Adamant Blood

Mark sat on a hovercart that didn't have a roof, that floated only a meter off of the grounds of the gate district. Black lightning flickered from his body, out into the air, into Titanfist, standing just 400 meters that way.

The 'Great Big Bee', which was a nickname given to Titanfist due to his black and yellow costume, stomped the ground again. He was 500 meters tall right now. A match for the gate itself. His stomp sent a shockwave across the gate district, snow drifts cracking and turning to broken ice, snow billowing away. The snow did not come back, because Eliot was on the job.

Eliot, sitting at the other end of the hovercart with Mark, flexed his Man-Made Manipulation and the cracks began to seal, to turn from concrete to something stronger. Mark wasn't sure exactly what Eliot was doing, but it was some Castellan thing, making the land stronger and more responsive to him. It was not just Man-made Manipulation at all.

HVP drones captured lots of B-roll, as Isoko called it, though they were scrubbing Titanfist's involvement.

Isoko and Sally sat in the middle of the hovercart with Sally driving with all her focus, making sure she drove well, and Isoko was a node of Union, right beside Mark, helping to support his efforts to further heal the titan. Isoko was straining to keep up with Mark, but everything she did still helped a great deal.

Mark was currently healing the titan's feet, because he was stomping everywhere, renewing the 'man made' designation upon the district, empowering Eliot to make this place truly dangerous to kaiju.

Mark asked a question that just now bugged him, "Hey, Eliot? How long will the stuff you do here and now last when you're not here to maintain it?"

"A long time, probably, because I'm tying into the power already laid down by other Castellan people," Eliot said, most of his vector elsewhere. "And Mayor Ramirez is a very, very strong Technomancer. She's picking up almost everything I'm putting down, but her Power is mostly elsewhere right now. There are at least 6 kaiju signs coming from all around the city, with two major signs in the south and the east."

"The south and east ones are not a feint?" Isoko asked, trying to be less concerned, more cool. She was trying not to freak. But she had asked a variation of that question twice now, so she was freaking at least a little.

Sally's grip tensed on the steering wheel, as she muttered, "Hurry up and wait."

"Everyone assumes it's a feint because those signs are obscuring at least a few others," Eliot said, ignoring Sally. "But it could all be real."

Titanfist took another step and crashed another foot 20 meters into the ground. Shock waves blasted outward. He lifted his foot to take another step, ignoring the pain that was plaguing his entire foot, his leg, and all the way up to his lower back.

Mark focused on healing his feet and was amazed this guy could even walk, and that he kept going despite the pain, and even, weirdly enough, that he was happy. Very happy. Titanfist was having fun, and Mark was barely able to keep up with the healing, but he was having fun. Mark had realized some time in the last half hour that he had never seen Titanfist smile unless he was done with the day's fight, but—

"We can stop there," Eliot said, tapping the side of his face.

"Is it time?" Isoko asked, tensing.

"No," Eliot said.

Titanfist heard Eliot because he was wearing coms. Titanfist finished bringing down his foot, and this time he just stood there, not crashing into the ground. He tried to be quiet, but his voice poured out from him like thunder, "I'LL WAIT FOR AS MUCH HEALING AS POSSIBLE."

… Ah? Well, then in that case:

"Heard and understood," Mark said, thinking through several healing schemes… He kinda wanted to call up Lola right now. Or maybe even Grand Healer Badaira, at Citadel Freyala. They would know how to heal Titanfist faster. Would Titanfist want that?

Eliot said, "We're done for now. We just wait. It could happen any minute."

Mark asked, "Want to do a consult with other healers, Titanfist? I can call up COFR and a grand healer? See if there's a better way to heal you."

Titanfist's vector focused hard. Excited. He said, "YES. DO THAT."

Eliot said something about fixing up the hovercart some more and he got to work on that with Sally pressing a button labeled, 'I'M HELPING!', which did exactly what it said it did, and also not much at all. Isoko continued to help Mark.

Mark said, "Lola first. Quark, call Lola. Patch her into the group chat."

Lola picked up fast.

"Mark?" Lola's voice had a deep edge to it. A worried edge. "What occurs?"

"You're on speaker with me, the team, and Titanfist. This is not about the upcoming problems at all. I'm trying to heal Titanfist right now. It's me, Isoko and the guys, and the World and Titanfist. It's slow going. Got any tips?"

Lola sighed a little, and then she spoke easier, "I'm not aware of Titanfist's specific situation, and I do not wish to be made aware of it for various operative security reasons. I suggest you do a general Good/Bad healing. That catches the biggest problems first. I imagine whatever is wrong would take a long time to heal without a true, living countersink, but just keep plugging away at it and it should go away eventually. I wasn't even aware he had an issue. Sorry I cannot be of more help. Try Grand Healer Badaria in Citadel. Please take me off speaker now, Mark. I wish to speak to you about you."

Mark nodded, worry leaking into his mind. "Okay." Quark switched channels in Mark's vision. "It's just us now?"

"You are a shining star, Mark Careed. Do well. Do good. Be your best self, just like I know you can. You have a good team with you. I'll talk later, okay?"

Mark's heart beat hard and sudden with something warm and fuzzy, and so very fragile. Mark breathed deep, then said, "Thank… Thank you. Talk to you later, Lola."

"Later, Mark."

Click.

Mark breathed out a little, and then he sniffled and said, "Quark. Call COFR and Grand Healer Badaira, if possible. Connect to the chat."

The line rang.

Isoko glanced at Mark, having felt his own emotions in her own Unionsense, but she said nothing. Eliot and Sally knew something was up, but they said nothing.

In the distance, Titanfist quirked an eyebrow. But he said nothing.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Hell… Hello?" asked an older woman's voice. "This had better be damned important."

Mark professionally said, "Greetings, Grand Healer Badaira. This is Mark Careed, and I have a superhero, Titanfist, who needs some healing. He is on the line with me, as well as my team. He transforms into a kaiju-sized hero to fight kaijus. I was hoping to get a consult, with Titanfist's permissions."

"YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION," Titanfist boomed, though he was trying to whisper. "HELLO AGAIN, BADAIRA."

Badaira's voice completely changed, becoming something solid and sure, as she said, "I am aware of Titanfist's issues as I have treated him before, with little success. Explain to me the issues as you understand them, Mister Careed."

"He's too big and he's not healing properly. Groups of Freyalan paladins heal him all the time, but he's only had real success healing through my Union, and only when I was draining another kaiju to heal Titanfist in his kaiju form. That healing caused me to become a conduit and break a lot of things around me, but Titanfist got healed rather well. During that time I did my standard adamant/weakness Union but I focused on healing the things that were most injured during the fight, going through the usual lists of things that needed to be healed in order to support all other healing efforts, from bone marrow to cardiovascular to muscles and the rest. It worked well enough."

"BEST HEALING IN DECADES."

Mark added, "Isoko is here with me, helping expand my connection to the world, doing a general good/bad Union."

Badaira began, "I want you to follow along for a full healing lesson and we can see if you have better luck than all the rest of us. I suspect you will! It consists of 13 main systems and 98 subsystems. No one ever does the whole thing, but we will be doing the whole thing. We'll jump around a bit to hit the major things first, and then we will go back and go through the whole list. We start with the blood. I want you to do a Union of Healthy Marrow and Decay. 'Decay' is going to be the usual dumping Union for this entire operation…"

Mark ran through a full 75-minute long healing suite, targeting every aspect of Titanfist and shoring him up in every possible way. A lot of what Mark did had no results at all, but some had great results. It was a tossup between Healthy Cartilage/Decay and Healthy Body/Inflammation that had the largest results of all, with Titanfist actually relaxing a great deal for both.

Mark's own Healthy Body allowed for most of these 'healthy' forms of full healing Unions, with few exceptions, like Mark's own common use of Adamant/Weakness—

"It's starting," Eliot said, from the command center of the hovercart.

"Cutting it here, Badaira! We have kaiju to kill now! Thank you so much!"

Grand Healer Badaira rapidly said, "You would be one of the best healers of our time, Mark! Please think about attending medical school! Good luck, and good skill!"

She hung up.

Mark felt some happy, worried, excited kinda way.

In the distance, Titanfist looked 20 years younger, his lined face not so lined anymore, his blue-grey eyes a whole lot bluer. He smiled, which was still an oddity, and then he slammed a fist into the ground, sending out a narrow shockwave across the land, as he shouted, "SWORD TO ME!"

Mark watched in small awe as he saw a familiar scene, but from a lot closer.

Titanfist's incredibly narrow shockwave raced off toward the center of the city. Or rather, it only looked like that. The HVP would likely splice in some B-roll of a shockwave hitting a prepared rocket, and then that supersonic rocket launching from the center of the city, carrying its payload to its owner, but there wasn't time for that shit today.

Mayor Ramirez had already positioned Titanfist's kaiju blade near the gate, for this very action here.

Titanfist's shockwave vector slammed into the compartment holding his sword, in the bowels of the gatehouse that he had torn the roof off of a few hours ago.

A gleaming silver shimmer spun out of the ground, twisted through the air, and slammed into Titanfist's open palm. And then the shimmer grew, expanding and expanding, filled with Titanfist's vector, becoming a dagger, then a short sword, then a long blade, thick as the superhero's fist, long as his arm. It grew even bigger, and then it was a true kaiju blade, tall as Titanfist himself, silver throughout but with a line of black at the front edge.

When Titanfist had that blade in his hand he was the second most dangerous melee hero in the lineup of superheroes of Memphi. Kraigen Steele was still #1, but the leader of the Hero's Association wasn't kaiju-sized himself, and he wasn't here. Kraigen was on the southern border.

Titanfist was here, like a warrior with a vendetta, staring out across the northern wall of Memphi as he challenged the world, "COME AND GET IT!"

The sky responded with a roar and wings and tentacles descending like so many cloud-sized kaiju.

Holy fucking shit they were already here. When the fuck did that happen?!

Mark instantly started a Union of Alacrity and Slowness, with just himself, his team, and leaving Titanfist out of it. Mark needed the time to think, to plan. Many things happened all at once, in a moment stretched to the breaking point.

Mark made sure none of his team broke with this speed, but they'd all be feeling headaches when it was over.

Eliot freaked the fuck out and he was about ready to slam down on the emergency descend button, to get the fuck out of the district, to burrow deep as he could go. That had been the plan if something like this should happen.

Sally wanted Eliot to descend right now.

Isoko, the only one with Speed modifier, managed to actually speak, to act in this long moment, though even her voice was drawn out because of the speed Mark was moving them all at. "Eeevaaaac squiiiiishhhhies. Maaaark tooo Tiiitaaan wiiiith beeeelllt. Deeeelaaay taaactiiics."

A fine idea!

Quark, who thought a lot faster than everyone else, and who was in communication with outside forces, rapidly realized, based on what he was seeing, that Mark had sped up time. Quark began to speak at a normal speed for this faster frame of reference, disseminating information for them all, "Mayor Ramirez is calling for a major reordering of the defense of Memphi. Teleports to change targets are happening right now. Teleports will take 5 minutes to occur. Titanfist and Mark will remain here, to be supported by Lawful Goose who is coming in shortly. Everyone else is to evacuate to the bowels of the gate district.

"There are 5 category 3 kaiju near Mark and Titanfist. All of them appear to be flying, camouflaging cuttlefish/octopuses. 3 of those octopuses are currently above the gate district, and 2 are in the west. The western ones are being ignored. Those cuttlefish will advance through the walls until they can be controlled. They are the lowest priority.

"When the kaiju at the gate are dispatched, Mark and Titanfist will head west. You will receive no support aside from Lawful Goose.

"Further orders to follow.

"Do not fall. You must succeed. There will be no support for a while.

"There are 2 cat-2 kaiju, 7 cat-3 kaiju, 11 category-4 kaiju, and 1 cat-5 jeweled beetle in the east that prognostication is expecting to be an immovable apocalypse type. Archmage Blackthorn to the east, to the beetle.

"Individual orders to follow."

Quark had spoken half with Mayor Ramirez's voice, half with his own.

It was a horrific arrangement.

Mark focused on his individual orders.

Time to fight.