Nothing is True

by Oxnate

Disclaimer: Do not own Buffy or Assassin's Creed.

Summary: Xander gets kidnapped. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

A/N: Spoilers for Buffy and Assassin's Creed games and slightly for the movie. AU combined verse.

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted. We work in the dark to serve the light. We are assassins."

―The Assassin's Creed

Chapter 1.

The Animus was... interesting. Living life as his ancestor was fascinating though he sometimes felt disconnected, as if he was playing a game rather than fighting for his (or his ancestor's) life. His physical body was, after all, just lying on a bed in a white room while his mind did all the cool stuff.

Abstergo was evil. That was easy for him to puzzle out, what with the kidnapping and imprisonment; not just of him, but of a whole lot of people. Did that make the Assassins good? He'd always figured assassins were evil, especially after those people/things tried to kill Buffy a couple weeks after Halloween. Maybe it depended on which assassins you were talking about. If he remembered correctly, the Order of Taraka's credo was "to sow discord and kill the unwary." These assassins had a different creed: "Where other men blindly follow The Truth, remember: Nothing is True. Where other men are limited by morality or laws, remember: Everything is permitted. We work in the dark to serve the light. We are assassins." It was quite a bit longer than the Tarakan one but it was much, much better in Xander's opinion.

He could also understand the third part the best. "We work in the dark to serve the light," pretty much summed up the Scooby Gang, as well. He wanted to say "with less killing," but he couldn't honestly say that. The things they killed might not be human, but they still died when you cut off their heads.

Xander was taken by surprise when the breakout started, but luckily he was used to thinking on his feet and reacting to weird situations as if they were normal. When the guard attacked him with his club, Xander's hands acted of their own accord and soon he was standing over a dead guard, holding his club. He flipped the club to another prisoner who was losing his fight against his own guard and stared at his hands. It was the first human life he'd taken outside of the Animus and he didn't like the feeling. He swallowed the vomit that tried to escape his throat-there'd be time for that later.

In the melee that followed, Xander did his best to stay in the middle of the group. He noticed when the hero split off from the main group to go save the world and something in him desperately wanted to go with, but another part recognized when he was outmatched and instead stayed with the main group as they escaped to the streets.

Where a dozen vans were waiting for them. Clearly this breakout was a planned escape and not some spur of the moment idea.

As the kidnappees piled into the vans, Xander briefly wondered if the vans might be an Abstergo trap but decided/hoped that too many guards had died in the escape to make that kind of plan worthwhile. The van door slid closed behind him and they were off.

"First, I want to assure everyone that this is a rescue and you're not just trading one prison for another. Hopefully, none of you think this abandoned warehouse is one of our hideouts. This way, if you choose to leave now, you can't give anything away to the Templars if you're recaptured. Ah yes, for those of you who don't know, Abstergo is a cover for the Templar Order, which has been at war with our Order of Assassins for the better part of a millennium. Many of you may have re-lived fighting against them in the Animus, or done so without knowing who they were," the leader said once they were all out of the vans.

"And while our brotherhood is often passed along family lines, sometimes people leave or retire to raise families. You are all evidence of that fact. Unfortunately, the fact that you are descended from assassins of old, makes you a target for the Templars. Your old lives are gone. Because they will come after you again and for that I am sorry. We can't protect you should you decide to try to live your old life. What we can offer is training for those of you with the will to strike back."

Xander didn't particularly feel like striking back. What he wanted was his life back. Willow, Buffy, Cordelia, hell, even Angel... Thinking about Angel always got him to thinking about vampires and how he always wished he could help more with the slaying. He rubbed his forearm where the hidden blade of his ancestor would have been. Suddenly, he had an idea and raised his hand to ask a question. Apparently, everyone was waiting for this signal as almost everyone else also raised their hands as well, thinking they were volunteering for the training.

The leader asked for Xander to ride in his car to the actual training facility while everyone else was loaded back into the vans. The leader held the back door of the black sedan open for him while a man and a woman got in the front seats. Once they were on the road, he spoke. "So Mister...?"

"Harris. Xander Harris. But just Xander, please."

"And you can call me Desmond. I wanted to thank you for volunteering first. In a large group like that, it takes a lot of courage just to stand out and raise your hand like that. You'll be among the first group to be trained."

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I don't wanna fight the Templars. I was really just raising my hand to ask a question."

"Go on," Desmond didn't look upset, more curious.

"Could you, uh- that is- would you- uh- trainmetofightvampires," Xander's courage left him and he blurted out the last part.

"Did you say vampires?" Desmond asked.

Xander just nodded without looking at anyone, his cheeks burning in embarrassment. He was sure they'd think he was crazy and chuck him out of the car. If he was lucky, they'd slow down first.

"Yes. Yes, I can see how if you've encountered vampires already in your short life... something like Abstergo seems... lesser, I suppose. Or at least distant, perhaps. And you've helped us gain a small army of recruits," Desmond jerked his thumb towards the vans following them. "So I will be most happy to help you in return. Tell me, I'm curious, where did you see these vampires?"

"Uh, my hometown. Sunnydale, California."

"La Boca del Infierno," Xander heard come from the front passenger.

"Yeah, home sweet Hellmouth," he chuckled.

"On second thought, I think we'll expedite your training even more. Lucy, put Xander down for the five point oh." Desmond turned to Xander and said, "If you thought laying on a bed was neat, our Animus is going to blow your mind."

The Assassin's Animus was a hundred times better than Abstergo's. For starters, the person in the Animus actually moved instead of just laying on a flat bed. A harness and a weird claw thing moved the trainee as they ran, jumped, and assassinated all over some city with red-tiled roofs. Xander could tell this from the other improvement, thanks to an array of projectors, everyone in the room could see what the assassin could see. It was amazing!

"Told you so. The Templars may have created the Animus, but we perfected it," Desmond smirked at Xander as he turned to a technician. "As soon as he's done, I want Xander here to go next."

"Already?" Xander asked, surprised.

"We'll show you your room later-I want you started on your training soonest. And now happens to be the soonest. Don't worry: it'll be fun. Sometimes, I come down and use this at night when no one is around, though I doubt I'll get the chance again for many months. We'll be running this day and night to get everyone trained up."

Soon enough, Xander was all hooked up with hidden blades strapped to the underside of both his forearms and awaiting Memory Start.

"Memory acquired," a female technician announced. "Beginning sequence."

And then there was blue. A lot of blue. Xander found himself swimming, but not like a human. More like a... shark! In front of him, a dozen sharks all circled the floating corpse of some whale while above the water, hundreds of birds also wheeled and screeched.

"Cut the program!" Desmond yelled. "What the hell was that?" Desmond got a rather strong Italian accent when he was upset.

"Sorry about that," Xander called out. "That would be my swim coach. We thought we flushed all the genetic stuff out, but I guess there might be a little bit left. That was a shark. There might be a couple other fish in there too."

Silence.

"Filter out any memories that begin underwater," Desmond ordered.

"Memory acquired," the female technician announced again a minute later. "Beginning sequence."

This time it was not blue, but brown everywhere. Xander poked his head through the dry grass and saw a gazelle. "Cut!" he called out and waited for the memory to end. "Um, yeah. Sorry again. Hyena. That shouldn't have left anything genetic though. Anyway, might want to filter that and anything in a jungle with an M-16. Cause I don't need to see those again."

A few minutes later, a somewhat annoyed sounding tech announced, "Memory acquired. Beginning sequence."

A/N: While I might consider continuing this in the future, I'd like to challenge the rest of you to finish it first.

Rules: Takes place any time after Go Fish (S2 E20) but might work best if after both parts of Becoming (S2 E21&22) which will put us any time after Season 2.

Xander gets trained for a couple months and receives a special hidden blade from Desmond when finished. The blade has an ironwood inlay that will dust vampires but springs back to his wrist before it dusts so he never loses the wood. Idea for the hidden blade mechanism if you want to use it: once engaged, a pressure plate holds the blade until the strike. When struck, it holds true until there's no more forward pressure, causing the mechanism to automatically withdraw.

Xander has no ranged weapons that are good against vampires. He trained intensely with his blade for several months to make him good with that, there was no time for anything else.

Bonus points if Xander trains and/or inducts Faith into the Assassins.