FIDGET, BATRISHAN PRINCE OF DARKNESS
The Hunt For The Pacts
How Fidget got his first contract from his patroness
"You do realize this is by far the most self-absorbed thing you've ever asked me, Fitzgerald?" Kaïra spoke to Fidget.
As he had planned with Iago after their visit to Dracula, Fidget went straight for the secret shrine of his patroness located in the Northern Mountains of a land named Norway, located in the Land Without Magic. The nuns who guarded the holy area led Fidget to the secret passage that granted passage to the kingdom of Kaïra Lokisia to only those who were chosen to be her servants. After traveling through a series of diamond caverns, valleys full of souls in line, waiting to be judged before the Norns determined where they should rest, and reaching the emerald castle where the queen of this underworld kingdom, he was now kneeling before Kaïra and telling her his wish of making a certain pact.
But Kaïra was not as convincing as one would think. "I put all my godly efforts for seventeen years to ensure that you would live a life of glory in Aldorada, which you threw away because of one pirate, and now this?"
"Milady, please!" Fidget continued begging while facing the goddess that was sitting on a tall, emerald green throne designed like a wolf on the verge of pouncing. "I swear on the River Styx that I will do anything for you if you grant me this pact!"
Kaïra grimaced, her eyes briefly darting off to an altar where a large golden sickle spear was laying flat upon, protected by a green force field of magic. Laevateinn, Kaïra's sacred sickle spear. Whenever Fidget saw his mistress bearing the weapon in her hand, she unleashed an aura of power that even he himself couldn't describe, and it still confused him on why she would put away Laevateinn under a force field and grimace at her weapon of power as if she were given a black plague instead.
The goddess rubbed her chin and thought for a long time before giving Fidget her answer: "I'll grant you a pact, Fitzgerald, but hear this: should your blood ever be united with my blood and be followed by death, then your soul will permanently belong to me and you will have to serve me in my castle for the rest of your afterlife until your soul grows old and weak and flows away like a pile of ash. Under this sole condition will I grant you the pact."
A gulp, followed by a nod and a promise on the River Styx, was the only thing heard from the Batrishan in the throneroom. Hours later, he got out of the kingdom from the way he came from (the goddess had offered to magically teleport him back to the surface, but he politely declined), and joined Iago, who was waiting for him at the entrance of the sanctuary.
"So that's all she demanded in exchange for the contract?" Iago asked as they walked down the snowy mountain trail in order to reach the portal that they needed to use to go back to the Enchanted Forest.
"Don't be fooled, Iago." Fidget stared at the scroll contacting the legal pact in his hands. "'Should your blood ever be united with my blood and be followed by death'. It could mean that the only possible way for me to be her servant in the afterlife would be if..." He didn't dare to say the words.
"If what?" his friend insisted.
"If I had an affair with my mistress that resulted with a child and me eventually dying..."
"Hold the phone, my friend. You don't seriously think that your own patroness, the goddess who keeps saying that she wished to have raised you as her own rather than act as the orphan delivery girl and godly guardian. Either she does that or she has a female descendant that she thinks you'll marry."
"Flashback, I can't fall in love because of the rules of the Elixir of Nine Lives," Fidget pointed out.
"Exactly! So whatever you do, don't fall in love, and you won't have to worry about the pact's condition!"
Fidget smiled at the logic coming out of his friend's mouth. "So, did you manage to talk to the Dark One about me wanting to have an audience with him?" the Batrishan asked.
Iago slumped his shoulders. "The man's a psychic. Before I even said anything, he said that he already knew what you wanted and that you can only come see him after you've received your first three pacts."
"Gee, I help his predecessor Zoso into making Rumplestiltskin the Dark One and this is how the newbie treats me," Fidget grumbled. "Any ideas of where I can find two other immortals to make pacts with?"
"Well, let's see. I heard about this warlock named Chaucer..."
A year later
Fidget had completed and received the second pact from Chaucer. The warlock, benevolent and kind as he presented himself, did have a rather off-normal request for Fidget to get closer to his goal of invincibility: torture his brother, the evil warlock Darwin, with a poison that would let him live but unable to cure his wounds. Nevertheless, it didn't give any trouble for the Batrishan to use his bare claws and teeth to maul the sorcerer physically and inject the poison in his veins, now giving Darwin the appearance of a half-mauled creep.
"Who else can I make a pact with before I go make one with the Dark One?" Fidget asked Iago while they spent the evening at an inn that barely had more than five customers. His friend pulled out and unrolled a scroll on the table in which he made a list.
"You could make a deal with Hyde from the Land Of Untold Stories, but I've heard from connections that he's not very reliable," he said. "I highly disrecommend Yono unless you want to turn into stone once somebody defeats you."
"Hell no." Fidget took a sip from his rum mug. "What else is there?"
"Discord, but that spirit of chaos is not worth it. A deal with another god is off the list. Unless you want a face worse than death, go talk to You-Know-Who. Wait! I got one that could work!"
"Is that so?" Fidget put away his empty mug and set his ears so that he could listen to Iago.
"Nicolas Flamel. He's older than you by at least five or four centuries, but he used a particular stone to protect himself from death..."
So many years later
The first pact was completed with Kaïra Lokisia, his patroness who wanted him to perhaps serve her in the afterlife.
The second pact was with Geoffrey Chaucer, an immortal warlock who wanted his brother to learn a lesson through Fidget.
And the third pact was done with Nicolas Flamel, who wanted Fidget to help him find a good location to protect his Philosopher's Stone.
Now the Batrishan was at the fourth pact, offered to him by Rumplestiltskin the Dark One himself. In exchange for a scroll confirming the pact, Fidget had to hunt down 100 villains and imprison them in Pandora's box. As he spent the next years of his life imprisoning evil in the enchanted box, Fidget and Iago had to depart from one another because the latter was needed elsewhere. Fidget shed tears: he might probably never see his friend again.
The hunting season was on for Fidget. He trapped the spirit Discord in the box, along with a trio of sirens, the evil god Xibalba, half of the Hun army, a crazy alicorn named Midnight Sparkle he had been forced to seduce back in order to get her to approach the box, the Yono, and so many more.
By the time the news of King Leopold remarrying to the young lady Regina reached everyone's ears throughout the Enchanted Forest, Fidget was searching for one more villain to seal in Pandora's Box and he was running out of ideas (to be honest, he wasn't even aware that a potential villain was growing within the young queen's soul). But he was running out if ideas.
Fortunately, one of the great things about the universal villainy community is that your evil deeds that bring the fear out of good also bring the respect and admiration from other villains. Fidget's reputation as the Batrishan Prince of Darkness that terrorized all common folk had made him quite a celebrity to villains, especially Bluebeard, the big dog of the Azul Mafia, one of the most notorious criminal undergrounds in the Enchanted Forest. Bluebeard and Fidget were good associates and friends and it was tradition for them to play cards in Bluebeard's castle every Sunday.
"La reina de los corazones," Bluebeard said as he placed a fitting card on the deck.
"The Queen of Hearts?" Fidget frowned as he stiffly accepted a wine cup from one of Bluebeard's female slaves. "I never heard of her."
"If you know the Evil Queen, amigo, you know that her mother Cora is la reina de los corazones," Bluebeard continued. "Cora was the Dark One's pupil. Because of his teachings, she managed to go from a miller's daughter to the wife of a prince. But the matrimonio real to the sixth in line and living a fancy life in a big estate wasn't enough for her, so she manipulated the life of her own hija so that the girl would end up marrying the king. Even though Regina managed to push her mother away from her life, she still became our beloved Evil Queen."
"What did Regina do?"
"Oh, she pushed Cora into a magical espejo that sent the old witch to Wonderland, where she gained power as la reina de los corazones."
"Huh. She must really enjoy playing cards to want to name herself as such." Fidget shuffled the cards.
"Or if she knew how to rip out hearts from bodies, which can give the wielder the power to control and kill the heart's original owner."
Fidget stopped shuffling. His eyes lifted up in curiosity. "Kill, you say?"
Bluebeard smirked. His hand made a tough squeeze. "A snake can kill with its coils, but you could kill with just un apretón of the heart."
The next day, in Wonderland
Thanks to the annual field trips the White Rabbit had to the Enchanted Forest, there were still many rabbit holes leading to Wonderland, and one of them was located by the fountain in Bluebeard's castle gardens. After gratefully thanking his friend, Fidget hopped into the hole and landed in the unusually bright colored world of Wonderland. Seeing the floating rocky islands in the sky nearly made Fidget wonder how mad this place was.
He walked and flew a couple miles (Wonderland was much smaller than the Enchanted Forest) until he found the Infinite Maze, owned by none other than the Queen of Hearts herself. But no sooner did he put his peg leg on the yellow stone grounds did he get the attention of the guards and their hounds. "I swear I won't harm anyone if you let me have an audience with Her Majesty," the Batrishan said politely. "That is all I want."
"All trespassers have to deal with her anyone, but since you ask so nicely..." One of the guards said before they ended up escorting him like a guest and not a prisoner to the outdoor courtyard where the Queen of Hearts sat on her outdoor throne surrounded by her courtsmen and her valet. She hid her face in a golden masquerade mask with a heart shaped hair design and used some sort of horn to silently communicate with her valet.
"Her Majesty wishes to know why a Batrishan, a species presumed extinct, has come to her court," the valet declared. Gasps were heard at the mention of Fidget's species while he walked forward and bowed to the Queen, since he had once bowed to Aldoradian royalty.
"Your Majesty, I am honored to have been granted this audience with you," Fidget said. "I have come all the way to ask you to teach me how to crush a heart with my own bare hands."
The courtsmen gasped at his request while some of the courtswomen fainted. Clearly none of them were unfamiliar with the queen's 'heartfull' tendencies. As for the Queen herself, she tilted her head a bit in interest.
"The Queen, flattered by your civilized politeness that obviously came from aristocracy, is wondering why a Batrishan, a species that is supposed to be altruistic and benevolent, would want to know such a dark talent," the valet continued.
"I wasn't raise by Batrishans but by humans," Fidget said coldly. "A coward has destroyed the life I had, so I will return him the favor. I drank the Elixir of Nine Lives in order to have eternal immortality and swore to never fall in love again in order to avoid such a weakness. I am currently on the verge of finally getting five pacts from five immortals that will grant me eternal invincibility so that I can crush my enemy. I have no good left in me."
The Queen of Hearts lifted herself up from her throne and put aside her mask, revealing a brown-haired, middle-aged woman who still looked healthy enough to live another fifty years.
"You've got potential, my boy, I can see that." She smiled at him with her red lips as she walked down towards him. She granted him the option to get up. "You and I both live under the motto that love is weakness. But power...is a strength to cherish, and your hunt for revenge is a refreshment to power. I can assure you that you will be getting those five pacts."
"Why thank...Wait, how do you know?" Fidget frowned. The Queen of Hearts chuckled and cupped her hand on his dark cheek.
"My boy, by ripping out my heart when I was younger, I have prolonged my life. As long as it's out of my body, I can't die. I'm immortal. Not only will I help you seal your fourth contract, I'll do the fifth one with you."
"A pact...with you?" Fidget asked in a mix of hope and confusion. "But what could her Greatness possibly want from me?"
"Five years of your life in which I'll teach you even more power than knowing how to crush hearts. My dear evil Batrishan, I will be teaching magic in exchange for the pact."