Chương 619: Day Six Hundred And Seventeen

Dear Diary, The more people I throw down with here and now, the more I realize that no matter how much I'd like them to be, the Bad Guys aren't monolithic. Each and every one of them has their own reasons for doing things, for being the way they are. Even the so-called 'Monsters' are just acting on instincts, because if they were any more complex than that, they wouldn't be Monsters as Saffron described them. They'd be sentient beings with goals and motivations and, as noted, reasons.

Sometimes those reasons suck, but they're still reasons. Thing is, I've begun to realize that understanding those reasons is key to understanding those people. Understanding them as people, not just cardboard cutouts that I smash out of the way because I'm pissed off at the world and want to vent. I mean yeah, some of the assholes here and now are motivated by 'raging entitled asshole', and if they won't learn better or back down, I can and will end them as hard as I need to.

But if I just walked around doing that with everybody who got in my way, I'd never have rescued the people of Calverton, let alone their Army. I wouldn't have gotten to jam with my ladies on stage in Johnson's Jarldom, which would be a shame, because I would likely never have seen Saffron in a soaked tee shirt. I sure as shit wouldn't be able to hand off the whole Queen gig to Olga, which would mean I'd be stuck with that shit for at least a few years until I figured out who I could trust with the job.

Without Calverton's people and Army pushing for it, we wouldn't have had nearly the reason to boot the Undead out of Calverton, and I wouldn't have met Ria, or her mom. Hell, as I've noted recently, if I just straight up killed every motherfucker who attacked me, I wouldn't have my buddy Larry or his father Lenny, and probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to savor Lachlan's flavor, and that would be a shame.

So, y'know, when I discover that somebody has the capacity for speech, I figure it behooves me to make with the conversation, even if they are a flying death lizard. Standing atop the West Tower, I fired up my Message Shape in Public Address mode, cranked up the volume, and called out, "Hey! Lizzie! I'm down for ending it here if you are! Let's talk this shit out!"

The Dragon reared back, although I'm not sure if it was from me talking to it, the volume of my voice, or just part of the aerodynamics of something that big landing. As it touched down, I finally got a good look at it as whatever Blend-ish effect it had going on flickered and died. Much like the Ice Dragon I'd fought on the march to Lancaster House, its body reminded me of nothing so much as a big hunting cat. A really, really big hunting cat.

At first I almost thought it had fur, too, but the more details I picked out the more I realized that while it had some dangling fringe bits that moved and swayed like a mane, most of the 'furry' bits weren't fur at all, but feathers. This big motherfucker had feathers. A giant chicken was attacking my house. I mean, its wings looked like the leathery scaled type you'd see on a lizard, but even there it had tufts of feathery bits in spots.

Then it spoke, and I had to focus to avoid getting blown off the tower, or having my ears implode or some shit like that.

"WHY WOULD I SPEAK WITH APES?" Its long serpentine neck brought its head forward and it squinted at me.

"Even less something pretending to be one," it muttered, if something close to the volume of a sports stadium surround sound speaker system could be considered 'muttering'.

"I dunno, seems like we might have gotten off on the wrong foot. My name's Tabitha Diaz. I'm the Patron Demigoddess of the Inter-City Alliance. We're your new southern neighbors." Do I? Do as you will, love, but I think it might be best. I took a deep breath, then dropped my Blend.

"You might also know me as Mimic. Walking Ragnarok. Black Swan with a thousand, thousand young. God Slayer." As I spoke, the Dragon's head tilted, its neck twisting until it looked at me almost entirely upside down. When I finished speaking, it shook its head, swaying back upright, with a wheezing, echoing noise that I realized was the thing's equivalent of laughter.

"I neither know nor care about your pitiful, fleeting, meaningless Titles, little ape. But you speak the civilized tongue of my youth, and after all, it seems we share a Title. I am Mother of Water Panthers. I have consumed empires willingly sacrificed to me until nothing resembling people remained. Now there are only apes who pretend to civilization, pretend to power, pretend to rule over lesser creatures. Calling themselves 'Gods', as if that word means anything."

She leaned forward in a pantomime of intimacy, even though she barely closed half of the distance from where she stood beyond the tree line and my perch on the West Tower.

"I, too, have slain a 'God', little not ape."

"Okay, yeah. Eating empires. I get that. You get peckish, need a snack. Willingly, you say?" She just blinked at me.

"Okay, okay, from what I've been told Bear's people weren't so much willing, though?" She smiled at me, and I suddenly realized that 'baring teeth' might not always be the friendliest gesture.

"Which God did you think I spoke of, little pretend ape?" Gotta say, the whole 'ape' schtick was getting old.

"I'm not an ape, Lizzie. I'm a person. Just like you." She reared back, stretching up and back like I'd let loose the shart to end all sharts.

"Like me? Like Me! You dare call yourself 'Like me'? Little ape thing, I have slept longer than your kind has walked the earth. My kind shattered the world, rent it asunder with our great war, then slept while empires rose in our wake. We woke and consumed them all, then slept again, and rose once more to feast. Then, when I awoke expecting a properly subservient empire to consume once more? Naught but filthy, tasteless apes and their great brute of a 'God'." It leaned forward and sneered.

"Did you like what remained of it? What my children made of its flesh and bone and sinew? Did they smash your pitiful hovels and consume the flesh of your get?" I tilted my head, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Then I realized.

"You mean... all those Dire Bears? Those were your kids or something?"

"Lesser spawn, driven at you by my will." Look, I can only take so much asshole before I need a breath of fresh air. Still amplified by my Public Address Message Spell, I belched. Like, long and hard and loud. As the echoes died down, I said, "I didn't much like them at first, but my Murder Mittens has some really good recipes. Especially for the liver. Who knew?"

"You. Did. What?" I leaned forward, although I'm not sure she was really getting my body language.

"Me and mine have been eating your kids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner." She started to slither forward, and I shouted, "NOW! We could sit down, talk this over like vaguely civilized people, and both walk away from here, or you could keep tryna provoke shit, at which point I will fuckin' eat you, too."

"You dare..." I rolled my eyes, and the me still sitting in M-Space ran a hand along Mimic's tentacle, activating Mimic (Size).

"Yeah, I fuckin' dare. Now like I said, you wanna talk and walk away, or you wanna throw down and I swallow you like I swallowed your kids?" Yeah, I know, not my most diplomatic, but something told me this bitch never really intended to deal in good faith. She snickered, then laughed, her words hard to understand even with all my Blend translation mojo in effect.

"Your people cower and run, little Goddess. Little 'Mimic'. You are all alone against the scourge of ages, the death of empires, the Mother of Water Panthers. Surrender now, and I will end you and those cowering behind you quickly, before I hunt down all those who ran and consume them alive." I shook my head.

"You don't get it, do you? I told them to run. I told them to hide. Because if I have to throw down against you? I don't want to accidentally hurt any of them."

"So be it, little ape. DIE!" Her neck writhed like a whip, and she spat out a glob of something. I realized as it flew toward me that distance and scale had left me a little wrong about how big she was, and how big that approaching glob was. I realized when I jumped to the side of the tower and it did not change the 'coming right at me' in the slightest. I collapsed into the me in M-Space as her death loogie splashed all over the top of the tower.

Even in M-Space the top of the tower sizzled, although from that vantage I saw the complex weave of Shapes keeping the Dragon's caustic spit from touching the stone of the tower. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I finished my Mimic (Size) when I stood at least twice the height of the tower itself. I could have gone bigger, but... collateral.

If I fell over on the Houses at this size, I might hurt myself, and I might bust them up, but I wasn't gonna accidentally flatten all of them by stepping on them. I stepped back to the Mortal Realm just in time to hear the Dragon shout, "Your defender has fled! Time to... what?" On one hand, even lesser Dragon Hide seems to be proof against Mana Shapes up to and including Mana Blades. On the other hand, when I brought a Mana Blade around midway along that big scaly neck, it clotheslined the bitch pretty well.

I stomped down, my heel landing on her foot, pinning it to the ground. I reached for her neck, but she snaked around and clamped her jaws at the junction of my neck and shoulder. The rings of my uniform jacket tore, splintered, and fell away under the pressure of her jaws, and her fangs sank into my shoulder as her aggressive halitosis burned my skin.

"Fucking BITCH!" I grabbed the base of her neck with one hand and squeezed. She bit down harder and beat at me with her wings. Her foreclaws tore at my legs, and if our relative sizes made it more like a big fuckin' housecat shredding my skin than a lioness tearing up the meat of my thighs, it still hurt like a fuckin' bitch. Also, enough cuts like that would eventually add up.

I couldn't really see anything, because I had my head hunched down and my eyes closed to keep her wings from blinding me in a more permanent sense. I still knew where one bit of her was, though, and I reached across and grabbed her by the fuckin' head.

"I told you, you gargantuan lizard bitch," I squeezed at the corners of her jaw, and when she still wouldn't let go, I screamed, pumped Mana into my limbs, and ripped her jaws free.

"FOOLISH APE!" I don't know what language she'd been speaking, but she managed to hiss that shit out as she laughed.

"You will bleed and die, just like the bear before you!" Warmth spread out across my neck, and she writhed her blood-slicked jaws loose from my hand, rearing back to strike at me again. I snapped her neck like a whip to keep her fangs away from me and growled out, "my Murder Mittens bites harder than that while we're fuckin', you cheap ass 'Zilla wannabe!"

Of course, right about then I realized that whether or not Marie's bites went deeper than the Dragon's, she'd always been careful about not, y'know, causing excessive bleeding. Also, this bitch had just ruined all Marie's hard work with the nice neat circular scars.

"YOU FUCKIN' SKANKY SNAKEY BITCH!" As her claws tore at my legs, I swung her neck to slam her head into the ground. Trees shattered, dirt flew, and finally her skull impacted with the stone of the mountains. The stone cracked. Her wings flapped, lifting her up so all four of her clawed feet could clutch at me, sinking into my hips and tits. I stumbled backward toward the Homestead as she drove me with great flaps of her wings.

One step at a time I staggered backward across our cleared ground; it was all I could do to keep upright, to keep her mouth away from my neck. I squeezed with both hands, feeling her scales start to give way, and she roared, but didn't let up. Then I lurched to a stop as something poked me right in the ass. I staggered forward half a step, looked behind me, and saw the West Tower standing there like the thigh high phallic symbol it absolutely was.

"THAT. IS. FUCKIKNG. ENOUGH!" My voice echoed back to me from the far side of the valley, and I stepped the Dragon and myself to M-Space. I tried to step us to M-Space, but not only did the bitch not go, she somehow kept me from Translocating there myself, either. She took that moment of surprise on my part to twist her head around and spew an absolute tidal wave of caustic Draconic halitosis all over the Homestead.

Rage bubbled up as I lost sight of the Houses behind the cloud of noxious fumes, and I stretched my arms out to either side, sliding one hand along her neck until my clenched fist slammed her jaw closed.

"Fine. If I can't take the bitch to M-Space..." I reached. Not from myself to anywhere. But from M-Space to the Mortal Realm. Tentacles writhed around the edge of the cleared area of the valley. Big Cat Five motherfucking tentacles, five miles long and not giving a shit about how big or strong or tricksy or Mana resistant the fucking Dragon was. Her scales, her horns, her feathers, and her little fringe, all of it tore at the skin of my tentacles as I grabbed her, but I had no fucks left to give about that.

Tentacle tips clamped down on her limbs, pulling her claws away from me. Both hands gripping her head, I pulled it down to look her right in the eye.

"I told you, bitch. Throw down with me, and I will fucking EAT YOU!" Tentacles leaned in from the edges of the clear valley, wrapping around the base of her wings, then ripping upwards, tearing them clean off. She roared in my face, inhaled to do another bit of death halitosis. I wrapped another tentacle around the base of her neck and squeezed as I levered her jaw shut.

"NO! BAD DRAGON!" Okay, I couldn't help it. I realized what I'd just said and started laughing. I laughed while I stared into her eyes and squeezed the base of her neck until I ripped it clean free of her body. Breathing heavy, I looked her in the eyes and said, "The only question now? Is whether I share any of your fuckin' carcass with..." I shuddered as a wave of fear washed over me, the fear of a being of power older than Humanity realizing her end was near.

"Fuck it. I'mma be greedy today." I turned her to face the center of the clear space of the valley. The one spot from which no tentacles sprang. My Maw.

"Oops. There go your wings." I dropped them into the Maw, power rushing through me as they dissolved. She tried to scream, her body thrashing.

"Wonder if these will taste like chicken?" I forced her to watch as I ripped her legs off one at a time and dropped them in. With each one another wave of power flowed through me, cold and scaly and ancient. The bitch's tail whipped around, slamming into my biggest tentacle.

"That fucking stung, bitch." Even with the power rushing through me, blood loss was making me a little punch drunk. I wrapped a tentacle around her tail, lifted, and lowered her body slowly, sensually, almost gently into my Maw.

"Ooh, look, looks like you're nothing but a piece of tail now. Oh, and some head." At some point I'd turned her to face me.

"Can't really taste anything but the power like that, though." I pulled her to me, her eyes rolling with hate and terror, pulled the writhing, torn end of her neck up to my mouth, and sank my teeth in. Chewed, swallowed, sour blood burning my lips as the rest of her dissolved into me. I brought her face back around to look at me. Her glazing eyes finally showed what I'd been waiting for the whole time.

I savored her terror as I shoved my thumbs through her eyes, then rammed one through the tympanic membrane on one side. I brought the other up to my lips as the thrashing of her neck slowed.

"You taste like raw chicken." I licked her lizard ear, then whispered gently, "so much. So big. Not sure I can fit any more." Something glimmered in the midst of her terror, and I smiled as the power in me rose in response to my cruelty when I whispered, "time to die. Nom," and dropped her head into my Maw. Power rushed into me. Old, serpentine power. Power that had once shattered a continent. Some tiny part of me whimpered, not wanting to give in to the rage, the hate, the anger, the hunger.

The rest of me savored the sweetmeats dissolving in my Maw, sending Power and Glory and even the most primal Worship of all, mortal terror from a being that seconds before thought itself immortal and unassailable. I'd had a plan. An intent. To warn others off. To make it clear that if they trespassed, if they tried to take what was rightfully mine, that no force, no Mortal, no Dragon, no Primordial God, would save them from their inevitable final rest in my Maw.

My eyes slipped closed as Power rushed out from me, and the ground rushed down below me. I swept outward, rushing through the seas to the north, the plains to the west, the mountains to the south, the ocean to the east. I swept into the sky, buoyed by the conjunction of the Mortal Realm and M-Space, I leaned back, filled my lungs, not with air, but with pure raw Power. A warning.

I needed a warning, so that tiny meaningless unflinching speck would stop plaguing me with guilt over my actions, no matter how just and right. I roared." MINE!" That single word echoed through M-Space, through the Mortal Realm, through all of Space and Time and outside Time itself as well. I blinked, looked around, suddenly tired. The pool beneath me looked inviting. Bath. It looked a little like the Bath. I fell, turning my back to the pool and giggling as I spread my arms.

I cracked my knuckles and my heels on the edges of the pool, my lips swelling as my skin burned.

"Ow." Mana flowed out of me as I floated to the surface, my skin burning oh so delightfully, my scars the only parts of me not burning, their ache diminishing moment by moment. Tabitha! Wake up! I blinked. Pulled myself up out of the Bath. No, not the Bath. My Maw. Didn't belong here. Tiring keeping it here. So I stopped. Then Murder Mittens was there, scooping me up. A moment later I lay in the Bath. No, not the Bath. Maze's little tub. Little.

I snorted as I realized her full sized claw footed tub, big enough for her and me and maybe another adult to submerge completely, seemed 'little' now. Something flowed over me, soothing and cool. Cool made my scars ache, but the rest of me stop burning. I opened my eyes and looked.

"Whysa spooge cool?"

"That, my Goof, is milk." And if they haven't forgotten by tomorrow, you get to explain to Isnomi and Maze what 'spooge' is.

"Sss...

'S everybody safe?"

"Yes, love. You can rest now." Kitten's hand settled on my breast, and something that felt like mint tastes washed over me. A moment later, Darling's hands touched my neck, and I twitched as it knitted itself back together. A moment later she did something, and the sudden absence of pain was absolutely orgasmic.

"I'mma sleep now then."

"That sounds..." I'm not sure what she intended to say, or what Darling might have said, either, because I yoinked both of them into the tub with me, snuggled them under my arms, and passed the fuck out.