You know worms are harmless things right? Just there burrowing or something and one day I thought "what if Desmond got turned into a worm?" But! Worm Desmond is small! What can he do to help the Assassin's? And now imagine this! One of his ancestors surrounded by enemies and injured and just when they think it's the end a giant worm the size of a train pops out of the ground and crushes everyone and then the thing is infront of the ancestor and thinks they're gonna die too and then the worm just shrinks down to a typical worm size and just lays there as if nothing happened at all.
It would be cool if Desmond was a Mongolian death worm but I'm fine with anything else
This would be fun because Desmond would see himself as useless and, really, this was the Isus’ cruel joke (maybe even Juno) since he couldn’t do anything with a small wiggly body like his.
Still, he persisted and tried to make his way to his ancestor’s main base of operation, wiggling and eating his way from the place he had woken up in… as a worm. He tried to keep underground to not be seen by both humans and any animals that would like to take a bite of him.
Depending on where he had been transported, he could reunite with his ancestor:
- Altaïr: Somewhere in the Kingdom section of the AC1 map. Altaïr had just been on his way to his next mission when he saw crusaders harassing one of the outlying towns that were under Masyaf’s protection. This would still be an arrogant Altaïr and he would call out to them and call them cowards who prey on the weak instead of taking one or two down by surprise first.
- Ezio: It would be fun (and angst-y) if Desmond finds Ezio while he’s fleeing from the Borgias after the fall of Monteriggioni. He’s heavily wounded and bleeding and the horse he’s riding on was tired with some of Cesare’s soldiers about to catch up to him.
- Ratonhnhaké:ton: Somewhere in the vast frontier. Ratonhnhaké:ton is a hunter so he had been hunting for the homestead when he noticed a group of marching redcoats with what seemed to be ‘prisoners’. He tried to save them but it had been a trap and those prisoners turned out to be redcoats themselves and they managed to hit Ratonhnhaké:ton on the head while he had been trying to protect them.
So Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton are in a pinch because of circumstances. Altaïr is in a pitch (which he will adamantly deny) because he’s an arrogant dumbass. So Desmond is panicking because he has no idea how to help, oh god, did this even happen in the past? He meant present! Fuck, time travel tenses are fucking hard.
Focus, Desmond!
In his blind panic, he just charges toward the enemies, hoping to… he has no plan! No hope! Just pure panic and a ‘fuck it, let’s see what I can do once I’m there’.
Then when he’s right on top of the center of the enemies…
He doesn’t know why but he felt his entire body warm up.
Almost too hot but bearable for someone like him.
Then…
He just erupted from the ground with large maw open and just… gobbled the enemy right on top of them while toppling those nearby. Then he quickly returned underground.
And sprang back up to take another enemy.
Like some kind of deadly whack-a-mole… (Whack-a-worm?)
(I know you just wanted him to drop over the enemies but I kinda like the idea of Desmond just straight up eating these poor dudes for some reason. No, there is a reason. I love the Tremors franchise and this ask reminded me of a Graboid. Sorry.)
By the end of it, all the enemies had been swallowed whole and Desmond sprang back up one last time to throw up all of the non-organic matter he had swallowed as well.
Seeing the disgust (and fear) on their ancestors’ face, Desmond let out an almost coo-like sound as he tried to say “yeah, me too, buddy, eeeww” and then poof’ed, he’s his old little worm self once more.
He rolled around the ground and looked up to his ancestor with a “pick me up” like gesture.
When their ancestor just kept staring, Desmond tries a “please?” gesture which he was sure wasn’t really helpful.
But… for some reason… his ancestor picks him up anyway.
Unorganized Notes:
- The three can’t explain it but there’s something about the worm that ‘calls’ to them. Like they know that it wasn’t a coincidence that they were saved and spared.
- Desmond cannot communicate with his ancestors. Even trying to wrap his worm body in a writing tool proved too hard. Up to you if that changes once they get the Apple.
- Altaïr would study Desmond and give him various different ‘food’ to see what he would eat. He records everything in a separate journal with sketches of Desmond. Desmond has made a ‘draw me like one of your French girls’ and a ‘no, no, draw me on this side, this is my good side’ joke so many times even though Altaïr just keeps sighing and gently pushing him to get back to his old pose without understanding why Desmond liked those poses so much whenever he starts sketching him.
- Ezio eventually fell unconscious and, when he woke up, he thought it had been a fever dream. Until he sees Desmond had hidden in one of his pouches so that the young woman (who was canonically the model of Mona Lisa according to the Reflection comics btw) wouldn’t see him. Ezio is a bit wary of Desmond because he remembered how Desmond had grown so big all of a sudden but he warms up soon enough when all Desmond did was wrap around his neck and chill while he makes his way to Roma. Desmond has a harder time helping Ezio because the flooring of the streets of Roma means he’s ‘headbutting’ each time he pops up and he does have to throw up the ‘tiles’ or whatever they’re called. Ezio’s recruits usually are wary of him but warm up to him once they see that he’s mostly just harmless if Ezio isn’t fighting. They like to feed him fruits and meat that Ezio starts trying to stop them because Desmond keeps eating them until he bloats up and Ezio feels that it’s bad for Desmond. The moment Leonardo is away from the Borgias, he starts studying Desmond. He had wanted to study Desmond the moment he saw him with Ezio but he couldn’t because of the whole Cesare-as-my-current-art-sugar-daddy situation.
- Ratonhnhaké:ton believes Desmond is sentient and a hunter himself so he doesn’t try to coddle him and usually lets him get his own food whenever he goes hunting himself. Desmond doesn’t mind since he can eat dirt anyway but Ratonhnhaké:ton still shares a bit of his hunt with him anyway. Desmond doesn’t understand why though since Ratonhnhaké:ton told him specifically to hunt by himself. Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn’t say it out loud but he always worried that Desmond was not eating as he assumed Desmond is a carnivore that needs to become big to hunt down prey. Nah. Desmond is like most worms, dirt is fine. Ratonhnhaké:ton wasn’t worried about bringing him to the homestead because he trusted his instincts that were telling him Desmond was a friend. He truly believes Desmond is some kind of ‘animal’ that just hasn’t been discovered yet.
- All three of them tried to give a name to Desmond and, for some reason, they all come up with the same name even without Desmond’s questionable charade capabilities: Desmond. Altaïr believes the name comes from a dream he once had (Desmond is just “???!!!”), Ezio believes he’s just using a name that had been in his mind a lot since Vatican and Ratonhnhaké:ton is perplexed why he picked such a foreign name but it just seemed right, like he just knew that it was Desmond’s name.
I know some people might be squeamish with worms so I’m going to use the “Keep Reading” function. Below is what the Mongolian Death Worm looks like.
Did not anticipate the Assassin' Creed/Tremors crossover here but I love graboids and want to see if Desmond then transforms into an assblaster after meeting his ancestors
