THESE WAVES NEVER BREAK

he’s more complacent than alter expected. alter’s not sure how to feel about that, considering it removes the last chance at an excuse to kill him. but, whatever— or moriarty wants berserker, he can have him, and if he doesn’t, it’s not alter’s problem. not like they’ll be working together even if moriarty does have use for him.

“they’re hornets.” alter replies. goons is not far off. he calls them goons or his personal band of morons more often than he calls them hornets, but only in his internal narration. wouldn’t help morale if he did that aloud (and he’s the only one allowed to call them goons, thank you very much, idiot crocodile.) “you’ll find out when archer talks to you.” mostly said because he doesn’t know or care to guess how much moriarty feels like sharing with street strays.

alter resists the urge to tell the hornets to take the stairs inside the barrel. that’s just petty of him (and besides, he still hurts plenty. he can do without a stupid amount of flights up). the lift will do. berserker’s stomach goes without comment, though the hornets next to him shift uncomfortably, the stories of the man-eating rogue servant haunting the streets still very fresh among them.

once they finally reach the top of the barrel, doors open to reveal the lair of the city’s supervillain, the ruler of crime, the… local sketchy old man. the hornets salute while they file out, alter and captive in tow. “you brought in a stray!” moriarty says with intrigued surprise. yeah, it’ll be his problem now, and not alter’s! fantastic. so if he can just leave that’ll be fine–

—

he doesn’t get to leave. which shouldn’t be a surprise, considering he is destiny’s least favourite person. berserker gets left in the barrel for now and guess who gets to deal with the gang’s new pet lizard. not yan qing, that’s for sure.

“i really should have killed you when i had the chance.” yes, alter’s aware it’s a cliche. it feels good to say, at least. alter tosses a plastic shopping bag at berserker’s head. it’s… got two still-pulsating purple hearts inside, oozing. very gross and squishy. alter does hope it splatters a little if berserker doesn’t catch it properly. “eat. worth more mana than human ones.”

he slouches against the wall, scowling. “i’m on babysitting duty now, apparently.” thanks, moriarty. asshole. “and do you even know how to moderate your magic use? it’ll be a waste of materials to have you running around souleating like a loose chimera. avenger’s got that niche covered. you fight like a train without realizing you don’t have the coal to keep going. is that on purpose and you’re seriously that stupid, or am i a special opponent you decided to forget how to use your brain with?”

        Well... It went better than Berserker expected.  The other Archer asks him a bunch of questions first in front of his minions, then just alone with Berserker.  All the things he guesses about Berserker are annoyingly accurate when they’ve just met.  This turns into that, and...

        “Too late, asshole,” he catches the bag of hearts, which are definitely gooey.  Without reserve, Berserker bites into one like an apple, letting it ooze in his hand.  The taste is good, but it’s not like he exactly has a refined palate.  A human probably wouldn’t enjoy it, but he’s got that monster’s taste for blood, and he licks a bit of spilled heart off his cheek.

        Honestly, he doesn’t get the point of forcing someone to watch him when he’s already agreed to stay here of his own volition, but whatever.  Berserker leans back against a column, tail occasionally flicking.  “Most of the time it only takes one shot to kill a servant.  Humans I can tear apart with my hands.  What does it matter if I’m killing them as quickly as possible?” there’s a pause.  “With my old master, I didn’t have to worry about mana anyway.” It feels weird to refer to her in such terms, but that’s basically what she was, wasn’t she?  Master, wife, creator...

“get bent.” the reply is muffled and still sleepy. he’s not looking up, he’s not opening his eyes, fuck you. he’s staying here, face pressed against concrete, to decompose peacefully until he starts hearing the sounds of violence that would require his attention. “i’ll wake up when something happens.”

“How did you not notice?!” from emialter. sir please dont gesture at ur coworker's injuries while you still have a safetyless gun in your hand and youre annoyed

          “It happens!” Berserker purses his lips, “I’m going to be pissed off if you shoot me when I’m already full of glass, kid.”  He turns his eyes to glare at the big gashes across his side, as if that will make it go away faster.  If anything he’s more embarrassed that a coloutura managed to launch him into a shop window when he wasn’t paying attention than anything about the actual injury.

“I know you can manage it, you just don’t *have* to.” from laurel, casting some cure spells. if u wanna have a mage around

climbs up onto the alter's shoulder and happily perches there. yan qing makes a cursory scan of his surroundings with a hand over his eyes. ' woah-hoh, so high up! hey, can i stay here for a little while? y'don't mind, right? '  surely a servant of his weight is nothing to this guy!

it’s a hit. it’s not a dead-center hit, but it’s pretty good given the circumstances. it doesn’t need to be a heart shot when it’s a reality marble’s worth of blades. metal blooms from berserker’s side, blades clattering to the ground out of him and slowly fading, leaving blood splatter behind. heal from that one instantly, asshole. alter doesn’t even mind the spear jamming its way into his shoulder as berserker falls, taking them both down in separate ungainly heaps, because at least alter can get back from a mostly-disconnected shoulder.

getting turned into mincemeat is a little different. alter grabs the spear as soon as he’s adjusted enough to think again and yanks it back, blood flowing free over his chest. simply grabbing the spear makes thorns grow into his hand. one hell of a weapon, that. he manages to trace it for future reference (something about it feels familiar. does it have a sister weapon? whatever, it wasn’t in his arsenal before, but it is now.) once traced, it’s tossed aside and alter casts his hand around to find where his guns dropped.

it’s a bad idea to just assume an enemy is dead. best practice is to make sure. alter levels a pistol. “boss!” the sound of jogging boots running up to him. “boss! shit, are you alive? hey, look, isn’t that what carson was yelling about…”

ah, fuck, is alter’s first thought. if they could have waited a couple minutes, that would have been just peachy, but no. fate continues to spite him personally.

the important part about being here is that no one has any reason to think he was dropped in by the counter force instead of the grail. because moriarty’s a conniving bastard who could extrapolate alter’s entire life story from a mis-timed sneeze. the logical thing to do when finding a rogue servant it’s possible to subdue is to do so and bring them to the boss to see if linking them to archer’s grail is worth getting a new edgy murder bastard on the payroll.

the hornets are almost certainly aware of that. especially with the established hierarchy, moriarty should be the one to make calls. meaning alter can’t just pop this idiot without risking his status as efficient rule-following murder boy. the hornets gathered around try to help alter up, but he swats their hands away.

he’s got it covered. he pulls an ampoule from his pocket and stabs it into his side. the spare prana burns as it spreads through him and starts knitting his skin back together. he staggers but manages to lean over to berserker without falling on his face. “you’re lucky. if you try to kill one of my men, it will be a great excuse for me to blow your head off.”

alter jams a second injector into berserker. it’s by no means enough mana to do anything other than keep him stabilized (more or less), but it should keep his body from cannibalizing itself. and if it doesn’t, well, hey. the hornets can vouch that he tried and it’ll be one headache off everyone’s plate.

he groans and hauls himself to stand fully. a thumb jerks at the collapsed berserker. “you lot.” the hornets respond knee-jerk ‘yes sir!’ in unison. “bring this idiot back to the barrel. i’ll bring the rear to shoot him if he wiggles too much.” there’s a clamor of agreement and of figuring out how to lift berserker enough to mostly-drag him to headquarters. it’s a shambling and awkward procession, but a procession nonetheless.

            The gunshot doesn’t come.  It takes a few minutes for Berserker’s woozy mind to put the hows and whys together even as the archer’s underlings are pulling him upwards.  (He grunts as new bones start to form inside his eviscerated arm.)

             Idly, he contemplates whether he should provoke the Archer into shooting him before they get wherever they’re going.  For a moment he actually felt afraid (which was new), but they can’t be going anywhere good.  Probably not to torture him because he’s not worth shit in this world, but there are worse options.  Forced labor.  Long-term solitary imprisonment.  It’s not like he knows who these people are, just that he doesn’t want to go back in the cage.

            ...Fuck it.  It shouldn’t be that hard to take care of it after he finds out what they want.  Probably.  “Hold on a second,” he leans on one of the hornets after he feels his hip pop back into its joint, forcing himself to stand back up.  Times like these he wonders how humans manage without a tail.  After that he doesn’t bother fighting them pushing him forward.

             Berserker won’t pretend that the hornets don’t smell like food, but he keeps it to himself for now.  “...Hey, you,” he glances over his shoulder at Archer.  “You got a name for your band of goons?  Is this an organization?” He can’t express how disinterested he’d be in the answer under any other circumstances.  (One of the spines on his tail pops back into place.)

“you think u don’t know you’re only here because they sent you?” from Gorgon

Since Berserker was summoned, Kirei had been careful not to expose the extent of his burns, the giant, angry red blemish (though he never quite felt that way about it) that covered the entire right-hand side of his body, stopping just short of his chin — though the fire had not left his face unscathed, selfishly having taken his right eye who's empty socket he conceals with a leather eye patch. However, the scarring had never gotten in the way of his daily pursuits; his life was no less enjoyable now than it was then (if it had ever been enjoyable) and he attended great lengths to preserve his body, its strength, in the face of his travesty.

As for alter though, well, he was up especially early — Kirei had recently returned from his morning jog and was in the process of wiping his body down when his servant made his presence known in the doorway. "Can I be of assistance to you Berserker?" He quirks a brow, a strain of annoyance in his tone.

             Of course Berserker’s eyes flick down to look over his master in idle curiosity, but there’s no spark of recognition when he sees the scarring until his eyes stop at the star shaped mark on the left side of Kirei’s chest.  He might not be the most observant servant, but even then, he still knows what a healed up stab wound looks like pretty well.  Probably from a spearhead.  Were it an inch or two downwards Berserker wouldn’t have a master in the first place.

....

like he said. he is forgetting that instantly, he is not listening. “you were made during chaldea’s grand order. that was,” he waves a hand vaguely, “not that long ago.” he doesn’t remember the date on the record. ignore the fact that servants technically exist outside of linear time. “sessyoin stuck me in a blender before chaldea was even established. i’m older.” q.e.d. gottem.

       “...”

alter hops back as berserker rushes. distance is where his advantage stays and he’d prefer to keep it, even if he can switch this to a point-blank affair. there’s an annoyed chuff as the wounds alter caused stitch themselves shut. however— combine the fact this guy’s a berserker with how easily he seals his wounds and the conclusion is that he’s got to be an absolute mana sink. no wonder there’s been so many disappearances, this guy doesn’t know moderation and isn’t connected to the grail.

if that’s the case, it should be a pretty simple matter of staying alive until berserker runs out of fuel on the off chance alter can’t get a shot to his heart. speaking of not knowing moderation— “god damnit!” alter can’t move back fast enough. thorns burst into being around his arm and racing towards the rest of him. there’s the loud report of a gun as alter fires a bullet with enough magic in it to cut the thorns off before they get to his chest.

blood tinged with gold swirls wells up where spikes dig into his forearm. another stab as something hits his midsection, just above his pelvis. motherfucker. alter grits his teeth. where’s the sense of pacing! the hell kind of idiot walks into a fight phantasm-first? absolute waste of mana. if this idiot was as confident as he said, why the hell would he start by covering everything with thorns?

more importantly, this is going to be a bitch to fix as soon as those thorns are removed. alter twists his captured hand as the gun switches back to a blade. it doesn’t cut the thorns well, but it does stop them from getting anywhere else. “i am the bone of my sword.” words that are more meaningless habit than an incantation set off a reality marble condensing itself within a bullet. berserker readies his spear now that the target’s held in place. “so i pray.” he shoots. whatever part of berserker he hits, it’ll be grisly as soon as the marble unfolds. two can play at rapid escalation.

       Berserker breathes out steam as he surveys what he’s wrought.  “Not dead yet, huh?  You’re a tenacious bastard,” there’s a pop as his shoulder re-rights itself.  He won’t need his noble phantasm for the second shot, which is a momentary relief.  Ahh, what a pain in the ass.  He’ll have to hunt after this anyway.

        He steps over chunks of wall to get closer, then raises the spear again.  At first when the bullet passes into his side, he doesn’t even blink.  Gae Bolg is inches from the other’s throat when he lurches to the side.  At first he think somehow the spear is revolting against him when he feels something like the thorns protruding from his flesh.  Then he looks down and sees the metal sword points.  He doesn’t have time to contemplate the problem further before it’s shredding him.

         After his ignoble birth and years spent in DC, Berserker didn’t think he could be surprised by any sort of pain, but this is still brutally effective.  His right shoulder is an immediate casualty, then the swords burrow past his side into his lower spine and pelvis, dropping him to the ground and leaving his head spinning.  He bites down hard on his tongue to spare himself the humiliation of screaming, then tastes blood.

         Once his vision comes back to him what feels like hours later, he spies his right hand severed in front of him.  This could be bad... To anybody else he probably looks pretty dead already, but he can feel the heat of his body beginning to repair itself.  It’s not that he’s worried about, at least not yet.  Now, he’s starving.  He wasn’t the one who carved the runes into his body, and there’s no way to control how much he regrows at once.  If he doesn’t get up before long, he’s going to be killed by his own body before anything like blood loss can get to him.  Berserker presses his remaining hand to the ground and tries to shamble back up, only to collapse.

“i have no idea what that word means, refuse to learn, and if you tell me i’ll forget it on purpose. i am also staying where i am.” which is to say, being slightly squished. “i’m older than you, kid.”

oh, for fuck’s sake. can he not simply tell this guy to go eat mages instead of alter’s soldiers? they’re probably easier hunting and give more mana if one’s going to start soul-eating, but too late for that. alter doesn’t even flinch when berserker hops down and the act cracks concrete.

someone’s showing off. too bad the impact didn’t break his ankles while he was at it. his voice is annoying, though. something about this guy’s face really makes alter want to shoot him. usually he’s not a fan of making efforts he doesn’t need to, getting into fights that are little more than a waste of time, but — look, if anyone deserves a few extra bullet holes in them, it’s this fucked up mistake of a creation.

“stop calling me kid, asshole.” in what possible universe does he look like a child? he’s — alright, let’s not quibble about this part. alter’s got a good handful of csf ampoules on him in case things get nasty, and chaldea’s probably not going to be doing anything he needs to work to deal with soon. yeah, he can waste the energy to deal with this buffoon.

without a further warning, the gun is quickly brought to aim and fire, a bullet headed first for berserker’s spear arm. small target, relatively, but he’s got good aim. the second of his handguns manifests as well with a quick shot towards berserker’s chest.

get it over with quickly, right.

      This guy couldn’t do him the favor of making this fast, huh?  Half of Berserker’s right bicep splatters against the pavement, but he doesn’t react yet.  The open muscle and sinew steam in the cool night air until after a couple seconds the skin fuses back together, then the same with the hole in his chest.  Tough luck, kid.  He lunges at the other, intent at putting Gae Bolg through his chest.

       “Curruid Coinchenn,” Berserker breathes.  Tendrils of thorns bleed out in every direction, even back into himself.  The plates around his arm grow stiff, making a distinct cracking sound.  He grunts quietly at the feeling of every bone in his arm shattering.  It’s been a while, huh?  Much like greeting an old friend who’s returned.