Adamant Blood

The next several hours passed in a blur of action and death and virtually no thoughts at all as Mark flew across the gate district, killing goblins and hivemind kaiju worms alike.

Credenza and Frozenfire joined Mark after the first 10 minutes. She had an advanced hoverbelt and he flew on jets of flame, fire coming out one side of his astral body and icicles out the other.

No one spoke about how Frozenfire had been dead just a few hours ago.

Mark switched from vein decay/integrity to Adamant and Ethereal, reinforcing his teammates, while Credenza had all of Frozenfire's constantly-created ice crash down onto goblin heads. Mark had been killing a few thousand per second, but with the addition of these two, the sky filled with ice that rocketed down onto heads and killed tens of thousands per second. It was an order of magnitude faster.

They did an entire circuit of the gate district in about 20 minutes, the only real limit to their killing power being limited by the number of targets. Only so much of the enemy was on the surface.

So Mark got to level the entire gate district —save for the part in the center-ish where Eliot was building a new structure— turning the whole place into sand. Goblins and worms surfaced from the depths.

Frozenfire laughed as he commented, "Like pieces of shit in kitty litter!" but his laugh soon turned to a sob, just one.

They got back to killing.

When it was over, Mark landed at Eliot's new central command, Credenza landing beside him and Frozenfire not too far behind. Credenza hugged Frozenfire, and Frozenfire turned into a sobbing wreck.

Another mission happened almost instantly, with Eliot packing up that white and gold stone pillow into a hovership alongside Mark and Sentinel, who was also alive again and with basically no memory of what happened up to about an hour before his father killed him. The memory loss appeared to be more severe for everyone who perished prior to the birth of the resurrection ghost. The earlier a person died, the more severe their memory loss.

The Mayor was extremely sure to get the word out that cultists had activated, and had become the major problem of the kaiju calamity. If it weren't for the cultists then they could have survived it all just fine. (Mark did not believe this at all. That was just the propaganda going out right now; the story would surely change later.)

Sally and Isoko did not go with Mark and Eliot. They joined the battle against the cultists, who were still out there and still pulling shit, trying to hide.

A lot of people were killed in a lot of ways, and a lot happened.

Too much for Mark to pay attention to.

Mark focused on helping Eliot and Sentinel to repair the big things that the cultists had destroyed with nukes; the power plants, the water treatment stations, and eventually the wall. Infrastructure came first, though, because without power then a lot of the automated defenses everywhere in the city were down. The Mayor and all of the True AIs and all of the Techies were blind. Even the prognosticators were working at 10% capability.

The formula for the repairs was simple:

Mark sanded a large area in the middle of various parts of Memphi here and there, and then Eliot came in with his building power and started building. The first thing to happen in each case was the extension of a glass-covered cable, piped in from beyond the node place, to connect to a central structure that Eliot built in a flash. Then came Sentinel directing in electronics and other similar things via automatic-driving hovercar, to land, to get installed here and there. Whatever that white stone pillow was that Eliot used, it was a strong magical artifact, for sure. His Power of Man-made Manipulation seemed 10-times as strong when sitting on the pillow, or at least his range was better.

Sentinel even looked at the butt pillow a few times, a flicker of surprise in his vector each time, like he could barely believe that the Mayor had broken that object out of storage, or something. He didn't talk about the butt pillow, though, and neither did Eliot.

Mostly, Eliot built power plants.

Eliot also built emergency apartments and he repaired dams and water treatment plants. Sewer plants that had been nuked got repaired after Mark sanded the entire area, and after the mages already cleared out the radiation.

Literally everyone in Memphi was out and doing something, especially Blackthorn and his harem of girls and a few guys, and his son, Alistair. Mages had been solving for nuclear fallout since the Reveal, and the current problems of today were no exception. Mages were at the edge of every radiation zone across the entire city, hands raised, light pouring off of them, counteracting all of the radiation in the areas. Mark wasn't sure what they were doing, exactly, but he asked Sentinel about it once, after moving to the fourth rebuild location.

Sentinel was directing automatic hovercar traffic, but he had enough time to answer, "They're doing light and energy transmutation from dangerous, high-energy states, to low energy states. That's why their hands are glowing. It's a really easy magic to do, too. A few people are transmuting high energy particles to light, too. Nuclear fallout is dangerous, but easily dealt with."

Another power plant went up.

Sparks flew from power lines as Eliot threw more switches.

Yet another dark part of Memphi, dead to the world except for candles in windows and people lighting fires here and there, suddenly switched on. Lights shone. Life returned.

People clapped and cheered a lot.

Battles happening in the shadows were revealed, and if they were cultists hiding then they were contained, but mostly it was just people fighting monsters. Sometimes people fought each other for whatever reasons.

Sometimes people were fighting monsters in order to contain the monsters, crying the whole time, because the monsters were their kids, or their grandmothers, or their friends, or otherwise. With the wall broken and so much mana everywhere in the city, a lot of baseline Unawakened people, or people with Whispers, had been monsterized.

The clergy of Hearthswell was on the case for monsterized people, as much as they could be. With every power plant that Eliot restored, Castellan fire began to ignite everywhere that Hearthswell and her people began to ask for it. Paladins of Hearthswell burned the monster out of many people that night.

Mark had never seen Hearthswell fire burn the monster out of a person, turning them back to a child or otherwise. Not in real life. Only in heavily redacted videos of the Reveal. Those historical videos didn't show the fire, either. They had just shown priests praying over a monster and the monster burbling and twitching and eventually becoming a person again.

The true, real-life 'monster cleansing' involved golden fire. A lot of fire.

The prayer circles for the gods began at 10 pm, after most people in the city had managed to revive and get to some sort of safety. Some parts of the city closer to the walls were completely overrun by monsters, though, so no one was near the walls.

Most of the city was safe by midnight.

The Bubble Walls that ran across the entire width of the Mississippi on the north and south were down, though. Monsters had infiltrated far inward, from the north, following the river into lands that they hadn't been inside in 60 years.

People fought with reckless abandon. A lot died. All were resurrected again and again and again.

Morning came around and 50% of the city had power again.

There were no breaks for anyone on duty. Noon was the absolute deadline for all major repairs. Everyone had to be ready for the resurrection magics to fail by then.

By 7 am the sky started to turn lighter, and Mark, Eliot, and Sentinel were finally getting to the Wall of Memphi.

There were 12 major breaks in the Wall, with the most important breaks being the Bubble Walls and a whole 40 kilometer stretch of missing Wall in the southwest. The Bubble Walls were a whole thing, and they could honestly be left alone for another day. Eliot didn't work on those. Eliot's team helped him and Sentinel at the southwest stretch first.

They did not fix the 40 kilometer break completely, but Mark did sand the broken parts for scrap and Eliot rebuilt the former 300 meter tall, 100 meter wide wall into a 100 meter wide, 50 meter tall foundation. Rebuilding the actual wall would take a lot more than a day, for much of the metal and stone and otherwise that had made up the structure had been scattered everywhere in the fight with the unkillable river kaiju. They'd have to rebuild the rest later, which was kinda bad news.

Good news, though! The teleport infrastructure of the city was running at full power, and currently dedicated almost entirely to Eliot, Mark, and Sentinel's reconstruction efforts. They got teleported around a lot, and quickly.

By 10 AM they had been teleported to every break in the wall and more besides.

Every break got a new foundation, at least, along with 18 other spots in the wall that had been heavily damaged but did not fall. None of the Wall had been destroyed-destroyed. It was still sitting out there, scattered across kilometers, in a whole lot of pieces. It simply needed to be put back together properly, and over the course of a few months. For now, the Wall of Memphi was a lot thinner in those 'repaired' places than it should be, which was fine. Kinda.

On February 25, 2049, at 12:13:31, the sun was directly overhead, and all of Memphi had been about as well-repaired as it could have been. The known cultists were either captured and locked up, and the monsters were dead, and if something big were to happen after the resurrection ghosts vanished, then… Then some prognosticators were already on the job. Mark didn't know much about that, and that he would probably never know a lot about that, but he knew it was happening.

He was busy.

It was almost time and Mark was at the top of a building in Central Memphi, in a Union with Eliot and Sentinel and a bunch of other people as they rebuilt some buildings in Central Memphi. Mark watched the world. He wasn't sure what building he was on, but Eliot was building it and it was going up fast. It was probably going to be the Mayor's new building, since Mark had completely obliterated the previous one and several other buildings, and this one was going up very well. Strong, too.

The resurrection ghosts were everywhere.

They had been everywhere since yesterday, like a background vector to the world. Most people couldn't see them unless they stayed very still, which they usually did when they were on top of a corpse. Most people thought they just vanished until a corpse was made. But they had never vanished at all. They roamed. Until now. Soon, they would—

Mark watched as the True Noon sun passed overhead like a shockwave disturbing dust, and every single resurrection ghost began to disintegrate, to vanish into the light.

Mark was on edge waiting for something big to happen. He had been on the edge for 30 hours. He Unioned a bit of Wakefulness and Sleepiness, pushing his threads of Union far down and out, since there was no one above him. He woke himself up along with everyone else in the nearest kilometer of space down below.

Eliot perked up, asking, "What— Oh, shit. It's True Noon already?"

Sentinel came over their coms, "We're prepared for anything. The cultists we could capture have been captured. Four of them already tried to demonize in custody and we contained them, too. We're on top of this."

It turned out they were on top of this.

Mark had Quark run a full bandwidth sweep of all of the chatter on every open channel he could access and report to him all of the major events. For the first time since Mark had gotten the guy, little more than 10 days ago or something like that, Quark rapidly hit 100% of his capability to fulfill Mark's request.

"I could have 15,000% capability and I still could not do this request. There are, however, a number of major channels that I can access instead and provide highlights for those. They are aggregate channels made specifically for AIs looking to keep atop several types of situations," Quark said, "Since yesterday there are a few thousand more such channels, each propagated by AIs looking at specific types of events. I would recommend the 'cultist watch' channel and 'kaiju watch', both of which are delineated by local lines, city lines, and global lines. Shall I focus on those?"

"I want to know where I need to respond, when I have to respond… and also local issues. People trapped in buildings. I can sand them out of there."

Quark said, "I am already attuned to those channels, but I can grab whatever I feel is necessary as well."

Mark nodded, eyes on the world and adamantium thick on his body. He was pretty visible up here— Mark realized something, so he added, "And also the Collective channel, if they have one. I want to publish a statement."

Quark said, "I will monitor such channels, but as for statements, the Mayor has already put a moratorium out on statements from any superheroes or otherwise, and that includes you. You can, of course, ignore this moratorium, but it is highly suggested that you don't. There is already a lot of chatter about you being adamantium blooded, though, if that is what you were looking for. Credenza has spoken about that to a few people, to clarify what they overheard when you spoke about it inside the temporary headquarters."

Mark nodded, sighing, saying, "That's… that's good, then." He said, "Tell me when Kardi or Grey Phantom show."

"That is already one of my high priorities, as personally mandated, and as requested by you twice now, last night at 10:38 and this morning again at 8:12." Quark suggested, "Perhaps some actual sleep is necessary, sir."

Mark smirked, strained. "I can sleep later, Quark, but thank you."

- - - -

It was February 26, 2049, Friday at 6:30 PM, and Mark had been awake for about 60 hours so far.

He wasn't sure he would be able to sleep, ever again, and that was fine by him. Other people could sleep. He needed to work.

Mark was currently flying over a southern part of Memphi that had been heavily invaded by the crystal kaiju. A hundred square kilometers of cityscape had been turned to ruin and Mark was doing demo alongside a whole mess of construction-focused people that he barely remembered the names of. Sentinel was here, too, and so was Eliot. Mark mostly dealt with them and their needs.

'Destroy this and that and then that over there too,' were the usual orders.

And so Mark flew solo across the landscape, turning the world to Earth and Bubbles.

Burning buildings collapsed into rubble and debris. Giant holes in the ground evened out. The crystal kaiju had been turned into melted slag in order to kill it, and so a lot of the land was simply melted into dirty, black glass. Mark turned that glass into chips then sand—

"We have her," Quark said.

Mark jerked. "Where?"

"She walked into the Northeast Rivergate. Some guards on duty almost killed her, but they took her into custody and healed her."

"They should have killed her like they did all the rest as soon as the timer ran out," Mark spat, trying to make sense of his emotions— He decided he needed to do it himself. Yes. That's what he needed. He said, "Attention Mayor Ramirez: Mark Careed Requesting teleport to Kardi Shale's location."

Quark spoke with the Mayor's automatic response, "Request logged. Priority determined— Escalating—" The voice turned softer, more real, and Emilia Ramirez said, "There's about a thousand people who want to kill her before you do."

"Fuck them. I need to see her dead."

"Teleport sequence initiating. Please get to a solid location and pull in your astral body," the Mayor said, followed by, "When this is over your entire team is taking a rest, and then tomorrow we'll go over public statements."

Mark fell out of the sky, adamantium blades stilled and then rapidly spun back up, bringing him in for a soft landing on glittering black sands. He pulled his Union and adamantium inward as he said, "Sure."

"… Do not kill her the second you see her, Mark."

"Of course not," Mark lied.

Light condensed around him.

Light evaporated from him, and Mark was suddenly on some large open street somewhere. Quark pinged in his eyes, giving him a map of the area. He knew where he was. Mark looked to the right and there was the Wall of Memphi, about a kilometer away. Mark was in front of a building that had been a nothing of a building —some warehouse or something— but it was now swarming with guards of Memphi in their black and yellow uniforms.

The world flashed to Mark's side and then Eliot was there, looking pissed.

Eliot said, "I'm gonna fucking kill her."

Tartu was already ahead, right beside the entrance to the warehouse. He locked eyes with Mark and called out, "She wants to talk to you. I don't care if you let her talk at all."

Mark walked forward, Eliot at his side. Tartu stepped through an open door. Mark could already feel her in there. Kardi felt like Kardi. Mark had no idea why he knew what she felt like so much, but he did. She was also dosed with shavallian. She was completely vulnerable.

She was expecting to die, and she was happy about that.

The next thing Mark knew was that he was standing across a well-lit warehouse, and there was Kardi, 50 meters away, smiling as she stood, imprisoned, in a box of metal bars—

"Strike me down," she began, with glee in her voice, "And I shall become more—"

Mark reached out and sliced her down her centerline, then spun his blade to chunk the body. Metal bars screamed and scattered under the absolute power of his cut while bits of Kardi went everywhere. Mark purified the remains away into a harsh wind, leaving nothing but broken metal bars behind, and then he walked away, breathing heavily.

He got back out into the sun and breathed easier.

Mark had killed a lot of people in the last horror show, but the only one who stayed dead was Kardi… Hopefully.

"Oh gods," Mark mumbled to himself, not even sure what he was saying. "Is it over?"

There was a short concrete set of stairs right over there, so Mark walked over there and sat down on the stairs, his adamantium scales kinda breaking the ground where he sat. Mark ignored that happenstance, for the most part. He did realize, though, as a sort of heaviness left him, that he hadn't sat down in more than 2 days. Almost 3 days now.

Eliot sat down beside him, saying, "Gods, that was fucking… Fuck her."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Tartu sat down on Mark's other side, saying, "Sorry Mark, about… About a lot. I just needed to… say that, and there's never a good time to apologize except for when you know you need to, so… Yeah."

Mark sighed and then looked at Tartu, and said, "You had good reasons not to trust me, but they're kinda shit compared to the real threats out there."

Silence.

More silence.

"… Yeah," Tartu eventually said, looking out across the gate district.

It was all sand or solid concrete out there, except for one gleaming glass tower that was 'Temporary Central'. The gate was gone completely.

Cold winds blew.

Mark said, "Looks like you get to make the gate like you wanted, Eliot."

Eliot kinda startled, and then he chuckled.

Tartu felt some kinda way, but he also smiled.

Maybe a part of Mark was still mad at Tartu, in some sort of way, and maybe Tartu had some distrust of Mark in a rather large dragonist-versus-imperialist way, but Mark and Tartu were beyond that right now.

Mark smiled a little.

… And then he kinda frowned.

Some people didn't survive the resurrections because some people moved on to the gods; to Freyala, Hearthswell, and the rest. But everyone else who died after the first kaiju showed up had revived. Mark hadn't checked up on many specific people, though, aside from his uncles.

Alexandro and Gabriel and all of their Collective protectors at their house in Shady Acres were alive. They were probably not well, but Mark hadn't checked in on them directly. Not yet.

He was afraid.

He was going to go to them… soon. Them and Lola and David and Noel… A lot of people. Everyone at Slayer HQ that he knew from his months living here before the settlement, and also… A lot of people.

Mark had to check up on the settlement, too. As far as he knew the settlement had gotten two kaiju, but Aurora had taken care of them all on her own.

Mark asked, "Anyone know if Noel and the guys survived?"

Tartu said, "Yes. You thinking about Episode 4?"

Mark cringed. "Oh shit. Uh… Well I am now. But… More like I need to tell the world I'm adamantium blooded, so that the empires can't keep gunning for me without talk of adamantium farms and wilded humans coming into the conversation."

Tartu nodded. He had nothing else to say on the matter.

Eliot only had eyes for the gate district, but he turned and said, "It's time for sleep. Let's go to, like, Blackthorn's, right?"

"That is the absolute best idea ever," Mark said, grinning… But then he looked to Tartu. The guy was in deep, deep pain. Everyone was, but Tartu had it pretty bad. He had been used, and he knew it. Ah… well. Money didn't solve every problem, but it did help, sometimes. Mark turned a few scales into a pencil-thick rod of adamantium several inches long and handed it to Tartu, saying, "You're gonna need to make another Wand of Destruction, right? That thing turned out to be pretty important."

Tartu was stunned. He looked at the small rod… and then he took it, saying, "Thank you."

Mark nodded.

Soon he was in the air, flying south with Eliot in tow. They stopped at Temporary Central and got a hovertaxi for the rest of the way, picking up Sally and Isoko along the way, at the riverside.

Isoko and Sally weren't mad at Mark anymore. Not outwardly, anyway.

They'd probably get to talking about all of that soon… maybe.

But for now Isoko crashed into her chair, exhausted as the rest of them, saying, "She's dead then."

Sally was solid as could be, but when the hovertaxi got into the air and away from everyone else she kinda broke down a little, sobbing into her hands.

Mark put an arm around her shoulder, though it was awkward to reach up that high.

Sally sobbed a bit harder, but she put her head on his shoulder, and Mark pulled his adamantium away, and he held his own tears back, for now.

Eliot said, "She's dead. Mark killed her good. For what… Like. The fourth time?"

Mark said, "Something like that."

Isoko glanced at Sally, who was still sobbing, and she said, "I heard Leash is gone, too. It happened when the living spell ended?"

Mark said, "That's what Quark told me, but he went through some Mage Secrecy blockades to get that information. Quark is pretty sure the Mayor purposefully leaked that information to certain people, and we're one of those people."

Silence, again.

Sally stopped sobbing, mostly, as she said, "Drakarok's church is talking about how they're going to propagandize the whole resurrection event as—" Sob. Then breathing. She sat up. "As an act of random mutation from a person who Awakened in the event. There was chatter about it being an act of the Pantheon, but the Pantheon can't replicate it, so… they won't claim credit only to be discredited later." She was a lot more solid as she continued, "The Cult is going to heavily claim this as their work, though, and some people will believe them. The real story is being redacted by AIs, but word of mouth… spreads."

Mark nodded. "That's more than what I heard, but it's about the same as what I heard."

Sally sighed. "Yeah."

Isoko looked at them all, and said, "This is a win."

Mark chuckled, strained. "Yeah. It is. I know it is."

"A complete win," Sally said, softly.

Isoko spoke stronger, "This is a great win. It is! I'm not being crazy here, or delusional. We won. Absolutely. If Kardi and the cultists would have won… I'm not sure what that would look like, but… Even with all that shit she and Grey Phantom told you, Mark, she would have taken a bigger win if she could have. You and Blackthorn and even that fucker Tartu stopped that." Isoko said, "I think that you guys forced Leash and the cultists to take the propaganda win, instead of the real win. That Kardi telling that living spell to resurrect people was second-place/first-loser."

Sally said, "Kardi telling the ghost to do that didn't change what the ghost was going to do at all. The cult is going to bend the truth that way, though."

Isoko's eyebrows went up. "Even better, then! The ghost was just a living spellform, right? The cult couldn't control it at all. When did your people tell you that?"

"It was an offhanded comment from Redwolf, actually," Sally said, "I think you were getting a drink from the fountain."

Sally and Isoko had done a lot out there, while Mark and Eliot had been going around hitting the major problems. They had even taken a trip to Wolf Bayou, apparently.

Mark found himself smiling a little—

Eliot said, "So who's ready to sleep?! I know I am!"

Mark laughed, Isoko chuckled, and even Sally cracked a grin.

The hovership neared Enchanted, the mage district of Memphi.

The world's biggest party was already underway.

People were in the streets, drinking and partying. Music was loud and happy. Blackthorn's tower was lit up with lights and the Villain's Headquarters that Eliot had fixed up beside the tower was rocking.

Blackthorn greeted them at the hoverpad at the top of the tower, saying, "Kids! Holy fuck that was a lot of shit! But all the bad guys are dead and Memphi stands at 100%!" He offered a bottle of pills, asking, "Do you want to sleep in a bed, or do you want to take some pills to get a full night's sleep in 1 minute?" He jangled the pill bottle. "It's the best night's sleep money can buy!"

Mark instantly said, "Pill me up!"

The others were close behind, all holding out hands. Blackthorn grinned and doled out drugs to all of them. Sally instantly popped hers, chasing the sweet oblivion of rest. Mark kinda grinned at that, and then he was a little concerned as Sally swayed on her feet, her vector turning inward, and hard, her eyes closing. But then she kinda just stood there, sleepily.

Blackthorn said, "Er, well. Usually one takes their sleeping medicine in a relaxed setting, preferably while already horizontal, but I only carry the really good shit so this is fine, too. Mark, be a dear and help get her on the couch inside, and then the rest of you should sit down before you take yours."

Mark smiled a little as he lifted Sally up and put her on the couch inside. She barely reacted at all to picking her up and putting her down. But not 10 seconds after Mark put her down she was already coming out of it, smiling in her sleep and stretching— The couch broke as she moved, which caused her to wake up fast. The couch further broke under her weight, but she stabilized fast.

Blackthorn winced as he said, "Apologies for that… Err... The, uh, furniture isn't up to specs quite yet." Blackthorn tried not to look at Eliot.

Eliot rolled his eyes and got to work, asking, "What needs doing?"

A laundry list of things, apparently.

The whole place had been obliterated with several void bombs, like the ones that had been used in the tunnels against Vern, Yorl, and Tom… and Mark kinda breathed hard when he heard Blackthorn speak of void bombs.

Blackthorn noticed. "I warded the place against those better this time. It was already warded against them, but my wards were corrupted by—" Blackthorn paused himself. He restarted, "They're good, now. We're good."

Blackthorn was having a lot of difficulty, too.

Everyone was having difficulty. Most of the people in the nearest thousand meters were piling drugs onto those difficulties to ignore those difficulties for a while. Some were trying to medicate them away. 'Like a landlord covering mildew with fresh paint', Sally had once said about something else, but that saying came to Mark now, as he saw what he saw.

Mark breathed in the Good for everyone in the nearest several hundred meters, and breathed out the Bad. He made sure to ignore drug-related feelings, too. He didn't want to harsh any good vibes that anyone had managed to find.

A lot of emotions improved in a lot of very tiny ways, all over the place.

Eliot got to rebuilding.

And Blackthorn smiled a little bit.

The rebuild went fast enough; it was mostly furniture and some construction in the walls.

Soon Eliot was knocked out with a pill and everyone watched over him as he slept, which was sort of how it worked, unspoken and unplanned, but all agreed upon as 'how it should be', anyway. They watched over each other, as a team, and it was good.

They watched over Isoko as she took her minute nap, too, while Blackthorn broke out some food magics to feed people. Mark didn't question any of it. Not really. Whatever he was doing to make food out of nothing felt a bit like how Mark used Sustenance/Deprivation Unions to feed people. But less direct. The plants growing around the penthouse were all looking healthy enough for a good Union, too.

Isoko got up looking and feeling happy and rested. She looked at Mark, asking, "You gonna wear your scales to bed?"

"… Uh. I hadn't, uh… thought about it?"

Blackthorn said, "I got some nice soft clothes you can wear."

It was very difficult to take his scales off. Not in actuality. But emotionally.

He still did it, though.

Soon Mark was wearing clean boxers, nice socks, a soft shirt, and a black bathrobe that matched Blackthorn's, but without the gold trim. It felt amazingly nice. Vulnerable, yeah, but nice. He also had 230 kilos of adamantium floating around him, in 10-kilo large balls. Each ball was a little under half a liter of the stuff. It was a lot of adamantium. A lot. More than he had started off the day… started off yesterday… No wait. The day before that. More than he had started with 3 days ago.

Mark sat on the couch while Eliot, Sally, and Isoko ate dinner.

He stared at the pill in his hand…

And he began to hyperventilate—

"Fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck," Mark muttered.

He slammed the pill—

- -

Mark was in a house of his own making. It was small, mostly. The walls were there, sort of.

A little marble of black and stars floated in the middle of the room.

Quark was there, looking like a silver reflection of Mark.

Mark startled, "Oh!"

Quark startled, too. "Oh!"

And then they sort of looked at each other, and for a moment they moved in synchronicity, Mark stepping left and Quark stepping also to Mark's left. Mark raised his right arm and Quark raised his left arm. And then they broke apart slightly, and they moved differently.

Mark said, "So, uh, hello, Quark. Welcome to my Binding, my soul. Were you there for the Addavein shift— No, no. You were still there in Memphi."

Quark spoke with Mark's voice, which made him sound a little higher than Mark thought he should sound. It was like listening to the Attack the Gate episodes, when Blackvein spoke, and it made Mark uncomfortable.

"I was there in Memphi, yes." Quark looked around. "So this is the Binding, huh? Looks… black." He touched a foot on the floor, poking at some hardening black ooze that had seeped between the floorboards. "That looks… Should it be like that?"

"Probably not; I don't know what that is," Mark said. "It happened when I was… when I was inside Addavein's body and my soul was too small so I kinda… You know how balloons expand as you go up in the atmosphere, because of lower pressure? I think it was kinda like that."

Quark nodded a little. And then he said, "A lot of events happened in a very short amount of time. Do you want to talk about them? Or just sleep, dreamless and deep?"

"Oh gods, none of the above. Too much to do. Let's talk magic and this place. I think you're supposed to be able to help? Mapping and then altering the Binding to include magic and also…" Mark blinked, feeling tired. "There's a lot. I never want to be vulnerable to shavallian or… or anything ever again. I need Protect Magic most of all, right now."

Quark looked at Mark, and then he said, "I know you took some lessons on magic with Duchess Elaria Valen but I was not present for those and I don't want to do soul alterations when I have no idea what that even means, so let's try something else. You mumbled a few different things while we were out there for the last 62 hours. One thing you wanted to do was to give adamantium to Memphi, to pay for things, or something of that nature. It's not well known, but since we have time to talk about all this stuff, I did pick up chatter that Addavein left a 34-metric-ton spike of adamantium lodged at the bottom of the Mississippi about 11 kilometers from the Mayor's former tower. So they have enough adamantium right now."

Mark went, "… Oh. Well… That's nice of him— wasn't there a 40-some-odd-tons of adamantium given out earlier, too? That some people were fighting a shadow war over?"

"Stolen by the cultists and then retrieved and now in storage in an undisclosed location."

Mark felt a depth of worry followed by a swell of joy at hearing those words—

- -

Mark blinked, still smiling even as he woke up.

He was still on the couch in Blackthorn's remade tower, and everyone was still eating dinner. Only a minute had passed.

Mark felt amazing. Really good.

All of the horror of the last few days was still there, but it was in the background. Easy to ignore, for now. There would be a reckoning later, but… Not right now.

Mark was smiling as he got back to eating with everyone else, balls of adamantium floating around him.

"Did you have a Binding dream, too?" Isoko asked.

"Oh yeah. It was… nice," Mark said, "Quark was there."

Quark beep-booped from his perch on one of the metal balls. "I am still trying to make sense of it, sir."

Sally pointed with her full fork to the balls in the air, asking, "Are you gonna be walking around with those all the time, now?"

Eliot smirked, saying, "You're gonna get lots of ball jokes."

Mark laughed and then he shaped all of the balls into dick shapes, saying, "Dick jokes might be better?"

Sally erupted with laughter. "Eww! Put those away!"

Isoko laughed.

Eliot guffawed.

Mark smiled.