Dear Diary,

Apparently when my brain says, 'I can do this, I can take it, I can keep going!' my body occasionally replies with 'no you absolutely can the fuck not'.

So Mimic Dreams all day long, starting with chibi Hibachi Chef Saffron yeeting shrimp into my mouth all day, followed by looking at the stones board all night. The white stones had taken a bunch of the middle of the board, where they'd run into my black stones. I idly wondered, if the white stones surrounded my big formation of black stones in the middle, as well as the smaller group to one side, and I found a way to yeet some black stones into the middle of their formation, would it look anything like a Taoist symbol?

Woke up surrounded by not just my family, but the horde of kidlets forming a second blanket on top of the covers. Would it be horde or hoard? I mean, yeah, 'horde' is the term for a bunch of self-mobile things moving in a flock, but I could totally see Marie hiding them away and jealously guarding them. Marie's horde hoard? Hordeling hoard? Yeah, that sounded about right.

Still felt kind of creaky tired, which wasn't surprising with how much I'd pushed myself, not to mention the adrenaline fueled one versus eight shit on 'our limbs don't detach easily' Hard Mode. My scars ached faintly, and I had that vaguely peckish feeling that I'd always associated with healing up after getting seriously sick. Did that way more than I liked to think about back in Camden, at least once a year. Something about schools with climate control systems that hadn't been updated since the second world war. At any rate, unless I decided to go full on NC-17 villain and eat the kids, I couldn't do anything about the hungry, but the tired was a different story, so I just lay there chilling with the fam and Isnomi's friends.

For a while I'd worried that what with her accelerated learning, she'd wind up not socializing properly. I think that might have happened to me, sorta, since an auntie had taught me how to read before kindergarten, and my mom kept me inside a lot since, y'know, Murder City wasn't so much known for its kid-friendly atmosphere. Sometimes it had seemed like all the other kids got to go out, especially once I hit kindergarten and got to hear them going on about it. Think that might have been what originally prompted my truancy maybe. Then again, maybe my mom had caught the Bad Kid vibes off me and didn't want a grandkid before I was ten.

Whichever it was, I no longer worried about our little menace. I'm not even sure these kids had played with each other much prior to her introduction. I just can't see the Dan moms letting their rug rats play with the little Bag crotch goblins, y'know? Of course Isnomi had given that bullshit exactly as much weight as it deserved, and the munchkins snoozing on the bed had every shade I'd ever seen on a person from platinum blond to flat black. That's without going into the one little girl who had flame red hair with fucking green highlights. Colors not found in nature indeed. I know, I know, as a Latina I'm supposed to go for that weird orangey pink hair, but in the first place I wasn't one to kowtow to stereotypes, and in the second place it really clashed with my skin tone so I'd shaved my head.

My mom freaked out about that one, lemme tell ya. Which she hadn't done about the weird hair color. Maybe I'd gone truant to get her attention?

I was interrupted in my musing about my pre-Isekai life and Isnomi's socialization by a rumbly purr coming from the far side of the bed, followed by Saffron saying, "good morning, sleepyhead."

I glanced over to see both Saffron and Marie looking at me, smiling. "Hey you two. How long was I out?"

Saffron shrugged. "You slept through the day with Marie mostly keeping an eye on you to make sure you didn't do anything stupid. Some time shortly after sunset, while the rest of us were getting ready for bed, you muttered something in Japanese, I think. You quieted down when we all piled onto the bed, though."

I looked at her, sudden mischief taking control of my brain. "Can you cook?"

"Not especially well, but I seem to have found a career where it's not required. Totally not planned at all, I assure you." She delivered that last line with a wicked little Grin on her face that convinced me she'd totally planned for that.

"Would you mind learning to cook something specific and special for me?"

She shrugged. "I'm not opposed to the idea. What did you want?"

"Hibachi shrimp." When she looked a bit nonplussed, I looked at Marie, only to have her shrug and shake her head. "Garlic butter shrimp cooked on a griddle." Marie pondered that half a moment, then nodded her head. "Nothing urgent, or even important really. Just got reminded how much I liked it by dreaming about it yesterday."

By this point the kids had started waking up, most of them meandering toward the bathroom when they'd gotten upright. Given that even I could smell the pumpkin spice wafting off me, I figured it was time for me to get a bath as well. Once we had our bathtime production line set up, I asked Saffron, "I'm assuming since you're here with me that the siege hasn't started yet?"

Saffron shook her head. "On the contrary. The Calverton Army showed up around midday yesterday. They didn't attack on arrival, which I suspect is because they'd pushed hard through the snow rather than taking the roads. They spread out to cover the south, east, and west roads, but they don't have the manpower to fully encircle us and still maintain a strong enough central force to breach our defenses."

"Speaking of manpower, what do the numbers look like?"

She nodded as she washed yet another Romper Room Ranger. "Calverton brought around three thousand Soldiers. We have one thousand and twenty Lancaster House Volunteers plus another two hundred and seventy of our Dragonclad Veterans. There's another two hundred and seventy Lancaster Volunteers and another thirty Dragonclad with Angel and Bill, who are presently two days west and one day north of us."

"They didn't move today?"

She shook her head and propelled her latest victim to me for toweling dry. "No; after the forced march, their evacuees needed a break. My instinct tells me to have them head east and gather up the last thirty Volunteers, as well as evacuating the last two farmsteads completely, then come south to us. They'd be here in three days, and would raise our numbers to roughly half that of Calverton."

"So why hadn't you had them start on that then?"

"It's your Expedition, thus your call. Also I wasn't certain, and wanted to make sure you didn't see any flaws in my plan."

"My gut says you're right, but you know what worries me most?"

She winced, although I'm not sure if it was thinking about the siege or the facet of the numbers she hadn't mentioned. "The Heroes."

"Yep. How many have you spotted behind the encirclement?"

She thought about it while she scrubbed the tyke's hair, then said, "No less than a hundred, no more than one hundred fifty, which seems... low. Even assuming the plague took its toll on their Heroes."

"Yeah, but they've got those small bands of Heroes wandering around, like the ones that I ran into last night. Does not leave me thrilled at the idea of Angel and Bill traipsing around where they might get caught." We both went silent a bit, trying to think of a way to get our final group of troops and evacuees under cover without putting them at undue risk.

Eventually Saffron spoke up. "There's one other thing; I managed to scry on Gary and Rowena."

"Really? Cool! How are they doing?"

"It looks like the plague didn't hit their lands nearly as hard as it did Lancaster House. They're each marching south with another dozen or so units of Volunteers."

I toweled the next tot dry and scooted them toward Marie for dressing. "Cool! How soon will they be here?"

"Unfortunately, I didn't recognize the part of the road I saw them marching on; the best I could get from the angle of the sun is that they're marching southward."

"That means we've got another six hundred troops that haven't arrived here yet. What would that take the numbers to?"

She paused a moment before continuing to rinse the next kid. "Roughly two Volunteers for each three of their Soldiers. It would also bring us up to ten Cadets and one Hero to face their Heroes. We'd be facing ten-to-one odds on that score."

"Well f... fudge. Nowhere near being able to scare them into backing off. Do you think we could hold the fortifications here?"

"As things stand right now, if only troops were involved? Probably. If we had those extra troops? Definitely. Lancaster House itself is basically a huge keep in the center of a large fortification, with room in the keep for all of our evacuees plus enough supplies to keep us for long enough that the Grand Army could arrive well before we ran out. But..."

"But that doesn't account for their Heroes."

Saffron sent the last kid at me, and as I toweled them dry she said, "No it does not. Which is why I'd considered just bringing Vulcan and eliminating their army from the roof of Lancaster House."

I winced as I finished drying the kid and sent them toward Marie. "I suspect there might be collateral damage. I was also hoping to end this with minimal bloodshed. We've already had enough people die from Apollo's bad aim and the douchebags formerly known as Lancaster." I thought about it a bit, I'd almost given it up for a bad deal and told Saffron to go get Vulcan when inspiration struck. "Wait a second, did you see Ares' High Priest?" At Saffron's nod I asked, "what about Calverton's Commander?"

"Yes, although oddly enough Ares' High Priest isn't commanding their Army."

I shook my head. "He wouldn't be. Despite him telling them this is all our fault, he's still an outsider. If he's not in charge, that means there's enough of a gap still that we might convince them he's been lying to them, or at least wrong about us."

"But how, though?"

"I've got an idea, but I'm still working out the details."

Saffron held out a hand to me. "Shall we chat about it over breakfast?"

I stepped into the tub and let her scrub me down, then returned the favor. Marie, who'd hustled the kids down to breakfast, returned, sat down in a rocker over by the armoires and dressing area and took out her sewing. Which looked like it included my uniform from yesterday. Saffron and I might have scrubbed each other just a touch more than absolutely necessary, but I wrote it off as one of the perks of being in charge and getting the big suite with the bathtub.

Once we'd dried off, Marie made to hand me my uniform, but I shook my head. "I think you and I need to do the High Priestess thing today, Kitten."

She just nodded, and Marie moved to an armoire that it seemed had been dedicated to just The Dress, Glowing Midnight, and their boots. After a few minutes of dressing, mostly getting boots on, we headed to breakfast. When we arrived, Lachlan let out a whistle as Saffron and I walked to the table. I think he might have choked on his water when we kissed before parting to our respective sides. Larry just asked, "were you intending something religious today, Commander? Blessing the troops, perhaps?"

"Not exactly." I answered, then thought of something to add to my plan. "Hey, do you have any clothes in, like, Lancaster House colors?"

"You're assuming Lancaster House has its own colors?" Before I could reply, he chuckled and continued. "Of course we do, and while it's been a bit since I wore it, I do have some formal wear in those colors. Red and blue, with rose patterns."

"Can you fight in it?"

He tilted his head. "I'm not certain if I can, since I'm not quite certain I still fit in it. I could have it altered and include gussets, of course, but that might take a bit."

I looked over at Marie. "Can you alter it for him before noon, love?"

She nodded and replied with an unusually forceful, "Yes."

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"There you go then. I've got a plan to end this with absolute minimum loss of life, but it's going to be a little dicey. I think it'll go better if we leaned less on our 'Phileo' and more on our religions or houses."

Lachlan spoke up. "Did you want me to wear my Lancaster House colors as well?"

I shook my head. "Nobody wearing the Hero uniform would look suspicious. You're technically the only full fledged Phileo Hero here, so it makes sense for you to wear that."

At that point breakfast arrived. It wasn't quite the endless buffet I'd gotten used to, but Lancaster or more likely Bonnie had already decided to ration things a little bit. So long as everybody still got enough I couldn't gainsay them, and everything still hit the top notch quality I'd come to expect here at Lancaster House.

As soon as breakfast was done, I kissed Marie, Saffron, and Isnomi, then turned to the rest and said, "if Calverton decides to attack today despite being still pretty strung out from those forced woods marches, I want Saffron to bring Vulcan and just end them. I'm trying for as few casualties on both sides as possible, but I'm not about to lie down and let them kill us. Got it?"

At a chorus of 'yes, ma'ams' from everyone, including a bemused Saffron and Isnomi and her gang, I stepped to Northbridge. Makeshift tents covered the square, and every chimney in town had smoke coming out. Across the bridge looked the same. I got a little confused, what with the tents everywhere, why nobody'd pitched a tent on the bridge, until I realized that the breeze over the water would be fuck no levels of cold. I walked over to Northbridge's town square bell and rang it a bunch of times. Reacting to the bell, people crawled out of tents and opened doors. Eventually I saw the Mayor of Calverton City step out of his door, and stopped ringing the bell to walk over to him.

"Good Morning, Mayor."

He seethed at me, but replied, "hello, Butcher," in a relatively calm tone of voice.

"Yeah, about that." He went tense. "In a battle? I'm totally gonna wreck the shit out of the folks on the other side. But right now? I really don't think we're on different sides."

"Why in the name of the Gods would we want you on our side?"

I sighed, trying not to shift back into a habitual Parade Rest. "Maybe a little bit because if you're on the other side and shit goes sideways, I will be wrecking the ever loving shit out of everything you hold dear. But for the most part? Because every city from New Amsterdam to Calverton, Phileo and the Yards included, has gotten fucked over by the same two people."

"Who would that be?"

"Apollo and Ares."

He frowned at me. "Apollo is a lord of disease, yes, but Ares sent his High Priest from Phileo to succor us in our time of need!"

I shook my head and let out a little sigh. "Yeah, about that. Prior to this," I nodded at the refugees everywhere, now crowding in to hear the Mayor and I speaking. "I'm guessing the common folks didn't mix very much with the upper crust in Calverton?"

The Mayor shrugged, but answered. "Some of us are duty bound to work with the lower classes, and we hold that duty sacred, but we don't generally socialize with them."

"I'm guessing a High Priest of Ares did socialize with your 'upper classes'?"

He nodded. "Of course."

"And shortly after he arrived your 'upper classes' started getting sick, didn't they?"

The Mayor's reply died as he stood there, mouth half open, finally picking up what I was putting down. Eventually his ramrod straight posture faded, and he hunched a little bit, like a bear about to maul somebody. "Son of a BITCH!"

"Husband of one, too."

He growled. "Are you saying he did this to us deliberately?"

I shrugged. "I'm really not sure if it was his plan or just a happy coincidence, but yeah. High Priests are just about immune to the symptoms of most diseases, it seems like, but they can still carry it and spread it. Which he totally fuckin' did. So all that shit you caught from the plague? Completely on Apollo and Ares."

The Mayor frowned and glared at me. "What of the eight Heroes?"

"I'm real sorry about those evil fuckers formerly known as Lancasters. I meant what I said when I told you they'd gone rogue; we wanted them to do some scouting out to the river, just to make sure you guys weren't coming to invade while we recovered from the plague, but they went off plan and decided to go on an atrocity fest. We've disavowed them completely along with executing them and desecrating their remains for good measure." I decided not to add in the part about destroying their souls. People got antsy about that. Instead I heaved a sigh and said, "look, we didn't order them to do that, we didn't want them to do that, and we can't undo what they did, but I think I can undo a good part of what Apollo and Ares did for your survivors here."

"Why should we trust you?"

"Because either I'm a decent human being and I'm going to heal all of you, or I'm the monster Ares' High Priest told you I am, and you're all already dead if I want you that way."

He tensed, then let his breath out in a defeated sigh. "What do you want us to do."

"Do you think all your people could fit into a single open area near here?"

He paused a moment. "I think there's a field that would hold all of us over across the river."

"Get everybody up and over there as quickly as you can."

He nodded and started rousting people. I followed him around most of the morning, so I know he didn't slack off at all, or even stop for breakfast, but it still took until noon to get everybody gathered. Midway through the morning Saffron pinged me. Goof?

What's up, Kitten?

How's your plan going?

Better than I'd feared, worse than I'd hoped. Why?

The Calverton Heroes have begun trickling into their camp to the south of Lancaster House, and they've completed the encirclement. It's thin, but they've still got nearly a thousand troops to our south. Maybe enough to force a breach without the Heroes.

Stall them if you can. And get a parley flag ready.

Will do. Love you, Goof.

Love you too, Kitten.

Just after noon the Mayor turned to me where we stood in a field on the Calverton side of the river and said, "Now what?"

"Join them, I'll just be a minute." I stepped back to see the whole front of the crowd, pulling mana as I did. I immediately realized two problems. First, I couldn't see all of them over the heads of others, and second, even drawing all the Mana I could hold I didn't think my Mass Cure would stretch across the entire front, let alone the crowd.

Wasn't gonna let that stop me, though. I stepped to M-Space, dropped my Blend, and turned to face the long tentacle of shadow that stretched out to the inky blackness coating the mountaintops to the east of me.

MIMIC (Size)

I grew rapidly; in an eyeblink my foot was bigger than either of the fuckin' villages. Much like I'd done with my Blend, I pushed my MIMIC (Size) back down, but only until I stood big enough to see the entire clearing. Once I knew I had line of sight to catch them all with Mass Cure, I pulled more Mana. It flowed into me like a torrent from the tentacle at my back, filling up my expanded form. Way before I had all that I could hold I thought I had enough to cover all of them. I pulled more, just to be sure.

Then I pushed my Blend back up and stepped back to the Mortal Realm. Gasps and even a few screams reached up to where I towered above them, but before they could react, I Shaped. "Mass Cure." A golden cascade of healing energy rained down into the crowd, and most of the gasps and screams got replaced with coughing, silence, and then growing cheering as they some of them realized, then the word spread, that everyone among them had been Cured.

I turned my MIMIC (Size) off and stepped over to the Mayor. "Now I need a small favor from you."

He drew himself up. "I will not harm my people for you, or betray them in any way."

I shook my head. "Nothing like that. I just need you to come with me and confirm to the head of your Army that I've Cured your people here. I'll make a quick pass over everyone and Heal anybody who will die without it before we go, okay?"

His spine didn't bend, but his frown softened from offended to slightly confused. "I... can do that."

It took half of the afternoon to Heal the worst cases, because there had to be thousands of people in that crowd, and every tenth one needed a Heal. By the time I was finished, I'd coated myself in sweat despite the cold. The Mayor had followed me around sending people back to shelter as I cleared them. He gradually grew less and less confused, but I could see confusion being replaced by the deep seated anger of someone who knows they've been conned, and not just out of some loose cash or jewelry.

"You ready to go?"

"Absolutely, Bu... What is your name, anyhow?"

I grinned at him. "Tabitha Diaz, Commander of the PRE, Cadet at PCHA, High Priestess and Champion of Loki. Good to meet you."

With that I took his hand and stepped to the courtyard of Lancaster House. He gasped a little, although whether it was from the cold, from the sudden shift of scenery, or from the many Volunteers surrounding us I had no idea.

Kitten?

Yes, Goof?

Where you at? I got a VIP integral to my nefarious scheme.

I'm just inside the front gate, negotiating our parley. They want all their Heroes to attend, I'm pushing for just the General and a few aides, none of them to be Ares' High Priest.

Okay, let them bring up to ten Heroes, definitely let them include the High Priest, that's critical. Make sure we're allowed to bring you, me, Lachlan, Larry, "and the Mayor of Calverton," I said aloud as I stepped us both to her side.

She turned and gave our conditions to a runner who'd been waiting, who took off like a shot to the Calverton lines, where a small group of mismatched folks with a yellow and black theme unifying them, surrounded on both sides by a curving line of guys in yellow and black tabards. A few moments after he got there, after what looked like a heated but short discussion, twelve guys started toward us. We met about a third of the way out towards the Calverton troops, and the big guy in fancy armor at the front of their wedge announced himself. "I'm General Hargreaves, commander of what remains of Calverton's military. I'm not certain why you want this parley. Our City is dead, the only remainder a batch of refugees dying behind us as we speak. There is nothing left for us but vengeance, and with us dying as fast as our countrymen, I'm not keen on waiting for it."

I stepped forward, meeting his gaze. "General, I totally get where you're coming from. I wouldn't have done what I did at Newark if it hadn't been out of a burning need for vengeance. I wouldn't have done it the way I did, at any rate. So I get you. Thing is? While we sympathize with your people's plight, and we'll help out any way we can, we're not the ones who set the plague loose on your City. That's entirely on Apollo and Ares."

A dude in full on old-school Greek armor stepped from the group. "Lies! Base slander! The God of War needs no stupid tricks or underhanded tactics to destroy your foul cesspit of a City!"

"Yeah, about that, and about those refugees?"

The General growled out, "we will not allow you to hold them hostage, Butcher. They are dead men walking already."

"Yeah, about that." I turned to the Mayor of Calverton. "You want to tell him?"

The Mayor stepped forward, putting himself on the far side of me from Ares' High Priest, and said, "she Cured them all, Hargreaves. Cured them and Healed those who needed it. I believe she speaks truly."

The General frowned. "Why would you send your rapists to pillage us while we lay weakened by the plague then?"

I shook my head. "Wasn't us. They totally went rogue, although I wouldn't be surprised if Ares' had found a way to subvert them. I dunno what he'd bribed them with, but anybody sick enough to do the shit they did doesn't have the integrity to resist a bribe."

"LIES! She lies, and yet you let her stand here lying to you yet!"

Hargreaves cut him off with a raised hand, then looked back at me. "Why should we believe you rather than him?"

I nodded recognition of his point. "Well, two reasons I can think of. First, as a gesture of good will, if you'll give me a moment?"

I stepped to the top of the hill Lancaster House was built into, switching to M-Space as I did. I dropped my Blend and fired up the same power MIMIC (Size) I'd done at Northbridge, and pulled all the power I could hold. That took a while, even with the absolute tsunami of power coming from where Mimic occluded the mountaintops. I pushed my Blend up as high as it could go, then stepped back to the Mortal Realm. Starting with the North quadrant, then the East, West, and finally South where the bulk of the Calverton troops stood, I plonked down a Cure strong enough to fix Zeus' sex addiction on each of them. Sweating more than a little from the amount of Mana I'd spent so far today, I dropped my Mimic (Size), Co-Located next to myself, and put my Blend back to normal on one of me before stepping back to our little impromptu conference spot.

I hadn't realized, being tall as shit, but twilight had come; the sun's disc three quarters of the way beyond the horizon. Coughing greeted my ears, along with growing expressions of wonder. "Okay, all of you ought to be Cured at this point. If not, or if they need Healing, send them around and we'll take care of it. Consider it the least we can do after eight Phileo criminals escaped and went on a rampage in Calverton lands." I stopped talking to pant a little bit, because pulling and Shaping that much mana twice in pretty close succession hadn't been easy. I think the Shaping had taken as much out of me as anything.

"Don't believe her!" whined Ares' boot fellator. "She's obviously scared to face your justified wrath! Let me cut her down, and we will crush the filthy Phileans and take Lancaster House for our own!"

"Our. Own. Garland?" deadpanned Hargreaves.

I interrupted their little back and forth saying, "okay."

Both of them looked at me and simultaneously said, "what?"

I looked at Hargreaves and said, "Look, you're obviously on the fence. You want to believe me, to keep what remains of your people safe, and you want to think that we'd help you, but Ares' bitch boy over there has been whispering in your ear for a while now, and now he wants to kill me personally, along with everybody else here not wearing black and yellow. You're not sure which of us is lying. So tell me, since he's obviously chomping at the bit to do so, would you accept Trial by Combat, with Ares' boy toy over there championing the side of us all having a big knock down, drag out war?"

Ares' High Priest, apparently named Garland, which I can totally get as enough villainous backstory to want to fuck over his own City just to get to the one who named him, suddenly looked like he wanted to talk his way out, but Hargreaves, after a moment's thoughtful consideration, said, "Calverton can accept that, I think. Mayor? Do you agree?"

For his part the Mayor shrugged and said, "I can't think of a stronger potential duelist than a High Priest of Ares." He turned to us, grim humor on his face. "Unless one of you is secretly a High Priest of Bellona?"

"Nope. We'll accept the results as well. If our champion loses, we'll surrender, the only condition that you allow our women and children to return to Phileo."

"More trickery!" Garland's roar cut off mid-word as his voice cracked a little. "Unconditional surrender!"

The General looked at me, eyebrow raised, waiting for my counter-proposal. He apparently hadn't really grokked me. "Okay. Done." I looked back and forth to take in the assembled Heroes and Cadets. "If you could all form a ring and put up some Wards to prevent collateral damage?"

As they pulled apart into a wide circle, leaving Garland and I facing each other from maybe ten feet apart, he spluttered and swore under his breath at me. Something about raping my corpse with my slut sow's torn off limbs, I think. I'd stopped listening to him the moment General Hargreaves accepted my compromise. Once the thirteen mixed Heroes and Cadets had a circle of Wards up as I'd suggested, I put one big Ward overtop the entire area to prevent any stray projectiles from going overhead and landing in the troops.

General Hargreaves called out, "are the Champions ready to fight?"

Garland called out, "I am ready!"

I hollered, "Just a moment!" I turned to face Hargreaves and said, "I didn't say I would champion the side of Truth. Not sure it's appropriate anyway, me being the Champion of Loki and all that. Not fair in the slightest, and shenanigans might happen."

Garland spluttered while the General nodded and said, "Then who will be your champion?"

I turned my back to Garland, looked Larry right in the eye and called out, "it's your House on the line." Then, putting on my best Damsel in Distress voice, "will you be my Champion?"

A predatory grin stretched across his face. "Gladly."

I stepped to his side as my Co-Located, Blended self, who'd stood with a hand on his arm since I returned from the hilltop, stepped him to where I'd just been standing. I dropped my Blend just enough that he could hear me. "End. Him."