Chương 404: Day Four Hundred And Two

Dear Diary,"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life." - Richard Bach Huh. Never thought of it that way before. I mean, on the one hand, duh. On the other hand, I guess a lot of people go through life without realizing that. Trudging through life with family who don't give a shit, or abuse them, or insist they be someone or something they're not.

Maybe forcing the dude who just wants to make music to become a surgeon, or the streamer to sling burgers, or the chica who wants to slay to wear a neck noose and slacks because she was born with the wrong plumbing. Makes me wonder why anybody would want to do that. Those are supposed to be the people you love. The ones you care about. The ones who share your genes. Who, if they're kids, are the ones carrying your legacy into the future, making the world a better place for everybody.

No matter whether they're your kids or not, they're the ones where you're supposed to have their back no matter what, ride or die, right? Shit. Maybe I hit too close with that one about legacy. Some old asshole might not be able to envision a daughter carrying his legacy into the future, and heaven forbid she was born with a dick, because then his whole worldview might have to adjust. Some bitch might worry that she isn't gonna have grandkids because her boy likes boys, or her girl likes girls, or...

fuck, I dunno, that her kid sees gender as an inconvenient byproduct of being human, and has about as much attraction to sex as they do to pooping.

Fuck, I can't believe I'm even thinking Lancaster might not be the worst possible variation on parenting, because at the very fuckin' least he saw his sons as the future of his family, but I know there are assholes out there of every gender who see anybody who spurted out of one of their orifices as property, and if it's not going to be obedient little wealth generating property, it can go to hell. Just another reminder to myself, I guess. To do better. To be better.

Even if I hit a point where playing fuckin' tag with the kids as one of the kids isn't a fun way to spend an afternoon, I still need to love them, cherish them, fuck, even play with them, and if I can't find a game I like that they're into, I better get my fuckin' ass ready to play fuckin' tag. Because as the adult in the family, that's my job.

I've got wifiest of wifes doing the cooking and the cleaning and the sewing, and the Imperator herself paying the bills and organizing everything, so the least I can fuckin' do is be there to amuse the rug rats. I guess I'm just lucky, because right here, right now, I do love it. Everything about it. Probably some kind of special stupid brain damage accrued on collapsing a Co-Located me, but I even love helping the really little ones balance on the potty and wash themselves off afterward.

So yesterday after personally ensuring all the claimed kids had working poop chutes by having them demonstrate their ability to fill their diapers, I stood there watching Calverton refugees trudging up the road with the look of people who had gone as fast as they could as long as they could, but were still gonna go until they got to their destination or dropped dead.

Thankfully, all of them seemed healthy enough that nobody actually did that, because while I felt a lot better after a few hundred people, not to mention about three hundred Maenads, seemed to spontaneously decide I was their object of Worship for the day, I didn't exactly want to have to Revive a bunch of people today either. Yeah, I know, more Worship. But it's not always about the return on investment. Shit, I don't think that kind of thing ever has been. Not for me.

Right as I turned to Saffron to see if she thought I should stay here to greet the new arrivals when they found their kids, or if we should go spend some time with our own rug rats, or maybe even could adjourn to our private room to see how many ways I could make her squeak by touching nothing but her gorgeous tits, Marie popped into existence in front of us.

Specifically a naked Marie, which wasn't as big of a deal as it might have been, what with about a third of the Maenads in the courtyard clearly wearing 'clothing as minimalist decoration'. More importantly, though, she'd brought D along for the ride. He looked around the courtyard, then practically leapt at me, picking me up by the arms and shaking me, his voice hoarse with worry as he growled out, "what have you done?"

I looked back and forth at his hands on my biceps, then down at where Saffron had landed on her butt when he yanked me away from her. Finally, after I determined nothing had been hurt but her pride, I turned my gaze back to meet his.

"Hello to you too. Saved some fuckin' kids. Didn't think you'd mind your sophomoric power trip being used for good for a change."

"What? No, I..."

"Yeah. Look around. That whole, 'you made them to make sure you had a nursemaid' might have seemed cute, but did you ever think about them? About what it would be like to have a desperate endless need to have a kid clamped to your tit? I mean, you sure as shit forgot about their endless need to fuck a you shaped person, so..."

"TABITHA DIAZ! That is not what I meant!" I flexed my Mana through my arms, just enough to force his arms to open.

"Then you better tell me what the fuck you meant before this becomes a whole thing." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"These others. My Maenads. They've been hunted for centuries."

"Yeah. I get that. Now they're not. Now they're here. Any fuckers who try and touch them I will personally gut. If they're very lucky, I'll kill them. If they're not, I'll ask Conrad to get creative." I felt his anger... no, his madness rising.

I realized right then, as my own bloodlust rose in response, that we needed to calm this shit way down, or at least take it somewhere there weren't a thousand kids and their families watching, because at the very best this would get very X rated, very fast, and at the worst 'tsunamis of blood' might wind up being more literal than metaphoric.

"No, Tabitha Diaz. They've been hunted, but they've found hideaways. Redoubts. Places in the wilderness. Places they can defend."

"Yeah, I get that. Cool. So they don't need them any more." He shook his head, and I realized that, weird as it was, somehow I had more ability, more experience with controlling my rampaging dark side than he did. Then another realization hit me. This might be the first time he was trying to control it. Rather than Reveling in it.

"They were not the only ones there."

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Have you got Clergy in all of them?"

"I have High Clergy in some. One in three perhaps." I reached down and lifted Saffron to her feet, asking, "Does he need to be in contact with somebody to make them High Clergy?" She shook her head.

"Not if they are already Clergy." I looked back at him, and his jaw dropped.

"Even if I could or would do that, it would only allow me direct contact with half of the remainder."

"Would?" I don't know what he saw in my eyes, but he stuttered out, "I haven't the Glory to elevate all of them."

"Haven't got it, or don't want to spend it?"

"I... I haven't enough. Even if I wanted to, I could not."

"Does it take any more time than creating an Avatar?" He shrugged, "no, but..."

"Then get elevating."

"But..." I glared at him, and he cringed away from me. I reached out, carefully gathered the general neck region of his toga in one fist and twisted.

"D. You know I like you. You're a bro, and not in a bad way. But right now? I say. You do. Now." He set me very gently on the ground, obviously just realizing that he'd been holding me up by one bicep and I hadn't sagged in the slightest. I heard a growl coming from naked Marie, and without looking to see who she was growling at, I said, "bring his other Avatars, I think we're gonna need them." Boss? How do I access my Glory? I would need to know why you want it, but I'm afraid you cannot. Why?

For some fuckin' reason, his reply came back filled with sounding suspiciously like Dionysus' last couple words before he shut up and soldiered. I am not denying you, but until a Deity achieves a certain level of maturity, they cannot. All Glory they earn is shunted back into making them more powerful, arguably more 'mature'. So I'm not mature enough to get Glory? No. As an Avatar, any Glory you gain goes to Mimic.

Normally you would, by the time you achieved the stature you have, be able to access her Glory in turn, but as I just noted, it has all been spent. Shit. That explains why her ass is so fat. Indeed. I sighed, physically and to Loki. Boss, I need a favor. You need me to give you Glory? No. I need you to give it to Dionysus. A moment later Lyman stood before me.

"Excuse me, Daughter, did I hear you say correctly that you want me to give some measure of the Glory you've earned me to... Dionysus?" Then he noticed who stood in front of me, sighed, and said, "well, this would make it easier, at any rate."

"He needs to empower some Clergy to make them High Clergy, so we can find out which of them need immediate extraction. Oh, and it'll probably make it easier to find them for extraction too, right?" Right then Marie showed up with the first of D's Avatars, and I grabbed her hand.

"Mittens, sweetie, can you find out which of your sisters came from hideouts without any Clergy? I'm gonna need them to guide me back there to... wait, no, you've been to all of them, right?"

"Yes."

"Can you guide me to them? All of them?" She looked a little panicked.

"Can't, or too much?" She paused.

"Both."

"Okay, some of them, then?" She nodded.

"Bring me one Maenad from each hideout you can't get to who didn't have Clergy with them." I turned to D and Lyman.

"Okay. D, you got those Clergy high yet?" He glanced at me, then looked back at Lyman. I followed his gaze, then sighed and amped up my best pretty pretty princess daughter voice.

"C'mon, Dad. Please?" He rolled his eyes, then reached out and took Dionysus' hand.

"Only what you need, Heir to Olympus." I turned back to D.

"Shit, really?" He nodded, distracted.

"Well, fuck. I thought you were just blowing smoke and shit. How is it you're so fuckin' poor you don't have Avatars and High Clergy blowing out your ass?"

"Hera dislikes me."

"Yeah, from what I recall she's got a serious bug up her ass about Heracles too, but he gets parties thrown and shit." D shook his head.

"Father cut me off shortly after I created the first Maenad." I snorted.

"Holy shit. I knew he was an asshole, but he cut you off for making your very own animated sex doll?" He shook his head, still distracted.

"No. I used his Glory to do so, and that angered him, but he cut me off only after I used it again to alter how new Maenads are made." I thought about that for a second until I remembered.

"Okay. Yeah. Fuck, what an unbelievable asshole." Finally finished with whatever he'd been doing, he glowered down at me.

"That is my father you speak of."

"Tell me I'm wrong." Big man pouted, but kept his mouth shut.

"You got all your Clergy high now?" He nodded, still petulant. I looked through the crowd gathered around us. Marie, a few naked, two in uniform, and one in Glowing Midnight. Just under two dozen Dionysian Avatars, and four Maenads clad in rags and skins, all eyeing me warily. I looked to them first.

"Thank you for coming to help out, ladies. Each of you left people behind where you were hiding?" They nodded.

"D, you got one of you for each hideout?" He had the grace to look sheepish.

"Uh..." Lyman just sighed and hung his head. A moment later one more Dionysus popped up. I looked around the crowd, then said, "Okay, I'm gonna do this in series, not parallel, because this many of me in one spot would give me suck level of migraine from feedback, but here's how it's gonna go. Marie?" All of her nodded.

"You can bring the folks from the ones you're heading to back without me, right?" They nodded again.

"Okay. Go get them. Take multiple trips if you need to. Come back here to get me if you need help." With that, they were gone, and I turned to the rest.

"You guys are gonna have to guide me to those other hideouts." I Co-Located, one of me stepping back, scooping Saffron into one arm, and pulling Lyman back to stand behind me. Sorry, Dad. I'll make it up to you. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. While I've no doubt you will, there is no debt between us, Daughter. As you've said on more than one occasion, you do for family, you don't charge them. Thanks, Dad. You're the best. I know.

I stepped forward and took D by the hand.

"Okay, let's go." He looked down at me.

"How?"

"Don't I remember you saying you could get there fast via M-Space? Land of the Gods? Other side shit?" He just stared at me in horror.

"You would... but..."

"Shit, we don't have time for long discussions." I yoinked him over to M-Space. Tentacles surrounded us, writhing, and the hand I held broke out into a sweat as the bits of him pressed against the tentacles to either side of him went gray. I concentrated.

"I said we don't have fuckin' time for this, you voracious fatass." He looked a little offended even as the gray parts of him regained their color.

"Talking to her, not you."

"How..."

"Is this really the time?" I asked him as I rose into the sky, towing him along by his hand, hoping he didn't notice the tentacle under his feet lifting him upward. He took a deep breath, then let it out in one long exhale.

"I..." He let out a sudden gout of near hysterical laughter.

"I am supposed to be the God of Madness, Tabitha Diaz. Yet you draw me into this insanity like it is nothing." I lifted us both into the sun above the vast plain of undulating tentacles. Trying not to notice the dark patch far to the south, I totally took advantage of keeping our eyes level and leaned right the fuck up against him.

"Yeah, well. If maybe one of those enclaves of yours is threatened, you'll get to watch what fuckin' Bloodlust is all about." I must have imagined him leaning away. Maybe even cringing a little.

"And if they are not?" I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "well, then, once we're done doing what needs to be done, maybe you'll get to experience it in person." He whimpered, and I took just a little pity on him, because I realized just then that he was leaking Madness like a fuckin' sopping wet sponge.

"Or maybe Passion. Or Ecstasy." His hand wandered south of my Mason-Dixon line, and I growled out, "Or maybe all three at once. Won't that be fun?" I pulled back, looked down at his hand, then smiled back at him.

"But right now we have some place to be, don't we?" He nodded, and we took off. Like, pretty much literally. We shot eastward, gaining altitude the whole time. I got a little sense of acceleration, a little sense of wind, but not all that much of either. The sun set as we rushed eastward faster than we climbed, and a moment later I saw the edge of the vast sea of tentacles beneath us. Beyond it lay nothing but water, although at our altitude I almost swore I could see land in the distance.

Then I definitely did see land, although it wasn't 'land' so much as 'a view of a coastline from miles above'. With a sudden sense of deja vu, I realized that it felt almost like I'd zoomed out on a big global map, moving my focus eastward the whole time.

"Can any of you do this?" He shrugged.

"Zeus can. Any sky god. As Heir I can. Sun gods, Moon gods, psychopomps. It would be easier to list those who cannot, save that they are more exceptions to the rule, and most of them have other ways to travel rapidly."

"Huh. Good to know. Any of your people in immediate danger?" He looked a little distracted, then blanched.

"Yes."

"More than one group?" He shook his head.

"Okay. Can you let your other Avatars and the other Maenads know that Mimic isn't going to eat them?" I swear to fuck if I hadn't been gripping his hand, he would have dropped me.

"That was fucking Mimic? You are insane. Clearly, one of those nights we got drunk I must have blessed you from ear to fucking ear with my very best cock because you are fucking insane and brainless and you almost got me eaten!" I stopped. He jerked to a sudden stop, then dangled from my hand. I pulled him up until I could look him into the eye.

"If I wanted you eaten? You would be digesting in m... Mimic's maw right now. So. Are you and your Avatars gonna fortify and let the Maenads know it's safe? Because I'm starting to feel like somebody needs to get eaten, and it's entirely up to you whether that's a horny Revel kind of thing or a make Mimic's masticating maw merry kind of thing. Get it?"

"You are fucking insane."

"Not unless Insane asks very nicely after guiding me to the people we have to save." He twitched, winced, then let out a huge bellowing laugh before pulling me into motion once more.

"Very well, little Goddess of Bloodlust." Back in the courtyard, four Avatars stepped up to the four Maenads and spoke with them quietly. I Co-Located to the next Avatar, stepped him across, and lifted him. Before we hit sky, I did it again, and again, and again, keeping just enough space between my duplicates to avoid that fuckin' feedback, because two dozen of me plus a bit was gonna be annoying as fuck already, I didn't need to make it more annoying.

"We almost there, D?" As I asked the question, we dropped closer and closer to what looked like the shoreline of Turkey. D adjusted our course as we zoomed in, and a moment later we landed in the the doorway of a tiny, wispy shack, barely big enough for half a dozen people to sleep in if they were cozy. Then the Mortal Realm snapped into focus around us. The smack of metal against flesh filled the night, followed by a laughing bellow "Silence, bitch! You'll lose more than that before this night ends!"

D hunched in front of me, going into that wrestler's posture I'd seen him in before.

"Unhand. My. Priestess." The fucker in front of him laughed.

"Or what, drunk? You'll defy the Pact openly enough for Zeus to finally send the Warbringer to erase the stench of your vomit from existence once and for all?" Yeah, standing next to pissed off D was definitely exponentially worse than standing next to scared shitless D. I lay a hand on his back, trailed my fingers around him as I stepped in front of him, turning my back on the half dozen armored assholes and the woman with them.

I slipped one index finger across his face and into his mouth, pulling down until he looked into my eyes.

"Make sure they're okay, D. I'll take out the trash."

"Who the f..." I spun, aiming my Mana Lance by the sound of his voice, then expanding it from a single spear through his mouth to a bar the width of a soup can. A moment later and I let it blink out and watched his wireframe body drop to the ground as his asshole brain and his actual asshole were no longer connected by a spine, or hindbrain for that matter. Five more of the assholes pulled shields from their backs and lowered their spears.

I blinked, then grinned as I realized that only one of them was pointed at me, and the other four were gradually shuffling around to form a circle. No light. No Wards. No Cold Iron. I giggled at the fuckin' thought. Then I stepped into the middle of the circle of assholes, shoved Mana Blades out of my waist, an inch deep into each of them, and spun in place as they screamed and tried to turn to face me.

Over and over I stepped behind one of them, punched them with the inch long Mana Blades sticking out of my knuckles, then stepped away to do the same to another. They stumbled, they lurched, they tried to find and face me in the flashes of light when I appeared and hammered at them. Then I started in on their fronts, slicing their spears shorter and shorter until they held batons, then slicing strips off of their shields until they collapsed.

Every few swings I landed on my knees in front of one of them and punched them right in the taint, no Mana Blades extended. The smells of burning metal and roast pork filled the air, and ravenous drool slipped from my lips as I hammered their breastplates over and over, punching more and more holes through them until they fell away to expose the perforated flesh beneath. One broke, tried to run, and I threw him back into the group, knocking two of his fellows to the ground.

I appeared in front of one, dropping from just above head height, and kicked him in the face hard enough to collapse him almost past the pile. Then I stepped behind the last one, grabbed him by the back of the neck and the ass and lifted him over my head. I extended a thick, fat Mana Blade through his pelvis, a cock-mockery of burning, glowing Mana that lit up the night like a fuckin' highway roadwork lamp.

I waited for all four of the fuckers on the ground to look up, then tipped him over, letting his own weight carry him down into the blade that burned a three inch wide gap through the middle of him as it sliced him in half. He screamed the entire time while his buddies watched, frozen in terror. Well, right up until I dropped his head through the blade. Made me so fuckin' wet I couldn't fuckin' stand it. So I grabbed up another one, broke his fuckin' spine when he refused to stop squirming, and did it again.

He didn't scream as much. Maybe the broken spine meant he didn't feel it until I hit mid torso or some shit. I picked up the next one, slammed him to the ground face up, Co-Located three more of me, two to slice his friends off at the knees and hold them up so they could watch, and one of me to hold the fucker's head up so he could as well. Then I sliced him from crotch to crown, as slow as I could stand.

He didn't scream at all, just made fucked up gurgling sounds, so when I hit neck level I twisted my Blade and extended it sideways, then picked up his head and screamed in his face.

"YOU CALL THAT A FUCKIN' SCREAM? ASSHOLE! FUCKER! TEASE!" I reached over and grabbed his buddy, flipped him over my knee, and rammed grunty fucker's head up his ass.

"Oh. Oh, yeah. That was a fuckin' scream." I flipped him back over, slamming his back into my knee and savoring the crunch of his spine, then dragged him down until his whimpering head lay on my knee. I bent over and breathed into his ear.

"Such a nice scream. Such nice noises. You know what you get?" He whimpered more, and his pure, clean, delicious terror soaked into every pore on me.

"You, sweet beautiful boy, get mercy." I giggled as the Mana Blade occupying most of his brain cavity flash boiled so much of his eye juice that they popped, spraying gore all over me. I swayed over to the last one, collapsing all of me into one, catching him by the hair as he fell. I lifted him up, my eyes fluttering shut as his rolled in exhilarating, delicious fear. I savored it, almost forgetting to extinguish my Blade as my other hand wandered southward.

Then a tiny, annoying fact slipped into my brain, a grain of annoying sand defying my lubrication.

"Wasn't there another one of you?" I looked around and saw the last one moving away at a steady, if lurching walk. He had a shield and sword out, and I knew I hadn't fucked up anybody with a sword tonight. I thought about it a second. I hadn't fucked anybody with a sword, either. The thought of jackhammering my hips into him so hard and fast I crushed his pelvis distracted me for a second before I realized he was just moving slow because he couldn't see shit.

I shifted my last broken toy to my left hand, stepped in front of Sword Boi, then slid a bright, chunky Mana Blade out of my right wrist.

"Goin' somewhere?" He drew himself up, clutching something dangling from his neck in his shield hand.

"I am not with them." At my disbelieving silence, he continued.

"I am an observer, sent by Athena herself to oversee the Spartan's actions." I nodded.

"Oh. Okay. I see. So you were gonna," I looked back at the woman cradled in D's arm, one of her arms dangling from his other hand.

"Reprimand them for harming a prisoner of war?"

"No, of course..."

"Oh. Okay. But you were gonna stop them before they started in on the rape and murder, right?" He snorted.

"Why would I even..." I lifted the last Spartan and looked him in the eye, shaking my head.

"The fucking lion and the screaming witch, and can you believe the audacity of this bitch?" He groaned out something that sounded a little like a 'no'. At least I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I turned back to Athena's bitch, first Smiting the Spartan for agreeing with me, then ashing a three inch cylinder of his braincase with a Mana Blade.

"See? Even brainless here agrees with me." I dropped both Blades and, in the darkness, as Sword Boi went into a fighting stance still clutching at his crucifix or whatever, I stepped behind and above him, grabbed his neck and the front edge of his helmet, and ripped it clean off of him. As he staggered, I Mana Bladed off his right arm. His pauldron refused to melt like it was supposed to, but when my Blade slid down to his exposed shoulder, the meat cooked and sizzled and parted just like it ought.

"Oh, smell that, fuckin' falls right off the bone. Scream for me more." I kicked his knee sideways, swapped hands, and sliced off his shield arm. Then I spun him around and looked him right in the eyes. Before I could compliment him on just how well he screamed, the fucker started babbling.

"You cannot do this!"

"Pretty sure I can." I slid a long, thin Mana Blade into the gap between his armored skirts, right into his thigh. When his scream died down, the hoarse babbling started up again.

"I am a High Priest of Athena!"

"Ooh! Is she feeling this? Is she listening? Is she watching? Does she like to watch too?"

"Yes! Yes! I was just an observer!" I smiled down at him. Such a nice boy to volunteer like that. I pulled him up close, Mana Blading off his kneecap when he tried to bring it up into my crotch.

"Hey Athena. Sweetie. So you were just 'observing'. Just watching. Just gonna watch as those Spartan fuckers cut off her limbs?" I twisted the Mana Blade I'd put through his kneecap, extending Mana Razor Wires around what remained of his limbs. One quick contraction, and I shuddered as his scream echoed in my ears.

"Just gonna watch as they raped her?" I slid that Mana Blade back, then curved it around and rammed it right up his fuckin' ass, an inch wide burning arc.

"Over, and over, and over?" With each repetition, I branched it out through his torso, taking special care to keep it below his diaphragm. Every branch brought another shriek, and with each shriek my knees wobbled a little.

"Until they just couldn't get it up any more?" I extended that mana blade out through his navel, slipped it down and around and guillotined off his fuckin' cock with it.

"Were you just gonna observe when they killed them too?" I pushed a four inch wide Mana Blade right up through his spine into his neck, then held it there as the strips of skin around it sizzled, cooked, split, and the rest of him fell away from his head. I pulled him in and, my tongue in his mouth, whispered, "observe this, bitch," then extended a Mana Blade from my tongue through the back of his head, letting the fucker fall through it. I staggered back over to Dionysus.

"Get the others out here." He smelled so good. So fuckin' good. The back of his toga practically sloshed he'd sweat so much. I couldn't help myself, I followed him in as he wandered into the shack.

"Everybody join hands." He jumped like two feet in the air. Pretty fuckin good for a fat assed white boy. Although I guess he's Greek, and I'm not sure if that counts. I think he might have pissed himself. Weird, we hadn't been drinking yet.

"Do as she says."

"Yes, yes, do as I says!" They all clutched at him, but fuck it, good enough. I reached out, grabbed the arm in his hand, pulled it away from him, and stuck it back on the poor weeping woman in his arm with a blast of Heal that lit up the room like daylight.

"Thas better. Les' go!" The next moment we stood in front of Lancaster House. Some other women in various states of bedragglement stood there with Maries around them.

"Les Go!" I giggled at my own humor, then stared below D's bulging waistline.

"But thas' not Les. Thas Het." I turned my gaze to Saffron.

"Why's a courtyard swayin'?" Then I looked back at D and realized that he was still holding the woman formerly known as armless.

"Put her down." He gently set her on the ground, at which point I grabbed him by the front of his toga. Naked Marie's claw clamped down on my forearm, and I flopped backward, not letting go, trusting the big bro was strong enough to hold up my weight. I'm not her Dark Fatassness, after all. Just little Tabitha Diaz. Saffron stood there, feet attached to the pavement, head dangling into the sky.

"Oh. You should come too." I reached out, grabbed her, and twisted and shoved D backwards onto my new play bed. Marie's claw slipped away from my arm, and the grim determination on her face melted away into absolutely feverish anticipation. Saffron stumbled backward and landed on her ass on the padded bed steps. She let out an audible 'oof'. I looked over and realized she was sweating and looked like she was high and had a migraine at the same fuckin' time.

I blinked a little and realized that the rest of me were... kinda fuzzy. I lifted her gently.

"Open your eyes."

"Can't." I chuckled.

"Too busy piloting the rest of me?" She opened her mouth, but couldn't speak. She just nodded instead.

"Aww. Sweetie. You don't have to do that."

"Someone has to." I pulled her up, brushed my lips across hers.

"Yeah, but I could do that, easy. But for me to do that?" One of her eyes slipped open. I pointed at D as he pushed himself up on one elbow, only to have Marie knock him back down.

"You gotta do him, hard. At least until sunset." She blinked, her jaw dropping open a little, and I said, "swap?" A moment later dozens of me followed D and the new Maenads into as many hidden Dionysian bolt holes. I tried my not so very hardest to ignore the goings on in the Love Shack as I collected them all and stepped them back to Lancaster House.

Then I collapsed back to one of me, stagger-sway-stepped my way inside to find Bonnie at her desk in the map room, and arranged for blankets and pillows and maybe adoptions for all the assorted women and girls I'd rescued. Took way too fuckin' long. I almost missed the best part. Well, first one anyhow. Almost.