Amy Dallon, Herald of Andraste

[Kylia Quilor]

Author's Note: This story is a crossover (in the form of an Isekai) between Worm, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. While the only character from Worm actually 'appearing onscreen' will be Amy Dallon AKA Panacea, the teenage healing superheroine with more issues than a Hudson News and more Baggage than an Airport, Amy's many many issues will be pretty central to the story and since most of the story will be her POV, central to what you the reader see. As such, people who only know Dragon Age will probably be somewhat lost, but you're welcome to give the fic a go and see how you feel. I'm always happy to answer questions.

Worm fans shouldn't need to have much familiarity with Dragon Age to appreciate this fic, as most things about Thedas will be revealed to Amy as the story goes on. But feel free to ask questions. If you know both media, great, welcome aboard!

While given that this takes Amy from mid-Arc 5 of Worm, give or take, it shouldn't matter as much, I will make clear that my general policy on Wildbow's Words of God and the text of Ward is that I'll incorporate facts from either into my understanding of the characters as derived from the text of Worm on a very case-by-case basis. My interpretation of Amy is primarily derived from the text of Worm, and is in keeping with my understanding of the character in said text. You may or may not agree with said interpretation, Amy is a fairly divisive character, with many mutually incompatible understandings of her. I will listen to all good faith critique or suggestions about how to get her right, but it may be that our understandings of her differ. Happens.

In the interest of honesty, If you're one of those people who thinks Amy cannot get better or think she's a fundamentally bad person even before her breakdown in and after Interlude 11h, you may want to not read this fic. This fic is and will be sympathetic to Amy... she will be a bitch a good bit... just not only a bitch. Critique that just consists of accusations that I am writing 'Woobie Amy' will be summarily laughed at and ignored. Again, Constructive, good faith criticism about the characterization of Amy or anyone else is always welcome, though I may not ultimately agree with it. All other forms of constructive criticism are also welcome, with the same caveat. Also, Amy Dallon can do plants in this fic. If that bothers you, the back button is right there.

Finally, this story and indeed the larger series will spend a great deal of time on Amy's many, many issues - from her self-loathing, to her issues with overwork and burnout, her fear of her power, her belief she's damned to be a villain like her biological father, her romantic feelings and attraction to her adoptive sister, her relationship with her adoptive mother, et cetera. Especially early on, it may feel fairly repetitive in that regard, as Amy is prone to spiraling cycles of anxiety and guilt. As the fic goes on, and she has more separation from her toxic home life and starts to get a handle on things, she will get better. She will never be entirely 'fixed', because that's not how anything works. But she will get better, and her various issues will start to move into the background and get less focus - she may still have bad days and bad thoughts, et cetera, but they will get less and less screen time.

With all that out of the way (and thanks to Null for beta-reading this chapter), on with the fic!

Amy Dallon, Herald of Andraste

By Kylia

Chapter 1​

The first thing Amy noticed as she slowly felt herself waken was the cold, hard stone under her. Hard to miss, really.

The next thing was a sudden, sharp stabbing feeling in her hand. She cried out, pulling her hand towards her, trying to curl up around it, screwing her still-closed eyes shut tighter as if that would help, and that's when she noticed the manacles around her wrists, connected by a length of chain.

Amy's throat clenched, heart stilled for a moment as she registered that thought, registered what chains meant. You didn't chain someone who wasn't a prisoner.

Her eyes snapped open, the pain in her hand fading out, dulling. She was lying almost facedown on some sort of stone floor. She heard breathing nearby, she wasn't alone. She felt her pulse race, breath quickening now.

Where am I? Why am I chained?

Amy looked around as much as she could, trying to calm her breathing, trying to stop from panicking, trying to -

The room she was in was all stone - stone blocks or bricks under her, what she could see of the walls, except for a wooden door with a barred window. Whole space was lit by flicking torches - torches! - along the walls, but that fire didn't really do much to make the room feel any warmer.

"She's awake," she heard a voice - it sounded almost British, but not. Definitely English though. She looked to the source of it, and saw a man in some sort of leather armor - maybe more metal bits, but a coat was covering most of his torso - and a metal helmet, all right out of a fantasy movie.

No, not one man, she realized, as she heard footsteps from all around her. She turned her head to the side, still flat on the ground, and saw another one. They had swords on their belts too, and then with an almost uniform sound, she heard them all being drawn.

"Get up. On your knees," one of them barked. "Move slowly," he added. This one wasn't the one who had spoken earlier, or the one she was looking at now.

Amy sucked in air again, then struggled to comply, not wanting to feel like what those swords would be like. Swords - who the fuck used swords? Chevalier did, right? But his was, like, some weird gun-sword thing? Maybe? Wasn't that what Vicky had said once?

Sometimes people with certain powers used swords, but there were at least three people here, two of them wearing similar armor -

Tinkertech alloys? Into swords? That -

Amy pushed herself up into a kneeling position, gasping as the pain in her hand flared again for a moment - just a moment - and she realized now her left hand was covered in glowing green lines.

"What the fuck?" Amy felt herself say, not even realizing she was saying it until she was done.

"The prisoner is awake!" The one that had demanded she get on her knees said, raising his voice. She heard more footsteps, someone running on the other side of the door.

Prisoner. She was a prisoner. Why was she a prisoner?

She closed her eyes again, trying - and failing - to stop herself from hyperventilating as she tried to - remember. She hadn't -

This wasn't the PRT. This wasn't - this wasn't the Birdcage.

They didn't throw you away because they knew what you could do, what you are, what you're really like-

Amy bit the inside of her cheek, trying - and failing - to control her breathing.

She was a prisoner. She didn't know who had her - it wasn't the PRT or E88 or the ABB... definitely not the Merchants.

What was the last thing she remembered?

Hospital. That - that old Chinese guy. He'd had one of Bakuda's bombs in his neck and I was trying to get it out without setting it off...

Right. She'd been dealing with Bakuda's audition for a kill order as she'd set her crazy fucking tinkertech bombs off all over the city, using suicide bombers and not caring who died in the process. Amy had been at the hospital, dealing with casualties, with people who had had their hands turned to ice and their eyes inverted or one of a hundred other horrifying things happen to them when a man had been brought in, speaking Chinese, but one of the nurses had translated - Bakuda had put a bomb in him, and - then -

It was nearly out of him and then -

An explosion. And then -

Amy's memory was pretty blurry after that, just - flashes. Snow and then giant black widow spiders the size of Hellhound's dogs and then -

Nothing. Just waking up, now. With these - these renfaire rejects all pointing their swords at her.

"Who - who are you?" Amy debated trying to stand - but she held back. "Where am I? Why am I here? Why am I chained?"

"Be quiet," there were four of them, standing around her like the corners of a square.

"Why? Answer my question?" Amy demanded, inhaling sharply. First Skitter at the bank, and now here? Her hand glowed bright and the stabbing pain in her hand was back with a vengeance. She cried out again, nearly screaming, eyes screwing shut, tears -

She panted, breath coming shallow, short. She'd been hurt before, sure, scrapes and bruises and all that, but nothing - nothing like this. She'd never been stabbed, but she sure felt like she was now, pain driving right into her hand, through her hand, emanating right through it...

She clenched her teeth, nearly biting her tongue, struggling to open her eyes, blinking away tears as she looked down at her hand. The weird glowing lines on her hand, looking like veins - but in all the wrong places to actually be veins - were brighter now, dull green going to a bright, almost neon color. She sucked in air, or tried to, chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled to - struggled to think through the pain.

This is Bakuda's fault. That fucking - she was going to fuck that psychotic tinker up so much. She was going - she could give her cancer or hit her with some sort of flesh-eating parasite that wouldn't kill her but it would hurt so much and then -

She relaxed her jaw and looked at the - guards? - around her. She was getting sick of being held prisoner, of people pointing sharp, pointing objects at her or pressing knives to her neck...

At least these guys have exposed faces.

"Why are you holding me prisoner? Who are you people?!" Amy demanded. "Where am I?"

"Haven," one of the guards said.

"Haven? Where is Haven?" Wasn't Haven the name of some religious team in the south? Christian capes or something? But these people didn't sound Southern, they sounded British. Sorta.

They didn't say anything.

She was a prisoner. Somehow. For some reason. These people had to be like, the minions of a Tinker with some sort of medieval specialty. They were probably in one of those old ruined castles that were in England.

So I teleported somewhere with snow - England has lots of that right? And it was the territory of this villain and his gang and -

Yeah. That made sense. Or - it - it sorta made sense. The beginnings of sense. But - it was a terrible idea for anyone to take her prisoner. Even if she had just landed in their territory. She was wearing her costume, and Panacea was internationally known, at least in costume, in cape circles. She was the most powerful, versatile healer in the world.

There was a reason why no one in the Bay or anyone else had tried to kidnap her though, and apparently these idiots hadn't made the connection. Fine, she'd vanished thanks to one of Bakuda's bombs, but she obviously wasn't dead and her sister would raise hell until she was found, and... and Carol would -

Carol wouldn't let an attack against New Wave like this stand. She'd call in favors, get Thinkers to figure out where she was... someone would come to rescue her.

"You guys are idiots, right, you know that? Taking Panacea prisoner?"

"You know, when my family finds out where I am, they're going to destroy you guys. I've seen what Glory Girl can do to someone when she's angry. And Brandish? She'll cut your fucking arms off."

The guards didn't say anything to her. They didn't seem like they recognized the names either.

Okay. That - that -

"Maybe you haven't heard of New Wave, maybe you haven't even heard of me, but seriously, let me go now, and you'll get out of this intact. The PRT probably won't be happy when they find out you're holding me prisoner either." Amy added. Nothing. Fucking Skitter had been more responsive when Amy had threatened her. And that creepy bug bitch had been cold.

But anyone who could sic black widows on random people in a bank was likely to be cold.

"And if you don't let me go, I'll fucking give you all cancer.." Amy said, starting to stand, snarling the words out. One of the guards pressed his sword against her back, and Amy stilled.

"Get back down. Don't move."

"You. I'll give you multiple cancers, and I'll make you all impotent!" Amy added, looking over her shoulder at that one. "I can make it so you can never get hard again! Let me go!"

"Get. Down." The blade pressed against her back harder, and then she felt another one tapping her neck. Amy nodded slowly, lowering back down to her knees.

"I fucking mean it," Amy growled, though she didn't move. "I'll give you cancer and worse if you don't let me go. Assuming my family or the PRT doesn't get to you fir-"

Her hand glowed and the pain radiated up her arm this time, but still focused on her hand, the stabbing pain, a knife being driven through it, and Amy tried to double over, but the chain and the swords all around her, close - and she let out a strangled sob, trying to hold back tears again, failing again, gasping, unable to catch her breath, unable to breathe, unable to do anything but experience the pain until it started to subside, the lines on her hand slowly starting to go dimmer, - very slowly.

"I don't suppose any of you have any fucking ibuprofen, huh?" Amy demanded, looking at the armored men.

How had she gotten this? How had she - she tried to focus, tried to make sense of her memories. It was too many blank spots but why? How? What had happened?

Snow. The bomb went off, and there was a lot of snow, and then there was - and then - and the green and spiders and a woman and -

Amy hunched over, head down, a throbbing pain suddenly hitting her there now, as if the very act of trying to remember what happened was painful. She shook her head, the few flashes of memory she had hitting her over and over again, playing on repeat-

She heard a door opening, wood and metal scraping against the stone and she looked up, seeing a hallway beyond. It, like this room she was in, was lit only by torches.

Right. Swords. Castle. Medieval-looking tinker shit. Probably uses torches instead of electric lights for the aesthetic. She could see her sister doing something that over the top if she'd had medieval powers. She already wore a crown, the dork.

Two people came into the room. One stayed in the shadows - all Amy could make out was a hood, and that it was definitely a woman. The other was also a woman, dark hair, seemingly cut short - until Amy saw a very finely braided bit curled around the top of her head. She had a piece of armor on - something that covered her torso, looking like an open eye, the middle of a sun? Lines coming out of it.

Amy didn't recognize it, didn't know what it meant, but that - she barely knew the roster of capes in the Bay. It had taken her a few minutes to realize the people robbing the bank had been the Undersiders, and only because Vicky had talked about one of their earlier jobs. Vicky might actually recognize that symbol. She was enough of a cape nerd to have studied capes from all over the world.

Moving nearly as one, the four guards all stepped aside, pulling their swords away from her, giving the black-haired woman room to approach her.

The woman had to be in her 30s, at least. Tall. Commanding. It was hard to tell under her armor and her clothes, but she looked like she was well muscled. Under other circumstances, Amy might even have called her attractive. (Okay, no might about it). But right now, her head throbbing, her hand aching, freezing her ass off in this dungeon, there wasn't much chance of that being a problem now, at least.

Neither woman said anything, the hooded one stepping a little into the light - she had red hair - and the dark haired woman sort of sauntering around behind her.

Good cop, bad cop?

Amy swallowed. More threats moved to the tip of her tongue, more ways she could mention her family, reprisals...

I mean, I've healed heroes for the PRT before, a lot. They're not going to just let me be held prisoner if they can find me. If. That was the big thing.

Would whoever this was try to force her to heal for them? Hold her for ransom? Worse?

Aunt Sarah had given her - and Victoria - the rundown once, when they were ten, on what to do if they got kidnapped. On what to look for, on how to make sure they weren't hurt. She knew threatening people with cancer was probably not on the list, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what was.

The woman bent down, near her ear, almost breathing down Amy's neck literally.

"Tell me why we shouldn't just kill you now." The woman said in a voice accented differently from the guards.

"What?!" Kill me?! What the fuck?! "Because that's murder!? Because killing a cape, killing Panacea is the kind of thing that would make people land on you like a ton of bricks?! My sister would rip your fucking arms off and beat you to death with them!" Was Europe's cape scene full of murder? She was pretty sure Victoria had said the basic idea of the unwritten rules mostly held true there too...

Right?

"Your sister? So you weren't alone in your crime?" The woman stood, walked around her, standing in front of her, next to the hooded redhead.

"Crime?" Amy wanted to grab at her head, rub at her temples. Her left hand throbbed again, a smaller pulse of pain running through her. What the hell is that? Stupid Manton Limits, stopping her from using her powers on herself. She could figure out what this... glowing green thing was and she could -

Well, she could do a lot, if she not for those things.

"What crime!? I'm not a criminal, and my sister is a hero! She's not a fucking criminal!"

"What crime!? What Crime!?" The woman demanded, sounding offended that Amy would dare to ask the question, as if the answer was obvious, as if she was playing dumb.

Did I - did someone Master me? Make me - and then I forgot because of their power or -

Amy shook her head. No. No. That couldn't be it. This woman had to be nuts, right? Or just - just mistaken?

"The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead." She pointed at Amy. "Except for you."

"What the fuck is the Conclave?" Amy demanded. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Conclaves were something to do with Popes, right? She'd seen that in an Earth Aleph movie once? Was she in Rome? Neither the guards nor the woman sounded Italian...

"You expect us to believe that? When you stumbled out of the Fade? When you were the only one to survive, when Most Holy, when everyone attending the Conclave is dead? When you have this on your hand?" She reached down, gloved hand wrapping around Amy's wrist and pulling her arms up roughly, quickly, the way the chains held them together making the whole thing hurt.

"I have no goddamn clue what that is!" Amy snapped. She looked at the furious expression on the woman's face, trying to put information together. There was a thing - a Conclave. People were dead. She was alive. Had Bakuda's bomb teleported her and the explosion here somehow? Shouldn't the bomb have been the teleport?

"You think - you think I killed people?" She pulled her wrist out of the woman's grip, though mostly she just let Amy go. "I'm a fucking healer!"

Liar.

Amy bit down on the inside of her cheek. She was a healer. Her power could do more, but she didn't do that. She'd never killed anyone, she'd barely hurt anyone - the worst she'd done to anyone with her powers was messing with Skitter via her bugs.

The dark haired woman snorted in disbelief.

"I am! I'm Amy Dallon." No recognition from these two either. "Panacea? Of New Wave? From Brockton Bay?" The dark haired woman showed no signs of recognizing any of that - the Bay was a major city...

But I guess I - mean - I can hardly name all the cities in - wherever the hell we are so...

"Look, just contact the PRT. They can tell you all about me." Amy said.

The redhead didn't seem to recognize anything either, but her expression was a lot more inscrutable. Harder to read. Not that Amy was like, some face-reading expert anyway. If she could have touched either one, she might have been able to get an idea what they were thinking, if they believed her...

But then, if she could touch them, she could do a lot more. She inhaled quickly. A lot she shouldn't do. A lot she couldn't do. But -

I can anesthetize people - that's not - that's not hurting them. It was like when she'd messed with those spiders. They were holding her prisoner. For - for -

You don't know how you got here, what happened since the bomb...

Amy shook her head, rattling her chains as she tried to get her hands at the sides of her head, headache worsening all over again.

No. It wasn't - she couldn't?

"The P... R... T?" The redhead spoke up now, saying the three letters slowly, one by one, brief pauses between, rather than a single acronym. Amy stared, blinking at her. This one sounded - she had a vaguely French accent? But like, a Hollywood French accent, which her French teacher at Arcadia had bitched about once, about how Americans never got French accents right, whatever Earth they were from.

"Yeah. The PRT. You know, Parahuman Response Team?" Amy looked at them both. The dark haired woman opened her mouth to say something, but the redhead held out her hand, and the dark haired woman scowled, stepped back. "The US Government cape agency? The Protectorate? Alexandria? Legend? Eidolon?" She listed off the names of Triumvirate. There was no one on this entire planet that didn't know those three names, right? Not recognizing her name, or New Wave was one thing - the international attention Panacea got was only from like, doctors and real cape nerds. But the Triumvirate. Those were the real deal.

She searched their expressions for any hint they knew what she was talking about.

Nothing.

"You say those names as if we should recognize them," The redhead said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, duh." Amy tried to ignore the churning in her gut, a realization hitting the edge of her mind. Had Bakuda's blast not - but - how -

Even on Earth Aleph someone in authority who dealt with capes would know those names, right? Right? And how would she - couldn't you only just send like, signals and messages to Aleph? Not travel there?

"They're the Triumvirate. You know, the three most powerful parahumans on the planet? Fight at every Endbringer battle?" Amy grasped at straws, desperate. There was-

She licked her lips, feeling her heart in her chest pounding fast. Her hand throbbed with pain, glowing briefly again - she looked, and it almost looked like the lines were growing, extending further across her hand but was - what the fuck even was this thing?

"Fuck." Amy said finally. "I'm not on Earth-Bet anymore, am I? Is this Aleph?" It had to be, right? That was the only other Earth anyone could contact? But - Aleph's capes were like - they were -

Amy sucked in air, quickly and shallowly, swallowing, screwing her eyes shut. It had to be Aleph, but even - but how could it not be - if she -

"She's clearly trying to make us think she's gone mad," the dark haired woman started, but the redhead shook her head.

"No. She's telling the truth. Besides, we need her." She looked at Amy again, looking at her face, looking her over. Amy had the distinct impression of being... sized up. Evaluated. Examined. She shivered - and not from the chill still coming in from the stone floor.

"You're in Haven, in the Frostback Mountains." The redhead said. Amy blinked. "Ferelden?"

She's naming places too - she - she thinks I'm not from around 'here' either? Do they know about other Earths here? Amy tried to focus on that thought. If they knew about other Earths then maybe they could get their Tinkers - would they even call them Tinkers here? That was a PRT term, and they - there wasn't a PRT here, so... fuck, did they call them...

Amy tried to remember some of Vicky's talks about other systems for classifying capes that hadn't taught on the way the PRT's threat assessment had... Inventors? Or maybe they just called then bullshit, since Vicky always said Tinkers and their tech were bullshit.

Amy took a breath. She really wished she remembered Aunt Sarah's lessons on what to do if kidnapped better. If she wasn't chained, if she had a chance of touching their bare skin - especially since they probably didn't even know her powers - she could fight back, but both women had gloves on, so she couldn't even go for their hands.

"I don't recognize those places." Amy tried to take another breath, but it didn't really work, breath shuddering too much. "I don't know what she's talking about either," Amy said, jerking her head towards the dark haired woman. "Last thing I remember was trying to get a piece of tinkertech out of some guy's neck because some crazy bitch thought it would be a good idea to terrorize the entire city and then it exploded - and next thing I know I wake up here, a prisoner. I don't know anything about a Conclave and I sure didn't fucking kill anyone! I'm a healer!"

The redhead looked at her carefully. "A healer who threatens to give people cancer."

"What the fuck would you do when you've got people pointing swords at you and holding you prisoner without telling you much of anything about why?!" Amy demanded. "I don't - I don't actually want to do it to anyone, but - I thought I was - I thought I was somewhere that might - might be - I didn't think I was on another Earth." She could still be somewhere on Earth-Bet, maybe - really good actors, or some weird closed off community with some crazy Master running things...

She didn't think it was likely. You like Earth Aleph movies and you don't know the first thing about the basic physics bullshit that makes it possible for you to watch them. But - Tinkertech could do crazy shit. Especially Bakuda's...

"I'm sure you guys have capes that can do all kinds of crazy shit too, if they want to."

"Cape?" The redhead asked, then shook her head. "It takes rare magic to be able to cause cancer in another, but it's just a tool, like any other." The dark-haired woman seemed ready to say something, but Amy couldn't hold back her words.

"Magic? My power isn't magic, it's -" Amy started, then she processed what she was saying. What she was seeing.

Swords. Armor. The dark haired woman had a sword. Torches. This wasn't weird medieval themed tinkertech. This was an Earth mired in the fucking dark ages and they thought powers were magic!

"Jesus fucking Christ! Bakuda's stupid bomb doesn't just send me to another Earth, it sends me to some sort of fucking... medieval... place," Amy rattled at her cage. "Look, just - I didn't kill anyone! I didn't do anything! Let me go!" They had to let her go, she had to - she had to find a way to get -

I'm going to get home. I'm going - Vicky won't let them stop until they find me, right? They'll examine the blast site and pick up... alternate Earth energies or whatever, right? Those are a thing?

"You are the only survivor found in the ruins of the destruction of the Conclave," the redhead said. "I believe you speak true, but what you speak makes little sense. You truly have no idea of where you are, of what happened, of how you got that mark on your hand?"

"I have no fucking clue where I am, how I got here, what your Conclave is or was or - and I don't know what the fuck this thing on my hand is!" As if to punctuate her words, the line on her hand glowed again, brighter and she doubled over, as much as she could, trying to bit her lower lip, but the pain was too much - she cried out, tears in her eyes again.

"You're a liar!" The dark haired woman snarled, half-lunging at her, but the redhead grabbed her arm, holding her back more by the gesture and her words than force, it looked like.

"Cassandra, we need her." The redhead said, giving a name to the other woman at least. After a moment, Cassandra made a noise of disgust and stepped back. The redhead looked down at Amy again. "Is there nothing you remember?"

"No, nothing! I fucking said that, didn't I?!" Amy snapped. This woman - who Amy still didn't have a name for - seemed to believe her, but she just kept fucking asking, and saying - "Just - flashes. Snow, and a bunch of green and then giant spiders and there was this woman and -" Amy shook her head, trying not to think about what she was saying too much. "My head hurts when I try to remember more than that." Her hand was dulling again, but the throbbing ache wasn't going away completely.

"A woman?"

Amy bit her lower lip, blinking repeatedly, feeling wetness on her face as her headache returned full force. The flashes of it all ran through her mind again, over and over. She whimpered. "Yeah. A woman. She reached out - please stop making me try and remember!" She felt pathetic saying it like that, begging, whining like a baby but - it hurt and -

Vicky would handle all this pain better. She'd break these chains and she'd figure out how people here thought powers worked and -

But she wasn't her sister. She wasn't Glory Girl, she wasn't Victoria Dallon. She was just -

She was just Amy Dallon. She was just Panacea. Plain, pathetic, useless Amy.

Maybe the tears were enough to convince Cassandra she was telling the truth. Maybe she just got off on watching Amy in pain, but the woman spoke to the redhead, in a calmer, more level tone:

"Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift." The redhead - Leliana - nodded, turning away.

"Wait, wait, you're not going to leave me with her!" Amy demanded, but Leliana didn't say anything, continuing on out through the door, into the hallway.

Cassandra turned back to her. "I do not believe your words, but whether you speak truly or not is almost irrelevant right now." She pulled keys from her belt and crouched, undid the chains on Amy's wrists.

She was close enough to touch. And she had nothing covering her face. Amy could reach out, knock her out, or -

But then there were those other four guards to deal with. And if she - if she just attacked this woman...

Vicky would fight back but - I can't. She couldn't survive being stabbed with a sword and - and - she didn't know where she was or -

Amy inhaled, trying to remember the plot of one of the series she'd used to read, before she'd triggered, before her life had become a blur of hospital visits and sleepless nights, zombie-ing her way through school and clinging to Vicky all the tighter, hating herself for how she couldn't fucking be normal about it while she did it.

The main character in that one had... been someone from a normal Earth - even if one without capes - and then in some... medieval place. With actual magic. How did they - what did they...

Vicky might fight back, but her sister was, above all else, a fucking nerd. She'd want to know where she was, what was going on, how it all worked...

"And I'm just supposed to trust you, after you threatened to kill me?!" Amy rubbed at her wrists.

"Trust cuts both ways," Cassandra countered. "Come, we must go to the rift." She gestured for Amy to stand, stepping away. "If I see any sign of you using magic, I will stop you," she added.

It's not magic you -

Magic was powers. Was she a Trump that could stop powers? Or just like, local PRT-equivalent? The ones that policed powers. The symbol on her breastplate was that like - a knightly order? Those were things in fantasy stories...

God. I'm living one of those stories I used to love. How many kids her age would be thrilled? Probably less, if they realized the swords were real and -

Amy stood. "What the fuck is the 'rift?' I still have no idea what's going on!"

"It will be better to show you," Cassandra explained. "Come." She started into the hallway and for a moment, Amy debated waiting, standing, forcing Cassandra to come back and give explanations but - would the woman just chain her up again? Hurt her?

There were microbes on the floor, probably bugs too... she could... she could do something with them to fight back but -

Amy shook her head. No. No. She closed her eyes, trying to banish all the thoughts bubbling to the top of her mind, all the - the horrifying things she could do with her power, the things she could make to - to fight and -

I don't want to hurt anyone!

Amy took another breath, opened her eyes, and followed Cassandra.

"At least tell me what the Conclave is - was!" Amy needed - she needed to understand what was going on. Information was power, for a parahuman. Carol had always talked about that. Vicky did too. The PRT looped New Wave in on briefings about new Capes in or near the Bay for a reason.

Carol and Aunt Sarah made her sit through all those briefings at the team meetings...

"The Conclave was the last hope of peace. Divine Justinia called it in the hopes of ending the war between the Mages and the Templars."

"No idea who any of those are..." Amy muttered. But - okay. Mages. Simple enough. The people who had powers, got called mages. That made sense. As much as anything did. She tried to focus on working through it all. Some kind of fight between powered people and... Templars. Different group of powered people? Or like...

"Are you a Templar?" If Cassandra was like, the local PRT, and she was a Templar...

"No, I am not. I was a Seeker, those who ultimately commanded the Templars. But I left the order when the Templars rebelled against the authority of the Chantry."

Okay... so Cassandra is basically an Ex-Templar? So... war between powered people and... the PRT, but... what they went rogue against the government? Amy tried to imagine the PRT rebelling against the government, but that - that wasn't possible? That wasn't how anything worked.

But this isn't America. This isn't Earth-Bet.

"And you think I... attacked a peace conference?"

"I believe what little evidence exists points to you," Cassandra said after a pause. They reached the stairs at the end of the hallway, and went up. The air started to feel chiller the further they went, and then up the stairs, and Amy wrapped her arms around herself... she was still wearing her robes, white with the red cross and all that, but though they covered her up well... they weren't very insulating... and she was dressed for April in the Bay underneath...

Amy inhaled, shivering again.

"But as I said, whether you speak the truth is almost irrelevant right now." They stepped up onto what had to be the ground floor. She could see colored light coming in through stained glass, but torches and chandeliers with candles - dozens, hundreds of them - were casting most of the light in the vast, open single chamber they were in. Cassandra continued on towards massive double doors on one end.

"There are things of more immediate concern," Cassandra added, pushing the doors open and stepping out into cold air. Amy wrapped her arms tighter, pulling her robe around her more. There was snow on the ground and a bunch of wooden structures, and a wooden wall - all carved stakes pointing upwards.

Medieval fucking world... Amy's left hand flared with pain again and she stumbled, nearly falling over, but Cassandra was there, catching her, gloved hand on Amy's shoulder. "Fuck... what the fuck is this thing?!" Amy straightened up, pushing Cassandra away, and then -

As her eyes scanned over the village, she looked off to the left and up and...

If Amy had had any doubts on if she was on another Earth - not that she really did, at this point - then she lost them as she looked at what she could only call a fucking hole in the sky, green light streaming down from it, the same bright shade as the mark on her hand, an almost pillar of light coming down to the ground somewhere she couldn't see...

Amy stared at it, her hand feeling like whatever knife had stabbed it again was still there, twisting. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, trying to not whimper or whine or cry, blinking repeatedly against the cold breeze - the breeze, definitely the breeze -

"What. The. Fuck."

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Author's Note: I started working on and outlining this story before Veilguard came out. Given the fact that this takes place in the south, etc, there's just not a ton that is in Veilguard that's going to directly matter in this fic, but some lore revealed in it does have a bearing on various details here and there in Inquisition, etc.

I'm not going to hold myself to Veilguard in that respect - some stuff from it is canon for this fic, but some is not. Very case by case and it will show up when or as it matters.

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---

Any lingering doubts that Amy might have had about this not being Earth-Bet were shattered at the sight of the massive green... thing in the sky. The Sky shouldn't have a hole in it, but what else could she call it? She'd heard of the idea of a hole in the ozone layer, as a thing that was an issue before she was born, but this... this was something else entirely.

There was nothing like this on Earth-Bet. And if some sort of cape, like that one crazy bitch that had tried to blow up the Moon, had caused it, there'd be capes all over the place onsite. The PRT would be here. The Protectorate. There'd be capes flying up close to the thing, probably using tinkertech to get a better look at it...

Where are their capes? Fine, there was a war between Mages - powered people - and Templars - the PRT equivalent - and peace hadn't happened, but with something like this, wouldn't they be working together? Like the Endbringer Truce, bringing heroes and villains together...

Though that one just gives villains cover, excuses... Carol had no fondness for the Endbringer Truce, and had vented about it a lot, over the years.

"We call it the Breach," Cassandra said, turning back to look at her, then following her gaze. Amy stared for a moment, still searching for fliers. Flight was one of the most common powers. Did they really not have a single one handy? "It's a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour."

Amy looked back at Cassandra. "Demons? Magic isn't real, and neither are demons. It's just powers and -" What could demons be? Case 53s? Or...

Or something like what Blasto or Nilbog can make... Amy clenched one hand into a fist, driving fingernails into the base of her palm as she tried not to linger on that.

Cassandra stared at her like she'd grown a third arm or something, then shook her head. "Whatever you believe, the Breach is there, and real. And while it is the largest rift into the Fade, it is not the only. All opened up after the explosion at the Conclave."

"The Conclave was destroyed by an explosion? That you think I caused? And you think I - what, caused this too?" Amy just looked back at 'The Breach', trying to figure out what she was looking at, and failing. Powers were bullshit, they could do all kinds of insane shit, but her power had at least some limits. "There's no way my powers could do anything like this."

"As I said, what little evidence exists points to you."

"What evidence?! I still barely know where the hell we are, and I don't know who a Templar is!" Amy closed her eyes, "I'm stranded on another Earth and some crazy medieval lady thinks I'm a murderer," she muttered. Vicky would know how to handle this, or be able to figure it out. Or just punch her way out.

Okay, so even odds she'd try that, at first, especially if they put shackles on her...

Not that these people didn't deserve it, but - that wasn't an option for Amy. She bit the inside of her cheek a moment. She opened her mouth to speak again, but then the pain in her hand returned again and she stumbled, right hand clutching at her wrist, as if that would help. Tears were in her eyes again, and she fell to her knees, crying out...

"And my hand is being repeatedly stabbed by invisible, intangible knives," Amy muttered, nearly whimpering the words out.

Cassandra stood over her, then, after a moment, offered a gloved hand.

"Every time the Breach expands, so too does the mark on your hand," she explained, "And unless we act, the Breach could swallow the world, and that mark will kill you."

Amy looked down at her hand, at the glowing green lines starting to fade back to their usual dull, dim green, her hand reducing to a low, throbbing ache.

Her thoughts raced, too many at once to really understand any of them - she had no idea what was happening, no idea where she was, how she could get home, if she could get home...

If I'll ever see Vicky again...

But the only thought she could really focus on was the fact that Cassandra was claiming this... mark would kill her.

The mark is connected the Breach. But -

Amy shook her head. She could think about the hows later. Maybe. She swallowed, then took Cassandra's hand - for a moment, the woman's bare face would have been in reach, she could have touched it, knocked her out, done something to her -

"I don't want to die," Amy said softly, quietly... feeling almost pathetic as she said it. She took another breath and pulled herself up back onto her feed with Cassandra's help. Okay. Okay. This -

She had no way of knowing if this woman was telling the truth, if this was all some elaborate lie or scheme or -

But right now...

What would Vicky do?

Amy wasn't her sister, couldn't be her sister, could never be and normally wouldn't even want to try but right now... right now Vicky's habit of just... doing might actually be what she needed...

Maybe just a little less recklessness than was normal for her sister though? Just a tiny bit.

"I don't want to die." Amy said again, putting a little more energy into it.

"Good." Cassandra said after a moment. "Because that mark on your hand may be our best chance for stopping this. The two are linked, clearly. Come," Cassandra gestured for Amy to keep following her, and Amy did so, wrapping her arms around herself a little, the cold - it wasn't really that bad, but compared to April in the Bay, it was a big change, all of a sudden, at least for her. And she wasn't dressed for it...

"I don't see how you can say this mark is killing me and think I did this on purpose," Amy muttered and Cassandra looked back at her.

"Something clearly went wrong. I doubt you - or whoever did this, if you are truly innocent - planned on... this," she gestured to the Breach. "If you want to prove your innocence, then help us stop this madness."

"Fine." Amy tried to pick up the pace, Cassandra now walking beside her, hand on her back, pushing her forward. They went further into what was clearly some kind of village. Haven? There were people - more dressed like the guards, or at least similarly, other people that didn't have armor or weapons at all, but still dressed in clothes she'd never seen an actual person wear in real life. At least the village didn't smell, even if they probably didn't have modern plumbing here...

Really? That's what I'm thinking about right now?

The people she saw all paused and stared at her as she started to pass by. They started murmuring, whispering... Cassandra put a hand on the hilt of her sword, ushering her forward with her other hand.

"They think I'm just as guilty as you do," Amy said, seeing the hate in their eyes, the looks that could have killed - one of them reached down and grabbed a stone off the ground, moving as if to throw it at her, but a look from Cassandra made the man - maybe twenty something? - lower his arm.

"They need to. Divine Justinia was beloved, and now she, and all who attended the Conclave are dead." They passed through the village quickly enough, at least, exiting out onto a dirt path, well-trod, a slope ahead of them. "It was the best chance we had for peace. She was the only one who could bring their leaders together."

Cassandra's voice sounded a little choked as she spoke of this 'Divine Justinia', whoever she was she was important, and someone Cassandra clearly mourned.

"They hate you because it makes the pain easier. To blame someone. But Justinia always thought beyond herself, and so must we. The Breach must be sealed. Little else matters." They reached a gate - the rocks and slopes around them had left a narrow path that led to a cliff, a frozen river underneath, and the guards opened the gate at a nod from Cassandra, revealing a bridge.

"I can promise you that there will be a trial." Cassandra told her, in a quieter tone.

"A trial for the death of a woman I've never even heard of, and everyone's already decided I'm guilty," Amy grumbled, knowing it was stupid to say it, to complain, there was nothing she could do, but...

It was all she could do?

"As I said, this is your chance to prove your innocence. There is a smaller rift nearby. If your mark can close it, then perhaps it can close the Breach," Cassandra explained.

"How... how the hell...?" Amy inhaled, then, "Am I just supposed to know how to do that?" Mages are powers. Magic is powers. But I didn't - this isn't some second trigger right? Amy had pretty much known what she could do, once she triggered, at least known what she needed to do to save Vicky, to push out the bullets and knit flesh back together and restore organs and replenish blood and -

Amy screwed her eyes shut as her memory flashed back to that day, the mall, her sister, her overly heroic idiot of a sister, bleeding -

"I am no scholar of magic, but I have never heard of anything like these rifts. I doubt any mage would know how to do anything with this magic," Cassandra explained, not turning back to look at her as she spoke. There were a few others on the bridge, but these ones seemed too busy organizing weapons or supplies to do more than spare her a long glance, or a whisper to a compatriot. "We must simply try and hope."

Really bolstering my confidence here... Amy swallowed.

Vicky wasn't just reckless and prone to charging in. She wanted to understand powers, understand things in general. She was a nerd, and sure, powers were her main thing, but...

Vicky would be asking questions. And understanding what was going on... that had to be good, right?

They passed through another gate at the far end of the bridge, and out onto another path, sloping upwards.

"So - what exactly can you tell me about this Conclave? Why - why were your powered people, your 'Mages' fighting the Templars? Who... who exactly was Divine Justinia?"

Cassandra looked back over her shoulder, pausing in her movement for a moment, then she came closer and spoke to her as they walked up the slope, passing a series of makeshift barricades - scrap wood piled up, overturned carts - with guards (soldiers?) standing behind them, small fires burning along the side of the path in places, blazing despite the cold.

"I do not know if I can believe your claims to being from somewhere beyond Thedas, but I shall humor you, for now," Cassandra said after a moment. "Divine Justinia was the leader of the Chantry, chosen to lead the faithful."

Chantry is a religion then, and Justinia is... pope? Priestess? Pope seemed a reasonable fit, Amy's limited remembering of history classes prompting something about popes in the middle ages and being really powerful.

"Thedas? Is that the name of this planet?"

"It's the name of the continent," Cassandra answered, as Amy paused near one of the fires, holding her hands out towards it. Cassandra stopped, and turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. "We do not have time for that."

"Do you have time for me to get hypothermia?" Wait, did they even know what that was here? "You know, when you get super cold, start getting sluggish and confused and all that? I'm not dressed for this fucking weather," Amy pulled her hands back into her sleeves the fire having helped a little, and she began walking again.

"Okay, so Justinia was in charge of your religion," Amy said, "And the Templars were part of this... Chantry?" Knights Templar were a religious order in Europe, right? Crusades and stuff? So that would make sense? If they thought powered people were mages and the local monster capes were probably the 'demons', then handing policing them over to the church made sense, right?

Or as much sense as anything in a backwards, medieval world would make, anyway.

"Under the terms of the Nevarran Accord, Templars have served to protect mages and to guard against blood magic and abominations for the last eight hundred years. But when the -"

"Eight hundred - how the - you can't have had powers for eight hundred years?! They've only been a thing for - thirty years!" Amy cut Cassandra off as they passed another pile of burning wood and... a body? Up ahead, she could see green balls of fire - small meteors? - raining down into the valley far ahead, coming from the Breach.

Seriously... what sort of power could do that? Tinkertech? Would Tinkertech even work the same way here? Victoria would have a better idea, but probably not much of one. She'd heard her sister talk about how much Tinkertech really was just as much nonsense as powers in general, working in ways that absolutely shouldn't.

Victoria thought it was cool nonsense. Amy just thought it was even more bullshit than most powers.

"Magic has been a fact of this world since the most ancient days," Cassandra said, as if she was saying 'gravity makes things fall'. "Far longer than eight centuries."

"That's impossible! How the fuck can you - magic isn't -"

How the fuck was - powers were the thing that made all the insane shit possible? There couldn't possibly be another Earth where 'magic' was real? This had to be -

Maybe powers are... not as new? Maybe they've been a thing on some Earths for longer? That - that made sense. That had to be it. Amy refused to accept 'magic' as an answer.

Amy stopped walking, starting to breathe faster, closing her eyes, trying - and failing - to take deeper breaths. Her pulse was pounding, she could feel her heard practically in her throat, shaking.

Magic isn't real, it's just powers and I just need to find someone who can make a way for me to get home and if I can survive this - this- thing on my hand and -

As if thinking about it was enough to set it off, Amy's left hand spasmed again, the knife stabbing into it - this time, she couldn't help it, she screamed as she stumbled, falling forward onto her knees, maybe onto her face, if Cassandra hadn't raced to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. Amy didn't even try to hold back tears this time - nothing in her life was like this, she'd never felt any pain even close. This was absolutely a 10 on any sort of reasonable pain scale, beyond anything, anything she'd experienced. Forcing her eyes open, vision blurred, the glowing of her hand was painful, but there was no blood, no... anything external and she couldn't understand -

Her hand was being stabbed and now burned and -

Panting, desperately sucking in shallow breaths of air, head starting to feel light and - and then just as suddenly as the pain had come, it started to subside, fading back to a dull ache again.

"This would almost be easier to deal with if it would stop fading and then coming back!" Amy sobbed out, but she couldn't pretend she wasn't relieved... gasping, managing proper deep breaths again.

"You must try to endure the pain," Cassandra said, as she extended a hand. Amy didn't dignify that with a response as she took her hand and got back onto her feet. "The pulses are clearly getting worse, and they seem to be coming quicker. We must hurry. Save your questions and your disbelief for later."

"Fine, fine," Amy nodded. Cassandra picked up the pace, and Amy, cursing her longstanding disinterest in actually going to the gym, tried to get into a jog to keep up, or as close as she could -

It wasn't that she was fat - Carol, or especially Aunt Sarah, wouldn't have stood for that - but despite numerous offers from Vicky to go to the gym with her, she'd never seen the point, never bothered. She wasn't going to fight, she didn't enjoy exercise or working out the way her sister did, and -

And now all that was coming home to roost. Her sister was going to fucking gloat when Amy told her about this.

Up the slope they moved, Amy trying to remember anything Uncle Neil might have taught them about running - his self-defense lessons had made clear that running if they couldn't fight was always an option, and he'd especially focused on her with the running part, since she was the only one of her sister or cousins who couldn't fly.

Just - just one more way she -

Forcing that thought down, Amy focused on the jogging, trying to keep her breathing even and good and through her nose as much as she could. They reached another bridge, and Cassandra slowed the pace a moment - Amy took the excuse, taking deeper breaths now that she had the opportunity.

"We're almost to the valley proper. Almost all of it, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes, where the Conclave was held, has been laid to waste," Cassandra explained. There was a loud cracking-crashing sound and Amy nearly jumped out of her skin as a green. Flaming boulder landed nearby, and then another, even closer. Cassandra grabbed her hand and started to tug her across the bridge, trying to pick up the pace - Amy tried, desperately to match it as another one fell, and then -

One more hit the bridge, the stones making it up exploding upwards around the crash site - for a moment, everything seemed to still, the bridge seemed to hold despite the gaping hole in it and then -

The ground fell out from under her, her hand slipped out of Cassandra's and Amy cried out as her body hit rocks, rolling down the misshapen mound of fallen stone and hitting the ice of the frozen river beneath her.

"Ow..." it was less painful than her hand when it flared, but all over her body, all of her skin now feeling like a bruise, or just about, her bones in her limbs aching...

I don't - I don't think anything is broken -

She pushed herself to her feet, just barely managing it when another flaming rock hit the ice - but instead of breaking the ice and sending them plunging into a frozen river, a... thing rose up from where it had landed.

Thing was really all Amy could use to describe it. It was tall, taller than her sister, maybe as tall as her Uncle Neil, but she couldn't even call it humanoid - it had arms, and a torso, but rather than legs, it's lower half was sort of a roiling mass of some kind of dark dust or something, making the thing look like it was floating.

Its arms were long and spindly, ending in four clawed fingers, but it didn't have a head so much as a misshapen, hunchlike lump of a thing topped with what looked like rags, hanging forward, where a head might be. It had no visible eyes and -

Amy just didn't have the words to describe it further as it made a sound that could be called a roar.

"Demon!" Cassandra shouted, and Amy heard the sound of her sword being drawn, and then the woman was standing in front of her, between her and the demon. "Stay behind me!"

I can see why they call these demons...

Amy couldn't imagine this was a Case 53, a Monster Cape - they could be all sorts of crazy things, but this - just looking at it felt wrong.

Something created by a power? Tinkertech?

Cassandra charged to attack the 'demon', catching it's claws on her shield and swinging into the thing, the blade cutting into it, but there was no blood, no immediate sign of harm or damage -

The ice between her and Cassandra glowed green, wisps of darkness rising up from it and another creature, looking almost exactly like the first one, rose up, making a sort of snarl-growl noise.

Definitely not a Case 53! That was Amy's last coherent, clear thought as she started to scramble backwards, eyes darting around - it was frozen river all around, there was no way she could climb back knot the wreckage of the bridge -

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an ornate-looking wooden staff as long as she was tall, maybe taller - but she didn't make a move for it as the 'demon' 'charged' at her, seeming to slide across the ice - Amy let out a scream and ran for it, feeling air displace behind her as the thing clawed at where she'd been moments before -

She couldn't look over her shoulder, couldn't let herself get distracted, couldn't -

Amy's foot hit a particularly bad patch of the ice and she felt her leg give way out from under her - for a moment, she was in the air, none of her touching the ground, flailing, as if there was anything she could grab, and then she hit the ice, landing on her ass, the 'demon' making another growly sort of noise, looming over her, raising it's claws -

Amy tried to pull herself backwards, hand on the ice, trying to scramble, trying to get away - claws scythed down, Amy threw her hands in front of her face, screaming again and then -

There was the sound of something punching into flesh, Amy felt something hot splattering her arms and hands - then another growl from the creature, this one quickly fading into silence...

Shaking, gasping, Amy lowered her arms to see Cassandra standing there, armor spattered with blood, sword covered in blood as well. She had a cut in the non-metal part of her armor, along one arm, blood staining the leather - it was a small cut, it didn't even seem to be actively bleeding anymore...

As for the thing that had nearly killed her - the 'demon' just... gone. No body, no corpse...

Amy looked at her own hands, they had blood on them but -

This isn't blood? Amy had touched blood before. Hazard of being a healer. And when there was blood on her hands, it was - it was still a living thing, or at least there were living things in the blood she could feel but these - these weren't -

There was nothing in this blood. If it wasn't for her own fucking eyes, and the feeling of it on her bare skin, she -

"This isn't blood..." she repeated her thought aloud. "What - what the fuck?" She swallowed, looking up at Cassandra, who had lowered her sword.

"Why did you not fight back?" Cassandra demanded. "Even a mage of your age would know some defensive magics - a barrier, if nothing else!"

Amy stared at Cassandra, "I have no idea what you're talking about! I've told you, powers aren't magic, magic isn't real, I'm a fucking healer! I got a few self-defense lessons from my Uncle Neil years ago and I barely remember them and I don't fight - I don't want to fight, I've never wanted to fight, I just - if you want someone who can fight, you need my sister!" Amy said the whole thing in one breath, gasping for air as she finished, still sore, still lying on the ice - and with the 'heat of battle' quickly fading, the chill from the ice was seeping into her skin through her robes, her pants -

I need my sister...

Amy pushed herself to her feet, and then watched in amazement as the blood on Cassandra's armor and sword - the blood that wasn't hers - started to vanish... Amy looked at her hands and arms and saw the blood quickly fading as well.

"I am beginning to believe you speak truly, impossible as it may be," Cassandra said after a long moment staring at her. "I do not believe you would commit to a lie at such risk to your own life." Cassandra sheathed her sword.

"You're hurt," Amy gestured to the cut on Cassandra's arm.

"A minor injury," she shook her head. "It's not even bleeding any longer."

"Like I said, I'm a healer - I - you're the only one standing between me and those - things..." Amy hated the way her voice sounded shaky and weak but -

Amy didn't really want to heal this woman, didn't want to help her, but - she wanted to die at the hands of some sort of monster's claws even less and -

"...we don't have time for you to make a poultice or apply a bandage to something so minor," Cassandra countered. She started to turn.

I'm not some fucking herb woman! Amy hated the indignation she felt at the comparison, rising, almost choking her for a moment.

"Not that - I don't - I have no idea what you think mages are supposed to be able to do, but I am a healer! I'm a parahuman! I don't - I can heal someone with a touch! It's what I do, it's my power," it was part of her power, but it was the only good part, and even then, it wasn't all that good... "My sister flies and can break concrete walls and my cousin can fly and shoot lasers from her hands and I heal!"

After a moment, Cassandra stepped closer, "Fine. Let us see your healing, but be quick." Amy stepped closer as well, and put her hand on Cassandra's bare neck for a moment -

All it would take was an errant twitch, a thought - she could knock this woman out, she could stop her heart or make her arms boneless or -

Amy closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus on Cassandra's injured arm - the skin closed up, and Cassandra let out a surprised gasp, pushing Amy's hand away.

"...That was not magic," Cassandra said, stunned. Amy looked at the woman's previously injured arm, Cassandra poking at the spot she'd been cut. "I felt my skin close, as I would if healed by a mage, but I didn't feel you draw on the Fade at all." She looked over at Amy now, meeting her eyes.

"I do not know from whence you come, Amy Dallon, but it is clear you are a long way from home." Cassandra said with conviction. She lowered her arm, "And I am beginning to believe your protestations of innocence."

Oh now she believes me!

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Author's Note: Amy doesn't like healing, so it may seem a bit odd that she's so insistent about it after Cassandra rejects her offer, especially since it isn't like Cassandra has been badly hurt at this point (keeping the person standing between her and the monsters alive is a good thing). But basically, healing is pretty much the only thing Amy has right now, the only thing she has control over, and she's more or less latching onto it for that purpose.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Author's Note: I feel like, judging from some comments on this fic, here and elsewhere, that some people have some very specific ideas about what is going to happen in this fic - not from this fic itself, but from their own views about Amy or Amy-centric stuff. I want to set some expectations so I don't have a lot of disappointed people coming at me.

This is not a fic where Amy is going to rapidly go hogwild with her powers. Depending on how one defines 'hogwild', she'll never go hogwild, though she will eventually start using her power for more than healing. But this fic, and the subsequent fics planned in the series, is primarily about Amy's character, rather than Amy's power. A sometimes subtle distinction given how much a parahuman can be bound up with their power, but an important one.

A lot of focus will be on Amy's mental health and her own personal baggage and struggles and issues - as I said at the start, over time, she'll get better on all fronts and have more good days and less bad days and we'll start to focus on those bad days less, but she's got a lot of bad days ahead. She's been ripped away from everything she knows, everyone she loves or cares about, and is being thrust into a situation she is not suited for. Which is, of course, the whole point of the fic.

Her power will be directly relevant in the plot, and allow her to do some things that an Inquisitor in the game just can't, but it is not the only thing she's gonna be doing or like, the centerpiece of the story. Amy's power is inexorably bound up with all the things I find compelling about her, but I find much more about her interesting than just her power.

If the Amy angst and drama gets tiresome, I do encourage you to take a break for a few months and come back and binge stuff or the like. That will let you move through the pace of it a decent bit easier, for the parts you're just less interested in, and the same holds true if you want to see her branching out with her powers, though that will probably take more time to get to.

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"How did you do-" Cassandra started, staring at her, and then she shook her head, cutting herself off. "No. We need to keep going. We don't have time for questions." She gestured for Amy to follow her. "Come, we must get to the closest rift,"

"If you were going to ask how I did that I - I don't know how powers work. Nobody really does." Amy answered, starting to follow after Cassandra as the woman set off across the ice, towards the shore. She winced with every step - by the end of this, if she was even still alive, she was going to be a walking bruise... too sore to even walk, maybe. She needed to put ice on her...

Everything, really.

Between her fall when the bridge had collapsed, and the demon's attempts to hit her and -

They reached the shore, and started up a hill. Amy wrapped one arm around her midsection. She was pretty sure her ribs were just bruised at worst, but - she bit her lower lip, sucking in air again, and Cassandra paused, turning to look at her. "You are hurt?"

"The bridge collapsing under me, and then falling again when the demon chased me hurt, yeah," Amy said. "And my powers don't work on myself, so when I get hurt, I just have to fucking suffer," she added. She bit her lip again, hissing as she breathed air in, taking the moment of stillness to rub at her arm, checking for especially sensitive spots, and finding a few. She let out another wince.

"...most definitely not magic," Cassandra said quietly, seemingly as much to herself as Amy. "How did you survive the blast, if you have no magic, if your... abilities do not work on yourself."

"How many times do I need to tell you I have no idea?! The last thing I remember clearly was being at the hospital, healing victims of Bakuda's insane bombing spree, they brought in some guy who had a bomb in his neck, I was trying to remove it, and then - I wake up in that cell, with your guards pointing swords at me, and this- this thing on my hand!" She shouted that last part, and then stared at her hand, as if expecting it to flare up again, but for the moment, it seemed to be staying at the constant dull ache, rather than anything worse.

"If not for the fact that you healed my injury without even the slightest hint of magic, I would say it is impossible, all that you say, all that you claim. But you did." Cassandra reached into her belt, pulling out a thick glass vial, filled with some sort of bright red liquid. It looked like some kind of fruit juice, but from the way it sloshed in the vial, a literal cork serving as the stopper.

"Here." She extended the vial to her. "A few sips of this will handle your injuries, and most of the pain."

Amy looked at the bottle, "Really? A fucking healing potion?" Amy's first thought was some kind of weird alchemy tinkertech. That was possible, right? There were tinkers who could heal, though none with the same ease and versatility as she could. She'd been asked by the PRT to monitor people who were healed by Tinkertech twice, since her powers were able to do that, since she could - in theory - counteract any negative side effects, once they'd been sure her powers didn't have side effects.

But drinking the strange tinkertech concoction was a fast path to getting yourself killed or worse.

"Yes. A healing potion."

"I'm just going to accept some random drink from someone I don't know, without any idea of what it does, or how it works, or side effects?"

"Unless you drink too many in too short a span, the worst you can expect from a healing potion is tiredness a few hours later," Cassandra assured her. She grabbed Amy's arm and pushed the potion into her hand. "Drink, or do not, we do not have time for this, but consider that I need you alive to have even a hope of putting an end to this madness," she gestured around herself, at the sky.

Amy swallowed, staring at her. She looked at the mountains ahead, at how far away the big green hole in the sky was, both... just, distance up, and the distance to wherever the space right under it was. She hurt, a lot, and she was going to hurt more, right? And more demons between here and -

Cassandra could just... tell I'm not using magic? How exactly does that work? Is magic-

Was magic actually different from powers? Was it - was it actually a thing here? Were those actually demons?

No. Amy insisted to herself, refusing to believe they were... creatures from hell or - whatever. And magic wasn't real. Couldn't be real. It was just... it had to be powers, somehow, but maybe powers were different here, or maybe Cassandra had no idea of what she was talking about or -

No one really knows how powers work back home, maybe there's an element of - everyone expects chanting and spells and so that's how it works and I didn't chant and -

The 'demons' blood vanishing was probably just... projections? Or some kind of tinkertech creation. Or something.

That had to be. Which meant the healing potion had to be tinkertech or something else created by powers.

Which brought her back to the 'don't drink the strange, untested tinkertech'...

Cassandra made a sort of half-scoffing, half snarling sound of disgust, and turned away, gesturing for Amy to follow after her.

Still holding onto the vial, Amy tried to pick up the pace - breaking into a slow jog to just try to keep up with the woman's pace strained, and despite herself, she muttered 'ow' under her breath repeatedly, hating every second of it, but knowing she had to, mind still racing, trying to understand, and dreading going through the entire trip into the 'valley' feeling like this...

Is it really untested though? They reached the top of the hill, and Amy nearly ran into Cassandra as the woman pulled up short, drawing her sword again. "Wait here," she gestured down below, onto yet more ice, and there were two more demons, their tall, misshapen forms turned away from them, a dead man between them. Cassandra drew her sword, and leapt off the hill, hitting the thick ice running and charging into the demons, hitting one with her shield to knock it back, slashing into the other.

The fight was fast, and Amy was just far enough away to not be able to make out every detail as Cassandra seemed to duck under their attacks, or catch them on her shield, or her armor. She fought quickly, cutting at them, bashing them with her shield, and soon enough, both had collapsed and dissipated away...

Projections, it has to be. But where was the cape causing them? Capes? Crusader's ghosts could only go so far from him right?

That was the only projection creator she knew about offhand, and she scoured her memory of Vicky's infodumps and briefings from Carol, from Uncle Neil, about potential threats in the Bay, things even she needed to know, even if she wasn't going to fight -

The cape has to be close, right? But there's no one else so maybe it's longer ranged?

It had to be projections though, somehow, or in some form...

With the demons dead though, Amy made her way down the hill as quickly as she could, gasping for breath as much or more from the pain as the exertion onto the ice again, wondering just how thick it had to be that it was holding up under the weight...

Cassandra wasn't bleeding, but there was a dent in her armor where she'd been hit by one of the demons, even if it hadn't punctured.

"Are you hurt?" Amy asked.

"Nothing serious. Save your... abilities for now. There's much ahead of us, and I don't want to tax your energies."

"It doesn't - there's no limit beyond time and biology for what I can heal," Amy said quickly. "But it does come from the person I heal's own body. So... just... eat a lot, after this is all done." She didn't insist on healing Cassandra this time - she didn't seem visibly in pain, there was no labored breathing or any wincing or...

She could just be better at hiding it than you are...

Amy looked down at the potion in her hand. Her arms, her legs, her ribs... her everything hurt, really. From her hand to her head to her neck...

"You said this potion will help with pain?"

"I don't know if it will do anything for your hand, but yes," Cassandra said. "As I said, I need you alive. All of Thedas does."

"So I can somehow use this... thing to close that," Amy gestured at the Breach. "You believe me when I say I'm innocent... are you still putting me on trial?" Part of Amy wanted to just... refuse to help. But if there were more of those demons raining down from the sky because of that 'Breach', then more people could die and Amy couldn't -

She couldn't let that happen anymore than she could just... refuse to go to the Hospital. Take a break, like Dean had told her to.

What kind of monster would she be if she just let people die when there was a chance she could help save them?

"It is likely that many people will still assume your guilt. Only Seekers, Templars and Mages would be able to tell that your abilities are not magic, and even then..." she shook her head. "I will speak in your defense, but I fear a trial is unavoidable."

Amy bit her lower lip, then nodded. "I guess that's the best I can expect," she muttered. She looked down at the bottle in her hand and finally decided she would take the chance. Too much distance to the Breach and too many demons she'd have to run from and -

She felt insane for even considering this, but Amy wasn't used to being physically hurt, nor was she used to all the physical exertion and more was coming and then all that on top of her hand... and the way her head kept aching every time she tried to remember the details of what had happened...

She pulled the cork out of the bottle and took a small, careful sip. The taste on her tongue nearly made her spit the liquid out - from the color, she'd expected something like cough medicine, which was probably stupid, but instead, she got an unholy combination of peppermint and... grass. The latter reminded her of that time she accidentally grabbed the wrong cup at a hospital breakroom and tasted a nurse's green tea.

All tea was bad, but green tea was just... no.

"Blech!" Amy gagged a little, but - she'd expected something tasting bad, medicine often did for very good reasons, just not - just not this. Grimacing, she forced herself to take another sip, the stuffed the cork back in the bottle.

"The taste does not get better with repeated drinking," Cassandra said with a small sigh. "Come, we must continue. We're nearing the first rift."

Were they going to run into more demons before they got to this rift? She looked down at the man that had been killed by the demons before - he had a helmet like the guards in her cell. He'd been cut up, armor rent, his stomach ripped open, blood staining him, his clothes, the ice... it smelled like recent bloodshed too, nothing older...

That could have been me.

Amy stuffed the potion onto her pocket and hurried after Cassandra - and nearly stopped entirely when she realized that the running hadn't hurt like it had just a minute before. Her legs still burned from being not used to this much exercise, but her legs didn't feel banged up and bruised and the soreness seemed to be less?

They pushed ahead, getting into two more fights - well, Cassandra getting into fights, and Amy hanging back and having to scramble again, running from a demon at one point. She also learned there were more than one kind of demon - many, actually. The ones she'd first scene, the clawed, misshapen ones with the dusty-darkness lower halves were called 'shades'. The one that she had to run from in the second fight was more...

Ghostlike? It was much more human in shape, with a real face and proper arms... but green, and ethereal, see-through, like a ghost, and it had no lower half, instead just floating above the ground. And yet, Cassandra was able to stab it, so it wasn't actually a ghost, though its name 'wraith' was very ghostlike...

Cassandra had answered 'uncounted varieties' when Amy demanded to know how many kinds of demons there were, but then added that 'most' came down to about a dozen or so common forms in practice.

The Wraith had not only chased after her, but shot balls of green... not fire, but a sort of swirling energy, and it was frankly more luck than anything else that Amy hadn't been hit. Cassandra had, and the balls caused no obvious injuries, but touching Cassandra afterwards to heal another cut from a shade made it clear that the ball had caused damage to her body - namely, her left thigh, where she'd been hit by the wraith's attack, was... older? The cells there seemed to be acting like cells of someone years older than Cassandra, though already Cassandra's body seemed to be correcting the damage. Amy's power just sped that up, correcting the cells with ease, returning them all to the way they'd been before, in line with the rest of her body...

I've never heard of a cape that could make someone older by touching them but... It would be a deadly weapon, depending on how fast it worked... clearly this 'wraith' couldn't do much on it's own, alone -

Cassandra made short work of the demons in each fight, but it was clearly taxing her, and Amy's healing was taking directly from her body's own energies...

Amy had, during that second fight, tripped and fallen again, nearly landing on her face, nearly breaking her nose, catching her fall at the last minute, her left wrist nearly sprained, hurting as much as her left hand now, or at least it felt like it -

She sipped at the potion again, the pain in her wrist mostly fading as they kept going, pushing ahead...

They finally reached a set of stone stairs, carved right into the side of a cliff, and up ahead, Amy could hear shouts, fighting, metal clashing against something, loud snarls and screeches -

Her left hand throbbed, the mark glowing, but differently now, sort of pulsating, glowing and dining and glowing and dimming, the pace of it getting faster as they got closer to the top of the stairs.

"We're almost to the rift. Stay back, but be ready once the demons are vanquished," Cassandra ordered.

Be ready to what? She still had no idea how the fuck she was supposed to use this... thing on her hand to close rifts, left alone the massive Breach in the sky, but -

They reached the top of the stairs, and Amy turned to the source of the sounds of fighting -

Ahead, in the ruins of what might have been a stone house, balls of green fire raining down from the sky around it, were a whole mass of shades and wraiths, with three people fighting, more bodies strewn around them - one was fighting with an oversized, strange-looking crossbow, short and stocky, but remarkably agile despite that, jumping away from shades and firing with it, the bolt punching through one shade and then into a wraith behind it.

Another was skinny, bald and wielding a large staff, shooting white-blue bolts from it, hitting shades, turnings arms to ice, turning one shade entirely to ice that he shattered with a thwack from his staff, twirling it expertly as he spun around to force back a shade that had gotten closer.

The third was a tall woman wearing armor like the guards in her cell had, like the dead soldier had, but if she had a helmet, it was gone now, her shoulder-length red hair flying freely as she used a massive two-handed sword to force demons to keep their distance from her, swinging at them with seeming reckless abandon, but it was working, cutting at demons, hurting them, stopping the shades from getting close enough to strike at her with their claws.

But beyond just the three of them, and the demons, there was a green massive crystalline shape in the air, at the center of the fighting as they desperately tried to hold off two or three times their number in demons - it was hard to tell, the fighting moving too quickly to keep specific track of them, and it was almost as if more kept appearing...

Amy ducked behind a half-crumbled stone wall, watching the fighting, her hand pulsing, throbbing - she bit her lip, trying to hold back a whimper or cry or something - the potions weren't doing anything about the pain the mark was causing...

Is that - is that crystalline thing the rift? It was green, the Breach was green, the wraiths were green, the green fire raining down from the sky -

Cassandra charged in, opening by driving her sword into the back of a shade as it tried to come at the redhead from behind. With her arriving, the tide seemed to turn quickly: Cassandra and the redhead together made short work of a pair of demons, the bald man froze another one solid, the short guy with the crossbow shattered it, and then the rest were wrapped up soon after.

The crystalline form in the air... unfolded, for lack of a better word, suddenly looking a lot more like a shimmering hole in the air before them, glowing, lines forming from it to spots on the ground -

Amy cried out, eyes pulling away as her hand spiked in pain again, and if she hadn't already been crouched behind the wall, she'd have fallen over, the agony ripping through her as bad as it had ever been.

"...there - the rift - now!" she heard someone calling towards her - male, not Cassandra, but she couldn't make out all the details, all the words -

He must be telling me to use this mark to close the rift, but how? She could barely string that thought together against the pain, but -

Victoria Dallon, Glory Girl, wouldn't let pain stop her from saving lives, not if she could, not if she was the only one...

I'm not her. I can't be her. I can't -

Amy screwed her eyes shut, biting her lip again, tasting blood within moments, but she forced herself to her feet, stumbled over the broken remnants of the wall she'd taken shelter behind, staggered towards the rift - she opened her eyes, seeing that she was getting closer -

Cassandra's shield-arm was hanging weirdly from her body, the redhead had a deep gouge in her arm, though she was pulling a half-empty vial of potion out of her belt pouch with her other hand - even the bald man seemed to be injured, favoring his left side - the short man seemed unhurt, at least, but -

Amy took another few steps, spitting the blood out of her mouth, gasping -

The bald man ran at her, and before Amy could dodge or step aside or even really register it was happening, he snatched up her left arm and held it up, pointing it towards the rift -

"Quickly, before they finish coming through!"

A fresh stab of white-hot tortuous pain burned through her whole being, running straight down her arm, to her hand -

Green light, green energy, green - something - flowed from her hand, into the rift - Amy averted her eyes at the brightness in front of her, and then, a sound like crackling electricity, a loud boom and a small shockwave radiating out from just in front of her...

The green brightness at the corner of her eye faded and she turned to look where the rift had been, the agony in her hand already quickly bleeding away into that dull ache once more - though it wasn't as dull as it had been, throbbing much more actively, pain spiraling up her arm just a little.

"Sweet Andraste, that worked?!" The redhead was the first to say, dropping an empty potion vial to the ground - Amy saw the gouge in her hand immediately begin to close up, skin sealing up, regrowing almost as if she was using her power on it, though not as quickly, not as completely - there was still a deep cut, just less deep, less wide, and not actively bleeding...

"So it would seem," Cassandra said.

"Good. We'd have been ass-deep in demons if this went on too much longer," the short man said. He flicked a switch on his crossbow and the four arms of it collapsed inward, and he slung the bow over his back in an easy, practiced motion. He was closer now, and she got a better look at him - he was wearing a chain necklace of some sort, and both of his ears were pierced, wearing an open jacket, and his shirt was unbuttoned, showing off a lot of his chest. If he was bothered by the cold, he didn't show it. "Still might end up that way if we don't deal with the big one."

Amy looked away from the man, down at her hand. It wasn't glowing or pulsating anymore, and for a moment, it almost looked like it was sparking, as if electricity was coming off it, like from a live wire, but only for that moment.

"...so I can do something about this..." Amy said softly.

"Indeed you can," The bald man said, in another accent that was... different, like nothing she could place. "The mark on your hand, and the magic of these rifts and the Breach seemed to be of a similar nature. I theorized that one might be able to influence, or even control the other."

"You didn't know for sure!?" Amy snapped. "Just had me dragged here, right into the fighting to test it!?" Even as she said it, she looked down at the ground, realizing how stupid it sounded, and - she hadn't even been in the fighting really, after the first time and this guy - some kind of cryokinetic, clearly - had risked his life throwing back those demons.

"Lady Cassandra was the one to 'drag you here', as you say," the bald man said, his voice soft, seeming unconcerned. Cassandra didn't have any visible reaction to him pinning the blame on her, but - he was right, wasn't he? "But I'm not sure there would have been any other way to find out if your mark could close the rifts,"

"Right." Amy swallowed. "I... sorry."

"I am gratified to see you still live," the man added. She looked him over now - his clothing looked... unremarkable. A little shabby, but not like, falling apart. He too seemed completely unbothered by the cold, which was starting to get annoying to see. Fine, she wasn't dressed for the weather, but still!

Then she did a double-take as she registered something she hadn't been seeing before.

Pointed ears.

The bald man had fucking pointed ears! Like an elf!

Magic, demons, elves...

Some kind of minor Case 53/Monster Cape type thing, right? Like Bad Canary, who had those feathers? He couldn't -

Next thing would be that the short guy wasn't just someone short, or maybe dealing with one of the conditions lumped under 'dwarfism' but he was an actual dwarf! That was just - this couldn't be magic! This had to be parahuman stuff and tinkertech and projections, right?! Even on another Earth, magic couldn't be real!

It couldn't!

"That's his way of saying he's the one who kept that mark from killing you while you slept," the short man - who absolutely was not a dwarf! - chimed in.

"Thank you?" She said, looking at him. Did he have more than one power? Or had he used his ice to somehow... dull the pain of the mark or something? Maybe he was just a powers nerd, like Vicky.

"You are quite welcome." He held out a hand, ungloved, "My name is Solas."

"Amy." She said, taking his hand in hers. She could get an idea of how hurt he was and then offer to heal it, if he really had helped keep the mark from killing her, she owed him that much, at least, right!?

The moment her hand touched his, she felt her brain suddenly screech to a halt, like a record scratch in a movie bringing everything to a stop.

It was impossible to put into words what exactly she 'saw' when she touched someone and got a complete look at their biology. She'd tried, after Vicky had pestered her enough about it one time, and she could at least... approximate it, but even then, it was - it was a lot of things that she just couldn't describe. But she got a look at everything about a person, right down to their cells. She got a look at the structure of their brains, which of their organs was operating at peak efficiency, any indications of long-past bone fractures, their antibodies, all flooding into her mind at once.

She had to actually focus a little to get any useful information beyond the immediate rush, like zooming in on a specific spot of a picture, but the basic impression had information too, sometimes.

She'd touched Case 53s, during power testing with the PRT, to see if she could return their bodies to normal. Leaving aside the fact that some of them didn't even have organic bodies anymore, like that metal guy from Boston they'd actually had her check if she could affect (she'd rolled her eyes at that waste of her time), the ones that were organic were... weird. There were bits and pieces of human DNA and sometimes human organs and so on underneath the surface, even if that surface could be really weird.

She also couldn't give them their old bodies back, even if she'd known, if they'd known, what they'd looked like. Maybe she could have changed them, shaped their flesh to look human, if she'd been willing to use her power that way, but - she couldn't 'heal' them back to human appearance. Her power just... didn't see them as hurt.

But touching this man, this... Solas guy -

Her power was feeding her a complete look at his biology and for all that looked like a tall, slim human with eyes that were maybe a bit larger than normal and ears that were pointed... he was absolutely not human.

He had all the same basic general organs, in the same basic arrangement, but she'd healed enough human bodies to know that that - that lungs shouldn't be arranged like that, that the heart was beating at speed that absolutely should have been too slow for this man to be as healthy as the rest of his biology seemed to read. His bones were bones, and his muscle tissue were muscles, but the cells within them were arranged... all wrong, and the muscle was... layered wrong, for lack of a better way of putting it.

His fucking DNA wasn't Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine. The chemicals were similar, and it was definitely DNA, arranged in a double helix and - and -

But it wasn't the right chemicals! Cassandra had been human, absolutely normal human - maybe a lot healthier than the average American except for the lack of antibodies for diseases Amy was familiar with and with maybe slightly worse teeth, but for some primitive medieval place her teeth weren't actually that bad -

His brain was also just - again, close, but not right. She'd gotten a look at more human brains than she wanted to count, and they had differences, but this -

This wasn't human.

And there's no fucking Corona! No Polentia! No Gemma!

"You're - you're not human!" Amy stared at his hand, and then realized everyone else was staring at her, that she'd shouted the words out.

He doesn't have powers? But he could - he could make the ice and -

Amy let go of his hand, stumbling back, nearly falling over, breathing suddenly coming faster - she would have tripped, landed on her ass or something if not for a hand suddenly on her shoulder, watching her, keeping her up. Cassandra and Solas were in front of her, and she didn't think it was the short guy so - the redhead?

If he's not human and - and he doesn't - then magic - and he's actually - then - were the demons -

"No, I am not. And yet, you say it as if this is a surprise to you, but only after you touched my hand." Solas said. Amy did hear his words, and made them out even as her mind raced around in circles, refusing to believe the obvious, the facts of what she'd seen, what had to be happening.

"Amy claims to be from beyond Thedas," Cassandra said. "I am becoming increasingly inclined to believe her. She was able to heal my injuries at a mere touch, without magic."

"Without magic? At a touch?" The redhead said from behind her. "Lady Pentaghast, that - how is that possible? Are you - you can't be -"

"Because that's what I do! That's my power!" Amy said, managing to collect herself enough to string words together again. "I - I heal, other people. And I get a complete look at their biology and - he's not human! What the fuck are you, an elf?"

"Yes," Solas said simply, staring at her, eyes wide a moment, genuinely seeming confused, surprised by her.

"So - what, he's a dwarf then?!" she gestured behind her, to where she thought the short man - the dwarf? - was.

"I am." The man said. "Varric Tethras, at your service." She heard him walk up beside her, and she turned to look at him - Amy wasn't used to being taller than people, but she was taller than this man. This... dwarf. "And you're from beyond Thedas? If we make it through this mess alive, you probably have some really interesting stories to tell." The dwarf - Varric - went on.

"Varric, now is not the time," Cassandra said, sounding exasperated. "I'm not even sure why you're still here. I brought you to Haven to share your story with the Divine, but... that is no longer possible."

"Right now, you need all the help you can get, Seeker," Varric said. "Your soldiers aren't in control of the valley anymore, and it looks like the only one who can stop us from getting overrun by demons is a kid who I'm guessing doesn't know the first thing about fighting." He raised an eyebrow and glanced back at her.

"I don't! I'm a healer! That's what I do!" Amy raised her voice. She tried to take a deep breath - she wasn't on the verge of hyperventilating anymore, but her breathing was coming in ragged, shaky. She was still -

"If she's not from Thedas, and she's not a mage... I don't see how anyone, but especially a non-mage, could have been behind the Breach," Solas said, looking at Cassandra.

"I am beginning to believe she is not the one behind the Breach, but further questions will have to wait. We need to get to the valley, we must close more rifts, and then the Breach." Cassandra said.

Amy tried to take another breath, but again, it wasn't working, shaky, ragged -

"That's a great idea, Seeker. We should get moving then," Varric said.

"Varric, absolutely not!" Cassandra raised her force, shaking her head, grimacing as if the idea caused her physical pain.

"Like I said, Seeker, your soldiers aren't in control of the valley."

"Lady Pentaghast," the redhead said, taking her hand off of Amy's shoulder, "Varric saved my life. Without him taking down a demon that nearly ripped me open from behind, I'd be among them," she gestured to the fallen soldiers around. "If Amy is the only one who can close these rifts, we need to keep her alive." The redhead's accent was, Amy realized now that she'd heard her talk enough, nearly identical to Cassandra, though they hardly sounded the same otherwise...

"This Breach is a threat to us all," Solas pointed out.

"Very well," Cassandra made another scoff/snarl of disgust and turned away, crouching by the bodies of one of the soldiers.

"If you can heal, could you help me with this?" The redhead asked, moving a little to get in Amy's eyeline and raising her injured hand. "I'd rather not open another healing potion just for this, but it still fucking hurts,"

"I... yeah," Amy nodded. She extended a hand, and touched the wound through her damaged glove, closing it up quickly, the skin leaving no sign of even a scar, no hint there'd been any injury there.

"No scars even? I think you're my new favorite person," The redhead chuckled. "Katerina, by the way," she introduced herself.

"Nice - nice to meet you," Amy said, looking at the woman. She was... maybe a few years older than Amy? Her glimpse at her biology - the woman was definitely young, and had a lot of muscle underneath her armor - had to, to have that two handed sword, right? She...

She was pretty. Amy could recognize that much, despite the situation. And tall. Maybe six feet? Just under? The blood spattered on her armor, on her face, from the demons - it was already starting to vanish. How the - how did that happen? How did any of this happen?

WHAT IS GOING ON?! Her brain was screeching at her, or so it felt like, and she couldn't stop cycling her brain around back to Solas, to -

How did his body work? How did it - it wasn't like he was just human but with pointed ears and taller and thinner and better eyes or something, like in a normal fantasy novel? He was - his biology shouldn't work, right? Human biology worked the way it did for a reason!

But he wasn't human, but he was close, so close and how - how could he be so close and so so not and -

Katerina wasn't the only one who got hurt! Cassandra's arm was definitely injured, and the - Solas had been favoring his left side a little.

She turned back to him, "Are you hurt?"

"Not seriously, but if you're offering to heal, I wouldn't object," Solas answered. Amy took his hand - for a moment, she got lost in the just off-base insanity of his biology, but she closed her eyes, focusing in on on his left leg. He wasn't cut or bleeding, but he'd been hit there pretty hard and there was a hairline fracture in one of his ribs on his left too, so she sealed that up... she didn't know if she could safely have his body make painkillers like she usually did for -

For humans -

But for all that his bones were... wrong, she did have enough examples of his bones that seemed to be fine, and she patched up the damage from the blow to his leg - serious blunt force - and his rib.

"Strange... it feels much like if someone healed that with magic, but there truly is no magic in what you're doing," Solas shook his head.

"I'm still not convinced magic is real, but you're obviously not a parahuman - or even a para... elf, so..." Amy shook her head. "Later. Rifts. Breach." She let go of his hand before she could start trying to make sense of his kidneys -

She looked for Cassandra, who was standing a bit away, looking down the path that looked like it led further, into the valley that she could at least get a few glimpses of now, in the distance.

"Can I heal your arm?" Amy asked. "It's obviously - it's got to hurt a lot, the way you're holding it." Cassandra turned back to her, and took off one of her gloves, holding out a hand. Amy took it - she had a few smaller bruises-in-the-making from the impact of attacks that had hit her armor, but her shield-arm was fractured in a few places. Small ones, nothing that would stop her from using the arm, unless it got worse, but they definitely hurt, her body already responding to the pain -

Amy fused the bone back together, touching up the other injuries... she could so something about Cassandra's scars, but - they were old and they weren't related to this and -

"It's increasingly clear there is much you have questions about, but we do not have time to linger."

"I know." She took a breath, "But I - I - I'm not used to running this much, or even jogging or - if we keep this up, I'm going to collapse before we get to the Breach..." or she might faint if she got hit with another impossible shock to her system. Another revelation of -

Demons. Elves. Magic. Dwarves. I'm really in some fucking fantasy world!? It was like one of those shitty portal fantasy stories she usually didn't bother with - most of them were terribly written, with unlikeable main characters and she just didn't have the time to read much anyway so she wasn't going to waste it on schlocky nonsense.

Of course, maybe I should have... Might have given her an idea on what to do here, now?

But - well, she did know what she had to do right now, right? She had to focus on the Breach, on the problem ahead of her, on the immediate issue. Even Vicky would be holding back questions in the face of all this, and Amy wasn't the nerd her sister was. Vicky would be wanting to pester Solas about his his 'magic' worked and want to understand what it was once she realized it wasn't powers

But would she? Vicky wouldn't be able to tell? She'd just think he was some cryokinetic, right? And that he just was a human with pointed ears.

"We must push ahead, but - I suppose we will have to moderate our pace, for a time then." Cassandra said, frustration shaking off every word - she let out a long exhale when she was done, grimacing after.

"Well, I'm sorry I skipped leg day! I didn't expect to end up in a backwards medieval world that doesn't have any flying capes or - or cars or - apparently horses or anything else!" Amy muttered.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

Author's Note: This is arguably a 'too decisive' and 'too active' Amy, in some ways, but the thing is, for all that passivity and indecision about her own problems is kind of Amy's thing, the bank shows that she's perfectly capable of being decisive when other people's lives are on the line, at least at this point. She's in a crisis situation, and for all that she was terrible during the S9 attack, she worked in a hospital a lot over the years, in a city like Brockton Bay. She absolutely had to keep a calm head during a medical crisis - and she managed to keep herself together during Levi's attack and even mostly after, despite her uncle and cousin dying and her dad becoming a vegetable.

Amy absolutely will have a complete breakdown when she has a chance, but it's pretty much true that a lot happens very quickly at this point in Inquisition's story, and if nothing else, when she can muster the emotional and mental bandwidth, Amy is obviously very good at repressing, so she's doing that a lot right now.

Also, we're finally done with the Prologue mission now. I promise the pace won't always be like this, but Amy has a lot to work through, and a lot of an alien world to be exposed to.

---

Amy had so many questions, so many things she didn't understand, so many things she needed to know. How the fuck did Solas's body work? Why did elves look so human on the surface and were so fucking different under the hood? Would Varric's body be just as off, in a different way? If this really was a world of magic and demons and - how did any of that work?

Amy wasn't a nerd like her sister, she wasn't obsessed with learning about powers, but at the same time, she'd never touched a form of life as off-kilter as Solas, and she just couldn't wrap her head around it at all. And it wasn't that Amy never had curiosity, she just...

She just never had the time or the energy for it.

And she didn't have the time or energy now. All her focus was put on keeping herself moving, one foot in front of the other, trying (and failing) to not hold the others up - Varric, shorter even than she was, was moving faster more steadily than she was.

So she couldn't really make conversation, or pay much attention to the conversation going on around her.

Another group of shades and wraiths attacked, and Amy had to fall back, hide behind a boulder and watch the others take them down. The four of them knew how to fight, all of them really well - Cassandra with precision, blocking attacks with her shield, strikes with her sword. Katerina's wild and reckless swings that still kept enemies at bay. Solas's ice 'magic' freezing or slowing enemies, shattering them with well placed thwacks from the butt end of his staff. Varric's oversized, insane crossbow punching deep into and through the enemies.

I need Vicky! Her sister could handle this... could handle this fighting, wouldn't be constantly hiding and -

Her sister would be able to just fly ahead to the rifts and close them and - even if she had to run she could do it better than her.

Doubled over, breathing hard as the others finished up the demons, Amy sucked in air, legs burning, her hand aching and her head throbbing.

I can't...I can't do this... Amy screwed her eyes shut. She didn't want to be so close to this fighting. She never had. She'd never wanted a power in the first place, for a reason and now - and now she -

This was so much worse than Brockton Bay. Capes rarely killed each other and - and the heat that someone would have from killing Panacea was - it was insane but now...

Those demons don't care and if they get me I could die and I don't - I don't want to die! And then there was everyone else who would die if the Breach got bigger - if Cassandra was right that it could get even bigger, big enough to 'swallow the world', if more demons kept coming in larger numbers...

She had to act. She couldn't do nothing, not with so many lives on the line...

That was the problem? She couldn't - she couldn't do this, but she didn't have any choice: she couldn't not do this.

"Hey!" Amy heard Katerina's voice right next to her and Amy opened her eyes, straightening up quickly, heat quickly rising in her cheeks... the redhead was standing in front of her, leaning down a little to meet her gaze. "Everything's going to shit, and I can't even imagine what you're dealing with, but we've got to keep moving."

Amy let out a small whimper, wishing she could just... sink into the earth, but she forced herself to take a breath. "I know. I know. I just -"

"You're not a fighter, and you're not used to this much running." Katerina cut in. "I get it. I'll keep you safe, and if it comes to it, I'll carry you, okay? But you have to try. Deal?"

Amy nodded slowly.

"Good."

I have to do this. Amy focused on that thought, on the thought that people would die if she didn't keep going. It was the same thing that propelled her to sneak out to the hospital, to keep going when all she wanted was to go home and lie in bed and pretend nothing else existed.

There just usually - usually - wasn't such an edge of danger to it. Not even the Bank, when Skitter had put fucking Black Widow spiders on innocent people had the same level of danger.

The five of them pushed ahead, Katerina staying close. They passed the burning ruins of some sort of house, and then through the crumbling ruins of some sort of walled structure, before reaching stairs carved into the slope of the mountain.

One foot in front of the other.

"We're almost to the forward camp." Cassandra raised her voice. She said something else, a little quieter, eliciting a response from Varric but Amy didn't pay attention, wasn't listening. They passed by the burning wreckage of a cart, a burned, blackened body next to it - it smelled like badly burned bacon, rancid. She'd smelled worse at hospitals.

Amy's hand started to pulse again, and the sound of people fighting ahead... Amy staggered, nearly stumbled, but Cassandra's hand caught her shoulder and kept her up. "Stay back. There's another rift, but be ready."
Amy nodded slowly, eyes darting, looking for cover - there really wasn't anything but a pine tree. The mark on her hand pulsating, growing brighter and dimmer, the spikes of pain coming faster, more intense as she saw a crystalline shape - the rift.

Just beyond, a closed wooden gate, the gatehouse positioned at the entrance to a bridge...

There were others, soldiers with bows and arrows, shooting from behind cover the wraiths firing green balls at them - Cassandra, Solas, Varric and Katerina crashed into the demons from the other side...

Amy doubled over, each demon falling made the spikes of pain coming up through her hand get worse, more intense... But the crystalline shape of the rift started to... unfold, with each death, looking more and more like the shimmering hole the last one had been before she'd closed it.

So that's how it works? Kill the demons and then close the rift?

Amy snatched at her left hand, holding her wrist tight, as if she could somehow cut off the flow of pain from the mark, up through her arm - it didn't work, and she cried out, stumbling, knees hitting the snow.

Whimpering, eyes screwed shut, Amy forced herself to stand, then open her eyes - there were just two demons - then with a swing of Cassandra's sword, one - and then none, Varric's bolt skewering through a shade and the rift was entirely unfolded, lines forming from it to the ground around them -

"Hurry, the mark now! Close it, before more demons come through!" Solas shouted. Amy moved as quickly as she could, stumbling over the snow to get closer, holding her left arm up, using her right hand to prop it up and 'aiming' it at the rift like Solas had earlier.

Expecting it this time didn't make the white-hot lance of pain that burned through her whole body any less intense as it burst out of her left hand, into the rift - Amy averted her eyes faster this time, and the momentary flash of green brightness as the rift closed.

Gasping, Amy dropped back down to her knees, then all fours, shoving her hand into the snow - it didn't do anything to dull the pain, but with the rift closed, the pain bled away anyway, slowly.

Shuddering, shallow exhales, Amy ignored everyone talking for a moment, trying to focus. If closing the smaller rifts hurt that much, what about the Breach?

As long as it's closed...

Legs screaming, soreness throughout her body now, Amy pushed herself back onto her feet.

"Well done," Cassadra told her, extending a hand, helping Amy up. Solas was the only one who was noticeably injured, and a quick touch to his hand - and a momentary, baffling glimpse at his impossible biology - allowed her to seal up the cut on his leg easily. Varric had somehow not managed to get seriously hurt yet, so far as Amy could tell...

Sucking in deep breaths, Amy watched as the gates opened - the bridge was stacked with boxes and racks of weapons, crates and barrels - there was a open crate of healing potions, and Amy hesitated for a moment - she hadn't been hurt in the recent fights, but the potions had done something for her sore leg muscles earlier, and they were even worse now...

"Stock up on potions now," Cassandra told the others, taking one for herself, and then handing two to Amy. Solas, Varric and Katerina each took some, and Amy swallowed, before popping a cork and taking several disgusting sips.

She had to imagine the relief that quickly spread through her legs wasn't anywhere near as good as it felt, that she was going to pay for ignoring her body telling her to stop tomorrow, but...

Cassandra went past her, and Amy looked ahead - Leliana was standing next to a table, arguing with a man in red and white... robes? No, not robes. It looked like those things priests wore. He had a black boxy hat on, with a half-sunburst pattern.

"Ah. The Seeker and our prisoner... with the storyteller and the apostate in tow as well." The man said, voice dripping with contempt. "Lady Cassandra, as Grand Chancellor, I hereby order you to take this criminal," he pointed at Amy, "to Val Royeaux to face execution."

So much for a trial... Amy tensed, pulling her robes closer around herself.

"Order me?" Cassandra scoffed, stepping towards the man, getting in his face. "You are a glorified clerk, a bureaucrat! You are not the Divine."

"I am Grand Chancellor of the Chantry - the Chantry you supposedly serve! And this girl is the one who murdered Divine Justinia! You were her Right Hand, Lady Cassandra!"

"And I her Left," Leliana cut in, voice quiet compared to the other two. "But this girl is almost certainly not the one behind the destruction of the Conclave, Chancellor Roderick."

"She bears the proof on her hand!" The Chancellor - Roderick - exclaimed. "I hear tell she was threatening her guards with magic! She's clearly a rebel mage who sought to prevent the peace!"

"Not magic," Cassandra countered. "And I do not believe that Amy is guilty either. Most Holy would not want anyone acting in her memory to act rashly in condemning someone without trial, if there was any choice."

"Justinia is dead! If you truly think this girl is innocent, then raise it with her replacement, once one is elected!"

"...Elected." Amy heard Katerina mutter behind her. "Does he think we have that kind of time?"

Apparently. The Divine was the Pope, and this guy was... not the Vice-Pope. Was that even a thing on Earth-Bet? I don't think so? There was an Aleph movie with the guy Tom Hanks played, with a papal election? Nothing about a Vice-Pope.

But whoever this man was, he thought she was guilty and didn't even want her to have a trial. Amy shrank in on herself as Leliana and Cassandra argued with Roderick for another minute, before the man shrank himself, shoulders slumping.

"Lady Cassandra, you must call a retreat, before it's too late. Whatever else, pull your men back, before more of them die needlessly." His voice was lower, sounding genuinely mournful...

"We can't. We have a chance to end this now. Whether she was behind the explosion or not, Amy has the ability to close the rifts, close the Breach. If we fall back now, the number of demons will only grow."

"You would trust her with the fate of us all?!" Roderick demanded.

"She's had the chance to act if what was happening now was at all her plan," Cassandra countered. "We must push through to the temple, now, while we still can."

"You don't have the men! There's no way they can push through those demons!" Roderick threw up his hands. "Pull back now, or on your head you will stand the consequences!" He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Cassandra scoffed and turned away from him, looking back to Amy. "It will take a short time to gather our forces for a final push through the temple. You may have that to rest, ready for yourself."

Amy nodded slowly. "What... how exactly am I supposed to close the Breach from... from - I can't fly, and you don't have anyone who can fly?" If Vicky was here, her sister could pick her up, carry her, fly her up into the sky and - and Amy could close the Breach and be safe and then Vicky could put her down and fight any remaining demons...

God, she'd love all this, wouldn't she? Enemies she didn't have to hold back against? Her sister would be having the time of her life, killing demons.

Well, not killing since I don't think they're even alive, if my power doesn't register their blood at all.

Still... her sister would love not having to restrain herself.

The sound of Solas answering her question pulled Amy away from the mental image of her sister throwing a dumpster at a Shade.

"Whatever caused the Breach happened closer to the ground. It is likely that at the epicenter of the explosion, there will be something that mark on your hand can interact with that will allow the Breach to be closed," Solas explained.

"Roderick is wrong that we should retreat, but he isn't wrong that we may not have the forces to push through directly to the temple," Leliana said, walking to stand next to Cassandra.

"We have no choice. If we do not reach the temple, then there will be no stopping the flood of demons." Cassandra countered. "We simply will have to make it."

"That's not the only choice." Leliana said calmly.

"We lost contact with one of your squads of scouts in those mining tunnels!" Cassandra shot back, raising her voice. "We can't take the chance. We have the forces to push through. They know what the stakes are. Cullen can do this."

"Even if it works - even if - we will get too many of our men killed forcing our way through," Leliana said, voice just as insistent as Cassandra's, even if calmer. "And that assumes we can. A frontal assault is too risky, for our man, and for the only person who can close the Breach."

"And if we lose her in those tunnels instead?!"

Amy was missing context, but she could guess the shape of the problem - they needed to get to the ruins of the Temple, to close the Breach. Fine. There were a lot of demons in the way, and there was a chance they couldn't make it with a direct charge.

But some alternative path, through mining tunnels - probably old and abandoned ones, like some cliche fantasy dungeon - was dangerous... but maybe safer. Maybe. Big maybe.

Cassandra and Leliana stared at one another a moment. "The choice should be hers," Cassandra finally said, and Leiliana nodded. The two women looked at her.

It took Amy several seconds to realize that Cassandra actually meant her, that the choice should be hers. "You're asking me? I - I don't - I have no idea which one is more likely to work." Amy swallowed, trying to bury herself in her robes, looking down, avoiding catching Leiliana's eye, or Cassandra's.

"The risk is going to be yours, regardless," Cassandra answered her. "You are the one we must keep alive, above all else." Amy shrank in on herself even more. Everything was riding on her. And she had to do it, she had to push through. "Since we cannot agree on our own, the choice should be left to you."

Amy swallowed, breathing coming quickly. She looked up at them both. "More people will die if we go directly to the temple?" Cassandra nodded.

"But if we have our men attack without an intent to force their way through, it will draw away enough of the demons that you can get to the temple." Leliana explained. "There can only be less demons that way."

"But the risk to you is greater. And there will be demons there." Right. The entire squad. But they'd be at least sending more than just a few scouts... and Amy could help keep them alive if they got hurt and -

Amy shook her head, "I - if it means there's a chance less people die..." Either way, she was the only one who could close the rifts. As Cassandra said, she was the one they needed to keep alive... "the old tunnels," Amy said.

She didn't want people dying to keep her alive. They had to, as long as the Breach was a problem, and the idea made her sick, but -

Swallowing, Amy looked up at the Breach. Still so far up, but they were closer now, and it looked bigger, a massive, angry, gaping green hole in the sky. It did look like those rifts, a tear right into reality itself...

I have to do this. She swallowed again. "The mining tunnels." She repeated. "We'll take the tunnels."

"Sometimes, taking the less direct route gets the job done better," Varric praised.

Cassandra scowled, but nodded. "Very well. Leliana, gather everyone we have left in the valley. If this is to work, it must seem as though we are making a push."

"I do not believe these shades and wraiths are so well organized that they need to be tricked with anything complicated. Compared to the Fade, our world is confusing and disorienting. They are corrupted by it, and lashing out, but there is no unifying command. Merely creating conflict will draw them in, towards the largest source of it." Solas advised, moving his staff from one hand to the other halfway through speaking.

Amy swallowed. This has to work.

This needs to work.

I have to make this work.

Whatever else, Amy had to make this work. Amy had to make it to the Breach.

---

We're never going to make it... Amy's fingers felt like they were going to fall off. Not just from the stabbing, freezing wind blowing snow into her face, onto her hands, but from the strain of ladder, after ladder.

She'd thought tunnels meant going down, and they would be going down.

They just had to go up ladders first. Up into increasingly biting cold, along the edge of walkways with creaky wooden guardrails...

"How long have these tunnels been abandoned?" Varric asked, raising his voice to be heard over the wind as they reached another landing. Amy pulled her hands inside her sleeves, hugging the cliff face as the five of them moved.

I don't have any of the signs of frostbite yet. No hypothermia either. The latter was more likely. Her robes were concealing, and warmer than a lot of superhero costumes, especially the hood, but -

"Only a decade. Ever since Andraste's Ashes were discovered," Katerina shouted over the wind. "Not that the cult was doing much mining at that point!" Amy blocked out the rest of their shouting...

They reached another ladder, and Cassandra went first, then Varric, then it was her turn - she curled her fingers around the highest rung she could easily reach, biting her lip at the way it hurt. She'd never climbed that many ladders - even on playgrounds as a kid in elementary school -

Not looking down, Amy kept climbing the ladder, unsure how she was managing to keep moving - the rest at the forward camp while forces were gathered had helped, but she was still sore and tired and in pain - there were limits to how much she could push herself, and yet, somehow, she was still going.

Because if she stopped, people would die. And so she couldn't. She'd keep going, until she couldn't, because she had no other choice.

When they reached the top, Amy stepped aside for Katerina and Solas, and they pushed ahead, climbing yet another ladder, and then, finally, up ahead, a mine entrance carved into the mountain. Cassandra drew her sword and readied her shield, the others also grabbing their weapons and reading them.

"Stay in the middle. They could ambush us from behind," Cassandra instructed, and Amy nodded. As they stepped inside the mine, they were out of the wind, and Amy rubbed her hands together, trying to find some scrap of warmth now.

"Solas, light," Cassandra said, and the mage - am I really going to just call him that?! - murmured something and twitched his hand, a globe of light appearing above said hand, then floating out in front of Cassandra, lighting the tunnels ahead of them.

They were barely a minute until the tunnels when the first Shade struck out from the shadows, a low growl and then claws like night flying out towards Cassandra - she caught the attack on her shield, the claws scraping against it like nails on a chalkboard but worse.

The demon was dispatched within moments - a bolt of blue... magic? Ice? Light? From Solas - a stab from Cassandr and a bolt from Varric.

But as they proceeded through the tunnel, that was far from the only one. At first, just one demon. But then two or three at a time. Amy was forced to scramble at several junctures, stumbling backwards, landing on her ass once, to avoid attack -

But as they moved through the mine, Amy felt her mark pulsating again, the pain climbing up her arm once more.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck... why does this have to hurt so much..." she didn't even bother blinking back the tears, or trying to hold them back, feeling them start to slide down her cheeks, teeth clenched tight.

"There's another rift nearby. Ahead, probably," Amy said, louder.

"You can sense them?" Solas sounded like her sister pestering someone about how their powers worked. This is probably fascinating to him. A wonderful chance to study magic he's never heard of before.

"I can feel this fucking thing in my hand throb and pulse whenever we're close to one. Happened the last two times too," Amy snapped. "I'll be happy to be studied when this is all over," Amy lied through her teeth, "but right now, save the questions!"

"Of course, forgive me," Solas said politely.

"Hang back, behind that pillar," Katerina told her as they turned another corner and finally saw it, the crystalline form of the rift, and a dozen demons lurking around it. Mostly wraiths, rather than shades, their green forms casting an eerie light on the tunnel around them, much like the rift itself.

Amy complied, crouching low, watching the fight. It went like the rest, really - the demons weren't simple enemies that could be killed instantly, but the four of them knew their stuff, and by now, they had a lot of practice. If any of them were tiring from all the fighting, they didn't show it. Amy's breath, as Katerina got raked across the back with a shade's claws, but the other woman didn't let it stop her - pushing through on what had to be as much adrenaline as discipline, she spun and nearly hacked the shade in half before its form vanished.

The rift shimmered and started to unfold, but then, before it was fully opened and ready for her to close it...

Two circles of green flame formed near it, and she heard Cassandra raise her voice, "Pull back from the rift! Terror demons!"

The name proved to be apt - with a keening screech that made Amy's blood still, two spindly forms, each at least seven, eight feet tall leapt appeared from the circles of flame.

The shades had had long claws at the end of their misshapen hands. These things... they were so much more of that - sticklike forms, arms and legs that were longer than the body itself, five claws at the end of hands and feet alike...

They screeched again, and Amy screwed her eyes shut, every part of her body demanding she run, she get out of this mine, this tunnel, run and run and run until she couldn't move anymore and then hide and bury herself....

I want Vicky! She'd settle for any of her family - Eric or Mark or Aunt Sarah or Crystal or Uncle Neil -

She wanted Carol. Anyone, anything who could stop this thing, who could make her feel safe, but she wasn't and she felt like she couldn't breathe, throat closing up, head light...

Her hand kept throbbing with pain -

The terror demons were clearly much, much more durable than the shades and wraiths - and those claws could clearly do so much worse...

She averted her eyes, unable to watch...

They're all going to die, they're going to die and then the demons will come for me and I'm going to die here and I'll never see home again and I'll - I'll never see Vicky or Mark or even Carol or anyone else again! And they'll never see me and - and -

All the people in the Bay she could have helped would never be helped. And if Vicky ever got hurt again - or if her sister went and brutalized a seventh criminal and she couldn't help her and then her sister would get in trouble, with the PRT, with Carol, with - god knew who else...

I'm going to die, I'm going to die...

Amy wasn't sure when, but at some point she'd gone from crouching behind the pillar to sitting, arms wrapped tight around her knees, curling up into a fucking ball and rocking back and forth...

No. No. That's-

Why am I so - they -

Amy had been afraid before. She was always afraid of herself. Of her power. And she remembered, vaguely, being afraid of Carol, when she first came to live with the Dallons, even if she couldn't really remember why.

But there'd only been a handful of times in her life when she'd been terrified, really. That day in the mall had been one of them - but fear for her own life had quickly been overshadowed by her sister bleeding out - somuchbloodhowcouldtherebesomuchbloodhowdidhersisterhavesomuchblood? - but...

It hadn't felt like this.

She hadn't even been afraid at the bank - too furious at Skitter for using black widow spiders like a fucking psychopath.

So why she was like this, rocking back and forth in a little ball, -

Terror Demons.

They weren't just terrifying to look at!?

They were terrifying...

Master effect!

Naming it didn't make it less effective - Amy tried to search her memory, tried to remember what Carol and Aunt Sarah had taught them about how to respond to emotion-manipulating powers, half-paid attention to deep dives from Vicky about power theory about emotion powers and how they worked and PRT guides on how to handle them and - and -

She tried to force herself to breathe, slower, take breaths, tried to uncurl herself, to struggle to her feet -

A growl came out from the shadow behind her - before she could do more than try and fail to half-crawl away, Amy screamed - pain bloomed in her back, intense and concentrated, sharp-edged-

Amy fell back, onto her back, open cuts touching the cold stone - a shade loomed over her, growling again, her blood dripping off it's claws -

No. No.

Amy tried to scramble backwards -

"No, no, help! HELP!" Amy screamed, or tried to, the words felt like they came out choked, unable to get as loud as she wanted -

The shade closed the distance she managed to get away with ease and raised it's claws up, about to swing down -

A meat thud rang out and a crossbow bolt sprouted from the 'chest' of the demon. It staggered, then fell forward onto the ground next to Amy. A stab from Katerina's blade into its body was enough to finish it off, and it quickly dissipated.

Amy struggled to sit up, whimpering again, tears in her eyes once more... Cassandra held out a hand, and she took it, legs shaking, her back still stinging... her shirt felt sticky against her skin, but she was pretty sure the cuts were shallow, at least, judging from the way the cuts hurt and the way they didn't seem to really impede her movements or...

The rift!

"I should have kept a closer watch on you," Cassandra said. "You still have a potion?"

Amy nodded. "The rift. I need to close the rift." She fumbled for the potion in her pocket, even as she forced herself to walk to the rift.

"Amy, wait!" Cassandra shouted, but Amy ignored her. She felt like she was probably sobbing - the pain from the cuts on her back wasn't really that much, after the initial shock, but as she got closer to the rift, now fully opened and unspooled and ready to be closed, the pain spiking up her arm, through her whole body increased, and between the two of them, and all the accumulated soreness and stress from the nightmare of a day she'd had and it still wasn't down and she was still coming down from the adrenaline high of whatever those terror demons had done to her and - and -

Amy held her hand out to the rift, fell to her knees as the pain got even worse for a moment, then the usual green flash and the rift was gone. Amy nearly fell forward onto her face, catching herself with a thrown out arm, scraping her hand against the stone a little, but -

"Amy!" Cassandra shouted again. "What were you thinking!"

Hands shaking from... everything, Amy managed to pop the cork of the potion and pour some into her mouth - she spilled as much as she drank, getting the vile peppermint-tasting bullshit all over her chin and running down onto her shirt and her robes and she couldn't muster the energy to give a shit...

"The rift had to be closed before more demons came through," Amy said, slowly lowering the half-full potion. Her back itched, and she could feel the cuts there closing - was it as surreal for other people to feel her healing them as it was to heal this? The potions - from what she could tell based on their effects on the others - weren't as thorough as her own powers, more speeding up natural healing processes a lot and stopping bleeding, but they couldn't 'make' lost blood and there were functional limits to how much they could heal, that much was obvious.

They'd probably do nothing about cancer or any serious disease either.

"You could have drunk the potion first, you idiot!" Cassandra snapped, hooking her hands under Amy's shoulders and pulling her up to her feet. "You cannot help anyone if you are unconscious again!"

"I'm used to powering through stuff," Amy waved her hand.

"You're not used to being cut up like that," Katerina chided. "It's obvious."

"Not the point," Amy shook her head.

"I think it probably is, but I also think arguing about it with you isn't going to get us anywhere," Varric said, apparently everyone wanted to put in their fucking two cents.

"I want this insanity to be over as much as you guys do." She had to close the Breach before she could let herself stop, and worry about how to get home and how her sister must be reacting... they had to think she was dead? How was Vicky handling it? Had she killed Bakuda? Died trying?

Please let her have held back, don't - Vicky wouldn't be able to handle the guilt of killing someone... Her sister was too good a person to not hate herself if she actually killed someone, even someone who fucking deserved it, and it would eat her up inside and she couldn't let that happen to Victoria...

"So we need to keep moving. Are any of you hurt?"

"We drank potions after the fight. We will manage," Katerina answered first.

"Fine." Amy took a shuddering breath and shoved the half-empty, recorked bottle back into her pocket. "Let's go." She clenched her teeth, wiping away remnants of tears from her face. She really hoped there were no more rifts before they got to the ruins of the temple ahead...

They pushed forward, and there was another fight against shades and wraiths ahead, near the exit of the tunnel - she could see light ahead, coming in, hear the howl of wind over the sound of the fighting -

But the other four weren't the only ones in this fight - as soon as they moved in, arrows came out of a side passage, connecting with the demons - two people in hooded cloaks darted out, swords in hand, joining the fight. Amy noted their blades seemed to be shorter than Cassandra's more for stabbing than slashing, but more than that she just didn't know enough about swords to say - the fight ended quickly, and one of the hooded people dropped their hood, revealing they were a woman, maybe late twenties?

"Lady Cassandra," she clapped a closed fist to her chest. "Thank you for the help. They had us pinned down, we couldn't get through them."

"How many of your squad survived, Lieutenant?"

"Both of us, and two others, ser - but one of them is badly hurt, we're out of potions... I'm not even sure a potion would do much at this point."

"We have potions, but we also have a mage and a healer," Cassandra said. She looked to Amy, and Amy nodded, taking a breath.

"Show me,"

The Lieutenant looked over at her and her eyes widened, "You're the prisoner!"

"And despite our initial beliefs, she is almost certainly not behind the destruction of the conclave," Cassandra assured her. "She is also capable of closing the rifts, and with the Maker's grace, the Breach as well."

"Do you want me to heal your friend or not?" Amy asked flatly, pressing a hand to her forehead.

"Please," the woman said, and stepped aside, gesturing for them to follow her - they went down the side passage into a room lit only by a lantern set on the floor, casting dim light and pale shadows against the wall. There were two others, one propped up against the wall, pale and sweating and the iron stench of blood coming off him, his stomach bound by blood stained bandages. The other one was crouched by him, hand on his forehead, the other hand trying vainly to press down on the bandages.

Amy crouched down on the man's other side, noting his pointed ears - another elf. Healing Solas of minor cuts without an issue was one thing, but this could be a lot harder...

"Do I have your permission to heal you?" She asked the man, who looked towards her, blinking repeatedly, then in a weak voice:

"Wha-"

"Do I have permission to heal you?" Amy asked, repeating herself.

"Just heal him!" The lieutenant snapped.

"I don't heal people without permission!" Amy snapped back, glaring at the lieutenant,

"He's a soldier, I'm his commanding officer, I'm ordering him to let you, so just heal him! He's dying!"

Amy put a hand on the elf's hand, getting another look at the absolutely batshit biology of an elf. What made it so batshit was that the end result looked and functioned so much like a human, but it was so very much not human.

It was like someone had wanted to build a human, but only had a passing idea of what they were, and how they worked, and didn't have any of the right proteins to make the right building blocks so they just threw something together, said 'eh, good enough' and somehow it worked!

And she could see how it worked, but by all logic it absolutely shouldn't!

"He has at least several hours," Amy countered. It was a lingering gut wound, he'd probably been slashed pretty deeply by a shade's claws, but those could be very fast deaths, or slow and painful ones.

"...yes..." The soldier finally managed to say weakly, and Amy nodded.

"Fine."

She started with sealing up his wound first - that much was easy, drawing a bit of excess fat and turning it into mimics of the cells that were all over the body - even the fucking skin cells were wrong - but the rest of the damage to his body was harder to figure out. But she still did it, knitting the underlying muscle and other tissue back together, and turning pretty much all his remaining spare fat - he didn't have a lot - into blood.

She pulled her hand back two minutes later, "You're going to need to eat. A lot. And I couldn't replenish all your lost blood, or put you back to one hundred percent, so absolutely do not push yourself, or you're going to hurt yourself." She stood back up, swallowing.

"Let's keep going." He was healed, he was okay, but they needed to go, they had to close the Breach. And at the rate things were going, the way she was feeling - if they didn't get there soon, then she wasn't going to make it there at all.

Another rift and she genuinely might fall unconscious. She had to keep going, push past everything... late nights at the hospital, downing shitty battery acid coffee to stave off tiredness as she healed people was easy mode compared to this, but she had to do it.

If the Breach really did get bigger, if Cassandra's fears about it swallowing the world were even halfway legitimate...

How many people were on this world? Less than Earth-Bet, given the medieval technology, but still, millions, tens of millions at least, right?

I have to save them. Apparently, for some fucking reason, I'm the only one who can...

"Report back to Leliana, and tell her to start moving forces through these tunnels to the temple," Cassandra ordered. "We'll want as much help for whatever demons are in the temple itself."

"Yes Ser," she clasped the closed fist to her chest again - some sort of salute? - and helped the healed elf onto his feet with one of the others, and they started making their way to the exit. They stepped out of the mine and into the blisteringly cold wind again, a long slope down, the smouldering wreckage of a structure below, a column of green light rising up from it, all the way to the Breach, which was practically overhead now.

"The path ahead appears to be clear of demons," Solas observed, holding up his hand and letting it glow white for a moment.

"Then best we keep going, before that changes." Cassandra ordered.

"Once more, towards the Breach," Amy muttered, remembering an old movie she'd watched with Mark one night when she couldn't sleep, when she was like, twelve. "Once more, towards the Breach, dear friends."

"Sounds like you're quoting something," Varric observed, as they started down the slope, moving carefully at first, with how steep it was.

"Misquoting a movie I barely remember, yeah." Amy muttered.

Didn't the main character die in that movie too? It was based on Shakespeare, and everyone died in his plays if they weren't comedies, right?

Great thought to have, you fucking idiot.

---

The ruins of the 'Temple of Sacred Ashes' smelt... well, like smoke and ashes and cinders. The whole place was still smouldering, even had fires still lit in a few places, parts strewn with bodies - some likely killed by demons, others charred to unidentifiable cinders - that were thankfully not smelling that much, the frigid air slowing the decay, at least. Her mark was twitching and throbbing, more... itching than getting more painful. Which was... something.

The rock of the mountain around them had turned to a glassy-looking substance, run through with some sort of green stone or light when they got closer to the structure, but then the structure itself - it was vast, or had been vast, but looking at it now, all Amy could see was a crater that went down, remnants of walls and pillars and stairs.

And death. And that stench of ash and smoke and cinders.

"The Temple of Sacred Ashes... the resting place of Andraste, and now reduced to this," Katerina murmured, one hand balling into a fist. "Whoever was behind this has much to answer for."

"It is entirely possible that whoever was truly behind this died in the explosion," Solas said, sounding rather certain of himself.

"Sure about that?" Varric asked, looking around in a sort of horrified awe. "Because I'd rather not face whoever had the power to do this. I mean... holes in the Fade just don't happen, right?"

"In theory, anything is possible with enough magic."

"Or enough blood sacrifice, given the actions of the Magisters Sidereal," Katerina murmured. Solas inclined his head in agreement with her.

"Blood sacrifice powered magic? That's a fucking thing here?" Amy dropped her head into her right hand, "Fuck, of course it would, wouldn't it?"

"Blood Magic is a sin banned in all the known world, maleficars who practice it were the primary focus of the Templars, before the war began." Cassandra said, as if that little detail explained anything.

"It sure was Meredith's primary focus. She turned Kirkwall upside down hunting for maleficars under the bed and behind every corner." Varric said.

Okay, so... where is Kirkwall? Who is Meredith? Amy knew that a war between Mages and Templars had been what the Conclave held here had been trying to end. Clearly, Varric and Cassandra had different ideas about which side was the better one.

"Meredith was... a dangerous fool, and the Seekers were readying to investigate when she acted, but there were blood mages active in the city. You counted one as a friend!"

"Merrill was hardly a maleficar. Girl wouldn't hurt a fly that didn't deserve it." Varric said, defensively. "Meanwhile, Blondie hated blood magic more than Templars, and look what he did. It's not about the magic, it's about what you do with it."

"There are few legitimate uses for blood magic," Solas said calmly. "I cannot speak to your friend, but the only way to learn it is through a deal with a demon."

"I'm not saying Merrill wasn't more than a little crazy, but it's not as if she'd be capable of killing the kinds of people it would take to do this." Varric said, gesturing. "Seriously - there's got to be better ways to blow something up."

"This much is true. Which is why I suspect that this explosion was not the intention of whoever was behind this, but an accident, caused by losing control of whatever power was required to do this." Solas explained.

"Maybe we can leave this wonderful trip down what I'm guessing is memory lane for after the Breach is closed?" Amy raised her voice. "I have no idea about more than half of what you're talking about, and right now, I don't care, I just want this insanity to be over."

"She is right. We need to focus on the problem in front of us," Cassandra said. "Punishing those responsible, if they live, and... debating how we got here is unproductive."

The five of them fell into silence, as they proceeded further into the temple. They reached the lip of the crater's outermost edge, and Cassandra dropped down the short distance into the pit. Amy hesitated a moment, standing at that edge. Katerina moved past her and dropped down, then held out her arms. "I'll guide you down, just sit at the edge, like this," she mimed the position, "and push yourself off a bit."

Amy bit her lip, still hesitating. It wasn't that far, but it was far enough she didn't want to just... drop down. Even without her flight or forefield, Vicky could do it easily, like Katerina and Cassandra had, but -

Swallowing, she sat down on the edge, and pushed herself forward, and Katerina's hands grabbed onto her as she started to slide down, grabbing her hips and helping her reach the ground, landing on her feet lightly.

"See? Nothing to it," Katerina grinned, brushing gravel off Amy's robes. Solas and Varric came down as well, and they proceeded further, a broken statue, just the feet and part of one leg left, shattered bits - a head, an arm, part of a hand - lying around it.

"This is where you emerged from the Fade. You fell out of a rift, though one that closed itself behind you." Cassandra said to Amy quietly. "They say a woman was in the rift behind you."

"I remember a woman," Amy murmured, a pressure building up inside her head, as it did every time she tried to remember the details of the period between Bakuda's bomb going off and waking up in that cell - just the flashes of green and spiders and a woman...

Nothing about the woman, just... 'woman'. Her memories had just a sort of general shape of 'woman' there, but that was in. Maybe wearing some sort of hat?

"So you said in the cell."

"Just flashes, bits. And my head hurts when I try to remember more." Amy pressed the base of her palms to her temples. "So don't ask me to."

More silence, and then they went down ash-covered stairs, and at the base, a corpse, sprawled out, flat on the ground, skin melted and blackened, taut over bones, mouth open in a silent scream of pain that would never end. Cassandra stepped over it, and Amy looked away, stepping as wide as she could off that bottom step, stumbling forward a bit, Cassandra catching her on her arm, stabilizing her. Amy swallowed, and nodded.

They turned around the corner, and stretching out before them, several stairs and levels (all ringed by crumbling stone railings) between them and it, was an open space, a crumbling half-destructed statue, and right in front of it, the crystalline form of a closed rift. It was larger than any of the last three, more crystals, more elaborate formations, and even though they were still pretty far from it, her hand, and the mark was starting to pulsate and throb...

But no demons prowling around it.

Smoky tendrils of green energy and light flowed up towards the sky, towards the Breach overhead.

Breathing out a hiss of air through clenched teeth, Amy spoke: "I'm going to go out on a limb, and assume that that's the thing that I can close the Breach through?"

"I believe so. However, you may have to properly open it, since it does not seem to be opened on its own, given the lack of demons." Solas said calmly.

"Open a rift? I assume that means we'll have demons on our ass, right?" Varric asked.

"It is likely."

"Then we should wait until more forces arrive. That rift seems larger, which could mean more, or worse demons." Cassandra declared. "But we must also get closer."

They went down a slope, then heard the sound of Leliana, and footsteps behind them. Amy turned, with the rest - Leilana was there, a bow slung over her back, an assortment of soldiers with armor and swords and spears, and hooded people with bows and arrows - more scouts, presumably. Maybe twenty or thirty in total.

"Leiliana, have your archers take up positions around this... space," Cassandra said, gesturing to the upper levels of the concentric 'squares' around the pit, around the closed rift. "The rest of you - you must come down into the pit with us."

Leliana made gestures towards various points around the pit, and the hooded archers moved, the armored soldiers gathering themselves and moving together down after them.

"If Solas is right, this is our chance to end this. Are you ready?"

"I'll do what I have to do," Amy nodded.

"Good." Cassandra said, then, after a moment's hesitation, "For a child-"

"I'm seventeen, it's not like I'm a fucking kid," Amy muttered.

"For a young woman without experience in combat, pushing yourself as you have physically to stay with us, that you have made it this far is impressive," Cassandra said. "Whatever else happens, that much is true."

"Not like I had much choice. Come here or let people die when I could maybe help prevent it," Amy swallowed. "But... I'm a little surprised I'm still standing. If I - If I collapse as soon as the Breach is closed, don't be surprised." She closed her eyes, rubbed at the back of her left hand - which accomplished nothing - and then took a deep, slow breath.

"Let's go. I'm as ready as I'll ever be." Which wasn't really that ready.

She looked up at the Breach, then at her hand, herself. Somehow, she was supposed to close a massive hole in the sky, on an alternate Earth, with magic - something she'd never have believed in three hours ago, and -

How the fuck could anyone be ready for that?!

They moved down another set of ash-covered stairs, closer down, and then, a booming voice, gravelly and deep, echoed through the pit. It sounded... grandiose, and unnatural, uncanny...

"Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice."

"What are we hearing?" Cassandra slowed her pace, looking back towards Solas.

"At a guess, the one who created the Breach. An echo, or memory in the Fade."

So the whole blood sacrifice thing was involved. Great. Sane people totally did blood sacrifice. And blew up peace conferences.

They went down another small set of stairs, getting further into the pit, and up ahead, Amy could see crystals, jutting up from the earth. They were jagged, glowing, an angry, almost violent red, and they almost looked like they were vibrating...

Varric pulled up short behind her, and immediately started swearing up a storm in what sounded like at least three languages. Starting with what couldn't actually be called English here.

"Varric," Cassandra turned towards him.

"You see what this is? That's Red Lyrium, Seeker!" Varric gestured at the crystals.

"So it would seem," Cassandra agreed, grimly, setting her jaw.

"Red Lyrium - you mean like - that idol-?" Katerina started, and Varric cut her off.

"Yes, exactly like that. Which was supposed to be all there was. And now it's here. What the fuck is it doing here?"

"What is Red Lyrium, and why is this a problem?" Amy demanded.

"It's poison. You touch it, and it slowly drives you insane, and that's before the really weird shit happens. Knight-Commander Meredith used it to make a sword, and she ended up turning herself into a whole Maker-damned statue of the stuff." Varric glared at Cassandra, genuine anger in his expression, "Seeker, that statue had better still be in the Gallows-"

"As far as I am aware, it is," Cassandra assured him. "It remains under guard, since it cannot be safely moved."

"Good." Varric looked back to Amy. "Seriously, kid, don't even think about touching it. Try not to get near it. And none of this answers how the hell it ended up here?!" He looked over at Solas. "Any thoughts?"

"I have not heard of this 'Red Lyrium' before, but if it is a corrupted form of Lyrium, then perhaps any Lyrium within, or beneath the Temple was changed by the magics that wrought the Breach,"

"Fuck. I don't know if that's better or worse than any other possibility." Varric muttered under his breath.

Cassandra looked to the soldiers a bit behind them. "Varric is correct. Do not touch the Red Lyrium. Some of you were in Kirkwall, others of you have heard from those who were."

Again with the Kirkwall, and Knight-Commander Meredith.

Falling into an oppressive silence once more, they were almost to the base of the pit - the mark was pulating and throbbing so much in her hand it was like the fucking thing was doing summersaults - and then the booming, gravelly voice rang out again.

"Keep the sacrifice still."

A woman's voice rank out as they reached the base of the pit, the lowest part, the rift maybe twenty feet ahead of them. Another voice rang out, female and with that same 'Hollywood French' accent as Leliana.

"Someone. Help me!"

Cassandra gasped, breaking into a jog towards the rift. As they stepped closer, Amy's mark glowed brighter, and ghostly figures, swirling currents of colored air, looking as if made of smoke, gathered before them, in front of the closed rift.

"Someone. Help me!" Amy heard the same voice repeat. Then -

Then she heard her own voice, echoing all around, and definitely not coming from her lips just now.

"What the - what the fuck are you?! What is this!"

"That is your voice," Cassandra turned back to her, accusation in her tone, her glare daggers at her. "Most Holy called out to you."

Amy pressed her hand to her temple, her head hurting again.

"I don't fucking remember!"

The ghostly figures solidified, mostly. One coalesced into a clear shape, a woman, old, arms stretched out, as if they were being held like that against her will, terror in her eyes, wearing a big hat of some sort, the top making her think of an upside down triangle...

The other figure was less distinct, all outline and sketch - glowing eyes, clawlike hands, tall, distorted.

A bit like a shade, but less misshapen.

Then a third shape formed from the 'smoke'. Herself, running towards the two.

"What the - what the fuck are you?! What is this!" She saw herself demanding - a demand, a sight, a context she had no memory of.

Why didn't she remember this? She was here, on this Earth, before the Conclave blew up? How long?!

"Run while you can! Warn them all!" The old woman - Divine Justinia? - shouted at her.

"We have an intruder." The other shape said, that same gravelly, deep, uncanny, unnatural voice. "Kill her. Now." The figures vanished in a flash of bright white light, leaving them standing around the rift, the 'echo' of what Amy assumed was moments before the explosion - an explosion she had somehow fucking survived! - ending.

"You were there!" Cassandra moved to stand in front of her, getting in her face. "Who was that?! Who attacked her!"

"I have no idea! Even if I remembered, I don't think I'd know the guy's name, or recognize him! How many times do I have to remind you I'm not from Thedas!" Amy shouted, every word making her wish she could just... shrivel up and hide somewhere.

"How can you not remember!" Cassandra reached out, as if to grab the front of her robes, but Katerina was there, by Amy's side, putting an arm out between them.

"Lady Cassandra. Do you suddenly believe she's at all responsible for the explosion, when you told Chancellor Roderick she was innocent?"

Cassandra made a noise of pure disgust as her hand flew to the hilt of her sword for a moment, and then she dropped it to her side, letting out a breath.

"No. If this truly was an echo of what happened right before the explosion, then whatever else, you are almost certainly not behind it, Amy."

"No. She's not. You saw the way she handled just being near fighting. Do you really think she could even be remotely responsible for this? Or that she'd lie, if she knew anything?"

I feel like I'm being insulted. Katerina was defending her, a bit, but the implication of the first part was... what? Because Amy didn't like fighting, she was too pathetic to kill people?

I mean - I don't want to hurt people. Even people who deserve it... hitting Skitter with that extinguisher was necessary, but I didn't - I didn't do it because I wanted to hurt her...

Villains wanted to hurt people. It was what made them villains. Made them sic black widow spiders on hostages.

That it had felt good to bash the damn thing into Skitter's skull was a fact Amy had tried very, very hard to not think about ever since, and she was going to keep doing that, thank you very much.

"...No." Cassandra admitted. She turned away. As they'd spoken, Solas had gotten right up to the rift.

"You will need to open the rift. It should be simple, more or less the same action as closing it, but in reverse. Then it can be closed properly. However... it will most definitely attract the attention of demons, and they will need to be defeated first."

"Right, so I need to get close to the rift, open it let demons appear, and get the fuck away from it while you kill them, then come back and close it?"

Solas nodded slightly, more inclined his head downwards for a moment. "In essence, yes."

"Great."

"Stand ready! Take up positions! Make sure she survives to close the rift!" Cassandra shouted out. Amy felt all eyes on her, and she tried to pull her hood further over her face, as if it was possible (it really wasn't). She looked around, the soldiers drawing their weapons, moving around the rift, the scouts drawing their bows and reading arrows.

"I'm not leaving your side this time," Katerina assured Amy, moving to stand next to her.

"You don't -" Amy started, but Katerina cut her off.

"I'm going to make sure you get through this alive, okay?" The redhead assured her, a hand on her shoulder, then she drew her sword.

Amy nodded - no time to argue - and approached the rift, holding her hand out towards it, trying to -

Amy cried out as a current of green energy flowed from her hand, into the crystalline form of the closed rift. It hurt just as much as closing the rifts had before, Amy had somehow thought maybe it wouldn't -

There was a cracking of energy, the sound of shattering and then -

A single shape, a single demon took form.

But the demon was massive. Fifteen feet? Twenty feet? Amy had no idea, but it towered over everyone, covered in purple, spiky chitinous plates of armor, each finger a claw probably as thick as Amy's wrist, four horns, eight eyes - the eyes looked like those of a spider - and it let out a roar, vibrant purple electricity appealing between it's 'fingers'.

"Pride Demon!" Cassandra shouted, as if that was a term that meant something. It probably did here, Amy reminded herself, and then Katerina grabbed Amy's hand and tugged her back, shouting at her - Amy couldn't hear it over the sound of the demon roaring and electricity firing off from one of it's hands - barely missing Cassandra, who managed to roll out of the way at the last second...

The battle was joined - the demon was mobbed by soldiers, arrows peppering it, clattering off it's thick armor, though a few seemed to embed just a little - the fight was quickly too chaotic for Amy to make out details as Katerina pulled her back, towards the edge of the pit, pushing Amy against a wall, interposing herself between Amy and the ongoing battle.

The demon swung, arms like tree-trunks, scattering the soldiers like her sister crashing into a crowd of Empire 88 goons - one went flying, crashing into a wall, and Amy felt her breath caught.

Some of them are going to die, and there's nothing -

She didn't care about any of these people, but - they were dying for her, to protect her (so she could save them!) and - she didn't want people to die, didn't want to see people die...

Doctors saw that all the time. Amy did but rarely - when there were too many people to heal, and she got to someone late, after a major accident, a disaster, when triage meant she just had to leave someone off and then -

But seeing people die in a fight, like this? Never. Amy felt rooted to where she crouched, trying to avoid notice.

"Keep at it! We must strip its defenses!" Cassandra ordered, getting to her feet after a blow from the demon's hand sent her flying. The soldiers that could mobbed the demon again, slashing and stabbing at it's legs, the arrows still not seeming to do much, but -

How do they fight something like this? Amy didn't want to watch, couldn't look away -

Katerina shifted position a little, bracing herself as the demon started to stomp in their direction, just a bit, closer and then -

Varric fired a bolt from behind, catching the demon in the back of the head, and it turned back to him -

Amy couldn't see if it was bleeding or if there was even any way for it to bleed, if anything was stopping it or slowing it or -

A massive bolt of blue energy flew out from Solas's staff and connected with the demon - ice crystalized over it's legs and hands, the demon suddenly moving slower, sluggishly - Cassandra and the others took advantage of the opening and mobbed it once more, able to dodge it's slower strikes easier -

The rift crackled again, green lightning spilling forth from it and then shades appeared.

"More, coming through the rift!" A voice shouted from behind Amy, maybe Leliana's. The archers started targeting them, and three shades made a beeline for Amy -

Amy heard Katerina snarl wordlessly, and she swung at the first shade to come in range, slicing into it, the woman's massive sword cutting halfway through its 'midsection' -

The shade wasn't slain, and it was joined by the other two quickly - Katerina had to keep all three of them back, scraping them with her blade, but they were pulling out of range at the last second, trying to move around her, get behind her, get to her, get at Amy -

Amy felt like she couldn't breathe, a demon got closer, lunged, slicing Katerina across the face, red lines opening on her cheek, her forehead - Amy nearly screamed as another shade got close to her - Amy scrambled back, still against the wall -

Katerina dove in between them, slicing towards with her sword, bisecting the shade from bottom to top - it's two halves fell to the ground, then quickly started to dissipate - but the other two shades were there, Katerina's face was bleeding - the other two shades -

Amy couldn't keep watching - she averted her eyes, closed them, pulling her robes tighter around herself, head down, crouching lower, all but kneeling, hearing the sound of the demons growling, Katerina swinging her blade, the fight against the Pride Demon in the backdrop, screams and shouts and roars and the sound of electricity and -

She heard Katerina's blade connected with another demon, a meaty sort of thud for a moment, and then Katerina let out another cry of pain -

No. No...

Amy tried to open her eyes, she needed to see - she had to see how - she needed to know if she had to run, if Katerina -

Katerina was down to fighting one demon now, but her right leg was bleeding now - the demon slashed towards her, lunging - Katerina staggered back, her leg buckling under her - she fell to one knee, and the demon came in close, growling louder than any of the Shades she'd heard so far, leaned down and slashed at her chest - the claws raked across her armor, denting the breastplate, but Katerina actually headbutted the demon in it's 'chest', sending it reeling backwards - Katerina struggled to her feet, hefting her sword, the weight of it working against her this time for a moment -

Then she got it and swung, cutting into the demon - it howled and then collapsed, vanishing. Katerina fell to her knees, the sword dropping out of her grasp, hand fumbling for a potion from a belt pouch-

The sound of the fight with the pride demon continued to ring out around them, but no more shades were coming at least. For a split second, Amy couldn't move, and Katerina's fumbling seemed to be getting her nowhere -

Amy closed her eyes, tried - and failed - to take a breath and tried to put herself into the hospital, into triage, focusing on the fact that someone needed healing, that she had to help her -

Pushing herself up, she stumble-ran to Katerina, putting her hand on the back of the woman's neck -

She was cut on her face, and there was a crack in her collarbone, a broken rib, her right leg bleeding badly, a fracture in the femur -

Nothing fatal, probably, as long as she had time to rest, but there was a fight going, if more shades attacked, if the pride demon got closer -

Amy started on the bones, setting them to heal - Katerina didn't have a ton of excess fat to work with, but she used that to start, sealing up the cuts on her face, converting blood cells to bone cells, turning fat and even a little muscle into blood, knitting her fractured bones together, forcing the broken piece of rib to connect to the other -

Head throbbing, hand hurting, heart pounding, Amy pulled back from Katerina as she finished healing up the damage, the woman grabbing her sword before standing -

There was a roar, the sound of thunder - turning, Amy saw the pride demon drop to its knees, everyone scrambling to get away from it as the demon collapsed forward, onto its face, the weight of the thing sending small shockwaves through the ground, kicking up dirt and ash and bits of stone, and then the demon's body began, like all the others, to evaporate away.

"The rift, now!" Cassandra shouted - as if Amy didn't know what needed to be done. Amy turned, starting towards it -

The mark on her hand - every time she got close to a rift, she felt like something was being driven into her hand - from the palm and the back - but the time it felt like whatever it was was going right through her hand -

Every step, every inch closer to the rift, and Amy felt the agony drive through her, up her arm, her shoulder, through the rest of her body, her head throbbing - she felt like her hand was being stabbed and crushed and burned all at once, or at least what she imagined they felt like. Amy bit her lip, breaking through alarmingly fast, tasting blood -

She staggered, stumbled, nearly fell forward, but Katerina was there, catching her, grabbing onto Amy's right arm, steadying her, helping her move -

Close the Breach and then - and then - And then she could stop, she could rest she - she just had to close the Breach, she had to - all these people had defended her because for some reason, for some reason she was the only one who could -

With Katerina's help, Amy stretched her arm out as soon as they were close enough to the rift -

Green energy flowed out from it, and Amy screamed, sobbing, falling to her knees, but she kept her hand aimed at the rift.

I have to - I have to do this...

Amy had no idea how many people might die if the Breach wasn't closed, but she didn't want to find out. She couldn't find out.

Carol would give everything to do this, if she was in her place. Mark. Aunt Sarah. Uncle Neil. Crystal. Eric.

Vicky.

She was a member of New Wave. A Dallon. A hero. Panacea - she hated the name, hated her power, hated using it, but she was a hero. She had to. It was be a hero, or - or-

It was be a hero. That was it.

And so she had to do this.

Tears streaming down her face, her arm going numb, overwhelmed by how much it hurt - this rift, the one that would close the Breach, was taking longer to close, the stream of green energy flowing from the mark on her hand - the mark which was glowing blindingly bright now -

Gasping, sobbing, screaming - Amy pushed forward, finding something, some energy in herself and she forced herself to stand, taking another step, then another towards the rift -

A booming sound rang through the ruins of the temple around her, the rift collapsed in on itself, and a ball of green fire flew up into the sky. Faintly, Amy heard cheers, but as if from a far distance -

The ground rushed up to meet Amy as she crashed forward, blackness swallowing her.

It was done.