Nothing about this situation sits right with Anders. He's fixating on the use of stitches rather than magic to mend torn flesh (oh, he can do it, Karl made sure he knew how, but he's always considered it barbaric) to keep from thinking about what's truly, truly intolerable: the fact that those bastards got Nathaniel, and Anders wasn't there to watch his back or cover him or unleash an apocalyptic firestorm on the blighters. Destroying the chip ought to give Anders some small measure of consolation, and perhaps it does. But it's not enough.
"Worse than broodmothers," he mutters. "I don't see why we should give them the satisfaction of keeping their little toys intact." And he makes sure to clean up every last fragment of what used to be Nathaniel's microchip, painstakingly, taking care not to touch it directly, as though it were coated in concentrated magebane or Quiet Death. Only then does Anders give into the old bad habit of pointless pacing.
He's pacing the living room when the Masked arrive.
Predictably, they kick the door in. Anders wheels at the sound and knows at once who he must be seeing. While he's never seen them in person, he's kept abreast of the news on the network. He hasn't only been associating the microchips with phylacteries, he's been associating the Masked with the Templars who use the phylacteries to track mages, and he reacts to the Masked with the same immediate and all-consuming rage that he'd react to a group of armed and hostile Templars.
He goes all blue and glowy.
The effect is truly bizarre: as though he weren't a tangible body but a painted figurine, hollow, filled with blue fire, and the shell is crazed and cracking along hairline fractures to let the fire's cold light bleed through, through flesh-semblance and clothing-semblance alike. His eyes aren't eyes anymore, only windows ablaze with the same frigid inferno. When Anders speaks, the voice is a good range lower than Anders' voice, and the speech is thickly labored.
"These mortals are not yours," says Justice, flatly, and raises an arm to blast them with raw energy.
And he does it; he blasts them. His strength is exponentially greater than Anders' magic unassisted could ever be. There are only two of these Masked, and Justice has taken down more Templars at once than this paltry pair, and they are knocked back by the wave, staggering against the wall and the outflung door.
It sets them back all of three seconds.
Then they do something, too fast to be seen, and Anders slumps to the ground, the blue light guttering out as he falls.
no subject
"Worse than broodmothers," he mutters. "I don't see why we should give them the satisfaction of keeping their little toys intact." And he makes sure to clean up every last fragment of what used to be Nathaniel's microchip, painstakingly, taking care not to touch it directly, as though it were coated in concentrated magebane or Quiet Death. Only then does Anders give into the old bad habit of pointless pacing.
He's pacing the living room when the Masked arrive.
Predictably, they kick the door in. Anders wheels at the sound and knows at once who he must be seeing. While he's never seen them in person, he's kept abreast of the news on the network. He hasn't only been associating the microchips with phylacteries, he's been associating the Masked with the Templars who use the phylacteries to track mages, and he reacts to the Masked with the same immediate and all-consuming rage that he'd react to a group of armed and hostile Templars.
He goes all blue and glowy.
The effect is truly bizarre: as though he weren't a tangible body but a painted figurine, hollow, filled with blue fire, and the shell is crazed and cracking along hairline fractures to let the fire's cold light bleed through, through flesh-semblance and clothing-semblance alike. His eyes aren't eyes anymore, only windows ablaze with the same frigid inferno. When Anders speaks, the voice is a good range lower than Anders' voice, and the speech is thickly labored.
"These mortals are not yours," says Justice, flatly, and raises an arm to blast them with raw energy.
And he does it; he blasts them. His strength is exponentially greater than Anders' magic unassisted could ever be. There are only two of these Masked, and Justice has taken down more Templars at once than this paltry pair, and they are knocked back by the wave, staggering against the wall and the outflung door.
It sets them back all of three seconds.
Then they do something, too fast to be seen, and Anders slumps to the ground, the blue light guttering out as he falls.