Blood rushed in my ears as I stepped into the building, distant explosions sounding out, too far away to worry about. The once clean marble was shattered and streaked with burn marks, the walls were crumbling, and the windows were all blown out. On the left side, the conference table from the floor above had dropped through the floor and rested on top of what little remained of the office wall, and on the right, the cafe area was charred and broken. The desk in the center of the room where the receptionist usually sat was in scattered pieces, the lines of the explosion streaking away from it, a gaping hole in the ceiling above it.
The air was heavy with smoke and fire, and I stood in the doorway, unable to move. Sounds came from my shoulder, words I didn't care about. This was my home, my safe place, and it was gone. Were the girls ok? Was Oori? I swallowed and took a step forwards, there were no remains visible where the receptionist would have been, maybe everyone got out? I took a breath, tasting the smoke on my tongue. I needed a snack, something to get this... miasma out of my head. A wave of sparks shot into my body and I sucked in a breath, turning in place to see Seraphim, her hand on my neck.
"Candy, are you alright?" she asked, a concerned look on her face.
"I- no, I'm not." I said, backing up "I need- I need a- I need sweets."
I broke away from her touch and stumbled towards the cafe. The booth was crumbled and in pieces, but the display counter was still mostly together. I reached in through the shattered glass and pulled out a cookie, one of the ones shaped like Galorna. I bit the horn off, the one she'd broken at the party, and let the sugar seep into me.
"Be careful, there's glass in some of those desserts…” Ravel said from my shoulder.
I blinked, I'd forgotten she was there. Glass would hurt going down, I should get something else. A drink, a smoothie, I needed something to sip. I got back to my feet and walked around the counter, looking for the machine with the mango flavor in it. I smiled and picked up a cup, fiddling with the faucet. The machine spurted and flecks of nothing dribbled out. I focused on the tank and made a noise of annoyance, empty... A hole was punched through the side by a part of the marble desk, draining the slush onto the floor.
I frowned at the red mixing into the orange slush, and followed the trail up to a cabinet, partly ajar. Was there syrup in there? I wasn't above drinking straight syrup, as long as it had sugar in it. I walked forward, my shoes splashing in the mess on the floor and opened the cabinet.
"Oh, god, fuck, Candy, I-" Ravel ducked behind my head as I stared numbly.
A familiar face, half covered with long dark green hair and partially caved in by a chunk of desk stared blankly at me. I reached out and pushed the hair out of his face and looked in his dull eyes. Green, just as I'd expected. The hole in the back of the cabinet where the shrapnel had punched through into Arnie's skull showed Sera, flying up into the crumbling ceiling. That's not right, she didn't have clearance for that area, she needed an escort. I couldn't think about that though, I couldn't even think about the body in front of me without wanting to heave. I pulled a bottle of syrup out from behind Arnie's body and stood up, looking up after where Sera had vanished. This would help, it had to.
"He had time to get to cover." Ravel said quietly, "They knew it was happening before it happened, at least by a few minutes. I didn't see anyone fly out of the building, but maybe they'd already gone before we got here?"
"I- Arnie, he was- I need him here to give me sweets." I said, looking back down at his body, an involuntary shudder going through my body, "He's always here, I- now I can't see him, I can't get sweets, this is wrong..."
"I know." Ravel said, her cloth hand stroking my cheek, "I know, we need to find the others though, ok? Can you follow Sera up to the next floor?"
I looked up at the hole and images flashed through my imagination. Forica pulped on the floor, Arnie with his skull caved in, the people I'd killed today, the charred and smoking body of the Chosen Sera had impaled a few weeks ago, and new images, thoughts that welled up unbidden. Lucy stabbed through the guts, Galorna's head smashed, Drizti spread across the floor like a gray and crimson flower, Alele- I pulled the bottle of syrup up to my mouth, biting the tip off and sucking the red nectar into my body. The sugar calmed the visions, I felt at peace, my mind my own again as the panic and fear subsided into a dull hum.
"No, she can look for them." I told Ravel, "I'll wait here. I don't want to see them if they're dead."
"Candy, you have to..." she trailed off, "...Ok."
We stood in silence, the gooey orange slush on the floor chilling my feet and making me feel cold. I looked out the shattered windows and waved at the people gathered on the streets. Stupid, what if there was another bomb? What if they all got turned to paste in a giant fireball? If I'd done this, I'd have put a second, delayed bomb in front of the building to catch the first responders as they arrived, but maybe I was more evil than whoever made this bomb. I finished the bottle and tossed it into the puddle of slush.
Arnie deserved more than this, to be crammed in a cabinet and killed. He needed a memorial or something. I'd have the creative team make him into a trading card, I'd design it myself and make it an ultra rare in our next set. Maybe I could get him declared a martyr too, he was at least an outwardly practicing follower of Lorgiaia. I turned to him to ask what pose he'd like on his card and was hit with a wave of chilly shock as I remembered why he was getting a trading card in the first place. My stomach twisted, and I grabbed an ube roll out of the cabinet, pulling off the top layer to get rid of the glass and shoved the rest in my mouth.
I wiped my mouth on my glove and swallowed, stepping out from behind the counter. I couldn't look at Arnie anymore, every time it was like a wave of panic I had to squish down. I looked back out at the crowd, several had their phones out pointed at me. Rude, I was in no condition to be filmed. I looked down at myself, my dress was ruined, the skirt had been almost fully ripped off, leaving me in torn shorts and a ragged top. My tights and gloves had rips all through them, and everything was covered in a layer of mostly dried blood. Fuck, this was going to make for a messy story, Debbie would kill me for getting photographed like this...
Sera dropped from the ceiling and turned to look at me, her expression serious. "Candy, there's no sign of anyone on the other floors. The explosion caused some destruction, but not enough to destroy bodies, I think your team got out."
I sighed in relief, at least I wouldn't have to see more people I loved die today. "I wonder if maybe they were captured, like the Unchosen."
"I agree." Seraphim nodded "Do we have any leads on who might be behind this?"
"It's- if it's mind control, then I guess the guy who attacked us at the party." I said, unsure "But like I said a few days ago, he's in a coma, so it'd be someone using his tech? I think we both know who the likely suspect is.”
"The woman with the pink scars." Sera muttered "Do you know how to contact her?"
"Show up to a building she owns, wreck shit." I said "She'll show up."
"I believe I know which building houses her base, if I tracked the turns right as we left it." Sera said "It's a tall black one in section 246. I can blast us down there, and attack the house she has underground."
"Ok, this lady you’re talking about, does she have powers?" Ravel asked. "What are we looking at here?"
"She can't die, apparently." I said, "But we'll test that ourselves."
“We can kill her, I’m sure. You ready?" Sera asked me.
"Let me change, I don't want to go out like this." I waved at my body. "I've got my Comfit outfit in my bag."
Ravel jumped from my shoulder to Sera's, and I walked to the offices, kicking in the door and making my way back to Oori's office. It was empty, largely undamaged too, which was nice for him. I stripped off what was left of my magical dress and dropped it on the floor, replacing it with my Comfit leotard, not bothering with the bodysuit. I tied the gummy pouch to my waist and started to leave, but slowed down, looking back at the dress on the floor. I picked it up and put my hand into the pocket, finding my stuff still tucked into the pocket dimension. I pulled it all out and looked it over. It was pretty much all junk, my now-useless phone, the commonplace book I hardly used anymore, some mints, a flashlight, my wallet, and...oh. That. Yeah. After a moment, I grabbed the mints and Homicide's gun, shoving them both into the gummy pouch.
I walked back out to the lobby and took a look around. The sugar was helping, this place wasn't nearly as horrifying once I had twenty five ounces of syrup in me. I took Ravel back from Sera and smiled grimly. I didn't know if I was strong enough to kill the woman yet, but I was certainly going to try. That must have been what she wanted all along, for me to actually want to kill her, it's why she did all this, why she tried to hurt the girls, to hurt my friends. I pulled my tattered gloved off and dropped them on the floor. Sera's eyes widened along with her smile, and Ravel gasped, but I didn't care. I was going after the lady gloves off, and I'd eat anyone who got in my way.
~~~
I smashed through the cheap floor in the office building and landed in the basement, I could still hear Sera laughing above me as her sword found the throats of the office workers. The floor was hard concrete, but there was a seam along the center like all the fake buildings had. This building had actually had people working in it, which was surprising, but that didn't matter. She was under this floor and I was going to get to her. I dug in the pouch past the tin of mints and the- and I pulled out three gummies. I dropped them in my mouth and was instantly awash with colors and streaking thoughts. I screamed and drove my fist into the ground, my knuckles splitting open and the bones in my arm shattering on impact, but the ground shattered too, splintering and starting to give. I pulled my now-useless right arm back and slammed into the floor again with my left, breaking that one too. My arms hung limply by my side as the worms popped bones into place and fixed the torn skin. I was so close...
"Candy, wait on Sera!" Ravel said, "She'll be done... doing her stuff soon, she can get us through, she said so."
I tilted my head to the side, rubbing my temple on Ravel's beret and laughed. I couldn't wait, people I loved could be down there! Going in hot, every time, going in hot. I lifted into the air and spread my wings, straightening my legs, and I shoved downwards as fast and hard as my flight would let me. My feet smashed through the stubborn concrete and I dropped down into a dirt floor some thirty feet down. My wings hadn't fit through the hole as well as I had, and I whimpered as the pain of having shattered bones strapped to my back kicked in. My right arm was still partially broken, but my knuckles had healed at least, and I dug into my pouch for a fourth worm, chewing carefully as I looked around at my surroundings. I was in the right place, the weird house was across the space from me, and a small shack was off to one side.
A large ogre, Farson, if my squishy brain was remembering right, burst out of the shack and charged me. I giggled, he looked so funny running like that, like a linebacker in a suit. As he got closer to me, I planted a right hook on his jaw, pain shooting up my arm. He stopped dead, rocking over backwards. I licked my lips, acai berries and chocolate! A lovely surprise, I could use a snack... I reached out for him as he scrambled backwards away from my touch, but at that moment, Seraphim dropped from the ceiling and landed hard, one of her feet crushing his skull, and I pouted. Was I never going to get to eat someone?
"Candy, dear, you've gone ahead without me!" Sera laughed, " I’m winning again, I had to kill all the evil minions mys- ah! Your wings!"
Her blood covered face instantly swapped to an expression of pity and care "Oh, they're shattered and torn, here, let me..."
She was by my side in an instant, holding my hands and her lips once more pressed to my forehead. I gasped as my system was restored to normal, the giddiness and fog from the worms trickling away and my body creaking as it repaired.
"Thanks..." I said through the haze, shaking my wings out. They were still covered in blood and the feathers desperately needed preening, but they weren't broken anymore. Maybe Sera could preen them for me later, that sounded... intimate.
Sera grunted and stumbled away, her hand pressing against her third eye "N-no problem. I th-think I'm almost out of power though, and I doubt a quick snack will help this time..."
"It's ok." I said, patting the pouch on my side "I've got this. I can just keep recharging from her as long as I need to in order to kill her."
"No! We need Sera!" Ravel said "You told me you couldn't kill her the first time, we can't go in there alone!"
"I'll catch up, I need to go home for my rootwine." Sera said, shaking her head, "Candy, she's not a threat to you, remember that."
I nodded, and Sera drifted upwards as I flew towards the house. I grabbed the knob and the front door swung open with no resistance. No point locking up in you're in a bunker, I supposed. I walked through the ornate home, knocking trinkets and dishes off every surface I saw as I looked for the woman. Making my way to the back of the house, I saw smoke curling out of a doorway and sauntered up to it with purpose. I looked in at the room I'd been in last time, dead animals on the walls, the painting of the young nun, and the lady, sitting in her chair, a cigarette pressed to her mottled lips.
"Must you break my things?" she said coolly as I walked up to her
"Where the fuck are my friends?" I growled, grabbing her by the suit collar
"I don't have your stupid friends, Candy." she said, leveling her gaze at me, still smoking "Why the fuck would I want them? They can't kill me."
"No, but I'm pretty sure I can." I hissed "You're using them to entice me into trying again, bitch."
She smirked "Oh? Is that what I'm doing? Ok, you caught me. Please, go ahead, try."
"W-we need to know where they are first!" Ravel yelled at her. I could feel her shaking as she pressed into my neck and I felt bad at what she was about to see. She'd probably never seen real violence until today, and now she was in the thick of it and over her head.
"Mm, and risk you not killing me as you go to save them?" the woman said coyly "No, their location will be clear once you kill me."
I screamed at her and grabbed her face with my other hand, pulling away a worm, then another and another, shoving them into my mouth again and again and chewing as fast as I could, blood running down my chin and into my throat as I felt myself slipping away into a spark filled utopia. I fed myself over and over, sucking up the worms, pressing my face into the woman's neck pulling and biting, getting flesh along with the worms and barely being able to tell.
I fed for an eternity, I heard song and crying and felt the world dance as I ate. I laughed and laughed, the sparks pulling at me as I pulled at them, I could never be sated, I could never be full. The girl in the painting glared at me and growled, her jagged teeth looking bloody and broken as she decomposed in front of me. The animals on the wall whispered their last words and chanted my name as I fulfilled myself. Lorgiaia herself reached down and caressed my head and I tasted candied rose petals. I became aware of the floor moving and the large table in the middle of the room rocking back and forth, the colors of death hugged me, I was so, so close to rapture, I needed to love and kiss and fuck and die and be reborn. My mouth was full, and my head was empty. Out of nowhere, a wash of cold hit me from the back and I screamed again as the beauty fell away.
"Shh, shh, it's ok, you're ok." a familiar voice sounded from behind me and I felt the contents of my stomach rising. I dropped whatever I was holding and ran to a vase, heaving and letting the blood and viscera come up and out, technicolor worms and syrup mixed in and making the texture gritty as it passed my teeth. I spit and coughed, falling against the wall, I felt terrible, what had happened?
"These worms are bad for you, it seems." Seraphim said, sipping from a pouch of wine "You were insensate when I found you. My touch brought you back."
I looked around, there were gummy worms all over the floor, half eaten, covered in blood, the woman lying weakly on the table, surrounded by piles of sugarcoated invertebrates. I sniffled and shuddered. My body wasn't hurt, but I was hurting, like I'd just done the hardest workout of my life on an empty stomach. I was crying, and Ravel was curled up on one of the chairs crying as well, her body shaking but her black plastic eyes dry. I picked her up and hugged her to my chest like a comfort item, and for once she didn't wiggle indignantly. I coughed again, stumbling over to the table. The woman was missing most of her face and a lot of her neck from where I'd bitten her, and was struggling to breathe through the open hole in her trachea.
"I... I love you more and more every minute I know you." Sera said to me, her hands tracing the wounds on the woman "These are teeth marks. Every time we meet up, you meet my expectations, and now you've transcended my greatest hopes. When this is over, I'd like to talk to you about my god, after this I think you'd be a very good fit for him after all."
"I'll think about it." I croaked, and punched the lady in the side "Hey, I tried my best and I just went loopy, so fess up, where's my friends?"
Her throat twitched and the worms- her worms, not the gummies- slid out of her meat and across the hole and she inhaled deeply.
"I never had them, I just wanted to see if you could do it this time. I have no idea where they are." her voice was wet and thick, slimy noises squished out of her still healing throat.
"Sera, hurt her." I snapped "Badly."
Seraphim giggled and in one motion pulled her sword off her back and chopped the woman's legs off, severing them midway up the thigh. The lady screamed and grabbed the table, thrashing as Sera threw the legs into the fireplace, ignoring her. Worms squirmed along the cuts, closing off arteries and stopping the blood, but they weren't rebuilding the legs, at least not right away. I held Ravel tighter and ignored the feeling of wrongness and guilt filling me up. I thudded my fist onto her sternum and leaned in close.
"You're immortal, sure, you can survive being... what did you say, 'taken apart'? 'burned alive'? 'drown'? It might not kill you, but it sure as hell still hurts, doesn't it?"
Her eyes flicked to the fireplace and one of the legs twitched and kicked as the skin on it boiled away. I held in a dry heave and tried not to think about the implications of that. I stared at her closely.
"Where. Are. My. Friends?" I said slowly.
"I. Don't. Know." she said, the words coming out with flecks of blood "I told you, stupid girl, I was waiting until you made Angel to try again, I wasn't even thinking about you anymore."
I leaned back and thought about all the people Sera had killed, all the minions she'd chopped her way through. How earnestly I'd tried to kill the immortal lady. It couldn't all be for nothing, right?
"But you know who took them, don't you?" I asked, trying to sound cold.
"No, I have no fucking idea." she croaked, almost proudly "Good job, hero, you fucked up."
I turned away from her and pulled Ravel away from my chest, looking down at her. She looked up at me, and shivered, her metal legs wrapped around herself like a protective shell. She wasn't saying anything, but I could tell what she was thinking, and she was right. I needed to keep doing what I was doing or I'd lose my friends. I headed for the door to the room. I had to get back on the surface and keep looking.
"Sera, take her arms off and stash what's left of her in the shower room at my base, leave her in the tub." I said over my shoulder "She's a rechargeable energy source, we can use her to power up if I run out of gummies or you need a boost."
"Candy!" Ravel gasped, breaking her silence "What?!"
I pet her head "It's ok, Ravel, she's evil, and she's trying to hurt us, it's only fair."
"Keeping her as a battery is- it's- this is too far! It's all too far!" she said "The people upstairs were just office people. The mind controlled ones I can almost understand, but killing innocents and using a person as a tool is... it's not hero stuff, Candy."
"Candy is a hero, everything she does is hero stuff." Sera said from behind me
"See?" I smiled at Ravel, my heart driving at a thousand miles an hour, desperately arguing with my logic "It's fine!"
"Fuck you..." the woman called out, her voice sounding bored
"You don't seem very worried about this." Sera said to her as I headed down the hallway
"Eh, it's not the first time..." she sighed
Somehow that didn't make me feel any better. I knew it had to be done though, I needed to find my friends, I needed to save them, and I'd do anything it took to do that.
~~~
I walked past the laundromat and hissed to myself, I hadn't seen a single one of the bad guys and I'd been back in section 247 for over thirty minutes, this sucked. I needed a lead and I needed it now, I felt a sense of panic and fear at not being able to find my friends, at not hearing back from my girlfriend. I stamped my foot in frustration, I needed to draw them out somehow, but how? I couldn't just start yelling, they didn't seem to respond to talking or noise or anything, and I'd already tried wandering around. I bit my lip and poked Ravel.
"Hey, do you think you'll be ok to go back to the safe house and get your new phone?" I asked her, "I'll meet you at the Angel's base, but it'd be great if you could be checking to see if we have service back yet."
"If you're going to the base, can't you get your phone from wherever you left your clothes?" she asked "I don't really want to be alone right now..."
"I- yeah, but I'll need both hands to fight." I said, "I need you to like, be the one who checks for service while I'm fighting."
"You just want me gone, don't you?" she frowned, "Candy, I'm sorry about what I said earlier, I know this is scary and you're just trying to save your friends, I... I don't agree with killing, but I understand that you're doing your best."
"I'm not mad at you!" I said, shocked, "Ravel, no, I'm going to fly up and draw fire to find more bad guys, I just don't want you getting hit too!"
"...Oh." she said, "No, that's stupid, what if they hit your head? Or too close to your heart and you bleed out before you can eat a gummy?"
"I'll be fine, look, go get your phone, I'll see you at the base, ok?" I held up my hand for her to fist bump “…Ok?"
“…Maybe don't kill them if you find them?" she reluctantly bumped my fist "We could, I don't know, get information from them somehow. Find the others sooner, I'm worried about Drizti, she's too fragile to be captured this long..."
"I'll see." I said, "And Driz is a lot stronger than you think."
I was feeling more grounded and lucid now, it'd been a while since I'd had any gummy worms, and after my freakout earlier, I was very, very wary of eating any more unless I needed to. If I had a different kind of food, maybe a whole person instead of an immortal worm that lived in an immortal bitch, I might be able to heal better and avoid the mental break. No way of knowing until I tried though.
Ravel hopped onto her own legs and looked up at me, her cloth expression worried and sad "I'll see you at the base Candy, I'll be fast."
I smiled at her as she extended her spider legs and scampered off around the corner, and I took a breath. Time to fly. I moved up into the sky and flew quickly, twisting and diving, keeping my wings as close to my body as I could to protect myself. I scanned the section, there were emergency services and reporters around on almost every street, the Unchosen's base was practically swarmed with people, and the area around our base was being cordoned off by GGDS officers. I swore and flew east, away from the people. If there were any gunners left, they'd be-
A stab of pain hit my arm and I rocketed in the direction it'd come from, weaving left and right. I was vaguely aware of blood trailing down my fingers as I closed in on someone in black, a man with one of the guns, but I could shut the pain out if I needed to. I clenched my teeth and hit him head on, driving him down into the ground. It wasn't hard enough to kill, at least, I didn't think so, but he wasn't moving. I scooped him up and grabbed his gun, I'd check him over for any clues before I ate him. I leapt into the air and flew us both towards the base. I already had one villain in the gym, might as well keep them together for now.
~~~
I kicked the man in the side again, useless! He was fucking useless. There were no identifying marks on him aside from a scar on the back of his head where the mind control had been injected, the armor was unlabeled, even the gun hadn't had any information in it when I'd broken it open to look at the tech inside. I didn't know what I was looking for when I opened it, but it was weirdly simple and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I put a 250lb weight from the rack on the man's chest to hold him down and walked to the showers. The GGDS officers in front of our building had been zero help, apparently they didn't have any leads and past threatening to put a kill-on-sight order on Sera for clearing out the evil office building, they hadn't had much to tell me. I stared down at the bloody bathtub at the back of the room and wrinkled my nose at the sight of the limbless woman, worms squiggling around her as they tried to put her back together, the smell of decay and cigarettes wafting up from her. She grinned at me cruelly.
"Still no leads?" she said, her voice mostly back to normal, "That's a shame, too bad your pet abomination killed my whole team of researchers and informants, I might have been able to help locate the baddies."
"Don't call her an abomination, she's a-" I thought for a moment, Sera had been changed by some form of magic, a lot too, by the look I'd had at her insides. She actually was an abomination, wasn't she? "-where'd Seraphim go? Why did she leave you here?"
"She didn't say, just poked my wounds for a bit, called my flesh 'filling but disgusting' and said she had to 'return her offering to her god'."
I sighed "She went home then. She ate your arms?"
"Most of the meat, yes." the woman's head wiggled in an odd approximation of a nod "I must say, her insides are strange, it feels like nothing that's ever eaten me before."
"That's horrible." I shuddered "I just need to know if you're any good at getting information out of mind controlled people, and then I'll leave you here to your worms."
"I'd prefer you leave me at my house." she sneered "Tell you what, light me a cigarette and I'll tell you how to get the information out of him."
"I don't have any."
"In my jacket pocket, right side, lighter is in my blouse pocket."
I grumbled, but I pulled them out and helped her get one lit, and she took a deep drag, blowing the smoke into my face.
"Ew, rude!" I snapped, waving my hand in front of my eyes "How do I interrogate this guy?"
"You said he's mind controlled?"
"Yeah?"
“With what?”
“Uh, a chip in his brain, I think.”
She laughed. "You can't, his mind is locked. Get fucked, stupid girl."
I stared at her, and shuddered in anger. I stood up and turned on the faucet, reaching under her to close the plug. She laughed again blew more smoke in my direction as I walked away. We had drains in the floors, if the tub overflowed, it'd just go down the drains, I could leave her there as long as I needed. Plus, the water would put out her stinky cigarette, and I didn't want the showers to smell like a pub.
I walked back into the gym area and looked around. Still no sign of Ravel or Sera, I could always try using a knife or something to dig the thing out of the guy's brain, maybe he'd talk once it was removed? I didn't have a knife though, I'd need to go downstairs and get one.
I turned to the stairs and took a step towards them when another one of the black suited figures stepped through, a woman this time. I braced myself to tackle her back down the staircase, when she tossed something black and rectangular at me. I dodged and rolled away from it, sliding on the mats and covering my head. Were they using more bombs? A laugh sounded out from the object and I looked up at it. A walkie talkie...
"Have fun with this one!" a voice came from the speaker, and I glanced over to see the woman raise a gun and fire it, directly into the head of the man I'd put the weight on. His head exploded in a shower of gore and brains, and the woman crushed the gun into shards in her hands, throwing the pieces down before charging me. I swung and my fist went wide, and she drove her own knuckles into my gut, knocking the wind out of me. I drew a knee up at her head and she rolled back as I barely missed her. She chopped the back of my neck and I went down, falling to the floor. I twisted, but her fist drove into my kidney and I yelled in pain, throwing my legs around her to hold her.
She stood with me wrapped around her and dropped back down, my upper back thudding against the ground and driving the wind out of me. This woman was trained, an MMA fighter or a GGDS combatant or something. She was better than me, I needed my gummies, I might be able to overpower her with the speed boost they gave me. I pushed my hand down to my waist and she stomped on it, my bones snapping and I screamed. Where the fuck were Sera and Ravel? Even just Ravel would help. If we had two people, we could fight back, draw her attention in two directions. I threw myself backwards, using my wings to flip onto my feet, but I was facing the wrong direction, and before I could turn around, her hands were on my wings, twisting them until they popped.
Tears steamed down my face, the broken hand, the speed, dislocating my wings, was she using a power suit? This wasn't fair, why couldn't I just- I needed to heal, I couldn't keep going on if she was just going to break me up like this, bit by bit. I spun and kicked wildly, she sidestepped and drove her hand into my inner thigh and I screamed in pain. She pushed me away, and I stumbled, falling to my knees.
In a moment, she was on me, holding my hair in her gloved hand, her other fist pounding me in the face over and over, I felt my nose crushed under the unnatural strength, my cheek split, my lips burst, and I gurgled blood as I struggled to find an opening. I swung ineffectually at her before thinking to aim for the hand that was holding me, and she let me go as my hand pawed at her sleeve. I backed up and sobbed, she stood across from me, watching me through the visor, and I screamed wordlessly at her, mentally begging her to stop, for my friends to come, for something to fucking go right today.
She came at me again, and I swung with both hands. She slipped under them and her boot met my chest, sending me head over heels thirty away from her. I was against the wall now, my back throbbing and she was charging me again. I had a shot, the best one I'd had since the fight started, and I dug into the pouch for a gummy, fuck the weird side effects, I needed them. My hand pushed in and I felt cold, hard metal instead, and I sucked in a breath. I had no choice, it was her or me. I'd brought it for a reason after all.
I looked up to see the woman falter as I drew Homicide's gun, and she twitched left and right, frozen in place as I slowly pointed it at her. I took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger as many times as I could, bullets flying across the room in a spread while I ran towards her. Her body twisted and rolled as she tried to dodge, but one of the shots hit her in the hand, blowing two of her fingers off. I shrieked in triumph, finally, exposed flesh! All I had to do was touch her. I threw myself for her, my hands outstretched, and my grasp found hers. Our fingers intertwining, I pulled her spark as soon as I felt it flare up in my mind.
I collapsed to the ground in a heap where she used to be and laughed and laughed, holding her in my hand. I'd fucking done it, I'd won the fight, I'd folded someone on purpose! I giggled and sat up, wiping my eyes with my free hand. I'd be healed back up when I ate her, and I had the walkie talkie so I could talk to the person who took my friends, everything was going my way, finally…
I slowly opened my fingers to see what the woman had turned into, and my stomach dropped. In my palm, sticky, slightly bloody, and full of the most vibrant spark I'd ever felt, was a piece of blue and white hard candy. My stomach rolled and I felt icy needles shooting through my heart as the flavor of blueberry mint washed over me.
~~~