To say that chaos broke out would have been an understatement. As Mavra leapt into the circle I shifted my aim, shifting Bianca into an interdimensional pocket with one hand as the other slammed my can into the ground, shifting the earth beneath Bianca's dais. Revel took to the sky, the little gem in her bracelet firing out tiny orbs at the vampires down below as Thomas ran through the party, racing towards the mansion.
The vampires, simultaneously, went insane, screeching and shedding their fake skins, black slimy bodies laid bare, long claws allowing them to both climb and gut their prey with ease. A terrifying sight, but I didn't really have the time to be terrified here. One of the disgusting creatures leapt for me, claws out.
I took my blade out of its cane-sheath. I wasn't necessarily good with it, but it was easy enough to hit a target leaping at you if you just held it out at an angle, so that's what I did. It hit, spearing the thing through the torso, but that wasn't quite enough to take it down.
Of course, holding it in place, I simply opened a portal to a relatively hot dimension in front of it, torching the thing as I tried to figure out the next step.
"Fulminare" Taylor shouted, and I looked behind me to see her lightning bolt fly towards a second attacker. I tried to follow up, but found the scorched vampire still attached to my blade, so instead I dropped it, smashing the vampire that Tayor had just zapped with my fist, and activating my ring, tearing it apart with kinetic energy that send it flying.
"You're late," Taylor said as she caught up to me, breathing heavily. She looked horrible, with bruises covered by filth, but she was talking and using magic, and now that I looked at her… Yes, she was, indeed, also covered in cockroaches, flies, wasps and spiders, with more coming in from the surrounding area.
"Sorry, got stuck at a party," I replied as I spotted a familiar duo of vampires moving our way. Kyle and Kelly Hamilton.
"Love the costume, better than Alec's," she replied, leaning on my arm.
"Alec?" I asked, keeping an eye out for the two vampires. Kyle was still wearing his tennis whites, while Kelly, or at least someone I presumed to be Kelly, was naked as the day she was turned, bloodstains on her teeth. She'd been feeding tonight.
"Long story, old teammate," Taylor answered. "You have a spare knife?"
"Try the sword," I replied, following up with a "Gravitus" towards the two vampires as Taylor ducked down, taking the time to pull the blade free as I heard the buzzing of her swarm become louder and louder.
"Now you've done it Harry, gone and broken the truce," Kyle said, straining against his increased weight. "This should be fun."
"The truce was broken when you allied with that warlock," I bluffed. "Whose only claim to power is through breaking that truce."
"Nice idea, too bad you won't be alive for long enough to try and argue it," Kyle replied. "You're surrounded, and we have our allies here."
"Allies that aren't quite fighting on your side, aren't they?" I replied, readying another spell as a small orb of light drilled its way through Kyle's face from above.
I looked up, and saw Revel, a cavalcade of lights buzzing around her, shielding her from attacks by leaping vampires.
"We should get ready to leave," I whispered, watching Kelly, who seemed to be preoccupied with her dying brother.
"Alec's still in the mansion, wounded. Can't leave without him."
"So that's where the Raith ran off to," I replied. "You good to run?"
"I'll be fine," she replied, standing straighter as she did so. I gave Kelly another look, still crying. "Let's go."
I started running, pulling Taylor along. She was quick, and much like me, a trained runner, but she wasn't as tall as I was, and definitely still hurt from her imprisonment.
"Be careful, they've got Skidmark," Taylor said through heavy breathing as I pulled her along towards the mansion.
"Revel can handle that," I reassured her, almost tripping as the ground seemed to move beneath us.
"Did you feel…" I stammered as I felt the earth move beneath me, with something tugging at the gravity spell I'd left behind.
"What the…" Taylor shouted as the ground shifted beneath us, the mansion we were running towards quickly becoming down, accelerating our mad dash towards it. Around us, I saw the vampires digging their claws into the earth, sticking to the wall as the rest of us—including dozens of their innocent victims—fell down towards the mansion.
Who the hell was manipulating the gravity? Did they get to Topsy too? Hell's bells, I knew the Folk had been failing against Marcone, but had it been bad enough for the guy to be taken by Bianca's court? No, not the time to think about this. I held out my staff, and tried to focus on what I'd felt when Topsy's power had interrupted my spell. Could I overpower it, at least temporarily? Worth a shot, given the stakes. Taylor had grabbed hold of a tree-stump from what I could see, but not all of these kids were that lucky. I focussed my mind, sending energy into my staff. "Gravitus!" I shouted, temporarily shifting the gravitic effect, slowing everyone's falls as I impacted against one of the windows of the mansion, glass shattering around me as I landed on the wall, alive but bruised.
I'd survived the fall, and gotten into the mansion, though not the way I'd hoped. Problem was, with one quick move, the Reds had taken the high ground. It wasn't quite over, but I'd have to be careful. Looking up, I saw one of them climb its way towards where Taylor had grasped a tree, hunger in its eyes, and then shortly after, once Taylor had noticed its attention, bees in its eyes.
Good girl, I thought as the vampire let go of the earth in order to claw as its eyes. It dropped, tumbling towards the mansion until Revel caught him with a blast from her crystal. It looked weaker than the previous one, was she running out of energy? Either way, this was going… a bit better than I'd expected..
Which I really should not have thought. Because as I did so, I saw the portable circle—within which Mavra had been fighting off Genoscythe's ghost—fall over, the clicked-together metal segments falling apart, unleashing the wild, rampaging creature on the sideways mansion.
"Hell's Bells…" I whispered, as I saw Revel react by flying towards Taylor. We had to get out of here, and fast.
But first, I'd have to find our vampire friends, weird as that might have sounded. I wasn't quite sure what was happening, but apparently the kid had snuck off and rescued Taylor, so I could as well do the same thing in return.
I ran through the sideways mansion, hoping that Revel would tackle the problems back in the courtyard. Even with the shifted gravity, she'd be able to fly the two of them out of there.
It was strange, running over the walls of the mansion, jumping in sweet parkour moves as I walked past statues, while debris was falling through the windows from above. I came across a Vampire, seemingly still disoriented, and blasted him with flames from a pocket dimension, running past as it tried to shield itself from the flames.
Coming to a split, I went down, which was just about the weirdest thing I'd thought today, diving deeper into the mansion as I used my power to blow air up from below me, buffeting my fall as I reached the new ground, one room deeper into the building.
The entire thing was chaos, furniture crashed into the wall with water spilling out of a ruined aquarium. The wall that was now the roof had paintings hanging from it by long cords, hanging them in mid-air, and from the looks of it…
The paintings were shifting again, pointing towards the ceiling, which was now the new floor as the hidden Shaker applied his power once again. I jumped, landing properly while furniture rolled through the room, the mansion itself creaking, kicking up dust. Why didn't it just fall into the sky entirely? The dirt beneath the mansion following it into the heavens? Some sort of Manton effect?
Flames roared, and I just barely dodged out of the way as a stream of fire blasted past me, followed by a steady stream of rocks.
"Rifflettum" I shouted, hating myself for not bringing the shield bracelet in my wish to keep the costume in theme. Rocks smashed against my shield, which just barely held as I looked at my opponent.
Bianca, having shed half her flesh-suit, had attached herself to the roof, formerly known as floor. Her dress still aflame, she'd finally gotten out of my dimensional prison. Interference from other powers?
"Do you like my Topsy?" she asked, her tongue licking bloody lips. Revel? Taylor?
"Well, it's certainly improved the interior decorating," I replied, steadying myself.
"Did you really think a brute like you would've been able to win through subterfuge, Dresden?"
"A bit," I replied, opening up a dimensional hole to my side, which sucked in air, and hopefully her projectiles.
"Forzare!" I then shouted, launching a blast of force at her, one she dodged by letting go with her claws, then landing right-side-up on the ceiling. Dust fell down from where she'd hooked her claws in, moving into the sinkhole of air I'd created.
"You come and attack me in my own home, and you think you can stand a chance? I'm not the girl you could bully around Dresden, I've grown."
"Then maybe you should've gone on a diet, go easy on the murder, y'know?" I replied. She'd dodged, but I had her where I wanted her. I wouldn't say I had the right spell for this situation, but I could make do.
She moved her hands through her dress, placing liquid fire in them, which she launched with an incantation I didn't recognize.
Sadly for her, magical fire was still fire, and I'd created a hole in reality that sucked it straight into an alternate dimension. An easy mistake most young practitioners made.
"Geodas!" I countered, smashing my staff into what used to be the ceiling, cracks appearing throughout the floor, spreading into the walls.
"What are you doing?!" Bianca asked readying her claws with more fire.
"Manton effect," I said with a smile as the cracks widened, the individual chunks shifting downwards. I turned to my power, reverting the hole, aiming the ensuing airflow downwards, to below Bianca's feet.
The intake of air made her dress burn like wildfire, the flames increasing in intensity as the floor started cracking apart, falling downwards, first into the floor beneath/above us, then creating further structural damage, the strain of reverse gravity becoming too much..
As the building collapsed downwards around us, a blazing Bianca leaped towards me. In return, I struck out with my cane, hitting her in the ribs as she flew into me, flaming claws tearing through my clothes and into my flesh as we fell into the sky together. The top half of the mansion crashing into the sky with us.
I tried, and failed, to push her off me. She liked to be civilized, to pretend at culture, but in an all-out direct melee? She had the better of me and she knew it.
"Forzare!" I shouted with the last of my last breath, pushing her away as her claws took parts of my flesh with them. With only a few feet between us, we fell into the sky, stars outlining the blazing sun of her flaming dress as the earth disappeared above us.