A day at the lake during the mid-summer heat, full of barbecues, family and mildly confused neighbours. It could almost be considered idyllic if you ignored certain unfortunate clothing choices being thrust upon certain poor unsuspecting people by their pushy sister and daughter.. Oh well, let's hope that's the worst of Hannah's problems today, shall we? Events unfold including but not limited to: Wet John cuddles and stolen T-shirts being stolen. Large hands being used for various things (to rather worrying degrees of success as well), Meanwhile Hannah drools on John's crotch and a pow-wow is interrupted rather rudely by a matriarch on a mission. Hold on tight folks, it's swimming trip day at Klamath Falls!

 

“..I’m not taking it off..”

“Oh come ON Han, it’s not that bad, everyone else is swimming and Eris wants to play in the water with her Mom.”
..that’s playing dirty..

It doesn’t help that, what I thought was going to be a little trip down to the water for an hour or two, has apparently become a family daytrip.
The Aussies have even dragged the barrel drum barbeques over and everything!

To make matters worse, the neighbours between our house and the waterfront came to find out what was going on with the mass migration of people towards the lake and were enthusiastically invited to join us too, Mum’s obviously having the time of her life reconnecting with old friends in such a lively setting but it’s practically become a rather waterlogged BLOCK PARTY at this point which is NOT something I’m in any way equipped to deal with at the moment.

Understandably, in my opinion, I’m not exactly interested in taking my nice big baggy freshly-washed, previously owned by John but now officially stolen by me, T-shirt off and exposing myself in front of so many people I grew up having to be bloody polite to!

It’s not even the ‘exposed’ part of it all that’s got me twitchy.

I’m not good with crowds and while it’s easy to ignore just how many people we have staying at our house lately, that becomes a lot harder to do when they’re all out HERE instead of safely tucked away back in the.. not-so golden palace of excess?..

..I definitely need a new name for that place..
Considering it’s neither golden, nor a palace of excess anymore the title IS kinda in desperate need of an overhaul.

“Fine, keep the shirt on but just get your ass in the water already.”
Sarah gave me a mildly annoyed look for not answering her within some arbitrarily decided ‘acceptable’ time frame before pushing me a few steps closer to the water’s edge.

As encouragement methods go, let’s just say I really doubt she’ll be writing an in-depth award winning novel on her ground breaking techniques any times soon.
Case-in-point, I spun on a heel to glare at her, receiving only an exasperated huff in response much to my annoyance.

“Why do I have to go in when you don’t?”
She shot me a withering look before dipping to the side and grabbing a massive orange bottle of sunscreen.

“Unlike you I actually have to worry about getting sunburn.. or freckles.. or sunburnt freckles..”

“Well I should stay up here and help you make sure you’re well covered in that cas- mmph!”
Her free hand came up, cupping over my mouth obnoxiously as she turned her head away to search the water’s edge with a frustrated frown on her lips.

Finally, at the point when I’d seriously started considering going with the old standby ‘lick the hand gagging you’ technique, she seemed to spot whatever she was looking for judging by the smirk that flickered across those same lips.

“JOHN! Come collect Hannah, the little mermaid here doesn’t want to go near the water without you!”
I gasped and yanked her hand away forcefully while reaching out my other hand in a vaguely considered attempt at somehow stopping her from talking entirely.
“What’s that Han? You want to ride on his back like a horse as he takes you off to the island for some alone time?!”

“SARAH!”

She cackled in amusement and broke into a run at pretty much the exact same moment that I broke into my own to chase after her.
We managed a few hundred meters of sprinting at best before I started to tire, a problem which she unluckily didn’t have the consideration to also suffer through along with me.

She took a sharp left into the treeline and I found myself half-collapsing against the first tree I came to as she disappeared pretty quickly into the thick foliage around us.

For a few glorious seconds I rested my head against the tree in defeat to catch my breath before a warm arm attached to an equally warm and slightly wet body encircled my waist, practically lifting me off my feet easily as if I weighed nothing at all.

“What’s this I hear about little mermaids and horses?”
Gah! Don’t breathe near my ear John-boy!

“Forget it, Sarah’s just being a bitch. She got me a new swimsuit an-”
John shifted his grip slightly as we turned.
I found myself leaning my weight against him as he stepped us back around to head along the water’s edge and re-join the ‘party’, with a hopefully unnoticeable shudder from just how nice his magic feels rubbing against my body.

My suppressors are currently still down for repairs but luckily my magic seems pretty calm since my last big blowout.
I really wouldn’t have even chanced coming out here today without them on otherwise of course, the real problem with that at the moment though is that it turns out wearing suppressors for so long has a tendency to make you kind of ‘hyper-sensitive’ to magic when you take them off.. or at least it feels that way, because I SWEAR it never used to feel this good having his magic touch mine!

“Huh, so you DO have a swimsuit on under that shirt?.. well damn, I owe Eris a free ice cream..”
..WHAT?!..

I twisted hard in his arms and stumbled backwards a few steps before swinging out a hand to slap him on the bicep a few times.
All it really did was make him laugh in response without much actual reaction to it all which is kind of ‘to be expected’ I guess considering I wasn’t really TRYING to hurt him.. he just.. he’s such an ASS sometimes?!

“Yes John-boy, I have a bloody swimsuit on under this shirt where it’s bloody STAYING so don’t even start with m-HEY!”

While I ranted at him pre-emptively against any stupid idea’s he might get about somehow getting a peek at the stupid swimsuit I’ve got on, the one I’m only wearing under protest because Eris begged me and Sarah hid all my other ones just in case I refused, he took a lot more of a direct route then I would have expected from him to get what he wanted.

When my arms came up as part of my admittedly over-dramatic hand waving he simply leaned forward, took ahold of the loose sides on my stolen shirt and yanked the bloody thing over my head in one smooth motion!

My words died out as my hands flew up to cover the childishly embarrassing bikini I had on with a yelp and John fell back on his ass laughing heartily at my expense.

It’s practically a foregone conclusion that Sarah is to blame the most for this mess although I have no doubt Eris had a hand in her choices too.
She’s currently splashing around with the other young children in an equally childish, if much smaller sized, bikini of her own with differing colors involved but a matching.. ‘theme’ I guess?..

“L..Little mermaid!”
John broke down into another fit of laughter that looked like it hurt.
..or maybe that’s just me wishful thinking?..

Taking stock, maybe he has a reason to laugh, I probably would too if it wasn’t me bloody-wearing it at least.
My currently red hair is hanging loosely around my shoulders and down my back as a heavy mass of tangled curls, not helped by the fact that a certain sister of mine refused to help me braid it earlier for now obvious reasons.

Added to that is an almost literal ‘shell’ bikini top in deep purple that does an annoyingly good job of both compressing my boobs while somehow emphasising them at the same time despite its almost ridged shape and a pair of green ‘scale effect’ boy-shorts style swimming bottoms with an attached little peplum of lighter green cloth on either side above my hips, just to finish the look according to a smirking Sarah, as most people could probably have worked out at this point.
..stupid little mermaid..

I WILL get Sarah back for this one, if it wasn’t for Eris’s reaction when I first refused to put the bloody thing on I’d.. I’d..

“Can you stop bloody laughing John-boy?! It’s not THAT funny!”
His half-aborted snort of amusement would beg to differ on that point but I stand by it anyway.
It’s not funny, it’s annoying.. and now he’s gone and shown everybody!
“Give me my shirt back”

He shot me a curious eyebrow and shifted the black cloth in his hands thoughtfully for a second before his eyes caught on the ‘shells’ of my bikini top again and he had to forcefully stop another laughing fit.
I reached out to grab the shirt off of him but even in his distracted state it wasn’t enough to stop him from instinctively pulling it out of my reach, launching himself back to his feet and holding the shirt aloft like a trophy above my head.

For one long moment I considered just sucker punching him, either physically or magically, to get it back.
..the idea’s certainly tempting..

In the end logic won out and instead of punching him I hopped a few times on my toes then launched myself forward into an awkward maneuver that involved sliding behind him and scrabbling up his back so I could snag the shirt and throw myself over his head, sending him tumbling back on his ass from the force of my kick-off and me sailing away to land gently back on the riverbank with a smug smirk.
He laughed again from his new position and offered me a relatively rare nod of submission for once.

HA! Hannah wins!

With that thought in mind I lifted my prize up and started untangling it enough that I could find what was a sleeve hole and which end was the neck one.
I’d managed to more-or-less sort things out and lifted the shirt up to pull it on when a scream rent the air making me flinch in surprise while John shoot up to his feet again, all humor lost as the initial scream was joined by several more much louder screams a few moments later.

We both broke into a sprint, my shirt swinging from my fist as I forced my complaining body to go faster before we were too late.

It was practically neck and neck between us as we finally rounded the last outcropping of trees and came to a stop, staring at a scene of utter pandemonium where our family were enjoying themselves only a few minutes ago.

It didn’t take much for us to work out why everyone was screaming and running at least, my eyes grew wide and the shirt fell forgotten from my hand to flutter into the water below us as we both stared out across Upper Klamath lake in horror.
Far out towards the center of our little stretch of lake, a giant swirling vortex had opened up, slowly but surely pulling more water in as time goes by at a progressively faster rate.

While that was all unusual to say the least, presumably the real reason why people were so freaked out and running away right about now would be because of the giant scaly arm.

It was about the size of our house at this point, sticking out from the very center of the gaping hole with its monstrously large and equally scaly hand somehow resting flat on the swirling water below as it slowly performed some kind of twisted, one-armed pull-up to drag more of itself higher and higher out of the watery depths below.

“John.. what the hell is that thing?”
He shot me a wide-eyed look that quite plainly stated he didn’t have a faintest bloody clue.
..lovely, at least we’re on the same page now..

The arm juddered slightly for a moment or two before, with a seemingly monumental effort, it shifted its grip to the side slightly allowing room for another massive scaly hand to appear over the vortex’s edge.
From there it was nothing but pure nightmare fuel as the hands were joined by a second arm, then the top of a horribly misshapen reptilian face full of patchy uneven skin that was none-the-less easy for me to recognise from one of my more pleasant, if still worrying past-life visions.

“Cetus.. it’s the Cetus beast that almost ate me back in my Andromeda incarnation?”
There’s no mistaking it, I thought the massive blast of fire magic Andromeda let off in its face killed the bloody thing though?!
..if it’s here then that means..

“..oh shit, it’s Poseidon..”

John opened his mouth to answer me but no words seemed to be able to pass his lips as the beast kept rising out of the water, already dwarfing the trees around the lakes edge and giving no signs of stopping any time soon as it’s head cleared the gap followed by a longer than normal neck and worryingly large shoulders with two, almost insignificant looking from this distance, people perched on its left bulging shoulder in full regalia.
..I swear it wasn’t this big last time?..

“EVERYBODY RUN! GET BEHIND THE WARDS!”
The few brave family members, mostly mages, who’d stayed to watch the spectacle unfold didn’t need telling twice.

I shot a frantic look around to make sure Eris wasn’t hanging around or something else equally stupid, just catching sight of her as Sarah of all people sprinted off with her clutched tightly to her chest, heading into the trees towards our house again.

With a relieved sigh I turned my eyes to John who was now looking increasingly nervous.

“What the hell are we gonna do John?”
He flinched at my voice but before he could answer me he was interrupted yet again by another voice, a voice so loud that it practically shook the ground beneath our feet as it reverberated around us in a deep angry growl.

“LOKI! You would defile one of my precious granddaughters?!”
..oh shit..
You can say that again brain, of all the things to come and bite us in the ass, it had to be THAT one didn’t it?!

“I know you’re here Loki, your magic touched these waters, there’s nowhere to hide!”

What the HELL are we gonna do?
He’s big and loud and powerful and he’s got a giant monster here and.. and..

..hold on, is he facing the wrong way?..

I had to choke back a surprised grunt when it finally registered in my head that, yes, the big muscular old man in a toga standing on the still raising beasts shoulder actually WAS facing the wrong way.
..if I’m not mistaken he’s currently yelling at the Yacht club?..

“John, we need to move.. we need to move RIGHT now!”
My hand latched onto his arm and with a heave I managed to get his almost catatonic body moving in a lurching half-jog back towards the treeline.

If we can just get back to the wards we should be okay, I honestly doubt that giant beast of his can do anything without malicious intent so it won’t even be able to cross the wardli-
With a boom that literally threw me on my ass from the vibrations alone a massive scaly hand the size of a school bus landed right in front of us, cutting off all hope of retreat in one easy motion.

“THERE you are Loki!”

We both turned to face Poseidon in all his withered glory as he almost casually stepped off of Cutis’s shoulder and walked down on a rising set of ‘stairs’ made out of what looks to be pure water from the lake being pulled up to support him and the smaller man followed closely in his wake.

“You’ve brought my precious Granddaughter along with you too, how nice of you to give me my-”
The old man reached his last water-platform, stepped out onto dry land and paused mid-sentence to twitch the glasses perched on his wide nose.
His attention didn’t seem to be fixed upon John with murderous intent suddenly at least but instead he was giving me an intensely confused look as his lips curled up slightly in obvious disgust.
“-I thought you said he’d kidnapped the blue one with the D-Cups?”

For a long moment I practically froze solid as the air of mystery and fear-inducing power around his, still muscular but obviously aged body, faltered slightly.. and I was left staring at an old man offering me what can only be called his best ‘pout’ as he gave me another once over with obvious attention given to my chest of all things.

“The messenger from Triton said that the Thunder-oaf found his daughter Aquata in the care of Loki sire.. although she’s obviously not-”

“Do you take me for a FOOL man?!”
The small male figure standing partly in Poseidon’s shadow shifted awkwardly in place, his hands going into the pockets of his ill-fitting suit self-consciously as he bowed his head in submission to the much larger old lunatic before him.
“Are you sure she’s my darling Aquata? she’s not got blue-hair or big tit’s at all.. this one looks more like the little red-headed tomboy with the fork obsession and the flat chest.”
He gestured wildly at said chest as if somehow proving his point completely, much to my growing indignation.
“The messenger must have gotten the message wrong, have him killed when we return!”

The small figure behind him flinched visibly but quickly set about making a note in a little book he kept in his front pocket while babbling to himself quietly as if trying to build up the courage to actually disagree with his ‘sire’ openly or something along those lines from the looks of it.

“Yes, yes I remember you now girl, you’re the air-headed little ginger that kept swimming off after that normal boy day and night, aren’t you?.. little what’s-her-name.. little Flat Chest, there we go!”
..HEY!..

“Uh.. Arial sire, I believe the name you’re looking for is Arial.. but she’s not-”
Poseidon turned his eyes away from my ‘shell’ bikini covered chest at last to fix his little assistant with a thoughtful look that made the man freeze in fear instantly.

“AH! I’ve got it, Arial! My youngest and most undeveloped Granddaughter, I don’t know what took me so long, the legs are pretty memorable for your lot, aren’t they?.. now, where was I?”
The assistant let off a relieved sigh that was obviously tinged with more than a little exasperation before answering yet again.

“Triton’s message about Loki kidnapping your Granddaughter, sire?”

“LOKI!”
The old man spun around again to face John, throwing an accusatory finger into his face for good measure.
“My youngest Granddaughter Loki?.. Do you have no taste man?! You could have at least gone for the brunette with the huge tits, have some standards you useless old twit!”

I watched on in disbelief as the assistant sighed heavily to himself and actually turned to shoot me an apologetic look as he moved to step a bit closer to the old man’s side again.
“Attina sire.. her names Attina..”

“I knew that one Arion you incipient nancy-boy! Do you really think I’d forget the name of the only spawn from that useless son of mine who actually managed to get past a D-cup?!”
The old man swung his hand around violently making the assistant, Arion apparently, duck out the way with almost practiced ease.
“It’s all that swimming I tell you, the lack of true gravity is not good for a girl’s development!”

“..I’m sure it isn’t sire..”
Arion sighed once more and stepped closer to the old man, bringing a careful hand up to pat his arm reassuringly as he went off into a rant to seemingly no-one on the pros and cons of different methods throughout the centuries for increasing the size of a woman’s bust.

While they were both distracted I moved slowly over to John’s side and nudged him to get his attention away from the horrified curiosity-laden gaze he’d settled into as we’d watched Poseidon carry on.

With a quick glance over at the ranting old man and his poor assistant again I leaned a bit closer to John and whispered the most pressing question I had at this exact moment.
“John.. what the fuck is going on?”

John blinked a few times as if still trying to process everything then he settled for giving me a slightly delayed half-smile.

“Honestly?.. I have no idea..”
He shifted his feet slightly and shot another cautious look over at the pair before continuing.
“At a guess, it looks like Thor was more of an idiot then I gave him credit for and instead of telling Poseidon he has a new daughter with Arista he somehow managed to find the man’s son Triton instead and accidentally mislead them all into thinking I’d kidnapped one of HIS daughters..”

Well.. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I guess that about sums up what I’m seeing here at least?

“Crazy old bastard must have gone senile early in this incarnation; I really don’t know how he could have thought you were one of Triton’s kids after even glancing at you otherwise?”
He sighed heavily and bumped his shoulder against mine reassuringly.
“Aquata has blue hair so I guess that’s something in his favor going from the description Thor would have given them but as far as I remember she also has a blue tail to match so..”

Great.. as if mages aren’t bad enough to deal with when they’re in possession of their full mental capacities!

A long silence stretched out between us, interrupted semi-regularly by Poseidon’s progressively more detached and abstract comparisons between different types of well-made fruit produce and women’s breasts as a whole.

“You people are all fucking insane, you know that right?”
John snorted and leaned over to nudge my shoulder again while taking an almost bored sounding deep breath in through his nose.

“Don’t try and distance yourself from this mess Han, he’s your ex-husband after all, you’re just as much one of ‘us people’ as we are..”

“HEY! I happen to be SANE!”
My angry retort seemed to catch Poseidon’s attention, bringing his running comparison between aubergines and an older french-woman he met at some point to a sudden halt.

I winced as he stared between us with a lost look for a few seconds before his little lackey Arion leaned in and whisper something to him, making his eyes widen and his face redden with an angry flush.

“..yeah right, keep telling yourself that..”
John, this is REALLY not the time to be mocking me!
This could be really bad, if Poseidon-

“LOKI!”
Oh crap..

We both dived in opposite directions as Poseidon materialised a three-pronged staff from seemingly nowhere, one that looked kind of like an oversized salad fork made of gold in my opinion, and shoved it towards us causing arcs of lightning magic to come pouring out of it and scar the dirt we’d just been standing on.

John managed to recover himself with an awkward roll and took off sprinting down the water’s edge, the lightning chasing him as Poseidon turned to follow his movement with an enraged snarl.
I wasn’t quite so quick on my feet and due to the slight incline on my side of the waterfront I ended up landing chest first in the mud near the lake with a loud disgusting splat instead of escaping.

“Excuse me?”

WHAT! Can’t you see I’m a little busy here getting mud out of my-
Oh.. it’s him?.. what does he want?

“Lord Posiedon has demanded that I, uh.. ‘rescue you from that foul fiend Loki’s clutches’, Miss?”
The little man called Arion turned around and cupped his hands around his mouth to call out to the two battling idiot’s further down the coast.
“NO OFFENCE MAX!”

Vaguely I could hear John let off a disbelieving laugh that he followed quickly by dodging into the trees slightly to avoid yet more lightning.
“NONE TAKEN FLOUNDER!”

The little man in front of me’s face turned bright red and he stamped his foot down hard into the mud making even more of it splash up around us, much to my annoyance.
“My name is NOT Flounder!”

“Um.. while we’re on the topic of names, you know mine isn’t Aquata or Ariel either, right?”
Reluctantly he turned away from John to face me again and a rather annoyingly long pause in conversation ensued as he stared at me like I was some kind of idiot.

“Yes, I had kind of noticed your lack of a tail Miss. I apologise for all this but my Lord Poseidon can be a bit hard to dissuade from his ideas sometimes, maybe if you give me your real name then I can sort things out with him a lot sooner.. honestly, I don’t know why we even bothered coming today, who trusts a fool like Thor at his word?”
Huh?.. so the little guy has some snark in him after all..

“Hannah, my names Hannah Cooper”
On reflex more than anything else I stuck my hand out for a shake which he accepted with a seemingly equal reflex action in a limp grip neither of us was really trying to maintain in the slightest.

“Things would be a lot easier with your REAL name Miss, not the pseudonym Max has you using.”
It’s not a bloody ‘pseudonym’, it’s my real name damn it!

“Look you little twerp, I don’t care what anyone else says, my name is Hannah Coop-”
My building rant cut itself short as Poseidon returned to us looking a little out of breath but rather smug at the same time.

“I tagged the little son of a sea-worm through the trees, a few thousand volts should teach him not to mess with my lot I’d say!”
As his supporting pillars of water slowly collapsed in on themselves he settled back in the mud on his rather large bare feet and focused all his attention on us again.

I’d like to say I wasn’t intimidated by the senile old coot.

In reality however, in all honestly, the guy might be old and crazy but he’s still a good couple of heads taller than I am currently with a lot of hard-won muscles everywhere that would put a professional body builder to shame despite his thinner skin and visible veins which are probably the biggest give aways, aside from his white-grey hair, to show just how old he really is.

“Still not got her ready to travel Arion you little pansy?”
He shifted his gaze away from me to glare at the little guy before looking back over to me again.
“I have to do everything around here.. Cetus! Grab her and let’s go you brain-dead hulking great brute!”

I barely got a chance to drop my jaw in shock before the earth shook and I found myself wrapped in the surprisingly gentle but still horribly solid scaly grasp of the massive sea monster who’s hand had moments before been acting as a wall, blocking my escape on two sides with apparent ease.

The great beast leaned back and swung its fist, me included, up high into the sky.
The constant movement and shifting that came from it settling itself back to its terrifyingly big ‘full height’ left me feeling sick to my stomach, meanwhile its other arm stretched out to form almost a ‘bridge’ for Poseidon and Arion to walk along on their way back to its shoulder for the ride ‘home’ no doubt.

I shuddered hard when its tongue, twice the size of John’s truck easily, slid out stupidly and it panted to itself like some kind of overgrown lizard-dog nightmare incarnate!

The whole thing wasn’t helped by the dopey look on its face that’s a lot easier to make out when you’re THIS close to it; part of me wanted to call the thing in some way ‘cute’ while a larger, more rational side of me just wanted to puke in fear.

The rational side, mixed with some valiant help from my motion sickness, won out in the end and I promptly vomited over the knuckle of its big green thumb.
On the one hand vomiting is never fun but on the other, big scary scaly hand, the beast seemed to freeze after a few seconds to stare down at me in some lumbering lizard dog-like form of wonder.

I probably could have predicted what came next, but if I had I probably would have made things worse by losing the rest of my breakfast so I’m kind of glad for the almost numb feeling settling over my brain as I watched its great big face come closer and closer to me.
The skin between its snake-like snout came to a stop at last, practically squashed against my face, and it proceeded to take in a massive sniff of air that sent my hair flying and made it feel like my neck was being pulled from my body just from the force of it all!

Naturally, the leftovers of my breakfast on its thumb didn’t stand half a chance and practically shot straight up its nose, much to my disgust.

At least the sudden nostril invading mass made its sniffing stop prematurely as it reared back its head with a choked-off snort and it sneezed loudly with a rolling, almost majestic, head-flick that reminded me of a T-Rex roaring from a certain dinosaur movie Sarah got rather obsessed with at one point in our childhood.

Finally it paused and sniffed a few more times before throwing its head back and bellowing out an almost joyful sounding roar that made my ears ring, throwing my equilibrium off in a way that’s almost as nauseating as the violent fist swinging that followed it.

I didn’t really have much more to lose, stomach wise, at this point which helped me focus a little bit at least but I’ve never exactly been good at dealing with nausea in general.
Either way, while my brain reeled from the wild monster-born rollercoaster ride I found myself ‘enjoying’ my ears were still working enough to catch the conversation that followed it.

“Sire, Cetus says that she’s not Ariel, she’s ARISTA!”
My blood ran cold as Arion’s statement of fact threw me instantly out of the violently swinging pan and into the potentially VERY dangerous high-burning fire.

From what I could see, it looked like Poseidon took the time to study me a little bit before answering which is really not reassuring.

I found myself holding my breath and cringing slightly in expectation of the pain to come.
Arista doesn’t exactly have a good track record with the family members that apparently LIKE her, let alone Poseidon with his own personal brand of crazy!

“Do you think me a fool?! Arista is the blonde one with the red tail and C-cups you insipid little -”
Arion yelped and ducked away from Poseidon’s swinging arm, popping back up on his other side with almost practiced ease as he responded.

“Not THAT Arista, Sire, THE Arista! Your Ex-wife!”
Even the monstrous lizard-dog Cetus seemed to pause in shock at that almost frantic declaration as they all turned as one to stare at me hard.

My shoulders slumped in defeat and I slowly tried to move myself deeper into the beasts grasp to hide from their judgemental eyes.
I’m not good at being the center of attention, the fact they think I’m Arista too really isn’t helping honestly..

Eventually Poseidon stopped squinting at me and turned his surprisingly thoughtful eyes away at last, settling on Arion instead.

“Are you sure? She looks more like my mother then that little minx..”
Arion sighed to himself, his shoulders slumping heavily as he shuffled awkwardly next to the much larger man beside him.

“For the last time Sire, your mother Rhea was an incarnation of Arista, just like your wife after her.”
..ohhh, not good..

Seriously?! This is just getting ridiculous!
How many messed-up bloody-incarnations and family ties does Arista bloody-well HAVE?!

“Stop talking such utter swill you blue-gilled gelatinous frog-humping cretin! I specifically remember Thor saying that Loki stole my poor, brain-dead little flat-chested granddaughter Persil so she can’t be-”

“Arial Sire, not Persil.. I mean, NO! No Sire, he said nothing of the sort, I-”
Arion almost managed to look angry for a second but that indignant rage gutted out pretty quickly as Poseidon waved his hand dismissively and shuffled a bit further onto Cetus’s wide scaly shoulder.

“Bah! We’ll take her back with us and let Triton deal with her, I don’t know why I even agreed to helping him retrieve the little bint in the first place, how the man puts up with seven of the little bubbleheads I have NO idea!”

“I.. but.. Sire she’s not..”
Arion trailed off and he did a passable impression of me as his shoulders slumped heavily in defeat.
You can’t fight stupid or crazy with logic sadly, I learnt that fact a long time ago.

“You can’t just kidnap Arista Sire? People will lose their MINDS if-”
Poseidon’s shoulders tensed and Arion cut himself off in an almost painful looking stall of fear.
“..f-fine, yes Sire, a wise decision as always my Lord..”

“That’s better! We’ll make a proper assistant out of you yet boy!”
With a hearty chuckle, Poseidon’s hand flew up to slap so harshly against the poor man’s back so hard that he stumbled forward a few steps in the process.

“..I’m three hundred and fourteen years old you decrepit old windbag..”

“Huh? You say something boy?!”
The respect I’d almost let myself feel for the small man having finally stood up for himself at last fizzled out quickly as he shrunk back into himself in fear all over again.

“Nothing at all, my Lord, I was just trying to work out the logistics of transporting ‘Arial’ back to Triton’s castle.. Nothing worthy of your attention in the slightest..”

In a show of concentration that should be held up as a true example that ‘crazy’ doesn’t in any way mean ‘stupid’, Poseidon fixed Arion with a highly un-amused look that lasted for far too long to be in any way comfortable before giving off a loud huff and turning away from the little man in disgust.

“Prepare the portal you little ingrate.. Cetus is getting bored..”
To my eyes the great big lizard-dog monstrosity looked more constipated than anything else, with the fist holding me up remaining blissfully still for the time being but it’s other one moving in an almost human-like gesture to reach up and pick away at one rather frighteningly large nostril.

Honestly for a moment there I was forcefully reminded of the time a MUCH younger John got told off in first grade for ‘mining for nose gold’ during our head teacher’s, admittedly long-winded and boring, speech about civil responsibility to a load of disinterested six-year-olds.

“We could all just agree to disagree and move on with our lives?”
It was worth a shot at least, I’ve not exactly been proactive on the whole ‘escape’ front so far after all.
..I don’t think their buying it..

“This is why I don’t have any daughters Arion.. women, so full of strange ideas and thoughtless suggestions.”
..HEY!..

Sexist much?!
I don’t care if he IS a senile old man that’s no excuse for-

My offended glare at the rude old codger was suddenly interrupted by a rather disturbingly up-close view of John’s swim shorts covered crotch, luckily it lasted less than a second as he dropped to his knees on Cetus’s massive thumb and wrapped his arms under my armpits in a tight hug.
His head twisted to the side and without a word we disappeared in a nauseatingly fast line-of-sight warp to safety.

======

I collapsed forward onto nice soft grass as we both fell the last few feet back to solid ground because John had apparently slightly miscalculated our rushed-as-all-hell warp destination.
My stomach heaved painfully as it tried to empty its already empty depths but nothing came out no matter how hard my stomach tried to ‘help’ me.

“Hannah? Han, quick! Get up! We need to get through the wards before they-”

“LOKI!!”
Poseidon’s enraged yell echoed out around us despite the relative muffling that should, in theory, have been offered to us by the trees on all sides around this little mini-clearing.

My body didn’t want to cooperate for obvious, heaving related, reasons but John didn’t need more incentive to get moving in the slightest apparently.
He hooked his arm around my waist and lifted me bodily up onto his shoulder in a rather undignified ‘fireman’s carry’ that was none-the-less surprisingly effective as he broke into a sprint back towards the house.

With more speed then I would have expected, possibly aided by his magic in a suspiciously similar way to my own disused speed and stamina boosting blood magic tricks, we practically flew through the trees in as straight a path as possible to reach the ward-lines safety.

Roughly twenty seconds, or forty trees distance away from our starting point depending on how you feel like counting it, a roar rumbled around us making the very ground beneath John’s feet shake and showering us in falling leaves from the trees above.

Something very big, very heavy and worryingly fast was now moving in our general direction.
..it doesn’t take a genius to work out what it is of course..

We broke through the treeline with John desperately gasping for air and I couldn’t help but let out a cry of relief when I felt the tell-tale tingle of our overpowered wards flitting over my skin.
The cry didn’t last long though as the moment we crossed the line John collapsed to the ground in a panting heap with me stuck awkwardly underneath AND on top of him at the same time from my rather painful fall.

“Nice save John-boy, I really appreciate it and the good timing too.. but I swear if you don’t get your face out of my crotch in the next few seconds I’m gonna shove you back through the wards for Cutis to play with!”
To hammer home my point a bit better I kicked my free leg, the one that hadn’t somehow managed to currently hook itself over his head as we landed hard, into his ribs a few times for good measure.

It’s not that I don’t get the gravity of the situation or understand just how MUCH he just saved my ass, but let’s just say that having him anywhere near THAT spot on THIS body is a very bad idea in general and his breath on my thighs is making me more than a LITTLE bit bloody-uncomfortable!

My forth kick to his ribs apparently succeeded where his other ones failed as he finally rolled over with a grunt leaving us both laying side by side, in perfect position to watch on in mounting horror as the massive lumbering form of Cutis crashed its way through the trees towards us.
The beast practically collapsed forward in its haste to reach us which was unfortunate because when it came within range of the wards it was launched off of its webbed truck-sized feet to crash with earth-shaking force across the green of the golf courses ninth hole with an unmistakably loud rumbling groan.

..the resort people are SO not going to be happy with us for this one..
Yeah, no kidding, I think there are more important problems to consider right now though?
..namely the fact that its already getting back to its feet!..

With slow inevitability Cutis pushed itself back up to a bent knee and leaned a massive scaly palm out to rest against our wards again.
At first I thought it was the ill-intent ward holding it back but, the more I stared up at its prodding fingers and the arcs of rippling magic come off of its hand where they made contact with the ward, I couldn’t help but think some other part of the wards must be in effect too.

Ill-intent wards DO have a certain.. ‘bounce’?.. to them, but they would never be able to get even close to having enough power to blast something of Cutis’s size back THAT hard all at once!
The ward is designed to be more focused on making it’s ‘victims’ forget there’s even a place or person inside the ward-line that they want to harm than anything else.

Sure, on a human, the ‘bounce’ can cause some pretty serious harm by launching them bodily into the air if nothing else.. but Cutis isn’t a human.. definitely, definitely NOT a human..

“Bash your way in you stupid beast!”
My eyes cut down from the strangely curious looking eyes of our lizard-dog pursuer to stare at Poseidon as he marched out of the treeline at a pace that belayed his obvious age.

For one painfully long moment I thought Cutis might ignore or at least question that order but that all fell to nothing moments later as it’s webbed scaly-fingers clenched down into a fist again and it reared back to slam a knockout punch hard into the wards, catapulting it’s fist back from the force of the strike but managing to stay in its kneeling position a lot easier this time as it swung in again for a second strike.

“Well.. what’s the plan now then Han?”
I shot John a highly un-amused look and scrabbled back to my feet, fixing my bikini a little to bring back some sense of decency to my bruised ego while giving me an excuse to hide the nervous shake of my fingers.

This is bad.. this is very, VERY bad!

======

“I checked the wardstone myself Hannah, it will hold for a good long time yet, grab a cup of tea and join the pow-wow.”

Gran smiled at me warmly and passed a hand over my shoulder as she made her way out with her own cup of coffee to join the other family mages outside.

Apparently in a situation like this everyone from the lowest level Garnier mage to the fully awakened ‘powerhouses’ that make up the bulk of Arista’s kids has an opinion on what exactly we should be doing to prevent our collective impending doom, despite having no real world experience or helpful knowledge on the topic to boast of.
..they are in no way ‘helping’ despite their best intentions sadly..

In fact all they seem to be doing is coming up with more and more unworkably complicated plans, while arguing constantly about said plans, in all honesty.

..Gran’s helped a little at least..
I’ve not had a chance to really check over the wardstone in our elevator shaft and for all I knew the bloody thing could be moments away from cracking from the pressure of Cutis’s now all-out assault on the houses wards in general.

John’s been acting as my semi-permanent shadow, following behind me so closely that it feels like he’s worried I’ll break at the slightest of breezes or something too so help really is thin on the ground right now.

Every non-combatant including Mum, Sarah, Eris, most of the Weres, and anyone physically under eighteen aside from me is already sequestered in the formerly-golden palace of excess.

We may have time on our side now to plan but I’m not STUPID or anything!
A risk remains a risk until you eliminate it yourself.
Not to be mean about anyone outside taking part in the ‘pow-wow’ but all the important people, for me, are now safe no matter what.. and if I have my way that lot will be joining them all shortly too.

..John doesn’t count, he can take care of himself..

I snagged one of the few remaining cups slowly cooling on the kitchen countertop and turned, coming nose to chest with John and letting off a startled little yelp.

“Powers John, will you back up a bit?! I’m not just gonna disappear because you’re not standing RIGHT next to me for powers sake..”
He DID take a few steps back at that but far fewer then I’d hoped he would.

“..wouldn’t be the first time..”
Oh don’t you give me THAT asshole!

I’m not the one who went running off to who-knows-where while fatally wounded!
I’m not the one who went insane and disappeared off the grid for YEARS, only cropping up to play the classic ‘evil super-villain’ act from the shadows and disappear again without a civil word or a ‘how’ve you been?’ to show for it all?!

“Come on, we’ve got an army of frightened civilian mages to calm down and a plan to come up with that can somehow fix this mess.”
He nodded but didn’t look too pleased with my non-response to his little jab in all honesty.
As I slid past him to go outside he snagged the last remaining coffee and took a deep swig from it before jogging slightly to catch up to me again.

“Any progress on that whole ‘plan’ thing by the way?”
..smart ass..

“Yes, actually, I figured if I we conjure a giant catapult we can put you in it and launch you head-first at Cutis.. even a genetically engineered magical super-monster from the depths of the ocean won’t stand a chance against the almighty power of your rock-hard head.. dumbass..”
Despite the bite in my words John offered me an almost fond, but definitely exasperated, smile as we hit the path and started wondering over to the group of panicking mages that Gran was trying her best to keep as calm as possible.

“Looks like these people need a Matriarch or something?”
He grunted and took his next few steps slightly faster to bring himself next to me properly at last.

“Hold this”

He almost fumbled my tea cup when I passed it into his empty hand and he definitely spilt a little of the precious sanity-restoring nectar inside when I shoved my fingers in my mouth and blew out a loud whistle to get everyone’s attention.

With every eye in the garden fixed on me, even Cutis having paused in his beating against the wards to stare at me from on-high, I tried to gather myself together and prepare to be the hardened battlemage they need right now instead of the actual scared-as-all-hell Hannah that I really am.

“I’m gearing up for a really annoying fight and I’ve already got a headache so I’ll keep this quick.. anyone who has less than fifty awakenings under their belt, anyone who hasn’t at the very least taken down a higher demon or two solo, anyone who can’t cast without a using a focus or their lines.. get the FUCK back in the house and go hide in the elevator room!”

There was a lot of shifting feet and awkward staring while the crowd as a whole tried to see if I was really being serious or not.

“Did I stutter?! Get your asses to safety before the abomination hammering away at our wards is the least of your bloody troubles!”
Still no-one moved.
“You’ve all got ten seconds to get moving before I start inserting heads into asses and making y’all into the world’s biggest emotionally-scarred CONGA LINE!!”

That got them moving at last, all it took was a bit of magic pumped into my voice and my aura.
..powers, mages can be so STUPID sometimes..

“Don’t think I don’t see you both skulking in the shadows too, Felix, Mau, back inside the house. Make sure Sarah, Mum and Eris stay safe no matter what, okay?”
Reluctantly my recently acknowledged, if not fully accepted, ‘familiars’ moved towards the house with everyone else while shooting me doubtful looks and giving off resigned little sighs to each other all the way.

When the crowd had thinned down to the few stragglers who were really reluctant to leave and Gran, I found myself being pulled into a warm hug by said Grandmother.

“Are you sure about this Hannah? We can help, I’ll admit we don’t exactly know how but numbers have proven to help in most fights throughout the years.”
I sighed and squeezed her back before pulling away from her a little so she could see the reassuring, if forced, smile on my face.

“Numbers only help when you have a severe lack of skill available and ALWAYS come with a cost that’s far too high for me to even consider.. get everyone inside Gran, we may not be quite ready yet but you’ve got the current incarnations of Arista and Maxarimus working on a solution here so it’s not like a lack of skill is the overriding problem we’re facing, huh?”
She still looked unconvinced, I can’t really blame her on that one, but she accepted my words for what they were and pulled away from me completely to help move the last few stragglers back towards the house for safe keeping.

“Getting rid of all the possible reinforcements we could have had.. I’m starting to see your plan now, how sneaky of you..”
Oh shut UP smartass!

I don’t hear YOU coming up with any better ideas?!

If they stayed to help, the odds are heavily weighted towards them ALL getting killed in the first five-seconds of the fight.
Family is family but when it comes to a fight my family are pretty much useless.

I wasn’t lying either, we have all we need right here as long as we use our advantages to our.. advantage?
..that sounded less stupid the first time I thought it..

“My current plan is to cause a distraction, get them away from the wards and back to the lake, cause another distraction, then in the melee I’ll inscribe some gravity runes onto Cutis’s legs with blood until the dopey bastard sinks so deep into the mud that it can’t move and we can finish off Poseidon in a two-on-one fight to the finish, all without letting anyone die or flooding Klamath Falls from his raging water magic.. you’re thoughts?”

John sighed and ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Your insane.. and suicidal.. and insane-”

“You said that one already”
He didn’t look even slightly amused by my snarky little interruption.

“As plan’s go, you’ve had worse, but that’s more a statement of your terrible planning skills then that plans actual validity as a real option.. can’t you just.. I dunno, seal the giant fish-stick up like a demon or something?”
HA! Dream on John-boy, who the hell do you think I am, some kind of ‘Miko’ or something?!

“If you gave me, say.. two months?.. I could have a nice glyph pattern designed to seal Cutis into a vase or whatever, all it would take is the blood or magic of several virgin girls with the seer’s touch and four hours of careful application across Cutis’s whole body.”
For a painfully long time the only response I received was silence as we held a little battle of wills but eventually even John had to concede defeat this time.

“..you could have just said ‘no’..”
Yeah, I could have but where’s the fun in THAT John-boy?

“I’m an enchanter John, not a miracle worker, runes can do a hell of a lot but there’s a cost-to-payoff ratio in place. In general, bigger the bang, bigger the time and math involved before casting.”
The only way to avoid that kind of problem is to have glyph patterns already planned out in advance but ‘being under siege by the monster from the black lagoon on steroids’ was never high on my priority list for glyph development surprisingly?!

I barely know any restraining techniques in general for powers sake, most of my skills are heavily skewed towards the ‘kill’ end of the battle spectrum sadly.

I’ve got a few ‘stun’ spells and runes I can toss out there but they aren’t going to make a dent on Cutis’s thick hide, aside from that and compulsion spells that make me feel a bit wrong when I cast them, the only thing I really have for restraining people is my conjured restrain..t..s?..

My head swung around to stare up at Cutis in almost horrified glee.
It can’t work.. can it?..

“John.. how BIG do you think Cutis is?”
He shot me a sceptical look for a second but obviously something on my face tipped him off to what was going through my head because a grin slowly slid across his lips in response to my thoughtful half-smile.

“I like that face, that’s a promising face! What have you got Han?”

“I’m thinking, if my conjuring is even half as good as I think it is, then we can kick this whole thing off by giving Poseidon’s massive pet super-weapon the Maven treatment.”
John’s smile turned downright evil as he processed the idea and turned his eyes to stare thoughtfully up at Cutis’s looming form.

“What do you need?”
John’s mumbled question brought me out of my wild calculations and I couldn’t help but shoot him a smirk.

“A few minutes hopefully.. and a whole lot of luck?”

He shifted his feet slightly and gave me a quick one armed hug.
“Have I mentioned lately how much I love that big, beautifully twisted brain of yours?”

“Yes.. but it never hurts to repeat it often though just to be sure I remember, of course.”
He laughed heartily and nestled his face in my hair for a second before pulling back again, giving me room to get started.

“I’ll be lost for a bit as I work on this, make sure nothing squishes me in the meantime.. and don’t you DARE get fresh with my semi-comatose body you dirty perv!”

To the echoing thumps of Cutis’s assault and John’s laughter I sunk into meditation pose with a deep calming breath.
..it should be fine, it’s just like all my other restraints, just bigger..

“I swear John-boy, you so much as LOOK at my boobs while I’m doing this and you’ll get your own first-hand experience with just how amazingly awesome my enchanted restraints can be!”

======

Demon restraints as a base.. enlarge them.. that bit won’t work, his forearms are too long..
That’s better.. what else?..
AH! That bit needs to be wider!

Just a few more touches..
Add an extra strap there.. and there.. and there..

..why not just add a few more too? Can’t hurt right?..
Sooo true!

I think.. yeah, that’s what I want?..
Now I just need to.. OMMPH!

======

Back in the real world I ‘woke up’ with a gasp and found myself lying sideways with my head rested on something warm and soft?
The magic I’d built up and carefully shaped inside my body surged before I could analyse the situation more than that though, causing the flower strewn grass in front of my face to became a massive tangled mess of thick black leather straps as the conjuration finally manifested into the real world.

“I take it that means you’re awake now, huh?.. good, your drooling on my thigh was getting mildly annoying..”
I twisted in Johns lap and glared up at his smug face.

“How about you don’t mention my drooling on you again and I don’t comment on the suspiciously hard spot I can feel pressing into the back of my head which I REALLY hope isn’t precisely what I KNOW it is?”
He blanched and quickly waved his hands up guiltily in defeat.

The hard spot didn’t go away though annoyingly so he’s obviously not feeling THAT guilty about it!
..stupid perv..

“Anything I can do to help?”
With a shove I forced myself back into a seated position and cast a thoughtful glance over the leather restraints I’d just created before answering him with an uncertain shrug.

It’s all runes from here and seeing as I’m the only person who has the restraint system memorised I doubt he can actually help for now.
Plenty of time for that later, I’ve still not sorted out just HOW I’m going to get these stupidly heavy and completely unsubtle restraints near enough to Cutis that I can activate them without getting myself killed as it is.

“Give me a minute and we’ll talk, I just need to get the runes done quickly.”
He shrugged and stayed seated in his cross-legged position as I wandered off to move the straps around a bit, giving me better access to the parts I need while forming and setting the rune matrixes.

“This is so much bloody easier when the straps are human sized..”

======

“John-boy, come give me a hand. I’ve got to activate these and there’s the slightest possibility that I won’t have enough control to stop the whole system from blowing up in our faces, if it does then get us out of here, okay?”
He nodded and made his way over to hug his arms around my waist a bit tighter then strictly necessary.

To be honest he didn’t need to ‘hug’ me at all, a simple hand on my shoulder would be enough for him to side-along warp me to safety but I’m not going to tell HIM that at the moment.. his warm magic feels nice where our bodies are touching and I need all the help I can get to keep calm considering how out of control my magic’s been lately.

“Okay.. three.. two.. one”
With a dip and a shove I started loading a steady stream of magic into the storage runes on the restraints, bigger restraints mean bigger storage runes and bigger everything else really.

To my surprise the drain wasn’t too bad and my output stayed stable at a manageable rate for the full thirty-seconds it took to fill the runes to bursting.
I brought my other hand down on the control cluster to my right when the runes lit up at last and with another pulse they set, the glow of my magic fading away until the runes had blended in nicely with the dark leather they were written on.

Instinctively I leaned back with a relieved sigh and found myself nestling tightly into John’s hold.

For a moment his presence surprised me before I remembered why he was sitting so close but that quickly got surpassed by a sudden need to hold in the pleased purr that wanted to bubble its way up from the back of my throat.
..I love the way his magic makes my skin tingle..

“You can let go now John-boy, no big boom for once.”
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just my imagination when he hesitated slightly before letting his arms come loose from around my waist.

I think he got scared earlier, it’s not often that I end up being captured in general and he’s been a bit clingy ever since he rescued me too.
..stupid John..

“So.. any idea’s how we’re going to drop these things on Cutis’s gigantic hea-”
A lack of sound finally registered in MY head as I ran through the different ways we could catch it unawares and I turned sharply to look at the beast in fear as my blood ran cold at the sight before me.
..nothing but empty sky and the treeline?..

Where-where did it.. WHEN did it stop beating away at the wards?!

“SHIT! Where’d it go John?”
He turned thoughtfully towards the same, now empty, patch of land before turning his eyes back to me with a warm smile.

“He left about two minutes ago, went lumbering off towards the lake again. I figured he needed to get a bit more water and he’d be back when he was done, no big deal.”

No big deal?!
NO big BLOODY deal!

It’s a massive sea beast keeping us trapped behind the wards, it wanders off to who KNOWS where and it’s not a big DEAL?!

My brain kicked into hyper-drive with worry as possibilities flew around, each more dangerous than the last.
A beast of that size wouldn’t need more water for ages.
The only reason it would retreat would be to regroup or to change tactics under Poseidon’s command!

I opened my mouth to voice my fears but my voice stalled out when a loud enraged roar echoed out around us making the ground shake from the force of it.

Almost instinctively I found myself dipping into my lines again.
In seconds an old wooden pocket telescope like the one we used to use when playing ‘pirate’ as kids formed in one hand and my free hand was flying up to my mouth to provide the needed blood.

John watched on with more than a little surprise obvious on his face as my bloody fingers skittered out along the wood forming vision runes, targeting runes and a complex pattern of recording runes I perfected years ago all together into a makeshift Glyph I was redesigning practically on the fly.

Less than fifteen seconds after the first roar reached us the telescope was complete.
I shoved myself away from John and before he could question my actions I forced a pulse of clockwise magic into the floor then hit it with a pulse of anti-clockwise, launching myself high into the sky from the reaction.
..just like Edith trying to reach a tall shelf but with a lot more power in it..

From this distance it was hard to make out anything going on by the lake but it wasn’t hard to see a now rather angry looking Cutis leaning over something at the far bank on the opposite side of the lake from us.

The telescope extended and I had it up to my eye without a thought while I practically hung in the air for a moment or two as gravity fought magic to decide who would win.
I swung the telescopes lens around wildly in Cutis’s direction but couldn’t get a much better idea of what was happening before gravity finally won out sending me plummeting back to earth again.

“HANNAH!”
John yelped and leapt up slightly to catch me with a cushion of his magic covering his arms to stop my fall.

..kind of lucky I wasn’t at terminal velocity or he could have killed me..
Stupid John

“What the hell are you doi-”

“SHH!”
My finger came up to his lips but it was practically an involuntary action as I clutched the telescope to my eye and turned my head to stare in the direction of Cutis again.

As I’d hoped, while the image wasn’t the best or anything, my rough and ready runes managed to capture a still image of everything they saw in my wild swing from on-high.
With a few taps to the tuning runes at the side I had the image zoomed in a bit better and I stared hard at the other side of the lake to see what was going on.

Crap.. CRAP!..
I dropped the telescope to the floor and stared off at the trees in horror.

“The MPA are here and they’re trying to piss Cutis off!”

It wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t see everything, but it’s kind of hard to misjudge the massive army of mixed mages and SWAT teams aiming at a crouched Cutis who appeared to be actually roaring a challenge towards them in the exact moment that I managed to capture.

“We need to go! We need to go NOW or they’re going to get themselves killed!”
I went to race forward towards the wardline but found myself pulled up short by John’s unreasonably strong grip on my wrist.
“John! What are you doing?! We need to GO!”

I yanked a few more times to try and break free but he just stared down at me with a pained look on his face.

“I’ll warp out there with the restraints Han. Tell me where to hit to activate them, I can warp above Cutis and drop them on him before warping back to safety.”
..NO!..

“I’m NOT letting you fight this thing on your own John! Anything could go wrong, Poseidon’s there too and you just appearing could even set the MPA off!”
..we need to stop this in person..

“It was my great idea to get rid of Thor with that stupid story Han, I started all this and I’m not gonna-”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sharp rebuke sadly, being interrupted by a rattling cacophony of explosions that all blended together into a worryingly loud sound as a whole.

“Shit! The MPA have opened fire John! We don’t have TIME for this, Cutis is going to go ballistic, we have to protect them!”
I shoved his chest to give myself some room and tried to make another break for the trees but yet again he pulled me up short by my arm, this time his face set with determination instead of worry.

“The MPA know what they’re doing Han. It’s their job to protect everyone, it’s my job to protect you! Screw everyone else, you’re the important one Han. Let the MPA handle things-”
My free hand flew out and slapped him hard across the cheek.

For a dull moment I was shocked by my own actions but righteous indignation flooded in to cover for my stalling a heartbeat later.

..How DARE he?!..
He doesn’t have to PROTECT me!
I’m not more important than all those innocent people!

WE brought this down upon them with OUR careless actions and I’M going to fix it, for powers sake!

“Let. Me. GO!”
I flailed uselessly against him but he swung me around and looped the arm he already had holding my wrist across my chest to hold me tighter to himself.
“Damn it John! People are going to die if we don’t st-”

“I DON’T CARE!”
His roar cut me short and I trembled slightly at the force of those words.

“You’re what’s important to me, if it means keeping you safe I’d sacrifice anything.. s-so just stay here behind the wards and we can-”
My free hand flew out awkwardly but managed to slap him hard enough across the head to stall him out once again.

“Screw you John! Don’t give me that bullshit, he’s here because of US! People will be killed because of the lie that WE told to save OUR asses!”
With a forceful bounce I launched my feet up then pulled them tight to my chest before kicking them down again, throwing off John’s balance while forcing us both into a forward roll.
As his grip loosened in surprise it was just enough for me to twist and slide out from under him as he landed on the grass hard.
..whoever said Judo was a waste of time..

“We’re not the bad-guy’s John!.. at least.. at least I’m not, and I didn’t think you were either?..”

My vision blurred slightly and my breath came in sharp little pants for some reason.
For a moment I couldn’t work out why until I found myself sniffing automatically and a damp trail formed on my cheek.

DAMN IT! Why the hell am I crying?!

“Han don-”
I’d had enough of it all and didn’t wait for him to continue, my arm forcefully scrubbed away the evidence of my stupid tears and without another word I span on a foot to sprint off towards the lake.

..stupid John..
I thought he’d changed!

I thought he’d stopped treating people like throw away objects and he’d finally started being a normal human again but he’s just the same as he always will be and I’m an utter FOOL for thinking otherwise!

Stupid John!
Stupid FUCKING John!!

I’d barely gotten to the edge of the wards before something big and heavy tackled me to the side, sending us tumbling to the ground in a mess of flying limbs and wildflowers.
We came to a stop with me pinned underneath John’s body, my hair splayed out around me and a glare stuck firmly on my face as I stared up at his panting form in anger.

“Hannah, LISTEN to me for a second damn it!”
I struggled against him but my every attempt was suppressed with an annoying amount of ease.
He knows my best tricks, even bucking my hips and twisting was stopped handily when he dropped his knee down hard into my hip in retaliation making me pull back with a pained hiss and go back to glaring at him impudently instead.
“You’re not going to help anyone if you just go charging in like this, YOU’RE going to get killed instead!”

“BETTER ME THEN THEM!”

A silence rang out around us as John tried to digest those words.
I don’t know why he’s struggling so much to be honest, one semi-immortal mage verses hundreds of innocent normals?
Of COURSE it’s better if it’s just me!

They have families and people need them and there’s so many of them tha-

“..you don’t mean that.. Han, you can’t mean that?!”
With a growl I bucked my hips again rather than answer him.
He moved his knee to stop my escape almost unconsciously in his partly stunned state which was useful because it left him wide open when my knee rose up to smack harshly into his groin.

I barely even noticed his pained grunt as he tilted slightly to the side, only registering it at all because I made sure to capitalize on my low-blow’s effect to the max by forcing myself free of his grasp and jerking myself back to my feet in a sloppy roll.

“Hide in here if you want John, I won’t let other people die for my sake!”
He managed to gather himself together enough to reach a hand towards me but before he could say anything else I was gone, rushing past the ward line and off towards the lake as fast as my legs would carry me.

======

..what the hell am I doing?..

Oh crap.. Oh crap.. Oh crap!
WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!

On the outside, I was cool, calm and collected despite my heaving breaths.
As I sprinted through the trees of our home, trying to convince myself I was some kind of warrior ready to charge into death or at the very least capture, to save potentially thousands of innocent lives.

On the inside however.. well..

..this is insane!..
I know.
..what the hell am I THINKING?..
I KNOW!
..no plan, no backup, no spells worth a damn against that thing!..
I get it brain now shut UP!

I'm trying to do math here.
No matter how many times I run the numbers it all ends up the same.

For me to build up a big enough blast of my magic to take down that thing without getting squashed or flooding half of Oregon, I need at least twenty seconds to focus on building it all up internally where I'd be practically defenceless.

I can’t do it at long range; the spell would have to be released practically point-blank to get through Cutis’s thick skin!
Even after that I'll be left wide open as a giggly mess like the time I brought John back to life too, the human body just isn’t BUILT for casting so much magic through itself at once.
..this is practically a suicide mission..
I KNOW!

Powers, I need help?!
I need a distraction, something, ANYTHING at this point!

Finally I broke through the trees and I found myself coming to a halt at the water’s edge, looking out as Cutis in all his monumental glory roared away and battered his scaly fists hard against what appeared to be some kind of ward bubble wrapped around the MPA teams who were focusing most of their efforts on apparently irritating the beast with gunfire, which didn’t actually seem to be DOING anything to the stupid thing!
..stupid MPA..

“Okay Hannah, you got yourself this far you stubborn idiot, what’s the plan?”
For once I didn’t actually have an answer for myself there.

My only ‘good’ idea at the moment was to use my overpowered magical storage abilities to vaporise Cutis out of existence but that needs time I don’t have to pull off and would leave me completely open to retaliation from Poseidon afterwards too.

“You know.. I was going to ask the exact same thing in a few more seconds..”
I jumped and let off a frightened yelp when John’s voice came from practically right behind me.
As I span around I found myself staring in stunned surprise as John offered me a still rather pained smirk and jostled one of the thick leather straps of the restraints he’d piled up behind him.

Instinctively I found myself feeling out the area with my mage senses and the tell-tale signs of warp residue gave an explanation for his sudden appearance if nothing else.
How on earth he managed to warp here directly with the restraints in tow though, I’ve got no idea?

“What do you want John-boy? Can’t you see I’m busy!”
Get lost you heartless bastard!
I thought you’d changed, I thought.. I thought..

“Little point in staying away from the battlefield if the only person I want to protect is determined to run headfirst into things with her eyes shut, is there?”
The smirk on his face looked almost apologetic for a few seconds but it quickly gave way to amusement instead.
“Besides, situations like this are why I normally do the planning for both of us.. powers save me from overly-emotional women..”
..HEY!..

I was doing PERFECTLY well without you John!
I’ve got a plan.. it’s not a working plan, I’ll admit.. but it’s a plan so screw you!

“I be agreein’ with the fop, useless girl. Plannin’ not be your area of expertise, head too thick, I be tryin’ but I can only be doin’ so much..”
..Edith?..

In all her withered glory Edith came rocketing out of the trees to my right, landing next to us while using her JuJu stick, one foot kicked out for balance and the other planted firmly on the slanted stick like some kind of demented wooden Segway scooter, as an apparently rather fast method of transport that I’ve never seen her use before.

“What be the plan then girl? Fae pet’s try an’ recruit me earlier but I be knowin’ you’d be involved in this mess somehow, it be your nature!”
She broke off to cackle madly to herself and shoot a thoughtful look between me, John and the piled up restraints as if she could decipher what was to come from just those few clues in general.
..Edith..

I sniffed back hard to stop any stupid girly ‘happy’ tears from escaping me as I watched my mentor hop around slightly with an uncharacteristic amount of energy and enthusiasm.
“I be havin’ history with Poessy, ya be lettin’ me take a shot at him an’ I be givin’ ya a discount next time you visit the shop useless girl?”

My eyes cut between Edith’s practically glowing smile to John’s now smug smirk and back, my shoulders slumping slightly in what may have been relief but felt a lot more like defeat than anything else for some reason
..ask and ye shall receive..

A locus point, her deviously heartless best-friend and her ancient mentor verses a senile old god of the sea and his pet abomination against nature..
..I actually like our odds surprisingly?..

John warps the restraints onto Cutis then distracts it while I charge up and Edith gets to play with ‘Poessy’, keeping him out of the fight until we’re ready for him?
..it’s better than anything else we have planned at least..

“..Okay.. Okay, here's what I’m thinking-”

======

“We ready?”

“Well DUH! Come on John-boy, you want to live forever?”
Edith cackled to herself and so did I at the almost offended look on his face.

“Preferably? YES! You arrogant little-”

“I can’t hear you John, I’m running off into certain doom, come save me like the hero of legend you obviously think you are before I get squished because you’re too busy picking your nose to do your part on time!”
That said I dipped into my lines and cast a pair of on-the-fly ‘velox ped’ enchantments to my sandals simultaneously.

He barely managed to yelp out my name before I was off, sending mud flying for a moment before I hit the water’s edge and launched myself out to skid my way across the water’s surface like a human shaped jet ski suspended above the water on twin cushions of air that kicked up an arc of displaced water in my wake.
For a moment I smiled as Edith joined me, employing a similar technique I didn’t quite catch the name of to turn her stick into some kind of propellant system as it’s tip sunk below the water line and jetted her forward at speeds that exceeded even my maximum.
..she always has to be just that LITTLE bit better, doesn’t she?..

We angled our way past the shallows around Buck Island and off towards the giant beast ahead of us, the sound of rapidly moving water drowned out practically all noise for me aside from the spray itself and my own hammering heartbeat.

..we’re insane..
We are definitely, DEFINITELY, insane!
If this works then I’m going to have to start finding luck gods to praise because they obviously like me enough already as it is at that point to name myself as a high-priestess at the very least?!

As agreed, Edith shot off ahead of me to find her own route to Poseidon while I shifted my feet and set myself into a holding pattern, doing wide doughnut shapes in the water so I could focus internally and start the painfully too slow, yet hopefully worthwhile process of building up my compressed magic to dangerous levels.

If anything is going to be enough to take Cutis out, it’s gonna be a blast of magic that has so far proven itself powerful enough to break all rules that I can think of and bring back the dead!

Vaguely I noticed when John warped in high above the beast, dropping the now glowing restraints on its head which quickly went ridged as they began slithering around its form to hold it rigidly in place, I couldn’t focus too hard on it though because one of my compressed balls of magic surged due to my inattention and I had to frantically scrabble around to secure it back down before things got out of hand.

Luckily I shouldn’t need ‘resurrection’ levels of magic for this and it took me about fifteen seconds before my chest started hurting from how much magic I had squashed down into the relatively small confines of my icy core.

Just like last time, my body started to feel heavy and the world slowed as I finished the last rolling compression that I felt safe doing.
With a twitch of my feet I pulled out of my latest rotation on the water and practically flew across the distance between my latest doughnut and Cutis’s towering form.

My eyes took everything in at once as my brain worked overtime processing it all in that single instant.

Off to the side Edith was visible hopping around on the water while running rings around Poseidon like the annoying little Yoda wannabe that she is.
In front of me the MPA have apparently all ceased fire to stop and watch as John flits around the barely restrained form of Cutis in confusion.

..how John can warp that many times at once I have no idea?..
Just the idea of consecutive warps makes me sick usually but even as I moved towards him and our prey I could see him warp yet again, disappearing with a blue glow only to reform on Cutis’s other side and send a kick to the great beasts ear as he falls through the air making it roar in anger while thrashing uselessly against its restraints.

A moment later I crash into the beasts leg, practically sticking myself to it as my feet kicked up to stop my forward momentum and my core protested at all the magic I have locked inside me, all at the same time.

I turned my eyes up at the main part of Cutis’s body I’d have to aim for, biting back a grimace at the fact that this left me staring at his very large, very monstrous, very MALE crotch.. and swirled my magic in the most common form of generic ‘lethal’ attack spell arrangement in existence.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a water mage, a fire mage, a lightning mage or an ice one, the basic framework for a blast of pure magic is still the same.. which is useful for me because I have NO idea how to shape my diversion offensively otherwise and the alternative would involve turning Upper Klamath Lake with the surrounding few miles around it into an ice sculpture sadly!

I’d like to say I had some kind of ‘witty’ name for the attack planned out or at the very least some kind of catchy saying to throw out there but honestly my lips parted and a gasp ripped itself from me as the magic inside pulsed with all the tightly compressed ‘balls’ of power inside my core beginning to unravel at once.
It was all I could do to just let it all loose as I manifested the spell matrix at my fingertips and pointed my palms vaguely up towards the beast above me with a pained yelp.

For a brief moment it felt like the world disappeared as my senses collapsed around me and my body convulsed with the force of magic leaving me all at once.

======

I came back to myself as I fell back-first into the water below.. which felt like hitting a far too hard, far too wet mattress for the few seconds it took before I bobbed back up to the surface sputtering liquid past my already building uncontrollable, unnatural giggles.
My eyes fixed high up into the air so I could watch what my amazing blast of magic had achieved.

Some part of me registered that I should be, at least somewhat, worried by the completely undamaged nature of the monster crotch facing me.

Some part of me even started to REALLY begin worrying as its feet lifted in the water a little sending waves crashing around me.

Some part of me decided that trying to use magic, that’s so far proven to be excellent at healing or repairing things and nothing else, as an offensive weapon was probably not the BEST idea in the world?

None of those parts were apparently ‘in charge’ anymore though because despite my best efforts I sprawled lazily in the water and cackled insanely to myself as the beasts skin seemed to literally glow in golden power before, with a flex of its massive arm muscles, it tore my conjured restraints to shreds from physical force alone.
..that’s not good..

I’m gonna die! That’s so awesom-
..NO, FOCUS HANNAH!..

I’ve beaten this before, I can do it again damn it!

Before I could really get any kind of solid grasp on my senses at last, a huge scaly hand reached down and scooped me up almost delicately from the water into its depths while swing me up to eye level with the beast that I just failed to kill.

I’m not ashamed.. okay, maybe a little ashamed?.. to admit that when it brought me up to eye level with its seemingly even larger then I remember eyes, I wet myself a little bit.
..not the water diversion kind of ‘wet myself’ either..

As its jaw dropped open to show row-upon-row of gleaming teeth I started losing track of reality in general from fear clouding my mind on an almost equal level to the powerful forced waves of joy that inevitably come from over-using my magic, which are pressing in on me as well at this exact moment.

I didn’t even manage to twitch my fingers before my still recovering magic surged forth again, forming up the now familiar golden ‘bubble’ shield effect that it did while I was facing Maven.
A second after that, tendrils of gold started slowly pulling themselves loose from the bubble and lashing out around me defensively.

Cutis moved its giant snout closer to sniff at me but before it could get too close the tendrils surged and began hitting his scaly skin with more force than I would have thought possible from a magical construct, solid or not.
..I didn’t tell it to do that?..

Cutis’s free hand came up with a finger ready to poke at my shield but was stopped short as the tendrils moved violently to the side and broke the monumental finger in one clean twist, causing the beast to roar out in pain.

As I lay on the giants palm feeling almost disconnected from it all my magic went to work on the beast, beating or breaking anything that came within reach aside from the palm I was resting on itself.

The weirdest part was still to come though when a chill spread down my spine and slowly, painfully slowly, the color of the dome shield around me started to change?
Light blue bled into the gold and with prodding, jerky movements it beat back the gold until the entire dome was a cold feeling shade of blue instead.

My eyes couldn’t seem to settle on any one spot for long but I could still see as the blue began its march up the length of the tendrils, despite the gold’s best efforts to hold it back.
..I DIDN’T TELL IT TO DO THAT!..

As the last of the gold was forced out of the tendrils in the form of a wispy golden mist, more tendrils started to form all across the shields outer edge, quickly growing from little nubs to long thick tentacles that draped down out of sight and wrapping so tightly around Cutis’s body that it could barely move at all.

Slowly the bubble shield thinned and deformed, wrapping itself around me like a two-inch thick full-body cloak of power.
As it finished, more tendrils formed on my back and pushed my body up into a standing position so I could stare into the, now blown-wide in fear, eyes of Cutis.

..this can’t be happening..

My magic’s out of control again?! Why’s it doing this?
I’m not.. I’m not in control..

‘Why is my magic DOING this?!’

"That would probably be because it's not your magic to start with Alice.. it's MINE.."
The words spilled from my actual, physical lips at almost the exact same moment that I lost control my body completely.
A hand rose up and flexed itself thoughtfully within my eye range.
"Sit back for now Little Alice, you tried your best, time to let Mummy handle this one."

Something non-physical seemed to slam into my strange new 'not really there but very real feeling' chest out of nowhere and as I watched blue wisps of magic roll freely across my fingers my gut rolled in pain to match it.
The hit was so hard I gasped out in surprise, although the sound never reached my actual lips.

With a jolt I found myself falling towards the flat white endless floor of my mindscape from pretty high above my usual starting point inside it!

======

I crashed to the ‘ground’ with a groan, still winded and highly confused from the whole mess.
“..what the hell just happened?..”

“Looks like you finally messed up again, sister dear.. no Theodora to save you this time either, bet you regret ignoring me so much now, huh?”
Shakily I managed to raise my head slightly and stare up at the girl standing before me.

Between her new, almost childish looking purple party dress and the admittedly impressive but no less odd, fussy hairstyle she’d gained, it took me a few seconds to recognise her past the throbbing in my poor abused head.

“..Ellie?..”
Her eyes darkened in rage and she stepped closer to me, pointy little heeled shoes clicking in the silence of my mindscape loudly as her skirts swished around her knees at my eye level.

“My NAME is HANNAH!”
Alongside that almost wounded sounding cry, she reared back her foot and let fly with a hard kick at my face that hit with unerring accuracy across my left temple making the world blossom with pain and the white mindscape around me grow unbearably bright for a second before instantly disapp-