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Description
July 1, 1988; Los Angeles, California

Jen slammed the piece of paper right down onto the table, making her brother jump and snap right out of his daze.

“Ghah!” Tim yelped at the sudden intrusion.

“Dude! Check this out!” Jen excitedly told him.

“That's just rude,” Tim tiredly joked.

“Well that's my thing.”

After giving her a rather rude gesture of his own, he looked down at the piece of paper that his sister had slammed down in front of his face and raised an eyebrow.

“What's this?” he asked.

“Your eyes are working.”

He gave her a mocking face and then looked down at the paper. It was a poster, one advertising some sort of competition.

“There's some guys hosting a rock off contest in the middle of town in a couple days! Dude, we should totally enter! It's a $500 dollar prize!”

“I dunno, Jen.”

“What? Oh come on, this would be awesome! Since when does Tim Spainhower turn down a chance to prove his guitar skills?”
“Guess I'm just not feeling it.”

Jen paused. She started to get serious. “Is this about what happened with Dad?”
Tim looked at her. She sighed. “Man you gotta get over that,” she told him.
“Easy for you to say,” he said.

“Yeah. Cause it's easy to do. It's over now, man. You said what you had to say and that's that.”

“I guess…”

She patted his shoulder and sat on the table next to him. “Look man, I get it. That was some heavy stuff you guys tossed one another. But I guarantee in a few weeks you'll make up and be friends again like every other time this happens.”
“Just… Why can't he just accept what I wanna be? Literally everything I do isn't good enough for him. Dad, I wanna be a rock star. Oh, that's not a stable job, you need to go to college. Dad, I'm an Assassin. Oh well guess what Tim so was I but I quit the gig and you should too. Well goddammit Dad! Too bad, I'm not gonna do what you say anymore! I'm an adult. I'm gonna make my own path in life and it'll be my choice! That's why I joined this Brotherhood thing in the first place! So I could get a bit of freedom!”

He was breathing heavily and his face went red. Jen sat and just watched, a semi-passive look on her face. “You done?” she asked after his rant.

He looked at her. “Yeah I'm done,” he said, feeling much better after getting that out of his system.

“You need to try and chill dude,” Jen said. “We're on vacation. In sunny California! Come on, let's go have some fun and show some losers what the greatest musicians in Indiana can do!”

Tim sighed. He stood up from his seat. “Alright,” he said. “Let's do it.”

Jen smiled and jumped back to her feet, hitting his arm as she did. “Alright!” she cheered. “That's what I'm talking about! Let's go kick some ass!”
Tim smiled. He followed his sister as she dashed out the door.

“I've got our guitars in the trunk of the car already, don't worry!”

“You stole Mom's car?”

“No, I asked. I said ‘Hey Ma, can I have the keys?’ and then low and behold! She tossed me the keys!” She jingled the keys in her hand for effect. Tim smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “That, that sounds about right.”

Jen laughed and she hopped into the driver's seat, revving up the engines as her brother hopped into the seat next to her. Jen slammed her foot on the gas pedal, and they took off down the streets of Los Angeles.

------------

“Sorry kids, but that's that,” the audition manager told them as the bouncers tossed them onto the sidewalk.
The siblings looked back at him in shock and just a pinch of being pissed off.

“What the hell, man!” Tim said. “You can't just snuff us like that!”

“Sure I can, kid. My competition, my rules, my standards. You two don't have what it takes. You're mediocre at best.”
Their jaws were dropped. He couldn't talk to them like that! They were the best musicians in Indiana! Their rock and roll skills were through the roof!

“Isn't that for the judges to decide?” Jen pointed out.

“The judges are only gonna wanna hear the best of the best. Not the best of the worst. Now scram, kids. Come back when you've got real musical talent to offer.”
And with that, he slammed his door shut, leaving Tim and Jen sitting on the sidewalk with their jaws dropped and their guitars in their laps.

“Can we stab him?” Jen asked.

“I don't think that would go over well with the whole staying your blade from the innocent thing.”

“...Do we care though? I really wanna stab him.”

Tim got to his feet and helped his sister do the same. “We'll show him,” he said.

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Uhh…”

“Got a plan, genius?”

“I'll get back to you on that.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Guy has no sense of talent,” she hrmphed.

“Come on, let's go. There's a music store that we passed on the way here that I wanna check out. I need new pedals.”
Jen groaned. “Fine. Not like I have anything else to do now.”

The siblings hopped back into their car and cruised back down the road, more bummed than they had hoped they'd be after this trip.

------------

Tim and Jen roamed the shelves of the store, looking over the various instruments and equipment. The bad taste from earlier was still lingering in their mouths, much as they tried to shake it off.

“You're absolutely sure we can't stab him?” Jen asked again, half-joking.

“Jen.”

“Alright alright just throwing out options.”

“We'll find a way to prove to him that we're worth including in that competition.”

“How? It's not like we have a magic pick that can just kick our skills up times 10.”

And without warning, the two siblings suddenly found themselves being grabbed by the shoulders and yanked into another room. The lights came on in the little closet as they got their bearings and prepared to beat the pulp out of whoever pulled them in. But when they looked, they saw a man dressed as a store employee, his hair messy and his eyes wide. He had his finger up to his lips, telling them to be quiet.

“What gives, man?” Jen demanded to know.

“Shhhssshhhhh!” the stranger shushed them.

“What gives, man?” she whispered.

“I heard you talking about the magic pick that can just kick your skills up times 10,” he said. “How do you know about that? Are you with that Abstergo guy?”

“Uhhhh…” the siblings said in confused unison.

“Come on, two sets of people in weird outfits looking for the same pick? That can't be a coincidence.”

“Um. Dude,” Tim said.

“First off, screw you; our outfits rock,” Jen interrupted.

Tim nodded. “Second… what the hell are you talking about? What Abstergo guy? And… wait is there actually a magic pick?”
The stranger suddenly looked like he felt really stupid. “Well… I suck at keeping ancient secrets…” he said, more to himself than the siblings. He cleared his throat. “Alright well guess there's no point in being vague anymore. So you two aren't with that Abstergo guy then?”

“We're not exactly big Abstergo fans,” Jen said.

“Oh sweet! Me neither! Especially after that one jerk came in and beat the crap out of me asking about the Pick of Eden…”
Tim and Jen looked at one another. The Templars were up to scheming again. And now they were looking for… for…
“The Pick of Eden?” Jen asked.
“The hell’s a Pick of Eden?” Tim asked.
“And can it help us win the musical contest downtown?”

Tim elbowed his sister. She yelped and responded by sucker punching him back. Tim yelled and rubbed his cheek, all while the stranger just sort of sat and watched, as if waiting for his turn to speak. When they were done, he reached up and turned off the light, leaving them in the dark until he pulled out an overly dramatic flashlight that he held under his face. He began to speak.

“Legend says that long ago, the Devil himself forged a magic device called the Pick of Eden, which made him the most amazing musician with any instrument he put his hands on. But when he was trapped in hell, the Pick was left in the hands of us mortals.”

“Dude you know sound like a total dork right now right?” Jen interrupted.

“Oh I'm sorry I guess I just won't tell the story and go back to my boring ass job then,” the stranger snarkily said.

“Motherfu-” Jen said as she prepared to hit him, only to be held back by her brother.

“Continue,” Tim insisted, causing Jen to pout.

The stranger nodded, and indeed he continued. “Well for a while this thing dropped out of the history books. There were a few mentions of it from Colonial America in the 1600s and later in Indonesia in the 1800s, but that's about it. But eventually it suddenly turns up again…”

The stranger reached behind him and pulled a few photographs out of a box. He passed one over to the siblings, one of the Beatles performing a show. The stranger pointed to the pick held by Paul McCartney as the singer was playing his guitar. Tim and Jen looked closely at it. It did seem to have a sort of… glow to it. It had bizarre patterns on it as well, patterns that matched exactly to the descriptions of Pieces of Eden they would always hear about growing up. Could it really be?

“No one knows how they got it, but they took it around with them wherever they went, even when they started touring in America back in 1964. Then in one of their shows McCartney flicks this thing into the audience to make them cheer. He didn't know what he had. But this thing was caught by a kid in the audience, kid named Eddie.”

“Eddie?”

“Van Halen. Kid uses this to become a star, though he loses it in the early 70s, right as his career’s about to start. 1973, this thing ends up in the tip jar of some piano player in a run down bar in New York. Guy's name was Billy Joel.”

“Holy crap…”

“And the cycle just goes on and on. This thing has sparked the career of dozens of rock legends! Def Leppard, Queen, AC/DC, the list goes on and on and on!”

“So why was Abstergo bugging you about it then?” Tim asked.

“Guess they got word that I'd been digging into this whole Pick conspiracy for a while and thought I'd know where it is.”

“Do you?”

“Uhh…”

“Come on, man, just tell us,” Jen said. “We can beat your ass too if you want.”
The man sighed. “Alright fine,” he said, mumbling something under his breath that almost got him punched. “It was recently donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“That's all the way in Cleveland!” Tim complained, with the stranger's only response being a shrug.

“We gotta get there before Abstergo does,” Jen declared.

“How?”

Jen smiled, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the car keys.

“It's gonna take all day to drive over there!”

“You got a better idea, Tim?”

“Well… no but-”

“Then come on! Don't waste time bitching about it!”

“But-!”

She was already rushing out of the closet door. Tim groaned and stood to follow.

“Thanks man,” he told the stranger.

“Yeah sure. Can you close the door on your way out?”

“Uh… sure?”

“Thanks.”

Tim walked out and closed the door, leaving the strange employee to his closet and flashlight. He met his sister outside. She was already revving up the engines.

“Mom's gonna notice her car’s been gone for hours,” Tim told her.

“Nah, it'll be fine.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah! Course! And if it goes wrong I'll just blame it on you!”

“Of course…”

“What are you waiting for? Get in!”

Tim sighed, realizing he probably didn't have much of a choice, and he hopped into the passenger seat of the car. Jen grinned with glee and excitement, and she slammed her foot on the gas pedal. The tires screeched, the car lurched forward, and they were off down the dusty road to Cleveland, Ohio.

Description
July 1, 1988; Los Angeles, California

Jen slammed the piece of paper right down onto the table, making her brother jump and snap right out of his daze.

“Ghah!” Tim yelped at the sudden intrusion.

“Dude! Check this out!” Jen excitedly told him.

“That's just rude,” Tim tiredly joked.

“Well that's my thing.”

After giving her a rather rude gesture of his own, he looked down at the piece of paper that his sister had slammed down in front of his face and raised an eyebrow.

“What's this?” he asked.

“Your eyes are working.”

He gave her a mocking face and then looked down at the paper. It was a poster, one advertising some sort of competition.

“There's some guys hosting a rock off contest in the middle of town in a couple days! Dude, we should totally enter! It's a $500 dollar prize!”

“I dunno, Jen.”

“What? Oh come on, this would be awesome! Since when does Tim Spainhower turn down a chance to prove his guitar skills?”
“Guess I'm just not feeling it.”

Jen paused. She started to get serious. “Is this about what happened with Dad?”
Tim looked at her. She sighed. “Man you gotta get over that,” she told him.
“Easy for you to say,” he said.

“Yeah. Cause it's easy to do. It's over now, man. You said what you had to say and that's that.”

“I guess…”

She patted his shoulder and sat on the table next to him. “Look man, I get it. That was some heavy stuff you guys tossed one another. But I guarantee in a few weeks you'll make up and be friends again like every other time this happens.”
“Just… Why can't he just accept what I wanna be? Literally everything I do isn't good enough for him. Dad, I wanna be a rock star. Oh, that's not a stable job, you need to go to college. Dad, I'm an Assassin. Oh well guess what Tim so was I but I quit the gig and you should too. Well goddammit Dad! Too bad, I'm not gonna do what you say anymore! I'm an adult. I'm gonna make my own path in life and it'll be my choice! That's why I joined this Brotherhood thing in the first place! So I could get a bit of freedom!”

He was breathing heavily and his face went red. Jen sat and just watched, a semi-passive look on her face. “You done?” she asked after his rant.

He looked at her. “Yeah I'm done,” he said, feeling much better after getting that out of his system.

“You need to try and chill dude,” Jen said. “We're on vacation. In sunny California! Come on, let's go have some fun and show some losers what the greatest musicians in Indiana can do!”

Tim sighed. He stood up from his seat. “Alright,” he said. “Let's do it.”

Jen smiled and jumped back to her feet, hitting his arm as she did. “Alright!” she cheered. “That's what I'm talking about! Let's go kick some ass!”
Tim smiled. He followed his sister as she dashed out the door.

“I've got our guitars in the trunk of the car already, don't worry!”

“You stole Mom's car?”

“No, I asked. I said ‘Hey Ma, can I have the keys?’ and then low and behold! She tossed me the keys!” She jingled the keys in her hand for effect. Tim smiled and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “That, that sounds about right.”

Jen laughed and she hopped into the driver's seat, revving up the engines as her brother hopped into the seat next to her. Jen slammed her foot on the gas pedal, and they took off down the streets of Los Angeles.

------------

“Sorry kids, but that's that,” the audition manager told them as the bouncers tossed them onto the sidewalk.
The siblings looked back at him in shock and just a pinch of being pissed off.

“What the hell, man!” Tim said. “You can't just snuff us like that!”

“Sure I can, kid. My competition, my rules, my standards. You two don't have what it takes. You're mediocre at best.”
Their jaws were dropped. He couldn't talk to them like that! They were the best musicians in Indiana! Their rock and roll skills were through the roof!

“Isn't that for the judges to decide?” Jen pointed out.

“The judges are only gonna wanna hear the best of the best. Not the best of the worst. Now scram, kids. Come back when you've got real musical talent to offer.”
And with that, he slammed his door shut, leaving Tim and Jen sitting on the sidewalk with their jaws dropped and their guitars in their laps.

“Can we stab him?” Jen asked.

“I don't think that would go over well with the whole staying your blade from the innocent thing.”

“...Do we care though? I really wanna stab him.”

Tim got to his feet and helped his sister do the same. “We'll show him,” he said.

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Uhh…”

“Got a plan, genius?”

“I'll get back to you on that.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Guy has no sense of talent,” she hrmphed.

“Come on, let's go. There's a music store that we passed on the way here that I wanna check out. I need new pedals.”
Jen groaned. “Fine. Not like I have anything else to do now.”

The siblings hopped back into their car and cruised back down the road, more bummed than they had hoped they'd be after this trip.

------------

Tim and Jen roamed the shelves of the store, looking over the various instruments and equipment. The bad taste from earlier was still lingering in their mouths, much as they tried to shake it off.

“You're absolutely sure we can't stab him?” Jen asked again, half-joking.

“Jen.”

“Alright alright just throwing out options.”

“We'll find a way to prove to him that we're worth including in that competition.”

“How? It's not like we have a magic pick that can just kick our skills up times 10.”

And without warning, the two siblings suddenly found themselves being grabbed by the shoulders and yanked into another room. The lights came on in the little closet as they got their bearings and prepared to beat the pulp out of whoever pulled them in. But when they looked, they saw a man dressed as a store employee, his hair messy and his eyes wide. He had his finger up to his lips, telling them to be quiet.

“What gives, man?” Jen demanded to know.

“Shhhssshhhhh!” the stranger shushed them.

“What gives, man?” she whispered.

“I heard you talking about the magic pick that can just kick your skills up times 10,” he said. “How do you know about that? Are you with that Abstergo guy?”

“Uhhhh…” the siblings said in confused unison.

“Come on, two sets of people in weird outfits looking for the same pick? That can't be a coincidence.”

“Um. Dude,” Tim said.

“First off, screw you; our outfits rock,” Jen interrupted.

Tim nodded. “Second… what the hell are you talking about? What Abstergo guy? And… wait is there actually a magic pick?”
The stranger suddenly looked like he felt really stupid. “Well… I suck at keeping ancient secrets…” he said, more to himself than the siblings. He cleared his throat. “Alright well guess there's no point in being vague anymore. So you two aren't with that Abstergo guy then?”

“We're not exactly big Abstergo fans,” Jen said.

“Oh sweet! Me neither! Especially after that one jerk came in and beat the crap out of me asking about the Pick of Eden…”
Tim and Jen looked at one another. The Templars were up to scheming again. And now they were looking for… for…
“The Pick of Eden?” Jen asked.
“The hell’s a Pick of Eden?” Tim asked.
“And can it help us win the musical contest downtown?”

Tim elbowed his sister. She yelped and responded by sucker punching him back. Tim yelled and rubbed his cheek, all while the stranger just sort of sat and watched, as if waiting for his turn to speak. When they were done, he reached up and turned off the light, leaving them in the dark until he pulled out an overly dramatic flashlight that he held under his face. He began to speak.

“Legend says that long ago, the Devil himself forged a magic device called the Pick of Eden, which made him the most amazing musician with any instrument he put his hands on. But when he was trapped in hell, the Pick was left in the hands of us mortals.”

“Dude you know sound like a total dork right now right?” Jen interrupted.

“Oh I'm sorry I guess I just won't tell the story and go back to my boring ass job then,” the stranger snarkily said.

“Motherfu-” Jen said as she prepared to hit him, only to be held back by her brother.

“Continue,” Tim insisted, causing Jen to pout.

The stranger nodded, and indeed he continued. “Well for a while this thing dropped out of the history books. There were a few mentions of it from Colonial America in the 1600s and later in Indonesia in the 1800s, but that's about it. But eventually it suddenly turns up again…”

The stranger reached behind him and pulled a few photographs out of a box. He passed one over to the siblings, one of the Beatles performing a show. The stranger pointed to the pick held by Paul McCartney as the singer was playing his guitar. Tim and Jen looked closely at it. It did seem to have a sort of… glow to it. It had bizarre patterns on it as well, patterns that matched exactly to the descriptions of Pieces of Eden they would always hear about growing up. Could it really be?

“No one knows how they got it, but they took it around with them wherever they went, even when they started touring in America back in 1964. Then in one of their shows McCartney flicks this thing into the audience to make them cheer. He didn't know what he had. But this thing was caught by a kid in the audience, kid named Eddie.”

“Eddie?”

“Van Halen. Kid uses this to become a star, though he loses it in the early 70s, right as his career’s about to start. 1973, this thing ends up in the tip jar of some piano player in a run down bar in New York. Guy's name was Billy Joel.”

“Holy crap…”

“And the cycle just goes on and on. This thing has sparked the career of dozens of rock legends! Def Leppard, Queen, AC/DC, the list goes on and on and on!”

“So why was Abstergo bugging you about it then?” Tim asked.

“Guess they got word that I'd been digging into this whole Pick conspiracy for a while and thought I'd know where it is.”

“Do you?”

“Uhh…”

“Come on, man, just tell us,” Jen said. “We can beat your ass too if you want.”
The man sighed. “Alright fine,” he said, mumbling something under his breath that almost got him punched. “It was recently donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“That's all the way in Cleveland!” Tim complained, with the stranger's only response being a shrug.

“We gotta get there before Abstergo does,” Jen declared.

“How?”

Jen smiled, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the car keys.

“It's gonna take all day to drive over there!”

“You got a better idea, Tim?”

“Well… no but-”

“Then come on! Don't waste time bitching about it!”

“But-!”

She was already rushing out of the closet door. Tim groaned and stood to follow.

“Thanks man,” he told the stranger.

“Yeah sure. Can you close the door on your way out?”

“Uh… sure?”

“Thanks.”

Tim walked out and closed the door, leaving the strange employee to his closet and flashlight. He met his sister outside. She was already revving up the engines.

“Mom's gonna notice her car’s been gone for hours,” Tim told her.

“Nah, it'll be fine.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah! Course! And if it goes wrong I'll just blame it on you!”

“Of course…”

“What are you waiting for? Get in!”

Tim sighed, realizing he probably didn't have much of a choice, and he hopped into the passenger seat of the car. Jen grinned with glee and excitement, and she slammed her foot on the gas pedal. The tires screeched, the car lurched forward, and they were off down the dusty road to Cleveland, Ohio.