Drohh was out in his scrapyard searching for a piece he needed for a project he was doing when he disappeared. We found signs of a struggle and followed the tracks to two dead Baggsab. We knew immediately who had him but no idea where their stronghold was located. Our family went on the warpath looking for others who were part of the Baggsab Saank. News of our movements spread, and inhabitants of our home’s surrounding region, either out of fear, respect, or a bit of aggressive coaxing on our part, dispensed helpful information. Eventually, Yusef lured a party of Baggsab into an ambush, where we managed to pump the location and layout out from one of the members we caught alive.

When we reached the stronghold, Ma used our captive to create a distraction by strapping explosives to him and tossing him into the compound. We slaughtered everyone who tried to fight us, which wasn’t as many as we predicted, since most threw down their armor and weapons as they ran away apologizing or killed themselves rather than face us. Their unconverted slaves took advantage of the fighting, choosing to escape or attack their captors, likewise running away from us in fear. The assault on the stronghold was pure bedlam, which worked in our favor as we moved ahead to the central citadel.

We entered through a hole my mother punched into the building and fought several more groups on our way to where we were told my brother was being held. Bursting into the laboratory, my father ran to my brother’s side when he saw him on the operating table. Drohh had the inside of his chest and skull exposed, blood was left to drain onto the floor, and he was still awake and felt everything. Pa loosened the restraints and crouched beside the table, telling Drohh that the whole family was here to take him back home. While my brother whimpered to our father, we all knew there was nothing we could do to help. Soon after Pa tried his best to soothe him, my brother took his last breath.

There was just only a moment of silence when the sound of a voice cackling and mocking us erupted from speakers around the lab. It was Sank and he was watching through cameras in the room, reveling in our heartbreak. When asked why he did such a cruel and barbarous thing, he at first said it was to find weaknesses, but then gloated that it was to teach us that we can’t cheat and how we, “can’t defy the will of a god, let alone, a jealous one.” My father shot out the cameras, called Sank a coward and dared him to come out of hiding to face us. Sank gladly accepted, and upon doing so the building shook with sounds of structures collapsing beyond large doors at the far end of the area. The shaking stopped momentarily before a monster-sized metal hand crashed through the doors, causing the room to begin collapsing as the hand headed for our direction. We hastily made for a large window, which after securing Pa and Yusef, I jumped through and landed on my feet on the ground outside. Ma approached us and started asking about what happened, when a huge metal body barged out from the citadel’s walls and rammed my mother into some surrounding buildings. Standing where she once stood was a giant mechanical suit, outfitted with a battery of weapons, speakers, and cameras. It turned its attention to us and said, “Saank has risen! Bear witness, for wrathful judgement is upon you, heretics!”

I can’t tell you an exact blow by blow of the fighting, especially since I was knocked out for part of the time, but I can say that my family fought for our lives that day. According to Yusef, a whole bunch of the Baggsab that were still around, got whipped up into a fanatical frenzy at the sight of their brand-new god, and tried swarming Yusef since he seemed to be the least intimidating out of our family. They found out the hard way that they were wrong. It took the combined effort of my parents to drop Sank, and it took Yusef and me to help them keep him down. I then helped Ma rip open the mechanical suit’s chest cavity, revealing its elderly and atrophied pilot, bonded to a mass of machines and minerals to make him and the suit seamlessly one entity. Even with the suit disabled, he spat bile and rambled religiously. It was a pitiful scene, but my father had no room for pity.

Pa first disconnected Sank from the machine’s innards by severing the limbs and ripping him off the spinal connectors and catheters. He pulled the mess of a man out of the cavity and tossed him to the ground. Pa jumped onto the writhing, still-living torso to straddle him, and then gouged out the eyes before proceeding to relentlessly pummel what was left of the head. Sank’s bloodcurdling cries grew muted with each landing of my father’s furious fists, which continued even when only my father’s agonizing screams could be heard. Yusef pulled my father off the corpse before he’d start hurting himself from punching the solid ground, but he was still trying to get back on the torso. After being shaken out of his rage-filled trance, my father then burst into soul-crushed tears and wailed as he embraced Yusef with his gore covered hands.

Later, we recovered my brother’s body, wrapped it in a shroud, strapped it to Yusef’s mount, and left the ruined stronghold. On our way out, I saw people peering out from hiding before ducking back if they felt they were spotted. It didn’t matter whether they were escaped slaves or whatever was left of the Baggsab Saank, we knew they weren’t going to try anything. The walk back home was guaranteed to be an uninterrupted journey.