[Current Balance: £709,747,746 5s. 8d.]
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The war was near.
It wasn't a tangible thing, not yet. No sails had appeared on the horizon, no cannons had roared. But it was a palpable presence, a low hum of inevitability that vibrated in the crisp autumn air.
Alaric felt it in the quiet determination of his family, in the sharp, focused energy of the Assassins, in the grim resolve of William Penn.
Everyone could feel it.
The Vanguard, Alaric's elite task force, was now an ultimate honed weapon. He gathered the core command in the war room, the massive map of the Americas spread out before them. His plan was audacious, a classic Alaric strategy that relied on overwhelming speed and precision.
The five hundred members of the Vanguard would be divided. Two hundred and fifty would form the first team, captained by Thulani. Their mission: sail to Jamaica, liberate the island from British control, free every slave, and dismantle the Crown's military presence.
The second team, also two hundred and fifty strong and captained by Reuben, had the more complex task of sweeping through the Lesser Antilles, capturing the key British strongholds of Barbados, Antigua, St. Kitts, and the surrounding islands.
To accomplish this, they needed ships unlike any the world had ever seen. In a secluded cove downriver from the estate, Alaric built them.
Using his Wood Release, he summoned massive, ancient timbers from the earth, their wood dense and resilient. With Vulcan, he forged iron fittings that were stronger and lighter than any man-made alloy.
He wove fuinjutsu seals into the very grain of the wood, an Asura's Crest for each vessel, making their hulls virtually indestructible. Even the glass of the cabin windows was unbreakable. The cannons he forged were masterpieces of controlled destruction, and he created special cannonballs, each one a contained explosion of chakra designed to detonate on impact, unleashing a ten-meter radius of pure destructive force.
The two frigates were beasts, beautiful and terrifying. Reuben, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and grim determination, named his vessel The Wraithling. Thulani, a fire of righteous fury in his heart, christened his Liberty's Wrath. They were not gifts; they were instruments of the duty they had sworn to uphold.
William Penn, upon seeing the two impossible ships, had immediately commissioned an entire fleet for the Commonwealth of Pennmere. On June 1st, a formal contract was drawn: eighty sloops, sixty schooners, forty brigs, twenty-five frigates, and ten massive man-o'-war vessels.
Alaric, with the help of his clones, finished the entire fleet by June 3rd. When Penn presented the payment of £1,575,000, Alaric had simply laughed. "One point five million pounds?" he'd said, waving a dismissive hand. "I don't need any more pennies."
The act, a flex of unimaginable wealth, had both infuriated and deeply moved the Quaker leader, freeing up a fortune for the fledgling nation's treasury to focus it somewhere else.
And so, the new nation thrived. The Celestial products, flowing from the underground warehouse, and the impossibly bountiful harvests from Alaric's ten thousand hectares, turned Philadelphia into the economic heart of the New World. The name "Kenway" became synonymous not just with wealth, but with a new kind of power.
July 6, 1715...
"ARRRRRGHHHHHHH!!!!"
The scream, raw and primal, tore through the quiet of the master bedroom.
"Push!"
"MALAKAAAAAAA!!!"
Kassandra's hands gripped the sides of the bed, her body slick with sweat. Eleanor Kenway and Elizabeth Scott stood on either side of her, their faces a mixture of calm competence and profound empathy. They had sent all the men out hours ago, their presence deemed more of a hindrance than a help.
"Come on, push!" Eleanor encouraged, her voice a firm, steady anchor in the storm of pain.
"ALARIC, I'LL KILL YOUUUU!!!" Kassandra roared, her voice cracking.
"Yes, honey," Alaric's strained voice came from the head of the bed. His hand was currently being crushed in Kassandra's iron grip. He was immortal, he was a god in all but name, but his wife's demigod strength, amplified by the agony of childbirth, was a force of nature he could not simply shrug off. "Push, Kassy…"
"UGGGGGGGHHHHH!"
With one final, shuddering cry, a new sound filled the room.
"UWAAAAAAAAAAH!"
It was the thin, wailing cry of a newborn.
Elizabeth skillfully and gently took the baby, her movements practiced and sure. She cleaned the infant, her hands deft and gentle, as its cries filled the room with the sound of new life.
"It's a boy," she announced, a warm, tearful smile on her face. She wrapped the baby in a soft linen cloth and placed him in Kassandra's waiting arms.
Kassandra looked down at her son, and the pain, the exhaustion, the centuries of loneliness, all melted away.
He was beautiful.
Perfect.
He had a dusting of fine, platinum-blonde hair, just like his father, but when he opened his eyes, they were a deep, captivating amber, the exact shade of her own.
A single, happy tear traced a path down her cheek. She looked up at Alaric, her heart so full it felt like it would burst. He was staring at the baby, his own eyes wide with a shock so profound he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
"He's beautiful, isn't he?" she whispered.
She saw the look on his face, the dazed, almost fearful awe of a new father. "Do you want to hold him?"
Alaric seemed to snap out of his trance. "Y-Yes," he stammered, carefully, almost reverently, taking the small, warm bundle from her. He looked down at his son, at the tiny, perfect face, and felt a love so fierce, so overwhelming, it eclipsed every power he had ever known.
"So," Kassandra said, a tired but teasing smile on her lips. "You won the bet. What will you name him?"
Alaric looked at his son, then back at Kassandra, a mischievous, almost delirious grin spreading across his face. "...Dumbledor Kenway."
Kassandra's loving expression instantly turned to one of profound annoyance. "You will not."
Alaric chuckled, the sound a little shaky. He leaned down and kissed his son's forehead, then Kassandra's lips. He looked back at the baby in his arms, his expression softening into one of pure, unadulterated love.
"Charles," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Charles Hunter Kenway."
.
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