Cait and Lira had tried to rejoin the group after they were finished enjoying each other's bodies, but had opened the door to find Gwyn done up in a sort of tentacle shibari, so quickly and quietly retreated. Instead, they'd cuddled up and watched some heinous reality shows on Cait's nanocomm until they'd fallen asleep. A big bonus to having a device made of nanobots is that it dissipates before it slaps into your face if you doze off holding it.
The next morning, Cait opened her eyes to find Lira already above her, going in for a kiss. It was soft, but lingered, and when Cait realized Lira's morning breath didn't even bother her, she moved her hands to the girl's athletic waist, pulling her tight against her. After holding the kiss for another moment, Lira pulled back. She stroked Cait's hair, and planted another kiss on her forehead. When her eyes met Cait's though, instead of their normal gem-bright green, they were shot through almost entirely with gold.
Cait tried her best not to react, but must not have been able to keep the shock from her face. Lira blinked and gave a slight shake, eyes going back to default as her strange gentle demeanor returned to her usual feisty self. She dove back down for another kiss, hand reaching down for a firm squeeze on Cait's morning wood. Cait smiled as she moved her hands down to Lira's ass, and 15 minutes later neither of them would be able to skip showering this morning.
After cleaning up, Lira left the apartment with a kiss and a promise for more. Cait hadn't been able to bring herself to ask about the wake-up, and Lira hadn't volunteered any information, so she was left wondering how much of that had actually been the redhead, and how much had been Kennedy.
A message from Dawn activated her nanocomm, just a reminder in the groupchat that they had guard duty at 10 after morning training. She waited until Breastman left his room, wanting to check in with the dude on the walk over to the Coliseum. Her eyebrows rose as she heard giggling from the room, quickly followed by Gwyn in disheveled PJs that wouldn't have been that sexy if the nerdy girl hadn't had the pornstar assets to fill them out. She let out an adorable 'eep!' when she saw Cait sitting at the kitchen island sipping at a protein shake. The urge to tease her about what she'd seen last night was almost irresistible, but she stayed strong.
"Morning Gwyn!" Cait greeted her, concentrating the rest of her willpower on maintaining her gaze on Gwyn's eyes rather than the tight, thin fabric over her boobs. She raised the blender cup she was drinking out of, wiggling it in her direction. "Want one?"
"What's in it?" Gwyn's eyes conveyed an unspoken thanks as she walked over, examining Cait's shake.
"Strawberry, mango, vanilla yogurt, and a fuck ton of whey protein!" She held out the cup for Gwyn to sniff.
"Mmmm…" Gwyn's face lit up at the scent. "If you're offering! I'll skip the protein though."
"Won't be as filling!" Cait replied, downing her own. She went to gather the stuff for another when Breastman sopped out of his room. "Mornin' bud! Making Gwyn a shake, want one?"
13 thumbs up.
FEED THIS MAN
"Heh, two shakes, comin' up!"
She made Breastman's with protein. Cait wasn't sure if he'd noticed it, but the little guy was ravenous to a supernatural degree. She ate a lot herself to maintain mass, although she wasn't sure she actually needed to now, but the tentacle monster, despite probably being half her pre-Alteration weight, had eaten at least twice as much as her at each meal.
After she'd finished her shake, Gwyn made her goodbyes. She received what was starting to be the customary full body hug from Breastman, although Cait's lewd sense wasn't so weak that it missed one of the tentacles jiggling one of Gwyn's copious buttcheeks, which was new. An eyebrow involuntarily cocked, but she looked away in the hopes they wouldn't notice.
Cait and Breastman made their own way out of the apartment, heading towards the Coliseum for morning training. Cait kicked at one of Breastman's tentacles as he slithered along.
"Hey man, just wanted to check in after yesterday. You doing okay?" She asked. Cait almost tripped over his tentacles as he stopped in a stairwell.
KILLING FELT LIKE SEX
Cait couldn't keep her eyes from shooting wide at that. A concerning statement from anyone, much less someone who had the potential to kill even experienced and powerful Guardians. She hadn't given a second thought to the kills herself, which she wasn't certain was normal, but was certainly easy. She took a seat on the steps, and worked to keep her voice steady
"Welp." She replied, nonchalantly. "That's probably not great. Can you expand on that?"
DIDN'T KNOW
WHAT IT FELT LIKE I MEAN BUT….
The words scrolled across his hat, with a long pause here
LAST NIGHT
WITH GWYN
…..
Another pause, Cait decided to nudge.
"Yeah buddy, I know." She smiled. "Lira and I sort of walked in on that. It looked like Gwyn was having a blast!"
Breastman blushed, but knowing that he wouldn't be kissing and telling, at least not something Cait didn't already know, let him continue.
IT FELT THE SAME
PHYSICALLY, I MEAN
NOT EMOTIONALLY
FUCK
FELT REALLY REALLY BAD
EMOTIONALLY
KIND OF
AFTER
"Huh." Cait responded. She'd spoken mostly to give herself a little time to think. Killing the other Guardians in the dreamscape hadn't affected her at all emotionally, beyond maybe a sense of pride when she'd won a fight. Physically it had affected her somewhat, the jittery rush of adrenaline and the feeling of lung on your knuckles were hard to forget after all. But it definitely hadn't felt like sex.
"Have you had anything else like this?" She asked, curious. "You'd said previously you weren't interested in sex, which, after last night, clearly isn't true. Not saying you're lying, just that you didn't understand how things worked for you yet."
Again, it took Breastman a while to respond
SO MUCH IS DIFFERENT
MORE THINGS DIFFERENT
THAN NOT
STILL HAVE MY MIND
BUT INSTINCTS, DESIRES…
ALL DIFFERENT
Cait nodded thoughtfully at that.
"Honestly man, it sounds like you're just wired differently now." She said, shaking her head. It felt bad hearing how much he was struggling. Dude had been dealt a shit hand, even considering how impressive his physical abilities were. "I don't, personally, think you need to feel bad for responses ingrained into your new body."
She snapped her fingers, thinking of something.
"There's something a podcaster I love used to say a lot about mental illness, and while this isn't that, I think it applies here. 'It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility'. Does that make sense?" She asked, hoping she wasn't talking out of her ass or coming off as too didactic.
Breastman pondered for a bit before responding.
CAN'T HELP HOW
SOMETHING FEELS
CAN STOP MYSELF
FROM DOING IT, THOUGH
"Which, given the care you've taken with me, the team, and any civilians that find themselves in danger around us," Cait responded, nodding in agreement. "I assume you were already planning not to go on a killing spree."
NO
FELT GOOD TO BE A HERO
"Heh, it does doesn't it?" Cait agreed. "Look, I'm not going to dismiss this or assume it's cleared up. It fucking sucks that you have to deal with this, but yeah, feelings like that can't really be ignored. I think you should talk to Director Swan. With the menagerie of forms in residence at AEGIS I can't believe you'd be the first to inherit some massively inconvenient instincts."
WHAT IF SHE JUST
KILLS ME
Cait frowned at him then.
"What's given you the impression that she'd react like that to anything other than a direct threat?" Her expression softened then, as she realized that, yeah, it might seem like enough of a threat, and Breastman couldn't help it if he was scared. "Look, would it help if I came with you? If Director Swan wants to kill you over that, then this organization isn't what I thought it was. At that point she'll have to kill me first, and while I've got no real idea if I'd beat her in a fight, I can guarantee she won't be able to kill me."
She hit the tentacle monster with her best dazzling grin for that last part.
THANKS, CAIT
Suddenly, she found herself wrapped in one of those full body hugs Gwyn had been on the receiving end of. It was really nice, actually. Kind of like a snake, you'd expect Breastman to be cold, slick and gross. Instead, his skin was smooth, warm, and not sticky or slimy at all. The hug was tight, and felt genuine in a way that was hard to quantify, like a little cousin hugging you around the thigh at Christmas. She couldn't move her arms, but her hand was in the right place to pat him on the core. She left it there for a moment as Breastman held the hug, before he peeled himself off.
WE'LL GO TALK TO HER
I'LL SET UP A TIME
He started back down the stairs then, beckoning with a tentacle.
C'MON
IF WE'RE ANY LATER
FREEFLOW WILL KICK YOUR ASS
WORSE THAN USUAL I MEAN
Cait chuckled and jogged down the stairs alongside him as they resumed their trek to the gym.
Freeflow didn't kick her ass, actually. Instead, when she told him she'd been late helping a friend work through a crisis, she received a slightly too self important speech about the true nature of heroism. Short version was that he agreed with her choice, but also not to let it happen again or he would kick her ass next time.
This training session focused mainly on dealing with large, strong, and fast opponents while her experience with Bullrush was still fresh in her mind. Chance worked on her dodging, slowly increasing his speed until it was simply impossible then ratcheting back down till they found her limit. His point with this was that, while hits wouldn't hurt her, getting thrown out of a window or punched a mile away would hurt her team, and could easily get them killed. Against opponents strong enough to do those things, it was still very important she not take those hits.
Once he'd deemed their work on that acceptable for the day, he focused on how to capitalize on the skill. A successful dodge often meant the opponent would be overextended or surprised, and Chance ran Cait through dozens of ways to use that to slam home a nano-powered punch.
"Whew!" He said, wiping sweat from his brow as the session ended. He'd been going near full speed to get himself in and out of position before Cait's seismic punches actually hit him. "You're a quick learner new blood! Not too often I get put through my paces like this. Don't go thinkin' you're any kind of master, though. We're gonna be running through these drills for weeks, alongside checkin' on your regular close combat homework."
The thought of that homework hadn't filled Cait with the general malaise it had back in high school. Sure it was rote, but the strikes and fundamental motions Chance had her repeating hundreds of times a day could be the difference between life and death. Maybe not for her, but certainly for her team and their enemies.
She figured she'd knock out today's reps during guard duty, as she changed into her Amaranthine outfit and jogged to the front gate. It was the teams first time on guard duty, but it was uncomplicated enough that instead of an escort like Eyebite, they got a laminated sheet of instructions pinned on the inside of the door. Cait knew this because Dawn was already in the room, scrutinizing the sheet when she walked inside.
"Good morning, Cait," She said with her usual placid smile. "I hope the team was not too ill-behaved without me last night?"
Cait blushed. While Dawn never made her feel guilty, exactly, her general demeanor always made it feel like you were talking to your mother.
"Uhh…" Cait said to a soft chuckle from Dawn.
"Kids." She said, a tinkling sounding from the ornaments in her antlers as she shook her head. "Do not worry, I doubt what is making you blush is the kind of ill-behavior I would be concerned about."
She frowned then, returning her attention to the paper.
"I do not understand why they are having our whole team sit for this guard duty." Dawn shook the sheet, as if it would make the duties change. "It seems as though we are all just expected to sit here and buzz people in."
"Eh," Cait said. "I don't know what's on that sheet, but the night B-boy and I got here, Dustdevil and Sonder were manning this station, and an hour later we were fighting a shitbeast alongside them. I'm pretty sure an unwritten duty of this is to be a ready reserve."
Dawn nodded at her explanation, humming to herself in assent.
"That makes more sense."
As she spoke, the door opened again and Sonder strode in, quickly followed by Breastman. Sonder, as usual, was barely discernible from her civilian persona. The only real differences were considerably more tactical webbing straps over her metal band t-shirt and high-rise black denim skirt. She did seem to have taken Warhawk's advice however, as Cait counted 4 firearms about her person. 2 handguns in thigh holsters that squeezed her pale flesh enticingly, 1 in her right armpit and what looked to be a sawed off shotgun on her lower back.
"Please, shoot me, not the deer!" Cait mockingly put her hands above her head, stepping between Sonder and Dawn. "She isn't even in season!"
Sonder rolled her eyes and stuck her cute pink tongue out at Cait.
And that's why we do it folks.
Breastman, however, stuck two tentacles into the rings of the dual bandoliers he now wore about his person. They came out with glowing rings attached to the tips.
KEEP THOSE HANDS UP!
VILLAIN!
Laughing, Cait complied.
"Do those do anything you can show us in an enclosed area?" She asked.
"No!" Yelled Sonder with finality. "God, Warhawk stole him while we were both training with Counterweight. She said those were something the Bunker's Basement whipped up, and I barely had time to duck before a fuck-huge laser nearly breached the Onyxiron of the practice room."
Cait squinted at the glowing rings. She started to open her mouth when-
"I said noooooo!" Sonder doubled down, reading her mind. She linked up to Cait, sending a stern admonishment. "You can see if it does anything to you later, in a controlled environment, meant for that kind of thing."
"Sonder," Dawn interjected, unbothered by the shenanigans. "Do you have any insight as to why our entire team was assigned to such a banal duty?"
The gun-goth's eyes tracked upwards as she thought.
"Well," she responded, "Reason #1 would be that they want more experienced Guardians patrolling on the weekends, when there's almost always more incidents. Reason #2 would be that there's a good chance those experienced teams will need backup so soon after a wave. I'm just guessing on #3, but I think my mom's also just really pushing this team, doesn't want to split us up for any official duties while we get things started."
Dawn nodded along as she spoke, taking the explanation seriously and seeming satisfied.
"Cait had suspected as much for your second reason." She replied. "Thank you for your insight on the others. However, this still is very much not a full time job on the surface. We simply have to watch the gate and buzz any one approved through!"
I CAN DO IT
Breastman waved his tentacles to get attention, the glowing rings put away.
WITH MY NEW SENSES
I'M PRETTY MUCH
PERFECT FOR THIS
"You are alright with this, Breastman?" Dawn perked up as he volunteered. "I admit, it would be much appreciated. Sonder and I could get started on empathic link enhancement, and
Amaranthine could…"
She just sort of gestured over towards where Cait stood, already bored of guard duty.
"I could do the close combat homework Freeflow gave me!" She said, snapping to attention when she realized she might be able to escape the boredom of watching the gate.
Duties divided, Dawn and Sonder sat cross-legged from each other, antlers beginning to branch from the latter's temples. Cait was about to start her own practice when she realized the sonic boom from her strikes would probably deafen everyone present, and she surreptitiously left of the back. She ran through the forms Freeflow had taught her, getting through the assignment over the course of two hours before heading back in.
"Gah!" She yelled upon entering. Breastman was sitting across from Sonder now, who had sprouted numerous fleshy tendrils and overall looked a bit like she was melting. Sonder locked eyes with Cait, an evil smile on her lips.
"WooooOoOOooO!" She groaned, wiggling flesh tentacles in Cait's direction, who slapped them away as best she could.
"Is the Bulletproof Bimbo immune to tickling?" she asked in a horror announcer voice, sneaking some tendrils past Cait's guard. "Let's find OoOoOOut!"
Cait was not immune to tickling, and Breastman joined in until Cait was a giggling mess on the floor. The two of them relented only when Dawn grew a barrier of thorny vines over the hapless hero.
"Bastards!" Cait croaked, voice hoarse from laughter. "I will have my revenge!"
The bubbly mood inside the guard house was instantly popped as a red light began to flash. Their comms crackled to life as one, with Bubb-bill's smooth voice seeping through.
"Amaranthine, Wild Bunch needs backup for an incursion of Coonbeasts at the border. Your team is up, Samara is on her way."
"Your team?" Sonder asked, quirking an eyebrow at Cait.
"He said it, not me." Cait grinned at her, as the glowing mandala heralding Samsara's arrival flashed into existence. The no-nonsense teleporter grabbed Cait and Sonder's hands, pulling them through the whirling world of her pocket dimension, and dropping them just outside of a brawl.
A surging carpet of black and gray Coonbeasts covered a hundred yards of ground, and more were slowly entering from beyond the tortoiseshell barrier. They weren't big enough that they couldn't fit through the impenetrable edges of the facets, or fast enough that the shield rejected them entirely. As it stood, the Tortoiseshell slowed the horde down, but it didn't stop them.
What was stopping the beasts was a cluster of Guardians that appeared just as, if not more, bestial than their opponents. The leader of the Wild Bunch, Sawscale, towered over his teammates and opponents. His powerful serpentine lower body raised him high into the air before he struck down, putting the sharp raised scales that were his namesake to grisly effect. Harambe, who no-one was certain whether he was a human with gorilla powers or a gorilla that got Altered, bared impressive fangs, and laid about with his cinder block sized fists. The combination of feral strength and physical prowess with his actual skill and training was a force multiplier, and while the Coonbeasts had the strength and ferocity, their mindless charge was of limited effect against the two of them.
Mommy Long Legs darted around behind and between her team's two tanks, her trademark legs splayed wide, keeping herself low. When an opportunity presented itself, she'd pop up to impressive height, spraying webs as crowd control, or striking with fang and firearm against a beast inside her friends' guard.
"Where's Flyboy?" Sonder asked, her eyes wildly searching the brawl. A mandala flashed behind her, and Samsara emerged with the rest of their team.
"Extracted." She said, although Cait had no idea how she'd heard him. "Maybe dead, but don't tell the Wild Bunch that. Now get in there and fucking help them!"
Cait nodded sharply, and started giving orders.
"BREAST MAN, make with the blending!" She barked, drawing her pistol and blasting away. "Kennedy, give me that shotgun and link up with Dawn, y'all are artillery!"
Kennedy dropped the sass in combat, demonstrating the conditioning Director Swan had put her through. She tossed Cait the shotgun and antlers sprouted from her forehead as she took on Dawn's powers. Rot bombs rained upon the back ranks of the horde while the very grass turned on the beasts in front, growing long and sharp to slash at legs and feet.
BREAST MAN shot out two tentacles, each piercing the back of a beast. Using them as leverage, he slingshotted himself into the melee as two more tentacles drew those glowing rings. Before he impacted, two blinding blue flashes turned both the tentacles they were attached to and swaths of Coonbeasts to ash.
"GodDAMN!" Cait whooped, unloading explosive buckshot into a Coonbeast that was quick to change targets to the new threat. "You weren't fuckin' kidding about those things Sonder!"
"Right?" Sonder agreed, summoning another rot bomb that she sent flying with a twirl of her staff. Her voice had taken on some of Dawn's musical quality, and Cait could swear the antlers were bigger.
A second front opened up, the Wild Bunch began to gain some breathing room. On the second look, Cait could tell they'd been on the edge. Harambe's dark fur hid the color of blood, but it was matted from wounds all over his body, and his breath came in gasps between animalistic shrieks. Sawscale leaked blood from under his scales, and there were patches of raw naked flesh where their protection had been torn away. Mommy Long Legs was relatively unscathed, but her fragile body was one good hit away from critical condition.
BREAST MAN tore into the hole his blasts had made, down two tentacles but still well equipped to tear through the flesh of the horde. Coonbeasts were big, strong, and ugly, but still made of non-anomalous meat and bone. The area around BREAST MAN quickly became a charnel house of shredded bodies and gore, but as the horde recognized the new threat, beasts followed their fallen fellows as quickly as BREAST MAN could put them down.
He was holding his own however, and the coordinated efforts of Kennedy and Dawn from inside and out were steadily thinning the horde. Cait held back near the magic artillery battery they'd become, picking off any Coonbeasts that made it through the onslaught. Her instincts told her to charge and get stuck in, but even if she did, it would barely be a drop in the bucket compared to the widespread destruction her companions were sowing. No, it was better for her to play bodyguard against a horde, if Wilds Witch or Sonder were to be caught off guard the fight could change quick.
BREAST MAN broke through to the Wild Bunch, and his approach was greeted warmly by Sawscale.
"Ahh, our own new little monssster." He hissed, with exactly as much sibilance as you'd expect. Despite that, his tone was good humored. "Would you consssider a team change? We're alwaysss on the lookout for new freakssss."
DO YOU HAVE DENTAL?
Sawscale let out a series of low hisses that must have been a chuckle.
"Swan will have your hide if she finds out you're poaching, Sawscale," Harambe scolded as his massive fist exploded a Coonbeast's skull. He grabbed its newly unadorned neck and used the body to pummel another group. "It was bad enough when you tried to recruit Isaac, the poor man had no interest in fighting!"
"I like ssssnakess!" Sawscale shot back. "Sssue me!"
"I believe Issac was close act-" A metallic claw burst through Harambe's chest and cut the gorilla off. He went limp like a puppet with its strings cut. The Coonbeast responsible shook his body off its arm, the shiny iron spikes of its fur shredding the ape on their way out.
"Samsara!" Cait called as she began to charge. Sawscale and Mommy Long Legs' agonized cries filled her ears over the comms, but she couldn't process that right now. "Harambe is down, he needs emergency extract now."
She pumped her fists, using the explosive blows to push herself forward at the same time as they turned Coonbeasts to meatslush.
"Jesus christ that's fucking Ironhide." Bubb-bill's voice crept over the comm, choked with fear and rising panic. "Mommy, BREAST MAN, pull the fuck back. Sawscale, buy them time, Amaranthine is on her way."
Cait didn't like the tone in the dispatcher's voice, or the fact that this thing was a known entity. That almost certainly meant it had tangled with Guardians before and survived. It had torn through a tough Guardian like Harambe as though he was tissue paper, and she doubted Sawscale would hold up any better. She was rocketing towards the retreating duo of Mommy Long Legs and BREAST MAN, and called out to them.
"Toss me!" BREAST MAN did. He whipped out a tentacle, spun her to gather momentum, then released towards where Sawscale and Ironhide squared off. Sawscale's attacks sparked off of the lean Coonbeast's metallic skin, and the almost human smirk on its face suggested it knew he was doing more damage to himself than he was to it.
Snarling, Cait pumped her fists as she zeroed in on the monster. She crashed into it at fighter jet speeds, just as it was angling a clawed fist towards a patch of raw, scaleless skin on Sawscale's side. She saw its eyes widen with surprise and fury in the instant before her fist connected and the beast learned how to fly.
"We gotta group up," she snarled at Sawscale. "I put a dent in that thing's chest, but I'll let BREAST MAN wear me like a glove if I actually killed it."
The two made a fighting retreat, but Sawscale had taken more damage than Cait had realized in the seconds it'd taken her to reach him. He was fading fast, and even with the horde thinned to a tenth of what it was, she wasn't sure he'd make it.
"Samsara!" She called again, hoping the teleporter was available. "Get him out!"
She turned to face the bulk of the remaining beasts, drawing aggro as best she could. Their slavering maws were perversions of one of her favorite animals, and it made it easy to lay into them.
"I. Used. To. Fucking! Love! Raccoons!" She yelled, punctuating each word with a nano powered punch. A multicolored flash from behind her let her know that Samsara had heard her, and Sawscale was safe. She no longer had room to retreat though, as beasts pressed in from all sides. She killed and killed, but there was a point where she was just making more dead weight crushing her in.
"Kennedy!" She called over comms when she could no longer even move her arms. "Give me as much rot as you can muster! Danger close!"
Heh. Always wanted to say that.
A hissing noise started from above her, and the weight began to incrementally lessen as foul liquid seeped down the pile.
"CLOSE YOUR EYES" came over the comm, the voice stupid, and british. If it was on their comm, it was on their side though, so she complied. An instant later a flash that would've tested if she could be permanently blinded seared her eyes even behind their lids. She opened them to see a smoking hole in the pile of bodies, BREAST MAN visible straight through it, down another tentacle. She grinned as he gave her a thumbs up, and she pumped her arms to shoot herself out of the pile.
The rest of the gang was polishing the rest of the horde off, as those beasts that were capable of breaking finally broke and fled back through the Tortoiseshell. Cait watched with satisfaction as they ran, until a flash of metallic grey caught her eye. With a start, she realized she hadn't punched Ironhide back out of the Tortoiseshell, and now the Evolved Altered was flanking her friends as they concentrated on picking off the retreating horde. The furious beast's legs pumped, carrying it at speed towards the unsuspecting group.
BREAST MAN noticed it first, and was able to redirect a rot blast from Sonder towards the approaching monster. The hiss as it corroded its iron flesh made it stagger, but not stop. The slowdown was enough.
Cait slammed a fist into its stomach, the blast forcing it to take a step back. Unfortunately, the thing was fucking tough, and it gave a mocking snarl as it collected itself and lashed out for
Cait's face. The thing was fast, too fast for a shocked Cait to dodge. Fortunately, it was time for Ironhide to have an unpleasant surprise. The metallic claws that had shredded Harambe shattered against Cait's cheek, and the monster howled in pain.
"Doesn't feel so good, does it bitch!?" Cait snarled with glee, driving another fist into its sternum. Rot began to fall around them like driving rain, and a corrosive steam hissed from Ironhide. It glared at her, hate, fury, and enough intelligence to promise revenge in its eyes. Then it fled. Cait gave chase as best she could, and strands of web from Mommy Long Legs traced after the beast, but its sharp fur shredded them. It was faster than Cait, even using nano-boosts, and was through the Tortoiseshell in a flash, lost in the woods beyond.
"Grah!" Cait yelled, slamming a fist into one of the Tortoiseshell's indestructible struts.
"Stand down, Amaranthine!" Bubb-bill's voice carried a strong air of authority as it crackled over the comm. "Ironhide won't be the only Evolved Altered beyond the 'Shell, and your team is in no shape to pursue. That monster's reemergence will be brought to Director Swan's attention. Standby for return to base."
Cait punched the barrier again, and stalked back to the group. Samsara had already ported everyone but BREAST MAN out, and the monster, stumps of tentacles still smoking, waited for her alone.
ROUGH DAY scrolled across his hat, as Samsara collected them in another rainbow flash of light.