Hey there guys, Zora(formally known as Oblivion's Creed) here, and I am back!

For those of you clicking on the link to this story and have never read any of my other works before(which are terrible; you have been warned), I have done two former Assassin's Creed stories in the past and this one is for the fans anticipating the next game as much as I am.

Just like last year's story, Grim, I will be working on this project until the release date of the actual game, so between now and October 28th(US release) I will be putting out as many chapters as possible. And yes, I do plan on ending the story on the release date. Remember this is just my interpretation of what the game and its story will be like even though I will know just about as much as you guys as we wait.

Also, please, for both my sake and yours, could you as the readers please tell me how my story is coming along as you read? I don't care if you have to say that my work is a piece of shit, I just want to know how I, as an author(a loosely used term), can improve. I want to make my stories enjoyable, and you have the power to tell me how to do so, whether it be the details that I need to provide or just a new writing style in general.

Please let me know.

Anyway, enough talking, enjoy.

Chapter 1: The Poor's Burden

France had been in turmoil long before the poor began to revolt against the privileged. The Seven Year's War placed the French Republic in tremendous debt, and by aiding the Americans in their fight for freedom, the nation nearly fell into ruin. For over a decade, the citizens of France had marched to the gates of their King and clergy in order to have their voices heard about the expanding destruction that was taking place on the streets.

I remember watching from the safety of my family's palais as men and women in ragged clothing stirred angrily outside of our home while shouting obscenities and tossing rotten vegetables at our guards. The year was only 1780, two years after France's declaration to join the fight against Britain's rule over the colonies, and the people were already rioting against their government. I would never forget the sight of my father stepping out into the chaos to address the citizens while ordering the cooks to ration some food for the starving patrons.

It was during that moment that I believed he could fix anything.

My father had a welcoming smile, one that could melt ice, and he never showed any other emotion besides happiness. That man was very charismatic and always had a solution to any problem, even if the situation seemed beyond repair. Now that I recall his attitude, he was also quick-witted, never one to miss a good comeback to a joke.

Why had I never noticed the signs before?

I was young, I suppose. All little girls believe their fathers are the warriors we hear from stories and read from books. I used to picture him as a gladiator fighting against men as tall as mountains while lions surrounded him on all sides. It was a thrilling picture to see as a child, and as I look back at those memories, I nearly chuckle at how close the image would relate to the troubles he faced at the time.

Sadly, as the winter of 1781 drew closer, the lions became fiercer and the mountains grew in size. More citizens stormed against our gates and pleaded for food that my family could no longer afford to give. The people we had aided and prevented from starving to death had turned their backs on us, growling slurs while pressing their weight against the iron bars of our fence. It was during this troubling time that I noticed the worry on my father's face. I recall questioning him if the poor waiting outside would forgive us for not being to provide for them, and he glanced at me with troublesome eyes and a warm smile. He patted me gently on the head and told me not to fret.

"Everything will be alright," he had reassured before leading me to my bed and tucked me under my covers. He kissed my forehead before distinguishing the candle on my dresser and left the room. I don't remember dozing off, but the recollection of waking to a thunderous clank of metal still reverberates through my skull like the crackle of a flintlock.

When I finally reached my bedroom window that overlooked the acre of land that separated my family's palais from the main road to Paris, the familiar glow of the citizen's torches that used to linger beyond the grassy fields were now a mere few feet away from our front door. The place where our fence had once been was torn to the ground from the weight of the crowd that now marched onto our land with pitchforks, sickles and other equipment they could use as a weapon.

I don't think I ever made a sound as I watched the horde of people invade our home. They came through the windows first while a few of them knocked the doors from their hinges. My body was frozen in place as they swarmed the servants like ants to an enemy. They didn't stop their attacks until the last drop of blood drained from the bodies of the men and woman whom I had known my entire life; who had raised me since I drew my first breath. They were not murdered, no…they were slaughtered…worse than cattle.

I was almost certain that I was destined to die that night, but I did not. As I stared wide-eyed at the incoming barrage of human bodies that jumped the foyer steps two at a time, the strong arms of someone behind me grabbed my waist and hurried down the corridor. We quickly entered the last door on the right before the man jammed a candle holder in between the handles of the door. The person had gently lowered me back to the ground and upon first glance at my savior, I was in shock at the man I had seen.

His normally slicked-back, brown hair was in disarray while his blue eyes were wide with adrenaline. This man was not the same person I hugged and spoke to every day; my father would never allow for anyone to see him with cloths in such a disarray and an unshaven beard. Dark, red liquid stained his coat while fresh cuts and bruises marred his face and knuckles.

Almost every night for the next eight years, I would relive that moment of my father pressing his hands onto my cheeks that were wet with tears as he encourages me to be strong. His eyes had watered up as well, but he did not cry. He just smiled warmly before pulling me to his body with a tight embrace while telling me he loves me both in this life and the next. Pounding of fists on the doors drew us apart as my father pulls me to my doll house in the back of the room before tugging on the candle stick that was perched on the wall above us.

When the estate was built over five decades ago, a maze of corridors were designed into the walls to allow the servants to travel the palais without upsetting the guests who were visiting our home. My father had the secret passage way sealed off when he inherited the building years before my birth as he saw them irrelevant to the purpose of having servants.

However, at the age of six, I found myself discovering the entrances to this long forgotten tunnel system by accident while playing in my toy room. He must of known that I had come across them because as soon as the small entrance popped open, he turned towards me and kneeled to look at me straight in the eye. His hands were visibly shaking at this point but he held them strong against my shoulders as he kept his voice calm.

"Follow the corridors to the jardin. Ne pas arrêter. Do not stop for anything!" He pulled me into his arms one last time before kissing my forehead. "Stay strong, ma fleur."

The last thing I saw was the white doors to the toy room break under the pressure of the citizen's bodies before I was tossed into the tunnels and the door sealed tightly to impair my vision from the scene that was to come. The slurs of the citizens were muffled by the thick walls, but I nearly screamed as I heard the thump of a body hitting the ground which was quickly followed by cheers.

Gravity released the tears from my eyes while I sat there in the darkness and listened to the chanting of the people on the other side of barricade. They stood there and sang in victory after slaughtering innocent men and women all because we lived in that estate. The same citizens whom we fed and saved had betrayed us because we could no longer keep giving if we too wanted to survive.

Do not stop for anything!

My body did not want to move; I just wanted to curl into a ball and disappear forever. My chest ached as I laid in a puddle of my own tears. I was only eleven years old at the time; sheltered since birth with no idea what the world was like outside the safety of my family's iron barricade that symbolized a borderline between the rich and the poor.

Ne pas arrêter.

I smelled the smoke first which forced me from the floor out of fear. I may have been young and naïve, but I still had my natural instincts. Smoke meant fire, and fire was never a good sign for anything. Taking a quick breath to calm myself, I placed a hand along the right wall and began my journey to the garden exit.

I knew those tunnels better than I knew the main corridors. The garden was to the left, down a flight of stairs, and then I would take another left into a small opening that would place me right behind a hedge that was installed to hide the entrance to the secret passageway. I had yet to see any of the poor men and women as I exited the estate, but I could hear their hollers of achievement as they danced around the burning bâitment.

I was almost at a loss on what to do next. These people would of surely killed me on the spot despite my young age just for being privileged. I had to be quick-witted….just like my father….

To this day, I still don't remember where the idea came from, but as soon as I realized that I couldn't stay near the palais much longer, I tore the lace from my nightdress and ripped the seams at the bottom to appear as ragged as the poor. All I needed was one final touch. Lying on the ground, I rolled in the soil of the flowerbed until my white gown was nearly the same color as my hair.

As soon as I felt impressionable enough, the image of what happened next still crawls under my skin like fly I can not kill.

A woman who had been standing not too far away immediately noticed me crawl out of the protection of the hedges and instantly rushed in to 'rescue' me. She pulled me away from my burning estate and told me I shouldn't be apart of the chaos and that I should go home.

For a moment I had become so blindsided that I actually tried to attack the woman out of spite.

Go home? YOU burnt down my home! YOU barbarians whom my family fed and saved killed every last person I had known and loved! I should go home? NO! I no longer had anything because YOU savages took everything from me!

I never said those words, but I told her and the men that had grabbed me that they just killed innocent people inside that bâitment, and that they would never be forgiven. Minutes of seething rage had passed and I was eventually knocked unconscious and sent to an orphanage to be taken care of. However, the walls of that shack could no longer contain me and my hatred for the pheasants of France. Nearly a month had passed since the death of my father, and the shock of it all had faded. I had lost every piece of religious belief I had been taught to respect, and nothing drove me more than the thought of killing the hundreds of people who had stormed my house that night.

I was ready to leave these mongrels to their death and starvation. After everything that had happened, I was not about to die the same way they were. I was going to fight and survive; no matter the cost.

I fled from the orphanage in the midst of winter just as the new year brought another wave of sickness and troubles. The back alleys and thieves of the city had become my salvation in my darkest days as the weather drew colder and the food had become more rotten with each passing day. Every second felt like hours as I did everything I could to stay warm and fed whether it was stealing a blanket, hiding in hay bales of local stables, or plucking food from the vendors in the market.

With each obstacle, I had become stronger, faster, and smarter. The once expansive world I had only seen from the protection of my family's garden were now possibilities; although, at the time, I never thought I would live long enough to see them.

That was until I met Tristan Beaudet.

Spring had finally arrived in Paris, and after nearly four months of desperation, I had made it through the worst season of the year. Other citizens did not fair as well as I had, and their bodies either filled the streets or became so malnourished that they no longer had the energy to march against the oppressors of the city. Eventually the carts would come to haul away the corpses, but before they had, the thieves and I had searched for any valuables the pheasants had kept on them.

I know it was a cheap thing to do, but when you are desperate, sometimes you must do what is necessary.

I remember searching an elderly lady's body when the riot broke out on Rue de Rivoli right in front of the Hôtel de Ville. City officials who had locked themselves inside the bâitment had ordered the guards to take care of the mess and wanted anyone within a two block radius executed for anarchy. I was never part of the protest, but orders were orders, and the guards did not want to disappoint the commands from their masters if they wanted to get paid as well as they did.

I was minding my own business in an alley behind the hotel where no others were, but as soon as I had been seen by a passing officer, I was pursued by the bastard. Miscalculating, I ended up trapping myself in a dead end a few blocks down the street. He merely laughed in my face as he grabbed me by my brown hair and threw me against a building wall before squishing his body against mine to hold me still.

At the time, I did not know what he was talking about as he spoke about liking his women young and wondering if I had bled yet. I just remember kneeing him in the inner thigh before escaping halfway through the alleyway; however, he was quick to recover and tackled me to the ground. I kicked and screamed for him to get off of me, but it only made him smile wider.

With little hope left, I stretched my arms out and reached for anything to defend myself with. I had felt a prick on my right and instantly grabbed the object before slamming it against the guard's head. The sound of glass shattering echoed throughout the alleyway as the man hollered in pain. His weight faltered which allowed for me to kick him off before jumping to my feet. The guard cursed while holding his temple where a fresh wound gushed blood at an abnormal rate. He swaggered slightly but the hatred in his eyes told me he was not about to stop now. He no longer wanted to torment me, but instead wanted to drive a blade through my heart.

I almost hit myself for going the wrong way into the dead end where the guard now had the advantage. He was weak from the gash on his forehead, but he could of out powered me if I had made a mistake, but I did not. I held half the bottle in my grip and my wits were still sharp. I too had an advantage over this man. He may have been taller and stronger, but now he was not only weaker, but he was also cocky.

As he finally drew closer, I waited for him to make the first move before side-stepping his wide attacks. His fists hit open air as I ducked before slamming the broken end of my container into his gut. As predicted, the sharp pieces pierced his skin and drove in deeply, allowing me to end this fight for good. Twisting the handle, the bottle broke more skin before I slid the glass across his abdomen. The guard grunted at first while his hands quickly covered the wound to prevent the blood from flowing, but it was no use.

His brown eyes gazed into my blue ones as he fell to his knees and pleaded for help; however, he was not going to receive any…at least, not from me. The man was slowly dying in front of me, but I felt nothing. The officials he had worked for oppressed the citizens which caused them to march against my family, and what did the clergy do? Nothing! They visited the estate after the incident and found my father's and servant's heads on spikes in front of a pile of ash. They saw what became of men of power and they still would not aid the citizens.

All that anger I had for the people who had stormed my home all those months ago was now gone. I wanted every clergy and noble man dead for the pain they were pressing onto the poor. It was driving us mad, and as I watched the man die, I realized I had become the same person who would of invaded my family's estate and killed every last privileged human being.

Just as I was about to scream in anger, a hooded figure had jumped from one of the lower terraces of the buildings around me and slowly made his way over to our location. He held up his hands as soon as he had my attention as though he was showing a sign of trust, but his outfit alone made that impossible for me to accept.

He was a man of average height that wore a dark brown coat over a white waistcoat with sandy-colored breeches and leather gaiters. The newcomer's lips twirled upward in a warming smile that mimicked my father's; however, the weapon strapped to his gauntlets stopped me from relaxing. He ushered towards the guard whom was still drowning in his own blood on the ground as he crept closer.

"I think it is time to end his misery," the man calmly stated right before he extended a blade from a hidden device on his wrist and thrust it into the guard's heart. My mouth had fallen agape as I watched the scene before me unfold in less than a second.

"Repose en paix," he muttered while closing the dead man's eyes with his index and middle fingers. From beneath his hood, the newcomer glanced up at me with a light smile as he retracted his blade back into its sheath. "You should go now before more show up."

He must of taken my silence as an understanding because he saluted in an foreign fashion before rushing towards a building. In pure confusion, I thought he was going to run straight through the wall, but to my surprise, he began climbing the stone and wooden structure. For a moment, all I could do was watch as he fluidly transited from terrace to terrace before easily ascending to the rooftops by the use of crevices indented into the house's design.

As soon as I noticed that he was getting away, I began to follow after him from the streets below. So many questions had run through my mind the moment that man's blade pierced the guard's skin, but I was so petrified in fear that I couldn't muster up a word. What was that device on his wrist and how is he able to climb so swiftly on the buildings? Was he an ange?

My tiny feet pressed onwards as I began to stray a few blocks behind him. I was fast, but not as fast as this man. My naive mind thought that he must have had hidden wings I could not see because I had no other explanation for his improbable movement, and yet, I continued to chase him through the throng of people gathered around to riot in the streets.

He finally stopped at a cross section where several horse carriages had been toppled to barricade the guards out. The poor citizens slashed and hacked to keep the officers away, but snipers from the rooftops opened fire against them to allow access.

The cloaked man surveyed the scene twice before gliding to the next building like an eagle and sliced the throats of the snipers before jumping to the next set of men. I observed him in awe as he did all of this effortlessly with such precision and elegance. Just by his attire and ability to kill, you would think he was a secret soldier for the King, but why would his Majesty ever send a man out to murder his own officers? He had the authority to recall any and all troops from battle with just a flick of the wrist.

So for what cause did this angel fight for?

Glancing between the man and the citizens trapped in their own barricade, I had finally noticed what he was doing. He was giving the people a chance to fight back. Picking up a broken brick off the corner of a house, I had rushed into the fray and slammed the clay slab against the skull of the nearest officer.

In sheer shock, everyone in the square had turned to gawk at me as I stood like a sheep amongst wolves, but instead of fear, I'm sure they saw fire in my eyes. I remember raising my fist into the air and screaming a battle cry for all of Paris to hear. The guards were frozen on the spot as their attentions snapped from me to the now cheering pheasants who began to move in on them like wasps.

With veins full of adrenaline, I glanced up at the location of the man only to see him staring right back at me. I had gotten his attention, and that was all I needed in order to get him to talk.

Being safe about how I approached the situation, I ran into the nearest alleyway and waited closer to the street just in case this man was not the person I had perceived him to be. As if on queue, he dropped down from the rooftops like a bird swooping in on its prey. That warm smile adorned his lips and he did not draw any closer than a few feet for both my safety and his own.

"You are a different one," was the first thing he had said as he leaned against one of the buildings with his arms crossed over his chest.

"And what does that make you?" I had retorted. To this day, he still terrifies me in a way, but not like he did back then. I did not show it though; I wasn't about to let him have that pleasure.

He had chuckled, but his smile did not falter. He was so relaxed even after handling a situation so dire. I was… jealous.

"What is your name, child?" he asked.

"Nicole," I replied with a sternness in my voice. I chose never to reveal my last name to anyone in case anyone were to recognize it, and this man was no exception.

"Well, Nicole, want to give me an explanation to why a child is taking part in a fight that she shouldn't be a part of?"

I held nothing back as I looked him straight into his green eyes with fierce determination on my face. "I have every right to be in this fight. These men oppress and starve us. Rich or poor, we will all die under the influence of tyranny."

For a second, his façade had faltered to show a hint of surprise, but sadly, he repressed it as he pushed himself from the wall to squat in front of me. "And how do you plan on doing that?" he questioned.

"I was hoping you could help me with that."

I returned a smile of my own which made him chuckle. He did not laugh at the idea of me being trained, but at the thought of child, a little girl, wanting to do a man's job. It was a new concept; something he and the others of the brotherhood did not think about incorporating inside the French establishment, but there was always a first for everything.

And that is the tale of how I made it to the year 1789: the official start of the French Revolution.

The true beginning of my story…