Chapter 58
Summary
Joseph initially starts asking Santana questions about his species and constantly repeats formal greetings to him. Baffled by this Speedwagon asks Joseph why he is doing this and Joseph says that the reason he is doing this is so he can determine if Santana is good or not. Stroheim argues that yes he is evil because he killed his men but Joseph writes this off as Stroheim provoking Santana to kill his men since Stroheim did awaken Santana from his sleep. In addition, Joseph says that he only came here to take Speedwagon with him back to New York and there is no reason to provoke conflict with Santana if he is good.
Therefore, Joseph continues to greet Santana trying to get him to talk but Santana just ignores this and starts to walk past Joseph. Taking this as offensive Joseph trips Santana to get him to speak. But Santana leg simply goes through Joseph, to his shock. Santana then goes to a machine gun and asks what it is because he has never seen one before. Not getting a straight answer though he takes the gun apart showing he is an amazingly fast learner with high intellect.
Not bothered by this, Joseph continues to try to get Santana to acknowledge him and eventually Santana uses his “Rib Blades” attack to eat Joseph, but instead of absorbing Joseph into him, Joseph is repelled back. Confused by this and the fact Joseph felt different than any other human he encountered before he test to see if Speedwagon is like Joseph and Santana finds that Joseph is one of a kind. Angered Joseph then starts a fight with Santana trying to punch him with the ripple only to find that the Ripple did not work.
