Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 112: Sand Lice

Road’s been long, too long since I’ve seen my pack.

Think they’d forgive me if I fessed up and explained things?

Being out here without your family, with just your ride… Lonely, each problem makes you think it might be your last, and damn, it might be. Especially with those two relying on me.

But what kinda man would I be if I crawled back to them with a daughter in toe and a wife who’s gonna lead the Pendragon on a fucking warpath.

Damn it all.

Fuck it, I’m driving back to Vega tonight, maybe I’ll make it right, maybe I’ll give my head if I can’t.

-Yniol, Drunken Napkin Scribbles, (3rd Era, 290)

The first thought Erec had when the odd probable monster reached him was, Glorious. The second was: Wait, what? The third was, This has to be a joke.

It was apparent why the monster appeared as an odd formation of sand from the distance because they essentially were. A cloud of buzzing tiny dull colored insects. Confusing little light brown bugs with small glowing blue eyes. He caught one of the air and brought it close to his helmet to get a better look.

“Is this even a monster?” Erec asked in pure confusion, even as the swarm still circled, some of them latching onto his Armor, but the bulk still hoarding around in a ball.

[Yes. I’ve no reference to insects of this type.]

Erec squished the bug-monster between his fingers, and in an instant, the mass of insects formed together and whipped outward as a tendril, a pure group of clawing insects, and slammed into the side of his Armor. Erec flew across the wasteland and tumbled across the dirt.

[Whoa! Nearly similar to nanites. They linked together to transfer that force? Did I also trace anomalous energy—]

Erec clambered to a sitting position, his head still spinning as he stared at the cloud that’d once more dispersed into a more loose cloud.

[…Oh, that isn’t good.]

“We’ll just squad them,” Erec growled, his voice deepening as the fires of Fury lit. “It’ll be easy.”

[Not easy. This might be an enemy outside of your skill set. They’re already duplicating. It seems they’ve leached anomalous energy from your Armor by latching on to you. They are admirable little parasites and too small for you to out-kill their duplication. It might be best to call for help in this case.]

“No way.” Concede defeat to these bugs? Something he could squish with ease? “There has to be a way.” The fire burning inside demanded it.

[I doubt your ability to form a glyph in this state, but… How would you feel about an experiment in the name of science?]

Unease dripped through him since he knew what the machine would propose before it did.

[We could try that unknown power of yours. Soul, was it? Given what happened last time, I think it’d still be prudent to call an ally as a backup.]

Erec stared at the insects buzzing about with hate in his eyes; while he was far enough not to want to concede to such a demand, he wasn’t far enough to realize its necessity. Using an untrained ability, he didn’t even fully know how to access an unknown enemy alone was a recipe for death.

Even with Fury on full display, he wasn’t sure he could out kill these things.

Pathetic.

But it’d be even more pathetic if he failed here after being the one to instigate this all. Or if he’d end up dooming the relations between his people and these strangers. Being a scout meant keeping a level head and making the right call at the right time.

“I hate this,” Erec sighed, watching the dumb bugs—still swarming where they’d hit him. He counted down from ten in his head to cool off. He didn’t know if he’d test the new power, and as he began to calm down, the idea seemed absurd—but the need to tell Boldwick became more lodged in his head. After tonight, he’d finally ask the man and see if he had any advice.

As he reached three, a mad cackle of laughter tore through the air, followed by a beam of light piercing the cloud of monsters. Like snapping his fingers, a solid hole was left where those bugs were, accompanied by smoke.

Not too far away, a girl was sitting on a nearby bolder with an evil grin and a long gun braced on her shoulder. Wing blew her wild black hair loose as she took aim and shot off another beam of light at the insects, decimating more of them as if it were the most entertaining thing in the world.

She had no right to be there. There wasn’t any chance she’d managed to slip past him this entire time, not with VAL backing up his scouting—not unless something else was going on.

“Who the hell is she, and what in the name of the Goddess is that?”

[Light-Worth lasrifle. With many modifications, no doubt explaining how it lasted so long since product lifespan was never their strength. Procure it from her; I think we should take it apart.]

“Like what you see, tin-can? Maybe if you stopped gawking, you could come on over and play a little game.”

Erec watched the bugs swirl angrily around where they were, expanding outward in search of whatever had caused them damage. Others clumped together in the spaces where their swarm was decimated, trying to suck up the residual life force of their dead brethren. Or so he assumed. Whatever the case, he didn’t want them to find him easily. Erec got up and ran in the girl’s direction, only for her to laugh and let out another shot at the bug cloud behind him, aggravating them further.

He leaped onto the boulder, landing quickly next to the strange girl.

“Seen these before,” she snorted. “Dumb and annoying. But hungry little buggers that will eat any mana they get their hands on—get the right tool, and even a kid could clear’em. But that tool aint a load of bulky steel wrapped around you; glad you didn’t try casting a spell, though.”

Erec gave her a careful look; though she spoke to him, she only glanced at him once to give him a disapproving look. Otherwise, she kept her attention fixed on the enemy.

“You trailed me. How?”

There was nothing around them but pure wasteland. While there might be rocks like this, it seemed impossible for her to follow them for so long. And Erec knew she was from the pack of those people, as he’d seen her mingling among them while he’d talked to Yniol.

“Pfft, what if I told you not to sweat the boring stuff? Makes life less fun. Point is, I am here now, and we can play a game together. Brighten the night up a bit.” She smiled easily—before firing off her laser for the fourth time, meeting Erec’s eyes. This shot went wide, hitting the sand and turning it into a thin sheet of glass, along with some stray bugs. She started cackling again, putting a hand over her head, “Hit. Without looking! You saw that, right?” By now, only two-thirds of the original bug mass remained.

What had been a substantial threat before… Was made easy by her and this confusing situation.

“C’mon, tin can. Let's get to it.”

Erec lowered himself next to her, still feeling off about the whole situation and the whiplash from threat to a game, but her not exactly calm but confident demeanor settled him a bit. “Alright, I’ll play your game. What exactly are the terms?”

“Mhmm. Goal is to murder the bugs. You’ve shot a gun before, right? Maybe not one of these bad boys, but with steel like that…” she shook her head as if it were natural for people from the Kingdom to touch a gun. But, oddly, in an annoying way, she was right. He had. “Whoever kills more wins. We set our bet now… Let's see if I win…. How about you let me see that helmet of yours.”

[Rifle. Demand to keep the rifle.]

“If I win, you tell me how you managed to follow me all the way out without spotting you.” VAL might sulk about it, but Erec felt it was related to a Divine Talent—and whatever gave that girl her ability might interest Boldwick.

“Deal’s a deal. Shake on it? Since it’s a proper bet, you gotta honor it right.”

Erec met her hand, careful not to grip too hard with the steel gauntlet. Compared to his Armor, her hand was tiny; but she treated this whole thing as if it were the most natural thing in the world. After their shake, she practically forced the lasrifle into his hands.

[Oooooh.]

VAL was buzzing with excitement that Erec tried his best to ignore. Instead, he focused on staring down the barrel of this foreign weapon. A weapon that’d get him exiled. Aiming it usually couldn’t have been simple, but then he’d had an advantage she could’ve never predicted. Even as VAL gushed over the specs, the Q.A.P. ran and projected the movements of the insects—even highlighting the path his laser would travel and making micro-adjustments to aim his shot to land at the best possible point of the insect’s mass.

It may have been considered cheating. But VAL, the Q.A.P, and his Armor were the tools he came into the competition with. Not using them was a handicap, and he didn’t owe this girl a fair game.

Erec took his shot, and the streak of red light seared the bugs into smoke.

“Whoooa.” She clapped and laughed. “Damn, better than I thought. Maybe I’ll call you gunslinger, slick. Dunno if even I could’ve kept it that steady. In that Armor, huh, or are you just that skilled?”

“Luck and a bit of the Armor.” Erec partially lied, trying to hand the gun back to her, much to the protesting of VAL.

She scrunched her nose at him and slowly shook her head, her smile deepening. “Mhmm. No thanks. Why don’t you hang on to that a bit for me, gunslinger? I’m itching for something a bit more fun.”

What?

She reached into the bag haphazardly slung on her side and yanked free a rusted metal can with welded metal on either side.

[By Dan, she was carrying around a homemade explosive?!]

“This is where the real fun is,” She yelled, springing to her feet and whipping the metal can through the air, landing right in the middle of the bugs.

Immediately after it smashed the ground, there was a loud bang and a flood of light. It felt like a spell. It looked like a spell and was more potent than the Seven-Snakes gun. With that ball of flame, very few bugs remained. If it weren’t for VAL highlighting them, Erec wouldn’t have seen the survivors fleeing into the wasteland.

“Way too long since I did that. God, I missed it.” She said, still looking at her explosion's crater in the landscape. “What would you rate it? Outta ten? I'd lean towards six—tried something new in the mix to speed up ignition on impact, but I don’t think it fully combusted.”

Erec blinked, a white sear still in his vision from the sudden glow of her explosive. The girl went on gleefully about the sound was good, at least, then onward about her theories for adding copper sulfate to the mixture since ‘blue explosions will have a greater shock value and cool factor,’

She was mad.

Suddenly she cut herself off, swiveling on her feet and settling those piercing gold and brown eyes on him. She held out a hand, a sly grin on her face. “Well, gunslinger, gonna let me see that helmet of yours?”