After the events of the first game, test subject Desmond Miles is rescued from Abstergo by undercover Assassin Lucy Stillman and taken to a safehouse, where he meets her team, consisting of historian and analyst Shaun Hastings and technician Rebecca Crane. They have constructed their own Animus, which they intend to use to train Desmond as an Assassin through the "bleeding effect," which allows the user to learn their ancestor's skills at a rapid pace. Desmond is instructed to relive the memories of his ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze, born into a wealthy Florentine family in 1459, during the Italian Renaissance.
