Day 3: False Caster — In Einzbern Forest
In Einzbern forest, the masterless Caster jumped nimbly from branch to branch. There was a large magic spell clinging to the forest like a fog; it didn't feel particularly powerful, but was nonetheless impressive for its vastness. She didn't know what specifically the spell did, but it probably wasn't anything that an intruder would find pleasant. While she didn't think that it was strong enough to do something really unpleasant like animate the trees into attacking her, there was still all sorts of potential mischief it might wreak — disorienting travelers so that they endlessly wandered in circles was an old classic. But whatever the spell was, it had probably been designed to target enemies who entered at ground level, not taking into account the possibility of someone nimbly leaping from treetop to treetop as she was doing.
Of course, some people would probably decide not to risk it, and avoid the forest altogether. But not her. The beautiful and talented sorcery genius Lina Inverse never backed down from a challenge.
The large spell over the forest was the very reason it had caught her eye. It seemed to her that anyone who wove a spell over such a large area must have something very valuable they were interested in protecting. Lina was never one to turn down an alluring treasure — particularly mysterious magical treasure from another world.
She had hardly been able to believe it at first, but the evidence had become undeniable. The world she was currently in was not her own. The differences in history, mythology, and even the fundamental nature of magic was simply too great to be accounted for by any other explanation. She had been plucked from her own world and dropped into a completely different one in order to participate in this Holy Grail War. The only reason she had even been able to conceive of the possibility was because she knew from personal experience that alternate worlds existed and travel between them was possible. Her most valuable treasure, the items which had become her Noble Phantasm, were the Demon Blood Talismans: four gemstones which had been created using the power of the Dark Lords of four different worlds. She herself had never figured out exactly how, but their existence proved that some method for creating connections between alternate worlds must exist.
As for how she had arrived in this world, the answer could only be the Grail itself. Far more than a wish-granting machine, it was a device created to access the Origin of all things — what Lina knew as the Sea of Chaos, and what the magi of this world called by the names of "Akasha" or "the Swirl of the Root". The Sea of Chaos could indeed provide the infinite power to grant even the most grandiose of wishes, but trying to access it was usually a bad idea. Lina knew better than most how dangerous trying to access that power could be — she had invented a spell, the Giga Slave, which tapped into the Sea of Chaos and twice cast it without realizing how dangerous it truly was. Then a prophetess had told her that the spell had the potential to destroy the entire world: imagine drilling a hole in the bottom of a boat, with the boat being all existence and the water being the infinite energies of the Chaotic Void. Harnessing the power of the Root was the eternal dream of fools, and had been pursued by the practitioners of magic in this world as well as in her own.
Well... perhaps she shouldn't judge them so harshly. After all, even after learning of the danger posed by the Giga Slave, she had gone on to cast it another two times anyway. Absolute power was a potent intoxicant, and there were always people selfish or desperate enough to pursue it despite the risk. If you were on fire, you might just be willing to drill and hope for the best.
In any case, the old mages who created the Holy Grail had managed to tap the power safely — to continue the metaphor, it was a sort of controlled leak. And with its access to the Sea of Chaos, the Grail had somehow plucked Lina out of her own boat — her own world — and brought her here. Though, it seemed to her that something wasn't quite right about that. The ritual battle royale between seven Servants was supposed to be a method for the Grail to gain the power to reach Akasha through the power gathered by their deaths. So how could the Grail have had the power to reach all the way to her world to summon her before the War had even begun? And why were there apparently two Servants of each class being summoned this time instead of the usual one?
Since no answers to those questions were forthcoming, Lina had decided to focus on the things she did understand. Being summoned to a completely different world had a number of consequences. First and foremost was the difference in magic: the "magecraft" of this world seemed to be fundamentally different in a number of subtle but significant ways from the "sorcery" of her home world. In fact, even the word "sorcery" took on a different meaning here. In her own world, it was a general term for all forms of magic; but on this world, it referred only to magic which accomplished things impossible by others means, and specifically to the five "True Magics" which allowed access to Akasha.
Fortunately, she still seemed to be capable of casting magic in the style of her own world. She didn't know whether it was a result of the Demon Blood Talismans or of the Grail itself, but all that was important was the fact that she was still connected in some way to the type of magic she understood how to use. It was also fortunate that the Grail had dumped an encyclopedia's worth of information into her head about this own world's magic — both the magecraft practiced by those versed in the arcane arts, and the far more common wonders called "technology". Still, she had no way of verifying whether the Grail's information was complete: if she had to fight a magus, there was always the risk that they might pull out some crazy power that she knew nothing about. And even the stuff she did know, she didn't have any practice fighting. She could only hope that her enemies were as unprepared for her magic as she was for theirs.
Second, and more significantly, the fact that this wasn't her own world called her entire goal of winning the Grail into question. If she ever wanted to access the Swirl of the Root or whatever, she could do that any time she took enough leave of her senses to consider casting the Giga Slave again. Knowing its true nature, it seemed something that should be feared rather than desired. If it were a risk to her own world, she'd feel obligated to do something about it for her own safety if nothing else; but since the bright sparks of this world had made it on their own, they could suck it up and deal with the consequences on her own.
Really, as things stood, the only thing she might need the Grail for was getting back to her own world. It had brought her here, so presumably it could send her back. But even then, there were likely other, safer methods. Lina's study of the crystal sword she'd stolen had raised some interesting possibilities. It was apparently a magic artifact designed to allow interaction between worlds, and in a far safer way — one a lot less likely to result in both worlds in question being drowned beneath an unstoppable tide of Chaos. There was that disturbing black magic tangled up in the original spellwork that she'd have to be wary of, but black magic happened to be her area of expertise. Even if someone had placed a particularly nasty curse on it, it had the distinct advantage of already being in her possession without the need to fight up to thirteen other Servants to the death for it.
The third implication was a very disturbing one, which she didn't care to consider too carefully. Based on the knowledge the Grail had imparted her, the "summoning" of Servants did not involve the physical transference of souls from the Throne of Heroes. Rather, it worked by imprinting template Servant bodies with information drawn from the record of their life stored in the Akashic Records. In other words, a Servant was not the legendary hero him or herself, but a recreation made by the Grail for the purpose of fighting in the War. She might not actually be the "real" Lina Inverse, pulled across the gap between worlds; just a copy created by the Grail — using information from another world, but created wholesale in this world. What if she discovered some method to cross the Sea of Chaos back to "her" own world, only to find that another Lina was already living there — one who had a better claim to her than being the "true" Lina Inverse?
Well, there wasn't really anything she could do about that, so there was no point thinking about it now. She'd just deal with that problem if or when it came up. For the moment, she was going to focus on snagging as much sweet loot as she could. And such a large fancy mansion, in the middle of a heavily enchanted forest, seemed like an excellent source of loot acquisition.
Lina landed elegantly on a windowsill on the mansion's second floor. A quick whispered spell undid the latch, allowing her to slip inside. She found herself in the mansion's main hall. A single glance around the room informed her that the mansion's owner was indeed as wealthy as she'd dared imagine. The opulent decorations suggested that the building contained all manner of wealth, just waiting for her to steal it away.
There was just one problem. Unfortunately, it was a very big problem. Over eight feet tall, if she was any judge, with skin like chiseled iron, a mane of unruly hair, and eyes that burned bright with madness. A Servant of the Berserker class was standing in the center of the front hall, as though it had been awaiting her arrival. Also present was a young girl with silver hair, so small in comparison to the giant beside her that Lina didn't notice her until she spoke.
"You're certainly bold, if not very bright." the girl said, gazing straight at Lina. "Who is it who has the audacity to challenge Ilyasviel von Einzbern in her own mansion?"
Well, it was a bit strange for her to ask so directly. A Servant's identity was its most prized secret, so you'd hardly expect one to just outright introduce itself. But strangely, something in the girl's eerie yet captivated red eyes compelled Lina to respond.
"I am none other than the beautiful and talented sorcery genius Lina Inverse!"
For some reason, this introductory line had never really caught on. People were always calling her by other unflattering epithets. But since this was a world where nobody knew of her, it was a chance to start over with a clean reputation.
"I've never heard of you." the girl said, blinking her eyes captivatingly. "Is there perhaps another name I might know you by?"
"Well, to be honest, I'm more commonly known as the Queen of Destruction, or Enemy of All Who Live, or... ugh... Dragon Spooker." Lina explained. "But I don't care much for those nicknames. And you shouldn't put too much stock in any stories you've heard; they tend to be really over-exaggerated."
Wait, she asked herself. Why did I go and say that? There was no reason to be giving such personal information away to an enemy, not even one with as stunningly captivating eyes as this girl. Lina felt like she could lose herself for hours, just staring into those eyes, despite some nagging part of her mind nervously buzzing that something was wrong.
"Still not ringing any bells, I'm afraid." Ilyasviel asked. "What's your Mage Association title? If you're really a Sorcerer, then the association will have given you a title like Miss Blue or Kaleidoscope."
Mage Association? Lina supposed that was this world's equivalent of the Sorcerers' Guild. And Lina did, in fact, have the exalted honor of holding one of the colored titles bestowed by the Guild upon the greatest sorcerers of the age. But hers was, well... there was absolutely no way Lina was going to tell anyone about it.
"...lntpnk..." Lina mumbled.
That was odd. It felt like she had just almost said something. But that couldn't be right. Hadn't she just thought that she would never tell any enemy of hers something so embarrassing?
"Pardon?" Ilyasviel asked, staring at her with those deep, enrapturing eyes.
"I said... Lina the Pink, alright!" Lina shouted. "I didn't choose it, okay? No self-respecting sorceress specialized in black magic would choose a title like that! They just gave it to me because I'm the only titled sorcerer who's a girl!"
And with that outburst, the spell broke. Lina mentally slapped herself as she realized what had happened. The conniving little bitch had been enchanting her! Lina never would have gotten caught by such a spell in her own world, but this world had something called "Mystic Eyes", which allowed a magus to mesmerize anyone looking into their eyes without the need to actively incant a spell. So stupid! She'd made a mental note of this fact when it had been imparted to her by the Grail, but it was just one trivial fact amongst an ocean of other knowledge about the way this world's magic worked. Lina had no practice with avoiding eye contact with enemies, so she had just instinctively looked into Ilyasviel's eyes when she spoke, and hadn't noticed her mind being invaded by the young magi's gaze...
Well, she wasn't going to get caught off-guard again. Casually, as though still under the sway of the girl's hypnotic gaze, Lina slid one hand behind her back, then softly began whispering an incantation under her breath.
"...That's a joke, right?" Ilyasviel asked.
"Yeah, hilarious, right?" Lina said. "Who could ever take a sorceress with a title like that seriously? I tell you, the things I've had to put up with because of — surprise Fireball to the face!"
Lina whipped her hand out from behind her back, flinging the glowing orange sphere that floated between her fingers into the face of the imposing giant. The Fireball exploded on contact, enveloping the Berserker's head in a swell of flame. It was a first-rate attack, one that would have melted through a solid steel plate. But the burst of fire seemed to flow off of the Servant's skin like water, leaving no visible sign of damage. It didn't so much as blink from the heat.
"Nice try, but Berserker has A rank Magic Resistance." Ilyasviel said in a tone of insufferable smugness. "Attacks of that level won't do a thing."
Lina hadn't truly expected to kill such an enormous foe with a single blow; she'd just hoped to secure her escape by scorching out his eyes. But hearing the little Master's haughtiness pricked Lina's pride. Lina Inverse, run away with her tail between her legs, from the Servant of this arrogant, snot-nosed brat? Not in this lifetime. Someone needed to be taught a lesson in humility.
"Oh, you want to see me go all-out do you?" Lina asked. "Then I hope you don't mind if I bring this whole mansion down!"
She stretched her hands in front of her, palms apart, and began incanting her spell.
Light which burns beyond crimson flame
Let thy power gather in my hand
A second sphere of burning orange light began to grow between her hands, expanding to more than twice the size of the first Fireball she'd thrown. Ilyasviel shook her head like a disappointed teacher.
"Trying the same spell twice?" she asked. "Even if you used tenfold the amount of power, simple elemental fire will never overcome Berserker's resistance."
"Get ready to eat those words." Lina said. "Here it comes! Fireba— psych! Lighting!"
The orange sphere between her hands abruptly collapsed into a single point of pure white light, which exploded in a blinding flash. Lina, who had been expecting this, had squeezed her eyes tightly shut at the last moment; but enemy Master and Servant had both been looking directly at her "Fireball" and thus received the full dose of the spell's radiance.
It was a clever trick that most sorcerers on her world were familiar with. The incantations for Lighting and Fireball were quite similar, so it was fairly easy to pretend to cast one while actually casting the other if you mumbled the spell and drew your opponent's attention with grandiose hand gestures. The sphere of light summoned by the Lighting spell was normally colorless, but tweaking it to fiery orange was a simple modification that even a novice could handle. And while the sphere would normally provide only about as much light as a lantern, it would also normally last for several hours. By canceling the spell immediately, all of that energy could be released at once in a single blinding flash.
All in all, it was a pretty dirty trick. But what other choice did she have? Ilyasviel had already said that only the highest level of magic could hurt Berserker. If Lina tried to start the long incantation that would be required for such a spell, she had no doubt that Berserker would squish her like a bug before she could speak even half the lines. But because her opponents had already dismissed her Fireball as a non-threat, they hadn't interrupted her casting — probably planning to laugh at her once the second Fireball proved no more effective than the first. Sometimes, it wasn't about how much power you used, but how you applied it.
With that in mind, Lina didn't bother starting to incant another spell — it would take too long, and the noise might give away her position. She simply drew the short sword that hung from a scabbard on her waist and leapt through the air towards Ilyasviel, who was clutching her eyes in pain. Lina's skill with a sword was nowhere near her skill in sorcery; but she was familiar enough with the basic concept to know that sticking the pointy end into the enemy could be just as deadly as a complicated magic incantation. And while going one-on-one with that hulking Berserker might be problematic, killing a Servant's Master would cause it to disappear.
Although... halfway through her jump, Lina was hit with second thoughts. Her opponent might be a Master, but she was also just a kid. Lina had no qualms about killing people who deserved it, but the thought of killing a child just didn't sit right with her. In fact, it outright turned her stomach. Whatever other people said of her, she still thought of herself as, if not wholly good and decent, at least somewhat okay. Killing a child — even a nasty, arrogant child who commanded an epic spirit of titanic destructive potential — was a line that she just wasn't going to cross.
Lina came to this realization while hurtling through the air, sword outstretched, towards the defenseless blind girl cowering on the ground mere feet away. Yet another fine situation caused by her tendency to act before thinking.
It's okay, I can still salvage this, she thought, her mind racing desperately in the final few seconds before her sword would make contact. I'll just turn the blade, hitting her with the flat side and knocking her unconscious — no, wait, that wouldn't stop Berserker, he'd stomp me into pudding in moments. Okay, so what I have to do is not stab Ilyasviel right away, but hold my sword to her throat and bluff that I'll cut it unless she banishes Berserker and gives up her Command Spells. The only thing is, I'm already moving towards her very fast, with no way to change my direction; the only way I can stop myself from stabbing her is to drop my sword, which would pose a problem with regards to holding her hostage—
Luckily, at that moment, Lina's moral dilemma resolved itself when she was smacked in the side with what felt like a 20,000 pound cast-iron cannon. The blow sent her hurling across the entire length of the room and smashing into the far wall, where her impact created a crater. It was a blow that would have killed her a human; even as a Servant, it did considerable damage. After spending a few moments dazed, Lina came back to her senses. The thing that had hit her wasn't the barrel of a cannon, but rather Berserker's outstretched arm. Even blind, he had somehow been able to sense her movements and had reacted to protect his Master. So she hadn't actually been in danger of killing a little girl after all; that was a load off her conscience. On the other hand, she was wounded and Berserker was between her and the exit, which meant she was screwed.
She wouldn't give up. Lina Inverse had been in plenty of tight scrapes before, and she'd always been able to think her way out of them. Berserker seemed to be crouching protectively by his Master instead of actively pursuing her, so she still had a few moments to figure a way out of this mess. Her Servant body was even healing itself of its own accord, so she could focus her attention on whatever magic she wished without having to cast a Recovery spell first. But what was there she could do? Blast a hole in the wall to escape? Berserker would just come after her, and she bet the giant could charge right through the wall without slowing down. Blast a hole in the ceiling, then use a flight spell to escape? The large axe-sword weapon held by the giant Servant gave him too much reach; he'd swat her out of the air like a fly.
There was simply no way to escape without first incapacitating Berserker in some manner. But any spell powerful enough to harm him would have a long incantation that would draw his attention and cause him to come crush her before she could complete it. Unless... unless she could bluff him like before, starting with a small spell that he might feel safe in ignoring.
"Aqua Create." Lina incanted.
A stream of water began to pour from her cupped hands, beginning to create a small pool of water on the floor around her. It wasn't an attack spell of any sort, nothing that might be perceived as dangerous. Indeed, it was entirely harmless — on its own. But powerful spells came in more than one flavor. Some were limited by their long casting times — but some were instead limited by their specific casting conditions. They were short incantations which could be used to great effect, but only in very particular circumstances. With her simple, easily overlooked water spell, Lina was laying the groundwork for a spell she thought might be able to overcome the enemy's Magic Resistance. It was fortunate that, despite its Mad Enhancement, this Berserker remained enough of a conscience to care for the safety of his Master instead of just mindlessly coming after her.
"I'm fine, Berserker!" the girl was shouting. "My sight will recover! Don't just stand there; go and take care of the intruder! Tear off her limbs and pop her head like a grape!"
Well, so much for that. Way to thank me for deciding to spare your life, brat, Lina thought. The giant Berserker had broke out into a run towards her position, apparently able to sense where she was even while blinded. His stone axe-sword dragged behind him, carving a gouge in the tiled floor; he hadn't even bothered to raise the weapon, probably intending to simply trample her to mush beneath his pounding feet. She was out of preparation time; there was nothing to do but let loose and hope for the best. Lina shouted the Chaos Words of her spell, barely able to hear herself incant over the sound of the floor shattering beneath the onrushing giant's footfalls:
King sleeping in the deep sea
Let thy blade of frozen darkness
Destroy the enemy who stands before me
Dolph Zoke!
The magic that she released surged through the pool of water that she had created on the floor, causing the liquid to writhe like a living thing. It coalesced into a massive sword blade which rose from the floor in front of the charging Berserker. Even if the giant could sense the attack, its momentum was far too great for it to stop or change course. It plowed directly into the watery weapon, which was angled to strike its right thigh.
Having seen this Berserker's Magic Resistance negate a fireball explosion directly against opened eyes, Lina knew that a simple spell to form water into a blade would never have overcome it. But the spell she had cast was no mere water shamanism; it was powerful black magic that invoked the might of a demon lord. A demon lord with the admittedly unintimidating name of Dolphin, but a dreadfully powerful demon nonetheless. Empowered by the malevolent energies of a high-ranking Mazoku, the blade Lina had created was capable of overcoming even this monstrosity's Magic Resistance.
There was a great tearing sound as the sorcerous blade cut through flesh and bone, then the Servant's entire right leg separated from his body. With one foot literally cut out from underneath him, the final few meters of his charge turned into a flying tackle. The only thing that saved Lina was the fact that he was now unbalanced, tipping to the side as his body hurtled out of control into the wall just barely to Lina's left. Lina flinched away from falling debris as the fallen Berserker's body smashed straight through the mansion's wall, leaving it lying collapsed half in the main hall and half in what whatever room lay beyond.
Lina stood and casually shook the dust from her cape, trying to act as if the narrowness of the miss had been intentional. Ilyasviel's vision was probably still blurry enough that she wouldn't notice if Lina was trembling a little.
"Not bad, kid, not bad at all." Lina said airily. "But it'll take more than an overmuscled thug to defeat the great Lina Inverse!"
"And it'll take more than your petty spells to slay Heracles!" Ilyasviel said.
Heracles. Lina didn't know that name; apparently, the stupid Grail had gotten confused by her cross-dimensional summoning and stuffed her head full of knowledge about the epic spirits of her own world rather than this one. But then, Lina didn't need to know a thing about Heracles in order to guess what was happening behind her. The girl's insufferably smug tone told her exactly what she'd see when she turned around.
Sure enough, Lina spun about just in time to witness the enormous Servant pulling itself back up to its feet — plural, much to her dismay. The leg she had severed hadn't even yet completely crumbled into golden sand, and yet a fresh new appendage was already growing from Berserker's severed stump. For a few moments, it was slim and badly out of proportion with the rest of Berserker's body, making for a sight which was half humorous and half nauseating; then it swelled with muscle, becoming a perfect replacement for the limb which had been lost.
Lina's mouth twitched into a grim smile. At least she knew what she was dealing with now. Since this level of regeneration was far too much to be accounted for by the normal healing power of a Servant body, and since Berserker didn't look like it had the mental capacity to use healing magic, that could only mean that this was its Noble Phantasm. She now knew the opponent's trump card, and it was one that she could handle. It was far from the first time she'd had to fight a rapidly-healing opponent; and the same strategy that she'd developed for nuisances like werewolves and trolls who didn't know when they were supposed to die could serve her here. Lina began incanting another spell, while at the same time backpedaling to put as much distance between her and Berserker as possible.
If Berserker had immediately charged her, she would have been in real trouble. However, again displaying unusual mental acuity for a Servant of the Berserker class, he seemed to have learned from her first attack and adjusted his judgement of the threat she posed accordingly. Instead of just blindly running towards her again, he was raising his stone axe-sword, apparently intending to use its great reach to strike at her while maintaining enough distance to dodge further counter attacks. So much for Mad Enhancement rendering a Servant completely incapable of rational thought. Perhaps this hero Heracles had possessed some Personal Skill that lessened the influence of Mad Enhancement on him; having no knowledge of Heracles, she couldn't be sure. Or maybe Ilyasviel was somehow helping clear his mind, using a Command Spell perhaps; the information the Grail had given her was frustratingly vague on what exactly those spells could do, and lacking a Master of her own meant Lina had never had an opportunity to inspect them herself. Not for the first time, she cursed this wretched Grail contraption that everyone seemed to want so desperately. But she retained enough presence of mind to do it silently, so as not to interrupt the spell flowing from her lips.
Supreme king with the frozen soul
Grant me the power of your icy rage
With your dark blessing, defeat the enemies that stand before me.
Dynast Breath!
Dynast Breath was a spell designed to encase the opponent in ice, then shatter them into a million pieces of frozen flesh. It made for a very impressive visual spectacle — when it worked. However, Lina had good reason to doubt that it would be effective against Berserker. The spell's primary function was as a spiritual attack: the target's flesh died as the corresponding portion of its spiritual energy was destroyed, and the spell subsequently froze and shattered the corpse. But an epic spirit like Berserker had spiritual energy equivalent to a thousand ordinary men, far too much to perish from a single Dynast Breath. The spell might erode his spiritual body a bit, but it wouldn't penetrate to his core — thus, all the spell would do was make it snow a little.
With that in mind, Lina had made a slight modification to the spell: she had removed the command that caused the ice to shatter after it formed. It was a tweak she'd made before, having realized that there were potential tactical advantages to leaving an enemy frozen rather than entombing them in ice only to immediately break it apart. Style was nice, but there were times when you couldn't afford to show off and had to do things practically.
If Lina had fired the spell directly at Berserker, his Magic Resistance would have further weakened its effect by blocking some of the spiritual damage. But Lina didn't care about inflicting any damage with the spell; it was the ice that she wanted. Thus, she released her spell targeting not Berserker's main body, but the axe-sword he held in his hand. Due to his status as Berserker, it was not a Noble Phantasm, but a mere physical weapon. There was no way Dynasty Breath was strong enough to overcome the crystallization of a Divine Mystery; but a weapon made of common matter rather than spiritual energy could not resist her spell's freezing effect. The axe-sword was encased in an enormous block of ice within moments, and the ice continued to spread. It flowed around Berserker as though wrapping him in a cocoon, until only his head remained visible.
It didn't look like any of the spell's energy had penetrated his skin; but then, Lina hadn't needed it to. The goal this time wasn't to hurt Berserker; just holding him still for a few moments was all that was necessary. All too aware that he probably wouldn't be held still for very long, Lina needed to make her move immediately. A more ruthless hero might use this opportunity to slay Berserker's Master. Instead, Lina ran directly at the giant himself.
I should be earning so much good karma for this, Lina thought as she took a mighty leap in the air. If I survive, I'm not going to let anyone lecture me on "excessive force" or "needless brutality" for the next ten years!
The arc of Lina's jump caused her to land directly on Berserker's forehead. The great brute scowled at her, his eyes blazing even more intensely than usual, and ominous cracking sounds came from the ice as he flexed his muscles. Fortunately, the spell she had in mind was a short one, and she had already begun whispering the incantation when she'd made her leap. Now, she completed the casting by lowering one hand and dramatically flicking Berserker in the forehead. There was no visible effect, but Lina could feel the magic energy surge through her fingers and spread through his body.
Stage one, complete, she thought with satisfaction.
Berserker bellowed mightily — more probably out of general anger at her standing on his forehead than out of any comprehension of the spell she'd laid on him. It was a patented Lina Inverse special, developed entirely by herself through her own research, and even a skilled sorcerer would have difficulty figuring it out when seeing it for the first time. This meathead might be a bit brighter than the average Berserker, but he was still ultimately just a rage-powered engine of destruction with little grasp of tactics and none whatsoever of the subtle arcane arts. He probably had no idea that she was preparing to bring about his doom...
Great fissures ran through the ice imprisoning the giant.
He was probably, come to think of it, bellowing in order to expel the air from his chest, thus flexing his body and breaking up the ice that clung to him. Which meant that now would be a very good time to implement stage two of her plan; namely, running like hell.
Ice exploded off of Berserker's body as he broke free of his prison, swinging an open palm up towards his face as though to swat Lina like an irksome fly. But she was already in motion, jumping over and behind him, towards the bannister of the second floor walkway of the manor's hall. Berserker spun around, lashing out with his axe-sword, but it passed just barely beneath her as she tucked and rolled and landed on the floor. It wasn't a landing that would win any prizes for style; but the carpeting on the floor and the sternness of her Servant body meant that she didn't sprain anything so badly that she couldn't run, which was the important thing. Lina located the nearest window and dashed for it.
"You think you can escape?" Ilyasviel shouted from the ground floor. "Run her down, Berserker! Don't let her leave the forest alive!"
An enormous crashing sound told Lina that Berserker had not bothered to use the main doorway, but had simply broken through the exterior wall of the mansion. Hopefully not a load-bearing wall, though by this point Lina's concern for the little brat's well being had pretty much reached its limit. She really didn't like to think of herself as the kind of person who enjoyed killing; but, well, she'd faced child-sized zombies that she'd felt more sympathy for. Lina hated fighting zombies, and ones shaped like children doubly so, but they at least had the good grace to stick to mindless moaning rather than spouting and endless stream of threats and insults like this little charmer.
But there was no longer time to devote any spare thought to the matter; Lina had to focus all her attention on her escape. She once more made her way through the forest by leaping from branch to branch, treetop to treetop; but this time, she did so with Berserker hot on her heels. She didn't dare glance behind her lest she miss a crucial step, but it was all too easy to track his progress by the sound of falling trees: he was tearing a straight line through the forest in pursuit of her, smashing through any obstacle in his path. If he caught her before she was ready, it was all over. After one false start where a poorly-timed jump nearly caused her to bite her tongue off, Lina launched into the incantation of one the strongest black magic spells she knew
Darkness beyond twilight
Crimson beyond blood that flows
Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows
I pledge myself to conquer
All the foes that stand
Before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hands
Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed
By the power you and I possess!
This was an exceptionally destructive offensive spell that called power directly from the Dark Lord of her world, Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu. It had been created for the purpose of slaying a thousand-year-old dragon in a single hit, and the blast could level a small village. This world's population density seemed to be much greater than that of her own, greatly limiting the number of places she could cast it without the risk of massive civilian casualties. But out here, in the middle of this uninhabited forest, she could let loose. As soon as she felt she had gained enough distance from the manor that Ilyasviel wouldn't get caught in the explosion — not that she expected the little tyke to be grateful — Lina shouted the Power Words that released the spell. It had originally been called Dragon Slayer, but semantic drift over a thousand years or so had rendered it into its current form:
Dragon Slave!
Lina spun about in mid-air, releasing a blazing stream of black and red energy from her hands directly into the pursuing Servant's broad chest. The instant the spell slammed against Berserker's skin, it detonated. An inferno blossomed from the point of impact, quickly enveloping the enemy and then expanding greedily outwards. A great dome of fire rose to the sky, hollowing out the heart of the forest in a single cataclysmic moment. For a moment, the night was alight with brilliant crimson light. Then the infernal energy she had summoned slowly faded, leaving a massive crater of charred dirt and toppled trees like a desolate island in the sea of trees.
Lina drew herself up off the ground just outside the circle of devastation, having been knocked down by the shockwave of the explosion. It was quite risky to cast a spell with such high collateral damage at such close range, but part of the spell's effect was to generate a barrier that helped shield the caster from catching too much blowback. Between that and the remarkable healing capability of her Servant body, it was a chance that Lina had been willing to take. And indeed, it seemed to have payed off: while she had no more than superficial burns, Berserker, who stood at the center of the crater, was in significantly worse shape.
Large chunks of his skin had been burned away, exposing flesh and even bone in places. What skin remained smoked and burned with ruby-red flames. It was remarkable that he was still standing in such condition — indeed, remarkable that he was still alive at all, as opposed to reduced to a small pile of smoldering ashes as tended to happen to most things which were hit dead-on by a Dragon Slave. But after Lina had seen him shrug off a demon-powered spell like Dolph Zoke as though it was nothing, she had suspected that he might be able to endure even this. That's why she'd cast her earlier spell. With a wide smile, Lina awaited the culmination of her plan.
Within moments, it began to take effect. The damage Berserker had suffered caused his Noble Phantasm activate, providing a surge of healing to repair what would otherwise be a debilitating injury. This time, however, something was going horribly wrong. Rather than closing up, his skin began to retreat further, as though being eaten away by invisible acid. The Servant roared in pain and confusion, unable to perceive the source of the harm that was bypassing his defenses and rapidly draining his life. For all his strength, the force Lina had unleashed on him now was something he was unable of combating, because it was being fueled by the power of his own Noble Phantasm.
The spell Lina had cast on Berserker reversed the body's natural healing process. It caused sickness to wax rather than wane, wounds to expand rather than close, and death to come in place of recovery. Used on an ordinary human, the process would be so slow as to be nearly useless; the victim would have plenty of time to get the curse removed before a non-fatal injury could progress into a fatal one. Berserker, however, possessed a Noble Phantasm which supercharged his healing to the point that he could regrow an entire limb in seconds. And now, all that healing power was being reversed, turned against his own body, destroying instead of regenerating.
Berserker collapsed in on himself: his body rotting at a thousand times ordinary speed, flesh consuming itself, bones decaying. He had soon degenerated into little more than a half-melted skeleton, steeped in an organic slime that was all that remained of his soft tissues. The glowing lights in his eyes were the last to go, slowly fading away like the final guttering of a candle burning down. When those rage-filled lights finally winked out, Lina knew that the giant was dead.
"Another triumph for Lina Inverse!" she said with satisfaction. "And now that you're out of the way, I think I'll be heading back to the mansion for a little looting, and to teach that little brat of a Master some... respect..."
Lina trailed off as the dead Servant's eyes flared with light anew. She watched disbelievingly as his decayed body began to reconstitute itself, in utter defiance of the spell which had just moments before appeared to slay him. In the hollow of his chest cavity, fresh muscle grew into a heart, which began to beat. Other muscles stretched between Berserker's bones, tightening and pulling his body back into shape even as she watched.
"Well... damn." Lina said.
There really wasn't much more she could say than that. Healing was one thing, but resurrection from death was an entirely different matter altogether. She'd never had to fight an enemy like that before. Well, she thought she had, at one point, but that foe had turned out to just be a third-rate sorcerer using a cheap trick. Good thing, too, as she hadn't really had the stomach for dismembering a body, burning it to ashes, and spreading the ashes into a river, as one of her acquaintances had suggested. But there was no guarantee that even that would work in this case, and Berserker did not look like he was in any mood to chivalrously give Lina a fair go at dismembering him before smashing her into paste. Lina decided that this was one of the situations where discretion was by far the greater part of valor.
"Ray Wing!"
Wrapping herself in a high-speed flight spell, Lina shot upwards into sky, getting far out of reach of the terrifyingly powerful Servant before it had regenerated enough of its muscles to resume attacking her. It was not the triumphant departure from the forest that she had imagined when she had first targeted the Einzbern mansion, but there was no shame in running from a battle you couldn't win. Let some other fool enraptured by their greed for the Grail think of a way to take that thing down; Lina preferred to pick smarter fights. There were plenty more Masters who might be separated from their valuables. A whole new world rich in treasure had been opened before her, and Lina Inverse intended to claim it all.