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Mark found himself standing on the large rock outcropping that was the back end of the Dreadnought, staring off into the unobstructed rainbow night sky, thinking.
Isoko landed beside him and sat down, saying, “Hey.”
“Hey.”
And then Isoko laid her head on Mark’s shoulder, and held his arm.
The world was hard, but Isoko was soft and nice.
And yet…
This wasn’t fair to her. Not really.
“I tried putting sex stuff in my house,” Mark said.
Isoko didn’t tense. She didn’t even sound worried, as she asked, “How’d that go?”
“Not good, but… Maybe some day.”
“Don’t go changing yourself for me, Mark.”
“But that’s what you want, right? A real relationship?”
“This can be a real relationship, too, if you want. Or we could just be friends.”
Mark had flashbacks to middle school with Sally.
He couldn’t let that happen again.
Mark wasn’t even sure what to say, but he started, “I—”
“Or you could fall in love when I start shredding kaiju by myself, and we can see where the mood takes us.”
Mark found himself grinning. “That sounds more realistic.”
Isoko threw her head back and laughed. Then she asked, “You think they’re gonna throw us a big party when we get back?”
“Maybe after we do a few days worth of bitch work as punishment for being Absent Without Official Leave But Without The Intent To Desert.”
“Just call that AWOL.”
“I didn’t know the full meaning of the word until about an hour ago.”
“Ohhh… yeah. You talked to Aurora, then? How’d that go?”
“She’s happier now that we’re back.”
“That bad, huh?”
- -
Two hours ago:
“HOLY FUCKING SHIT GODS DAMN THANK YOU THAT YOU’RE ALIVE, BUT I’M PISSED AS HELL AT YOU.”
“Uh… Hello, Aurora,” Mark said. “Sorry for, uh, being gone so long.”
Aurora was absolutely livid on the other side of the video call. She also chuckled maniacally and then she sighed and sobbed, and then she laughed… and then she sighed, and asked, “You saw all of my messages to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Then this will be simple: Bitch work until the settlement is settled again. Public addresses that you’re here, and that you’re not going anywhere on your own until your honorable duty is done as part of the settlement project— that goes for everyone.None of you are excused. All of you will be doing your duty. Every part of this CRAZY THING KNOWN AS THE SYSTEM RESET QUEST will be starting in this settlement. We need money, too. And Eliot has a list of duties about 10 days long, at least, and Isoko and Sally are on the Kaiju Squad and if Buckler and Lancer say a SINGLE GODSDAMMNED THING AGAINST YOU OR YOURS then you are to execute them and keep the fallout contained. With any luck they’ll vanish and not return.” Aurora took a breath. “Anything I need to know?”
“Uh… Addavein is human-sized now, and he’s coming to the settlement, too.” Mark watched Aurora’s white eyebrows crawl upwards as the air around her took on a prismatic hue, her prismatic white hair floating a little as her eyes flickered with rainbows. Mark rapidly added, “He applied for a teaching position and I want him there and can-you-please-make-that-happen.”
Aurora verbally ripped him a new one.
Mark had flashbacks to Elder Leeom at the Elven Lands, and also his Tutorial Instructor back in high school, and even his rugby coach, and even grandpa. Aurora had a style all her own, of course, for she spoke about taxing him at 95% for a few months and, ‘since he wanted to be in the public eye so much!’, making him do public speaking roles about the danger of unprotected sex, and how many diseases one can catch.
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- -
Mark told Isoko, “She didn’t expressly forbid Addavein from showing up, so that’s good.”
Isoko paused in deep thought, her vector reaching out, but afraid— “So, uh…” She spoke before she was ready, asking, “You okay with… all of that?”
“It’s different now that he’s human-sized and shaped. Easier, in some ways. Harder in others. It’s an adjustment! But… he’s a Hero of Humanity, despite… everything he did. So… So this is the right thing, isn’t it?”
“Just because he’s a Hero of Humanity doesn’t mean he has to be your brother, or even near us.”
“I think if I fought with him I couldn’t stop, so… I don’t want to fight with him at all, Isoko.”
“… Okay.”
They watched the auroras of the night sky for a little while.
Isoko asked, “Any idea which ones we might have visited?”
“Not the slightest.”
- - - -
In a morning sky laden with rainbows, the returning heroes pulled into the airspace of a settlement in the wilds, their airship flickering with colors, their Castellan shield a glittering amber surrounding it all. A doorframe twice as large as the ship stood off-center of the settlement, while people floated in the sky everywhere, many of them welcoming the crew back to Daihoon. A contingent of soldiers in uniform stood in the sky in a standard arc arrangement, while a certain princess floated in front of them.
Walaria waved a hand as cameras flickered with light, and fireworks blossomed across the entire settlement wall. The music swelled. The cheers erupted.
It was a homecoming.
Newly minted superheroes gave small speeches of various lengths and topics as determined by the leader of the settlement. That leader stood behind them as they spoke, slight rainbows folding around her.
Mark gave a big speech about unity and the future, though he didn’t say much at all during the speech. He had said enough in the documentary. Not everyone had seen it, though almost everyone had gotten the gist of it.
A System Reset.
A chance for a world without monsters or kaiju or demons.
All it would take were a million miracles in a long line of even more miracles.
“But the gods are here to help!” Mark called out, “So miracles are plentiful.”
Behind closed doors, the returning hero managed to avoid a true interrogation by a princess and a rainbow leader, for it was just a greeting, for now. Everyone was too busy to have real talks about anything at all.
And then the day was over.
Mark stood on the prow of the Dreadnought, parked just outside of the settlement. He watched the sun set across the Shine.
Eliot, Sally, Isoko, and almost everyone else were down in town, at their house or otherwise, fixing the place up, or talking to people. David and Lola were down at the church. Andria and Tartu were having witchy meetings with Walaria and Reeni.
Addavein stepped onto the railing with Mark, asking, “So you just stuck the orb of orichalcum into your belly, and that works?”
“Yup,” Mark said, patting his belly. David had gotten the orichalcum and then Mark had stuck it in his stomach, just like before. “No idea how it works, either. If I wrap it in adamantium it digests faster, too, and the adamantium flows into my astral body as well. No idea how that works, either.” Mark asked, “Did you get your professorship approved?”
“Tentatively…” Addavein looked at Mark a little, and then turned back toward the front, looking outward as he said, “I will be taking Eliot up on the housing offer, though Walaria has declared that I cannot live in the city. I’m going to build a tower across the Shine. Eliot will still connect it to the settlement’s Castellan shield.”
Mark breathed out, “That’s good… I saw you and Reeni talking a lot. Is she still going to try and separate you into your different souls?”
“There’s nothing to separate that either of us can feel. The cake has been baked, and there is no unbaking it… without death, perhaps. The demons seem to have more ways of undoing things than us mere mortals...” Addavein looked at Mark. “I have been unable to figure out how to say this in a less strange way, so I will simply say it:
“I am not Sloane. But I have all of his memories.
“Sometimes I think I am Sloane.
“I might be wrong. I might be right. I have no idea of how to tell one way or the other.
“But I do know that you have been instrumental in allowing me to maintain my humanity. More than I can truly say, because I have been watching you. I have been unwilling to step in because I know that would damage the relationship we have… but that was the lie. The truth is I expected a great deal more anger from you, always, and I was afraid of that anger, because if we fought, then I would lose my anchor to humanity. That is an unfair thing to put upon you, but everything about all of this is unfair. I got some of your anger today, but I expected more. I am grateful if this is the extent of your anger, but I would understand if it was worse. I would understand if you were holding back… and you probably were.
“I have personally harmed you, and Sloane has harmed you, and we are the same person yet not the same person at all, and you are honorable enough to overcome this hardship. It is what talzarkis should be; born in hardship and forgiving of the past all in order to forge a better future.
“But I am truly sorry, Mark, for everything that happened, for everything that you were put through because of me.”
Mark felt a great weight of emotion as Addavein spoke not as a dragon but as a fellow human. For a moment, Mark said nothing, for if he spoke then some floodgates to parts unknown would open and Mark had no idea what would spill out.
The wind blew softly in from the north. It had a bit of a chill, but Mark was an Adamantine Immortal and Addavein had ‘Dragon Body’. They were both physically comfortable, even if their emotional vectors were all over the place.
And then Mark said, “You should just be Addavein; the son of Addashield, made to carry on the better parts of his legacy.” Mark looked at Addavein, and said, “I can be talzarki with my younger brother.”
Addavein stared at the sky with Mark, and then he nodded. “Okay.”