I apologize for there not being a "barrier" between author's note and the story itself. As dinner, I don't believe I have much thought process? And I apologize for the first chapter being unbelievably short, but that's how it happened.

If any of you are wondering, YES, the stories will be told separately through both Celee and Izzy's eyes as they go through their trials of survival. I also decided to type the story somewhat differently since I will be telling two stories at once, so bear with me?

Aaaaaanywho, thank you those who clicked every frickin' box which I received email upon email for and thank you those who are actually interested in this fanfic. I'm trying.

Anything associated with Assassin's creed is not associated with me. I own nadda and, again, if I did Altair would be mmmmmmmmm naked. Among other things… Let's not judge, you all would possibly do the same!

Elizabeth "Izzy" Gray

The guards, she later determined, slowly closed in. Izzy stood keeping as many of them as possible in her line of sights, but she knew she probably was not going to live through this.

The first guard, the cruel faced one, was the first to come forward with his sword drawn. With a bellow he brought it down missing her head by centimeters then twisting back for another try for her life. Fortunately, some minor military police training kicked in with a foot to the sternum as she knocked as much out of him as her strength would allow her. He stumbled back while she ducked and clamored to her right as another guard ran around her back to catch her off guard swinging closed fist at the side of her head. The other three hung back waiting for some sport.

Izzy used the Apple as a sort of weapon by swinging in a wide arch at the fist fighter, missing, and instead struck the first guard in the jaw, offsetting the bone from his skull when he tried to stand up causing him to twist and tumble face first into the dirt, a long bladed knife dislodging itself from his belt and sliding to a rest at her feet across the sand. Everyone stilled for a moment to see what she would do, but she had no idea what she should do.

She had no idea where she was, how she really got here, or how she was going to leave. If she was right and was not hallucinating, she was fucked; royally fucked with something hard and sandpapery. These men, this place, this time were something extremely foreign and dangerous considering Izzy had to use a GPS whenever she went on a long drive, even if it was only the next town or city over.

Five burly men who were trained with the weapons of this time against a young retired soldier who was trained with guns and a K-Barr and not a single one was present with the exception of the knife at her feet.

"Fuck this shit!"

She began to scream diving for the blade as Fist Fighter and friends ran towards her. They answered her screaming back in English, but their words ran together and became lost in the fog of her mind as her fingers closed around the cool hilt and turned on Fist Fighter. From the crouched position, she felt resistance on the blade soon giving way shortly after to sink into something thick and meaty followed by warm liquid spilling onto her hand from whatever she had hit, by this time she had her eyes on the next guard moving in too close for her comfort. Fist Fighter fell to the sand clawing at his throat where red escaped onto his hands and the front of his chest that bubbled every time he tried to gasp. His friend was not pleased by Fist Fighter's fate and lurched forward to grab at his friend's murderer.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" she bellowed at him swiping at his hand with the bloody knife. She had finally had enough! Scared out of my wits with a weapon; these men were cornering a frightened animal that was not about to lie down willingly.

I am not very good in fighting, but I am damned good at surviving!

All thoughts were thrown aside allowing some long forgotten instinct to take over. It was like driving home or to a friend's house on autopilot and wondering how the hell you got into the drive-way long forgotten minutes later.

She knew she was screaming words learned only during her year in Korea, each one punctuated by bringing the knife as hard as possible into the chest of one of the guards that had been hanging back. She could feel droplets of his blood on her face, neck, chest, arms, and hands every time the blade was yanked from his lifeless body and brought back over her head just to bring the glistening blade back down with all her might. What brought Izzy back was a strong hand snatching her blood slicken wrist in mid swing.

Through the fog she heard a resonating voice say quietly, "That is enough, child," as the hand pulled her up slowly from the mutilated body to stand before a tall, well- armed man clad in armor, chainmail, and adorned with a cape and many, many awards. He was bald with lively eyes that were at first glance kind and understanding with deadly undertones. His accent is what threw her for a loop.

"You need not worry, my lady. We will not hurt you." He said with a charming smile and removed his cape draping it gently across Izzy's shoulders while barking orders to soldiers who had ran towards the commotion. Some stared in awe of the gore while others had fear and disgust, among other things less appetizing.

The strange man, who seemed in charge, led her into the overly large building muttering things she couldn't hear nor wanted to understand, her mind churning from around what she had caused and falling hard to worried thoughts of the Apple of Eden which had somehow disappeared during the fray and also of her friend, Celee, who I had yet to see.

Was she ok?

Had she been killed?

"Oh, Celee, please be alive…" she quietly begged whatever god there was in this time.

"Oh, my head hurts like shit… there is no way I'm not bleeding, dude." Celee muttered bringing her hand up to the horrid, throbbing knot. She brought her hand back to her face and found she was indeed bleeding though not enough to worry.

Currently Celee was lodged between the edge of a wagon filled to the brim, and then some, of hay and the bundles of the aforementioned. She could hear women screaming and men yelling and boots thumping hard on unpaved roads. She wiggled and squirmed until she finally popped free of the too itchy hay earning a long, shallow cut from a rusty nail protruding through the old wood of the wagon.

"God dammit, that sucks. Tetanus, here I….whoa."

Shock struck her like a ton of bricks causing her to freeze at the site of a populace dressed in ratty clothing walking with no purpose in directions that bordered on lost in a city she and izzy weren't in before. Where there had been cars speeding down the crowded streets and shops lined the entirety of the opened area amongst what had been buildings that were close to crumbling under too much weight and others that were fresh and new were now replaced by clay or mud buildings.

It all screamed middle ages.

There was a stand with an orator talking to a small cluster of men and women, four soldiers walking in two's toward an alley, a few stands of knick knacks and food stuffs, etc. etc.

"Where the holy frick am I?"

Then the memories began to flow as if the flood gates had broken open: she and Izzy finding a strange object, reaching out to it, and they both being taken and losing sight of the other. How she wound up in a wagon full of hay with a minor head injury was not one of those memories, but something she would like to know. Slowly, to make sure she did not have a concussion, Celee made her way out of the wagon and moved to the shadowed safety of a smaller, narrow alley. There she sat and watched a line of women with pots upon their heads move like a snake through the crowd.

Something atop the roof above the courtyard caught her eye, piquing her interest. Celee, never being one to fear things (aside from the occasional arachnid) or leaving her curiosity to fester in the back of her mind, she searched for a route to the top of her alley. Though she had hoped for stairs she, instead, found a conveniently placed ladder.

Once above the courtyard and into the unforgiving sun, she spotted three, no four figures clad in white garments, brown boots, and a red sash under matching thick in width brown belts. They crept to four spots above the churning populace. Looking below she found that every white clad man was placed in strategic positions above the orator. She watched one as he moved into the ornate, sunken courtyard, ready for something.

The way everything looked she wasn't too sure she wanted to be around for whatever was about to happen.

Instead of returning to the alley's grungy ground, Celee stayed on the roof tops working her way around beams and opened sun roofs, nearly falling multiple times after mistaking closed ones for solid footing. She finally emerged into the sunlight after being lost to someone's laundry and found she had placed herself amongst the white clad men and directly above the stand the orator had moments ago occupied. He was now replaced by uncomfortable onlookers as a man of tall stature and a dark brown mustache wearing an auburn brown turban with a tint of yellow around it, loose pantaloons a lighter shade of brown, with dark golden inscriptions surrounding it, a long, rust-colored embroidered tunic, which hung almost up to his knees, an orange leather belt with a darker yellow pair of shoes arrived shortly after the man in white in the courtyard had, arguing with one of the merchants.

"I tell you, Tamir," the old man said his hands clasped before him in a begging manner, "the order is too much. You are asking too much of us."

Tamir, as he was now known, outraged at this excuse, pressed forward, spit in the merchant's face, and drew a knife. As she witnessed this she moved closer to the edge of the building to try and catch a closer look.

He began to mercilessly slice into the merchant, until a final stab sent the man sprawling into the fountain, his blood pooling in the water. Tamir stopped one of his guards from removing the body, saying that it would serve as a lesson for others. He then set off to inspect the other merchant stands in the courtyard.

As the crowd dispersed, she moved even closer to the edge as the white clad man moved in closer to Tamir. Just as he flicked his wrist and reached for the monster that was oblivious to both, the roof's edge gave way and Celee plummeted onto a merchant's stand.

"What are you doing!?" yelled Tamir as he lost footing and tumbled backwards into the arms of the man behind him. Tamir caught his arm as he brought it up and swung in towards Tamir's neck. It was then she realized the gauntlet had a long, thin blade attached and that this man was trying to kill Tamir.

He succeeded in the end.

Tamir tried his damned best to escape but wound up with the blade of the man behind him dinking deep into his neck. Celee was frozen in a mixture of fear and interest at the sight of all the blood rushing from the tiniest of wounds. The murderer gently laid Tamir on the ground, muttering words and closing his eyes as he did, but the gentleness of his demeanor changed when he looked upon Celee. He had cold amber eyes that held no happiness or joy and a face scarred by time, weather, and death. The pristine white robe was actually an extremely light gray, probably from over use, and she could see where Tamir's blood had settled and turned a disgusting brownish red.

She looked again to his eyes and noticed he was much closer. This man looked upon her as he had Tamir when he had taken the man's life. In her peripherals were his comrades and she suddenly felt a cold chill of death down her spine.

Izzy had once explained to her the difference of witnessing death, being in close proximity of someone being killed or a body and the feeling that you were the target. The feeling that someone meant you harm or meant to take your life for whatever reason was the same as if you had your back against the side of a meat locker and had a blow drier on high in your face.

"But the feelings are always different for everybody." She had said after a moment of slice.

Boy, were you right, Iz.

Celee stood bringing her hands up in a show of surrender, but they still closed in. glancing around the courtyard she saw not a single soul paying attention, but she did notice the four guards marching along on their patrol. It was her only chance of survival and if she was going to find Izzy, she had to take it. Just as the leader of the group reached out toward her, Celee sucked in oxygen until it hurt and screeched at the top of her lungs loud enough you could probably hear her in the dark depths of space.

"STOP!"

All life seemed to come to a halt as every eye there turned toward the four in white, the strangely dressed woman they were cornering, the blood and the body that lay at the feet of one of those men. The guards began yelling, drawing swords and pointing at them. The four men in white had turned to face off with the four initial guards and their friends making their way around corners to the courtyard. Celee took her chance, turned and using the table that had broken her fall, she jumped high enough to latch herself to the edge of a window and shimmy up to the roof taking off in a random direction like a blind bat out of hell.

"ASSASSIN! HALT ASSASSIN!"

"DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY!"

"THEY'RE ON THE ROOF!"

Oh, well fuck me.

Celee spared a quick glance as she made a rough landing on another building top and found two of the four assassins gaining on her. When she looked back to the front in time to dodge another sunroof and a few chimneys she caught sight of the amber eyed assassin directly to her right maybe ten feet away. He was the one to not get caught by. The fourth was lost or maybe she just hadn't caught sight of him yet.

Celee glanced back to Amber Eyes and saw they were neck in neck and he had speed, but she had determination along with years of parkour. She darted across a bridge between housings, then jumped, twisting over to a scaffold and gracefully shimmied down into the street purposely running through crowds, merchant stalls, carts full of hay, using the city to keep Amber Eyes and whatever murderous intent he had working harder toward her. Her disadvantage was she had to constantly look over shoulder to see if she was being followed and would run into a random placed person almost every time she would glance. He was quick and didn't have someone hot on his tail and because he wasn't doing what she was he wasn't barreling into pedestrians. All of this slowed her progress through the streets and markets, so that soon she had squandered her lead, and when she turned her head, she found him much too close for comfort.

Celee slid to a stop, quickly rolling to her left, and reached for a long piece of wood that looked like a table leg with a jagged end, turning on Amber Eyes.

He stopped right in front of her with the wrist blade thing stretched at his left. Celee brought the table leg up like a bat at the ready as He moved slowly in toward her.

"I swear to God, even if you kill me I will take you down with me one way or another, you sonnuhvah bitch!" she yelled.

He stopped and cocked his head to the right. She could see confusion and admiration in his cold, hard eyes and her breathe caught as the blade disappeared within his gauntlet.

"Who are you?" he asked with barely any foreign accent.

"Celee and who the fuck are you?"

Amber Eyes shared a look of confusion and the dawn of understanding with his two comrades as they finally joined them. They spoke to each other in Arabic for a short minute before Amber Eyes looked back to Celee.

"You are coming with us to,"

"The fuck I am! You chased me across the city after you murdered someone and you expect me to go with you? Fuck. That. Shit."

"You are coming with us one way or another." He answered. She heard the soft pat pat of someone moving in behind her, but it was a moment too late as she was hit hard in the side of her head and all lights went out.

Altair watched as the foreigner went lax and dropped the make shift weapon. He had hoped the woman would just come quietly with him without any fight, but he knew he had hoped for too much. Admiration is what kept her alive and the Master's vision of a traveler of time is what had him taking this oddly dressed woman back to the master.

As Mahir lifted her onto his shoulder after wrapping her in the traditional wear of the local women to cover her strange clothes and hair he thought of the warning from Al Mualim.

Be wary of the woman who moves as though she were one of your Brothers and appears to you not of this time for with her is another who will be our order's downfall. She will be our enemy and the one you find will be the only who can destroy that enemy. Take caution in what I have told you, Altair, and make your decisions concerning my words wisely.

Altair hefted himself onto his horse and the three assassins left the city with their unconscious extra. The fourth they had arrived here with had stayed behind to deter the guards that were alerted by the woman's unnaturally shrill screeching and consequentially been captured. They would have to go back for Majd sometime in the near future. He hated to leave a Brother behind, but it couldn't be helped.

As the city slowly disappeared behind them Altair could not help but feel that something that would change the fate of this world was about to transpire and he hoped that whatever it may be it was for the better. For now, he had better things to worry about.

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