Mark flew in his pill box, thinking.

Quark said, "That was quite informative, sir."

His voice sounded calmer.

"It was." Mark asked, "How are you feeling, Quark?"

"I am feeling like nothing at all, which is rather pleasant, because if you die then I become a real person, and I do not want to become a goblin. So whatever did happen back there, you did not die, and I did not separate, and I was not born. So my emotional state is the same as it has been; non-existent, aside from channeling the emotions you are experiencing." Quark added, "You seem calmer in a lot of ways, sir."

Mark watched the world fly by as he spun his propeller fast enough to cause flames, as he said, "I think I am calmer; yes."

A little over 20 minutes later, Mark disassembled his flying pillbox about 8 kilometers above Goblinhome.

The miasma was still there, along with whatever anti-human magics were located inside of it. It seemed to be flowing south, into the Greendeath mountains.

The writhing kaiju was berserk and spread out across four valleys, in between two major cities. Waves of flying goblins and army-like goblins advanced on the kaiju from all angles, trying to kill it, to do anything at all against it, but they weren't getting far. The kaiju had 5 'heads', tens of 'legs', and at least 3 'bodies', and it was completely uncontrolled, without any direction at all.

When the goblins attacked the kaiju spat metal at them. It had terrible aim. Most of the metal got showered in every direction except at the advancing goblins. Then the kaiju went after the metal it had just spat everywhere, uncaring about the goblins that attacked it from every angle while it was distracted. Soon, the kaiju raked that discharged metal back in with grand demonstrations of Kineticism. The goblins broke formation, rushing away, while the slower ones were exposed to spaghetti-strings of wire that whipped through enemies and devoured goblins by the thousands.

The kaiju appeared to be in a losing-stalemate.

The kaiju just kinda stayed there, spraying out metal and bringing it back, and the goblins attacked when they could. Some of the metal was so hot due to goblin war mages, or whatever, it was boiling away. The stuff that boiled away did not come back.

From the way some of the larger parts of the kaiju fought against itself, Mark imagined that the kaiju would break into multiple elementals soon. From there, it would be much easier to kill.

Mark glanced at the green miasma in the north, as it flowed south, into the mountains. That's where the anti-human magics were.

Mark asked Quark, "How dense are the anti-human magics?"

"It's not too bad this high up, but Crytalis Command has determined that the anti-human magics are still in the green miasma. This area is a no-go for any human action for a while."

"Are all the humans dead in the human district?"

"As far as we can tell, yes. There are no human signals anywhere inside Goblinhome's territory. Independent AIs have verified as much."

Mark turned on the Glory and Fear as he descended toward the kaiju, saying, "Forget the backup. I'll see about doing this myself."

Soon, and then over the course of an hour, Mark connected to the kaiju, stamped out all disagreement between the kaiju's parts, and brought it back together into a cohesive whole.

The dragon reemerged from the metal, and that dragon went to work.

Mark helped.

Mark even stood on the base of the dragon's neck, ringed in Glory and roaring with the kaiju as it turned the world to blood and broken stone. Quark captured a picture of that from 30 meters away, looking on from one of Mark's adamantium blades. Mark sent the image off to Noel of the Hero/Villain Program. He could probably clean it up in post to make Mark look normal again.

And that was the extent of Mark's showboating and propaganda. Other people would be getting more of it, no doubt.

For 20 hours, Mark killed goblins and ripped up the land with the kaiju. He gained 3,700 kilos of adamantium during that time, holding all of that metal up above his head in a great halo of blades and otherwise, as the kaiju grew to twice the size it had been before the nukes.

And yet the goblins persisted.

There were a lot of underground cities here in the Greendeaths. Entire monster farms, too.

Goblins bit the monsters, making more goblins, and young goblins grew fast. They were organized. BiggestBaddest was still out there, same as he was everywhere.

Quark called out a nuclear launch again, and this time Mark stayed where he was, wrapping himself in a sudden layer of adamantium, and then he pulled the entire kaiju into a perfect, ablative sphere.

A brilliance detonated against silver/bronze/copper flesh, and metal splattered in every direction, but Mark was safe under 200 meters of metal, and the kaiju whined, but Mark unfolded the kaiju and healed it to full. Irradiated metal gathered like so many lost pools of mercury as the dragon hatched among the half-glassed mountains.

The dragon roared, and Mark roared with it.

Hours later, and there were no more goblin attacks. Just goblins running. And not many, at that.

On August 18th, 2049, 5 days after Mark started his assault on Goblinhome and 3 days after Gate Day, after many flying passes across the whole place, Walaria officially declared that the Greendeath mountains were 'cleared well enough'.

Mark flew the kaiju south, wings spread wide, taking his time and seeing through the dragon's senses just as much as his own. It was relaxing.

One short 650 kilometer flight later, and Mark landed the kaiju 40 kilometers north of the settlement.

The big elemental was very, very tired.

Mark landed on the kaiju's head and patted him as he softly said, "Curl up and sleep. Time to dream."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The kaiju curled up like a cat, tucking its tail in and folding its wings over itself as it twisted its long neck around its tail. As it moved in on itself, shedding some of its draconic shapes and becoming more metal-like and featureless, Mark caltrop'd away, moving 5,400 kilos of free adamantium and 2,600 kilos of his own Adamantium Body far away from the twisting kaiju. Mark had never moved this much adamantium ever before, and he doubted he could ever do it on his own, but he was using the kaiju's power as well as his own, while he could, and so Mark got a good distance away before he turned and watched.

The land broke under the kaiju's weight. Things screamed and fled.

The kaiju settled down, its multi-metal body becoming less distinct. Features faded. Scales of many colors became streaks of bronze, copper, and mostly a lot of silver.

And then Mark said, "Goodbye."

The animating force in the kaiju's body broke in half, then in half, then in half again, tiny fractures that Mark was barely holding together suddenly releasing all at once. Mark barely had to help it along to kill it properly, and soon, the adamantium in Mark's astral body was too heavy, and he dropped most of it. Mark remained standing as the kaiju finally died.

Mark stood there for a long while, staring at the new metal mountain.

And then he looked at his blacker than black body, twisting his hand this way and that, as though he still had bones under there. Maybe he did, in some sort of fashion? He hadn't done much experimentation back at the Greendeaths. He had been busy.

But now he poked at his skin with his fingers, and then he purposefully deformed his flesh as he would with his Kinesis, pushing at his bicep, and his arm came off. His arm hovered in the air, and Mark flexed his fingers on his separated arm though there was a connection between him and the arm, and then he relaxed. The lower arm flowed back into place on the stump of his upper arm.

In the last four days, Mark had found out that high-powered bullets would splash through his body, without causing injury. He discovered that he didn't need to eat or breathe, but that he could if he wanted. Trying to bite a stray leaf and taste it proved he still had his tastebuds, too.

He did not feel tired.

He had not gotten his head blown off, or his neck severed, but Mark had experimentally cut through half of his neck and Quark had touched the space 'where his brain should have been', and Mark was pretty sure he could keep going the whole way with the cut, or Quark could have gone deeper with the brain-cavity-exploration. But he did not. It was fucking freaky, is what it was.

It wasn't uncomfortable at all to detach body parts, which made it all that much worse, somehow. Only people who had elemental bodies could do that, and that meant that Mark might permanently be this way.

Mark had been in contact with his friends and the settlement for the last few days while he was working and they kinda danced around the issue, but Sally straight-up told him that he was probably stuck like this and then they all kinda reluctantly agreed with her. Isoko could still taste food and be normal in her Full Platinum form, though, so she had hope for Mark.

Mark frowned, muttering, "Gods dammit."

He wondered, once again, what had happened to him back in that Binding dream, where he Altered his Binding, because yeah, it was very Altered. Mark had delved inside a few times since then, and those 'waterwheels' that he had put into his Binding were still there, still churning out adamantium into Mark's whole self—

People were coming out from the settlement.

Mark turned, and saw Full Platinum Isoko flying on silver wind toward him, calling out something— Oh. She was smiling and saying hello. She was happy and it showed. Eliot and Sally were on a hovercraft behind Isoko—

And then Isoko flew right into him, wrapping arms, almost crushing herself against Mark's chest.

Mark suddenly had to pull back some so Isoko didn't fucking crash headfirst into an adamantium wall, saying, "Holy fuck Isoko!" Mark un-deformed, flexing back out to his normal form, and Isoko laughed even as she held him. Mark held her back, saying, "You coulda really…" He sniffled. "… hurt yourself."

Isoko pressed her face against him, saying, "You did hurt yourself, Mark."

Mark had a heavy moment of sobbing, just a little, and then Sally was there and Eliot was there, too, and Eliot gave him some clothes that he said were probably going to tear a whole lot because Mark had no Tactile Telekinesis, but the clothes were enchanted heavily for stretching and repairing, so it might be okay. Mark sobbed a little the whole time, and then Mark very carefully hugged Eliot, and Eliot laughed as he slapped Mark's arms, saying not to choke him out.

Sally, however, grabbed Mark in her giant arms and crushed him against her big chest, and Mark felt happy, for a moment, as Sally said, "I can finally hug you without breaking you! Great improvement!"

Mark laughed, and it was a good, real laugh.

Eliot commented, "So all this adamantium in the ground around you is about 425 billion. Wanna make some investments?"

Mark smiled. "Yeah, I do." He looked up at the big mountain of metal. "How much is that?"

Eliot said, "Somewhere between 1.9 and 3.7 trillion goldleaf. The Empire is taking 90% of it, though."

Isoko exclaimed, "I can't believe that! You did all the work!"

"Woulda been 100%!" Mark said, "But I got 10% for Eliot."

Eliot grinned wide. "I should have taught you how to make aluminum from ore, Mark. But we'll work on that."

Mark smiled. "How was Gate Day?"

Sally said, "Cat 2 indestructible sloth."

Isoko said, "Aurora tossed it away from the settlement three times to give Kandon more time to kill it, which he did. Goofy was there, though, and he wanted to help, but he got told to stay away a lot— So Sally made a bunch of cakes and stuff! Stress baking." Isoko smirked. "You can still eat, right?"

Sally was tense. Eliot was unsure. Isoko was hopeful.

Mark had already told them that he could still taste, but he was very happy to say, in person, "Give me all the cakes and cookies and steaks, please. I am fucking starving."

Sally exhaled, "Oh thank the gods."

Isoko smiled softly. Warmly.

Eliot began, "They've been celebrating in the capital and everywhere else in Aluatha for the last 3 days. There's a major, huge international incident with the remnants of the Water People —Tulo Khava's people— but they didn't really live in D'Australia anyway, and…"

Mark felt good to be back, and honestly, if felt really, really fucking good, to know that they had avoided Total War with the goblins.

- - - -

Addavein closed the viewing spells and grinned. "Good job, bro." He chuckled. "And I didn't even have to help you."

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