A/N: I have done a very bad thing. I'm so sorry. A tough week plus character exploration, equals an alternate universe version of my own crossover story. Go figure.
Warning: Rating changed to M for this chapter. This is pretty messed up, character death and torture.
Beware all ye who venture forth.
Prompt – AU: Blood and Fire
"If this world seeks my destruction… It goes with me."
A chantry exploded, a sword shattered, and Hawke woke up on Gaia.
A beady eyed man in a white coat looked down at her, his scalpel as cold and sharp as his mind. Her back arched in pain off the operating table. Her magic sputtered uselessly against the strange metal restraints.
It was all she had known since that day in the gallows. Pain and Despair and Fear and Pride spiked with every cut. Rage and Hatred grew stronger still and they gave her strength enough to endure. Her sense of time was in shambles and her memory shattered under the deluge of strange things she was injected with.
The Fade was her only refuge. In the dark, cold corner of a sterilized cell lit with white lights that never dimmed, she fled into her dreams. There a bargain was struck.
The man with beady eyes brought down his scalpel. Blood sang in her veins, in the air, in her magic. It whistled through the air like a thousand blades. Manacles snapped. Bodies hit the ground and blood pooled.
Hawke laughed as alarms blared. She got to her feet, her legs shaky from months of inactivity. It didn't stop her. Nothing stopped her. She strolled gaily through halls of blinding white, passing other cells and operating tables. Locks melted before her and guns jammed in their wielders hands under her magic's corrupting reach.
She painted the halls with a dripping red, a stark contrast to the pristine white coats that now fell in fluttering ribbons to the ground.
As she wandered on, a trail of the dead and dying in her wake, she noted something a little strange. There were screams of pain in the halls before her as well now. Then she came across a corpse that she hadn't put there.
She looked at it with a puzzled frown. The body had been incinerated.
Humming in thought she continued on, swinging the staff she had retrieved from a lab in her path.
The halls were quiet now, filled with more corpses that displayed someone else's handiwork. A host of burn marks and slices on the walls told of furious fireballs and cunning sword work.
How curious, she thought, brushing blood matted hair out of her eyes.
Soon she was met with the curiosity itself.
Before her was a man dressed in red, with rage in his eyes and a flaming sword that threw beautiful arcs of gushing red streaming through the air.
Here there were pristine white coats again, defended by trembling gunmen. The man in red threw a wave of fire at them.
She flung out her hand and the blood sang again. She made them all scream and the swordsman silenced them.
The room was quiet again, only the steady drip of blood and the crackle of distant fires scoring the moment.
The swordsman smiled at her, sharp teeth and glowing eyes, all broken promises and a rising furnace of rage that would burn the world to the ground.
In turn a cracked grin that spoke of horrors she would gladly share lit up her face.
They carved their way through the building and together retreated to his base. There was a bizarre camaraderie between them that neither had expected to find in the depths of the science department. It made enough sense for them.
His name was Genesis and he had a Cause. He was dying, rotting from the inside out and it was all Shinra's fault. He had an army made of weaker clones of himself and a scientist who said he was trying to fix him. In the burning fires of his mind his cause flickered between getting healed and going back to the idyllic life he nearly had, and just destroying everything because he knew he could never go back.
Hawke had no Cause so she borrowed his. They both knew she didn't truly care but she didn't care enough to get in his way either. His rotting wounds she patched up with magic and blood and it was enough for the moment. His army learned to tremble at the sight of her, as did his scientist. Their blood could sing just as much as Shinra's, if she so wished. Rumours of the feral mage and the rogue SOLDIER spread. The two of them laughed and plotted.
Soon the Cause was a war. Gaia shook before the two creatures of Rage and Hate who spared no thought for mercy or respite. Shinra scrambled to hold them back and was stretched thin.
As the fires raged and the pools of blood spread, Hawke and Genesis fell further into each other. In a writhing mess of rage and hatred and tangled limbs they finally collapsed together in the night. For a moment the blood did not sing and the fires were quenched.
In a bed of rumpled sheets Hawke lay on her side.
Behind her Genesis leant against the headboard as he read his favourite play. The smell of sex was in the air but neither was inclined to cuddle in the afterglow. That was a comfort they didn't understand anymore.
Their violent passion had subsided and melancholy was all that remained. The only sound was that of the occasional page turning quietly behind her. The voices that sang through blood had gone away for the moment and Hawke's mind drifted in the cold silence.
"Do you think… we're the bad guys?" she asked softly.
Genesis looked down at her. Her lounging form was facing away from him and covered by lazily draped sheets. With her skin hidden from view she appeared flawless, perfection of the female form. A beautiful lie. He had traced the scars hidden beneath the sheets, some had been made by scientists, others by her own hand. Her skin had broken so many times in so many ways; all that was left was a cruel crosshatching that left no inch of her untouched.
"We are what Shinra has turned us into." He said. It lacked the usual passion. There was no use in facades. Not here.
"I think… I should have liked to have been the hero." She said so quietly. "One last time."
There was silence. His eyes fell from his book, lost and unfocused.
"So would I." he whispered.
But then dawn broke and nothing so tender was left in the harsh light of day. Again the fires had to rage and the blood would sing with unending hatred. There was nothing else for them now.
Those who called themselves Genesis' friends met them over crossed blades.
The black haired SOLDIER, all too conscious of his Honour, couldn't decide if he wanted help or get in the way.
The General was duty bound to stop them but he didn't want to. He didn't understand the Rage or the Hatred so he stood back while others fell. Genesis hated him for it.
Then there was a younger one, the student of the SOLDIER with Honour. He was mockingly called the Puppy and his innocence and enthusiasm made it a fitting title.
So eager to prove himself, he threw his full might against Hawke. It wasn't enough.
She stood over his broken body and something like regret stirred. The woman she once was would have been revolted and filled with self-loathing at the Puppy's death. There wasn't anything left of that Hawke though, and now other voices filled her mind. Her softer memories skittered away and she remembered only that she didn't care.
At his student's death the SOLDIER with Honour was broken. He didn't care enough anymore to Rage or even to Hate and in the end his death was at his own hands.
Genesis' rage only grew. His sickness and loss drove him ever further into the spiral of hatred and fire he was orchestrating. Shinra buckled under the weight of the war.
Hawke would see the world drown in blood before she stopped. Her body still stretched painfully from the days under the blinding light of the labs. The gaping holes left in her mind she filled with sharp and brittle hatred. The supply of clones ran low and the scientist deserted them. She found him and tore him apart. She revelled in the fall of the last white coat, its pristine edges soaked in red.
Shinra finally crumbled. Its arrogant president was skewered on a red sword and the blinding white halls were torn from their very foundations by corrupt magic. The world fell into havoc; all that was left were the last few members of SOLDIER and their perfect General.
There were no more clones. Tall and unrepentant Hawke and Genesis faced down the last true SOLDIERs in a desert wrought by scorching winds and the ruined memory of things that had grown there long ago.
Blood sang, fires raged, swords clashed and magic thundered down from the sky.
It would have been an epic battle if there had been anyone left to watch. Instead it was to be a hollow victory, no matter who triumphed.
As her last barrier failed Hawke was struck down by the General. With a cracked grin that spoke of horrors she'd wrought with her own two hands, she bled out in the arms of her red swordsman.
Genesis rose one last time against his old friend. He did not have friends now, only a bloody sword and burning rage. It was not enough. With a sharp smile that was all broken promises and a furnace of rage that had burned down the world, Genesis died on his enemy's blade.
A perfect General who did not understand was left alone.
A bloody sun set over a burning Gaia.
A/N: I always felt like Hawke was just one push away from being the most dangerous maniac the world's ever seen, and there's some pretty steep competition for that title. Add a degrading Genesis into the mix and the world wouldn't stand a chance. And now I've gotten that out of my system.
Next Time: A return to fluff. Maybe some baby Cassandra.
