A/N: First off, here's my disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, it belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling. I don't own TYPE-MOON; that belongs jointly to many people, most notably Kinoko Nasu. I also don't own any other series mentioned, played with, toyed with, referenced, or otherwise 'defiled' herein.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, I can get down to business! This here is a wonderful little spinoff of Lupine Horror's intriguing little fanfic, 'Fate's Gamble". Our point of divergence is the summonings for the Holy Grail War itself, with the particular influence behind it being the small bits of Zelretch's prana left over from what's responsible for Fate's Gamble in the first place. The Greater Grail already taps into a minor form of the Kaleidoscope to access the Throne of Heroes, so why not let it go just a teeny bit further, hm? Especially since it's already there… and good old Harry's presence is throwing a massive wrinkle into the whole shebang. Harry's two Servants, and one more Servant, will differ from both F/sn canon, and from what Lupine Horror has planned. I know you love Casko, I love my Tamamo too, but… she's not appearing.
I've rambled enough. We're starting off with that first differing summon. On with the show!
Snow coated the ground, the branches on the trees, the rocks on the path. It floated down upon the creek before melting into the waters, its infinitesimally small uniqueness destroyed forever as the water assimilated it. Peaceful, some may call this scene. Tranquil, others could say. Serene.
But for the lone sapient habitant, the Black Forest of Germany was anything but peaceful. For as the small figure darted through the frost-covered undergrowth, the baying of the hounds could be heard, as Hell followed after them. An entire pack of wolves slammed into an invisible wall, which crumbled in the next instant, allowing the hunt to continue. The alpha wolf could not help its primal confusion; walls do not disappear without trouble, and even the clear walls turned cloudy and fragmented when it slammed its shoulder into them with sufficient force. This wall was, and then it wasn't.
The canine's hackles rose, a snarl building deep in its throat. It and its pack had been starved, locked up and deprived of food for a full three moons, three moons of cloying hunger, and now all they had was this spriteling for a hunt, and even that was difficult?
A gesture to the side was enough for the rest of its pack, save two or three, to split off and go one way. The three of them, alpha, its mate, and beta, circled around. They would ensnare their prey, one way or another. They had been denied the thrill of the hunt for far, far too long…
Slight. Elfin. Fey. These three words easily described the tiny child sitting in the clearing, leaning against a slab of stone easily three times larger than she was tall at its shortest point. Surrounding her on all sides lay the wolf pack, finally approaching, silently padding out of the forest while she had been resting herself. There was no longer any escape from their wild hunt; it seemed as though the game was truly up.
A smile, one from ear to ear, filled with malice and rage, was all that the hunted offered up her hunters. Something deep inside of the beasts, even their fearless alpha, quavered at the sight. Prey did not act quite so confident, not when it was cornered. Not when there was no escape, should food be so fearless!
A crack rang through the clearing.
One by one, more such shattering and breaking cacophonies erupted, startling the wolves in turn, as the frozen ground ruptured, streams of ephemeral, phantasmal light pouring through. Arcane designs traced along the ground, destroying grass and ice and stone as it went, carving a set of six concentric circles, the wolves each occupying a notch on the largest edge, and the prey-girl and her slab inhabiting the innermost.
The alpha snarled and moved to lunge.
Or at least… it tried.
Panic overtook the wolves' bestial instincts as they realized that their movement was indeed hampered by whatever notches they stood in, within this circle of light and power. There was no escape, this was still true… but the tables had been soundly turned. The hunters had, indeed, become the hunted.
"Silver and iron to the origin," a light, small voice spoke, teeth chattering in the cold. "Gemstone and the archduke of contracts to the center. Our ancestor is the great master Schweinorg."
As she spoke, the wolves understood, deep in their marrow, that this was the end. One by one, their muscles, tissues, ligaments were being transformed, deconstructed into a base component and offered up.
"I announce..."
Where once there had been snarling beasts, apex predators on the prowl, instead lay whimpering masses, bodies ravaged and consumed by ethereal might, sacrificing their very essences, their whole souls unto this ritual, tapping into a realm beyond the time and space its caster inhabited.
"But let thine eyes be clouded by madness," the tiny girl spoke, the smallest bit of satisfaction creeping into her expression and tone, "be bound in the cage of madness, and let thy chain be held in my hand," the light changed. Where before it had been silver-white, it had deepened to a deep, royal purple, pulsating with strips of black-filled blood-red lightning. The wolves were half of the catalyst; maddened by hunger, they would allow for an even stronger insanity than should possibly be allowed, for mortal man or ascended being.
"If thou abidest by the contract, thou clad in the holy trinity, come forth!"
And the light consumed the clearing, the last, mournful howl of the wolves carried away on the wind.
The Greater Grail, or more specifically the embodiment of All Evils of the World nestled deep within its core, shifted. Summons were not yet supposed to happen, not for the Fifth Heaven's Feel, not for another several months. And yet, it could feel its vessel's might being tapped only so slightly, just enough to pry open the gateway between dimensions enough to allow a spirit through. Nothing more and nothing less.
Angra Mainyu, sometimes called Ahriman, but a being still no less evil regardless of nomenclature, turned its foul attention onto the summoning. The massive slab of stone was an obvious catalyst: claimed from the tomb of the great Heracles, one corner of the triangle of mighty heroes to undergo apotheosis, along with Karna and Scathach. And yet, despite this incredible might, something seemed… off. Tame, even. With such a mighty being summoned as a Berserker, there would be no chance for the true, fearsome might of Greece's Greatest Hero to show through.
No, this could not do. There had to be something el—wait, what was this? Deep within the stone slab, a single molecule that should not have been there… it reeked of the Kaleidoscope, of a happy accident that had bettered a life, and yet, it was residual. A single atom of a compound that should not exist in this universe, a compound of Aluminum, Platinum, and Tungsten. A compound of a natural purple color, quite possibly even rarer than the blue that so few items held.
Yes, it could work with this. There would be something unique about this Servant Berserker… yes, there certainly would.
Deep within Fuyuki City, underneath the park commemorating the fire of nearly ten years prior, something foul stirred in amusement. Even the worms left the premises; it was simply too foul to stay.
From the eyes of his familiar, an elderly man in elegant, formal robes felt a frown threatening to tear his arrogance asunder. It had all been perfect, prepared just excellently! The aria had been modified, the catalyst had been so excellently selected. The only object with a greater link to the Son of Greece would have been one of the arrows with which he'd slain the Hydra, and those had been lost since their first attempt at forcing open a doorway to [ ], to Akasha, to the void from which all creation sprung. This was the single greatest object of importance, so why had it not worked!?
Heracles was nowhere to be seen in the Black Forest of the Einzberns. Instead, a badly proportioned, one-eyed, over-muscled, shaven-head, shirtless monkey, with modern breathing apparatus—modern!—stood in their chosen champion's place. Why could that possibly have failed—
No, he reminded himself. It was not yet a failure, not until all cards had been exhausted. With a mere mental prod, he ordered further familiars in, ones synthesized through forbidden alchemical experimentation. This odd Berserker must needs be tested.
Jubstacheit von Einzbern sat lain back in his chair once more, eyes closed as he observed through his lone scouting familiar. Yes, they still had cards to play here.
"Servant Berserker, by your summons I have come. I ask of you, art thou my Master?"
Ilyasviel von Einzbern looked up at the Servant before her, startled both by his appearance and by the gentleness of his voice. This… was not Heracles. And yet, a brief glimpse at her Servant's parameters and Noble Phantasms was more than enough to force a Cheshire smile across the Justicia-class homunculus' face.
Her Servant wore no shirt, his torso being so muscular that any that wasn't tailored would simply have ripped anyways. Scars mottled his skin, but there wasn't even the slightest trace of body fat present on his frame. On his right arm, he had dried, previously bloodied bandages, while the right had an odd semi-gauntlet upon it, cylindrical protrusions on the top end and a tube coming from the back. The tube linked up to an injector on the back of his neck, though what circulated through it was a mystery, protected by the opacity. The mask itself had a single eyehole on the left side, and an air filter coming from the mouth area, with no obvious area for the nose to breathe.
But most importantly was the insignia inscribed upon the mask: an archway inscribed in a slightly oval attempt at a circle, painted upon its surface in the blood of myriad foes, each stronger than the last. How Ilyasviel could know and comprehend this fact was simply by virtue of the connection between Master and Servant.
Her eyes traveled down to the Command Seals inscribed upon her left hand, eyeing the patterning of a flickering fire. With but a thought, the Seals merged with the massive array previously carved down to the very marrow of her soul, disappearing from plain sight, only visible when prana circulated through her form.
"Yes, I am your Master," she replied, a curtsey with the shredded white nightgown given to her Servant. Her previous chill had vanished; the sheer od forced through her body heated her to a point where most humans would die, and the snowflakes that fell upon her form steamed away on contact.
"Now, Berserker," Ilyasviel von Einzbern turned away from her Servant, hearing the padding footsteps of her grandfather's chimerae approaching their location. Each one barely visible through the spines of the forest, or the blackness of the night, and yet she could clearly sense each one's location.
"Kill."
Muscles rippled. Veins pulsed and throbbed along his arms, back, and neck. His lone visible eye twitched, as the song of battle began to flow once more through the warrior's veins. With no weapon in sight, save a small fragment of the massive stone obelisk that had come loose during the Summoning wielded as a knife, the Servant lowered his stance, shoulders raised in an imitation of a wolf's hackles.
"I stared into the heart of darkness…" The Servant shifted, acquiring better footing on the cold, frozen dirt—and then he moved.
"AND I ATE IT ALL!"
A single shard of stone, fashioned into the crudest of knives, was all that the Servant had. And yet, to even possess such was more than enough for the Mad Servant. In his hands, veins of purple traveled along the fragment, enhancing it, strengthening the stone shard until it became something transcendent, power and legend crystallized into physical form, imbued with might via recognition by Gaia.
In Berserker's hands, the simple stone had become a Noble Phantasm.
The first blow rained down upon the skull of a disgusting hybrid of scorpion and bear, a creature of chitin hide and razor claws, venom dripping from every tip. Gore splattered from the blow, flying every which direction—yet it didn't, staying suspended in midair as a bubbling sphere of energy grew from within the chimera's corpse, expanding outward in a roiling mass of orange and yellow. Two seconds later, the mass fell in upon itself, and detonated, the blood and bone of Berserker's prey transformed into a weapon that claimed the life of another chimera, and with it, cascaded into another detonation. Two chimeras had been slain with a single attack, another three wounded, and unbidden by Jubstacheit, the remaining fifteen unharmed quailed in primal fear. This creature… this was not a raging Berserker, stripped of lucidity and reason, skill and knowledge, in exchange for great power. No, this was something beyond their understanding.
This Berserker sat constantly within pure madness, and yet never fell to it. Insanity powered its every move, granting it a fervor and might that few could match unaided, but deep within its insanity rested the smallest kernel of intellect, of conscious will.
And it was this kernel that allowed the Berserker class's Mad Enhancement to reach its utmost peak, and yet, never reduce its victim to a slobbering, drooling wreck. This was no simple Berserker. This creature… was a psycho.
"GWAHAHAHA, OOWAHAHA, GRAYEHAHA!"
The mad Servant dashed this way and that, leaping several times his own height into the air and descending upon the monstrosities facing it, jagged shard of stone slashing into eyes, rending plates and hides, tearing flesh and muscle from blood and bone. So absorbed in his slaughter did he not realize a creature had made its way to his backside, an amalgam of orangutan and praying mantis, the combination creating monstrous, scything claws that could destroy anything save the strongest of Phantasmal protections.
But the organic blades never fell down upon the Berserker's flesh. With a quick spin and a deep breath, he leaned down—and fire fell from his mouth upon the creature's form.
The flame itself seemed to leap back and onto the Berserker, setting his bare flesh aflame. And yet, he did not burn, nor did he grow weaker. Somehow, immersed in the flame, this monstrous creature simply grew faster, better, stronger than before. Wreathed in the fires of purest agony, he fell upon the remaining chimerae, his blows igniting all it touched, spreading hellfire and chaos every which way.
Seconds later, and it was all over. One last chimera found itself grasped in Berserker's hands, held away from his body, far up above the ground. The hybrid of serpent and stag hissed and spit, struggled every which way, but could not get free. Its fangs could not reach the Servant's skin, and its claws could no less damage the madman than a small child could a brick wall. Berserker leaned in, that single, infinitesimally small spark of lucidity recognizing the man holding this creature's reins, even having never seen him. And in that instant, Jubstacheit von Einzbern felt a bone-deep fear.
"HOW CAN I SNAP YOUR NECK IF YOU DON'T HAVE ONE!?"
A single swift, bloody motion, and it was over, the creature's limbs ripped from its body.
It bled out in mere seconds.
Thousands of miles and half a world away, a girl awoke, shivering in a cold sweat. This had been happening more often of late, awakening in the middle of the night from some terrible dream, its imagery threatening to send the contents of her stomach up the wrong way. She pressed a hand to her fast-beating heart, just above her breast, and took a deep breath to calm herself. It didn't last.
Suddenly, as though an invisible line had been tripped, her body seized up, before it began to move of its own accord. Bare feet propelled a body clad in naught but a nightgown and lacy unmentionable through the dank mansion, the stench of rot and decay that lingered as an ever so slight, nigh-unnoticeable undertone growing to consume the senses as she walked onwards, a prisoner in her own form. As she passed a candle, its light cast her shadow in front of her.
And from within the shadow, five eyes, red as the crimson moon, opened up, a deep malice that had never been born aching, yearning to break free. A decade it had waited, a full ten years since it had come so close, mere millimeters from truly being born into the world at long last—only to have it torn away by a lone man, one who had drowned in the very ideals that had propelled him through life up to that point. But this time, there was no man to stop its birth, and the three it had managed to touch, to twist, still remained within this plane of existence.
Yes. This time, there was nothing to possibly stop it.
The Shadow closed its eyes as the plum-haired girl's eyes cast downward to descend the stone stairwells.
"Did you believe that I had possibly forgotten about your training, little granddaughter?" a voice spoke, hatred and envy coloring the inflections, what few were audible from the decaying vocal chords.
Matou Sakura lay herself down on the cold, stone floor as the worms poured in, molesting her, violating her, devouring her. Her conscience had already fled to the deepest recesses of her mind when the voice spoke; empty eyes spoke no words to any observers that may or may not have been present, save for a deep and cloying despair that had eternally threatened to shatter this poor child.
"Never forget, child," Makiri Zorugen, now Matou Zouken, rasped. "You are mine. My puppet to command. My toy with which to play."
As he left the room, one final whisper fell through the archway, lost to the girl's ears by the writhing of the maggots.
"My Grail through which to attain Akasha."
A young man, though some may not have gathered his gender askance, sat on a somewhat overstuffed sofa, glasses-covered eyes staring intently at newly bleeding markings upon his left hand. What the motif represented was well and truly open to interpretation, though if he had to guess, then the combination alluded to an odd combination of chains, ivy, and ocean waves. While the design implied who he would receive from the ritual of summons, they would not be the single being he had hoped to call forth from the ether.
Harry James Potter sighed, and not even a purring nuzzle from Len on his left shoulder, or a slight hug from Holly on his right could pull him out of this odd funk.
"You seem stressed."
Harry turned his red-and-lavender hexagonal eyes upon the addresser. Stheno stood in the doorway, a tea set balanced in her hands. The immortal Gorgon placed the tea down upon the table and poured five normal cups, as well as a small one for the spirit perched upon Harry's shoulder. Elizabeth Bathory and Frankenstein's Monster, loathe though she be to have such lack of name as her proper mode of address, took the hint and assumed physical form. The pair sat upon the sofa with their Master, Lancer on the left, Berserker on the right.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Stheno asked after taking a sip. With a sigh, Harry showed her the Command Seals inscribed upon the back of his left hand. "I see. Look," she stood and crossed past the table, kneeling in front of her adoptive brother and placing a hand comfortingly upon his knee, "we knew you probably wouldn't be the one to summon her. Hades, we're lucky to know that she will, without a doubt, be summoned at all." A small smirk briefly split the boy's frown at the Greco-Roman deity's use as a curse. "But even so, the burden shouldn't all have to be on your shoulders, you know. Those friends of yours, they'll recognize sis for who she is the moment they see her, and the similarities to you."
Stheno sat herself down upon the table while Harry took a sip of his tea, actually bothering to use his hands this time instead of the hair he had tied into a low ponytail.
"I know," he replied, voice slightly shaky. The stoic didn't understand why he was so stressed over this. Actually, yes he did, but the outward expression bothered him slightly. "I'm just worried. The Master who actually ends up summoning her could be an absolute saint, or the worst scum of the earth. We simply don't know."
Half a world away, Matou Sakura sneezed into Matou Shinji's face, prompting a slap from the waste of human genetic material before he too sneezed. The slug dismissed the possibility of being talked about before resuming his disgusting activities, ignoring the silent protests of the girl beneath him.
"Either way," Harry continued, "I want as few people to die as possible. It's already going to be difficult given this war's Lancer—"
"You already know how to off him, kiddo," Stheno lightly chided. "Remember? The Hound of Ulster died after he was weakened by broken oaths. That, or you could try and pit him against one of the stronger Servants, like a Saber or Archer. That would work, wouldn't it?"
Harry shook his head.
"You're forgetting about the other half of the Master-Servant duo," he corrected his sister. "Bazett has Fragarach, which means that any Servant fighting against her Lancer could find their own Noble Phantasm disabling them just before Gae Bolg skewers their heart. No, it's too risky; Lancer needs to be picked off from a distance, preferably where his Battle Continuation can't let him perform a Riastrad, or utter a death curse," he muttered to himself. Liz and Fran both couldn't help but cock their heads to the side in confusion, while Holly shuddered at the thought. Even in her world of origin, Cu Chulainn's Riastrad, or Warp Spasm, was truly terrifying on a level that not even the greatest of Dark Lords had ever attained. A man twisting into a lucid beast, feral in arms and sapient in tactics, was an almost unsurpassable obstacle.
"Oh!" Stheno tapped a balled-up fist into her other, open palm. "What are you doing about that hand? Did you ever figure out whose it was?"
Not a few days prior, some pathetic fool of a Magus had tried to ambush Harry within the Clock Tower kitchens, believing that his family's Sorcery Trait of toxicity would allow him to take down the Gorgon-Dead Apostle hybrid while he was cooking. Unfortunately for him, he didn't take into account the fact that Harry was mentored by Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, the primogenitor of the Summon Servant ritual, and thus already had a Servant—or more properly, two—watching his back. The fool found his left hand severed and right hand mangled by Liz and Fran, respectively, before he could so much as begin the first word of a two-count aria.
A heaping helping of Veritaserum afterwards revealed he'd overheard the one moment that Altrouge and Harry were ever so slightly less than quiet about the Holy Grail War, and after that, coughed up the location and defenses to his workshop. Within, they had found a severed female left hand, held in stasis, with three blank, unaltered Command Spells upon its pale surface.
"It was one of Waver's students," Harry replied. They'd found the girl deeper inside the Magus' workshop, stump cauterized, used, and starved for two days. "We ended up creating a false hand for her from gemstones—"
"Like your owls?" Holly interjected.
"… yessss." The slight hiss on Harry's voice was enough to tell that he wasn't entirely happy about the interruption, even by a companion so close as Holly. "The connection between her hand, the Command Seals, and her soul had been severed for too long to safely reattach it without costing her a Circuit or two. Even so, I don't think she wanted to participate anymore. Not after what had happened to her."
All of the room's occupants (all of whom, save Harry, were female) nodded sagely, with Stheno suppressing a shudder. Too many men of that ilk had visited the Shapeless Isle in ancient times, hoping to subjugate one of the trio for his nefarious ends. That was one of the deciders that eventually drove Medusa somewhat mad, and led to her monstrous form's birth.
"The first summoning, I want to do on the Shapeless Isle," Harry said, standing up and heading towards his room. "I'll transcribe Miss Lovejoy's former Command Seals onto myself afterwards, once we've explained to that Servant what's happening. Then we'll summon it in Japan. No catalysts. I want to see what the Grail deems fitting for me, beyond you two," he directed that last part at Liz and Fran.
"I'll be leaving for Japan in a week, and be preparing for the first summoning to happen tomorrow." Stheno nodded in reply, getting up from her seat as Harry, his two Servants, his familiar, and companion all left.
"I'll make sure everybody knows!" Stheno called back. Then she surveyed the room.
"Why am I always stuck cleaning up everybody's messes?..."
A/N: Aaaaaand CUT!
Hope y'all enjoyed the first chapter. More to come. Also, I have a slight problem with abandoning stories, or just flat-out forgetting to update. Don't let me forget or otherwise gloss over that for too long, please, faithful readers?
I am in your debt!