I will say this again to anybody who could not read the perfectly English summary above. This is not a crossover between the Maximum Ride series and Assassin's Creed. This is just an idea that popped into my head a month ago and had been bugging the hell out of me until now that I've started to put it on paper. I know it's a bit… out there, but I think it'll be a great story… Or I may just give up on it. I honestly don't know. I have no clue where this is going. I only started writing this to get that annoying idea out of my head so I can focus on my other story "Never Again". Anyway. Give this outlandish story a try. Who knows? You might like it.

I don't own any of the Assassin's Creed games or its characters. I just own any OCs I put in this story. Don't sue me.

Chapter One

The moon hung full in the black night sky surrounded by stars. It looked so alone even when it was surrounded by all those stars. I could sympathize with it. The saying that the loneliest place to be was in a crowd was something I believed with all my heart. It didn't matter if my fellow Assassins didn't know if I was different. It didn't matter if my Brothers didn't know that I wasn't human or a man.

All that mattered was that I knew.

I looked down at Masyaf, sleeping peacefully at the moment. I stood at its highest point right now. Somewhere my Brothers dared not go, for there was no possible way to get up here. The stone sloping up to the three-foot-in-diameter flat circle space was smooth as polished metal and there was no passageway from the inside to come out. There was no way for someone to get up here. Well, there was one way.

And that was to fly.

I shuffled my wings a little to ward off the chill that was trying to invade them. Stretched out, my wingspan came to 22 feet of muscled feathery wings. They weren't ever one color, but my feathers were now a glossy black.

The castle, despite the late hour, still had activity going on inside of it. My sharp literally eagle eyes picked up the movement of the Assassins who could not sleep and the Assassin guards standing on top of Masyaf's walls in case of an attack on the Brotherhood came at night. The Brotherhood had many people who would love to see our demise so we were forced to keep alert at all times. The training yard was empty only at this time of night and the blacksmith and kitchen were also quiet, although I could see dim fires emanating from the said building and part of castle.

I looked out at the village. Both were built into the mountain and the steep streets were a nightmare on the calves of the people not used to running up and down it. The village was quiet as well with a few groups of Assassin guards wandering its streets.

Masyaf, the village, and the Brotherhood were at peace for the moment.

A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention and I turned to see what it was. Someone was coming through the village gates. I blinked my eyes and switched from my eagles eyes to my Eagle Vision. The person coming in was a faint color I recognized right away. I stood up and stretched my wings out their full length before bending at the knees and jumping up as I pushed my wings down in a powerful down stroke. Normally I'd worry about someone spotting my white Assassin robes against my black wings and sky, but I was too high up for anyone to notice at the moment.

I glided down towards the gates and, for a moment, I forgot about my worries of being discovered and fears as I felt the wind push my hood back and blow back my waist length braided black hair and my feathers. I flexed my wings and felt each individual feather and the air rushing past. It was such a wonderful feeling. Like stretching in the warm morning sun. Like you could live feeling like this forever.

I reluctantly focused back on flying and barely moved different feathers to begin spirally and descending gently. Soon I was silently observing the figure that had entered the village from only 100 feet. Not many people looked up. They had no reason to.

The figure was a glowing forest green to my Eagle Vision and I knew it was Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. Eagle. Son of none. For some reason, this man, only a few years my senior, had been that strange color green.

I usually saw only four colors. Gold meant that that person was my target to kill. A person glowing red meant that they meant me harm and mostly decorated Templars and city guards. Blue meant an ally I could trust and most blue glowed around my Brothers. Grey meant the person was a civilian and irrelevant to me.

But Altair was green every since I'd used Eagle Vision on the training yard one day when I was a Novice. He'd held my attention every since. Of course he didn't know or notice me. Hardly any of my Brothers noticed me and I liked it that way. I was probably the least noticed Master Assassin in the whole Brotherhood while Altair was the most noticed Master Assassin in the Brotherhood. He was Al Maulim's favorite. His prodigy and pupil. The best of the best and never failed.

And he was green.

No matter how I turned it over in my head I couldn't figure out why he was green. It wasn't a mix of an ally and target. No. When someone was a blend of two of the four categories they were both the colors. If Altair was both an ally and a target he would've been blue mixed with gold. He was just… a normal, very infamous, very talented, if a little arrogant Assassin and it frustrated me to no end at the mystery.

I sighed and started to fly ahead of the man when I saw him glance up. Well, I couldn't really see thanks to the hood all Assassins wore but I saw his head tip up and felt his eyes on me. I stared back for an instant before turning and gaining elevation quickly. I soared over the castle and over the gardens. I hovered over the canyon behind the garden before folding my wings almost all the way into my back, aiming my body into a near vertical drop.

I narrowed my eyes to slits as the wind tore past them and switched my Eagle Vision to eagle eyes. My sharp eyes picked out the deeper shadow of the cave I was aiming for. I flexed my wings tiny increments and felt my heart race. If I was off by the slightest foot I could clip a wing, breaking the flimsy bones, or slam bodily into the top or bottom of the narrow slit that was the cave's entrance.

Once I'd dropped enough distance I snapped out my wings and felt them catch air almost violently as I forced my body into an sharp arc that shot me perfectly through the 3 foot by 25 foot hole. Once I flew past the stone wall I braked hard. Pulling my body out of its horizontal position and into a vertical arrangement and back flapped hard. At my speed I covered half the available braking distance from cave wall to unforgiving cave wall.

Blinking my eyes back to normal human eyes, I hovered awkwardly for a moment in the limited space before folding my wings in again to drop straight down 30 feet. My braid snapped like a whip in the air above me and my hood tried to come up, but my thick hair wouldn't have any of that. Sometimes I wondered if my hair was a living thing because some days it'll sit perfect underneath my many tunics and armor against my bare back in a braid and other days it's impossible to deal with and I have to wrestle with it for an hour to just get in a braid and worry the rest of the day about it somehow peeking out of my Assassin's uniform. It acted like it had a mind of its own.

I snapped out my wings as soon as I fell past the vertical tunnel and into a much more spacious cavern and came to an almost instantaneous stop. Out of instinct I tilted my wings and spiraled twice around the oval cavern that was 40 feet deep and 30 feet high and about 30 feet wide. It was a man made cavern that I used in emergencies to quickly enter the castle unnoticed.

It was made when Masyaf was first built centuries ago when the Assassins first came to be. Its purpose was to shelter and hide the villagers when Templars attacked. This one is directly beneath the castle and was long ago forgotten. I'd found it only by chance one boring night when I'd plucked a random book off a random shelf of Masyaf's library. It was solely about how Masyaf was built and its defenses and hidden passages and the hidden caverns. It was basically a book on all of Masyaf's quirks and hiding places. That book disappeared from the library and reappeared in one of my hidden haunts in the castle. No one noticed its absence. Though I was worried about the day when a curious Assassin would realize that the more well known caverns beneath the village itself might not be the only ones built so long ago.

I came to a vertical position and gave a few gentle back strokes to slow my already slow speed and dropped lightly to my feet. Then, I began the process of fixing my appearance. I grabbed my braid and was stuffing it down the back of my shirts as I maneuvered my wings to slip through the premade 2 foot long parallel cuts that had about six inches separating them. I shivered as I felt my braid brush where my wings melted into skin.

I know it was just asking to get discovered for me to keep long hair when I was masquerading as a man, but it was my reminder that I was a woman. I didn't have much in the womanly area. I had a small chest, which I kept bound tightly with bandages I'd filched from the medical supply room, and not a lot of showy curves like all the other women I see. I didn't have much to hide besides my hair, but, since I was already marked down as a strange Assassin, I could say that I wore it long in memory of my deceased mother if anyone saw and asked. Then, they'd either mock me or let it go. I'd been avoided and left out because of my natural tendencies to be alone and that I was horrible company and, now that I was a fully fledged Master Assassin, just plain strange.

But that suits me just fine. The less people who are close to me to observe my habits and ways the better.

I pulled a folded cloak out of one of my many pouches and wrapped it around my shoulders to hide the cuts on the back of my robes. Another reason I was weird. Even in the blistering desert heat, I wouldn't take off my white cloak. As a Novice, I wouldn't take off my robes and shirts like the other boys when we were in the sparring ring or when we were training.

I did one last look around at my appearance before hesitating and sighing. My wings were long and when folded against my back my feathers could still brush my ankles. I closed my eyes and grimaced as I relaxed the muscles in my shoulders and began… "pulling" my wings in. I say "pulling" because that is the best word I can use to describe the process. It was like a cat retracting its claws except much more painful. I could feel the muscles shifting and moving to allow space for my wings to rest under my skin. I imagine it isn't pretty since it doesn't feel pretty. It's agony enough to blank my mind for a few moments before the last of my feathers disappear and my muscles to stop moving. Then, it's as if I don't have wings at all. I could twist every single way imaginable and wouldn't be able to feel my wings under my skin.

After one last inspection to make sure all was hidden and in order, I pulled up my hood and then sprinted to the tunnel leading up at a slight incline to an old sturdy ladder. I go up the ladder three rungs at a time and think that the rope to the pulley system to raise and lower any supplies into the cavern was starting to look frayed. I'll have to replace that soon, I thought, making a mental note. I had several hidden spots throughout the castle and I tried to keep them in working order. Though I had no clue how I was going to replace the ladder if it should break. Maybe I could bring the pieces in bit by bit until I can assemble it in the cavern. Then take the old one apart and add it to the kitchen's firewood pile over a period of time so as not to raise suspicion, I thought as I reached the top of the ladder and held my breath for the sound of footsteps.

After several moments of silence, I put my hands to the heavy stone above me and lifted it slightly. It went up silently thanks to the oil I apply to the stone's edges every now and again. I blinked to Eagle Vision and the world went black as I looked for any colors that would alert me to a person's presence. When I was satisfied that no one was around, I set the heavy stone of the floor and slid out before putting the stone back as fast as I could. I blinked my eyes to human eyes and made sure that the stone looked like all the other grey stones around it before standing up and casually walking down the hall with absolutely silent footsteps.

And that's how it's done, Brothers, I thought with a bit of smugness. It had only taken me two minutes to fly away from Altair and step into the hallway.

My mind started making up for the silence with a quiet buzzing and I thought of how only a few Assassins actually manage to walk without noise. Sure their quietness would get them behind guards for the kill, but that would hardly get them past Assassins trained to hear the slightest sounds.

I was walking past the castle's main door as Altair came in. He made no sound. He was one of the few Assassins who were silent. I looked at the man, who was half a head taller than me, briefly with my Eagle Vision to see the green. As he glanced at me I ducked my head to deepen the shadows my hood gave my face.

"Safety and peace, Altair," I murmur in a quiet voice that I deepened slightly to sound like a man.

He nodded slightly, "And upon you as well, Shahin."

I showed none of the surprise I felt with the knowledge that he knew who I was. I was so distant and unnoticeable that the other Assassins didn't think that the Master Assassin Shahin Al-Hira was me. I was smaller than most men because I was a woman. I was naturally thinner and my body didn't show muscles as obviously as they would on a man's body. I was lean where some Assassins were thick with muscles. Altair himself was in the middle. He was neither lean nor muscled, but he had very wide shoulders that I heard the woman whispering about sometimes.

I took a small brief glance at his face. The most noticeable feature on his face was his amber eyes. Unusual eyes like my golden eyes. They seemed to look right through a person, much like how the eagles he was named after often looked at someone. The next was the scar just underneath his nose and touched his upper lip on the left side. Otherwise his face was rather handsome if I do say so myself. He had a strong square jaw and a nose that wasn't too big or too small. His eyebrows weren't the bushy monstrosities I saw on some men's faces. His lips were smooth and full looking and he had a rugged look to his cheeks from the stubble coming in. That was another reason I had to hide my face: I couldn't feign the stubble that grew on a man's face every day. I wasn't able to see his hair with his hood on, although I could tell it was short.

I looked towards the door I was heading to so I wasn't caught staring at his face. As I moved towards the Master Assassins wing of the castle, I sensed Altair following me. I felt a bit awkward with the man following me and having nothing to say to him, but I kept my back straight and lifted my head since there was no one to see my face. I held the wooden door open a moment longer so it didn't slam into Altair and thought about the glimpse I'd caught of his face.

We turned down a few halls. I bet he thought he was unreadable, but I could always catch a hint of his mood in his body language and face. Subtle things like if his eyes were slightly narrowed it meant he was irritated. If his head was up enough for a person to see his cheeks then he was feeling proud. If he walked with arms that hardly swung past his body then he was angry. And right now, if the slight slouch in his shoulders were anything to go by, he was tired, weary.

I wondered briefly at what his mission had been when I sensed him stop and I glanced over my shoulder to see that he had his hand on the door to his room. "Goodnight, Altair," I called softly. He glanced up and I felt one of the few torch's light hit my eyes, illuminating my face. I turned my head so my face was back in the shadows and walked to the door ten feet to the right of his. Oh. That's right. Our rooms are right next to each other, I thought to myself as I pushed my door open.

"Goodnight, Shahin."

I glanced to my left, but that Altair had gone into his rooms.

Closing my door and latching the lock, I rubbed my arms in an effort to ease the goose bumps. It's so strange to hear my name, I thought with a small shiver before stripping out of my armor and outer robes. I took off the bandages binding my chest before lying down in my bed in only one white tunic and loose leggings. I fell asleep and into dreams of flying.

But this dream was different from the others.

Instead of patrolling the endless blue skies alone, there was a faceless man flying next to me.

—Altair's POV—

He tiredly climbed the step roads of the village on weary legs. All he wanted was to go to his room, lie down, and drift off into some much needed sleep. He would've slept out on the road if the guards hadn't increased their patrols.

He passed a group of Assassin guards patrolling the village and was moving up one of the few last slopes until he reached the castle. Almost there, he told his tired body.

For some reason, as he was unconsciously scanning for enemies, he looked up. He wouldn't have seen it if I didn't pass in front of the stars. The moon's faint light showed a rather large black bird with a white body. What a strange bird, he thought. I don't think I've seen this one around Masyaf before. He thought that the bird was looking down at him before it gained elevation and flew over the castle, disappearing from view. He sighed and felt the urge Malik had spoken about just last week. The urge to be up there with the birds.

Of course he knew that urge better than anybody.

He climbed the remaining distance to the castle and met no trouble with the guards on the wall as he passed through the gate. His mind was a blank space as he walked into the castle's foyer.

"Safety and peace, Altair," murmured a soft voice, startling him. He hid his reaction before it was noticed and cursed himself for not hearing a Brother, though he lessened his cursing when he saw who it was. The man's face before him was completely hidden in shadows, which was odd because you could usually see an Assassin's lips and chin, but he saw that the man was ducking his head slightly. He only recognized his brother by the cloak tied around his shoulders.

Altair nodded in acknowledgement, "And upon you as well, Shahin."

As the slightly shorter Master Assassin passed in front of him in the same direction he was going, he felt Shahin study him. Altair said nothing but fell in behind the man who was equal in status to him. He studied the man's silent footsteps and wondered if he was close in skill to him. Shahin has always been that person you hardly noticed and Altair had never really seen the man fight or train. He took in the man's lean figure and couldn't come to a conclusion. Malik was on the thin side as well and he was Altair's rival as well as best friend, though you wouldn't hear him admit that last part. Shahin obviously had some skill if he was a Master Assassin, but it irked Altair that he didn't know how skilled.

May be I'll watch him while I'm in between missions. Keep an eye on him. Malik will probably know something about him as well. He seems to know something about everyone, he thought wearily.

With that thought he moved to his door and had his hand on the door when that soft voice called, "Goodnight, Altair."

He looked to see that Shahin had turned to look over his shoulder as he walked. And, for a brief instant, the torch light lit up the mysterious man's face before he turned ever so slightly and masked himself in shadows.

Altair stood there for a moment his mind going two different ways. One way was thinking of how the man always seemed to hide. Whether it be in the back of the crowd or in the shadows, he was always hiding. Now he could put it down to being an Assassin, a Master Assassin at that, since we were trained from a young age to hide in plain sight, but he couldn't recall a single time when he'd even glimpsed the man's face. This man was as his name said: King of Darkness. His curiosity was what enabled his tired mind to memorize that face the light had lit for a moment.

That's the second direction his mind went in: studying that face. It was a circle face shape and had normal features. Normal nose, normal chin, normal lips, and so forth. But what caught his attention were two things. The first was his almond shaped eyes. They were golden. Almost like his eye colors except his were slightly brown, making them amber in color. Shahin's eyes were sharp and reminded him of the hawks he was named after. The second thing that caught his attention was the man's skin. It paler than the locals, giving away his northern heritage, and it looked so smooth and soft. There was something overall about the man's face that made it look…feminine. There were little things here and there that he wasn't able to put his finger on.

"Goodnight, Shahin," he replied as he went into his room. He latched the lock and began to strip.

His mind turned over the mystery that was Shahin. He finally decided it wasn't worth the effort of investigating. He fell on to his bed and put his head behind his head. There's no point in snooping. He does not concern me, he thought.

But, as he closed his eyes, if Shahin proved to be close to him in skill then he would have to investigate this potential rival.

He was just drifting off to sleep when he shifted and felt a poke in his side. He reached down blindly and pulled whatever the annoyance was and held it in front of his face. It was a grey feather as long as his forearm.

He blew out a tried breath, got up, went to the small stone window, and dropped the feather into open space. Altair then returned to bed and promptly fell asleep.

That night he dreamt of feathers of all colors drifting down through the air.

Okay. So chapter one. I know the idea of winged Assassins is from left field big time, but I'm gonna try and make this into a long story. I have a few ideas as for Shahin and her abilities cuz I feel like just having wings is a little too mainstream and I don't want this to seem too much like that Maximum Ride series. Which this is not like at all! Can the flock retract their wings? No, they cannot. You'll see there will be other huge differences in the next few chapters. Anyway, REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! I want your opinion on where this story should go and what you guys would like best out of my characters. Review!

p.s. Shahin Al-Hira means Hawk. King of Darkness. Just in case you didn't pick up that bit from Altair's thoughts.