After the pair of them had spoken for a few moments, with Ezio managing to secure Aeon's cooperation with the same ease that he'd always seemed to do in the past, he moved out again with a much lighter feeling in his heart. Even considering what he already knew, it was good to have the support of someone such as Aeon; no matter how unsettling he sometimes found the man in black.
Once the pair of them had made it to the docks where the last of the war machines that Leonardo had been pressed into designing by the Borgia when they'd had him in their depraved clutches, with Aeon's ephemeral form laid over his like a weightless, shimmering cloak – serving as both the most perfect of disguises and also as a way for the both of them to benefit from the man's preternatural abilities – Ezio found himself listening in on what seemed to be a group of guards – the same kind, he suspected, that he himself would have seen if he'd been given the opportunity to observe himself in any real detail – and paused for a lingering moment to hear what he could.
It seemed that a man by the name of Eduardo – an impressed gondolier, by the sound of him – would be his best method of gaining access to the interior of the docks.
Knowing that Aeon would understand the needs of their current objective just as well as he did – part of the reason that the pair of them were traveling in tandem – Ezio waited and watched, until the aforementioned gondolier had passed beneath their eyes, and then watching in anticipation as the world around him blurred into a mess of lines and colors for the endless instant of time that it took for Aeon to make use of that preternatural speed of his. Reorienting himself, now standing at ease within the darkened interior of the docks, Ezio closed his eyes for a long moment, even as Aeon took over movement for the pair of them.
Truly, he didn't think he'd ever get used to moving as fast as Aeon seemed to make a habit of; no matter the advantages, and he could hardly deny that they were many, he didn't think his stomach would forgive him if he made a habit of traveling in such a way.
Narrowing his eyes slightly, once his stomach had settled back into its accustomed place and he could be assured of suffering nothing more than the mildest of nausea, Ezio observed the guards as they went about their appointed tasks below him. He didn't know just how far he had to do, in order to make it into the dry-dock that all of the layers of security he was making his way through served to stand guard over, but it was a simple fact that – no matter how thick the walls or doors of the dry-dock he and Aeon were making their way towards – they would end up needing to kill at least some of the guards that stood watch over these watery halls and corridors.
Whether in the course of making their way into the room itself, or that of making their ultimate escape from this place; there were simply too many men standing in the way, whatever their motives for serving men such as the Borgia, for the pair of them to come out of this without more blood on their hands. However ephemeral those hands might have been, in Aeon's particular case. Still, as he continued deeper into the watery corridors that would ultimately bring them into the dry-dock that served to shelter the last of the war machines that he was searching for, Ezio reminded himself as sternly as he ever had that these men, too, had made their own choices.
Whether it was good for them in the end or not, it was one of the foremost things that the Brotherhood fought for: the right of everyone who lived to make their own choices.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself once more, even as he regained control of his limbs and body from Aeon for the second time since the pair of them had made their way into this place, Ezio returned his attention to his and Aeon's ultimate goal once again. He was hardly going to get the chance to finish this mission if he didn't start it, after all. The men who chose to stand against him would keep, but that naval war machine that Leonardo had described to him was hardly going to go and destroy itself.
Once he and Aeon had managed to make it into the room that obviously held the dry-dock itself, given the abundance of guards he could now see, and the form of what could only be the war machine itself that he just managed to catch a glimpse of, Ezio paused for only a moment, before Aeon urged him forward and the pair of them made their way into the center of the room. The guards inside the dry-dock took no more notice of him than those at Cesare's party, or even those who had been stalking Egidio Troche through the streets of Roma. Not one of them looked over at him, immersed as he was within Aeon's ephemeral body, not even when he made his way to the center of the expansive room he and Aeon now stood in.
Of course, all of that changed once Aeon separated himself from Ezio's form, standing as himself for the first time since the pair of them had made their way into the depths of this place in order to deal with the last fruits of Leonardo's forced labor. Then they took note of the both of them, but by that time it was far too late for even every one of them to have stood the slightest chance of hindering the progress that he and Aeon had made together. Turning away from the sound of men being cut down all around him – he'd asked Aeon to at least attempt to spare those who ran from battle, and the man in black had agreed, provided that they hadn't simply departed or been dispatched to fetch reinforcements – Ezio searched for the plans that had been drawn up for this machine.
Even though they were Leonardo's in the end, the inventor felt no particular attachment to them, and had in fact asked that Ezio destroy them when he found them. Considering the circumstances, Ezio was more than pleased to take care of such a thing.
Once he'd found the plans, destroying them with the very torch that had been used to illuminate the alcove where they had been stored for the use of the Borgia and their lackeys, Ezio turned his attention to the war machine itself. Aeon, having since disposed of the last of the guards who had been stationed in the room all around them, vanished once more into the depths of the Apple with a sharp nod in his direction. Making his way past the corpses that had been scattered over the floor in the wake of Aeon's movements, Ezio shook off the melancholy that had gripped him more and more of late when he would find himself confronted with the results of the infiltrations he was having to make.
It would be a relief, after all of this was over and done with, to go back to hunting for the Borgia and their willing conspirators.