Jin gently set her on the ground. "Better?"

"Yes." She ruffled her fur indignantly, then padded along by Annet. "So, what are you doing now?"

"We're basically resetting the spells we did before, since they were attached to your body rather than your soul. Putting them on your soul would have meant stripping it from your body and then returning it." She stepped into the room they'd done the spells before, "Here..." She lifted Carol, setting her on a high platform. "The cat's body is small enough I can work around it."

She looked around, her cat eyes picking up on much more than her human eyes had. "So...there isn't going to be any stripping of anything this time, right?" She tilted her head, her ear twitching. "Is this going to take as long as it did last time?"

"Nah, not this time. It won't make a difference. Close your eyes, we need to shut down as many of your senses as possible. The less connected to the body you are, the easier this will be."

About a half hour later Annet was finished. "So, are you any happier with Jin?" She asked with a soft smile. "I don't know how well he might show it, but he is fairly partial to you."

Carol yawned, having fallen asleep while Annet was working. "I don't want to rip his throat out at the moment...so I guess you could call it an improvement. Still sometimes wish he would fly out the window and never come back." Another yawn interrupted her before she finished, "What exactly do you mean 'partial to me'?"

"Well, he has yet to lose his patience with you, he's going out of his way to try and be nice to you, he's gone over the edge to be sure you're not in danger..." She shrugged. "He likes you." She said as she wandered the room, gathering a few things. "You're going to have to learn to fight soon. You won't like it, but you need to be able to defend yourself."

"He has a weird way of showing it. Are you sure he's not just trying to make me more willing to do what he wants?" Her eyes followed Annet around the room. "I'm not strong enough to fight, even when I'm not a cat."

"You will be once you've got a form again. You forget, you're no longer limited by your human body. Each angel and demon has two main forms. They're true self, which is often based on an animal, but not always, and their human form which is a version of what they originally looked like. Some of those who are stronger are able to gain the ability to shape shift. Jin can to an extent. You may have noticed he makes frequent habit of changing his coloring. He cannot however appear as an animal or a tree or anything that complex simply by shifting. I myself only managed one trick, and it's not terribly useful to me." She lifted Carol off the pedestal and set her on the ground.

"What is it?" She asked curiously, wondering vaguely if she'd be able to do anything interesting. Maybe she'd be even more powerful than Jin...That'd be fun.

"I can change my appearance well enough to pass as a man, but as I said, it doesn't do me any good." She lowered herself in the machine, "Anyway, I don't think he's being nice just so you'll cooperate, you have to obey him regardless. It should be interesting though, you'll likely become more powerful than him, but you still won't be able to disobey because of the contract."

Carol scooted away, eyeing the legs of Annet's machine a bit of fearfully as her tail flicked back and forth. "You seem to know a lot about his plans...what exactly is he trying to do? Trying to ask him is like talking to a fortune cookie."

"Hmm... Beware of rocking chairs. Your lucky numbers are 6, 9, 14, 29, and 38." She said with a grin.

She glared at Annet. "Be serious. I want to know."

"Because I can so easily take a talking cat seriously." She said with a laugh. "I'm not sure of the specifics, but in short, he's trying to end the war."

"I don't understand how I can be of any help....Are we done here? I don't want to be a cat any longer."

"You've still got about a halfhour until your real time of death."

"So I have to hang around for another half-hour?" She walked in circles impatiently. "How dull."

"So now my home is dull? Go catch some mice or something, god knows I have enough of them."

Carol gave a small hiss. "I'm not doing something so disgusting. I don't like this..." She went back to pacing.

"It's only thirty minutes. Jin and I measure time in decades now, you;ll get used to it." She said brightly as she bent down to pet Carol. "Speaking of, you might want to go find him, since he's your ride."

"I'd be fine if I weren't a cat." She backed away, ruffling her fur. "If he's my ride maybe I'll stay here. He's more annoying now than before."

"If you stay here you'll be stuck in that form forever." She pointed out. "Go find him. He'll free you of the body before you go. A pure soul doesn't last long in hell in your state without some sort of host. Once you have a form again, you should be alright."

Carol grumbled a few choice things before muttering, "Fine" and bounding off. "Jin~! Let's go!"

Jin scooped her up and snuggled her. "I think I like you much better this way." He said happily as his wings spread. "But let's leave the body behind." He said as he kissed her nose. He pulled the soul into his own body again and with a flash of feathers they'd vanished.

They reappeared in the large graveyard and Jin freed her as he glanced around for the two creatures they were to be meeting.