Amaranthine

Cait sprinted through the air. She hadn’t been sure it would work, but when they had realized what must be happening, she knew Kennedy had felt the same shock of panic and worry she had. Lira was tough, sure, but in the end, she was just a pretty girl with a knife, and Cait would save her as many times as she needed to. Even if it she hated her for it.

So she’d jumped off the building. She did have a vague plan for flight of sorts, but also figured worst case scenario, it was the quickest way to the ground. Her half-ass plan had actually panned out though, as she activated her nano-tech in sequence, each pump of her arms pulling her forward, each midair stride building her speed.

As she shot over the AEGIS campus wall, she could see a massive melee taking place around the refugee structures. She knew, intellectually, it was her job to help. She also knew she wasn’t going to be fucking doing that until she knew Lira was safe.

She careened towards the Pantheon, altering her trajectory to land her at the entrance. Cait only just now realized she had spared no brain power towards how she was going to stop, and as such slammed into the pavement of the Pantheon drive at around mach 1. Cait cursed as she jumped out of the 8 foot crater she’d made in the campus grounds, but figured she could apologize to the staff later, and took off towards the dispatch room.

She wasn’t as cautious as she’d been when she was carrying Kennedy, and ended up blasting through the wall to the dispatch room, to a knife in the tit from Lira.

“Cait!?” the frantic redhead yelled, before her next words were muffled as Cait pulled her tight to her chest. Lira froze for a second then returned the embrace fiercely. Bubb-Bill lowered the bubbles he’d been holding up in threat for some reason.

“Thank god I didn’t have to save you again,” earning a slap on the ass from Lira. When the girl pulled back, her eyes were rimmed with tears, but she was smiling.

“We saved ourselves, thank you very much!” she said, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her palm. She reached up on her tiptoes to kiss Cait. When she spoke, her voice was small, her hands bunching up the waist of Cait’s suit. “I’m… I’m really glad you came.”

Cait kissed the top of her head, wrapping her up for one more hug.

“Me too, babe, but this shit isn’t over. I gotta get to the refugee camps. Love you.”

With a boom, Cait sprinted off, not giving Lira a chance to return those feelings, or god forbid, reject them.

“You know you’re on comms, right?” Cait cursed when Lira’s voice tunneled directly into her ear. “Love you too, you big bulletproof idiot.”

Cait grinned wildly, her heart soaring, and mind finally free of worry to focus on the thrill of the fight.

As she approached the brawl at the refugee apartments, she saw a familiar, tiny, weirdly muscled figure raising a lollipop to rally troops against…. Holy shit, that was a good look for Director Swan. Despite being massively outnumbered and facing an opponent that hit in Cait’s weight class, the woman wore a smirk that was all amusement.

“Come on, Myriad!” Munchkin yelled, “She’s just one bitch! We can fuckin’ do thi—”

Director Swan was behind him, and his head fell to the ground alongside the top of his lollipop. She did a ninja-ass blade flourish to re-sheath her weapon that would absolutely have made Cait swoon, were she prone to swooning.

“Holy shit, you guys,” Gwyn’s voice called over general comms, “I just heard Director Swan say ‘and the vorpal blade went snicker-snack’ after she cut Munchkin’s head off. Don’t worry, I got it on video.”

“Radio discipline, please, Gwynevere,” responded Director Swan, but the note of smug pride in her voice was undeniable.

Cait opened a direct line to the Director.

“Amaranthine. Where do you need me?”

“Gwyn, Breastman and I have this building handled, help out Rodeo Squad.”

Cait looked to where Bullrush was putting a cybernetic fist through a man’s chest like it was made of tissue paper.

I think they have it handled too, but nothing like a fight for teambuilding, Cait thought as she threw herself into the fray. She smashed into their lines like a force of nature, blows and bullets sliding off her without even a tickle. The same couldn’t be said for the damage she dealt out, taking her pound of flesh from each enemy that came within reach.

A deep bellow from beside her. She looked over to see Bullrush, down and bleeding, his new cybernetic arm sparking as it shielded his head from…. What?

Squinting, Cait could make out nearly invisible entities, like shards of glass, swirling around the Minotaur. Cait blasted off, tackling him out of the swarm, feeling the shards hit her with surprising force.

She looked around for the source, eventually locking on a sneering figure floating above the combat. He was so close to handsome, but instead looked like a talented fifth grader had tried to make a good looking man out of clay. The shape of his head, set of his eyes, all of it was just slightly off. The cliché-ass villain goatee he wore didn’t help things either.

That’s fuckin’ Fait. How did he even get here?

Cait leapt towards him, hoping to end this fight before it started, but before she was halfway there shards battered her to the ground. She could see more swarming around him, and struck at the ones confining her, finding them as invulnerable as she was.

His storm of shards shot outwards, hunting towards the other Guardians. Cait saw sparks fly off of Gwyn’s mech suit, while Breastman did his best to parry and dodge, but was still taking hits. She couldn’t see Sawscale or Bullrush anymore, and had to hope they had gotten clear.

Director Swan though, expertly parried each shard, returning fire with her weird, never-empty flintlock. Fait, asshole to the core, just interposed shards between her and himself, while sending more to harrass her.

Cait wrenched herself free while he was focused on the Director, grabbing one of the nearby bodies and giving in a nano-powered launch towards the villian. She didn’t expect it to do any damage, but used it as cover, kicking off right after it. As she thought, the corpse was shredded, but she grinned in savage glee at the look of surprise on Fait’s face when she burst through the cloud of gore, mere feet from him.

His protective barrier of whirling shards converged on her, building on each other, each impact stealing her momentum, and finally halting her fist’s movement inches from his face.

“C’mon, 1 v1 me, right now, no powers. Your ass, my di—” she snarled, but her breath was stolen from her lungs as the shards bore her downwards, fast and hard, leaving one more crater on the AEGIS grounds. She glared up at him, and he sneered back in return like he hadn’t just come inches from being a terrible new glove for her.

Then a black blur of feathers, fur, and fury took him out of the sky and that self-satisfied sneer turned to panic real fucking fast. Rose took him to the floor, his defenses all still occupied holding Cait down, leaving him open to a savaging by the Cruma. Already, while she might not have inflicted fatal damage, one of the fuckhead’s cheeks hung off his face like a shitty ripped pocket.

Oh fuck, if that cat dies, Kennedy is gonna lose it.

Cait could feel the shards on her vibrating as they redirected to come to their controllers aid, and she strained against them, not really having a plan but knowing that unless Rose straight up killed that guy, she had to get her off of him. As the shards flew off of her, releasing her to move, she knew she would be too late. These things were faster than her when she had a running start, much less from flat on her back.

A whole ass tree shot out of the ground beneath Rose, carrying the Cruma away while entwining crushing roots around Fait. Looking to her right as she sprinted towards the pair, Cait saw Dawn, glowing an intense, pulsing green from her eyes and the wicked thorned vines that crept down the side of her body.

The shards impacted, shredding the roots holding Fait and beginning to carry him upwards. Dawn simply glared, as the tree seemed to reach for him, but actually just grew, impossibly fast, in his direction. The twisting vegetation chased the villian up, up, and away, its growth never able to outpace the slashing of his shards. The tree covered most of AEGIS airspace now, a verdant mirror of the larger Tortoiseshell over DSM. Cait heard Dawn growl, actually growl, like a fucking wolf, raise a glowing green open hand, and close it into a fist with finality.

A meaty sound, like a thousand swords being sheathed in flesh, rang out, followed instantly by the moans of the dying. Cait looked around, seeing each and every one of the duplicate soldiers that still stood impaled upon multiple impossibly thick and sharp blades of grass.

“Could you ALWAYS do that!?”

“No,” Dawn replied, with her usual beatific smile, and fainted.