xxx
And the temple moves. Finally, time to continue my war on you. My spawn even now have attached to the little warm bodied toys. Down in the chambers where my minions store them for reuse they gape and try to scream. Such simple toys cannot grasp our war. Though now I see that one of them has your pathetic little weapon. Do you not have the strength, the evolution after a thousand years to fight on your own?
There is a spot here for you my pet; I am keeping it warm for you.
Fight the spawn; I do not need more then one of you to fall, to fail, before my creatures take you over. One by one.
Fight me like a true warrior, put down all your armor and battlements. Show me the real creature that tries to destroy my regality.
I've always wondered that, pet. How you can claim to be such a warrior, yet you find my people unarmed and unwilling. Did you even have a land of your own? Or are you, like the little warm toys you use, simply graced with mechanisms that put you above the other creatures you see? Is that how we are? Like a human and a lion?
I shake now, with desire, I can almost smell you coming closer. My chains will rattle no more, enough have been born. Enough time has passed. I am ready now to leave this place, to truly have our war. It was your will to involve this planet, this place, and if it is overrun, that is of no concern to me.
Your morality is not my own, if morality is a concept that you have still, pet.
My people have survived millennia without the crutches of your machinery; we have remained unchanged through the forge of time. Primal and perfect, you come here with your weapons, and your shining armor as to fight a true war, but true wars are mine, pet. True warriors have no feelings no emotions, save my own. I am the war, I am the queen. And that must never be forgotten.
xxx
We make our way though the complex quickly, for we are all of us eager to begin the blooding trial. At the heart of this labyrinth lay our burners, our weapons, entombed and awaiting our arrival; as we reach the main chamber, we all know something is wrong. The ancient seal has been broken and rising from it, appearing pale and insubstantial from behind the visors of our faceplates, is a mist as ancient as this temple. Gkyaun reaches the seal first, and peering down into the depths he beckons the rest of us closer. We do so, crowding around him, and find that the seal is bereft of what we have come to attain; it takes only an instant to piece the puzzle together, to realize that the pyode amedha have taken what belongs to us.
"Pauk," Etah'de spits out in angry contempt. His expletive is echoed by others of our number; this was something unforeseen, unexpected. Kainde amedha are deemed the ultimate prey for a reason; our burners, while not vital, serve to even the odds. We need to regain our arsenal, and it is agreed silently between us that we will search separately for the oomans and what they have taken. Uk'leit'a, Da'ec'te and I head back the way we came; as we reach a fork in the path I signal to the others, close fisted, indicating I will take the tunnel to the right. I move forward determinedly, purposefully; as I walk I take from where it is strapped against my back my naginata. I will be prepared should worst come to worst.
I do not have to wait long for the worst to show.
Upon the entrance of the oomans into this temple things were set in motion; when our weapons were removed from the seal the process was rendered complete. And it seems things have come full circle in shorter a time that was expected, for now I stand face to face with one of the kainde amedha.
This, my Queen, is why we have done all we have to you. This thrilling of blood in my veins, this rush of anticipation as the ebony chitin of your offspring rises, as the dim light glistens off the needle teeth bared in my direction. And as your child and I regard each other in this one moment, I give thanks that you are here –I give thanks that you have supplied me with this opponent.
We begin to move, to start the deadly dance. It is time to test my mettle.
xxx
