I didn’t want to wake up.

Everything hurt: my head, my stomach, my brain… I felt sick, exhausted, gross, and my skull was pounding. What had I been doing yesterday?

“Oh, right.”

A bad hangover feels like you are dying slowly. This felt like I had already died, was left to rot, and somebody revived me from the dead only to kill me again.

Something was forced into my mouth. A thick, nasty tasting syrup dribbled in. I really wanted to vomit, but I ended up swallowing anyway. If I was lucky it might be a hangover cure. If I was really lucky it might kill me. Either way, this hangover would be gone.

After a few moments, I felt like I wasn’t seconds from dying. Someone was yelling at me, but my hangover turned the voice into pounding pain. I feel like I blacked out again a few times, but eventually I woke up.

I was lying on my back with my legs curled up awkwardly. I looked waaaay too much like a dead bug. Moving hurt, too. My joints were stiff, like I had been clenching them too long.

“Manto, are you alright?”

“Ow.”

“Manto?”

“Too loud. Guh… give me a second.”

I got to my feet, but it was slow going. My legs were painful and weak, so I wobbled like a newborn calf. The room was spinning, and I felt like I was going to throw up. It wouldn’t be the first time; I could tell I already had vomited a couple times from the nasty feeling around my face.

Something was hammering on my brain, and the light was way too bright. I really wish I had eyelids right now. After a second of thought, I changed the color of my eyes to a reflective silver, and I was engulfed in soothing darkness. I heard someone make a concerned noise, but they stopped when I sighed in relief.

“Ahhh~ that’s a bit better.”

“You alright? Drink this.”

Even without the use of my eyes, I was able to hear people’s position. From the voice, it was the doctor. Reaching out and grabbing the object in the her hand revealed it to be another glass bottle. I chugged the unpleasant contents, and the pain and nausea eased a bit more.

“Did that help?”

I removed the reflective coating on my eyes slowly. The light didn’t pierce quite so badly anymore.

“Yeah, that helps, thank you.”

The doctor, I can’t remember her name, relaxed. She looked relieved at first, but then got this look in her eye that made me wilt internally. I didn’t see her much since I just don’t get sick. I do remember her looking after Mero a few years back, and the way she lectured everyone in sight stuck in my mind. As I was reminiscing, she took a deep breath and spoke in a slow, quietly angry tone.

“Manto, was this your first time drinking?”

“Uhh, yeah…”

She breathed through her nose quietly, then continued.

“So you didn’t know how you would react to alcohol, or if you could even drink it properly?”

“...I guess not.”

The doctor leaned closely and spoke in a low, even voice so viciously acidic that it could etch steel.

“So, despite the fact that you couldn’t know whether your body could process alcohol, you participated in those nitwit’s drinking game, substituting for Brokkr, who is a dwarf. And then, if that wasn’t enough, you drank a beverage that Allen so charmingly referred to as ‘Molten Mazzatello.’ According to Passer, that beverage was only kept in his bar due to tradition, and wasn’t actually for drinking. Allen snuck the bottle from the bar, since Passer had refused to actually serve the drink, and you actually drank it.”

She leaned back, but before I could get a word in edgewise, she took a deep breath and yelled her next few words.

“YOU. ARE. AN. IDIOT.”

She was loud. That was the kind of yell that you needed talent and experience to pull off. Only drill sergeants and opera singers could get that kind of volume. It felt like my head was going to split open, and I bet it would hurt even if I was perfectly healthy.

“ow... Please don’t yell while I have a hangover.”

“You do not have a hangover. People get hangovers as their bodies break down alcohol in their blood. Your body cannot break down alcohol. You poisoned yourself.”

“Oh…”

The doctor stood there glaring at me for a bit. One of the reasons I avoided her was because she always seemed to take illnesses personally. It was like she thought people got sick just to spite her. I understand that this whole fiasco is my fault though. I can’t really blame her for being mad. She grabbed my antenna and pulled my head close to her face, glaring into one of my faceted eyes.

“If you ever do something stupid like this again I’m going to pull out your spleen and feed it to you.”

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“I- I don’t think I have one of those…”

I really wish I hadn’t said that. She seemed like she was about to spontaneously develop heat vision just so she could kill me with her glare. I took a deep breath and gave my apology before she started yelling again.

“Look, I’m sorry. I should have been more careful, and I made some stupid decisions. I let myself get caught up in the atmosphere and didn’t think. I won’t do it again.”

The doctor’s eye softened a bit. She was still mad at me, just not as viciously so. Luckily Gryphus came in at that moment, so she settled for another acid glare before leaving. I was about to greet Gryphus when I saw his face. He wasn’t happy either. He waited for the door to close before he spoke.

“There’s not much to say that Sarida hasn’t said. What you did was thoughtless to the extreme. Did you even consider how everyone else would feel? Disregarding how many people rely on you, how would Astera react if you died like this?”

That hurt a lot more than when the doctor, Sarida, had yelled. I had made myself part of this huge family, and I had forgotten that in my carelessness. I remember how much it hurt to lose my family, and losing people in that kind of way was so much worse.

I didn’t say anything at first, but Gryphus seemed to understand. I spent the next few hours going around and apologizing to different people. It was the worst with the ones that were just disappointed in me. Others had been worried about me, and that was awkward in its own way.

Eventually, I was lead up to the Empress’ throne room. That was an apology I wasn’t looking forward to. I’d only met her a handful of times after that first meeting, but she still made me nervous. It had taken me awhile to notice it, but I was always relieved when I left her presence. She was scary, but in that real subtle way that forces you to constantly sit up and watch your manners.

I’d gotten a bit used to it, but today was an exception.

My limb’s regrowth had made quite a bit of progress. It actually made walking awkward, since the new foot was too short and stubby to use effectively. I was forced to grow a tripod of spikes around the ankle that extended past my mini foot to move properly. The stairs were as long as always, which made me think of this.

When I walked in, there was a table set up at the foot of the Empress with a bunch of the leaders around. I was in luck. The Empress hadn’t called me for a lecture; this was a meeting. I think I know what for, too.

They had started without me. The table was covered in maps, with what looked like board game pieces covering it. I’d seen something like this before the battle. During the final stages of the planning for war, they had used one of these to fine tune the strategy. That hadn’t been important to me; I was a sledgehammer, not a scalpel.

If this was going to be a counterattack, I would need to do more than find someone important and kill or stop them. Of course, I would probably still be moving independently; I just wasn’t experienced enough to cooperate efficiently. It didn’t bother me though, because I like rampaging; it’s fun.

“Ah Manto, we were just fine tuning your plan for the reprisal!”

‘Your plan’ he says. It’s giving me too much credit. I was just the first person to go: ‘Hey, let’s go invade Macedor, see how they like it.’ The only reason it was such a revolutionary idea was because the elves were so used to relying on their formerly invincible protection.

I settled into an empty spot and looked at the map. It was surprisingly empty. Apparently Macedor was mostly farmland. The cities were arranged rather oddly as well. The country was sort of pear shaped. Most of the larger cities were concentrated in the ‘neck’ of the pear. I wonder if there’s a reason for that?

The pieces of carved and painted wood representing troops and other resources were scattered about, with most of them gathered at the towns and cities. The southeast border was especially full of them. Unfortunately, Honeywood forest was southeast of Macedor.

I didn’t speak at first, trying to get caught up with what everyone was saying. I figured that I would sound like an idiot if I just butted in immediately. I turned out to be right. There were a couple different strategies being thrown around.

The mission was reprisal, but what we really wanted was to make the idea of attacking Honeywood distasteful to the people making decisions. We needed to figure out how to do a bunch of damage to stuff that was important to the leaders of Macedor. That way, the next time someone plans an attack from their comfy armchair, they will remember what happened last time someone tried that.

“If we use a powerhouse to make an attack on the north barracks, we can draw Axios and his son away from the noble’s quarters, letting us assassinate most of the nobility.”

“I don’t think that would go over well internationally, if we set fire to the barracks here, here, and here, we can be sure of them getting the message without ruffling the feathers of Khemet or giving the Hittites an excuse to interfere.”

“But would that really dissuade the nobility? They don’t exactly value their people over there.”

“Hey Alexander, do you have a list of any Macedonian merchants that supply luxury items to their nobility? That would make a good target.”

“Yes. Here, let me grab the papers.”

I chose to chime in at this moment.

“Can someone mark out their monuments and things? It would be nice if we could smash those as a bonus. They’ll have a hard time forgetting what we did if we break their pretty statues.”

A couple people snickered at that. There was no love lost between Macedor and Honeywood, so everyone was enjoying the idea of messing with them and knocking them off their high horses.

When Alexander came back in, the Macedonian merchant companies had their warehouses and headquarters marked out with gold(ish) coins. The monuments to ‘Macedonian glory’ and their ‘noble’ rulers were marked with bronze coins. Someone also suggested destroying a couple aqueducts and a convenient bridge as well. Everyone liked that idea, although it wouldn’t be fast. Those were marked with some silver coins.

I tapped my whole claw on the edge of the table idly as we tried to figure the safest way to destroy as many of those targets as we could.

“Hey, what are the vips we have to fight? Any powerhouses?”

Alexander slid me a couple portraits, and Gryphus leaned over and started explaining while everyone else kept planning.

“Macedor only has two powerhouses, but they have three others that are close to that level.”

“Any as dangerous as Mun-gi?”

Gryphus rolled his eyes at me.

“Manto, there are less than a dozen at mister Mun-gi’s level on the entire continent. There’s no way Macedor has anyone like that.”

“Hey, I was just asking…”

“Anyway, the powerhouses are Axios and Laomedon. Axios is a spearman and Laomedon is a mage. Mage powerhouses are rare. Luckily, Laomedon isn’t considered particularly powerful for a powerhouse.”

“And the weaklings?”

“...They aren’t weak, they just aren’t true powerhouses.”

“Gryphus, I just fought ‘Vortex’ Mun-gi, and I drew a tie with him.”

“Okay fine, but nobody likes a braggart.”

I gave him my best smug grin. He understood, but another elf glanced my way and paled. Are praying mantis smiles really that scary? Gryphus ignored it and kept going.

“The three psuedo powerhouses are Mitron, Axios’s son and disciple, Kliment, an archer, and Peithon. We don’t know much about Peithon, just that he’s some kind of assassin.”

“That’s potentially bad.”

“Yeah, but we think he’s the type to use traps. Since he wasn’t sent with the army to attack us there’s a good chance that is true.”

“Why wasn’t anyone other than Mun-gi sent?”

“Overconfidence mostly. Also, the leadership of Macedor is notoriously paranoid.”

“So drawing out the powerhouses isn’t going to be easy.”

“Now that you mention it, yeah.”

We returned to helping with the strategy after going over the powerhouses and the three runner ups. The basic structure of the strategy was already decided. Several teams would begin destroying the targets furthest away from the highest priority ones. That would draw away the small fry while the main team charged the palace.

The tricky bit was dealing with the powerhouses, but that was more an issue of fighting power. I knew I couldn’t take all five at once, but if I had help then killing a couple weaker ones and occupying the powerhouses wouldn’t be impossible.

“The problem is: how do we make sure to draw in all the vips?”

I piped up at that.

“My trump card will probably do the trick, it’s flashy enough.”

The Empress leaned over, interested. She was looming over the table.

“Do you mean the form you took during the battle? That was certainly unnerving, even to us.”

“No, I mean my max size, but that might be good too.”

A couple elves I didn’t know too well looked towards me. One of them switched between looking at me and the Empress while asking.

“I’m sorry, but what are you talking about?”

I grinned, making him flinch.

“Hey, if my smile upsets you, then you really won’t like my scary face. Anyway, I use shapeshifting to look scarier, but I can also change my size. Over the years my maximum height has gotten pretty ridiculous. It doesn’t help against someone as abnormal as Mun-gi, but the two combined should get people screaming pretty loud.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Gryphus shook his head at that question and I grinned even wider.

“Trust me: it will be a horror show.”