Dear Diary,

  How bad is it that the first thing I felt when Lily bounded up to me and announced that the village was in danger was relief? Not relief at the village being in danger, just to be clear.

  I'm honestly not sure why I felt so much relief. Maybe because up until this point, all I'd done this week was look for shit without finding anything concrete. Maybe because of that day where I spent most of it on the lake and wound up totally got inside my own head in the worst of ways. Having someone come up to me and say 'danger' made me think that maybe they'd point me at something I could do something about.

  Whatever reason I felt that way, when Lily made her announcement, I barely paused long enough to say, "Grandmother's town, where Panther and Closer and Silk live?"

  She gave me an 'are you an idiot' look, but said, "yes!"

  I held out a hand to her, and when she balked, cringing away, I banished my Mana Blades and said, "I can get us all there fast. You want a ride?"

  She almost shook her head, but steeled herself and grabbed my hand. The moment she did I stepped us back to the Mortal Realm.

  "CADETS! RALLY ON ME!" My shout had the desired effect. Within seconds all of them had broken whatever cover they'd been moving through and nearly reached me. "Link hands!"

  After the number of times I'd Translocated the group, none of them hesitated or asked questions. The moment everyone formed a chain back to me, including Brown surreptitiously gripping Lilly's far hand in theirs, I stepped us to right outside Grandmother's house.

  The moment we arrived, I froze. The village echoed with the sound of people coughing. I turned to Lily. "What kind of danger?"

  She pointed northward. "The Dire Bear!"

  I blew out a lungful of stress filled air as the Cadets dropped their packs and unlimbered their weapons. I don't know what made me ask, lingering paranoia maybe, but I captured Lily's gaze with my own and said, "so there's not a Plague epidemic in the town?"

  She grit her teeth and stamped her foot. "Of course there is. But the Bear will make all that moot! Why else would I seek aid from a Plague Spirit?"

  I froze again, trying to remember how to breathe. "This started after our last visit." She shrugged, then nodded. "How long? How many dead?"

  She glanced northward, then back to me, dancing back and forth like she wanted to run. "Even now Rabbit tries to distract the Bear, but they can only do so much!"

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and blew it out. Then I opened them, looked at each of my Cadets, and said, "your mission goal is to delay or distract the Bear. Do not engage unless it gets in view of the town. Assist Rabbit if at all possible. Buy me time." I looked at each of them until they nodded, then said, "Go." They went, Brown calling out formations and brainstorming ideas with Ryan as they ran.

  I tuned back to Lily. "How. Long? How. Many. Dead?"

  "Your warriors won't stop it! Rabbit can barely delay it!"

  I didn't think. My hand lashed out, and I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into my eyes. I desperately wanted to go with my Cadets, but I could not leave. My feet wouldn't take a step in the direction of the Bear, and it had nothing to do with fear or any bullshit like that. There were children and sick people in the village. I couldn't walk away from that. Literally could not. The raw frustration from that leaking into my voice, I said, "I asked you two questions. Answer. Them."

  Frozen in delectable fear, even her eyes frozen, she snapped out, "The first fell ill days ago. The first died this morning. The very old and the very young. Just like your kind always take first."

  I would not lash out at her for blaming me for... no, for assuming I was another of the fuckin' Plague Gods like the ones I'd killed. Like I'd become, since I killed them. Shit. Fuck. Dammit. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't and don't want this. But you might have missed one or two things."

  She sniffed. "What thing did I miss that matters?"

  "I am also a Goddess of Healing. More importantly, I'm a Goddess of Children. Can you fight that Bear? Or even distract it?" She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. That gave me as much of an answer as I needed. "Bring them all here. Every one that's died, every child, every elderly person."

  "Are the dead so far not enough of a price for saving us from that thing?" She nodded toward where I heard the distant sound of an explosion.

  I stopped myself right before biting her head off. I'm not sure if I'd planned on doing it metaphorically, literally, or hopping us both to M-Space and doing some combination of both. After a deep centering breath, I lay a hand on her shoulder, then shifted my other hand to her other shoulder. "Look. Lily. I don't want anybody dead. I'm feeling really fuckin' stupid for not thinking about disease vectors after our visits. But I swear to you, I do not intend to let anyone else in this town die, or let any who died from my stupidity stay that way. But that thing," I nodded toward the faint, distant sounds of battle. "Does not give a shit about what any of us want. You're right, eventually it will get through my Cadets, and if I'm not done with the Healing before then, it's gonna wreak havoc and cause all kinds of property damage and suffering before I can stop it. But," I tried to let her see, tried for a moment not to be a Goddess of Trickery who never let anything real show through to anybody but my ladies. "I literally cannot leave until I've made this right." I sighed, then dropped to one knee, my hands slipping down to hers. "Please. Lily. Will you help me?"

  She looked down at me, her sneer waxing and waning until, finally, she gave me a single short, sharp nod. I let go of her hands and she leapt away.

  I stepped into Grandmother's house only to hear quiet weeping interrupted by a bout of painful coughing. I pushed through the curtain into the main room. Closer, Sparrow, and Dandelion tried to hold Silk down where he was coughing himself out, blood and phlegm pouring out of his mouth with each cough. Panther and Finch lay on a pallet with their heads propped up, cloths on their foreheads and sachets of herbs on their chests. Grandmother and Sunflower lay side by side, eyes closed. Not wheezing. Because they weren't breathing.

  "No."

  In the lightlessness outside Time, I stared at Grandmother's spirit, holding Sunflower's by her side, one hand on her forehead. Before I could move, before I could think, I felt her behind me.

  "Can you help them, Mom?"

  Her voice carved out of ambient noise and lack of sound, she snorted and said, "why?"

  I drew her around in front of me, glared right into her eyes and said, "because it would give me an excuse to keep you around to keep your granddaughter happy. Now. Can you remove the pathogens and mucus from them?"

  For the first time since I'd first encountered her, she looked uncertain. "Perhaps. Unlikely without causing further harm. Does that matter?"

  "Yes, it fucking..." I shouted, then paused. She'd asked. She'd asked rather than just harming people negligently. "Yes, Mom. It matters." I scrambled, then my lips curved in something that might have been a grin. "Can you stop that fuckin' Dire Bear just north of here? And by stop, I'm fine with you killing it dead."

  She got a faraway look in her eyes as she glanced northward. "Dire...? Oh. The Dragon spawn. At that size, excising it would cause significant collateral if done from outside Time." I frowned at her, and she shrugged and said, "Dragons."

  "Can you hurt it, or slow it down? Fuck, can you kill it if you're not outside of Time?"

  She shrugged. "With or without collateral?"

  I rolled my eyes. "Without."

  She cocked her head, considering. Then smiled smugly. "It will take Time."

  I took a deep breath, let it out. "Fine. Go. Slow it. Stop it. No collateral."

  She nodded, and was gone. In the space beyond Time, I Co-Located one of me back to the Mortal Realm, then stretched as many tentacles as could reach me here. Here in M-Space, my big ones could reach just fine. Back in the Mortal Realm, I got the impression they'd be attenuated and have almost zero leverage. But they conducted Mana just fine.

  I stepped back into Time, and lay a hand each on Grandmother and Sunflower. "Cure." Mana flowed, and the three semi-mobile people in the room turned to glare at me. "Revive."

  Both of them sat up, gasping. Grandmother even looked a little less than composed as she turned to me and said, "didn't expect you back."

  My face heated as I turned to Panther, the next closest person to me. "Yeah. Sorry. Didn't intend this. Should have seen it coming. Didn't, because I'm an idiot." Then I lay a hand on Panther. "Cure." Mana flowed, and he started coughing. "Heal." HIs coughing got worse, but it was the coughing of an otherwise healthy person trying to evacuate everything out of their lungs.

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  As I turned to do the same for Finch, Grandmother muttered, "just as bad as Silk."

  The moment Finch started clearing her lungs, I moved on to Silk, who hadn't stopped coughing. I wasn't rough about it, but I pushed my way past the others to lay a hand on his chest, holding him down as he gasped for air. "Cure. Heal." Then I let him up as he started coughing productively, splattering all of us with the unwanted contents of his lungs. While the others winced, I hit each of them with a Cure as well.

  Closer raised his hands in a defensive gesture as I reached for him, but Grandmother snapped out, "she's trying to help. Let her."

  "Anyone else here?" When their heads shook, I said, "when you're cleaned up I might need some help outside. Not sure how good Lily is at carrying people. Let me know if any of them," I nodded to Silk, Panther, and Finch. "Need another Heal before they're done clearing their systems."

  I left to the sound of Sparrow emptying her guts onto the floor while Grandmother took over. When I got outside, I heard more explosions in the distance, now intermingled with the roars of an absolutely enraged Dire Bear in the kind of pain that told me it had lost some painfully important bits.

  Kitten?

  Yes, love?

  I need Vulcan at Grandmother's village.

  Should Marie or I bring him?

  Part of what I loved about my Kitten. She didn't ask painfully obvious questions with embarrassing answers like 'why didn't I go get him' or shit like that. I want you here like air, but there's a fuckin' Dire Bear bigger than the last one on the way, so Imperator Sexypaws, first of her name, really shouldn't be here.

  At that point I made it to the clear area I'd sat with Lily and Rabbit, where Lily had laid out half a dozen bodies. Three old women. One old man. One kid younger than Sunflower. One bundle the size of...

  "No."

  In my wireframe world I knelt down, lifted that tiny bundle, and breathed that one terrible word. "Live."

  Mana flowed, flowed from tentacles in M-Space to the me there to the me standing outside of Time. It felt like nearly as much as when I'd Revived Ria. Not that I cared about that right now. A thousand, thousand tiny motes flowed back together, flowed back into that tiny body. I stepped back into Time and Lily skidded to a stop with a pair of coughing children in her arms as the baby in my own screamed for her mother.

  "How?"

  "Power. Bring her mother next please?" Tucking the squalling bundle under my arm, I leaned down and Cured, then Revived the old folks, then the kid. All of them sat up with that same cocaine enema look in their eyes. Then they started shivering as the cold of the snow still lying on the ground hit them. "Get inside." I turned to see Closer and Sparrow behind me. "Get them inside." Right then I noticed two figures standing atop Grandmother's house, one big one standing gingerly, like she didn't want to fall through the roof, the other little one with her feet planted firmly, calmly stringing Vulcan. "Kitten!"

  She smiled grimly down at me. "When our friends are under attack, this is exactly where I should be." Especially since I half suspect this was intended for us.

  I can't leave the village until I've fixed the fucking Plague we brought.

  The... shit. She nodded, then half turned to Marie while her hands worked to cock Vulcan. "Get us vision, please, lovely Marie?"

  Marie nodded, grinned at both of us, then leapt clean clear of the village, dropping to all fours and sprinting as she hit the ground.

  What, no roar? I snarked. I had a lot of tension at the moment.

  Sneaky. I need to remember that Marie has millennia of experience at all the normal daily life things, including snark.

  With that I turned back to Lily, who'd brought me another pair of little ones, both wheezing.. "Is anyone else dead or nearly so?" She shook her head while I Cured and Healed the pair in her hands. Thankfully neither of them needed me to force them back together the way I had the earlier baby. "Okay then. Get everyone outside."

  "But..."

  "I need them outside, where I can see them from up there." I pointed.

  "Up where?"

  I stepped up above the village, high enough to see every edge of it, and shouted, "Here!" Then I stepped back down next to her. "Can you do that? Spread the word?" She nodded. "Then do it!"

  As she bounded off, I stepped over to where Saffron stood, Vulcan in her arms. We might have a problem, Kitten.

  Other than a resurgent Plague and a Dire Bear of impressive size?

  Mom showed up. She tells me that she can't erase the Dire Bear without 'collateral'. Too much Dragon in it.

  Her face scrunched up in an adorable little moue. I know she intended to look put out, and I'm sure the members of the Grand Council had learned to fear that look by now, but I couldn't help it, I just smiled up at her from where I knelt on the roof, trying to spread my weight around a little. She looked down at me, the moue vanishing into a regal glare. Well then. I shall still open fire the moment I see it, even if I won't expect it to die quite as easily as the dragon whose mouth you so cleverly kept open. But... Attack Dog?

  Woof.

  The moment the village is Cured and Healed, you are to end that thing.

  Woof! Woof! Yip!

  Goof. She smiled down at me affectionately, shaking her head as she did.

  I barked out a laugh. I'm not the one getting licked all over once we've dealt with all this.

  Who says?

  We sat like that for another few minutes, Lily dashing from house to house with great leaping bounds, some of the inhabitants of those houses just coming out and standing there shivering under blankets, some of them running to other houses to roust people out. In the distance, slowly drawing closer, the sounds of massive trees being shattered to kindling slowly drew nearer. A sharper, clearer roar sounded over the Bear's earthquake rumble, cut off with a sudden squeal of pain.

  Marie!

  Ouch. Her deadpan response let me know that while one of her might not be in great shape, she wasn't in mortal danger at the moment.

  A second later we got our first look at the thing. Scale was hard to tell until one of the Cadets came into view. O'Brien, by his bulk, I think, but I couldn't be sure. Whoever it was had a big two handed sword like O'Brien, so I guessed the tiny figure stabbing one of the Dire Bear's pickup truck sized paws had to be him. He'd definitely been practicing the fine art of ducking, because the Dire Bear reacted kind of like somebody who'd been stabbed with a nail; it kicked its paw sideways, roaring. O'Brien rolled forward under the paw, then out the other side before it came crashing down to crush him. Then he bolted, sprinting eastward. The Dire Bear, which seemed to lumber slowly, still managed to mostly keep up with him. If it hadn't had to crash through trees he dashed between, it probably would have caught him.

  While it chased, I got a better look at it. Bone plating covered most of it, including big fuckin' solid looking plates all down its back. The way it moved, they weren't quite solidly attached, but by the cacophonic noise it had more plates under them, covered by the big ones. More plates covered its limbs, except at the joints, where spurs stuck out from the plates. Some of those plates had huge cracks in them, but nothing that went through the second layer of plating. As I watched, another section of plating just disappeared, but other than a bit of growling, the bear didn't react. All in all, the thing looked less like a Bear and more like some kind of gargantuan tail-less ankylosaur. Yes, I had a favorite dinosaur. No, it wasn't the ankylosaur. It was the Tyrannosaur. Rapper name T Rex, with those itty bitty arms.

  At that point Lily called up, "Tabitha Diaz! We are ready!"

  I hugged Saffron, stood, and drew Mana from the me sitting in M-Space. I kept drawing it until my hair rose off my head and a flickering glow surrounded me. I stepped above the village, and before I could begin falling, shaped. "Mass Cure."

  I stepped over to M-Space, blasted myself full of Mana again, then stepped back. "Mass Heal."

  The pulses hit the village, and a few people started coughing up phlegm, but most of them stood up and made cheering motions. Lily glared at me as I stepped back down, right about when trickles of Worship started hitting me. I stepped over to her. "Yeah, I know I don't deserve it. But right now I've got to go deal with that Dire Bear. Can you get everyone back inside?"

  She just glared and nodded, and I stepped to Marie, who'd gotten herself onto the back of the fuckin' Dire Bear. I leaned over to her and muttered, "can you get Chloros to Saffron?" At her nod, I gave her a kiss, then said, "do it. She's the best Crossbow shot I've seen yet. I'll see what I can do to get its mouth open."

  With that, she was gone, leaving me on the back of the bear. I sprinted for the thing's head, Mana Blades extending from my arms. After about a dozen feet I stepped to the top of its head and plunged my Blades straight down in between a pair of plates. They sank about two inches in, hit its skull, and didn't go much further.

  "Fuck." I stepped into the air and back down to its back as it raked a paw full of massive claws through the space I'd just been. "Okay, Smokey. Lets..."

  The Dire Bear staggered backward as a bar of blue light connected it to the town in the distance, angling upward from its head. I leapt to its snout and looked at its face; while a huge scorch mark and shattered bone showed where Vulcan's bolt had hit it right in the eye, the latticework of bone in front of its eyes had protected it, at least once. The thick bone plating had cracked, but it was still there, still protecting its eye.

  Shit. Good shot, Kitten, but no joy.

  That was your Cadet. She'll need a moment before she's ready to fire again.

  I'll bet. Tell her not to bother with the eyes. Crank Vulcan up a bit higher, wait for me to get its mouth open.

  She sent me a mental nod, and I leapt back to the back of the thing's head. It stood, reaching back to paw at me. I stepped out of the path of the incoming paw, only to have it change direction mid swipe. "Aw, c'mon!" I Translocated past it, and it bonked me with the side of its head. Shit broke, and I collapsed back to the me in M-Space, then Co-Located back out, ignoring the pain of my injuries. It spun in place as I stepped right to the middle of its back, pulling my sword staves and driving them right into the spot it couldn't reach between its shoulder blades. They didn't go in very far, but they let me hang on in a spot it couldn't reach. I'd gambled a little on it being unable to reach that spot, and also unwilling to turtle itself by slamming its back into the ground. I'd also landed in a little divot that ran all along its spine, which only made it harder for it to get to me.

  At that point, it growled, then started turning, trying to reach me. As I spun, dangling by my weapons, I reached out with my tentacles, grabbing it by the ankles and paws. Much like before, those bone spurs tore at me, and with how little leverage I had, I couldn't seem to get it to stop turning. That shit hurt, and I screamed, but the Dire Bear kept its fuckin' mouth shut. Just my luck, I finally want a monster to try and bite me, and I get one that understands 'Shut The Fuck Up'.

  I pulled my tentacles away, pissed off and in pain. I turned my head, getting dizzy as the bear kept spinning. I glimpsed the village in the distance as we spun. Once, twice, a third time, I tried to get the timing down as about half of my tentacles Shaped. As it spun to face the village again, half of my tentacles grabbed its arm, slowing its rotation. Just as the other half all stabbed it in the crotch with Mimic-tentacle sized Mana Lances.

  That got a roar from it. Briefly. A moment later, the Dire Bear went silent, the whole thing shuddering. Its arm shredded my tentacle tips as it pulled free, and I tried to get my bearings back, tried to banish the dizziness as weightlessness added a different type of disorientation. A moment later, the me on its back got a whole fuckin' lot of compression trauma as the little spot i was in got filled with dirt. Not quite dead, I collapsed back to the me in M-Space, then stagger-stepped back to the roof of Grandmother's house.

  "Nice shot. I'mma lie down now. Ow."

  Saffron leaned over, and I noticed Marie putting Vulcan away as Chloros lay there kinda panting and looking very whelmed. Possibly even overwhelmed. Then my Kitten leaned in and said those lovely words that released all the endorphins and released my grip on consciousness. "Good Girl."