NOTICE: Ren and I do not own Assassin's Creed, in any form, aside from this little story. All credit goes to Ubisoft for making such an amazing game series.

Also: The San in this story is not related to Princess Mononoke. But she was INSPIRED by it.

~~~~~

~CHAPTER ONE: OF ANIMUSES AND ASSASSINS

All was quiet in the room; no alarms were blaring, which meant trouble for the Bad Character Assassination Department, as a minute without Terrible Character Alerts meant something even worse was going to happen.

And, as the universe in which this department existed goes, it did so in comedic fashion.

HQ frequently suffered the paradoxical backlash of universe hopping, simply because tampering with worlds that weren't one's own was dangerous in all forms, and the repeated opening and closing of universe-hopping portals caused a ripple in the fabrics of existence which amounted to a 5.0 earthquake. But that was all child's play compared to what the BCAD did when they got bored:

Hop around universes and generally screw with the story for shits and giggles.

Particularly guilty of this crime were Sion and Ren, two rookie Assassins who used to be OCs from dead worlds who had landed in their current home and became Bad Character Assassins as compensation. They didn't just world hop uncontrollably; they also went out of their way to make sure and mess up every possible thing in the world they were in before moving on.

Today, the two Assassins decided that given the slow day before them, a proper dicking around was in order.

"...So, which world?" Sion asked, cradling his prized sword - which had a hard-to-pronounce name - close while he cleaned it.

"Oh, hell, I don't know. Maybe we'll pop over to the Death Star and put jello in Vader's helmet?" Ren replied, not once looking up from his alchemy notebook, making small edits to his formulas here and there.

"Fuck that! Don't you know what happened last time somebody pulled that crap?" Sion exclaimed in horror. Indeed, the memory of one's face melting off was still fresh in many of the staff's mind, most particularly the Department of Unfortunate Injuries, whose main job was to treat unfortunate injuries received by Assassins and Special Units, like the perilous Canon-Sue Romance Destruction Unit, who once broke up a romance between a Goddess and Tidus of Spira and suffered the consequences.

"Oh, right," Ren grumbled, also recalling several incidents. "Well, we could always fight Mimics with the JDF."

"Okay, Ren?" the young lady on the couch said, suddenly looking up from her Team Fortress 2 match. "You know what happens when you put Sion in a computerized suit of armor."

"Dammit, San!" Ren growled. "So what if he can't pilot a Jacket properly! He's a bloody idiot anyhow!"

San rolled her eyes and returned to her game. Having had her soul ripped out of her universe when a Unit teleported out of her universe, she had long since grown used to the common nuances and ridiculousness of her new co-workers, so Ren's frequent outbursts of frustration rarely phased her.

"Hey! I got one!" Sion said after a moment of silence.

"If it involves Calvin and Hobbes-" Ren started.

"What? Oh GOD, no, I was talking about Assassin's Creed!" Sion replied quickly.

"...Oh, this should be interesting," San said, looking up from her game again.

"Right, so I was thinking, what if we did a world hop to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and just dicked around under the guise of Assassin Recruits?" Sion suggested, eyes glittering with anticipation and, frighteningly, glee.

"You're just in it for the cool swords, aren't you?" Ren said, with emotionless monotone.

Ren and Sion had been partners for years; all Sion ever cared about was the badass weaponry, from swords and guns to lasers and bombs, Sion would instantly jump at the chance to wield them in combat. In truth, it made sense that he would love weapons so much, especially swords; before his world died, Sion was the legendary Swordmaster, a being so adept at combat that it was said the gods themselves had taken a human guise. Some stories even stated that Swordmasters were remnants of the Immortal Ishvari race. In Sion's case, he was - Immortality included. And because he dealt with swords, knives, axes, staves, morningstars, and other what-have-yous so often, he had grown a particular love for all things lethal weaponry. The rest of the BCAD had affectionately dubbed Sion "The Weapon Derpmeister".

"Oh, totally," Sion replied without hesitation, brandishing his sword, Ishuverandu, menacingly, at the wall. If walls could cower in fright, that one would have done so.

"How did I guess?" Ren said, not even the slightest bit surprised with his partner's answer. "Well, if we're going, we might as well bring San with us, too. I mean, god only knows that we'd need her help with something along the way."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," San said, shutting off her game and getting off the couch.

"Yeah, seriously, Ren. It's no worse than Archer and Caroline 'helping' us on missions where more than one Unit is required," Sion chimed in.

"Shut the fuck up, both of you," Ren hissed, pointing over at their commanding officers - Caroline, the Leader, Archer, the Right Hand, and Kestler, the team Spy. Sion and Ren's immediate subordinate, Jacob, was also sitting nearby, playing Pokemon on his DS, but nobody seemed to care much of his existence.

Sion looked over, thoughtfully. "Let's see if we can have our fun without them interrupting this time," he said, pressing the button to open the portal.

"Agreed," Ren said, stepping through. Sion and San followed suit.