Chapter Text
Invitation
“You are a surprisingly hard woman to track down, Skulda de Morte.”
Dr. Angelica Mori, née Skulda de Mort, whirled around, barely restraining herself from hurling her favourite tea cup at the checker-masked man who had mysteriously appeared in her flat.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my flat?” she demanded, heart racing.
“I have had many names, but Checkerface will do for now. It is what your future associates know me as,” the newly-dubbed Checkerface replied evenly. “As for my purpose, I am here with an invitation.” He handed the recently graduated doctor a white envelope. Despite her reluctance, she gingerly accepted.
“Thank you. I will consider your invitation. However, showing up in someone’s home, unannounced and without invitation, is also considered frightfully rude. Please leave, and refrain from ever showing up here again.”
“I will receive your answer in one week’s time,” said Checkerface, before fading from view. This time, Angelica stared at the empty spot in disbelief, before shakily hurling the contents of her fork drawer through the spot. It seemed as though the man – if the being was even human – was really gone, but she couldn’t be sure. A man who could phase through walls, or teleport, or whatever Checkerface had done, could easily still be watching her from elsewhere.
Skulda de Morte had legally changed her name the moment her enrollment at Cambridge had been processed. She didn’t actually have anything against her birth name – apart from the mystery surrounding it – but it was rather unwieldy for everyday use. Not to mention that a paediatrician called ‘Dr. de Morte’ did not exactly inspire confidence. Her name change was a matter of public record, but not even the tabloids have clued in on it. That someone actually took the time to slough through those records from six years ago to specifically look for her…
…Angelica didn’t feel so safe in her flat anymore.
Battleground
After a week of restless county-hopping and three-star hotels, Angelica finally decided she had enough of avoiding the issue. So exactly a week from the day Checkerface appeared in her home, she was waiting at a two-person table in one of her favourite Cambridge cafés. It was far enough away from campus that less students would make the trek. For Angelica, it was worth it; the café not only served proper loose leaf tea, but also a mean hot chocolate. The biggest draw at the moment though, was the fact that the café bore witness to so many of her cramming sessions she was on first name basis with most of the baristas.
Idly reading a translated copy of The Art of War, Angelica kept a careful eye on the door. As uncomfortable as the thought was, she had figured that a mysterious entity that can phase through walls into her flat would have no trouble tracking her down. She was proven right when a patron with that same checkered mask strolled in casually. He gave her a brief nod in greeting, but made a beeline for the counter.
She observed, with both interest and concern, as the baristas, Jana and Tod, barely gave him a second glance. They had a tendency to be overly curious about new patrons. It was with trepidation, then, that she nodded back to Checkerface as he approached with his claimed drink.
“I am pleased to see this establishment has kept up its quality. You have superb taste, Miss de Morte.”
…so much for the home field advantage.
Defiance
“That’s all well and good, but you still haven’t explained the crucial point about this I Prescelti Sette business,” Angelica maintained stubbornly. And why did I Prescelti Sette give her a niggling in the back of her mind? “Why me in particular? I get it, you’re looking for specialized people in their field for some sort of private Black Ops assault team, but I’m nowhere near that area or level of expertise. I’ve had no military training. I may have read medicine, but I haven’t even started my residency. I intend to specialize in paediatrics. Please explain this to me.”
“And how do you expect to specialize if you have not been accepted into a residency program?” Checkerface asked, completely ignoring her question.
…wait, WHAT?
“Are you…threatening to hold my residency acceptance hostage for my agreement to participate in this team?” Angelica blurted out incredulously.
“Would you have agreed otherwise?” Checkerface countered. Angelica closed her mouth and refused to dignify that with a response. The masked male must have divined some sort of answer from her mulish expression, however; after a prolonged, stubborn silence, Checkerface gave an almost exasperated sigh.
“This is why I hate dealing with Clouds,” he muttered with a dramatic shake of his head, seemingly to himself. Angelica frowned in confusion; she could almost hear the capitalization of the last word. Why did ‘Cloud’ as a title sound so familiar?
“Besides your medical training, you have also been known to survive even life-threatening injuries, against all odds.” Her eyebrows rose in reflex, but Angelica really couldn’t refute her strange – almost Harry Potter-esque, really – tendency to defy death.
There were quite a few times, back before she learnt how to street fight more effectively, where she could have sworn she’d taken a fatal blow, only to come out of the fight almost unscathed. Then there was that time she’d been hit by a speeding cab when she was thirteen; that time she’d been mugged in France, on her first tour with the Norns; the very embarrassing episode where she had klutzily tripped off the stage during a rehearsal and everyone, including her, thought she’d broken her neck; the orgo chem lab explosion; the list went on. Angelica always pushed those incidents to the back of her mind, just as she did the part of her that insisted purple hair and eyes were not supposed to be natural. She refused to give into her curiosity.
(– was that why this life’s birth mother abandoned – no, don’t go there, Angelica; that way lied madness –)
“Make no mistake, there is great personal risk involved in joining this group. Your predecessor did not make it. But I believe that your…unique talents, coupled with your knowledge of medicine, will not only ensure your survival; it will ensure that of your teammates as well,” Checkerface continued bluntly, “and I am invested keeping all of you alive.”
Angelica really had no intention of putting herself in the way of any more death-defying stunts. In no way was she an adrenaline junkie, in either life (shut up, brain, performing on stage did not count). But what choice did she have, with Checkerface-of-Unknown-Powers so willing to ruin her future just to coerce her acceptance?
“Alright, let’s talk contract then. To start with, I will agree to participate in ONE mission if and only if you will cease interfering with my residency acceptances from this moment forward…”
Realization
It wasn’t until she got back home that she realized just what had been bugging her this entire time.
Clouds + Defying death + Skulda de Morte = Magical Pyro Mafia Babies.
She was living her current life as a genderbent anime character.
…FML.
Deal
After a thoroughly embarrassing bout of hysterics – complete with hyperventilation and black spots in her vision – Angelica finally pulled herself together enough to deal.
FACT: She was now locked into a contract for two ‘Black-Ops’ style missions for a private client, as medical support.
FACT: The two missions were half a year apart, with the first one scheduled in half a year.
FACT: She would be working in a team with six other members, specializations unknown.
FACT: She would be allowed to use a code name.
FACT: In addition to mission pay, costs of travel and accommodation to, from and for the duration of the missions will be covered by the client.
FACT: Cost of training to become field-ready would also be covered by the client; initial training would begin in two weeks, and will be scheduled around her – as yet hypothetical – residency shifts.
SPECULATION: She had been reincarnated into a world that parallels an anime her past self had known of only in passing.
SPECULATION: This world has people with magical powers called Dying Will Flames.
SPECULATION: These so called Dying Will Flame users are part of the Mafia.
SPECULATION: Based on what Checkerface implied, she is a Cloud Flame User.
SPECULATION: She was the female counterpart of one of the strongest cloud flame users in the world, if she was to take the plot of an anime as truth: Skull de Mort, the Immortal Stuntman, known for his death-defying circus stunts.
SPECULATION: Checkerface had suckered her into a team where she and her teammates would eventually be cursed into baby form for some ‘saving the world’ theory.
Nope. Even with the experience of two lives behind her, Angelica was still not adult enough to deal.
“Out of the boiling pan and into the fire,” she groaned, feeling another break down imminent.