“I don’t know why he was so worried about emotions,” Sally said, walking through the guts of the giant chimeric dog’s corpse, flicking meat off of her shoulder with one hand and smashing down on a little chimera with her free sword. The little ape-like-thing exploded. Sally grabbed her other sword from where it held on her back, ready for more action as she said, “I always have lots of emotions when I’m killing shit.”

  “Me, too,” Mark said. “Mostly a need to kill and not be killed in turn.”

  “Exactly!”

  Mark switched to a Union of purity/impurity. Blood and guts began to evaporate from Sally, and from Isoko, who was still stuck inside of the other chimeric monster. She was working her way out of it, though, with Mark helping to disintegrate the flesh around her. There was a lot of flesh, though.

  The big monster was a sack of furry flesh about the size of a house.

  Isoko had launched herself at about a minute ago, and instead of carving into the thing’s side, spilling out its insides, Isoko had gone right in. After a brief moment of panic and carving around with her sword, Isoko managed to kill the thing from the inside.

  Sally had done much the same.

  These particular chimeras were some sort of mega slime, monster-absorbing-type of chimera. There had been several of them, and they had been rolling across the land, sucking up everything they touched to make it a part of themselves, but Mark had taken care of 2, Sally took care of another 2, and Isoko had killed 2 and then gone after a third, but the third one had sucked her in.

  Aside from a small moment of panic, and the monsters being tougher on the inside than the outside and full of smaller chimeras on the inside, Isoko was doing fine.

  Eliot said, “Monsters can be weird, and I think we’re gonna get really famous, so yeah, Noel was worried we might meet a dangerous monster.” Eliot rode on a personal hovercart while tens of drone cameras hovered in the air, taking shots of the winterscape and the battlefield all around. “He probably didn’t think our escort was going to come out with us, either.”

  Mark smiled a little bit, and then he looked upward.

  Blackthorn and two of his girlfriends were in a private hovervan high overhead that was invisible and more like a personal pleasure palace than any sort of transport vehicle. The archmage wasn’t fully indisposed right now, but he was close to it. But when Mark told the archmage that they had wanted to go out and hunt dangerous monsters Blackthorn had eagerly decided to follow along. His girls wanted to watch Mark and his team mutilate some monsters—

  “Okay okay!” Blackthorn’s voice flowed down from high overhead, barely there but still distinctly present. “I see it, and bets are closed!”

  Mark scanned the sky a little to find the archmage, and there he was, hanging out of the side of the hovervan. Light and music poured out of the open doorway, but there was nothing outside of that open door, for the whole thing was still invisible. Blackthorn’s black and gold ‘bathrobes’ fluttered in the wind as he pointed in the distance, his vector pointing toward… Mark followed the line of direction… Toward… That tree in the distance?

  What was wrong with the tree? It was winter and so the trees were all bare, and so was that tree.

  Maybe it was a little bit bigger than the other—

  A coruscating line of brilliant gold fire pulsed out of Blackthorn’s hand, drawing a drunken line across the world, intersecting the tree and about a hundred meters on both sides. The tree caught fire and twisted into a living thing that then screamed and exploded into burning golden debris.

  Happy feminine voices called out from inside Blackthorn’s vehicle, like cheerleaders in the throes of watching a touchdown, game-winning pass.

  And Blackthorn happily announced, “Looks like Candice was right! That was a mimic! You owe both of us some of that, sweet, sweet, pu—”

  And then the door to the invisible hovervan closed.

  Mark looked at the golden fire for a moment longer.

  And then the monster body all around Isoko had finally reached a critical mass of lost flesh, the body bubbling and decaying all around her. Isoko slashed through the furry exterior, up and down, before slashing left and right and all around again. She pried herself out of the bowels of the beast, to stand atop the flesh of the monster as the flesh continued to decay underfoot, to turn to dust, to impurity that soaked into the world, into the ground, under Mark and Isoko’s Unions.

  A lot of plants gained a lot of resources via Mark’s Union. They couldn’t use those resources right now, though. Those resources would simply have to sit there until it got a lot warmer, but the roots were fatter now, and that was good. Keep them strong through the lean months.

  Isoko stared off into the fiery golden distance. “Soooo… I missed something?”

  Eliot said, “I believe one of Blackthorn’s girls made a bet that a tree was a mimic and Blackthorn obliterated it, and yes, it turned out to be a mimic.”

  Sally looked at the flames, saying, “Mimics are weird monsters. They don’t even try to eat you most of the time.”

  “They really like just being whatever they are,” Mark said, “Until they don’t.”

  Sally nodded. “That would be the ‘most of the time’ part.”

  “That would explain the flaming horizon,” Isoko said, blood and flesh disintegrating off of her platinum body, along with some of her miniskirt dress.

  All of them were wearing their costumes, from Sally in her boob-window webweave, to Mark in his similar but less chest-exposing weave, to Eliot in his investigator/operative outfit with glowy tech-bits on the inside of his coat. Isoko was wearing her villain costume, which was mostly a miniskirt, tank top, and boots, but her tank was ripped up the center and only holding on to her because of her Tactile Telekinesis.

  “Ah, Isoko?” Mark said, looking down at the center of her exposed chest.

  Isoko touched the center of her chest, grinning as she asked, “You like it?”

  Sally looked, and then called out, “Hey! That’s my thing!”

  Mark rolled his eyes as Isoko and Sally joked about costumes. He pulled up Quark and poked around on the screen, looking at the other high priority requests for monster kills. He rapidly got through the list because it was only 4 more monsters and Quark had curated the list for Mark. Mark let Quark go and Quark returned to the back of his helmet.

  Quark spoke into Mark’s helmet, saying, “I can search topics for you, sir, and display them on your contacts.”

  “… Ah. Yeah… I… really should get in the habit of letting you do your job more when out in the field.” Mark looked around, sending his Union wide, feeling out the bare trees and the sleeping roots and the little monsters and normal animals burrowed into holes in the ground, to wait out winter. No hidden vectors, though. How would he even find any hidden vectors, though? No idea. “You find anything that I couldn’t?”

  “No, sir.”

  Mark had expected to get jumped by this or that agency. Maybe the Collective? Maybe some heroes of Memphi? Maybe some Sentinels from Daihoon who took an unauthorized jump through a mage gate to Earth, to come here unexpectedly? Mark was absolutely sure that the empires of Daihoon, if they wanted to, did not need to go through the gates at all. Addavein could certainly move between worlds on his own, and he could even summon Mark across the world and through the Veil, if he wanted, so normal archmages could certainly pierce the Veil whenever.

  But Mark couldn’t sense anyone out there.

  Of course, they could be hiding their vectors, or they could be watching through long-distance cameras. Or they could be flying high and invisible; far enough away and with little enough desire to influence Mark so that Mark couldn’t sense them at all.

  Eliot said, “I’ve been looking, but I think from Blackthorn’s decision to be fully… uh, present, we’re pretty safe.”

  Mark said, “He’s not fully indisposed. He’s carefully judging everything around us.”

  I think.

  Sally and Isoko were there, listening.

  Sally said, “I think we could attack the gate right now and then hold it for Episode 4. Don’t do the risky attack on the superhero association at all. It’s all just a bullshit story, anyway. There is no gate macguffin… right?”

  “Correct,” Eliot said. “There is no actual gate key. It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

  The only one who really wanted to do what Noel wanted was Isoko, because Isoko wanted to be popular and Noel knew how to be popular. He had been doing this for a long time. From Quark’s foray into researching the guy, Mark knew that Noel had been a lot of stuff, some that even he had seen before. There was even that Capes and Cowls movie. Noel had been the lead writer for that one and Mark had liked that movie.

  The lead actor for Capes and Cowls had died in Addavein’s birth in Orange City.

  … Mark refocused.

  Mark said, “I need to make a phone call, and then maybe we can go and assault the Hero’s Association headquarters tonight.”

  Sally sighed, and then let it go. Eliot did a similar action.

  Isoko was absolutely sure as she said, “It’ll be good, Mark.”

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  Mark smiled a little, loving how sure Isoko was that there wasn’t going to be any subterfuge at the HA, and then he said, “One sec.” He tapped on his helmet, and said, “Quark. Please contact Mayor Ramirez.”

  “Contacting Mayor Ramirez—”

  “Welcome to the Mayor’s Office of Memphi of the Central Cities! Your call is important to us,” said an automated voice. “Due to the high volume of calls we receive, could you please answer a few questions about your reasons for calling to that we can better direct your call to the appropriate pe—”

  The line went dead.

  Mayor Emilia Ramirez easily said, “Hello, Mark! What prompts this contact?”

  Mark tried to be succinct as he said, “I’m worried that the HVP Attack the Gate program on the Hero’s Association for Episode 3 is going to be some big event, and that the actual gate attack in Episode 4 is going to be a real… uh, disaster. I would like to know if this stuff is really sanctioned by Memphi, and… And… And stuff.” Mark finished weakly, cringing even as he said ‘and stuff’.

  Isoko, Sally, and Eliot all cringed, too.

  Isoko walked away, unable to handle the second hand embarrassment.

  Sally turned and imagined this wasn’t happening.

  Eliot powered through and watched Mark, even as Mark wanted to die inside.

  Ramirez said, “I’ve cleared the whole Attack the Gate program, Mark. The Hero’s Association and the Villain’s Association are both on board. The only people we can’t control are the paladins and parts of the HVP, but we allow them to operate on our lands with the expectation that they bring in more benefits than they cause problems. That said: don’t allow yourself to be caught. That would be a headache and a half for us to get you back. Your uncle has already made waves to make sure you remain independent, and we would do what we need to do to make him happy. But we don’t want to need to do that, Mark. Now, with that said, and to ensure that this Attack the Gate works out how we want, I will tell you that we have tagged some specific people in the Associations to keep you out of empire clutches. I won’t tell you who they are because I don’t want them deployed if we don’t have to deploy them, but you at least know about Blackthorn, and he’s doing a pretty good job, correct?”

  Mark felt more secure by the word. He glanced up at Blackthorn’s invisible ship, and said, “Yes. He’s doing great. Thank you, Mayor.”

  With a cheerful voice, Ramirez said, “Great! I look forward to seeing Episode 2! It was great talking to you.”

  “Uh— Yeah! It was great talking to you, too. Thank you!”

  Click.

  Mark took a moment, then looked at his team, who were all looking at him, as he said, “So we’re assaulting the Hero’s Association at midnight, or whatever Noel decides—”

  Quark beeped. “Attention. Attention.” He formed speakers outside of Mark’s helmet, loudly proclaiming, “Attention! Kaiju formation happening west of the city, at 10 o’clock.”

  For a moment, no one believed it.

  That’s how it always was when disaster came for you. Disbelief.

  And then everyone focused.

  Mark’s sudden interest in something must have triggered a response protocol from Blackthorn overhead, or maybe the archmage was just pretending to enjoy himself inside that invisibility as much as he seemed to be enjoying himself. Whatever the case, the invisibility of the ship broke, revealing the sleek black ship, like it was a collection of building-sized obsidian shards and one great big black ring encircling the whole thing—

  Mark felt some hidden vectors flash into existence about 250 meters to the south. It was a collection of intense Union action that rapidly vanished back behind obscuring magics, but Mark and Isoko had both seen it. There had been a capture group! Or something! Mark wasn’t overly paranoid!

  They ignored that capture group, though.

  Because every phone in the group all chimed at the same time, pockets vibrating and squealing as a common alert went out as it had several times since Mark had lived in Memphi, and probably a few times while they had been gone, on their way to Daihoon and the settlement.

  “Attention! Attention! Kaiju sign detected. Estimated location at 10 o’clock from Memphi, several kilometers out. Attention! Attention!”

  The warning repeated until everyone clicked their phones. Quark didn’t need clicking, though.

  There was a problem.

  Mark and them had gone out of the city to the west, almost directly west, to kill the chimeric monster-jelly monsters. The kaiju sign was to the north. Directly north.

  They were close to the center of the eruption, of the creation.

  Mark couldn’t feel it. Not yet. It was too far away.

  But he would feel it soon enough.

  Quark gave voice to the warning, “Attention, attention. Kaiju formation crystallizing. Birth imminent.”

  And then Blackthorn’s hover-sex-palace opened up its bay doors and four black climbing poles shot down out of the opening, to flex into ladders like black poles growing thorns. Blackthorn was there in the opening, shouting at them, “Get the fuck inside! We’re evacuating!”

  “Could we help kill it instead?!” Mark called out, even as he rushed to grab onto the nearest ladder, even as he felt stupid for asking for that.

  Isoko was already at her ladder and holding on to the bottom rung. She looked surprised.

  Sally called out, “The fuck?!” as she made way for Eliot to go ahead of her.

  Eliot rushed to grab on to one of the poles, saying, “I’m not getting near a kaiju so don’t be fucking stupid about this, Mark!”

  Blackthorn called down to them, “He’s right! Now get inside! You kids and my girls are headed back to the city!”

  The ladder that Eliot had grabbed onto suddenly zipped upward, pulling him into the vehicle. Isoko got yanked upward a moment later.

  Mark hesitated. Why? No idea. Sally grabbed him by the back of his suit, TT’ing his clothes and then rushing them both up the ladder, as Mark said, “Oh come on!”

  And then they were all in the ship, Sally let go, the bomb bay doors shut, and Blackthorn was there, grinning. The interior of the ship was a bunch of different surfaces at different heights, most of them covered in fabric, or leathers, or carpet. Windows abounded, everywhere Mark looked. Only small portions of the ship were dedicated to anything other than various soft surfaces.

  A door over there led to the cockpit.

  A woman’s voice called out from the cockpit, “We leaving yet?!”

  A different woman poked her head into view, saying, “It’s gonna be a cat 4 kaiju. Estimates are for standard Body-type with a possible Arcane flavoring.”

  That meant some sort of natural thing, blown up to kaiju-proportions, and with a spell that it could use along normal spell lines. If it was an Arch kaiju then that could be really bad, but Arcane spells were normal spells, as designed by the demons so long ago. Common spells for a kaiju to have were things like Bolt and Bomb. Light and Smoke. Utility magic, mostly.

  The most famous fictional kaiju, Godzilla, was usually depicted as a Body-type lizard of various kinds, with a Destroying Line Arcane spell.

  Blackthorn asked Mark, “Want to go support the heroes showing up?”

  Mark said, “Yes!”

  “Fuck,” Isoko said.

  Sally groaned.

  Eliot said, “Fuck you, Mark, but fine! We can go and—”

  “Nope!” Blackthorn told them, “Not you three and my girls. You’re going back. But Mark and I are going back out there unless the kaiju turns out to be some weird variation—”

  The world tore in a distant sort of way, and though Mark couldn’t see it, he could feel it. It was a tickle on his spine. A fizz under his fingertips. His adamantium became claws all around him and his helmet grew small horns and Mark needed to get to a window, to see—

  Mark got to a window, just in time to see the world break and remake itself into a different shape.

  The Veil fluctuated, thrumming like a struck gong, and all of reality shivered at that single note of power. The shiver condensed into waves of power, focused on something down below. The epicenter. The place of kaiju creation. It was far out of sight.

  Mark recognized the kaiju signs for what they were and a part of him was a little disappointed. Another, more rational part of him was ecstatic, because with a creation signature like that, the whole team could go and kill it. It was going to be—

  Isoko was right beside Mark, saying, “It’s a growth-birth.”

  “Yes. It’s gonna be a small one,” Mark said. “Easily fightable.”

  Sally strongly said, “No it is fucking not, Mark.”

  “You know what I mean!” Mark said.

  “It’s not a spontaneous generation,” Eliot said, standing on Mark’s other side. “It’s a growth type, born from some natural animal. It’ll be a cat 3, if that. Cat 3s are survivable by everyone who is not directly attacked or crushed.”

  Blackthorn spoke up, “I’m taking Mark to support the people who come out to fight it, because he needs the recognition. I have already decided to support him in that way. You all don’t need the recognition as much as he does. You three need to make a formal decision to stay or go in the next 30 seconds, as soon as the kaiju attack plan comes out—”

  One of the girls called out from the cockpit, “Attack plan formalized by the city! Titanfist is being deployed with Lawful Goose support. Plan to alter upon recognition of the actual kaiju. It should be growing right now!”