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.