Dear Diary,
Some days the adult thing to do is hard, tiring, and boring; other days I don't have much in the way of responsibility, so I can spend it doing small, everyday, deeply satisfying things with my wives and kid.
Today, though, the adult thing is going to be fucking. Shit. Up. I can hardly wait, and I mean that far more literally than is probably healthy, but for one glorious sunrise I do not fuckin' care. After a night spent alternately snoozing while contemplating the oddly luxurious mouth-feel of Marie's M-Space self auto-yeeting into Mimic's maw and snuggling ever deeper into the cuddle puddles both on the floating stage and on Marie's bed, the sun peeking over the horizon pulled me fully awake.
Just in time to feel the entire stage start tipping as a huge crashing sound from downstream filled the air. Without moving very much at all I Translocated all three of us to an Air Shield box above the Green. Then I swore and stepped back to the stage, grabbing my sword staves, my rope darts, and The Dress just as the raft capsized. The water wasn't, like, 'light on fire' bad, but it certainly wasn't what I'd call clean, and the whole very brackish nature of it didn't help either. Between the water, the tumbling, and just waking up I wound up more than a little too disoriented to Translocate safely, so when a big clawed hand wrapped itself around my upper arm and pulled, I went with it.
A few moments of holding my breath and kicking later, my feet hit mud. The hand on my arm tugged, and I trudged through the mud until my head cleared the surface of the river. I threw my head back, shaking my mop of hair while blowing out the lungful of air I'd been holding. I looked over to see my rescuer, one my my Lizard Bois. When I met his gaze, he nodded and let go of my arm.
"Thanks. What the fuck happened?"
He pointed over my shoulder, and I turned to see the wreckage of the pontoon stages breaking apart. Some bits sank, some bits floated downriver, some just kind of floated there bonking against a wooden sailboat hogging up the middle of the river. As I watched it dropped an anchor from its bow, smashing apart the last remaining flat, level, floating part of the pontoon bridge stage. I saw four fancy dressed motherfuckers standing atop the elevated rear deck; three I recognized, one I did not, not to mention a moderately enormous Jotnar walking along the far side of the river, the first one I'd seen of the female variety.
Gregor stood centered on the raised deck, arms akimbo, his normal 'Norse regal finery' replaced by a suit of heavy plate armor that looked suspiciously irony and chilly. Of course he still had a big old purple cape with the black and white spotted fur ruff around the neck, not to mention enough fluffy furry bits to properly outfit Elton John and Lil Nas X both. Probably didn't hurt that for all his shitdickery, he wasn't a small asshole. Probably half again as big as Marshall duBois.
To his left, Jarl Weyson stood there in not just his Odin-Issue dress, complete now with fashion statement eye patch, which just proved to me that all of Odin's Priests had to be at least nascent edgelords, but also in an outer robe of pure white. Mostly smooth fabric in broad panels, but the shoulders, which held themselves way too rigid to be nothing but cloth, had a riot of pure white feathery shit springing out of them. I couldn't tell if the shit was feathers, or fur, or something less savory than either, but he definitely rocked the 'MMORPG Mage look'.
To his right, Jarl Svart leaned against one of two ballistae that looked to be permanently mounted to the upper deck. He had a suspiciously metallic bow poking over one shoulder, a pair of short handled axes at his waist, not to mention him using one that looked to be fire-axe sized as an impromptu walking stick. Or hell, I dunno, maybe it was intended to be a walking stick, and just wound up being so badass people mistook it for a battle axe.
Speaking of battle axes led me to the fourth guy on the upper deck, who stood hunched over and sorta seething, looking like a Nathan Explosion cosplayer who forgot most of his outfit at home and was making do with body paint and pure unchained rage. Seriously, the dude wore nothing but blue paint and way too much body hair, although he had some kind of camelback peeking out over his shoulder and he clutched a great axe at least half again as long as he was tall. I could only assume this fuck was Ericson, here to pit rage against rage and see who raged harder. Heh. Rage hard. Hit different, what with him actually having a legit possibly literal raging hard on that kinda bobbed as he looked at me, although that could have been the ongoing heaved breaths.
The mega-chica on the far side of the river wore what looked to be a leather catsuit, but not the fancy PVC kind. This evoked memories of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. Aunties, VCR, yadda yadda. Bits of some kind of leathery looking fabric not too much bigger than both of her outstretched hands, all sewn together with really ugly thick cords. Thing is, while her outfit looked primitive as fuck, she in no way looked stupid or thuggish. Lack of perspective and her distance from the others made it hard to tell, but I ballparked her as just a touch shorter than Skasn. Weird thinking that she looked kinda cute in a tomboyish sort of way, especially what with Jotnar size meaning each of her modestly-proportioned tits being the size of a smart-car at the least.
A huge plank slid out from the side of the ship, and I stepped myself and my Boi to the far end of the Green before Shitdick's crew pissed me off by dropping it on one of us. Seeing that, the other two Bois loped after us.
"Prepare to meet your end, whore!" Shitdick's voice echoed out over the Green.
Before anybody else could move or say anything, Saffron's voice filled the space. "HOLD!" Close your eyes, love. I am Best Wife, so my eyes slammed shut as she said, "you have all clearly taken time to armor yourselves in preparation, you will allow me a few moments to dress my wife appropriately to face you."
Small hands claimed my weapons and The Dress. Before any silk touched me, clawed paws lifted me by the waist, and slick leather boots slid up my legs, then cinched tight until they felt like a second skin. My feet returned to the ground, and a single leather thong wrapped around my head, pulling my hair back away from my face to hang behind my head. A leathery belt slid around my waist, weighted toward one side. Silk slid over my head to settle at my waist, although The Dress' skirts hung to the wrong side, the same side with my new belt's weight. Marie's claws bent me, slipped The Dress' upper loop of silk up my back, under my armpits, then around the back of my neck.
"Uh, isn't that bit supposed to be hiding my rock hard lady nips, lest they cause the collapse of civilization the way Facebook thinks they will?"
"Oh hush, you." Saffron chuckled as something clinked, silk rustled, and a bit of cold metal mesh lay against the side of that thigh. Not the tiniest hint of The Dress' skirt, though, and I noticed something as notable by its absence as its presence would have been.
"Just showing me off today, huh?"
Her voice husky, Saffron replied, "why would I not put the most beautiful thing I will ever call 'mine' on display for others to touch if they dare?" A loop of leather circled my shoulder opposite The Dress' skirt, another sliding over my shoulder blades and clavicle, both of them cinching snug a moment later. Circles of bone forced their way between my inner thighs and The Dress' boots, followed by loops of Mimic-hide leather around them, leaving my rope dart spikes dangling alongside the leather of her boots. She pressed the grips of my split sword-staff into my hands, then stepped back.
"Know that I do this next not as an act of Worship, but one of ardor, love. Marie?" Saffron hissed, and then her hands reached around to lay against my ass, then run around and over my belly, breasts, and shoulders in asymmetrical strokes that left a warm dripping trail. I barely had the self control to hold myself rigidly still as the scent of her blood trickled into my nostrils. Then she reached up and lay three fingertips above each of my eyebrows, dragging them down, over my closed eyes, my cheeks, my lips, which she teased apart to shove all six fingers into my mouth and scrape them across my tongue before pulling them free and mashing them against my nostrils, filling my brain with blood and fire.
She stepped back and said, "look upon me, wife."
I could barely keep my eyes closed before; they snapped open and gazed upon my loves. Marie wore her Maid's uniform, and Saffron Glowing Midnight, both as usual, but that's where 'usual' ended. Armored tiaras not unlike the Menace's framed their faces. Marie's 'breastplate' covered little more than an open cup bra might, and Saffron's was a boob plate with an absolutely pornographic level of detail that only Marie and I could possibly appreciate. Okay, Conrad and the Menace could confirm its faithful replication of what lay under it, but they certainly wouldn't appreciate it on the visceral level Marie and I would. Armored skirts covered both their flanks, while simultaneously seeming to highlight the utter lack of meaningful armored coverage between them.
"Conrad made those?"
She chuckled, the sound low and rich, and Marie grinned behind her. "Yes."
I drew a breath in through my nose, intending to, I dunno, compliment his work, or flirt with them, or some other shit. The scent of not just blood, but blood enthusiastically gifted and reeking of the women I loved and lusted after more than life filled my nostrils, my lungs, my brain. "Go." I growled.
With a chuckling laugh, they both Translocated to the Air Shield box seat I'd left above the Green. They didn't bounce around though. Saffron stood with her legs shoulder width apart, hands braced on one edge of one side of the box, Marie holding her there by folding her arms across Saffron's shoulders. My brain lost yet another layer of coherence when I realized that Marie had braced herself by the simple expedient of adopting a straight up Jacko-pose from the waist down, each foot firmly planted in a corner of the box. Apparently fuckin' Conrad had supplied her with heels and lifts too. Magnificent Bastard.
"Jarl Diaz is now prepared. So long as no more than one of you is on the Green at a time, she will allow you to surrender once your Honor is satisfied, so long as you do it before she decides your death would be too pleasurable to resist. So, which of you is stupid enough to dare test her bloodlust first?"
As I stood there, forcing myself to stillness, overloaded with power and frustration from over two solid days of absolutely deliberate spousal Worship and edging, Gregor called out, "Ericson? Destroy her."
Mister Pict took that as a prompt to rip off his camelback, tear one end open with his teeth, and power-quaff the entire contents while screaming incoherently. The moment the camelback ran dry, he flung it away and, ignoring the gangplank entirely, took a running leap that carried him from the upper deck to a half dozen paces inside the green. The moment his feet touched grass, I launched myself at him. We met at the center of the green, my swordstaff spinning up to catch the haft of his axe, the edge hammering into my shoulder anyway. I fell with the force, my armored shoulder plate keeping the wicked edge of the axe from penetrating.
Nothing prevented the heel of The Dress' boot from penetrating right through Ericson's ball sack, nor the sole mashing his erection against his belly in a completely un-fun looking way that nonetheless cranked my internal flywheel up to pure raw murderfuck levels. I slid along the ground, pushed by his axe as his screaming, if anything, only got angrier. My rage didn't quiet at all either, although I took the opportunity to slash the shit out of his crotch as I slid under him.
By the time I regained my feet, swordstaff spinning into action, he'd spun to face me, his axe a blur as he twirled something that had to weigh more than me like a goddamned baton. Over and over our weapons met, deflecting the edges away from landing a clean hit. Blood ran down his body, and lines of fire too fresh and hot to be Saffron's ran down mine. Despite numerous hits from my blades, his Axe didn't seem harmed, so I pushed short Mana blades out before we stepped into one another, blades whirling. I think I got a little surprised when the edge of his axe met my Mana Blade and didn't boil away, but no moreso than he was when his Axe rebounded. Taking that split second, I brought my Mana Blade around toward where his hands gripped the axe handle. Fucker managed to get his fingers out of the way, but the axe handle itself sliced cleanly, and the business end of the thing flew away from us.
In that same instant his fist crashed directly into my face, throwing me backward to tumble across the green. I stopped myself by stabbing my swordstaff into the ground, but before I got my feet planted another punch hammered me to the ground. I didn't bother standing; I hammered his knees with punches and elbows, kicking him repeatedly in the inner thighs while he landed punch after punch into my head and shoulders. His knee gave first with an explosive crack that sent him tumbling to land on his other knee. I clambered up him, twisting one arm sideways and backwards while I got my legs locked around his head. He scrabbled at my calf with his free hand, and I threw my whole body into twisting his arm until, with three distinct crunching cracks, his wrist, his elbow, and his shoulder all broke and dislocated.
He screamed and clutched my calf, his fingers sinking in, blood leaking out around them. I Mimicked his raging Strength and Endurance, put every ounce of my physical power into my thighs, and with a literally climactic splattery crunch collapsed his skull between my thighs. I lay there panting in the bloody mud, an unwilling yet not unwanted open mouthed grin spreading my mouth, and pointed at Saffron.
"So, who's next?" she called out.
Languidly pushing myself upright, I turned to face the boat, only to catch a fuckin' crossbow bolt in my right tit. "Ow."
Svart didn't bother to reload, he just dropped his very much not a ballista crossbow and ran forward, drawing and throwing each of his hand axes with a smooth, practiced motion. The first one hit my hip where The Dress' skirt hung, and while the impact stung like a motherfucker, my general hip region remained stubbornly unpenetrated. Not only that, but the axe hung from my hip more or less like it had against his. Then his other axe took me in my armored shoulder, bruising it yet again, but ricocheting off to land somewhere in west bumblefuck. I turned and, while debating whether to de-penetrate my tit, grabbed up my swordstaff.
Not a moment too soon; alerted by the squelch of a heavy boot on the grass, I spun around and barely caught his axe haft on my staff. Our weapons locked, and he braced his feet and bore down, trying to get the wicked edge of his axe blade close enough to cut me. For my part, I shifted my feet for a little better leverage, but otherwise stood there holding him off, trying to ignore the throbbing rod penetrating me. Okay, right about then the sickest part of the shit that passes for my brain reared up, and a bloody smile stretched across my face. "So, you're the first guy to ever stick something into me. How's it feel?"
He ignored my leer and just shifted and pushed more. "Oh, c'mon. At least tell me where you got the crossbow. My wife needs to track some war profiteer down and execute them."
Where my obvious fucked up flirtation didn't work, that got a grunt of laughter out of him. "Why would I be telling you that, lass?"
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I shrugged, and saw a moment of quickly squashed panic when he realized that I could shrug even with him trying to force my shoulders back. "When I murderfuck King Shitdick to death, which sounds exactly gross enough that I think I'm just gonna murder him instead, Norfolk will have semi-legal access to them, and that leak will all of a sudden be something you need to worry about."
He sucked on his teeth for a second, locking his limbs in place and pushing even harder. "Well. You've got a point, but my lads and lasses did naught but their jobs."
I frowned and moved to shift his axe to the side; as it slowly twisted, with him fighting for every tiny turn, I said, "dude, I got nothing against your people. Just the ones on our end, and if your guys fooled them, we'll probably just put them to hard labor or some shit, since braining obviously isn't their thing."
Right about then his axe twisted far enough for me to break it free from his grip and fling it away from us. I lit the Mana Blades on my swordstaff and brought one down in a sweeping cut to take his arm off mid-bicep. Imagine my surprise when it deflected from his armor, leaving a weird hex pattern in the steel. "The fuck?" He stepped back, fists coming up, ready to fight me hand to hand. I reconfigured my Mana Blades into the long, thin, piercing lances I'd intended to puncture the tiny openings in the wyvern.
"I yield!" he shouted, stepping back and throwing his hands up.
"Coward!" screamed Gregor.
"Fuck you, jackass! I'm disarmed, she's not, and she's a weapon that will go through my armor like fire through cotton. Also, fuck you, just for good measure." He turned back to look at where I'd paused, waiting to stick a Mana Blade through him, and said, "d'ye need to run me through, or can I just sit over yonder?" He nodded toward the edge of the Green where the bleachers had stood during the concert.
"Nah. Go take a load off and enjoy the show."
He took a step, then paused. "You need any help with that?" At my look of confusion, he nodded to my chest.
I looked down to see the goddamned crossbow bolt still sticking out of me. "Nah." I shook my head. "Thinking of leaving it there as a fashion statement. Fuck your lazy nipple piercing, I'mma have a lung piercing."
His eyes popped a little, but he backed off and headed for the sidelines.
Just then chica gigante stepped out of the river onto the field. She'd armed herself with what looked like a pair of weaponized ski poles, or maybe like those pointy sticks guys on work release use to stab trash with. Right about then I realized I was, in fact, the trash she intended to stab. One long pole stabbed, the deceptively short spike at least as long as I was tall plunging into the ground as I sidestepped. I leapt onto the pole itself, dashing up it as she pulled it back, bringing the other pole around to smack me. My chest twinged a little, but next to the shit I'd gone through before now, it wasn't anything I couldn't ignore. Just before her other pole swept me off, I leapt, bringing my Mana Lance down in a full body stab aimed her center mass.
Before you say anything else, I figured I could even out my body piercing disadvantage, judge her capacity for taking a hit, and maybe, if I got lucky, convince her to give up with one shot.
Then my spear penetrated her patchwork leather about as well as cooked spaghetti would penetrate brick.
Her patchwork, leather tied, above all scaly leather armor.
I Translocated backward, landing most of the width of Green away from her. At that distance I realized that if she stood dead center, she'd be one long leap and lunge from skewering me no matter where on the Green I stood. Time to break out the supposedly witty banter. "Damn! Surprisingly useful fashion statement!"
She growled out, "thanks," then came charging at me, slamming the point of her pokey stick at me as I Translocated behind her and took a desultory swing at her Achilles tendon. Her scaly boots meant that she took no damage other than a bit of a stumble and some scored scales where the actual blade of my swordstaff had sliced the outer leather to show the big, heavy scales beneath. "It has pockets."
"Really? Holy shit, that's awesome! The Dress is awesomesauce wrapped in hot sex, but I practically have to stuff stuff up my cooch if I don't wanna carry it in my hands."
"So, easy access, then?" she queried as her other poky stick thrust down. I Translocated behind her and slashed at her back; no joy there either, although again the leather split, revealing the Dragon scales beneath.
As I danced around her dodging pokey sticks, I called out, "Ouch. I mean, yeah, but why you gotta go there? Do you have some kinda skin in this game I'm unaware of? While we're at it, I'm guessing you know I'm Jarl Tabitha Diaz, High Priestess and Champion of Loki, all that good shit, but who the fuck are you?"
Without pausing for breath, which I realized might be a problem what with my unintentional fashion statement, she replied, "I am Olga, daughter of Skasn. You killed my brother."
"Prepare to die? Sorry, sorry, that was uncalled for."
"As father says, he brought it on himself when he wouldn't surrender. I'm not so much aiming to kill you as aiming to hurt you bad enough to make you quit, but I won't be really broken up if I do happen to crush your head or something equally useless yet critical."
I hopped up to her shoulder and slashed at her face, but she jerked away. She got a cauterized slash through her earlobe, I wound up having to Translocate and roll. "I dunno, I'm still sensing some real hostility there. You two weren't, like, closer than sibs ought to have been, were you? Not judging, only really am, but totally not, really."
She snorted, thankfully without spraying snot all over the place, just an expression of disgust at my ongoing patter. "Hardly. My baby daddy," my brain translated that from god-knows-what, and the momentary oddity stopped me enough that she caught me on the backswing of her next stab, knocking me head over heels. "would object, I think." More stabbing, more dodging, and my chest burned just a little bit. Leaked a little too, I think, but that might have been sweat. "I would like to know what you've done with my son William."
I shook my head as I danced away from her. "Uh, Willy? No clue, Olga. Seriously, the only Willy I know isn't yours. Even if you're the first woman I've met who defines 'statuesque' better than his mom. I mean, she's pushing eight feet, but I think each of your tits does that, easy."
She shook her head, her next poke a feint, her foot coming down where I'd Translocated an instant after I rolled away. "How can you say you know him not? We fight upon his green!"
I leapt as far from her as I could, mouth agape. "Seriously?"
She paused her own self. "Why would I lie?"
"Your son is Big Jarl Johnson?"
"He is my precious baby boy and I will not have anyone, woman or man, doing him ill."
I coughed, and I'm pretty sure most of it wasn't the bolt through my chest. "Uh... speaking of doing and ill..."
She growled, words rumbling through the ground. "If you claim your Maenad found him insufficient..."
I slung my swordstave, waving both hands in negation. "NO! No, no, no, no! He's, ah, presently, like right at this moment," I stepped right beside her ear and, unamplified, stage whispered, "fucking my mom."
I stepped back to my previous position as she stood there looking more than a little stunned. "That... seems backwards."
"I know, right?" I paused. "Okay, I know this is indelicate as fuck and shit, but... I gotta ask. His dad?" She pointed down and to her right. Right at fuckin' Svart. I lost it, dropping to the ground, clutching my sides and laughing.
She charged, her pokey stick pulling back. On her second step, I Co-Located around her feet, rope darts flying, darts sliding through bone hoops, weaving themselves together and through her boots. All of me grabbed the one dangling end and pulled. I'd intended to do this to Olaf, but he was just too big and, not to make to much of a point of it, stinky. Besides, Saffron say 'conquer, no kill', so I conquer, no kill. She toppled forward, going completely airborne as she tripped while sprinting. She faceplanted, toppled forward, and her ass landed well outside the Green.
"Just in case you get ideas about arguing shoulders and shit." One of me Translocated next to Svart, put an arm around him, and said, "enjoy the show!" before all of me swarmed her. As she dragged herself back onto the green and pushed herself back to standing, my swordstaves spun like rotary blades. No Mana Blades, just Smith forged steel slicing apart each and every wyvern leather thong holding her armor together. Bit by bit it fell away, until by the time she got back to her feet she stood there in her smallclothes and the few Dragon hides that had stuck to her skin from sweat or whatever. She looked down, and I tried not to think about how much blood must have been involved in making her blush from scalp to tits.
I collapsed into one of me, facing her from half a green away. I held my swordstaff behind me horizontally, then extended one massive Mana Blade from each end, either one big enough to decapitate her with a swing. Before I could open my mouth, she threw one arm across her chest, one hand over her crotch, and squeaked out, "I yield!"
I nodded, then stood there catching my breath as she strode off the field, dropped into a crouched tailor's seat, then reached out to scoop up Svart and dump him in her lap like an armored plushie. "WOMAN! I have told you before! I am not a toy!"
"Shut up and let me pretend to have some dignity, please?" she muttered, and if he crossed his arms and looked grumpy, he also shifted to pretty much block any view of her crotch.
No idea what had her panties twisted. Not like I had any to twist, with Saffron just putting my cooch on display for all an sundry to gawk at. I will not comment on exactly how thrilling I found the idea of all and especially sundry gawking with poorly restrained intent. Sundry's kinda hot. I think at some point in the past few minutes I'd shed, at least temporarily, the thought that anybody at fucking all would actually get access without me allowing it.
Right about then the world exploded in blinding light and deafening thunder. I shuddered, my back arching, my arms flung back, as somebody poured more juice into me than the heavens themselves had during our performance of Thunderstruck. Smoke and pork filled my nostrils, and I forced myself to shape a tiny oblong Filtration ward around the burning bolt through me. The lightning stopped, and I slid backward off of the brilliantly glowing shit inside the Ward. Fortunately, I thought shit had cauterized. Unfortunately, I now had a hole big enough to fit a Menace arm through me. Maybe a Saffron arm if we lubed it up real good. I tried really hard to not think about how much lube was freely available as I pushed myself to my feet and looked back toward the river.
Weyson stood there, hands in front of him in a pose I'd seen Mages use. "Surrender now, Jarl Diaz. You cannot win."
Somehow his words didn't match his absolute disinterested deadpan. I picked up my swordstaff and, maybe limping the slightest bit from the pernicious hint in my holey chest, walked toward him.
"Surrender. Now. Jarl. Diaz," he continued, punctuating each word with a Fire Bolt big enough to vaporize my head. At some point the pissed off point had tipped, and I batted them each aside with my blades, advancing at a slow, deliberate walk. "King. Gregor. Will. Defeat. You."
Something didn't jive, and I couldn't tell if it was Weyson doing some shady sneaky shit or if he just hated Gregor enough to throw the fight. Then again, it could be both. "Uh, have you been paying attention so far?"
"It. Matters. Not." The closer I got, the less time I had to block his fuckin' Fire Bolts, but he wasn't really varying them up much. "The. Longer. He. Fights. The. Stronger. He. Becomes."
I split my staff just to give me two swipes at any given Fire Bolt. "So I kill him fast then. No problem."
Weyson smiled sadly and shook his head. "He's. Been. Fighting. Since. Ericson. Charged."
I actually stopped walking at that point, blocking his Fire Bolts with desultory disdain. "Motherfucker."
I almost missed a block, the Fire Bolt passed close enough to sear my unarmored shoulder, the pissed off flowed, and I charged. I extended Mana Blades as I raced at him, sidestepping when he tried to Fire Bolt me. I leapt, brought them down straight at his head...
...and faceplanted into a Filtration Ward a moment after they bounced off. He stood there watching as I slid down the frictionless outside of the Ward, groaning out, "motherfucker." What, I'd already fought three of these five fuckers, if my mouth decided to channel the spirit of Samuel L, I sure as fuck wasn't gonna stop it. Some part of my brain wondered at the lack of squeaking sound until my feet hit the ground and I stepped back, shaking my head to clear it, wondering at the lack of Fire Bolts. Weyson stood there, his formerly pristine robes sweat soaked, his hair plastered to his head, bent over, panting with his hands on his knees.
I poked his Ward with my Mana Blade. No joy. I dismissed the Mana Blade and waved it forward, then threw it at him. It bounced off another Ward inside the outer ones. I closed my eyes, sighed, then remembered something. I stepped back to the middle of the Green and grabbed up Svart's discarded hand axe.
"I... yield..." he panted out, barely able to speak. "Help?"
I laughed as I used the axe to cut him out of his bubbles. Of course, the moment I cut the last one I grabbed his robe and stepped him to the side of the Green, shoving him outside as Gregor lumbered through the spot we'd been in. The fucker reminded me of nothing so much as the goddamned Juggernaut, leaving huge stomped footprints in the dirt. I stepped behind him, bringing my swordstaff down onto his shoulder, the strongest cut I could make.
It bounced. Okay, it left a tiny scratch, but no way did I have enough go left to put enough scratches like that in him to get through his armor, let alone kill him.
Then he spun, faster than I thought possible for a guy in armor that heavy, and backhanded me. I swallowed a tooth as I flew backward toward the edge of the Green. I wound up having to Translocate before I left the Green. Twice. Eventually I tumbled to a stop, only to see him stomping toward me a moment later. I extended one of my long, pointy Mana Blades and charged him, aiming at the notional slit at the front of his helm. When I hit it tore the swordstaff from my grasp; I slid forward until I could look right in through the slit to see nothing but more Cold Iron. No idea how the fucker was tracking me. Probably sound. Maybe mirrors. Fuck if I know, but he grabbed me around the waist and squeezed.
Desperate for any kind of edge, I tried to think of anything. I grabbed his helmet with one hand and punched him over and over and over in his armored head as he squeezed me. "Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep!" He pulled me closer, and when my tits squashed up against his faceplate I screamed as my skin sizzled. His eye slit might not be white hot or anything, but it definitely had enough heat to burn my bare titties. Further enraged, I hammered his head faster and faster until all I could hear was the constant reverberating ring. It must have pissed him off, because he roared, reared back, and headbutted me.
The headbutt broke another tooth and flung me backwards out of his arms to tumble to a stop in the dirt. When I looked up, he trudged toward me. Not sprinted, or ran, or even walked, but just trudged. Scrabbling for stories, I sprinted toward him, and when he raised one fist to swing at me, I dropped to slide right between his legs. "This is where you fall down." My fist hammered up right into his armored taint, hitting him hard enough to pick him off the ground by like six inches.
He groaned again, then tried to stomp on me. I rolled free, but he punted me like a soccer ball. I wound up having to translocate three times this time, and wound up lying next to the end of the gangplank as he trudged toward me. At least the slow as fuck asshole gave me plenty of time. I just needed something stronger. Stronger attack, stronger story, something. A gust of wind blew past, reigniting the feeling of fire on my nips in a screamingly unpleasant way. The pieces fell into place, but I had one concern.
Hey Boss?
Yes, Daughter?
Is it against the rules to steal another Trickster's Story? Or, y'know, borrow it? Or even a tiny piece of it?
You ask about rules and Tricksters in the same breath?
Okay, yeah, true, but... professional courtesy?
We do have that, to some degree. It is why we are, when all else fails, the way Pantheons communicate with one another.
Okay then. I'm a little busy, but could you let Sun Wukong know I'll pay him back?
As you wish, Tabitha Diaz.
Thanks, Boss. You're the best.
I know.
Gregor almost upon me, I stepped to the far end of the Green. I set my feet, twisted my waist half away from him, and bunched my hands together at my waist, palms out. "Kah!"
He turned immediately and trudged toward me. I drew Mana, sucked it into me greedily, as much and as fast as I could standing in the Mortal Realm. My hands ached as they glowed. "May!"
Gregor was a quarter of the way across the green. Power seeped up through my arms, tore at my scars old and new, flooding through me, burning me from the inside out. I never stopped screaming. "Hah!"
Gregor was halfway across the Green. My scars stood out as blackened lines across my burning, glowing skin. The ground under me rumbled, a glowing river forcing itself up over my feet; The Dress' boots glowed as brightly as my skin. "May!"
Gregor was three quarters of the way across the Green. The Mana tried to tear me apart at my seams, at my scars, when suddenly the Dress soaked up the worst of the excess; it glowed as white as my skin, my hair, the power around me. "Hah!"
Right before he reached me, I spun, extending a quarter-inch wide Mana Blade straight at the middle of his face, pouring every bit of Mana I'd soaked up, every bit I pulled from the Ley Line I'd yanked from underground, every bit the Dress held onto for me, into that one tiny Blade.
The moment it touched his faceplate he froze, as if he'd just walked forehead first into a wall. His forehead glowed faint red, then yellow, then white hot. A moment later it punched through entirely, and all the energy in the Mana Blade poured into that tiny hole. A moment later it blew through the back of his helmet, and a wave of steam and assorted vaporized fat blasted out of every tiny opening in his armor. I hopped out of the way to avoid his collapsing corpse, stepped to the middle of the Green, glanced at the three me-fight-survivors, then looked across the river at the villagers and visitors who'd collected there to watch.
"Okay, everybody." I growled, amplifying my voice to be heard across the river. "That's it. I win. All Gregor's shit is now officially, legally, mine. For now, so long as nobody gets dead or injured or robbed or raped or anything else that would piss me off, you guys can do whatever the fuck you like until I'm ready to sort shit out properly."
People in the village started hopping around, miming 'the wicked witch is dead' pretty fuckin' clearly. A moment later their cheers reached me. "Right at the moment, though?" I waited until they all got quiet before leering straight up and learning that Marie, Saffron and I had worn matching panties today.
"I'm late for brunch."