By Another Name

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Agent or Novice, Desmond can at least be happy that they all seem to be learning something.
Word Count: 3343
Rating: Teen

 

         Danny is hilariously bad at predicting Desmond’s luck, or his definition of ‘easy’ needs some fine-tuning. Between Desmond’s and his ancestors’ ‘side quests’, as Rebecca had put it, he’d kind of been expecting this, at least. At least Alice is having some fun with a wide, fangy smile, but Bob keeps speeding up even faster and making some whimpering-like sounds, so he calls her off pretty quickly. Terrorizing the little moth-creature hadn’t been the point. Even Lydia’s coaxing spells don’t help (and she even gets frustrated enough to call in her grandmother to add some extra oomph). When he reaches his hand toward the hole—not into it, just towards it within sniffing distance, if that’s a thing ak’ab do—it spits up a little blood on him. That’s something he hadn’t seen the big ones do before, though they had taken care of them pretty carefully without too much trouble. It burns slightly, even after he’s wiped off his hand. “Only the rare ones do that,” Ligeia announces cheerfully before leaving again.
         “Why couldn’t Danny have stayed on the line to help?” Lydia mutters, outright pouting.
         Desmond shrugs. “Probably trying to help Chelsea out by flying the drone or something. Come on, Bob, we’re trying to help.” At least he’s got a ton of practice crouching, or his legs would be getting tired by now. Lydia’s definitely started getting a cramp. Alice hasn’t moved since going to sit on the couch, but then, he’s not even sure if she’s blinked, just staring fixedly at the hole in the wall.
         What lures the wayward death moth in the end is apparently Rukh making a show of eating some of the jerky after Desmond tears it open, and suddenly the little moth comes flying out of the hole in the wall to knock Rukh over.
         “Play nicely,” Desmond scolds Bob, as if the ak’ab is going to understand a word he says, and it shifts, mouth-tentacle things (okay, they’re a little freakier close up, but they’d been so easy for him to dodge he hadn’t gotten a good look before now) coming in and out of its mouth, and then it makes a very warped version of a trill, entire body shaking with the movement, slowly sidling up to Desmond like it’s either sorry or pretending it is. Like it can understand him.
         Rukh croaks angrily, flying over to land closer to Desmond. Bob shuffles a little and then gets closer to Rukh instead. Who flaps a bit and then glances at Desmond, as if he’s going to have a clue what to do with the weird new creature.
         If Rukh is going to get jealous about more animals, that kind of puts his entire ‘menagerie army’ plot on hold. “I’ve got enough food to feed you both, you know.”
         Rukh considers that carefully, moving his head and legs around a little as if he’s trying to size up the newcomer, and then finally traps a bit of the jerky in his claws, tearing off a small chunk which he offers to Bob. Bob squeals a little happily this time, tendrils reaching out and pulling the food directly into his mouth.
         “So you’re okay with this as long as you’re the one in charge, huh?” Rukh doesn’t bother with any noise or even body language, just stares blankly, and funnily enough Desmond is pretty sure he’s at least once given that look to somebody as Altaïr. He snorts. “Fair enough, buddy.” He pets Rukh’s head and Bob shoves a wing into his other hand because he’s apparently decided he wants to be in on the fun, delaying them another half an hour. Fortunately, Bob’s easy enough to appease by handing him off to someone else, and he walks back outside to the landing to the sound of Lydia attempting to convince Alice and Bob that getting along would be a good idea, actually.
         He’s starting the climb to the roof when Rukh decides to climb him, sharp claws digging in, and even if his hoodie isn’t white anymore the blood’s still probably going to show. It’s also slightly unbalancing in a way he’s getting more used to when it comes to Rukh taking off and landing. “Do you mind?”
         Rukh croaks lowly and keeps climbing. “Ow. That’s my scalp, asshole.”
         Rukh croaks again, rubbing his beak along Desmond’s head in the way he’s figured out probably means ‘apology’ before hopping off onto the roof. “Absolutely none of that was necessary. You realize that.” He probably does, honestly, and he’s just being a brat. Still, after a quick heal, it’s not too bad of a climb, though he’s really kind of looking forward to, say, Tokyo, where it might actually be a little more of a challenge.
         It’s sadly not in the tallest tree, but then, maybe they just went for the sturdiest instead, because it really looks like it’s been here a while. Still, there’s a couple of things he can make out—a Ferris Wheel and roller coaster, which he can identify even though he’s never actually been on one personally, and maybe a distant lighthouse? Mostly just the light. It reaches all the way out here—but then, if it didn’t it’d probably be really bad at its job of warning passing ships. He closes his eyes. Up here, it almost feels peaceful, above it all. The light breeze doesn’t bring the smell of death and decay. And using Eagle Vision up here is so grounding. For a moment he can feel each individual ak’ab below ready to crush them all and feed them to their young, scarecrows with tinier straw dolls and chainsaws, zombies, Draug out near the ocean, before it gets to be too much and he has to close his eyes again at the sensation. Still...that’s longer than last time, but on the other hand, pushing this has to have some kind of side effects and he’s not sure he’ll like those.
         “Go down the normal way,” he calls down, because he’s really not sure if any of them can actually do a Leap of Faith, and then he jumps. It seemed like a good idea, but when he’s coughing out spores, it turns out that Eagle Vision’s definition of ‘safe landing’ is not remotely the same thing as ‘comfortable landing’. You’d think he’d have remembered that from days of finding straw in irritating places, but no, apparently that slipped his mind because...okay, it’s not exactly that he’s getting bored, obviously, there’s a lot to do, but just goofing off and climbing things and the like, not so much. Rukh lands and starts gingerly picking strands of fungus off Desmond’s hoodie with his beak.
         And then there’s more excited-slash-terrified squealing from Bob, and he glances up just to watch a small body make a picture-perfect Leap of Faith. Aside from the fact that her hands aren’t free.
         “Alice.” His disappointed voice invokes his dad’s, and he flinches at the same time Alice does. “You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Hopefully that’s softened it enough, because seriously the last thing this strange nonhuman kid needs is William-style parenting. Bob sits there in her arms, frozen aside from trembling a little.
         “I’m very good at copying,” she responds defensively. She’d probably cross her arms if they were free.
         “Well, next time, try not to do it with Bob. You don’t want him to get hurt, do you?” And then of course Bob has to undermine his point before deciding after all the scary stuff is over that apparently he really enjoyed that, because he squeals and starts jumping around in Alice’s arms.
         Her face is blank as she glances back toward the overly excited moth in her arms and then back at Desmond. She nods. “I knew we would be fine,” she answers, voice a little quiet and subdued. It hadn’t even occurred to her that it would freak out another living creature, huh.
         “As long as you’re thinking about that next time, you’re learning from your mistakes,” he reassures her, fluffing her hair—huh, he’d almost expected to feel horns, but no, there’s nothing. She snarls at him a little, fang showing, but she doesn’t do...whatever it is that she did last time, so she must not have completely hated that.
         Lydia’s kind of coming down the ladder a little too fast, so—yep, she’s got splinters. Otherwise, not bad form. “That,” she announces loudly, “...was cool.”
         Alice grins slightly, still a little unsure. “I will be more careful,” she promises quietly. One thing Danny was not wrong about, apparently? Bob stands completely calmly for the leash to be put on. It’s surreal in a way that makes him briefly go ‘oh yeah, this is my life now, what the hell’ before the thought that he can and absolutely should take a picture and send it to Rebecca and Shaun, because Rebecca will find it funny and Shaun will have an amusing rant and everything feels normal again. Alice and Bob pose for the picture, and Alice even manages to look halfway like a normal girl (aside from the eyes).
         “Do you want the picture?” She looks thoughtful in a way that says she does, but doesn’t want to say so, and in any case he’s pretty sure she doesn’t have a phone, so he just ends up asking Rebecca to print out a copy.
         Out of curiosity, he decides to go check out the tests of courage, just in case. They do actually feel like they’re doing something, so this is probably some type of ritual passed down through...generations of kids. The terminology, if you think about it, is technically correct, but putting it that way just sounds weird.
         And then Bob and Alice both want to join in when they get ambushed. Bob pulls his leash free, charging and growling like he’s a lion and not about a quarter of the size of his bigger cousins or whatever. It also doesn’t help him sound more fierce and scary that he can’t actually keep the growl going. Alice actually breathes fire. Which brings more ‘is she actually a dragon’ thoughts that he promptly shoves into a mental closet because now isn’t the time, even though he hasn’t determined what the proper time for a mental breakdown about that is. Probably after all the other ones he’s putting off. And they’re too in the middle of trying not to get wounded or accidentally stab anyone to say anything in the moment.
         It’s after, when he’s healing her ribs because despite her flat look and refusal to answer if she was hurt, getting pinned by a giant murderous moth against a tree has to have done some damage, that he tells her, “You don’t have to fight.”
         She’s completely mystified like she can’t even imagine the concept. “...Existence is struggle, is it not?”
         “It can be, yeah, but.” It never quite wasn’t, true, but he didn’t have a typical upbringing. “Look, don’t you ever want to be just a kid?”
         “I am not,” she states simply, but she’s a little confused by the question.         “Yeah, okay, then tell me you’re not young for...whatever you are.” She stays silent, which means she can’t. “Look, trying out new things and experiences is how people grow, right?”
         She narrows her eyes, quiet as she thinks about it. “You’re attempting to ensure I make a decision as to whether to fight. If they wish me dead, I will not allow them to complete their schemes.”
         ...That...hadn’t quite been what he’d been getting at, but then, he’s one to talk. Just...he’ll be the first to say William hadn’t exactly been a role model when it came to raising kids. “Or you could sneak off, or whatever. The goal is, you only fight when you want to, and you try to stay out of the way of attacks so you don’t need healing like this.”
         “I still don’t believe in free will,” she announces, loud and seemingly unconcerned.
         And he grins and pats her arm. “Give me some time.” She’s not there yet, but at least she seems vaguely impressed by his confidence, even though she probably doesn’t believe in that either.
         It does seem like he’s made some sort of impact, because Alice then decides of her own volition to attack one of the biggest ak’ab they’ve seen without even waiting for backup, claiming it’s “important” (it does show up as gold under Eagle Vision, so she’s not even wrong, there) and picks a fight with the Sleeping One wendigo, too, rather than hiding like the test calls for. It’s a pretty good ambush, though, he’ll give her that. The wendigo is too stunned to run away—far away, anyway. Getting to the next spot is actually worse. Normally, a narrow rock bridge over a drop would barely even register (yeah, okay, part of that is his brain going ‘that height is just a computer simulation’, but he’s had a lot of practice besides. Part of it—and, surprisingly, only part of it—is that he’s very carefully watching his line of Novices (and...Bob, who counts as...something, but probably not a Novice, though he’s pretty sure Rebecca would love to design an Assassin outfit for him somewhere after she starts worrying about cult recruitment) to make sure none of them fall off and break a leg or worse. Something is living in there, on the other side of the rocks, something that he doesn’t want to meet, and he’s absolutely listening to his gut on that one. It goes from ‘normal levels of danger’ to ‘earth-shaking danger’ right under the bridge, and he isn’t quite sure if he’s ready for that, yet.
         Apparently one of the Filth-infected humans (that comes out of an actual pool of Filth the test said to spit into, so yeah, the League had fought legit Filth-humans and lived to tell the tale, how the actual hell, he’s going to have to bug Danny for pointers) looks like something called Venom? Lydia refuses to explain. At this point he’s going to throw Rebecca, Danny, and Lydia into a room and see which one of them runs out of references first. Personally he’s not a fan—it keeps using tendrils to pull them into the pool and he’s going to need a shower again after this. And they’re almost impossible to sneak by, too. He’s guessing they’re not using their eyes anymore.

         They haven’t quite made it back to town when Chelsea calls. “I’m sorry; I failed.” She sounds genuinely torn up about it too.
         “You’re still in one piece. We’ll get another chance, I’m pretty sure.” Because they’ve been this persistent so far. They’re not gonna give up now, so Chelsea shouldn’t either.
         Nate adds (they’re apparently on speaker, and Desmond can hear the distant sound of gunfire), “Morninglight’s up in arms. Far as I can tell, it’s ‘cause Cassie still hasn’t shown up. She’s probably ditched them for good.” Good to know, Desmond guesses, though he’s not looking forward to that reunion, no matter how much (or maybe because) she seemed to be looking forward to it. “Thanks. Nothing else new?”
         “Like new people, or whatever? Nope.” Well, he’s definitely looking out for the right things, at least.
         “And Orochi are…” Chelsea swallows. “You might’ve been right, Desmond. We found more bodies. They’ve been sending out one or two to try to get more of the tech and...I don’t know.”
         “I’ve definitely heard somebody joke about the lifespan of gnats at The Horned God,” Nate mentions helpfully, and Desmond snorts. That’s kind of rude, making fun of someone’s death like that, but on the other hand, if they’re basically Abstergo guards, and not even the ones who know too much about situations and are sent in to deal with Isu stuff with a minimum of warning...yeah. That’s kind of inevitable.
         “There’s...a lot more of them than there were when we snuck in,” Chelsea adds.
         “That’s not on us. Sounds like their superiors care more about the tech than their actual personnel.” He’s seen a lot of that over the years.
         “That’s unforgivable.” So it’s more like she’s channeling her anger and binary worldview rather than replacing it entirely. He’s gonna have to work with her on that, later.
         That being said...she’s also not wrong. “Yeah, it is, but I get the feeling some of them, particularly at the top, aren’t very good people.” Especially Chandra. Even thinking of the guy has a reddish tinge. Which...he could be imagining things, or misinterpreting something. He can’t confirm he’s completely doing it right.
         “Danny’s looking, but he hasn’t seen anything incriminating yet. Two Illuminati came through the police station, but they’d come from Agartha according to Boone—shortly after Javier. Probably waited until after so he couldn’t pick a fight. Nobody even went through Kingsmouth in any of the cameras we have set up.” So the mystery shooter probably knew about the surveillance and skirted around it. Even though there’s a bigger chance of wendigo and bigger zombie groups that way.
         “Gotcha. You did good, both of you.” Lydia starts pouting and it’s all he can do to keep his mind on track and not comparing her to Rukh sulking. “You can head back if you want. We’re probably going to head to the amusement park after lunch.” And a quick shower. He’ll clear some of the zombies off the Council’s back porch as repayment. Though he’s gotta find something more substantial to pay back the rum.
         “See you soon,” Nate confirms cheerfully.
         John Wolf’s happy to see them again in one piece, and mentions something else interesting after they get in another quick shower (though maybe he’s going to have to figure out something else, if they’re going to keep running into this Filth-stuff, ugh—will Anima Wells do the trick, maybe?). “While you were gone, I spotted figures in purple lurking around the park, putting up cameras. They might be spying on a rich man who drove up, outside the gates. I followed them back to a house. It’d be easier for you.”
         “Thanks.” And man, there’s even freshly made coffee. It’s not even grounds. It’s the good stuff. Not that he’s picky; he’ll drink or eat practically anything, but there’s something just special about the real deal. He absolutely needs to save people from Templars more often. He’s definitely feeling a lot better after this. Step one is going to be getting the ‘rich man’ out of danger—probably escorting him back to the Council safehouse. A rich man, though. “Not Chandra?” John stares blankly, so he fishes out his phone and searches—ah, yep, this picture still has a red aura around it, too. Would Beaumont’s, if he had a picture of the guy?
         “Ah. No, it was a different man. I don’t think he was used to driving himself.” So the kind of rich that requires a driver, gotcha. Well, at least there’s some relief. Sure, this is probably going to turn out to be some other kind of nightmare, but at least it isn’t meeting the guy his Eagle Vision insists on painting red in every photo. Well. Not yet, anyway.
         Alice wanders in, happily chewing on an apple.
         “Sorry your first experience with an amusement park is going to be, well, that,” he waves vaguely in the direction of it.
         Alice politely waits until she’s done chewing to reply. “I suspect this is going to be more educational in any case.” ...Yeah. Probably.
         It’ll be his first visit, too, so… “Maybe we’ll learn something.”
         “And if not, I can always end up taking you both to the real deal,” Lydia promises cheerfully. You’d probably get a great view, especially for Eagle Vision...probably couldn’t do a Leap of Faith, though. Not unless it’s abandoned. Maybe that means they can work on Alice’s climbing (maybe Lydia too, though she’s definitely improving) and Leap of Faith; that definitely helps when you’re trying to escape somewhere you don’t want to be...