World Filter

Mark stared at Jonathan’s face, searching it for even a hint of emotion. Yet Jonathan was not relieved, sad, or even angry. His face was that same stoic mask as he dropped these words so casually. Mark didn’t know what to say, but his frustration at all this rose to the surface. Mark had been doing his best to save everyone, and now when it was his friend’s life on the line, he was telling him to give up.

“Hell no, there are still things I can do to help him,” Mark said as he rested a hand firmly on Donny.

“Mark! Don’t!” Jonathan growled, his face finally showing real anger.

Mark ignored him and was about to plunge back into Donny's mind when a chilling Aura cut through the space.

“Out, now… we need to talk” Jonathan's voice became a low whisper, but no one could mistake it in the quiet room.

Mark narrowed his gaze on Jonathan but refused to move, showing as much by meeting his gaze evenly.

The next few seconds happened in such a blur that no one but the two of them could see what happened. One moment, the room was still, and the next, Jonathan was grabbing Mark by the back of his shirt and hurtling him out the opening in the wall, and then jumping out after him.

Outside Mark rightened himself in midair and sent him main construct to block Jonathan's advance. When the two met there was a massive shockwave as an unstoppable force met an immovable object.

The sound echoed off the tops of buildings, crashing like a wave around the area.

Both of them were sent hurling backwards but Jonathan recovered quicker, stepping through the air like a missile.

Mark adjusted his vertical fall and met the next attack head-on. Unfortunately, he hadn’t had as much time to prepare so the secondary hit managed to get through. The force of Jonathan's fist added to Mark’s already blinding speed.

Jonathan had altered his direction, so his attack would send Mark slamming into the spire.

At the last second, Mark sapped the force from his fall so that when he impacted it didn’t break bones, either way, the structure seemed completely unfazed as his feet touched down.

Mark spat blood as he healed his internal bleeding, watching for Jonathan’s next move.

Seeing this Jonathan dropped down to Mark and stepped on the vertical surface of the spire. Both of them faced one another, with the sky to Mark’s back and the city at Jonathan’s, they stared one another down.

Neither said anything, content to star one another down.

Mark made the first move because if he left it to Jonathan, then all he’d be able to do was react.

Manifesting two spears of steel, Mark sent one forward.

As of yet, Jonathan had not drawn his blade, but he did so now.

Cutting the spear into six even pieces and defecting them, though not before Mark managed to change their shape into jagged blades. Three of them cut across Jonathan's body, but the toughness of Aura made even the sharpest of edges nothing more than a trickle of blood.

Mark reformed the spear midair and pulled it back, but by then Jonathan had decided to close the distance.

When his blades came, Mark responded by layering his remaining spear into seven rods and using that to block. Metal rang out as their hits compounded into several dozen ringing tolls, in the span of a single breath.

However, even manifested steel could not keep up against the system-treated stuff. Jonathan’s attacks came faster and Mark moved the second spear to attack from behind. Sensing it coming, Jonathan ducked under it, giving Mark a breather. Switching over the [Telekinetic control], Mark tried to push him away and create distance, but it was like trying to blow a bolder away with a light breeze. Jonathan seemed to activate some skill and become immovable.

At some point, a presence rose nearby but they ignored it.

Jonathan was focused and in control, intent laced his movements. Seeing this Mark stopped conserving energy.

His construct reformed with an ‘absorb’ intent and settled over Mark's shoulders. It was going to be less helpful against a cutting object, but it would still make a difference.

When Jonathan came again, Mark blocked and retaliated. Using the construct as his weapon of choice, slamming it down like a mallet.

The two of them continued to fling one another around and Mark had to heal his wounds multiple times, but the longer they went the harder it was getting to hold on.

Mark blocked his blades, only to sink his construct-coated fist into Jonathan's solar plexus.

The two of them continued to fight on the spire as though it were their personal arena, dodging back and forth until Mark saw his opening.

With a massive clawed construct, Mark wrapped Jonathan in a cage and pressed him against the spire. Grinding him against the stonework, this worked for about five seconds before Jonathan’s Aura tore the construct to shreds. When he got out, he charged, crashing into Mark, and smashing Mark's face into the spire, in an attempt to return the favor. Using the steel, Mark wrapped a cord of the metal around Jonathan's neck and tried to yank him off.

The two devolved into petty struggles as the other tried to wrestle into a better position.

Fortunately, the spire didn’t seem to mind the destructive force being meted out on its surface, because the number of times they slammed one another into it, would have razed anything else to rubble. By now they had exchanged countless attacks and they were both panting.

Jonathan had managed to climb on top of Mark and slam a fist straight down, which Mark dodged by tilting his head, but only by a hair’s breadth.

At the same time, Mark had wrapped the metal so thickly around Jonathan's shoulders that even his strength was struggling to overcome the restriction.

Yet it was when they were locked in this contest of wills that Jonathan grunted out.

“Donovan’s already dead, I know because, you know. But you’re still ignoring it...”

Mark froze from the mental blow, and the next hit was very real, as the pommel of the crescent blade cracked down on Mark's construct.

The initial hit didn’t do any damage, but it did shake his brain in his skull as his head cracked against the spire.

Jonathan continued without mercy.

“You’re so ready to help heal everyone, that you still haven’t considered if you should, have you? Or if you do, what it will take from you?”

Mark’s anger began to take a backseat as he focused on Jonathan's words. Nothing had felt right for the last few days. Nothing had made Mark feel like this was all normal, but strangely enough, fighting Jonathan had.

More than anything till now, fighting Jonathan had felt real. Tearing into him without care had given Mark an outlet he hadn’t known he needed. But with the silence gone so did Mark's will to continue fighting, so he just listened.

“Look, I was… still am resentful that I messed up back there. I felt powerless and I took it out on you… that’s no excuse, but at the same time, you need to be careful with your power. Mine is to break shit, Sam's is to analyze, but you. You can change the very people around you. You have to think twice as hard when you use your abilities.”

Mark frowned at the last comment, but for the first in a while, he was hearing where Jonathan was coming from. Sam had tried to tell him the same thing, but it hadn’t sunk in.

It wasn’t a question of could, but should.

Mark had been considering creating false memories for Donny just like Grace had, shaping him into the person Mark remembered. But he hadn’t been that person when Tristan had abducted him. He and Abby had built a new life together and somehow, now that he saw that, the thought felt disgusting.

Jonathan had yet to throw another punch, but Mark had stopped resisting altogether. He was too busy thinking things over.

Swallowing down the sweet taste of blood Mark needed to correct one thing.

“...You didn’t mess up, you were in danger. Which you are allowed to be, in this fucked up situation…”

Jonathan’s face fell, as though he didn’t believe Mark’s words, but didn’t press him.

“Alright, I’m sorry I took forever to hear you guys out,”

Jonathan's face straightened and he seemed to look over Mark once more as though searching for something.

Nodding more to himself than Mark, Jonathan got up and held out a hand for Mark. Taking it, Mark got up and groaned as his spine clicked in multiple places. Mark healed his wounds as he got up, but upon glancing at Jonathan, decided against healing his wounds. Not after all the work he’d put into making them. They were all bruises and nicks anyway, at most he would take a couple of hours to heal naturally.

It was at this point that both of them recognized the presence that had been watching them for a while now.

“Glad you idiots finally sorted things out. I was ‘this’ close to raining on your parade.”

Mark looked upwards from his vertical world on the spire, and saw Sam hovering there. Surrounded by waves of water and lightning, generating her own little storm cloud.

Jonathan lifted his hands in surrender, and Mark rightened himself to the cityscape below himself once more.

Sam must have arrived at some point but instead of separating them, she let them beat the snot out of one another.

“You two fighting is quiet to observers sport, what happened?”

Mark looked back to the building and then at Jonathan. He needed to get back down there, squaring his shoulder Mark drifted toward their building. Sam and Jonathan exchanged a glance but followed after him. Glancing as he passed by the roof, it looked like Sam was right, there had been no shortage of observers up here. People had tried to scatter but only the Aura users and casters with movement magic managed to duck out of sight in time.

Mark passed them, dropped down to the opening once more, and entered the room.

He saw that Willow had remained by Donny’s side, and was currently feeding him Prana.

“If you’re quite done now, we have a decision to make, he’s getting worse. I’m not sure how much I can do for him…”

Mark nodded as he took over transferring Prana to Donny’s exhausted body.

It had been fighting the transformation for the last few days and it was exhausted. Mark could see now that all he’d been doing was extending the life of a shell, even if he gave him more he’d always need more.

Donny’s only chance was to accept more Corruption and become something else entirely, but without his mind, he would become a monster of instincts. A fate worse than death.

Mark turned the Prana up and attempted to have it dull Donny’s pain, causing a blinking to appear from his quiet system. Sam and Jonathan arrived shortly after that, watching as Mark sat beside his friend.

Mark wasn’t sure how long he held Donny together, but his Prana eventually ran out as the sky dulled. Mark felt Donny’s body shake desperately one last time and then fade from the world. All the while Sam and Jonathan had remained in the room watching over them. Ethel, Karter, and even Gibby came by to pay their respects, but eventually, Mark was all alone. All the people he had survived the first day of the fall with, were dead.

And while sorrow threatened to overwhelm Mark again, he endured, because there was nothing else he could do but keep pressing on.