Knights Apocalyptica

“Through every generation of the human race there has been a constant war, a war with fear. Those who have the courage to conquer it are made free and those who are conquered by it are made to suffer until they have the courage to defeat it, or death takes them.”

- Alexander The Great, (Unknown, 1st Era)

Erec and Robin broke into the light of the day; only a few dusty clouds rolling by marred the tired, pale blue sky above. The roof of the building was bare, aside from a series of air conditioners loitering on one end that hadn’t functioned for hundreds of years.

Dominating the roof was a massive black spider-like creature with fifty of those sleek metal bugs clinging to it, their pincers biting into its flesh.

The spider didn’t care about the bugs. It didn’t care that a crew of humans burst onto the roof, either. No. It was far too busy focusing on half of a metal man splayed out underneath it.

Wires and circuits hung loosely from the dismembered torso of the poor thing. Sparks burst as a thick black spider leg slammed into one of its arms and pinned it to the ground.

“What the hell?” Alister asked, only a second behind Dame Robin and Erec.

“Stalker,” She answered, watching as it hunched closer to the metal man. Its body lowered; instead of a typical spider body, the entire bottom half of the creature appeared to be missing. That’s because in its place was a giant gaping maw, a hundred sharpened teeth flexing as it lowered itself to consume the metal man, something completely inedible. “…That’s not a stalker’s typical diet, either.”

Erec didn’t care. There was a single obvious target to attack, so he flung himself forward.

Robin yanked him back by the shoulder, tossing him back through the door in an even more fierce burst of speed and power she’d restrained from before. He crashed down a flight of stairs, missing Olivia and Garin. The pasty remains of the insects further coated his Armor as he tumbled down the staircase. Thankfully, it provided enough protection to withstand the tumble.

Erec growled as Colin looked down at him; the last in the group and the one still attempting to maintain the ice wall on the fourth floor.

He’d considered breaking it when the boy had pulled that trick, but the boy had said more enemies would be above. And now he’d been removed from that fight.

Alister hopped down the stairs—his Armor crashing into the staircase and collapsing part of the bottom stair into rubble as he looked at Erec, then back up his shoulder.

“Uh, I’m going to need you to stay here,” He said delicately. “How about you kill some stray metal bugs for now?”

Was this a challenge?

Erec hesitated; the fire raging inside demanded he climb back up and kill the creature he'd marked at his, yet it also questioned this. This man had thrown himself in front of Erec. He dared to stand directly in Erec's path. Some part of him, far away, screamed at him not to attack, to not accept this thrown declaration of war and see who was the strongest. And for that reason, he was torn.

Thank the Goddess; the buzzing voice pushed him to a decision.

[Get to the android.]

It meant the metal man above.

Which meant this man had thrown himself into his path and obstructed his goal. That made this man an enemy, someone to take down.

Erec swung the war axe at the human in front of him. Two blades caught the axe as the man let out a quick ‘fuck.’ Erec pushed against the blades, yet they pushed back. Even as he pulled on more Strength and let the fury blaze. A third blade came at him from the side, targeting his head. He was forced to pull back; he leaped to gain a small distance.

There was a twitching corpse of a bug next to him. He thwacked the war axe into its body—letting the bug’s body temporarily hold the weapon as he yanked the hatchets off his sides.

He whipped one through the air, forcing his challenger into the defensive as he had to maneuver a sword around to deflect the hatchet.

“Erec, what the hell?!” One of the people called from above as the weapon clanged against the railing near them.

There wasn’t time for hesitation. Erec grabbed the war axe with a single hand; his Strength letting him hoist the weapon and rush forward. The body of the bug still firmly split and stuck to the edge. Perfect.

He led his charge with a swing of the hatchet, one of the swords deflecting the smaller weapon.

The biggest issue was distance and opportunities’ for a clean blow. This enemy had too many weapons, and the tendrils of crackling lightening let them manipulate the swords with a high degree of flexibility.

Erec adjust his grip on the war axe, before racheting it forward.

It wasn’t a blow meant to hit.

His enemy naturally reacted and blocked the blow; yet Erec let the grip slip further up as the axe swung through the air. The blade caught his war axe against the neck, and brought the weapon to a sudden and abrupt stop.

The halt in momentum, and angle of the attack was enough to cause the bug corpse hanging off the edge to fly right past the enemies’ guard and into his face.

When the enemy didn’t have openings, he’d claw one open.

Hell broke loose in a split second.

Erec dropped the war axe, and sprang forward, cracking the cement from where he pushed off the ground in a burst of power. His shoulder rammed into the man as he tackled him.

He adjusted quick; and smashed the hatchet into the enemies’ helmet. Once. Twice—

A sword caught him by surprise on the side, followed by much more power than he thought this man capable of. He flew off the man and cracked against the wall; a dull throbbing hit him as the buzzing in his head alerted him about the Armor condition.

Erec pulled himself to his feet.

The enemy was sitting on his ass, looking in Erec’s direction.

“Holy shit. When Boldwick said you could throw a punch when you got going, he wasn’t kidding. I saw what you could do with the lizards—but how the hell was that nearing my level?” his challenger asked.

Erec growled, hatchet still in his hand.

[Upstairs. Ignore him!]

All of these commands. Just when the metal voice told him to accept the challenge, it wanted him to break off from it?

Couldn’t it make up its damn mind?

And that other annoying voice in him, calling for him to stop. It pissed him off.

This fight would be over soon enough anyway.

“Help!” A woman’s voice called from upstairs. Alister looked at Erec, then back up the staircase. He sighed and jumped to his feet—before taking off.

He didn’t get to flee that easily; Erec charged behind him. The rest of the people on the staircase had reached the roof, including the boy who had sealed him off from fighting the metal bugs.

Erec and Alister burst onto the roof and joined everyone once more beneath the pale blue sky.

Robin weaved in and out between the long hairy spider legs—dodging the stabs as she moved in a blur of metal; serrated edges lined her arms as her entire body morphed. She’d become one with her Armor; she tore chunks out of the fleshy creature above, yet it didn’t make any noise of pain. It was dead quiet, attacking her only because she’d separated it from the metal man.

It couldn’t land a single blow.

It wasn’t Robin calling for help. No. On the far side of the building, a wave of metallic insects was pulling themselves up the roof's edge.

Olivia and Garin desperately fended off the metal wave—and Colin lurked behind them, occasionally releasing a gout of flame.

The bugs were a veritable wave, growing and even worse than the swarm on the staircase. They’d poked the nest, and the insects retaliated after waking up, crawling up the side of the building to reach their enemies.

Alister threw himself into the fight to help out the rest of the humans. Those blades of his got to work and chopped apart metal and bugs.

Chaos warred on the rooftop. Purple viscera flew everywhere as they murdered bugs. On the other end, Robin flowed between the spider legs like a stream of liquid metal, dodging hits by half a second and rolling away from blows Erec would’ve never been able to handle.

Battle everywhere. War that called and tugged him in every direction.

The metal man crawled across the ground with a single arm; a black trail streaked behind him. Its head raised and met Erec’s eyes; the pupils glowed a deep purple before it redoubled its efforts to reach him.

Where?

Where would he take his axe first? The spider? The challenger? The insects?

[Secure the android]

—Erec’s hand shook where it clenched the hatchet. That voice in the back of his echoed what the buzzing said. Louder even, now that it’d taken hold of him.

It yelled at him to do what the machine said. He scowled underneath the helmet as that hot anger flared out in a twisting inferno, bellowing since it demanded more blood and fighting.

A cold fire sprang up to contend.

The two found a temporary balance as they fought one another.

Erec sprinted to the android and yanked the thing away from the fighting. His body twitched and shook as the two sides warred within.

A couple of seconds later, he dragged it away from the fighting. Far enough to be safe. But his insides burned, and the temporary control was rapidly ending.

The metal man mouthed something; a synthetic voice carried through the air. "VAL? You came. Thank you."

Erec's tongue was heavy in his mouth, unable to form a response. It was a miracle he hadn't already left the hunk of scrap metal so he could get into the fray again. It was like his head was being split open as the fires clashed.

"Unit requires patch job—"the android begged.

Erec squatted next to the thing, fighting to stay in position. Should he find a way to keep it going long enough for the fighting to end? Could he even manage that in the time he had?

His Armor moved of its own accord—dragging his arm inside with it. He was too surprised to resist. Without warning, Erec's hand shot through the android's chest; there was a flash of red light as his hand penetrated its core. Erec's eyes went wide.

He hadn't done that.

Neither half of him had made the call to kill this thing.

VAL had.

Streaks of red light flashed through the metal man’s interior—before the light retreated inside the Vallum Armor.

[Well done, Buckeroo! Data successfully obtained. Get back to fighting! Join your allies fighting the silvery insects; leave the big spider to that woman!]

Erec stared at his hand still lodged in the caved-in chest cavity of this metal thing that resembled a man. The thing that he’d risked his friends and himself to get to. His body shook in the Armor as the hot anger surged back in uncontrolled fury. The inferno was stoked by this act of violence—of not understanding the purpose, had he been used?

Something needed to die.

Erec charged into the metallic creatures, screaming as red filled his vision.

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