Chapter 1

Night cloaked the great city of New York in darkness, with dim street lights doing little to brighten up the endless roads of the large city. Tall tower blocks were punctuated by the occasional window with the lights on, evidence that the occupants were awake. Somewhere in the city, a large scientific research complex was alive and buzzing. Scientists worked tireless inside, each wearing a pure white lab coat and name tag. Outside, armed guards patrolled the balconies and footpaths. Each armed with an assault rifle and flashlight. Strapped to their chest, they wore Kevlar body armour for protection against bullets. Most of the area around the facility was shrouded in darkness. Inside, a group of 4 scientists was escorting a man wearing a dark suit around the building, pointing excitedly at the many projects that were currently under development. The man wearing the dark suit was a tall, man with a classic moustache that yelled 'British' and he walked around with a black wooden cane with delicate designs of gold emblazoned on it, and he used in more for display than actual need. He checked his pocket watch on many occasions and he yawned regularly. In short, he was bored. He had no interest in science or anything of which the men spoke. He had come here for a meeting with the man in charge of this building, but the man had sent his scientists to take him on a tour of the facility as a delaying tactic. It did not work. All it did was make the man more and more angry. His face remained completely calm, however, acting as though he didn't care, not willing to give the owner the satisfaction of letting his rage show. Eventually, the scientists ran out of things to ramble on about, so the man politely asked through gritted teeth if he could see the owner now. The scientists could hear the tension in his voice, even if they could not see it in his face, so they conceded and took him to their boss' office. Upon arrival, everything changed. The pure white walls were replaced with dark red wallpaper and oak furniture. In a matter of corridors, the building had changed from a research facility to a mansion. They arrived at a set of oversized, dark wood door and one of the scientists knocked softly on the door. All 4 of the scientists shifted awkwardly from foot to foot as they waited for a reply, they were all visibly nervous. After a long pause, a soft voice could be heard saying "Enter." The lead scientist opened the door slightly and leant inside, asking his boss if he was ready to meet his guest. The scientist retracted his head and turned to the man.

"He's ready for you." He said.

The man walked in the office and the scientists hastily shut the doors and did their best to do so quietly, before hurrying off back the way they had come, eager to be free of this area of the building. Inside the office was like a palace. The ceiling was high enough to house a giant in the room with a huge skylight which offered a lovely view of the star filled night. A fireplace was against one wall with a fire crackling quietly within, providing the only source of light in the room. Portraits of massive scale adorned the walls and large arched windows lined the wall opposite the entrance. In front of the windows was a large oak desk with a high backed chair behind it. The gloom of the office meant that the man could not see who was sat in the chair, but he knew who it was.

"You're late." Purred the voice.

"I have your scientists to thank for that." The man replied. "They will drone on about anything to stall for time."

"You wound me." The voice said sarcastically, as soft as silk.

"You do not deny it."

"I have no need. You are right."

A figure stood from the chair and shuffled around the desk, shrouded in shadow. He stepped closer to the man in a constant pattern of step, clunk, step, clunk. As he approached, the fire cast mysterious shadows across the figure, and with each step, the fire seemed to roar more furiously. The figure stopped, just cloaked in shadow, inches away from the fire exposing him. Its hand emerged from the shadows and gestured to the 4 high backed leather chairs facing the fireplace. Only now did the man notice the other 2 people in the room, both sat by the fire, watching him intensely. The man took a seat next to the other 2, leaving a seat free for the figure in the shadows. Now, the man studied the other two people as intensely as they studied him. One was a blonde Russian woman with long flowing hair and thin lips with a very dark shade of purple lipstick. Her eyes were cold and dark and the man wondered how many people had seen those unpitying eyes in their final moments. She was tall and well-muscled, but not in an unattractive way. As a matter of fact, he found himself drawn to her. He could smell a faint trace of her perfume and could not help but being attracted to her, but he knew she would kill him in a heartbeat should she feel the need. Now he studied the other man, a short but very heavily built man who looked as though he crushed rocks with his bare hands. His face seemed to be too small for his head and his legs looked as though they couldn't support the weight of his upper body, but he was clearly very strong and was not a man to argue with. The figure in the shadows walked into the light now, but the high backed chair in which the man sat meant that he could not see the figure yet.

"So," the figure said, "We are at last all assembled. I trust you all had a pleasant trip?"

There was a gentle murmur of agreement between the three of them. The figure continued.

"You all know why you're here. Our science facilities are on the verge of a breakthrough and soon our foes for several centuries will at last be destroyed and we will no longer be forced to hide in the shadows."

The group seemed to get excited about this, clearly eager to end the age-old war and have peace on Earth at last. The figure stepped between the chairs now and approached the fireplace, becoming visible now to the group. The figure was an elderly man with wrinkled skin covering his face. Other than that, no part of his skin was visible. His hands were covered in soft, white gloves. He wore glasses that laid low on his long and narrow nose. His eyes were a dark grey and rimmed with deep bags under his eyes. His hair was little more than occasional tufts of snow white hair sprouting from his skull. He was tall and lean, and held his walking stick close to his left leg, of which the slight glimmer of a metal foot could be seen peeking out of his shoe. His right leg was completely normal, but his left leg was false and, combined with the walking stick, made a 'clunk' sound every step he took a step with that foot. He limped over to the fireplace and straightened the fixture that hung above it. Satisfied that it was now lined-up, he took a seat in the last remaining chair around the fireplace and the meeting began as the old grandfather clock chimed at midnight.

Outside, at guard station six, the two guards stationed there were getting all guards in their sector to report in.

"Dude," said one guard, "6-6-1 isn't reporting in. It's been five minutes. Should we send out a search team to investigate?"

"Give it five more minutes. If they haven't called in by then, then w-"

Suddenly, the radio tuned to life. "Guard station six, guard station six, this is 6-6-1, reporting in."

The first guard wheeled his chair away from their poker game and over to the radio and gave his reply.

"Copy that 6-6-1. You're five minutes late, any reason?"

"Negative, guard station six, just forgot I guess."

"Copy that. Try to be on time next time, over."

"Gotcha. 6-6-1 out."

The second guard looked at the first and simply said "Fucking amateurs…"

On a small pathway leading through a decorative garden, guard 6-6-1 was being dragged into a nearby bush, blood trickling from where the blade had pierced him between his ribs on his left side. The man dragging him was a guy of medium build wearing jeans and a jet black hoodie with the hood pulled up and black cloth tied across his face, concealing the lower portion of his face. Meanwhile, a shorter man wearing similar clothing was holding 6-6-1's radio.

"Gotcha. 6-6-1 out." He said into it, before turning it off.

The bigger man had now hidden the corpse of 6-6-1 in the bushes and pulled a water bottle from his backpack and, holding it close to the ground to avoid loud splashing, he poured it over the blood trail and it diluted slightly, becoming harder to notice. Once this was done, he placed the water bottle back and the pair jogged quietly on, sticking to cover and staying low to the ground.

Guard 3-2-6 was doing his patrol of the northern perimeter of the main building when he came up to a corner. He could have sworn he heard something stir just around the corner. Cautiously, he switched how he was holding his flashlight and pulled out his pistol. He edged closer and closer to the corner and when he was within striking distance, he heard a quiet whistle from the bushes behind him to his right. He whirled around and pointed his flashlight and pistol at the bushes when he sensed something move from the corner behind him. Before he could react, he felt a hand cover his mouth to stop him yelling for help and he felt a blade pierce his neck. Within seconds, he was dead and being dragged behind the corner. Another hooded man emerged from the bushes as his accomplice finished hiding the body.

Within about 15 minutes, approximately 20 guards were dead, their bodies hidden across the complex. Six hooded figures regrouped on top of the grandest building, around a large skylight looking down into a room filled with grandeur. They could see a fire crackling softly in the fireplace and four chairs gathered around it, each with a target seated within. The four occupants of the room seemed to be deep in conversation and were unlikely to look up at the skylight. Even if they did, they wouldn't see the six figured dressed mostly in black against the dark night's sky. They wore darkness around them, the perfect camouflage. Out of the six figures, only one was female. Most of the time, this caused no problems, but sometimes, it led to friction between them. This was one of those times.

"All I'm saying is, you all just view me as the token girl of the group, and you guys can't deny it!" she whispered.

"Would you just shut it? Now is not the time for arguments. We're in the middle of a delicate operation here!" one of the guys said.

"Well fuck you too!" she stabbed back, "At least I know when to be professional!"

"Shut the fuck up! You're going to get us caught! What is it, that time of the month again?!" another guy shot back.

"You didn't just say that!" she snapped, offended, "Come here you little shit!"

She leapt across the skylight, rugby tackling the youngest member of the six to the ground and the two of them grappled for several seconds.

"Stop it! Stop it!" the leader of the group said, aware that the two of them were making a lot of noise.

Another two members of the group dived in to break the two of them up, but ended up tangled in them and grappling as well. The fifth guy now rushed around the skylight as the four arguing members were now fighting desperately close to the skylight. He grabbed one of them to try to pull them the other way but the weight of all four of them were too much and when the person he grabbed pulled back in the opposite direction, they all stumbled into the leader, and the skylight. All six of them went crashing through the window and landed hard on the floor in a big heap with shards of glass raining down around them. The four targets they were sent to kill leapt to their feet, sending the armchairs skidding backwards, and dashed to the closest exit, yelling for security. Only the host of the meeting stopped at the doorway and looked back. The leader of the hooded group rolled free of the tangled mess of his groaning team and as he lay on the floor, clutching his ribs with a neat slash down his cheek, his eyes locked with the host and bitter hatred burned between the both of them. Without a word, the host closed the door and limped away. The hooded team clambered to their feet as two doors were kicked down and security burst into the room. They immediately took aim at the group and the leader flipped the desk, which they all took cover behind as splinters of wood were sheared off by whizzing bullets. With a fluid hand signal, the six of them broke cover and each ran to a window. As a fresh wave of bullets washed towards them, they each leapt out of a different window and without pausing, ran into the night. Within 30 minutes, security called off the search. Within an hour, the team were back at base.

"What the fuck happened?!" the leader of their order yelled at them. "You should all be ashamed! We watched what happen through their hacked security camera feeds. You infiltrated perfectly but you completely messed up the kill! You had a petty argument and fell through the fucking skylight! Never before have I known such reckless Assassins! You are not cut out for our order, therefore, you must leave…"

"But-" the leader of the six-man team began to protest.

"But nothing!" the leader of the brotherhood cut in. "You are hereby ordered to leave our order and forget all you know of us. If you do not, we will send actual Assassins to silence you. Unless you can end your reckless ways, you will never succeed. Now leave now before I have to end your sad existences personally!"

With a resigned nod from the six of them, they handed in their hidden blades and other equipment, collected their individual belongings and left The Farm. The Farm is the base of operations for the Assassins, where those who are born into the order but are too young to be trained are raised until they can be trained, then trained until they can kill, then kill until they die. Most Assassins leave the order when they are no longer strong enough to actively serve in the field. Some stay however and help in support operations. Some leave by dying in service of the order. To be forced out of the order was almost unheard of. As the six wannabe Assassins left The Farm, they hung their heads low in shame as they felt the stares of the other Assassins burning into the back of their skulls.

They spent the rest of the day driving away from The Farm in a plain white van. None of them said a word. Each of them blamed each other and themselves. About 2 hours into the journey, they had to pull over at an old gas station in the middle of nowhere to get more fuel. As the van pulled into a stop, the only girl of the group said the first words of the trip.

"We'd still be Assassins if you weren't such a sexist bitch, you know."

The guy she was talking to snapped back. "Well, Miranda, if you had shut the hell up and not complained about every little thing, I wouldn't have had to say anything to get you to shut up!"

Someone else added in, "If you'd both kept your mouths shut, we wouldn't have been kicked out!"

Within seconds, the situation had descended into an all-out argument between all of them besides the leader. But before long, he put a stop to it.

"QUIET! ALL OF YOU!" he bellowed. "It's no one person's fault. We can spend all day pointing fingers and blaming each other, but it's all of our faults! We're all to blame! And if we don't stop arguing and start working together as a team, we will never be allowed back into the brotherhood!"

All the other's stopped arguing and stared at him. The youngest of the team, Jimmy, hesitated before asking his question: "What do you mean, 'be allowed back?'"

"We are going to train harder and start working together, then we will intercept assassination contracts and complete them ourselves, until the brotherhood notices how far we have come and accept us back into the order with open arms!"

And so, their plan was set in motion to rise from the ashes of their past failures and be reborn as master Assassins. Like the phoenix, they would be reborn, again.