Chapter 1
It was a warm evening in Miami. Max walked across the parking lot towards her car with her bag of books slung over one shoulder. She opened her trunk to put her bag in and shifted her staff around so that the heavy books wouldn't be on top of it. She paused for a moment looking at Hawke's Key. It wasn't the most powerful staff she owned, or the least conspicuous, but something told her to bring it today. Every time she looked at it she would wonder briefly what the Champion of Kirkwall and her companions would think of the way the circle worked today. It had been 400 years since the Kirkwall circle had fallen and things were very different in the world. She had heard the stories of the Champion and her companions almost every night as a girl. They were after all part of her family history.
Suddenly Max felt something powerful not far from where she was; it felt as if someone was ripping a hole in the Veil. She grabbed her staff and pulled out her phone. She quickly hit the speed dial widget on her droid to call Kyle. The templar's help would likely be a very good idea judging from what she felt.
"Hello."
"Hey, it's Max. You need to come to Virginia Key. It feels like someone is tearing a hole in the Veil. I'm going to go check it out." Max said in a rush.
"Will you wait for me to get there if I say please?" Kyle asked hopelessly, already knowing the answer.
"Only if you get here 5 minutes ago." Max replied.
"Fine. Be careful. I will be there in 10," Kyle sighed in resignation.
"Well hurry up. If you take that long I will probably already have everything under control and there will be nothing left for you to do!" Max said jokingly before she hung up the phone.
Max made sure the phone was on silent so she could sneak up on who ever, or whatever, was doing this and looked at her feet. Flip flops really weren't the greatest shoe choice for this sort of thing but they would have to do. She headed toward where she could feel the disturbance coming from.
Anders lay on the ground staring at the dying embers of his campfire. It had been 2 weeks since he had blown up the Chantry in Kirkwall. He still couldn't believe Hawke had let him live after that. He thought she would have killed him; felt she should have killed him. That would have been justice for the innocent lives lost in the blast. He wasn't sure if that thought was him or Justice, or both. Either way now he was wandering the countryside alone. Well as alone as he could be with Justice in his head. He felt crushing guilt over the innocent people who were killed in the Chantry, but something drastic had to be done. The Templar's had over stepped too many times, there were too many abuses to ignore, and it had to stop. It would stop.
Anders felt Justice stir at these thoughts. They had both been twisted by merging all those years ago. Neither one of them had anticipated the effect that their merging in Anders' body would have. Justice wanted to help bring justice to the mages of Thedas and Anders didn't realize how his hate and anger would twist the spirit into Vengeance. As the spirit fed off of Anders' anger he also amplified it, which in turn then fed the spirit more. It was a horrible cycle.
Anders remembered the look on his companions faces when the Chantry blew. Shock. Anger. Disbelief. Betrayal. That was the worst. The look on Hawke's face, he had betrayed her, lied to her, and made her a part of this. He vaguely remembers Sebastian screaming for Anders to be killed, but that wasn't important. What was important was that look in Hawke's eyes. They had become close friends over the years. She had been an apostate all of her life, always hiding from the templars. She understood the plight of mages because she was one. They had bonded over that. Even when she got involved with the angry elf, they still remained friends.
He couldn't understand that. Hawke and Fenris. It seemed so odd, the mage and the mage hater. He was practically a feral animal half the time. But Anders trusted Hawke anyway. He trusted her to stand with the mages, and she did. She let him fight with her against the templars and they had won. Things in Thedas would never be the same.
Suddenly Anders was shocked from his reverie by the feeling of something tearing, the Veil. There was a blinding light from nowhere. Anders barely had time to grab his staff when the light subsided and he was standing on a beach. The trees were unlike any he had seen before. As he looked around he noticed that there were others there.
"MURDERER!" someone screamed as an arrow flew past Anders head.
"Now, now, I can't have you kill each other after all the effort I put into bringing all of you here" a deep voiced purred.
Anders looked toward the second voice and saw a mage in strange clothes. The only way he knew he was a mage was the staff he was holding. Anders looked around and realized that he wasn't the only one brought there. All of Hawke's companions were there. Aveline, Fenris, Varric, Isabela, Merrill, and Sebastian (although he was trapped in some kind of force field at the moment). The only one missing was Hawke. The man in the strange clothes was obviously a blood mage; there is no other way that he could have summoned them from anywhere.
Aveline was the first to address the blood mage. "Who are you? Why are we here?"
"And where is here?" Isabela added.
"All in due time, all in due time." The blood mage purred again. "For now if you wouldn't mind following me."
Then suddenly something went flying between the blood mage and the rest of the group. It was a woman! Just before she hit the ground a telekinetic burst was cast right behind her knocking her forward and onto her feet. She stood up and looked around, then, turning to the bloody mage she said "Really? A demon? Blood magic wasn't enough for you; you had to summon a demon too!"
As Max made her way through the palm trees she saw a group of people near the beach. She got as close as she could without any one seeing her. It was a strange looking group, to say the least. There was one man standing a little ways away from the rest. He looked normal enough, in jeans and a t-shirt. The others were wearing some strange clothes. There were 2 mages, a human man and a female elf. The man was wearing what looked like traditional mage robes. There was a woman with red hair in full armor holding a sword and shield, a male elf with strange tattoos holding a large broadsword, another woman holding a set of daggers (and she looked like she would fit on Pirates of the Caribbean!). There were also 2 archers, one was a human man in very bright white armor, and the other was a male dwarf with a crossbow. This group seemed very familiar to her. She tried to think where she knew them from when the man in the bright armor screamed "Murderer!" and fired and arrow at the male mage! He missed. Barely.
The man in the jeans then said, "Now, now, I can't have you kill each other after all the effort I put into bringing all of you here," in a low mocking voice.
Something clicked in Max's memory when he said this. Dwarf with a crossbow, elf warrior with strange tattoos, woman pirate with daggers….
No Way! Max thought, It's not possible!
But her thought didn't get the chance to go any further than that as something, something big, grabbed her and spun her around. It then grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up so she was looking directly into the eyes of a pride demon.
Oh shit. She thought.
"Would you mind putting me down, my feet miss the ground" she said to the demon as she sent lightning coursing through the demon's arm.
The monster reacted by throwing her toward where the group was gathered. She thought fast and cast telekinetic burst right about where she would have landed to propel herself forward so that she landed on her feet.
She looked around and looked at the man she now realized had to be a blood mage and said "Really? A demon? Blood magic wasn't enough for you; you had to summon a demon too!"
The demon came bounding through the trees and attacked the group. They took their places like the well oiled machine they had become over the year of fighting together. Max was impressed; the stories didn't do them justice. She didn't have much time to admire it as the demon summoned corpses and shades. She focused on fighting them off when she noticed the blood mage inching himself away from the battle. He saw her watching him and bolted. Max took off after him, firing lightning bolts and fire balls to keep the corpses away from her.
The 2 mages ran through the trees firing spells at each other none of them really hitting their marks. Then Max lost sight of the blood mage. She stopped and heard a noise from behind her. She spun around staff up and saw Aveline.
"I saw you chasing him and thought you might need some back up" Aveline said.
"Thank you, I think he went that way."
Then they heard a noise, an engine roaring to life. Aveline looked confused, hearing a sound she didn't recognize.
"Shit." Max knew exactly what the noise meant and ran toward where it was coming from, Aveline close behind.
They came into the clearing just in time to see the blood mage speed off on a motorcycle. Max tried shooting one last lightning bolt but the blood mage was able to dodge it and get away.
"Fuck," Max swore as she watched the motorcycle speed off. She turned to Aveline, "We had better get back to the others and help with the demon."
"They have probably killed it by now," Aveline replied, "The battle was going our way when we left."
"Well then we had better get back before Sebastian kills Anders. I'm Max, by the way. And thanks again for the help."
"You're welcome. You remind me of a friend." Aveline eyed Max's staff, "How do you know who we are? We are clearly nowhere near Kirkwall."
"I will be more than happy to answer that but we should probably wait until we get back to the others. All of you are going to need to hear the answer to that." Max looked down, "Crap," she looked back at Aveline "Can you keep a look out for my shoes as we head back? It appears that I lost them."
Authors Note:This is my first foray into fan fiction. I hope that you enjoy it! I think it will be a fun story to explore.