A/N This is what happens when I've had too much coffee. Insanity ensues. I blame Mavwolv for inadvertantly birthing this abberation. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Aedan darted in, slashing and stabbing at the Archdemon's flanks, his teeth bared and face grim, while First Enchanter Irving and his mages shot flaming bursts of fire at the great beast. Leliana sang even louder, the ancient song of valor renewing the strength and energy of the allies as they fought for their lives and the lives of every Ferelden man, woman, and child.
The dragon swept its horned head to the side, trying to knock Alistair over, but he had braced himself behind the wall of his shield and so it only pushed him back, not down. His entire body lit up with blue as Wynne cast another healing spell on him and he shouted, "Is that the best you've got?!" The Archdemon roared in defiance and Maker's breath, suddenly standing in front of the dragon seemed like the wrong place to be as a blast of hot air that reeked of corruption and death and evil—until that he hadn't even realized that evil could actually have a particular smell to it—washed over him.
When those jagged teeth snapped at him again, he rolled to the side and then leapt forward at the lowered neck, plunging his sword into the dragon's head with all of his strength. The massive curved claws dug into the very stone Fort Drakon's roof as the dragon went into a death throw, its entire body shuddering. He gripped the sword with both hands, working it even deeper.
The world went white hot and a massive stream of light blasted up and out of the Archdemon's death wound, sweeping Alistair away with it.
This was not Fort Drakon.
He was standing in the middle of what could be nothing other than a road, no matter that it was hard and slate grey and looked nothing like any road he had ever seen before. Strange metal carts—they had four wheels and he could think of no other word for them—lined the side of the street and everywhere he looked, there were oddly shaped steel and brick buildings, some reaching impossibly high into the sky.
"Look out!!!" someone shouted at him and bewildered, he turned toward the voice.
A balding man dressed in strange, loose-fitting clothing was running directly at him, waving his hands in a frantic warning gesture. That alone might have been alarming enough were it not for the enormous metal monstrosity that was cartwheeling end over end toward both of them, bursting into flame as it careened along. Without thinking, Alistair dropped to his knee and raised the shield up protectively. The man had the wherewithal to duck in behind him, and he braced himself right as it exploded with a deafening sound right in front of them, showering metal shards and glass all around.
The air was filled with the acrid stink of burning metal and, incredibly, the man behind him was laughing as he got to his feet. He wasn't young, being perhaps twice Alistair's age, crow's feet lining the corners of his hazel green eyes, but his body was as hard and fit as that of any warrior's.
Raising one eyebrow in sardonic amusement, he looked Alistair over from head to toe, taking in the sight of his shield and sword. "Nice to see that I'm not the only one who's got a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said with a broad grin, thrusting his hand out in greeting. "I'm John McClane."
This was not Fort Drakon.
The walls of the room were lined with opulent panels and shelves, and smelled of wood and chalk and books. It took him a moment to realize what it didn't smell like—dogs—and he only noticed that because everything in Ferelden smelled like dogs, so he had the vaguest sense that something was missing. Just outside the massive window, he could see children of all ages running around and playing. He lowered his sword and shield and looked around.
"This him?" someone asked from right behind him and Alistair jerked with surprise. The stocky man had a paper-wrapped cylinder of pipeweed clamped tightly between his teeth. His black hair was bushy, sticking up in something like tufts at the top of his head and his cheeks were lined with thick muttonchops. "He don't look like much," he muttered skeptically, his eyes dark and feral.
"Now, Logan, you of all people know better than to judge someone on based on appearance alone, especially in this place," said the bald man in the rolling chair as he wheeled himself around the edge of the desk. His face seemed unimaginably kind and wise as he said, "Hello, Alistair."
The young man was unable to stop himself from gaping like a fish, which was just as well as it distracted him from Logan, who was circling him like a wary Mabari, complete with the occasional sniffing of his scent. "How…. How do you know my name?" he finally mustered up voice enough to ask.
The crippled man—for that was surely why he was in the rolling chair—smiled up at him as though he had been expecting the question. "You will find I know a great many things," he confided with amusement. "My name is Professor Charles Xavier and you are at my school for the gifted. We've been waiting on you for quite some time now."
This was not Fort Drakon.
Oh, it was a tower of some sort, he could tell that just from how far up he was. The walls weren't walls at all, but windows, and he could see other towers of equal and greater height nearby, all lit up with hundreds of lights.
A garishly dressed man in jester purple was strewn up by his ankle and dangled upside down outside of one of the windows, laughing uproariously. Another man, this one wearing a black mask with pointed ears and a long, flowing cape watched in silence. At first, the dark figure seemed the more threatening of the two but then the one swinging outside whooped with glee, "WOOOOooooOO!!!" and Alistair got his first good look at the hanged man's face. He seemed more of an abomination than a man, with bright green hair, smears of white on his face, and a bright red gaping mouth that curved upwards in an inhumanly large smile.
The jester caught sight of Alistair, his eyes gleaming with madness as he crowed, "At long last! A true white knight in shining armor to match the Dark Knight of Gotham!! Oh, the places you'll go together!!" he cackled, waving his arms to make himself swing even faster.
He approached the dark man, his sword lifted up warily. The masked figure turned toward him, tensing as though expecting attack. Alistair only had eyes for the hanged man, whose madness seemed to surpass even that of Flemeth's. "Is he a demon?" he asked in a hushed voice.
The dark knight, who looked like no other knight he had ever seen or heard of, said grimly, "Yes he is."
This was not Fort Drakon.
Alistair choked on seawater, desperately trying to get his footing as the waves buffeted him, pushing him toward the debris strewn beach. He barely managed to hang on to his sword and shield as he crawled up on shore, sputtering and gagging at the heavy taste of salt in his mouth. If he'd been a few feet further away from the shore, his armor would have drowned him.
All around him, he could hear other people coughing and retching up the salt water, and he wearily got to his feet, blinking at the glare off of the white sand beach. Bloody pirates, was the first thing that popped into his mind as he got a good look at the ragtag group he'd been washed ashore with.
Alistair kept himself somewhat away from them, while remaining just inside hearing distance. The pirates were arguing loudly among themselves about the best way to find some man named 'Jack' when the mast and black sails of a pirate ship came into view, not out on the water where it belonged, but coming over the top edge of an enormous sand dune, borne along on the backs of hundreds—thousands—of white crabs.
The ship glided effortlessly toward the water, a black-haired and bearded man with kohl-lined eyes and the distinctive dress of a corsair standing proudly at the bow while everyone looked on in disbelief.
A hand rested on his forearm and he nearly jumped out of his armor, turning to look down at the woman. She seemed like a Chasind or perhaps some sort of sea-gypsy, with her dark tattooed skin and ragged flowing dress. The woman gave him a knowing look, trailing her fingers down his arm to his hand. "You have a touch of destiny about you."
This was not Fort Drakon.
"Juh shi suh mo go dohng shee?" the big man in the ridiculous yellow knitted cap yelped, bringing his weapon—at least that's what he presumed it was—around to point at Alistair. "Where'd you come from??"
"The Anderfels," the young Warden quipped cheerfully, looking around him at the steel walls of the room with no small amount of confusion. There were four others enclosed in there with him.
Another man in a long brown coat glanced at Alistair, giving him a speculatively look, but kept his own weapon, which looked rather like a hand-held steel blowgun, trained on the metal door in front of them. "Things don't go smooth. Zoe, how come things never go smooth?" he muttered under his breath, his jaw set with tension.
"I'm suspecting it's your cross to bear, Cap'n," answered the dark woman who looked both beautiful and dangerous at the same time. "Jayne, I'm thinking he's the least of our worries at the moment with Reavers knocking at the door," she gave the big man in front of Alistair a pointed look.
Jayne grit his teeth but did not argue, immediately swinging the end of his massive blowgun toward the door. "Here they come," he whispered fearfully as spine tingling howls of rage came from outside the windowless room.
Something began to pound on the door and was quickly joined by others, until the metal began to bow into with the force of their combined blows. "Maker's breath, is it darkspawn?" Alistair asked in a low voice, hoisting his sword and shield and preparing for a nasty fight. It sounded like them but try as he might, he could not sense them through the taint.
"Worse," the Captain said grimly out the side of his mouth, his eyes trained forward.
"Reavers," breathed the last person in the room, a wisp of a girl with dark hair and wide eyes. In her hands, she clutched two wickedly curved long knives.
The door burst open before he could ask anything else and a dark mass of abominations spilled into the rooms. They weren't darkspawn, no, but whatever a 'Reaver' was, it wasn't much better, because beneath their twisted piercings and tattered bits of clothing pieced together from what looked like human skin, Alistair could tell that these had once been men. Now they were something else, men driven mad with rage demons and their own twisted desires.
The blowguns made loud cracks of sound when their darts were fired at the Reavers. Any of them that were hit fell back snarling, fighting to get up and attack again, the round holes in their bodies oozing blood. Only a direct hit to the head or heart seemed to take them completely out of the fight.
Alistair defended himself furiously, using his shield to knock the Reavers back and then skewering them with his sword when they got in range and was vaguely aware of the girl fighting at his side. She moved with the exquisite grace of a dancer, spinning and twisting as she lashed out with her weapons to cut the possessed things down. Shifting instinctively, the young man found himself fighting in tandem with her, back to back. She seemed to anticipate his every move before he made it, so that when he bashed them aside with his shield, they fell onto her waiting blades and died. When he slashed at their faces, she'd dart her daggers in to stab at their chests to finish them off.
Zoe, Jayne and the Captain killed as many as they could at range but for every Reaver that fell, though, it seemed there was another to take its place. Jayne cursed with pain as a harpoon shot by one pinned his leg to the floor. Just when it seemed they were on the verge of being completely over run, Alistair focused his will and pushed it outward with a sudden burst of force. The smiting wave was strong enough to knock back and stun every single Reaver in range, and gave them just enough of an edge that a few minutes later, every single one of the demon-possessed creatures was dead.
"Well that was tian fuhn di fu," said the Captain in some language Alistair didn't recognize and staggered to his feet, his face spattered with blood and gore. "I don't rightly know that was you did there at the end but I reckon it doesn't matter either, seein' as how the ends is we're all still in one piece. You've fought Reavers before, I take it?"
"Far more times than I care to remember," Alistair said honestly.
The Captain seemed almost taken aback by his response and shifted his gaze down to the dark haired girl, who stood there in silence staring up at Alistair intently. "River, you all right?"
"Is she all right?" Jayne asked in outrage. "I've got a gorram harpoon in my leg, in case no one noticed!" Zoe rolled her eyes and went over to help the big man.
"Lost and found," River murmured, giving the blonde Warden a secretive smile. Then she blinked in remembrance, a somewhat disgusted expression on her face as she turned to answer her Captain. "I swallowed a bug."