Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

I know what Saffron told me about letting the Alliance military stand on its own is true and important. I also know that what we said about Poser rabbiting if I straight up execute all of the kaiju at once is equally true. I even know that given how hard it’s been finding him in the vastness of the Atlantic when I don’t think he’s technically been hiding, finding him if he rabbits to somewhere like the Pacific is an absolute non-starter.

But heading off to find him, leaving my ladies and the Alliance Navy to face a dozen kaiju by themselves was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Letting them face those fuckers while I stood there, Blended to a fare thee well, watching ’just in case’ she decided I could tip the scales was even harder.

But I guess that’s why I get the glittering prizes. For doing hard shit. Giving and receiving stupid levels of violence. Pushing everyone to be better than what has gone before, even as my people, maybe aided by my land mass sized alter-ego, assigned me the Domain of Vengeance. Holding back when I really wanted to cut loose. Holding back even more when I found Poser, because I had a plan, and it involved something better than what I’d done before. Better, yet so, so much worse.

Of course, I’ve got to find his sorry ass first.

Saffron sent me in not long after dawn. By the time I finished with all of the kaiju I fought, all the airborne ones of this wave, especially the explosive stinky one that took so many cycles to destroy, I checked the sun to find it near setting. I Co-Located one of me back to each of the Tentacles, one to the Black Dragon, and Blended them to a fare thee well. One of me stayed atop the West Tower, pulling a slow but steady stream of Mana from my tentacles there. The last hit the waves and rocketed eastward, heading towards the dimly felt pain in the distance.

Aboard the Black Dragon, the highest point and the furthest east, I watched two humanoid figures approach, backlit by something in the water as the faint light the sun had shed through the oncoming storm clouds disappeared at sunset. As soon as their heads crested the horizon from the level of the armored bridge, Saffron’s voice sounded out over the PA system. ”Prepare to engage the southern target.” After a brief pause while the guns rotated, she spoke again. ”All guns, fire.”

A lance of fire and smoke extended from the first barrel of the turret. In the distance, a plumes of water rocketed upward. The kaiju on the right, who’d been bobbing forward like somebody in chest deep water, jerked once, then again, and finally its head snapped backward. It’s body rose to the surface, spread eagled, before slowly submerging.

”Five inch guns, fire at best speed... Belay that!” The second kaiju half turned, then screamed loud enough to be heard through the ongoing thunder and lightning. Then it dove underwater. ”Prepare depth charges!”

The light source, which up to this point had been following behind the pair of kaiju, shot forward, a long, thin, slithering shape of light. Moments before it arrived, Saffron spoke once more. ”Brace for impact!”

I grabbed the mast, waiting for the thing to ram us.

It didn’t. Instead, at the last possible moment it swerved around under the ship, then around behind. I spotted a pointed, moray eel like head, covered with patches of scintillating light that would have ruined my night vision if I relied on it. Before I could really decide what to do, Saffron called out, ”Tabitha!”

I leapt down, Co-Locating as I did, and sliced the head off the thing before I hit the deck. Fortunately, the deck was wood; I think that’s why the current flowing through me wasn’t enough to pop me like a balloon, just enough to stun the fuck out of me, leave me lying there in a growing pool of blood as the turrets turned a few degrees, then stopped as Saffron called out, ”Turrets one and two, stop rotation.”

I’m not sure if it was lucky or not for me to be staring at the shadowy figure that rose out of the waves to stride onto the shore. I wasn’t sure what I expected at that point, but it wasn’t a moonbeam punching through the storm clouds to highlight a figure that grew, and grew, and grew until Diana stood there, as tall as the kaiju and twice as pissed off.

Then she turned into a fuckin’ bear, and it was all over but the screaming.

Out to sea, I couldn’t tell quite locate the source of the stabbing pain. I had a kind of direction, and I steered toward it, but no sense of distance.

Back at the Tentacles, I realized that the kaiju weren’t really able to see in the dark. Kind of explained why they’d been paired with the luminescent sea snakes. Without the massive silhouette of an Iowa Class Battleship to look for, the big dumb fuckers almost didn’t notice the Tentacles. A couple of them wandered off to the north or south of our pickets. I tensed, ready to intercept, only to have Saffron think, hold, love. Our scouts will draw them to us or another of the battle groups.

That was some difficult shit to do. In the end I only saw two more of those fights. The first, when one of our little ships, what looked almost like one of those racing sailboats from back in the day, came racing toward the Seeking, a kaiju in hot pursuit, following our scout out of the shallower water toward the shore. It stomped and missed twice, and just as it’s foot came down a third time, Mana flared around it. The ship smacked into the ward with some horrifying crunching noises, but the kaiju howled like it had stepped on the world’s biggest fuckin’ Lego.

Then Saffron was there, kaiju big again, laying into the thing with her fists. It had maybe a head of height on her, but I wound up once again reminded that my Kitten has claws. Or, more to the point, she has close quarter combat Skills, or at the very least some basic combat training, and these kaiju weren’t even proper child soldiers. They were babies force grown to adult bodies, then forced into an eternal raging tantrum. Baby berserkers. Saffron didn’t even have to get ultra violent with this one; a few kicks took it from unbalanced to collapsed, after which she forced it into a submission hold. I’m not sure if it needed to breathe air, but if being underwater didn’t choke it out, her legs locked around its neck eventually did.

I only knew the sun had risen because I felt it in the sky, because the storm that raged above the coast blackened everything. Maybe mid-morning, I watched as between the Plundering and the Training, a kaiju chased a little schooner directly toward the shore. At one point it tacked to starboard, then back to port, leaving me mystified why it would let the kaiju even think about catching up, especially as it had almost hit land.

Then a spear bigger than a Tentacle’s mast came out of the water right between the thing’s legs. It roared, the schooner forgotten, as Olga stood. I realized right then that that kaiju, and by extension the rest of this wave, maybe, were smaller than ever. This one towered about twice Olga’s height, but no more than that. Unlike her last matchup, which had been toddler versus adult, at least in terms of size, this was short guy against big athlete. It had strength and reach, which it used to bring a round house punch toward her head. She brought up a shield at least the size of the Tentacle’s mainsail, and if the noise when the back of the shield hit her crown did not sound exactly pleasant, she roared her defiance up at the thing, then stabbed it three times before it recovered.

That fight went on for a while, as thunder and thunderous roars rang out in the distance from where I stood aboard each Tentacle. Eventually, well after noon, the big motherfucker, who’d made it to shore, at least enough that both kaiju and Queen stood with waves slapping against their feet, sank to it’s knees. It lashed out one more time; when it missed she pinned its arm to the sand, leaving her spear pinning it in place. She shook her head; I’m not sure what she said, but she moved around behind it as it crouched, then kicked it in the back of the head. The crunch echoed to both ships I watched from.

Right about then I realized that the source of my M-Space tentacle pain was behind the one of me searching for it. Kitten? I think I found him.

Go. With the advantage you’ve given us, we will survive.

Love you.

Love you too, Goof.

Attack dog?

I sighed, and thought back, not this time, Kitten.

I felt her smile. But I thought you would like the command I had in mind.

Oh? What was that again?

Neutralize.

What else could I say? Woof.

I collapsed all of me except the one on the West Tower, started shaping with that one, and stepped my searching self to M-Space. There, in the endless storming ocean, I leapt into the sky, wireframe vision picking out the leading edge of my tentacles, all of them writhing, reaching north. I Translocated that way a few miles at a time, until I saw tentacles in the distance reaching south.

And there, right in the middle, a humanoid figure standing on the surface of the ocean, laughing as he stabbed my bloody, perforated tentacle.

Yeah, I’m not at my best when I’m in pain. I had a plan, really I did, and this wasn’t part of it, but I blame Big Black. I hovered down until I stood a hundred feet above the wavetops, maybe a football field from his back.

”Yo! Poser! I heard you were looking for me!”