Rain pelted Desmond's helmet as he watched the red light before him. He grimaced behind the visor, balancing on one foot astride his motorcycle while adjusting his iPod earphones. Dani California droned out steadily. Having to be off the grid sucked, he wanted a smart phone instead, maybe a Bluetooth earpiece. Well, almost off the grid; driving a motorcycle required registration and ID. It was nothing, he was sure. He would just have to settle with this- maybe, he grunted a laugh as he thought about his suspicions. Even though he thought his father's isolation and paranoia was just cultish bullshit, he still found himself half-assedly scanning his surroundings. But that was all it was: bullshit. Something lingered in the back of his mind, probably just the way he was raised, that made him feel it was best to be secretive and alert. It had been years since he left the farm; there really was no reason to keep practicing those lessons.

Screw it, he decided. Raising the volume, he kept his iPod under his damp jacket and blissfully stopped paying attention. The car behind him honked. "Dickhead," he muttered, accelerating through the green light.

August thirty-first and it was already as cold as a whore's heart outside. Then again it was almost midnight, Desmond considered it lucky he was going home at this hour instead of bartending until three in the morning. He passed an empty lot, swirling with bits of litter as rain pooled on the pavement. The car behind him growled as it maneuvered into the other lane, lurching up to travel beside Desmond. The street was fairly empty at this hour with the current state of the weather in the city's back roads. Desmond kept on at about seven miles over the speed limit, rising about a mile per hour every few seconds carelessly. He recognized the car beside him as a dark steely blue van, besides that paid no mind to the senses urging him to glance over at it. A yellow light glared at him ten yards ahead. Desmond committed to blaze through it when the van roared to life again, cutting him off under the light as it turned red.

"The fuck man!" Desmond snapped, decelerating with a middle finger raised.

Already at thirteen miles over the speed limit, Desmond knew it was not safe to accelerate more under this weather just to get around the douchebag. That, and they were on a two-lane road; he could see the headlights of another car in the oncoming lane and knew it was a risky gamble to cross into it. The van began to slow annoyingly, as if whoever was driving had taken his foot off the gas pedal. Desmond tailgated it briefly to protest, grumbling, "Come on, come on! Way too late for this."

As Desmond was slowing to space himself safely, the van seemed to follow, flashing its tail lights. Desmond took the hint and decelerated even more, thinking the driver was being an even bigger douchebag. "Alright, you win."

The van drifted to a stop. Desmond carefully stopped behind it, feeling something off. Brain still sluggishly working, he turned toward the other lane to edge around the van. The oncoming car approached and stopped as well, forming a wall beside the van with its floodlights blinding Desmond. Walking backward on his motorcycle, Desmond decided he wouldn't be part of a mugging today, or whatever the hell these two idiots were doing. They probably were trying to find each other, he guessed, but it was strange the van had decided to cut Desmond off. He might just be an asshole, like most of the city people.

Desmond saw the doors of both vans open, a few men getting out. He spotted the unmistakable form of a gun on at least two of the figures, and immediately drove onto the sidewalk to speed away in the opposite direction. The car facing him followed on the road. A slim vehicle, it powered ahead of Desmond dangerously on the slick road. Cursing his luck, Desmond turned into the dirty lot he had passed earlier. He quickly went around a dumpster as his pursuer tried to stop in the rain without hydroplaning. Dismounting, he shoved his keys in his pocket and decided his life weighed more his guilty pleasure. He left his helmet and iPod behind, thinking the thugs might take that and be satisfied or at least stalled. Ditching his jacket in the hopes of not being recognized on foot, he fled. The headlights of the first gray-blue van came into view, turning into the lot. Desmond hauled himself over a chain link fence, scraping his stomach on the rough metal as he went.

Landing clumsily, he continued running into an alley, ironic as it was. Dear God he was out of shape. The alley should lead to his home if he took a left here...

"Damn," he swore, catching a glimpse of a gun-wielding man around the corner.

He backpedaled to turn and go the opposite direction, then a sharp electric pain coursed up his spine. Whoever tazed him ordered him not to struggle. Desmond jerked and fell to his knees, soaking his pants. The pain was like nothing he quite knew or had imagined. Admittedly he was aware of himself cowering there on the ground, and did not resist as the thug pulled up upright. A needle glinted in the corner of his vision. Faintly, a sound perforated the tension. The noise was almost like... an eagle? A dull thump sounded next, a limp arm met the ground ahead as if a man had fallen with his hand outstretched. Something like a white blur darted around the alley toward Desmond. Desmond found himself a hairsbreadth from a hooded, male face. The world moved slowly while the man brought his hand past Desmond's ear, whispering a metallic snick!

The man behind Desmond choked and gurgled painfully, toppling away. Desmond saw the empty, used syringe fly from the man's hand. Oddly, he felt the motivation to move then. He stupidly turned into the hooded man's arm and tried to duck under, feeling whatever was in his blood now sedating him. Hissing something at him, the man tried to grab Desmond as the blade in his other hand sliced across his shoulder. Desmond flailed, bewildered and rapidly losing consciousness. More people were approaching, firing their guns. One bullet bit into Desmond's leg and he cried out, clutching at it as the hooded man swept him behind the corner. Confusedly, he stumbled along. His captor hauled him back with both hands, Desmond fearfully looked for the knife in the man's left hand. Christ, his finger's gone!

"Damn it, stop!" He heard one of the approaching men shout. Before he passed out, he thought they said something strange, "Vidic said don't shoot! You'll hit subject 17!"

A throbbing headache, a stinging pain in his shoulder, and a horrible burning in his leg woke Desmond. The entirety of the pain itself was a fine how-do-you-do, waking to see a familiar white-hooded man bent over his leg with a metal object halfway into it was too much.

The pure shock of it froze him for a second. The Arab paused without looking up. "If you move, something will give."

Still reeling, Desmond fought a wave of nausea. Tersely, the man added, "And it won't be the forceps."

Desmond swallowed his sickness and cast his eyes about the room his in, anything but watching the blood ooze from his leg. He was on a narrow bed in a decent beige room, sunlight streaming through the spaces of the blinds in the window. His dirty pants lay over the lid of a hamper in the corner, along with his shirt. He realized he was only in his red boxers while the stranger picked at the hole in his calf. A clean, middleclass-man type house was not exactly the worst thing to wake up in, but still, not awfully comforting.

"What's going on," Desmond asked carefully. The stranger methodically moved his hands over Desmond's wound, flitting between gauze and bloodstained cloth. "Damn it, say something!"

The man removed the forceps entirely and gathered an adhesive bandage in his hands. Even indoors he had a hood on; seriously? Fucking creep. It was not like this hid his face entirely from Desmond, he could clearly see his prominent features enough to identify him later if he wanted to.

All he really wanted now was to be out of here, though.

Desmond tried again. "Look man, I don't know what I did but I'm sure you have the wrong guy."

"You're Desmond Miles," the stranger stated emotionlessly.

"That's dandy," Desmond muttered, exasperated. "I've never seen you before, I have no idea who you are or how you know me- or where the fuck I am."

"I am Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. This is where Ezio Auditore lives," he gestured toward the room. "You are among brothers."

"What are you talking about?" A lump formed in Desmond's throat.

Altair gazed intelligently at Desmond, without a hint of insanity that Desmond hoped to find, just to dehumanize the man and make the situation bearable. Anything but what he knew was true. "Assassins."

Staring at his palms, Desmond regretted his decisions. He had been a speck on the grid for only a motorcycle; and it had done him in. He was out there messing with his earphone rather than being alert and aware. He was stupid. "So my dad sent you?"

"No."

Desmond looked up, surprised.

"We have been separate from the modern creed," Altair explained, manipulating the bandage in his fingers. While working Altair's words over in his mind, Desmond was unprepared for the man to reach over and slap the bandage over his wounded leg. He yelped, drawing his knee to his chest. Continuing as if nothing had transpired, Altair said, "You know little of your ancestry or the events around you, Desmond."

"Well, update me," Desmond hissed bitterly.

Altair blinked once and turned, opening the only door in the room to leave. Desmond began to rise, grumbling, "Fine, fuck you... I'm out of here."

The door shut soundly, in a hard way that made Desmond falter. He looked back to see Altair fixating a stern, menacing glare on him. "You aren't leaving."

Of course, here we go... Desmond sighed inwardly, knowing there just had to be something like this to face, some string attached. "I left the farm before," he said. Fear crept into his voice despite his efforts to remain in control. "I'll do it again."

Altair narrowed his eyes at Desmond. "You are in Ezio's home now among elite Assassins. This is no farm, and you would do well not to sow animosity among your allies."

"Just tell me what the hell I'm here for."

"Tell me you're staying."

"Fine, I'm staying."

"Either tell a better lie or tell the truth."

Desmond crossed his arms, exchanging dirty looks with Altair before relenting, "I won't escape right now."

"Good enough," Altair muttered. "You're here to learn the ways of your ancestors, to train in our techniques so that you may combat the Templars, such as the ones who attempted to capture you earlier."

"Wait, what..."

Altair promptly left the room, locking the door behind him.

"Mother fucker," Desmond growled. He sorely got up and looked to the window. Can't run naked, he realized, still in his shorts. He spotted a pair of clean jeans folded by the nightstand next to a white hoodie like Altair's. He put these on and stiffly paced around the room, thinking. Who the hell were Altair or Ezio, if they weren't part of the brotherhood Desmond had left, who were they claiming to be?

At least it seemed they were on his side, or really, trying to get him on theirs. The Templars as Altair identified them had harmed him, Altair had nicked him on accident. Still, he could go off the grid again in a different location and thus under the radar, better this time. This time for sure. He would not be part of this Assassin and Templar conspiracy shit, he was too young and too absorbed in living free. Living in the Creed was too much order, too much containment. Then again, he wondered why the Templars would want him, or why Altair did. They must be real anal about members of the Creed, like the mafia would never let a member leave. Which meant the organizations probably did more than he paid attention to. He always thought his father was just head of the hippie house. Now the thought of this Assassin group he was affiliated with possibly being a bigger group than he thought alarmed him. What if they did do crimes or something? Most likely hackers, the van that pursued him was an Abstergo company car now that he thought back to it. His family went and pissed off a company. Like how PETA messes with big business sometimes, he guessed.

Either way, he had to get out.