Chapter 6
I saw the Pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow, holding a flintlock pistol...
I saw his finger pull back, releasing the bullet that was meant for me...
I saw Alex get knocked back as a cloud of smoke and a loud boom erupted from the pistol...
I saw Jack look at me with an evil smile on his face before turning around and running off.
I knelt down to Alex, saw the hole in his armor, blood flowing freely.
"Hey! You're going to be okay!" I yelled to Alex. I pressed my hands to the hole in his chest.
"No. I'm not." I looked at him, confused. "You killed me. You. Not Captain Jack. YOU."
I reeled back. Alex slowly coughed up blood as he put his hands down. He pushed himself up, blood flowing freely from his chest and mouth.
"Father and Mother were right. YOU killed me!"
"No! What could I have done? There was nothing I could have done to save you!" I yelled, fear slowly creeping into my heart.
"You were "blessed!" You could have stopped the bullet!" Alex's face turned into Kate's.
"Why did you kill my brother, Will? The one I loved more than even you! Our parents were right! You deserve to die!"
Kate leaped at me, her hand going for my throat. I brought my hands to my face, trying to protect myself from the demons that haunted me.
I opened my eyes to see my hand closing around another Assassin's throat. I blinked. My vision cleared to see gray eyes, as opposed to Kate's blue. I recognized the Assassin as Tucker, one of my teammates. I got off of him, rubbing the back of my neck embarrassedly.
"Sorry, Tucker. Uh... reflex?" It came out more like a question than as a statement.
"Hm. Yeah, I've heard of older Assassins doing that before. You were thrashing around in your sleep. You okay?" he said with a small, understanding smile.
"Uh... yeah. Just nightmares." I said as we started walking upward, toward the training room, where we would meet the other Assassins.
"Ouch. I heard one of the other Assassins talk about this weird stuff that can put you to sleep right away. The only downside is that you sleep for eight hours, and nothing can wake you up."
"That would be nice, but for an Assassin, we need to be able to get up quickly, just in case of an attack."
"Yeah..." his voice trailed off as we reached the top of this set of stairs, getting to the training room.
We walked to the other two Assassins, who were woken up before me. We gathered at the foot of the stairs of the first floor.
Ethys looked each of us in the eye. "Remember the plan. Tucker and I will change into our noble costumes while Grace sneaks into the palace. Once there she is there, Will will join the crowd in front of the palace. After we get our noble costumes on, we will join the nobles in the ballroom. I will signal to Will when we get in."
We all nodded. This will be easy.
"Remember what the Mentor said: Stay your blade. Move out!"
/*\
I noticed a noble wave at me. I nodded. I was right. This was definitely one of the most easy, but boring missions I have ever been sent on. In the year and a half I have actually concentrated on being an Assassin, I have done over sixty missions, making me hold the record for the fastest ascension from first to fifth degree Assassin.
My father's hatred toward me and Kate didn't help all that much.
It was one of the few times that Kate actually visited me in Arendelle. Ever since she had become a pirate hunter, Kate had never really been back to Arendelle much.
Sometimes, her stories were too fantastical. Really, is there really a giant sea monster that can swallow an entire ship whole? I don't think so. I had finally told her about the Assassin order when she met another Assassin off the coast of Portugal.
Thankfully, he did not tell her much about our Order, but enough to pique her curiosity. And she was pissed.
"William! You didn't tell me about all the Assassin crap why?!" she stormed. I hadn't seen her in three months, and the first thing she does is yell at me?
We were in public, so I covered her mouth and brought her into an alleyway. Still covering her mouth with my hand, I said calmly, "I didn't tell you because I don't want you to have the life I have to live. Now CALM DOWN!" She nodded quickly. "How did you even find out about that?"
She told me the story of how her ship rescued a dying man off the coast of Portugal while they were looking for... him.
"I sighed. We went to a restaurant and ordered some food. I told her the basics of the Assassin Order. Not our Creed, for that was forbidden, but the basics.
We were talking for a while, sharing stories, when I realized what Kate had distracted me from; I was on a mission. Crap.
My eyes widened. Without explanation, I jumped up from the table. I ran as fast as I could to the location of the target. When I got there, I was met with a chilling sight.
My father was in Arendelle. He was looking at me. And so was my target. My target looked at me with contempt in his eyes. He whispered something to my father before turning around. I quickly raised my right hand and shot him with my phantom blade.
As he fell, my father ran toward me, unsheathing his sword. I unsheathed my left hidden blade and flipped the blade point downward in my hand. I met his charge with one of my own.
He tried to stab me, but I dodged and punched him in the jaw. He stumbled back, holding his mouth and spitting out a tooth. He rushed me again, and to my surprise, was met with a blade that was not my own.
Kate, in her full pirate captain regalia, stood, holding her sword to our father's throat. I breathed deeply. I unloaded my phantom blade and placed the bolt in my small pouch on my belt. I took out another one and loaded it in. Kate was still holding her sword to Father's throat. I took aim.
I fired the bolt into my father's chest, and he collapsed. I walked away, motioning for Kate to follow.
I shook my head as I heard a commotion from the inside of the palace. I frowned. The giant wooden doors crashed open, and out came who I assumed was the newly ordained, Queen. She looked worried. My eyebrows furrowed. Everyone around me started cheering. I haphazardly clapped along, so as not to stick out like a sore thumb.
She ran through the crowd, toward where I was. People shouted out to her, hoping to get a response from the beloved Queen. I walked away from the fountain, so she wouldn't see me. As she got closer, I finally got a good look at her. She had platinum blonde hair, cerulean blue eyes, and pale skin, as if she had never been outside, as least, not for a long while. She was afraid. Of what, I didn't know.
She backed away from someone, into the fountain. The one I was right next to. She tripped, nearly tumbling into the fountain. Her hands went behind her, grabbing the edge. The water froze.
I, and probably everyone there, reeled back in shock. Many people gasped. I think a few fainted. She, she's like me!
A very short man, with an abnormally disproportionate head to the rest of his body, and two large men came out of the ballroom.
"There she is! Stop her!" the short guy yelled. My eyes widened. This was what I was trained for.
Before I could do anything, the Queen yelled, "Please, just stay away from me! Stay away!" Some blue magic... stuff flew from her fingers and onto the floor underneath the short guy and the others. I almost cracked up; the looks on their faces were priceless! But it's not the time.
"Monster... monster!" the short guy yelled. Can't he see that she's scared? Can't anyone? To me, it's as plain as day.
As the Queen ran off, snow started to fall from the sky. I looked around, surprised. I think all the other people in the courtyard did the same. I looked around for my fellow Assassins. Wait... Get to your post, Will!
I ran after the Queen, along with a girl and another man, a noble. The girl was a few years younger than me. She had bright red hair with a gray streak. Must be a new fashion statement or something. The man had rusty colored hair with long sideburns and wore a military coat of some kind.As we ran, the girl yelled, "Elsa!" Who... oh, yeah; that's the Queen's name. Queen Elsa. The girl must know her somehow.
We ran to the edge of the fjord, where ice was slowly spreading over the entire body of water, wherever Queen Elsa stepped. I stood, shocked, as the entire fjord froze solid. I heard the girl and the man behind me say something, but I wasn't listening. The Queen, my charge, had fled to the mountains.
/*\
I plunged through the deep snow, cursing under my breath. "Why did you have to go to the very top of the mountains? And why did you have to make covered in snow? Why not something easier to navigate, like really cold air? That, at least, I can control!" My own words halted me in my tracks. Idiot.
I jumped in the air, creating pillars of air under my feet. I ran on top of the snow for a while, before I got tired. I let the pillars of air go away, and I fell into the snow with a poof. I thought for a moment. I don't get tired by my powers... What can I do to make traveling easier? I shrugged and sighed. I was no closer to finding Queen Elsa than before.
I used some air to make a snow cave in only a few minutes. I crawled in and used my arms as a pillow. I closed my eyes. My sleep was dreamless.
When I woke up, the sun was high in the sky. Crap! I ran out of the snow cave, thinking about what to do about my traveling problem. My eyes perked up for a moment. I raised my arms and commanded the air around me to lift up my feet.
I created another, larger pillar of air to lift up my behind, as well as my back and arms. After a few minutes, it was like sitting in an armchair. Using this new form of travel, that I called chair-flying, I was able to navigate the snow-ridden mountains with ease. Keeping the pillars all going the exact same speed was difficult, however. Comparatively, though, this was much easier.
Speeding around in my new chair, I was able to cover the area where the Queen disappeared off to much more quickly than otherwise.
I had traveled the forest for several hours before coming across a pair of footprints. I dismissed the wind chair and crouched to look at them. They looked like they were coming from Arendelle, heading North. They were small, probably belonging to a woman of about five feet, six inches tall. Maybe a little smaller. I followed the footprints for another few hours. It was starting to get dark. There was a slight indentation in the snow, probably meaning there was a cloak of some sort on this person. I continued on for a few minutes longer.
The change in the footprints occurred when the indentations looked deeper, like the person had been going slower. Then I saw saw the footprints start changing all over the place, as if the person were dancing, based on the facts that there were no other people's footprints. What the? I saw another few pairs of footprints appear as I went farther. Along with it were reindeer tracks. Someone was here before I was...
I had been concentrating on the footprints so much, I had not noticed where they were leading me in the first place. I was following the footprints to the person when they stopped at a staircase. Made of ice. I looked up to see where it led to. A castle. Made of ice. Hm, I wonder who this could belong to?
A loud, deep voice rumbled from my left. "STAY AWAY!" I was quickly jolted out of my sarcastic thoughts when a giant, cold hand, claw, thing grabbed me around my waist. I couldn't break free, no matter how hard I tried. I unsheathed my hidden blades and tried to stab the monster, but it did nothing. Not that I thought it would... I even fired a bullet through the monster's head. Sadly, he just looked at me with a hole in his head and roared louder.
I summoned some wind to try and create a barrier between me and the monster, but I couldn't concentrate hard enough to pry his hand open. He started walking toward the edge of a cliff. Where did that come from? In a final act of desperation, I tried blowing his head off. It worked. As I was hanging over the edge.
"Woah!" I yelled as I came speeding toward the earth below at what must've been a million miles per hour. I summoned a blast of wind to propel me up, back to the cliff edge, where the monster was. I missed.
The blast of wind caught my left arm and leg, propelling them up, but not the rest of my body; I started spinning. Great.
I imagined a pillar of air to form beneath me, stopping my fall. I didn't realize that it would be as hard as stone. Grumbling, I looked up to where I fell from. I was probably three hundred feet down. Easy peasy. I bent my knees. I readied myself, before jumping as high as I could into the air, shooting a blast of wind up to meet my feet. I got about halfway up before the momentum the wind gave me died down.
I started falling again. I blasted another blast of wind into me to push me up again. I flew straight up. I was maybe twenty feet above the edge, but about five feet away from it. I blasted wind at an angle, so I would fly up and toward the castle. I overestimated.
I flew at the castle at an extraordinarily fast pace. I idly noticed that there were a few people fighting the giant monster with swords and axes. Huh. Shoulda tried that. I flew toward the second floor, where I saw a woman in a blue dress and three men in white and red, all fighting. I was heading straight toward the middle of the room. In the split second that I had before crashing into the ice wall, I tried to cover my face with my hands.
I flew headfirst into the wall, shattering it and crashing into the middle of the room. I landed on the floor in fetal position.
Oww...