AN: I don't own Assassin's Creed.

Chapter One: Escape

He felt different.

His eyes were still closed and he had not reached full awareness yet but what he could feel was perturbing. The feel of his body was different. His art and training had allowed him full control of every muscle and joint in and he wielded his body as he did his sword: with expert knowledge yet he was aware of the difference. He was longer – taller? – and his shoulders were slightly broader. A breath breezed in through his lips and nose and the foreign smell hit him like the scent of blood. He could not place it and it made him wary – it was as strange rust-like scent and another scent and chemicals that burned his nose. The burning caused him to convulse with coughing and he doubled sideways and drew in shallow breaths. He froze when he saw his hands. The skin was slightly lighter and his fingers were longer.

All ten of his fingers were longer. He stared at the ring finger – the one Al Mualim had sliced off during his initiation – in complete disbelief. It had been cut off for his reception of the hidden blade. He flexed his hands and felt a new power. He was stronger. Confusion rose like a fist and it was chased by panic.

He did not understand what kind of sorcery had occurred while he was … what had he been doing? He rubbed his nose – it was narrower – and closed his eyes. He needed to find his way to Masyaf and to Malik and to do that he needed to know where he was. He had barely taken notice of his hands when he saw his clothing – he assumed it was clothing – he saw it was also different. Softer, a lot less coarse than the white cloth he was used too. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his new hands and the present ring finger. The vision was sharper. Were his eyes different? He needed to escape.

Altair opened his eyes and stared around him at the strangest sight he'd ever beheld. The ceiling gleamed like his sword – it was metal – and everything looked strange and everything gleamed in a way he found unnerving. He sat on a soft bench, long enough to be a bed and he saw metal ropes from the wall suspended the bench. A latch told him the bed was easily hidden. The room was illuminated by a while orb – like an artificial sun that was entirely too bright for his liking. He took in the room he was in – a box with a door and no windows – before he became aware of one thing that had his defenses up and ready: his weapons were gone.

His hands searched his ribs for his wide belt and throwing knives as well as the short blade that his back and felt nothing for the soft cloth. The strange black fabric told him nothing of his sword. The only thing that was his in the room was his wide brown belt. On the table on the opposite side of the room sat a dirty brown band – eerily similar to the one he'd worn to do his former masters' bidding but it was different. He leapt to his feet, and stumbled slightly since this body was slightly faster and stronger – and he grabbed his belt hoping for the glint of steel and frowned when there was nothing. He usually kept his clothes perfectly clean but this band was nearly destroyed and not from battle but from age. The leather was crumbling and even if there had been knives in the tiny sheaths, the buckles were gone and one strap was missing entirely. He felt slightly exposed without his weapons, even though he was a tiny room alone, he felt as if he was missing something, like a limb.

He only had a few minutes to contemplate this before he began to feel the metal door. There was no knob and he rested both hands on it and tried to push and gritted his teeth in frustration when it stubbornly stayed shut.

The small thud alerted him and he whirled, his eyes searching for the source of the sound– a fraction of his mind taking it the comfort these new shoes brought him – and he readied his body to fight. His eyes snapped to a medium-sized square made of metal slits by the his bed and he froze when they shook and he could hear breathing. He could see something moving in there. To his shock fingers squeezed through the slit and the metal snapped off the wall, dropping to the spot his feet had been on and he stopped unsure of what to do when a woman's head emerged from the rectangular hole. She reached with one hand and pulled herself to a sitting position, her legs still in the hole when she looked at him with storm-gray eyes. Her expression puzzled him more than anything. Wrenching pain quickly followed the pure shock that raced across her features so fast but so deep that he paused and her hand trembled slightly when it stopped in midair when she reached for the metal rope. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again a second later, they were expressionless but he could see the tension in her body and face.

It was simple, she thought, completely disregarding the ache in her heart when he looked at her – his expression guarded and wary, just get him out of here and bring him back to the Bureau, not the expression he was used to seeing on his face. It's not him anymore, she reminded herself and glanced back it him. He would look the same to anyone, but she saw the difference. The stance was altered and the way he stood told her it was useless. He was wearing a simple white shirt and black jeans. The boots – she recognized the boots – were laced under the pants.

"Is your name…Altair?" She asked and he frowned but he didn't attack her. She was sure it was Altair, since they still had Desmond and were still getting memories from another source.

"It is. And who are you?" He responded cordially to the woman and she nodded, his voice was deeper, the flash of pain was so fast he almost missed it but it was replaced by a new sense of determination echoed on the firm set of her mouth and in her movements. The fact that she knew his name was puzzling but he was willing to listen as he sensed she was not an enemy. With motions as smooth as a cats', she leapt to her feet and reached inside the hole again. She pulled a black, shapeless bag and set it on the table next to his belt. He heart was beginning to pound now and she realized there was no going back. This was her mission – going against Johansson's orders – and she had to see it through for her and for… Altair.

"I'm Astrid. Take these. You'll need them," she said shortly and handed him a bundle of black straps and metal. His fingers combed through them and he realized they were small throwing knives. He fitted them over the white cloth of what he was wearing and snapped them on tightly. The blades were beautiful, slender and deadly. He ran a finger along one edge and stopped he saw the symbol – the Assassin's symbol on the hilt of the tiny knives. A short blade, sleeker and wicked-looking was snug in a black leather sheath that positioned the handle right over his shoulder. He flexed slightly and waited for a sword, but instead got two black metal wristbands and he examined them after putting them on. With a slight movement, a blade snapped out, gorgeously engraved with design and the symbol on the edge.

He looked at her and saw she had the same knives as he as well as a smaller silver short blade that was positioned on her lower back, the hilt pointing down, and it was so close to her that it would have been hidden by another layer of clothing quite easily. He watched her movements – quick and precise. She was an ally, he felt, and he relaxed slightly when he realized it meant that she had information of the occurrences that led him to be trapped here.

She pulled out a small black device that blinked numbers and she held it to the door – to his surprise it stayed on – and turned a small dial. She was moving as fast a she could and she moved around him – the small room making it difficult to not brush against him as he flexed to get used to the new weapons. The numbers blinked rapidly and she then pulled a strange looking metal object from the black bag and cut the thin metal ropes that held the bed and using her foot as leverage against the wall, she grunted and ripped one end from the wall. Feeling slightly useless, Altair grabbed the other end and pulled as she cut the rope. Astrid dropped the tool and checked the bag - it was empty and her cell phone was off.

She stopped suddenly and looked at him, her face somber, and her eyes deadly serious. He was sure he'd never seen eyes that storm-gray color before. "I'm going to get you out of here. We are going to hide behind this when the door blows and we're going to run. Follow me and if anyone comes at us, I'll get them but watch your back."

What she said made some sense. Altair had caught the gist. Escape, he thought, and run after her. The dialect was different but he understood it well enough. She propped the bed against the wall and walked to the small device on the door. Taking a deep breath she pushed a small red button and ran back to him, pulling him along, hid behind the metal bed. She clapped her hands over her ears and he stared, wondering if she was sane when the explosion roared through him.

He was not prepared for the impact, the noise and the absolute shock of the explosion less than ten feet from where he was. He felt rather than heart ricochets of metal whirring past his head and snapping into the wall, leaving dents, he realized this is why Astrid had cut the bed off. His ears rang it and it felt like a wall – the shockwave – had slapped him against her and into the wall and white spots broke out along his vision. The woman, Astrid, was on her feet and pulling on his arm, shouting something and he recalled her plan and tried to follow. His knees were shaky and he shook his head hoping to clear it. The ringing in his ears would not stop and he stumbled along behind her, trying his best to keep up. Alarms were wailing everywhere, deafening him even more but his training had taught him adaptability and his vision cleared.

He ran alongside her now, turning when she turned and he watched her and their surroundings like a hawk. The place was like a maze and he didn't know how she knew where to go but he heard the breath she huffed out in relief when she they came to a door and she didn't stop, just shoved it open closed it. She jammed it as well and leaned over the railing to measure the distance. She had a smaller bag on her hips, he saw and she opened it deftly and pulled out black rope – thin but strong beyond anything he'd felt – and used a metal snap to tie it to the rope and then swung the rope upwards so it hooked onto the railing above them and the rope dangled in front of them. She then clasped two metal objects – with handles – on the thin cable and looked behind her toward the door. She wordlessly worked and assembled the objects to they were one below the other motioned for him to come forward.

Altair stepped forward cautiously. He deducted that they were meant to go down the rope but he nearly gaped when he saw the height. Standing on a small ledge on the top of the towers in Jerusalem was nothing compared to the spiraling stairs that became smaller and smaller as they sunk into a pit, it seemed.

"Okay, listen," Astrid said, her voice slightly strained as cold, heavy footsteps were heard on the other side of the door, "Hang on to the top one. To brake – to stop slowly – you use your thumbs and press both buttons on the handles and we will slowly stop falling, but you're a backup brake so I'll take care of that. Understand?" Astrid was staring at him intently her heart pounding in her chest. They were progressing better than she thought but her guard was still up.

He realized that they weren't actually speaking in his own dialect, but a different language altogether. He didn't know how he understood it or how it came out of his mouth when he spoke but he knew that she was ally and he'd have to trust her until they were another area. Then he'd question her. He nodded and watched her gracefully vault over the railing as if there was a place to land on the other side and with one hand, as she was still vaulting, she caught the handle and swung into position with her other hand already gripping the twin handle. She held the rope steady and looked up at him.

The body he was in was different – stronger – than his own body so he was cautious when he climbed over and gripped the handles, his feet planted on the railing. When she saw he hand a strong grip, she stopped holding the rope steady and just hung from the handles, her feet curling around the rope. As soon as she did this, so did he and he dropped so they were hanging and pressed together, their faces awfully close, and his feet also twined around the rope, below her feet. The focused expression on her face did nothing to betray the tumultuous emotions inside her. She had never thought he'd be this close… but it was Altair, not who she was thinking of. The body was as familiar to her as her own was and she had noticed Altair adjusting to the change quickly. If he held on they would make it.

"One more thing," Astrid said, swallowing back the urge to stroke his face, and made her tone a tad dry, "don't let go." She smiled briefly and sardonically and released the small lever in the center and then they were falling. It was like cutting the rope and free falling. Altair drew in a shocked breath and sheer adrenaline had him grasping the handles tighter. He would have preferred leaping from a tower were the stairs weren't so close to them. He was surprised to find that he liked the feeling of falling as opposed to the free diving and jumping he used to do in Acre and Damascus.

The woman, Astrid, had gone perfectly taut and her lips were pursed in a straight thin line and her brow was furrowed. Her thick black hair whipped around and they fell. Her skin, the tanned color of dusky gold, had paled slightly and he felt a slight tremble in her knees. This told him that she was nervous, and possibly afraid, but the sheer concentration and will had her perfectly still. To her credit, although she hated falling and heights, she didn't scream or make any sort of noise. She just counted the levels they passed, knowing that the rope ended twenty feet from the first floor and she had to brake at least twenty feet from the end or else they would really free fall to the ground. They had been on the fifteenth floor and Astrid narrowed her eyes as she began to subtract.

Sure she had counted right, she pressed on the button and they slowly began to slow their fall.

Astrid looked up and let out a breath of relief. Through the haze of relief she looked up and saw that the reminder that the mission was not over and she swore under her breath. Above them, were Templars – their modern reincarnation – and they were leaping down the stairs at a speed that even Astrid admired briefly before doing the final bit of their escape. Using their slowing fall and her body, she managed to get a swinging motion, it went smoother once Altair got the hang of it.

"Take it," Astrid gasped when they got close enough to the railing and he did. The hairs on her neck stood up and her gaze snapped to the top of the rope where she saw a vicious grin and the glint of a knife. She bared her teeth as Altair vaulted over the railing and reached for her arms to help her.

He was less than a centimeter from her when the knife cut through the thin rope and Astrid really began to freefall. Her heart thudding in her throat she reached for her hookshot and aimed. With a slight pop, the cable that deployed out with the claws at the end curled around the railing and she winced when the pressure on her arms stopped her from falling.

"Down, Altair!" Astrid shouted but he was already running down the stairs. She climbed over the railing and waited as the cable from the hookshot gun slid back into place and Altair reached her.

They didn't speak, just kept running down the stairs. They were on the west end of the building – where the truck docks were and Astrid ran harder, skidding slightly when they reached the bottom and she kicked the door open. They were in the warehouse now, so close to the end when the alarms reached them and the doors began to close automatically.

"No!" Astrid shouted and felt the burn in her legs and heard Altair's breath coming hard and fast next to her, his feet slapping the ground as they sprinted – neck and neck – towards the garage doors that were creeping shut.

Astrid didn't care, she dived under the door as Altair rolled under it, and grunted when she landed outside, on the hard gravel, on her shoulder. She rolled to her feet and was still running, Altair a few steps behind her when and she let out a sigh of relief when the black car whipped around the corner, on the other side of the chain-link fence that she began to scale - Altair next to her, following her every move – and dropped to the ground. Without any warning she nearly ripped the car door off and she shoved him inside and got in behind her.

"Don't move!" Astrid snapped, ignoring the pangs in her heart as she pinned him down and held up a scanner – built by one of the Assassin's designed to find and destroy any tracing devices implanted in the body – to his face. Altair struggled slightly but she was not harming him. Everything was happening too fast. He didn't know where he was. "Gotcha!" Astrid whispered. They had implanted the trace on his left arm and Astrid targeted the glowing device on the screen and squeezed a small trigger and was relieved to see the device fizzle out and Altair jerk slightly with the shock.

The woman looked at his face for the second time and her expression was sad. "Get some rest."

Altair did the only thing he thought to do. He passed out cold.