I appreciate the way this scene cuts to the chase, as our heroes figure out a new combo attack before the fight even gets started. As they did with Harky, they recognize the opponent they’re facing is not normal and they have to raise their game even to have a chance against him.

It pretty much had to go this way if we wanted Byron to confront this different flavor of berserker, not ruin later developments (see below), and also not just back off and let Frigg do it. This also gives Syr’Nj a solid role in the fight, which (spoiler) somewhat balances out how early she’s going to be taken out of it.

I don’t remember for sure if “Byron suppresses his suppressant to face this other kinda-sorta berserker” was ever in our outline, and it’s in character for him for reasons Syr’Nj gets into. But one way or another, I’m glad we didn’t go for it. The prospect of Byron berserking needed to be unblemished in its horror if Chapter 36 was going to work (and we already knew by now how that one was going to shape up, more or less).