She had ended up shielding herself from most of the direct heat by keeping the flames enclosed within one of her hands. The carapace making up her skin was more or less immune to the extreme heat. Actually holding the balls was a strange feeling. Almost like a solid ball so long as she kept her concentration up.
Losing her concentration and having it explode in her face would be unpleasant to say the least.
As such, Eva got rid of them as soon as she could.
Gripping the ball of fire in her hand, she wound up and tossed it out over the crowd. With only a few nudges in this direction or that, the plasma ball sailed true. One of the worms taking aim at Genoa swallowed the ball whole.
She had plenty of practice with aiming and had become quite good at it, in her opinion. It helped that the acid-spitting worms had wide mouths that were almost constantly open.
Acid and viscera rained down on all the nearby bugs. So long as Arachne kept everything grouped up, Eva got massive returns on effort spent. None of the smaller dog-type bugs had any protection to the acid, ending up with her killing a whole lot with a single strike.
As soon as Genoa decapitated the last of the smaller bugs around her, she paused her deadly dance to give a slight wave up in Eva’s direction.
Every time Eva assisted her in some manner, Genoa would do that. A nod or a wave. One of the earlier times, she actually blinked straight back up to give a verbal thanks.
Eva just frowned. It was an unnecessary distraction in the middle of combat. Not one Eva could understand. What did Genoa hope to accomplish? Eva wasn’t going to stop assisting her partner because of a lack of immediate positive reinforcement.
Unless, perhaps, she was worried that Eva would drop the plasma ball on her one of these times. It would be a quick way out of the theater-demon’s domain–assuming he could be trusted to keep his word–but of all the monstrous things people could do to one another, betrayal ranked up at number one.
And I am not a monster.
So insistent.
Eva shook her head. What an annoyance. Couldn’t it take a hint?
You’re destined for far greater things than a puppet of the puppet-master.
“There is no such thing as destiny,” Eva muttered.
Shaking her head again, Eva performed a quick scan of the area around Genoa.
No acid-spitter worms in sight. Good.
That only left the problem of where Arachne actually was. As she had told Genoa, Eva firmly believed that Arachne was hidden away someplace where she was unlikely to be discovered.
As such, she could rule out the city hall building. Not only was it the biggest and most obvious place, but Arachne had shown clear disregard for the building’s structural integrity. Assuming Arachne was actually in command of the insect army, of course.
With the bank and the jail having been eliminated as possible hiding places, that left the train station.
Are you so sure of that?
“No,” Eva mumbled more to herself than to the voice in her head.
While the train yard was on the outside edge of the town, it was still a brick building with a high roof. In other words, a decent place to take refuge. It would have been too possible for herself or Genoa to take it over, thereby discovering Arachne.
But where?
The rest of the town was nothing more than a pile of broken wood and nails.
Frowning, Eva tapped her claws against the hard carapace on her leg.
That wasn’t entirely true. There was one other structure still standing.
Turning back to the field of battle, Eva was pleased to find Genoa standing atop the corpse of her target. A large slab of earth had risen out of the ground and crushed most of the beetle. With a quick lunge with her sword, Genoa sent the blade through the thing’s compound eye.
A moment later, Genoa blinked straight up to Eva’s side.
“Any progress?”
“Possibly. I’m not going to point or look as I’d rather not tip her off, but would you mind knocking down the water tower?”
Genoa considered for just a moment. She started out facing the same direction as Eva. Raising her sword, Genoa created large sinkholes, eating up more of the bugs. Slowly, she started rotating. The clock tower atop the city hall wasn’t very wide, so she did not have to move much to continue her stream of sinkholes.
At the creaking and crashing sound of a tumbling water tower, Eva turned.
The swarm stilled.
Bingo, Eva thought. She peered deep into the growing cloud of dust, searching for any sign of Arachne.
Not that she was worried or anything. There was no way that Arachne would die from such an insignificant thing as having a water tower collapse with her inside.
Still, she searched.
It didn’t take long. It started out as nothing more than a silhouette. A black shadow moving inside the dust cloud. The shadow thickened into the proper form of Arachne. Each step was slow and steady, filled with menacing power.
As Arachne exited the cloud, Eva found herself giving an involuntary shiver.
Thanks to her arms and legs, she knew the horror of getting dust inside the joints of her exoskeleton. And Arachne definitely had more than a little dust coating her.
The shiny black carapace that normally made up her body had been replaced by a thick layer of dirt and grime.
“Now what?” Genoa asked even as she cast a wary eye around the unmoving swarm.
“Honestly?” Eva said, glancing up at the woman. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Figure out how to get out of here–”
Genoa vanished.
It didn’t take long to figure out why.
Arachne, in her full-sized mode, landed on the roof. The spot where Genoa had stood caved in beneath the spider’s weight.
Lifting herself off her bulbous abdomen, Arachne pulled herself to her full height. She shot a glare at Genoa–who had blinked backwards to the opposite end of the clock tower roof. That glare turned down on Eva.
Before she could react, Arachne bent down and swept Eva off of her feet.
Eva hung limp against the spider-demon’s chest as her powerful arms pressed in tight.
“Your pyrokinesis is so much better,” Arachne said. Her face was so close to Eva that she could feel sharp teeth moving against her ear. “Perhaps that school isn’t as worthless as I thought.”
Most of that came from practice in that endless hallway, Eva didn’t say. “Arachne, you’re hurting my back. Set me down and we can discuss how to get out of here.”
With one last bone-crushing squeeze, Arachne gently set Eva down. “No need to discuss,” she said. “One of us dies and the others get to leave. I agree to these terms.”
“We’re not–”
Arachne placed a hand on Eva’s chest and shoved.
Eva flew through the air. She landed hard and rolled once. Only the lip of the roof kept her from plummeting off the edge.
Her back struck the lip causing Eva to cry out in pain.
She clamped down on the feeling, gritting her teeth.
Under control again, she opened her eyes and tried to get her barrings.
Only to find Arachne backhanding Genoa’s iron sword, snapping it off mid-way. The snapped-off segment spun through the air before embedding itself into the roof near Eva.
Far too close for comfort. A few hairs might have been cut short.
But Arachne was not finished. She continued her attack, striking forward with fervor.
Genoa blinked backwards again, leaving a few of her blond hairs behind in Arachne’s grip.
Her target lost, Arachne turned. Eight red eyes turned with her, each glowing with malice.
Eva felt something.
A tremble in her being. Something she had not felt from the spider-demon for a long time. Not since her first few weeks at Brakket, back when she was still adjusting to the idea of Arachne being constantly around, rather than her occasional appearances alongside Devon for a job or treatment.