I awoke with a start as Altair shook me awake and yelled in my ear very urgently. I opened my eyes and sat up, half-dazed, and incomplete of waking up. Altair then pulled me from the bed and got me on my feet. He took hold of my rist to guide me in my sleepish state of unawareness, giving me a chance to look at the commotion. I looked around the room and saw Desmond fighting off a guard while Ezio was fighting off another.

"Whoa! What the hell?" I yelled as Altair ushered me out the entrance to the room.

"No time to explain." Altair said. I didn't think so, I thought.

More guards, about twenty of them, came to stand in our way just as Altair was about to run through an open door. The guards stood their ground in front of Altair, which confused me. He's an assassin for crying out loud! I thought as we had a staring contest between each other for a second before the guards ran at us. My eyes widened as more came around the corner behind the others. I looked at Altair, expecting to see him throw a throwing knife at a couple of them, but he had no weapons on besides his short blade and his hidden blade.

After that, it went by in a flash. Altair held tighter to my rist as he ran over to a window, surprisingly open, and I looked back to see Ezio run over to us, leaving Desmond behind to fight off the three guards in the room, with a wound. Once I looked forward again, Altair had taken a leap of faith, with me still intact. I screamed as Altair held onto me and did his routine as the usual. I felt like my breath was gone and I couldn't scream any longer after a few seconds.

We landed in a bush, and pain shot through my back as the stems poked me so violently. Altair got out of the bush so quickly I might have thought there might be a scorpion in it. He then pulled me up and away into his arm and held me apart from the bush, and then Ezio fell into it.

"Good God!" I yelled at Altair's face. "How dangerous will you be with me?! I could have been killed!"

He looked at me sternly. "But you didn't die, did you?" I gave him the harshest glare I could come up with, which was kinda scary to my friends at school, but nowhere near the one Altair gives to people.

Ezio got up out of the bush and spoke. "Well, you're just lucky he moved you in time."

"Well, yeah, but I'm talking about the fall!" I said. Looking back at Altair, I said, "Why didn't you just use your short blade to get out of there instead of scaring me outa my wits?!" Once it had left my mouth, I knew why. It could've gotten messy and way more dangerous. "Never mind! I know why!"

Ezio looked a bit confused at the sudden subject change of my words. "Uh-"

I felt testy at the moment and ignored the start of his sentence. I took a sigh and began, "Well, where to next?" I said with a sigh.

Altair looked at me and said, "I have no idea. Desmond does, though." Altair and I looked around, expecting to see him in another bush, but he was nowhere to be found.

I remembered what I had seen just before I had been pulled out of the window, and felt sudden out rage at Ezio. "How could you leave him back there to struggle with the guards?! He's wounded, and you just left him?! What is wrong with you, you bastard?! He was our only way to-"

"Shut up!" Ezio's sudden out burst startled me enough to jump back into Altair's chest. "I couldn't do anything for him. If he would have made the jump, he would have been severely hurt. Besides, he told me to go, just before he gave in to them..."

"No." Altair's deep voice behind me made me jump away and squeal a little. He looked at me with a slight frown before continuing. "We must get him back. He gave me the time traveling piece of Eden to go back in time and find the other pieces of Eden-"

The name caught me by surprise. "Whoa, whoa, whoa; are those really real?"

Both assassins answered in unison. "Yes."

I walked away from Altair so I could see both of them. "Then, are we gonna hide them or something?"

Altair looked at me before speaking. "Well, Desmond hasn't exactly told me of his plan."

"What?!" I couldn't believe he hadn't told anyone! "What the heck?! How come? Did he tell you why he wouldn't tell you?" What a mouthful...

"No, but he was going to in time."

Ezio raised his hand to signal he wanted to speak. "Uh, before we spent too much time out here, why don't we go get him to figure it out?"

Altair looked down side-ways to the right. "Yes... He'll need assistance." Then he lifted his head slightly and looked at me from under his hood. "We must get him out of there as soon as possible."

"Well, how do you suppose we do that? It's not like we're going to barge in there and say 'Hey, we came to take Desmond back and there's nothing you can do about it!' Besides, neither of you have appropriate weapons!"

Altair kept his gaze on me. "Mmm, yes, that is a problem, but I do have a solution."

I felt little relief come over me. "Well, what is it then?"

"Since we have no weapons, we have to sneak in unseen-"

I interrupted Altair, saying "Wait, hold up a second; I can not do an assassin's sneak-in like you guys." The 'sneak in' part was something I was not going to do, and the last thing I would do was destroy the only chance we had to get him out of there.

Altair frowned at me; probablly because I had interrupted him. "You may have to if it comes to that." Altair then gave me a stern look. "Either way, you will come with us."

"Okay, okay; I'll do whatever I have to."

Altair looked pleased with himself. "Good; now we just have to make it happen. Come on, we have go as soon as possible." And without another word, he was walking toward the Abstergo doors, me and Ezio following behind.

"You know," I said, "they probably have the doors locked."

Altair looked at me with a 'don't say anything' look when he tugged at the doors, only to find they were locked. "Well, we might have to scale the wall until we find an opening."

"What?!" I said in astonishment. "I can't do tha-!"

Ezio got behind me and shoved his hand onto my mouth, causing my head to slam onto his chest. "You know, the building is right in front of us. And people could possibly be at the front desk." he said in my ear.

I shook my head in understanding and he let so I could step away from him.

Altair then led both of us to a small crack in the wall and he began to climb, motioning with a hand for us to come with. Ezio grabbed me around my waste, causing a small squeak to escape my mouth, and told me to hold onto his neck. I did as told and before I knew it, he was right behind Altair.

After a short while, we were up pretty high and I started shaking so hard I was sure Ezio could feel it. I wouldn't dare look down, and the wind coming from the corner of the building was whipping my hair around. Finally, after nearly choking Ezio with my grasp, I buried my face into his cloak.

I could barely hear him over the wind rushing into my ears, but he asked, "Senorita, are you alright?"

Muffled by the cloth, I replied, "Yes, just afraid."

"Okay, just hold on and you'll be fine." he huffed. "By the way, what is your name?"

I looked at him, surprised that he would ask at such a time like this, but told him anyway. "Uh, Theo." Then I buried my face back into his cloak.

He gave a small murmur, of understanding or pity on me, I would not know, and then he said no more.

Finally, after an eternity, Ezio stopped climbing, obviously exhausted and heavily breathing, and I looked up to see why, only to see Altair rip and throw a vent cover off the building, then climb into the vent it belonged to. Once Altair was in, Ezio forcefully pulled himself up to the vent and waited for me to crawl in on hands and knees, while I was shaking almost to the point where I couldn't support myself in the vent, and then he slowly and painfully made his way in as well, with help from me and Altair. He let out a huff once he was in, then Altair turned towards the inner part of the vent.

"So," I said, "what now? Where to next in this God-forsaken place?" I helped Ezio up a little as I talked. He was heavier than I had expected, but I managed to get him into the vent.

Altair looked at me with no expression on his face. "How am I supposed to know that? I don't have a map."

"Crap!" I said, letting go of Ezio's arm and making him collapse onto himself. "Oh, sorry..." I mumbled to Ezio, and then I got him up to a position where he could relax his back on the vent side.

"In fact, I have no idea where we are." Altair said to me.

"Okay, well, can one of you use your super-hearing ability to listen for a familiar voice or something?" Altair looked at me with a questioning gaze.

Ezio raised his head to look at me in the eye. "Well... it's not... that... simple." he said with heavy breaths in between words.

I slammed my back against the vent wall opposite to Ezio in frustration and said, "Well, what else is there to do?! We can't just sit here, and we can't go wandering around the vents! What if someone hears us, or we get lost, or a vent collapses from too much weight-?!"

"Theo, stop... shouting!" Ezio managed to say. He then managed to stop breathing so heavily. "Just calm down, before I get a headache. I'm sure we'll find some solution." He was beginning to get his breath back.

"Yeah, I guess you're right..." I said half-heartedly.

"Well," Altair said, "let's have no more discussion in this vent and move on." He began to army-crawl through the vent, followed by me, and then Ezio.

We took many turns, left and right, before Altair ordered us to wait as he moved his ear to a vent opening.

"Sorry... I... do what I... ok?" said a rusty, male voice, seemingly older.

"Yeah, right; you... I'd believe that crap?!" said another male, obviously Desmond. "I'd... DIE!"

"Very..., I'll... to... if I need to." said the older man. Altair shuttered in front of me at the unheard words.

"NO! No, please don't do... Vidic. You wouldn't dare do that-!"

"Oh, but I will, Mr. Miles. Only if I...." said Dr. Vidic. Damn bastard, I thought, he's torturing him! "...can do... easy way, or the..."

There was a pause, then Desmond said, "Okay, I'll do it."

I then heard Altair whisper, "No! He can't," then he turned toward me and whispered, "We have to get him out of here!"

I looked at him very seriously and said, "Okay, I'll do whatever it takes."

"Then we'll wait for Dr. Vidic to leave him." Altair spit out the name Dr. Vidic like scum in your teeth that has been there for weeks.

After at least ten minutes of waiting, Altair pulled the air vent cover off and set it in the vent. He then turned his feet to the opening and slowly slid down until he was out. I thought I would hear the thump of his feet on the floor right away, but it took a second or two for them to hit the ground, barely making a noise. I rushed over to the opening and looked down, only to find the floor was several feet away from the vent.

"Oh, shit no!" I said as I squirmed away from the opening.

I nearly kicked Ezio as I was squirming. "Hey!" he said. Then he crawled over to my side and said to me, "You know, I could go first, then when you drop, both me and Altair could catch you. Plus, we're wasting precious time."

"Oh, right, right..." I said, and then backed away so Ezio had enough room to turn his body around and jump down.

Once he was down, he called, "Okay, you can jump now."

I slowly and shakily made my way down the hole to where I was hanging on to the edge of the vent with my hands while the rest of me was dangling in the air. Soon enough, I got the courage to let go and drop down to the floor. I dared not scream, so instead I clenched my teeth. I focused on the position I was in as I fell, seemingly slow, and got ready for impact. My feet finally hit the floor and I crouched down to the floor to absorb the impact, but it still affected me. I felt a little shaken, and my knees were sore from the landing, but I got up anyways and looked around.

Ezio was beside me, patting my back and saying I did a good job. Altair was on my other side, obviously impatiently waiting for me to recover. I then looked at the Animus and discovered that Desmond was lying there. His fists were clenched tight, and he would flinch every-so-often.

"Oh, he looks like he's in bad shape..." I murmured, mostly to myself. I looked up at Altair and asked, "How do you suppose we get him out?"

"Like Lucy had, I guess..." Ezio said, appearing behind me.

I got up and walked over to him to have a closer look. "I wonder what it feels like to be in there..." I said in a small mumble.

"Probably like you're not on Earth." Altair, suddenly there, was just behind me, more to my left. I whipped my head around to find me face-to-face with him. Damn! How do they sneak behind me like that?! I thought. I swear they do it on purpose just to freak me out.

"Well, how do we get him out?" Ezio said, standing behind me to my right.

"Mmm, maybe if you look at the computer next to the Animus, then you'll get answers." I said, walking over to it before they could.

I looked at the computer screen as it displayed 'session in progress'. I began to look around in the computer, and found a window that had video of what he was experiencing at the time.

His ancestor was running across buildings, clearly running after someone. It was strange, though, because he was running after a white-robed person, an assassin more like it, shouting "heretic!" and all that stuff while shaking his sword. Wait; is one of Desmond's ancestors a Templar? I thought. Looking closer to the figure, I saw that it wasn't a man, but a woman, high in rank too. Oh shit! It's Maria!