A/N: I don't own Dragon Age.
Killer Andraste.
Isabella's POV:
"What in Andraste's name is that?" Varric breathed.
A slight, elven figure stepped lightly into the courtyard on bare feet. A mask of Andraste's face caught in the middle of a peaceful repose was brilliant gold underneath a black hood that was attached to black leather Templar armour tailored especially for a rouge. At her back (the figure was undoubtedly feminine) was a silver Sword of Mercy. On a whole there was something terrifyingly alien about the newest arrival, something not right or human.
"Anders what is it?" Hawke asked.
"I...I don't know, I have no idea."
Is it? Could it be? There was something so familiar. Was it... No, surely not.
"But she left," Merrill whispered numbly, "she left."
Fenris' head whipped round the others, caught between pain and disbelieve, as if they held the answer. He took a step forward then stopped. His hands trembled.
"Move!" I managed as the Pride Demon, finished with the toy like Templars and turned its attention to the others. I managed to dodge pulling Merrill down with me as a beam of raw Magic came plummeting in a spiralling vacuum near them. It was then that the eerie rustle of chains could be heard. Sofia lumbered at first as the figure began to spin the chained blade above her head in wide circles. It gained speed until at last it was a whistling blur.
"Shit," I breathed. The curved blade came slamming down into the space I'd just been crouching in, dislodging the dirt and blood that had clung to the Earth with the blow's terrifying force. It was retracted as quickly as it had appeared like it was just the ghost of a blade that had attacked me rather than the real article which continued to revolve scarily fast above the figure's head.
"Hawke..." I called above the chaos, "...I think we can safely..."
My line of speech was disrupted as Merrill sent a boulder crashing into the Pride Demon's chest and was rewarded as she was lifted and thrown across the courtyard.
"... assume that that is Fen' Harel," I finished.
Hawke replied as he moved to dodge Sofia's wicked blade and was caught across the cheek, narrowly missing a decapitation. It was carnage. Everyone was forced to dance around on their toes as the Pride Demon's incredibly powerful bulk (which would have been difficult enough on its own) was added by the sharp snap of Fen' Harel's attacks which were too fast to dodge never mind stop. When you managed to elude one the other was sent whipping round. They needed a strategy or, I realized with a sinking sensation, it was likely they'd all die. I hadn't really considered death an option; not with Hawke around. But right now, at this moment, as I just managed to dance out of the way of another swiping blow from Sofia that cut into the wall above my head, it seemed highly likely.
"Right," Hawke called, "we need to deal with this."
"Anders, stay out of the fight for as long as you possibly can; I need you to keep healing everyone constantly. Aveline and Carver I need you to help me deal with the Pride Demon," Hawke began firing out orders.
"Isabella!" Hawke yelled, "I need you to deal with the Templar with the control Rod and make sure you destroy it, it's the surest way to get Fen' Harel off our backs; Varric and Merrill will deal with the remaining Templars and offer support."
"Fenris!" Hawke ordered the elf as he sunk his Long sword into the Pride Demon's leg and was promptly kicked away into a pile of crates afterwards, "you spent nearly every week training with Fen' Harel for three years. You know her fighting style best here. You need to take her out if we're going to survive."
I watched as Fenris paled. He was by far the most wounded here and for one reason. He wasn't even trying to fight Fen' Harel, he allowed each attack to hit its mark. I couldn't even begin to imagine what he was going through.
"You can't!" Anders shouted desperately, staring at Hawke with wide, strained eyes. Before he could continue, Anders was forced to duck covering his body with his arms as a flaming ball of Magic crackled and spat as it flew into the nearby wall.
"She's Pregnant!" Anders yelled.
WHAT!
"What!" Fenris spat in disbelief.
"Before..." Anders dodged Sofia, "when she came to the..." he dodged, "clinic with that wound..." he dodged again, "...I had to scan her body using magic for the..." he dodged, "...toxins and found a foetus developing..." he healed Aveline who was crushed against a wall by one grotesque armoured hand, "...I continued to monitor it when she came to the clinic she must be three and a half months."
"And you told no one!" Fenris cried out after shouting as Sofia's blade ripped across his chest.
"I didn't know what you two would have done!"
"Can we leave the domestics until later," I called to them, "right now I think it's best if we keep our lovely little lives."
"Finally, something we agree on," Aveline grunted. She always was so eloquent.
I was sprinting towards the head Templar, he drew but before he could lunge I tossed a Miasmic flask into their mist.
"Now how can I hit them if I can't see them Rivaini," Varric grumbled in honey tones.
"And how can they hit me," I smirked giving his dwarfy rump a pat.
I slipped into the cloud and moved to backstab the Templar. The back of an armoured gauntlet cut across my cheek, cutting the flesh and causing stinging wells of blood to rise. There was a moment as my addled brain tried once again to root itself in my skull.
There was a grunt of satisfaction, "you think I wouldn't be wise to the games of scum like you by now," the Templar smiled smugly.
A rough kick planted itself in my gut, knocking me to the ground and making me feel as though my stomach had been crushed into a tight, pulsing ball. I coughed blood, gasped for air, crawled and choked.
"Do you seriously believe a vile, murdering whore like you would be able to stop the Maker's will?" he spat.
...
Fenris' head had barely managed to snap to the side with the sheer sharp force of the blow before another came swinging around, slicing across the opposite cheek and leaving a crimson ribbon like X thawing in the air. Before he could blink, before he could even pull air into his aching lungs there was a sinister crack and rattle of chain as Fen' Harel snapped Sofia into spear form and approached the prone and shaking body of Fenris. Blue eyes flashed behind a mask of gold without a hint of... anything really like the glass eyes of a doll. Fenris' breath plumed in small clouds of smoke and blood ran over his sharp cheekbones to the floor. A pool had already formed at his bare feet from the gut and leg wounds that already littered his body.
Without a single omission of hesitation Fen' Harel ran him through. She slipped his body from her blade with indifference.
"Shit," Anders breathed already chanting and summoning his energy into healing Fenris. He hadn't time to even think about anyone else, scared that if he were to turn his back for a moment the golden faced assassin would be kicking Fenris' corpse into the water. This must have been the fourth time Fenris had let her kill him and the fourth time Anders had pulled him back from the brink. He just managed this time. Gasping for air and his body trembling with exhaustion Anders planted a hand against the nearby wall to stop himself falling as his legs faltered; he couldn't keep this up forever. Anders' head came to rest near his chest as he panted in breath, his eyes battled with sleep as he glanced across at Fenris, his chest rising and falling weakly underneath the leather armour. He struggled to pull himself up.
That was when Anders noticed that Fen' Harel wasn't there anymore. She'd obviously grown bored with Fenris and was moving towards her original goal with fierce determination. She slipped past the Pride Demon, tucking Sofia against her swerving body and swung Hawke's legs from underneath him. Anders was already running.
...
I dug the blade in deep but the Templar merely brought the pommel of his sword crashing down on my head; leaving a dizzying throbbing mess of sharp white lines behind. An arrow hit the Templar in the shoulder and his body jerked forward with the force giving me ample time to slip away and dig both blades roughly between his shoulder blades. Thank the Maker for Varric.
...
Anders was greeted by an armoured elbow to the face. Fen' Harel's hand followed him down and grasped the mage gruffly by the nape of his neck. She pulled them both backwards away from a recovering Hawke as a black; ink like liquid began to seep through the veins of her arm and hands into Anders neck. Anders choked, eyes widening in panic, he writhed limply like a fish on a line as the veins created thin, branch like patterns across bare skin.
"Anders!" Hawke stood but froze. He couldn't attack her without risking the child or Fen' Harel herself. But he couldn't let Anders die. While Hawke and Fen' Harel struggled over ownership of Anders prone body neither noticed the spiral of crackling energy that swelled and bulged with fierce crackling energy until it burst.
...
I reached for the control rod hung at his belt as the Templar strained for the blades wedged in his back. My fingers just grazed the metal. It was cold. I stretched, extending fingers forward as my body leaned in towards it. So close. And just as my hands curled around the icy metal I was thrown over his back. My grip tightened, slipped and tightened again as I fell until I was left lying on my back with the control rod acting as a line between me and an extremely pissed Templar.
...
The force threw them. Hawke was pressed against a wall by what felt like an invisible tidal wave. He tried to scream as a sensation of flesh being torn from the bones crushed his chest. Fen' Harel and Anders were sent spinning and tumbling away in a fierce wave of energy. Arms and legs were twisted and tangled as the two doll like bodies skidded across the floor of the docks. Anders' coat snagged and he clung to the broken beam. Andraste's golden face broke as her Fen' Harel's head hit a corner but her body continued to slide in the currents of energy that still shoved in currents through the air.
...
The hesitation was enough. More than enough. I smashed the control rod against the grime smeared wall. I managed a grin of relief as Varric' second arrow came bursting through the Templar's chest.
...
The body slide past Fenris who was still recovering from the hasty heal that had knitted together a punctured heart and pierced flesh. He tried to pull in breath finding it easier each time as if his lungs had expanded from the size of a walnut to an open hand. He watched as Fen' Harel's unconscious body tumbled past him; eyes closed and mouth partially open as if she were sleeping. He stretched out a hand, wheezing and panting, his fingers just stroked the rough material of her armour and soft strands of hair before Fen' Harel slipped into the dark water.
A/N:
She's pregnant! :D She might be dead... but BABY SHOWERS! Thanks for all the reviews I never realized that people actually cared so much about what happens in this :) Anyway I've been busy with course work that's why it's taken me forever but to make up for it here's another chapter.