Resurrection Day

"Resurrection Day—a date that will go down in the annals of history of our secret war as one of the darkest for both sides. Yet the world won't know anything happened."

―Charlotte de la Cruz, 2018.

Resurrection Day was the event which saw the culmination of the Instruments of the First Will's plot to return the digitized Isu Juno to corporeal form. The collective hijacked Abstergo Industries' Phoenix Project, a years-long initiative to clone the Isu species back from extinction following the Great Catastrophe, but their efforts were undone by a rare alliance between Assassin and Templar agents who united against their common threat and ensured that Juno's rebirth was brief.

History

Juno's rebirth

After gaining control of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Instruments breached Álvaro Gramática's secret lab in Australia, wherein they forced him to use DNA samples from Elijah and other Sages to bio-engineer a female Isu body for Juno's essence to inhabit. Thanks to the properties of the Shroud of Eden, the newly-born Isu fetus would reach maturity within 24 hours, allowing Juno to be physically reborn in the modern world.

While Juno's new body was maturing, the Isu spoke with a vision of Consus, who warned her that she would fail and Charlotte de la Cruz would stop her plans for world domination. Juno retorted that she had a new body, the Koh-i-Noor, and had been inside Charlotte's head, but Consus stated that Charlotte's will was greater than Juno's and that was why she would lose.

At the same time, inside his room, Elijah spoke with his caretaker, Richmond, explaining his nature as a Sage. After Richmond left, Elijah, using the skills and knowledge inherited from Aita, short-circuited the room's locked door and escaped. Moving deeper into the facility, Elijah found the Koh-i-Noor and stole it, intending to use it to exact revenge on the Instruments for abducting him and murdering his mother. He began by killing Richmond, the man who had kidnapped him, with a screwdriver.

Assault on the Australia facility

With only a few hours left until Juno's resurrection, Charlotte de la Cruz, her fellow Assassins Galina Voronina, Kiyoshi Takakura, and Arend Schut-Cunningham, and the Master Templar and Black Cross Juhani Otso Berg flew to Gramática's lab, which Berg knew of as he had been there once before. On the way there, they devised their plan of attack: while the others would stage a distraction by engaging the Instruments, Charlotte would infiltrate the facility through a vent shaft leading straight to Gramática's lab and kill Juno.

Galina killing Jasdip Dhami

The group immediately enacted their plan as Berg, dressed in his Black Cross uniform, approached the facility alone. He was greeted by Violet da Costa, but using his Skunkworks goggles, he saw that his former colleague was surrounded by dozens of Instruments in hiding. As soon as Jasdip Dhami revealed himself, Berg told the Instrument and former Assassin that he should have remained hidden, moments before Galina killed Dhami with a sniper shot to the head. Meanwhile, Kiyoshi and Arend engaged the Instruments at the facility's rear entrance, ultimately resorting to the use of a rocket launcher to eliminate the cultists.

When Charlotte entered Gramática's lab, she saw that Juno had already been reborn and, using her new energetic powers, had damaged the room around her. While the Isu was distracted, Charlotte leapt down and tried to assassinate her with her Hidden Blade, but Juno detected the Assassin's presence and used her powers to immobilize her in the air. As Juno began to gloat about her sacrificing "Consus' lamb", Elijah arrived and discreetly handed Charlotte the Koh-i-Noor.

Through their combined bloodlines, Charlotte and Elijah gained control over the Piece of Eden's powers and used them to summon illusions to fight the Instruments throughout the facility and create a "labyrinth" to guide the others to them. As Galina, Berg, Kiyoshi, and Arend arrived, they saw Juno speaking to a coffee mug; another illusion of the Koh-i-Noor, which conjured an apparition of Consus to distract Juno and get her to release Charlotte.

Juno killed by Charlotte

Once Juno realized the deception, she fired an energy beam in anger, hitting the ceiling and causing metal debris to crush Gramática. She then demanded that Elijah hand over the Koh-i-Noor, but the boy refused and, while Juno's back was turned, she was fatally stabbed in the throat by Charlotte's Hidden Blade. With Juno dead, Elijah declared that Aita's legacy was at an end and escaped through the same vent shaft Charlotte had used to enter the facility.

Meanwhile, Galina, Berg, Kiyoshi, and Arend ran outside, where they were confronted by the Instruments' remaining forces led by Violet. After informing them of Juno's fate, Berg revealed that he had called a Templar strike team for backup, who proceeded to surround the Instruments. While Violet was distracted, Berg grabbed her gun and shot her with it. He then declared the end of the Instruments and activated a Skunkworks Endgame grenade he had planted inside the facility. Realizing Charlotte was still inside, the Assassins tried to stop him but failed, and Charlotte perished in the explosion.

Aftermath

"So that's how it ended. How the Phoenix Project burned to cinders. How I fought in the brutal war, and it took everything from me. I don't know you, but I know you'll be here one day. Looking back on my today. You'll find a drop of blood on a scrap of an old white hoodie or pull the brittle teeth from my grave. And you'll carry me back here with you. But until then, the war is over for me. Perhaps I was always just a dream. You'll have to find another to learn the rest of it."

―Charlotte in her final moments, 2018.

Following Juno and most of their leading members' deaths, the Instruments of the First Will quickly crumbled and disbanded. The few members that survived were hunted down over the following months by Juhani Otso Berg and the Templars, ensuring that by October 2018, the Instruments were no more. With the collective eliminated, Berg retired from his role as the Black Cross, and the Templars ended their temporary truce with the Assassins.

Charlotte's death affected all of her team members, especially Galina, who resorted to self-medication to cope with the loss. A memorial service was held in Charlotte's honor on 23 August 2018, which was attended by other Assassins, including Layla Hassan. The Assassins also believed Elijah to have been killed in the same explosion that had claimed Charlotte's life, unaware that the young Sage had managed to escape with the Koh-i-Noor.

Legacy

"Yeah, I know about Abstergo's head honchos getting brainwashed by some old ghost or whatever. From what I heard, they almost got turned into a bunch of mindless zombies. So much for stopping some prophecy about a disaster, huh? All they did was cause chaos across the world. You think I don't know what you and your precious company have been trying to cover up?"

―Nathan Zhang to Shimazu Sei, 2023.

In 2023, the events of Resurrection Day were indirectly mentioned by the Assassin Nathan Zhang when he told the Templar turncoat Shimazu Sei that he knew about all the incidents Abstergo Industries had tried to cover up over the years, including the company's near-takeover by Juno and her followers.

Gallery

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  Kiyoshi firing a rocket launcher at the Instruments
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  Elijah killing Richmond
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  Juno using her energetic powers
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  Gramática's death
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  The Templar army arriving to confront the Instruments
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  Berg executing Violet
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  The destruction of the Australia facility, resulting in Charlotte's death
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  Elijah escaping with the Koh-i-Noor

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed III (first mentioned) (indirect mention only) (retroactively)
• Assassin's Creed: Uprising (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple (indirect mention only)