Change the Rules

[madimpossibledreamer]

I thought I’d added in something foreshadowing for a bit in this chapter previously, but I hadn’t. I went back to fix that. That being said this is actually a really good place to start to pull this in.
Thought this note from my first draft might be of interest to readers. (((Desmond share something for once in your life and stop making this so much of a pain thank you no stop no getting super vague and don’t lie about it Desmond seriously)))
This is in fact the Stephen King reference character who’s also his own thing now, because both authors coexist in my version of the world. The plot of Anne is now partially a reference to Joyland though, mostly because it’s one of the Krieg books that doesn’t have even a blurb or excerpt. You can find Krieg listed on Google Books along with covers and such despite the fact that he’s fully fictional. The mentioned blog also exists. I think I mentioned that this game had ARG elements, enough that they had an in-game browser so you could find, say, Danny’s Twitter for answers to in-game missions. (I wonder if he’s moved to Bluesky.)
Also there’s some interesting stuff here now about commonalities between books Desmond’s liked, now that we have two mentioned: at minimum for some inexplicable reason he might like “outsider protagonist” stories.

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and Carter open up and they progress further on dismantling the machinery of the Park.
Word Count: 3085
Rating: Teen

          You’d think it’d be so much easier to keep going, now that they have an outline, some idea of what they’re doing now. You’d think, but it’s not quite that easy. Carter didn’t get to see much of Lorraine, but Alice did, and Desmond’s starting to wonder if Alice tends to react that strongly when she feels like she’s threatened. Not physically, but maybe emotionally. She probably wouldn’t recognize it that way, but she might not fully understand herself (or just might be in denial). And the fog (and the effect of the Park) are starting to roll back in. They’re all a little shaken, but it’s gotta get done, and just standing around isn’t going to help. He may or may not keep checking Shaun’s charm to make sure it’s there, and yeah, it’s helping, but they really have to get a move on.
          Still, he has to lighten the mood somehow, especially after Carter bumps literally into one of the carnie-zombies and starts apologizing before swallowing it, shivering all over. It just keeps shuffling past like it hadn’t even noticed. “So, you ever been to one of these places before? Aside from the time you and Danny tried to take this one down, I mean.”
          She shakes her head, a little sad. “My powers kicked in pretty early. Danny kept making X-Men references, if it helps.” When he doesn’t show any recognition, she sighs.
          He hadn’t really meant to bring down the mood. “It’s okay if you don’t…” he starts, but she just shakes her head.
          “I think it’s probably a good idea to air this out, you know? So it can’t be used against me.” That’s...actually, yeah. He’d been thinking about if they say it out loud, the Park could hear them, somehow, but that’s complete bullshit, isn’t it? Because it’d been able to pluck those memories right out of their minds anyway. “So, the explosion thing? That’s something I’ve been doing since I was a kid. Only my parents had absolutely no experience with any of this, and no clue how to help me.” She wraps her arms around herself, shivering like she’s cold. Given the way the fog clings, maybe that’s actually the case. “The Illuminati found me before I actually seriously hurt anybody, but it was a near thing, and…” She bites her lip. “Let’s just say prom went badly last year, before any of this zombie stuff. Miss Usher stepped in to help me. Mr. Montag, too, but he honestly…” she winces. “He scares me? It sounds mean to say it like that, and I don’t think he’d actually hurt anybody on purpose, but sometimes he’s talking about the Old Days or whatever and doesn’t get just how not-normal it all is. Sometimes he’ll reassure me that at least I haven’t managed to accidentally curse anybody to death or anything and I think he really thinks that’ll help somehow, when it just makes me worry about what will happen if I never fully work this out. Miss Usher gets it, but then, she’s in it for the love of teaching. Not that...I think the Headmaster likes what he’s doing, too, but he keeps expecting us all to be exactly like him.”
          That’s actually really a good way to put it. “Not like he’s not trying to put himself in others’ shoes. Like he genuinely has no idea other people don’t think the same way he does.”
          “Yeah!” Her enthusiasm is maybe a little over the top (and loud, which is a little disconcerting on this island), but she’s also a teenager.
          Desmond’s first instinct is to just say nothing. He’s spent all his life trying to keep these kinds of secrets. Even when he hadn’t believed anymore, he didn’t want his family finding him and opening up just got him weird looks, and he’d wanted so desperately to fit in, as much as he could. But he’s not going to get over this if he doesn’t even start trying, either. “I’ve never been to one personally, but I’ve read about one once. Horror story kind of like this, actually. I grew up in...well, it was pretty much a cult, and when I got out I had issues getting close to people.” Honestly, that’s probably an understatement, but he’s trying to keep it quick and simple. “So I didn’t have anyone too close, but I did have friends. One time we were driving to one of the clubs and Tiana asks me what kind of books I liked, and I really had no clue.” He still remembers them teasing him, after a few more questions about his preferences, that they’re not trying to get him to reveal state secrets or anything. It’d been equally funny and frustrating, because he’d wanted to talk. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Rukh move his head like he’s trying to get a better eye on Desmond, like seeing and hearing are somehow linked. Maybe. It’s possible he’s looking at something in the fog, too, but isn’t acting alarmed. “One day she just shows up at the bar with this book, beat up to all hell, missing the back cover, and super rude because she nearly made me cry at work. I wasn’t used to getting stuff.” Except for, you know, better Hidden Blades, practical stuff he could use as an Assassin. Nothing that would be a ‘distraction’. He only got birthday cakes because his mom put her foot down for once. Carter smiles, but they’re both startled as Alice actually laughs. “I treasured that thing. Airport paperback, she said, and from what the businessmen and women who came through said, that means it’s supposed to be lower quality, but it was good enough for me.”
          “So what was it about?” Carter asks, genuinely curious.
          “A young woman went to go work at an amusement park for a summer, only there’s a couple deaths in the park and after some digging she finds out that her entire family line is cursed with the ability to see and kill ghosts. Some of them were actually murders disguised as accidents.” Something about the way it was described felt familiar, familiar enough he’d actually been on edge for a bit after finishing it until he was fairly sure that Tiana wasn’t actually an undercover Assassin or Templar or whatever. Anne, getting used to the violence. How isolating it felt, trying not to talk about it. But she’d actually gotten to do what they’d been promising, too—fighting evil, saving the world, not just making up things. Or at least, that’s what he’d thought. “She’s doing well, getting into the swing of her new job and dealing with the ghosts after dark and she even meets this guy she likes, but he turns up dead and it all starts to go wrong…” He trails off, glancing back involuntarily towards the Ferris Wheel, which is only visible for a second through the fog before it’s gone again. “...He’d died in an accident on the Ferris Wheel.” That sounds familiar, and he hadn’t even bothered thinking about the implications because he was so used to déjà vu in this world. If it’s relevant, though, that’s even weirder, because he’d read it in the other world, so how the hell would some author there know about this? Some Piece of Eden or something?
          And then Carter just asks brightly, “It wasn’t actually called Anne, was it?”
          It’s his turn to slowly turn to stare at her.
          “Sam Krieg, right? He was supposedly visiting Solomon Island, at least according to some weirdo local blogger.” Okay. The same guy existing in both worlds, yeah, whatever, Desmond’s seen that before, but the same exact book existing close enough she could guess by a description is a little weird even by this world’s standards.
          “...Yeah.” Okay, piece that together with what he’s learned already. The possession of employees to kill and harvest more souls may or may not be true but it doesn’t matter too much at this point anyway, since the Park is closed and that part of the story would already have been over. “She couldn’t do anything to the bogeyman or his lieutenants until she pulled herself into the ghost world, too, which could have killed her. Technically...it did, but whether she could get back was a different story. It involved a ritual. I’m guessing that’s what we’re doing right now.” He’d been really torn on the ending, though. She’d managed to take out the bogeyman, but gotten stuck, and with the way ghosts decay in the story that means that she’d end up a monster someone else would have to take out, eventually. Which, actually, if it’s some kind of...seeing the future, or whatever, that means that Winter’s trying to get eternal life through this. Although, hang on, wasn’t that the sort of thing an Apple could just show someone, particularly if they happened to be an author looking for inspiration? They’d never figured out how powerful the things were.
          “If it helps, this doesn’t have to go exactly the same for multiple reasons. Including the fact that there was a sequel. She gets resurrected, which isn’t too much of a spoiler given that that’s part of the title.” Given the fact that she’d succeeded but couldn’t get back, yeah, it absolutely helps.
          He turns to Alice, given that she’s been really quiet, but she’s actually scrunching her face in concentration like she’s furiously taking mental notes. She doesn’t let anyone point it out, though, starting to drag him along, and as he’d expected, she is absolutely stronger than your average little girl.
          As they approach the ride labeled the ‘Octotron’ (with some weird beaked-thing with ‘arms’—wait, that’s right, octopuses have beaks, don’t they, that was one of those random trivia facts—holding the cars you’re probably supposed to sit in), another one of those carnie-zombies stands in front of the booth. It looks kind of like a malfunctioning wind-up toy, jerkily repeating the same movements over and over. It’s hard to make out what it’s doing, exactly, but if Desmond had to guess, it’s ‘taking tickets’ and then waving nonexistent people through.
          He feels the red circuitry on the ground before he spots it. He’s more aware of what it’s doing, and if the sudden feeling of dread is due to that and not him being a little too self-conscious about what he’s about to help Carter do, then this machinery is definitely a huge part of how the Park works. Not all of it, probably, but as long as he manages to assassinate this bogeyman and anything else standing in his way, they can cleanse this place right off the map. Hopefully.
          It’s also, weirdly enough, easier to notice now than before, and he’s pretty sure it’s weaker. His best guess for how that works is that when it was stronger, it was better at overwhelming his mind. This time, with it being weaker, he’s got a clearer head better able to notice this kind of thing.
          Just for luck, he ends up touching Shaun’s charm before they start. It’s not the same, but it’s still nice, like good alcohol or coffee or food, or just those little things that happen on the days when everything’s going right for once. Just all the little things.
          At least this time, it goes smoother. Carter still couldn’t do this on her own, but it feels like she’s following along, at least. He definitely spaces out for a moment after they’re done, though, which means that when the ride starts back up, jerky and thankfully not at full speed, it smacks him right in the back and he just goes down. Carter at least is able to throw herself down before it can hit her. Alice apparently panics and drags them both out of the way fast enough she actually digs grooves in the ground. At least it’s not concrete. Or very rocky. It still hurts, kinda like rug burn.
          And then, very determinedly, she goes about using chaos magic to heal. It’s a struggle, but she snarls, “I want to do this,” at Desmond when he tries to do it instead, and Rukh doesn’t seem inclined to get involved, so he just lets her do her thing with an encouraging smile.
          From what he can tell, it’s not natural, at least, not by the common wisdom or whatever. Nate hadn’t bothered to try to use it for healing, either, using blood magic instead. It also feels like a very, very narrow slice of the Calculations, using some sort of pre-set instructions, most of which concentrate on destruction, so yeah, no wonder she’s having issues with it.
          It’s not just on her or how she’s been taught, though. Because if you think about it, there’s way more ways that things can go wrong than how they can go right, and Desmond can now sift through the possibilities to find the right one even if it’s a needle in some random haystack in the entirety of the Holy Land, or ask the Calculations to do the work for him, or...something. Whatever, so sue him, he’s flying blind here, so it’s not like he’s got the words to describe it precisely down to the last detail. She might be able to do it on her own—and it’s seeming like she’s going to pull it off through sheer stubbornness (she should trade some tips about how to pull that off with Chelsea) and whatever weird non-human leg up she’s got than anything else—but it’s so much more difficult than it would be for him. And—actually, you know, that’s not as bad a metaphor as he’d thought, because that’s kind of what the rest of this is, too. Shaun had showed him a couple different healing spells among all the other spells he’d insisted Desmond learn, giving him a copy of the instructions, and all he needed to do was copy it down. The more he ‘casts’ them, the easier it becomes, while things he’s never done before are much slower but doable. Mostly. He’s still not sure what he’d done with the janitor dude and should probably take that kinda thing slower, take more precautions, get juiced up beforehand, stuff like that.
          When she finally finishes, it’s kind of obvious, in that he suddenly feels fine (and so does Carter, huh, he hadn’t even realized that she was doing multi-target, since most of the time unless he was putting up blood magic barriers Nate didn’t do that, either) and Alice stumbles a little. He has to scramble to keep her upright.
          “Hey, are you okay?” he asks her, a little concerned.
          She just grins at him. The pointed teeth are a little emphasized by a slightly feral look to her eyes. “‘It cannot be done,’” she parrots mockingly. He’s...absolutely not going to ask what that’s about. Not yet, anyway. She’s not going to answer yet. She’s starting to believe, and she trusts him, but she’s not quite there yet.
          “Seems done to me,” he responds, in mock thought, and her grin only grows.
          She pulls them to their feet, not even bothering to do it one at a time, and they barely take a few steps toward the next map location, Sideshow Alley if he remembers correctly, when the wards all go down simultaneously, like a really violent bubble bursting. Between Rukh flapping a little, Carter flinching, and Alice stiffening, he doesn’t have to ask if they feel it too.
          That doesn’t last long before there’s another rush of power Desmond recognizes from the point he’d been heading back to his own body. Though, here’s another huh moment, he can’t pick them apart as clearly—they’re all there, sure, but feeling anybody individually just isn’t happening like this. Not that he feels like trying, not when it’s not that relevant. Either way, it’s welcome. Even with the bruise gone, he’d still felt tired after every single time they’ve tried doing this. Suddenly he feels like he could keep doing this all day, and from Carter’s expression, she agrees.
          Which is maybe part of why none of them are exactly ready for it when one of the carnie-zombies runs past, as per usual, and then slows down, turning to look at them very, very slowly. It might be smiling. “Um.”
          Alice, probably somewhat predictably, doesn’t wait for it to actually attack or call for friends. She just barbeques it with prejudice. She’s actually left a roasted char mark where it had been standing.
          He glances to where the one had been standing by the ticket booth. It’s still there, but it’s sniffing at the air, gestures gone, and then...reality ripples, like a mirage in the desert, and it’s back to how it had been. It’s not like they’d been hallucinating, either; Desmond discreetly confirms that with the Calculations, and the ticket booth zombie shakes its head slowly (which, uh, it really probably shouldn’t do, given that if it’s at all aware of pain it probably wouldn’t like what that does to its jaw) and goes back to what it was doing before.
          They barely make it into the “alley” (which is more like just a collection of rotting booths with fallen signs and molding stuffed animals, among other prizes) when the world ripples again, turning grey. Mostly. Aside from the spreading red that is obviously blood, just out of sight, and then a blood-spattered chipmunk costume walks into the open. Holding a blood-spattered icepick, which looks like the same exact one Lorraine had tried to stab out his eyes with. “I, uh, think I know one of the other lieutenants, besides possibly Lorraine.” He manages to sound calm. It’s kind of an achievement.
          “That’s, uh. Chad the Chipmunk. The mascot, according to the papers. He’s the one that got this place shut down, because his murders of teenagers were in plain view of anybody around at the time watching the ice sculpting show, so Winter’s money couldn’t just sweep it under the rug. I see him too.” Carter is trying to sound calm, but she’s definitely not succeeding.
          It twists right back before the figure can do much more than stare, and it seems stable for the moment, but probably the more of these they break, the worse it’s going to get, until they’re fully in the world they can actually take the fight to the bogeyman himself.