[b]Lynn[/b]

Lynn had only a brief moment of animalistic joy as Salamandra roared in pain before the woman was on her again. Lynn had attempted to scramble away and put some space between them, but the floor was slippery from being only semi-solid at this point, and Lynn's ruined shoes did not contribute to her steady footing. In fact, Lynn had started to sink down into the floor as she stood, which was not going to bode well when one of them ran out of juice. [i]If we got sealed in this shit when Archie comes out, we're dead.[/i] As she stumbled backwards Salamandra was on her, bringing her head down to smash Lynn's face with her own.

At this same time, Lynn's mind was processing what her next steps were - calling it a plan was overly generous, but she had two steps figured out as her stomach cramped once again. The third, most likely, was getting choked to death by Salamandra or eaten by Archie - or, at a distant third, devoured by the skull beast walking around outside. A pleasant but incredibly unlikely fourth possibility was that Keaton was able to MacGyver a high-powered rifle out of egg rolls and discarded forks in the back and proceeded to kill all three with one bullet.

Lynn's next step was going to be a doozy. She had about five seconds, she reckoned, before she could pull it off.

But in-between that and step two - which was Archie breaking through that wall and clawing apart everything in his way, Lynn knew what she needed to do. [i]If Keaton managed to get through to him, I can't be glowing when he comes,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]And I need to get clear from this bitch, which is not -[/i]

Lynn tried to twist her face, to bring her forehead down to intercept the blow, but she had no positioning and not enough time. Salamandra's forehead smashed into her nose and Lynn felt the lightning-flash pain of her nose breaking for the third time in her life. Lynn screamed, her flames scorching up and disintegrating the rest of her clothing as well as a good deal of Salamandra's, filling the air around them with more putrid smoke. Lynn's eyes watered from the pain and she felt a boiling trickle of blood rush down her nose for a moment, but Lynn forced herself to sideline the pain for just a second. She needed just a second more.

Her stomach cramped tight enough to make her think, for one brief, pain-addled moment, that she was pregnant, and her legs went weak. Lynn stopped struggling to pull herself away from Salamandra, trying to pull herself in closer instead. Under the woman's iron grip, this was easy. She reached up and grabbed the back of her shirt as best she could reach - Lynn had wanted the back of her hair, but there was no such luck there, Lynn was far too short - and Lynn hurled up three meals' worth of Chinese food up onto her attacker. She was aiming for the eyes, but trying to maintain any semblance of accuracy when your eyes are full of tears and smoke and your head is ringing from a probable concussion is somewhat difficult. Lynn spewed, and spewed, and gasped and spewed again. 

A particularly disgusting, but noteworthy fact about Lynn is that her internal body temperature is hotter even than her outside body temperature. When she commits as much as she has in a fight such as this, her stomach burns like a blast furnace. A great deal of Lynn's energy had gone into keeping the acidic bile that now dripped off Salamandra as superheated as the rest of her. Shaky from the impact and from hurling, Lynn couldn't help but grin (a tooth was knocked out that she did not even register) at her masterpiece. A sludge of well over a thousand degrees, acidic, foul-smelling, and overwhelming in volume had torn the lining off Lynn's throat and had splattered onto Salmamandra. [i]Eyes and hands,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]Please try to cover your face or my mouth.[/i] 

Lynn was no chemist, but she had a rudimentary understanding of heat transfer just by nature of her powers. Best Lynn could figure, they had a nice little bubble of superheated steam around them that wasn't going anywhere, and was keeping the two of them nice and warm and toasty. Lynn was firing as much of her energy as she could into Salamandra, and as close as they were, this bitch had to be working overtime to be taking it all. Lynn knew she could not maintain this for very much longer, but if her gamble - her only real shot at winning - was to work, she wouldn't have to. She didn't know how efficient the older woman's powers were, but what felt to Lynn like thirty gallons of boiling vomit had to put a dent in her capacity. Lynn was fully aware that trying to super-charge her opponent to the point of combusting was not, perhaps, the soundest strategy, but if Lynn had been committed to the soundest strategy she would have walked out with Natalie and gotten clear.

It's not every day you get to throw up on a childhood icon. Let alone a murderer. Let alone whatever Salamandra would've been if she'd taken Archie.

Lynn had hoped she could keep a lid on the rather explosive mixture of adrenaline and a full stomach until Archie had come out to play, thinking that even the lizard's scales couldn't take liquid that hot, but that had not panned out. Now it just meant she'd have to go find a real big stick to beat his ass with once she finished up Salamandra - or so she told herself. Lynn tried to gather her strength to break free from Salamandra, but she was stunned for just a moment - there is physiologically just about no way to deal with projectile vomiting and getting your nose broken within five seconds and stay in fighting shape throughout. Lynn shook her head (a terrible idea - her nose split open with pain once again) and tried to gather herself, but she knew Salamandra's next hit was coming. She tensed, readying for the blow - [i]either my nose or my snatch, I'm guessing.[/i] 

"You still hungry now, bitch?" Lynn spat, a thick clot of superheated blood splattering onto what pitiful shreds remained of the older woman's clothes. She gasped for air. [i]How much oxygen are we burning?[/i] Lynn wondered vaguely. The two of them were causing some serious damage to this place, and one way or the other, it couldn't last much longer. [i]Anytime now, Gennedy, you worthless fucking fascist, anytime now.[/i]