Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

Okay, at this point I really hope Poser Possy boy is fuckin' with me, because if it's not him, I'm gonna have to visit three very nice young ladies who live at the base of Yggdrasil and punch them in the taint. Also, again with the weirdness. I am hoping that the sea Deity who is attacking my adopted home with kaiju is the one who's rubbing my whole 'don't like waiting' anxiety absolutely the wrong way, because I've already planned out his Fate Worse Than Death™ which means anything else I discover that he's done I don't have to worry about correcting. But if it's the Norns, who are Fate Goddesses I've actually interacted with, at least one of them, instead of doing some to be or not to be soliloquy, I'm gonna whap them in the crotch as a 'cut that shit out'.

Fuck, given how my life goes, one of them will wind up into that shit. I just really hope it's not Skuld, because along with having a gun, she's also the youngest looking one, and I've got enough problems pretending I'm mature most of the time.

I mean, I am mature, but don't tell me that, because I'd be upset and weirded out, and I don't want that.

Yes, I wound up having to wait more.

I mean, at least at this point, along with feeling the kaiju pushing forward through the metaphoric obstruction of my tentacles, I could see their shadows on the clouds in the darkening sky. Which was really fuckin' weird, because that meant they were backlit. The sun sets in the west, and they were coming from the east. Either Poser was providing some kind of lighting, or one of the kaiju created that shit naturally. Which wouldn't be the worst thing, because anything that glowed hard enough to throw light at the clouds from beyond the horizon wasn't gonna hide real damn well.

Of course, I'd been snogging with Saffron on the Seeking before we spotted the clouds moving the wrong way, and those same dark clouds covered the eastern horizon there. I Co-Located from the Black Dragon's mast, still holding the binocs, to each of the Tentacles. Looking east from each of them I spotted those same shadows, that same backlighting. Which leant some credence to the thought of Poser sticking some kind of light behind them. I really hoped it was that and not, like, Zeus deciding to help his big bro out.

Once the sun set, the shadows stood out more, as the thick, dark clouds drifted our way. I mean, clouds at night are always dark, but these looked even worse with the light coming from underneath them. Weirdest thing, the shadows didn't seem to be getting bigger. Which meant closer. Also, while I kept itching that one spot on my shoulder that hurt in sympathetic pain to whichever kaiju related thing had been fucking with my tentacles in M-Space, the sense of something pushing through them got weaker.

My tension ratcheted up higher and higher as the hours past. Some time around midnight the shadows got... Thicker. Like there were more limbs moving around. A few hours before dawn that happened again. Each time, the sense of pressure lessened.

I clocked what was going on maybe half an hour later. Ladies? As they all confirmed I had their attention, I thought, they're gathering. Beyond the horizon, and I mean beyond the horizon from the top of the Black Dragon's mast. Which means about twenty miles out.

Do you know how many? Saffron's quiet question helped me focus, grounded me.

After a moment of mental math spent peering through the binocs, then thinking about what I'd felt, I thought back, I think there's only sixteen left. I'm not sure, but I think at least twelve are gathered, with another four still catching up. They're gonna hit us all at once.

Something niggled at me as Saffron calmly broadcast, Ladies, Tabitha, Sister, I'm bringing the fleets forward, and spreading their scouts out, with instructions to fall back to the nearest concentration of ships. Tabitha, if you could ask Boltophsberg to anchor our north flank?

I'm not sure their fleet is in any kind of shape to sortie.

She sighed. If they could simply hold the Cape that would be enough.

I'll let them know.

While Saffron sent navigation directions to the Tentacles, I stepped to the docks in Boltophsberg, not even trying to Blend my arrival. Moments after my feet touched the ground, Lemmy stood there looking a little less than fresh. "Champion."

i realized right then that I'd put The Dress on without thinking. I guess it maybe made me think that Dad was by my side, not to mention having perfect traction never hurt. "Hey Lemmy. Good news, bad news."

He sighed. "Please, some good news first."

I nodded. "Looks like this is the last batch of kaiju."

Lemmy glanced over at the Bay. "The ones who lie under the water? What that great sea beast left of them, anyhow?"

He petered off at the end, with my head already shaking. "Nope. The next one. There are sixteen of the fuckers coming in."

"Sixteen? We barely survived three!"

I shook my head, kinda chuckling. "Sixteen all along the coast, from here to, fuck, maybe Muscogee. Maybe even Jackville. But," I sighed. "They're probably mostly gonna hit the Alliance."

Upon hearing that he wasn't personally expected to fight sixteen fuckin' kaiju with his jank ass dysfunctional maybe family as his only backup, Lemmy relaxed just a little. Credit where it's due, the man wasn't a coward. He didn't want to fight a doomed last stand, but he sure as shit would do that before letting somebody get to his people. He went up in my estimation with his next words. "How can we help?"

"The Imperator kinda hoped you guys could sortie with whatever ships you had, but," I glanced around. Not too many big ships had survived the last kaiju attack. Oddly, plenty of smaller ships had. "Since that's probably not happening, if you could guard the coast, keep any headed this way in the ocean proper where our ships can get to them, we'll roll them up eventually."

He barked out a laugh. "So confident!" His grin faded a little as if remembering something, then resurged as he realized, at a guess, that the big scary monster was on his side this time. "I like it!"

I reached out, and he clasped my hand. "Thanks, man."

He pulled me in for a back slapping hug, and I couldn't even be mad if I was maybe aware of his awareness of what that squished against his chest. As we pulled apart, he got a speculative look. "May we use those new fortifications?"

I nodded, smiling. "Yeah, Pretty sure that's part of why Sexypaws put them there. Between your guys and the Heroes on station, you ought to be able to hold out pretty well, right?"

"We shall!"

With that, I collapsed back to myself just as Saffron wrapped up her deployment orders. False dawn flickered behind and above the towering mass of black clouds rolling overhead, and a few moments later the shadows gained a crispness they hadn't, as lightning flashed through those clouds. My shoulder twinged, and suddenly the sense of disturbance surged. Seized by a sudden suspicion, I counted shadows.

Saffron's voice echoed through my brain. Remember, ladies, Ward your Tentacles against kaiju and stone before engaging. Ward any other ships near enough as you can. Trust your troops and Heroes, engage conservatively until ordered otherwise.

As I listened to confirmations, I murmured, "how many can you stop without me?"

Saffron's lips pursed. "Nine. Ten if Boltophsberg handles one."

"Shit."

"What's wrong, love?"

"They're all here." She nodded. "Whoever is fucking around with my Tentacles in M-Space isn't."

Her voice held all the crackling threat of a Mana Blade when she hissed out, "Poseidon."

I nodded. "If I kill them all, he might rabbit."

Her eyes flashed. "Kill four."

"But..."

"Kill four. By the time you've done that, others may have fallen. We cannot risk him fleeing from just consequence like so many of his ilk do when they realize their plans have gone awry."

"Are you gonna be all right?"

Right at that moment, moonlight flowed across the deck. Diana stood there, glowing brighter than I'd seen before. "I will end any who sneak past you to make land."

I wasn't about to question the look in her eyes. Okay, not about whether any given kaiju she faced would survive. "You sure you'll find them?"

She shot me a crooked grin. "I know what the moon and tides touch. When they leave the sea, I will know."

"Fair." I pulled her in much as Lemmy had done with me, although where he and I had slapped each other's back, I wound up slapping Diana's ass. Which left her laughing.

"I'd best return to shore, though." With that, she was gone.

I turned back to Saffron, who looked up at me. "Four."

I took a deep breath. "I'm really tempted to stay Co-Located and Blended, just in case."

She winced, shook her head once, but said, "I would dearly love you to, but... Not while you face Poseidon."

"Until I find him."

She sighed. "Until then. In fact, should I call on you during that time, intercede."

It took me a second. "Make him think I'm still here?" She nodded. "You got it, Kitten."

She smiled, pulled me down for a kiss. Whispers filtered through the back of my head, and on each of the Tentacles my ladies pulled me down as well.

When I stood, slipping my Blend up on all my Co-Located selves, she straightened, every inch of her regal, the Imperator Commanding. "Attack Dog?"

I smiled at her. "Woof?"

She pointed at the approaching shadows. "Kill."

"WOOF, WOOF, BORK!" Four of me leapt away from the Tentacles, from the Seeking, the Questing, the Plundering, and the Training. I figured of all my ladies, Marie was the most likely to survive contact with multiple kaiju. I hit the water and accelerated, Translocating every time I popped above the waves. Lightning raced through the clouds, and I realized that the most difficult targets for the Tentacles would be airborne ones. Yet another reason to count on my Murder Mittens. Everybody knows Cat beats Bird.

Weird thing, once I got close enough my wireframe vision showed the clouds for what they were; just fuzzy areas of vapor with nothing really solid inside. Okay, almost immediately I spotted something. Somethings, once I got more of me in range. Each of me saw at least two humanoid kaiju striding along about neck deep in the water, and something long and slithery under the surface that really fucked with my wireframe vision by lighting itself up. But my targets were in the clouds. Something flapped its way along on thin membranous wings. Some kind of weird cloud shaped thing. A silhouette with two wings and six limbs that looked suspiciously Draconic. Finally, right in front of the me that had leapt away from my Kitten, an airliner sized dragonfly.

That lined itself up with the mandibles under its big, bulbous eyes pointed directly at the Seeking. My wireframe vision got a little hinky as its mouth glowed, motes of energy dropping away from its eyes to gather in a mass right in front of its mouth. Not hinky enough to keep me from leaping above where it hovered, extending a massive Mana Guillotine as I dropped, severing its right wings off. It fell, spinning, as its maw poured out a torrent of coherent Mana that burned the sea, the sky, and one limb of one of the advancing humanoids. I winced as it also caught the me that had taken it down, but arrived back on the scene with three of me, one bringing another Mana Guillotine down right where its head met its body, the other two each power diving directly into one of the Dragonfly's eyes.

They were full of goop. Electrical goop that stung and left me feeling greasy and staticky even when I collapsed back to myself.

I rose in front of the Dragon, calling my sword staves to my hands, slotting them together and lighting up a pair of Mana Wings behind my back as I hovered there waiting. They didn't do shit for my aerodynamics, but they lit me up as a target the Dragon couldn't pass up as I held myself in the sky with a blended tentacle. Gotta figure out at some point why that's such a bitch to do. Pulling Mana through that tentacle, I poured it into my muscles, my skin, my stolen defenses, and spun my swordstaff in front of me.

It swallowed the bait, that being me, in one gulp. My Wings barely scraped the roof of its mouth when it slammed shut. Which made it immediately jerk to a stop, screaming as it got the mother of all nacho chip corners stuck in. I didn't bother waiting or setting myself. I charged, leaping forward, extending Mana Blades from the ends of my swordstaff, driving straight down the fucker's throat. Some parts cut when my Mana Blades hit them. Others didn't. Everything my swordstaves touched pureed like Karlson's deli sliced brain. Every time things clenched close around me, I lashed out in all directions, then kept going.

I almost didn't realize why when weightlessness hit. The sudden stop at the end clued me in. I Translocated another me to the location, stuck my sword staff through the thing's ear, extended a big assed Mana Lance, and wiggled it like the world's most dangerous Q-Tip. Then repeated that on the other side, because I know the rule. Double tap, always double tap.

The poor bat thing didn't know what hit it. I Co-Located and hit its wings with a dozen of me slicing through them with my swordstaves just like I'd done to the Ice Dragon with Slayer back before it earned that name. It shrieked, and the two of me anywhere near in front of its mouth died right then, brains jellified. With that important safety tip in mind, hid under water until it stopped to take a breath, then Translocated two of me up to repeat the Q-Tip maneuver standing inside its massive ears.

The big cloud thing I had no idea, so I figured I'd go with the classic Rock, Paper, Scissors maneuver of Mana Blade. Good old Mana Blade. Nothing beats Mana Blade.

Interestingly, the cloud thing did not 'beat' Mana Blade. My first Mana Blade sliced right through its side, and the fuckin' thing exploded. Like, vaporized that one of me exploded. Not fun at all.

So I dropped a half dozen of me across the top of the thing, swordstaves out, dragging those preternaturally sharp edges along the thing's thin skin. I do not want to describe the smell that escaped. Back in the day, there was a trash to steam plant at the south end of Camden, and a spot where over a century of garbage rotted along the shore of Petty Island near the north end. The juicy gas escaping from the sacs on the thing's exterior smelled like those two spots had a baby, and the baby's diaper had never been changed, and when the baby died they put the baby, diaper, and all, into those sacs to rot until it got gooey.

I said I didn't want to describe it. Not that I wasn't going to.

All of me leapt away, collapsing to one of me that I held in the air watching it. It floated along, leaking garbage and stench. Dad?

That is not a Hearth.

Coward. I lit off a Fire Bolt, big enough to hit it hard at what I deemed minimum safe distance.

It was not minimum safe distance. Unfortunately, I lived, with my olfactory senses fully functional. On the other hand, I'd exposed another layer of bulbous sacs along the kaiju's surface.

I let myself drop into the water in an attempt to wash off the gunk before Co-Locating back atop the thing. No joy, the water had plenty of leaked gunk in it. It took four increasingly rapid cycles before I saw something that looked like a head poking out the notional front of the thing. Relieved, I leapt two of me to it and used my new favorite finishing move, the Q-Tip of Doom.

The entire fuckin' remainder of the thing exploded.

That's four, and I think I took out all the fliers.

Good hunting, love.

Stay safe, Kitten.

I'm not sure exactly how I felt when she smirked into my head and thought, never am.

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