Adamant Blood

Body, Healthy Body: 016

Shaper, Adamantium: 014

Mind: 13

Natural, Union: 022

Soul: 13

Arch: 10

Mark didn’t know what to make of these vastly inflated numbers as he read the words in the air, as he stood in the little scanning closet of Healing Hall.

It was an unbelievable spread. He was tier 2 in Union, and tier 1 in everything else. That just didn’t happen… But apparently it did. This is what a tri-Talent looked like, didn’t it. He was lagging on his Adamantiumkinesis, but it was there, in the background.

Growing.

Mark felt it a little bit sometimes when he stressed Union, or when he felt Healthy Body activate more than usual. It was like a sideways tug, inside of his bones. Like a feather’s touch of sand, rolling inside of his limbs. There was a big particle in the left side of his pelvis and in his right femur at this very moment, but ‘big’ was relative. Each one was more like two grains of sand that he actually recognized as there, as opposed to the shadow feelings he got elsewhere. Mark still couldn’t actually ‘grab’ either of those fragments, or the shadows gathering elsewhere in his bones. They were slippery, and it wasn’t like ‘grabbing onto’ anything, anyway. It was like trying to lift a finger that was tied down; there was only so much strength to his ‘finger’.

Sometimes he felt those grains of sand in his ribs, or his spine, which Mark didn’t understand at all. How could the grains move from his chest to his pelvis? The bones weren’t connected at all; not directly.

Eh!

Mark was tier 2 now, which was weird.

Eh!

He waved away the scan floating in the air and stepped out into the halls of the education center of Citadel. With a tug at his basic brown clothes and a squaring of his shoulders, Mark breathed deep and made his way out of Healing Hall, passing some weekend-learners with heavy anatomy books in their arms.

… That’s right. Mark needed to learn anatomy now, too. Even just the basics would improve both the speed of his healing and the depth of his ability to injure… Hmm. Maybe leave that for some other year, actually.

Soon, Mark was on the tram, and headed north. It was 2:35 PM and the Social Club was going to meet at the Cybersong Manor at 3 PM.

It was going to be a lot different from Etiquette Class.

- - - -

Mark hopped off of the tram in a very fancy neighborhood. He was the only one who got off at this stop, which did not bode well. He kinda expected to see some of his classmates on the tram, but nope! He was alone. The road was lined with massive oak trees that grew tall and shadowed the land. Wrought iron fences hinted at large gardens and grassy lawns and bigger trees. Mansions full of people lurked in those woods.

Mark started walking.

He arrived at the entrance to Cybersong Manor at 2:57; just 3 minutes prior to start.

It was a super-rich person’s house, with a driveway that wound around a fountain and parking for ten hovercars and three or four stories of house, with balconies everywhere. The house was pure white stone with blue accents, and the land surrounding it was old forest chic.

There was a butler at the front. He was an older man who stood behind a small counter that was not a gatehouse, but it was in the right sort of place to act as a gatehouse.

“Good afternoon, sir. May I see your invitation, please.”

Mark took out his phone and brought up the invitation. It still shimmered like an unfurled scroll.

The butler nodded. “You’re our last expected young guest today, so I can walk with you into the house.”

Mark almost panicked. “I’m right on time, though?”

“Quite right.” The butler started walking and Mark walked with him. “For most everyone, the party starts at 11 am, with lunch and food. For the new students you arrive sometime before the appointed hour. Most of your fellow classmates were on the previous tram or the one before that.” He waved a hand in the air.

The gate to the property slid shut, near silently.

Mark turned back toward the front—

And the butler began walking up the grand stairs of the house, saying, “The party takes place on the first floor. There is a pool and game rooms for your pleasure. Food is in the back, by the pool. Guests might yet arrive by air or by car.” The man entered the large open doors of the house, and Mark followed.

The foyer was grand, with a massive central staircase that curled up to the second and third floors. The floor was marble with off-white striations and the walls were white with grey accents. Color was everywhere, in paintings and carpets and in the warm light of a golden chandelier dripping from the ceiling, crystals shimmering golden hues into the entrance.

Archways to the sides and front showed the ways to rooms with people in them, gently talking to each other or even playing games on a television over there. Most everyone looked older than acolyte age; only half of the people in those rooms were acolytes, denoted by their white clothes or their basic browns. The rest wore expensive or expensive-casual clothes and one person over there was wearing a swimsuit—

Oh.

That was Wandering Sage, standing with Isoko and someone else that Mark didn’t know—

The butler handed Mark a nametag; it was the last one on the nearby table. He left Mark to affix it to his own clothes, as he opened up a small fridge nearby and took out a cooled wine glass of some sort of pink wine. Mark rapidly clipped the tag to his chest and then took the offered wine glass, saying a small thank you.

The butler nodded professionally. “Be at ease, and enjoy the party. If you have any requests for people to talk to first, I can direct you this way or that.”

Mark made an easy choice, “Team building for training expeditions into… wherever they send people. I don’t really care where. I want to do one of those training missions, though.”

The butler gestured toward the room with Wandering Sage and Isoko, saying, “I believe some people already have designs on forming such a group with you. Merely enter that room and they will likely come your way.”

Mark squared his shoulders, stood straight, and said, “Thank you.”

The butler did a confirmation bow and Mark sipped his wine as he walked toward whatever was going to happen next.

With an easy pace, Mark walked into the side room. At least 40 people were there. Most of them had little dishes with food. The food came from fancy trays that stood to the side. It was a bunch of things from ribs to sushi to chicken skewers with what looked like peanut sauce and desserts of all kinds. Mark was suddenly hungry, but he wanted to see Isoko first, and her grandmother, the ‘supervillain’ Wandering Sage.

They looked almost identical, except for their hair. Wandering Sage had gotten de-aged due to kidnapping that True Healer a while ago, but Wandering Sage —Arei Kanno, age 78— had kept her white hair. Isoko had pure black hair. Mark had no idea about the woman who was with them. She wore a bright green dress, and her long, brown hair was in a braid almost down to her butt.

The three of them noticed Mark walking their way and they opened up their little group, with the woman in the green dress smiling softly and warmly the most, but the other two were similarly inviting. Mark was the tallest of them, which was still a new experience for him; he had been 5’7” but then the Color Drop treatment had bounced him all the way up to 6’3”.

Isoko interrupted whatever conversation they had been having by saying, “Hello, Mark! I was hoping I would catch you if I stood here. Mark Careed. This is my grandmother, Arei Kanno, also known as Wandering Sage.”

Mark bowed from his chest, not his waist, and not too deeply. “Hello, Missus Kanno.”

Arei smiled a little as she bowed just her head. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mark. Nice to finally meet you.”

Isoko gestured to the green-dressed woman, saying, “And this is the mistress of the house, Sophia Cybersong, also known as Circuitbender.”

Mark bowed deeper than he did for Arei, getting some waist-bending in, saying, “Hello, Missus Cybersong.”

Sophia smiled a little, and did not bow at all, which was normal for the master (or mistress, in this case) of the local domain. She said, “I’ve heard about you as well. Specifically, I’ve heard that you’re looking to go on a training mission. I have a son your age who is thoroughly grounded for going off on a training mission on his own, but who needs to be out and about like all young people. Would you be interested in going out on a mission with him?”

Mark found it easy enough to say, “Yes. I’m interested in that. I need to get direct clearing from my observers to leave Citadel but they all gave me a tentative ‘yes’, as long as I can get a decent enough team—”

Mark had a moment as he realized he was being too trustworthy, and that he had walked in here with goals and now his goals were being filled.

Just like with Addashield.

… But this was a training mission, of some sort, whatever that might be, happening in weeks or months, and not right now. So that made this okay? Was this a genuine offer? Or some play at something? Thinking of Addashield reminded Mark that, for all his faults (and there were many!) he did have good advice about not being used by people. ‘Don’t take offers or sign papers for anything more than a week’s length of commitment after your Tutorial, though Freyala’s church was okay’, or something like that.

All of the Churches were fine, except for Thrashtalon’s, of course.

Mark wasn’t so sure about this sudden offer to go on a mission with Sophia’s son, though.

Mark blinked a few times as he came back to the moment, and then said, “Uh. Apologies.” Mark picked out something wrong with the scenario, and said, “Your son is reckless enough to go on a training mission on his own?”

Sophia smirked. “Normally it wouldn’t have been dangerous at all, but he ran afoul of some unexpected mimic spiders. He was lucky he was prepared. My son is reckless, but he’s also prepared for every eventuality, just like he was prepared for that one. His name is Eliot and his Power is Man-made Manipulation. It’s an Arch Power, so it would fit in well with your own triplicate nature.”

Ah. So this was a real offer. And a big one. Okay.

Arch Powers were the rarest of them all, for they were the meeting of soul and physicality upon the world; the power to manipulate broad categories of things, like ‘Reality’, ‘Time’, ‘The Veil Between Worlds’, and ‘Man-made’. Mark wasn’t sure how, exactly, ‘Man-made Manipulation’ was different from Kinetics or Natural Powers, but today was a good time to find out.

Mark bowed a little, saying, “I’d love to meet him and to learn more about Man-made Manipulation.”

So that was probably ill-said; could have been worded better, more pleasant, less stilted. But it was what it was, and it was enough.

Sophia nodded. “I’ll make sure he seeks you out sometime this afternoon. He’s shorter than you, and wiry. It was nice meeting you, Mark.” She smiled as she told Arei, “It was good to see you as well. Good luck with your league. If you need help let me know.”

Arei said, “I’ll take that offer and send you some information later, Sophia.”

Sophia departed, and then Mark was left with Wandering Sage and her granddaughter.

Arei looked up at Mark, asking, “Have you ever considered the Villain Program?”

Mark was semi-prepared for this conversation. He said, “I only realized the VP was a way to train future heroes for combat in a safe environment three days ago. Prior to that, I had always thought the whole idea itself crazy; pardon my candor. The idea of using one’s powers against another human is… Well… Abhorrent.”

Isoko got a solid look to her face, as though she could not believe Mark had just said that. She wanted to disappear, Mark was sure.

Arei’s eyes widened as she grinned a little. “I haven’t heard that one in a while. Usually people sugarcoat these condemnations.”

Mark was almost about to sugarcoat his words—

“I completely agree, of course,” Arei said, “That’s why a proper Villain Program only accepts those with high standards of excellence. You wouldn’t even need to do it as a full-time job, but rather get paid by the state to whip some little shits into shape when they start to think they’re above the law, and it’s not like kaiju come around regularly. The larger fact is that most of humanity isn’t as good as you want it to be. Not even on Daihoon.” As though she was distilling the wisdom of the ages into as small of a phrase as possible, Wandering Sage said, “Most people are good. Some are bad. Villains are needed to sharpen all of us so we’re not caught unawares when the real threats loom, both without and especially within.”

Mark felt as though he stood upon a crossroads.

Mark asked, “I saw your eulogy for Mistress Storm, and then at the end when you spoke of Addashield’s Dragon donating a thousand kilos of adamantium to Crystal Tower as recompense for his ‘father’s’ sins. What is going on with that whole situation?”

Wandering Sage breathed in, staring at Mark. The room felt cold. For a moment, it was just the two of them.

Wandering Sage said, “The dragon is not his father. That’s what everyone tells me. And yet I cannot help but hate him anyway. I had to be convinced for three days to add that part to the speech, and I almost didn’t do it in the end. But in the end I did it anyway, because only a fool antagonizes dragons and expects to avoid retaliation. Are you a fool?”

“Probably,” Mark said. “Undoubtedly, really. I still can’t fu— I can’t believe what happened. I expected Addashield to come back to humanity and his Old Contract, or something to that effect. I thought the adults had it all figured out, and I was just doing my duty. I did not expect him to avoid everything by dying and leaving behind himself but a little bit changed. Is the dragon actually, fully Addashield, but with a different perspective? Or is the dragon truly a different person?”

Someone else stepped into the conversation.

Serge Garin; the son of the Holy Mother, High Priestess of Freyala, Julia Garin.

Serge Garin, AKA Justicar. One of the top heroes in the entire world.

He was wearing a flower shirt and salmon-colored shorts with flipflops. Beachwear, probably for the pool outside, in the back of the mansion. His face was bearded and stern, as he said, “He’s not the same as Addashield, but he is. And he’s a dragon. His perspective on humanity is beneficial at the moment, but it will change eventually. He’s the size of a building. He’s pretending to be Addashield, but it’s impossible for him to remain as Addashield for the rest of his effectively-immortal life.”

Another person was there; Instructor Wavecrash, of the Etiquette Class.

Wavecrash said, “He’s not Addashield.”

He was wearing semi-formal clothes, and his presence temporarily grounded Mark; he was a person Mark knew and had talked to a lot over the last week.

But then Wandering Sage and Justicar bowed toward Wavecrash, and ruined Mark’s expectations of who Wavecrash was.

Wandering Sage and Justicar both softly said, “Ambassador.”

Oh.

Ambassador. To what? The Settlement of Xerkona, probably.

That was a Big Deal.

Isoko rapidly followed her grandmother and bowed, saying, “Ambassador.”

Mark found it impossible to follow in that politeness, though.

Wavecrash noticed. He said to Mark, “He’s not Addashield. Categorically, he is not the Archmage whom we all respected, even if our ideas of him were purposefully misled to hide his true nature. All of us have been hurt by Addashield and saved by Addashield, and so, all consideration for what Addashield has done to us must be discarded.”

Mark snapped, “So the dragon completely avoids all responsibility?!”

“Yes,” Wavecrash easily said. “Because the dragon isn’t the human or the demon. He is a new, powerful entity, and no matter our personal feelings we cannot allow them to come into conflict with humanity’s best interests.”

Mark frowned. He wanted to rage. He did not rage. “This idea that dragons aren’t their creators— It’s not just a convenient excuse that’s paraded around to avoid a fight?”

Wavecrash said, “It is many things, that is one of the truths of it all. The convenience of this truth is but one of the ways we lead ourselves toward the light to better the outcomes for all of humanity. In other, more realistic ways: Consider the nation that has been overtaken by dissidents.”

… What?

A topic change or something?

Mark was lost for a hot moment, and then he caught up to the analogy. He frowned, completing the idea that had been exposed to him in class this week. “A nation of complicated societies is overtaken by new people, by dissidents risen from that nation. They are not the previous rulers. They want life to go on more or less how it was, but with them in charge. They can only do so if everyone else recognizes them as the same nation, but changed. How do they do that? By paying off debts.

“And so, the dissidents pay the debts of the previous nation, to establish themselves as a rightful heir to the power they captured. And so, we must treat them as a maybe-ally, lest they fall back to infighting and harm everyone else in their wars.” Mark finished with, “But they’re not the same people at all.”

“Quite right,” Wavecrash said. “But there is another, simpler way for us to think, when it comes to Addashield’s Dragon. This stance is particularly poignant for you, Mark. I will lay it out for you, and for everyone else here.” Wavecrash looked at Mark. “Don’t antagonize your brother while your brother is still young and deciding who he is.”

Ringing.

There was a ringing in Mark’s ears.

Mark was still.

A moment passed. Maybe two.

A sting in his hand brought him back to himself. He looked down at his hand, where shards of glass had cut his skin and wine stung those cuts. Black veins leaked out of his skin. He hadn’t noticed that he had broken his glass, or that all his drink was on the ground. With a quick idea of healing, Mark sealed up his wounds and then he turned off Union as much as he could.

He walked away, black veins still showing under his skin.

He did not leave the party, though. That would have been beyond acceptable behavior.

Or at least that’s what his training for the last week had told him.