Only I Know True Progress.

Within the bowels of Lumengrid, the gears of progress were screaming round at desperate speeds, grinding and winding down to the final hour. The main halls had been emptied but the spires were alive, humming, vibrating with the energy and the will of the praetor within.

Jin-Gitaxias grabbed the head of the interference skite and threw it across the room, watching it splatter against the wall, its chromic hide shattering with the force of the impact. His homeostatic systems were pulsing at heightened rates and he breathed hard, staring at the ruins of the skite.

Terrified!

The skite had picked up a transmission from the Orthodoxy. Elesh Norn had been strutting about again in her righteous ignorance. Well, that was alright.

A harsh laugh suddenly broke out of his chest, too powerful and manic to wait to make the trip through his throat to his mouth; it hissed and beat itself out from in between the plates of his silver armor, shaking his thin frame. He turned and stalked down the hall, descending level upon level of Lumengrid until he came to the base floor, greeted by a set of enormous engraved doors. Gathering mana in his talons he threw the doors open, moving into the vast room.

And he was not alone.

A belch of oily smoke greeted him when he entered. "Greetings. Gitaxias."

"Urabrask," the Augur acknowledged. He stepped closer to the other praetor, wheezing loudly. "Your augments?"

"They work." Urabrask flexed his claws and took a few steps back and forth, testing the strange chromic grafts that stuck out against his rust-colored carapace. Both of his legs, his left arm, and a large portion of his head was now composed of Lumengridian alloy. He paused, then swung a leg out in a ferocious kick at Jin-Gitaxias. Jin held his arm up and blocked it with a thick wall of mana. Urabrask put his leg back down, his tail lashing. "They work well."

Jin nodded quickly, oil dripping from his rictus grin. He turned to face the one that had been silently waiting to the side since he had entered. "And you?"

Sheoldred watched him carefully. Her gut and lower jaw shone dully in the dim light. Her mouth had been replaced and fixed, but she had not spoken a word since that day. She answered him with only a nod.

"Good, good." Jin turned finally towards the sound of heavy footsteps approaching behind him, gluttonous slurping and cracking accentuating every step. He tilted his head up at the enormous mass of the one before him, talons twitching. The two stared at each other for a stretched moment, years of hatred and rivalry streaking back and forth between them.Vorinclex spoke first.

"It seems we are one down for a Council."

"It would certainly appear so," Jin-Gitaxias agreed, refusing to look away. "I do not believe any present are distressed by this revelation."