[The Kill List]—❈—04:: Coil's Terrible, Awful, No-Good Day

When Thomas Calvert was four years old, he wanted to be a superhero… well, no, actually, that was when he was five years old, when he was four he wanted to be a giraffe (he thought they were the coolest things ever with their long necks and their fancy patterns).

So, to reiterate, when Thomas Calvert was five years old, he wanted to be a superhero. 

There were no actual superheroes in the world back then, Scion having not made an appearance at the time, if he even existed yet, so, like anyone who was interested in such things at that time, Thomas (and yes he goes by his full name, thank you very much) got his superhero fix from comic books.

Thomas’ single Mom who worked two jobs to keep she and her child fed and housed couldn’t afford an expensive hobby like comic books, but their neighbour, who owned a comic book store, had been sweet on Thomas’ Mom, so he’d let him come in and read whatever he wanted, provided he was careful and ruined nothing.

Of all the heroes who graced those colourful pages that Thomas lost so much of his time in, his absolute favourite was a little known hero named Intrepid, a big, buff, blue spandex-wearing hero who couldn’t go a comic issue without spouting some idealist nonsense about the great U.S of A.

In hindsight, Intrepid was as generic a hero as a comic book hero of that time period could be; he was strong, he was tough, he was white, male, loved America, and had zero issues with punching a mugger hard enough to cause a severe concussion.

Honestly, Thomas couldn’t fathom for the life of him why five year old him had liked that guy, but then again, five year old Thomas was a dumbass who really believed his mother when she told him that his father was a war hero, so...

As you can expect, the Intrepid comic series didn’t run long, getting cancelled after half a dozen issues and leaving the story on an eternal cliffhanger.

Thomas was sad about it for a time, but he was five years old. He moved on.

Only, he didn’t.

See, Intrepid had left his mark on young Thomas Calvert, and, even though by the time he was six the boy had wanted to be something finally normal like a pilot, that desire to be special, to be extraordinary... it never left.

Not long after, Scion made his big appearance, and as the world changed, the half forgotten desires of a five year old boy blazed anew.

Life did not grant Thomas’s wish to be extraordinary, so, when at eighteen he found himself with a dead Mom and zero prospects, Thomas did the sensible thing and joined the Army.

A few years in the Army and Thomas heard about a new organization being created, one that would work with all the parahumans popping up across the nation.

Five year old Thomas, still buried deep inside there somewhere, reared his head and before Thomas knew it, he was signing up.

Life in The PRT was pretty good. In fact, for the first time in forever, Thomas’s career looked promising.

And then Ellisburg happened.

That was when five year old Thomas reared his head again, and this time, it’s debatable if he ever left.

See, there had been one thing that had made Intrepid stand out from the other heroes of his time; his villain was a woman.

And not like some sultry, femme fatale type either. No, she was a professor... of Ancient Egyptian Mythology.

Her motivations as a villain had been a little difficult to grasp, especially for five year old Thomas, but, at it’s core, what she wanted was simple and obvious; control.

The Professor (yes, that was her actual villain name) wanted control of everyone and everything, and with her incredible intellect, and the magical Egyptian artefacts she kept acquiring somehow, she sent her minions out into the city while she led from the shadows.

Now, if you know anything about Thomas Calvert, then I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there was a clear resemblance between Thomas’ villain persona Coil, and the nemesis of his one-time favourite hero.

In fact, if Thomas was the kind of man who was in the habit of dwelling on his past, or, perhaps, the kind of man who engaged in introspection (at least without first donning his impregnable armour of narcissism and egomania), he would have realized by now that he was essentially the gritty, live-action adaptation of The Professor, created for older audiences.

He was rich, patient, resourceful, worked from the shadows, and his ultimate goal was to attain control of everyone and everything.

Life had not granted Thomas’s wish to be extraordinary, so Thomas had made himself extraordinary, and he was never looking back.

Acquiring control however, even of just a single city, was much easier said than done, but again, Coil was patient, and he was resourceful.

The Undersiders were worth their weight in gold, and with his powers, Coil could push however far he felt he needed to, to see just how much they weighed.

... But, perhaps he pushed too far in getting them to steal from Lung.

No matter, it was all over now.

When he’d realized that the overgrown lizard wasn’t going to let the theft go, he split the timeline, and in one he sent The Undersiders out to hunt down and confront Lung.

In the other, he asked them to stay in hiding.

Coil had expected them to die. He’d expected to, over weeks or even months, slowly figure out a viable plan through trial, error, and a whole lot of discarded timelines.

Instead, everything went perfectly on the first try.

Somehow, some rookie bug-controlling cape had encountered Lung, and, with her help, The Undersiders had been able to put down ‘The Dragon of Kyushu’, leaving him for Armsmaster to pick up.

It was a surprise, but a good one, and, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Coil chose the timeline and—

###ER\ROR

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—he woke up at his desk with a splitting headache and a bloody nose.

What the hell had happened?

He’d been on the phone with Tattletale, listening as she ran through the end of her report on last night’s activities...

Wait, was this her doing? Had she attacked him somehow?

He checked the time on his computer; it looked like no more than ten minutes had passed.

He performed a clean sweep of his systems, checking to see if anything was off by even a hair, but nothing was wrong, his criminal, and legal, empires ran as smoothly as ever.

The headache was beginning to subside now, but he still had no idea what had happened.

Well, when in doubt revisit the witness, and the only witness he had right now was Tattletale.

And if it had been her who attacked him... Oh, the hell he would unleash on her.

Coil reached for his work phone, and right before he picked it up, it rang; the caller ID was Tattletale’s.

“Tattletale,” Coil said answering, “what—”

“Not her,” a gruff voice said. “It’s Bitch.”

Coil’s eyebrow climbed.

“And why, may i ask, are you with Tattletale’s phone, Miss Lindt?” Coil asked, blood beginning to boil.

Rachel explained, and as she talked, Coil’s blood cooled.

In fact, it ran cold.

—❈—

“Come again,” Director Piggot asked with disbelief as she stared at Colin through the screen.

“Oni Lee’s dead,” Colin repeated. “Murdered definitely; a puncture wound to the head. Preliminary results suggest it was a finger.”

The Director stared at Colin. “You’re telling me someone walked up to Oni Lee and stabbed a finger into his brain?” she asked.

“Evidently, Ma’am,” Colin answered. Yeah, it was hard for him to wrap his head around too.

The Director sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Paired with the frumpy night robe she had on, and the sickly pallor of her skin, Colin had to admit that she didn’t look good.

Good or not though, The Director had standing orders to inform her of any noteworthy occurrences regardless of the hour of day, and the death of Oni Lee definitely counted as noteworthy.

“What about Lung?” Director Piggot asked.

“Unaccounted for; though, based on all the scorched bug carcasses we found, we believe he fought some sort of bug-controlling cape,” Colin said.

“Is this bug cape to blame for Oni Lee?” Director Piggot asked.

“We don’t know, Ma’am,” Colin admitted.

“Work on knowing,” The Director ordered. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The call ended.