On the other end of the call, Pat immediately stopped rubbing his head in pain as he heard the word summons. Pat already expected something like this to happen and he knew that it would be coming very soon, but he never expected that it would come the immediate next day after Mark saved the city. Pat actually thought that they would just open a lawsuit against Mark.
With how strict the government was with their superhumans, there were many government officials who would not waste a single moment before throwing a hundred different charges at Mark.
Pat could still remember a particular vigilante that was reprimanded in the past. That man was charged with unlawful destruction of property and life and charged with ten years of public service. That was just fancy talk for 'You are mandated to join the government and work for free for the next ten years'.
Pat thought they would try to do something like that to Mark, so he was surprised that they were only summoning him. I guess all my contingency plans are now going to be useless. I'm going to have to come up with something new.
[Well, I suppose we should be grateful that it's just a summons and not a lawsuit…]
Mark chuckled.
"I know, right?"
The truth of the matter is there was no denying that Mark was once a criminal. As the vigilante GHOST, Mark was acting on his own without the permission of the NSA or any other government body that would allow superhumans to carry out such activities. And he wasn't even part of a guild.
Mark knew that this was the reason behind him being summoned, and he was just glad that they weren't taking it too far.
[I'll take a look at the city records and find out what we need. Maybe there is a way to buy off some people and settle it quickly. Most times you only need money to deal with these things. Where are you right now? Never mind, I've found you. You're on your way to the boxing gym?]
Mark scoffed as he immediately thought that Pat would make one hell of a stalker. Pat could always find Mark and Arit because of the trackers that were installed in both of them, but that didn't mean that Pat needed the tracker to find them. Even without a tracker, Pat could find a human being in less than five minutes with almost no information on that person.
Just a name and a picture were enough for him to pull out every available piece of information on that person.
Your primary school.
Your college.
Your place of work.
How much was in your bank account.
Heck, Pat could probably find out how many times you went to the toilet in the last ten days after he gained access to your phone. Mark was a bit put off by how versatile Pat was at first, but after knowing him for fourteen years, Mark learned to live with it.
Mark began opening the file to take a look at what was inside.
"Yeah, I have to meet the teacher. She's going to be pissed."
[No shit. I'll send you whatever I find soon.]
Pat cut off the call immediately and Mark brought out the papers and began to read them. Mark sat on the bench for the next five minutes and he read through all of the papers that were inside the brown envelope three times before he finally stood up again.
The information laid out on the paper was a little confusing since Mark was never good with legal talk, but he was able to get the basic gist of it.
Mark Vanitas was not being summoned as Mark Vanitas. Instead, Mark Vanitas was being summoned as GHOST, the former vigilante who took to the streets and fought against Anima without permission from the government, making it illegal. That was just as much as he expected anyway.
Mark was being summoned to the government headquarters in the next two months to appear before a judge behind closed doors to decide on his fate.
Mark knew that this was all just fancy talk. The only things that they really wanted was for him to be under their control and they were going to use this as an avenue to make Mark join one of the government-based organizations. Mark is a superhuman and it would be stupid to put Mark in prison when he could be out there helping people.
So instead, they would try to place him under their thumb and control his actions.
That is probably why they didn't sue Mark yet. Even though Mark was not the strongest in America, he was currently the most popular Superhuman in the country and also one of the fastest-evolving superhumans. Suing Mark would only make him antagonize them, so they decided only to summon him and give him a chance to talk first.
If Mark ignores or refuses the summons, then the government will have justifiable reason to open a lawsuit against him without fearing public anger.
But all of this was just Mark's speculation. He didn't know how things would really turn out and there was even a chance that they would just arrest him and get it over with. Mark just hoped that Pat could find out more about the summons.
Mark placed his hoodie and mask back on and continued jogging towards the boxing gym.
The boxing gym was located in a rundown area of the town with many dilapidated houses lining the street. The building itself was brown and there was mold growing from the walls. Mark took off his hoodie and entered the creaking door and he arrived in a lavish dojo that had multiple equipment scattered around.
Ten sandbags were hanging from the ceiling to one side with many dumbbells and barbells arranged at various parts of the gym.
There was a wall with many scaling ropes hanging from nails and in the middle of the room, there was a single large boxing ring.
Mark looked around the dimly lit room, and he wasn't surprised that there was no one there. This boxing gym used to be one of the most popular ones in the city, but after the area became so rundown, there were hardly any people who wanted to come to the gym, and it became a shadow of its former self.
The only reason why the gym stayed open this long was because of how headstrong and fucking stubborn the owner was.
Woosh!
Bam!
Mark's hand blurred as he caught a punch from behind him. He turned around with a raised brow, about to say something, but a foot suddenly slammed into his knee, making it buckle slightly, and the person dragged their fist free from Mark's grip and flipped up so that their leg was wrapped around Mark's head!
They threw their body weight forward, but they were stunned when Mark didn't even budge, standing his ground and sighing.
"You should really stop with the sneak attacks. You're too old for something so childish, Raven."