Katherine Legato

  Katherine watched with equal parts awe and horror as Alex unleashed fiery destruction on the titan still looming over them. After being thrown back to the ground, the other new Star Guardian had staggered to her feet—but instead of running like Katherine would have, she stood her ground. No—more than that, she'd somehow gone on an impossible offensive.

  A massive pair of almost skeletal, metal wings erupted out of the back of her armor. With almost needle-like, metal 'feathers,' they weren't something that you'd expect to actually work for flight. Even with their size—wider than Alex was tall by far—they didn't have much actual lifting surface, let alone the problem of weight. But that didn't seem to matter, because with a single, sudden and explosive beat, they propelled an ordinary leap into a soaring ascent.

  For a moment, the armored angel and the looming colossus tangled with each other—but then, as if one potent new expression of her abilities wasn't enough, Alex lit the midnight sky with a blazing beacon. A solid beam of heat and light sheared straight through the titan, turning its core to smoldering ash in mere seconds.

  Forget the wings—that final display of raw, primal power was almost frightening. Her friend hadn't just taken down a powerful Anathema while the other eleven of them failed—she'd done it with a single overwhelming attack. That amount of power—Katherine knew the way they operated as true Star Guardians would be different, and Alex's particular abilities were clearly geared towards trading straightforward blows and winning—but this was something else.

  Even if Katherine's power were similarly blunt, there was no way she could have unleashed that much energy. Ironically, her own power helpfully informed her that the—what, the beam? Laser? Whatever it was, she didn't have even half the anima required to fuel something like that, even as brief as it was. It was clear—something made Alex drastically more powerful, and Katherine didn't think it could be attributed to the relative quality of the cores they'd received.

  She didn't have much time to wonder more about it, because the disaster was far from over. Now that Alex had killed the titan—somehow—the enormous Anathema was falling. Alex was falling with it, and the only thing Katherine could do was watch and hope. She'd made it out from underneath by this point, and if she ran back towards it, she'd simply be crushed. Even if she could somehow avoid that, she couldn't catch Alex. Alex was heavy too, what with all that metal, and her fall might be just as deadly to Katherine as the giant Anathema would be.

  It was an awful feeling, to just stand and watch helplessly. Alex herself seemed to have fallen unconscious right after that insane attack—even without seeing it, Katherine could hear the relative silence from the other woman's spirit. Alive, but not awake—and that meant she wasn't going to fly again to safety.

  The monstrous titan crashed down with a sickening thud. Its great arms smacked down around it, and the one saving grace was that its initial momentum carried it sideways just enough that Alex was only partially crushed underneath it. The Anathema's great, central bulk pinned her at an angle, leaving only an arm, a crumpled wing, and part of her head exposed. Please be enough, Katherine thought as she rushed over. Please.

  It was obvious that Alex was still alive—well, obvious to someone with Katherine's unique power. It was also obvious that she was seriously hurt, but far less obvious how critical it was. Anyone who wasn't a Guardian of some kind would already be dead, and Katherine was pretty sure even most Tier 1 Guardians wouldn't have survived the initial fall. Alex was made of tough stuff, though, and the fact that her spirit had yet to sunder gave her a painful, awful hope.

  It was impossible to tell if she was breathing. With the strange mask covering her face—looking even more like some kind of great maw at that moment, Katherine thought—it was almost impossible to even see her speak, let alone breathe. There was also no chest movement to look for, since the strangely thick and heavy armor encased almost every inch of her body.

  But she was alive—and she needed help. Katherine alone wasn't strong enough to get her out from under the huge weight of the dead titan crushing her, so she called out for help from the others. Several came rushing to her side—it was difficult to see anything in the dark like this, but from their spirits, Katherine knew it was Max, Kevin, and a girl from the other team. Together, they began working on getting the weight off and sliding her out.

  Max proved his worth a dozen times over—not only was he the physically strongest among them, but even more importantly, he quickly switched from using his arms to using his power to slip vines under the fallen titan and begin growing living supports. Like a car jack, the growth of plants slowly pushed upwards, tilting the burned hulk bit by bit until the others could reach under and finally drag the unconscious Alex out.

  That last part proved surprisingly difficult—or perhaps not, had Katherine given it more prior thought. Encased in her conjured armor as she was, the other Star Guardian was immensely heavy. Even Max couldn't lift her, and they were forced to grip her by the arms and literally drag her out. It was tough work, and painfully slow. The harsh sound of metal scraping against stone was a constant assault on Katherine's ears.

  The fact that it wasn't part of Alex and that it was meant to protect her did little to calm her jumpy nerves. Finally, after what could only have been a few minutes but felt like hours, they'd freed Alex and gotten her far enough from the felled titan that there was no concern of it slumping back on top of her.

  Only then did Katherine realize the incursion had stopped. At least in the area where they were, the violet light was gone, as was the strange effect on the ambient lighting. It was hard to tell in the dark like this, though, and the most important absence was actually the incessant, atonal buzzing.

  That harsh, dissonant burr was so omnipresent against Katherine's senses that its absence almost felt strange. Now that someone had shattered at least one breach, though, it was gone—at least, it was mostly gone. As the minutes ticked on and they regrouped, smaller, sporadic bursts of that similar noise continued to appear and disappear around them. There was no real pattern, other than that they were more concentrated in one particular direction and that the intensity decreased and the time between them increased as the night wore on.

  Those must be all the tiny breaches that keep trying to form again, Katherine realized. The ones that need to be stamped out along with all the leftover Anathema. No one from either of their two teams joined the effort, though. They were all hurt and exhausted. Some more than others.

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  Along with Alex, one other out of the twelve was also unconscious. It was one of the Guardians on the other team, and he was in pretty bad shape. Likely even worse than Alex. His team members said an errant tentacle had smacked into him from the side and sent him smashing into a nearby vehicle. Lacking Alex's armor and inherent durability, he seemed to have broken at least several bones, and he was bloodied and bruised all over. Fortunately, that was all stuff that Tier 1 regeneration could fix with enough time. The trick was keeping him stable and providing things like water, sanitation, and proper positioning.

  Maria was fortunately licensed in a few different emergency response techniques, and she was able to do what they could to minimize additional injury.

  There were a few other serious injuries—Laurence's left arm was apparently shattered, and that was another injury that would take time and care for his regeneration to be able to properly fix. Compared to the group as a whole, Katherine, Max, Kevin, and the girl from the other team who helped them retrieve Alex were the best off.

  Well, that was only if you didn't count Chloe.

  Their own sustained damage specialist had simply floated to safety when things escalated out of everyone's control. An enviable ability—and combined with the healing effect of her power, she was in effectively top condition. Now that she'd rejoined them, she used her power to drain the nearby plants and redirect it towards the two unconscious members.

  That was how they spent the next few hours. Healing, resting, and standing guard for the others. Finally, their wait was over, and a whole team of fresh, Tier 3 Guardians came by to cart them away. Dawn wasn't far off, now, and Katherine hoped Alex would finally wake up soon.

  I woke up feeling like total shit.

  I wasn't even hungry. Okay, well, I am, but—I was always hungry, true, but it wasn't anything 'unusual,' at least by my new standards. No, the problem was that I was just thoroughly wrung out. Every part of me was tired, achy, weak, and just generally not feeling good. One of the worst offenders was my throat. It felt dry and raw, like someone had taken sandpaper to it, infected me with the flu, and then made me eat dry biscuits for two straight days without water.

  Also, something deep inside of my chest kind of hurt.

  Fuck this, I'm getting some water.

  I appeared to be in some kind of special hospital. I say 'special,' because something about it was just off. I couldn't tell what, exactly, but I did confirm that it was probably a hospital as I sat up on the shitty medical cot. I also realized I was still encased in a layer of thick metal—and that wasn't all. The fuck is this bullshit? Are these...?

  Moving a joint I didn't remember having, I folded one of them around the front so I could see it better. Huh. That sure does look like a wing. It was huge—just the width of it was bigger than my entire torso, and the span of it—well, I was pretty sure just the single wing was longer than the rest of my entire body. Makes sense, I guess? I knew that a wing would have to be massive in order to support a human. Honestly, it would probably have to be even bigger.

  Evidently, my chamelium wings had grown in—and they also didn't play by the usual rules. Even if a wing of this size could support a small human—which I kind of doubted—it definitely couldn't support a 'human' encased in this amount of solid metal. Also, the wing itself didn't inspire much confidence in its lift-generating capabilities. There were feathers—sort of—and they were quite long, yes, but they were also quite thin and razor-like.

  Hmm. Probably relies on some esoteric bullshit to actually work.

  I remembered the end of that fight, of course. Now that my mind was a bit clearer, I could better interpret what happened right before I unleashed my awesome heat ray of death. I'd jumped and sort of flown straight up to the main body of the kraken. That meant that I could, in fact, fly with these. I just needed to test out how.

  And I also needed that water. Sliding off the reinforced cot, I clunked down on the shitty linoleum tiling. The cot was definitely reinforced for a heavy load, and it still groaned a little bit as I shifted on it. Somewhat concerning. Looking around again, it seemed that I had my own private room. There was no sink—why is there no sink—which meant I would need to go find my water somewhere else. So, I went out of the door just at the same time a pair of nurses rounded the corner.

  They started hurrying as soon as they saw me. That must have sparked some ancient impulse in my lizard brain—when something chases you, run—and I started booking it in the other direction. Water, water, where's my fucking water? I think they were yelling something at me, but I wasn't having it. Rounding a sort of reception area, I saw what looked like the exit to the nearest lobby. Unfortunately, a security lady of some kind was there, blocking my way.

  With the gaggle of nurses in pursuit, there was no way she was going to just let me through—so it was time to put the foot down. Stopping short, I composed myself. "Thirsty, need water. I'll fucking drink it from your blood if you don't move."

  Finally, the nurses caught up to me, and I prepared to make myself slick—only for one of them to hand me a bottle. You know, a bottle of water. I just stared at it for a second. "Oh."

  Ripping the top off—not twisting, ripping—I prepared to guzzle the whole thing—but then I remembered I was still half-shifted. I didn't want to just unhinge my jaw in front of all these medical people—but I also didn't have any clothes. Eh, fuck it.

  I wasn't going to reveal that the 'mask' was actually my jaw, but I also didn't have the patience to get myself some privacy. So, I did the logical thing, which was to just suck all the metal back in and then guzzle down the entire bottle. It took about ten seconds—ten seconds of me just standing there in the middle of the hallway, naked, slurping down water like it was the nectar of the gods. Finally, it ended. My throat still felt like shit, but I wasn't so ridiculously thirsty anymore.

  Now it was finally time to worry about my dignity. And so, of course, that was the exact moment another member of the hospital staff opened the door to the lobby, bringing with her none other than David and Katherine. David visibly sighed and averted his eyes. Katherine, meanwhile, just stood paralyzed—transfixed.

  I returned my attention to the random hospital people. "So, uh—anyone wanna tell me what the hell actually happened?"

  David was about to say something, I was pretty sure—but then the door opened again. Marching through were a bunch of uniformed AAG fuckers, which was not something I expected.

  I blinked. Wait, what? The fuck kind of fresh new bullshit is this?

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