After having considered things for some time, as well as having consulted with little Maria and Mother both, Ezio had decided to bring along Saverio Salerno, Rinaldo Rocca, Alighiero Abate, and Fedele Fabiani, supplementing the four of them with one of La Volpe's thieves, in addition to those who would be watching from within Il Colosseo itself. Once he'd spotted Micheletto's men approaching – all six of those that he and his had observed while they were being gathered up for Cesare's bloody work – Ezio directed his people to conceal themselves in the shadows that had lengthened as the evening had advanced.
Narrowing his eyes as he caught sight of Micheletto himself approaching, carrying the folded costumes that his people were going to be dressed in, Ezio carefully primed the poison-dart launcher that Leonardo had created for him such a long time ago. Taking aim, once Micheletto had departed to see to his own costume – that of a Roman Centurion, while the men he had brought with him were to be dressed as Legionaries – Ezio steadily cut down the men who had come with him, a single poison-dart to the neck sufficient to clear the way for his recruits and the thief who had come with him to make their own moves.
Making his own way over to the last of the men, Ezio took the costume that had been intended for him and quickly put it on.
Once he and his had taken care of their costumes, having dragged the bodies deeper into the shadows and left them safely out of sight, Ezio nodded to the men who had gathered behind him, before Micheletto himself returned to lead them up to the stage where they were to meet with Pietro. The stage itself had been set up within the ancient amphitheater itself, and though the gloom of evening had firmly taken hold in this place, at least some of that gloom had been dispersed by the hundreds of long, flickering torches that had been mounted on every available column, as well as those that had been set upon high stands before the audience.
Said audience sat on benches, neatly set up on a wooden grandstand, watching a play on the subject of Christ's Passion.
"I seek Pietro Benintendi," Micheletto said, displaying a warrant that could have easily been a forgery as not.
True, the Borgia did still hold more control within Roma than was good for anyone who wished to live free, but Cesare Borgia was also not a man who wished to leave anything to chance. Narrowing his eyes slightly as Micheletto began turning in his direction, Ezio schooled his expression as he and his came under the man's scrutiny.
"Don't forget, I will be wearing this black cloak with a white star on my right shoulder," he paused to look them over, and Ezio found himself wondering – not for the first time, and he doubted it would be the last, considering what kind of life he led – just what was going through the man's mind; he doubted that Micheletto suspected anything, since there was no chance that things would be going nearly as smoothly as they were if Cesare's man had found them out, but he still found himself curious as to just what was going on behind those cold, calculating eyes. "Cover my back and wait for your cue, which will be Pontius Pilate's order to the Centurion to strike."
Knowing that he needed to get to Pietro before Micheletto did, Ezio held himself ready as the play continued around him. He'd gone to plays like this with his family, though few enough of them, and only when Father couldn't think up a reason to avoid such a thing. He'd wondered why Father never seemed to approve of the play, but learning the truth of their family had helped a great deal. Knowing what it was that the Brotherhood fought for, that their ultimate goal was to end all forms of tyranny over the minds of the people they guarded, Ezio found that he understood.
He also made certain to keep his mind on everything that was going on around him, rather than just listening for the cue that Micheletto had specified while he'd been speaking to those he thought had come to this place to support him. Such attentiveness paid off, of course, when Ezio was able to slip backstage when the eyes of those both in the play and in the audience were no longer so completely upon him as they had been before. Knowing that he would need a way to get close to Micheletto without drawing the kind of suspicion that a Roman Legionary would if he were to be out of place, Ezio quickly shed his costume in favor of a rabbinical robe that he'd managed to uncover.
Making his way back onto the stage from the left, where two dramas were now set to take place, though those in the audience would be privy to only one of them, Ezio took up position behind Micheletto without anyone on the stage or in the play taking note of his actions. He was pleased to note such a thing, even though he had been expecting it.
Once Micheletto had begun to draw his stiletto, safely concealed from the gaze of anyone not close enough to see what would otherwise be covered by the costume he was still wearing, Ezio deployed his own hidden-blade, driving it into Micheletto's side, and then guiding him offstage before anyone could begin asking after the man's doings or his own. After he'd laid Cesare's would-be killer down, however, Ezio noticed that there was the strangest look of triumph in the man's glittering eyes.
"You cannot save Pietro," Micheletto said, all but laughing in his face as Ezio straddled the man, pinning him down so that he wouldn't go haring off to finish his appointed task. "The vinegar on the sponge was poisoned. As I told Cesare, I made doubly sure," he laughed aloud, so sure of himself that for a moment Ezio himself was tempted to laugh in just the same manner.
After all, Aeon had been offering his aid more and more freely of late.
"You've heard what this man has said, amico?" he asked, as the man in black himself reemerged from the depths of the Apple once more.
"I did," Aeon said, pushing back his deep hood to spill free his waterfall of silver hair. "I suppose you want this Pietro to be taken to a doctor?"
"As fast as you can," he said, nodding sharply even as Aeon vanished with the preternatural speed that Ezio had seen him demonstrate on such rare and memorable occasions.
Micheletto, of course, looked beside himself with fury, and Ezio was forced to pin the man's arms to the ground before he could reach again for the stiletto that he'd been clearly intending to use on Pietro before all of this business had happened.
"Do you truly think any of this will mean anything? Even when you kill me, Cesare will hunt you and yours to the ends of the very world," Micheletto bared his teeth in something that couldn't be mistaken for a smile. "Even your man in black won't be safe from my master's wrath," he snarled, looking more and more like the dog he'd proven himself to be. "Every man alive has weaknesses."
"Perhaps," Ezio allowed, rising back to his feet as Aeon appeared next to him, red blade snapping out to slice across Micheletto's outstretched right hand as the man foolishly went for his stiletto, even as Ezio turned to look back at him for a moment. "Grazie, amico," he said, turning his attention to Aeon once again as Micheletto fell back, clutching at his seared hand; he'd often found himself wondering just how hot those blades that Aeon wielded so adroitly were, and seeing what had been done to Micheletto's hand provided him at least something of an answer. "I must commend your timing, once again."
"Of course," Aeon said, seeming to study him for a long moment, before vanishing once more into the depths of the Apple.
Taking the device that the man in black had handed over to him, even as he'd been returning to it, Ezio tucked it away quickly, before Micheletto could begin to regain his bearings after being burned by Aeon's blades. More than anything, he needed to speak with Pietro, and for that he would need to make his way to the doctor where Aeon would have taken Pietro to be cured of the poison that Micheletto had forced on him in an effort to ensure that his grisly task was carried out.
He met up quickly with the recruits that he'd brought along, with the thief that had come along departing so that he could relay the news of their success to La Volpe. As it turned out, Fedele had managed to catch Aeon's attention just before the man in black had departed, and hence been able to direct him to Doctor Brunelleschi, who had treated more than a few of Ezio's own injuries in the not-so-distant past. Thanking Fedele for his quick thinking, Ezio directed his recruits to follow him, just in case any of the Borgia guardsmen remaining in this area decided to make trouble for them.
Making their way to Doctor Brunelleschi's office, Ezio was pleased to note that – though there were a few encounters with those who had thrown in their lot with the Borgia for whatever reasons such people could have – the streets were for the most part clear of those who would oppose them or try to delay them. An odd sort of thought came to him, as Ezio was continuing on his way up to the door of Brunelleschi's office, and Ezio found himself wondering if things might have gone differently if he and his had kept hold of the costumes they had been wearing when they'd departed from the Passion play.
Still, those kinds of musings – while amusing in their way – were idle in the extreme, and so Ezio set them aside as he made his way into the darkened, herb-scented interior of Doctor Brunelleschi's office.