Chương 959: Day Nine Hundred And Fifty-Seven

Dear Diary, I'm nervous. I mean, I've got plenty of things to be nervous about, but I've taken what precautions I can about the ones I know about, so being nervous about those doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Yeah, like that has ever worked in the history of forever. Worry's an emotion, and emotions are irrational. I mean, yeah, if you dig into them and sort out where they came from, there's usually some rationale behind them, but in the heat of the moment, they're totally irrational.

Like me getting stupid nervous when Saffron stepped out onto the field during the Liberation of Calverton. Intellectually, I knew that not only was she protected by literally all of the fuckin' modern artillery in the world, not to mention standing a short dash from a bay full of Kraken who saw her as their Goddess' Consort, she also had one of her Co-Located into the battle bridge of the Black Dragon, which is just about the safest place I can think of in this or any other reality.

Kinda weird and funny, but that was my second time in command of anything bigger than a Squadball team, and the first time I'd planned something out for more than a day or two. We had a couple casualties from people being stupid, but no fatalities of which I'm aware, and that was on a day when we faced down three times our number in Undead. My previous time in command was the Expedition to Lancaster House, and that wound up with the Redemption of House Lancaster and Calverton itself joining the Alliance.

The only other large scale long term plan I've made was ending the Kaiju threat, and honestly, that shit went way smoother than it had any reason to. Fuck. So much happened so fast after that I never actually checked the casualty reports. I mean, some of the Tentacles wound up beat to shit, and in old style wooden boats the boat getting beat to shit usually entails the crew getting the shit kicked out of it.

I mean, the same goes for modern warships, but there it's usually less 'shit kicked out of it' and more 'turned into unrecognizable salsa', but still, I have no idea if we came out of that short a couple thousand people or if everybody involved walked away under their own power. Hopefully directly off the deck and to the nearest brothel or other celebratory site of their choosing, whereupon they got free food or fucking or whatever else for being a fuckin' hero, capital H or not.

Seriously, I get that Titles are important, and Hero is a kind of general one that implies somebody who by themselves can turn the course of a battle, but there's still reason and need for everyday heroes. Folks who will douse themselves in water and run into a burning building to save people not because it's their job or they have any special training, but because they're there and healthy and Strong enough to carry somebody and have the Endurance to get in and out without dying themselves.

For my money, getting onto a wooden sailboat with the intent to throw down when the opponent is fuckin' Gojira counts as heroism. Possibly stupidity, but as I think I've been told, courage is just weaponized stupidity, and heroism is properly employed courage. At any rate, I gotta remember to let Kitten know that anybody who died during that op, or during any other thing where the Alliance needed them to go do, and they went to do and died trying, really ought to be up on those walls at Alliance HQ.

Shit, I know my memory. Kitten? Yes, love? Is anything wrong? Nah. Just wanted to make sure that anybody who's died fighting for the Alliance, even before the Spartans' recent attack, really belongs up on that wall. Those walls. She paused, and sheepishness tinged her reply. It will be so, my love. Thank you for the reminder. While that made me feel a little better about not thinking about casualties from the kaiju op until now, it made me even less copacetic about our ongoing Spartan hunt.

Again, not for any rational reason, but I'd just remembered something Saffron forgot. While I know she's a super genius with eidetic memory and shit, I also know she's still only Human Adjacent. Even if she doesn't really forget anything, stuff still slips her mind when she's overwhelmed, and between 'Goddess going AWOL', 'Spartans invading', and 'constantly sick baby mama' on top of running a fuckin' nation, she's got plenty of excuses for being overwhelmed now and again.

But while me noticing something that's slipped past her is definitely a good thing, because that's bigger than either of us, I'm still spooked by anything unusual right about now. At any rate, I wasn't bringing up all those times when I planned shit and it went right to brag or anything. More to note that any evidence based inquiry is going to come out with the result that any time I've taken time to think and prepare, things have fundamentally come out okay.

Things didn't go entirely according to plan every single time, but that's just life. Anybody who can't adjust and adapt on the fly is just begging to get cornholed painfully, and I know of what I speak when it comes to that kind of thing. Still, I took the time to prep and plan and let the other people involved do the same, so I've got no reason to be particularly nervous about this Spartan Hunt. I'm still fuckin' nervous as shit.

I think it might be because even though we've go no reason to think the Spartans know we're tracking them, no reason to set up some kind of ambush for us, the sheer savagery of what was done to the folks at that little farm in the woods got to me. First I got both angry and sickened, then I dealt with the folks and sent them off to safety with my ladies, and then everything went to just being angry.

But after an afternoon of tracking with no more evidence of anything anger started to fade into something less driving. Not fear, not exactly, especially not fear for myself, but a sense that I had no idea what these fuckers were up to. At sunset I looked around and asked, "you guys still good to track into the night?" That got a quick round of the group looking at one another and murmuring a couple questions between Panther, Marie, and Chloros, who seemed to be our three best when it came to actual tracking.

Then Marie nodded and said, "We Are."

"Okay then. Same as last night, we head back to the Homestead at midnight." I'm not sure if any of them know how I'm telling when it's 'midnight'. Never thought being a Sun Deity would be useful for telling time at night, but 'halfway between dusk and dawn' is surprisingly easy to do. Dunno if Pyevatar can do that, or any of the others, but apparently timing is a thing Apollo could do. Then again, music.

Got home, got everybody carbo loaded, although I'm not sure it counts as carbo loading when everything has a solid amount of meat and veg along with the starch. Kept everybody in the Bath for a solid hour, and noticed Lemmy noticing when Ryan and Chloros drifted maybe a little closer than any other pair of us inclusive of me and Marie, who were just lying there with intertwined fingers and claws.

Poor girls clearly were too beat to do anything, although the hot water after a day of tracking in sub zero weather might have had something to do with that. I dropped all of them off at the doors to their rooms, and gave those two in particular an extra squeeze, murmuring, "I'll make sure you guys get some time and space for quality time when this is all over." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Chloros deadpanned, "can't do that if we're dead."

"Yeah, like I'd let you stay that way." A tension I hadn't realized they'd been holding drained away, although that left them even more bed bound than before, with Ryan shaking her head and saying, "yeah, no, I'm just too beat tonight."

"Guess I won't have to cover my ears then," quipped Mackenzie, and the other two, settling in next to one another in the room's one bed, both turned to look at her. Chloros opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Ryan cut in with, "yeah, no, when the time comes I'll take care of that for you." That got a laugh out of all of us; I closed the door, made sure the Hunters were in bed, then turned to Lemmy.

"You okay?" He shrugged.

"Not like you'd be willing to ease my tension even if I were not." I stepped up close and quietly said, "nobody ever said that, Lemmy. I may have mentioned this before, but you are very, very pretty. Now that you're no longer trying for a spot on the Alliance Olympic Asynchronized Asshole Team, I might be convinced to let Marie convince me to share a slice of that pie." That's when I got the Worst Idea Ever. Me being me, that shit slipped out before I could stop myself.

"Of course, it might be fun to make it a contest." His eyebrows rose.

"Or maybe a bounty system? For every Spartan in Alliance territory whose existence you correct, you get an orgasm from Marie and I?" Yeah, poor boy looked like he'd swallowed his own sword sideways at that. Credit where it's due, he rallied and croaked out, "each?" I chuckled.

"That could be arranged."

"For me or for you?" I straight up laughed at that. Couldn't help it. Picked him up, enjoyed the feel of the terror boner as I stripped him and laid him in his guess room bed, then kissed him gently on the forehead before whispering.

"Both? Both sounds good. Both." I stepped away to the delicious sounds of a man whose libido was in the process of beating his self-preservation instincts to death powered by nothing but pure raw craving. Got swept up to the Bedroom a moment later, where I looked a little sheepishly at Marie and said, "you hear that, Murder Mittens?" She just smiled, but didn't get to reply before Saffron's lips found hers.

My own were fully occupied by Tallulah when Saffron announced, "should that jumped up Courtesan account for more Spartans than the Champion of the Alliance, I think the Imperator ought reward him personally as well." I was gonna say something, but Tallulah pulled away and sighed.

"I suppose that means the Overlord of Rich Man's Port ought do no less." Saffron shook her head.

"You need not force yourself to do any such thing, Elle." Tallulah smiled.

"I know, and I appreciate your concern. But," she turned to me and her smile got very naughty.

"He is very pretty." I did not tell Lemonkyenin about the increased stakes or the wager that went with them, nor did I make any outward mention of how tempted I was to throw the fuckin' contest. Seriously, watching Lemmy's face while he made Kitten's boobs bounce? Gorgeous Man and Jiggle Physics? That shit would permanently break my brain in all the best ways. We hit the trail as soon as everybody'd scarfed down breakfast, which today wound up being eggs and fried bread.

Not toast, not really, but those individual sized loaves of bread from the Academy, only baked here at the Homestead, then split longways, soaked in butter, and fried in a skillet. If we weren't out there burning more calories in a day than most people did in a week, I'd worry about blowing up like pre-Academy Bill.

Okay, yeah, I can't do that, because I am just a teeny tiny tiny piece of an organism larger than some small tectonic plates, but one of the others might have to worry about looking like the Michelin Man if we weren't doing what we're doing. As it was, I kinda wondered if even after our big dinners, heavy breakfasts, and trail mix consumed on the run, I'd still have to do some surreptitious Stabilize based in flight refueling.

While nothing was quite so horrifyingly gray as that little clearing with it's burned out shack, the terrain wasn't anything I'd consider scenic. Old, crunchy snow, trodden down in patterns that even I had learned to spot by now, even the pine trees starting to brown a little after so long frozen. At least I think that's what made them brown. Again, never finished High School back in the day, here and now my education has focused on doing unto others with a side hobby in undoing unto mine own. A botanist I am not.

I did notice a certain alacrity to Lemmy's responses whenever one of the trackers slowed. He didn't jump in front of them or mess up the tracks, because apparently himbo or not he's not that stupid, but he did move to back them up as fast as possible without landing flat on his ass. Traction was okay most of the time, but here and there each of us had stepped on some snow expecting our foot to sink in, only to have it both hold our weight and be slippery as shit, not to mention curved.

Okay, Marie and I hadn't fallen. Her because she's just too awesome to slip and fall when she's got built in cleats, me because the moment I felt my traction go out I Translocated up and forward just enough to land properly. Then, not long after noon, my worries coalesced into physical form. Not Spartans. I'm honestly not even sure if it was something they did, or something someone did in response to their passage, or just some trapper's leftover, but I heard the sharp twang of a cord under tension snapping free.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a snowbank between Panther and I exploding, then he flew away from me. Not far, only half a dozen feet maybe, but when whatever it was hit him, he went limp. I half expected him to ragdoll, but instead he slid back as the tree branch that had hit him rebounded.

Okay, not sure if it was a tree branch or a small tree trunk, but it had been cut down and bent back and camouflaged well enough that Panther didn't spot it, although some of that might have been the snowbank covering it. When I got to him, and even with Translocation Lemmy wasn't far behind, I saw immediately why he'd slipped back along with the trap. Four barbed spikes protruded through his gut, only the cold and the spikes still lodged in the wounds preventing him from bleeding out.

"Panther! You still with me?" He blinked, then groaned something unintelligible.

"Lemmy, hold his hand." Lemonkyenin grabbed Panther's hand like he was tryna save him from sliding off a cliff.

"Okay. Stay with me. Count to ten for me, and do not let go of Lemmy's hand." Panther grunted something, and I popped out a Mana Blade. Siobhan? Need your expertise. I am with you, Tabitha. I felt her in the back of my head, and sliced the spikes off of the tree. It slipped away, slapping against my thighs as it did. I paid it exactly the zero fucks it deserved, and reached around to Panther's front. I pull them out this way, right? Give me a moment.

I felt her moving my Mana, Shaping something, or really preparing to Shape something hard and fast. Pull, then Stabilize him once they are clear. I yanked the spikes free, then hammered Panther with a Stabilize big enough that his eyes and puncture wounds glowed. Siobhan Shaped through me, and four skinny oblong Wards flickered into place. Push him forward. I pushed. Panther screamed. Siobhan Shaped again, only this time the wounds filled with the light of Healing Mana rather than Wards.

"Fuck," he groaned out.

"Yeah, later. Just hang on, we've got you. I know how bad this sucks, but it'll be over as fast as we can manage it." It wound up ending way faster than I thought it would. You can Shape so much more Mana, so much faster than any Mortal, love. When all I need do is direct, it's done far quicker. I blushed a little. Not at the praise, which really wasn't for anything I'd done, but at her calling me 'love' like Saffron. No idea why it hit me, probably adrenaline misfiring or some shit like that. Is he gonna be okay?

He could do with another Stabilize, and a night's rest. Perhaps more than one.

"Okay. You're gonna be okay, Panther." I poured Mana, poured life into him via Stabilize, slowly this time instead of a single burst, just until he warmed slightly and his eyes glowed faintly.

"You'll be fine after some rest." That's when he surprised the fuck out of me by shaking his head.

"We dare not rest. Not with those animals gaining on us."

"Shit. They're getting away?" He shrugged, which is when Silk said, "yep." I gave him all the hairy eyeball in the world, but apparently a culture which dealt in Spirits didn't produce nearly as much ingrained terror as one which dealt in Deities. I could only approve, even if it did lack a certain flavor my dark side craved. At that point Chloros cut in.

"Yes, Champion. From what I could tell, that shack was one day's march for them. They stayed there a while, but they're moving at least twice as fast as us. When they're moving." I took a deep breath. Let it out.

"Fuck." After a quick pause, I looked around.

"This isn't likely to be the last thing like this. Barring something turning you into mist so fine there's nothing left to Revive, I can fix whatever happens, but it's still gonna suck, as Panther can attest to." I looked at him, and he nodded.

"Are you guys all good with continuing like we have been?" They all nodded. I noticed Lemmy looking more than a little bit surprised at that, maybe a little more impressed with the local Mortals than he had been previously, but he nodded as well. I looked Panther in the eye.

"You sure?"

"Let's hunt these animals down," he growled out.

"Okay then. Let's move."