Amaranthine

CHAPTER 34

Cait thundered up the steps, finding the way up blocked at the next landing, as expected. The kid gloves were off though, and she was going to throw some adult hands. This time, she didn’t miss a step, blasting straight through the door and into another cube farm that immediately erupted in gunfire.

The flying door knocked one man off his feet, landing on him. Cait followed it, activating her leg tech to push off the door with a wet squelch as the dude below turned into puree.

First time I’ve ever killed someone. Easy. Huh.

Cait was already flying towards another guard, unloading his assault rifle at her with no more effect than throwing salt at a bear. The fanatical hate in his eyes made this one even easier, and his chest shredded like confetti under the impact of Cait’s fist.

She wasn’t used to controlling the enormous bursts of speed her new leg tech gave her, and she stumbled as she got her bearings, searching for a new target. A guard seemed to mistake that stumble for weakness, swinging a glowing truncheon at her from behind. Whatever it was supposed to do, all it did was tingle and let Cait know he was there. She spun on him, and relished his look of surprise on his face before he didn’t have a face anymore.

Qi and Kennedy had entered behind her, wreaking havoc on the guards that were, understandably, focused on Cait. Now under attack from both sides, the remainder of the men were easily picked off, to the point it started to feel a little bad.

“Fuck, its like fighting kids,” she said, trying to wipe some of the gore that had painted her red-black. Punching people so hard they exploded was a messy fighting style. “Why the hell won’t they just give up?”

“Never dealt with fanatics before?” Kennedy asked, flicking a piece of skull off Cait’s shoulder. “Doesn’t matter how obviously false their superiority is, they assume everyone you’ve already demonstrated that on was just weak.”

“What, they think their bullets are gonna work better on me than this guy’s?” Cait asked, kicking at the remains of a man who was basically now just a head, lungs, liver, and anus. Kennedy shrugged.

“When your entire worldview is based on self deception, assuming your friends are shooting rubber bullets becomes pretty easy.”

“Well, fuck, I mean, I just killed infinity times more people than I had in my life up to now, I feel like I should be feeling something other than annoyed,” Cait said, crossing her arms. She knew she was pouting, but, shit, she thought she’d grown a conscience at some point.

Kennedy patted her comfortingly on the shoulder, before wiping the talon off on a sheaf of printer paper.

“It's alright, big girl,” she teased, a twinkle in those fiery orange eyes. “The good guys need benevolent psychopaths! God knows there’s enough bad ones. Remind me to make you watch Dexter when we get home.”

“The show about the nerd with the dummy thicc mom? Hell yeah brother, but weird timing.”

“I know you know what show I’m talking about,” Kennedy said, earning a glare from Cait.

“Its no fun when people start to catch on,” Cait muttered, kicking the liver next to her foot away. “Alright, no reason to stop the slaughter. Let’s keep moving.”

Cait led the trio through floor after floor of mooks, wondering if the Elevated Race had a duplicator on staff given the sheer number of boys they were taking down. Almost all boys too, leave it to a supremacy group to bring back misogyny.

They were one floor from the top when things started to get dicey. Each floor had contained more and more ‘useful’ Altereds. Granted, flame hands didn’t help one bit against her, but it was better than Guy Named Ted #12, whose best move was bouncing PlazLoad 7.62 rounds off Cait’s tits.

When they burst into the lower level of the penthouse though, they found only 4 figures waiting for them.

“Alright, which one of you uses ghost type?” Cait asked, turning their glares to confused stares. “Most of my fighting type moves won’t work against you, so you gotta let me know so Sonder or Draconic can do the whole fire thing on you.”

“Thanks for the cull, Amaranthine,” said a diminutive man, dressed in a propeller hat and wielding an enormous lollipop. “No point in weakness among the Elevated Ra-”

“Holy shit, Kennedy, you were right,” whispered Cait into comms. “They do treat delusion like it's competitively ranked.”

“What?” the man Cait had dubbed Munchkin asked.

“Nothing. Done with the monologue?”

“Fuck this,” hissed a vaguely humanoid shadow next to Munchkin, moving barely perceptibly before Cait felt a yank on her leg, and she was falling down, then up as she came out upside down through a shadow next to the four opponents.

“Shi-” she said, before that lollipop took her in the mouth like it was a bat a God used to play baseball with planets.

She slammed into the far wall, which was made of glass, and then, obviously, through it. Unfortunately, there was no Breastman to fastball her back in this time, and she plummeted to the street below.

We should have just gone in through the windows. Next fuckin’ skyscraper raid, I guess, she thought as she slammed into the ground, immediately hopping back up and dusting herself off. She glared up at the window she’d fallen out of, where flashes of angry orange light suggested her friends had already joined the fight. Cait spared one second to smirk at Sharon Smart, who was looking between her and the crater she’d made in the street.

“Think I can clear 43 stories?” she asked the shocked reporter.

“Wha-”

Cait didn’t let her finish, squatting low and blasting off.

If I make this, that’s gonna be dope as hell on the newsfeeds.

She shot towards the shattered window, but halfway there, she could tell she wouldn’t make it. Close, though. She pumped her arms, the explosive punches giving her just enough extra juice to clear the ledge.

Surveying the chaos as she landed, her eyes immediately locked onto Kennedy, splayed on the floor, Munchkin raising that fucking lollipop over his head.

“Messi!” yelled Cait, blasting off with one leg as she brought the other around to punt the diminutive strongman out the other side of the building. She turned to check at Kennedy, finding her already up but swarmed by the familiar forms of guards.

“They did have a dupli-dude!” Cait yelled, helping Kennedy dispatch the ever expanding number of hapless goons.

If I felt bad about all the murder in the first place, this probably would have solved that anyway. Now I just gotta kill this guy for real, wherever he is.

Cait’s strikes had become almost mechanical as she reaped a flesh toll on the unendingly duplicating opponent, until one swing ended with her hand stuck, the man she’d struck beginning to flow up her arm.

Uh-oh, she thought, as the goopy pseudo-flesh flowed up her arm.

“Kennneeddyyyy!” She yelled, scraping at the encroaching substance to no effect, it was covering her shoulder now, making its way up her neck.

I do NOT want this shit inside me.

“What the fuck!?” Kennedy looked over, eyes boggling at the weird goo creeping towards Cait’s mouth. “NoooOOOOOOOOOOPPPPEEEEE!”

Her words turned into a coruscating belch of fire, eliciting a screech from what must be the fourth Altered Cait had seen when she entered the room. It felt like a million slimy ants were skittering down her arm as it retreated, and Cait felt okay to take a breath again. She didn’t need to, it just felt good.

“Switch!” she commanded, swinging at the group of dupli-dudes trying to pull Kennedy down. Bunched like they were, each strike blew apart two or even three of them. “Burn that creepy bitch to ash, I’ve got these idiots!”

Kennedy didn’t reply, too busy chasing down the skittering mound of flesh, while making herself a self-propelled flamethrower.

Yeesh, and I thought B-man had the worst luck with Altered looks.

Cait powered through the Duplidudes, but was beginning to wonder if the real one just wasn’t here, so unless they got them all at once this was just a waste of time.

This all feels like it might have been a waste of time, actually. These guys aren’t bad, but they didn’t have any real chance.There were some actual guards here, but mostly I’d bet it was just this guy.

Good thing I brought AOE.

Qi was doing much the same as Kennedy, bathing the area around her in fire as the living shadow jumped from one darkened area to another. The ring of fire surrounding her stopped him from even getting close, so it was just a matter of time.

“Qi! Inferno! Danger Close!” Cait called, the hulking dragon’s head snapping towards her.

Damn, even full scalie those red eyes are pre-ty hot.

Qi gave her a fiery, fang-toothed grin, clearing most of the room in a single leap. Her entire throat shuddered as flames poured from it like the world's most useless firehose, crisping every duplicate in the room and leaving Cait feeling like she was an overdone steak.

She grinned up at the dragon, giving her a thumbs up, and getting a slap on the ass from her tail in return. They each scanned the room for the living shadow, but it was nowhere to be found.

Kennedy had chased the Flesh into the corner, and it let out a final shreik as it too was crisped, and fell away into…

“Oh, fuck,” Kennedy said, looking at the pile of smoldering pages the Flesh had poofed into. “What the hell does this mean? None of the rest of them were Characters, right?”

“No clue,” Cait answered, shaking her head. “Maybe Bookkeeper’s playing the odds, infiltrating everywhere. Honestly, doesn’t this thing sound kinda like that one B-man took down a while back?”

“Fuck, you’re right,” Kennedy sighed. “Well, shit, we didn’t think he could only use Characters once, but that confirms it. Bad enough he can turn old friends against us, but he’s got a shape-shifter too? Fuck this guy twice.”

“Doesn’t matter right now,” Qi said, approaching the two after dousing the duplicates once more for good measure. “I think the shadow’s done a runner, lets go fuck up the shitlord we’re actually here for.”

“Hell yeah brother,” Cait agreed, big grin spreading across her face.

They burst into a top floor, panoramic office, only to find it empty.

“What the fuck?” Cait asked. “We had good intel he was here right?”

Just in case, she smashed the big marble desk, checking underneath it. The others also tore the place up, checking paintings, bookshelves, anything that might hide some kind of secret passageway. Logic said even if they found one it would just lead to a window, since that’s all the walls were, but logic was a secondary concern when Waves were involved.

After 10 minutes, they’d had a pretty good RageRoom session, but found nothing, besides Fait’s computer, charred and useless.

“Keep it anyway,” Kennedy ordered. “Gwyn or one of the other Meta-brains still might be able to get something off of it. Some of the things they can do seem like magic, others actually are. We should call this in.”

“Bill, Fait’s not in the building. What are we doing?” Cait said, hand placed habitually at her ear. No response. 30 seconds, still nothing. “Bill?”