Well chapter 5 is now up, hope everyone has been enjoying it so far. Just wanted to thank forgottenrorever and Ur fav reviewer whos 2 lazy for your awesome reviews!
Please enjoy!
Chapter 5
Donatello watched as the Devil in the black cloak pushed through the black mirror.
He looked at Raphael in worry. His eyes were closed tightly and he was pale. He could see tears had run down his cheeks. He didn't know what his brother was feeling but Donatello didn't care. He could hate them if he wanted, but he was not going to regret making a deal with the Devil himself…or herself, for bringing him back. He looked at the mirror that hung in mid-air. He stood getting Michelangelo to help him haul Raphael up.
Donatello frowned as he looked into the blackness beyond the mirror. He started towards it.
"Donny what are you doing?" Leonardo asked him.
"I'm finding out what she did to Raph." He said with determination as he stepped through the mirror, dragging Raphael and Michelangelo with him. Bitter cold swept at him but he ignored it as he pressed through to the light on the other side. He looked around the chamber in horror.
Blood coated the walls, the floor and the ceiling. Someone or rather someones looked to have been slaughtered in here. He looked at the Devil who stood looking down at the bed.
Three figures were wrapped together on the blood-soaked bed. Three sets of black feathered wings blended together as Donatello recognized the naked forms of Darkness, Gabriel and Lucifer.
Donatello swallowed as he looked away and encountered two turtle shells that had been pinned to the wall. One was pinned with a sai, the other a katana. Donatello took a step back in horror. Michelangelo slapped a hand over his own mouth so he wouldn't let out a scream of horror.
"You know, it is very rude to enter a bedchamber without knocking." Darkness purred as she rolled over. Her blood soaked body glittered like the light of the moon.
Lucifer and Gabriel opened their eyes as they slowly sat up.
Donatello froze. He wasn't sure who Darkness was addressing, but he didn't want to draw any attention to himself and his brothers.
The Devil didn't say anything just stared at her. Darkness was naked except for her headdress. He knew this meant she was blind at the moment, but he figured that she could probably smell them.
"It has been a while." Darkness said with a smile. "For you, a couple thousand years I would guess."
The Devil tipped her head to the side. "Yes." She said.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure?" Darkness asked as she slid off the bed. "A very ingenious way of getting here by the way." She said with a smile. "So with all of this effort I will assume you wish something of me?" She asked as she stood naked in front of the Devil. Lucifer and Gabriel had also stood. They had wrapped themselves in the blood soaked sheets.
The door to Darkness' chamber swung open and their counterparts strode in, armed, wearing their bio-suits, and carrying their helmets under their arms.
They stopped and it was only Donatello who didn't look around the chamber in horror.
"Lucifer if you have hurt Darkness in any way, I will have your head." Raphael threatened as he took a step towards Lucifer.
"Who said the blood was hers?" Lucifer asked innocently.
Leonardo looked around the chamber frowning until his eyes settled on Donatello. Raphael stopped and paled slightly. "Gods Donny." Raphael whispered.
"Well to be fair, it isn't all his." Lucifer said with a shrug. "Anyway we have guests." Lucifer said motioning to them.
Their counterparts frowned. Donatello looked in shock from Darkness, Lucifer and Gabriel and back to their counterparts who seemed to have no problem with the fact that they had just found their wife in bed with two other men. Donatello swallowed as he slowly lowered Raphael to the floor.
"Make her stop." The Devil's voice said in irritation.
"Make who stop?" Darkness asked in question.
"You are very well aware of who." She growled. "I can feel her, scratching at the inside of my head and I need to know how to make her stop."
Darkness gave a humourless smile. "I can't make her stop." She said striding up to the Devil. She said softly. "You see, there is nothing and no one to stop."
"I am more than just a Power." The Devil said angrily.
"Of that I can see." Darkness said nodding. "But you are not remembering what is true." Darkness said softly.
The Devil's hand clenched in anger. "I remember what is true. I am more, I deserve this life. I deserve to be free." She whispered.
"Oh, I whole heartedly agree." She said tipping her head to the side. "And I shall try to free you. But truly, only you can free yourself."
"No." She shook her head. "There is no way that she could have recovered. I am not Her." She said shaking her head.
"Well, a couple thousand years can do amazing things. The fact that you are here tells me that it is time." Darkness said raising her arms and becoming cloaked in her robes.
"It's impossible." The Devil whispered.
"Not impossible, just highly improbable. You are sleeping and I think it is time for you to wake." She said as her bells rang and tones throughout the chamber.
The Devil froze, it was as if her entire body ceased live.
"Now let us hope that your consciousness is not completely insane. I would so hate to have to kill you." Darkness said with regret. The Devil moved, looking at Darkness. "Who are you?" Darkness demanded.
"I am Nightmare." The Devil said softly.
Darkness nodded. "What are you?" She asked.
"I am the holder of Yggdrasil and Keeper of the Accords of Hell." Her husky voice said.
"A god and the Devil. That must be a fun job." Darkness said with a smile. "You have spent a lot of time in Hell and in Betwixt and Between I see."
Nightmare nodded. "Who are you?" She asked.
"Darkness." Darkness said.
"What are you?" Nightmare asked.
"Darkness." She replied.
Nightmare paused, but nodded.
"What do you think of my chamber?" Darkness asked.
Nightmare looked around. "It makes my teeth tingle. It makes me hungry." She said.
Darkness nodded. "Are you hungry?" Darkness asked.
Nightmare thought about the question. "No, but this does not mean I would not drink my fill if the desire pleased me"
"How many mortals are in this room?"
"Four." Was the prompt reply.
"Do you wish to feed upon them?" Darkness asked.
Nightmare paused. "Yes, but I seem to be busy at the moment."
"Do you recognize their scent?" Darkness asked.
"Who are you?" Nightmare sasked instead of answering the question.
"Darkness." Darkness replied as she drew her bladed weapons the same instant Nightmare drew hers.
Nightmare carried two blades strapped to her back. Donatello felt himself slip to the ground as the power of the blades rolled across his skin. One sword had a black blade that glowed red. The sheer force of the evil that rolled from the sword was enough to make him feel physically ill. The other sword was the blade she had used earlier to bring Raphael back. The blue blade now shone black with malicious intent.
"What teh Hells is she doing with Bloody Rage and Capricious Death! And Goddess' gauntlets?" Raphael asked as he struggled against but was not able to withstand the sheer force of the power the two women were projecting.
All in the chamber but the two standing women were lying crushed to the floor. Darkness' black feathered wings rose from within her capes, her black, cat-like tail languidly moved back and forth. Darkness bared sharp canines as they attacked each other. Donatello watched in amazement as both fighters mirrored each other's moves to perfection. Neither one seemed to ever be on the offensive or defensive. It was like a beautiful ballet of bladed weapons and fighters clashing together in a rehearsed dance.
They both stopped at the same moment as the landed back on the floor each looking at each other and sheathing their weapons, the horrible crushing force that had pinned them to the ground abated.
"Who are you?" Nightmare growled in irritation.
"Who are you?" Darkness growled back.
"Why do you seem so familiar?" Nightmare asked.
Darkness shrugged. "Because I remember." She said. "I know it's hard, and even if you don't remember, that is okay, but you have to let go of the memories of the godhede that has been binding your soul together for the past two thousand years. Oh and try not to go insane while doing it." Darkness said with a smile. Nightmare's mouth frowned in confusion.
Nightmare looked over her shoulder and looked at them.
"He is broken." She said to pointing to Raphael, her muffled voice drifted over him. "And he is dying." She pointed to him.
Donatello's brother's looked at him in shock as he frowned at the Devil.
"Donny?" Leonardo asked a whisper of fear in his voice.
"Not important now Leo." He managed to growl.
Nightmare looked at the creatures in front of her. She frowned. They seemed familiar somehow. She looked at the other creatures in the chamber. There was Darkness, Lucifer and Gabriel. She frowned again because she had killed Lucifer. And Gabriel was...Her eyes drifted over to the gods that stood in the room. They looked like the four turtle creatures who were standing behind her, but they were very different. They were incredibly powerful gods. In fact she had never felt gods with so much power, and they were masking it rather well. She turned her attention back to Darkness. Whoever and whatever she was, she no longer felt any power coming from her. She looked at the face that was a mirror of her own. She tipped her head to the side in thought and then nodded. She understood who Darkness was, who the gods were, and why Lucifer still lived.
She frowned again. She looked down at her gauntleted hands. She had killed Lucifer, but why had she killed him? She wondered. And why did she keep getting flashes of a golden haired woman who looked almost like her? One who smiled and laughed. Why was she laughing with the creatures behind her, as she screamed in agony as they tortured her?
She remembered being tortured in Hell. But how was that even possible? She closed her eyes as images rolled through her. But the images were fuzzy, grainy and indistinct. She needed to have a better look.
She stood outside of a locked door.
She looked at the lock and wondered if she would even be able to open it. She looked at the key in her hand. She looked at the wooden doors as she fit the key into the metal lock. Gods weren't big on introspection or self evaluation. They tended to just exist. They also tended to be bored, petty and greedy. She pushed open the double doors and walked into what appeared to be a library. The library was huge. She pulled a red book from the nearest shelf. She was thrown into a place she recognized. She realized she was in Hell, well Hell before she had ruled it. Cloaks swirling and anger and rage evident on her face she killed Lucifer and devoured his soul. Actually just killing him would have been kind. She ripped him apart, pulling his spine through his flesh, crushing his screaming skull beneath her boot and then devouring his soul like it was a bon bon.
She closed the book and tapped in against her hand. So these were her memories. Interesting. She walked further down the rows and rows of bookshelves. She figured out that the black bound books seemed to be the deaths of mortal children. She frowned. She didn't remember killing them. Her tail flicked in irritation. She walked back. So who was the woman? She wondered. And who were the children?
She browsed the shelves until she came across a young human girl. The memory rang for her. She looked identical to the woman who haunted her thoughts, but this girl wasn't her. She didn't know how she knew this, but she knew. She called the girl to life and walked around her studying her. She had Power, a small amount but enough to make her one of her creatures. She watched the young girl's death. Azazel killed her. He had called her Kaethryn.
She put the book away and moved closer to the door. Human children, all with varying amounts of power, all killed by either Azazel or guided by the invisible hand of angels to their deaths.
She looked to the thickest book in the library. She pulled it from the shelf.
Unlike all of the others it was bound in green leather and held together with a golden lock. She walked over to the fireplace and sat down in a wing chair. She put the book in her lap and tapped the cover. She stared into flames that gave off no warmth. I could put the book back. She thought watching the dancing of the flames. She didn't have to look. She didn't have to walk through the door that had appeared beside the fireplace. She could open her eyes and continue on as she had for the past two thousand years. She thought hard. She didn't even remember existing before killing Lucifer. Not that this was unusual for a god. But she remembered some things. She knew that where she was, this Castle, echoed with the sense of home as if she, not quite belonged, but more…had been here, existed here. It was home but it wasn't her home now.
She stood. She didn't want to know what was through the door and what was in the book. The doors and book were locked for a reason. She wasn't curious as to where the door led, or what was in the book.
She studied the green bound book. But the problem was that even though she was not curious, she was no coward, and she believed whatever was behind the door, whatever the book contained, would take courage to open both. She tucked the book under her arm and walked to the door. She opened the door and stepped through.
She entered a circular stone room. A woman hung in the center of the room. Her wrists were bound above her head with rope. Her body was completely wrapped in golden chains. They wrapped through and around her bloody body, as if it were holding all of her together. She could see where all of the pieces of her body had been fit back together. She looked at the single silver chain in thought.
A black butterfly with golden tipped wings hovered on her chest. She walked over to the woman with glorious golden hair that fell around her in russet and red amber waves to her waist. She looked at her pale peaches and cream complexion and looked at her own alabaster coloured skin. Moss green eyes stared straight ahead unseeing. She reached out and picked up the butterfly.
"Thank you." She whispered to the Nightmare godhede. "I think it is time for you to finally become a part of me." She gently pushed the butterfly into her very badly damaged soul. She knew it was her soul, her very mortal soul. She felt as if she should be more shocked than she was, but she wasn't. She looked at the key in her hand. She unlocked the book in her hands and opened it.
Nightmare closed the book gently and walked from her Soul Room into her Memory Room. She tapped the book with a clawed finger. She slid the book back into place.
She opened her eyes and felt her cheek burn as a butterfly mark appeared on her left cheek.
"So, have you made your choice?" Darkness asked her in an ancient Pictish dialect that had been lost to humanity, but was still spoken within the Fae halls of the Tuatha De Danann.
"I have a choice?" She asked almost in anger.
"There is always a choice." Darkness said to her with a smile.
"Katherine is dead." Nightmare said with a shake of her head.
"True." Darkness agreed.
"So what do you want me to do?" She asked her.
"What do you want to do?" Darkness asked.
"Do you always answer a question with a question?" She asked angrily.
"Sometimes the questions must be asked, because only you hold the answer." Darkness said cryptically.
She bared her teeth at Darkness. "Am I really this annoying?"
Darkness smiled. "We used to be worse." She said with a shrug.
Nightmare growled low in her throat. "It has been well over two thousand years!" She said to Darkness. "Things have changed."
"Very true. But some things stay the same." Darkness said to her.
"Because you would know?" Nightmare said to her.
Darkness looked at Lucifer and Gabriel. "Because I would know." She nodded as her eyes swept over the gods that were the doubles of Katherine's lovers.
"But I am not Katherine." She insisted.
"Neither am I, but I think I will be okay with having been her…one day." Darkness said with a lopsided grin.
Nightmare frowned and nodded slowly. "I am a monster." She said to Darkness.
"So am I." Darkness said. "I became the biggest monster, how about you?" She asked.
Nightmare nodded and smiled. "The biggest."
Darkness threw back her head and laughed. "Good." She smiled viciously. Nightmare lost her smile and looked at her, an unasked question in her eyes. "Anything worth having needs to be fought for." Darkness replied gently.
"I never was a coward." Nightmare said thoughtfully.
"Never. But if your heart is not in it, I would walk away." Darkness said seriously.
"Yes." Nightmare said with a nod.
"You realize what you have done to him don't you?" Darkness asked.
"I am starting to. I don't think I can even fully grasp the implications at this moment." Nightmare said softly.
Darkness nodded. "I do not think even I can fully grasp the consequences of what you have done."
Nightmare tipped her head to the side in thought. "You did something similar." She pointed out.
"Similar, yes, but wholly different at the same time. He is running out of time in more ways than one." Darkness said to her.
Nightmare frowned in thought.
"My Daughter's power will break soon, and when that happens his protection will be gone." Darkness warned her.
"I know." Nightmare said softly.
"What you have done is not meant to happen." Darkness said softly.
"Well, we have a whole lot of that going on, we will just add it to the pile." Nightmare said with a shrug closing the subject.
Darkness tipped her head to the side in thought. "You had less than a one in a million chance of succeeding in pulling your soul back together." She said slowly.
Nightmare smiled and a tarot card appeared in-between her index and middle finger. The Tarot card was of The Hanged Man. She fanned the two cards she held, the other being The Fool.
Darkness laughed. "Ah yes The Fool, rather like The Hanged man, an acceptance of being foolish, and so you fought with a Fool's Chance." She said with a smile.
"Yes, a Fool's Chance. Another option." She looked at Darkness seriously. "Katherine figured that if she was going to go out, she was going to go out fighting. Of course there was a million to one chance her soul would survive, but sometimes, someone has to be that one in a million." She shrugged.
Darkness smiled. "You fought with a Fool's Chance, and sometimes the Universe enjoys playing with million to one odds." She said wickedly.
Nightmare gave a quick smile."All I remembered was being Nightmare, but I think I was mostly myself. I am glad it was there. It gave something for my soul to bond to, but it lives inside of my soul, still holding bits and pieces of it together." She lost her smile. "But I finally remember who I am, and who I was, and now I am just really, really pissed off."
"Understandable. I too would be very angry, but be gentle with him. Your loss wounded him in ways that my Leonardo never had to deal with. " Darkness said stepping away from Nightmare.
"He's still alive isn't he?" Nightmare grumbled.
Darkness chuckled.
"Okay did anyone get any of that?" Michelangelo asked.
Lucifer and Gabriel nodded but didn't offer up any information. Instead they began backing away slowly, which was probably the safest place they could be.
I hope this chapter made sense. Did everyone get that Nightmare thought she was only the nightmare godhede?