Chapter 16

Despite the amount of time that had passed, Illya still didn't wake up. She remained in the cold, musty room filled with the scent of Berserker's blood and guts, staring at Berserker and waiting for her to wake up. Idly, she wondered if she had simply died in reality, and was stuck in this dream forever.

As she was thinking this, Berserker's breathing quickened. Slowly, she stirred awake, her eyes remaining shut while she shifted her body weakly. The chains held her up against the wall loosely, forcing her to lean on the wall with unsteady legs. Gradually, she managed to muster the strength to stand straight, opening her eyes at the same time.

Straining her arms against the chains, they pulled against the walls, the chain links creaking as she tried to break them. They refused to budge for a few seconds, before the anchor connecting them to the wall finally broke, letting the chains clatter to the ground loosely. Removing the chains, she took a few experimental steps. The first two were a bit wobbly, but after that she regained full control of her body, able to flex her arms and move her legs normally despite the weeks of inactivity while imprisoned.

Suddenly, both Illya and Berserker felt the ship start to slow down.

"We...reach the...station, ...contact the bounty hunters...tar and Jan…"

Lancelot's voice filtered through the gaps in the makeshift metal floor patches blocking access from the bridge to the room they were in. They were most likely close to their intended destination. Sensing this, Berserker knew that time was of the essence, and made her move.

*DON*

Lancelot pulled back Guinevere and leapt away from the hole in the bridge as the metal patches flew upward to smash into the ceiling, becoming embedded in the metal. A black figure appeared through the hole, leaping up and landing silently on the deck.

Lancelot felt a tug on his belt, and before he could react, Necrocalibur went flying towards Berserker, landing smack in the middle of her palm. The moment she gripped them, it's form shifted, red bars of plasma spitting out of the emitters, lightly humming in her hands.

A second passed as time seemed to stop, with Lancelot staring at Berserker in disbelief, while Berserker stared back cooly, her eyes betraying no emotions. She simply stood there, sword in hand, posture loose and ready.

Then it was over, as Berserker flew at Lancelot with twin blades, prepared to cut him down. It took Lancelot all of half a second to draw his blade, and then Berserker was on him, twisting and turning, bringing the might of both blades down on him.

*DZZshhh, Vuon, VUON, Bakyun, ZSHAA*

Lancelot's sole blade impacted with each blade of Berserkers in quick succession, some being deflected while others were blocked outright. A side slash was intercepted by his blade as he pushed the lightsaber downwards slightly with the flat of his blade, making it miss him entirely. His sword slashed upwards to knock aside the other blade that was on a vicious downwards stroke towards his head, then he held his blade sideways in front of his chest to block the saberstaff, trapping Berserker in a deadlock.

*SSZZRRRTT*

The plasma grinded against Arondight, both sides vying for dominance over each other. Lancelot brought his entire strength to bear, pushing down with the muscles of his entire body, the force he was using making dents in the floor as they started sinking in. His biceps bulged, his abdominal muscles and spinal muscles all screaming in pain as they strained to reach the limit. His eyes never left Berserker's face, laser-focused on his opponent, even as the veins popped out all over his face.

"How are you already awake? The sedatives pumped in your body should have kept you asleep for at least two more days!" It was testament to Lancelot's strength and discipline that even when speaking, the strength he was applying to his blade didn't waver in the slightest. If anything, it had actually increased, his frustration from being chased so many times and getting his chance to finally escape being shattered showing through.

"I don't know."

Berserker's matter of fact tone made it seem like she was taking a walk in the park, but in reality she was also bringing forward her full might to win in this struggle. Even as her lightsaber stayed locked with Arondight, her stance shifted to give her maximum leverage against the floor, twisting her waist to bring to bear as much strength as she could against Lancelot. The Altreactor converted all the calories she had consumed into energy at an insane rate, literally heating up her stomach by several degrees.

In fact, Lancelot piercing her stomach, breaking the Alternium crystals in the process, and preventing her regeneration were actually the reason behind her unnaturally fast recovery from sedatives that would've been enough to knock out a herd of sheep for a week. The Alternium crystals were continuously trying to reform in her stomach, but were unable to do so due to the pipe blocking them, so they were forced to store up energy while her stomach remained in it's damaged energy was released explosively when the pipe was finally removed, letting the crystals actually regenerate more than she used to have, improving the Altreactor's capabilities.

The semi-starvation she experienced while imprisoned also helped train the crystals to maximize their efficiency, increasing the energy to calories conversion ratio. She had always eaten until she was full before, even when in Cosmo-Chaldea High School, so she had never really needed to make her Altreactor more efficient. Now with the Altreactor larger and more efficient, she was capable of much higher output, with the sedatives quickly being broken down by her Altreactor into energy faster than Lancelot predicted.

Her strength showed itself as she actually started overpowering Lancelot in the deadlock, her blade starting to tilt towards him as Arondight tilted backwards. Realizing he was losing, he immediately made a sweeping kick while he let the lightsaber push down, the momentum and kick making Berserker miss, though it did shave off some of his armor and cut his arm slightly.

Jumping back, he glared at Berserker.

"Why are you chasing me so hard? Do you know how frustrating it is to get chased down so relentlessly, to see the chance to finally escape and yet have taken away from you right before your eyes?"

"You stole the Dark Rounds face, my Holy Grail, and you yourself was a strong knight and was one of our greatest assets." Berserker stated it as a fact.

"You don't understand! I was playing the perfect dark knight in the Dark Rounds, enduring the black company environment with virtually no pay and holidays, all for the sake of my ideals. But then I saw the PR head of the Dark Rounds, who was enduring the inhumane working conditions of the Dark Rounds like me, and it was love at first sight! Guinevere and I fell in love, and we consummated it soon after, even bearing a child in secret. I felt like I could endure it after I found my partner, and my loyalty to you was unshakeable at the time. But then THAT man found out, and my workload was tripled, while Guinevere was sent on assignments to backwater planets far away from me, on the pretense that it was for spreading the name of the Dark Rounds! To make matters worse, my son was taken away from me and groomed to become the "Holy Grail" of the Dark Rounds, whatever that means, and that was the final straw. I decided to run away, pushing my entire workload onto my fellow knights (co-workers), and escaped with my family. Yet, you still pursue me without pause, and after so many close calls and almost escaping several times, I've had enough! Taste this, my ultimate form Dark BERSERKER!"

His rant ended in a roar that rang in the confines of the bridge, making Illya's eardrums shake. His sword disappeared from his grasp, fading into golden motes of light. Black mist started pouring out of the gaps in his armor, while countless scratches and marks appeared on it. Dark patches showed up on his armor, the corruption gradually spreading across his arms, legs and chests, his entire outfit tainted black. The mist rose up to his face, obscuring it from view. After the armour turned completely black, a rustic helmet rose up to cover his head, completing his transformation. A ghastly red glow lit up the thinly-carved slit on the helmet, the only remaining source of light on the armor that moments ago shone brilliantly. Now he was but a shadow, the bottomless darkness of the abyss.

"Hrrhh, HRRRHH, AARRTHHHUURRR!"

With the warcry still reverberating in the air, he charged forward like an animal on all fours, ripping out a control panel from the deck along the way, dark mist and red lines encasing it, strengthening into something on par with a D-rank Noble Phantasm.

His armor clanked and rattled with each step that he took, creaking as it strained against his animalistic charge towards Berserker. In the blink of an eye, he was on her, twisting his body in ways no normal human should be able to slash at her with the control panel wreathed in black mist.

Berserker raised her lightsaber just in time to block it, but Lancelot's increased strength coupled with his charge blew her off her feet, sending her careening into the glass walls of the deck, almost shattering and sending her out into the vacuum of space.

She barely had any time to recover before Lancelot rushed her like a maddened animal, swinging the control panel with wild abandon. Yet, his movements were still precise, without the slightest wasted movement. Each slash, each stab was made like it was done after hours of deliberate calculation, the most optimal move to make to conquer the enemy. His madness didn't impair him in the slightest, and his physical parameters were strengthened, turning him into a formidable enemy.

"AARRrrthhhHHUUUURRRR!"

Even while trying to cleave her head apart, he still kept roaring. The saberstaff twirled and spun as it desperately tried to block each blow, with her quickly using up the energy generated by the Altreactor as fast as it was being made. A punch to the side with his free hand clipped her side, throwing her off balance, then a swift and vicious kick to her right shin struck her, forcing her to one knee. Without a pause, Lancelot gripped the control panel with both hands and swung like it like it was a baseball bat, and Berserker's head was the ball.

Her saberstaff barely made it in time, her posture making it hard to push against the floor as she was slammed back into the window by Lancelot's newfound strength, cracks further spider webbing from the impact she'd made earlier. Lancelot didn't let up, pushing even harder as she struggled not to break the window and get sucked out into space. Her feet dug the metal greaves into the floor as she channeled strength into her arms, sweat rolling down her body in waves.

"ORRAAHHHH!"

With a warcry of her own, Berserker rallied her strength and pushed off Lancelot's panel, slipping under his legs to escape her disadvantageous position. The panel hit the window and it finally shattered, triggering the alarms, while the vacuum of space sucking it along with the air before a metal panel slammed shit, blocking the opening off. Lancelot had managed to jump back and released his weapon before it even hit the window, bounding to the back of the room in one massive jump.

"Hahh, hah, fuuuu."

Berserker breathed heavily, trying to recover as the Altreactor slowly burnt through the remaining calories she had. She needed to find the emergency energy supplies she had always kept on hand, the paste that had been a given to her by Agravain. She had never used it before, but with how things were going, she would definitely be defeated if she didn't get a shounen-like powerup.

While she was wondering where the hell Lancelot would have put the black paste at, he on the other hand took up something lying in the corner of the room that he had reserved for grave emergencies.

*whrrrr*

The sound of a small motor starting up made Berserker refocus on her enemy. And she realized that he was pointing a minigun wrapped in black smoke and crimson lines at her. Berserker mentally sighed.

"Fuck."

"ARTHHURR!"

The minigun opened up with a hailstorm of bullets, raining down on Berserker with all the power of fiery meteorites descending from the sky. Each bullet tore through the ceilings, floor and windows like it was nothing, the floor she was standing on turned to Swiss cheese in an instant. Alarms repeatedly blared as the hull and windows were continuously breached, with metal panels slamming shut in the windows while emergency repair measures activated to seal the holes in the hull with rapidly hardening liquid metal.

Berserker absolutely couldn't block the bullets at all, knowing it was suicide, so she ran as fast as she could to dodge the bullets coming at her, running diagonally to the side and then up onto the ceiling with her momentum, doing her best to stay one step ahead of the streaks of hot metal aimed at her.

*RATATATATATATATTATATA*

The bullets never stopped, a seemingly limited belt of ammunition fed into the rotary cannon as it spat out bullets like Saber speed-eating watermelons in the summer, which is to say very fast. Each bullet whirred like an angry hornet, the bullet paths actually visible as they lit up like tracers, almost forming an almost solid cylinder of light that stretched from the tip of the barrel. In contrast, the whine of the motor was almost inaudible under the din of shells ejecting onto the ground and the bullets being fired.

Berserker kept running on the ceiling while the bullets tore through the metal she stepped on half a second ago, piercing it like a hot knife through butter. Gathering strength in her legs, she pushed off the ceiling and landed back on the deck, then rebounded off the floor back into the ceiling and then back again, creating craters in the process. She bounced around the room in this manner, a 3D maneuver pattern that managed to barely stave off his assault as he continued firing with amazing precision, the gun not wavering once in spite of the numerous vibrations from the motor and the rotating barrel, as well as the knockback from the bullets.

By the seventh bounce, she had finally spotted the small black pouch containing her paste clipped to his belt. While the black mist tried to distort it, it still failed to completely disguise it, as if something inside the pouch was actively foiling the mist. Instead, it was like looking through a television with heavy static, and even under heavy duress from the currently ongoing combat, Berserker was still able to see it.

Instantly, she formulated a plan on the spot to take it back. Reaching into the rapidly depleting stores of energy in her body, she called forth her powers as telekinesis, using "Alter Choke" to rip out all the panels from the control deck and hurling them all at once at Lancelot.

Lancelot didn't even bat an eye, turning all the panels into confetti with his minigun as it shredded through them like paper, scrap metal, glass and plastic raining down on the deck. However, he briefly lost sight of Berserker for a second.

"Hrrhhh…"

As he looked around in confusion, he spotted the end of a black cloak peeking out from the back of one of the stairs near him leading to the upper flight deck.

"ARRTHUURRRR!"

He immediately turned and brought the full force of his gun on the stairs, punching several hundred holes into it before finally stopping. The stairs collapsed, revealing a now severely tattered black cloak that was barely held together with a few threads, the owner of the cloak nowhere to be seen.

*DZSSH*

He whirled around so fast that he became a black tornado for an instant, then his minigun came into contact with the crimson blade that had been mere inches away from piercing his helmet.

"Tch!"

Barely a moment passed as Berserker pulled back a fist suffused with crackling lightning and punched the minigun directly, holding her blade one-handed as it was being blocked by the minigun to keep it in place.

*KRCH*

The sound of metal being bent was heard as she rushed even closer towards Lancelot, the lightsaber descending towards his head, the minigun now knocked aside by her punch. Acting on pure reflex, he performed a Dio pose by bending backwards in a way that would break a normal person's knees, while one hand reached upwards to grab the only safe part of the lightsaber, the hilt. The saberstaff was stopped dead in its tracks, unable to move further even by an inch. Berserker tried to push downwards, but Lancelot started applying force to his grip, crushing the hilt and her hand in his grasp, the metal starting to creak and bend as her hand made some ominous cracking sounds. His other hand was firmly rooted on the ground, allowing him to use as much strength as he needed in the awkward position his body was in.

But right as Lancelot started crushing the lightsaber, Berserker made her move. Her free hand reached out like a snake and snatched the pouch off his belt, her movements sure and unerring as she took her true objective. Lancelot tried to throw her off by twisting his waist, but he was a second too late, and his efforts were to no avail. Acting quickly, she opened the pouch and swallowed it's contents, emptying them into her mouth. Lancelot quickly released her hand and lightsaber after sensing imminent danger, retreating back into the center of the room where the gun had been sent flying earlier.

The black bean paste consisting of the six fundamental forces of Desire (Soul), Sugar (Power), Sales Location (Space), Cost Price (Reality), Production (Time), and Demand (Mind) traveled into her stomach, reaching the Altreactor and reacting with it to produce an indescribable amount of energy. Like a crisp snap of the fingers, her demeanour instantly changed. Her entire body became infused with energy, lightning crackling around her entire body as it started glowing, increasing in intensity until it was almost painful to look at her. The crimson lightning jumped around the room, hitting random lights and the remaining panels. Wind formed spontaneously around her body, turning into a tornado around her as it shrieked. Mana pulsed off her like a planet's gravity, the durable metal floor warping and twisting until cracked.

Then it all faded, the wind dying down, the lightning no longed crackling, the mana completely contained as she regained control.

What Illya saw was a set of armor on a whole other level when compared to before, completely surpassing it to reach heights that shouldn't even have been possible.

That is, exposure-wise.

All that was left of her outfit were two metal strips barely covering her chest, and a metal undergarment like plate below. The tights and gloves were still there, but other than that everything else was gone. It was the outfit that Berserker would have received if she had taken part in S*mmer events.

"Here I come, Lancelot!"