Michael, Carl, and the Order of Daemons
Prologue
Carl was cleaning his room. His mom hadn't asked him to do it, no; he had volunteered. He needed an excuse to cover up what he was really trying to do.
He was trying to remove her from his room.
Not that Petunia Rose was literally in his room, far from it. But her memories were. A picture here, a present there, memories of Petunia were everywhere in Carl's room, and if there was one thing Carl was certain of it was this: those memories had to go.
Just like she had.
Petunia wasn't dead, but she had left him for another boy, some guy named Brennden Halo. It hadn't been because she was a traitor, though she felt like one. It hadn't been because Carl had done anything wrong; quite the opposite, Carl had been Petunia's best boyfriend yet.
But Brennden was better still.
Brennden was everything Petunia had loved about Carl and more. Thus she ended up caring about him more. Carl was grieved at this and had told her that he would never give up on her. But he ran out of patience, and relentlessness without patience is guaranteed to either dissipate or corrupt with time. Carl had felt the failure of his relentlessness long ago, and he refused to let it corrupt him.
And that was why he was doing this.
It was better if he didn't have these memories in his room, plaguing him constantly. Maybe then he would be able to move on. And thus it was that Carl was cleaning out his room when Corbak spotted him.
That is to say, when Corbak spotted him and read his mind.
Corbak had looked long and hard to find the Deck Builder before Solus could. Now, seeing Carl in front of him (well, technically, Carl wasn't in front of him because Corbak had found him in a vision), he was sure he had found the one. And if he could strike up a partnership with the Deck Builder, finding the other chosen ones wouldn't be that difficult.
And what better way to get Carl to pledge allegiance to Corbak than by offering him that which he most desired: his lost love?