This time, Rita wasted no time in dropping into her Mindspace the moment Ixxy’s hand made contact with her chest. She wasn’t going to let the demoness run around in there unsupervised for any length of time, especially not now that she’d signed away her legal protections.

At first, it was exactly as she’d left it. White walls, white floor, white everything, except for Alice, sleeping peacefully in the center. But almost immediately a small, familiar, black shape appeared, seemingly having crawled out of the floor itself.

This time, the horrid, multi-eyed cockroach made no move to flee or hide as Rita approached. Instead, it positioned itself next to Alice’s sleeping body and stared balefully up at her with its too many eyes.

Swallowing her revulsion, Rita carefully leaned down until her face was right in front of it.

“Ixxy?” she asked carefully.

The cockroach blinked all its eyes, though not quite all at once. “Rita?” it squeaked in a high pitched voice. “Please tell me that’s you, Rita…”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Rita replied, straightening up again. “I can’t believe that’s you, Ixxy.”

Cockroach-Ixxy visibly relaxed. “Yeah, well, you’re not exactly yourself either,” she squeaked back.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you look like a big, scary skeleton, covered in webs. I’m not going to lie, it’s a little unsettling. Even for me.”

Rita looked down and carefully prodded her stomach. She looked and felt perfectly normal, which meant her abdomen smoothly transitioned to a giant, milky-white spider, just like it had always done.

Who would have thought she would ever consider that normal?

“I do not!” she protested.

“Look, this place is kinda weird. I think we’re both perceiving it differently,” Ixxy explained in her squeaky voice. “But I don’t think either of us are seeing it wrong. Rather, I think this whole space is just kind of subjective.”

“Subjective? That doesn’t make any sense. How can you and I see different things and both of us be right?”

“In reality? Sure,” Ixxy squeaked, turning and crawling up the side of Alice. “But we’re not in reality. We’re in your soul, a place that’s by definition not real. The fundamental principles of the world you’re used to don’t need to apply.”

“So… kind of like a dream?” Rita asked, stepping closer, curious to see what Ixxy was going to do.

“Yeah, I guess that works,” Ixxy squeaked, climbing onto Alice’s chest. “I think right here is good.”

“Right here? Right here what?” Rita asked, a little nervous. She had no idea what the demon was going to do.

“Well,” Ixxy explained, gesturing to her feet with several of her many legs, “you might not be able to see it because of that difference in perception thing I mentioned before, but I’m standing on the abnormal structure right now.”

The tumor was on Alice’s chest?

“It’s coated in whatever your soul’s made of, which is probably why it’s invisible to you,” Ixxy went on, gesturing around herself. “Almost like a kind of natural camoflage. Which is why I’m going to have to cut you just a little bit. Just enough to make a hole to get through to the actual bad stuff inside.”

“Bad stuff?”

Cockroach-Ixxy pulled her legs up in the equivalent of a shrug. “Look, I have no idea. All I know is, it looks out of place. If I crack it open and it’s looks fine on the inside, then I’ll stop, obviously, and we can reassess.”

“Oh, okay.” That made sense. But if she and Ixxy perceived the world differently… was it possible she couldn’t see Alice?

Ixxy raised her one foreleg in the air and the tip seemed to suddenly grow a vicious, tiny scythe blade. “It might hurt while I burrow through the outer layer, but once I’m through, if it does turn out to be something bad or rotten on the inside, I can just hollow the thing out from the inside. You shouldn’t feel a thing.”

Wait, was it possible…? Oh no…

“Wish me luck!” Ixxy chirped, happily slashing down with the foreleg-blade.

“STOP!” Rita screamed, lunging forward and grabbing away a transfixed Ixxy before her sharpened forelimb could connect with Alice’s exposed stomach.

“What now?” Ixxy squeaked, a note of panic in her voice at being so suddenly swept up in Rita’s grip. To her relief, Ixxy seemed to be making an effort to keep her blade-limb far away from her fingers.

“The thing you’re trying to cut into? That’s Alice,” Rita stated.

Ixxy twisted her cockroach head all the way back to look at where she’d just been about to slice. Then she turned back, a look of surprise in her multitude of eyes.

“You named your tumor?”

“She’s not a tumor. She’s a person, just like me,” Rita explained.

“She can’t be a person just like you, because this is your soul,” Ixxy replied patiently, as if speaking to a child. “And whatever ‘Alice’ is, she’s not supposed to be here.”

“I don’t care. I’m not letting you hurt her. The entire point is to fix her, not me,” Rita insisted.

“Fix her? How do you expect me to ‘fix’ her?” the Ixxy-roach complained, waving her little limbs around. “Our deal was for me to cut out the foreign structure in your soul, that’s it!”

“In that case, the deal’s off,” Rita said coldly, holding the little bug up to her face. “Get out.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Ixxy protested. “Let’s not be hasty about this. I have an idea that might help.”

“What?”

“It might sting a little.”

“What will?” Rita asked suspiciously.

“This,” Ixxy said, and shoved her bladed forelimb right into Rita’s eye.

Rita screamed at the sudden, sharp pain, ripping the cockroach away and tossing it as far as she could. She clasped her hands at her mutilated eye, equal parts shocked and angry at the sudden, unprovoked attack.

Gora had been right! Demons were sadistic monsters! They were…

Why wasn’t there any blood?

Rita slowly lifted her hands away from her eye, blinking in surprise. The pain had disappeared completely. And her eye was… fine?

“Ah, sorry about that,” she heard Ixxy’s distant voice, “but I knew if I told you what I was going to do you would never have let me.”

“Oh, really? I wouldn’t have let you shove a fucking blade in my eye?” Rita shouted, still blinking tears out of her eyes. “Now why wouldn’t I let you do that? What the fuck was that even for?”

“Again, I’m sorry, but I really needed to see what you see.”

“You needed to… what?”

As Rita’s vision cleared, she looked around herself. Everything was just a little different. What had once been clear, almost sterile white surfaces were now covered in cobwebs. Even the ground below her feet was no longer just a featureless flat pane of white, but appeared to consist of a fine woven mesh of silken threads, like a gigantic silk carpet.

“You’ve got quite an arm on you,” Ixxy chuckled, scurrying back from the distant corner of the room where Rita had thrown her.

She too, looked different. She still had the antennae and the back shell of a cockroach, but her body and arms were that of the red-skinned humanoid shape she held back in the real world.

Kind of like someone had tried to make a cockroach look hot. Even her voice was a bit less squeaky, and sounded somewhat more like it had back in the real world.

“What did you do?” Rita demanded angrily.

“I merged our perspectives a little bit,” Ixxy explained. “So I can see what you see and you can see what I see.”

“Why?”

“Because now I can see what’s going on with your friend,” Ixxy replied, pointing to Alice. “And I gotta say… wow. I was not expecting this.”

Rita gasped. Alice was still there, with parts of her still missing, but now she appeared to be wrapped in a thin cocoon of spider silk. Her entire body was almost mummified in it. Like something caught in a spider’s web.

“I have some good news for you,” Ixxy said as she walked around Alice’s ensnared form, inspecting her closely. “I can now see that your soul’s healing on its own. I don’t need to do anything.”

“It… it is?”

“Yep!” Ixxy replied cheerily. “Look, you can see here where your soul has started to reabsorb her already.”

That was such a relief. So Alice was healing, it was just…

Wait… reabsorb??

It was true. Rita could now clearly see why Alice had appeared to be shrinking before; she was slowly sinking into the floor. Somehow, she’d just been unable to see it until Ixxy had done her thing. It had been like her mind had been unable to process the truth.

“I’d say, given another month or two she will be fully fused back into you,” Ixxy said, patting Alice’s hip.

“And… and that will fix her?” Rita asked, hoping for the best but already dreading what she knew the answer was going to be.

“What? No of course not,” Ixxy confirmed her fears. “She’ll be gone. Merged into you. You might gain a couple of talents out of it if you’re lucky.”

“NO!”

How… how had this happened? She’d never wanted to hurt Alice.

Then she remembered: the thread.

The first time she and Alice had entered this weird non-space, right after they’d left the tree, when Alice had been crying in pain, Rita had given her something. A little piece of thread, pulled from her own soul-body. She’d thought she was helping Alice, lessening her pain, but that thread had been the start of this cocoon.

She’d given Alice a part of her soul… only for it to immediately start devouring her!

“Hey, calm down!” Ixxy tried to console her, patting her shin. She was still no bigger than she’d been before. “It’s not like she’s going to be gone, she’ll be a part of you. Bits of her personality will incorporate into yours, but you won’t stop being you. You’re the bigger soul. It will just be like… you, but with a little bit extra.”

Rita shuddered, recalling the memories that she’d remembered inside the tree.

A single soul, ripped to pieces, forced back together. Painfully rebuilding itself into something functional. The leftovers also forced together, coalescing into another, separate person.

Two people, created from the same, shredded soul. Her and Alice; two broken halves of the original Rita.

She could be whole again. Recapture the part of herself that she’d lost. And all it would cost her was Alice.

No thanks.

“How do we stop this?” Rita asked, gritting her teeth.

“Why would you want to stop this?” Ixxy asked, mystified. “This is literally your soul healing. Putting itself back together like it’s supposed to be! Why would you want to intentionally screw that up?”

“To save Alice! I’m eating her!”

“And she’s good for you!”

Rita shook her head. “Forget it. I’m opening her up myself.”

She stepped forward, lowering herself down next to Alice on eight legs, and reached for the shroud of silk wrapped around her when Ixxy scampered up the side of her body.

“Wait! Wait! You can’t just tear it open! You’ll hurt yourself!”

“I don’t care if I’m hurting myself, I have to save Alice!” Rita insisted, starting to pull at the threads enveloping her.

“No, stop! I mean if you just rip her open at this point you’ll fucking kill her!” Ixxy said. “You’ve already started digesting her, your soul is literally the only thing keeping her together and alive at this point! If you just rip her out, the shock to her system will be too much!”

Rita stopped. “But… how do we save her, then?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you! You can’t! The process is too far along already!”

She looked back down at Alice and the threads of silk slipped from her fingers. If what Ixxy said was true, that meant… that meant there was no hope anymore. Her literal closest friend in this world was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.

And it was her fault.

Tears began flowing over her cheeks as a heart-wrenching sob escaped her lips.

“Hey… hey are you crying?” Ixxy asked, concern in her voice. “Don’t cry… you should be happy! You’ll be a stronger, more well rounded person after everything is said and done. Haven’t you noticed yourself starting to change already?”

Truthfully, Rita had noticed. She’d been more decisive recently, firmer in the convictions of her decisions. She’d stopped being such a whimpering mess that she’d been back in the Nightmare. She’d chalked it up to simple personal growth, but perhaps it had been the decisive parts of Alice she’d been starting to absorb. And that was great, except…

“I don’t want to change!” she sobbed. “I want Alice back!”

“Aww, shucks, there’s the waterworks. There, there? Is that how you’re supposed to do it?” Ixxy tried to console her, patting her on the leg. “Okay, shit, I can’t keep watching this. Will you stop for a moment? There might be something I can do. But it’s going to hurt.”

“What?” Rita demanded between sobs.

“We reverse the process. Instead of you eating her, we let her start eating you to rebuild what she’s lost.”

“Then I die??” Rita exclaimed, though, truthfully, she was at least considering the option.

“No, no, you’re bigger than her. A lot bigger. That’s why you’re the one in charge of your body. There’s no way the absorption can be flipped around as long as you’re connected.

“So we disconnect you. I cut her loose and let her absorb the pieces of you she’s still attached to.”

“Cut her loose? I thought you said that would kill her,” Rita replied between sniffles.

“It’s a question of where I cut,” Ixxy explained. “If we just cut at the boundary between the two of you, she’s not strong enough to survive on her own anymore. She’ll die.

“But I don’t have to cut there. If I instead cut out a significant portion of you around her, that will give her a big chunk of your soul-stuff to keep sustaining her life while also providing ready raw-materials to heal the damage she’s suffered. Kind of like the yolk of an egg being food for the baby bird.”

“How much of me are you going to have to cut out?” Rita asked, wiping the tears off her face.

Ixxy sucked on her teeth. “That’s a bit hard to answer. This place is kind of subjective, remember? It definitely won’t kill you and probably won’t do any serious permanent harm, I don’t think, but I really don’t have a good handle on the composition of your soul.”

“Can you do it, though? Won’t the contract we signed prevent you from doing this?”

Ixxy waved off her concerns. “Eh, I’m still technically cutting out the tumor and you’ve repeatedly made your desire to save this ‘Alice’ incredibly clear. I have enough leeway in the contract to work with that. Are you absolutely certain you want to go through with this, though? It will really be healthier and safer for you to just finish reabsorbing her.”

“Yes,” Rita replied without a moment’s hesitation. “One hundred percent. Do it.”

“Alright,” Ixxy replied, her hands and fingers shifting into long, thin, razor-sharp blades. “This is might sting a little…”

The initial cut did not sting a little.

It stung a lot.

As Ixxy pressed her large hand-blade into the silky floor just short of Alice’s prone form, it felt like someone was shoving a knife into Rita’s heart.

Sharp spikes of pain radiated out from her chest, sparking through all of her limbs and making her fingertips tingle unpleasantly. The pain was so intense that it momentarily pushed Rita out of her Mindspace, causing her eyes to flutter open back in the real world where Ixxy was still blindfolded with her hand pressed over Rita’s heart.

“You okay?” she heard Ixxy ask in her normal voice.

“Hurts…” was all Rita managed to wheeze out between gritted teeth.

Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the pain vanished. Rita dropped back into the white, featureless space and she slowly blinked her eyes open.

“Hey, you back with me in here?” she heard Ixxy squeak.

She nodded. “Yes, I think so… is it done?”

“Sorry, honey, that was just the first cut,” the demoness replied apologetically.

Her bladed arm was embedded in the floor up to her wrist, but that was it.

“We’ve got a long way to go, still. I need to extend this cut all the way around your friend,” she continued. “We won’t be done until every strand connecting her to you is severed.

Rita looked at the floor of silk that Alice was partly embedded in and made a small whimpering sound in the back of her throat.

“I’m sorry,” Ixxy said sympathetically, “but I did warn you. If you want, you can still back out.”

Rita shook her head. “No. We can go on. Just give me a moment to prepare myself.”

“Sure thing. Take your time. Let me know when you’re ready.”

She took a deep breath. She could do this. She could hold out. Sure, it was more painful than anything she’d ever experienced in her life so far, but…

It was because of her that the Tree wanted to tear Alice to pieces.

She was the one that had put the thread on Alice.

She was the one that started absorbing her.

Nevermind that she’d never meant to cause any harm. She was the bigger soul! Alice couldn’t even move a finger on her own, she was utterly dependent on Rita for everything! She had been Rita’s responsibility and Rita had fucked it up! If the only way to fix Alice was this excruciatingly painful procedure, well, then that was just a bit of karma, now wasn’t it?

“Okay. Go for it. I’m ready,” she said, taking another deep breath and bracing herself.

“Alright. Here goes.”

Ixxy’s bladed hand started moving and Rita nearly screamed.

Every centimeter that she cut felt like someone was trying to slice Rita’s heart free of her ribcage. Pain radiated outwards from her chest, making her legs twitch and her teeth clench in agony, but she held on for as long as she could before begging for breaks.

Luckily, the nature of the pain was such that it only existed while Ixxy was actively cutting. The moment Ixxy’s hand stopped moving, the pain disappeared instantly. It was an altogether odd experience, and in some ways, almost worse than if the pain just remained constant.

The breaks were nice, but it meant Rita had to willingly subject herself to the torture anew after every one, instead of being motivated to just push through. Every time there was the temptation just to call the whole thing off, to say that she simply couldn’t go through with it, that she’d done all she could for Alice and simply accept that she was gone. And every time that excuse rang hollow in her heart.

She could go more. She could endure. Saying otherwise wouldn’t be accepting fate, it would be quitting, and Rita was going to be damned before she was going to quit on Alice when Alice had stuck with her blubbering, weepy, near-suicidal incompetence back in the Nightmare.

Not that she was much better now, but at least she could recognize how foolish she’d been before. And how ridiculously lucky she’d gotten just to make it out alive. Thanks to Alice.

Ducking out of her Mindspace helped her to bear the pain, she quickly discovered. It didn’t make the pain any less, but without the time compression effect, Rita only had to endure the excruciating pain for one second for every five to ten seconds of work Ixxy got done. This meant they could go a lot longer between breaks.

It also meant she spent plenty of time staring at her shirt wrapped around Ixxy’s face while maddening spikes of pain speared her chest.

Ixxy herself seemed to be conscious and aware both inside and outside Rita’s soul at the same time, which was a bit weird. She was able to smoothly transition a conversation from one side to the other when she noticed Rita switched and she kept up a steady stream of chatter, doing her best to distract her from the pain.

As time wore on and the procedure progressed, however, the pain changed. It slowly morphed from an intense, agonizing spike of pain right over her heart to a kind of dull, background ache across her entire chest. It wasn’t necessarily less painful, but it was far more manageable.

Whether that was a good or a bad thing, Rita had no idea.

By the time Ixxy had cut two-thirds of the way around, Rita was able to stay inside her Mindspace as she worked. It still hurt, but it was better than leaving her there unsupervised.

“How are you holding up?” Ixxy asked conversationally as she slowly dragged her bladed hand along the fibres of Rita’s soul.

She wasn’t sure why Ixxy had to go so slowly, but apparently this kind of operation couldn’t be rushed. Something to do with having to ‘cut every strand.’

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Rita croaked in response. “It hurts, but it’s managable now.”

“See? Told you it would get better eventually,” Ixxy chirped.

Rita groaned. She’d been the first one to mention that the pain was diminishing. Only after that had Ixxy suddenly mentioned that something like that might happen.

She was starting to suspect Ixxy knew less about what she was doing than she was letting on.

“You know,” Ixxy eventually said, “I think it’s my turn to ask a question.”

“What?” Rita asked, irritated and distracted by the constant pain. By this time, it had started transitioning into a full-body itch and it was driving her insane.

“We had a deal, remember? We take turns asking questions. Unless you don’t want to continue?”

For a moment, Rita considered telling her to shove their deal somewhere unpleasant out of sheer irritation, but she suppressed the urge. She was tired and cranky and hurting and it irritated her more than it should how fresh Ixxy still looked.

Rita’s mental representation in the Mindspace reflected how tired she was; her hair was plastered to her skull with sweat while her clothes were damp with it and more than a little smelly. She reeked like she’d just come back from the gym, while the annoying Pleasure Devil still seemed just as fresh and chipper as when she’d first started, her lustrous red hair still soft and shiny.

Demons were bullshit.

“Fine,” she begrudgingly conceded. “Ask.”

It was either talk to Ixxy or sit in silence, stewing in her own pain and discomfort.

“Why don’t you want to tell me what you are?” Ixxy asked without hesitation. She’d clearly been planning this.

“I already passed this question,” Rita spat irritably.

“No, you passed on the question ‘what are you?’ And that’s fine. I respect that. Now I’m asking why?”

“And you somehow think that I will be any likelier to answer this one instead?” Rita grumbled.

Ixxy did a weird, one armed shrug as she worked.

“Doesn’t hurt to try. Worst case, you pass and I just ask another question.”

Rita considered it. She could pass this question as well, but then she’d have to answer something else. And it wasn’t like her reason was particularly strange, anyway. She was obviously something strange and rare, and there was always someone powerful who wanted those. The only reason she’d passed the question in the first place was out of general paranoia. She just didn’t want to attract any more attention than she absolutely had to.

Unfortunately, the Delver’s Guild already knew exactly what she was, and she was under no illusions as to whether that was going to be kept an internal secret. Rumours about her were likely already spreading through the city. Even if Ixxy had no idea what she was now, it was only going to be a matter of time before she heard about the ‘sane Nightmare Spawn’ and put two and two together.

“Do you really want to know what I am?” Rita sighed.

“I thought you didn’t want to answer that?” Ixxy replied.

“Yeah well, I figure you’re going to find out sooner or later. I’m a Nightmare Spawn.”

There was a gasp and the pain stopped as Ixxy froze.

“Really?” she demanded and Rita nodded.

Then her mouth split into a wide grin and she nearly bounced on the spot.

“That is so cool! I’ve never met a Nightmare Spawn! I thought they were all insane and boring and stuff! Like they were just… broken things! But you’re not boring or broken!”

Rita shifted awkwardly. Ixxy was literally cutting a piece of her out of the floor. She was at least a little broken.

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” Ixxy whined, before turning thoughtful. “Wait, you’re worried that I would tell people, right? That someone like a Magelord would find out and drag you in for dissection or something?”

“Pretty much,” Rita confirmed, sucking air through her teeth. “I’ve already had a run in with the Academy that nearly got me. I’d prefer not having a repeat of that if I can help it.”

“Ah, I understand,” Ixxy replied, nodding solemnly. “Don’t worry! Your secret is safe with me!”

“Thanks, I guess,” Rita said. “Now please get back to work saving Alice.”

“Oh, right!”

Rita grit her teeth as Ixxy resumed her work, before realizing it was her turn to ask a question.

“What’s it like being a demon?” she asked, her pain-addled brain grasping at the first idle thought that drifted past.

“What do you mean?” Ixxy asked, glancing up at her with a frown.

“Well, you’re a Pleasure Devil, right? What does that mean? How is that different from… whatever Gora is?”

Ixxy sighed and rolled her eyes. “First of all, Gora is not a demon. She is a cambion. A half demon. That’s a totally different thing.”

“I know that, I just meant…”

“I know what you meant,” Ixxy interrupted. “It’s just a little insulting to be compared okay? Some free advice for the future. Don’t compare demons to cambions. We don’t like it much. And trust me, neither do they.”

“Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”

Ixxy waved her off. “It’s fine. You didn’t know. Now, what you actually meant was whatever demon she is a half of, right? And based on her build… I’d guess Wrath?”

Rita nodded. Now that Ixxy mentioned the name, it rang a bell. Gora might have mentioned something like that.

“Okay. Well, Wrath Devils are kind of old school. They’re from a previous era’s design philosophy. Back when over-designed, general purpose outfits capable of doing pretty much anything were the order of the day.

“They don’t make them like that anymore. These days, it’s all about specialization. Take Pleasure Devils, for example, like me. We’re built for one thing and one thing only.”

“Sex?”

Ixxy nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. Look at Gora. Despite not even being a full demon, she could crush me like a bug, right? I’m just not made for physical confrontation.” A naughty grin spread across her face. “Other than the sexy kind, that is.”

Rita rolled her eyes but said nothing.

“And speaking of sex,” she continued, taking her turn to ask a question, “Tell me, Miss Nightmare Spawn, have you ever had any?” Ixxy asked in husky voice.

Rita stared at her in silence, a blush rising in her cheeks. “Are you asking me if I’m a virgin?” she squeaked.

Ixxy nodded slightly, still grinning.

Well crap. That wasn’t where she’d planned on the conversation going.

Rita swallowed. Technically, the answer was no. She’d certainly never tried having sex as a weird half-spider monster-thing. But was she actually a virgin when she’d been in a serious, intimate relationship for two years and had all the memories and experience that came from that? Even if it wasn’t necessarily in this body? Probably not.

Ahhh! This reincarnation-cloning thing made it all too complicated to figure out! And she definitely did not want to tell Ixxy about her previous life back on Earth. Her knowing Rita was a Nightmare Spawn was one thing, but knowing she also potentially possessed knowledge from an entire other, technologically advanced world? That seemed dangerous.

“Pass,” she finally replied, clearing her throat in an attempt to get her voice back under control. Her face was still bright scarlet.

“Oh come on! After all that you’re going to pass?” Ixxy complained. “Ah well, I guess the blush on your face tells me everything I need to know anyway.”

“So it’s my turn to ask a question?” Rita asked, hopefully.

“Nope, involuntary non-verbal cues don’t count!” Ixxy cackled.

Then her demeanor suddenly shifted, turning serious.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, staring Rita right in the eye.

“Isn’t that another question I already passed on?” Rita replied, shuffling nervously. This line of questioning was only marginally better than the sex stuff.

“Nope, that was when I asked why you would make a contract with a demon to save your imaginary friend. Now I’m asking why are you letting me do this,” Ixxy said, gesturing to where her hand was embedded in the floor of Rita’s soul, “to save your obviously very real friend. Who is she? Where did she come from? How did she get inside your soul?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” Rita replied, faced scrunched up in a scowl. “I thought we only got one each round.”

“I’m being generous. You can pick which of them to answer,” Ixxy answered nonchalantly.

Rita sighed. Looked around. Scratched her head.

“Alright,” she finally said. “It’s a bit complicated, but I’ll answer your questions. All of them at once. But this time I have a condition.”

“That’s not a part of our rules,” Ixxy mused, but she didn’t reject the idea outright.

“Then its a new one. Just this once.”

Ixxy shrugged, but motioned for Rita to continue.

“If I tell you everything I know about where we came from, I want you to tell me everything you know about it.”

The tiny cockroach-demoness raised an eyebrow, again giving Rita momentary relief from the pain as she hesitated in the operation.

“Alright,” she said after a few moments thinking it over. “I agree.”

Rita took a deep breath.

“Before the Nightmare Tree made me into this, I used to be… someone else.”