Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Two out of Three

"And then with one of its massive tentacles it ripped me out of the broken window.' The crowd sat in awe clustered around his table as Etium unfolded his story. He waved his hands over his head, "But the bastard was no match for me. Even as I flew through the air, I engaged a reverse gravity on my gun's gravity field, pulled myself on top of the gun and rode the damn thing like a pony while I blasted the bg ugly creature into pieces."

There was a mixture of impressed and skeptical muttering from he crowd. Etium waved a finger, "Scoff all you want but it's true." Or at least that part of the story was true, and only slightly embellished. He liked to start out his stories with most of the truth, mostly to cover up the fact that his endings were embellished to the point of straight up lying.

Sitting and listening to his story, one might think that he had killed the creature single handedly, though he tried to give Yebb the cameo she deserved for turning the energy core on.

"No way any of that happened, a total crock of shit." The man who spoke was one of the younger Arcadian Marines. He would probably have just enlisted. Judging from his accent he was one of the new recruits from Earth, who had decided to come over on Adam's offer of housing and work.

Etium leaned against his energy weapon, using it to prop of his elbow. He never went anywhere without it. The gun laws on arcadia were almost nonexistent, because nowhere else in the galaxy would he be able to tote around an energy core chain gun without raising at least a few eyebrows. But here on Arcadia with so many Spartans and drev, it had been determined that the private ownership of weapons was akin to a religious belief, so it was protected under the right to free speech and religion which was written into the Arcadian constitution.

You could, however, forfeit your rights if you decided to be a dick about it. The unlawful or irresponsible use of a weapon would get it taken away from you, but it was actually really hard to commit crime on Arcadia because you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a Drev or a Spartan who wasn't looking for an excuse to fight anyone who tried anything stupid.

With all of this in mind, Etium unplugged the core energy converter when he went out on the town. It basically disabled the weapon, but would be easy to restart again if there was ever any trouble, And of course, going out to bars with the marines, there was always trouble, but never any that couldn't be solved with a good punch in the face.

That was another little quirk about Arcadia.

Assault and battery were seen a bit differently.

For two consenting adults t was perfectly legal for them to draw up a circle and duke it out int the parking lot of there was a disagreement. By the rules of Drev honor engagement you could challenge someone to a duel, draw up lines and fight each other to end a dispute as long as there were two witnesses unrelated to each party member who could vouch for the legality of the fight.

Things got a little tricky around the idea of domestic violence since it was common for Drev partners to beat the shit out of each other as a sign of love, or even as an act of foreplay, but then you add humans into the mix. Generally Drev don't go for humans that Can't fight, but on the rare occasion that one gets tricked into it there had been some problems regarding one sided love taps from a Drev, who had no idea that wasn't acceptable on their squishy human partner.

Of course this is where those relationships usually ended as Drev just don't get into relationships with people or Drev alike who can't fight.

It just doesn't happen.

The result was a very strange place to live. Arcadia was both, the most violent and the most peaceful place in the galaxy. It wasn't uncommon to walk down the street and see two or three dueling circles being drawn up, and a fight taking place, but it also wasn't uncommon to see neighborhood barbeques. If you messed with one Citizen of Arcadia, you messed with them all.