6: Soulmate

"Cult of Man? More like the Cult of Himbos. Those fools have no idea what they've really done. They expected a pliable slave to further their cause. As if Our soulmate would ever be such a basic, beta bitch…" Raven's Shadow sneered.

Raven said nothing, simply continuing to observe Adam and the girl he'd arrived with from a shadowed corner of the cafeteria. She could already see the changes between this Adam and the Adam she'd observed yesterday. This Adam was stronger, more handsome, and practically handcrafted to perfection by what Raven knew now Shadowed his soul.

The changes plus the presence of his new Shadow gave Adam an air of totality and power that was attracting every female gaze in the room. A part of Raven preened at her soulmate's natural magnetism now that he was whole. Another part of her seethed with jealousy that these bitches thought they could even lay eyes on him.

But still, no emotions showed in Raven's expression. Her face might as well have been a blank mask for all that it didn't twitch while she watched her soulmate. She'd learned long ago that showing her emotions only gave people more ammunition to work with.

Over and over again, that lesson had been hammered into her head until Raven developed near absolute control over her emotions. She'd been called emotionless and cold more times than she could count. But Raven didn't care. The only opinions that mattered were her own, her Shadow's, and her fated partner's.

"Isn't it a good thing that the cult's plan was doomed from the start?" Raven asked her Shadow in a monotone voice.

"Of course it is!" Her Shadow shot back. "But that doesn't mean I can't curse those old meddling bastards to burn in Hell! They touched my man-! Er… I guess 'Our' man now that Adam and my dear Stud-hubby have merged…"

"Yes… Quite…" Raven deadpanned. "You know they're going to find out that things aren't going their way, right? They may be evil misogynists with an insane plan to flip the world order on its head but they're not idiots. They'll try and find some way to control Adam…"

"Yup," Raven's Shadow said, popping the 'p'. "That's why we should put all our cards on the table now while we still can. Go introduce yourself to Adam so we can keep a closer eye on him… Among other reasons~"

"… Okay," Raven agreed instantly.

Her Shadow cackled, "This is why we get along so well, girl~! When you put your mind to something, you're a straight-up bad bitch~! Reminds me of myself~"

Raven was already moving, getting up from her shadowed chair and seemingly gliding across the cafeteria toward Adam, "You have been grooming me for this moment for years… I know what I want and I will not hesitate to get it…"

"Whatever~," Raven's Shadow scoffed playfully. "I'm not the one who was looking for an easy out to her Daddy issues. You knew my help came with conditions when you agreed. Don't get all snarky about grooming now, girl."

"… Fair point," Raven didn't flinch but she wanted to.

That was another reason she'd developed her iron-clad emotional control: her family heritage. Raven wasn't completely Human. She was also half-demon, an unwilling daughter of Trigon the Invincible. Trigon was a demon lord of Wrath, exiled to Earth for reasons Raven wasn't privy to.

Her relationship with her father wasn't so much complicated as it was outright hostile. He was a bastard and a manwhore and she couldn't stand him. Before she'd made the pact with her Shadow, her connection to her father meant Raven's emotions and demonic powers were closely tied together. Back then, emotional control was necessary if she didn't want to unintentionally destroy the entire Earth because of a childish tantrum.

Things were better now though. She'd gotten out from under her father's controlling thumb. And the pact with her Shadow meant the connection between Raven and Trigon had been severed. Of course, the pact also meant that Raven was now actively working against her father but she wouldn't have it any other way.

So much about Raven's current situation lined up perfectly. Raven knew she'd been scouted and chosen meticulously by her Shadow. There was no other way any of this would have been possible. Her connection to her father and, through him, to the Cult of Man was important.

But even with that premeditation, Raven's choice had been an easy one. The Shadow hadn't cared about her being a half-demon or that other people saw her as a stone-cold bitch due to her emotionless control. It only cared that her father and the Cult were meddling in things they couldn't understand.

When the pact was first struck, Raven knew she was just a weapon for her new Shadow. But unlike when her father treated her as a tool, Raven found she didn't mind so much. Perhaps because she was aimed at Trigon instead of being wielded by the exiled demon lord.

Of course, over the years, Raven's relationship with her Shadow had mellowed. They didn't always get along or agree but Raven felt like she'd made peace with her other half. They understood each other and their individual and collective goals aligned. Raven never wanted to be controlled by Trigon again. Her Shadow wanted to be reunited with her ancient Master, something that the current generation of the Cult was fucking up beyond belief because the purpose of their organization had been corrupted and lost to time.

It had taken years but Raven had eventually gotten her Shadow to open up to her. She'd learned some of the Shadow's shadowy past and the origin of her grievances with the Cult of Man. Raven's Shadow was ancient, dating back to the rise of civilization, the infamous genetic shift, and the first generation of the Cult of Man.

Back when the ratio between men and women was roughly the same (already an idea Raven could barely wrap her head around), the original Cult of Man was formed. The most powerful shamans of ancient Humanity came together to forge a new world. A world where the breeding conditions were optimal and Humanity's population would flourish.

To enforce this change upon Humanity, upon the world, they pooled their ancient magicks and called upon something not limited by the laws of their reality. They succeeded, summoning something greater than they could ever imagine from the void between worlds. It appeared to them as a Shadow, one that stood even when there was no light to cast it.

And through that Shadow's incomprehensible power, Humanity was forever changed… At a cost… The Shadow was diminished and tied to their world. But even diminished, the Shadow was able to rule over a portion of Humanity as the great genetic shift it caused changed the world.

The initial genetic shift wasn't the only thing the Shadow was responsible for. During it/his first reign on Earth, the Shadow pioneered many things that quickly became almost instinctive and inherent for Humanity across the globe. Things like the preference for strong or aggressive women, general harem culture, and even the willingness for women to share or work together for a single valuable man.

That was where Raven's Shadow came in. When she was still Human, she'd been one of the Shadow's many, many wives. She'd been the first of the Shadow's wives, no less… She became important enough that when the Shadow returned to the void at the border of their reality, she ascended to join him.

Though she didn't show it, all of that still boggled Raven's mind. Her Shadow had lived through the single most influential period in Human history, though it was so long ago that she struggled to remember more than bits and pieces of it. She didn't even remember her name, simply going by 'Shadow' now in honor of her Master/Lord/Stud-hubby.

Shadow didn't get to stay in the void with her Stud-hubby for very long. She was summoned back to the world by pure chance and had been stuck wandering the Earth ever since. She now had only one goal: reuniting with the only being she could ever love.

And after eons of biding her time, Shadow's opportunity was finally here. She was not ignorant of the Cult of Man's continued existence after the original Shadow's disappearance. The organization persisted throughout history, lurking behind the scenes as their true beliefs and the sacrifices made by their founders were lost to time.

The current Cult of Man was a cruel facsimile of what it originally stood for. They retained their history and legends by passing them down from member to member, unknowingly corrupting the tales like an eon-long game of Telephone.

Now, the Cult believed in the 'supremacy' of the male gender instead of the survival and proliferation of Humanity as a whole. Their founding ancestors would have wept if they saw what their descendants had become…

The worst part was what the Cult was doing to achieve their goals. They managed to find or concoct a ritual that summoned the original Shadow and shoved it into an unwilling, half-broken host the Cult had chosen at birth. They then hoped to subjugate the original Shadow through its new, young, broken host, turning them both into a sort of slave messiah that would further the Cult's twisted cause.

Raven's Shadow managed to catch wind of the plan when the Cult was manipulating the birth of its broken vessel. She was too late to prevent one Adam Prince from being born with a Shadow-shaped hole in his soul. But she wasn't too late to secretly insert herself into the Cult's long-running plan.

She found Raven and they made a pact. Shadow would help Raven escape her father. And they would merge. Their goals would become one, as well as parts of their essence. So they laid in wait for the day the Cult's cruel ritual would set events in motion…

And early this morning, the time they were waiting for finally came. Both Raven and her Shadow felt the ritual begin. They felt the cult call upon powers they're current generation could never comprehend. All they could do was watch from a distance as the ritual crudely and cruelly pulled the original Shadow from the void, mangled it almost beyond recognition, and shoved it into Adam's half-complete soul.

The guilt of not being able to do anything to help Adam or the original Shadow ate away at both of them for the rest of the night. They spent those hours until dawn in a shadowed corner of Adam's dorm room, watching over him as he was finally made complete and ensuring nothing else went wrong.

Though the merger and transformation went smoothly after the initial fuck ups of the Cult, Raven and her Shadow still felt responsible for the damage done to Adam and his new Shadow. They did what they could to soothe his pain before he woke up, severing the subtle controls the ritual implanted in his mind as well in the process.

They both knew that they couldn't confront Adam straight away. He would need time to adjust and come into his own with his new Shadow's help. But they could still make themselves known and tell Adam that he was not alone in all of this. Maybe he would surprise them too…

Raven came to a stop behind where Adam was sitting. The whites of her eyes practically glowed from beneath the hood of her purple hoodie as she just basked in the feeling of being so close to her soulmate. Adam must have noticed the feeling too because he relaxed slightly but otherwise paid it no mind.

Raven was a woman of action but now that she was here, she found herself floundering underneath her emotionless facade. What was she supposed to do? To say? How does one go about introducing themselves to their soulmate?

The girl with Adam stiffened in her seat when Raven seemed to appear behind him. She was obviously struck with a combination of social anxiety and the creepy way Raven was just staring at Adam. Right… She should probably do something about that before either of them got the wrong idea…

"A-Ad-…" Ruby tried to say, pointing behind him and barely keeping herself from panicking. She recognized what Raven was from her mother's grimoire and to be honest, Ruby was scared shitless. She wasn't ready to take on a demon!!

"… Hello," Raven unintentionally interrupted Ruby with her blunt, monotone way of speaking.

Adam slowly and calmly, with all the confidence in the world, turned to the monotone feminine voice that just spoke from behind him. Though she didn't show it at all on her face, Raven was freaking out, trying to figure out what she was even going to say. Ruby was quietly and frantically trying to prepare a spell underneath the table in case things went south.

"Hi," Adam greeted simply as his eyes roved up and down Raven's form, making the half-demon feel more hot and vulnerable than she ever had before.

Raven found herself locked into a staring contest with Adam. Her blank expression didn't twitch at all but inside, she was as close to flustered as her emotional control would allow. And Adam staring back at her calmly as if he was in complete control of the situation wasn't helping at all.

Eventually, Raven's mouth moved before her brain could catch up with it. Her voice came out as a monotone but rushed stream of poorly thought-out words, "I am glad you are whole now. What happened to you last night will never happen again. I will make sure of it. You are not alone. Also, I am your soulmate. Goodbye."

Raven turned and retreated before Adam could process what she said or respond. She speed-walked away, trying to ignore the instant trauma and utter embarrassment that leaked through her emotional control and stained her cheeks pink, before seeming to disappear into a conveniently placed shadow.

Raven's Shadow sighed, "So much for a good first impression…"

"… Shut up."