Chương 73: 073

The night sky spanned from horizon to horizon as it usually did. The dragon was just a dragon. Large as a skyscraper. Big as a hundred buses. Silver, mostly, but also a black that was blacker than the night, that gonged gently, while all the rest of the dragon merely existed. The dragon was not as large as the sky. Somehow, the dragon took up the entire sky, anyway. Mark had hit the dragon with his best, strongest attack, and the dragon had said 'no'.

And so, Mark was here, standing on wreckage in the sky, about to die and full of unknown feelings. What was he feeling at that moment? It wasn't rage. Not really. Perhaps an emotion that was a brother to rage? Frustration?" Good first try but I'm a bit beyond you, my happenstance brother," the dragon cheerfully said, "Let's talk!" Frustration gave way to absolute rage." TALK?!" Mark found himself yelling, "ABOUT FUCKING WHAT?! HOW YOU KILLED MY PARENTS AND AREN'T TURNING YOURSELF IN AS A MURDERER?!"

The dragon rolled some giant eyes and then said, "Go ahead and scream and rage and hit me if you want, and then we can talk some more." Mark did exactly that. Nothing he did could touch the dragon at all. How long did he keep trying? A minute? 10? An hour? Probably not that long at all. He crashed to his ass, onto the wood and the plastics that Eliot had turned into a floor, or something, which was in turn held up by black adamantium. Mark looked at the black. He wondered… about a lot.

Eventually, the dragon asked, "Ready to talk?" Mark found himself saying, "After… After I learned of his crimes, I wanted Addashield to repent for his crimes, but no. That's not… That's not why I did it. I did it because it was the right thing to do. To help Addashield be a Hero of Humanity again." Mark looked up to the dragon.

"Are you him? Did it work?" The dragon's wings did not beat. He did not struggle to stay hovering exactly as he was. The dragon simply was, and all the world bent to his will." A complicated series of questions, really," the dragon said, softly, in a speaking voice, though Mark knew he could probably roar and blast Mark apart with his simple voice. Kaiju were like that, and the dragon was a kaiju, for sure. The dragon continued, "I am not him, and yet I am him in most ways that matter.

I know all of the secrets of his life. I know ways to bring humanity crashing down, and, by that same measure, I know how to save everyone, and how I have saved as many people as I could, over and over and over again." I know how to secure humanity's victory over the monsters for the next thousand years, give or take a thousand years. Stuff could change tomorrow, or never again. Hard to know those sorts of things. I doubt there's a third hidden world out there, but you never know!

That's one of the things that could cause a true Magefall again, like the one that separated Daihoon from Earth 5, 000 years ago." But more important than hypotheticals of destruction, is that I want to continue in Addashield's footsteps. I like people. I like building. I like creating and founding. So I think I am close enough to him to count in most ways, except for the ways of guilt." Mark wasn't sure what was happening right now. But he was sure of at least one thing… or maybe two.

The dragon was either a very good actor, or he was sincerely not Addashield, because he certainly didn't sound like Addashield… Though Mark had only known the archmage for… what? Half an hour of talking before the mana vein flavoring? And then for a few hours during that Color Drop thing, when he was under the thrall of the demon, Kanda? Mark asked, "Are dragons good actors? Or bad actors?" The dragon's eyes flexed, dilating then squinting. And then the dragon chuckled, rumbling the world.

"I think you mean as actual actors, and not as 'people who do things', but the terms are closely linked anyway. Yes; dragons are 'good actors', but they usually don't bother. It's an insult to a dragon to couch their words or hide their intent in any way, unless they are encountering an equal, or something they want out of a person that they cannot get through force. Full disclosure: I want things from you that I cannot get through force, so I qualify for this caveat.

You should know now that I won't knowingly act in your worst interest, though, so that should answer most of your major concerns." Mark yelled, "You're acting in my worst interests right now!" The dragon did not look ashamed at all, as he said, "But you wanted to be among those who fought and killed kaiju, so you only have yourself to blame now that you are among your own kind, and are being used in this arena."

But that's really not important for interactions between you and I, Mark, because I will never knowingly act in your actual worst interest, which means a degradation of your personal abilities or position in the world." The fact that you don't like how you ascended is only partially a concern of mine." So what do you like in recompense, and in life, Mark Careed?" Mark was having difficulties. A lot of difficulties. He distracted himself by looking around…

And he noticed that the dragon was just hovering there, in space, and the city was down below, and there were lights over there where David, Eliot, and Isoko had…

'crashed' to the ground? Or they had been set down? And the dragon was hovering. Not moving at all— Oh. It was probably too dark to see, but the dragon was probably propping himself up by his adamantium spikes. Strong Shapers could just as easily rest on 'arms' or 'legs' made of their attuned substance. Mark looked up at the dragon, and said, "I like killing monsters and making the world a safer place for people I will never meet, or know. That's why I did the whole…"

He gestured at the giant kaiju, not 50 meters away at his closest point, which was one of his silver and black eyes. And then he stopped gesturing.

"But I suppose Addashield is truly dead, because you don't act like I remember him, though I did not interact with him for long, or deeply." The dragon smiled some, showing off big fangs, and Mark wasn't sure if that was a threat display for dragons or not—" Is a smiling dragon a good thing, or a bad thing?" Mark found himself asking." Ha!" The dragon chortled.

"Dragons are the product of humans, who have bodies, joined to demons, who have no bodies, so most of our innate actions stem from the same sort of biological makeups as humans, which are wholly responsible for innate biological reactions, as demons have no innate bodies." Smiles are smiles. Grins are grins. Eyerolls are eyerolls. A lot of the normal imperatives are different, though.

Humans are no longer sexually interesting to me at all, but there are quite a few pretty dragons out there, and even a few kaiju, which is a very weird thing for me right now. Dragons are interested in power and aesthetics. I never really understood this until I became one. Still coming to terms with that." Mark accused, "So you are Addashield!"" Well... I certainly don't feel 350 years old anymore, or, for that matter, 25, 000 years old, if you want to believe a demon about their age.

Kanda is pretty much gone, though; thank the gods. I probably ended up 99% Addashield. A very young Addashield that I could barely remember until recently. I feel like I'm a teenager again. It's quite strange." Sitting on his ass, Mark looked up at the dragon, and said, "Huh."" I am surely some new life form, created from the union of my father and that demon. The fact that Father is 99% of my makeup is a quirk in the matrix, but not much more than that.

I am not my father, or that demon," the dragon said, finishing with a nod. Mark spent maybe a minute staring at the dragon. A lesson from the Empire of Foodstuffs cropped up. Mark said, "Nations who undergo a change of ownership need to adhere to the old laws and customs of those nations in order to be accepted as a true change of ownership, and as a valid nation… Or something like that. Is that what you're doing with the donations of adamantium? Are you doing enough?" The dragon hummed.

"I could do more, but I am not accepted as my father's replacement. Not yet. I am working on it, though." And then the dragon asked, "You partook of a Xerkona playgame, didn't you?"" I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but it was called the Empire of Foodstuffs, and it was overseen by a Xerkona ambassador, yes." And there was a dragon in that scenario that Mark had never gotten a chance to yell at. The dragon chuckled.

"That would be a Xerkona playgame, yes. A lot of good lessons there." Silence. Mark wasn't sure what to say anymore. Mark defaulted to being polite, saying, "Well hopefully you… uh. I don't know what to say anymore, except… I don't think I actually hate you, now that you're here and… you. I guess. But it's still tough. You… giving all that adamantium away to all those people and killing all those kaiju makes it a lot easier not to hate you." The dragon grinned.

"Would you like to organize some of my interactions with humanity and be my mortal agent?"" Fuck no." The dragon laughed.

"You are rather young for it, anyway. I'll ask someone else. How do you feel about the Hero/Villain Program?" Mark frowned.

"The Hero/Vill…" His voice dropped away, and then he said, "I'm going to Daihoon for at least a few years, but I've already been asked to be a villain by those people." He suddenly asked, "Do you truly need a partner on the other side of the fence for that whole thing? Is that why you're asking?"" I don't want to be a part of Daihoon. That was Dad's whole thing. Now Endless Daihoon? I might go exploring that sometime, now that I can truly survive the deeper parts. But not Daihoon itself.

I'm rather sure I'm sticking around here on Earth. You see, Dad not-so-secretly always had a certain fondness for the theater of the hero system you have set up over here. It's spectacle and fun, and no one really dies unless things get out of hand, and that rarely happens. Daihoon is so much more serious." So yes, I will likely become a part of that whole Hero/Villain Program. Still not sure in what capacity, but it seems fun." More importantly: I wish to be seen as approachable and good.

I have way too much power and that scares people, as it should, but I don't want to be scary. I want to be a Hero of Humanity." The dragon added, "And so yes: I do want someone on the other side of the aisle to legitimize me. You seem to be able to hold your own and not fall over like most people. For that, and many more reasons, you qualify." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. The world felt surreal.

Mark felt compelled to point out that he was sitting down, and that he had attacked the dragon already, so he was certainly not able to hold his own, or not fall over, but that felt unnecessary. Instead, he said, "To be honest, I am rather overwhelmed right now and I'm rather certain you're just going to do whatever and what I say doesn't matter. This doesn't seem real— Can you resurrect people?" The dragon paused, then said, "Let's begin with the first point there. Yes. You are overwhelmed.

But you're handling yourself well, but probably only because I'm extending so far to reach you, because you're a good ticket for me to be legitimized in this world. You're one of the only people I have a connection to at all. Kanda made Dad kill almost everyone he cared about, and the ones she let him keep are the ones that now hate him, and me. But you're starting off, and we're talzarki, and that does mean something to me. To Dad." Mark looked up at the dragon.

"Talzarki, huh?"" Happenstance brother.

'Two or more people forged in the crucible of a similar horror, and then walking through life as something close to family'. It's a chosen-family sort of thing." Mark wasn't sure what to say about that, so he said nothing. The dragon nodded, like a silver battleship gently bobbing in an unseen ocean. He continued, "And yes, I am going to do what I want, and what I want is to have a connection to humanity. I certainly won't be accepting human laws on my person, but I will be an ally to humanity; a hero, once again."

The dragon Looked at Mark, adding, "And once you get enough personal power, you would do well not to accept all the laws they try to place on you, either." Mark nodded, unsure. What would one really say to a dragon, in this situation, in this time, in this place? Mark had already tried attacking. So he nodded." As for resurrecting people, there have always been stories of that sort of thing but Dad never found any credible evidence to support the stories.

It was always some animated horror, or a Natural power that faded if the caster ever stopped, or necromancy that cobbled together an astral body and then stuffed that astral body back into a physical form which always resulted in nightmares made manifest."

Transferring living astral bodies from one form to another is possible, and actually rather horribly easy if you set it up right, but actually bringing back the dead is not possible, because the astral body, the soul, the mind, are all gone when a person dies," the dragon said, "But if such a thing is possible, then the elves of Endless Daihoon might know of it, if the elves even exist. Chasing after elves to learn of resurrection magics would be like chasing after two impossible dreams.

You might have better luck approaching the Old Dragons that we kicked out of the ruling halls of Daihoon to see if they know something about resurrection. Chasing dragons would be too dangerous for you as you are now, or in any other normal capacity." But you could survive all of that by declaring yourself as my brother, with all the attendant responsibilities thereof." Mark stood up. He wasn't sure how he stood up, but he did it." Ground rules!" You are a hero in public and private and in your heart of hearts!

Don't bother me! Get a phone and call before you show up! I don't fucking know what else but probably some important shit! Very important shit! I am still mad at your father, of whom you are 99% of! I don't know what that means! Brothers means we yell and fight and don't actually want to kill each other, I think! But I'm pretty sure I want to kill you for some reason! And I'm yelling for some reason! I'm going to end up doing some shady shit in my life because of you and I'm going to hate you for it!"

Mark roared, "I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A HERO! Not a tool of a thinking kaiju! AND I WILL NOT BE YOUR TOOL." The dragon rapidly, delightedly said, "All accepted! Also! In the Hero/Villain Program the villains are basically just trainers for the heroes. The television part of it is all just fun and theater. You should still go to Daihoon." He grinned.

"We'll be traditional brothers, too. Not those noble backstabbing brothers that they do in the royal families of Daihoon. Real talzarki! I was thinking you could get a girl, too, or whoever really, and eventually have kids! And I can be their uncle! It'll be great! Anyway! That's the whole thing I want. Nice chatting with you, brother. Here's some starter weapons for you, ~ Blackvein~. I'm still thinking of my own name, and I kinda like Silvervein, now? Not sure, really. I'll figure it out. Addavein?

I am a great source of adamantium, after all." A tiny wooden box tapped Mark in the chest, and he grabbed it." I'll protect you as a good brother should when I'm around, but I won't be around you most of the time, so…" Don't go dying!" Later, brother!" The dragon vanished and Mark's platform rocketed to the ground and then stalled out, slowing, before it slipped into the side of a hole cut into another dirigible.

Mark barely felt any change in direction or gravity at all while the whole thing moved as fast as it did, which was odd, looking back on it, on this, on everything. Everything was so odd. Mark's twisted plastic-and-wood platform slapped onto the floor of a cabin that was slightly different from the previous one that Eliot had built. Eliot, Isoko, and David were there, staring at him. Mark gestured to the hole in the cabin.

"There's a hole in the cabin, Eliot."" Oh yeah," Eliot said, nonchalantly.

"A dragon made it so it's kinda hard to fix. Astral body contamination, and all that." Isoko casually said, "He had to remake the ship already." She asked Eliot, "Need to remake it again?"" We're good," Eliot said, as he glanced at a tablet.

"And the hovervan is close. It was circling while Mark spoke to his brother, but it's coming in now. And oh! There it is." Mark looked back to the hole in the wall. A hovervan was just beyond. David walked that way first, and then everyone else went, too, and soon, Mark watched from a window as the dirigible fell apart and turned to scrap, to continue falling down into the ruins of Rome. An undetermined amount of time passed in silence. A minute? Four minutes? Maybe only 30 seconds.

Mark looked at everyone else, and said, "So I'm probably going to freak out soon and—"" HOLY FUCKING SHIT, MARK," Eliot said, as cameras floated around.

"HE'S YOUR FUCKING BROTHER NOW?!" Isoko laughed maniacally, throwing her head back and guffawing, chortling into the back of her hand as she waved off Eliot's camera, generally being unintelligible for a good 5 minutes. Meanwhile, Mark just went still, as Eliot asked even more questions that Mark didn't know the answers to, and David merely sighed a little, looking out the window, ahead, in the direction they were going." So you're not his mortal agent?" Eliot asked." I don't even want to talk to him.""

What's in the box!"" The box?" Mark looked down at his hands. He was holding a small wooden box.

"Oh. I don't know."" Open it!"" No thank you." Isoko called out, "Okay! Okay! I'm not giggling anymore. I think I fucking pissed myself, too. Sorry. So that was fucking terrifying." David continued to look forward as he spoke for the first time, "You handled yourself well, Mark. I have no idea how you managed that, but you handled yourself well." Eliot watched and Isoko giggled some more. Mark said, "I did try to kill him, like… for a good 10 minutes there."

Eliot whispered, "I have it on camera if you want to see." Mark continued, "So I am pretty sure I did not handle myself well at all." He managed to breathe easy, and he also managed to realize that he wasn't running Union right now, so he turned Union back on and started beating resilience and weakness. The amount of black coming out of his body was a lot right now. Everyone noticed.

David turned, eyed Mark, and said, "The fact that you attacked him on sight, and that the dragon wanted something from you, is the only reason you're alive right now. I'm not exactly… qualified to speak on this, but I believe that dragons wouldn't want to be brothers with weak people. He would have killed you out of shame if you would have cowered.

But the fact that you attacked him allowed him to show himself as the true power in the relationship, which calmed him down a lot, and made him more secure in picking you as a brother." You tried to fight, and the dragon saw that, and respected you for it. He respected you for telling him off, too. But the fact that you put an onus on him to act like a true hero now obligates you to act in your chosen role as well." A moment passed in silence as Mark thought. Mark asked, "What does that mean?""

You're officially his brother, now, for one. Other than that you need to sign up for the Hero/Villain Program as a villain. Probably under Crystal Tower itself. Then we'll get you some help to leave for Daihoon. What will likely happen is we will want you to disappear into Daihoon and allow the dragon to play out whatever realities he has away from you." Isoko smirked as she spoke up, "And he wants Mark to have kids!" Mark felt his stomach drop all over again. Exasperated, he said, "The fuck is that about!"

David said, "Ignore it and walk away from it, Mark." He looked over to Eliot.

"You send the video off, yet?" Eliot said, "I sent it to COFR, like you said." David nodded. He said to Mark, "There's nothing more to be done about anything, except, I need to know how you felt up there. Did you really try everything against him? All of the tricks that Lola taught you? Everything?" The moment crystallized. Mark felt ice in his veins and his astral body pulsed with even more blackness, veins tracing into the air around him. With a small voice, Mark said, "Yeah. I tried... everything. My…

I think my astral body was too weak… or something. I couldn't reach him." Would he be able to reach that dragon with a few more years of training? Of life? Or was that a foolish pursuit? David said, "Lesser dragons would be easier to kill, but 'easier' just means that you might be able to actually touch them. They all have the same full-spectrum-resistant astral body that an archmage or a demon has, and it takes skill and experience to be able to pierce something like that.

Isoko has a version of that type of Body, too." Isoko giggled again. She waved them off, not able to speak right now. Something else crystallized for Mark. Mark asked, "How would I go about learning how to kill a dragon?" David said, "The Slayers, that organization you wanted to join, has a Dragon Slayer division. The Dragon Slayers are the top ranked people in that organization. The ones they send after dragons; if that wasn't obvious.

Part of reaching that rank is learning which dragons to kill and which ones to work around, because they are not a monolith, Mark. Some of them do help humanity. There's actually a whole culture still devoted to dragons over there." Mark rapidly decided to ignore whatever his 'brother' had done to him and his life and the idea of a 'culture devoted to dragons', and said, "I was already going to the Slayers, so that makes it easier, right?" David didn't want to lie to him, so he said nothing.

Everyone else kinda just fell silent—" Open the box?" Eliot asked, eyes focused on the box. Mark looked at the box, clutched in his hand. It was plain wood with a slide-in top that was secured with a small spike of wood driven into a hole in the lid and the box itself, acting as a lock for the box. The whole thing was half the size of a fist. Some things softly rolled inside, clicking and clacking, as he moved the box around. Mark stared at the container for a little while.

And then he pulled out the little wooden wedge and opened it up. There was a bunch of black marbles—" Oh," Mark said.

"That's adamantium." David was looking in the box with Mark. He stepped away, saying, "Don't lose it. It's hard to get more." Eliot whispered, "Easier than ever, though." Isoko commented, "I heard he's up to 15 tons given away?" Eliot said, "17. 5 at last count, which I have just done. That's only the public number, though." He whispered, "Private number is likely estimated to be 21 tons. How much would that be? Just a few spikes?" Isoko added, "And he grows them, too."

Mark swirled the box to isolate one of the marbles to the side, away from the other ones, and then he poked a finger at that isolated one— It was like someone had thrown a pile of bricks onto his body, weighing him down, crushing him into his seat. It was an existential weight, pulling at his every soul. He dropped the box and the marbles ran across the floor of the hover van. Eliot cried out, "Fuck!" and he started picking them up— David, moving too fast to see, suddenly had a handful of marbles.

He put all the marbles from his hand into the box, and then he closed the box and handed it to Mark, saying, "When we get back to Citadel you need to focus on Adamantiumkinesis, Mark. Use the next few days or weeks to gain proficiency. You might spend a week longer in Citadel, but you'll be moving on fast and you need to be able to use this part of your Power." Mark took the box and he could already feel his astral body wanting to connect to the adamantium.

Had there been a spell on the box, to prevent that sort of connection, before he opened it? Or was simply being aware of the contents enough for Mark to try and instinctively connect to it? Whatever the case, Mark held the box without trying to connect to it, and the rest of the flight back to Citadel was relatively quiet.