In the days following the battle for Argedwall the Legion and the Knights solidified an alliance forged through blood. Biotic activity was, perhaps predictably, exceedingly low in the area around now, and due to the ever advancing sensor network, many of the defenses were now coming under either automated defense, or subject to the heavy hand of the Knights and their long reach.

The losses we’d taken were heavier than we’d hoped, thirteen Legion perished in the battle, and nearly forty Knights. We held a mass wake a day after the battle, the somber city of Argedwall rife with candles, all along the four main streets, each cardinal direction.

After the surreal silence of an entire city came the loud cheering and toasting to those who had succeeded. Remembrance through song and cheer was preferred among those who yet lived in Argedwall, and I found it vastly preferable to the cloying sadness from before.

As for the Legion, we commemorated our dead alongside them. Most of the bodies would be taken to New Damond where we would entomb them beneath the Obelisk, the site of the Reaper’s Mausoleum.

However, there was one such body that we would not move.

We’d discovered Patrick’s body after the battle, enshrined beneath a monolithic stone that rose ten meters into the air, carefully carved with fluid icons and pictographs all across its surface. It was suspended above the grave, as was Gravedigger’s penchant, though this time the trees themselves were immense, growing rapidly up and over the structure.

Some of us wanted to dig them up, but eventually we decided that this memorial could stay. In no small part, Gravedigger had helped stop the last advance of the biotics. Given that, we would overlook this, though it was mostly the remains of Patrick’s team that pushed the opinion over the edge.

“Knowing Patrick, he’d have loved it.” One had spoken up, “I don’t think we need to take him from that.”

And the matter rested. Each of the gravesites were already being sanctioned by Argedwall as the closest things they had to holy sites, perhaps someday something that people could visit to pay homage too.

The highway had been completed, our fort repurposed to a large supplies outpost for emergencies. Argedwall gave us several buildings within the city to use for whatever we might need, expressly to encourage continued close ties in the future. Likewise, my intent for having the Knights become a part of the Legion were looked upon fortuitously.

Said talks amongst the Knights and their Knight-Commander were going on at this very moment, as myself and my team sat in a waiting hall just beyond the doors to the Round.

“Doing alright?” Alice asked, her question directed to the man beside her. I turned my head, more out of habit than anything else since I could see most things around me anyways, and noted Richard massaging his arm.

He smiled softly, “I’m fine, just gets a little tingly now and then.”

“Remember not to move it too much,” she admonished him, eyes falling on the white brace that clung entirely around his shoulder and a portion of his chest, filled with a blue gel that helped encourage healing and didn’t need to be removed. The skin-cast still kept his arm more or less rigid, braced to rest across his chest along with the mesh sling that helped to keep it jostling overtly.

Richard let out a heavy sigh, “I know, I know, it’s fine.”

“How much longer do you have to have that on?” I asked, eyebrow lifted as I glanced over the impressive medical technology.

“Another few days in the sling, another week with the cast,” Richard huffed, “honestly it feels fine.”

“You lost an arm, my dude,” Daniel laughed, “a week ain’t bad at all for recovery.”

Richard grumbled, “yeah, I still don’t like wearing this thing.”

I chuckled, the general tone good natured. Realistically, our medical technology was our primary focus in terms of research. Several new implementations were ready to roll out to our Legion teams in the field, even a possibility for an auto-doctor surgical station to be employed on teams that could theoretically move with it.

The Legion wouldn’t always be near cities, and even if they were, those cities might have poor medical facilities. It was highly desired to advance our medical technology in several ways in the wake of what had been displayed with myself. The fact that I survived where anyone else died spoke volumes to the Legionaries in the know, and they wanted to have something that might at least save their lives if the worst would happen.

When we got back to New Damond, many advancements would be available to the Legion here. Quite in fact, most had already left, getting outfitted with new equipment, but we stayed behind for this very important meeting.

One that was already taking a bit too long for my liking.

Seemingly summoned at that thought, the doors opened, Peter standing in the gateway with a small smirk on his face. He met my gaze and nodded, my party and I rising from our seats to move into the large room.

“Announcing the Reaper and company,” Peter called out, the remaining hubbub around the table diminishing as the assembled power of the city turned their gazes upon us. After the battle there’d been plenty of people who now took my name as Reaper seriously, to my mixed feelings on the matter. It wasn’t the name, it was the fact that when people said it now there was a sense of awe, even wariness that wasn’t there before.

A video of my bloodbath at the eastern gate had circulated, and seeing my moves in real time made my jerking, vicious movements all the more unsettling to see. In some steps I would gracefully, fluidly move, drawing attention and dodging blows with a hair’s breadth between me and disaster. Other times, though, a jerking motion would take me explosively through my prey, more akin to a devilish marionette than to a living thing.

But, if nothing else, the people of Argedwall took me quite seriously now, and the few that had found it amusing that I called myself Reaper had suddenly vanished.

“Please, be seated,” Harris spoke, gesturing to a collection of chairs that had been brought forward. Three such seats were empty at the round, and behind them were several more for our entourage.

Our entourage, because two other announcements came after my own.

“Lilia Bertholdt in honor of the late Patrick Bentley of the Iron Chariots,” Peter announced afterwards as I moved to the back of the chair designated to me.

“Jeremy Strauss of the team Last Call,” the Lord finished as the swaggering man moved into the room, carrying himself with a self-assured confidence that would look out of place and obnoxious on most people.

He wore it well.

Lilia sat beside me, giving me a short respectful nod. I’d met her on a handful of occasions, the second-in-command of Peters, someone who shared his passion but also possessed a much more iron-and-strife view of the world. She’d taken over the Iron Chariot team, and while she did well for now, time would tell if she would continue with the position or disband the team.

As Jeremy sat down beside her, Harris drew our attention back across the room, waiting for a respectful moment for ourselves and our companies to be seated.

“Before I tell you the decision of the round, there is something that I would like to say.” He began, surprised glances from those around the table shooting to him.

“When this apocalypse first began, I was afraid of the future; what horrible things could await us, and what chances we had to survive.” He stated frankly, turning his gaze to the lords around. The sentiment was not solitary, judging by the expressions the others wore, “Even so, I carried on, knowing that to do nothing would be to lie down and die. Together we trudged on, made mistakes, and eventually came to form the Round after many unlikely and improbable events.”

“I do not jest when I say that at any step what we have now could have become a ‘should have been’ rather than our own reality. It was through the blood, sweat, and ambition of this city that we wrought a strong foundation of power to stand upon.” He leveled a complicated gaze to me, “and it is no small thing to submit even fractionally to another, even as allies,”

I nodded appreciatively to the sentiment, and perhaps were this with any other person, in any other place, I’d have started getting worried that the Knights were having second thoughts. The other Knight-Lords were somewhat at a loss for what Harris was doing, but I thought I had the man figured out well enough. What he wanted was not to unsettle me, but to highlight what this meant.

Perhaps seeing the lack of effect on my face, Harris smiled broadly, “however, no mere ally of ours could engender such faith from our people. No mere neighbor would shed blood and fallen heroes-” at this he inclined his head to Lilia, who took a sharp breath to steady her nerves, “-for those they barely know. Our city may well have fallen without the efforts and sacrifices the Legion put forth beside us. I hesitate to consider what we might have lost…”

Harris blew a steadying breath, meeting the gazes of a few of his Lords, who then turned to me, somber and unified.

“A powerful foundation. That’s what anything that lasts the tests of time has, and it is what Argedwall has sought to build strongly. And yet, I do not see the union between the Legion and the Knights as anything but a foundation stronger than the sum of its parts.” At this, Harris rose, as did the Lords around him.

As one, their fists clanged against their mechanized armors, right hands clasped over their hearts, “it is with gladness and honor, then, that the Knights of the Round, Defenders of Argedwall, accept the Legions invitation to join them, to forge a future stronger, from a foundation broad. What say you, The Reaper of The Legion?”

Emotion surged within me, ecstatic and taken aback all at once. Beside me, the psychic force of Harris' own emotions wrapped my companions in an air of what I could only describe as iron-clad sincerity and loyalty.

I rose from my seat, raising a fist to my chest loudly, “I accept the Knights of Argedwall’s most honorable and pure intent. Together we will create a future worthy of humanity, a future worth fighting to live in. And henceforth,” I swept my gaze theatrically across the gathered Lords, “I name thee the Knights of the Legion, may your blades be ever pure and reach ever long.”

There was a moment where even I felt the emotional flux in Harris, in spite of my deadened senses. It was excitement, and no small portion of pride.

Behind me, the three teams stood from their tables, as did my companions beside me. All as one, the Legion members readied, and the Knights themselves seemed to galvanize in that moment. As one, they spoke.

“For the Legion!”