Author's Note: Non-graphic gore warning. Just popping in this breif intermission because I had an idea. Back to the main story in a few days, but let's flashback to the summoning of "Caster" shall we?

Intermission: Stacked Deck

Several days prior, a frustrated young man with orange hair stood over a summoning circle made of blood, "I'm sure I'm doing this right."

He looked over at a small boy that was shaking his mother's corpse.

"Hey, kid, do you think I should pronounce 'the' like 'thugh' or 'thee' when I'm casting this spell? 'Thee' makes more sense when summoning a demon right? But they didn't spell it that way so I'm not sure."

The boy scurried off behind a table when the psychotic red head strolled over, "Come on, kid pay attention. It's not like shaking your mother is going to bring her back."

The lunatic, Ryuunosuke Uryuu, reached into the woman's open stomach and casually pulled out some intestines, "Look, see? I disemboweled her. She's all dolled up in red. Isn-"

The boy of course started screaming.

"Dammit kid, I was gong to say a cool line about how that's nice since it's clearly her favorite color, but you ruined it. Seriously, what was so important about saying 'WAAHHHHHH! MOMMY! NO, STOP DOING THAT TO MOMMY! AHHHHH!' that you couldn't wait for me to finish talking? Kids these days are so freakin' rude."

Ryuunosuke stood and stepped back, his foot splashing in something. There was something strange about the sound, so very unlike the sound of stepping in blood that he was used to; so he looked down. Something was washing away the blood he'd worked hard putting on the floor. Leaking faucet? No... this stuff was too dark. Nearly black actually. He reached down and touched it. It had the consistency of slightly greasy water. Like if you diluted blood. It didn't stick to his fingers though, and it was a spotty, inconsistent color. The murderer didn't like it at all.

"Kid, you guys have a problem with black sand in your pipes? What is this crap?"

A slightly sultry female voice spoke up from the shadows as a figure stepped slightly out of them, her dress was soaking wet, but the strange black-sand water was draining from the fabric in an amount that made no logical sense.

"They have a problem with something in their home, that is certain."

"Who the hell are you? Are you a demon?"

"I've been called that. Mostly because people from my time had such limited vocabulary. So rude. Kids of all days are so rude. Never asking my name and calling me names."

"Aw, that does suck. What is your name?"

"You may call me Vivian."

"That's such an old lady name."

"I am from an old era."

"Cool! So, if you're an ancient demon I'm sure you know a whole bunch of interesting ways to kill people right?"

"Oh, countless. Before we go into that though," Vivian reached for the book, "May I see that?"

"Oh, sure. I used this to summon you."

Vivian took the book and flipped through it, "Modern mages. No different from mages then. They never change."

She closed the book again sharply, and then handed it back. She did it deliberately so that the book would be fumbled and fall to the soaked floor. Instead of thudding onto the floor with a small splash however, it disappeared with a large one, as if thrown in a lake.

"Hey! My book!"

"My apologies." Vivian reached down and pulled two books from the water, "Which of these was it that you dropped?"

"I dunno. Lemme see." he grabbed the one on the left. It was full of medieval torture techniques, all depicted in pictures being used on some beautiful blonde girl, "Wow, this book is amazing."

"Is that the one you dropped?"

"N-no." He traded for the other, depicting elaborate death rituals being used on some white haired, wizard-looking dude, "This... this one is even crazier! Someone really doesn't like these guys much."

"Ah, that one is Merlin." the woman sneered.

"The wizard dude from Arthur stories?"

"The very same. I loathe the man. Never follows how things are supposed to go. Just like mages have always been and always will be. He's mucked around with things again. Trying to save his pet girl from suffering that she's supposed to be suffering. I worked so hard to put that on her too! Isn't that rude of him?"

"Yeah, screw that guy. Anyway-"

"She can't be permitted to be happy! She has to suffer every ounce she's meant to. The stings of betrayal, the horrors of man. Everything! I'll not have Merlin mucking about in fate! To hell with his screwed up shipping of Arthur with her dog! Mages think they can just ignore manners and rules because they have magic!"

"Listen, lady, that's terrible and all... but how about we live in the now and not dwell on dead fictional guys?"

"Oh, Merlin never died. He's still around... just like me. And I am living in the now. The now in which he thinks he can slip a new card in the deck and stack the deck in Arthur's favor. The now in which some noble house's mage thinks he can just cheat his way to the Grail by breaking the rules and teaming up with the adjudicator. Mages should learn to be careful. If they keep trying to break the rules, they might just let something else in the cracks."

Ryuunosuke didn't notice something slinking out of the shadows behind him, "Okay, I didn't summon you to listen to you rant and do magic tricks with cool books."

Vivian smiled, "Oh you didn't summon me."

"I didn't?"

"Don't worry." the women suddenly got a very crazed look and lost all sense of grammar, "This isn't the world where a being altered events so he could enter the stories of our fellow man with a lot of magic circuits even though he's from a world where they don't exist just to eventually bang his favorite Pharaoh waifu."

"What? Is that an inside joke or something? If I didn't summon you..."

"Oh, you didn't, I just stepped in like Merlin did and helped you summon something to tip the scales back where they should be. This is the world where Merlin thinks he can fuck with me and save Arthur after what she did! She killed my son and now Merlin thinks he can just rob my Lancelot of his chance at revenge?"

"Listen, nut job, talk some sense. What did you help me summon?"

It was then the killer noticed the boy had stopped crying, but something in his gut told him not to turn and look.

Vivian chuckled, "Oh, I just gave someone else a chance to have a go. Several someone elses actually. They aren't famous so I sort of had to patch them all together and throw it all this delightful suffering you used to perform the ritual. Funny though, you were supposed to summon Caster... but all that seems to have invoked a different manner of card."

Suddenly, Ryuunosuke felt nothing. Which was odd. He was pretty sure he was out of his body, seeing some kind of figure with an armored hand on his shoulder. It was a mess of a thing. One arm an armored man's, the other a lady's. Legs like some kind of mash up of a man, woman, and an insect. It turned to look straight at the serial killer, with only a skull for a face while the rest of its head was a patchwork of many hair lengths.

"Cool!" was the last thing the teen said before he finally processed that he wasn't looking at his body from behind it.

It was just his skin.

As Ryuunosuke somehow fell into the brackish waters as if they were a lake, he watched the patchwork monster step into his skin like a bodysuit. The thing now in Ryuunosuke Uryuu's skin flexed his hand, gazing with a smile at what the teenage killer would never learn were supposed to be his command seals.

Vivian smiled, "Now, get to work... Avenger."

Author Note: Say hello to a mysterious chimeric Avenger with skinwalking abilities and a new villain that I shall call "Vivian Alter". To save you the google search, Vivian was the name of the Lady of the Lake that gave Arthur Excalibur and raised Lancelot as her son. Plot twist! Also the breif reference to another fan fiction on this site was not meant to be insulting. I just thought it would be funny to make a reference. I'm sure that story is fine. lol