NOTES: This work takes place in the same universe as my Splinter Cell fan-fiction, "Megiddo", and contains spoilers to that as it overlaps with said fanfic. Choose which fanfic to read first at your discretion. Chapter 2 of this fan-fiction takes place during Chapter 10 of "Megiddo".
Also, Chapter 1 has now been revised and split into two chapters, Chapter 1 and 2, in order to fit the idea I'm going for where our heroine, Katja, has an alternate identity of one of the iconic Assassin/ proto-Assassin protagonists of each of the Assassin's Creed games per each chapter, save for the first. So while Chapters 1 and 2 are mostly not new content, they have been revised, so you might pick up on some changed details here and there. Just thought I'd mention it.
This story can also get dark and somewhat political at times, mainly due to its very violent and sometimes sexual content, so read at your own discretion.
ASSASSIN'S CREED: THE BLEEDING IDENTITIES
Chapter 1— "The Beginning of Ragnarok"
Katja Winter
Katja Winter was barely five years old when her life was turned upside down.
She lived with her parents in a small, peaceful town near Stockholm.
At her home, she was in her bedroom with her mother, who was reading her a book about Norse mythology when she heard the doorbell ring.
She heard her father go to answer the door.
She heard her father open the door.
She heard her father speaking to someone.
Then the speaking turned to shouting and screaming.
Then, for the first time in her life, she heard a gunshot.
Then she heard several more.
Her mother's face turned pale.
"Katja, hide under the bed," she said.
"Mother, what's going on—"
"Now, Katja!"
Nodding, a terrified Katja hid under the bed.
Her mother went to the kitchen to get out a knife, only for Katja to hear more screaming, followed by a gunshot, and the sound of her mother screaming and crying.
Katja trembled while underneath her bed.
"…where is the girl?" said an unknown, menacing voice.
"Please, I don't know who you're talking about—"
Another gunshot. Her mother was screaming and crying even louder, before she started to choke on her own blood.
"Where is Katja?"
"Don't… hurt… my daughter!"
Another gunshot.
Katja looked around for something to defend herself with. She saw a fork next to the plate of waffles she had for dessert on her nightstand, and grabbed it.
She then hid in her closet, clutching the fork with her trembling hands.
The intruder, a man dressed in an odd-looking black uniform and mask carrying a metallic staff emitting electric bolts, was talking into a communication device attached to his wrist. He had an odd-looking symbol on his uniform, a white triangular outline consisting of three quadrilaterals.
"We need the girl alive," said a voice on the communicator. "She's the reincarnation the All-Father's been looking for. She's the key to completing the Phoenix Project."
"I know," said the man, as he turned on a set of thermal-vision goggles.
The man marched over to the closet.
"I see you girl," said the man.
He was a second away from opening the closet doors when a voice and face entered Katja's head, that of an old man with gray hair and a black cape.
The old man told her, "Fight, my child. Prove you're worthy of Valhalla."
She bashed the closet doors open. It stunned the man temporarily, and Katja grabbed her fork and stabbed him in the gut with all the strength she could summon.
"Ow!" yelled the terrifying intruder as he threw Katja across the room.
Katja grabbed her side in pain; this horrifying man was very strong.
As she saw the man pulling the fork out the weak spot between his torso armor and belt, she stumbled to her feet and ran to the kitchen before the man could grab her.
Katja looked at her mother lying in a pool of her own blood next to the kitchen table.
There was a bullet hole in her head.
Her mother wasn't moving or making a sound.
Tears started to run down Katja's eyes.
Katja grabbed the knife next to her mother's body, and ran for the front door, where she saw her father's bullet-riddled corpse lying on the floor with bloodstains all around him.
She ran out the door and tried to run through the snow as fast as she could even though she was just in her pajamas.
Then, out of nowhere, a dog pounced on her, and tried to bite her neck.
"Fenrir, stop!"
Katja screamed, and stabbed the dog with the knife.
The dog whined and slumped over into the snow.
Katja kicked the dog off of her.
The man in the black armor had caught up to her.
"Nowhere to run, girl," the man said as he readied his staff.
Shaking, Katja grabbed the knife, and threw it at the man's head.
It pierced his eye.
The man screamed, dropped his staff, and tried to pull the knife out.
Katja ran toward the man, grabbed his staff, and hit him with it, then continued to zap him while screaming in terror the whole time.
The man screamed. Katja then grabbed the knife, and hacked through the man's throat.
Realizing what she had just done, Katja collapsed to her knees in the snow, and buried her hands in her head.
Then another man in an identical black suit and mask grabbed her from behind.
"No!" yelled Katja. "Let me go!"
Katja looked around as the man grabbed her, and saw that several black cars full of more men in the black uniforms with the white triangular logos on them had shown up around the house. She could also see a black helicopter flying above her.
The man that grabbed Katja socked her in the stomach, and threw her onto the ground.
Blacking out for a moment, Katja pulled her head out of the snow.
She could see the helicopter landing, and a man in a black suit and tie with slick blonde hair jumped out of it as the helicopter touched onto the ground. As he took off his sunglasses, she could see that one of the man's eyes looked more intensely at her than the other, and was more bloodshot.
The man in the suit and tie walked up to the thug that had grabbed her.
"Is that the girl?" said the man.
"Yes, sir. She killed one of ours, along with our attack dog."
The man walked toward Katja, and looked at her, then grinned. "She killed Fenrir… She's perfect. Good job, men. Now load her onto the helicopter, and torch the house."
"Yes, sir."
As a stunned Katja was picked up and restrained by two more thugs in the black uniforms, she looked back at her home as the guards burned it to the ground with flamethrowers and white phosphorus grenades.
Mother… father…
Tears began to run down Katja's eyes again. She sniffled, and stifled a cry.
She was loaded aboard the helicopter, and the man in the suit climbed aboard it as the men cuffed her to her seat.
"Who are you?" said Katja. "And why did you kill my mother and father?"
The man grinned, and looked at her with his menacing eyes.
"Your… parents…" said the man. "Your parents were cowards."
Katja spat on his face. The guards restrained her further.
After wiping his face, the man frowned for a moment, then laughed. "You're like me. You don't care about other people. I like that." As they began to lift off the ground, Katja could see the lights of the small town she grew up in the distance. "Unlike the two of us, all ordinary people tend to do is fight with each other. I intend to fix that."
As the helicopter flew over a lake in the direction of Stockholm, the man said, "Tell me… Katja, have you ever looked at your own reflection in a mirror or a lake in the middle of day?"
Katja said, "Who hasn't…"
The man leaned closer to her as he said, "Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to gaze into your reflection without one, even if it was just a part of the whole image?"
"You're crazy, you horrible old... man…" Katja covered her mouth in horror as she realized that the man in the suit looked eerily similar to the man she imagined in her closet that told her to fight, only he was much younger, and had two eyes instead of one.
The man grinned even wider. The wicked grin would haunt her for the rest of her life.
"What… what are you?" said Katja.
"To answer your first question, my name's Lucas," said the man. "To answer your second question more genuinely, I killed your parents because they wouldn't give you to me," said the man. "I want to become friends with you, Katja. And once we become the best of friends… I promise I'll answer your third. Our friendship starts now."
The man looked over at one of his guards and nodded his head upward. The guard then pressed a cloth covered in chloroform against Katja's face.