Chapter 27: Arc 3: Dark Witch and Domino (9)

While Hunter took his sweet time in Ciel's little dungeon, the architect of the entire event waited in front of an opening in a graveyard. It was one among many dummy locations Etaceh made to hide her less than legal project.

The air was eerie and creepy. Mist licked on Ciel’s leg as his sword held tight in his hand. Tombstones surrounded him, each headstone seemed old, but Ciel knew they were forgeries. The scent of earth and dourness was overwhelming, but despite dressing in his best suit, Ciel wasn’t here to mourn.

Aerial scan of the capital caught this place by coincidences, and the Ether’s activity in this area convinced Ciel. Etaceh hid her lab here. The entrance was the perfect set-up, a statue of a scythe-holding angel on the huge block of stone. Prayers were carved upon the slab of marble below the angel of death, a veneer covering a lie. Ciel knew better. This statue was a door.

A familiar figure landed from the above.

She was dressed like the last time Ciel saw her. A black cloak and white, featureless mask hid her voluminous body and face. The Dark Witch entered, riding on her flying staff. Ciel already knew who she was, but the nervousness emanating from her was damning.

“Hello, Betty,” Ciel couldn’t help but tease her. “Afraid of ghosts?”

The Dark Witch shook and pretended nothing happened.

“Who is Betty?” said the Dark Witch.

“A person so egotistical, she made an alter-ego to reap the popularity of being the media’s darling. The avenger of the night, winning praise as she flushes her political rival down the toilet,” Ciel said. “A woman who sells merchandise of said alter-ego, while publishing morning stories praising herself.” Rem rubbed his chin in grudging admiration. “I heard she even uses her masked persona to spread good word about her works as a princess.” 

Ciel’s words stabbed Betty’s heart in several dozen places.

At last, the Dark Witch took off her mask to reveal — a round of applause — the face of Elizabeth La Louve.

“Ciel,” Betty squirmed from embarrassment. “How did you know?”

“Tricolor mage isn’t that common,” Ciel answered. “And your coordination with the ‘Dark Witch’ was too smooth. Oh, and Xia already saw through your disguise right from the start.”

“Can we please move on?” Betty begged to remove herself from the scrutiny.

“Fine,” Ciel said. “You really need to get a hang on your ego.”

Betty put on the Dark Witch’s mask, “So how do we start?”

Ciel wasn’t impressed, “Aren’t you the breaking and entering expert?”

“I figure,” Betty pulled out several wires. “Never tell anyone about this!”

…

Betty connected the wires to the base of the statue and took out a compass carved with runes instead of usual directions; a mystical safe-cracker. Her hands flew across the compass like a musician playing an instrument.

“Holmes is right,” Ciel said. “You have better talent at cracking artifacts than making one.”

“Please shut-up,” Betty said, hating the permanent reminder of her limitation. “I am deactivating the base’s power-supply. This should give us the perfect opening to slip inside.” Under her mask, Betty bit her lips in a battle against the security. “And there goes the power. Now, it's time to open the gate.”

With Betty’s final command, the door, disguised as a marble slab, slipped down.

…

Elizabeth had no idea this night changed her destiny forever.

Many steps existed before this moment, could avert the disaster, but all of them failed.

The death of Edmond La Louve, and failure of his plan. 

Xia joined the Unity Lord, resulting in her ascension as the Princess of White.

Betty’s refusal to believe Xia about the threat of Etaceh, forcing Ciel to operate behind her back.

Hunter’s refusal to widen his view, forcing the confrontation with the Unity Lord.

If anyone of this factor altered for even a moment, Ciel’s raid on the base would never happen. However, there is no ‘what if’ to save them.

The moment Betty and Ciel stepped into that hide-out. The destruction of Curtis was guaranteed.

…

The secret laboratory was brightly lit, contrasting to the usual expectation of a mad scientist in darkened laboratories. The floor was clinically clean. The entire space smelled like antiseptic. Guards and men in lab-coat patrol on the pale-gray corridor of concrete.

Inside the lab, Ciel and Betty evaded detection with Betty’s invisible cloak. As a part-time vigilante, Betty created several artifacts aiding in her work — an invisible cloak impervious to mystical detection, a magical sonar to check the corridor, and a noise-muffler. It was such a perfect kit, Ciel was convinced Betty sneaked around the capital as a hobby.

Armed with those stealth artifacts, the two trespassers made their way across the base. They ran into the room keeping various tubes, filled with weaponized science experiments. There were werewolves like Lycane and a much more animistic chimera blending hippogriff, lion and a dash of dragon. Ciel even saw a specialized blend of dolphin with scorpion’s chitin for underwater skirmishes.

“Homunculus?” Betty said, looking at an embryo growing in the tube, and whispered. “This is an illegal experiment.”

It took a while, but the two finally hit jackpots as they found what could only be the head researcher’s office. The empty room was immaculately tidy for a concrete cell with only a chair, ceiling lamp and wooden desk as accommodation. The desk came with locked drawers. Ciel and Betty would pick the lock to find the meat, but, conveniently,  the real juicy notes on the table already grabbed their attention.

Betty couldn’t hide her awe, “This is a note on finishing Semblance’s Homunculus Project.” She flipped through the pages. “The date is pretty recent, and this is Etaceh’s handwriting.” Betty growled. “She lied to me. She knows about all of this.”

“What do you expect?”

“I don’t get it,” Betty said. “Why…”

Then Betty hit upon the realization.

“She plans —”

Ciel interrupted. “To conquer the continent.”

“How did you know?” Betty asked.

“Let’s say, I know Etaceh,” Ciel said, feeling the time for pretending was long gone. “We are childhood…”

His voice trailed off.

“Childhood friend?” Betty said, awestruck.

“That would imply friendship,” Ciel said. “More like childhood nemesis. Trust me, Betty, Etaceh is lying to you from the very start.” He felt the need to empathize with an important fact. “Betty, Elizabeth, I don’t know whether you will take this seriously, but take it from someone who knows the real Etaceh. You. Can’t. Beat. Her.”

It was then everything went wrong.

“Attention, all Magic Tower personnel,”said a robotic voice, alerting the entire base to the announcement. “Project Intelligentsia will soon begin. Evacuation is now the top priority.”

Under her invisible cloak, Betty turned toward Ciel. “Hurry,” she said. “We need to leave.”

The two quickly walked out of the room to see the most bizarre sight they had laid eyes on. 

…

Everyone, both the researchers and guards, were evacuating in the most orderly manner. They were jostling or panicking, but marching in proper columns. It was like the entire facility had undergone a countless drill for this very moment.

Ciel immediately knew what went wrong.

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“She implanted her chip inside them,” said the Lord. “This is way worse than I thought.”

Ciel was wrong. The situation hadn't sunk to the river-bed.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” the speakers installed within this concrete laboratory spoke in a too familiar voice.“Or are you going by the Dark Witch tonight?”

The two froze at the voice of Etaceh, the Lord of Mechanical Magic.

“Yes, I know about your nighttime hobby,”said Etaceh. “Absolutely adorable. It is like watching a dog chasing its tail. You must feel like a hero, correcting all the wrongs, serving justice, believing that you pull a wool over the capital.”She yawned. “Sorry, deducing your identity was boring. One Mana-meter I put in my room already did that. Two-hundred and fifty-five times, Elizabeth, I caught you on my secret cameras more than a hundred times.”

Beneath the mask, Betty turned beet red.

“It got so boring, I even invented a detector to keep tabs on your stealth tech,”Etaceh said with no dime of excitement. “Now, you are wondering why I let you tear down my labs and arrest my pieces? Well, it is to appeal to Hunter. It is unfortunate my latest experiment died on the job, but I see that as a knocking opportunity. I have to thank you, Elizabeth.”She said in a monotone. “You and Carolina think you are so clever, but I have been tapping your communications for years. I know Xiahana will try to contact Hunter to warn him about me. Fortunately, I want him to leave the capital. The best way to convince him to do that is showing him the biggest threat inside the capital, Spade and the human experimentation, is dealt with. Thanks, Miss Dark Witch, you put on an amazing show.”

Betty finally realized how far she had underestimated Etaceh.

“You and that old man are superb friends,”Etaceh confessed.“I mean it. Your father attempted to slow my progress, but Hunter dealt with him.”Etaceh realized something.“Oh, you don't know that? Well, consider it as a favor between friends. That is right. Hunter Westerna killed your father. But it is you who took the MVP, coronating Spade helped accelerate my endgames by at least half a decade. You even help relay information to Xia, setting the hardest piece of project Intelligentsia. This could happen without you, but I must admit you deserve the employee of the month.”Etaceh’s voice turned cheerful,“If you make it out alive, I will be waiting for you in the palace throne room. Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

The communication switched off and the room beside them exploded with Chimera and guards.

…

The two immediately resorted to flight or fight.

Red Magic Rank 3: Flare

The swell of flames engulfed lion-chimeras and several guards, but a giant scorpion made its way past Betty’s attack. The stench of burning flesh flooded the room as a signal to the start of carnages.

Ciel quickly dispatched said scorpion with his sword,  the Caliber, splashing green blood on the gray concrete wall.

“We need to move,” Betty yelled, knocking another guard to the floor with a series of Bolts. “Hurry.”

Both of them fought their way to the exit. Guards and chimeras flanked them from both sides. Black Mana gathered around Betty, and she unleashed another round of spells.

Black Magic Rank 2: Slaughter x 8

Black spells plowed through their obstacle, easily reducing them into a paste of red smear. Etaceh’s chip might increase their coordination, but it did little for their creativity or dexterity.

The two infiltrators rounded the corner and immediately met another wave of enemies. Ciel came face-to-face with another lion-chimera, he immediately impaled it through the jaw and unleashed a Holy Strike right through its brain. Ciel knew the fight was too easy. Right on cue, countless guards mechanically marching toward them transformed into werebeasts in a chorus of ripping shirts and painful crunching noise.

Ciel believed they were a lite-version of Lycane, but handling around twenty of them was too much for him.

Betty quickly came to the rescue. Her hand flashed. Blue glows of Mana gathered, and she cast the spell.

Blue Magic Rank 4: Ocean

A wave of water materialized from the Blue Mana, crashing into the coming tide of bodies, flooding the corridor with massive quantities of fresh water. Some modified humans stood their ground, but most couldn’t withstand the violent torrent of water smashing them to the far-wall.

Betty, not finishing with her attack, cast another Blue Magic.

Blue Magic Rank 3: Freeze

A blue blast of cold quickly turned the corridor into an icy winter. Water froze, and so did the hybrids. The ice creaked and cracked as the water crystal rapidly around their enemies, chilling them to the bone and reducing the threat into duckling.

Betty’s body glowed with Red Mana.

Red Magic Rank 2: Bolt x 20

Calculated glows of Red appeared around Betty and shot forward, impaling each werebeasts in the head, chattering them into shards of broken ices. After a brief second of massacre, nothing remained but chunks of ice, fractured concrete and glowing pools of blood.

Ciel needed to admit Betty was doing the heavy lifting, but she was paying the price for it. 

The princess breathed raggedly. Her tired breath was visible in the frozen corridor. She stepped forward weakly, and Ciel knew they were on borrowed time.

Magic extracted a cost from the user. Xia and Ciel were a special case because they have skills to cheapen the cost, allowing them to spam their magic without consequence. Betty didn’t have that luxury. Keep up the spell slinging, and she would hit her limit eventually.

“Betty,” Ciel said. “How far can you last?”

Betty curtly answered, “Far enough.”

Ciel knew this was the perfect opportunity to exit his cover.

“Do you have some of those explosives you lent me that time?” Ciel asked.

“Yes,” Betty answered. “You want some.”

“I will draw their attention and destroy this base,” Ciel said. “Kind of perfect opening for my extraction.”

Betty’s eyes widened, and she refused to let it happen. “No way!” she shouted. “That is a death sentence, Ciel. Are you crazy?”

Ciel was undeterred, “You need every spare bit of strength to make it out of here. Someone must ‌relay what happened here to Hunter Westerna. You are the best choice for that. More importantly, Xia and Holmes will be sad if you die.”

Betty was frozen with indecision. The alarm was blaring, and the chaos was building, but it appeared to her like time was suspended.

At last, Betty produced several crystal grenades from her storage artifacts and handed them to Ciel.

Then she gave him a hug.

“Whatever happened,” Betty begged, “don’t die, Ciel.”

That was where the two separated.

…

As she made her way to the entrance, Betty heard ‌ explosives and shouting. Each noise, scream, and yell was the permanent reminder of the friend she left behind to save herself. Betty cried silently. Endless streams of tears trickled down her face as she prayed for Ciel’s survival. Each memory she made with him surfaced in her mind.

Ciel’s distraction worked. Everyone was concentrating on their force elsewhere, instead of searching for the invisible Betty, who quickly made her ways to the entrance.

It was only a short period, but Betty never recalled a man who frustrated her so much. She should be happy he was gone. Why was she so broken about it? Was it because she will have to break the news to Holmes and Xia? Was it because she never beat him even once? Was it because of his sacrifice?

Even when Betty broke into the depressive air of the graveyard, the question remained. Betty didn’t feel relieved at the night sky or sheer creepiness of the misty graveyard, instead, she only focused on the friend she left behind.

She turned back, prepared to wait for Ciel when the entrance she came out exploded, bursting with flames and forces that launched her backward.

Betty watched the burning statue and cried. The tear soon escalated into waterworks.

She didn’t even notice the figure of Caislean who quickly slipped away.

The secretary to the Unity Lord made a bitter face, cursing her master for being one hell of a bastard.

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