Hola! Thanks ahead of time for reading. If you see any errors in my language translations or elsewhere please let me know. The story does not fully follow the story line of the game but hey I'm a fangrl. What do fangrls and bois write for if not the imagination.

He couldn't see anything through the woven sack that had been placed over his head, but he could smell and hear the city. The smell of the fruit merchants selling their wares in the square and the freshly lain bales of hay. As a stiff breeze blew through the holes in his tattered shirt he swore he could smell the flowers from the Colosseo. The crowd was getting heavy. The passing whispers in anticipation of an event that had him feeling only overwhelming dread.

"How could they even catch me? Impossibile!" He wondered to himself.

He had been no less precautious or deadly and yet here he was. He had expected them to kill him immediately on the street, but orders restrained them. Instead he was dragged back to the prison. It was a place filled with the cries and moans of men less fortunate than him. In a week he would be hanged and free from this hell. The stench was acrid and there was not a day that it didn't take his breath away. Vomit, urine, blood and every other odor possible on the borders of death. Each day tossed a bowl of something that looked like it used to be soup and a loaf of bread that was already turning green. He had to eat it anyway. Christ only knows when the opportunity for escape would present itself so he needed to keep his strength.

Three days of nonstop beatings straight into three days of torture in the dungeon. He only knew that because of markings he was able to make on the stone walls using a finger bone from a skeleton left in his cell. The beatings were surprisingly bearable even if they did happen with both frequency and ferocity. The torture almost broke him, but he would not let them know that. Times and a half on the racks as his captors attempted to extract from him assassins' names and den locations. Winces and grunts of pain were all the Borgia cani would get.

Even without the location information the Borgia seemed to be making dents in the assassin population. Each day three or four more of his apprentices and each day he managed to stand through the pain to give them a nod of salute as they passed his cell.

"Mentore" they would say as they gave a reverential nod with a clenched fist over the heart. He could only assume that the brothers he did not see had been killed.

When they snatched the sack from his head he was for a moment blinded by the light. As his eyes refocused he could see the reason they had saw fit to take him out for a stroll. The gallows. He stood as erect as possible. He would die as a man with his head held high for a creed he believed in. The crowds begin to press in on them. A wide range of emotions in their faces; anger, fear, hate, love. The guard's grip tightened on his bicep, just in case this was a trap. And then there it was. The ominous white robe was gliding through the crowd. A ghost. A vision. The one thing that always gave him hope, for a vision of Altair meant that there was a means of escape for him. Every muscle in his body tensed as he scanned for an exit. The rooftops? Covered every few yards by Borgia bowmen. A blend into the crowd? Guards everywhere. Not a horse in sight. He looked again into the crowd and...

"Altair?" He muttered under his breath because surely it could not be possible. Usually his visions of the Master Assassin vanished in an instant, but this vision had remained. Almost as if it were real. The vision turned to face him. The white robe was shimmering in the sun like an angel. With the slight flash of light he could see the face. The surprise came over him so quickly that he stopped dead in his tracks. This distracted his guards for a moment and they begin to struggle with him attempting to pull him toward the gallows. The tussle incited the crowds even more.

"Morte agli assassini! Morte agli assassini!"

His guards were not easily winning their battle despite the fact that his hands were bound in front of him. He gave the guard to his right a swift knee to the stomach followed by an elbow to his left jaw. The blow staggered him enough for Ezio to knock him out with a strike to his forehead by his own. The remaining guard grabbed him from behind pinning his arms to his side. Another guard rushed in from the crowd and punched him as hard as his might would allow in the face. His hopes were that the blow would render Ezio unconscious, but a quick split second dodge caused the majority of the force to glance off his chin. Ezio repaid in kind by giving the assaulter a crippling kick to the stomach. He managed to wrestle out of the grip of the guard restraining him and was able to toss him headlong into his still reeling comrade. One of the rooftop bowmen shot an arrow into the ground only paces in front of him giving fair warning that any further resistance would be met with an arrow to the chest. He stood his ground as a new set of escorts made their way toward him. They were merely seconds away when Altair stepped into their path.

"Traditore!" Altair shouted. A word he thought he would never hear in his lifetime.

"Traditore?" No sooner had the whisper left his lips than did Altair produce a crossbow from his hilt and fire.

The arrow struck Ezio in the abdomen. He pulled it from his stomach letting out a gasp as it exited his body. After the pain there was something else, overwhelming warmth.

"Is this what death feels like?" He thought to himself. It was not as cold and fearful as he imagined. It was almost...welcoming. He closed his eyes to embrace it.