184This chapter has been a long time coming. Watched the movie the other day, absolutely loved it. A massive thanks to bl0nd1 for betaing this chapter!
There are few people in the world who can claim to be more dangerous than the Shopkeeper. Not much is known about his past, and considering it's Twilight admitting that, that's saying something. To a spy whose job is to know things, not having any information is like cutting off a fish from water. What little rumors Twilight have managed to uncover in the darkest corners of the underworld speak of collapsed regimes and a body count high enough to make even the most hardened veteran be more than a little perturbed. The only way for such an accomplished assassin to remain undetected for so long is either they are ruthless enough to kill any witnesses, innocent or otherwise, or they are skilled enough to avoid being seen in the first place by anyone other than their target. Neither option is particularly appealing.
As such, even though Twilight and the Thorn Princess have the Shopkeeper disarmed, neutralized, and tied to a tree, they don't let down their guards. As a matter of fact, Loid's guard only increases with every passing minute; it's a well-documented fact that failure points in operations most often occur right after capturing an enemy and becoming overconfident. They stare down at the Shopkeeper, their muscles tense and expressions wary.
The Shopkeeper looks back up at them, an eyebrow raised, seeming completely relaxed.
"This seems a little excessive, does it not?"
He is bound to the base of a great oak tree. Enough metal chains and rope are wrapped around him that the Shopkeeper's body can barely be seen under all the restraints. What flesh that does peek through is completely white due to how tight the shackles are. Call Loid paranoid, because he very much is paranoid, but he isn't taking any chances; he knows just how dangerous the Shopkeeper is.
In fact...
"Should we impale his hands to the tree just in case?" Loid asks Yor.
The Shopkeeper coughs. "I assure you, that won't be necessary."
Yor considers it for a second. "He's right. I don't think we need to."
"I knew you would be reasonable-"
"But I definitely want to," Yor flicks her wrist and a golden spike materializes in her hand, spinning around ominously. "Especially after how he kidnapped Anya. May I do the honors?"
"How petty," the Shopkeeper says, "I thought I'd trained you better than that. Emotions such as anger will do nothing but cloud your judgment, and–"
A golden glint. A red splash.
The Shopkeeper doesn't let out a single sound as the spike drives its way into his thigh. He does give a resigned sigh, though.
"Needless to say, I'm afraid I'm going to have to let you go, Thorn Princess. Consider your employment hereby terminated."
"You can't fire me. I already quit."
"The paperwork says otherwise."
Yor pauses, seeming genuinely confused. "We have paperwork?"
For the first time in the conversation, the Shopkeeper finally shows a hint of emotion as a slightly haunted look passes over his face. "Yes. Yes we do."
"As fascinating as all of this is," Loid interrupts, filling the institutional workings of the Garden in his mind for later, "I think we have some more important matters to discuss." His eyes are cold as he regards the Shopkeeper.
"Shopkeeper."
"Twilight," the Shopkeeper returns.
"How did you know?"
The Shopkeeper tilts his head. "Know what?"
Loid's eyes narrow. "Don't play games with me."
"On the contrary, my dear Twilight, I'm not playing. I know many things, you see. For instance, I know that your current alias is Loid Forger, a psychiatrist at the Berlint General Hospital. I know that your current target is Donovan Desmond. And I know that everything you told the Thorn Princess over here has been a lie." The Shopkeeper smiles. "So, again. Know what?"
Shit.
If there were any doubts before, it's all gone now. His cover is completely, irreparably, blown. The Shopkeeper knows Operation Strix inside-out. Loid was hoping that he could salvage at least something, but at this point, all he can do now is try to figure out how he was compromised.
"How did you know that I was Twilight?" Loid asks. "A traitor in WISE?"
The Shopkeeper smiles wryly. "I wish. We're not a spy organization, Twilight. We don't have the resources – or expertise – to produce an undercover agent who's capable of infiltrating your organization."
"Then how?"
"You were already on my radar the moment you 'married' Yor to get your child into Eden. Marriage fraud by itself isn't anything too suspicious – three other couples this year alone had done the same thing – but what was suspicious was that your background was clean. Too clean. Nobody has such a spotless record unless they have something to hide."
Loid curses mentally. I knew I should've let Franky add a sordid tale or two to my backstory...
"After the initial marriage fraud, though, nothing questionable happened afterward, and I quickly forgot about you. Perhaps you had a gambling addiction in your past, perhaps you had an incident of drunk driving that you bribed a judge to waive. I didn't know, and I didn't care. You were completely in the clear.
"Then, on one of his missions clearing out the old remains of a classified Ostanian wartime research facility, the Grandmaster stumbled across a set of files. The files themselves weren't too important – everything noteworthy had already been redacted – but what was particularly interesting was Test Subject 007. Specifically, the subject's picture."
Loid's brow furrows in confusion for a second.
Then his eyes widen.
"You mean – there's no way!"
The Shopkeeper smiles. "Funny. That's the same reaction I had when I saw Anya Forger's face staring back up at me from a set of files recovered from a facility that technically did not exist. I began investigating, and it was of little difficulty to uncover the fact that Anya was not your biological daughter, but rather you adopted her just a few days before you married Yor."
"Test Subject 007..." Yor says under her breath. Her eyes lock onto the Shopkeeper's. "What was the research facility for?"
"I don't know. As I said, everything noteworthy had already been redacted. Judging by the surgical rooms and the leftover assorted medical devices, though, I presume they were running human experiments – and judging by the chains and cages, it had not been willing."
Loid curses under his breath as Yor clenches her fists. He is now doubly glad that he'd had Anya and Bond wait at the pavilion nearby while they interrogated the Shopkeeper. He didn't want her to be reminded of her past.
"What organization did the facility belong to?" Yor asks, her voice trembling with anger.
"Orochi."
The answer knocks the wind out of her sails. "Oh," Yor says, relaxing. "I see."
Loid frowns. "Orochi?"
"They were a secret unit established in the middle of the war that performed atrocious experiments on Westalis and Ostanian citizens alike all for the twisted sake of gaining more power," the Shopkeeper says. "They are one of Ostania's darkest secrets, though they don't matter anymore."
"Why?"
Yor looks a little awkward. "Because I, uhh…" she scratches her cheek. "I already killed them all."
"Ah," Loid blinks. "Good work."
"Thank you."
"Anyhow," the Shopkeeper says, "even though you'd lied to Yor about Anya being your biological daughter, it didn't necessarily mean anything too nefarious. You may have just been impotent, and decided that adoption was the best way to continue your legacy. I was quite suspicious of you by this point, but I had no concrete evidence that you were a spy, much less the spy Twilight."
He pauses, the silence drawing out and the tension rising.
"Then I had a headache."
Loid frowns. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Yor suddenly gasps, her hands flying to her mouth in horror.
Loid turns to her, confused. "Yor?"
"I-I-"
"That has everything to do with it," the Shopkeeper says, "because when I offhandedly mentioned my headache to Yor during a mission debriefing and how painkillers had no effect on it, she offered to use the 'concussive recovery method' on me to treat me."
Dead.
Silence.
Slowly, Loid's hand rose to rub his face.
"Fuck me," he breathed out.
"Quite," the Shopkeeper agrees, suddenly looking highly amused. "After some questioning, I managed to get the details of the night of your engagement out of her." He smiles. "I still cannot believe you proposed to her with a grenade pin. It's certainly original, if nothing else."
"I'm sorry," Yor whimpers, her face bright red as she stares down at the ground. "I thought the concussive recovery method was a real thing..."
"It's... it's fine," Loid croaks out, sounding like he's rethinking and regretting all his life choices. "Don't worry about it."
"By this point, it was already obvious that you were a spy," the Shopkeeper continues. "Once we knew what we were looking for, it was elementary to then track your steps afterward. With some more digging, we managed to–"
"Stop. Just... stop. You've made your point," Loid pinches the bridge of his nose, silently resolving to never ever ever let either Franky or his Handler find out about this. They'd never let him live it down. "How did you know I was after Donovan Desmond, then?"
"Who else would you be after at Eden Academy? You could've been after one of the other parents, I suppose, but that seemed unlikely. And, to be quite honest, loyal he might be to Ostania, Desmond worries even me sometimes with his warmongering policies."
"That makes two of us," Loid mutters. "I think I can trace the line of events from here. You laid a trap for me at the Desmond Manor, knowing that I wouldn't pass up the opportunity of being able to infiltrate the manor and meet with Desmond. You sent Yor to take me alive so you could then interrogate me for all of WISE's secrets before finally disposing of me."
The Shopkeeper blinks.
Then he laughs. "Heavens, no! Is that what you think my plan was?"
Loid pauses. "Was that not it?"
"Of course not!" the Shopkeeper says. "I didn't send Yor to capture you so we could interrogate and eliminate you." He chuckles, as if the very idea is ludicrous. "No, no. I sent Yor to capture you so we could recruit you."
Loid stares at the Shopkeeper.
Yor stares at the Shopkeeper.
"What?" the two say simultaneously.
"Don't you remember what the Operation was called?" the Shopkeeper asks Yor. "Operation Headhunting. What did you think that meant?"
Yor gapes at him.
"I thought you meant... you wanted me to... hunt his head..."
"Wait wait wait," Loid says. "So all of this..." He gestures around them vaguely, "was just so you could give me a job offer?"
"Of course," the Shopkeeper says.
"Why?!"
"Isn't it obvious? With the peace treaty being signed in a week, Westalis and Ostania will no longer be engaged in conventional warfare. Instead, the battleground will shift over to the covert field, with each nation playing nice in public but waging a cutthroat war of secrets and intelligence underneath the surface. And on that front, I am not hesitant to admit that Ostania will lose. Badly.
"You've already run enough circles around the State Security Service to demonstrate their utter incompetence. By this point, they can be substituted with a circus troupe and I doubt anyone would be able to tell much difference. Similarly, as I'd already said before, the Garden is an assassination organization, not an intelligence agency.
"So, with no good options open, I decided that I might as well expand the Garden's scope of operations. That is what I shall accomplish by bringing you in, Twilight. You will become the head of our new covert branch of the Garden. You know all of WISE's tactics; running counterintel against them should be child's play to you. I won't even ask you to spill their secrets; what's in the past is in the past. I can even help fake your death to get the heat off your back. Consider this a new beginning. What do you say, Twilight?"
"Wow," Loid says, for once at a loss for words. "That... I... wow." He blinks. Looks at Yor for confirmation that he'd heard all of that correctly. Blinks again. "That is... quite the generous proposal."
It makes sense, of course. Loid is aware that with the upcoming peace treaty being signed, both nations would no longer have to focus on border conflicts and proxy wars like they currently were. Loid can attest to Ostania being appallingly outmatched in information warfare, and it will only get worse since he also knows Westalis is already planning to heavily increase the budget for WISE once the peace treaty is signed.
But still. To think that everything that had happened, all the heartache and stress and panic, was caused because the Shopkeeper wanted to give Twilight a career offer?
Loid isn't sure if he wants to cry or laugh.
"Why go through the whole kidnapping scheme though?" Loid asks. "Couldn't you have just asked me normally?"
The Shopkeeper looks puzzled. "That is the normal way, no?"
Ah, right. Loid supposes that one doesn't survive being the leader of an assassination organization without having their perception skewed a little.
He takes several seconds to compose himself. He takes several more seconds to come up with a new plan. He takes a final few seconds to scream loudly in his head.
Once he is finished, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he opens them back up again, it is the merciless gaze of Twilight looking down at the Shopkeeper.
"Congratulations, Shopkeeper," Twilight says. "Today, you have slain the great spy of Westalis, Agent Twilight. Rejoice."
The Shopkeeper tilts his head. "What do you mean?"
"Here's what's going to happen. You are going to let me and my family leave this place alive and unharmed. You will release a statement claiming that you have assassinated Twilight. After that, you will leave us alone for the rest of our lives."
The Shopkeeper raises his eyebrows. "Oh? And why would I ever do that?"
"The alternative is me taking a bathroom break right now and letting the Thorn Princess do whatever she wants to you," Twilight says. Yor catches on quickly, her golden spikes twirling to life again in her hands. "I also have enough information to sink Ostania to the ground." Partly a bluff, but also partially true; Loid had already put together a failsafe in case by some miracle the SSS ever caught him. "Information that will be set to automatically release if anything, and I mean anything, happens to us." His eyes darkened. "Take the deal, Shopkeeper. Trust me, this is for the best."
The Shopkeeper hums. "Well. When you put it that way. How can I possibly say no?"
Twilight nods. "I thought you'd say that. Come, Yor. Let's go."
They both turn around, beginning to walk away.
"What will you do after this, Twilight?" the Shopkeeper calls after them. "I already heard about what happened between you and WISE. I doubt they'd welcome you back with open arms."
"The news of my death will get the bounty hunters and the majority of WISE off my back," Twilight replies. "For the rest, I'll make it clear that it'll be in their best interests to pretend that Twilight is dead. And after that?"
Loid turns his head to smile at the Shopkeeper. "Well, Anya has an algebra exam next week that she is, unfortunately, woefully unprepared for. I suppose I'll have to start by rectifying that."
"You're retiring to become a family man then?"
"Guilty as charged."
"It's not going to work, you know," the Shopkeeper says, shaking his head. "Men like us don't get to escape our line of profession that easily."
"Is that so? Watch me."
With that final line, Twilight and the Thorn Princess disappear into the foliage. Several seconds later, they emerge again with Anya and Bond with them. Together, the four leave the inner sanctum of the Garden's headquarters, Anya turning around to send an unbearably smug smile at the Shopkeeper. The Shopkeeper twitches. Then the grand double doors shut behind them, and the Forger family is gone.
"Hmm," the Shopkeeper says. For several seconds, he remains there. Then he stands up, heedless of how his previously secure bindings fall to the ground around him like they were made of paper. "I'd hoped to recruit Twilight, but having him retire works as well. Depriving WISE of their greatest asset should level the playing field to a degree," he muses. "Hopefully it'll be enough to let us catch up."
He rubs his wrists absently as he begins making his way over to the medical section. "Not bad. Not bad at all."
And so the Garden's motivations are finally revealed. The Shopkeeper doing all this to recruit Loid was planned all the way back in the beginning of the fic. Because, you know, sending a career offer by mail is just utterly unthinkable. It's why Yor was ordered to capture Loid alive, not just kill him, and it's also why Anya was so unworried the entire time; she knew what the Shopkeeper was planning. As for the Shopkeeper discovering Loid's identity... I mean, come on. All it takes is one proper conversation with Yor for him to realize "hold on, something's not right" ahaha
There should only be one or two chapters left, which I will hopefully not take an entire year to finish this time. I appreciate you guys sticking around for so long. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!