#conquest.

"Yes."

The concrete beneath Beck's bare feet is softening, which gives him the appearance (and the sensation) of a child playing in a bouncy house as they deny the reality of its deflation. The vapor and steam wafting up from the ground are a little badass, in his opinion—to the point that they're distracting Beck from the Viltrumite mere feet away from him.

His glowing eyes flicker as he thinks.

"Yeah."

Aria nods slowly. He's gruff, and massive, and he gives her the creeps, but he speaks in a way that compels her to take him at face value. It's not for the reason it should be, which is Aria rendered so fucking terrified all she can do is quiver and comply.

The truth of the matter is that Aria is so exhausted from these thirteen hour days at jobs she doesn't give half a shit about that her usual contrarianism has become impossibly difficult to maintain. Nothing is worth it anymore.

She twirls her pocket knife clumsily between her too-long fingers.

"What does that even mean?"

She gets worked up.

IS HE DONE?

Phil rolls his neck in a long, languid circle. The bones crack pleasantly. He's upright soon enough. Conquest may or may not still be talking.

"No greater pleasure. Nothing."

When this body was still growing and he wasn't as accustomed to its quirks, he marveled at how the meat of his palms felt against his own fingertips. Physical sensation has always stricken him as something divine, something beyond comprehension. With this high standard, his curiosities have been impossible to sate.

He's very used to blood, though.

"If you kill them all," he explains, as he has thought about this often, "There won't be anything left to do."