"Woah there. I didn't think the round table had a psychopath on the payroll!" Spider-Man quipped, as the armored titan stomping towards him jerkily lowered itself into a crouch and picked up a... chair?
Spider-Man leapt away from the lunging attacking the black monstrosity launched at him. Landing in a handspring he pushed away from the floor with superhuman strength, flinging himself towards the ceiling and thrusting his arms outward. Webbing shot from his wrists, covering the things face. Lancelot howled with rage, and raised a hand to viciously rip the sticky substance away from his helmet. The red slit of his face plate flared with dim light and it threw the chair towards his aggressor. Th shattered, taking with it a sizeable portion of the floor, even as Spider-Man once more evaded.
"With moves like that the WWE would probably do you okay though." Spider-Man drawled, landing in a crouch several feet away. The monster once more turned towards him, and Spider-Man was struck by how wrong it was. His vision slid off of it like water from a ducks back, and for reasons he couldn't explain, his spider sense just wouldn't react to the thing. To make matters worse, the damn thing was fast. So fast that even with his advanced reflexes he was barely keeping up. He doubted even that would be the case but Lancelot seemed almost hesitant to attack him. Each of its attacks and movements were telegraphed, and every motion was stunted, as if it was trying to stop it's attacks at the last second. Without that brief moment of hesitation, Spider-Man figured he would have been paste by now.
"Haha!" Cried the Goblin half laughter and half cough from where he was hanging across the room. "How does it feel Spider!? You caught me and you still lose!" chortled the green skinned man. Spider-Man ignored him. He didn't really know if this was Norman or Harry, and really, he didn't care. He had only a singular focus right now, and that was finding a way out of his present situation. Still, he paused to fire a blast of webbing at his nemesis, handily shutting his mouth.
The moment of inattentiveness was enough for Lancelot, and he blurred forward with an armored hand to backhand Spider-Man's torso, eliciting a dull crunching noise and sending him flying towards the nearest wall. The pain was unimaginable. Just that single hit had practically shattered all the ribs in his right side, and it was all the web head could do to stumble free of the wreckage, coughing and gagging so hard he had to pull his mask up and vomit onto the floor.
The Goblin continued to struggle, and much to Spider-Man's annoyance, looked to have gotten one arm free. An arm he was using to saw away at the web binding him. For a brief moment the sound of web ripping was the only thing audible in the room, and the sound - fortunately for Spider-Man, and not so much for the Goblin - drew Lancelots attention. It's head turned slowly towards the Goblin, and the light of its helmet flared once more in recognition. This was the man he had come to kill. This was his mission.
With slow deliberate steps, the monster picked its way around the corpses of the dead. Spider-Man noted through the haze of pain he was suffering that while it pointedly went around the bodies of victims, it tread mercilessly over the corpses of the Goblins one time thugs, crushing heads and shattering bone where it planted it's feet.
"Damnit...!" Spider-Man growled, forcing himself to his feet. Too many people had already died today. Even if the Goblin was the one person who probably deserved it above all else, Spider-Man - no, Peter Parker had made himself a promise. When he was around, until the last breath had left his body, he would do his damnedest to make sure no one died.
With careful ease, Lancelot leapt upward, grabbing the the bottom of the web cocoon the Goblin was trapped in, and yanking downward, untethering him for the ceiling and sending him hurtling to the ground with a dull thud. It wouldn't kill him - the Goblin was made of sterner stuff than that, but Spider-Man still had to wince at the impact. Durable or not, pain was pain.
"Mm! MMM!" The Goblin cried out, his yells muffled by webbing. Lancelot ignored the pleading, desperate noises and leaned forward grabbing one of the Goblins exposed legs, then squeezed. The sound was audible throughout the room, and a number of the lingering homeless who had been cowering in the corners of the room all flinched at the sudden crunching noise. The Goblin screamed, a primal, animalistic howl that would keep all who heard it awake for days afterwards.
Spider-Man had had enough.
"Hey! Lancelot! Cheating on me already? I thought we had something!" He yelled with false bravado, only barely masking his desperate need to go lay down and sleep for a week. Lancelot paused, but didn't turn towards the annoying wall crawler. It had a mission. Hail and Kill. No one who had wronged him would live, and no one who got in his way would either. First the Goblin, then the Spider.
Lancelot changed his grip on the Goblin, lifting him by the wounded appendage and raising it high overhead. Enough so that he could comfortably reach out with an inhumanly strong hand, and wrap it around the struggling criminals skull. Spider-Man couldn't afford to wait for his flagging strength to return any longer. He launched a web line at Lancelots foot and pulled as hard as he could. There was some resistance, but basic physics meant that no matter how strong something was, it still needed leverage to make use of it. Lancelot's feet flew from under it, sending it sprawling on it's back and leaving the Goblin lying helpless next to him, whimpering in pain.
"I said -" Spider-Man began again, groping for another pithy one liner and then froze. Lancelot had vanished. No, not vanished, moved. Somehow, the black iron beast had arrived in front of him before he could even blink, with one arm reared back to punch him - probably directly through his chest. A blow that would surely kill him.
What Spider-Man couldn't understand as death approached him was why it had stopped to rear back. At the speeds it was moving a simple jab would have achieved the same effect. Instead, Lancelot loomed over his hunched and bruised form, frozen in a grim prelude to violence. Spider-Man's mind spun as he tried to find ways to avoid the attack, to dodge, or to counter. Or even just to survive the blow. But the longer he thought, the more something occurred to him.
Lancelot should have struck by now. Instead it was just... standing there, mid motion, shaking.
"What the..." He murmured, slowly backing away from his foe. Honestly, it was times like this that Spider-Man wished that every freak with a chip on their shoulder didn't somehow end up in New York. He was tempted to assume that it was the city itself giving people powers, but that would just be foolish.
...Wouldn't it?
"No time to think about it. Gotta get these people out." He muttered to himself, sidling around Lancelot and waving to the nearest group of people. Without a single word spoken, he pointed to the exit, raising single finger to his mouth in the universal sign for silence. He winced as he struggled towards the next group of people, and with a single glance back towards the iron demon that was Lancelot, he made a judgement call.
He called the Avengers.
-ooo-
"Ugh. Where...?" Lance groaned as consciousness once more returned to him. In truth, he had been expecting to awaken to a pile of corpses and nothing more. The demolition of the F.E.A.S.T building was well within his capabilities, and he sincerely doubted his Berserker counterpart would resist the urge to do so given such a... what would Merlin call it? Ah - 'Target Rich Environment'. Merlin was many things - an irreverent prankster, a good friend, and in many cases, brutally pragmatic on his approach to war. Of all the traits Altria could have garnered from her erstwhile friend and mentor, that was the one Lance liked the least.
Still, instead of a bloody wasteland, Lance was surprised to find himself in a stone chamber that was both familiar and alien to him. He sat up fully and found himself sitting at round metal table. No. The Round Table. The metal used in its creation was a highly unusual waste of resources for the time, but there it was. Galahad had insisted, and so it was. But the table was subtly different than it should have been. Instead of bearing places for each of his fellow knights, there were but four positions to be seated.
Each seat had an occupant. To Lances left, sat a purple haired man with a terse, and haggard expression upon his face. He sat, grimacing in annoyance at something even as his resplendent white armor glimmered in the scant light of the chamber. This was his Saber. His most common representation. It was him as the world had come to see him in the days after his passing. It was the him that had slowly given up pieces of himself in order that he might better represent his ideal, and be just a bit closer to his liege lord. A true knight.
To Lances right, stood the black armored version of him that represented him at his worst. It was his Berserker. The him that could only be born in timelines where Lancelot had truly given up on humanity. Both his, and everyone elses. It was the Lancelot that had known and been party to betrayal of the highest order. The Lancelot... the him that yearned to inflict it's misery on everyone around it. It was violence incarnate. A humanoid shaped weapon that, if Lance had a choice, he would purge from himself without any remorse.
Finally, directly opposite him, sat a being Lance did not recognize, but that his mind instantly rejected as being 'him'. This was not a foreign or alternate version of himself. It was barely even human. If Berserker was a human shaped weapon, then this thing could barely even be considered that. It was a heavily muscled, squat black thing. It's eyes of pure white were too large for a human face, and its maw gaped open, slavering away at the two men nearest it. It's physical form was indistinct, and fluid, rippling and shifting as it bent forward over the table. Hunger radiated from the thing. Worse than any creature of myth Lancelot had ever laid eyes on before.
"What kind of monster..." Lance mumbled, instinctively jerking away from the creature only to be stopped by cold steel clamped around his wrists.
"The original occupant of this body." The purple haired man, Saber, explained, his voice almost bored sounding. He pulled his arms backward, trying and failing to move away from the table just as Lance had. Lance glanced towards him and realized his hands were chained together. The chain lead away from Saber and under an iron loop built into the table then down into a hole at the tables center. Each of them were chained like that Lance realized, chained to the table, and to each other.
Lance gave another experimental tug on his chains and found himself stuck fast. His eyes traced the length of chain to Berserker, and found to his surprise that of all of them, Berserkers chains had the most slack. Or rather, the reason neither he nor Saber could move was that Berserker had taken all the slack chain. Which made no sense except...
Lances eyes continued back long the chain, back towards the terrible monster opposite him. It's large clawed hands had stretched forward, and were pulling taut the chains binding Saber and himself, making it easier for Berserker to remain standing.
"Why is it helping him? I'm fairly certain this is the body of a Human. That...thing... can't have been it's owner." Lance asked, testing his strength against that of the beast, and frowning as he found his strength insufficient to overturn the combined efforts of Berserker and the monster.
"This place is purely a mental construct. He appears that way because that is how he thinks of himself. Nothing more, nothing less." Saber said with a disinterested shrug.
"What kind of person has such a monstrous self image?!" Growled Lance, anger beginning to overtake confusion. This was his body now. His life. He was the first of them. The Proto-Lancelot that would go on the be renown in stories throughout the ages. The root of them all. The man who had created their legend. And it was by that right that he lead the fractured mind they all shared.
Maybe he would feel less justified in the face of his body snatching, if this thing wasn't who he had stolen it from. Even the lowliest peasant from his time deserved more than this parasite.
"Quick to throw stones aintcha? Why not ask yourself that question?" Hissed the monster that was once Eddie Brock, his New Yorker accent heavily warped. Every word he spoke was painful to the ear, like two dissonant voices screaming at once to be heard. This gave Lance pause. He was still angry. Enraged in fact. But he had to admit to being curious. So he looked down upon himself.
He wished he hadn't.
He was covered in blood. His clothes were nothing but tattered rags. His knuckles were bleeding and the skin on them torn. In places, bits of ash covered him, and in others the red slick of blood was so thick that he could barely tell what lay beneath it. Lance frowned and his lips pressed together into a thin line. It would be easy to deny what he was looking at, but he knew that was useless. A pointless deflection that would serve no purpose but to distract him. He had long since accepted the reality of Knighthood. The truth was, Lance, or rather Lancelot du Lac, was a man born to a time of strife. It was the whole reason he had become a knight in the first place. Had he a choice, the blessed child of the lake would have done nearly anything except become a warrior, a fighter. But countless times, across countless realities, he had chosen the same path. The path to knighthood. And as much as he knew his goals to be noble, he was under no illusion as to the number of bodies he had tread upon to reach them.
-ooo-
The bandit lay before him, pathetic and defeated. There had been dozens of them before, but they had made the mistake of waylaying a carriage that Lancelot Du Lac had been escorting.
For many of them, it was the last mistake they would ever make.
Lancelot loomed over the fallen man, his expression pinched but otherwise unruffled. Inwardly, he was furious, appalled by how easily these men could harm their fellow man for personal gain, when the enemies of the kingdom fell upon them from all sides. Was not Britannia home to enough monsters? Why could these men not understand? Why could they not see that it was only together that Britannia would stand indomitable over its foes?
"Mercy...!" Croaked the wretched thing. Lancelot frowned in distaste. He could end it here. Destroy the man and slay all those incapacitated outside the tiny cave.
But he did not. The blessed child of the lake knew better than most that hate only begat more hate. And he had no need of it. So he sheathed his blade and stepped forward to pull the man to his feet.
"Abide here for a moment. I will seek a way to bring you to the nearest town." Lance said flatly.
"Yes my lord, anything you wish!" The man said, tears of relief and snot running from his eyes and nose. He threw himself to his knees once more at Lancelots feet, bowing and scraping at the very dirt upon which he walked.
To Lance it was abhorrent. He was no noble, no lord of a land to step lightly around. He considered himself no more important than any common man, regardless of birth. So he leaned forward to pull the man to his feet once more.
"Come now. Perhaps you can pay for your crimes on the front lines. We've always a need for fighting men -" Lancelot paused as the Bandit lunged forward, a hidden knife in hand. Lancelot did not bother to react to defend himself. Even disregarding the blessed armor he wore, Lancelot was a man who had one foot in another world. A man beloved by the Fae, and second only to Altria herself in their regard. No mortal weapon could ever hope to pierce his hide.
The Bandit stumbled forward, his knife skating across the thinner armor under Lancelots armpit. It was a clever attack. In all likelihood it would have probably worked on a normal knight. But if Lancelot was a normal knight, he would never have been able to bring an entire bandit gang to its knees in the first place.
Lancelot sighed, his fist shooting out to catch the man in the throat. The hapless bandit stumbled backwards and fell onto his haunches, coughing and crawling away from the knight.
"P-please...!" He begged once more, appealing once more to Lancelots mercy, and wish to uphold the ideals of a knight. This was the moment in which Lancelots many selves tended to diverge. Some killed the man, reasoning that he could never be useful to society. Others did so out of simple rage at being attacked. Even more still spared him, only to find him several years later, a soldier abusing his position to terrorize the citizens of the little hamlet he was set to defend.
But he, the first of his kind, chose none of these options. Instead, he carried the man before the nearest noble and allowed the land owner to proclaim judgement on the criminal in their domain - as was their right. The bandit still died - but due process had been followed. Lancelot had done his duty. He had defended his charges, and allowed the rest to play out as it would.
But he still knew, deep in his heart, that the bandit - and all his compatriots - had died if not from him, than because of him. And he had made peace with that.
-ooo-
Shaking himself of the memories, Lance looked back up at Eddie his face blank of all emotion.
"I know my own sins creature. I have accepted them and moved forward. You have done neither." He stated evenly. He looked to his Saber as he spoke, and exchanged a brief nod with the man.
"Bullshit!" bellowed Eddie Brock. "You kill people and it's fine but I wanna get a little revenge on the side and that's evil? Fuck you you sanctimonious prick! Spider-Man stole my life! And now your gonna help me steal his!"
Lance rolled his eyes at Eddie. He understood the mans motivations. He simply didn't agree with them. He did not know everything there was to know about Eddie Brock, but he had experienced enough of his thoughts and memories to know that whatever he had once been, he was no longer even capable of pretending to be a good man. He was a selfish, angry little man, and Lancelot would have no part of it, or his revenge.
"Even Berserker is more honorable than you Brock. Remember that when I eventually purge you from myself. Remember that when you trapped in here with that mindless thing. Even he has more humanity to him than you do." Lance said, taking a deep breath and then pulling hard on his chains. By himself it wouldn't have been enough. As it was, each of the four entities in the room maintained an equal amount of control over their body, and it was only because Berserker and Saber were content to support him that he had remained the one in control. Now that had changed. Berserkers rage at the atrocities of the Goblin had caused it to become uncontrolled, a barely coherent weapon of mass destruction with but one purpose. With Brock assisting him, it was a small wonder Lance couldn't simply will himself back in control.
Fortunately, there was someone else here who certainly did not agree with the more murderous of the four.
Saber yanked on his chains in concert with Lance, and both of them placed their feet on the table, pulling harder and harder on the metaphorical chains until finally Brock could hold fast no longer. The chains began to slip from his fingers, and with every link he lost Lance felt more and more strength flood him.
Finally the last chain slipped, and Lance lurched backwards, the force of his grip enough to drag Berserker forward. The black iron demon slammed down on the table with an almost confused glance around itself, as though only now having become aware of it's circumstances. Unlike it's usual brutal response to aggression, it paused to take in its surroundings, and then sat back down at it's seat.
Lance had only a few moments to note that Brock and Berserker were sitting much closer together now than they once had been, before a bright light flashed before him, and he found himself once more in control of his body.
"Ah... there are the bodies..." He mumbled, more than a little confused by what was going on around him. Groups of homeless men and women were slowly slinking around him, Spider-Man directing them quietly to escape the building. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Laura eyeing him speculatively before slipping in to one of the escaping groups of people and vanishing from sight. Slowly, he lowered the arm he was holding aloft in the beginnings of a punch. The movement, regardless of it's speed, was noticed, and soon the crowds of people were fleeing from him at record speed, doing everything but trampling each other to escape. Lance merely waited. He could turn off For Someone's Glory, and try to talk to Spider-Man, who was standing protectively between him and the escaping civilians, but if there was one thing Lance was uninterested in, it was being recognized. True, his head was still covered by his helmet, but his voice would not be so concealed. So instead he waited, his head twitching slightly as he tracked the rapid egress of the people around him.
When everyone had finally left, Spider-Man approached, his stance firm but clearly weakened.
"You still alive in there Lancelot?" he said, and Lance cringed at the knowledge that someone already knew who he was. Then he found himself annoyed by the mask the wall crawler was wearing. Under normal circumstances he would be trying to peer through the slits in an enemies helm, to try and discern their expression. Where were they looking? What would they do next? But despite the... oddly expressive... mask Spider-Man wore, it gave no indication as to wear the costumed hero was actually looking.
Which is why Lance could only watch in annoyance as a line of web shot from Spider-Man's wrist and latched on to something that had been laying next to him. By the time he had registered that restrained form of the Goblin, Spider-Man had pulled hard on the web line, sending the Goblin flying through the front doors of the building. Lancelot felt anger begin once more to burn inside him as he gazed upon the corpses of the people around him. The burnt corpses of people he had not to long ago been trying to feed. He took a single step away from Spider-Man, and towards the door. He quickly stepped back though, narrowly avoiding a burst of webbing that would have attached itself to his helmet.
"Ah ah ah." Spider-Man said, waggling a finger in mock chastisement at him. "It's rude to dine and dash you know?"
"He is a monster that must be stopped." Lance said, surprised that he had even bothered to speak. He had seen Spider-Man move, and while he might definitely have a hard time pinning the menace down without killing him, he doubted the costumed vigilante could physically stop him if he just chose to leave. But something made him stop.
"Oh so you can talk now. Cool. Look I know the Bugle makes it seem like I punch my way through everything but seriously - you seem like an... well I won't say a good guy 'cus you're clearly not - but you know. Well meaning?" Spider-Man said with a shrug.
"So just let the cops handle Gobby and we can stay right here." Spider-Man finished, leaving 'away from all the innocent people' unsaid. Lancelot paused for a moment, turning back to Spider-Man and looking down at the other man. For just the briefest of moments he considered it. He had done it before, and he would do it again. After all, May had survived, Laura had made it out, and all the henchman had been...
"And what of me? I suppose you would ask that I remain here for the police?" He queried, trying very hard to avoid looking at the corpses littering his surroundings. He could already feel Berserker trying to tug control away from him, trying to push him to give in to his rage and rend his surroundings into their composite parts. He could only hope that Saber was enough to hold him back for now. The last thing he needed was to go on a rampage when there wasn't even a target to focus his rage on in line of sight.
"I wouldn't say the cops..." Spider-Man said, trailing off and glancing towards a spot on the ground. Lancelot didn't bother looking at it, because he already knew what was there. It was all that remained of one of the pissants who had dared attack the F.E.A.S.T center, and he felt not one iota of shame for having ended them, even if he wasn't in his right mind at the time.
There was silence for a second, before Spider-Man repeated himself.
"I said, 'I wouldn't say the cops!' " He yelled this time, cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing into the rafters. "Come on what do you want a trumpet fanfare?" the wall crawler groused.
That was all the warning Lancelot got before he was assaulted on all sides. A blast of pure luminescent energy lanced down through the roof of the building at him, and a number of smaller, far less noticeable detonations struck him in the back. Despite his strength he found himself being pushed down by the force of the energy blast, which was so bright that he was all but blinded by the attack. After several seconds weathering the strike, the energy suddenly dissipated, and Lancelot shook his head to dismiss the stars in his vision. Smoke curled up from him where his armor had begun to heat up, and he reach towards his back with a groping hand to pull what appeared to be an arrow from where it had wedged itself in a gap between his pauldrons.
At this point, Lance had suffered enough. He was, despite his living conditions on this world, a proud man. He disliked being attacked without warning, he despised being stopped from achieving his goals, and he positively hated being teamed up against. Alone they were things that would probably not have whittled away at his composure. Even together, on a normal day, he would have stuck to his convictions to live this life as quietly as possible. But today had brought with it a number of trials, and Lancelot was well and thoroughly done with being toyed with.
"I warn you. Show yourselves, or I will be forced to retaliate." He ground out, holding to the last dregs of his honor like a man at sea clutching at flotsam to stay afloat.
"Your lucky, we were having a meeting when you called." A man in red and gold armor said, the hum of machinery ringing out around him as he landed firmly on the ground next to Spider-Man.
"Lucky isn't the word I would use to describe a massacre." and man in blue scalemail declared, vaulting through the hole in the roof and landing astride his armored companion. Lance frowned at them, then turned his head, just barely catching a glimpse of purple cloth before his ambusher vanished behind cover.
"Knights?" Lancelot queried, noting the armor. He was aware of the phenomenon known as a Super Hero - he lived in New York after all. But he was woefully under read on the specifics behind most of them. He knew of Spider-Man because of a morbid curiosity in the hero Eddie Brock had so desperately wanted to kill, but had otherwise chosen to ignore that aspect of life on this earth. To him, The Avengers and all their ilk were pale replacements of what he and his fellows had once been. Guardians of the realm as it were. And he had no interest in it. He had been given another chance to live and - despite the unfortunate circumstances for it - had chosen to use that life to live peacefully.
Mostly.
"Nooooot quite. Listen just come in peacefully and I'm sure SHIELD will sort you out alright? Those guys will hire anyone." Spider-Man joked, now apparently far more at ease now that he had reinforcements. Despite not actually being able to see his face Lancelot got the distinct impression he was rolling his eyes at him.
"I think not. I've no interest in fighting for anyone but my King. And she has long since passed." Lance said, wincing when he realized that his anger had caused him to use the wrong pronoun to describe Altria. Then he pressed on, ignoring the confused looks on the men's faces.
"I concede the Goblin to you out of respect Spider-Man, but you will not stop me from leaving this place." Lance finished, crouching low and then leaping through the hole the armored man had made in the ceiling. The air as he blasted upward high above the building was almost supernaturally refreshing, and Lance allowed himself a moment to revel in it before he reflexively lashed out, digging a hand into the concrete of a nearby Skyscraper to to halt his fall and prevent him from accidentally killing whoever was beneath him when he landed. Already he could see the red knight flying towards him, while the blue one scrambled up a rope and into a flying contraption that had previously escaped his notice.
"Can't let you do that!" The Red Knight yelled, his voice amplified by a speaker cleverly hidden somewhere in his armor. Lancelot was impressed. Even he had never known armor that blessed one with the ability to fly. Still, he was not in the habit of getting distracted by new and interesting armaments. At least not while in the midst of combat. So he ignored the warning, instead choosing to leap away towards the next building. He had to be careful, for he did not want to damage the facade of the building he was launching himself from, and this limited how much strength he could put into each jump. Still, he felt it was more than sufficient to avoid the knight flying behind him, sending blast of lancing energy out after him. None of them hit, and even if they had Lancelot doubted they would have harmed him over much. Unlike the first attack - which had caused him genuine harm - these smaller blasts felt significantly diminished. Lancelot immediately understood why however, as a missed shot struck the side of a building, leaving only a faint scorch mark.
The Red Knight did not want to harm any civilian that might be behind Lancelot should he miss. It was commendable, and Lancelot wholeheartedly approved, but that did not change the fact that this was his enemy. Sighting on the target of his next leap and jumping forward, Lance continued across the city, purposely leading his attack away from his own apartment. When he was sufficiently far away, Lance jumped one last time, but instead of landing on his targeted building, his armored bulk sailed through a glass window, shattering it and sending shards of glass flying everywhere throughout the busy office. The occupants of which began to scream and flee in every direction, even though Lancelot very pointedly ignored them, sprinting out of the room and into a perilous stairwell.
"Lancelot, I know your in there, come out before I get mean." Drawled the Red Knight, his voice once more amplified such that he could be heard throughout the building. Lance rolled his eyes. As commendable as his concern for the citizenry was, he spoke too much. While Lance was unlikely to be genuinely surprised by an attack, the Red Knight could have at least tried to sneak up on him.
No matter.
Lancelot slid over the edge of the staircase railing, dropping several floors before catching himself and pulling up onto the third floor landing. Quickly as he could, he oriented on another doorway that looked similar to the one he came from and ran through it, bludgeoning the door off its hinges and careening into another office. Once more people scrambled out of his way, and he crashed through the street facing window, landing on the roof of the smaller building across the street from him. Already he could hear the machinery that kept the Red Knight aloft engaging as he noted the disturbance and - accurately - judged it to be Lancelot. But it was too late, once Lance had escaped his line of sight it was already over. There was no magic in the world that would be able to track him while he was using For Someone's Glory. Confident in his escape, Lance leapt forward once more, intending to lose himself in the concrete jungle before doubling back to return home.
Halfway through his leap though, he was met in the air by a tremendous weight. The small object that hit him visibly dented his enchanted breastplate, impacting his ribs and causing Lancelot his first true injury of the day. But it did not stop there. Almost too fast to react, whatever had impacted him kept going driving him through the air until he he slamming down into an open green field. Lance lay in a deep crater of dirt, almost unable to comprehend what had happened. As much as he respected the modern knighthood of Superheros, he had not thought any given on of them his match. His pride was enough that he had simply accepted Spider-Man as the norm and moved on. There was no threat to be had there. Unfortunately, his assumptions had apparently been very, very, wrong.
So he gasped for air beneath what turned out to be a sizeable metal hammer. His first thought was simply to rise and let the thing fall to the ground so he could continue to flee - maybe change tactics so that he could avoid hurting any civilians are causing more collateral damage. He could stand and fight - even this blow had not robbed him of the belief that he could destroy his enemies if he so chose - but truthfully, he didn't want to hurt these people. Despite his misgivings on their approach to homicidal maniacs, they were clearly knights of the realm. The law, and ergo, allies of justice. What kind of hero would he be if he were to deprive the world of one of them simply because of a misunderstanding?
Aggravatingly enough, the hammer, simply would not move. He was pinned beneath it as surely as a horse beneath a boulder. With another sigh of aggravation, he reached towards the things handle, only to be interrupted.
"I would not bother. Only I may wield Mjolnir's awesome power." The new figure espoused dashingly, as he hovered into view above the coliseum Lancelot appeared to be trapped in.
'It's a fucking baseball stadium shit head.' Eddies disgruntled voice chimed in from the depths of his mind. Lancelot chose to ignore the statement, sure that it was either misleading or wrong. There was little to no reason for Brock to assist him in any way, and so it was best to consider everything he said or did suspect.
'Of course I have a reason to fucking help you! If you go to fucking jail I technically have to go to asswipe.' Eddie cut in. Lancelot once more ignored him, instead looking up at his aggressor. Unlike the previous two knights, he recognized this one. He had born witness to many, many, depictions of him when the viking heathens had raided his homelands costs, leaving untold destruction and sorrow in their wake. What confused Lancelot though, was the fact that - despite looking like Thor, he knew this new attacker could not in fact be the heathen God of Thunder. The age of gods had long since passed on earth, leaving no deific survivors to continue it.
It was this confusion, combined with the lingering memories of villages torn apart by raiders, that influenced Lancelots next actions. Instead of speaking, or trying to reason with this 'Thor', he merely closed his grip around the handle of the hammer. If it were truly a construct of the gods, it was unlikely that Knight of Owner would work on it. When red lines and a sinister black haze began to rise from the hammer, Lancelot would be lying if he said he did not grin beneath his helm. He would as be lying if the shock on Thor's face as he lifted the hammer was not distinctly satisfying. And finally, he would be an absolute liar should he admit to using anything less than one hundred percent of his strength to hurl the weapon at Thor.
With his full strength behind it, in addition to the benefit of Knight of Owner and its own formidable enchantments, Mjolnir hurtled through the air, a harsh boom echoing throughout the empty stadium as the sound barrier shattered. Thor could hardly move before his own hammer had slammed into his gut, dragging him with it across the city and well away from Lancelot.
Stumbling to his feet, Lancelot grimaced. He was not a spiritual body anymore. He had a physical form. A greatly improved one, but still physical none the less. True he could recover from nearly anything that wasn't immediately fatal, but Mjolnir was hardly a normal weapon. He shuddered to think what he would have had to do to defeat the false god in a straight fight. Glancing around him once more, Lancelot left the arena, coming out in an empty loading dock behind the construction. With a tired sigh he released For Someone's Glory, and allowed his armor to vanish back into the ether from whence it came. Once more he was just Lance Lake, a normal guy from New York. He grimaced as he walked away from the sight of his short confrontation, blending into the crowds of people traveling the streets. For once he was glad for the average New Yorkers apathy towards their surroundings. He was sure people noticed the obvious holes in his clothing from gunshots, but not a single purpose challenged him as he made his towards the metro.
It was still early morning, and as much as Lance abhorred sloth, and wanted to rush to check on May Parker, he didn't. That place would be crawling with police by now, and he wanted nothing more than to sink into his bed and sleep this off. It was at times like this that he was glad he had inherited For Someone's Glory from his Berserker. True, it was a dishonorable thing to hide ones self in the pursuit of ones knightly duties.
But he wasn't really a knight anymore he supposed. It wasn't as though he still had a king to serve. Though he had heard that Britain was ruled by a Queen now...
Lance fell into a seat on the subway, and allowed himself to think on things that ultimately didn't matter, while he dreamt of how wonderful it would be to return to work tomorrow unrecognized or molested for todays events.
-ooo-
Lance trudged tiredly up the stairs towards his apartment. The elevators were still out, and as he ascended he allowed the familiar graffiti that lined the walls of the stairwell calm his mind and sooth his soul. Many would consider the brightly colored affectations ugly blemishes on the building, but Lance found a soothing sense of belonging in them. If nothing else, the art was a mark, left by people who no doubt desperately wanted to leave something of themselves behind after they passed from this world. Lance could sympathize. As much as he had never prioritized it, the blessed child of the lake had spent many a night wondering how he would be remembered.
He still hadn't worked up the determination to go to library and find out.
Lance was completely relaxed by the time he made it out into the hall of his apartment. He was ready to call it a day. Maybe have a can of ravioli instead of cooking a meal for lunch. Read a newspaper. He deftly unlocked the door to his home and stepped inside, kicking off his work boots and locking the door behind him. Then he walked through the sparse apartment to his bedroom - which contained nothing but his dresser - second hand - and his bed - a gift - and fell forward into his sheets.
It felt like it had only been a few moments, but his eyes shot open hours later when he heard the sound of someone moving in his kitchen.
"Dammit." he grumbled. Lance was far from surprised to find a thief in his home. He knew his neighborhood, and he understand intimately the type of people that lived in it. That didn't stop Lance from being aggravated by the interloper cutting short his sleep. Between his job and his volunteering Lance rarely had a day to himself to just... sleep. It was such a novel concept to him that it was almost addictive. Rising from his bed - he was still dressed, having fallen asleep without changing - he yawned, striding fearlessly into the hallway leading to his living room.
"Hey look, I know your in here. I won't call the cops so just -" Lance froze mid step when a familiar looking girl stepped into view in his living room, clearly chewing something and carrying a red can in one hand that had had its top lopped off as though by a greatsword in one single perfect swing.
"...Laura?" He asked cautiously, forcing himself not to adopt an aggressive stance.
"Hey." She said before fishing around in the open can with her fingers to pick something up and toss it messily into her mouth.
"How did you - are you eating my only can of ravioli?!" Lance cried, all decorum forgotten as he rushed forth to try and secure his favourite food from the teenage girl. He had been limiting himself to what was largely considered 'human' in this era, and so was surprised when the girl danced out of his way like he wasn't even there, continuing to fish the dregs of the sauce covered pasta out of the can.
"Followed your scent." Laura said with a shrug, her expression flat and apathetic.
"But why eat my food?" Lance pleaded, turning back towards her and pointing an accusatory finger her way.
"And why are you even here?" he added after a second, figuring he should probably at least try to be more concerned over the wayward teenager stocking him than the fact that she was eating his ravioli.
"Saw what you did. Need help." She said again, walking past him with her ill gotten gains to sit on his sofa. Lance noted that despite her seemingly lax demeanor, she was hyper aware of him at all times, a nervous tension filling her body as though preparing to leap from the nearest window at even the slightest hint of aggression.
"Sorry, the shelter is probably going to be closed for a while after... well after all that." He said, voice strained at the memory of the carnage. "I can barely feed myself so I don't know if -"
"Lancelot." Laura said, cutting him off and causing his mind to temporarily lose track of what he was going to say with just the one word. He stared across the intervening distance at the girl for several moments before sighing and walking around his couch to sit. He noticed her tense at the last moment before he could find a seat and frowned, swerving to change his path so he could step into the kitchen and grab a chair to sit on instead. He didn't know why but Laura was obviously leery of physical contact.
That was a lie actually. He wasn't a stupid innocent. Lance could take a few very good guesses as to why a young girl would be afraid of being touched. He opted not to bring it up, choosing instead to take a seat and wait for her to say her part before he kicked her out.
"Alright. Assume I know what your talking about. Why should I help you?" He said when Laura neglected to say anything else, instead continuing to swipe her finger along the inside of the can to get as much sauce as possible free.
"Aren't you a knight? I need protection." Laura said with a shrug. What she didn't say was that, of the handful of stories she had been told by her mother growing up in the facility she was born in, the legend of King Arthur, was a frequent mainstay.
"Why do you just assume I'm a knight? I'm sure there are lots of people named Lancelot." He hedged, squinting suspiciously at the girl before him. She was... disturbingly hard to get a read on. Sure he could grasp what her body was doing at any given moment, spot when she might choose to attack or evade, but emotionally she was practically a blank slate. He had nothing to go on, and he couldn't tell if she was deliberately hiding her tells, or if she just genuinely felt nothing at her present situation. Namely, being alone in an apartment with someone she was seemingly aware could pulp her with his bare hands.
"Are you not?" She queried lightly.
"I never said that either." Lance said petulantly, and he could swear he saw the corners of her mouth lift for a moment before her face became blank once again. This sucked. There were many things Lance was willing to lie about. Many aspects of his life he was willing to ignore or dishonor. But Knighthood was sacred to him. He may not have a king to fight for. He may not adhere to any code of ethics that still existed. He may not have a single other surviving comrade. But Lancelot Du Lac was, and ever would be, a Knight of the Round Table.
"You're a killer." Laura said, accepting her slight victory without comment and moving the conversation forward.
"...Yes." Lance said hesitantly.
"But you don't kill people." She continued, pointing a dirty finger at him.
"...mostly yes." Lance conceded.
"I want that." Laura said simply, staring straight ahead at him as though that was the best possible explanation she could give for her actions.
"You... you're a teenager. Go to school." He said belligerently.
"Can't." Laura replied immediately, a subtle pained expression crossing her face before it fell flat once more.
"Why the hell not?" Lance complained, throwing his arms in the air. He wouldn't be as bothered by this conversation if she would explain more of what she was thinking. As it was he was only barely following, a fact that was worsened by his admitted lack of knowledge on what constituted 'normal' for this modern world he found himself in. In truth, this girl was likely old enough to be married and with child where he was from, but residual memories from Eddie Brock told him that such a thing was strongly frowned upon by modern society.
"Only good at one thing." she said, raising a hand and closing it into a fist. Lance was startled slightly by the appearance of two shining metal blades as they protruded from her knuckles, cleanly slicing open the flesh there with only the barest hint of blood showing from the wound. Laura relaxed her fist, retracting the claws and then putting the empty can of ravioli down on the table in front of her.
"Killing?" Lance said, just for clarification.
"...yes." Laura said, her eyes turning downward. "I am a weapon. I don't know how to do anything else."
"How have you been surviving till now then?" Lance asked curiously. He supposed she could have been a mercenary. Those still existed right?
"On my back." Laura said with a shrug and a disinterested look that made Lance physically cringe at the confirmation of his suspicions. He mentally catalogued his options. He hated to admit it, but if he sent her back out there, he would be complicit in anything that happened to her. At the same time, he wasn't really interested in running an orphanage. He could barely afford to keep himself in house and home let alone someone with as voracious an appetite as Laura apparently had. He was just about to start finding some other shelter for her to go to for help when something she had said resonated with him.
"Aren't you a Knight?" she had said. Like that was more than enough justification for some random stranger to help her. Some random stranger who could just as easily be a mass murder or rapist as he could choose to help her. Because that's what a Knight was. They were the lowest form of nobility, meant above all else to be paragons of righteousness. No matter who you were, if you approached a Knight for help, you should be heard out. It did not matter that so few of his peers outside the Round Table actually lived these values. Because as much as Lancelot wanted to stay out of it, to live a peaceful non confrontational life, he still believed. Believed in the oaths he had taken before Altria - King Arthur herself - to uphold all that was right and good in the world.
"God dammit." He cursed, then stood, abruptly heading for the kitchen.
"Bedrooms that way, I'll take the couch." He said bitterly, pausing next to Laura. He may have been imagining things, but he almost thought he saw a shock of relief wind through her. Before he moved past her, a thought occurred to him, and he gently laid a hand on the girls shoulder. He winced as she stiffened, no doubt ready to retaliate, but he pressed on none the less.
"You should know, I have the ability to empower and wield any weapon. Anything that could even potentially be used as a weapon. But you know, I get the feeling my power probably wouldn't work on you." He said waiting for the point to sink in before lifting his hand free off her and walking away. She didn't answer him, and he pretended not to hear her flee towards the bedroom. He then pretended not to hear the muffled crying echoing through the tiny apartment.
As he leaned forward to begin washing a dish so he could cook something to eat, a lock of purple hair fell into his face and it was all he could do not to drop his face into his hands at his own stupidity. Of course his hair dye would come out when using his powers. He went to great lengths to conceal his bizarre hair color, knowing that it would make it harder to get jobs and cause him to stand out to the people around him. He considered going to deal with the problem right that very second, but an image if the bizarre teenager who had invaded his apartment flickered through his head and he stopped.
Maybe it was time to stop pretending to be something he wasn't. Superheroes got paid right?
'Finally. Progress.' Saber finally spoke, his voice tired and smug at the same time.
"Don't even start." Lance mumbled, before continuing to putter about his kitchen. It took him until he was finished cleaning all his dishes that he realized the only food he presently owned was cereal - and beer.
It wasn't the most delicious thing he'd ever eaten - he much preferred ravioli - but much like everything else in Lance's life at the moment, he felt it was appropriate to accept reality for what it was, and work to improve it. Tomorrow? Groceries. And then?
Well let's just say, Lance had high hopes of renewing his membership on the Throne of Heroes.
-ooo-
You know, if there's any one thing writing a story with Spider-Man has taught me it's that I am really bad at dialogue. Jesus. That's an area I'm gonna have to work on. So as much as some people might take offence to the whole Laura being a prostitute thing, I'll note taht this fiction is rated M, and that canonically, that's a thing that actually happened. I'm not a master of the Marvel universe timeline or anything so if I mess up some stuff because I don't really know what else was going on in the marvel comics at the same time as all this was happening then I'm sorry .
You have no idea how unbelievably tedious it was to write this up. I'm typing at a friggin snails pace here, but I caught Spiderverse and just had to step over to this story for a bit. Not much else to report. Let me know what you think in the reviews, I'm always open to being privately messaged (it doesn't happen often so it's not like I'm drowning in the things) and yadda yadda. So as always,
Thanks for reading.