A big thank you to Griffon of the Night and BlueRose03 for your awesome reveiws and support! =)
I didn't think I would be able to post anything until Monday, but I was able to get things done, so here you go, hope you all enjoy.
Ack accidentally uploaded Rouge chapter 16 I apologize!
Chapter 16
Donatello opened his eyes. He looked around him at the massive library. He recognized that he must be in Nightmare's Memory Room.
Nightmare was sitting thoughtfully in a cherry red wing chair staring at the purple flames that danced in the grate. He frowned as he studied the room. There was something wrong with it. He remembered what Darkness' Memory Room looked like, being split in half between Actual Darkness' memories and Katherine's memories. He would have understood if Nightmare's room was split between Katherine and the Nightmare godhede, but he remembered Katherine had said that she had read up on the other world's counterparts. So he had to assume that the Nightmare godhede's memories were locked within a book as well. So whatever was sharing the space with Katherine's Memories was not her godhede.
And whatever it was, it had not split the room cleanly down the middle. It looked more like a shadow had moved slowly along the books and shelves. Wherever the shadow had touched had turned everything, the shelves, the books, the floor the walls, the tapestries, everything, black, silver and a deep purple.
"The fire never used to burn purple." Nightmare said softly.
"So what is happening?" He asked as he strode over to her. He knelt down and curled himself around her legs, holding them tightly to his chest. There was part of him that recognized that he was still acting like a pet. The demon that now rode his soul wanted to continually touch his Mistress, be near her, and sought her approval. He tried to fight against what his instincts, what he felt as if he needed to do, but couldn't. The desire was too strong.
"I don't know." She said softly. "The memories contained within the books are being...warped." She said with a frown.
"Warped?" He asked her confusion.
"Yes, warped. As you know, the books contain all of my memories. Life after life, death after death. But the memories themselves are beginning to be altered. Not the actual events that are portrayed, but I suppose the best way to explain it would be to say that the perspective is being changed."
"To what?" He asked as he lay his head down on her leg. She touched the side of his cheek and he almost purred. He could feel it, the need as he attempted to stamp down the reaction. A soft purr escaped anyway. It was a soft contented sound that rumbled in his chest.
Nightmare looked down at him in shock. "Are you purring?"
He stopped purring because he could sense his Mistress was displeased. He shook off these thoughts.
Nightmare sighed. "We have to break the Covenant. I can't have you this way Donatello. You need to have your own free will back." She frowned as she studied the ever creeping shadow.
"How do we break it?" He questioned.
"We can't. Break it I mean. Only my death will break the chains."
"You can't die, I just found you again." He said his voice cracking in fear.
"Nothing is forever Donatello, even the gods. I know my circle of Fate needs to close. The manner and result of Katherine's death is throwing the Universe out of balance and the Universe must always be in balance. Her death must be corrected."
"Katherine...you died. There is no circle of Fate. Everyone believes that you are dead. Your friends, family, the gods, everyone. Katherine was supposed to die, and she did. Kaethryn told Raphael that they were Fated and in his dream he saw you wrapped in Death's arms. Katherine died. No circle of Fate."
Nightmare's eyes widened. "Katherine was wrapped in Deaths arms?" She asked softly.
Donatello looked up at her. "Yes." He said in confusion as Nightmare stood. She began to pace furiously. Her tail lashing from side to side .
"I can't break the chains, but I could possibly alter the Covenant so that when the chains break, they won't kill you." She said thoughtfully.
Donatello frowned. "But if the chains break it means that I have failed in my promise." He whispered in dread.
"Yes, it would, but my death is the only way the chains can break."
"I can't fail in my duty towards you. I am supposed to protect you, even if I die doing it." He said fiercely.
"I know. Though I suppose that the chains began to reform even after Katherine had died, and you survived. I shall have to think on it. It will take, I suspect, time and power to twist the Covenant into something that I find acceptable." She said thoughtfully.
"There is no circle of Fate." Donatello said to her. "If you die, I die with you. I will suffer the chains for eternity because I will not live another day without you." He growled as he stood angrily.
"Donatello, stand on one foot."
He frowned but complied. "Now sing Britney Spears' I'm a slave 4 U."
Donatello didn't even think he knew the song, but he opened his mouth and began to sing. I know I may be young, but I've got feelings too. /And I need to do what I feel like doing./So let me go and just listen.
"Stop." She ordered
He stopped singing.
"Jump up and down." He jumped.
"Quack like a duck." He began quaking like a duck and jumping up and down because she hadn't told him to stop.
"Stop." He stopped and looked at her in horror.
"Now you understand Donatello. You must obey everything that I tell you to do. You have no will of your own. I could order you to not obey me in everything, to allow you your free will, but I don't believe it will work. It may help, but if I place any amount of power into the command I can control you. And I do not wish for that."
"I know you would never make me do anything that I wouldn't or couldn't do." He whispered as he tried to control a small sliver of dread.
"It isn't about me telling you or not telling you to do something. It is about free will, and you not having any. I could be not thinking and tell you to be quiet. You would not be able to talk again until I told you you could. And if I needed you to do something awful you would have to obey me. I could order you to kill someone. Rip them limb from limb and there would be nothing you could do about it. I can't have you that way Donatello, I just can't."
Donatello looked at her. Fear was riding hot and furious along his skin. It lodged in his throat and tried to choke him. He knew, deep down that she was right. No matter how happy his demon was at the moment, basking in her presence, he knew what he was feeling was wrong.
He swallowed. "We don't know if telling me to have free will won't work. Try." He said to her.
"Donatello I command you to not obey me in everything, I give you back your free will and the ability to disobey me." She said to him.
He didn't feel any different. "Cluck like a chicken." Nightmare said to him.
He didn't want to cluck like a chicken. He didn't move.
Nightmare looked at him thoughtfully. "Jump up and down and touch your nose."
Again he didn't move.
Nightmare looked at him. "Bow down before me." She commanded. The strength of her will rode over him in a crushing wave. But he resisted.
Nightmare nodded and looked at him grimly. "You must protect me Donatello. There is a threat to my life." He felt his skin begin to vibrate. There was danger. He could actually feel his eyes beginning to bleed golden-red. He listened intently for his orders. "Kill your brothers." She commanded.
Horror at her words burned through him. "Yes Mistress." He replied. He had no choice because she had ordered it, and her survival depended on his brother's deaths.
"Ignore my last command." She said to him. "You may be able to gain more of your will back if you fix your soul. You were able to resist a direct order, until it came to my safety. You will do anything to protect me, even at the expense of your brother's lives." She said steadily.
He frowned and nodded. Nightmare had done all she could for him. It would be up to him to do the rest. He looked at Nightmare uneasily. There was something niggling at the back of his brain, trying to tell him something important.
He watched as a piece of shadow flowed closer. "What happens when the shadow covers everything?" He asked her.
"I don't know." She said to him.
"What do you mean the perspective is being changed?"
"The horror of my deaths is lessening." She said. "Death does not seem like such a bad thing. It just is. It is a natural aspect of Life. You cannot have one without the other."
"But?"
"But it does not mean that I should view my murders as something that happens. It was my Fate, all has led me to this moment in time, but now the memories are not as harsh."
"And that is a bad thing?" He asked
"No. It is not bad, it is just different. I feel as though every death was a gift, a cherished memory of something that had gone right. As a being of life, this should not be."
Donatello looked at the shadow. "But it isn't hurting you?" He asked.
"No, it worries me. I am trying to figure out what it is I should do; What I am suppose to do. Though I suppose I have almost all of the pieces of the puzzle. It now has a picture and it now makes sense. There are however a few pieces left that must be put into play. Like the pieces on a chess board, like dominoes set up and ready to fall. Everything must be aligned perfectly, all in the correct position, all falling where they must. All moving as they must move. Including myself."
"There is no circle of Fate." Donatello said to her, slippery dread sliding through him at her words.
"Katherine died, but her body does not rest in her grave. I know this seems like a small thing, many people are not buried under their headstones, but death is death I yet live in the body I inhabited in life. Vampires, ghouls and others can exist this way because their bodies are dead. They have life but are not alive. I am alive in the truest sense of the word. I may call myself Nightmare, but the Universe is very well aware of who I am. So my Fate will catch up with me one day, because it must."
Donatello shook his head fiercely. "You don't get to just give up and accept your Fate."
Nightmare laughed. "I have never just given up and accepted my Fate Donatello. But I have a Destiny." She said with a smile. "And I suppose now is a good a time as any to grab Destiny and tell her "Let's dance."
She strode through a door by the fireplace and he followed.
They entered through burgundy double doors into a round chamber. He looked at Katherine's soul. It was standing in the center of the room, bound in golden chains, looking as if it had been shattered and put back together. "Your soul is still broken." He said softly.
"Yes, it is. But I understand what I must do to fix it." She said looking at her soul thoughtfully.
Katherine's soul was holding what looked like two souls, one in each hands. "Are you holding two souls?" He asked in confusion.
"Yes, my soul holds two souls." She said with a nod.
He studied the golden chains that bound them together. His body was covered much like Katherine's soul was. He then looked at the silver cord that stretched between himself and Nightmare.
"But neither of those is mine." He said as he again looked at the souls.
"No, neither is yours, because I do not literally hold your soul. Your soul exists within your own body. We are bound however." She pointed to the silver cord. He nodded as he studied the souls.
"Whose souls are they?" He asked.
"Lucifer and Michael. I have eaten their souls, but it seems that I did not consume them, nor did they just disintegrate. My soul has harboured them within her. Interesting, isn't it? So I have the soul of two Fallen's. Two Devils who were angels. Lucifer is the red soul. His Light tainted by his betrayal in Heaven. Michael Fell but his light was never tainted because he did not actually betray Heaven itself, just its rules. But if you look closely you can see the spark of red within his soul, the darkness that resided within him. As for Lucifer, you can still see the golden-blue spark that proclaimed him an angel and not just a demon. So I have,"
"Yin and Yang." Donatello said abstractedly.
"Essentially yes. So the next question is, what to do with these two lovely souls?"
"Can you gain power from them?" He asked as he watched the souls pulse in Katherine's hands.
"As they are right now, no, but I think I have an idea." She said with a smile. "You see I need more power than what Yggdrasil can give me, much, much more." She turned serious. "The barriers around our world are beginning to buckle and fail. Things from Betwixt and Between are slipping through and they are hungry.
"What do you mean things?" Donatello asked as he remembered the thin grey thing that had devoured the human couple within a moment of time.
"The Fae. My presence acted much like a beacon in the dark. Earth had become a inhospitable place for the Fae. Too much iron, not enough magic. But now, magic burns and blazes through the Earth, powered by myself and distributed by Yggdrasil. And the iron, well, as long as the magic is strong enough the iron will still hurt, still kill, but they can shield against the presence of it."
"The Fae, as in faries?" Donatello asked in confusion.
"Yes Faries, but these are true fairies, the ones from the darker tales of the Brothers Grimm, the old wives tales of stolen children, of men being led to watery graves. And those are the tales involving the Seelie court. The Court of the Unseelie, well, they are truly the stuff of Nightmares. Gabriel has been attempting to negotiate between the two courts and stop their progress, but as I said, the Fae wish to romp and play, kill and slaughter as they had. They miss Earth. The walls were always strong, but there were always places where the walls were too thin. Now they have begun slipping through, weakening the barriers even more."
"Why are none of the other gods doing anything about this?" Donatello asked angrily.
Nightmare sighed. "A few reasons. One reason is that they are mine. They are creatures of magic existing on a plain of existence that weaves and winds through our own. I do not wish to hurt them because as I said, they are mine. They are also, many of them, gods in their own right. Many were worshipped by humans millennia ago and the old gods remember this. They are not powerful enough to take on these fallen gods, powered as they are by my magic. Another reason is that I and Gabriel are the only ones able to pass through to Betwixt and Between to confront them. But if I do not stop them they shall overrun Earth and humanity will fall.
"Your loyatly is split." Donatello said in shock. "You don't want them to hurt humanity, but at the same time they are almost like..." He tried to come up with an analogy. "Your children."
"Children is a little strong of a word, but essentially yes." She said softly. "So I must find a compromise of sorts." Nightmare's gaze went back to her soul. "I must reclaim my humanity if I wish to be able to do what must be done."
Trepidation rolled through him. "What must be done?" He asked slowly.
Nightmare just smiled and her smile gave him chills.
Nightmare looked at her broken soul. She needed to be Katherine, because if she remained as she was, she would not have the strength of will required to do what needed to be done. Gods were weak beings. Petty, selfish, greedy, self-serving. They had no conscience because they did not need one. There was no right and wrong for them, there just was. Good and Evil were merely human constructs that the godly mind could not fathom, because they never saw their actions in such black and white terms. Theirs was a world of grey, not even light or dark greys, just one flat line of endless grey.
And besides this, her humanity is the only thing that would save her from what was happening in her Memory Room. Whatever the shadow was, it was essentially erasing her memories of their humanity, and she could not let herself become like the other gods.
She could feel Donatello looking at her with worry. Darkness had said that one day she would be okay with having been Katherine, but Nightmare was okay with actually being her. She rolled this thought around in her head.
She was Katherine. But now that she was willing to accept this, the question that needed to be answered was whether or not she would be able to stay sane by becoming her. She gently reached out and touched her soul. "I am stronger than any mortal has the right to be, but I am Katherine Brooks and I control my Fate, and I control my soul."
She watched in amazement as her soul began to glow gold, the fractures that ran through her soul began to lessen and heal.
Nightmare felt her soul ring. She doubled over. All of her emotions that had been muffled suddenly became crystal clear. She hadn't even realized that what she had been feeling was the barest echo of everything she could feel. Raphael was vibrant in her mind's eye. His soul ringing perfectly with hers. Donatello's presence was blazing, his soul linked with hers. Leonardo and Michelangelo came into focus intriguing her all over again. They were all hers, in different ways, but hers none the less.
The horror of Hell came rushing back to her. The pain the agony, the despair, the feeling of helpless eternity. The torment of seeing the images of the men she loved used for nothing more than to try to break her body, her spirit, and finally her soul.
Nightmare threw back her head and screamed as every visceral image blasted through her brain and senses. Katherine had spent 74 years in Hell being tortured, and those 74 years had felt like an eternity.
She felt hot salty tears run down her cheeks as she collapsed into a shivering ball of misery.
She felt Donatello's arms encircle and hold her. He could hear him whisper soft words in her ear, but she couldn't understand him. His arms were warm which was strange because he had always been so cool to the touch. But his body temperature was now more like her own.
This thought snapped her out of the memory induced misery. She had won. In the end, they couldn't break her, and she had saved Heaven, saved Earth and killed her tormenters.
She stopped shaking and took a deep breath letting it out slowly. She no longer had to breath, but did so out of habit. She smiled then.
She had won. Period. And she could face what was coming because she had to, and because she could.
She could have bent to the demands of the gods, killed April's child and found another way of dealing with the Fae. And even though there was part of her that knew that risking the universe for one child was ridiculous, she knew in her heart, that she would make the decision again, because it was the right decision.
Donatello helped her to stand. "I'm okay." She said softly. "And still sane." She said with a shaky laugh.
Donatello looked at her with concern. "My soul is fixed. Your turn." She said as she shoved him from her Soul Room into his own.