Amaranthine

A few more days passed. Cait spent the time training, eating, sleeping, doing a little hanky panky, and above all, being anxious.

They’d joked around about it a lot, but she was worried about the upcoming fight. She was strong, tough, and hilariously susceptible to a thorough application of something sticky.

She’d tried talking to Gwyn about it, but found it hard to argue with the girl’s aversion to her suggestion. The team techie had explained that hiding a nano swarm in Cait’s pores that could eat anything she came into contact with was a Faro plague waiting to happen, and she would have no part in it.

It might have been paranoid, but she’d actually spent a good amount of time getting herself, or getting others, to get her as well and truly stuck as possible. Then she’d either figure out a way to break out herself, or have Kennedy and Qi work on quickly and efficiently freeing her.

When the mech pilots had heard about these particular exercises, they had been perhaps too happy to help. Cait had spent one afternoon plasma lasso’d and being the ball in a game of keep away with Qi and Kennedy as the chasers.

They’d established that, with a bit of lateral thinking, Cait could get out of most situations on her own. That was dependent on her being able to move at least a little to activate her nanotech, however. If she was totally immobilized she was as helpless as a regular human.

In those cases, Kennedy and Qi going full inferno protocol usually solved the problem, as there were few substances that could withstand that level of concentrated heat. For those that could, they had proved unable to stand up to dragon claws.

So, as the army began to mobilize this October morning, Cait felt as prepared as she could be. She was loaded into Honey, BREAST MAN driving. Sonder and Draconic sat on either side of her, and the newly christened Censor sat across from them, playing Ultra Hit Sisters against Gwyn on a Flip 3 she’d brought. Warhawk sat next to him, trying to pretend she wasn’t watching.

Fiberfix had clearly not put too much effort into his hasty costume, given that it was going to be invisible most of the time and likely never even seen by the public. Kevin’s scrawny frame was stuffed into a white body suit, a red diagonal line slashing downward across his chest. He had on boots and gloves of the same bright red. Cait was pretty sure she was trying to evoke a ‘no entry’ sign, but…. Not her best work.

Gonna have to get her to upgrade that if Kevin actually becomes a Guardian. Can’t have another fashion disaster like Eyebite wandering around.

Kennedy laid back against her shoulder, doing her best to look like she was fine. She wasn’t doing a good job. If her constant fidgeting hadn’t given her away, the roil of emotions washing over Cait through their link would have been impossible to hide regardless. Cait did her best to soothe her, stroking her stomach and sending reassurance, but the fact was that, yeah, Cait would have been pretty fucked up in her place as well.

Qi, on the other hand, was absolutely pumped for the fight to come. The excitement flowed out of her like waves of her own fire, strong enough Cait had to wonder if everyone else could feel it, connected to Kennedy or not.

Rose lay across the three women’s laps, rumbling hard enough that it felt like turbulence and licking at her paws. She stopped long enough to nuzzle at Cait’s palm as she scratched her ear.

Calm before the fuckin’ storm, but damn if it doesn’t actually feel that calm.

Cait herself was keyed up. There was a sense of impending doom and anxiety she’d only ever experienced during particularly bad bouts of claustrophobia. As she had then, she did her best to dismiss it as ridiculous. As it had then, there was limits to its effectiveness.

Her phone buzzed.

Cait, Kennedy and Qi all looked down at the same time to see a semi-tasteful nude from Lira, Salad sat proudly atop her bubble-butt. She’d captioned it, ‘I’d wish you good luck, but Salad said you didn’t need it.”

“Heh,” Cait chuckled, exchanging glances with the other women. “Even the cat can’t keep her clothes on anymore.”

OPENING UP TO DROP YOU GUYS OFF IN 10, came Breastman’s voice over the comms. The stupid accent boosted Cait’s mood just a little bit further, and beneath the anxiety she felt the thrill of the fight begin to stir. It was already raging in Qi, and Cait let that flow-through stoke her own.

Those 10 mintues passed like molasses, but with a ding, the back doors swung open. Warhawk already had Kevin strapped to her chest, and with a nod to Kennedy, she hopped out the back, immediately vanishing as Kevin activated his abilities.

“Gotta go!” Kennedy ordered, “Can’t let them get too far away or we’re exposed.”

Rose followed Kennedy as she leapt out the back of Honey, both hitting the ground running. Qi, blind now, was already wrapped tight around Cait in a piggyback, and the duo were the last out. The only sign they’d left was a crack in the concrete where the duo had landed.

The ground team ran through the overgrowth and suburbs around the Winnipeg city limits, heads on a swivel, Qi excluded. Cait could feel how conflicted she was, both enjoying the ride, getting to hold onto Cait, but also being a literal burden.

“Hey,” Cait whispered, “don’t worry. We’re gonna need you soon enough. Plus, this way Lira can’t yell at me about not working out while I was gone.”

Qi’s tail smacked at her, but she could feel the dragon’s mood lift.

As they moved, Kennedy started pointing out oddities. Areas that were cleared that shouldn’t be, signs of movement, one time literally vaulting over a pit trap right before she would’ve fallen into it.

“Fucker’s kept those skeletons busy,” she said. With a sharp intake of breath, she pointed at a nearby streetlamp.

Perched on top of it was a small, skeletal bird, head slowly sweeping back and forth. As they watched, it scanned past them twice, with no reaction. All present let out a breath they hadn’t realized they’d been holding, and kept moving.

They ran for about half an hour before they crested a hill, finally able to get a good look at the city, and the plain in front of it.

Kevin summed things up pretty well for all of them with three words.

“Holy fuckin’ shit.”

The battle was well and truly joined, but, insanely, the fight wasn’t the first thing you’d notice.

Waves of skeletal troops flowed out of the city, their clattering charge deafening from where the group stood a mile away. They were also clearly not all baseline human skeletons, as more shapes and sizes than wholesome, natural skeletal structure were represented. Quick, lithe forms charged ahead, or slipped between the legs of towering Bone Titans, which would periodically pick up the more mudane around them, tossing them towards the fray.

In comparison, the combined NAAC forces looked miniscule. A force maybe a thousandth of the one they faced. But the power of that force.

Most enemies, big and small, were returned to dust well before they reached the front lines, falling to an absolute fusillade of offensive power. Gunfire, tank blasts, artillery, superpowers, all of it reaped an unimaginable toll on the skeletal horde, surely enough to break any living force, any force capable of fear.

But these weren’t living, and they knew no fear. Their march was inexorable, unceasing, and with each of them that fell, the next fell just one inch closer to the NAAC lines.

Worse, the skeletons weren’t alone. Peppered throughout were the Bookkeeper’s Characters. Many of them might have been less dangerous than the skeletons they supplemented, but some….

Thin, blindingly bright beams lanced out from the horde, and Cait saw a tank fall away, cut in two.

Fuck, swear to god, ‘Guns, we’re gonna find a way to let you rest in peace.

“Stop gawkin’ and move,” Warhawk ordered from above. With one last long look at the fight, then each other, followed by a reassuring squeeze of the hand Cait and Kennedy complied, heading out and giving the fight a wide berth.