...Loading...

It didn't take a genius to figure out that a storm was brewing. Even a high school student who happened to be gazing out of his last period history class could figure that out by noticing the dark clouds that were piling on top of each other creating ominous mountains in the sky. There was that feeling in the air that one can only feel before lighting strikes; when the air is charged and the hairs on one's arm stand up. The feeling caused adrenaline to pump, and even though he was crammed in the too-bright class room in a hard desk, the boy felt exhilarated. Something was going to happen, and if it was for better or for worse he couldn't tell.

Roi found it hard to pay attention to the material they were learning in class, and no matter how hard he tried, his eyes would wander back to the mounting storm clouds. The hairs on his arms were indeed standing up slightly, and there was that faint prickly sensation on the back of his neck. He waited for the bell to ring with no small amount of impatience, and nearly sprang out of his seat startling a few other students when it finally did.

He had almost made his way out of the door when his teacher's sharp voice called him back. "Roi! A word please."

Begrudgingly, Roi made an about face by spinning on his heels and walked over to his teacher's desk. Looking up at his teacher, the teen put a hand on his hip, "What?"

The teacher, Mrs. Renolds, shuddered for a moment when her student made direct eye contact with her. It was something that Roi had always done, but that didn't change the fact that it always unnerved her because the teen's eyes were the most peculiar shade of blue she'd ever seen. No, they weren't the casual blue that one usually matched with blonde hair; they were almost washed out and pierced her like laser beams under his disapproving gaze. Shaking the feeling off, Mrs. Renolds reached into her desk and pulled out two pieces of stapled paper, "Recognize this?"

"Yeah." Roi glanced at it quickly, and then let his gaze shift to the door for a moment, he wanted to leave. "It was that test from last Friday." Huh, she finally graded it didn't she? Took her long enough.

"I just finished grading your class today and I was wondering if you'd like to see your grade."

Roi shrugged and slipped both of his hands into the front pocket of his grey hoodie, allowing his right thumb to pop out of a small hole worn into the fabric. It was wonderfully comfortable with the hood tassels falling all the way down to his hips so that they swayed as he walked. Needless to say, Roi loved the thing to death for its sheer comfort and simplicity. "I guess. Aren't you handing them out tomorrow?"

Mrs. Renolds nodded, "That's right, but I wanted to show you yours a bit early due to your score." She quickly pulled a red pen out of her pocket in what was an obviously practiced movement, and wrote a rather large, larger than necessary, 'D' on the top right corner. "I'm quite disappointed Roi, your grades have been slipping. What happened to that straight A student that used to sit in my class?" She sighed, "I'm going to have to call your parents about this. I mean I don't think you even tried on this essay." She flipped the test to the second page to reference it, "The prompt was for you to explain the third crusade, but you just went off into a tangent about horses."

"Parent. You're going to have to call my parent." Roi corrected, ignoring the entire issue of his essay. In truth, he hadn't been paying attention that day in class, or that entire week, so he had no idea how to explain the crusades.

"What?"

"You said 'parents' – that's plural."

Mrs. Renolds cocked her head to the side, "But your mother married just two months ago." As soon as she said it, the teacher knew that she made a mistake. The blue eyes that had unsettled her earlier were now regarding her with silent fury and gave a silent message. That man is not my father.

"Excuse me," Roi finally spoke, breaking her momentary pause, "I have to get home."

"Oh… oh y-yes of course." She nodded, breaking eye contact. The teacher kept her eyes trained to her desk and only raised her eyes to see Roi slink out of her classroom and into the hall where she lost sight of him amongst the other students.

Roi wasn't all that surprised when the sky opened up and it began to rain as he walked home, he had seen the storm clouds after all, but it did nothing to lift his mood. Quickly, he pulled the grey hood over his head although his blonde hair was already soaked, and little droplets of rain slip down stray strands and onto his face. Picking up his pace, the teen jogged down the city sidewalk and down a back alley in the hopes of taking a short cut.

Making a turn into an alley, Roi jogged until he reached a dead end. Before him was a steel fence, at least 8 feet high, but luckily Roi spotted several trash bins on which he could stand. Not wanting to get any wetter, he climbed onto one bin and used the helpful boost to scale the fence, landing on the balls of his feet on the other side.

No sooner had he stood up to his full height, Roi heard a low and threatening growl followed by the clinking of chain. Looking back over his shoulder, Roi found himself face to face with a rather angry looking Rottweiler. There was a chain attached to its neck, but one of the links had broken allowing the dog to move around the city as freely as it wished. The huge hulking beast of a dog growled again, and lowered its head, baring its fangs.

"Ah…" Roi said softly, trying not to show how utterly terrified he was, "Hey boy…"

It snarled.

Suddenly, there was the blinding flash of lightning followed by a loud roar of thunder, and the already aggravated dog lunged forward at the drenched teen.

No sooner had the dog moved an inch, Roi was already sprinting in the opposite direction, pushing over trash bins and boxes in an attempt to trip the four legged beast. His converse slapped against the pavement beneath his feet at a furious pace, not slowing for even the fear of slipping in the quickly forming puddles. Still, the dog was faster, and was gaining on the boy.

Up ahead, Roi saw another high fence, and after it the street that lead to his apartment building. Though his legs were burning and his lungs screamed for a break, Roi let loose one last burst of speed towards the fence. Leaping up onto it, its steel links rattled and there was another flash of lightning. The Rottweiler chomped down on his ankle, trying to pull him back. Roi yelped out in pain, but the only thing he could think was how he was clinging to a high metal object in a thunderstorm.

The lighting and thunder crashed again, and with his free leg, Roi kicked the dog square between its beady eyes. The dog was caught off guard and let go, giving the teen the two seconds he needed to haul himself over the fence. This time, his landing wasn't as graceful, and both of Roi's knees scraped against the pavement as he fell on them. He hissed in pain for a short moment, but was more pleased with his accomplishment of escaping with his life.

He stood up, legs shaky and knees bleeding lightly, "Next time, I'll take the long way…" Roi promised himself.

After flipping off the defeated but still barking Rottweiler, Roi limped the rest of the way back to his apartment building. Usually, he would have taken the stairs, but his knees screamed in protest at the very thought of such a thing. So instead, he waited for the elevator and hit the button for the second floor.

The two metal doors opened, and Roi stepped out into the long and dimly lit hallway. The building was a bit of a dive, and the lights stopped working occasionally, or the heat would turn off in the entire building. It was the sort of building that had rocks thrown into the windows (and on one particular occasion, Roi had been the one who threw the rock).

Fumbling for the house key that he kept in his back pocket, Roi let himself into the house silently. As he stepped inside, he could hear his mother's voice on the phone in the other room.

"…His grades are slipping? No, we had no idea…"

Roi pursed his lips tightly, so Mrs. Renolds wasted no time in keeping her little promise. Oh yes, this day was just shaping up magnificently wasn't it? Already he could imagine the argument that was going to occur between himself and his mother. She would say how she expected more from him, how school was oh-so important, and that he was throwing his life away.

Ha! Like she would be on to talk. She threw her life away when she married that… reject of a man now called her husband.

Wanting avoid confrontation for as long as possible, Roi slunk past the kitchen and into his bedroom hoping that no one saw him come in, shutting the door silently. Dropping his soaked backpack onto his bed, Roi sighed and sat down at his computer desk. Without much enthusiasm, he checked his e-mail, which he technically wasn't supposed to be doing considering the fact he was still grounded for back talking Rick last week. Nothing, no e-mail. He sighed again; it wasn't like it was unexpected with the way that the day had been going.

He had no sooner opened an IM window with a friend when he heard his mother's voice (so she had seen him… damn.) -

"Roi! Roi come here we need to have a talk." A 'talk' is what she always called it, even though the term didn't really fit. The talk's usually consisted of her talking – no, yelling – at him while he had to stand there in silent submission. Unable to defend himself usually because 'excuses were for liars' – whatever that meant.

Roi got up from his seat at his computer desk and put the chair in front of the door and beneath the doorknob, effectively locking it. Quickly, he grabbed his Swiss army knife from atop his dresser, iPod from his iHome, and sunglasses and shoved them into his jean pockets.

His computer made a beeping alert noise as he was looking for a hat:

jihad.on.YOU!: Hey man, so what's up with you?

Roi typed quickly with one hand while he opened his bedroom window with the other.

Slurp: Ntm, but I gotta go. I'm getting out of the house for a couple hours while my mom and Rick blow some steam

jihad.on.YOU!: kk, wanna hang out over here at my place until things blow over?

Slurp: Nah, they'd look there first. You only live one block away so it's sort of obvious. I'm not bringing my phone (they can track those things) so don't bother txting later. I'll call via payphone express later when I get the chance.

"Roi!" his mother called again, this time more agitated.

Slurp: g2g now, ttyl

Picking up the wad of cash that he always kept beneath his keyboard, Roi leaned out of his bedroom window and grabbed onto the thick stone ledge directly above it. He hauled himself up, and swung a leg onto the ledge to make things easier. Roi had no sooner pulled himself up onto a sitting position on the ledge when he heard Rick and his mother at his bedroom door.

"Roi! Roi open this door right now!" His mother yelled.

"Listen to your mother!" Rick added in as he tried to force the door open. Roi almost laughed, it was strange how Rick seemed to think he had taken over the 'father' position.

Not wanting to be around when they finally managed to get the door open, Roi scooted across the ledge carefully until he reached the end of that particular side of the building. Turns were always the hardest part or sneaking out, because he could easily just lose his balance and fall off, but it was necessary to get to that other wall to reach the fire escape. Because it was raining, the ledge was a little slippery, but Roi couldn't count how many times he had snuck out this way, and he hadn't fallen down yet. His confidence was the only thing that allowed him to do this.

Keeping his back to the wall, Roi carefully maneuvered himself around the corner of the building and onto the other side. He relaxed a fraction but didn't allow his focus to break. Scooting another eight feet across the ledge, Roi made it to the fire escape and allowed himself to jump the 5 foot drop onto its iron landing. From there on, it was an easy way down by using the ladder.

There was a particularly loud crack of thunder and lighting, and Roi starting walking towards the center of the city knowing he could hang out in one of the many buildings there. The walk wasn't long, mostly because he knew where he was going, and there weren't many of those annoying city tourists blundering around in the rain.

Reaching the center of town, Roi looked around its large expanse. When things got basic, the center of the city was just a large intersection with a large fountain in its center surrounded by varies high end stores and businesses. As usual, despite the rain, there were hundreds of cars in the streets driving around.

Glancing into one of the glass display windows next to the main entrance of the building, Roi looked at the newest Abstergo Industries product. The teen wasn't very surprised to find that it was another anti-depressant pill with a long list of side effects. It seemed like now, there were more shrinks just filling out prescriptions and less doing talk-therapy…

Roi was just imagining what his life would be like if he slipped his mother some of these anti-depressants when suddenly, some sort of gun shot off and something whizzed through the air past Roi's ear to crash into the glass behind his head shattering it into thousands of little pieces. Instinctively, Roi's hands came up to cover his ears and he dropped down to his stomach on the wet sidewalk.

The few tourists that had been mulling around screamed in terror and ran into the nearest shop for cover. People scrambled in all directions, not knowing where the shot came from or what the attackers looked like. Another shot followed the first about fifteen seconds later, crashing into another window on the other side of the building.

"Go, go! Move in!" Roi heard someone shout in a military sort voice. Peaking up from the ground, the disgruntled teen watched as at least 10 men charged straight towards him each carrying a various kind of gun.

Roi was beyond panicking, and his 'fight or flight' instinct seemed to be taking some sort of vacation because the teen found himself glued to the spot. How could this even be possible? This mini world war that was going on in the center of the city had to be a dream, because there was no way this could really be happening.

The entrance doors to Abstergo Industries – which were mere inches away from Roi - flung open, and several men charged out of there as well. They were heavily armed with some sort of turret gun, which they immediately began firing at the other men. Roi found himself in a strange position. Beside the open doors and behind the turret. The white clad security men of Abstergo seemed to take no notice of him even though the teen could have reached out and grabbed them if he wanted to, could he escape through the doors without them noticing?

What other defenses did they have inside?

In the insanity of the moment, Roi found himself thinking "Isn't Abstergo a medical company?" From the way they were fighting, and killing these attackers, they seemed more like a privately owned military.

Gunshots were flying through the air in all directions, breaking more windows and denting the stone and metal framework of the building, just over ten feet away from where he was laying, one of the attackers fell holding his stomach. A thick red fluid seemed to leak out of him, and the obviously dying man made eye contact with the terrified bystander. His eyes seemed glazed over, but Roi caught the pondering – calculating – look in his features.

The man coughed up a small amount of blood and threw his handgun to the teen. It looked more like the dying man was making an attempt to hit one of the white clad guards but missed though, "Run." He mouthed to Roi. "Run."

One of the white clad men closest to Roi suddenly grasped at his chest as a small spurt of red

blood gushed out the side. Not only did it mar his once perfectly white uniform, small droplets of his blood soaked into Roi's hoodie and onto the right side of his face. Things suddenly became very real.

Roi didn't need telling twice after that. Carefully moving low to the ground and hoping not to be

hit by a stray bullet, Roi crawled behind the men operating the turret, grabbed the handgun, and into Abstergo Industries. The inside of the building was oddly clean considering the carnage outside. The information desk in the center of the main lobby was empty, and the hallways each had a guard standing watch. Unfortunately, there were two hallways exiting the main lobby, and so two guards saw the soaked teenager.

"I…!" Roi put both of his hands up immediately dropping the handgun, "Don't shoot!"

They didn't listen to the boy's plea and immediately fired their weapons.

Roi felt a bullet fly right past his head and through a lock of hair before lodging itself in the wall behind. The other bullet struck true, making contact – and Roi fell to the ground. He didn't move.

From outside, the men operating the turret called for backup, and the two guards left their

posts to assist. The attackers were dwindling in numbers, but still advancing on Abstergo. The jogged past the boy and out into the fray.

Once they had passed, Roi snapped his blue eyes open. He wasn't dead – not yet anyway. The bullet had hit, just not in the way that the guard thought it did. Roi's favorite grey hoodie, spattered with blood on one side, now had a bullet hole on the side. The fabric had always been baggy around his body, but it had confused the guard! He had shot thinking that his body was bigger!

Not wasting the opportunity, Roi sprung up to his feet, grabbed the gun, and ran down one of the halls exiting the lobby now that they were left unguarded. The hallway was white and overly bright, almost reminding him of his high school. The doors were metal though, with combination locks sealing them shut from all intruders. On the ceiling, there was a little red light every few feet that flashed an angry crimson color and sounded a loud alarm.

Reaching a flight of stairs, Roi run upwards and down another short hallway before meeting an intersection. Three halls to choose from.

Hearing the gunshots from down below die down, Roi knew that the small battle must be over. The guards would wonder where the body in the lobby went, so he didn't have much time to figure out an escape. Darting down the left hall, he looked for an open door. He heard mumbled voices from behind one of the doors though, and hid on its opposite side as it opened suddenly. Shielded from sight from the open door, he listened in.

"Those pesky assassins at it again?" A voice mused aloud, annoyed.

Another man scoffed, "There isn't nearly enough of them to get past our defenses."

"Indeed," The first agreed, "though we should go investigate those that are still clinging to life. They might have the information we want…"

Roi heard a soft clatter as the two men walked away, and he peeked past the door to see that there was a black pen on the ground. Its back end was flashing oddly though. The two men walking away were in white lab coats and held clipboards; where they doctors?

Moving quickly, Roi scooped up the pen and slipped into the door just as it was closing. He had been expecting another room, but was surprised to find another… hallway. This one was short, with another metal door at the end of it with a keypad.

Roi turned back around to try and open the first door, but saw that there was ne keypad present. There had to be a control room on the other side of the second door where all exits had to be timed and planned. This security measure would keep all intruders… trapped. Great.

Roi moved to the second door with the keypad, and punched in a few random numbers.

"Access denied." A computer voice echoed.

Frantically, he punched in several more.

"Access denied." The computer voice repeated.

"Screw you!" Roi cried out in frustration, and threw the pen at the keypad. Suddenly, the pad flashed a warm green, and the door slid open.

"Access granted, welcome Dr. Vidic." The computer voice said this time.

The pen! It was the flashing pen that granted access! Picking it up, Roi walked through the threshold and into a large room. Inside, there was one wall made up totally of windows while the opposing wall had two more metal doors on it. In the center there was a large… what was it?

It looked like a table with a silver streak down its middle that lit up every few seconds, although it had a curve in it so nothing could really be set on it. Roi walked over to it an inspected the computer at its side. All sorts of diagrams and charts were saved there, and some of them showed a man laying down on it.

Roi wasn't stupid enough to lie down.

A voice came on a PA system:

"Attention. Attention. We have an intruder on the premises. He is armed and is to be shot on sight. We have reason to believe that he is after the Animus."

A person began to bash on one of the doors on the far wall from the other side, "Hey! Hey open up! I'm in here!"

The second door slid open and in walked the same two doctors that Roi saw earlier followed by at least a dozen white clad guards. "There he is, get the brat!" one of the doctors yelled, "Don't shoot, you'll damage the equipment!"

The guards surged forward and Roi made a beeline for the door he came from. He saw that it was firmly closed though, and remembered that one had to use the computers to get out seeing as the doors were one way only. Turning on his heel, Roi started to run in the opposite direction towards the open door by the doctors. All rational sense of thinking was gone now.

Just as he was passing the table, a guard reached out for him, and without thinking Roi brought up the handgun, firing upon the guard.

The guard fell on the ground holding his arm and writing in pain, and Roi was flung back by the unexpected recoil on the small gun. He lost his footing and fell back onto the table. It was hard, and the back of his head bashed into the metal streak making him see stars. Something within the table whirred to life, and the lights flashed quicker. A screen rose up and blocked his vision and a strange sort of triangular symbol was the only thing he could see.

"Error." A female computer voice said in Roi's mind. His head felt like he had split it in two, and the teen fell faint. The gun fell from his limp hand and Roi lost consciousness as his mind went white. "Error." It repeated.

"He's on the Animus!" the doctor yelled.

"Uploading memory." The female computer voice continued.

The doctor ran to the computer pannel, "I... I don't know what it's doing! It's uploading Desmond's file!"

"Initializing memory."

Notes -

Usually I really hate using OC's in stories, but this idea has been nagging me for a while and at the moment, there are no teenage characters in Assassin's Creed. Beyond that, in the game there are no children at all. Everyone is fully grown. That makes sense though because some people didn't like the idea of Altair bandishing his sword and lobbing off the head of some little girl in Acre. Not saying that most gamers would do that, but some might.

I'm not particularly pleased with his chapter, and I'm excited to get the next one out. Altair will be appearing in chapter two, so don't worry, you won't be surrounded by a sea of OC's much longer.

Review?