Private Oddly Domestic for a Ruthless Supervillain

Kada · Aug 19, 2020

"Perfect! We can get st-"

Caissa's phone buzzed and before she could even pull it out properly a nearly tied up bag of delicious smells appeared on the coffee table: like the best parts of seafood and Mexican cuisine had had a baby.

"Oh! Food's here. Let's dig in. I ordered from this bomb-ass place called Syke's. I hope you like fish tacos. All the toppings are separate so you can build them yourself."

As she talked, seemingly switching gears immediately as the topic swapped to lunch, she unwrapped the bag and started setting everything out. It was all still steaming hot: corn tortillas wrapped up and warm, fresh pico de gallo, guacamole, and two kinds of salsa. The fish was just two grilled filets of mahi-mahi, ready to be torn apart and put in the tortillas.

"Dig in!" Caissa said with a grin, hopping up to grab herself a wine cooler from her fridge and hit the button on a music player. The first song was... eerily on brand for Caissa.

Robin · Aug 19, 2020

Tilly still didn't look terribly happy at the boldfaced manipulation that had just occurred, but the addition of food helped to level out her mood.

She had never used this delivery service, so she was a little amused when the food appeared before their eyes on the table.
"Huh. Conjuration, or super speed?" She mused, watching as she dipped up the food. She'd never had fish tacos before, though they smelled divine.

She pulled one of the cokes she had brought from the six pack, removing her bracelet to chill the beverage while Caissa was away.. The lights flickered a little, but other than that, the apartments electronics were untouched. She snapped the bracelet back on, opening the coke and making up her taco. She took a bite, and then another, and then another.

"Not bad." She said, her demeanor still contemplative, and a bit subdued

Kada · Aug 20, 2020

When the lights flickered, Caissa stopped what she was doing and looked around. Letting out a low whistle, she grinned at Tilly and sat back down on the couch. "I'll have to cut the power when we really get started, huh? Don't want you starting an electrical fire."

She ate slowly, using her tongue suggestively to keep all the toppings in the tortilla as she did. "You're sulking, sweetheart. I need you to not sulk. I need to know your head is in the right place, cause I would ideally like to not lose a finger during this. Working prosthetic fingers are a lot harder to get than eyes."

She paused and finished off her first taco, sucking the salsa off of her fingers and taking a sip of her drink. "Besides I have no idea what I'd even do to upgrade it. Finger laser?" Caissa snorted and grinned, clearly joking.

Robin · Aug 20, 2020

She glanced up at the lights.
”Oh yeah, that would probably be smart.” She said. She hadn’t even considered the computer or TV in the room. Most of the places she hung out were insulated against this kind of thing, so she hadn't accounted for the fact that if they did the ritual here, she could EMP the whole block if Caissa’s power was left on.

”Stop eating like that, you’re making me uncomfortable.” She said glumly, not meeting her eyes. She took another bite of the taco. Her morals and pride had just done battle, and it was clear that she was torn up about the victor of that contest. Still, Caissa seemed worried that she wasn’t at 100%, and both of the voices in her head demanded satisfaction. ”Oh, it’ll be the best spell I’ve ever cast, one way or another.” She assured her, a bit of her own megalomaniacal fervor gleaming through her She looked up at Caissa as she joked with Tilly, and managed a weak smile. ”Are you actually trying to cheer me up?” She asked, raising an eyebrow coyly.

”I dunno, I just-” She looked at her hands, which were now lacking a taco, and then threw them out in front of her in exasperation. ”I have no qualms about casting this spell for you because I feel like I sympathize with you, just a little, tiny, ity, bitty, bit. You deserve it after all that you’ve had to put up with because of your dad. But like-” She put her head in her hands, her expression contemplative.

”-Can’t we just… Beat the tar out of one of the mages who’ve summoned you and use them as a conduit? I know this is the searing-hot-potentially-scarring pot calling the kettle black, but at least there’s some justice to that, y’know? But Sleeping Beauty? How is using her power like this any different than invoking your name and forcing you to do my bidding?” Her tone wasn’t accusatory or confrontational. She really wanted a way to rationalize this. The guilt of what she’d done to Caissa was weighing in her features, especially after the comment she’d just made, and it made it almost easy to just accept this. Not only that, she was actually starting to like the insufferable demon, though she would never admit to it. But still, she felt more of that same feeling of guilt for what they had planned. Disney Princess couldn’t consent, and just because she was in a coma doesn’t mean she was doomed inherently. Maybe some dashing young sexual predator could come along and save her from her dreamy prison with a smooch… Ugh. Brain bleach, please.

Kada · Aug 20, 2020

"Because she's already as good as dead and I'm still very much alive." Caissa stressed the last words in her sentence and speared a bite of fish to have separately, sans taco accouterments. "But I know that's not good enough for you. I get it. I'm crazy. You're pretty sure I'm evil, and by your standards I definitely fucking am. I'm Machiavellian; it's kind of baked into being Paimon's kid."

The music switched to a new song, Emperor's New Clothes. Also appropriately Caissa. She was ignoring it though, crossing her arms and leaning back so that she could look at Tilly directly. "Practically speaking, you're the only person on Manta Carlos who has summoned me that I can use as a conduit. And obviously you can't be the conduit - you're casting the spell. We can't leave the island and go kidnap one of the assholes out in the Narrow Reality. Spending too much time out there puts us at risk of getting fucked by the Disbelief or the Veil."

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was trying to look conflicted, when really she was just frustrated. She cold not let Tilly get cold feet now. If she had to chain the girl up to make her cast the fucking spell, she was getting this done. She was too close now.

"I chose the princess because, no, she can't consent. But she also can't betray or turn the spell back on us. Ninety-nine percent, nothing happens to her. She stays comatose, the ring gets removed, and we go about our business like nothing happened. Of the other one percent, more than half of that is that she loses a finger. And that only happens if I also lose a finger, so we'll definitely know."

Those numbers weren't entirely correct. She was fudging her certainty upwards a little, but Tilly didn't need to know the exact numbers anyway.

"You're talking about her consent, but she's... Tilly she's basically a fucking corpse. Just lying in a hospital bed until she actually dies. I've spent my whole life having my consent fucking taken from me - and not just because I don't want to get teleported halfway around the world to answer some fucking questions. I remember every single time in full HD."

She looked deadly serious at Tilly with that last bit, not saying but heavily implying what she'd already hinted at the other day in Malakias' office. Was it a bit low, playing such a heavy topic for sympathy? Probably. But she'd already slapped the girl's pride. Might as well dig the knife in a little deeper and hit her heart too.

Robin · Aug 20, 2020

Tilly frowned at Caissa's rather frank admission of villainy. She had joked about it, but honestly? She didn't see her that way.
"Crazy? Yes. Machivelian? Absolutely. But Evil? I don't think that of you, Caissa." She said, her expression troubled. "I did once, before I knew you. Heck, I thought that the other day when you came to my door and I tried to kill you." She sat back down beside her, uninterested in the tacos for the first time. "-Sorry about that, by the way. But you forgave me for two unforgivable acts. I know there was something in it for you, but I can't believe there isn't an ounce of good in you."

She wanted to say more, but she was starting to get cheesy, and she also worried just a bit that Caissa was going to laugh at her or leverage this against her or something. "Now I sound like a Disney princess." she sighed, busying herself making up another taco as Caissa explained the myriad list of reasons they couldn't just use some schmuck wizard on the outside who had invoked her name. She said nothing as she spoke of the Princess's relatively small risk of harm, chewing her food contemplatively.

But that last bit made her choke on her food. She didn't know what HD was, but she had gotten the message. The color drained from her face.

"Oh, gods." She gasped. She hadn't really connected the dots as to what had happened until just now. She had figured Caissa had simply put up a fight and gotten hurt, just like when she summoned her. She put a hand on Caissa's shoulder, in a cautious attempt to comfort her, but her eyes were hard. She thought Caissa was like her, in at least one way. If it were Tilly, she wouldn't want sympathy, she would want payback.

"Give me names." She said plainly. "Hair, blood, anything. Give me a way to reach out and touch them, and I will tear their world a-fucking-sunder."

Kada · Aug 22, 2020

"Evil is subjective, Tilly-" Caissa began when the girl chided her for her own self-description. But she cut off when the topic changed to getting revenge on the people who had, at different times in her life, used the fact that she was bound to them for an hour to do notably unspeakable things to her. She smirked a little bit and leaned forward, lifting Matilda's chin so that their eyes were locked. Leaning in so that their face were nearly touching, she dropped her voice to a whisper.

"Tilly. Sweet girl. I'm not a damsel in distress that you can sweep into your arms and save from the dragons and bad men. This isn't a fairy tale, cursed comatose princess notwithstanding. I don't get a happy ending; the best I can hope for is to make a billion better memories to bury the bad ones with."

Caissa ran her thumb along Tilly's lips with a light, almost ticklish touch and then leaned back so that she could stand up. She thumped the brim of her hat, just hard enough to knock it off her head and onto the couch. "You're bumming me out, Akko-chan. I need another drink."

As Caissa went back to the fridge and threw away her empty bottle in the little recycling bin near her kitchen counter, she paused and sighed to herself when she was far enough away that she didn't think Tilly could hear. This was a nightmare: her sympathy card had backfired - not totally but it hadn't gone the way that she'd intended. Now the little witch was seemingly hellbent on getting revenge on people she had no hope of ever finding. And Caissa would know: she had tried herself plenty of times.

Robin · Aug 23, 2020

Unfortunately for Caissa, Tilly was now full speed ahead on her guilt-and-rage-fueled warpath. Images swam in her mind, tracking spells, magebinding chains, and the curious little counterspell formula that had teased her brain the last time she’d tried it. She didn’t have the power to perform such a feat… Not yet.

”I didn’t call you a damsel in distress.” She said, stopping Caissa’s hand and taking it from her face. She held her gaze for a moment longer before her eyes darted downward and examined her hand. She was looking for blood underneath her fingernails, the way they did in those CSI shows. ”I know it’s a long shot, but I-” She tried to explain what she’d been thinking, but she flinched in alarm as Caissa knocked her hat off of her head. She blinked, scooping up her hat in mild frustration. ”Why do you keep calling me that?” She asked as she set it back upon her head.

Caissa left her alone there to stew in her annoyance at the minor sleight and disbelief that Caissa didn’t want to even try. She had once threatened to rip Tilly’s eye from her head for what she’d done to her. She’d even gone so far as to find out her True Names. How could she just give up so easily? Sure, it was dangerous out there, but Caissa didn’t strike her as someone to fear a bit of risk.

Without meaning to, she sighed at almost exactly the same time as Caissa did, exasperated. Her hands clasped bunches of her blonde hair, tugging at it in annoyance. But as she ran the numbers in her mind, she thought of something. She was the only person in Manta Carlos who had summoned her. Or, at least, the only one who would work for the spell they were casting. That implied that she had looked into each of her captors at least as thoroughly as she had for Tilly.

She had tried.

Tilly finished her coke, making a shot at the recycling bin Caissa was standing by like a basketball player. If she wasn’t paying attention, the can would bounce off of her head and into the bin. She reached for the six pack and cracked open another, nonplussed. She sat there, leaned forward towards the coffee table, agitated and deep in thought. Then, slowly, she picked up the two rings. She eyed them carefully, turning them over and over in her hands. Then, satisfied, she set them back in their respective cases.

”Do you know if she’s right-handed, or left handed?” She asked after a long pause. ”Sleeping Beauty, I mean.”

Kada · Aug 25, 2020

"Don't know. She was comatose when she arrived, so I doubt they got that info. But I'm ambidextrous, if that helps at all. I assume you want to put the ring on her non-dominant hand, in case she does lose a finger? That way it's not as huge a loss?"

Caissa tipped her bottle up to drink, watching Tilly go through different stages of emotion. At least it looked like she got the message: there wasn't an easy way to find the people she'd been summoned by. And even if she could, in all honesty they were small potatoes. Caissa could beat a human any day of the week: she wanted a challenge. She wanted to bitch slap God himself.

That wasn't an option; she'd settle for Paimon or the Veil.

"Could always resize it and put it on her toe, maybe," she said with a snort. "I know it's rich coming from me, but I think you're overthinking this. We've got my brains and your skills and Malakias' big, thick..." she paused for a second to take another drink, "wallet. We've got way better materials than most anybody on Manta Carlos has access to."

Robin · Aug 25, 2020

”I mean, I couldn’t care less which finger you lose.” She teased her, sipping her drink thoughtfully as she contemplated what Caissa was saying. Maybe she was overthinking this.

She visibly cringed as Caissa mentioned Mal, then scowled when she finished her sentence. It was incredible that an all-knowing demon child of Paimon would have a sense of humor on par with a fifth grader, but the world was full of surprises. ”By the way, did I have to be there for any of that?” She asked, her tone jovial, feigning annoyance. ”I can never tell if you’ve got a quantum chess gambit going, or if you just like to watch me suffer.” Despite the incredible discomfort she’d been put through, particularly when Caissa revealed she was the one who’d burned her, she hadn’t really minded tagging along. She liked feeling involved, and she’d come to expect the usual shenanigans from Caissa.

”You’re probably right.” She said, eying the rings again. ”Well, if you’ve got a way to get the ring on her, I can have them both finished in two days. Another day for the circle, and then I’ll just need to carve your name in it and do the thing” She counted off the steps on her fingers, before glancing hesitantly at Caissa. ”Almost too easy.” She commented, setting down her bottle and leaning back in the chair.

”So what’s your next move after this? X-ray vision?”

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Private Oddly Domestic for a Ruthless Supervillain

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