Dear Diary,

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."

- Maya Angelou

Get ready to fuckin' burn.

Marie stumbled, and I caught her before she hit the floor. Plenty of the blood on her wasn't hers, but... not all of it. The soot wasn't from smoke, but from charred skin. My jaw too clenched to speak, I asked with my eyes, and she grated out, "Alley." I nodded, and I watched her discorporate in my arms.

"Be care..."

"Watch over Saffron and the Kids."

I pulled all of me in as I leapt. One of me to Black Dragon's mast. One of me to M-Space on the docks. One of me to that fucking alley, where a rain of arrows flew at me. Before they hit I stepped another me in behind, throwing out a Filtration Ward set to block everything but light. The me in front dropped, filled with arrows like a pincushion, and I took a moment to scan the area around were I'd landed in the mouth of the alley as I split myself in four, prompting another wave of arrows that bounced off my Ward.

Behind me, between where I stood and the barricade, a wave of basic bitch Undead swarmed toward the troops stationed at the far end. Marie stood there, sword staff spinning, cutting them down as they approached.

More Undead filled the streets as far as I could see. Blood and Ichor covered the ground beneath me, giving me a clue why this spot had been empty, that this had been where Marie got beaten bloody and burned. Mostly burned. Like the rage that ignited in me at the thought of anyone laying a finger on my wife.

I shoved my Blend up, and another wave of arrows slammed down, so many that for a moment I couldn't see the swarm around me, battering at the Ward, trying to get in. Their Miasma sucked at it, weakening it, each blow suctioning off a little more. Something else tore at it as well, a Miasma stronger than any I'd felt before. I slid apart, one moving in each direction, and the archers fired again, focused on each of me. I scanned the rooftops, but other than archers saw nothing. I Shaped, stepped one of me to each of the alley rooftops, and threw another pair of Filtration Wards. More arrows hammered into them, and on the far side of the roof, a big fucker who towered over the Archers by at least a head shoved his way through, then stepped off the edge. He squashed half a dozen Undead when he hit the ground, then trudged toward the pair of me on the ground hiding behind my rapidly failing Filtration Ward.

Behind where he'd dropped I spotted another pair? trio? quad? of taller figures behind the archers. One of them had that weird glow people used to hint at UV lights. Before I could react to that, a glob of something flew out from that glow, arcing overhead toward the far end of the alley. Toward Marie. I didn't think, I leapt, intercepting the blob in midair with a rapidly shaped Filtration Ward. A wave of arrows hit that Ward. A moment later, it shattered like spun sugar, the last of its Mana leached out by the Miasma radiating from that deep violet figure on the far roof. That me fell, and every Archer on the roof took the opportunity to fire at me while I dropped, helpless, in freefall.

Which meant none of them were covering the other three of me. Acting on instinct, I shoved Mana into my skin, where it leached away slowly, but I didn't need long. One of me leapt to each end of the line of Archers, another stepping forward with my swordstaff already in motion to engage the big fucker on the ground. Before I did anything else, I threw another Filtration Ward, this one centered about twenty feet in the air, ten feet across, between the big guy and the Archers. Then we were in melee, and it was all I could do to hold him back. He had about two feet of reach on me, and though I kept him back with the 'staff' part of my swordstaff, that didn't leave me much to attack with, especially since I had to keep whacking basic bitch Undead still swarming in from both directions along the street.

Up on the rooftops, I carved into both ends of the line of Archers. I even got into a rhythm; step to put the next Archer between me and the rest of the line. Take one arm off through the bow, then the head, then the other arm, then one leg. Kick it to the side, then rinse and repeat. Over and over and over. Arrows still hit me, and two of the big assholes moved toward me, but I dismembered another Archer every second or so. It formed a sort of music, even. Twang, splurch, splurch, splurch, whunk, thud, over and over and over. Like high speed untz untz, but way more organic. Maybe even messier, what with the constant spray of ichor everywhere.

The me that had caught all those arrows while I fell to the ground rolled over, pushed myself up to a knee, and groaned. I pushed more Mana into my skin, and the arrows fell away. A few more rained down, but I spun away from where I'd landed, whipping my swordstaff through the crowd at ankle height.

It had been less than six seconds since I arrived, and I'd already died once, and if the big asshole on the ground wasn't a fluke, it wasn't looking too great for the two of me on the roof either. As I ripped open a space on the street, I pulled Mana from the me in M-Space and Shaped a bunch of Smites.

That's when that violet fucker whipped out something that felt like a corrupted Mana Ward, only covering at least two fuckin' blocks in every direction from where he stood. All four of me inside that radius staggered. The me in M-Space saw that shit, a strange purple dome, almost as if he'd made a Mana Ward out of Miasma. That me started Shaping, as did the me on the mast.

Meanwhile the four of me inside the Miasma Ward all had to recover from that shit. One of me on the roof took an arrow right to the chest from point blank range. Fucker stood there blinking when it just kinda thumped into my chest and did jack diddly shit. I don't know exactly how durable the Defenses I've Mimicked since I got to the here and now are, but one arrow was just not gonna cut it, no matter how fuckin' 'bodkin' it was. Shit, I'd be willing to put me up against, like, bullets. Maybe even rockets. Of course, that's because there's more than one of me, and dying is painful and inconvenient, not final. Figured I could win a few drinks at the local bar with that shit though.

At the other end of the line, the big fucker arrived just as I got my weapon swinging again. His sword came down in a massive overhand chop, and my options were dodging into open air, dodging into the pile of still twitching limbs and bodies I'd left in my wake, trying to go through him, or just blocking that shit. I decided on trying to tackle him. My shoulder hit his armored abs, and I think I heard him grunt as the metal buckled and he went backward up the roof. Then the pommel of his sword came down on my lower back, something back there cracked, and I stumbled to one knee.

Down on the ground the armored asshole, who'd proved to have way more Skill with a blade than I wanted him to have, took my momentary stagger as an opportunity to attempt a fight-ending lunge. On the good side, all those stolen defenses meant I didn't wind up with a ragged, bleeding wound in my side when I didn't quite get all the way out of the way. On the bad side, even that impact spun me around, staggering more as I pirouetted away from him. I managed to get my staff up to block his second lunge, bringing it around in a two handed block that caught his sword mid-blade. I'd hoped to hit the flat, but at the very last moment he got it twisted so it took the blow on the edge.

It still bent.

My swordstaff did not.

I grinned up at the faint violet glow behind his visor. "Harder, better, faster, stronger, bitch." I pumped Mana into my limbs, my body, and leapt into action. Only now, I gave no shits about actually landing a shot on him. Oh, I swung for his arms, his legs, his face, his torso, blades spinning hard and fast enough to hurt him even through that heavy, thick, Cold Iron. But he was quick, and good, and got his sword or shield in the way every single time. And every single fuckin' time I bent it further out of balance, sliced little bits off, dented it, and just generally wrecked the shit out of his handheld equipment. Then he caught my staff in a bind, locked in by the twists and bends in the sword. A deep, menacing, almost laughing growl echoed from the helmet, and he bore down, trying to force me to the ground with his superior strength and size.

Moving faster than even I could really track, I shifted my grip to one end of the staff, looked him right in the glowy eyes, screamed, "leverage, bitch!" and yoinked his fucked up shortsword out of his fuckin' hand, yeeting it into the alley, aimed at the far end. I grinned as my favorite tiger lady leapt and caught the hilt in her teeth. I think she might have bit right through the binding, sinking her fangs right into the hilt. Ooh, bitey bitey Murder Mittens! Me likey!

Later, Vlickies.

I'd say that sent too much fear for the integrity of my precious skin for me to find it hot, but we both know I'm too stupid not to find anything she did hot, no matter how creepy scary violent.

I spun back into action as the big fucker reached for my staff, bringing the blade up hard and fast enough to take his fingers off at the second knuckle. "No touchy!" Then I leapt back on the attack, only this time he had no weapon, so every other swing took a little more off his hand, then arm. Miasma leaked from the openings in his armor, and I poured more Mana into Swift Foot and Strong Arm, turning myself and my swordstaff into a fuckin' rogue deli slicer with attitude. Then his shield strap broke, sending it flying off, and the slicing began in earnest.

On top of the roof, it turned out his big buddies were just as strong, just as big, but way less skilled. Both of me and both of them caught arrow after arrow as the Archers kept firing into us, but I gave exactly zero shits about that, doing unto their swords and shields as I had to their teammate down on the street. Sparks and slivers of metal flew, and I laughed every time the big fuckers stumbled, leaping over to the archers and pureeing a few more, then leaping back to turning Cold Iron juggernauts into shrapnel. Before long no Archers remained, and I could focus on pureeing the big fuckers.

Down on the street, pincushion me rolled to my feet and released my Smites one after another. Right then I realized that some of the basic bitch Undead weren't quite so basic. Most of them weren't really tracking on me, just flailing and trying to get to the alley to get to mincing machine Murder Mittens. I had to hit those kinda hard to make the Smite go, because their fuckin' Miasma barely made it to their skin, and most of them still had clothes on and shit. One or two even had stuff that doubled as armor, like thick leather aprons, or even a couple with legit breastplates or chain shirts. A few in the crowd did seem to notice me, though, their eyes filled with that same fuckin' deep violet glow. Of course, Smite hit them about two inches before contact, leaving them screaming to ash.

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Weird; the basic bitches didn't seem to scream as much, just ashing with a low moan.

Right about then the violet eyed mothefucker in the back, who I just then realized wasn't wearing light armor, but just really fancy robes not unlike Weyson's, raised his hands to the sky, fingers spread. deep violet lightning arced out; dozens of crackling bolts flying across the sky. One toward each living being within the Miasma Ward.

I didn't think, I just Shaped and leapt. Mana Blades sprang from my swordstaves. I caught the blasts headed for the two of me on the roof, redirecting them into the big fuckers and watching as they stood there spread eagled and shaking. The me on the ground fighting the big dude had no more time to play; I brought my Mana Blade around, hard, right through his head. His eyes flared, ichor flowing into something like arms where I'd left him with stumps. Then my actual sword blade carved right through at the same level, and he collapsed in a clatter of Cold Iron.

I leapt to join the other me on the ground, where I'd leapt to intercept the fucking lightning raining down on my troops. Bolt after bolt I intercepted. First I flung them into the ground, but they arced back toward my guys and gals. I wound up with two of me juggling fucking lightning, each strike draining me a little further.

Meanwhile the two big fuckers on the roof stopped shaking and started growing. They'd started at least seven feet tall in their fuckin' armor. As they swelled, roaring defiance and rage to the sky, their armor exploded off of them, piece by piece, their missing limbs replaced by bubbling, shifting, sloppy ichor arms. Each of them looked down at one of me and screamed.

Which is when I punched each of them in the crotch with the biggest Smite I had in me at the moment.

Fuckin' hilarious watching an elemental force of Undead destruction grab at their crotch, fall to the ground as their hips disintegrated, then burn to ash while doing the 'I just got punched in the nuts' moan. Look, I'm a simple woman, slapstick makes me laugh. Yes, I know it might have been the objectively least well made Ghostbusters, but I laughed and salivated my ass off at Hemsworth at maximum himbo and Kate McKinnon doing the sexy lesbian whip routine and yeah maybe there were more signs than I realized back then.

Then the final big armored fucker crashed into one of me, and one of me died right there. Not only was he just a little bigger than the other three, Wish dot com Mister Wizard had kept the most Skilled of his bodyguards back to guard himself, and the fucker was fresh when I was absolutely out of gas. For a minute he battered me around the roof. Blow after blow I barely managed to stay on my feet. At one point I lunged for the fucker in the robes, but he just stood there lookin' smug like some kind of unholier than thou motherfucker while his big asshole bodyguard knocked me across the roof by slamming his shield into me hard enough to crack my ribs.

As he lifted his foot to stomp on me, the two of me who'd been juggling hyperviolet lightning arrived, flinging half that lightning into tall smug and robey, the other half arcing to the metal covering his bodyguard bitch. Might have made a mistake there, since he stomped down to go spread eagled, which smeared one of me across the roof tiles. In that moment when his bodyguard did the electrocution jitterbug, both of me leapt, following the lightning aimed at Sorcerer Suckpreme.

He caught that shit, redirecting all but a tiny bit of it at one of me. I screamed as I fried, and I got to listen to myself die screaming as the remainder of the bolts flopped me on my ass, twitching.

His bodyguard, a few bits of armor hanging loose, stomped over to loom over me, pinning me to the ground with one foot on my chest. Then the asshole in the robes leaned over me, sneering.

And spoke.

"How does it feel, Whore of Phileo? To be helpless before the wrath of something so vast, so inimical to your very existence, that your only option is how you face the death it chooses for you?"

Hard to talk with Fuckface McGee standing on my chest, but I wheezed out, "slut."

"What?"

"Slut. Not whore. Slut." I shook my head and, making the ultimate final effort for such an important task, said, "you dumb fucks always get that wrong."

He opened his mouth. I'm not sure what he was gonna say. Something awesome and intimidating about how powerful and big his dick was, probably. I'll never know, because that's right when the me who'd been standing atop the mast of the Black Dragon, sucking Mana from the me in M-Space, stepped to the edge of his Miasma Ward and dropped the biggest fuckin' Smite I'd ever done into his Miasma.

So sad, his big dick speech got cancelled in favor of a long, drawn out, agonized screaming. His bodyguard screamed along with him, hyper violet gaseous ichor streaming out of their mouths and eyes. Maybe their noses, too, although if Temu dot com Gandalf was any indication, the Undead followed Voldemort's face care regimen or some shit like that. So there was some nasty glow there, but very little flow.

Then the Smite ran its course. The Miasma Ward held. Eggshell thin, eggshell fragile, but it held. Dipshit diviner wheezed out a laugh, then loomed over me again. "Your pitiful Mana Shapes are no..."

Then, from M-Space, I hit him again. This time with all the Mana Mimic could focus.

He burned. He burned hard. He screamed as he burned, first incoherent shrieks of pain, but when the Miasma shrank to where I could see the edges of it racing towards us, he yanked something incorporeal from his bodyguard and hissed at me. "The Master will see you fall, Whore!"

Then his head burned off, and he finally fuckin' stopped the 'whore' bullshit. Hell, at this point I was barely even a slut, thanks to my fuckin' fuckin' disability. Of course, right about then Jumbo Senior decided to scrape me off his boot. He leaned onto me, my ribs cracking as his weight bore down.

Then a half dozen Maries arrived and gave him a very short, sharp education in what it was like to be the least Skilled participant in a six on one spontaneous Sparagmos.

"Thanks... Mittens." I managed to croak out. "Onna Dragon."

She nodded, and I collapsed back to one of me standing on the mast of the Black Dragon, moaning gently. Then I remembered I still had a job to do, the other reason I got the big bucks and the nice apartments and millions of screaming fans pouring more Worship into me than I knew what to do with. I stepped to our end of the alley, worked my mouth to make sure it was working right, and growled out, "okay, who's in charge here?"

A dark skinned Calverton Soldier raised a shaking hand. A moment later I had her pinned to the wall. "Good girl." Then I lost myself in her mouth. When I came up for air, at least half of her hesitation had been replaced by anticipation, and I was too hurt and tired and angry and I grabbed her and stepped...

Her fucking shirt wouldn't move. I grabbed two handfuls and yanked, tearing it apart, little rings of metal flying everywhere. She stared at me, wide eyed and panting, and I tackled her onto my new bed. I pulled back, the faintest tingle of guilt nipping at me. Kitten? Mittens? Shack.

My Kitten pulled the Soldier's head into her lap as Marie held my shoulders, that tiny pressure enough to hold back the avalanche that I'd become. Saffron looked down and said, "would you rather have a different reward for your faithful obedience to the Champion's will?" The Soldier jerked her head from side to side. Saffron mock frowned at her, a smile obviously teasing the edges of it. "So you would sip from the Imperator's cup then? Say it, Soldier."

"Y-y-yes."

My tiny tyrant looked up at me and said, "so, reward her."

So I did.

A while later, after dropping the Soldier off with her unit, topless, blushing, and still lifting her fists triumphantly as her subordinate Soldiers cheered for her, I lay there with Wifey and Wifey-to-be. "Ow." Saffron nodded, and Marie flipped me over and started working her claws across my back. "Oh, fuck, that hurts so good. Never stop."

"Love, I know you're not anywhere near recovered. You've barely had a chance to even catch your breath. But the little ones would like to see you before they go to sleep."

I shook my head as I realized that it was, in fact, bed time. Late bed time. I shook my head to clear it a little, did the 'insta-clean' trick on myself for the first time in I don't know how long, and dropped one of me into the bedroom at Lancaster House.

A wave of concerned tots shrieking 'mama', along with one maybe 'papa', bowled me over. I discovered that I was not susceptible to smothering by spawn, as they all wriggled in until all of them could touch me somehow, then one at a time dropped off to sleep.

"Ain't that a thing."

Saffron slipped her arms and legs around me, laying her head against my chest. "I love it when you smile like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you do when you look at our children, love."

Saffron snickered at me in the morning while we did the morning dump, douse, dress routine. I didn't...

She nodded. Right in the middle... so inconsiderate, she teased.

Sorry.

Oh, don't be. We consoled ourselves and each other in our time of need.

I snorted. Both? Thirsty much?

So thirsty. Parched, after watching you with Sergeant First Class Vickerson.

Oh. Oh, shit. I thought about for a moment. Apparently, for whatever fucked up reason, grabbing some near rando off the street when I needed to slake the rage lust hadn't triggered my whole fucking problem. Or, much like with the Wisdom Clergy couple, I'd been horny enough to override that shit. Shack conference please?

A moment later she looked down at me where I lay on the bed, my knees hooked over the edge. "Boy please?" He stood there, Grinning, reacting to me even as I watched. I so fucking wanted... "Fu-hu-hu-huck."

She sighed and lay down where she could cuddle up next to me. "Still no joy?"

I put an arm around her. "Nope."

"Better or worse?"

I sighed, manhandled her around to dangle over me, knees against mine. "Boy?"

He folded his arms as he poked at me. I'd misjudged the distance just a tiny bit. "This is most undignified."

"Yeah, if I told you this is the only position you can stick it in me, you'd be all about dignity."

"Debase me, Goddess."

I laughed, but sighed, "girl, please."

She sighed as well, then held her arms out. I lowered her into a hug. "Well, it still sucks to the point where I kinda wanted to vomit with you attempting entry through my bellybutton, but I could joke about it rather than curling in a ball and screaming. So... progress?"

She hummed as she nuzzled into my chest. "Progress."

"You sure you're not going to get tired of waiting for my dumb ass?"

"I have never been more certain."

"Or get jealous of all the dudes who get to pave the way?"

She snickered, then pushed herself up to where she could smile down at me. "Not only do I get to experience each and every one with you, you are mine, and you have yet to disappoint me like this. And should I desperately need to test your current... capacity... I can always do this." She thwapped against my belly.

"That fuckin' thing is bigger than before. Isn't it?"

She giggled. "Guilty as charged. So, up for a challenge before we have to go to work for the day?"

I smiled up at her. "What, you can't keep going while you wrangle the Council? I thought you'd appreciate the stress relief."

She pouted, wide eyed, and half-whimpered, "oh, my Goddess, forgive me. I was a very naughty girl, and lost myself to sensation rather than concentrating on learning new Skills."

I frowned up at her for a bit, then, in my best 'pronouncement from on high' voice, only slightly spoiled by her leaning over me, kneeling between my legs, intoned, "your punishment has been decided, wench!"

She pressed her palms together in the absolute sluttiest 'prayer' position I had ever personally seen and begged, "punish me, oh, Goddess."

I buried my fingers in her hair, locked my ankles behind her, and growled, "get good, scrub."

Just under an hour later, as we distributed hugs and kisses to the kids before heading off to work, she let out a shuddering sigh then, remaining arched backwards, blinked up at the ceiling for a moment before giggling, then crowing out, "DING!"

I pulled her back down to kiss her as the sweat soaked sheets squelched beneath me. "Good girl." I breathed into her mouth.

She grinned down at me. "So, does your most faithful Priestess get a reward?"

"Of course!"

Her eyes got real big, and I could not fucking tell how much of it was fake and how much was real. Right then I absolutely did not give a fuck, either, because it was fucking adorable. "What's my reward?"

It was also adorably fuckable. "I'm gonna go with tradition on this one. So your reward for a job well done is more work, of course."