Elizabeth had done plenty dangerous things across her life, she had said No when Mother asked her if she would clean her room at age 6.
She had jumped into Papa's motorcycle after he arrived one afternoon at age 4.
She had used a skill that almost killed her on the first day she got access to her System… She had not questioned the people living on her Soul…
She had forgiven the fourteen annoying brats that were roaming her Soulscape… Granted she couldn't do much about them at the moment, but if they caused problems Elizabeth was going to find a way to track them and exile them out of Terra Nexus…
Man that name needed work, or to grow on her. Elizabeth would stand behind being a good name though.
Either way, that hadn't been the end of Elizabeth's close brush with death, as if that wasn't all, she had been [Tainted] either by bad luck, because of [Nyctopaghia] or because something had happened beyond her control.
She needed to check on that later, maybe there had been some records somewhere about how that happened…
"Mistress, you are delaying." The voice of her newest minion resounded in her head.
It was a meaningless effort really, both Rossie and Rena had enough mastery over mana to know that Elizabeth had arrived at the living room. Rossie could probably smell her mana the moment she opened the portal here, and Rena…actually, she had never asked Rena what sense she used to feel mana.
Rossie used to smell, and Elizabeth used a combination of sight and taste. But Rena? Maybe also sight?
Elizabeth had increased her eye's power using Rena's Sin after all.
"Thank you Mordred," Elizabeth said aloud, her voice almost seemed to sound like a shout in the silence of her home.
It made Elizabeth wince.
So with that out of the way Elizabeth started walking up the stairs, she half wondered where they had gone to, her first instict was to turn left and walk to her room.
Her childhood room, the one she had woken up a day when she just turned fifteen, the day she was supposed to start her life at university. Instead, she ended up going to the MPI. Awakening dual powers, and start the series of events that lead her to this point in life.
Power thrumming through her body.
One extremely hot pink-haired girlfriend.
A wild-looking (And yet shy) girlfriend.
A whole planet resting within her Soul awaiting for her to take the first step towards Apotheosis.
An armada of undying souls awaiting her beck and call to start a second life, and fourteen…daughters? Grandaughters? What the heck were Beatrice's Valkyries to her anyway?
To the right…the guest rooms, her Papa's study, her Mother's library…and their bedroom; within that, two hushed voices speaking.
It felt…wrong.
She hadn't thought much about what she was going to do with her parent's bedroom, neither had she thought much about what to do about her former bedroom. Old Elizabeth's bedroom.
Her past life, her current life, the girl who dreamed of sleeping all day long and only waking up to eat and take hot showers.
Walking towards her parents' bedroom, Elizabeth wasn't sure what she was feeling. Was it melancholy? Dread? Sadness?
She wasn't sure.
"Welcome back Eli-Eli." Opening the door she found Rossie with puffed red eyes being hugged from the side by Rena.
Both girls had their blouses on, skirt(Rossie) and shorts (Rena) on, so at least they hadn't profaned her parent's bedroom witouth her, I mean. They hadn't profaned her house without her, I mean. They hadn't done good things. Yeah, that.
"Welcome Eli, is everything in order?" Rena asked after Rossie.
"Yeah, as much as it can, I tied some loose ends. And next ones will need some time more, I need to process these ones first." Elizabeth answered.
The silence stretched, and to be honest, she wasn't quite sure what to say or do, so Elizabeth just sat beside Rossie and intertwined her fingers with the pink-haired girl.
She decided to be there, no matter what happened next, Elizabeth would take it.
"Was…was there anything we could have done?" Rossie decided to ask.
Not if Elizabeth could have done anything differently.
Not if there was something that Elizabeth could have done to save Beatrice.
Not even if there was a way to solve this witouth having to Devour Beatrice.
No, she asked We, she was taking part of the blame too. Rossie was too good for Elizabeth.
"No," Elizabeth decided to answer with the truth she had found, "Everything was set in motion when I couldn't control my Pride and the…event happened."
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Elizabeth flexed some of her Authority, she remembered what Aura had done, projecting memories using Space. So she turned inwards towards one of the gems that stood in one of her Crowns. The Gem of Space.
Snapping her fingers like how so many people loved to do around her, she summoned a Memory of the land.
The moment that Elizabeth lost control over her Pride.
"This moment, this was what set everything in motion." Elizabeth could see herself lossing it, channeling more and more mana, she wasn't sure at what moment she had started shaking, but before she could notice it Rena was hugging her from the right and Rossie had rested her head against Elizabeth's shoulder.
"It wasn't your fault," Rossie said, giving a squish to her hand.
"We couldn't help it; no one could," Rena added too.
Right, this wasn't only her trauma.
She could see it too, Rossie's face filled with determination as she cried and crawled to Elizabeth, wanting to help her.
Rena's face crumbled into despair as she struggled to move, but was unable to fight against her Instincts.
And in the middle of it all, herself. Slowly losing herself in Pride.
"It was this moment that doomed it all," Elizabeth dismissed the projection, moving it to another one, a memory of Beatrice and Aura surrounded by the eggs of the Valkyrie Order. "And why Beatrice did what she did, she did a wonderful thing, you know."
The image showed Beatrice praying amidst the dragon eggs and the beautiful scene of them glowing as the fourteen girls had been born.
She hadn't seen the scene before, but now that she knew how Aura was doing it, asking for that memory was easy enough. She barely felt any pushback.
"She nurtured fourteen new lifes, they aren't minions. Not really, not summons or invocations, but honest to good New Life." Elizabeth could respect that, the effort the girl did. And the wonderful miracle that she achieved against all odds.
"I hate them," Rossie said from the side scowling at the image, "They raised their weapons against you Eli-Eli, they DARED attempt to kill you."
"...Have you decided what to do with them?" Rena asked from the side, even while her tone was soft, her eyes screamed of unhinged violence.
"They will serve as Rossie's new Royal Guard." Elizabeth answered.
"WHAT?!?!?" "WHY?!?!?!?!" Both girl's responses were fast, and to be honest, Elizabeth should have seen it coming.
"Elizabeth Starbright, I know you have some troubles in the head, but listen. Why on the seven hells would you even think of letting live those that would raise their arms against you? They know too much about you and your powers, you can't allow them to live." Rossie was the first to speak, slowly, methodically, cutely.
"I'm with her, they are too dangerous. I know you may feel bad about it, but not because they are alive means that you must let them live." Rena, on the other hand, was also cute and concise to the point.
"Besides, I already have a royal guard, didn't you assign me some Minions? I have no need for more." Rossie pointed out to one of the shadows in the room.
From there, Elizabeth felt the presence of one of the Royal Guards she had assigned to Rossie. It was quite surprising how Rossie was able to do that without mastery over shadows.
"I know both of you are right, but listen to me first, okay?" Elizabeth said summoning a shadow board. "This is the order of priority in orders."
Elizabeth drew on the board the names of people she knew.
-Elizabeth.
-Rossie & Rena.
-Aura.
-Nyx.
-Reginald.
-Mordred (New Shadow Minion).
-Shadow Haven.
-Shadow Dragons.
-Jenna (May put her higher later).
"Nothing weird so far, besides the fact that you got another girl as a servant," Rossie said from the side.
"It turned out that way. I wasn't planning on her being a woman until after I was done with her." Elizabeth said from the side, "And this the priority list I gave them to protect people."
The list then showed a change at the side.
-Rossie & Rena.
-Elizabeth.
-Everyone else.
"Simple enough right?" Elizabeth asked, getting a pair of nods from both girls. "Well, that is not the list they have."
Elizabeth wrote at the side of that short list a new one.
-Elizabeth.
-Shadow Haven.
-Rossie.
-Rena.
-Everyone Else.
"I see no problem there," Rossie said first.
"Same, I actually think it is better this way," Rena added.
"Of course, you two would say that!" Elizabeth shouted back, "I gave them instructions, very specific ones!"
Elizabeth pointed at the shadow that Rossie had before and pulled, a Royal Guard was pulled from the shadow and placed in front of the three girls, "Answer, what is the priority list you follow."
"This one, Mistress," The Royal Guard said, pointing to the last one.
"And what is the one I said specifically you should follow?" Elizabeth asked then.
"This one Mistress," The royal guard then pointed to the one that had Rossie and Rena at the top.
"And that is the problem," Elizabeth sighed, "I want you both protected, I know that Rena is a fighter by nature and that she will probably not accept extra protection."
"I will not," Rena said nodding, "I fight better at the forefront, I don't mind company, but I will not take guards, my skillset would be greatly hindered if I had ones."
…Elizabeth would still find a way to sneak some guards.
"But Rossie, love. You are a healer, you aren't supposed to be at the front, you are supposed to have our backs, we can't have our healers hurt or unguarded. And the fact that if I ever say 'To me my Royal guards!' means that any Shadow Dragon guarding you will leave you alone…I can't." Elizabeth shook her head, "On the other hand, while these showed hostile intent towards me…"
Elizabeth snapped her fingers and the image of the fourteen Valkyries came into view, how they stood in formation against both the Shadow Tide and Elizabeth. Not letting anything out and protecting Beatrice.
"They never wavered, and now they swore their allegiance to you Rossie, they are a group of guardians that will protect you even against me. Knowing they have no chance of defeating me, they still decided to stand tall." Elizabeth could respect that, the dedication to fight against impossible odds...
Besides…
"If you ever turn feral again…they will be able to defeat you and kill you." Rena pointed out.
"What?" Rossie turned narrowing her eyes at the image, "How? Even if they are based upon the Myth of dragon slaying, if they can't defeat Elizbeth now that she is willing to let them live. How are they supposed to defeat her when she has no intention of containing herself?"
"Simple, Elizabeth as is right now fights not with power and might. But with intelligence and finesse." Rena said analyzing the weapons of the Valkyrie girls, "If I had to guess…Elizabeth, consumed by Pride, fights with no thought, only might. Defeating an enemy that only knows how to rampage is among the easiest things in the world."
…Yeah, Elizabeth was actually on the same page.
"Besides, even if you don't like them now…You do need to think about something," Elizabeth didn't like what she was about to say, but…if it helped Rossie and Rena accept them, "They are the daughters born from Beatrice's desire to protect you against everything, they were born at the expense of her own life."
The image shifted once more to their birth, only now the image showed how Beatrice's Core had cracked, and how from those cracks fourteen threads of light linked the Valkyries to Beatrice.
"That's unfair Eli-Eli," Rossie sighed. "...very unfair."
"That is not all, they actually are born from my bloodline, as in my actual honest to good lifeblood it seems," Elizabeth snapped her fingers and showed the moment in which her dragon self had given Beatrice those fourteen drops of blood.
"...Hot." Elizabeth heard Rossie whisper that while the pink-haired girl bit her lips and her free hand lowered under the girl's skirt.
Elizabeth would not think about that at all.
"So yeah, they are technically part of me and part of Beatrice. You will not waste her efforts, right?" Elizabeth said turning to Rossie.
"... I'll accept them under a couple promises," Rossie sighed and turned to stare at Elizabeth.
"I'll make sure they listen to anything you want to say to them." Elizabeth said she doubted they would fight too much against Rossie. They were, after all, born to protect her.
"Not from them, from you Elizabeth." Rossie said without missing a beat.
"From me?" Elizabeth asked.
"Of course, I couldn't are less about what a group of ungrateful brats want to do," Rossie…really didn't pull any punches huh. "I want guarantees from you, I will settle my problems with them when they come."
"...okay?" Elizabeth was not sure what to say other than that.
"First, if they ever raise their weapon against you I will make sure that is the last thing they do, you are okay with that?" Rossie started simply enough.
"Only if I am conscious, if they do it while I am consumed by any Sin or am not in control of my mind, you gotta let them explain themselves," Elizabeth said back.
"....acceptable." Rossie mumbled back, "Second, if they don't apologize to you. They don't get to prowl around me, or your Shadow Haven."
…Rossie knew they had entered the Shadow Haven?
How?
"Of course I know they are in the Shadow Haven, how else could they send me this?" Rossie said, pulling an envelope from her jacket.
It read, "We apologize for not introducing ourselves before, if you wish to call upon us, please just send a pulse of mana into the Shadow Haven, we will come at once. Your loyal servant Sigrun." Elizabeth read it aloud.
Sigrun? So there were two names now besides Skuld huh. What kind of naming theme did Beatrice pick up?
Why were her names better?!?!?
"So, you called them?" Elizabeth asked.
"Of course not. If I summon them I will probably kill them right now...Even I know to not outright kill the last remaining thing my daughter left..." Rossie said in a small tone. "Third, I want...I want Beatrice back, this time I want her really to be our daughter, not something we played with."
So Elizabeth would need to rethink it seriously?
She had wanted to experiment a little more with some Doppelgangers before attempting to bring back the maid, of course after she finished finding a way to heal her Soul.
"Elizabeth, look at me." Rossie suddenly pulled at her hand and using both hands made Elizabeth's face stare directly at hers, "I.WANT.HER.TO.BE.MY.TRUE.DAUGHTER."
....But she wa-
"No, stop. Whatever you are about to think, throw it away," Rossie said again, what was she going about? "I want her to grow in my womb, to be nurtured by my body, to form a body using my flesh and blood. To be with me for nine months and then be birthed."
...Oh.
"I want her to have no doubt about what she means to me, I want her to grow as my real flesh and blood daughter, and I want you to love, cuddle, and pamper her. And to threaten with killing any kid, girl, man or woman that makes her cry." Rossie stared daggers at her, as if daring her to say no.
"....I..." Elizabeth had not seen that one coming, "Will do my best?"