Chapter Forty Six

No Time for Vengenace

ELSA

After her reunion and slightly tense conversation with Melody, she had wondered if arguing with her over where her trust was invested in was really worth it.

Did Melody perhaps know better than she did? After all she was an expert tactician and certainly more experienced in the whole missions thing. Was she on to something when she'd told Elsa not to let her feelings for Janus obscure his real intentions?

Elsa shook her head. No, Melody didn't feel or see what she had seen. There was an undeniable connection between her and the mercenary, tender as it may be, and she knew for a fact that he wasn't going to turn around and stab her in the back. Not after everything they'd been through so far. He wouldn't.

The argument with Melody hadn't seemed to faze Janus one bit though, and she watched as he packed his equipment in the ammunition room which housed all the items the Insurgency had stolen from the Empire's weapon cache.

"I'm…ummn…sorry about Melody." Elsa finally decided to say.

He continued filling pellets with a certain fine powder. "What for?"

"She was pretty brutal back there." She admitted. "She said some pretty nasty things."

"But true things." He said.

"You don't mean that."

"What if I do?" Janus looked up at her, and she could see that he was deadly serious. "Elsa, I'm a mercenary. I don't blame her for not trusting me. I've done some horrible things."

"In the past." Elsa corrected him. "And you're not a mercenary anymore. You're one of us now."

"I doubt your friends would see it that way."

"Then here's your chance to prove it to them."

Janus shook his head. "Even if I earn their trust, what then? I become one of the Warriors? Go on adventures to save the world?"

"Let's start with learning where the King and Queen of Denmark are being held prisoner." Elsa said. "We'll work our way up from there."

He fished out a balaclava from a crate belonging to one of the insurgents, and put on the black cloth. "How do I look?"

She sighed. "Dashing."

"It's itchy."

She couldn't help but laugh. Beyond that fearsome exterior that he portrayed to his targets, he really had a charming personality in private.

"I'm done." He said, after fitting in a new sword into his scabbard slung across his back and pulling the hood over his head.

She frowned. "Aren't you forgetting your bow and arrows?"

"Dolan confiscated all my weapons. I lost everything, including my sword and pellets. Remind me to drop by a weapons store once this is all over."

"And you don't need a new bow or arrows?"

"Unfortunately none of your insurgent friends have any spares lying around. I'll make do with what I have."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Elsa said after a pregnant pause. "You really shouldn't be straining yourself after you'd just recovered."

"From what I understand you did the same when you got out of bed to save me from execution." He pointed out.

She bit her lip and played with the hem of her blue blouse. He was right.

"Still," she said apprehensively. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"I feel fine apart from a bit of soreness. A bit of pain never bothered me anyway." He shrugged indifferently with effortless oozing charm, which made her heart skip a beat.

"If you say so." She said, resisting yet another urge to lean forward and kiss him. Of course, she'd decided against it wisely. First of all, they weren't exactly the only ones in the room, and second, she was sure that the taste of the unwashed balaclava on her lips would be horrendous.

###

Before Tracy left on her own mission with Melody and the others, she had opened a Crossing Point for Elsa's team, and now they were in one of the rooms of the many municipal buildings that surrounded the heart of the city. Fortunately, they hadn't teleported into a room filled with Exonians, for that would have been disastrous and incredibly messy.

"Alright, we need to split up." Oliver said. "Charlotte gave us two tasks, and we can't be seen walking five abreast down the corridor."

"What do you propose?" Janus asked. It was obvious he was trying his best to be a team player, since this whole working with partners thing was a foreign experience to him.

Elsa thought he didn't look or sound as intimidating in his new mask, but she chose not to say anything.

"Will, Deirdre and I will spy on the meet between the Consul and Kane's runners. We'll intercept their message and find out about their whereabouts and how far away from Denmark they are. The farther they are, the better."

He caught Elsa's eye, and seemed to remember that the farther the army was from Denmark, the closer they were to attacking Arendelle, and hurried to rectify his statement. "What I mean is, if them being farther means they're less likely to be able to get back here in time to stop us from mounting our final stand against the Empress and the First Imperials."

"I know what you meant, don't worry." Elsa said. "Janus and I will lie in wait and corner off one of the senior senators who are more likely to know the Empress' plans after their meeting. We'll find out where the King and Queen are being held captive."

"Great." Oliver said, unfolding a piece of creased paper from his pants pocket. "According to the blueprints Alfonz was able to steal, there's only one conference room large enough to hold all the senators for an event like this. It's on the third floor. See if you can find a good vantage point to hide and wait."

"When you're done, don't wait up. Head back to the base and we'll see you there. Good luck." He switched the grip of the bow in his hand. Elsa had barely remembered that he was an archer like Melody and Janus too. It looked like archery was all the rage these days.

"I was sort of hoping that we could take the other task." Janus said when the other three had split up with them to find Hans and Kane's runners and were safely out of earshot.

"Why?" Elsa asked. She wasn't particularly eager to run into Hans again so soon.

"I'd hoped to see the Consul today. I was planning on wringing his neck." Janus said darkly.

Elsa shook her head. "Honestly, I would love to freeze him myself, but there's no time for vengeance now."

"Maybe later then."

The two of them crept through the open hallway, keeping their ears open for any patrolling First Imperials. Fortunately, they didn't run into any, and they safely got to the switchback staircase and began making their way up the towards the third floor.

"We should go up one more level." Janus said.

"Why? The conference room's on the third."

"We can get in through an air vent, and crawl down towards the third where we can get a nice vantage point over the room."

"How do you even know where to find this air vent, if it even exists?"

"I saw the blueprints."

"For only a few seconds."

"I'm a quick study." He said mildly, leading the way up another flight of stairs.

Elsa pursed her lips in silent marvel. He certainly knew how to go about his business. This probably wasn't even the first time he'd done something like this, and she took a bit of comfort in knowing that she had an experienced teammate in her corner.

They found the air vent where Janus had saw it, and he set about unscrewing the bolts which held it in place with a tool from his arsenal. When that was done, he moved the vent aside for Elsa to enter.

She squeezed into it, and found that even with her slender frame, it was rather tight and would likely induce claustrophobia to someone who had it. To be fair, she was taller than average. She'd done up her blonde hair in a bun to prevent it from catching too much dirt and grime that was sure to be present. Janus got in after her, and with the vent still in hand, he wedged it tightly closed in after them.

"Why'd you do that?" she frowned. "Now we're trapped in."

"Covering our tracks." He explained as he bent over on hands and knees, wincing as he did so. "My back. Now I wish I'd stayed in bed."

"Too late for that now. Come on." Elsa began to crawl deeper into the hole. "Where to first?"

"Take the first left."

###

After what seemed like hours of crawling, the duo finally saw light at the end of the tunnel - and quite literally too.

"I think we're almost there." Elsa whispered, aware that the Exonians would be in the room. Her hands and knees were coated with grime and dust, and the fact that she was sweating buckets didn't exactly help matters. Now that she was here, she wished that she had left behind her thick, midnight blue trench coat. It was meant for spring weather, not for crawling through air ducts.

Fortunately though, she possessed the powers to make clothes materialize or disappear using her powers and now was an appropriate time to do so. The trench coat vanished, and she immediately felt better ventilated in just her blouse and leggings. Thank god I didn't wear a dress.

She tucked a strand of blonde hair which had escaped from her bun behind her ears and remembered that her hands weren't exactly clean. But right now, she couldn't really be bothered. She just wanted to get out of this cramp tunnel at the earliest convenience.

"You're right." Janus said from behind her in a low voice. "Go a little slower. We don't want to make too much noise."

They covered the remaining stretch to the air vent slowly, and Elsa, being in front, had the honour of scouting out their vantage point. She laid prone in the air duct to avoid being seen, and peered out cautiously through the bars of the air vent.

Sure enough, as Janus had said, they were now looming above the conference room on the third level, and the senators were seated around a long oak table with the Empress at the head. They were speaking in Exonite, which Elsa barely understood, but she pieced together the bits and pieces of words and phrases she knew to make an educated guess what they were talking about.

"I regret that the Consul isn't available to be here himself. He's attending to a separate matter right now." Elsa heard Empress Eleanor say. She was of course referring to Hans meeting Kane's runners to receive updates about the status of the Imperial Horde's campaign. "So whatever grievances you would usually be comfortable with airing to the Consul, you may bring directly to my attention now."

"Your Imperial Majesty," one of the senators said after a long pause. "Ever since the incident with the Merchants' Bank, the people have been running wild like rebels."

"Of course they're acting that way." Eleanor said. "How else do you expect the citizens of an occupied kingdom to act?"

"I'm sorry, Your Imperial Majesty. What I am trying to say is, they're showing more resistance to negotiations ever since the rebel scum broke into the weapons cache and armed the common people."

"And now that the money we've amassed has been stolen and distributed to the citizens," A businessman added nervously. "The stocks and supplies we've put out for purchase are declining rapidly due to the people having enough wealth to buy them in bulk."

"Rhetorics," Eleanor waved her hand. "You should be anticipating this problem. What, you want me to run your businesses for you?"

"No, Your Imperial Majesty." The minister said hastily. "But we have a proposal."

"Enlighten me."

The businessman glanced around at his companions and then cleared his throat nervously. "Forgive me for our discretion, but we thought it more efficient if we all came to a consensus before coming to you with our proposal. We took a vote, and eighty five percent of the senators, ministers, aristocrats and businessmen agree that this is a lost cause."

From where Elsa was, she could vaguely see Eleanor's face twitch. "What are you saying?"

The man gulped and adjusted his collar. "As a member of the senate, I've been appointed to uphold the welfare and the interests of the Exonians. And that includes the Exonians now residing in Denmark to expand their businesses."

Eleanor's eyes narrowed but she was quiet. Dangerously quiet.

"Therefore, on behalf of the majority of the Exonians here, I'm proposing that we withdraw from Denmark entirely and set our sights on another weaker city or kingdom. We have plenty to choose from, Your Imperial Majesty."

"So what you're suggesting is," Eleanor steepled her fingers. "We surrender to the rebels and retreat?"

"No, I-"

"And what message would that send to all the other cities and kingdoms we've conquered thus far? That we can be muscled out of our own Empire?"

"Your Imperial Majesty, please understand-"

Before he could finish, his flesh and muscles melted into a pile of goo almost instantaneously, and the bones that once held up the body of the consul clattered to the floor uselessly.

The room was deadly silent, and everyone in the room looked like they were about to hurl or burst into tears, all except Eleanor of course. Surprisingly, they mostly reserved their shock and reactions, and Elsa guessed that they were already privy to the fact that their ruler had strange abilities.

Eleanor stood up. "That was rather unpleasant, I apologise. But let me make one thing very clear. I did not risk everything to see my Empire crumble now. I'm not going to let anything stand in the way of putting the name of Exon in the history books for the ages. And especially not a rag-tag group of rebels who think that just because they have a few sorcerers in their midst, that they can stand up to me." Her voice had gradually turned from cold and precise to a very nasty snarl.

"Dolan." She snapped.

The lieutenant hastily rushed out of his corner and bowed.

"I want you to double the patrols and search parties." Eleanor said acidly. "No one gets to sleep until they find these rebels. And when you do, I want you to burn them to the ground. Shoot them. Hang them. Do whatever it takes to secure the fear of the common people. If this goes on, I'll have your own men executed one by one. Understood?"

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty." He bowed and scurried away.

Elsa shot a glance behind her at Janus. If he hadn't betrayed the Empire, he would've been the one down there right now to receive that order. She silently thanked the heavens that Janus was on their side now.

"Her Imperial Majesty is right." One of the ministers stood up. He had an affected drawl which was probably forced and had a pompous look about him. He also looked too big for his formal white shirt that was bursting at the seams around his pot belly. "We can't back down now, not when we've already made it this far. I trust that Her Imperial Majesty is more than capable of bringing Exon to greater heights. I hope that the rest of you can do the same."

"Way to go." Elsa muttered to herself. That man was the very definition of a bootlicker, probably to get on Eleanor's good side for his own personal safety.

"That's Duke Anton's voice. You can't miss it. I've seen him at the royal court a couple of times back when I was working for them." Janus whispered, reading Elsa's mind. "He's cozy with the Empress, as far as I can tell. I'm betting he knows something about where the king and queen are stashed."

"Looks like we have our target then." Elsa glanced back down at the scene before her.

"Well put, Anton, thank you." Eleanor smiled sickly. "Anyone else have any questions or issues they'll like to raise?"

The ministers, aristocrats and senators kept silent, signifying the end of the conference with their esteemed ruler. With the wave of Eleanor's hand, they bowed hastily and shuffled out of the room in the most dignified manner they could manage without betraying their own pride.

Only Duke Anton lingered for a moment, so that he could sketch a deep bow to the Empress in private. She smirked, and exchanged a few words with him in a low voice that Elsa couldn't hear.

The duke bowed again, before excusing himself from the room.

"He's leaving." Elsa turned to Janus who had already begun crawling in the opposite direction.

"Come on, we'll corner him off at our next exit."

She sighed and awkwardly manoeuvred in the reverse direction to follow after Janus. How did he manage to slither around so quickly and easily? No one would have believed that he had suffered from a broken spine just a day ago.

Elsa and Janus both crawled through the air duct back the way they came, but instead of returning to the original air vent they had entered in from, Janus took a right turn which led them to a slight drop down to the third level. There, they did a few more turns before Elsa saw another air vent in front of them, and heard the faint footsteps of someone coming from farther away outside the air duct. Janus shifted from a crawling position into a seated one, while still bent over.

For a man his size, he should not have been able to even fit into an air duct, let alone manoeuvre around the way he was doing, but somehow he managed it with relative ease. Elsa watched in amazement as Janus placed both feet against the grills of the air vent and gave it a solid kick. A soft gasp could be heard from outside.

Swiftly, he squeezed out of the air duct, and with perfect timing too. Janus slammed into the unsuspecting duke and forced him against the wall, his gloved hand cupped tightly over his victim's mouth.

With great difficulty, Elsa squeezed out of the air duct and unbent, her whole body feeling cramped. She glanced around nervously, only to find that there were no other Exonians around. Huh. I suppose even Exonians don't like sycophantic suck ups.

Janus maintained his grip on Duke Anton, with one hand cupped over his mouth and the other forearm pressed against his throat. "If you're alone, nod."

The duke struggled, his eyes wide and indignant, and tried to shout.

"Try anything, and I'll crush your windpipe." Janus said in a low, menacing growl. Even without the mechanical, impassive filter of his previous mask, he had still managed to find a way to sound frightful.

That was enough to force cooperation out of the duke, who nodded hastily. Elsa was impressed that he hadn't wet his pants out of fear yet.

Janus slowly removed the hand covering Anton's mouth and eased his grip on his throat.

"Who are you?" Anton whispered in English.

"Your worst nightmare. I want to know about the King and Queen of Denmark."

"I remember you. You're that mercenary. That captain of the First Imperial Guard who betrayed the Empire." Anton hissed. "You won't get away with that. No one betrays the Empire and lives."

"You didn't answer my question."

"What makes you think I know anything?"

"I've seen you at court with the Empress. Something tells me that you know a few of her secrets."

"Even if I did, I'm not telling you anything." The duke spat acidly in his thick accent. "Not everyone is a traitor like you, sovrlairn."

Janus grabbed Anton's collar in both hands and effortlessly swung the man in a half-circle. Elsa had to duck out of the way for fear that she would get hit in the action. She was taken aback that Janus was able to manhandle the large man the way he did.

The mercenary slammed Anton against the opposite wall and lifted him above the ground, pressing his back against the wall.

"I'll ask you again. Where is the Empress holding the king and queen prisoner?"

The duke's chubby legs dangled helplessly above the floor as Janus maintained his vice like grip, and he furiously rattled off a string of expletives in his native tongue. Elsa was glad that she didn't know enough of the language to understand what vulgarities he was spewing.

When that didn't work, Janus lowered the man and quickly switched his stance, holding the man's neck in the crook of his elbow in a reverse grip, with the man's body facing upwards, towards the ceiling. Anton's back arched and stiffened, and he cried out in terror, flailing wildly as Janus locked in his hold.

"Please!" Anton whimpered, the fake drawl he'd affected back in the conference room now vanished.

"Last chance," Janus growled. "Or I'll break your neck."

"Janus!" Elsa hissed.

He looked sharply at her and she bristled for a moment, fear seeping in for a moment.

"Stay out of this, Elsa." He said, trying to keep the intimidation out of his voice as he spoke to her.

"Don't do this, please." She pleaded, putting a hand gently on his shoulder. "There has to be a better way. Put him down."

Janus stared at her for a brief second before glancing back down at his whimpering prey. He released his grip on Anton, who hit the ground back first, curling up in fear.

"Talk, while you still have a tongue." Janus placed his boot on the man's chest.

"Okay, okay!" Anton cowered, raising both hands to protect his face. "The Empress is keeping the king and queen for some reason. She's keeping them both at the top of the Aleksander Tower in the holding cells for the most dangerous threats to the Empire. The tower is heavily guarded. No less than twenty four guards outside the holding cells at a time. You won't get in there without being shot down."

"Don't count on it." Janus slammed his knee onto his face, knocking Anton cold on the spot. He turned to Elsa as footsteps and a few shouts could be heard in the distance. "Come on, we need to find some cover. We're sitting ducks out here."

As they pattered through the hall as quietly as they could, they heard more footsteps coming up the stairs, and had no choice but to keep going up, all the way to the roof of the municipal building where they would be safe for a few extra minutes.

Arms folded across her chest, Elsa glowered at Janus as he finished barricading the door of the stairwell and turned round to face her. "What was that down there?"

"I did what I had to do." Janus said. "Otherwise he wouldn't have told us what we wanted to know."

"Janus, you were completely out of control!" Elsa hissed.

"I knew what I was doing."

"You were ready to kill him!"

"It's a scare tactic. Everyone cracks under enough pressure."

"That wasn't necessary at all."

"It was the only way."

"There's always another way!" She said fiercely. "A better way. We don't have to kill or intimidate our enemies the way you did."

"Elsa, what do you think we're doing here?" Janus pointed downstairs. "We're at war. In war, there will be casualties. If you want to win, you have to do whatever it takes to get it done. This isn't some fairytale princess story where your enemies don't kill you and you live happily ever after in some fancy castle.

"This is the real world we're living in, don't you see that? If you don't kill your enemies, they're not going to hesitate to kill you. Or have you forgotten what happened between you and the Consul?"

Elsa glared indignantly at him, hot angry tears brimming in her eyes, and she worked hard to fight them back while levelling his gaze.

The charming, chivalrous personality she had briefly known was now gone, and the man she saw in front of him was reminiscent of the one who had ambushed her the first time they had met more than a year ago. This was a cruel, darker and more vengeful side that was hinged on his baser instincts that had been ingrained in him from an early age.

She was speechless and hurt. The fact that he had brought up her altercation with Hans just added unnecessary fuel to the fire. He didn't have to make it personal.

He dropped his eyes in shame after a long pause and a fierce stare-down. "I'm sorry. That was too harsh and unfair. I shouldn't have said-"

"It's alright." Elsa swallowed and blinked away the tears, her blue eyes slightly red. Now there was the man she'd come to know.

"But my position still stands." Janus said in a gentler, less aggressive tone. "We're at war, Elsa. Don't you see? I'm just trying to do whatever needs to be done."

"And my position still stands too." Elsa looked up at him. "I meant what I said. If we cross the line and kill our enemies in cold blood, then what separates us from them? We have to draw the line somewhere. We don't have to kill our enemies to get the job done. You don't have to kill your enemies."

"It's the way I do things."

"Not when you're with me." Elsa said firmly. "You're working with me now, remember?"

They stared at each other for another quiet minute before he spoke again.

"Can we discuss this later? This isn't exactly the best place to be discussing moral standards."

"Fine," Elsa relented and placed both her hands on the waist high parapet of the roof, and a thick, solid slide of ice formed from the rooftop all the way down to the ground level which was empty and unguarded for the time being. "Then we better get going before they corner us up here."

Author's Commentary:

Damn, that last bit was harsh. But it does raise some real questions though, like do the ends justify the means? And should we hold ourselves to higher standards when confronted with people we don't like even though it's so much easier to fight them at their level? Real valid questions.

Also I'd love to write more stealthy stuff. You'll see more of that in the coming chapters. And very soon, we'll have a full blown war on our hands.