Chương 866: Day Eight Hundred And Sixty-Four

Dear Diary, I'm not sure I've ever really thought about it this way before, but when dealing with chaotic shitshows, there is a certain advantage to ADHD. Being able to change gears every time the situation changes and keep fucking my opponents up with brand new bullshit every time they come at me has a certain something about it. I think it may be why I've been able to keep casualties from kaiju low, and mostly confined to property damage to our boats and ship. Okay, okay, ships.

The Tentacles might be wooden sailing ships, but they're still ships. Thing is, I'm sure it'd be better to have a million contingency plans prepared, train for each of them, and execute them when the right situation comes up, but that's not me. Shit, I'm not even sure it's really possible, unless you just make the plans general enough to cover lots of situations, and even then shit's gonna get fucked up. Like, I remember the ROTC DI talking with us about breaching, entry, and clearing rooms.

How there's this whole assed procedure that Infantry are trained in until they can do it in their sleep, where each one of them has their own task, and they do it without thinking, because that's how you get inside the enemy's reaction cycle and win. Good, great, makes sense, and if you're trying to clear a building full of enemy combatants, sure.

The problem comes in when the building is not full of enemy combatants, and however you've trained those Infantry to distinguish between 'enemy combatant', 'friendly combatant', and 'non-combatant' isn't sufficient. Lots of fodder for preventable tragedy there. A couple times, I think maybe when he got maudlin about shit he'd done, the DI told us stories about that. Nothing like 'oh, I'm a murderer', but stories about how a flashbang tossed into a room had flashbanged a bunch of kids and moms.

Those things aren't 'non-lethal'. They're 'less than lethal'. Definitely not a story I'd have told to my own kids, but then we were all hood rats eager to hear about blood and guts from somebody who'd Been There, and I think he wanted to teach us to keep that shit on a short leash if we ever did get to the sharp end. Which, honestly, I'm not sure if that was right or wrong. Like, telling gruesome stories to kids, bad.

Telling gruesome stories to kids to teach them a lesson, maybe good, but teaching them a lesson that might get them killed because they hesitated rather than pulling a trigger when faced with someone trying to do unto them, probably bad. Dunno why I thought of this today.

Probably because I'm having to juggle having the back of my brain used as a repeater tower by my ladies, showing up to support said ladies and anyone else who calls for me, and pushing my Nefarious Anti-Poseidon Plan into something resembling action. Which I'm not sure I could do if I weren't so good at changing gears on the fly. I'm so good at it that I do it without meaning to most of the time. Speaking of 'anyone else calling for me', when the leader of the trio of Great Kraken motion-imaged Witness us!

I was absolutely down, but had no idea where I needed to be to do so. Where? I sent back, only to realize that an embarrassed Great Kraken is a sight to behold. Not often, mind you, because I'm pretty sure Human eyes might wind up a little damaged by the light show, but still, amusing and impressive. In response I held out one tentacle and opened my siphon. Show me. That shocked her into silence. Okay, the Great Kraken version of silence, which is stillness combined with her skin going the silvery gray of a Hunter.

Tentatively, like she'd never expected the invitation, she reached out and slipped a tentacle into my siphon. I did the same, and...... a huge cave. The Cave, sunk into the side of a cliff that reached up past the surface. Carvings decorated the arch of stone holding the cave open. Down at the base of the cave, lesser Kraken worked tirelessly to expand the valley in front of The God Cave, to widen the opening.

Some Great Kraken supervised the excavation while others carved the lowest, newest portions of the arch.... My tentacle slipped out of her siphon, but I kept it pressed against her mantle. I reached over to the other two, and the moment I made contact with them, jetted us to the water in front of the cave. The workers, overseers, and artists had left, but the cave and arch still loomed, huger than they'd been in the vision.

The valley, which had been mostly smooth in the vision she'd shared with me, had some weird tracks leading away from the entrance. God Cave? I image motioned. She blushed again for a moment, then replied, forgive us, Goddess. You slept... We waited... So long. So... I reached out, and she went still and gray again, pulsing once to indicate acceptance of her fate. I reached for her partners, and they did the same.

I towed them in close, holding them with the tentacles of my Shapeshifted form and tentacles from M-Space as well. I hugged them gently, then held them out far enough to see me send, Jealousy is stupid. I decided. Lying to me, even by omission, I'm not so cool with though, so...? We made a god. I'm not sure how I registered that small 'g', but it was clear. Not a God? I got the impression of something like a heartfelt, disappointed sigh. She is... Abysmally stupid. Young of all your people are often so.

Lesser Kraken as well. So we thought with age... But it never happened. So, you wanted me to see her? At the slight confusion in her posture, I sent, witness her? Oh! No! Follow! She started to jet away, then paused, embarrassed again. Please? I sent back a laughing, lead on! Yeah, Great Kraken can put on a good turn of speed when they've got open ocean to do it in. Dunno if we were doing better than the Black Dragon's top speed, but it couldn't be any slower than that.

After I'm not sure how long, but it couldn't have been past midnight, she signaled, we must Blend now. I sent back, I'll handle that, then wrapped my Blend around the four of us. I got the distinct impression that if she were capable, she would have gasped. So weird, realizing that this particular Great Kraken seemed kind of, I dunno, innocent. Almost like Sister Siobhan when I first met her.

I realized right then what had reminded me of Siobhan; I'd been getting steady, ongoing Worship from this Great Kraken since I first spoke to her. What's your name? We... This one has no Title, Goddess. Well, I can't just keep calling you 'her' in my head, and 'hey you' is right out. Sudden chaos gremlin urges surged through me. From now on, you're Sister. Weird thing, something about motion-imaging definitely conveyed the 'nun' aspect of that clearly while minimizing the 'female sibling' meaning.

I was not ready for a Great Kraken's eyes to go that wide, nor for her to suddenly get both more Worshipful and a lot less deferential. Follow me, it is nearly here! I was also not ready for Saffron's wry voice in my head thinking, remember the rules on Just Happening, Goof. As if, I replied to her. We're way out there in the 'brain bleach please' on the kinky scale for Great Kraken, remember? You dropped me off a tower mid-orgasm and ate my hair, came Siobhan's laughing reply to that.

I know my experience is limited, but I'm fairly certain you're that far on the kinky scale for people, too. As I jetted after Sister, scanning the water ahead of us for whatever 'it' was, I thought back,'you're'? Oh, I absolutely enjoyed every bit of that. Although... I gave her a mental nudge, and she giggled her reply into my brain, I watched you with Saffron and Marie before that. With your tentacles. Which, unless I'm misinformed, is also kinky. Or was considered so before you revealed yourself at your Revels.

Trying not to think how I'd inadvertently moved one of the major hentai kinks into vanilla status, I thought back, okay, yeah, your point? If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. I knew about that before our date. I snorted, which amused me by giving me the slightest boost of speed, nudging Sister, who flared with the tiniest of Kraken blushes. So? I didn't back out of our date. I fail to see why my new namesake would do so.

At that point, Sister had led us up close to the surface, and stuttered out, there it is! I looked where she'd indicated with the subtlest of image pulses, and spotted something moving against the ocean floor. Something kaiju huge, and definitely not humanoid. It lurched through the cloud of silt it generated with every movement, and I finally registered the shape. A crab. Carcinization gone horribly, horribly wrong and taken far too far.

The thing had to be the size of a sports stadium, as big as one of the Big Seven Temples back in Phileo. I'm pretty sure most crabs had, like, eight or ten legs, but this thing just threw that shit right out the window. I spotted eight big fuckin' legs, at least as big around at the base as the business end of my biggest tentacles. Two claws big enough to shatter the hull of a Tentacle, maybe big and strong enough to put some hurt on the Black Dragon herself.

Then, not unlike my tentacles in M-Space, just hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller legs and claws sticking out around those eight major legs. I touched Sister, who blushed slightly, and asked, did you want me to take care of it? No, Goddess. Then what did you want me to do? Witness us! Quicker than I could react, she jetted out of my Blend, almost straight down. She flickered once, and I almost moved to end the fuckin' crab right there as it noticed her and moved toward her.

Then, as the crab reached upward toward Sister with its two big claws, the seabed in front of it stood up. Then it exploded into a kaleidoscope of flashing, changing, strobing colors and shapes. The crab froze with its hands still in the air, its eyes reflecting the light show as thousands of Kraken both Great and Lesser swarmed in front of it. I almost missed the shadows reaching up from beneath the cloud of Kraken, only catching them when half of each one passed beneath the crab's two biggest claws.

Then those shadows resolved into a pair of claws even larger than the crab's. They clamped shut, and I heard and felt both the grinding compression and the crab's claws snapping and straining. All of its legs and other claws writhed, reaching, trying to lash out against the fucking enormous lobster that had clamped onto it. Witness the god we made while longing for your release! Dayum! Go team Kraken! I shook my tentacles in lieu of being able to shake my head. How did you... Wait, you helped it molt?

Sister blushed again. That was to be my task, but our god has not molted yet in my lifetime. By your gift of a name I may yet see my task complete though! Yeah, Sister definitely kept blasting me with Worship, not unlike her namesake used to do every time I came to the Infirmary. Okay, honestly she still did that sometimes, although she didn't do it as often while she worshipped the porcelain god.

Not blaming, just noting that for all I knew, she'd wind up following me around hosing me down with Worship with her daughter attached to her tit. Which was giving me not-enough-Siobhan-loving impulses that I absolutely was not going to project onto Sister at this juncture. The water around us filled with light and sound as the crab thrashed, trying to get any of its lesser claws into the Kraken or their lobster god, working its legs around to push away from the lobster god's grip.

The Kraken kept up their light show, repeating patterns that slowed the crab until the kaiju adapted to them and went back to struggling. I Co-Located one of me to Dad's cave, ready to ask for popcorn and a Scrying pool to watch a kaiju fight. Instead I found him sitting slumped over, elbows on knees, clearly having sobbed himself dry. Sigyn stood next to him, one arm around his neck, her other hand against his face.

"What's wrong?" He glanced up, opened his mouth, then shook his head and just reached for me. A moment later I found myself clutched like a teddy bear as he started sobbing again.

"Mom?" Sigyn softly said, "Angrboda..." She took a deep breath.

"He tried to contact her, to see if Jotnar had gone missing. She was one of the missing. He scried on her earlier." I clutched at him, doing my best to hug him. Fuck it, I Shapeshifted bigger until I could hold him, hug him back. He clung to me and sobbed, and we held him. In the depths, the crab kaiju's claws gave way with a hideous crackling crunch that echoed through the ocean. They fell, bouncing off the lobster god's claws on their way to the bottom.

The kaiju tried to run, but the Kraken flashed him again, and the lobster god grabbed two of the kaiju's legs. I touched Sister, who turned from the spectacle to focus on me for a moment. I flexed that part of me that governed shit like Clergy, then motion-imaged, you guys done good. Mimic likey lobster god. Send word if you need help, or if you need anything. Yes, Goddess! But... Yeah, you guys got this. I... I looked at her, realizing that she desperately wanted to ask me to stay, but didn't dare.

I'll stick around, but I might be a little distracted. There's been a death in the family. Of course, Goddess. She and the other two reached out, tentacles touching me in a way that felt condoling. Back in the cave, I held Dad while he cried. I must have looked a question at Mom, because she just shrugged and said, "your father loves me, so much and so openly that I've never doubted it. I feel no slight that he still loved his previous wives, for he never made me feel jealous. Just loved.

Why would I begrudge him his grief." I pulled her closer.

"Yeah. I get that. What did he see?" She sighed.

"Naught but her final resting place, the remains of Tartarus, in the depths of the south Ionian Sea. But..." She paused, and I waited for her to continue. When she did, her voice held the same horror I felt when I'd seen Poseidon's atrocities.

"He watches over you. He did not recognize her then." I almost gave up on my plan right then and there. I almost went hunting for Poseidon, felt all of my tentacles writhing across the breadth and depth of M-Space. That part of me that knew I could end it all, that wanted to, reared its ugly head. I took a deep breath. Realized something I needed to know, to do.

"Dad?" His sobs quieted.

"Yes... Yes, Daughter?"

"Can you make someone forget something?"

"I would not forget her!" He tried to surge upward, away from me, but I held him. Held him in arms and tentacles, gently brushed his lank hair out of his eyes.

"So you can." He blanched.

"Show me."

"I said..." I looked into his eyes and wanted to make him forget what I saw there more than anything.

"Dad. Father. I wouldn't ask if I didn't need to know. Show. Me." He nodded.

"Please. Please, Daughter. Let me mourn." I laid one hand on his cheek and kissed his forehead.

"I will. Now. Show me." He nodded, then gave me another piece of the plan, one I hadn't realized I'd needed until just then. For the rest of the night and well into the next day I witnessed my Kraken's lobster god take the kaiju crab apart piece by piece. At the end of the battle, as it settled in to feast on its fallen foe, I floated down, laid one of my big tentacles on it, and Shaped a Heal Injury big enough to cover over any and all of the stress fractures I noticed from close up.

That done, I motion-imaged as bright as I could, I have Witnessed You! I am proud and pleased by what you have done, what you have made. I stroked the lobster god's carapace, watching my Kraken glitter with pride. Rejoice! Feast! I paused. Then hunt down Poseidon and the rest of his kaiju. Should you find him, call upon me, and leave him to me. When you find his kaiju? End them.

I wound up so distracted comforting and learning from Dad, not to mention witnessing my Kraken and the kaiju battle, that I almost missed something from my post atop the Black Dragon. Something weird in the sky, getting inexplicably bigger. Fortunately, while I am a dumbass, my reaction times have gotten really good, so despite getting bigger and bigger, it didn't actually hit me.

I slapped the house sized boulder away with one of my tentacles, maybe burning it a little when the impact caused me to brush up against the hull of the Black Dragon. I pulled my binocs up and looked back in the direction the boulder had come from. I almost missed it, probably would have if my wireframe vision hadn't kicked in as a dark cloud passed overhead, leaving the area in shadow for a moment. Nothing but the top of a bald head and a pair of eyes stuck out from the surface of the water.

A moment later, a massive humanoid arm breached the surface, pulled back, and threw.

"Incoming!" I managed to catch that boulder, but it shattered when I tried to throw it back. It also cut my tentacle up a bit as it did, which left me a little too distracted to do anything but point at the fucker with hand and tentacle and scream, "kaiju!"

"Battle stations," the comm guy's voice, calm despite the imminent battle, echoed across the surface of the water. My ship lurched into motion as sailors secured the repairs they'd been working on then dashed for cover. Turrets two and three swiveled, tracking the fucker's dome. They fired, one gun at a time, as the ship slewed to starboard. By the time Turret three's third gun fired, it was almost at the extent of its arc.

I figured Swanson thought narrowing the Black Dragon's profile would be a better idea than firing all nine guns. Turret one still had repairs ongoing, so I totally got why it hadn't turned. The kaiju's head sunk under the water just before the shells slashed down. Spouts of water filled the air, and turret one fired as its guns lined up with the kaiju's position. One gun at a time, and after the third fired, turret two fired again, one gun at a time.

Unfortunately, after turret one's final shot landed, the kaiju popped up, threw another rock, and dove again. I slapped it aside; since I didn't need to stop it, just deflect it, that hurt a lot less. More the sting of catching a baseball without a glove than catching a bat.

"Goddess! Admiral Swanson requests your presence in the engine rooms!" I leapt to the nearest hatch, stepped through, then Co-Located to the engine rooms. A trio of Heroes stood in each one, sweat dripping from them. They saw me arrive and sagged with relief. The Worship surprised me a little, but I just poured it straight into my big beautiful Black Dragon's engines. Comm guy's voice sounded over the PA system again.

"Prepare to fire." Confused me, what with turrets one and two firing like the world's slowest metronome, once gun every ten seconds. Then the kaiju popped up again, its arm going back to throw. I heard Swanson yell from on top of the mast.

"FIRE!" A line of steam exploded from the bow of the Black Dragon to the kaiju, which froze, jerked once, then slumped and sank under the waves.