Adamant Blood

Mark pushed off of the solid stone ground near the pool, clapped his hands, and then he fell back to a pushup, going all the way down and then explosively pushing off the ground to clap his hands again.

He switched to one hand pushups.

One hand pushups were harder, but he managed to do 10 on each arm, and then he balanced himself on his right hand and left leg, keeping his opposing hand and leg raised off of the ground. He struggled not to collapse on himself as he went down, but he kept himself steady, all the way to the ground, and he pushed back up.

He wasn’t even using Union yet. This was just him.

Mark turned on Union and his heart beat with resilience and weakness, black veins scattering into the air all around him, and now it was too easy. He went down on his one-arm-one-leg pushups and then he switched, rapidly firing off a full ten one-arm-one-leg pushes. With a tilting, Mark lifted his legs off of the ground and stood on his hands to do more pushups, just on his hands.

It was weird how much easier it was to do… everything, when Union was active. Nice, of course. And Mark was even building strength even faster when he worked out with Union active. He could even do a one-handed handstand—

Mark overbalanced and almost fell, but he caught himself. He grinned. Couldn’t do one-handed handstands yet!

Not yet.

With a casual flex, the adamantium hovering around his wrists went outward, like they were limbs he just wasn’t using until now. In an even easier sort of way, Mark did ‘pushups’ with his adamantium. It was the easiest thing to do, now that he was fully acquainted with his kineticism. Soon, Mark sat cross-legged in the air, Union active and connecting him to the world as he ‘stood’ about three meters off of the ground.

He was very careful about not chipping into the stone pool deck with his adamantium, so his ‘feet’ weren’t shaped like caltrops. They were shaped like rough coins. That shape worked out well enough to distribute Mark’s weight across a large enough area that he didn’t dig into the stone. Mark didn’t even have to pay attention to what he was doing with the adamantium right now. It was simply a part of him. Like using his own fingers, or legs, Mark stood on the adamantium, and felt… normal.

But he was hovering.

He marveled at how he held there, in the air.

This was amazing.

Mark gazed out across the rolling green hills, the distant trees, and the farmlands beyond. Wind blew through his hair and across his body, bringing a chill to the sunshine. It was a good day, and Mark felt pretty secure in his Powers, and in his decision to check out Wolf Bayou, especially with Isoko joining him. Mark had asked her to come to Memphi for some Slayer quests on something of a whim, but it had rapidly turned into a whole big thing, and Mark’s whim was a lot more than a whim right now. He was happy that he had asked Isoko to come over.

He was happy with the direction of his life right now.

Lola and Orissa and David were going to be in Memphi, too, soon enough. Those three were going to be a part of this whole ‘sister city’ thing that was rapidly developing, faster than Mark ever thought this sort of thing could develop. Eliot had only been knighted as a paladin of Hearthswell, like, two days ago. He was heading into training at Citadel Hearthswell, just south of Mexico City.

Mark kinda wondered, since Citadel Hearthswell was right there, and the Aluatha Empire was on Daihoon on the other side of the Veil right there, why didn’t they make the portal there? Eliot had rapidly shot that down in the chat, though, saying that no one wanted dragons in the heart of the Aluatha Empire, or Citadel Hearthswell.

But Mark’s casual talk of Memphi had started a big ball rolling, and now, this thing was probably going to happen here, in Memphi, and also on Daihoon, where nothing currently existed on the other side of the Veil in this area. Mark knew that they weren’t making that decision on his words, of course. They were all more concerned with whatever Addavein would do, which was rather valid in Mark’s opinion.

Mark looked over to the chair where he had set Quark, his AI, and asked, “Have Isoko and Lola landed yet?”

“They will be landing in 7 minutes. Inquisitor Lola, Justicar, Ambassador Wavecrash, and most of the people on that transport, will be meeting with the current powers of Memphi for the next few hours. Paladin Isoko will be coming here, in accordance with your invitation. There are 387 more text messages in your chat log on Accord since last you read. Most of them are from Eliot, apprising you and Isoko of the current state of the plan.”

Mark grinned at that. And then he floated over and picked up his phone, to float in the air and read messages for a little while.

Eliot had a lot to say about a lot, from details of the powerful individuals who would be spearheading the expedition, to general plans, to asking about individual desires and needs.

Mark wanted a flying castle and he said as much, but he also joked that he didn’t really want one at all. Too much upkeep! … probably.

He glanced at the time now and then. 2:38 PM. Plenty of time to get ready for his ‘hallway meeting’ with Mayor Ramirez—

Gabriel came out of the house, saying, “Mark! It’s almost 3 PM! How close are you to being ready?”

Mark sat down on the ground, quizzically. “It’s only 2:40? Isoko is going to be here in… Quark?”

“ETA 25 minutes for Isoko’s arrival.”

Gabriel had a determined look on his face as he said, “I got a message that Ramirez is going into Alex’s office an hour early. She’s getting treated in 15 minutes. You need to be in that office—”

“Oh shit!” Mark got down onto his feet and started rushing into the house, saying, “Okay! Isoko should be here soon, though!”

Gabriel calmed down as Mark ran past him. He called out after Mark, “I’ll make sure Isoko is taken care of!”

Mark called back, “Thank you, Uncle Gabriel!”

Mark was dressed in a flash. He was in the car and racing out of the garage in minutes.

Ramirez was always a busy woman, but today was especially busy. Only certain people got sit-down meetings with her, and Mark wasn’t one of those people. Apparently, she was going to be taking a meeting while she was even getting her de-age treatment by Uncle Alexandro. All Mark was going to get was a ‘minute in a hallway’ with her. It would probably be in the parking lot, though. Gabriel had already explained that Ramirez just wanted to know if Mark was going to be a problem, or benefit, or just a normal person.

Mark wanted to be a benefit, of course, and this would be the chance to show that he could be that sort of person, and be given benefits in turn. Memphi didn’t have a ‘first class citizen’ thing like the East Coast Union and Orange City had, so Mark wasn’t sure what ‘benefits’ looked like, exactly, but Mark was pretty sure those benefits were more of the networking variety, than direct benefits.

Mark made excellent time, driving down the well-maintained streets of Memphi, headed right to Uncle Alexandro’s office. Mark had never been there but Quark gave good instructions, and soon Mark pulled through a big gate into a small parking lot at a professional building at the edge of Shady Acres. There was only one building here; a two story affair, all brutalist-shaped but with nice stone surfaces and some greenery here and there. The building was pretty much a ‘mage tower’, but without looking like a tower at all. It still only had one person working here, and if you came here, you came here to see that one person—

Just as Mark parked the car and hopped out, he heard the thrum of a hovercar overhead.

A big silver van of a car touched down on the other side of the small parking lot.

A big man and equally big woman stepped out of the front passenger seat, and the big side door, both of them looking young and strong and in uniform—

A short, brown-haired woman in a lavender pantsuit came out of the main cabin. She spotted Mark immediately and smiled, saying, “What good timing! I’m glad the note got through about the schedule change. Thanks for adjusting, Mark.”

She was Mayor Emilia Ramirez, and she seemed personable.

Mark bowed a little. “Thank you for the warning of the time change.”

“To get right into it: What are your plans regarding these bandits you encountered?”

Mark had a moment, then he solidly said, “If I can find them, then I’m going to ask them why they tried to kill me. I assume they will give me unsatisfactory answers, or nothing at all, and then I will have to move on with my life.”

Ramirez gave no indication if that was a good answer or not, she simply moved on to the next question, asking, “What do you think about Wolf Bayou?”

“I have no idea why such a place is allowed to exist.”

It was only after he spoke those words that Mark realized he was talking to the woman responsible for making the decision to ignore Wolf Bayou, and to allow Redwolf her kingdom outside of Memphi. Mark had directly called Emilia’s competency into question.

For a moment, Mark was ready to be embarrassed, but he decided, instead, to stand firm.

Ramirez smirked for some reason; Mark could not say. “Go visit and find out why. If you manage to find the people who tried to kill you, and if they give you satisfactory answers, I empower you to extend to them an offer of clemency on behalf of Memphi. I’ll throw them into jail for rehabilitation, and if they do their year, then they’ll be free to be citizens of Memphi again. It was nice meeting you, Mark.”

She walked toward Alexandro’s office.

Alexandro was already standing by the open double doors with Inquisitor Willow flanking him. They both bowed—

Oh!

Mark rapidly bowed toward Ramirez’s departing form.

And then one of Ramirez’s people, the big man, held out four white coins, saying, “Here.”

Mark… took the coins? Sure?

The man said, “Clemency tokens. They’re simple plastic and useless on their own, but they do draw Mayor Ramirez’s attention when you wave them in front of a street camera. Those four have already been inscribed with some small details about this meeting. Give them to the people you think deserve them. You will be judged based on who you give them to, if anyone.”

With that proclamation delivered, The man walked toward Ramirez, who had already gone inside the building with Uncle Alexandro and Inquisitor Willow. The big woman stayed with the Mayor’s hovervan.

… And Mark was dismissed, he supposed.

Mark slowly got back in the car, marveling that his ‘hallway meeting’ really had been that short.