There have always been bastards, ever since the dawn of time there was always someone willing to hurt another person for money or just the satisfaction of being able to hold another's life for a plaything. That had always been the case for a one Marcus Black, a rogue mage who had been working as an assassin who specialized in killing his target without having to lay hands on them. This was because he worked by stalking and setting up curses to drive them to death.
It was actually a rather effective business model, stalk a target to their home and put in a few curses to drain away their mana until they were weak enough and a simple curse for bad health or pain would be enough to kill them in the most painful of fashions. Depending on what the client wanted he would use either a small spell to end the targets life or a curse to ensure they were reduced to viscera and gore. The issue was of course, that being an unrepentant killer like that usually lead to the abusive and sadistic behavior to carry over into his everyday life.
This could best be seen with his son Mercury, who received the full brunt of his father's drunken beatings. When he was a child it was his mother who took the beatings and Mercury, he was forced to watch or his father would often starve or burn him. He could usually deal with it, all he needed to do was keep silent and not do anything to set his father off, but then again everything set that man off. This continued until he was seven or eight, it was around that time his father had used one of his more intense curses on his mother in a rage before stumbling out to the bar. Mercury was left there, watching as she suffered and eventually passed on.
From then on, he had to deal with his father on an almost daily basis, Mercury learned to push back, by the time he was thirteen he could manage to push the drunken man away with ease. It was how he kept himself from taken too hard of a hit but that was only when he wasn't caught off guard or had something, usually a bottle, hit him from across the room. He was able to fight back, but he wasn't able to fight back that easily, he wasn't a mage like his father. Not that the aptitude wasn't there, the fact of the matter was that he was unable to train or study in the art. It was a way to keep an uneven balance of power between the two men of the household.
It continued like that, but as time went on Marcus grew more violent with his actions and he began to fire out curses in the home instead of just throwing the boy around. It was around that time that Mercury knew that he was going to end up like his mother if he wasn't careful. God be damned if he ended up as another unmarked clod of earth in some shit ditch on the other side of town. The issue with living with an abuser like Marcus, they were known to have violent outbursts almost randomly.
This was what befell Mercury when he came home from school, his father was sitting on his usual large armchair in the living room, watching the door. He looked far from happy and the only landline in the house was currently smashed along with what looked like a vodka bottle. Choosing to ignore him Mercury slammed the door and began towards his room, but stopped before he could move past his father.
Every inch of his body ached far more than it should. Everything stung, not in the common sense, but he actually felt every last fiber in his body stinging with an electric hum. Worst of all was the pain in his stomach, feeling something churning, actually burning away inside of him; this all came to a head with a pounding migraine that actually caused his vision to become blurred and a thick ringing in his ears.
The thing was, that he could actually see the seal marks and Mana glowing a blood and violet mix which denoted a curse actively affecting him.
Mercury knew this curse well, to hurt and drain the victim, while not enough to kill it was more than enough to drive someone into shock.
"School called, heard they had and talking 'bout some marks here with everywhere." He was drunk enough that he wasn't slurring his words but unable to even form proper sentence. Mercury knew exactly what he was talking about, someone had seen some of the marks his father left the week previous when he was changing in the locker room.
His father hissed as he kept his eyes on Mercury, more violet light dancing in on his left hand. This was one of the few things that Mercury could still see and he knew what came next; it was the same thing that happened to his mother. A flash of red and black, then a searing pain shot through his body.
All Mercury would do was cry out in pain as he collapsed, he seemed unable to keep up his own weight and he faded out as sparks danced around him. When the teen woke up, he looked around, his father was nowhere to be seen and it was pitch black. Shifting his eight a sudden wave of nausea and pain hit him. The boy wretched and then ended up vomiting from pain, blood spilled from his lips with bile, it was one of the worse experiences of his life.
He needed to get up, to try and get away, looking down he saw the cause of his throbbing pain, his legs, or rather leg. His left leg was gone, though there was a thick burn which had cauterized the injury. The right was worse, it looked putrid, the skin had turned a jet black color, his own magic circuits had burned out and were still oozing an overly thick near wine colored blood denoting a sort of infection. It was seared, cooked to his knee, which meant he didn't have to worry about dying of infection, he just had to worry about dying of shock.
Refusing to let and die, he twisted, giving another cry as his leg pulled apart when he shifted, apparently the blast had burned some of him into the ground. Still he would not die here, he would not end up like his mother. Digging his nails into the ground, he pulled forward as the sound of burnt meat breaking and thick leather pulling apart followed him. The passage of time was lost to him, all that he knew was pain as he pulled himself to the room where his father kept all of the artifacts and books used in his curses and hexes. Pushing himself in, he used what little weight he had left to knock in the door.
When Marcus came home, he was covered in dirt and he had a large shovel in his hands. It was clear what he was planning on doing to his son, the same thing he had done to his former wife. Upon seeing Mercury was gone and where the trail of blood went the man roared in anger, running down the hallway to finish the job. Upon reaching his personal workshop he found his son in the middle of a summoning circle, thick blue mist darting around him.
"What you think you going to do something fancy boy!" Marcus demanded, his dead black eyes focused on his injured son.
"By my order, smash his fucking head Berserker!" There was a flash of an almost electric red around Mercury's left hand. So, before Marcus even had the ability to fire out a curse there was a thick pain before the room was painted with blood and gore. Mercury actually started to grin, it was unsettled and he was clearly not in the best state of mind all things considered. "Good job on that." Mercury smirked at the handiwork of his servant, whatever caused him to stay awake finally ran out and he blacked out.
When he had passed out, Berserker came forward to check on their Master and ensure that he could still be saved. The Servant looked like a true warrior of the times, thick leather plate armor keeping their torso and chest completely covered and protected. This was matched with the ornate iron armor covering their shoulders, the left arm had even more armor which was done down to the elbow. Both arms were bound in leather bands which kept a thick leather bracer in place, each bracer was darting with blue mana, which danced around the symbols for Wotan and down to the backs of the servants hands, where the symbols for Thor were the brightest, each mana spark that hit it caused a small spark of lightning to dance around the metallic gauntlets they wore.
The servants pleaded leather skirt was done down their armored pants, done in place by belts that did the leather armor covering their form in place. Knowing there was no snow or cold, the servant undid the gray pelt they used as both a cape and to keep them warm so that they could wrap it around their master's legs rather tightly. Next some of the thick bands used to bind Berserker's pants to keep snow and water from spilling into their boots. It took a few moments but with some rough tying and knots they had done the fur up tight enough to seal the injury in place before tying everything shut.
A small brush of the strawberry orange hair from Berserker's face, their dark green eyes looked over their work, already the fur was stained with the wine color of the injury. Instead of just leaving their master to die they went to the body of the man they had been ordered to kill and fished out a cellphone which they used to call for an ambulance before they vanished into wisps of mana.
There would already be questions, there was no point in causing their master any more problems by staying in plain sight. So they appeared to a nearby roof, taking hard breaths, rage or perhaps panic starting to sink into their features. While Berserkers were known to be wild and uncontrollable warriors, that did not make all of them wild beasts, even though the most well-known of all Berserkers would cause most people to call this into question.
To all things there was honor, honor in battle, and honor in the life of even an enemy. Berserker knew this and as such respected the lives of the living, it was one thing to do battle against monsters or humans who had lost their souls, even to kill in battle. The act of slaughter, to snuff out the life of another being caught unaware left a bad taste in the servant's mouth and left their mind to wander. Did this diminish their honor, did it tarnish their eternal reward that they had earned in life. Berserker prayed that Frejya would see that their actions were done under force and command of their master, that they would not tarnish themselves in such a way.
More mana swirled around their form and sparks of lightning arced around the roof and to the ground as they felt emotions washing over them. A few more moments they probably would have ended up accidentally releasing their Noble Phantasm, due to the building stress manifesting in their mana going wild. Each small bolt lit up Berserkers near cotton white skin with any icy blue across their entire form, making them look more like a ghost than a human.
"Bad evening?" There was a melodic voice now asked from behind Berserker, just hearing it caused the Servant's mana to slowly return to its controlled state and the servant to calm. Shifting now, they turned to see another Heroic Spirit standing not too far away; their form bathed in a bright pink light as lotus petals danced around them. Berserker readied themselves to summon the hammer they used in battle to attack the unknown servant.
The sound of soft fabric touching the ground, the Servant walked over, the light fading around them, as they reached down, a pale hand caressing the fellow servant's cheek. Berserker tensed, expecting an attack as they felt the near velvet softness of the Servant's hand trace across their cheeks. "Calm yourself my fellow Heroic Spirit, I do not wish to battle you. Relax, you need not worry." Their voice was so relaxing, Berserker needed to force themselves to stay focused with the Servant in front of them.
"And why should I trust you?" Berserker almost demanded and watched as the other servant's painted lips formed a rather playful smile.