They all stared with shock as they quickly learned that this was not Yusuf.

Far from it. The cat had changed into a woman with brown, wavy hair, and a slender figure. While Annette and Ezio could only blink with eyes the size of dinner plates, and jaws slack, Yerman quickly replaced his shock with sarcasim.

"Mentor, you said that this cat would be Yusuf," he stated. "I did not imagine that?"

"No..." Ezio answered distantly. "You didn't..."

"So I have one question for you."

"Umm...?"

"WHY THE HELL IS THIS A WOMAN?"

That was enough to snap them both out of shock, and that brought another realization in on top of their forgetting to check the cat to see if it were male. This cat hadn't even been wearing Yusuf's headband. HOW THE F- DO YOU MISS SOMETHING LIKE THAT? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Ezio had grown so eager, so ready to change his friend back he had not taken the time to confirm that it was him.

"Mentor..." Annette spoke with defeat. "I'm sorry... I should have been more careful..."

That's when Yerman started to laugh.

Ezio glared as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Is something funny about this?"

"Yes!" Yerman managed to say. "I can't believe you guys messed up THIS BAD!" With a punch to the arm, Yerman stopped laughing.

The woman on the floor turned over and rubbed her eyes with her forearm. She then pushed up to a sit before switching her position where she was seated more like a cat would, she stared up at them with confusion. All three were staring at her, but Annette at least broke her gaze long enough to find something to cover the woman. She returned and threw a blanket over her, pulled her up to her feet, and wrapped the blanket around her.

"Okay, there," Annette sighed. "Now will you stop drooling?"

Seeing as the wasn't much to look at now, they turned their stares to her. Although Yerman quickly figured out that he had literally been drooling. Ezio on the other hand hadn't been.

"Actually, I like this mistake." Yerman chuckled. "Mind if I spend some time with that one?"

He received a hand to the back of his head, and as he rubbed the sore spot, Ezio answered. "No, I might be able to get some information on where Yusuf might be. The question is if she understands us."

The woman-turned-cat blinked before attempting to speak, forming uncomprehendable words that seemed more gibberish. So meaningless. Or were the noises she made as nonsense as Ezio first thought? Would she recall the name "Yusuf"? Or would she simply stare at him cluelessly? It was worth a try, right?

So he decided to talk with his hands as much as possible, gesture to as much as he could, and ignore the feeling of treating an adult like a child. "I'm Ezio-" He pointed to himself. "And you are?"

The brunette tilted her head and gave him a confused stare for as long as a minute without even blinking.

He grunted with a facepalm before getting even SIMPLER than he was already speaking, which was basically like speaking to a three year old. He pointed to his chest and repeated his name.

"Ezio."

"Ezzzzioh."

"Ezio."

"Eeeezio."

Time to break it down even more...

"Ez-"

"Eeeezzz-"

"Ez-"

"Eeeeeeeeezzzzzzz-"

Behind him, Yerman and Annette were both on the verge of cracking up at the sight of their Mentor trying to teach HIS NAME to this obviously clueless woman. Sighing heavily, he guided her up into his room, followed by the two recruits, where he could continue without any confused stares by any others who might pop in due to curiousity. As an after thought, he collected the two keys on his desk so he could hide them.

Yusuf shifted uncomfortably under Manuel's stare, looking down and keeping his ears pressed to his head. Beside him, Hoca only sat with an emotionless stare, and Sevmek continued to fidget with unease. She out of the three was more nervous than the others.

"What do we do?" She whispered to Yusuf.

He hardly heard him, he was busy trying to antisipate who to tell to run, or if he himself should. It was all based on who that fat, old man decided on keeping to his lap like some exotic, and rare, pet of some kind. Unfortunately, that feline happened to be him. He tried to jump off the table, but fingers curled around him, keeping him restrained as he was placed down on a thick thigh, and chubby fingers rubbed his fur the wrong way.

"Go, try and get out of here," He mrrowed in discomfort.

Sevmek shook her angular head in disagreement. "No. I'm not going to leave you with... that-" she flicked her gaze up at Manuel for a moment before returning it to Yusuf. "We'll figure a way out of here together."

"Fine... have it your way." Yusuf responded, uninterested in putting up much protest.

With that, Sevmek and Hoca were shooed off the table, and removed from the room entirely. While that was happening, all these Templar agents were filing into the room, taking seats around a big round table- which Manuel was seated at the end of-. Soon he felt the hand let go of him, and he quickly leapt off of Manuel's lap and onto the table, ready to sprint out the door when he heard "Thank you all for coming to this important Byzantine meeting." With that, Yusuf paused in his steps, and came to the conclusion that maybe he could always listen in on this meeting. He settled down and curled his tail over his front paws, listening to the conversations.

"I don't see why we're all here." Oksana stated with lack of amusement.

"Yeah, and what's with that cat on the table?" Odai questioned.

Shahkulu glared through his mask. "I don't like this cat. I don't know why, but I don't like it."

The Champion, Georgios, held a heavy hand on the torturer's shoulder. "But then again, you hate most of us here."

Mirela was staring at Yusuf with a hand on her chin. "I think it's a Turkish Angora."

"THEN IT MUST DIE!"

Yusuf bolted off the table as Shahkulu lundged with his spear at him, thankfully Georgios kept him restrained for the most part. But before the feline assassin could escape, Manuel picked him up and held him back on his lap. With an indignant puff of air, Yusuf pinned his ears back and glared at Manuel for a moment before waiting for the actual meeting to start.

Ignorant towards Yusuf's icy glare, Manuel started the meeting. "I know, it was called so sudden. But the Constantine North Den that the Assassins have taken hold of is a little bit busy with some issues. So now we shall be formulating a plan to attack the South Den."

"What could possibly tie up the Assassins' time where they would be oblivious towards an attack on their den?" Cyril questioned.

Manuel gestured for Mirela and Vali, the former was near by while the latter had taken a chair closer to the other end of the table.

Vali then explained the reason why their enemies were so distracted. "I and Mirela have snuck into the North Den and hid a bomb inside a pie. So, when they even try to cut it open, it will explode and they have a big mess to clean up. I'm sure they'll send more of them to clean this up so they can get it done faster, so this leaves open a week or so. Maybe less."

"You hid the bomb." Oksana repeated.

"Yes," Vali confirmed.

"Inside a pie..." She finished.

"And a very good pie bomb it is." Mirela boosted.

"What flavor?" Damat asked.

Vali gave him a serious look before stating, "Cherry."

Georgios suddenly shot up howling, "WHAT OUTRAGE IS THIS?" But Shahkulu quickly jumped on him, tackling him to the floor with the disbalance. Odai came into the small scuffle in an attempt to help push the two back into their seats, which only worked when he had both of them pinned down to the chairs with a hand on pressure points in their shoulders. The two were still as statues until Odai removed his hand and returned to his seat.

A random Byzantine official raised his hand to speak, and Manuel nodded for him to go on. "Lord Palaiologos, why do have your agents here as well?"

Manuel stared long and hard at him. "They're Templars too, are they not?"

"Well... I- I'm not saying they aren't Templars," the official rambled nervously, looking ready to sweat under all the agents glaring. "But they're not taking this meeting very seriously, and they are only talking..."

Another Byzantine Captain spoke up. "I agree with him. They have done the most talking in this meeting, and a majority of it has been over pointless matters." The first calmed a little.

The other officials begun to murmur amongst themselves, only silenced by Manuel raising a hand.

"I can see that my agents are not acting as professional as they should." He agreed. "But that is no reason to disclude them from this meeting." He folded his hands together, giving Yusuf the opportunity he needed to get away from the old man and hopefully slink away from the meeting- seeing as it was only a bunch of bickering- but yet again stopped when Manuel continued. "Now, let's get to the plans, how do we plan on attacking the Constantine South Den while the Assassins are distracted?"

"We could always go straight out and attack it." A captain suggested.

"Normally that work," Manuel agreed. "But the Assassins have devoloped a cannon strong enough to kill twelve of us in one shot, and they can put it on their barricades. We need another strategy unless we want to be flatlined."

This led to a long silence as all the occupants of the room were considering their plans. Finally another official offered up, "Why not we attack from underground?"

"Care to elaborate?" Manuel asked.

"We get a bunch of soldiers to dig underground to get in from below. We'll easily take over the den from the inside out and flush them out. We found a man's wine cellar last we had control of this den, we could use this a starting point."

"Won't this be a little risky?" Odai questioned. "Like if there's a cave collapse?"

"Not if we don't set off any explosions, I suppose." The official answered.

Manuel nodded. "Very well, we will get a digging team assembled and begin immediantly. Cyril, go and get us some maps of the district. Shahkulu, you will be leading this digging team."

He glared. "Why me?"

"Because, you can keep those men in line," Manuel told him. "And you're most likely to kill any Jannessary that does try to interfere with this opporation."

The torturer nodded just before everyone was dismissed from the meeting. Yusuf continued to sit at the doorway, thinking over the plans he just heard. He needed to get back to the den, and very soon. The question was how.

Soon, before Vali left, he picked up Yusuf and held him at his shoulder while he walked up a flight of stairs. There he placed the cat down, allowing him to see Sevmek and Hoca both laying on a bed, fairly bored. Though the former perked up when she saw him, she trotted over with a cheerful expression on her face. Hoca just stayed where he was, but appeared more at ease now.

It wasn't long before three more men walked in, all of whom Yusuf reconized to be Odai, Shahkulu, and Cyril. He was quick to guess that they all shared a room, much like his recruits did.

"Why must you keep those filthy animals in here?" Shahkulu growled.

Vali stared at him with little more than sly amusement. "Maybe because it makes your skin crawl."

With a glare, Shahkulu seated himself on one of the beds further away from the window and threw a pillow over his still helmet covered head.

Cyril decided to speak up. "You know you're probably be able to sleep better if you are not wearing your helmet."

He earned a middle finger and the retort of, "Aren't you suppose to be getting those maps?" before he left.

While the others were settling down for the night, Yusuf laid down beside Hoca and stared at the floor in front of him. "I need to get back to my home."

"Isn't this you're home?" Sevmek asked, curling up next to him.

"No." Yusuf sighed. "I was taken here like you both were. And where I do belong, we might not see each other again on speaking terms."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean that when I do get home, I won't be able to talk with you or Hoca, or any of you." He explained. "It's... complicated..."

"No, I understand what you mean." Sevmek then turned away. "You probably are one of those high class housecats. And you can't be bothered by little more than rubbish like me or Hoca."

The words seemed to hold a sharp edge to them like a knife. "That's not it. Not at all."

"Then what, Yusuf?" She hissed. "Just what would keep you away?"

He looked down. "Trust me, Sevmek, the story of how and why I'm here right now and speaking to you is long, confusing, and above all unbelievable. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it, but the fact that this is how I am now is proof enough..."

"I'm willing to listen," She assured.

And so began a long night of telling her the story of how he got here.

Sorry for the long chapter here. But I couldn't stop typing. I was having too much fun with it. Yup, Ezio and Annette derped on the cat they found, and Yusuf now has more reasons why he needs to figure out a way back to the headquarters, but sooner now. And on top of that, he has Sevmek's easily hurt feelings to be careful of. Oh joy!