"Where Go You So Late?" Said The False Knight Upon the Road

[chevalier_mal_fet]

Characters: Berserker/Sir Lancelot & You
Setting: Throughout the Tower, including hallways, dorms, and common areas.
Format: Brackets preferred.
Summary: Infected through their mental and spiritual bond by his Master's breakdown, a malfunctioning Servant goes a bit Mad. Encounter him as he attempts alternately to control himself, to find his Master, and to seek the *usual target for his rage.
Warnings: Lancelot is experiencing what is essentially an intermittent psychotic break. When Mad, he will be un-responsive and murderously violent. Though he is struggling against it, Lancelot's Madness only serves to increase his Strength, which is already frankly ridiculous. As he is unable to successfully control himself or his Abilities, attempting to battle Lancelot in this state will very likely result in your severe injury or death. Characters with telepathic abilities should note that Lancelot's thoughts will include disturbing imagery and violent themes.
Note: If you'd like to plot anything elaborate with Lancelot, such as the particulars of a character death, please find me on Plurk-- I'll be happy to hash it out with you!

*Spoiler Alert: it is Arthur.


There is a buzzing in his head, no. Sharper than that -- a scraping, screaming thing that is more sensation than sound-- and more sight than any other sense.
They desert him one by one, his senses, lights gone out-- until he is cocooned in red darkness. It clings, it burns. It has the shape of flame and the flame is the sound and it comes from within and it covers all.

Berserker finds that his shaking hands are covering his mouth, and that his gloved fingers are pressing hard against his lips and that his teeth are sharp.
Black Fog swims before him, all around him, though he does not recall its summoning.
The sound is like a spear, like a hook scraping at the Root of his Mind. At the root of Lancelot's mind. For Lancelot he remains, by some awful magic-- the moorings of his Mind rocked and torn by the Storm of Anguish his Master makes.

If he could claw the Bond with Kariya from his head, from his being, he would do it.
Pierced by his Master's own Madness, bound to it as a drowning Man lashed to the mast of a foundering ship, he is neither one thing nor the other.
Neither a Knight nor a Berserker, but the terrible resident of some hinterland between.

He staggers under the sudden weight of his Armor-- only to find it vanished the next step he takes.
Now Arondight is in his hand and black shapes obscure his vision, black thoughts fill his mind, black deeds come to him in revolting images.
His Master's Pain and Torment flood his Soul. Unspeakable things seem to writhe beneath his skin, unaccountable Rage fills him to overflowing, and he screams.
HIs Sword and his Reason flicker in and out of being while what remains of Lancelot struggles, torn by his Master's despair.

Arthur...

Comments

[culbutiri]

Nesir blinked when she saw Lancelot, she hadn't spoken to him since their (on her part anonymous) conversation on the network, but he didn't seem well now and despite the fact she had decided she wasn't going to care about anyone in this tower, she couldn't help frowning and stepping towards him.

"Lancelot, what do be being wrong?"

[chevalier_mal_fet]

[He would have done better to hide himself away, but Berserker will not be argued with. Berserker will be obeyed.
He would have faded, had her pass him unseen-- but it is all he can do now not to rush past, his blade drawn, and take her Life to clear his path.

Arondight flickers in his grasp as Lancelot tries to Master himself. His own Glamours flare into and out of being-- himself as a living Knight, as a red-headed giant of a man, now as a maiden, now as a beast, now as any walking horror he has seen within the Tower, now as his Master, and now as his own self. Musch the worse for wear than usual, his hair hanging lank in his face, the sleeves of his jacket wet with blood to the elbow. He lurches where he stands.
He will try to warn her.

His voice is a rough thing that fights it's way out of his mouth-- a mouth that sounds somehow wrong, as if there are too many (or too large) teeth inside it.]

Leave me, Nesir--
you cannot aid me. I-- there is some mishap with my Master, with the Bond we share.

I am driven Mad with his Madness.
Flee, for I will Kill you.

Though-- I do not Wish to.

[culbutiri]

[She understands that, at least in the context of her world and the bonds between priests and their warriors. Something had happened, a madness that had bled over and Lancelot could not fight it.

If she was better herself she might try to calm him again, but she had an anger inside her, a madness, a need to rip and burn and destroy.]

Do no be fighting it, be embracing it and it will be burning itself out.

[She drew her daggers] I will be coming with you.

[chevalier_mal_fet]

[Never has Berserker had a companion. Madness is an isolating thing. It is a long moment before the Knight replies-- though when he speaks, he is more himself, at least momentarily.
He is tired. So tired.]

I do not know how you will do this-- for it has never been done.

No one is With Berserker. He is Alone. Commanded from Afar, always.
You risk yourself-- for no reason I can tell.

If I should turn on you-- take your Life--
it would be a Sorry deed, Nesir Aeser.

[culbutiri]

Not today he do no be. I do no be leaving a friend to be fighting alone. I can be fighting and if you do be killing me I will be returning, and I will no be blaming you, for you do no be being in control.

[chevalier_mal_fet]

I cannot Help myself-- or any Other.

My Master alone may end this-- but I am torn in seeking him, or Another.
[Arthur's death looms large in his Mind, lurid and strange in Berserker's vision. Lancelot shakes his head, the feeling of flames licking at the edges of his vision both horrifying and thrilling.]

So do what you may to aid me if you will. Clear my path, if you are Swift enough to run it. Friend.
For my Fate has overrun me.
[The White Knight of Old raises his head, all teeth and Mad eyes-- and in the next moment is gone beneath the shell of his Armor. Berserker is a terrifying sight. Red light glares from his Helm, and an unreal wind stirs the strange plume of it. The scourges that he bears trail behind him in the air like a veil.

He has no more Words, and may not speak-- only moves swift and terrible down the Hallway. Any he meets who stand before him, he will Kill.]

[culbutiri]

[Daggers glinted in her hands as she grinned at him, not speaking anymore, sensing that he was beyond that. She ran next to him, behind him, not as fast as he was but determined to keep her word and fight with him, taking down monsters or humans that stood in his way.]

[chevalier_mal_fet]

[For a Long, Dark, time they run on, he and the Girl.
She does not cross his path, which is good, for he could not stop himself now from mowing her down-- small and swift as she is.
Berserker seeks Arthur. Lancelot fights to reach his Master instead. In this way, at cross-purposes with himself, Lancelot, who is the Servant Berserker, seeks to exhaust and frustrate his own Madness. At time he succeeds, fleeing through remote sections of the Tower, Slaying what Abominations he finds there. At times he fails, filling the hallways with the sound of his Screaming, putting to the Sword those unfortunate enough to attempt to Stop him.
The Tower supplies him with endless Prana (energy)-- and Berserker is near impossible to Stop.

What there is of Lancelot is conscious of Nesir, of her pleasure in the Chaos, but he does not begrudge her. It brings him a little Joy yet to see her blades in motion, to know that though she fights for her own reason, she does so beside him.]