Author's Note: Just to clear things up, since Altair was taken from 1191, he's 26 as of now, but since the ship from Cyprus returns in 1485, Ezio should be 28—I just always think of him as less mature than Altair since he wasn't raised in as strict an environment.

Assassin's Creed: Alis Aquilae

Third

Altair noticed a change in the aura of the foreign eagle as soon as the door of the Bureau closed behind them. He glanced a hardness in his eyes that was not present when Leonardo was around, as if he had raised his guard the moment they had touched the street, and for once he had no doubts of the other Assassin's maturity or skill. He said nothing about it however, barely even having the opportunity to do so as Ezio took off at a sudden sprint, distancing himself swiftly from the building.

The Masyaf Assassin touched the bandage around his leg to make sure it was secure before he followed closely at his heels, realizing that this was the first time in a long time since he had run during the confines of night. Though he was fully capable of doing so, the shadows cast by the moon never seemed quite as friendly as those in the daytime, and little cover was even provided by it due to the glare of his white robes. It simply wasn't practical.

The other seemed unhampered by it however, and climbed the stone and latticed wall ahead of them with a practiced abandon that was almost careless, moving boldly forward as if the darkness parted for him like waves before a boat. Altair paused briefly, taking a split-second moment to mistrustfully test the stability of the heavily decorated windowsill before scaling it, keeping up with Ezio as promised. The conditions were well in the other Assassin's favor, he conceded a little bitterly, familiar as the Florentine eagle was with the layout of the city and the landscape of its rooftops—but he refused to lose to this brash novice, no matter how tired he felt. The two cleared the top of the building one after the other, becoming mere flashes of moonlight to any who chanced to glance up as they ran.

Only twice did Altair stumble as he followed the caped one ahead of him, and twice as well did he readjust his movements to compensate. The first was after overestimating the traction of the polished tiles across majority of the buildings' oddly slanted roofs, a slipperiness that reminded him of the slick domes of Jerusalem's mosques, and the second was upon encountering one of Venezia's many crisscrossing canals.

The initial thing he noticed was the drastically heightened smell of damp, an already unpleasant thing within itself, but it was not until noticing the entire span of the river did he completely stop. He was well used to narrow waterways occasionally dissecting the houses and paths within a city, most of which he was able to clear in an easy leap, however the great expanse of water blocking their path was not one he would have expected to see walled in by stonework structures and wooden docks.

The Master Assassin glanced across the broad canal and saw that the only means of crossing was a slender rope bridge lashed between two chimneys, little more than a clothesline from his perspective. He made not a sound to betray his unease, but Ezio must have noticed his hesitation (despite the fact that Altair was convinced the other Assassin had been ignoring him), for he too paused at the edge of the dark-watered channel.

"Something wrong?" he asked nonchalantly, glancing over his shoulder at the rather rigid figure behind him. Altair said nothing, looking down at the canal and feeling a slight chill even with the already icy night wind. A sudden image of heavy, enclosing water flashed through his mind, the liquid cage twining sluggishly around him, clouded with tangled curtains of bubbles and stifled screams. He suppressed a shiver and shook his head.

Ezio regarded him mutely for a moment before shrugging and pressing forward again. He took the rope bridge at a run and balanced across it with an assured air, his cape swirling behind him like the wing of a great bird. The Masyaf Assassin followed with significantly less enthusiasm, keeping his eyes trained forward and reminding himself that falling from this height onto a street would have no different results from falling into the water.

Once they touched upon solid roofs again, Altair leapt ahead, keeping level with Ezio now instead of behind him, admittedly to make up for his show of weakness over the waterway. He carefully matched the other Assassin stride for stride, keeping him in sight out of the corner of his eye and staying barely a second behind in each of his movements. Though he had never realized it until now, he missed flying alongside another eagle, never having met any other Assassin who could keep up with him after Malik had begun refusing to acknowledge his presence, much less go on missions with him. An Assassin almost always worked alone, but rarely did he desire for it to forever remain that way.

The Florentine Assassin made no comment on the other's change of pace, but Altair noticed that he too began to mirror most of his actions, perhaps involuntarily falling in sync with him. The Master Assassin remembered Ezio's words from earlier, thought about his claims of being the only Assassin in this entire country. Perhaps it had been caused by a change in the times or even by a rise in Templar diligence, but either way he found he disliked the arrangement. He attempted to imagine living as an Assassin without the direction of a master or the support of his brothers. He could not.

"It's dawn. The watch should be changing." Altair glanced over at the other Assassin and found him looking towards the east, pausing momentarily on the wall of the chapel they had been scaling. He too stopped and followed his gaze, indeed seeing the light of the rising sun beginning to leak through the gaps between the buildings, skipping across the roiling waters of the canals to reflect against its walls. He welcomed it, thoroughly missing the warmth of the desert sands. A slight scuffling sound signaled Ezio taking the opportunity to pull ahead of him and he frowned, shaking his head as he hurried to keep up. This was the wrong time to be getting homesick.

They finally came to a halt on the bell tower of the small church, the pigeons on its rafter edges taking flight in a panicked flurry of down as the two Assassins crowded onto their perches. Altair straightened and leaned against the chill of the bronze metal cross piercing the center of the roof, watching Ezio as the other seemed to be collecting his bearings. Not far from where they stood, crouched on the edge of the sea, a large walled-in structure imposingly blocked the horizon, its position and battlements suggesting it was some type of well-guarded boat port.

"L'Arsenale," the other Assassin supplied, nodding at the seaside fortress and speaking more out of afterthought than anything. He looked over at Altair, a small smirk visible. "It seems that you've kept up this far, maybe I can use you."

"If you are asking for my help, you could be a little more polite about it," the Master Assassin said rather dully, more resigned than annoyed now. "Also, as I said earlier, all I want to do is retrieve the Piece of Eden again; I have no interest in helping you with anything else."

"Did I ever say this had nothing to do with the Apple?" Ezio asked innocently, feigning hurt. The other seemed to have finally started to trust him over the course of their run—resulting in the Florentine eagle growing more irritating than normal. Just his luck. "This is a Templar controlled shipping port, there is no doubt they will be bringing the artifact here. Come."

Altair could only watch as the other Assassin took two swift steps and leapt from the tower, arms spread in careless freefall. He gave him a moment to vacate the ever-convenient haystack below before following, a little surprised at the similarity of their form. As they slipped through the slowly filling streets, both trailing stray threads of straw, he glanced over at the stronghold again, searching routinely for a way in. The walls were high and the gate narrow, the brickwork of its sturdy ramparts just as smooth as most of this city's buildings. It stood protected on all sides by archers patrolling its peak and foreboding saltwater lapping at its base.

"You would propose to simply to walk in?" Altair asked quietly, dubiously, staying close as they wove through groups of passersby.

"Yes," Ezio replied, seeming to be honestly surprised that the Masyaf Assassin would think otherwise. "The shipping manifest I received yesterday said that the galley is not expected to arrive until noon, so I doubt their guard will be quite as tight now as it will be later."

"Perhaps, but I thought you said this was a Templar base? Surely they would not allow just anyone to enter?" Altair pressed, still unwilling to be assured that the other knew what he was doing simply by his word.

The other stopped quite suddenly, nearly causing an unfortunate porter to drop his load as he attempted to pass between the two Assassins. Ezio absently waved off the man's irritated reprimands as he turned to look at the white-robed one, grinning a little. "You worry too much, nonno," he said calmly, the amused glint in his eyes betraying the fact that the term was likely an insult. "There were probably a lot more Templars in your time, but trust me, just as there are fewer Assassins now, there are also fewer of our enemy. Most of the soldiers on duty are just low-end guards who couldn't care less about who comes in or out of here."

The Master Assassin frowned as Ezio resumed his casual pace, heading pointedly towards the gates and slowing only to flash a smile at a passing lady who hid her answering blush behind a fan. He raised a disapproving brow at the other Assassin's retreating back and tailed him after a moment's hesitation, allowing a quiet, exasperated sigh. This man needed to learn to take his missions more seriously.

The lofty entranceway to the Arsenal was intimidating within itself, the iron-wrought gate around the arched door threateningly fortified with spikes and a solid lock. Altair felt his eagle shift, ruffling its feathers warily and knowing that once this door was closed, there would be no escape from the ship port aside from through the water—which was far from a viable option for him. He paused by one of the pillars, allowing his eagle's eyes to magnify his own vision and sweeping a cursory gaze towards the surrounding area just inside the gate.

Rather abruptly, Altair threw an arm in front of Ezio just as the other was about to duck into the archway behind a group of men carrying crates. "What?" the Florentine Assassin asked irritably, moving to one side as more sailors elbowed past to get into the shipyard.

"Are you an Assassin or not?" Altair hissed back, jerking his head in the direction of the gate. "Can you not see the trap?"

Ezio frowned at him and took a second look, the white-robed one seeing the telltale flash in his eyes as he too allowed his eagle's vision to take control. "I can see nothing threatening," he said, casting a rather doubtful look at his fellow Assassin and blinking to allow the original dark brown of his eyes to return. "Just a few unknowns and the archers. None of them seem to be of much significance."

The Masyaf Assassin looked at him in disbelief; unable to comprehend that the other could miss the blatant splash of red aura, one threatening enough for even the lowest novice to sense. Could his eagle's eyes be mistaken? Ezio pushed past him as Altair hesitated, he heading confidently into the gate and speaking over his shoulder, "You don't trust me, is that it? Don't let that get in the way, I know what I'm doing."

"Brother— Ezio, wait," he called out almost desperately, hurrying forward a few steps and reaching out to stop him when he was shunted aside rather violently by a passing collection of boatmen going in the opposite direction, the preoccupied group conversing and carrying merchandise apparently fresh from off a ship. Altair frowned, staying his blade with difficulty as he lost sight of the other Assassin in the crowd. As soon as he was able, he threaded his way into the docking port despite his eagle's fluttering keen of protest.

The Master Assassin was able to catch a glimpse of the white hood several feet ahead of him and had just been about to follow when a sudden cry interrupted him.

"Assassino! Eccolo, il hashashin!"

Altair had the briefest urge to correct the guard that he was neither a hashashin nor under the command of Sayyiduna Hasan as the term suggested, but was jerked back to earth when a warning shot from a bow missed him narrowly. His eagle raised a cry of alarm, taking wing and assessing the danger with a quick, cautious eye. His curved dagger seemed to leap to his hand as he slid carefully back into a ready stance, fist tightening on the silvered hilt. A wave of men clothed in blue-striped black appeared from around the nearby storehouses and surrounded him, quite as he had expected.

Looking around for Ezio, he was thoroughly surprised to see that the soldiers were ignoring the other Assassin, most of them shoving him aside like any of the other innocents who got in the way. Only at this did he realize why the Florentine eagle had not sensed the danger—the trap had not been meant for him.

"Altair-!"

A snarled string of Italian curses and the thud of two bodies hitting the ground simultaneously marked Ezio's entrance into the fray, he pushing rudely into the enclosing circle, blades first. Altair acknowledged him with a neutral gaze, wordlessly shifting to keep his brother to his back and still attempting to measure the threat. "It's me they want," he said under his breath as the number of soldiers only seemed to swell, their glinting long swords and spears leveled at the twin phantoms. From atop the nearby walls, archers toyed with their bowstrings, attentively watching the unfolding chaos below as the bystanders fled the scene of imminent violence.

"I can see that," Ezio said shortly, flicking the red life off his hidden blades and eying the enemies around them. "But what I don't understand is why."

Altair had barely begun to reply when he felt an unfamiliar aura draw near, a foreboding enemy that lit up as a blooded red stain across his eagle's senses. Dark eyes narrowed as he searched for its source, not understanding why, but knowing he needed to exercise the greatest caution with this one. Behind him, he felt Ezio grow rigid, evidently also sensing the adversary, and rather suddenly, the Florentine eagle spirit gave a fearsome screech, the cry unsettling even his own eagle, twined as it was with so much grief and rage.

Confused at the abrupt aggression, the Master Assassin looked around at Ezio and saw him reach for the long sword at his side, all the while glaring at an approaching man whose face and figure were masked by a black cloak. "Rodrigo Borgia," he greeted him, a steely note in his voice and the grip on the hilt of his sheathed rapier white-knuckled.

"Auditore? I didn't expect you would be here as well," the man returned coolly, his accent slightly different from Ezio's—perhaps another foreigner? "But I have no time for your petty revenge schemes right now; I have more pressing matters to attend to."

"Time or not, it matters little to me," the caped Assassin growled out, smoothly drawing his blade. "Your life is mine."

Altair frowned, looking towards Borgia and seeing that the man seemed calm despite the threat, not even making a move to unsheathe a weapon or draw back behind the soldiers. Instead, all the apparent Templar did was shift slightly, briefly bringing into view a glint of silver at his side, partially covered by the dark cape. The strike of recognition hit him just as Ezio lunged forward, powerfully knocking aside the bladed barrier in his way as the guards attempted to block him from reaching their master.

Even as he reached out a hand to try and stop his brother, the Masyaf Assassin knew that the dangerous presence he had felt had not been caused this man; or at least not him alone. A bright gold flash blinded him and all those around him as the Piece of Eden retaliated, once again defending itself from another eagle's descending talons.