Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed


Ch. 3

"Your room number's 201," the clerk stated monotonously "It's on the second floor." He seemed bored. Of course, if I were a twenty some odd year old that worked at the front desk instead of going to college, I'd be pretty upset too.

I smiled. "Grazie." I drug my bags into the small elevator. Lucky for me, no one else wanted to join me on the ride up. They wouldn't fit anyway…

I was very excited about finally being in Italia… but I still had pre-vacation jitters. 'Relax, Mel. Enjoy yourself,' I told myself. I was in Florence. The Florence, Italy. I've wanted to go here my entire life! Now that I was here, I had every right to just be me.

Once in my room, I unpacked my things. I was going to be here for four weeks anyway, might as well get comfortable. The room was… large. Dad had made sure to get me a suite in the most expensive hotel he could find, as he knew this was my long-anticipated trip to Italy.

I flung myself onto my bed, and heaved a heavy sigh. I began to slowly drift into sleep, when the shrill ring of my cell awoke me. I groaned, reluctantly pulling my phone out of my pocket. I looked at the caller ID: "Dad". I answered with an exasperated, "Hello?"

"Melina?" my dad's familiar voice replied. "How are you? Did you make it to your room okay?"

"Yes, dad. I'm fine. Thanks for worrying about me."

"Getting used to speaking completely in Italian yet?" he inquired slyly.

"Yeah… it's not as bad as I thought it would be," I told him. Sitting up from my laying position, I ran my fingers through my hair. "Firenze is beautiful…" I walked slowly to my window, gazing longingly out at Florence's landscape. The warm glow of the sun set a peaceful mood, as if Firenze itself was saying: "Welcome".

"You should get some sleep sweetie, I can imagine you're very tired," dad told me. "I love you!" I heard mom shout in the distance.

"Yeah…good idea. Night dad. Tell mom I love her. Love you, dad," I sighed, placing my phone on the nightstand and sprawling out like a star on the bed. I stared blankly at the ceiling, imagining all of the fun activities I could do. First off, I would take a tour of Firenze.

KNOCK KNOCK "Housekeeping!" My eyes snapped open. 'Well, that's a nice thing to wake up to,' I thought sarcastically. I huffed, throwing the covers to the side.

"In a minute!" I yelled. I quickly padded out of the room, opening the door cautiously. I probably looked like an angry witch, as I wasn't exactly Sleeping Beauty in the morning. "I'll just take towels please," I said kindly.

"Sí," the cleaning lady nodded, taking three fresh towels from her quaint cart and handing them to me gently.

"Grazie." I smiled happily, shutting the door quietly. I walked back to my suitcase, taking out today's outfit and laying it on the bed. I grabbed one of the towels and headed to the bathroom. After a luxurious shower, I put my outfit on, put my phone in my pocket, and headed out.

"And here is the Auditore house," spoke the tour guide. She pointed all too happily to an old run down building, that looked like no one had been in there in ages. It stuck out from the rest of Firenze, as it wasn't quite as refurbished.

"Are we allowed to go in?" a man from the tour spoke.

The tour guide shook her head. "I'm sorry, but this place is prohibited. I don't exactly know why, though. Some men with hoods told us we were not to enter under any circumstance." I heard multiple sighs of discontent, but everyone moved on…except me.

My curiosity took over my judgment, and I inched my way into the courtyard of the home. The gate was no easy task to get through without attracting too much attention, but I made it through eventually. I knew I shouldn't be doing this, and normally I wouldn't. But something was driving me to, some unknown force that told me that something amazing was on the other side of this gate.

"Hey! You can't—" I heard a man begin, but when I went to look, he wasn't there. In fact, the gate I had just passed through wasn't there as well. I looked around. Nothing was the same… at all. It was as though the Auditore house itself had gotten younger by a few hundred years.

Panic set in. I ran to the gate, taking in my surroundings anxiously. Everyone was different. The women wore old-style dresses, and the men wore tunics and… sadly for my eyes…tights. They eyed me suspiciously, as though I had come from a different world.

I ran far away from the Auditore house. But… I couldn't help but notice as that same force, the same feeling, was driving me yet again on another path. I followed it subconsciously, curious as to where it was leading me. I came to a bridge.
"Insieme per la vittoria(we stand together)!" cried a man's voice.

"Insieme(together)!" numerous other men chanted. I began to corner a building, gaining a good look at who was making such a ruckus, and why my subconscious brought me here. Standing in front of the crowd of men, was who seemed like the leader of this uprising. He wore his chocolate-colored hair in a loose ponytail, tied by a red ribbon, and part of me wondered how he managed that. I mean, I could never get my hair to stay. He was rather tall, about my age, 17, and carried himself proud.

"Silenzio my friends, silenzio!" he assuaged. "Grazie." He began to act like he was making a speech. "Do you know what brings us here tonight?" he questioned. When no one answered, he brought his left fist to his chest. "Honor. Vieri de' Pazzi slanders my family's name and forces his own miseries upon us. If we—" Suddenly, as if to silence him, a small rock was thrown at his feet. He spun around to see his attacker.

A rather short man with what I can only describe as a black and white puffy shirt with a man-skirt and tights glared angrily at the man. "Enough of your nonsense grullo!" Behind him, stood a small group of men wearing similar clothing.

The other man and his group began to get high on their horses, for the man with the ribbon replied sarcastically, "Buona sera, Vieri! We were just talking about you." He slowly made his way forward, a cocky smile playing on his features. "I'm surprised to see you here. I thought the Pazzi hired others to do their dirty work."

Vieri pointed accusingly at the man. "It's your family that cries for guards when there's trouble, codardo. Afraid to handle things yourself?" he retorted.

"Your sister seemed quite satisfied with the 'handling' I gave her earlier," the man said. I giggled under my breath, along with the other men in his group.

"Ucciderlo!" Vieri barked to the men behind him. He picked up another small rock, and chucked it at the man's face, giving him a large cut along his lip. By this time, everyone had gone at each other, and the civilians around me began to gather to watch the show. I made my way into the small crowd.

Men of both groups fell as they threw punches at one another, and I noticed that Vieri stood safely on the sidelines. 'And you called him a coward…' My eyes, however, were glued to the man with the ribbon. His fighting seemed practically flawless. And as he clobbered one Pazzi man, another man in red came up to him.

"Hey! Behind you!" he yelled. The man with the ribbon turned to him.

"Federico? What are you doing here?" the man cried at Federico. As they spoke, a Pazzi man ran at them, but Federico easily threw him to the ground, as though it was nothing.

"I wanted to see if baby brother had finally learned how to fight," he said. 'Brother?' I thought 'So the man with the ribbon is Federico's brother…hmm I wonder what his name is…'

Federico's brother grabbed the Pazzi man who ran to them, and head-butted him. "And?" he replied.

Federico laughed under his breath. "You have style, but endurance is what counts. Let's see how many of them you can ruin before they get the best of you," he told his brother, who seemed to happily oblige, as he instantly began to fight again.

I watched intently as the two of them fought, they were each extremely skilled, taking the Pazzi men down easily. Vieri, however, still stood like a coward on the sidelines, cheering his men on. And when the brothers had beat enough of his men up, he screamed, "Fall back! Fall back!" and began running away like the chicken-shit he truly was.

Federico's brother began storming after him, but was stopped when Federico stepped in front of him. "Hold on…" he said.

"What? We've almost won this!" the brother retorted.

Federico laughed lightly. "Your lip."

His brother brought his hand to his face. "It's just a scratch…"

"Let the doctor decide."

"It's not necessary. Besides, I've no money for this doctor of yours."

"Wasted it on women and wine, huh?" I laughed slightly 'Men…'

"I'd hardly call it wasted. Lend me some florins then," he said, but raised a questioning eyebrow at his brother. "Or have you done the same?"

Federico laughed half-heartedly. "Search them," he told his brother "there's bound to be something in their pockets."

His brother easily did so, patting the pockets of the downed men, taking whatever florins he had found inside. By this time, I had slowly made my way closer to the brothers, casually listening in on their conversation, keeping my head forward, but maintaining a sideways glance to avoid suspicion whilst leaning against the railing of the bridge. Of course, I still got strange glances, but I didn't really care.

When he was finished, he returned to his brother who yelled, "Hurry, Ezio. The sooner we're done with the doctor, the sooner we can sleep." 'So his brother's name is Ezio?' And, like that, they ran off. I tried my best to follow, but soon lost them as they were too fast, and they were climbing on roofs. Friggen roofs. How awesome were these two? And why did my mind want me to follow them?


EEEEZZZIIIOOOOO! i know my chapters are short, i can get kinda lazy ¬_¬...i'll try to make them longer... and become unlazy! that's a word now!

Review please ^0^