Look, it’s not like she’s ever been absolutely helpless. Compare her to the supernaturals with their fancy offensive powers and hyped up strength and, sure, yeah, call her helpless. But she’s always been scrappy and that had gotten her far in life – making objects into shanks, hitting people where it hurts (she wasn’t above some aggressive ball and titty punching), and with Bo she had gotten the hang of some weaponry. Swords and crossbows, whoo.
But then shit got weird, and Bo had said let’s work on our skills and the next thing she knows, they get signed up to receive training lessons from a Russian assassin. Which was cool, she guessed, and a little funny because she too was of the Russian variety but boy was she sure she’d never get assassin-level skill.
Her progression had been surprising, and Kenzi learned how to capitalize on being quick on her feet and efficient instead of flailing and doing the real-life equivalent of button mashing in a fighting game, hoping that a random hit would land and she’d luck out.
So when shit hit the fan – hard – she was out there, confident that she could actually be a help and not a liability.
Unfortunately, she had to do it in practical footwear. It was the worst.
“I,” she began, taking a moment to slice through one of the monsters coming their way - she had a sword in hand, the one she always used now (sorry, Geraldine), made by Morpheus, “am going to get a pedicure after this, because these shoes are an insult to my toes!”
Bo had never once doubted Kenzi’s ability to survive.
She had proven over and over, just in the first two years they’d known each other, that she could handle herself. Was she a little frantic and wild in a fight? Yep. Did Bo have to step in and make an actual impact sometimes? Also yep. But if the worst happened, Kenzi wasn’t afraid to fight dirty and do what needed to be done.
Nearly a decade down the road (more than that if they counted the giant amount of years they’d skipped upon arrival in Vallo), that hadn’t changed. Their circumstances, however? Big changes there. Evil dickhead overlord, death and destruction galore, pure apocalypse, even with some fucked up Rapture-y vibes.
When it felt like Vallo was starting to break at the seams, signing the two of them on for training with Natasha had been one of the smartest moves she’d ever made. Kenzi’s progress was nothing shy of miraculous, Bo had learned to lean out of her comfort zone, and it was all paying off now.
She had a sword in hand, too – best weapon choice for these situations, when stepping back to aim a gun was out of the question. (And she hated guns, anyway.) She shoved the blade forward as a monster leaped at her, piercing its stomach and shoving upward until it seized and collapsed.
“Your poor toes,” she snarked back at Kenzi with a fond smirk. “Such terrible suffering they’ve withstood.”
“Um, ma’am,” Kenzi huffed, stepping back to mold her back into Bo’s – that way they could avoid being snuck up on, and they could keep slashing and stabbing in all directions. “Could you not do the mocking thing against my plight, it’s rude.”
One came running in her direction, and she used Bo as support as she leaned back and kicked her foot out to shove it away. It created some distance, enough to where she could swipe her blade right across its throat. Training taught her precision, and how to make every movement that was supposed to deliver a hit count.
Blood sprayed in her direction and Kenzi sputtered. “Facial mask, too – gotta get that demon blood out of my pores, you know?”
It took a little extra strength to pull her sword free, but Bo made it just in time to slash across what she could only assume was the chest (maybe one of many) of a giant, worm-like creature with a mouthful of jagged teeth. It’s eyes were creepy as fuck too, a dozen scattered across its enormous head, all of them black as coal and literally smoldering. She slashed forward more aggressively, swinging the sword with force enough to slice that head clean off the grimy brown body.
“Is this a just-for-one spa treatment?” She blinked rapidly; a fountain of orange mucus sprayed from the decapitated head as it hit the ground at her feet. She gave it a kick, the steel toe of her boot connecting with a sickening squelch.
“I mean, considering your attitu–”
There was a zing in the air, and then some kind of explosion that wasn’t from a bomb but maybe magical in nature?? Kenzi didn’t know, but it was loud and bright, and the impact made her stumble and push up into Bo. She had enough sense to make sure the point of the blade was away from her bestie - it’d suck if she accidentally, y’know, stabbed her.
“I think that was friendly fire,” she winced, rubbing a palm into her ear to try and get that ringing to stop. “Or maybe that was meant to kill us, I don’t know anymore!”
Kenzi turned, squinting through a flash of some other magic show - and when the glare subsided, she saw bodies on the ground not far from them. Several bodies. Bodies of people - natives, an Outlander or two – mutilated on the ground, dead.
All the jokes in her arsenal were swallowed down, and turned into ash.
The plus side of whatever had just happened – Bo was almost positive it was magic, but what the hell did she know – was that it took out the beasts bearing down on them, too. Whether they were stunned or dead was beyond her. Could go either way with motionless bodies.
She looked toward their fellow rebels just feet away, those most obviously viciously killed, her jaw clenching. There was no way in hell she was letting Kenzi go down like that nor was she in any hurry to join them herself. Thankfully, she knew better than to wait around and take her chances.
For a few minutes here, the odds were in their favor, intentionally or not.
“C’mon.” She turned the tip of her blade down, right hand still wrapped tight around its hilt. The left hand found Kenzi’s, twining their fingers together. “Let’s get the hell out of dodge.”
“Wait–already?” Don’t get her wrong, running seemed like a hella good idea now. Every instinct in her was screaming to run, that maybe she wasn’t cut out for this. Dead bodies weren’t a new sight for her, except this was Vallo, and in their first few years here having people die when shit got rough was rare.
But the body count kept getting higher, and higher, and higher.
And maybe this had stopped being one of those typical Vallo Hiccups a long time ago.
Kenzi tightened her grip on Bo’s hand. “We don’t completely suck, Bo, we can still do–something, can’t we?!”
They weren’t the only pair still standing, but other groups had started scattering as well. Fights were raging all over the place, and that explosion had neutralized this spot. Maybe it was only temporary – maybe some of these beasts would be up and at it again. But hanging around to find out was a very stupid idea.
“Like what, Kenz?” She gestured with her sword hand at the bodies on the ground. “They’re dead, there’s nothing we can do about that now, and if that didn’t kill these fuckers along with them, we’re just asking to get jumped next. Let’s go, there are plenty of other places we can help.”
She wasn’t planning to run off and hide here, but she wasn’t looking to get converged upon by potentially only-unconscious monsters either.
No, no. That made sense. Bo was right – they needed to get out of there. There was no point in pushing through until you were the next body dead to hit the ground. Like, what was happening to this place? “Okay, you’re right, let’s–”
A shriek cut through the air above them, and the sound was so shrill she felt her ears ring again, making the sound seem so much farther than it was. The sound of large wings flapping, a sudden and sharp gust of air hitting them before something big slammed into the both of them.
Kenzi’s hand was ripped from Bo and her body did, in fact, hit the ground (but not in a dead way!), tumbling against dirt and rubble until she hit a corpse that stopped her from going any farther. She tasted iron on her lips – blood was gushing from her nose, wetting the lower half of her face – and she let out a deep groan as her eyes fluttered open.
The sight was fuzzy, but it was some kind of–demon. Red eyes, black wings, a human body but a jagged beak for a mouth. The talons at the point of their fingers were massive. They looked at her with curiosity and an almost cute tilt of their head.
They straightened their head, and fucking cawed at her, and brought a hand up to drive their talons into her.
The sudden impact knocked Bo away from Kenzi before she could really process what was happening. They split off in opposite directions and her head hit hard against the ground, leaving her blinking dizzily as she tried to push herself up on her elbow. Her sword, unsurprisingly, clattered aside as well, just out of her reach.
Her head was pounding, but she didn’t have time to sit there and recover. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, strained to grab hold of the hilt of her sword with both hands, swiping it at the demon’s back just in time to steal their attention away from Kenzi.
They whipped around just as Bo managed to get back to her feet, and she plunged forward again with the sword. The creature let out an ungodly shriek as the blade punched into their stomach – but of fury, not pain, and Bo watched as her sword disintegrated quickly into dust.
Shit. That hadn’t been a part of the plan.
Still, she had the demon’s full attention now, and before she could even open her mouth to call out to Kenzi, their talons had turned on her. The pain made a scream rip out of her as she fell to her knees and her vision blacked out.
Kenzi expected pain. Had braced herself for it. Her limbs felt heavy, and when she tried to move there was pain that shot up her side, and there was a part of her beyond pissed that she might be killed off by a bird – because that was annoying but a little funny, right? If she focused on funny, then she could ignore that dread in her stomach, that fear that seized her bones because oh god, this is how I die, at least my ghost outfit’s going to be flawless.
But it didn’t come, and she heard screaming – which then made her realize she had screwed her eyes shut, scared – and, like, her entrails weren’t spilling out. That was good, but that didn’t mean something wasn’t right; someone had interfered , and she saw a glimpse of Bo who was alive! Oh, thank fuck she was –
It was Bo who screamed next.
It was Bo that had taken the talons.
Whatever aches and pains that kept her from moving before were non-existent now. “No! No, nonono, no, Bo, Bo.” The demon pulled back from her, and let out this shriek of what could only be triumph before that was cut short by another person who must have noticed they were in deep shit, sweeping in and smashing their body into it. “Bobo, Bo, I got you, I’m here, wake up, wake up.”
Kenzi knew her leg was useless but she dragged it with her anyway, reaching a body that she was sure had breath in it still - right? There had to be a heartbeat in her chest somewhere, and this… this hole in her could be fixed. Bloody hands trembling, she hoisted her up into her lap and kept Bo close. Her face felt even more wet, this time from tears. “Hi, Bo?? Wake up, you can suck my chi if you need to, okay? Take everything, I don’t care, you need to–open your eyes, please open them.”
The breath she took in felt like it could choke her, and what she exhaled was a sob.
“Please–just open.”
The darkening of Bo’s vision turned out to be only temporary, but the pain? Oh, that lingered. She wasn’t breathing well, she could feel the strength leaving her, and even without looking, she could feel the sticky warmth of blood gushing. She’d bled before – badly, even – but this was beyond that. Somehow she knew, even if she fed from Kenzi, it wouldn’t be enough.
She did open her eyes and peered up at Kenzi through her lashes. Her heart ached when she realized she was covered in blood, too, but she could hear, vaguely in the distance, that the demon was being handled, at least for now. She was glad for that.
“Hey,” she croaked. She raised a hand, grimacing with the action and the stabbing pain it caused, but landed her fingers on that bloody chin and stroked downward. Her eyes filled with tears, quickly streaking down her cheeks. It made her breathing even shakier, but she couldn’t stop it if she tried.
“I–I love you, ‘kay?” She swallowed hard, staving off the way her voice shook. “I love you, Kenz.” Her hand shook and slowly dropped, eyes falling closed as well as a few more shallow breaths led to silence.
“Don’t get all final words on me, you’re not allowed, you’re not –” Kenzi sniffled, thinking it was all going to be snot coming back up her nose but it was blood too, its smell copper and its taste like iron dripped down the back of her throat. “You have to take what you need, Bo, just shut up and take what you need.”
At this rate she was begging, and hoping she’d listen, and try. Any little bit had to help.
But her eyes closed.
And her hand went limp.
This can’t be it.
“I love you too,” she croaked out, pitiful and wrecked, as she began rocking Bo’s body. “This isn’t a joke, Bo, you can’t–you can’t do this, not like this.”
Kenzi tried adding pressure to her wound, but it was too late. She tried setting her down to do compressions, but it was too late. She kept checking for a pulse, kept checking for the slightest breeze of a breath from her nose, but it was too late.
The world around them was burning down. It took Bo with it, and Kenzi’s screams and cries blended with everyone else who had lost, too.