Chương 256: Day Two Hundred And Fifty-Four

Dear Diary,... After leaving Apollo with Conrad, I stepped to Loki's cave.

"Hey, Boss?" He and Sigyn both turned to look at me.

"Yes, Tabitha?"

"I've got a little bit before I need to do my part in this, but I'm gonna need to Shape an absolute shitfuckton of Mana. Can you make sure I'm not going to fall apart when I do?" He waved me forward, then said, "disrobe and drop your Blend, please." I stepped to him, stripping out of everything as I did. He nodded to Sigyn, who one handed their table in front of Loki. He picked me up and lay me face down on the table. It should have been cold as fuck, but the rage inside me burned so hot I didn't feel it.

His hands danced over my back, pulling and pushing at things that weren't really there. Or, rather, parts of me that existed outside my skin. I just lay there, eyes closed, letting him work, thinking through what I needed to do.

"Roll over." He helped me as I did, and then he went to work on my front. I'd stressed some things doing what I did for the Calverton Army at Lancaster House, and what I had planned for Noon was so, so much worse. Bigger. Harder. Time goes by weirdly in Loki's cave. It seemed like forever and only a few moments when he sighed and said, "I have done what I can." He gestured, and that same part of me he'd been manipulating got squeezed, not by hands, but by something like an ace bandage.

"I suppose it would be pointless to tell you to rest for a few days. Weeks. Months?" I shook my head as I rolled off the table onto my feet, popping The Dress and her boots on as I did.

"Sorry, Boss." How long until they're all facing the southern horizon, Kitten? You gave us until Noon. So we're still an hour from your deadline. I sighed. Yeah. I get that. I'm at Loki's, getting some last second Mana realignment done. Ah. So you've an hour to spend on any additional preparations. Yeah. Only one or two I need to do. Can you give me a ten second countdown? As you wish it, my Goddess. I turned to Loki, stepped up to the table, and put my arms around him.

"Thanks, Dad." Moving slowly and gently, which I appreciated since Dad or not he was still a twenty foot tall Jotnar Elder God, he put his arms around me.

"Any time you should need me, I will be here for you." Something deep inside flickered, something I hadn't felt for years. Not since my mom died.

"Tell me you're proud of me?"

"My dearest daughter, I am proud of you, and have been since long before I called you daughter." I sucked in a double lungful of air, let it out slowly.

"Thanks, Dad." I stepped away, only to get mashed into Sigyn's chest.

"Know that I am proud of you as well, Tabitha Lokisdotter." When she let me loose to breathe, I smiled up at her.

"Thanks, Mom." I nodded to her, nodded to Loki, shoved my Blend back up to normal, then said, "gotta go." With that I stepped to Newark. In Metaphoric Space. Atop one of the buildings, a place I'd massacred a Mage who had the audacity to Mana Shield himself and hide. Even four stories over the street level, warm, fuzzy darkness surrounded me. I leaned into it, letting it flow around me, into me, through me. Through it I felt the Metaphoric version of the City beneath me, and its bigger sister across the river.

I also felt something... wrong. I had no idea what, but I had a direction. I leapt forward streets at a time, to wherever the fuzzy darkness told me the next rooftop lay. Before long I knew I'd crossed the river, although I wasn't sure if I was in Manhattan or Brooklyn or Long Island. But what I could feel? Whatever it was hung in the sky directly above me. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

No time like the present for the first part of what I needed to do. I stepped out into the bay. Part of me tried to remember the name of the bay, but most of me tried to ignore the fact that I should have been falling, but instead hung suspended in a sea of warm, fuzzy darkness. MIMIC (Size) At first I wasn't sure if it had worked; I felt warm darkness rushing around me, maybe a little more rushing down on my head and up my legs, but... Then my head broke free of the top of the sea of roiling, fuzzy darkness.

Or, really, pushed its way out of the endless mass of redwood thick, pitch black, semi-corporeal tentacles. I kept growing, kept rising out of the mass, until finally I stopped; I'd hit the limits of what I could mimic, I guess, because while the endless writhing mass of darkness only came up to mid-ankle on me? From my current vantage point it covered everything to the mountains north, west, and south of me.

Easily all of what I still thought of as 'New Jersey', plus at least half of Pennsylvania, and a good chunk of Delaware, Maryland, and upstate New York as well. Not sure exactly how far out to sea she stretched, because, y'know, the coastline? Not really visible underneath a mile of Mimic. Of course, I still felt that very clear 'not Mimic', only now I could see it. Something managing to hover more or less directly over the center of New Amsterdam.

I'd say 'something huge', because though my sense of scale was kinda fucked right now? I still got the impression it was bigger than the Dragon I'd fought. Setting aside my next step for a moment, I stepped forward, kneeling to reach whatever it was. I'm not sure why it didn't notice me, although I sure as shit noticed how it was suctioning up... something... from the darkened lands beneath it.

As I got closer, I got a better look at it; it had one leg dangling free beneath it, one arm grabbing at the whatever-it-was and yoinking it toward its gaping maw, and one wing somehow keeping it airborne and hovering. Guess in Metaphoric Space having 'wing' is just as good as 'wings'. The moment my hand closed around it, it tried to dart away, but I brought my other hand around and slammed them together. The moment it realized I had it trapped, it grew. Not a patch on how big I was, but... big.

Like, hamster sized in relation to me, but still 'bigger than most terrain features' big. A voice that sure as shit sounded incongruously deep coming out of a hamster bellowed, "unhand me, Mortal! Or face the wrath of Sengann!" That told me all I needed to know. I stood, carrying the incarnation of Primordial Blight away from New Amsterdam.

"Yeah, I don't think so, asshole. You get exactly one chance. Leave, and never come back, or I will enjoy taking some frustrations out on you. Bitch."

"So be it! DIE!" For what it's worth, my hands tingled, the skin darkening. I lifted him up to eye level with me, just to get a better look at his itty bitty asshole face. I pulled Mana from the vast ocean of darkness lapping at my shins, dropped my Blend, and I watched that asshole face pucker before I pulled him close enough to hear me whisper, "Cure Disease." I watched as the Mana burned into him, tearing him apart. As his limbs dissolved in black fire, he screamed out, "Great Mother Domnu! Mercy! SAVE ME!"

Then I slammed my palms together, grinding them against one another and pouring more Mana into the Cure Disease until flakes of ash sprinkled down over the endlessly hungering darkness beneath me. My Goddess? The people are ready. Be right there. I pulled Mana. More than I'd ever pulled before. It crept up my legs, the fiery tingle not unlike when Saffron used my power to manifest Mimic in the Mortal Realm. As it filled my belly, the scars on my legs itched. By the time it hit my shoulders, those scars burned.

When it filled me past the eyes, I could barely make out anything beyond the pain as my scars started to... let.. go... I could hold no more. Mimic had more. I could pull it. But even now it writhed within me, tearing me apart, each scar a fault line, a perforation ready to tear. I shoved my Blend back up, trying to ignore how my furless skin tore even more easily than my un Blended fur. I stepped to the Mortal Realm.

Took one long step back, until I could see all of New Amsterdam and Newark spread out in front of me. The roofs, the streets, the small parks, they all rippled and writhed. A sound like a million souls suddenly gasping washed across me. For a moment all I could do was hold myself together. But that wasn't enough. I couldn't just hold the Mana. I had to use it. My skin tearing as I Shaped, I tried not to scream. When I could stand it no more, I forced out words rather than profanity or incoherent screaming.

"MASS CURE." The Shape formed, and I poured Mana into it. As I poured more and more Mana into it, my body collapsed in on itself. I poured everything into the shape, holding nothing back. I sure as fuck wasn't going to count on fuckstain Apollo doing any more work than he had to, even with Conrad looking over his shoulder. My Mana spent, I released the Shape to do its work. I fell. At some point I'd thrown the Mana inherent to my Mimicked Size into the Shape as well.

Air whistled past, but as I fell, gently spinning and tumbling, I caught the edges of the Cure spell washing through all of New Amsterdam and Newark, a tsunami of healing magic. I'm pretty sure it even got into the buildings; as most of them glowed for moments as the wave washed over them. I hit the water and everything went black. TABITHA! Love you too, Kitten. I really hoped she got to me in time. Because I had nothing left to give, and I really didn't want to die underwater. Again.