//------------------------------// // The Decision // Story: Assassin's Creed III Reclamation [Canclled // by Electric thunder //------------------------------// Connor stood in the midst of a violent battle, Zebrican prisoners were bashing, stabbing, and biting any griffin that got to close. The griffins took to the offence by crudely using their talons, ripping and pouncing on the zebras. “Help us!” One of the rebels yelled over the chaos. Connor looked around him, then looking up the citadel all the way to the top. “YEEAHHH!” A guard charged him with a spear in his grip. Connor took a stance, waiting for the enemy to get closer. It was as if time started to slow, Connor leaped into the air and brought his hooves down onto the spear, snapping it two, he then pushed with his for-legs, rapping them around the attackers neck, and pulled up flipping the griffin over his back, then started to beat him in his head. “Help!” The zebra yelled again. Connor was at a loss, but when he saw the gates to the citadel were open with guards pulling in and out, he decided…to keep his promise to Shade. ================== “So…you thought that you could just sit and listen on personal conversations, you know that’s incredibly rude” The King was sitting in front of the iron bar cage, were a beat bat pony was curled up shivering. “I know you were listening, so no point in lying…I just want to know what you heard” He hissed. Shade looked up at the king and shivered under his piercing gaze. “I-I did…I didn’t hear anything…” She stuttered. “STOP LYING, I KNOW THAT YOU LISTENED IN ON US!” He yelled lunging at the cage, Shade sunk deeper into her hooves. He let go of the cage, and signaled the cage-keeper who walked up to the cage with a whip in his claw, he opened the cage and Shade tried to hide from him. “please…” she muttered. “Then tell me the truth!” “I did” She cried. The king simply nodded to the cage-keeper. He trudged up to the cowering pony and started to whip her. The room was filled with her screams, blood curdling screams. After a full minute of the whip cracking, and painful screams, the king raised a claw and the Cage-keeper stopped his torture and exited the cage. The King rubbed his beak and gave a sigh as he looked down at the crying pony. “Just tell me, the truth and this will all stop” He grapped the cage with a claw. “I did, I did tell you the truth!” She yelped. The king sighed once again, and stepped down from the cage. “Beat her until she talks” he grumbled. The king turned around and made his way for the door, but a soldier came charging through them. “My liege” He bowed. “The Slaves sir, they are killing the overseers, there in a riot!” He stuttered. The king stood looking down at the griffin before calling the Keeper over to him, and he took the whip, and whipped the soldier. “And you did not stay to FIGHT!” he yelled and whipped him again. The King threw the whip back at the Keeper and turned to the bat pony, who shriveled up into a ball when he looked back. “You get a break, but when I’m done, I will feed you their heads!” He stomped out of the room. ==================== Connor ran up to the gate and was hiding behind a small crate watching fresh troops run from the citadel, and wounded be brought inside. He looked up the wall, it was made from some kind of rock, and was tipped with spiked bars. Connor looked back to the griffins studied a guard who had a bloody bandage wrapped around his left eye and dirty wrappings around his chest as he slumped past the gate. Connor watched him until he passed by. “If only…” Connor was cut when the amulet around his neck started to burn his neck. “GAH!” It felt like the amulet was burrowing into his body. In a flash, Connor dropped to his knees. When he opened his eyes and looked down to see a pair of claws. Connor raised a eye brow, but it was like he had a bandage over his eye. Connor looked over his new body seeing that he was the same guard who had walked through the gate moments before. He gave a sly smile. =============== “Hey , need help over here” Connor called out to a group of other wounded who came to his aid. Connor had acted as wounded, laying against one of the slave huts. “Come on, come on” One said pulling him up and helped him up. “Shit hit the fan” The other grumbled. “Yea, and they still can’t get the one who started it all, he just keeps getting away!” The other said. The trio made it close to the gate line were it looked as if more guards were pulling out than charging into the fray. Connor kept his head pointed to the ground trying to keep as little of his face visible, so no one would realize that the same griffin walked through the gate line twice. “Almost there, just hold it together” The griffin said fixing his grip on Connor. They soon past through the grand black steel doors the blocked the entry, inside from what he could see the middle of the floor was a red carpet that had diamond perfect pictures of the Griffin insignia sown into it, the sides were some kind of tile that looked like grain but on further inspection, it looked like gravel in-cased in harden glass. The sides of the walls there were massive black marble statues of the king all looking down upon them; he had a broad sword under his claws that rested crossed over each on top of the handle. He had a stern evil look edged into his face. In front of them The hall split in two one going left the other to the right, and when they came up to it the turned to the right, with a similar corridor to the one they walked trough, but there were soldiers, guards, and over-seers, all wounded and propped up on the walls while nurses cared for their wounds. He was dragged to the far end of the corridor were it broke off to his left, the two guards set him down next to a soldier whose face was obscured by a mass of bandages. A nurse spotted him and came to check him. “The bandage over your eye needs to be replaced, but you seem alright…I guess that makes you one of the lucky ones” She mumbled while pulling out a white rolled up bandage strap. “Call if it starts to burn or itch, it might be infected” The nurse put the unused bandage back into her sack and moved on. Connor looked over his shoulder down the hall where it was empty, except for the statue, and it ended in a curved stairwell that moved up to the left. Connor looked back to all the other wounded, looking back and forth between all of the griffins. Some were still with heads low, and others were groaning and twitching a few, all fairly banged up. As Connor continued to look down the hall, he saw something that put a hole in his stomach, for the griffin he was imitating was looking directly at him. They had a quick staring contest before the griffin looked to the one next to him, and muttered something before he too looked at him in shock. Connor instantly dropped his head and looked at the floor under him, not daring to even move to look back at the guard. He took a breath and took a short glance to see that the other was waving for a nurse. Connors eyed widened, and he looked over his shoulder again down the deserted hall. Connor waited and watched as the guard waved his claw and took the attention of a nearby nurse, she walked up to him and kneeled down next to him, and that gave Connor the time for him to make his move. Connor took his only chance and slipped silently around the corner and slowly started to push himself down the hall, and tucked up behind one of the statues right before the a nurse poked her head around the corner to see down the hall. The nurse panned her head and once she was sure that the hall was still she turned around and made her leave. Connor looked around the corner and swiftly made his way down the hall right up to the base of the stairwell. The Stair well was the same length of the hall but narrowed slightly the farther up it when, as it slowly curved to the left it was lit from raw iron chandeliers that help six candles each. Connor took one step before he could her a pair of voices coming from up above, He instinctively lunged into the shadows. The voices became louder, and he identified them as two male guards. “…Wait, he whipped you when you warned him about the slaves?” One said. “Yea back in the Black Room where he’s holding that one pony, he took the whip from the Keeper and got me right in the neck!” The other said. “You mean that whore he bought at the trade, Ha, right in front of her too!” “Oh shut up, the last time you where even close to a girl she beat your feathery ass into the ground!” The voice protested. They were close enough were Connor could see their shadows dancing on the floor. “Well what was I supposed to do, yea so I went too far, I still had my morality, I was not about to hit a girl!” The one defended himself. “Oh I remember that night like it was yesterday…Gilda was her name right, yea that’s it!” “Oh just shove it up your…” “Hey come on, we need to hurry up or we are going to miss the fun!” The voice cut out the others. Connor looked to see the two at the base of the stair well the one the closest to him was a solid dark cream color, and the other was dirt color with a light grey head. The one to the far left glared harshly at the Cream colored one before the shuffled down the hall and round the corner. Connor pulled away from the statue and made his way up the stairs thinking over what the guards said. Shades in the Black room, were could that be? Connor prayed to the spirits that she was alive. Connor was rushing farther up the stairs when it stopped on a landing were he came up to a fairly large cast iron door, it had two griffins facing each other on the sides, and in the center was a kite shield with cross spears behind it, there were no handles or knobs. Connor walked up to the door and using his claw pushed the door open just enough to see inside without being seen. The room was a large library with curved bookshelves that lined the walls and around ten feet tall each and was filled with tomes of knowledge. The floor was one massive carpet, that had a diamond shape pattern, in some were red, others black. In the center was a large rectangular pine wood table that had scrolls, books, and other kinds of literature were scattered over it. On the left most side a large unlit chimney made from red brick that crawled all the way up to the ceiling. On the wall to the right a large stain glass window that showered the room with a assortment of colors. Connor turned around and moved back up the stairs coming across other different landing all the looking the same as the previous one below, he came to see a small kitchen, dining hall, and many of the other doors would not budge. Connor made it up thirteen landings after the library level, until the stair well ended, Connor took the last steps up and came to a short hall that had paintings of regal looking griffins, and each had a large pedestal with a large banquet of flowers. The floor was made from a checker floor tile pattern, there were pillars that separated the portraits that reached all the way to the ceiling and formed a low arch that had familiar chandeliers dangling from the arches. The reached out then cut to the right, and Connor silently walked hugging the right side of the hall right up to the corner and peered around it. The Hall was similar to the one see was in except the left was three massive opened arched windows that had sunlight pouring into the hall. There was a mass of the king personal guard. Connor pulled back and sighed in aggravation. If only I had my… His vision became clouded in darkness.