[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DIqSlQJnfw]The fat[/url], smelly bastard, reached out at Arthur with his greasy, grubby fingers. Within that moment, time slowed down in Arthur's mind, producing the same gradual, screeching violin crescendo that heralds the death of another victim in a slasher film, rising and intensifying, accompanied by the sonorous roar of a tuba all building up in his skull. Finally climaxing, a panic-inducing explosion of fear gripped the cannibal as he felt the monster's hands gaining in on his face. And then it came off... His only source of protection, his only shield, the warden keeping his newborn faculties of demonic power in check... [i]Devoured[/i] by this obese, disgusting slob of a Frenchman. Arthur gasped for half a second, and in the next, he swallowed that gasp and roared it back out in a furious lunge that drove the fingers of his right hand into Philippe's mouth, hooking onto the roof his mouth and yanked. The Frenchman bit down hard, hard enough to sever the flesh and bones of any normal man. But Arthur was no normal man. He wasn't even a man at all. He was a monster! A demon! And with that monstrous demonic might, Arthur turned and flung Philippe over the table, and into the refrigerator behind him, crushing it with the man's blubbery impact. "VOUS" Arthur shouted, his veins swelling as he was filled with an animalistic fury that turned his skin fiery orange, hooves bursting through his shoes as his pants tore and the threads of his sweater came undone, "STINK!" The cannibal inhaled through his mouth, choking, coughing and squealing with rage as his nose became round and cylindrical, jaws bulging with muscle, while his trapezius rose and stretched his collar until it split, the fabric falling over his chest and back, revealing two spike-covered blocks on his shoulders that resembled hammers more than spaulders, each connected to thick, metal staffs wrapped around rapidly growing biceps and triceps. Arthur leaped back, ridding himself of his shredded pants, whilst sliding his hands beneath the savage's loincloth that was his sweater to gain a grip on two out of six weaponized, chain-handled kitchen utensils sheathed in his apron. Baring the brunt of Philippe's malevolent odor, Arthur pulled out the twin butcher's knives in an inverted grip, slicing away the primitive garments of his waist before flicking his wrists, and severing off the sleeves covering his forearms. Before the cloth had a chance to hit the ground, Arthur had sheathed the knives in favor of his frosted meat chain-cleavers, twirling them around his form in cold, whistling loops via the chains which, as it turned out were wrapped around his forearms and not connected to his metal apron as the rising Philippe might have guessed. Putting his left hoof before his right, the Boar of War made his declaration to Bourgeois. "Kommen Sie! EIN BLOATED SKUNK IST WAS SIE [i]SIND[/i]..." bellowed the Cannibal Connoiseur, driving the cleaver down in a violent arc that would flash-freeze Philippe solid on impact, "UND DAS SKUNK ABENDESSEN IST WAS SIE [i]SEIN[/i]!" -- Goldman's golden ego was enormous. It had to be that way, or he would lose what drove him. Lose what both literally and figuratively [i]moved[/i] him. Presently, he had to put his golden ego aside, for as he plummeted down the hole created by Merse, he caught an unmaginably bright light rushing up through the gravity well, and knew he had to get out fast. There was only one way out of this catastrophe, and he knew it wouldn't save him completely. In fact, it was to be a race against time, in the hopes that Eddie would be able to sense him coming. Removing the two revolvers from his holsters, the Golden Boy unleashed an endless barrage of rapidly expanding metal gears, that were designed with the sole and explicit purpose of seeking out technology to infect and overtake. The gears were relentless in their pursuit, technopathically attractive, and capable of slicing through any substance they came across due to their flat surfaces and the vibrations they gave off breaking up any obstacles in their path. All the technology was presently above him, some of it spread out around him, with the strongest and most importantly, [i]living[/i] piece of technology being closest to the edge of Allure City, where his brother Eddie had been located, and thus the gears went straight after to that location. To Panident's location. Goldman didn't know this, but he did know where Eddie was, and also he knew that any place was better than this place. He just had to hope that Eddie would be able to sense his presence when it arrived. Golden lightning surged throughout Goldman's form, and with the golden attraction that the gears shared with his golden lightning, Goldman was pulled along the path of the gears like one big, man-sized magnet of pure 24 carat [color=fff200][b]gold[/b][/color]. While the majority of radioactive energy was funneled through the tower, a very large and substantial portion of it broke through the tunnel, the shock-wave of the blast alone shattering Goldman's backside whilst leaving his front relatively in-tact, albeit considerably cracked. The faster he went, however, the more his body began to waver, quake, quiver, shatter, and scatter, leaving a trail of electrically charged gold that was annihilated through positronic impact. As Goldman continued to travel through the earth, all that remained were his arms connected to his shoulders, neck and skull, with only a small fraction of his collar and sternum still in-tact. What the gears did to Panident--whether they were overpowered by Panident's superior or inferior technology, Goldman cared little as he felt his essence suddenly latched onto by Eddie who was very much awake and alive despite being speared by Claine, sensing his brother's fading spirit shooting toward him, and preserved what little of it was left as he forced his way back up to the surface of the liquid metal river. Miraculously, Eddie managed to emerge with Goldman's thoroughly radiated arms, neck, and somehow in-tact black sunglasses, and wondered at what could have caused such an enormous explosion. -- Agron felt what Jack had said to Thomas. It heard all of it, knew all of it, and more importantly, Agron knew the truth of what had [i]really[/i] happened to Jessica before she became the Val'garan Herald known as [color=9e0b0f]the Slut[/color]. It killed her, not Thomas. IT murdered the bitch who brought its host so much pain and confliction. IT absorbed Thomas' negative feelings into itself, and acted on its own behalf to [i]protect[/i] Thomas from those who caused the lietenant any amount of misery. The interrogation room glowed red as Agron's crimson jeweled eyes appeared in the one-way mirror, staring at Jack with flaming judgment. Why did it feel so passionately about a human? Thomas was not the earth, nor was he the ground, or the metal, or the molten lava, nor the iron, alluminum, sodium, or potassium. He was calcium though. Some part of him was, to an extent, a part of the earth, a part of the planet, part of the minerals that made up the home of [b]every[/b] Agronian ever to exist anywhere across the entirety of the multiverse. When Jessica threatened Thomas with her sympathetic [i]bullshit[/i] for criminals, she threatened [i]Agron[/i], and that was not something the Essence Within the Rock would tolerate. It did not like or enjoy the negative energy that ebbed at Thomas' soul, ebbed away at his passion for apprehending criminals, and for murdering the Val'gara, who in their previous campaign had managed to slaughter far more [i][b]AMERICANS[/b][/i] than Allure City trash. Agron knew that on some level, Thomas prioritized the lives of Earthlings over those of a foreign civilization that simply, randomly, and without warning, [i]decided[/i], on its own to scoop up Spain and all of its citizens off their rightful place, and [i]drop[/i] them to God-knows-where. Thomas had his loyalties, and Agron knew it. AGRON had its loyalties, and its loyalties were to Thomas and Thomas alone. That was why when Dreadnaught first surfaced in the ocean, thirty long years ago, it gave Thomas just enough time to get to Jessica, so it could [i]kill[/i] her, and rid Thomas of the emotional disease that was afflicting him so terribly. Jack should have known better than to shoot his mouth off about things he couldn't possibly understand. Thomas loved Jessica, but she caused him pain. Agron loved Thomas, but Jessica caused Thomas pain. Jessica caused Agron pain. So Jessica must die. Fragments of Agron's thoughts, fragments of its will, fragments of feelings, none of them whole, but all of them full and furious with magma hot anger poured from the mirror and surged into Jack, encapsulating the soul that was Theomen. The Red Aura bubbled and froth as it yanked Jack out of the rift that Max had violently pried open escaping with Jack in the opposite direction, through the Atlantic Ocean's floor. One day, Agron would make it back to Thomas, but for now, it knew the Operative was safe. It could feel his spirit, but it had also felt the Galactic Engine's impact, and did not feel confident in trying to weather whatever storm it brought with it. -- In the moments before he awakened from the strange cocoon, Thomas felt his body rapidly start to dissolve as it was teleported via beacon to the same building Apollo Ammon present occupied, as was Alice Summerson, the woman who, in the eyes of Mr.Ammon foolishly obeyed Thomas' orders.