Chapter 15 Ivan and his three old men on a flight to Kiev.

As the sun began to rise on the 5th of June 2014, Lili let out a little yawn as she woke up to the sound of the door opening and Helen saying.

"Time to wake up kids, breakfast is ready. Get ready and come downstairs when you're ready. And Alex you remembered to behave yourself right?"

Opening her eyes Lili could see Alex sitting there next to her, rubbing his eyes as he said.

"Yeah yeah mom. I'm not some kind of a wild beast you know, I do have self control, ok."

Then giggles were heard from the two other girls sleeping on a mattress on the floor next to Alex's bed. Thinking back Lili could recall the girls being a bit jealous of her sleeping next to Alex, but quickly the two did agree to the arrangement.

Although the girls were young, they luckily did listen to her now and seemed to regard her as their leader. And also they did say something about letting her be Alex's first, whatever that meant.

After that she went with the girls to brush their teeth, they took a bath together, they dried their hairs, tied them into twintails and did everything else together. And only after a long while did they exit the bathroom to Alex's relief, and his embarrassment as well.

As immediately as they exited the bathroom, the two girls dragged Lili in her white morning dress in front of Alex. Then they began demanding that Alex say that she looked pretty. Or well they did only ask if she was pretty, but the way they said it sounded like a demand.

Alex hesitated, he seemed a bit embarrassed, but managed to straighten his back, as he confidently said. "I like the way you tied your hair, its cute as are you."

Alex was totally red in the face as the girls cheered and giggled at his words. Lili could feel her heart pounding now as she looked down in embarrassment and said. "Thanks, you, you look good too."

Once more the room was full of high pitched girlish voices and giggles. Then the girls pulled in Alex's sleeves and demanded him to compliment their similar hair styles and decent beauties as well.

Scratching his head in embarrassment Alex then was forced to compliment the girls lightly as he then quickly escaped into the bathroom to do his thing.

The girls were happy, Alex seemed happy and so she was also happy. After that Lili got dressed in her cowgirl outfit that she had brought to Alexs home, as the girls dressed in some simple looking skirts and white shirts on top.

Looking at them now, Lili couldn't help but feel that they were really pretty. They wore no makeup as she had forbidden them to do so because of the harmful substances she could sense within the makeup, and yet the girls looked stunning.

Both Elsa's red hair and Anna's light blonde hair looked almost like they were glowing. Elsa had a healthy and strong red colour to her hair, as Anna also had the same healthy, but light blond colour to her hair almost like Lilis own.

Also the two girls skins were near perfect. Their blue eyes were shining, their noses were cute, their lips plump and overall properties in harmony with one another. Which all in all made them seem so different from the, pimple faced, bad teeth and none pleasing features they had before. They were cute before sure, but not pleasing to the eyes like they were now.

And because of this all, the girls seemed more confident and happy than what they had been before. With only pure smiles on their faces they followed Lili happily downstairs where they then started watching cartoons on TV while they waited for Alex to come.

After all no real meal could be started without the whole party being present and a quick prayer of thanks to god being said before eating any meal. But as they waited Lili felt Ivan approaching the house.

Yesterday she had as he said, blessed his orthodox cross. Doing so she had turned his silver cross into a white crystal cross that held a faint shine. The cross like her light stones worked the same, it would passively heal him as long as he had faith in her, she could also sense him, see a small radius around him and hear a little around him.

And as she closed her eyes she could hear four men speaking in a fast-paced, deep sounding, but melodic language that seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the letter R. It sounded like a nice dialect and quite familiar to that what she had heard a lot while playing that shooting game.

They all seemed quite serious and wore well camouflaged military uniforms that covered the whole body like a sniper. They also had tactical belts that held first aid kits and many free slots for things.

Then as the sounds of the cars engine were heard, Lili got off the couch and ran to the door, followed by Ludwig who came to see what was going on.

The car came to a stop in front of the house and as it did, Ivan and three other old men stepped out. Ivan seemed a lot younger now because of Lilis magic, but the three men seemed like they were in their late fifties or even older.

Standing there at the door Lili watched them and wondered what was going on. She could see that Ivans soul was conflicted and angered by something. Also the three dark haired, bearded and old men felt quite serious and angry about something.

Watching Ivan coming towards her, Anna then came there next to her and looked to Ivan as she said.

"Papa what are you doing here? Why are uncle and friends here also? What's going on?"

Ivan showed a slight smile to Anna and then came before Lili. He looked so serious as he suddenly fell to one knee and pleaded.

"Lili, your holiness, my apologies for coming before you so suddenly with these men of mine. But after you healed me yesterday I thought of it for the entire night and then I realised it's no longer a choice, but my fate to go. Its me and my mens duty to go defend our people in our homeland. And not only defend them, but convert them to the truth and bring them here to you. But of course we cannot do this on our own, well not without you that is, not without the light. For before I met you I was but an old sickly man, as are these three other men. So please, I beg of you your holiness. Give onto these men the blessings that you have given upon me and grant us the right to go defend and convert the people of our homeland. Please let us do this, for the glory of the light."

Ivan's words were all true and without any lies, he truly seemed intent to do as he said. What people was he going to defend and where, this she didn't know. But if this would bring more people to the light, then that would be worth it.

While thinking on this Anna suddenly sounded worried as she said. "No, Papa what are you saying? You're not going to leave for war again? No no no, you promised that you wouldn't go ever again, you promised mom when she was still alive. I don't want to see you go, you'll get hurt again."

Ivan held his kneeling position as he looked at Anna and said.

"Be silent Anna, things have changed. I have no choice now, your cousin and his brother have taken up arms to protect their home land. I cannot let those fools fight alone. The same goes to the rest of the men behind me, they too have family that we must defend there."

Hearing this Lili simply raised his hand silencing them all, as she then said. "Its fine Anna, Ivan will be fine as long as he holds that cross of light close to himself. Or well he will be fine as long as he doesn't get instantly killed in some way. But as long as he manages to avoid that, then the cross and I will be able to heal him of any damage sustained."

Hearing this Ivan suddenly looked to her and asked. "So you will accept my request?"

Nodding her head Lili confirmed Ivan's question. She after all saw no reason why to really deny them, after all the fact that Ivan came to her to ask permission to go already showed his loyalty to her quite well.

And Ivan was quite pleased as he bowed down to her and thanked her again and again. Anna didn't although seem happy at all, but Ivan didn't seem to care as he brought his men before her to be blessed.

The men all had the same orthodox crosses and like Ivan they had many scars of war, and age. One didn't have his little finger anymore and one was missing all his toes. And one was extremely old with many old scars from bullet's and fragments.

But despite all these wounds of war, time and age, none of them were a problem for her to heal. So as the kids left for school and Anna reluctantly did so as well. Lili brought the men into the living room and began to heal them.

The men held little fate in her, they were full of doubts, but as she began her healing the mens opinions immediately changed. Within a few instances they went from non believers into full fledged believers.

They all did the sign of the cross as Ivan began to explain all he knew of the light and its great fate. And so the process went on, toes and fingers began to visibly grow back and scars vanished as did their old age.

The men were yelling something in their strange language at the sight of this. Needless to say the men were baffled and amazed by her powers of healing. And after all men were healed and crosses blessed, Lili was done physically and mentally.

She barely could even move or talk now. Ivan had to carry her up into Alex's room to rest and tuck her in there carefully as the four men then kneeled before her and thanked her from the bottom of their hearts.

Seeing it Lili weakly smiled at them, wished them luck and waved them off. Although before Ivan left he did ask Lili to take care of Anna for him, which Lili did agree to. Anna was a good girl, she liked her and saw no problem in taking care of her. Although what did Anna think of this, well this Lili didn't know.

And so as she lay there weakly in bed occasionally falling in and out of consciousness she could feel Ivan and his men getting further and further away from her.

She could see and hear him. They seemed to be at the airport in one moment. From there they took a quick flight to a place called New York. They did seem to be getting a lot of stares and questions from the authorities along the way, regarding their army like camouflage uniforms.

But despite all the questions they did manage to make it to the New York airport. Where they then boarded a flight to a place called Kiev. The men seemed a bit anxious, but fired up. Kind of like the Sargent and his friends before heading off to a dangerous combat mission.

But what was going on in Kiev? This she didn't know, but whatever it was it for sure wasn't good. After all humans fighting against humans was never good as it only made humanity weaker and more vulnerable to the forces of evil. Well whatever the case was she was sure that Ivan could handle it, especially with her help.