Chương 934: Day Nine Hundred And Thirty-Two

Dear Diary, Y'know, sometimes shit here and now really makes me wonder about things. Like, existential things, or things close enough to existential that I can't tell the difference. Like for the past couple days I've been thinking about the whole scale and granularity problems I have. Really pondering that shit.

Then along comes a day like today, and I'm left wondering if the universe heard me and tossed flung shit at me like a particularly annoyed baboon, or I've somehow been subconsciously affecting the Mortal Realm side of my enormous M-Space ass. Maybe it's even wackier bullshit, like somehow my ability to step outside of Time leaves me with some kind of subconscious ability to foresee the future. That would not be good.

I've spoken with Dad about that more than once now, I think, and the long and the short of it is that sliding your stuff down the wrong leg of the trousers of time is not unlike catching your clit in the zipper. Not easy to do, you practically have to go out of your way to make it happen, but if it does, you will wish you could time travel back and kick yourself in the crotch for good measure. Which, I guess, is an absolutely spot on example of stupidity being painful, so I really can't argue with it.

Okay, I could, but I try not to argue with things that are the way I want them to be. That's stupid, and stupidity should be painful. At any rate, when the day came to a close, I nudged Maze toward helping Marie deliver dinner, then pulled Saffron aside.

"If I'm going, I ought to go now." She nodded.

"Be careful, love. Unless the King of Sparta himself is here, I don't think they have anyone that could truly challenge you, but no one thought Maenads could be captured and held prisoner, either." I nodded.

"Can you keep an eye on me?" In fact, ladies? I'm heading to check on our watchtowers where the hearths have gone cold. Please be ready to sing out or pull me out or something. Each of you see if you can find a small group of volunteers as well, to maintain the Hearths once Tabitha has relit them. Thanks for thinking of that, Kitten. Dad? These six, he replied, and suddenly I knew which ones no longer had burning hearths.

I'd known, without really thinking about it, kind of like I knew where my left ass cheek was without thinking about it, where all of our watchtowers were. I'd been to each of them during construction, even if some of them all I did was light those hearth fires. But now six of them stood out, kind of like itchy spots.

With the vague thought that the northern towers, which were also a bit to the east, would hit dusk before the southern ones, I stepped to the northmost one, landing right in front of the cold, dead hearth. This was the tower Marie, Lemmy, and I had cleared the other day, but before I called all clear I dashed up the steps, checking each floor. Everything remained just as it had been, cold and dark. Clear! A moment later Marie arrived with Hero Aetos, Anna, and one of the other Homestead women in tow.

Each of them carried an armful of wood, and in moments had a simple fire laid in the hearth. A focus of will, and it burned, chasing back the chill in the air. A little bit, anyhow. The top floor had ice coating everything, with freezing rain still coming down, albeit slowly. I stepped to the next watchtower, again landing in front of the hearth, only this time it seemed like the entire floor was full of assholes in Spartan armor.

I didn't even have time for any witty banter before the one facing the hearth brought his shield around, the edge slamming into me as he pulled his spear back. The next few moments were an absolute brutal blur of motion and impact. Moments? Maybe minutes. I'm not really sure. The first dude fell back with a hole burned through his gut, disarmed and clutching at his belly.

Of course, part of the reason for his 'disarmed' status was that he left the business end of his spear buried in me, just left of center under my tit. I barely had time to slice the pole off before another two were on me, and shit got really ugly. I remember there was a street level super hero show back in the day. Can't remember the hero, but it had Vince D'Onofrio all bulked up as the bad guy. Fighting the Spartans were like the fights from that show.

There was nothing elegant, nothing fancy, just brutal doing unto and trying not to get done. I realized after the second spear in me those were intentional. An attempt to slow me down from the weight. Fortunately the hafts were just wood. Unfortunately the heads were Cold Iron and barbed. I put my fist through one guy's helmet from front to back. The other one I managed to get a grip on his shield, yank it away, and punch him hard enough to turn his breastplate concave.

The next pair that closed had the first guy I'd gut pierced supporting them by circling around to flank me, so I took a page from my Murder Mittens' book and leapt back toward him, grabbing him by the throat, squeezing until things went squish, and spinning to hammer both of the other Spartans with his corpse. I'd gotten another lung piercing from that. I think I should have been wearing my Uniform, or at least The Dress. Instead I'd shown up in civvies.

Then again, these guys were hitting hard enough to maybe punch through the chainmail in our jackets, so it might have been a good thing I didn't have to worry about that, given the barbs. That left two more of the fuckers advancing with shields up, spears out, guarding each other's flanks. Not to mention the pair I'd just laid out weren't out, just down, and the dude with the concave breastplate wasn't so much dead as deeply uncomfortable.

That's when I heard an absolute cacophony of armored fuckers coming down the stairs, shields and spears at the ready. Stolen novel; please report. I did not want to be in close quarters with an undetermined number of these fuckers, who seemed like they could survive anything short of head removal, and were laying out the kind of damage that left me angry and in pain. I tried to step away, hissed as the barbed spearheads in me heated, and jumped over to the door.

"Why don't we take this outside then?" I realized why they hadn't jumped after me when I pushed at the door and it didn't door. Just refused to move, sliding me backward along the thin layer of ice on the floor around it.

"Fuck." A dude coming down the steps, wearing slightly fancier armor than the fuckers I'd fought so far, let out a harsh bark of what I guess he thought was laughter.

"Oh, we'll do that too, whore." I shook my head.

"You fuckers get enough intelligence on me to bring Cold Iron, but not enough to know I'm a slut, not a whore? The fuck?" I slipped the sword out of my lung, not pleased with the whistling sound it made as I set myself, Mana Blade sliding out of the other arm as I thought, Kitten? Do we have the wherewithal to rebuild one of these towers? Better a fortification levelled than in the hands of the Spartans.

The Head Asshole Spartan chuckled again, nodding to my Mana Blade as he joined his front line and overlapped his shield with theirs.

"That won't help you, because we did bring Cold Iron, whore." I just smiled at him, bumped the door with my hip, dropped the sword, took a firm grip on the two Cold Iron Spears sticking into me, and said, "yeah, unfortunately for you, I know what to do when ice is a problem."

Then in a single motion, I ripped the spear heads free, threw them at the Spartans to make them flinch, and stepped away, Translocating to the sky above the tower, Co-Locating to M-Space in the same spot to pull Mana from my big local tentacles. Then the pain hit, and that shit wasn't enough. I pulled a pair of big tentacles through, Shaped, and with my voice booming via my PA spell, shouted, "melt that shit!" My tentacles shaped a big assed slow rolled Fire Bolt. Not at the Spartans. Not really.

At the fuckin' tower. The top of it. At least at first, in the first couple seconds. Then I ramped up the Mana flow going into it, and the whole thing melted like chocolate under a flow of fresh espresso. Big hunks of stone melting and falling into themselves, crashing and burning. As the second floor collapsed onto the first, the front door of the tower burst outward in a hail of shrapnel, Fancy Armor Spartan tumbling out into the icy snow.

I stepped down next to him, blood freezing as it splattered to the ground around him.

"Don't get up." He shoved himself to hands and knees, shield and spear still clutched in his hands. I hammered one of my big tentacles down atop him. That stung like a bitch, but it also drove him through the frozen snow straight into the pavers below it.

"I said don't get up." Ignoring the searing pain, I wrapped a tentacle around him, lifted him until I could look him in the eyes, and with my PA in full effect, screamed, "get the fuck out of my Alliance!" Then I yeeted him eastward as hard as I could. Well, as hard as one of my big tentacles could. Sister? Goddess? If you see where that asshole lands? Feed him to Leviathan. May it be so. Saffron showed up a moment later, her arm going around me to hold me up, Healing flowing through me.

Not enough to make everything right, but enough to get me back into fighting form.

"Thanks, Kitten. Sorry, I think this watchtower is a write off."

"It took a boat full of Spartans with it. We can rebuild the tower. Are you well enough to go on?" I took a deep breath, and none of it leaked out.

"I'd better be. Keep the ladies ready and waiting. Get yourself home and safe." She disappeared, and I stepped to the next tower. Cold, dark, and after a minute running through, completely empty. Kitten? This one's between Calverton and Norfolk. Orla and Mads replied in unison. On it. A moment later, each of them arrived with a few troops and firewood. I lit the hearth fire and leapt to the next tower. Before I finished my sweep, I thought, ladies?

Let the Mansa and Yakky know they've got Spartans on the loose just north of them. Tallulah brought a few more folks, we lit the hearth fire, and I leapt onward. I cleared the next tower, and before my reinforcements arrived Co-Located to the Muscogee outdoor theater, on the M-Space side.

"RABBIT!" She showed surprisingly quickly, like she'd been watching the show and just had to hop to this side.

"Tabitha?"

"Little crazy busy at the moment, but you've got Spartans coming from the South, I think." She did not look happy, but just nodded and asked, "will you help?"

"As much as I can. The Alliance will help too."

"Thank you for the warning, then." I nodded once, pulled her in for a reassuring hug, then collapsed back to the one of me lighting the hearth fire. The final tower was as empty as the rest, although this one had some ugly graffiti scrawled on the wall. Ugly in both the handwriting and suggestion sense, talking about what the writer intended to do to anyone he caught and didn't kill right away.

Basically boiled down to 'fucking bitches', and I took a few seconds to Mana Blade the wall clean before leaping to a faintly remembered mountaintop.

"Mimic."

"Jack. Adrienne?" I got the sense of amusement skittering across the surface ennui, with the frozen heart beating within the half seen elemental's chest glittering just a little as a dry chuckle whispered through the air.

"Yes." Right about then I realized that I wasn't looking up at Jack because he was higher on the mountain. He was also kinda big at the moment. Like, bigger than Dad big. I nodded respectfully, because there wasn't any reason to be rude to my ostensible son-in-law, and simply said, "there are Spartans in Jackville."

"How?" I shrugged.

"Boats?" Air rushed past me, and Jack swelled up.

"We will see they do not move until the thaw comes."

"Thanks, Jack. Adrienne. Send word to one of our watchtowers if you need any help with them."

"We will." The whispered words echoed from all around me as Jack disappeared into the night. I stepped back to the tower, helped a couple Norfolk heroes including one Jotnar light up the hearth fire, then stepped back home. Saffron scooped me up, then stepped me to the Bath.

"Where is everybody?" She chuckled.

"It's nearly morning, love. Rest now. When Siobhan awakes, she and I and perhaps Hailee will see to your hurts. Meanwhile, rest."

"What about the Spartans?"

"We will find them. When we do, we will pin them down and, with your help if need be, we will kill them."