Chương 1071: Day One Thousand And Sixty-Nine

Dear Diary, I will now embrace my pending old-headness by saying, 'it never rains but it pours'. Yeah, I've come to realize that a lot of the people I called old heads back in the day were not in fact anywhere near 'old', so much as basically mature adults. Which I am becoming. Okay, technically I think Status sees me as a Young Adult now, which... Yeah, I guess 'mature Adult' would knock that 'Young' off, so I'm still a work in progress. But I'm not a kid any more.

Shit, I'm not sure I was ever a 'kid' in the sense that most people think of 'kids'. I can't remember being like that at any rate, which means if I ever was, it didn't last very long into my life. It wasn't part of my formative years. I don't remember that sense of joyous whimsey people describe. Okay, that could just be me and chronic depression, but I've always thought the chronic depression itself was a result of childhood trauma. I mean, it's not. Or at least it's not entirely.

Okay, no, this is one of those things that takes some ferreting out. I am frequently depressed. Many of those times are not prompted by anything in particular, which is almost a slam dunk for 'chronic depression'. Almost.

Thing is, while everybody except the most privileged folks in this or any other universe get a free helping of childhood trauma just from, y'know, existing in a highly imperfect world, there's not really any argument that I got the super-sized, obese American, two triple cheeseburger side order fries helping of that kind of trauma. I... I really don't even remember most of it, not really.

Not in the sense of 'this happened on the Tuesday before my fourth birthday, and it gave me a fear of people telling me they'd be back with milk in the afternoon. Okay, bad example, but still, while some of my depressive episodes have some kind of clear trigger, the ones that don't, the ones that I just call the Black Dog, might not be as completely irrational and unprompted as I think they are.

Any given one of them might have been something subtle that I didn't consciously clock, but my subconscious latched onto and decided was a reason to withhold dopamine and serotonin for the foreseeable future. None of which counters the fact that my brain or whatever does not produce sufficient or stable or appropriate amounts of those handy dandy feel good neurotransmitters.

I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but I think that might be why Saffron's attempt to bolster me before I went and looked at my semi-accurate Status backfired; she spent a week filling my neuro with all the transmitters, which meant the cupboards were bare when I actually got the information that my alter-ego is in fact brain dead and I've been Changing everything in my immediate vicinity, for a value of 'immediate vicinity' which definitely includes eastern Atlantis, and might include everything within one AU of the planet.

For what it's worth? I say 'semi-accurate' Status because I keep getting, I dunno, not impulses. Impulses from the rest of me might, for very, very simple things like 'hunger', be attributed to having a everything sized appetite for everything, but clocking post traumatic stress triggers, or more to the recent point learning choreography are not things I can attribute to my still very singular Mind.

They're also not things I would have any guilt or shame about, nor any other reason I can think of for being in denial. Maybe there's so little active sentience in the rest of me that it registers as zero, but there's still something there. Maybe I'm healing. I dunno. I mean, I'm not sure how to feel about that if I am, or if there is. Like, if the rest of me can and does heal up, maybe I'll have access to, y'know, All Of Me.

I wouldn't have to worry about my kids or ladies or friends or Alliance or shit at that point, because unless I lost all ability to act in a granular fashion, that would give me thousands, maybe millions of me, each ostensibly just as powerful as I am now. Fuck Olympus if they decide to go to war with us at that point, because yeah, there are ostensibly uh...

Twelve minus two minus one is nine of them left, a couple of whom are maybe slightly more powerful than one of me in one spot, but again, nine versus a thousand is not something where sane people bet on the nine. Especially with only three or four of them really being clearly on the 'Anti-Tabitha' bandwagon. Thing is, I'm not sure why, but the entire 'what are you' issue is definitely a sore point for me.

I mean, there's a pretty fuckin' obvious reason why, given that I'm only Blending my way into Human Adjacency due to ridiculous levels of that particular Skill, but... But it was really fuckin' obvious that all my really shitty dark impulses were coming from a sentient being cosplaying my subconscious, too. Which means that 'healing', in the sense of becoming that all powerful, all present being might wind up a step too far for me. Maybe.

Definitely something I need to think about, because the last thing anybody needs is for me to heal my way into omnipresence and omnipotence, then have a psychotic break because of it. But today, despite me coming into it with the intent of mulling over the results of yesterday, did not pan out the way I thought. The first thing happened when I got home. I'd jumped straight from Cyprus to the Temple of Love. Specifically to the antechamber above the oubliette.

Which, in case it wasn't clear, is buried in the foundation, meaning the antechamber is sitting under at least two stories of Temple. While I had let Pyevatar know I'd be fucking with sunrise, and I've said many, many times that M-Space does the same with time, I apparently forgot two pertinent details. First, that Pyevatar or whoever else is in charge of driving the sun across the sky has a tendency to speedrun the rest of the cycle when I hold her back.

I've never really paid attention to see if she lags around and moves slow when I make her rise early, but I kinda assume so. The second thing is that all that jumping around and wrecking Ares' spear and composure wound up taking maybe longer than my M-Space and ADHD addled time sense realized. Or maybe being slow and careful with reconnecting Aphrodite and Alexandra ate up the minutes.

Whichever it was, the kids were streaming out of the Dining Room headed out into the Courtyard to play after lunch when I showed up on the step.

"Mama! Who'th dat?" Before I could respond, Saffron repeated the question, one eyebrow raised.

"Yes, love. Do tell." Part of me took comfort in the fact that she was smiling. Another part of me realized that my sadistic little tyrant was absolutely capable of biting me in half while smiling.

"Kids," I nodded to my side, "this is Alexandra. She's a High Priestess of... I stopped myself, remembering a precedent set and realizing what I needed to do.

"Venus." I shifted the Goddess in my arms just a little. She didn't just lie there like dead weight, but she squirmed less than Aoibh when attached to the tit.

"This is Venus. She's a new Goddess. She was just born this morning." That got a round of super curious questions, but Alexandra was already half hanging from me.

"I'm not her High Priestess, kids. She's so new I'm not sure what she's going to be a Goddess of, other than maybe the Sea. Probably something like Love, too, maybe. But right now Alexandra is kinda exhausted. She and Venus need to get some rest." Of anything that could have happened, I did not expect my little would-be Hero to step up to Venus' High Priestess and say, "hello there, High Priestess Alexandra. My name is Alex too." She held up a hand. Okay, not as much 'up' as it might have been two years ago.

"Follow me, I know which of the guess rooms are empty."

"Guest rooms?" Alex shook her head.

"Nope. Guess rooms. C'mon, I'll show you." So Alexandra and Venus had an escort of most of our kids. All the way up the front steps to the third floor, where Alex led them to a room right next to the Bath.

"If she's a Sea Goddess, she'll like the Bath, I bet." Then, before letting them settle, she opened the door to the Bath to show them the room. Alexandra smiled despite herself.

"That does look lovely. But for now, if we could sleep?" I nodded and carried Venus to the bed, laid her down with enough room for Alexandra to spoon in next to her, then turned to chivvy the kids out of the room. Only to find that no chivvying was needed, as the kids all said quiet good nights as they filed out of the room. Or past the door for those who hadn't actually crammed into the guess room. Guess I'm not the only one who calls them that. Weird how traditions like that start.

At that point the kids all streamed back toward the front door, but I snagged Alex and gave her a quick hug.

"That was great, Alex." She nodded solemnly.

"It's what a Hero would do." I chuckled and let her dart after her sisters. Which left me alone with a still grinning Saffron. Fuck it, maybe I could make her laugh too hard to kill me.

"Hey Honey, I'm home." She opened her mouth, and I interrupted with, "you see, what had happened was..." I couldn't help it. Her lips twitched, and I started laughing. We wound up in the Bath room, putting at least two thick walls between us and the ones trying to sleep off the rebirth of a Goddess. Arms around me, looking up at me, Saffron said, "so I take it we have a new child?" I shuddered.

"Ah, no. Family, maybe, yeah. Permanent house guest, probably. But adopting her is way too... No, I've got enough adult children."

"You have one. Two if you count Vulcan."

"Yeah, he's permanently twelve years old." She chuckled.

"That means there's only one."

"And that's more than enough for now." She sighed.

"You realize the kits are maturing very fast."

"Yeah." I nodded to emphasize exactly how much I'd picked up on that.

"They're not just getting big, they're maturing fast." After a moment's thought, I winced and said, "I hope they don't feel the need to move out any time soon. I'm way, way too young to deal with empty nest syndrome."

"What would that be, and whyever would they do that? Had we not given them their own spaces, they might, but..." I kinda grunted to indicate I understood.

"Yeah. yeah, I get that. Guess it's a thing from back in the day. Kids moved out as soon as they could. Unless they didn't, in which case they usually weren't ever really," I grasped for the words I was looking for, found them, rejected them, then circled back to them. With a sigh I said, "they were sort of eternal children, while also being the adults responsible for their parents. Most of the time it didn't look like a good situation." Saffron shrugged.

"Over the past few years of studying your world whenever I could, I've realized there are a few things where ours is superior."

"Ours?" She nudged me, smiling.

"It's ours now, love. You gave it to me, and keep it for me." We kissed, and when we finished to our lips' satisfaction, she explained.

"Families here often stay together until they overflow their dwelling." I snorted.

"Not gonna happen any time soon." She smirked up at me.

"Not with that attitude."

"Sounding like my Kitten wants me to put some kittens in her kitten mitten," I quipped as my hands explored her posterior. Of course that got me a snort, followed by a poke in the side.

"Kitten mitten? That's awful." If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Yeah, well. Apparently calling it a 'vagina' kills the mood, so people come up with some really wacky euphemisms." Rolling her eyes, she said, "well, yes, but 'kitten mitten'? Really?"

"You more likely to drop your panties while you're serious or while you're laughing?" She just Grinned up at me.

"Panties? Why would I be in formal wear here at home?" I returned the Grin and moved to scoop her up, but before I could take us both to the Bedroom and initiate shenanigans, she sighed and held up a hand.

"What of Ares?" Fuck. Adulting vegetables before adulting dessert.

"Pissed him off. I think I tagged him with the edges of what I hit Aphrodite with." I paused, and she nodded, wordlessly telling me she knew exactly what I'd done.

"It didn't turn him into a vegetable, unfortunately, but it pissed him off something fierce. He threw some kind of seeking spear at me. Brass inlaid shitty steel haft, Cold Iron head. No idea how he got it to seek me out, but it did." She frowned, and for a moment I felt that distinctive riffle that told me she was reviewing my memories. Then, with an abortive shake of her head, she stopped.

"I'll want to see more of that later. Was he in any condition to follow you home?" I shook my head, but said, "no idea. When last I saw him, he was swinging at me, and I Blended and Translocated away. I'm pretty sure he went fist first into that volcano I made on Olympus." She frowned, an annoyed booger look.

"That might slow him down, it might not. I doubt it would end him, what with him being a Fire God. But..." She sighed, then nodded at the Bath.

"Scry, please?"

"He might see us." She shrugged.

"It's not like he has any lack of reasons to be angry with us."

"Fair point." I used the surface of the Bath as my scrying surface. When the image cleared, it showed a dark figure wreathed in fire striding through the sky. Not flying the way Dionysus had done, but obviously not touching the ground. The sky behind him was dark, speckled with stars, but the area around him had none, just a wider aura of dark flames.

"Well. That doesn't look good." Saffron reached to me, spun the view around, and we saw the sun setting far in front of him. As we watched, it went behind the horizon.

"Doesn't look like he's hurrying." Saffron snorted.

"You hurt him during the day. If he has been paying attention at all, he knows Domnu sides with the Alliance. Do you think he wants to fight you and her both at night?"

"So we can expect him at dawn?" She rocked her head side to side, a sly grin slipping onto her lips.

"Oh, I rather think he intends to hit Phileo at noon. But not any time this evening. So... That leaves just one very important question." I sighed.

"Yes, I'll clean up any messes Alexandra and Venus make." She snorted.

"Oh, please. You and Marie clean up most of the messes already. No, the question is this: would you rather fight a battle worked up to a fever pitch, or thoroughly satiated?" I froze, partially out of indecision, but mostly out of amusement.

"My libido is threatening to beat me to death with my own vajayjay, but I think I need to turn down 'thoroughly satiated'. I can't fight if I'm half asleep. I'd still like to stay away from complete rage beast mode, though, so..." I paused a moment, pursing my lips in a mockery of serious thought.

"Is pleasantly satisfied on the table an option?"

"Tabitha!" I winced, then realized she was grinning at me.

"The children are awake, and all of our tables are in public areas." She raised her lips to my ear and whispered, "would you prefer pleasantly satisfied on the Bed or the divan, Goddess mine?" I couldn't help it. I snickered and said, "now my inner gremlin wants to say 'the floor'." Yeah, my Kitten is inside all my defenses, especially when I'm not expecting it. She tripped me, and I went ass over teakettle to faceplant on the soft, yet unyielding floor of the Bedroom, my ass pointed at the ceiling.

"Let it be so." Yeah, so, y'know, one pleasant satisfaction later, which prior to the whole Goddess, Worship thing would have left me sore, I realized the sun had set.

"Ah, shit."

"What's wrong, love?"

"It's Revel night." She just smirked at me. I wasn't currently in a position to see her face, but my Kitten smirks loud.

"So it is."

"Something you're not telling me?" She lifted me up in a way that would be excruciating for somebody less durable than me. Still gave me a bit of a pleasant burn. Then she reached up and closed my eyes. A moment later I heard the murmur of a congregation around me, and instinctively dropped my clothes and my Blend. Weirdest thing, but I don't think I'd ever put on The Dress while un-Blended before. Not even sure if I'd dropped my Blend while wearing it, or anything similar.

I definitely hadn't had Saffron put it on me in 'gladiator mode' while fuzzy before. One more thing to check off my nonexistent, yet somehow ever growing bucket list. Then she pressed the familiar grips of my sword staves into my hands, followed by tracing a line of damp fire from my butt around my torso and eventually up to my nose.

"Are you ready, love?" she whispered.

"For?" I heard her grin even as the Revelers poured Worship into me.

"What we've been practicing." I opened my eyes, stared down into hers.

"Bring it on." She reached out a hand, I took it, and a moment later we stood in the Alliance HQ Scrying room. Five others stood there. Marie had her armored attachments on her Maid's outfit. Karen wore her white Holy Garb. Larry had his Phileo Heroic uniform on, Slayer already in his hand, if not extended. Sarah stood there naked save for an equipment harness that held nothing but ammunition for the monster rifle in her hands.

Finally Tallulah, looking quite fetching in Glowing Midnight, stood in front of the biggest Scrying Mirror in the room.

"Is all in readiness?" asked Saffron.

"Awaiting your order," replied Tallulah, as the others murmured agreement. Saffron nodded to her.

"Begin." Tallulah closed her eyes, counting. Then she started Shaping. The Shape was simple, an ordinary Scry. The amount of Mana Tallulah drew from me and poured into it was not. The mirror flashed, and the image of a tiny cameo affixed to a gray stone wall appeared. A moment later, as the image pulled back, rotated first to show a hallway, then again to show an T intersection, showed that the original target had been a tiny, tiny pinhead affixed to the ceiling of the intersection.

The place was obviously as deep into a building as the Temple of Love's oubliette or the Scrying Room itself, because my wireframe vision flickered in and out as I watched.

"Remember, everyone. Retrieve as much as possible, lower torsos have priority. Goddess, we need you to form the gateway. It must be strong enough to denature Cold Iron instantly." I nodded.

"You got it, Kitten." I pulled Mana, and an answering wave of Worship hammered into me from my Temples scattered across the Alliance. I stepped to that intersection, looked up, and forced my Scry into existence on the surface of the plain, gray rock. The moment I did, a cacophony of gongs, horns, and bells echoed through the hallway. A moment later Marie and Sarah dropped through the portal and sprinted away, moving at speeds only Maenads could easily achieve on foot.

I spun and charged down the stem of the T, Karen and Larry close behind me. As we approached another intersection, this one four way, a door at the far end of the hallway opened, a dude in Spartan gear charging through as it did.

"Halt!" Weirdest thing about wireframe vision is that it does, to some extent incorporate all my other senses. That had only gotten more pronounced since the battle with Lyssa. I heard the other two Spartans charging in from either side, extended my sword staves' Mana Blades to Kaiju-decapitating sizes and intensities, and swung through the walls just before I reached the intersection. Yeah, I kinda forgot about inertia. Two armored, smoking, red hot corpses sandwiched me as I went through the crossing.

This did not slow me in the slightest, but it stung like a bitch, and made the dude in front of me stop and bring up his shield, spear braced atop it and pointed at my center mass.

"Mine are bigger!" I screamed as I reconfigured my Mana Blades into long, thin lances and rammed them right through his shield. Pretty sure I nailed his heart or aorta with that, and the fact that two circles the size of dinner plates on his breastplate glowed cherry red meant that he wasn't in great shape even if he still had something resembling a functional circulatory system. Also, the fact that 'two dinner plates' was maybe a third of his chest says something about his overall size.

He also managed to keep that fuckin' spear pointed at me, and even if I managed to dodge and avoid a through and through, he still sliced through the meat of my shoulder. It kinda reminded me of my run through the Academy with Bill when I leapt, kicked his shield back into his chest to knock him backward, then used his forehead as a springboard to leap past him through the doorway he'd come through. Two Spartans stood there, both of them on the smaller side.

Both of them with what looked to be unadorned, enameled steel armor, shields, and spears. One of them without his kilt on, cock still rampant and wet. Fully dressed boy saw me and said, "is this what the Warbringer visited to protect us from?" His half naked buddy snarled out, "heretic!" and, lightning fast, slammed the side of his shield into the Ares fans' neck, and had it back up to face me before his former buddy hit the floor. I shook my head.

"Y'know, for a sadistic (derogatory) racist rapist, you certainly throw a lot of stones." He charged me, but I wasn't here for banter. I brought my Mana Blades on my sword staves around, and stepped to the side as first his weapon, then his head, then his arms tumbled past me, followed by the remains of his torso. I started to turn away, but the fully dressed recruit groaned. I turned to him, said, "make better choices," and cut him off at the knees and elbows, then seared his tongue out.

At that point I realized we couldn't really leave witnesses, so I sighed and spun the Blade in his mouth to scrape his skull clean of the gray matter he hadn't been using. The night guard and trainees taken care of, I turned to the reason I was here. The corpse hung pin cushioned like some vivisectionist's obscene artwork, her limbs splayed out and pinned to the Saint Andrews cross secured to the stone wall behind her.

Half of her chest had been removed; skin, muscle, and ribcage peeled back to reveal the dull gray spike through her heart. Old, crusted blood stiffened her fur into a horrific red-black version of full uncanny valley mode. She looked so much like my Marie that I had to force myself to look at her neck, at her limbs, at every place where Marie wore the stripes I'd given her, just to remind myself this wasn't Marie. She groaned. I froze. Something dripped from between her thighs into a puddle on the floor.

I stepped to M-Space, ashed the two confused Souls standing there, and stepped back.

"Sorry I don't have time to be gentle." I put my sword staves away and bodily ripped her free from her bindings. Bits of her fell off, stuck to the Cold Iron spikes by old, dried blood. One hand, one leg below the knee. I scooped everything I could up, turned, and sprinted back down the hallway. I didn't pause when I stood under the Portal; I just yeeted her up through it, trying to ignore the distinctive sounds of steam explosions as I raced back down the hallway.

Karen and Larry both dragged Maenads with most of their crosses still pinned to them along the hallway. Okay, maybe not most, but big enough chunks to make them awkward for someone with barely superhuman strength. Help Larry! I barked into her head. Had to, to be understood over the ongoing thunder from the hallway Sarah had run down. I leapt to the Maenad she'd been carrying, lifted her, and sprinted back to the Portal.

I got there as Marie kissed one of her sisters on the forehead, then flung her through the Portal. This time I got a face full of gore as more Cold Iron denatured inside the Maenad, then another faceful as I tossed my cargo through. A yowl of pain sounded from the same direction as Sarah's gun, but before I could move Marie's voice sounded in my head. Stay, Vlickies. Yeah, without adding Translocation or Divine M-Space Woo into the mix, she still covered ground faster than me. But then, Divine Tigress.

Larry and Karen arrived a moment later, carrying the still mostly bound Maenad between them. Cover your eyes. Karen put one hand over hers, one hand over Larry's, and I tossed the Maenad and all her bindings upward. They blew off explosively as she went through the Portal. This far from my Temples, I felt the drain, but I felt it as a drain. Not an instant trip to unconsciousness. Marie came around the corner in the distance, sprinting on all fours, most of a Maenad dangling from her jaws.

Sarah followed her, Barret clutched in her teeth. A figure came around the corner behind them, pulling back a stupidly familiar looking spear. All in one smooth motion, almost like she'd practiced it, Sarah leapt, spun, pulled the rifle up, fired, then tumbled around to her four footed sprint as the recoil threw her backward.

The impact of the round blew the Spartan backward as well, not to mention putting a ragged hole into the wall behind him, surrounded by a splatter pattern of what had to be all the blood in his body. As Marie arrived, I called out, "first in, last out." Marie looked a little mulish as she tossed her sister up, but the resulting gore shower put paid to any snarky comment she was gonna make. The moment the final Maenad was out, I dropped the Portal. Larry and Karen disappeared, Translocating back to Atlantis.

Marie and Sarah followed a moment later. My allies gone, I took a moment to smile at the sound of tens, maybe hundreds of pairs of racing feet running toward me. I extended my Mana Blades with every ounce of my windfall of Worship, then first erased that little pinhead on the ceiling, then pirouetted in place, laughing like a loon as I felt Cold Iron melting almost as fast as the stone of the foundations around me. When the ceiling started to fall, I stepped back to Alliance HQ. The Maenads were nowhere to be seen.

Saffron stood there looking less than fresh, covered in gore. Tallulah saw me, dropped her Portal, spat out something nasty, then said, "Goddess?" I snorted and hit her with the old insta-clean trick, then did the same to Saffron and myself.

"Where?" The moment I asked the question, I felt them. Saffron still smiled and answered, "your Altars, love." There must have been a question on my face, because she answered it with, "Orla and Madeline." I snorted.

"Wish we could be there instead of waiting to intercept the asshole." Her smile got wider.

"The Warbringer has turned about."

"What?" She chuckled.

"I suspect something about his Highest Priest cursing him for bringing your wrath upon them." I blinked.

"Why would he do that?" Her smile got positively wicked.

"Someone dropped his palace out from under him."

"He's not dead?" She snorted.

"Leonidas? Hardly. But he is apparently buried under rubble with very poor leverage at the moment."

"So is Ares going to rescue him? Punish him?"

"Would it be untoward for me to neither know nor care?" I thought about that for a bit, then put an arm around her, pulled her to me, and said, "Nope. Let's go get a real bath so we can be clean at Dawn in Phileo." Yeah, after the past couple days I had a couple new scars, a shit ton of new burns, and a fuckton of Mana use exhaustion, but watching the parts of that Maenad on my Altar burn away and reconstitute with a roar of orgasmic triumph? Worth.