Sally stepped out of the hub, onto the deck, to watch the show.

  Derek was there to the side, along with Isoko. Andria was far, far ahead, at the front of the ship, away from everyone because she still couldn’t control herself. The inquisitors were somewhere. Eliot was down in the bowels of the ship alongside Tartu, doing weird things with plants, and Sally was pretty sure Andria was down there, also, being all seer-y with some mithril eyeballs. Who knew if they actually worked, though.

  Mark’s eyeballs seemed to work.

  A pair of black eyeballs hovered to the side of a pair of Marks, while the pair of Marks punched each other in the face or body. He was doing a very bad job of it. Fists went wide, missing faces entirely. Feet moved left and right and bodies fell down, only to pick themselves up either naturally, like a person standing up, or unnaturally, like a statue being forced to stand up. Whichever one acted human and whichever one acted like a puppet switched up every so often.

  To Sally’s ‘honor sight’, which is what she called it, because Drakarok refused to call it anything at all ‘lest he influence her development’, every piece of Mark out there was him, all glowing with honor, including the eyes in the air.

  It was all eerie as fuck.

  Derek said, “He might get the hang of that, but I’m not sure.”

  Isoko asked, “What’s the main issue, that you see?”

  “It’s a whole host of issues,” Derek said, “The least of which is that he isn’t a Clone army like me. He’s trying to do this with Adamantiumkinesis, and sure, he has eyes floating out there, acting as POVs, and he can feel through adamantium like it’s his body, but it’s not his body. None of that is his body… And yet, it is. If he had the actual Adamantium Body then maybe he’d be able to do what he’s trying to do. But he has Incorruptible Body. His whole body has been fully corrupted by Adamantium so he can still move with it, but it’s not him.”

  There were so many odd things about this, Sally thought, as she watched the ‘spar’. Or maybe it was more like ‘shadow boxing’. Sometimes Mark’s body —either of them— would move like he was being lifted into position and moved around.

  Sally asked, “Is he marionetting his body? Like puppets?”

  “And that’s another issue,” Derek said, “He’s puppeteering himself instead of actually being all of his bodies at the same time.” Derek put his hands around his mouth and yelled out, “Stop being a single body, Mark! You’re all of yourself at the same time!”

  The left Mark nodded, but his focus was still on the Mark in front of him. The right Mark didn’t nod or do anything at all. The left Mark was the one wearing adamantium briefs. The right one was wearing the illusionary clothes. So that meant that Mark, the one that nodded, currently thought the left one was him, even though the right one had started off as him? Sally felt that assessment was mostly correct… and also disconcerting.

  Sally asked Derek, “Is it even possible for him to achieve clone-like action? Multiple brains, multiple bodies?”

  Derek said, “He doesn’t have a brain or heart right now. He still has lungs because he believes he needs them. So your question is beyond me, Sally.”

  Isoko said, “He talked about wanting everything. That means having at least two or more bodies. Like… is your brain in your body, Derek? Or… or what?”

  Derek hummed, then said, “My brains are in my bodies, and all of them are me, and we all selectively update each other whenever one of us dies. I tend to discard most pain associated with death, but the memories come to all of us like dreams we remember.” He added, “If one of my bodies doesn’t have a brain, then it’s just dead. I’m much, much more tied to physicality than Mark right now. I’m not an elemental at all.”

  Isoko nodded, thinking.

  Sally prepared a question, eyes focused on Derek, as she asked, “How do you recommend he go about getting multiple bodies?”

  “He shouldn’t go for my Power at all, but also there are so many ways to achieve Clones,” Derek said, “There’s the spell, for starters. He could do the actual spell… but much later. After he’s settled. He’s already a Tri-Talent, and when you go for 4 you turn into a monster, without fail. So he has to do it with his evolving Body, which means… there are limitations. What I can do is only one option, and Army of One is an Arch Power. Mark met that one goblin, Biggest Baddest, you know? That’s another option, though mind-slaving people is probably not how Mark wants to do it. That’s a Mind Power, but if he wanted he could go for a Body Power…” Derek looked away, thinking— “Snatcher Body! That’s the Body Power equivalent.”

  Sally made a face. “The fuck?”

  “I know, it’s gross and awful,” Derek easily said, “But it’s an option. He could probably even ‘snatch’ cows or whatever, and then Union with Humanity and Non-Humanity in like… somewhere without people, so he could take the idea of Humanity from the air and turn the cow body into a human.”

  Sally frowned a little, not sure what game Derek was playing now.

  Isoko was flabbergasted as she asked, “That’s possible? Snatcher body and human… turning cows to humans?”

  “Oh yeah,” Derek said, “Magic can do a whole lot of weird shit if you don’t have ethics! People have tried to kill me in all sorts of ways— If Mark ended up doing that, he could just use a bunch of me to turn himself human— Wait wait. I could just give him a few of my bodies. Duh! Yes. I can do that.” Derek waved a hand, dismissing a lot as he said, “Some guy Snatched some of my bodies trying to get Clone Army for himself, but it doesn’t work like that.”

  “Holy shit…” Isoko said, “I’ve never even heard of Snatcher Body.”

  Sally explained, “Snatcher Body is the counterpart to what changelings do.”

  “Oh! You know it?” Derek asked.

  Isoko paled.

  Sally kept going, “Snatcher Bodies take over other people with weaker Body Powers than themselves. It’s a Power Level check, basically. And then the Snatcher can pilot them around, including all of their non-Body Powers. Eventually the Snatcher takes over the person 100%, fully assimilating the body and killing the person.”

  Derek went, “Ehh… No. They can’t take over a person completely.”

  “They can,” Sally said, “But your Binding isn’t inside every one of your bodies.”

  “Oh… Yeah,” Derek said, nodding, “Well yeah, yes.” And then he added, “The infected person can fight back until they die. That’s the difference between Snatcher Body and whatever that goblin Biggest Baddest can do. Snatcher Body kills the host. ‘Snatcher Mind’ or whatever takes over the mind of the person and doesn’t allow for the snatcher to control the powers of the host.”

  Sally asked Derek, “You don’t know what Biggest Baddest’s Power is called? You, with all of your thousands of selves?”

  Derek scoffed and turned on the charm, saying, “You assume people will let me near sensitive information at all, Sally.”

  … Sally grunted.

  Isoko was still pale.

  Sally didn’t like scaring people with the truths she knew, that Drakarok told her in her dreams, but some truths were too important to keep hidden, especially when they were spoken about and not actually elaborated on, like Derek seemed to do a lot. Sally was pretty sure Derek was on their side, but he was still not fully here. The guy never had to commit to anything in life except for his own pleasure, and that would forever make him a liability.

  And sure enough, Derek continued talking about big things, “I’m 100% certain that when Andria masters her Mindless Manipulation she’ll be able to inject her mind into stuff like slimes and birds, and thus achieve something like a multi-man ability. So that’s another way to do what Mark wants with multiple bodies. If Mark had actual Adamantium Body, like I said, he could probably learn to make multiple bodies. And he could even make himself a flesh body, too… probably. Adamantium is just mana, and shaped mana can mimic other mana, and so he could theoretically mimic a few different bodies using some good illusion magics. For instance, the Avatar spell is a really good ‘illusion’ spell that allows for a fully-living secondary body. That spell has a massive material cost-sink attached to the body for the spell, more than it requires actual spellwork. So Mark could get Adamantium Body and then make illusionary avatars of himself that are ‘normal flesh and blood’.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Isoko stared outward, going, “Huh.”

  Sally was having a moment, too. “Avatar, huh?”

  Derek shook his head a little. “Mark would be constrained to the size of his astral body, which is, like… pretty damned long in singular directions, but yeah, he could do Avatar magic, leave his real body somewhere about 500 meters away, and then project out into a fake body. That is probably the easiest and hardest option, though. Gotta learn how to make the receptacle… Hmm. He could probably learn how to do that. I don’t know how to do it.” Derek paused, then said, “If you want more than a few hundred meters between body and avatar, then you need to do some seer-stuff to get there.”

  Sally nodded as she grunted, saying, “Without seer someone could sever the connection between bodies and kill half of him and then kill the part that remained in an assassination attempt, yeah?”

  “Correct,” Derek said. “Mark as a seer would be way, way too dangerous, though. Andria is going to have to wear that bracelet of hers for the rest of her life.”

  Isoko said, “Mark said something about how seers probably have contiguous astral bodies, but parts of them spill over into other dimensions, like personal heavens. Said something about how Calling can do the same thing, and that’s why Calls out in Endless Daihoon last forever.”

  There was a moment.

  The moment stretched.

  Sally felt like a little bit of something had revealed itself to her, but she was incapable of understanding it right now. Like a meal too big; you had to look at it for a while before you could even begin to eat it.

  But Derek chuckled, smiling as though he had heard a funny joke, or… or perhaps someone had figured something out that he already knew?

  Sally asked Derek, “You’re a seer, right? With the Arch Power, Army of One?”

  Derek snorted. “I cheated! But yes. Not a true seer, though… Or maybe I am, now?” Derek clicked his tongue. “No. Not a true seer.”

  Sally asked, “Could Eliot get seer?”

  “It’s not actually a benefit for most people,” Derek said, “Look at Andria. She’ll figure it out, but she still only has so much astral body to go around; most people only have so much astral body to go around. Every piece she lets go is a piece of herself that can’t Shape the mithril near her. I don’t think Eliot should even try for seer, because then he won’t be able to feel around himself, when he needs to feel around himself.” Derek added, “I don’t think Mark should get seer, either. Maybe he could figure out how to bounce through another dimension, though. Most mages figure that out eventually. That should be enough for him, and for Eliot.”

  Isoko sighed out, “Goddess… you really do know so, so much.”

  “I’m cheating a lot,” Derek smiled, freely admitting. “I’ve taken, like, 100 college courses, I should have several degrees in a lot of fields from medicine to engineering, and with Union of Good/Bad I can learn a whole lot faster and better.” Derek looked out at Mark, with a great kindness in his eyes, adding, “When Mark Unioned with me, with that kaiju, and I burst through to Army of One… A lot changed. So, so much changed. I was a skinny prick of a guy, thin arms and weak muscles, because I was killing myself making more of myself, trying to learn and never getting where I wanted to go. But then suddenly I could pick my bodies, and I could have some of them work out all the time and then pick and choose what carried over from one body to the other. Gods… gods, that was good. Being able to choose what came over from the bodies that died?

  “That changed everything.

  “I had 10 guys working at the gym for a week and 10 guys sleeping all the time and then I’d combine rest with workouts and… I got fucking swole, ladies. And then I backed off. Apparently only gym rats like that much muscle.” He smirked. “But that was fun too, ya know.”

  Sally knew that Derek was an absolute charmer when he wanted to be, and right now he was doing it practically effortlessly. Isoko was certainly charmed. Sally was on high alert, though… but her Retribution didn’t sense any dishonesty in his soul, and her ‘honor sight’ was… well...

  Sally focused in a sideways sort of way, and she saw Derek as a mess of generally positive glows, with Isoko as a tentative good glow. Isoko was pretty much a normal person. Derek flickered unevenly, but only because he was doing so very, very much right now, and the Retribution the world owed him was constantly in flux… Or at least that’s what Sally thought she was seeing. She was still learning about her new sense.

  Mark was, of course, even brighter than before, because Andria, sitting further ahead, was like a radiance upon the horizon. Mark had caused Andria to happen, and all of that was making Mark that much brighter.

  … But Andria was way too bright for how much she had not-yet-done in life.

  Thanks to that display from Pluta the other day, of coming in and personally doing a Prosperity reading, and how much effort Drakarok and the other gods were putting into this endeavor… Sally didn’t want to think what she was thinking, but she had formed a rather damning hypothesis in the last few days.

  Sally was 95% sure Pluta’s current ‘backup’, the one that Addavein had told Mark about, the one that existed somewhere in the Seattle Arcologies… That backup had died some time in the last few decades or whenever. Sally wasn’t sure of the exact date. But she did know that Addavein had told Mark that he hadn’t heard from or about Pluta OR Verdago’s backup in decades. And so Pluta appearing here, for Andria, and Verdago Choosing Tartu even though the guy wasn’t pious at all—

  No, scratch that. Tartu was pious, but to the Old Gods, the dead ones.

  Tartu’s ‘Honor Glow’ was pretty big, too, and Sally knew the guy hadn’t done much of anything in his life except be branded by a whole lot of people as a dupe, thanks to the Kardi shit…

  Anyway.

  Andria was probably already Pluta’s official backup.

  Tartu was probably going to be Verdago’s official backup, too.

  Sally was pretty sure Drakarok was preparing her to be a guardian for all of these people here, when they got back to the settlement. Drakarok’s backup was that woman north of Memphi, though, Red Wolf. The Brain Popper.

  Sally was pretty sure Derek was going to be folded into the Inquisitors in a big way, and soon, and he’d be a part of Andria and Tartu’s full protection detail.

  And Mark?

  … Mark was gonna be Mark.

  Isoko asked Derek, “Do you have a part of you off in some personal heaven?”

  Sally jolted back to the conversation.

  Derek snorted… and then he paused and hummed. “… I don’t know? If I do, it might be Freyala’s heaven now?” He said, “I’ve never actually found out what the Chosen System actually is. Nor anything about how the actual System works, either. Looked into it. Most people only give the same answers. ‘It’s a massive Binding ritual’ is probably the most accurate. But the System is also the Veil between the Two Worlds, and located on Arakino, and a reorganizing of a broken thing left by the Dragon King or any tens of other fallen civilizations from thousands of years ago. Whatever the Chosen System is, it might be, like… an offshoot of the main System? But for divinity control? … Huh. Do you think Divinity Manipulation might be a Power?”

  Isoko sighed and said, “There’s just so much weird shit happening right now. So many questions— Like that ‘demons didn’t used to be called demons’ shit that Nobody Important implied. Think any more thoughts about that, Sally?”

  Sally had been having a lot of truly deep thoughts about that exact thing, actually. Mostly, there was the Kardi-angle, with all that shit she said about Thrashtalon being ‘the only real god’ and how all of his demons were really angels; Sally had already gone over all of that with everyone a few days ago. Drakarok had some other Truths about all of that, for those with the ears to hear them, but that subset of people did not include Sally’s friends, teammates, and especially not Derek, so Sally said nothing about any of that. She might say something later, in private.

  But for now, Sally said, “I don’t know. Has Malaqua or his people at the church in India said anything, Derek? Has Nobody Important appeared at the Moon?”

  Derek shook his head. “No signs yet, or at least no public signs. I’m sure if Nobody Important appeared physically at Luna then everyone would be saying something.”

  “Even he has to dodge the cat 8s that prowl up and down the deep layers, right?” Isoko asked. “The kaijus that take up the whole layers? Could he get through those spaces?”

  Derek offhandedly said, “I’m sure that if anyone can kill a cat 8 kaiju, it’s a trapped ‘cat 7’ with power that already took up an entire layer.”

  “… oh,” Isoko softly said, “You don’t think he’s a cat 7 at all.”

  “Nope,” Derek answered.

  Sally shivered.

  The conversation died as they watched Mark.

  Sally had been out here for half an hour so far, and in that time Mark had learned how to punch himself, dodge his own punches, and kinda move normally. But it was just the skill gained from practice; not any true skill with understanding having actual multiple bodies.