Mary stood behind a tree as the flags of four Spanish ships appeared on the horizon, and Michael watched carefully with the spyglass she had given him. She wondered why he was so confident that they would be able to drive back a fleet with no ships of their own. Sure, his frigate is supposed to arrive later today, but one ship didn't make much of a difference against four.

Michael handed her the spyglass and smiled, "I'm confident that we are going to win this battle," he told her as she looked through the lenses. Instead of looking at the ships, she looked at the invasion force.

There were three rowboats heading to shore, probably one from each excluding one, which was strange in her eyes. Mary looked at Michael and raised a brow skeptically, "How do you know that?" She put the spyglass back into her coat and made sure her flintlock was ready to fire.

"Because, we have an ace in the hole," Michael took out his pistol and waited for the Spanish to arrive on shore. He held his hand up, signalling for everyone to ready their blowpipes, "Make sure you pick the target most in front of you, we don't want to waste any ammo," he whispered just loud enough for everyone hiding in the bushes with him to hear.

The Spanish soldiers were being cautious as they walked up the beach, the only sound that wasn't from them was the sea. Mary guessed that they had expected some sort of defense to meet them when they landed. Michael seemed to know exactly what they were going to do, because they started walking towards the only way into the forest like he predicted they would. In the center was the leader of this invasion force, and around him were the expendables. When they got into the narrow corridor between the beach and forest, Michael put his hand down, and cawed like a bird. It was the signal for everyone to fire. In seconds, the invasion force was on the ground and the assassins hidden in the trees finished them off.

"Grab their guns and return to your hiding spots!" Michael shouted as he ran up to the tree, climbed up, and perched on one of the branches next to one of the fellow assassins.

Mary wondered what he was doing, but was stopped from running up to the tree when a cannon ball hit the tree they were on. The tree started falling to the ground. Michael wasn't fast enough and was thrown off onto the beach. His body went limp on the floor and Mary assumed the worst had happened to him. Before she was able to go out to grab his body, another volley of fire hit the beach. Killing most of the assassins that had been in the tree, or wounding them fatally. Mary took cover behind some rocks as did the rest of the assassins, and waited for the volleys to end.

Michael felt the ground rumble under him, when his mind started to clear he realized he was laying face first in the sand. He started to get himself up when an explosion went off next to him and threw him a few yards across the beach. It started to come back to him as he tried getting up again. The island had been attacked by the Spanish and they started bombarding the beach in the middle of the attack when the first invasion force failed. As Michael got to his feet, everything was going in slow motion for him, and he could see the second landing party coming at him.

He could faintly hear Mary's voice telling him to get to cover, but something blocked out the instinct to run. Michael guessed that it was his fighting side of the fight-or-flight instinct. He put the hood of his new assassin outfit over his head and took out his sword and pistol. The party stopped in front of him and took aim. Michael took aim back, not really comprehending what was about to happen and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew from the barrel of his flintlock and hit the captain square in the head.

As his body fell to the ground, Michael rushed into combat with his sword in a reverse-grip. The captain's death was enough to make the majority of the Spanish soldiers hesitate, giving Michael the time to get between them and stab the first one in the heart. He activated his hidden blade as he let go of his sword and slit the throat of the soldier on the opposite side of him. Before the rest could react he took the musket from the first soldier he killed, and spun it around in a wide arc hitting three of the soldiers to the ground, and making the rest in range of the strike to duck. He fired the musket and one of the ones left standing and watched as he fell to the ground.

Michael felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and went to clutch it, he then heard the cocking of a pistol and closed his eyes. When the gunshot went off he didn't black out like he had thought he would. There was no pain and Michael realized that he hadn't been shot, when he opened his eyes he saw Mary standing next to him with her pistol smoking and the body of the man that tried to execute him on the ground. Time finally went back to normal as the rest of the assassins finished the second party off and Mary pulled him back into the cover of the forest.

Mary heard an explosion on the water and looked up to see the Brig catching fire. One of the frigates had fired upon it, and it clearly confused the other two long enough for the frigate to catch the wind in its sails and move behind one of the others. This must have been what Michael was talking about when he said that there was an "ace in the hole." Mary watched as the ships tried to reposition themselves so that they could fire, only to receive another volley of cannon fire from the traitor frigate. This volley was chain-shot, making it so that the masts of both frigates fell, immobilizing them. The ships were turning though, and they eventually got into position to fire. She could see the men on the first frigate brace as they were fired upon by the closest one. Only about three round-shots hit them, but it was enough to put holes all the way through them.

In the next volley, both of the Spanish frigates went down, and another rowboat started heading to shore from the remaining one. Mary used her spyglass to see who was on it, and saw that an Englishman was at the front of it, rather than a Spaniard. She had seen the man before, but couldn't put her finger on it. When Michael started chuckling, she looked down and wondered what was so funny to him.

"This is the second time I've been shot in three weeks," Michael answered her unsaid question as he looked out to sea, "Don't worry, it is only a flesh wound. There are no major arteries or veins in the top part of the shoulder." His face grew sadder as he looked out at the remaining frigate.

It was then that Mary realized that the frigate that was sitting with three holes in it was Michael's ship, which meant that any crew that died when it was hit were part of his crew. Michael must not like it when people die that he should protect, that's why he made sure to create a plan that would minimize the deaths of the assassins. In exchange, the lives of some of his men were lost, "I'll go get you some medicine for the wound," Mary said as she stood up.

As she turned away, Michael took her hand and smiled weakly, "I'll be fine," he told her with a nod, "just get me a curved needle and some string," Mary nodded as she watched his smile fade, and his gaze return to the sea. Mary noticed that Michael's demeanor was completely different from when the battle had first started, nearly as if he was a different person.

He had been careless in the battle, nearly gotten himself killed, but under all of his actions there was one thing that remained; his confidence. Michael had always had his confidence when he was fighting, now that it was over he seemed lost. The deaths of the assassins seemed to fall on his shoulders in his mind. Mary wanted to tell him that because of him, the other assassins lived. She started walking towards the ruins, knowing that this attack wouldn't be the last. Michael would feel the pain of everyone's death until he stopped the attacks from happening. She knew that he would not stop hunting the Templar leaders until the Templars stopped their attacks, and that wouldn't happen until every last Templar was dead. The Mentor probably knew it too, and that meant that in order to help the order, she would have to help Michael.