This darker, alternate Paul looked down at the monstrosity that was
his body. He had truly been torn inside and out, left as nothing but a shell to be used by a machine. Could he even be considered Paul Hetfield anymore? As he pondered this in horror, he tried to move, but found himself strapped down to a table, as he had been for what felt like years. He tried to flex his arms, but found that there was no muscle being strained, but rather cold machinery. Even so, he felt... powerful. There was a sort of intensity throughout his entire body, and he felt stronger than he ever had before. With a quick
snap he broke the bonds that were holding him, as if his true potential had been lying dormant in him all along.
He stood upright, a bit wobbly on his cybernetic legs. His one remaining human eye scanned the room for a way out, while his cybernetic eye began to boot up, as were the power cells in his body. Someone seemed to be activating him from beyond, although he wasn't sure if this was a sort of supernatural force or his own self-intiative that was enabling him to suddenly snap metal bars and balance upon metallic prosthetics.
His robotic eye activated with an overwhelming sting, causing Hetfield to cry out in pain as a plasma laser shot straight from his eye. Terrifyingly, his voice wasn't his own, at least not the one produced by his vocal cords. It was instead a mere machination of his voice, recreated through the speaker lodged in where his throat used to be. The laser tore through the items in the room like paper, until Hetfield finally got the laser under control. His cyber eye now had a
red interface, which he was quickly able to use as if he had it his entire life. He found an exit, but only once it was opened by a heavily armored soldier. Hetfield had inadvertently destroyed the room's light in his laser bout, so the room was completely dark once the door was closed except for the glow of Hetfield's eye (and some of his cybernetics.)
While the soldier had seen things that no human should ever see, he couldn't help but be slightly unnerved by Hetfield moving towards him slowly at first, but quickly picking up the pace. The soldier was thrown through the door, slamming into the tight hallway wall. Hetfield stood above the soldier, his eye laser charging as his machinated voice gurgled "Where is your boss?!" ferociously.
Piercingly, Ragnarok, the embodiment of Death, forced his way into Hatfield's mind, like a parasite digging it's way through skin. This caused Hetfield's eye to discharge, splitting the interrogated soldier in half.
None...speak to me...for I speak to them the voice muttered within Hetfield's mind, with enough menace that Hetfield was instantly attentive.
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Paul, the true Archon of Time, very slowly awoke from his coma aboard the
Leviathan. His forehead ached maddeningly, although the small water molecules left behind from Maya's cute and affectionate kiss did help to ease the pain somewhat, although Paul wasn't sure if that was because he perceived the kiss coming from Maya (and thankfully not from Marcus) during his brief coma or if there was truly some sort of pain-nullifying benefit gained from kisses, as so many mothers have tried to convince their children.
Sliding off of the "bed," which was in reality closer to a slab of metal rather than something suitable for a hospital environment, but seeing as Marcus' ship didn't belong to any government there wasn't exactly an inspection team. Seeing as his lovely... well, lover, wasn't there watching over him and Marcus was also not there in his usual brooding way Paul could only assume that they had gone to pick up more Archons. Considering the urgency, Paul decided to quickly push away the thought that perhaps Maya was waiting for him in the bedroom, and instead went on his way to the bridge, where he found a preset set of coordinates, which he selected, and then went on over to the drop bay.
Paul climbed into the cramped, uncomfortable drop pod and prepared to launch. The half-peeled off Scooby Doo sticker did little to ease his worry of going
splat upon reaching the surface of the planet, which seemed to have an awful dangerous terrain. Paul would've begun to ponder how exactly a Scooby Doo sticker got onto the brooding Marcus' drop pod, but the launch of the pod at such a high velocity disrupted that thought. Paul's pod landed and thankfully he made it in one piece.