Accidental Magic
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Feedback Loop
 
By Allystra Krane

---

Amid the rubble that had, only an hour earlier, been an abandoned warehouse stood several dozen people, centered around an unconscious young woman who's head lay cradled in the lap of another.

Augustine looked over the situation. She could see the upper half of Nethazar's remains sprawled out over the ground, his legs crushed under a large piece of the ceiling. "Its a good thing he was already dead," she thought to herself.

Cindy had helped Allyssa roll Terri over so she wouldn't be lying in her own sick. Terri's hair surprised most as literally nothing stuck to it and, even unconscious, repelled the settling dust and any of her vomit that tried to hang on for the ride.

"What was that?" Cindy asked. "I saw this giant red glowing monster in here just as the building went down."

"Of fang, of beak, of scale and claw," Boris began to chant; his words like a morbid nursery rhyme "of wing and fury, its crimson breath will ablate all."

"A Dragon!" Cindy exclaimed. "Here?"

"Terry Was the dragon," Augustine replied. "or formed one around herself. But she didn't even seem to be aware she had done it."

"The Winston Blood was thick with dragons," Marcus idly commented. "I guess we have a new phenomenon to explain later."

"She's got dragon blood!" Cindy again squeaked out in exclamation.

"As do I," Augustine retorted. "Almost everyone here can trace their lineage back to a dragon or two. I've got five in my family tree and it shows in my temper."

"I thought they were a myth," was Cindy's next comment.

"You think the modern age was the first to discover Dinosaur bones?" Marcus snapped back.

"Whoa whoa," Cindy said. "Dragons, now dinosaurs? You going to tell me that medieval wizards 'Made' dragons from dug up dino bones?"

"More or less," Allyssa explained. "Now that you're part of the 'Club' we should get you reading about the history that the rest of the world was made to forget."

"But how did dragons..." Cindy began but was interrupted by Marcus.

"The sun is starting to rise and we still need to investigate that hill where that blast came from."

"Forget the hill," said Augustine. "Clean up here. We don't need to see that hill. The custodian told me who did it."

"Where is Lexi anyway?" Cindy asked.

Augustine kicked a pile of dust at her feet. "Clever girl had a golem in her stead during the battle. But she let slip that her mother was responsible for the blast from that hill. But to wield that kind of power, takes the ability to draw that power first."

"Ladies and gentlemen of the twice Doomed," Augustine called out as she turned to face those around her, "The worst may not yet be over. We have another vortex."

She turned back to look at the unconscious Terri. "...and deep inside me is sure that they are one and the same."

---

(Only moments before)

Terri had never felt so alive, her body cradled in the belly of the beast but her spirit could feel the concrete crunching under the massive limbs and her tail swinging back and forth as the creature made entirely of elemental plasma, a substance comprised of liquid mana woven seemingly from the ether, began its assault on the man who was trying to control her.

His voice urging her to stop echoed through her head but it was overshadowed and lost in the depths of her psyche like a single crying child in a basement building during the London bombings of World War two, too much noise made it impossible to understand.

The beast had been unleashed, a terrible creature that had strained and struggled in vain against bonds it could not break until its captor released it, knowing that the struggle itself had strengthened it beyond all reasonable proportions.

Terri had willingly submitted to it and even the greatest mental control powers could not stop a dragon fueled by pure rage, much less the man who sought to stop her.

Then the other blast stuck her target, a purposeful discharge of massive power who's energy signature even the beast recognized instantly.

The dragon could not understand that Terri had no twin sister but knowing that someone else as powerful and determined also wanted her enemy gone, only added more fuel to the already impressive fire and its own assault renewed with fierce vigor.

The flash and explosion as Carl's body was crushed beneath its own protection threw Terri back and she quickly righted herself and charged back in, mad for having been struck at all.

She could not find the man, but she spotted Lexi and Augustine through the smoke, the energy of the two large crystals floating in front of them giving them away.

No longer caring, only wanting to harm someone, Terri charged directly toward them, Drawing in air for another blast from her enormous maw.

However, Lexi's words rang through her ears clear as a bell, and all the rage and hate dissipated like an afternoon mist and Terri could no longer hold herself together.

It suddenly felt as though her head was severed but instead of not registering her body, she couldn't see or feel her head for a moment as her senses momentarily switched back to her own body.

The extreme vertigo as the dragon disassembled itself piece by piece brought Terri back to consciousness on her hands and knees just in time to see Lexi's face full of love and concern, only for Terri's stomach to upturn and her brain to lose the fight to stay awake and she blacked out as she saw her own puddle of sick getting closer.

---

Terri found herself in a a seemingly endless white space again.

"Oh great," She muttered as she stood up. "Just in time to fall into my own vomit. I don't wanna die like half the musicians from the seventies!"

"Don't worry," came a eerily familiar voice from behind her. "Allyssa and Cindy are rolling you over. You'll be fine."

Terri turned around to see a near perfect doppleganger of herself with a friendly smile on her face.

"Who are you?" Terri asked. "Another fragment of my personality here to point out how much of a mental case I am?"

The other Terri held up her left arm, and the hand faded, leaving a stump, only to return a moment later.

"I'm not one of Your personalities," she answered as the realization struck Terri. "You may call me 'Mother.'"

Terri's hands were around the other's throat in a flash, only to have her hands gently removed by another pair taking a hold of her wrists and holding her as the other backed away.

"You'll find that neither of us can hurt each other here," Lexi's Mother calmly announced. "I'm here to talk with you."

"I thought I beat you," Terri snapped.

"I will explain," Lexi's mother said, "but there is a comfy chair behind you. You want to sit down so we can talk like two civilized adults?"

"But but but..." Stammered Terri. She was unable to understand what had just happened. She turned around and there was, just as promised, a very plush-looking chair. She numbly turned around and sat down, only to see her doppleganger lounging in another chair directly across from her only a few feet away.

"Calm down sweetie," Lexi's mother said. "I just want to talk with you."

Terri just sat there, her eyes as wide as her open mouth. "I thought I beat you! Didn't I beat you?"

"Emphasis on 'Thought' because that is exactly what you needed to think."

"Why did you let me think that?" Terri asked. "I'm so confused right now."

"That's to be expected, but it is also the reason why I'm here talking to you. Ask me any question and I'll answer it."

"Do I really get pregnant with Lexi?"

"No, I did. You have had a different set of experiences and some of the knowledge of what I did wrong. That practically makes us different people."

"Except that I feel like I'm looking in a mirror," Terri said, "without the evil grin of course."

"Would it help things if you called me 'Mother?'" She replied. "I did offer a few moments ago."

"Mother?" Terri snapped back. "Please don't tell me I give birth to myself."

"Lexi has known who you were relative to me before she could even talk," Mother said, closing her eyes and letting the smile fall from her face. "She has never once called me by name, possibly to shield herself from acknowledging that a version of you grew up into me."

"I'm suddenly warming up to 'Mother' after all," Terri said. "Because I'm just as desperate to make sure I don't become you either."

"Then you and I are in agreement," Mother replied. " I want you to learn from my mistakes And my triumphs."

"But what about knowing the future changes the future and all that?" Terri implored.

"Clues Terri," replied Mother again. "It was a clue. You recognized it and took action, which was to beat me up. Admittedly it was a farce but you needed to think otherwise at the time."

"For the last few days, your thoughts have been open to me and when you started to seriously consider infiltrating the other side, I knew you needed a push in that direction. Then you would have, and did in fact, learned Lexi had already beaten you to that end."

"She then wanted to know why you did what you did, which is why I had to convince you that you had the drop on me."

"But why?" Terri asked. "Why are you going over her head? Wouldn't it work better if you two were on the same page?"

"But we aren't on the same page," Mother replied. "Not on every issue anyway."

"Tell me something Terri," she asked solemnly. "If I knew of a way that Lexi would safely survive the paradox wave crashing and exist on the other side, would you love her as your own? Give her everything I couldn't?"

There was no hesitation in Terri's voice. "Of course."

Instead of continuing, her eyes closed tightly again and she wrapped her arms around herself. "I have searched for years in vain. There is only one way to survive a paradox and I can't and won't ask you to do that."

"I'm confused."

"You have seen what I've been through and you know that I am as close to death as utterly possible and you think that I Want It This Way? I could not and will not ask you to willingly be assulted and shot in an alleyway in Nevada for my own personal behalf."

"Lexi said..."

"Lexi has no idea we are still talking nor is she aware of my true intentions. She takes risks that she otherwise would have avoided if she planned to survive."

"Why do you hide?"

"Lexi is more precious to me than anything else. I would do anything if it meant that she would continue on past the paradox, but the decision is no longer mine to make."

"Can I ask you a question?" Terri asked, hesitantly and without confidence. "Does Lexi know you love her?"

"I haven't been there for her as much as I should," came the reply. "It wouldn't matter anyway. Our mother treats her better than I ever did."

"When I became a pregnant woman, did I join the club where I became unable to answer simple questions?" Terri snapped. "Let me try this again. Have you told Lexi how much you Love her?"

"No, I haven't!" Mother snapped back. "Are you happy?"

"You keep away from her!" Came another voice. "You have no right!"

Terri looked around Mother to see two more versions of herself slowly walking toward them.

One male and one female Terri walking somewhat jerkily toward her.

"Who the heck are you?" Terri asked.

"Terri, meet the chorus," Mother said with a wave of her hand. "I didn't realize that they had also made the trip from my head to yours, but since it happened to me, I'm not exactly surprised.

"Looks more like a duet to me," Terri idly commented. "Just curious why they are walking like they are storing ears of corn..."

"Ahh, well that is because those two are actually each a chorus of hundreds of voices that have condensed themselves down to just remembering what mistakes they have made. They all have to agree if they want to get anything done, but because 'we' have never been very logical or concise, they are like robots running off old 286 processors."

"Hundreds?" Terri asked, confused. "How fragmented am I?"

"You misunderstand," Lexi's mother said. "They are all the result of failed time loops, as am I. I'm trying to make sure you don't doom yourself to repeat this also."

"How many times have 'We' done this?"

"We do not have an answer," replied the chorus in unison after a moment. "We cannot... count our individuals as we now are."

"Holy CRAP!" Terri cried out as she buried her head into her hands. "I'm so doomed."

Mother shook her head. "Only, and especially, if you listen to these idiots. They thought I would be the one to break the cycle, but instead I made most of the biggest mistakes. But you can learn from me. Because even through all that, I have not lived my life completely in vain."

"How you figure?" Terri asked with a muffle, her face still covered by her hands.

"It's because I figured out the First Mistake," replied the woman.

Both sets of eyes on the chorus turned to look at Mother.

"That's right bitches," Mother said with a smile but without ever turning to acknowledge them, "I figured it out. None of you got it, no matter how many times you kept going. That is all about to change."

"Terri" Mother began speaking directly to her again, "You must understand that in order to save yourself, you have to save the world first."

"Sounds like a bad Television plot."

"If you try to hide from the world like I did, you'll find you get bit on the Ass by bad luck and crazy."

"If you're crazy, why should I listen to you?"

"So you don't make my mistakes, so you don't make the first mistake."

"What is the first mistake?" Terri asked. "And why is it so important?"

"Since I learned about these two about the same time as you," Lexi's mother idly thumbed at the chorus, "I decided to spend time researching the subject of paradoxes."

"You Lie!" said the Male Chorus.

"You broke into Magical Libraries and stole books!" Screeched the female.

"Never left a trace until the one time I was caught in the act..."

"What happened?" Terri asked.

Lexi's mother held up her left arm, her hand once again replaced by a stump.

"Oh,"

"I wasn't thinking clearly at the time," she began. "I had spent the previous year in a cave in Brazil, living like a hermit and eating nuts and berries and whatever I could hunt. I had sworn off magic because the user world would pick it up and track me down."

"I had read all the books I had on the subject and was needing more. Little did I know, the poison from a spider bite I had received the week before was still coursing through my blood and affecting my judgement."

"I trekked twenty miles from my hideout to keep its location secret and then jumped to an archive of magic scrolls in Germany, or maybe Poland. Honestly I don't know or care and it really doesn't matter."

"Here I was, fever sweating and delusional, trying to break into a magically protected library."

"Suffice to say I set off alarms and got a whole group of people chasing after me all over the planet. I tried to lose them in the Desolace of Nevada and that is where the memory you saw of my losing my hand came from."

"When did you get pregnant with Lexi?" Terri asked

"Not long after," she replied. "I went to a nearby town, not sure which one, got my arm bandaged, but the poison was going to kill me, they had nothing to help me by that point."

"I was still weary from blood loss and the hallucinations were getting worse when I tried to leave the area and stumbled into the alley where..."

Terri watched with interest as her doppleganger closed her eyes once more and rested her forehead on her palm, her elbow braced on her thigh, unable to complete her narration.

"What happened After then?" Terri asked. "You got away didn't you?"

"After I lost control of my rage and somehow, by miracle, no one noticed a monster made from the aether smearing the skull and brains of those thugs across the alley walls..."

"Miracle?" Terri asked, glaring as skeptically as she felt.

"Shut up," 'Mother' said. "You might be mad at Grandma, but she loved me. Enough to try and change things to make My life better too, not just Yours."

"So what happened afterward?" Terri asked again, trying to return them on topic.

"You can already see the flowing lines of life force in a person," she replied. "Fairly certain its a side effect of being able to draw massive amounts of mana from everything around you. When you wake up you'll notice that Lexi improved on that process, using knowledge that I had to work for..."

"STEAL is more like it," the chorus rang out in unison, interrupting the explanation.

"Hush, You are all just sore because you didn't think of it first."

"Anyway, the doctors had restored some clarity to my mind, the medications I had received had slowly subsided the poisons effect long enough to see that I was growing a life inside me."

"How come your suit didn't protect you?" Terri asked. "Can spiders and snakes bite through the suit?"

"I've never had a symbiote," came Mother's reply. "Neither have any of them," she added with a motion toward the chorus. "None of us had Allyssa, nor did we have Cindy or Kristi or Cathryn to help us. Augustine only chose to help Me because of who I was but we had never met before that day."

"Lexi set Allyssa on the path to converge with yours because I could see her potential as a spirit caster and Cindy for her unique mind. I thought little of those two but she instead saw a chance and took the risk."

"Allyssa got you into Augustine's headlights and she had time to actually see you as a person. You showed her how determined and brave you were despite your handicap."

"So I've already changed my future?"

"A bit but the paradox won't kick in until you either go back, or stay here."

"Go back?" Terri asked. "As in back in time? Is that the first mistake?"

"No, without you Agatha will not have the power to shunt you as a baby. You actually have to go back and seal your younger self up in order to survive until now."

"So I Have to go back," Terri asked.

"If you want to have any chance of being here now you do."

"We also agree," added the chorus. "We will not, cannot survive as a child vortex."

"So not going back in time is the first mistake?" Terri asked, now confused. The more information she had, the harder it was to figure out what was happening or had happened.

"I recognize that face," said Mother seemingly able to deduce the confusion Terri was having.

"The first mistake is the point where the timeline diverges and all paths on either side of the divergence are so fundamentally different, that nothing can be accurately predicted before hand."

"If staying put versus going back were the first mistake, then we wouldn't be here."

"So what IS the first mistake?" Terri snapped. "You still haven't told me!"

"That's because you got some more information than any of us ever got. There is something you need to do when you go back, something so important and so drastic that the whole world will be affected."

---

Terri awoke quietly, her eyes opened and looked around without moving her head, tensing any muscle or even a change in her breathing. Years of constant pain served her well, allowing her to sleep without ever moving.

The room looked like a small bedroom used as an office in someone's home. She was draped over a comfortable, but worn, couch with her feet over the arm rest. It almost felt like home, even if it didn't smell quite right.

Legs shifted and dropped off the arm and she was sitting up with a practiced ease.

The door wasn't locked and she barely opened it before squeezing between it and the wall jam, shutting it as silently as she had opened it.

Her suit consumed her boots, leaving only a flexible covering on her legs and feet, much like a pair of tights, so she could creep along the hallway better.

The old house made no protest as her feet padded upon the carpet up against one wall, their owner precariously balancing along with great skill, placing one foot deftly and quickly in front of the other.

She peeked into a doorway with a single eye, finding it empty, she continued past.

The stairway at the end of the hall had a landing and turned halfway down the flight, forcing her to stop to contemplate it's corners.

Just as she was about to take another step however, a voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs.

"I've been the head of the council since you were eight, not to mention raising two children of my own. I have had practice making traps that were undetectable, so stop sneaking about and come down for breakfast."

Terri trudged down the steps with all the pouting of a small child having lost a game. Her boots having reformed as she lifted each foot in turn.

The stairway emptied directly into Augustine's kitchen where she was sliding eggs off a griddle onto plates with the help of an ordinary spatula.

Allyssa and Cindy were occupying chairs at the table in the adjoining room. They were already several forks into pancakes topped with whipped cream and berries.

When Terri saw this she pulled out an empty chair and plopped down into a position holding her chin up on her palm with her fingers curled over her lower lip.

"Nice to see you care about me," Terri commented idly. "I'll have some breakfast too if that's okay."

"You got more sleep than we did," Augustine said. "We're awake only because the mana link we made to you the other day is still active."

"Nice place you have," Terri commented. Augustine's home looked nothing like she imagained it would.

The high ceiling allowed space for decorations on top of the counters, to which Augustine had set an old milk can on either end flanking a row of painted plates resting against their stands.

The sitting room beyond had two large plush reclining chairs in front of a large picture window, one with an unfinished knitting project gently draped over the arm. The far wall had photos and an Americana-style art print.

This was very unlike the darkened, arcane style Terri had expected. No purple velvet on the walls; no bookshelves full of dusty tomes or cauldrons in giant fireplaces.

Noticing the photo on the wall of Augustine and her family taken a few years before, she nearly asked but stopped when she remembered what Susan Meyers from that bar told her just before she left on the world tour.

"Now that I think about it," Terri mentioned as she moved her arm for Augustine to set down a plate with eggs and pancakes for her, "I have no idea what day it is anymore."

"Saturday," responded Allyssa. "The school thought you skipped school until they saw your house on the news."

"So where am I, officially anyway?"

"Hospital," responded Augustine. "A Special clinic out of town. From the sound of things, this was a pretty regular occurrence."

Terri looked up so that their gaze met. She could feel the older woman's intensity through her expression alone.

"When Grandma sealed me up when I was a baby," Terri mused as she reached for the bowl of strawberries, "She goofed and I think it caused parts of me to become female. This side effect didn't really start playing havoc until puberty."

"I think I was more girl than boy and my body's cells were literally waging war with each other. It was quite painful, which I hope helps you understand my tolerance."

She took a bite, chewed then continued, "Living with a condition that made your skin feel like second-degree burns and that a dozen doctors over half a dozen states couldn't diagnose much less treat means that you miss lots of school in order to go see yet another doctor you need to explain your condition to."

Terri started into her food, unaware that Cindy and Allyssa had both stopped eating from what she had said.

After a few moments Terri looked up and smiled. "Get over yourselves," she said. "It's all better now. I'm healthy and only mildly emotionally disturbed."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Cindy meekly replied. "Dad really wants to see you again and I think you should go."

Terri kept smiling, the flavor of the strawberries seemed ever so much sweeter now as she slowed down to enjoy each bite. She just kept smiling as the contents of her plate slowly disappeared into her mouth.

Just as she raised the last dripping bite to her lips, she stopped and a worried look appeared on her face.

Augustine also suddenly turned to face the same wall that Terri was. "Who could that..."

"That would be Lexi," Terri said as she stood up, "and her mother."

"Its time," Came Lexi's voice from the top of the stairwell. "We cannot wait any longer."

Terri shot up the stairs as if her feet and posterior were on fire, leaving the others to ponder before they too took off after her.

Terri saw Lexi standing in the doorway of the room she had woke up in, at the other end of the hall.

"Here?"

"It must be here and now," Lexi replied. "Mother expended too much mana in Budapest and she will be unable to help you if we wait much longer."

Terri was now sliding past Lexi into the room, only marginally aware of what she had said. She wanted to truly see what she had become.

With diseased scalp exposed where half of her hair had simply fallen out and wearing a robe that Terri imagined she had stolen from a fourteenth-century Franciscan monk, probably to hide the worst of her affliction, stood 'Mother', the hideous thing that Terri herself had become. The greenish tint of her skin nearly glowed and Terri swore that one eye was already decayed and shriveling."

I like what you've you done with your hair," Terri said with a smirk. "Was it your idea alone, or did the chorus convince you to see a new stylist?"

Terri watched as her words sunk in and for a moment she swore her ghoulish self smiled, then winked at her.

"Terri," Lexi began, returning to the conversation, "I'd like you to meet my Mother."

"We've met before, though I can say you looked better," Terri said to which Mother made no motion or response.

"I'm sorry Terri," Lexi said, "but when you're using mana to keep yourself alive, then have to expend a whole bunch it takes its toll on what's left of your body. She can't speak anymore, which will make what happens next at least quieter, if not less disturbing."

Mother stiffened suddenly as Lexi took control over her body. Mana began flowing in through the walls and collecting in seemingly liquid blobs that floated like about the room like water in the weightlessnes of space.

"You'll need this!" Augustine called as she stepped into the room, grabbed Terri's wrist and stuffed a spikey crystal into her her open palm.

Terri turned to look at the older woman who explained. "Forgot to mention but it was my birthday today. That little gift I told you about was in the hallway instead, I figured it was important that I needed to open it. Unfortunately this is all that was inside and I am certain it is for you. It's the most perfect piece of temporal crystal I've ever seen. Use it as a focus for your spell and it will take you whenever she wants you to."

"Thank you," Terri said as she turned back to face Mother. "Are we ready?"

"Unfortunately," Lexi said. "Mother would not approve of what I am about to tell you."

"Terri, Mother believes that I am the whole reason this time loop needs to happen. I believe... otherwise."

"I am nothing but a mistake and knowing how I came about should give you a reasonable chance to avoid making it."

Terri nodded, then lifted a small stone with a chain off from around her neck, and let it fall to the floor. "I have everything I need to know now, so I don't need this anymore."

Terri then swept Lexi up into her arms. "I will never forget you," Terri said.

"If you see me again when the wave crashes," Lexi asked, "would you hold me until I fade away?"

"I promise," answered Terri as she set the girl down and focused on the crystal in her hand. She inhaled and pulled in mana as hard as she could.

The strands and clumps filled the air and the room was soon occupied by substance so dense that to those actually looking, it was as though they had been eaten by a house-sized gelatin dessert.

Terri's eyes were closed as she clutched the crystal in both hands and it began to glow. Its light intensified quickly and the room was bathed as if a star was in the room for only a moment as Terri and all the mana in the room seemingly imploded into the point where the crystal's light was emanating and disappeared.

---