Chapter Text
Being summoned is a weird feeling.
You get yanked abruptly away from whatever you were doing at the moment. You get stretched and squashed like dough being run through a pasta machine as you bypass server walls to reach your summoner(s). If you're lucky you manage to keep a hold of your non-Demon form and also keep your balance when you manifest inside the magic circle that you were summoned in.
Impulse is not so lucky with either of these things.
He grunts as his knees hit rough stone, his human form cast aside to let his inner storm clouds free. Electricity crackles in the air as the clouds that make him up start building up a charge with his unease. He can feel the walls of the circle crushing him, the circle too small and the ceiling too low for his True Form, and he can distantly hear the sounds of other Demons talking - arguing really - with what sounds like other Players when his attention is drawn to a robe-wearing individual standing just outside the circle he's trapped in.
All he can see of their face is their wide open mouth and jaw but still he knows deep in his bones-
This is the one who summoned him.
Make a Contract! His instincts scream at him. Make a Contract! Become stronger!
"It-It worked! I mean of course it did!" His summoner babbles looking up at him. They pace a bit as he watches them intently, like a cat watching a bird through a window. "Okay, okay. Where's the…?"
They dig into their robes before pulling out a crumpled piece of some strange looking paper.
"Okay! Here it is!" They offer the paper to him. "A Deal! Read through, see if the terms are to your liking, and then we can both sign it, if you agree with the conditions of it."
Impulse blinks at the person in mixed surprise and confusion.
This is… oddly formal. Not that it's a bad thing. It's just so weird from the more casual handshake of his previous Contracts.
He hums as he carefully shifts into a crouch and gingerly takes the paper from them, tugging on the material carefully to smooth it out. As he reads it, he's surprised once again. It is a surprisingly neat and thorough affair. The person writing this had put in stipulations to protect the summoner from being killed by the Demon(s) that they summon whether through direct or indirect means - he wonders if unknowingly getting his summoner killed would count as indirect means - with a Contract termination time frame of 10 years - he makes a mental note to exploit that it doesn't define if it means 10 Underbelly years or 10 Player years or even 10 Feywild years - and a clause that he will be free to go once the Contract is terminated - which if he can’t even indirectly get his Contractor killed at this point just seems to be either completing the terms of the Contract, his own permadeath (ew), or tricking these fools into attacking Skizz, Tango, and/or Zed and exploiting the Legion Loophole.
Then of course, there's the rub: the Contract is more or less asking for a kind of…invincibility, almost? All Players have a certain kind of immortality because of respawn, of course, but this is asking for more than that- it asks for power, the power to change the rules, to ignore an Admin’s wishes-
-and of course, per clause 27c and errata 14.8b, this is to be done without harming or damaging or otherwise negatively modifying the deal-maker’s body (they are to decide what manner of modifications are negative, per subsection 48q).
It's… a strange request with equally unusual phrasing to be sure. And for a few moments, Impulse wonders if he can even fulfill those terms. Yeah he was able to magically modify Tango and Zed's physical forms but he couldn't change them completely because he simply did not have the power to do so. But making someone invincible as long as they do not perceive it to be a negative modification…
He looks around the room to see what other Demons are doing to fulfill their own Contracts.
And that's when he's struck by the sheer number and variety of Demons surrounding him.
There are a lot of obviously more Elemental Demons like him.
He can see the translucent form of a Water Demon with wavy coral horns and an eel's tail coiled under them rather than the typical hooved feet. There's a faun-like Wood Demon with grapes dangling from vines that are entwined with their curled oaken ram horns. A literal brick wall of a Stone Demon, short and stocky with a crown of dripstone spine horns encircling their head, is in the circle next door to him, signing their own Contract with a strangely bright feather quill of a color that he cannot comprehend.
Then there are the more mob-like Demons.
There's a Skulk Demon with glowing horns that look identical to a Warden's antennae and sensors wiggling on their back. A Frost Demon that looks like a more humanoid Snow Construct with a pair of empty branches for horns and coal hooves. There's even a Piglin-like Gold Demon with ruby eyes and shimmering quartz horns and tusks.
They all seem to be doing okay and he can see a number of them already influencing their summoners, Demonic magic flowing over their skin, Contract Marks in various visible places glowing - a whole slew of colors shining brightly in the dimly lit room.
So, with that in mind, Impulse turns his attention back to the Contract…or, as this summoner is calling it, a “Deal”.
“Will you accept?” There’s a definite tinge of impatience there, and Impulse wants to burst out laughing. All this time and effort spent to summon this many demons, and now five minutes is too long to wait? Human nature never ceases to amaze him.
He gives it another once-over. The issue is, he’s pretty sure this is well beyond the scope of his abilities. And putting his name down on a Contract he can’t fulfill…
…best to avoid thinking about that.
On the other hand, his Contracts to Tango and Zed feel…thin, stretched, like water dribbling down a pipette, drop by drop. He needs to make a deal, a Contract of some kind…if only to get his strength back so he can go home.
So now he just has to convince this guy to make some other sort of Contract with him, and then, hopefully, let him out of this circle.
Impulse opens his mouth to start suggesting alternatives when the door at the far end of the room flies open with a BANG.
His eyes widen seeing what comes through the door.
He has no word for the glowing beings that pour into the room. They vary in appearance as much as any beings that look like humanoids with wings can. But he can tell at a glance they are not Avians or Harpies or Sirens or any bird-creature he knows of.
They're full of far too much power.
The closest thing that he has in comparison is the power that Grian sometimes gives off when the Hermits are in danger.
So his heart sinks as he reaches the only logical conclusion of what these beings must be.
Watchers.
Lots and lots of Watchers.
And as he stares, these strange Watchers start laying into the cloaked Players, left and right. Their swords blaze with fire and light and the air is quickly filled with the scent of burning flesh. The summoners are engulfed in the strangely bright flames and their bodies swiftly crumble to ash. And as they vanish, so too do their connected Demons, freed from their Contracts.
It abruptly hits Impulse as he watches this go down.
The Contract.
He hasn't made a Contract yet. He can't go home if his summoner dies without one. He doesn't have the power on his own.
He looks frantically around for his summoner and spits out some curses in Infernal seeing them slip through a hidden door and flee like a coward.
Soon the only things in the room are piles of ash on the floor, the Watchers, and him.
Trapped in the circle.
Unable to leave, with an unsigned Contract in his hands.
One of the Watchers comes forward, a faint frown on their face. He flinches as they reach out with the sword in their hands. But they just start scraping away the material that the circle is made from. A second one follows the first over and takes the unsigned Contact from him before slipping it into an opaque bag and sealing it up.
"You. We are going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have been summoned by mistake." A third Watcher says very seriously as they also approach him. They- He thinks they reach into their inventory but it's not bound to an item like his is bound to his shorts. In any case, they pull out a pair of golden cuffs that he can feel are full of power even from across the room. "We're going to put these cuffs on you and you’re coming with us. No funny business, no corruption. Got it?”
"Uh, yes?" He's not sure what they mean by 'corruption' but he's not gonna question them and risk their wrath. "I uh… I just want to point out that the one that summoned me? They didn't make a… Deal with me and they slipped out, that way."
He points to the hidden door and at a stiff nod from the Watcher that has the cuffs in their hands, two more Watchers slip through the escape route.
He shivers as he can feel the exact moment the circle breaks and he holds out his empty hands, palms up, to the Watcher with the cuffs. They look a bit startled at his willingness to comply but clamp the cuffs around his wrists anyways. He hisses through his teeth at the resulting burning sensation.
It starts at his wrists and radiates outwards and where it goes, he's rather unceremoniously shoved back into his human form. He shrinks by about 11 feet - the cuffs shrink with him interestingly enough - and his horse-like hooves are replaced by his sneakers. He's relieved that his horns and tail are left unscathed and that his usual t-shirt and cargo pants reappear.
At least these cuffs didn't actually make him human and just made him look human-like as well as returned his ability to access his inventory normally.
The Watcher who placed the cuffs on him nods approvingly as they and the Watcher that had broken the circle, each take hold of his biceps and march him out of the room.