A/N: Ok, so now it's time for me to discuss what's going on in the current episodes, because I feel we gotta talk about that!
First off, both Snow and Charming are ticking me off, and I really want to punch both of them in the face. It's one thing to banish a baby to another realm, but to excuse their actions and not take responsibility for that is beyond unforgivable. I might even say I was hoping for Lily to burn them in the latest episode. Maybe.
What seems the obvious course of action is that Asgeir and the Arendelle Assassins go back to Arendelle with Elsa and Anna to fight Hans and his brothers. I am going to put it into much more detail making it work like how Ezio fought the Borgia to free Rome from their grip, because I personally don't feel it was a satisfying end to Elsa and Anna's story arc. They pretty much wrapped the whole thing up in five minutes with a cute reference to the movie, and that was it. Despite both Elsa being one of the most complex characters this season (and in Disney history) and the amazing performance done by Elizabeth Lail (Anna). Seriously, they couldn't have found a better actress to portray the role. So why couldn't they really send them off with something better than that? Or even better, why not keep them both around like they did for Hook?
I am torn on having Asgeir return to Storybrooke with one or two of his brothers after they take back Arendelle so they can help fight against Rumplestiltskin and the Queens of Darkness. If you feel that it's a good course of action to have him in that half of the season, then let me know in a PM or review. I do think that it would be a natural fit for him to have met Lily at some point during the 30 years he spent wandering the realms. Both of them were castaways at the time, and both have huge conflictions with the darkness in their hearts. It makes perfect sense.
There is one thing I am going to change about the show because it's only made me more mad that they did it a few episodes ago, and I know Asgeir wouldn't have let it happen if her was there.
Overall, I liked this season of Once, but they really need to have something good happen this Sunday on the season finale if they want this season to be better than it was previously. Ranked, Seasons 1 and 3 tie for the best season, and season 2 is second place. Season 4 isn't all that great with the moral gray subjects this half of the season that really feel forced in (with Snow and Charming doing unspeakable acts, making the villains look better than they are, and Emma turning dark) and a really hateable villain in Ingrid. Seriously, she's almost as hateful as King Joffery. Probably just as nuts. So with Asgeir's presence, some things are going to change. If you think that he would be a good fit for the subject on the middle ground of good and evil (that does make sense now that I think about it), let me know in a PM or review.
And to answer I review I got in an email, who was wondering about Desmond and the modern day Assassins, here's the answer: by this time in the AC Universe, Desmond is dead. It's been a few months since he sacrificed himself back in AC3, but other than that appearance by William Miles at the beginning of Sequence 2, most of the modern day Assassins don't have that much involvement with Asgeir from here on out. However he did have a history that involved working at the Farm in North Dakota, fighting alongside William, and even training Desmond at one point. Like I said before, Asgeir has been through a lot of shit since Arendelle froze. A lot happens in thirty years.
This chapter also has an element of foreshadowing for my next project concerning Asgeir after I finish Faith. Trust me when I say it's going to be epic.
Chapter 15: Past- A Man of Two Names
I learned something very important in the thirty years that I spent exiled from Arendelle: The person that does not respect his enemies' intentions is just as bad as them. We all fight for what we believe in, and no doubt some of the people I fought had perfectly good reasoning behind why they were doing such things. But the one exception to this ruling is if the person's enemies do the unspeakable actions for ambitions and personal amusements. I saw it in Regina, I saw it in Rumplestiltskin, and I even saw it in King George. All of them had darkness in their hearts that none of them had good reasoning behind why they did what they did. But the one person I saw it the most in was someone that when I saw him, I became convinced he wasn't even a man at all anymore. He was once a good man with a fountain of knowledge for a head. But he wasn't know for that head of knowledge. He was only a Mad King.
Six months passed after I split up with Red and Snow, making it almost a year since Arendelle had frozen over. While I saw both of them on a few occasions, with the meets taking place around the cabin that we found, I generally only saw them both about once a month each for a while. Snow started learning from me how to shoot a bow properly as she settled into her place there, and began learning how to survive with the skills that I started passing onto her.
As for me, I reunited with my fellow Assassins in helping them find a new home. It was true that there was a force of about five hundred Assassins, all of them faced similar fates to the one that the force of fifty four Arendelle Assassins did: our kingdoms ravaged by threats too great to take on, and our homes reduced to piles of rubble. Almost all Assassins in the Enchanted Forest lived the lives of Nomads, and the ones that had their own homes were constantly on their toes, almost as if they were waiting precisely for the axe to drop.
The Summer Solstice meant an annual meeting for as many Assassins as we could muster up together. I counted a good two hundred make their way in and out the outpost that day, and that was it.
This meeting for Assassins usually meant we would start with the important question to any Nomad who was on the verge of their whole world cracking to pieces: Does anyone want out? With dread, I saw three brothers lay down their arms. None of us liked doing it, but after the Great Colonial Purge two hundred years ago, this became a regular procedure, and some of us didn't have a choice when it came to that. It would boil down to either laying down our blades and taking up lives in solitude away from all the fighting, or die at the hands of some Templar twat.
While three may not sound like a lot compared to how many we had in total across the realms, it's still a huge loss when we have trouble even finding new recruits to become Novices.
After the meeting, Matthew, Jason and I gathered at the nearby tavern to discuss what we could do as our former Branch's only Masters available.
"Still no sign of Zar?" I asked.
"We sent him to the Land Without Color five weeks ago. I'd like to send some help for him, but he asked specifically that we don't intervene."
"What the hell was he even doing there?" Jason asked.
"He requested that he be the one to kill the newly crowned Vampire Queen there. He's the best I ever saw when it came to killing monsters as dangerous as that."
I shook my head with worry. "This Branch is doomed. We don't know where Zar is, the brothers Troy and Rabbit are frozen along with…" I trailed off remembering that look on Anna's face when Ingrid froze her. Jason patted me on the shoulder.
"What we need is drastic measures, Mentor." Jason said.
"I agree." Replied Matthew. "King George is becoming increasingly active in hunting us down now that his son has been betrothed to King Midas' daughter. It's beyond clear why the marriage is happening."
"Gold." I spat. "King George's debts will be wiped clean if he brokers an alliance with the Magic Touch."
"Exactly. And with the future of his kingdom slowly becoming more and more secure, he wants to tie up any and all remaining loose ends on us. That means we can expect a huge move soon enough."
"So we need to come up with our own preemptive attack."
"And that is where you come in, Asgeir." Matthew said, slamming his fist down onto the table, his finger pointed to me. "We need to get rid of our biggest oncoming threat, and in the process, we could scare Midas away from the deal."
"I'm killing someone, aren't I?" I said, knowing very well who it might be.
"Prince James is George's shining beacon for the future. If you kill him, and get close enough to Abigail that she panics, it could make Midas back out of the alliance with George. Abigail is only a princess-"
"And truth be told, a cowardly little bitch." Put in Jason.
"Sounds simple enough. But I've never seen this Prince James, or even a portrait of him. How will I know what he looks like?"
"It's not something we have much access to at the moment, unfortunately. I saw him once before, but it was a long time ago. His face remains in my mind's eye, but I can't describe it best enough that you can understand. All I know is that George is having guards watch his son in every waking second. You'll know you're getting close when the guards increase in density."
"Then I best be off." I said. I glimpsed at Jason. "And you?"
Jason tugged at his rifle on his back. "Matthew is having me go to Corona and see if I can't negotiate with Rapunzel and her husband. Having political support like we did with Elsa would be a start on picking up the pieces of our former glory."
"Finding and slashing Ingrid's throat open would be better." I growled, mostly to myself.
"It might" Matthew said. "But all the same, what we need is to make moves we know will work, and not take gambles. Remember that as long as I'm still breathing, Asgeir, I am Mentor, and what I say goes."
The statement caught me off guard, but I nodded. "I know you're Mentor, Matthew. I only meant as a Master's suggestion."
"You're above revenge, Asgeir." He replied. "No matter what you do to Ingrid, it won't bring Elsa and Anna back from the dead."
"Of course not." I stood up, raising my hood. "But it'll bring back what little humanity they gave me."
Traveling to the last known location of Prince James was easier than I expected. I realized with the amount of soldiers I encountered on my way to King George's palace that he had pushed the bulk of his army towards protecting his son. I had never seen him with such dedication for his son before. He must have been really important.
"Well, the kingdom wasn't bankrupt until a year ago." I said to myself as I was skinning a rabbit at my camp on the way. Dinner.
It was quite a surprise for everyone in the realm when the catalyst for George's bankruptcy came around. One day things were going smoothly between him and Queen Regina, and the next, she cuts off all trade between her kingdom and his. This was a lot like what Elsa did to the Duke of Weasel Town, but the difference was that she had a very good reason for it.
I had heard that after I killed him, the Duke's granddaughter took up her rightful place as Duchess and ended up bringing her town to a much better position in our eyes. She never once interacted with any Templars, no matter what they asked of her.
The castle was heavily guarded as I scouted the area for myself when I arrived. The castle almost always had three guards to a turret, and about one every twenty feet along the walls. Now I saw twice that many on the turrets, and three times on the walls. Gods know how many were inside. I knew George was desperate, but I didn't think that this level was even possible with him. I itched at my chest, my backup plan underneath my coat.
Three guards were posted at a checkpoint about five hundred meters from the main gate, and the castle lay on a small island on the edge of a massive lake with a bridge connecting it to the gate, the shoreline and the checkpoint. An alarm bell was inside the booth, but it looked like I could sabotage it if I was quick enough. Two of the knights were outside the checkpoint booth, and one of them was seated inside in the safety with a plate glass window cutting him off. The knight inside wasn't talking to the others outside, so my money was that they couldn't hear him. That meant the window was isolating him enough that sleep or berserk gas couldn't get in. I had those grenades on me, and it would disperse quickly enough that I could leave no trace of the poison, or my presence as soon as I passed by. The other option was to use a shrapnel grenade and blow the whole checkpoint sky high. But what would that look to a passing knight? It was imperative that I not make my presence known to anyone at this castle until after I killed James. Then I could scare the living hell out of everyone there and make it known to King George that no matter how much he tried to crush us, the Assassins would never yield against the likes of him.
The only option I could see was sneaking around them without killing any of them, but even then, I would run the risk of getting spotted too soon. Circling around as far as I could, I ended up discovering that there was a way of using the support beams under the bridge as monkey bars, almost. I just needed to find a way to get there. The bush I was hiding in was at the start of a bank in the landscape. At a certain angle, I was a few degrees below the underside of the bridge. I just needed to get there quick enough.
It just goes to show me that revenge can do a lot of things to people, but the last thing that you'd expect it to really do to you is forget the kind of access you have to using the environment to your advantage. In the year since Ingrid had frozen Arendelle (I began referring to this as my own timeline. People use the terms B.C.E and C.E. I now used A.F, which meant After Freeze. Ergo, we were in 1 A.F), I hadn't used the rope function on my Rope Blade. Despite some of our beyond human abilities, every one of us Assassins are still human, and still creatures of habit. Hell, aside from that time that I slammed into the wall like a fly on a windshield when I first got the Rope Blades, I barely used the rope function. But now I was remembering how cleanly and quickly I flew across that room, and now was considering trying that again. I turned the Assassin symbol on my blade two clicks, and then aimed. Flicking my wrist, the Rope Blade shot out of the bracer and with another flick, I was perched on one of the cross beams, the underside of the bridge just a few feet above me. I leapt forwards and started into the castle.
It would have been easier to break into Fort Knox compared to this amount of security. The smallest amount of guards on their own was as little as seven. Most castles have one or two guards on their own, but this was entirely ridiculous. As I came closer and closer to James, jumping up into the light fixtures almost every time a group of guards came around, the guard activity increased to levels of insanity. Eventually I heard my chance.
"Let's go. The prince isn't going anywhere, and he's insisting we leave him be."
"You sure? King George himself said we need to be keeping a careful eye on this son with what happened."
This son? What was he talking about?
"It's fine. He's proven already he's not gonna run on us. And even if he will, we got over a hundred and fifty guarding this wing alone. There's no way he's gonna escape."
As soon as the guards were gone, I dropped down from the light fixture.
"No, he won't be gone." I said, turning towards the door. "Not in that sense, is what I mean. He'll be gone-gone."
Kicking in the door would be an easy way to get the guards running for this room with the ruckus. I would have to try opening it more carefully. I reached out slowly for the doorknob, and then opened it as slow as I could. James was sitting right on his bed with his back to me, writing in a small notebook on his leg. I took three steps before lunging over the bed, and putting my blade to his throat.
"Say cheese, you shite!" I said, about to slash him in the throat.
This guy wasn't expecting it, but he did grab me and flip me forwards until I was facing the ceiling on the ground. He looked down at me.
"Connor?!" He said in shock.
I got up, looked at him, and then rubbed my eyes. "David?!"
Five minutes ago I was going to kill the man who I thought was the son of the Templar King hellbent on destroying my brothers and me. Now I was staring straight on at the man who I helped over a year ago. He looked much different, with his clean shaven face and new haircut, but it really was him.
"What are you doing here?!" I said.
"Could ask the same of you." David replied. "From the looks of it, I'm guessing James was not on the best of terms with the Assassins?"
David was only confusing me more with that question. But there was no time. I was hearing the whispers, which suggested that the guards were on their way right now. They probably heard something, or King George had another fit of angry paranoia. I needed to act fast.
I pulled out a dagger from my belt and tossed it to David. He fumbled with it as he caught it, and looked at me, puzzled.
"What do you want me to do with this?"
I replied by outstretching my arms, as though this Templar Prince was about to crucify me. "Make Daddy proud." I said.
David was astonished. I was telling him to kill me right after I tried to do the same to him.
"Do it." I said. "Then get them to burn me. Find where they dump my body, and then we'll talk when we have privacy."
David started asking what the hell I was talking about, but by then, we both could hear the footsteps of at least ten guards charging down the hallway. There was no time to explain, and he knew it. They were just opening the door as I turned and fell down into David's arms, and the knife to my throat to make it look like he was grabbing me from behind.
The guards opened the door as I started struggling against David's grip, which was now as tight as I wanted him to be at. He was catching on.
"Prince James, sir!" said one of the guards. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." Said David. "Found this Assassin scum almost put this knife in my throat."
"You said he made it through?"
The door opened further as three more guards stepped in with their overlord. King George walked up with his scowl on his face as he sneered at me.
"Master Asgeir Swortssen." He snarled. "It truly has been a while. I thought I saw the last of you after you blew up that steel mine and stole those workers from me."
I smiled a little as I tried getting out of David's grip, but he still kept hold of me, as I was hoping he would. "Those weren't workers, George." I said. "Those were slaves taken out of their homes as prisoners for not being able to pay their damned taxes! Two of them wore the hood after I broke their chains. They'd be real happy to have the chance I have of cutting your high-horse bollocks off."
King George narrowed his eyes even more at me. "You really should be careful what you say in front of me, you little thief. My son might even have the decency to put you out of your misery right here and now. That wouldn't be a problem, would it James?" He said to his "son".
"No, father. I will take the life of the man who tried to kill me."
I started whimpering. "Oh no!" I cried. "Mercy, sir! I did not mean it! I was only trying to TAKE APART THIS BULLSHIT ROYAL LINE, PIECE BY PIECE!"
David pressed the knife harder against my neck. It stung, but it still wasn't enough to break the skin. Nothing would be.
"Go ahead!" I snarled. "Do it! I dare you! You don't have the balls to do it! I bet you can't even stab me right in the heart! You do it, and the Assassins will take you all down! I swear it!"
I couldn't see David's face, but I understood what he was thinking judging by George's expression. He was glaring at the man he was claiming was his son. "What are you waiting for, James? This man tried to kill you, and you want to spare him? Take his life for the proud souls he has taken from me, and you will make me proud."
I spat right in George's face as he said this. He reared back in shock. "Fuck you!" I snapped.
George angrily wiped the saliva off his face, and then lunged forwards and punched me in the face.
"I said kill him, James." He growled.
I smirked as I felt gravity push the weight of my tired neck on David's arm. "You think you've won, George? You may take my life, but we will have yours. I swear it. We-"
David pushed the knife right into my chest. Blood spilled out violently as I felt the weight of it leave my coat. I fell down onto the floor at George's feet, one last breath leaving my mouth. I did my best to lay still and not move my eyes as George looked down at me.
"May the Father of Understanding burn you, bastard."
"Who was that, Father?" I heard David ask.
"A thorn in my side for far too long. Take him to the bridge and dump the body into the lake."
The feet in front of me that belonged to George started walking towards the door before I heard David speak again. "Wait, Father." He said.
George turned. "Yes, my son?" He said.
David cleared his throat. "Wouldn't it be a much more appropriate fate if we had the guards burn the body, then dump him and all the other dead prisoners in the lake? These Assassins are known for their deception. We should ensure he's dead first."
It would make things much more difficult to talk to David if they dumped me there, but he probably had a plan already as I did. I just wanted to get my questions answered, and I'm sure he would as well.
"Good thinking, son." I heard George say. He said nothing else, but more than likely nodded to the guard that then picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder as they hauled what they thought was a dead body away.
"Killed three of my friends, you did. Assassin bastard." The guard who carried the torch said triumphantly as he stood above me. "Glad to know that justice was carried out the right way. This new guy as James may save us yet.
The guard took my hood and weapons, thankfully. I only hoped that this worked as I expected it to be. I was invulnerable to bites by werewolves and blades, but what about fire? That I hadn't tested yet. I kept my pretending dead eyes as open as I could as the guard lowered the torch onto my body.
I must have blacked out, because next thing I knew, I was seeing darkness and feeling cold all around me, with what felt like a rope tied around my right ankle. I felt dirty ashes all around me, and aside from the cold I was feeling around me, I felt as though I was on fire, but with no pain. Whatever had happened to me that prevented me from sustaining wounds of any kind, or at the very least, dying, not even fire could have stopped. I kept thinking back on Ingrid. She had hit me with everything she had on me. She slashed my eyes open with an ancient curse meant to torture the soul to sorrowful rage, and then froze my divided heart. Something told me that this created an unpredictable result, and I was feeling it right now. I hadn't breathed for three hours, and as I saw the boat above me row away, I started slowly sinking towards the bottom of the lake. I was practically standing on the lake's floor within another hour, which passed by about as fast as a week. I started wondering if David really was going to find me before I was going to have to start swimming back up, when I felt the rope tug. I froze and waited as the pull turned me upside down and started pouring water down my sinuses. If you think holding your breath is easy when you can't drown, then you don't know how hard it became when David was so kind to give me a sinus wash. The surface finally hit as the roughness of the sand and dirt rubbed against my bare chest.
"My gods." David said as he kneeled down to check on me. "You survived that. How?!"
I coughed as I sat up. David handed me a towel, my hood, and weapons. I literally had no clothes on, because when was the last time a king was kind enough to dump dead prisoners and let them keep their clothes?
"Long story." I said. "But why don't we start with a rule. I'll ask a question, then you ask one, and so on."
"Fine." Said David. "Me first, Connor. Or is it Asgeir: Why did you try to kill me earlier tonight?"
"It's Asgeir. Like me and Joan said, we used aliases to protect you and your mother. You saw your father back there. He would have had me killed right then and there, and he would have enjoyed it immensely. But back on your question: It's this deal your father made with King Midas." I replied. "If George and Midas secure the alliance with your marriage to that blonde bitch Abigail, then he'll have the finances to erase his debts and wipe the Assassins clean off the face of the earth. The job I was given was to sneak in, kill Prince James, and then scare the living daylights out of Abigail so she'd go crying to her father, and it would be enough to spook him into backing out of the deal. But things got a little more complicated when I found out my target was the same man who saved me and my sister's lives over a year ago."
"Yeah, I reckon that would change things." He said, sitting down in the sand next to me.
"So that brings me to my first question: why are you here?" I asked.
"It was a deal my mother made many years ago." He said. "I was born a twin to another boy. The one who my mother gave away, and Rumplestiltskin gave to King George to raise as his own son. I don't know everything that my brother did before he died, but I am more than sure from half of what I heard that he wasn't the best person out there. But his arrogance got him killed, and well, I'm now in his place. Marrying this girl who I barely know to save this kingdom, and in turn my mother."
"How does this save Ruth?" I asked.
"King George is desperate." He replied. "This may be his last hope of putting his kingdom back into its former glory. But if I refuse this deal, then he'll have both my mother and I killed. It's why I have to keep up this charade. For how long, I have no idea. Maybe for the rest of my days."
"Jaysus, mate. That's rough."
"My turn: how did you survive all that? I stabbed you, then they burned your body, and if that didn't kill you, drowning definitely would have."
I nodded. "After Joan and I left your farm, we went back to Arendelle, only to find the Queen there was friends with someone who we thought was dead. She was a very powerful witch, who saw us as a threat for some reason. She attacked both my sister and the Queen, and froze the kingdom. My only family is dead. Before I escaped, she threw the worst curses she could conjure towards me. They weren't supposed to mix, and they made an unpredictable result that has now made it physically impossible for me to die. It's been like that for me for almost a year now."
David was amazed. "Wow…" He muttered.
"I've known about my affliction for little over half a year now, and I had came prepared for this in case I got caught trying to kill you. While it's impossible for me to sustain wounds, I've found other ways to create the illusion of death. That blood you saw spill out of me was blood I had taken out of my system a few months ago so that I could use the invulnerability to my advantage. I can bleed if I forcefully keep the wound open, so draining my blood out like that with some of our tools wasn't a problem. I had hidden a large pressurized bag in my coat to make it look like it died. More pressurized it gets, the more dramatic the blood splatters. After that, the rest was easy. Nothing can kill me now, so making them think that I was dead was easy enough with the right illusions."
"Fair enough." Said David. "You had the opportunity, and in the process helped my 'father' trust me a little more. He thinks you're at the bottom of the lake right now."
"George isn't the only one going desperate right now." I said. "Arendelle has completely frozen over, and the Assassins from there are either dead, or on the run from your father's forces. This was so much easier back when we had Queen Elsa's political support."
David shook his head, but then his eyes lit up as he started to smile. "What do you need of me?"
I glimpsed at him, amazement hitting me like a rock. "I came here to stop King George's deal from going down by killing his only hope, but I got something even better!" I said.
"You helped me stop Bo Peep before, so now I get to return the favor. Whatever you need from me, I'll do what I can."
I stood up, pulling my hood on and strapping my weapons on. "I'm not sure where to even start, David." I said. "I'll have to bring this to Matthew, my Mentor."
David pulled out a yellowed piece of cloth and held it out. It bore the Assassin insignia. "You told me to draw this symbol onto a letter if I needed anything out of you." He said. "I will write to your Mentor, and we will establish an alliance from the inside. I'll give you everything I know about George's plans, in return for protection in case he finds out about my motives. I've taken a big enough risk coming down here to talk. If I'm gone much longer, he'll suspect I'm running away."
I nodded. "We can absolutely make that work." I said. "You'll be hearing from us very soon."
David and I shook hands, and I turned to start walking away.
"Nothing is True…" I heard David say. I turned and saw him with his fist over his heart.
I smiled. "Everything is Permitted…" I replied, putting my own fist over my heart. I turned and continued walking away, with optimism in my heart for the first time in months as well as ice.
The rules of the Order have changed many times over in the last thousand years. Ezio and Altair made their changes by teaching us that there were more ways to achieve the justice we sought by thinking outside the box. The biggest lesson I learned from Ezio was that killing people like George and the Duke would only be building more powder to the keg unless there was another we could put into their shoes to help. I went in expecting to kill the son of King George, and emerged with my third deadliest adversary believing I was dead, and a plan finally emerging. With David's help, we would know everything we needed to take down George, and we would do our part by ensuring that none of the treachery landed at his feet until the time was right.
I'm proud to say that even I changed the rules once. We once believed that kings and queens couldn't be people we could work together to build a proper society untouched by greed and corruption. With Elsa and Anna at my back, I showed my own brothers at arms that there was a way we could fight alongside them. While we were back to square one, at least the pieces were now reset for another try. And this time, I would be the one to call checkmate.