Chapter 479

Mark stood next to Isoko to the side of the main screen in the amphitheater below the Round Room. The screen displayed New Tokyo’s blue and gold flag, and the audience was full of heroes of the Two Worlds. Glorious Man and many of the standard, main heroes of New Tokyo stood on the other side of the screen. Justicar, Tempest, and Specter were over there. The only ones on Mark’s side were him and Isoko, which was rather normal. Crystal Tower released an Overview after each Gate Day, at the first of the month. Usually no one stood on Mark’s side. He had also seen some Overviews in movies, though, and in Overviews there was always some plucky kid on this side— Ah. Ha! Mark almost grinned. He was the plucky kid this time, huh?

Mark hid his quiet joy as much as he could.

Zaid stood before the main screen, at a podium. Justicar should have been the one to give the Overview, but that wasn’t happening. Timeweaver Zaid was doing this one. Zaid set his simple cane against the podium, gripped the edges of the structure, and began the Overview with,

“This is war.

“Some of you still don’t believe that.

“You think that this was a miscommunication of action. Or maybe, as Okuana has already publicly stated, that this was the result of individual actors going off of the reservation, acting on their own behalf. They claim that Dominant is hibernating after getting so much mana from various sources, and perhaps that is true, but perhaps they’re only saying these things to deflect the truth.

“I want you to understand this here and now: Dominant and his governing Dryads only speak in order to cast spells of weakness on his enemies, to ensure that we are vulnerable to his real actions. Everyone here thought that one good blow against the blockade would have sent them running. This was never the case.

“I said this during the event, but I’ll say it for the record, here in this Overview:

“If we had not triggered that blockade to do exactly what they did, they would have continually tightened the noose and encircled Sidecity completely. They would have gotten 20 kilometers away, jumped to 10, and then committed a grand act of war by shifting all of Crystal Tower and central New Tokyo to Daihoon, and then the void bombing would have started.

“You think those void bombs were for Mark? No. They were for .

“I have seen each and every one of you die to the horrors of Dominant and his people, and . Each and every one of you is a superhero, even if you are on the villain side of things, and I will always support the heroes of this and any other world.

“Almost all of you have helped some place in Okuana in the past. You, Team Orichal, answered the call to support Emberglade Bastion, when the Wilds and that horde of kaiju overran them 3 years ago. Velocity Vortex went to the northern reaches of Okuana last year with you, Phoenix Reborn, and you, Frostbound, and you cleared out a mess of kaiju in the northern oceans. Everyone here has been to Okuana. You have seen the people, you have seen the peace and the Green Death Ecology that keeps it all protected better than most city walls.

“None of you want to believe that Dominant really did this to us.

“But it’s real.

“Okuana showed their true nature when they did the Winter Ball Attack, curving ancient weapons around the world to strike at Crytalis and Domal’Takela. Those weapons and primary defenses against horrors beyond imagining. For Dominant to authorize that sort of action is a horror that none of you fully comprehend.

“If Nobody Important hadn’t destroyed the Pyramids at Longwater, then Dominant would have used them against us, after using them again and again against Aluatha.

“And as one of our guest heroes today has mentioned, and which I know a lot of you are looking up on the internet for right now, Okuana already showed their true colors 11,000 years ago, when they created the goblins and set them upon the rest of the world. That confluence happened when the Dragon King died and never-died, and Okuana took advantage of it while they could.” Zaid took a moment, letting all that marinate, and then he said, “All that most of you are going to find about that event is that part of the documentary that Mark and his team released half a year ago. The AIs have done more research on the matter, though, and so I formally request the AI nations and United Sapients to release that information to those who seek it.”

Some people had their phones out on the curved amphitheater tables in front of them. Some of those phones flickered to life.

Quark flickered some information into Mark’s view, saying that he had a list of videos that they should watch later.

Mark would do that.

Zaid continued, “We’re still going to try for peace because war is terrible, but know now that Okuana is coming for each and every one of you. For some of you, Dominant will try to change your minds, and not through buying you out, or offering you nice houses, or whatever you might want. There will be Mind Control. For the rest of us, Dominant will attempt assassinations.

“Know now that there is no peace to be had with Okuana, under the current regime.

“And so, here’s some big news:

“There are a lot of holes in the defense of this city. The biggest hole is that everyone here is free to do what they think is best, and so New Tokyo has formally declared that not a single person in the Crystal Tower is allowed to respond to any calls for help from Okuana, at all, under threat of arrest and confiscation of all properties and monies.”

No one had spoken up yet, but some people shot to their feet with that announcement.

Velocity Vector and Technomage were the quickest.

Velocity Vector yelled out, “You cannot be serious! We still need to save .”

“We do not, actually,” Zaid simply said, “Okuana will use them against us if we try. Another big problem is the International Teleport List for Kaiju Response. Therefore, as of right now, all of your ITLKR credentials have been ripped away from Okuana. The systems are disconnected. It happened yester—”

A lot of people stood up and complained, their voices drowning out Zaid’s.

Glorious Man shook his head, but he stomached it.

Zaid yelled, “I WON’T LET YOU KILL YOURSELVES, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS.”

Justicar yelled, “Sit down! Please!”

It took a minute for things to settle.

Zaid took a breath, glared, and said, “In total, 72,319 people died yesterday. The Resurrection Ghost, Jessie Stills, tried bringing back 5 people so far, and they came back missing a year’s worth of memories. He will continue doing what he can, and he’s ramping up speed. Whatever actions allowed him to revive all of Memphi for an entire night aren’t happening right now. By the time he’s done some people, those last few people will be missing 5 years of their lives. Specter and Synapse are alive again, though they don’t remember the last 6 months.”

Mark felt crushed in a strange sort of way.

Academically, he already knew that if he tried bringing back his parents that they would come back as different people. They’d be teenagers, maybe, in older bodies. But then Alexandro could Age Manipulation them down to actual teenage bodies and it would be weird, but it would be ‘okay’. But now… Now?

Mark knew that his parents were never coming back, ever again.

He had known this. He knew this!

But still…

Yeah.

A lot of people were feeling fractions of what Mark was feeling, but overall they were thrilled. What was a few years of memories compared to the person they belonged to, being alive again? Nothing much, apparently.

Zaid continued, “Anyone wishing to join that resurrection event is forbidden from doing so. Aluatha and some non-powered representatives from New Tokyo are getting it done. Mark and Isoko can go, though, and that’s it. We still have moles here in New Tokyo, and so every single person in Crystal Tower and to a certain level in the government is getting a Mind Test, to see if there are issues of Mind Control. We can’t test for loyalty, but we can test for actual Mind Shit.”

Mark thought that was a weird, yet prudent thing to do. He didn’t even know that was possible.

Other people did not like that at all, which was also weird. No one actually spoke up against it, but Mark felt a few vectors out there go suddenly inward and scared.

Zaid continued, “And thanks to Mark Careed here, Blackvein, we’ll be allowing certain people to Skill-up into new Powers. Melanie is dealing with all of that. If you have questions about that, or about Specter having Battlemind now, or about Tempest having Accelerator, bother Melanie before you bother Mark, because he has Empire-sized obligations with his Skilling. Crystal Tower and New Tokyo are still getting a lot of the haul of Powers from the blockade.”

A lot of people looked toward Mark—

“And that’s the Overview!” Zaid said, finishing with, “Dominant damaged us, but we’ll survive. We’ll thrive. And when the Enemy of Humanity Godking Dominant is dead, the world will be a better place.”

Zaid walked off to the side.

Everyone kinda wondered if that was all—

Glorious Man stepped to the podium, adding, “Thank you all for fighting.”

And was it.

People started breaking up, walking in pairs and talking, vectors and desires flowing everywhere else but here.

Mark got going, too. A message from Walaria had just come in, requesting Mark’s presence near Jessie Stills, in Yokosuka.

- -

“He figured it out, huh?” Mark said, looking down at the ‘resurrection’.

Mark and Isoko spent a little while longer after the Overview at Crystal Tower, talking to people, but Jessie was here in New Tokyo, having arrived before the Overview even began. Along with Walaria’s request to look after Jessie while he did his thing, Walaria also shot him a list of Powers she wanted given to specific people, and though Mark hadn’t met those people yet, they were here somewhere.

One of those people was General Devo Stone, who was over there, on the secondary skiff from Aluatha, talking to some organizers from New Tokyo. That guy had the Mind Power, Strategist, and Walaria wanted Mark to give him Visionary and Battle Manipulation on top of that. Mark had no idea who the 45 year old guy was besides some commander for the armies of Aluatha, but he was going to be a after Mark Skilled him up with two Powers.

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Another Big Damn Deal was Cade Waterson, but in a much less outstanding way, stood beside Mark, looking down at the streets of Yokosuka with him.

Cade’s eyes were steely grey, his hair grey too, now, and his vector was one of absolute certainty, as he gazed down at the ‘Resurrection Ghost’ down there, and said, “Great responsibility has a way of breaking many, but some flourish under the yoke of obligation. Jessie is one such person.”

Mark could tell there was a lot of warmth in those words, even if the words themselves were… less than warm. Mark gazed down at ‘Jessie’, too, and that thing down there certainly… like the Resurrection Ghost. Yes. It was the same. Physically.

Archmage Blackthorn had killed Grey Phantom at the end of the Battle for Memphi, but instead of turning into a dragon the guy had turned into a big white ‘ghost’ that pulled souls and bodies together, resurrecting the dead. It had been Mark’s first experience with a Living Spell. For most of the world it was their first experience with a Living Spell, too.

Tall, white and shining, wings made of clinking white chains, sexless and ageless.

That’s how it looked.

But how the Real Ghost had and how felt? Completely different. That thing down there, pulling bodies out of nothing and souls out of the ether, rejoining them together, and then handing them off to workers climbing over the rubble, was not the Resurrection Ghost. It was a candle compared to a bonfire.

Mark turned a little, and he looked at the real body of Jessie Stills, sitting behind Cade Waterson, insensate and ‘sleeping’. His vector was internal. Dreaming.

He dreamed of being the Resurrection Ghost, and sure enough, down on the rubble of Yokosuka, was the Resurrection Ghost. Instead of multiplying a million fold and appearing everywhere, all across Memphi, Jessie had conjured one Ghost. That was it.

Isoko looked at Jessie deeply and hmm’d. She was thinking the same thing Mark was thinking.

Cade asked her, “Thoughts?”

“He’s not using up a whole lot of power,” Isoko said. “He should be able to summon more?”

Mark asked, “But he’s astral projecting into that ‘ghost’? He’s not summoning anything?”

With his eyes still closed and his vector far away, Jessie still managed to say, “I can still hear you.”

“You got a weird Power,” Mark said.

Jessie scoffed.

“No I mean it, for real,” Mark said, “It’s an Arcane Power, but you’re using it in an Arch sort of way. Body projection is absolutely not a part of… well, actually. I would that body projection would be a part of Resurrection.”

“You had to physically touch corpses to bring them back at the Winter Ball?” Isoko said/asked.

Jessie grumbled small curses and ignored them.

Cade told Mark and Isoko, “When he concentrates he can make multiple bodies, but there are too many worries right now to allow for that level of concentration. I believe he must have been in a state of total dissociative shock in order to cause the Resurrection Ghost of Memphi.”

Mark and Isoko both mmm’hmm’d.

Disbelief was thick in the air.

Silence.

And then Isoko said to Mark, “I’m here to help him if he needs help. Walaria wants that General and whoever Skilled right now?”

Mark nodded a little, looking over toward Devo Stone on the other hovership from Aluatha. Strategist Mind, Natural Visionary, and Arch Battle Manipulation. That was going to be a Huge Deal, for sure. Mark turned toward Cade, with his Transcendent Mind, Body, and Soul. The guy felt truly… solid. He looked solid, too. Taller and stronger than before.

Cade stood a bit taller, straightening up, turning his gaze toward the horizon, knowing that Mark was inspecting him.

Mark asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Different. I do not sleep and I don’t have to eat anymore. I still enjoy all of that, but the need is gone. Sex is strangely wonderful. Life is fantastic, in a way I did not expect. There is one thing that is completely different. In contrast to before, I know that if I set my direction toward a goal and I have approximate knowledge of what needs doing to achieve that goal, I can achieve that goal, whatever that goal might be. Jessie has suffered three assassination attempts, but the arrow, the poison, and the Soul Kill assassin never got there before I was there first, in their way. Soul Kill did nothing to me, which is also strange and different. But protecting Jessie is always on my mind, and it was as though I knew dangerous purposes were happening around him, so I put myself in a position to stop them.”

Mark nodded a little, mostly because it seemed like the right thing to do. In truth, he had no idea what the fuck to make of any of that, except to say, “Sounds good.” Mark asked Jessie, “You want a secondary Power? Tertiary Power?”

Jessie focused elsewhere, but he managed to say, “Walaria promised me you’d get me Dynamo.”

“, though?” Isoko asked, before Mark could voice the same question. “You don’t need it, right?”

They had come here prepared to Union with Jessie to help him do more Resurrecting, but that wasn’t necessary for whatever reason.

Mark added, “You don’t seem to be using much mana at all?”

With his body still dead-to-the-world, Jessie moved his lungs and his lips and his throat anyway, saying, “I wanna learn magic.”

Mark shrugged. “Sure— Oh. I see.” Mark had thought that Jessie had been getting witchy Aluatha Empire magic cast on him, and sure, he probably was getting that. But also… “They’re teaching you how to use this Resurrection spell better, and a lot of other magic besides.”

Isoko clicked her tongue and nodded.

Jessie didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

Cade softly told Mark, “If you do get Dynamo, we might want to put that into cows first, and get a lot of those.”

Mark loved that idea… Actually. He loved that idea a lot. Mark smiled and said, “Seems easier to have endless-mana monster cows than the other options.”

Isoko snorted. “Tempt fate more why don’t you.”

Cade was ever the professional soldier as he said, “Then New Tokyo has offered to let you speak to one of their grand mages who has Dynamo, and who wishes to get Dynamo back after you’ve made copies, as well as a pairing of True Brawny and Telekinesis, and more.”

“Oh shit,” Mark muttered, thinking. And then he said, “That would probably work. Whoever that guy is is going to be a big deal. That’s kaiju killer strength, for sure.”

Cade simply said, “I have no idea who they are, and New Tokyo is not telling me. All I know is that they are old blood, and they wish to keep their family safe in the coming era. The extra powers are for the rest of his family.”

“That’s fine by me.”

- -

Isoko watched Mark talk to Cade about important stuff, and then she watched him Skill General Devo Stone from Aluatha, and that seemed important, too. And then Mark Skilled a bunch more people on Walaria’s Skilling list.

Isoko felt weird; like she was standing on the edge of a cliff and she couldn’t fly.

She wasn’t sure what was wrong.

Too excited, maybe? Being home was fantastic, and the battle had been horrible, yeah, but… ugh, she was going to have to go home and see her mother again, and to feel her coldness. And sure! That was bad. But Isoko was prepared for that… or at least she had been.

And that wasn’t the wrongness, anyway.

Was she feeling anxious from being revived? Because… she couldn’t really remember much of the afterlife, but she did remember warm golden hands and an endless sky with no worries at all, and everyone she ever loved was there and… Okay, yeah. She was feeling something like melancholy. And yet, that wasn’t right, either. The issue was deeper.

All of this reminded her of the time directly after the Battle For Memphi, but different. She had recovered faster than everyone else from those horrors, but this time Mark was still together and fully present and Isoko wasn’t present at all. Where was she? On the sidelines, watching and talking and acting… It was a total act. That’s what it was. She was acting. She was not present at all.

There was something deeper, though.

As Isoko watched Mark make plans, as she saw his hope for the future manifesting in a whole new slew of superheroes, Isoko couldn’t shake a bad feeling. She had to get it together before she went back home with Mark tonight… Or maybe they could just stay awake for a few days. That seemed prudent. Isoko floated that idea and Mark agreed.

And so, time marched on. Night arrived, dark and nicely cold, and then came the day.

Isoko sat on top of a tall water tower high, watching the sun rise over the horizon, while Mark was down below, pulling Dynamos from cows in preparation to make, as he said for the cameras, ‘the greatest mage force this world has ever seen’. That line from his small interview with some newspapers rattled in Isoko’s head, lodged like a rock in her shoe, right beside the rock she hadn’t been able to recognize as a rock.

Isoko finally understood her concern.

The resurrection was one issue; she would need to talk to some groups that had gone through this same thing. Lenny back at Dawncoast was a part of those groups. Isoko still remembered Lenny’s head hanging off of Kardi’s belt, down there in those sewers. But then he had come back! She’d talk to him first. Lola, too. Isoko would absolutely talk to Lola.

But as Isoko looked down at Mark, working his magic on some cows, she knew the bigger issue.

Back when the Dragon King died and never-died to save the world from the Others, back when there were 12 full Empires of the Two Worlds, Okuana might have been strong but Isoko couldn’t believe that they were the strongest. Back then, surely there were Skillers as strong as Mark. They had whole civilizations built on easy magic for everyone, according to Nobody Important…

But Okuana had still won that massive war, leaving just them and Xerkona as the survivors, and Xerkona was only alive at Okuana’s allowance.

That was the worst case scenario.

An easier scenario to stomach was that everyone was fighting everyone, and Okuana managed to survive by being a cockroach. That damned tree didn’t seem perturbed at all by having most of his body blown away in a massive prismatic mana strike.

And yet… Okuana had made the goblins, and then used them against everyone else… So what hope did the people of today have when Godking Dominant pulled out the real big spells?

What would happen when Dominant made ‘goblins version 2’?

All it took was corrupting an elf with a house, right? That’s all Wongod was, technically.

… Isoko stared at the horizon, at the rising sun, but her thoughts were on Mark, down below. He was an Inheritor of Xerkona, an elf, with a soulhouse.