Washington, DC, USA

As the five-twelve encryption blackout paved the way for the Engineers to wreak havoc in Washington, it also paved the way for DedSec to deploy its forces to stop them.

One of the people taking part in the fight was Anna Grimsdottir, who was aboard the helicopter with a man named Marcus Holloway.

Marcus was playing with an improvised melee weapon that looked like a yo-yo when Grim said to Marcus, "Darcy's not leading this fight?"

"She's in charge of the raid on Moscow," said Marcus. "I'm in charge of DedSec ops here in the U-S-of-A, along with Aiden Pearce. He went dark for some reason though."

"I see," said Grim. "Can you relay a message to her?"

"Sure," said Marcus.

"If I fail to prevent this bomb from detonating, tell her… tell her I'm sorry for the havoc I caused in the UK… and for killing Alfred."

"You weren't in your right mind from the way I hear it," said Marcus. "MK-Ultra's a bitch."

"That's why I chose to go here," said Grim. "I have to go after the man who brainwashed me. Word is he's working for Displace International's PMC successor."

"As long as you're in your right mind to do so, we're all for a little bit of payback," said Marcus as he flicked his yo-yo. "Yo Wrench? We coming up on the LZ, dawg?"

"Yeah, man," said a guy wearing another odd-looking mask. "This is as close as I can park her."

"You guys and your masks…" mused Grim.

Moscow, Russia

Darcy was flying Briggs toward Red Square. Briggs held his SC sniper rifle tight in his hands, looking at the Engineers taking civilians hostage in the streets below them.

"I don't think I'll ever have what it takes to replace Sam as leader of Fourth Echelon," said Briggs.

"We're about to risk getting destroyed by a nuke and that's what you're thinking about?"

"Well, it's not all I'm thinking about," Briggs said as he smirked for a moment. "That too. I just remember Alfred saying I didn't have what it took back in London. I think he was right now that I look back."

"Well, for starters, stop thinking you don't have what it takes if you are going to have to replace him," said Darcy. "This Prophecy business with Sam… from what Alfred told me, it may be fatal for Sam."

"You believe in the Isu's precognition abilities?"

"As a leading member of both DedSec and the Assassins, I know about them," said Darcy.

"So… is Sam going to die in this Prophecy?"

"I don't know for sure," said Darcy. "But that's the way it was foretold."

"Shit…" said Briggs.

"For now, be a leader by taking point," said Darcy. "No more fighting from a distance. You're going to be the one who defuses that bomb."

"Got it," said Briggs.

"We're almost to the LZ," said Darcy. "Get ready."

"I am," said Briggs as he braced himself and cocked his sniper rifle.

Beijing, China

Charlie was flying with Elijah and Katja aboard an Assassin helicopter. Several other Assassins were there, including a Russian assassin named Galina Voronina, a Japanese assassin named Kiyoshi Takakura, and an assassin named Callum Lynch.

"Boss?" said Galina.

"Yeah?" said Elijah.

"William's on the phone."

"He isn't asking for me to visit him and my father's mom now of all times, is he?"

"No. He's asking why we're working with an amateur hacker from the US government, of all people."

"Tell William he's the one who's supposed to defuse the bomb."

"And he's not a hostage?" said Callum Lynch, flicking his wrist to extend his hidden blade boredly.

"Why would he be a host—"

"No, I'm an ally," said Charlie.

"You're a hell of an ally," said Kiyoshi. "Just point that fancy assault rifle of yours where it needs to be pointed. But keep the safety off."

"I can vouch for him, Kiyoshi… sort of," said Elijah, sighing. "He helped stop the first bomb in Kyrat. So, no complaining."

Galina joked, "You won't hear anything from me, Boss's Grandson. I'm just glad we actually got to use guns on this mission instead of blades. These Fourth Echelon friends of yours have some nasty cutting-edge shit."

"They're not my—" Elijah then looked at Charlie.

"Listen, I know you guys don't expect much of me, and you're probably right… I don't have as much combat experience as you, or the others on my team. All I know is that I'm sick of running from my fears, and I have to prove myself as much as Fourth Echelon has to prove themselves. It has to be me that defuses this bomb."

Elijah relented.

"He's reckless," said Galina. "I like him, Kiyoshi."

Charlie sighed. "Also, Elijah, there's one more favor I need to ask of you. It's in the event I don't make it out of Beijing alive."

"And what would that be?"

"Can you contact the team heading to Peru? The one Sarah's on?"

"Why do you want to contact them?"

Elijah was then elbowed by Katja. "He likes Sarah."

"What? No, I don't!" said Charlie, his face red.

"Oh…" said Elijah. "I think I understand. You want to confess your feelings to her, in the height of a mission."

"Damn it, I guess so."

"In general, that's a bad idea."

"…why is it a bad idea?"

"It'll only make the mission harder for her, and if you die and she doesn't, or if you die and she does… It'll leave one of you with regrets."

"She's not the one you should be worried about. She can handle her stuff," said Charlie. "She's one of the strongest people I know. Me… I've been hoping to get back to a normal life during the majority of the mission, until now… I realize that I'd rather be here, working for Fourth Echelon."

"Boss, William's still waiting to talk to you," said Galina.

"Talking to him can wait," said Elijah as he hung up on William Miles, the Assassin Brotherhood's leader and Elijah's grandfather. "Make your confession fast, Charlie. If it'll make you feel better for the sake of the mission. We're about to reach the LZ," as Elijah handed Charlie the phone.

The Peruvian Jungle

Sarah was aboard a helicopter with Ajay Ghale and some members of the Golden Path. Two of them, Yogi and Reggie, were getting stoned on illegal drugs and watching some cat videos on their phones.

Sarah was listening to an arms dealer, Longinus, telling sermons to the other members of the Golden Path as well as Marie over the radio while providing guns to them simultaneously, but her thoughts were distant.

"We got a call coming in for you, Sarah," said Ajay.

Sarah lifted her head up, and peeked into the cockpit.

"It's from the Assassin Brotherhood cell deployed to Beijing."

"That's the city Charlie was deployed to," said Sarah. "Patch them in."

"Uh, Sarah?" said Charlie.

"Charlie, are you boots on the ground yet?" said Sarah. "And why aren't you calling via your OPSAT?"

"It's probably best that Sam doesn't hear this…" said Charlie, scratching the back of his head. "I…" He paused for a moment.

"You… what?" said Sarah.

"I…" Charlie looked off-camera, then looked back and down again sheepishly. "I'm scared. This last mission, it's getting to me, even though I volunteered for it. I didn't know who else to talk to about it, but you helped me get through the mission in Kyrat, so."

Sarah smirked. "You'll be fine, Charlie… You have the Assassins to back you up. Just try and do what they do, or do what Sam and I do."

"Which would be?"

"Stick to the shadows. Make your enemies afraid of the dark."

"All right," said Charlie. "Good luck, Sarah."

"Wait!" said Sarah. "Stay in contact with me via the OPSAT. If you need advice, call me on that. I may not be able to pick up immediately, but I'll try."

"Okay," said Charlie. "Bye."

As Charlie hung up, Ajay said, "For a second I thought he was going to say he loved you."

"He what?"

"I mean, it sounded like he just chickened out," said Ajay.

Sarah blushed at this.

"You telling me the prodigal daughter of the infamous Splinter Cell got friend-zoned?" said Yogi.

"No, dummy, he said he just chickened out on her," said Reggie.

"Well, that's still a shame," said Yogi as he coughed on his cigaweed. "Want a puff of this by the way, Sarah?"

Sarah said, "I'm getting lightheaded enough with all the second-hand smoke as is. So no. What is that you're smoking, anyway?"

"Trust me, with those two, you don't want to know," said Ajay.

"How could you speak so poorly of us, Ajay?" said Yogi.

"Well we did stick a syringe of drugs that could make an elephant go berserk in his bum once," said Reggie.

"Oh yeah, we did… consensually of course," said Yogi.

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "You have some weird friends, Ajay."

"Tell me about it," said Ajay. "My family's even weirder. By the way, we're reaching the LZ."

Sarah sighed, and that made her think about her dad.

Near Tel Megiddo, Israel

Kobin flew in under the cover of a sandstorm from another Assassin cell in Istanbul with Sam, Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane in the back.

"So let me get this straight, all four of the other bombs will go off unless this man stops the bloody detonation center?" said Shaun.

"That was in the briefing, Shaun," said Rebecca.

"Will you two lovebirds be quiet and hand Sam the party favors leftover from Istanbul that you got him?" said Kobin.

"Right, I almost forgot about that…" said Rebecca. "Sam… you'll need to use this as a last resort. Megiddo is surrounded by a fleet of drones and SAM sites that would shoot our helicopters down, so if you have no other way to stop the detonation broadcast, use this explosive device to destroy it. It should be enough to bring the whole facility down, so if you have to use it, use it wisely."

"Also, I'd recommend not going through the front entrance," said Shaun. "You'll be shot on sight, and even the heavier Splinter Cell armor, helmet, and mask you're wearing won't protect you long enough to make it into the part of the compound you need to get to… Eden."

"He doesn't need to," said Kobin. "I looked at the Abstergo files… There's a set of doors leading into the bottom of some sort of ancient Isu site beneath the tell that'll open for Sam because he's Yahweh's reincarnation. That's his way in."

Sam looked at Kobin. "How did you know about that?"

"Uh… I just, saw it in a dream once?" said Kobin.

Sam looked at Kobin in confusion now.

As they neared the LZ, Kobin said, "Actually, there's something I have to tell you, Sam… It's uh… it's about…" Kobin then said, "Fuck… forget it… you don't need to know."

Sam said, "This might be a one-way trip, so there is something I have to say to you. Goodbye Kobin."

Kobin looked at Sam as he hopped off the helicopter as it landed, and he rode on a nearby horse to the tell.

"Goodbye, old friend," said Kobin, but he said it out of Sam's hearing range.

He kept having visions of Yahweh in his head as the sun began to set and the sandstorms swirled around in the distance.

Finally, he got off the horse, and approached the old dig site that Megiddo had abandoned due to the fact that they couldn't dig through the door at the bottom of the tell, nor find out how to open them.

Sam knew the way to open them, though.

He was the way.

Lucas's Detonation Broadcast Center, Tel Megiddo, Israel

Deep underground within Megiddo's headquarters, Lucas looked at the counting detonator timers, and took a long drag of a cigar before looking back at the Tree of Eden within the compound.

Inhaling the smoke, Lucas said, "It looks just like Yggdrasil… but I can't access it myself. The threads of the Nornir continue to spin. The eighth solution. I wonder… what was your endgame this whole time, Yahweh?"

Blowing the smoke out, he said, "No matter… Eden shall burn once Phase Two of the Selection is over, and I'm able to leave."

Looking around, Lucas said, "Where are you, Fisher?"

The White House, Washington, DC/ The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia/ The Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China/ Lucas's Secret Compound, The Peruvian Jungle/ Lucas's Detonation Broadcast Center, Tel Megiddo, Israel

As Grim entered the White House outer gardens in her Splinter Cell outfit with some other DedSec members, she said, "Checking in with the rest of you. We're go for Washington."

As Briggs entered the Kremlin premises with DedSec, he said, "Go for Moscow."

As Charlie entered a set of underground tunnels beneath the Great Hall of the People with the Assassins, he said, "Go for Beijing."

As Sarah cut her way through a set of reeds in the jungle and reached a cenote leading into Lucas's lair within a dormant volcano with the Golden Path in tow, she said, "Go for Peru. Dad, are you there?"

As Sam spoke the language of the Isu as Yahweh, the entrance to Eden opened, and the mysterious, futuristic temple constructions left by the Isu shone from inside the door.

"Dad, you're breaking up," said Sarah, "are you there?"

"Sam," said Grim, "we need to know you're there. Sam?"

As Sam could faintly hear Sarah's voice over comms, he came to.

"Welcome to Paradise on Earth, Sam… or rather, what's left of it," said Yahweh as he looked inward.

"Dad?"

"Go for Megiddo," said Sam before he flipped on his trifocal goggles and entered the Isu Grand Temple.

Chapter 14— "Nature's Reckoning, Part I: The Tragedy of the Double Helix"

Lucas's Detonation Broadcast Center, Tel Megiddo, Israel

Sam looked through the dark corridors of the Isu temple, and saw glimpses of visions of Yahweh's past echoing through the walls. It haunted him.

Yahweh saw this coming for years… Whatever he's planning, he's using this temple, and me, as a conduit. Am I going to make it out of here alive, even if I succeed?

For a second he looked at the strange writing of the Isu on the wall, and saw a strange vision, this one more than a mere glimpse, and it collided with glimpses of his own life.

As the skies spit fire on the eve of Armageddon in the Isu era, as the temple crumbled all around them, Yahweh was talking with Asherah as they entered the chamber of the High Council, all while he was barely able to walk with the damage Odin inflicted on his body.

"The Tree of Life, Yahweh… The eighth solution, our plans will only work if we upload our consciousness into the minds of the humans."

"I wonder if Yahsherah was right… If Odin was right to tamper with their nature, what right do we have?"

"The right, Yahweh? We have the responsibility!" said Asherah. "Yahsherah said what she said because she's happy with the life she's lived. You need to let her go."

"I just wish she'd have chosen to come with us…"

"She'll be with us, through your memories, my love."

Sam remembered when he got the news that Regan was dead.

He walked into the room where her ovarian cancer got the best of her. Sarah was in the room, crying over her mother's body in her hospital room.

"Where have you been all this time?" said Sarah. "All this time when Mom and I needed you!"

"Sarah, I—"

"Don't touch me!" she said. "Go off and fight in some more causes you can't tell us about. Ones apparently more important to you than your own family!"

Sam wondered if he had been there for Sarah just a little more than he had been while she was growing up, would she have ever wanted to become a Splinter Cell? Would she be here, risking her life and possibly dying at the center of a Red Mercury nuke explosion to try and stop it? Would she be safe? Would she be happy with her life? Would it be worth it?

Sam then felt someone else's presence here.

He started to hallucinate intensely.

Don't get tempted by the sins of the flesh, Sam…

"Yahweh?" Sam said.

You will have to sacrifice everything to stop Lucas…

Looking around the underground ruins of Eden as he peered down through a hole in a decaying futuristic tower, he saw that the city was still full of a surprising amount of buildings still standing at the center. Walking through an old factory of some kind, Sam could see the faint ghosts of humans working in a factory of some kind as slaves among their Isu masters, which held up a glowing orb emitting beams of light to control them.

"Something is clouding my calculations beyond the grave, Sam…" said Yahweh. "I suspect my intuition was right. I need to rely on your intuition as well for this final action to cement the Prophecy in its place…"

Sam said, "Clouding your vision?"

"Something unnatural… perhaps even more intelligent than my people…"

"But if you're smarter than us, and you went extinct long ago… what could that be?" said Sam.

Thinking for a moment, Sam used his thermal vision to locate a faintly glowing tower constructed near the center of the city.

Sam crept through the hallucination-filled darkness of the center of the city, unaware that he was no longer the predator.

Rather, he was the prey.

Cold, scrambled voices spoke, and bodies appeared.

Sam drew his rifle as several Megiddo agents surrounded him in the city.

"…do not engage…"

"…waiting for C2 to identify target…"

"C2?" thought Sam.

"Fisher! I know what it is!" shouted Yahweh. "Run to the tower, seek cover! Quickly!"

Sam ran to the tower in shock as several flying tri-rotor drones swarmed around him as well.

"…do not engage…"

"…do not engage…"

"…do not engage…"

Inside the tower, Sam neared the blinding light in the room.

"Enter the light, Fisher! Quickly!" shouted Yahweh.

"But it'll expose me! I'm safer in the dark!"

"No, you're not safe at all! Just do as I do!"

Sam shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them and entered the light.

He heard whispers all around him as his eyes started to slowly adjust to the light.

"…do not engage…" said a Megiddo operative as they stood in front of him. Sam pointed his pistol at them.

"…do not engage…" The Megiddo operative had a variant Splinter Cell outfit on. The Megiddo operative wore trifocal goggles, rifle optics, suit lights, and an OPSAT that were each illuminated with ghostly white light as opposed to Sam's green lights. They were still using a voice scrambler.

"…do not engage… waiting for C2 to identify target…"

"C2… where have I heard that name before…" said Sam.

Come to think of it, it reminded Sam of something Shaun and Rebecca said to him at the safe house back in the mission that took place in Nazareth and Syria.

Suddenly Sam hallucinated again.

He was imagining he was in the real Eden. The hallucination—or perhaps a past reality?-was blurring with the present.

"Adam…" said Eve, as she was standing in the place of the Megiddo operative.

"Eve?" said another ghost as they passed right through Sam.

"The Isu cannot be trusted… The Apple…" she said as she held out a glowing orb. "They communicate to us through this… they try to control our minds… Do not trust our masters…"

Sam looked at the ghost of Adam as he looked around.

Sam and Adam looked around at the other ghosts of the human slaves, who were standing by the Megiddo operatives, and the Isu masters, who were standing silent by the Megiddo operatives with heavy armor equipped.

"…must obey master…"

"…must obey master…"

"…must obey master…"

"…do not engage…"

"…do not engage…"

"…do not engage…"

"You have to trust me Adam…" said Eve. "I'm a hybrid… One of my parents was an Isu… Their genetic code gives me some sort of advantage over their control, to an extent…"

"I think I can speak to the Apple, deactivate their control…" said Eve. "I have to test it on you, though."

"All right," said Adam.

Eve then held the glowing orb—the Apple of Eden—up to Adam's head, and began to do something that caused it to shine brighter, and rays from the orb were cast at Adam's head.

And then Sam was grabbed and turned around from the side by the female Megiddo operative now standing in Eve's place, and she ripped off his helmet and mask and grabbed him by the back of his head and yanked his head backwards.

Sam grunted.

That strength… can't resist… whoever this Megiddo operative is… they're not human…

The Megiddo operative held what looked like a retinal scanner connected to her OPSAT up to his eyes with strength Sam could not resist.

"…target identified as Sam Fisher…" said the female Megiddo operative.

"…do not engage… waiting for C2 to collect DNA sample…"

Sam grunted again, and stabbed the Megiddo operative with his Karambit.

The Megiddo operative didn't even flinch. Instead, they doubled down, and kicked Sam hard in the groin, then pulled out the Karambit from their solar plexus and threw it aside as if it was nothing. The operative kicked Sam in the groin again.

Sam screamed.

"…target is resisting… recalculating… must achieve optimal results… waiting for C2 to send new directions… directions received…"

Then the operative took off her mask with her free hand while she was still holding Sam by the back of the head.

Horrified, Sam looked into the eyes of his deceased wife.

"Regan?" said Sam.

"You've got to break free, Sam!" yelled Yahweh.

"You're an illusion, you have to be!" yelled Sam.

"Illusion?" said Regan in what appeared to be her voice, as if she was still young as she was before they separated.

"You want me to be an illusion?" said Regan as she smiled, and said, "What will it take to satisfy you, Sam?"

Regan then zapped Sam in the forehead with what seemed like a sticky shocker.

Regan then threw Sam across the room into the wall, where he sunk to the floor.

… … … … …

As Sam came to, he was lying naked against the trunk of a tree a blanket in what seemed like an endless field of grass. The sky was blue, and the sun was blinding.

Regan approached him. She was naked as well.

"What… what the hell is going on…" said Sam.

She smiled at Sam, and bit into a red apple.

"Fuck… am I dead? Did I fail my mission?" said Sam.

"You can stay here with me forever, Sam," said Regan as she knelt down and crawled toward Sam and kissed him.

Confused, Sam said, "Where are we?"

"It looks like we're in Eden," she said. "Might as well do what Adam and Eve did here." She held the red apple toward Sam.

"Eden?" said Sam, looking at Regan and the apple.

"You're starting to enter Yahweh's Tree of Life… hence the intense hallucinations." said Regan as she wrapped her arms around him. "Even though you failed your mission, and the Red Mercury devices exploded… you can still live on. You can become immortal."

"Immortal?" said Sam. "How?"

"Simple…" she said as she pressed her body seductively around his, "…you're already attached to one of the branches… it connects one of its nodes to the back of your neck and hoists you up," said Regan. "After that, your consciousness is uploaded and stored in the Lifetree's supercomputer… then you'll reincarnate as Sam Fisher in a matter of generations of human survivors of the nuclear holocaust Lucas created."

"The Selection succeeded?" said Sam. He looked around in horror. "No… Then that means…"

"That's the thing though, Sam…" said Regan. "Sarah's here too. Everyone's here."

"What?" said Sam. "Sarah's alive? How's that possible?"

"Bite into the apple, Sam, and you'll understand."

"I…"

"FISHER!" screamed Yahweh.

Sam looked at Regan, and then looked past her.

"No…" Sam said as he had an out-of-body experience.

He looked at himself as Regan was kissing him while he was lying against the tree.

Then he looked closer as he felt Yahweh taking over for a moment.

"I'm still lying unconscious against the wall in the real Eden, underneath Megiddo…" said Sam. "But the woman who's pinning me to the wall… she still looks like Regan!"

"I know," said Yahweh. "Regan's dead, Sam. You have to fight whatever illusion this is!"

"She's saying something…" said Sam.

"DNA sample of target acquired… Waiting for C2 to upload sample to specified unit…" said Regan as she got up from where Sam was lying.

Sam said to Yahweh as another Megiddo operative approached his unconscious body, "You're right…" said Sam. "This is an illusion… I need to get back to my body."

"I'm going to need to take control of you for one minute, Sam," said Yahweh. "One minute."

"Do it," said Sam.

… … … … …

Sam was back in the fake Eden, lying naked against the tree. Regan was standing up now, and had her hands on her hips. She was also several months pregnant.

"Who's this, Sam?" said Regan.

"Who's this, Adam?" said Eve.

Sam looked at where Regan was pointing.

Adam looked at where Eve was pointing.

"Marie?" said Sam.

"Lilith?" said Adam.

Confused, Sam looked at his pregnant wife and then an equally pregnant Marie, and said, "This doesn't make any sense at all."

Adam said to Eve and Lilith, "Eve, this is Lilith. My wife."

Eve said to Adam, "Ah… I see. Your Isu master had an affair with you."

Regan said to Sam, "Ah… I see. You were grieving for me, so you had sex with that woman. She's barely older than Sarah, Sam."

Lilith said to Adam, "Good. You seduced the troublemaker, just as I asked you to. I will punish her appropriately."

"Adam, how could you!" shouted Eve.

Marie said to Sam, "It's all right, my love… After all…"

"Love…" said Regan as she stepped toward Sam.

"…and grief…" said Marie as she stepped toward Sam.

"…are the same emotion at different points in time," they said in harmony.

As Marie and Regan started to grab Sam and hold him down, Sam screamed as he remembered.

Back in the safe house between Nazareth and Tel Megiddo, the Assassin, Rebecca Crane, who was wearing a beanie hat, said, "Make yourself at home, Sam."

"Just not too much," said Shaun. "Word is you're here on a mission of some kind."

"I'm here looking for a lead on my daughter's location," said Sam. "Darcy mentioned something she picked up while spying on Lucas's conversations with his associates at their hideout in Yara. Something about the Elite Squad Initiative. A name was mentioned. 'Trifocal'. She wouldn't elaborate further. I want to know what its significance is."

"Trifocal is the Elite Squad Initiative's most dangerous operative," said Shaun. "Until recently, we thought the Initiative was working for Abstergo to help hunt down a rogue branch of Abstergo known as ObtainR… their division that worked in heavy collaboration with the Blume corporation… due to their interests in combining their branch's robotics and the flow of information with the transhumanism prevalent in the Phoenix Project. Likely to advance humanity towards the technological singularity Abstergo was so excited about."

Sam frowned and said, "I've heard of ObtainR… Didn't that corporation's CEO go mad half a decade ago?"

"Dr. Theodore Crane?" said Rebecca. "That's putting it lightly. He became obsessed with his own creation, a superintelligence known as C2… that and androids designed to look like people and operate like supersoldiers. Good thing he and I aren't related…"

"How far along did the project get?" said Sam.

"…put simply…" said Shaun while scratching his head "…we could've been enslaved by a God-playing scientist's machines if the ESI hadn't taken them down."

"C2…" said Sam as his eyes went wide. "The supercomputer my daughter went after when she was working for the ESI… It's been re-activated somehow; Lucas has his hands on it! Yahweh was right… this is an illusion," Sam said to Regan and Marie. "You aren't my wife, and you aren't my lover… you're androids."

"DNA sample successfully uploaded," said Regan. "Waiting for new directions from C2…"

"Directions received… Engaging target," said Marie.

"NO!" yelled Sam.

Furious, he attacked both of them, but the two androids posing as his two lovers wearing Megiddo suits overpowered him quickly, beating him until he was nearly unconscious with their fists.

Coughing up blood, Sam grabbed his Karambit knife and plunged it into Regan's skull, then yanked it out of her as the metal endoskeleton underneath her skin began to short-circuit.

Marie then kicked Sam in the leg, then the face. Sam flew to the floor next to where his pistol was lying.

Grabbing his SC-IS pistol, Sam fired at Marie's head, destroying her endoskeleton as well.

Panting, Sam said, "Yahweh, what now?"

"There's more of them incoming! Quick, plant the explosives on that device!"

Sam looked at the device in the middle of the light, a floating, glowing object with an odd Rubik's cube-like shape and appearance.

"What good will the explosives do planted on that? They're better off planted on a pillar holding this place up, or something…"

"More than you know…" said Yahweh. "This place has held up for millennia, against the forces of nature themselves. Your explosives won't bring them down. Destroying the Tree by using its roots against it will."

"Destroying the Tree… ?" said Sam. "Your endgame was to destroy what you've built?"

"Not quite," said Yahweh, "but destroying the Tree will stop Odin's plans now that he has a sample of your DNA!"

"My DNA!" said Sam. "The androids must've stolen it from me while I was unconscious… What does he want with my DNA?"

"The same thing I do. You're my vessel; part of a key," said Yahweh. "Now hurry, but make sure not to touch it until you need to detonate the explosives!"

Sam looked at the cube, and carefully planted the explosives next to it.

He then ran to find cover as the C2 androids closed in on him.

The White House, Washington, DC

Grim was with DedSec, and was starting to hallucinate when a suicide bomber disguised as a lost civilian ran at them.

"Grim, DUCK!" yelled Marcus as he dove to tackle and cover her before the bomber detonated his vest.

Grim grabbed her head.

Freyja was talking to her.

"Your so-called friend sent you here to die."

"Shut up," said Grim as she lay on the floor. "He sent me here to finish the mission."

"Semantics," said Freyja as she picked up Grim's hand and wrapped it around her suppressed SC-50 high caliber variant pistol. "Might as well put yourself out of your misery before the end… You and all the DedSec members. You'd be doing yourself and them a favor."

Wrench and Marcus were pinned down by a set of incoming Engineers they were shooting at. Another suicide bomber was running toward them.

Grim screamed, and punched Freyja in the jaw with one hand, then turned around and shot the suicide bomber in the head before he could detonate his explosives.

"Shit, that was close," said Marcus. "Almost thought we lost you there."

Grim hesitated for a moment, but then chose to grab Marcus's hand.

"Freyja's in my head, and she doesn't want us going after the bomb!" shouted Grim.

"Well, that's what we're here to do," said Wrench, "so do your best to keep telling Freyja to shut the fuck up or we're all going to die here."

Grim nodded, and frowned as she pulled out her SC light machine gun and fired at the Engineers posted on the outer perimeters of the White House, killing the rest of them.

"Damn," said another member of DedSec, Sitara Dhawan, "you're a really good shot."

"I suppose I can thank the bastard who brainwashed me for that," said Grim, "right before I kill him."

They entered the White House via the garden backdoor entrance, where a set of doors opened for them.

"Was that your team's doing, Grim?" said Wrench.

"No… at least I don't think so," said Grim. "Calling all Fourth Echelon operatives… This is Grim. Do we have any potential assets working for us within the Engineers that we didn't know about, over?"

"Does it matter?" said Freyja to Grim.

Grim looked at Freyja.

"The man you're after is activating some new triggers as we speak. He knows you're with DedSec, looking for the Red Mercury device in the White House. He's been reading your mind the entire time through me, doing everything he can to stop you."

"Why's he letting me in then?" said Grim. "To taunt me?"

Freyja made a face that looked like a near-frown for a moment. She said, "You can't save the world when you can't save yourself, Grim!"

Grim frowned. "Your mind games are wearing thin, Freyja."

"You still with us, Grim?" said Marcus as he walked next to her, his gun raised at her.

Grim looked at Marcus, and nodded. "We don't have a choice but to go in. I'll take point."

"This could be a trap," said Wrench.

"You heard the lady, Wrench," said Marcus as they continued into the White House.

As they entered the first area, Grim heard six Engineers taking a smoke break ahead in the office areas.

Grim communicated to the DedSec members she was with via her subdermal to hold and line up to execute the six Engineers on her mark while she hid in the shadows.

"Why'd Sadiq's lieutenant order us to be posted over here?"

"I don't know," said the others. "The orders conflict with that of—"

"Hang on, I'm getting a call from the new guy in charge of Displace's replacement conglomerate. Yes? What do you mean we're supposed to be moving to secure the garden entrance? Sadiq told us to stay put at our current position— copy that. Out." The Engineer who spoke on his EMP-proof phone then said to the other five, "No wonder our orders were conflicting with each other. Sounds like Sadiq's got his head up his ass."

"I've heard all I need to. Execute," said Grim.

Grim and the DedSec members shot and killed the six conversing Engineers with their respective suppressed weapons before they could react.

Looking at the phone, Grim thought, is Sadiq having second thoughts about all this? Lucas did play him after all.

As they moved through the office areas of the White House, Grim said, "Check your fire. Search anywhere for Engineers, live hostages, or bombs. Especially the Red Mercury one."

Grim was moving through a kitchen area of the White House, and picked off several Engineers in the room with her SC light machine gun when she heard from the others.

"Sorry for the long wait for a response, Grim," said Briggs. "I've been busy."

"Same," said Charlie, his breathing heavy. "If you're asking, I didn't screw up or try anything stupid yet." He wore his typical smile unconvincingly.

"Charlie didn't. I did, though," said Sarah.

No response from Sam.

"What?" said Grim as she was simultaneously hiding while picking off ambushing Engineers that blew through the ceiling and rappelled in as she entered the dining room and lounge areas. "Sarah, what do you mean?"

Grim managed to shoot and kill the several remaining Engineers with DedSec, including one of which had a riot shield that nearly managed to reach her position. Then suddenly a flashbang grenade detonated and some sort of gas filled the room.

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Briggs, Darcy, and her DedSec unit were infiltrating the Kremlin by moving through a set of subterranean tunnels running underneath them that they managed to access.

Briggs used his thermal vision to spot a set of charges connected to a grid of moving laser tripwires within the tunnel entrances ahead.

"Shit…" said Briggs.

Looking at a pipe lying above him, he jumped up to grab it, and brought his feet up. He then climbed over the laser tripwires while they were far above him.

He then was able to see a set of detonation controls to the explosives. He cut the wires with his bomb defusal kit.

"Move up," said Briggs.

They then stacked up at a door leading out of the tunnels and into the Kremlin offices.

Briggs and Darcy used their hydraulic tools to do a dual breach, and they entered the doorway, only to find a sentry turret planted behind the door that fired on them once they stepped in front of its sensors.

Briggs quickly dove to cover behind a sofa on the side of the hallway, while Darcy took a bullet to the shoulder as she slid behind a table and kicked it over for cover.

Briggs tossed an EMP grenade to fry the turret.

Looking up, he said, "We're clear."

"I need a minute," said Darcy as she winced. "The bullet in my shoulder was a .50-cal. Even the armor I'm wearing wasn't enough to cover it up."

"You're hurt," said Briggs. Looking around, he said, "They're likely to have heard us by now…"

"You have to go up by yourself," said Darcy. "I'm bleeding too much. I'll catch up with you. You're the leader now. Take my unit with you… and try not to get them killed."

"Are you sure?"

"You have what it takes," said Darcy. "You have to… have what it takes."

Briggs left a first-aid kit with Darcy.

Turning around, he nodded to the other members wearing masks and said into his comms, "DedSec, on me."

As Briggs saw a set of Engineers idling about upon entering the adjacent hallway area, he communicated to DedSec, "Stack up. Pick a target and fire on my mark."

The other DedSec members and Briggs took out the set of Engineers with a controlled set of burst shots.

"We're clear. Move up," said Briggs on comms.

Briggs encountered a set of gates ahead blocking the entrance into the main hall area where the hostages were reported to be. As they suddenly opened, he thought, "What?"

Briggs then saw it.

"Hold up. Ambush ahead," he said on comms.

Several guards in the Kremlin had bombs strapped to their chests.

"Do not engage," said Briggs as he tried to get a closer view.

"What are we doing, sir? Those guys have bombs strapped to their chests!"

Taking a route around, Briggs saw a set of turrets with their guns trained directly at the guards' heads. The guards were whimpering and crying to themselves.

"Those aren't Engineers… they're civilians!" said Briggs on comms.

"Holy shit… You're right."

"Patience is a virtue. Marking spots on your OPSAT's map of the building's schematics. Move to the spots I mark when I give you the electronic signal and try to take out the man in charge of the turrets; he's in the security camera archive rooms above the building's security checkpoint. Don't get spotted," said Briggs as he slowly snuck his way through the massive amount of guards in the checkpoint.

"One of you move to dot 1," he said, continuing to typing as he found his way through to the security camera archive rooms via the ventilation shafts after climbing around on the railings lining the building's interior walls to avoid the guards and remote control car drones below him.

"Dot 2, one of you, move," Briggs said as he crawled through the vents and found the technician in charge of the drones and turrets.

"Dot 3, someone else, move," Briggs said before he silently landed behind the technician and slit his throat, then used Charlie's five-twelve encryption program to shut down the drones and turrets on the technician's computer.

"Briggs, we're in position," said the DedSec members. "The turrets turned off and the guards are getting confused out here."

"Copy that, I see you on the camera apparatuses they hacked into…" said Briggs.

"Were you trying to get us in positions advantageous to shoot the guards and rescue the hostages?"

"That's right," said Briggs when he was interrupted by a call from Grim.

"Calling all Fourth Echelon operatives… This is Grim. Do we have any potential assets working for us within the Engineers that we didn't know about, over?" She then said cryptically, "Does it matter?"

"Shit…" said Briggs.

"The man you're after is activating some new triggers as we speak. He knows you're with DedSec, looking for the Red Mercury device in the White House. He's been reading your mind the entire time through me, doing everything he can to stop you."

"Grim's talking to herself as Freyja. Her mind's being read… She's going to give us away!"

"Grim is still brainwashed? Why didn't you tell us?" said Darcy on comms.

"I thought she'd broken free of it," said Briggs.

"Well, that was dumb of you to make that assumption," said Darcy.

More guards, these ones toting actual guns, were coming in the direction of the hostages.

"I've patched myself up best I can, I'm on my way back," said Darcy.

"Why's he letting me in then?" said Grim. "To taunt me?"

"No, Darcy, WAIT!" yelled Briggs.

"You can't save the world when you can't save yourself, Grim!" Grim said, then added, "Your mind games are wearing thin, Freyja."

Briggs made the call. "Everyone, fire at the guards I mark, on my mark, in that order, or those hostages are toast!"

Briggs then got out his sniper rifle and ran out of the security room and peeked over the railing on the upper floors, and shot his marked guards with his sniper rifle while DedSec killed the rest.

Briggs then threw some proximity mines in the direction of the guards approaching to ambush them, which blew up and killed them.

As Darcy showed up on the floor below him, Briggs wiped his forehead, and said, "All clear. I'm heading back to defuse the bombs the civilians are rigged with."

Darcy said, "That can't be all of them that they left alive."

"What do you mean?" said Briggs.

"They were being prepped to die in the fallout of the Red Mercury explosions! Lucas wants them to die that way!"

Briggs frowned. "You're right. Speaking of which, where is the Red Mercury?" Looking back, he said, "I have to get back to the technician's computer and defuse the bombs planted on them, now!"

Darcy said to Briggs, "Grim's posing a risk to our operation on this side of the globe, as well as the entirety of it. Tell Fisher to cut her loose."

"Copy. Sam, this is Briggs," Briggs said on a private channel. "Sam? Yahweh?"

Turning to Darcy, Briggs said, "Fisher's not responding!"

"Damn it, we were relying on him!" yelled Darcy. "Call what little of Fourth Echelon you can rely on. Meaning just Sarah. I'm calling my team members and telling them about our issue regarding Grim."

Briggs communicated to Charlie and Sarah, "Charlie, Sarah, this is Briggs, over."

"What's up, Briggs," said Charlie, breathing heavily.

"Briggs, why are you calling us on a private channel?" said Sarah.

"Grim's talking to herself as Freyja still," said Briggs. "Her mind's being read by one of Lucas's puppets, which means whenever we use comms to contact Grim, or Grim uses comms to contact us, we're risking details of our operation. We need to let her do her own thing if we're to succeed. And even if she fails, one bomb going off is better than four of them."

"That's our home you're talking about, Briggs. Washington DC in the U-S-of-Fucking-A!" shouted Sarah. "We can't leave her in the dark!"

"What would you have me do?" said Briggs. "We don't have a choice! Lucas forced our hand again! That's what Sam would say, only he isn't answering?"

Charlie looked at Briggs via his OPSAT's video communicator, then Sarah.

"My dad's going after the detonator!" said Sarah.

"He could be dead for all you know, and if that's the case, we're all screwed!" said Briggs. "He needed our help last time he went off on his own in Syria!"

Charlie looked at Sarah. "What do we do?"

Sarah frowned and said, "Call Grim… She needs to hear a story from us. A story."

Briggs frowned, and said, "All right."

Calling Grim, Briggs said with a straight face, "Sorry for the long wait, Grim," said Briggs as he typed into the enemy technician's computer, trying to decrypt the bomb's codes. "I've been busy."

"Same," said Charlie, his breathing heavy. "If you're asking, I didn't screw up or try anything stupid yet." He wore his typical smile unconvincingly.

"Sounds like Charlie didn't. I did, though," said Sarah.

Still no response from Sam.

"What?" said Grim while they heard gunfire on Grim's side. "Sarah, what do you mean?"

More gunfire on Grim's end. "Grim? Grim!" yelled Briggs.

The sound of an explosion followed by static on Grim's end.

"Shit…" said Briggs, as he looked through some notes with familiar handwriting taken on a tablet he recognized as belonging to a CIA operative scribbled on the technician's notebook next to his laptop…

The notes: Sadiq = loose end in Lucas's operation? Perhaps collude with?

Briggs looked at the technician's console, and it lit up.

"Isaac Briggs…" said a familiar voice.

"Oh no… Darcy, get your men out of the main hall!" yelled Briggs as he turned off comms. Then he saw the blinking of a C4-rigged enemy quad-rotor drone enter the security room through the vent.

Briggs dove out of the room before the explosion got him.

The Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China

Charlie, Elijah, and the other Assassins entered the Great Hall of the People via some cracks in the foundation caused by a tank the Engineers used to smuggle in their people during a Chinese military practice drill in Tiananmen Square.

"I read up on Abstergo," said Charlie. "They were afraid of communists winning the Cold War. It must've been hardest for them to gain control of China after that."

"Charlie, shhh," said Elijah as they entered the hall.

"Sorry, I'm nervous," said Charlie.

"Well stop being nervous," said Elijah, "and start being brave like you were when you decided to come here."

Charlie nodded, and followed the Assassins in as Galina, Kiyoshi, and the others cleared out some terrorists smoking with their Hidden Blades, and took their uniforms.

Elijah performed a dual assassination on a couple of terrorists by luring them over with a whistle and slashing their necks.

"The coast is clear. Change into this," Elijah said, and pointed to the Engineers' mask and uniform. "And if you really need a response to what you said earlier to calm your anxiety, China's got multinational corporations that operate within its borders, too. The Collective Force is one of them. Hence why Lucas was able to procure so much resources from the East for Abstergo early on in his career as he worked his way through their ranks. His schism was inevitable. Capitalism leads to fascism."

"Just like socialism leads to communism?" said Charlie as he got dressed into the disguise. "Thanks."

"Stash your own guns, take theirs," said Elijah. "We suspect that they're hiding the Red Mercury within a secret bunker of some kind."

"Huh, cool," said Charlie nervously.

"No, not cool. Hard to break into," whispered Elijah.

Kiyoshi and Callum were conversing with four actual Engineers in Farsi while Galina shot three of them down with a silenced SC rifle, and then the three Assassins beat the other three to death.

"Boring conversation anyway," said Callum.

They moved into the main area of the hall, which was lined with snipers' laser sights, civilians held hostage, drones, and the Engineers.

Charlie said to Elijah over his silent comms, I could hack into their drones, try to cause a distraction.

Elijah said, not yet. But keep that idea of yours in mind for now. At least the part about hacking into their drones.

Elijah said, hey, I was wondering, when Katja managed to figure out I was in love with Sarah, was that because you're in love with her—

Charlie! Hissed Elijah.

Okay… sorry. Keeping quiet.

Charlie hacked into the drones remotely using his OPSAT and the set of trifocal goggle contacts he procured from the mission in Tuscany, multitasking while keeping it cool and following the Assassins to search for the bomb.

I suspect they're starting to catch onto us, said Kiyoshi over comms.

What do we do, Boss's Grandson, said Galina.

Charlie's working on hacking their drones, said Elijah. Everyone get into a position where you can take out as many guards as you can once the shooting starts. Charlie, hurry up.

Charlie went into a corner not far from the stage of the main hall, and began hacking the drones.

As he used his five-twelve encryption program to create a mass hack, Charlie prepared himself mentally for the carnage he was about to unleash. He hoped the hostages and his Assassin buddies would end up all right, along with himself.

Then he activated the program, and the drones started firing on the Engineers.

The Assassins walked around unscathed until the Engineers' numbers started to dwindle from drone fire, to which they then started to shoot the Engineers as well, blowing their cover.

Charlie was working on tapping into the camera and security systems now that he had his laptop out in the shadowy corner he was in, trying to continue counter-hacking the Engineers' own hacking programs.

As an Engineer hid from the drones near Charlie, Charlie looked at the Engineer, who looked at him.

The Engineer said something in Arabic.

Charlie grabbed his SC-400S submachine gun out of fear, and shot the Engineer dead before he could react in time to shoot him. Charlie was knocked over from the recoil of his own gun.

The Engineer managed to fire a shot that hit Charlie in the arm before he was killed.

Charlie yelled from the pain.

As the battle started to end, Elijah ran over to Charlie.

"That looks bad. You need to treat your arm," said Elijah.

"I'm fine," said Charlie, wincing and stepping away from Elijah.

"You're our bomb expert," said Elijah. "I'd prefer it if you defused the bomb with two hands."

Swallowing his fear, Charlie said, "You're going to have to cauterize it, aren't you?"

"First time always hurts the worst," said Elijah. "Kiyoshi, pass me your lighter."

"Fuck…" said Charlie. "Someone's going to have to hold me down."

Galina said, "He's kidding right, Boss's Grandson?"

"Hold him down, Galina," said Charlie with a smile.

"Why do I always get the babysitting jobs…" Galina said, rolling her eyes as she held Charlie down as Elijah cauterized his bullet wound.

Charlie screamed.

"FUCK!"

"Next time," said Elijah, "shoot the enemy dead quicker." He nodded his head toward the Engineer Charlie killed.

"You say that like it's easy,"

"First time always hurts the worst," Elijah said, shrugging as he wrapped a bandage and gauze around Charlie's arm.

"How do you get better at it?"

"For starters, stop seeing the enemy as human. That'll make the thought of doing the act easier to deal with. Do whatever it takes to win, no matter how ruthless your tactics are," said Elijah. "Since you're not as strong as the rest of us, use your techie brain to come up with some tricks."

Charlie said, "All right… You're right."

Charlie heard his OPSAT ping.

Elijah looked at the OPSAT, then back at Charlie.

"Got it," Charlie said, breathing in heavily as he picked up his OPSAT he dropped when he fell over.

It was Briggs. "Charlie, Sarah, this is Briggs, over."

"What's up, Briggs," said Charlie, still breathing heavily.

"Briggs, why are you calling us on a private channel?" said Sarah.

"Grim's talking to herself as Freyja still," said Briggs. "Her mind's being read by one of Lucas's puppets, which means whenever we use comms to contact Grim, or Grim uses comms to contact us, we're risking details of our operation. We need to let her do her own thing if we're to succeed. And even if she fails, one bomb going off is better than four of them."

"That's our home you're talking about, Briggs. Washington DC in the U-S-of-Fucking-A!" shouted Sarah. "We can't leave her in the dark!"

"What would you have me do?" said Briggs. "We don't have a choice! Lucas forced our hand again! That's what Sam would say, only he isn't answering?"

Sam isn't answering? Charlie looked at Briggs nervously via his OPSAT's video communicator, then Sarah.

"My dad's going after the detonator!" said Sarah.

"He could be dead for all you know, and if that's the case, we're all screwed!" said Briggs. "He needed our help last time he went off on his own in Syria!"

Shit… If Sam's dead, then who's going after the detonation broadcast? I don't want to die in a nuclear explosion! Charlie looked at Sarah. "What do we do?"

Sarah frowned, looked at Charlie briefly, and then said to Briggs, "Call Grim… She needs to hear a story from us. A story."

Briggs frowned, and said, "All right."

Calling Grim, Briggs said with a straight face, "Sorry for the long wait, Grim," said Briggs as he typed into the enemy technician's computer, trying to decrypt the bomb's codes. "I've been busy."

"Same," said Charlie, his breathing heavy. "If you're asking, I didn't screw up or try anything stupid yet." He wore his typical smile unconvincingly.

"Sounds like Charlie didn't. I did, though," said Sarah.

There was still no response from Sam. Charlie smile faded.

"What?" said Grim while they heard gunfire on Grim's side. "Sarah, what do you mean?"

More gunfire on Grim's end. "Grim? Grim!" yelled Briggs.

The sound of an explosion followed by static on Grim's end.

"Shit…" said Briggs, then he looked at something for a moment, and his eyes opened wide as Charlie heard a familiar voice say to him over his comms, "Isaac Briggs…"

"Oh no… Darcy, get your men out of the main hall!" yelled Briggs.

The comms went staticky. "Briggs? Briggs!" said Sarah. "Shit! He went dark!"

Charlie said to Sarah, "Sarah, I…"

"What's up Charlie?" said Sarah. "Are you okay? You look pale."

"I—" Snapping out of it, Charlie said, "What did you mean when you said 'sounds like Charlie didn't, but I did though?'"

Sarah said, "Charlie, listen. I had to make a bargain with Sadiq for my life to make it out of Syria alive. I suspect I managed to turn him… somewhat."

"You what?" Charlie looked around and said, "Why didn't you tell everyone that earlier?"

"Sadiq believed his 'son' was being held hostage in the fourth detonation location… not knowing that his son was actually a woman, and a deadly assassin trained and tormented from birth by Lucas. We only put that last part together in Kyrat," said Sarah. "I think he still doesn't know. He wanted me to get her out in the event that he failed Lucas's demands to carry out his second operation involving a WMD other than Red Mercury… the one I suspect the Assassins stopped from happening in Istanbul."

"So, what's the point of all this, Sarah?" said Charlie. "Are you saying he's going to just, let us in to stop the Red Mercury bombs from going off while he still thinks he has leverage over his head?"

"I'm saying I think that maybe this entire time, Sadiq's been trying to stop Lucas himself too."

Charlie said, "Shit… you're right. Sadiq said back in London that his original plans at Site F were to hand the secrets about Abstergo, and Megiddo, to the world on a plate… probably destabilize global relations in the process. We're just doing that now, but later."

"He commands the Engineers, not Lucas. Lucas tried to leverage him, therefore he tried to leverage the Engineers... but what if some of the Engineers are still loyal to Sadiq?"

"You're right…" said Charlie. "Sadiq's Loki's Sage… he's essentially one of the most infamous tricksters in history. What's his endgame in all this?" Charlie looked at Elijah, but Elijah and the Assassins had gone.

"Damn, I'm falling behind the others!" said Charlie.

"One more thing, Charlie!" said Sarah. "It's important! Sadiq's rumored to be the lieutenant in Beijing because he failed in Istanbul—"

"Sadiq's what?" Charlie froze in horror.

"Charlie?" said Sarah.

"I'll call you back, Sarah," said Charlie. He then ran to find the Assassins, only for someone to grab him and choke him from the shadows.

"CHARLIE!"

"Sarah…" Charlie said as he faded out of consciousness.

Lucas's Secret Compound, The Peruvian Jungle

Sarah was entering the lower part of the Lucas compound within the dormant volcano compound by grappling up a ventilation shaft filled with laser tripwires with Ajay and the Golden Path staying behind until she deactivated them.

She used a set of EMP grenades to temporarily deactivate the laser tripwires.

"You have roughly a minute to get up here before they come back online!" Sarah said to Ajay and the others at the bottom of the shaft via her OPSAT.

"On it," said Ajay as he started climbing. Sarah saw his grappling hook land near the vent where she had climbed to.

"Did she say a minute?" said Yogi.

"Actually, she said roughly a minute," said Reggie.

"I knew that, you drunkard," said Yogi as they looked around as the rest of the Golden Path began to ascend the shaft.

Sarah crawled through the air vent with Ajay and the others not far behind.

She eventually let herself out into the compound, where there were guards looking at the controls of a set of funicular cable cars moving over an active lava pit.

Sarah shot them with her SC-3000 and its underbarrel shotgun, then hacked into the controls and called a cable car.

Ajay and the others arrived, and looked down. "Shit, that stuff is hotter than anything I've seen back home in Kyrat just from here alone—"

Ajay and Sarah then ducked as guards were shooting at them from the cable cars.

They took cover by the railings.

"Better not fall in then," said Sarah as the railings opened to make way for the cable cars, and they hopped on after Sarah fired a pair of airfoil rings at the Abstergo guards on the railings to stun them.

Sarah and Ajay beat the guards up, slicing them to death with their Karambit and kukri knives respectively, and pushed their bleeding corpses off the sides of the railings.

"We'll find another way around, Ajay!" said Yogi.

"Yes, preferably one that's not as piping hot!" said Reggie.

"Those two are so weird," said Sarah.

"You get used to it over time," said Ajay.

As guards and flying drones circled around them at stops along the cable car's route that it was passing by and started to shoot at them, Sarah and Ajay covered each other with a riot shield a guard dropped while reloading, circling each other on the cable car while shooting at the guards with their SC-3000 and customized P416 "Bushman" assault rifle, respectively.

"We need to get to the Red Mercury," said Sarah.

"And to the hostages," said Ajay, "before they execute them."

"We'll get Bhadra back," said Sarah. "Promise."

"Intruders in the compound! Shoot them on sight!" yelled a familiar voice.

Shit, thought Sarah, it's Serpent!

As they kept shooting, Sarah thought about something when Grim contacted her via her comms.

"Calling all Fourth Echelon operatives… This is Grim. Do we have any potential assets working for us within the Engineers that we didn't know about, over?" She then said in a different tone, "Does it matter?"

Oh no… thought Sarah as she continued shooting down drones, then paused to reload. Freyja!

"The man you're after is activating some new triggers as we speak. He knows you're with DedSec, looking for the Red Mercury device in the White House. He's been reading your mind the entire time through me, doing everything he can to stop you."

Fuck… Grim's mind's being read, thought Sarah as she held up a riot shield to block some incoming shotgun blasts. Of course… why didn't I think of this… Lucas wanted to keep an eye on Fourth Echelon, and he still is!

"Why's he letting me in then?" said Grim. "To taunt me?"

Come on, Grim, said Sarah as she fired her grenade launcher at a larger tank-like drone positioned at the end of the line, MK-Ultra's not impossible to get out of your head… You have to fight back, or else you're going to give away our positions to Lucas!

"You can't save the world when you can't save yourself, Grim!" Grim said, then added, "Your mind games are wearing thin, Freyja."

Good, thought Sarah as she continued shooting at the guards and other smaller drones at the end of the line, she's fighting back.

As a heavily armored guard fired a rocket launcher that would've blown Sarah to bits if she hadn't dolphin dived to prone on the cable car floor, Ajay tried to shoot through the heavy guard's armor as he reloaded.

Sarah quickly shot off his helmet with her SC-IS pistol while down and reloaded as she got up.

As she got off the cable car with Ajay, she heard Briggs say over comms, "Sam, this is Briggs. Sam? Yahweh?"

My dad's gone dark, thought Sarah. I hope Yahweh hasn't consumed his mind.

"Charlie, Sarah, this is Briggs, over."

"What's up, Briggs," said Charlie, still breathing heavily.

Sarah realized something upon looking at her OPSAT's comm status. "Briggs, why are you calling us on a private channel?"

"Grim's talking to herself as Freyja still," said Briggs. "Her mind's being read by one of Lucas's puppets, which means whenever we use comms to contact Grim, or Grim uses comms to contact us, we're risking details of our operation. We need to let her do her own thing if we're to succeed. And even if she fails, one bomb going off is better than four of them."

"That's our home you're talking about, Briggs. Washington DC in the U-S-of-Fucking-A!" shouted Sarah. "We can't leave her in the dark!"

"What would you have me do?" said Briggs. "We don't have a choice! Lucas forced our hand again! That's what Sam would say, only he isn't answering!"

Sarah argued, "My dad's going after the detonator!"

"He could be dead for all you know, and if that's the case, we're all screwed!" said Briggs. "He needed our help last time he went off on his own in Syria!"

No, Sarah thought, shutting her eyes. My dad is not dead!

Charlie looked at Sarah. "What do we do?"

Sarah frowned, looked at Charlie briefly, and then said to Briggs, "Call Grim… She needs to hear a story from us. A story."

Briggs frowned, and said, "All right."

Calling Grim, Briggs said with a straight face, "Sorry for the long wait, Grim," said Briggs as he typed into the enemy technician's computer, trying to decrypt the bomb's codes. "I've been busy."

"Same," said Charlie, his breathing heavy. "If you're asking, I didn't screw up or try anything stupid yet." He wore his typical smile unconvincingly.

"Sounds like Charlie didn't. I did, though," said Sarah.

There was still no response from Sam. Charlie's smile faded.

"What?" said Grim while they heard gunfire on Grim's side. "Sarah, what do you mean?"

More gunfire on Grim's end. "Grim? Grim!" yelled Briggs.

The sound of an explosion followed by static on Grim's end.

"Shit…" said Briggs, then he looked at something for a moment, and his eyes opened wide as Charlie heard a familiar voice say to him over his comms, "Isaac Briggs…"

"Oh no… Darcy, get your men out of the main hall!" yelled Briggs.

The comms went staticky. "Briggs? Briggs!" said Sarah. "Shit! He went dark!"

Charlie said to Sarah, "Sarah, I…"

"What's up Charlie?" said Sarah. Wait… Charlie looks different… Oh no. Has Charlie been shot? She thought. "Are you okay? You look pale."

"I—" Snapping out of it, Charlie said, "What did you mean when you said 'sounds like Charlie didn't, but I did though?'"

Maybe I imagined it. He's okay, thank god, thought Sarah as she said, "Charlie, listen. I had to make a bargain with Sadiq for my life to make it out of Syria alive. I suspect I managed to turn him… somewhat."

"You what?" Charlie looked around and said, "Why didn't you tell everyone that earlier?"

"Sadiq believed his 'son' was being held hostage in the fourth detonation location… not knowing that his son was actually a woman, and a deadly assassin trained and tormented from birth by Lucas. We only put that last part together in Kyrat," said Sarah. "I think he still doesn't know. He wanted me to get her out in the event that he failed Lucas's demands to carry out his second operation involving a WMD other than Red Mercury… the one I suspect the Assassins stopped from happening in Istanbul."

"So, what's the point of all this, Sarah?" said Charlie. "Are you saying he's going to just, let us in to stop the Red Mercury bombs from going off while he still thinks he has leverage over his head?"

"I'm saying I think that maybe this entire time, Sadiq's been trying to stop Lucas himself too."

Charlie said, "Shit… you're right. Sadiq said something back in London about how his original plans at Site F were to hand the secrets about Abstergo, and Megiddo, to the world on a plate… probably destabilize global relations in the process. We're just doing that now, but later."

"He commands the Engineers, not Lucas. Lucas tried to leverage him, therefore he tried to leverage the Engineers... but what if some of the Engineers are still loyal to Sadiq?"

"You're right…" said Charlie. "Sadiq's Loki's Sage… he's essentially one of the most infamous tricksters in history. What's his endgame in all this?" Charlie looked in another direction, then looked worried.

"Damn, I'm falling behind the others!" he said, looking like he was about to cut her off.

"One more thing, Charlie!" said Sarah. "It's important! Sadiq's rumored to be the lieutenant in Beijing because he failed in Istanbul—"

"Sadiq's what?" Charlie said.

"Charlie?" said Sarah.

"I'll call you back, Sarah," said Charlie, then out of nowhere, Sarah saw Majid Sadiq grab him and put him in a chokehold from the shadows.

"CHARLIE!"

"Sarah…" Charlie said as he faded out of consciousness.

Hovering his hands over Charlie's OPSAT, Sadiq said, "You are very tenacious, Sarah. Nearly the spitting image of your father. Is that mere concern I'm hearing for your team's poor little tech nerd Charlie Cole in your voice, Miss Fisher… or is it grief for a love interest of yours?"

"Hand him over!" screamed Sarah.

"Of course… You're lonely," said Sadiq. "A life in the field with your father was always going to be twice as lonely as merely living with him, Sarah," said Sadiq. "Ponder that while you die alone."

"We had a deal! Your daughter, alive, for your help!" said Sarah. "She's alive!"

"I was told she was killed and buried deep in the Himalayas!" screamed Sadiq. "I was told your father killed her in a fit of rage! But I won't kill Charlie yet… Not until I'm done having my fun with him."

"Did you think I was completely powerless in all of this?" said Sadiq. "Your tip put me on a path of sending the Engineers to attack McKay Global's central shipping hub in Berlin. That's when I found out about Alejandro Takfir's stronghold in the Central African State… so I sent Lucas's second favorite lapdog to go and tip you off about the first attack's location that I found out about by hacking into McKay Global's databases."

"Who's Lucas's second best lapdog?" said Sarah. "You know, because his first favorite lapdog is you."

Grimacing for a moment at Sarah's remark, Sadiq said, "Oh, but you know him better than I do, Sarah… After all, he's working with you right now, even though he killed you. Successfully, as a matter of fact, before Lucas even could."

"What are you…" Sarah's eyes then went wide. "Kobin. Kobin's been working with Lucas this entire time?"

"Kobin doesn't work for anyone but himself," said Sadiq. "You'll find he and your father are more similar than different in that way. Anyway, I'll be monitoring your comms from a distance," said Sadiq.

Furious, Sarah yelled, "BASTARD!" and slammed her fist into the railing.

Ajay said to Sarah as he got off the cable car after shooting the last of the guards dead, "Sarah, what's going on—"

Ajay was knocked out cold by a barrage of airfoil rings and nearly fell over the railing. Fortunately, Sarah was able to grab him before it happened.

As Sarah lifted him away from the railing, she looked up in the direction of who shot Ajay.

A Splinter Cell with ghost white lens flares coming from her trifocal goggles, with a body size and figure similar to Sarah's was holding up a crossbow in Sarah's direction.

"Got you," said Serpent as she fired a sticky shocker at Sarah, knocking her unconscious.

McKay Global Shipping Hub, Berlin, Germany

A Few Weeks Before It All Began…

"Kobin," said Lucas, while a teenage Katja was sitting next to him in his office at the shipping hub. "Your reputation proceeds you."

"I'm not sure whether I should say thank you or go fuck yourself… but thank you."

Lucas grinned. "I'm not here to kill you. You did a good job earning the trust of Abstergo's higher-ups, regardless of your screw-up with the daughter of Sam Fisher all those years ago. You succeeded in helping Abstergo subvert Third Echelon… You managed to arrange the theft of the portable EMP technology from the Russian communist schism within Abstergo just in time for its capitalist counterpart to use it on Washington. Then you cleaned up the evidence with Archer and Kestrel… well enough. If only Tom Reed could've done his job right with President Caldwell amidst the fallout as well."

"What was your real beef with President Caldwell about, Lucas?"

"She was trying to reform the Republican Party into something more progressive… hence why she ran as a bipartisan ticket with our Democrat puppet Calvin Samson as Vice President initially."

"Be serious, man. It wasn't about wanting to shut Third Echelon down, that much I know."

"I am being serious," said Lucas. "But to go deeper into things, she wanted to put an end to US-backed conflicts in the Middle East, to conflicts between political parties in the US, and to take the power out of the hands of corporations. If anything, she was an outsider, especially since Abstergo had lined the pockets of most of the politicians in both parties."

"So? Sounds like she wanted to create peace. I thought that's what the Templars wanted."

"We want more than peace…" said Lucas, "we want control. Because peace can't be achieved without it… She believed that somehow, letting the world have freedom would lead to peace. But don't you have to fight for freedom?"

"Her worst arrogance was to do this in the face of global climate change, knowing that giving more rights to the people would result in nothing other than catastrophe. Armageddon."

"You're starting to sound like every eco-fascist ever, in all the really bad spy movies…" said Kobin.

"You've heard of the equation that calculates human impact on the environment? Population times affluence times technology? Tell me which of these three factors do you think we can affect the easiest in order to ensure the survival of the human race?"

Rolling his eyes, Kobin said, "…population?"

"That's right. See, Katja? Uncle Kobin knows his chaos theory as well," said Lucas.

"I see, father," said the young Katja.

"I didn't know you were one to adopt," said Kobin.

"I want to make sure Katja lives to see a greener future, Kobin," said Lucas.

"Sounds like a lot of people are going to have to die to make the future you want her to see happen."

"Then you'll make it so?" said Lucas.

"How would you have me go about that?" said Kobin, his hands trembling.

"You procured weaponry for the Engineers before, correct?" said Lucas. "I've managed to leverage their leader, along with Dr. Aswat, the man responsible for developing Red Mercury. The latter man was afraid the Japanese Information-Self Defense Force was after him, which was reinstated after Japan and Europe's governments fell to fascism. So, I promised him Abstergo and the Collective Force would protect him from them, as they haven't seen eye-to-eye with Abstergo."

Kobin gulped, "Let me get this straight… You want me to put guns in the hands of terrorists who already have access to portable nuclear bomb technology?"

"We're going to create three false flag events that will change the world forever… Prevent Ragnarok… The first will undo the failures of Tom Reed and Third Echelon in America by framing Fourth Echelon, and linking them to her administration. It will also result in the death of Sofia Rikkin, priming my takeover of Abstergo for completion. The second will starve China, India, Pakistan, Russia… a large portion of the Asian landmass. The third attack… will be even bigger, and will significantly affect the Western Hemisphere."

Kobin looked on in horror. I've got to warn Fisher about this, but how?

"So, do we have a deal, Kobin? Or do I need to get Jack Carver to provide the weapons for them instead?" said Lucas. "He already helped me by training and holding Sadiq's daughter as leverage, where I could've asked you to do that given you were actually there to abduct her mother during the Gulf War. And given these incidents that keep popping up with you helping Fourth Echelon…"

Then the voice in his head told him, trust in Yahweh's plan…

"Fuck…" Kobin managed to form something resembling a smile, and said, "Given I worked with Sadiq before, I'll provide a discount."

"Good boy," said Lucas with a grin. "Katja, say thank you to your Uncle Kobin for securing your future for you."

"Thank you, Uncle Kobin," said Katja as she hugged Kobin.

"You're… welcome… kiddo," said Kobin as he patted Katja on the back awkwardly. "Old Uncle Kobie would destroy the future of… billions… to secure the future for you."

As Kobin walked out of Lucas's office to the elevator in shock, he heard Katja say to Lucas, "All-Father… if Abstergo's currently run by its capitalist faction, and the communist faction has all but bitten the dust, then does that make us the fascist faction?"

"No, Katja, we're not fascists… We're the Instruments of the First Will. There's a difference…"

Kobin desperately wanted to snort some coke to drown out his demons while on the elevator.

McKay walked into the elevator with him on his way down to the lobby.

"Hey, Kobin, my man! How're ya doing?"

"Eat shit and die, McKay," Kobin said casually while avoiding eye contact.

"Good to see you too… Good to see you," said McKay, looking away awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Kobin thought, how do I contact Fisher… c'mon, I'm a Sage, I should know!

And then the sweet, sweet Sacred Voice came to him again.

He said he leveraged Sadiq with his daughter… Maybe if I can find his daughter, I can get Sadiq to turn against him and help me find Sam… Hell, I won't be surprised if Sadiq and Sam cross paths at some point. It's not much of a plan, but it's all I've got at this point… and hey, the Sacred Voice is telling me to do it… so maybe it'll work out? Maybe?

… … … … …

Tel Megiddo, Israel

Kobin was circling the chopper with Shaun and Rebecca in it around Megiddo in case they needed to go after Sam when he realized what he had to do.

"Fucking hell! Shit, shit, SHIT!" yelled Kobin.

"Everything okay, Kobin?" said Shaun.

"No, not really!" yelled Kobin. "I just remembered something fucking critical to Yahweh's Prophecy!"

"What?" said Rebecca.

"How do you know what Yahweh's Prophecy even is?" said Shaun. "Fisher told me what you are… you're just a weapons dealer for criminal organizations."

"Fisher forgot who I am…" said Kobin. "We've known each other for longer than he realizes. I've been trying to fucking drown out the Sacred Voice with drugs for so long—"

"Sacred Voice?" said Shaun. "You're…"

"Yeah, yeah, save it for the crazy revelation party, fuckhead."

"Crazy revelation?" said Rebecca. "This isn't a 'breaking the fourth wall' sorta thing, is it, Kobin?"

"No, I'm talking about the fucking Prophecy!" said Kobin. "We need to divert. Fly to this fucking… town… in Saudi Arabia… where Yahweh's most trusted Disciple was exiled… I'm trying to remember the name of it so I can enter it into my GPS!"

"Why?" said Shaun. "And what does it have to do with stopping Lucas?"

"It has everything to do with Lucas!" shouted Kobin. "Lucas isn't Lucas anymore, he's fucking Odin! Odin wants to prevent Yahweh's Prophecy from happening. Eden is at the center of a set of Isu power lines running underneath the Earth… When the Eye was activated at the Grand Temple in New York, they used juice from a set of lines running in between various temples underneath the Earth's surface to stop the Toba Catastrophe from having a do-over!"

"Desmond…" said Shaun in shock. "We're listening."

"Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem… Lucas is trying to recreate the Isu grid with his second project… the one that you guys stopped from happening in Istanbul… It's somewhere in between those cities… in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia… what's it called… what's it called…" After a few seconds of grimacing, Kobin's face lit up. "Sarawat! Fucking Sarawat! That was where one of the teams that was part of Operation Integral found something... back during the Gulf War."

"Operation Integral?" said Shaun.

"So you really did know Sam for longer than he knew," said Rebecca.

"Longer than I did too…" said Kobin, looking away. "Fucking Isu consciousnesses… they'll drive any man insane unless you try to drown them out. I lost a lot of my memories in the process of doing that."

"After we get to Sarawat, what do we do?" said Shaun.

"Try to shut off the part of the grid that's powering Eden," said Kobin, "for long enough to delay Lucas's broadcast. That'll give Fisher some time, and some darkness to work with. I mean, it's what he likes the most and all."

"You've got the stick," said Rebecca as Kobin re-entered coordinates to Sarawat.

"Let's just hope Fisher can hold his own without us going in as reinforcements," said Shaun. "Otherwise, the world's doomed."

"Fisher was always a lone wolf…" said Kobin. "He'll make it."

Lucas's Detonation Broadcast Center, Tel Megiddo, Israel

Sam was metaphorically knee deep in android blood.

He had managed to give Lucas's C2 androids the slip, and picked several of them off in the process with his SC-20K.

But he was running out of energy, and fast, as he had been heavily wounded by the androids that looked like Regan and Marie.

"Shit… Yahweh!" said Sam as he crept toward the upper part of the underground city where the Tree of Eden was. "I need to call for reinforcements!"

"You can't call on your friends from in here, Sam…" said Yahweh.

"Why not!" said Sam as he shot several incoming androids with his SC-20K, launching a grenade at them to send them flying before he broke into a run.

"The walls are too thick… Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"We'd have to commandeer the entirety of the Isu grid from Eden's command center… It's where the Tree is!" said Yahweh.

"The Isu grid?"

"Lines that run beneath the Earth… All Isu technology, our experiment that was our bid to save us from Catastrophe."

"Right… Lucas mentioned that in his meeting in Tuscany…" said Sam, breathing heavily as he continued to run. "He's likely got control of it by now."

"It's up to you to access it and take control back."

"You're asking me to hack into a sophisticated energy grid beneath the surface of the entire planet? Not to mention one beyond human comprehension?"

"Yes, Sam!"

"All right! I've saved the world a few times already anyway…" Sam climbed his way up toward the top of the tell with his adhesive grip climbing gloves on one of the bizarre Isu obsidian columns.

I hope the androids don't spot me up here… thought Fisher as he continued his ascent, his muscles straining as he moved them.

Fisher was nearly at the top when the androids spotted him from below.

They used jets in their legs and adhesive grips to ascend to his position and started firing at him from below, sending cracks up the obsidian column he was on.

One of his adhesive gloves failed for a second, nearly causing him to fall off.

Instead, he instinctively channeled the movement into an offensive action, grabbed his Five-Seven and shot an incoming android flying close to him and trying to grab him by his legs from below.

The android fell to the bottom of the tell.

Needless to say, if Fisher fell to the bottom, his landing would be more than deadly.

Sam put the pistol away, and gained his grip back on the column again, then made it to the top.

He saw a terminal nearby with thirteen black screens built into it.

"Press your hand against the orb on the pedestal, Sam… Your DNA will upload to the terminal and confirm you as Yahweh! Then we can regain control of the grid!"

Sam quickly pressed his hand against the orb. He screamed as it burned his hand and every nerve in his body.

He tried to pull it off, to no avail.

"I'm afraid that's not going to work, Sam," said Lucas as Sam suddenly yanked his hand off and went flying to the floor.

Getting up, Sam looked at six of the screens. The middle one was odd in that it seemed like it was showing him in third person.

But five of the other screens that were on showed…

Grim.

Briggs.

Charlie.

Kobin.

And Sarah.

All of them were struggling at the moment.

"Looks like your friends are failing their mission… As are you."

Turning around, Sam looked his way and yelled his name.

"LUCAS!"

"It's no use, Fisher," said Lucas as more advanced C2 androids formed around him in combination with several elite Abstergo guards wearing the bulletproof armor Sam encountered Crosshairs wearing back in London.

"Give it up, Sam," said a C2 android, that, to Sam's shock, looked like Sarah, as the android punched Sam in the back, and kicked him to his knees.

Two C2 androids that looked like Grim and Briggs grabbed him by his arms and dragged him to his feet.

Lucas looked at Sam and started to laugh in a terrifying, evil way.

"You've really outdone yourself, Lucas," said Sam as he looked at the C2 androids that looked like Charlie and Sarah as they walked in front of him, along with C2 androids that looked like nearly every significant person in his life.

He saw Vic, Alfred, Marie, Regan, Shetland, Lambert… the list went on and on.

It was like Sam was in some sort of nightmare.

"C2 is amazing isn't it… Its computing power is based off of the quantum computer you stopped Dima Aslanov from getting his hands on a while back… It'd give Shetland's chaos theory a run for its money!"

"Would you mind telling me what exactly it is before you kill me with it?" said Sam.

"Sure. I'll grant you that," said Lucas. "It's a massive AI that helped create a superweapon… a fully autonomous manufacturing facility that is capable of developing unstoppable combat androids capable of mimicking the humans they interact with. Once they've got a sample of their DNA and their thoughts by linking to their minds, the hivemind can manufacture and tailor them to look like the individual human."

"I have to admit, despite that Dr. Crane was so in love with his invention that he didn't mean to control it, his genius lies in the fact that he was able to create a truly terrifying enemy… One the world would fear much more than the Engineers. They already are much more reliable false flag terrorists than the Engineers, not only because I can control them better than the humans they mimic… but because it's their very nature that is terrifying, not their actions."

"Destroying the capital cities of the superpowers that emerged victorious from World War II by the Templars' design is child's play compared to what these machines can do… They can actually enslave the world! Make humans unable to tell what's real and what's an illusion!"

"So, Lucas…" said Sam with a sigh, "you were never obsessed about survival of the human race after all… You were obsessed about controlling it. And you couldn't control the human race at its current population size, so you decided to kill most of us off like animals… With nukes. Your ideas are incredible. You really do deserve the Nobel Prize for them."

Lucas frowned. "Control is a means to survival, Sam! That's the heart of the Templars' ideology! Whereas freedom is an invitation to chaos, and therefore a means to annihilation!"

"But you're not the Templar, Lucas… You're the Isu supremacist, Odin," said Sam. "You don't care about humans' survival… you just want us to be your lapdogs until we die."

"That's why the Isu built us in the first place, Sam!"

"That doesn't mean we have to obey the voices in our heads."

Lucas looked at Sam. "So, you think you're an Assassin now? It was Elijah who helped you translate and leak the Abstergo files to the public, wasn't it?" Lucas laughed, before he said, "I'll wring his fucking neck for taking my son from me… in hell. After he dies in a nuclear holocaust."

Sam said to Lucas while looking at the Tree of Eden, "Speaking of which… You seem rather interested in transhumanism… Is that why you're so interested in Yahweh's Prophecy?"

Lucas looked at Sam, and frowned.

"You know the old saying, 'if you can't beat them, join them?' My old self was weak, so I gave in to Odin. It's in our nature to want to become like the beings that created us, Sam. The Phoenix Project is just the beginning… Sages were initially a means of providing us a way to study triple-helix DNA, the remnants of the Isu bloodline… DNA that makes certain humans stronger, while those who don't have it remain weak. Imagine what a true Isu being would be like, how strong and intelligent a being they'd be compared to other humans… It's no wonder we perceived them as gods over time… We admire them."

Lucas laughed, and said, "It's in our nature to survive… and the only way we'll survive Catastrophe is to become something we're not, Sam. That is the nature of transhumanism."

"That's the nature of posthumanism, Lucas," said Sam.

"You're right," said Lucas. "Transhumanism is just a stepping stone in that direction."

"Evolution. The tragedy of the double helix is that the strong live on while the weak die," said Lucas as he walked up to Sam while the C2 androids watched.

Grinning, Lucas said. "Now this is a proper poetic ending for you and Yahweh. You don't know what the Prophecy is, do you?"

"Nope," said Sam.

"You'll die not knowing what it is," said Lucas.

"And you'll live not knowing what it is either," said Sam. "You don't know what the Prophecy is either, do you Lucas?"

Lucas grimaced. "That's why I stole Yahweh's DNA."

Lucas socked Sam hard across the face.

"And as for your DNA, I want to see it spill on the fucking floors!"

Lucas socked Sam hard across the face again.

Sam spat out blood.

"I want it to run out of your body until you're a corpse! And then I'll drag- your- god- damn- corpse- through- the fucking inferno!"

Lucas socked Sam repeatedly all over with his fists until Sam collapsed on his hands and knees.

"You're weak," said Lucas. "I told you back in Paris that you're weaker than me. You're an inferior being."

"Maybe," said Sam, "but as for Yahweh… you need his thoughts too… You won't get them."

Lucas looked at Sam furiously, and picked Sam up by the back of the skull.

"You're a sad sack of shit, Lucas," said Sam as he spat out blood in his face.

Lucas kicked Sam in the groin, and then punched him hard in the throat.

Sam blacked out for a second, then watched as Lucas stood over him.

"Sarah…"

"You're going to watch your friends and family die in the nuclear fallout… And then, when your will breaks, then I'll destroy Yahweh's fucking Prophecy."

Turning to the androids, Lucas said, "Get him up."

Sam quickly grabbed the detonator to the explosive he planted at the Tree's Roots when no one was looking and hid it in his hand when the androids grabbed him by the arms again.

The White House, Washington, DC

As the flashbang cleared, Grim realized the gas was making her hallucinate and suffer from more of Freyja's control.

Grim screamed and nearly shot Sitara and Wrench, when Marcus pinned her down.

"You need to wear a mask more often," said Marcus. "MK-Ultra fucked you up."

Grim said, "Fuck… You need to put a bullet in me, now!"

"Get your shit together," said Wrench. "We need you to defuse the Red Mercury bomb in sync with your teammates!"

Freyja said, "Put a bullet in them, Grim…" she said as she grabbed Grim's arms from what seemed like all directions.

"It's all in your head, Grim!" said Marcus.

"Just… have you tried grounding?" said Sitara. "Or… thinking of your friends and how they don't want to lose you and you don't want to lose them?"

Grim sighed, and Freyja went away for the time being. "You're right… I have to do this… My friends are counting on me. I have to kill Dr. Ingraham!"

Marcus looked at Wrench.

"Good enough for me…" Wrench said, and shrugged his shoulders.

Sitara said, "We're almost to the Oval Office… After that, we just need to find out where the Red Mercury is."

Grim sighed and said, "Right… Let's keep moving."

As they cleared out the pathway to the Oval Office of Engineers with their guns, they located the civilian hostages.

This isn't right, thought Grim.

"Where's President Caldwell?" she said.

"These are just some of the hostages…" said Marcus.

"And ordinary IEDs," said Wrench, examining some of the bombs planted around the room.

"Wait!" said Grim. "The White House Bunker… it has to be there!" she thought.

"Can you enter it, though, Freyja?" said Dr. Ingraham on the White House intercoms. "I bet you'll kill President Caldwell if you make it through the bunker security doors."

"Shut up!" yelled Grim.

"Complete your final function Freyja… Call your friends."

"My friends?" said Grim.

"Don't do it, Grim!" yelled Marcus.

To Grim's shock, Briggs then said over comms, "Attention Fourth Echelon members, the enemy has access to our comms. Now is a good time to go dark!"

Grim frowned, and said, "You're reading my mind… You're just trying to put them in danger!"

"The fact is, Grim, you only kept your friends alive this long because once Lucas found out from Sadiq back in Syria that Sam was Yahweh, he wanted Sam to be led to the Prophecy so he could take it for himself… and before that, it was in his haste… because he saw Fourth Echelon as a threat that needed to be dealt with. You remember how that played out in London and Ravensthorpe, don't you?"

"No…" said Grim.

"He originally believed Trifocal was Yahweh's vessel, but Trifocal turned out to merely be his vessel's daughter. The codename was a fucking throwaway joke about Fourth Echelon's goggles and he thought it was a subliminal reference to the nature of Yahweh's Capitoline Triad, now known in mainstream religion as the Holy Trinity. Lucas was planning to give the broadcast center location away via another message to Sam, he just… underestimated how Sam would find out for himself. He'd go in, knowing it was a trap. Your actions have all been derivative of Freyja's puppeteering."

"NO!" shouted Grim.

"Fucking own your mistakes, Ice Queen!" yelled Marcus. "We gotta move, the detonator timer's ticking!"

Shaking her head, Grim said, "I'm going to rectify my mistakes… I'm going to kill you!"

"Ah, but killing me won't stop the hell in your head," said Dr. Ingraham. "I merely passed the keys to your mind to Lucas. I'm ready to die here. Are you?"

"No," said Grim as she trembled with rage, "no, I'm not, and I don't plan to!"

Dr. Ingraham frowned, and said, "Attention all Engineers… Stop Anna Grimsdottir from reaching the White House Bunker!"

As they tore through the White House with gunfire making it to the bunker, Marcus and Wrench uploaded hacking modules to the locks on the sides of the bunker to open the bunker security doors.

"This is gonna take a minute, Grim!" said Marcus.

"Let's cover them!" said Sitara.

Pulling out her SC LMG, Grim listened in as the Engineers closed in on their position from all directions.

She planted several proximity mines and charges around the perimeter to get ready to defend Marcus and Wrench.

"Get ready…" said Sitara.

Grim raised her SC LMG, and screamed as she fired at all the approaching Engineers until she ran out of magazines. Then she switched to her SC automatic pistol, and fired at the remaining Engineers that were still standing. When there were just six left, she ran out of secondary ammo. Pulling out her knife, she slashed through the remaining Engineers with Sitara, beating and stabbing them to death.

Covered in bruises and a few gunshot wounds here and there, Grim caught her breath as Marcus and Wrench said in sync, "We're done! Oh shit."

Grim turned around. Several Engineers inside the bunker were holding the hostages at gunpoint. Including Dr. Ingraham, who was holding President Caldwell at gunpoint.

The Red Mercury device was in the back of the bunker.

"Impressive fighting, Grim," said Dr. Ingraham, who was frowning. "If only the fighting skills you possess were actually yours. Get down on your knees if you want the hostages to live."

"Damn it…" said Grim, who tossed her gun aside.

"Now toss your weapons aside," said Dr. Ingraham.

"I'm all out of ammo, and my knives are broken," said Grim.

Dr. Ingraham laughed. "Very well then. As for your crossbow… Take that out, and load it with a sticky shocker. If you want the hostages to live, put the barrel of your crossbow in your mouth and fire it."

"Don't do it, Grim!" said Marcus.

"I don't have a choice," said Grim, as she pulled out her crossbow, and loaded it with a sticky shocker round, remembering when Dr. Ingraham tortured her to the point of dissociation in Micronesia with electroshock cables.

"Fire," said Dr. Ingraham.

And just as Grim was about to, something bizarre happened.

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

As Briggs recovered from the shellshock of the explosion, he stood up.

"Hisham!" yelled Briggs.

"Thanks to… forces external to Moscow… Lucas has granted me access to your comms," said Hisham Hamza. "And thanks to your clumsy leadership, more of DedSec's operatives are dead now, along with several civilians we used as bait."

Running to the main hall, Briggs saw that Darcy was the sole survivor.

"DARCY!" yelled Briggs.

Darcy had been thrown against the wall by the explosion.

"All… your…" she muttered.

"All my what?" said Briggs.

"All… your…" Darcy grunted. "All… you… now…"

"Darcy, stay with me!" said Briggs as he injected Darcy with an adrenaline syringe.

Darcy breathed heavily, and Briggs helped her up, only for her to stumble back down.

"Don't waste anymore- time…" said Darcy. "The clock is- ticking!"

Briggs said as he let Darcy rest, "Damn it!"

Looking back at her as he started to run, he said, "I'll come back for you!"

Briggs then said over comms, "Attention Fourth Echelon members, the enemy has access to our comms. Now is a good time to go dark!"

Hisham said, "You're only delaying the inevitable, Briggs… You might as well give up. You don't even know where I am."

Briggs then thought to himself, weren't there rumors about an old Soviet era bunker beneath the Kremlin, similar to the one in the White House?

Looking around, Briggs made himself scarce.

He managed to reach the entrance to the bunker, where there was a massive ventilation shaft below guarded by a set of lasers and vertically-aimed turrets.

Briggs attached his rappel line to the edge of the shaft, and dove off, highlighting the lasers and turrets with his thermal vision as he descended.

He managed to the dodge the laser tripwires and turrets as they began to fire at him, letting out extra length from his cable per jump so he could descend faster and put some distance between him and them.

As he finally reached the bottom, he could hear footsteps as he realized the ventilation shaft was actually a massive cargo elevator, as it contained a stealth bomber plane at the bottom.

Briggs managed to find a way around and hack into the elevator controls with his OPSAT, shooting several guards approaching him in the access corridors surrounding the elevator with his SC sniper rifle while taking cover behind some crates when necessary.

Getting back on the cargo elevator, Briggs descended into the bunker, where he could see some old decommissioned nuclear missile silos, tanks, planes, and a command center on the other side of the bunker.

In the command center, he could see Hisham overlooking it on an overhead observation deck with President Treskayev, and the Red Mercury device through the crosshairs of his sniper rifle.

Hostages were placed throughout the bunker, along with dozens of heavily armored elite Engineer troops.

"Briggs!" yelled Hisham over the intercoms. "I know you're down here! Might want to give yourself up before some of these hostages get hurt!"

As several troops approached Briggs's position, Briggs headed through the shadows and reached a vantage point on a set of catwalks above the bunker.

He aimed down at the Engineers with his sniper rifle, and fired at them, picking them off one by one.

As Hisham activated a set of defense turrets to fire at the catwalks, Briggs fell down as the rockets blew through parts of the catwalks and caused him to fall off of them and land on a set of crates before crashing to the floor in the command center.

As Briggs got up, Hisham said to him, "Surrender if you don't want me to blow you to bits, Briggs!"

Looking around, Briggs saw that he was surrounded, and Hisham was training his rocket turrets' cannons he was controlling from the command center on him.

Just when Briggs was about to surrender, something bizarre happened.

The Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China

Charlie woke up dazed, not sure where he was.

He could hear his comms exploding on his OPSAT nearby.

Briggs was saying over comms, "Attention Fourth Echelon members, the enemy has access to our comms. Now is a good time to go dark!"

Charlie remembered talking to Sarah before someone knocked him unconscious.

"Sarah?" said Charlie, trying to use his subdermals.

No dice.

"Good, you're awake… Remember me, Charlie Coleslaw?" said Sadiq as he dragged Charlie to his feet and threw him against the wall.

Sadiq sighed. "So, it turns out Sarah was right."

"She's smarter than you think," said Charlie.

"I'll give her credit where credit is due," said Sadiq as he showed Charlie's OPSAT link to Sarah's OPSAT, where Sarah was getting beaten to death in a chair by Serpent.

"That's my 'son'… isn't it?" said Sadiq. "Jordan! I can see her right in front of me, on this screen, and yet she's an ear's length too far away to hear me! And she's going to die in Lucas's Selection, even if the Engineers still loyal to me manage to overpower the others… Even if Kobin manages to reach the broadcast center and shut it down for me."

"Kobin?" said Charlie. "Kobin's been working for you this entire time?"

"Just temporarily," said Sadiq, "after I caught him in Berlin and sent him to the shipping center in the Central African State to search for the location of my 'son'. Before that he was working for Lucas…"

"Damn it!" shouted Charlie. Looking at Sadiq, he said, "Well then, you know your daughter's alive now! So, tell your men to stand down so we can defuse the Red Mercury bombs!"

"I know my daughter's a dead woman now," said Sadiq. "The Collective Force was keeping her apart from me in Kyrat, and now Peru. The larger, more globally disastrous locations where the bombs would be placed would be handled by them… since Lucas didn't want to rely on someone who was leveraged like me. The Collective Force is a set of mercenaries allied with him, just like the Engineers are a set of mercenaries allied with me… But Lucas's pockets are deep. I can only keep the loyalties of so many of my men, and even then, by the time my men get to Peru… It's already too late!"

"Then do the right thing, even though you know your daughter's going to die!" said Charlie. "Sam did the same thing after you screwed him over back in London, set up that ambush with Lucas and Freyja in Ravensthorpe!"

"I am going to do the right thing," said Sadiq. "I'm going to have my men try to stop the first three Red Mercury attacks… and take advantage of the chaos Lucas's regime has been experiencing for the last two days due to the intelligence leaks to burn this damn civilization to the ground. Unfortunately, you're not going to live long enough to watch me do it."

Charlie got up, and said, "What? But I can help!"

"Help with what?" said Sadiq. "Help defuse the very bombs Lucas showed my men how to put together? What do you take me for?"

Charlie looked at Sadiq, and Sadiq laughed. "Certainly, you don't want to help me in fighting the Engineers and Collective Force members loyal to Lucas."

Breathing heavily, Charlie said, "I've come this far… Not turning back now."

"So, if you succeed… would this be the first time you've killed a man, Charlie Coleslaw?"

"Second, technically," said Charlie, as he raised his fists.

"Well go on," said Sadiq. "Swing at me!"

Trembling, Charlie said, He's a Sage… there's no way I can beat him… unless...

Charlie saw his gear and crossbow in the corner of the locked room inside the underground bunker they were in.

"You go first," said Charlie.

"You don't want me to do that," said Sadiq with a grin. Sighing, Sadiq said, "All right, Charlie. I guess I'll go easy on you. When we were at Blacklist Site Zero in Guam, we used codenames based on chess pieces."

"I was there," said Charlie. "One of your men nearly killed Vic then."

"Shame I killed him now instead then, isn't it?"

"Fuck you," said Charlie.

"If you want me to show you how to play chess, Charlie, then you should know the rules when your opponent is a move away from taking your king. In real life, kings lose their heads. And since yours clearly isn't completely here…"

"What the fuck are you talking about, man—"

Sadiq slammed Charlie hard in the face, knocking him over.

"Check," said Sadiq, as Charlie looked up at him and clutched his nose.

Shit, said Charlie, that fucking hurt worse than I thought it would've… How does he hit that hard?

Charlie looked to his OPSAT, and tried to rise up.

"Check," said Sadiq as he slammed his fist into Charlie's stomach, and threw him over into a glass table.

Crashing through the table, Charlie screamed, "Ow!"

He desperately stumbled to his feet, only for Sadiq to say, "Check," and punch him in his throat.

Charlie nearly puked and blacked out simultaneously; he could feel the bile and blood coming up. He grabbed his throat, unable to breathe.

He tried to maintain sight of Sadiq.

"Check," said Sadiq as he slammed his fist into Charlie's ribs and hit him with a spin-kick, knocking him through a ficus, smashing it.

Charlie spit out blood. He was barely conscious at this point, and could hardly feel anything.

"Check," said Sadiq as he stomped on Charlie, picked him up, and butted his head into Charlie's.

As Charlie slammed into the locked door, he was breathing extremely heavily. "En- eno—"

"Giving up so soon, are we Charlie?" said Sadiq as he wrapped his arm around Charlie's neck. "You know the rules. That's checkmate."

Struggling for air, Charlie remembered what Elijah said to him as he started to black out.

For starters, stop seeing the enemy as human. That'll make the thought of doing the act easier to deal with. Do whatever it takes to win, no matter how ruthless your tactics are," said Elijah. "Since you're not as strong as the rest of us, use your techie brain to come up with some tricks."

Of course he's not human, said Charlie, he's a fucking Sage! He's even harder to hurt! I want him to go down though, but my techie brain isn't built for this—

Suddenly Charlie realized he had packed a Ziploc bag full of crackers covered in Skippy's extra crunchy peanut butter in one of his pockets that he had never eaten because his stomach was tied in a knot the whole ride here.

Sadiq likely confiscated them already while I was out, said Charlie.

But then Charlie wondered if he hadn't searched them because they were useless. Could he use them somehow?

I have to try, thought Charlie.

He reached for the crackers, and smushed them into Sadiq's face while he was choking him.

"What in god's name is that—"

Charlie then bit Sadiq's arm while he was blinded.

Sadiq yelled, and let go as Charlie broke free, and ate a cracker while he was at it.

Good, said Charlie, that gave me some energy back…

Sadiq wiped the peanut butter off his face, and looked at Charlie, and smirked. "I guess I should rename you to 'Charlie Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter-Covered Coleslaw then… You're merely delaying the inevitable."

Charlie limped over to his gear, only for Sadiq to tackle him, knocking his gear and OPSAT over

Sadiq pulled Charlie's arm behind his back.

"OW!" Charlie yelled.

"I will admit, Skippy's isn't half bad, Charlie," said Sadiq as he licked his fingers with his free hand. "Stay down while I make my call to the Engineers, or else I'll break your arm."

As Sadiq cleared his throat, he spoke into his own communicator. "To all pawns in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, this is King. The chess game is a go…"

Charlie saw on his OPSAT that Sarah had broken free of her restraints, and was fighting Serpent.

"SARAH!" yelled Charlie, as he tried to break free of Sadiq with his free arm and reach for the crossbow near him.

"I repeat… the chess game is a go…" Sadiq then said to Charlie, "Stay still, worm, the wolf isn't done with his feast yet. Don't make me break your fucking arm!"

Charlie shut his eyes, and screamed.

A crack was heard.

Lucas's Secret Compound, The Peruvian Jungle

Sarah woke up restrained to some sort of chair, stripped of her Splinter Cell uniform. She was just in her T-shirt, bra, and underwear now.

A cloth was stuffed in her mouth, preventing her from crying out.

She could hear Serpent laughing in the distance.

She looked around.

Serpent then sprayed her with freezing water. Sarah screamed under the cloth, choking on water.

"MK-Ultra's a bitch. I would know better than anyone," said Serpent as she plugged in a set of electroshock cables to a battery. "Lucas tortured me when I was a child… implanted Hel's consciousness in my head with the help of advanced hypnotherapy and a bunch of pharmaceutical drugs from Abstergo's Phoenix Project… Viral triple-helix DNA medicine in pill form."

Sarah looked at Serpent and grimaced. "He wanted to distribute this shit to the world, make the entire world controllable." As Serpent attached the electroshock cables to Sarah's body, she said, "Don't get me wrong, I hate his guts too. But the man's ambitions are admirable. Me… I can tell they're going to cause the world to burn. And after what the world has put me through… I'm going to help him out."

Serpent said to Sarah, "Your Golden Path pals are no match for some of the elite troops here in the compound. They'll be dealt with in time. As for you…"

She said, "You ever wonder, out of all the Isu beings who wanted Yahweh dead, which one wanted him dead the most? Hel? Odin? Loki? Obviously not Lucifer, since that Christianity interpretation was all bullshit…"

Serpent said, "Maybe I should just try and inject you with all of the Isu consciousnesses to find out… and you'll result from symptoms similar to what that bitch Katja is suffering from. Regardless, it'll be a perfect revenge against you and your fucking father, for signing me to my fate all those years ago!"

Sarah screamed under the cloth rag and trembled violently against her restraints as Serpent pulled a lever and activated the current, shocking her.

"You stay here," said Serpent. "I'll get the set of scripts ready for the hypnotherapy part."

As Serpent returned, she shut off the current. Sarah stopped screaming, and caught her breath, looking up at Serpent while trying to pick open the cuffs restraining her arms to the chair.

She managed to get one cuff open before Serpent turned on the current again.

"You know I'm envious of what a simple life you've lived while your father ruined lives like mine abroad," she said. As Serpent turned off the current again, "I wonder why you chose to fight in the first place? You could've let your life go back to normal."

As Sarah caught her breath again from screaming, she said something under the cloth rag in her mouth.

"What was that?" said Serpent as she came closer. "I can't hear you because of the—"

Sarah then punched Serpent in the face, knocking her backwards into a set of TVs, before she picked the second cuff off and then used her hands to free the restraints on her legs.

She then got up and kicked Serpent back, knocking over the set of pills she was likely going to force Sarah to ingest along with a set of paper scripts for the MK-Ultra hypnotherapy process.

Serpent got up. "Are you sure you want to fight me without your gear, honey? Because I don't know if you recall correctly, but your father ripped off my human arms, and now? These ones I used to torture you are made of metal."

Sarah pulled the rag out of her mouth, then screamed and slammed into Serpent. Serpent hit her hard in the gut and face with her cybernetic prosthetic fists.

Sarah coughed up blood, only to land another kick to Serpent's knee.

Serpent screamed, and pulled out a knife.

She struck Sarah as she attempted to dodge, managing to make a tiny slit in her abdomen, but it didn't cut very deep.

Sarah punched Serpent in the face, and then twisted her arm and brought her foot down on it, causing Serpent to drop the knife.

Sarah then grabbed the knife and stuck it in her shoulder.

Serpent screamed and Sarah kicked her over.

Sarah then desperately looked around for her equipment. Just as she found it, Serpent grabbed her from behind, and tried to beat and claw her to death with her nails. Sarah chucked Serpent over her, grabbed her crossbow, and fired a sticky shocker, knocking Serpent unconscious for the time being.

Sarah caught her breath.

Grabbing her OPSAT, she saw that Charlie was being pinned down by his arm by Sadiq.

Charlie looked like he had been beaten up bad by Sadiq.

"CHARLIE!" shouted Sarah.

Then something completely surprising happened.

Lucas's Detonation Broadcast Center, Tel Megiddo, Israel

Lucas was forcing Sam to watch his team and daughter die.

Sam watched in horror.

"Let's see…" said Lucas gleefully. "Grim's about to zap herself unconscious after realizing she's compromised the team due to Freyja… Briggs is about to be blown to bits after failing to be the leader you wanted him to be… Charlie's getting beaten to death by Sadiq… and your own daughter is being tortured with MK-Ultra methods by Serpent."

"Damn you, Lucas!" cried Sam. "Tell Serpent to stop!"

"Even if I did, I doubt she'd listen," said Lucas. "She really hates you and your daughter… what's this?"

Sarah had broken free of her restraints. And Sadiq was issuing some sort of command to his Engineers.

"Of course he would…" said Lucas. "No matter… Several of his Engineers are no longer his own Engineers… His petty little rebellion is going to be squashed. And what's this? Looks like Kobin and your Assassin allies have abandoned you?" said Lucas.

Damn it Kobin, thought Sam.

Sam had to wait for the right moment.

Lucas said, "I've already issued C2 with new orders to quash the rebellion. They've infiltrated Sadiq's Engineers and replaced several of them. He'll never see it coming. And to think I had originally just decided to revive this program to taunt you… I wonder what your daughter thought of C2 when she fought its androids when they were in a more primitive state of their development cycle."

"It doesn't matter," said Sam. "She's strong. She's fought them off before, she'll fight them off again. They'll all fight them off. They'll beat you."

"But you're forgetting they're all going to die in nuclear hellfire if you don't do something to beat me, Fisher," said Lucas. "The Selection's timer is ticking…"

Sam smirked, and said, "Yeah, about that… Here's a little gift. From Yahweh."

Sam hit the detonation switch, and the explosion was unlike anything Sam ever felt.

The ground shook beneath them.

Several of the C2 androids fell over.

Looking around horrified, Lucas looked at Sam, and screamed, "What did you do?!"

Sam gestured at his feet.

Lucas looked down. "The Tree's Roots!" Looking at Sam furiously, he was seconds away from charging at Sam and killing him with his bare hands when the ground collapsed from underneath them where they were standing in the tower.

When Sam hit the floor, he blacked out.

Sam awoke on a cracked glass surface, looking at the burning pits of magma from the Earth's core below him.

He could see his reflection as he coughed up blood that dripped against the cracks.

And as he could hear faint screaming in the distance, he looked up and saw all the C2 androids that mimicked the people he cared about had short circuited and were burning and showering sparks.

Looking further up, he saw Lucas bending over, howling in pain as half of his face was burning from crashing into a shard of burning obsidian, part of which got lodged in his right eye.

Lucas screamed at the top of his lungs as he pulled the red-hot piece of obsidian out of his eye, and panted as he collapsed and fell to his knees.

He had ripped off his armor as it had caught on fire, and his undershirt and pants were covered in blood and ash and were partly burnt off, revealing Lucas's impressive muscular build underneath.

Lucas looked up in Fisher's direction, and stumbled back onto his feet.

"FIIIIISSSSHHHHEEEEEEEERRRRR!" screamed Lucas.

Fisher looked at Lucas, grimaced, and managed to find the strength to get up.