Ancestor's Past:Covert Operations

Ancestors' Past
Prologue: Covert Operations


Damien uneasily palmed the tiny thumb-drive in the pocket of his brown trench coat, his other hand fiddling with the Abstergo Industries pass that hung from his neck. Of course, it was forged, along with the rest of his identity.

"You ok?" Damien looked up as he felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder. His gaze was met with a smiling face of his associate, her hazel eyes glimmering in the moonlight. Giving a half-hearted shrug, he replied,
"Ok…Kinda worried…"

"We'll be fine, don't worry so much. We'll be in and out before the security has time to even check our identification. Besides, we aren't the ones they're looking for." Nodding, Damien felt an iota of reassurance that wasn't there before. She always had a knack for that; her very aura exudes with positive energy.

"Best we get going." Mona gestured as she chirped, leading the way to the gleaming skyscraper. He got a call from the higher ups the day before with this task for him to perform, a task considered one of immeasurable risk and danger, requiring the highest expertise available. After all, Abstergo had only been broken into once before, and they will definitely wouldn't let it happen again. Quickly following suit, Damien put his inhibitions aside and focused at the task at hand.

The task: Steal digital blueprints of Abstergo's most valuable device…

The Animus.
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"Are we in trouble sir?"

"No…Just orders from up high. No need to worry." replied Damien as reassuring as he could. The slightly frightened scientist heaved a weighted breath and returned to his humming computer, though his hands still shook. With their high level passes, the insidious pair made their way towards the data bank in the lower levels of the building. He had been pouring over the design of the building the night before, forcing himself to memorize every nook and cranny of this blasted facility. Their destination was tighter than a water tank, one way in and one way out.

Though Damien himself was getting more and more worried at the increasing level of security, Mona was considerably calm and cheerful, puzzling some of the guards with a friendly wave. He wondered if she was really carefree, or just hid her anxiety really well. They had travelled some distance underground by now, passing innumerable corridors and elevators that, without their escort, they would certainly be lost in, even with Damien's knowledge of the layout.

The vault itself was a monument itself, roughly 15 feet in height and length, not to mention numerous layers of protective steel bars and concrete.

"Here you go sir, ma'am." said their militarily-costumed escort in the most formal way imaginable, even snapping to a salute as Mona smiled.

"Thank you… We won't be long." Taking her pass, she slid it down the card reader, followed quickly by Damien and finally their escort. A whirling of gears and the turning of steel bars could be heard before the monumental iron door slowly swung open, allowing two outsiders into Abstergo's most confidential collection of information.

Extending for kilometers underground, the dimly lit chamber resonated with the hum of thousands of super computers, each capable of calculating some of the most complex equations known to mathematicians in a fraction of a nanosecond. If used in the right hands, they could present solutions for all the world's financial and social problems in mere hours.

Sadly, they weren't in the right hands.

"Thank you, you may go now."

"But sir…I'm required to accompany you."

"I assure you," insisted Damien, "that will not be necessary." The escort began to eye them suspiciously.

"I'm sure you are aware sir… This is standard procedure. I can leave my men at the door, but I have to be here for your protection." Damien nodded and promptly forced the door shut, the escort nodding in satisfaction before he began again,

"I'm sorry for my insistence sir, but I have to ACK!" The escort clutched at his neck before falling in a crumpled lump on the floor, a pink colored dart in the side of his neck. Startled, but somewhat expectant, Damien turned round to see Mona just recovering from her dart throwing stance.

"How long?"

"About 5 minutes…" she shot back rather quickly and checked her watch briefly.
Whipping out the thumb drive, Damien got to work, not that he needed to be told.
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Not too far away, only a couple of feet underground in fact…

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" yelled the Beedrill as he hacked away at the granite in front of him. The Insect type had begun to doubt whether his companion, a Buizel, had been as reliable as his commander made him out to be.

"We're almost underneath it Allen… just as few more feet and we'll be there."

Allen grumbled to himself inaudibly before he resumed his hacking.

"I just don't know what we're after, and is it really worth as much as the boss said it was?"

"Cecilia knows what she's doing, just look for the comp and I'll work the rest."
The Beedrill grumbled and continued hacking with even greater intensity,

"They don't pay me enough…"

"She doesn't pay you at all…"
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"How goes the file?"

"More heavily encrypted than I expected… Their using 50 different matrixes AND a playfair cipher along with an improved Engima cipher… This is sure damn well protected…"

"You might wanna speed things up bit Damien, Kyle just called and said that security with be on us in 3…"

"I thought you said they would…"

"I'm sorry Damien… We have to hurry…" Nodding, Damien furiously danced his fingers on the keyboard, the computer blinking just as intensely as a disco-gone crazy. Mona bit her lip inwardly, unable to stop herself from shaking. She imagined that the ground was shaking beneath her, but pushed it aside as her imagination.

Unfortunately, it was slightly more than her imagination.
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"Drill here… try to avoid the wires…" directed the Buizel as he pointed at a certain chunk of rock on the ceiling of their tunnel.

"Okay… Stand back in case it collapses…" warned the Beedrill, and with a mighty swing of his arm, he drove his drill into the rock, sending bits and pieces of debris all over the tunnel, stirring up some dust to top it all off. The poor Buizel coughed and sputtered as the dust rose, unaware of the crack in the ceiling above them. It was only moments before the tunnel collapsed over their heads when he noticed the large fissure. All too late, he cried out to his co-worker,

"LOOK OUT!!!!"
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Damien felt a slight tremble beneath the sole of his shoe, as if the ground was shaking. Like his partner, he dismissed it and worked on the final few bits of data that were downloading into his thumb drive.

97%...98%...99%...

*Crack *

The loud crack was the only warning for the two thieves before the ground beneath them gave way, sending them falling into the two Pokéumans below. In the dust and daze, an alarm resounded in the chamber of computers, red lights flashing angrily in their faces. Both Mona and Damien took a few seconds before they realized that they were staring at two pairs of non-human eyes. It took even longer for the two Pokéumans to realize that they weren't Abstergo staff. And in total, it took the clueless group 30 seconds before they realized that the entire security staff would be upon them in the next 30.

"Damien! Grab and go!" yelled Mona as she produced a couple of tranquilizer darts and threw them at their immediate adversaries. Without turning to check if they hit their mark, Mona raced after Damien up the hole in the floor and back into the chamber. Damien was already ahead, just unplugging his precious thumb drive and heading for the door. Mona would've joined him had the Beedrill not tackled her from behind, pinning her to the floor.

"How…?" she gaped in amazement, watching as a blurry orange figure zoomed past her.

"Listen lady… All we want is that thumb drive…" spoke the Beedrill with menace dripping from every word he spoke.

"Over my dead body Pokéuman!" she growled and kicked him in the abdomen, hurting her foot just as much as his body. While the Pokéuman recoiled in pain, Mona limped over to Damien, presently being harassed by the orange weasel.

"GIVE IT TO ME DAMN IT!!!"

"GET OFF ME YOU ORANGE RAT!!!" Damien yelled as he attempted to keep the thumb drive out of reach of the Buizel while making his way to the exit. Mona aimed another dart at the Buizel, relying too confidently on her skills to hit the Pokéuman. The dart hit, but not her target.

"Damien!!!" hollered Mona as she watched her partner fall to the floor

"I'll take that thanks." Added the Buizel triumphantly as he snatched the all-important thumb drive out of Damien's slack hands and scurried off towards the door. The buzzing of wings could be heard as the Beedrill flew past Mona and picked up the Buizel as they headed for the door, which began to open wide for security. Flying overhead, the duo managed to draw half of the security's attention to them.

"Can't you fly any faster Allen?"

"Give a guy a break… That Pokéxtinctionist knew how to break a guy's balls k…" replied the injured Beedrill as he staggered in height and as they tried to find the way out. They flew past corridor after corridor, startling several scientists and alerting even more security forces after them, gathering a miniature army of flustered security personal after them. More than once, the Buizel almost fell of his partner, hanging onto him and the thumb drive in a death-like grip. Curiously enough though, not a single shot was fired at them, not even a pellet.

"They don't even seem to try…" commented the Buizel as he hung on for dear life onto his insect counterpart. Rounding a rather sharp turn, Allen replied,

"Don't talk, we're almost out." And as they made the turn, they flew into the bitter night air, the darkness of the night surrounding them in a chilling embrace. The freshness of it all, or more likely the slight lack of oxygen, made the Buizel burst into a giddy fit of laughter, annoying the Beedrill who up to this point had had enough of his annoying partner.

"What is it now?"

"If they wanted to get rid of us… They would have done it…"

*BANG *

"NooooooooooOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!"
The Buizel fell off the Beedrill in shock and onto the very edge of the building, his yellow and black companion bleeding as he fell off of it. As he struck hard concrete, he immediately regretted his own mouth shooting, even adding on as he rubbed the back of his head,

"Oh… The things I say at the very last moment…"

"Ahh…A Pokémon… An interesting specimen even if I have to say so myself." The Buizel looked up from his fallen position to see who was commenting on him with such interest. Though he was draped in a lab coat, it was evident in his disposition that he was a man of high rank amongst those present, scientists and security personnel included. Instinctively, the Buizel got into an aggressive stance, wincing slightly as the fall took its toll. The man merely laughed,

"Such a display of heroism… I like that. And if I like something, it's mine. You don't have much space to reject my offer." With each word, he made a stepwise advance on the comparatively diminutive Buizel, pushing him even closer to the ledge from which he had escaped from not one minute ago. Feeling the ledge at his back, he immediately looked down at the ground far below. A small smirk crossed the weasel's maw, turning back to face the maniacal man with the said smirk.

"I'd rather not…Templar. My father told me much about your kind." Jumping onto the ledge, he caused a start amongst the scientists, some even yelling for him to not jump. The leader of this pack merely snorted, frowning as he sneered,

"You have nowhere to run Pokemon… Just give me back the thumb drive and we'll let you go." Now standing erect, the Buizel faced the whole crowd that had gathered on the rooftop, almost as if he was to give a sermon.
b
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted. You won't have me Templar…" he edged closer to the edge, the troop advancing even faster now, "You'll never have me… Because, like my father before me, I am… An Assassin!"

Turning around with lightning speed, the Buizel leapt off the edge and nosedived into the street below…



… until he landed on the back of a Togekiss the caught him as he fell.

"Great timing Amanda…"

"Not so great for Allen … We need to get back fast if he's to survive that shot." The Buizel nodded as he held onto Amanda, placing a paw to stabilize the Beedrill who was gasping in pain.

"Kane…"

"Ya?"

"Two…things…" he whispered, trying hard to breath.

"What is it?" Kane asked in earnest

"The thumb…"

"I have it…" he replied as he produced the storage device.

"Good… Next thing…"

"Is it important?"

"It's Arceus damned important… When we get back, I'm gonna break your nose the moment I recover."