Disclaimer: I do NOT own Assassin's Creed. It belongs to UbiSoft.

AN: My entry for the Practical Jokes challenge over at deviantArt. If you're interested, you can find the link in my profile to my dA page. Anyhoo, enjoy!

An enraged scream echoing throughout the fortress of Masayf early morning brought everyone in it to grudging alertness.

Well, the novice's dormitory, at least.

Malik Al-Sayf jolted to awakefullness with a groan. Rolling over and jamming a pillow over his head, he attempted to get at least another hour's sleep. He had at least three more hours until he had to leave for a training mission, and he'd be damned if he fell asleep on his horse.

All thoughts of this flew out the window at the sound of another furious shout: "MALIK, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!" A bit after this, furious pounding sounded on his dorm room door.

Uh-oh.

For some reason unknown to him, Altair Ibn-La Ahad was on the warpath and out for blood--his blood.

With a flurry of limbs, he fell out of bed with a crash and pulled on a shirt and pants in previously unknown speeds, followed closely by his boots. Considering the amount of noise from the bedroom door, Malik decided to go out the window. In a flash, he was at the window--and stopped short. A sense of doom began to fill him, paired with the pounding on the door. The window had been nailed shut.

At that moment, Altair had managed to collect his wits enough to remember to pick the lock on the door, which promptly swung open. "Malik....." he hissed, practically trembling with rage.

Malik turned around and barely managed to smother a giggle. Altair's glare deepened as his fists clenched. He took a step forward, and all hell broke loose.

Forty five minutes later, quite a crowd had gathered in the courtyard to watch the latest chaos caused by Altair and Malik.

The normally arrogant assassin was quite a sight to see as he chased his eternal rival throughout the fortress, and later the courtyard.

Altair looked like he had been dumped in red dye, turning his white robes a startling pink and dripping with syrup and feathers. White hot rage exploded from his very being, targeted at one very unfortunate Malik Al-Sayr. Said novice was currently running like the hounds of hell were behind him, which, in retrospect, probably were.

Malik was trying to shout his innocence, something that was understandably hard to do at the speed he was going. Either way, it was a fruitless effort: Altair was too angry to listen. Finally, Malik just shut his mouth and concentrated on running for his ever-loving life until Altair managed to calm down enough to listen to him.

Briefly, he wondered what he had done to deserve this, before a shout from behind encouraged him to keep moving.

Kadar, well hidden in a large tree overlooking the courtyard, grinned as he watched the chaos.

A few weeks ago, a backfired prank by Malik, intended for Altair, had managed to catch him instead. Malik had apologized to his younger brother, sure--after he and Altair were done laughing. Kadar had accepted his apology on the outside, sure--but inside he was hurt. It was an unspoken rule between Malik and Altair that Kadar was OFF LIMITS in their infrequent prank wars, a rule he was rather glad of considering the levels of outrageousness they tended to reach. This rule had never been broken until now--and by his own brother, at that!

So, sopping wet and humiliated, Kadar had unhappily accepted Malik's apology.

And then he'd plotted revenge.

It had taken time, effort and equal amounts of frustration and tears, but the end results had been worth it. Altair managing to get himself into the prank set up on Malik's door was icing on the cake.

Sitting back on his tree branch and enjoing the show, Kadar overlooked the sweet, sweet fruits of his labor.

Malik was utterly confused and running for his life and Altair's pride had taken quite a hit. Revenge had been served, and it was worth it. Even if they found out that it was him, who had never set up a prank before in his life, it had been worth every glee-filled minute of it.

Kadar smiled.

Life was good.