Amaranthine

The drive back to DSM was far less eventful than the drive out. A horde like Technocago had at its gates wasn’t dealt with in a couple days, but with defenses back online and a few Guardians helping out the effort, the tide had ebbed considerably. It turned out, when in an open field and working on unarmored flesh, DustDevil was a bit of a nightmare.

So, Honey’s trundle down the road was far less panicked than her flight from the Ironhide tide had been. Qi was poked out the top, the hole now permanent in the form of a useful and sealable hatch, plugging away at anything that moved. Cait planned on joining her, just as soon as Gwyn was done with her tattoo roller.

“Okay,” Gwyn said, lifting the roller from Cait’s abs, now adorned with more of the circuitry motifs that covered her arms. “Had to make sure it wouldn’t disrupt your other patterns, but now… Why’d you name it Tamara?”

Cait struck her best Nukem pose, leaned back on the seat, summoning the massive gun into her right hand. The air shimmered, and it was there in an instant.

“Look at her,” she cooed, following her own instructions to gaze lovingly at the gun. “She’s totally a Tamara.”

“That’s the same excuse she used for naming her cat Salad,” Lira called from the passenger seat, where she was currently distracting Kennedy while B-Man gave the latter lessons in Honey’s operations.

“Fair enough, I had wondered about that too,” Gwyn muttered, examining the gun, presumably making sure everything was in working order after summoning. After a moment, she looked satisfied. “Okay, good enough. So, you already know how to use it, the sights make it more or less idiot proof anyway. But this edition works on Mass Effect rules, since you don’t have infinite ‘bots like me. Ammo is built in, but limited. Probably a hundred shots per summoning? Gotta give it a bit of time before you can resummon afterwards.”

“Where’s my cooldown meter?” Cait asked, half-joking, half expecting Gwyn to have built one in. Instead, their resident nerd just shook her head.

“Didn’t add one,” she said, looking at Cait like the girl might be a little slow. “Cait, if you’ve put a hundred rounds into anything with the kind of pinpoint accuracy this thing is capable of, then another clip isn’t gonna make a difference. Close that distance and start punching.”

“Okay, yeah, good point,” Cait admitted. She took another look over the gun, then ran her eyes over the half of Qi that remained in the crew cab. “Since I’ve already got this one summoned, lets test ‘er out, yeah?”

She popped out the open hatch in front of Qi, head nestled between the dragon’s boobs and the same having a nice, stabilizing influence on her shoulders as she raised the gun to a firing position.

Immediately, she was even more impressed than she’d expected to be.

The artillery they’d strapped to Qi’s shoulders distorted the air with every shot, the recoil nothing to the Dragon, but enough to shake Cait as Qi blasted away at a group of Wendigo keeping pace, maybe gaining, on Honey. As Cait sighted in on one, the gun stayed stable, more so than even her locked limbs could account for. The gyro tech Gwyn had put in here must be extensive.

The Wendigos were tough, but explosive shells from Qi the size of Cait’s forearm were enough to take them out pretty much anywhere it hit them. Still, the shells were ‘slow’ as far as munitions went, and the Wendigo had the sickening speed that leant an uncanny feeling to each and every movement they made. Plenty dodged out of the way of every shot Qi placed. It was those Cait focused on.

Her first burst took one full in the chest, 5 rounds, tearing through it. It slowed, but didn’t go down. That was kind of enough, since Qi’s next shell vaporized it. Still, it’d be better if Cait could add to the kill count herself.

She knew better, in most real-life situations, than to go for headshots. Despite her videogame habits, she was well aware that body shots were much higher percentage. But most people didn’t have the advantage of limbs that didn’t shake or sights that made it so a baby could hit a quarter at 100 meters.

Cait lined up those sights on the tight grey skin of one of the monster’s foreheads, and squeezed the trigger. Each shot of the burst landed as sure as the first, and the Wendigo dropped, those running behind it screeching as they stumbled over its corpse. Cait allowed herself a little grin, and started playing headhunter.

Between the two of them, Cait and Qi eliminated every monster in sight in a few minutes, and Cait dismissed Tamara. She started to wiggle back into the cab, but Qi’s strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, holding her in place.

“Stay with me a bit,” she said, voice soft, much more like the girl Cait had met that first night at the Guillotine. It was good to hear. Not that Cait didn’t like her dominant side, but as Qi herself had admitted, she was more than that. “It’s nice up here, minus the sounds of gunfire,” she continued. “and I’m kinda hoping my hair looks as pretty as yours does in the wind.”

Cait snuggled into Qi’s embrace. Cold couldn’t hurt her anymore, but ‘chilly’ seemed firmly in the range of temperatures she could perceive, and they were pushing an Iowa December. A perk to dating a Dragon was getting to take a hearthfire with you wherever you went, and one that hugged you at that.

She craned her neck back, finding Qi wasn’t looking at her, but at the rolling hills of eastern Iowa, trees nearly finished shedding their leaves for winter. As Honey roared down the road, her hair whipped in the wind, the turbulence from her horns making it wild, and unpredictable. If there were a painter, talented enough to capture the moment the way Cait saw it, they would likely throw away their brushes; it wouldn’t do, to never be able to surpass one’s own work.

They stayed like that, maybe 10 minutes, maybe for an hour, before they ducked back into the cab after Lira started poking around their unprotected lower halves.

“We were kinda having a moment up there,” Cait scolded, tackling Lira onto a seat.

“Uh, yeah, I know, but I wasn’t sure how to communicate ‘uppies!’ via handjob,” she explained, and a minute later she had taken Cait’s place, held up and huddled into Qi’s chest as they raced towards home.

“You wanna experiment?” Kennedy asked, splaying herself across Cait’s lap and setting off all kinds of fun alarm bells with the things that did to her clothes. Cait wouldn’t have stopped her grin even if she could, but her eyes jumped to the driver’s compartment where Gwyn had taken Lira’s seat and was talking with B-Man about something. Apparently on a private channel, since Cait didn’t have any errant British chatter in her ears, and his hat was facing the road.

“I mean, yeah,” Cait whispered, sliding a hand down Kennedy’s shirt, “but we have to be careful or mom and dad will hear us.”

-I CAN HEAR THE SQUIRRELS FUCKING OUTSIDE-

-NO WAY YOU’RE SNEAKING ANY FUNNY BUSINESS PAST ME-

Cait frowned up at her friend, hoping that he could see her somehow, but Kennedy’s laugh brought her back, finding her rolling those golden eyes.

“Okay, yeah, my fault,” Kennedy said, putting a hand on top of the hand Cait was currently using to massage her boob, “didn’t mean that kind though. Wanted to see if we can jump into your Soulscape together.”

Cait made sure every ounce of her disappointment was written on her face. Plus a few extra ounces, since she was actually interested but didn’t think the mild disappointment would pack enough punch.

Kennedy smirked up at her, punching her gently in the side.

“Look at it this way, Big Girl, no rules about what we can do in those baths of yours,” she purred, and though Cait hadn’t needed convincing, now she was motivated. If it weren’t for the magic of Cait’s supersuit, Kennedy would’ve been getting Gaston’d on a meatpole right now.

“Let’s hurry the fuck up then!” Cait cried, trying to pull the space into her mind. “but, uh, walk me through it, I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

Cait had spent some time with the space since Willow showed it to her a few days ago. But not…. Directed. More trying to hold it in her mind, find it within herself. She thought that one time she’s actually managed to fall into it, feeling the heat of the baths on her skin, but without consistency she wasn’t certain she hadn’t just fallen asleep.

Kennedy wiggled in, getting comfy and laying her head on Cait’s lap. She found a good resting position, and closed her eyes, letting out a slow, purposeful sigh.

“Okay,” she said, “follow me. Listen to my voice.”

Cait laid her own head back, letting any tension fall away. She pulled her hand out of Kennedy’s shirt, replacing it on the soft warmth of her stomach, resting.

“Follow my soul,” Kennedy continued, and through their link, she began to lead.

Like a river of serenity throughout her body, Kennedy poured herself into both of them, turning what Cait thought had been the placid waters of her soul into true calm.

Then she could see those waters, no motion but the steam. The cosmos spun around them, this perfect island of tranquility, but within those pillars, all was still.

Until a wave, not even a wave, the gentlest pulse pushed out from one end of the pool. Cait’s view shifted, panning towards whatever had caused that motion. One perfect, ivory toe, tipped by a perfect, ebony painted toenail.

The point at which her vision came through her ‘eyes’ rather than her mind wasn’t clear. It was sometime between when her gaze had finished devouring Kennedy’s legs, but before it’d reached her breasts. She knew that, because Kennedy could see her well enough to laugh when her eyes locked onto those unbelievable boobs.

“Good,” Kennedy cooed, taking another step, continuing her descent into the warm waters. Cait realized she could feel every inch of her those waters covered, though not in any sense she had a name for. As the water kissed the lips between her hips, Kennedy leaned forward, letting herself fall in. She slid across the pool, to where Cait realized she was sitting on a stone step, impossibly comfortable for what it was, water reaching to just above her abdomen.

Kennedy floated up to her, letting her legs swing forward, wrapping around Cait’s hips, pulling her towards herself a few inches as they crossed behind Cait’s back. She slid herself on to Cait, as easy as breathing, letting out a sigh of relief as Cait entered her, as opposed to the usual tight gasp of focus and pleasure. Those were Cait’s line this time.

The beautiful goth locked eyes with Cait for a moment, lips curling up into the softest smile Cait had ever seen on her. She wrapped her arms around Cait’s neck, pulling herself forward and up, bringing those lips to Cait’s ear.

“It doesn’t hurt in here,” she breathed, and Cait knew she wasn’t lying. It was like feeling things through their bond, but magnified till it was almost unrecognizable. Anything happening to Kennedy was happening to Cait, and vice versa, feeding on itself until… until it was overwhelming.

Kennedy stilled the motion of her hips, just holding Cait in the warm waters of the bath, both of them breathing hard, like they’d been going at it like animals forever, instead of an almost chaste few seconds.

“This is… this is a lot,” Cait gasped, feeling her breath on Kennedy’s face, the way her muscles moved beneath her skin, her cock throbbing inside Kennedy, all that on top of the sensory bacchanalia of Kennedy’s own body. This close, in this place, it was like they were each exploding, over and over, like every nerve was on fire but rewired to interpret that as pleasure.

“It’s us baby,” Kennedy gasped, that slightest movement making both of them cum, barely even a footnote in the wash of sensation they were bathed in. Cait wasn’t even sure if she was actually inside Kennedy, or if she what she was feeling was so much more than that as to make the comparison vulgar.

There was no telling where one ended and the other began. A part of Cait’s mind imagined them combined, imposed over one another like a double exposed imagine. For a moment, it was the most beautiful thing she could imagine until she opened her eyes and saw her again, and her benchmark for beauty was redefined just like it was every time she saw Kennedy.

She didn’t even have to say ‘I love you’. The meaning behind those words rang from every atom of this place with more clarity than her voice could ever intone, borne from a harmony sung by two souls.

“Hey, wake up perverts, you’re ruining the upholstery,” Gwyn scolded, pulling both of them back to reality. They each scowled at her, until a lukewarm feeling beneath them revealed she hadn’t been lying.

A frankly embarrassing puddle of cum oozed out of Cait’s suit, and Kennedy would need a new pair of shorts.

“Okay, so learned not to do that in public,” Kennedy muttered, ‘bleh’ing at a strand of hair that was more or less solid now, having been in an unfortunate place when the puddle beneath Cait had formed.

“Fortunately, we have a handy friend with robots who, and I know this from experience, can eat cum!” Cait prompted, trying to recover a little dignity. She’d gone 14 years without cumming in her pants, now twice in a few months. Gwyn scowled, clearly trying to decide whether to make them sit in their shame was worth having to worry about stepping/sitting in jism for the rest of the ride. Practicality won out.

“Fine,” Gwyn whined, “stand up.”

As the girls did, a buzzing cloud swept over them, eliminating all trace of indiscretion.

“I smelled cum!” Lira announced dropping down from the skylight, “who’s nutting without me!?”

“You can’t ha—”

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” Lira yelped, pointing at Kennedy’s right eye the moment the girl turned to her to roll them at her.

That eye was familiar for entirely the wrong reason. It was Cait’s forest green.