19 – The Shattering of Bones Makes a Great Deal of Noise

Erika felt nervous. Her shoulders were a bundle of tension, and the errant twitches of her foot as she tapped it against the ground did not help. This wasn’t her first fight, nor was it her first fight with supernatural beings. The Church had surprised her on her very first night out investigating these things, the museum had all those cultists, the maggots probably counted even if they didn’t put up much actual fight, and she had her little… spar with The Stalker.

Something was different about this situation. Maybe it was the time she had to think. All those other incidents sort of sprung up on her, requiring her to act without really considering anything. Never before had she had quite so much quiet time knowing a fight would break out in a few short minutes.

The Strategist was on his way in some vehicle that The Warrior created. The Stalker hadn’t explained in full before being called away to prepare some other defenses, but as far as Erika understood, the vehicle wouldn’t have any trouble extracting them, even if chaos broke out. Erika presumed it was enchanted somehow. Maybe an invisible van that could get in and out without being noticed?

She wished it would be here sooner rather than later.

Like, sooner than a fight could break out.

Some of those Eclipse people The Stalker told her about didn’t sound particularly fun to tangle with.

The hotel lobby was set up like some kind of defensive fortress now. The Stalker, The Warrior, and Michael were all hanging back with their guns. They even gave one to Anna. It made for an… interesting group. All ranged weapon users. Erika wasn’t sure if they had other cultists, like Michael and Simone, who had skills in other areas, but it felt like it made their group lopsided.

The Strategist didn’t seem like a fighter at all, and the only other person Erika had heard about was The Healer, who was apparently difficult to get out of bed, let alone to something as active as fighting.

Today, however, Erika stood with Rick up at the forward part of the lobby. She stood behind one of the card-like barriers, one that had been set up for cover in the middle of the lobby, with her bat resting on her shoulder. Rick swore he wasn’t going to draw his sword, but he still had it out of its cardboard tube and at the ready. Erika wasn’t sure if he planned to smack people over the head with it, still in its sheath, or if he was going to try to keep his head down until The Strategist arrived.

Erika wasn’t sure that he would have a choice.

“The Hanged Man has taken position at the south end of the street, high,” The Stalker called out, pointing perpendicular to the main hotel entrance. “If you step outside, you’re likely to lose your head to his sniper rifle, but he doesn’t have a good view into the lobby from his angle.”

It wouldn’t matter if he were across the street. With those cards blocking the windows, he wouldn’t have a view at all.

That was a bit of a shame. Out of all the people The Stalker had listed off, The Hanged Man was the only one she actually wanted to punch. It didn’t sound like he would be anywhere near the actual fight.

Her eyes flicked to the clock above the reception desk. Only eight minutes had passed since they started getting set up. Twelve minutes until The Strategist’s expected arrival. It felt like so much more time had passed, but it still wasn’t enough.

“The Art has entered the building,” The Stalker said, narrowing her eyes as she looked upward. Her tone took on a distinctively unpleasant note. “Crawling through a ventilation shaft like some kind of vermin.”

“We’ve blocked the vents,” The Warrior dismissed, barely glancing at the ceiling. “Just be aware if someone breaks the blocks down.”

“The Adjustment and The Aeon are approaching the front. The Fool is around the left side. The Tower is still incapacitated in the stairwell.” The Stalker paused, slowly turning her shimmering eyes, looking through and throughout their surroundings. “No information on The Lust. Still just vanished.”

The Stalker’s voice sounded utterly perplexed, but Erika turned away, focused on the front doors. She had jammed one of the cards into the revolving door, and they managed to lock the other doors, so she wasn’t quite sure what The Eclipse’s plan was. Even if they broke down the almost unbreakable cards, all the gun wielders at her back had a clear line of sight on them.

Just walking in didn’t seem like a good idea, strategically speaking.

“At least we don’t have to deal with The Hierophant or The Hermit,” The Warrior said, sounding much more cheerful than the others.

“These people are a bit mad, aren’t they?” Rick whispered. Erika glanced over to find him jittering in nervousness even more than she was. “When you first came by, talking about invisible robots and wizards, I thought you were a bit crazy, but these people are fully ready for a fight—”

“Incoming,” The Stalker said. “Fool.”

The moment the words were in the air, the entire building shook. The sound of glass shattering drowned out all other noise. It had to have been the windows, but the cards were still in place.

A second crash against the building bent several of the frames between the windows inward. The cards, seemingly fused to the metal, bent with it, but it was an obvious weak point. A third hit split the frame inward, throwing open two cards like they were doors on an old western saloon.

The Fool was a Contractor-class being. Erika wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but the effect was that he summoned beings.

One of those beings stepped through the gap in the windows. A hulking mass of rock, woven together with lines of red-hot molten metal. A face jutted out from its upper chest, vaguely humanoid, but with a glowing red maw leading further into its body and two ruby gemstones for eyes.

“Ignis.” A man’s voice pulled Erika’s attention to the giant’s shoulder. Someone sat on the mound of rocks, wearing a fluffy white scarf wrapped around their entire lower face and a slim white coat to go with it. His hair was short with frosted white curls, contrasting with his darker skin. Slowly, he pointed a finger directly at the closest person—Erika. “Capture,” he said.

A massive arm of blackened rock and molten metal raised high enough to scrape the hotel lobby’s ceiling. Erika stared, fingers tightening around her bat, before she threw herself to the side just as it started crashing down.

The gleaming, polished tiles of the lobby’s floor shattered into a thousand pieces as a shockwave rumbled the ground. Erika hit the ground mere inches away. She hadn’t been hit by the fist, and yet it still felt like the ground punched her entire body upon landing.

She could have broken its entire arm off, she was sure, but it wouldn’t have deleted the material. Whether it was attached to the creature or not, a thousand tons of rock falling on her would have crushed her flat.

Someone opened fire. Erika was too busy scrambling back up, rushing off to the side, to get a good look at who. They didn’t sound like proper gunshots. It must have been more magic bullets. Massive chunks of the earthen construct blasted off its body, but the debris it made in its entrance sucked into the being, repairing it as fast as they could take it apart.

“Adjustment. Aeon,” The Stalker called out, voice dimmed by the ringing in Erika’s ears.

The hulking giant stood just a few steps ahead of the broken hole in the hotel’s entrance. One of its massive hands was shielding the rider from bullets—though its arm had several holes bored deep into it; where debris wasn’t enough, molten metal rushed along its body to fill in the gaps. Erika picked herself up with the aid of a toppled sofa just in time to watch another creature scurry into the room.

The Adjustment. A spider-like humanoid that skittered along on far too many limbs. A woman made from glossy black chitin that crawled along the wall far faster than she had any right to. Someone tried shooting at her, taking their shots off the rock monster. Again, Erika didn’t see who, but she did see them miss. Part of the wall twisted, spiraling inward, swirling together stone, metal, and part of one of the indestructible playing cards.

The Adjustment jumped off the ceiling, avoiding another close shot that exploded into a glacier of ice. Thin strands of silk clung to two of her outstretched limbs, letting her control her descent with sharp tugs—and avoiding more fire from the ranged crew. Another netting of silk stretched between four of her limbs, held in front of her like she was getting ready to wrap it around whoever she landed on, but she didn’t quite land.

A flash of lime green light erupted from The Warrior’s shotgun.

When the light died down, The Adjustment was nowhere to be seen. Erika didn’t know if she had just been vaporized or what, but she didn’t have time to find out.

The Fool’s rock monster was still after her, stomping toward her with slow, lumbering steps. It kept one hand up, shielding its passenger despite the reduced fire, but swept the other out at her. She had to jump back another few steps, keeping just out of reach.

At the same time, she swung her own bat. Fully extended, she barely managed to scrape the rock’s knuckles.

That was enough.

The jolt of metal against stone sent tremors up her arm—she was sure she was going to regret that in the morning—but it worked. The moment her bat came into contact with the stoneman’s hand, it broke. Rock fingers split off, scattering across the floor as a fissure raced up its arm, shedding more stone. The molten metal running along it like veins dripped off in long, loopy ropes like honey poured from a jar.

It stomped forward, forcing Erika to hop back over a small table. Despite missing a hand and having its arm torn in half, it didn’t stop. There were no cries of pain or shocked recoil. The best she got was a look of surprise on The Fool’s face, peeking out between the rock giant’s fingers.

“Down,” The Warrior said, her voice carrying unnaturally.

Erika turned just enough to see the mage aiming her shotgun in her direction. That was enough for her. She dove to the ground once again, hands over the back of her head.

A lance of green flashed over Erika’s head. Unlike the previous burst of light from The Warrior’s shotgun, it wasn’t lime green so much as it was nuclear green. Facing away from the rock monster and the rest of the hotel lobby, Erika could see the wall where the nuclear green light struck.

It wasn’t a wall anymore. It was a hole, one bored straight through into the neighboring building. Pipes, electrical wires, and a portion of a window were little more than molten slag, matching that of the rock monster’s veins.

Erika scrambled back to her feet.

The rock monster was missing a whole section of its chest. If it had been a living being, it would be missing one full lung and part of another, along with the ribs and heart and whatever else was in that area. A thin post of stone, occupying its left side, struggled to keep the upper portion of it upright. Even as Erika watched, bits of rock crumbled off as the entire thing started to sag.

“Ignis, return,” The Fool shouted, sounding much more panicked than he had earlier.

The remnants of the rock monster liquefied as they rushed up to The Fool, slurping into his extended hand like it was a straw. He fell as it vanished, dropping to the ground with far more grace than Erika would have expected.

With the giant and the threat of being crushed by it now gone, she got a much better look at the goings on in the rest of the lobby.

The Adjustment had not been vaporized by that first blast of lime green light. She was engaging with Rick at the moment, but it was… not exactly a battle. Rick swung his sword back and forth, keeping her at bay, but his swings lacked the expertise Erika had seen him use against the maggots. The sheath was still on. At the same time, The Adjustment didn’t seem to fight back. She just dodged side to side, keeping Rick firmly between herself and Anna.

Anna held her pistol, aimed at the ceiling, with her eyes locked on Rick and The Adjustment. If she were waiting for an opening, she would be waiting quite a while with the way their fight was going.

Neither of The Hunters would be getting support from The Puppet. Michael had been disarmed of his gun. Wielding a combat knife, he slashed and battled with The Art, keeping her away from The Warrior while the latter reloaded her shotgun. Her worm-like tendrils sizzled when Michael’s blade cut into them, but if it caused her pain, she didn’t show it. Long, tentacles spread out across the ground like veins, thinner and weaker than the main body tentacles, Michael nonetheless avoided stepping on them.

If Anna turned and shot at The Art, it might have freed Michael up to help her and Rick in return, but she was too focused on the latter to even notice the fight going on a dozen steps away.

The Stalker was rapidly teleporting around the room, leaving flickering images of static in her wake. She kept trying to get a shot on any of the other combatants, but she was being hounded.

The Aeon followed her, hot on her tail, teleporting in the exact same way, down to the lingering static afterimages. Every time The Stalker reappeared, The Aeon appeared and attacked with a sword, forcing The Stalker to vanish once again. He was a strange one, wearing a faceted, mirrored mask that concealed his entire head. The rest of his attire was a full-body suit similar to a scuba diving wetsuit. It maintained the faceted pattern, though it lacked the mirror quality.

Did he think he was a superhero or something?

He even had a cape. Had he never seen The Incredibles?

Erika ignored it for now. Her eyes settled on The Fool once again. Without his giant rock monster, he was far less intimidating. He wasn’t even as tall as she was, standing about at her shoulders. She cocked a grin, swinging her bat up to her shoulder as she advanced.

She made it three steps before he held out his hand. “Ventus!” he shouted.

A gale of wind erupted from his hand, throwing Erika off her feet. She didn’t fly far, just back over the table and onto one of the lobby couches. It was a surprisingly soft landing, all things considered.

The wind swept up around The Fool. Erika wasn’t sure how she could see the wind, but it took a light, feminine shape as it swept its summoner up into its wispy arms. His worried look vanished, replaced with a smug smile as he glared at Erika.

For her part, Erika shot a glare at The Warrior. That green blast might have been for her benefit, but she felt like she could have gotten the rock thing under control. She could break rocks all day long without breaking a sweat. How was she supposed to break wind?

The moment the question crossed her mind, she swore she could hear a snarky quip from Daniel.

Erika had never tried to break air before. From a purely physics standpoint, she knew that her bat hit the air as it passed through it. If her ability were purely physics-based, she wouldn’t be able to do half the things she did. That said, what did it mean, philosophically, metaphysically, or otherwise, to break air?

“Ventus,” The Fool said, grinning down at her. “Capture her in a whirlwind.”

Erika rolled off to the side of the couch just as a gust of air swept it off into the distance. It crashed against the bar, shattering into splinters of wood and fluff.

“He said capture me, not splatter me, you stupid air elemental,” Erika hissed, flinging her bat through nothing.

If it affected the creature, it didn’t show it.

When it hit the ground, it shattered tiles and concrete. Bits and pieces flung up into the air. Some pelted Rick and The Adjustment, throwing both off balance. The rest got swept up into the whirlwind that was the air monster.

Erika grimaced. It would be bad enough getting struck by sentient wind. Now, she would get hit by wind and stone.

The Fool apparently realized this as well. He started to laugh before stretching out a hand to point at her. He opened his mouth to give another command.

One of the whirling rocks smacked him in the back of his shoulder.

It probably hadn’t hurt, but that didn’t stop the look of surprise and shock on his face.

Erika started to grin. Of course, she thought in sudden realization. She didn’t need to break the wind elemental. The Fool was her opponent.

She stomped forward, slamming her foot into the ground. Tiles at her feet fractured and split, breaking apart with the same violence as the street outside the Old Church. The fissure ran forward, crumbling and cracking the ground as it moved. Large chunks of concrete and thin shards of tile hopped up into the air, where they were greedily gobbled up by the air elemental.

“Wait, Vent—” A bit of debris struck The Fool’s chin. The strike was much harder, much more audible over the wind, than the bit against his shoulder had been.

Erika winced in empathy, then stomped her foot down again. This time, she aimed at one of the lingering fingers of the earth elemental. Along with the chunks of cement and tile, the entire finger flung up into the air. The Fool’s eyes widened as he ducked, just barely avoiding the heavy stone.

As more and more bits of junk joined the whirligig, more and more bits started slamming into The Fool. He curled up, trying to cover his head with his arms as he made himself a smaller target. “Ventus,” he shouted, the word coming out with a slight hitch as he caught a rock with his chest. “Return!”

The whirl of wind stopped abruptly. Debris rained down around the hotel lobby, many flung out with the elemental no longer keeping them trapped. The slightly visible elemental slurped into The Fool’s hand just as the rock monster had, leaving him falling to the ground once again.

Erika pushed forward without hesitation this time, ignoring a few bits of rock coming her way. One jagged bit of tile broke into dust as it struck her arm. She ignored the flare of pain, focusing on The Fool.

“Undi—” The Fool started to say.

Erika slammed the palm of her hand up against The Fool’s chin, cutting him off before he could call for another of his monsters. She heard several somethings snap, and The Fool’s eyes watered immediately.

“Open your mouth again and I’ll break your jaw into sixteen pieces, one for each tooth—”

“нⷩiͥiͥ,̓ hͪiͥiͥ,̓ hͪiͥiͥ…”

Erika started, feeling like someone had dumped a bucket of ice down the back of her shirt. That sound just didn’t sound right. Like some cross between laughter and panting. Erika snapped her gaze around the room, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

Fighting throughout the entire lobby had abruptly stopped. The Art, Michael, Anna, The Warrior, The Stalker, and The Aeon were all staring at Rick and The Adjustment.

Rick’s face had a splattering of black liquid coating it. Opposite him, The Adjustment’s spider-like body was lifted off the floor, bent backwards, with a hand punctured through her chest. A sudden movement of the hand flung The Adjustment to the floor, spider legs twitching as The Adjustment rolled over and over before finally coming to a stop on her back.

A woman, nude save for a series of bar-like tattoos running across her body, chased after The Adjustment’s rolling body like a toddler running after a cat. When she reached her, the woman stopped and stared down with blank eyes. “Mⷨoͦvͮeͤ,” she said, kicking at The Adjustment.

The kick rolled The Adjustment onto her stomach, but she otherwise did not move.

“Iͥᴛⷮ вⷡrͬoͦᴋⷦeͤ… S͛oͦ faͣs͛ᴛⷮ…”

Erika’s mind raced. Her first thought was that this was The Lust, the only missing member of The Eclipse that The Stalker had seen. But the woman had just attacked a member of The Eclipse.

The entire atmosphere of the room changed. There was a sudden tension, a swelling wariness, that Erika could feel. She couldn’t describe any one thing that made her feel that way, except perhaps the sudden staring and silence. When The Art turned fully away from Michael, exposing her back to her former opponent, and Michael didn’t try to attack her vulnerability, Erika knew.

This was an interloper.

“A… Adjustment?” The Art shouted, her voice like a bow sliding down the strings of a violin.

The nude woman looked up, gaze snapping on The Art. She looked around slowly as a lopsided grin spread across her face.

“S͛oͦ mͫaͣny ᴛⷮoͦys͛…”