Unknown Factions

[madimpossibledreamer]

biggest mystery of this AU: in this canon, what is bob

Main Points:
Dresden Files/The Secret World crossover.
Summary: Marcone is a faction all to himself.
Word Count: 740
Rating: Teen (canonically children were harmed in one of the plots which is where Marcone came in, 1 curse word)

        The first time I met “Gentleman” Johnny Marcone, I thought he was a Lumie.
        All right, that might seem like a ridiculous mistake to make, given how fiercely independent he is, but then I hate taking orders, too, and I work for the Templars.  In fact, despite their advertising propaganda they put up, most Templars seem to have my sense of humor (the Bee-touched ones anyway), if our snowball fight within sight of Dame Julia in Templar Central is any indication.  Bob assures me the twitch in her face was because she wanted to join in, not because she was angry about us not taking things like decorum seriously, and then started telling me some stories I’m not sure I believe. 
        But that’s Bob for you.  And Sonnac isn’t really good at dissuading any of the agents he handles from our independent contrarian streak, and might even be slightly encouraging, in a way, if I’m reading his dry, sarcastic British humor right.  (Most of the Bee-touched Illuminati I’ve met, on contrast, have been very stoic and serious about following orders, despite all the recruitment emails I’ve gotten about parties.  I’m not sure if it’s a cosmic joke or something about their recruitment strategies simply went wrong somewhere, and this time I’m talking about both the Templars and the Illuminati.  I’m not sure if the Dragon actually know what they’re doing and get it right every time, or if they simply don’t care what their recruits are like in the interest of maximizing chaos, but I haven’t noticed a trend in Bee-touched Dragon recruits.)
        Most of my impression, honestly, came from the fact that “charming scumbag businessman” reminds me heavily of the Illuminati handler Kirsten Geary.  That, and he didn’t die within ten minutes of us meeting, so I was pretty certain he wasn’t Orochi.  They don’t care how many heads you cut off because there will always be more, so they have all the self-preservation instincts of lemmings.  Marcone has fiercely, emphasis on the fierce, strong preservation instincts, only he went and had them for himself plus what he considers his city, and all children.  As far as I can tell, he regards women with the same attitude as he does men, meaning he is not above shooting a traitor in the face.  He regards them as equally as competent and equally as scheming.
        It turns out he’s actually yet another party in these things, like we don’t already have a complete set.  He relies pretty heavily on artifacts.  I only figured out for sure when I showed up to clean up the latest local Filth-cult nest and he was there with a bunch of men with guns.  To be fair, that’s not exactly uncommon with either Bee-touched or Orochi types, but he and his squad actually had to do things like take precautions not to be touched and use some sort of rune-artifact to keep themselves from turning into just another shambling Filthy human like the ones we were fighting.
        There’s a slight undercurrent of anger as he mentions the Orochi as a sort of rival when we take a break.  He seems to take the Orochi regard for human life as well as I do.  But when he gets around to his true objective, well.  It turns out he isn’t Bee-touched and can’t sling around fireballs like I do, which is good, because with that level of burning hate the nearest Morninglight location might have just burned to the ground.
        The Morninglight, he tells me, are an actual cult.  I find that absurd for just long enough there’s probably some kind of magic involved.  Of course it’s a cult.  We’re tripping over cults, in Egypt, in Japan.  Why not another global one?  It has all sorts of targets, but the children of Chicago are unforgivable and actually kind of under his protection, and while he can’t actually commit arson using his brain, he solemnly promises me that is not an issue.  I eye the flamethrower that he’s lugging to the party.
        I believe him.  And much as I hate the thought of helping out yet another not-to-be-trusted third (or, y’know, fifth, eighth, seventy-fourth, whatever) party in this whole thing…I’m pretty sure I’m going to be right there alongside him, making sure that his sources are up to date and throwing fireballs with him if it turns out to be true.  Damn my hero complex, as Bob would say.