Here we are my first ever Assassin's Creed fanfic. Inspired by the movie Coco.

Chapter 1

Desmond was pushing himself even as his lungs begged for mercy along with every muscle in his body, but he didn't stop.

He couldn't stop. Not when he was so close.

He ran through the trees, jumping over fallen trunks and branches. He pushed through briars and shrubbery, ignoring the pain as thorns cut whatever skin was exposed. Still Desmond did not stop. If he could reach his destination, he was home free.

He could hear his pursuers behind him, coming closer. They were gaining on him, Desmond could feel it. He had to lose them somehow. The trees had lost most of their leaves, leaving them exposed, but Desmond has always been a fast climber, and he was light. They couldn't catch him if he was in the trees.

Decision made, Desmond climbed the nearest tree with branches just low enough for him to grab. His fingerless gloved hands scraped the bark painfully, but Desmond was mostly numb from the cold and the adrenaline rushing through him. He lifted himself up, finding strong branches to hold his weight until he was high enough where he couldn't be reached. The trees were close enough he could jump from branch to branch, swinging like a monkey. However, Desmond knew to be careful. One false move and he would fall twenty feet to the ground. Not enough to kill him, but the fall would be painful. From behind, he heard his pursuers cussing, and he allowed himself to grin. His tactic was working. His pursuers were too heavy to climb the lower branches, and they would have a hard time catching him on foot. Ha!

He was almost there. Desmond could feel the excitement burning through his veins despite the temperature.

Then it happened.

All of a sudden, his vision changed. His surroundings were gray. Oh no, not again, Desmond thought in despair. Please not now. This happened at the worst times ever. So distracted was he from his change of vision he didn't even realized the direction he was going until it was too late. He shook his head and blinked several times and his vision returned to normal.

The trees were getting thinner, more spread apart. It was getting more difficult to grab branches close enough to reach, but if he stopped and went to the ground his pursuers would easily catch him. Watching his balance, Desmond ran as fast as he dared and jumped. Arms stretched out, he reached for the nearest branch… and caught it.

A smile appeared on Desmond's face until he heard the sickening snap. The smile was wiped clean off his face, and horror struck him as he saw the branch he held onto snapping. He was dangling with nothing below him but the ground. He hurried to grab the stronger part of the branch, but he wasn't quick enough.

He felt his stomach rising to come up as he fell. He hit branches that snapped upon impact. Desmond even tried reaching out to the side of the tree until he landed hard on his hide.

He tasted blood and dirt, and the pain was so bad he didn't think he could move. He thought he heard someone call out his name, but his head was aching. Suddenly, he felt himself being turned onto his back, and he groaned in pain. He opened his eyes and saw the face of Mark, one of the older kids who trained and lived on the farm.

Mark grinned as Desmond blinked at him. "And he's alive!"

Desmond moaned, bringing a hand to his head. He could already feel a headache coming. Mark held out his hand, and Desmond took it, allowing the older boy to hoist him up as everyone came out of the trees and shrubbery.

"So close," Mark said, still grinning annoyingly like he did every time Desmond screw up.

The exercise.

He had been so close. He was supposed to infiltrate the older kids' camp, snatch a book, and return without getting caught. Well, he got caught.

Dad's never going to let me hear the end of this when he finds out.

Four older kids and their trainer Jack came out of the woods and into the clearing. Jack was around the same age as Desmond's dad with a scar cutting across his left eye, and a stare as unforgiving as Desmond's father when he was severely upset or annoyed.

"You got careless, Miles," the older man began.

Desmond tuned the man out as he began his lecture on all the things he did wrong.

Stupid vision. At times it felt like it was more of a hindrance than an advantage. He had discovered it over a year ago when he had gotten lost in the woods during a training exercise with his father. He had been so scared, lost in the middle of the woods with his father nowhere in sight. Then all of a sudden, his vision had changed. His surroundings had been gray, but farther away he had seen a figure of gold and somehow knew it was his father. He had also seen red shapes that he figured out to be wolves, and had been able to avoid them and reach his father without further trouble. That had been the one his strange vision had helped him. Other times it would just randomly happen, especially at the absolute worst times. To this day, Desmond still didn't know how it came and went. He knew it wasn't normal, which is why he had never told anyone, not even his own parents. After all, who would believe him?

When Jack reached the end of his rant, Desmond made sure to nod and say, "Yes sir," to show that he had been listening.

"Good. Now get yourself cleaned up at the Farm. The rest of you back to camp," Jack ordered.

One of the girls spoke up before they left. "Can I have my book back?"

Desmond unzipped his jacket where he had stashed it and handed it to her. He then made his way back farm, Jack close behind him.

He took the time to look and feel his injuries as he walked. His hands were scuffed up from the tree bark but his gloves had helped protect him from the worst. His muscles ached, especially his arm, but amazingly it didn't seem like he had broken anything. His face on the other hand… Desmond felt the right side of his mouth and hissed as his fingers brushed against the tender skin that had been broken either by a rock or his own teeth for all he knew. Either way it hurt like a bitch.

They made it out of the woods and the Farm was right there where less than a dozen houses were and on the far side behind them was an old looking farmhouse that looked like it had once held a lot of livestock. It looked innocent on the outside, but Desmond knew better. It was where all the weapons and supplies were stored for an invasion, and other items that Desmond and everyone in the community were forbidden to even look at. Everyone except his parents. His parents kept these items in a vault locked under a code only they knew.

Desmond and Jack made it to his house just in time to see Desmond's mother taking down the last bits of laundry hanging outside.

She looked up and saw them, and Desmond could see the worry in her eyes as she set the laundry basket down and walked over to them. She lifted Desmond's chin and took in his injuries. "Oh, Desmond, not again."

Desmond pulled away from her gentle touch. "I'm fine. It's just a scratch."

His mother frowned. "That's more than a scratch young man."

"Is Bill in?" Jack interrupted.

Desmond's mother nodded her head towards the house. "In his study."

"Thanks Liz." With that he left both mother and son to talk to Desmond's father.

Liz made Desmond come inside to the kitchen where she began to treat his wounds. Cleaning them with alcohol which burned, but Desmond kept himself from crying out in case his father would hear. His mother's touch was gentle as she carefully dabbed and cleaned his wounds.

Her hazel eyes were focused on him, and Desmond took in her features. In her mid-forties, Elizabeth Miles was still a beautiful woman with her dark hair pulled back, showing her aged, but still pretty features with only a thin scar across the left side of her jaw and another near her right temple to mar them. Desmond had been told all his life that as he grew older, he resembled more of his father, but people had also commented that Desmond had gotten his dark features from his mother and his golden eyes from her father as well.

Desmond wondered about his grandparents. Had they been paranoid conspirists like his parents? Was that why they were the way they were? Now, Desmond loved his parents even though his father sometimes scared him at times. However, they were so different even when compared to everybody else on the Farm. They were more strict, more demanding than the other parents on the Farm. His mother of course, cared for him, treating his wounds, and trying to be there at the end of the day to share a meal with him and talk about his day. His father on the other hand… Desmond was pretty much invisible unless he got into trouble.

"Here, keep this on. It'll keep the swelling down," his mother instructed, holding a rag with ice cubes wrapped in it. He was still cold from being outside, and his hands were still numb, but he enjoyed the relief he got when he placed it on his mouth.

The sound of a door opening and closing grabbed Desmond and his mother's attention. Jack had left the room where Desmond's father's study was, glancing at them, he told them that Bill wanted to see Desmond, and left without another word.

Desmond looked back at his mother, and she smiled with encouragement. Desmond sighed, putting the rag down, and getting up to face whatever lecture his father had in mind.

Reaching the door to his father's study, Desmond took a deep breath to steady his nerves then raised his hand and knocked before entering. He found his father at his desk looking through papers. Of what, Desmond didn't know.

William Miles looked up from his paperwork and looked down at his thirteen-year-old son.

Desmond tried to ignore the urge to shift nervously, but under the scrutinizing gaze of his father it was difficult.

"Explain," his father told him.

Desmond knew the drill.

After Jack would tell his dad what had happened, Desmond will tell his side of the story and it would be up to him to figure out what he had done wrong. So, Desmond walked through what had happened when he started the exercise earlier that day.

He had tracked down and found the campsite about a mile away from the Farm. He then watched the older kids, hiding in the trees, observing what they did while also keeping an eye out for his target. He saw it around mid-afternoon when one of the campers had taken out a backpack, searching for a box of matches when Desmond saw a book peeking out of the bag. He then waited another couple of hours for everyone to gather around the fire to cook dinner, leaving everything else unattended. By then Desmond had been cold, hungry, and he desperately needed to pee, not to mention it was almost sunset and his body ached from hiding in the same spot for hours. So, Desmond climbed out of his hiding spot and crept carefully to the campsite. He had been careful, watching out for dead leaves and twigs so as not to alert his fellow trainees. He had reached the backpack and found the book with ease, but his stomach was torturing him. He hadn't eaten anything but a protein bar since this morning, and the snacks were just a couple more feet away. Sure, they were closer to the fire, but Desmond believed that he could reach them and snatch one or two and be gone before the trainees would realize. He had actually managed to grab a couple of apples tucked in the snack bag when one of the campers had looked up and yelled "Hey!" before Desmond took off, forced to leave his snacks behind, but with the book safely zipped in his jacket. Desmond then told his father about the chase in the trees, leaving out the part when his weird vision had come in and distracted him as he always did.

When he finished his dad finally imploded. "How could you be so careless?!"

Desmond flinched, knowing it was coming.

William got up and paced behind his desk. "If the exercise had been real, you would have been dead, or worse, captured, and for what? Because you had been hungry!"

William turned away from Desmond and ran a hand through his graying hair. Desmond watched his father, trying to keep himself from feeling so small, and wishing that the floor would open and swallow him.

William sighed. "Desmond, I know these exercises are long and tedious, but do you think the Templars will care about your comfort? They won't. As an Assassin you will need to adjust and deal with the situation. Don't let yourself get distracted from the mission. Always pay attention to your surroundings. If you did, you probably wouldn't have fallen so far."

Desmond had been struggled not to roll his eyes at the mention of Templars and Assassins, knowing how mad it made his dad when he did that, but that bit made him bristle. If his vision hadn't changed while he was in mid-chase then he would have gotten away with it.

Desmond only said, "Yeah, Dad."

His father glared at him for his tone, but didn't reprimand him like he usually would. "We'll deal with this in the morning. Right now, I have to leave and meet with Gavin," he said as he searched through his stacks of paper for something.

Desmond felt his eyes widen in surprise. "Uncle Gavin? Uncle Gavin's coming here?"

He hadn't seen his "uncle" since his tenth birthday, but he remembered his father's best friend.

"Yes," William answered, finding the sheets he was looking for and stashing them into his coat pocket. "He's bringing an artifact that the council wants us to look at and keep here for safekeeping."

"Can I come?" Desmond asked before he could stop himself.

His father instantly said, "No, it's too dangerous."

"But you'll be taking Parker and Jim. Jim's only a few years older than me. If he can go, why can't I?"

"Jim's almost eighteen, and he's nearly done with his training here. I trust him to stay out of trouble," William answered as he dug into his desk drawer and took out the keys to one of the Farm's jeeps.

"I'll stay out of trouble. I will. Please," Desmond didn't care if he was begging. Just the idea of getting off the Farm, even for a few hours, and seeing the outside world was enough to make Desmond forget how sore he felt from today.

"No, Desmond. That's final," William's words crushing his dream.

Rage filled Desmond and he clenched his fists, ignoring the pain his tender skin screamed at him.

"Fine. Keep me trapped up here for the rest of my life, why don't you!"

With that, Desmond took off out of his father's study, ignoring his mother who called out to him, and headed upstairs.

000{{*}}000

William flinched as he heard his son slam his bedroom door upstairs.

His wife came to his study's doorway, arms crossed over her chest, and a frown on her lips as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Shall I take a guess and say that you told him about going to pick Gavin up tonight?"

William pretended to be organizing his papers.

Elizabeth sighed. "As much as I wish that we could keep Desmond here where he's safe, we can't Will."

"He fell twenty feet down, Liz. Twenty f***ing feet, and all because he got distracted. I'm amazed he didn't break anything. If he can't handle things here, how is he going to handle it out there?" William asked. He leaned against his desk, holding his head in one of his hands, and sighed. "I don't want anything to happen to him, you know that. I want him to be ready you know for when he goes out on his own."

He felt his wife's hand on his own, and looked to sympathy and understanding in her face. "I know that, you know that, but does Desmond know that?" she asked gently.

He looked at the scars that marked her face, both of them reminders of his failures. He didn't want that to happen to his son.

"Next time if I think he's capable, I'll take him," William promised.

Elizabeth didn't mention that his trips out of the Farm happened once a year at least, and to their teenaged son that might as well be a millennial.

William handed her the only satellite phone on the Farm, placing her in charge in his absence

"So what kind of artifact is the Council sending Gavin to give to you?" she asked.

Tried as she did to hide it, William could see the curious excitement in his wife's eyes. He remembered her family having a few members with a fascination for studies on Pieces of Eden that the Assassin's had been searching for since their foundation.

"I'm not entirely sure," he confessed, turning back to the notes he had scattered across the desk. "When I talked to Gavin, he said that they called it the Orb of Eden. It's said that in the ancient times our Brotherhood's founders Bayek and Amunet discovered it after the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was rumored that the priests used it to communicate with the dead."

"Communicate with the dead?" Elizabeth asked, shocked. "How is that possible?"

"I have no idea. It's possible that the orb may have worked in giving people the illusion that they were conversing with the spirits of loved ones long dead," William told her.

"Still, even if its power was only that of illusions, could you imagine the danger it would bring? Not to mention the agony of seeing and talking to someone you thought you had lost forever and then finding out that it was all fake?" Elizabeth asked him.

William shook his head. As an Assassin he had lost many friends and loved ones over the years. He didn't want to imagine. "Which is why Bayek and Amunet stole the Orb and hid it from the Order. Until one of our brothers stumbled upon it in Israel."

Elizabeth looked at William wide-eyed, and he knew her head had to be swimming with such knowledge. "An artifact that can manipulate minds into seeing illusions. It sounds more like an Apple of Eden."

William nodded. "It does. But." He showed her a picture of the Orb that he had been sent. "It's made of a very, very rare crystal. So rare that even our best scientists can't identify it."

Elizabeth shook her head in wonder. "It seems like the Ones Who Came Before had used materials that probably no longer exist after the great catastrophe. What could the Templars want with it?"

"I'm not sure, but Gavin thinks that the Mentor believes the Orb can actually be used to communicate with the dead," William couldn't hide his skepticism from his wife. He believed the Mentor to be a wise and grounded man, but still, to talk to the deceased?

His wife had a thoughtful expression. "I remember as a child my grandmother telling me how in the early 1900s, she had meet scientists who had tried to connect spiritualism with science. Anything is possible. But if the mentor believes that the Orb can actually communicate with the dead-"

"There could be Templars who believe the same way," William finished, seeing his wife's point.

Elizabeth nodded. "With that kind of technology, the Templars wouldn't need an animus to look into the past and uncover its secrets."

Dread knotted in William's stomach. There had been rumors of Templars searching for people connected to past Assassins, especially with those who had come into contact with Pieces of Eden. he had actually met someone who had probably been in an Animus: Daniel Cross. William could still see crazy look in the young man's eyes whenever he would believe that he was his Russian ancestor Nikolai Orelev and would start spouting off nonsense in his native language.

If the Templars had their hands on such technology there wouldn't be any need to hunt down descendants of Assassins when they could just force the ghosts themselves into telling them what they wanted.

"If that is the case, hopefully Dr. Anderson will be able to uncover its secrets before they can," William said, referring to the Farm's researcher.

He shrugged on his winter jacket, grabbing his wallet and keys. Before he left, he kissed his wife goodbye.

"Safety and peace, my love," Elizabeth whispered to him when he pulled away.

"Safety and peace," William echoed. For all of them.

000{{*}}000

Desmond threw pebbles down the roof one at a time as he glared at the jeep carrying his dad, Parker their navigator, and his son Jim off the Farm, through the wilderness, and into civilization.

It was so unfair.

Too dangerous his ass. His dad was just being a paranoid freak.

The sun was nearly gone and the stars were beginning to come out. From the roof of Desmond's house he had the perfect view of the night sky. The one highlight about being in the middle of nowhere. As Desmond looked over, he saw a shadow of a bird was flying in the dying light of the sunset. What kind of bird was it? Was that a hawk? Desmond narrowed his eyes and focused, and just like that, his vision turned gray and the bird to blue.

Desmond growled in frustration and shook his head. His vision turned back to normal.

Desmond rested his head on his arms resting on his knees. Why him? Did he do something in a past life to deserve this kind of life? Trapped in a wilderness in the middle of some ancient war between Templars and Assassins according to his parents. Desmond envied the bird soaring through the sky of its own freewill, not having anyone hold it back. If only Desmond was free, not stuck in this place that was like a military camp.

Desmond stood up and walked to the edge of the roof, trying not to feel dizzy as he looked down. The distance from the roof to the ground was the same as the fall he took earlier. Twisting his body around, Desmond grabbed the end of the rain gutters and climbed down back to his bedroom.

For a teenage boy, Desmond's room looked too military. Bare walls with nothing, not even a family photo hanging up (not that anybody on the Farm took pictures). There were no personal effects to the room other than some dirty laundry. Nothing on the surface at least. Desmond lifted his mattress and slipped out a journal, a notebook, and a map of the US from under it.

A year ago a man called Daniel had some to the Farm. it had been an experience for Desmond, talking to someone outside the Farm, even though his parents tried to keep him away from the stranger. Desmond would admit at times the older man made him feel nervous, but he enjoyed listening to him talk about his travels around the world. He had been the one to give the map to Desmond and shown him how to read it. It was all so new and exciting that Desmond was actually sad to see him go.

Desmond opened his journal and wrote about his day, detailing his anger and frustration towards his dad, and his desire to go out and see the world. Next, he took out his notebook filled with lists of places and things he would like to do with New York circled several times. Daniel had told Desmond of its skyscrapers, monuments, museums, and stores that could be found anywhere in that city. Desmond had made a promise to himself that when he would finally get off the Farm, New York would be the first place he would go to. Desmond could remember when he was younger his parents telling him stories about ancestors who had traveled the world in the service of the Brotherhood. Well, Desmond supposed he was following in the footsteps of his ancestors. Just not the way his parents had expected.

He heard his mother calling him down for dinner, and so he hid all his stuff back under his mattress covering it with a blanket before heading downstairs.

Yes, he was going to get off the Farm and out into the real world if it killed him.

000{{*}}000

So what do you guys think for starters? I've been in a bit of an Assassin's Creed phase these past several months and have not found one fanfic where Desmond interacts with all the Assassin ancestors from the beginning to at least Assassin's Creed Origins so I decided to make my own. Then I've been watching the movie Coco (great movie by the way) and that kind of helped spawned this. I don't know how often I will be updating this. I have a very busy and demanding job. I also have other works and I can only write when inspiration hits me, but for now I will try to update as often as I can.