Disclaimer: As much as I desperately wished I owned Assassin's Creed-and Ezio-I don't. I just like messing around with it.

Well, here is my second Assassin's Creed story. This has been one that has been in my head since I started playing the game. I'm not so sure this is a very good chapter, but my friend assured me it was good, so here I am posting it. I'd also like to thank my friend for all the help she's given me.

One Step Behind

Prologue:

The Beginning

Giovanni Auditore and Liborio Mancini had been good friends for a while, ever since they had both been hired to assassinate a certain person. They had been hired by the same person, someone who didn't like doing the dirty, so he just hired assassins. This person also knew that man he wanted killed was too strong for one assassin, so he hired two of the best. Those two just so happened to be Giovanni and Liborio. Together, they had killed the highly dangerous man and had been working together ever since. If you hired one of them, you hired the other.

And then, Liborio met Rosabella, the beautiful daughter of a very wealthy merchant, and fell in love. And, though her father didn't approve of him, Liborio and Rosabella were married soon after. That doesn't mean Liborio stopped being an assassin; it was all he knew how to do, sad as it sounded. Of course Rosabella knew about his job, it was impossible to hide it from his wife but she didn't make him stop, she just worried about him every time he went out. It didn't mean his friendship with Giovanni ended either; the two were still close and continued to carry out assassinations together.

And then the children started coming. A year after Liborio and Rosabella were married, they had their first child, a boy named Elpidio. Elpidio proved to be a very nurturing and caring child, taking after his mother. Two years after, the second child, another boy, came around and they named him Panfilo. Panfilo was a very shy boy, often hiding behind his mother's skirts whenever they went out. They had decided to wait for a while before having another child. So, four years after Panfilo was born, Valerio said hello to the world. Valerio was more outspoken and outgoing then his older brothers and, even from a young age, Valerio showed interest in the opposite sex.

It was during the time when Rosabella was pregnant with Valerio that Giovanni met someone, a woman named Maria. And, thanks to Liborio's constant pushing, he and Maria were married just before Valerio was born. It wasn't until three years after they were married that they had their first son, Federico, just a few months before Liborio and Rosabella had their fourth child, Basilio. Federico and Basilio were very different. Where Federico was playful, Basilio was quiet and kept to himself, yet the two seemed to get along just fine.

Now, of course Giovanni and Maria would want to have more children, but you'd think that Liborio and Rosabella were done with the kids, but Rosabella wanted one more. She wanted a girl and she'd do anything to have one. So, after another three years, both Rosabella and Maria became pregnant at the same time.

Rosabella gave birth first, to a beautiful baby girl. She and Liborio were overjoyed and named their new daughter Nicolina and from the first moment that Nicolina entered the world, she was quite restless, she even kicked in her sleep, not to mention the fact that she talked in her sleep to.

It was just two days after Nicolina was born that Maria gave birth to a boy which they named Ezio. If the two pairs of parents had known how much trouble the two would get into, they would've kept them apart.

OSB

It was they day that they celebrated Ezio and Nicolina's fifth birthdays. Since the two were born so close, they had chosen to celebrate their birthdays at the same time. Ezio and Nicolina had no complaints about sharing a birthday; they seemed to prefer it in fact.

The two had been able to sit still for a grand total of five minutes before running off. Nobody had the slightest clue where they had gone off to.

"How do two very young children just disappear?" Rosabella sighed to her husband. Liborio smiled at her, kissing her cheek.

"They're around here somewhere," he said. Rosabella smiled at him when a little voice called out to them.

"Mama Papa!" Little Nicolina ran up to her parents and latched herself onto her mother's skirt. She looked up at Rosabella with an incredibly dirty face. "I beat Ezio!" She cried.

"Did not," an equally dirty Ezio replied, standing not too far off, looking very upset.

"Did to," Nicolina shot, turning to him and placing her hands on her hips. "You got beat by a girl!" Ezio glared at her and Nicolina just smiled triumphantly at him. Rosabella sighed, crouching down and spinning her daughter around to face her.

"Nicolina, you're filthy." She said, trying to wipe the dirt of her cheeks. Nicolina pushed her hands away. "And your dress is ruined!" She exclaimed, looking at Nicolina's dress, which was dirty and torn in places. Nicolina looked down at it.

"He did it!" She said quickly, pointing to Ezio.

"Did not!" Ezio argued.

"You did so!" Nicolina argued back.

"I did not!"

"You did so! You have to fix it now." Nicolina said, her arms folded across her chest.

"What?" Ezio asked with wide eyes.

"I said fix it." Nicolina answered. "Unless you're afraid you'll cut your finger with the needle." She taunted, making Ezio narrow his eyes at her. Rosabella sighed. Nicolina always had to egg him on. Rosabella decided to step in before things got bad, which they usually did.

"I'll fix it later, Nicolina, and then we're going to have a talk about your mud wrestling." Rosabella said, grabbing her daughter's arm gently. Nicolina's brain seemed to go off after her mother said that she'd fix it. She looked at Ezio with a smirk.

"You'd do a bad job anyway," she said. Ezio glared at her and Rosabella knew that her attempt to keep things calm, had failed.

"I would not!" Ezio exclaimed.

"You would to," Nicolina replied coolly. "You don't even know how to sew."

"Neither do you," Ezio said back.

"But I will one day. Mama will teach me." Nicolina said, sticking her chin in the air proudly.

"Well, I will one day to!" Ezio insisted.

"No you won't, you're too afraid of the needle!" Nicolina pushed. Ezio glared at her and that's when the hitting started. They were lightly batting at each other, not enough to hurt one another though.

"Children, stop it!" Rosabella ordered her hands on her hips. They didn't listen to her and kept hitting each other. Liborio made a move to step in a separate them but that's when they decided to take off again.

"I'm going to beat you again!" Nicolina said.

"No your not!" Was Ezio's simple reply. Rosabella sighed.

"What are we going to do with them?" She said in exasperation.

"What can we do with them?" Liborio replied. Rosabella shot him a sideways glance, signifying that he wasn't helping. Liborio simply smiled. "We better go inform Giovanni and Maria that the two have disappeared again." He said, holding out his hand. Rosabella took it without a second thought and let him lead her.

Little did they know, this was just the beginning.

Well, what did you think? Was it too boring? I hope not. Well, I don't have much to say except for R&R please!