Dear Diary,

Kinda springboarding off of yesterday's wondering about how much being the Avatar of Mimic has affected me, I'm kinda wondering if I've affected Mimic. Like, yeah, I get it, I'm Mimic and Mimic is me, but obviously that means that the two of us have somehow melded together like some kinda freaky fusion thing. Specifically I'm wondering exactly how much of me spending most of my day spread across half a dozen different places doing half a dozen different things is, like, Default Mimic, and how much is my unmedicated ADHD ass doing four different things to let me focus, sort of, on a fifth.

The stuff I remember about Mimics from back in the day and what I know of Mimic here and now from, y'know, being her has more overlap than I originally realized. Like, I am a Shapeshifter. Specifically, if it weren't for Dad, I'd be able to turn into a perfect copy of anyone or anything I touched. I'm not sure exactly how that would work if I turned into a desk lamp or something, because while I still think I'm thinking like me, the fact that I can talk and mind-meld with Kraken makes me think that maybe I'd, I dunno, stop the questionably named 'thinking' that I normally do.

Shit, when it comes to 'stereotypes', from what I can tell I literally physically started out as a single tentacle stretched out of a big fuckin' chest, and first shapeshifted into something approximating me, then into an octopus, then into the Tabitha that all my here and now friends know and tolerate. 'Shapeshifting tentacle box' pretty much describes what I remember from the stuff I read. Yeah, video games usually left out the 'Shapeshifting', but not always.

At any rate, hopefully I'm not purely a murderous box of tentacles and hunger. I guess that's another reason I do all this journaling, to remind myself who I am, to try and keep myself from slipping into being a monster. Because sure as shit I've slipped really close to that once or twice. While I reluctantly accept that here and now was kinda shit eternally circling the drain when I arrived, and sometimes I'll have to do monstrous things to keep us headed forward, that doesn't mean I'm gonna let myself enjoy being the monster.

I kinda worry that sometimes I won't have a choice. Or that I won't notice how much I'm enjoying monstrous shit until I'm so far gone there's no coming back.

So yesterday after Spider and I finished up brunch, I focused more on the few of me in the Academy, because while Marie can in fact do true multitasking, I kinda wanted to let her focus on her fun. So I snatched up all of her, Mimicked her, left two of me in all those spots where I normally double teamed a task with her, and dragged all of her back to the West Tower in M-Space. The big screen isn't quite as big from the top, but it still gave us a decent screen size to watch her and Lemmy engage in Tomfoolery and Shenanigans.

Ultimate Sadness, when Mittens decided to take Lemmy for a test drive, it turned out that while he's as athletic as he is gorgeous, his Skills in non-fighting areas are sub-par. Not non-existent, and as we all know, Marie is a hard carry in duo queue, but still. Ally, we are disappoint.

She dropped him off in Boltophsberg when he started getting all self-congratulatory. After I needled her a little about being nice, she hopped back and dropped his clothes at his feet. Not sure what the other folks in the courtyard of Vyenemoinen's Palace thought about that, although I'm pretty sure at least forty percent of the other Deities in residence had seen it all before. Not sure about the rest of the folks there, and I'm really hoping I don't hear he's taking advantage of the household help or something similar, because he is, as evidenced by the fact that I can't stop commenting on it, dangerously pretty.

Really surprised me when, after we'd all had our dinner of fried rice, fried chicken tendies, and salad with some ginger dressing I whipped up, soaked away the stress of the day in the Bath, and gotten the kids and Siobhan into bed, she pulled me aside and absconded with me to the Bedroom. I mean, I still had one of me up on the Black Dragon's mast, and she had one of her on the Worshipping Tentacle, but other than that it was just her and me in the Bedroom when she looked me in the eye and said, "Boy, Please."

I complied, but as I did asked, "any particular reason?"

She sniffed derisively and said, "Bad Taste."

Really? I didn't notice that much. Yeah, my mouth was busy.

"Insufficient Skills."

Aw, does my Murder Mittens wanna be a pillow princess tonight?

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"Yes, Please."

Yeah, Co-Located one of me to the top of the West Tower to watch my ladies float around their big War Room floaty table in my Maw on their floaty Serious Chairs, Saffron tryna run some kinda Serious War Meeting while she and all the rest wound up distracted by the view on screen.

Sorry, Kitten.

That got me a sigh, followed by a, there's only so much planning which can be done when we know so little of our opponents' locations and speed. She followed that with an amused, at least this serves as a pleasant reminder that our Goddess loves us.

Dunno why, but that just rubbed me the weirdest wrong way. Yeah, not precisely 'love' in the Bedroom at the moment.

Is it not? Are you not doing exactly what your wife asked you to do? Why are you doing that again?

Because I love her, duh... Oh. Yeah. Sorry.

Don't be. Also, focus on what you're doing.

Yes, Kitten.

So while the rest of my ladies slept, continuing to Worship the two of us in their dreams, I spent the night helping Marie forget the taste of Lemon. Kyenin, that is.

Okay, most of the rest of the night. As the eastern horizon lit up with false dawn, and my ladies disappeared from my Maw one at a time, the waves to the east of the Black Dragon shifted oddly. It took me embarrassingly long to figure it out; a long, broad vee pointed right amidships.

I Shaped a PA Spell and a Ward at the same time, dropping the latter into the water off the starboard side as I screamed out, "INCOMING!"

The Ward shattered as something massive hit it below the surface, and a few moments later the entire ship rocked as something collided with us under the waterline. It scraped across the underside of the hull, and the whole ship listed to starboard far enough I wound up getting flung off into the water as it righted itself.

I collapsed into just the two of me; one in the water and one atop the West Tower, pulling Mana for all I was worth. Kitten! Some kind of aquatic kaiju off the port bow off the Black Dragon!

Her voice, calm and controlled, helped me center myself as I shot westward, trailing behind a massive shadow. On it. Focus on the kaiju.

It fled, I followed. I realized after a few seconds that it wasn't running; its path curved around in a broad southward arc, bringing it up behind the Black Dragon. Incoming from the South!

As I called out, I leapt to the helipad, then leapt into the water, forming another Ward, this one deeper, stronger. I finally got a look at the thing I was fighting when it pushed itself over the Ward, half its bulk coming out of the water as it did. The thing was almost as long as the Black Dragon, and where my ship was armored in steel and Cold Iron, she was also fundamentally hollow compared to a living thing, and while my ship was fast, the kaiju whale was catching up to her, even as it slowed down to avoid the Wards I dropped in the water to block it. I kept jumping to the helipad then into the water to get ahead of the thing, and it kept going over, under, or smashing right through my Wards, although when it did that last it slowed down a little, at least.

Danger close.

I leapt to the helipad, dropped prone, and covered my head with my hands, because I did not want to be in the water with the guns firing at the kaiju.

Unfortunately, I am an idiot.

Fortunately, the sixteen inch guns do not actually fire grapeshot or anything like it. Unfortunately, as the rounds flew over my head, the overpressure blew me straight off the fuckin' stern. As I tumbled after the shells, I saw splashes from beside the ship. Then thunder rolled, and everything went black.

I didn't pass out or anything. I just had the absolutely awful luck to get chucked down the gullet of the fuckin' kaiju. For an endless moment I tumbled ass over teakettle, burning blood soaking every inch of my body. Just as I got my bearings to step away, some kind of pressure wave squished the kaiju like the fuckin' hammer of god, which left me dizzy and stumbling around it's gullet.

Are... okay, love?

I'd missed a couple words, but the big fuckin' thing that had swallowed me whole hadn't stopped moving. Wound up in the belly of the beast. Gonna fuck shit up from here.

Which is exactly what I did. Mana Blades extending out in all directions, I rampaged. I lashed out in every direction, eventually cutting my way through its belly, only to be blasted back into the thing by water rushing in. At that point I turned around and carved my way the other way, my skin burning from what I guessed was some kinda digestive juices. I think I was screaming, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure how fast i was really moving, because the big ass hole I'd burned in it's belly wasn't closing up, and this fucker was taking on water. Every other step water nearly took me off my feet, shoving me forward.

It kept moving, though, so I kept slashing. Right up until another massive impact rang my bell. I staggered, and a moment later Saffron was there, one hand grabbing mine, stepping me back to the mast. I blinked, trying to get my bearings, and saw the shadow of the thing looming large directly in front of the bow.

For the briefest instant light flared through the ocean in front of the ship. Before it even blinked away, before I really realized what was happening, the ship slewed to starboard, her guns already pointing to port. Saffron's grip on my hand was the only thing that really kept me upright and on the mast, but I kept my eyes locked on the rapidly rising shadow. Steam erupted from the ocean before the kaiju surfaced, but the moment it showed as more than a shadow, the sixteen inch guns began firing, one at a time, each one landing squarely in the already gaping wound in the thing's forehead.

Even though it rolled over after turret two's second gun hit it, they didn't stop firing until all nine had fired, each shell causing the big fuckin' thing to twitch as it exploded.

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