A daring battle ensues between spies
I
Paris, France
Her name is Bonaparte, Joan Bonaparte. Her nom de guerre is the Silver Serpent, and her codename is Athos. Joan is a DGSE intelligence operative, highly skilled in the arts of war and deception. Joan also happens to be the spymaster of a covert spy ring known as the Musketeers within French Intelligence.
Joan is currently being watched from the scope of a high-powered sniper rifle as she makes her way across the Parisian streets. The Sniper has a red dot hovering on Joan’s forehead, her grey eyes completely unaware of death’s proximity. She’s dressed in French chic, a white loose shirt tucked into some navy-blue pants, loose flowing. A silver watch glistens on her right wrist, her right hand raising as she brushes away her overgrown pixie cut hair, black.
The Sniper thinks she’s beautiful, what a waste indeed.
Joan enters a lavish hotel, the Sniper shifting their scope as they set their sights on the balcony of the hotel’s royal room. From behind the balcony, glass doors illuminate the room’s interior, classical and grand.
This is where Joan Bonaparte will die.
As a Musketeer, Joan will die gladly for she believes in her creed of one for all. Conversely however, the creed also declares all for one, and the Sniper intends to honor it, Joan being merely one of their targets.
As Joan makes her way to the royal room, another Musketeer shifts through the streets, earning the Sniper’s eye.
Her name is Jeanne Bonaparte, her nom de guerre is the Twisting Tigress, and her codename is Aramis. Jeanne is a wanderer, having used her deathly expertise in the intelligence services of many flags from Verland to the USA. Currently, she is fully dedicated to the cause of the Musketeers, hellbent on destroying their bitter enemy, the Grand Orchestra, the Sniper’s masters.
Jeanne crosses the street, her eyes hovering from corner to corner, on edge. She’s dressed in ash blue jeans, a white top, and a burgundy leather jacket. Her bare wrists push the hotel doors open as she enters with her head turned back, peering peril. The Sniper stares, locking eyes with Jeane’s olive orbs, but only momentarily as she turns away, her brown curly hair flowing within the scope.
In a few moments, Jeanne will meet her sister in blood and arms, Joan. Once united, the Sniper will then finally have their chance as all the pieces will have fallen into place. It was a very risky move luring the sisters here. With their capabilities, they might sniff out the Sniper’s plot, they’ve certainly lived through multiple ambushes and thus have learned to notice the methods in the madness. The Sniper has no choice though, with highly skilled targets like this, no quarter can be given. The Musketeers are the stuff of legend within the espionage community, getting the drop on them is as rare as a black swan. It isn’t impossible, but it isn’t easily within reach either, even for the Sniper, one who has a legend of their own.
The Sniper had to bring them all here, in one place, seating ducks floating in a pond of death. Picking them off one by one would backfire as they’d soon learn they were being hunted, and once aware, the tables could so easily shift – a risk the Sniper cannot take. No, they have one option, kill them all, together, at once.
All for one, and one for all.

II
Kingston, Jamaica
Joan thought about her death long before the Sniper’s plot. She’d found herself seated under a beach umbrella which covered her from the Jamaican sun. Sounds of thrashing waves from the sea sung in her ears as she sipped her martini, seemingly unbothered. Yet within her, a war raged on. It always came back to the same question… Why?
Why was she doing this, why was she risking her life. She’d lost so many comrades, so many friends, and for what. This became pertinent to her, because right as she set her martini glass on the side table, she also picked up a dossier from command. Within that file was an image of the man who made her, and like the Sniper, she had orders to eliminate him. He had been the original Athos, and he was the man who recruited her. Joan still remembered it like yesterday, back when she had merely just been an agent, unaware of the Musketeers and their secret exploits.
She’d been on the hunt for revenge after having been declared dead, murdered. The brother of her killer was a notorious Assassin King, and his trail had led her to the Dragon’s Eye Casino and Hotel in Macau. After a game of poker gone wrong, Joan had finally grasped her moment as she murdered the Assassin King, fleeing his disciples of death. Joan had also attained the location of his brother, the man who killed her, getting one step closer to her revenge. Her flee was brutal and bloody, her mission in peril if it were not for a mysterious good Samaritan that drove up to her at the casino entrance just as she fled, opening his door to her. Joan entered and the pair fled the disciples as a car chase ensued. Joan would then lean out of the car window, exchanging bullets with her enemies as a fiery gun fight occurred amidst a heated car chase.
The pair eventually lost their pursuers, living to fight another day, and back then, Joan had so much fight in her, fueled by the spite of vengeance. Athos wanted her to think about more than just revenge however, having been observing her vengeful quest from a distance. He was impressed with her skill, she was a dead woman walking after all, not many can say they’ve cheated death like that. Yet she had, escaping it, and now becoming death, destroyer of worlds.
He would help Joan achieve her vengeance – and the fact that the man who killed her was also part of the Grand Orchestra certainly helped indeed. After the debt was paid, and Joan had indulged in her cold vengeful serving, Athos had made her promise to join him, knighting her as D’artagnan, making her a Musketeer.
Now she had inherited his title, and command now tasked her with hunting down her old Master. Joan didn’t know where to begin, wondering why Athos would do this, why would he make her have to kill him. In his recruitment pitch, Athos had portrayed the Grand Orchestra as this chorus of terror hellbent on causing chaos throughout the entire world. Their Maestro’s song demanded the end of everything from governments to economies and society as a whole.
They could not be reasoned with, for they only wanted to watch the world burn by whatever means necessary. The Musketeers had to stop them, being one of the most effective intelligence counter – terror and special operations group active, deeply shrouded in secrecy and discretion, even within French intelligence itself.
To many they only existed as a myth, and that was the point.
Now one of their most mythical spies had turned, falling to the very enemy he swore to destroy. Joan had been granted the mission – if she so chose to accept it, tasked with hunting down Athos, who had now joined the Grand Orchestra.
III
CIA Detention Site, somewhere in Poland
Athos had disappeared, and with Musketeers, they were all dead men walking; traces were far and in between if not entirely swept away. That was the appeal of them, real life ghosts that could execute targets and disappear into the shadows, without a trace. The Sniper wished they didn’t have a trace, they wished they were a blank slate, free from their past, from their mistake.
That’s how they got involved in all this. They too could remember it like yesterday, when Athos, Joan’s former master, approached them, hoping to recruit them too. This time, however, they would be hunting down the Musketeers, in service of the Grand Orchestra.
Athos had found them in a CIA black site, being held ad infinitum, death being a mercy for what they had done. They were known as the Black Swan, for they made the impossible happen in all their missions. Having grown up in the gutters of Parisian streets, they made their way across many criminal syndicates, earning infamy as an unrivaled thief, among other crimes. There was nothing they couldn’t steal, but just because they could, didn’t mean they should.
They learnt that the hard way after a client had tasked them with breaking into a highly secure black site where the CIA and its allies held political prisoners. They should’ve never done it, going up against the American government like that, but they had a weakness, a deep guilt, a hero complex. They’re client had sufficient evidence that proved that the prisoner intended to be rescued was innocent but being held without due process. Growing up in the streets, the Sniper knew how it felt to be deemed guilty before being proven innocent, when it should have been the other way around. They’d always been deemed a monster by default, and so they became one, and a very good one at that.
They could do good here, they could set an innocent man free, despite the rules, despite the government and their conclusions. It was a leap of faith, and the Sniper took it, breaking the man out, but in so doing, they’d earned a bitter foe. Gangs and cartels were nothing compared to the CIA, their days were numbered, if not for Athos.
He could save them, but only if they were willing to join him.
The Sniper was in between a rock and a hard place, accepting Athos’s deal, an offer they simply couldn’t refuse.
Now as they stare down their scope, targets in sight, they wonder if it was worth it.
Athos knew he had only a short window of time before his former pupils came after him, so he unleashed his new protégé, turning the tables from hunted… to hunter.
IV
New York, USA
Jeanne Bonaparte got the call from her sister, and after having believed nothing could ever surprise her, she found herself… surprised. She couldn’t believe Athos had turned, all she asked herself was why! Once she met Joan in person, the two needed to come up with a plan, and fast. Like trekkers in the bush, the two were desperate for any footprints, scents, and whispers that could lead them back to their former tutor. Yet he had taught them all that they knew, how could they match that?
Jeanne would find herself to be the key, once chatter of an inside job against a CIA black site in Poland reached her through the intelligence grapevine. All she heard was utter confusion, and deep reverence at the execution of a breakout as a high-level thief had been bust out of the site after having bust someone else out priorly themselves. Theories believed the thief’s crew had come back for them, but as Jeanne listened in on the descriptions of the scene of the crime, she could see it had Athos’s modus operandi written all over it. She was certain it was him; he had taught her all his tricks after all.
Confirmation of her lead however, meant digging up the past, as she would have to bring herself back from the dead. Before being found by Athos and the Musketeers, Jeanne had been a drifter, wanted all over the world, because just like the thief, she’d done her own ‘’crimes’’ of justice, or so she hoped. Coming back from the safety of assumed death meant putting herself back in the sights of former enemies – but Athos was a worse foe.
As Jeanne went digging into her past in New York, Joan went east, reaching out to the last Musketeer as she searched for Porthos in Tokyo, the team now down by one.
Jeanne reached out to the few American friends from her past that she thought she could trust as she touched ground, but the CIA was not where her espionage journey begun. Born to a French Legionnaire father and an Israeli Defense Force mother, war was in Jeane’s blood. War would separate her from her family as her mother died in battle, and her father’s demons drove him away, right as the family had just begun.
Jeanne would grow up in Verland, a small country in Africa Minor which was torn in two as the Verland settlers tried to suppress the native Zurrians who wanted their own state, launching armed independence movements to pursue their aims. Jeanne’s father’s legionnaire skills were useful in the Veland Defense Forces’ own international legion which he’d joined before he abandoned his daughter, leaving her an orphan. Verland would then raise Jeane as she was naturalized into the state, completing her mandatory service in the VDF, and remaining loyal as she rose up the ranks.
Aside from military mastery, Jeanne excelled at gathering intel, serving within Verland’s Institute of Intelligence, or the V.I.I. It’s here that she’d have her run ins with multiple agencies that were allies of Verland such as the MOSSAD and the CIA. Within the CIA, similar to the Musketeers, existed another powerful agency shrouded in secrecy and myth, America’s ULTIMA.
Jeanne served within ULTIMA during a joint operation between it and the V.I.I as she had to go deep into cover. ULTIMA had been hunting down a target known as the Desert Guevara that was frustrating their ‘’democratic’’ adventures in the Middle East. This target seemed to also be frustrating the VDF as he expanded his operations into Africa Minor, aiding Zurrian militants who aggressively pursued their cause for and independent Zurrian state through armed resistance. The militant group in question was VENGE, Zurria’s vengeance!
The Desert Guevara needed to be dealt with, and Jeanne would be the trigger woman.
All her life she’d been raised to see the Zurrians as her mortal enemies, hellbent on her and her people’s destruction. Now she had to go undercover, fighting for their cause. She’d been handpicked for both her skill, but more importantly, her loyalty as a soldier. Suffice to say, she failed at both.
Former allies turned on her then and now, as she was immediately hunted by the ones she thought she could trust. Her CIA ‘’friends’’ leaked her location to ULTIMA and in response, ULTIMA ordered their special military operations wing, the Broken Eagles, to take care of her. A Broken Eagle kill team then attacked Jean as she fought, outnumbered, and outgunned, enclosed within the tightness of her New York city safehouse. Bullets blasted, scaring away her apartment neighbors as she barely escaped, the NYPD closing in on the scene, soon to be met with a pile of dead operators, Jeanne’s regards.
Bruised and battered, the call was out for her head, but she’d interrogated enough intel out of her attackers to know who to go after next, who would lead her to Athos.
V
Toronto, Canada
Athos found Jeanne first, his own grapevine alerting him to her hunt as the Grand Ochestra’s tendrils reached all spaces, including the United States and all her arms of power. After a Broken Eagle hit team had failed to take her out, making the mission seem impossible, it was time for the Black Swan to enter the picture. Armed with an assortment of grunts from mercenaries to government enforcers all under the control of the Orchestra, the Sniper left off after Jeanne, given the scent by her former allies who knew where all her safehouses where.
Jeanne had been on the run for a long time after her failure during the Desert Guevara hunt. She’d become just as wanted as the target she was meant to kill, her actions undercover being pinned onto her, making her complicit in all his crimes according to Verland law. There was some silver lining to her existential mess though, for she became highly adept at surviving in the shadows. She snuck herself out of the States, crossing the border north into Canada, desperate to lick her wounds and strike again.
Despite her reluctance, she’d also sent word to her sister, asking for backup. She didn’t want to do it, but she knew Joan would hold it against her if she had been refused the chance to help her. They were sisters after all, ones who had been separated for such a long time. As Jeanne wondered the deserts in flee after being declared a traitor, she believed she had no one left, no family to turn to. Her mother had passed, her father had abandoned her, and a sister had never existed, until now. Jeanne didn’t want to lose what she’d just gained, but equally, she knew Joan didn’t want to lose her either, especially if she could help.
All for one, and one for all, after all.
Jeanne staggered into a safehouse in Toronto, succumbing to a deep sleep within the bare room that had been stripped down to its rawest essentials, guns, first aid, and cold hard cash. In the midst of her slumber, deep in the night, the creaking of a door bristled her feline like awareness, waking her to her safehouse being overrun by the Sniper’s death squad.
With the odds stacked against her once again, Jeanne leaped for war, using her familiarity to her advantage as she cut the power, fail-safes going off as she’d taken no chances, planning ahead, the ambushing team falling into her own ambush. What transpired was blood, lead, and death as Jeanne fought tooth and nail using anything and everything she could to survive. Yet alone, still bruised and grossly overpowered, she could not hope to survive.
Not without aid.
As barrels exchanged fire within her corridors, bullets reaping through walls as the armed assailants charged hard, using brute power and numbers. Jeanne slinked in the shadows, gas grenades and stuns buying her enough breathing room to slip in and out of the dark, turning the engagement into a close quarter’s affair. They couldn’t shoot at her if she was within their lines, using their camaraderie as a shield, lunging onto opponents, and letting them take bullets from their own teammates while she stabbed and slid behind cover, firing suppressed shots of her own as she mastered the art of gun-fu.
Numbers are numbers however, and loyalty was scarce as her elimination weighed heavier among her foes. Within the friendly fire however, Jeanne found an unlikely ally as a highly skilled opponent seemed to switch sides, killing her own teammates, purposefully, and efficiently too. The invasion now had three fronts as Jeanne, this unknown operator, and the death squad, quarreled, in blood.
Two women were left standing as the final girls clashed with one another, Jeanne at the mercy of this new player who matched her steel and mettle, putting her onto the ground as she now stared down the barrel of this assailant’s gun. If she hadn’t been injured and fatigued, she could’ve beaten her, but the best woman had won.
The trigger squeezed and Jeanne’s eyes shut, a body thudding to the ground. It wasn’t Jeanne’s, she had been spared. She looked at her savior, and the woman pulled her up, informing her that the man she had just killed was a mercenary thief known as the Black Swan, and he had been in charge of this hit team, sent by the Grand Orchestra, by Athos. Jeanne accepted the help as the woman escorted her out of the safehouse, appropriating the death squad’s van as the two drove off into the night.
Jeanne was in a daze, wondering who this woman was. The woman then told her she had been sent by her sister Joan to save her. Joan was a spymaster, so it was only natural that she have cells spread out all over the world, awaiting activation. The woman was one such cell, and her name was Alexandrine.
VI
Tokyo, Japan
On the other side of the world, Joan roamed the streets of Tokyo, covered by the dark night sky, the city blazing in bright neon. She slithered through the crowds, entering the sight of what seemed like a carnival bustling with life as drums beat, and dragon lanterns soared. Within the thrilled mania, Joan took a seat within a market bar on the side of a thin neon lit street. While her sister’s enemies followed her back from the dead in the west, Joan’s eastern rivals revealed themselves, disciples of the dead Assassin King marching for her, hungry for vengeance.
It had always been a risk coming here, the Assassin King had deep influence within the underworld kingdoms of China and Japan. The fact that Joan was even able to touch him had forever immortalized her as the Silver Serpent, destroyer of worlds. Yet just as enemies were gained, so too were allies, for power always has enemies, and the Assassin King and his Disciples of Death had many, primarily the Hands of Death.
The feud between the Hands and the Disciples was deep, and it flared right before Joan’s eyes as the group of Disciples in the street, eyed her with blood lust. At the other end of the tight street, a group of Hands then revealed, marching fourth ready to fight, for the enemy of their enemy, was their friend.
A standoff akin to those of the wild west ensued, innocents growing privy to impending doom as they fled the scene. Joan was the last left as she remained seated, sipping her sake while war drums beat in the background. The two groups stood between her, not a single word spoken as they drew out their weapons, knives, cleavers, and swords glistening in the luminescent light.
It was going to be a bloody brawl.
Another guest then entered the standoff, waltzing from within the lines of the Hands of Death. She wore a white suit, a red shirt tucked in as she made for Joan, joining her table, unfazed by the disciples who greatly despised her, but equally feared her.
Her name was Sakura Saito, and her nom de guerre was the Blood Blossom, codenamed Porthos. Sakura was an assassin, and a very very good one at that. Taught by the Assassin King himself alongside her twin sister, Seiko, the Saito sisters were the greatest protégés ever produced within the Hands of Death. Yet they had been trained when the King was merely a prince, and he wanted his own thrown, thus was born the Disciples, the spoiled spawn, and bitter rivals of the Hands.
The Disciples enraged the Hands, they owed their origins to them, betraying them and then surpassing them as the Assassin King ruled absolutely. That was until a certain serpent slithered into the picture, yet Rome was not destroyed in a day, and certainly not by one man, nor woman. when Joan struck the King at Dragon’s eye, the Saito sisters fought with her, returning honor to the Hands of death after they finally and fatally disciplined their former disciple.
Seiko ascended to Grandmaster of the Hands, while her sister, impressed by the Silver Serpent’s skill, joined Joan’s crusade, the Musketeer’s crusade. Now Joan told her that Athos had betrayed them for the Orchestra, yet another Master abandoning his students.
It seemed history had to be repeated.
Sakura’s sword was Joan’s sword, yet her new master urged her to sheath it back, at least for now. Sakura was different from the other Musketeers, while they exacted overworld justice, she skulked in the shadows of the underworld, embedded in the dark. She was their trump card, their trojan horse, the final trick up their sleeves. Joan needed Sakura to wait, to be their silver bullet. When the time came, and they needed her most, then she would come save them, that’s what Joan needed her to be, their Deus Ex Machina.
Sakura, though protestant, obeyed, giving Joan the nod. She still wanted to use her swords though, so Joan gulped down her sake, banging the empty cup on the table. The two ladies then rose, entering the middle of the street as the Blood Blossom unsheathed her dual katanas, and the Silver Serpent unsheathed a silver blade.
War then rained.
VII
London, England
Jeanne finally came to, bandaged up and cared for, lying on a couch, safe, alive. She could barely believe it, against all the odds, somehow, she’d survived. She then realized she wasn’t the only one in the room as Alexandrine fell into view, seated on the dining table next to the living room, loading and unloading a gun. Fear struck Jeanne as the events of the previous night swarmed to mind, Alexandrine’s treachery revealing. Yet it was this treachery that had saved her life, but Jeanne didn’t trust Alexandrine, regardless of her story of having been sent by Joan.
It wasn’t that it was implausible, it was just too convenient – Joan having had a woman on the inside the whole time, ready and waiting to save her when the mission went FUBAR, no, there was something Alexandrine wasn’t telling her. Alexandrine finally noticed her, approaching, the gun unloaded.
Jeanne wondered where they were, and Alexandrine told her she’d taken her to London. Jeanne was in shock, how, they were just in Canada. Heavy drugs and fatigue was Alexandrine’s response, Jeanne supposedly slept deeper than a baby. It wasn’t impossible, but Jeanne didn’t believe it, she didn’t want to believe her.
Her life on the run had taught her to be cautious about everything and everyone, no one could be trusted, certainly not Alexandrine. The two women eventually left the safehouse, heading for coffee in the streets of London, finding service at a Café. It seems Alexandrine was right, they were in England, Jeanne still refused to trust her though.
She wondered what it was Alexandrine wanted, what was her endgame. Alexandrine replied, saying it was the same as hers, the elimination of Athos. Supposedly, Joan had activated her and given her the backstory on Athos’ betrayal, she was going to help Jeanne and Joan finally put an end to his madness. Jeanne herself wondered where Joan was, she’d sent out a call for help – and yes, maybe Alexandrine was the response, but where was Joan herself.
Jeanne hoped it had all gone well in Tokyo. Like how she felt about Alexandrine, Jeanne didn’t trust Sakura, she was too floaty and loose in her allegiances according to her. Was Sakura a Musketeer first, or a Hand of Death, this is what Jeanne wondered. Jeanne dug into Alexandrine as they talked, finding out about her allegiances and how Alexandrine been recruited.
When in the V.I.I, Jeanne had excelled at extracting intel from people. She knew how to tell if they were lying, opening her eyes keenly as Alexandrine spoke.
Alexandrine then revealed that she had never met Joan in person, the two were connected through intermediaries – ones she omitted to specify, and it was through them that Alexandrine was able to understand Joan’s goals, assisting her independently when the time came. In terms of allegiances, Alexandrine declared herself as a clandestine contractor, having served many different agencies. Among them was the CIA and ULTIMA as she participated through the hit team operation on Jeanne, supposedly sanctioned by the Grand Orchestra.
It was due to her embedment within enemy lines that she needed to remain as independent as possible, unaffiliated to Joan, while still in service of her goals, goals such as ensuring the kill operation on her sister didn’t succeed.
Joan didn’t have to send her an order for her to intervene on that.
The story seemed to check out, or Alexandrine truly believed her own yarn according to Jeanne and her lie detecting skills, trust was a very rare resource within her though. Regardless of whether she did or didn’t trust Alexandrine however, Jeanne would have no choice but to rely on her as a swarm of assailants from seemingly nowhere popped up within the Café, chaos erupting as they swiftly clutched the two women before they could escape, locking them within headlocks as black bags were hauled over their backs.
Jeanne resisted but to no avail, the effects of the drugs and fatigue still weighing strong. She was dragged out of the Café and tossed into a black van. Right as they attempted to throw Alexandrine in as well, she managed to escape their grasp, a swift scuffle storming and shots firing as bodies fled. The kidnappers abandoned Alexandrine, departing with Jeanne, but Alexandrine did not abandon her. Despite having just barely escaped, Alexandrine chased down her would be pursuers, stealing a motorbike at gun point as she appropriated the vehicle. She sped through London traffic, desperate to catch up with the van as it slipped further and further away.
With Jeanne slipping out of her fingers, Alexandrine squinted her eye, the Van’s plates photographing into her memory, at least it would be a lead.
VIII
V.I.I Black site, somewhere in England
Jeanne’s ghosts had finally caught up to her. When the hood came off, she found herself tied to a chair, inside a dingy dirty interrogation room, very familiar to her. During her days in the V.I.I, she had extracted a lot of intel in rooms like these, breaking her enemies, by whatever means. Now here she was, seated in the very same chairs they sat, ready to be broken.
Growing up in a soldier’s home, loyalty, and duty where virtues that were praised and worshiped, there was no greater joy than to serve one’s country, whatever the orders, whoever the enemy, absolute loyalty was all that mattered.
Failure to remain loyal was the greatest shame one could incur, and thus, it deserved great punishment.
Jeanne stared down her torturer, the methods he would use very familiar to her, the only difference this time was, he wasn’t trying to make her talk, he wanted to make her scream. Whether through ULTIMA, or another grapevine, the V.I.I had finally found their former pride, having spent so much time searching for her, she was finally in their arms, tied to a steel chair, and ready to pay the price for treason.
The screams croaked from the interrogation room; the old, dilapidated building guarded as they ensured that no one would stop justice from being enacted. Jeanne had to answer for her treasonous crimes, and once they’d quenched their vengeance, she would be discarded.
In between the pain, Jeanne’s mind would wander back to where this all begun, embedded within VENGE, serving alongside the Desert Guevara. Her mission was simple, she would gain his trust, then when given an opportunity, she’d finish the job, finish him. How did it all go so wrong.
Had she gone too deep, played her role too well, started to believe in her own lie, was it even a lie at all, or had she been lied to her whole life. She’d been raised to see her enemy as less than human, if even human at all. Her mother was a staunch patriot, and the wounds of battle sowed a deep seed of hate within Jeane when she died.
This enemy, the Zurrians, were friends with her mother’s enemies, those who killed her. The Verlanders told Jeanne that the Zurrians had taken her mother away from her, that’s what they and their ilk did, they took and took. Yet as Jeanne walked in the enemy’s shoes, she saw how her side had taken from the enemy too, how the Verlanders had sowed the same seeds of hate within the enemy, taking and taking from them.
VENGE was the very manifestation of the Zurrians’ vengeance.
She experienced the brutality of being at the receiving end of Verland’s wrath, and how hot it burned. She had always believed that the Zurrians’ existence was an existential threat to her and Verland’s existence, but within the enemy’s streets, she wondered what threat the Zurrians could even pose when they were already surrounded and held at gunpoint by the Verlanders.
Most of the Zurrian population in Verland had been situated in a single region known as Z-Land. Densely populated and heavily guarded, the Zurrians could not freely roam or do anything without the Verlanders knowing and approving or refusing. She begun to see how immensely more powerful her side was, a single strike from the enemy would result in a thousand lashes of reprisal from her side, there was no parity here, no war, just terror.
All her life she’d ridden on the big horse in bright shining armor, warring with peasants in sack clothes, and believing herself to be the stronger one, the braver one, righteous one. Yet she never considered that she was the one who created them, that she created her own enemy. Verland created VENGE and it continued to arm its ranks with each Zurrian death.
At this realization, Jeanne didn’t know what the truth was anymore, all that she knew was that war wasn’t about enemies and patriots, it was about men, and women, boys and girls, children, dying and dying and dying.
Humanity was what mattered, humanity always paid the price.
In light of this, Jeanne could no longer be the good and faithful soldier she’d been raised to be, she’d seen too much, bled too much, had been tainted and stained too much. She wanted out, she had to leave, to go rogue, to become a traitor. She’d betray her adopted county, in the name of her humanity, humanity for everyone, her side, the other side, it was all humanity, and it all mattered.
The Desert Guevara would eventually be killed, just not by her, and in this, she’d have to face the same price he paid, that of a traitor. She fled, and fled, and fled, forever on the run, but someone would eventually catch her, besting her, and cornering her. She didn’t have any other options, she didn’t have anyone to turn to, anyone to come save her. In that darkest moment, her captor offered his hand, and promised to wash her hands clean.
As a Musketeer, she could become a ghost, she would be untraceable, with no past, and no future, all that would exist would be the mission, the mission to save mankind, humanity, everyone! The Musketeers might’ve hailed from France, but their duty was to more than just a single flag, it was to all of humanity. While they fought for life, the Grand Orchestra fought to destroy it all. They wanted to set those same seeds of hate Jeanne was more than familiar with, wanting humanity to choke to death in them. Not unless the Musketeers could stop them.
At such an offer, Jeanne couldn’t refuse. She was already a dead woman walking, both in body and soul. As a Musketeer however, she could be born again, and this time, she would be fighting for what was right, fighting for all of humanity.
And as if it was a gift from the gods themselves, Athos introduced her to her long-lost half-sister, Joan, daughter of her father. Jeanne was no longer alone, not anymore.
The torturer readied to continue, and Jeanne remained on this thought, she was no longer alone, not anymore. She had people who would fight for her, people she could fight for, and all would be done in the name of humanity.
All for one, and one for all.
IX
London, England
It didn’t take Alexandrine and Joan long to find out where Jeanne was being held. Luckily for Jeanne, Joan didn’t trust her with reaching out to her when she needed help, so, without her sister’s knowledge, Joan had tagged her with a skin-deep tracker.
Jeanne’s captors would eventually discover it, ridding it, but at that point, it was too late. This time, Jeanne had actually reached out for help, so Joan reacted swiftly, hot on the hunt. Her trail led her to Alexandrine as they crossed paths, all wanting the same thing. It was under this shared goal that the two tolerated each other, having already scuffled upon first contact, Joan avenging her sister as she got the upper hand, but it was not without struggle.
Alexandrine used Jeanne as a bargaining chip to gain Joan’s trust, or cooperation at the least. She revealed to Joan that she had saved her sister when sent by the Grand Orchestra, commanded by Athos. Once she added him to the mix, Joan was game as Alexandrine offered to deliver him to her. As far as Joan was concerned, Alexandrine had saved and wanted to help her save her sister, while also wanting to deliver Athos’ head to her, was it too good to be true – surely, but she didn’t have to trust her to work with her.
Thus, the alliance was formed as Alexandrine and Joan struck the V.I.I black site together, hidden in the shadows of night, and armed with suppressed weapons and knives. They made light work of their opponents, the torturer being the only real Verlander present while the goons were mostly hired help likely meant to keep Verland clean. None of the bodies would be able trace back to them.
Joan almost cried when in sight of her sister, yet despite her scars, Jeanne pulled herself together, holding her own during the extraction as they fled, she’d supposedly survived worse. The three women fought through the remaining goons, securing transport, then getting away to safety, the mission having been a success.
Back at their safehouse, Jeanne finally felt secure enough to relax, her sister by her side as Joan tended to her wounds, nursing her back to health. After all they’d been through, they were still no closer to reaching Athos, not unless Alexandrine could help it.
Jeanne still didn’t trust her, and with Joan there, Alexandrine knew that her bargaining power with the Musketeers was shrinking, fast. If she wanted their help, she needed to come clean. With the guns put away, Alexandrine then revealed herself to having been none other than… the Black Swan.
She revealed to them how she had been the thief Athos broke out of prison, after she herself had broken out an innocent man from the same black site. Athos had cornered her with an offer she couldn’t refuse, she had no choice, it was either this, or a life sentence, if not death. Jeanne could relate, though she believed in the Musketeer’s human mission, she’d received the recruitment pitch without any options, it truly was an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Alexandrine wasn’t recruited to be a Musketeer though, she had been recruited to hunt down the Musketeers, all in the name of the Grand Orchestra. If her rescue of the innocent man during the initial prison break meant anything to her at all, Alexandrine couldn’t allow herself to play along to Athos and his new master’s schemes, she needed a way out, and the Musketeers were that way.
If they could work together, they could hunt down Athos and end him once and for all. He was now the Orchestra’s most effective tool, if they got rid of him, not only would it keep the Orchestra away from Alexandrine, but it would also help the Musketeers in their bitter war against them. It was one less bishop to worry about within chess terms.
Alexandrine reached out the olive brunch, her gun laid down, she wanted to help them, if only they could trust her. The Bonapartes were skeptical, but at the end of the day, she had been completely honest with them, she hadn’t lied, and she had saved their lives again and again.
Trust is a very precious resource within the world of spies, yet it isn’t unheard of, so Alexandrine earned the benefit of their doubts, living up to her name as the Black Swan once she made the impossible possible.
With their trust, Alexandrine then swore to lead Athos into the hands of Musketeers, they just had to wait on her call, and when she gave them a location, they had to show up and end this once and for all. Jeanne and Joan gave her their assurances, when the time came, they would be there.
After departing from the sisters, Alexandrine would then make another, reaching out to Athos, her master. She then reported that she had earned the Musketeers’ trust, and she could lead them right into his hands. Athos was impressed, he didn’t know what to make of her sudden turn against her men and her going AWOL. He thought she had switched sides, but Alexandrine reminded him of her loyalty, she would prove it by giving her the heads of Musketeers, served on a silver platter.
All he had to do was answer the call when the time came.
Athos gave her his reassurance, and praise, she had surpassed all his expectations.
All of their expectations.
She now has them all at the tip of her finger, the trigger itching, as Alexandrine looks though the sniper rifle’s scope, in Paris, with death.
X
Paris, France
Joan and Jeanne finally meet within the Royal room, Alexandrine watching them through her sniper scope, straight through the balcony’s glass doors. She’s got mere moments before the two spies’ call for a mission abort, her, nowhere to be found. Yet she rests easy, lining up her shot, because even if she doesn’t show up, she still delivers what she promised, to both of them, all of them.
Right after the sisters enter the Royal room, another guest walks in, and it is none other than Athos, the former master of the Musketeers, their betrayer. Contrary to what everyone assumed, Joan and Jeanne remain calm, and by calm, they choose not to immediately pounce on Athos right then and there.
After all that his done to them, all the pain and suffering he put them through, Alexandrine watches as they just stare at him, merely in shock of his presence. After all this time, he is finally here, before them, flesh, and blood, right in front of their eyes.
Alexandrine has the room bugged, hearing them ask Athos that most important question…why?
Why did he betray them, after all these years. He recruited them, trained them, made them who they are, Musketeers. Without him, they wouldn’t be here, he created this, how could he so easily destroy it, toss it away, joining its most bitter rival.
It’s a hard question to answer, but Athos answers it with another question, asking them why the Grand Orchestra are their bitter rivals, what it is that makes them… the enemy. Joan and Jeane are surprised, wondering why he would ask that, and to them too, he should be asking himself that. He is the one who told them everything they know about the Orchestra, about their pursuit for world destruction, and the end of humanity.
Athos agrees, accepting that its true, he has taught them this, leading them to believe this, a truth he too believed for almost all of his life, basically his whole espionage career. Ever since day one, the Orchestra were the enemy, they were and are the bad guys, and they want to destroy humanity.
But why?
Why do they want this.
Jeanne’s own past lingers in his question, as she thinks of her former enemies, of how she had been raised to see them as bad from birth. Like Jeanne, Athos had found himself in the shoes of the Grand Orchestra, and he got deep, really deep, sharing an audience with the Maestro himself, the very conductor of it all.
Athos reveals that within that audience, he then discovered the reason why the Orchestra do what they do. They do indeed want an end to the world, a complete destruction of the status quo, but it isn’t in the name of death, rather, in the name of life.
The Maestro wants to destroy the world, so that he can rebuild it again, a new Eden, untainted nor corrupted by the seeds of hate, of history, of now. The world is full of guilt, and as a Musketeer, Athos reveals how he has seen humanity’s evil firsthand. Yet through the Maestro, humanity can rise above its evils, for evil is not inherent, it is learned.
It we can start over again, a fresh beginning, one with no evil, no hate, no enemies, only one people, growing together from the very beginning of a new time. Imagine the possibilities, the utopia that can be realized.
We can finally run away from all the darkness of our collective past, keeping only the good.
But at what cost prompts Joan.
Revolution isn’t without sacrifice, if you want to change the system, you have to be willing to destroy it. That’s who the Maestro is, the ultimate revolutionary!
Athos speaks with zeal and passion, completely encapsulated in this vision of a new world, a new Eden. Yet Joan thinks on the now, shouldn’t we fight for the current Eden, the current world, the current people.
Athos can’t, he has lost faith in the now, his seen too much.
Jeanne can understand both, she’s seen all the faces of man, ones that will frighten her to her very grave. Yet at the same time, she seen mankind’s greatest face. She’s seen redemption, salvation, hope. The world maybe an ugly place with a lot of ugly people, but it is also beautiful, and it is worth fighting for.
This is why she truly became a Musketeer because they dared to believe in humankind. When Athos met her in the desert, she’d like to believe that he saw her wanted by everyone, deemed this heinous and hideous monster, without hope, without redemption, undeserving of salvation. Yet despite it all, he saw her humanity, her hope, her potential to be good, to be better. Jeanne asks him not to forget that, because that’s what she remembers, what she’ll never forget.
Alexandrine thinks of herself, imprisoned in that black site, desperate to have saved someone who had been deemed guilty without even being given a chance to be proved innocent. Just like she had always been judged growing up in the streets.
Without hope, the cycle will never end. This new Eden will rise again, and like all humans, they will be flawed, and they will destroy themselves again, to rebuild again, and again, and again, and again. When faced with imperfection, one can only hope to get better, that is all that there is, all that there can be.
Jeanne tries to get Athos to understand this, but he is far too gone, he has lost all hope in humanity. Only rebirth can save us now – but in order to rise again, we must first die!
Athos then pulls out his weapons as a fight ensues, Joan and Jeannn battling their former Master while Alexandrine watches from her rifle scope, her finger having the power to determine the outcome. Ultimately, Alexandrine agrees with Jeanne, the only way forward is hope, hope for a better tomorrow, that’s the only way she can believe in a better version of herself, one who might one day be free of all the guilt. It’s through hope, and fighting for hope, both for her, and humanity.
Decided, Alexandrine zooms in on Athos as he battles his former students, the hotel room littered in the chaos of battle as her red dot lands right in place. Right as the time to strike approaches however, Deus Ex Machina enters. Alexandrine is tossed away from her sniper, and shoved to the floor, the Blood Blossom revealing themselves as their foe.
Sakura tells Alexandrine she won’t let her win, likely still believing she is the enemy. Alexandrine tries to reason with her, but Sakura gives no quarter, readying for battle. The two clash as Alexandrine and Sakura fight while Joan and Jeanne desperately try to overcome Athos.
Athos bests his former pupils, making way for his gun while they stagger on the ground, staggered. Hopelessness prevails as the former Master points his gun at his former students, finger on the trigger. A trigger is then pulled as blood splatters, a body thudding to the ground as Athos falls, resting in a pool of his own blood, dead. In the center of his forehead lies the bullet of a sniper.
Smoke spurs from the sniper rifle as Alexandrine stares from her scope, Sakura lying on the ground, defeated, hope having won.
No hard feelings hold however as Sakura and Alexandrine join the Bonaparte sisters, all four reuniting after departing from the hotel. Recuperating at a street café outside, they all take in Athos’ death, having finally completed the mission. Its bittersweet, Athos was the reason why their all here. He recruited them and trained them, making them the women that they are, and yet, he fell so far, overcome by hopelessness in himself and his fellow man.
The Musketeers swear to fight for the hope of mankind to the bitter end, they can never give up, no matter how bad things get. Alas, there is also sweetness however as Alexandrine seats beside new friends and allies. After her service, Joan, the new Athos, inducts her into the Musketeers, from then on…
Her name is Alexandrine Dumas, her nom de guerre is the Black Swan, and her codename is D’artagnan.
She is a Musketeer, and she believes in her mission, ready to fight and die for it, and her sisters, they too feeling the same about her.
All for one, and one for all!
No matter what.
Hope will live on.
Humanity will live on.
Long live humanity!