Rudra's expression shifted—humor drained out of his face, replaced by that quiet, razor-edged tone that made people instinctively straighten their backs.
"Do say…" he murmured. "What happened between America and Israel? Something major went down while I was locked, didn't it?"
Riley's smirk faded immediately. His eyes darted around the corridor before he leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. "Bloody hell, you really don't know, do ya?"
Rudra shook his head. "Been in a hole, remember?"
Riley exhaled through his nose, running a hand through his messy red hair. "Alright, listen—Red Sea's gone hot. Whole damn thing's militarized. U.S. fleets sittin' there like sharks in a bathtub, Israel's runnin' recon ops twenty-four-seven, and every satellite that flies over gets shot down 'by accident.'"
Rudra's jaw tightened. "Why?"
Riley shrugged helplessly. "No one knows for sure. Rumors say it's somethin' buried beneath the sea—ancient tech, old god, alien reactor, take your pick. But whatever it is, Washington and Tel Aviv want it bad enough to break every treaty that's kept the world from turnin' into a glass pancake."
Rudra looked down, his eyes reflecting a grim flicker of realization. "So the Cold War didn't just simmer…"
Riley nodded grimly. "Nah, mate. It's boilin'. Never ended—just got quieter. And now…" He looked out the porthole, where the blue-black water shimmered faintly with light from the ship's hull. "Now it's startin' to scream again."
Rudra stayed quiet for a while, his expression unreadable, before muttering, "Of course it is. Can't have peace without someone tryin' to sell it for profit." His tone carried no heat—just that dry, disillusioned bite that came from knowing too much of how the world worked.
He leaned back against the steel railing, gaze fixed on the distant shimmer of the ocean through the ship's viewport. "Funny thing, though," he said after a beat. "I've got… connections to that area."
Riley cocked his head, intrigued. "Connections? How so?"
"My maternal grandfather was a Zoroastrian merchant from Tehran," Rudra began, his voice low, almost nostalgic. "My grandmother was German—converted, Judaic origin. Grandfather wanted to die in Iran, so he went back there in his final days. After he passed, she moved from Gujarat to Tel Aviv. Still there, far as I know." He exhaled sharply through his nose. "Housing market's a nightmare, but she's stubborn enough to survive a warzone."
Riley blinked. "So you're not fully Indian?"
Rudra gave a small, crooked grin. "Yeah. One-third Persian—Parsi, technically—one-third German, and one-third North West Indian. Patchwork bloodline. Never sat right with anyone." He shrugged, eyes flicking toward the floor. "Guess I'm what you'd call… a mutt"
Riley chuckled. "Interestin'. So what's that get ya, being a walkin' melting pot?"
Rudra's voice cut through the hum of the ship, casual but edged with that familiar exasperation that came from too many memories and too little patience. "You know what's funny?" he said, staring at the metal floor like it owed him answers. "I've got brown skin, yeah? Yet back in kindergarten those fucks used to call me British." He looked up, brow furrowed in genuine disbelief. "British. Germans aren't even British, the fuck were they on about?"
Riley barked a laugh, but Rudra wasn't done. "Germans are Germanic Catholics, right? Brits are Protestant. Anglo-Saxo—wait, hold up." He blinked, thinking it through aloud. "Are Brits Germanic too? Or were they the Viking ones?"
Riley scratched the back of his neck, amused. "Not entirely, mate. Bit of everything—Celts, Normans, some Germanic mix in there. But yeah, significant chunk, sure."
Rudra frowned, still turning it over like a math problem that refused to behave. "Well, they aren't Catholic though, are they?"
Rudra blinked, as if genuinely offended by history. "Right, but they're not Catholic, are they?"
"Nah," Riley said, grin widening. "They were, until some fat fuck named Henry screwed it all up."
Rudra paused, blinking at Riley like the man had just spoken in tongues. "…Wot?"
Riley snorted. "Henry the Eighth, mate. Bloke who split the church 'cause the Pope wouldn't let him divorce his wife."
Rudra's jaw slackened. "Geez," he muttered, tone caught somewhere between awe and disgust. "The fuck did his wife do that he had to divorce the Pope just to divorce her?"
Riley barked a laugh, leaning against the bulkhead. "Nothin', really. She just stopped givin' him sons."
Rudra blinked, incredulous. "Technically only the men have Y chromosomes," he said, voice flattening with that sharp, corrective edge that made his statements sound like thesis defenses. "How was it her fault?"
Riley's grin widened. "Tell that to a sixteenth-century monarch with an ego bigger than his kingdom."
[Author's note: 6'2 BTW, I like feminist literature, my favorite star war charachter is Rey Skywalker]
"Alright, so this seems to me like a weaponry section," Rudra said, running a hand along a row of steel crates stamped with faded warning sigils. "Packs quite a punch, these artillery do."
Riley was already halfway into a ramble about his hunting rifle—something about custom sights and the 'feel of a clean pull'—when Rudra's words trailed off.
His eyes had caught something.
He froze mid-step, the air around him shifting from idle curiosity to that sharp, alert stillness that comes only from instinct. His gaze locked on a far corner of the armory—an object partly draped under a tarp, faintly gleaming in the low light. The kind of gleam that didn't belong to standard issue.
Riley didn't notice at first, still talking. "—I tell ya, mate, she kicks like a mule, but once you get used to the recoil—"
He stopped when he realized Rudra wasn't replying. The sudden silence felt heavy, like gravity had just decided to press harder in that room.
"Oi," Riley said carefully, turning toward him. "What's up?"
Rudra didn't answer. His jaw was tight, eyes reflecting the pale light of whatever he was staring at. A quiet, dangerous recognition flickered behind them—something buried, something he wasn't supposed to see again.
"It's his old friends," Madison said, stepping into the room with measured calm. She pointed toward the corner, where the dim light revealed two items resting like relics on a rack.
A revolver, pitch-black, its surface fractured with golden-crimson lines like cracks in a shattered vase. Beside it, a Talwar—a saber with a golden hilt intricately carved to depict a sparrow in mid-flight. Its blade caught the light in a menacing gleam, the edge a deep, unforgiving crimson.
"His old weaponry," Madison said softly. "We retrieved it from Mother Ship Athena, back when he was still an apprentice… seven years ago."
Riley's eyes widened, glancing between the weapons and Rudra. "Apprentice to who?"
Madison's gaze hardened. "Lady Catylyn. The Chosen One."
Rudra's hand twitched, just barely, toward the Talwar—but he didn't move closer. A shadow passed over his face, half nostalgia, half warning. The room seemed to hold its breath, the hum of the Hercules fading beneath the weight of history and the unspoken dangers those weapons carried.