Warnings: PG-13 for language and insinuations. Yuusuke is involved, after all.
Author's Notes: Early birthday present for Sonnet. The concept is hers, but the horrific result is all mine.
Cookies to the first one to get the (not very) subtle Star Wars reference.
The Summoning
aka: Of Demon Kings and Mary Sue
With an enthusiastic flourish, she completed the last ring of occult script, connecting the first syllables of the intonation with the last, the brushstrokes blending together, forming a circle of words, unbroken. Ringing the script of the intonation were a variety of occult symbols, meticulously painted. Sitting back on her heels, she braced her fists against her thighs and surveyed her handy work.
Not bad. She was positive she had every last detail right. After all her hard research and painstaking practice, she was ready to begin.
She set the brush back in the small crystal pot, and placed them both carefully to the side. Rubbing her hands together, she stood, her long red skirts brushing against the ground and swirling around her legs as she paced slowly and carefully around the edge of the circle. To her right, candles flickered gently in the breeze, the only source of illumination in the room. Inside their ring of light, only she and the circle existed. Outside the ring, nothing could be seen.
Once she had completed a full circuit around the circle, her bare feet silent on the smooth wooden floor, she fell to her knees at the place where the circle both began and ended. Her skirt billowed around her like a cloud of red silk, and she clasped her hands together before her chest.
"Demon King," she intoned, "Master and Prince of Rebellious Spirits, I adjure thee to leave thine abode, in whatsoever quarter of the world it may be situated, and come hither to communicate with me. I command and I conjure thee in the Name of the Mighty living God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to appear without noise and without any evil smell, to respond in a clear and intelligible voice, point by Point, to all that I shall ask thee, failing which, thou shall be most surely compelled to obedience by the Power of the divine-" she faltered slightly as she always did at this point, but she had the names written on the palm of her right hand "-ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, JEHOVAM, TAGLA, MATHON, and by the whole hierarchy of superior intelligences, who shall constrain thee against thy will. Submit, Demon King, or eternal torment shall overwhelm thee, by the great Power of this Blasting Rod."
Oh, damn, she'd forgotten the blasting rod. Oh well.
Clapping her hands sharply, she slammed them palm down on the floor, her fingertips just touching the edge of the circle, and focused with all her strength.
The circle began to glow, the lines and script glowing a bright red until the light coming from the circle was too bright for her to gaze on, and she was forced to turn her head away.
A wind came from nowhere, whipping her hair around her face and making the edges of her skirt flutter.
And then all was dark and silent.
"(What the fuck?)"
Nearly silent.
"(Where the hell am I? Koenma, if this is about a mission, I don't wanna hear it.)"
She blinked in the near darkness, the candles once again the only source of light in the room.
"(And who the hell are you?)"
She couldn't understand the words, but she had the feeling that she was being addressed directly. It struck her like a bolt of lightning. It had worked! She had done the unthinkable, the nearly impossible! She had summoned Satan from his lair-
"(Heeellllooooo? Are you listening to me?)"
She closed her eyes against the heady rush of power. This was… better than she could have hoped.
"(This is just my fucking luck. I was watching TV, you know. It was the series finale. Now I'll never know if Sasuke and Naruto get it on.)"
"Demon King of Hell!" she intoned, pitching her voice as low as she could without coughing. "I adjure thee in the name of God-" She glanced up.
A teenage boy glared back at her.
Satan has a bad case of bed-head, she thought. He was also dressed in a ratty pair of jeans that barely qualified as decent covering. He was barefoot and bare-chested, although he held a bottle of beer in one hand. He was currently using the beer to gesture at her in a pissy fashion and not incidentally spilling some of it on the floor.
"(Are you evil, by any chance?)"
"I adjure thee, in the name of God to speak in a clear and intelligible voice!" she intoned sharply. "Demon King of Hell, though shall not speak in tongues nor riddles!"
Satan glared.
"Speak!"
"About what?"
She frowned. Obviously her commands had forced him to speak proper English instead of his demon tongue, but she was positive he should be showing a little more respect. "I have summoned you to do my bidding."
"Uh-huh."
"As long as you're within the Mandala you cannot defy me," she said defiantly. "You are bound to my will."
"Inside the what?" Satan echoed.
"The Mandala. The summoning circle." She realized her fingers still touched the edge of the circle and she sat back abruptly.
Satan crouched down, his bare knee showing through a particularly large hole in the denim. "I thought these things were supposed to be written in blood or something." He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. "Kurama knows this guy who swears you get the best results when you mix equal parts blood and-" he gave her a searching glance, "well, anyway, I can see you went the cheap route. Paint, huh? Real 'dark arts'."
"I hereby command thee to perform my bidding!"
Satan sighed and crossed his arms. "What is thy bidding, my master?"
She grinned and rubbed her hands together. "I, Dawnfire, command thee-"
"Dawnfire?" Satan blinked at her. "Your name is seriously Dawnfire?"
"-to go forth into the world at my bidding-"
"Did your parents read a lot of comic books?"
"-and act in my name-"
"Hell no! That's a stupid name."
"I remind thee, Demon King of Hell, that thou art bound to my will!" She was sweating, now. If he resisted, she would have to smite him – Damnit. I really shouldn't have forgotten the blasting rod – and she was really beginning to doubt that he'd react well to that. "Now, Satan, Prince of Darkness-"
"Who?"
She felt a whimper trying to crawl its way out of her throat. "YOU! You are Satan, the King of Hell, the Prince of Darkness! Devourer of Lost Souls! Tormentor of the Weak! The Great Betrayer! Bane of All That Lives!"
"No, that's Lina Inverse."
"You're not Satan?" she said weakly.
He shook his head and grinned at her. "Nope. Sorry."
"I don't understand," she moaned. "I summoned the Demon King of Hell! The circle should have brought him to me!"
"Well, a bit of advice? The Prince of Hell isn't a demon. He's a pissy little godling with an attitude problem and an oral fixation." He grinned down at her and shrugged. "I am a demon though. Does that make you feel better?"
A spark of hope flared inside her. "So the binding will still work? You'll do my bidding?"
"No. Sorry."
"But- the Mandala!"
"Smudged."
"What?"
The demon pointed down. She looked.
The red paint she'd used to draw the summoning circle was smeared across the floor near her feet. Slowly, she lifted the hem of her skirt and saw the darker red paint against the red silk. "oh…"
"Yeah." The demon shrugged. "Nice try and all. I mean, you actually summoned a demon, so that's not bad, right? But if you ask me, you should probably not try again. You're just not very good at it, you know?"
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. The summoning should have worked and she would have had the most powerful evil force in the world at her bidding. She'd studied for weeks, looking up spells and incantations on the internet. She'd spent an entire afternoon in Central Park picking out just the right stick for her blasting rod. She'd planned her costume, practiced drawing the Mandala, rehearsed the incantation until she could say it in her sleep – well, except the names, she always forgot the names. It should have been perfect.
But now she'd forgotten her blasting rod, she'd summoned some minor demon imp instead of Satan, she'd mussed the Mandala and she'd gotten red paint on her brand new $50 skirt!
She burst into tears.
"Oh, jeez. Don't do that." The demon squatted down and reached across the broken circle to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder.
"I just wanted revenge!" she wailed. "I just wanted to show them!"
"You don't think summoning a demon is a little extreme?"
She sniffed. "I was hoping he'd eat them."
The demon gave her a strange look. "Eat who?"
"My parents." She felt herself pouting. "They're ruining my life."
The demon stood. "Right. That's it then."
"Do you know any other sixteen-year-old in the world who has a 9 o'clock curfew?" she demanded. "How unfair is that?"
"Listen, Dumbledore, or whatever your name is. You've got ten seconds to send me back where you got me, or you'll regret it."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"How?" She glared at him. "Do your worst, demon! I'll withstand your abuse, your foul curses-"
The demon gave her a dirty look. "I'll tell your parents you tore up their carpet to scribble occult symbols on the hardwood."
She gulped. "All right."
He jabbed at her with the hand still holding the beer bottle. "And if I missed the end of the episode I'm gonna be back, got it?" He frowned suddenly. "And for God's sake, stop making me speak English. People will start thinking I paid attention in class."
This really wasn't how it was supposed to work…
c&c welcomed and appreciated.