Chapter 2 Execution
Robert was going to be here.
Robert was going to see her again.
A few months ago, these thoughts would have had Karen giggling and rolling in her fancy bed like a schoolgirl, but now, they only filled her with hatred and a desire to see him dead.
To think that Robert, the wonderful man she had fallen in love with and was prepared to give her everything to, was a spy named Twilight all along. Everything he had ever said and done was all a lie to worm his way into her heart so he could approach his real target, her daddy Edgar.
He had played her like a fiddle and thrown her away like a piece of trash as soon as his mission was done. Karen was so furious she immediately had her men investigate Robert. One of her men also worked for her daddy and he was there when they intercepted a code from an apartment where they ended up finding a child, kidnapping said child, and suffering the wrath of Twilight who seemed to have something to do with that child.
She tried to find the child but the only lead they had was that the child had pink hair, which was no help at all. And the apartment Twilight seemed to have lived in had no record of its latest tenant. Obviously, Twilight being the meticulous bastard he was had removed all traces of himself having lived there.
But fortunately, as if the Goddess of Luck had gazed on her, Karen managed to find a bartender* who knew someone who might be associated with Twilight. Bartenders always had the most intel. Just like how housekeepers existed to peek, bartenders existed to eavesdrop.
And that led her to a shortass man with scruffy hair who worked at a tobacco stand. They kidnapped him after work and interrogated him, but this midget was a tough nut to crack, so she had no choice but to spend a fortune on hiring a Garden assassin and luring Twilight to a certain location, hoping he had at least a shred of camaraderie for a colleague.
Sure, like 'Robert' said, Karen may not be the brightest bulb in the shed but that didn't mean she didn't know any bright bulbs. Not all leaders were smart, and not all followers were dumb. Everyone gotta start somewhere, and most leaders started out as followers.
One of her men was assigned to protect her as a bodyguard but he would also do odd jobs for her. Her daddy only wanted the best for his daughter, so the bodyguard he assigned to her was also as smart and strong as he could find. With this guy's help, Karen came up with a note for Twilight that delivered the situation, time, and location to him in a way that only he would understand.
The time had come.
Karen glanced at her watch.
22:57
Two more minutes.
They were on a rented ship surrounded by cargo. The only source of light was the street lights illuminating the piers. Lying tied up on the ground was the unconscious man who knew Twilight.
Two of her men were assigned to guard the entrance and the rest were surrounding her, protecting her and also keeping an eye on the waters in case Twilight couldn't get past the entrance so he decided to swim up or something.
"All of you, face me!" Karen shrieked.
Her men did as they were told. Some trembled.
She stormed up to the man closest to her and yanked his face hard, stretching the skin and making the red pinched mark even redder.
"You're clear." She shoved the man who was tearing up aside and moved onto the next man.
Soon, they were all cleared. Twilight didn't disguise as one of them.
Karen glanced at her watch.
22:59
Any minute now.
"Karen!"
A familiar, gruff voice yelled from behind as heavy footsteps closed in on her. Karen watched in shock as her daddy Edgar stormed up to her with his face red from anger.
"D-Daddy? What are you doing here!?"
"What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here!? And who in the world is that man!?"
Karen glanced at the midget tentatively. "He seems to know Twilight and I want to get my revenge." Remembering what 'Robert' had done to her fueled her anger. "Daddy, don't tell me you're just gonna let him get away like that! He made a fool out of us and toyed with my feelings! I gave him my everything and he just… he just threw me away like I'm filth!"
"That's exactly why we must not mess with him!" Edgar placed both hands on her shoulders to look her in the eye. "Did you know what he said to me after taking down all my men within seconds? He threatened me with you. I can't afford to lose you, Karen, not after losing your mother."
"Daddy…" Karen swallowed thickly. It always got her when her daddy became all soft and loving like that. "B-But… If we can take him down first, then he won't be able to hurt either of us. Don't worry, I hired the best assassin. They'll definitely get the job done!"
"You hired an assassin!?" Edgar rounded on one of her, and also his, men. "Nguyen! Why didn't you tell me this is what she had planned!?"
"B-Boss, I t-thought-"
"Wait, Nguyen!?" Karen shrugged off his hands and stormed up to the Asian man. "Were you the one who snitched to my daddy about this!?"
"It wasn't him. What mattered wasn't who told me, but how we're going to get out of this." Edgar pointed at the man on the ground. "Did he see your face when you captured him?"
"Not when we took him, but I interrogated him afterward and I did show my face then. I mean, it's not like I actually planned on giving him to Twilight. I was just using him as bait to lure Twilight here so the assassin can kill him."
Edgar sighed and massaged his brows. "In which case, we must kill him. We cannot leave any witnesses." He pulled out his gun and raised his other hand to shut her up before Karen could interrupt him. "I will take care of him. You don't need to get your hands dirty."
"Daddy…"
Edgar raising his gun was the last thing Karen saw before everything was plunged into the darkness. There were shouts, gunshots, grunts and sounds of people falling, and her daddy yelling "Karen!" before everything went quiet.
The only sound was her loud gasps and her frantically beating heart.
"D-Daddy?"
"Don't move. Turn around and I'll kill you." Karen jumped when a cool, familiar voice whispered and the hot muzzle of a gun was pressed into the back of her head. "Hello Karen, or should I say, good evening?"
Karen's breath hitched in her throat. "R-Robert, is that you?" She decided to play dumb. "W-What are you doing here? Me and my daddy were just-"
"Plotting to kill me and my buddy?" Twilight chuckled darkly, and Karen hated how her heart skipped a beat at how sexy he sounded. Dammit. "You never change, Karen. Listen closely. If you want to live, then don't mess with us ever again. Or else, I'll murder both you and your father."
The hot muzzle left her head and not a second later the buttstock smashed into her temple, knocking her out before she could even breath out a sigh of relief.
Twilight didn't spare the woman a glance after knocking her out. He holstered the gun and went to untie Franky, who was wide awake.
"Are you hurt?"
Franky stared at him. "Wow, this is so weird."
'Edgar' lifted a brow.
"Your voice doesn't match your face. Why didn't you take off your disguise already?"
"Hm. Next time I'll be sure to prioritize removing my disguise over rushing to untie you," Twilight said in Edgar's voice just to spite him.
"Hey! There will be no next time!" Franky yelled quietly before turning his head away and rubbing his sore wrists. "I'm fine though. It's nothing I can't handle."
"Good, then-"
Bang!
A gunshot pierced the quiet night. A warning shot.
Twilight instinctively shielded Franky as the latter ran behind a cargo container for cover.
Tap. Tap.
The sound of high heels.
Through the darkness a feminine figure emerged, wearing a familiar black dress Loid had seen many times and carrying two sharp, forearm-length needles in one hand and a gun from one of Karen's men in the other. She fired at Twilight and he almost didn't dodge on time because… because she was…
"Yor Briar…?" Franky whispered from his hiding spot.
"I was told this is where I can find the elusive spy Twilight?" Yor threw away the gun, its magazine empty. With a deadly look in her usually so gentle eyes, she twirled one of her sharp weapons before grabbing it and raising it to her chest in a ready stance.
Yor… Yor Briar… Yor Forger…
Why was she here…?
Twilight felt like he was a child again, bawling in the middle of a war-torn town after losing everything to the invasion.
He felt helpless.
Those needle-like weapons, the signature weapon of the infamous Thorn Princess, an assassin active in Ostania and notorious for her flawless assassinations.
Why did it have to be her?
Of all people…
Twilight was a master spy with hundreds of missions under his belt, an agent of a hundred faces, the best cadet in his year, survivor of Ostania's invasion, a man who could juggle family and mission single-handedly, and yet… he couldn't help but make the worst mistake a spy could ever make during a confrontation: choosing to freeze rather than fight or flight.
"I presume you must be Twilight. I'm terribly sorry for interrupting your conversation, but may I have the honor of taking your life?"
Ready or not, she was coming for him.
Twilight shoved all thoughts to the back of his mind and bottled up his turmoil of emotions (heh, that was a phrase he never thought he'd use to describe himself).
"Who sent you?" He gritted out in Edgar's voice as he sidestepped a strike.
Damn, she's fast.
He knew that she possessed superhuman strength and speed due to her having learned martial arts (as she called it), but he didn't know what she had been showing him all this time wasn't even near her peak potential!
"I think you're well aware of that already." Yor didn't hesitate to aim for his throat.
Was she unaware of who he was beneath the mask? She was treating him like any other target, not her supposedly civilian husband. Unless she knew who he was this whole time, but that didn't make any sense because why didn't she report him or make an attempt on his life sooner?
"I'm not talking about your client. I'm talking about your boss, your organization." There weren't many assassin organizations in Ostania, so Twilight made a wild guess. "Garden, am I right?"
Yor narrowed her eyes. The glint of her weapon was all the warning he got before it was thrown straight at his face.
Fast!
Twilight cocked his head to the side as quickly as his instincts allowed him but it still managed to graze the cheek of his mask. Yor was gone from the spot when he redirected his gaze. He felt the wind shift but was too late to dodge when she appeared from his blindspot and slammed her leg into his side with the force of a truck going full-speed on a highway.
"Grgh!" He fell onto the ground and used the momentum to roll behind a cargo container, circling around it to the other end of the main deck hoping to lure Yor away so Franky could escape off of the ship to safety.
"You can run but you can't hide."
Her voice was an octave lower than her usual voice. Twilight halted and jumped back just in time to dodge Yor who plunged down from above, stabbing her sharp weapon into the steel ground.
Holy shit.
She yanked it out easily and swung it towards him in a slashing motion, her movements exuding grace and elegance and each following the last with perfect flow as if this were a well-choreographed dance rather than a fight with their life on the line.
Twilight had never fought an opponent as strong and deadly as she was. It took all he had to avoid her attacks that he couldn't even spare a single brain cell to unravel the mess that was the current state of his mind.
To think that the one who managed to corner the great Twilight turned out to be his wife.
Ha, now that was a hilarious thing to say.
The Twilight before Operation Strix would never think he'd be cornered by his wife, let alone have a wife.
But…
Cornered?
Was he really cornered?
Or was he surrendering without a fight?
Me? Surrendering?
Come on, Twilight, get a grip. You're not a greenhorn so stop acting like one.
You're not Loid Forger. You're Twilight. And Twilight does not have a wife or child.
Currently, the woman coming for your life is not your wife. She's Thorn Princess, an assassin sent by Garden, your enemy.
And what should you do with your enemy?
"Kill them," Twilight murmured and pointed his gun at Thorn Princess, firing at her face in point blank range.
He knew she was quite acrobatic and agile but even she shouldn't be able to dodge—
Thorn Princess dropped to the ground so fast he even saw an afterimage of her face flickering before the barrel like a TV static. Twilight lowered his aim but his feet got swept away before he could and, without giving him a second to recover, she dropped her weight onto him striking his ribcage with her elbow and sinking her sharp weapon into his right shoulder and out the back, pinning him to the ground.
"Ack!" Twilight's breath got caught in his throat when he felt a few ribs crack.
Shit.
Thorn Princess kicked away his gun before he could shoot her with it.
"Don't worry. I will give you a quick death," she whispered as she reached for his face. "But before that, please allow me a glimpse of your true face."
Her long, slender fingers he used to think about holding whenever he let his mind wander now evoked fear within him. Fear of exposure, fear of death, fear of…her reaction.
Think of something, Twilight!
His eyes darted around frantically.
The gun was out of his reach. His own gun was crushed beneath his back and he couldn't grab it with Thorn Princess blocking the way and watching his every move like a hawk. The hidden knife was strapped against his shin which he also couldn't reach.
Goddammit!
Just when he thought his whole life was about to end, a few gunshots erupted a distance away and she yanked her weapon out of him abruptly and bolted, causing the missed shots to hit a few containers behind him.
I owe you one, Franky.
Twilight pushed himself onto his feet and sprinted in the opposite direction. Every movement jostled the wound on his shoulder, every gasp pushed his lungs towards the broken ribs.
He ducked just in time for one of Thorn Princess' weapons to fly over his head in a swish and land in the water.
There was only one escape route.
Twilight jumped off of the ship right after the weapon.
It was a struggle to escape the harbor while avoiding the patrolling guards and the assassin closing in on their heels but after nearly thirty minutes they finally managed with the help of multiple disguises.
When they arrived at Franky's underground base, Twilight was so exhausted and bleeding profusely he almost passed out as soon as the door closed behind them.
"Stay awake!" Franky slapped him and dumped him onto a wooden table before fishing out a first aid kit. "Look, I'm not an expert at this but I've done a few sutures on myself in the past so keep your expectations low alright?"
"Just…g-get on with it."
"Hmph! Ungrateful bastard!"
Twilight must have dozed off sometime during the procedure because when he opened his eyes again, there was a white sheet covering his body like he was dead. Franky was sitting on a chair with his shirt off, whimpering as he applied ointment onto the bruises littered all over his torso.
Twilight coughed to clear his throat and to get the informant's attention. "What time is it?"
"Half past midnight," Franky answered without looking up.
Twilight grunted in pain as he pushed himself up with his good shoulder and glanced at the wound wrapped up neatly.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. You still haven't paid me for this intel on Club Holly yet, so I can't have you die on me." Franky put on his shirt and grabbed a manilla envelope out of his bag, handing it to Twilight. "Here are the pictures you requested and a list of the crew members and regulars. There are some areas I couldn't get in so I didn't get a picture of them, but I'm sure you'll do fine without them."
"Anything on the client?" Twilight skimmed through the documents.
"Nope. Identity of all Garden members are heavily protected, even the traitors. You literally won the jackpot by finding out the identity of one of their members."
"I wouldn't call that winning…" Twilight paused as he shifted through the photos. "I don't suppose there's an…outdoor cookout near the club?"
"Huh? Of course not! Why would a club have an outdoor cookout?"
"Just checking." Twilight put the intel back into the manilla envelope and grabbed his jacket, wearing it with slight effort.
"Wait, where are you going!?"
"Home."
"What? Are you insane!? You're going back to that hellspawn right after she tried to kill you!?"
"She doesn't know who Twilight is, yet, but she would certainly know if I were to go missing in the middle of the night, the same night that she nearly killed Twilight."
Twilight slinked outside Yor's window and only moved on after making sure the figure in her bed was indeed her and not pillows made to shape like a person. He bit back a groan as he climbed through his own window, landing on his bed as quietly as he could to not arouse the assassin next door.
He drew his loaded, silenced gun and left his room, sticking to the walls as he sneaked through the hallways and towards Yor's bedroom door. He pressed his ear flat against the door, listening for telltale signs of her sleeping, before opening her door discreetly.
Yor was lying face up on her bed, snoring faintly with her hands clasped on her chest.
If this had happened a day earlier, Twilight might have even called her "cute" in his head.
But now…
He stared down at his wife— no…his enemy and his hand twitched. It would be so easy to empty his magazine into her head.
He raised the gun and pointed it at her.
No matter how physically strong she was, no human could survive a direct bullet to the brain.
He flicked the safety off and placed his index finger on the trigger.
Breathing steadily, Yor turned to the other side and continued snoring faintly with her back exposed and vulnerable.
Twilight stood there with the gun raised for a long time before gritting his teeth and lowering his arm.
It wouldn't hurt to let her live another day.
He left the room and shut the door gently.
For Anya's sake.
AN: *In Chapter 18.5 Franky asked his crush out on a date and got turned down in a roundabout way. He went and got drunk and sobbed,"And I promised to do that job for Twilight free of charge too..." when the bartender was nearby. So I used this and made the bartender hear that and remember it and later sell the intel to Karen and her goons for a hefty fee.
As we all know, Robert and Loid look quite similar and I've seen a few Youtube reactors thinking they look exactly the same. I assume Twilight has applied makeup on Robert to look older. Plus, he's not so stupid he'd make his new identity Loid look so similar to his old identity knowing Karen is still out there. So, for the sake of the story, let's just believe that Karen didn't recognize Loid.