A/N: "Lucifer's Angel" from The Rasmus was in my head a lot while writing this.

Much love and thanks, as always, to my reviewers: Assassin's Creed superfan, ecnal, shamazaki, and flyingcrispi - you guys are fantastic! and also to Serebranka and Dophin2ii, welcome and I hope to continue to enjoy! Also much thanks to all of my readers for getting me to 15K hits and 100K words! Not much by other stories' standards, but I think it's a hell of a lot of love!

**Shamazaki, my beta, is responsible for getting me to do a little better scene setting in this chapter.**

Once again, as we all know, original characters and plot belongs to ubisoft...


Alessa and Dino stood in a quiet, out of the way corner of the main room of the inn, waiting while Ezio secured a room, baths, and an early lunch.

"Swimming in by sea, are you crazy?" she murmured, running her hands over Dino's forearms and then gripping his wrists to make herself stop. Her hands wanted to continue to roam, to make sure he was really there and in one piece. She had had that niggling fear that maybe something had gone wrong and for some reason, the thought that one of them very easily could have drowned had shaken her badly. As it was, Dino had some new tension marked in the lines of his brow. But he hitched a massive shoulder dismissively and gently extricated himself from her grip.

Across the room, Markku called to them that their room was ready. Dino slung his arm companionably around her shoulders as they followed their comrades up the stairs.

"Bah, it was easy."

She snorted.

"I bet you had some second thoughts once you jumped in, hmm?"

"Maybe," he said evasively, a mischievous glint making an appearance in his hooded eyes as he held the door of their room open for her. "I have something for you."

"Pilfered right from the trembling hands of your hapless victims, no doubt?"

"No doubt," he replied with a grin, handing over a package of fine, but hastily wrapped vellum.

"Such a gentleman – oh," she purred, revealing the set of exquisite magnifying lenses. They were flawless; she'd never owned a set so well-made. She brought the gift – loot – covetously to her chest and wandered out onto the balcony to inspect them in the light.

"Greedy, eh, maestro?" she heard Dino say, his voice fraught with undertone. She didn't hear Ezio's reply.

The Assassins had rented a private room at an inn fronting the coast. A hefty sea-borne breeze cooled the late morning sun that glared even through the heavily over-grown arbor. Dappled shadows created by the lush foliage slanted across Markku and Alessa as they waited. Inside their room, Dino, Tullio, and Ezio began performing their post-mission ablutions. Outside, on the top-floor balcony, Alessa started work on their hidden blades; sharpening, oiling, and adjusting as she grazed distractedly on an early lunch. Markku sat in a chair facing the sea, a glass of wine in his hand, long legs stretched out before him, feet crossed at the ankles as he silently considered the waves.

Ezio finished before his apprentices and wandered outside, vaguely threatening with that loping grace of his. His functional and somewhat grimy whites had been replaced. A new sash threaded through the downward slashes of the inverted 'V' of his belt buckle, the ends tumbling down in a startling crimson rivulet at his right hip.

Alessa glanced up at him and smiled as he settled himself into the empty chair beside her. She set down her tiny screwdriver and handed him his newly sharpened hidden blade. As he buckled it onto his forearm, she poured his wine, and then returned to tinkering with Dino's vambrace. His brutal fighting style abused his equipment like no other and she was in the process of replacing a pair of damaged springs.

Markku scraped his chair across the meticulously stained wooden decking to face Ezio from across the table. She and Markku proceeded to outline their findings while the Master Assassin ate and she worked. Tullio and then Dino joined them as they took turns relaying the information they had painstakingly gathered.

"We'll finish it now, I think." Ezio decided when they paused. "There's no need to wait." The apprentices, having had established that Alessa would accompany Ezio into the dry dock, had been getting ready to delve into the most opportune time to strike. Instead, they stared at Ezio blankly. The Master Assassin shrugged.

"It will be a test of your endurance," he said to her, easing back in his chair and sipping his wine genteelly.

"Excuse me?"

"An Assassin is unique for our possession of stamina and versatility," he said calmly, watching her over the rim of his glass as he twirled it idly by its stem. "You have trained for months now and you are more than ready to show me you possess these traits."

"By… How?"

"You must be able to go from one mission to the next without pause for reflection or rest sometimes. Your hosts are expecting your presence at a gathering later this evening. Can you infiltrate the warehouse with me, destroy this machine, and return in time for the ball?"

His tone was playful and he smiled, but his posture indicated that he would only accept one answer.

"But the gathering tonight isn't even important; Markku could just say I'm sick."

"Today it isn't. But say, for instance, you had the need to perform two very different missions in a short time span. Is one more important than the other that you could just cancel it?"

It made sense, and she was ashamed for her insolence. She just hadn't thought of the frivolous activity as a mission. The men were watching her, Dino looking especially pensive and seeming to gaze past her.

"Then let's go," she said suddenly, the prospect of the challenge invigorating her. She was rewarded with a pleased and mischievous grin from the Master Assassin.

Now that the mission was looming just before her, the hours of the afternoon suddenly seemed like too few when compared to the interminable stretch she had been anticipating only moments before. Preparations suddenly became a flurry of activity.

She wrote a quick note in code indicating that the Assassins were ready to infiltrate. She gave the inn's stable boy a silver florin to deliver it to her contact, Eduardo. Markku excused himself and disappeared with a promise to return quickly. Dino and Tullio went scarce and she discovered them snoring away inside their room. While she waited for a reply, she finished Dino's blade and began working on Tullio's.

She'd have to take a look at his technique; he seemed to do a lot of slashing with the weapon. While the double-edged blade could perform those particular types of maneuvers, it was more of a stabbing weapon. Slashing put a lot of stress on the anchoring points; Tullio would need to have an entirely new blade forged if he continued.

Eduardo responded quickly, his note indicating in roundabout language only she or Markku would understand that his shift would begin in an hour. He would meet her and Ezio at a previously agreed upon location just outside the heavily guarded dry docks controlled by the Borgia.

She finished Tullio's blade and took it quietly into the darkened room. Rummaging quietly through her duffel, she gathered her equipment and took it out to the balcony. She was glad that she had just worked oil into her climbing gloves; the leather had been getting a little stiff. The gloves were especially made to be both supportive and flexible, but that flexibility depended on good preventative care. She considered her bare fingertips as she pulled them on. Her gloves were customized to protect her stub; the thing still hurt sometimes with unexpected impacts.

Markku returned.

"Here," he said, casually tossing a bag of questionable contents at her. It didn't have the hard heft of his bombs but something sloshed ominously within.

"Jesu! Careful!" She set it aside and edged away from it until she figured out what was within. "Where'd you get, ah…" she gestured vaguely at it as Ezio inched close and poked it warily, "…this?"

"I made them," the 'obviously' was implied in Markku's tone.

"When?"

At the question, he chortled, eyes brightening.

"What do you think I've been doing this whole time? I used his supplies, his workers, and have been diverting the finished products for our use. Orsini's stockpiles of 'new' explosives contain regular old gunpowder." He winked at her conspiratorially. "Weakened gunpowder; my reputation will suffer after this!" He was positively gleeful.

"Filthy thief," Alessa said with an appreciative grin. Like a proud mamma she was…

"The baron's raw materials were extensive; his lead engineer is a man after my own heart! I've been working on this formula for a while, but lacked a particular substance that is difficult to purify. It's very similar to Greek fire and added to the cannon ammunition will burn even wet objects."

Alessa eyed the innocuous-appearing leather satchel suspiciously.

"Uh huh, and what happens if it gets on one of us?"

"Ei ongelmaa," he drawled, producing a pair of oiled pouches and passing them over. "Cloth soaked in vinegar. It will interrupt the chemical reaction."

After that, Markku made himself scarce, leaving to attend to the details of their clothing for the evening.

It was silent save for the questing breeze from the sea. Alessa faced into it, dismantling the messy bun she had twisted into her hair that morning and allowing the wind to blow her hair out of her face. She weaved it into a tight braid, tied off the end with a red cord and tucked it into her tunic. She was idly wondering what it would be like to just cut the whole thing off when she heard the soft, unmistakable sound of Ezio pulling up his hood. She stilled as his arms came around her. He smelled incredible; clean skin and fresh linen.

She let her head fall back into the curve of his neck and jaw, reaching up to cover his hands with her own. The hard edges of his armor against her back pinched a little. But the discomfort vanished when she turned her head slightly to find his lips waiting for hers. She lost her breath for a moment as he invaded her senses.

His hand splayed out across her upper abdomen and curved around her ribcage, gentle but inescapable pressure turning her in his arms so that he could hold her properly. For a moment all was bliss, until the buckles of their spaulders caught on one another. She felt him smile against her lips before he retreated slightly to disentangle them.

"I can't believe you're ready for another mission already, aren't you tired?" She asked, sliding her free hand along his chest to rest over his heart as he gently worked their armor apart. He didn't answer right away as their tangled buckles came free. He cupped her face in both of his hands, brought his forehead to hers to look directly into her eyes.

"I find that being with you, like this, is quite restful."

"Oh," she breathed, a small exhalation of pleased surprise.

He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead and released her.

She pulled up her hood and they took to the rooftops where their passage went unnoticed by the citizens of Napoli.


Ezio dove into the stagnant water of the canal without hesitation. Alessa grimaced with barely contained revulsion; it took every ounce of her willpower to force herself to drop into the water.

As the water that contained a good portion of the city's filth enveloped her, Alessa wondered why the hell she had been so excited to start this mission.

They moved through the greasy liquid as quietly as possible, trying not to alert the attention of the patrol on the nearby dock. The lone guard sauntered lazily in their direction, but apparently mistook them for just another bit of garbage floating along the slight current.

Dio, but it was disgusting!

She focused with a massive effort, ignoring her utterly offended sense of smell and the slimy feel of the water on her skin. The guard turned to walk his post in the opposite direction and the Assassins shifted forward, primordial predators out of the deep.

She grimaced again when Ezio suddenly went under; she marked his passage by a slight 'V' of ripples on the surface of the water. The guard stopped suddenly and Alessa halted her approach, forgetting her misgivings enough to sink down so that only her eyes were above the water.

The guard eyed the quietly shifting water before him with suspicion and his hand went to the hilt of his weapon. Alessa brought her hand to the surface, disturbing the water with a quiet splash. The guard looked around warily at the soft sound, correctly trusting that prickle of cold at the back of his neck. His gaze seemed to focus on her as she let herself float into the shadows. It was his final mistake, taking his attention away from the water in front of him.

Ezio surfaced from the murk and in a single fluid movement, he grasped the boards of the dock with one hand, pulled himself up and buried the blade of his other hand in the guard's gut. Horror made an appearance on the guard's expression as he was heaved over the side, but the man sank without a sound, hampered by the weight of his armor.

Alessa shivered.

Hell of a way to die.

She heaved herself up onto the dock next to Ezio. Water sheeted from them as they eyed a second soldier who patrolled the next set of docks. Alessa pulled her crossbow. Water dripped from the weapon as she loaded it and held it out. She shot the guard as he paused at the edge of his dock. His knees buckled slowly and he pitched over the edge.

They were fortunate to have gotten rid of the bodies so far. From what she could tell of the patrols, they kept in excellent contact with each other. She and Ezio still had to infiltrate and escape with the Naval Cannon before an entire battalion was alerted when the next roving patrol came through. The rovers did not run on a set schedule so it could be five minutes or five hours before the missing guards were noticed.

She could see Eduardo in the distance and pointed him out to Ezio. Her informant was waiting with admirable casualness; stalling for time as he scribbled notes onto a writing board next to a gondola. They dove in the water. She didn't hesitate this time; maybe the shock of entering the filthy water would improve.

Nope.

The water was still nasty.

Eduardo turned to face them in mild surprise as they climbed out of the canal. Drops splattered noisily on the weathered planks. Alessa was walking forward to greet her informant when Ezio stalked past her to move aggressively toward the engineer.

He caught the man up by his lapels and shook him. Eduardo was hitched up onto his tiptoes without having to expend any effort.

"Where are the plans." It was not a question.

Alessa hurried forward to stop the man-handling, concerned for Eduardo's safety. She halted when she caught a glimpse of Ezio's focused expression. Her fists bunched at her sides as she forced herself to remain aloof. She turned abruptly away from the men to scan the area.

"You must stop Cesare," she heard Eduardo say anxiously. "Peace messere, I will help you."

"Grazie." The Master Assassin's tone was remote as he let the engineer drop to his feet. Eduardo fumbled with his documents before tossing them into the gondola and hopping in – rather hastily.

A chill passed through her body as she turned to consider the man before her, intently watching his target begin to move away. Like a cat watching a mouse. Less than an hour before, he had held her with such gentleness and esteem. His brusque treatment of their informant, a potential ally, was jarring. When he finally turned his attention to her, she struggled to school her expression and failed.

"You must never fully trust an informant," he told her, correctly interpreting her look. She could only nod. She'd have to think on that; he was right, in a way. However, she wasn't sure if she would lose part of her humanity if she compartmentalized that strongly. At the same time, she'd been distancing herself from killing to such an extent that she wondered if perhaps she had become too aloof.

Of course that indifference could be considered of sort of mental and emotional armor, too.

She was now thoroughly confused.

Eduardo was working for Templars, yes. That technically made him an enemy of free will. But she knew he was forced to do the work that he did. To keep his family safe. To protect his livelihood. It was a theme that seemed all too common. So did that make him an innocent or not?

Ezio had been the voice of experience when he had told her that the rules of the Creed could be more complex than they first appeared.

Into the water again – it was getting less repulsive the more she wallowed in it – swimming with sure, even strokes. They used the gondola as cover, but otherwise did not interact with Eduardo as he paddled across the canal and steered the gondola into an arched waterway that tunneled into the dry dock at the heart of the Borgia warehouse district.

The first part of the tunnel was quite dark and Alessa allowed her vision to change as she swam. Ezio appeared like an azure ghost beside her as she followed the faint trail of golden light into the darkness.

Torchlight appeared and she returned her vision to normal, watching but not hearing the guards as they conducted Eduardo through a gate. A series of handholds allowed them to clamber up the rough-hewn walls and gain the heights of the rafters.

Water streamed from their clothes and armor as they eased along the narrow beams. The guard heard the rhythmic dripping and looked around for the source of the sound. Ezio was on him before he thought to look up. The Master Assassin had darted forward and leapt onto his target before she had even noticed. His attack was silent save for the impact, and even that was muffled.

Alessa continued forward and passed over the gate. She spotted the second guard and leapt from the rafters to assassinate the brute as he fiddled absentmindedly with his sword belt.

Extricating her blade and shoving the body into the water, she heard Ezio creeping about above. She attempted to step up the wall to gain the lowest beam.

Merda! It was too high!

As she looked around for an alternate route up, Ezio dropped to the ground beside her.

"Look," he instructed, gesturing to a lower beam that was too far away from the dock to simply jump for. She watched in curiosity as he stepped up the wall just like she had, but then shifted his momentum at the height of his reach to leap gracefully to the side, grabbing the beam and pulling himself up. The combination of techniques gave him more height and greater lateral range for his jump. It was complicated though – she would have to switch from forward momentum to upward and then lateral in order to do it.

Clenching and unclenching her fists as she concentrated, Alessa imitated him; surged up, almost slipped as her ankles and knees protested the sudden twist, but was able to hurl herself sideways into space. She just grasped the beam as she began to fall and pulled herself up. She perched for a second, her heart thudding with triumph. She saw him give her a quick grin from within the shadows of his hood before he moved ahead towards the gondola, leaping effortlessly from beam to beam.

Alessa did not wait; she quickly mapped out her own path and then started. This type of movement required constant momentum to get across the wide gaps; following someone could be dangerous if the person running ahead was slow.

They wouldn't have that problem here. In fact, she was falling behind. She pushed herself but too much speed would increase her risk of losing her footing. Ezio possessed the incredible timing and coordination that had to be honed by years of experience she just didn't have.

They performed a similar attack at the second gate. The next stretch of tunnel was longer and they had to coordinate their efforts carefully to avoid notice from the guards patrolling the narrow walkways below. They settled into an alternating system of teamwork that was quite efficient; one would pause to shoot while the other continued on after Eduardo.

In their economy of movement, the Assassins had gotten ahead of their informant and were approaching a third gate.

How many bloody checkpoints did the place need?

Ezio slowed down and signaled for her to move up to his left. The scaffolding creaked faintly as the Assassins crept stealthily above the dark waters of the underground canal. In a more pragmatic part of her mind, Alessa was glad she was over water, even nasty water. One of these days, the wood or metal she trusted her life with would be rotted or rusted through.

She firmly told that little voice to shut the hell up. Then she slapped it for good measure.

The tunnel split and the Assassins were out of beams to run across.

Into the damn water again.

They assassinated the guards and escorted their informant through. Eduardo moved through the open gate, indicating to a smaller wooden door in the walls of the tunnel.

As she clambered onto the dock, for a split second, all she could think of was the fact that she was going to be oiling her blades and leathers for hours.

Oh, and she never wanted to swim in city water again.

The access door led them into a dank warehouse style room punctuated by stone support walls. The place was mostly empty, by the smell it probably flooded a lot. It was quite dark; only a few torches sputtered sullenly here and there. She and Ezio kept to the corners and the shadows as they moved through. She was stepping lightly enough but her feet squished in her boots; she felt like she was making enough noise to alert even the most distracted guard.

But apparently she wasn't that loud at all.

She eased around a corner to find herself face to face with a startled patrolman. She only had a quick second to process the wide blue eyes of a young Borgia soldier before she thrust her hidden blade up under his chin. She wrenched her blade down and back, gasping with her surprise and falling into a defensive crouch as she looked around for his partner. Standard patrols usually roved in pairs or trios.

Her muscles were coiled with tension and she jumped slightly when Ezio appeared. She let herself relax and her hidden blade retracted back into her vambrace. Taking a deep breath, she looked down at her kill. His armor and clothing was more finely made than the average soldier's. His eyes were still open, more startled than horrified by death. And…

"So young," she breathed. Guy looked like he'd barely been old enough to shave.

Ezio came over, his face impassive. He nudged the body with his toe, and then dropped to his haunches beside it. Shifting the crooked pauldrons, Ezio revealed the image of a cross flanked by what looked like a sword and a leafy branch stitched onto the uniform. He looked up at her.

"Inquisitor," he murmured. "This… boy has done some bad things in his life."

Alessa put the halt on her racing thoughts. She was totally disgusted with herself; caterwauling like a knock-kneed rookie.

"Forgive me, maestro," she said, bowing her head with her teeth clenched. She hated having weak moments.

Hated it.

He smiled, but it was without humor.

"Sometimes it is good to question our actions. But not in the middle of a mission. That will get you killed. Save your reflection for afterward."

She nodded and tugged her hood further over her eyes. She wasn't crying.

Was. Not. Crying.

The Assassins dispatched two more patrols before finding the next door and finding themselves in a small tunnel. They had to be getting close; the floor was covered by a thin layer of briny seawater. Alessa suspected that their current location was one of the tunnels used to flood the dry dock.

She really hoped no one pulled the switch up above.

She could faintly hear voices ahead and stopped suddenly when she recognized Eduardo's. It seemed as if one of the guards was harassing Eduardo about the completion schedule. They crept down the dimly lit tunnel, blades out, until they were quite close to the opening. Ezio listened to the movements of the soldiers just outside for a moment and then stooped to pick up a small piece of mortar that had crumbled from the tunnel wall. He gestured for her to get behind him.

They both eased back into a slant of shadow, breathing quietly as Ezio casually tossed the bit of rock to roll across the tunnel floor.

A couple of the voices stopped talking and Alessa heard the footsteps of the soldiers as they walked towards the tunnel.

"Carlo! Stop screwing around and get your ass back out here!" The guard ducked into the tunnel and Ezio's arm was like an iron bar slanted across her torso as he leaned back. She crouched further into the shadows, wondering what the hell he was doing.

"Oi! Carlo?" The guard was close enough for Ezio to reach out and touch and still he did not see them. Alessa breathed slowly through her mouth in an effort to keep her breathing silent; she was sure he would hear her heart pounding. She felt Ezio tense for a split second before he jabbed his right hand out almost too fast for her to see. She saw his hidden blade flicker across the guard's upper arm just above the elbow.

"Ow! Dammit!" The guard backed away from them suddenly and she heard a curious query from outside the tunnel. Ezio's arm eased off of her and she let out a slow sigh of relief as the guard stumbled back out into the light, clutching his arm.

"What the fuck happened?"

"I don't know, I –"

Alessa and Ezio peered around the corner to see their target reeling a little bit at the mouth of the tunnel. He swayed dizzily, putting a hand to his head for a moment before he suddenly starting yelling in terror, slapping frantically at his arms and legs.

What the hell?

Apparently the soldier's comrades were thinking along the same lines as herself and were collecting around their frantic brother-in-arms as he battled unseen demons. Alessa gripped Ezio's arm in surprise when the afflicted soldier suddenly drew his sword and began swinging wildly.

It was at this point that Ezio burst into action, hurling a smoke bomb directly into the midst of the grouped soldiers and darting out into the resulting chaos. Alessa was concerned about the wild swings of the crazed soldier, but he appeared to have lost all strength. He sank to the ground as she burst into the plume of smoke just after her maestro.

The battle was sickeningly brief.

The smoke cleared to reveal that they had emerged into the dry dock containing the Naval Cannon. The craft itself looked surprisingly fragile; the cannon mounted on board looked anything but.

They climbed the ladder the main level to find Eduardo wringing his hands in consternation. Ezio ignored him and stalked over to the engineer's workbench to begin throwing documents onto the torches. Alessa followed, eyes narrowing in speculation as she gazed at the engineer. He moved slightly away from her.

"Sorry, Eduardo," she whispered, pulling the dagger at her belt. His eyes widened in horrified disbelief just before she kicked him in the lower abdomen just hard enough to double him over. She swiftly hit him in an overhand swing with the hilt. The man tumbled to the ground, unconscious, scalp already bleeding onto the floor. There was no need to leave him unscathed; the fact that he survived might still give his masters reason for suspicion. She silently wished him well.

"We have to flood the dry dock," Ezio said, looking up and assessing the cavernous interior.

Alessa couldn't see an obvious way up to the mechanisms that allowed sea water in, but Ezio jogged across the room to investigate a likely switch. He fiddled with the mechanism but only managed to raise up a lift that would take supplies to the second story balcony.

"What's going on down there?" a suspicious voice queried from above. Alessa tensed as a brute on either side of the room peered over the balcony.

In a smooth movement, master and apprentice backed into each other, drew their crossbows, aimed and shot. Alessa's target slumped over the railing and hung like a macabre festival decoration. Ezio's target reeled and crashed spectacularly through the wooden railing to land with a loud clang on the floor before them.

"The lever to control the flooding of the dock must be up there," he said to her, pointing straight up. "We need to hurry; if the guards are as good at communicating as you have observed, someone will be by to check on things."

"And we've left a hell of mess behind us," she agreed.

They gained the second floor via the lifts. It was a slightly disconcerting as the hanging platforms swayed with any movement; they had to allow the things to stabilize before leaping to the next. Alessa was actually glad to find herself crouching on a creaking but steady rafter.

"Take care of that for me," Ezio murmured, gesturing to a final, single guard leaning casually against the wall beside the flooding mechanism, cleaning his fingernails with a dagger. She drew her crossbow, leaning her shoulder against the cool stone wall to aid her stabilization on the beam as Ezio darted toward the bored guard across the way. She aimed and fired, taking him down before he even noticed the assassin heading his way.

She swung to the ground as Ezio completed the circuit of free-running and approached the main lever for the floodgates. With a great roar, water flooded into the dry dock and set the machine afloat. As she approached the vessel, she saw Ezio dive from the second story balcony, his body a graceful arc as it cut into the water.

She dove in a second later and they hoisted themselves up on either side of the ship-killer. She grinned to herself.

At least this time the water was clean.


A/N: Ei ongelmaa, Finnish, no problem

A couple more scenes and then we're back in Rome, where I have a few goodies planned before my recruits head off on their first solo mission!