A/N: Now, I'm not stupid enough to post original works on this website, but the first two paragraphs were copied verbatim from Dishonored's worst ending, so I really don't own that. Spoilers for all of Dishonored and nothing from Assassin's Creed.
Displaced
"I don't know about you, Corvo, but I've had a lovely time. Intrigue and mystery, butchery and betrayal. The death throes of an empire, and you were an avenging spirit, spreading chaos at every turn. The city's feeding on itself now, liars and merchants and nobles like maggots on a carcass. Soon, there'll be nothing left for the rats . . .
"It's just as well. The Empire was dying already, completely rotten. All that was needed was the right man, to send it over the edge. But now, you'll be off, over the horizon, on an outbound ship. I wonder: Are you chasing something, or running away?
"Whichever it is, it doesn't matter," The Outsider concluded, "Because I'm not through with you, yet, Corvo."
"Who are you to talk to me like that?" the man opposite the figure snarled. Corvo Attano had not fared well since the death of Emily Kaldwin. He'd shed the assassin's cowl he'd worn while hunting down first the lord regent then the loyalist conspiracy, tearing it off and throwing it aside as he placed his mask and blade on Emily's grave. The rest of that outfit remained, despite no shortage of corpses in the damned city of Dunwall from which to replace it. In the weeks since her death, it had grown ragged, torn in a few places and stained with blood, piss, alcohol, and worse.
Corvo glared at The Outsider through pits nearly as deep as its own chosen avatar's and beneath long, grime-encrusted strands of hair. He sat bonelessly, stinking of alcohol and filth, against a shack on the last pier in the city that still saw official service, one leg splayed in front of him, hand limply clutching a bottle of cheap whisky as it lay across the other knee. In less than an hour, he would be leaving forever on the last outbound ship before the Isles were consumed, inevitably, by plague. As scattered as the government was after his . . . thoroughness, it had actually fallen to him, to the broken ex-bodyguard, to pick up the pieces. In Corvo's absence, the Isles would soon fall into anarchy, but his homeland was already doomed. He'd known that ever since that bastard Havelock had taken its last hope with him. The one survivor of that ghastly business had only remained as long as he had to give her a proper burial.
"And why not?" the corpse-eyed apparition replied, sucking him back to reality with its own unique, condescending tone, "After all, what can you do to me? In the state you're in, what can you do to anyone, anymore? Emily would be ashamed."
"Shut up!" Corvo snapped, voice like sandpaper, whipping out his pistol and firing it repeatedly into the apparition. The bullets passed straight through, or missed in his drunken rage, but he continued pulling the trigger long after the gun's four shots were dry.
"I did the best I could," the wretched man continued in a tired, slurred mumble, the words sounding like a mantra he'd used to keep himself sane. That's exactly what they were. Corvo finally dropped his arm, staring at the weapon in his hand and wondering about the man who'd essentially made it. Piero hadn't been at the funeral, as bare and ill-publicized as it had been. For all the tired ex-assassin knew, Piero and Sokolov were off living like kings in a foreign paradise. Fuck that. They were probably dead, or dying, miserably, in some pit, just like everyone else. The survivor was beyond caring, heart closed to all else in mourning for the daughter he'd failed to save.
"Ahh yes," The Outsider said back, still with that accursed false-lightness, "Poor Corvo, a bodyguard thrust into the role of an assassin, so unprepared. Really, you should be thanking me right now. You failed here, but now, here I am, giving you a second chance."
"What, you gonna bring them back, just to watch me suffer?" Corvo scoffed, "No thanks."
"How very . . . interesting of you," the young man apparent said carefully, though it hardly showed, "But that is not what I'm going to do. You may have failed in this world, but perhaps in the next, you will do better."
"You're going to kill me," The half-drunk survivor guessed frankly.
"Not quite, Corvo," The Outsider actually smiled at this, "Follow me."
"My ship leaves in twenty minutes," Corvo explained, getting drunkenly onto his feet, "I ain't missin it, but till then? Fuck, worst you or anyone else can do is end my miserable existence. Need to walk off the alcohol, anyway." The Outsider said nothing to this, merely began to walk. They passed a large, burning pile of corpses at the end of the pier. The stench was horrible, but one of the two had no physical presence and the other smelt nearly as bad himself. They walked through the tilted, rotten remains of a storefront, old well before the plague, and into a small yard behind. A shrine to The Outsider's glory was there, apparently their destination. The outsider's manifestation raised one arm and snapped its fingers. and a swirling mass of purple-black energy appeared in mid-air in front of the Shrine.
"There are no Bone Charms left to collect," The apparition began, "no more Runes left in the care of dear, sweet old Granny Rags. Beyond this portal, there is another world. I can show you its language, and give you all the power that Mark of mine entitles you to possess, but once you step through and out of our reality, I can do little else but watch."
"Remember," It continued, "Nobody in this place will know who I am. Nobody, that is, but you. Use the gifts you possess very carefully, Corvo, for they will be even more spectacular there than here, and speaking of gifts," It reached one arm behind its back, "You'll be needing these." The apparition pulled its arm back and revealed Corvo's Mask and sword, holding them out to their owner.
"Where did you get those?" Corvo demanded, desperation in his voice.
"I walked up to Emily's grave," it explained simply, condescendingly, "and picked them up. Really, Corvo, I am not only a ghost to haunt your waking dreams. In fact, it's probably for the better that I retrieved them. Who knows what would've become of the mask and the sword had I not stepped in."
"I don't care," The wretched survivor growled.
"Nevertheless," The Outsider said back, actually seeming just slightly irritated, "I am giving you a choice. Stay here, flee your damned homeland to parts unknown just as you had planned, forever haunted by your past mistakes and the memory of your family. Or, take my offer. Leave this realm behind entirely, all its loss and heartbreak. Find your place in a new world, maybe even a little redemption along the way."
"Fine," Corvo said back after resigning himself with a deep, rattling sigh, taking the proffered mask and hilt, "I accept. Anything else?"
"Two final things," The Outsider replied, materializing one rune-carved whale bone and a single sheet of parchment out of mid air, "This Rune will maintain . . . a shadow, of your connection to me, enough to allow you to keep your abilities even across the very fabric of reality. Do not lose it, Corvo." it handed over the bone, then held up the parchment, upon which was inked an odd, somewhat arrow-shaped symbol, "Finally, search out this mark. Those who bear it shall be valuable allies, should you choose to befriend them."
"Understood," The battered survivor said, taking this item as well and stepping up to the portal, "No offense, but after all that shit, I hope I never see you again." Then, without hesitation, he stepped into the swirling black.
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that," The Outsider replied, looking at its fading portal with the same odd smile it had worn several minutes earlier, "After all, Corvo, you are so very interesting."
It was an alley, grimy and disgusting, but it lacked that distinctive stench of plague and death that had so suffused Dunwall in its dying days. A substance, likely altogether worse than mud, gave noxiously beneath his feet as he stepped forward, out of the cold, clammy darkness of the portal and into hot, thick shadows, but he was alone in the tiny gap between buildings. Corvo steadied himself, stowed away his weapon and mask, took a deep breath of the stinking but less fetid air, then walked out of the alley and into what appeared to be the main street of a small town.
Everything seemed to be in a state of general decline. At one end of the street, a fairly well-kept gate in a fortified wall led out into the countryside, but at the other, there was a wide staircase which split into two when it reached a medium-sized fountain set into a ledge and eventually led up to a slowly crumbling manor. More importantly, the very symbol he was looking for was displayed very elaborately on the wall behind the fountain; Corvo headed towards the manor. It wasn't long, however, before he was reminded of the whiskey's presence via losing his balance and slamming nearly headlong into someone going in the opposite direction.
"Mi dispiace," he half-muttered, showing a grasp of the new language that vaguely unsettled him, "More drunk than I thought, I guess." He took a brief moment to properly examine the man he'd hit; quite young, most likely in his twenties; wearing the fine clothing of a noble or rich man; tanned and obviously attractive, his face only enhanced by the scar across the right side of his lips. There was something in the man's eyes, however, a dangerous glint Corvo had only seen in the eyes of those who had killed deliberately.
"It was nothing," the man replied, flashing a disarming smile before seeming to recognize the killer's edge in Corvo's own gaze, "I do not think I have seen you around here before, messer . . . "
"Attano," Corvo introduced, stepping back and bowing politely, an effect ruined by his hoarse voice and stinking clothes, "Corvo Attano."
"Corvo?" The other asked, looking puzzled, "Like the bird?"
"I guess so," the main in question shrugged, though inwardly he found the coincidence amusing.
"Well, it fits," the other gave his charming smile once again, "I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze and I suppose I should say; welcome to Monteriggioni."
"Thank you," Corvo replied, then smiled, "Hypocrite." His own name may mean crow in this odd language, but it did not escape the man that Ezio was also named after a bird, in his case the eagle.
"Be careful, Corvo," Ezio replied, grinning widely at the joke, "I may just end up liking you." He held out his hand to shake. As the frayed man took it, however, he had to rest his other hand unsteadily on Ezio's shoulder. The white-clad man frowned down at it.
"What is that on your hand?" he asked, mostly out of curiosity.
"I'll show you mine and you show me yours?" Corvo suggested, glancing at the gauntlet on Ezio's own left wrist.
"What do you know of that mark!?" the younger man asked suddenly, stance wary and grip tensing.
"Only that a . . . friend, told me I could find allies in those who bore it," Corvo replied, outwardly at ease but matching the much younger man in both grip and footing as adrenaline surged through his body, "Nothing more, nothing less."
"Very well," Ezio decided finally, releasing his grip but not lowering his guard in the least, "I will take you to my uncle, but any sudden moves . . . "
"And I match my sword to yours in deadly combat," Corvo replied, "I understand.:
"You don't have a sword," Ezio pointed out, snorting.
"And there's nothing on your wrist," Corvo countered, grinning wolfishly at the other man's startled expression, "I think it's clear that neither of us is as we seem, messer Auditore."
Real A/N: Well, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but it took me way too long to write, so I can't exactly call it that anymore. If I'd finished it a few months ago when I wrote the most of the story, this would've been the first of its kind. It still seems to be the first serious attempt, which is cool. Anyway, I don't know enough about Assassin's Creed to make a real story out of this, which is why it took me so long to do, but I invite someone who does to give the idea some proper justice. You can even use what I have here directly, whole or modified, so long as you send me a link and give me proper acknowledgement for what parts of mine you use.