Prologue 1.2

There were 12 figures, each of varying shapes, heights, and build. They were spaced out across the intersection, creating a half circle surrounding the pair. Whether this was a show of force or simply a state of order in appearance, Wilhelm never bothered to answer, as he noted to himself how the 12 were spread into various groups or instances. One group had 3 clustered together, while pairs of 2 were dotted about, and then there was 1 solitary figure standing farther away from everyone else. Before Wilhelm could get a better glimpse of the one, a series of small clicks turned Wilhelm's attention from the main group, and by chance lead him to the last and the smallest of the 12: a little boy, standing farther alone by himself away from the rest.

There was something about this boy made Wilhelm's skin prickle, and as he looked on and focused his eyesight better, he understood why.

He was tall for his age (which couldn't have been hardly any older than 12, maybe even 13 stretching it), with short unkempt hair that looked as if it'd yet to be cut, and skin so porcelain and pale that its deathly parlor cast a haunting disturbance that nearly clashed with his light tan. He looked incredibly homely and out of place among these people.

For clothes, he wore a dark burgundy blazer with brass buttons and navy-blue lining and a pocket handkerchief; the trousers were khakis with a soft, charcoal brush along the calves and the knees. This boy had evidently arrived from a boarding school, given the nature of his outfit which had a crest of a rose and crane is bright gold and pink on the chest pocket on the left breast; but it only seemed to further contrast against the shape of his thinly framed body. What made him menacing to Wilhelm, however, were his eyes.

They were sullen and bored, with dark circles denoting the lack of proper sleep, making his expression mute and irrefutable. The pupils were milky, a creamy citrusy orange...

Well, if the fruit was shaved of its skin surgically and painfully.

A clear, viscous, oily substance flowed from his shoulders, bubbling up above him in a hue of a purplish-black-orange stream of energy—like a lava lamp. And on his left arm sat a strange creature that Wilhelm could not recognize. When Wilhelm looked closer at it, he immediately wished he hadn't as a cold shiver ran the length of his spine burning like a potent acid.

Sitting on the young boy's left shoulder was a creature unlike anything that ever should've existed in this world.

It was an old creature. A relic of an age no longer recognized by those too feeble to comprehend.

A Rahk'zh'gal? But how? Wilhelm thought, it seems the rumors were true. This boy is the one they call the Inhibitor.

A Rahk'zh'gal. A creature thought long extinct. And yet, here one was casually perched on this child's shoulder.

Yes, Wilhelm noted, this boy is clearly not one to trifle with if he is a member of the 12.

The Rahk'zh'gal was 18 feet long, the length of a male cobra, and was the size of a ferret with a glossy black carapace spiked in bright violet at their tips. It looked like an unnaturally large centipede with its many legs, until you reached its face. It had 8 large bulbous red eyes, similar to a spider's, except for its mouth. To better explain it, Wilhelm immediately thought of a praying mantis face combined with a spider's: the same venomous fangs were simply hidden behind the pedipalps so as to both poison the victim and liquefy their insides, but also crunch and eviscerate them into digestible chunks. It stood upright on the boy's shoulder and it had several raptorial forelegs. There were 8 to be precise: 4 smaller under belly, and 4 large; the larger grasping forelegs held in a praying matter while the smaller were folded inward to fit inside the shell and rest under the creature's belly.

In all, it was as fascinating as it was creepy.

A series of squeaks and clicks came from the creature, and the boy's throat began to quiver as his own created a reply.

So, he can understand that thing, Wilhelm realized.

Interesting indeed.

Out of curiosity at the sight before him, Wilhelm found himself recalling the studies of his past. In his youthful days under the Master's wing, he'd remembered spending his days constantly studying, reading several texts detailing their biology and the supposed intelligence of the creature could often be on par with humans. From what he remembered, at their height, many had been documented as even going so far as to create and use tools from their secretions when necessary. From the notes he glossed over, he learned about their having insatiable appetites, being able to consume almost any and all organic matter, with that their food source primarily consisting of hormones—specifically hormones associated with the hypothalamus found in the brains of humans and other intelligent creatures—because of the metabolic instability their corrosive bodies would make. They were highly aggressive, with the speed of a cheetah despite their numerous legs, and unfoundedly territorial—which seemingly clashed with their nomadic and roaming tendencies.

Even their hives, (if they could even remotely come close to being called those), could house up to 50 to 100 of them at a given time, with an understanding of mutual assured survival stemming from consuming the weak or anything that wandered to close to their territory. Their carnivorous tendencies as a result created a social hierarchy where sustenance rules everything else. Nothing to them was inedible, whether it be human or animal, and even hatchlings were not safe even from their own mothers when it came to producing nourishment during seasons of draught or lack of nutrients to produce the fungi necessary to feed the eggs to ensure a few survived the incubation period.

Which is why they were inevitably driven to extinction, he remembered. Their voraciousness was so uncontrollable and unpredictable and their birth rates so out of proportion that many would simply devour their own young if food was low. Wilhelm remembered reading that skirmishes between rival hives often lead to what could be described as a mass orgy of cannibalism and mating rituals that only these perverse creatures could indulge in, while the waste they produce excrete the remains of their feeding was so toxic that whole species had extinct from the hazardous chemicals found in them that polluted areas into toxic barren blotches of land. In short time, this long lived species had nearly turned the entire planet into a lifeless husk if not for the intervention of humans, or rather the combined forces of both Mankind and the Others—to whom Wilhelm was a part of. That one is here right now and seemingly the familiar of the Inhibitor showed how easily tangible it was that life can and will find a way to survive.

Or that the Inhibitor's ability to recreate long forgotten creatures of the Old World was so incomparable to any whose skill to try to match his.

Whichever one worked for Wilhelm in this instance, so long as he wasn't one receiving one on that end.

The creature, which to the logic Wilhelm's brain looked like a giant alien centipede, snaked upward into the air as its mandibles began poking and popping the bubbles of energy. Amused, the boy lifted his right hand and clear oily essence foamed before a bubble formed. Never once taking his eyes off the creature, he observed as the Rahk'zh'gal watched the substance as it dripped within his palm, curious about the content inside. The liquid lapping at his palm fell onto the pavement, a few drops at a time evaporating before they even touched the surface. A few seconds later, the boy looked up and eyed Wilhelm matching him gaze for gaze, and as the two locked eyes, the glow in the boy's started to fluctuate.

Wilhelm's brow deepened, and the hairs on his head stood up; a primordial sense of fear enveloped his body, and deep within the genetic strands of his DNA, every fiber of his being silently howled in fear, demanding he abandon everything and run.

Wilhelm did no such thing, and remained where he stood. He slowly breathed in, and steeled his face into a stone blockade between his emotions; he breathed out, his heartbeat slowing down, he remained fixed in position, respectfully defiant.

The boy remained as blank and expressionless as the sheet of a freshly printed paper, but the arch in his right eyebrow flicked up a bit. He said nothing, but merely turned away from Wilhelm and returned his attention to his insect-like friend.

Moving his hand, and still grasping the bubble, he brought it towards the creature, who promptly cupped the bubble in its forelegs. It eyed the viscous form for several seconds, as if contemplating the nature of what it beheld, only to then savagely burrow its way into the inside, devouring the ethereal liquid while spraying a steamy, corrosive substance along the walls as it then created a semi-habitable nest within.

It was an eerie sight to behold, but only in the instance in which it was contained.

"Wilhelm, my boy, if you please", said the Master, motioning with a lazy hand wave, "do not forget my suitcase."

Awoken from his observations, Wilhelm blinked before turning away from the Inhibitor and towards his master, replying with a quiet "yes Master."

The instant the Master stepped out into the street, the warm Pacific air suddenly turned frigid and cold and his low breath hung in the air like steam from a boiling pot. As he left, Wilhelm leaned inside to pick up a brown leather suitcase lying on the floor. Gripping the handle, he noticed a speck of oily dust laying on the floor mat. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn't dust, and it was that realization that made him grunt menacingly.

Damn, he thought, to think there'd be leftover bile from the last job. I didn't clean this car good enough.

Wilhelm didn't notice that his master eerily watched him, taking in his movements and dictations. Why, only the Master could say, but the tiniest of glimmers that shone in his eyes gave off a contemplative look like a grandfather bemusedly watching his grandchild fret about over his toys. Out of the many hundreds of thousands who've served him faithfully and full heartedly over the millennia, taking on Wilhelm as his most intimate disciple provided a fair degree of amused indifference as it did a considerable boon to his machinations, given the young man's natural aptitude. In all his years living, the Master knew well of the archetypical characterization of Wilhelm so well: the devout puritan; single-minded in his loyalty to whomever has earned it, but still individually capable remaining untainted by the continual subjection to corrupting thoughts and/or emotions that plague otherwise stalwart defenders of their given faith.

So much a young impressionable child he remains, despite his visible growth and development, the Master wondered.

It's rather cute, how much of an eager little thing human emotion can be when pointed in the right direction, just like the attentiveness of a dog when given a treat.

So amusing, and yet inexplicably fallible and weak.

But organic, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, slightly shivering from the cold air, Wilhelm quickly shrugged off his annoyance and closed the car door. He walked after his Master and stopped to stand a few feet behind him a manner of respectful distance. While remaining direct and assertive, his gaze moved from the gentleman onto the other members of the 12.

Standing hunched over by the Inhibitor, his eyes caught the second of the 12. A thin and lanky man, he was incredibly tall even from across the street where Wilhelm stood; in fact, the correct term for his appearance could be best classified as "inhuman".

At 10 feet in height, the man was slender, with gangly, bony arms and legs, and a shadow so jaggedly edged that Wilhelm could feel nape of his neck sting—like the prickling sensation of his crawling from something burrowing underneath it. A foul stench wafted before his nose, causing his brow to beetle. It was sweet and pungent, smelling of putrid flesh mixed with wine and…

Death…

The sweet scent of rot and death.

Amorphophallus Titanium, Wilhelm's mind identified, otherwise known as the "Carrion Flower". The flower that smells of decay. And here it was this slender man (Wilhelm chuckled at this) reeked of it. He blinked, expecting the rest of the assembled to say something about it. To his surprise, it was almost as if no one even noticed the waft. This disconcerted him, when a series of hacking coughs again brought his attention to the origin of the smell.

The Thin Man.

He wore an insanely large inverness coat, old, time worn, with blotches and holes eaten away by moths and faded the color of dirt, which trailed behind him for a foot and half in all directions. On his head was covered by an equally large tricorn; it looked more like a tombstone than a hat, with its cracked surface the color of dust while the dirty grime covered the gold pendant on the rim. It was rather ugly to see, and even uglier to imagine wearing.

His face was wrinkly, with visible cracks and peeling where his nose was nonexistent and his mouth had no lips—just a short row of yellow, rotten teeth. His eyes were a rotten yellowish-brown with glassy pupils, and he had no eyelids whatsoever. There were with large callouses on his knuckles and his large hands were wiry and gnarled, cupping a long cane that supported his shambling size—almost seemed as if he would collapse into dust at any moment.

A frame so old and worn, and his body so decrepit that Wilhelm scarcely believed that he was even alive.

But he was. He was alive, and all the more frightening because of it.

He was a Withered, or more accurately in this instance he was one known to their order as the Affliction, another member of the 12.

And yet, at this point, Wilhelm suddenly recalled a story told to human children.

There once was a crooked old man…

Before Wilhelm could continue, a voice broke his train of thought.

"So", says a deep-voiced man, "you finally got off your fucking ass and decided to grace us with your presence, Olde Man."

His voice is deep, subtle and boisterous; his accent is thick, Wilhelm observes, possibly Eastern European. The words themselves felt rash and demeaning alongside the frown the man possessed as he spoke. Wilhelm thought he could even detect a hint of contempt for the Master, and quickly bit down a curse of his own.

Wallachian shitstain, his mind muttered in response. Or was he Bulgarian?

Either way, it didn't matter. Not while this man had a massive obsidian sword measuring 12 feet long and 3 and a half feet wide, strapped to his back.

Nope.

Best to keep that snide remark to himself.

Yeah, probably wise.

"…"

The Master said nothing as he stood directly opposite the 12. Mere feet separated the groups, but the sense of foreboding in the air was very much present. Wilhelm stood at attention behind his master in preparation of defending the elderly gentleman should any violence breakout between them. Not that he needed it, but the sense of security was admirable.

Almost.

Wilhelm scowled at the speaker, calmly reaching inside his suit jacket and sighed relief while his fingers grazed the cold metal that was his concealed weapon of choice: A Magnum .44 with custom modifications tailored to him personally which hung from the holster under his suit jacket. It had occurred to him that he'd forgotten to properly clean it, because there seemed to be smudges of grease along the hammer and rear sight. No doubt from the last job he was assigned to do. But nevertheless, having his weapon within reach helped steady his heartbeat and calm his mind. Something very few instances afforded him in life, not that he complained.

My old friends, he mused, I'm glad I have you with me.

Hidden in the folds of his suit jacket, Wilhelm had a vintage double draw holster strapped across his chest, shoulders, and back. There were four in total: two along his sides, and two X-shaped at the base of his spine. It was interesting to note how easily concealed they were when he was out in public, as per the Master's tutelage, he'd had a majority of his clothes tailored for just the purpose: to hide weapons however inconspicuously as he could.

Plus, Wilhelm has a thing for suits.