Amaranthine

The monster shrank back to Breastman’s normal, cuddly size, so quickly that the displaced air crashed back together in a titanic thunderclap. Cait let herself drop, rushing to her friend. He lay, splayed and flat like he only did when he was actually down. A gentle buzz announced the approach of a battered Gwyn

“What happened!?” she asked, trying to gather Breastman up, but finding him too liquid.

“I have absolutely no fucking idea,” Cait said, shaking her head and staring down at the be-hatted puddle her friend currently was. “Kennedy killed Bookkeeper, then her dad showed up, and shit popped off.”

“We were kicking ass, then he just started growing…” she rubbed at her ribs, wincing when she found them too tender to touch. “That can’t have been him.”

Kennedy ran up, carrying Bri, limp over her shoulders.

“It wasn’t,” she declared, her face set and grim. “But whatever is inside him is a hell of a lot worse than any of us expected. Your boyfriend kicks ass, Gwyn, but…. that other thing, it might be too much.”

“Too much for what?” Gwyn asked, her tone suddenly frozen steel. Kennedy blinked, apparently just catching up with what she’d implied.

“Fuck, I don’t know, Gwyn…. Can you do your Star Wars thing?”

“What?”

“You know, when you freeze them in bots, looks kinda like Han Solo?”

Gwyn fixed her with a glare that must have actually hurt, but she sighed, apparently acquiescing to the danger. She waved, directing her bots, lovingly, over Breastman’s unconscious form. Still splattered and splayed, it stiffened, encased in silver.

Cait winced as both the other women seemed to relax when it was done.

Fear finds its way to everyone but me, huh?

The whine of jet engines announced the approach of D-VI-L, its landing deceptively silent and smooth. Without even stopping its slide, it levelled its railgun, electric charge racing across its casing pointed straight at Breastman’s frozen form.

Cait didn’t even take the time to make a quip before she leapt onto the barrel Chiaotzu style, covering it with her stomach and latching her arms onto the steel. A sharp crack, an explosion, and she slammed backward into the dirt, rolling to a halt before springing back up.

D-VI-L’s gun arm was mangled, but still it skated forward, bringing its plasma saw down in an arc towards Breastman. It shredded through a cloud of Gwyn’s nanobots as the girl tried to coalesce enough to summon her own mech, barely missing her body. Cait lauched herself forward, grabbing onto the solid shaft of the saw feet before it sliced through her friend. The plasma blades buzzed angrily, but ineffectually against her skin before D-VI-L lifted the arm high, and Cait saw she was aiming to use her as a bludgeon to shatter Breastman’s frozen body.

Cait yanked herself forward, pulling herself forward and kicking off the saw shaft to slam into the mech as it reared back, making it teeter when it overbalanced. Thrusters on its back roared to life to right it, but it was too late, as Cait vented all the fear and frustrarion of the fight on its armored cockpit.

The alloy was hard, but not as hard as she was, and before D-VI-L could muster another strike, Cait ripped her out of the rig. She hung off the sparking hole she’d made, holding Captain Schwinn up by the neck. The woman snarled as she scrabbled at Cait’s forearm, swinging herself up into a leg lock on her elbow that probably would have worked if Cait’s joints weren’t Atlas-worthy.

Growling a warning, Cait tighted her grip on her throat. She expected fear to blossom in the woman’s eyes, but instead saw a refreshed flash of rage as she understood she was powerless.

“Do you…” she choked, before gasping as Cait loosened her grip slightly. “Do- Do you know how many of my men that thing killed?”

Cait felt her eyes unfocus, the realization hitting her that, yeah, collateral damage would be a pretty tame term for Breastman’s rampage. She snarled, returning to herself.

“Samsara, get Breastman out of here,” she commanded over comms. Flicking her eyes to Gwyn, she got a nod in return, the nerdy beauties own eyes boiling with fury tinged by uncertainty. “Gwyn has a holding cell prepared in the bunker, put him there for now, he should be okay in nano-stasis.”

Captain Schwinn hissed in Cait’s grip, glare hot enough that even Cait felt it. Wasn’t immune to that kind of damage.

“S-some fucking hero,” she spat, futilely striking at Cait’s forearm. The Amazon just looked at her, the same way she’d looked at the woman’s wife a million times. The look wasn’t an apology, but both of them had known it was an admission of guilt.

A rainbow flash told her Samsara had done as asked.

“I’m sorry,” Cait said, tossing Captain Schwinn back into her cockpit. Funny, the one time she apologized after giving someone that look, and it wasn’t even her fuckup. And it sure as hell wouldn’t make anyone feel better.

The mech sputtered to life, smoking as it sped off towards the ARMOR lines.

“All AEGIS personell,” Director Swan’s voice said over comms, calm but stern. “Gather on Amaranthine’s position and await pickup from Samsara. Do not engage with ARMOR forces unless in imminent danger.”

Fuck, must not have been the only skirmish after one of us went full Kaiju.

Beside her, Gwyn sent up another flare as Guardians began to stagger in around them. Most hadn’t fared as well as this group, which was saying something, considering they were down 3 members.

“Elizabeth,” Cait asked, as she kept an eye on the ARMOR forces that were beginning to encircle the disjointed Guardian formation. “Did anyone find Warhawk? She—”

“Samsara got her immediately after extracting Draconic and…” she paused for a moment, and Cait could barely make out a frustrated sigh, “Censor, who told Samsara she went down. Warhawk worked as a hazardous area scout often enough that Samsara had an easy link to her.”

Another pause, which Cait took as dismissal, before the Director spoke again.

“Cait… is Kennedy alright?” Cait took a moment before responding, looking over at Kennedy. She seemed to be working with Gwyn to triage Guardians as they arrived, prioritizing the injured for pickup while directing those in fighting shape to form a perimeter. She looked fine. Cait caught herself before she could wax poetic about how much more than fine she looked, determined and fierce after the fight.

She decided that time would be better spent looking deeper. Inside Kennedy, she found the girl was… almost exactly the same. Yeah, some residual adulation from killing the Bookkeeper, some worry about Breastman, but no paradigm shift. Killing the architect of her fucked childhood hadn’t righted everything wrong inside of her. Part of Cait wondered if that was because the ghost of her dad was still floating around somehow. Part of her knew that even if the Bookkeeper really was dead this time, he’d still be living in Kennedy’s head for years. Maybe forever.

She sent a pulse of support Kennedy’s way, filling it with love. The beautiful goth stopped for a moment, stiffening like she’d just had a surprise kiss on the back of her neck, before she looked over her shoulder, black painted lips parting in a stunning, genuine smile. Cait returned it, heart swelling as Kennedy echoed her emotions over their link.

“Yeah, she’s good,” Cait reported just as she heard the Director take in a breath to ask again. “You raised her right, Beth.”

The Director let out a relieved sigh.

“Thank you, Cait. According to reports, though, it doesn’t sound like this little family drama has come to a close. Couldn’t anyone in that fucking cult stay dead? Rhetorical question. We will speak later, please, assist with evac.”

Cait did, and for once, it went smoothly. The tension from the ARMOR troops was understandable, hell, plenty of Guardians probably shared their anger towards Breastman. Those tentacles had been pretty indiscriminate. But, because of that understanding, the Guardians did nothing to provoke the soldiers. Cait remained until the end, when a harried looking Samsara reached through a portal to take her home.