I strained to look at the scene was happening above us through my migraine. The villain figure was staring down the Divine who was decently holding her own with a glare back that only partially hid her fear. A blast of green light accompanied by a scream, my scream when the police had opened fire and then suddenly I was there, all bloody and crumpled to the floor the Sig Saur hanging thinly in one hand while the other clutched the knife wound. My eyes were wide and confused, uncomprehending what horror was before me. Lying all around the red eyed guy were the bodies of people, more than the ones in my school, lowborn and highborn alike closer to a hundred in number and bloodier, more as if they'd been ripped apart. I felt my wounds again in memory pulsing with pain and Cassandra was basically the only thing holding me up at this point. The illusion me glanced at the Divine and the red eyed guy choking out a small "What?" between pants of much needed breath.
"Run, please!" Justinia called to me " Warn them!" I gave her a confused glance and a cock of the head.
"We have an intruder." The villain raised a long arm with lengthy thin fingers with nails like knives toward me. "Slay her." Even illusion me was having none of his shit, and obviously took one look and realized he must be the bad guy in this situation. I mean really, who walks around with red eyes and doesn't expect to get shanked for being suspicious? I raised the assault rifle and screamed with all the rage I still had left in me, unloading at least fifteen bullets in him before the vision dissipated, the burned images of me shooting the villain, evidently unsuccessful, while Justinia must have looked on with confusion and shock at my weapon.
"You were there!" Cassandra turned back to me, the Rift's green glow rested on her brows darkening her eyes. " Who attacked?" She shook me and my brain felt like it was being scrambled, the migraine continuing and the mark continuing as well in all its jerkiness. "And the Divine, is she. . ? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?" She was yelling at me by the end but I was having trouble keeping consciousness let alone being able to answer her questions even if I knew what she was talking about or what she wanted to know.
"Cassandra!" Solas ran up to her and laid a hand on her arm and she seemed to realize for the first time, I was not cowering in fear or cowardice, I was in pain. As it seems I often am. I groaned, everything was fuzzy but I could see the Rift as a green star through the haze and knew I had to try to stay conscious, be able to do something when I was needed, but my legs were limp and my weight almost completely resting on her holding my arm.
"These are echoes of what happened here." Solas explained as Cassandra pulled me up straighter holding me with both hands as I tried unsuccessfully to try to stand again. "The Fade bleeds into this place." He looked back up at the Rift his hands resting on his staff the green light reflecting off his eyes. "This Rift is not sealed, but it is closed. . . Albeit temporarily." I struggled back to my feet as the mark calmed itself marginally and siphoned off magic to help ease me back to consciousness and a state of bearable pain at the very least. I had the hunch that the magic couldn't cure my lingering pain of exhaustion, it could only mask it. Which was more dangerous than anything else. "I believe that with the mark, the Rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely." He turned back to us. Cassandra stayed near me seemingly ready to catch me should I end up unable to stand again. I didn't get the chance to say how thankful I was for that small gesture.
I snorted at Solas shifting my aching feet and blinking as my vision came back to normal, "safely my ass." I twisted to crack my back.
He shrugged in admittance watching me warily. "Opening the Rift will likely attract attention from the other side."
"That means demons," Cassandra adopted a commanding voice, projecting so the soldiers could hear, "stand ready!" She, Solas, and Varric followed me closer to the Rift. Cassandra drew her sword and slung her shield down onto her forearm, Solas kept his staff in a maneuverable grip and Varric loaded Bianca. The other soldiers were falling in from all sides, the men who had swords drew them in ready stances, scared but determined, the archers strung their bows, checked their arrow supply, and placed one at the ready watching the Rift with anxiety. I made sure to give them plenty of time to ready themselves for what the upcoming battle might be, at least, that's what I was telling myself, all the while pretending to not notice that my hands were shaking, and it was not out of the cold.
I took a breath, out here in the middle of the charred garden open to the mountain peaks, the bitingly cold air swept down in currents, bringing with it a cool glacial scent that cleared my lungs and shocked my senses. I pulled the magic back out, up my spine to the crown of my head where all my little dams and mazes were to direct it and let it pool. Buzzing through my senses riding the waves of cold air. I gave a last once over to the men and looked at Leliana, who too had stung her bow, she gave me a barely seen nod with thin pressed lips and two quivers at her sides. I then looked to Cassandra. She hadn't been looking at me, instead up at the Rift with her dark eyes, she was still in mourning, and it was unfair to force a fight on any of these people so soon after this catastrophe, but someone had to be willing to pick up the pieces, pick up the people, be willing to be the first to keep moving on. She moved her gaze back to me and nodded, all serious in her readiness. I looked back up, letting the green light of the Rift bathe my face in its murky warmth that I wouldn't be surprised was radioactive. I thrust my palm up then, realizing a bit late that Solas never clearly explained how exactly I was suppose to open a Rift. Was it the same to close one? Or do I have to do a little finger dance first?
Evidently that finger riverdance I thought would've been interesting to try out was not needed as the Rift reached out to me hungrily, like the touch of a dying god to its last vestige of worship and crackled with power. I panicked as I felt it siphon some of my own magic before spitting my back a couple feet with a yelp. I landed in a heap of makeshift boxes I assumed were to be used as cover or something, leave it to me to mess that up before the fight even started. My small squad turned to me in surprise and began their way over when the Rift gave a creak and a groan like a whale trying to walk and heaved up a great cloud of lightning threaded mist that quickly formed a demon as tall as the Rift was high and built like a silverback gorilla. It took a second for the shock to settle as the demon screamed in what seemed to be delight, four horns curling from his crown straight up almost as if in surprise at their own defiance of gravity that looked like they'd been curled with an ultra trendy thin curling iron.
The archers tried their best to aim at some nonexistent chinks on the demon's armored skin that I suppose from my vantage point I just couldn't see. The swordsmen tried to round the demon's legs, half in awe of the massive girth of its legs and half trying to hamstring it, rather unsuccessfully mind you. Needless to say my squad joined the fight, for which I was glad, so they didn't have to watch me flail around like a turtle that had somehow gotten on its back and was furiously trying to roll itself back over so it could go back to being useful again. Reminding myself of the only relevant chapter from the Grapes of Wrath. Anyway I managed to my feet out of sheer dumb luck pulling wooden pieces from my dress and my hair which had partially gotten uncovered yet again, all the while Cassandra scrambled out screaming curses, what I assumed were curses anyway, smacking her sword to her shield trying to draw the demon's attention away from Varric and Solas who were in the process of chipping away the demon's skin sliver by sliver. Solas was creating a tempest of winds that whipped first around him and his clothes before sliding up the demon in tendrils slicing away at the weakest grains. Bianca seemed to be pretty darn powerful the way her bolts stuck fast and deep in the armor, though evidently still not causing enough damage to really kill the darn thing as it proceeded to walk around more like an annoyed toddler than anything else. Smaller demons like those we faced before began coming through and the soldiers turned to face the new wave. The big demon had a habit of swatting away the men trying to fight it as I got up to join the fight, when the demon swatted the men away, it killed them with the force of its stone muscles. More than a couple of men I passed where missing parts of bodies, blown clean off. Arms gone, chest walls caved in on panicked soldiers clawing at the dirt, One man who was blessedly already dead, was missing half of his face where the skin had sheared off and one eye was popped and deflated like a balloon hanging by the stringy occipital nerve out of its socket.
The demon's skin was stained with the blood of the men it'd killed, in little splotches that looked like it had ringworm, and it was making me damn mad. I drew up from the well again and sprinted full force at the demon not even slowing when I bent to snatch up Sir Waffles as I went, in fact it gave me more momentum and as I came close enough, I jumped, moving right past Cassandra and Solas both of whom started a little, magic propelled me and I clung to the ridges of its plated chest with enhanced sharp nails. Slinging Sir Waffles up with me as I climbed the ridges and Bianca's bolts, much to the disbelief of the men down below who were now frantically beating the armor, doing nothing but blunting their swords, and even more so to the demon itself who tried to watch me with its beady little eyes but unable to really move its head that direction, it slapped around, electricity arching from its fingertips trying to squish me like a incessant mosquito as I jumped and scampered my way onto its shoulders, Solas had stopped his wind offensive around the upper part of the thing likely in fear of hitting me instead and was aiming now at the hips where the legs connected, along with Varric and a number of other archers. I hefted Sir Waffles with me and I climbed further closer to the head, driven by a mad storm of magic that whirled within me, that I knew masked utter exhaustion by this point. I screamed in fury as it strove to brush me off with its massive fingers built like tree trunks. As it flailed, lightning flew from its fingers and palms, smashing down in whips that ripped through whatever intact part of the walkways there had been, including the archers that had been standing on them. The men screamed and died raining down into the garden heart as I held on for dear life. The lightning cracked against one of the statues which surprisingly enough didn't break like everything else but simply toppled, the section of the force of the blow traveling up to the face, a glass eye cracked in its socket as the statue fell backwards almost onto a squadron of men, those who were well enough to run escaped, the wounded who couldn't move as fast were crushed under the oblivious marble. I transformed the point of Sir waffles into the point of a stake and drove in into the demon with extra lightning and a bit stormy wind for good measure, into the crook of its shoulder and neck, only about a hand-span in but deep enough to be felt past all the armor into the squishy bits, magic lessened for a moment and my arms felt like lead and my throat was raw, it screamed back beginning to panic, and I began pooling magic again and started to laugh.
Not a good time I know but it was also about this point when I noticed I had a splinter so yeah don't judge me. Anyway when it went to swat me again I broke Sir Waffles off where it was and sharpened it again sprinting on magic lighted feet around to the back of its neck and stabbed again, diagonally between the ridges that ran down its spine and broke Sir Waffles off once more slinging myself with the momentum onto the other shoulder. By this point I still hadn't noticed I was scraping myself raw. My legs were bare under the dress which had torn multiple times hanging in shreds from the thighs down, my knees were rubbed raw and bleeding, as were the soles of my feet that had worn through the soft leather, and my hands. The mark was perpetually stinging me ever since I got close enough to the Breach and hissed, disapprovingly as I'm sure I was in the process of killing its friend. I proceeded to give it one more stab in the neck throat area and as it moved its arms back to me again, screaming so loud I swore I should've burst my eardrums and I climbed up onto its crown. Looking down into its beady black eyes, an opaque quartet of terror that came to the realization it was about to be killed by a tiny, bloody, elf in a torn dress and half pulled off Hijab. I went to stab it one final time, only the last third of Sir Waffles left by now, but my scream was cut short as Sir Waffles proceeded to fail me in my final hour. Granted I should've expected this, the cat did the same thing, god what if I jinxed it? Shit. The wood shattered and gave me a couple more splinters in less than friendly places and I fell in confusion and surprise.
I heard yelling from below but I was not thinking of them in that moment. I fell and the demon reached out in delight, ready to catch me, squeeze me, and presumably pop me victoriously like a plump grape. But I wasn't done yet. I was honestly surprised that my magic was only beginning to fail me now. I assumed that magic was like a muscle, that one would have to practice, hone and keep from degradation, so the fact that I held out this long was really a Christmas miracle. I twisted, fatigue burning in my thighs and calves, midair landing on my toes at the edge of the gigantic hand as it came by and ran up the arm much to the demon's sudden terror and it, on reflex I suppose, threw up its hands in the air above its head, and proceed to wave them about like it just didn't care. I'm sorry, really I am, but that joke practically made itself. Anyway, I was not expecting to be upended just like that, to find myself falling onto its face and now really had no idea what to do about it. The magic was thinner than before but still beating as a second heartbeat mirroring my own within me, hard and fast, thundering though my sternum but my vision was starting to blur and blacken at the edges. I was falling right down onto its face with a screaming maw that could've swallowed at least three men whole. I panicked and I assume my brain defaulted back to things I made earlier. Now, trust me when I say I thought I was hallucinating at this point okay, I mean I was seeing stars and black spots and my limbs were weakening with every passing second, and so, as I skidded over its mouth, clinging to the crusted lip, I wasn't entirely sure how or why popcorn poured off of me like I was a broken popcorn machine. It quickly filled the demon's maw and I found myself surreally swimming in a sea of popcorn, it couldn't scream properly through a throat full of popcorn and choked, falling over and sending me into the open air once again flailing in a wave of buttery popcorn, the last vestiges of my magic left me in arcs of lightning cast up vainly into the sky as the Rift exploded. I raised my mark weakly the burn stabbing me with the force of the Rift, an explosion of green resonated up into the sky and down into the ground sweeping us all as I fell beside the screaming demon and blacked out in a wave of pain and thunderous clamor as it and I bit the dust together.
