"Assassin's Creed - Part 2"
The magnificent, stone built castle that belonged to a wealthy Scottish lord was at the top of a long winding path in the Highlands of Scotland, surrounded by glass fields are far as the eye could see.
Lord Ryan Hardgrove was a recluse, but he was very known for his charitable nature. His money came from gold and other precarious metals that he invested in economical growth of a great many things…most of which was war, as there was always fighting some where in the world at any time. Peace was bad for business. He enjoyed the nature of war and was also a gambler of it, but a moderate one. He always enjoyed a good wager, as long as it mainly benefited him. And the best thing to bet on was life itself.
So when the assassin first entered his castle, he wagered it wouldn't take long for this…person…to reach him, and Hardgrove was more than ready for him.
Through air passageways in the castle, specially crafted to carry sound, he could hear everything that was happening, anywhere in the castle, relyed to his favorite room and private sanctum. And what he heard was death. The assassin was killing his servants with ease, with bloodlust. His castle rooms were filling up with dead bodies, saturated with blood and gore. This assassin was definitely on a mission. By whom, Hardgrove could only speculate. But he only had one man in mind.
The same man who probably sent this same assassin to kill his friends in London and Rome. Word had come to him by witnesses who saw a small boy killing Dietrich in the street outside the Colosseum of Rome with a pistol, a single shot to the head, and the Italian police reported finding Chlaus with Lady Carolyne in bed together stabbed to death by some sort of small sword. Before them was Vincent Phantomhive and his beautiful wife burned to death in a fire that also took their mansion and their son Ciel.
Vincent Phantomhive had a second son, the fraternal twin of Ciel, but he died three years earlier during a botched plastic surgery operation that would have restored his face back to normal, from a deformity caused by an adverse reaction to some asthmatic medicine the boy took that didn't belong to him. The curiosity of some kids is unfathomable. But it provided a keen opportunity for Vincent, since his sons looked different. Ciel was beautiful for a boy, while Lukas had a plain look, almost ugly face. This was a grand way to fix Lukas and make him look like Ciel. Beautiful people always went further on life, it was a fact.
Lord Hardgrove took a sip of brandy from a small, crystal wine glass, and then put it down on a small round table standing next to his plaid, dark green, high back chair that he sat in. It faced the Game Room's ablaze fireplace. The room was a vast reminder of how he loved a good sport. The walls were mounted with animal heads, weaponry, and had a wide variety of games, including a large billiard table in the middle.
But by far his favorite game was golf. And by betting on his own played games, he had gained a reputation as a master golfer - and in Scotland, that was a huge honor. He was in his mid-thirties, but looked very young for his age. He was a prominent entrepreneur and a renown sportsman. He allied himself with Vincent Phantomhive not only for the man's stature and savvy business sense, but also for his love of sport.
The sport of hunting men to death.
And if this assassin had it in for him, the game was on!
The door to his inner sanctum opened, it creaked slightly. His chair was faced away from the door, so he could not see the assassin directly, but there was a mirror on top of the fireplace that was angled perfectly for him to see the boy's reflection. He straightened his green, checkered golfers cap, and took another sip of his brandy, as he watched the boy approach him cautiously, as if to creep up on him. A flint-lock pistol, and what looked like a small samurai sword called a Tanto, if he recalled, covered in blood, were in each hand. Ideally, both weapons the boy had used to murder his friends?
"Good evening, dear lad," Hardgrove spoke. The boy halted in his tracks, focusing on the chair. "So you finally made it to me, old boy?" Hardgrove's English born accent fazed through, despite living in Scotland most of his life. "Heed my warning, assassin child, I am a great deal more game than the others…"
He stood up, his youthful appearance must have confused the boy. With Hardgrove always, he carried his favorite golf club and he held it casually. But inside held a deadly secret. "Expecting someone a little older, were you child? Well, wisdom comes to he who embraces his natural talents, not what others tell you."
The boy did not move, as if expecting some sort of attack. Hardgrove smirked. "Did you enjoy your tour of the castle, old sport, when you slaughtered all my servants. They are, indeed, replaceable, but they surely were cows to you. I, surely, will be a great deal harder to kill!"
Hardgrove snapped his fingers, and two dark-skin African Zulu warriors dressed in full dress that were standing on platforms posing as statues on either side of the room - guards for his protection - stepped off, sporting every weapon assorted to their culture. One branded a large, thick blade, metal sword, and the other wielded a massive wooded club with tiny spikes embedded in the hardwood. Hardgrove knew each of these men, posing as Zula warriors, were trained in an assortment of offensive and brutal attacks.
"Shall we make a wager, dear boy? Heads I win? Tails you lose?"
The assassin-boy glared at Hardgrove with glacial, blue eyes. The boy tossed the pistol away and stuck the Tanto in the floor next to him. Was he surrendering his weapons? Or was he preparing a defense?
"Amazing, you look just like him, with one small difference, however - you're not! I know he died with his parents in the fire. Kill him!" Hardgrove pointed at the boy with his golf-club, and the warriors attacked.
The boy fled under the billiard's table, and the warriors stabbed underneath to wound him or draw him out. But the boy was much too fast and limber and scooted out into open ground quickly, back to where he started. One warrior slammed his club onto the billiard's table doing damage, but Hardgrove merely laughed with amusement. The table was nothing to him, merely money.
"You are fun sport!" he said. He stepped to the edge of the billiard's table and reached underneath, pressing a button. A second door slid shut, blocking the door out. A device he installed with switches and pullies for his safety if someone wanted in, now it would keep this assassin in so he could not flee.
The warrior with the sword swung at the boy, but the boy ducked and because of his short stature it was easy to avoid the attack. The sword got embedded into the nearest wall. The warrior with the club rose his weapon aloft and brought it down hard upon a display glass table that the boy was standing next to, showcasing African memorabilia and trinkets that Hardgrove had picked up during a trip aboard. They meant nothing to him either.
"Righto sport, old man! This is so much fun! My turn!"
He brought up his golf club, straightening it at the boy like a musket - who was now standing next to an actual statuesque of a Zulu, bare-breasted female Hardgrove had fashioned after a woman he copulated with and then had killed, because to have sex with a "darky", and to have that tryst exposed to the public, would ruin his shining reputation; Chlaus had been the womanizer, Hardgrove had just found her sexy and needed his stick waxed at the time - opened up the bottom panel of the club with a hidden switch on the top handle, and pressed the firing pin.
The blast rocked through the air like an elephant gun and destroyed the statue, obliterating it completely from wrist high, debris flew everywhere. The warriors shyed away from the shot and fallen debris. Hardgrove had been thrown back from the recoil, dropping his golf, but laughed.
Unfortunately he had missed the boy, when the boy leapt out of the way like some sort of monkey.
"I wish you would stop jumping around, old man, you made me miss, and I did enjoy lusting after that harlet of a she-devil. She was one of my greatest conquests. I have her eyes in a jar somewhere…they were so beautiful, I just had to have them."
The boy fled underneath the billiard's table once more, and then raced between Hardgrove's legs after fleeing the two warriors' latest attacks, running to Hardgrove's chair. The boy kept the chair between him and Hardgrove. Hardgrove shook his head. "Dear boy, if you wish to play hide and seek, I'm afraid that is one game I am too old for. Not come out here and be killed like a…"
The boy looked at the half wine glass of brandy and then smiled a sinister grin when he briefly glanced back at the fireplace. Hardgrove frowned. "You wouldn't dare, kid. Brandy is like nitro, highly combustible. Throw that in there and it will explode!"
The chair was blocking the boy's sight of Hardgrove's hands. Hardgrove slowly pulled out a small blade, a hunter's knife, that he kept on his person at all times, sheathed in a brown, leather holder, and calculated the distance to throw it at the boy. A hunter always needed a keen, mathematical mind to outwit his prey. And above all else, no one touched another man's brandy.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Hardgrove saw one warrior was creeping up from the left side of the boy, but Hardgrove and the other warrior seemed to be keeping the boy's attention because it appeared the boy was not noticing his cautious approach - until the warrior leapt towards the boy without Hardgrove's order. The boy threw the Brandy into the fireplace, raced away, and the liquid caused a large explosion, setting the warrior ablaze. Hardgrove sheltered his face, turning away from the blinding explosion. The second warrior used a carpet to douse the first warrior, who was too badly burned to survive. His skin too charred.
Hardgrove's favorite chair had also been destroyed beyond salvation, blacked with sooth and charred.
"Forget about him!" Hardgrove said, rubbing his eyes, restoring his sight, gritting his teeth in anger. "Kill the brat!"
The second warrior left his partner and ran after the boy towards the other end of the room. The boy had made it to the far end of the billiard's table and appeared to be ready for the warrior's attack, and snatched a billiard ball from the table. He threw it as hard as he could at the warrior, hitting him with enough impact that the concussion dropped him down like a stone, killing him instantly.
Hardgrove's jaw dropped, then he sneered. The man had been killed by the black 8 ball, the unluckiest ball in the entire set. If you sank this ball, you lost your turn. "Not sporting, old man. Billiard's is a gentleman's game, not for killing your opponents. But what would a child know about playing fair?" Hardgrove smiled spontaneously. "I see now the real game has truly begun. Time to get serious."
The assassin-boy retrieved his Tanto sword and held in offensive posture. Hardgrove didn't have his golf club, albeit it was still useful even without the shot, but he didn't need it. He returned to the billiard's table and lifted a secret panel in the hardwood border, and pressed a switch.
The entire table flipped over revealing a metallic, large round disc with a hole in the middle with wires and switches attached to the bottom of the table. And with a flick of a switch, he turned it on. The boy, sword in hand, went flying through the air to it, and the blade of the weapon clung hard to the self-generating magnetic field the disc suddenly produced. The sword's metallic flat edge stuck to it like glue.
The boy tried to yank it off the magnet, but to no avail.
"Tsk, tsk, ol' boy. Your weapons have no favor here. This is a magnet, one of the most powerful in the world, brought to life by the Industrial Revolution. Such righteous technology! I foresee it will be used to generate power for hundreds in the near future, if properly utilized. It can also be used for destructive purposes, if fortified properly as well. And you spoiled such an uprising when you began murdering my friends. Tell me, old man, did you also murder Vincent Phantomhive and his beautiful wife, with this same face of his son Ciel that you now steal?"
The boy narrowed his eyes, tilted his head, as if confused by Hardgrove's accusation. "I am Number Six," the boy finally said. "And I am not old; you are annoying!"
"Pay it no mind, boy, it is just something I have been come accustomed to saying, with other phrases," Hardgrove said. "Notwithstanding, Number Six you say?"
The boy backed away when Hardgrove went for his golf club with the edge blown out that was laying on the floor near the billiard's table. He had dropped it when he had recoiled from the blast of its shot. The club end of it looked more like a garden hoe than a golf club now, but it would be more than he would need. The boy's flint-lock pistol was empty and his Tanto was magnetically secured, so he was empty-handed.
"Then your name is appropriate, for after I kill you, I will bury you six-feet under!"
And he swung at the boy with his aluminum club. Aluminum was a metal, but it was not as magnetic as plain steel like the Tanto, so the magnetic field had little effect on it. And besides, the power of the magnetic was not turned up that high. Just enough for it to keep the Tanto's steel blade at bay.
But the boy easily avoided the strike, ducking under the table.
The billiard balls had spilled out onto the floor when the table was turned and with one stomp on his foot, the boy used one ball as a weapon like a hammer. Hardgrove swore and favored his foot. Then he was hit in the left chin with a cue from underneath that had also fallen, and he swore again, favoring his other leg. "Your little kid games are over! I'm going to murder you!"
The boy popped up at the end of the billiard's table where the control panel was, examined it quickly, and flicked a switch, turning up the power.
Hardgrove's aluminum golf club then became magnetized to the table. He himself was then yanked forward when a pocket watch attached to a chain that was in his vest pocket also became stuck to the table. It kept him down, magnetically stuck by way through his clothes fabric. He tried to break free, unable to. He even tried wiggling away, hoping the watch would pull itself out of his pocket, but the pocket was deep, it was of no use. And his chest was so hard-pressed to the magnet, that he could not even unbutton his vest.
He was trapped, at the mercy of his child assassin, but he showed no fear. "Nice show, old boy. You managed to avert all my tricks and use my own weapon against me, it appears the game is yours. So, what now?" Hardgrove looked at the boy with an examining eye. "Remarkable job, who did it? Your face looks just like him. Unless, you really are him? Tell me something, old bean, did Bryon Kelvin brainwash you and send you to kill me like he did the others?" But the boy's reaction to the question was non-existent. "It matters not. Even if you kill me, Bryon Kelvin will get his upcomings. My brother will avenge me. You won't kill him. No one has been able to out-best him in a duel. Not even Vincent Phantomhive. It was no wonder Vulcan became Vincent's personal protector, up until Vincent died, that is."
Hardgrove saw the boy walk over to his chair and pick up the hunting knife that Hardgrove had dropped when the fireplace exploded. "How unsporting, old man. Do you plan to kill me with my own hunting knife?"
The boy also picked up a scrap of clothing from the dead warrior he had killed with the billiard's ball and then bunched it into a pile on Hardgrove's upper back. Hardgrove didn't know what the boy was doing. The boy came back into full sight and stood next to the control panel of the magnet.
"Hey, what are you doing, my dear boy?" He then noticed the boy no longer had the knife, and Hardgrove fretted where the boy had put it - within the bunched up cloth on his back? He fretted how he was going to die. He shook his head. "No, boy, don't do it. I beg you! If you do that - "
But the boy didn't listen, and he switched the magnet to full.
And the last thing Lord Ryan Hargrove felt was the blade of his own hunter's knife course through his back to penetrate his heart, as the full-force of the magnetic field sucked the weapon's blade to the magnet's core.
To be continued…