Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 140: Viva Las Vega

While it’s not uncommon for spur-of-the-moment marriages in Vega, I strongly recommend against it. A lot of the youth these days are treating it with too much ease.

Sure, if you split up and throw your ring away, who’s going to hold you accountable for your choices?

But marriage is one of the last links to the world before ours. A promise of commitment to a partner that shows your devotion. For the young, it's hard to imagine such a lasting and tenuous relationship, since marriage is never easy. But that, more than anything, is a reason to treasure such a commitment and hold it to a higher standard.

Regardless of whether the Magi care to enforce or even track the numerous alcohol-induced ceremonies on the strip.

-Davis Harrington, Sanctity Of Marriage, (304, 3rd Era)

“Viva Vega,” Rochester cheered—a bottle raised to the sky. Erec lifted his own; careful to handle the glass with his steel gauntlet. Apply too much Strength, and it’d shatter. But then, he supposed, even without Armor he’d have the same problem.

For the foreseeable future, they’d be wearing it around the clock. Paranoia about the captured thugs, and overall safety necessitated it. He’d loosened the restrictions after getting to know the Pendragons, but now things changed. Despite all of that, he allowed the expedition party through to Rift to attend and take the night off for Rochester’s celebration.

He’d made it mandatory, in fact.

Erec set the bottle on his lips, the sweet rush of bubbles and tang of citric in the beer refreshing. The buzz barely went down before a heavy arm landed on his shoulder. Even with the Armor, he felt himself shake. Erec looked over at the mountain of a boy from the soccer match.

When he’d first seen him on that field, he’d thought they were an obvious match-up. The boy even had a couple of inches on him, but… Well, he’d lacked when compared to Erec. His Strength Virtue might have been higher, but when Fury got into the mix, it hadn’t been a contest at all. Erec frowned and tried to hide the expression.

“Good, isn’t it?” the boy asked, already slurring. Rochester’s kickoff to the party was a bit late, and some of the Pendragons already had a couple of hour’s lead in the drinking.

“Yeah, don’t have anything like it back home…” Erec said. Where was this going? Maybe there wasn’t an ulterior motive to it at all. A lot of the Pendragons were, frankly, more friendly than the Knights. Time and time again, he had to remind himself to feel comfortable with it.

“Finally snogged Enide, huh?”

Erec flushed. That was why he’d come to talk. “How did you—“

“S’okay brother! Word gets around in the family like that,” he snapped his fingers. “You two going to have a good time together in Vega? Maybe you’ll get hitched? Hear it’s an old-world tradition.”

“I’ve never been there before,” Erec said, “And me and Enide are getting to know one another. Not ‘hitched’, whatever that means.”

“Means married, you tin-cans do that, don’t you?”

“We do—oftentimes for the nobility it’s an agreement you get no say in. That’s hardly something I’ve had to worry about, since I don’t believe our father ever intended a political marriage. Nor do I intend to marry anyone anytime soon,” Erec said, cutting off that discussion. For Goddess’ sake, were these people as bad as Olivia? Things couldn’t work out between him and Enide, in the end. He knew it, and while they hadn’t had the time to talk it through, he was sure that she did, too.

For now, he intended to follow his heart. Let it lead him where it could, for as long as he could. Before reality crashed in and tore them in two different directions. Erec’s attention sunk to his bottle. Needing no further encouragement other than that sad thought, he tipped it back and took another warming mouthful of liquid courage.

“Dunno, you haven’t been to Vega. Something to the air there, the people there. Don’t beat around bush, they cut straight to it. Might be surprised what you agree to do in Vega.” he let out a long sigh. “Been too long. Sure you’ll have fun.”

“I’m sure of it too.” If nothing else, it was another place to explore, another series of moments to add to his memories of the world outside of the walls. He’d expected nothing but death, and while there was plenty of that, these people, it was far greater than he could’ve imagined…

Erec smiled, watching the fire burn and drinking a bit more with the stranger.

Only, by the end of the next couple of hours, they weren’t strangers anymore. He learned the boy’s name was Mark.

It was nice to form another bond with the Pendragons. Aside from Corey, the only people he mostly spoke to were Yniol and Enide. When he’d first met everyone, with all the fresh names, none of them stuck. Now it seemed a bit too awkward to ask them to repeat it.

“One last thing,” Mark finished his fourth with Erec, demanding he ‘waterfall it,’ with him. Which comprised chugging the thing pretty much all the way down. By now, Erec’s skin was feeling numb, and his head floaty. “Might wanna avoid Yniol for a bit, he’s uh… Protective.” Mark snickered and then left.

With that ominous warning, Erec decided it was time to take a breather.

Drifting around the campfires of the Pendragons, he wondered if this is what it felt like to be Enide. Half a dozen voices called after him, asking for him to stay and join them. But he let the wind take him, flowing in and out of attention. This was the kind of life he could live easily. These people were filled with warmth and honesty; they celebrated their victory as it deserved. It didn’t matter who it was against, only that their family prevailed and survived. All that remained was the straightforward part, getting to Vega.

None of them were heroes; didn’t see it that way. There wasn’t a reward for a single person. All of their actions were to the benefit of one another and their family.

[Let’s take some time for a meeting.]

Erec stared at the fires all around and considered his options. VAL had a sense of urgency that it rarely had, and though had been drinking, he conceded. He went back to the building the Knights claimed and told the couple of people who tried to stop him for a chat that he intended to do a bit more work on his Armor. A simple lie. One that nobody could question.

Then, he found a tucked away room, far away from the bedroom in case anyone stopped in for supplies.

“What’s wrong?”

[Our priorities have shifted.]

“Are you talking about this expedition?”

[No. buckeroo, I’ve been looking through the scrubbed data present on the military facility. That Rift they opened was operating for three years before the ‘end of the world,’]

That… Well, Erec wasn’t too sure what to think about that information. Everyone knew the Rifts opened after the Goddess’ silver flames bathed the earth. She’d burned them with her silver fire to protect them and give them a chance against the monsters that would come. Or so they said. That was almost definitely a lie, but he hadn’t considered the weight of what they’d discovered. An operating Rift in an old-world facility?

“VAL, I have no idea what this even means. Do you know how they managed it? What were they trying to do?”

[I said so already. They derived their designs from Vortex Industries’ intellectual properties—I wasn’t privileged with a lot of the data and research designs in our subspace initiative, but I could recognize the similarities. Our priorities have shifted. That girl, Enide, mentioned one of our facilities. Based on my knowledge of our company resources, I believe there to be another active Artificial Intelligence there. One who has access to a lot more of our subspace data.]

“…You want us to go with them to that vault, too?”

[Based on my analysis, I predict it’ll be paramount to drawing a complete conclusion on the state of the world and how these Rifts function.]

“Fuck,” Erec rubbed his forehead. Both the booze and the rush of information and its implications spun him in circles. The old-world government had opened a Rift. If they stole the tech from Vortex Industries, it wasn’t a stretch to think that they could, too. And if they did that before the end of the world, and that’s what caused the Goddess to come and burn them up?

There was too much there lined up together to ignore.

“VAL, did your company end the world?” Erec said carefully, his teeth clenched and his heart racing.

[No. Your Goddess did so with fire. We both witnessed that, however, I believe it is in our best interest to investigate whatever research we have on the matter, as it appears to predate that world-ending event. Perhaps we can find a solution to these Rifts once and for all.]

“So you really believe there’s something there that might get rid of the Rifts? What, you want to save the world?” Erec asked, flabbergasted. It seemed impossible, and the association they now had with the Rifts was…

[Stability is good for research. I’m not suggesting that the result will be ‘saving the world,’ but it’s impossible to say what we may or may not accomplish when applying the correct methods. I chose that conclusion to suitably motivate you, since doing so may mean parting with your home for good. By all indications, Boldwick will not be sticking with the Pendragons forever. Observe. Think about it. And know that whatever is in that facility likely holds a bigger benefit for us than anyone else in this world.]

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