Knights Apocalyptica
Chapter 240: Unexpected Member

A Tournament They Said,

For it all came to a head.

I’ve wandered a lot

Seen a lot too

But this Kingdom is not

Quite what I thought.

Screw the stew, few make do with brew—

Don’t care about Knights and fights,

But their steel-skinned alcohol is pretty good too.

The welcoming of the tournament was a long, arduous ceremonial affair; the teams and groups on display were just a set piece, while the real entertainment of the day was through performances put on for the audience.

Erec watched as many people gave speeches: Grandmasters, Nobles, Outsiders... even the King himself made an appearance and thanked everyone in attendance. All the while, on the field, the Knights organized the logistics, divided the tournament contestants into their respective brackets, and formed different areas.

Everyone in Erec’s bracket—named the Rising Stars, those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five- was led off to the northern part of the field.

It gave him a good view of the military on the sidelines, playing peacekeepers like they normally did in the Kingdom. From his vantage point on the north side, he saw a large press of red priests who were currently engaged in a rather hostile and ongoing confrontation with the military. It looked like they were trying to press onto the field to ruin the event, but had been repelled. So far. He didn’t see fighting, so blood had yet to be shed over it, but the fact that they were getting so bold probably wasn't a great sign for things to come.

Erec played the part of a good Knight. Moving where he was told when he was told—and keeping his friends by his side as the ceremony kept going. Organizing this many people was difficult work, and he did not envy the Knights who’d sacrificed their chance to participate to facilitate everything else.

Colin groaned beside him, “How much longer will this take?"

“As long as it takes,” Erec replied.

There were too many moving pieces to juggle, and the focus wasn’t on them right now. It was on the celebration and the entertainment for their guests.

“And how long is that?” Colin kept going.

“You’ll be fine. Just relax.” Erec replied. They weren't even fighting today anyway. Tomorrow was the start of the tournament itself. Today was just the background and preparation for it.

He waited eagerly, feeling just as anxious as Colin to find out about his team. Eventually, a commander reached them and began to separate them, handing them a little chip. It was a plain little thing—a piece of carved steel with a glyph pointing them to their spot on the field, where they would meet their team members. Once everyone had a chip, they were ordered to follow the glyphs.

Erec followed his, and next to him, Colin followed along. "Are you lost?" Erec joked as the future duke matched him step for step.

"No," Colin retorted. "I can already see where we're headed. We're part of the same team."

Erec looked at him, surprised, then noticed his glowing golden eyes and snorted. Of course, he could, with his ability to see magic. It made sense that he could predict where they were going and the nature of the glyph on their little token.

They arrived in a section of the field, his token glowing bright as it showed he was in the correct place. And then they waited. To his surprise, he saw the man in fatigues that he'd bested in the wrestling contest, Jack.

Jack saluted him and then said, "Pleasure seeing you again. I guess we'll be a team for this round."

Erec made his own gesture, pressing a fist to his chest like a Knight should. "I wanted to say it was a good fight the other day. One of the better ones I had in the wrestling contest. I appreciate our battle.”

Jack shook his head. "It was a good fight only because we couldn't actually fight. We had to abide by the rules of the competition. I could see that your superior power could be leveraged into other areas if you wished.”

"I bet you still have some tricks up your sleeve," Erec responded, unwilling to take too much credit for the victory. Even though he knew he was probably the more powerful between the two, he had the distinct impression that Jack had more beneath the surface. He knew next to nothing about where the man was from, and how he held himself was far more formal and trained than even a Knight.

He'd asked around after his fight with Jack, even asking Garin, who hadn't been able to confirm much about them. The group in fatigues kept to themselves. They were polite. They were well-behaved. And that was pretty much the consensus of anyone watching them. What they were here for or their objectives was a question in itself. But wasn't that the purpose of the tournament? To let so many in and to embrace the spirit of competition. He hoped he had set a good impression with Jack.

A couple more people filtered in: a woman with one of those animalistic tattoos on her face, who gave them a smile as she approached. Another came wearing a light blue magi cloak, given the number of people from Vega, Erec wasn't surprised by the sheer odds that they'd gotten someone like that.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

However, the last member he didn’t expect.

Prince Soren Crisimus walked into the midst, his helmet tucked under his elbow as he quickly scanned Erec and Colin. His face was empty as always, not reacting as Colin began to bristle and sneer.

“It is of ill fate that we've been assigned to the same team,” Soren said, looking at them. “But, as representatives of the kingdom, I trust that you two will set aside what I've said previously, and together we can work to see that the Knights and Kingdom are represented in a cohesive and disciplined way. Three Knights on one team will be of interest to our outside guests. And we need to show them that we are reliable allies.”

"Not even a hello? Is that how you greet your fellow Knights, or do you lord yourself so high above us with an unearned status? I am not here for you to lecture," Colin shot back, striding up to the prince and placing a finger on Soren's breastplate.

“This is not a lecture. It is a fact. You’re getting too emotional.” Soren said coldly.

The rest of their group exchanged nervous looks, and Erec, though not as socially savvy as Garin, knew that this did not present very well in front of the outsiders. He coughed and strode forward, knowing he had to get involved.

"I will not stand here and listen to you tell me the merits of representing the kingdom. I had wished to face you in an opposite team in this first round, so I might have crushed you, and shown all before us that I am your superior." Colin replied.

Soren gently touched Colin's finger and lowered it, glancing over to the rest of their spectators and team, who, even now, seeing this level of confrontation right away, appeared to be getting a little nervous. Then at Erec.

“Go speak to your friend. I suggest you take a step back and take a deep breath, son of Duke Nitidus. There is no need for hostilities when we've been assigned to the same team." He said it in that same soulless way that he said most things, as if it were perfect logic what he said, as if he hadn't, months before, challenged Erec and harassed him in the middle of a festival, nor had he gone around calling Erec a monster.

Ah. Ah. Erec felt that welling of heat in him as well as the emotions stirred. Fury began to kick up, and the confrontation only fueled it.

He folded his arms and then spoke, "I agree with Colin. I'm not about to take orders from you. We're going to win as a team, but we won’t do it your way. Just because you walk in as the Son of the King doesn't mean what you say is what will go. We're working with people from outside the Kingdom. All of our voices have equal weight." His eyes glanced over to Jack, the Magi, and the other woman who had joined their team.

Jack cleared his throat. "If I may ask, what do you mean, son of the King?"

Colin snorted. "This here is a spoiled prince of the Kingdom of Cindrus. He joined the Academy against his father’s orders and is now going around acting high and mighty in it. You may bow, or as you should do, ignore his ego and ignore his words.”

Soren deadpanned at Colin and simply shook his head. "I'm here to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. The first task of this mission is for us to win against our foe and capture the flag. I will do no more and no less than that. Our aim as a team is to see victory. Our aim as Knights is to represent our might before those of the wider wasteland. And so it would benefit us to work with the spirit of cooperation." He looked at Colin and Erec. "While I have made my concerns about both of you known, particularly you," he flashed over to Erec, "at this stage, we are not in a part of the competition where we may face each other, as much as each of us would wish it, some more than others. We must approach this with an air of refinement and nobility, reflecting who we are and who we represent."

Erec sighed. "You're calling for a temporary truce."

"Yes, a truce," Soren confirmed, nodding. "Like I said, it would be much better for us to be on equal terms and push through this part of the competition, and then we may resume any lingering hostilities that are felt. After all, if we are to be Knights, it means prioritizing the mission above our emotional attachments in a situation."

At this, Colin stormed away. "I am not working with the spoiled son of a king."

"Colin," Erec called, walking over and grabbing his friend’s sleeve before he could finally storm off. "If you fail to cooperate with us and it leads to our loss, then you won't be able to face off against Soren later. If you want to crush the prince, you have to work together with him first.” He saw Colin work his jaw. The guy was thinking about it… He just needed a bit more. Erec dropped his voice to a whisper, "If you're working alongside Soren, you can see his strengths and weaknesses. You can fight alongside him and then gain a strategy for facing off against him later. It's the sort of information you wouldn’t be able to easily get otherwise, and right now it's being presented to you on a silver platter."

Colin snorted and looked back over to the prince. "You have a point, Tin Can," he admitted reluctantly.

"I know I do. And listen, I look forward to working with him just as little as you are. He's not exactly my favorite person in this Kingdom."

"Fine, for now we can coexist," Colin admitted, still fuming. At least Erec had put this particular fire out.

At Erec’s prompting, Colin returned to the group and sat on the field together. The rest of the ceremony took about an hour and went on without interruption. At one point, he heard a chant of anger from the Priests toward the northern part of the field, but he doubted anyone at the stands could listen. They were too busy cheering and losing their collective minds as the announcers began to hype up certain teams.

Occasionally, there was a leader who appeared and confirmed long-lasting futures and ties with Cindrus… All of it political theater.

Erec kept his eyes on the priests, watching the shoving, anger, and conflict in that section as they and their protesters did their best to cause a disruption. But the Military kept them suppressed, a fact that they couldn’t be very pleased about. It wasn’t just priests, though. Nobles and citizens had gathered under their banner, also wearing red in a show of support for the Church.

He'd been gone for weeks, so he hadn't seen the escalation, but this was a sign of things to come. The corruption of the Church and its influence on the people were starting to burst into fiery crags and form cracks as it affected everything around them. They brought with them the need to control and push back against the Crown. This was a long-brewing problem, one that Robin had highlighted to him.

He tried to keep an ear on his group. Listening to them debate strategies, and talk about their strengths and weaknesses. They weren't too overt about what they could and couldn't do, knowing that at some point if they won, the people working with them on this very team would end up being their competition in the future. Still, they had to work together.

For Erec's part, he stated it simply when it was his turn to share what he could do. Many of them already knew, but he laid out his ability with Fury: it was a tool to increase his strength in return for losing focus and being consumed by battle. With it, he could destroy and transform it into a tool of war and destruction—that much he promised them. Though in a competition where they had to restrain themselves from escalating into lethality, it was a bit of a handicap for him. The only thing stopping him from going off the rails was his training and discipline, and he'd worked hard to at least keep himself from going off that edge.

Sometimes it could be hard to step away in the throes of Fury. Against a monster, this limitation didn't matter—he could let loose and kill it and be fine. It did complicate things against a person he didn't actually wish to harm.

As the tournament opening ceremony drew to a close, their group retreated from its field into the small festival town nearby to discuss tactics further and get acquainted.