Heyyyy! Sorry that I haven't made a new chapter for a long time. I had an idea for this chapter for a year and written a couple sentences, but I had no idea how to put the rest into words, so this story was sort of put on hiatus. But I had a friend, Tsukune sendo, who wrote out the rest of the chapter. So thanks to him, I was able to get this chapter up! Enjoy!

Damn it! I never thought Dad's dumb acting classes would have to be useful one day. I should have paid more attention. Damn it!

Desmond cursed his luck and his acting skills. After all, it was those two things that got them landed in a dirty jail cell in the basement of the Masyaf Castle.

Ezio was in the cell across from his, slouched against the gray wall decorated with peeling paint. His hair was slick with sweat and sticking to his face from being in this humid dungeon all day. Desmond probably didn't look any better.

"Ezio!" he hissed. "Ezio! Hey! Dude!" Ezio tired looked up from his brooding and shot Desmond a questioning look. "Did you think of anything?"

"If I had, then I would have told you, dammit." Desmond frowned. Well, all he wanted was to get the hell out of this dust hole, nothing more. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently it was, because not a minute later, four men dressed in blinding white robes dragged two, gray, human-shaped sweat bags and threw them into opposite cells next to Desmond and Ezio. It took a moment for Desmond to realize that these sweat bags were actually humans.

Desmond soon realized that the two men were Connor and Altair. By great coincidence they had reunited once again, and luckily for them, the four of them were more than capable of figuring out a plan of escape.

"The bars are widely spaced," said Connor, who broke the silence, "maybe that can help us in some way."

"How?" Altair replied from his cell. "We have no swords, no knives, and our hidden blades got taken away."

"Come on, you're ridiculously pessimistic for someone who has achieved as much as you, Altair," Desmond said.

"They broke my hidden blade," Ezio noted.

"And mine as well," stated Connor.

"That's gonna be a problem later," Desmond said, "why would they even do that?"

"I don't know," Ezio shrugged. "Maybe they couldn't properly takes our off because they don't work the same way?"

"That barely makes any sense," replied Desmond, irritated.

"How are they different?" Altair asked, still slightly intrigued despite the severity of their situation.

"Doesn't require the finger amputation," Desmond quickly replied, before Ezio could speak up.

"I'm sure it's fixable," Ezio optimistically reassured. "But it's good that they broke the blade instead of taking the whole device."

"Why is that?" Connor asked.

Ezio smiled. "Because I still have the part that matters."

"What part is that?" asked Altair.

"My tiny arma da fuoco," Ezio replied smugly. "My hidden gun."

Desmond through his arms in the air and laughed with joy. "Now we're getting somewhere!" he said.

"So what must we do?" Connor asked. "Shoot our way out? Won't they hear us?"

"I still don't even know what a gun is," Altair said. Desmond and Ezio both smiled at the irony of that statement.

"We need some sort of distraction," Connor continued. "Someone to keep the us from being pursued as we escape."

Just after those words left Connor's mouth an assassin approached from down the hall. He carried a sword, and a clearly concerned facial expression. He was Rauf, the Lebanese assassin's trainer in the sword arts.

"Rauf!" called Altair from his cell.

Rauf stood in the area where Desmond and his ancestors were held, and looked between Altair and Desmond. He did a double, and then triple take, and then exclaimed:

"My god Brother Altair, there are two of you!"

"Rauf we need you," the Arabian Assassin declared. "It's obvious that something quite strange is going on here, and we can not escape and figure this out."

"I see brother," Rauf replied, "I will gladly assist you. We Assassins may call each other brothers, but true brotherhood is much harder to find. You, Altair, have been a true brother, and I am overjoyed to be able to repay your companionship."

"That didn't take much convincing," Desmond whispered to himself.

"When you have been part of the brotherhood for as long as I have, you make some true friends," Altair replied, apparently having overheard.

"What do you need me to do?" Rauf inquired.

"We need you to distract our pursuers long enough for us to escape," Altair answered.

"That's all?" Rauf said through a small spout of courageous laughter. "I thought that you would ask me to do something hard!"

Altair nodded to Ezio, and Ezio stood up and fired his hidden gun at the lock on his cell. He then walked to Desmond's cell and did than same thing. He did this for each of the four imprisoned assassins, and a flash of light coupled with a booming sound filled the room each time.

When Ezio was finished, Desmond could already hear the footsteps of other assassins approaching them. Rauf drew his sword and followed Desmond and his ancestors as they ran through the long grey corridor lined with prison cells, and out a beat up looking wooden door.

Once they were outside, crossbowmen, and swordsmen began pursuing the five assassins. A wooden box, filled with the weapons of Desmond and his ancestors, was visible from this area, but it was out of reach. At this rate, they wouldn't make it that far. The crossbowmen kneeled and prepared to fire, and the swordsmen drew their blades.

"Well it looks like it's time for me to do my job," Rauf said, "let's see if those concepts I had you demonstrate to my swordsmen really caught on, Altair."

Rauf's tone was joking, but his facial expression was solemn. He gripped his sword tightly with both hands.

"Wait Rauf," Altair began, "maybe we can-"

"Run," interrupted Rauf.

Rauf then charged the swordsmen and crossbowmen as the other four ran to the weapons box. Ezio grabbed it and the four changed direction and headed out of Masyaf. Desmond noticed Altair look back, and saw his eyes widen. Desmond looked back as well to see Rauf, get impaled by arrows, each one staggering him as it collided with his body, and each one spewing an equal amount of Rauf's crimson essence onto the ground.

As their distraction fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood, Desmond looked back forward. As the four assassins distanced themselves from Masyaf, Desmond couldn't shake the gruesome image of Rauf's broken body on the ground. That is, not until Desmond realized what he had actually seen.

For what he had seen, was the true meaning of brotherhood.