Hijacked Broadcast

[madimpossibledreamer]

Desmond continues to do everything slightly out of order. This isn’t exactly the tutorial, but it’s along the same lines, even if he keeps getting way more information than any other character starting out should.
When I was playing the tutorial, he was getting attacked and spotted a lore spot and the first thing he wanted to do was ignore being attacked to get the glowy, lol. It’s a real act of restraint on his part leaving this so long.
I think Desmond has rented a hotel room, but he might have also broken into an empty apartment and jury rigged things to work. Compared to some of the places he had to stay while on the run from Templars, either is probably an improvement.
...I have been waiting 5 weeks to post this chapter and now it's finally here--!

Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Maybe the creepy little Dragon girl had a point about her warning.
Word Count: 1630
Rating: Teen

 

         Desmond can’t see. He’s sitting. It feels like a subway car, but all the lights are off, not just in the car, but along the sides. They’re moving, rattling along, faster than public transportation should go unless this is a bullet train or something. He feels trapped, claustrophobic, suffocating in the air, like the darkness is something alive, malevolent, attempting to smother him, to crush him until there’s nothing left and he’s absorbed. As if in response to his panic, he feels his arm grow warm, and holds it up, and yeah, the tattoo is glowing again under his sleeve, burning bright like the sun—
         He is, in fact, in a subway. Not on one of the cars. He’s waiting for the next train with a whole bunch of other people, and part of his mind is saying he’s here because the next power source for the Temple is here. All the lights come back on—no, it’s more like he’s traveled in time, or something, because everything looks normal, and no one’s panicking about the loss of light or anything. Or his arm glowing, and that’s because, abruptly, it isn’t. It looks like Japan, and that has to mean this is Tokyo. Something bad was going down in Tokyo, and the little girl said that dreams…
         What was it about dreams? They were important, he knows that, but it’s just sitting there on the edge of his mind mocking him. His train of thought is interrupted.
         Someone bumps into him, shuffling along, and he looks...familiar. He doesn’t look up, though, even when Desmond puts the pieces together and calls out, reaches out a hand for the man, as the doors open and they all start to board.
         It’s not actually Clay, Desmond knows somehow, with the clarity that dreams give, but it looks and sounds like him. He sounds like he had in the messages he’d left behind, broken and glitchy, muttering to himself, clutching a sports bag with a death grip. “...won’t hurt, that’s what he said, sh-sh-she can’t get you, gotta be brave, fear nothing, just the messenger, don’t kill the messenger, hahaha they won’t kill the messenger…”
         Suddenly, there are police officers walking toward them.
         He doesn’t glance up to look at them, though, but instead turns and moves his gaze from the floor to straight into Desmond’s eyes, and the Assassin shudders, because those aren’t eyes. They’re worse than empty, they’re...more like black holes with stars behind them. He grins, and it’s the smile of a viper. “I hadn’t invited you to the party yet, but sure, I’ll play. Peek-a-boo, Chuck, I see you.” The voice is dark, suddenly, resentful, inhuman echo to the words, and it’s Clay’s voice but not, and he chuckles, the friendly tone sinister, oily.
         And then an explosion rocks the station, coming from the bag, painting the walls with a black oil slick, if black oil slicks were alive and started moving and sprouted tentacles and look completely, utterly wrong, like they’re holes in reality or something. Desmond gets sprayed, too, and instantly feels like he’ll never be clean again. It crawls along Desmond’s skin, making it itch like he’s been infected. The edges of his vision distort, grow dark.
         And then he bolts upright, gasping for air. Just a dream, he tries to tell himself for all of two seconds before he remembers what he’d been trying to remember in the dream, and realizes that’s the exact opposite of comforting. ‘Beware of dreams.’ And yeah, he had been looking for answers about Tokyo, too, but there’s a good part of the dream that had felt...real. Within some definition of reality, anyway, maybe something like the Animus. His arm is glowing slightly, warm and comforting, a night-light in the chill of the early dawn, and he shivers. What the hell.
         He’s come to the attention of something, probably. Not an organization, something strong and powerful and malevolent like Juno.
         It had taken the form of Clay. Maybe that was his mind drawing similarities, maybe that was something the thing had done to mess with him, but either way, there’s a clue there, no matter how much thinking about this makes him want to scrape off his skin to try to stop feeling contaminated.
         He’s just going to list off possibilities, getting all of them or nothing right. Used to be human, trapped in some sort of simulation (dreams, maybe?), and while he’d lost his body, it made him more powerful in his domain. The tone had been right, a fragmented mind barely hanging on to humanity, the kind of guy who could be a drinking buddy under the right circumstances. Friendly and resentful of the fact that Desmond was still alive and he was dead, lending a hand and delighting in the fact that his misery wasn’t alone anymore. He has absolutely no idea why it called him Chuck, but that didn’t feel like a mistake.
         The Assassin sighs, looks back toward his pillow, and gives up on sleep. There’s no way he’ll be able to drift off again. Might as well go about things—like actually equipping all of those talisman things from the bank, because he’s suddenly feeling a little paranoid for some reason, after a good shower or twelve, and seeing if there isn’t anything else he can do to try to prepare himself for...whatever that was.
         He scrubs his skin a little too hard in the shower, but he’s not bleeding and still doesn’t quite feel right, so he’s pretty sure it wasn’t overkill. He realizes after the bank stop he’s not thinking clearly and that he can actually evaluate magic items based on whether or not they glow gold in Eagle Vision, so he goes on a minor spending spree. It doesn’t help him know what exactly they’re used for, but it can tell him they're useful for something.  After that, he gets distracted by the feeling of something else gold, glowy, and vaguely...sticky? Like honey, maybe, he decides, when he follows the feeling a bit and it gets stronger. Maybe like the Bees. And, Altaïr’s memories remind him, honey’s good for treating wounds. Sure, this probably isn’t actual honey, maybe more like...spiritual honey, or something, but he feels like he’s spiritually wounded, so maybe that’s just perfect.
         Contrary to all his expectations, people actually barely even react when he starts climbing buildings, jumping between awnings, and the like. It’s probably all the times that people reacted badly to Altaïr or Ezio doing the same; some of those phrases are burned into his psyche. He really does like Ealdwic, he decides. He’s not going to do it visibly near Templar Hall, anyway, to avoid making them more nervous, but his watchers seem somewhat appeased when he makes sure they can keep him in their sights, even if, at this point, they know he knows they’re there. (None of that explains what was going on the other day, but he’s still trying not to think about that too much.) None of the buildings aside from Templar Hall are too tall, but they’re a joy to climb and it’s nice to just run around on the rooftops. These buildings were practically made for climbing, with handholds and footholds everywhere, and it’s good to keep in practice and just be able to relax and breathe. Sure, there’s some smog here, but he still finds his worries disappearing. Even after wandering around the city following the feeling of important things, he feels something gold and glowing and kind of irresistible, so he finds himself on a kind of scavenger hunt around London.
         It turns out that standing in the spots that glow gold has him hearing voices, but not the Bleeding Effect kind—it’s a woman’s voice, kind but worried, and it reminds him vaguely of Lucy, but at least unlike the dream-guy it’s not trying to imitate her. It’s probably associated with the Bees, so yeah, they might’ve actually been trying to talk to him, before. For the most part, they’re just telling him stuff he already knows, about the Assassins, about London, about the Templars, but it feels...cleansing, to find those, and it’s not until he hears Rebecca calling him that he realizes he’s missed lunch.
         “Damn, Desmond, I didn’t know you knew parkour!” He grins as he looks down and sees her.
         “Give me a bit; I’ll come meet you!” he yells back, and with the handholds and footholds here, really, it’s easy. He might be showing off a bit.
         She actually claps for him when he makes it to the ground, and he bows with a goofy flourish that he’s half certain is from Ezio. “I haven’t actually gotten lunch yet, so I’ll have to grab something but I can definitely come with.” He does actually like hanging out with them, is the thing, and he’s pretty sure he’s been decently productive for today.
         Her eyes light up. “Have you heard of Dante’s tacos?” He was right on the money, then.
         “I’m not going to be regretting it in the restroom the rest of the day, am I?” he asks, amused, and she’s finding it just as funny as he is, apparently.
         “No cases of food poisoning there, though I’ve got no promises if you go chugging the hot sauce. My treat?” She pauses, then adds, “...I’ll throw in that obnoxious pair of shades you were looking at that bugged Shaun as ‘hideous monstrosities’.”
         “Deal. I need something for undercover work.” He wouldn’t actually dare use them for anything requiring stealth, but they’re hilarious and he definitely was weighing using some of the Dragon funds for them.
         “You really are an agent of chaos,” she remarks, but coming from Rebecca that’s almost certainly a compliment.