(Events take place around the time of the Firestorm crisis of Tiberian Sun, simultaneously with the events of Syndicate in the Assassins Creed timeline.

WW2 Eva: Red Alert 2's Lt. Eva.

Desmond: Desmond Files (f-list))

Desmond looked at Kane with surprise, the files he had claimed that he was very old and possibly immortal but that should be impossible right? Unless he had ties to the precursors, then maybe but it was still shocking to hear that from someone.

"The files I saw said you had claim of being immortal... but you're saying you knew them? You were there when it all started? You've met the Precursors?"

He didn't want to say ISU since not many people knew that was what they called themselves, but Precursors was easy enough to understand. Was Kane really that old that he knew them? Was he one of them? It was a little mind blowing to think that one was still alive when all the others had died.

Kane looked a bit puzzled back at him.

"The files, eh? I'm assuming you're referring to your little group. Right."

He looked down, pondering what he just heard. Kane knew the Scrin were derivatives and not -the- ultimate race governing life in this realm. He wondered if Desmond could help him with identifying that himself.

"Not quite, though I do want to get to that soon enough. Oxanna? A minute, please? Emir, you can stay."

Without hesitation, the co-pilot of the Montauk, now its leader, took off with her medics and NOD field agents, switching off all sensors and cameras in the room they were in. When Kane asked for privacy, he receives it.

"Now then. I wouldn't exactly refer to the ones I knew as those. Though I suspect they predate the Visitors I wish to meet again. Tiberium was their doing, after all."

Desmond sighed, "We have some files on you, most of what we have is stolen from GDI when possible."

He was a bit nervous to be alone with Kane, though the atmosphere was fairly calm and he had to take a few breaths to calm down.

"Visitors, they sound different from the Precursors. Are they something else? Most of what I know of the Precursors are faded with time and those who I have met are tight lipped and preoccupied to give straight answers. Tiberium is a natural substance, it doesn't sound related to the artifacts that I know."

Kane began losing himself in thought, thumb on chin, processing Desmond's words.

"Ever since I've come to remember, I could read the Visitors' runes - the latest being the data matrix stored in..."

Desmond may or may not have known yet about the Tacitus. Kane opted to keep that one for himself, for the time being. Not out of mistrust, but out of simplicity.

"...my visions. And speaking of those, I saw some of their writing in a recent episode I suffered back at the motel. Well... -we- suffered."

Emir nodded. That troubling phase involved them both, and he couldn't discount what the assassin accidentally made him see. "It was those writings that I was able to translate towards my prophecy. They are coming, brother - sooner than you might think."

Desmond hummed, visions and episodes. From the bleeding affect back at the motel. He tilted his head curiously. "What memory did you see during the bleed?"

Maybe he could piece something together from the memory, Yusef may have seen something before coming into contact with Ezio. It was very possible and he might not have know what it was at the time. But The two had talked during their downtime on occasion about those things.

"You can understand their language? What did the writing say?"

Kane looked up at Desmond.

"The memory I saw? It was..."

And then it hit him without warning. Kane clutched his black shirt, feeling the deep heartburn associated with that episode - specifically, what he felt and understood from it. Gushes of human emotions foreign and invasive to his own character: feelings of camaraderie, of hope, of shared destiny and familial -love-.

"Ex... cuse me... for a second, Desmond."

Emir tried to reach out to him, almost understanding what might've happened, but Kane was already out of the room. Heartbeats. Fast and hard. Heartbeats. It was nowhere near as destructive as what he went through in Emir's body, but it was enough to make him care to leave.

Kane was betrayed, thousands of years ago, since the dawn of human history. He was betrayed over the centuries. He was betrayed a few decades ago. He was betrayed, weeks ago. The purity of the two assassin hearts that stood before him were too much for him to handle, to -accept-. It wasn't a relapse of the episode he suffered, but it definitely still affected him.

All his life, he's known nothing but betrayal, while betraying no one himself. He was so numb to the emotion, that it wouldn't last more than half a second before he could immediately "solve" it... with an execution, or some form of equal punishment. 'Was this the new body behaving on its own?' He wondered. His older bodies, the hearts they carried and died with - all knew betrayal. They all knew failure. They all knew victory. They knew little else.

And he only ever needed 'little else' in there.

Keeling over for a few seconds, he regained his composure, and began to learn how to deal with this nuisance - isolating the troubling thoughts dissociating the emotion(s) from it, and letting it pass. He reminded himself he was safe. He had so much to fall back on now. NOD isn't dead. Oxanna, a remnant of his most loyal followers, isn't dead. The future, as lonely as it may seem, was still ahead of him.

Slowly, he returned to the concerned Emir, patting him on the shoulder, and passing him back into the infirmary he and Desmond were in.

He looked up at Desmond and stared at him. The source of these emotions. It wasn't as bad anymore. -He- wasn't dead either.

Figuratively speaking.

Kane addressed his last question.

"Not much, brother - the writing simply repeated what I already knew. That the tiberium was theirs - for the taking."

Desmond looked at Kane with concern, the guy had just had a bit of a break down or some time of distress at the memory. He had run away for a moment to collect himself and Desmond had let him knowing he'd need a minute.

"Are you ok? I know the emotions and memories can be a lot sometimes, I didn't think you'd carry any bleed over when you got your body back. The attack at the motel was bad enough as it was."

Even if Kane wasn't an assassin or part of the Brotherhood, he was feeling some kinship to the man simply over the bleed he shared with Emir. It wasn't much but Desmond didn't wish that on anyone. He wasn't sure if talking about the memories would trigger the man again.

"If you're having a bleed then maybe we should wait till your settled again? I don't want to risk triggering either of you again."

Kane was confused. He turned his gaze to Desmond.

"Bleed...? What bleed...?"

Kane looked at his own arms, then his legs. He didn't see any blood on his body or limbs.

He looked back up at the assassin.

"Explain."

Desmond sighed and tugged on his hood a bit trying to figure out how to explain.

"The machine Emir was in when you got into his head. It's called an animus, it lets you view the memories stored in your genetic make up from those in your past history. But the memories tend to... mix with your own with too much use. You can forget who you are, where or when you are. This is called the bleeding effect. It has driven people insane from overexposure, some go catatonic, and usually people die from harming themselves and others. I think that since you were there during the last attack at the motel, you saw that memory too. It stuck with you, I'm hoping it won't be nearly as bad as using the actual machine and you won't see any other memories other then the one. But this hasn't happened before, so I can't be sure."

He had a chance to let Clay ride with him in the same way Kane had with Emir and he had refused. As far as he knew the only people that shared a brain was those who viewed the whole memory or an ancestor and managed to make peace with them or some kind of deal.

Kane looked at him with intrigue.

"So... what happened at the motel? I wasn't entirely there for it."

Kane asked this as he heard 'die' escape Desmond's lips. Did Desmond need to do something to protect him from that type of death? Is he talking to someone that might have saved his life?

Desmond looked at bit sad at that question, looking back towards Emir too. It wasn't uncommon to forget about the episodes when it happened, leaving the victim clueless as to their own mental state. Desmond himself only knew because of the emails at the time, and his own nightmares keeping him awake with ghosts walking around everywhere. He didn't want to see these two go down that path.

"Back at the motel, you guys had a break down. I'm not sure what triggered it, but you seemed to loose track of where you were and who I was. You thought you were trapped before kinda breaking down and curling up while yelling. You were incoherent and it took you awhile to come back from it. It was a really bad episode too, I don't know what you saw or heard but the whole thing was too much and you passed out after that. You havn't had any other issues till now and thankfully Emir has been clear so far."

Desmond was still keeping on eye on Emir though. He may have only seen Yusef but it was only a matter of time before he had another episode, it was something he would have to deal with his whole life from now on. But having only one ancestor who was also an assassin helped allot. Not like Daniel who was on opposite sides from his ancestor.

Kane assured him. "Relax. I'm in control right now. A few slip ups here or there won't be a problem."

He almost liked impressing Desmond, from time to time. Kane then remembered an important feature that was part of his recent mental transfer. He thought to himself accordingly.

'Cabal, can you read me?'

((A secret link to the damaged NOD AI? Find out next chapter!))