Surviving In a World of Magic and Superhoes (Worm/Fate): Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Ciel was sitting on a rooftop, conveniently hiding behind a few rooftop accessories, a large air conditioner, and some other machines she couldn’t name.

It gave her a clear view of the street that her target lived on, a suburban neighborhood right off the corner of the block.

She didn’t have quite a bird's-eye view, but it was enough for her to scope the place out.

She pressed a finger against the side of her temple, and her eyes dilated slightly. Like binoculars, her vision, her eyes, were able to see further than normal as she zeroed in on her target.

Thomas Calvert.

She remembered what she had been told, that this man liked to use body doubles. And while his height was enough that it would be hard to find someone to act as a double for him, it didn’t rule it out completely.

Thomas Calvert was a very tall man, a distinct gait to his step, and a noticeable lurch of his shoulders that made him very recognizable beyond even his facial features.

Unfortunately, Ciel wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the man to be able to get a baseline or pick out a double from the original. And she didn’t have days to scope out his home in hopes of being able to distinguish the difference, if there was a difference to distinguish.

A body double was, by definition, meant to be disposable. If she captured him for information, it stood to reason she would gain absolutely nothing. And in the worst case, it would immediately alert the snake to hide even further underground.

However, Ciel wasn’t an amateur.

She wasn’t going to take such obvious bait.

No, she didn’t bat an eye as ‘Thomas Calvert’ got into his car and drove away. Instead, her eyes stayed focused on the neighbor.

She saw a woman walking down the street with her dog. She saw another mother, walking her children to the bus stop. A man in a uniform for some workplace got on his bike and started to pedal down the street. 

There were many people going about their normal day.

“Got you.” She finally found her target.

A man mowing his lawn.

His eyes were too attached to Thomas Calvert’s cart and his person as he left. She noted that he looked at Thomas more than a dozen times even if he was being subtle about it.

She only took a moment to analyze him. He wore loose-fitting clothing, but he was very clearly well-built. Not something a normal suburban dad would have. That wasn’t indicative of everything, as there could be plausible explanations for it, but it was another piece of evidence.

There was also a tattoo peeking out from under his collar.

They were coordinates: longitude and latitude. Ciel had worked with former military who had taken up working in the Eighth Sacrament. She had seen a few of them that had similar tattoos. They were the coordinates usually where soldiers or people in the military lost someone close to them.

It wasn’t something many non-combatants understood, so it easily went under the radar.

Nothing absolutely concrete, but Ciel wasn’t a detective or a police officer.

It was more than enough for her to make a move.

His eyes scanned the neighborhood again and landed on the woman walking her dog as she went inside her house.

Ciel took a breath. “Shatter, disperse, be ground to dust.” Her skin bubbled like snakes were slithering up under her skin. Her face twisted and she grit her teeth because it was not a painless feeling. “Corpus Falsum”

She cracked her neck.

“Ugh, I hate this spell.” She grumbled, finding her phone and using the reflective surface to look at herself. She now looked exactly like the woman who had been walking her dog from before.

She even appeared to be wearing the same ‘clothes’ and even ‘grew’ several inches to match.

It was a Fleshcraft spell that basically used one’s own skin to create a false body over your own.

“That brat better appreciate what I’m doing for him.” She said under her breath again as she jumped down from the roof and made her way to the neighborhood.

She came from the opposite direction of the house that the woman lived in, as that would be awkward if they met. But she had some manner of contingency if that happened out of bad luck.

The important piece of acting was to project confidence, so she straightened her back and walked confidently to the man’s freshly mowed lawn.

She walked up his driveway to his open garage as the man was putting away his lawnmower. He noticed her coming and perked up.

“Oh, hey Angline. What brings you here so early in the morning? Was Buster giving you trouble on his walk again and get off his leash?” The man said cheerfully.

“Oh, he’s been a sweetheart. He’s back inside; I just came over because I had a little problem. I was hoping I could borrow a drill from you, if you have one." Ciel put on her best fake smile and matched his casual tone.

The man blanked. “Are you alright? You sound different?”

“Oh, sorry, it’s the allergies; I got hit hard by them this year. You know how it is.” Ciel played it off. “I’ve been throwing a fit all week; my poor throat has been through the wringer."

When bullshitting, confidence was always key. If you acted like you had nothing to hide, people would often ignore inconsistencies even if they noticed them.

He just smiled and nodded. “Sure, I got a drill. It should be charged, just one second…" He went to a toolbox and started opening drawers to look for it.

Ciel looked around and found the garage door switch next to the door that went into his house. Without hesitation, she pressed it.

The man was startled somewhat as the cranking of the automatic garage door started to lower; he looked around to see Ciel only for his hands to widen as a hand grasped his mouth.

He let out a muffled shout and tried to break free, but Ciel already had an arm around his neck, squeezing him tight just as the garage door finally closed. “Stop struggling if you don’t want to die.” She hissed at him.

The man shivered under her grasp, and she slightly loosened her grip since he was being cooperative. 

“Now, answer my questions and there won’t be any issues. What’s your relationship to Coil?” 

As soon as she said that the man immediately panicked again, which told her everything she needed to know. She didn’t need to hold back now. She was worried he was an innocent man before, so she was being gentle and only trying to scare him.

But now? That earlier threat was genuine.

He was struggling again, but before she got information she needed, she couldn’t kill him. "Silence thought. Bury reason. Obey my will. Imperium Mentis." She pressed her hand against the back of his head until he finally stopped fighting her.

Ciel slowly let up again as he collapsed onto the ground with a blank face.

A quick and dirty hypnosis spell was more than enough in this case.

“Stand up.” She commanded, and the man slowly climbed to his feet, a blank look on his face. “Now, what’s your relationship with Coil?"

“Employer.” The man spoke emotionlessly.

“What’s your job?”

“Mercenary.”

Ciel hummed happily as she knew she was right. “Who are you watching?”

“Thomas Calvert.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Ciel could more or less guess that this guy didn’t know that his boss—a parahuman running around in spandex and a mask—was the guy he was supposed to be 'watching.' Or rather, it was the identity of his civilian persona. 

Keeping a degree of separation was usually a smart choice in operations like this. 

“What are your orders?"

“Report anything strange that happens to Thomas Calvert or his house.”

Ciel just nodded. It was a trap to see if anyone would come for his civilian body double. “Are you the only one on this mission?”

“Yes.”

As far as he knew, she said in her mind. But also, she could see that being the case. If someone dared to attack so blatantly in public, and by now what she knew about Coil’s 'powers,' she would bet money that he was extremely arrogant. He probably didn’t even consider another line of failure based on how his powers operated.

But just in case, she was still going to be careful.

She eventually let out a sigh, though. “Why couldn’t he just be happy with my butt? Now I have to go around and do all this annoying stuff. Shouldn’t a kid his age be blinded by his dick? I’m a pretty girl with a big ass, and I offered it to him, and instead, he sent me out to handle this bullshit.”

She pursed her lips at thinking about his servant.

“Just because I don’t have a pair of gigantic watermelons on my chest. My tits aren’t that small.” She adjusted her shirt. “And even so, my ass is fantastic!” She walked over and took a seat on the step that led up to his house from the garage as she stared at her hypnotized minion. “Oi, is there any equipment recording us?”

“No.”

Ciel grunted again.

“Do you have a knife on you?”

“Under my right pants leg.” He answered.

She got up, walking over to him, patting his leg until she found it and pulled it out of its sheath. It was a knife definitely meant to hurt another person rather than an everyday knife.

“It’s not that he doesn’t look at my ass either!” She complained with a sigh. “He better really appreciate what I’m doing for him.”

She took the knife and slit her own throat.

She dropped to the ground, bleeding out, gargling on her own blood as the light slowly died in her eyes.

It was almost instantaneous from the moment she ‘died’ to the next that she was back on her feet, all the blood gone, and nothing looking out of place in the slightest.

Ciel let out a full-body shiver. “Fuck, I hate dying that way.”

She knew about Coil’s powers. She didn’t know too much about Parahumans, but she knew how clairvoyance or prediction-based magecraft worked. And there was a blunt method to counter it specific to her that she’s used often enough.

That is, predictions often became inaccurate when she killed herself. Most types of predictions or calculations were thrown off when a literal paradox reset time around her from death.

She was resolved to kill herself another half dozen times throughout the day to make sure it threw off whatever bullshit her target’s powers were.

“Now, tell me everything I’ll need to know to impersonate you.” She sat back down as he started talking again.

@***@

Ciel didn’t trust Frederick’s information absolutely.

Despite her casual attitude, she was a professional. Which is why she went out to find her own source of information to cross-reference it with what she knew.

Considering that it all but matched, she was more confident to act on it at this point.

Just as Frederick told her, Ciel arrived at the underground shelter where Coil had set up his base. Call her apathetic, but she didn’t really give much thought to those ‘End Bringers.' Even so, it left a bad taste in her mouth to know that someone had basically stolen one of these shelters from random people.

She was by no means a hero; her hunting of monsters was almost entirely self-serving. But she still felt sympathy for people who got screwed over in situations like this.

The entrance was surprisingly open.

To the outside, it looked like a private parking garage.

Ciel, wearing the face of the man from before, walked inside without pausing a beat. She noted the security cameras all over the place and made sure not to make herself look suspicious.

She walked past the security guard, and she gave him a small nod that he returned, even if his eyes never left hers.

She made her way to a door in the back corner; behind an electrical cage, there was a door that wasn’t visible to people coming and going. There was a code lock on it that she already knew the password to, and she quickly punched it in as the door unlocked and she descended down the stairs.

Immediately, she realized that they were at least two stories underground, and she felt like it was still deeper.

The stairway opened up to a hallway that led to a security checkpoint with a couple people posted up with automatic weapons, eyeing her suspiciously. While sitting casually, they shifted uneasily as she appeared.

One of them was behind bulletproof glass with the controls for the sealed iron door in front of her while the other was standing guard next to it.

“Eric? What’re you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at your house?”

“Got a report that I need to hand in to the Boss, I didn’t trust saying anything over phone.” Ciel said, mimicking the guy’s voice with a few spells.

“We weren’t expecting you.” He repeated again, perhaps with a hint more suspicion. “Should I call up the boss?"

“Be my guest," Eric gestured. “I just need to report and then head back home. Save me the walk all the way to his office in the back.”

“Fine, you know the drill." The man behind the glass reluctantly said.

Ciel, without missing a beat, took out ‘her’ phone, wallet, and keys, putting them in a plastic bowl through an opening in the bulletproof glass.

He took those and put them in some sort of scanner, and it seemed to not pick up any anomalies.

“Password?” He turned to her and asked.

“Alpha-Zero-Zero-Four-Four-Tango-Chocolate-Toyota-England”

The first part she got from the person she hypnotized was her 'password.' The last three words were specifically picked out by him as an additional security measure. Food, Car, Country. If any of those were changed, it meant that the person had been compromised and was a way for a person who was ‘captured’ to alert the others.

The man grunted. “Password approved.” He handed her back her items. “Finger and retinal scans.”

The one sitting next to the door had pushed off the wall, taking out a device from his back. “Finger.”

Ciel didn’t argue, putting her finger on the tablet-like device; it beeped, and his expression didn’t change.

He then held it up to scan her eye.

It beeped again, and he nodded to the one behind the glass.

“Looks like everything’s in order.” The man behind the glass said. “Just a sec; sending the request to the back, waiting for the approval.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Ciel waved it off.

From what she learned, their security had increased since apparently her failed assassination.

"How are the kids, Eric?” He asked her.

Ciel raised an eyebrow. “How would I know? Their mother took them to Canada to fuck all nowhere. Don’t even know if they’re mine; she ran away when I demanded they be tested.” 

Ciel didn’t see it, but the man behind the glass had his hand hovering under an emergency button under the table as he asked that question.

Only when she answered the way she did that he finally relaxed completely.

“Alright, looks like you’re clear to go in.” He pressed a different button, and there was a buzz before the metal door creaked open.

Ciel gave a curt wave and walked inside.

All the ‘tests’ were passed with flying colors, so they no longer held any suspicion.

The underground wasn’t as minimalistic as she would initially think. She knew that the mercenaries that Coil hired were living down here. But she passed a few rooms that were dedicated to downtime or off-hour entertainment.

She walked past a room where a group of guys were sitting down watching a game; it looked like football at a glance.

It made sense, in a way. It would be inefficient to force them to be ‘working’ every hour of the day, even if their workplace was their 'home.' Even soldiers had downtime when deployed in a warzone.

Even with those, there were mercenaries walking down the hall, armed and ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

From what was told to her, she found Coil’s office fairly easily. Even without the step-by-step guide she had, she could have found it easily. It was in the very back, the most secure place in this entire underground bunker.

There was someone at the door who gave her an evaluating look. “Need to report to the boss."

The guard turned around, knocking on the door and waiting for a moment. Ciel glanced up to see a camera pointed right down on them.

After a moment, what sounded like some heavy deadbolts retracted, and the door unlocked. The guard outside led her inside.

It was a large office, but otherwise, it was what you would expect if your boss were trying to be a supervillain.

She finally laid eyes on the man who thought dressing up like a snake was a life goal.

“Eric? I heard you have something to report that you couldn’t say over the phone." Coil spoke.

“Yeah, it’s like this..." Ciel flicked her wrist as the office door snapped shut. The guard that was in there within them went slack as a black key penetrated through his head and impaled itself onto the wall behind him.

Before Coil could react, another Black Key was thrown into his shadow.

“Do I have your attention?”

Coil sat there, unmoving. His face was unreadable as it was covered by a mask, but Ciel would practically taste the panic coming from him.

“I take it you’re not Eric.”

“No shit.” Ciel deadpanned. 

"...I didn’t see this happening.” He whispered, sounding more concerned than those words should have meant. “You are…”

“You tried to kill me. Unless that’s something you’ve done multiple times in the past few days, does that give you an idea?” Ciel rasped her clawed hand against her face and pulled, undoing the spell around her.

It was a bit grotesque to look at, but it felt good for her to be in her own 'skin,' so to speak.

“The woman from the Church?”

Ciel scoffed and took a seat that was opposite of him. “I’m curious. I’m not technically working, so I’m allowing myself to be…informal. Normally, I would have already killed you and be done with it. Maybe burn down this place as a good measure.”

“My office is rigged to explode. With a single word, it will trigger an explosion that will kill everyone in this bunker and collapse it.” Coil spoke confidently. “Perhaps we can negotiate a…truce?"

Ciel stared at him for a moment, then laughed. A laughter that lasted for several minutes as she bent over, holding her chest. “Oh boy! I know you have no idea, but it just came out and I couldn’t help myself. Ah.” She quickly regained her composure. “Sure.”

“Pardon?” Even if his face was covered, Ciel could tell he was confused.

“Go ahead, blow everything up.” She gestured to him. “That saves me the trouble of killing everyone myself.”

Coil swallowed it. “You –”

Ciel put a hand on his desk and leaned in, making his words die in his throat. “I’m immortal.”

Coil didn’t know why, but those words, in this situation and coming from her, felt significantly more intimidating than they should have normally. Perhaps it was because Coil studied her and found that she was completely and utterly serious.

He didn’t know what would be worse. If she were actually immortal as she claimed, or she was simply deluded and crazy enough to be unfazed by his threat even if she weren't.

Coil, at this moment, knew it was a precarious situation. It was essentially what he was most afraid of. Even with the extra precautions he had taken, it seemed that someone had managed to sneak by.

Because the fact of the matter was, he had no knowledge about 'magic.'

“If I had to guess, you have a secret escape in here, right? You wouldn’t have a whole—" She waved her hand. “- - self-destruct button if you didn’t have a clear getaway. I don’t take you as the type who would go down with the ship.”

Coil swallowed but didn’t deny it.

“God, you really are just a dumbass, aren’t you? He said you were; I just…wanted to double-check. Make sure I’m killing the right person for the right reasons.” Ciel shook her head. “Alright, I’ll give you a chance to say your last words since I’m being merciful.”

“I can pay you.”

“Oh?” Ciel raised an eyebrow again. “Yeah? How much can you pay me?”

“Ten – twenty million.” Coil quickly threw up.

“That’s a lot of money.” She rubbed her chin. “How are you going to pay me?”

“I have offshore accounts; I can transfer the money anywhere you want.”

“Yeah?” Ciel asked curiously as she walked around his desk to where his computer is. “Tell me how to do it from here.”

Coil hesitated for a moment but ultimately decided to cooperate. “My login is GardenSnake49."

Ciel blinked. “Seriously?” He didn’t say anything in response, and it made her sigh. “God, this is so fucking dumb. This is why no one in the world takes you people seriously.”

“...what do you mean by that?”

“What do you think I mean by that? Do you think the world is so small that you parahumans run everything? You all are an annoyance at best. And then you go around in literal spandex playing this whole game of superheroes and villains.”

Ciel started to navigate on his computer. “Alright, where do I go?”

"...Open the pictures folder, find the picture of a sunset, and open it. It’ll automatically open my banking information.”

Ciel hummed as she did, finding everything she would need in the folder. 

She could use a spell to recall the information later, so it only took a glance. 

“Will you let me go now?” He asked.

“Did I say I would?” Ciel put her hands on her hips. “How about I kill you once and we’ll call it even?"

“How is that even?” The coil was forced out.

Ciel’s eyes widened. “You’re right. To make sure your stupid powers didn’t work, I had to kill myself ten times today. I should take some interest, don’t you think? Twenty million is a good way of paying that back.” 

“I can help you. I know things. Secrets.”

“Yeah? What do you know?” Ciel leaned in curiously.

“I didn’t gain my powers; I purchased them. There’s an organization—" 

“I know.”

Coil went silent. “...what?”

“The people you’re talking about. I know about them.”

“You…know about them?”

“Yeah, that’s what I just said. Are you deaf?” Ciel shook her head before rifling through his desk.

“They’re impossibly well hidden. You can’t possibly know—"

“They call themselves Cauldron; they’re hiding on a parallel world.” Ciel threw out as if it were completely normal. Though, she only knew because Frederick told her about them. But still, to her, it was not really that significant of information.

Coil went utterly silent.

“Oh, nice gun.” She played with it; it was a good piece, well maintained. “Doesn’t look like it gets much use, though. Ironically, a gun should be put through the ringer, you know? Use it at the range; make sure it’s used to getting fired.” She pressed it against his head. “Just to check, you planned on kidnapping a child, drugging her, and keeping her as your personal pet, didn’t you?”

“How could you possibly know about my plan?” Coil was utterly incredulous, because he hadn’t even told anyone about that. He planned on kidnapping a young Thinker girl he discovered and planned on using drugs to keep her under his thrall. But he hadn’t even told anyone else about it!

“Oh, so you haven't done it yet; that makes things easier.” She yawned before speaking again. “So, anything else to say?”

“I can—"

Before he could finish, Ciel fired the gun. “Sorry, I’m deaf to the words of assholes.” She tossed the gun to the side. “Alright, let’s clean this shit up. Ugh, I hate necromancy, but may as well wrap everything in a nice bow.”

She put her hand on the recently deceased Coil as her eyes glowed ominously. A vague silhouette appeared behind her, like a shadow of a demon, holding a marionette with strings that stretched outwards and connected with Coil. “"Ara dìde. Kí oku rìn lẹ́ẹ̀kan síi... Òjìji Alààyè." 

Coil’s corpse slowly sat back up, and a similar light shined in his dead eyes.

Ciel cracked her neck. “Ick, Voodoo always gives me the jitters.” She rubbed her arms like one would do if they found a spider crawling on them and got startled. “Alright, where’s the secret escape?”

‘Coil’ turned around, getting up from his desk. He put his hand behind a shelf and pulled a lever, causing a bookcase to open with a grinding sound that showed a tunnel leading out.

She flipped her hair back as she walked to the tunnel. “In sixty seconds, activate the building’s self-destruct, and if you survive, kill yourself.”

She didn’t bother to look back and headed out the exit.

It opened up to a sewer grate that was overlooking a small pond. She pressed against the metal bars on it, and they popped off easily, like they were meant to.

She climbed up, getting a look at where she was. She was probably a good 300 yards from where she entered the underground bunker from.

Ciel paused for a moment, mentally calculating the time before a sudden explosion erupted underground and the shockwave spread outwards before a fireball rose to the sky just over the parking garage.

Quickly following that was the loud collapse of concrete.

“Hmph, he better make me some more curry after this. If not, I’m going to kick him in the balls the next time he stares at my ass.” Ciel turned and walked away.

@***@

Ciel ends up taking care of Coil through a bit of subterfuge. Maybe a Cauldron POV up next since I did a Ciel one this chapter to deal with Coil. I didn’t plan on having Coil dead over the course of one chapter originally, but I gave it some thought and came to this end. The fact is, despite how casual Ciel acts, she is old, she has been in the game for a long time, and she can cheat with Magecraft. Finding him shouldn't be that hard, especially if she knows both his ‘home’ and his hideout. 

And while having it all blow up isn’t quiet, it also doesn’t lead back to them at all; it even neatly covers up any potential evidence that may have been left behind. 

.