“Fucking watch it!”

Sebastian hesitated before turning to see who he had just bumped into; it sort of shocked him, seeing as no one had actually addressed him all day. Even his roommate was on the phone as he left his dorm, not even pausing to give him a quick ‘good morning.’ It’s not like the college freshman wasn’t used to this by now, but… it never made it easier to deal with. Especially not with the rain on his way to breakfast, then class, just keeping the mood down overall. Nothing ever made anything easier to deal with…

“HEY!”

Sebastian snapped to attention, having lost himself in self-pity yet again. It was really becoming a bad habit. “Sorry, Katie,” he sighed.

“Yeah, ‘sorry’ doesn’t pay for shit! You better be thankful your own dumbass luck didn’t break anything, I have waited TOO LONG for today!” said Katie. She stamped one foot, shooting one open hand out towards the stuff Sebastian had made her drop- though, Sebastian noted, for all she was talking about it being important, she made no move to pick it up herself. “Well?”

Sebastian didn’t make eye contact. He rarely did, if ever. “I-I’m sorry. I’m just… trying to get to class,” he muttered in his vocal fry. As he tried to dip his head and shuffle away, however, Katie grabbed him by the hood of his windbreaker and threw him from the middle of the hallway right to the wall. A small crowd was starting to gather.

“You’re not gonna pick it up?” Katie hissed.

Sebastian stammered, “I-I… I just said, I got class in like five minutes-”

“You think I don’t know that, dipshit? We’re both in Geo! Doesn’t answer my fucking question!” she snapped.

He winced. Yep, that’s how he knew her. You moron, forgetting the obvious, he chastised himself. “Well…”

“Are you. Or are you not. Going to fix shit up?”

He sighed. “Fine, yeah, sorry…” he grumbled. Sebastian was utterly defeated. The lonely wimp, in his rain-coated windbreaker, skinny blue jeans, worn-to-death gray hoodie, bent down and started gathering Katie’s things- a few plastic bags of stuff, tied by the handles so he couldn’t see inside. They were surprisingly heavy, he noted, grabbing two of them and shifting them to one hand so he could start to pick up the spilled third bag of-

Candles? Sebastian picked one up to inspect it- though he threw it back in the bag and continued gathering rather quickly to avoid any lashing out from Katie. I knew she did weird shit, but… did that one have a pentagram on it?

Katie snatched the bags out of his hand, scooping the now-filled bag of candles a moment later. “There we go!” Katie chirped with a disgustingly-fake sweetness- he kind of sweetener that was poisonous and already recalled by the government for its toxicity. “Oh, and here’s your tip.”

She kicked him in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of Sebastian and leaving him sprawled on the floor- awkwardly laid over his messenger bag, so it wasn’t even comfortable.

- - -

Katie Siegfred. Killer Katie, Psycho Siegfred. Across the entire campus, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d know of a bigger first impression from a freshman. Her five-nine stature left her ready to rumble with pretty much anyone she wanted to- and given how many black eyes popped up in the first few weeks of the semester alone, she wanted to rumble a lot. She always wore a black leather jacket and a ripped-up Led Zeppelin shirt (no one dared ask if it was the same shirt every time, and CERTAINLY no one stared long enough to check if they were the same rips in the same spots every day to verify), two big studded belts worn at a weird angle on her hips to support tattered black jeans; her combat boots were steel-toed, as Sebastian had just learned.

Shit, something’s actually up, he thought, looking across the lecture hall at Katie. She was actually paying attention for once, though it was to a little notebook in her hands instead of anything the professor was going on about. Seeing her without her typical scowl or predatory smile, just a neutral and interested face with a head of light red hair in a scruffy ponytail and a spiked choker… She was kind of cute. Not completely Sebastian’s type, but still.

But this weird stuff, the candles? That was new. People had whispered around a bit that Katie was into the occult, but it was all just stupid rumors; he’d heard in equal measure that she ate babies. This was confirmation, though. And she was clearly planning to do something.

Oh, who am I kidding? All this’ll get me is a black eye and a worse mood. And why’s it gotta be me, anyway? Maybe this’ll work itself out.

He glanced again. Katie gingerly ran a finger down one page of her notebook, breathing heavily; her trademark predatory grin returned to her face.

Aw, why me…? Sebastian pleaded. No answer returned.

- - -

As the lecture ended (Sebastian hardly paid attention to them anyway, Katie’s plans consuming his thoughts barely changed anything), and students began to file out of the room, Sebastian slung his bag over his shoulder and slowly merged with the herding masses, his eyes laser-focused on Katie. As for her, she was moving in effectively slow-motion, putting items in her pockets as slowly as humanly possible. Sebastian scoffed in his head. Pfft. Slowing down your packing to be the last one left? Is she five, has she never tried to do this before? Takes a little more than that to obtain true subtlety, he thought.

Just before the door, his forward progress came to a gradual halt. Sebastian slowly waded backwards with a lithe grace through the mob of students, turning around to face away from the door right as he reached the back of the pack to create the illusion he had just come in from elsewhere to talk to the professor. But the instant he left that mob, and he could see the rest of the room again, the first thing he saw was Katie holding two fingers up to Professor Fry’s face. “Uh-”

Katie whipped around and stared at Sebastian in shock. “Wait! What?! No. NONONO-”

A massive force pushed Sebastian to the floor, whipping him back to land on his face. He groaned and moaned, fighting the aches to get up. He didn’t even plan on stopping whatever she had planned anymore, he just needed to get out! Every heave, every burning sensation in his frail body that threatened to stop him, it all screamed like an argument until Sebastian finally found the strength to scream louder. He staggered back to his feet, drawing massive breaths as if to try and assert some meager dominance over his lungs and prove he controlled how he breathed. Unfortunately, the self-control assertion session was cut short by Katie grabbing him by the collar, dragging him over to the professor’s desk (which he could see some sort of red smoke coming from out of the corner of his eye, leaving him INCREDIBLY concerned), slamming him down, and punching the absolute shit out of him. “YOU! STUPID! PIECE! OF! SHIT! WHY! NO ONE! WAS! SUPPOSED! TO BE! HERE-!”

“SILENCE!”

A deep voice boomed through the room as the world fell to blackness. The desk Sebastian was pinned to melted into the infinite void, sending him tumbling and falling for infinity- yet never moving at all. From his awkward upside-down orientation, he tried to take stock of things: there was Katie, floating before Professor Fry (whose face he couldn’t quite see from this angle, and that worried him), looking determined if not a little nervous; Professor Fry was floating unmoving right before her, concerningly still; and the candles were now arranged around a pentagram, now glowing red and floating in this void, as well as various other occult things Sebastian didn’t recognize.

“SO, IT WAS YOU,” the voice boomed again, unmistakably coming from Professor Fry. Wait, what? She’s young, she’s a woman, she doesn’t sound like a pitch-corrected demon like this! What the HELL has Katie done?!

“Y…yes, it was, Lord Bacculous,” Katie responded. “I held up the deal! I chose you a vessel, used the borrowed powers to get things ready, and it hasn’t been three full days yet! Now pay up!”

“PAY UP, YOU SAY?” Professor Fry’s head jerked to a forty-five degree angle. Sebastian swore he heard a crack.

“Yeah! I do what I do, and I get what I deserve for it! That’s how this demon contract shit goes. That’s why I fuck with this to begin with! It’s straightforward, it’s legit enough,” Katie said with confidence.

Uuoooghhh, Sebastian winced. Why do I get involved…?

“AND WHAT DID YOU DO TO DESERVE WHAT YOU GET?” the demon asked.

Katie hesitated. “Uh… did I not already explain…?”

“MORTAL,” the demon interrupted, sounding exasperated, “WHAT DID THE TEXTS SAY?”

“I, uh…” Katie started to fidget. “Beyond the instructions, it was… ‘Commit what thou commits, receive what thou deserves,’ or something…?”

The demon grunted. “RIGHT. OTHER MORTAL?” Professor Fry snapped her fingers, and Sebastian was hoisted upside-down by the ankle until he was at eye level with Katie and what he expected to be Professor Fry.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Professor Fry’s piercing blue eyes, combined with her large braid of platinum-blonde hair that seemed so impossibly soft every female-attracted person in class wanted to poof it with one hand like they were testing a pillow, created a gorgeous young woman that kept the class’s attention something fierce. But that was all gone. What happened to her eyes was… it was as though someone cut two holes in reality where her eyes were supposed to go and put two black spheres with red “irises” back in the holes as a sloppy fix. The passionate geologist’s focused gaze that could tell anyone she cared about what they were saying was obscured and distorted by layer upon layer of malice, joy, exasperation, and yet more emotions Sebastian wasn’t even sure he could comprehend- or that any human could, for that matter. And sealing the deal was a small pentagram in the center of her forehead-

“OTHER MORTAL!”

Sebastian jumped. “G’ah! Wh-wha-I mean… yes? L-lord, uh…” he stammered.

“YOU DO NOT HAVE ASSOCIATION WITH THIS ONE WHO SUMMONED ME.”

“Well…” Sebastian cleared his throat. “Excuse me. We both attend this same class, and I… guess we know each other…? Does that count…?”

“MY BRINGING THIS UP IS NAUGHT BUT A FORMALITY. I KNOW ALL.”

“Wait, rea-?”

“NO, YOU PEDANTIC MORTALS,” the demon rolled the professor’s eyes, “I DO NOT KNOW ALL THINGS, HOWEVER I DO KNOW THAT WHICH IS RELEVANT AT THIS MOMENT. YOU ARE NOT TO QUESTION OBVIOUS FIGURES OF SPEECH. MY PATIENCE IS THIN.”

“A-as you wish…?” Sebastian winced in preparation for some form of attack.

“VERY GOOD. AND YOU MAY REFER TO ME AS LORD BACCULOUS. NOW,” Bacculous turned back to Katie. “WITH TIME TO REFLECT NOW, WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE THE TEXTS MEANT?”

“I…” Katie was speechless. Sebastian had never seen anyone, let alone Katie, so filled with this deep terror and despair before.

“WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SAY IT?” Bacculous growled impatiently.

“B…but… what could I…?”

“TWIST THIS WOMAN’S ARM A LITTLE MORE, MORTAL. VERY WELL, I’LL EXPLAIN THAT WHICH YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND: YOU ACT IN A MANNER BEFITTING TO WHO YOU ARE, AND YOU RECEIVE WHAT YOU DESERVE FOR IT FROM MYSELF, WHILE I ATTAIN A VESSEL TO INHABIT THE MORTAL REALM ONCE MORE.”

Katie only gasped in response. Her eyes went wide as dinner plates.

“AND LESS THAN EVEN GIVING ME RESPECT AS I RETURN, I FIND YOU KICKING THE SHIT OUT OF A CLASSMATE.”

Sebastian took an inhale and began to speak. “I-” Katie and Bacculous both turned to look at him. He immediately shut up.

“I DROPPED THE ELOCUTION BECAUSE MY PATIENCE IS OFFICIALLY DONE. I’M GOING TO DO WHAT I SWORE THROUGH THE TEXTS, AND BE DONE HERE. ARE WE CLEAR?”

“Yes, Lord Bacculous!” the students said in unison.

“GOOD, YOUR BRAINS STILL WORK PARTIALLY. AND YOU, MALE…” Bacculous pointed Fry’s finger at Sebastian, “YOU ARE NOW FULLY INVOLVED. INTERTWINED TO THE END OF THE TAPESTRY OF FATE. IN LESSER TERMS, IF YOU’RE FIGURING OUT HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE, DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.”

Sebastian said no words.

“SMART. REGARDLESS, WHAT MUST BE DONE ABOUT YOU TWO…” the demon pondered. “YOU,” he pointed at Katie. “YOUR PATHETIC VIOLENCE AND SELF-SERVING ACTIONS ARE NOTHING BUT DESTRUCTION- DESTRUCTION OF A SORT THAT GROWS QUITE STALE AND FRUSTRATING AFTER ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES. YOU DESERVE… TO BE PLEASANT. TO UNDERSTAND. TO SERVE.”

Sebastian could practically hear the pit in Katie’s stomach drop; for as cruel as she was, he didn’t think she deserved what Bacculous was implying. Or, perhaps he was the one in the wrong for thinking that way.

“AND YOU!” Bacculous commanded, pointing now at Sebastian. “YOU ARE A MONUMENT CONSTRUCTED TO SLOTH. TO WASTE. YOU MUST RECEIVE THE FLAME OF DESIRE, AND BE FORCED TO NURTURE IT UNTIL ALL BEAR WITNESS TO A RAGING TORRENT!”

Sebastian and Katie both shared a confused glance.

“AND SO… WHAT YOU TWO DESERVE IS NOW DECIDED.” Bacculous snapped his fingers, and Sebastian finally turned right-side up. Katie, however… Katie was slowly floating towards Bacculous, affixed in an attentive position. Her breathing sped up exponentially with panic as she was gently stroked on the cheek by the hand of Professor Fry. “YOU SHALL LEARN TO SERVE, GIRL.”

Katie shut her eyes as hard as possible, both to avoid looking and to fight back the tears of fear. As she did, however, she began to change. Piece by piece, her tattered outfit fell away from her body- seemingly without her notice. Her leather jacket chipped off, piece by piece, and drifted into the aether. Her shirt and bra began to tear and tear, until scraps of cloth were flying away from the now obscenely-cut crop top with a preposterous underboob. Her jeans, boots, and underwear similarly melted away.

“YOU SHALL LEARN TO OBEY, TO CATER QUICK AS A STROKE OF LIGHTNING TO YOUR MASTER’S WHIMS.”

Katie’s red hair began to whip around wildly, the ponytail bucking like a real pony’s tail. A shocking light burst forth, nearly blinding Sebastian, and began to seep its way into Katie’s head. In a matter of seconds, large clumps of hair snuck out from the ponytail and solidified in an implausible bent shape over the side of her forehead, as another clump came down the opposite side as if to perfectly frame her face. That second clump mostly covered her left eye, yet somehow Sebastian could swear he still saw it unobstructed. And all the while, all the outstanding hair turned jagged and straight as an arrow, every last strand on the redhead’s head turning a flickering, living yellow. The color literally flickered like a faulty light. Sebastian could hardly believe his eyes- the outstanding hair had taken shapes that looked like cartoon lightning bolts with a color to match. Little lightning bolt accessories now dangled from her shirt as well, like beads hanging down from a dancer’s top.

“YOU SHALL CATER TO THE EVERY NEED OF SEBASTIAN HARTLEY. ARISE, KELECTRISA!”

Katie finally opened her eyes, experiencing a whiplash of disgust and disbelief. (The disgust evident on her face sent a small emotional shot through Sebastian’s chest…) She squirmed and began to yell and scream, but nothing was stopping at this point. Katie’s angular punk belts, which hadn’t disappeared with her pants and now lay balanced upon her waist, glittered with a light and spawned an angular loincloth that draped down her legs and tapered off near her right ankle. A golden circlet appeared on her left thigh, as two spiked cuffs that matched her choker- no, despite not changing it somehow fit to call it a collar now- attached themselves to her wrists. The buckle on the back of the collar faded away, becoming an impossibly complete ring of leather, with a ring appearing to hang from the front. One spike on each of the cuffs disappeared, transforming into more rings- rings which connected to the collar’s ring via a yellow chain suddenly bursting forth from each. The chains found each other and fused into one, pulling Katie’s body into a position more suited to a hogtie. Two thin golden bands that had appeared around Katie’s ankles spawned yet more chains, completing the position. Two small golden lights appeared and pushed on either side of Katie’s jaw, like two little fairies holding her mouth closed so she’d stop screaming.

“MORTAL HARTLEY,” Bacculous at last addressed Sebastian, “YOU WILL TREAT KELECTRISA AS YOUR SERVANT. SHE WILL OBEY THAT WHICH SHE IS TOLD, AND TAP INTO UNTOLD MAGICKS TO GRANT THINE DEEP WISHES. AS FOR THE RULES… UGH, I’LL LET HER EXPLAIN IT. OR JUST FIGURE IT OUT AS YOU GO. I’M DONE.”

Pop.

The lecture hall returned.

The chains shattered into light, leaving Katie- or, perhaps Kelectrisa? Sebastian wasn’t sure yet- to write and kick on the floor like a child. Sebastian stared at her, as she slowly stopped to look at him in rage. “What did you do?!”

Sebastian’s eyes darted in thought. “Kelectrisa!” he said, putting as much authority into his voice as he could.

Katie instantly floated to her feet- yes, floated, Sebastian needed to process twice- and snapped to attention with a silly salute. “Yes, Master!” Her eyes instantly faded to their usual cynicism. “Wait. No. Nooooo no no nonononono. Whaaaaat did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

More like what did YOU do, Sebastian thought. This is… certainly something…