@theparallelwall Sorry I’m lame and couldn’t do better in the fic. Enjoy art to go with it.
@transform-or-treat
Who’s the real familiar?
Sensitive audio horns strained as a mech listened carefully. There was a young witch working in secret on a summoning chant, a young witch that was about to frag up the chant with his stumbled over words. The witch, Jazz could identify as Sideswipe from the voice, was out here in secret, trying to cast his first summon. A spell that was classified as a higher tier spell than the caster currently was, which meant even if Sideswipe didn’t mess up the pronunciations as he was, that the spell would still backfire as he wasn’t strong enough to control it.
Jazz figured that it would be best for Sideswipe if he let the younger mess up then go in and save him after. This way he let the bull headed kaonite learn from his young mistakes rather than trying to prevent them all together. ‘Mistakes paved the road to success,’ or something along those lines he remembered his first teacher preaching all the time.
It was as the last word rolled off the glossa that Jazz felt the surge of power that suddenly radiated in the air, the crackling of it made even him struggle to vent. If Sideswipe was a level two witch, then Jazz would be considered a level thirty, but this spell that stole his vents had somehow surpassed anything the elder had felt before. Sideswipe would not survive this mistake if Jazz didn’t immediately act.
Jazz stripped his armor and outfit in seconds - being bare helped him access the magic that radiated from the environment naturally, and his tattoo’s glowed as he summoned the power. Drawing on his left pectoral he created an advanced binding spell, something that he noticed Sideswipe had not done. Even if this turned out to be a low level demon it would be captured and unable to harm either of them. Stepping out in front of Sideswipe he spoke the bonding words just as the creature crawled out of the summoning circle, all long limbs, dangling appendages, and snarls of hunger.
Jazz felt a trickle of fear up his spine as he looked upon the beast that was in the process of being bound to him. This idiot hadn’t summoned a simple demon familiar - as he had been trying for - but a full fledged spark eater. It’s tanks were distended from the sparks it was processing, having gorged somewhere, and now the beast looked up at them, starving still with droll pouring from it’s sharp denta. Thankfully the spell completed before it could try to attack.
No - wait, something was very wrong! The spark eater wasn’t bound to him and glancing at the forming image on his pectoral - the shifting lines of what he’d originally drawn becoming a contract between him and the demon - he knew that this spark eater was not what he had bound to himself. It was just something that had crept through the summon.
It lunged right as another servo from the summoning circle reached out, grabbing hold of it’s ankle and pulling.
The monster was dragged back down and it screamed as it was shredded by whatever the idiot kaonite had really summoned. The spark eater went limp and Jazz could see that all that was left was the spinal struts and the upper half of it’s chest. Whatever was about to come through had taken the tanks and the sparks within.
Looking at the larger spark eater that now climbed out - this one was obviously far more sentient and didn’t crawl like the previous beast - Jazz shifted further, blocking more of the kaonite behind him and knowing they may both die anyway as this creature was beyond his binding ability. Each tier of magician could only hold a certain level of monster, if Jazz’s limit was a level fifty monster, this being had to be at least over that.
“You summoned me?” The creature looked passed Jazz right at Sideswipe and he knew the younger witch was beginning to process just how stupid of a decision this had been. Too late, Sides, Jazz thought and once again shifted to block more of the youth. He would be damned to the pits if he didn’t at least try to save his stupid student.
“I- I did.” Sideswipe spoke, having had enough sense to know that the spark eater before them would not like being ignored. Sides didn’t move from where he had fallen on the ground behind Jazz, another indication he hadn’t friend his remaining processor cells, all two of them that is. Jazz needed to very properly have a sit down and chat with Sideswipe about his idiocy and why rules existed and if he was going to break them, to not do it alone at the very least.
“Stupid. I could kill you in seconds and claim your spark as mine.” The spark eater tilted it’s helm, not in the least bit acting like it was about to attack but rather was thinking, and the pointed red chevron gleamed dangerously. “You were not the one that tried to bind me though, he did.” A long clawed finger pointed and landed on the binding tattoo that now throbbed on Jazz’s chest. “Not particularly well though. So what will you two do now? What was your plan?”
“Take you away from here and release you back to where you came.” Jazz didn’t hesitate in his answer, it was the truth and he could tell only the truth could possibly keep them alive now. And that he still doubted. If anything it might prolong their existence a few moments longer but he had to try.
“No, I don’t think you will. It was growing tiresome being there. You’ll keep me bound, and I will be yours. Free to stay here and not return to that wasteland.” Demons, all of them including sparkeaters, had minimal amounts of magic. This one before them moved it’s finger in the air and red sparks erupted, the contract that was malformed on his chest burned anew as a new one was written and replaced the previous. As Jazz collapsed - his consciousness fading from the forced contract and magic that was overflowing his frame, which was not his - he had a final thought; it was more like he was being turned into the spark eaters familiar.
