EXERPT FROM EBONY HEARTS

Those left of Goldfeather made their way through the wreckage on the island, searching for any possible survivors. Andrea was no longer crying and Alexa was not flickering in and out of reality anymore, but Jon noticed that the lines were still fused to her aura and wondered what the implications of that would be. As Mina searched in the ruins near the crater, she thought she heard a low moan. She hastily called everyone over, and as a group, they moved some of the crumbled pieces of wall to reveal a small, naked man. They helped the man to his feet, Jon handed him a coat to protect his modesty.

"Are you okay?" Jon asked looking at the oddly familiar form.

"What are you talking about? Its me, Cookie." the little man said. Everyone turned to the man and looked apprehensively at him. He did have long black hair with indigo highlights, and violet eyes. He also had the same pale skin, but now had a huge lavender dragon tattoo that stretched over his entire body and light no longer emanated from inside of him. Nobody said anything until Vey screamed excitedly,

"It is you!"

"Why wouldn't it be?” he asked mockingly.

"What are you wearing?" Rue asked with at grin.

"A coat." he said tartly, and then realized what that meant, his eyes going wide, "Holy crap, I'm big"

"Relatively." Alexa returned, rolling her eyes. He ignored her and began to dance around, waving his arms in the air, and shouting.

"Alive and big; alive and big; alive and big!” As he danced a large inferno descended from the heavens, blowing the ground in front of his feet away, stopping him in his tracks. "Not funny, Big Man." he said looking up at the sky. Then he paid closer attention to the man-sized ball of flame at his toes.

Smoke billowed up from the form in the flame. Everyone gathered around, and Andrea fell to her knees when she realized that the figure was of her soul bonded. Uriel uncurled from the ball he had been laying in and stood up, the ground around him smoking and charred. He grabbed a bit of cloth to cover himself. He was exactly the same as before he had died save for that his wings were now flecked with crimson as if stained by the blood of the innocent forever. He then, rather promptly, went and retrieved his blade from the ground slightly off in the distance.

"What's going on?" Jon asked, confused.

"I wasn’t done. I'm not done with my mission on Earth so I got sent back."

"Just like that?" Tobias asked

"Yep, but this is the only time that I can return, so I need to be more careful from now on."

"Yeah!" Andrea said latching herself to his leg when he returned, holding the rune sword, and burying her face in the flesh of his thigh.

"What about you?" Rue asked, turning to Cookie.

"Well, you see, a huge explosion of energy turned me into a fairy, so I figured an equally huge backlash would reverse the spell. That or kill me, either way I would have still won.

"So you knew you would change when I ran the lines through you?" Jon said, anger brushing his voice at the idea that he had felt sorry for Cookie.

"That or death, don't forget the death part. My sacrifice was kind of noble." Jon just gave Cookie a look of disdain.

"What about Prater?" Alexa asked hoping to get her slave back.

"Um, he was a demon, Alexa." Uriel said.

"Oh yeah. Well, I guess you win some you lose some." Those were the last words spoken on that island of despair. Alexa opened a portal to Goldfeather Headquarters, while in the back ground Uriel consumed the island in cleansing fire. The members of Goldfeather thought about what had been lost during their gruesome sojourn, and what had been altered. They had all been touched by the witch's evil, but all of them decided on their own that they would also never look back.

END