History is a vast early warning system.

Norman Cousins

My baby is born! A beautiful baby girl! She's perfect, resembles her mother in everyway, having Anthea's eyes and hair (however she seems to have my nose, but it matters not). The two of use named her Aelita, after the rose.

Jeremie raised his hands and asked, "OK, can I ask something?"

Jim nodded, "Of course."

Jeremie cleared his throat a little before surprising them by yelling, "What the hell is going on?! What's with the Men in Black? Why did that man tried to kill Yumi last night?," Yumi informed his of last night's incident, "Who are you guys? What's going on!"

After they all calmed down from the initial shock, Gustave answered, "Well that would take the longest of times Mr. Belpois. Where do you want us to begin?"

Ulrich asked quickly, "Who are the Assassins?"

Suzanne held her chin and answered, "The organization we work for. It's history is as long as our enemy's…"

"And they are?" Yumi questioned.

Suzanne continued, "The Knights Templar."

Jeremie raised his hand, indicating to her to stop talking and let him take this in, "The Templars? As in the Christian Knights protected pilgrims from Muslim warriors, beginning in 1118, and was abolished by the Catholic Church and King Philip IV, for heresy and devil worship in 1312?"

Suzanne sighed, "Jeremie, Jeremie, Jeremie, ever the smart one, but I fear you're actually under informed. But then again, so is most of mankind."

The teenagers looked at the teachers. Gustav continued, "The Templars and we, the Assassins, are much older then history tells you. The Templars oldest recording, that I have personally found, goes back to Julius Caesar, and we, the Assassins were responsible for his murder. Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, Grand Master of the Templars was constantly challenged by the great Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze and…!"

Aelita interrupted, "Uh sorry, but this is sort of going on for a while now, can you just give us the bare bones of it please?"

Jim nodded, "Of course. To summarize thousands of years worth of history, the Templars want people to live in peace, but they want to do it in a way that strips freewill from people, turning them into mindless puppets. We fight them, believing in freewill over mindless obedience."

The five students stood there, their minds drawing blanks, unable to fully process the information given to them, leaving Jeremie, who has become the unspoken representative for them to say, "OK…"

Jim nodded, "It's understandable for you all to not understand. We didn't understand when we first learned the truth of the past."

Gustave sat in a chair and begun a tale, the origins of this trio:

"It was a long time ago I started to work here at Kadic. It seemed innocent enough, just teaching students drama and the English language…ok maybe not simply, as teaching another language is not easy, but I digress. It wasn't until he came here.

"Franz Hopper. The Science teacher. Now, he wasn't a bad man by any stretch of the imagination. He often kept to himself, well liked by the students. We actually got along pretty well. But there was something…off about him.

"It was a cold October morning when I saw him fighting, you called them the men in black. I pressed against a wall, hiding from them. Franz was quiet valiant in his fight, dodging bullets like they were nothing, his hidden blades shining in the dawning sun. With a flick of his wrist, one of the men's jugular was sliced neatly in two, with only a tiny splatter upon his glasses.

"But reinforcements came in a second, and they saw me and held me captive. Guns pointed at Franz, he undid his blades and dropped them on the ground. He raised his hands in what I thought was surrender. One of the men demanded for what they called a P.O.E. Franz obliged, taking something from his pocket. I don't know what it looked like, as when he took it out he seemed to have activated it.

"It glowed with a brilliant light! The next thing I knew was that half of the men, including the one holding me down, fell dead. The others were running around, mad as hatters! Franz walked up towards me, put a finger to his lips and gestured me to follow him. From that point on, after disposing of all the dead.

"Feeling bad that I was dragged into it, he gave me a run down on what the fight was all about. He told me of the Templars and Assassins, of the Animus, and of Abstergo and what he knew about Project Carthage. I asked him to train me, teach me how to be an Assassin. From what I heard, I couldn't let man even have the possibility of being enslaved, and the fact that I was now in danger, the Templars knew who I was.

"As time progressed, Suzanne and Jim joined the school roster. Franz and I noticed Jim, who had impressive physical agility, despite his, uh…girth. And he had strength to match. Suzanne, being a science teacher, would give us an edge if she were on our side, limitless smoke bombs, medicine, even some poisons."

Jim jumped in and added, "I joined, by Gustav here, inviting me to see Franz, to discuss an important matter, he didn't tell me for, well obvious reasons. So when I came to Franz's office, we talked for a bit before he came to business. But he made me listen, and made it clear what he had to say was confidential. He said to me, "Jim, what I'm about to tell you is important, but must never leave this room. You can choose to leave now and forget my summoning you here. But if you stay, it'll be a lifelong commitment, you can only back out when you die. Do you understand?"

"So I say to him, "I understand." I got up to leave, but then I realized…this meant a lot to the man. Whatever he was going to tell me, was possibly the most important thing he could tell someone, and that I was one of the people he could trust with this. So I sat back down and listen as he told me of the Assassins Brotherhood, The Knights Templars, the Animus, and the project he worked with."

Suzanne shrugged, "It was basically the same with me, except all three of them asked me to join."

Jeremie and the others just sat there silently. It was quite the story, Aelita's father (not that they knew that) was an Assassin, a powerful warrior, who had some machine, this P.O.E. as they called it. Aelita ask something she had to know, "Franz, did he have a family?"

Suzanne looked at her sort of strangely, "Uh, I think he did. Yes, a wife and daughter I think. I never seen his child, but I've seen his wife, lovely, very nice, pretty damn smart if I recall right…why?"

Aelita added, "Well, if he lived such a dangerous life, what happened to them?"

Gustav sighed, "His wife was taken by the Templars, we have no idea what happened to her after that, but Franz was trying to find out what happened to her. His daughter was OK though. But she disappeared along with Franz 10 years ago."

Ulrich just shook his head, "No, I can't join you guys."

Jim only asked, "Why?"

Ulrich snapped, all the emotion he had from yesterday being released, "I killed three men! I mean, I never wanted to…it just became instinct because of that damn Animus! Now I have a secret I can never reveal! This isn't like some minor felony here! I took three lives! If I could I would tear that part of my brain just to forget it! I'll have to tell my priest at confession that I murdered three men! Why would I join you…?"

Jim sighed, he saw this coming. "Ulrich do you know what happened last night with Yumi?"

Ulrich was silent for a moment before answering, "No, I don't."

Jim explained, "I assume those three men were sent by the Templars, looking for…well I don't know what they were looking for. But since those three men never had the chance to call back to headquarters, they sent a hired gun after Yumi."

"But how did they…?" Ulrich began in a panic, only for Mrs. Hertz to cut him off, "The Templars have eyes everywhere. They can tap into any sort of electronic device and find out whatever they can about anyone anywhere on the planet."

Ulrich, in pure shock from what he was told, took his cell phone from his pocket and just sort of stared at it. 'Then the Templars know about…Lyoko…the Time Reversals…everything.'

"I'm afraid," said Gustav sadly, "You and your friends, albeit unintentionally, gotten yourselves in over your heads."

Mrs. Hertz added, sighing, "I hate to say you have no choice but…you have no choice. You either join us, or die at the hands of the Templars. Your call."

With that, the three teachers lead them out of the hidden room and brought them back to the dormitory buildings, to have the rest of their Sunday.

(A/N: Nope. This story isn't dead! Sorry for the wait, many ideas flying through my head, as well as vacations and school, but hey! Back for now! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you didn't…well I hope you enjoy the next one when it's made. Thanks for your patients. Lyoko498)