Adamant Blood

Mark sat with Svea to the side of the sparring room, while Jacob and Raoul fought and Instructor Charms watched.

Svea said, “I’m switching to night guard.”

Mark blinked a bit. “You like living at night?”

“Yeah, I do. Most monsters come out at night, and the competition among professional teams is just… A lot less. I’ve decided to go into the Slayers, too. Officially. I spent all last night doing that. They’ll help me with spell forms.” Svea asked, “How about you? You said you’re stuck here for 8 months or something, right?”

“I’m not sure how long, but something like that, yeah. I haven’t made any decisions at all, except to do class and club work.” Mark looked away, saying, “There’s so much to learn.”

Svea smiled. “So much hidden! And not equally at all! If I would have been born on Daihoon I would already have ten spells to my name gained from ten neighbors, instead of just Elemental Bolt.”

Mark honestly said, “That sounds like a lot, but I have no basis for understanding that difficulty.”

Svea paused, and then she laughed.

Mark smiled. “Really though! What is a ‘spell’?”

Svea grinned. “It’s like… clipping off your astral body and throwing it. Forced seer-ing.”

Mark instantly said, “That can’t be healthy.”

“It’s not!” Svea said, still joyful.

Mark looked at Raoul and Jacob spar, as he said, “There’s so much I never knew. It’s hard to think about sometimes.”

Svea strongly said, “I hate thinking about all that, too! What was hidden! I love magic the more I learn, but every mage I talk to wants 10 years of contracted apprenticeship before they’ll teach me anything good! Gods! It’s no wonder people turn toward the demons where they can just learn everything...” She stopped. Her face turned bright red with embarrassment. She whispered, “Sorry.”

Mark smiled as he said, “Demons and mages can be pretty bad, yeah.”

“… Yeah. Sorry. I kinda… forgot who I was talking to.”

“I’m just some idiot who was used. Don’t worry about it.”

Svea said nothing for a long moment, and then she—

Instructor Charms said, “You can do burpees if you can talk so much.”

Svea shut her mouth.

Mark just breathed.

Soon, Raoul and Jacob finished, with Raoul winning and Jacob on the floor.

Charms pitted Mark next against a tired Raoul.

Raoul grunted as he squared up, sweat dripping.

Jacob held up a hand as he laid on the ground, saying, “He’s not that tired, Mark! He’s faking!”

Raoul instantly shouted, “Oh come on!” as he righted and stopped breathing nearly so hard.

Mark grinned.

Mark won that bout, and the next one with Svea.

Later, after sparring club, Svea said to Mark, “I’m sorry about saying that… demon stuff earlier.”

Mark just smiled. “Don’t worry about it… But thanks.”

Svea nodded, and then she went on, down the hall, to wherever she had to go next.

- - - -

Mark sat on a bench near a park, breathing, but not deliberately. Not yet. The trees were tall. A small, shallow lake held in front of him. The sun shone in the cloud-piled sky and shadows from the trees danced across the grasses at Mark’s feet. A breeze tossed the canopies and rippled the water. Ducks quacked. It smelled of good, clean forest, and it was warm. It was the end of summer, and the world was beautiful.

It was nice.

For a moment, Mark looked up in the sky, at the clouds, and he imagined many things. Flying, most of all. He’d be able to do something like that with adamantium, eventually. Not very high, though. Not without mechanical advantage. A lot of shapers flew with glider wings, and Mark was a shaper now… or at least he would be, eventually.

He’d be flying up there, eventually.

Mark thought back to the conversation with Svea, and then to his own hatred of what was hidden from him…

And also to whatever the fuck was happening with Addashield.

Mark had deliberately not looked at the news for the past 15-ish days, or however long it had been since… Since all of that. It had probably been 20 days since Mom and Dad were murdered and incinerated. Mark wasn’t sure of the timeline at all. Everything sort of blurred together—

A pair of guys were walking across the path to the side, one of them saw Mark and did a double take, and then he spoke to his friend who also looked at Mark and then both of them rapidly pretended to ignore Mark. One of them turned back and flashed a thumbs up, though, and then he kept walking.

… So that was a first.

Some stranger had just given him a thumbs up.

Mark wasn’t sure how he felt about that. People had noticed him before, yeah. He was kinda tall and rather built, and it seemed like Healthy Body was doing a lot for him in that way, like any brawny-type Talent would do for anyone… But that was the first time people actually noticed him. As in, they noticed that he was Mark Careed.

And that was a thumbs up.

Mark felt an anger rise.

What possible reason could anyone have for giving him a thumbs up?!

Mark had come out here to do some breathing exercises, but now he was fully focused on that damned thumbs up! He almost got off the bench and went to chase the guy down! The fuck?!

… Mark ignored it and tried to think about anything else.

He ended up thinking about his future, and what it all meant post-Addashield, since it seemed that everyone was thinking that Addashield was truly dead, so he couldn’t really get his revenge, could he? If he tried to kill the dragon, then he’d be going after revenge on something that ‘wasn’t actually Addashield’, and that was donating so much shit to the people of Earth that humanity was buying into its shit—

Mark picked up his damned phone and started searching the web—

He didn’t even get partway through the search before he stopped. He needed to stop. He didn’t want to know about that asshole’s reincarnation as a High Dragon.

He breathed.

Mark set down his phone and focused on his breathing exercises—

“Nope.”

Mark opened his phone back up and asked, “COFR? Please tell me what’s happening with Addashield’s Dragon, and what people are saying about me? Anything new? In the last few days?”

The phone went from blue, white, and filled with a few student apps of various colors, to full golden glows.

Citadel of Freyala Resources spoke in a feminine voice, “Here are some relevant stories to match your queries.” A series of buttons with thumbnails popped up; links to the stories. And then COFR said, “To summarize, Addashield’s High Dragon has laid out plans for what he wishes to do to atone and then go further beyond that, to make him acceptable in the eyes of humanity. His largest contributions thus far are the creation of working bays for the nations of Nigeria of the African Unity, London of the Britain Nations, Orange City of the East Coast Union, and deterrent poles for various nations around the world, most of which are in the Northern Canadas.

“He has gifted a total of 2,750 kilograms of adamantium to various nations around the world, securing Earth’s anti-kaiju weaponry reserves for the next 20 years.

“He has given speeches about what had happened back before he was Addashield’s High Dragon, and how he apologizes for the actions of his father, condemns his mother, and thanks Mark Careed for being brave and strong and a Hero to Humanity, to help him be born as he was, so that he can undo the sins of his father as much as possible.

“He considers Mark Careed a brother, born in the fires of the same Tutorial, and if Mark should ever wish to air his grievances regarding Addashield’s actions, Addashield’s Dragon would hear those grievances and try to make up for the losses his parents caused. Addashield’s Dragon has given the same offers to the remaining family of Yunthal Brightwind, and a few others, though he has not named those other people as direct family at all. No one has taken him up on those offers.”

Mark’s ears rang.

He watched COFR flick through a few images of the dragon on the screen. There was Addashield’s dragon, all silver and black and sized like a minor skyscraper, with black stripes and blacker spikes. He floated with wings spread wide as he constructed bay pillars, in the ocean, dropping millions of tons of permanent metal into pillar shapes that he inscribed with power. There he was with wings folded tight as he stood in front of a tiny podium, surrounded by drone cameras to record his speech, asking for forgiveness.

And then COFR said, “Based on the schedules he has posted, publicly, he has another month of desired fixes to Earth before he goes to Daihoon and begins to work there, if they will have him. It has been suggested that all of this is a ploy so that he can suddenly turn betrayer on Daihoon, at some opportune time, killing complacent and disarmed targets. The Collective Nations of Daihoon have responded that if Addashield’s dragon appears anywhere near their lands, they will blow him out of the sky.

“Considering the nations of Earth already tried that, we don’t think the nations of Daihoon will be any more successful.

“The nations of Earth have moved on from a ‘kill first’ philosophy. They are choosing to reluctantly accept Addashield’s High Dragon.

“Popular culture on Daihoon is already calling him the coming of a new god, though the governors and councils are denouncing that sort of talk as heavily as they can.”

Mark couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

A new god?

The fuck?

Mark stared at the screen, his voice breathless, “… What about Glorious Man and… and the other archmages? The other superheroes? Nova Nexus? Timeweaver?”

“Unwilling to battle him at this time.”

“… So Timeweaver tried, and failed?”

“I cannot speculate on this.”

“Nukes?”

COFR fell silent.

Nukes probably wouldn’t work on him that much, really. Anti-nuke magic was one of the first ‘new magics’ the archmages developed in the Reveal in 1969, since nukes were used to kill many of the kaiju that came with the breaking of the Veil. Archmages could get nuked directly and just ignore the bombs…

Mark asked, “What is the best theoretical way to kill Addashield’s Dragon?”

“A sufficiently powerful adamantiumkinetic would negate much of the dragon’s innate lethality. From there, gaining a resistance to all forms of Power is the next step. Beyond that, a person would have to disrupt all of dragon society, to pit all of them against Addashield’s High Dragon. Such a person would also need to also be an archmage, which means dealing with demons. Please note that working with demons and dragons is against humanity’s best interests, as decided by all signers of the Humanity Accords of 1978, which includes the Church of Freyala. Such a person would need Daihoonian backing, where the Accords do not exist in their anti-demon, anti-dragon state, as they do here on Earth.”

Mark stared at his phone, at the golden light of it all, not quite believing what he was hearing.

Was COFR suggesting that Mark go… go elsewhere, to get his revenge?

“… I would have thought that Freyala would try to… to tie me more strongly to her. To you. To her Citadel and her people. I did not expect you to tell me that I couldn’t find what I needed here.”

For a moment, the phone was simply gold.

And then the feminine voice of COFR, seeming more human and more otherworldly at the same time, asked, “What was your plan before all of this, Mark?”

Mark suddenly felt he wasn’t speaking to COFR at all.

He knew it was important to be honest.

Mark said, “I planned to do a stint over in Daihoon at one of their expanding settlements, if I could swing it. Work with a team to help make a home base and to find my way to power by killing monsters and helping people. Maybe make a real home, if I liked the settlement enough. If it didn’t work out in a few years I’d come back home and get a normal job doing… something.” Mark lost it at the end there. The original plan hadn’t been too involved. Maybe he could have made a better plan, now that he was beyond the Curtain, but he hadn’t really thought about the old plan at all. “And that was it.”

“Do that. I am sure you will find good, positive outlets for your rage long before Addashield’s Dragon becomes a problem. But for now, you must grow, and to grow, you must become one with the dance of the world, of good and bad, and yet, you must discover that there isn’t anything truly good or bad at all,” Freyala said, “All there is, is what we need right now and what we can’t use, versus what other life needs right now and what they have in excess, and the dance between us all that balances the world.”

The voice had not come from the phone at all. COFR was silent.

The voice had come from the air itself. From the breeze.

Mark breathed in, and then out. What he needed came to him in a golden wind.

Mark felt lighter in that moment. Stronger. All the small aches from sparring were gone, and then some. Mark exhaled what he didn’t need, which was all of his pain. A thin black smoke flowed out of his nostrils, smelling of death as it vanished on the wind.

It was like taking a shot of espresso for the soul, or at least that’s what Mark imagined it would feel like. He had tried coffee, but not espresso.

Mark simply felt invigorated. Joyful, even.

Looking up at the cloud-piled sky, where fluffy white towers stacked in the blue, Mark knew he would be flying one day, on his own power, like a real superhero. That day was not today. That goal was long term. Mark would need to be the person he needed to become in the meantime.

Somehow it felt more real to have these thoughts now, as opposed to a few days ago when he finally came back to himself, thanks to Lola’s words telling him it wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t his fault. He actually believed that now.

Mark had a plan now. It was the original plan, but filled with this detour at Citadel Freyala. They had lots of resources here, which made it a pretty good detour. Mark would use those resources, make some friends, and then go on to Daihoon and become a real hero.

A superhero.

Maybe then, people giving him a thumbs-up and a genuine smile wouldn’t feel so weird.

For what might have been a long while, Mark just watched the sky tumble upon itself, white mixing upon a blue background. He thought of Mom and Dad and their call to forgo revenge. He thought of High Priestess Julia Garin’s similar words, said a lot less nicely, but no less kindly.

Eventually, Mark came back to the moment.

Mark flicked through his phone, to the homework that Lola had given him. He had come here to do breathing exercises, after all. When combined with what Freyala had said —because that golden wind had been her, for sure— Mark reevaluated the homework…

“… Huh.”

From the ideas of ‘breathing with the world’ to ‘do trees breathe?’ to ‘are you breathing with your lungs, or your aura?’ Mark rapidly put together a picture of what was really going on beneath the surface of Union.

He breathed out CO2 and he breathed in O2, and a bunch of other stuff along the way. The trees breathed all the time, Mark knew, but he couldn’t really latch on to them… For now? He wasn’t supposed to try to breathe with anything at all —Lola had been very strict in that order— but Mark was pretty sure that what he was doing was breathing in the atmosphere that the trees also breathed into, and thus, an exchange of CO2 and O2 took place along with… aura? Mark wasn’t sure.

Whatever the case, the idea of ‘breathing out the bad, and breathing in the good’ was simplistic, but it was a good starting point...

… Was Union sort of like… actively becoming a part of the systems around you, and controlling those systems? Or… or what?

A ‘Union’ of life?

Is that why Union was so good at healing, while not actually being healing magic? Because it obviously wasn’t healing magic. Mark knew some of the Healing Talents out there. Everyone knew of the Perfect Healers; those that could grant limited immortality to people, making them young, giving them eternal life for as long as they kept getting treated every few years. Union was not capable of that, or else High Priestess Julia Garin wouldn’t have looked so old… Or maybe she was old by choice?

Archmages of certain calibers never aged, for sure, but that was more due to their demons.

Mark thought.

The more Mark thought about it, the more he imagined that Hearthswell, the Goddess of Healing and Home, probably had something that was more like ‘true healing magic’…

… Or. Actually.

Mark could look that shit up, couldn’t he!

He wasn’t a child anymore!

Okay. So. No Breathing Practice quite yet.

Mark searched the web on his phone for a bit, seeing if he could find out the name of Hearthswell’s specific power—

The top answer popped up on Quickipedia, and Mark almost stopped right there. He had often wanted to search Quickipedia for information about this or that, but almost all of the site was hidden behind Curtain Protocol, and every time Mark went to Quicki he always hit that lock. But now, as his fingers hovered above the link, he wondered if he could actually see what was written.

Mark pressed the link.

A Quikipedia page opened and Mark chuckled briefly as he saw a page he had seen way too many times before.

401 Unauthorized Action – Curtain Protocol

But then the page flickered gold and the Curtain Protocol lock vanished, Mark gasped, and he was able to read Quickipedia for the first time. What he saw was the main page for the Goddess, Hearthswell.

With a quiet voice and wide eyes, Mark said, “Oh. Hearthswell’s Power is called Castellan.”

The article had links at the top that connected to main pages for all the other gods.

Mark instantly clicked on Freyala’s page.

403, Forbidden Action – Personal Message: Learn it slowly, Mark

… Mark backed to the previous page, to Hearthswell’s history.

Maria Sanchez was a local healer from Mexico who was aged 35 during the Reveal in 1969. She has been called a curandera and a folk healer, but she was mostly a mother of 9 and a leader in her community. When the Reveal sent shockwaves of mana across Earth, baptizing almost everyone at once, Maria gained the Talent of Castellan, and put to rights her land and her people. Most notably, she undid the monsterization of 4 of her children as well as all of her village of 550 people.

With the power and personal drive to organize the world, Maria rapidly rose in power, putting the world to rights. She would eventually become Hearthswell, the goddess of domestic harmony and healing.

Mark had known the basic story of how Maria had gained a Talent for healing that allowed her to reverse the monsterification of many different people. This story he read right now was completely different, and yet, very much the same. ‘Castellan’ probably organized… Well. A lot. What was a Castellan? Put simply, a Castellan was the organizer of a castle. The guards, the pantry, the people, everything. They maintained the health of the castle, and the people inside the castle.

So ‘Castellan’ was probably… wow. A lot.

Union could do just as much, couldn’t it. Even more, really. What was a Castellan but the organizer of a small group. Union could span… very far, probably.

Well shit! What could the other gods do?

Mark found out.

Drakarok, the God of War and Murder, formerly known as General Alexander Volkov, had the Talent of Retribution. That one was pretty darned widespread in applicability, too. Sally was acolyted to him, so that’s probably what she would gain, too. She had even gained a little bit of that power before her Tutorial, back when Mark sparred with her that one time. The smallest application of Retribution had to have been grafted on to her by Drakarok even then, because Mark certainly felt how every time he struck her, he injured himself… Or maybe her strikes were even more injurious than they should have been? Mark didn’t really remember all that well.

Mark needed to call Sally. He still hadn’t done that yet. Not since…

Mark moved on.

Verdago, the God of Fertility and Growth, formerly known as Farmer Daniel Greene, had the Talent of Farmer. Reading that seemed kinda boring to Mark, but then he saw all the known applications of Farmer —he noted he needed to go back and read about the applications of the other Godly Talents— and he read about how widespread ‘Farmer’ could be. Though it mostly applied to growing things from the ground, it could also apply to growing a family, or growing a forest, or farming monsters for parts and magical reagents, to hunting in the wilds for valuable herbs.

Mark was getting the picture that the broader powers allowed for much further growth.

Healthy Body would probably protect him from a lot of things like poisons and generally keep him strong, while Adamantiumkinesis would give him one of the strongest weapons available to man, but Union, though small now, would be the foundation of his true growth.

Mark went back to Quickipedia.

Pluta, the Goddess of Prosperity and Wealth, formerly known as Victoria Sterling, had the Talent of Prosperity—

The page morphed.

402 – Payment Required. For a small donation of 99 cents, you can continue to read all about the Goddess of Prosperity!

Mark moved on.

Malaqua, the God of Stone and Ascension, formerly the City AI for New Delhi, was born in a conglomeration of magic and tech, becoming the very first True AI, long before anyone really knew what that was. The archmages and mages from Daihoon simply described him a ‘familiar’, though we now know that was both a truth, and wholly inaccurate. Through many different well-crafted demonic contracts, Malaqua became as powerful as any archmage. Through the cooperation of several archmages of Daihoon, including Sloane Addashield and Yunthal Brightwind, they assaulted the Demon City of Arakino, on the Moon, and Malaqua installed himself as the God of the System, discarding his Demon Contracts and becoming much more than what he had been. Thus, they ended the Reveal, repairing the Veil between worlds, and...

Mark set his phone down and sort of stared out at space for a little while.

Reading Addashield’s name in an article had knocked the enthusiasm out of him.

Mark had come out here to practice Union, to practice breathing, and he had done some of that, but he was done, for now.

He went to get lunch and to study for a college credit in Understanding Curtain Protocol. He doubted he was ever going to go to college, but he was certainly going to learn about all the ways in which the Curtain had been drawn on his entire childhood.