[b]Lynn[/b]

Cordelia Lynn Holmes was no one's fool, although she certainly felt like one for a brief moment.

There were a fair number of skills that Lynn had acquired that are worth mentioning here. Firstly, Lynn had learned a long time ago the very valuable and difficult lesson that comes from getting punched in the face, really hard. It sucks. It's unpleasant. Your head spins, your ears ring, your thoughts scatter like the employees of this Chinese restaurant when Salamandra walked in.

But you also learn you aren't made of glass. When you can piece yourself back together from anything short of an atom bomb given enough time and calories, doubly so. If it was going to have killed you, it would have done it then and there, Lynn always figured. So drop an f-bomb and keep swinging.

Second, Lynn had learned how to get her ass kicked before. This is a rarer brand of wisdom. Most people can take a punch, but few people can take an absolute ass-beating. The deep, primordial knowledge of knowing that someone has more power than you and can do whatever they want to you is harrowing. If this was someone's initiation into the ass-beaten community, they may have panicked, or screamed, or shut down entirely. Curling up on the ground and trying to take it was not the most unreasonable of responses. 

However, Lynn had spent a pretty mean stint in parahuman juvy, where damn near everyone was bigger than her and got real tired of the shit that came out of her mouth. With Spoon's favorite kind of necklace on, there wasn't much Lynn could do but grind her teeth together and take it. Lynn had gotten the shit beaten out of her more times than she could remember.

Salamandra was just the bitch who elbowed her in the face this week.

Now, Lynn would be the first to admit that she had not expected whatever judo bullshit Sally had pulled on her, and Lynn would probably go further to describe martial arts as a whole as "some pussy stuff you do when you can't really fight". However, Lynn also had enough pain tolerance and punched-in-the-face discipline to know that wouldn't help her. Lynn also had known Salamandra had fire powers, but not whatever specifics she was packing. Lynn was a bit too busy trying to put this bitch down to stop and really contemplate all the possibilities there. So, Lynn all in all would say Salamandra was a dirt underhanded bitch, which she would perhaps have anticipated better had she not rushed in headlong. And in all fairness, her last fight ended when she set off a DIY nuclear warhead in a kitchen, which was as close to underhanded as it got. Secondly, Lynn felt the brief jolt of fear from Sal reaching out and grabbing her - which shut down about Plans A through Y that Lynn had cooked up for most fights, and let it push her harder. Lynn's jaw hurt, but she'd been hit worse, and knew that if you slowed down to think about it, you just got hit again. Lynn knew the next hit was coming, and didn't care when it came. [i]The flip side,[/i] Lynn thought, [i]Is she can't hurt me with heat either.[/i]

Lynn's stomach cramped for a brief moment, and the back part of Lynn's mind - the part that wasn't getting her ass beat, took very careful note of that, as well as the glimpse of Archie starting to stretch out, sitting perfectly still. [i]Shot clock's on,[/i] Lynn thought to herself. It would've been regardless. The corpse outside would've come in or something. Lynn was burning pretty intensely - not as hot as she could maximally go, but Lynn was looking to kill this bitch. 

There were a few minor problems with that. For starters, Lynn could feel her heat being wicked away about the time the sprinklers above exploded with the harsh shrill of the fire alarm. Water rained down around them and sizzled off her and Salamandra alike. She didn't know if it was going to be more of a detriment to her or to the would-be rapist, but Lynn figured at the rate her day had been going, it was safe to assume the former. Second, she was still currently on the floor, which began to melt as Lynn crashed down onto it. Not one to sit still, she was already rolling as Salamandra brought her foot down. Once you got on the ground, you were dead. Everyone could kick your teeth out, and even though Lynn wouldn't have known the fighting terms for it, she knew you didn't have leverage or options. Staying off the ground was one of the first things she'd learned from the academy of running her mouth too much. One of the few advantages of being Lynn's size was that she was a lot quicker than most of the people she fought. Salamandra would probably smoke her on any given four hundred meter sprint with those long legs, and could out-wrestle her for days, but an extra step or two for her was more time than a step or two for Lynn. It was clear Salamandra knew more fighting techniques than Lynn, but Lynn was no stranger to a fistfight. She kept her cool as her body reached the sort of temperatures you need for blast furnaces. As Salamandra's foot came down Lynn was up in a crouch and dodging the blow, half a second ahead of her. When Lynn got hit, which was frequently, she kept moving. You still got hit that way, but not as badly. As Lynn pulled herself up she braced herself for the next hit, letting the pain drive her on. Lynn had fully expected not exactly this, but the Promise to try and take her out. She didn't know what Salamandra's angle was, but Lynn was fighting for her life, and she was ready. 

There was a quick, adrenaline-frenzied whirlwind of thoughts. [i]Cramp. Cramp. She's not fazed by the heat. She's glowing. That's something, I can do something with that. I'm at waist height. Sprinklers. Smoke. I'm below her - smoke in her eyes. Archie. Keaton. Clothes.[/i] Lynn grunted and flared as much as she could, forcing another blast of acrid smoke from her clothing up directly above her - where Salamandra was looking down. She may have been able to eat Lynn's fire, but Lynn had yet to meet someone who didn't gag at a cloud of burnt polyester. The corona of heat around Lynn brightened even as it shrunk, devoured by Salamandra and the dowsing sprinklers. Lynn's skin glowed like burning coals, shimmering across more and more of her bare skin, as most of her jeans had burnt away and her shoes were becoming a melted, runny mess. The phoenix across Lynn's back danced with the blues and reds and golds of her hair, and might have been beautiful if she wasn't about to die.

Lynn didn't know to what degree Salamandra was sapping away her strength. Keaton had shouted she was absorbing her heat, which was curious. [i]Just the heat. Okay, we can work with that.[/i] Lynn hoped Keaton was running to grab a crowbar and knock Archie out while he was still transforming, but that seemed to not be her plan. Best Lynn could figure, he was completely out of it while he was shapeshifting, and while she didn't enjoy the idea of giving Archie brain damage, it seemed like the most surefire way of keeping the lizard from coming out. [i]I could knock him out with smoke,[/i] Lynn thought, [i]If I wasn't having to deal with this bitch.[/i] Without her power, Lynn was only as strong as all ninety-five pounds of her would allow for, which lost to this five foot eight, hundred eighty pound sack of human garbage every time. She could still feel that energy running through her, but it was all getting eaten by her as soon as it ignited along the surface. Fortunately, Lynn didn't need to have all her strength for the half-baked plan she had in mind. She needed maybe fifteen seconds, and one good window, and then she was going to go put the lizard to sleep for the second time. Lynn's jaw screamed with pain, but she forced it down. She could spit out her teeth when this was over. [i]I think it's about even,[/i] Lynn thought. Lynn figured she'd have the upper hand on strength if she could shut down her absorption, somehow, but at least they were roughly square. That was more than Lynn was used to. [i]More than the fucking lizard gave me, at least.[/i]

There was one other thing Lynn was pretty sure would work, because it had worked on literally everyone Lynn had ever met. Lynn, Salamandra's left leg beside her, shifted her weight for a split second before throwing as much force as she could into a punch at her target, a foot away and off-guard from Keaton's shout.

Salamandra's groin.