Mark had sat under the barely-warm shower for a while. The tile was cool, the water was simply pleasant, and Mark had too many thoughts in his head. He shaped his adamantium into fish and swam them through the water droplets, and this time he could actually make the fish flex like they were swimming. His overall shaping was still crude, but he didn’t need to use his fingers to make the adamantium into fish-shapes. He was learning; progressing.
“Not perfection, just progress,” Mark whispered to himself.
Physical therapy seemed like a lifetime ago, but it had only been… a few months?
With casual flexes, Mark turned fish into caltrops. He tried to spin one caltrop really, really fast, and he managed to spin it faster than he had when he was in the woods, testing out his Shaping. But his speed was still ‘tied’ to his ‘astral body muscles’.
Mark would need to break himself of that… that whole thing, really. Maybe now he could, now that he was secure in a city again, and he wasn’t in danger of meeting someone in the wilds that wanted to kill him.
Mark could honestly say that with this whole Addashield business, and then with Addavein, and now with this murder attempt, that his opinion of humanity was at an all-time low.
But he was glad that Uncle Alexandro had met him at the gate. Mark was really happy to see him, and Gabriel, too…
But holy shit, this was not how he had expected Uncle Alexandro’s house to be. Mark looked around at the primary bathroom yet again, at the big glass shower enclosure, at the massive tub sitting over there, with windows overlooking the pool outside, at the marble… everything. They were rich as fuck.
This was yet another mind fuck.
Mark got up off of the shower floor, did a final wash with warm water, and then—
He smelled food. Good food.
Uncle Gabriel was cooking again, then? Whatever it was, it smelled fantastic. Mark finished off his shower and dried off as he looked at himself in the big mirror in the bathroom. Firstly, the mirror itself was very large, and expensive looking. Maybe not actually-expensive, but it was certainly expensive in terms of real estate. The mirror was floor to ceiling and 3 meters wide.
“Rich,” Mark whispered to himself.
Anyway! Mark’s skin was a bit lighter, which was kinda weird. Shouldn’t he have tanned, being out in the sun all day long? But he supposed a high Body would negate the need for the body to tan, and also he ‘healed’ himself all the time, so... is that how it worked? Mark didn’t actually know. Seemed plausible. His eyes were more silver and black, too, which was… something. Silver irises, shot through with black, with deep black pupils.
Mark ignored his reflection.
He grabbed a criminally soft white bathrobe off of a hanger and tried it on. It fit well. He wasn’t going to wear it, though. Alexandro had given Mark some extra clothes that would probably fit him. Just some board shorts and a large tee shirt, and yeah, those fit well. It was nice to be able to wear something other than basic browns.
Mark looked at himself in the mirror, wearing real clothes again…
He wiped away a tear, breathed deep, and left the bathroom.
Dinner was delicious, and also a confusing mess of stories and plans and a bunch of other things tossed around and talked about, and Mark wasn’t sure what was happening at the end of it all, but he did know one thing. Maybe two things. Gabriel could cook really well, and Mark had said as much, but also...
“I’m going back to Citadel, Uncle,” Mark said, with a clean plate sitting in front of him. “And then it’s on to a settlement expedition on Daihoon.”
And Mark didn’t want to live in this too-fancy house, anyway. He had told them that once, but he didn’t want to harp on it.
Alexandro nodded, saying, “Okay okay. A young man has to go out and make his mark on the world. I get it. And you don’t want to live here with your boring uncles anyway. So how about the cottage?”
Mark laughed. “The one you guys pretended to live in?”
“That’s the one!” Alexandro said, shamelessly and with a bit of a grin.
Mark was about to turn them down—
But Gabriel said, “We’re signing something over to you, because we need you to know that you will always have a home here. You are wanted. Even if you go back out into the world, you have a place to come back to. Always. We’ll have the housekeepers keep it up for you and pay the land taxes and all of that junk, but it’ll be yours, Mark.”
Mark felt tight in the chest. Happy, in a nice sort of way.
Alexandro added, “Or there’s the room upstairs!”
Mark chuckled. In a small way, he said, “I’m going on that expedition, but… I do want to have a home here… if you’ll... have me…” Mark was about to say something about the danger of Addavein, but he choked up. He wanted to be here, with family, for at least a little while.
Alexandro grinned wide. And then he got up from his chair and grabbed Mark into a hug, saying, “We love you, Mark.”
Mark sobbed a little, and then Uncle Gabriel was there, too, hugging him, also saying nice words, and Mark almost felt home again. He started sobbing and then Alexandro started crying, and someone said something about how Markus and Donna would be happy Mark was here, and the night kinda went on from there.
Mark found out that Uncle Gabriel was a very good bartender, and that Gabriel and Alexander were pretty much hermits, but they wanted to show Memphi off to Mark, if he wanted. And yeah, Mark did want to see the city. This weekend, though. Alexandro still had work; so much work. Gabriel had work, too.
As they sat around a table on the deck, drinking drinks, Mark said, “So tomorrow I have on my own… I want to know what is happening with that almost-murder in the wilds. How can I keep tabs on that?”
Gabriel said, “Inquisitor Willow will know more in the morning, I am sure. She’s only been in the house for about 40 days, but she’s on the ball about everything. If not her then some of the others.”
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Mark suddenly remembered a lot of little things. From a woman named Carlotta that used to live with his uncles, who had to have been their previous Inquisitor bodyguard, to how they had switched over to Freyala on the List. Mark’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gods! You’re on The List, Uncle Alexandro!” He instantly said, “You’ve probably seen some crazy personal-attack shit, too, haven’t you.”
Alexandro happily said, “I’m up to around 28 kidnapping attempts, which is why I’m a bit of a hermit. Maybe 32, if you count credible incidents that went nowhere, when the kidnappers decided not to kidnap.”
Mark felt unmoored. He had not expected… that. Mark whispered, “Why would people do that…?”
Alexandro had a fast answer, “Because sometimes people get desperate, and a lot of the most desperate people in the world are those who are running out of resources, be those resources money, time, or anything else, really. I see people who run out of everything, all the time, Mark. My Power is Age Manipulation.”
Mark’s eyes went wide. And then he frowned. “I have this Union sense that lets me know what people are pointed toward sometimes, when I focus. Those people who tried to kill me were greedy. That’s it. Not needy. Not desperate. I’m still figuring out this sense, but I’m pretty sure those guys were just greedy…” Mark had a few more complicated emotions. “Is it greedy to want more time alive? Oh, shit. I never thought about that.”
And he hadn’t. New thoughts all around.
Alexandro grinned a little bit; strained.
Gabriel said, “Those people you met could have been Thrashtalon cultists. Could be demon contractors. Those are outsized possibilities, though. I’d think they would just have been greedy. Most people are. Greed is a rather normal thing for most people to feel, and those scanners for wealth usually have upper bounds. Those people probably saw their scanners peak and then snap and break, and that would mean literal millions of goldleaf. Of course they tried something. Murder, though? That’s too much. Fuck those people and I hope they die to monsters.”
Mark was conflicted in a way he never knew he could be conflicted.
And so, he just started laughing.
Alexandro chuckled.
Gabriel grinned.
Mark laughed even as he exclaimed, “Oh my gods Uncle Gabriel! You can’t say that!”
Alexandro guffawed.
Gabriel chuckled, saying, “You’re gonna have to learn how to say crazy shit, too, Mark, what with being a Villain and all.”
“I’m going to be such a terrible villain,” Mark suddenly admitted.
Alexandro laughed largely, saying, “I can imagine it now! Mark on Weekly Showdown, talking about how people shouldn’t hurt other people, so ‘could you kindly all step aside while I rob this bank, please?’!”
Mark scoffed. “Villains are all hypocrites and robbing a bank is at least two layers of hypocritical...ness? Hypocriticalness, sure.”
Gabriel grinned as he tilted his glass in his hand, the ice tinking. “As a villain, your words are only good for distracting the enemy. Think of it like that, and less like you’re trying to make sense.”
“That’s how you do it,” Alexandro said, agreeing.
“Oh gods, that’s terrible!” Mark said— And then he gasped. “You two watch the supervillain shows, don’t you!”
“Of course we do!” Alexandro said. “I have to have something to talk with the clients about.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Your uncle plays it off, but he’s a total nerd. Want to see the nerd cave? We have action figures!”
Mark laughed.
He ended up seeing the nerd cave and getting a tour of the whole house.
It was nice.
Eventually, Mark went to bed in a bed that was meant to be his, if he wanted it. And he did.
It was a great end to a stressful day.
- - - -
Mark woke to sunlight spilling across the room, beyond the foot of his bed.
He stretched, his adamantium drops rolling through the air, and he breathed deep. In with the good, out with the bad. Black miasma flowed from his mouth, threading into the world, and Mark woke up all the way.
He sat at his bed for a while, categorizing what he needed to do for the day.
Citadel Freyala had been alerted to Mark’s return yesterday, thanks to Inquisitor Willow and the City AI of Memphi, which was really the Mayor of Memphi. Mark had heard something about that earlier, but he had forgotten, so he needed to check up on that. He needed to book passage back to Citadel Freyala, eventually, because the expedition to Daihoon was probably going to leave from there… But probably not for a while? Mark wasn’t sure. He needed to make calls.
Which meant he needed a new phone.
Which was priority number one. New phone. New gear. See if his personal AI Quark survived, or not. They usually did, right? Quark wasn’t a real, living AI. He was an offshoot of COFR, so he probably got backed up, along with all of the videos that Mom and Dad had left him, and the family movies. The letters were back in his room at Citadel, which was… probably fine? Yeah, probably.
So a phone.
And then Mark wanted to make calls, and check on whatever was going on with the killers out north of Memphi. They probably wouldn’t let him know about the investigation… or at least cops didn’t let you know about ongoing investigations. Did Inquisitors let you know?
… Were the Inquisitors even on this case? Seemed like the local cops should be on the case.
Mark didn’t know.
Killers were big deals. Humanity didn’t harm humanity; not directly like that. It was anathema to the continued existence of humanity to do shit like that. It was humans against monsters, and things had been steadily improving for both Earth and Daihoon for decades since the Reveal, since that mana apocalypse, but it was still humans against monsters.
Back in the Reveal, the sea level had risen 23 meters, kaiju turned out to be real, and monsters and magic fucked everything up. And then there was World War 3 and then World War Not, which was only averted from a full scale horror show by one man who murdered 4 world leaders and over 250 staff, or something like that. That man, General Alexander Volkov, then went on to become the God of War and Murder, Drakarok.
… Whom Sally was acolyte’d to.
Mark needed to call Sally again. Would she still want to party with him, now that he was officially the ‘brother’ of Addashield? Mark needed to call Eliot and Isoko, too, or maybe they had tried to call him? Either way, Mark needed to check.
Anyway.
Humanity survived because humanity helped humanity.
That was why Basic Income existed, and why a person, any person at all, could live and function in this world, even if they did nothing at all. Of course, that put a person in basic browns and in basic housing, and sure, people stole from each other, and small crimes happened all the time. But murder? Murder for profit?
Mark still boggled at that.
… Mark got up and told himself, “Phones, then check on the investigation, and then all the rest.”
After taking a brief morning shower and then purifying himself so he didn’t have to use the bathroom —Mark didn’t think he would ever get tired of not having to use the bathroom— Mark put on clothes that fit him well, which Uncle Alexandro had gotten in a drone airdrop last night. The fabrics were soft, nice, and clean, and they weren’t basic brown.
Mark loved it.