Synopsis: Lexi wants to know how, Terri wants to know Why, but neither of them really wants to listen to what the other has to say. But in the end, something good will come of all this.
 

Terri could see the crude magic circles and drawings inscribed onto the floor in front of her where Lexi had chosen to cast the spell.

Though she could hear the wind whistling through the broken window panes, she couldn't feel it. It was at that point that Terri noticed she couldn't feel her own limbs either. Any attempt to move, even to just turn her head, was somehow rendered futile.

Sitting in the center of the circle was Lexi.

"We need to talk."

"What the hell did you do to me?" Terri sharply snapped. Her own voice startled her as it had taken on a distinct metallic tone accompanied by a distant ringing.

"I didn't want to take your whole body, I just borrowed your mind," was Lexi's reply. "It is harmless, if a little painful at first."

"Let me go!" Terri screamed. "You can't make me do anything!"

"By now they should be circling you and trying to figure out why you passed out," Lexi said. "When I release you, you'll get controlled which should restore the plan."

"DAMN YOU!" Terri screamed again. "I don't want to get raped!"

"I don't plan on letting you get raped," Lexi said. "Nethizar won't likely let it happen either."

"No, not now," Terri cried out in anguish. "When I go back in time and lose my hand."

Lexi looked up and Terri swore she was looking her directly in the eye. "That's what I summoned you here to find out. How do you know about your future? I know you had a nightmare about losing your hand."

Terri waited a few moments before answering, "You and I both know that it wasn't just a nightmare but since you're such a smart ass, why don't you just figure this out yourself."

"But how did you..." Lexi began to ask but was interrupted by Terri.

"I don't know how exactly it happened, but I stopped being a puppet in my last dream and got lots of useful information out of your mother."

"I wondered if that was the case," Lexi said. "No wonder you're scared of me. If you listened to my mother, you're just as much in the dark as to what's actually happening as she is."

"Bullshit!" Terri snapped back. "Do you have ANY idea what you're saying? I'm not stupid or completely brain-dead to know that you're lying to me!"

"I'm not lying to you, I'm lying to my mother."

"Same difference,"

"No, you're wrong. You AREN'T my mother and if you'll listen to me, you won't have to be. I'm trying to help you change your fate."

"YOU BIG FAT FUCKING LIAR!" Terri screamed out, her tinny voice ringing back in her ears.

"Terri please listen," Lexi said, anguish now present in her own voice.

"LET ME GO!" Terri screamed again.

"PLEASE MOMMY, I LOVE YOU!" Lexi cried out, tears forming in her eyes.

Terri was struck by what the little girl had done, the hatred draining out of her. Terri now wanted to cry herself, but her current prison prevented the act.

"Please listen Terri," Lexi choked out. "I didn't want to have to do that, but you wouldn't listen to me. Your mother knew that something inside you knew who I was since Saturday when we bonded in the park. She told me that if I couldn't make you listen, I needed to appeal to that side of you."

"Please let me go," Terri pleaded, this time in whimpering tones.

"You think I'm lying," Lexi said slowly, "but your old friend Jennifer and your mother both think I'm crazy. I really am trying to engineer myself out of existence, all under her nose."

"Why?" was all Terri could ask.

"Because I love You. I can't stand the fact that she started this out almost like you but, the decisions she made were all mistakes, one after another. I hate that she is dead but insists on hanging around so she can constantly remind me of how important I must be."

"Why would Grandma do that to you? I don't understand at all."

"Not, Agatha, My mother."

"Your mother isn't dead."

"On a technical level, she is. She died last year as a matter of fact."

"How is she still going?" Terri asked, temporarily forgetting about her current predicament.

"Mother now uses her plentiful mana to keep her body in a state of suspended decay. She waits for you to complete the cycle and then she'll let go and leave me in the care of your mother."

"And she expects me to go back in time and wait to get raped?"

"She has no idea you know about her past. You can't avoid what you don't know about, right? That's why I'm not supposed to be talking to you as her daughter, and why you shouldn't know about her at all."

"Knowing the future..." Began Terri.

"Changes the future," Lexi finished. "You know more about how it actually happened than I do. As long as you never forget, you'll know where not to be."

"Won't that kill you?" Terri asked.

"I will cease to ever have had existed actually and, though quite painless, now is not the time to be discussing past and present nevertenses."

"What do I need to do?"

"I have thought about that for as long as I've been aware of what you and I are," Lexi said. "And to that end I have meddled with events more than even Agatha, But you don't need to worry about details, you have only to await your rescue."

"It seems to me," Nethizar said as Terri blinked her eyes and realized she was back in her own body, in the chair she had been sitting in, "that now was a most inopportune time for your daughter to grab your mind, wouldn't you say?"

"Especially since I told you a few minutes ago that she hates me."

"There is that too," Nethizar added as he paced about in front of her. "Curiously makes me wonder if you were, in fact, telling me the truth."

"Actually it was a complete lie," Terri replied while trying not to show any fear, "though I wasn't aware of it at the time. I thought it was the truth."

She was trying to act composed while mentally trying to tell her symbiote suit to find a way to take whatever mana it needed by any means it could in order to protect her body even when she could not do it herself.

It tried to warn her, but she was still surprised when it wormed a part of itself up past her labia and into her vagina.

The shock of being penetrated gently as opposed to being stabbed by the suit caused her to momentarily flinch. What exactly did she think the suit would do to her?

Her musings were broken as she realized everyone was staring at her.

"Something wrong?" Nethizar asked calmly. "You had this incredibly strange look for a second. Did you just shit your pants?

"Not exactly," Terri answered with a blush. "Though I do have the urge to yell profanities directly at my own crotch."

"What a terrible time for feminine cramps," Nethizar replied. "I was going to allow you to retain your free will, but with all the new revelations I think I'll return to my original plan and control you directly."

Terri felt the fluid warmth of her suit shifting over her and she smiled.

"I guess the next time we'll speak is in Hell then," she said as she stared him down.

"Take her my boy!" Nethizar exclaimed in disgust as another man stepped out of the shadows and began weaving his spell.

The last thing Terri saw before her consciousness faded was her symbiote stretching over her face.

To be Continued....