork you are... I don"t feel bad anymore..."
"Aha! Evlin saves the day again!!"
"Hey, you two!!"
Evlin and Ashley turned around and saw Ria and the rest of their friends staring at them. Each of them had some kind of animal companion hanging out by their side, creatures that used to be demons or monsters but now that they had the cursed energy pulled out of their bodies, were just back to being regular beasts.
Ria, who was carrying some kind of lizard around her neck, much to Auren"s disdain, started to talk.
"Evlin... Don"t you have something to tell us?"
"Huh!? Oh, right!"
Evlin released her fusion and came back to her regular body with her crossbow in hand, Sphinx on her left, still in the form of a demon, and a small kid with silver hair on her right.
"Everyone... Do you guys Remember Marcus?"
The young boy stepped forward and greeted all of them while waving his hand.
"H- Hi..."
"..." x 6
Marcus noticed the silence in the air and started to recall all of the things he did and said to these people.
How he slashed their house, how he shot Evlin and Ria in the heart, how he said they deserved to die, and even went into the white void to threaten Evlin"s life. Looking back, he was a really bad kid that should probably not be there.
He then suddenly felt a small tap on his back. He turned around and looked at Evlin smiling at him.
"Who do you want to be?"
Marcus took a deep breath and looked at the group of people in front of him.
"I did many terrible things... Many, many terrible things... I could say that I did it because I was forced... Because I had no choice... because my life was unfair to me..."
"..." x 6
"But at the end of the day... I still chose to do it... I regret what I did... But I won"t try to deny it... These were my actions, and I plan to correct them all... I"m sorry... I"m so, so, so sorry... For everything..."
"..." x 6
"But if there is any place inside your hearts to forgive me... Could you give me another chance...? Could you allow me to join your family? Can I be one of you?"
"..." x 6
The group kept taking glances at each other. They were not sure on how to feel. The last couple of months were dictated by the idea of running away from this kid who was chasing them with the desire to cut their heads off. And now he simply expected all of them to simply forgive him?
Daren came closer and stared at the small boy.
"..."
"I... I understand if you don"t want me here... But I just want you to know that I really regret everything... I wish I could have joined you all and abandoned my mother a long time ago..."
"..."
Daren remained silent while looking at Marcus as if trying to figure out how he was supposed to feel. But his thought process was interrupted by a voice coming from behind Evlin.
"Is that so?"
Everyone looked at the source of the voice. A beautiful lady with long blond hair wearing an amazing dress and floating slightly above the ground.
Marcus started to shake in fear from all the memories of his mother blasting him in order to make him obey her command, but he quickly calmed down after seeing Evlin stepping in front of him.
"It is that so."
"..."
East was glaring at the leader of the group that was marching to come and kill her while the girl herself was simply looking at the G.o.ddess with a relaxed look on her face.
"h.e.l.lo again... Crossbow girl..."
"h.e.l.lo... Scared cat G.o.ddess!"