Chapter 20: Bleeding Through

This morning's wake up call was different. Mostly I felt an enormous chill hit me like a bat, but this time I felt a good kick in the ribs as I woke up. I got up from the sidewalk I was passed out on, and brushed myself off.

"Wake up, brother." Shay said, smirking at me. "Zelena waits for no Assassin. So let's once again spend this day pointlessly tryin' to stop her again."

I ignored him and headed back towards Cormac's.

"You know ignorin' me is only going to hurt you more, bastard. I'm that imaginary friend that you can't unimagine. You only listen and I'll give you the answers that you seek."

When the pub was in view, Shay spoke up again. As if I didn't hear him enough already.

"I really like what you're brothers did with the pub, by the way. Did you know I really did end up owning one like this in Boston? Regina clearly appreciated me if she was to bring the place out here and give me such high honors like this."

This was what had resulted after the shards of the Shattered Sight had reached my subconscious following years of exposure to the curse. The Spell of Shattered Sight reflects on our fears as much as our misery. What made me more angry and afraid than anything aside from Ingrid was how far I had gone down the trail of darkness ever since I had escaped the Dark Curse. I always thought it was the same path Shay had taken as well, and my fears of how much I was becoming like him manifested into a ghost of him. He didn't do much aside from taunt me at first, but he had shown me things as well. Things the Assassins didn't know. Things I wish I didn't know. He had shown me what was in those missing pages in his books.

"There you are." Jason said when I got inside. "We just got called out to the Merry Men's camp. Zelena stole Regina's heart!"

Regina was already leaving the campgrounds when we arrived. Robin was over by Roland's tent playing with the boy as Friar Tuck brought us over to a larger tent in the middle of the camp.

"Needless to say we should have done a better job protecting the camp." He said to us. "Which is why we thought it best to give you this."

On the table in the center of the tent was a map of the forests around Storybrooke. The green area in the map was clearly the Merry Men's camp. Tuck picked up a piece of folded paper and handed it to Jason. He read it aloud, partially to himself.

"3 sentry guns, 2 dozen assault rifles… You guys need more guns?"

"Normally we'd stick to what we know, but we should have taken advantage of the resources we had close to us to protect the heart. We should have asked you earlier for them. We could have stopped the Dark One with them."

"Guns against Rumplestitlskin? He'd turn the sentry guns on you and let them loose." I said.

"Sorry, Friar. Asgeir's right. You saw what he did here. More hardware's only going to risk more collateral damage."

"Well, at least give us more men. We need to have a better chance of protecting the heart again if we ever get it back."

Jason thought for a moment before nodding. "Alright. We can spare you with a dozen or so novices. I'll also send Zar over here along with a crate of assault rifles and ammunition. You learn how to use them properly under his watch, and we'll set you up to make sure that we keep the heart if we get it back."

Friar Tuck bowed slightly to us. "Bless you both!" He said. "I'll give Robin the good news when he returns."

He went off towards his tent just as Jason and I started heading for the truck.

"Givin' a crate of weapons and your youngest and least effective Master over to the Merry Men? You must really hate them to put them into such a precarious position." Shay gloated, sitting in the driver's seat of the truck as we walked over. The doors were closed but I heard him as though he was right beside me.

"What if I helped guard the heart instead?" I asked.

Jason glanced over at me. "We're not even sure that we're going to get it back, Asgeir. And even if we did, I somewhat doubt Regina's going to trust it with our hands for a second time if we do. We only have a plan with Zar helping us out. Nothing more. Right now we need to focus most of our efforts on killing Zelena."

I shook my head at myself. "You're right. I'm just trying to get my head back into this. I just barely made it past keeping my hood at the vote."

"Hey, it's alright brother. But I do have something we will need your help with right now."

When we got back to Cormac's, Jason took me down to a side room in The Bunker. There were maps strewn out on the table and a number of novices working at the computers. I saw two of them watching the live feed from a drone's camera.

"Welcome to Project Boden." Jason said, sitting down at the table. I took the seat next to him as he explained.

"We spoke briefly on George a while ago, brother. But I'm here to give you the basics of what we're up against, because it's worse than Matthew would care to notice. George is taking great advantage of the situation here in Storybrooke. He's using Zelena's activities as a distraction while he builds his army from the ground up. From all we can tell he's planning on hiring private mercenaries that work for Otso Berg once he's scraped together enough money for them."

Otso Berg was one of Abstergo's worst military commanders I had ever faced. Another man on my shit list, though probably not as high as Ingrid or Rumplestiltskin. I often think that every person on that list I don't hate at different levels. I hate them all equally.

"How the hell would George be able to finance all these troops?" I asked. "He's going to need to find a way to get these troops into the town, too."

Jason led me over to the map of Storybrooke. "Meth labs. George has been hiring the low level scum that Emma and Charming don't give a second thought over as his cooks. He must have found a gap in the barriers surrounding the town, because he's receiving payments every few weeks for what he's already had cooked and sold."

Jason showed me a few photos to prove this. Tall men in collared black and red jackets handing off stacks of cash to guys you would immmediately recognize as cooks.

I was amazed. There were at least eight labs marked on the map and the first one had been tagged over six months ago.

"How could you not have interfered?" I demanded. "If you stepped up already we might have had George already, and gotten the meth off the streets,"

"Calm, Asgeir." Jason replied with no reaction. "This is how Zar and I plan on ambushing George. He has no idea that we're still watching him, but he's been cautious ever since he had failed to turn the whole town against David and Ruby. We haven't seen him since, so he must be holed up somewhere. Now, Zar and I are convinced that there are still more labs set up in towns, but our scanners haven't been working their best for the last few weeks. Until we're sure we have every lab marked on the map, we're staying out of the way."

I sat down on the table. "And what? We strike every lab at once?"

Jason smirked. "Now you're getting it. If one lab gets attacked, there's only a matter of time before another finds out and calls George. Then he disappears for good. Something we can't allow after having this bastard alive for so long. But we have a somewhat strong force of armed troops in this town. If we hit them all at once we'd catch them by surprise, shut down the operation, and have George in less than thirty minutes."

"But then why are you showing me this, Jason?" I asked. "You're running this operation with Zar, not me."

"Matthew had said when you arrived here that he wants you to pull the trigger on George and take him from this life after Zar and I have done the grunt work. But under the circumstances I'm deciding that it's best that you start helping us with the mission right now. I hate George just as much, and Troy and Rabbit had more reason to kill him than us before they died at Ingrid's hands. You need to earn your credibility back as well as your hood, Asgeir. The only way you're going to do that is by pulling your weight in more ways than attacking Zelena with a rocket launcher. Hell, even the brothers found their way of taking down the Templars with minimal deaths. They freed slaves while you and I killed the big wigs."

Their humanity and the joy they got out of being true pains in the arse for Templars was what I missed most about Troy and Rabbit. Those two worked better than any other duo I had seen. Some might even say that they were a better team than the Frye Twins. Always helping each other, barely arguing, and not afraid to crack a few jokes in the process. And what did they get for their loyalty? The world's worst brain freeze.

"So how can I help?"

"We have scanners posted all over the town. I'll send their locations to you. All I ask is that if one scanner isn't working and it's not too much trouble to fix it, you do so and collect the reports they give."

"How do they work?"

"George previously found a way to hack into our comms network. We updated the firewalls since then, but we can't risk him intercepting the messages again. So Zar invented a new way of how we do it. They're like pigeon coops, almost. The sensors don't send any outside signal to us, but rather print off hard copies of the information that we should know for each lab. We check them regularly so that none of George's men can get the info."

I was impressed. "I get it. With no outwards signals, there's no way for George to intercept anything. He thinks we're only focused on stopping and killing Zelena."

"That's why we're operating at such a high level of discretion. You haven't seen George recently, Asgeir. But neither have I. The last I saw of him was six months before the First Curse was broken. George had tried turning the whole town on Ruby, but when David and the rest of us stood beside her and aimed our guns at George, he slunk back into the shadows. We have no idea where he's hiding or how he plans on taking us on. All Zar and I know is that Project Boden cannot fail. George will die when we finish here, and I decided that it's time to bring you on board."

"Alright. I'll do what I can. What do you need of me?"

"Torren. If you will."

A novice who was tinkering with an unusual contraption carried it over from his workbench, and placed it on the table. It looked to be a large antenna pole with wires around it and a few lights.

"These are the sensors that we work with. Zar and a few of the more tech savvy novices working on the Project helped develop them. They're designed to look like TV antennas as a form of camouflage. You see this attached to an antenna and you'd easily think of it as a signal booster or whatever. George and his cronies have no idea what these are if they have even given them a second glance. What's important is this part here." Jason pointed to a box halfway down the pole. It had hinges on it and a lock.. He took a key and opened the lock along with the box.

"If there is a paper inside, take it and move on. It'll contain encrypted coordinates for a lab that the sensor picked up. The way it works is that it can pick up signatures of methylamine and the other essential chemicals that are needed for cooking. Any signatures picked up are registered and printed by the sensor and deposited into the box. The encryption is always changing, so only the novices working here can read them with the gear we have. Bring them here, they'll decrypt the information, and we add another lab to the map."

"And then?" I asked. "We need to have an idea of when exactly we need to strike. If we don't George will keep adding more labs thinking that he can do so without resistance."

"Right. Which is why Zar and I agreed we'd strike on him when we are at the best advantage. But today is not the day. We don't have the intel or the strength to attack the labs yet. But we will have the chance soon enough once we wipe out Zelena and turn towards Ingrid."

My radio suddenly went off. "Glass to Reaper. Glass, Reaper."

It was Kevan, the barkeep upstairs. "Yeah, go for Reaper."

"We have one David Nolan asking for your presence."

Whatever David needed, I suddenly felt that something was very wrong if he needed to come to Cormac's for my help instead of calling.

"We can finish the rest of this when you and Zar get back." Jason said. "Get outta here."

I nodded and headed out of the room. Up the stairs of The Bunker I went until I reached the freezer's trapdoor and headed out.

"We got a serious problem" David said when I got to the bar.

"When isn't a problem serious with our cases, Charming?" I replied. "Zelena's already gotten Regina's heart. What else could happen?"

"With Assassins, things 're always gettin' worse brother." Shay snarked. "Just watch what David says."

"There's something going on at Regina's. Belle's just discovered what Zelena intends to do, but we can't reach Mary Margaret or Regina. The house has been sealed by some kind of magic."

David and I sped down the road in his truck as he explained.

"Regina had a plan today instead of trying to get her heart back. She wanted to find out exactly what Cora had done to Zelena to make her hate Regina so much."

"How can you do that? Cora's been dead for over a year."

"Right, but Regina had a way of contacting her. We thought it didn't work after performing a séance, but it must have now, because all the entrances to the house are gone. We're thinking Cora might have reappeared."

"What, you didn't try the windows? Come on! Pick it up! We need to know what's going on in there!"

Emma and Hook were already there with Belle when we got there. I could hear screeching and whistling wind coming from the inside of the house as the others started looking for a way in.

I rolled my eyes as I clearly saw my easy way in. "I'll get them out!" I called as I aimed for the window on the second floor. Flicking my wrist, my Rope Blade shot up onto the windowsill and yanked me up into the window. Glass flew everywhere, but I ignored the quick pain I had of it slicing through my arm as my wounds healed in a few seconds. I opened the door of the room I was in and headed down the hallway with my swords drawn.

I had never faced Cora in my life before, but I believed the stories that she was worse than Regina. My father had tried several times to kill her, but was no match for her. I would have loved to have the chance to take her on once in my life, but I always knew in my heart that I would never kill her if my own father couldn't. He even told me when I was studying the family history that my own grandfather Norik was the closest anyone had ever gotten to killing her. But no one knew why he spared her life instead. My father passed on two important beliefs that contradict what Grandfather Norik did. The beliefs that I stood by, once: Sparing someone is not mercy, no matter what anyone thinks. Making their life end quickly and cleanly is the only true mercy you can give them.

The other belief was the most important to me: If you aim to bring death on someone who deserves it, you must do it yourself. Your victim deserves to look you in the eyes as they die so that you can see the fate you have given them. You owe that to them, because death can't be taken lightly. Ironic how I, the White Reaper, had once treated death with a heavy burden when my name said otherwise.

I began kicking in doors as the air got colder and I heard voices. Voices that terrified me.

"Grandson of Norik Swortssen." A cruel voice said over the noise. " I sense you judge me as though all Templars are evil, yet you only see your half of the picture. Allow me to push you a step back and you will see it all."

Shay was in the next room waiting for me. He chuckled. "Oh ho, that Cora is another legend among us Templars after me. I wonder what she'll overload into your mind that I haven't already?"

"Shut up." I replied, closing the door behind me. "You're not real."

"Now you speak to me as you should. I'm realer than you would ever believe, Asgeir. You think all those memories I showed you, Ingrid made up? You knew them all along, but you just couldn't truly face them. And whatever lies for us on the other side of that door," Shay pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, "it's more memories that you will have to witness and accept. Cora will do what I did to you, and you will have to accept what she shows you since you still deny what I showed you."

I shook my head, cursing myself. "Grandfather, what happened to this woman?" I asked, finally preparing to run head on into the hurricane. "Why did Cora grow to hate us so much, and how does Zelena transpire into all this?"

I held my breath and opened the door.

Cora showed me too much. I never knew my grandfather, but it was too much like looking into a mirror. He had a hate for certain people in the lines of royalty that I could only see myself in. Except there was always the chance that he might spare them for what they did, and he even befriended some of them. I don't know much about that, but I would burn myself in hell and impale my neck on the Devil's pitchfork thousands of times over before ever befriending Ingrid. Who's to say that she wouldn't try and kill me for not being like her? She killed Anna for the only because she looked like Gerda. Like she could help that.

When the last memories were ending, I found the doorway into the room I was looking for. Emma and the others had found their way in, and we regrouped.

"Have you found them?" Emma asked, hurriedly.

Breathing hard at what I had seen, decades passing by in a matter of minutes before my eyes, I shook my head.

"Come on!" David called. "We can't let Cora hurt Regina or Snow."

I drew my cutlasses again as we headed down the hallway into the library. As we opened the door, Regina was pushing the shape of someone into a portal in the ceiling. I had no doubt who it was.

"What the hell was that?!" Emma cried.

"Cora." Regina replied. She rushed over to check on Snow, who was passed out in a chair beside her. "Is she okay?"

David was beside his wife in an instant. "Mary Margaret? Can you hear me?"

Snow started to stir from whatever she had been taken out by. "Cora…" She whispered weakly. "Not what we thought."

It came to me. She had seen what I had just seen. Although not all of it, I hoped. "She was trying to communicate."

"She was?" Regina demanded. "What did she say?"

"Leopold…my mother…" Snow went on. "My mother…"

But it was too much. She fell back in her seat, exhausted.

"She's not making sense." Emma said. "We need to call a doctor."

"If she knows something that could help us-" Regina said.

"Regina, it's gonna have to wait." David snapped back.

"It can't wait!" She yelled. "If we want to stop Zelena, we have to know what the hell she's planning and why."

Belle piped up. "I can help with half of that."

"And I with the other." I replied. "You know what she plans on doing?"

Regina glanced at her. "What?"

Belle nodded. "She's planning on going back. Back in time."

Great Scott… She found a way.

"Are you certain?" Regina asked. "No one's ever been able to cast a spell to go back in time.

"Zelena must have found a way. It was what she was planning to do the first time I met her."

"Clearly she thinks she can succeed." Belle said. "I mean, brains, courage, a resilient heart. Those ingredients are in every time travel spell I found."

"But why go back in time?" David asked.

I glanced at Snow. She was completely out.

"You said you knew the other half, Swortssen." Regina said. "What does Zelena plan on doing?"

I shook my head angrily. The injustice of what Norik had seen left an awful taste in my head. "She's going to kill Ava. Snow's mother."

Everyone around me looked surprised, so I continued.

"Cora had a chance to be married to Leopold, Snow's father. She was working in a tavern but he seemed to connect with her after they had met. At the time she was with child. Zelena. The father was a groundskeeper at Leopold's castle, and he threatened to expose the secret to him unless he was secured financially. Ava had eavesdropped and the brat couldn't let Cora have her prince to herself, so she exposed the truth. She showed me that there is no place for me to judge considering how she knew my own grandfather after she was forced to abandon Zelena. I understand now. I understand everything"

Emma was confused. "Wait. I thought our family were the good guys."

"Life is too messy for it to be that simple." Regina said. "No one knows it better than some of us."

Amen.

"So if it wasn't for Ava, Cora would have kept Zelena?"

"She would have been tutored by Rumplestiltskin." Belle said.

"And all if it weren't for this Princess Ava?" Hook asked.

"It's true. And from what I saw, it's a wonder Cora hadn't killed her sooner."

Emma understood. "So she goes back, kills Ava…"

I nodded. "Zelena will have never been abandoned by Cora. But that might mean erasing Regina from the picture, as well as another good half of us. It means Snow, and by default Emma and Henry from existence as well."

Everyone could only look as grim as me until Hook spoke up.

"It's a good thing no one has ever succeeded with this time travel nonsense."

David stood up, horrified. "The baby." He realized. "That's what's missing. That's why none have succeeded. Somehow, someway, our baby is the key."

And we now just obtained a new priority. The whole spell would not work without the important element before us in Snow's belly.

"Zelena went through a lot of effort to get to our unborn child. That's what she's after."

"But what will she do with it?" I asked, looking at the unconscious girl.

"It doesn't matter" he replied. "She's not gonna get it. We're going to stop her. Since our baby's not born, she's stuck. And we have what we need now. Time."

I nodded as I hit my radio. "All available troops return to The Bunker. A new priority has just been discovered on Primary Target. Prepare for briefing."

The Briefing Room was a lot larger than I expected. When the Assassins had received my message, too many returned. Some were having to listen in on their radios upstairs in the pub, while others were too busy with their postings around the town, and had to listen via the radio feed as well.

Jason and Zar stood by me while Matthew watched on. Ever since he had voted against keeping my hood, I hadn't spoken to him. He wasn't worth it anymore if he thought that of me.

"A new update has given us more information on the Primary Target's intentions and objective." I said to all Assassins present. I pointed to the large briefing screen of our picture of Zelena's face, her stupid smirking face. I was now trying hard to decide if I wanted Ingrid or her dead more.

"Zelena has secured three of the four means of unleashing her time portal. As of now we are on the defensive, people. But we now know the last thing she needs. She needs Snow White and Prince Charming's unborn baby. For whatever reason, it's the last thing that she needs to make the time spell work. But she needs it to be born first, and that means that we can now set up the defenses. Everyone that is not involved with Project Boden is required to focus as much efforts they can into protecting the child. With enough firepower we can send Zelena running, and hopefully stop her from obtaining the baby. I want ground teams and drone operators to start sweeping the town for the other three ingredients. Knowing Zelena, she will be protecting them with extreme desperation. And with her desperation, she will be more careless to other things. We have an advantage now, people. So let's send that Witch tied up with a bow to the gates of hell."

Jason, Zar and I sat around the table in the Project Boden room after I finished the briefing. While he was delivering the crate of weapons, Zar had stopped by and had picked up an encrypted set of coordinates to another one of the labs. Torren, the novice was working on deciphering it as the three of us drank our ales.

"We can spare a few more guns and novices to help protect Snow and Charming's baby." Zar said. "But it won't be much. We have too many guns and not enough people to shoot them at Zelena. We're going to need something to help us out, because if we can't spare enough men, then some of our own hands on Project Boden will have to be moved to taking down Zelena."

"No." I replied. "You and Jason want me to be a part of this mission to take down George, and we're going to need as many people as we can."

"Yeah, but who do we turn to?" Jason said. "You weren't here during the Curse, Asgeir. People around town, they don't trust us. They never will."

And when he finished, Jason had suddenly given me an idea. We were running low on recruits, which meant that we would need the help of others. And two people came to mind that had what it took to help us. When I told them, Zar and Jason agreed so long as who I was thinking of could give us any support that we needed.

"Oh, what are yah doin' now?!" Shay snapped as I sat, waiting for them in Cormac's at the bar. "You do enough damage to innocents by not dragging them into this war. But if you think asking them to help you kill George will right your wrongs? Never forget that the Brotherhood is all wrongs, and no rights. I won't ever forget how Liam killed Colonel Monroe only because he had the Manuscript with him."

"Asgeir!"

The door to the pub opened and Red and Cindy walked in as the bell above the door rang. I got up and gestured for them to sit down at a table off to the side.

"How are you girls doing?" I asked them.

"It's going alright. Taking care of the baby with Sean." Cindy said.

"All Granny and I seem to be doing is just making sure that Witch doesn't attack the diner again."

I bit my lip as I kept hearing Shay yell more insults and taunts in my ear as I brought up why I asked them here.

"Jason told me about the incident with George a year ago." I began.

Red scowled when I mentioned him. "He was attacking David through me, but even I can't let that slide. It's only a shame that none of the townsfolk have seen him since."

"That's why I asked you here. Both of you. George is still here in the town. But we have no idea where. What we do know is that he's preparing an assault on the Assassins and he's building a small army to take us down. It's not our main focus, but nevertheless, myself, Jason, and our other friend, Salazar are working on stopping him before he strikes again."

"Why are you telling us all this?" Cindy asked. "Is this some kind of confession?"

I turned to her. "You remember how we met. It wasn't long after you and Tommy had wed that Tremaine was hiring sellswords to attack you, but I stopped her before killing her. It wasn't what anyone would want, and yet you and I became friends because you knew that I was doing what had to be done."

"Tremaine would have had her sellswords do whatever it took to have me in her grasp again. You did what needed to be done." She agreed.

"I also hope that you would agree this: We do whatever it takes to protect the ones we love. Some of that morality is tested, but when the chips are down, and it's you and the one who will kill you and your family, there can't be any question."

"George won't stop his assault with the Assassins." I continued. "Everyone in Storybrooke will not be safe unless we stop him and strike first. I'll admit it. This isn't what you do, but it's what I need out of you. Can you help us? I know you have mixed feelings about the Assassins, but please help us for me. And for those you care for. I don't have anyone else to really live for with both my sisters gone. But you have family and friends that care for you."

Red pursed her lips. "Billy. He was innocent and never hurt George, but he killed him anyways. Bled him like a pig and made the whole town believe that I was the one that did it. I will help you, Asgeir. I don't want to kill him, but rather look him in the eyes and ask him why he did it before he leaves this world for the next."

Cindy agreed. "I don't know how we can help, but whatever you need from us, Asgeir, we'll do it. We both trust you. Because you are our friend."

I grinned as I saw Shay scoff. "Dumb broads. You're goin' to get them all killed, yah know."

"So where do we start?"