Disclaimer: I do not own Assassin's Creed. I do not make claims to owning it. I'm just borrowing the characters, please do not sue!
Author Notes: I will try to keep this author note brief in favor of a longer one at the end. First and foremost I would like to say that I am perfectly aware that this is essentially a 'common' setting within the AC fandom. I am writing this for my own fun, and the enjoyment of myself and my best friends, those of us who are fond of the game and all it's characters. Chaos Theory was inspired by the Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon in which a main heroine travels back in time to the Scottish Highlands in the years of clan warfare and fighting against the English. Similarly, the heroine in Chaos Theory travels back in time, instead of getting sucked into the game. The world of Assassin's Creed is for all intents and purposes joined with more actual history from the time and peppered with game plot parallels. So without further adieu, enjoy!
Chapter I: The Gates of Time
It was raining in Vancouver again, and not in the spring pitter-patter that would end in half an hour and leave the world feeling fresh. This rain was brisk, sharp, and cold. The wind accompanying it whistled between the buildings, blowing the rain at odd angles, and whipping loose trash off the street, swirling it high into the air.
She sat in the cyber café, sipping half-flat cola through a straw from the can and watching the rain over the monitor as she surfed the net for whatever stroked her fancy. Spending three bucks an hour on this was worth more than waiting out there in the rain for her posse to show up. YouTube was dull; there was hardly anything worth watching, and few useful tutorials that would pertain to her hobby. She didn't look too hard either; always wary of the eyes of other customers, or the proprietor himself. The last thing she needed was for someone to notice she was looking at videos that taught you how to improvise incendiary devices.
Outside lighting flashed, registering in the corner of her eye, causing her to look up. Thunder rumbled, rolling like a distant deep drumbeat. She frowned and glanced at the television set mounted over the counter behind which the proprietor sat reading a novel, keeping half an eye open on the events inside and the clock. The news channel's screen was split three-ways showing the anchor, weather, and traffic cameras. Underneath the current temperature flashed a red band, bearing the label 'thunderstorm warning'. She frowned, warning meant that the storm was predicted to be particularly vicious, but she had thirty dollars, nowhere else to be, and the café was open twenty-four seven, she was staying put. She turned back to the screen and decided to check her email, switching to hotmail as she dragged on the straw of her cola.
She has just logged on and switched over to the inbox view when the lightning flashed again, startling her momentarily. The thunder boomed barely three seconds later, the blast lacked the tell tale roll of distance, it sounded like a whip crack followed by an explosion.
"That's some storm out there," the voice of one of the other customers announced.
"Hey Jonesy, how are the surge protectors on this place?" another asked.
"Pretty good, if the power doesn't go down we're fine." The proprietor replied.
She sighed and went back to her email, ten new, and nine of them were junk. Most junks were for Viagra and purported 'male enhancement' pills. She didn't know what kind of woman would go for a man who felt insecure enough to need the latter. She deleted the junk efficiently and brutally and then clicked on the one good message. It was from her friend, saying that due to the storm their meeting was canceled. She glanced at the time stamp and realized that the email had arrived two hours previous, meaning she had wasted six dollars and two hours for nothing. Someone was going to have to explain this, why the email? Couldn't someone call? Her cell phone was right there!
Lightning flashed again, filling the room with an eerie blue glow, and suddenly thunder exploded overhead. The storefront windows rattled in their frames with the shockwave. In the stunned silence that followed she became acutely aware of the rising hum from all the machines in the room as their cooling fans jumped to high gear instantaneously. She felt her cell phone vibrate in the pocket of her jacket and suddenly the lightning flashed again, there was a crack and a series of pops as the florescent lights on the ceiling overloaded and burned out, revealing the full luminescence of the lighting. The shocked cries of the patrons were drowned out as before the first flash of lightning died, a second flashed, and the thunder boomed like an explosion right overhead. A third flash of lighting followed and suddenly she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up on end, as if by static electricity. Thunder exploded overhead again and the computer in front of her suddenly shut off. All around her the computers began to shut down, thunder boomed for the third time just as she pushed away from the table. As her fingers came in contact with the metal table, a shock traveled through her arms and into her body, painful for all of a second before everything around her went dark as if blinked out of existence.
She found herself drifting into consciousness slowly, as if a veil was being pulled off her mind, with her body returning to her control one sense at a time. First came the awareness of was her position; she was lying on something hard and flat. Her limbs felt like rocks that refused to budge, and her eyelids felt positively leaden. Her ears rung with a chorus of chimes, her whole body felt hot, and the weight of her bag against her hip was almost crushing. There was a luminescence in front of her eyelids, as if she was facing the sun, but that couldn't possibly be true, it was night in Vancouver right now, wasn't it, or was she out cold that long?
Then she became aware of was the smell, the poignant mix of rotting food blended with the unmistakable tang of raw sewage. Wherever she was, it was dry as a bone and impossibly hot. Her hearing came back slowly as the ringing eased and she became aware of distant voices, footsteps, amorphous shouts that made little sense to her yet fogged mind. Her suddenly hyperactive hearing picked up a faint scrapping and scratching somewhere behind her. She raised one hand and placed it over her eyes, rubbing them as she forced her body to sit up. A split second later she opened her eyes and was shocked to discover her surroundings.
She was sitting on the dirty ground in an alley between two sand-colored buildings that only had two floors. The buildings were square like boxes, flat-roofed, and the sun was beaming powerfully into the alley between them from high overhead. She scrambled to her feet and dusted herself off; then quickly patting the pockets of her jeans she decided that nothing was missing. Her messenger bag was still there, still closed, and just as heavy as she remembered it to be.
Reaching into the pocket of her jacket she pulled out her cell phone and began to dial before she saw the 'no signal' status flashing on the screen. She stared at the display for a long moment, uttering a quiet "What the hell?" The time on the screen showed it was supposed to be three am, but here –wherever here was- it was barely noon. Slipping the device back into her pocket she moved to the mouth of the alley. Something was terribly amiss.
She paused when she saw the people on the street beyond the alley. They were unfamiliar, wearing middle-eastern clothing she recognized from books, television, and movies. The shouts she had heard were peddlers calling people to inspect their wares. Few people noticed her presence, mostly men walking alone. Some watched her for a few seconds as they passed; others instantly averted their gazes. Emerging from the alley she turned to go with the general flow of the people, trying to figure out where she was. It was odd that her cell phone was saying no signal, there didn't seem to be anything in the area to impede the connection. The buildings around her were low squares, mostly two and three stories tall.
The street was narrow, uneven, and steadily climbing. Ahead of her, it widened and emerged unto a plaza with a fountain in the center, sparsely decorated with parched, half-dead looking shrubbery and stone benches all around. Everything was stone, no sign of cars, no light posts, no phone posts, nothing, just a lot of very odd people. She stopped in the middle of the plaza and surveyed her surroundings. There were three other streets joining the plaza, one of them was rising and meandering slowly. She could see it was heading unto a large hill.
She could see the dome of a church among the sea of flat-roofed plain crème buildings. The sight of the odd church did not bother her; she continued to scan the sights around her. Her eyes drifted along the rising street, climbing with it as she scanned the hill. The road bended to the right eventually, vanishing from view, but beyond it was a sight that stopped her wandering eyes dead. High on the hill was a square blue-tiled mosque with a large glittering gold dome. She had only seen it in textbooks and pictures, but there could never be a mistake. "Jerusalem?" she muttered.
The confusion settled now, how could she be in Jerusalem? She was supposed to be in Vancouver, half across the world. She glanced about her and noticed the absence of cars, wasn't modern old Jerusalem busy with cars? Where were the tourists with their fanny-packs and cameras around their necks, or the Jewish Hasids in their black clothing and odd hats? What the hell was going on? The people around her were oddly dressed, as if she had stumbled into the middle of a reenacting of something from a thousand years before.
"Stop! Thief!" someone shouted.
She whirled around in time to see a young man run at her, dodging and shoving people out of his way. Hot on his heels were five guards who looked positively livid in their padded armor. As bizarre as the scene was, instinctively she stepped back to let him pass. Suddenly her foot caught unto something and she tripped, instinctively reaching out, catching a passing woman by the sleeve. The jolt sent the amphora she held crashing unto the ground where it shattered and spilled water unto the stone street in great splash.
The uproar was instantaneous, three other people got drenched, and as the thief ran past her smiling like a fox, then he had the audacity to nod his head in thanks. She noticed the guards had not missed the commotion, or the thief's gesture; the look in their eyes did not bode well. Her instinct told her to run, and so she did, turning on her heels she sprinted after the thief, using the slipstream he created through the crowd. He took the street heading towards the Dome of the Rock, and she followed.
"Catch them both!" one of the guards shouted.
She veered around the thickening crowd, not daring to plow through them. Entering another small plaza she noticed the thief take the road heading to the left. Knowing following him further was akin to admitting being in cahoots with him she chose to continue uphill, taking the meandering road straight up as fast as she could. The ground rose sharply here and the gradation served to slow her down and rob her of breath far faster than normal. The overbearing heat added to her predicament and soon she was gasping for breath as she pushed through the crowd.
She saw an alley and ducked into it, hoping to lose any tail by hiding just out of sight, though not in the shadows as there were none. Normally her black leather jacket and dark jeans were good for hiding, even if her short dirty blond hair stood out among the dark people around her. From her hiding spot she peeked into the street, and watched for pursuers.
Three of the guards had seemingly followed the thief; the other two had followed her. They had stopped two buildings down, seemingly unsure of where she was and she breathed a sight of relief. Then one of the street vendors approached the guards, and suddenly he pointed at her hiding spot. She cursed, emerged from the alley and bolted further up the street. The momentarily respite allowed her to get some of her breath back. She figured ultimately she had the advantage; the guards would have to tire out sooner as they had armor on.
"Stop!" the guards shouted.
People here were fewer, and they parted to allow her to pass unimpeded. She saw another small plaza where the street branched out into three like a spider web. She turned right and kept running, the street here was going slightly downhill, helping her along. It was also thick with people again and she was forced to weave and dodge around them as she ran.
"Damnit. Damnit. Damnit!" she cursed as she ran.
"Stop right now, woman!" The guards shouted.
She ignored them and kept running, but she knew they were gaining; the shout was closer than the last. Another small square, she turned on her toes, and gunned it left, past the benches and a group of men dressed in white that stood out among the browns and greens everyone else seemed to be wearing.
"Stop!" the guards shouted.
"Like hell!" she growled and pushed her body into a last ditch final sprint.
The street here narrowed and she dodged another woman with an amphora as she ducked into a narrow alley. She could hear the guard's footsteps, so she ran to the other end of the alley, only to discover that this alley was a dead end, she turned around and froze.
"Nowhere to run now," the voices of the guard called from the mouth of the alley.
They sounded less winded than she would've liked as she gulped oxygen in great heaves, forcing it to circulate through her body and into her cramped muscles. She glanced around her, and noticed that indeed she was trapped in this narrow alley.
The guards advanced, shoulder to shoulder with barely any room to move.
"You're that thief's accomplice, we would've been merciful had you not run-"
"Choke on your mercy. I'm no one's accomplice!" she hissed.
"Watch your mouth woman!"
Both guards drew their swords and suddenly she realized just in how much trouble she was. Her hands drifted behind her back under her jacket where she felt the familiar leather pouch were she kept her self-defense weapons.
"I'm warning you two, I'm a black belt."
The guards did not look impressed as they looked at each other. One advanced before the other, a grin quickly spreading on his face.
She palmed the familiar weight of her weapons and brought her hands foreword. The six inch asymmetrical Kris blades snapped out one after the other, each with a loud kra-ching. She settled the familiar blades into a reverse grip and it made the guards falter for all of a split second before one lunged, swinging at her.
She dodged around him and ducked low, instantly jamming her left switchblade into the back of his thigh. "Stay down!" she commanded, straightening. The injured guard kneeled, unable to do anything other than obey and at that moment the other lunged.
She didn't let him come close, lunging at him as not to put herself between the both of them, where the other could swing at her from behind. The second guard's swing was dodged with no more difficulty than the first. The narrow alley was helping her, they could not sweep their swords across to get at her, and she prided herself on her quick reflexes and footwork. The streets of Vancouver's 'other side of the tracks' taught her to dodge sharp things much faster than a winded guard's sword, especially given the limited options they had when swinging.
She spun on her toes, turning to face her assailant just as the other guard did, her back was now to the mouth of the alley, but she was some distance from the actual mouth. The thought came of booking it, but odds were the remaining guard would follow her; he certainly did not seem interested in helping his comrade who was bleeding behind him. The guard stared her down for a long moment, probably contemplating his next attack.
She grinned, "Told you I'm a black belt. Come if you dare! Or you could leave me alone and I'll leave, no worse harm done." she raised her knives and slid one leg back to ready another charge.
Suddenly the guard's expression shifted to surprise, but his eyes were locked over her shoulder. Sandy was startled when something whistled just past her ear, and a split of a second later the healthy guard fell to his knees, a knife protruding from his neck. He collapsed unto the knife and did not get up, dead before he hit the ground. Her eyes widened as facts registered, someone behind her had just lopped a deadly accurate knife at her assailant, and what more that someone was utterly silent, otherwise she should've heard footsteps.
The injured guard scrambled to his feet and she instinctively raised her knives. He was wobbling, clearly unstable on his feet, but whoever was behind her had scared him into action. The blood was now running down his leg and collecting on the ground, just from that she knew she had nicked something semi-important in there. Odds are he probably knew was not long for this world.
"More filth," the injured guard sneered. "First this whore-"
That was all he got out before a white blur raced past her, seemingly flying into the guard, she heard the sound of metal scraping against metal followed by a groan. The white figure stepped back and guard hit the floor with a sickening thud, staring lifelessly into the distance.
She took a step back as the visage of the white-robed figure fully registered. It was a man; probably six foot tall at least, with a well built, clad almost entirely in white from head toe, complete with a full cowl over his head. She took another step back as he turned. Though she couldn't seen his face fully due to the hood-cast shadow that concealed everything but the merest glimpse of his chin and mouth, she could still feel her skin begin to crawl under the intensity of his shadowed stare.
"Thank you?" she said, unsure whether this was just the apex predator disposing of competition. The two men were dead, she was certain. The blood now pooling on the floor from the wound in the first guard's chest was real. She could almost smell the metal scent of it on the hot still air.
The killer moved, seemingly ignoring her, and used his foot to turn the guard unto his back as he leaned down to retrieve his knife from the man's chest. He flicked the blood off and stuck it into one of the four sheathes fastened to the broad leather belt around his waist on top of a red sash. "You should leave now," he said in a chilled tenor.
She took a third step back but hesitated to run, did she was to turn her back on this killer? "They're really dead, right?" she asked. "This isn't a movie of some kind, right?"
"A movie?" he asked, sounding chillingly perplexed.
"Yes, you know- movie… I think-" She noticed the lack of reply and realized this was no movie, someone would've shouted 'cut' by now if it was. She was no actress working with a script, and even if he was the crew would've called cut as soon as she had been spotted. She was not on the cast, what was the point of improvisation? Also, what about the Dome of the Rock? Sets did not come that big and elaborate. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she had somehow came to be in Jerusalem. The killer's gaze never wavered from her and she noted all the weapons, too many for an action hero, they typically had one or two as according to the rule of cool. He had no less than a long sword, a short sword, multiple knives, and what looked like a retractable blade on his arm. In the silence of the alley it sank in, she was indeed in Jerusalem. Then judging by the clothing and the lack of modern things, she had just traveled in time as well as space. She didn't want to hazard a guess at how far back she had been transported. She didn't need to guess to know it was a dangerous time. Her knives rose instinctively as her eyes narrowed.
He moved like a striking cobra, closing the distance between them, grabbing her wrists before she could react. The pressure of his grip was vice-like, constricting and crushing the bones in her wrists, causing her fingers to begin uncurling on their own. Even with a missing ring finger on his left hand he made the bones in her right forearm compress slightly.
"Let go!" she commanded.
"Not until you put those toys away," he replied, as his grip relaxed a fraction.
She tried to rip free but it did not work, so she looked up into his eyes and unleashed what she hoped was her most venomous glare, but the honey-brown eyes gleaming at her from underneath the hood almost froze her solid in a single instant. His gaze was like the stare of a basilisk, stopping anything and everything she might have tried. Her anger fled in terror and a chill ran right down her spine and into her toes.
"Alright," she mumbled. The knives flicked from reverse to foreword grip and she used her thumbs to simultaneously depress the release and fold them. The blades hid away and she opened her palms, showing him the concealed weapons.
"Interesting weapons," he remarked, letting go of her wrists.
"They do their jobs," she replied with a shrug.
He walked past her to the mouth of the alley, "Get out of here before the bodies are discovered," he warned.
"And where would I go?" she asked before she realized what a bad idea it was.
He paused and glanced back, appraising her from head to toe. She could feel that cold stare roving over her frame and like the first time she found her whole body chilled to the bone. This was a man that had just killed two people in cold blood in front of her eyes. Despite the horror of the thought she couldn't be anything more than grateful, if only slightly terrified at the ease with which he could kill. Hannibal Lecter didn't have a thing on this guy.
"Are you the thief they were looking for?" he asked.
"No, that was someone else. I think they just went after me because I'm not from around these parts," she replied.
"Dressed like that- I wouldn't be surprised. It hardly seems appropriate," he noted, taking another step towards the mouth of the alley.
She followed; wary of the bodies behind her. She didn't even want to look at the guards back there and see the blood one more time. "Where I come from, this is perfectly appropriate," she argued.
"And where is that?" he asked, sounding dubious.
"Vancouver," she replied automatically. Her hand shot up and clapped unto her mouth, realizing what she had just uttered.
"Never heard of it," he replied as he walked.
She followed behind him; his pace was even and innocent, as if nothing had just happened. She crossed her arms and thought about it; odds are if she told him that she suspected time travel he would probably kill her. It was probably preposterous a thought to someone from this time, whatever this time was.
"What year is it?" she asked.
"Eleven ninety-one," he replied. "How can you not know that?"
"I've been traveling, I lost track of time. Vancouver is very far away, very, very far," she replied quickly, maybe a bit too quickly. Inwardly she was cringing, eight hundred and eighteen years, what an amount of time to travel back, and right into the height of the dark ages in Europe, the crusades at that! "I should thank you for that thing back there," she added.
He didn't reply and for a moment she thought he might not be paying attention to her at all, but as they came upon one of the many intersections, he stopped. She looked around his large frame and noticed more guards.
"Ah-," she began.
As if hearing her, the guards turned and one of them started with recognition, "There's the other!" he shouted.
"Not again!" she groaned.
The four guards took off, drawing their weapons.
"Run," the killer commanded.
"Don't have to tell me twice, I'm gone," turning on her toes she ran, already palming her knives. She kept going until she ended up on a nearly impassable market street. The crowd here was so thick that she could not make out any single person from the horde. She decided that she would use that for her advantage as she melted into the crowd, ducking lower so her blond hair would not stick out as much in this crowd. She slowed her pace to a careful walk, making sure to avoid all obstacles and people.
The guards stopped when they saw the crowd, she watched them from the corner of her eye as they tried to find her, to pick her out from among the people. Ducking under one of the stall eaves she used the overhang's shadow to dull her hair and make her harder to spot, all the while she pretended to be interested in the array of fruits before her.
The guards merged into the crowd, still looking, still unable to spot her from the rest of the throng.
Smiling kindly at the man at the stall, she edged away, keeping to the shadows of the other stalls. There were a number of alleys to choose from; one of them had an overhang that cast a deep shadow which she decided was her best bet. It was also narrow, which if need be would give her a tactical advantage. Carefully she made her way towards it, but as she was passing by another alley, a hand shot out, grabbed her around the mouth, another grabbed her arm, and she was pulled forcibly into the shadows.
She would've shrieked had it not been for the hand over her mouth. The arms pulled her flat against a broad chest, and she felt something hard poke into the area around her kidney.
"That other alley is also a dead end," her captor spoke before she could deploy her knives and go at him. She recognized that voice as belonging to the white-robed killer and relaxed. His hand slid off her mouth, but he pulled her further into the alley and out of sight. "Why are they so keen on you?"
"Go ask them, though- I do have an idea."
"I want to know, I can't be saving you for the rest of your stay here."
She grinned and stepped away from him, slipping her knives into the leather holder again before she turned to face him. "Yes, well, if I say what I think, you'll probably just shank me for being insane," she murmured. "Promise not to, no- swear you won't- and I will tell you."
The cold look was back, half perplexed, half annoyed. She could see just the barest hints of those cold piercing eyes in the depth of the hood's shadow. She could tell he was not in the mood for shenanigans and it caused her to gulp. "I'm really not from around here."
"You already said that," the frustration in his voice was unmistakable now.
"I'm not from around this time either; I'm from the year two-thousand-and-nine." She took a step back at that, wondering if her death was forthcoming any second now, but then she saw the faintest of shifts in his stance as he contemplated her revelation.
"Prove it," he demanded.
"How- oh, I know!" she dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out her cell phone. "Here, take a look at this." She handed him the device.
He took it wordlessly and looked it over, turning the red device over and back again in his hand, pausing to stare at the glowing screen. "What is it?"
"It's a communication device, in my time I can communicate with other devices like it by simply dialing up their unique number." She sided over and raised her hand, pointing at the screen as she spoke. "But see, says no signal right here. There are no like devices like that here, so it can't find them." she indicated the red banner. "And see here," she pointed to the bottom, "The date. It says June 13th, 2009. Not whatever today is in 1191."
He handed the device back and she slipped it back into her jacket pocket and stepped away. "I choose to believe you for now," he announced.
"Thank you," she bowed her head a few degrees.
"But that still does not explain why the guards want you," he began.
"I'm odd, I mean- have you ever seen clothing like mine? They mistook me for an accomplice of that one thief."
"And are you a thief?" he asked.
She hesitated; honestly she didn't know if she already told him too much. He seemed willing to suspend disbelief, anyone else would've probably taken her for a demon already and she'd be in trouble, but this killer seemed more intelligent than that. It was as if he could sense that she was not lying. "Not directly," she began. "I am not exactly on the right side of the law, but I'm not a thief. I'm a member of a band of people like me; mostly it's a bond of hardship. I'm an arson specialist."
"Name?"
"Cassandra, but I prefer simply Sandy. Sandy Lawrence if you will."
"Come," he ordered, turning down the alley.
"Hey wait! Can I get a name?" Sandy asked.
He glanced back but did not reply; the chilled glare told her enough that she was not getting a name yet. She sighed, shook her head, but followed.
"Can you at least tell me where you're taking me?"
"Somewhere safe," was his entire cryptic reply.
She pouted and kept walking, what more could she do? He didn't seem like the type who would save her life twice, only to kill her himself. Seemed like an awful waste of time and effort. It did not mean she was ready to blindly trust, but she was willing to see where things would go. As long as she was stuck here in Jerusalem of 1191, she could use all the allies she got, even if they were cold-blooded killers. One did what one had to do to survive. It wasn't like she didn't normally hang out with some shady characters at home; her friends were shady enough.
The Tidbits Corner: (Henceforth all the little pieces of technical trivia to be found here, the allusions and symbolism is yours to spot.)
Kris Blade: Considered to be a more ornamental than practical shape of blade.
Sandy's Last Name: It's an allusion to T. E. Lawrence, AKA 'Lawrence of Arabia' (But there is no actual relation, the last name is rather common).
Author Notes: Since you are reading this, I want to thank you for getting through this 'pilot chapter' of mine. As promised in the head author note up top, this will be a somewhat longer note and will explain a couple things that are important enough to warrant an explanation, or at least I feel they do. Foremost I want to say that Chaos Theory will be written and treated very much like a television series, with regular updates of this general length. I do have a general plot outline developed, a direction so to say. It is primarily a character-driven story, as my writing is heavily influenced by other great television series like JAG, Star Trek, and now NCIS in that they have character arcs and plot arcs, it's chemistry heavy with no real resolution until 'just the right moment' so to say. I personally enjoy the chemistry more than the resolution. As a character, the 'real life superhero' groups showcased in the media in the United States inspired Cassandra's background; you can look them up on Google if you do not believe me.
I would like to also say that Assassin's Creed is a very dear thing to me, as I have lived in Israel for five years, and hold the place very dear to my heart. I have been in Jerusalem a number of times, hence any descriptions of the city that differ from 'game' visuals are based on my own memories of the old city as well as research poured into seeking the city as it was during the proper time frame. I am a bit of a history nerd, so I do include research into the story on the major details, however this being fan fiction, if you notice something slip through, please pardon me. That is pretty much all that needed to be said in this pilot, so if you have loved the first chapter of Chaos Theory, please feel free to review with any criticism and suggestions, I love reviews, and I am not touchy when it comes to constructive criticism.