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Description
December 19, 2015; Indianapolis, Indiana

We could hear voices arguing from within the depths of the hideout when we arrived. Nothing serious, just a casual but heated debate going on. I recognized the voices bickering as belonging to Chelsea and Jacob.

“You have to admit they have a point though,” I heard Jacob plead.

“Hmm no I don't,” Chelsea said, clearly unfazed by anything he had said prior.

“The Templars have a fair mindset. They want to give the world order.”

Ah. So that's what this was about. Jacob was playing devil's advocate again. He always had sympathies for the Templars, despite all the atrocities they've committed over the millennia. And I guess who could blame him? The Templar way, the way of control and power, it can sound so tempting to a lot of people, a seemingly simple fix to all problems. Never mind all the flaws and gaps it leaves, and all the evil that can spawn from it quick as weeds. It's simple, it's easy, it's alluring, and that's why it's dangerous. Too dangerous.

And Jacob couldn't have found a worse person to plead his case to than Chelsea. That woman is the living embodiment of the Creed. She taught me everything, and now she was set on schooling him as well.

“Yes, they want to give the world order,” she said calmly, like she already knew she would win this debate and thus had nothing to worry about. “But they'd take away our freedom and humanity to do it.”

“But if people are free to do absolutely anything, they'll naturally do evil things.”

“Ignoring the fact that that claim in itself is just generalizing and wrong, you misunderstand our idea of freedom, hun.”

“Fine then. What am I missing?”

“Actions have consequences. In a free world, if one person tries to screw over everyone else, then the responsibility falls to everyone else to make sure they either pay for their crimes or stop them before it happens. In this way, we all learn responsibility. We all learn to work together to make the world a better place. Because if we don't stand together, we fall together.”

“But people don't take responsibility.”

“We're people. We take responsibility.”

Jacob paused for a moment. He didn't have an easy response to that one.

“Well… we're different,” he said. “We're something beyond the people. Protectors.”

“We're not beyond the people at all,” said Chelsea, still calm and confident. “We're one with them. And we embrace that.”

“But humans are inherently evil.”

“I'd argue otherwise.”

“There needs to be some sort of guiding force to keep people from doing evil things.”

“And what happens when that guiding force begins to use their power to do evil things? Or worse, force others to do evil things in their name?”

“...Well… then… other people would have to stop them from doing that.”

“Oh, so if people will just naturally rise up against evil rulers and do what's right anyways no matter what those rulers say, tell me: What then is the point of having a ruler in the first place?”

Jacob was quiet again. Chelsea merely sat and smiled casually and let the gears grind in his head.

“Because people suck,” he stuttered. His voice was rising a bit.

“And I'd say that attitude sucks,” Chelsea said with a shrug.

“You're not listening!”

“I am listening, hun. But what you need to realize is that there's a world of difference between listening and agreeing.”

That was when Ava and I walked into the hideout living room. Chelsea turned to me and smiled brightly. “Hey squirt!” she said.

“Sup dweeb?” I responded with a smile.

“The mission went well?”

“Well, we ran into some trouble, but we got the job done.”

Ava had gone over to Ben and Ruby, who welcomed her back just as warmly and took her over to fix up her wounds.

“Oh? What kind of trouble?” Chelsea asked me. “I didn't see the any of the mission footage yet.”

“You guys recording us?”

“How do you think we know what you guys are doing out there while we're in here? We've got little drone cameras.”

“Huh. Fair enough.”

Suddenly Jacob chimed in: “You said there was trouble?” he asked, going back to a casual tone.

I shrugged. “Yeah,” I said. “A few guards and this one Templar chick set on exacting revenge on me, but you know.”

“Wait what?” Chelsea said.

“Yeah. She was pretty rude. Guess she takes after her mother. God knows she has Natasha’s attitude.”

Suddenly, Chelsea’s face went paler than I’ve ever seen before and her expression immediately shifted to one of absolute dread. “You ran into Natasha Wolfgang’s daughter?” she asked carefully.

I turned serious as well upon seeing my cousin in distress. “Um…” I said. “Yeah I suppose I did. Weird huh?”

She didn't say anything. She just let her head fall into her palm. “Oh my god…” she said.

“Chelsea?” I was legitimately worried now.

“She should be dead…” she said. “I thought I killed her…”

“You know Jessica?”

“It's… a long story.”

“We've got time,” Jacob said.

Chelsea looked up at us both, and after a moment of silence, she sighed.

“It all happened before you even joined the Brotherhood,” she said to me. “2012. I was in a bad place back then… I had depression, I'd just lost Hannah to Daniel Cross the year before, and now I had this little demon, Jessica Wolfgang threatening us. She chased me all across the country. Indy, New York, everywhere I went, she seemed to follow me with a knife at the ready. And then, in December, I finally stuck a knife in her heart… Or at least I thought I did…”

I could see the distress on her face. Who could blame her? A terrible enemy from her past had sprung back to haunt her. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Well Chels,” I said. “Don't be worrying about it. She's not after you anymore. She's after me.”

Chelsea looked at me and gave a weak smile. “Hun,” she said, “that's what scares me the most.”

Suddenly, Ruby and her friends came over and she chimed in. “I wonder if killing you is the only reason she came back to Indy,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you weren't the only one who found some goodies in Abstergo’s servers. Ava found some pretty interesting intel too.”

“What kind of intel?”

“The Templars have a lead on another Piece of Eden somewhere in the city.”

“Wait. What?”

“Yeah. Nothing solid, but they seem pretty convinced that there's something somewhere.”

“Do we know what kind of artifact it is?” Chelsea asked.

“Hmm… not really. Sorry. I saw hints and speculations, but nothing really. Something about weather manipulation or elemental powers or… something like that.”

Chelsea’s face went pale again. “Oh god…” she said.

“Chels?” I asked, worried again.

“I know what it is…”

“What?”

“Something else that I thought I destroyed…”

“Chels?”

“...August 2011… We had a lead on a Piece of Eden. The weather had been out of whack…”

“The weather's always out of whack. It's Indiana.”

Chelsea smiled at my joke. “True, but it was worse than usual. A terrible series of storms was rolling in lately, and we found out that the cause of it all was an artifact, or rather four artifacts combined into one. Four Marbles latched into a Staff. Each one controlled a different ‘element’. Air, water, etc. Well, Daniel Cross had gotten his hands on one that day and brought hell upon the city with a storm. Tore down that fairgrounds stage before I could stop him… There were only seven deaths in the collapse… but that's seven too many…”

“So what happened?” Jacob asked.

“Well, first I beat the crap out of Cross. I would've finished him off if it wasn't for Hannah urging me to take the Marbles and run. I guess some part of me somehow knew it would be the last thing she would ever ask me to do, so... I did. I ran, and I made sure to destroy that thing so that nothing like that day would ever happen again.”

“Well,” Ruby said. “Sorry to say, Chels, but it really seems like there's another one somewhere around here.”

“It would explain why this state gets such wacky weather every year,” I said. I put a hand on my cousin's shoulder. “We'll find it, Chels. Don't worry. And we'll be sure to destroy it when we get our hands on it.”

She looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back. I wasn't about to let her past haunt her like this. She's my cousin. She's done so much for me over the years. It's my responsibility to repay that kindness.

“We'll get to work on following Abstergo’s leads on the thing,” Ben said. “The second we know something, we'll let you know.”

We nodded, and with that, they got to work on their search, chatting away with each other as they did. Ava still looked shyly at Ruby, longingly. Poor girl was ruined by love and her inability to express it. Come on, Ava. I know you can do it.

Oh well. For now, I guess we should stay focused on this story, huh? Right. Let's do that.

A few minutes later, Jacob had tapped me on the shoulder. I pulled away from my laptop and spun around in my chair to face him.

“Hey dude,” I said. “What's up?”

“Not much. I was just curious about something?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“You mentioned artifacts before. What did you call them? ‘Pieces of Eden’?”

“Yep.”

“Well… what are they?”

“Templars never told you?”

“I was only with them a few weeks.”

“Eh, fair enough.”

“So what are they?”

“Well… it's… it's a bit farfetched. You probably wouldn't believe me.”

“Try me.”

I shrugged. “Alrighty then.” I cleared my throat. “You know all the myths and legends you hear growing up? All the folktales and religions of the world?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what if I told you they were all true… in a sense.”

His eyes widened. “Wha?” he said, disbelieving as I predicted.

“There was an ancient race of hominids that evolved long before we did, Jacob. A Precursor Race. A First Civilization. They were technologically advanced far beyond anything we as a species could dream of becoming. They built towering cities, invented unimaginable machines, and—my personal favorite accomplishment of theirs—they created humans.”

“...What?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. I didn't blame him. I didn't believe it when Chelsea told me for the first time either. I slowly warmed up to the idea. But I never fully believed until I saw the power of the Pieces of Eden for myself…

“See,” I said to Jacob. “Told you you wouldn't believe me. But anyways, the Pieces of Eden are the technologies they created, ancient relics left behind after the Precursors’ extinction. Those artifacts then became hidden over time, and became things of legends. Golden Apples from the gods, flaming Swords with unbelievable powers, magic Shrouds that heal any wound. Adam and Eve, Perseus, Jason and the Argonauts. All of them real.”

“You're joking…”

“Nope. Fraid not. These artifacts have been at the center of Assassin-Templar conflict ever since the beginning. The Templars always wanted them for control. The Assassins just wanted them out of Templar hands.”

“This all sounds really ridiculous, Carter.”

“I thought the same thing once.”

“And want made you change your mind?”

I smiled. “I held one in my hands once, and I felt it's evil power right before I destroyed it.” My smile faded slightly at the memory of what went down in the laboratory of the mad doctor Patricia Cassidy. It was a place of evil indeed.

Still, Jacob shrugged me off. “Well, then I guess that's the proof I'll need,” he said. “If I see it, I'll believe it.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

He nodded, and then went off to do his thing, probably checking to see if he had any missions, or simply going home to his family if he didn't. I went back to my computer and chatted the rest of the afternoon away with my friends online. I smiled. The next few weeks was going to be a wild ride, I could tell.

------------

January 9, 2016; Indianapolis, Indiana

The holidays had passed, and thankfully we all had a merry time these past few weeks. Templars were going quiet again. How polite of them to lay low and let us celebrate how we kicked their sorry hides.

Ava had recovered for the most part, enough that she was actively willing to hop back into the Animus. I was ready to go from the start, so I hopped into my chair the second Ava did so as well. Ruby grabbed both our Animi and placed the headsets on our heads. She got Ava all hooked up and sent her back to Indonesia before turning to me and bringing the visor down over my eyes.

“Here we go again,” she said excitedly.

I smiled as the inside of the visor lit up and filled my vision with a white void of ones and zeroes and double helixes. I heard Ruby clacking away on her keyboard, and I saw a section of a digital DNA strand start to blink, ready to be selected.

“Alright kid,” I heard Ruby say. “Priscilla’s awaitin’. I'm ready when you're ready.”

“I'm ready,” I told her confidently.

“Alrighty then. I'm loading up the memories now.”

“Good luck, squirt,” I heard Chelsea say.

“Thanks dweeb,” I replied.

“Don't die,” she joked.

“I make no promises,” I joked back.

The blinking strand of DNA suddenly exploded into a flash of blinding white light, engulfing my vision as I felt my own mind shift to another.

The hideout went from humming with the sound of computers to remaining silent and tranquil save for the pleasant noises of the city outside. Priscilla looked down at the book she was reading, enjoying the sounds of Indianapolis from her room in this quaint little warehouse hideout. Her reading was interrupted by footsteps sounding from the door.

“Priscilla dear!” Aveza said to her as she came in. Priscilla smiled and put her book down.

“Aveza! How’re you?”

“Oh just fine, dear. I just wanted to drop in and ask if you wanted to accompany me on a little business trip to Hartford?”

“Absolutely! I'd love to!”

“Splendid! Come along then, the carriage is already awaiting us outside.”

Priscilla stood from her chair and grabbed her hidden blade bracer. And then she followed her mentor downstairs and to the carriage that would soon be off to take them to their next destination.

Description
December 19, 2015; Indianapolis, Indiana

We could hear voices arguing from within the depths of the hideout when we arrived. Nothing serious, just a casual but heated debate going on. I recognized the voices bickering as belonging to Chelsea and Jacob.

“You have to admit they have a point though,” I heard Jacob plead.

“Hmm no I don't,” Chelsea said, clearly unfazed by anything he had said prior.

“The Templars have a fair mindset. They want to give the world order.”

Ah. So that's what this was about. Jacob was playing devil's advocate again. He always had sympathies for the Templars, despite all the atrocities they've committed over the millennia. And I guess who could blame him? The Templar way, the way of control and power, it can sound so tempting to a lot of people, a seemingly simple fix to all problems. Never mind all the flaws and gaps it leaves, and all the evil that can spawn from it quick as weeds. It's simple, it's easy, it's alluring, and that's why it's dangerous. Too dangerous.

And Jacob couldn't have found a worse person to plead his case to than Chelsea. That woman is the living embodiment of the Creed. She taught me everything, and now she was set on schooling him as well.

“Yes, they want to give the world order,” she said calmly, like she already knew she would win this debate and thus had nothing to worry about. “But they'd take away our freedom and humanity to do it.”

“But if people are free to do absolutely anything, they'll naturally do evil things.”

“Ignoring the fact that that claim in itself is just generalizing and wrong, you misunderstand our idea of freedom, hun.”

“Fine then. What am I missing?”

“Actions have consequences. In a free world, if one person tries to screw over everyone else, then the responsibility falls to everyone else to make sure they either pay for their crimes or stop them before it happens. In this way, we all learn responsibility. We all learn to work together to make the world a better place. Because if we don't stand together, we fall together.”

“But people don't take responsibility.”

“We're people. We take responsibility.”

Jacob paused for a moment. He didn't have an easy response to that one.

“Well… we're different,” he said. “We're something beyond the people. Protectors.”

“We're not beyond the people at all,” said Chelsea, still calm and confident. “We're one with them. And we embrace that.”

“But humans are inherently evil.”

“I'd argue otherwise.”

“There needs to be some sort of guiding force to keep people from doing evil things.”

“And what happens when that guiding force begins to use their power to do evil things? Or worse, force others to do evil things in their name?”

“...Well… then… other people would have to stop them from doing that.”

“Oh, so if people will just naturally rise up against evil rulers and do what's right anyways no matter what those rulers say, tell me: What then is the point of having a ruler in the first place?”

Jacob was quiet again. Chelsea merely sat and smiled casually and let the gears grind in his head.

“Because people suck,” he stuttered. His voice was rising a bit.

“And I'd say that attitude sucks,” Chelsea said with a shrug.

“You're not listening!”

“I am listening, hun. But what you need to realize is that there's a world of difference between listening and agreeing.”

That was when Ava and I walked into the hideout living room. Chelsea turned to me and smiled brightly. “Hey squirt!” she said.

“Sup dweeb?” I responded with a smile.

“The mission went well?”

“Well, we ran into some trouble, but we got the job done.”

Ava had gone over to Ben and Ruby, who welcomed her back just as warmly and took her over to fix up her wounds.

“Oh? What kind of trouble?” Chelsea asked me. “I didn't see the any of the mission footage yet.”

“You guys recording us?”

“How do you think we know what you guys are doing out there while we're in here? We've got little drone cameras.”

“Huh. Fair enough.”

Suddenly Jacob chimed in: “You said there was trouble?” he asked, going back to a casual tone.

I shrugged. “Yeah,” I said. “A few guards and this one Templar chick set on exacting revenge on me, but you know.”

“Wait what?” Chelsea said.

“Yeah. She was pretty rude. Guess she takes after her mother. God knows she has Natasha’s attitude.”

Suddenly, Chelsea’s face went paler than I’ve ever seen before and her expression immediately shifted to one of absolute dread. “You ran into Natasha Wolfgang’s daughter?” she asked carefully.

I turned serious as well upon seeing my cousin in distress. “Um…” I said. “Yeah I suppose I did. Weird huh?”

She didn't say anything. She just let her head fall into her palm. “Oh my god…” she said.

“Chelsea?” I was legitimately worried now.

“She should be dead…” she said. “I thought I killed her…”

“You know Jessica?”

“It's… a long story.”

“We've got time,” Jacob said.

Chelsea looked up at us both, and after a moment of silence, she sighed.

“It all happened before you even joined the Brotherhood,” she said to me. “2012. I was in a bad place back then… I had depression, I'd just lost Hannah to Daniel Cross the year before, and now I had this little demon, Jessica Wolfgang threatening us. She chased me all across the country. Indy, New York, everywhere I went, she seemed to follow me with a knife at the ready. And then, in December, I finally stuck a knife in her heart… Or at least I thought I did…”

I could see the distress on her face. Who could blame her? A terrible enemy from her past had sprung back to haunt her. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Well Chels,” I said. “Don't be worrying about it. She's not after you anymore. She's after me.”

Chelsea looked at me and gave a weak smile. “Hun,” she said, “that's what scares me the most.”

Suddenly, Ruby and her friends came over and she chimed in. “I wonder if killing you is the only reason she came back to Indy,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you weren't the only one who found some goodies in Abstergo’s servers. Ava found some pretty interesting intel too.”

“What kind of intel?”

“The Templars have a lead on another Piece of Eden somewhere in the city.”

“Wait. What?”

“Yeah. Nothing solid, but they seem pretty convinced that there's something somewhere.”

“Do we know what kind of artifact it is?” Chelsea asked.

“Hmm… not really. Sorry. I saw hints and speculations, but nothing really. Something about weather manipulation or elemental powers or… something like that.”

Chelsea’s face went pale again. “Oh god…” she said.

“Chels?” I asked, worried again.

“I know what it is…”

“What?”

“Something else that I thought I destroyed…”

“Chels?”

“...August 2011… We had a lead on a Piece of Eden. The weather had been out of whack…”

“The weather's always out of whack. It's Indiana.”

Chelsea smiled at my joke. “True, but it was worse than usual. A terrible series of storms was rolling in lately, and we found out that the cause of it all was an artifact, or rather four artifacts combined into one. Four Marbles latched into a Staff. Each one controlled a different ‘element’. Air, water, etc. Well, Daniel Cross had gotten his hands on one that day and brought hell upon the city with a storm. Tore down that fairgrounds stage before I could stop him… There were only seven deaths in the collapse… but that's seven too many…”

“So what happened?” Jacob asked.

“Well, first I beat the crap out of Cross. I would've finished him off if it wasn't for Hannah urging me to take the Marbles and run. I guess some part of me somehow knew it would be the last thing she would ever ask me to do, so... I did. I ran, and I made sure to destroy that thing so that nothing like that day would ever happen again.”

“Well,” Ruby said. “Sorry to say, Chels, but it really seems like there's another one somewhere around here.”

“It would explain why this state gets such wacky weather every year,” I said. I put a hand on my cousin's shoulder. “We'll find it, Chels. Don't worry. And we'll be sure to destroy it when we get our hands on it.”

She looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back. I wasn't about to let her past haunt her like this. She's my cousin. She's done so much for me over the years. It's my responsibility to repay that kindness.

“We'll get to work on following Abstergo’s leads on the thing,” Ben said. “The second we know something, we'll let you know.”

We nodded, and with that, they got to work on their search, chatting away with each other as they did. Ava still looked shyly at Ruby, longingly. Poor girl was ruined by love and her inability to express it. Come on, Ava. I know you can do it.

Oh well. For now, I guess we should stay focused on this story, huh? Right. Let's do that.

A few minutes later, Jacob had tapped me on the shoulder. I pulled away from my laptop and spun around in my chair to face him.

“Hey dude,” I said. “What's up?”

“Not much. I was just curious about something?”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“You mentioned artifacts before. What did you call them? ‘Pieces of Eden’?”

“Yep.”

“Well… what are they?”

“Templars never told you?”

“I was only with them a few weeks.”

“Eh, fair enough.”

“So what are they?”

“Well… it's… it's a bit farfetched. You probably wouldn't believe me.”

“Try me.”

I shrugged. “Alrighty then.” I cleared my throat. “You know all the myths and legends you hear growing up? All the folktales and religions of the world?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what if I told you they were all true… in a sense.”

His eyes widened. “Wha?” he said, disbelieving as I predicted.

“There was an ancient race of hominids that evolved long before we did, Jacob. A Precursor Race. A First Civilization. They were technologically advanced far beyond anything we as a species could dream of becoming. They built towering cities, invented unimaginable machines, and—my personal favorite accomplishment of theirs—they created humans.”

“...What?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. I didn't blame him. I didn't believe it when Chelsea told me for the first time either. I slowly warmed up to the idea. But I never fully believed until I saw the power of the Pieces of Eden for myself…

“See,” I said to Jacob. “Told you you wouldn't believe me. But anyways, the Pieces of Eden are the technologies they created, ancient relics left behind after the Precursors’ extinction. Those artifacts then became hidden over time, and became things of legends. Golden Apples from the gods, flaming Swords with unbelievable powers, magic Shrouds that heal any wound. Adam and Eve, Perseus, Jason and the Argonauts. All of them real.”

“You're joking…”

“Nope. Fraid not. These artifacts have been at the center of Assassin-Templar conflict ever since the beginning. The Templars always wanted them for control. The Assassins just wanted them out of Templar hands.”

“This all sounds really ridiculous, Carter.”

“I thought the same thing once.”

“And want made you change your mind?”

I smiled. “I held one in my hands once, and I felt it's evil power right before I destroyed it.” My smile faded slightly at the memory of what went down in the laboratory of the mad doctor Patricia Cassidy. It was a place of evil indeed.

Still, Jacob shrugged me off. “Well, then I guess that's the proof I'll need,” he said. “If I see it, I'll believe it.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

He nodded, and then went off to do his thing, probably checking to see if he had any missions, or simply going home to his family if he didn't. I went back to my computer and chatted the rest of the afternoon away with my friends online. I smiled. The next few weeks was going to be a wild ride, I could tell.

------------

January 9, 2016; Indianapolis, Indiana

The holidays had passed, and thankfully we all had a merry time these past few weeks. Templars were going quiet again. How polite of them to lay low and let us celebrate how we kicked their sorry hides.

Ava had recovered for the most part, enough that she was actively willing to hop back into the Animus. I was ready to go from the start, so I hopped into my chair the second Ava did so as well. Ruby grabbed both our Animi and placed the headsets on our heads. She got Ava all hooked up and sent her back to Indonesia before turning to me and bringing the visor down over my eyes.

“Here we go again,” she said excitedly.

I smiled as the inside of the visor lit up and filled my vision with a white void of ones and zeroes and double helixes. I heard Ruby clacking away on her keyboard, and I saw a section of a digital DNA strand start to blink, ready to be selected.

“Alright kid,” I heard Ruby say. “Priscilla’s awaitin’. I'm ready when you're ready.”

“I'm ready,” I told her confidently.

“Alrighty then. I'm loading up the memories now.”

“Good luck, squirt,” I heard Chelsea say.

“Thanks dweeb,” I replied.

“Don't die,” she joked.

“I make no promises,” I joked back.

The blinking strand of DNA suddenly exploded into a flash of blinding white light, engulfing my vision as I felt my own mind shift to another.

The hideout went from humming with the sound of computers to remaining silent and tranquil save for the pleasant noises of the city outside. Priscilla looked down at the book she was reading, enjoying the sounds of Indianapolis from her room in this quaint little warehouse hideout. Her reading was interrupted by footsteps sounding from the door.

“Priscilla dear!” Aveza said to her as she came in. Priscilla smiled and put her book down.

“Aveza! How’re you?”

“Oh just fine, dear. I just wanted to drop in and ask if you wanted to accompany me on a little business trip to Hartford?”

“Absolutely! I'd love to!”

“Splendid! Come along then, the carriage is already awaiting us outside.”

Priscilla stood from her chair and grabbed her hidden blade bracer. And then she followed her mentor downstairs and to the carriage that would soon be off to take them to their next destination.