Adamant Blood

Mark did not bother hiding himself, for these people here, these ‘traders’, traded with Earth and also Daihoon. They knew Mark. They knew Blackvein. Nokaro had recognized Mark, even though he had been imprisoned for a month and he had no idea why Mark was solid black, but he knew Mark anyway. Many of the people of ‘Trader’s Cove’ knew of Mark, in at least a vague sort of way. Some more than most.

They would learn a lot more, soon enough.

Glory and Fear flexed in and out of Mark as he floated forward, ramrod straight up and down, Quark floating in his black orb, the world dimming and glittering as Mark floated through the mist, over the water entrance. That woman from the exterior lookout was running below him, trying to report to the city directly since her radios weren’t working and Eliot had cut her alarm activation. She looked up at Mark and she pissed herself in fear, frozen, and then falling to the barnacle-covered ground. Crabs ran fleeing. And then a lookout inside the crack in the bone saw Mark, and they fired off the alarm.

Eliot let that alarm go through, this time.

A blaring siren whooom whooom’d, double pulsing in the air, echoing off of bone and water, as Mark passed through the weapon-guarded entrance into the main cove. Ballistae, both cannons and lasers, highlighted Mark as Mark flew inward. The people operating those turrets couldn’t aim for shit with the fear running through them right now.

A cannonball sailed 10 meters wide of Mark. A laser carved 40 meters below him, burning the bone behind him and severing a few cage chains. The cages clattered to the ground, echoing the world with sound.

Mark flew inward, past the guarded curve in the splinter of the broken bone, into a massive channel 100 meters wide and a few kilometers long, where hovercars remained at docks for the lookouts to take when they had to get to the main city. It would have been a walkotherwise. As it was, it was still a decent flight through a tall, arched tunnel with deep waters down below. It was a manufactured entrance. A real entrance, hidden just beyond a hidden cove.

From this point on, it was an ancient city, long lost to time, overtaken by raiders long ago.

Mark flew into the main cavern of Trader’s Cove, into the ‘open’, ‘sunlight’ sky.

It was bright inside. Kabberjaw’s bones gave the ‘sky’ of Trader’s Cove a white-bone color.

Weird.

Amazing, really.

Quiet and peaceful, too.

The darkest part of the interior city was the grand lake in the center, which was about 20 kilometers across and shaped like a bean. The bottom of the cavity was way down there, beyond the depths of the water to see. The hollow part of the bone went up and up, and water cascaded down in multiple waterfalls from high up there. Every horizontal surface, of which there were lots because someone had carved a layered city into this place, was covered in greenery. An entire forest took up multiple layers over there, to the north. There was an entire ecosystem in here. Trees and birds. Plentiful fish in those waters. And people. Boats everywhere on the water. Hovercraft on higher levels of carved, layered city. It was an old place. Very old. Broken buildings covered in vines and trees were everywhere. Several parts of the interior city were clearly inhabited.

Mark spotted Eliot’s grav crystal far, far on the other side of the open air of the lake, and up a few kilometers. It was a massive floating purple-and-white crystal, easily 250 meters across at the thickest part and maybe 350 meters lengthwise. Several boats were around it. Quark picked up a few ships tugging off pieces of the massive crystal. Eliot estimated that half of it was already gone.

It was more crystal than they needed, anyway.

The alarm system was still whoop whooping, undulating the air with concern. Of more concern was Mark, though. People spotted him as he flew into the sky of Trader’s Cove, glowing with Glory and pulsing the world black with Fear.

Eliot had overtaken the intercom and communications system a while ago.

Mark used that communication system to speak to Trader’s Cove, “I have come for my grav crystal, and to reorder your entire society. I demand to speak to Captain Grey, Mist Sister, and Bone-Knife. Appear before me or be ripped from your homes and comfort. You have 5 minutes.”

Mark flickered with Alacrity/Slowness and became a shooting star, ripping across the center of Trader’s Cove, right through the entire space. He came to a stop 400 meters in front of his grav crystal, on one of the upper-middle layers of Trader’s Cove. The crystal was stuck at the end of a 500 meter long air dock, and a big grey ship was docked to the side of the dock. The grey ship was called ‘Greywater’. Eliot suspected it was Captain Grey’s ship, though he didn’t have eyes-on Captain Grey quite yet.

Everywhere there were pirates running for the hills, or at least whatever passed for hills around here, gunning their hover boats as fast as they could. Some of them had big fragments of floating crystal wrapped with rope and pulled behind their hovertugs.

All of them were practically frozen in time, for the moment.

The people looked pretty normal. Scared, mostly.

Mark reminded himself that most people were normal, even in the most horrible places in the Two Worlds… of which this was not. Mark knew what bad places looked like. Trader’s Cove was much more complicated than a handful of pirates and horrors. Sure, Mark saw and knew of that stuff, and he would be ending it today. But mostly… people just tried to get along.

Mark was absolutely sure, even as he cut the ropes around the stolen crystals, that the people who had gotten the crystal had paid for it, or bargained for it, and they were still out of those payments or bargains… But whatever. Still justthieves, until proven otherwise.

The proving and the culling would come soon enough.

For now, they were just thieves.

… You know... That Skull Keeper priest, Sela Vonn, had probably contacted these people to take this crystal from him, just to spite Mark and Eliot and all of them. These people were dragonists who worshiped Kabberjaw, and they kept the worship going. The priests liked that, and Captain Grey kept most non-Kabberjaw worship away. Captain Grey didn’t do nearly enough against the cultists, but cultists were going to cultist. Mark noticed several glowing dragon skull icons among the population, hanging from necks or hanging over doors… So maybe not thieves, but…

Fuck them.

Mark returned to Glory/Fear and filled the world with absolute terror and bright, shining power.

People screamed. People cowered and fled as they could, which was not much at all.

Mark grabbed the separated crystals and dragged them back to the main crystal, which was tied up to the end of a very large air dock about 500 meters long. People cowered on the dock. Mark let the fragmented crystal click against the main crystal, its own gravity keeping it together. Some people were on the crystal itself, hammering at it with giant picks. Mark picked up those people and set those people back onto the dock, to stand beside their pirate friends.

And then Mark took a hover above the crystal, and he let his Glory/Fear relax. People fled if they could. Most could not, though. Most remained and stared, wondering what was going to happen next.

Mark looked around the dock. He gazed out at Trader’s Cove.

He found the person in charge rapidly enough.

A man stood at the edge of the grey ship Greywater, on the gangplank, glaring. Calculating. He had just come up from inside of his ship. Two people near the man deferred to him, hoping he could do something. More than 40 of the people nearby were also looking at the man. Eliot and thus Quark identified the man long before Mark needed to, but from the way he commanded the obedience of his people, from his grey coat to his grey hair, Mark would have guessed the guy was Captain Grey anyway.

Mark hovered in Glory and Fear as he called out, “Captain Grey, I presume! Any idea where your colleagues are?”

Captain Grey covered his lips with a hand so Quark couldn’t read his lips as he said something small to his people near him. They nodded. One of them moved behind a crate and started typing on a phone. Eliot moved a drone overhead, like a hidden dragonfly, to look directly down on them. Quark translated what the person behind the crate was typing.

‘Deathsnipe target’.

Mark frowned.

The alarm was still going.

Mark said, “Eliot. Turn off the alarm, please, and broadcast my voice again.”

The alarm cut.

Mark spoke through every radio, every speaker, every system in Trader’s Cove, “Come out, come out, wherever you are, Mist Sister and Bone-Knife.” Mark nodded. Quark and Eliot knew to cut the voice. He spoke normally to Captain Grey, “Get the fuck over here, asshole. Let’s talk about your future in these lands.”

Captain Grey flicked a finger down and to the side.

Mark sighed a little—

A flicker of light to the side, and then something impacted Mark’s face. It stung a bit, and then it fell onto his shoulder and down into his illusionary clothes. Mark caught it, whatever it was, and then he held it up. It was a very deformed bullet and some scattered glittery dust of some sort. The bullet was dull black, and hot.

“Analysis?” Mark asked, holding it up for Quark to see.

“I’m seeing depleted uranium and some sort of mana crystals and enchantment. Cross referencing… Theory found. Based on the call for a ‘death snipe’ and the soft black flames on some of the shrapnel on your shoulder, it was a death-mana-enhanced bullet.”

Mark glanced down at his shoulder, where the illusionary clothes covered his skin. A little flicker of black fire burned just under the illusion. Mark brushed it off, and then looked straight at Captain Grey, who looked stoic, while everyone else looked fearful.

“You wanna try again?”

Captain Grey roared, “Fire!”

Bullets peppered Mark from every angle, first from people far outside of his normal Union range, and then closer in, as more and more people began following orders, even with Fear driving into their hearts. The world vanished behind a mist of grey shrapnel and occluding effects, as people with all sorts of weapons started unloading on Mark. Fire. Ice. Shadow. Bright sparks of light that felt almost divine in nature; probably bullets ‘blessed by Kabberjaw’, or whatever. Dark spots that erupted in tiny nightmares, driving into Mark’s adamantine flesh and getting nowhere. Lightning crackled and fell away, skittering onto the grav crystal below… maybe. There was a lot of smoke.

The firing stopped.

Mark waved the air with a rotor, Fear snapping through every nearby vector as Mark stood revealed in Glory, as he said, “Most of the people of Kabberjaw don’t know who I am. But you do, Captain Grey. You and your entire crew know who I am. There are only 4 people in the area that don’t know who I am.” Mark turned and pointed at a tugboat that had 4 people, a small family, that Mark had taken back his crystal from. “You 4 can go.”

Mark snapped at them with Glory and they suddenly kicked into gear, slamming the throttle forward, the mom, dad, and the two teenage daughters, holding on as the ship suddenly got going fast. The two skinny girls had to be 16 or something. Both of them stared at Mark, fear and glory in both of them, vectors unfurling… Awakening. Ah, well. They were Awakened now. Oh well. Good for them.

Mark turned back toward Captain Grey. “Your other captain friends gonna get here soon? Or shall—”

“We’re here, asshole,” said a voice on the wind as a misty length of air flowed through Mark, like the softest bit of breeze.

The mist breeze sliced Mark up the middle, from groin to head.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mark spread left and right as he turned off his Union and pretended to fall. Dead.

Not really dead at all.

A woman made of mist stepped into the air beside him, snarling with a smirk as she exclaimed, “HOOO FUCK! That’s a payday! WOOOO!”

A man on the dock screamed and then exploded into gore and bone that rapidly came back together, into the shape of a different man made entirely of sharp bones. “I’ll kill your kin if you keep all that adamantium for yourself.”

Captain Grey shouted at Bone-Knife, “Fuck off, Bony! Your bullets didn’t do shit!” He told Mist Sister, “Get away from my kill, Misty, or I WILL Warp you.”

Mist Sister cackled as she descended onto the grav crystal, fingers and arms turning into long misty blades. “I took him down! He’s all mine!”

Captain Grey struck with a burst of light from his body that collapsed onto Mist Sister, inverting the misty woman’s vector inside of her suddenly-solid body. She didn’t even scream. She just fell down onto the crystal next to Mark, her mind turned inward. That would be the Warp that Nokaro had thought that Captain Grey had trapped him in, back during the interrogation.

A lot of things would have happened very fast, if Mark would have allowed them to happen.

Bone-Knife down there was getting ready to attack Captain Grey, to explode into the body of the woman standing behind Captain Grey and then probably slice into the Captain. His vector was already headed that way. Captain Grey tried to Warp Bone-Knife, too, but he couldn’t do 2 people at the same time very easily, or maybe Bone-Knife just had a higher Mind than Mist Sister. Whatever the case, Bone-Knife was going to take advantage of the situation to get rid of an old enemy.

Someone on the dock yelled about treaties being violated, even as Bone-Knife casually tore out that guy’s throat as he still worked his vector to bone-teleport behind Captain Grey, and Captain Grey tried to Warp Bone-Knife again.

Everyone had discarded the threat of Mark just like that.

A much more natural fear spread like wildfire.

Mark had seen enough.

Mark undulated a Union of Life with Entropy and Energy, slamming a shutdown into the three horrors of Trader’s Cove.

Mist Sister’s body fully coporealized. She was covered in old wounds and bleeding from demonic runes carved into her face, chest, and all the rest of her. She was still Warped, all of her vectors forcibly pointed inward. She stared at the ground, unable to move or think.

Bone-Knife’s bone-teleport failed before it could really start. He fell to the ground, his body writhing in pain because he was made of bone and gore, and not real flesh at all.

Captain Grey faltered, grabbing the railing of his ship, the grey cast to his clothes, hair, body, and eyes, all fading.

Mark gathered his body like darkness coalescing, stretching tall into the air above the grav crystal, then he grabbed the head of Mist Sister and twisted, ripping her skull from her body. Some of her spine came along for the ride. Blood and flesh and bone dripped like thick gel onto the purple grav crystal underneath. She was still alive, somehow, and seemingly stuck inside of her mind due to Captain Grey’s Warp. She was naturally resistant to death, as well, because she had an elemental body. Mark would figure out how to kill her later.

Mark descended onto the airdock, to stand next to Bone-Knife’s struggling body. He was in so much pain that he couldn’t think. His Elemental Body didn’t seem like a good one; it was probably a cultist thing. Mark did not feel bad for him. Bad people should feel bad about themselves, and it was good when that happened.

With a casual twist of black Mark ripped the guy’s head from his body, too, but Bone-Knife stuck around, too. He even looked at Mark with hateful eyes made of gore and bone and no real eyeballs at all. Mark’s eyes weren’t real eyeballs either, but they were still as expressive as before, and this guy’s expression was similarly capable.

Being removed from his body stopped a lot of the pain, huh?

Weird.

Mark asked, “Do you think you lost touch with your humanity when you ended up with… whatever it is. ‘Gore Body’? Or was it a gradual loss of personhood that caused you to be who you are?”

Bone-Knife was in too much pain to answer, but he also couldn’t die that easily, and soon he became incapable of doing anything but existing in the pain. Mist Sister and Bone-Knife remained alive.

Mark flexed his Union into Purity/Corruption, tagging Bone-Knife and Mist Sister as impure, as corrupt. Black lightning zapped into the heads of the killers and turned Bone-Knife into a discarded shattering of black dust that faded away into nothing at all. One near-unkillable monster down.

Two more to go.

Under the same smattering of black lightning, Mist Sister’s horrific scarring on her face and bald head turned into simple wounds. Her skull flexed back to immaterial mist, just a little, and then even her wounds faded. She was still under Captain Grey’s Warp, her vector turned inward, but Purity wasn’t killing her, so Mark would need to figure out how to kill her some other way.

Captain Grey stumbled on the edge of his ship, the momentary lapse of Mark’s Entropy letting him recover a fraction of himself. He yelled out, “Wait! I can give you Trader’s Cove! I can work for you!”

Mark turned the Entropy back on and Captain Grey stumbled against the railing of his ship, holding on as hard as he could. Mist Sister’s head turned solid again. Mark held that head in the palm of his right hand as he floated toward Captain Grey, saying, “Try again.”

Captain Grey stumbled over his words, and then rapidly said, “If you kill us then Kabberjaw dies a faster death! No one wants to live under Stronghold or Skybones! Once we leave the waters then it’s total war between all three cities as they cannibalize each other.” When he noticed Mark didn’t kill him, he continued, “They’ll all die without the medicines and resources we bring in. Ever since Malaqua prevented people from respawning here after the Thresher, this place has been dying. We’re the last line of hope for everyone in this entire civilization, and there’s no way that anyone is ever coming to help us, not when we’re all heretics from the Empires. Any time we try to reach out to them they kill us!”

Captain Grey meant that. He believed it. All of his people believed it, too. The woman next to him, the one who had been about to erupt in bones from Bone-Knife, was groaning on the ground, in pain from the harsh cleansing of her body of Bone-Knife, but she was also praying, holding on to hope that Captain Grey would be able to live. Several people on the docks were hoping for the same.

Mark had already made his decision about Captain Grey after hearing about how the guy Warped people into being sycophants. Nokaro would never again be his own person; he would alwaysbe beholden to Captain Grey’s Mind Warp.

Mark held up Mist Sister’s head, though, deflecting that decision for the moment, asking, “She’s a big cultist, yes? How do I kill her?”

“You don’t have to kill her, now. I’ve never been able to Warp her before because she’s always been on guard so strongly, but with this she’ll be a better person.” Captain Grey tried to stand tall. “I will make Kabberjaw into a full, great society with her on my team. I swear on Drakarok’s name! May he strike me down right now if I am lying!”

“Sure. May Drakarok strike you down if you are a bad leader.”

David appeared to the side of Captain Grey, with Sally in tow.

As expected.

Sally was quite a bit larger and brighter than before, standing resplendent in her full armor, and also clad in full gold. She was a titan in that moment, holding aloft a sword of brightest sunshine and golden radiance, screaming a song of Retribution. Every single person on Captain Grey’s ship flickered with that same, sparking radiance, each of them crying out in some deep part of them that Captain Grey had twisted and deformed into what he wanted it to be.

Sally moved her hand.

It was the guillotine decision of a god.

Captain Grey became gore, scattered on the sky.

Mark held out Mist Sister’s sleeping, Warped head, on a bit of adamantium, reaching the head out to Sally.

Sally took that head into her much larger palm and then crushed it completely, her grip flashing with brightest gold as she screamed, wordless, hateful, crying tears of golden light under her helmet. And then she turned to the first mate, taking the woman’s whole head into her hand, and she squeezed, popping that head like a grape. She moved on to the second mate, killing him, too.

A golden vector pointed inside Sally’s soul toward three more people, two of which were inside the ship.

She went to enact the justice of the gods.

Mark stood on the dock, feeding Sally a Union of Good, drawing out all of the Bad like poison, black lightning sparking on the ground around him, miasma flowing away so thick it was like oil. Sally soon came back out of the ship, ripping through the doorway with a casual slap, her body twice as big as before.

Sally moved onto the gangplank, her golden TT vector holding the plank together to support her multi-ton weight. She executed three more people on the dock and Mark watched.

And then she was done.

… For now.

David had gone somewhere, but he returned in that moment, covered in blood, his arms fully red all the way up to his shoulders and gore all down his chestplate and the rest of his speedster armor. He said, “Inquisition complete. They got the grav crystal out through an opening in the ceiling, way up there. I notified Eliot. Isoko is bringing the Dreadnought around.”

Mark nodded. He asked, “Total dead?”

“239 demon cultists of varying ages. Mostly 16 or over. I’m sure I missed some. And I didn’t kill the kids. The kids are going to be problems eventually.”

Sally shuddered.

Mark would get to Sally soon, but he nodded at David’s response, and then he asked, “How was it?”

David said, “Not my first purge. Won’t be my last one, either. Isoko should come in here and heal some people. I didn’t do that. I mostly released the prisoners from the whore houses, while I killed the madams and pimps. I got about 90% of the leadership of this place, too. All of them were cultists. A lot of people need healing. I did not do that.”

“I’ll be…” Sally took a breath. “I’ll be going over them soon. The remaining leadership. Whoever is left.”

Mark looked at Sally, who was breathing heavy, her golden armor fading, her body shrinking a little. She was still easily twice her normal size by weight, maybe 4 meters tall. She had been 6 meters tall. Sally took off her helmet and breathed deep.

Mark asked, “How about you? You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

David patted Sally on the hip; it was as high as he could reach. She chuckled nervously, and then muttered about being ‘I’m okay. Really, I am.’ No one believed her.

Mark spoke into his comms, “Isoko. I need you in here and flying around to heal some people. Let’s all come inside for a day or two. Solve some long term problems— Ah. Did you guys execute Nokaro?”

Lola responded, “We have chosen not to. That could change. He is guilty of a lot of things but none of them are cultist activities. We need to restore order in a solid, beneficial way, and soon.”

David said, “This place is guilty of a LOT… but not much cultist stuff, overall.”

Mark nodded and said, “In the next few days, I want to gift all of Mist Sister, Bone-Knife, and Captain Grey’s stuff to some people who will use them well, in order to empower them and prevent direct conflicts over inheritance. I also want to get Raptor in here— Everyone noticed when Captain Grey didn’t mention Raptor when he said that ‘no one wants to live under Stronghold or Skybones’, yeah? So let’s get something going in that direction, unless people have better ideas.”

People were still on the docks, scared and unmoving. Staring.

Mark told Eliot, “Patch me into the full system again, Eliot, please.”

Eliot said, “Done.”

“Attention Trader’s Cove,” Mark began, his voice echoing across the deep blue waters of the interior of a rib bone of Kabberjaw. “If you wish to hate someone for your change in lot, then hate me. I am Mark Careed, otherwise known as the supervillain Blackvein, and I have chosen to remove the cultist threat from your people. Mist Sister, Bone-Knife, and Captain Grey are no more. Over the next few days we will be dispensing the property of those people who were the worst among you to worthy hands…”

Mark continued to speak about important things as the Dreadnought began to descend through the bone-white sky of Trader’s Cove. Isoko breezed away from the ship like a silver glitter in the air, to gently fly next to one of the main concentrations of active lands within Trader’s Cove, to flow a healing wind into the world.

The land glowed slightly as darkness escaped from the layered city.

Mark finished his message and then started again, repeating everything for the people who might have missed it the first time.