A/N: Four years ago I finished Champions and Heroes, and I was happy with it. I still am, it's the first story I ever finished, but I've grown a lot as a writer since then and I realise how many opportunities I missed the first time.

For those who haven't read the first one, it's not required reading. This is will be a self-contained story. For those who did read it back in the day, this one will follow largely the same basic plot and tone, but with added depth and more fleshed out plotlines. And this time I know how punctuation works too!

Content warnings: descriptions of violence, body-horror (that'll be tagged at the top of any relevant chapters), swearing, terminal illnesses, PTSD, past character death, and misuse of poetry.

Rocks slipped under Hawke's feet. She scrambled to catch herself as she ran. The Nightmare demon chased her under the fluctuating green sky of the Fade, its spider form scuttling over the loose stone.

The bloody Fade. The horrific, screaming, magical abyss that was the Fade. Honestly. Whose idea was this?

Right. Hers, technically. She volunteered to stay behind, to be the distraction. And it was her fault it was even necessary, she woke up Corypheus, who else was going to take the blame? Other than Corypheus, of course, but the Blighted lunatic wasn't interested in cleaning up after himself.

The demon looked away from her, back to the others. She snarled and hurled a lightning bolt into its face, sparks exploding against its carapace. It swung back around to focus on her.

On the far side of the platform Varric looked back at her. Just for a second. Then the Inquisitor pulled him through the rift and they were gone. The rift smacked shut with a sucking sound and a pop. The Fade closed. Just her and the demon now.

It was all so green and ridiculous. The demon spider towered and said something that it likely imagined was scathing.

"Small potatoes pal," she replied, dodging one of its sticky, tree-trunk sized legs. "Go on; tell me I failed Kirkwall again, like it's some kind of revelation."

"Not just Kirkwall, Hawke," the demon rumbled. Its hundred eyes blinked, black and beady and out of sync with each other. "You failed Anders."

She swallowed back her fear and forced her legs to keep moving. It chased her, over the platforms, down a wall of loose rock and scree. The jagged stones cut at her exposed arms.

"You're like some layabout nobleman who thinks he's a cutting edge poet," she yelled, breathing hard, and flicking lightning bolts behind her. Some would hit, surely.

"You failed Fenris," it said.

Her gut clenched with the nausea of over taxing her magic.

"And Merrill. The pirate, the guard captain."

She careened to the bottom of the slope and kept running. The spider's legs smacked against the rock and entropic magic surged up before her, a wall of terror spells.

She spun and slid down another rock face.

A pit of black rock and fallen corpses surrounded her. Damn, dead end.

She spun again, looking for an out. There was nothing around but a couple of old corpses and a dead Eluvian Mirror, reflecting back the empty pit.

"Your brother, your sister…" the demon said, and it had the nerve to say it gently, like an old friend who didn't want to hurt her. "Your mother."

She lifted her chin and tried to hide how hard she was breathing. "Your material is trite and hackneyed, and betrays a complete disconnect with your audience."

It skittered down into the pit, its many legs taking the descent with more grace than she did. She swung her staff into position. She couldn't even summon enough ambient magic to spark along it. The blade was still worth something.

"And of course, you failed Varric the most," it rumbled, standing patiently in front of the only way back out of the pit. "You left him all alone, to clean up your mess. Did you see his face? Did it make you feel like you were worth something?"

She sucked in a ragged breath, terror threatening to close up her throat. "One out of five fluttering scarves, not worth the price of admission. Don't know what the publisher was thinking."

"Did you think you mattered, Hawke?" It cocked its head, as much as a spider could. One leg tapped on the ground and corrupt spirit magic surged. "Did you think anything you ever did mattered?" Flecks of green and purple magic warped in the air. Her skin singed and her mental shields trembled. She tried to cast a barrier, but had nothing left.

The spider strolled towards her, leisurely.

The magic danced against the Mirror's glass and sank in. Its borders crackled under the surge and began to fray. The surface rippled with life, blues and greens and reds thrumming within. The force of the spell began to ring in her ears.

She looked between the demon, the corpses, and the Mirror.

Well. She'd done stupider things.

She ran face first into the Mirror.

Glass and magic tore at her, and the world warped.

The ringing in her ears snapped and smashed like a chandelier crashing on a marble floor. She was screaming. A maelstrom roared. Time stretched and rippled, a thread pulled through a cloth, tearing at the weave. Images refracted through the magical morass and her mind's edges frayed.

Had she been pulled into the Eluvian network? Was she still in the Fade? Was she… was she anywhere at all? Was there anything left of her to 'be' anywhere?

The emptiness around her warped with memories and thoughts not her own.

A dragon. An Archer. Elves, tall and imposing, echoing with memories of crystalline cities, the clashing of swords and the shattering of glass. It was too much. Her mind folded in on itself.

She grew cold. The bombardment continued but it didn't feel so severe.

Then, a jerking sensation. The expanse of chaos froze for just a moment. The echo of a chuckle that she thought she knew and the snap of dragon wings, before darkness took her.

Hawke woke to the smell of lilies.

She sat up, ready to swear at someone. There, on the window ledge: a row of flower pots overflowing with green and yellow lilies. She made a face.

Where was she, some snooty Orlesian's parlour room? It sure as the void wasn't her Kirkwall estate, or Varric's suite at the Hanged Man, it was too floral for the first and too clean for the second.

She rubbed her eyes and tried to blink the sensation of magical overwhelm from her eyes. What had she been doing, staring into a rift?

The room was small and overwhelmingly pastel, with an impersonal 'spare room we keep in case of company' feel to it. The patchwork quilt under her was pretty but threadbare, the stuffing showing through some of the cotton squares. It was also floral.

Her trusty staff leaned against the wall and her daggers were in their sheathes on her back. She reached forward to touch her toes, groaning at aches all through her back and thighs, still squinting her eyes and blinking. It felt like she had a brick lodged in her head. She stumbled off the bed and staggered to her feet. Oof, damn that Nightmare demon, her legs were killing her.

Oh yeah, that was right. The Nightmare demon. Huh.

There was a strange fixture on the ceiling, with yellow light streaming from it. It was the wrong colour for veil fire or a mage light, but what candle would burn in a little glass ball? She concentrated, but felt no magic in the room. An enchantment maybe?

Light footsteps tapped outside the room, then a muffled voice.

"I think she might have fallen off the bed. Don't worry, I'll be careful." There was a quiet knock before the door opened.

A teenage girl with a long brown ponytail and a mischievous look in her eye peeked in the room.

"Oh, you're awake!"

"Hello," Hawke said with a smile. "Could you tell me where I am? And your stance on the Inquisition?"

"You're in Sector 5," she replied, stepping into the room properly. "And I... don't… know?"

Hawke blinked. She'd file that response under 'interesting'. She wasn't an agent of the Inquisition herself, but people tended to be either pro or against saving the world. Not invested enough to pick a side was a novel take. And the fifth sector of what?

The girl's clothes were odd, strappy sandals and a thin sleeveless dress stitched with little flowers along the short skirt. Who wore quite so little so far south.

"Right. Sector 5. Where is that exactly? How did I get here?" Hawke asked, checking her gear. She needed to track down Varric and find out how the battle ended. Did they take the Fortress?

"The Sector 5 slums, silly, under the plate. I found you right outside the house. You were bleeding pretty badly." She frowned. "Really badly. I've never seen injuries like that before. Mum didn't want to bring you into the house, but I couldn't just leave you out there in a puddle."

"You live in a slum and you brought a random bleeding stranger into your house?" Hawke stared at her. "Probably should have listened to your mother. You don't know whether or not I'm dangerous, you're not even armed."

"I healed you," the girl replied with a pout. "You're welcome."

"I appreciate it. Next time, make sure you're carrying a big stick."

The girl opened her mouth to retort, then paused. Hawke felt something shift. Magic twisted through the air, not a spell she recognised, it felt... green? Could something feel green? Hawke hadn't cast anything so- oh. 'I healed you.' Not at her best today.

The girl blinked, looking nervous for the first time. "You're not from around here."

"You're an apostate," Hawke replied.

"What?"

"I felt whatever spell you just cast. You shouldn't do that in front of a stranger, by the way, you never know who'll be able to sense what you're up to." Now the girl really did look concerned. "Don't worry, I'm not going to tell the Templars."

"You… you felt it too?" She looked up at Hawke with a curious frown. "What's a Templar?"

"Um," Hawke said. She blinked. An adult mage just asked what a Templar was. Right. She strolled to the window, pushed aside the terrible, no good, very bad flowers and peered out. She had to be in the Fade still, probably dreaming it up from an Inquisition medical tent. Or a Venatori dungeon.

The light outside was blue and faint. Not the green of the Fade, and there was no sign of the distant Black City hanging mournfully in the sky.

Instead a giant flat metal thing loomed hundreds of meters in the air, blocking out the sky. Sunlight fell in sheets in the distance, presumably where the 'plate' ended. One of the support pillars towered nearby.

"What in the void?" she muttered. It wasn't... wasn't like anything she'd ever heard of. Not even in tall tales over ale or fanciful childhood myths. She twisted her torso and looked back at the girl. The girl who didn't recognise her armour or even think to be scared of her.

She straightened. Then crossed her arms. "So, my name is Hawke."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Aerith."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Nice to meet you too, Aerith, thank you for the hospitality, you've done your family proud. Tell me, are you... are you at all familiar with a place called Kirkwall?"

Aerith frowned and shook her head.

"Alright. Fair enough, it's a big world, lots of places. What about... Ferelden?"

"Sorry."

"Orlais?" Hawke asked, her voice strained.

Aerith pouted in thought, tapping her chin. "Is that near Kalm?"

"Where's Kalm?"

"Outskirts of Midgar."

"Is that... where we are?"

"You've never heard of Midgar?" Aerith raised a sceptical eyebrow and looked Hawke up and down.

"Don't give me that look, you've never heard of Orlais! Tevinter, though, surely you've heard of Tevinter?" She was pleading at this point and she didn't care. "What about Par Vollen? That's not even in Thedas."

Aerith tilted her head like a curious sparrow and Hawke wished she hadn't asked.

"Where's Thedas?"

She sat on the bed. She put a hand to her temple.

"I think I need a moment."

"Oh. Okay. Call if you need anything." Aerith left, looking back curiously. Hawke barely noticed.

"'Where's Thedas'," she said aloud. "Alright. Sure. Where's Thedas? No problem." She nodded. She swallowed the dry lump in her throat. "Not the weirdest thing that's ever happened. Sometimes you just up and lose Thedas. Varric's going to love this."

Maybe Aerith was just crazy. Or lying.

She didn't act like a crazy person though, and she looked honest. That didn't mean anything, lots of people looked honest. She almost reminded her of Merrill. Where was Merrill these days?

The floral scent stuck in the air, in her throat, hot and humid.

She stood abruptly. No good whining about it, she was going to look like the crazy one, sitting around talking to herself. She grabbed her staff and marched out the door. The rest of the house was just as cheery and flower filled, a well-worn family home. She felt like she was drowning.

Aerith and a woman she assumed was the mother sat in the living room.

"Thank you so much, I have to go." Hawke spotted the door and kept walking. It was in their best interests that she leave anyway. Trouble followed her like a diseased dog.

She pushed open the heavy door without waiting for a response and it closed with a thud behind her.

She was outside. She could breathe easy. She panted in the hot and humid air. Oh, it stank. She took deep and slow breaths, letting panic's sharp little claws ease out of her.

Ugh. The Lowtown docks smelt nicer than this place, what was that?

The huge plate loomed overhead, hazy in the smoggy air. What looked like rubbish and debris occasionally fell from the edges. She kept walking.

There was so much metal. How did they smelt it all? And into such odd shapes too. She stepped over a puddle of vomit and around the drunk woman slumped next to it. As foreign as the scenery looked, there was a familiarity to it. A group of rough looking humans loitering near a wall eyed her as she walked past. She let her legs swing with a careless saunter and kept her staff in her hand. She slapped away a pickpocket's fingers and her nerves settled. A smile broke out across her face. A stinking slum comforted her while a tidy, flower filled home unnerved her? Her mother would have been appalled.

She set aside her earlier panic for later denial and took stock of what she had. Her staff twirled lazily in her hand, and her daggers rested on her back. Her backup knives were tucked away snuggly against her thighs and she had half a health potion swaying at her belt. She was in her best armour set, a second skin by now, and in surprisingly good condition even if Varric had bled on it a little at the end there. She shook her head. Midgar. Sector 5. Getting through the day.

This wasn't too bad, all things considered. She could make this work. The people spoke the same language, she had enough resources to get by, and her magic was fully recovered. Maker, the Eluvian could have dumped her in Qunari lands, or the Tevinter Imperium. This was… well, it wasn't worse than those options, certainly.

All she had to do was pick up the pieces, and start again. Easy.

High above the Midgar plate Genesis Rhapsodos cradled a cup of artisanal tea. He leaned against the back of a couch, facing the windows, his ankles crossed and his long red coat resting on the seat back next to him.

The sun was sinking into the thick band of smog that sat upon the horizon.

He bobbed the silk teabag in his cup. The light made it difficult to see how strong it was. Everything looked the same under the orange glow. The city sprawling below looked rusty, its many street lights and mighty Mako reactors weak and sickly.

"This city is so ugly," he said. Even the horizon looked inflamed under the red haze, like an infection.

"Mm," Sephiroth replied from the other side of the couch, nose buried in a report. Silver hair draped over the couch around him like a pool of mercury.

"Why couldn't Shinra have made Junon its capital? We could have had seaside views." Genesis took out the teabag and slung it into the bin. It landed with a splat and an orange stain on the plastic. "Even they couldn't poison the entire ocean."

Sephiroth turned a page. "Give it time."

Genesis looked sidelong at the man, then took a sip of his tea. It was bitter.

"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end, the goddess descends from the sky," he recited idly, gazing out over the city. "Wings of light and dark spread afar, she guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting."

Sephiroth finally lowered the report and looked up at him. "Did the director ask you to teach the cadet's materia classes yet?"

"He brought it up this morning." Genesis lifted his chin. "You knew he was going to."

"He asked who I would recommend."

"And you recommended me?" He laughed. "What did the cadets ever do to you?"

Sephiroth leaned back. "Are you going to do it?"

"Of course not. Angeal is the teacher, I don't have time to waste on incompetents."

"Angeal has an apprentice to worry about. And you do have the time."

"I do not," he replied, glancing over his shoulder. A tendon in his neck strained.

Sephiroth was quiet for a long moment. "You haven't taken a real mission in weeks."

"Yes, because I do not have the time, are you not paying attention? Why don't you do it?"

Sephiroth smirked. "I thought you were the magic expert?"

Genesis looked back at him, unsmiling. "Did you?"

Sephiroth's brow pulled down in a puzzled frown. "It's what you always say, isn't it?"

Genesis looked to the sunset. He said nothing.

"I don't have the time either, to train the cadets. Or to keep covering for you while you mope," Sephiroth said.

Genesis crossed his arms. His shoulder ached at the movement. The sun disappeared below the horizon. "I'm sure you can manage."

"Genesis," Sephiroth said, getting up. "Go hunt something. Take out a monster nest under the plate, do a patrol somewhere, clear some missions off the roster. Preferably before the end of the week."

The light flooding into the room turned muddy and dim. Genesis put down his cup and finally turned to face his old friend. His commanding officer. "Is that an order?"

"It will be if you don't… start acting like yourself again," Sephiroth said, wearing a frown. "I can only cover for you for so long."

Genesis scowled. "I don't need your charity."

He was rewarded with a pointedly raised eyebrow.

"Fine. I'll go hunt some monsters. Are you happy?"

Sephiroth crossed his arms. "Will you take up the materia classes?"

He scoffed.

"I'll let you drag me down to a play."

It was Genesis' turn to raise an eyebrow. "Will you?" He picked up his coat and pulled it on. He moved confidently through the sting of pulling it up over his shoulders and smiled grimly to himself.

Sephiroth hesitated. "So long as it's not Loveless again."

"I'll give you one hour of training per hour of theatre," Genesis said, flicking his red hair back.

"You're already getting paid. This is, in fact, your job."

"Then you may have fun training the cadets yourself," he replied with a smile. He strode past Sephiroth and out the door.

Fine. If they wanted him to hunt monsters, he could provide. He left the Shinra headquarters, his sword at his side and a bracer of materia at his wrist.

There was a new poster of Sephiroth hanging up outside the front door, fluttering in the cold evening breeze. In it he was wearing the expression Shinra preferred on all their propaganda pieces, solemn and looming, like he was standing atop the world and taking the responsibility seriously. To Genesis he looked bored and awkward. Of course he would be bored. He didn't need to waste time looking superior, he simply was. No posing required.

Genesis scowled and walked under it down to the train station. It was a bad day. The wound on his shoulder didn't normally ache quite so insistently. The pangs kept travelling down his spine whenever he jostled his arm.

He found a monster nest under the plate and tore into it, putting all his vitriol into the swing of his sword. The evening grew darker. Flickering lights from pubs and hotels lit the way.

Just one bad day. Tomorrow would be better.

He locked his jaw. It had been a month of increasingly bad days.

The last monster in the nest fell, it head sliced cleanly from its body. At least the injury wasn't on his sword arm. He activated his Fire materia and burned the bodies and the nest. His mastered Full-Cure materia sat snugly next to the Fire. Useless.

What good was he if he couldn't even heal himself?

He trekked further under the plate, hunting the creatures that lurked in the dark. The looks the slum dwellers sent him were more vicious than anything the monsters had provided so far. He kept his spine straight, tossed his hair back, and moved on to the next infestation.

There were reports of an eligor haunting the train graveyard. It was more interesting than anything else he'd encountered, but they could cast silence.

He was… hesitant to close with serious monsters now. He vastly preferred to fight them with magic at a distance. He couldn't afford to get injured again.

Maybe he wouldn't find it.

He found it.

A woman yelled a battle cry and he felt his hair start to lift with static energy. There was a CRACK, a flash of blue-white light, and a wave of electricity passed through the earth.

He drew his sword and rounded the burnt out remains of a train car. The hulking monster had its back to him as it engaged a woman with a bladed staff. She spun the weapon, a grin on her face and little sparks crackling out of her free hand.

She was illuminated only by the magic she cast and a dying street lamp in the distance. Black hair flicked about her face and she had a wildness to her that made the lightning look quite at home in her grasp. Her armour was bizarre, a large pointed pauldron on one shoulder and plate armour that ran down her arm to a sharp fingered gauntlet.

She gestured with the staff and three electrical bolts arced through the air to slam into the monster. It convulsed with a cry.

It's dragged itself back from her. She gave chase. It roared and unleashed a burst of light. A Silence spell.

The woman stumbled. The sparks extinguished.

"Hey!" she yelled. She latched the staff onto her back and drew a long and ugly dagger. She rolled to dodge its blade.

The red bulb on the monster's face began to glow, its real attack building up. Genesis seized the opportunity and leapt forward, his sword raised. He stabbed it in the spine and dragged his sword up through its neck.

The monster collapsed with a gurgle.

The woman looked nonplussed, the dagger hanging loose in her hand.

"That," she said, "was mine."

He snorted. "I just saved your life."

One corner of her mouth pulled up in an aggravating grin. "Did you, though?"

"I've done you a service," he said, burning the blood off his blade and sheathing it. "The least you could do is show some gratitude."

She narrowed her eyes. "…Do you… want me to pay you?"

"What? No." He tried not to let his shoulders sink, for both pain management and appearance's sake. "You have no idea who I am, do you?"

"Have we met before?"

"I highly doubt it, madam." What rock had she been living under? He wasn't Sephiroth but he was still an icon.

She had the temerity to look puzzled at his response.

He nodded stiffly. "Well. It's been a pleasure."

She reached out "Hey-!"

Pain shot through his calf. He spun, drawing his sword and slicing down in one motion.

An adolescent eligor leaped back. Blood dripping off the monster's blade. He stumbled away from it and it chased him. Pain screamed through his leg. It reverberated through his spine, seized his shoulder, and black spots drowned out his vision for a second.

A flash of magic, and his vision returned to the inside of a magical barrier covering him. He hadn't cast anything.

Lightning cracked and the little monster fell dead.

The woman loomed in his field of vision, disappearing behind patches of inky blackness. She was well off for a slum dweller to be carrying two materia, he thought distantly.

"I think that makes us even," she said, with a toothy grin.

His vision grew hazy and he swayed. No, no, he couldn't pass out, not here, not in the slums.

"Woah," the woman said, reaching for him, "hey, let me—"

"It's nothing, I'm fine," he said, stumbling back.

"You're bleeding."

His legs collapsed under him.

"Huh," he heard the woman say, before he blacked out.

Hawke looked down at the passed out man.

She turned away. She clenched her jaw. She hunched her shoulders. She turned back.

He looked very pathetic, passed out on the cracked concrete. Even unconscious, his face was pinched in pain.

She nudged him with her boot. Nothing.

This was exactly what she'd told the mage girl off for earlier. The smart thing to do would be to leave the well armoured, self important, insignia-and-rank-wearing man alone. She should listen to herself, she gave good advice.

She sighed. She crouched down by his side and cast a healing spell.

Genesis woke up alone.

He lurched up, looking around wildly. He was still in the train graveyard. A sprout of razor weed scuttled away from his boot. He still had all his gear on him. Even his bracer, with its full complement of mastered materia was still there. That alone was miraculous.

There was no sign of the woman.

He pulled himself to his feet and glanced around. The quality of the dark hadn't changed, he couldn't have been unconscious long. He shook his head at himself. What a humiliating performance.

He marched up the slopes of a pile of rubble. It was past time he got out of here.

He paused, frowning. His leg… it had been cut open by the young eligor. He looked down at his calf. The wound was closed, a red line of freshly healed skin visible through the slice in his boot.

His breath stuttered to a halt in his chest. He stood up straight, straighter than he'd been able in a month.

His shoulder didn't hurt.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated :)

Next Time: Magic and its secrets.