Dear Diary,

I've got a plan. Not even twelve percent of a plan, but an actual plan, one almost as complex as my plan going into the Battle of the Bay. Probably not as complex as my plan for the Liberation of Calverton, but then I'm basically fighting one, maybe two people and a couple dozen kaiju, not an entire City full of Undead. The latter calls for a meat grinder, the former for a guillotine. Thing is, the plan that I've got is definitely not one that I think people would get behind.

Okay, mostly I'm worried that people, especially Saffron, will think I'm being too soft on him. Because every time I have to fight one of the kaiju, every time I remember that despite being kaiju sized they're still just brainwashed child soldiers, I want to make him envy The Morrigan. I want to feed him through a wood chipper, heal the chipped bits enough so that he can still feel them as they roast alive over low heat, then feed them to him while he's continuing to get chipped. I'm not sure how long I could keep that going on, but I'm pretty sure if Lyssa's a co-conspirator and not just some poor bitch he bludgeoned into helping him, I could run her through the process first and feed her to him while she watches. Maybe even keep her head alive long enough to watch me feed him to himself. Or work with Conrad to set up some kind of infinite shredder roaster feeder loop.

Yeah, the fact is even just thinking about that when I'm not super pissed off makes me throw up in my mouth a little, and I'm not sure if it's because of the mental imagery, the fact that I know I'd be tempted to laugh at both of them as I snuck little nibbles out of the cookout, or how my mouth started watering as I thought about it. That would not be good for my mental health. Which is why my plan is very much not that. Shit, part of the plan comes from how Saffron had me basically running interference and backup for my ladies and their Tentacles rather than just fighting everything. That 'two birds with one stone' thing.

But every time I have to kill another one of these poor force grown kaiju kids, my resolution to do what I know is both smarter and better wavers.

So yesterday at sunset I saw a big avian kaiju cross the horizon, and immediately called out, "Swanson! Kaiju on the horizon, dead east of us." Before he could start moving the big sixteen inch guns, I followed that up with, "avian! Looks like we'll need the five inch DPs!"

You just love saying that, don't you?

Not as much as I enjoy watching you do it, Kitten.

I have never! Before I could even splutter too much, she purred into my brain, none of you are smaller than six inches. That gave me another couple seconds of spluttering before she thought, kill it quickly.

Still need to soften it with the five inch guns, though. I had troubles catching the last bird, and this one looks a little smaller. Might be more agile.

I trust you to end it as quickly as you can. She went quiet for a moment before echoing my earlier thoughts by thinking, both to be ready for the next, and to end its suffering as cleanly as possible.

You got it, Kitten.

I hopped down to the bridge, leaned in, and told Swanson, "I'm going to take it down as hard and fast as I can, but I still need you to soften it up with the DP guns."

Yeah, the man had adapted to the position of being a professional naval officer pretty well, but I'd still met him as an old school Norfolk Jarl. From the look on his face he definitely got the same humorous thought I did. But he simply said, "will we need to use Cold Iron flak?"

"Any reason we shouldn't?"

He shrugged. "Our supplies of Cold Iron shells for the five inch guns is limited, and at least half of those are armor piercing rather than shrapnel."

I stopped, thought about it, and said, "okay. Open up with the regular rounds, I'll let you know if we need to switch to the Cold Iron." He nodded, and I asked, "any particular reason you don't carry more Cold Iron rounds?"

He chuckled. "Not so much that we don't carry more, but we can resupply normal rounds via portals if the need is great enough. Cold Iron rounds not so much."

"Cool. I'm going back up to engage the thing."

"Good Hunting, Champion."

I hopped back to the top of the mast, brought up my binocs, and after a few seconds searching, found the big avian. It really did look smaller than the first one; shorter wings compared it's body mass. Fortunately, none of the kaiju really seemed all that sneaky. Yeah, the one had snuck up on the Black Dragon, but that had more to do with it being aquatic, which basically made it a submarine, than any real attempt at stealth.

The guns went into action. First a couple ranging shots, one of which put a puff of smoke just up and to the side of the big raptor, at which point all of the guns along the starboard side opened up. I kept my eyes on the birdie, and saw it flinch a moment after that first puff of smoke. It opened it's beak, and a second later a hideous, thunderous caw flattened the waves. As I watched, some of the outbound shells detonated early under the force of that scream.

Some, not all. While the five inch guns kept up their bombardment, I slipped surreptitious tentacles through from M-Space. I'd realized while dealing with some of the folks from Boltophsberg that I could control way more than I'd previously realized. That's kind of what gave me the idea of trying to control them directly from atop the West Tower. While that had been an awful idea, just using them as extra massive limbs still worked. I started with all the nearby super massive ones, then kept slipping more and more through into the Mortal Realm.

I knew where they were and I couldn't really see them. I kept them out of the proximity of the kaiju bird, mostly to keep it from noticing, but also to avoid most of the flak, but it kept doing that horrific thunderous screeching, and the more tentacles I brought in, the more wound up getting pelted with ordinary, non Cold Iron shrapnel. They'd heal, but it definitely stung, and made it harder to control them, harder to keep them Blended, harder to keep the incoming kaiju from noticing.

"Champion?"

I looked over to see a sailor at the top of the ladder. I stopped bringing in new tentacles, hiding the ones I'd already brought just over the waves. "What's up?"

"Admiral Swanson asks if you mind if we engage with the close in weapons system."

That had me blinking for a second, remembering those long ago tours. "Wait, those work?"

The kid smiled. "We just got them working this past week."

"How many rounds do you have?"

He'd been prepped for the question. "We have enough ammunition for thirty seconds of continuous firing."

"Any Cold Iron?" He shook his head. "Okay then. No more than five seconds before I engage. If it survives my first strike, fire at will."

"Yes, Ma'am!" He dropped down the ladder at a rate that made me worried he'd break his legs, but he nailed the landing and sprinted toward the bridge.

Honestly, I didn't think we needed the extra firepower; the big ugly kaiju already had a thin fog of blood streaming behind it from dozens, maybe hundreds of small wounds, and it had totally focused on the Black Dragon. I just really wanted to see and hear those things fire. I'd seen so many videos, listened to them in games, and they were just so fuckin' cool.

A few moments after the sailor went into the bridge, one of the little domed robots spun, pointed its gun at the sky, and filled the already noisy air with that distinctive 'BRRRT' sound. The crew cheered louder than the ongoing gunfire as the rounds tore into the bird, punching straight through the wing, blood erupting into the sky as they exited.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The kaiju pulled its wings in and rolled, the injured one not quite snugging in as close, leaving a spiral of blood in the sky behind it. Its wings spread again, not all the way, as it dove toward the Black Dragon, gaining speed from its dive. It opened its beak, but instead of that same thunderous creaking caw, a fuckin' bolt of lightning leapt from its tongue, lancing back along the line of the phalanx gun's rounds. The bolt struck the gun before I could react, dismounting it to the sound of rounds cooking off.

"That's about fucking it," I growled, leaping to the back of the thing and stabbing an arm long Mana Blade just to either side of its spine. It roared, the sound driving spikes into my ears at this distance. I held on, and it pulled its wings in and rolled again, trying to shake me off. I clung to it as it rolled back upright and aimed itself at the Black Dragon, looking like it intended to be this world's first and largest kamikaze.

Right about then I brought those surreptitious tentacles into play. Back in the day I'd been a big fan of a particular genre of gore horror flicks, the kind that whittled down the main cast through increasingly brutal executions. One in particular that stuck with me was from a movie based on one of the OG survival horror games, where a spec ops team is trying to get down a hallway lined with a laser grid. Not, like, real world 'laser detection', but fuckin' lightsabers and shit. The last dude tryna get through, who just no sold every single laser tryna take him down, winds up getting diced.

Each of the dozens of tentacles popped out a single massive Mana Blade, all of them coming together into a tight grid way too wide for the kaiju to evade. As I leapt back to the Black Dragon's mast, I started them spinning and slicing. Most of the bird fell into the water as chum; I felt the joyous Worship from a few pods of hunters slashing through it, Ecstatic at the blessings their Goddess had bestowed upon them. What wound up hitting the hull, deck, and Turret One was a few tons of badly cooked fowl. A mess, and I think the teak might need some serious cleaning, maybe even a visit from one of my High Clergy some sunset or sunrise, but nothing that really seemed all that awful.

Okay, until I realized that some of the sizzling wasn't from flash fried meat, but from some kind of chemical reaction between the kaiju's remains and the metal of the hull. I pulled the same tentacles I'd killed the kaiju with over the ship, Shaping the biggest Create Water they could. Kinda wished at that point that I could shape Create Milk or Create Bread, but I had to work with what I had. Then I remembered that most of the meat had gone into the ocean to starboard, and while it would disperse within a couple days at most, right now that shit was still fuckin' concentrated. "Admiral Swanson!"

"Yes, Champion?"

"Get us airborne! The water is caustic!"

Maybe a minute later, as I kept dumping water over the Turret One and the deck, the ship lifted off.

Kitten? Ladies? You catch that?

Unfortunately, the Tentacles are presently incapable of flight, love.

I shrugged, annoyed at the ugly stain the kaiju had left on the turret, on the deck, on the side of my ship. Then I glanced at the dismounted CIWS turret and that annoyance turned to an ever more burning desire to turn Poseidon into so much mulch. Yeah, well. Acid Wards, maybe?

Pay attention, ladies, I'll demonstrate that for you.

While Saffron showed the rest of my High Clergy how to protect their Tentacles from potential acidic side effects of kaiju killing, I hung out atop the Black Dragon's mast, tryna get myself into a headspace where I could keep my head long enough to make my plan happen.

I was still working on that when the sun rose. Shortly after that a sailor leaned out of the bridge and said, "Admiral Swanson says we need to set down to effect repairs!"

I sighed, nodded, then called out, "sounds good." Then something caught my eye. "Wait!"

I stepped over to the bridge. "Do we have any visibility down below?"

Swanson nodded. "There are a few spotting positions."

"Yeah, have them look in the water about two o clock off the port bow."

He motioned to one of the bridge crew, who spoke quietly into an intercom mic, while Swanson himself asked me, "what did you see?"

"Big fuckin' shadow. Something underwater. Could be some kind of navigational hazard like seaweed, could be a school of fish, but it could be another of those aquatic kaiju."

He nodded. The communication officer listened to something in his one-eared headset, then turned to us. "Kaiju spotting confirmed, sir, ma'am. It's large. Black with some white spots near the head."

Swanson turned to me. "Permission to engage?"

Something bothered me, something I was forgetting, but I nodded. Okay, the whole, 'him being Admiral, but asking me, the nominal Captain, whether he should engage or not, because I was also the Champion, the Patron Goddess, and also maybe kinda still the Jarl he reported to' thing definitely left my brain in a bit of a knot, but I felt a little better when he turned to the dudes steering the ship and said, "bring us to relative rest directly above the target." Then he turned to me. "Something wrong, ma'am?"

I smiled. "That obvious, huh?" At his grin and nod, I said, "nothing I can put my finger on. Might just be annoyed at the damage from that last fight going unfixed." I stroked the bulkhead. "Don't want my ship broken."

"Yes, ma'am. Understood, ma'am." Yeah, he was definitely hamming that up a little, but I couldn't bring myself to get too mad about it.

I still pulled more surreptitious tentacles into the Mortal Realm, readying to engage the thing. If I had to hop back to the generator room to keep us flying until we hit relatively safe water, so be it. Right about then Swanson turned to another bridge officer and said, "prepare to drop depth charges."

"Wait, she's got depth charges?"

He nodded, grinning. "There were two systems aboard when you summoned her up. One was apparently a historical piece, the other newer, and while the Imperator managed to get both of them functional, we've no ammunition for the newer system. Also, with the addition of her flight capabilities, the Imperator added a third system designed to deliver explosives to surface targets while airborne. That includes specialized depth charges."

"Sweet!"

"The older systems seemed effective against the earlier kaiju. We've done a few test drops of the new delivery system, but never dropped live rounds before."

"How likely is it to fail?"

He shrugged. "So long as gravity works. We're basically dropping explosive rocks."

"We're in position, sir."

He nodded to the weapons guy. "Tell the crews to engage as they get good shots." I looked the question at him, and he shrugged. "Ammunition for an untested system wasn't really a high priority. We've got several dozen rounds, but there's no evidence of need for saturation bombing."

Yeah, 'saturation bombing' wasn't a word I expected to hear here and now, but here we are. A few moments later I heard a weird echoing 'shoop', followed by another, then another, and then the thunder rolled from below. I Co-Located one of me out a half mile or so to the side, just to get a good view of the bombing, letting one of my big tentacles hold me there. No idea why that's such a fuckin' strain, but the view was definitely worth it. I smiled at the sight of my Black Dragon raining bombs down on the kaiju beneath.

I finally got a good look at it, and my smile slipped. The fucker looked like an orca not much smaller than the Black Dragon herself. Then the water, rough from the ongoing bombardment, surged upward, and I remembered what orcas liked to do.

"Brace for impact!" I shouted inside the bridge. The communications guy repeated my words, and they echoed through the entire ship. Just in time, too. A moment later, the mega orca leapt out of the water, twisting as it did to slam its tail into the side of the Black Dragon. The tail sizzled like meat slapped on a grill, the orca screamed, and the Black Dragon slewed sideways, capsizing.

"FUCKER!" I screamed as I watched. My six biggest tentacles sprang into action. Two of them grabbed the Black Dragon, righting her and lowering her gently toward the water. They burned every place they touched the hull, but I gave no shits about that. Two more grabbed the orca just fore and aft of its dorsal fin, and another big one wrapped around its tail. A smaller, yet still massive tentacle wrapped around its head, forcing its jaw shut, covering up its eyes, holding it still.

"Sorry, Shamu, this is just how it's gotta be." My final big tentacle brought a Mana Guillotine down just behind its head. Its body spasmed, then went still. I dragged the corpse down into the silt, holding the head still with more tentacles as I pulled that Mana Blade back and reconfigured it into a single long, thin lance. Then I rammed that through its skull until its jaw stopped trying to snap at me.

I collapsed back to the bridge and the mast, turned to Swanson and said, "get repair crews working as soon as the injured are in the infirmary."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Kitten? Be aware, the Black Dragon is on injured reserve for the moment.

Estimated time to effect repairs?

"Swanson, how long until repairs are complete?"

He frowned at me. "We don't even know how much damage was done yet, ma'am. I'll let you know when we do."

No idea, Kitten.

Well. That's suboptimal. Still, we do what we can with what we have.

I spent the rest of the day helping out with repairs, which mostly involved very gingerly lifting shit that would have required cranes otherwise. Gingerly both because some of the things were super difficult to replace, and because some of them were at least partially made of Cold Iron, and that shit stung.

Around about sunset, Marie contacted me. Great Kraken.

I Co-Located to her side to see a trio of Great Kraken off the side of the Worshipping Tentacle. One of them had reached a single tentacle up to cling to the railing, looking almost like she was hitching a ride. I gave Marie a quick hug and kiss, then leapt into the water, Shapeshifting to Great Kraken form as I did.

What's up? I motion-imaged.

Kaiju.

Oh, shit. Show me where it is, I'll take care of it.

The lead Kraken, who'd been the one clinging to the Worshipping, motion-imaged, No. When I shot back questioning confusion, she shot me a motion image indicating grim amusement, then motion-imaged, Witness Us!

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