Steel crashed into stone like lovers reunited after a long war, a thick cloud of dust rising upwards in an unseen ballet. The sound carried throughout the lightless tunnels, so alien in this place of impenetrable silence. Alarmed, several of the hallowed Pit Guard rushed towards the source, weapons drawn. Half a dozen of them congregated in the hallway beyond the Chamber of the Gods, and they raised their torches to illuminate the darkness. 

Like vermin, the dark retreated at the advance of the flames, revealing a twisted mound lying on the stone floor in front of one of the alcoves. It was not until the Guard were a few feet from the object did they identify it for what it was: a cell door, the heavy steel warped and crumpled like paper. 

It was but a moment before one of them spoke, but a moment that seemingly stretched into infinity, in which entire civilizations could rise and fall. 

"That," said the first Guard to recover from his shock, "is really not good."

"Eyra's eye," said another. "What do we do? We were never told something like this could happen."

"What happened?" said the youngest of them, waving his torch wildly as he backed away from the gate. "What did this? [i]What did this[/i]?"

"[i]HelLO[/i]."

The voice was glass ground into gravel, the voice of something that had not spoken in a very long time, and directly behind the young Pit Guard. He spun around, and in his last few moments dearly wished he had not. It was his light that revealed the hulking leonine horror: hungry, furious, and free.

[center][img]http://files.brightside.me/files/news/part_2/21055/44005-R3L8T8D-650-5.jpg[/img][/center]

The bestial giant, standing taller than their longest spears, lashed out with a speed that belied its thousand-year imprisonment, and the young Guard flew through the chill air, rent and ruined, the life struck from his body, and disappeared into the darkness of the now empty cell. His comrades, doused in his blood, stared at the beast as if frozen. But they were not frozen. Mortal men though they were, they were also the Pit Guard, Eyra's elite, and though all of them felt fear, none of them would allow that fear to fell them. Shock turned to grim determination. Their white-knuckled hands gripped the hafts of their spears and swords tightly. It would be death and death alone that would pry their weapons from their grasp.

"PIT GUARD," they cried, charging the demon. "In Eyra's name! Attack! [i]ATTACK[/i]!"

The beast welcomed their charge, relished at the bite of their steel against his flesh. It had been so long. So long. The pain sang to him. He had not been dead these long and lonely years, but neither had he been alive until this moment. He grinned as a sword sank into his naked thigh. These were strong warriors, and he was weaker now than he had ever been, but still he was a Child of Aton. He hungered, and that hunger would not be denied.

"[i]YEs. ThaT's IT. DO yoUR duTy[/i]," the beast spoke, even as his claws cleaved one of the warriors in half. He could taste his own blood in his mouth. A familiar lightness creeped into his brain. He felt his senses sharpen, expand. His heart beat with a maddened, rabid joy. This was what he was put on this earth to do. 

"[i]TRy to FIGHT ME. Try tO HURT ME[/i]."

The beast's massive paw gripped one of the soldiers by his legs and swung him about like a club, laying two of the poor bastard's fellows out before slamming him heavily against the unyielding stone wall. His body burst in his armor like overripe fruit. With a flick of his powerful, sinuous tail, the beast swept the last Guard's legs out from beneath him. He fell on his back, his spear flying from his hand. The man's training took over as he bravely moved to draw his sword from its scabbard, but the monster was on him in an instant, massive jaws closing around his arm, crimson-stained fangs tearing it off the shoulder. The man's scream echoed throughout the Pit.

"[i]TRy aLl yOU LIke[/i]," said the lion, its muzzle inches from the man's face, its breath washing over him in a cloud of hatred. "[i]I hAve LOSt coUNt of hoW ManY sWorDS have BROKen aGaiNSt my hIDE. How MANY spEARS have sPlinterED betwEEN my TEEth. CaLL for moRe meN. CalL for ALL of thEm. It won'T MATTER. I am NOD, BRiNGER of WAR to this enTIre fEstEring PLAnEt, and I will sWalloW yoUr feTid GodmoTheR's HEART, rIght aFTER I AM DONE sWalLowIng YOURS[/i]."