Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 180: Human Resources

“WELCOME TO VORTEX INDUSTRIES.

HERE YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE CUTTING EDGE OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH. VORTEX INDUSTRIES WAS FOUNDED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF BOUNDLESS SCIENCE. NO DOUBT, AS A CHILD, YOU HAD DREAMS OF EXPLORING SPACE, USING PORTALS TO TRANSPORT BETWEEN ENTIRE CITIES, OR SEEING CARS FLY AROUND.

WE’VE NEVER GIVEN UP ON THOSE DREAMS, AND WITH YOU ON BOARD, WE’RE SURE TO REACH THOSE HEIGHTS AND DRAG INTO REALITY THINGS THAT ONLY OUR IMAGINATION COULD CONCEPTUALIZE.

WELCOME, DAN BROVSKI, TO YOUR FUTURE AND NEW HOME.”

-Human Resources, Vortex Industries New Employee Welcome Packet (2074, 2nd Era.)

Erec charged at the convulsing Dan on the bed with an overhanded axe and the full intent to kill the old bastard before anything else could happen. It should have been easy, to slaughter a man on his deathbed. He’d killed giant monsters, murdered lizards by the dozens, and even ended the life of a Cataclysm-level threat. So surely, this act of mercy would be swift and decisive.

MOLLY had other plans.

Despite pulling on Fury and charging with as much speed as he could muster, by the time he reached Dan, he was no longer staring down at the preserved body of a former board member. Blood-colored stone skin coated the surface of the guy’s skin, puffing it outward and ridding it of the wrinkles. Far more concerning than that, however, were the massive claws that grew from his now swollen hands, claws that ripped the bed cloth he’d been under.

Dan twisted in the bed, the muscle fibers beneath that bulging red skin convulsing and expanding. Massive claws grew from his hands; and even now the muscles beneath that outer layer were shaking, growing like they were being pumped with liquid. Which, in a way, they were, since Molly was giving Dan a never-ending dose of monster-making juice and causing this whole mess. All the while, Dan stared right at him, horror on his face.

Erec aimed for the neck, right at the throat, as he pulled his axe down with all of his might.

The edge of the axe landed; then… Went nowhere. It stopped at the skin, not able to break it, not even able to muster enough force to sever the spinal cord beneath by the sheer force alone. Despite the Fury and his Strength.

Not enough. Erec yanked his axe back up, trying desperately to throw more flame into his engine, a bit more. All he needed was more rage; his shoulder screamed with pain as his body tried to break down, but he ignored it. There was no choice but to finish the job; he could ache and heal after. I hate this place. Erec swore to himself, channeling those words of anger.

Before he could summon enough of that fire from within, Dan’s overgrown hand shot up and caught the axe. Those eyes that beheld him no longer had a trace of the suffering man in them. Erec was staring at an animal. And that animal yanked Erec’s axe right of his grip with a force that far surpassed anything he’d seen before.

It flung the battle axe right at him. Erec threw himself aside, narrowly avoiding the weapon as it shot through the air and crashed into the suite's wall, embedding within it.

Erec leaped up, trying to devise a plan, only to have Dan standing right in front of him, slightly hunched. Then, before Erec could move, Dan backhanded him, sending Erec flying through the room just like axe had.

His back crashed into the wall connecting the bedroom to the suite's entrance, carving through the plaster and dry-wall interior. After flying through the wall and the next room, he smashed into the wall-sized screen beyond. It sparked as Erec caved it in, glass stabbing into his back. All Erec knew was confusion and pain, and he tried to stumble back into the fight. But Dan was there again, his body even larger, as if his spine grew, and out of his back two more arms hand tore their way through; it slammed all four appendages into Erec. Ripping apart his Armor, tossing the plates of steel aside like trash, a fist crashed into Erec’s stomach, shattering a rib. Another followed up with an uppercut, sending Erec right into the room's ceiling, smashing his skull against the tile and then into the concrete layer above that.

When Erec crashed into the ground again, the monster grabbed him by the ankle. It then flung him back through the room they’d started in—smashing him right into the bed Dan had been barely alive in less than a minute before.

Erec lay there, amid the wreckage of a bed. Anger at his inability to keep pace surging and burning, crashing against the pain and overwhelming feeling of powerlessness.

This thing was on an entirely different level. It was like fighting Boldwick, on those rare occasions, the Master Knight truly went for it in a practice fight. Only this thing wasn’t pulling punches. It didn’t hold back at all. It would kill him.

Right as Erec started to rise, it was on him. Pinning him to the ground, and raining its four fists down on him, smashing him against the floor, breaking through the carpet and wood beneath.

I can’t breathe. Erec forced his arms between himself and Dan, a meager defense against those weighty fists crashing against his arms. They held for a few seconds before it broke his defense. It pinned his arms down with two of its own. Leaving him wide open for a flurry of attacks with the monster's remaining two. A flurry that, without a doubt, was going to kill him.

Enide was there, her Lasrifle point-blank against the head of the monster as it reared back for the final attack. She pulled the trigger. The laser reflected in a dozen directions, and it screeched—then backhanded her. She didn’t slam into a wall, instead vanishing as she flew through the air, tumbling across the broken ground of the suite to break the momentum.

She’d bought him a second.

Come on. Erec willed the sputtering fire in him to wel into an inferno. He felt his body screech and protest, but he ignored it. Death or life. Afterward, it could complain and rollover. He pulled at everything in him. Fuck Vortex Industries. Die.

The next fist came slower, his perception of time slowing. Erec knew, instinctively, that he didn’t have the Strength to catch it. Instead, Erec slapped the fist aside. The blow crashed right next to him, cracking into the steel beneath the ground and denting it. Dan seemed surprised that he had that much in him, that anything could challenge its rampage.

You will die.

Erec scrunched his legs up, shoving his feet against the monster’s chest, his whole body curled like a coil as he prepared.

That is my duty.

Erec screamed, letting the fire burn anything in him it wanted. It could take, it could hate, it could consume, that sea of red burning bright, swirling with traces of the silver that was mostly gone beneath. For all he was worth, Erec pushed with his quads, feeling his muscle yell and threaten to snap under the efforts. It was enough. The monster went flying, crashing into the suite's ceiling, breaking right through the fake-pseudo tile exterior, through the concrete layer beneath, and right into the steel-lined exterior above. Bits of concrete showered Erec, one hitting his arm and drawing a cry of pain as he tumbled out of the way, avoiding the crashing body of Dan as what went up must come down.

Dan landed on all fours—or rather, on all sixes. His body further twisting, the back of his spine bursting out of his rear, forming into a stony tail as he arched. His jaw extended, jutting out like a muzzle. Erec didn’t take long to absorb the fact that by the second, Dan was becoming less of a man and more like some fucked-up blood-red wolf thing. He ran for his axe, a single bound taking him to the wall it was embedded in. He yanked it free in time to turn and take a swing at Dan, who leaped after him.

The axe crashed into the monster's side, not cutting into it as he’d hoped, but smashing it like a hammer and throwing Dan through another wall. Out of the bedroom and back into the living space.

Fuck you.

His fires burned brighter. This thing. It was what he wanted. Each second, it grew in power, its body furthering into some ultimate product of a messed-up science experiment. But this was what he wanted.

As the monster charged him again, Erec fought, glee coming to him in waves.

Each bite, each time, they sent one another flying—each chop of his axe. Every claw scoring a devastating hit on Erec—all of this was what he wanted. This wasn’t the Stag, a prey for him to chase down. This was another predator, another being that knew what bloodlust meant. Knew what it felt to overwhelm a foe with complete power and kill it for the simple pleasure of killing.

And it didn’t stop. As he pushed against it, it pushed back, stronger, growing ever more quickly than himself as its body broke its limits.

They ruined the suite as they fought, coating it in blood. With the right angle, his axe could cut, but none of the blows were deep enough.

Flinging Dan into the walls, cutting with his axe, punching with enough force to kill a man, none of it was enough to phase this thing. Even though he was pulling on all of that inner fire, letting it grow and consume whatever it wanted in the name of the power he needed.

His Armor was long gone. Each blow he took was a mounting wound that slowed, even as he pushed the rest of his body further to compensate.

The conclusion was inevitable. As the suite fell apart, the walls broken and shattered, dents breaking through the cracks of the delicate facade of this place and revealing the sterile jail cell around them, Erec knew he’d die to this thing. It’d tear him to shreds; then it would kill Enide. And that was a fact he wasn’t willing to accept. One that he couldn’t accept.

Enide tried to help where she could, but there was an obvious flaw that became apparent every time she appeared and shot at the monster. There wasn’t enough power to do anything against a force so overwhelming. She might dart around, flash, and attack. And that could buy Erec a second to not die from a lethal hit, but that was the extent of it. Every time she saved Erec from death, she risked a misstep, one that would result in her demise.

Within five minutes, nothing in the interior of the suite was recognizable.

All of it was a broken wreckage coated with blood.

Erec drew on what little silver fire he had to keep going and let his body not pass out from the blood loss, but he’d hit it. The wall. Even with Fury, he’d found it. There were some fights it wouldn’t be enough to surpass alone, not with a mortal body.

He huddled next to Enide near the sealed doorway, blood pouring from his face, staring down the blood-red creature, its muscles doubled in size as it crouched on all sixes, ready to throw itself at him and bring this to an end. It could smell the scent of death in the air; it could taste victory. And Erec hated it for that. Hated it more than anything in the world.

“Get out,” Erec told Enide, blood leaking from his mouth. His eyes didn’t leave the monster. It’d paused as its body shifted more, bones snapping out of its rear end… Was it growing another pair of legs? Less of a wolf now and more like a fucked up human spider. No doubt those legs would only give it more options.

“I can’t take us both. I don’t have it in me,” Enide panted.

“That doesn’t matter, go.”

“I’m not leaving ya.”

One of those new legs kicked out against the ground, twitching as the monster got used to the new weapon, to the new tool to kill.

“Tell Boldwick what’s going on. VAL will bring power. Then help.”

She nodded, turning toward the door, then vanishing through it.

[That was a lie.]

It was a lie. Boldwick would have charged in here, as would half the Pendragons. And at the rate this thing was going, they would have died. It would have adapted, would have gained Strength, then killed a good number of them. Sure, he could have run with Enide. If they did, while debatable, they might have been able to flee the facility together in the opening others made for them. But he wouldn’t accept them sacrificing their lives for his. For this.

Ending Dan… All of this, this Vortex Industries clusterfuck, was ultimately his mess to fix. He hadn’t made this company; hell, it wasn’t even from his time. But he couldn’t deny that it was now linked to him; it was his problem. VAL got him to where he was, and somewhere along the road, this had become his. His issue to solve. His mess to clean up. His poor tortured bastard of an old man possessed by a psycho AI named MOLLY to save with the blade of his axe. In signing that employee offer to VAL, back when he was a naive kid trying to become a Knight, he’d accepted this. And he had no regets.

“I’m going to kill you,” Erec promised the old man as its second new leg slammed against the ground. It let out a blood-curdling howl and lowered itself, ready to pounce. “That is what is right. That is my vow.” Erec repeated, the words coming from his core, from his chest. In doing so, everything would have to be put on the table. His life, his future, his hopes and dreams.

All of it had to be laid down on the moment, willingly put up for sacrifice if he wanted to carry through this task. If he died after, then that was fine.

To accept that was chivalrous.

The Silver Fire in him exploded in a torrent, and he let it eat up everything.