Plotted Grudge
Jan. 4th, 2024 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerHappy Year of the Dragon, Desmond (and readers)!
Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond continues to look into who tried to kill him and gets confirmation he's not the only one who's still investigating.
Word Count: 760
Rating: Teen
It’s an open question how much was expedited by the attempted murder in their domain. One thing hasn’t changed between the Templars he knew and these new ones: it sounds like bloody vengeance is their specialty, so, yeah, if they weren’t behind it? They are plotting a bloodbath, and nobody died but Desmond’s pretty sure he doesn’t mind, because—yeah, okay, he’s been saying ‘hitman’ or ‘attempted murderer’ rather than Assassin, even lower-case, because he’s taking that ‘harming an innocent’ thing seriously. He wasn’t...a pacifist, before all this, persay, just didn’t really want to fight a war either, but there are things you don’t do and that is one of them. What makes it worse is…
Okay. He could be wrong. But he’s pretty sure of two things: one, the guy with the gun might have learned it from hunting or whatever, but it definitely wasn’t from target practice. He knew how to hit a moving target. But two, he wasn’t used to people actually—okay, yeah, so most people wouldn’t know when to dodge, not without a sixth sense, but it feels like the guy actually mainly goes after civilians. Not people who can fight back.
...It’s because of the speed and slight twitchiness to the ‘retreat’, Desmond realizes after mulling it over. Altaïr wouldn’t have a clue of how to load a gun, but he might’ve been able to figure out how to reload and shoot before Desmond even crossed the distance, never mind a guy who probably uses a gun as his primary weapon so he should’ve been able to pull off a second shot. Ezio would have been barely ruffled, and if he’d run out of bullets he’d just switch to one of his many weapons or hand-to-hand. Assuming he was out of bullets, Ratonhnhaké:ton would improvise with, say, the fishing line, or retreat and watch to try again—and not to Agartha, probably across the rooftops to hide in Darkside or something.
Maybe he couldn’t afford to be caught, but the slight panic in the movements says Gun Guy wasn’t prepared to fail, which means he doesn’t go after good targets very often. Sure, his ancestors were the best of the best, and they’d fail. Things wouldn’t go to plan. What that meant, what defined the true Masters from the Novices, was how effortlessly they could pivot from that failure. (He hates to agree with Al Mualim’s shared teachings on anything, but the guy actually had a point for once.) So yeah, if not for the fact that Desmond’s been trying to get everybody to underestimate him, he’d actually be a little insulted.
...Nah, he’s still insulted anyway, just because you don’t get random people involved. Which is actually why he’s kind of cheering on the Templars in this one. Assuming they’re not behind it, but if they are, most don’t know, because some of those showing up white are suddenly a solid blue and they’re pretty much all united in thanking him and expressing how bloodthirsty they are.
Unfortunately, he has another idea that decided to torment him that he’s definitely not running by Shaun or Rebecca because he can’t: the Illuminati grunt had called him a ‘runt’, so maybe the expectation was he actually could die. It’s not common, given how much everyone expects Bees to just get back up, but...maybe it’s not unknown either, that maybe some Bees aren’t quite as powerful. And that’s without the whole bit where he’s actually not sure if he’s got those powers, so yeah, aside from the fact that it’d been super traumatizing the first time, he’s going to try to avoid dying if he can help it.
Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond continues to look into who tried to kill him and gets confirmation he's not the only one who's still investigating.
Word Count: 760
Rating: Teen
When Desmond gets Shaun’s summary of all the things he’s been asking about, he’s shocked speechless. Sure, it’s probably heavily edited and vetted by at least three different Templars, but still, he hadn’t expected the man to actually try. Apparently, that’s highly offensive, and he spends the next two hours getting lectured about how ‘this is basic material, really, anyone should know this’. Apparently, that’s also really funny, because Rebecca looks two seconds away from laughing the entire time. When he gets to reading it later, it’s alternatively sweet and disturbing, occasionally funny, but then, he’d always liked how Shaun worded things, and the fact that he’s still worried about Desmond is misguided, but appreciated nonetheless. Some of the stuff Desmond had actually worked out on his own, too, but it’s still nice of the man to go to the trouble of actually trying to explain all this.
It’s an open question how much was expedited by the attempted murder in their domain. One thing hasn’t changed between the Templars he knew and these new ones: it sounds like bloody vengeance is their specialty, so, yeah, if they weren’t behind it? They are plotting a bloodbath, and nobody died but Desmond’s pretty sure he doesn’t mind, because—yeah, okay, he’s been saying ‘hitman’ or ‘attempted murderer’ rather than Assassin, even lower-case, because he’s taking that ‘harming an innocent’ thing seriously. He wasn’t...a pacifist, before all this, persay, just didn’t really want to fight a war either, but there are things you don’t do and that is one of them. What makes it worse is…
Okay. He could be wrong. But he’s pretty sure of two things: one, the guy with the gun might have learned it from hunting or whatever, but it definitely wasn’t from target practice. He knew how to hit a moving target. But two, he wasn’t used to people actually—okay, yeah, so most people wouldn’t know when to dodge, not without a sixth sense, but it feels like the guy actually mainly goes after civilians. Not people who can fight back.
...It’s because of the speed and slight twitchiness to the ‘retreat’, Desmond realizes after mulling it over. Altaïr wouldn’t have a clue of how to load a gun, but he might’ve been able to figure out how to reload and shoot before Desmond even crossed the distance, never mind a guy who probably uses a gun as his primary weapon so he should’ve been able to pull off a second shot. Ezio would have been barely ruffled, and if he’d run out of bullets he’d just switch to one of his many weapons or hand-to-hand. Assuming he was out of bullets, Ratonhnhaké:ton would improvise with, say, the fishing line, or retreat and watch to try again—and not to Agartha, probably across the rooftops to hide in Darkside or something.
Maybe he couldn’t afford to be caught, but the slight panic in the movements says Gun Guy wasn’t prepared to fail, which means he doesn’t go after good targets very often. Sure, his ancestors were the best of the best, and they’d fail. Things wouldn’t go to plan. What that meant, what defined the true Masters from the Novices, was how effortlessly they could pivot from that failure. (He hates to agree with Al Mualim’s shared teachings on anything, but the guy actually had a point for once.) So yeah, if not for the fact that Desmond’s been trying to get everybody to underestimate him, he’d actually be a little insulted.
...Nah, he’s still insulted anyway, just because you don’t get random people involved. Which is actually why he’s kind of cheering on the Templars in this one. Assuming they’re not behind it, but if they are, most don’t know, because some of those showing up white are suddenly a solid blue and they’re pretty much all united in thanking him and expressing how bloodthirsty they are.
Unfortunately, he has another idea that decided to torment him that he’s definitely not running by Shaun or Rebecca because he can’t: the Illuminati grunt had called him a ‘runt’, so maybe the expectation was he actually could die. It’s not common, given how much everyone expects Bees to just get back up, but...maybe it’s not unknown either, that maybe some Bees aren’t quite as powerful. And that’s without the whole bit where he’s actually not sure if he’s got those powers, so yeah, aside from the fact that it’d been super traumatizing the first time, he’s going to try to avoid dying if he can help it.
