Amaranthine

Part of Kennedy understood the irony of her doing the thing they had all just assumed Cait would do when things got heated. That part, however, was a child's cry against the dragon’s roar of fury that rose within her when she spotted her grandfather floating in the great vacant windowframe of the basilica, smiling down at her like they had started making stained glass portraits of rapey cult leaders.

She tried to rationalize it as tactics. Qi and Cait were keeping Freeflow occupied after all, and Kennedy was confident she could tear through Roidrage using her girls’ abilities. It was a perfect chance to rip this wrinkly fuck limb from limb.

The hulking Character opened his mouth to speak as Kennedy’s exclusion field washed over him, and Kennedy felt the sneer on her face turn to a fierce grin as his mouth twisted to an annoyed frown.

“You’d be fucked even if you could see,” she snarled, throwing herself onto the giant. Roidrage might have skin tougher than steel, but Kennedy had dragon claws on fingers that couldn’t break. She scaled him like a savage kitten, skittering around to avoid his enormous, grasping hands.

On second thought, getting this close was probably a tactical misstep, she thought, followed quickly by, fuck it, too mad to care.

Her claws gouged a rip across his ribs as she swung around his torso, scurrying up his back. She pushed her claws inside his mouth, using Cait’s odd ability to lock her limbs to wrench it open. Like she was going in for a kiss, she brought her face to his, and breathed.

It was fun, being linked to Qi, being able to turn something as innocuous as a breath into a death sentence. An inferno of flame scorched down Roidrage’s throat as he sagged and slumped, even as he dissipated to paper. Kennedy alit on the ground, and she wished the Bookkeeper could see the savage grin she fixed him with.

Her heart dropped when she realized he could.

Oh fuck.

“Kevin!? Sandra!?” she called, getting no answer. She spun, taking stock.

Cait, encased in glue. Qi, squaring off against some sort of water user and the same shadow she’d fought at 801 grand. A blue blur, shooting towards her, just before a familiar impact cracked into her jaw.

And didn’t take her down.

It hurt, fuck did it hurt, but the same blow that had knocked her out cold weeks ago slammed her head to the side, but left her standing. It had hit her just as solidly, with maybe more force but…

But I wasn’t this fucking in love back then.

She felt the outpouring of support and apology from Cait, trapped as she was, and with that feeling came power. She’d known, on some level, that this was the case. That the closer she got to someone the more of themselves they could give to her. But in practice? Mom and Lira felt pretty much the same regardless. Cait’s invincibility didn’t have a limit though, and until their feelings for each other found their own limit, neither did Kennedy’s growth.

She spit out a mouthful of blood, glaring at Freeflow, smugly standing back to slowclap.

“So powerful, my granddaughter!” he said, dodging Kennedy’s first tail strike. He narrowly danced out the way of her follow up fire blast, trailing smoke as he laughed.

He’s not thinking like Chance. His mind doesn’t have the speed.

He darted back in, but Kennedy had training, had experience, the Bookkeeper hadn’t dealt with yet. She saw his footing before he moved, predicted the straight, and dove forward to meet it with her armored forehead.

She was rewarded with a sickening crunch, not taking the time to appreciate it before unleashing a gout of flame. Freeflow’s reactions were fast enough to dodge back before he was more than singed, but he had gone from untouched to hurt in an instant.

Kennedy knew not to press the attack when he was on guard. He might not have the training or superspeed mind of the real thing, but his reactions would still make Muhammad Ali look like he was in slow motion. Sitting back into her stance, she bared her fangs, and beckoned.

“So weak, my grandfather,” she taunted, even saying the word feeling like poison in her throat. But it worked. You couldn’t have the ego Bookkeeper did and be immune to taunts. Freeflows eyes flared, and he shot forward.

Or he would have, if the tip of Kennedy’s tail hadnt’t found its way to an inch above his launch foot. Pierced, he stumbled forward instead of the lunge he had planned, faceplanting right into Kennedy’s black scaled talon.

She didn’t look at him, instead looking triumphantly up at the Bookkeeper as she closed the claw, crushing his skull like an egg.

“Chance would have killed me without even getting touched. These Characters are no less ghosts than you are, you paper-fucking maniac.”

Finally, Bookkeeper’s gaze was cold, a snarl replacing that infuriating soft smile. That made it all the more disturbing when a smile returned to his face, manic and violent.

“You shouldn’t dismiss ghosts so easily Granddaughter,” he said, as a titanic impact shook the ground behind Kennedy. She spun, face to face with what she initially thought was a tree trunk made of bone. She followed it up, up, up, to the monstrous form of TuTulang.

Among Altered Madmen, there were tiers. There hadn’t been enough to make any true distinctions, but there were clear gradations of danger. Near the bottom were people like Roidrage. Immensely physically powerful, uncontrollable beasts that posed grave danger to their immediate area. These were concerning, and would definitely require powerful Guardian or advanced ARMOR intervention to stop.

There were those like the Bookkeeper, or the Godhead in the DC, with fantastic power but enough rationality to wield that power. Often more dangerous, but also more predicatble. As the Godhead had proven, they may not even have a goal of simple destruction, instead choosing to carve out a kingdom for themselves.

Then there were those like TuTulang. The towering skeleton of a dragon, topped with the torso of a bone titan and a grinning skull crowned with vicious spikes. Titantic personal power, destructive intellect, and the ability to control armies of bone. Far more beast than man, but with all the most dangerous characterics of the most powerful Kaiju and Altereds. That skull now grinned down at her, as it extended one enormous clenched fist.

It opened it, dropping what at first looked like a crumpled bronze ball. Until Kennedy saw that the bronze wasn’t solid, but an intricate latticework of feathers.

Kennedy screamed.

But it wasn’t the scream of a victim. Yes, there was fear in it. Sure, there was pain. Loss? Definitely. But more, there was anger. There was rage. There was defiance. And, thanks to a girl she’d never thought she would care for, there was fire. Oh yes, there was fire.

Kennedy had never been able to muster that concentrated lance of heat Qi could bring to bear. It was simply beyond their bond. But that limit was broken. It could have been the rage, they could have grown closer, but it didn’t matter. As the orange flames surged from Kennedy’s throat along with her anguish, they heated from orange, to blue, to white, before coalescing into that terrible beam.

TuTulang reared back, but not fast enough to avoid losing the arm that had presented its horrible gift, or one of the wings it had used to hunt her friends down. Kennedy’s throat was raw as the torrent of flame petered out into smoke.

“You had to be wondering where he was, right?” Bookkeeper asked, floating over TuTulang’s shoulder. His grin had a manic edge to it, a bit of his vile insanity seeping out as he was pushed towards the edge. “I knew your little invisibility trick wasn’t coming from one of these sluts you brought with you, Kennedy. So I looked to the skies!”

A rattling, whistling noise made Kennedy jerk her head up. It looked like a snow storm at first, before the wall of white resolved into thousands of avian skeletons, all streaking towards her from on high.

She cursed, raising her scaled arms in front of her face just as they slammed into her. Individually, they would have been like raindrops, but as thousands hit her the impacts shook her bones and chipped away at her armor. She couldn’t even get her mouth open to put up a wall of flames, lest one find its way down her throat.

Holding her ground was all she could do, and even that was taken away when TuTulang’s tail swept through the torrent of his minions. It hit her with the force of a hurricane, and no amount of digging in her claws could stop her from being sent flying.

She crashed through one of the park’s spindly trees, skidding to a halt next to some new statuary, glue still cooling. Breathing hurt, and she could feel a rib or two moving in a way it shouldn’t. She looked up into Cait’s eyes, wide with panic and rage, powerless to even move to her aid.

Gonna make it worse.

“Babe… need.. you…” she gasped, each word like knives in her chest.

She opened herself to Cait completely. Anger, fear, love, If they were going to lose, better she knew exactly how she felt. Instead of a look of soft acceptance though, she saw Cait’s eyes turn hard. And…. her pupils turn to slits?