Chương 887: Day Eight Hundred And Eighty-Five

Dear Diary, On the one hand, I stuck with ROTC long enough to know that whole 'no plan survives contact with the enemy, that's why they're called the enemy' thing. Shit, I learned that from Call of Duty. Fuck, now I can't remember if I learned that from ROTC or from a CoD teammate spouting it out when they wound up dead on the virtual floor. On the other hand, unintended consequences is looking more and more like it'll be the name of my sex tape.

Nah, in all seriousness though, not realizing the kaiju would stack up before coming at us is why I had to leave the combined Alliance forces to face a dozen kaiju without me. I've also got a sneaking suspicion I forgot something, and it's gonna bite me in the butt at some point. Worse, it's not something where I'm gonna be the one who gets hurt. Doesn't help that I'm not the only one feeling that way, although it's entirely normal for everybody else on the planet at this point.

Y'know, the whole 'omigod, huge problem, caused by huge asshole, what are we gonna... Wait, huge problem without a cause, what the fuck is happening here' thing. So I stepped home at the end of the day yesterday after delivering Thor back to Asgard. Well, to Valhalla, I guess. The Valhal, specifically.

Okay, look, I was shit at geography back in the day, I'm barely able to keep six Cities straight in my head, which really sucks since there are in fact seven Cities in the Alliance, which means I've got no fuckin' clue about M-Space topography. Suffice to say, dropped Thor off with his dad, then stepped home. Found Marie directing our entire horde through the process of pampering my collected ladies.

Okay, my collected ladies plus Orla, which seemed a little odd, but given all said ladies except Marie looked some variety of beat up, I figured she'd done something to deserve inclusion. Not like I was gonna kick her out or anything. Everybody turned to look at me, and Menace and Anise both called out, "Mama!" and charged me.

"Hey girls. Hey ladies. Everybody okay?" Marie shrugged.

"They'll live." Before I could say anything else, I got oofed a little bit by my girls glomping me. As they did, Saffron asked, "neutralized?" I nodded. Everybody else seemed a little confused. I shrugged and said, "I neutralized the source of the kaiju." Then, in a completely blatant effort to change the subject, asked, "did J help out with the remaining kaiju, by the way?"

"J?" Karen looked less foxed than most of my ladies. Mostly she just looked exhausted. The others mostly looked the kind of beat up I'd expect from hard work with no OSHA compliance, not post-battle damaged, but then almost all of them had Holy Garb that reset shit at sunset and sunrise. Which it had just been, but none of them were wearing their Garb, which... Kinda confused me.

"Jormungandr."

"He was... Helpful. In a somewhat demanding and dictatorial way." Saffron didn't sound thrilled, but also didn't sound like I needed to go have an immediate lethal talk with my big snaky bro. Maybe later, after I'd had a chance to recover and everybody had gotten sort of back to normal.

"Yeah, I think he was peckish. Did he deal with the kaiju corpses?" She snorted.

"All but the one Leviathan had killed and subsequently claimed. Including the ones that stopped fighting, although in that case he simply carried them off somewhere."

"Carried? Uh, we're talking about the same Jormungandr, right? Big snaky dude. Conspicuous lack of limbs?" I realized just then that Mister Slither was kinda draped around the perimeter of the room.

"No offense to anyone present." Slither nodded, although he seemed more amused than offended. Saffron chuckled a bit, even if it sounded strained.

"He convinced them to climb on his back somehow. Well, except for the two remaining snakes. He ate those." I shrugged.

"Bro's got an appetite. He's been fasting for what, a couple hundred years?"

"I think he might find a new source of sustenance in the Alliance Navy." Orla sounded sore and tired, but more amused than anything. When I shot her a look, she shook her head.

"Half of my crew built a shrine to him aboard the Penetrating." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Amazingly, the clue landed with just one shot. Maybe I speak himbo or something, because Orla probably qualifies too, although she might be more gym bro than himbo. And, y'know, girl-type, but let's face it, once you get to a certain point of working out, men and women have more in common with fellow athletes than they do with, y'know, couch potatoes.

Which I am no longer, and that's a weird kind of thing to keep realizing.

"So, uh, should I expect to see you running an Altar at some point in the future?" She smiled, the faintest blush on her cheeks as she nodded.

"Calverton." I looked at Mads, who shrugged and said, "I'll be seeing to your congregation in Norfolk." I just nodded, then found a chair and pulled it up to the head table. Before I sat I looked around the room and said, "Sorry you guys had to finish that fight on your own." Karen snorted, the others chuckled, and Marie ruffled my hair, gently pushed me into my chair, and said, "Weren't."

"Besides, love, you clearly had your own battle to fight." I looked down and realized that she was right, I hadn't really rested or healed since my throwdown, and while I didn't have too many cuts that would scar this time, I think I had more bruise than not.

"Do you want Healing?" I looked around the room and kinda groaned as my body decided that the chair was my life now that I'd taken my weight off my legs.

"Uh, what's up with you guys being all dinged up. I mean, I'm guessing somebody assisted Murder Mittens with Sparagmos?"

"We've been doing Search and Rescue, love. We realized that while our Holy Garb does restore us, it's..." Saffron cast about, looking for the words.

"Like many forms of Magical Healing, it's imperfect, and actual rest is needed now and again."

"Thank you, Darling." Saffron put one arm around Siobhan and hugged her.

"So we collectively decided that for tonight we'd all soak, then sleep, and return to work in the morning."

"How many did we lose? How many are still missing?" Steel slid into Saffron's voice as she said, "fewer than if you'd let the architect of this attack slip away." Do you remember...? She smiled at me without losing any of the steel as she replied, none do, love. I remember the gist of my order to you, and deduced that there was a being responsible, but you seem to have erased them more thoroughly than any previous. I nodded. Sighed. Yeah.

"Will you be able to join us tomorrow, love?" We understand if you cannot. Funny, I knew Tallulah could fix everything via her System reset, not unlike Marie with Sparagmos, but she had a whole assed cloth tied around her head, holding her mouth shut. Some bits of it were bloody. When I looked at that kinda pointedly, she shrugged. I dislocated my jaw when a timber came loose energetically. But I freed those trapped behind it. It will heal in the morning.

"You sure you don't want me to make it better?" She winced as she smiled. Save it for tomorrow, Goddess. I just nodded and sent Isnomi and Anise back to helping deliver dinner. Thick savory soup, gravy almost, and bread. I didn't say anything, but found it absolutely adorable how Maze and Ria teamed up to tear Tallulah's bread into little bits, soak it in her soup, then slip spoonful by spoonful into her mouth. She winced a little when she swallowed, but I could tell she wouldn't want them to stop for the world.

After dinner, with each of my ladies letting a couple of the girls help wash them down, including Hailee helping Siobhan and Anise and Felicia helping me, we all slipped into the Bath. I realized as the heat of the water hit that I'd been chilled since some time during the fight, and never really warmed up. Funny thing that I'd never quite understood, when I'm chilled like that stuff doesn't ache the same. Like, if I think about it I'll realize, but if I don't it's got a bit of a numbing effect.

Nobody noticed how much I was groaning as the aches first hit, then melted away, because pretty much every other adult in the bath had the same thing going on. Yeah, none of us made it out of the Bath. Just zonked out right there, kids towing us close enough together to snuggle in and around us all. Seriously, I think my absolute favorite Divine ability has to be the whole 'cannot drown' thing. Just sink under the water, lie there while all the aches melt, and off to sleep I go.

Funny, all my ladies except Marie and Siobhan lay there in my Maw just like they were in the Bath. Those two showed up for a bit on the big screen, Marie displaying a kind of adorable tenderness despite Siobhan whining about not having much time. Until she stopped whining. Murder Mittens got Skills, dragged that shit out for I don't know how long. Seriously, no idea, because time passes oddly in the Bedroom, and Marie totally used that to devastating effect.

When Marie and Siobhan arrived in my Maw, Siobhan's lips refused to leave Marie's. Not that Murder Mittens tried to dislodge her real hard. Today I joined the ladies on Search and Rescue. Which mostly had us leapfrogging along the coast and inland until we hit someplace where somebody could confirm that said place hadn't flooded.

I definitely wound up a little winded by the end of the day, because at my insistence my ladies Revived anybody who Marie or I couldn't confirm as delivered to their choice of afterlife and not wanting to come back. Hopped back to the Homestead and spoke quietly with Saffron and Siobhan about maybe making a version of Revive that added some kind of Divination and Communication specifically for that, since having a psychopomp handy wasn't exactly a guarantee.

I really wanted to know details of the fights against the kaiju, but I figured that could wait until we had everybody safe and secure and ready for winter.