With Monarch's Will and Profound Unity active, multiple precise streams of toxin zoomed rapidly through the air, each of them spearheaded by a razor-sharp shard of blue crystal which would slice a wound in the victim through which the rest of the stream would enter and wreak havoc.

The familiar madness of combat and blood shed pulled Eik into a spiral. Accelerant detonations ripped through the Gohkamorians, reaping lives by the second. The slaughter was thrilling.

He wrestled with whether to leave survivors or not. Despite being Gohkamorians, not all of the people at the compound attacked him. Some seemed to be servants and administrative personnel. Even among these large, warlike aliens some possessed less fierce tendencies it would seem.

Earth, and by extension Eik, was at a narrative advantage against the Gohkamorians. Given their history, he sincerely hoped that other civilizations and the Alliance would side with him when it came to explaining what had happened here today. There was precedent and evidence of the Gohkamorian aggression against Earth. Not to mention that the Gohkamorians already had a relatively bad image as being too blunt and ornery. People usually didn't really want to deal with that kind of attitude.

And Eik was an up and coming superstar in the world of alchemy.

But it was difficult to defend the murder of what was essentially civilians. And if he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure he wanted to be a man who killed people who had not attacked him first. At least not in a situation where he had as much control as he did now.

He stood over the delegation leader, now the one looking down. When the large man breathed his last Eik sighed and headed for the front gate. A dozen non-combatants stood silently by, watching him leave with mouths agape. He stopped and turned to look at them, a steady gaze moving from face to face.

"I'm not going to hurt you, you know," he told them. His clothes were pristine, what little blood spatter might have made contact long since cleaned away by Profound Toxin. Their eyes told him they didn't believe his words. "I'm not like your civilization. You killed us, year after year. I doubt you personally had a hand in it, so I'll leave you alive. But this is the last time that will happen."

A few of them nodded in acknowledgement, but most looked doubtful that they wouldn't collapse, dead, by the time he walked out of there.

He used the short time it took to go back to Gimleh proper at top speed to unwind a bit. The wind through his hair and the aroma of the wild vegetation growing abundantly on the outskirts of the city always had a calming effect on him. Leaping through the air like superman wasn't half bad either.

"Mr. Magnasen!" The fracture specialist on duty in the fracture hall was the same guy who had been there when Eik had confronted the delegation after denying them entry to Earth. He had been munching on one of the glazed cinnamon buns Eik had given him earlier when he walked in. "That was awfully quick. Did everything go as you had hoped?"

Eik made a face. "Not… exactly. I was forced into a less that ideal situation in the end."

"Some Earthlings told me about the clash you had with the Gohkamorians at the event you held at the Alchemist Guild. Don't tell me they bullied you into a bad deal?" Eik always made a point of treating people in the service industry well. It cost him nothing and it felt better than being an asshole. And people tended to treat him well in return.

"Nah, they tried to but I shut it down quick."

"That's good to hear. Are you heading home then?"

"Yep. Although I'll be coming back through again today."

The fracture specialist smiled and pointed Eik to the same portal he always used, waving goodbye as he stepped through.

He would check his levels later.

***

"How the hell are you calling that 'okay'?" Michael asked as they headed back toward the fracture to Gimleh. "It sounds like the absolute worst thing that could have happened!" They were on their way to see Heath, who had made something for Michael, although he had adamantly refused to tell them what it was ahead of time.

Eik tilted his head from side to side. "It could have gone worse."

"How?" Michael exclaimed, startling a couple of boys walking past them in the opposite direction.

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"They could have won."

"I—… Well, okay, that's true but…"

"Look, I know this isn't ideal but we can't just stay under the metaphorical Gohkamorian boot forever. It's about time that the Unified Mass see that we have more than heated words to oppose those who would attempt to exploit us."

Michael chewed on that idea, nodding only slowly and with little conviction. They often clashed on topics like these. "But won't they deaths make big problems for us? You killed a bunch of A-rankers. They're pretty valuable to any civilization."

Eik shrugged. "Maybe," he admitted. "I honestly don't know, but they went way beyond simple intimidation first, and if there's anything I've learned from working and living in the Unified Mass, it is that you don't just eat that kind of treatment. You fight back. Even if you have to kill. And that's what I did."

"Yeah…" Michael sighed.

"Whatever backlash I face from this will be better than letting things stay as they are. I'm no political expert, by any means, but I honestly think so. We have already shown that we have value, so we need to show that we are both willing and capable of holding on to it with claw and fang."

"I know, I know, I just wish that…" They walked through the portal, Eik high-fiving the fracture specialist from before.

"Dude, enough about that! Whatever happens happens. Tell me how things are going at the clinic instead! I've been meaning to come by to say hello."

"Honestly, better ever day. We keep getting access to more and more medicine of different types, allowing us to treat more stuff more effectively. The doctors you hired to come and update our knowledge of cosmic pharmacology and train our Awakened medical staff are… I mean, Eik, it's priceless."

Eik beamed like a star at that. "That's great to hear. It was a good idea to prioritize it."

"Good idea?" Michael asked. "I don't think you have any idea how many people's lives you have saved, man," the young healer praised.

"I was starting to think that I'm only good for killing, so that's nice to know," Eik said with a grin.

"You're basically a hero, Eik. You know that, right?"

Eik just laughed. "There are still people who think I'm the devil for pushing for the Alliance."

"Yeah, well, those people aren't able to grasp what the alternative would look like. Aimless, horror-filled wandering through a new world we barely understand with help. They don't see how much these aliens they hate have helped us adjust. It is quite literally because of your amicable relationship with Andihar Dayarunar that we have any fund with which to pay for our incomparably better lifestyle."

"You're not wrong, but—"

"You should do something about that by the way," Michael broke in.

"About what?"

"The opposition."

Eik shot him a side-eye as they entered the markets proper, heading for the smith's workshop where Heath was still working as an apprentice. "I can't make it illegal to disagree, Mikey."

"And I'm not saying you should try, but it had to be made clear in no uncertain terms that non-human sentients are, generally, welcome on Earth and aren't below us. And incident similar to what happened to Bin is bound to repeat itself. And the next person it happens to might not be lucky enough to be the beloved daughter of Eik Magnasen."

Eik barely held back his aura as it instinctively flared up at the memory. Releasing such a powerful force, even for a split second would not be good in the middle of such a dense crowd. "You're right. And we also need a more robust leadership at this point. I think we need to hold elections or something," Eik said with a thoughtful nod.

"Or, and hear me out, you could just step in and take command of Fo—"

"I'm not going to become a dictator, mate. Stop trying to get me to become a dictator."

Michael shrugged. "I mean, if you think about it, given a leader with ultimate kindness, ultimate motivation, and ultimate competence, a dictatorship would probably be the best type of government to live under."

"Uh huh, yeah, and what part of me is made up of ultimate competence and ultimate motivation? Not to mention that I am, at best, a kind of nice guy. I would be the worst dictator ever!" Eik stated with certainty, turning a few heads as they entered the artisans' quarter. "Plus, I barely have time to do what I'm already doing."

"All right, fine. But you do know most people think you're making all the decision already, right?"

"Well, they shouldn't. Just because I have the money and the power doesn't mean I would be a good politician. I'd really rather let others do that."

"Fair enough. Oh, here's Heath."

The bulky smith had shed nearly all of the fat he had been carrying around when they had fought together and now replaced it all with rippling muscle. He was so tan that he looked like a solarium addict. He wore a ragged and stained tank top over a thick smith's apron of worn, brown leather. "Aren't you guys kind of early?"

"Eik's meeting didn't go exactly according to plan," Michael told him as they embraced, making a face as his cheek made contact with Heath's sweaty, soot-covered neck.

Eik sent a wave of Profound Toxin across the smith's body as they hugged, the blue substance cleaning off the sweat perfectly. "What, did you end up killing the whole bunch or what?" the large man laughed, patting him on the shoulder with his huge paw.

Michael just looked at him with tired eyes. Eik whistled, having suddenly found the most interesting piece of sawn-off wood ever. Heath's grin fell and he looked from one friend to the other.

"Don't tell me you—…" he faltered and then massaged the bridge of his nose, "Oh, man…"

"It's going to be fine!" Eik hurried to say.

"Yeah, I know," Heath answered flatly, taking the A-ranker by surprise.

Eik narrowed his eyes. "Wait, really?"

Heath shrugged. "Of course. The Unified Mass isn't old Earth. Plus, those big assholes have been terrorizing us for over a decade. They've killed nearly all of us. In fairness, dying was the least they could do for us," the smith said, illustrating just how drastically the human experience had changed since the first monsters descended more than twelve years ago.

Eik gave Michael a look as if to say that that was exactly what he had been saying. The healer waved a fist in warning.

"Come in!" Heath said with excitement. "I have something for you, Mikey. And for you too, Eik."

"For me?" Eik asked, eyebrows lifting.

"Yeah. Are you busy?"

"No, although I do have something I want to show you guys."

"What?"

"I got this new evolution to Living Manifestation. It's called Original Life. I figured we could test it."

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