The greatest power of all

Eliza watched with no small amusement as the dragon that she so hated at the moment was literally swarmed by a horde of smaller forms. She did not remember the dragon, but the records she had found hidden away in deep recesses of the Emperor's private datafiles were clear. This was the being who had kidnapped her as a child, had taken her and Catherine to another place in an attempt to get Elizabeth to work for the-

"Liza." The Empress went still as the being she knew as Will appeared nearby. He had his hands up in a warding gesture as she raised Cathi Gata's lightsaber. "Liza! Please! Yes, we screwed up! I know it! We all know it!"

"You lied to me." Eliza did not move, did not lower her guard.

"Nothing I said was false. I didn't tell you the whole truth, but that is pretty much the same thing." The dragon admitted. "A lie by omission is still a lie. I was and am grieving for Naomi. She was my friend. I did not enslave her!"

"I don't believe you." The Empress said flatly.

"I don't blame you." The dragon slumped a bit as the battle nearby reached a fever pitch. The other dragon shifted to her true form, scaled legs and tail lashing out. For every demonic form she slew, another took its place. Lilith was darting in and out of the fray, a whip of fire lashing out. She didn't seem able to hurt the warden, but that had to sting. "What she did was wrong."

"Don't tell me you didn't know." Eliza's growl was almost as loud as the screams from the battle.

"I did." Will sighed. "You were just a kid and I knew it would come for you after you walked through my wards! None of your family had any idea what you were capable of! None! Liza, I messed up." He shook his head as she menaced him with the lightsaber. "Liza, you cannot kill me with that, but… if you must… you have earned the right to hurt me."

"Go away!" Eliza snarled as the dragon knelt in front of her! "You will just lie to me again!"

"I have been very careful not to lie to you. Raviine told you untruths and half truths. I never did. I didn't say some things, but I never lied to you." Will said sadly. "After all of the abuses, all of the horror you went through, you are still hurting. If hurting me or Raviine brings you some small measure of peace, then do it. We accept that we fucked up. That we cost your guard her life. We cannot bring her back."

"I can." Eliza snarled and turned her back on the kneeling dragon, only to pause as Nia Korr appeared nearby. The Bladeborn's eyes widened and then she shook her head.

"Elizabeth." The Bladeborn master said quietly. "Deactivate the saber."

"If I do, Cathi will die." Eliza's grip tightened on the lightsaber.

"Catherine was dead the moment she struck you with intent. It was the only way to save you, so as always, she did her duty. She will be remembered." Nia said softly. "Elizabeth, please? I know you don't want to hear it, but you cannot save her."

"I can!" The Empress declared. "And I will!"

"Elizabeth, you are teetering on the edge of madness." Nia said very quietly. "You have seen what happened. What your younger self became. Even the you with the power of the Creator in that alternate reality cannot do some things. It is simply not possible."

"It is." Eliza was shaking in rage as Nia sighed and shook her head.

"Eliza." The Lotus appeared nearby, but not in human form. Her Sentient form was huge, twice the size of a human and only vaguely humanoid. Her unmasked face shone with blue energy and an inhuman sadness. "What was it you told me, the day we met?"

"Go! Away!" Eliza all but screamed that! "I can save her! I must save her!"

"My followers were all aiming their makeshift weapons at the Royal Guard. It wasn't going to end well. No one trusted Tenno after the massacres." The Lotus was sad, so sad. "So many killed. The controls your family tried to install jammed my signals. I couldn't stop them and truth be told? I don't think I wanted to. What your family did drove many of my children insane. Trying to enslave Tenno was and is a bad idea. But you? You came. You were still bleeding and you came and you swore to me! Eliza, what did you tell me?"

"I HAVE TO SAVE HER!" Eliza screamed.

"You can't." The Lotus moved closer to her despite the red energy blade hissing between them. "What did you tell me, Eliza? What did you tell me when I told you what happened? When you saw through my cloak and saw me for what I truly am. What did you swear to me when I told you the truth of what happened?"

"I..." Eliza's hands were shaking and the saber wobbled but the Lotus was there, taking Eliza's hands in her own as Eliza started to cry. "I don't want to enslave her! I am not my mother! I want to save her!"

"What did you swear?" The Lotus pulled Eliza close despite the energy blade hissing against her armored hide. "Elizabeth? What did you swear?"

"I swore never to bind Tenno. By their will or against their will." Eliza said in a monotone. "I… They are! The Royal Guard are bound! I have to free them!"

"They chose the role, Elizabeth." The Lotus gave her a hug. "Who are we to deny them choice? I won't do that. It would likely hurt." She made a face and Elizabeth choked on a laugh, staring at the saber in her hand. She shifted it away from the Lotus who smiled gratitude. "Elizabeth, you are hurting her. Let her go. Please?"

"I..." Elizabeth was sobbing hard as she opened her hand and the saber fell out to crash to the ground. On impact, it shattered like cheap glass. Elizabeth fell to her knees right out of the Lotus' arms as Cathi Gata's still form appeared where the saber had broken. The guard wasn't breathing. "This isn't right, Rebekah!"

"No, it is not." The Lotus bent down to kneel beside Eliza. "What has been done cannot be undone, Eliza. Your power is incredible but you know your own limits. What were you going to do?" She asked, an appendage reached out to lay against Eliza's back. "I know you had a plan. You always do."

"The crown is only a symbol now." Eliza said softly. "If I had given it up before she struck me down, it wouldn't have been as bad. Bad, to be sure, but not a death sentence."

"You wouldn't have made Ess take it!" The Lotus said sternly and Eliza shook her head. "Then who? Michelle?"

"Michelle has been pushing me to let some of the burden onto her." Eliza nodded and tears fell freely. "She thinks I do too much."

"You do." Came from Will, Nia and the Lotus.

"My family did this!" Eliza snapped, but her heart wasn't in it as she tried to touch her still guard and her hand passed right through Cathi Gata's form. She wilted in grief. "My Father, my Mother, my siblings! It was all about power! All of it! I don't want power! I never wanted power! All I ever wanted to be was an artist, but then… things happened."

"Yeah." The Lotus hugged her gently. "I know the feeling." She sighed. "That is not why you want her back."

"It is!" Eliza snarled, sidling away from the Sentient form only to freeze as Nia knelt on her other side. The Bladeborn did not speak, simply pulled Eliza into a hug as the Empress started to cry again.

"You feel safe with her." The Lotus said quietly. "You always have. You treasure the feeling of safety she gives you. The peace she gives you." Eliza bowed her head. "She never guessed, dd she?"

"Such wasn't done." Eliza said sadly. "I was Empress! I had to be strong! I was the last of my family! I couldn't love her!"

"Eliza?" A stunned voice had Eliza jerking upright. She stared at where four warframes stood. One was Cathi Gata in her hovering form The other three stood silent. One was an Atlas. Another a Nyx. The third wasn't a warframe and Hayden Tenno's eyes were sad as he looked from Cathi Gata to Eliza and back. Eliza stared down at the energy form in front of her as it vanished. Then she smiled a bit wetly.

The battle had vanished as a waft of a dream. Which stood to reason. This was all in the mind. Eliza's mind.

"Always with the tricks." Eliza was crying hard now. "Sneaky Tenno!"

"I struck you." Cathi Gata said sadly. "I knew I would die for that." She shook her head. "You shouldn't have brought me back!" She snapped at the Tenno.

"We didn't." Hayden Tenno said mildly. Both Eliza and Cathi Gata stared at him. "Don't ask." He warned. He was glaring at the warden who was also staring at Cathi Gata in shock. "There are things that even the wardens step very carefully around."

"I don't-" Eliza was shaking her head as Cathi Gata stepped to her and knelt, the Lotus and Nia making way for her. "This isn't possible! You died!"

"I did." Cathi Gata glared at Nia who looked innocent. Tried to. "And where in the Bladeborn Code does that fall?"

"[Loyalty]." Nia replied with a small, sad smile. "Sister, you were one of the best of us. When Elizabeth found you, you were still broken and hurting. She did what she could and with Ona's help, you recovered. The moment you did, you asked to be released from your vows, but Elizabeth refused to let you. She said and I quote 'She needs to be of you' and this is why. You are a knight, Catherine. Any knight fights better with a cause."

"What cause?" Cathi Gata begged as Eliza threw her arms around the warframe and started to cry harder.

"You know the cause." Nia smiled as she laid a hand on Cathi Gata's shoulder. "There is a reason the Sith abhor love. It is far more powerful than the Dark Side of the Force. It is not as flashy normally, but it can do far more in far less time than ever the most evil and heinous act of cruelty." She shook her head. "The Jedi are just as hindered in their own way, if slightly less horrific in their methods. We Bladeborn try hard not to be so willfully blind."

"Blind to what?" Cathi Gata demanded. "Yes, I love Eliza and she loves me, but..." She broke off as the Lotus touched her. "Lotus?"

"But nothing." The Lotus declared. "I rescued the Zarimon children because they cried out for help and for the first time in my existence I realized what human love truly was. My Mother knew and she tried to explain, but it made little sense to most of us. That day, I learned. I loved them from the moment I saw them. I fought for them, killed for them, bled for them and I would do it again."

"So?" Cathi Gata demanded.

"Let me." Will said softly as all off the others stared at one another. "Liza hates me. She has cause. They won't trust but it will make them both think. I was trying to help and like always, I mess things up. I am no good with relationships. I have always been better at breaking things. Raviine had to hit me fairly hard to get me to understand. I won't hit either of them."

"You better not." The Lotus and Nia chorused and looked at one another.

"Catherine, I knew the moment I saw you that you loved Liza and she loved you." The dragon said very quietly. "No one else I know of, anywhere, would have followed her through so many places beautiful and horrible. Not even one of my kind. Yes, you were her guard, but you did not stop! Nothing stopped you until Lilith imprisoned her. Hurt her so badly and made you keep her alive to get you to stop fighting! That is the only thing that stopped you! Saving her from corruption."

"She was my princess." Cathi Gata pleaded as Eliza sobbed.

"I have been a bodyguard, Catherine. What you did was far beyond any of your kind's capabilities." The dragon shook his head. "'No greater love...'" He said sadly. "We try and try and try, but there are limits to what we can do. Raviine and I came when the Royal Family tried to break the barrier. The influx of Pokemon, Faerie and super siayans was daunting to say the least. We beat it back, sealed the breach and warned the Royal Family not to do that again. We kept a wary watch on the family after that, because frankly? Only an idiot believes the word of a King or Emperor. They will always find ways around any limitation to their power. Finding Naomi was a miracle and a horror but in the end? I think this will work out. If you let it. Both of you need to break free of what holds you. The worst of prisons are not ones made of fantastical super science, iron bars or anything physical or mystical. They are the ones we build in our own minds, brick by lousy stinking brick."

"Make! Sense!" Cathi Gata snapped, but the Nyx stepped forward.

"Be calm, Catherine. For that is your name. I see your mind." The Nyx... No, NYX! The First said very quietly. "It is beautiful. Serene and at the same time, fury lurks, restrained by duty and by love. Elizabeth's mind is a jagged torrent of horrors, but when she is with you, it is soothed. You are good for her and she is good for you. Talk to her."

"I can't do that!" Cathi Gata stilled. "I am her guard!"

"Not anymore. And technically, you were not her guard when you struck her down, since the Princess is not the the Empress. So... The rules do not technically apply." That was the First Atlas and Cathi Gata stammered as he bent down to kneel in front of her. The First Commander of the Royal Guard! Was he chuckling? "Odd, to say the least, but I cannot say I am surprised. Our kind do not do things in any normal way, do we?" A chorus of 'who us?' came from all of the other Tenno.

"Sir… I..." Cathi Gata stammered as Eliza hugged her tighter. "I can't! I hurt her, so badly! I drugged her! I netted her! I dragged her back for her mother to hurt! I-" She trailed off as Eliza hugged her again. "I hurt her." She said in a tiny voice. "I-"

"And then you let her go." Atlas interrupted and Cathi Gata stilled. "I have been talking with a lot of different people, trying to make sense of this mess. The Guard are conflicted by you. You knew she wanted to die. You knew she was begging for it in her dreams. You knew. You watched as she fell apart and bounced back. Every single time. And do you know why?" Cathi Gata shook her head. "Because you needed her."

"Me?" Cathi Gata demanded. "That makes no sense!"

"Love doesn't make sense." Nia Korr said sternly. "Don't try and force love to make sense, Catherine. It doesn't."

"She loved you from the moment you walked into her view and tried to get that arrogant bully to back off." Will said softly. His hand rose but then fell, as if her wanted to comfort Elizabeth, but didn't dare touch her. "You are poetry in motion and she has always had an eye for beautiful things. No matter how hard her mother tried, the evil witch could never destroy Liza's love for beauty."

"I am a weapon." Cathi Gata pleaded. "Just a killing machine! There is no beauty in that!"

"You are wrong." Hayden Tenno said quietly. "You do not have to like what a weapon does to admire what it looks like. Edged weapons and firearms have one basic purpose, but there is beauty in many of them. Efficiency and beauty." He shook his head. "This is a private conversation. The rest of us should butt out."

"For what it is worth? I am sorry, Liza." Will said as he vanished.

"I struck Elizabeth down!" Cathi Gata pleaded. "I cannot go back!"

"Not as you were, no." Atlas laid a massive hand on the shuddering Tenno's shoulder. "But for what it is worth to me? You make me proud, Tenno." He patted her shoulder and vanished.

"The... The kids?" Cathi Gata said weakly. "What do I say? The boys are gone."

"What is this?" Nia Korr demanded and all of the remaining people stiffened. "What 'kids'?"

"The Prison of Duty took Cathi instead of me." Elizabeth said through her tears. "It realized she was of child bearing age and did what it was designed to do. When she was rescued, the other me was so angry that she was about to wreak havoc. Cathi tried to help. The other me lashed out. She threw Cathi across the realities where she eventually wound up in your care."

"What?" Nia Korr snapped. "No one said anything about this! Hurting Catherine was one thing but this? We feel very strongly about kids in danger!"

"That is probably why no one mentioned it." Eliza said sadly. "Nia… I am sorry. I just… We don't know what happened to two of them. Two are alive and here. They fight as Tenno always have and will. The others? No one knows. The wardens lost them."

"Lost? Oh, this is going to go over with my kin like a Bantha trying to swim!" Nia said with a long suffering groan. "I will be in touch."

She vanished. Nyx was clearly glaring at Hayden who bowed to Eliza and Cathi Gata before vanishing as well. Then Nyx vanished, but a small glowing ball of blue computer code remained where she had been!

"Jesse?" The Tenno and Eliza chorused.

"Pardon me for a moment." Jesse's voice came from the ball and blue energy code swept around the pair. The red plain vanished and they knelt on the floor of an Orokin style room. The only furniture was a bed. Jesse's voice turned pleased. "There you go."

"Jesse." Eliza all but growled that. "What are you doing?"

"Exercising my royal responsibility." Jesse replied as the ball swept up close to Cathi. "That virtual room is yours. Only you and she will be able to get in and out without setting off all kinds of alarms, Cathi. Not even me or another Cyberlancer will be able to get in."

"Jesse, what are you doing?" Cathi Gata gasped as her warframe vanished and the only word for what she wore now was 'skimpy'. Beautiful, but… "Jesse! What the-?"

"I cannot break the walls that bind you both, that hurt both of you that I love so much but I can hand you the tools to do it yourself." Jesse sounded close to tears. "My Mother Elizabeth is too tense. Please see what you can do about that, sister Cathi?"

The ball of code vanished and both women stared at each other.

"Um..." Eliza stammered. "Uh… Cathi... I… We need to talk."

"We do." Cathi Gata sighed. "Are you all right?" She asked in a tiny voice as she stared at the blood that was still falling down Eliza's front.

"No." Eliza started crying again and then she was hugging the Tenno. "It doesn't hurt. I… I won't dishonor you! I won't make you do-" She broke off as the Tenno laid a finger across her lips.

"We need to talk. Then, if… If you are up to it, we can maybe talk about other things but for right now? I am sorry." Cathi Gata slumped a bit. "I am sorry for failing you so many times. For what I remember and what I don't remember."

"It is not your fault!" Eliza snapped. "It was my mother!"

"I feel it is." Cathi Gata retorted. "What do you feel? Right now?"

"Right now?" Eliza flushed. "Shame." Cathi Gata arched an eyebrow and Eliza looked away. "You are beautiful and my daughter just threw us together hoping we would sleep together!"

"She was right about one thing. We do need to talk." Cathi Gata smiled and Eliza stared at her. "When we get out of here? I will hold her for you to spank."

"Deal." Eliza's was still crying, but her smile was wide.

This was going to hurt a lot. But maybe, just maybe, they could find a way.