BONUS STORY: "ASSASSIN'S CREED" (PART 4)

An abandoned warf warehouse on the edge of the Themes River stood testament to the rare, hard economic times England was experiencing despite the introduction of the Industrial Revolution of machines. Perhaps it was indeed the core reason for the lack of work for the masses? Before, it had been where men and women worked to craft items of sale, now machines could build the same items better and faster and cheaper without money or labor. It was said where there is process there must be sacrifice.

This warf, once a bustling port of activity with workers harvesting shiploads of fish and other material, sat destitute now, to new and improved built facilities run by machines and manned by fewer workers. It was said that machines would make man's work easier, instead it put many men out of work, and the workhouses were full of the homeless including once schooled children who couldn't afford to go. Men even went far as to forge for survival in crime, and in the last couple of years, the jails had seen a thirty percent increase in inmates, where most of the prisoners either worked themselves to death in hard labor camps or starved and froze during the cold winters in their cells.

A good man once said, "Let the rot of society wallow in their own crafted demise and allow the heartfelt reign over corruption and ill-will; let the masses be policed by the wise and the innocent be cast into the light; leader the meek and educate the strong, but be gentle with each." - Vincent Phantomhive; said during the very first meeting of his secret sect of aristocrats.

But the rich were the only ones that were managing now, suriving on the backs of the workers. And only two weeks prior, one of England's most prominent citizens and socialites had been struck down by a menacing and shadowy foe. Vincent Phantomhive and his wife and their young son, Ciel, had been murdered by a yet unknown killer, their mansion burned to the ground, and only rumor abound of who had committed the crime. Scotland Yard had no clues to work with, claiming that an unfortunate happenstance occurred - that a fire log may have rolled out of the fireplace and set the mansion ablaze while Vincent and his wife Rachel slept in the Sitting Room, their bodies burned to ash.

But when they sifted through the rumble for which Tanaka, the butler had survived, he told of a strange tale of children running through the mansion just before it went aflame. And the ruins had no indication of Ciel's body. Notwithstanding, like his parents, his body could have been burned to ash somewhere.

As one of Vincent Phantomhive's closest friends, enforcer and protector, he had failed to fulfill his duty to them, and it torn him up inside.

Vincent had set him on an errand that took longer than he had anticipated that day - December 14th. There was a rumor of a man who may have known the identity of the man who continued to kidnap children, but it turned out to be a rouse. And he figured it may have been a purposeful rouse to separate him from Vincent.

Vincent suspected it may have been Bryon Kelvin who kidnapped children, but he had no true evidence, only a theory. But even a word from Vincent in the Queen's ear would send a warrant out for Kelvin's arrest. It was this that had him thinking that Bryon Kelvin may have been involved in the Phantomhive's deaths.

He had received a letter from Chlaus Phantomhive that he too believed Bryon Kelvin was involved in the child kidnappings. But most recently, everyone who had been associated with the special group of aristocrats Vincent had formed to protect England's - and his own - best interests had gone silent. And he wondered why. Even his own brother, Ryan, had not communicated with him lately. He feared the worse. What if Bryon Kelvin, using some nefarious means, had murder them? But he couldn't believe that. Not yet.

So then why was he here? he asked himself. This was the warf where Vincent and Rachel first encountered the twins Sasha and Samuel Ironstadt and the six brainwashed children. It was a dark and spooky place with rusted machinery and battle damage. He could see the scars of Vincent and Rachel's fight in the wood with the children and twins, bullets were still embedded into the fortification pillars and walls. He hoped he could find some clue here in avenging his dear friends' deaths, but nothing of value or inspiration was presenting itself to him.

He was Vulcan Hardgrove, an entrepreneur, among other things, and once proud friend and enforcer to one of the greatest men he had ever known. Tanaka, Vincent's butler, was looking after Funtom Co., but its prominence was failing without Vincent to lead it even only after weeks of Vincent's death. In a few years, he feared the company will either parish or have to be sold to merge with a more successful venture.

Funtom Co. was just as renown in England as another company in the Canadian colonies - The Hudson's Bay Company. Perhaps he should mention a possible merger with it, so at least the workers will still have futures? An overseas market might even see profits rise as well? They will be separate, but under the same brand name, and considering Tanaka's age, it might be in his and the company's best interest.

As nothing was of note to him, he decided to leave. But when he turned towards the half open warehouse siding door, a shadowy figure stood there - the light from a half-crescent moon shining against his back but casting his identity in darkness. He looked small, like…a child?

"Child, this is no place to be playing," he said. "You can get hurt; go back home."

But the child refused to heed to his warning. In fact, the child didn't even move an inch, as if he were staring directly at Vulcan purposely.

"Did you not hear me, child?" he said with more firmness. "Leave this place at once!"

Suddenly the child threw something at him, and Vulcan had to sidestep to avoid its swift velocity as it embedded itself into a wooden support beam that he had been standing next to…and saw it was a blade with something strung around its handle. And Vulcan gasped at the discovery of its insignificance. This was his brother's prized hunter's knife and attached to it with a string was Dietrich's military Iron Cross.

He pulled it from the support beam and held it with disbelief in his hand. The only way that this knife and this cross could be in the hands of this child was if both of his friends were dead. And if they were dead, so to, plausibly, were Vincent's brother Chlaus and Lady Carolyne - which was why he had not heard from them. And it only confirmed what he had suspected, that Bryon Kelvin had had them murdered!

"Who gave this to you boy!" he demanded. "Tell me his name - so I can rip his heart out!"

The boy's response was unexpected, and he ran towards Vulcan with a sword in hand. Vulcan unsheathed a bayonet and they exchanged bows, their weapons clashing and clanging with a quick succession of attacks. Despite being just a child of perhaps ten years old, this boy was trained like a master sword wielder. His Tanto sword, a Japanese small samurai sword, was designed for close combat - and most likely because it was lighter for this boy to use. But whoever trained him, trained him well with it.

Vulcan backed off, giving distance. But the boy continued a vicious onslaught of attacks that surprised Vulcan. Even in this dark place, it didn't appear to waver the boy's ability to see his opponent. Blinded at an early age in his left eye during a street fight, Vulcan had learned to use his other senses to aid him in life, and used them to defend himself from the boy's attacks. But even he was surprised by the boy's skill and quickness and ability to recover, to retaliate again and again.

He didn't want to do it, but he had no choice. And after blocking the next strike, downcasting their swords, he laid a right cross into the boy's face, dropping him to the ground. He then stepped on the boy's sword, flatting it, as the boy held his left cheek. The boy's face was still darkened by the lack of light in the warf warehouse, but he looked up at Vulcan, a glint in one glacial blue eye, momentarily brightened by a gleam of light from a slit in one of the warehouse walls - illuminating half his face. There was hatred in that look.

"Who are you boy? And why do you attack me?"

The boy relinquished his weapon and back somersaulted like some sort of ninja, then reached behind him and pulled out another weapon. Vulcan veered out of the way when a shot was fired from a gun, then another, as the boy followed his moments with the multi-caliber weapon. Four shots were fired before the boy stopped. If Vulcan recalled this particular gun, for which he was an expect on all facets of weaponry, the boy had two shots left. It was a six-shooter. Vincent Phantomhive had one just like it.

"You're good kid, I'll grant you that, even at your age…" Vulcan's voice reverberated through the warehouse from his shadowy hiding place. The boy appeared to have lost him, looking around aimlessly. "But tell me that isn't all you have to offer me?"

And with the same swift velocity, Vulcan returned an attack in kind, and threw Ryan's knife directly at the boy. But the boy appeared to feel it coming and quickly veered out of the way as it embedded itself into a support beam near where the boy was standing. Much like a Japanese ninja felt the pressure of the wind when an enemy attacked, the boy seemed to have honed a similar skill, and Vulcan was impressed. And at the moment, he could not think of anyone he knew, despite his many contacts with men of his skill and caliber, possessing such an advance talent to train this boy. No one in England, that is.

A shot fired in his direction and Vulcan moved off into a deeper, darker alcove of the warehouse. A direct assault on this boy was unwarranted. He had to come at him from behind. He did have his own pistol, but didn't want to use it. He didn't want to kill this boy until he got answers. But with this kind of skill, did this boy really kill his friends? The idea seemed likely. More than likely after seeing him in action.

He hated it to come to this, but he had no choice. From his jacket, he took out his Housier double-barrel 50 calibre pistol. It was specially designed with the barrels stacked on top of each other instead of side-to-side like other guns of the calibre. Not only was it sleeker, but he found it lighter and easier to fire. But he didn't want to kill the kid, only maim him slightly - to keep him alive, so he could get answers. So he aimed at the boy's gun-wielding hand and fired.

The top barrel misfired, but the bottom barrel hit the mark, if not missing the boy's hand completely and sending the six-shooting sprawling from his hand to the ground. The boy let out a cry of both surprise and pain, when the sudden jerk of having the gun shot out of his hand had twisted his wrist oddly backwards.

Vulcan came out of the shadows. His gun was empty, but the boy didn't know that. He cursed himself for why the top barrel had misfired, but he would dismantle the gun later and find out.

"Easy boy, you've lost," he said calmly, approaching the boy with his gun clutched firmly in his hand and brought it to bare on the boy.

He grabbed the boy by the collar and brought him into an area of light and was shocked at what he saw. This boy had the face of his departed friend's son Ciel Phantomhive, but unlike the innocent, shy, happy boy that he once knew, this boy had a cold-hearted look in his eyes that burned with a deep hatred.

"Why boy? What happened to you?" The boy seemed unafraid, his eyes staring directly at Vulcan without violation. "What happened that night during the fire at the mansion?" Then it suddenly occurred to him that this was not Ciel Phantomhive, but a fake. "Who gave you that face? Answer me boy!"

But the boy was silent despite the possible event of his death at Vulcan's hands. Unarmed and defenseless, Vulcan released him, pushing the boy to the ground.

"Go back to your master and tell him you failed," Vulcan said. "And tell him, I will find him and kill him for the insult that he has cast upon your face. The boy's face you have stolen was a kind soul, not a mindless killer. I remember another kind-hearted boy for which you share his eyes, but he is dead. He died three years ago at the hands of an foolish man who claimed he could work miracles."

Vulcan's eye's widened when his mind suddenly triggered an unbelievable thought, looking closer at the boy. He shook his head in disbelief. "No, it can't be! Did he actually succeed? Lukas? Is that you?"

For whatever reason, the mere mention of the name enraged the boy and he ran at Vulcan, barreling into his stomach, knocking him down. Vulcan landed with a heavy thud and dropped his pistol. The boy quickly recovered it and pointed it at Vulcan's face. And clicked the trigger. But nothing happened. He clicked it several more times without stop, without remorse, but it failed every time.

"Lukas, tell me what happened to you!"

Again, the mention of the name appeared to enrage the boy and he reached down and clutched his hands around Vulcan's throat, choking him. Vulcan knocked him off, and the boy rolled away, quickly got to his feet and recovered his Tanto sword, as Vulcan coughed, rubbing his throat.

The boy grit his teeth in anger holding his sword in offensive posture. Vulcan once again unsheathed his bayonet. "Are we going to play this game again, boy? Tell me how Bryon Kelvin did it? Was that doctor also in on the plot to steal you away from your parents?"

"Shut-up! My name is Number Six!"

But the boy appeared apprehensive, as if fighting to keep himself, Vulcan observed. He had only heard the story from Vincent about the brainwashed children under the twins control years prior, and over the years had not quite believed it, but with Lukas here now, he believed the story whole-heartedly. Bryon Kelvin had faked the boy's death and then brainwashed him, turning Lukas into an assassin, after fixing his face. Then sent him to kill all the members of Vincent's secret sect of aristocrats that mocked Kelvin from joining.

He didn't realize the old man had it in his blood, to be so cruel despite his kind-hearted façade and organizing and co-operating an orphanage for destitute, homeless children, whom Vulcan now realized were becoming his own personal, brainwashed army for some nefarious plot!

"Your name is Lukas Phantomhive, boy! Remember who you are!"

"I AM NUMBER SIX!" the boy shouted with such rigidity!

"YOU ARE LUKAS PHANTOMHIVE!" Vulcan retorted with the same rigidity! "I escorted your father to hospital where you were residing after your accident with your face. You drank some of your brother's asthma medicine and it scarred you. Your father felt it in your best interest to help you with plastic surgery to correct the deformity. But then Bryon Kelvin stole you!"

"Lies! Father is a kind man! He helped me!"

"Father? Is that what Bryon Kelvin is calling himself now? Do all the brainwashed children call him this?"

Lukas appeared to falter in his resolve to fight, putting a hand to his face. "Lies! You are lying! You are Father's enemy! And I will kill you!"

Lukas stuck his sword into the ground next to him and reached into his clothes for something, pulling out what looked like a string of Chinese firecrackers. Then he pulled out a book of matches, lit one firecracker and threw them all at Vulcan. The firecrackers exploded with pops and a brightness that temporarily blinded Vulcan. And Vulcan had to shield his eyes.

But the distraction was that Lukas needed and he used it, and Vulcan suddenly felt the penetration of a sharp blade enter his chest with unexpected quickness. Vulcan's eye widened with shock when his vision cleared, and he exchanged looks with Lukas's glacial blue eyes. Lukas's eyes were filling with hatred, albeit programmed into him.

"I am Number Six!" Lukas repeated. "You are mistaken!"

Vulcan fell back to the ground, sliding off the sword, his blood saturating its blood in crimson. He held his chest and feared his right lung had been hit, wheezing for breath.

"Your…parents…loved…you…"

"Indeed. Father does love me," Number Six said. "And he will be pleased with your demise!"

And with one swift thrust from Lukas's sword Vulcan's heart was struck through…

The Doctor clamped his hands over his ears to dispel Ciel Phantomhive's screams. The boy would just not be silent, screaming horridly inside his cage. This then got the other children started. They weren't wailing or crying, but shouting in protest at what may befall them, observing what the Doctor had been doing to other children, and they did not want it to happen to them. He simply could not work like this!

He left his infirmity and slammed the door behind him, leaving the children to shout to themselves. But their screams could still be heard through the door. The Phantomhive boy had been screaming like this for three days straight, whenever he entered the lab, and he had not been able to continue any of his experiments. He demanded the boy be removed, but Kelvin told him to deal with it. Even when the boy was taken out of his cage in preparation for an experiment, he would thrash around uncontrollably and would be very uncooperative, and for some reason, did not respond well to brainwashing…

He had heard a rumor that Ciel Phantomhive had been taken to a medium soon after his fraternal brother had died - Lukas Phantomhive also known as Number Six - and this medium erased Ciel's memory of him. He didn't know the full circumstances of it, but he wondered if this previous "brainwashing" had something to do with Ciel Phantomhive's lack of lenience unlike others in acceptance of Kelvin's brainwashing?

Notwithstanding, he wanted the kid gone. If he could not be brainwashed or used for one of his experiments, he had no use for the kid. But to just kill him would be a waste. The Inner Circle - a group of political mogul's with their own agenda when it came to the sovereign imperative of England - paid good money for blood sacrifices that they offered up to a demonic divinity that they worshipped. He could not recall who. And he didn't care.

Venturing up to the operation centre, where he was going to inform Kelvin - or Father - to remove the Ciel brat from his infirmity, he began to hear a loud, ruckus commotion as he reached the entrance to the room. Inside, five men were attempting to restrain Number Six, who for some reason, was going crazy!

"Subdue him, fools!" Kelvin ordered the five men in black attire.

They were unarmed, but heavily build. They looked like thugs, all bald. And yet sNumber Six easily overcame them, tossing them away as if they were nothing. The child was extremely strong for his pint size of ten years old. One man was thrown over a table and into a laboratory experiment, two men crashed together that came at Number Six from either side - the boy veering away on instinct. Another man grabbed the kid, but Number Six kicked him between the legs and then snapped his neck. And the fifth man looked to be momentarily scared at what the boy had done to his other four enforcers before attacking him, but appeared to be the smarter of the five and weaved away when the boy lunged for him, quickly grabbing Number Six in a moment of weakness and imbalance in a bear hug, holding him tight.

"What's going on?" the Doctor demanded.

"Strap him in the chair!" Kelvin ordered.

The man did, but with difficulty.

The Doctor came to Kelvin's side. "What's wrong with him?"

Kelvin shook his head. "When he returned from his last mission, he suddenly became violent and confused, and then began throwing some kind of childish temper."

"What about? Could it be his programming?"

"I don't see how?"

Number Six screamed to be released and he struggled hopelessly against the leather binds of the metal chair. Binds had been attached, but Number Six had never needed them before except in the very beginning. Over the past couple of years since his inception into Kelvin's little army, he had be completely obedient and loyal. Now something had gone wrong.

"Turn on the kaleidoscope!" Kelvin ordered. "Open his eyes!"

The machine was switched on and began to spin with the assassin's creed. The man who had captured Number Six used his fingers to forcefully widen open the boy's eyes. But Number Six thrashed his head around making it impossible to keep him steady for the creed to reinforce his brainwashing. Suddenly Number Six bit one of the man's finger's off, blood dripped down the boy's mouth as the man screamed.

Number Six shifted his weight from side-to-side, rocking the chair, loosing its bolts in the floor. The Doctor took action and opened up a near by medicine cabinet, took out a small bottle, opened it, grabbed a handkerchief from an inside pocket beneath his lab coat and poured some of the liquid contents on it. Then he pressed it against Number's Six's face, over his mouth and nose.

Number Six had no choice but to breath it in and immediately began to loose consciousness. But before he did, he said one single word, completely unexpected to everyone listening… "Luuukaaasss…" Then his head dropped to his chin, and Number Six fell unconscious.

The Doctor looked back at Kelvin. Kelvin's one unbandaged eye was wide with shock and surprise. "Lukas? That is his real name, is it not? How did he break his programming?" For the first time ever, he found Kelvin speechless. Normally Kelvin had an answer for everything.

The Doctor pointed to a man in a lab coat. "You, take care of that man…" referring to the fingerless enforcer. "I'll reattach his finger later, but put it on ice or it will rot!" Then he pointed to the another enforcer getting to his feet, the man who had been thrown over a table. "And you, put Number Six in a cage until we can learn what went wrong!"

"In a cage, Doctor?" Kelvin protested. "He is my best assassin! My pride and joy!"

"With all due respect, sir, if you continue to override an individual's free will, the brain will eventually find a way to break free of its own method," the Doctor said. "Dr. Freud speaks of this in his studies in child psychology. A new way must be devised to keep Number Six in line or we will have another incident like this one. Something must have happened on his last mission to bring his buried identity to the surface. A word spoken, a sound, a smell - anything can trigger hidden memories."

"Fix him!" Kelvin ordered.

The Doctor nodded. And watched as the enforcer carried Number Six away over his shoulder. "On another note," the Doctor said. "The other Phantomhive boy. He is unruly and my experiments are suffering. He continues to scream and interrupt me. Nothing is being accomplished in my lab."

"You have spoke about this to me before. In light of your valor have, I will acquiesce to your request on this issue and have him transferred. He will join the rest of the children that will be sent to the Inner Circle for their sacrifice. I will inform Sasha and Samuel Ironstadt of the addition."

The Doctor nodded and thanked him. Perhaps now he can get back to work.

In the days that followed, Number Six finally returned under Kelvin's control with several rigorous treatments of a harsh nature. It took methods very near to torture before the Lukas's identity was once again submerged beneath that of the loyal assassin Number Six. But why it had happened was still a mystery. His last mission was to kill Vincent Phantomhive's loyal friend and enforcer Vulcan Hardgrove.

An secret investigation was launched in the location Number Six said he had killed Vulcan, but nothing had been found that would indicate anything that would cause Number Six's confusion and temper. Scotland Yard confirmed the death of Rex "Vulcan" Hardgrove found in the warf warehouse with his heart and right lung punctured through. This corresponded to Number Six's kill strikes he had told.

Notwithstanding, in the days that also followed, tragic news befell Kelvin as the deaths of nearly thirty Inner Circle members were reported by one of their representatives. Each member who had had attended the "sacrifice" that was scheduled had been slaughtered by some unknown…thing! Their bodies mutilated in such horrid ways that they could hardly be called human.

The secret underground amphitheatre, the Inner Circle's special meeting place, where the killings happened was sealed off after the findings. Scotland Yard was never told. And the killings were covered up, their families given some "believable" excuse. Many of England's prominent socialites and men had been killed in the amphitheatre.

Bryon Kelvin and the Doctor conversed alone in Kelvin's private quarters in his secret lair. Kelvin held the report that was delivered to him of the carnage inside the amphitheatre. A few photographs had been taken, but the hazy black and white stills could never match what he had seen first hand.

"They all died?" the Doctor said.

"Except a select few who were away on other business - five Inner Circle members are left, that's how we came to learn of this tragedy," Kelvin confirmed. "My nephew, a gypsy woman and the twins were in attendance, but they all miraculously managed to survive this grotesque massacre."

"Do we know who may have committed this horrendous act?"

Kelvin shook his head. "No clues were found, and my nephew and the twins did not see anything from what they tell me - they hid somewhere safe, blinding themselves to the slaughter; the place was too dark. All they say is that they felt death. I must question them more about it later. Notwithstanding, the children who were to be sacrificed were also killed. All except one, and his body is missing."

"Ciel Phantomhive," the Doctor ventured a guess.

"Correct."

"There is no way he could have done all this, even with his unruly behavior of prior."

Kelvin agreed. "Indeed, Doctor." He looked retrospective. "Nevertheless, to what or to whom the Inner Circle were sacrificing those children to, I fret, that they may have succeeded."

END