Alrighty people, we are getting close to the end! The Mystery of the goddess is revealed. Warning a little on the gory side near the end... Please enjoy and please reveiw!

Chapter 24

The memory broke and they ended up back in her Memory Room. Michelangelo still had the book in his hands. He snapped it closed and put it back into place as quickly as he could.

"It is very rude to snoop through someone's memories." A soft voice said behind him. He turned around quickly and saw Goddess sitting on the back of the wing chair. She was clothed as she had been in the memory. It seemed strange to Donatello that she was always dressed as if she was ready for battle. Even they were without their weapons most of the time. And he was amazed that she never seemed to cut herself on those bladed gauntlets.

"It is alright, if I had not wanted you to see the memory you wouldn't have been able to pull it from the shelf." She leapt off the chair. "Welcome to my Memory Room. As you saw specific memories are stored within each book."

They looked around. "Now I have many memories, obviously, but not every experience I have ever had is in these books, except after I became a goddess. When I was mortal only specific and important memories were stored."

They looked down the rows upon rows of books. Some looked fresh and new, others seemed to be falling apart. Donatello found himself wandering away from the fire place, fascinated by the rows upon rows of books. The further away from the fireplace Donatello went, the more and more the books looked as if they were about to disintegrate if you so much as looked at them, let alone touched them. There also seemed to be black books, many of them. All the books were different sizes and colours, but the black books all seemed to be the same small size. He passed by a door and turned to look at it. There was no door when he looked at it straight on, but when he looked at it straight ahead he could see it just out of the corner of his eye.

"Those are the Memory Rooms of the goddesses. One on each side. The black books mark each mortal death I suffered." Goddess said. He jumped. "Come back to the fireplace Donatello, there are questions that must be answered."

He looked back at the bookcases and realized that there were almost if not more black books as any other colour of book. He walked back with her silently. They gathered around a round table that was engraved with a map of the world, but as Donatello looked closer he realized it was not their world but another.

"My home." She said, brushing the surface with a clawed hand.

She curled up in one of the wing chairs. Each took a seat in a wing chair that had appeared around the table. "My soul as you have heard is indeed mortal. You heard some of the story from when Gabriel and I talked. My last mortal life ended 4621 years ago. I was shot, an arrow through the heart, by my best friend Charity Hamilton, and another by the traitor Isulet. You wanted to know what happened, wanted to know why I never chose a Consort, and if I was mortal how am I a goddess, and why I can't choose between you, well I shall show you." Suddenly Donatello didn't want to know. Obviously her death had been tragic, and for some reason those questions seemed insignificant and irrelevant. A black book appeared on the table in front of them. Dread slid down his spine. It opened.

Battle raged around them. A mud slick field stretched out in front of them covered in as much mud, as gore, blood, and corpses.

Goddess stood panting, bloodied sword in hand. It was Bloody Rage. She looked different. She had human ears, and although her skin was as pale, it had less of an opalescent quality to it. All of her scars seemed angry and new. Her left eye was covered with a black eye patch. She was terrified. She looked like the twenty something girl that she had looked like when they had first set eyes on her. There was an innocence about her. An absence of the cynicism, hardness, and shear knowledge that she now possessed.

She was clutching at her chest as if there was something wrong. "I will not let you win." She said in a defiant yet terrified whisper. "I will not let your darkness consume me." She managed to choke out. She had tears in her eye. A red darkness began to circle and wrap itself around her. She clenched her teeth with determination as if she were fighting something other than the monsters around her.

Above them dragons circled in the sky roaring in rage and spewing fire. Creatures out of the imagination of fantasy fought with what looked like Roman soldiers and monsters.

The goddess slew one of the monsters that had charged her and as she pulled out her sword she spun. Two arrows hit her chest simultaneously. Blood blossomed through white linen. She looked in shock at her chest and fell to her knees.

"No!" Raphael screamed, as he knelt in front of the figure. His arms passed right through her.

"Katherine!" A man screamed. He ran up to her. He was shockingly beautiful, with pale skin and hair the colour of a roaring fire. He gathered her up into his arms and roared his grief. Bloody tears coursed down his cheeks and he looked at the ones who had shot the arrows. "Charity you traitor, how could you!" he screamed.

The arrows had been shot by two women, one looked like a beautiful angel with white feathered wings and pale golden hair. The other was startlingly beautiful, but had skin the colour of an aqua-green sea. A mass of snakes writhed and moved where her hair should have been. The angel fell to the ground and dissolved into tears.

"Katherine!" Another man yelled falling down beside her. He was tanned, and had the build of a football player. He looked at her, like he was at a loss at what to do. Somehow Katherine was still alive. Blood dripped down her chin as she frantically searched for someone. "Seymous!" She screamed. Tears running down her face. A man stumbled from the fray of battle. She reached out to him as he fell to his knees clutching his chest. He wasn't human, he was an Elf. He was striking with long white hair, pale skin and black eyes.

"Katherine!"He screamed reaching out to her as he collapsed. They watched as the light went out of his eyes.

She turned her tear stained eye to the man that held her. "Daemon." She managed to choke out through the blood that filled her mouth. You could see the love in her eye as she looked at him. "Katherine, Katherine, no, no." He sobbed.

"Hey weren't those the names of her guardians?" Michelangelo whispered. No one answered.

Her eyes shifted to something over his shoulder. With the last of her strength she lifted her arm, like she was reaching for something, or someone. Death appeared behind the vampire and the man. They didn't notice or could not see him. Her eye had begun to cloud.

"Turn her." The dark haired man said. Daemon looked at him in shock. "Do you want to lose her, turn her damn it!" He screamed. Damon pulled back and bit her hard in the neck. She gasped. He drank as she screamed in agony. Pulling back he ripped his arm open with his teeth and poured the blood down her throat.

Her eye went blank and the stillness of death overtook her. Although battle raged around them somehow within the circle of grief they had formed, the silence was deafening.

She gasped and sat up. Death stepped away and vanished. She looked at Daemon in horror. "You swore to me Daemon. You swore that you wouldn't turn me, that if I died you wouldn't bring me back. Now...now...they're getting closer. You've bound my immortal soul to my body!" She screamed in despair. She tore herself from his grasp and stumbled a few steps away. The battle still raged on around them until suddenly a blazing light engulfed her. A magic circle formed around her. Red and blue energy crackled through the air. She rose in the air, her hair turned white with streaks of black, her eye turned white and her clothes and wings disappeared. New wings emerged, but they weren't really wings, more the idea of wings. Wisps of blue painted the air giving the impression of feathered wings, while below was a second set of wings that looked to have been painted in the splattering of blood.

The entire battlefield stopped and watched as the wings closed, energy whipped around her, and when she emerged she looked as she did now. The only thing that had changed about her were the kitty-cat ears, and her eyes. She had regained her eye, and although they were the same shade of green, there was something about them, a blankness. It was as if they had been stripped of everything that had made her...her.

"I am the Goddess of Magic, Andora" She said in a voice that held no emotion, but instead held a boom of thunder and a crackle of power. A staff appeared in her hand. "It is enough." She said and the staff struck the ground. The monsters disappeared, as well as most of the Romans.

A mark appeared on the forehead of the vampire Daemon. "Katherine?" He said to her.

The dark haired man reached out and touched her arm. "Katherine."

She looked at him. "I know not that name." She turned away from him. He looked at her back stricken.

"What have I done?" He whispered to himself.

She walked over to the Elf Seymous and grabbed hold of his body by the back of the armour. She looked at the women who had killed her, but no emotion crossed her face. She didn't look like she even recognized them. She turned and disappeared, the vampire and Elf disappearing with her.

Leonardo looked around as they were again in Goddess' Memory Room. Goddess was still sitting there curled up, but she looked sad as if the memory were still painful, but time had dulled it to be bearable. Michelangelo was kneeling in front of her, misery etched into his face.

She looked at him and touched his face. "It was a long time ago Michelangelo. The memory still hurts but it is an old pain." He shook his head tears swimming in his eyes. He grabbed her picked her up, sat back down on the chair and held her tightly against him. She looked surprised but didn't object.

"So you really are a goddess." Raphael said. "You didn't lie to us." Raphael said to her. "You were a Fool." He said softly.

She tipped her head to the side. "I can't lie Raphael, I have already told you this. And yes I was. I used a Fool's Chance, I survived, but the cost." She shook her head. "I managed to seal the goddesses within my mind, but to do so I sundered my already broken soul. I knew what I was, but I did not know who I was. I was the goddess of magic, and the name Andora rang for me.

Of Katherine, I had no memory of her. Seymous had died because he loved her. Elves do not in general fall in love, not true love. To fall in love as an Elf is seen as much as a blessing as a curse. Once an Elf falls in love their heart is bound to their loves'. Katherine's heart stopped, so too did his. She didn't die immediately, she was inhuman enough to survive the minute after her heart stopped long enough for Daemon to turn her into a vampire. Daemon and Seymous became my Guardians.

I brought Seymous back from the dead, but he had no memories of Katherine. To him he had always been my Guardian, his life before his death did not exist. Daemon however never forgave himself for what happened. It took around 600 years but I began to remember bits and pieces. But it was a jumbled mess. I could not access either my Soul Room , or Memory Room, and because I was bound to Daemon his memories began to jumble with my own. I was very confused, I went to Earth and I ran into Lucifer, but that is another story entirely."

"It took nearly 1000 years but I finally remembered who I had been. By then Daemon was destroyed. He performed his duties as Guardian, but he never forgave himself for nearly destroying me. My soul was still sundered and even though I remembered Katherine, I was not her, I was different. The woman he had loved died on the battlefield that day, and even though I still loved him it wasn't the same kind of love. Katherine died that day." She shook her head. "I am no more Katherine, than I am Kaethryn. Katherine is dead, but my soul has begun to ring with Katherine's." She said sadly.

They all looked at each other in confusion. "What do you mean your soul has begun to ring with Katherine's."Donatello asked.

She smiled sadly. "A Circle of Fate has begun to wrap itself around to its beginning. I know this does not make sense to you, and perhaps it never will, but there are more questions to be answered." She said avoiding the question.

Michelangelo squeezed her harder. She shrugged. "The story of my soul and how the goddesses were even bound to it is long, and so I will try to make a ridiculously long story short."

"The two goddesses, one light one dark, fought, it was all they did. When they nearly destroyed the world of T'lae-ran they went in search of new mortal bodies and a pure soul. If they could consume a pure soul then one would finally be strong enough to destroy the other. And so they found me. They were weakened from their battle, and I do not know if they even knew they had chosen the same soul, but they slept. My soul was brand new then, but the gods knew that the goddesses were powerful and dangerous, and so I was killed. But the goddesses did not dissipate from my soul, instead incarnation after incarnation they stayed with me. But the more they killed me, the purer and stronger my soul became. By then they could not stop killing me. They realized that the goddesses needed my body to mature, I could not be a child and so they had time to kill me. When the task of my 'care' fell to the Kingdom of Heaven, Michael was given the task of being my executioner. But a strange thing had begun happening, my soul had begun to hide itself. Michael had to search for me. Sometimes it took him over a decade to find me. The goddesses tried and almost rose when I was Kaethryn. I made it to the ripe old age of fourteen before Michael killed me. As Katherine I lived until I was twenty-one, but I didn't die, not this time, I was ripped from this world along with my two friends and taken to T'lae-ran, where I was transformed into what you saw. I was one half of a pair of priestesses who were to bring the goddesses back to their dying world. Katherine's story is a long one and this is not the time for it."

Michelangelo still clutching her tightly asked. "Why did she kill you?" She looked at him in shock, as if that was not the question she thought he would ask. Donatello stood and walked over to her. He sat down at her feet leaning his head against her leg. Donatello looked as if he were suffering and needed to touch her, to make sure that she was okay.

"She killed me because she loved me." She whispered. "She believed she was saving the world from a great darkness. One death to save millions. I suppose in the end she did. The goddesses did not rise to destroy the world. If I had died my soul would have finally been free of them, but they may have used my body to rip the world asunder, then again maybe they would just have ended up back in the realm of the gods. It is hard to say. Instead my soul was bound within my body. I was easy pickings for the goddesses, except I fought back and managed to find the one way to not only seal them, but to make it so that the goddesses could not use my soul. By sundering my soul the way I did, the goddesses cannot use it. It is in three pieces so they have remained silent. If ever my soul were to be whole, it is possible they would rise again to try to claim it."

She paused a moment in thought the fire crackling in the grate the only sound in the room. "I have only ever truly loved a few times in my many lives." She began quietly. Michelangelo clutched her tighter, Donatello rested his head on her leg. She looked down at Donatello with love in her eyes and she placed a hand on his shoulder. That was when Leonardo realized that Michelangelo and Donatello already knew where they stood in her heart. She loved them. She looked at Leonardo and Raphael. Leonardo looked at Raphael and he looked as if his heart had shattered, and he was pretty sure that he wore the same expression on his face. "I was 14 years old when I loved Cellach and Geldric, or as we know them as Lucifer and Gabriel."

"Wait you were 14?" Michelangelo asked in surprise.

"Yes." She said looking up at him.

"How old were they?" He asked.

She smiled and laughed. "As humans or as angel?" She asked then smiled. "As humans they were 26."

"Ewww." Michelangelo scrunched up his face. "I think there are laws against that sort of thing." Michelangelo said in disgust.

She laughed. "Yes but during that time, it was normal and expected. Besides as angels they would have been...probably verging on several thousand years old." She said with a shrug. "I was 21 when I fell in love with Seymous who was 236 and Daemon who was 153." She chuckled to herself. "I must really have had a thing for older men." She shook her head and lost her smile. "You are all so young." She said softly but shook her head. "Not important, I am getting distracted."

She looked at them seriously. "Gabriel was right, darkness and light, light and darkness. I had always wondered if maybe I could love only one person if I was without the influence of the goddesses. I always wondered if the men I had loved, were in my heart because the goddesses wanted them to be, or if I had actually chosen them. But I know now, having been cut off from them, that it was never them, it was me. I apparently have the inability to love only one person, or if you look at it from the other way, I have the ability to love more than one person at a time. Loving two men at once is bad enough." She said sadly. "There is always jealousy and fighting, and loving brothers is even worse because of the rivalry that already exists." She closed her eyes. "I didn't mean to fall in love. It was not my intention. I have lived for almost 5000 years without any touching my heart, until I met you." She whispered looking at Raphael and Leonardo. "Two brothers is bad enough, but four!" She shook her head. "There are two reasons I will never choose. I cannot choose because I will not take one without the others. I never have and I never will. My heart belongs to all of you, and I know better than to expect you to be able to share. I would never ask you to share." She whispered.

"What so that's it. You love all of us so you choose none of us!" Leonardo shouted at her.

She looked at him sadly. "Leonardo..." She said to him.

"No, don't you dare Leonardo me." He strode over to her and pulled her up from Michelangelo's grasp. "I refuse to let you go. Do you hear me. I won't. We'll figure it out, somehow we'll make it work because I love you too much to just let you go!" He shouted.

A tear rolled down her cheek. "You'll have to Leonardo." She whispered so softly Leonardo could barely make out the words. She laid her head on his chest and he clutched her tightly. A slow creeping dread began to walk down Leonardo's back. He felt a riot of emotions burn and wash through him. She loved them all. Michelangelo and Donatello didn't seem too surprised which meant that either they already knew or suspected her true feelings. But Leonardo tried to come to grips with the realization that the woman he loved, loved all of his brothers as well. That she would never choose him and only him. He burned with jealousy just watching Michelangelo and Donatello touch her. She looked from him to Raphael as if sensing his jealous anger. She pulled away from Leonardo and took a step towards Raphael.

"Raphael told you about Soul Rooms. Every Soul Room is different, and manifests itself in a different way. No two Soul Rooms are alike. So my Soul Room is different than Raphael's."

"You were in Raphael's Soul Room?" Leonardo asked trying to turn his thoughts from his anger.

"I was able to access Raphael's Soul Room, and I will allow you access to mine because it is important for you to understand." She said as she turned. Raphael grabbed her arm and stopped her. She looked at Raphael questioningly "I want to see." He whispered. "I was tormented for so long, I want to see what you saw."

A red bound book appeared on the table. She looked at it and it opened. This time they were not transported into the memory, more it was like looking at a 3D image that projected itself from the book. A darkened dirty alley appeared. Raphael was bound with rope and suspended spread eagle between the two walls of the alley. Leonardo looked at the image in horror. One sai protruded from his heart the other was protruding from his right wrist. All of this was horrible on its own, but it was the sight of the Syna coiled around his brother's body choking the life out of him. Leonardo looked at his brother in horror. Raphael had paled. Goddess looked at Raphael with concern. "You defeated the Syna all by yourself. I cannot slay demons for you within your own mind Raphael."

"My Soul Room is a dark, dirty New York alley." He said voice emotionless. The book closed.

"Yes." Was all she said.

"It is gritty and dark and real, but..." he seemed a loss for words.

She looked at him. "You are no longer bound by your fear. Your sais no longer pierce you in failure, and the Syna no longer chokes your soul. Even during the darkest night, the sun eventually does rise again." She said with a smile.

She turned and led them to a door that had not been there a moment ago. She held out a hand to Raphael. He looked at it in surprise. He took it, then looked down at her. He brought her close to him and embraced her. "I am sorry I am so selfish." He said to her.

She looked at him a sad smile played around her lips. He let go of her but kept hold of her hand as if he couldn't bring himself to let go, even though he wanted to. She offered the other hand to Leonardo. He looked at it and looked at her. His emotions were rioting within him. Horror, sadness, anger, bitterness all warred within him as the goddess' story had unfolded in front of them. She had suffered so much and they had been bickering over her like a new toy that each one had wanted. They never knew that underneath all of the smiles and laughter there could be such pain. That someone could suffer so much and still be able to laugh, to smile, and give joy to others. But could he ever accept what she offered?

She looked at him worried. "Maybe I shouldn't show you." She whispered. She stepped back from the door. "I want you to understand why..." She broke off as the walls around them began to shake. She looked around and closed her eyes. The shaking stopped.

"What was that?" Michelangelo asked.

She looked at the door, a worried look quickly passed over her face. She tentatively reached out and opened the door. "If you wish to follow, you can, if you wish to stay here, I will understand. What I am about to show you..." She shook her head. She stepped through the door and they all followed. If she could watch the memory of her own death, then they could brave whatever was through that door.

On the other side of the door was darkness. There was a faint glow that radiated around the goddess. It looked as if they were walking through the passageway of a castle of some sort. They stopped outside an arched set of double doors. She pushed them open and they entered a dimly lit circular room. There was a wall of crystal in front of them. The left side ran with purples and blacks and gradually lightened, running instead with blues and lighter purples. A large wolf-tiger padded out from behind the crystal. As she walked she slowly changed shape until a naked woman stood beside Goddess. Her hair was a reddish brown that cascaded down her back in soft waves. Her complexion was more peaches and cream than the stark paleness of the goddess. "Hello Ryn." She said to her.

The other woman tipped her head to the side. "We are worried." She said. Goddess looked at her, a solemn look shared between the two women. "We understand." The woman said. She walked up to Goddess and put her arm around her waist. The two stood side by side. Ryn leaned her head against Goddess' shoulder.

They both looked at the brothers. It was then that Leonardo realized that the woman looked exactly like Goddess. If the goddess were a mortal human she would look like her. This is what she must have looked like mortal. Leonardo thought to himself.

He looked at his brothers in shock as they too slowly came to the realization. "Is she?"Leonardo asked.

Ryn tipped her head to the side. "We were just a Beast, but now we are more."

"When I was mortal I was infected by both a weretiger and werewolf. I fed both Beasts that were dying within me. I was too inhuman for the infection to take hold and I unknowingly took a piece of my soul and fed it to the Beasts. The two became one. Don't ask why I did this or about the cat and coyote, it is a tale too long to tell."

Ryn let go of Goddess and returned to her animal form. Sitting down on the floor she watched as Goddess walked around the crystal. As Leonardo neared the crystal he stepped in something warm and wet. He looked down at his foot and saw blood. He looked wildly around the room. He couldn't see past the crystal but he could just make out blood spatter on the roof. His brothers were also beginning to step in pools of blood. Leonardo's trepidation began to grow. There had been no blood in Raphael's soul room. Even with the sais plunged though his body, Raphael's soul had not bled.

The crystal formed a semi-circle around the room. In the very center of blood spattered room was Katherine's soul. Her soul looked like Ryn, but was clothed as she had been in her memory room, or at least what was left of her clothing. He had found the state of his brother's soul terrible, hers was horrifying.

Large silver hooks pierced and bound her flesh with silver chains to the floor. Blood ran freely from the eight hooks that bound her flesh. One hook went into each shoulder from the front. One hook bound each of her wrists from the back. And there were two hooks in each thigh binding her to the floor. The hooked chains were bad enough, but her soul itself was so badly damaged it hurt to look at. Her soul was a mass of blood and gore. Her face was battered and bloody, her chest had been ripped open, heart missing. Claw marks slashed through her torso, and the lower part of her body caught within the crystal was bloody.

His gaze moved from her soul to the crystal behind her. Cracks ran through the crystal, obscuring and distorting the view of the occupants sealed within. Here were the two goddesses she had talked about. On the left suspended within the darkened crystal was a woman who looked like an angel. Her blue eyes were partially closed, and she was breathtakingly beautiful. She wore silver and blue armour, with white feathered wings arching out behind her. Her white hair flowed around her like a delicate cloud. A lion-like tail encircled one of her legs.

His gaze shifted to the other goddess trapped within the light crystal. This one was the dark goddess. Raven black hair floated around a pale face, amber eyes half closed stared at nothing. Ram like horns curled through her hair, while dragon wings arched behind her. A webbed dragon like tail curled out behind her. Her legs were also like those of a dragon, and her hands resembled Katherine's gauntlets but made of flesh instead of leather and metal. The goddesses however had not been passive in being sealed within Katherine's mind. Both having been sealed made one last effort of claim her soul. The bottom half of Katherine's soul was trapped within the crystal. Each had tried to pull her into the crystal with them. Her soul was suspended between the two goddesses. Katherine's eyes were open but unseeing. The dark goddess' claws cut through the flesh of the arm she held, while the lighter goddess' grip was bruising the flesh beneath.

His gaze moved to a second set of black chains that bound Katherine's soul. The chains wrapped around the entirety of her body that was not bound in crystal and ended coiled around her throat. They gave off a malicious red glow and looked to be getting tighter, crushing her soul and choking the life from her.

"Meet Diemortia, goddess of dark magic and her counterpart Dielucere goddess of light magic. The black chains, are the demon's Binding." She touched the crystal. "I made a promise to myself that I could not die unless they stopped fighting." She whispered, almost as if she were talking more to herself than to them. She looked at her soul, then ran a clawed hand over a cracks in the crystal.

Leonardo walked over to where the goddess was standing within a pool of blood staring at her soul. As he watched the black chains encircling her soul tightened. Her eyes went blank and she fell.