Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 12: Creepy Crawlies

"...Spells and prayer are not the only sources of power within Knights. Indeed, over time Knights may develop talents, powers bestowed through their blessing that present individualized abilities. Now the nature of each talent and its particular costs or benefits are a hotly debated topic, and it is often accompanied by the conversation of whether or not relying on spells or prayer in their place is a more effective strategy.

- Sir Oflux, The Merits Of Defunding Talent Development (293, 3rd Era)

[How strange.]

A current of lightning ran through Erec—his muscles spasmed as his body jerked awake. He gasped out in surprise, but the shock and terror of VAL forcibly waking him vanished in an instant.

Things weren’t right.

For one, Sir Boldwick decked himself out in his Armor and crouched near the crumbled wall towards the exit of their little campsite. He clutched his sword tightly. “Good instincts,” Boldwick said, not turning from his post. “It started a few minutes ago. I was observing and debating the best way to wake the group.”

Erec shook his head and clambered to his feet. Sun rays had just begun to sink in from the horizon, leaving the dusty room lit by a soft orange glow. His eyes prickled with a dull throb and watered from lack of sleep. Nonetheless, Erec pulled himself up and didn’t say a single word of complaint about VAL’s choice. No, Sir Boldwick no longer gave off the same relaxed demeanor he thrived in. There was a deadly stillness to his observation as he watched the exit like an animal with its haunches raised.

“What started?”

Sir Boldwick beckoned him closer, not turning his attention from whatever he was looking at outside their shelter. After walking over, it became apparent what the situation was.

Ringed around the building was an alarmingly massive swarm of the thrashing mites. Over two hundred of the disgusting palm-sized bugs gathered together to form a perfect perimeter around where they slept. More kept pouring in by the second.

In the back ranks, Erec spotted several much larger versions of the creatures—twelve appendages hung loosely at their sides, with thick, elongated trunk-like bodies. The skin on their back abdomen stretched thin enough to show off several hundred translucent eggs inside. Queens. But that made no sense? Even if this were a coordinated attack for revenge, why would the queens come along? Surely they’d find a deep and dark building to hide away in and rebuild their colonies.

Worse, there was an unnatural stillness to the insects. Those flailing appendages didn’t move an inch, whereas before, their limbs seemed to move at random. Each bug faced forward in perfect symmetry like a line of impossibly disciplined soldiers.

Even stranger was that more and more were pouring in to join the army arrayed against them. Far more than what should’ve been possible. Were there more colonies? Sir Boldwick never mentioned more, and he’d seemed light-hearted about the whole thing, meaning he didn’t take the thrashing mites for a severe threat. If he’d known they had these numbers, he would’ve reacted completely differently.

“They’ve never acted like this before,” Boldwick said. “I’m hesitant to make a sudden move, lest it triggers them. Go and quietly wake up the rest of the group and get everybody in their Armor.”

Not one to argue and keen to feel those protective, if rusty, metal plates between him and the army of insects outside of their door, Erec ran off to do just that.

One by one, Erec woke everyone, keeping them quiet and telling them to put their Armor on without explaining its need. To Colin, he told the boy to remain near the fire. He imagined seeing a nightmarish, otherworldly scene before he got his bearings would cause him to cry like a little girl again. Erec would prefer to be in his own set of Armor before any screaming or crying attracted attention.

His tone conveyed the situation well; before long, all of them geared up as discretely as they could manage. When Erec returned to Sir Boldwick’s side, the number of thrashing mites observing them had doubled.

The desolate cracked ground around the building was thick with the mites, as thick as overgrown underbrush. Still; quiet too. If you dropped a pin amongst the mite ranks, you would’ve heard it hit the ground. No chittering. No communication of any kind out there. They’d arrive from the town’s sides and alleys, crawl into the swarm and then sit. As still as statues.

“No, no, no—“ Colin began to mutter as he backed away, finally taking his first glance at the nightmare outside.

His voice was raising dangerously high; Boldwick’s grip tightened on his sword, and he shot a glance at Colin, but that did nothing. Erec saw the duke’s son shuddering beneath his light blue Armor.

“This is a nightmare—this isn’t real—“

“Colin, quiet,” Lyotte said from his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. “This may be bizarre behavior from the thrashing mites. But I assure you it is real. The last thing we want to do is provoke—“

“Get off me!” Colin slapped her hand away, “I n-need to—get out of here—t-that’s the only way—“ His chest puffed up, and he looked at the crowd of insects. “And the b-best way to do that is—“

Colin raised his hand. Erec saw what was about to happen before the idiot could start and launched himself at Colin, kicking up dirt as he pushed all of his power into a short burst of speed.

Red lines of a glyph began to form in front of Colin’s palm. Erec slammed a shoulder in the other boy and crashed them both into the ground as he tackled the idiot, fizzling out the spell.

Colin wasn’t giving up without a fight—one of his hands gripped Erec by the wrist, locking it in a steel-tight embrace as he began to give out a manic laugh. He’s lost his mind. “If you don’t get out of my way, I-I’ll burn you too—you’re just another bug!” His spare hand rose and formed a smaller glyph—a simple rune.

Which meant it was a faster spell. Erec desperately tried interrupt only for Colin’s hand to latch to his helmet. A second later the noble’s fingers ignited—glowing red. Steel gave way as the flaming digits dug into Erec’s shitty Armor like a hand through clay—heading right towards his face.

[Emergency helmet ejection engaged. This should prevent your face from being melted off. You may express your eternal gratitude later.]

The Markos II helmet shot off Erec’s head with a plume of smoke as the servos and locking mechanism at the neck strategically exploded through a simultaneous power overload. Colin gasped in surprise as the Markos II exhibited an emergency feature never seen before. Nor was it a feature that any engineer in their right mind would sink resources into. Primarily, they were more concerned with ensuring the helmet always stayed on so monsters didn’t rip your face off.

So it was that VAL bought him a couple of seconds of shock against his opponent.

Erec saw red. Anger. Not only had Colin frayed his nerves from the second of meeting this spoiled jackass—but here and now, when things were at their most dangerous? He’d been about to trigger the insects on them and get others potentially killed because he couldn’t keep his shit together. Not only that. He tried to kill me.

There was nothing but red, blood was in the water and the frenzy took over.

Before he knew what he was doing, Erec pulled his hatchet free from his Armor with his freehand. He yanked his arm being held by Colin upward in a surprising burst of strength—making a nice target of the asshole’s extended arm to aim the hatchet at. He swung with all the might he could throw into the blow.

Colin screamed in pain as an unexpected force dented his plate right at the elbow joint—biting into the metal and smashing against the arm beneath. Strength was Erec’s highest virtue. Where the Markos II held him back before, there didn’t seem to be anything standing between him and dishing out pain now. A fact that Colin was not prepared for. That, and being in a weak position in the struggle, meant that Erec would have complete control to unleash attacks.

But Erec wasn’t done. The hatchet flew back up as Colin released Erec’s arm. Erec swung the weapon down—the edge cracked into Colin’s helmet and smashed his head against the ground; the noble’s head bounced as the force of the blow rebounded off the dirt. Up went the edge of the hatchet again and then back down into the helmet.

It was durable and would take more to break through.

He managed to smash the edge of the hatchet into the helmet thrice in the span of a second before Garin tackled him from the side.

“Calm! Calm down!” Garin yelled at him; all attempts at keeping their volume long abandoned. Erec struggled against him, he wasn’t the one who started this fight, but he’d be the one to finish it. “You can’t do this—what are you thinking?”

[Wow. That’s an excessively high amount of testosterone and adrenaline. Far above regular limitations as specified by studies of human biology. Curious. Is this a natural evolution? You could take several bullets and not feel them. What is it like to have such a potent chemical cocktail running loose in your brain, I wonder?]

Erec took in a calming breath. Both the mechanical voice of VAL in his head and Garin’s desperate bid to keep him from making a major mistake took him off that ledge. I lost it again. He realized as his heart slowed.

That anger, he’d let it take control. He’d gone way too far. Sometimes that strength felt like another thing inside him, and when he gave way to it, he wasn’t quite a man. That was always the danger in letting loose, and before he’d known it, Colin provoked it out of him.

“Easy, easy now. It’s okay; the fight is over. Deep breaths.” Garin shook him, seeing that his friend was no longer putting up any resistance.

Garin got off him and extended a hand—helping Erec back to his feet.

His fingers began to shake beneath the steel gauntlets as the downside hit. The after-effects of losing control made it hard to keep himself steady. But he pushed through anyway; he’d fuck up and didn’t want anyone to worry about him and further derail their survival chances.

Sir Boldwick was looking in their direction, no longer concentrated on the insects outside at all. Lyotte stood next to him, equally as stunned.

Thankfully, Rodren had the presence of mind to act quickly.

The boy crouched next to Colin, shaking him. He removed the duke’s son’s helmet a second later, revealing the pale face beneath. Rodren swore and disengaged a gauntlet. His fingers pressed into the side of Colin’s neck, and he let out a sigh. “Alive. Knocked out, probably concussed.” Rodren rolled Colin onto his stomach with a grunt. “At least, I think so. I’d need to get out of my Armor and take a better look at his vitals.”

“Goddess above, he managed that in a set of loaner armor?” Boldwick shook his head. “Check Colin over. Make sure there are no other severe injuries. We can’t move through the thrashing mites like this, not that I was too sure of our chances of getting through unscathed with four greenhorns before. We’ve delayed long enough. I’m sending an emergency request.”

Rodren nodded and got to work. For a long minute, Boldwick stared at Erec without saying a word. He returned to watching the countless army of bugs surround them and began to speak into his radio.