Chương 885: Day Eight Hundred And Eighty-Three

Dear Diary, Yesterday's part of Plan Poser Penetration went off without anything I could really consider a 'flaw'. Yeah, I definitely got some of the shit kicked out of me, but given the sheer endless amount of bullshit contained within my Tabitha body, that wasn't really a problem, and kind of something I'd planned for. Shit, sparring with Lemmy kinda kept me in shape for that kind of thing.

Even if Poseidon could have squished him like a bug in powered up mode, and would have beaten him on Endurance if they both stayed more or less human sized and shaped, Lemmy's got enough Close Quarter Combat Skills that my sparring with him gave me much needed experience. Shit, given what I know now about Skills, that folks younger than 'Adult' can actually get them, they're just nerfed all to fuck and back, I might have even worked my own Close Quarter Combat Skills up a bit while doing so.

Kinda weird, but looking back on the fight I don't think Poser was really all that great at CQC. He had a mean arm and good aim with his trident, but once we got in close it wound up totally being brute force stabby slammy. When you've got the kind of raw Strength he did, that's enough to carry the day against pretty much anybody not kaiju sized, but that 'pretty much' didn't include yours truly.

Honestly not sure which of us was physically stronger with all else being equal, but with him being not quite twice my size, he wasn't enough stronger to just body me right there. Instead, it turned into an Endurance match, which was exactly what I intended. Yeah, I think it says something that I can actually put together a plan and stick to it at this point. It's not even a Rube Goldberg thing, either, just one adapted to, y'know, me and my opponent.

He was an entitled abusive rapist dudebro, and I am a shit talking tanky bitch. That's a match made in hell if I ever saw one. All I had to do was keep him pissed off enough to keep swinging at me, and let him hit me often enough that he thought I would go down eventually. Seriously, anybody I've ever bedded will tell you, the slightest bit of nerdiness will cause that to happen. But dipshit didn't do his research.

He also didn't quite get the entire 'he was holding Mjolnir and doing Thor shit, so Thor shit happened to him' until it was way, way too late. Speaking of, at sunset I stood there staring up at Poser as seawater poured off him, every drop seeming to shrink him just a little. Every bit of shrinkage strained the entry and exit points of his new vertical torso piercing, which meant that long before he hit his normal size he'd rupture like an overripe melon, or maybe stretch out not unlike I'd done to The Morrigan.

Neither of those fit with the later parts of my plan, so I reached out and grabbed his ankles with a pair of tentacles, then looked up at my adopted snaky sibling.

"Hey, bro. You mind if I pull him off?" A snerk from a snake the size of the subcontinent ought not be silly, but there we were. His voice, while loud and deep enough to be heard and understood over the dying storm, was nonetheless neither incomprehensible nor physically painful. Then again, he didn't lisp or move his jaw, so I kinda assumed Divine shenanigans.

"I have yet to break my fast, you realize?" I nodded as I pulled down on Poser's ankles.

"Yeah, but he's mostly water. It'd be like lettuce, or celery. Also, I've kinda got plans for him." As I yanked the still-not-quite-a-corpse free of Jormungandr's fang, Poser seized up. Not surprising with the tip of bro's fang slipping through his gray matter, but it had the unfortunate side effect of slamming a super-sized Mjolnir right up into bro's head. He stiffened, then slowly toppled over.

"Ow." The me on his head, who'd narrowly avoided being turned into pate, whispered right into his tympanic membrane, "oh, hush, you big baby," before pulling Mana and tagging him with a Mimic-sized Heal Injury.

"If you're hungry, there are some kaiju attacking the east coast of Atlantis. The Alliance military could use your help, maybe. Also, y'know, some of them might be fresh kills that I don't think anybody else is gonna eat. Okay, maybe Leviathan."

"Kaiju?"

"Jotnar-Titan Hybrids. Big as Poser was when he had all that water weight."

"Leviathan?"

"The Kraken's build-a-God. He's cute." Bro paused.

"He sounds more appetizing than the kaiju." I shook my head.

"Aw, bro, don't be that way. The Kraken's molting Spell is pretty much what I used to break you free. Don't make them regret that."

"I'm a devourer. I devour. Still, that would be rude." I collapsed that me back to the one holding a rapidly draining Poseidon in front of me as bro hummed, then dove under the water and took off westward. Kitten? How goes it? Little busy. Four down. Four of them stopped fighting and just sat down on their asses a few minutes ago. At least two are still unaccounted for. The remaining two are fighting the fleets; we're moving to assist them now. Just sent you some help. Let folks know he's on our side. I paused.

Really could use you on this next part. I cannot, and you know why. I have faith in you, Goof. A wave of Worship, barely attenuated by distance, washed over me as proof of that. Thanks, Kitten. Love you. Love you too, Goof. Going dark. With that I pushed my Blend up around myself and the God that dangled from my tentacle tips. He groaned, his mouth moving and his limbs trying to twitch as I grabbed his arms with another pair of tentacles and turned him over to face me.

"Hey, Poser. Bet you're wishing you could get your famous last words in now." He twitched, and while one bloodshot eye still stared off into the distance, the other focused on me. Fury radiated from him as he grunted again.

"Just one problem. I'm not gonna kill you." I Co-Located to three of me; one atop the West Tower, pulling Mana from my core, my place of power. One holding Poseidon's twitching body just above the surface of the ocean in M-Space, the other standing behind him, guiding the tentacles around us as they Shaped that Mana. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"Now, you're probably wondering why you're not dead. Neat factoid, the bigger the snake, the more dilute its poison gets. Along with that, most of Jorgy's poison shot into the ocean, not into your system, and you've probably flushed a bunch more out of your system with all that water the poison purged out of you." His one good eye looked a little confused, and I shook my head.

"Yeah, if I let you go right now? You'd probably survive. Might even recover completely. I got no idea why anybody would Worship an entitled nepo-baby rapist, but it takes all kinds. You've got what, millions of peeps in Europa waiting to blow smoke up your ass, turn you back into the gaping asshole we all know and loathe?" I poured Mana into my Shape, and more into my Blend. The Lord of the Ocean and I weren't even a nightmare. We were the ghost of a nightmare. He grunted in impotent rage as I monologued at him.

Literally impotent at this point; J's fang had definitely clipped little Poseidon on the way out, and it flopped like some kinda sad balloon. All of his armor, his gear, had fallen apart into so much sea water as he shrank. I worried a little about that, so I held out my hand and concentrated. A moment later Mjolnir's handle slammed into my hand. I dropped him. Wasn't worried about finding him again now that I knew he was in one piece.

Okay, wasn't sure about Thor's hammer's preferred pronouns and shit, but 'he' seemed better than 'it'. Poseidon twitched again, and I took a firmer grip with my tentacles. I wove my Blend into my Shaping, pouring Mana into both.

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen. I'd love to say you're gonna pay for your crimes, but frankly I don't think there's a single person in the universe who wouldn't wind up traumatized doing everything you deserve unto you. So I'm not gonna bother with that shit." He looked confused again, but the entitled anger and hate boiled beneath that, never too far from the surface. Behind him, I tied my Shaping into the Global Spell network.

That's the part I worried about, the part I wanted my Kitten's help on, but she'd coached me on it. Honestly, it wasn't even hard; she'd built the System with something like this in mind. Something like this, but not this. I don't think. Because while what I was about to do probably wouldn't traumatize me, it was sure as fuck some kind of horrifying. Okay, the really horrifying part came next, but nobody but me would know about that. My Shape, my Spell, was ready.

I looked up into Poseidon's one baleful eye and let some of the rage I'd been holding back seep out. Not much. Just the tiniest bit, to maybe make sure I could maintain all that carefully Shaped Mana.

"Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said that about not going to kill you. Because whatever shit you last spouted at me, those will definitely be your last words. Because you? You won't be speaking again." I shunted that torrent of Mana into myself, into a single, simple Shape in front of my left eye.

"Because you can't speak if you don't exist." Green. Yellow. Red. Purple. Blue. Brilliant, rich, blinding Blue.

"I'd say good bye, but I don't think you even deserve that. Good riddance, Poseidon. Status." With that one word, I released the Spell. I'd worried a little about standing behind the target, but I needed to be there to do the rest as my Status Spell blasted away everything that had been 'Poseidon' until I held nothing but a poorly animated mannequin.

Inspection Target: <Unnamed> Target Type Humanoid Divine Biped (<Unknown>) Titles None Patriarch None Attributes: Strength: 9(T7), Agility: 5(T3), Endurance: 3(T5), Reason: 0(T0), Memory: 0(T0), Personality: 0(T0) Skills None"And you can't come back if nobody remembers your name." I released the other Shape I'd been holding. The full power of my Blend surged up into the sky, up into the Global System Spell, which distributed it across the globe. Without putting my Blend down, I collapsed to one of me.

I Healed the body in front of me, just to stop it from bleeding, then stepped to my son's Workshop. I dropped my Blend down to where I knew he could hear me and said, "son, please secure your Workshop?" Something that felt like static washed across my skin, and Conrad appeared in front of me as I dropped my Blend the rest of the way. I handed him the body, and he smiled.

"Thank you, Mother Dearest." I shucked off Menace's cummerbund, slipped her tiara off my head, and handed them both over.

"Any problems with what I asked you for?" He shook his head.

"I know I've told you I find recreating something for any purpose other than practice or education distasteful to the point of pain, but this? This isn't quite that."

"No?" I wanted to be a good mom at the moment, show interest in my son's hobbies, but while I wasn't tired to the point of collapse, I was maybe a little winded after handling that much Mana. He nodded as he laid the body on a familiar table, then slipped the tiara and cummerbund onto it. As he did the same to Sigyn's garter belt, garters, stockings, and boots, he explained. Okay, it might have been more of an autistic infodump about his latest obsession, but I knew what to do with that.

Just nod and smile and listen.

"This is precision excision of portions of a Soul, and transplanting those portions to another. Not something that has been deliberately done prior to this, to the best of my knowledge, and I'm certain it's never been done in a replicable manner with Deific Souls." When he finished dressing the mannequin, he clamped it to the table. I shuddered at the thought.

"At least he won't feel pain, I guess." Conrad looked over at me.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" He stepped over to the controls, then paused with his hands hovering above them. I caught the surprise in his own voice as he quietly asked, "you need not remain for this part if you do not wish to." I took a deep breath. Shook my head.

"Thank you, but I'll stay?" He tilted his head without looking at me.

"Do you trust me?" I stepped over, slipped my arms around him, pressing against his back as I hugged him gently.

"Absolutely, son. It's not that." I sighed and stepped back.

"But I'm not going to deny responsibility for any part of this. I kinda hope I don't enjoy it, but one way or the other I'm not gonna turn my back on it." He'd tensed when my arm went around him, but relaxed when I hugged him. All the tension drained out of him when I explained why I wouldn't be leaving. Without turning, he whispered, "will you think less of me for enjoying it?" I let out a chuckle, trying to keep it from being harsh despite my fatigue.

"Hell, son. I expected that. You love your work, you love to learn. And..."

"And?" My next chuckle felt way more natural.

"You love to show off for your mom." He turned that too wide smile to me.

"I do!" He threw the switch, the knives came out of the cabinets, and the screaming started.