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So… the Assassins were Crime Lords now.
Okay, well, technically Jacob and Evie were Crime Lords, the rest of them were just enablers. But still.
In the month since they’d arrived in New York, they’d taken down over a dozen gangs, destroyed hundreds of pounds of various drugs, stolen tens of thousands of dollars, and generously restocked their weapon supply.
All in all, not a bad start. Then the twins decided to re-enact their previous lives by using the raids to recruit the not-totally-horrible members, and it just kind of…took off from there.
At this point, it was the end of January, and they’d moved from the motel to an apartment. Well, they’d bought the abandoned eight story apartment building, and were in the process of having it brought up to code and the entire top two floor renovated just for them with the money Altair had used his Sight to earn on the stock market. Turns out being able to calculate the future exactly was very handy in making investments. Who knew?
The accounts they’d set up were completely legal and legitimate. They’d used the not-so-legal money to get ID’s set up for them, Altair spent some time learning the ins and out of the stock market, and now they had… quite a bit, between their two sources of income.
To prevent any suspicion, they kept all the money completely separate. Raid money went towards bribes, weapons, uniforms, armor, and paying their ‘employees’ (gang members), though the only thing they really did now was stand around scaring other, real gang members off and run the occasional errand.
The investment money was used for the apartment bills and a few other ‘official’ expenses, and the rest was split up evenly among the group, to do whatever they wanted with. Ezio, predictably, got himself some snazzy suits and then went and bought a half-dozen mom-and-pop stores, then got the twins to assign their Rooks to protect them.
(Desmond’s pretty sure he also almost became a pimp by accident by beating the crap out of some abusive ones. The Italian, thankfully, knew enough about modern day prostitution to be much more… subtle with it. He got the ones that wanted to work for him set up in a ‘massage parlor’. Downstairs, it really was one, for legal reasons and the people who didn’t actually want to be a sex worker. Upstairs, though… well, Desmond didn’t make the mistake of visiting again. Really not his scene. Jacob, however…)
The rest of them… kinda just pick up a hobby or two to take up their free time outside of their ‘night jobs’. Connor digs around and finds a group of Mohawk that meet up and perform traditional rituals every week, and he, alongside Eivor- who found the Native Americans more familiar than other modern groups- start attending the meetings. They usually come back happy, though Connor will still be a grouch about the age thing.
Altair finds a mosque and gets to have the long, in-depth religious talks he hadn’t gotten to have for decades before his death. He winds up getting along better with the older guys- no surprise- and also prevents several very upset young people from making some very radical decisions. Ninety years of experience and Apple knowledge tends to make you very good at negotiations, and Mentorship gives you the ability to deal with young hotheads.
Arno and Nikolai hit it off, for some reason, and just kinda disappear to… Desmond’s not sure, exactly, but they come back smelling like smoke and he’s their Mentor, not their dad, and they are technically way older than him so he’s not asking and they’re not telling.
Jacob and Evie spend pretty much all their time running their Rooks. They got a whole system set up, with colored pins denoting ranks and a bunch of rules in place that they enforce absolutely. They also keep bringing runaway and orphaned kids back to the apartment building, to the point where the apartments on the two floor below theirs have basically just become group homes. The older ones are allowed to earn money by running messages or spying or, if they have ID, getting a job at one of Ezio’s shops. A few…
Well, Desmond had to run interference on the whole ‘teaching parkour across the ten-story rooftops’ thing.
“If you want to start recruiting, fine! I won’t stop you! But I’m putting my foot down on taking them up any higher than two stories. Trial by fire doesn’t work great with modern architecture; there’s no convenient piles of hay here. They also didn’t get the same training we did. Start slower. Much slower. And lower. Capeesh?”
They agree, looking sheepish, which… yeah, he doesn’t blame them for forgetting that not every kid is trained to fight and free-run from birth like most of them were. He keeps a closer watch after that.
“No, you’re not giving them weapons unless they’re at least 16 either. Most modern kids don’t know sh*t about weapons except from movies with bad representation.”
Jacob pauses for a moment.
“So, giving them grappling bracers…?”
Desmond narrows his eyes.
“…Right. I’ll be right back.”
He winds up writing them a list.
Desmond stares at the screen.
“… Seriously?”
Arno and Nikolai aren’t the least bit cowed by his exasperated expression. Arno grins, very pleased with himself, while the Russian just crosses his arms with satisfaction practically dripping from his stance.
On the tv, firefighters are hosing down what’s left of a seaside warehouse, smoldering remains of the illegal alien weapons that were being smuggled through it all melted together in a very… immature shape. The new statue is settled right in front of the smoking warehouse, impossible to miss. A few firefighter can be seen looking at it in puzzlement or taking selfies.
“… Just try to keep it off the news next time, alright?”
Their matching smirks aren’t encouraging.
“Connor!”
The ‘boy’ glares up at Desmond from his low height.
“They started it, I merely finished it!”
Desmond sighs and pinches his nose.
“They’re teenagers. They thought you were a kid. Bullying is something I expect someone of your actual age to handle better than a real 13 year old.”
Connor huffs and crosses his arms, then scowls and drops them when he realizes it makes him look like a petulant child. ‘Which he is.’
“I didn’t even break anything. They will be fine.”
“Yeah, but now their parents are pissed, and if they find out who you are they’ll also be wondering why you’re not in school. So unless you feel like making some sacrifices for the sake of our cover…”
Connor agrees not to fight kids. Desmond gets their hackers to start coming up with online class records.
He presents them and all the ‘custody paperwork’ to a social worker a week later, after police ‘drag’ the Mohawk home from a fight in front of a store. He’s given a warning.
Desmond and Eivor laugh at him. Connor sulks.
“Uh Evie, what’s uh- what’s that?”
She looks up from her work on the… thing in her lap.
“I tried knitting after I retired, but didn’t get far before I had a heart attack. One of the Recruits mother showed her how, and she misses it, so I decided to give it another try and then we can do it together.”
Desmond looks at the tangle of yarn that is vaguely in the shape of a sock. If they were straight and wider in the middle than the ends.
“Okay then. Enjoy.”
Very lopsided, lumpy pairs of red and white socks appear on everyone’s beds over the next few weeks.
Ezio has papers scattered over the communal table, staring down at them like they hold the answers to the universe.
“Whatcha got there?”
“Hmmm?… Oh.”
He looks up from a newspaper clipping titled “Man Found Beaten Revealed as Pedophile”.
“I believe the same person is responsible for all of these acts of vengeance. Rapists, murderers, drug dealers- all attacked by a man in black, who took them down quickly and brutally.”
Desmond looks over the pages, taking in the titles. It’s mostly the same as the first, though one does have a- of course- blurry photo showing a man in tight black clothes with his upper face and hair covered in a ninja-esque mask. The papers are newspapers or online articles, but they all come from one place: Hell’s Kitchen.
“Huh. And why are you interested?”
Ezio begins to stack the papers into a folder, ordering them in some way known only to him. It’s a few moments before he speaks, his old Mentor voice coming out.
“He has not killed. The dregs of humanity are at his mercy, and even the most badly beaten did not die. He has very admirable self control, as well as skill to achieve this. But the area which he appears to be protecting is riddled with crime, and the twins have heard word of a rising crime lord who endeavors to control the others. This man with not make it long on his own.”
“So you plan to Recruit him, then? That’ll be your first student since uh what’s-her-name, the Chinese girl?”
Ezio chuckles.
“Shao Jun, and yes. Once I track him down, I will have to be careful of our introduction.”
Desmond snorts with a wry smile.
“Well, at least this one doesn’t use guns or swords.”
“I will be at the Mosque the whole day tomorrow. It is Mawlid an-Nabawī, and I will be helping to pass out donations and tell stories of Muhammad.”
Desmond looks at Altair and blinks a bit, then nods slowly, wondering why he’s being told this.
“Okay?”
Altair shifts his weight.
“You are welcome to join, if you like. It will be the first time I have celebrated it since the 13th century. It seems… very different, now.”
‘… Ah. Never expected the most famous Mentor in Assassin history to get nervous over something like this.’
“Yeah, sure. Is there something specific I need to wear or bring, or…?”
Altair smiles.
It’s worth the funny looks he gets all day for his ‘archaic’ Arabic.
And, yeah, that’s how they spend their first month in a different dimension. It uh, was not at all what Desmond ever expected to be doing with his life, but it is a lot more interesting. And honestly, watching a bunch of gangsters almost wet their pants when he and the others drop down around them seemingly out of nowhere?
That’s hilarious. Especially when they see Connor. Using their powers has become more natural as well, which… okay, so maybe that got them more attention than they wanted, but avoiding cameras and the Men in Black wasn’t all that difficult with Eagle Vision. Watching their stalkers try to follow them up the side of buildings was entertaining in its own right, too, though they seemed to be getting more skilled people to do the following.
Said skilled people start showing up in uniforms instead of civies or suits, which is how the Assassins learn about SHIELD. And Avengers, and the ‘god’ Thor, and… a whole kettle of other sh*t that none of them want to get involved in. They don’t have any influence in the political world build up yet, though Ezio and Altair are certainly making headway with that. Eagle Vision and Sight allows them to know who to target, and both the old Mentors have experience in the wheeling-and-dealing that comes with politicians. They’ll get there, eventually, and in a few months should be able to figure out if SHIELD is this worlds hidden Templar order or not.
If it is…
Well, they’ll figure it out then. For now, they have businesses, Recruits, and a growing criminal empire to run.
… Just as soon as Desmond confiscates those swords.
“Guys!”