Chapter 3: Lancer and Berserker

Night had fallen.

At last, the promised hour had come. It was the time for hordes of lowlife teenagers with nothing better to do in life to gather, like moths to a flame, to the local nightclub. Dancing, bright lights, girls and good food-everything they could possibly want was there.

In the middle of the crowd of dancers, a young man with messy light blond hair, a monkey's tail, and an inexplicable fear of wearing a shirt made his way through the chaos, winking and waving at familiar faces. He walked over to the corner of the club, where a boy with blue hair and nerdy-looking goggles stood awkwardly, sticking out like a sore thumb.

"Man, looking good, Sun," the nerd grinned at him. "And I thought I was popular with the ladies."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, nerd." Sun Wukong smirked, tossing him a hot dog.

"Hey, hey, it's 'intellectual!' We went over this, dude!" The intellectual corrected him obnoxiously.

Ignoring him, Sun popped his burger into his mouth. "So," he mumbled with his mouth full. "How about you come clean about who you are, huh?"

"Heeey, c'mon, man. No need to sound hostile! Okay, I'm Lancer, alright?" Lancer threw his hands up and grinned awkwardly, trying (and failing) to look charming. "Well, actually, that's kinda my code name, y'know? My real name's Neptune. Neptune Vasilias, and I come from an another dimension, where Remnant looks, like, WAY different, and there are these things called Grimm, and-"

Sun scowled suspiciously at Lancer, wondering if he was being made fun of. "O-o-okay, dude. First of all, you lost me at "another dimension", and you still haven't explained how you appeared the hell outta nowhere and ruined my date."

"What, shouldn't you at least know that? You summoned me here, didn't you?" Lancer asked.

"I thought that stupid book was a hoax! Me and that fine lady, we just decided to read out that crazy voodoo chant-thing for some laughs, and next thing I know, half my damn room's underwater, there's a nerd with horrible fashion sense sitting on my bed, and I'll probably never see that girl again because she thinks I'm an evil wizard or some shit!"

Lancer sighed, twirling the tip of his sea-blue hair. "Okay, I guess I can see why you're pissed. Losing a babe like that's a bad day in my book, too." He grinned at Sun. "You know, the Remnant I come from, we're like best friends! You're a Faunus there, too."

"That's good to hear," Sun smiled. The human-monkey hybrid swung around his long tail playfully. "Even other worlds can't take away this beautiful thing, baby."

He looked back at Lancer, whose gaze had wandered over to a small gathering of rabbit Faunus girls dancing to the side of the club. "So, you said you're…a Servant, right?"

"Damn right I am! A bona-fide Servant of the Holy Grail!" Grinning from ear-to-ear, Lancer pulled out a fancy looking rifle from his back. With a quick shake, it extended into a large trident, emanating sparks of bright blue-energy. "Won't find a better fighter than me anywhere in this world!"

A flurry of gasps rang out from several observers. "Hey, hey, whoa!" Sun waved frantically at his Servant. "Put that thing away, man! Don't draw attention to yourself like that!"

"Okay, okay, geez!" Lancer quickly retracted his weapon and put it away. The club-goers stared at him for a few moments, but thanks to the mercy of teenage short attention spans, they soon went back to minding their own business.

"That was close," Sun sighed.

Lancer scowled, looking around in embarrassment. "Hey, if you didn't want to attract attention, there are better places to hide out than a nightclub."

'Uh-uh, amateur," Sun wagged his finger condescendingly. "Classic tactic. No one will notice you in a crowd…UNLESS you've got a crazy alien weapon-thing and you're, well, dumb."

"Alright, fine, I'll let that one slide, pal." Lancer put his hands up in surrender.

"Also…" Sun held out his hand. On the back was a red sigil, drawn in the shape of an eclipsed moon. "Mind explaining what this tattoo thing is?"

Lancer shrugged. "What, your Command Seals? That just shows you're my Master. All the others should have them appear on their body soon after they summon their Servant. You can use them to make me do stuff. Servants can't refuse an order given by a Command Seal."

"Seriously? Now that's friggin' cool." Sun glanced at his Seals approvingly. "So that means I can command you to do all my chores and buy me burgers whenever I feel like it, huh? Sweet!" He raised his arm.

"H-hey, whoa, not so fast!" Lancer panicked. "The Commands only work like, three times, so you're not supposed to waste them, y'know? Use them, like, when you need to get out of a tough fight or something."

"Ugh. There always has to be some dumb condition to this sorta thing," Sun sighed. He shot a more serious glance at his Servant. "So, about this Holy Grail War-"

Suddenly, sirens broke out into the night. Several people screamed. Outside the nightclub, a veritable convoy of police cars rushed past down the streets. It was practically a small army, and the shouts of the officers and cops could even be heard over the alarms.

"Whoa," Lancer muttered. "Wonder who they're after. Must be something huge."

"Hopefully, it's not us," Sun said jokingly. "So, then, Neptune Vasili-whatever, you said you know about some ancient artifact that's here in Vale, right? This thing that can grant any wish?"

"That's right, the Holy Grail. We're gonna have to fight quite a few people if we want it, though. Could be dangerous. Could, uh, get us both killed. Messily."

Sun smiled. "Tell me more."

"Huff, huff…" The unfortunate thief panted as he ran through the park, avoiding his pursuers.

"Roman Torchwick! Surrender now!" The police officer's voice rang through the megaphone. "You are under arrest for larceny!"

Well, well, at least they know who I am. I'm touched, Roman thought sarcastically as he continued to run, clutching the sack in his hands. The source of all his misfortune.

It was just his luck. He decided to rob ONE house tonight, and it turned out to have some secret high-alert mumbo jumbo that belonged to the visiting general of the whole damn military, the entirety of which he was fairly certain was on his heels right now.

"Afraid I'm going to have to decline your invitation!" he sneered, tossing a smoke bomb back in their direction. Hearing the explosion and the subsequent screams of confusion and anger, he quickly took advantage of the diversion and escaped. Or at least, tried to.

"That is quite enough, criminal." That stern, stereotypically-military voice resonated from a sturdily-built middle aged man descending via a police chopper, blocking Roman's escape route. "Hand over what you stole from me and I, General Ironwood of the Atlesian military, promise you will have a lowered sentence."

Oh, fuck me. "How generous," he smiled through gritted teeth. "But if there's one thing I've learned from my time in the underworld, it's that the more people try to protect something, the more valuable it is. So sorry, I'm holding on to this." Stealthily, he reached for his pistol in his pocket.

"I see. Then I am sorry too," General Ironwood said grimly. He nodded to his pilot. "Take him out."

"Yes, sir." The chopper rose into the air, and turned its mounted machine guns straight at Roman. "Fire!" Wait, what?! Roman thought.

A shower of bullets pierced the night as Roman ran for his life, panicking as he clutched that miserable sack ever more tightly. This thing better be worth millions of bucks if they're willing to shoot me over it, he thought furiously, throwing down another smoke bomb as gunfire barely missed his head. Once he was sure he'd put enough distance between himself and his pursuers, he quickly hid behind a nearby tree and opened his sack. "Okay, you little shit," he muttered, opening the sack. "Let's see exactly how much you're worth." He reached in and pulled out…a book.

A book? Incredulous, Roman looked inside. The sack was filled with nothing but old-looking, yellow-paged books, most of which were already falling apart, their pages scattered and torn up. There was no gold, no diamond necklace, not even any top-secret military plans for a weapon of mass destruction.

That's it?! Roman was flabbergasted. The military and the police were trying to murder him over a bunch of stupid books? Was this his punishment for flunking out of literature in middle school?

He flipped through some of the books, and noticed that they were all about the same thing: something about a 'Holy Grail' and 'Servants'.

The Holy Grail: the shining miracle of civilizations, hidden from the world.

When in the hands of those less worthy, the Holy Grail shall bring ruin and oblivion to the House of Man.

The Servants, warriors of the other worlds, shall open the gates to the Grail.

If thou wishes to become the champion of the Grail, recite this prayer to the emblem that connects worlds…

"What the hell is this crap?" Roman muttered, holding the last book in his hands. It was clearly older than any of the other tomes in the sack, yet it seemed virtually unscathed. Beneath the text on the last page was some sort of cult-like sigil, accompanied with what appeared to be some kind of prayer. A Holy Grail? Ancient warriors called Servants? Why would a general have something like this…?

"I see him, he's over there near the forest!"

Roman swore. Tch. Whatever. I might still be able to do something with these piles of junk. He grabbed the sack and kept running. He ran until he felt his lungs would give out, but it wasn't long before he hit a dead end. An enormous barbed-wire fence blocked his escape, and the police cars quickly surrounded him from all other directions. Oh, shit…

"You have nowhere to go!" An officer announced, stating the blatantly obvious. "Surrender now, and you'll get a quick death!"

Well, it looked like this was it for him. He'd had a good run, and hopefully he'd made enough cash to keep his crime buddies back in Vacuo going. He supposed there were worse ways to go. Unless…

As if in a trance, Roman opened to ancient tome and turned it, once more, to the last page. Under any other circumstances, he wouldn't even have bothered with magical hocus-pocus like this, but desperation often drives man to do things he never thought he would. He closed his eyes. Hey, uh, God? If you exist, I guess I'm sorry for being a miserable excuse of a human being, but I could really use a bit of divine intervention right now. Just once, okay? In the name of the father, the son, Amen, and all that. He quietly muttered the inscribed prayer.

"What's he doing?" The officer muttered. "Stop him!" Ironwood yelled, his chopper descending to join the rest of the police. "Fire, NOW!"

"Yes, sir!" The cops are aimed their guns at Roman and fired.

Suddenly, the area around Roman was enveloped in a bright light, disintegrating all the bullets at once. "What in the…" he gasped, dropping the tome in shock. It seemed he was still alive, but he couldn't believe what had just happened.

When the light faded, a young girl stood where the book had been a moment ago. She was unusually short, probably at least a head shorter than him. She had light brown hair with pink accents, and wore a classy white vest that looked very similar to his. She held a frilly umbrella in her right hand. Who is that…?

Several cops yelled in shock. "Wh-where did that girl come from?"

"The Berserker-class Servant…!" the general shouted. "Damn it! Subdue them both!"

The girl turned to Roman and smiled. Roman noted that she had heterochromia-she had one brown eye and one eye that was pink. She winked at him, and promptly charged at the cops with inhuman speed, holding her umbrella out in front of her. They opened fire, but they simply bounced off of the umbrella's surface.

Breaking out into a sadistic grin, the girl slaughtered all the cops effortlessly. She snapped one poor man's neck with a kick, while simultaneously skewering another on her umbrella. Even at point-blank range, she dodged all their bullets like it was nothing. Casually avoiding an officer's gunfire, she swiftly snatched his rifle from his hands and gunned down his entire squad within seconds. In less than a minute, all her enemies had been completely obliterated.

"G-geez…" Putting aside for a moment the question of where the hell this girl had come from, Roman had to admire how great of a fighter she was, especially with an umbrella of all things.

Suddenly, he heard a sound from above. Looking above, he saw General Ironwood escaping in his chopper. In his hands, he held a rocket launcher.

The girl had noticed it too, and quickly jumped back to defend Roman, holding out her umbrella defensively. Ironwood fired the destructive projectile. Is that thing seriously going to block a rocket? Roman thought.

The rocket struck the umbrella with a deafening explosion, but sure enough, Roman and the girl were unharmed. When the smoke cleared, Ironwood and his chopper had already flown out of sight.

Roman collapsed to the ground, his exhaustion finally overtaking him. "Well then," he gasped, "I've been through some ridiculous things before, but tonight might be a new low for me." He frowned at the mystery girl. "Alright, miss, who the hell are you?"

The girl simply cocked her head to the side in confusion. She did not say a word. Is she mute?

Roman changed the topic slightly. "Now as for your name, that unsavoury general called you Berserker, right? Not the best name for an adorable girl like you, in my opinion."

Berserker smiled at the compliment. She looked lost in thought for a moment, then clasped her hands together, eyes lighting up. She pulled a small marker out of her pocket and ran over to Roman, grabbing his left hand. In childish scribbles, she wrote a single word:

NEO

"Neo, eh?" Roman muttered. "Like the ice cream? Well the name certainly suits you, at least. Neo it is, then."

Berserker-or Neo, as Roman was to call her from that moment onward-smiled again, and jumped up and down happily. It was certainly difficult to believe this was the same girl who'd slaughtered all those cops a minute ago. Speaking of which, Roman decided it was best to clear out before anyone stumbled upon the bodies.

"Alright, Neo, we should go now," Roman said, trying to sound like a gentleman. He didn't have much experience with it. "I've got a hideout in the city we can-"

Berserker shook her head, and pointed to a building in the distance. It was a Pizza Pizza. "Oh come now," Roman grumbled. "I'm not your daddy, you know…"

"…" The girl just gazed at him sadly with those heterochromatic puppy-dog eyes.

Roman surrendered. "Alright, then, but just once," he sighed. Reaching into his pocket to make sure he had some loose change with him, he smiled slightly at his new acquaintance. "Why don't we discuss more about you over some pizza? I have a feeling we've got quite a bit to talk about."