AN: This was written in response to an LJ kmeme prompt requesting a badass Anders wiping the floor with Danarius when he comes for Fenris instead of allowing the injustice of slavery, even for someone he hates.

To say that Anders did not like Fenris would be an understatement. He loathed the elf for his stubbornness, for his casual cruelty, for his hypocrisythat allowed him to rail against slavery in one breath and support the templars with the next.

That did not mean he would refuse to treat the bastard when he came to the clinic nursing wounds from Danarius' latest attempt to ambush and retrieve his errant slave.

Fenris had stumbled in long after the sun had gone down, long after his last patient had gone home, long after Justice had finally allowed Anders to put aside the manifesto, eat a small meal, and fall into his bunk for a few hours of dreamless sleep after which he would get up and start all over again.

The frantic pounding on the clinic door had roused him immediately, his heart skittering into a rhythm just as frantic as the fist on his door. He snatched up his staff and ran to throw the door open, ready for anything except the sight of Fenris, bloodied and desperate.

"They have come for me," he managed before he fell unconscious at Anders' feet.

Anders cursed and saw running figures in the shadows.

"I hate you," he hissed at Fenris as he grabbed him by his armor and dragged him through the door. "Why couldn't you have run to Aveline, you bastard?"

He got the limp elf through the door and slammed it, dropping the bar before he went to one knee to examine Fenris' injuries.

"If you do that fisting thing right now, I'm going to leave you to die," he warned even if Fenris couldn't hear him before he sent a flow of healing magic into his body, closing his eyes to let his magic see for him, guiding him to mend broken ribs, seal bleeding organs, knit wounds that would fester if left open to the air.

It drained him just to bring Fenris back from the brink of death, but he did it – for Hawke, for Fenris, but mostly for himself. He was not always a good man, but he would not let an ally die, not even one he hated. He had not lost himself that much, and he was not going to.

"Little wolf."

He raised his head when he heard a man's voice raise a mocking call from the other side of his door.

"Come out, come out, little wolf. The time for running is over."

"Go away," Anders shouted. "This is a place of peace and healing, I will not allow you to violate it."

"Is that the apostate?" the man called back. "Anders? Send out my little wolf, Anders. I have no quarrel with a fellow mage, but you have my property."

Danarius. It must be.

Anders bared his teeth in a snarl, feeling his own hatred of slavery blend perfectly with Justice's loathing of such a fundamental violation of what was right.

"He is not property!" He carefully settled Fenris' head to the floor and muttered, "He's a right pain in my arse, but he isn't property."

"He is mine and he has stolen away a king's ransom in lyrium," Danarius called. "He is a runaway slave and a thief."

"He is a person!" Anders stood up and retrieved his staff. This was a fool's game he was playing, but he had never thought he would live forever. "But I will make you a deal."

Danarius responded immediately. "Speak."

"Duel me for him. If you win, he's yours."

He heard Danarius laugh. "Duel you? I am a magister and you are just a Fereldan apostate."

"I'm not Fereldan," Anders growled, too softly to be heard through the door before he raised his voice. "Then you don't have any reason not to take the deal."

He heard Danarius issue a command to his men. "To the death," the magister said.

"To the death," Anders agreed. "Now tell your men to fall back."

He pressed an ear to the door until he heard the stairs that led up to his clinic creak under the weight of boots.

"They have withdrawn," Danarius said, making Anders jump when his voice came from just on the other side of the wood. "And when I kill you, I will take Fenris home and tell the story of how I murdered a Gray Warden to retrieve what was mine."

Anders felt his lips draw back in a smile that was all teeth and no humor, his skin starting to crackle with Justice's power. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled blue vapor before he flung the door open and hit Danarius with an opening salvo, a simple bolt of energy meant only to test his defenses and his ability.

Danarius' eyes widened for an instant before he threw up a globe of force meant to shield him from all attacks.

"Weak," Anders sneered, slapping his palm against the globe and letting a flare of power crackle over it before crushing the globe, dispelling it as though it had never existed.

His voice reverberated with Justice's words laid atop his own. "Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack."

He thrust out his open hand and threw Danarius back with a fist of stone that gathered itself out of the ground under his feet.

"Unless your defense is as weak as you are," he added, closing his hand into a fist while a cage wrought of energy and his hatred for this man crushed around Danarius.

The magister struggled, lines breaking in his flesh and spilling blood down the length of his body as the magical bars closed around him. He called out a desperate invocation, pulling creatures of malice and shadow out of the air to try to distract Anders from his purpose.

Anders almost casually pivoted away from Danarius. His arm swept out in an arc that threw daggers of ice, piercing the shades, freezing them while he chanted the words of his favorite spell. When he completed the chant the very air exploded into flame, shattering them back into the vapor from which they had come.

When he turned on his heel, it was only to hit Danarius with another spell, his voice rising in the cruelest of his magics.

"You are a disease," he growled at the end of the incantation. "So be one!"

He turned Danarius' body against him, his immune system, he injected his magic into Danarius like a contagion, guiding it, feeling it course through his blood like fire, tearing the magister apart cell by cell.

As the force cage finally melted away, Anders raised his staff for one final spell, freezing him under a layer of ice until the walking bomb spell finished its work.

When the magister exploded in a wave of gore, shattering the ice that had held him in place and spraying Anders in blood and other things best left unmentioned, Justice faded away from his skin, back into the back of his mind to wait, watch, and guide.

Anders picked up the man's fallen staff and wiped his face on his sleeve.

"Your master is dead," he shouted to Danarius' stunned minions. "Go before you join him!"

As he expected, the men turned and ran now that their employer was no longer around to hold the purse strings.

He left the remains where they lay and returned to his clinic to check on Fenris, finding him lying in the doorway, having witnessed enough of the fight to know that Danarius was dead.

"Why?" Fenris managed, despite the harsh rattle in his chest. "You're a mage too."

"I'm a mage," Anders agreed, setting aside the staves to roll Fenris onto his back and drag him back into the clinic. "But what I am not is a monster."

At least not tonight.