The sun rose in the eastern sky, scattering golden light across a land of green clouds that spread in every direction like ephemeral mountains, like the Greendeaths in a dream. Storm clouds floated above; a dark mirror of the land below; rolling, churning, twisting.

And in between, hovered Mark, in his invisible adamantium bubble, surrounded by invisible blades of all kinds. His scale armor was invisible, too, leaving him in only his black webweave, for it was easier to have Quark turn all of his adamantium invisible instead of including the lines of Sigaldry that left his armor alone. Even Mark's rotary blades overhead were invisible.

The sun shone in from the east, between the miasma and the storm, looking like an eye for moments at a time as thick vapors roiled under the might of distant vectors. Tormpol, the Storm, a witch of Goblinhome, was in the clouds, keeping eyes on Mark, letting everyone see him, on purpose. Salter, the Miasma, was in the fog below. The sun had a vector to it, too, but only sometimes. At least three big forces were watching Mark.

That was fine.

Mark made himself even more visible, thickening his Union of Glory and Fear with the world, with the vectors controlling the clouds, pulling in illuminating power and pulsing with black Fear, driving away the green clouds. The clouds retreated where he touched, for they weren't willing to be touched too deeply at all. Mark had already tried to Entropy the forces in those clouds.

It hadn't worked.

Goofy hovered 50 meters to the right. He was a minor bright spot compared to Mark; like a moon sharing brilliance with the sun.

Far to the south, far out of sight, the death metal kaiju whimpered, its vector mostly trashed by many different goblin-nukes, each nuke filled with weird powers that Mark did not understand. Did anyone understand? Maybe Walaria. Maybe others. No one was talking to Mark right now, though.

Something was wrong with the coms. Quark was working on it.

Mark was focused on the coming battle.

Quark made some calculations based on what he was seeing. He overlaid that information in Mark's vision, as unobtrusively as he could. So far nothing direct was happening, so Mark could read some of that information.

The clouds above? Tormpol. Storm Witch. Natural, PL 99. Aluatha's reconnaissance wasn't too sure about that, though. All of these goblins died and came back all the time, and sometimes they didn't come back with the same Skills. The last time Aluatha had gotten Tormpol into a scanner was several decades ago, shortly after the Reveal. Back then, the Skillers of Aluatha Empire and some proto-scanners still being developed on Earth said that Tormpol was a 'Storm Witch'.

Or at least that's what Quark had found out prior to today's information blackout.

The miasma below was absolutely Salter. Miasma Witch. That was his officially-known Skill, too. Also a Natural, at PL 99.

It was hard to say which was more dangerous; the miasma or the lightning.

Mark couldn't Union inside of the miasma without hurting himself. For now, the miasma retreated when Mark tried to poke at it directly, but Mark was absolutely sure that Salter could just let the miasma go, and Mark would suddenly find himself surrounded by a poisoned world. Unioning inside of miasma always hurt like fuck.

The lightning was a lot more direct in its damage. Or at least it would be, if Tormpol figured out how to make it strike and not just flow around Mark's adamantium shell. Mark was pretty sure Tormpol could figure it out, though. He had already figured out at least one big trick.

Mark had been in this position between the miasma and the sky for 10 minutes now, and if he could have moved from here, he would have.

What was the sun up to? Mark had no idea. 'The sun' was looking this way, its vector like a pulling hand on the world, tugging everything toward itself, as it gazed upon Mark. It probably wasn't the sun. Mark guessed that Wongod, the Wrong-Made God, was looking from that direction, or maybe it was Grax, the Light Titan, preparing to strike.

The world was a green-bread-sandwich with him and Goofy in the middle, in the clear sky. Mark could feel the kaiju, though. It whimpered. Mark was about 30 kilometers north of the kaiju, from ground zero for the nuke blast. It would be easier for Mark to fight if he had a kaiju's power at his back.

That was probably a trap, though.

Quark had managed to get a few images of ground zero before communications went down.

The aftermath of the 5 buster-nukes and 1 big boy nuke, and the explosion of the nuclear power plant itself, was a crater and a hole in the ground. It was at least a hundred meters deep and a good kilometer wide. The power plant was completely gone. Green fires abounded, and green smoke drifted up into the air from all of those fires. The kaiju was a buried-thing, glowing green and half-melted to the side of the crater. It had lost half of its mass, but it was gathering it back, and everything it gathered back was bright green.

Mark imagined the goblins were goblinizing the kaiju.

Maybe.

Mark put a pin in that.

He returned to the current problem of being seen from a bunch of different angles. The sky flickered with green lightning that scattered overhead. The ground roiled with miasma. Mark kept both in check with a healthy dose of driving Fear, which was more 'scaring away the vectors within from getting entropy'd' than actually Fearing them away.

Mark switched his Union to Energy/Entropy anyway, ripping at the clouds with a command to shut down, to disperse their energy, to fade.

Instead of working, the vectors within the clouds kinda 'broke off' from their owners.

A great deal of the clouds and miasma, everything Mark could touch, came undone and billowed upward and downward, filling the air, like someone microwaving a marshmallow.

Mark switched to Glory/Fear, which was helpful, but not great. The miasma was coming and it hurt to Union with that shit—

A great flashing lightning bolt came down from above and destroyed Mark's invisibility on his adamantium shell. The thunder of it all deafened and rattled him, there in the darkness, while miasma billowed up from below. Mark didn't have to see the miasma to know it was there. Mark switched to a Union of Purity/Corruption. It still burned. Corruption boiled from his skin and wept from his pores even as he cleansed away all nearby corruption. There was no real end to the corruption because there was a lot of 'radiation' in the air out there, but it was tuned toward making goblins out of everyone, somehow.

Mark cleansed himself.

Salter's vectors reappeared on the edge of Mark's senses, as he regained control of the miasma, far out of Mark's range.

Another flicker of green lightning danced across the inside of Mark's dark shell as Quark flicked hands, making sigils to turn the adamantium invisible again.

Mark spun his adamantium rotor, maintaining altitude. He kept his Unionsense open wide, which was about all he could do right now. Quark put cameras on the outside of the shell, but more Green lightning zapped those, the static sticking around, killing the feed.

Goofy was fine, though.

Goofy called out, "You okay?!"

Mark barely heard him with his ears, out there beyond his adamantium shell, but Quark was there to assist with that.

Mark said, "I'm fine." Goofy seemed to have heard him, even though Mark was sure Quark's speakers were dead. Mark evaporated the miasma in the air and healed his wounds, running Purity and Good/Bad at the same time on different Unions, as he asked Quark, "Any sign of the actual fighters yet?"

"Just clouds, sir," Quark answered.

Goofy said, "They're far, far away. Ambushes are surrounding us at great distances, too."

Mark frowned. "Dammit."

There was a reason Mark was still in this layer of the sky.

Mark told Goofy, "Going to try moving again."

And then Mark spun his rotor faster, changing the pitch of the blade and swinging the arms longer. He grasped only the center of the blade and spun the rest of it far, far beyond normal physical speeds. The air churned with fire that washed down over Mark, while Quark's invisibility came back online, allowing Mark to watch flames flow over the adamantium shell as he flew upward. Goofy flew up to the side, keeping out of range of the flames.

Mark began to rise in the sky, into the storm.

But then Tormpol controlled the sky and poured a tsunami of air down at Mark.

The faster Mark spun his rotors the less he achieved, because Tormpol was directly counteracting the spin with more force of his own, and then that force became lesser and lesser, because Tormpol wasn't just counteracting Mark with direct force. He was counteracting Mark with a vacuum precision.

Mark's rotor found less and less purchase on the tumbling, miasma-filled atmosphere, because the atmosphere was getting pulled away from him. Quark was measuring the air pressure outside, so he could tell when they were down to half-atmosphere, and then 1/10th, and then a near vacuum. Mark's flaming rotor touched nothing, and so, the flames died and Mark slipped back down into the land between sky and miasma, and the atmosphere came back.

Goofy had needed to move far away. Vacuums were not good for him, apparently; a big weakness. To be fair it was the same as most peoples' weaknesses, except for people who could go Full Platinum like Isoko.

Goofy had only moved maybe 100 meters, to keep up, to stay roughly beside Mark in the green storm. Goofy said nothing. He simply frowned and looked around, trying to spot the enemy. His vector glanced at the churning green, and then back up, and then down. He didn't focus on anything in particular, but he saw the goblins out there.

They were circling.

Mark had tried to escape the containment twice, now. This was the second time. Mark was pretty sure he wasn't getting a third.

Every time Mark tagged Tormpol or Salter's vector with his Energy/Entropy Union, to 'quiet' their mana, they seemed to 'detonate' the parts Mark tried to influence.

So Mark went back to a Union of Glory and Fear, reaching as far as he could, and because the goblins out there didn't want to get Feared, they pulled back their influenced atmosphere. The storm's stray winds separated from the miasma again, clearing the sky where Mark floated, making him visible to the sun.

It seemed that visibility was a necessary thing for goblins and humans alike.

"Well this is an intolerable situation," Mark mumbled.

… Mark began to create elementals again, twisting meaning into the clear air all around, sifting through power until he could find some nascent elementals. He wanted a Purity elemental, if possible. He had no idea if such a thing was even possible, but he was certainly going to try—

Little green lightning bolts zapped through the distant air, like static crawling across the world. That static crawled Mark's way, undirected. Unempowered. It was still enough to disrupt what he was doing.

Okay. Then…

Mark's next thought was much better.

Mark focused on the miasma and the storm together, on making an elemental that could directly contend with the goblin power all around. The miasma and the storm started to undulate as Mark ripped at the power settled into the gasses all around. Everywhere he touched he threatened to disrupt, and the miasma and the storm burst into clouds and dust.

Mark grinned. He was triggering whatever failsafe the goblins had against his shavallian aura, but he wasn't doing that right now. He was making elementals.

Tiny elementals crawled around in the green gasses, as Mark Called out, "Seek and destroy the corruption-filled goblins."

It was a ritual born of 30 seconds of prep and care.

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It was enough.

Mark feed Glory into each tiny elemental, and each tiny elemental drew in miasma and twisted into goblin-shaped horrors—

The goblins went right after Mark and Goofy.

Not ideal.

Mark switched to Fear and the miasma-goblins kept coming, Mark's Fear driving into them, but the witch had done something to them, to their fear-response. The elemental-miasma-goblins went berserk, flying faster at Mark and getting monumentally bigger with every meter they got closer.

Mark switched it up, turning on the Purity.

Mark's skin boiled and putrefied as corruption ate him from the outside in, but the elemental goblins broke apart first, and Mark switched back to Glory/Fear, healing himself, and driving back the encroaching miasma.

That little experiment cost him 1 minute of distraction, but it proved that he wouldn't be making elementals.

It had been 19 minutes since Mark got into this predicament.

And all they were doing was isolating and testing him.

"Fuck," Mark muttered, as he healed his flesh. "I should have Instability'd the elementals, not directly fought against them with Purity—"

Goofy called out, "I'm dragging you away! Come on!"

"That's a great idea, too," Mark said, embarrassed he hadn't thought about it.

Goofy went for one of Mark's invisible blades (because of course he could still see them, somehow) and Mark turned the blade into a handle. Lightning gathered even as Mark did that, and so Mark surrounded Goofy with adamantium even as he grabbed the handle. Ineffective lightning crashed all around Goofy.

Mark drew Goofy toward his own sphere, a tension leaving him as he felt Goofy pull on his adamantium, and thus he pulled on Mark, flying him out—

And then miasma shot up at Mark's adamantium shell, faster than Mark thought possible (speedster-ish boost there, for sure) containing Goofy, and Goofy dashed right through Mark's adamantium, like he wasn't completely fucking surrounded by adamantium. Goofy flew off about 30 meters ahead, tumbling in the air, before he turned around and righted himself, yelping in surprise.

Mark decided to think positive, even though his heart was hammering in his chest and he really, really wanted to kill something, and that sort of settled him, as he went, "Huh." He looked down at the miasma. "Dare you to try that again, asshole. I'll be ready for it the next time."

Goofy came back, eagerly saying, "Let's try ag—"

A flash of light from the northwest, deep in the miasma/storm that was the horizon in that direction, and noticed only by Quark, was followed by a flash of light on the southwestern miasma horizon, maybe 50 kilometers away.

House-sized boulders rocketed out from both of those directions, and Mark scrambled to adjust.

Caltrops went out toward the boulders, Mark gripped the stone, and Mark flung himself up and away from the crashing boulders.

The stones slammed through Mark's space, hitting each other, the second one thrown much faster than the first one. The boulders cracked and broke, throwing random rocks everywhere, clipping Mark's scattered, kinesis-gripped adamantium blades, further spinning him out of control. Mark could usually account for various vectors in a battle, but as he spun out of control for a moment, trying to regain himself, he recognized the undirected, randomized attack for what it was; his weakness.

Goofy took some shrapnel to the body and face, but it plinked off of him.

Mark regained control and stabilized, even as the storm overhead turned the air thin and then thick, trying to make Mark stay in the center of their trap, directly in sight of the light of the sun—

Something reached out and touched Mark, twisting his Union in opposite directions.

Fear swelled, and all Glory fled.

Goofy rocketed away, too, Fear driving him to speeds unmatched ever before.

Mark's breath stunted. His eyes dilated wide. The eye in the sky stared at Mark like the eye of the world's biggest kaiju, and Mark abandoned all ingenuity.

He needed to kill everything.

It was a good thing Goofy had escaped.

Mark instantly fell into a proper flow of Glory/Fear, his adamantium shell becoming armor that flowed on his body; scales on top of a liquid core. Mark did not need to breathe. Glory did enough. He didn't care about miasma. What was it, but pain? Pain was fine.

In that moment of proper Glory Mark realized he had been usurped by Stupid Goblin, who made people retarget their Powers in opposite directions, or in whatever ways Stupid Goblin wanted them to retarget. Then that thought fled as Mark felt something touch his Union again, flipping him away from Glory/Fear, into Fear/Glory.

If Mark would have been capable of conscious thought, he probably would have asked himself, 'Where the fuck was that stupid goblin?'

Instead Mark fell into a fearful flow, into the miasma, into the gauntlet awaiting in the green—

There.

Mark flew down like a scythe, into the miasma, right at a little goblin all quiet and riding some sort of fast hovercraft. It was Stupid Goblin, and Mark was almost in range. But the miasma swirled in front of him, blocking him from sight, and Mark swirled right into a thick cloudbank. That cloudbank was full of vectors, trying to cause an effect. It was Salter making a mistake.

Mark drove Entropy into the miasma, into the swirl of Salter's vectors, and the miasma exploded as the vector of the entire miasma-thick land faltered. But Mark had caught on the goblin, far, far out of sight.

Salter was done.

Mark purged the land with Glory and Fear, but that didn't work. Salter wasn't controlling the miasma anymore. Mark ignored the miasma. It wasn't hurting him (why wasn't it hurting? His skin was melting, for sure, and Quark was fixing his eyes for him, letting him see because his real eyes were ruined) and trying to clear it was just going to cause actual problems. The Biting corruption was there, and Mark ignored it as he spun rotors fast trying to catch up to Stupid Goblin, Glory shining in the Green—

A mountain crashed into him, sending him flying up into the sky. Mark felt it, but barely.

He flipped around the boulder, Glory letting him ride high, right into the light of sun—

Stupid Goblin touched his Union again, and Mark freaked the fuck out. Adamantium blades went everywhere, into everything, slashing, slicing, killing. Mark regained himself. Glory burned in many ways.

A horde of goblins was in the miasma.

Goblins descended from the stormy sky.

It was a thousand goblins, each carrying weapons or power, some on hoverships with cannons. Some with hoverbelts with wands or staffs. Some flew free, aiming big guns that floated next to them.

They flew at Mark with guns flashing, bullets detonating off of his adamantium shell, spells breaking the world in small, deadly ways.

Mark reached into them and turned them off, but then Stupid Goblin was inside of the horde and Mark didn't see him until after Mark felt his own mana flee. His distant adamantium flashed out of his control, scattering down and away, but his rotor remained close enough to catch. To control.

Mark's range dropped down to mere meters. A blessing in disguise? He was out of Stupid Goblin's range.

Little miracles.

Mark filled himself with Energy as he sought out Stupid Goblin, reaching out with his caltrops and grabbing goblins to use them as stepping stones, ripping them apart, shredding hovercars, racing forward through the thin miasma, looking for Stupid Goblin. Bullets splashed against him. Fire and churning spells broke on his adamantium surface. Adamantium blades broke goblins in turn.

None of the goblins cared about fleeing, or cared about Fear. Mark's Fear weakened them, when he targeted them, but Mark didn't target too deep for fear of getting Feared himself, and the goblins were in a battle fury. The miasma empowered them. When the miasma parted, the sun was there, also empowering them to ignore their fear—

There.

Up there, above the miasma. Right there.

Mark pulled back his Union as he felt Stupid Goblin try to interact with him again, and Mark locked on Stupid Goblin, blending goblins as he passed through the sky, aiming at his target. His rotor became more blades, each slice cutting through trash and propelling Mark forward.

Mark burst out of the miasma and closed in on Stupid Goblin, caltrops becoming a long blade, swinging down—

Puppet was there, right in front of Stupid Goblin. Puppet reached up and grabbed Mark's blade with his bare hand, and Puppet's Power, Astral Control, tried to wrench away ownership of Mark's entire powerset.

Some unnamed hexer goblin was there, too, purple light glowing from his little hands, hitting Mark with some sort of anti-PL Power.

The sun stared at the encounter; vicious, cruel, delighted.

Right as Stupid Goblin, who had been pulling back, keeping his astral body out of Mark's range, suddenly reached forward, into Mark's Union, inverting Mark's Union, igniting Glory in every nearby goblin, and infusing Mark with all of their fear.

It was not a killing move.

It was a trap, of course.

Everything came together for the goblins in that moment. They had been trying to master Mark this entire time. They were trying to capture him. Mark had been too fearful to see that earlier, but as Fear flowed back into him, as green goblin maws opened, dripping all around him, as the miasma swirled up against Mark's body, back into the air like closing jaws, Mark realized it now.

Mark realized a lot of things, in a whole lot of ways that would take him too long to say, but which he understood implicitly, and instantly. Life was like that, sometimes.

He had been too purposeful in his fighting. The goblins had taken his stance of Glory/Fear and used it against him.

Stupid Goblin was only a problem if Mark fought directly against him. There were Unions that had no real good/bad sides. Mark should use one of those.

Puppet was only a problem if Mark allowed Puppet to touch his astral body. He could keep his weapons long and mostly out of his control, like he had done with his rotor, and Puppet would get minced the next time he tried to touch Mark's blades.

The miasma was not a problem. Mark's body burned. Quark gave Mark his senses back. Mark would not die from corruption. He was fine.

But with how Puppet was controlling him, through the use of his own astral body.

Could Mark 'detonate' his astral body and throw off Puppet's control? Like how the miasma goblin, Salter, and the storm goblin, Tormpol, had done when Mark tried to connect to them?

Yeah. Probably.

Salter was still shavallian'd, though. The miasma was only moving because of Tormpol's control.

Why was Mark even fighting directly?

As those thoughts coalesced, Mark's gooey, adamantium scale/shell came apart in a shatter of shards as Puppet input a command to Mark's astral body to disperse all defenses. Those shards exploded outward, and Mark flowed with that explosion, roaring out a Call, primal and terrible, blasting away most of his astral body and disintegrating Puppet's Astral Control.

Union twisted from Fear and Glory, to a simple Flow.

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