Adamant Blood

Mark hovered, blade spinning fast overhead, a kilometer above and away from the first of four major goblin villages located within 15 kilometers of the settlement. This one was the smallest village. Maybe 5,000 goblins. It had at least a few good defenders, according to Quark's intel.

A mid-level speedster goblin, at around 15x speed.

A strong 'plant kinetic', which could have been any number of actual Powers, from Natural to Kinetic to even a few different Arcane and Arch types, but which was most likely Natural.

And a few different elemental-controlling goblins, which were born today as a result of all of the goblin interaction with the elemental defense, around the settlement. Mark didn't expect any real trouble from the last group, and the plant kinetic would die when Mark defoliated the place. The speedster could be a challenge.

And honestly, actually looking at the place, Mark imagined that the number of 'Plant Kinetics' was really high. Higher than 1 or 2. Maybe as many as 15. All of them should prove no trouble at all.

The place looked like a natural wonder.

It was predominantly goblinfruit trees, growing tall and winding, spilling out goblinfruit from spiraling branches. Roots intertwined all over the place, making burrows and walls. Streets were made of grass, brilliant green and growing well. Little rainclouds spilled out of the air here and there, starting streams halfway up trees. Those streams then connected together, to be carried on aqueducts made of connected branches.

And then there were the goblins all over the place, looking like people. They went about their days, making weapons out of wood, or out of stone. They sparred with each other. They fought and killed each other, but mostly they fought hard. And then they broke up, and healer goblins, with glowing hands, healed the injured. Elemental-aligned goblins fought each other, and they didn't injure each other that much at all.

They were preparing for war, of course.

According to Quark, this was the 'forward base' of the goblin menace that encircled the settlement.

"Shouldn't we connect with others to take this on?" Derek asked. "There have to be more teams out there gunning for this place."

"We can take it," Isoko said. "Mark already killed a few places like this twice over, by himself."

A single Derek hovered on a seat made of adamantium, while the guns for his clones were in a bucket made of more adamantium. The Army of One guy was pretty much a baseline human, so he got an actual seat. Isoko just needed a grip to hold onto and a bit of a bracer to make it more comfortable, so that's what she got. She was a little bit platinum right now; just enough to let her hold on easily, and because they were close to the warzone. She would need to deploy fast.

"I didn't kill those places just by myself," Mark said, "Lee did a lot and fire did the rest, but he's still recovering, and we never got all of the goblins. The plant shaper ones always got away, thanks to the speedster. The speedster is the real problem. He's kinda pinkish, instead of green. We've caught sight of him a few times already. The plant shapers are normal green goblins. I think with Derek here, though, we'll be able to get them all." Mark looked at Derek and Derek was excited as Mark said, "I need you to be very human in your vector, and for there to be a lot of you. That way I can easily target all of you for a positive Union and target the strongest goblins for some negative unions, before they get away. I'm gonna be leaning on your own ability to Union Bad into the goblins, too, since there won't be enough guns for you to use." Mark said to Isoko, "I need Isoko here to watch my back, so you're going in alone, Derek." He asked them both, "That sound good?"

"Question!" Derek asked, "What does 'be very human in your vector' mean?"

Mark said, "Just keep your Union active."

"I can do that!" Derek grinned. "You can already cover the entire place by yourself, though, can't you?"

Mark looked to the goblin village, to the 8 massive goblinfruit trees that made up the place. To the large open spaces in the middle. Quark was already figuring out distances for Mark, but Mark had picked up a few tricks for judging distances, and he was pretty sure the village was only 1.3 kilometers wide, and 100 meters tall, at the tallest. Quark popped up with slightly different numbers. 1.45 kilometers wide and 70 meters tall, but also an estimated 30 meters deep, which Mark hadn't figured at all, but he probably should have. They had stone shapers, of course. There were places underground that needed to be unearthed.

When this was mostly over, Mark would evacuate everyone and then sand the place down, using a Union of Earth and Bubbles, and make sure all the underground goblins were dead, too.

Mark asked, "How many people can you actually make, Derek? I need to know for encircling planning."

Derek got serious and said, "I used to stress at around 400 clones. Now I don't feel a strain until a thousand, but I easily pushed past that to 2500 before I decided to stop the test, and I only stopped because the further-out Dereks started to pop because so much of me was contained in one location. When I go for numbers there's a kinda 'gravity' to where the numbers are accumulating. That gravity is too much for further copies…" He paused. He added, " 'Further copies' means the other side of the world, or on Earth. I would prefer to keep those clones alive and active, so could I do… You know what? I can do 5,000 copies. I can absolutely do 5,000 copies."

Mark and Isoko were both impressed.

Mark said, "All the way on Earth? That's cool."

"Really cool," Isoko said, chuckling a little.

Derek seemed softly secure under those honest compliments. "I'd rather not do that today, though. It's a pain in the ass to get back to Earth without the gate."

Mark nodded, saying, "I won't ask that of you, but… Now I have a kinda crazy idea. But it should work because goblins work a certain way, and because they might not even be able to see you due to the ritual we did. The idea is this: You go around the entire place, and we work our way inward…"

- -

Berry the goblin rose from his meditation, in the heart of the village.

Something was wrong.

He had heard noises—

Pat-pat-pat-pat!

There they were again. Killing-gun noises.

Berry's heart beat fast in realization, matching the sound of killing guns.

… But maybe some brothers had found some guns and they were using them stupidly, though guns were useless against the elementals anyway, so they might as well practice with them. Berry's heart slowed down. Nothing was wrong. Berry stood up, and with a great sigh and a wave of his hands he opened the grow-wood of the tree, making a window to see outside, to see the commotion.

The training field was rather normal with brothers fighting each other and healers on standby. It was a pretty good strategy, but if it weren't for Speedy none of these idiots would have realized they could learn and do just like the Big Prey. Training mattered. A lot of goblins were just lying around, though, sleeping in the sun, sleeping off their injuries. Silly guys.

Speedy would be around soon to wake them up and make sure they were still training. He'd probably get the healers out and working again, too. Some of those holes in the guys looked pretty bloody, but Berry supposed that the guys needed to learn pain, too.

… Where were the healers? Ah. They had gotten caught in the training bullets… Hmm.

They weren't getting up either?

… Where were the brothers using the guns? Usually they'd be jumping and laughing.

Berry looked, and all he saw were brothers slashing at each other with wooden weapons and… And they slashed at the air. They were attacking something? Invisible somethings—

The air flickered with fire, just a few dots, and it was the pat-pat-pat-pat noise again. The invisible air gunned down several brothers, and—

Something touched Berry. Something intangible. Something Bad.

Berry backed up, away from the window, and the feeling broke.

But the feeling was still there. Lurking. Hurting.

Invisible monsters.

Berry had to get away. Overwhelmingly, completely, the need to flee overpowered every part of Berry's consciousness. Berry turned toward the inner tree, waving a passageway into the wood. He slid down through the dark, into the depths of the tree, and then out the other side, away from the invisible monsters, right onto a road—

Things moved through the grass, disturbing them with their footprints. Invisible monsters everywhere!

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People didn't see the monsters at all. They didn't sense them. They went about their days. One goblin a few days old was teaching goblins born just today about the miracle fruit past the big walls in the distance.

"And if you can Bite one of those lacunas, then you can be reincarnated as a true power! Not the pitiful Powers we have today. You could be someone like Speedy, or maybe even Grax, our progenitor from Goblinhome!"

The younglings asked eager questions, their speech all fucked up; Too young to know how to talk.

Berry narrowed his eyes on the '4-day old' 'teacher'. If the teacher was talking like that then he was a plant from Goblinhome. Interlopers, all of them.

… Now why was Berry down here, again? He should be meditating and growing the village. But he had come down here because of something important. Very, very important… And a little scary?

Meh! Whatever it was was probably fine—

Pat-pat-pat-pat!

Red holes opened up in the younglings and the elder didn't stop talking about Goblinhome at all.

The invisible enemies!

Berry ran as fast as he could.

He got out of there. He turned and went back into the wood, toward the big roots that led to tunnels underneath it all. With a wave of his hand the wood stuttered… The wood didn't open? Berry waved his hands at the wood again, and the wood remained how it was. This time it didn't even budge—

"Oh no," Berry whispered to the air. To the dead all around him.

To the dead trees and the very healthy grass. Grass was useless as a defense, though, so of course… Of course the enemy let the grass grow. The grass didn't matter.

The Black Death was here.

Berry ran for it, running down the streets, like a mad-goblin rushing out of a burning building. All around him he watched as bright green leaves and beautifully shaped brown wood began to rot, to crumble. To die. The grass got softer, taller. Only a few people noticed. It wasn't a big effect at all. But Berry noticed all of it, now that he could see. Now that he could feel. He tried to bring forth the red warning berries across the entire street; that's where he had gotten his name from, the warning berries. But the wood wouldn't respond.

It was too late for any warning at all.

The Black Death was here, and he was coming for the trees, first.

"Speedy! SPEEDY!" Berry yelled. "Where is Speedy! HELP ME SPEE—"

Blood burst from Berry's throat, choking him, his sight dimming as he crashed to the lush, grassy street.

Branches snapped and crashed, and brothers screamed in gurgling death.

Berry died under the weight of so many desiccated trees, and grass consumed his body.

- -

The goblin spilled out of a ripe fruit, barely understanding where he was or what had happened, but he knew enough to pull himself out of the tangle of limbs that were his brothers. There were five of them, and then there was an older brother yelling at them with big words and shoving sharpened sticks into the goblin's hands.

The goblin ran forward, pushed along by its brothers who knew better. The goblin almost stumbled as it ran down a road made of soft green, under big trees, beside big open spaces with lots of juicy red fruit growing bright in the sunshine. It was hungry and the fruit looked good—

A white-thing, bigger than any brother, screamed as it ran through the fruit grove, yelling something that made no sense at all. It was fearful, though. The goblin could tell that much.

The goblin's teeth ached with a need to puncture, to… to Bite.

The goblin chased after it, alongside tens of its brothers, trying to Bite the big white thing. A warm tang filled its mouth. It was the taste of a new life, for sure. He just had to Bite the big white-thing, with its pink head and hairy scalp.

It looked delicious in a way that the goblin didn't understand—

And then the goblin faded, getting real sleepy, a warm tang filling its mouth that was not the taste of the Bite, at all.

The goblin lay down and watched as the white thing screamed out in fake fear.

As the goblin died he realized the white thing was not fearful, but instead, a lure.

- -

Derek died a lot, but with Mark on overwatch Derek killed a lot, too.

Goblins were some of the worst fucking monsters around, and Derek was so glad he could finally join a real team, like Mark's, and put down some real enemies. He did have to compartmentalize the battle, though, so he could put on a good show for Mark and Isoko, and prove that he had what it took to hang with the big boys. No distractions in the settlement. No distractions down in Crytalis. No distractions back on Earth, at home.

It was the memory flow and recreating Dereks that really ate up his processing power. Every time one of them popped, or one of them was created, Derek had a joining-feeling, or a splitting-feeling, and that was a big call-of-action; a signal to all of him that something was actually happening somewhere that needed to be seen, heard, understood.

So Derek stopped all splits and otherwise in other places, his many parts all complaining and then agreeing that they needed to have less fun right now, so that all of them could do some real work.

And then Derek was just himself again, sitting on an adamantium seat high in the sky, watching himself down below advance from every angle of the goblin town, toward the center. Mark was right beside him, black lightning skittering out of his body, crackling into the air around his spinning blade. The wind was incredible, under all that flow, but Derek wasn't cold. His webweave was high-class shit; it cost him a bit of his own Power to summon himself while wearing a copy of his webweave, but that was fine. It was a price well paid. And he had a Body in the 60s, so he was pretty insulated from normal things like the cold.

Derek looked down.

From on the ground another Derek looked up at himself, and then Derek was on the ground marching forward, Union snapping out with every hard breath, blood pumping in a way that wasn't useful except to keep him alive, because all he had was Union of Breath, but that was fine. He'd get Union of Blood eventually! Freyala and everyone else just needed to trust him more, because he was trustworthy of power! Derek breathed in the Good and breathed out the Bad with all of his clones, ten of them nearby. They were on a grassy street that was filled with dead and dying goblins.

A few Dereks used stolen wooden blades to chop off the heads of sleeping, not-quite-dead goblins. They had to really chop hard, too, with some heavy cuts, because the sleeping goblins were very, very strong, with Bodies in the 50s, at least, and the wood was only PL 3 or 5. It was basic scavenged shit, and Derek didn't have any Tactile Telekinesis at all.

Oh the things he needed to make this life really work how he wanted! So many things! Mark was gonna get him there, too, because that guy wanted the same thing that Derek wanted, and that meant that they could work well together—

A pink streak flew down the road, Dereks turning heads toward the streak, the pink vector only felt in a small way, because Derek didn't have a great range on anything except Army of One—

And then Derek's head was spinning through the air, disconnected from his body, his Union of Breath, and he was dead. It was a fucking speedster, wasn't it.

Ah, shit.

Dereks died.

Derek poked up from beyond a wall and took aim with his rifle at the pink streak, waiting for it to stop moving, to stop killing all the other Dereks. Derek made twenty more of himself and sent them out there, rushing into the marketplace as a distraction. It was too fucking fast. At least it couldn't really see where every Derek was, but it didn't need to. It attacked everywhere, all at once, and that was good enough to catch most of Derek.

In the brief moments that the speedy goblin was still, Derek saw that it had a long wooden blade in one hand, everything glowing a little pink, and then it took off again, right at the other Dereks.

"Fuck it," Derek said, and he flicked the gun to full auto. "Only got 50 bullets left anyway."

Derek unloaded—

The pink menace zeroed in on him, easily caving through four Dereks to get to the one with the gun, and then Derek died.

Derek looked down from high in the sky, pointing down to a town square down one of the roads, saying, "That way, Mark. It's the speedster. It's pink and it has a long wooden blade."

They were already flying that way before Derek even finished speaking.

Isoko said, "I want to fight it."

Derek almost scoffed. Normal people didn't fight speedsters. You fought them at range, taking a thousand bodies to kill one speedster, and even then they usually just ran away. But Isoko had a bit of a Speed modifier, didn't she? Hmm… Derek still would have said 'no' to her, if he was Mark.

Mark, however, said, "If you think you can."

"I can," Isoko said.