Legacy of Yamata

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and his recruits follow a trail of bodies to one of the other organizations in Kingsmouth.
Word Count: 2140
Rating: Teen

         Not far from the bridge, they find the body of a guy in a black and white uniform, and Nate’s still slouching, a little, but it seems like he...sharpens, just a little, which means that Desmond should probably be paying attention, because he’s pretty sure his ‘Agent’ has more experience with all of this than the rest of them put together. “What’s the uniform mean?”
         “Orochi.” Desmond’s putting his money on one of those Draug with the blade-like arms, because most other blades don’t leave a wound like that.
         Nate’s fiddling with his phone, and then before long, a computerized voice is stating “Initializing visual tracking,” and the blood trail is being highlighted with pulsing blue hexagons, and Desmond has two thoughts pretty much simultaneously. The first is that the tech seems pretty useful if you don’t have Eagle Vision. The second is that this is definitely going to make his post-Animus confusion worse, but it’s not like he’s not going to demand the guy stop using it immediately. Desmond’s just going to have to get used to this.
         “I didn’t know Orochi knew about the Secret World,” Chelsea whispers, looking utterly baffled, which makes Desmond laugh.
         “At this point I’m basically considering it more of an open secret than anything. It’s just a question of how much they know,” he replies as they follow Nate.
         “This is probably Manticore. Supposedly, they’re selling body armor and other weapons to the US government, but…” Nate shrugs.
         But it sounds like that could be more Illuminati misdirection. Though if Desmond thinks back, he does remember having a bad feeling about the CEO, so who knows.
         There’s a bigger bridge. Helicopters, vans, and glowy blue barriers coming out of bigger black metal barriers. The blue barriers look vaguely like the tracking thing, so either it’s Orochi tech or it’s magic they’re passing off as Orochi tech. Nate’s still a little on edge, Chelsea’s acting as if everything’s fine (but then, she might be interpreting them as probably allies, because they’re all fighting evil, right?), and Lydia, surprisingly, is sticking close. Rukh’s claws are digging into his shoulder, just a little, and even for a bird that has learned sound is dangerous, he’s shockingly quiet.
         And they approach, just that little bit closer, until they can see the people in uniforms, and what do you know, they seem to follow Assassin rules, where field operatives wear more of a white body armor and higher-ups have black. They’re coordinating something over the radios, and Desmond feels it, more than hears it, at first, the static that sounds like a very familiar chuckle.
         I’ve got a good one for you today. Ssssssssstop me if you’ve heard this one before.
         Interestingly, it seems like Rukh can hear the voice or at least knows something’s going on, because he shoves his entire body into the side of Desmond’s head, causing him to stumble a little.
         There you are, minding your own business, and two assholes walk into your bar.
         “Careful there, Rukh,” Chelsea reminds him with a chuckle, and Desmond’s barely hearing the sound of her talking when John’s trying to tell his ‘joke’.
         “We’re nothing alike,” they say, at exactly the same time. “Our cause is noble, our methods just.” But you have heard that one, haven’t you? I can sssssseeeee it in your eyes, Chuck.
         Warm feathers next to his ear keep him in the moment as Lydia asks him if he’s okay.
         I can’t see it all, yet, but I want to. Your story’s worth the big screen.
         “Possession?” Nate asks, quiet and intense and he’s readying magic just in case they have to fight.
         Your father, so sure he knows best. That scientist, smug and superior. Bet it felt so good to shut up that sanctimonious prick.
         “...No. Just—” Oh, hey, that’s a good excuse, and it even has the advantage of almost being true. “Vision, I think.”
         You’ll tell me alllllll about it, won’t you, Chuck? Pretty please.
         It fades, just as Lydia’s asking “Wait, are they contagious?”
         “I think it has to do with the Third Eye stuff, actually,” he manages, Rukh still pressed up against his neck and rumbling soothingly—kind of like a purr, except he absolutely has to take breaks to breathe. He deserves a good pet, though, and Desmond starts on that, smoothing down the feathers.
         The woman’s the first to see him, well, first of the higher-ups (he doesn’t want to ask, because it’d make it obvious he didn’t actually notice, but he’s pretty sure they just walked right past the lower-ranked Orochi, which at least means they’re not shooting on sight, lucky for them) and she starts stammering. She’s kind of cute, and she’s not red, but she might be working for the enemy and he hasn’t exactly forgotten the last time he found somebody in a kind of similar position attractive. Even if Juno doesn’t exist in this world. And he’s absolutely working on actually preventing the whole mind control thing from happening again. “Oh, hi! I know all of you—and your bird, he’s so handsome, though sorry, I don’t know his name. You’re...like, what do they call a group of superheroes? A flight?” Rukh perks up at that, fluffing his feathers, though it seems like he’s still a little wary, too, since he’s still fidgeting a little on Desmond’s shoulder like he wants to fly off at any moment. Maybe ‘flighty’ applies more, right now.
         “I’m sure they have better things to do than answer questions about collective nouns. This area is rather busy, as of late.” The man is no-nonsense and doesn’t seem to have come equipped with a sense of humor, but he’s friendly enough, mostly in that he’s happy to have the help. He introduces himself as Blake, and the pretty woman as Ms. Radcliffe, and claims they’re affiliated with the CDC here to deal with an outbreak. Nate had mentioned the idea that Orochi is selling stuff to the government, so it’s possible, Desmond guesses; he gets the feeling it’s kind of a blatant lie, but he’s not about to call them out on it directly either.
         Blake directs them towards dealing with Orochi’s problems, though, which is probably the whole reason he’s got the ‘dry straightforward welcome’ thing going on in the first place and isn’t just shooing them away. The Orochi field operatives aren’t supposed to be going out in the field, just observing. Desmond has to wonder if they made that call before or after the corpses that led them here in the first place got made. Normally, just like the Sheriff, he’d hand over the IDs he picked up off the operatives, but he gets the feeling that in this case, it might make some sense to hold on to them. The issue is more draug, of course, which happen to be stealing tech, which makes sense if they’re sentient and possibly behind most of the ‘zombie apocalypse’ stuff (at Beaumont’s request, maybe).
         It’s easy enough to destroy, salvage, or turn off a bunch of stuff that got left around after they fend off another wave of attack, and while it’s harder to stealth around with four people three of which haven’t gotten all the Assassin training yet, it conversely makes the fights a whole lot easier, and Lydia definitely needs some training with that, because it doesn’t look like she’s used her magic in a fight much. Unlike her grandmother. When possessing her. And some of them really need practice with the whole ‘working together’ bit.
         It does appear that Chelsea is on the same page as Ezio about how to get rid of things they don’t like. In this case, that would happen to be a giant one of those hatching pod things. Of course, setting it on fire also happens to let the giant clawed draug loose, but at least it’s weaker and not quite ready to fight so they make quick work of it.
         Chelsea wipes the sweat off her forehead and adjusts her grip on the hammer. Maybe she needs gloves with grip. Desmond resolves to keep an eye out. “Why don’t we see if they have anything else for us to do?”
         Lydia snorts. “They just asked us to do something because we were there and they didn’t want their technology falling into other people’s hands, not because they wanted us sticking around. We’d probably get more by spying on them.”
         Of course, that immediately sets off Chelsea. “Eavesdrop? That’s dishonorable.”
         Desmond shrugs, because...seriously, he’s an Assassin; that’s mild compared to some of the tasks they’re supposed to master, and she’s the one that came to him demanding to learn how to follow people like he did, so he’s not sure what other skills she’s expecting to accompany that. Maybe she’d excused the computer snooping with the fact that Pastor Henry had actually asked them to go there, but—seriously, there’s a lot and there will probably be more and she might not be cut out to be an Assassin if she’s going to be judging everything in terms of moral or immoral. “That’s actually one of the things I’m pretty good at, even if I’m not sure how well I can teach it, and Lydia has a point.”
         Chelsea looks torn. At some point, she’s going to have some kind of existential crisis, but he’s not sure if he should ask her when they’re alone or wait for her to reach the point she just can’t take it anymore. Still, she doesn’t protest any further, so that’s something.
         Fortunately, the Orochi have set their camp up on a bridge, so actually sneaking up to listen in on them isn’t too hard, actually. One of them complains about “that nosy kid with the RC plane,” while Ms. Radcliffe points out that “he hadn’t actually seen anything of importance”. Which, likely, means that they don’t have to worry about erasing a kid, which is good, because Desmond would absolutely stop them if they tried and he’s trying not to just go stabbing Orochi representatives before he’s got a better picture of where they fall in this whole goddamn mess. She looks conflicted about the whole thing, like she doesn’t fully trust her employer, but she doesn’t happen to be blue either, which probably means that, like Lucy, she’s trying to make her mind up on where she stands.
         Rukh takes the opportunity to carefully and cautiously take a bath, like the water is going to eat him, making sure to stay by Desmond’s feet so he can be picked up immediately if something goes wrong (and, consequently, throwing water all over Desmond’s jeans).
         And then Blake interrupts, and oh goodie they are in fact talking about zombies and have dealt with them before. Condition 17s, huh. There’s a name for zombie he hasn’t heard before. The zombies are getting worse, growing to the big zombies, which is something they’ve never seen before. That makes them incredibly lucky, because Desmond’s seen...what, at least three different ways to create them, thus far. Desmond and his ragtag recruits are themselves lucky this once because Ms. Radcliffe complains about an island, and Nate sneaks off and returns with a whispered confirmation that it’s visible from the opposite side of the bridge they’re snooping from. Chelsea accidentally kicks a rock, but by the time any of the Orochi come to look they’re all huddled in a beached boat with a note. About a treasure. With pop songs he actually knows as the clues to the coordinates.
         Chelsea might be judging him a little now, but they are absolutely going after the treasure. Which for once does happen to be doubloons and jewels, and he doesn’t care about the wet jeans this time or having to fight a zombie pirate, he is ecstatic, because he’d begun thinking the bars of gold were some kind of false advertising or something. Even Rukh, who gets sulky enough in the rain, doesn’t seem to mind having wet feathers, stuffing doubloons into his bag one at a time. Lydia takes a necklace (maybe since she still can’t wear the one Rukh broke, who knows). Chelsea doesn’t take anything. Nate pockets a little gold statue.
         And then the Bees hack the handler system. He doesn’t even know.
         After a watery trek back (and then Lydia, handily, using that spell to get them all dry again), they beat up more zombies and find the issue causing them to grow. It’s the infection, coming out of the ground like it’s actually oil. They manage to stop them up for the time being using rocks and magic, but it’s probably just a temporary measure, unfortunately. Still, if they manage to deal with all of this at the source, it’ll probably all work out.