A crack, sudden and violent, the sound of thunder, of light lancing down to strike the metal spires. The sharpie looks up, watching and cringing in equal measure as the clouds pour their fury down in a long, unbroken stream.
The light stops first, then the sound after, leaving in their place only a red mark in its eyesight and a whine in its ears. It listens over the whine, straining, scenting the air.
Nothing is too close, revealed by scent or footstep. Mother is close-ish, flanked on all sides by its siblings – its bigger, stronger siblings. Close, but not close enough to matter; she moves slowly, with all the rest of the brood between it and her. This is good. It will have enough time before anything passes over its little divot.
They are in a place that is like a forest, but it does not smell or taste like wood. It is all metal, the ground is metal, the trees are metal. The animals are metal, too.
They do not eat what they kill, and that is the only reason the sharpie is alive right now. There are corpses, old and dry or wet and rotting, some picked-clean but most not.
Killed either by the metal creatures, or by the light from the sky. It thinks that this one here, the one it is stripping bits of edible flesh from, was killed by the Sun. It smells like it, and white waxy rot covers the corpse, eats through it, makes most of it poison.
But there is enough. There should be enough. Safe from the elements in the little hole, with a towering metal tree right above, the corpse is mostly whole.
It finishes stripping the pus-free meat from bone, and crawls from the hole. It stands on its toes, gripping the tree for balance, and sees mother’s horns swaying in the distance. Enough time, still enough time.
The ground and the trees and the animals are metal, but there are some things that are not metal. In the same way, the brood is mostly sharpies, but there are some things that are not sharpies.
There are the corpses. There is sand and glass, in places where the skin of this metal forest has been torn away, exposing the underneath. There are men, its older brothers and fathers, and two women, its older sisters.
The men are good and bad; they might eat the sharpie, or they might teach it things – or do things as it watches, which is almost the same. The women are just bad; they will eat it if they can catch it, because it is small and sickly and cannot feed itself well. The thing it needs, other than meat, it something hard to find. Something it has no word or feeling for, no comprehension of.
The sand is good. The glass is good. It finds those things, and looks for a spot – not in the path of Mother, because there are too many sharpies. One of them would take the kill before it can.
But not too far away, either; the women are on either side, as far from Mother and her sharp outside-teeth as they can get. The men are also there, hoping to catch the women’s eyes as they help keep watch for creatures.
No, it has to be in the middle. A risk, but it needs to risk things. It is small, and it is starving.
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It crouches over the meat, which is still edible despite being however old it is – the pus must have killed all the other kinds of rot. Every bit of it cries out to eat, but it does not; it does not need the meat, not as much as the nameless thing.
A long time happens, or at least a long time when it is crouched over meat it struggles to not eat. Then, a scent, a scrabbling sound.
A nose pokes out from the top of the hill, then a claw, then the rest of the head. The other sharpie is alone; this is good. It is bigger than it; this is frightening, but also good. It is tall and strong, nearly at its pupation, confident enough to wander far from Mother.
It has followed the meat-smell, or perhaps the smaller sharpie’s weak-smell. It is wary, but not of the sharpie; it looks in every direction for metal creatures before it steps out from the shadow of the metal pillar, but when it does it shows no fear. Its teeth flash and chomp, and it slides down the short smooth hill towards the smaller sharpie.
Crack, everything pausing as lightning strikes down close by. Then it resumes; the smaller sharpie chomps back, showing its teeth. The larger sharpie is still not afraid; it steps forward, walking on two legs like an adult – it is very close to pupation.
Reluctantly, the smaller sharpie backs away. It tries to hide some meat slivers in a curled claw, but a shriek and lunge from its larger sibling sees it drop everything and dart away. The larger sharpie makes a pleased sound, and takes a step towards the meat, then another.
Crack. It is not the sky this time; the sound comes from below, not above. The larger sharpie seems to have good instincts, because it tries to flee, rolling to the side and trying to leap.
But the glass under the thin layer of sand is smooth, even smoother than the metal surrounding it, and its back claws find no purchase. The glass breaks under its weight, and it falls into the trap below – metal bits, sharp and jagged, planted into the exposed earth at the bottom of the wounded landscape.
Something, that thing the smaller sharpie has no name for, floats free as the larger sharpie writhes and cries out. It is a red thing, a warm thing, like blood but not like blood at all.
Other sharpies can eat things that are all around – metal, or the air, or the ground, or even water when they find it. But it cannot; it has tried, and failed. Its body calls out for only one thing, that strange, warm energy.
It takes the red aura into itself, feels its stomach fill, its comprehension expand as its sibling goes through its death throes. Then its mouth wets itself; it has taken the energy, now it will take the meat as well.
It leaves some bones behind, because it smells a man coming near. One of the not-brothers, it thinks. Its belly is fuller, its limbs feel stronger.
But not all the way.
It will need to eat again.
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The sky is bright today, Dev thought, as lighting arced across the clouds in long lines, smashing into itself to leave twinkling short-lived balls that his father had always said were the ghosts of stars.
Dev was sure that was just his father being poetic, but it was sometimes hard to tell.
In the distance, shapes began to appear. Muddy and indistinct, he nonetheless knew exactly what they were. “Form up. Time to show off.”
The men to his back shuffled to follow his orders. Some moved swiftly, while others lagged behind – the very strongest and stupidest of his clan brothers, who respected neither his father’s trust nor his proven tactical insights. To them, he must seem nothing but a weak man stepping above himself, daring to order his betters.
But those men were in the minority, one in a hundred. In the time it took to draw a breath, the spears were raised. His mother’s eyes turned down, meeting his own. A nod. “March.”
Over four thousand men began moving across the sand, flanked by six women on one side and five on the other. The women were large, each of them an army in their own right, proud and independent. They would not follow the orders of a mere Warboss, even the Clanboss’s son, so he has already accepted that he will need to plan around their movements. The men are weaker by far, but more disciplined, moving in sync. It would almost be wrong to classify them as individuals; they are his arms and legs, a single machine made of many interlocking gears.
He breaths. In his guts, the ever-present fear churns; his facial muscles are like steel, completely taught from mastering his expression. Steady. To show weakness to the enemy is unacceptable.
At the head of their army walk two people. The only ones to stand in front of Dev, showing him their backs. His mother and father. Swordmatriarch Hides-Her-Stinger-Tail, and Clanboss Cobo, son of Lu.
She is towering, easily the largest thing on their side, over ten metres from head to haunch, nearly twice that if one counts her sinuous tail. Only slivers of her purple flesh peek out, the rest covered by overlapping lengths of bandage-like multicoloured cloth – and hanging from each of those streamers is a sword, further obscuring her, the hundreds of blades flashing in the bright season’s light like dragon’s scales.
Quite literally, in some cases. He touches his armour, drawing fingers down the welded-together scales, steel and copper with just a dusting of iridon. Bulletproof, if only barely, as has been demonstrated again and again.
His father, in contrast, is small. Merely average in height and weight, he looks more suited to being a rank-and-file warrior than the leader of a clan – that is, until one looks closely and sees.
Sees the way light shines from his eyes, the way dust refuses to touch the white of his robes, the crystalline sword sheathed in his belt. Seen from a distance, the Clanboss of Clan Chaos Beast is unimpressive; seen from close up, the strength of his spirit is palpable.
The desert around the Junk Pit’s western edge is mostly flat, and as the armies begin to draw up against one another, there is nothing to obscure their sights. Slowly, shifting colours resolve into individual men – they are less organised than the Chaos Beasts, and less numerous, but each man stands taller. The scent of power wafting over the crusty salted earth is more concentrated. Some of them even fly through the air, and he can taste his subordinates becoming a touch intimidated.
Three Hells, I’m intimidated. This suddenly seems like a strategic error, meeting them openly. Better to have poisoned them beforehand, or supported one of their rivals, or…
At the head of the Junk Dogs is a man larger than the others – much larger; his mother, should she stand straight up, would be no more than eye-level with his chest.
Dev has heard stories of Junk Dog the Immense from many sources, but none more knowledgeable than his father. The Junk Dog he sees in front of him is different from those stories.
Rather than shine like polished ivory, the giant’s skin is a dull pale grey. His face betrays the passage of many years, and he walks with a certain stiffness. His hair is a darker grey, but comes only from the sides of his head, just above his ears. He looks old.
But despite that… When he inhales, Dev can smell the power coming off the man. He radiates strength; if this is the man diminished, then Dev cannot even imagine what he would have been in his prime. He wears a bracer of purple metal; if that is pure iridon, as he suspects it is, then the man’s physical strength must surpass the size of his frame ten times over.
The giant draws his eyes over his mother and father, then to the field of spears, upon which are set the heads of dozens of his clan brothers. Black pupils, each as large as his head, linger on Dev for a moment. He does not flinch, but it is a close thing.
“Junk Dog,” his father announces, “I am Cobo, son of Lu, boss of the Chaos Beast Clan. Once I held the blood of Junk Dog; I have come to reclaim that blood, by whatever means necessary.” His words echo across the flat wastes, loud and clear despite being surrounded by much more massive warriors.
Junk Dog is silent. Then, his face splits as he smiles. Then, he laughs, the sound booming louder than even the thunder coming from above.
Accompanying his laugh it a wave of energy, pure and yet impure. It rocks against them, pushing at them like a rising sea, and some of the men behind him buckle or sway. He does not; his body is too rigid with fear, muscles held in place like those of a freshly dead corpse. That wasn’t even an attack – just him ceasing to hold back. As his men rallied themselves Dev could only stand still, his arms crossed, his face a mask of displeasure beneath his mirrored goggles.
“Cobo, son of Lu…” Junk Dog repeated. “I cannot recall ever hearing your name, though the name of your father is familiar to me.” His breath is moving the sand. How can we defeat this? Why did father insist we come at them straight? “Son of Lu, Cobo, son of Lu…” His smile widened, exposing teeth that were worn down, but still more than large enough to pulp an entire body between them. “You are the man who was made Lonesome by Stinger-Tail, all those years ago. How curious!”
Again he bellowed out a laugh, his head tilting up to point at the sky, a sound of such genuine amusement issuing from his throat that it froze Dev’s blood. “Ha! Such drive! Such determination, to have risen from a lowly Lonesome to fearsome Clanboss!” He lowered his head again, his eyes turning to Dev’s mother. “So you must be Stinger-Tail the younger, then. I suppose I have you to blame for the silence from our western front?”
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Mother stepped forward, and reached down into a bag tied to her clothes – a bag much too small to contain either her hand, or the thing she pulled out from it.
She tossed the bloodied mask of Hides-Her-Stinger-Tail to the ground between the two parties, and for the first time Junk Dog’s smile became small.
There was silence for a moment, before the giant spoke with a solemn tone. “Ah, to be felled by your own daughter. Would that we all had so perfect an ending.” He looked again to Dev’s father, and a hint of the mirth returned. “Cob, son of Lu. You have nurtured a strong clan – but not strong enough.” From behind him there was another wave of expressed power as his subordinates flexed, yelling with one voice.
“Junk Dog!” they cried. “Junk Dog! Junk Dog! Junk Dog!”
Dev’s blood continued to run coldly through his veins. Every one of them is worth… five, maybe six of ours. Winnable – but not in this situation, standing across from each other in lines.
His father had a strange look on his face. “Strength,” he said, all but whispering. The only reason Dev could hear him over the roar of the opposing men was the small radio in his ear, connected to a similar one his father carried. “When I was removed from Junk Dog, we were known as a clan of weaklings. But the men behind you exceed even the strong warriors of Horrible Swamp.” His eyes flashed with a thousand colours as he swept them side to side, then back up to his fellow Clanboss. “You truly live up to all the promises, all the speeches and sermons.”
Then his father drew his sword, a curved, single-edged blade carved from a single piece of crystal. “Junk Dog the Immense, I challenge you to combat by champion. If I win, I shall take your name and clan for myself, and I offer the same to you.”
Single Combat?! Dev’s head whirled, picturing his father facing the giant alone – but as he thought further, his heart became calmer. No, this is better. I understand, now. Behind his face, he began to smile. This could work. With me feeding him information, we might win this.
Junk Dog looked down, his expression uncertain – and then, yet again, he raised his head to bellow out a laugh. This time, even his own men staggered from the force of it.
“Ah! Combat by champion? How could I possibly refuse?” His spiritual presence continued to rise, and in moments the air was too thick to breathe. He moved, and as he did Dev’s father mirrored him, both of them half-turning to walk into the open wastes without breaking their locked eyes. “Very well, Lonesome warrior! Let us do battle not only in our clans’ names, but as two simple warriors! Whoever should win, our power shall join together through consumption!”
Father’s own power broke through the heavy air, an ever-changing kaleidoscope of different sensations meeting the strange pure-but-not energy of his former leader. Both sides of the conflict buckled as the strongest among them postured, until only three were left standing straight: a tall and fat Junk Dog clansman in scale armour, his skin the same colour as the giant’s, Dev’s mother, and Dev himself, frozen with both residual fear and his own Comprehension.
Because as the two Clanbosses walked far out so as not to destroy their own armies, Dev was not idle. Energy thrummed through him, gathering behind his eyes as he looked, in a way only he amongst all his brothers could.
Now that there was a plan to follow, he could see it. That clear path lying between present and future, fed by the energy of prescience and prediction; he watched, keen-eyed, as the next minute unfolded. The way Junk Dog moved, the way his father responded, the techniques they both used, he let it all flow through him.
It was not necessarily how it would go exactly, should he let it play out for real – he did not think there was such a thing as a single set future, immutable save for him alone, but rather a cloud of possibilities that his empowered eyes could pierce into.
The vision began and ended in the time it took to blink, and as the two warriors walked into the wastes Dev put a finger to his ear.
“Father, I have his opening move and some of his techniques. He’s-”
A large, clawed hand fell on his shoulder, cutting him off. He looked up at his mother, gritting his teeth as she shook her head.
“Dev, not this time.”
His blood ran cold again. “Mother..?”
“I know.” Her head continued to shake, the shadow it cast swallowing up his view of the sky. “But this is the fight that your father has lived his entire life preparing for. He will win or lose by his own terms.”
Dev’s head jerked back to his father, still walking, still locking eyes with a giant that out-massed him by two orders of magnitude. His hand went to his ear. “Father?”
Cobo’s head turned, just enough to show he had heard. Through the radio, Dev heard him whisper. “My son. Watch me… today, your old man has his own path to follow.”
They continued to stride out towards the horizon, until by some invisible signal both stopped as one. They stood, regarding each other, neither taking anything even resembling a fighting stance. And then they moved. As Dev had seen in his vision, his father blurred and became twenty identical clones, Junk Dog mustering an aura of power around himself.
The fight was like watching a cloud of wasps bury their stingers into the thick bark of a particularly mobile tree. Junk Dog was large, but by no means slow; when he moved it was with the grace and strength of a lifelong martial artist, his palms leaving streaks in the air as he batted clones aside with uncanny precision. Cobo’s attacks appeared sloppy in comparison, elemental blasts fired seemingly without any coordination between the clones.
In ones and twos and trees, the clones were struck down. Each detonated in a burst of chaos as it died, but that meant little; Junk Dog was covered in a layer of his own energy, the next best thing to invincible. No attack did more than thin the aura, which was replenished the next moment by the Clanboss’s monstrous reserves.
Even knowing that his father’s position wasn’t nearly as precarious as it appeared, Dev winced internally. Why? Why fight with your hands tied?
What use is pride or strength, measured against victory and survival? Father, let me help you. Or are my eyes and mind not worth anything, placed next to your illustrious honour?
As the clones dwindled to a mere handful, his father’s true plan revealed itself: from a way’s away four hidden Cobos revealed themselves, massive attacks held between their hands, techniques bursting with energy gathered while the rest kept the giant distracted. Four great blasts erupted, striking Junk Dog from every angle, stripping his protections in an instant before eating into his flesh.
With a flex the massive Clanboss blew away the dregs of elemental energy, but the damage was plain; he was burned and frozen, pulped and shocked and cut into, the fat under his skin leaking through in molten globules as blood ran freely from his burst and slashed-open veins.
Then with a “HA!” loud enough to stir wind on the far sides of both armies, Junk Dog returned to health. For a moment his skin glowed too brilliantly to look at, and when the dazzle cleared he was whole again, returned to faded grey.
From that moment forth, Junk Dog began fighting seriously. No longer did he rely on a simple shield and the movements of his body; now, he fought with techniques. Cobo’s remaining clones were destroyed instantly by explosive blasts, and as his father attempted to counter the giant filled the air with violently shining sparks. The cloud was shield and weapon both, detonating to protect its creator even as bits drifted lazily into the smaller man’s path, hampering his movements.
Dev looked into the future again and again, watching each moment play out two or even three times. It was almost involuntary; his Comprehension relied on circumstance as much as effort or intent, and the circumstances were extreme.
His father teleported. He cut through the cloud with a blade of air, flattening himself through the resulting gap and striking Junk Dog like a spear.
In the next minutes, a spectacle of a magnitude none of the gathered warriors had ever experienced unfolded. Cobo the Chaos Beast folded space like paper, he left points of fixed time to tear through his opponent’s flesh as they danced, he stomped and filled the air with countless crystal needles, each sprouted from the ground. He covered the battlefield with light and darkness, he enhanced his sword with wind and blood and poison. A hundred times he struck Junk Dog from an unexpected angle, emerging from a mirage or displacing his attack or addling the giant’s mind.
And each time it seemed he was gaining the upper hand, Junk Dog simply showed a little more depth to his strength. As his eyes pierced the cloud of possibility, Dev was left with only one thought.
Father was never the only one fighting with his hands tied. In futures that never were, Dev saw moments where his father threatened true victory – and in those moments, Junk Dog transformed. He went from a massive beast, dangerous but crude, to a shrewd warrior with the wisdom of a thousand battles.
Junk Dog is fighting my father’s full might without employing any strategy at all. Without using his strongest techniques, or anything beyond the most basic martial arts.
He clenched his teeth, face tightening a fraction as frustration leaked through the steel mask of his face. He isn’t trying to win, not really. He just wants to see what my father can do – to him, we’re just today’s entertainment. The shame of it cut into his chest.
“Father,” he spoke quietly into the radio, “When he dodges left-”
Once again he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder, though this time it descended with enough force to threaten.
He looked up, his teeth threatening to bare. “Do you want him to die?”
“All men die,” she replied in a casual tone that made him want to throw her off. “Cobo has chosen to risk his life for something he believes in, rather than live with a dream half-fulfilled.” She looked down, and he saw her jaw was stretched in a savage expression. “Don’t write him off yet. He still hasn’t pulled out his real tricks.”
Neither has Junk Dog, he wanted to retort, but the conviction on his mother’s face forced his mouth shut. He turned back to the fight, just in time to see his father transform his sword into a heavy ball and chain, striking his opponent in the skull from behind in a move that made no physical sense.
Somehow, things only continued to escalate. Both of them began adding top-tier techniques as they circled one another, dodging and blocking and countering. Junk Dog sank into his own shadow with alarm on his face, pulling himself up by grasping the air and pulling on reality itself. He began flying by shooting energy from his legs, only to crash to earth as gravity crushed the torn-up battlefield perfectly flat. He extended his arms and turned the ground to molten glass for a klick in every direction, forcing father to reduce his own weight and flit around, bouncing off panels of hardened air.
More and more energy was expended with each passing second, the atmosphere becoming muddled and heavy. It was a terrain that should have favoured his father, who could draw strength from the chaotic waste – but as things went on and on, neither warrior seemed to be tiring.
In the uncanny hyper-awareness of his futuresight, Dev began to pick out what his normal senses never would. It isn’t just father drawing strength from the battlefield. I have no idea how he’s doing it, but Junk Dog is consuming the waste as well! That should be impossible, but the evidence was right in front of him, visible in the motes of grime polluting the Clanboss’s aura. Mixing with any other energy shouldn’t be possible for a Joeist. Pure power is pure, that’s the source of its destructive potential.
It became even more blatant as their attacks increased in potency. Soon Junk Dog’s attacks didn’t simply explode, but explode into things, lances of water and lightning and a dozen other elements cutting through the air like a grenade’s shrapnel.
And then, at long last, Junk Dog seemed to finally become content with the fight. “Warrior!” he bellowed, a smile seeming to split his face clean in two. “You are strong! I find I can hold back no longer! Take this – the ultimate technique of the Prime Movers!” His jaw stretched even wider as a light from within shone out the back of his throat. Father sucked in a breath through his teeth, blasting the ground with frost so he could plant his feet.
With a roar, Junk Dog named his attack. “URIEL’S VOICE!” A beam of destructive light issued from his mouth, so bright that Dev’s eyes burned even covered by his lids, goggles, and raised arms.
He frantically tried to look forward – but for the first time since the battle began, his technique failed. He was forced to endure the march of time in uncertainty along with everyone else, blinking tears from his eyes as visibility returned piecemeal.
“I can’t fuckin’ believe it..!” came a voice from behind him, and Dev could do nothing but agree.
His father stood, his hand extended, seemingly completely unharmed. Junk Dog could not say the same; he was down, properly down, lying face-up as smoke wafted from his burnt body.
Both of the armies were silent in their astonishment. “How..?” Dev whispered, and his mother was kind enough to answer.
She leaned down, and whispered back, “Reversal Spray. Oh, I remember the first time he used it in our fights. I thought it was completely useless.” Her eyes were sharp, burning. “And it is, used against cheap attacks.”
All at once, the tension broke and warriors began hollering. His clan sent up a cheer, while the Junk Dog army clamoured for their champion to stand up, to keep fighting-
And to Dev’s mingled horror and incredulity, the giant actually did.
Slowly, slower than any of his movements thus far, Junk Dog sat up. His body had been utterly ravaged by the reversed Voice, massive sections simply missing. His chest was an empty ribcage, organs scoured away, his arms skeletal nubs. His head was more intact, but only barely; one naked eye poked out from a skinless, muscleless skull, the other socket a smooth and empty depression.
No. Fuck you, you can’t have survived that. That’s, that’s… His fists clenched. Unfair.
It seemed that reality had little care for fairness. As his father struggled with the backlash of reflecting such a massive attack, a fuzz of muscle tissue appeared around Junk Dog’s exposed spinal column. Slowly at first but with increasing swiftness, the giant’s regeneration erased the damage, and by the time Cobo could manage to step towards him, Junk Dog had a face to stare blankly with.
His father’s sword sang as he swept it around, its edge extended in one of Mother’s signature techniques. His opponent blinked dumbly, raising his hand – the slash cut deep into his pudgy fingers, but was stopped as it hit bone.
And then, after all the rest of him had returned through what must be a ruinous expenditure of energy, Junk Dog’s lips finally turned up in that terribly unfair, terribly pure smile. He tilted one way and then the other, seemingly testing his ability to move. Then he got his knees under him, nearly collapsed as Father’s next slash cut into his thighs, and finally stood.
“What a magnificent battle,” came his voice, only slightly less booming as he finally started to show a hint of fatigue. “Truly, I have not been pushed like this in many decades.” A pause, then he amended, “No, I have never been pushed in this manner. To read my movements so plainly…”
He slumped, and Dev’s father sent out a wave of crackling red energy – only for an aura of pure power to once again engulf the Joeist Clanboss, the unknown attack sliding off to no more effect than if he had thrown jellied fruit.
“I return to you the blood of Junk Dog. Cobo, son of Lu, you are Lonesome no more.”
Through his radio, set to always transmit his Clanboss’s orders in the midst of battle, Dev heard a hissed reply. “Fuck. I had you, you fat fuck. One more attack…”
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Dev was a coward. When he looked upon a powerful warrior, it was not lust for battle, or anticipation, or hunger that filled his heart. No, the primary emotion he felt was fear; it was almost always at the back of his mind, that cold mass, that hesitation to commit to a strike.
He was sure that if any of his brothers were to peer into his mind, they would be disgusted. But Dev did not hate his nature – in fact, he was grateful for it. When other warriors would lose themselves to the ebb and flow of battle, he retained the capacity to step back, to think, to evaluate. It was, he thought, probably why his father was his father. Why his father had made him Warboss, when his personal power was near the bottom amongst all his siblings.
“You are now the first amongst my Warbosses, above even my own son. Have you any ranked subordinates of your own?”
His father did not look like he had won – because he had not, and everyone knew it. Cobo was nearly completely empty of energy, and had to strain to even move. “Yes… My son, a Warboss. Three others, Raidbosses.”
Junk Dog nodded. “They shall retain their ranks – though they shall also start from the bottom. You are fatigued, as am I, so I shall keep this short.” He turned in a circle, addressing his entire clan. “These men are, from now on, also of the clan. They are your brothers; treat them no differently.”
He spoke additional words, but for once Dev allowed his attention to wander.
He was a coward. A man motivated by fear above all else – but right now, in this moment, the fear had been burned away by a deep, acidic hate. Junk Dog the Immense, he vowed, from this moment forth, you are my enemy. More than any foreign raider, more than the king of Stars himself.
One day I will pull apart everything you have built, tear it from your hands and turn it inside-out in front of your eyes. The most desperate sharpie will leave your body uneaten, lest they swallow a piece of your misfortune, a piece of my hate.
On my name as Devour-the-Enemy-as-They-Lie-Sleeping, I will take everything from you, and leave nothing. I will be Junk Dog, and you will be no-one.
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Somewhere close and far away, an old black worm, an old woman, a poison too strong for even death itself to stomach, felt the threads of fate shift. Her mouth opened to show teeth like small white stones, and the Witch of Ten Thousands Poisons let out a proper witch's cackle.