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Last night went great," Noel Oliphant said, "Sorry I wasn't there for the after party, but we got the rough cut of it done about 20 minutes ago. Anyone want to see it? Or do you want to wait for the official airing?" It was 4 in the evening and Mark, Isoko, Sally, and Eliot had spent most of the day asleep, until they woke up around 2 and got an enthusiastic late lunch from Archmage Blackthorn. The guy was thrilled that last night went so well, even if Mark and the crew had mixed feelings.

Most of those feelings got crushed under the ordeal of the rest of the party last night, though, because while the 'event' ended with the eviction of Spherix and otherwise, 'meeting the villains' still took them all the way to 5 AM. And now they were here, at a meeting on the 28th floor of Blackthorn Tower, in the conference room that the archmage had given them for their dealings with the Hero/Villain Program and otherwise." I'm not watching it," Mark told anyone who would listen.

Isoko tsk'd, then said, "Oh come on! You were good out there!"" You really were," Noel said." It's tonight, right? 9 PM again?" Sally asked." Yes," Noel said." I'll watch it then," Sally said. She looked at Mark.

"You're watching it then."" Yes," Eliot said. Mark changed the subject, asking, "What about the aftermath? Are Tartu and them… Well last time they talked about leaving the program and the event." Noel got a concerned look on his face and everyone focused on him as he said, "Tartu and his team are out of it for another day. Shawn still has several hours until his legs are fully healed, and then there's the recovery process which might take another 10 hours. Lenny should be able to walk and feel his feet in 8 hours.

Kardi is an hour or two away from full functionality. Tartu is already fine, though last I heard he is reporting some loss of feeling in bands around his knees, where you cut him. That will surely heal with time." Tartu wants to apologize to you for Kardi's actions, probably tomorrow, if you want to accept the apology." We have Kardi sniping you on tape, if you want to see how that went down. It'll be shown tonight on the program, too.

She fired out of the ship while Tartu was testing some things on the coms and getting the story that you and yours had been seen walking into the party. It was part of the narrative and Kardi used that time frame to fire off some bullets." Tartu also wants to request that you don't use your adamantium against him and his people ever again," Noel said, "And I would request the same thing. It's too much." Mark took that in, then registered the question. He had no trouble saying, "Sure.

No more offensive adamantium against people." He had already talked about this with his team. Isoko didn't want Mark to put away too many weapons, and putting away his adamantium was a big one. Too big. Sure, he should shelve the Dom/Sub aura in most cases, but to shelve his adamantium was too much. Mark disagreed.

Isoko didn't know how bad it was to feel through his adamantium, to know that his tactile sense through his adamantium let him feel every bit of human that he had chewed through, and he did not like that. He didn't want to talk about that, either. Isoko had probably understood why Mark took his stance, even though he didn't explicitly tell her. Sally was all for Mark not cutting people up. She had no problems with that self-imposed restriction."

But you're still killing people if they're infected with demons, though," Sally had said. Mark had sort of said something like, "Uh, yeah. Sure?" but he had kinda glossed over that, and he didn't want to think back to what he had actually said, or even what Sally had said in the first place. Eliot had suggested he only use adamantium defensively, which Mark thought was a good compromise. Mark said, "I'll be using it defensively from now on, until people start breaking kayfabe."

Isoko added, "Still think that's too much of a loss of weaponry." Sally shrugged. Eliot nodded securely. Noel looked like he had expected a big fight and he had won without even trying. Noel easily said, "Well okaaay! Good news! So, uh… Real talk: I expected that to be too big of an ask, so the rest of this will go pretty fast… anyway. Uhh…" He took out his phone and tapped away, asking, "Did you read the email I sent you this morning?" Mark paused.

"… Uhhh." Quark spoke up, "The email was about the options we have for Episode 3." Mark said, "I did not." Eliot's eyes were lidded, his vector elsewhere. He was reading it right now. Sally was a little lost. Isoko said, "I want to do the 'sabotage the heroes' scenario." At Mark's confusion, she told him, "It's to meet the superheroes of Memphi and then to disable critical infrastructure that would allow them to respond to an attack on the gate.

We also have to get the 'gate crystal', which is an artifact that allows the gate to function." Eliot came back. He said, "I like that one."" What are the other options?" Sally asked. Noel answered, "They all involve the heroes of Memphi in various ways. The actual event is fluid, but the big idea is to diminish them in some way and to steal an artifact for opening the gate. Last night was your introduction to the villains of the city, and this next event is the introduction of the heroes.

Or rather, you escaping them." Mark instantly said, "I want something less contentious. I don't want to be cutting people to be able to escape, and I certainly don't want big names like Credenza to butt in and change the parameters of the event."

Noel instantly replied, "About that: That party was put together by Blackthorn in order to get you all introduced to a large portion of people who defend this city from the largest of threats, and there was no way that you were actually leaving the party like you wanted to leave the party. If Credenza didn't turn you around then Blackthorn would have." Mark paused.

"… Oh." Sally groaned a little, holding her head, saying, "It's all so 'reality show' but way too serious at the same time." Isoko said, "But this is fantastic! We're meeting people that we never would ever get to meet! You got to spar with Titanfist, Sally." Sally paused.

"… Okay yeah that was pretty fun." Eliot floated the idea, "How about we attack the gate early. Like tonight. And then we have to hold it for 24 hours and the next day, when we open the gate, we inevitably call a kaiju down because of course that's going to happen. We have to actually do the full gate test too, right? Because that's what we're here for in the first place, and I'd like to have a full day with the gate to make it the same as the other side, to prevent possible rift decoupling.

Episode 3 should be attack the gate. Episode 4 should be 'hold the gate'." Uncertainty filled the room. Mark went with, "I like it?" He wasn't sure he liked it at all. Noel got real concerned. This wasn't something he could even think about handling. Isoko said, "I mean… Yeah. That is the real reason we're here in Memphi." She looked to Noel, saying, "It makes more sense for us to capture the gate early and then fight off the city from retaking it, proving that the city needs to 'buy it back from us'?"

Noel was silent again, thinking. Mark admitted, "I thought episode 3 was to scout the gate?"" Or for Tartu's team to take the majority of the show," Sally added. Mark went, "Yeah. And that, too." Isoko said, "They can't do that because Mark maimed them all."

"… Ah," Sally said, nodding. Mark cringed.

"… So," Noel began, his vector all over the place, and mostly inside of the phone in his pocket. He was a technopath, and he was looking at a lot of things right now— He came back.

"I cannot authorize this particular change in the plot. We'd need to talk to Mayor Ramirez and… and we'd need to do a lot different. Honestly, the gate is too big of a thing to actually use in any show. It can only ever be a backdrop. A setting. They're never going to let us operate it for real, for any length of time, or for any dramatic reason. It will summon at least 1 or 2 kaiju on both sides of the gate when the big one opens. We don't call down kaiju for ratings. That is against our ethics.

We will, however, exploit existing kaiju as much as we can. That's one of our big lines in the sand. Like a really, really big one, too." Eliot went, "Ahhh… Yeah." Silence, and thinking. And then Noel added, "And Team Spherix is out of commission for this next episode. So it'll be focused on you guys…" He was thinking as he spoke, his voice drifting away. Mark said, "I'm good with not having an Episode 3." Noel cringed, but he did not show it.

Isoko almost freaked the fuck out, then she tried not to expose that fact as she said, "I think we can do disguise-and-infiltrate the Hero's Association and get to experience what it would be like to assault a supervillain's lair, and that can be Episode 3. Maybe Tartu can limp around the Hero's Association trying to track us down before we can grab the 'gate crystal' macguffin and escape.

Episode 4 will be in three parts, with us capturing the gate, then holding it, and finally selling it back for a few million goldleaf. And I want to take the lead somewhere. I don't care where, but I want the lead somewhere. How about Episode 3? We need a new focus to take the heat off of Mark and Tartu's team is out of commission." Mark knew what Isoko wanted, and he wanted to give that to her, but…

Mark pulled out the spellbreaker from under his shirt, showing off the dull crystal in its metal cage, saying, "Kardi triggered my spellbreaker. I'm not immune to any of the shit they might pull, and yours got triggered too. And then Tartu layered even more on top of you and you went down anyway. I'm really worried about going forward into any serious situation."

Isoko went quiet and worried— Eliot had been thinking about something for a while, though, and now he spoke up, saying, "If anything happens to you, or to us, I'm going to pull out of the settlement and the gate project. I will tear down the gate myself, or, more likely, I will assault whichever empire takes you and take you back. I can make friends easily. Everyone wants stuff built for fast and cheap." Mark felt like he had been dropped from a plane and slapped onto a crossroads."

No no no no," Mark said, a little frantic, "That's way too serious. Let's pull back some from that edge—"" I'm going to get Tartu and them exiled from the settlement," Eliot said, "His inability to play within the rules of HVP started with him dosing you with shavallian, and months before any of us understood it was open season.

I didn't get involved with that because you and Isoko handled it, but this shit happening here is just an extension of a hard headed idiot of a noble's son, a fame-chasing Lucky disaster who shot me with real bullets multiple times, and… Well Shawn and Lenny are okay. They can easily move to another team in the settlement." Eliot added, "I'm not sure what Grand Mage Solari will say about this, but I'll see about exiling him from the settlement, too."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Everyone else watched like they were watching a kaiju fall. Mark went, "That's a very big deal, Eliot."" Oh I know. I absolutely know. I probably know more than you, too, about what it means to get someone exiled. In this case, it means he's not welcome in the HVP, because of treaties in that way, and he's not welcome in Open Mage Society, either. I'll try to get him exiled from the Aluatha Empire, too, and—"" No," Mark said.

He tried not to say it too strongly. He failed. Eliot arched an eyebrow.

"I figured you would say that, which is why I never angled for this before. But he's a problem—"" Look. I fucking hate him. Okay? I really do. Kardi is a disaster of massive proportions as well. But I'm not going to get someone exiled. I don't want that, and I don't want to be a part of it. No. Just…" Mark said, "No. He's not even going after you, so this is my decision, and I made it. No." Silence. Eliot frowned a little.

"Give me a good reason why I shouldn't pursue this action."" I'll give you a good one! Just…" Mark tried to think— He found one.

"Because Tartu has done nothing worth this ire and he's still a valuable power and his family is strong, but also I'd rather have him nearby rather than out of sight. He's a known problem. I don't want to trade the known for the unknown. Not right now— And I CERTAINLY don't want him or Kardi or anyone else being chased off and them going to the demons, because I'm pretty sure Kardi or Tartu might be close.

Tartu is always spouting off about demons so he obviously has some deep personal worries about them, and those fuckers prey on that." Eliot easily responded, "People are scared of demons so Tartu's shit ain't nothing special and you are vastly underestimating the ability for the settlement to fill the slot left by an exiled Solari family."" Probably!" Mark admitted. Another stretch of silence. Mark and Eliot stared at each other. Isoko, Sally, and Noel just watched. Isoko was worried.

Sally was on Eliot's side right now. Noel was worried, too, and probably for the same reasons as Isoko… Which made Mark ask a question that made everyone uncomfortable for different reasons. Mark asked, "How popular are Spherix and company? How about us? Does this whole Attack the Gate benefit us both, or neither of us? How much legal protection is the HVP doing behind the scenes to make this work out for all of us? I also want to know how much we're getting paid for this."

Eliot sat back in his chair, letting this happen as Mark wanted. For now. Sally decided to go with the flow. Isoko said, "It's gonna be better later, Mark." She meant when he told everyone he was adamantium blooded, but she did not say that. She wanted to be a part of this HVP thing ever since she was small, and Mark did too, but in a much less direct sort of way. Being a hero out there killing monsters was his preferred way to be a hero.

Isoko liked doing that, too, but being on screen was something Isoko wanted a lot, and they were doing the screen-thing right now. It was uncomfortable to think about the parallels between Isoko and Kardi because superficially they were similar, but they were not the same at all. So Mark didn't consider those parallels as anything but that, and he dismissed that concern. Noel was 100% certain that as soon as he answered Mark's questions everything would be okay.

Noel eagerly said, "The first episode went viral about four hours ago. It was shared on the front page of Crystal Tower's newest episodes page 2 hours after it finished airing, and from there some popular bloggers in the Californias and South Africa picked it up and started memeing on it. The full episode has been 90% viewed by over 39 million people and the number is climbing fast."

Mark felt his heartbeat suddenly thud hard because 39 million people was a big number and his body understood that a fraction before his mind did. He was being viewed that much? There were memes? What were the memes like? Everything about Noel's words practically triggered his fight or flight response. And then Mark nervously chuckled, muttering tiny curses of 'holy shit, holy shit'. Isoko just about fainted. Eliot paled, and Mark was absolutely sure his fight/flight/freeze response was firmly frozen.

Sally got off of her chair and laid down on the ground, and Mark almost laid down on the ground with her. Noel joyfully stressed, "The only thing that will prevent this Attack the Gate scenario from becoming a cultural touchstone is if you pull out, and if you pull out, then no one will ever want to work with you again. This is big business we're in right now. The biggest! We expect every episode to be watched at least 250 million times. From there, product licensing makes the real money.

In 1 month, from Mark and your team to Tartu's team, too, we expect each of you to get 750, 000 each for breaching 250 million views for each episode. The actual acting and events are not that great, and we can work with you to become better actors later. But that doesn't matter that much right now. Not for this." What you're doing right now is big news. Everyone is watching the story of Mark Careed and the opening of the gate." That means that you're opening thousands of doors.

Popularity is a power all its own, and if you want real power, then this is how you get that power." Noel hadn't spoken about legal help, or how popular Tartu was, but he had touched on enough numbers and given Mark a real idea of the scope of it all. That scope reminded Mark of being called 'the dragon's brother'. It was a mixed sort of feeling that flowed through Mark. Some parts fear, some parts worry. At least one part greed, because popularity had opened a lot of doors for him.

Popularity was perhaps the greatest power of all. All last night, for two hours after the main event of the party ended and before Mark and his team were allowed to escape the party, Blackthorn had paraded mages before Mark. All of those mages wanted one thing, and then a million things from that one thing: They wanted to teach Mark magic. A few of them even wanted to be a part of the search for the fabled Resurrection spell and explorations into Endless Daihoon.

A lot of those mages had sprinkled phrases into their pitches like, 'I'd tell you more, but it's behind the Oath'. Mark's next decision was easy… Easier, anyway. Mark said, "Okay. I'm in. What's your suggestion for Episode 3, Noel?" Isoko was right there with him. Eliot kinda grunted and nodded. He was still kinda frozen, though.

Mark was pretty sure he had gotten millions of views on some of the videos he had put out before, like that one video of their goblin kill in Rome, but being on the front page of Crystal Tower's site and getting 39 million views in a day was something else entirely. Eliot was thrilled. Sally was still on the floor. She gave a thumbs up. Noel was solid as he said, "We want Episode 3 to air tomorrow at 9 PM, so it has to be done either tonight or tomorrow morning.

So, in my opinion, and because Tartu and his people are down for at least another 12 hours, minimum, the best way for Episode 3 to happen is for you to assault the Hero's Association in a mirror to what Spherix did last night to the Villain's Party, in order to capture a relic that will open the gate for you. Most of the episode will actually be on Tartu's party and their reaction to being stomped so thoroughly, but your actions will still carry a great weight."

Mark took that idea, mulled it over, and then he asked, "Where is the Hero's Association?" Noel was a little concerned, and that told Mark all he needed to know even before Noel actually said, "It's about a half an hour flight from here. Shorter, if you go high flight. It's to the south; south of Central Memphi." Mark nodded, already knowing what would happen if he stepped too far outside of Blackthorn's oversight. He'd be captured, for sure. Isoko said, "Ah. That's… kinda far."

Eliot said, "They sent me an email asking for me to build them a white pyramid of their own, to pair with the one I made for the villains. I don't think I'll be doing that because I'm pretty sure that the empires have probably roped Sentinel and definitely roped Lawful Goose into working with them. Lawful Goose is pretty much a Collectivist himself." Mark blanked.

"Uh… Which one is Lawful Goose?"" He runs the prison," Eliot said, "He's an Inquisitor for Hearthswell."" Ahhh! I think I remember seeing him during a kaiju fight," Mark said, looking around.

"It was the big blob in early December?" Mark didn't remember Lawful Goose much at all, though." Getting back on track, and because I have crunch time obligations," Noel said, "Would you be interested in attacking a location and going through fights to get a macguffin?" Mark focused, and said, "I need to make a phone call to talk to Kraigen Steele and also Mayor Ramirez to see if I'd be targeted for such an event—"" Call up Titanfist, too!" Sally said, as she got back into her chair.

"He's a cool guy." Noel easily said, "Titanfist has already promised to not allow Collective action on Hero Association grounds, and I've gotten clearance from Ramirez that they're not allowing empire action on Memphi soil, and Collective action has already been temporarily curtailed because your lawyer, Goro, has filed injunctions with the Collective, and specifically with Sentinel Saikou and Executioner Walter. Of course, I cannot control any of that. I'm just a writer and producer.

There is still actual danger out there." But the show must go on." Reality will happen during the actual event, otherwise this would be a movie and not a HVP program. By the way, when this is over, I fully expect there to be acting work for all of you, if you want it." He added, "But as for the program: if you have any suggestions on alterations then let me know now." Isoko instantly spoke up, "I want to actually fight people."" Me too!" Sally added. Eliot decided to get in on it, saying, "I want to infiltrate."

Mark said, "I'll infiltrate, too. I do not want to hurt anyone like last night ever again." Noel smiled a little.

"I can work with that." And then Mark had an idea.

"Oh! I would like to kill monsters. If you got monsters— Actually!" He pulled Quark out of his pocket and let him float before him, asking, "Do the Slayers have any high-priority kill quests out right now? Maybe we can get monster-killing footage?" Quark said, "One moment, please." Noel instantly said, "I won't take people out into the field, Mark—" Eliot was suddenly excited as he spoke up, "I can go out into the field just fine. I can take video, too."

Sally was interested as she asked, "Could we do Episode 3 like with real danger? Real monsters?" Isoko was uncertain. She remained silent, deferring to Noel, who knew his shit. Noel had a think, but it was more to figure out how to say that Mark was being foolish rather than actually directly deny him. In the end, Noel decided, "I'll have to get back to you on that tonight around midnight."

Quark spoke up, "There are several high priority monster kill requests in the Slayer's database for green-ranked slayers, which is the highest grade allowed for the group." Noel was worried. Mark directly asked him, "What's the worry?"" I'm not sure how to make random monster killing fit a good narrative. It's just fighting to kill. Where's the emotion? That's the important part of the fights we film." Isoko said, "I can grunt and cry about something and you can backfill the emotional hits in post.""

No thank you," Noel said.

"I'll figure it out." And then he added, "And monsters can be dangerous! Who knows what could happen out there!"