Mark watched as the food was flown in on a drone to the front entrance, down below on the ground level of the tower.

  Noel and some guy in a suit arrived at almost the same time.

  Soon, they were all inside downstairs and talking to the guards and the secretary down there. After a minute of looking things over, Noel, the other guy, and a guard for the tower, were all riding up the elevator.

  The elevator doors dinged and then out walked Noel, obviously-a-lawyer-guy, and a ‘guard’ wearing a crewneck and tight pants walked out of the elevator. Mark was pretty sure the guard was one of Blackthorn’s boyfriends, or maybe a girlfriend’s boyfriend. Mark wasn’t sure, really. But the guy did work here! Mark had seen him around before, and wearing a lot less than his current outfit, too.

  The ‘guard’ set down the massive order of food, which was two armfuls, smiling as he said, “This place has good food, but you should try Tiffany’s two blocks further down.”

  Mark smiled a little. “We’ll take it under advisement, thank you.”

  The guy mocked a salute as he turned and walked away.

  Isoko stared at the guy’s butt just a little.

  Mark rolled his eyes.

  And then Noel and the lawyer were there and everyone stood up.

  Noel introduced them all to each other, saying, “Mark Careed, Sally Wuthers, Isoko Kanno, and Eliot Cybersong, this is Goro Teshima, one of Crystal Tower’s big time lawyers.”

  “A pleasure to meet you all!”

  Pleasantries all around.

  And then, somehow, Mark asked about ‘what had happened out there!’ and then there was a whole lot of talk about a whole lot of things and control of the conversation was not really possible, because Mark did not know a lot about a lot.

  But Goro Teshima turned out to be a pretty affable guy.

  They talked about liability and an Unintended Awakening program, of which Crystal Tower participated in several, and they talked about responsibility and goals.

  It was a rather calming discussion, really. Mark was absolutely sure that Goro knew his stuff, and he also knew that Mark and his team were nervous in standard, baby-hero’s-first-fuckup sort of ways.

  Over a lot of burgers and fries and even some milkshakes, a lot of the finer points about ‘heroes and villains’ came to light.

  Mark still had to ask multiple times about a certain topic to make sure he was understanding them correctly, though.

  “So… It’s really… normal, for stuff like this to happen?” And then, because Mark was pretty sure he wasn’t being understood completely, he added, “The unintentional Awakenings and the involvement of actual authorities and the Collective and the Empires poking into the scenarios?”

  Sally was right there with him, nervous as heck.

  Isoko and Eliot were mostly sitting back by then. Both of them now felt ‘okay’ with this sort of stuff, and they were just letting Mark and Sally learn at their own pace.

  With a briefcase open to the side and an empty paper burger wrapper in front of him, Goro said, “I understand your hesitation and disbelief, but the paperwork we went over for Crystal Towers Unintended Awakening charity fund, the money you’re going to bring in for licensing of your image and story, and the enormity of your beginning popularity, and with the nature of the accidental Awakenings you have caused… Well, Mister Careed. You’re going to have one of the easiest times mitigating the fallout of any normal incidents that accrue in the line of duty of the business.

  “As for the outside interference, from the Collective and the Aluatha and Okuana Empires… That is something that is far outside of my direct capability to handle. The full telling of this incident will be sent up the chain of command, though. Crystal Tower will have words to say on your behalf,” Goro said, “What I can tell you are the normal things we say to kids in situations like yours, when large governmental forces get involved in ways they should not be involved, when they try to control who and what you are:

  “You’re technically a villain, with all of the assorted pomp and style of one, but you’re not a real villain. You’re a hero who dons a mask to help other heroes become what they can be, and heroes, like you, are people who get good shit done even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. That will always rile feathers. That surety of purpose will always make people question themselves, who they are, and what they’re doing.

  “This stuff makes underlings question their bosses most of all, and the bosses hate that.

  “You think the superheroes like Glorious Man and Nova Nexus haven’t had incidents with the empires of Daihoon? With the nations of Earth? Of course they have! But they have enough power and enough good will and purpose built up that all of their touchy incidents are overlooked.

  “You think they haven’t accidentally Awakened people all the time? Any baseline on Earth, once they have formed their first memory at somewhere around age 2, is capable of Awakening if the influence on their soul is strong enough. Anyone like that being pretty much anywhere near Glorious Man will Awaken. Nova Nexus’s potential influence is almost as bad as Glorious Man’s, but they can control their Power a bit more than him, which is why Glorious Man Awakens pretty much everyone he’s anywhere near.

  “It’s to do with the Tactile Telekinesis he puts onto buildings and walls so he doesn’t walk through them like they’re air. Glorious Man cannot act like a normal person at all without solidifying the world all around him, and that causes a lot of incidents.”

  Mark’s eyes were wide. He hadn’t known that at all. Oh, wow.

  Goro continued, “The Aluatha and Collective stuff is outside of my wheelhouse, but making sure kids with new Knacks get what they need to get? I do that all the time. Don’t worry about that stuff. As for the Collective stuff, you’ll just have to weather that like any hero; punch ‘em around a little to get them to back off.”

  Mark was shocked. “… Punch them? What?”

  “Nooo…” Sally said, and that was as far as she got on that train of thought. Punching sounded like a good option to her.

  Isoko nodded, while Eliot frowned a little. Just a little.

  Goro snorted a tiny laugh. “Paladins are righteous bastards without lawful backing almost all the time, for almost all they do. Sure, some of them work for police stations and whatever, but mostly they’re just —and no offense meant to present company— they’re pricks, shoving themselves where they don’t need to be. It’s not like you’re killing anyone, when you deny a paladin his ‘god given quests’. You’re just not accepting the judgment of judgmental paladins and fallible gods.” Goro dropped the mirth in his voice, adding, “Now if they actually bring you up on charges in some district, then I’ll be there to defend you for that, if they manage to capture you. But none of you have been brought up on charges that are applicable here in Memphi, and they haven’t been able to capture you and drag you into places where you could face charges.

  “Most of all: They don’t have any evidence of you taking adamantium from the dragon and selling that adamantium to anyone, and Marigold Metallic of Metallic Bank has already provided sworn statements that the adamantium they sold for you did not come from Addavein. So all the paladins out there are just acting on their own, like they usually do, like heroes for the HVP but without getting paid for it.”

  Mark felt a lot better to hear it spelled out like that, again.

  It was comforting to know that all of this shit was… not really normal, but also within expectations.

  Goro added, “Now that Dominance and Submission aura you slammed through everyone out there is a bit close to mind control, and that does get legally dicey sometimes, but as long as you’re only put people on the ground and don’t make them do things, then that’s an easy charge of ‘Excessive Force’ to get dropped. It’s when you start puppeteering people that we need to start talking about what is too much.”

  Mark breathed easier, saying, “I don’t plan on doing that too often, and hopefully not ever again.”

  “Don’t go that far, now,” Goro said. “It’s a useful tool. Don’t discard the tools you have.”

  Isoko just nodded a little.

  Eliot seemed like he was mostly over the mind control stuff, since his vector relaxed at the mention of Mark’s ‘domination and submission aura’, which was a naming scheme Mark did not like, but whatever. Eliot was still focused on the fact that Freyala had been the one to spare him from being subsumed by Mark.

  Sally asked, “By that same token, we’ll be going up against Minders in the HVP, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” Noel said, fielding that question. “There aren’t a whole lot of Minders in the Hero/Villain Program, but they do exist. They usually operate as villains for training purposes, and heroes sign up to fight them so they can learn to fight that stuff in a trained setting. If anyone here wants, I can get you signed up for that program? And if you want, Mark, you can even sign up to be the villain who does the mind control… but you don’t like that idea?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Mark shook his head, saying, “It won’t be training. I can cut through any resistance at all, even demonic. So there’s no point to train against it. And it’s not even Mind Control. It’s a Natural ability.”

  Noel’s eyes went a little wide. And then he nodded at the mention of ‘Natural’, saying, “All fair points.”

  Goro was still taking in Mark’s casual assertion that he could cut through all resistance. Goro went, “… Huh. Okay.”

  Mark added, “But I will take the Minder training to better fight them, though.”

  Eliot said, “I want to sign up for the Mind training.”

  Isoko said, “Me, too.”

  Sally said, “Yeah… me too.”

  “I’ll get some things set up, then,” Noel said, before he moved on to the next subject.

  Eventually, they got through the legal stuff, and then Goro took his leave, and then Noel was there with screens and recordings to go over everything about the morning’s event. He was enthusiastic, for sure.

  Seeing parts of the morning’s event through different points of view was certainly… something. Mark wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Maybe when he saw the whole program he’d feel something good about what he was seeing.

  Isoko loved it, though.

  By the time Noel was going through secondary shot angles, Sally was a little bit enthused and Eliot was completely at ease with the day’s events.

  Eliot was getting into it, actually, saying, “You got terrible shots of that part. I can recreate sliding the guards out of the side of the bank.”

  Noel said, “We try not to do reshoots, so we’ll have the AI fill in on the bottom half of the slide.”

  “I want to talk about costumes,” Isoko said. “About merch and leveraging and all of that.”

  “I’m glad for the enthusiasm, but the program needs to happen first, and your popularity needs to actually happen. I have no doubt about that, but we do need to see the public reaction before we start talking merch.”

  Isoko tempered her enthusiasm, saying, “Okay! Okay… Okay.”

  “But we can talk about costumes. What you will wear is based on what works, which is based on a hundred different factors from popularity to ease of reproduction in 1/16th miniature. Today’s run was a quick run with costumes made as fast as possible, so the real costumes will be better and based on all of those factors. That said: Anyone have any notes on what they wore? What they liked, didn’t like?”

  Isoko had notes.

  A few hours later Noel got a call that he stepped out of the room to take, and which Eliot identified as a call from Tartu while Noel was outside of the room.

  Mark’s heart pulsed with black veins and a desire to punch a face. Mark got it under control before Noel could notice.

  Soon, Noel walked back into the room, saying, “Tartu wants to know if you want to meet before tomorrow’s planned event, which I still haven’t organized yet. It might be tonight’s event. Do you want to meet?”

  Mark wanted to say ‘no’.

  Sally had no opinion. Eliot shrugged.

  Isoko said, “Not really, but we should, right?”

  Mark sighed. “Yeah, we should.” He told Noel, “Yes. In the morning whenever?” He almost made a threat about bringing in outside forces to the meeting or it being a trap of some sort, but he held off. Actions would speak louder than words, and if Tartu pulled any shit in a simple sit-down meeting then Mark would actually work to oust Tartu from the settlement project, like he was trying to do to him. Mark added, “Or whenever? Now? I think Blackthorn has a… a meeting with the local villains thing happening? Or wanting to happen.”

  Noel nodded, saying, “I’ll let them know and set it up. I imagine it will be just the two of you, here at Blackthorn’s tower, if the archmage is amenable… Is he… uh. Here?”

  Mark pointed up at the ceiling, saying, “He came back an hour ago and is currently indisposed.”

  Very indisposed.

  Mark added, “He said we were free to organize here. We just have to tell him about it a few hours before it happens.”

  Eliot spoke up, “He wants us to update the Tower AI which will update him. I’m currently doing that already.”

  Mark said, “That’s it.”

  “Then yes,” Noel said, “Tartu will show up here in the morning, and then I’ll—”

  Mark jerked his head upward, for he felt Blackthorn moving fast and… happy? The guy’s vector slipped off of the side of the tower and then—

  Mark turned toward the window just as the window opened and cold air billowed inside.

  Archmage Blackthorn slipped into the room wearing boxers and a long black robe that he had just thrown on. He smelled of way too many flowery things and he smiled way too large.

  Blackthorn asked, “Is it time to talk about the villain show? I’ve got the party set to start at midnight! It’ll be next door at the party building, and I want Eliot to fix it up in a few ways before tonight. Also, we have magical training to do! There’s too much stuff to do and not enough hours in the day, kids, so wrap it up here and come upstairs! —Oh! And I heard about meeting that hero kid? Do that today, before the party tonight.”

  And then Blackthorn flew back out of the open window and the window latched shut behind him.

  So that had happened.

  Mark sighed a little, saying, “I think he saw me looking at him. I need to work on being more stealthy with that.”

  Isoko said, “You could call up Lola and ask her?”

  Mark had a troubled moment. Did he want to call up Lola? Yes, he did. Did he want to talk about what had happened just a few hours ago? Yes. Had Mark been too harsh on her? Yeah, he had been. But…

  Ah, fuck.

  If he let it go then they’d just never talk again, and Mark did not want that at all. He was still furious at David, but David still cared.

  Lola still cared about Mark, too.

  And he cared about them.

  While Mark was thinking—

  Noel made the actual decision, saying, “We’ve done enough for today. I need to plan for the party. I’ll organize Tartu to come over here before then. I’ll let you know when it happens. You should all sleep for a few hours before the event, too. It’s gonna be a long night.”

  Mark stood up from his chair. “See you, soon.”

  - -

  In their assigned bedroom, Mark sat alone, holding Quark, who was shaped like his normal phone shape.

  And then he said, “Call Lola.”

  “Calling Lola Turner.”

  Mark waited.

  Quark’s microphone buzzed in his ear.

  Ring, ring, ring—

  “Ah… Hello… Mark.”

  Lola had sounded like she had been crying.

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said, his heart feeling way too heavy.

  Lola breathed a bit. “… I’m sorry, too. What prompts the call?”

  “Is there…” Mark wanted to say a lot. He also wanted to ask about hiding his own vector so people didn’t know when he was looking at them and their vectors, but he kinda lost his nerve. He wasn’t sure where it had gone. It just felt wrong to ask for guidance from someone he had… let down? Mark said, “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I want to do right by as many people as possible, and it’s confusing right now.”

  Lola chuckled just a little. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Can you tell me what happened to you? What are they doing?”

  “It’s something I can handle, Mark. Thank you for caring, but I can handle it. Why not tell me about the settlement, instead? I’ve never been to one of those, but I have been tempted a few times.”

  Mark began, “Well. It was…”

  Mark paused. The settlement was wonderful. Exhilarating. He had flown for the first time with a hoverbelt, high over the grassy plains of the settlement, chasing Isoko as she flew for the first time, too. He had seen Aurora bring down the sky on kaiju. He had genocided a large group of goblins who had clear attachments to Goblinhome… Mark paused.

  That’s what he would start with.

  Mark said, “I killed a lot of monsters every day, and one of the big things was killing a few 10,000 goblins that had taken over some dragon fall valleys kilometers to the east. We think the leader goblin was descended from some place called Goblinhome. He got away, taking the Tutorial to vanish. We waited around for 12 hours for him to show up where he vanished but we’re pretty sure he came here, to Earth, instead of being dropped back off on Daihoon. Did you hear anything about a goblin hunt here in Memphi? It would have been north of the city— Well. Where the city used to be. The gate expanded the walls, so the goblin might have come back to Earth a few kilometers East of the gate project. He had a light affinity when he went away, and he could already do a lot with that.”

  “Goblinhome, huh,” Lola said, her voice full of quiet concern. “I don’t recall hearing anything about that, but I’m going to look it up now. Tell me all about it?”

  And so Mark did.

  He talked about a lot more than just goblins, too.

  It was nice.

  He didn’t get to the part about asking how to hide his vector as he searched out other vectors out there. That did not seem important right now.