Chapter 1 - The Opportunity

"We thought them long gone. We were wrong."

He woke to a start, an adult male in his early 20s and got out of a white chair. To his right was a woman who looked at him and said "Ray? You alright? You just came out of the Animus Session, what did you find?" Ray chuckled and said "Rebecca you can see everything I'm doing from a third person perspective in that computer of yours, you know what I saw. More memories of Ezio and Edward Kenway. I even caught some early memories of Shay Cormac and Arno Dorian, again..."

An middle aged man approached and then said "Report." Ray sighed and said "I can't control who I'm seeing anymore, I think the temple we're in is interfering with our attempts to find out what happened to this Project Angel the first civilization was working on. Before the interference started I can confirm one thing, it's highly likely we're fighting the descendants of this project as they did venture into space and as far as I know so far never returned, they took with them twice the number of humans compared to first civs though, it was a small faction that wanted unity and equality between the races. Anyway I'd like to know what's going on in the world sometime today William?"

William Miles sighed and replied "They just hit San Francisco with a nuclear weapon, it's the fifth attack this month that they've used the big ones." Ray sighed and punched the wall near him and replied "And what about our unholy alliance? Is Abstergo doing anything to fight them?" William shook his head and said "We lost contact with them after the attack, I think Abstergo lost their command and control, but more importantly I have a surface assignment for you."

Ray sighs and says "Pretty soon I'll glow in the dark Will, this is the sixth mission this week and the radiation isn't going away anytime soon."

William then said "Emblem Frame 01, identified as Lucky Star. Our agents on the inside say it landed on a survey mission just a mile from here. I want you to bring the pilot in alive, It's also the same craft that scorched New York last week and took out the prototype ship last month." Ray sighed and said "And if this reveals our position? Ever think of that? These Transvaal aircraft all have tracers on them, the surface will be crawling with patrols and if we're stealing a flight lieutenant they might nuke the place to keep their secrets out of reach. The last thing an invading extraterrestrial force would want is us getting our hands on FTL technology."

William then replied "This is big Ray, according to our informant the pilot has information about a kind of bomb that can inhibit their FTL, if we can cut their FTL off we can prevent any reinforcements and then just maybe we have a chance at winning this war."

Ray shakes his head and replied "Win this war? We've lost, all the world nations are gone, either impressed into their empire or bombed off the face of the Earth, Half the Human race got lucky and died in the first week and the half of the survivors went turncoat and are fighting with the Transvaal! We're not fighting a war we're fighting an insurrection, according to the information we got yesterday they consider us no different than Britain considered the American Continental Army as. We're not rebels to them, we're criminals, seditionists and they've even painted a pretty propaganda picture detailing us as cave dwelling barbarians! Not once do their news outlets mention the nuclear attack or the civilization we had before their attack-"

William interrupted Ray and said "We're not out of this yet! Not until bullets stop flying and blades stop piercing is this war lost. It's not just the nations of the world it's the human race that's fighting!" Ray shakes his head "Just give me the mission parameters, but let's be clear on one thing, they are human too, we've autopsied their fallen soldiers before, one hundred percent similarity. Their spoken language is basically just a dialect of Japanese and that makes this just another inter-human conflict."

William sighed and said "One mile out in the jungle, you'll be given a map, a suppressed sidearm and some ammo but beyond that you'll have to rely on your blades. The location is on the map as a red dot."

Ray sighed and said "Drop off point?" William replied "Not here, to avoid giving ourselves away we've prepared a rendervous in Panama City which still hasn't been hit, you'll hand her over to our agents there." Ray grabbed his head and said "You want me to trek across half the Amazon rainforest with a hostile enemy prisoner, enough bullets to give them at most a bad itch and walk right into a fully occupied city. Panama surrendered to them immediately after they stormed the city conventionally, didn't even put up much of a fight and that means I won't get a friendly welcome."

William replied "This is too important of an opportunity to ignore, you are to set out immediately." Rebecca got up and protested, saying "He just came out of the animus, he's had enough time in there to suffer from the bleeding effect if he goes through too much stress and this is a high stress mission." Ray spoke, saying "It's alright, I'm the only trained field operative besides William here and he's the only Mentor in South America ever since we pulled out of the North. I have no problems with the purpose of the mission I'm just tired of being on the losing side." William replied "Get this mission done and they might be the ones on the losing side."

Amazon Rainforest, 9:15 AM, July 9th, 2018

Ray checked his equipment before leaving, two hidden blades made of smelted enemy armor alloys, 70 rounds of the same material in .45 ACP, a M1911A1 with a good suppressor, 20 throwing knives and himself being in the robes of an assassin but with a camouflage pattern for the jungle. His hidden blades were dual action and could be used as utlity and combat knives instead of merely assassination tools though with his memories of Ezio, single action hidden blades would not be a liability in a melee for him.

1:15 PM

Ray continued through the Jungle while keeping in mind his surroundings, using his gift of Eagle Vision to see anything out of the ordinary, approaching a clearing that he notices is exactly whats on the map. A landed Transvaal Strike Craft, a young woman with short pink hair and 2 white flowers resting in said hair, seemingly taking water samples from the river. Ray began to cycle a wheel on his hidden blade gauntlet, opening a slot and inserting a blue labeled vial into a syringe built into the blade compartment, likely for poisoning or in this case, tranquilizing.

Ray proceeded to move through the shrubbery and tall grass on the other side of the river, making his way further towards a crossing and carefully flips up an Iron Sight on his hidden blade, aiming his arm at the girl from the safety of the bushes and flicks his whrist, sending a phantom blade into her shoulder. A single shout of pain and a second later she falls asleep as Ray dashes across the river crossing and begins inspecting the girl, removing communication devices and throwing her sidearm into the river as anyone without the proper ID can't fire Transvaal weapons be they bullets or lasers.

3:35 PM

Carrying her over his shoulder he notices sounds coming from her, she seems to be waking up.

Ray sets her down near a tree and ties her hands behind her back with a fiber wire and she opens her eyes to see Ray and kicks him back though too late to prevent him from binding her hands. Ray gets up as she tries to only for her to fall back down. Ray then says "Can you understand me? If you can, I just put a tranquilizer into you back at the river, you wont be able to stand on your feet for a while and even if you could I could easily outrun you."

The girl backs a bit into the tree further and says in English "I've heard rumors about how you treat prisoners." Ray sighs and replies "So have I, propaganda. We do not treat prisoners harshly, not my group anyway. Follow my instructions to the letter and we won't have any problems."

The girl nodded and replied "What do you want with me?" Ray shrugged and said "Information I guess. Let's start with your name. If only for first impressions, my name is Ray Zenji." The girl replied "Milfeulle Sakuraba, Age 19, Rank Flight Lieutenant. Military Serial 10-44-5A."

Ray sighs and says "Let me guess, that's all you can say? Just don't try anything stupid and we'll have no problems. Give me a reason and I wont hesitate to use my blade as motivation for cooperation." Milfeulle merely nodded and Ray got closer and tied a rope to her bindings and tied it to his own hidden blade gauntlet and got up saying "By now you should be able to walk."

And sure enough as she got up she found the strength to stand and Ray proceeded to scan her with Eagle Vision and confident he had disarmed her of any weapon proceeded onward, occasionally tugging the rope to get Milfeulle moving."

Milfeulle mostly stared at the rope for the duration of the walk until Ray stopped walking.

5:11 PM

Hiding in the shrubbery and keeping his right blade touching Milfeulle's shoulder as a patrol in Transvaal uniform passed by unaware of the two. Milfeulle took a glance at Ray's face and saw hatred in his eyes. As time passed the patrol left and so too did the Assassin and his prisoner.

To be continued...