Amaranthine

“Alright,” Kennedy said, tone losing its humor, “refocus people. By my count we’ve still got over half these assholes left. B-man? Positioning?”

The little monster took a moment, bill wiggling in concentration.

ALL BUNCHED UP, scrolled across his hat

NEXT BUILDING OVER

“Fuck,” Kennedy hissed, “that’s what I was afraid of. They’re probably digging in, sent out the craziest or worst of them to delay while everyone else set up.”

“Do we call in backup?” Cait asked. It felt weird to be the voice of reason, but, shit, one of them had been eaten. They’d gotten Willow out, but still.

Kennedy waffled for a moment, but shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I don’t think we do. These guys are dangerous, but far less to us than if Pete was going up against them.” Her eyes flicked to Willow. “Willow, you can leave if you want, you’re—”

“What I am is pissed off,” Willow insisted, eyes flashing as her spider-silk hair began to float in an unseen wind. A moment later, she was normal. “I understand that I don’t possess the same resilience as you all, but I believe I will be very effective if any of these fools prove to be less than vulnerable to punching.”

Kennedy only let concern show on her face for a moment before she matched Willow’s fierce grin.

“Good,” Kennedy answered, nodding her approval to Willow. “Maybe just stick behind the big girls, and make sure to keep an eye on the ceiling, yeah?”

Willow gave her that flawless scowl, and answered only with a wave of her hand and ‘Fah!’

“B-man,” Kennedy continued, returning her focus to their only early warning system, “any kind of positioning you can give us on the guys waiting for us in there?”

He concentrated again, and, surprising all of them, a rough diagram appeared on his hat.

It showed a few main groups in a V formation, icons indicating those at the wings waited at the top of stairs.

The largest group waited just behind the main entrance, with enough distance between them and the door it implied cover, and perhaps a kill field. Behind all of them, in the geometric ‘center’ of the V, one dot stood alone.

“Damn buddy, you get new tricks every day,” Cait praised to a pleased gurgle from her friend. “All I ever am is a fuckin’ tank!”

“A fuckin’ sexy tank,” Kennedy corrected, bumping her head into Cait’s shoulder. She knew the girl’s self pity was entirely performative, but still, you didn’t let your friends talk down about themselves. Especially when every time you got a glimpse of that super-suited ass during a fight, it was distracting. “Thanks though, B-Man. Looks like we go with plan C, like usual.”

The sheer mass of the fusilade of bullets, thrown rocks, and explosives that rained down on Cait the moment she walked through the door to the side building shook the ground enough that it felt like Illinois was having its first major earthquake in half a century. That was good, it told the rest of the team, off to the sides of the doors and well out of the potential blast zone, that plan C was working.

A familiar cracking boom meant Cait was engaging, so Kennedy motioned everyone else forward. Qi went straight through the wall she was leaning against, already jumping up to the second floor to ravage the surprised nest of opponents there The unholy shriek Breastman was beginning to adopt as his battle cry drew the attention of the nest on the other side of the building as he engaged. Kennedy could see fear blossom in even those drug-addled eyes from 100 feet away.

Kennedy used the entrance Qi had made, but didn’t follow her up. Plan C meant Cait would draw aggro and cause chaos, but as usual, it would be up to everyone else to dish out most of the damage. She kept Willow behind her as they moved in to do just that.

It was a good thing too, Cait and the more monstrous members of the party had become most of the defenders’ entire worlds, but not all. A rock cracked against Kennedy’s skull, right where the horn emerged from her temple, and it hit hard enough to hurt. By comparison, the hail of bullets that followed it were a pleasant massage.

More rocks hit her, starting to come quickly enough that it was actually tough for her to move forward. She felt Willow shuffle up behind her, peek around, then begin to mutter. Kennedy was smart enough to know that meant the witch was working on it, so she crossed her scaled arms in front of her face and trusted in Cait’s link and Qi’s armor.

An instant later, the whip thin man who had been pelting her with rocks stilled, body going limp while still on it’s feet. She could see an ethereal, almost steam like vapor coming off his skin.

Did she just burn out his soul? That’s fucking terrifying.

The massive man next to the thrower looked confused, shouting something to the soulless corpse about the minigun he’d held the trigger down on for the last 10 seconds not being enough ‘to put that bitch in the ground’.

Well, he’s right about that, Kennedy laughed to herself as she used Qi’s strength to shoot herself forward, covering the distance between them in a moment. Mr. Minigun had just enough time to give a yell of surprise and get his weapon up to block Kennedy’s staff before he was Mr. Two-Useless-Hunks-Of-Metal. Curiously, as she had a few times during this fight, she reached out, brushing her soul against his own. She found the same thing she had each time in this gang; embers of power, surrounded by sickly pulsing force that was not their own. It was like someone had built a nuclear reactor around a campfire.

Regardless, she couldn’t access the ‘nuclear’ part of this power, and as such, this guy was of no use to her. She was plenty strong enough from Qi. She let the momentum of her first strike carry her into a spin, bringing her staff around again, planning to cleave straight through the gangster formally known as Mr. Minigun.

The crunching impact against his raised forearm sounded like it probably hadn’t felt good, something a growl of pain confirmed, but it also wasn’t the sound of flesh yielding to buzzing steel. Kennedy danced back, avoiding the uppercut of his counter and reassessing. She circled, mostly so she could get a view of Willow and Cait.

She couldn’t see the blonde, but she did see Willow do something that chilled her to the bone.

The witch’s hand faded, like someone had turned down its opacity, and she waved it gently through the skull of a gangster kicking something on the floor.

Oh there’s Cait, part of Kennedy registered, and she grabbed onto it like a lifeline. Anything to think about other than seeing her new friend doing almost exactly what her Father had done in that terrible footage from the Farmer’s Market. Unfortunately, Freeflow’s unpredictable gift chose that moment to activate. Kennedy’s eyes slowed, unable to drag themselves away from the expression Willow wore looking into that globe, a mix of amusement, greed and hunger. But then, slowly in Kennedy’s perception, Willow splayed her hand, silver-white eyes following the orb as it drifted up, up, and away.

Kennedy’s Mother, her real Mother, had trained her well. Even with her mind well and truly distracted, muscle memory kicked in to redirect the strike from the guy who should have had her full attention. As time reasserted itself, she tore her eyes from Willow, but couldn’t shake the last image she took in, that of Willow staring curiously at the pulsing, ethereal orb in her hand.

Another blow finally let her snap all the way back to her fight.

“Slowin’ down bitch,” the former Mr. Minigun snarled, and the poor idiot was too dumb to put the pieces together when Kennedy smiled at him.

She hadn’t slowed down, she just hadn’t been paying attention. This guy was all strength, no skill, and, when focusing, Kennedy dismantled him. By the end, that was literal, even those chunky forearms could only take so many strikes from something designed by NanoSmith.

As he screamed a requiem for his gains, she jabbed a claw into his mouth, and ripped downwards. He fell to his knees, gurgling out what should have been one last scream.

Her gaze snapped back to Willow, who had been noticed by another of Cait’s assailants.

Faintly, Kennedy could hear Cait; “Oh, oh ow, no, god, no, please stop, ow, wait, hey no, honestly don’t kick me in the tits that’s rude,” Cait complained, as convincing as a community theater child actor.

Jesus, if these guys shared any more than a single brain cell that would not be working, Kennedy smirked, letting the warm feeling of affection burn away a bit of the chill Willow had left behind.

Willow herself wore the same amused smile as always, but fuck if it hadn’t taken on a cruel edge. She didn’t even really look like she was fighting her opponent. Each time he swung, she simply wasn’t there. It was as effortless as her Mother’s fights usually looked, but… there was something different. Mom knew where strikes would land because she knew every fighting style and trick on earth as well as she knew how to breathe. Willow…. Willow looked like she was watching something.

Hesitantly, Kennedy reached out, going to learn for the first time what the witch’s abilities looked like in combat.