The Hooded Marauder

What a terrible month to be a guard in the city. If you’re wonder who I am? I’m a nothing but a voice now. I’ll bet you’re wondering why that is, well I guess I can tell you.

It all started when I had just joined up with the local city guard. I was young and I needed the money so I heard one of the heralds preaching about how our holy father the pope was in need of recruits for the city. Immediately I was excited, here was my chance to make some quick money. I found the nearest recruit officer and signed up as soon as possible.

“You want to join? Good we are in need of some new blood.” the officer told me.

“Why is that so important?” I eagerly asked.

“There have been a lot of men going missing or murdered. Ever since our assault on that town out in the country.” explained the officer.

“Missing? By who?!?” I wondered and accidently asked the officer. (I guess it was one of those moments that your inner voice decides to become an outer one.)

“We have no idea. One moment some of our men are either patrolling or taking a break, the next they’re gone, or later found dead in the street. The only thing that is known about the murders and disappearances is that they are caused by a single man. More like a monster I’d  say. The only description of him is that he is always cloaked so that you can’t even see his face.”

As I started to walk away, the officer told me to meet him at the barracks next Wednesday at noon.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The week goes by slow it’s as if this Wednesday is to be a my last day alive. It wasn’t the kind of feeling you get when you’re sick or have the butterflies in your stomach. It’s the kind of feeling you get when you know that something is gonna happen for better or for worse. Today has come and went and tomorrow I start the beginning of the rest of my life. As I get ready for bed I hear a woman’s scream come from out of my window and down the street. I race down my stairs to the already growing crowd and see that there’s a man butchered lying in the street. The scene was horrific like something you’d see from a dungeon’s torture chamber. The worst part of it when I manages to get a hold of myself. I had realized that this wasn’t a dream, this man was part of the city guard. And little did I know this was my first warning.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Boy my first day as a guard. I was introduced to my new crewmates that I was assigned to. Three guys which included: Our superior, everyone just called Big Bartold. Another was Roadrunner, and finally my soon to be new patrol partner; Party Crasher. (These were nicknames if you couldn’t guess. I don’t know why we never used our real names. I guess for safety purposes.) Today the patrol was mildly boring and nothing happened at all. That was until the end of the day approached. When it happened, a poor and hardworking looking blacksmith had walk up to my superior and wanted his money from Big Bartold for making the armor that we wore. When my superior replied that his presence was no longer needed, he started beating on the poor blacksmith. Roadrunner and Party Crasher joined in with a few kicks here and there. What’s going on? This isn’t what I signed up for, I wanted to help the people we watched over not make them more miserable. When Bartold told me to go ahead thinking I had just been watching the whole time, I hesitated.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“What are you waiting for kick this pezzo di merda” exclaimed our cruel superior.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Sir I don’t…”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Do you want to join him?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“No sir but…”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Then hit him!”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I was scared not just for the man now but for my own safety as well. My only two option were that: to join this innocent man in his abuse and lose my job or to add to his already miserable night. It was him or me, so I let fear take hold of me and I proceed to kick him. While the man had started to become unconscious Party Crasher asked “What was to be done with him?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Dump his body into the Tiber, it’s sink or swim for him.” laughed our sadistic leader.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Yes sir.” the three of us replied.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">As we drop the poor blacksmith into the river I could of swore I saw a dark and cloaked figure across the river. I couldn’t identify him but in my gut there was something ominous about him. He was a slim cloaked figure as if he were a shadow casted from a tall tree. Deep down I was feeling a sense of dread I had never known before.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Weeks go by and terrible things occur to many more Squads and District Guards. News spreads from the far outpost that many of our army’s secret weapons are being systematically destroyed with without a trace. Our superior is pressured to take more charge to the streets. To provoke this man to attack us and use us as bait. I can’t believe after all that has happened with more than 10 groups of guards killed or missing (4 men per group/squad)  these are more than just random killings or the typical public out lash from people that wanted their own justice done. No. These were attacks. Cold, planned, and calculated. More and more men drop from the guard barracks everyday. I guess because of all these deaths and disappearances, but we soon find that to do that is a terrible mistake as we learned with Roadrunner.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">One day as I showed up to our district barracks to sign in and prove I was present and accounted for. Bartold and Party Crasher told me that “All distretti guards are to report to the gallows.” There we found a gut wrenching sight. Roadrunner who had reported last week that he was resigning (My guess was because of all the missing men from the previous weeks). Was displayed, hanging by the rope with sabres and falchions sticking out of him with his mouth ajar. We could plainly see his teeth and eyes were cut and ripped out of his skull. He and six other men were hung out like this. The view was so disgusting that I almost vomited in front of everyone. “Mio Dio.” murmured one of the other guards from another district.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“All who are thinking about resigning may stand up and join these men here. We can ill afford anymore of you to drop from the guard. Doubly so nowadays.” announced one of the high officers. “As many of you may of heard the captain general’s close friend and financial adviser was killed at a party last night. You men must stay vigilant and find this menace before anyone else dies.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“These marauders are not to be taken lightly! Stay alert!” shouted a different officer.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Marauders?” I thought “You mean there’s more than one?”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The next day was awful. Just as we were warned, murders began occurring around our district of the city. Feeling scared Party Crasher and I, along with our newly recruited squadmate Lightweight, had began our routes around the blocks as usual but without our superior Big Bartold this time (which exactly wasn’t such a bad thing). As we started to come around our last block we found our superior flinging and flailing around like a madman. After a couple of seconds of his sporadic and idiotic behavior he fell. Motionless and breathless we told Lightweight to check his body. He was dead, how? why? From where? All of these questions came up but only one answer kept coming back to us, that Marauder. Our patrol became more violent as we started interrogating the people around. Party Crasher went as far as to beat a man to try and ‘press him for any information’. Why has it come down to this? To turn an honest working man, my best friend into a belligerent culo? Have we done anything to deserve this? (Who was I trying to fool of course we did, but I didn’t want to admit it). Roma was falling silent under the shroud of night and Lightweight invited Crasher and I to the Inn for some drinks. We agreed after the night we had, we could use a drink to take the load off. We headed in, Lightweight went to fetch us our drinks while Crasher and I went to find a table. A little while later with the three of us started drinking and enjoying our time at the Inn. While Lightweight and Crasher talked about their families, my mind had ventured off and started thinking about that poor man we dumped in the river and wonder if that had a correlation to our recently deceased superior. I asked Crasher if he regrets anything about his past. As he stared at the table for a minute and then to us his reply was “Si.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“What is it?” questioned Lightweight.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“My anger.” replied Party Crasher. “My anger toward others when I lose myself in my frustration and irritation.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Do you think that Captain Bartold had any regrets?” I asked.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“If he did, we’ll never know.” said the almost drunk Crasher.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">The Inn’s bar began to close for the night and everyone started to leave. Lightweight said that he was heading for his home, while I was left to bring the drunk Crasher to his tenant. It was dark and colder than usual, I was feeling a little nervous. I was thinking about the Marauders that were still on the lose, his only targets have been guards and some other important figures to the Pope’s court. What if we were to become the next victims? (We were sheep wading through the forest awaiting the wolves to attack us). We began to turn down Crasher’s road that he lived on. To our horror we found a body smash on the road. It looked as if it had fell from the roof. I had let Crasher down and ran to search the body, to find out who it might be. Another guard on patrol? Why us? Hadn’t we been through enough today? As I approached the body I turned it over and learned it was…... Lightweight. How?! He went home, didn’t he!?! I was terrified.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“It’s those damned Murderers, had to be the ones that got Bartold too.” said Crasher in an angry tone.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“No is he…. Is he coming for us?” I wondered in fear.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Be ready.” Crasher ordered drawing his sword.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">In that moment we saw something off in the distance. A dark shadowy figure, it reached its arm out and acted as if it were making a throwing motion to us. All of the sudden we heard

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Tick, tick, BOOM!”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Within the matter of seconds smoke had filled the street and I was blinded unable to see a meter in front of me. In the distance I hear Crasher give a loud yell with a horrific slash sound. I ran to his direction as fast as I could but was too late. His body discovered to had been cut down and slashed across the chest. It was a gruesome sight. I tried to stop the bleeding but it was no use, Crasher was a gonner.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“I’m so sorry Carlo, I can’t stop it.” I told my friend nearly crying.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Tears started forming in my eyes as Party Crasher exhaled his last breath. I drew my sword and looked around nervously and petrified, nothing. The darkness of night had again taken the street, and without a second to lose I heard a step from behind me that made all of my instincts say turn around. The second I did a hooded man was right in front of me. In an instant he extended his arm and placed his palm on my chest. I felt something pierce my heart and go right through me. Something cold and metallic, I then began to feel as though I was falling to the ground. A cold darkness started to consume me as I felt myself drifting from consciousness. But before I was gone, the hooded man knelt down to me and began to tell me.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“Voi e il vostro team hanno causato questi fatti a voi stessi. Recquescat in pace.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent:36pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">He then started making his way from a scene of three dead men as if nothing had happened. Three more Borgia guards dead by the Hooded Marauder. The Assassino.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.15;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:15px;font-family:Georgia;color:#ffffff;font-weight:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Scarface 231 (talk) 17:55, October 5, 2014 (UTC) OC