Merida decides to try Eugene's job of being an undercover spy. Only to run into problems and a poorly thought out assassination attempt.

Tales of Espionage
Merida sat in a corner of a tavern pinching the top of her nose in frustration. Whether due to boredom, poison, or Vikings, Merida's prospects always seemed to end up almost killing someone. Sometimes even her damn self.

This is getting ridiculous! Merida thought. Is there ANYTHING that I'm good at? Is there SOMETHING that I can do for a living for the rest of my life and NOT go insane? Why is this so hard? All my friends found their life callings so easily.

Merida huffed in annoyance due to her stunt with dragon training. Everyone figured it would be best for Merida to leave unless they wanted to start a war between DunBroch and Berk. The princess almost decided to stay on Berk just to spite Astrid and start a stupid war. However, she decided against that since it would be awkward for the rest of their friends. "Hey peeps, I'm gonna flat out kill Hiccup and Astrid and they want to kill me all because we're at war. Whose side are you guys on? Tee hee!"

As Merida took a sip of her fruit punch to quench her dry throat, she realized two things. For starters, this is a very cautious tavern. The bartender refused to give Merida her alcohol because she was underage, or some other idiotic excuse. The other realization was, where the hell was the friend who was supposed to help her?

Damnit, Eugen, I did not come back to Corona just so that you could ditch me at this tavern! And who names a tavern 'The Snuggly Duckling'?

Yes, our heroine was in 'The Snuggle Duckling' which was formerly known as one of the most dangerous bars in Corona, quite possibly in all of Eurasia. But thanks to a blonde princess and her future husband, the scallywags were reformed and the tavern was a much friendlier place, though the owners still decided to keep the barbarian look of the pub, because of tradition and all that jazz.

It was then that Eugene came into the bar and sat across from Merida. On his person was a sword within its sheath.

"Red," he greeted.

"You," she greeted back.

They stared act each other in awkward silence with Eugene making the situation more uncomfortable by resting his chin on his hands and smirking. Not wanting to be outdone, Merida placed her cheek on her hand and stuck out her tongue.

Eventually, Merida ran out of patience and asked, "So why am I here?"

"I'm glad you asked, Red," Eugene said as he shifted his eyes across the establishment scanning for trouble. He then whispered, "I'm a spy."

"You're a spy?" Merida answered back in a fairly loud voice. Thankfully, no one heard her.

"Keep your voice down. I don't think they heard you in Africa."

"You're a spy?" she repeated in a hushed whisper.

"Yep, occasionally I work undercover for the kingdom. It's actually quite fun."

Eugene found his calling sometime after he married the lost princess. The good news is that his status rose from petty thief to prince consort. The bad news is that his status rose from petty thief to prince consort. See, the other nobles looked down on Eugene because he was nothing more than a social leper to them and they spent a rather large amount of their time letting him know that. Naturally, their snobbish insults did not faze Eugene since he'd received those insults all of his life. But once the nobles started insulting Rapunzel's naivety and social ineptness behind her back, the gloves were off.

Using his exceptional thievery skills and meeting noble's underlings, who did not know what Eugene looked like, he was able to get dirt on the nobles. When he ran into the nobles again, preparing to go another round of snootiness, Eugene played his hand. Without mentioning any names, he revealed that one upperclassman was swindling money from an orphanage, another one was having an affair with another man, and a third one was also having an affair…. albeit with a duck. This caused the members of nobility to back off from him and his wife. Sometime later, the King of Corona found out about Eugene's stunt and offered him the work of going undercover to expose more villains and crooks. It was not a day to day job, but Eugene did not mind. He was contributing to the kingdom.

Of course, Merida still had one question that rattled her teenage mind, "Eugene, you're the PRINCE of Corona. Wouldn't someone recognize you?"

"Oh that's the beauty of it. The shady scum I meet with don't know who I am?"

"Wha?"

"You know how I complain that artists just can't get my nose right?"

"How can't I? You only cry about it every hour."

"Well turns out, that having different shape of a nose in pictures, wanted posters, or whatever makes me unrecognizable to anyone who actually sees me. They don't see me as Prince Eugene. They see me as Flynn Rider: Thief with a great nose.

"So anyway, two shady looking nobodies from the Southern Isles are coming here to make a deal with obtaining weaponry for their brigade of bandits. You and I are going to pretend we have said weapons."

"And what makes you think they're going to believe us?"

Eugene pulled out the sword from its sheath to let Merida have a look at it, and she was in awe. The sword was showered in an angelic glow against the sunlight. Merida could not help herself as she grabbed the sword. The handle was well crafted and its grip was firm but fair.

"Yeah, they're gonna believe us," Merida admitted.

"Yep. We show this sword as a sample and then we'll say that we have the rest of the supplies somewhere else. So we'll meet the rogues in another location with the authorities hidden nearby and boom.

"And I've given you the codename… The Red Bear."

"Red Bear?" Merida squirmed in her wooden chair. "You're kidding, right?"

She had hoped that Eugene would remember that she was not fond of bears since one did the mildly annoying thing of almost killing her.

"Nope," Eugene answered. "You need to face your fears sometimes. Calling you 'The Red Bear' is just the first step."

Merida did not look amused at Eugene's bizarre reasoning. After a few minutes Eugene took notice of a different situation.

"There they are," Eugene said. Merida started to turn her head around but Eugene said, "No don't look. Too suspicious."

However, the rogues were not the kind of guys Merida expected. For starters, they were kind of attractive. Both of them had red hair, green eyes, and long sideburns. One of them was a portly and middle aged and the other was a tall, lanky fellow who looked to be in his late-twenties. Merida noticed something off about them. It was way they walked. Back straight, head held high. Whoever these two were, they were not ordinary rogues.

"Are you Flynn Rider?" the older man said.

"Depends. Are you here for the weapons?"

"Why yes we are?"

"Excuse me," Merida added. "We were told that our customers were common criminals. No offense, but you two do not act like Corona's Most Wanted."

Why would they be offended by not being called rogues? Merida chastised to herself.

The younger man moved toward our heroine and stared closely at her.

"What's your name, little girl?"

"I'm… The Red Bear," she sighed.

"Your protégé, I'd presumed, Mr. Rider," the older gentleman asked.

"Yeah, The Red Bear here is skilled with a sword and can charm any man to her will. Good abilities for a thief."

Merida turned away a bit from everyone to keep them from seeing her blushing.

"But this young woman IS right," the aging man said. "We are not common criminals. We are warriors of justice fighting for a noble cause. "

"And what noble cause would that be then?" the Scottish princes questioned.

Merida quickly figured that the old bag of bones was vain and arrogant enough to explain whatever crime he was going to commit in the name of 'the greater good.'

And he did not disappoint, "I am Prince Henry, third in line to the succession of the Southern Isles crown. And this is my brother, Prince Hugo, tenth in line."

"Yeah… hi," Hugo flatly said.

"Our righteous conquest involves getting our poisonous eldest brother off the throne!"

"And exactly why is he is a poison to your kingdom?" Eugene wondered although he knew exactly what kind of answer he was going to get.

"I would figure that my explanation will go right over head but if you want to know, the King of the Southern Isles is a false prophet. Thanks to him and his concern for the people," Henry formed air quotes around 'the people.' "My revenue has seen a slightly lower increase by one percent! This cannot be tolerated!"

"I can't believe it," Merida deadpanned. "That's horrible."

"Indeed it is, young lady," Henry said, missing Merida's blatant sarcasm. "My plan consists of building an army of mercenaries and using weapons from other nations, so the evidence will not get traced back to me. And after they killed the king and my brother next in line, I'll round up the mercenaries and have them executed. It's the perfect plan."

Actually, it was not the perfect plan. Eugene saw plenty of holes where this 'plan' could go wrong. In fact, he was actually considering giving this crazy man weapons so he could see how far Henry's plan could go before he was caught. Or killed due to his own stupidity.

Meanwhile, Hugo kept staring at Merida, who noticed felt his eyes on her and became uncomfortable. Was everyone in the Southern Isles royal family a complete and utter nutbag?

"You're from Scotland, aren't you? That accent of yours…" Hugo explained.

"Yes," Merida squeaked. But she regained composure and said, "Yes I am."

"So Henry," Eugene said to the possibly senile gentlemen. "You're going to need some weaponry to start your revolution. Take a look at this baby."

Eugene presented Henry with the sword. Like Merida, the older prince was also ogling at the sword.

"And I have more where this came from. Sadly the shipment is not currently on my person, right now. Why don't we meet in another location… say three hours from now?"

Eugene gave Henry a map that showed the directions. Pleased, Henry shook Eugene's hand and left, along with his brother, The Snuggly Duckling. As he left, Hugo kept looking at Merida.

"He knows!" Merida yelped. "He knows who I am."

"Oh come on, Red."

"Then why do you think he was looking at me?"

"He was obviously enraptured by your beauty and longs to marry you after their revolution."

Merida looked at Eugene as if he was second biggest idiot on the blue planet. It would be the biggest idiot, but that title seemed more deserving for Prince Henry of the Southern Isles.

"Okay, look," Eugene rationed. "The odds of those two recognizing you as the princess of DunBroch are like a million to one."

Merida just sighed. How did Eugene do this while keeping calm and not worrying about being exposed? Did the nose thing really throw people off?

In the three hours allotted, Eugene briefed the soldiers along with the horse, Maximus, about the location and where to hide. Then, the duo walked towards their destination: An empty shack in the middle of the woods.

"The rest of the 'loot' is in there," Eugene explained. "Don't worry, the swords are decorative."

"Those kinds of swords can still hurt," Merida pointed out.

"You worry too much. You'll turn into Elsa if you keep doing that," Eugene smirked as he casually tossed his frying pan.

Merida rolled her eyes. The sooner she and Eugene completed this insane task, the sooner she could finally have a damn job. Of course, there would forever be the fear of reconginition. But it could not be that hard to hide herself in public.

Maybe a haircut or something, she thought.

I was actually getting worried. I might actually have thought I was not good at anything. Silly Merida. She thought to herself.

She breathed a sigh of relief and the weight of her heart felt much lighter. Nothing could go wrong now. As she saw the two imbeciles from the Southern Isles approach them, Merida actually had to keep herself from chuckling too loudly. In a few moments, she would have the last laugh.

Or at least she thought she would until the moment Henry and Hugo pulled out crossbows and aimed them at our heroes, with Henry holding his sideways with only one hand for some bizarre reason.

"Whoa there, guys," Eugene flinched then he and Merida raised their hands in the air. "What's going on? I have the equipment in that shed. You want a lower the price or something? I am a reasonable man when I DON'T have an arrow aimed at me."

"Shut it!" Henry yelled aiming his bow at Merida. "Do you really think that I'm an idiot?"

"No, of course not?" Merida lied.

"Don't patronize me, Missy. Hugo here told me EXACTLY who you are!"

Merida gulped as sweat trickled down her eyebrows.

"You're King Fergus of DunBroch! You think that girly appearance can fool me?"

Merida shook her head in utter confusion and despite Eugene still having an arrow aimed at him; he could not help but snicker.

"You moron!" Hugo bellowed. "I told you she was Princess Merida, DAUGHTER to King Fergus of DunBroch!"

"They don't know who I am, you said," she muttered to Eugene. "A million to one, you said."

Merida was getting a massive headache. Her rage at yet again screwing up added with the rage of watching Prince Henry hold his crossbow like a twit.

She just could not let THAT go, "Why are you holding your crossbow like that?"

"Because it makes me look cooler," Henry the 'intellect' explained. "And holding this way might actually kill you faster."

He was right, it would kill her faster. But not because of the arrow piercing a vital organ, but due to her rising blood pressure thanks to this nimrod improperly holding a bow. Not wanting to deal with the idiotic prince, she quickly grabbed an arrow from behind and shot it, with the force of the arrow knocked the crossbow out of Henry's hand. Henry screamed like a little baby. Hugo was distracted just enough for Eugene to run up to him and knock him out with his frying pan. Naturally, Maximus and the rest of the cavalry arrived after the fight was over because luck is never on your side when you need it most.

Henry and Hugo would proceed to be arrested for weapons smuggling in Corona and trying to overthrow the Southern Isles government. It was not what Hugo wanted. Sure he disliked his eldest brother as well, but he mostly joined Henry's cause just so he could laugh when his plan for revolution would blow up in his face. He just HAD to stick around a bit too long. Well, at least he now knows how Hans felt. (In a cruel sense of irony, Hugo was one of the brothers who ignored Hans, and he would continue to ignore Hans despite sharing a cell with him)

Merida and Eugene rested next to the shack after the guards took the criminals away.

"Well that was… different," Merida admitted. "So when's the next assignment? I know this isn't day to day stuff but…"

"Actually," Eugene interrupted. "I'm gonna have to let you go."

"I'm fired?" Merida shrieked. "Why?"

"They recognized you."

"You were the one who said they wouldn't, you ass."

"Yeah and that's totally my bad. But you still have to be one to go. You know what they say. Last hired, first fired."

"Who says that?"

"Beats me," Eugene shrugged.

Merida was near total panic. It was not supposed to end like this. She sighed as she only had more chance to make this right.

I guess I'll take Jack's offer to become a Guardian.

"I truly am sorry, Red," Eugene apologized. "For firing you…"

"…and for not returning my money," she added.

"What… oh yeah that," Eugene recalled. And then he laughed very loudly.

Only to stop when he realized that the tomboy was making the cutest yet scariest angry face ever.

More review responses

ElsatheSnowQueen2- Thanks for all those responses lol
90304155- Sadly the overall story will eventually end. I can't write this forever. But don't worry, it won't be for quite awhile

1Guest- I know, right? lol