“Comport yourself. You are to meet the Lord and His new master.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Imni steeled herself, trembling, as Vashante used a corner of her cloak to wipe grime from her squat face. Her mandibles fidgeted together as she tried not to cry. Her brother looked around the desiccated halls of the Ossein Basilica. The dry, cracked skin of the walls stretched taut through the long-dead structure like nothing he had seen.

Vashante stood straight once more and led them into the Basilica. It had been ravaged, stormed and looted by those that had turned traitors or the few base freaks that dared to trespass and seize valuables in the confusion of the revolution. She knew the way without escort, though, for she had been here once before, knighted at the feet of the malevolent Lord of Bones and his corrupt whore-wife, the Least Lady.

The indignities of that day - which should have been joyous - had seeded this betrayal.

Now she led the children past vaulted rooms, once sacrosanct, now ruined. There were none here left to meet them, and the purposes of the laboratories there, the altars of science within them, were unknowable now. The old electric lights had gone dark, and the machines had fallen still. Finally, in this oppressive silence, they arrived at the sealed gateway to the former Lord’s court.

Vashante gestured for her wards to stand back and placed her gauntlets on one of the doors that split the gate. Then, she shoved it open with a grunt, the old structure groaning from the disturbance. Struggling to hold the doorway open, the armoured warrior gestured the children through, and they wormed their way inside.

They emerged into the smell of death, an inky blackness, an abyssal court in which they could only vaguely sense the tall benches that rose in steep steps on each side of the massive chamber.

“Be brave. Come...”

Vashante stepped into the dark, the children shivering in fright at her heels. She advanced to where she knew the throne to be, questioning the darkness until her armoured foot met something familiar.

And that voice shook the chamber, hitting Vashante in the chest hard enough to make her gasp.

“Leal soul, you bring to me a sacrifice of flesh.”

A sharp emerald laser beamed down from the darkness high above them, scattering brightly as it crossed mists in its path. Vashante slowly brought back her foot from what she recognised as a corpse on the floor. She had to turn her helmet away as the burning beam threatened to flick into the gaps in her visor. Behind her, Inmi cried out, afraid, and she instinctively stretched out her arm with her cloak to shelter the child.

There, something terrible stirred before them. Vashante looked upon his shape hidden in the dark, and she knew instantly that she was wrong. All these years of secret service, this sworn devotion, love and allegiance - it had not been to a man but a monster. This was no creator, no saviour, not anymore. He was a destroyer, twisted with malice, and now it was too late.

The warrior summoned her courage and called out to the mad titan, hidden in the dark.

“I am Dame Vashante Tens. I was tasked with bringing the children of Abstrek Hash here before you. I have crossed the Crawling City from the towering realm of Genmabandon, to plea for your council.”

That deep voice laughed and shook them.

“Am I one of those simpering puppets?”

Vashante swallowed down fear, lowering her head.

“No.”

“Then tell me why you address me as such.” His bassy electronic voice made her knees weak.

“I meant you no offense, Lord-Master.”

“In this grim millenium, what use have I of a sycophant?”

“None,” Vashante found herself pleading. “Forgive me.”

The children whined, and Vashante sensed motion in the black as the green laser light cast a shimmering reflection in the shape of a giant’s gauntlet, reaching out of the dark towards them.

Lunging, the warrior instinctively put herself between the little grubs and the threat, but she was cast aside effortlessly. Betan defended his sister, shoving his fat body before her, and with a shriek of pain, was plucked and lifted high into the air.

“Betan!” Imni screamed, voice breaking. “No!”

Vashante could only watch from her fallen position as Betan was dragged into the black, beyond the laser light. His fearful cries were cut short with a macabre crack and tear. Then, a mist, black by the sole green light in the chamber, sprayed out. The warrior felt it flick in through the gap in her visor and knew its smell and taste well - blood.

The grisly sound of meat and bones crunching between titanium teeth resounded in the stygian dark. It was with careless regard that His voice came again, filling the vast space.

“Tell me why you profess your loyalty to me, but you are shaped feminine in her illusory image.”

Vashante faltered. Her ears were ringing from shock, but distantly she could hear Imni screaming.

So The Pilgrim continued.

“Do you wish to be a woman? Perhaps that is your desire, your plea. Is that why you have carved your flesh into that shape?”

“I don’t understand,” Vashante found her voice shaking. “I thought you were all progenitors. I thought there was reconciliation. I thought...”

“There can be no reconciliation between the shape of man and the shape of woman. Her treachery is boundless, her being itself an empty vessel. She is no progenitor. I am the fated return.”

“No!”

Vashante turned and reached out a hand, lunging up from her knees in an attempt to push Imni towards the gateway. However, her lopping worm steps were slow and clumsy. It was futile.

“I see your faith is easily swayed. You are broken, just like all who have fallen victim to her lies and deceit. No matter.”

A massive force smashed into Vashante’s back, crushing her down against the waxy floor. She could only look on as Imni, too, was snatched up and out of sight of her visor. She could only listen as she, too, was torn to pieces.

“No! No, no...” Vashante realised she was begging, eyes and mouth full of dust from her position on the desiccated ground.

Only when the Pilgrim was done with his meagre meal did he cast the child’s remains before Vashante to witness. Her stomach turned at the sight of poor Imni’s ravaged body.

He spoke.

“You would dare to tell me no? Such insolence. Let us see your defiance then rendered silent evermore, for I have use for you yet, Dame.”

Outside the Ossein Basilica, haunting the Pate Gardens, innumerable freaks turned their sunken eyes and feathery antennas towards the ruins. They saw there the wicked red glow of the Pilgrim’s moonlight blade cast its light out through the arched windows and the cracks in the vast structure’s broken bones. They fell silent for a time, hearing the screams of agony from within. However, once the cries for mercy ended, it was soon forgotten. The ignorant masses went back to scratching the dirt, hoping to find perhaps morsels of food, a hint of their fate to come, or maybe even a modicum of justice amidst the slaughtered.