The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 193

Part 26

"Yes they are, but they've chosen to wait for divinity until they grow up." Mark told her, and made sure the rest heard it. "They recognize the value of the mortal state of being. Believe me, as wonderful as this is I still wish I hadn't had to do it yet. I sure didn't feel finished with enjoying life as a mortal yet, and now I can't go back. I can decide to have a mortal body and ignore all my new characteristics, but there's no fooling yourself about not being the same."

"We think they're so much better than us because they shared your minds completely for seven years." Kimran stated. "If we hadn't been so stupid and we'd shared with you completely when we first developed psionics, we'd have shared your minds for seven years by now too, and we'd be just as good as they are.

"They said we should wait until we're better before we shared ourselves with you completely, but none of us want to wait. We know we haven't been very nice, but you already know that, and I don't think we're really any worse inside than we showed you we were with our behavior."

"All of us want to share ourselves with all of our parents." Meechla told him. "And we want to do it from now on, as much as we can.

"And I want to say this again, all of us do, to all of you; I'm really sorry I've been so stupid and bad."

"That's okay, we forgive you." Mark smiled. "We won't share with you completely; there were a few things we never shared with them either, and it's not safe to share the new aspects of us that we just got. But we'll share as much with you as we shared with them, and that's almost all of it.

Then he, Talia, and Alilia built a deep Link between themselves and the Volunteers and their children, establishing it slowly so it was comfortable for everyone.

There were many tears shed over the next few minutes due to the profound sharing of selves and love and pain and regret.

The Mark that was still sitting with the Governors waved them over and into his arms. "You lied to them." he chuckled, a bit sadly. "You didn't want them to share with us right away because you didn't want us to realize how badly we messed up when we were raising them. Thanks for trying to protect us from that, but we deserve to know."

"You were just way too nice for your own good, and theirs." Fire shrugged, cuddled into the crook of his left arm. "Sometimes the ends really do justify the means. Sometimes a kid deserves a spanking, and sometimes you have to violate your dependent children's privacy in order to know what you have to do to help them."

"You're a god now." Val smiled as she brushed away a tear that was trickling down his cheek. "You don't have to cry if you don't want to."

"True." he smiled. "But I still want to be the kind of person that cries when I feel emotions that would trigger it. If we suppress our emotions, or our natural expression of them, pretty soon we won't even think like people anymore."

"I think crying is still a healthy expression of emotion for us." Talia quietly stated. "But I can see myself suppressing some of the horror of battle. At least in the heat of the moment, if not afterward." "How much ability do you think you've gained in terms of your combat effectiveness score?" Six asked, a bit uncomfortable with the conversation and ready to change the subject.

"A lot." Mark told him with a smile and a cuddle. "I can still do everything I did before with magic, and a lot more. Plus everything I can do with god power, plus the ability to do a lot more at once due to better awareness and multitasking ability. At a guess, I'd say my score should be at least triple what it was. I'm kind of looking forward to the next exercise just to test it.

"Sitting here now, it seems like I could do absolutely anything, just by wanting it to happen." Povon mused. "But obviously there are limits to both our power and our mental abilities to use it. And since we have no idea how it works, we really have no idea yet what our limits are. We could be equal to the other gods, or far less, or far more.

"As you say, it will be good to test it."

"I have one test for it right now." Mark stated with a sudden frown. "Join me in this; I want to make sure it works right the first time."

He shared a thought with the other new gods present as he manifested another of himself to stand alone on the beach. Talia, Alilia, Povon, Kragorram, Equemev and Silaran joined their will with his. He considered asking Yazadril, Nemia, Hilsith, Dalia and Bezedil to assist as well, and realized that they were busy with their own affairs in First Valley. Somonik and Grakonexikaldoron were occupied in Xervia. He decided that if those present couldn't do what he wanted, adding more was unlikely to make a difference.

He mentally asked Falgaroth and Visinniria what had been done by the pantheon to apprehend and hold The Sylvan God of Stealth, and they told him. They considered the information carefully. Then he and those assisting him searched for Quewanak, found him, and forced him to appear before them.

The small green dragon god was unperturbed by this. "Congratulations on your Ascensions. I hope that we can put aside our differences and resume the great friendship we shared before." "Oh, we can put aside our differences, all right." Mark sternly told him. "But first we deal with your crime.

"As you predicted, I have absolutely no regrets about having these forty-four children, and neither do their mothers, but that is absolutely irrelevant. I enjoy making love with my wives more than anything else in life, but if you held a knife to my throat and forced me to do it at your whim, it would still be a crime against me.

"You know damn well that what you did to us was wrong, even if you did it to achieve a just goal. Your most reprehensible crime was against Yzell, by making her think that she was the one that did the crime, even if for a short time.

"Now you said that if I still wanted you to be punished at this time that you would endure it. I do still want you to be punished, and I will do so now. We'll make sure you endure it, just in case you change your mind."

The seven new gods forced their will on Quewanak, and forced him to maintain a physical manifestation, which obviously alarmed him greatly. Then Mark grew six meters in a second and punched him in the face with a right hook, breaking both of the dragon's jaws on the left side. Then they prevented him from Healing it or changing his manifestation for thirty seconds, which seemed like an eternity of pain to his divine senses. Despite his best efforts to be stoic, he whined and cringed a bit.

"We'll put this past us, and you'll never violate anyone's rights like that ever again, no matter how much benefit may come of it." Mark growled. "There's always a just way to get what you want, if you look for it hard enough. Our friendship will resume if you want it to. But not today.

"Begone." he finished as they released their prisoner, who promptly vanished.

"Well, it seems that there are ways for gods to contest with one another without breaking reality." Mark stated with satisfaction. "Thanks for your help with that by the way; I couldn't have held him by myself."

"We couldn't have held him at all if we'd Ascended before the time-bubble." Talia smiled as she ruffled Fire's hair a bit. "New gods or not, it would have been impossible without the psionic warfare techniques we developed with you on Hiliani. Quewanak may be fairly new to divinity, but he's still a league above the Sylvan God of Stealth."

"Thank you Mother!" the Governors chorused together, then giggled like the children they sometimes were.00000

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