Day 6: False Berserker — Mad Dog Hunt
False Berserker Scar stalked the night streets of Fuyuki like a wild beast scenting for blood. His head swung constantly side-to-side as he searched out his prey. Madness twisted his vision, overlaying what he saw with scenes from another time, another life. The sidewalk beneath his feet was covered in sand, the buildings around him were shelled-out wrecks, and the night was illuminated by a blistering desert sun. In his rage-clouded mind, he was still fighting to preserve his homeland from the ravages of the Ishvalan War of Extermination, still fighting the foreign Amestrians who had invaded his country and slaughtered his people using their godless alchemy. An image was burned into his retinas, filling his every waking thought: the first sight to have filled his eyes when he'd awakened in a hospital bed with his dead brother's right arm grafted in place of his own – two Amestrians looming over him, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. He killed them again and again, but they remained frozen in his sight. And so he sought out more and more people matching their appearance to kill, more souls to fuel his Right Hand of Destruction.
Suddenly, Scar froze. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, heard nothing, scented nothing; and yet, his instincts screamed that he was being watched. Training for years as a monk of Ishvala had imbued him with unshakeable combat instincts, a sixth sense for danger; and though the unending fury which fueled his Mad Enhancement partially obstructed that sense, he had not lost it entirely. He knew how to stalk his prey, and he knew when he was being stalked.
Scar looked around. He saw streets overlaid with shifting sand, a ghostly sun overlapping the moon in the sky, but no people. But there could be no mistaking the sensation of eyes upon the back of his neck. The predator within him focused on that feeling, honed in on it and traced it back to its source. He craned his neck and finally saw the source of the attention on him: a golden-haired man standing casually atop a streetlight.
"Finally noticed me, have you?" the man asked. "Of all the mongrels this war has brought to my world, you are surely the lowliest. You aren't even a mongrel; you're vermin. Some of the other False Servants at least show some potential to be temporarily entertaining, but you lack even that much promise. Scum like you is unnecessary. Disappear from my garden, and become fuel for the Holy Grail."
The man's words were as meaningless to Scar as the babbling of a brook. Scar did not wonder about the man's unusual choice of location to stand, nor did he note than the man's eyes were red and slitted like a snake's. Only one detail penetrated his mind: the fair color of the man's hair. Foreigner! Enemy! Amestrian! There could be only one reaction. Screaming his rage, Scar began to run towards the pole atop which his adversary perched.
"As I suspected, nothing more than a rabid beast." the golden man said. "Look upon the might of Gilgamesh and know fear, mongrel!"
The air behind Gilgamesh became a sheet of golden light which rippled as sword blades and spearheads emerged from it as though from the surface of a pond. But Scar was not awed or intimidated by the sight; he was beyond any emotion but rage. In Gilgamesh's display of power, he saw alchemy – the devilish art which Amestrians had used to so effectively slaughter his people. All Amestrians must be destroyed, but alchemists especially so. He would hunt them all, kill them all. Nothing would stand in the way of his revenge.
Gilgamesh loosed the weapon he had summoned, launching them at Scar like an artillery volley. As an attack, the technique was similar to a method Scar had seen used during the war by Basque Grand, the Iron Blood Alchemist. The sneering face of the Brigadier-General who had slaughtered so many of Scar's kinsmen superimposed itself over Gilgamesh's, and memories of the war flooded over him. He was running down the street amidst the burning ruins of Ishval.
Weapons exploded around Scar, gouging out craters in the street, but none touched him. He had fought this fight before, during the War for Ishval, and his body still remembered: judging the approach of the incoming artillery fire by the whistle it made as it tore through the air, dodging left and right but always forwards, always towards the enemy. It was a battle that he had not been able to win the first time, for he had not yet obtained his Right Arm of Destruction. He had lost his nation, his arm, and his brother. But now, wielding the forbidden power of his right arm, victory would be his.
Scar reached the street lamp and thrust his right hand towards it, activating his Noble Phantasm without conscious thought. The Grand Arcanum tattooed on his right arm did its work in an instant, analyzing the composition of the pole's metallic alloy and then deconstructing it on an atomic level. The street lamp toppled as a large segment of it blew apart into vapor. Gilgamesh performed an elegant backflip off the top as it fell, landing on his feet with perfect grace, but his expression had changed from smug superiority to genuine disgust.
"You would force me to stand on the same ground as you, mongrel?" Gilgamesh demanded. "You think yourself my equal?"
He snapped his fingers and another golden portal appeared behind him, this one producing a jeweled-encrusted sword hilt. Gilgamesh grabbed and drew it with the ease of a practiced swordsman. Scar, however, didn't hesitate. His opponent was now only a few paces away. A weapon was no hindrance to the destructive power of Scar's right hand. True, he could only destroy one substance at a time, so he wouldn't be able to smash through both the metal sword and the enemy's flesh in a single strike. However, once he had broken the sword and seized Gilgamesh by the face, it would only take a second for his right hand to adjust and vaporize his skull. That wouldn't be enough time for Gilgamesh to draw another sword. Even if Scar's conscious mind couldn't grasp this, his instincts sang bloody victory: the rush of having cornered his prey, the thrill of an impending kill.
Scar's palm struck the flat of Gilgamesh's sword, and his tattoo blazed with ungodly red light – and then nothing. To deconstruct something, Scar had to first determine its composition; something the transmutation circle engraved on his arm usually handled automatically. But he couldn't analyze this weapon, couldn't comprehend it. It was not the work of mortal hands, but a Noble Phantasm – a Divine Mystery, the physical embodiment of a concept which lay beyond humanity's grasp.
"This sword, forged by ettins, was used by Beowulf to decapitate Grendel's corpse, and afterwards melted like frost in a thaw from exposure to his poisonous blood – not that a filthy cur like you would know the story." Gilgamesh said. "Truthfully, it's only a trifling blade, more ornamental than practical – but I would not wish to honor you by making use of anything more potent."
He swung the sword in a great sweeping blow, and Scar barely managed to jump back far enough to avoid being bisected. Even with his superhuman reflexes, the blade cut through the front of his monk robes and left a bloody line across his chest. Scar leapt back again, avoiding a thrust that would have skewered him through the eye, and flexed his right hand. All he needed was a single opening, a momentary overextension or slip in balance, and he would be able to charge in and burst his enemy's skull.
Gilgamesh however, did not strike again with the sword he held in his hand. Instead, he snapped the fingers of his other hand, and the air around him was once more torn open by portals of shimmering golden light. A walling of gleaming weapons shot forwards like rifle bullets, and Scar had to dodge still further backwards as they tore into the sidewalk and street around him. Each dodge now took him farther away from his opponent, placing the enemy further out of reach of his deadly right hand. The weapons seemed more powerful now, their impacts smashing great smoking craters when they landed; he would not be able to get close by dodging between them again as he had the first time.
As mad and rage-driven as he was, Scar still possessed a self-preservation instinct. If he could not kill, then he would flee. His instincts were now screaming that this prey was too much for him; that he had become the hunted rather than the hunter. It was time he took flight and sought out an easier target. It was not the first time this had happened to Scar, and he had perfected a technique for use at such times. He dropped to his knees and slammed his right palm against the ground, activating his Right Arm of Destruction. The asphalt blew apart beneath him, and he dropped down a newly-created hole into a subway tunnel.
"How like a vermin to flee into a dank, dark hole." Gilgamesh said. "I will not degrade myself by pursuing you into your filthy pit; but then, I have no need to."
Gilgamesh snapped his fingers, and the subway tunnel flared with golden light. Shields began to appear in the air on either side of Scar. All different shapes and sizes and designs, they overlapped one another like scales and blocked off the tunnel in both directions.
"You see?" Gilgamesh asked. "You've only succeeded in cornering yourself."
Surrender was never a possibility that would occur to Scar. When he could not kill, he escaped; there was always a way. He could sense that the shields obstructing him were Noble Phantasms, immune to his destructive ability – but the walls and floor of the tunnel were only concrete. He slapped his right hand against the nearest wall, and it exploded in a cloud of dust and rubble. The gaping hole opened into a deep, hollow darkness: another subway tunnel, or a maintenance corridor, or sewer canal, or some other open space. Scar cared only that it promised escape.
"Now you just humiliate yourself." Gilgamesh said. "Do you really intend to drag this meaningless chase out still fur–"
He broke off mid-sentence as a wave of power washed over them both. Old, dark, and unspeakably filthy, the corrupt energy poured through the new opening. Scar felt that he was in the presence of another terrible predator. But whereas Gilgamesh hunted openly, brazenly, this one lurked in the shadows. It stalked and skulked and struck only when it was certain that its prey had been thoroughly cornered.
There was a rattling sound in the darkness, then the chains struck. Scar automatically lashed out with his right hand, catching one of the spear-tipped black chains that lashed towards him, but the other dipped under his grasp and then struck upwards into his heart. Scar let out a bestial howl as the malignant energy began to spread through his flesh, eating at him from within. As his body was blackened by the spreading corruption, it started to fade into the shadows, losing solidity. Up until now, his Mad Enhancement had kept his body in permanent physical form; now, consumed by the corrosive energy flooding him from within, he was finally being pulled into his incorporeal form.
"I wouldn't have believed it possible, but somehow you have become even more wretched." Gilgamesh said. "You're free to go; I won't even both to pursue you now. You've become so revolting that the very thought of sullying my treasured blades with your filthy, polluted blood sickens me. Go ahead and abase yourself beneath the shadow of the cursed Grail, worm."
The chain embedded in Scar's chest drew taught, and yanked him fully into the shadows. He sank into a bottomless pit, an infinite pool of absolute darkness. There was no light save for the pulses of searing blood-red energy that rhythmically flowed down the chain and into his heart. The energy drilled into him, piercing through the shroud of madness that veiled his thoughts and entering what remained of his reasoning mind.
"What a pathetic creature." a voice spoke in Scar's soul. "I suppose you might have made a passable Caster or Assassin; but as Berserker, you are utter rubbish, the lowest of the low. But even so, I will welcome you into my flock. In return, I ask only that I be your god. Worship only me, devote yourself only to me, swear yourself to me and only me, for now and all time – and I shall bless you with power beyond your stunted imagination."
The heartbeat-like pulsing of the chain increased, and a torrent of cursed energy flowed into Scar. They flooded into the core of his madness, his eternal burning hatred for the Amestrians, like fuel pouring onto a flame. The conflagration that erupted within him burned from his soul all trace of the man he had once been. All memory of Ishvala, benevolent and merciful god of the Ishvalan people, was seared away: he served a new god now, a dark and terrible deity brimming with an ancient resentment that surpassed even his own hatred – a twisted and corrupt god who bore the accumulated burden of All Evils of This World.
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