And my love is no good against the fortress that it made of you;

Blood is running deep, sorrow that you keep…

-Florence and the Machine (Queen of Peace)

. . .

Each of the Four Guardians had their own way of making their visits last with the Mother Elf. There would be conversations, and there would be demonstrations. Sometimes there was teasing, but sometimes there was pure gratitude of a duty well done. When Hidden Phantom came to see the Mother Elf, none of this happened.

When Phantom came to see the Mother Elf silence was the only thing that either could greet without the other departing without notice. Perhaps the Mother Elf would conjure a chess board between them to keep some parts of the time spent going with some degree of productiveness. Other times Phantom would sit below the Mother Elf's shell and meditated- on even rarer occasions the Mother Elf would bring forth her hologram form to sit across from him. In this state they only meditated, and in the still quiet you could almost hear their thoughts as they floated through the air, carrying on a less than average conversation that informed each other about the opposite's day.

This was what they were doing one day when a very angry Copy X came into the Mother Elf's chamber. The fake looked at the Guardian, then looked at the Mother Elf's hologram and nearly burst a circuit.

"What is he doing here?" Copy X demanded to the Mother Elf although he was facing Phantom, "And why are you like that?"

The Mother Elf's hologram simply blinked at the fake, then took her time to stand up.

"I am spending time with one of the Four Guardians of Neo Arcadia." She said to him in a calm tone. "What are you doing here? And why are you so livid? Certainly it is nothing that would require my tulpa to leave, could it?"

Copy X only fumed. Phantom started to get up, but the Mother Elf motioned for him to stay.

"What is the matter?" the hologram asked again. "Something happened, obviously, and surely you could vent your anger toward one who will not repeat it to others."

Copy X looked at Phantom as the Guardian stood up to give a bow of silence. It didn't make the fake any happier, but he knew full well that when he had Hidden Phantom's word, the Guardian would rather die than break the promise. With an irritated grunt and an unnerving eye roll, Copy X informed the Mother Elf and Hidden Phantom of the current events.

"That bastard Weil is freaking pissed."

For a moment, Phantom and the Mother Elf's hologram only looked at him.

"Tekiya darling, how is that different from any other day?" the Mother Elf inquired, a soft and teasing smile forming on her lips.

"He's pissed at you." The fake spat. The surprised look on the hologram and on Phantom were equal. Copy X took this as a sign to continue. "The original form of you -her- apparently has children."

"No, she did not." The Mother Elf told him slowly as she shook her head. "She never…"

"Apparently someone engineered some for her." Copy X told her darkly.

"That couldn't be possible," Phantom said in place of the Mother Elf who had gone speechless. "She was human, and her only partner to the time of her death was a-"

"I know the details." Copy X darkly interrupted. "What I know from that old necrophiliac is what I'm telling you now. Someone somehow spliced the DNA of her and Him and have created two baby Cyber Elves that now roam free and are as deadly as what Mother can be when she so desires. Maybe even more so."

"Cyber Elves do not have a 'baby' or 'infant' form." Phantom softly told the fake in a controlled tone. "How could one create such a state when it does not exist?"

"Hell if I know." Copy X snapped. "The only other info we gathered about these 'babies' is that whoever created them also has a physical shell for them to later develop into. This is why Weil is in a tizzy; the baby Cyber Elves are souls for a creation that is both human and Reploid. Twin freaks of nature that sever all lines between what it means to be human and what it takes to be Reploid."

"Who…" the Mother Elf softly started to wonder, her hologram form beginning to fade in and out of existence, "Who would create such creatures…?"

"Mother…" Phantom said to her in a calming tone, but the Mother Elf was not listening- the lights in her chamber started to glow bright, then dimmed for a moment, then glow even brighter with a pulsation similar to an erratic heartbeat.

"They all knew that she couldn't…" the Mother Elf then started to babble. "They knew she didn't want… She understood they would remake Him, but she… she said…"

"Mother." Copy X sternly warned, noticing along with Hidden Phantom that the Mother Elf was giving off much more energy than normal. If she exerted too much power, Neo Arcadia would see severe power outages from blown fuses and the like; and when Neo Arcadia blows a fuse, it wasn't going to be pretty.

"No children… no spawn…" the Mother Elf continued, her hologram form becoming even more unstable and the lights humming even brighter, "No clones… no hybrids… no creatures… no… no…!"

"Mother!" Copy X and Phantom called at the same time. The mother of all Cyber Elves still did not comprehend them as the condition she seemed to be in only got worse. Finally, Phantom went forward toward the hologram in its distressed state and lingered his hand close enough to her shoulder so that it seemed as if he were giving her a comforting touch.

"Aero…" Phantom whispered in a voice that belonged to a hero long passed, "Aero, I want you to look at me."

The hologram shook as it looked at Phantom. The hologram could not cry, but Phantom could sense the same level of desperation and hopelessness within.

"X…" the hologram said to him in a tiny voice, a voice that was like the Mother Elf's but quite distinct from it as well, "X… I… I'm scared."

Copy X, who had remained where he stood, twitched in anger that the Mother Elf saw Phantom as the original Mega Man X in her state, but the fake kept his counsel for now.

"I understand." Phantom soothed as he used a hand to carefully stroke the top of the hologram's head. "And I… I will admit that I am too. But remember, you are their Mother, what do you want of them?"

"I… want…" the hologram whispered as her form started to become stable once again. "I want to… I want to see them. I want them to be here, with me."

Phantom took a look at Copy X, who saw an order when it was given to him and immediately headed out to give the news to other interested parties. Phantom looked back at the Mother Elf's hologram, which was now slowly fading as the program returned to her shell.

"It is not what she wanted…" the Mother Elf mumbled as her hologram faded. "But… thy will be done…"

"My dear tulpa, you may leave if you wish." The Mother Elf then said to the Guardian in an exhausted tone that indicated her need to rest.

But Hidden Phantom simply looked up at the Mother Elf's shell and sat down underneath of it. From there, he took a deep breath in and started to meditate.