Lucy looked over the footage of all the sessions Stark had done with Desmond, and they were not pretty. Sure, the billionaire was a genius when it came to computers, but not when it came to people's minds. The Animus was not something that should be taken lightly. It was dangerous in the wrong hands, if not downright deadly in the hands of people that knew nothing about the side effects. Clay came to mind, and she had to wipe away the stray tears from the corner of her eye.

He was a subject that should have been saved, but if she had done so, would have blown her cover in the company, and possibly gotten both of them killed. So, she allowed them, Vidic, to push until there was nothing but a writhering shell of a man that she once knew. In his moments of clarity, he knew who he was, where he was, but in the end, they had become far and few between. And it was all her fault. Her fault.

Slamming the laptop shut, Lucy rubbed her eyes in an effort to rid them of the tears that began to come from them more. This was her nightmare now. It was her issues, and now her job to make sure another person didn't lose their mind to the machine that she had help bring into the world.

'Ms. Stillman, you are needed in the conference room.' The voice of the building's AI, Jarvis, came over the speaker.

"I'm on my way." Heaving out a sigh, the blonde gathered up her computer, notepad, and everything else she might need. Who knew the questions that would be thrown in her direction.

Once everything was gathered, organized, and in her bag, Lucy made her way to the conference room to meet with whomever she was suposed to meet with.

The door opened automatically with her arrival, and she scanned the room to see Fury standing there, along with Stark, another man she knew only as Hawkeye, and Doctor Bruce Banner. "Welcome Ms. Stillman." Fury addressed her and pointed to a chair. "We need the update on how bad Mr. Miles really is."

Sighing, Lucy pulled a hand down her face. "I would say he was fine, but pardon my language, I'd be lying out of my ass." Brows raised around the room. "Desmond is experiencing what they call the Bleeding Effect. In essence, the memories of his ancestor are bleeding over into his mind, causing states of confusion, anger, paranoia, and various other mental disorders. His mind is tearing itself apart."

Silence filled the room as ths three men took in what she was saying. Banner was the first to speak. "Is there any way to reverse the damage done?"

Shaking her head, a vision of Clay came to her mind's eye. "Not that I know of. The only thing now is to contain the damage and teach him to use the skills he is absorbing from Altair."

Fury pinched the bridge of his nose. "How long do we have until his mind caves in on itself? We still haven't found out what happened to the stone, and from intel I've been getting, others are searching for it as we speak."

"I can't give you a timeline. Other subjects that I have witnessed have had various stages of cognative deteriation. It could be a few weeks to several years until his mind is all but consumed by Altair, and Desmond is no longer. Or, he could completely lose his mind, and kill himself." Lucy knew it was going to happen. It was only a matter of when.

Stark stood and began to pace. "So, and don't sugar coat it, because of what we're doing, we just destroyed someone to find something."

Lucy knew what was going on, and why they were doing what they were doing. Yeah, she didn't like it, but knew the reason why. "This is a war, I know this. Some people die in war, and as much as I hate to see innocents die in war, it's part of it. We need to get his mind to the point in Altair's life that he hid the stone. Desmond has one of the best sync rates I have ever seen. Skipping a few memories might help, but I don't when it was hidden away."

"So we might have to go through the man's complete life." Hawkeye spoke up, and Lucy nodded. "Great."

Fury looked at the people in the room. "We give him a few days to rest. Lucy, Hawkeye, you are going to start training Desmond. Hone the skills that he's learning. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that we're going to need them to get to whatever we have to get to."

Clearly a dismissal, everyone filed out of the room. Hawkeye walked up next to her as she headed back towards the lab. "Looks like we're partners for right now." He gave her a small quirk of his lips.

"Guess we are." Lucy shook her head, not liking this idea one bit. "But don't thiink for a minute I'm a woman you can push over. I have been trained since I was little to be an assassin."

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Fury watched them leave, and sat heavy in the chair. William Miles walked from the other room, mug of coffee in his hand. "Heard everything?" The director asked his old friend.

Sitting down, William nodded. "Enough to know that my son will never be the same after this. Nick, I hope you know what you're doing."

"Bill, I'm trying to get him out of this in one piece. That's why Lucy's in on this now. She's the only one outside of Abstergo that knows anything about the machine." And that took a lot of digging to find her. The woman had ran when the last person had killed themselves. Romanoff had found her in a small villa in the Italian countryside. Took a lot of convincing to get her to come back to the states.

The other man gave a nod, and silence once again fell around the room.

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

Dante breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled the amulet from the safe. "It's still here." His eyes looked upon the necklace, the icy metal chilling his fingers.

"Well, at least one thing's looking up." Trish leaned against the counter. "Dante, this is insane. Why the hell would your brother be doing something like this?"

That was a question he had been asking himself the whole way back. "I don't have a clue, but I do know he can't be allowed to follow this through. The whole world will burn if Mundus is allowed to live once more." And he felt a shiver run down his back. Just the thought of that demon summoned once more was enough to chill him to the core.

"So you're finally getting the big picture."

The two of them turned to see Morrison walk into the room, carryout cup of coffee in his hand. "You know what your brother is capable of, and you know he has to be stopped."

Sighing, Dante knew what was being said. "The problem is, he's harder to kill than most." Nods went around the room. "So do you have any suggestions?"

The older man nodded. "I do. You need to head to New York and seek out an old friend of mine. He has a team, and he knows ways of taking out people that are harder to kill."

"New York?" Trish asked, brow arched. "You got to be kidding me."

"And why would I do that about something like this? Virgil is trying to raise Mundus and is working with Oscorp to get what he wants. If, and I say if, that was to happen, the world as we know it is going to become Hell on Earth, and there's not going to be a damn person, half demon or not, that's going to be able to stop it." Morrison glared. "You want answers, go to New York and get everything that I can't tell you."

Stepping between the older man, and the blonde, Dante nodded. "I have a feeling we're not going to like this, but I will listen to you. If this turns out bad..." And the older man knew what he was implying.

"It won't, I assure you."

*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*

New York City, the place where trouble always seemed to brew, but it was also home to many of the world's superheros. Villians were idiots for attacking the Big Apple, but they still did it. Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, watched the city from above.

It wasn't like they didn't know he wasn't there. Hell, with J. Jonah Jameson spitting his anti-Spiderman rants damn near every night, it wasn't hard for any New Yorker to know he was there. The man just didn't get it, and all he saw was another masked vigillante trying to take care of the growing crime problem in the city.

Growling a bit to himself, Parker used his webshooter to create a line to move to another building and across a large expanse. It was the same thing every night, and the nights that would follow. It wasn't like he was hurting anyone. Well, except the bad guys when he found them.

"And another desaster created by that menace in the mask, Spiderman."

Rolling his eyes, Parker clung to the side of a building, looking at the jumbo screen in Time Square. Jameson was at it again. Replays of the fight last night between himself and the Green Goblin, rolled on the screen. Osbourne had been up to something, looking for something, but had been foiled. He didn't know what the other man had been after in that warehouse, but after the explosion, there was no telling. No information could be found on what had been in the place, and every avenue that he had tried to go down to find anything had been a dead end.

"Not only did he destroy property that was not his, he destroyed one of the vans owned by the Daily Bugle. The man is a menace, and must be stopped before he destroys every place in our fair city."

"Oh come off it, you windbag!" Parker yelled at the screen, but knew it would do no good except for his own personal good. "Not like you can do any better."

Jameson went on his rant about how Spiderman had to be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. "Mhh, mhh, mhh. Bleh!" Leaving the area behind, Parker swung through the city, keeping an eye out for anything that was out of place. All the while, thinking about his encounter with Osbourne and the events last night.

Something about it rubbed him wrong. Osbourne would have never done anything that stupid, like making a huge mess, unless... Shit! Parker came to a stop when it hit him. Standing on the edge of a building, he finally came to a conclusion that t had been a distraction. Something to keep him away from something else.

"You slick bastard." Parker mumbled as he shook his head. Now all he needed to do was figure out what was going down.