“Fuck!” Lucinda screamed, as her projected body convulsed in pain. “Okay, okay! Fine,” she huffed, blowing the hair out of her face that had come loose as she struggled. “We have to be within one breath’s distance at all times. A breath for a soul is something like ten seconds, or around a kilometer in your primitive understanding of distance. When you’re down there playing with yourself, the bond considers the scale and adjusts it on the fly. Meaning that, at the most, I can only be a kilometer away from you based on the scale you are using at the time.”

Lucinda turned to face him, “The only other condition of the bond,” she spat at Tony in disgust, “is that both souls must be anchored to the same plane.” She was forced to continue after Tony asked to explain what she meant by that. “Well, what it means for the void is that if either you or I decide to stop existing, we take the other one out with us.” She finished, lowering her head in defeat.

“Oh, great! So, you’re saying that if one of us dies the other one does as well…”

Clearing her non-existent throat, Lucinda stopped Tony speaking. “Of course, dipshit, we’re soul bonded.”

***

Two months, three days, and ten hours EST later, Tony was at his wits end. Lucinda hated the void, hated his worlds, and in general hated him. She often made her feelings known, making sure to turn everything he did into a miserable experience out of sheer spite. It had reached the point where Tony was willing to talk to her, just to try to find a way they could coexist in peace.

“Look, thing. I don’t want you here either, but here we are.” Tony complained, looking around the void and holding his arms out wide. “So, what will it take to make you leave me alone, because it’s either that or I end us both.”

“You don’t have the balls. Wait!” Lucinda screamed, seeing that Tony was truly willing to cease existing if it meant taking her with him. “Okay, okay. Calm down, I’ll back off. You can go play with your toys, and I’ll leave you alone. Alright?” Knowing this was the best that would happen, they both readily agreed.

Two days, one minute, seventeen seconds EST was the amount of time it took before Lucinda became so bored she was ready to end it all. She teleported to Tony who was playing his hero elf toon. With their soul bond, and having no physical form, the pair could instantly appear at each other’s side with a thought. Tony was listening to his officer’s plan to take down the dark lord when Lucinda popped in. All the toons carried on as if she wasn’t there. That was because, to them, she wasn’t. Tony could have let her interact with them, but both didn't know that, and didn't care enough to ask her about it.

“Okay, we gotta get out of here. I can’t take the boredom any longer.” Lucinda confessed, a dangerously feral look in her eyes, making Tony immediately wary.

“Alright, what do you propose?” Tony asked, in the hope that it was the right thing to say. The last two days had been blissful and he really didn’t want to cease existing just yet.

“I have a way to contact my supervisor. Before you ask,” Lucinda held up a hand to stop Tony from talking, “I haven’t done so yet, because it comes with risks.” The cornered animal look returned to her face as she continued. “At this point, I don’t fucking care. Any risk to interact with anyone other than you is a risk I’m willing to take. Even if it’s the death of us.” Lucinda ceased talking.

Open mouthed about to speak, Tony was cut off by the shrill whistle escaping Lucinda’s soul. It was a shame really. Had Tony thought to include Lucinda in his toons’ lives, they would have become the equivalent of gods to their little solar system. Thanks to their shared decision making, that reality would never come to pass.

“Great, just what I needed.” Tony paused in thought. “Exactly what is your supervisor going to say, huh? Might have been a good idea to discuss that before you screamed, don’t you think?”

“We have time, dipshit. He can’t instantly travel here, and it will take a while before it reaches him.” Lucinda waved dismissively toward Tony. “Honestly, I don’t know how this is going to go down though. I’ve never heard of a situation like this before. So, we’ll have to see.”

Communication between the two stopped at that point, each thinking about what might happen next. Tony’s thought conjured up the image of a classic red-skinned devil, forked tongue and all. He pictured the being ripping his soul in half to separate its minion from him, erasing him in the process. His thoughts only got darker from there.

However, Lucinda’s thoughts were quite different. She was mostly worried about how embarrassed she was going to be when her uncle showed up to deal with the situation she had found herself in. She knew it would come to this but had tried to put it off for as long as possible. The shame and ridicule she was about to receive was only slightly less daunting than facing oblivion. At least, to her.

The amount of perceived time again was vastly different for all parties involved. For Lucinda, it felt as if a few seconds had passed. For Tony, it felt like a hundred years of mental torture. For the void, the time passed unnoticed like a fart in a breeze. In truth, it took twenty-one hours, nine minutes, and forty-eight seconds for Lucinda’s supervisor to show up. EST, of course.

“You’re the supervisor?” Tony gasped haltingly in surprise. The being in front of him was an amoeba. A giant amoeba, but an amoeba, nonetheless. “I’m sorry, but you’re a soul?” He asked, insensitive as ever.

The being laughed, a deep bass of a noise. “One of the first, but that is my story. I’m here for your story instead.” Tony didn’t know how he knew, but he felt the being staring into his soul.

“Niece, do you mind telling me why you and some lost soul who, by the way, has made a solar system, are bonded?” Tony, who thought that his mouth couldn’t go any lower, found himself to be wrong yet again.

“Niece?” Tony queried, only to be ignored.

“Uncle Moe,” Lucinda explained with a whine.

“None of that now, young one. What happened?” Tony was trying his hardest to get their attention. Not for anything truly productive, he just hated being ignored.

Lucinda told her tale, surprising Tony with its lack of embellishments. Still, the hate and disgust she felt toward him was on full display. This amazed him, as it made the whole tale more comfortable to him. Once finished with the story, they both waited for Moe to stop laughing.

“Sorry, sorry.” Moe chortled as his laughter died down. “In all my sixty-five cycles of working maintenance, I have never heard of such a ridiculous series of events taking place. I mean seriously, niece, as soon as you saw it wasn’t what we expected, you should have called me. Instead, you start a fight with a lost soul who had the mental fortitude to create a small solar system. What did you think would happen? You just started this job.”

“Wait, how long has she been doing this?” Tony asked, as a beet red Lucinda stared down at her feet.

The amoeba named Moe focused his gaze—metaphorically, of course, he was an amoeba after all—on Tony as if remembering a large turd that had yet to be cleaned up and was still quite ripe. “She is still in her second cycle. This was to be her first solo assignment.” The being seemed to pause for breath, an opportunity Tony took to make another incorrect comment.

“Oh, so, she really is new to this.” Tony was thinking cycles were a day, much as it had been on Earth. In fact, a cycle was one hundred years, and two seconds EST. So, while the statement might have been true to the other being’s view of time, he in fact would have disagreed with the assessment completely.

“None of that matters now, though,” Moe continued, dismissing Tony’s attempt to focus on her maintenance career, as his attention went back to Lucinda. “What matters now is what to do with the two of you. It seems dissociating your souls to the void would be the easiest solution.” The being sighed, or as close as an amoeba could get to sighing anyway.

“Unfortunately for me, I can’t justify erasing both of you. The boss would be pissed. I’m just going to have to deal with how angry her mother is going to be that I let her live.” He mumbled the last sentence to himself, but loud enough for the other two to hear. “So, I guess it’s reincarnation for the two of you. Unfortunately, you will still be soul bound.”

“Nah, I’m good. Didn’t really like it the first time, so why would I do it again?” Tony advised the amoeba.

“You like the void… it doesn’t matter.” Moe concentrated on Tony. “You have started down a path that is frowned upon by the boss. So, you can no longer stay here. Them’s the rules. Oh, pitiful lost soul. So, random reincarnation for you, I’m afraid.”

“Uncle,” Lucinda implored.

“Can’t you just separate us, I mean, if she dies I’m okay with that.” Tony pleaded.

“Fine, I’ll pull some strings, everyone will want to hear this anyway. But I can’t guarantee where you’ll end up, or in what bodies.” Moe began laughing as his manifested body started to fade. “Lost to a noob, ha-ha, what a dumbass.” With those encouraging words, his soul departed the two. Both of whom just stared in shock before exploding into shouts and curses that made even the void take notice.