Chương 133: 133

A great press of people aimed to get up out of the ship, to get onto the roof, to watch the Southern Crossing come into view. They crowded the hallways and the stairwells, and soldiers and crew were on hand to direct traffic as best they could. Some people were being directed to head down, to Cargo 1, where they expected to open the doors and let people view from there. The roof did not have enough space for everyone, after all.

Mark avoided all of that and went down a different hallway, to where an army guy guarded the hallway. Mark was expected. With an easy stride and prepared to face what had to be a whole bunch of powerful people up ahead, Mark walked down the hallway, to step onto an open balcony that had to be 15 meters by 15 meters. It was the main viewing deck. Below the space was the bridge. Above the viewing deck was a whole stack of floors, and above that, about 20 meters up, was the roof of the ship.

The roof was packed with people, all of them turned south to see the upcoming Crossing. The bridge, below the viewing deck, was packed with people, all of them mildly concerned, but in a normal sort of way. The viewing deck was lightly filled with nobles, most of them gathered around standing tables, drinking drinks and eating small things on small dishes. They spoke of business and plans, while the walls that would have protected this space were unfolded, providing a panorama view of the south.

Servers wore green army suits and patrons wore nice, noble clothes, with frills for the women and pressed collars for the men. Mark spotted Aurora in the crowd, wearing her army pantsuit and her shouldercape, chatting with someone in a pale yellow dress. Over there was Nightbolt. Mark saw Grand Mage Solari, and Mark almost wanted to talk to him, but he decided to let that problem lie, for now. Mark recognized some of the people— Eliot and Sally stood closer to the open walls.

Sally was easy to spot, being as big as she was— And then there was the view. The Southern Crossing. It was a wall of rainbows beyond the edge of the viewing platform. Mark was only able to see some of it. A small slice, really. The Crossing passed into the sky overhead, but Mark couldn't see that part at all. Not from this angle.

He remembered being in a classroom at Citadel, listening to Orissa talk about the separations of Earth and Daihoon, and how Earth's astral body was kinda twisted off of the ends of Earth, lining up with the magnetosphere, the whole of Earth looking like a piece of hard candy, wrapped in plastic and twisted at the ends to seal it in. Or at least that's how Orissa had drawn the image on the chalkboard, and spoken of the sight.

Mark felt the people overhead, as they focused forward, their vectors bright with rapturous interest. Sally and Eliot were both transfixed by the Crossing. Most of the nobles here had seen it many times already, so they didn't care that much; they were more focused on each other. Mark walked, almost on air, around the main throng of the party, toward Sally and Eliot.

A server offered him a glass of bubbly white wine, and Mark took the glass along the way, sipping it a little, adding a sensation of sweet bubbliness to his already light steps. Mark stepped beside Sally and Eliot, and Sally noticed him and smiled. She said, "I might eventually end up jaded by the sight like all these nobles, but that day is not today." Right. She had seen this before. The Southern Crossing was an aurora made real. A fantasy touching Earth.

Antarctica was somewhere up ahead, beyond the blue ocean, and all of that land was green due to the influence of the Crossing, but from here, all Mark could see was water, blue and wide, and ribbons of color stretching upward like the great trunk of some sort of colorful tree. From east to west, it seemed that all of the world was rainbows flowing upward and downward at the same time.

The distant lights rising from the ocean were like mangrove roots, or cypress roots, or like massive mountain ridges made of light and color. Mark spotted lands beyond the color, deep in those cracks of bent reality, like paradise hidden by radiance. And then paradise was gone, and Mark could only see ribbons of rainbow light. The green was paradise, the red was fire and armageddon, the brown was mountains and boulders, and the blue was oceans flowing in every direction. White was clouds.

And then the sights vanished, and became simply rainbows once again. Mark stared at the light for a while, watching it undulate and flicker outward, like continuous, silent lightning flashing outward and then receding, and then flicker ing right back into position. Which was surprising. Was it… moving around that fast? No, certainly not.

At these distances of hundreds of kilometers, or however far they were from the Crossing, if columns of light, tens of kilometers wide, were moving that fast they had to be moving hundreds of kilometers per hour. Which was possible… but the scale of it all felt impossible. No. What Mark was seeing was a trick of the light; his own perceptions twisted upon the ribbons of Endless Daihoon, where kaiju were the norm... Oh. Yeah. There were lots of kaiju around here, weren't there?

They came through the Crossing all the time. That thought is what caused Mark to break from staring at the Crossing, to come back to himself, to sense his surroundings. People stood to his sides, watching the sky, almost reverent. Others stood away, smirking and talking to each other about how they remembered their first times. Sally was talking to some guy with brown skin and a bald head who looked too perfect. Really quite oddly handsome. Was he wearing makeup? Maybe.

Eliot was still staring at the Crossing, taking it all in. Overhead, on the deck above, and down below in the bridge, Mark felt people as they focused on the Crossing, and then gradually pull back, like they had been mesmerized just a little. Maybe they had been. Sally noticed that Mark was back with them and she smiled to see it, saying, "It's magnificent, yeah." Mark smiled a little bit, stepping away from the view.

"It's not a mental effect, is it?"" Not at all. It's a soul and astral body effect," said the man standing with Sally. He nodded a little, saying, "Noel Oliphant. I believe there are a half a dozen people who wish to talk to you, but I was the one who managed to invite you first. Hello, Mark."" Ah! Hello, Noel." Mark glanced around and noticed people looking his way, some of them seeming to judge others also looking his way. They were jockeying for position. Mark fully turned to Noel.

"A pleasure to meet you. I understand that the heroes of the settlement are coming after me? Or is it just Kardi and Tartu?" Sally asked, "What? They're… coming after you?"" Yeah. I just saw them in the hallway—" Mark paused. He looked to Noel, saying, "They thought the Program had only sent a bot, and not a real person. But surely they asked about a real person?" Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Suddenly, a lot of things about that previous interaction weirded Mark out. Tartu would have known that Noel was on board, right? Since his father is a big shot? Tartu would have told Kardi, yeah? But then again, why was Tartu back there? And not up here? Mark glanced around, looking for the older man with white and blue hair, like Tartu; Tartu's father, the Grand Mage Solari. And yeah, right over there was Grand Mage Solari. So why did Kardi say something like 'They only sent a bot! Can you believe it?' …

Maybe Noel was hiding, though, and Tartu didn't know about him either? Mark asked Noel the only thing that made sense, "Are you hiding?" Noel winced.

"I'm an open secret. I was told not to interact with any heroes directly, and to not encourage any of the usual things I encourage. But some people are above the law of the land, and some people are trying to score big points against dragonkind by taking you down. It's a whole thing that we're not really sure how to handle." He got a slightly devious expression, as he added, "But I'm not hiding from Spherix or Luckygun, so, I think what happened there is that they lied to you, yes.

It's a little bit of intrigue that will end up somewhere, but I know not where!" He added, "Luckygun seems to have lucked into meeting Tartu and becoming teammates. She has a powerful Luck going for her. You know that, though. But I have a question. A big question! Does Luckygun hate you, Mark?" Mark had a weird moment. Sally's eyebrows went up. She asked, "Hate? Mark? The fuck?" Mark admitted, "I thought it was quite the opposite, actually." Noel's eyebrows went up.

"Ohh! Spicy~ Well Tartu certainly hates you. It sounds like a good dynamic to exploit for the cameras, but hopefully I can turn it into a simple rivalry instead of outright hate. Are you thinking about a look for yourself? How about the nature of your rivalry with Tartu? I heard you might be doing some sort of domineering thing. It would play well with audiences if you do something like that, since the brother of a dragon should be an equal to a dragon, though no one is expecting that of you right now.

Tartu is—" The guy was talking fast, and for good reason. Aurora and the woman in the soft yellow dress were walking their way. Noel stopped speaking well before both of them got here. And then Aurora was standing just a meter away, smiling a little, her hair lensing rainbows in the light of the Crossing. She said, "I thought I asked for no Program-related activities for at least a month, Noel." Mark got the impression she had 'asked' for a lot more than a pause.

The woman in the yellow dress looked at Mark with interest, but Mark didn't know her, and she didn't say anything. Aurora didn't make introductions, either, which meant that whatever was happening between Aurora and Noel was a Big Deal that pushed down all other normal interactions." Just making plans for the future, General Valen," Noel said, smiling professionally.

"And Mark sought me out himself." Aurora looked to Mark.

"Did you, now?" Mark got to the heart of the matter, saying, "Well… Since we're here. I haven't heard from Addavein at all, and I am worried that something will happen in that direction. I figured the Hero Program would know more… If he's awake yet? Etcetera. That sort of thing." Their little group of people turned tense, and so did the people listening in. Mark decided to back off of that Big Topic though. They could pick it up later, if they wanted.

Mark continued, "But then I heard Tartu Solari and a Slayer I know, Kardi, made a group and they're gunning for me…" He looked to Noel, asking, "To try and bet for all my adamantium, or something like that?" Aurora was quietly furious and the woman in yellow was curious. Noel defended himself with a strong voice, saying, "I told them multiple times that such things are not allowed yet, and that the Program is on hold until at least a month passes at the settlement."

And then he told Mark, "However, if you agree to it, and the match is sanctioned, then it could happen. You obviously don't have to actually give your adamantium to them in a win. You are a villain, after all. It is a privilege to challenge you. We're planning on every prospective hero in the settlement needing to get enough points to even challenge you, or something like that." He looked to Aurora, saying, "The exact nature of the system has yet to be delineated."

Aurora said to Mark, "If you hear from Addavein, please inform anyone in the chain of command, as soon as possible. You have my phone number in the email I sent you. Have Quark inform me directly, and fast. Thank you. I would prefer it if you could just set up an automatic email from Quark, in case you can't send the message yourself for whatever reason." She said to Noel, "Same goes for you." Noel said, "Yes, General Valen." Aurora asked Mark, "Have you decided on your villain persona yet, Mark?"

Mark had not, but he made a decision at that moment, saying, "Tyrant king." Aurora, Noel, and the woman in yellow, and a few other people nearby and listening in, all had a moment. And then Aurora chuckled once, the woman in yellow smiled wide and laughed— Noel was focused.

"I love it. Do you have a look, yet?"" I have some ideas for a look, yes. But uh, nothing solid?" Making it up as he went, Mark took out some adamantium and made himself a crescent-shaped crown between his cupped hands, and then he twisted up five spires of metal on the front, making the whole look like sharpened obsidian glass. It was only maybe 80% of his adamantium. Quark still had his cover. Mark put his crown over his own head and felt absolutely ridiculous, especially when people looked at him…

They were looking at him quite oddly, actually. Sally was smiling wide, to the side, looking like she was watching a train wreck. She was fully enjoying every moment of Mark's embarrassment, and Mark was absolutely sure his embarrassment was showing on his face. His face felt hot.