FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Creed

Prologue: Truth Is Relative

A lone figure swathed in black, stood atop a high-rise, hood peering down at the building adjacent, deep in the heart of New York City. Their target lay within its confines, a piece of Eden, one of great power, if Intel was to be believed. If they managed to seize this critical artifact, it would be a blow to the Templar mandate and would result in the break the Assassins needed. It was the year 2150, and for the past hundred and thirty years, the order has been in full retreat.

The Templar had access to their animus machines and was able to quickly train their agents with all the skills of Templar warriors throughout history. Already outnumbered, soon they were almost hopelessly so against this seeming tide. The enemy was ruthless and seemed to be all knowing, digging up Assassin hideouts almost monthly.

There were few Assassins left to fight, and most of them were no older than twenty, fresh faces where the older more experienced members had been killed off long ago. With the rise of Abstergo Industries, came the rise of the Templar. Backed by their massive corporation, they had a hand in all global politics and an ear of every world leader. The Assassins on the other hand, had little to no influence in the world and were restricted to only a few barely functioning guilds.

But the fight was far from over, they fought back with the ferocity of a dying beast, launching hundreds of raids and disrupting Templar objectives throughout the world. Yet at most there were a few thousand Assassins at any point in time. They were too few to properly fight back, but they did what they could. In fact this mission was supposed to be the turning point in their efforts. If they snatched that piece of Eden, they would have an advantage over their sworn enemies. But first, they would have to take it from them.

The man atop the building sighed tiredly and pulled the ebony hood from over his shoulders to cover his head. Moments later, a thin but durable black silver steel mask encased his features from view. From inside, a heads up display lit up highlighting the structure he was planning to infiltrate. He looked to his wrist where a screen displayed the current time.

12:58

Two minutes left....

The man gazed down at his suit and appraised it with a studious eye. The thin armor plates that covered his torso, arms, and legs were comfortably fitted to his body, allowing him unrestricted movement while engaging in acrobatics and combat. The hybrid alloys could absorb most standard munitions and was impervious to melee weapons.

He had the customary hidden blades attached to his arms, which could be flipped into a sort of pair of large dueling daggers, with a stripped down rifle sectioned off across his body for quick assemblage. A short cylinder was attached to his waist and could shift into a four foot glaive if he needed it. The last pieces of his small arsenal were a pair of energy pistols that could either be set to stun or kill, and countless throwing knives hidden in seamless compartments all along his armor.

His cloak and hood were also comprised of steel and cloth nano fibers that were resistant to small arms fire, flames, bladed weapons, and a few other nasty things.

The Assassins may be endangered but they were far from unprepared. As the Templar's technological advantage increased, they had risen to meet them head on. Even their enemy did not have access to equipment like this and that was one of the many reasons they had not won yet. The prototype energy based weapons and armor hybridization gave the Assassins a much needed edge over their nemesis.

His Chrono device beeped.... 1:00

Satisfied that his equipment would see him through his trials, the man walked back from the age and did a flying leap, far from the other building. Yet as it seemed he would fall to his death, he flapped his cloak and it pulled him up, hanging off the air draft. The man glided across the open expanse and hit the building softly, without a sound. He grabbed the smooth windowed surface of the high-rise and his gloves sprouted claw like blades that anchored into the concrete and allowed him to scale the surface with relative ease.

Ten silent minutes of climbing and he reached the top of the spire like construction. He climbed up on top of the roof and walked towards the access doors as he brought up the layout on the rectangular flimsy electronic device attached to his wrist. It showed a layered representation of the Abstergo building he was planning on infiltrating. A white line led from his location to somewhere four stories down. No doubt the place would be full of Templar guards and advanced security systems. But that should prove no problem for the 25 year old master assassin. He had tackled dangers like this before.

He waived his right plated glove over the lock and the lock clicked, disarming the security system linked to the door. His device had several functions, some he coded or upgraded personally.

The door opened quickly and he slipped inside, closing after him with a soft thunk. The Assassin crouched down immediately and rolled into cover near the doorway by the stairs. No contacts showed on his tool so he assumed that no employee was patrolling the stairwell.

Still, he pulled one of the prototype pistols from his waist and readied it for use, best not to take chances. His masked face peered over the side of the railing and spied no one in the immediate area. Although, there were security cameras placed in ones on every floor.

He spied the one pointed at the doorway and thanked his armor for its passive stealth systems that gave a small delay to being detected. As long as he was fast enough and did not linger, the cameras would not be able to pick him up. Speed was his ally in this instance.

Taking a deep breath, he steadied his nerves and primed his lean, hard as steel muscles. He was going to perform a vault down four stories. Silent as a whisper, he grabbed the railing tightly with his gloves and swung over the side to glide downwards. He softly made his approach and just kissed the floor making an unnoticeable sound. Quickly he waived his right glove at the camera and the small red light next to the lens died.

Using his window of opportunity he slid into the locked door, it opening without much difficulty. Inside the room he could see seven individuals on his gadget. The room looked like a server core or something much like one. Three of the guards were near his hidden position behind in an alcove. The other four were spread out among the electronic pillars of hard data. The ones that he could see where in thick full white armor, and had the Templar cross brazenly marking their right pectoral plates. These were the best soldiers of Templar security, the so-called knights of the modern age. Still, they posed a very serious threat; no doubt each had killed their fair share of Assassins.

He flexed his left wrist and the hidden blade shot forth from its confine. He pressed a button on the side of his glove and it came out all the way, smooth hilt fitting firmly into his hand. Each of the blades was about ten or so inches in length and made of the finest crafted steel. They were stained a dull black to prevent reflections from giving away his position, as was the case with his armor.

The assassin waited for an hour, not moving a muscle as he hard wired the guards paths into his brain. Once he was sure he would not make a mistake he burst from his concealed position to softly place his back on one of the data spires. He waited until one of the guards was far from his companions and stalked over to him. The armored man stopped next to a spire a few feet from the assassin's location and looked around with his white helm, gripping his highly customized rifle securely in his grip.

Quiet as death, the assassin crawled to his target, weaving past the nearest computing tower. And just as the guard looked to the left he shot out and buried the blade into his throat from behind, wedging the dagger in-between the chinks of the armor. The thin blade easily pierced the mesh-like gorget and spilled little to no blood as it sliced through his victim's airways.

The guard gurgled inaudibly and vainly tried to clutch at his neck as he slid to the floor lifelessly. The assassin guided the dying man to the cold ground and whispered a quick prayer in Latin. Once his dead enemy had been tended to he rose to a half crouch and snuck to his next victim. In short order he neutralized the entire rooms guard force and stood up after watching the last guard drop from a piercing dagger to the heart, the blade sliding out of his victim as he fell.

The assassin wiped off the small amount of crimson liquid he had stained his blade with using the trim of his cloak. Looking around one last time he opened the door to the server room and slipped out into a large hallway.

The white walled hallway had the Abstergo logo on both sides and a single guard patrolled it. It was just regular fellow, am average Joe in a white and blue uniform, armed only with a flashlight and a radio. He was semi-portly and honestly was not that much of a threat.

The assassin stood up from his hiding place and walked over to the slightly piggish guard. The poor fellow flinched at seeing the assassin appear suddenly from out of the blue and stuttered with as much courage as he could. "W-who a-are y-y-you?"

The assassin shrugged and responded in a soft and pleasant voice. "Salve amicus." Then he shot the startled man in the chest with his pistol, the low energy charge knocked the portly fellow out post haste. He hit the floor hard and the assassin gently lifted him in his surprisingly strong hands and leaned him against the wall carefully. 'Somnus amici mei."

He left the unconscious guard and followed the path to his objective. If the schematics were right, he should shorty be coming up on the piece of Eden, and once he retrieved it, he would make good on his escape.

After bypassing a few more guards and travelling through many rooms, he stopped at a nondescript room guarded only by a small glowing keypad. Alarm bells began to signal off in his head and he stared at the door suspiciously. His device said that what he desired was on the opposite side, but this was all too easy. His assassin senses were going haywire and he always trusted them. That could only mean one thing....

This was a trap.

This left the assassin with a hard decision to make. He could either trigger it. And hope that he could make it out with the artifact if it was even in there....or he could walk away. Neither were the best of plans, but there was no way he could walk away now. Too many had died to secure this information and it would be dishonorable to not take the same risk.

The assassin sighed and walked into the light to stand in front of the door. He raised his armored boot and smashed through the obstruction with its enhanced strength. The steel door flew off its hinges to clatter against the tiled floor and he examined the interior. This was no longer about stealth; the enemy already knew that he was coming so wasting time being quiet was pointless. Sheathing all his weapons, the assassin grabbed the small cylinder on his waist and activated the rune on the center.

It extended into a silver poled glaive, the angular blade atop unfolding to its deadly point. The pole of the weapon was made up of strong industrial strength steel and the foot long blade was sharp enough to cleave through steel and flesh with equal efficiency. Atop the glaive was a long barrel that ran along the back of the blade, it could fire energy projectiles, much in the same fashion of his pistols.

Every assassin created their own personal armament, and he had spent a long time doting on his. He was proud of the weapon and while archaic, it had yet to fail him. Gripping the shaft firmly in his gloved palms, he strode into the dark room.

It was a small place, only a couple dozen feet down and wide. At the center was a pedestal display which held the piece of Eden. To be honest the assassin was surprised to see it actually there and not a fake as he had anticipated.

But it was oddly shaped, all the ones he had seen before were spherical in form, but he had heard of Eden staves. This particular one appeared to be a crane hooked staff, a goldish brown color. It was around the same size as his glaive and larger than he had expected. It glowed softly with light and looked resplendent in its wonder, like an ancient pharaoh's staff. He suspected this might have had influence in the ancient Egyptian kingdoms of years past.

Stepping lightly into the room, he walked over to the relic, wary of any traps. Yet again he was mystified when he made it to the artifact in one piece. With a frown he grabbed the glowing thing and placed it on his back where it fit snuggly in a holster like contraption.

He searched around the room with his eyes and found nothing off; shaking his head in disbelief the assassin turned and left the room. As he walked back the way he came he wondered why he was still alive, or more importantly why he had met no resistance so far.

It made his blood boil with unease and he set himself on escaping. He had to reach the roof, from there; he should get picked up by a hover chopper and make his way back to the hidden guild base in Rome. From there they could learn more about this artifact and hopefully unveil this piece's power.

On the roof, the assassin stepped out to await his pickup. Yet as the minutes dragged on, he began to worry. He sent a quick encrypted text to his junior assassin, a kid he had been training for a few years.

Where are you? I have the artifact.

The device on his arm did not beep for a full minute, and when it did, he felt the blood in his veins thin into ice-water as he stared hard at the ominous text.

Code black....you have been compromised. The Templar were waiting for me. Lost the chopper, had to pull back. RUN!

The assassin growled and turned to see if he could get off the roof and perhaps he could somehow backtrack in the tower and to get to street level. But even as he turned, several of those armored guards walked onto the roof. As they lowered their rifles at him, he watched as another figure entered their little gathering. He, sensing defeat, compacted his glaive and placed it back on his waist, ready to bolt if he could only find a way to escape.

The old white man was in an old fashioned business suit and even had a briefcase. He cleared his throat and fixed his tie before staring at the assassin with an almost uninterested expression. "You assassins will always baffle me. No matter how hard we try to crush you, you simply won't do the honorable thing and die. You should know by now, we have eyes and ears everywhere, even in your precious...order." He grunted that name out sourly, as if it had sullied his mouth. "You are nothing but a pawn in a much larger game my dear fellow. Even an assassin such as you with an inferior intellect must have known this was a trap, and yet still you fell right into it. I suppose this is why you are all dying out, taking unnecessary risks."

He tutted in disappointment and frowned at the assassin. "You see, now we have you trapped on the roof, and no doubt you have just been informed that your accomplice is unable to save you. Now see reason sir, you can try to run...where as my loyal soldiers here will fill you full of holes in a most unpleasant, unseemly, and ignoble death. Or you can surrender and return the artifact to me. Whereas I will pry out any information you may have...and probably kill you anyways."

The old man chuckled wryly as the assassin stared back at him with his expressionless black mask. "I thought that might be your answer, you assassins all seem to face your demise so stoically." The old man clapped deprecatingly. "I applaud your loyalty to your cause, as misguided and faulty as it is."

The old Templar turned and began to walk back into the building without a backwards glance. "Kill him, and bring back the relic, perhaps the next assassin to try will be more pliable."

The brace of rifles all clattered their death knell and the assassin swiftly pivoted on his heels and turned to run to the edge. A repetitive thunderous booming cacophony of gunfire chased after him and he felt the impacts of a dozen heavy caliber rounds against his back plate and lower extremities. A few of them penetrated his armor and he felt the searing hot bullets tear into his guts and through his left leg and right thigh.

His sprint faltered at the cusp of the roof's edge and he twisted as he fell over the side, his last act of defiance denying his enemy the piece of Eden. As he fell chased by gunfire, he felt blood hurtling out of his body as his heavier weight took him past the fluids leaking from his soon to be corpse.

While his body plummeted from the extreme height, he pondered on his life and had suddenly found himself whishing that he was far away from this pain filled world that he lived in, that he was somewhere far, far from here where he didn't have to worry about Templars or their maniacal plots of world domination, where he did not have to watch almost daily as his fellows died to keep the order clinging on to the world with every sacrifice made.

The sound of the wind throttling past his ears was slowly overcome by a vibrant and deep humming issuing from his back. Not really caring at this point he casually looked over his shoulder past his cloak to see the Eden relic glowing a glittering rosy white that quickly encompassed his entire body.

Later on witnesses from the street claimed that a man had fallen off a building and turned into golden starlight, before fading into oblivion.