Synopsis: The puzzle finally goes from linked pieces to a recognizable shape. Only a few pieces left and the clock is ticking...
 

Accidental Magic
Chapter Twenty-Four: Thunder Rolls
 
By Allystra Krane

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Accidental Magic
Chapter 24 - Thunder Rolls

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Terri was lying with her head turned to one side, when she opened one eye to see a large lumpy gray mass. As she moved she realized that the mass was the palm of her hand sitting only inches from her face. She sat up suddenly, only to find herself in an odd but familiar place.

She was sitting in a gray room that she estimated to be only eight foot on a side and about as tall. There were no doors or hatches and though it was dim, there was no source of light, but Terri did not fear this place.

This room existed only in her mind. A place He retreated to many times in the last eight years. The only place he could go to escape from the pain. It was this place he had found, though it reinforced his feelings of being alone, that he found some comfort.

The reason she had not recognized her own hand at first was the same reason that he used this place as an escape.

Although in this place Terri had form and thought and function, she had no sensation. Her eyes told her where she was and where her hands were, but she could not feel it.

It was a hollow way to be, devoid of sense of touch, but it now it seemed wrong somehow.

This was the first time since the change that Terri had come there, because at no time had she actually felt the need. No matter how foreign and different being in a female body had felt, no matter how angry or upset she had become those first two days, it had never driven her to hide inside herself.

Despite the strangeness that her life had become, she faced each day and each new revelation instead of running from it.

She had new friends that cared about her, willing to help through all the problems she had so far and were accepting of her as she now saw herself.

So it came to her surprise that she was once again looking at the bleak walls and featureless décor marking a time of her life that now felt so long ago, despite having been only days before.

Feeling only a tiny twinge of disorientation, Terri stood up and reached out to the forward wall, the one she knew brought her back into consciousness. But instead, as her finger tip touched the wall, she was instantly thrown backward, falling to her butt.

"So that's why I'm here," she said aloud to herself. "I guess I'll just sit here and wait."

Terri sensed something behind her, a force large and powerful. She turned to find the rear wall of her box was now missing, and the gaping darkness beyond held two massive, beastly slitted, glowing eyes.

Curiosity compelled her forward, despite the obvious danger.

Standing on the edge of the box and looking out as if it were a ledge, peering into the darkness, her eyes barely able to see it clearly.

With most of its body, legs, the back of its head and one arm cemented into to a wall behind it, only one arm was free to function though the crater in the rock gave evidence that this limited freedom was new at best.

"My you're big," Terri trailed off, giving the massive creature the once over. "Oh Crap!" she exclaimed as she thought it was making a move to grab her like King Kong to Fay Rae.

The free limb stretched forward, the giant scaled claw reached up into the box with its palm upward, as though it indicated peace, so instead of cowering back, Terri slowly climbed up into its palm and laid down, nestled in the crook between two of its monstrous digits.

"I get the impression that you are a part of me," Terri mused. "But why would you be all sealed up?"

---

Cathryn and Kristi landed in a field, this time stepping down gracefully as if desending stairs.

"I can't believe you left her!" Kristi exclaimed indignantly, turning toward Cathryn.

"No time to argue, drop some traps!" Cathryn snapped back, before muttering incantations and creating strange ripples through the topsoil before large, strange, lumbering creatures erupted from under the grass formed from the earth itself.

Kristi sent a barrage of small projectile spikes into the ground with a quick sweep of her hand.

"What do we do now?" Kristi said. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere in the Deep South," Cathryn said looking around as she motioned to her creations to move into a staggered formation. "Now get out your cell, find a tower and call Augustine."

---

Nethizar looked over his prize with both curiosity and intrigue. They had not been aware that Terri had a symbiote suit and now faced with a naked woman covered completely in a swirling, shifting mass of purple and black goo that had already attempted to bite off the hand that got near it.

"She let it inside her just before we took control," he said with a smile. "That would explain the strange look. Now its bonding directly to her skin so we can't even rip it off."

"We could torch it off!" exclaimed one woman, as she lit a bright burning flame in her hand and held it aloft.

"You've never read up on those symbiotes, have you?" Another man said. "They started off as mage armor back in the old days, worn under loose robes. Now that they bonded, you'll spend a ton more time and mana burning it off and end up taking her skin with it."

"Quite right," Nethizar nodded. "So please leave her alone, though when that sharp-toothed maw sprang from her crotch and tried to tear off your dick through your pants, I nearly pissed myself laughing."

"Very funny Dad," the man said. "I thought you said she would be my concubine."

"Nonsense Carl," Nethizar replied. "Go right ahead and pop her cherry my boy. Your disembowelment will be amusing too."

"I think I'd rather not," Carl meekly replied.

"Listen up fools!" Nethizar snapped loudly, turning his attention toward the rest of his group. "Our vortex is as brilliant as she is vicious. She never took full control of her suit, thus allowing it to maintain free will even while she herself is subjugated. To attempt to control a suit directly is something we don't have the time or patience to attempt, so just stay out of its reach for now, okay?"

"Is there anything we can do?" Carl asked his father.

"Deal with her yourself," Nethizar snapped. "I swear, you're a idiot."

"I can't get her to talk," Carl replied. "Its like she isn't even there."

Nethizar turned around and faced his son. "You can't even feel her trying to fight you?"

"Static Dad," Carl replied. "She moves when I say so, but its like I have to will each leg to move. I might have had an easier time if I had done a spirit possession!"

"Don't even think about it," Nethizar said. "You saw what she is capable of out her in this world. You go inside and she will tear you to ribbons."

---

In a darkened room where the heavy curtains protecting the slumbering man lying in bed from the streetlights, the quiet was suddenly broken by the sound of a telephone ringing.

A large burly arm, lightly covered in hair, reached out and took the reciever off the hook, bringing into the bed with him.

"Dah?"

"It's time Boris," came the reply on the other end.

"Augustine?" Boris asked in a thick Russian accent as he shifted in bed, sitting up. "Is that you?"

"It is time Boris," she said again. "It's time to finish what we left unfinished thirty years ago."

"Ugh, my head is swimming here woman! Do you have any idea how much I drank last night?"

"I don't really care," Augustine replied. "You swore you would be ready at a moments' notice."

"Are you saying?"

"I call upon the order of the twice doomed."

Boris's eyes were wide now. He wiped his face with his palm, now having understood exactly what she meant.

"Where and when?"

"One hour, the usual place."

"I'll take the rest of the EU, you call Xion Cho."

"Done," was all she said before hanging up.

Boris tapped the flash button before typing in an extremely long telephone number and waiting for the other end to pick up.

"Yes, hello," came the tired-sounding but polite voice on the other end.

"Marcus!" Boris exclaimed with forced vigor. "I have such wonderfully bad news!"

"Did you say bad?" the man answered back, wearily.

"I just got told," Boris answered, "it's thirty-year reunion in Budapest and Everyone is invited!"

There was silence on the other end for several moments as Boris let the message sink in.

"You... you don't mean?"

"Augustine has called the doomed to order. I suspect the rumors of a new, adult vortex were true after all."

"Who knows this?"

"I think Augustine called me first, so you would be third."

"Bloody hell, the usual place?"

"Indeed, see you in an hour. I have a few more calls to make."

"As do I," said Marcus as he hung up his end, leaving Boris holding the phone and asking aloud:

"Wonder what he meant by that?"

---

The light from four old ceiling lamps provided dim light to a concrete room with only one door leading into a stairwell leading up to street level. The door was open but as the hour was late, the street was empty and no noise filtered down into the room.

A few cardboard boxes stacked up irregularly around the room.

Augustine stood in the corner facing the door, watching and waiting, but she didn't have to wait long.

Teleporting in on the lower landing and stepping into the storage room came a dozen people all individually.

"Why did you call us here?" came the call among the ranks.

Augustine stepped forward. "I have called the Twice doomed to order. The enemy lives and we must now stand against him."

"Cut with the ornate Crap Augustine," said Boris. "The rumors of an adult vortex are indeed true?"

"They are," she responded. "She was sealed up until two weeks ago, so she has aged normally."

"Do we know this user's capabilities? Weaknesses?" asked a British sounding man.

"Yes Marcus," Agustine replied. "We know the scope of her abilities and her multiple weaknesses."

"Who is this woman then?" Marcus asked. "Would we know her?"

"Not her, but her bloodline," Augustine responded. "She is the Granddaughter of Agatha Winston!"

Shocked looks, curses and glares met her from almost every angle.

Marcus broke the mutterings with, "So were are they?"

"One of Terri's friends is locating her for us now."

"Then we have little time," Marcus said. "I have a few friends coming, they will be here any moment.

Boris looked at Augustine. "I brought everything, you said be ready and I am."

"Thank you," she said. "Does anyone else have 'friends' on their way to this secret meeting?"

The sound of feet racing down the steps confirmed this as Allyssa, Cindy and Kristi stumbling in through the door.

"We found her!" Allyssa exclaimed. "They are in a warehouse."

"Where at?" Augustine asked as a table rose up out of the floor and a map of the Hungarian capital city unrolled over its surface.

"Here," Allyssa indicated with finger.

"Show that building," Augustine snapped and the map changed to a blank blueprint sheet that quickly began drawing walls and indents for doors and windows all by itself. It even showing the second floor off to one side.

"Does that look like the place," Augustine asked Allyssa.

"It was dark, but yeah," said Cindy just as several dozen men wielding various western and asian-style swords entered the room.

"Who are you?"

The men had separated into two groups that seemed to follow race and culture lines. One group was composed of Asian men in loose-fitting gauze tunics, their swords sheathed at the waist, while the second group wore pressed suits and carried their swords, pointed downward, carried by the haft openly in front of them.

One man of the Caucasian group stepped forward and identified himself as their leader.

"Her Royal Majesty's White Knights at your command," he said as he dropped to one knee and bowed, while leaning on his sword that he had braced point-first into the floor in front of him.

"Why are you here?"

"I called in a favor," Marcus said as he stepped into Augustine's field or view. "More specifically, Agatha Winston Asked me to call in a favor for her."

"When?" Augustine snapped.

"The letter arrived in the post yesterday morning," Marcus said. "It seemed that they lost it for over ten years."

"A likely story," Augustine replied with sarcasm.

"Then who are they?" Cindy asked, motioning toward the other group, whose members were, except for one in the front, carried Japanese-style swords.

"Those are the Knights of the East," Kristi replied frankly. "The Japanese Shadow Emperor's own elite force."

"What are they doing here?"

"Because Agatha just 'happened' to save the Emperor's life once," Augustine remarked. "With what we know now, I hardly could call it a coincidence."

"We are here to repay a debt of honor," came the voice of the man who held no sword. "We have a technique that should give us the upper hand."

As he finished speaking, the man to his right withdrew his sword from the sheath and held the blade in front of the unarmed man who began a chant.

Before the eyes of the assembled group, wispy threads of maroon-tinted mana flowed off his hands and began adhering to the blade like cotton candy.

Brilliantly lit runes then appeared along the blade's length and the threads were drawn to the blade's sharp edge, weaving themselves into a dense but thin coating.

"Unbelieveable!" Allyssa cried out.

"That was awesome!" Cindy remarked loudly.

"We believe," the Asian man continued, "that this should improve our physical attacks against their shield walls."

"You have enough mana to do that to your entire group?"

The Eastern knight nodded and opened his shirt to reveal ammunition belts crossing his chest stuffed with glowing blue gem-like shards.

"Improved mana stones," Allyssa remarked out loud while everyone else nodded silently. "Very nice."

Cindy had taken up a position standing near one of the British Royal Knights in order to watch what happened.

She turned toward the knight and commented, "Like a hot knife through butter huh? You guys are gunna kick Ass!"

The lead Royal Knight shook his head as he turned toward the Asian knights to watch as the unarmed man drew the mana off the sword and reclaim it. "Sorry to disappoint you miss," he said. "But we don't have that capacity."

Cindy growled a moment before reaching and lifting his blade into a horizontal position.

Heads turned in sheer amazement as Cindy mimicked the actions and soft words she had heard, causing the runes on his blade to light up, the wispy mana collected and formed along the edge.

"There!" Cindy said, before wiping her brow. "That was tiring. I didn't think that would take so much out of me."

She then noticed the astonished look she was being given by the Royal Knights and turned to realize that most of the group was staring at her.

"What the FUCK!?!" screeched Allyssa. "Cindy, how the hell did you do that?"

"Did I do something wrong?" Cindy asked meekly.

"My Lady," The leader of the Royal Knights began, "Forgive me for not recognizing your Brillance. Would you bless as many of us like this as possible?"

"Uhm, sure..." Cindy responded while she spun around, looking at the faces staring dumbfounded back at her. "But I don't understand why everyone is looking at me!"

Augustine stepped over and put her hands on Cindy's shoulders and directed the shorter girl to look at her.

"Cindy, there are only two people in this room capable of what you just did and I doubt anyone else on this side of the Planet who can see a spell cast just once and duplicate it. Any doubts that I had of you being a random addition to Agatha's equation here have just been crushed into oblivion."

"What are you talking about?" Cindy asked.

"You know how Allyssa is special because she can heal like few others?" Augustine asked.

"And now barely able to do anything else," Allyssa said. "I have difficultly with even the most basic tier arcane magic. I can't even teleport myself anymore."

"Even so," Augustine interrupted, "Your spirit magic is a boon that we will desperately need."

Augustine turned back to Cindy. "Manifesting Mana in solid form is a rare ability, one that Agatha obviously knew you had. We commonly refer to solid mana as Plasma and those who can make those objects are Plasma Elementalists."

"Without Terri opening your mana pathways, you would not have any abilities, so you have Agatha to thank for including you in this hare-brained plan of hers."

"Oh my gawd!" Cindy burst out. "You mean that Terri's grandma made us aware of Terri because we had special talents she could exploit?"

"Actually," came a new voice from the doorway as Lexi walked in and made a beeline straight for Augustine and Cindy, "Agatha didn't make any of you aware of Terri. I did that myself."

Augustine turned her attention to the four-year old who was strolling toward her. "How did you get here? Who brought you?"

"I brought myself," Lexi calmly replied. I need to be here."

"What makes you think that?" asked one of the assembled group.

Lexi chose her words carefully, letting the pause create the desired effect.

"I am... The Custodian,"

---

Meanwhile, Terri was sitting inside her mental room, sprawled out on the floor with her eyes closed.

"Gawd, I forgot how boring it was in here."

She heard her scaled friend snort in agreement.

"I wonder if anything interesting is going on?"

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