Soul Servitude

So this isn't a fanfic. It was originally a submission for a short story assignment for a class. Then the story idea kinda took off and I have no idea what's going to happen to it. XD Right now it's just in its bare bones stage, so I'll add on some meat and flesh to it later. Hope you guys enjoy what I do have!

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Soul Sevitude​

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"Come on Aiden, show us what you got!" Two faces were staring right at him, one gleefully leering, the other looking intently as though he was trying to peer straight into Aiden's mind.

Carefully keeping his face blank, Aiden slowly flipped his two cards over. "Straight." Aiden's eight and ten ran with the seven, nine, and jack in the board, beating his friend's three jacks.

"Dammit!" Ethan whined as Grant chuckled and grabbed the board, his friends' cards, and his own folded pile while Aiden collected his winnings. "I thought for sure I'd win... Come on, one last round before lunch is over!"

As Grant and Aiden paused to consider, the bell signalling the end of lunch rang. Ethan pouted as his friends chuckled.

"We can rematch tomorrow then," Aiden stated as he hastily packed away his chips.

"Tomorrow's the day we agreed to play euchre, remember? Can't play Texas hold 'em every day," Grant interjected.

"Oh right. Didn't Ethan get Krystan to be his partner? How'd he manage to get her to agree?" asked Aiden.

"I'm guessing blackmail," Grant snickered.

"Hey!" Ethan exclaimed, scowling. "Is it really so hard to believe that I just asked her and she agreed of her own free will?"

Aiden and Grant glanced momentarily at each other. "Yes," they responded in sync.

"Screw you guys!" Ethan snapped as he started walking away. "Just because she refuses to go out with me doesn't mean- heeeeyyyyy Krys!"

Aiden shook his head as Ethan chased after the object of his affections. "It's a wonder she even lets him talk to her, seeing that it always ends with him asking her out."

"And her beating the tar out of him," Grant chortled.

"And somehow that never deters him..." Aiden mused as he and Grant entered the mass of students heading to their post-lunch class.

The two juniors entered their shared Algebra II classroom right before the bell rang. "He's just that persistent," Grant stated.

"He's just that hopeless," Aiden snorted, shrugging off his backpack and plopping down in his desk chair. "She'll never agree to date him."

Grant opened his mouth to respond, but before he could utter a sound a voice called, "Aiden Ferrys?"

The class' attention was drawn to their teacher standing at the front of the room. "Principal Sherman wants to see you in his office immediately," Mrs. Hinkle reported crisply, holding a blue office slip.

Exchanging a puzzled look with Grant, Aiden slipped out of his chair and grabbed his backpack before walking up to Mrs. Hinkle to grab the slip. He stuffed it in his back pocket, earning a stern look from the teacher, before exiting the classroom.

For the entire trek to the office he couldn't stop wondering why the principal wanted to see him three weeks into the beginning of the year. The only thing that seemed likely was the gambling card games that were played during lunch, but that didn't make too much sense seeing that none of the gambling was done with real money and neither Grant nor Ethan had been called down either. So what could it be?

These thoughts continued to swirl through his head as he pushed open the door to the administration offices. The secretary at the front desk glanced up at the sound of the door opening. Aiden handed his slightly-crumpled pass to her and she looked over it briefly.

"You can go right in," she said as she gestured to one of the office doors behind her. Aiden nodded his thanks before moving over to the correct door and opening it. Halfway inside the office he stopped dead.

"What are you doing here?" Aiden hissed quietly.

"Shut the door," a deep bass voice rang out commandingly.

Scowling fiercely, Aiden carefully shut the door soundlessly before whirling on the speaker- a small orange cat with red eyes sitting on the desk of a well-dressed portly man.

"Alright Marmalade, what do you want this time?" Aiden seethed. "I swear, if you want me to skip school to go get more cat food again-!"

"Is that any way to address your Master?" the cat, Marmalade, cut in dryly, unmoved by the outburst.

"I didn't choose to be your servant," Aiden spat. "No, it was just my luck that I was bound to the will of a demon that's trapped in the body of a kitten!"

Marmalade bristled slightly at the reminder of his form before responding calmly. "You know as well as I do that you would have died if I had not tethered you to my soul."

"Don't remind me!" Aiden glowered at the cat before throwing himself into the chair in front of the desk. "And what about him?" he motioned towards Principal Sherman moodily. "Just what did you do to him?"

"I simply manipulated his mind," Marmalade answered. "I commanded him to bring you here so we could have this little chat. He is essentially daydreaming at this moment. He will forget everything he has seen or heard from this meeting as soon as we leave his sight."

"How did you even get here, the school's like six miles from home!"

"I have my ways. Now, about why I called you here." The cat pushed a scrap of paper forward towards the boy. "Do you know this human?"

Aiden leaned forward to study the paper, which turned out to be a cutout of a photo. "Yeah, that's Krystan Astrella. Ethan's interested in her, so I hear all about her. Why?"

Marmalade stretched like, well, a cat. "Recently I received information that she may be working against my goals. It is possible she is either working for or being manipulated by an enemy to thwart my plans."

"You're a cat," Aiden deadpanned. "What possible enemies could you have?"

Marmalade regarded the youth with one red orb. "I am a demon, fool. For the time that I bound you to me, I have not been active in my schemes thus far, and have had no need to include you. However, I plan to step my activity up in the near future, and those who would fear me if I ever regained my true form will attempt to stop me. This is why I have you."

"So what is it exactly you want me to do?" Aiden asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Look into whether or not this Krystan Astrella is actively trying to sabotage me and my plots. If she is," Marmalade fixed Aiden with a piercing look, "you are to stop her. Preferably permanently."

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I would like to add that the creation of Marmalade was a collaberation between me and @[member=Pariah].

 

Here's the next part! Does have a bit of strong language in it, fyi. Hope you enjoy it!

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There was a shocked stillness for several seconds before Aiden reacted. "You can't seriously expect me to kill someone," he said coldly.

"I expect you to do as I order you," Marmalade replied smoothly. "You will do whatever it takes to complete the mission and get the message across that my plans and I are not to be trifled with."

The blonde haired boy glared at the demon cat. "I refuse to take anyone's life!" he snarled. His hands balled into fists on his lap. "That's murder!"

Scarlet swirled as Marmalade rolled his eyes. "Is this one of your moral dilemmas? What is the difference between taking a human life and squashing a bug?"

"There aren't laws against killing some annoying bugs," Aiden deadpanned.

"So even if another human was trying to kill you, you would not kill them in self-defense?" Marmalade tilted his head curiously.

"I'd try not to- what's with the 20 Questions?" Aiden asked bewilderedly.

"Simply trying to discern your motive behind not wanting to kill," the orange cat replied. "Especially since you seem to enjoy cinema and games where the protagonist regularly kills people, such as the 007 movies and-"

"I- That's different!" the boy snapped. "Just because I enjoy those things doesn't mean I want to kill anyone! I was raised to believe that killing people is wrong!"

"I see..." Marmalade mused. Aiden was sure that if he was human, he'd be stroking his chin. "Well, let us state the facts then. You do not wish to kill anyone. You have made that abundantly clear." Aiden nodded.

Marmalade's eyes sharpened suddenly. "However, you are my vassel. I own your soul, plain and simple. I command you to do something and you do it without question; otherwise, I am liable to release your soul into the void I rescued it from, and you will perish."

Aiden seethed with rage as the cat stared at him, goading him into retaliating. "I didn't ask to be saved! I didn't ask to be soul bonded to a demon stuck in a cat's body! I didn't ask to be bound to do your every bidding or die! I didn't ask to learn about outside worlds! I didn't ask to have to kill people, goddammit! The only good thing that's come out of you saving me is this!" He ripped a lighter out of his back pocket- just an ordinary red Bic lighter, nothing special- and sparked it, making a flame appear above it. As soon as it appeared, he immediately cupped the flame in his free hand and stuffed the lighter back in his pocket. The flame continued to burn on in his hand, and even danced around his palm as he flexed his fingers and wrist. The skin it touched remained unblemished and unburnt.

"You have been practicing," Marmalade remarked as he watched the fire move over the young human's hand and wrist.

"'Course I have," Aiden replied. "This magic is too cool to not experiment with. Carefully," he added quickly.

"Your magic would not have activated if I had not saved you," Marmalade pointed out.

"You don't know that for a complete fact!" Aiden protested, closing his hand into a fist and extinguishing the flame. "You said that a human's magic would sometimes ignite on its own!"

"Maybe one in a few million," Marmalade said. "I told you that humans are notoriously bad at getting their magic unlocked, and most of the time they are only able to use it unconsciously. For example, most demons are able to unlock their magic from an early age. It's more uncommon for a demon to not be able to use their magic- in fact, the human world is among the last two realms for developed magic. Seven billion people here, and perhaps only a few thousand souls with activated magic, and only a couple hundred who are actually aware of their powers."

"Yeah, yeah, we suck, I get it," Aiden growled as he flung an arm over his face. Leaning his head back against the back of his chair he let out a long breath. Principal Sherman continued to look at nothing with a blank look on his face, lost in his own mind.

"Why now?" he asked after a moment. "It's only been a couple months since the accident, and not only have you explained almost nothing about magic and the other worlds that are apparently floating around out there," he gesticulated wildly with his arm, "now you expect me to go out on my own, with no training, and kill someone? No dice man, I'm going to be the one who gets killed! And the only thing I can say to that is no! No no no no no! Not gonna happen! I ain't dying for one of your crazy schemes! Besides, if I do, no one'll get you anymore cat food, so there!"

"I was not expecting a situation like this so soon," the cat responded patiently. "Your formal magic and combat training was to begin in two days. This was an unexpected bump in the schedule."

"Fan-fucking-tastic," the boy grumbled. "Send me out completely green then, like you want me to die... Wait a minute!" He shot up to his feet, pointing accusingly at Marmalade. "You want me to die, don't you? So that I'm not holding you back and you can take on another, more powerful vassal!"

"Do not be ridiculous," Marmalade said flatly. "I can tether as many souls as possible before my own soul gets ripped apart. However, I need it intact, so the less people I bond at once the better."

"Wait, ripped apart?"

"The downside of bonding souls," the demon explained. "The more souls you have bonded or linked to your own, the more weight is but on your soul. Eventually, given enough weight and time, your soul may actually rip apart."

Aiden furrowed his brow. "What's the difference between and soul bond and a soul link? And how long before either of our souls tear?"

"If my soul tears, it could drop your soul back into the void, thus killing you," Marmalade said. "Your soul is at minimal risk for damage since it is simply hitching a ride on mine. But my soul is strong and it will take quite some time before much damage is done if I am hosting you and you alone." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "How to describe this... a soul bond is one where one party is directly feeding off another's soul for survival, much like a parasite." He looked at Aiden pointedly. "But a soul link is much more reciprocating. Both parties use the other for mutual gain, one does not rely on the other any more than the other relies on the first. They both get equal benefits."

Aiden nodded, filing the information away. This was the most he'd ever heard about magic at once, and he was surprised the demon cat was letting so much spill from usually tight lips.

"What about the seven worlds? Can you tell me about those?" he asked eagerly.

Marmalade stood up and stretched his front legs with a yawn. "Do you not have class to go to? And food to fetch. We shall resume later."

"What?! No, this is something I should know now, isn't it?" Aiden was flabbergasted by his "master's" sudden disclination to tell him anything. "Especially if you want me to put my life on the line for your stupid ambitions!"

Marmalade fixed him with such a cold glare that Aiden swore he could feel his insides freezing. "You will do as I say, or you will die. Simple, easy to remember, and not hard to follow. If you insist on endangering yourself so, then fine, you do not have to kill Krystan Astrella. However you are to completely ensure that she will not endanger my plans in the future. If you leave her alive and in the future she screws with a plan, I will order you to kill her, and you will be unable to bargain for her life once more. Is that understood?"

Aiden just gave a little mocking two-fingered salute before leaving the office. He'd found the loophole he'd been looking for so Ethan wouldn't kill him if he ever caught wind of what he had to do. But even without one of his best friend's potential girlfriend being involved, something seemed very strange about his mission. It bugged the crap out of Aiden that he couldn't immediately figure out what exactly it was.

The secretary back on the outside looked a little surprised to see him so ruffled after spending nearly an hour alone with the principal. She supposed that after so long talking or being lectured about something for that long by the boring principal would be enough to ruffle anyone. With an odd shake of her head, she returned to her paperwork.

Back in the office, Principal Sherman slowly came back to the world. He blinked before looking at the clock, squinting in confusion when the time seemed much later than he had thought. Eventually he shrugged it off. He'd always been a bit of a dreamer, getting lost in his thoughts and fantasies on a regular occasion.

Though the orange hair on his desk was certainly strange. Where had that come from?