Legends: Of the Sky Chapter 13

Tag. You're Dead

Legends: Of the Sky is a Mass Effect and Dragon Age Fanfiction Crossover by Eisen. Mass Effect and Dragon Age belong to Bioware.

"Fucking nitwit," Hawke mumbled to herself as they ascended yet another flight of stairs. Shepard was agreeing with her own assessment earlier that this place and stairs had the same relationship as the Citadel had with elevators.

They did not encounter any more enemies, but there were many buildings where the doors were closed and barred, and the windows shuttered. Every odd few they would encounter one where the doors had been broken down, with either blood pooling out of the entrance, or smoke pushing its way out, or both. On one occasion they even encountered a building where the entire front wall had been blown inwards, crushing everything that had been inside the building. Shepard knew she might have asked what kind of explosive might have done that, but she had seen Hawke in action enough to know that it had not been an explosion of the conventional sort. So she kept the question to herself for the time being, but was growing increasingly concerned as to where the limits of this supernatural force were.

"What was that...thing, you did to that Qunari?" Hawke asked eventually, interrupting her thoughts. "I've tried to think of all possible explanations, but the only one I can concretely rely on would be something like a Knight Enchanter's blade."

Shepard had been expecting the question ever since she had seen the look in Hawke's face at the end of the fight, but had not yet decided how she could tackle the answer. How do you explain a disposable silicon-carbide flash-forged blade, that is nearly diamond hard, transparent, suspended over the user's skin by a mass-effect field and illuminated with warning lights to someone from a pre-industrial society?

"It's a disposable silicon-carbide flash-forged blade, that is nearly diamond hard, transparent, suspended over the user's skin by a mass-effect field and illuminated with warning lights."

"Ah, yes, of course."

Shepard grinned as Hawke rolled her eyes.

"It's not magic."

"I know. I'd have noticed if it were. I also have a dwarf with a crossbow that has a cocking ring."

"Now you have a woman with warning lights. Also, cocking ring? That sounds fucking lewd."

"Tell me about it. You should have heard the exchange when Choir Boy asked to adjust it."

"You're shitting me."

"I couldn't decide whether I wanted to cringe, laugh, or confiscate their weapons for sexytimes."

"You'll need to point out the 'Choir Boy', if we run across him."

"Oh you'll know him when you see him. Stereotypical prince in shining armour - I still want to know who enameled it for him..."

"...fucking fairy tale…."

"Fairy tail?"

"No no, just a colloquialism we have for fables."

"Ah."

...

"Did that dude just try to stab me?"

"I do indeed think that that...uh, dewed? Tried to stab you. Although to be honest, I think he just stabbed you, no trying involved."

"Fucking rude."

"Yes but so is that glowing blade you have stuck through his neck."

"Bitch had it coming, if accosting ladies is their done thing."

"I'm no fucking lady."

They were just finishing off the last of the Qunari who had attacked them when both women looked up from their kills at the sound of a voice coming from the other side of the street.

"You see, I told you she would be fine, now can I go back to the Pearl?"

"You would rather pick up another infection, instead of assisting Hawke with attempting to resolve a Qunari invasion?"

Standing there were Varric and Isabela, whom Shepard knew. With them was a man with shocking white hair, that actually looked natural on him, the kind you only saw in movies after enough editing had been done to the image. He had markings of a similar colour run from his chin down his neck and disappear into the collar of a leather outfit that looked like it belonged in a JRPG. Hell, the guy himself looked like he had just jumped out of one, with the handle of a greatsword resting in his hands and the blade cradled against his shoulder.

"Is that a trick question? I mean, yes. Definitely."

"Broody, why would you expect any different?"

"I would have thought you to have some plausible bribe to make Isabela this altruistic."

"No, she's only here because I only had to reach below the table to pull her along."

"That explains it."

"I'm clearly not appreciated here so I'll be-"

Hawke wrapped an arm around Isabela and steered her back towards the group, "Oh Isabela, it means so much to me that you're willing to help me kill all the beefy giants."

Isabela only rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. I'll stab the bastards for you."

Shepard immediately understood what Carver had said about his sister's knack for just getting her way. It made her like Hawke all that much more as she rubbed at the chip in her armour in mock annoyance, "Well so long as they're the one's getting stabbed; I think that last one scratched my breastplate."

"So I see," the man with white hair stated, tone dry. "I suppose you're Hawke's newest friend? The Pirate has been rather loud in her laments of not being allowed to pursue her usual activities in regards to you."

"I suppose that's one way of putting it. Name's Shepard."

"Fenris."

"A pleasure, I hope."

Varric snorted, "That should be something we say to anyone new we meet, Hawke. Considering the rate of betrayal, or just simple stupidity."

"Yes, though I'm sure that's how Isabela introduced herself."

"You still haven't taken me up on that offer Hawke, I promise it'll be fun."

"Sorry, I'd like to keep my ladybits as far away from the nasties you regularly subject yours to."

"Yes, but Anders has this thing where he-"

"No, I don't want to know about Anders' wiggly fingers doing their 'magic'. There's that other thing I'm trying to maintain, you know, principles?"

"Oh you're no fun at all."

"What can I say? I can only please so many."

"Hawke!"

"Get over it Rivaini," Varric interrupted, "Shepard, regardless of how taciturn Broody here might seem, he's decent enough if you can put up with the anti-magic rants and heart-grabbing."

"I should be good. Had to put up with a fifty-thousand year old bug constantly calling everyone primitives and suggesting we throw them out the airlock."

Hawke turned a shrewd gaze on Shepard in a blink. "Fifty?"

"Yep."

"Hawke," Varric started, tone wary. "That sounds like it would have been even before that Thaig."

"No shit. It could have been during the time of Arlathan, or maybe even before. But fuck it, kill cows first, theorise later."

"Is throwing someone out of a...whatever, a menacing threat, a form of exile?" Fenris asked.

Shepard ran a hand across her face. Shit, I'd need to explain vacuum, and pressure and…well space travel. "Well, I don't know how common a practice it is as a means of execution, but it is one of the more painful ways to die and I could explain the process in the most wonderful detail, but I think Hawke's right. Place and time."

"We made it a rule, after Daisy started trying to explain her ideas about spirits and demons to a templar who'd just lost two partners to a particularly nasty Rage," Varric explained.

"Don't forget the time Isabela got fucked by the raider captain we were hired to kill while we were busy fighting off his entire crew," Hawke added.

"It was a distraction!" Isabela argued. "Worked like a charm. Though, next time I'd prefer it if you let me get off, before you- woops, company!"

The pirate nimbly ducked out of the way of a spear, the hurled projectile whistling through the air where her neck had been a moment ago.

Fenris, Hawke and Shepard surged forward, the white-haired man leading the charge. Shepard noticed that the white markings of his skin had begun glowing with a brilliant blue light, almost white. It looked remarkably similar to the glow of biotics.

Isabela was close behind them, staying low so that her form was hidden behind their bulk, a long blade gripped in each hand. Varric had run up a set of stairs leading to the entrance of a house. Using the slight height advantage he began sending bolts at the enemies with the massive crossbow he had always had on himself from when Shepard had first seen him, changing targets to keep them disorientated. The little shit has a magazine-fed autoloading crossbow? The fuck. Why does it suddenly feel like I'm about to run into an eccentric Italian painter with a knack for inventing shit before its time around the next corner?

Fenris hit the attacking Qunari first. He shouted something in...is that Latin? Why isn't my translator picking it up? Before lighting up like a flashbang. Hawke, it seemed, was already familiar with this tactic, her shoulder to Fenris so she could see the enemy, but not him, but still be close enough to pick up what he was doing. Shepard had to turn away quickly, thanking whatever cybernetics Cerberus had used to increase her reflexes so that she would not be blinded. The grey horned assailants were not so fortunate.

Fenris crashed against the one closest, bodily impacting with the diamond shield. Shepard could see the tip of his long blade sticking out from the other side of the giant, dripping blood. Sneaky bastard must have come up from under the shield.

Hawke continued past him, knocking aside a blade aimed for her with her haft of her glaive and impaling another foe through the throat. She pulled out the blade and swung it around to impact against the floor with the butt. Flames exploded from underneath the one who had attacked her.

Shepard saw at least one Qunari collapse with a feathered quarrel burrowed into its skull and another fall to a knee as its calf was impaled by a dart. Huh, and he's not too bad of an aim with that thing either.

She herself had just run at the one next to Fenris' target and though he easily blocked her slash at his face with his own blade, she had countered by kicking in his knee. To his credit her opponent had not cried out as his leg bent backwards, but he could not disguise the grunt of pain as he tipped. Shepard used the opportunity to knock aside his blade and finish him off.

Fenris moved to his next target, and Hawke with him. Shepard covered their flank. Isabela appeared rolling between two shield-bearing soldiers. Her blades bloodied as both of them toppled over, their stern expressions morphing into something more resembling mild confusion.

The darker skinned woman was smirking. "Come now, never taken it from behind? Tsk, tsk."

"Not everyone wants something in every hole, Rivaini!" Varric called over the noise of Fenris, Hawke and Shepard engaging the last few Qunari in the square.

"Oh come on, don't you have any sense of adventure?!"

"You know how I feel about caves, Isabela."

Hawke almost lost her arm due to not being able to block a blow on time from laughing at the dwarf's response.

"Don't you two have better things to do than make innuendos while killing people?" Fenris asked angrily.

"That depends on how many clothes you're willing to remove, love."

Shepard was sure Fenris rolled his eyes, but couldn't tell due to the Qunari who had slapped aside her sword. And had rammed the haft of his axe into her chest hard enough to send her flying.

She rolled to her feet, winded and disarmed. She ducked around a swing for her head and drove a punch into her opponent's ribs. Hawke had been right about whatever this warpaint did. It was like punching a turian. Luckily, she was still rewarded with a crack.

She refused to give up her reach advantage; her foe would be able to bring his axe to bear if he managed to get far enough away from her, so instead she moved halfway around him and pulled him back over her leg, sending the muscle-bound man to the floor. He landed on his hands, already getting back up. She stepped around and struck as hard as she could at where she knew kidneys should be.

The Qunari made a strange groaning noise, but before Shepard could see whether her blow was fatal or not Isabela stepped around the giant's head and slit his throat, winking at Shepard before she moved to the next one.

Varric was looking at her with a raised brow before slowly clapping three times. "Not bad, not bad. I'd call you Fisty if Broody didn't already have first dibs on that one."

"Your attempts at humour startle me into silence, Dwarf."

"I'm trying to startle you into using a different address for me."

"You try too hard."

"You wound me Broody. To the quick."

"I, for one," Shepard interrupted, "would show anyone who called me 'Fisty', just what, exactly these can do...with warning lights."

"Ooh, is that a challenge?"

Hawke finished cleaning her blade and walked over, sighing. "Don't go there Isabela, we don't know if Shepard likes you enough not to kill you yet. I've seen what her 'warning lights' can do, and it's not pretty."

"You're going to have to tell me about that when we're done with this mess, Hawke," Varric stated archly.

"Pff, yeah right. It's all bloody Orlesian to me; get her to tell you."

Shepard hummed as she walked over to retrieve her dropped weapon. "I am getting the impression that telling our short friend here anything is a terrible idea."

"You will most likely end up with a largely fictitious and entirely inaccurate reputation so bloated beyond the truth it takes a few weeks to realise that the rumours are actually about you," Hawke explained. "Good for business sometimes, but it sometimes kills any chance you have of convincing people that you're the one in the rumours."

"What? No! I would never do that, I just...add some spice to the stories."

"Yes, like 'they'll be twice as big if I tell anyone about this.'" Fenris drawled.

"Well, they're dragons!" Varric cried defensively. "They have to be big."

"They were dragonlings, mister weapon-fondler. They're supposed to be babies," Hawke said, rapping Varric on the head as she walked past him to the next set of stairs that led to wherever it was they were headed.

"Look at it like this, Varric: when you finally do meet a high dragon, you'll have to inflate that into an entirely fictional proportions for it to still be relevant to your tale," Isabela reasoned over her shoulder as she followed after Hawke.

"Bah, everyone's a critic," the dwarf grumbled.

Cheers to Alkeni and thunderscape7 for being the newest commenters! Hep0katti, making days makes mine! The rambles are always appreciated. MaryDragon, yes, but improv! DarkAngelDisuke, all I can say is Soon™ :P CAEK, NO MORE PICTURES LIKE THAT. PLS.