Notes: This one is a bit darker from my previous works, just a heads up!
And if anyone is sensitive, *spoilers* there will be death (sort of) including of animals...
Personally I don't think it's too graphic or anything but I'm rating this M just to be safe. Enjoy!
.-.-.-.-.-.
It was hard to believe, but at one point Demencia used to be a regular human woman, with a regular life.
She wasn't created in a lab as many of Black Hat's visitors usually assumed.
No, she used to be normal.
She had a childhood, she had a family, she had friends, she had a job at a records shop and she even had a small downtown apartment.
It wasn't perfect but it was her life and it was the life she made for herself on her own, back when her hair was as brown as both her eyes and her name was still Mariana.
Her life was pretty tame back then. She'd work in her small shop during the day, shop for her groceries and pay her bills, come home at night to relax, playing her guitar and playing with her pet iguana which she named Lizzie.
Nothing ever changed much until the day she met him.
It had been a rainy day and she had stayed at home. On the radio she could hear the news about some sort of fiend attacking a city not far from her. They were destroying the city with some sort of weird invention stolen from the government. Normally, a person would freak out, but her area was used to this type of things: fights between super villains, and super heroes, just like in the movies and comic books.
Their (her city's) super heroes usually took care of the fiends before they damaged much the city, so Mariana, much like the other citizens, was calm about the whole thing.
But her calm faded when she saw from her window that the fight had moved to take place right outside her home.
A super hero dressed in green was fighting a weird creature resemblenging an octopus dressed in a suit. Upon further inspection, she saw the creature appeared to be a dark and tall man wearing a top hat, with weird tentacles growing out of his back. A little further from the creature was some sort of weird plane, firing beam blasts at random as if the person controlling it was still figuring out how to use the machine.
One of the light beams hit a car parked in her street and she saw in horror how the car immediately exploded.
Mariana panicked and ran to fetch her pet iguana so she could run away, very far away from that place.
Unfortunately, before she could even get to the iguana, the room she was in got it by one of the beams. She could only see a giant explosion in front of her before she hit the ground, losing all of her senses. Everything went dark after that.
Time passed. She wasn't sure for how long, but it had to be a while.
When she woke up, she was no longer at her home but rather inside a strange looking lab.
She was in a bed, wearing a large t-shirt and a lab coat. She was covered in bandages all over her body and some of her bruises still hurt like hell. She seemed to be fine and in one piece apart from some cuts here and there. However, she felt different. It was hard to explain, but she didn't feel like herself anymore.
She felt confused, of course, but there were all sorts of weird feelings rushing through someone who was once a relatively calm person, feelings she had never felt before. It was as if she had a mixture of personalities inside her.
"Ah, awake at last, I see."
Mariana jumped. She had barely noticed someone was standing at the lab's door. Or maybe whoever it was had just warped there? She was too shook to make sense of anything at all.
The figure got closer and she could finally see it was the strange creature from before. Behind him, the door opened and a shy young man wearing a bag on his head and a giant blue bear followed him. Upon closer inspection, it suddenly hit her.
"A bear, a scientist who goes incognito and a demon...I've seen you on TV! You're the Black Hat Inc. villains!" as Mariana uttered those words, she gripped the covers of the bed tighter. Why would villains be in front of her instead of fighting heroes and stuff like that?
The strange demon, who she recognized as Black Hat, merely grinned.
"Why yes indeed. I see introductions aren't needed, except for yourself, miss. May I have your name?"
Mariana froze in fear. What could they want with a citizen?
"W-why are you so interested in me? What's going on?"
The man merely snapped his fingers, and his shy scientist assistant brought Mariana a mirror. That's when she noticed how different she looked. One of her eyes was bright yellow while the other assumed the form of a brown yet reptilian eye, her hair was red and lime green and her teeth had some nasty fangs.
"Did you do this to me?" she cried out in horror.
Black Hat laughed. "You don't look that bad, dear. Besides, it was either that or death."
Mariana gave him a confused look.
"You see...unfortunately you were caught in the middle of our fight. We just wanted to steal a precious ray machine, no one was supposed to get hurt. But that blasted hero got in the way while Flug was trying to operate it and, well, you got hit and died. Stopped breathing, just like that."
Her face showed more fright and confusion as Black Hat continued to smile.
"So, being the gentleman I am, I decided to bring you back. It was, after all, my minion's fault. But in order to do that, I had to use my powers. Nothing too serious really: I just used a bit of soul mixing here and there, a bit of bound-"
"S-soul mixing?" Mariana interrupted.
"Yes, yes, I needed a living thing to bring you back to life, I used some sort of lizard...it was lucky the thing was near you-"
"You killed Lizzie?"
Black Hat suddenly stopped in surprise but he made a strange face right after, and Flug awkwardly tried to apologize for everything, from him killing her to Black Hat bringing her back to life. It was clear Black Hat had murdered her pet.
"Oh, well, it was 'Lizzie' or your life...and Lizzie is not dead, it will live in you...quite literally. You may suffer from split personality, animal instincts, hyperactivity, and some other diagnosis my assistant Flug may help you with from now on until...well, the end of your extended life."
It was a shock, of course. Barely dying and then getting everything thrown at her like that. It was reasonable to be in her desperate state, which was why Black Hat gave her some moments to recover and even ordered 5.0.5 to calm her down. She was afraid of the bear at first, but she relaxed once the blue creature hugged her gently.
"What...what happens now?" she asked after she recovered a bit.
"Well, you have two choices really. You go back to nothing since your home is destroyed and everyone thinks you are dead...or you can stay here, where you can discover your new powers that I gave you, you can live a new life and you can work for me under my roof, as my very own experiment and body guard! Isn't that just exciting?"
It wasn't a choice, Mariana knew that. She had nothing left, and even if she had, who would trust a demon to go out of his way to give her life while expecting nothing in exchange? She was sure he'd go after her to get whatever the heck he wanted. That or she was being forced by some other means...
"Uh, are you controlling my mind?" Mariana asked as she started feeling awkward around the demon, like a young girl who has just got her first crush.
"No." Black Hat grinned mischievously "Well, a little. You see, it isn't just Lizzie's soul inside of you giving you powers. When I gave you life using Lizzie, I also bonded you to me. Don't get me wrong, it's not my choice to bond my...experiments, let us say,...to me, but rather a price over revival that I have no control over. But it does come with its perks, which is why I chose you to be my bodyguard: like it or not, you can never betray me. You'll never be able to feel like it. You'll only feel devotion."
Well, that explained a lot of weird sensations towards the demon. Or part of them, at least. Regardless of everything bad he did to her without her consent (could she even call him out for not asking of her consent to be brought to life if she was dead when he did so? Nothing made much sense anymore...) she was still very much grateful for him saving her life, even if at her pet's expense. And that last thought was not part of the spell (or whatever he did to give her life).
"I'll stay" she quietly murmured.
Black Hat moved to her and extended his hand to help her get up and out of the bed. Rather than being scared, Mariana was nervous due to some different reasons. She could feel a blush creeping in her face as she took his hand. It must have been the stupid bond implied in the spell. Black Hat merely pretended not to notice as he resumed talking.
"Now that that's settled, I need to know what Flug and I can call you. You never said what your name was."
But instead of giving out her real name, some weird feeling made her blurt out "Demencia."
"Demencia?" Black Hat gave a soft laugh, Flug made a weird sound in surprise and 5.0.5, who had been besides her helping her, tilted his head to the side in confusion.
Yeah, Demencia. Why not? This was just like a nightmare that had nothing to do with her previous life. Nothing made the slightest sense and everything was insanely demented now. She might as well roll with it.
Black Hat kept his grin the whole time, and he spoke as if he had just read her mind;
"Indeed we are. Welcome aboard, Demencia."