Assassin's Creed:Sisterhood
Chapter Zero:Moving on
The sky from as far as the eye can see was a lit with fire, fire from a war waging around a city under attack by armoured ponies and griffons. From the outer walls tall wooden towers were being pulled by oxen and bulls while a mass cycle of buffalo surrounds and protects them, they were pulling the wooden towers towards the city walls so the dozens of soldiers within could easily breach them. In the sky a battle between pegasus and griffons was being fought but the enemy was overwhelming the city guards at an alarming speed, within the city a group of white robed ponies rushed out from a tower in the centre and galloped to engage the enemies that had already breached the defences.
These robed ponies used the rooftops to their advantage and moved over the enemies and quickly jumping in for the kill without notice, the enemy had great numbers but they had shadows and the structure of the city on their side. They moved like the wind among the rooftops and without wasting much time, a few jumped their way onto the walls’ surface as the rest held off whatever enemies tried to stop them. After climbing the wall they quickly engaged the soldiers who were attempting to disable the city’s cannons and as two maybe three cannons were saved a red furred stallion looked out and over the dozens of wooden towers and said, “How did the guard’s watch not see this amoma coming!?” he said this angrily but also worried as the numbers he saw were so great there must’ve been ten thousand soldiers out there.
As another robed pony, this time white furred, was redrawing his hidden blade from a fallen enemy he replied with “They must’ve marched in over night but I can’t imagine how a single guard didn’t see them with this great of numbers.” he knew in his heart something about this attack wasn’t right but he couldn’t place his hoof on what.
Suddenly the whole wall shook as a cannon ball struck a guard tower near them collapsing it, the ponies reacting quickly ran over to the edge and performed a leap of faith just in time to avoid the debris. They all landed safely in barrels of hay that was thrown about and jumped out quickly, while the rest of the group galloped off the two stallions climbed the building nearest to them and ran along the rooftops to climb up another wall, when they did a wooden tower just laid down a wooden platform as dozens of soldiers came running out of it. They quickly engaged them using all manners of techniques with their weaponry killing a few, but they were too great even for two members of their level to handle alone.
Suddenly out of nowhere another cannon ball struck the wooden tower destroying it, but the explosion radius was too close and the soldiers as well as the two stallions were sent flying into the air. Luckily two griffons who took notice to the explosion flew in saving them from a death fall, the other soldiers wasn’t so lucky. The griffons flew the two stallions near the city square where enemy soldiers were overwhelming innocent bystanders, without warning the two were thrown and landed on two soldiers with their hidden blades buried deep into their necks. The others swiftly attacks them but the two stallions defended themselves with their hidden blades as their swords were lost during the explosion.
“Get out of here quick!” The red stallion told the bystanders who ran off, with the swift death of the last soldier he turned to his friend and said. “We can’t hope to save this city, get back to the hideout and make sure the Apple doesn’t fall into enemy hands.”
“What about you?” His friend asked concerned for his safety.
“I’ll go and help whatever citizens I can escape.” He answered before galloping off onto the rooftops, the white stallion didn’t move for a few seconds as he was praying his friend would get out safely himself, after a few moments he galloped off back to the centre tower.
He couldn’t risk going through the front so he instead decided to use a secret passage that hid near it, a old well thought dried up but in fact houses a secret tunnel, he galloped towards it and to his shock saw the gate sealing it shut was already open. He quickly jumped inside, the well was far from dry as deep underneath was water deep enough to survive a leap head first. When he resurfaced his fear was realised as the enemy troops were inside killing his fellow brothers. Enraged he leaped from the water and stealth killed one before taking his sword and ramming it through the belly of another, he then redrew it and fought sword to sword with the remaining three.
Once he finished them all he galloped through the secret tunnels up a long staircase and into the main room of the hideout, there he saw the Creed’s headmaster defending himself against two enemy soldiers. He wasted no in time by galloping in ramming his sword into one as the headmaster stabbed the other through his chest, after they removed their weapons with the enemies limping over to the floor the stallion rushed to his master’s aid.
“Lightning the brotherhood has been betrayed.” He spoke with the stallion gasping in shock.
“What? By who!?” He demanded to know, betraying the order is a serious error and death is needed to fix said error.
“I don’t know, but the guards on watch duty were found dead just before we were attacked.” The headmaster answered, the stallion named Lightning shook his head in anger.
“Only an Assassin could do such a killing spree without being notice…” He didn’t want to believe one of his brothers or sisters betrayed the whole city like this, but it was the only answer to make sense with the attack. “Is the Apple safe?” He asked hoping the enemy didn’t take it, his master shook his head no giving Lightning such a sigh of relief.
“Here they’ll expect me to have it, if I’m caught and killed it needs to be kept safe and you're one of the few I can trust in this moment of peril.” He explains handing Lightning the Apple which glowed with a golden light as his hoof touched it.
Lightning never thought he would actually hold the Apple, but his duty as an Assassin prevented his excitement from overshadowing the task he was just given. “Thank you father, I’ll protect it with my life.” He spoke hiding it in his robe, before the two could say another word more enemy soldiers came from behind and both jumped into action.
“No Lightning!” His father shouted, “Go and get out with the others, I’ll hold them off as you escape!” he ordered his son who refused to go but not wanting to disobey his father and headmaster he reluctantly nodded and galloped towards an open window and leaped out crashing into a water fountain outside.
After swimming out and drying off he made his way towards a faction building used by the order, in it was a secret tunnel that led outside the city. As he drew closer he saw his friend from before leading a group towards the same building, he shouted towards him and after meeting up at the building’s door his friend asked. “What are you doing here?”
“The headmaster gave me the Apple so I could get it to safety, but he believes a traitor in our order helped in this attack.” He answers with his friend having the same reaction he did when he was told this.
“We can’t worry about that now, we must get these citizens to safety.” He replied surprising caring more about the citizens’ safety than worrying about a traitor.
Both led the group of citizens inside the building and one pushed a bookshelf aside which hid the secret door behind it, as the ponies and griffons went through it and the two stallions about to enter themselves, a thud from behind caught their attention and upon turning around the red stallion cried out. “Grenade!!!”
He pushed Lightning aside as he jumped the opposite way, when the grenade went off Lightning lost his sight and hearing as the explosion engulfed him. The building shook as it collapsed from within but surprisingly Lightning survived it, debris had fallen on him hurting him but it kept the bigger debris from killing him. After a couple of moments he pushed the debris aside as he regained his sense, it took a bit before he could see again and when he could he saw the building was reduced to rubble. After struggling he managed to stand up but his ears were greeted with cries of pain, he turned around and was greeted with the site of his friend badly hurt.
“Blaze!!!” He cried out as he galloped over trying to lift the debris off his friend, but it was too heavy for him to lift alone. He tried calling for help but a kick from Blaze told him to stop, “Forget about me..! G-Get the Apple out of the city...quick!” He told Lightning who refused to leave his best friend here to die, but after a push Blaze yelled. “As your superior I order you to GET out of here! NOW!”
Lightning sighed nodding as he couldn’t disobey a higher ranked Assassin, he turned to where the secret door was and to his surprise, it was still almost intact. But as he made his way halfway through it laughter filled his ears, he turned around to see a stallion wearing a robe with a long red cross on the front leading from his neck down. He had at least four soldiers by his side and they were standing outside the now destroyed building laughing, but Lightning was more concerned and angry by knowing the stallion well. “My my I see you two are retreating? I thought our order was to protect, not run away like cowards.” Upon hearing those words Lightning angrily stepped away from the entrance and starred this stallion now.
“Saren…” He spoke through his teeth, “YOU'RE the traitor!” he could hardly believe this, he knew Saren for many years and couldn’t come to understand how this could have happen.
Saren just laughed back at Lightning, he turned his eyes to see Blaze badly hurt under debris and laughed some more. “I decided to join the Templars, after all their ways offer a much better lifestyle and a chance for peace and order.” He told Lightning who almost ran up to stab him with his blade, but the four soldiers around him would offer a hard challenge to get close enough.
“How could you!? You were next in line for headmaster!” Lightning shouted feeling so angry and betrayed he would take the risk of being killed just to kill this traitor.
Saren just laughed again before saying, “Wouldn’t that be hard on you? You're the headmaster’s son, it would be a disgrace on you not to inherit the Creed.” He then smiled wickedly. “Guess he thought you wasn’t cut out for it, I am better then you or anypony would ever be and he knew it from our first duel.”
Lightning reacted to his words by kicking debris at him then galloping behind it, he threw a few knives he had hidden at the two soldiers that rushed at him just as Saren knocked the debris away from him. The two soldiers were struck down by Lightning’s thrown knives and before the other two soldiers could react Lightning jumped forward aiming to sink his hidden blade into Saren’s neck, however he was fast enough to grab Lightning who refusing to let him live struggled against his grip inching his blade that much closer to his neck. Just before it could make contact with his skin Saren pushed then kicked Lightning away, but during that Lightning’s blade cut one of his grenades off from his chest.
It rolled over to Blaze who snatched it up quickly then after he grabbed a broken wooden beam up, “Get out and head for safety!” he yelled as he threw the beam at Lightning which luckily knocked him through the secret door entrance then he activated the grenade throwing it to the floor.
Saren and the guards panicked to rush out and away from it, from inside the secret passage Lightning stood back up but before he could gallop back to help Blaze, a explosion erupted sending him flying backwards ramming his back against a wall. He quickly recovered but to his dismay his back was in extreme pain, then he saw the secret door was now completely blocked off as this eruption shattered parts of the already weak tunnel caving it in. He looked over at the rumble and feeling so shattered himself he reached a hoof out in disbelief crying out “BLAZE!!!” before he kneeled over with his face inches from the floor.
He shed a few tears that to him, struck the ground in slow motion as so much was going through his head time almost felt nonexistent at the moment. He hadn’t shed tears in a long time either so he cried for what felt like hours even though it was a couple of minutes. After finally pulling himself together again he stood back up to his feet, as he stared at the rumble once again his heart felt weird. Thinking of what could’ve happen to his life long friend, he felt completely awful which he hadn’t felt like in a long time.
Growing up as an assassin you learn to throw away most feelings, mostly the feeling of regret and guilt as if you lived long enough, you had already killed your fair share of creatures but he wondered why he was feeling this way? He lost friends before, but...with a sigh he decided now wasn’t the best time to wonder about his feelings. Getting the Apple out and away from the Templars was the only thing important right now, he turned around to gallop down the tunnel but before he did, he turned back and whispered to himself. “I promise and swear to you, I will never let them get their hooves on the Apple as long as I draw breath.”
Sometime later Lightning along with a few survivors emerged from a well hidden cave entrance, they walked out and as they turned around, could still see the black smoke from their lost home. Some stared at the smoke with different thoughts and feelings while most were just happy they were alive, Lightning was among the few staring back. He wasn’t sure if other assassins got out or if he was the last one left, whether he was the last of the assassins or not he knew one thing he had to do. Get the Apple his father entrusted with him away, far away so far the Templars may take years before locating it but he hoped to hide it to where no pony would never find it again.
He turned and marched out with the survivors following him, he wasn’t sure where they could go but he had to make sure to get away from the Templars’ and their spies. In his heart he felt as if the order had failed, but as long as he lives and hides the Apple the order will live on and the Templars will never, ever win. He just had to figure out where to go, he had to leave this land, this kingdom he lived in all his life, for one he knew he could be safe in. As they walked he couldn’t help but overhear some of the survivors talking about a land they could go to, one that was unreachable by the Templars.
Lightning had a bit of hope glimmer within him as he listened to the stories about this land, after a couple days in hiding he decided to head to that land and within a few more days he managed to get a transport to travel by boat. Within a few weeks to maybe a month, he’ll be in a brand new land and a new life would start for him. He was sure the Templars couldn’t reach him there, for at least a long number of years at least and hoped he was right about that, as the ship sailed he stared at the water thinking of how to start his new life. He also couldn’t help but think of the name of what he’ll be calling his new home, looking down at the sea life swimming by the boat he couldn’t help but let it slip through his lips. “Equestria…” He has no idea about starting over or how hard it was going to be to keep the Apple hidden, but one thing he does know is...if it falls into their hands not even Equestria can remain it’s peaceful self.
