Aurora was carefully neutral, her vector pointed in several other directions as she looked up, at Mark’s crown.

Noel seemed to have stars in his eyes, while the woman in yellow seemed… unreadable. Carefully unreadable. Maybe a bit… surprised? Surprised at herself, too. Mark wasn’t sure about all of that.

With his crown floating a few inches off of his absolute black hair, Mark broke the silence, “How does it look?”

Noel rapidly asked, “Can you make it fully symmetrical and spinning a little?”

The woman in yellow spoke up, “Ten points off of a simple band of black.”

Aurora glanced at her companion, but the woman only had eyes for Mark. She was locked in, for some reasons that Mark couldn’t tell.

… Mark flexed his crown and transformed the crescent shape into a ring with ten points rising from the ring, like talons, because that felt right.

The woman in yellow breathed deep, her heart beating hard.

Aurora was still carefully neutral.

Noel smirked, fully realizing that something was happening with Aurora and the woman in yellow, but pretending like he saw nothing, as he said, “That’s perfect! So you’re really leaning into the whole ‘dragon’s brother’ thing, then? The talons look like… Well. You know.”

“Dragonclaws,” the woman in yellow said, almost a whisper.

Aurora told Mark, “You should do the other crown.”

Mark flicked the adamantium over his head into the other crown, the crescent-shaped crown with the five points, knowing that whatever he had done with the 10-pointer had some sort of significance that he had not intended at all. Mark went, “Uh, sure. What was it about the 10-pointer… Ah.” Aurora shook her head a little, ending that inquiry. Mark said, “Never mind.”

Aurora told Noel, “We’ll talk later. You can go now.” As Noel bowed rapidly and walked away, Aurora gestured to the woman in yellow, as she looked to Mark, saying, “Apologies. This is Countess Marigold Metallic. I understand that you tried to get an appointment. She has been quite the busy one!”

Aurora was polite and with some small smiles, and Marigold was similarly joyful, but there was a sudden, deep tension between the two women that Mark felt, more than saw. That tension hadn’t been there to begin with, or maybe it had been there and Mark simply didn’t notice it, but that tension was on display to anyone with a Unionsense, or possibly a telepathic sense, like Aurora. Mark wasn’t sure what sort of senses a telepath got… But as soon as he had that thought, Aurora’s tension with Marigold vanished.

Which let Mark know a few things…

And then Aurora seemed embarrassed inwardly, and Mark set aside whatever had just happened, because people were talking.

Marigold put a palm to her own chest in greeting, saying, “A pleasure to meet you, Mark. I should repeat what my employee said, for the sake of it being said, but we won’t move Addavein’s product for him. Or for you.”

Mark had a plan for this situation that did not involve revealing his adamantium blood.

Mark said, “Adamantiumkinetics can detect adamantium at great distances, and that is my plan; hunting the wilds for big bounty.”

Shapers could naturally detect their elements if they were close enough, but Mark had never really done that, because… well. Adamantium was freaking rare and the only bits of adamantium around Mark were his own. So Mark going out into the wilds to search for adamantium —or rather, adamantium beasts— was a rather normal sort of thing for someone in his situation. Of course, Mark would be making adamantium himself, and Marigold would learn of that later, but for now, the lie would serve.

Mark absolutely wanted to go into the wilds and find adamantium himself, though. Would he find adamantiumkinetic monsters? If he did, then he would get some good training in fighting Addavein… Theoretically… But anyway!

Mark added, “I don’t want to sell Addavein’s adamantium, either.”

Marigold looked skeptical. She almost said something—

But Aurora spoke, “And I believe him.” Aurora told Mark, “Making money in the settlement will be a hard affair, but through House Metallic you should be able to sell whatever adamantium monsters you come across. That’s how Addashield made his initial fortune, and further fortunes beyond that. Most of our futures will be made in monster hunting, to start. We’ll be shipping those hunted fortunes back to Crytalis for goods and services in return.” Aurora added, “But we ask that you allow the settlement to buy some non-Addavein adamantium at a competitive rate, Mark.”

There was a lot of politicking happening in those small statements.

Mark easily said, “I’d be happy to agree to that, Aurora.”

Marigold understood that something had happened, but she wasn’t quite sure what. She was still a businesswoman, though. With a slight bit of mirth in her voice that was only half-true, Marigold told Aurora, “I won’t let my client be swindled, General Valen.”

Aurora said, “Of course not! ‘Competitive’ does not mean for free. But I would hope to be able to pay in some ways outside of goldleaf.”

Marigold smiled politely, then looked to Mark, saying, “I must have a real meeting with you soon. Perhaps in the journey to the settlement? After the crossing?”

“I look forward to it, Countess Metallic.”

“Please, call me Marigold, Mark. I’m on a first name basis with all of my clients.”

Mark was already doing that in his head, but it was easy enough to do that for real, as he said, “Marigold, then. A pleasure to meet you.”

Marigold looked to Eliot, who was still enthralled by the Southern Crossing. She decided to not interrupt his moment. She smiled a bit, though, and then told Mark, “I remember my first time seeing the Crossing, too. It’s still rather magical.”

“It truly is magical,” Mark said, glancing at the rainbow sky.

Marigold nodded, and then stepped backward, out of the conversation, and right into another conversation with an older woman and younger man who were waiting to speak with her. People moved around the party, and conversations continued.

And then Eliot blinked, and turned. With focusing eyes, he asked, “Was someone talking about me?”

“Banking business,” Aurora said, and then she glanced backward. She spotted someone who wanted to speak to Eliot, based on the man’s vector. The man was big and strong-looking, under his well-worn suit. With his bright red hair and bushy beard he looked positively rugged. Aurora looked to Eliot. “Would you like to meet Baron Rylan Drakemore? He finally came out of hiding for some unknown reason, and it seems that reason might be you. He’s the Builder Guildleader.”

Eliot was all smiles as he said, “Of course I would like to meet…” He looked up at Mark, and then up a bit further. “Uh. Nice hat, dude?”

Mark joked, “I’m thinking I’ll be ‘King Blackvein’ to my enemies, and ‘Mark’ to friends.”

Eliot snorted, and Sally did too.

Aurora suggested, “Perhaps a lesser title to start with. Perhaps ‘knight’. You want to leave yourself some room to ascend, after all.”

Mark instantly felt embarrassed again. He took his crown down and wrapped the metal around his ankles and wrists, saying, “A fine suggestion. Thank you for it.”

Aurora smirked, and then she took Eliot along to see Baron Rylan Drakemore.

And then Mark was with Sally again, sipping champagne as they stood by the railing, under the sight of the Crossing ahead. It was a beautiful sight—

“Oh!” Mark exclaimed, as he took out Quark. “You know those skywhales we never got to see last year, after we took the False Tutorial?” Quark took the initiative and started playing the video, and Mark smiled as he showed Sally. “Look! They were… Huh.”

Sally had smirked and taken out her own phone, and she was showing him her own video she had taken of the skywhales, saying, “I had almost forgotten about it, too.”

Mark laughed. “Where did you take this from?” he asked, as he watched the video.

“Eliot unfolded a wall for a viewing party— Ah, there he is.” The recording turned, and there was Eliot standing with Isoko, while Sally held her camera in her hands. She said, “We got to see them in comfort while you were stuck out on the roof.”

Mark grinned as he watched the skywhales from a slightly different angle.

They put the cameras away soon enough to just watch the Crossing, instead, as they talked about hunting monsters on Daihoon, and making money off of monster parts.

Sally said, “That’s hard work. We weren’t able to do that at all. We could only hunt for mana crystals and deposits, and we weren’t able to find much even on successful hunts. I assume that Eliot or— Or not Eliot, actually. Man-made Manipulation can’t differentiate monsters at all. I’m sure someone can make some better scanners? Someone on the ship, surely? Wealth scanners, yeah?” She glanced behind them. “I haven’t heard anyone talk about how the settlement is actually going to, you know… exist.”

Mark shrugged. “Colonizing economics.”

“But what does that mean.”

“I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to play out, but I do know that all monsters on Earth are pretty useless. The astral body decays the instant of death, and so does all the magical properties of the monsters. You have to do some pretty extensive treatments to monsters to make them harvestable, and those treatments have to be done before death… And all of that is kinda impossible on Earth. I think it’s easier on Daihoon. I think part of the army consists of monster body preppers, or harvesters. I think the actual Skill is called Harvest, too— Oh! Maybe some of the Farmers of Verdago?”

Sally looked like she realized something. “Maybe more like the Paladins of Pluta, actually. They got some sort of wealth detection magic going on… Though I suppose the Farmers of Verdago could breed monsters to have viable parts? I’m not sure. Harbordock didn’t have much of a paladin presence when I was there. A lot of places on Daihoon are like that. This new settlement is going to be an outlier simply because we have, like, 5% paladins by volume?”

Mark nodded. The numbers were somewhere around there. He said, “Isoko is at the paladin party. Want to go?”

“Not yet.” Sally gazed out at the rainbow rise of the Crossing, her drink in her hands. “Later, though. Definitely later.”

Mark and Sally ended up spending the next hour sitting and watching the Crossing draw closer and closer as the ship continued on toward Antarctica. Soon, that pointy bit of Antarctica was down below, and Mark did not know the name of that peninsula, or the names of the cities down there, among the green.

There were some big cities down there, too, because, ironically enough, being this close to the Crossing was actually rather safe for those places down there. Kaiju spilled out of the Crossing all the time, and Mark was pretty sure he saw movement in the ribbons of light, like arms and maws and tails all the sizes of buildings, showing kaiju that were close to emerging, but when kaiju came out of the Crossing, they did not come right out onto green Antarctica.

Mark pulled up his phone and asked Quark, “Can we get a kaiju watch?”

Quark flickered as he connected to the systems of the ship, which were themselves connected to the cities down below. He spoke, “Please point the camera toward the Crossing.”

Mark did so, holding Quark up for himself and Sally.

An augmented readout populated on the screen, numbers folding in with the rainbow light, sensing stuff that was far beyond normal mortal analysis—

The readout stabilized on a big ribbon of rainbows that was barely visible outside of the augmented reality view of the camera. That ribbon jutted into the ocean to the right, like a figment of a rainbow made real. Where it touched the ocean, that part was much more visible. The ocean churned into froth. Mark hadn’t even noticed the ocean was churning until he followed the trail of Quark’s analysis. He pointed the camera toward the ocean, toward the end of the rainbow, the whole thing reminding Mark of a downed power line touching a puddle of water, sparking.

Sally watched Quark. “It takes a while, huh?”

Mark said, “I’m not even sure what is happening right now. I think he’s interfacing with stuff and getting permissions and downloading programs and junk.”

“Do you need a better phone?”

“I’m thinking of getting a housing. Do you know what those are?”

“Oh yeah, you mentioned that. ‘Livium core’, right?”

Mark nodded—

Quark spat out an estimation.

“25% chance of arrival in 10 days. 75% chance nothing happens at all, and the pathway resumes moving along,” Quark said.

Sally nodded, as though she had expected that. She said, “The Crossing always dumps kaiju far beyond the central space, and that one is pretty close to land, so I doubt whatever comes out of that will be a problem. Probably a very small kaiju, if at all.”

“Huh?”

“I talked to a sailor last time I crossed, about a spot just like that one. They weren’t worried about an emergent kaiju, and they don’t get worried when the ribbons are that close to land. The ribbons that actually spit out kaiju are all far away, the Crossing flickering hard and fast… like a moving kaiju, I guess. You’ll have an hour warning on those flickers. It’s like the sky flashes outward and touches down far, far out of view. Mostly, the kaiju keep swimming or flying northward. They don’t really turn back at all.”

“Because then they’d get sucked back up into the Crossing, yeah?” Mark asked, putting Quark away.

“Yup! The kaiju that turn around aren’t a problem at all. The bigger the monster the further out they’re dumped and noticed by the Crossing; the further they’re spat out or sucked up. Little things aren’t really noticed by the Crossing until we get truly close,” Sally said. “We’re just a bunch of people, so we gotta get a lot closer before we’re noticed and sucked up into the light.”

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Mark nodded. He had heard most of that before, but actually watching the Crossing, actually seeing it up close, and seeing cities on the green land below, made everything seem more real than reading about it on the internet. Mark looked down and focused on the cities.

Those cities down below were ‘safe’ from kaiju. Kaiju could sometimes resist the Crossing if they wanted, but there were certain distances and sizes that had cause-and-effect reactions that the kaiju could not resist. They got sucked up and away when they got close. Down there on Antarctica, people only had to deal with people-sized monsters. There were still lots of super-dangerous human-sized monsters, of course. But these places were pretty much immune to the threat of kaiju.

There was a line of red on the continent below; a painted line, created by people splashing paint, or ink or whatever, over a vast, vast stretch of land, between the cities and the green of the center continent. That red zone denoted the point where people would start to get sucked up into the Crossing, too. The cities below were about ten kilometers from that red zone.

The air was warm, the sky was full of rainbows, and Mark imagined what it would have been like to grow up here. No monsters. Or at least none that were larger than human-sized. No Curtain Protocol, either. The sun was gone half of the year, and the other half of the year was full sun, like it was right now, but the Crossing was always bright. Plants and people flourished like few other places on Earth.

But past that red zone down there, only mouse-sized monsters remained. Everything else eventually got sucked into a ribbon, and then onto Endless Daihoon. The mice also got sucked up when they went too far in.

If there was something at the center of Antarctica, and up at the North Pole, too, then Mark couldn’t tell. All he could see was rainbow light, ever shifting, like the skies of Daihoon brought down to Earth, which is pretty much exactly what he was looking at.

Scientists, mages, and even archmages, weren’t sure what existed at the center of the light, or if anything existed at all. This was where land, mana, and reality twisted together. ‘What lay at the center of the Crossings’ was a trope in a lot of fiction, but if anything existed in there, then no one really knew. Maybe the demons did, but who would ever believe what they said? The gods certainly never spoke on the subject, either.

It was one of many mysteries of the Two Worlds.

Mark looked up at the ribbonwall, which was now the entire stretch of sky from left to right, and even behind them a little bit, and imagined just… going in, and then going further and further and further. On to Endless Daihoon directly. To find the elves. To find resurrection magics. To explore where few had ever explored, because everyone died to the great beasts that lived out there; the super-kaiju… if such things actually existed.

“You ever think about super-kaiju?” Mark asked.

Sally went still, and then shuddered. “No.”

Mark smirked at that obvious lie. “We’ve never seen one on Earth or Daihoon, as far as I know.”

“And thank the gods for that!”

“Maybe they can’t come to the Two Worlds because, like… Earth and Daihoon have maximum distances from the Crossings, right? That distance is the equator. Maybe, if something is too big, then they just skip over all of the Two Worlds and they never appear here at all.”

“That’s a little comforting,” Sally said, not comforted at all.

Mark chuckled, and then he asked, “How does the navigator know how to go to Daihoon, instead of to Earth? Like… We go in. I get that. And then we turn right back around, but we don’t end up on Earth?”

“You didn’t read all about it?” Sally asked, sarcasm heavy.

“I did, but it didn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t make much sense when we’re in there, either…” Sally hummed in thought, then said, “There’s like… The world… Reality splits. It’s really noticeable.” Sally paused. She shrugged. “It makes sense when you’re in there. Of course most people are just freaked out of their minds so they can’t really tell what is happening. But you can acclimate. And eventually, if you go away from the Endless Sky, if you go toward the side with a blue sky then you go to Earth. If you go to the side with a rainbow sky then you go to Daihoon. There’s also, like… a feeling? You can tell which way is toward Earth or Daihoon. It’s super easy. Some people can navigate Endless Daihoon really well. Most people freak the fuck out and stay in their rooms for days, barely eating.”

Mark nodded. He asked, “Were you stuck in your room?”

“Yes. I managed to get out of my room the second time.”

“And you’re not scared to go back in?”

Sally hummed, then said, “Some women have told me it’s like childbirth. Yes, there is pain, and when you’re in it you never want to do it ever again, but then you get out of it and you forget the pain, so you end up pregnant again.”

Mark thought about that.

And the ship sailed on, into the light.

Not too long later, some army guy came into the room and called attention to himself.

“Attention! Attention! We’re closing up the viewing area! You can stay, but the view is going away. Please vacate over to this line on the ground over here… yes, please. This way. This way! Please!”

The guy stood at a yellow and black warning line on the ground that arced across the viewing space.

Mark and Sally moved to stand behind the line and they both watched the Crossing a little bit more as the walls started to roll up, closing off the viewing platform. A second set of walls rose from the black and yellow warning line, like a double set of doors closing over, and soon the viewing platform was closed. The actual room was still there, of course, minus several meters of standing space. Some people moved on because the sight of the Crossing was gone, and the room was kinda crowded now, but some people remained to finish off their conversations or get into the thick of it, now that most people were walking away.

Mark and Sally walked down to the paladin party, on one of the lower levels.

Eliot was already there at the paladin party, standing with Isoko and a bunch of paladins, most of them in chainmail but a few wore breastplates.

They cheered as Mark and Sally showed up, all of them raising glasses and calling out, “Team Villainy!”

Mark had absolutely no idea what Eliot had been telling them, or why Isoko started laughing uproariously, or why people started cheering ‘Death to all monsters!’ next, and loudly, but Mark was here for it, and the paladin party was a whole lot more partying than it was politicking, and that seemed great. Mark got to drinking with new friends, and meeting new people he had already ‘met’ once before when he Union’d with them all during the skysnake attack, but now he could put names to feelings. There was Alice, John, Larado, Juliet, Minecent… and Mark kinda lost track after that—

The intercom flickered on, and Aurora’s voice interrupted the party, “Attention all! We will be entering the Southern Crossing in 1 minute. Expectations are high for a nothing-salad of a trip. Make sure you have a bucket on hand if you do attempt to look out any camera feeds. Please do not disturb those who choose to remain in their rooms. The paladins and the priests aboard will make sure no one is too scared. Thank you! After four minutes of transit we will be in Endless Daihoon proper, and then it will be safer to look out of the camera feeds. Expect it to take us two days to make it through the Crossing, and on to Daihoon again. Happy Crossing!”

The paladin party erupted in cheers and someone asked Eliot to ‘whip them up a big camera to view the show!’

They were going to be fearless through audacity, it seemed.

Eliot obliged with the big screen and soon, the rainbow took them.

It was twisted. It was brilliant. The world flexed, the world settled.

And then some people started puking and Mark felt a vector pressing down on them, as though the entire universe was looking at them. He broke out in a cold sweat.

And then the vector lessened, passing them by, moving on.

Mark started breathing again, and he wasn’t sure when he had stopped.

And then came rote reality, and cleaning up messes.

Mark managed to hold it in, though!

Sally groaned as she looked up at Mark. She scowled as she wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand, saying, “Yeah yeah, laugh it up.”

Mark chuckled as he pulsed with purity/impurity, washing away Sally’s mess, saying, “I’m surprised you didn’t puke already. You never liked going on Dad’s boat.”

“Hover vehicles are better than boats! Fuck boats!” Sally said, defending herself. “Just… just shut up about it.”

Mark smiled and he didn’t say another word.

Instead, he looked at the screens on the walls that showed Endless Daihoon, all around. He was not the only one staring at the world beyond.

It was beautiful.

The ship itself was in the sky, far, far above a world of blue, far, far below. Mountains rose to the sides, seeming to be as far away as the Moon and about just as detailed, though Mark knew that assessment had to be untrue. The mountains were just hundreds of kilometers away. The land below was about that far, too. The thickness of the atmosphere, due to pure distance, gave everything a slightly white hue. Some of that whiteness was clouds, like rivers flowing in the sky. Blue, brown, green, white. It was more color than reality. The sky above was layers upon layers of more lands, as though Mark was standing at the peak of a mountain and looking out across an ocean of clouds, to see the peaks of other mountains out there, like shark fins rising above the white.

The perspective of it all was kinda fucked up.

Mark wasn’t sure what he was looking at, exactly, but it gave him a little bit of a knot in his stomach to look at it all, to see all of that distance, that size, and know that he was as small as a person. The viewing vector that had consumed all of Mark’s thoughts was still out there, but it wasn’t looking at them right now.

Still kinda pissingly terrifying, though.

No wonder some people stayed in their cabins the whole trip.

Mark muttered to Eliot, “It’s a bit exhilarating, isn’t it?”

Eliot shuddered next to him, staring at the sky on the screen, saying, “The number one killer of superheroes is eventually fear. The fear of the size of it all. Megalophobia, for generalized anxiety of big things. Thalassophobia for fear of stuff hiding under water. Some people have kaijuphobia…” He shuddered again, his words lost to an unsaid emotion.

Mark was suddenly struck by the fact that he felt absolutely none of that fear.

Oh sure, being here, looking at the world beyond and imagining the monsters therein? That was scary. But not in an ‘I don’t want to be here’ sort of way. More like an ‘I want to be here and kill it’, sort of way.

Mark was pretty sure he was abnormal.

He looked around. He felt as much as saw when people turned away from the screens, unable to watch the vastness anymore. But some focused so intently on those screens that Mark felt those people would jump at the chance to get onto the roof of Grey Whale, to see it all without screens between them, muddying the experience.

And then there were the people who were watching the people, gauging them, judging them. There was High Paladin Azocar Sanchez, looking stoic in his armor. Mark had met Azocar once, and then never again, but Eliot worked alongside Azocar all the time, as Azocar was of Hearthswell and Eliot was still learning Castellan. From what Mark was sensing, Azocar was heavily judging people, to see if they were suitable for facing kaiju, and other big problems. Or at least that was the impression Mark was getting.

High Priest Galen Greene-Shield stood beside Azocar, similarly judging people. Mark hadn’t met the man before, but he had seen the guy’s picture in the information packets about the settlement program. He was the head of the chapter of the Collective that would be moving into the settlement. He was a Priest of Verdago, the God of Farming, and had taken Verdago’s human last name as his own, but he had hyphenated it with his original last name of ‘Shield’. Mark imagined there was a story there, especially since Galen was obviously Daihoonian, with bright green hair, and Verdago —aka: Daniel Greene— was originally a human of Earth.

Mark asked Eliot, “You okay, man?”

Eliot smiled a little, straining, lying, “I’m doing great!”

Mark looked toward Isoko and Sally, and both of them just shook their heads in their own ways. They weren’t doing that great, either. A lot of people were doing poorly, actually. Mark told his friends, “I don’t see any monsters out there, and whatever is looking at us is not looking directly at us. We’re fine.”

Eliot squeaked, “Something is looking at us?”

Isoko’s voice choked in her throat. She coughed.

“… Sorry, my mistake” Mark lied, “There is nothing out there.”

Eliot said, “Okay.”

Sally got all falsely enthusiastic as she said, “Yup! We’re fine!”

Eliot was pale, now.

Mark looked at Eliot. “… Eliot?”

Eliot forced a grin and said, “We’re fine! I’m fine!”

Mark opened his mouth to try and comfort Eliot in whatever way he could, but Eliot shook his head.

Mark just nodded. “How about we get you to the room and I can sit with you.”

Eliot glanced at the screens again, looking absolutely terrified of the empty views of water, mountain, and sky… And Mark realized something was happening that he didn’t understand—

Oh.

The camera views were fake.

… Well, Mark supposed that they probably had a good reason for faking the views.

Soon, when Mark, Isoko, Sally, and Eliot were all in their room, and the doors were shut—

Eliot blurted, “The screens are fake! There are so many kaiju out there… out there…” His voice trailed away.

“I know,” Mark said.

Isoko shuddered. She knew already. Sally surely knew, based on the paleness of her face.

Mark asked, “I’d like to know why they show fake videos, though.”

“They’ll show the real ones gradually,” Sally said.

Eliot nodded. “They have AI scrubbers removing the kaiju for now, but they’ll begin to drop and show the real extent of the problem eventually. The screens are showing nothing, but there are hundreds out there.”

“Thousands,” Sally whispered.

“Well none of them are looking this way, overmuch,” Mark said…

Which caused Eliot to pale.

Isoko was stoic and solid, her skin a little grey, edging toward platinum.

There was no more talk of kaiju.