"The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend." –Aristotle

-o-

The town was abandoned.

Every colour in the world seemed washed out in a place like the little village Jacqueline had tracked Henri Girard to. It had taken her a long, long time to find him. From what little she could scrounge from the few willing to speak of him, he was a hermit and rarely left a tiny town near the southern border. In fact, it took her so long to pinpoint his location, travel between leads, uncover clues, and interrogate suspects that winter had come and gone and it was already spring again.

Hoarfrost broke away from the scraggly grass under her feet when she stepped into the edge of town. The buildings had been left gradually, the population trickling away until no one remained. At the centre of town was an enormous tower, the image from a fairy tale or something King Arthur's knights would explore. Moss grew up the gray flagstones, green-brown decay in the flesh of the building. A light flickered in the uppermost window.

As for the village, it was gutted and dead, eviscerated and left to rot. Jacqueline picked her way through the old side streets and alleys, looking for any sign of life. A skinny dog spotted her and balked, ran away with its tail between its legs. She picked up a young girl's ragdoll, left behind. A little beaded eye dropped out at the movement.

"What happened here?" Jacqueline's whispered voice made a puff of condensation in the air.

Someone's scuffing foot made her head snap, as quickly as the stray dog had looked to her. The edge of a cloak flicked around a corner across the street. She ran after it immediately, calling out. "Wait!"

Their footsteps echoed in the dead town, ringing hollowly against the frosted houses and empty shops. Jacqueline took to the rooftops and chased after from there. The person ran through narrow streets and even through buildings to try and lose her, but it was useless. Very nearly at the base of the huge tower, the person tripped and was sent sprawling. Jacqueline pounced and helped them up.

Now that she could see, the person was a boy. He was young, younger than her, and he clearly didn't want to be caught.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to ask a few questions." She assured him. "Don't run away." She set him on his feet. "What is your name?"

"Léon." He muttered. "And you shouldn't be here."

"…What did you say? Léon?"

He met her gaze. "Oui. And you need to leave now, Jacqueline."

Jacqueline's head reared back in surprise. She took a moment to respond. "You know Georges and François were worried about you."

"So? None of you ever cared much about me anyway." Léon tugged his cloak around him sourly.

"Is Henri Girard up there? What happened here?"

"One question at a time. I'll answer the first with yes, but if you know what's good for you, you will stay far away." The boy shifted from foot to foot. "To the second, it's hard to explain. Everyone left because they knew it was stupid and dangerous to stay."

"Thank you for the warning, but I will take my chances." Jacqueline placed an amicable hand on his shoulder and walked past to the door of the tower.

"Forgive me, Jacqueline." Léon said behind her. Before she could turn, something struck her hard over the head. White and red burst before her eyes and darkness flooded in.

-o-

Jacqueline was sitting in a meadow. It was summer, but early summer, perhaps June, when the sun was not so hot and the birds still sung in the trees. The weather was beautiful, and she laid back in the soft grass to bask in the fine afternoon. Padding footsteps in the grass made her head lazily turn. Connor sat down next to her. He looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him: his hair was loose, his shirt off, and he was smiling in that reserved, genuine way of his.

"Hello, Ratonhnhaké:ton." Jacqueline greeted happily, beaming at him. "It's a wonderful day today, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." He agreed. "Jacqueline, you are in terrible danger."

The sky filled with light clouds, blocking out some of the sun. She sat up when she spoke again. "What do you mean?"

"Please, only listen. You must escape before tomorrow morning, or else this is where you will lie forever more."

"You mean…I'm going to die?" Jacqueline suddenly felt very cold.

"Yes." A wolf howled in the distance, and Connor helped her to her feet.

"Can't you help me?" She held onto his arm beseechingly. "A clue, or something else?"

"Use the tools of the master scientist against him and you will find your liberation." Connor kissed her forehead. "Now, I have one last thing to ask of you."

"What is it?"

He placed his hands on her cheeks, and she could feel the calloused warmth of them. It felt very real, more real than reality. "Wake up."

Tears dripped down the corners of her eyes to land on his fingers. "I don't want to."

Dream-Connor hadn't heard her. "Wake up, Jacqueline. Wake up."

-o-

"Wake up!" A hand shook her shoulder.

Jacqueline jerked up, and dropped back down again. Something tight was around her head—a bandage, for the blow to her head. Metal and glass clinked nearby. Her vision gradually faded in to show her the leather straps over her wrists, the candles all around the room, the tray next to her stuffed with syringes and beakers.

"Finally. I must have hit you a bit harder than I thought." Léon was standing over her with a bowl in his hand. "Sorry about this, but I have to feed you."

"Where am I?" Jacqueline strained against her bondage, tugging at the straps.

Léon lowered a spoon of what looked like porridge toward her mouth. "You're in the tower. Monsieur Girard will be up shortly. Now, please, eat. We can't have you dying."

"Léon, do you know who your master is?" She asked vehemently. "He's one of those who burned my home! Do you remember me telling you, all those years ago, what happened to me? Well, he is one of those who caused it."

"Stop!" Léon snapped. "Girard is a great man, a genius. You're just lying to get me to turn against him, but it won't work." He threw the porridge down on an empty table as he stormed out. "If you want to starve, fine! But you'll be dead soon anyway."

The door slammed shut on the way out. Sighing, Jacqueline looked back to the ceiling and waited. It was early evening, and the setting sun cast a beam of light in through the window. In the corner of the room, she saw her effects folded and piled atop one another. Girard likely knew she was an Assassin now that she was upon him, but her element of surprise was foiled.

Not long after Léon had left, the door opened to reveal a surprisingly short, rotund man who may have passed for Saint Nicholas in better circumstances. His ruddy face creased in a sickly delighted smile when he saw her. "Bonjour, mademoiselle."

"Bonjour, Templar." She spat back.

"Oh, let's not get nasty. This is just business, after all. I'm sure this whole situation must be very stressful for you."

"I've been in worse, trust me."

"My, my, you do get around." Girard splashed his hands in a bowl of water and wiped them off on his apron. "Though I suppose in your profession, you're apt to do that. Me, I prefer the comfort of my tower."

"What do you plan to do to me?"

"Just a few tests. It's been quite some time since I've had a female subject, and I'm eager to begin. Once I've finished testing—which will eventually but surely kill you—I plan to dissect you and use you as a topic of study until your body rots and I throw you out with the rats, like the filth you are. How does that sound?"

His eerily upbeat tone of voice did not match his words at all, and despite herself Jacqueline began to feel rather disturbed. "I have come to kill you for your crimes fourteen years ago."

"Oh, I've committed so many. Do refresh my memory."

"You and four others burned my home and murdered my parents. I have already killed Norman Durand and Pascal Morel, and I will find Richard L'Enfant and Ch—"

"Yes, yes, Rousseau, I'm sure." Girard waved a hand and scoffed. "Your silly plan is already flawed. You may have killed Norman and Pascal, but this is where your journey ends, I'm afraid. Even if you killed me, Richard is even more elusive than I, and you would never find him. Christophe? Please. He's a shadow made of smoke. So let us stop this stalling and get on with the main event, shall we?"

He picked up an empty syringe and put it to her arm. Extracting blood hurt a lot more than Jacqueline was expecting, and she gritted her teeth at the stinging. Girard then took the blood to a large, complicated device and looked down at a drop through a large set of lenses.

That was only the first of the night. The damned scientist would inject her with different fluids and ask her what she felt, or how much pain she was experiencing. It hurt, yes. But this was a kind of Hell that Jacqueline had already fought through. She and Girard were both veterans in pain, and she had been planning her escape since she had woken.

There came a pause in the experiments, and Girard left the room with Léon in his wake. The boy now looked more humbled. At seventeen or so, she could give him credit for putting up with the madman's antics, but could tell it stressed him.

"Léon, you were such a brilliant boy." Jacqueline groaned, accepting the water he gave her. "What would make you turn to such evils?"

"Monsieur Girard has a vision for the future," He muttered, wiping her punctured wrists clean. "A vision where the strong prevail and the weak fail. He is training me to be the strong."

She rolled her head to the side. "Are you aware of who he really is?"

"I you mean his…Order, then yes, I do." Léon looked uncomfortable. "I know you're an Assassin, too. I want to ask…"

There was a long pause. "Yes?" She urged.

"What…what does it feel like to kill someone?"

Jacqueline actually thought about it. "It's something that permanently changes a person."

"Who was your first kill?"

"I was defending my home from tax collectors, or poachers, or whomever they were. I killed two men that night."

"How old were you?"

She did a bit of mental mathematics. "Fifteen or sixteen, in that region."

"I'm seventeen." He said quietly.

There was a heavy pause. Jacqueline decided she needed to make her move. "Please, Léon. You don't have to do this. Be your own man."

The boy grimaced and gathered his materials together. His knuckles were white around the pink-stained towel. "He'll kill me." He whispered.

"I can help you." Her voice was near begging, her whole body turned toward him as much as possible. "Let me help."

Léon stepped away, backing to the table near the door, which flew open. Girard entered in all his puffed-up, double-chinned glory. "Hello again, my lovely subject. I've got something very good, I just came up with it while eating supper."

He continued his rant, sharpening his knives and shears. "I recently learned that a few hundred years ago, your kind cut their ring fingers off to accommodate your hidden weapons. Barbarians, the lot of you. And I thought to myself, this is perfect! An opportunity to examine the knuckles and anatomy of the finger.

"Your left hand should do." He grabbed her wrist and wrestled her fingers until the ring remained away from the rest, and raised the knife.

Blade cut through flesh, and Jacqueline flinched. But there was no pain in her hand. Hot blood dripped down onto the operating table, across her arm. Girard looked down at the curved blade in his chest with shock. "'Et tu, Brute?'" He quoted, and fell.

Léon rushed forward and cut her bindings. Jacqueline dropped to her knees and crawled to Girard, and last words were exchanged.

-o-

Girard was less angry than Pascal had been. He just kept shaking his head, pacing the white expanse of the wasteland. "You have a tricky tongue, Assassin. Turning my own apprentise against me? Clever."

"It was what I had to do." She answered, a little hoarse. "I always do what I must to survive."

"Don't we all? See, the average person eats, they sleep, they reproduce, and that's all they do." His hands waved as he spoke. "But I did more. I made something of my life. I didn't just survive—I flourished."

"You tortured so many, an entire town fled from you."

"Yes, yes, but that means I made an impression. Isn't that the goal of everyone? Not to live in anonymity, but to thrive and make a reputation?"

"This is a reputation that is not looked upon kindly." Jacqueline said coldly. "Do you know where Richard L'Enfant is?"

"No. Even if I did, I would never tell you. At the rate you're going, however, I believe you may be in luck. Richard is no coward. He knows you are coming for him, and he will rise to meet you, this I guarantee. And when he does, you had best prepare yourself, for all the fires of Hell could not compete with that man."

"I think you underestimate my determination."

"Oh, such arrogance, such foolish confidence!" He giggled, and became somber again. "You'll tell them, won't you? My work must be known…" A cough was wrenched from him. "I…I must be famous…"

-o-

"Resposez en paiz." Jacqueline closed Henri Girard's wide eyes and stood. Léon was staring at his red hands, shaking violently, white as a corpse. "You will recover, my friend."

"I…" His voice cracked. "He's dead."

"Yes. But we are both free and the world better for it." She picked up her robes and began dressing. "There is a lively town about ten miles north of here, untouched by Girard's evils. You should be able to find work and asylum there."

Léon was staring at Girard's body, in shock. "I've lived here most of my life. How…I don't know how to live any other way except as a thief."

"You'll learn. I know you will." Jacqueline put the last of her knives into their sheathes, tied her hair back and pulled up her hood. "Come. It's time we left this foul place."

As they left the tower together, the sun was rising in the east.

"I want you to have this." Léon broke the calm between them, his breath a puff in the fresh air. He reached over his head and took a necklace off. At first, it looked to be decorated with beads, but upon closer inspection was the full skeleton of a fish. "It's, er…it's the fish I caught. That day we all scattered."

"You kept it all these years?" Jacqueline took the necklace and observed it. Some of the ribs and spine fins were snapped off, but it was more or less preserved in a centimetre-thin layer of glass. "I'm honoured."

"Ouais. A reminder, I suppose." He cracked a small smirk, the first good humour she had seen from him. "It really was just a tiny fish, wasn't it?"

She chuckled and put it around her neck. "Yes, it was."

There was another long pause. Jacqueline put her cloak around her shoulders and started off. "Wait!" Léon jogged up to her.

"I should go."

"I want to be one of you." He said quickly. "An Assassin, I mean."

Jacqueline winced. "I don't think that would be a good idea. The life I lead is not for children."

"I'm not a child!"

"I'm seven years your senior, Léon. You're still a child to me. And this is nothing to joke about; my life is in constant danger. I refuse to put you in that situation."

"You don't have to. I'll just follow you around."

"You can try."

-o-

-Whoo, 200+ reviews! I love every last one of you with all my heart(s)!

-Okay, rather important thing: I have a rough timeline thing sketched out; check my profile for the link. It's a little confusing until you have it all laid out. It has spoilers, yeah, sorry. You don't have to look at it now unless you want spoilers for the times of future events. Fair warning! :)

-Uuuuughhhh I hate thinking. Okay, at this point in time Jacqueline is 24 and Connor is 25.

-Review for mad scientists!