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Mark hadn't been on Earth in more than a year. He didn't realize this, at first, as he rode in the hovership across the Pacific, as he did nothing much but catch up on calls as some generic news attempt played on a big screen in the background. None of the news was about Daihoon, or about the Reset Quest, or even about the Winter Ball Attack. Mark had kinda wanted to see what Earth was saying about all of that stuff, but of course the news wouldn't be relevant at all hours of every day, but, well…

Mark checked in with Eliot, Sally, and Dawncoast, telling them about the assassination attempt and finding out about what had happened on their end of things. Apparently, Addavein had opened a portal to Earth to get Eliot and Sally to Memphi, to help them repair their gate. The repairs took 20 minutes, and then they took the Small Gate back to Daihoon. Memphi was fully repaired, and ready for new events.

Then he went over the responses to his emails, via Quark, that he had sent out about missing his obligations for Skilling. The Collective understood, the People were happy to know he would be at Crystal Tower and breaking through the blockade soon, and Walaria gave a rough estimate for sending people to Crystal Tower for Skilling in about 3 days. All the while, the news had played.

There had been a story about the rising cost of raw materials for appliances, of a return of bears in the wilds of North America (which Mark almost found interesting for Good Bear reasons, and wasn't that an odd coincidence), and then there was a whole bunch of superhero news from around the world. None of the attack at Memphi's gate was on the news, and the war brewing on Daihoon was completely absent." It should be breaking news, right? Current events?" Mark complained."

The Small Gate attack will be on the evening news," Aeri Kanno said, sitting on the couch opposite of Mark, flipping through her phone." Does Earth even know about the brewing Worlds' War?" Aeri asked Mark, almost rhetorically, "Do you believe there will actually be a Worlds' War?"

"… Yes?" Mark asked/said, not understanding how Aeri could suggest otherwise. Aeri looked at Mark, worried.

"Isoko talks like it's a sure thing, too, but everyone on Earth is hoping it all blows over."" Do they know about the Purge of the Church of Drakarok?" Aeri emotionally cringed. She had heard about it, but she didn't want to believe it. Melanie Moore had been in the next room, on her phone and with a laptop she had picked up from gods knew where, but she stood up and walked into the room when they spoke of the purge. She said, "Tell me about that purge."

Mark didn't understand how Moore didn't know all about the purge already, but based on her vector, she was serious. Based on Aeri's vector, she was settling in for a serious talk that she never expected to have… And Mark realized they did not want the news. They wanted Mark's personal perspective." Okay so…" Mark wasn't sure where to start, so he said, "When we left Endless Daihoon, Dominant tried to mind control everyone on the ship to get them to come through peacefully and right into a major trap.

He phrased it as an invitation. I saw the trap because he was stressing Eliot's Castellan shields, so I cleansed the group, and that's when… Kardi and the goblin Grax appeared. Grax grabbed the energy from inside the gatehouse, or whatever we were, and he threw that energy at the Godking, doing fuck all but opening the way forward. Those two assholes escaped, and then Sally shrunk the ship for us to escape, too.

We dropped a lot of adamantium out of the hull because it was resistant to her shrinking and I had stockpiled it because I was expecting to lose easy access to adamantium." We escaped, the Death mana lasers came on, and I shielded the ship." Addavein rescued us, and in the process he killed some Death mana turrets and spun up giant adamantium shields to protect us from the ones he couldn't destroy. Those Death cannons spilled the Death all across the land." I died. I got better."

Hundreds of thousands of people died in the capital of Okuana because of the spread of Death mana in a concentrated capital space. This was Dominant's first true disregard for humanity in the modern era, for this was all Dominant's fault for using those weapons against an interior target that wasn't even a kaiju. It was all an assassination attempt by him, against us, and he did not care who he hurt in the crossfire." He will never care about people. We are mana resources for him.

Aluatha knew this for centuries before the Reveal, and now we're all learning this all over again." And so we escaped, and then… That's when everything really started, when the Documentary went out and a whole lot of truths came out. Mainly, the truth about how Dominant took over after the Dragon King sacrificed himself, how Dominant killed pretty much everyone out there, he turned the elves into goblins, and then, later, how he tried to kill us and silence us."

So many small parts of history and of personal actions came to light after that, like how Dominant was personally trying to turn me into an adamantium farm, and how he was lying about how to kill demons with adamantium. The assassination attempt was just the crystallizing factor. Even before the Winter Ball Attack, we knew he had to go." And Dominant is against the Reset Quest, and apparently he's willing to kill the whole world to make the Quest go away."

And because the God of War and Murder, Drakarok, is all for killing tyrants like Dominant, Dominant has fully turned against the Church of Drakarok, and though some Chosen of the God of War and Murder have suicided at Dominant's request, that made all the rest of them even more furious."

The Church of Drakarok apparently had a big outpost in the Main Outpost of Xerkona, as well, so when Dominant sent the dryad in to kill everyone there, a lot of paladins of Drakarok stayed behind—" Mark suddenly paused because he remembered that guy from the Winter Ball, Xander-something, who had been from the Main Outpost and who wanted revenge, too. Mark winced a little, having forgotten about him until now. He would have to send him a letter of introduction to Dawncoast.

Mark continued, "And that's where we were, even before the blockade, or the Winter Ball Attack." The Purge has been… horrific, really." The Pantheon has been divided because Hearthswells love their locations and their power is wherever they are invested, and they are caretakers who have revolutionized city defense, and, for the most part, they're a big part of Okuana's defenses. Same as anywhere. They don't want war.

Freyala is in a semi-similar boat, and especially because Citadel Freyala is just on the other side of Verdant Citadel, on Earth versus Daihoon, so that's pretty close to attack, actually, if Okuana opened up the Worlds for real strikes. Dominant could do it, too. Rifts and stuff like that. Verdago wants to be gone from Okuana, but farming is important for people, so he's staying." Pluta is gone from Okuana, as far as I know." And then you have Drakarok, who is absolutely furious and ready to make heads roll.

A lot of heads." Aeri listened, and it was like he was hearing of horrors that she knew were out there, but that she hadn't seen until that moment. She hated the story Mark told, and she hated him in a small way, but mostly she was scared. Moore's emotions were more guarded as she instantly asked, "What about Thrashtalon? What's going on with him? Do you know?"" Thrashtalon…" Mark frowned a little… Isoko stepped into the room, hanging out at the edge.

Mark looked to Isoko and then to Moore, as he said, "I don't know about Thrashtalon, but I am guessing that Thrashtalon is loving all of this. If all the world allies against Okuana then he's happy. Thrilled. He's probably got a whole bunch of feelers and agents out there, trying to get people to Contract with him with suspiciously good Contracts. We've already seen at least one of them."

Mark thought of the Contract that Thrashtalon would have offered Cade Waterson, with the Transcendent series of Powers, to make that series into a soulhouse and Cade into an archmage with only one goal. All Thrashtalon wanted with that Contract was for Cade to always be moving toward the complete destruction of Okuana and Dominant. Mark said, "But those Contracts are poison. When Okuana is finally dead and gone, Thrashtalon will use those Contracted people to fuck over Aluatha next.

And then Thrashtalon comes for every citystate on Earth." Moore sat back a little, sort of like Aeri. Both of the older women had seen something that they didn't want to see in Mark's words, but which they recognized as truth. Mark asked his own question, "How come none of this stuff is on the news right now?" Moore said, "Curtain Protocol, mostly."" That's getting to be a thin shield," Aeri said to Moore, as though it was all a conversation far beyond Mark even though he was right there.

Moore told Aeri, but also Mark, "Crystal Tower doesn't get involved in politics, and our airwaves are the ones most accepted in the Two Worlds, so what we say has big meanings everywhere. We save everyone and defend our own, and that's more than good enough. We are not the worldwide police. We are saviors."" Then it's time to save the worlds and kill a tree," Aeri said. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Moore told Mark, "We want the blockade in Daihoon gone and sovereignty re-established over Sidecity and D'Japan. Once we have that breathing room, we can talk about supporting the war against Dominant. It's quite possible that as soon as we make our first strike against the blockade that they'll back off. As such, I want the first strike, led by you and several of our people, to leave behind full survivors. Strip them of their Powers, but let them keep their lives." Mark told her, "That's fine by me."

Moore paused, not fully believing Mark would do that… but then she calmed, as though realizing that of course Mark was like this. She seemed a bit less tense as she said, "From what I have heard about you and seen in the reports, I expected that response, but I also expected you to be ready to go out and make an example of Okuana's soldiers."" People help other people," Mark said, echoing the words of Glorious Man from almost 20 years ago. Moore gave the slightest grin.

"We try to."" But with that said…" Mark looked at the news playing on the screen. He pointed.

"That's a lot of propaganda." Aeri told Mark, "Not everyone likes to see war and death all the time."" And this isn't Daihoon; yeah, I get it," Marks said, "But I'm sure that people in New Tokyo are wondering why Gate Day never happened, right? Or was that spun, too?""

It's being spun as a contractual delay, which is true," Moore said, "Okuana did pull all of their shipping contracts, after the fact, though they did try to pretend that they weren't blockading us with their ships still sitting in dock, waiting to turn traitor." Mark's eyes went wide as he had flashbacks to Kardi turning traitor in the middle of everything.

"Holy shit, yeah… they would have been sitting by the gate for weeks, ready to go, wouldn't they?" Moore just nodded, not wanting to talk about all of that." Most of those people didn't do anything, but the official tankers? Ha! Fuck those guys… Those incidents are still going through the courts," Aeri commented, scoffing a little. She told Mark, "As if the courts matter anymore. The whole social contract is broken."

Moore said to Mark, "We aim to re-align the social contract through the complete obliteration of the blockade and the re-capture of our territories on Daihoon. The plan is roughly to arrive at Crystal Tower, to have a small meeting with you and Isoko and Team Mithril, with Captain Titan, Tempest, Spectre, and Justicar. Probably more. Captain Titan and Justicar will remain behind at Sidecity, but Tempest and Spectre will go with you two to break the blockade.

Specifics will be determined later, but recapturing Side Depot D'Takasaki is a large priority. We hope to have first action by evening, and rescue of our people at D'Takasaki by midnight." Mark had no idea what 'Side Depot D'Takasaki' meant, but he could imagine that it was a place on Daihoon roughly in line with some place on Earth, and that it meant a lot to Aeri and Isoko. But Isoko gasped a little.

"They got D'Takasaki?" She looked at her grandmother, asking, " How?" Aeri was quietly furious as she looked at Moore, saying, " 'An act of non-aggression', that's how." Moore said, "They had 10 dryads standing outside the place, ready to go, and another 20 in the sky, so it was either capitulation or we lost 10, 000 lives and all of that infrastructure." Mark asked, "I only need to know if infrastructure actually matters." Moore might have continued the conversation, but her phone pinged.

She told Mark, "The only thing that matters is lives. Excuse me." And then she picked up her phone and started talking to someone else as she walked out of the room. Mark asked Aeri and Isoko, "What's D'Takasaki?" Isoko said, "Right on the other side of home."" A little bit off to the west of the other side of home," Aeri said, mostly agreeing with Isoko. She told Mark, "D'Takasaki Side Depot is a major training facility for Crystal Tower, on Daihoon.

It would not be wrong to call it a permanent 'settlement project', where a great many young talents from Tokyo go to cut their teeth on real monsters. Most learn that they never want to set foot outside of the major walls ever again. There's a resupply there every month, when Big Torii opens. It's about 80 kilometers from Crystal Tower and the Big Torii. I took Isoko there months ago for Christmas."

Mark knew that New Tokyo was one of the largest cities in the Two Worlds, and the only tier 10, though there were more than a few tier 9s. But hearing '80 kilometers away from city center' and 'right on the other side of the place where they lived' meant that New Tokyo was at least 80 kilometers wide, and probably more like 100 kilometers, in every direction, stopping maybe 10 kilometers out to sea. Which was kinda crazy. Mark, of course, knew that New Tokyo was freaking massive, but…

He was going to see it in person, and soon. Even Crytalis wasn't technically that large, even though it did cover the whole D'Yucatan peninsula, if only because Crytalis was technically many separate cities in a trenchcoat. New Tokyo had districts, though, but there was no space between them; just emergency walls that had gone up long ago and which never got tested except in the beginning. … And now that Mark was thinking about distances and districts…

Mark asked, "The blockade is technically inside New Tokyo's airspace, but on Daihoon," and then he guessed, "And there's a Small Gate at Side Depot D'Takasaki, which they could use to get to New Tokyo from inside its walls." Aeri brushed past all of that and said, "Church Hearthswell has confirmed that the Blockade could come inside the walls of New Tokyo whenever they wanted, just by casting rift magics!

I'm sure they don't want to, and I haven't heard them threatening as much, but I am absolutely sure that they are threatening as much, but Timeweaver cut that away when he canceled Gate Day. But yes, there is a Small Gate at D'Takasaki. It's already shut down and the Hearthswells of New Tokyo are fortifying our dimension against lateral attack, but the whole thing has a whole lot of people in an uproar. When we get back I'm sure the actual assault will happen according to Timeweaver's decisions."

Mark accepted that —horrifying, but yeah, that's how it was— and then he asked, "So about Timeweaver? What do I need to know?" Aeri focused on both of them, but mostly on Isoko, as she said, "Timeweaver is a semi-perfectionist and a mostly-good-guy. But he's still Timeweaver. If Timeweaver is near you then he's making decisions about you and others. He probably killed you in a different, abandoned reality, just to see if he could, and you should not take that personally. If he's not near you, then don't worry.

If he is within your realm of interaction, then know that you are being handled. Actively handled. He handled all of us to come on this trip to get you two. That's why I'm here, and Moore came, and why Isoko is here with you, Mark. Timeweaver probably categorized Isoko as 'a local that you know', more than anything else she or I could provide..." Aeri sighed, long suffering, and finished with, "Who knows, though! Only him, and he's not talking unless he's manufacturing possibilities. Other than that…

Do not worry overmuch if Timeweaver is jovial. He's just being a fucker most of the time. BUT if he's tired, then act fast, because that means he's run the day through so many different times and he's running up against a wall and he's going to decide to cut something from his itinerary." She warned them, " You do not want to be cut." Mark connected something with before, saying, "That's why you said he wasn't serious before; because he was jovial, or at least sarcastic." Aeri nodded, leaning back, saying, "Yup.

You two should probably sleep. You might not get sleep for a few days. I'm on overwatch right now and I can fly the hovership into the city, too; Isoko's not cleared for that sort of flight path yet anyway." Mark stood up, saying, "Sounds like a plan to me. I'm taking one of the berths." Isoko said, "I've only been up for 4 hours, but… yeah." Mark looked at Isoko. She was a bit shaken up. Mark… ignored that and went to the hallway with the rooms. For a bit, Isoko sat with her grandmother, talking softly.

Later still, Isoko showed up, looking shaken even more. So Mark hugged her, and Isoko hugged him and she softly spoke of worries about bombs and dryads and that black/white fire, and if she had died before, and Mark held her through her worries, her thoughts matching his own. They breathed together and Good/Bad flowed on the blue, blue sky. And Mark chuckled, as he looked out a port window." What?" Isoko asked, feeling better. Mark pointed his chin toward the window, since his arms were otherwise occupied.

"The sky is blue. I forgot that the skies were normally blue." Isoko laughed… and then she asked, "Can I sleep in your bed?"" Yeah." Isoko fell asleep before Mark did, laying in his arms, both of them clothed, with Mark as the big spoon. Mark found he liked being the big spoon.