Mark slept for a few hours, and so did everyone else.
Quark woke them up at 8 PM. The first of the four-episode ‘Attack the Gate’ debut series would air tonight at 9 PM, and Blackthorn had already done up a corner of the penthouse for a viewing party for Mark, Isoko, Eliot, and Sally. He had even provided drinks and pizza, and a lot of it, and then he left them to it.
Mark stepped over to a side room before the showing, to call up some important people in his life.
Soon, a familiar voice blasted out of Quark’s speakers.
“Mark!” Uncle Alexandro happily said, “You called! Why the hell didn’t you call sooner?! Did you see BIMM this morning?! We certainly did!”
His voice was happy, and that made Mark happy to hear.
But Mark had to go through the Big Concerns first, saying, “Hello, Uncle,” And also, “The Collective didn’t target you for anything, did they?”
Uncle Gabriel’s concerned voice was on the line, now, asking, “What do you mean? ‘Target’ us?”
“What’s going on, Mark?”
Gabriel said, “We saw something about that on BIMM this morning, but… It’s not part of the act?”
Mark found himself completely relieved. He sat back in his chair, while outside the guys ate pizza and talked of stuff while they all waited for the premier.
Mark easily said, “It’s nothing… Well. It’s very far from nothing, but it’s not enough to get you involved, which is what I was concerned about. Anyway, I called to make sure you guys are okay, and you are! So I’m good.”
“Is it something political? With the Collective?” Alexandro asked.
Mark tried to think of what to say. He went with, “The Battle In Memphi Mornings thing that you saw this morning... It set a very deep stage, I think. The empires of Daihoon—”
At that moment, Mark realized that Alexandro was a True Healer and of course he had dealt with things like this long before today. Shadow wars were fought over True Healers all the time… And then Mark realized that his uncles were both total hero nerds who were truly happy to see Mark play the villain, and Mark didn’t want to ruin that for them. They’d probably have some important things to say after they saw the prime time broadcast tonight, too. More relevant things, as well. The attack on the bank had only taken 10 real minutes but that would make for 24 action-filled minutes pretty easily, when shown from multiple perspectives.
Mark didn’t want to worry them, but they needed to know facts that might put them in danger.
So Mark said, “Long story short: the empires of Daihoon want from me what I’m not willing to give, and you can probably guess what that is. Hence all these trumped up charges against me. Anyway. It’s not going anywhere right now and I’m in Blackthorn’s tower with my friends and we’re getting ready to watch the premier in 40 minutes, and then go to another event that starts at 11PM, and which will broadcast tomorrow and…” And Mark's heart thumped with worry and energy and he knew, in that moment, that he was truly eager for his uncles to see him on the screen, acting like a villain. Putting down the heroes. “I haven’t seen it myself, so it’ll be a premier for me, too. You wanna, uh, watch it, uh, live streaming? I have an AI now and—”
Alexandro exclaimed, “Yes!” like he had been holding back his enthusiasm for as long as he possibly could. “Yes! Let’s set up a stream with your AI or however that would work! Gabriel knows!”
Gabriel was much more subdued as he said, “Alex. Like… He wants to watch it with his friends, not with his uncles—”
“No!” Mark protested. “I can—”
“Mark,” Gabriel cut in. “I love you a lot, and we’ll watch it again with you afterward, but you need to watch it with your friends, and I need to watch it with Alex, and then we can talk afterward. This is a very big event for you, and you need to share it with the people near you and not be distracted by your uncles getting in the way. Love you lots. Go be with your friends! Enjoy the show! We’ll call back later.”
Mark felt loved, and yeah, maybe Gabriel was right…
He had a Knowing for People, yeah? So yeah. He was probably right—
Mark suddenly needed to ask Gabriel how he had accidentally Awakened kids with Knowings for people and otherwise. What would Gabriel say to that?
But all Mark could say in the moment was, “But… But?”
He wasn’t sure what point he was getting at.
Alexandro sighed, “He’s right, once again.”
Gabriel said, “We’ll call back later, Mark!”
“Love you, Mark. Go be with your friends!”
Mark smiled, saying, “Love you two, too. Talk to you later.”
They hung up, and Mark sat there for a minute longer.
And then he went out into the penthouse and enjoyed the pizza and drinks as Isoko spread out ten different costume designs onto the table and Eliot helped to construct them into holograms and Sally talked about needing to really fight Shawn next time, and how fun it had been to trade even a few punches before Mark shut the battle down. Mark talked about Tartu and their little meeting for the second time, which led to Isoko trying to lay down scenarios where Mark busted out the big guns and Eliot instead wanted to not talk about that, and instead talk about battlefield control, and who matched up well against whom in Tartu's team. That led to a whole conversation about which matches were good for the camera, which would be shutouts, and which matchups might actually end up with them losing, if they were to fight one-on-one.
“Kardi is the real wildcard,” Isoko said, between munching on chips. “Theoretically she could shut down any of us, except maybe Mark.”
Sally scoffed. “No way.”
“She’s sandbagging, for sure,” Eliot said. “She could really fuck me up; I know that much. Don’t think she could really do much against Sally or Isoko except make them fall on their faces… somehow. Mark would be fine, I think, but she just doesn’t want to engage with you directly. Lucky types never do when it comes to the people they most wish to influence.”
Mark said, “Well if she’s sandbagging that much, for some reason, then she’ll probably keep doing it and we can discount her outside of a group battle.”
“Fair,” Isoko said. “Tartu could easily shut down any of us, though, and that’s the real worry.”
Sally wasn’t sure about that. Eliot hummed.
Mark told them all, “Expect for Tartu to shut you down because I have to let it happen, because otherwise the drama isn’t good enough. Noel warned us about shutouts today, and how dull it makes everything for the camera. A little is fine, but it goes a long way.” Mark added, “But if he brings real backup then all bets are off.”
Isoko said, “I like that plan.”
Sally shrugged.
Eliot returned to the costumes, creating a mockup of Mark wearing full adamantium plate, saying, “We should work on your final look, Mark. What’s the goal with your adamantium armor? What’s the endgame?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Isoko asked, “Can you really not do skin-tight adamantium webweave-like stuff?”
Mark said, “That requires it to be water-like, and yeah, I can do that, but it’s water-like, and that doesn’t help with protection at all. It has to be hard for protection.”
“Ahh, yeah,” Isoko said.
The conversation moved on.
All too soon, it was time for the show.
Mark sat down on the couch with Isoko on his left and Sally in a big loveseat of her own and Eliot in a nice recliner. Popcorn and sodas abounded.
And then the show started.
It started off like a news report.
“Breaking News! This morning a group of villains assaulted the First Bank of Memphi…”
It rapidly moved on to a real time drama.
Mark had been right that it was instructive to watch the fight from other perspectives, and from the sky. He focused on the storyline that Crystal Tower was building, but mostly it was 3 minutes of intro with that coffee-incident highlighted by Mark talking about how demons had killed his mother, which was…
It was fucking mortifying to watch on the screen.
… It was all so mortifying, actually.
“Oh gods,” Mark muttered to himself, throat dry, head feeling light. “I don’t think I like this.”
Isoko was having an absolute blast. Sally was getting into it. Eliot seemed like he thought he could do better with the presentation.
Mark cringed into the couch, holding a pillow in front of himself and barely looking over the edge to watch the show, because it was like watching a kaiju fall onto a city. It was horrible, and you didn’t want to watch, but you couldn’t look away. Mark had to watch himself, as Blackvein, be a drama hog whenever he was on screen.
“Demons killed her,” Blackvein said, on the screen.
Mark cringed.
Minutes passed and Mark kinda just let it pass.
It was easier to watch Sally trade blows with Shawn. Miss Masher tried to mash Reflect Man, as Reflect Man tried to carve into Miss Masher’s super-hard flesh, both of them glowing gold in each action, Retribution working overtime. Their fight was actually really good, with the smaller guy bouncing around, launching himself off of surfaces to get better angles on Sally in a truly interesting application of Retribution, while Sally parried with her fists and kicked hard and moved really fast for such a large person, without an actual speed multiplier. She always was good with her body, though. Mark was impressed that she managed to keep as much grace as she had, even with being so much larger and weightier.
Isoko was a dancer with that overly-thick sword of hers, the camera highlighting her speed and her ‘invulnerability’ as bullets deflected off of even her clothes.
Eliot was a scout, primarily, who pretended to only be able to do small tricks with the floors and walls and clothes and other objects. He was mostly the POV in several scenes, for he had some good recordings from his visor, highlighting things like attack vectors and parts of the fights that needed to be dealt with faster than others.
And then Mark cringed as he was on the screen again, and Isoko smiled wide at Mark cringing. She tore the pillow away from him and laughed and Mark went for the blanket instead, and then Sally pulled at the blanket and Mark was left to hide behind a sheet of adamantium, and both of the girls tsk’d at him.
But Mark was hiding from the shame and he was feeling better for doing that—
Eliot said, “Oh holy fuck, Mark. Calling Tartu a traitor while he rubbed his own face in the glass was really cool!”
“Nooo,” Mark whispered.
“Super cool,” Sally said.
“Noooo~” Mark whimpered, trying to hide. “Don’t say it again—”
“Oh here it comes! The big Dom/Sub aura reveal!” Isoko said, pointing at the screen and jumping up and down. “Oh my gods it’s so much cooler… Oh my gods. Look at that street of people all on the ground.”
The camera followed Blackvein outside, while he carried bags of goldleaf, and then there was an army arrayed against him. Cops and paladins and hovercars in the air, and Mark was a beacon of black lightning connecting to them all.
They all bowed to Mark, some harder than others. The camera flashed around, picking out people who struggled, and then sticking with them as they went slack, glassy-eyed, and reverent.
With awe in her voice, Sally said, “That’s what that looked like? Holy fuck, I don’t even… remember.”
Blackvein walked forward and he cut a car in half and tossed the parts aside, while everyone bowed.
“… Okay maybe that is a bit cool,” Eliot said, “Glad they added me in post, too. We can all just pretend I was there for that, for sure.”
… Well… Maybe… As Mark was looking at it again…
Maybe he had looked a little cool.
And then Sally had to ruin it, saying, “That’s a really great ass in that webweave, too.”
Mark threw a pillow at her.
“I meant my ass, prick!” Sally said, throwing the pillow back at him and laughing.
“Now now,” Isoko said, “You both have great asses but I will move merch because I have a great ass AND it’s just miniskirts, and those are valid everyday clothing options.”
Mark threw a pillow at her, too.
Eliot said, “I can tell I need to hit the gym more.”
“You do!” Mark said, “You can join the rest of us!”
“Yes!” Isoko said. “Tomorrow is chest!”
“But are you gonna wear webweave, too?” Sally asked, smirking.
“If I get a good enough ass, then yes,” Eliot said. “I will absolutely wear webweave.”
“And we can be a true team!” Isoko said, thrilled about everything.
Mark grinned. He was also slightly thrilled about everything—
His phone rang. It was his uncles.
He took the call in the other room and both Alexandro and Gabriel started singing his praises, and talking about a bunch of hero and villain debuts that Mark had never heard of, comparing them to him, and saying a bunch of things that kinda just went in one ear and out the other. It was all good things. Mark was really happy.
And in a few hours, it would be time to do another show.
Mark was looking forward to it.
