Chương 987: Day Nine Hundred And Eighty-Five

Dear Diary, I... I think I hurt myself. Not the normal way. Not the 'I'm gonna be unable to move for weeks on end' or 'I think I might have died again' way. In the 'something broke a while ago, I didn't realize it at the time, and now I don't work the way I used to' way. The most fucked up part of it is that I'm not sure I'm genuinely upset about it. Okay, I'm not even sure that it's 'fucked up' to not be upset, which bothers me even more.

It's one thing to know I'm a monster, that I'm the villain, that I'm the Bad Guy. That I'm an awful excuse for a Human Adjacent Being, and that I need to be controlled and constrained and held accountable because of it. It's something else entirely to know I've got all this monstrous power inside me, all this rampant potential for abuse of those I love most dearly, all the ways in the world to turn it into a living hell that people bind themselves to out of devotion and love, and not know who the fuck I even am.

Yeah, I think that's the scariest part of all this. Through all the existential crises, I'm not sure I've ever really doubted who I am. Whether I'm worth shit, sure. Whether I deserve the slightest amount of love or joy or consideration or basic human contact, yeah. Fuck, I've even doubted what I am, but never really who, even when I got fuckin' amnesia and shit.

But now I'm not even sure about that, and I can't tell if it's some kind of metaphysical woo making itself known or just, y'know, me growing up and emerging from my cocoon or shedding my skin and emerging as some kind of thing utterly different than what I'd been before. Shit, maybe I have been like this before and just not realized it, and I won't remember this when it happens after I've recovered from it and forgotten it.

So the sun went down yesterday with about a dozen Spartans who'd tried to burn down Muscogee accounted for, with another dozen rabbiting for the woods, half headed south with Maenads in hot pursuit, half headed northward followed by my hunting party sans Murder Mittens. Muscogee itself sits in a big cleared space up against a sort of natural harbor.

Honestly I don't think the cleared area is big enough to be enough farmland to support a City the size of Muscogee, and there aren't really any roads up to the City's gates. Shit, those in combination should have been a really big clue as to the City's original actual purpose as one big maskirovka, but I guess nobody traveling there via ship noticed, and nobody from Compton or Jackville really walked there much.

At any rate, just beyond that cleared space there's trees in every direction, and by the time we dealt with the arson and the arsonists, the rest of them had vanished into the woods. As I ran, staying just behind Panther and Chloros, who'd taken point of our sort of wedge shaped formation, I reached out to my ladies. I'm sorry, Siobhan. These fuckers are spoiling your birthday. Her reply came back a surprising mix of sweet and acerbic.

Thank you for thinking of me, Tabitha, but you're also missing the New Year's Revel, and I think that's far more important than me. Agree to disagree. Wait, is the Revel still going on? Diana, Herbert, and Karen have taken the lead for that, love. I felt more than heard Saffron's snicker. Karen is rather whelmed by leading seven separate Revels. Uh, where are... I did not facepalm, but only because I was running behind my trackers. Shuttling our forces around? Or standing by to do so. Gotcha.

Let me know if I'm needed. Saffron sighed into my brain. Oh, we all need you, love, but we will wait until your tasks are done. Barely a minute into the woods, the trackers paused.

"They've split up," explained Panther.

"One walking that way," he pointed sort of to the right, "the rest running that way." Fuckers.

"Panther, Mackenzie with me on the right, the rest follow to the left." As we burst back into motion, I Co-Located one of me behind Lemmy, who took over following the point, watching over them. Mostly, though, I kept my eyes in front of Panther. A few minutes later I wound up glad I did, when I yanked him out of the way of a spear thrust out from behind a tree. Mackenzie drew her swords and deflected a second thrust while I set Panther clear of the action halfway up a tree.

"Stay here." I leapt down and took the Spartan from behind, Mana Blades extending. Okay, I tried to, but the fucker spun and knocked my blades away with the edge of his shield before I could do more than scorch his armor. That opened him up to Mackenzie, who leapt in behind, slashing with one sword and stabbing with the other. Fucker spun again, nearly taking her arm off with the edge of his shield, forcing her to dive backwards into a roll with a sweep and stab of his spear. Of course, that put his back to me.

I leapt forward, one hand coming up to grab his inevitable shield spin, the other hammering the hilt of Mackenzie's sword where she'd managed to get it stuck in where his arm came out of his pauldron. He hissed and kept spinning, but the strength left his arm. His shield arm, at least, because he managed to choke up on his spear and bring the edge of it around against the side of my head. I think he was surprised as I was when despite a really awful sizzling sound, my head remained fundamentally the same shape.

"Ow." About then I decided to take a page from Marie's book. I wrapped my fingers around the exposed part of his arm, got a firm grip on his shield, and pulled his arm out straight. Unfortunately, I am not seven foot six with disproportionately long arms, so all I did was yank the fucker's arm out straight, not yank it off. So I made a little Mana Guillotine out of my hand where it gripped his shoulder. Sort of impressive that the asshole didn't so much as scream as I lopped his arm off.

Just jumped out to where he could stab at me with the business end of that spear. Unfortunately for him, Mackenzie hadn't remained static or obvious, and his leap backward carried the back of his head right into the point of her other sword. He stiffened, slumped, and the sudden weight of his corpse yanked the sword out of her hand. I stepped over and, just to be sure, after yanking her sword out I ashed his brain with a Mana Blade.

The moment she had her swords back, I lifted her up with a tentacle, pulled Panther out of his tree with another, and collapsed back to myself.

"Ready to run?" Mackenzie nodded immediately, and I tossed her forward. Hero training for the win, she literally hit the ground running. Panther opened his mouth and blushed before he nodded. I pulled him in and whispered, "you're welcome to join the Revel when all this is over." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. He smiled and laughed as I set him on his feet next to Chloros. Twice more our trackers found singletons branching off to the east.

Twice more I split off with Panther and Mackenzie. Chloros was less likely to wind up insta-dead from a Spartan ambush, especially with Ryan there backing her up. Mackenzie could hold her own against a Spartan for at least the few moments it took me to secure Panther. Meanwhile if the other group ran into the remaining Spartans they'd at least have numbers on their side, not to mention Lemmy, who could probably handle any rank-and-file Spartans.

The first Spartan wound up a near identical ambush to the first, although with Panther watching for it he dropped, rolled, and got his own self out of the way before Mackenzie and I double teamed the Spartan in the lethal, less than fun way. Okay, less than fun for the Spartan, although honestly I wasn't even enjoying these fights. Yeah, some part of me still burned with that rage at these fuckers tryna burn down a City full of noncombatants, including kids. The second one had a bow.

Not a crossbow, and frankly kind of a dinky bow at that. Okay, I thought of it as dinky, but it still pinned Panther to a tree. Which really pissed me off. When the fucker dropped his bow and set himself to receive my charge, I grabbed him by the ankles with a pair of tentacles, ignored the burning sensation and the smell of cooking calamari, and screamed out, "make a wish, motherfucker!"

I'm not sure what he wished for, and I wound up kinda impressed that he managed to keep his cool well enough with one leg ripped off to stab my tentacle with his spear. That pissed me off more, so I just slammed the fucker into the ground over and over and over until his bits fell off. By that point Mackenzie had Panther un-pinned and Healed, so we jumped back to the rest of the group.

At the next split in the trail, Chloros and Panther looked at each other and, after a moment of murmured conferring, Chloros said, "two each way, Champion." I took a deep breath and a moment to think, then said, "Panther, Mackenzie, and Silk with me, everybody else follow the other pair." I looked over to Lemmy.

"Keep them safe." He smiled at me.

"Of course, Tabitha Diaz." As we chased them down, I moved over near Silk.

"When we find them, keep Panther safe." Wonder of wonders, my boys did not argue about how they wanted to be big and tough. These two both had bows. Fortunately, in the darkness of the woods they spotted Mackenzie before they spotted Panther. The first arrow caught her in the chest and spun her, the second taking her in the shoulder. I leapt to the pair, who dropped their bows and grabbed the spears they'd stuck in the ground. One of them had fancier headgear, and he shouted, "it's you! Murderous whore!"

"At least I'm not a rapist. Bitch."

"We will destroy you, Olympian bootlicker!" That stopped me just long enough for them to run that one of me through with their spears. The tips burned where they pierced me, but I Co-Located two pairs of me from my Blended self. Yeah, I can in fact learn not to do stupid shit like Translocating or Co-Locating with Cold Iron stuck through me. It took an extra heartbeat to get my extra selves there, but the Spartans had made the mistake of assuming stabbing me was gonna do more than piss me off.

I grabbed their spears and lifted. It took them a second to realize, by which point they'd left the ground. Before they got their footing back, four of me hit them, stabbing the shit out of them with knuckle duster Mana Blades. I took a few hits, but nothing that served to do more than piss me off. Moments later, they stopped struggling, and I ashed the brain of the dude with the regular hat. I dragged the other one over to Mackenzie, fully expecting I'd have to Revive her.

I'd forgotten how tough Phileo Heroes were, even relatively new ones. Then again, I don't think anybody who'd lived through the Dire Bear swarm counted as 'new'. The boys each had one hand pressed over one of her wounds, and the rising sun showed Mackenzie's face was bright red, since Silk had her head on his lap and his hand pressed down on her breast. Fuckin' Silk, man. Nah, that wasn't fair.

Dude was kneeling like the finest of waifus, and applying direct pressure to a chest wound, which was about all somebody without any medical supplies or Healing magic could do. Speaking of, as I hit her with Heal Injury I started extruding a Blade to ash mister fancy hat, when Saffron thought, wait. He may have useful information. So I took his arms and legs off, ripped the Cold Iron off of him, tore his tongue out to keep him quiet, and dropped him in the Temple of Love's oubliette.

Yeah, I was trying not to do too many war crimes, but these fuckers were too dangerous to leave them with any kind of leverage. Also, I didn't want him ruining the Revel. While we'd dealt with that pair, my other group hit the other Spartans. They'd set themselves between a pair of trees, shields and spears pointing out. When the Heroes and Closer pulled crossbows and bow, they brought their shields up.

Closer made a beautiful shot right over the edge of one Spartan's shield, but the fucker managed to bring his shield up and deflect it into his helmet, where it ricocheted off into the fuckin' night. The other Spartan learned that the projectile velocity of a crossbow meant that he did not have the time to move his shield. Not that it would have mattered, as Ryan's shot punched straight through it into his center mass.

That looked like it might have stung, but the crossbow bolt buried fletching deep into his left eye probably made it painless. At that point, with only one Spartan left, Lemmy went to work. Honestly, while I definitely see why he had to run from a whole assed platoon of these fuckers, he was more than capable of taking one of them down. Which is even more impressive than it sounds, since the Spartan was fully armored with a shield and spear, while Lemmy had, like, doublet and hose and a fuckin' rapier.

Which also wound up through the fuckin' Spartan's eye. At that point I looked at the hunters.

"Can you guys let the folks in Muscogee know where this Cold Iron is?" When Lemmy gave me a look, I said, "yeah, Cold Iron is spendy, but they're gonna need some funds to fix their walls." He nodded.

"Fair point. Where to next?" I sighed. Mittens? You done yet? A few moments later, one of her dropped in next to me, her claws bloody.

"Done."

"Can you get the bodies back to Muscogee for disposal?" She smiled at me.

"Doing So." I sighed, then stepped us all back to the Homestead. Where we were met by nobody. Siobhan? Her reply came back shy. I took the children to the Temple. To join the Revel at sunrise with their sisters? I paused for a second, then thought back. You and Karen? I swear I felt her blush as she gabbled out an incoherent, yet amused reply, which ended up with, wait, what is that? It took me a second to realize the tense confusion in her voice wasn't faked. I didn't think.

I leapt to the Big Seven, just outside the doors of Temple of Love. Screams filled the air, Revelers running directly away from the partially reconstructed Temple of Storms. Some of them didn't run. Some of them lay still and quiet on the ground. Some of those bodies weren't adult sized. I won't say I saw red, but rage filled me. When something within the Temple of Storms thrummed and a volley of arrows arced out from inside the building, I didn't think, I threw an Air Shield up across the entire valley.

The arrows bounced off, falling to the ground like a rain of wooden sticks. I stepped to the jagged hole through the wall where the kaiju had burst through.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Yeah, I might have been a little pissed. A dude with the fanciest hat yet frowned at me, then shouted back, "That's her!" Then he sneered and announced, "surrender now, and we will return you to Sparta for trial." I blinked.

"Dafuq?"

"You murdered a legal observer from Athens!" Something told me this asshole gave no shits about Athens, but wanted some kind of excuse. Fuck it, he wanted to play stupid games, I could play stupid games.

"Fuck you. I'm holding you responsible for every fuckin' rape and murder any of your fuckin' shitstain excuses for Heroes have done." The asshole had the nerve to hand his bow to the guy next to him, draw a sword and unlimber his shield, and shout out, "so be it! Trial by Glorious combat!" I don't know what happened. Maybe it was the smug certainty in his voice. Maybe it was the way his troops tensed like they fully intended to pile on while he and I fought.

But for whatever reason, the rage just drained out of me like a punctured balloon. The me who'd been standing there sucking up Mana atop the West Tower, who positively glowed with the load of Mana I carried, collapsed into the me standing in the gap in the wall. I sighed, raised a hand, and Shaped, the tsunami of Mana pouring from me turning every bit of Cold Iron on all of them into glowing slag.

"Mass Amputate."