Chapter 465

After a very hectic slaughtering, with 138 Healthy Bodys in his soulhouse and Isoko standing beside him, Mark stood with Melanie Moore and Timeweaver before the Small Gate, nestled at the bottom of the big gate. Wandering Sage, Isoko’s grandmother, stood nearer to Isoko, strongly holding her hand, absolutely loving that Isoko was there with her. Aeri Kanno felt like she was rescuing Isoko from certain death, though, which meant that she was planning on keeping Isoko, if she could convince Isoko to stay.

Isoko had already told Mark that she could not be convinced to stay at Crystal Tower.

Mark wondered if could be convinced because this was fucking . With Glorious Man and New Tokyo and all of that. It was the center of superheroes on Earth, on the Two Worlds, and it was… It was everything Mark had grown up idolizing. Honestly, Crystal Tower was probably using Mark, asking him to do this, to go to war with them, but Mark wanted to kick Dominant’s teeth in and this was an excellent counter attack to the Winter Ball Attack. It wasn’t like they could assault Okauna’s shores directly; it was too well defended. And so yeah, of course Mark said ‘yes’ to visit Crystal Tower, especially when it was fucking-, Vilefire, who was asking!

It was like one step away from Glorious Man asking!

And also Timeweaver was asking, and that guy had saved Mark’s and everyone’s life in the Battle for Memphi. Even if the guy didn’t do as much as he could, letting people die in small ways… He did enough for the big things. Or at least Mark told himself that.

Aurora, Eliot, Sally, Andria, and Derek stood a bit further away, along with Addavein.

Derek was not coming with them, but that was only because he was already there.

The guys inside the Gate were going through final checks one last time, before the people in command activated the Small Gate.

Sally edged nearer to Mark, other people watching her a little, as she said, “I know it’s probably wrong to say this considering the situation, but I am so fucking jealous.”

A flutter of mirth passed through the group. Moore relaxed slightly, but not much.

Mark grinned. “I’ll mail you a postcard.”

Addavein said, “Me, too!”

Now was surprising.

Mark looked from Moore to Addavein, asking, “I thought you were allowed to go there any time as a Hero of Humanity?”

Moore said, “Addashield was allowed, but Addais a dragon, and thus subject to the stricter rules of the Humanity Accords.”

Addavein scoffed. “I’m playing very nice here! And it’s not an act, at all! I gave you guys all that adamantium.” He told Mark, “Give them more adamantium when you get there.”

Moore added, “And Addashield was stricken from the Heroes of Humanity when his true crimes came to light. It doesn’t matter that his Contract was made 350 years ago and a world away under very different circumstances; it was still a Contract against children.”

Addavein did not defend himself—

“30 seconds,” Aurora said, right as the guys below the Small Gate were finished with their task. Aurora told them all, “Good luck with breaking the blockade. Timeweaver? You have made the right choice.”

Timeweaver scoffed with surprise in his vector, not having expected Aurora to talk to him. Was this, then, a timeline he hadn’t erased? It must have been, because Mark was experiencing it right now. Timeweaver told Aurora, “There are never any right choices; only the choices made.”

“I strongly disagree, but you do you,” Aurora said, without looking at him.

Timeweaver grinned a little, and then he told Mark, “She turns me on, too.”

Mark kinda just hung his head, sighing. Sally laughed, Isoko chuckled, and Mark really, truly, tried not to sense any more vectors—

“She’s a good choice, brother,” Addavein said.

Aurora said, “I would smack you across the sky, Addavein, but dragons tend to take that as a challenge at least half of the time.”

“Sounds about right,” Addavein said.

And then the Small Gate opened with a Call to war, the Veil pinned to the sides of the 10-meter-tall doorframe, and Mark walked through, ignoring everything happening behind him, and then he was on Earth, in Memphi.

It was March and the air was cold. It felt even colder than it actually was, because the mana density in the air on Earth was nothing. Mark practically felt himself fall apart, just a little, like there was too much power inside of him to contain at all. He wasn’t in any actual danger, he thought, but it took a moment, standing there on the solid concrete beyond Memphi’s own Small Gate, to reorient to Earth’s manasphere—

As everyone else filed onto Earth, Timeweaver stood next to Mark and pointed to the right while his vector spoke of absolute danger in ways that Mark had no trouble understanding. Mark Unioned with Adamant and Ethereal right before something cracked in the gateway to Daihoon and the Small Gate flickered and died even as Aurora had been wishing them well, one final time.

The attack happened fast.

Mark spilled out adamantium barriers into that direction like sheets of suddenly-present black void. He felt as something pinged the outermost layer, and then came the explosion. It was corruptive and shiny, like thermite that burned black on the edges. That white-centered black fire exploded all around the tarmac of the reception area.

There had been some people about 200 meters away, at the recessed control booth of Memphi’s gate. They had been standing on the tarmac.

The black/white fire burned across the land, consuming Mark’s outer shell of adamantium, so Mark made a whole bunch of other shells of adamantium around everyone in his group. He felt as the vectors of the people ahead of him, at the recessed zone, suddenly burned away, vanishing instantly.

Mark briefly tried running Alacrity/Slowness but he felt as the edges of his shell began to vanish under burning not-fire, so he went back to Adamant/Ethereal, asking the pertinent question, “What the fuck?”

“Zaid?” Moore asked, a flicker of bright purple vilefire hovering over her shoulder, illuminating the interior of the shell.

“Major questions answered!” Timeweaver/Zaid happily explained, “This is the good outcome, I think. As best as I could do it. Mark, you’re gonna want to test the integrity of your shield a few times. When you feel it’s good, then go out there and fly Alacrity-style to the northern wall, and take a right. A voidcannon battery is out there. Capture the assassins, if you can. Dominant sent them and we want to know what they know. Strip some Bindings, too. They’re good ones. you can manage that before they suicide then this is the good timeline, so don’t make me need to humiliate you in front of Aurora again. It’s a lot worse when they target us the gate.” Zaid told Mark, “I am impressed by your ability to understand direction without needing words. We’re gonna have a lot of fun! The fire should be done about… now!”

It wasn’t done, but it was about 20% of what it had been.

Mark popped open the top of the shell and left a ring of adamantium 10 meters tall all around them as he zoomed into the sky, Unioning with Alacrity and Slowness. The world burned as he passed, so he slipped forward like a needle, rapidly slipping through the sky and aiming forward.

The wall was maybe 10-ish kilometers away.

He crossed the wall within moments and then he remade his eyes and body, to hover in the nude, again, high above the wilds, overlooking the green beyond the new northern wall of Memphi.

Quark was right there with him, already handshaking with Mayor Emilia Ramirez’s technological overmind that oversaw the entire city and everyone in it. Briefly, Mark saw their chat record, where the overmind had asked ‘What the fuck was that! 12 dead!’ and Quark had explained about Timeweaver, and Emilia had expressed anger at that.

And now they were working together to show Mark the target.

Mostly, it was Quark sorting through a bunch of information in speed-time, right alongside Mark. Ramirez’s overmind could do a lot, but super speed was out of her wheelhouse compared to someone with eyes and ears and speed .

Quark painted the wilds 2 kilometers below with different color blocks, narrowing down from blue to green to yellow to red, right there, deep in a thick part of the woods. The trajectory had come from that location.

Mark descended like an angry god, finding the vectors of four people, one of them almost completely dead already, and the giant ‘voidfire’ cannon already burning to a husk with its own voidfire, or whatever it was. The people wore green clothes and the voidfire cannon was like a hovercar-sized box on stilts with a long tube pointed at the Small Gate of Memphi. The weapon was layered with vegetation, except for its turret. That vegetation and the very metal of the cannon itself was already disintegrating under the fires that it had shot out.

Mark had been targeted by a void cannon by Aluatha, back when Doomo still hated Mark, or whatever the fuck he felt toward Mark. ‘Hate’ was probably too strong. Doomo had called off that attack before it had happened, and left Mark wondering what void bullets would have done to him.

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So he had found out what void bullets did.

This was not void bullets.

A void bullet would have hollowed out old-Mark’s head and chest and very much killed him with a good ol’ double-tap. Now, a void bullet wouldn’t do shit… or at least not permanently. Oh sure, Mark would lose his head and chest, but he could reconstitute from scattered adamantium spilled away from the blast.

Mark remained in a heart Union of Alacrity and Slowness, but he switched his brain to Good and Bad.

Black sparks crashed into the 4 dying soldiers of Okuana, ripping them back to life.

And then Mark ripped into their souls, dropping back to normal time as a matter of course as he used Union to rip out their Bindings. Black/white fire in the void-fire cannon suddenly spurted to life as time resumed. Those flames spread, catching on the legs of two of the assassins. They screamed.

With their Bindings secured, Mark pulled them away from the fires and healed them up enough to prevent them from dying, and then he slapped all four kinda-wounded assassins into adamantium boxes, locking them down with adamantium straps, securing them for transport.

Was that everything? Maybe. The voidfire cannon was little more than slag right now but the fires were burning out—

One of the assassins bit off his tongue, another one kinda died a little without any known cause, and the other two panicked, locked in darkness and unable to move, but more importantly unable to kill themselves. Mark healed them all, of course, and it wasn’t until he was flying back to Memphi that he realized what they had done to almost kill themselves.

They were trying to break their Binding.

Mark laughed.

“Hard to break a Binding when you don’t have one! … Wait.”

Mark could prevent assassins from killing themselves.

… Huh.

Mark made himself some adamantium underwear as he flew back to the Gate District of Memphi, the turrets on the wall targeting him for a moment before standing down. The void-fire had spread rather far around the small gate. It had destroyed the primary forward gate command center and a few of the people inside, but most had evacuated deeper and some big Castellan wards had come online halfway through the attack.

Black/white fire still burned on that golden shield, but Isoko and Wandering Sage were gathering up the remnants of the destructive fire, while Melanine Moore was using whatever her purple ‘Vilefire’ was to consume the black/white fire and end that corruptive flame.

Timeweaver stood smiling a little, right outside of the blown-out dome Mark had left behind. He called out to Mark, “Good show! You got them all this time!”

“… I guess I did. Quark? Can you tell Ramirez that she has some assassins to interview?”

“She was waiting for that confirmation, and so I have given it to her, sir,” Quark said.

Mark opened up the adamantium coffins he had made, getting a good look at the assassins who had tried to assassinate everyone… Holy fuck. Mark made himself a chair and sat down on it.

‘The attack was worse when they hit us on the other side of the gate’ Timeweaver had said.

Ahh…

Mark breathed. And then Mark went down the list of Unions that regrew flesh and bone. The assassins came back together, physically, and Mark adjusted their restraints to let them speak, if they wanted to speak.

They just glared, or they looked away, or they closed their eyes. They controlled their vectors as best as they could—

One of them suddenly started dying again, and Mark hit him with a Union of Good/Bad.

“How the FUCK are you still killing yourself, dude!” Mark asked, not expecting an answer.

Timeweaver said, “He’s a mage and he has some mana left.”

“Ah, fuck. Duh,” Mark said, as he hit them with Entropy/Energy, and all of the assassins suddenly drained of power. The one guy who had been killing himself was now pissed off, and more than that, scared. “… What are you scared of?”

They did not answer, but now that Mark mentioned fear, all of them were deathly afraid—

Timeweaver said, “What Powers did they have? It’s good for Memphi to know so that they can interrogate them properly.”

Mark told the Redo-hero, “I am feeling unbalanced enough without you constantly suggesting the exact right course of action, though I do really appreciate everything you do.” Mark asked, “But 12 people just died, and I know you could have saved them.”

“It’s a lot harder than you think to turn a disaster into something salvageable, Mark.”

“And I fully believe and agree with that.”

Timeweaver was surprised, but he just smiled and said nothing.

Mark named the assassins according to their Bindings, “Technopath, Mind; True Aim, Natural; Erase Presence, Arcane; and the mage here was a Bi-Talent of Void Shaper and the Arcane Power Instant Hit.”

Timeweaver went, “Huh! Neat.” And then he joked, “You could make a good assassin team with those kinda Powers.”

“… Yeah.”

Moore called out, “We’re not taking the hovership we brought here. Find us a new one, Zaid.”

Zaid, Timeweaver, smiled a little as he told Mark, “No rest for the strong!”

Cop hovervans were flying in from the side, all flashing red and blue and white, as Zaid vanished from sight.

And then some heroes from Memphi descended.

Sentinel, the golden-armored tinkerer and big hero of the city, flew down with hoverrings spinning fast on his back, followed by Frozenfire, who landed and killed every single flame in the vicinity that the others hadn’t killed already. Lawful Goose, the warden of the city’s jail systems, came down soon after.

Sentinel asked Mark, “Can I take those guys off of your hands?”

“Sure, but that one needs shavallian— Ah,” Mark paused.

Zaid reappeared, holding a vial of silver liquid in his hands. “Here we go!”

Lawful Goose patted his own pockets then exclaimed, “That’s mine!”

“I am sure you have more,” Zaid said.

Mark forced open the mage’s mouth, force-fed him the shavallian, then he handed over all of them to Sentinel. Sentinel called down jail drones to grab the guys, lock them into traction, and secure them for flight. When they were secure, Sentinel sent them flying with Lawful Goose’s transport, and with Frozenfire backup.

Sentinel remained, asking, “Can we talk about those Skills taken from the assassins?”

Mark said, “I am absolutely sure that I’m going to be handing them off to some people personally chosen by Walaria, so we can talk about them, but you can’t have them.”

“Understandable.” Sentinel continued, “Have you talked with Archmage Blackthorn yet?”

“Nope.” Mark looked up and said, “Quark. Call Blackthorn.”

Sentinel nodded and departed.

Blackthorn picked up after one ring. His voice was terse. “Mark! Hello. You wanna kill all demons?”

“Not really. I got bigger issues right now.”

“… I suppose you do,” Blackthorn said, relaxing a little.

… On a whim, Mark said, “I got the Binding for Sex Manipulation here. You want it? Or you want to give it to someone you know?”

“Oh my fucking god No! No… Fuck. No. That’s too much.” Blackthorn sighed, but it was a good kinda sigh. “Thank you very much, Mark. Just give it to , eventually, and then tell me who you gave it to. It could fix your low-libido, too, so you could even use it on yourself if you wanted, before you gave it away. Try being straight, or gay, or robosexual! Those AIs can get absolutely .”

“… I’ll tell you who I give it to eventually.”

“Good man! Good luck out there.”

Click.

Timeweaver said to Mark, “That went well.”

“Where’s our transport?” Moore said, walking their way.

Isoko and Aeri were walking together as they came this way, too.

“Right this way~” Timeweaver said, gesturing to the side, and then giving a few flourishes, adding, “Way over there. Way, way over there. Mark can do transport! I’d prefer not to be tied-down in a box though, if you could please.”

Mark made some chairs and a transport for all of them before flying them to some private hoverport with some guy getting ready to go out for a hoverflight with his family on their hovership. Mark paid the hovership owner a few kilos of adamantium, which reminded Mark that he needed to help out Memphi, too.

Mark made a whole pile of adamantium, maybe 2,000 kilos, and he told the hovership owner, “Can you guard this for Memphi? Quark, signal Ramirez, please.”

The hovership owner rapidly said, “Of course, Blackvein! I’m a real fan! Fuck? And this is for the city? Gods.”

The wife and the adult daughter stared at the wealth, and they were all a little greedy, but whatever. They were both a little horny looking at Mark, too. Normally he didn’t notice that, but he was currently mostly-nude, but he was wearing shorts!

Soon, Mark crashed out on a nice couch, having traded his adamantium shorts for some nice boating clothes that the owners had had in the closets. Isoko flew the ship. Timeweaver had fucked off somewhere, flickering away in a splash of still-unknown Power, while Moore remained. The commander of Crystal Tower was currently on her phone, tapping at buttons and looking concerned.

Mark wondered, in a way that didn’t really need to be answered, if Timeweaver had tried to get someone less higher up to come talk to Aurora at Dawncoast, and if that had failed. How many times did he try before he went for Moore, herself. Did he try Glorious Man—

Wandering Sage sat down on the couch opposite of Mark, saying, “It gets easier being around Zaid the more you’re around him.”

Mark smiled a little. “I’m not switching alliances to Crystal Tower.”

Wandering Sage hmm’d, shrugged, and said nothing else.