Utterly Mad

The interior of King's Court had soon turned a shade of red, running thick with rivulets of gray particulate. Mold and fungus had already begun to sprout and burst from walls and scattered corpses. Forces of the searing spear had withdrawn and spiked the doors. Fire spread within, belching from the windows above as ungodly inhuman screeching mixed with the roar of the flames. The fire reached the kitchen before the bomb that had been placed there went off, sparking the gas that had been left on by the man who'd put his incendiary device there. The walls of King's Court, once a refugee center and incredibly durable, held as the roar of a hellish burning wind swept up the halls and instantly incinerated everything caught in it's wake. The blaze set in King's quarters consumed everything. Furniture turned to charcoal, valuable watermarks and paper relics of the old world became as ash, jewelry and softer metal work melted in the intense heat, and the desiccated body seated in the imperial chair at the far end of King's fine meeting table was cremated along with the rest of his empire of pleasure.

---

Catnip saw the fire from her window at Efram's clinic, a bright glow against the dark sky. She felt worry, and a bit of sadness for the friends who may not have escaped. In a few days, she would be released. Catnip would go to King's Court, or what was left of it, with Minx and see what there was to see. What there was to see, amounted to very little of course. even several days on, smoke and ash still lingered in the air, and the ruins were still very hot. Every now and then, Catnip would cross a man or woman kicking over piles of coal or ash before turned their flames on the spot revealed. "You can never be too careful." some of them would say.

In Minx's room, they found thing to be somehow relatively in tact, but Minx only wanted one thing. A small pocket mirror containing a picture, unharmed by fire. She explained to Catnip that the photo was of the man who had hidden her face. Catnip nodded, understanding a little but eager to press on to her own room. Catnip's room, unlike Minx's, was almost completely gone. Including the poster she had foolishly hoped had survived. Instead, beneath a pile of charcoal and ash, she found a mechanism and brass attached to a gauntlet. "Agmen," She thought bitterly, "Of course she would protect junk like this." It was hot to the touch, so Catnip wrapped it in a towel she'd brought along. The searing spear checked over their belongings, and the things they'd taken from the ruins, before making them take a dose of antifungus each and seeing them on their way.

---

In time, the ruins would cool. Long before that though, the city would condemn the building, afraid of what may happen if it was inhabited. The entrance to the lab beneath was cemented up with a veritable mixers worth of liquid stone. Within a month, rumor began about ghosts among the ashes. That was fine with Rita. How she had escaped was her business alone, but once she discovered that the fire barely touched her, it had been a trivial task. Now she sat in the ruins of King's old chambers and planned, confident that no one would come to bother her. She didn't want that. Not yet. She rolled the skull around between her hands, then kissed it upon the skuffion before setting it aside. She needed rest, and food. Food would come first, then rest. Rita looked out the wide window looking out on Pricetowns high street and giggled.

"Look out world, here comes Rita, here comes the gray queen."