A/N: Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Rebellion is in Our Blood

Chapter Two: Liberty

The instant Desmond's hand touched the Eye, brilliant gold-white light erupted around him, bursting up from the floor and flaring in those all-too-familiar angular lines. Desmond barely had a second to see them and think Apple and power and control before the pain hit him.

It drove up through him, through the Eye, through his hand, through his arm, up into his brain. It was pain beyond pain, beyond comprehension, and only the shock of it, hitting him like a punch in gut and stealing his breath, kept him from screaming.

You lying bitch.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. The reason for the pain, the instant, dreadful, knowledge as Desmond sensed the overwhelming presence behind the pain, the driving force boring into his brain, and the single moment of awful clarity as he recalled her earlier words –

We asked ourselves then; what if the body might be replaced? With something stronger. Something better. So we forged a new vessel. One that might endure. It proved easy enough to enter…but to leave…to leave required something more….something wrong. And so this too they abandoned. I wondered though…were they right to turn away?

He had known to release Juno from the walls from the walls of the Grand Temple would require his death. But he hadn't known it would mean his utter destruction. Her shining presence flooded his mind with fire and light, blinding and brilliant, sweeping across his consciousness with all the harsh, unforgiving strength of a sun. He could feel himself burning away, his memories, his mind, disintegrating at the edges, eating inwards.

But far worse than that still was the sense of horror that filled him, as the contact with her mind allowed him to glimpse her thoughts. Her mind blazed with ferocious intent. She would burn him alive within his own mind, slowly dissolve his sense of identity, let him feel his mind wither into nothingness.

Aita.

It was grief and rage and fury and despair and bloodlust and insanity – cold, bright, intelligent insanity, hammered diamond hard – all burning with strength of a Goddess and a need for revenge that had festered for millennia.

I will burn you all slowly, burn the minds out of you, you fear order, your kind, I will make you fear it you base creatures, unworthy of our gifts, unworthy of life –

His body and mind howled desperately, united in their horror and rage and revulsion at the utter wrongness of it.

No! You will not do this thing!

Desmond's entire body convulsed desperately, straining upwards, away, away, his left hand flying to his right wrist, frantically yanking in an attempt to separate it from the source of the pain. But his right hand remained stubbornly stuck to the Eye, Juno's obliterating presence coursing powerfully through the physical connection.

Stop that.

She flared bright in his mind and to Desmond's horror, his body obeyed her, instinctively, automatically. The force of the command drove him to his knees, shins crashing painfully into the floor, one hand still pulled awkwardly above his head.

No! Desmond clawed desperately for strength, to push her away, to put up mental barriers, anything –

You cannot hope to win.

It was the truth and it was awful. This was his mind but Juno was nothing but consciousness. She had thousands of years of experience in mental discipline, of existence without a body, of holding her mind together within a different environment.

You will burn.

The light blazed across his mind and Desmond felt the edges of his consciousness blacken and char, warping in the heat. He reached for the ice, the ice that had rendered him untouchable to Precursor control but she was inside him now, she had breached every defence, every protection his bloodline had afforded him, he had let her in and that made all the difference he realised now, too late, far, far too late –

Get out. Still he struggled, pushing her away, no matter how feeble, how futile, the effort. He felt her contempt, felt her sweep aside the fragile barriers he had been erecting and it ignited a blaze of pride and anger within him. He clung to the emotion, drove it deep and it lent him strength; he pushed back hard. It was like pushing against rock, against granite, like trying to move a mountain. She ground on inexorably, obliterating everything in her path. Desmond could feel parts of himself slipping away, burning and breaking apart –

And then he felt it. The exact moment when her destructive blaze of heat and light touched the walls within his mind. The barriers that he had struggled so hard to create, the barriers that separated his memories from those of his ancestors. The barriers that kept him sane.

Oh God, no.

Except – except –

Maybe this was it. A solution. His mind raced, frantically evaluating. He could not win. But maybe there was a way to make her lose.

Desmond took a deep breath, pushing aside his fear, his reluctance. He had spent so long trying to attain mental control, to separate himself from the ghosts inhabiting his head, it felt like anathema to give it up. He felt his ancestors stir behind their barriers, shifting, with a growing sense of anger as the first rays of Juno's light swept over them. Better to lose myself to them than to her.

The weary thought enabled Desmond to smile in grim amusement, just a little, as he pressed himself back into the barriers separating himself from his ancestors and let go.

The walls dropped and Desmond was submerged in the tidal wave that crashed outwards, flooding across his mental landscape –

Feet pounding hard across an Arce rooftop, blazing sun on his back, cool metal in his calloused palm –

– diving from a bridge, falling two stories, feeling whistle and whip of wind through his robes, the impact as he is swallowed up by the murky waters of a Venetian canal –

– the feeling of rough bark beneath his fingertips, leaping through the air in a fluid, graceful motion that feels almost like flying, glimpsing a flash of red uniform through the trees and changing course –

Desmond braced, trying to keep a small portion of himself above the flood as Altaïr, Ezio and Connor swept past him in a confused, churning rush of memories. They swirled around him, a sea of ice and determination, their emotions, their strength, their very selves flowing into him. And he felt Juno's influence recede.

Just a little. But it was enough.

She was still there, blazing bright – though Desmond could feel her consciousness tinged with confusion now – but separated from him by the ghosts of his ancestors.

He had traded one loss of sanity for another, though. He was barely holding on, clinging to his own mind by the barest of fingertips, and he had no idea if this would work. He hoped with strength of desperation, prayed to a God he didn't believe in and gathered his remaining strength for one last try.

Listen to me!

The ghosts of his ancestors did not respond, continuing to surge and crash around him, eroding his mind. Desmond gathered himself, the last strands of his fraying mind and tried again. He braced hard and pushed out.

LISTEN TO ME!

The roar echoed across the sea of ice and memories. They ceased to move. Desmond didn't waste time on relief and instead latched onto the opportunity instantly, desperately. He poured knowledge into the ghostly imprints of his ancestors residing in his mind, letting his thoughts, his memories flood out across them.

If this fails, I will be lost for sure.

He pushed the thought away savagely and focused harder on Altaïr, on Ezio, on Connor. He filled his ancestors with his memories of Juno, pouring them out in a desperate, jumbled rush. They created us to be controlled, they built us in their image but made us lesser – we do not have knowledge, the sixth sense, the instinctive knowing of the world around us, of the hearts and minds of others, only fragments and even then, only for those with their blood and we are left searching desperately for understanding, we can only try and never know and they distain us for it – she seeks to enslave us again, because they created us to be bent to their will and she thinks it her right, you have help me –

Help me stop her.

Please.

Our freedom depends upon it.

And it cannot be done alone.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then there came the sound of a distant roar. A battle cry, a fierce answering call. Then the great tidal wave of their anger swept over him and past him, surging to crash down upon Juno.

Desmond could have wept with relief. They had answered, shadows of long dead people that they were, breathed into life by his own mind. But it wasn't enough. He delved down deeper, seeking his other ancestors, the ones he had never melded with. Hundreds, if not thousands of Assassins. The trail was surprisingly easy to find; but then Juno's presence had fractured parts of his mind, shaking loose things that were never meant to be touched consciously. He followed the path of the Animus, the bright, sparking trail that had split open his mind again and again.

This will destroy me.

Worth it though. The thought brought a wild, reckless smile to his lips as he tore open the connection voluntarily.

Pain ripped up through his mind and he might have been screaming. It was hard to tell. Hundreds of voices stampeded through his head; a thousand names echoed through his brain, called from a thousand pairs of lips, memories of countless lifetimes roaring through his head with the strength of a tsunami.

Juno was screaming too, he was distantly aware of that, but his mind had sank under the weight of so many others. They were all fainter and less defined than the three Assassins whose memories he had lived – but their collective strength was overwhelming.

The Pieces of Eden were used to command. To control. To own.

Juno screamed, lashing out at the human tide surging around her. Her fire and light burned away whole swathes of memories, ghosts of Assassins long dead breaking apart and fluttering away like ash on the breeze. But when they fell, more rose to take their place.

But we soon discovered another use. When enough sat in thrall and were told to believe, their thoughts took on form. What was imagined, became real.

A freezing wind howled across Desmond's mind, chasing away the heat and extinguishing his burning memories. From the sea of humanity, ice spread, unfurling tendrils across his mental landscape. The shades of Altaïr, Ezio and Connor, more real and defined than any of the others, let loose a wordless cry, a challenge, a rallying call. A thousand minds ceased their aimless surging and their attention sharpened, focusing on the three Assassins.

If a hundred minds could wish away a wall, or create a tree, what might a thousand do? Ten thousand? More?

A sword, a gun, a tomahawk pointed at the Precursor's consciousness and intent blazed out across the sea of humanity. Then, as one, they turned. Juno screamed as they swamped her, as she was borne down under the weight of humans who had dedicated their lives to preservation of life and liberty.

Might we change the consensus, and will the threat away?

An angry, wordless cry shook Desmond's mind to its foundations, a cry echoed by a thousand throats.

I bow to no one!

Their collective strength forced Juno down, down, down – pain exploded in Desmond's temples as she screamed, a long, drawn-out sound of helpless fury and disbelief. Then it cut off suddenly and Desmond abruptly regained awareness of his physical body, just long enough to feel his hand leave the Eye. Then his exhausted body fell sideways, unable to support itself and his head cracked hard off the floor. Red and black bloomed behind his eyes and he sank finally, gratefully, into unconsciousness.

In this way, we would change the consensus. We would save the world.