"If advancing our culture brings about the destruction of other cultures, then those cultures sure weren't mighty enough to stand alongside ours." -Darkness Assassin, 2005.
During 500 BC. A genetic anomaly among the priests was discovered just 300 years after Chaos. This was known as the Shroud Compound Anomaly, or Compound Shroud for short. This genetic anomaly is known to be directly passed down from the Shrouds Chapter of the Assassin Clan, with the earliest example of Compound Shroud being the Lord Shroud himself, Darkness Assassin. The honorable Lord is said to have the purest mutation, a side effect of the years of genetic testing the Emperor of the Assassin Clan did to himself. In the Lord Shrouds case, with his mutation, he's only able to retract into normal human form for a half hour; once back in his shroud form, he's unable to be heard vocally, and he can only communicate telepathically. As generations have come and gone, Compound Shroud has devolved and mutated, diluting while still distributing the Lord Shroud's genetic blessings, leading to signs of Shroudistic forms being more gooey and sludgy.
There have also been signs of individuals being able to shoot unknown projectiles from their fingertips, according to sources. Upon being struck by these projectiles, individuals have been corroded around the impact areas, showing signs of mild decay of clothing and flesh, as seen in an autopsy report. The trajectory paths show the same signs of decay through the flesh and bone; every report shows the path always carving towards the heart, with the chest cavity left caved in. After carefully removing every rib fragment, it's consistently shown that the heart had exploded. After a couple of years, it was made apparent that this unknown sludge dart, which was later nicknamed the Reaper's Arrow, had penetrated via the impact point through the victim's body digging through bones, flesh, and organs to get to the heart, once it made contact with the heart by just a nanometer the heart would explode like a grenade causing the rib cage to erupt with energy leaving what's been discovered so far, scientists who made the discovered labeled it as "hair clenchingly terrifying" as nobody at the time thought the Priests had such abilities or if any of those kinds of abilities even existed, it's important to remember that Eternia as a whole is significantly less advanced than Earth, if Earth had flying cars. Super carriers capable of lightspeed travel; then Eternia had only trucks, cars, bikes, and planes that looked like they could have been made in the 1990s, with weaponry close behind. News of the Head Chaplain had spread like wildfire after what was documented; crime scene photos show that the throat was completely gutted, laceration marks indicated they were committed by some dull yet long claws, a typical scene you would see from one of the Canine Hunters going Feral and attacking someone. A very rare sighting, to the point that every Feral attack committed is known and closely tracked by M.I.S.T. With every case ending in execution via gunshot to the head. A feral didn't do this; this scene stank of an ancient evil. Priests later take over the scene after the Hunters flock in, a grizzly and uncomfortable setting for everyone involved, and information is either reluctantly passed around from branch to branch or seen as they walk in, light from above shining down onto their bittersweet cloaks adorned with shimmering jewels of a variety of red, green, blue, and purple around the collar and shoulders on a gold sea of fabric met with the purple ocean that is the rest of the robes that flow like curtains down to the ground they walked on. A grizzly sight, one that nobody was prepared for.
July 13th 1997 - Yoko Gerong
"They gotta start making records for this shit," I thought to myself, lighting a cigarette and taking just a four-second-long drag off it. Ever since I started smoking, I've gotten used to counting the seconds in my head, three seconds this time. The parking lot was quiet, and the Head Chaplain's truck was still parked in it. While looking around, I began to walk towards the barren vehicle. The truck looked sad all alone, so I thought I'd keep it company by looking around it, seeing what I could gather from the front, and making my way around till I got to the main attraction of this shitstorm. From the hood to the passenger side door, I didn't immediately see anything notable: a few candy wrappers from a local shop known mainly for the Priests Branch, a 10-round magazine from a .45-caliber pistol which rested sideways on the floor, completely unloaded, and tried the passenger side door of the truck. When I tried the door handle, it clicked open with no resistance aside from the weight of the truck door, and the smell that met my snout made me retch back, almost covering the parking lot ground with the food ration I had eaten earlier. It smelled demonic in there, like an unholy god of death was sitting in that passenger seat when the Head Chaplain drove here. How did she, of all people, not sense such heresy? How could she not pick up on this being's true form? I closed the door while concluding that I wasn't gonna find anything further in the truck. I walked through the front gate of the gardens, and as I did, I looked up at the statue of Queen Mist, said to be the greatest Hunter ever to exist, the Goddess of Hunters, the more devoted Hunters would sometimes call her.
Throughout the city's early years, the public had declared, officially and unofficially, that they followed the ancient gods known as the Assassin Clan. The traditional belief is that within the organization, depending on which branch you were in, it showed which god chose you; if you were born a Hunter, you descended from Sentinel Assassin, the Lord Scale, said to be the Forge God. Ancient texts show that Sentinel was a huge tortoise, standing eight feet tall, compared to his brothers, who were on average seven feet or less. At an early age, he became obsessed with creation, forging the first sets of armor for the Royal Guard at age ten, making weapons of incredible power at age thirteen, and only improving from there. These Scales still live on in the Turtles and Tortoises of the Hunters branch and are a sub-branch called the Anointed, more secretive than the rest of us Hunters. If you're a priest, then you descended from Darkness Assassin, the God of Death, Ruler of Chaos; he's the nastiest of the gods, said to be more alchemic in nature. When he was twenty, he made the Compound Anomaly. As he got older, he made more genetic abominations to himself and his respective part of the clan, creating the more secretive sub-faction of the Priests called Jackals. Jackals resemble the Dark God himself most, identifiable only by their glowing purple eyes. Their forms have never been seen; the type of armor they wear is completely unknown, and the naked eye has never seen it. All anyone knows about them is that they have purple glowing eyes. I took a four-second drag off my cigarette, held for three, and exhaled before moving on. History and religion always made me spiral. As I moved through the gardens, I kept smelling this odor, this stench that just kept unnerving me. The more I kept pushing, the worse it got until I finally arrived at the waterfall. I took another four-second drag, held for four, and exhaled with a sigh. "What in the almighty?" is all I could come up with in my head at the sight, in front of me lay five bodies, all being examined and photographed by different hunters, some of whom I knew, starting from left to right we had a guard ripped in half horizontally, another guard with a hole that was an inch around in diameter in his skull with perfect entry and exit almost like a window frame in someone's skull. Next was the Head Chaplain with her entire throat gutted. As you lower your gaze, you see that she was cannibalized mostly in the lower rib cage and abdomen areas of her body. Next to her on the right, we see a guard who looks completely torched, like a marshmallow left on the fire too long. It starts to burn with that unmistakable char that smells like caramelized sugar, wood, and warm vanilla, only it's not any of those characteristics, it's the smell of beef and pork radiating off a body that looks like it got tossed into a Volcano and fished out by some ungodly deity to be left on display as if it was part of some abominable art piece left for the public to discover and learn about. The last body that was to the right of the barbecue was the most horrific; a couple of the younger hunters won't go near it. The body was a woman, who looked young, roughly between her late teen years and early adult years, too young to be in such a scene. It becomes increasingly understandable why the younger dogs won't go near the body, since Hazmat is looking it over first. For the Hunters, our Hazmat unit is comprised of Amphibians immune to all known poisons and pathogens, meaning they never need protective suits and are the people to call if there's a poison, a virus, or another type of pathogen that other hunters aren't immune to. I run this through my head like turning on the cycle of a washing machine as I look at them and notice that not only are they in full protective gear, but they're also blatantly struggling with whatever toxin they're trying to contain within that poor young lady's body, the body is the most horrific out of the five corpses, her legs were completely gone like they were ripped off by the hip joints as if they were tender rib meat on a platter, the kind of fall off the bone tender that every sane individual who cooks rib meat aspires to have on their plate for supper. The chest cavity had exploded outward as if something had detonated inside, and a purple smoke flew from the split apart ribs. I knew I should have had lunch before I got here. As I was lost in thought somewhere in a different world, I hadn't realized that one of the Hazmat guys had started to collapse. My brain clocked back to reality when I heard his colleague to his left check on him: "Hey buddy, you alright? This job isn't a laughing matter," the Newt said, patting his shoulder. The Frog wasn't doing well and needed extraction, but what was affecting him was utterly alien, completely Greek to everyone who witnessed it, including me. Ever hear the saying "fear the old man in a profession where men die young"? That was this Frog, old Dripper was known for going into scenes that looked like a nuclear warhead had gone off, and coming out as if it's just a normal Tuesday, Cigarette still hanging from his mouth like he didn't just deal with a potential terrorist attack two minutes earlier, old guy is old as nails but this wasn't age, it was something else, "start evacuating anyone that isn't them" i said to a feline closest to me, she nodded and underwent evac efforts immediately, was almost inspiring, i looked back at Dripper who was now three feet away from the body and on his behind looking like he just ran two marathons, his skin looked more discolored as if he was one of the Chameleons changing color, it looked unnature how the texture of the purple quivered under his skin as his skin turned a deep magenta "get away from him!" A voice behind me shouted with authority and disgust, throwing me onto my left side smacking my left lower three ribs on some rocks, through the pain i looked up and saw an armored goliath "he is tainted" the gothic statue of bones and black steel bellowed from his helmet which resembled that of an ancient spartan from earth as he pulled a gold engraved staff slung over his right shoulder, the damn thing looked archaic in his hands as he swung it around like some walking stick he found on the side of his path, the energy radiating off it felt unholy as he pressed the top crest of the staff on Dripper's chest, the giant started mumbling something I couldn't make out and I watched as the spot the crest touched on Dripper's chest proceeded to explode inward into his chest cavity and out the other side, sending him down to the ground onto his right side, his eyes still open with fear as our gazes met, "get this one first aid, make sure they aren't tainted either, this is an Assassin matter now." I heard the giant order to another giant that appeared from the left side as I proceeded to lose consciousness and black out from my injuries.
July 13th, 1997 - Slyver Assassin
"Incoming transmission from Central Command, seems like another case for the ghosts in the walls, please report to arming quarters seven dash twelve merciful ghost, you're being summoned," the intercom bellowed into the cold dark chamber on the left wall. Water dripped down from above like the ticking of a clock, drip, drip, drip, that's all that can be heard within the chamber walls. The intercom buzzed on once more. "Are you awake in there, Slyver? You have a contract! Get to arming quarters seven dash twelve, or someone higher than me is gonna get upset and drag you out from your ankles themselves!" Before the transmission could continue, a knife flew straight into the intercom, leaving nothing but sparks and buzzing.
"I heard you the first time," I let out a low growl as I slammed the button to the left of the door to open it up. The door raised itself open slowly, the light of the metal hall met my onyx skin as I moved forward into it, and a couple of the initiates tried to hide their glimpses, but they were obvious enough to notice, must be my eyes again. I turned left and made my way down the hall to a couple of young warriors sparring and watched for a few moments before the Tiger noticed me on the right, a rookie mistake which gave the Panther on the left the opening he needed to land a left hook on the Tiger's right cheek, sending him onto his back with a small slam, I chuckled, nodded in recognition, and continued my way down the hall to arming quarters seven dash twelve where I was met by two robed men with the same onyx skin as me, they nodded and kneeled "You have a contract m'lord" the robed man on the right said, I moved into the center of the chamber onto a small podium "Rise and illuminate" I commanded. The men obeyed, the man on the left turned to a computer on the wall to his right and pressed a few buttons. A projector lowered from the ceiling, projecting a holographic screen in front of me. The same robed man pressed a few more buttons, which opened up a locker on the wall to his right, which contained my armor and weapons. The screen in front of me showed a transmission with my superior; he looked pissed, like always, whenever he saw me.
"Sir," I greeted. His expression got a bit worse; that didn't work. "Don't, Sir, me boy! You sleep for a millennium without saying a word, and for what?! Without even uttering a single peep!" I could practically feel the spit flying all over me; I really did it this time, unfortunately for him, this time I had the right ammo that he wasn't gonna like. "Excuse me, Director Yahuza, but with all due respect, do you understand who you're speaking to?" The air went quiet, the monk looking men to my sides freezing where they stood from the sudden change in pressure within the chamber. I had to restrain myself from crushing their bodies like grapes. I could hear small, strained groans from both of them as the pressure within the chamber increased. The one to my right was about to collapse, my irises like rings of bright primordial flame in seas of black oil, began to glow with a furious, radiating red, alarms started to sound, and finally, as if the chamber just got dropped like a can out of a vending machine, the pressure finally set back to normal like a rollercoaster ride from hell, the innocents to my sides drop to the floor like sacks of potatoes, I had to commemorate them for their resilience but I had more important matters at the moment, I pressed the Director more "do you? In case you've forgotten, I suggest you re-educate yourself on the name on that file, because if you don't, you will be dealing with beings beyond your comprehension, more powerful than me by country miles." I stepped down from the podium closer to the holographic screen before me, fury burning in my eyes with each step I took. The coward behind the screen didn't respond as quickly as I appreciated, so I continued with what I was saying. "Because if you knew about who you're trying to chew out ignorantly, then you would know every proper protocol for this individual, and what they are like, the Titanfall protocol, or oh, I don't know the Nocturne Protocol which is specifically for any chaos inflicted or infused members of the Assassin Clan who require" I stopped myself and looked at one of the men now behind me before asking "how long did he say I was away? I wasn't paying attention." The man now to my right looked at me and answered, "A millennium, m'lord." I nodded and turned back to the screen, "A millennium of containment, otherwise they have the potential of ripping this facility apart like it was a Tuna can." The silence fell thick as I walked back onto the arming podium, heat from my rage radiating off my charcoal body, even my robes were sweating, I turned to the director "you and the rest of the people of the city claim to worship my family as if we're gods who made the planet you walk on, the food you eat, the liquids you drink but yet you've never understood how we work at all, that's why you hide us like rats in cages until you need us to do your dirty work, you're a coward and a mooch" I finished my rage fueled criticism as I was derobed by the men to my sides, revealing a body glove which hugged my body from wrists and neck down to My ankles, the Director, clearly sweating and speechless, decided it would be best to cut The transmission, and in his place, the details of the assignment I had to carry out, some moron Fire Priest, out of his depth, fell to chaos and was on the run. He killed five targets, who are unfortunately being monitored by the local Hunters with Priests trying to swoop in for ground control. The man to my left hands me my golden helmet, while the man on my right holds my staff. "I would apply it myself, m'lord, but your kind has always been too tall for us mortals." I smile in small amusement as I grab the helmet gently and place it on my head. "Your efforts are enough, seen, and appreciated," I said before grabbing my staff. Systems began to stir up within the helmet, life support systems, navigational systems, and communications systems, everything that's required for the mission started up at once in the blink of an eye in front of me, and the details then arose on the optical lenses of my helmet with new details imprinted into existence as they were created, photos from the scene taken by the Hunters, the states of the bodies shown in as much detail as these amateurs were gonna get with their primitive tech, all of it seemed like useless information until the pictures of the last body flooded onto my lensea like a slap to my initial thought, examining them it was clear what I was up against and it wasn't gonna be pretty. I close my eyes to concentrate my power, my ears begin to ring as I open my eyes and see that I was at the front gate of the garden, I walk through and see the statue of the Queen, "You're looking well, Auntie" I said as I held out my hand, as I did powerful wind moved all the dust, debris, and moss on the statue leaving it sparkling as if it was just made "these mortals don't know how good they have it" I remarked as I pointed at the plaque with a finger gun, water spraying from my fingertip like a pressure washer cleaning the golden plaque that honored Queen Mist and her legacy, when it was completely clean I heard a "thank you" in my head. I nodded. We Assassins are interesting creatures. Walking away and through the garden, which glowed with life as I headed towards the waterfall, each step radiated an energy that felt foreign to the lands I trod, a primordial energy the mortals described as godlike. In their god-forsaken religion, they worshipped the royal family as if they were the only ones that made the lands they stepped upon, the food they stuffed themselves with, and the liquids they flooded their stomachs like the great flood of Noah in the Bible of Earth, taught in Christianity, and the Torah of Earth, taught in Judaism, in the Torah, Proverbs 15:27 warns "the greedy bring ruin to their households, but the one who hates bribes will live." I never understood it until I met these mortals. Mist Assassin, the son of Queen Mist and the Emperor, was surprisingly fond of the Jewish faith and would read of such scripture for reasons nobody knew nor could understand. He would go on and on about these passages, and at the time, it felt and sounded like pure nonsense. One day, I asked, "Cousin, this all sounds like gibberish, entirely Greek as some mortals would say, why would such a godly entity like yourself read about and potentially follow such nonsense?" he laughed at my question but nodded at it, his left elven ear twitched with thought before he answered sincerely "I'm not sure why I do, I guess I find it interesting, a lot of the passages offer sound messages of morals in my eyes, and besides just because we're godly entities that have created many things it doesn't mean we can't compare and contrast our works even if Yahweh doesn't answer our calls" I laughed back then at his words but now being faced with the same mortals I had referenced at the time, I don't find myself laughing, I only feel resentment as I move towards the scene, "morons" I remarked in my mind as I pressed onward towards the hunters my resentment turning into rage as I saw their confusion and panic start to become a catalyst for further destruction "get away from him!" I shouted as I backhanded some wolf man onto his side, my armor changing from gold to hardened black steel, a mechanism that added further protection against matters such as the one before me. The corpse was tainted with my cousin's ungodly concoction, Compound Shroud. The demon had shot her with it, which made her chest cavity explode, and these foolish mortals didn't know that this compound and its residue could pass through their gear and onto them. This frog was just a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. "he is tainted," I said aloud as I walked towards him with my staff in hand. I looked down upon the sick old man as I whispered, "Forgive this being and their fate as they walk to your gate, for they know naught of what molests their soul to cause such a fate." The look of fear engulfing his face, unfortunately, understanding my words, as his chest cavity exploded inward and out his back, as he slumped onto his right side, brother Lerotius appeared to my left with silence that rivaled a statue, I looked to him, ordering, "get this one first aid, make sure they aren't tainted either, this is an Assassin matter now" brother Lerotius nodded as he lifted the boy up and onto his right shoulder like a sack of apples and vanished in a puff of black mist, afterward I threw a few flares onto the sandy ground and walked to the gates of the waterfall entrance as the land behind me engulfed in flames torching the bodies that lay upon the sands now melting into glass, a problem for the fools that call themselves the Priests, new information appeared onto my optical lenses as I walked through the flower gardens of my honored Aunt and past her statue, which I left a pink rose of my own upon the base of, a sense of love radiating like a beautiful summer sun from the statue's direction as I walked through the front gates to the parking lot and concentrated my power to vanish as if I was never there to begin with, had the Hunters not seen me, I would have been a hundred percent successful in that effort. "the Assassins have been spotted once more," I remarked outwardly throughout my arming chamber as I removed my helmet from off my head.