Chương 528: Day Five Hundred And Twenty-Six

Dear Diary,"Do not seek to harm Children, To do so will bring my wrath. Fuck around and find out, bitch." Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Children Enough. Fuckin'. Said.

"Excuse me? Did I..." My witty repartee failed as Ria crumpled to the floor. Something shot out of her backpack toward the Morrigan, an animal scream of fury preceding it. A roar, one I hadn't heard since the fight against Ares' High Priests echoed through the room from right behind the throne. I dropped to a knee, reaching for Ria, Assess Health extruding... I realized right then, before the Assess Health finished Shaping itself, what had happened. Karen! Get Cailyn and Tallulah out of here!

The Morrigan's shriek didn't silence either of the roars around her. I glanced up to see something like a honey badger ripping into The Morrigan. One of her, because somehow there were now three of the bitches. Murder Mittens stood overpowering another one, while the third pointed imperiously.

"Mairéad! Summon the Bane-Sidhe! Scour this pit of all its filth!" I had something more important to do. I realized right then that my amnesia had left its mark. Protect. Heal. Then Avenge.

"Revive." I lay my hand on Ria's head, wincing as her hair flaked away like ash. The Revive went into effect, and I collapsed to my knees, barely holding myself up with one hand as her tiny form sucked in Mana at a rate I couldn't sustain. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a boulder of fur and fangs drop out of midair, adding another roar to the room as the She-Bear piledrove the final Morrigan through the throne and into the wall behind it.

"Lord!" one Morrigan shrieked.

"Aid me! Please!" The Revive kept pulling Mana from me, and something in me shattered when Ria's head powdered under my hand despite all I could do. Holding my rage at bay by the skin of my teeth, I Shaped a Filtration Ward around the dust the rest of her had decayed into. I stepped to M-Space, but instead of Ria's Soul, I saw a vaguely Ria-shaped form of ash, parts of it even now being blown away.

"No." I lifted myself to my feet with nearest tentacle, drawing Mana from it as I did.

"Daughter?"

"The fuck you want, Ma?" I growled.

"Only to know your intentions toward your brother." I froze, and she continued.

"Will you give him the chance you've given others?" That's when I realized that Ria wasn't blowing away in the wind. She was being sucked toward a one legged, one armed, one winged figure standing a few feet away, his mouth open, his one eye closed, frozen like everything else here outside of Time.

"Balor?"

"As I said. Your brother." I reached into the room with more tentacles, pulled on Mimic's Mana, and shaped the same Divine Ward I'd put around Artemis while I tortured her to death. This one smaller, just big enough to keep the remains of Ria's Soul in one place.

"I'm assuming he's why Ria went to dust like that?" Domnu shook her head.

"That is the nature of the Sidhe. They live until they do not, and when they no longer live, the Mana that sustained them burns them away in an instant."

"How do I Revive that?" She snorted.

"How does one unburn ash?" I frowned at her, stepping over to her, pulling her to me by her coring tentacles, making it very clear I was in no mood for shit.

"He stands down, or even just stands by and doesn't interfere, I'm willing to be civil. Cordial, even. We'll sit down and have a beer, maybe. Shit, maybe Devorah's got some mead done. That fuckin' eye opens, he's done." She nodded.

"Acceptable."

"Stay." I stepped over to stand in front of Balor, directly between him and Ria's ashen Soul. I stepped back into Time.

"Hey, bro. Good to finally meet..." He didn't even reply to me. Just sniffed, then said, "bother. I suppose I'm obligated at this point." Then he stepped to the Mortal Realm. I followed him, getting right up in his grille, where if he opened his eye, the only thing he'd see was me. Death didn't scare me. Been there, done that, burned the tee shirt. But I didn't know who was left in the room, and didn't have time to check.

"Bro? You really don't want to do this." I put one hand on his shoulder, cupped the back of his head with the other one.

"Keep your eye shut, listen to me wrecking some bitch's shit, and I'll take you out for a few brewskis later." His wing mantled, his claw sank into my side, ripping right through the ringmail woven into my jacket.

"Know this, fool who dares lay hands on Balor. Whoever I look upon dies. Once you fall, I shall gaze upon this battlefield and take your allies as my just due." Death didn't scare me, but never give up the power of stories when you can bring one to bear. That's just science.

"Didn't you know? You can beat her, slow her, shoot her, even stop her, but you can't kill a dead woman."

"Fool." He opened his eye, and pain washed over my entire body, feeling almost exactly like bleach smells. Over, through, past. Pain was an old... not friend, but we'd lent each other enough smokes I wasn't gonna say we weren't acquainted. I rammed my forehead right into his eye, bringing my knee into his crotch and pulling his shoulder and head toward me as I did. Blood burned my face, gushed down my whole damn front. Head wounds bleed a lot.

I reached into him, through him, and pulled, yanking all of him here, forcing him to his current stature with hands and knee and tentacles wrapped around him holding him tight.

"Bitch," he groaned.

"You have no fucking idea, asshole." I let go of him with everything but my tentacles, slipped his eye from my hand to my mouth, shoving it in there like a jawbreaker. Yeah, your girl Tabitha remembered that fuckin' legend. No loose WMDs here. The Primordial of Death dealt with, I turned to face the rest of the room, which still echoed with the shrieks, roars, and sounds of battle. Closest to me, Tallulah's two bodyguards had faced off against The Morrigan's Knights and lost.

Well, were still losing, as two Knights held each Bodyguard on their knees while a third hammered at them with long handled maces. The other two Knights lay on the floor in spreading pools of blood. I wondered about the Nightmares until I realized all of them stood exactly where they'd been parked. Okay, all but one missing one. Mairéad rabbited, I guessed.

Figuring I'd finish it quickly, I stepped six of me behind the Knights and did some rapid deep tissue acupuncture down either side of their spines with knuckle duster Mana Blades. Unfortunately, they didn't so much collapse as stagger, and not all of my Mana Blades went through their armor. On a more positive note, Tallulah's Bodyguards took that stagger as an opportunity to shove themselves upright and grab their attackers by the face and neck, tackling them and going to town with their fists.

That left six of me and four of them, and they'd put their weapons away to hold the Bodyguards. Three of me took a clue from the Bodyguards and tackled the Knights. The other three demonstrated why being outnumbered in a fistfight was a bad idea. Back by the throne, despite a fair amount of blood, no bodies had hit the floor. Well, none had stopped moving anyhow. Karen, Cailyn, and Tallulah had all disappeared.

One Morrigan lay on the ground, her arms crossed in front of her face, as that fuckin' badger thing ripped at her guts with its mouth and foreclaws and ripped at her arms with its hind claws. As I watched, those rear claws found purchase on her arms, shredded them while forcing them apart, and then the badger, no fucks given, shat on her face. Another Morrigan tried and failed to prevent the She-bear, grizzly large, from forcing her arms apart, leaning down, and taking her skull almost delicately in her jaws.

The shrieking intensified as she bore down, again almost gently, and shit started cracking loud enough to be heard over the shrieking. Gods died hard. The final Morrigan in the room had a spear in hand, and Marie stood between her and Lindsey. Facing Lindsey, because apparently despite being a smarmy traitorous asshole, he had one of those weird pearl Mana Blades and knew how to use it. That Morrigan screamed, "DIE!" I winced, as did Marie. As did Lindsey. Then Murder Mittens growled out, "No."

and leapt at Lindsey. He took steaming slices off of her claws, and as she leapt forward, claws coming in from below to gut him, brought his Mana Blade down and took her legs off. Roaring, she yanked his guts across a few dozen square feet. He snarled out something and brought his Blade back around again, taking her head and arms off. I'd held back because they'd been moving fast enough I couldn't be sure I wouldn't hurt Marie, but at this point that was moot.

"See you in the morning, Mittens." I stepped right up in front of him, grabbing his wrists as I did.

"Bad move, prick." I sliced his hands off with Mana Blades from my palms. Burned my own a little as I did, but not so much I couldn't keep hold of his wrists as I did unto him as I'd done unto Balor. Something about ramming your head right into the bridge of somebody's nose is just satisfying. Even more so when their nose shatters. Even more when you keep doing that until something else shatters and they fall to powder in your arms. Of course now I had powdered Lindsey all over my fuckin' front.

A second later I had a spear through me.

"Stupid little Demigoddess bitch. Die!" That nasty bleach feeling rolled over me, and I realized just then where she'd gotten that trick. I stepped behind her, stealing her spear away from her as I did, then grabbed her and pulled her to me. Of course the bitch had a boar spear, the kind that wouldn't push back out, but now we were just two lumps of meat on the same kebab. I wrapped one arm around her neck, the other pulling her waist back to me until I felt the tip of the boar spear rip out through her front.

Fuck it, if one story worked, two would work better.

"That which is dead may never die. Bitch." Then as she shrieked profanity at me, I ran hair fine tentacles through her, pulled the rest of her back to the one in my arms. All of the rest of her. She whimpered at that, and before the shrieking curses could begin again, I tasted something like my Balor jawbreaker inside of her. I ferreted out each and every bit of that flavor, then ripped them all from her.

"If you can't play nice with your toys, I take them away, you cretinous thunder cunt." With that in mind I had those same tentacles rip away anything that tasted even faintly like Translocation or Co-Location. When I finished, she whimpered out, "even now my great granddaughter summons the Bane-Sidhe to turn this entire pitiful excuse for a City into an abattoir."

"I'd ask if you ever shut the fuck up, but since you seem as constitutionally incapable as I am..." I grabbed her jaw and forehead and pulled, forcing her mouth wider and wider until I heard the crack of her jaw dislocating. Maybe breaking. I did not give the slightest fuck which at that point, but just in case I reached in, took a solid grip, and ripped her fuckin' tongue out too. Then I collapsed back into one of me who'd been stomping a Knight into paste. Love this story?

Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! I left the boar spear behind in The Morrigan, with my tentacles keeping her hands too occupied and too shattered to do anything about it. Then I saw that the two Bodyguards had fallen taking out the last of her Knights, and I ripped her arms off.

"Diana, keep an eye on Menace." I stepped out to the deck of the Questing Tentacle. Under the low hanging, leaden clouds, in the faint witch light from the lanterns aboard the Questing Tentacle, Mairéad stood on the deck of the docked Fae ship, screaming something as she fell to one knee, a row of Knights between her and us already crumpled to the deck, bleeding out, a couple of them blowing to dust as I watched. Dragonslayers stood reloading all along the rail, and Karen shouted, "Lower Deck, fire!"

Another volley of bolts flew. Mairéad released a Shape into the sky, a fountain of glowing, moonlight sparks, right before enough bolts to stop a cavalry charge tore her apart and knocked her off the deck of the ship into the water. A moment later, Trolls swarmed out of the water, some climbing onto the dock, some straight up the side of the Fae ship.

"Karen!" I wheezed a little where my side reminded me that I'd exceeded my daily recommended allowance of boar spear, and just pointed at first one concentration of Fae ships, then the other. She got my meaning immediately, as within seconds of that fountain of sparks, each of the ships had a small unit of Knights carrying tall shields step out from below decks, a single hyper-violet glowing figure in the midst of each group. Karen proved right then that I'd chosen well for my Highest Priestess.

No long soliloquy, no wailing and gnashing of teeth, just instant response.

"Shit. Dragonslayers! To the stern and aft firing ports! Ranks fire as you bear on those Bane-Sidhe!" Where's the Marshall and Potami? Her response came as quickly as her orders to the Dragonslayers had. Guarding the Overlord and Cailyn in the forward cabin. Then, almost sheepishly. As per my orders. I laughed out loud in response as I leapt to the forward Siege Crossbow. I spun it around and aimed at one of the Bane-Sidhe on the decks of the undamaged Fae ships.

It thrummed, almost as loud as Vulcan, if nowhere near as climactic, and three of the Knights wound up pinned to the crumpling mast of that ship.

"The fuck?" Right about then I realized I'd probably given up my Archery Skill when I healed Artemis and had what was left of Apollo turned into a bow. At this range, our regular Crossbows still had the power to take someone down, but if whatever armor the Knights wore wasn't proof against Cold Iron, it was still enough that the shots that hit were lodging in them rather than punching through them. One Bane-Sidhe fell to a volley of Crossbow fire, and the almost physically painful worry I'd felt lessened.

When Karen fired one of the stern Siege Crossbows right through the middle of another one's guards, pinning guards, Bane-Sidhe, and all to the side of the ship, I realized that an almost subsonic drone had been building since the Bane-Sidhe came on deck. With each Bane-Sidhe that fell, it dropped in volume, but it was still building and rising through the scales. I did not want to know what happened when it hit proper 'banshee wail' octaves.

I Co-Located to the deck of the Fae ship I'd shot, and before I could do anything a wicked branching bolt of Miasma Lightning arced out from the Bane-Sidhe to rip at me. I collapsed back to the me on the deck.

"FUCK!" Do not translocate to the enemy ships. Bane-Sidhes can spot that shit like Undead. Shit, are Bane-Sidhe Undead? Our fire slacked as the Bane-Sidhe screaming rose into normal human hearing octaves, not to mention volumes that could be heard on the deck of the Questing Tentacle. The Dragonslayers didn't all drop dead immediately, but some of them stood there shaking their heads. Others fell to their knees to clutch at their ears. Most of the remaining fire came from the firing ports. Karen!

Get them below decks! Close the firing ports! I leapt to it myself, Co-Locating to grab two and three of our troops at a time, starting with the ones on their knees. Even below decks, that awful screeching song had started ramping up. Over at the docked Fae ship, the Trolls in view all dove for the water. I jumped to the other aft Siege Crossbow, spun it toward the biggest of the Bane-Sidhe, and fired. More by luck than anything I clipped her, staggering and spinning her around even as her Knights dropped to dust.

The wailing of the Bane-Sidhe didn't even falter, though, as the one we'd peppered with Crossbow bolts rose to its feet, bleeding hyper-violet Miasma, yet still standing. I felt someone rustle through the back of my brain. followed by that odd anti-tingle of someone drawing Mana from me, from Mimic. Faintly, I heard something over the Bane-Sidhe wails. Faint horns sounding out, then fading away. Then a sudden burst of static, followed by the beautiful sound of my Kitten's dulcet tones.

"... should help." Then the music started again, this time with the faintest static burr underlying it. A fanfare of horns surging through the screaming, followed by something echoing in from the sky to the east, a screeching howl of a sort I hadn't heard since last time I'd flown to Puerto Rico, almost three years ago and a world away. Then the lyrics started, blasting apart the Bane-Sidhe wailing with all the power of Apollo amplified by my Black Dragon' s PA systems.

Saraba chikyuu yo tabidatsu fune wa uchuu senkan BLACK DRAGON uchuu no kanata Rich Man's Puerto e I leapt to the aft rail, laughing so hard tears streamed down my face as I flipped both little clusters of Fae ships off, watching downriver for the first sight of my beautiful Black Dragon. I was completely unprepared to see her drop through the clouds, coming in for a landing in the river just inside of Rich Man's Port's waters.

The fact that four of the Fae ships were currently anchored there did fuck all to stop her. One of the Bane-Sidhe, glowing with hyper violet Miasma, surfaced just off her prow. At which point the anchor smashed her back underwater. Then every other sound in the world decided to fuck off for elsewhere as the Black Dragon's guns spoke.

Only the six forward guns, and I wasn't sure they'd have enough depression, but that really didn't matter much, as the surface of the river itself joined every other fuckin' bit of everything in the world flying downrange toward the two remaining Fae ships. The detonations of the shells were almost an afterthought, turning the wreckage into interesting kindling-based modern art on the surface of the low cliffs at the next bend of the James.

Two hyper-violet splotches in the middle of that artwork flickered and died as I watched. Then I had two armfuls of Kitten.

"Happy Yule, love. I figured you wouldn't mind getting your present early." I smiled down at her, then kissed her. When I pulled back after, I sighed.

"She's beautiful. But we have more work to do. Well, I do." We hopped down to the deck, then walked hand and hand toward the forward cabin. I knocked, and when the door opened, Potami crouched on the far side, a dull Cold Iron blade in each hand. When she saw me, she nodded, stood up, and disappeared the cutlery.

"Champion."

"Hey Potami. In case you didn't hear, battle's over. Need you and the other Heroes to help the Trolls with cleanup, if you could?" She nodded, waved to somebody behind her, and I stepped aside as she led a short handful of men and women in Academy uniforms out of the cabin. Then duBois stepped out from behind the door.

"You need me to do anything in particular?" Saffron nodded.

"Could you take command here for the time being? Truly, there's not much to be done, but I'd like it if someone could keep Orla and Potami from bickering. Hearing their chain of command do so puts the Trolls in a bad mood." duBois returned her nod.

"We taking prisoners?"

"Yes, please, if any of the Sidhe surrender. Any other Fae ought to be relatively easy to subdue. Please do so if at all possible, most of them dare not defy the Sidhe. Once they realize Lady Crow is in fact the reigning noble in Rich Man's Port, they ought at least behave as well as Fae ever do." She turned to Tallulah.

"No offense intended."

"None taken." She slumped just a little.

"May... may we go see to my daughter now?" She winced at the look on my face.

"Yeah." I took Tallulah by the hand, nodded to Cailyn, and Lady Crow took her daughter's hand. Karen. Throne room. Then I stepped us there. Diana stood in front of The Morrigan, holding a medium sized Isnomi up by the waist so our most feral daughter could punch The Morrigan in the face. By the looks of things, she'd been doing that for most of the battle outside.

"Isnomi." She froze.

"I'm very upset with you for disobeying and coming here when I told you I didn't want you to." I stepped over to her, took her out of Diana's hands, and pulled her into a relieved hug.

"I'm glad you're safe, Menace. But there will be some consequences for this."

"Bud..."

"Menace." She shut up. I think she realized exactly how furious I was, even if almost none of it was with her.

"Not now. We'll talk about this later." I hugged her, then handed her off to Saffron. I turned to face The Morrigan, who'd already begun healing. Gods die hard, and heal fast. Especially big old powerful ones like The Morrigan. I reached up and Healed her mouth, her tongue, because I had something important to ask her.

"I'll bet you think I'm gonna kill you now."

"Obviously," she hissed. I shook my head.

"Only one question for you, Morrie. May I enjoy this?"

"Just kill me and be done with it, bitch. Arrangements have been made. I will rise again, more powerful than before, and return to destroy you and all that you love." I sighed.

"Well. Shit. That doesn't sound like consent to me. Ah, well." I reached out, took her by the chin, and looked her right in the eye.

"I'll do my best not to enjoy this, then. But you won't be rising again. Do you know why?" She sniffed.

"Do you claim to be some kind of godslayer, then?" I chuckled.

"Now that you mention it, yeah, but that's not why." I'd pulled the tip of one of my tentacles down to knee height, and now I slithered that under her skirts. I put my hands on the stumps of her shoulders, wrapped two more tentacles around her ankles, and said, "it's because I'm not going to kill you." Then I rammed that tentacle tip straight up her ass. Forced it up through her, not bothering to be really gentle. She screamed.

She screamed a lot, most of it incoherent, until the tip of that tentacle slipped out of her mouth, effectively gagging her.

"That's better. Now. Can you breathe?" She twitched.

"Eh, fuck it." I granted her the Boon of not needing to, then leaned in and pressed my cheek against hers.

"You see, Morrigan, I'm not going to kill you. Neither is anyone else. Ever. For all eternity. Until Time itself comes to an end." Slowly, gently, inexorably, I pushed that tentacle further through her, savoring each little pop and crackle as the bones and sinews snapped, ruptured, reformed, and snapped again.

"I'm taking everything I find away from you. Speaking of..." I reached one hand out to Tallulah.

"You used to be her High Priestess, right?" She took my hand.

"I was."

"Did being a High Priestess help with the whole Overlord thing?"

"It did." Not a very talkative woman. Solid benefit if I was gonna have her inside my head on occasion.

"You want to be my High Priestess?" I paused, nodded toward Diana, who stood flanking Saffron, clearly focused on Isnomi. I'd probably have to figure out what was going on there at some point, but not today.

"There are other options. Or you could just stay, y'know, not-Clergy." Tallulah tilted her head.

"I have a choice?" I blinked.

"Uh, I guess you don't know my whole thing? Agency? Consent? Being a High Priestess is pretty fuckin' intimate, I'm not forcing that shit on anybody who doesn't want it. I better not find out anybody else has done so either." If Menace got quieter than her already silent clinging to her mom, I pretended not to notice. Lady Crow nodded.

"Very well then. I accept, Champion. Make me a High Priestess of Tabitha Diaz." I flexed that part of me and thought, I wonder if anybody will ever catch on before I do this. You'd think the tentacles would be a clue. At that point the Morrigan's hips and ribcage both shattered all at once, joining the ongoing crackling chorus of breaking and reforming as my tentacle stretched her into an ever wider tube. I'd used one of the big ones, it would take a while to finish. Weeks, maybe months.

Tallulah paled, at least as much as she could with all those freckles. Karen? Take care of her please? I took Saffron's hand and guided her over to where Marie lay on the floor.

"You know you're the reason she was here, right Menace?'' The world's quietest, "yeth," sounded from where she pressed her face into Saffron's breast.

"Another thing we'll talk about later." With that I stepped over to the little Filtration Ward in the middle of the room. Co-Locating to M-Space, I wrapped one tentacle gently around the Divine Ward I'd created and pulled, pushed, forced it and its contents back to the Mortal Realm. Then I pulled Balor and Domnu into the room.

"How do you unburn ash?" I shook my head, sucking on the eye still mashed between my cheek and gums. Sucking the Mana from it. Then, wrapping more tentacles around him, did the same to Balor, trying desperately to ignore his grunts of pain, to ignore the crackle of my tentacle turning The Morrigan into a decorative tentacle sleeve. I pulled power from Balor, from his Eye, from Mimic's tentacles in M-Space. I drew power until I glowed, until I started to burn... And then I didn't. Burn.

I just glowed harder as my High Priestesses surrounded me, Worship flowing into me. More than just them. Diana and my Menace as well. I threw a Divine Ward around all of us, dropping the two little Wards in the middle of the floor as Balor faded to nothing, the last of him absorbed into Mimic. I knelt down next to the dust where it drifted to the floor, and gently, quietly said, "maybe you didn't hear me the first time, little crow."

Mana suffused me so much that my breath sparkled through her dust when I whispered, "Revive." How do you unburn ash? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Power. I didn't know if it was right, if it was wrong, if it was an abuse of my power or position to Revive my kid when so many others died every fuckin' day.

I do know that I brought that one big fuckin' tentacle down so The Morrigan's face, stretched across one side of it, pointed at Ria's dust where Mana poured into it in a torrent, an absolute avalanche of power. The dust of Ria's body and Soul whirled together, twisting tighter and tighter until they formed two tiny orbs. The moment they did, the rest of her extended outward from her eyes in a flash.

She stood there on tiptoe, blinking, for the slightest of moments before leaping at me, arms going around my neck as she cried. As she sobbed, and one word kept flowing out of her mouth like a prayer. That single word that had me frozen in place, my arms around her, holding her to me, crying as much as she did.

"Mama."