Life 7: Brazen Fury

(Europe, 1945)

"You know professor, I've always wondered what you would do if you faced death on your feet." I said with a snarl as I faced off against the man I had once so very dear. My mentor once so very long ago, before I had become more than that idiotic boy.

Albus Dumbledore met my gaze with a strange sadness, but I couldn't bare to see it, the familiar look of shame as he focused on my own eyes.

"You never did tell me why you call me that, I never taught you June." He said to me, his wand braced in his hand as he stepped closer to the gravestone. A grave belonging to a man that wasn't meant to die. I knew this day, a duel was meant to unfold that would change the course of history forever.

Now, I take the dark lord's place in history.

"Because you taught me more than I ever wanted to know Albus. Including how to ruin the lives of so many people, without even trying…" I growled out as the memories of my past flashed before my eyes. Fires that raged for years, deaths that never should have happened, and the love I had lost so unfairly.

"Know that any hurt I gave onto you was not intended, and I will never be able to apologize enough." Albus said to me with true sorrow in his tone, his wand now coming to focus fully on me, and I knew that he would not let me go.

I had too much in this life, hurt too many.

Only now did I see that I took out my pain on the unworthy, that I had done things she never would have wished for me.

But it was too late.

"It's alright Albus." I said to him, seeing not the flawed man before me, but the wise man I had once known, and the promises I made to him and others. "You and I will see each other again."

He then smiled at me, not maliciously or coldly, but the sad resigned smile of a man that knew his time was up.

"Goodbye my friend." He said to me, and for a moment his brown locks were silver, and his eyes shone like stars in his sockets.

"Goodbye Albus."

And with that, we both let loose, and light filled the sky.

The Next Great Adventure Awaited...

Life 8: Aigle Doré

Darkness.

I was surrounded by pure and utter dimness, and an odd warmth that filled my being.

I was still, yet in motion as I felt waves of water wash over me, as I felt the oddest feelings I had ever known, and then I heard sounds so very familiar, just so very forgettable.

I heard voices, warbled and distant, as if I was sealed away within walls so thick that the tones barely traveled.

It wasn't English, or German for that matter, a different language that I was sure of.

Yet… familiar, I remembered hearing this language as Harry… but wher-

Fleur. French.

But where was I? Why were they speaking French? Was I-

I felt a movement then, the world around me shaking so violently, and then… a woman's screams of pain.

What was… I know what's going on, I should have realized it sooner.

I'm being born. Again.

This wasn't my first new life, I had lived seven before, all worse than the last, but I had never been in control during my actual birth, usually gaining control somewhere in my infancy.

Now, I was seeing this all through from the beginning.

I was in France, of that I was sure, and nowhere near the glimmering lights and technologies that I had known as Harry, or even as June or Riku.

Perhaps around the 1700's? I wouldn't know for now, but oddly enough I understand French now, despite never studying it.

I assumed it was a perk of the trade, as I had been gifted with knowledge before, to do whatever it was Death wanted me to do.

My new mother was upset at something, not my birth, but at my father. She mentioned secrets and something or other, apparently my new father kept things close to the vest.

Just what I needed, another father figure that kept secrets…

My father was interesting, his name was Charles from what I had heard, and he carried himself like he was constantly on the lookout.

For what, I didn't know, but I figured I would eventually.

I knew my name now, the name I would come to be reviled as, and what I would know to be true as I grew.

My name is Arno Victor Dorian, and my father was a liar.

( Versailles, France, 1773)

"Father, why did mother leave us?" I asked of the man I had come to know so very well, despite the secrets he had tried to keep from me, just as he did to everyone.

My mother, Marie, had left the year before, accusing my father of treason of all things, when she had thought I wasn't listening in. Leaving just a bible behind, my mother in this life had simply up and left.

So now, I spent my days with my father, learning all he had to teach and learning the politics that passed for work in this time.

However, I could only cringe when we walked through the courts, and even chuckle the one time I laid eyes on King Louis.

I was born as a Nobleman in the years prior to the French Revolution, which was unfortunate, but not as much as it was for that rigid bastard of the king. While I had studied the war in my first life, I sadly had never looked into noblemen such as Charles Dorian, which left me with questions I could never answer.

Did Charles exist in my first life? Was Arno born without my being here? And what impact did they have in the revolution?

I suppose for some I would never know, and others I would merely have to discover.

However, I found some other answers to questions I didn't know I had, when a rude and rough man came to visit my home mere moments later, my father refusing to even mention my mother, until this man came barging in.

"I swear they're up to something Charles! I saw that fucker staring at me again! And I heard footsteps outside my home!" The man growled out as my father tried to hurry me along into the other room. I had never seen the man before, his wild black locks flowing free as he eyed my father with something akin to rage, the robes he wore stately yet hurried.

Obviously paranoia plagued this man, as my father motioned with his hands for the man to quiet, but he merely seemed to rise even higher.

"Not here." My father barked out at the man, his gaze meeting his own harshly, as they both took notice once more of me, but regardless the two moved into my father's study.

And I was left with even more questions, of which I wouldn't find answers for decades.

Perhaps my mother had been right, my father was involved in something beyond my understanding, and beyond what he should as a supposedly loyal member of the King's court.

But I did notice something odd. Our visitor wore blades at his wrists.

My father had an odd interest in history, and influenced in me such a similar interest, telling me of warriors and rogues through history, however I knew he was leaving out details or words that he purposely seemed to avoid.

He spoke often of Italy, and even America as well, speaking of friends and penpals he had met along his travels, and I even accompanied him every so often. It was so very strange, to see parts of the world that I had ravaged, but so very long ago. Places I once stood as June, I now stood as Arno.

Buildings and places I had seen and walked through, had not even dreamt of yet.

Germany without Nurmengard, New York without Wall Street, and France without the Eiffel Tower.

So very odd, yet incredible in ways I had never imagined. I thought seeing Britain and the world hundreds of years before my first birth was amazing, but to see a world so very different and alien from any I had seen before…

I was living history, and my father taught me even further.

We traveled the Earth, meeting diplomats and heroes, even a strange Native man in the colonies, but eventually we always returned to France.

To the King's court, and what a court it was.

I had become familiar with Versailles, seeing as my father often brought me along on errands and his dealings, shaking hands so many people that one would think my father was leading me to follow in his steps.

However, it was one day that it all seemed to change, when my father insisted on needing to attend the king's court, so hurried that he couldn't even contact my governess, forcing me to sit and wait while he tended to the court.

"Come, sit my boy." He said softly to me, leading me along to a fine chair outside the court's chambers, my gaze annoyed as I settled in for a long wait as my father listened to more of the king's rambling.

"Can't I go with you, Father?" I begged of him, trying to avoid another boring session of remembering my lessons as I tried to figure out what my father was hiding from me.

He merely chuckled at me, casting a warm look at me as he patted a hand on mine. "Courage, my boy." He said simply, pulling out from his waistcoat a familiar sight. An aged and elegant pocket watch, one he had once said to belong to his own grandfather, and one I had nearly seen in such detail.

"You wait just here. I will return when this hand reaches the top." He said to me with a smile, his long fingers pointing from eight to midday, resigning me to an even longer wait than I had envisioned, but at least it would not take as long as the summer courts tended to go.

"How will I possibly survive that long?" I asked him sarcastically, but giving a nod as I tried to get more comfortable on the chair he'd settled me on, only to learn that it was made for elegance, not comfort.

"I'm sure you'll manage my son, and when I get back, we'll see the fireworks. And Arno? No exploring, hmm?" My father asked with a chuckle as he looked at me in expectation.

"Yes, Father." I said with a stern smile, only to let my smile spread more when his back was to me. I had better things to do than wait for my father to meet with the selfish king.

However, before I could even think about it, I heard… giggling?

Yeah, childish giggling from the edge of my view, and there was a young girl in finery nicer than my own.

Her hair was as red as any Weasley, yet her eyes held a mischievous glint in them as she laughed at me.

"You'd rather sit with that old prune? Come on!" She yelled to me, and I immediately left the painting of some old diplomat behind, and followed the young girl.

At least she should lead to some excitement.

After having such bitter and dark a life, it was nice to be a child once more, to just laugh and enjoy the taste of an apple stolen from blowhards, and making a child laugh.

However, it was as she and I have seated ourselves in a corner room, that I learned even more of the life I would live.

"Did you see their faces when we stole those apples?" The girl asked of me mid laugh, as I felt her excitement near contagious as I even laughed a bit. I had done dark deeds and even worse in my past lives, so it was nice to forget and simply find enjoyment in such little joys.

"I'm Arno." I said to her with a smile, my eyes trailing the crowds beyond us, when one man in particular caught my eye. He moved slowly, yet casually, like he was meant to be here, yet I had never seen him before.

However, my young friend once again caught my attention.

"Élise." She said to me, holding out her petite hand to mine as we shook in greetings, my eyes straying to follow the odd man, a glitter at his wrist confusing me for a moment before Élise caught my eye once more.

"I'm here with my father, he's to see the king." I said to her with hopefully the amount of posh yet simple tone an eight year old was meant to have.

"Mine as well!" Élise said with a smile, patting me on the arm in a wild manner. "Maybe they're friends!"

I doubted it, but no matter how much Élise tried to engage me, my thoughts kept lingering on the odd man.

I had been to the courts many times before, watching the crowds for interesting figures, but that man I had never seen before.

And… I know what that flicker was.

When he had passed Élise and I, I had seen a flicker of light just at his wrist, before his hands.

A shimmer of metal, connected to some dark vambrace of sorts. The stranger wore blades at his wrist, just like my father's odd friend, Bellic he had said was the man's name.

What was he doing here?

"Do you hear that?" Élise asked of me, as I suddenly noticed a commotion coming from the court's main hall, where I had once been seated.

"Yeah, I do…" I muttered to her as I took off to the court's door, a bad feeling emerging in my chest as I noticed the crowds of people all bunched together… and the presence of blood trailing on the king's pristine floors…

Someone had been murdered.

"Father…?" I called out in the din of noise, only to be drowned out by the man panicking and gossiping socialites.

While I couldn't see the body, I knew who it was already, even as the crowd parted before me.

There, leaking blood and with empty, glassy eyes, Charles Dorian was dead.

I had lost yet another father, and in that moment, the world slowed to a crawl.

The world around me has lost it's shine and colors, and an unearthly glow began to surround the nobles.

Blues, reds, and yellows glowing all around me, my eyes frozen on my father's body, before I felt myself be turned away by gentle hands.

"Arno…" A brown coated man said to me softly, my young friend at his side, her eyes wide and frightened just as mine probably should have been.

"Everything is going to be all right Arno."

Error Code 4862-Allocating most intact available memory.

"Simon…. Come look at this."

"What is it now David?"

"This isn't right, isn't it? I'm looking through a memory for the new project, but I've gotten an error code for some reason. I thought Entertainment got it all sorted out after the Cormac incident?"

"They did. You on the Paris one?"

"Yeah, but now it's skipping ahead."

"How far ahead?"

"Don't know, but it can't be too far, right? No virus this time."

"This is the French Assassin, right?"

"That's what Violet said…"

(France, 1830)

I stood as the nervous young man entered the chambers, my legs aching as I did, the years not having been kind on my joints.

Never in my lives thus far had I expected to live an old age, and yet I had all the same.

The young man we'd found so many years ago stood trembling before me, yet he had a determined glint in his eyes as he knelt before me, my hands held together as he met my gaze.

"Félix, son of Camilla and Luc. Rise and face the Order you've sworn to follow." I said to him sharply, the young lad standing and nodding as he stood stock still, his hands bared forward.

"You ask to be admitted into an organization older than any alive, to seek a brighter path and do that which is not easy, but that which is right and just." I asked of her, stepping forward to lock eyes with the nervous youth. Alceste had said how much potential the man held, and I could see it in the straining muscles of his frame, but also in the critical gaze he had developed.

"I do, Master Dorian." He muttered to me in respect, his gaze once more bowed, I nodded and closed my eyes as he did.

"Do you swear to uphold the principles of our order, and all that for which we stand?" I asked of him, pulling the boy's gaze once more to me… He couldn't have been much older than Charlie, and yet the boy was so sure of what he wanted.

"I do."

"And never to share our secrets, never to divulge the true nature of our work to those that would see it undone?" I asked of him once more, my greater hand straying to my waistcoat, as the boy bared his wrist to me.

"I do."

"And to do so from now, until your eventual death, never speaking of your burdens or duties, whatsoever the cost?" I asked of him a final time, extending my blade to his throat as his eyes held no fear.

"I do."

And with his sworn vows, I motioned the boy to stand as I held a closed hand out to him.

"Then I welcome you to an Order older than time, Félix Vallotton, son of the south and the sky. Together, you and your brethren shall help usher in an age of a brighter sky, of one without the need to stalk and plot in the shadows. An age of order and respect, stability and wisdom."

With my words said, I placed a silver ring in the young boy's hand, and smiled at him. His own outshone mine by that of the sun's intensity, and I knew his loyalty and devoted was secured.

I had gained yet another son in the Order, and another warrior to fight the shadows.

"You, are a Templar."

I know, I gotta lot of stories. But I created the Master of Nothing series to be able to explore different concepts and lives, so that's what I'm going to do.
Also, I've been replaying Unity and craving a Templar Arno story, and no one has really made one where he isn't gender swapped in the process.
SO I MADE MY OWN, AND I SAWED THIS BOAT IN HALF ELISE!
Hope you all enjoy
Also, happy birthday to me.
-Oscar