We're almost at the end! I hope you guys enjoyed the last chapter and I hope you enjoy this one!
I hate thinking of that day. First, my siblings and I get knocked out by Iris, our father speaks to us, then I reject Connor because I couldn't stand the thought of me dying and leaving him, especially after what my father had told us of the necklaces.
Apparently the whole time we had been using the necklaces wrong. Their purpose wasn't transporting people or things throughout time, their purpose was giving the user inhuman abilities. The transportation was just an added boost. Like the Apple, given to the wrong user could mean the end of the world. Iris had managed to unlock the power in her necklace and was dead set on getting mine so she could finally fulfill the mission of destroying anyone that stood in the Templar's way. That meant anyone that was unlucky enough to cross paths with her.
My father had said we could harness our necklaces' powers but he didn't know the ramifications if we did. He said there was a chance we'd lose our minds to the power just as Iris had. That seemed a lot better than the alternative to us.
So, in order to keep anyone from figuring out, we left the Homestead within the week. I couldn't face Connor after what I had done. Even thinking about it brought tears to my eyes.
Before I left, I made sure to say goodbye to Achilles. I didn't say anything about what I had just learned and when he asked me when I'd be back. I lied to him, saying I wouldn't be gone long. Heaven knows what he'd do to me if he actually knew what I was going to do.
Connor, on the other hand, had left the manor that morning to help Myriam with something. Instead of seeking him out for an extremely awkward goodbye, I left him a short note on his bedside table. I wouldn't blame him if he didn't bother reading it but it was the best I could do.
So, after packing up the best I could without crying, I boarded my ship. I expected it to be the last time I saw the Homestead said goodbye to the beautiful land I had grown up on.
XXX
One week later
I held the knife in a tight grip as Cindy, John, and I slowly made our ways to our rooms. One little cut, one little drop of blood was what was needed to truly harness our necklaces' power. Our father had said he had figured it out but was attacked by Iris and rendered useless before he could tell anyone. Luckily, he pulled a Louis and told us while we had been knocked unconscious by Iris.
We had no idea what unlocking the power would cause or if it'd take just a few hours filled with aches or if it'd be days until we recovered. We didn't have much time to speculate; Iris was on the move.
I stepped into the empty room, glancing at my siblings just as the door closed shut. The door was locked behind me. I made my way to a corner. The room was completely empty to ensure I wouldn't hurt myself if anything were to go wrong.
I took a shaky breath in. If this made me go crazy like Iris, my family or my crew would have to put me down. If these moments ended up being my last, I could've written an entire book on the things I wanted to do. I wanted to repay Achilles for everything he had done. I wanted to ride Riswell one last time. And I wanted to tell Connor how I really felt.
I shook away the thoughts. I needed to stop wallowing in pity and get this over with.
I held the knife to my hand before dragging it quickly across my palm. I then muttered the strange words under my breath and pressed the cold metal of my necklace to the open wound.
I don't remember anything after that.
XXX
Connor slowly brushed the mud off of Riswell's back. The large horse hadn't been ridden in a long time and Connor felt like he needed to take care of Piper's horse. It was the last thing he had of her besides the note.
Piper hadn't been heard from since she left a month ago. No messages, no couriers, nothing. Even his recruits hadn't seen anything of her or her family.
Connor kept precious care the note Piper left him. He spoke to no one of the contents in fear his emotions would get the best of him. In it she had confessed that she was going to stay if she could. She also wrote that she had no idea what was going to happen and that she rejected him because she had hoped some heartache now would prevent a lot more later.
Maybe she had finally left and gone back home. Maybe she stopped Iris. Maybe she had died.
Connor shook the thoughts away. He couldn't think of her dead. It was too much.
Connor made his way to Myriam's shack to assist her in fixing a leak in her roof. The past few days had been filled with nothing but pouring rain and dark clouds. It matched how Connor was feeling inside.
A loud rumble interrupted Connor's quiet walk. It frightened him at first but he thought it nothing more than the thunder from the rainstorm. Not until it happened again, twice and in quick succession. Then the smell of smoke reached his nose.
Connor didn't think it was the rainstorm then.
XXX
Everything was fuzzy. Blurred.
I couldn't feel…
Ugh, my head.
Breath finally came to lungs.
Man, that rain smelled so good. The cool mud seeped through my shirt, cooling my hot and sweaty back. The splinters I had gained for being tossed around in the warehouse still burned but the adrenaline had helped dull the constant pain.
Wait. Rain? Why was it raining?
It was hot and dry just a moment ago.
I pried my eyes open to see a forest laying before me. Dark clouds framed the towering pine trees above me.
I heard approaching footsteps and slowly turned my head to see Iris moving quickly towards me, Cindy's limp body lying on the ground behind her.
Iris.
I had forgotten she had catapulted us here in a freak out once she realized she was losing the fight. Now, though, she had the upper hand. Whatever she did drained me and probably drained Cindy and John, too.
I struggled to get my stiff body to cooperate before she reached me. Picking me up by my throat, she held me high into the air as I made a sad attempt at getting away. Iris was angry, to say the least. It's what we wanted and it wasn't hard to get Iris going.
"Fighting," Iris sputtered as I gasped for air, her fingers digging into my throat. "Always fighting! You have no idea what sacrifices I have made to get this far! What is it that keeps you going, huh?! John, Cindy?! Or is it that nasty, red skinned son of a bitch that's been c-"
"Let go of her, you bitch!" John bellowed, appearing out of the brush.
John tackled Iris to the ground, the power from the necklaces fluctuating from their body with gold waves paired with a loud boom.
It wasn't hard to get John angry either.
I fell to the mud and gasped for breath. My hand reached for my necklace. It was growing cold, a sign I didn't have that much power left in it before it'd have to recharge. If mine was like this already we just had to keep this up a little more with Iris. But keeping it up was beginning to get hazardous to our health.
I looked through my dirtied hair to see John get tossed through the air. He landed hard on the ground and groaned in pain but kept moving. I could barely keep myself awake after the first round in the warehouse. How was he still fighting with such ferocity?
Then I saw Iris turn her attention to the still unconscious Cindy. Iris began to make her way to her, murder in her eyes.
I scrambled to my feet and sprinted to Cindy. Iris had lifted her arms, golden webs floating around her hands. I barely had enough time to step over Cindy and throw up my hands, praying to any higher power that my necklace would work.
Two loud cracks ripped through the air as Iris' fists came crashing down onto the barrier I had thrown up around Cindy and I. My hands felt hot from the power, my voice crying out from exertion. The barrier flickered from my lack of strength to keep it up. Luckily, John had recovered and came at Iris again. I had to give him credit; Iris couldn't keep him down.
I dropped to my knees to check on Cindy. Slowly, but surely, consciousness was returning to her. I kept shaking her until her blue eyes finally opened.
"Get your ass off the ground now," I barked before standing. "Iris is almost worn out. We just have to push a little more."
Iris was currently on top of John, her fists coming down on him with inhuman speed. John's hands blocked some of the blows thanks to his necklace but I could tell he was getting exhausted.
I sped towards them and tackled Iris to the ground. I pressed my knee to her throat as I fought to keep her hands from getting near me. In a flash, she had flipped on top of me.
I grabbed the fist that Iris threw at me and twisted it, throwing her off to the ground next to me. I flattened out my hand and chopped her in the neck before grabbing a handful of mud. That mud quickly found its place on Iris' face. Granted, these two moves were dirty and not lethal at all but I wasn't going for lethality. I was trying to piss her off.
I flipped to my feet as Iris bellowed in rage. I wiped the blood from my mouth while backpedalling to where John stood.
"We almost have her," John said as he took a few gulps of air in. "Cindy needs a little more time before she's ready. Can you distract while I help her?"
Iris scrambled to her feet, the mud I had thrown still on her face. I didn't think she could get any angrier but seeing her proved me wrong.
"I don't think I have a choice," I muttered before turning my attention to Iris. "Just hurry."
Iris met me halfway and we were locked in quick hand to hand combat. Fists were thrown, kicks were made, but none ever landed. I realized that neither of us were using our necklaces. She couldn't have been out of energy but I was going to take my chances.
"John, Cindy!" I yelled as I deflected another blow and quickly glanced to my siblings. "She's –"
My voice got caught when I saw Connor standing at the edge of the clearing behind my siblings. A million things raced through my mind in those fractions of a second. What was he doing here? What if he got hurt? What if he got killed? WHAT WAS HE DOING HERE?!
Those thoughts gave Iris just enough time to catch me off guard.
I heard Connor cry out my name as I felt Iris' fist connect with my jaw. I stumbled and had just corrected my footing as she gripped me around the neck and raised me again. Her eyes and body began to hum and gold tendrils wrapped around her body.
"Won't be fighting for much longer, now, though," Iris said with a sneer. "Isn't it great that the red skin gets to see you die?" Her grip constricted. "Man, I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. The original plan was to keep you alive but now I can't wait to feel you die by my hands."
She pushed me violently to the ground. I felt my head crack against a rock before she brought me up again.
"Or maybe I should kill him first," Iris contemplated. "Then go after the old man. Speaking of old men, how's Pop doing, huh?"
With a laugh, she slammed me to the ground. I could feel a sharp pain shoot up and down my entire body. Was it my ribs or my spine that had cracked? I couldn't tell.
My vision became out of focus but I could hear clearly. Connor had cried out my name again and Iris had turned her attention to him. She was talking to him, moving to him. Despite my poor vision, I could tell she was charging up her power to hurt him.
No. She wasn't going to lay a hand on him if I had anything to do with it.
I glanced quickly to John and Cindy. She was standing but leaning heavily on John. If she was conscious, we could finish this.
"Now!" I screamed as I regained my footing.
John nodded before curling his free hand over his necklace. Cindy pushed off of John and crossed her arms over chest, forming a large X. Lastly, I yanked my necklace off and held it high above my head. My ribs screamed in pain but I ignored them. I couldn't back out now.
The gold and silver trails coming from John and Cindy made their way through the air to my necklace. My necklace began to heat up in my palm and quickly it turned white hot. My hand was going to hurt after this, that is, if there is an 'after'.
Abraham's words echoed in my mind. "The necklace will get extremely hot but you can't let it go. Your necklace started this and it's going to end it."
The wind picked up around me, encasing me in a bright and shimmering funnel filled with raw energy and loose dirt. I cried out in pain but my voice was drowned out by the loud winds.
I could feel my body began to give up from the exposure to the power. I held on for just a minute longer before angling all the power to Iris.
In one bright flash filled with the cries of me and Iris, the power shot from my hand to Her. Her cries of anger changed to ones of agony the second the force hit her skin and I could see why. Through the whirlwind of dust, I saw lines of gold etch their way across her skin, leaving trails of blinding light. They consumed her skin until she was one bright beacon. Once the power had covered her body, it seemed to retreat towards her necklace before exploding. Similar to the light I saw when I first came here, a blinding whiteness consumed the entire forest. It had receded a few seconds later. Iris was gone.
Silence fell over the forest. No one moved.
She was dead.
We killed her.
It was over. Finally over.
And boy was I tired.
A familiar feminine voice pierced the silence, her location unknown. "It is done. You have done what we have asked."
Juno.
I looked to Connor with a smile on my face. He returned it along with a look of relief. I was safe. No one had died.
Hopefully now I could reconcile with Connor, maybe actually-
"I am returning you now," Juno said.
My smile fell and terror replaced it. "No, no, wait! I don't want to go!"
I glanced down at my body and realized that it was growing steadily more transparent. My siblings' bodies were doing the same but they didn't seem as panicked as I was. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay.
I looked back at Connor and cried out his name. The crack in my voice was loud and clear to everyone, especially Connor.
His face matched mine and he began sprinting towards me. His hand reached for me as if he could pull me close by just waving his fingers. He kept repeating my name, yelling 'no' in between.
My body was fading too fast. The surroundings were beginning to brighten and fade away into the whiteness. I was losing sight of Connor.
"No!" I screamed as I tried to run despite my injured body. "Connor!"
If he responded, I didn't hear it. Everything had faded and I was still limply running in nothing but whiteness. I was alone and Connor was gone.
I fell to my knees, pressing my hands to my mouth to muffle my sobs. My ribs throbbed in pain with every heaving cry I let loose into the endless plain before me.
I pounded my fists against the ground. "NO! TAKE ME BACK! PLEASE, TAKE ME BACK!"
My cries fell on deaf ears.
THE END
Hahaha just kidding it ain't the end.
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