Note: This is a crossover between Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed.
***
Desmond Miles gazed up at a strange night sky and wondered if his death had been a mere dream.
As far as dying went, it had been quick. A flash of light, a fleeting sensation of heat, and then he was gone. There hadn't been any time to process the fact that he'd just saved the entire world with his sacrifice, or more importantly, to sigh in relief that it was finally all over.
But this – this – did not appear to be the oblivion of death at all.
Dark skies dotted with distant stars hung overhead, but it was all overshadowed by a monstrous dark shape reaching across like a great arm. Yellow lights glowed all over this arm, reminding him of how New York City looked from a plane at night. Reason told him that this huge thing dissecting the sky was somehow a floating, upside-down city.
As if that weren't crazy enough, he could hear little whiny sounds zipping by. When he sat up and looked closer at his more immediate surroundings, he noticed that he was on a large balcony, dozens of stories high. The building he was on rose maybe another hundred feet higher above him. Smaller balconies jutted out from each floor, while smooth, darkened glass panels adorned the building's outer surface.
An apartment building?
There came a fast-approaching whine, and it almost sounded like a tiny jet engine the closer it got. Desmond turned to look. His jaw nearly dropped. It was, for crying out loud, an actual flying car. The space between buildings was riddled with them, zipping back and forth, and filling the air like buzzing flies.
"Hah," he let out a heavy exhale. "Now I'm dreaming of the future."
He stood, grimacing as his entire body ached with the effort. His right arm in particular throbbed sharply, to the point he had to bite back a pained groan. He glanced down at it, only to see that the entire sleeve of his hoodie had vanished, as if having been torn away. The bare flesh of his arm had fine white scars spider-webbing from fingertip to shoulder in a unique pattern.
A quiet curse escaped him. Well. Perhaps this was more than just a dream. Instead of killing him as it should have, the stupid Isu artifact had brutalized his arm and sent him here. Wherever here was.
He hobbled to the edge of the balcony, carefully holding his marked arm against his side. The slightest movement made it hurt worse. But once he reached the edge, he quickly forgot about that.
This place was enormous.
There wasn't just one giant arm stretching into the sky, but five. He was on one, and he could see towering skyscrapers protruding from it as far as the eye could see. If he looked just above the horizon, he could see how the five arms connected to a circular hub, where a single spike projected into the hub's interior like a solitary tower.
