Simone smirked a bit as Xeik asked the important question, “The Guide happened. It wasn’t the real me so to speak. You are aware that Lewis and I share something called Resonance. It’s the compatibility of two souls. Even when I was like Damsel I was still compatible with Lewis. The more time we spent together the more we linked. Once the dream dive happened Lewis being around the Guide awakened the Resonance link. As for Angela. She’s the one who bound us together.”

“Bound you together?” Assassin and Edge said. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Simone sighed a bit as she moved her hair and turned around to show her back. The glowing tattoo that ran all down her back. Lewis pulled up his shirt showing his. “This is Resonance. The tattoo that binds the two of us as one. Lewis and Simone no longer exist as two people. This is the price Lewis paid to have me.”

“So I did it,” Snow answered.

“Yes, you killed me. You took me to Virens and killed me after we watched the sunrise together. It was the very last thing I wished for,” Simone nodded. “I found death boring and gods know you can’t take care of yourself without me though.” Simone put her hands on her hips. “Angela is the Goddess of Love and Life. She is our benefactor. When Xeik was down on his luck and tried to have Lewis kill him… Lewis dumped Xeik on Angela and that’s how Xeik became her right hand man.” Simone shrugged at Xeik.

“So, from the sounds of it Xeik and Lewis don’t get along…” Mia pointed at the younger forms of them.

Simone made a face, “Anyone says anything vulgar and I’ll kill you.” The energy swarmed in the room and the twins showed up.

“Mommy! Daddy!” Lila and Janus were crying as they ran over to their parents. “We’re so sorry!”

“Shh,” Simone picked up Janus as Lila clung to Lewis. “You couldn’t control it.” She kissed Janus’s tears away. “It’s a lot of power for two small kids like you to have. You shouldn’t be here though. It’s dangerous.”

“We wanted to come to see you with the resonance before Grandma Ang turned it off!” Lila seemed to understand what was happening. “We don’t want her to though.” She frowned up at Lewis. “Can’t we just fix it, Daddy?”

Front he corner, Innocent and Mouse stared at the twins that had just arrived. At a glance, it was almost as if they were seeing clones of themselves, though with the wrong hair color. That alone was fascinating to them, and each of them carefully watched. It was almost cute…

Edge started to say something, but a look from Xeik made him stop. Perhaps this wasn't the best time to antagonize the true forms of Lewis and Simone.

“Unfortunately,” Lewis said as he picked his daughter up, “This isn’t something that can be fixed, even by Lady Angela.” His smile shocked most of the Lewis’ and half of the Simone’s. The genuine happiness he felt when he interacted with his children was something that the younger Lewis’ didn’t think was even possible.

Lila huffed, “I best we could do it if we tried hard enough.”

“I’m going to miss Momma,” Janus sniffed. “I’ll miss knowing where you two are all the time. We’ll be so lonely!”

“You’ll be fine,” Lewis replied as he ruffled Janus’ hair. “You’ve got to learn to be independent. Spread your wings, so to speak.” The fact that they were night phoenixes was not lost on him, and he wondered if he should have chosen his words more carefully.

Simone held the five-year-old in her arms and chuckled, “You are starting to be too big for me to do this~”

Janus pouted up at her, “I can ask Grandma Ang to turn me younger!”

“No,” Simone shook her head, “as much as I would love that… Your father wants to see what you’ll do when you get bigger.” She smiled at Lewis as they huddled together and Simone kissed Lila’s forehead. “You know what though?”

“What?!” The twins got excited as they looked at their parents.

“You’ll always be able to find us. Just go bother your Uncle Xeik… Or look around the castle. We are NEVER going to go anywhere without you kids knowing. Have we ever done that before?”

The kids shook their heads, “No.”

“Then why would we start? I’ll tell you what… Until you get used to the Resonance being cut Mommy and Daddy can leave their door unlocked for you. You can come get in bed with us… BUT only if you knock first okay?”

The twins nodded and clung to them, “We promise to knock.”

Lila spoke up first, “Because Daddy likes Mommy’s butt too much.”

“Yes, yes,” Simone laughed and she kissed both of the twins.

“Can Remy and Damond get in bed with us too?” The twins asked.

“They are too young just yet… Let them get a bit older where it won’t be dangerous and you can… You understand right? That they aren’t big enough… They aren’t like you two who were so smart,” Simone reassured them both.

“Who are they?” Janus gave the Lewis’s a look. “I got enough Daddy with just mine. I can’t have all of them here.”

Simone smirked, “Oh?”

“It’s bad enough I gotta share MY mommy with Daddy,” Janus gave them a death stare. “Can we get rid of them?” Janus looked at Lila who was going to nod her head but Simone gave them a stern look.

Xeik sat back and watched the Terrowin family with a smile on his face. Through all of this, he was starting to miss Myrri. The look on his face must have given his feelings away, cause Mia hugged him from behind, and gave a tight squeeze. She was missing her baby boy too.

Lewis let Lila down, and smirked as he looked over at the other Lewis’ and Simone’s. “No, you can’t hurt them. They're from our past. They’re like..echoes. They’re who we used to be.”

Janus pointed towards Edge, “He looks cool.”

“You would like that,” Lila responded with a grin. “Gotta be all serious all the time!”

“I do not!” Janus shot back with a frumpy face.

“Only thing you’re serious about is naps,” Lewis said with a laugh.

Assassin rolled his eyes, “It would seem that we’re quite relaxed in the future. I bet he’s not even paying attention…” He started to reach for a dagger for a ‘test’, but paused when he realized there was a young boy now staring at him, his dagger in hand.

“Wow, cool!” Janus said as he looked at the dagger. “Daddy! He was gonna pull this! I felt it!”

“Good job,” Lewis replied with a smirk. “I bet he didn’t even see you coming…”

Lila looked at the dagger with him, “Were you going to hurt us? Or were you going to try to hurt Daddy?” Her eyes darkened and she was giving Assassin one of the deadliest looks Lewis had.

“Lila, what did we say?” Simone spoke up. “Even without the resonance, I’ll have you two know that I’m on point when you kids act up.”

“THAT’S BECAUSE YOU HAVE EYES IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD AND IT ISN’T FAIR!” Lila yelled as she threw her hands up. “Fun killer.”

Mouse and Innocent came over to look at them. They were mirrors of each other almost. “We look alike!” Innocent shouted before covering her mouth.

“Yeah… It’s like a funny mirror,” Mouse whispered.

“That’s because Janus and Lila were born from our Resonance. They are split of our emotions and looks. They weren’t born normally as I said before,” Simone came over and pet Janus’s hair.

Assassin went for another dagger and Lila held her hand up as his hand caught fire, “You should behave.” Lila shot him a death stare. “We do see you.”

Simone sighed a bit and kissed the kids some more, “You two should go so Grandma Ang can work more.”

Janus and Lila nodded and hugged Simone before running over and hugging Lewis. “We love you so much!”

Simone wasn’t looking at them but she was tearing up, “We love you too. We’ll see you when we get home okay?” The twins nodded but once they were gone Simone lost the strength in her legs and started to cry. This was a type of heartbreak similar to when they lost the ability to have children like the twins.

Lewis was on Simone in an instant, pulling her into a loving embrace as she started to cry into his shoulder. “It’s okay, Simone. This is for the best. They’ll be fine. We’ll be fine…” He was stroking her back.

Assassin seemed to back off at this, unsure of how to accurately handle the situation at hand. There was far too much going on for him to make a move now, and it was pretty damning that a child could see his moves. He felt…defeated.

Xeik looked around, and smiled. “It’ll be over soon. I think Angela is starting to make good progress. I can feel the energy in this place…it’s more vibrant. The feedback loop is fading. We’ll be gone soon enough.” He looked to Mia. “And then we can get back to our baby.” He was a little sad that he wouldn’t be able to hear Mia’s voice, but he wondered if that mattered as much. Sure, her voice was amazing, but…he had her. His Mia.

Lewis nodded, “Close to home. Then we can go give all of the children the love they deserve, right? Surrounded by our cherished children…”

Simone snuggled into Lewis and gave a sad smile before nodded, “Please don’t let them fly. I can’t believe you told them to spread their wings. What were you thinking? What if they try to jump off the top of the castle now? That sounds very Lila… Not Janus.” A lecture made her laugh but still, the tears were still going and it took a moment to clear her eyes.

Mia smiled at Xeik and held his hand, “I miss Myrri too.”

Mone snuggled into Lewis and sighed as she put her head into his neck, “Those little trouble makers are going to be too much for the world…” She looked over at Assassin and gave him a smile, “It doesn’t shock me that the twins knew what you were going to do. After all, they can borrow our experience so Janus and Lila could probably in some way connect to the way you are thinking. Lila likes beating Xeik in chess.”

Mia chuckles, “Xeik spends hours researching new chess moves but Lila always learns them just from watching. He’s only beat her about five times since she was three.”

“The twins are terrifyingly smart but they are still children. You can tell by how much they need us and snuggles. Though they don’t snuggle as much as they used to.”

“That doesn’t mean that you need to go find more kids,” Mia teased.

“You know very well we don’t find them… They find us.” Simone smirked.

“Who are Remy and Damond?” Mouse asked.

“They are our second set of biological children,” Simone booped Mouse’s nose. “Regular babies not like Janus and Lila. They have my black hair, your shaggy hair type, and your eyes~”

“They have Simone’s nose though,” Lewis spoke up. “Before she says they don’t look like her.” Simone just smirked though.

“They are three months old. You should have seen yourself Mouse. When Lewis found out that I was pregnant he wouldn’t let me get out of bed. The babies weren’t even bigger than your fingertip. I had to beg Xeik to come negotiate. Lewis declared war on all the things he thought were bad for pregnant women,” Simone smirked more and Mouse giggled. “Lewis the Tyrant.”

“I am not a tyrant,” Lewis said proudly. “I was just concerned. I had to make sure everything went perfect.”

“You were a tyrant,” Xeik said as he and Mia approached them. “I can vouch for that. Calling me at all hours for the slightest hiccup…”

“She could have been dying,” Lewis replied quickly. “I had no way of knowing.”

“You’re quite literally connected. I’m pretty sure you would have known.” The Divine Mender smirked. “Though…that connection also meant you got to experience the joys of birth yourself.”

Lewis paled for a moment. “We don’t talk about that.”

“My exact words, Lewis,” Xeik started with a sadistic smile. “Was that I would not tell another soul. And technically, Lewis, these other aspects of yourself are the same soul.”

“I hate you, sometimes…” Lewis replied with a dark look.

“I’ve never heard a man cry so much…”

“Xeik is finally getting to have his moment…” Simone smiled and laughed.

“I did not cry. There’s no way,” Snow answered.

“He screamed for Simone to have pain medication so he didn’t have to feel,” Xeik replied. “And Simone wasn’t screaming in pain. Women are amazing.”

“When did I get this dark sense of humor,” the younger Xeik said with a frown. “I even hurt others.”

“…You need to meet Angela… The Mother of All… She is a fucking sadist,” Simone frowned. “Just like Xeik.”

For a moment, there was silence and then power filled the room as Angela appeared behind Xeik. “Xeik!!!!!” Angela yelled as she grabbed his cheeks from behind and started to pull on them. “It’s going to be a bit longer. I hope that’s okay. I got you two stabilized. The twos are going to take a while because they are delicate and if I mess up you’ll kill Xeik.”

“…Why not you?” Simone made a face.

“Immortal. Xeik would hurt me more. All that time I spent on him forging him into a scalpel. Lost,” Angela made a joke like she only cared he learned her skills. “Isn’t that right my precious little Divine Mender?” Angela began to assault Xeik. “Raine is drawing on your face. I can’t stop her while I’m trying to do this. I think she is using henna… Which means its not going away any time soon.”

At the mention of Raine drawing on his face, Xeik glared at Angela. “Oh…okay. That’s fine.” He looked to Lewis. “I have a target for this year’s prank. I’ll pay you…”

Lewis grinned, “I bet you will. Let’s just get out of this situation first, and we can talk details.”

Xeik rolled his eyes, still trying to fight off his pervy Goddess. “Do you MIND!? I’m trying to have a serious conversation here.”

“Angela,” Lewis asked. “How much longer are we talking? We’ve got a relative peace settled here, but the younger me’s are a bit…feisty.”

“That’s an understatement.” Xeik said as he shoved Angela off of him for the fourth time. “So what else is there to do? Anything I need to help with, Miss Goddess.” He was being snarky with her, as she was being highly unprofessional. Not that she ever was when it came to him or the Terrowin family.