Adamant Blood

Emilia Ramirez, the ‘Mayor’ of Memphi, tapped through her daily briefing on her tablet.

Addashield’s Dragon was up to something, just like his ‘father’ always was.

A few days ago the dragon had come back to Earth and then it set to righting the many wrongs its father had caused. Or at least that’s what it told people, as those people rightfully tried to kill it. At least it didn’t fight back; it just ran. No one quite knew what to make of that; not exactly.

There were a lot of trade deal collapses with Orange City, what with the damage done in the dragon fight and with the bay wall missing. The city survived, of course. The Crystal Tower was right there to ward against the nuclear fire and to clean up the messes. Almost no one died from the kaiju fight, too, for almost everyone was already evacuated. And then the dragon had put the pillars back in that bay, though it did make the pillars look like itself, so that was an issue of a separate nature. The bay was once again secure. That was the big deal. Having a solid city wall was a Big Deal.

More refugee requests, though. A lot of people wanted to move away from the rebuild effort, and who could blame them. Emilia rapidly approved those requests. Memphi needed people, and Orange City needed to vent people, and so, Memphi got more people.

Kraigen Steele was trying to poach Orange City’s hero association. Not good, Kraigen. Refugees were one thing, but Memphi would not be poaching the ‘immune system’ of Orange City. Emilia put Lucy, his wife, to the task of stopping her husband.

With a few more flicks of her finger, Emilia rapidly scrolled through all of the top concerns of the day, as determined by her artificial overmind, her ‘True Self’, as she considered it. Her true self still preferred to interact with the world through people, though, and that meant her fleshy body.

She finished the day’s beginning briefings with a cup of coffee, handed to her by one of her servitors; her secretaries.

And then she looked out her windows. The city of Memphi spread out before her, beyond huge bay windows, giving a great view of the lands she watched over, and of the Mississippi River that split her city in half. The city looked good today. Nothing on fire. Nothing had exploded anywhere that wasn’t almost instantly cleaned up by the hero association.

Even after all these years, Emilia still liked looking at all the big towers and suburbia beyond.

Memphi was home to 45 million people, over a roughly circular shape, 105 kilometers in average diameter. It was located in the heart of Old America, back when the United States used to actually be a thing and this city used to be called Memphis. Too many wars and reconstructions happened in the early years of this city, 70 years ago, for this land to ever truly be the same as it once was, so it was called ‘Memphi’ these days.

Emilia was born here in that reconstruction, and now she oversaw the whole place, and she loved it. It was hers and her people’s. No one else’s.

… But what would she do if one of her powers like Archmage Blackthorn got in bed with a demon? Well. With a different demon, Emilia amended. One that he didn’t have under control. His demon merely wanted him to do drugs and have sex, and so that was a pretty easy vice to handle. Big deal!

Addashield’s demon had made him plant poisoned fruit every 10 years.

And now he was a High Dragon, and a good portion of Orange City was a nuclear disaster zone, but that was already getting cleaned up, and…

Emilia frowned a little bit at the window. She asked herself, “What’s going on with that boy Addashield screwed over?”

Her True Mind writhed a little bit on the ceiling, like a great glass sphere laden with illuminated lines and many, many roots. It was the great artificial heart of her small empire. Some cities had City AIs, but Memphi had Emilia Ramirez. Maybe, when she died, her True Self would become a God AI, like Malaqua, but for now she was her True Self, and her True Self was her fleshy body, and her True Self spoke in a way that was not speech at all.

Mark Careed has made contact with his uncle, Alexandro Careed, who resides in Shady Acres. They have made plans for Mark to apply for citizenship in 8 months. I have spoken with Citadel Of Freyala Resources, and they have agreed to this timeline. We have not interacted with the people themselves.

Emilia nodded and the prismatic lights in her True Self faded to a normal level, the whole glass structure turning quiet; back to baseline interactions, which made it basically a House AI for the entire city. Or for those who didn’t have their own, really.

The Mayor of Memphi stared out the window.

Emilia did not want people to meddle with her city, and especially not the other cities and their invasive AIs out there. But sometimes… Sometimes she would have liked to have had a more unified voice with the other Central Cities of America, and especially the East Coast Union, regarding resources being taken from them by other countries.

In this case, she was mad that Addashield’s pawn was removed from Orange City and placed into ‘protective custody’ by Citadel Freyala.

A tri-Talent with his Talents was a talent to be nurtured properly, so that they might one day be a powerhouse protecting everyone. Adamantiumkinesis was...

Hmm.

Addashield’s Dragon had talked about selling adamantium to whoever wanted to talk to him instead of fight him. Had anyone taken him up on that offer, yet? The dragon was the size of a building with many adamantium spikes all along his body, and they regrew rather fast. So it was no wonder people were trying to kill him.

But that offer though...

She asked, “Has anyone taken Addashield’s dragon’s offer of adamantium sales? How is that situation looking?”

Addashield’s dragon has talked to Crytalis in an attempt at peace, but if anything has come of that aside from Crytalis shooting him in the face, several times, then we know not what. He gifted an adamantium spine to Orange City as reparations, and Orange City has promised the dragon ten minutes of peace, but no longer than that, and only outside of 100 kilometers beyond the city walls.

That spine will see to the bare minimum adamantium needs of the entirety of the East Coast Union for 5-20 years, barring unforeseen circumstances. Orange City is portioning out pieces of the 379.2 kilogram spine already, but they officially and unofficially distrust Addashield’s dragon. They did not attack Addashield’s dragon, though Glorious Man was ready to try.

The Church of Drakarok has harvested five hidden dragons among Addashield’s former family lines, resulting in 22 kilos of adamantium gained for humanity. They have put out bounties on seven others. They are using 19 kilos of the adamantium they recovered, while they are selling the other 3.

After a moment of thinking, Emilia said, “Put a pin on the boy’s name, to be brought to my attention if anything should happen that I need to care about. If he wants someone to help him protect himself against exploitation, then we will do that and grant him a good life here, if he should want it. Write up something to that effect. Send it at an appropriate time. Also I want to buy those 3 kilos from Drakarok’s church. Put me in touch with whoever— Ah. I still want the adamantium. But Addashield killed the boy’s parents, right?” Emilia didn’t need an answer; she already knew. “Delay that offer of assistance. Let him sort out his own life. He’s going to be messed up and I don’t want that here.”

Fleshy Emilia went about her day, and so did her True Self, hanging on the ceiling.