Special shoutout to Power Is Everything for the review and this chapter is for you, also to answer your question/confusion, you're mostly right except who Edward is. "Edward" is a container, the emotional container for Wrath's feelings he couldn't handle but after the events with Walter, "Edward" hasn't been in control, Wrath is, he just doesn't have a name for himself since he's no longer Wrath so the only thing he has left is the fake name "Edward" who he made up hearing some story of a hero named Edward. So you can think of it as Wrath being the truck carrying everything and Edward being the trailer in the back, both parts make up one unit but is stil driven by the truck.

As for the souls thing, there are only 2, Wrath and Rahim. Wrath is a patchwork of soul parts of the parts you mentioned while Rahim is an entirely separate entity. The other characters that branch off from Wrath are just smaller pieces, not different souls. I don't want to give anything away because this will be more thoroughly explained later

Edward had heard stories about Stonewell's commander training him and making him the warrior he is today. If he was honest, he expected a monster of a man that if he looked at you the right way, he'd stop your heart. The young man didn't expect this shriveled old guy who was frankly oblivious to social cues and had this uncanny ability to read min-

"I'm not reading your mind."

Ledgar actually looked annoyed to be explaining this but nevertheless he continued to do so. "Humans have a fun time jumping to conclusions when they understand so little. Even when you enjoyed the same talent, you only focused on what you can do and not what you could do."

Edward's eyes narrowed, the old man made no sense, the young man might expect him to be lying. The thought had Ledgar roll his eyes, further proving to Edward that the old man could read minds.

Waving off the young man in front of him, Ledgar turned to face Grace who still glared at him but the fire in her eyes dimmed into a smolder of cool flames. It was clear that she would try again but right now, she was calm enough to not let her emotions cloud her judgment. Looking at her brought up the feelings he had tried to bury all those years ago and he hated it.

He deserved it though, looking into her eyes, she reminded him of the runt. The runt had tried killing him so many times that he had lost count. Eventually, the runt realized that there was a time and place for his attempts. During the times it wasn't, he chose to learn from the very man he wished to kill.

Contrary to popular belief, Ledgar didn't train killers.

While it was true that he was in command of many killers that were deemed too dangerous to be allowed to roam free, he never taught them how to kill. Instead, he tried to impart philosophical ideas and lessons aimed at expanding their minds to look beyond just killing. Unfortunately, his attempts were for naught as all of them spurned his intentions, except the runt.

The runt had the presence of mind to realize there was a reason he couldn't kill the Commander. Try as he might, he couldn't figure that reason out. Not only was he stronger and faster than Ledgar, he had lived his entire life fighting and killing so his battle experience was nothing to sniff at. Yet, every time they fought, Ledgar would always stay out of his reach, anticipate all his moves, and do so all while looking as if it took no effort.

One day, he finally asked why he was unable to battle the Commander as an equal. It was a preposterous question, the runt was basically asking for a way to kill him. Ledgar at the time, said as such and instead of outright denying him, asked "Why should I intentionally help a butcher like you kill more people, myself included?"

Ledgar expected the runt to threaten him or spout some arrogant ideas that he was powerful and that those in ways could step down or lay down. However the runt considered his question then answered, "Whatever reason that keeps you trying to reach the others in this army." His answer carried with it an understanding that he didn't know what Ledgar's motivations were, yet he did understand that Ledgar was trying to show them something but the others were blind to it while he was not.

The old man remembered thinking that it was a start, one of his charges finally opened their mind to the possibility that their thinking was limited and wanted to expand it.

It was that day Ledgar decided to truly teach Walter,

It took a long time, the runt wasn't stupid by any stretch of the imagination but his education was severely lacking. The only topics he had any knowledge on were strictly about; the human body of how it worked and where to strike to cause whatever effects, fighting styles with a wide arrange of weapons, and how to get into the mind of his opponent.

Beyond that, the runt was just that, a runt in terms of the mind.

If he stepped in a room with anyone else, he'd be the smallest minded person there. The runt of the litter, the litter being humanity as they're all barely newborns compared to Ledgar.

So Ledgar had to educate him in a variety of subjects. Poetry, history, philosophy, many different subjects that had no practical value on the battlefield. Despite that, the runt listened, he took in every word without complaint and retained them. His reasoning improved, analytical ability concerning the arts peaked, and the more he learned; the more he realized how little he truly knew.

Soon he sought out ideas that Ledgar hadn't assigned to him, taking in the world with a fresh perspective. He still killed when he needed to, he was sent to many different battles but with him going to different places, he was able to absorb many different cultures and reasonings.

It was a year when the runt tried again, instead of launching a sneak attack or ambush of some sort, he told Ledgar tomorrow morning they'd fight one another. That night Ledgar didn't sleep, not putting it past the runt to attack him in his sleep as he had done many times before. No such attack came and when the morning arrived, the runt was patiently waiting on the field for them to begin.

The Commander expected his opponent to blindly rush him with a torrent of attacks like before but instead the runt offered him the first move, even going so far as to turn his back to his enemy. Such an action initially confused Ledgar until he realized it was a bluff to draw him in, deciding to play along, he attacked the runt's unprotected back.

His sword came down ready to wound his opponent's back yet the runt did not move. Before the blade could bite into his skin, Ledgar pulled back, as he was unwilling to attack an unarmed man. That was a mistake as the runt chose that moment to grab the Commander's sword with one hand while thrusting with his other. When Ledgar felt himself be pulled toward the runt's attack, he immediately tried to dance out of the way, only to be nicked by the blade as Walter flicked his wrist, completely changing the course of his attack.

That was the first time the runt ever wounded him.

Ledgar expected the runt to continue fighting but to his surprise the young whelp sheathed his blades and forfeited the match. When asked why forfeit, the runt replied, "Of all the opponent's I've fought, none of them required me to put in any actual thought into how I fought. It was all just instinct, I would overwhelm them somehow someway with my natural abilities and they would fall. You are different; my father taught me and my brother to win using any means necessary and that our advantage came from the fact we were bred to kill. It was all he taught us and it served us well but against someone like you, I needed to expand my horizons…"

The runt had a whimsical expression on his face as he chuckled. "Who would've thought, seeing so many different people allowed me to get a better idea of the kind of person you are, you value life. Despite where you are and what you do, you put a value on all life and enjoy seeing others live their lives in different ways. As such, it has allowed you to hold out hope for weapons like us, that we can live different lives despite the damage we've all done. The fact I spent so much time listening and absorbing all you've taught me has made me an investment you don't want to lose, which was how I knew you wouldn't strike me down with no resistance."

He then scratched his head and his face returned to his usual uninterested look. "That being said, I'm under no illusions that I could defeat you as I am now. You've been around killers for a very long time and have no doubt learned from them as well; in fact every time I fought you prior to this, you always knew how to counter any one of my attacks. It's quite obvious you've studied all of us under your command and I'm sure you know how all of us think and what we'd do if we attacked you. Which is why just knowing I can cut you is victory enough for me. Besides…I'm sure I can find many uses for the education you've given me in such a short time and in the future, my horizons will be even more far reaching."

That more or less sealed the deal between the two of them and the runt was formally inducted as his apprentice. Despite his teachings and personal views of conflict, there was almost nothing that could stop Ledgar's force from conquering whatever they set their sights on. The runt had quickly risen up the ranks to become his second in command before going on to outranking the Commander due to his willingness to to destroy all that stood in his way.

Ledgar didn't blame the runt for that, he blamed the times they lived in, where war spread like a plague. He always wanted to do something about that but if he couldn't get his own men to stop fighting on their own, what hope was there?

The only glimmer of hope he had was the day the runt had a child and by her saving grace, Walter considered closing the long bloody chapter that was his life.

Looking at her now, all grown up, with eyes or anger and resentment aimed toward him reminded him of the weight he had carried for so long. She was right, he ruined her life. The runt's life was already in shambles but it was thanks to his weakness that he allowed her world to fall from under her.

The only bright side to all that unpleasantness was the fact everyone involved is dead, save for a them who had no desire to bring up those memories again and one another who Ledgar planned on visiting later today.

But first, he needed to get through introductions. Clearing his throat, Ledgar faced everyone to continue with what he was saying.

"Now as I said before, I am the one who made the runt who he is today. I was his mentor and at times father as well as Godfather to his daughter." Hector's eyebrow raised but he said nothing.

"I am well aware of what had transpired with Walter and I am in fact the last person to speak with him. Several months ago he sought me out to ask for my assistance, with all the guilt I carried for all these years due to the parts I've played in his life, I could not refuse."

Anna was about to speak and launch a barrage of questions but Ledgar quickly raised a single finger in her direction and spoke before she could. "One of the conditions that I helped him was that I could not tell any of you how I helped him. Only that for all intents and purposes, Captain Walter Stonewell of the Arendellian Royal Guard is dead."

The redhead promptly closed her mouth when she heard the resolute way the old man had said that. Hector's face flashed to barely restrained anger while Grace let her mask slip a bit and allowed confusion to seep through. Ledgar knew what was coming so he already spoke before the words had even been said.

"His wish was that you all had read his will that he left for Hector that would further explain his intentions as well as his concerns." Everyone save Elsa and Grace turned to the noble who still stared with rage but also denial was fresh on his face. Ignoring the looks aimed at him, he took a step forward and aimed a finger at the old man.

"Screw his wish and his will! You're telling me that asshole sent you all the way here to tell us that he quit his job and he's leaving us with all this bullshit while he fucks around?! Where the hell is he?! What's so important that he left us with Arendelle's capital almost destroyed!?"

Ledgar would have chuckled if things weren't as serious as they were now. He was already aware of all the people important to Walter and knew how all of them would react to the message. He couldn't say he was surprised that Hector was the only one to verbally express what they were all thinking. It was obvious Elsa and Grace were already aware of the will, but the others were wondering what message he had left for all of them and why Walter would choose to ask someone that he should hate for help.

The old man dumbly looked at the furious noble, not actually focusing on him but taking stock in the feelings of the others where it concerned the runt. Typically the only feelings one would have for the runt would be fear, mistrust, rage, or bloodlust. However, what he felt from them was mostly worry, especially from Gerda.

He turned toward her and looked her over once again, physically, she looked ordinary. She wasn't unattractive but she didn't turn any heads. She looked wholesome, inviting, and warm. A far cry from the runt's wife, but Ledgar could see why Walter would choose to care for her so much.

She helped him forget, forget how cold the world is and the rivers of blood he spilled on a whim. This woman represented simple and mundane everyday things that the runt never considered, even under his guidance, Walter never considered small things like flowers just for the sake of doing so. Everything with him had a motive or purpose but Ledgar could tell that this simple woman spent a lot of time appreciating the little things for no practical purpose.

The old man shook his head in disappointment, the runt had chosen to become the very thing he tried to avoid for their sakes. A self sacrificing and noble gesture one could suppose, but he was forgetting one of the key lessons that Ledgar hammered into his skull.

Don't do everything alone.

A part of him acquiesced that the runt had asked for his help which took a lot despite the respect that was between them. Yet, he could see that these people in front of him wanted to see the runt returned home.

You always had a talent for making things harder than they needed to be.

"Part of me not telling you how I helped him includes where he presently is or what he's doing. What I can say is that he left a lot of things undone here and since he's in no position to do them, I felt it was the least I could do to see them finished."

Hector frowned as he watched the old man reach into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of parchment. Unfurling it carefully, he squinted his eyes as if he could barely read the words that were written on it. "First…" Ledgar raised a shaky hand and punched the noble in the chest. Hector's face didn't change nor did his body budge an inch from such a weak punch. The old man continued throwing weak punches at the noble all the while looking completely ridiculous to the rest of them.

Finally he finished and produced a quill out of another pocket and scratched something off the list. "Beat Bowman into shape. Next is…" The parchment was ripped out of the old man's hands and Hector quickly skimmed over it. The first thing he noticed was that it wasn't written in Walter's handwriting but the list items definitely came from the previous Captain.

2. Take Bjorgman out for a drink to celebrate his impending fatherhood and upstanding character

3. Assign more reading material for Klein to prepare him for a promotional assessment for Lieutenant

4. Help Gerda finish the nursery

5. Apologize to Kai for having him clean up after the messes left behind

6. Ensure Anna had a protective detail around her every moment on any given day until after she gave birth

7. Remind Elsa that she doesn't have to do everything alone.

8. Remind Jorgen of the terms.

The only things missing however was any mention about Walter's daughter and Edward.

"He didn't write the list, it was obvious he wanted to see those things done, but I can't be entirely sure I got everything. There are some things that even I cannot see, Walter may have been a runt when I last saw him but he was still very capable of hiding things from me."

Hector was on the verge of saying something when Elsa reached over and grabbed the list out of his hands and quickly read through it. After she finished reading she rolled it up and then held it out for Ledgar to take. "It's quite obvious that you know a great deal about Walter and likely about all of us as well. Regarding you with suspicion is a given but I see no reason from restricting more than any visiting tourist. I'll leave you to your list and if the others are amenable to it, they can help get those items done. If you would however make time for you and me to speak privately I would very much appreciate it."

The old man stared at her for a moment before he narrowed his eyes in a focusing expression. After a few seconds he opened his mouth. "Are you not concerned I might be a threat to you? I just admitted that I'm the reason Walter had so much torment in his life and Grace here has every reason to want to kill me. Yet, you don't seem bothered by me in the slightest, why?"

Edward, who had been quietly listening, raised an eyebrow. Couldn't this guy read minds, if he could then why bother asking questions when he could just pull them from the people's mind? Ledgar ignored the question as he waited for an answer from the blonde.

"You called Walter 'runt'. As long as I've known Walter and the way he speaks to people, he's only ever called one person that." Elsa briefly looked at Edward who met her gaze before looking away.

"If Walter came looking to you for help and wanted to tell us that he's dead to us, that would mean he intended to leave the things on this list unfinished. The fact that you're down here yourself conveys you're doing this out of guilt, exactly the way you've portrayed yourself when you admitted to ruining his life. You could be lying for all we know since Walter isn't above lying and surely learned it from someone but if you were such a hated part of his life, he wouldn't have adopted your nickname for him. He also certainly wouldn't give it to someone he considered a threat so from the way he treated his runt, I can gleam you treated him in a similar way and thus he trusted you."

Elsa gestured to him to take the parchment which he did wordlessly. Her reasoning was logically sound but there was one thing that stuck out. She was basing her whole assumption on the relationship between the runt and his baby runt. Turning once again to look at the baby runt, Ledgar focused on him once more, searching for something, anything that deserved Walter's high opinion.

He had heard the stories on the way here about the hero Edward who had survived ambushes, numerous odds, and monsters alone which allowed the rest of the Arendellian forces time to reorganize. Some of the rumors even said that he fought like he knew what was going to happen ahead of time and that he was stronger than the monsters he was fighting.

To Ledgar that didn't really mean much, he could do the same thing quite easily but something the runt mentioned once stuck with him. Apparently during one of their sparring matches the baby runt actually managed to make Walter's hand shake. It wasn't from fear, Ledgar knew the runt far too well to know that he would never experience the emotion of fear. Despite all that he had tried to do, Walter's emotional horizon was stunted thanks to his father, any semblance of fear had been completely erased and replaced with a cold calculated question.

What do you need to win?

When asked that question, not a lot was needed. Armies weren't needed to win wars, all you needed to do was get your opponent to surrender and that opened up a lot of different possibilities. Walter was good, if not the best at exploiting possibilities no matter how unlikely they were to succeed.

Which was why when he heard that the runt's body had undergone such a reaction because of this baby runt then one of two things could've happened. Either he pushed Walter far enough that he almost lost himself to his more base self…

…or the baby runt had the potential to be a King.

The first one seemed the most likely given the stories but Ledgar always made an effort to not be complacent. Which meant that he needed to be sure and there were a lot of ways for him to make sure. For now though, he beamed with a wide smile.

"Why thank you, I will do my best to prove myself deserving of such trust. If any of you should need me then call my name three times and whistle and I'll be there." With that he started laughing hoarsely until he started hacking and coughing. Kai, Gerda, and Anna looked unsure as they inched over to help in case he needed it. The three of them didn't trust him given what he just told them but his old man act looked quite convincing.

Grace narrowed her eyes but ultimately chose to curtly walk away, after hearing Elsa giving Ledgar free rein, she didn't want to see him. All it did was bring up the buried feelings that she worked hard to keep buried under her desire to be of service to Arendelle. Hector watched her go and briefly turned to Elsa who gave him a subtle nod and he found himself going after the woman as she entered the castle.

Kristoff and Cameron weren't entirely sure what was going on, they both had a hard time imagining this guy teaching Walter anything. They imagined an out of this world monster but he didn't seem that way. At first, they were sure he wasn't normal given that Edward seemed utterly convinced this guy could read minds but the fact he looked genuinely confused and asked Elsa a question proved otherwise.

Edward on the other hand still remained unconvinced as he watched the old man recover from his coughing fit and bend over looking like a frail senior citizen. "Oh there goes my back again…I'm getting too old to be laughing that hard. If it was anyone but the runt, I wouldn't bother stepping out of retirement."

After tapping his back a few times and with an audible groan accompanied by a chorus of cracks, he straightened his back out and gingerly started shuffling his way out of the courtyard. With one hand on the base of his back and the other slowly pumping back and forth like it was a lever that moved his legs.

"Wait a second, where are you going?" Ledgar stopped and turned to see Edward behind him with a glare on his face. The old man blinked before raising his idle hand and rubbing his chin pretending he had a great beard while he answered.

"I'm off to complete my list, this list item is very important and I need to get it done before I start the others." The young man didn't buy that this old man was what he presented himself to be. Something about this guy was off, from his vague words earlier to the things that happened around him. Edward was sure this guy could read minds or maybe play tricks on them.

The young man was sure he grabbed him earlier but it was as if his mind relapsed for a second and he imagined him lifting the old man up and questioning him. Edward also remembered feeling himself get stabbed by Walter just as this guy showed up. Such a visceral feeling was not one to be forgotten and the fact this guy was adamant that Walter wasn't the one to stab him when the Captain was just a figment of his guilt meant this guy could see what was in his mind.

Ledgar frowned again before sighing and throwing his hand up in defeat. "Alright baby runt, if you want to you can come with me. It'll give us a chance to talk I suppose, and maybe it'll help you get out of that head of yours." He turned back around and started shuffling toward his destination, leaving Edward to briefly look back at Elsa one more time whose face gave away nothing before he turned to match Ledgar's slow pace.

Well I kinda feel like I wrote myself into a corner, this chapter was gonna go in depth on how exactly Walter and Ledgar met but that is gonna come later. For now, I just wanted to introduce the guy and hopefully give yall a chance to guess a few things about him that will likely be answered in a chapter or 2. In the mean time hope yall enjoyed the chapter, see yall next time.