Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

[Malcolm Tent]

We didn't try to recruit the Magnificent Fable Forest, mostly because they were working for a faction that was currently actively pissed at us. While technically most teams could be part of the WCP or the Starchaser Palace and whatever faction they were in at the same time, Callie and I didn't see any upside to trying to recruit someone who had already admitted they had orders to teach us a lesson.

So once I finished fixing up Albai's spine, we just left, heading home to talk without any meetings or networking for a change. Which was a good thing, because as soon as I got there my first order of business was tracking down Zeke to find out what the fuck had just happened, and everyone else came with us.

Zeke, of course, had been there to watch the match, but had come home right after his own way, bypassing the hour of travel time with what I assumed was either an artifact or some stupid broken Skill. Well, or he just flew home. I knew that traditionally once your Impact passed one hundred (D-rank in other words) you could literally step on air and fly by manifesting the Impact onto the air under your feet. At Zeke's level he could probably fly insanely fast.

Either way, when I found him he was in the kitchen eating...enchiladas. I glanced down at the take out container on the counter and raised an eyebrow. "Did you somehow get down to Doomtown, order enchiladas from the Raving Baby, and then come back in the time it took us to get home?"

He stared at me for a second, taking a bite, and pushed the bag off the counter into the trash. "No." He said through mouthful of food.

Mel actually giggled at that, while Abel was glaring at my uncle with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns for picking up his favorite food and not bringing enough for him (not that I blamed Zeke, given the amount of those things my mentor could pack away).

Callie sighed loudly. "Right. Moving on. You saw that fight, so what exactly happened? We have a basic understanding since Abel knows that Domains can nullify abilities like his, but it isn't exactly something we've seen before. Are you allowed to tell us about them?"

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, chewing as he hummed speculatively, then swallowed loudly and burped, making all of us grimace. "Sure." He said casually. "This is considered common knowledge, since so many people have Domains in some parts of the universe. What do you want to know?"

I rolled my eyes. "Everything?" I had to hold back a sigh, because of COURSE he had to make things difficult.
"No." He said firmly. "THAT would be interference. I'll give you the crash course. Domains are a special type of Skill or Ability that allows a person to impose their power around themselves in a radius. They're kind of the opposite of a high level Intermediate combat skill, since you're offloading a large portion of the stress onto the space around you, so they don't require quite as much in the way of soul strength."

I blinked at that. "Wait...then why doesn't everyone use them? If they can counter a Master Candidate they must be really strong. Shouldn't they be way more common?"

Zeke shook his head, taking another bite and talking as he chewed. "Nope. There are downsides. Domains are kind of complicated, but the basics is that there are two kinds. Personal and Fable Domains. Fable Domains are based on stories like that Wonderland Domain. They're well explored, but that comes with its own issues."

"Oh." Said Callie in understanding. "Fable Domains aren't unique, so they would be pretty boring to anyone who knew how they worked. Especially if there's a lot of overlap, that means you would rank up really slow right?"

He pointed his fork at her. "Give the girl a cookie. You guessed it. Fable Domains are incredibly standardized, and unlike the nobility cultivation the Empire uses, there are enough variations that it dilutes the mass renown that they might have as a singular concept."

That made sense. I'd wondered why, say, a Count could funnel belief from the entire concept of that rank of nobility and it didn't work the same for Fable Domains. "Ok." I said curiously. "What about the other kind. Personal Domains? I'm assuming that's a less well known story suited to the user?"

"Yup." He said cheerfully. "But much like Unique Skills those are monstrously hard to rank up. They're still based on stories, but lesser known ones." He paused. "There's...other ways to apply the concept, but that's higher level stuff. Regardless. Domains are the nemesis of spatial Skills and abilities, and manifestations count. It isn't something you'll come across."

That was vague, but pretty much meant I wasn't getting any more. Luckily I had another question this whole thing had brought up that I hadn't had a chance to ask. "I'm curious though. Do you use heroic cultivation? I've never asked, but I know the Unity is the youngest god, and I don't know how old you are. Did you come from the Conglomerate?"

He actually stopped eating to look up at me cooly. "I was wondering when you would get around to asking that. No. I was born in the Empire, though I won't tell you how old I am. I use the job system. I'm currently a Legendary Voltomancer. That's Volto like the style of mask, not Volt as in electricity. Most people in the Empire use the job system. After all, if everyone was a noble it wouldn't exactly be efficient."

I nodded thoughtfully. "Like how some people in the Fairieland use the nobility system, but some people use Domains? I guess there's more variety in the other factions."

"Of course." He agreed. "Heroic cultivation is considered fairly new and untested. It has limitations and benefits like anything, but Ascendant culture is old, as are most Ascendants who are in charge of it. Most of them are taking a wait and see approach and consider the Unity's whole guild and this entire faction as an experiment."

"An...experiment?" I said blankly. "The Conglomerate as a whole and the Unity guild has to be centuries old at this point, how the hell does anyone consider that a passing trend?"

He just shrugged. "High end Ascendants have more than three or four hundred Impact, and you know that high Vitality keeps you in good health for long into the natural lifespan, while a person only ages a single biological year for the number of chronological years that equals their current Impact. Since people can live a hundred to a hundred and twenty or so natural years, multiplying that by Impact means high ranking Ascendants can live for tens of thousands of years. On that timescale, a few centuries isn't anything much."

When he put it like that I could see his point, but it was still a staggering thing to think about. It also kind of explained why he didn't want to talk about his own age. Who knew exactly how long he'd been around. I'd probably avoid thinking about it too. "Do...do you think we should switch to the job system? Would that cause me to lose my modifier for the Wish power?"

"Short answer is no. You CAN switch over if you want, your job would just need to use Wish as your Base Skill. It's not something I really want to get into unless you actually go through with it. But the Wishmaster position has existed since well before this particular cultivation system, and obviously the original Wishmaster didn't use it. He created the Wish Skill and then used it to create the Wishmaster job."

That said some interesting things about how the job system worked to me, not least of which that the Base Skill probably worked at least a bit like an inborn ability. I didn't know much about jobs, though from what I did know they insulated you somewhat from recursion at the expense of some of the speed you got from heroic cultivation.

I had no real desire to change my cultivation style though. It might be a bit safer, but it would also be slower, which would draw attention. Maybe I'd change my mind later, but at the moment I was fine with the way I was doing things. Plus I was pretty sure that making Wish my Base Skill would end up giving me the same limitations as I currently had, so there wasn't really a point, with the added problem of needing to somehow TRAIN my Wish Skill, and gods only knew how I'd do that.

This was the naturals vs. Martial Arts Skill user argument, and I had no desire to get rid of my free rank ups in Wish out of some misguided faith in my ability to understand the damn Skill well enough to grind it past where I currently was.
Zeke didn't seem interested in talking more though, since he put his head down and focused on his enchiladas. I knew him well enough not to expect any more from him. I could see a faint glow from his forehead under his hair, so I suspected SOMETHING he'd just told me or been about to tell me had been counter to the geas. Callie must have felt my guilt and also backed off, turning to Abel.

"So. Did you have fun during the match? I didn't get a chance to see what you did, but clearly that caterpillar thing wasn't able to take it."

The grin that split his face was one of the most ferocious I'd seen on anyone in my life. "Nope. They made the mistake of assuming hamstringing my reach made me useless. But Ragam is about pinpoint precision and focusing force into a small area. Bigger opponents aren't a weakness, they're a strength. Took me a few dozen blows on the same spot but I punched through the armor on that summon like an awl. When you dropped the Domain I was finishing up with the summoner and the metal girl."

Mel piped up. "The werewolf was surprisingly fun in a fight. Her regeneration was nuts, some kind of racial trait thing I think. Even cauterizing the wounds as I made them wasn't enough. Good thing I was strong enough to muscle her with all my Might. Though she was definitely a marathon runner and not a sprinter, so the help from Abel at the end there saved me some serious time."

"What do you think we'll have to deal with tomorrow?" I asked hesitantly. "Seems like they're getting tougher and tougher every round as people are eliminated. Only two more left, so our next opponent will probably be a monster."
Abel just shrugged. "Who cares. You got me don't you? You shouldn't worry about the next two rounds." His grin took on an edge. "You should worry about the five rounds after that." He paused. "At least unless you get one of the by spots. But somehow I don't think you have the luck for that."

I just shook my head with a laugh. "Well, good to see you don't have confidence issues." I turned to walk past where Zeke was still eating quietly. "Now, why don't I make us all something for lunch, since SOMEONE didn't think to bring enough for everyone else."

Zeke just flipped me off without stopping his food rampage and I rolled my eyes as I started taking out a pan to start work. I would have asked what they wanted, but given Abel was here I didn't need to. He always picked the same thing if he had the option, and honestly the enchiladas smelled good anyway. Now, I just had to find out if I could make them as good as the ones at the Raving Baby. Probably not, but it never hurt to try.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The morning of the seventh match was the same as the ones before it. Five wishes for Rime, five elixirs for Jessie, and she officially reached two thirds of her elixir limit even as her Vitality broke past three hundred. On top of that she got another ten points of Might from her bond, bringing that to eighty seven on top of the insane three hundred and three Vitality. Specializing definitely had upsides, since her entire skillset was based on Vitality, compounding that stat allowed her to see INSANE returns on her stats.

I could see now why people with my power usually had bodyguards, funneling all of someone's stats to one point could create absurd levels of power in compatible abilities. Like Cark having almost all his points in Might. Sure, he already had most of them as a fire user, but that was MOST. Having almost a hundred percent stat allocation reinforcing your main skillset was incredibly broken, and not something that happened naturally even to people with heavily skewed powers.

The further behind a stat was the easier it got to raise, and the other stats started to climb quicker when you got too focused on one, unless of course you cheated and did it like I did with wishes. Given how strong her healing already was, not to mention the enhancement abilities of her energy infusion on her animals, I was terrified to see what that power would be able to do at next rank.

I knew that focusing your stats was one way to change your ability without synergizing so expected at least some kind of change when she hit F-rank. Once again we found ourselves back at the same arena. Rime was waiting in the stands with Zeke, who would as usual be gone by the time we came out. By this point everyone had other things to do, and no one but them had time to go to every single one of our matches, not that we would ask them to.

Stepping out onto the sand, I was prepared for anything. From what I'd seen, we usually got one of two situations when facing new groups, either a widely varied set of enemies, or four people in a uniform or some sort of identical concealment attire.

This particular group of opponents were the latter. "So." I said musingly. "Exactly how many factions use the whole shapeless dark robes ensemble? This is what? The third we've seen? You would be figure it would be counterproductive given how big a role attention plays in cultivation. Like, doesn't the uniform defeat the purpose?"

Callie shook her head as we made our way into the pit towards the other team. "No. I asked The Nothing about that. He said they're usually limited within a region, and they make enough of an impact as a group to justify the choice. Being members of that faction gives each person a similar amount of prestige, sort of like Raleigh's Raiders back in the scavenger hunt."

One of the figures nodded slowly. "She is correct." They said with a voice like a creaking door in a haunted house.
"Yes." Said another in a voice like claws scraping over a dead tree. "Most correct. The Hate Demon Convergence is indeed such an organization."

I sighed. Wonderful, they were total creeps. Callie remained calm as ever as she said. "That's a...nice name. Any chance you could give us some sort of individual moniker we could use to identify each of you? I respect the whole...group mentality, thing you have going on, but it would be nice to put a name to the lack of face."

Because the hoods were completely dark, full of nothing but bottomless shadow...of course. One of them nodded. "We are Skell. We are also Veck, Stang, and Ruk." It announced this with a voice like metal screaming as it shattered, clearly a different one than the other two.

"Right." Callie said flatly. "Very helpful, thank you." Apparently the 'Hate Demon Convergence' didn't teach sarcasm, because the figure nodded again despite her clear implication that announcing the names of the...convergers, while using the collective we made the introductions functionally pointless. "You haven't attacked yet, are you waiting for us to start things off?"

The four of them shook their heads in unison. "It begins." Said the fourth one in a voice like cold water hitting hot stone. I was a bit confused as to what that meant...until I looked up.

Four circles of red symbols, all slightly different but close enough to be recognizable as a similar or identical Skill or ability, floated above us in a square. Red light connected the four circles, and through that square of darkness I could see a giant red hand manifesting.

"Fuck." Spat Abel as he saw it too, and lashed out with punch at the fist, a massive manifestation of his hand slamming into the demonic appendage.

The red hand clenched into its own fist, meeting the blow with a similar punch, and the explosion dispersed the manifestation, causing Abel to stumble back with a growl of pain. I stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder, triggering a heal burst, and he groaned in thanks.

As we watched, another hand came down through the square, the two of them latching onto either side of the square and beginning to tear the space wider with brute force. Through the hole I could see a massive red face with glaring yellow eyes and a huge mouth packed with razor sharp teeth. Rams horns curled back from a brutal looking face as the monster grinned down at us.

"What the actual fuck is THAT?" I yelped in terror. Whatever the demon was, it was F-rank, which shouldn't be possible here.

Abel groaned as he flexed his fist. "THAT." He said distastefully. "Is a cooperative invocation. looks like they're summoners. Most invocations have a primary caster, they modify the Skill and offload the power and soul requirements onto others. Cooperatives are what happen when multiple people use an invocation when they all have the same Skill or ability."

The monster's foot smashed down on the sand as it finally crawled free, a pair of giant red wings spreading out behind it as it threw back its head and roared in triumph.

Only to have it's roar cut off by another massive fist as Abel slammed a huge punch into its jaw. The beast reeled back as my mentor shook out his hand. "Ok, this is going to be rough." Despite the grim words, his face was plastered with a massive grin as he stripped off his coat and started to limber up. "Mel, an F-rank enemy is going to be a mess, especially one that size. Mind if I borrow a bit of your power?"

Mel shook her head. "Of course not, but be careful. You know the bond has limits at our rank."

He just waved her off, then closed his eyes. The summoners all seemed pretty much motionless but they were behind the damn demon so no way we were getting to them fast. Calli still nodded for me to circle around and we started moving slowly, letting Abel and Mel keep the monsters attention.

I'd never seen them use their bond for anything like Callie and I did. Abel was the main attacker and had never needed to tap into her powers. As I stared in awe, a massive avatar of Abel's fists manifested above us, condensed from golden fire. I'd seen Mel use that ability before, taking advantage of the physical aspects of Might to enhance her body with her condensed flames, but seeing it on this scale was...terrifying.

More than just the size, the sheer presence of those fists was staggering. There was a shift in the air and the space began to warp around the hands as Abel moved them through the air, warping the space to leave behind afterimages until there were six distinct manifestations in the air. The left fist flashed forward, the other two images condensing on it, then the right followed, each blow coming down with triple the force.

The demon roared, hurling its own fists out in a flurry of punches, but unlike last time Abel didn't budge. His blows met the punches from the demon head on and the beast reared back in pain, but the damage to the hands healed almost as soon as it happened. Summons were a bitch to take out if you couldn't one shot them, since the summoners could repair them.

I had no doubt Abel would get the thing eventually, and seeing him get serious and actively work with Mel for the first time in the tournament I was blown away, but this was a team match, which meant he didn't HAVE to do that. Callie and I had circled around to within range for me to use Double Trouble, but I held back, kneeling down to condense Stone Limbs on both my hands, as well as poison fire, just in case.

Waiting for the perfect timing, I stood stock still, staring at the nearby figures as the giant demonic summon and the massive flaming fists boxed it out above us. Finally, there was a shift near their feet. Callie had flooded the ground with shadows, triggering a Sucking Mud through the bond. The distracted figures had no chance as they all got snagged by the shadow tendrils of the Dark Swamp combination technique, slowly being dragged into the mud.

Sadly that didn't end the summon, so I activated Double Trouble. A Cloud Step to prevent me from sinking allowed me to lash out with a pair of Mercy Kill boosted punches and then spin off to slam both hands down on the third one's head and dropping an elbow on the last, all imbued with a triple strength tranq blow, using four of my stockpiles.

The figures all slumped, obviously unprepared for a random teleport into their midst. The unconscious bodies were dragged into the muck, but Callie cancelled the skill leaving them all buried in the now solid sand. I felt a shudder in the air as the massive summon dispersed, showing the major weakness of summoners in general better than any other example I'd ever seen.

Flaming hands faded from the air as Abel released the fire empowerment Skill. I checked on the hooded figures, and they were all breathing, unharmed mostly since the poison fire had faded when I released the skill, since they were buried underground. Seeing they didn't need any healing I turned to check on Abel, who was nursing a pair of seriously damaged hands.

I put a hand on his shoulder and used a heal burst, hearing my mentor's sigh of relief as I did. "Ok. Ow. Haven't pushed that far in a while. Bit bummed you ended it so early though, that was the best fight I've had in ages." He shrugged. "Oh well, I guess I'll have to hope someone better comes along in the solo matches."

Mel snorted. "You would have been hard pressed to beat that thing without me. If someone better than that comes along when you're alone you're screwed. Though I guess the damn thing WAS F-rank, so who knows." She glanced at the unconscious figures. "We going to do the meeting thing?"

Callie shook her head. "No. They give me the creeps, I don't really want them hanging around the pavilion. I'm sure we can find some other people who can do cooperative invocations. That summon was scary but Rime would crush it for instance, they just aren't worth the investment."

I agreed, though more for the first reason than anything else. I found them all pretty unsettling. With a sigh, I turned to make my way out of the arena with the others following behind. Next match was the last one in the team segment, and assuming we got through that we might be forced to fight each other. I was going to have to do some work on my DS Mastery to prepare for fighting alone. I had a feeling things would only get harder from here.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After the match we went straight home again and I secluded myself. This next part was going to be an important step, and I wasn't willing to have anyone sitting in. Even Callie might be a competitor later in the tournament, and as much as I loved my girlfriend, I wasn't going to make it easy on her. We were finally on even footing, and unlike out sparring up til now this tournament had real stakes.

Granted, it would be fine if either of us won, but we both had our reasons for wanting to advance, so if we ended up fighting I wasn't going to do any less than my level best to win. She knew it too, could sense my resolve, even if she couldn't sense what I was going to do about it.

Which was, of course, get stronger. My stats were maxed, but I had plenty of room to grow, and my DS Mastery was my best chance to do that. I had ten or more subskills to upgrade still, and I needed to make sure to grow them in a way that would let me fight one on one without relying on backup from Callie or Abel or even Mel. I had to use my room to grow to make myself a legitimate threat, and the best way to do that was to get back to my roots a bit. It was time to min-max my build.

Or at least the aspects of it I could. The Fatewalker build was fantastic for DS, but it was less than ideal for a frontline combatant. Specifically my divination, while useful, had yet to unlock any of the combat applicable skills I could get later in the tree, and as such was much less of a priority. I had a few tricks like the overlay, but that wasn't really even a skill so much as an interface. Seek Hidden was useful, but wouldn't be combat applicable in most situations.

Which meant my upgrades should be aimed at the most compatible of my subclasses. The monk. Granted, the rogue subskills were hugely useful, but I'd upgraded most of them already, and I had no weapon anymore, at least for the moment. After tomorrow I would finally have some breathing time to get a new one made, but until then leaning into the monk abilities and their synergy with martial arts was going to be the key to making me stronger. Even after I got my weapon this would be a useful path to take.

Now, I'd upgraded several of my monk skills already. Consecration of Flame, Stone Limb, and Afterburner. Which meant I had five more left. Mistwalking, Sucking Mud, Boiling Cloud, Cloud Step, and Leaf on the Wind. Two water skills, an earth skill, and two wind skills.

Four skills didn't give me any groundbreaking options exactly, but it gave me some, especially if I used them in conjunction with each other. Which meant I needed to figure out ways to alter each of the skills to they would work in harmony with each other, or at least a few of them. I was pretty sure I couldn't jail break them completely, but by making multiple skills different enough to work as part of an overarching whole I should be able to manage...something.

Then I stopped. Skills could be used in conjunction. Part of a whole. They could also be SYNERGIZED. While I wasn't sure if I could synergize full Skills into my subskills, I didn't see why not. I had plenty of bullshit Skills that did nothing, and combining them into aspects of DS Mastery could improve its function.

I considered my options. First up was Stealth. It was still at Lesser, which meant it was well within tolerance for synergy. Mistwalking was designed to help me hide in a cloud of mist, but there was viability for something much more powerful. I might lose Stealth by doing this, I didn't know since it was my first synergy, but even if I did I had stored charges and I could use it through the bond.

So I closed my eyes and reached down into myself. I used Mistwalking, filling the room with mist that would let me move more sneakily. It was a pretty basic and uninspiring ability. But I focused on a specific part of it. The hiding aspect. I focused on the stealth element of the skill, trying my best to shift the skill as I did with any skill, using my soul to sort of highlight a path for it.

Instead of just altering it over and over until it became effortless though, I altered it as far as I could and HELD it. My head started to pound, but I ignored it as I focused on my Stealth Skill, and holding the Mistwalking skill I resonated Stealth as hard as I could. I felt something catch, felt the two skills begin to harmonize as my skills did sometimes, but instead of letting it go, I focused on the harmonization.

It felt...simple. Not easy mind you. My head was throbbing, but simple. Like it was meant to happen. I held it like that, letting the resonance get stronger and stronger, and in the same way a skill eventually became different when I upgraded it, there was a sort of...click, inside me and the two skills blended together.

I fell over, letting myself breathe as I tried to tamp down on the pain. It took a few minutes for my head to clear, but it eventually did, and when it was done, I mentally checked over my Skills. They were mostly the same, except two small differences. First, Stealth was gone. I hadn't been sure that would happen, but this was a Skill and not an ability so it didn't shock me. I knew most Skills synergized with an ability didn't vanish since you had to keep ranking them up to progress, but it looked like Skill synergized with other Skills did.

Second was under my DS Mastery skill. I could dive into that if I needed to, and it listed my subskills, but Mistwalking was no longer one of them. In its place was an entirely new skill. Moonlit Night. My subskills and skills didn't have descriptions or anything, but I didn't need them. It was MY skill. I knew what it did, and this one was pretty fucking amazing.

Moonlit Night did what Mistwalking had done, filled the area with fog, but with Stealth included that fog did a few new things. Aside from obscuring sight, it also obscured me specifically from other senses, like hearing and smell. On top of that, because Stealth was doing a lot of heavy lifting, the Mistwalking skill was able to get back to its roots as a monk skill, which meant it amplified the force of my blows when I was hidden by the fog. In other words, I got a fucking sneak attack bonus. Every blow I made undetected inside the fog caused double the damage.

I wanted to do more, honestly, I couldn't wait to find some new way to improve my DS Mastery. I could feel it becoming...more. Evolving as a Skill not only because I had upgraded a portion, but because I had included more Skills in it. What that would do I had no idea. Maybe it would change the Skill when it upgraded, that was certainly how abilities worked, but either way I was excited to become more powerful.

For now, my head was still throbbing and I decided the best move here was to test out my new ability. I headed down to the training room, making sure it was empty before starting my practice. I closed my eyes, triggering Moonlit Night. When I opened them...I could see.

I hadn't considered why it would be called Moonlit Night, but standing in the fog I could understand perfectly. Light. The fog itself wasn't opaque, rather, to my eyes it looking like softly glowing phosphorescent liquid. That was interesting. I had a full understanding of the mechanics of my new skill, but apparently not how it would physically manifest.

Other people, based on what I knew about the skill's function, wouldn't be able to see, or hear, or smell me. Granted some special tricks like my Seek Hidden would make it possible to detect me anyway, but detection abilities weren't exactly universal, especially among the enemies I'd be facing. They would all be pure combat types.

I strode forward in the fog, silent as a ghost, it was amazing, like being inside a giant Stealth Skill. I couldn't wait to do this with my last few subskills and make DS Mastery really mine. I shifted into my Balam stance moving undetected among the targets on the edge of the training room. As I got within range of one I spun off my back foot, scything out with a kick at the nearest target.

There was a bang as my kick fulfilled the condition of a sneak attack, namely, that no one was perceiving me actively within the fog. Double the force was expressed through the blow. I triggered Mercy Kill, inflicting three blows at half again the strength, a grand total of two hundred fifty percent damage. I'd been hoping those would stack instead of combining but I supposed it kind of made sense since they both came from the same skill.

Looking at the target, I didn't see any particular damage, but that was fine. These were peak G-rank targets, and my Might was two hundred and twenty. Five hundred and fifty points of Might wasn't anything to scoff at, but it wasn't peak of anything. Then again, it didn't need to be. I could deliver these all day, and this was without any enhancement at all. Stack this with some of my triple strength punches and I was throwing blows hard enough to be F-rank.

Now I knew, of course, that it didn't really translate exactly like that because of the way Impact worked, but against someone my own rank I'd be able to do some serious damage, and everyone in the tournament was G-rank, even if some of them would have F-rank defensive gear like I did. I got back in position again, readying myself for another attack, and proceeded to spend a few hours focused on utilizing every speck of Might I had perfectly, finding the optimum usage for my Balam Mastery for sneak attacks and mist based combat. I kept going until I could barely stand, ignoring the pain in my head as I practiced.

Finishing up my training I slumped down, head still pounding, and closed my eyes. Sadly the pain didn't fade quickly, but that was ok. I hadn't strained my soul too much, this was within my tolerance, it was just at the high end of it. I would be right as rain tomorrow before the big match. Not that it would matter because there was no way I was going to show this new skill off in the team battle. I'd save it for when I needed it.

Once I stopped feeling like a pack of boot wearing rat kings were playing hop scotch on the inside of my brain I climbed to my feet and headed upstairs. I climbed into the shower and slumped down on the bench, letting the boiling water wash away the soreness and sweat from the hard workout. I wasn't exactly invincible now, but I still had another four monk skills and at least one rogue skill to upgrade before the solo fights. I was going to make sure that I was a completely different fighter by the time that all came around.

As I stumbled into bed and dozed off, I felt Callie climb in after me, and I drifted off to sleep happy with the progress I made. Tomorrow was the finals of the group matches, and I couldn't help but be excited to find out who we would be facing. Whoever it was, I was sure this would be a hell of a fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So." I said as we arrived in the waiting room below the arena. "Last team battle." I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pounding of my pulse in my ears. "Who do you think we'll be up against?" Not that it mattered. I was barely thinking about this fight. I was more worried about the next five. Because any one of them could be against one of my own teammates.

On the one hand that was exciting. I was almost positive if I fought Abel I would lose, but I had a decent chance against Callie and possibly even Mel if I pulled out all the stops. But still, I'd gotten so used to us all moving as a unit. Especially Callie. She was my partner. Fighting with her at my side was almost like breathing at this point. It was going to be jarring switching from that mindset, never mind actually fighting against her.

Which...was what Abel had told us during training. That we would need to be able to keep that mindset separate from our normal outlook so we could turn it off. In some ways I was pretty sure that was the point of making Paired Dueling a Skill. By doing it that way we kept it as a separate part of our lives, which made it easier to do without. As opposed to making every aspect us codependent.

Callie sighed, and I could feel through the bond she was just as hesitant. I couldn't feel the REASONS for that, but I knew her well enough to assume they were similar to my own. "Nope. But if they made it this far they must be tough. Each of the teams has been pulling out some crazy trick that we've never seen, so we should assume the same of this one. Whatever it is though, I'm sure we can hang with whatever they've got."

Abel seemed pretty much at ease with everything, but that wasn't surprising. I'd yet to see him go all out for real. Sure, he'd tapped his bond with Mel in that demon fight, but that was just a raw power thing. Given Mel's comment that he only ever got serious when he took off his mask, I was positive that Abel had other tricks. The rest of us weren't as...invincible.

Mel was pretty calm too though, and while I didn't think I was as strong as she was, I was closer to her in power than my mentor, especially now. Strangely, hearing Callie's fear about what was coming in her voice made mine seem inconsequential. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug.

"I know you're not worried about this fight. Not really. And neither am I." I felt her stiffen against me as I touched on something she hadn't brought up. The bond was useful and positive a lot of the time, but empathy was a tough thing to get used to. "We're going to kick ass in the solo rounds. We've been training constantly, and we've learned a ton. We can do this."

She nodded against me. "Yeah. You're right. I'm just letting this get to me. Besides, even if I lose it isn't the end of the world. Four of us means four times the chance of victory. And that isn't even counting your cousin." I'd almost forgotten Natalie was going to be taking part in this. I wondered who her fourth would be. Callie sighed, stepping back. "Alright, well for this to matter we need to win the current match. Like you said, I'm not worried, but we should focus.

"Oh definitely." I agreed. "Being confident doesn't mean being stupid." I heard the call from outside as we were summoned for our match. "Speak of the devil. That'll be us. Whoever it is, I'm sure we can figure something out. We just need to make sure to take our time and work out what they can do, right?"

She grinned at me. "Of course. I'll come up with a plan as soon as we know what they can d-" She stepped out of the gate onto the sand and stopped. "Oh. Well shit." I was a bit confused as to what had stopped her, but when I stepped out myself I realized what it was.

"Sanctuary Hall." I cursed. Beat, Sever, Carl, and Serenity. Four of our old enemies who were strong enough to be a serious threat. I turned to Abel. "I don't suppose you discovered some secret weakness of hers in battle and will be able to shut Serenity down quickly?"

"Nope." Said my mentor. "And with Carl added on this is going to be tough. Neither of you are a match for Beat or Sever one on one, and Mel can't handle them two on one either. We beat them all last time because of our distribution, but with one more person this is going to suck." He scowled. "I hate fighting her. It's like punching cotton. There's no fun if she just no-sell's everything I do."

Because almost everything Abel did was brute force, and Serenity was the closest we'd seen to a hard counter to him. We stepped forward, and the calm looking girl nodded to us. "Well now." She said lightly. "I wasn't expecting you to be our last group opponent. But maybe I should have." She smiled warmly. "I have to say I don't dislike the symmetry. We'll make sure to pay you back for last time."

Seeing that banter would be pointless, and not wanting to deal with Carl's bullshit, I knelt down, triggering stone limb on both arms as well as my poison fire. Coating them in toxic acidic magma. "So, who am I up against." Ironically, despite being unarmed and therefore more bulnerable to Sever, my armor was better at tanking sharp force trauma, so Beat would be the bigger threat.

"Carl." Said Callie firmly. "We can handle the other two, but Carl has who knows how many tricks up his sleeve. We need our most versatile fighter on him. I'll deal with beat, Starbreaker is on Sever, and Apollyon will handle Serenity as planned. Go."

She moved as soon as she finished talking, clearly planning to overwhelm them with surprise as a wave of crushing shadow smashed down at Beat. Mel expelled a burst of golden flame, appearing in front of Sever in a flash and then releasing a burst of fire right in his face. I sighed and triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind Carl and launching a flurry of magma infused punches.

To my shock though, when I arrived my punches were countered, as a pair of huge hairy arms pulled free of the ape tattoo on Carl to slap them aside. Despite the knowledge that he would have tattoos that could protect him courtesy of his dad, I had no idea where the things were until now. They weren't VISIBLE at a glance, which would have been obvious since Carl didn't wear a shirt.

Now I saw where they came from though. I could see the tattoos fading into existence, not from nothing, but as if they were coming from a great distance, a trick of perspective as his skin was flooded with colorful images that he hadn't had a second ago. I backed off watching him closely as the writhing images adjusted themselves across his skin.

Behind him, I saw a massive golden shield form in the air, defending against a storm of massive punches as Serenity channel her ability through what I was pretty sure was an F-ranked artifact, nullifying them with hear pacifying power on impact. I could hear my mentor's groan of frustration as he accelerated the punches, weaving them in from new angles only to have the shield intercept them all.

I could feel Callie was tense but safe, and I didn't have time to look over everyone as I prepared for Carl. I triggered Flurry of Blows and Mercy Kill, three augmented super speed punches to test out what Carl had going on. Another tattoo, this one a small monkey, dashed off his skin and split into a chain of monkeys, each throwing one of the others into the path of one of my punches and exploding into fucking confetti of all things, though luckily this stuff didn't cut me.

Seemed like the tattoos had individual abilities, though I wasn't sure about how varied they were. Carl grinned at me, flexing his muscles ridiculously. "First stage of my tattoo boom, Primate Parade! You think your stupid lava punches can hang with my monkey madness Solomon? Punchin Carl spits on pathetic hand to hand bullshit! Only nerds throw hands."

It took all my effort not to literally groan aloud in pain at how stupid he was. "Your name is PUNCHIN Carl. You're saying you think punching is beneath you?"

Carl snarled at me, flicking his hands to hurl a pair of snakes at me. "SHUT UP! Real men don't punch with their fists, they punch with their brains! I have the most badass bare knuckle brain in the world, so I don't need hands to punch!"

I just...stared at him as I easily sidestepped the snakes with the help of my now active overlay. That wasn't how ANYTHING worked. At all. "That...made no godsdamned sense, you lunatic."

Rather than hurl more snakes, Carl reached behind him with both hands. He let out a grunt and hauled up what looked like a fucking boar made of rocks, holding it over his head like a championship belt as he roared. "I'll punch sense in the FACE!" And hurled it at me in an overhand toss.

Activating Leaf on the Wind I pushed off the sand, my foot coming down on the boar as it arched through the air, and I pushed off the thing, hurling myself further up in the air. Glaring down at the crazy gangster, I triggered a spider leg attack, pointing both legs above my head to form a sort of arrowhead. Using Cloud Step to reorient myself, I aimed the point down at Carl, triggering a gravity attack, a triple strength density shifted attack, and Mercy Kill as I plummeted down at him point first.

I aimed for the shoulder and arm, because I didn't want to murder Carl for being a fucking idiot, but limbs could be regrown. Sadly, it didn't really matter. Carl saw me coming and knelt down to slap the ground. As he did a shape erupted from his back, an absolutely huge grey form, it took me a minute to figure out it was a literal steel elephant, and it crouched over him to tank the attack before it had a chance to hit him.

The pointed spider legs propelled by their enhanced density and the gravity attack slammed into the back of the elephant, and there was a thump as the tattoo beast stopped as the body proved too dense for the spider legs to punch through. I dismissed them, kicking off a cloud step platform to hurl me out of the way of the wounded elephant (which bled mercury apparently) as it lashed out with its trunk, trying to break me in two.

I touched down lightly, Leaf on the Wind preventing my impact from being too rough, and aided by the sand. I'd had to strain the skill a bit to prevent it from stopping my attack altogether, but I'd managed, even if my head was twinging a bit. As I stood up I looked over at a glaring Carl. Behind him I could see Abel coming up blank against Serenity, and I growled with annoyance.

This was the last fight of the team section, it should have been easy fighting people we'd beaten before. But from what I could see someone (probably not Carl) had done quite a bit of research. They knew what to expect from us and had covered all their bases. I cracked my neck as I took up a Balam stance. That was fine. I'd just need a home run.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Carl was scowling as he put his hand on the metal elephant. "Hey! How dare you hurt McRuffles. He's one of the best tattoos my old man gave me." Looking up at the elephant I actually did feel a little bad, but I didn't believe that the tattoos being harmed damaged them long term. I was, however, concerned about another part of that statement.

"Your old man?" I said dubiously. "M-Jack's tattoos have to be above G-rank, how are you even using those? If they're F or higher then they would be illegal in the tournament because they would count as offensive weapons." I wasn't actually sure they would, but I'd at least bring it up. Honestly I couldn't tell what rank the tats were, their Impact came from Carl rather than being part of them, so the manifestations of the tattoos didn't give it away.

Carl snorted. "Nuh-uh. They're G-rank for sure. My old man isn't just a tattoo user, he's a tattoo artist, and he can tailor his work to the person he's working on." He made another ridiculous flexing motion. "And with an awesome canvas like this he made some badass tattoos. You're just trying to confuse me with your rules bullshit. Do you think I'm stupid?"

I stared at him for a second. "Oh! That wasn't rhetorical." I paused. "I feel like the answer you're looking for is...no?" My condescending tone was obvious enough even Carl couldn't miss it. The shirtless man roared in rage and reached up to slap the bottom of the elephant.

The massive metal form dissolved, shrinking down and recovering Carl, except this time it didn't imprint itself onto his skin, it covered him like some kind of armor, giving him a metal suit with an elephant head helmet and a long hanging trunk, as well as gleaming metal plates along his arms, back, and shoulders, though it left his chest and stomach bare.

His arms, hulking with muscle and metal, started lashing out at me in a series of punches, and between my overlay and my Balam Mastery, avoiding those blows was completely feasible. Roaring with outrage, Carl started flinging his head around, trying to smash me with the metal trunk.

Gritting my teeth, I triggered a triple stack density shift on my arms, which were still coated with toxic magma. Holding up my limbs, I got them in front of my face, tanking the trunk whips with my armored forearms as I waited. It sucked. A lot. I triggered a heal burst to begin healing the damage and to overclock my energy reserves as I weathered the storm.

Despite the pain and constant barrage of attacks from both arms and the trunk, I had to admit he was holding back though. Carl could have tried to gore me on those tusks, and he didn't. He obviously didn't want to kill me any more than I wanted to kill him, though apparently he had no such compunctions about tenderizing me.

Waiting for a gap, I took the punishment, finally seeing an opening via the overlay. I triggered Flurry of Blows, enhancing my speed as I slipped through the gap, letting my armor tank the hits (though since they were blunt force I felt a rib crack, only to be healed up by my still surging life force) and hit Carl with the heaviest right cross I could manage, using my Minor Boxing Mastery along with Balam and Mercy Kill to land the heaviest punch I could.

The elephant armor dissolved as Carl staggered back, head spinning from the punch, which I followed up. I had two more hits with Mercy Kill of the three, and I triggered a tranq punch with each hand as I used them. As that happened, I tagged him with a gravity attack from Alden, making sure he could feel the obvious change.

Certain that the sluggishness from the tranq punch was the increased gravity, Carl started flailing around, not bothering to try to resist or counter the tranquilizer or even the poison fire that was still spreading from all of my strike points carrying it.

As I kept up the punches his own arms came up to try to stop them, but they couldn't do shit about the spider legs raining down short sharp stabbing blows from above. Granted they weren't imbued with poison fire, but they were G-ranked metal spikes stabbing into bare flesh from above which I didn't imagine was fun.

Despite the advantage, I waited. I could see him getting more and more dizzy and unstable. Finally the overlay gave me a tip off on an opening, and I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him and leaving behind a fake image of me as usual. When I did that though, I decided to try something new.

I had tranq blows, but I'd imbued other kinds of attacks with certain abilities before. Feeling my head split open I used a tranq blow, but instead of a punch I slipped past his guard from behind and locked him into a sleeper hold, imbuing the choke with the tranquilizer attack.

Carl stiffened, slapping my arm and struggling, but I could feel the tranq working with the stuff already in his system, after about twenty seconds he was out, and I let him go, dropping him the sand as I doubled over, hands on my knees, to process the intense head pain. I'd strained my soul with that little trick, it had been a big change very quickly.

That had me down to four tranq blows and three density shifted ones. I needed to top up soon, luckily Jessie was almost done her elixir limit and I'd be back to buffing Benny. I waited for my head to clear and then stood, turning to look around at the rest of the battle.

Abel was still stalled fighting Serenity, but I doubted I'd be either useful or appreciated there. Mel was dealing with Sever and Callie with Beat, so I decided to go help my girlfriend with the blunt force user. Without waiting I spun and triggered Double Trouble again, appearing behind Beat mid rotation, bringing my elbow around into the side of his head with another Flurry of Blows.

Callie, who had been barely keeping up with the powerful force user, felt a surge of relief that I could clock through the bond, but it turned to horror when the hoodie wearing younger man bent at the knees, leaning back to let my blow pass over his head and planting his hands on the sand behind him, feet coming up to smash into me.

His lead foot slammed into my chest, and the other hit the back of his first shoe, smashing his initial kick into me like a chisel driven into stone. The energy from his punches gathered on his feet and slammed into my chest like a car going full speed, and I felt my sternum crack as I was sent sailing off into the distance, my head blurry with pain as I hit the sand and rolled like a stringless puppet.

I used a healing burst, then another just in case, and I felt the bones in my chest begin to knit together, though my head didn't stop spinning. I rolled over, propping myself up on my elbow, and panted with pain as I tried to right myself. I could feel Callie's rage through the bond, and hear the roar as several of my abilities were funneled through the bond, Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, Stone Limb, all channeled through my girlfriend and the soul weight born solely by her.

I raised my head, seeing the massive shadow magma dragon construct bear down on Beat, who was hurling explosive bursts of concussive force to keep the monster from reaching him. Staggering up to my feet, I nearly fell over, having to catch myself with the spider legs, and tried to walk towards to the spot I'd been at before.

That had been my bad. I'd tried to engage a fucking member of the Titan Twenty in close combat, one who almost definitively specialized in Might. I'd gotten cocky after beating Carl and fucked up, but I couldn't let Callie lose this. As I tried to step forward and almost fell again, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Enough, kid."

I looked up to see Abel standing next to me. Serenity's golden shield was nowhere to be seen, though the woman herself was lying in the sand near where they'd been fighting. "I have to help."

"No." He said firmly. "You had your fight. I'll mop up the rest of this. She was only supposed to slow him down anyway. It was my fault this took so long. The two of you are pretty good, but handling someone like him is still a little ways off. Sit your ass down and let me handle it. Might as well take advantage while you can."

Of course, right at that minute, the spider legs finally gave out, the attack collapsing and my body going with it, falling back into the sand. "Ok." I said calmly, ignoring my spinning head. "You go ahead and take care of that. I'm just going to rest here for a second."

He laughed at that, grinning down at me. "Good work on taking out Carl, kid. For future reference, you are NOT a frontline combatant, even if you're physically inclined. Next time pick your moment better if you need to take on someone like that in close quarters."

I already knew that, so I just gave a grunt as he vanished, appearing behind the distracted form of Beat. He didn't bother with manifestations, he just got in close and started throwing hands. Callie let the construct drop, sagging herself as she did, but her soul had clearly grown since the last time, because she didn't pass out, just seeming exhausted.

Beat...he lost. Bad. I'd forgotten after seeing Abel fight how brutal he could be, and I guess he was annoyed at the force user for hurting me so bad too, because he fucking DISMANTLED the guy. Every blow Beat threw was turned aside or minimally dodged, and every blow he took was somewhere vulnerable and painful.

Short ribs, kidney, every punch was brutal and aimed at the worst possible spot. I had to give Beat credit, he lasted much longer than the F-ranker had, though admittedly Abel was much less driven this time. Still, he actually landed a few punches in return, though my mentor mostly diverted them with his ability.

Finally, the younger brawler couldn't take it anymore and missed Abel slipping around with spatial lubrication to nail him in the kidney. He gasped in shock, and my teacher wrapped an arm around his neck in the same sleeper hold I'd used on Carl and choked him out, waiting until he wasn't moving and dropping him in the sand.

He turned to where Mel was still fighting and cleared his throat. Sever, who was burned in several places, looked up to see the rest of his team totaled and sighed, before dropping his knife and folding his hands behind his head, getting down on his knees.

And just like that...it was over. The fight had ended, and now we were officially past the team matches. From here on out, it wasn't us vs .them, it was ME vs. them. I had a few more upgrades to make to my abilities before my first round, and after. My major plan was to make sure I got to Intermediate in DS Mastery before I hit anyone scary, because I had a few incredible skills coming next rank.

Callie staggered over, dropping into the sand next to me, too tired to leave but not too tired to get over to me to make sure I was ok. I smiled at her and pulled her close, dropping a heal burst on both of us to combat the side effects of a hard battle. Then I leaned back and sighed in relief. We were one step closer. That alone was worth celebrating.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So." I said as I slumped back onto the couch. "How long exactly until the next round starts? I know there's going to be a few days between rounds nine and ten, but I didn't bother asking how long until nine actually starts." I was sitting with the others, Jessie, Benny, Abel, Mel, and Callie. We'd decided to have one last team meeting before this whole thing became a mess of conflict.

Callie, who was leaning against me on the couch, gave a groan of despair. "Three days. They only gave us three days off. I'm so tired, and my head is killing me. My damn eyelashes hurt."
I chuckled and pulled her against me. "Well that's what happens when you go ape shit on your opponent without caring what it takes."

She glared at me. "I did that because he hit you so hard I was afraid he killed you for a second. The bond sort of...fizzed out. I couldn't sense anything but pain and fear and I was terrified."

"I..." I stared at her. "I didn't know. I swear. It's a low level bond I guess the feedback from the attack was too much for the empathy portion of it. Or maybe I was in shock and you felt that. Either way I'm sorry. I didn't know how scared you were."

Abel groaned. "Can you please save your soulful staring into each others eyes for later when we AREN'T having a meeting? Because if this is just going to be you mooning over each other like usual I don't think we need to really have this one. So what exactly are we doing here?"

Callie groaned again and sat up. "We're here." She said. "To discuss what happens if we end up fighting each other, and exactly how soon that might be coming. They won't be pitting people against their own teams first round, but after that we could easily run into one of our own at any time after."

"She's right." I said grimly. "Granted, early game it probably won't happen. There are one hundred and sixty fighters left on the final bracket, five rounds will bring us to the top five, and they'll be handling it as a separate issue from the current lineups, a big main tournament competition in front of the whole city. Until then our odds for running into each other are slim to start with, but with each round it becomes more and more likely."

"I hope you two aren't expecting me to take it easy on you." Abel said with a smirk. "Because it would be a disservice to my training not to come at you as hard as I can. If we win you get the slots to distribute like we said, as long as the two of us can come along, but which of us actually gets the win depends on who is stronger."

Callie grinned at him. "Which is what I wanted to confirm. We're a team, and we're friends, but from this point on, we're all competitors. Don't share your new abilities, don't share your plans, don't tell us about your tricks." She looked at Benny and Jessie. "And that means no help from you two for any of us. If we're keeping this confined to the tournament we need to do it fair and square. No outside assistance."

Abel's smile couldn't have been prouder. "Well, well, well. Looks like the kids are finally growing up. Agreed. This is going to be one on one. Anything else?"

Shaking her head, Callie called the meeting to a close, and we all headed off on our own. As I walked, I considered what she'd just done. Some might think that little meeting was pointless, but I knew that doing it that way was not only intentional, it was important.

This tournament wasn't just sparring, this would be our first time up against our friends in a battle with stakes, and because of that all of us had our own ideas about how it would go. By setting the standard now she was confirming that none of us were going to hold it against the others if they won, and set a standard of combat so no one felt like they had been taken advantage of.

That said, now that that was all taken care of, we were well and truly on our own. As a fighter who was used to working with people, and one with a support based ability, I was at a disadvantage here, which meant I needed to take the next step on creating my cohesive combat style.

I stepped into the training room, and considered my options.First up was the skills I'd get on my next rank in DS Mastery, which admittedly wouldn't be before next rank. I'd have three new abilities, one in each of my subclasses, and they were all pretty impressive.

Danger sense was an extremely useful divination ability that did exactly what it said on the tin. For my rogue ability I was getting a finishing move, which I only got every other rank, and this one was called Marked for Death, and gave me a single undodgeable hit that landed with twice the damage. Finally my monk ability was called Mountain Stance, and tripled my defense as long as I was standing still on solid ground.

For now though, I needed something to get me through the NEXT fight until my rank up. With Moonlit Night, I had my concealment and some of my combat taken care of, but within that fog, I still had plenty of things to improve on. So with attack and concealment handled, my next big move was going to be mobility.

My main mobility skill was Leaf on the Wind, and since I'd had so much success with my last attempt to merge in an outside Skill, I decided to do it again. I closed my eyes and crossed my legs, breathing in deeply as I triggered Leaf on the Wind. I felt my body...lighten. like I was soaring through the air despite being landbound. Focusing on that sensation I tried to envision moving with Leaf on the Wind. The unbound motion, the speed.

I held that image in my head, and as I did, I began to resonate my Minor Gymnastics Skill. It was weak, but it was also something I associated with motion, something that would let me move about as I wished. I felt the two skills begin to blur as my head started to ache. Strain, just like last time, though not as bad since I had the practice now, began to pound through my brain.

Pushing through, I ignored the pain focusing on recreating what I did with Moonlit Night, and suddenly, I felt the skills give, and then there was that same click and the skill just...changed. Checking my Skill list to make sure, I confirmed that yes, the Gymnastics Skill was officially gone.

Focusing on my DS Mastery, I searched for the subskills and found the one I was looking for. State of Grace. I grinned widely as I felt what it did, and understood I'd gotten exactly what I needed from this one. State of Grace free me from the bonds of gravity, but it also freed me from my natural limitations. It enhanced my speed to double what it was during the five minutes I spend under the skill, allowing me both weightlessness and enhanced movement speed during that time.

It was perfect. With this I would be able to move around inside the mist perfectly and deliver incredibly fast, incredibly powerful strikes. It also meant I only had three more upgrades until I reached Intermediate, and no one else had a clue. I hadn't been keeping anyone up to date on my alterations to this Skill since it had so many parts, and not one of them would see this coming.

I sighed and slumped to the ground, exhausted and in pain. Again. I maybe should have waited until I recovered from the fight to do this, but I'd gotten so fired up by Callie's proclamation. I wanted to win through the tournament and get to the point where I'd be fighting all of them. I wanted to make myself strong enough to beat them all. To beat Abel.

For the first time since I'd started this I felt like I might actually manage to go all the way. I not only had my new powerful subskills, I had stored attacks and the power to use them alongside my skills. If I could create a synergistic system of powers, I could win this. Or at the very least show everyone that I had what it took to get close.

I hadn't realized how much the assumption that Abel would crush me had colored my perception of this whole tournament, because knowing I might possibly be able to win this made my already decent amount of anticipation explode into a bonfire of excitement and restlessness.

Reaching down for my scan ring, I spun it up and called my cousin. Since we couldn't have outside help, I wanted to check and make sure that she and her team actually got in before this all started. After all, they were supplying part of our forces here, since if they won we'd get to go too.

Natalie picked up with a smile, her face appearing with no hood or mask in the floating screen above my ring. "Shane! Judging by the slight smile I'm guessing you made it, and judging by the wince I'm guessing you already started training for the big show."

I laughed. "Good guesses. I was calling to let you know my team made the cut, and to let you know that we decided on a non interference pact, so I won't be able to be in contact much. Aside from being shady I'm going to need all the time I can get to train if I'm going to make it very far on my own."

"I feel that." She said, blowing out a heavy breath. "I have tricks of my own, but I'm not very confident in myself for this. My teammates however, are definitely going to be strong contenders. You better watch out if you fight any of my people. They don't play around."

I laughed at that, and we spent the next few hours just chatting, relaxing and discussing family business and our histories, and just generally getting to know each other better. Aside from time spent with Callie, it was hands down the most fulfilling time I'd spent in a while. Actually bonding with my family, getting to know one of the few people who could understand me.

All good things must end though, I had to say goodbye, and since the call had been to inform her I wouldn't be in contact, I might not speak to her again anytime soon. My best shot would be during the Moonsong Glade trip if we made it, and I made a note to get to know her better when that happened, and maybe to let Callie get to know her too if there was time. It couldn't hurt.

My head, thankfully, had already stopped pounding because of the down time. I climbed to my feet and headed over to the track on one side of the training room, getting ready to get back to work on this. Moonlit Night might be conspicuous to train, but State of Grace would just look like Leaf on the Wind to an outsider, and I needed to be as prepared as possible.

Using my new skill, I felt my body free itself from the bindings that kept slow and chained to the earth, and I grinned as I blurred forward, beginning a mad dash around the track, bouncing off every possible nearby surface as I tried to acclimate myself to high speed three dimensional movement. This was going to be so much fun.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Three days wasn't nearly as long as it sounded. Each of the days was its own project, and exhausting in its own right. The first day I finished granting Rime's wishes, and got Jessie her last twenty five Vitality worth of elixirs. She also got another eight Might, bringing her Might to ninety five, her Vitality to three twenty eight, and her total points to five hundred and eleven.

The same day I also managed to upgrade my Cloud Step to Ripple Running by synergizing it with my Minor Swimming Mastery Skill. One step became ten, and combined with State of Grace, I became a much more mobile and dangerous combatant.

Day two saw me going back to working with Benny. He traded me five triple strength density shifted attacks for twenty points of Focus, bringing himself up to two hundred and three. I also managed to upgrade Kidney Blow to Heavy Hands, my first passive subskill. By using my Minor Boxing Mastery as a sacrifice to add armor penetration to every single one of my blows (albeit not very much of it).

On the third day Benny paid five triple strength tranq blows for twenty points of Might, bringing it up to two hundred and nine and his total up to five hundred forty three. My final skill was created by merging Boiling Cloud (a skill I barely ever even used) with Minor Archery Mastery (another Skill I almost never touched) to create Steam Arrow. Which would give me a usable ranged attack among my options, something I was sorely lacking up to this point, leaving me only my divination skills and Sucking Mud to go before I could rank up the skill to intermediate.

Training with these new abilities took up the rest of my time over my three days off, and by the time the morning of the ninth match came along, I'd officially gotten as far as possible, even scheduling in some downtime the night before to allow myself to enter the match at my absolute best.

Jessie drove me to the arena again, though it was strange going without Callie. Rime tagged along, as she would when Callie had her own match (we were in different rounds). As I entered the waiting room under the new arena, I couldn't help but stop and take stock of what was happening.

It felt...weird, being here alone. Knowing I had an opponent coming up who I would have to deal with all on my own, and that said opponent would be a member of a team that made it just as far as we did. When they called me out onto the sand, I stepped out of the tunnel and groaned aloud at the person I found there.

Of course my first round would be someone I knew, who was strong as hell. Wren grinned wryly at me, offering me a cheerful wave as his giant bone spear sat over one shoulder. "Morning Solomon. Lovely day we're having, don't you think?" My friend's amber eyes were twinkling with amusement, but they were also twinkling with something else. Eagerness.

I felt my pulse pick up. I'd wanted this rematch as bad as he did, and I'd put in a lot of work in my training. I'd beaten him last time, but that was with Callie, and I hadn't forced him to use his ability. "Seems like it." I replied cheerfully. "You must be pretty confident. You know what I can do."

He waggled his free hand. "Yes and no. Logically I know you're much less of a threat without your partner, but you have a habit of doing the impossible. I'm not stupid enough to go into this underestimating you." He started to spin his spear slowly, passing it back and forth hand over hand, letting the metal coated tooth atop it drag in the sand. As he did, I could see water start to gather from the air around him, coating his palms and flowing down the bone haft of the spear.

"Fair enough." I said casually. "I won't hold back either." The water thing wasn't ideal. It meant even if I was willing to expose my Moonlit Night skill the option was off the table. That said, I'd made plenty of other preparations. I triggered Ripple Running and State of Grace, then knelt down to coat my arms in toxic magma. I half expected him to come at me while I prepared, but he didn't, he just kept spinning up his spear.

As he passed it back and forth, the water accumulated along the spear, turning it from a wet stick to a pillar of liquid. I could sense some extreme power from that thing, and I was kind of looking forward to seeing what it could do. Knowing any more talking would be pointless, I used Double Trouble, appearing behind Wren and triggering Flurry of Blows, increasing the rate of my already massively enhanced movement speed as I unleashed a flurry of sharp punches at his back.

The spear, which was still being passed slowly, sped up, the water shifting around it, and suddenly I was faced with a fucking shark made of water bearing down on me, it's gaping jaws surrounding the head of the spear as it chopped down on my arm. I used a triple strength density shift on my left arm without thinking, massively enhancing the density and power of the magma.

There was a loud clang and I bounced backwards, skipping off the air like a rock across a pond, using the mobility of State of Grace to enhance the speed and distance I was able to travel with Ripple Running so I could withdraw nearly instantly.

I sucked my teeth, shaking out my left arm, which hadn't been cut, but had been smashed pretty heavily by the damn spear. My armor was probably the only thing that had saved me from being disarmed in a much more literal sense than when I lost my cane.

"Impressive. You're faster than I remember." Said Wren as he went back to spinning. The longer that went on the more water was condensed. I was pretty sure that shark would get bigger and nastier as it did. Which meant I needed to break that buildup. The burden of initiative was on me, not on him. Joy.

I shrugged, trying not to let him see me sweat. "I'll be honest, I thought I'd have to earn that ability. I'm honored I impressed you enough to pull out all the stops."

His smile was predatory. "Did you think you were the only one who went to see a friend's match? I've seen what you can do Shane. I came here to win, and I'm not holding back. Seems like you're not either. I'm curious though. Exactly how many tricks do you have up your sleeves? Are they enough to make up for not having your partner? Your teammates? You're a scary guy, but I'm not exactly a pushover myself."

Reaching into myself, I unleashed a series of techniques. Double Trouble, a shadow clone, and a stored Stealth attack from Callie. I stepped back and vanished as a doppleganger took my place and a dark copy appeared behind Wren. As I did, I bounced off the air with Ripple running and circled around to the side as Wren seemed to detect the clone. I wasn't sure how he was doing that, but it was something I'd counted on.

I triggered Double Trouble again on myself, and I saw Wren's shoulder stiffen as the shark spear tore apart the clone, dispersing it into darkness as I appeared behind him. Before he could attack me directly, I triggered my new Steam Arrow skill, spitting a boiling steaming jet of water right at his face. His eyes widened and he stumbled back, bringing up his spear defensively to deflect the attack.

With all the water concentrated in one place, I triggered Afterburner to massively increase my power. Then Mercy Kill, then a gravity attack to slow him down before finally releasing a fire attack combined with a Balam empowered punch right at the water around the spear.

A massive roaring cloud of toxic fire enveloped my punch and when it hit the water steam exploded out, but I kept up the attacks, using up both of the other fire attacks the same way to take advantage of Afterburner. Seven attacks left, I grabbed the spear in both hands and channeled a gravity attack directly into it, combined with e density shift as I jerked it out of his grip and sent to spinning away.

Continuing that whirling motion I lashed out with a series of punches all six of them imbued with triple strength tranq attacks. Wren grimaced, arms coming up to tank the punches, and winced as my magma coated arms imbued with tranquilizing poison, smashed into his forearms as he did his best to tank the attacks.

Which he did, unfortunately. Even with all the tricks his Might was much higher than mine, and I was forced to rely on Ripple Running again to disengage, two more steps ending the skill and forcing me to recast it. I was about twenty feet from him now, and I was panting as Afterburner faded, sapping my strength. My head was pounding from the massive repeated skill and attack usage, but I wasn't the only one who was unsteady.

Wren was wearing a hauberk from what I could see but he hadn't been protecting his arms, probably to prevent anything from slowing down his spear. His arms were coated in poisonous cracks as the toxic fire burned away at him imbuing the tranquilizer into his system even faster. He was barely standing, eyes starting to flutter, but I saw him haul back and slap himself hard across the face, which seemed to temporarily stave off the effects.

We were both weakened by that last flurry of attacks, and as he spat his blood on the sand he gave me a wide grin. "That...was sneaky. A double decoy. And you'll have to tell me how the hell you disarmed me after this is over." He shot a glance at his spear, but I'd tossed it across the arena pretty hard. He wouldn't be able to reach it before I could reach him. The water had been boiled away, and though I saw him try to condense some more, the droplets wouldn't stick for some reason. Maybe the lack of concentration.

I didn't respond, waiting for any sign of weakness. His eyes fluttered again, and when they were closed for a second I triggered Double Trouble, then blitzed him with another barrage of punches from behind. He spun, somehow detecting me again, and put his arms up, but I dipped back, allowing the punches to peter out as I put a bit of distance between us, and kicked a cloud of sand right up into his face.

Unlike the Steam Arrow, there was no way to clock a cloud of sand. He panicked and inhaled, sending himself into a coughing fit, and as he dissolved into hacks and wheezes I dove forward and ducked under his flailing arms, smashing a right cross into his jaw and sending him stumbling back before I followed it up with a stomping kick to the face, finally laying him out flat on his back as the damage combined with the tranqs to knock him out cold.

I doubled over, panting, head blazing with pain, but I grinned down at my friend as I let the skills fade. Leaning down, I put a hand on him and triggered a heal burst before turning to stagger out of the arena. No way I would be able to carry him in my condition. Besides. I wanted to look cool after my first victory. I couldn't be more pleased with how it went down. I couldn't wait to see who I'd be fighting next.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So." Said Callie with a grin as I walked into the house. "You made it through huh?" Despite her light tone, I could feel through the bond that she was happy for me. "Who did you end up against?" We'd agreed not to come watch each other's matches because it would tip our hands if we revealed any new tricks.

I slumped down on the couch, peeling off my mask and dropping my head her lap, barely giving her time to move the book she'd been reading. She rolled her eyes at that, but smiled, reaching down to run her fingers through my hair. She was wearing sweat pants and a tank top, and her face looked almost surreal without the mask. I smirked at her. "Wren."

She whistled at that. "Well damn, no wonder you look so tired. I can't believe you won. If I hadn't felt your excitement through the bond I'd never have believed it. That's pretty impressive. I remember how hard to beat he was when we fought him together." She paused. "What was his ability anyway? Since he's out it won't effect the tournament if you let me know, and that was driving me nuts."

I snickered a bit at what a nerd she could be. "Water manipulation of some kind. Turned into a giant shark. I handled it. He was no pushover though. When is your first solo match?"

She sighed in annoyance. "I'm up on day three. I'm going stir crazy sitting here alone." She held up her book. "This is the owners manual for our car."

I gave her a flat look. "You realize you aren't allowed to drive no matter how well you know how the car works, right? The tournament is enough life threatening danger, thanks."

"You don't drive either." She said with a pout. "You don't need to act like I'm some kind of monster."

Deciding it was best to change the subject, I made a noncommittal noise and then said. "Oh, by the way. Granting wishes for attacks doesn't count as outside interference does it? It IS my ability."

I was pretty sure it didn't, but I had wishes to grant today anyway so asking would be a good distraction. Sure enough she waved the question off easily. "Of course not. The point of this is not to make people feel like they're being cheated no matter who wins. You're behind us all in raw stats and that's how you keep up."

Sighing in relief, I sat up with a groan. "Fair enough. Then I should get that out of the way. You should go have a day out with Jessie or something. You can't just sit around and worry for two days."

She gave me a soft smile. "Pot and kettle. But as long as we don't work on training that wouldn't be a big deal. In fact, it's such a good idea that as team leader I order you to spend the day with Benny tomorrow after you get your wishes done. Assuming he's free."

"Free?" I said with a snort. "If he was anymore prone to brooding alone we'd need to build him a bell tower. I wouldn't describe him as free of anything except the compulsion to bathe regularly."

"That rings a bit hollow from the guy who feels the need to shower three times a day." She said with an eye roll. "How your hair isn't basically straw at this point I'll never know. If you weren't an Ascendant your skin would be parchment by now. Regardless, his brooding is kind of the point I was trying to make. He needs to get out. I get you want to give him space to figure out things with Celine, but at this point he's just spiraling."

I let out a long sigh. "I know, Cal. Trust me. But I also know Benny. He needs time in his own head. If I don't let him sort through this himself he'd going to second guess the decision fifty times after he makes it and neither of them deserve that. He doesn't let much get to him, but when things do he needs to wallow in them." At her arched brow I held up both hands as I sat up. "Fine. Tomorrow. But only for an hour or two. Nothing that'll take away from his thinking time for too long."

"Fine." She said with a sigh. "You know him best. Not like Jessie hasn't been trying and failing anyway, so I might as well listen to the expert. I just feel...responsible. I'm the leader, I'm supposed to vet our allies. Celine completely fooled me and Benny had to pay for it."

Leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead, I leaned mine against it right after. "Contrary to your own warped worldview, being leader doesn't make you responsible for everything. Benny decided to pursue her, and she was the one who went through with it. I hope they work things out, but even if they don't, it's no ones responsibility but theirs and Celine's sister's. Feel free to tell her off when we meet her. I'll get in her way if she tries to murder you."

Standing up, I let go of her hands, which I'd been holding. "Sadly, if tomorrow is a day off, today is a training day as usual, which means I'd better go get started." Not to mention I need a re-up on some of Benny's attacks badly. At least it meant he could keep his money for the moment.

"Whatever." She said in a faux-condescending tone. "Some of us have important and interesting work to do. Off with you. You're distracting me while I'm trying to learn." I chuckled at that and rolled my eyes, heading out like she said and leaving her to her weird reading choice. We still wouldn't be letting her drive. The only one of us anyone trusted behind the wheel was Jessie.

With that done though, I decided to head off in search of my best friend. It wasn't a long search, Benny spent most of his time outside staring dramatically off into the middle distance these days. I didn't mess with him about it. I was pretty sure if I found out Callie had been lying to me our whole relationship I'd be equally miserable.

"So." I said dropping down next to him. "You ready for your wishes today? Because I'm pretty much tapped on density shift attacks again. Wren is a bitch and a half to fight. Not that it stopped me."

He chuckled at that. "You won? Nice. Only four more rounds to go, huh? You realize every round you fight after this is one round closer to having to fight one of our own?" I grimaced. He was right, and I was pretty damn sure it would happen sooner than later. Fantasy tended to push us toward dramatic and unusual situations, and that wasn't just me. The person who drew the names would have a high Fantasy too.

Seeing I wasn't enjoying the conversation, Benny smiled and changed the subject, making his wishes for the day without much fuss. Four density shifted attacks and a tranq blow, bringing me up to ten of the first and four of the latter. Benny's Focus jumped to two hundred twenty three, and his overall stats hit five hundred sixty three, after which I made plans with him for the next day and left him to his brooding, heading downstairs for the training room.

With only Sucking Mud and my divination abilities still needing to be upgraded, I technically had four to go.

Earthseeking, an old skill I almost never used that let me find things like mines and ore. Pulse of life, which let me find rare plants, and which I also never used, and Seek Hidden, which I used all the time and would need to make sure remained useful, if not making sure to give it a flat upgrade.

It would have been useful if I could synergize Sucking Mud with Earthseeking, but sadly it wasn't in the cards. They were both subskills of DS Mastery, and you couldn't synergize a skill with itself. I could use two charges to use multiple abilities, and even use them in conjunction, but that wasn't the same thing.

Though that made me wonder if to finally upgrade the DS Mastery Skill I might need to synergize it with Enchanting once I finally finished upgrading all the components. It was something to think about at least. That might be what I needed to push it to a completely new level, and since DS Mastery was my most powerful offensive ability and I barely used Enchanting anymore, I could think of worse options.

For now though, I decided to focus on synergizing another skill. My head wasn't exactly up to anything crazy. I'd rested but this fight had taken a lot out of me in terms of soul strength, so there was no reason to push things past where they needed to go. I'd do a small Skill, and I had just the one in mind.

Focusing on Pulse of Life, I felt barely any strain, it was a first level divination skill and not one I almost ever used, so it wasn't much strain on my soul. Neither was the other Skill I decided to synergize with it, Minor Herbalism Mastery. The combination was so obvious that I couldn't see a reason NOT to use it, and even clicking them together took almost no effort relative to my last to synergies. Both skills were designed to do similar things, so I barely had to push them.

The resulting skill was...stupidly useful. Rhythm of the Wild was a new ability that let me not only FIND rare plants, but identify them through the interface as long as they were my rank or lower. The utility of a skill like that somewhere like the Moonsong Glade was staggering, and it made me seriously think about how skill synergy worked. While I could make amazing and unusual abilities when synergizing off the wall combos, I could make powerful and useful ones when the two skills in question were of a similar nature.

Power vs. utility was an interesting conundrum, though utility still mostly won out considering my stockpiled attacks and how the meta abilities of DS Mastery affected them. Sadly, based on how much thought I had to put into this one, I was running out of easy synergies, and I needed to come up with a basic idea for a skill before making it. I probably wouldn't hit Intermediate before the tenth round, though I might before the eleventh, depending on if I even made it there.

Slumping back on the ground, I realized that with plans made, a new skill done, and wishes finished, not to mention the fight over, I was officially free for the day. No more responsibilities that needed to be taken care of. Just me and some much needed downtime. I could work with that.

I let my eyes drift closed as I pushed worry about my next match out of my mind. My fight with Wren had been an immense amount of fun, and I was sure the next one would be just as great. Whoever it might be against. We were so close to the end. I wasn't sure how they were going to handle the last five people standing (Benny insisted it would be a free for all but that just seemed like a mess to me) but however it was, I'd be ready.

As I felt sleep consume me, my last thoughts for the day weren't about combat though, or Benny, or even Callie. They were about me, and how happy I was with how far I'd come. I was standing on my own two feet now, and proving to myself I could do that. I had to admit, that felt damn good.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I slept for like nine hours. It was amazing. I didn't even tweak my back sleeping on the training room floor because of my high Vitality. The luxury of just slumping down and sawing logs like a layabout was just...perfect. It felt so good to have some downtime that I decided not to work on my wishes or training until later in the day today, so I could ride the relaxation wave through the morning.

Hopping to my feet, I set off for the kitchen, shooting Benny a text to tell him we'd be doing breakfast here before we went out for the day, and starting the process of making eggs benedict. I was feeling fancy this morning, and I was going to show off a bit.

Callie, of course, basically floated into the kitchen on cartoon smell illustrations, and when she saw what I was making she squealed and tackled me. "You're making breakfast! You've been so busy lately its been cereal and premade meals. Real eggs benedict. I think I'm in love."

"With me or the eggs?" I said with mock concern. "Because the former has been established, and the latter might give me a complex. I refuse to share your affections with breakfast food."

She gave an exaggerated wince. "Oooh, sorry. Breakfast had me first. You're pretty decent, but if I have to choose I'm afraid breakfast and I have too much history to ignore." She winked at me. "Besides, are you telling me I don't have to compete with long hot showers for your affections?"

I shot her a grin. "I'm happy to share any time." I looked around for Cass before I said it, because I absolutely didn't want another 'why Callie and Shane do things you can't know about' discussion.

Sadly, it wasn't to be. She just patted my cheek fondly, resting her head against my back and putting her arms around me. "Sorry love, you shower for way too long. It would ruin my hair. Even Vitality can only prevent so much dehydration. Maybe if you can cut down your shower time a bit." At my appalled look she just giggled. "I thought so. Anyway, what's the big plan for today? You're having a guys day out with Benny right? Because Jessie and I are hitting a flower nursery and a swap meet."

"One thing for each of you huh?" I said wryly. "Does she know the very concept of loot turns you into a drooling lunatic? Because if I were her I'd keep you on a leash." She wasn't able to give her undoubtedly suggestive response though, because she was cut off by Cass barreling into the room excitedly.

"Shane is cooking!" She cheered. "I love your food! I'm so sick of eating cereal all the time. What are we having?" The little girl was practically bouncing in place as she grilled me on what I was making, but she too was interrupted as her brother strolled in behind her and pushed her lightly toward the table.

He gave her a stern look. "Cassidy, let Shane cook. I'm sure you'll like whatever it is we're having. It's not nice to bother him while he's in the middle of cooking."

"But Callie is doing it!" She whined loudly. "She's giving him a hug and he doesn't even care. My questions are probably way less distracting than that." I snickered slightly at the comment as Callie groaned softly and let me go, turning to walk over and plop down in a seat next to Cass.

She gave the younger girl a warm smile. "I was just saying good morning. We should let him cook for now. He's making eggs benedict, and that's really good, I think you're gonna love it. So, I didn't see you yesterday? Do anything fun with Tony and your Uncle Zeke?"

The girl gave a put upon sigh, informing her that Zeke had been busy and that Cark wasn't nearly as fun, and then giving a thorough if slightly disjointed account of her entire day, skipping around to different parts when they were more entertaining. By the time Benny made it to the kitchen, she was telling us about the new episode of her favorite cartoon for the third time, this time from the point of view of a side character with a cute dog that she really liked.

My best friend wandered in but didn't interrupt, yawning and dropping into a chair before resting his head on the table and starting to snore. Sadly for him, I finished cooking about then, and so I woke him up by slamming a plate down in front of him, startling him so much he fell out of his chair with a shout of alarm, sending Cass and Callie both into a fit of giggles, though my girlfriend had the decency to try to hide it at least.

"So." I said as he picked himself up, glaring at me. "Thought we could hit a couple local markets to look for some stuff for your Inventing. You haven't made anything new in a while, and I know you still have some cash from working that job to pay me." Since he'd been paying off wishes with attacks when I needed them, he had a small stockpile of cash, which would work well for buying Inventing materials.

He took a bite of the benedict, mollified by the delicious taste, and nodded thoughtfully before swallowing. "Yeah, I could probably use some new gear. Some of my merged artifacts are losing their punch. Some of them are great and plenty useful still, but stuff like the gut rope are pretty far past their best buy date. Plus with my Inventing at Intermediate I have a bit more influence on what I get, and I can work with much better materials. Where are we going to look around?"
I shrugged. "Not sure, but I asked around and heard about a few places. Maybe junk island would be fun. It sounds like an interesting place."

We chatted a bit longer, but Cass finished eating and got bored, wandering away with Cark trailing after her, lecturing her about not saying thank you as she ignored him as usual. Jessie had shown up and grabbed a plate, presumably after a bad night, because her face looked haggard and her eyes ringed with dark circles. She ate quickly and then went to go get ready.

Callie finished last, having taken her time to enjoy the meal, as well as having seconds, but as she finished she rinsed her plate and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "Have fun on your day off. Try to relax a bit. I know I can't convince you not to train later, and I wouldn't if I could, but rest is an important part of improvement, even Abel admits that."

I grinned at her. "I know. I promise we'll waste tons of time and do many things that are pointless and unnecessary today."
"Well." She said wryly. "As long as you're sure." She looked at Benny. "Look out for him for me? You know how he tends to get into trouble. I swear he can't leave the house without getting wrapped up in some kind of dark conspiracy. " She giggled at my affronted look and bolted from the room before I could protest, leaving me to sulk as I finished my own food.

Benny looked...sad. I cursed at myself, because us being affectionate probably made his own situation harder. Not that it was something I did on purpose. It just...kind of happened. Shoveling my food in I stood up abruptly, announcing while still chewing. "Alright. Time for us to go. We need to get to the bus stop since Jessie is going with Callie."

My best friend half grimaced half laughed at me talking with a full mouth, and started teasing me as we took off. We walked to the bus like we had as kids, talking about anything but his relationship or cultivation, which admittedly didn't leave many options in our current lives.

When we arrived at junk island, I had to admit the place was interesting. It was an entire closed off island on a lake, full of hundreds of run down shacks and buildings piled with random junk.

There were weapons, tires, machines, appliances, furniture, and dozens of other things. Some of it was old and looked valuable, some was just trash. Some of it was heavy in the way that let me know it had Impact, even though visually it looked se destroyed as to be completely worthless.

Benny dove into the shopping with gusto, picking up items and exclaiming excitedly what they were, or trying to puzzle it out based on context. His Inventing Mastery was a wish granted Skill, so he had an absurd foundation, but that only went up to Beginner, because you had to tweak skills in Intermediate to your own use to progress them, so wishing for Intermediate Skills did more harm than good.

"So." I said as we sifted through random junk. "Any ideas on what you're hoping for? I know you can only really do so much to predict what the outcome will be, but you have to have something in mind right? For what would help you most?" Inventing was annoying to deal with, but even if he couldn't control much about what he made, he could predict what certain things would do based on the attributes of the material I was pretty sure.

He shrugged. "If I could pick, I'd probably go with some kind of mobility artifact. I'm thinking I'll try using this." He held up what looked like a corroded dark yellow metal wrench. "I'm almost positive this is a gravity artifact of some kind. It's so busted and rotted through it probably won't ever function again, but the best thing about Inventing is almost anything can be used in production."

I reached out and took it, noting that it was heavier than expected. "So what? Just melt it down and throw it in with some other stuff?I'm not sure if I love the randomness of Inventing or hate it."

"Tell me about it." Chuckled my friend. "But there's something...amazing about it. Mad Science is just pure chaos. Sure, you can make something useless or even dangerous, but really, that's the fun. You're offering your fate up to the universe, putting yourself at the mercy of the whims of random chance. Isn't that what being an Ascendant is about? Seeing where the future takes you? Getting swept along by the current?"

I nodded contemplatively. "That's a decent point. I can see the appeal, and I know you can make some pretty crazy stuff. Stuff that enchanting wouldn't be able to make at anywhere near the same level. The randomness is balanced out by power. Risk and reward. I guess that is kind of a microcosm of what it means to be a cultivator."

He pocketed the wrench, paying the stall owner a few chits, and then we moved on. We spent hours there, combing through garbage to find a few worthwhile items. Benny spent a surprisingly small amount of money, given how hard some of the stuff was to find the people selling it didn't always know what it was worth. They were here to bulk sell random trash, if some people got lucky that was on them.

Once we finished shopping we went out for dinner, eating somewhere relaxing and then heading home to begin training and working for the day. The bus ride back was just pleasant. We'd relaxed and calmed down, let ourselves recharge, and not it was time to get back to the grind. With the downtime behind us it was almost exciting to get back to training, and I couldn't wait to see what my next skill would be.

Once we got back Benny did his wishes, five tranq blows for twenty points of might, bringing him up to two hundred twenty nine Might and five hundred eighty three total stats. With that out of the way we each set off to do our own thing. I was happy for Benny especially. Seeing him so excited about Inventing instead of worrying about Celine was a nice change. Plus it would be cool to see what he came up with.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next two days passed without much incident barring a missing dessert I'd picked up for myself. I kept up training, but between my daily improvements I made a point to relax and spend some time with my friends. Jessie and Benny weren't in the tournament and had been left mainly to their own devices, but seeing how dangerous things were and how much work we were doing had them worried.

Benny I mostly tried to distract. Callie might have had a point about letting him stew. I'd wanted to leave him to think things through, based on personal experience, but the reason that usually wasn't necessary was that we were usually inseparable. I'd neglected to note that this time was different because I wasn't around, and our time hanging out had seemed to help a lot, so I decided to spend more of my time being around my friend, to give him a bit of relief from the constant soul searching.

In between that though, we did his wishes. Twenty Might, twenty Focus. He paid mainly in chits, bringing my personal stockpile to one hundred thirty six chits, as well as topping up my tranq blows to ten. I'd considered stockpiling some extra attacks, but honestly with the tournament ending soon I really needed to save for my weapon. Hell, even not being able to use it I would have still probably bought it if I hadn't been waiting for the new skills I was developing.

For now though, it was the last night before the second round, and I hadn't been able to come up with a proper Skill yesterday, being stuck on Earthseeking. I'd tossed it around for a while, trying to come up with a proper mix, but in the end had ended up wasting two days on it. Today, I had decided to try something else, and was planning to officially switch to a different skill. Specifically, today I was going to be trying to tweak Seek Hidden.

Seek Hidden occupied a strange place in my arsenal, being both extremely useful and extremely useless. When it made a difference it made a big one, but because of the nature of the skill I didn't find much use for it as it was meant to be wielded. Seek Hidden was meant to be used on large objects over great distances. It could be used on smaller ones closer up, but that wasn't its real purpose.

Not to mention it only picked up one thing at a time, which was a huge downside to a skill like that. What I needed was the ability to look at everything around me and see the hidden and concealed. I also used it for investigation, so I needed to be able to pick up small clues with this ability.

It took me quite a while to puzzle out exactly what Skill I needed to mix it with to get what I needed, but after spending some time on it, I made the connection that was obvious if you were paying attention. Poker.

So I went through the process of combining my Minor Poker Mastery with Seek Hidden, to create the skill that I needed. Unlike the last couple times, where I kind of guided them to the point they were close to what I wanted and then smashed them together and let them do as they would, this time I decided to try to guide the formation of the new skill more carefully.

In the spirit of that, I decided to define the skill as I wanted it to be. A new skill to let me see what was hidden, to find what was lost, to discover the traces of that which would conceal. I resonated the two skills, doing my best to use the aspects of both that I wanted to see.

Despite being prepared, I almost passed out. Micromanaging skill synergies was apparently EXTREMELY soul intensive. I felt like I was trying to lift an engine block with the power of my mind, focusing so hard I was worried I'd blow blood vessel or something. It hurt. A lot. More than any other skill merge, but I pushed on. This was exactly what I wanted, exactly what I was hoping for.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, I felt the click that I'd been waiting for and the burden vanished. I slumped over backwards, shaking and sweating, as I tried to get my heart to calm down. I breathed heavily for a few minutes until I finally had the strength to check my Skills.

Minor Poker Mastery was gone, as expected, and when I checked on my subskills I noticed the new one I wanted. Eye of Revelation.

Eye of revelation was perfect. It wasn't a passive, only lasting for five minutes, but while it was active it allowed me to find the hidden and disguised, as well as discover traces of things missing. The tradeoff was that Eye of Revelation had an extremely low radius of effect, only being able to see things within twenty feet or so. Still, what it lost in distance it made up for in versatility, and it would be ten times more useful as it was.

I grinned, forcing myself to my feet, and staggered over to the track where I'd been training. I prepared to start...and then realized that I had nothing to actually find. I considered what to do with this, and then decided that I might as well have some fun with it. I headed upstairs, opening the refrigerator and peered inside at an empty spot. I'd picked up a slice of cheesecake on the way back from junk island, and someone had eaten it. I didn't know who, but with my new skill I could find out.

Triggering Eye of Revelation, I watched as the world kind of...darkened. Everything got kind of dim, with the exception of a few brightly lit items that I was pretty sure were hidden or clues. I could see some candy hidden in the cabinet behind the fridge, a bag of cookies shoved into the back of a cutlery drawer, and what looked like a plastic monkey under the oven mitts, the last one presumably belonging to Cass.

Along with that, I could also see footprints, leading off into the distance. Well, twenty feet into the distance. I stepped forward and picked up the next set, following them down the hall, stopping, to my complete lack of surprise, outside my girlfriend's door.

Rolling my eyes, I rapped on the wood, and she opened it, looking out at me with a pleasant smile. I smiled back, then slipped around her into her room. She looked confused, until I followed the trail to the back of the room, dug around in a drawer, and pulled out a styrofoam container.

She giggled nervously. "That's...not mine?" I just looked at her for a minute, and then she pouted and looked away. "You didn't get me anything. That was rude. It looked really good so I are it. Its not like you put your name on it or anything." I opened the container, showing her the inside, where my name was printed in black marker. She clicked her tongue. "Yeah, ok I don't know why I even tried that."

"No cooking." I said flatly."For a month." I didn't actually care that much, but I liked cheesecake, and I wanted to make an impression so she didn't do it again.

Her eyes widened in shock. "Wait. What?" She crossed the room in a blink, clinging to me. "That's not fair. Come on, I'll buy you another slice. I can't go back to eating materializer meals and I don't have the money to pay for takeout. I spent it all on wishes!"

"Want to make it two months?" She jerked back, sulking but unwilling to risk it. I actually felt a little bad but if I caved every time she gave me puppy dog eyes I'd never stick up for myself.

I flopped down on the bed. "So, you already had your second round right? What was it, yesterday?" It had been day three of the first round which would mean two days after my own match.

Snorting a laugh at the subject change she thumped down next to me. "Yup. Next match is tomorrow. I won, in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't." I said with a smile. "But I'm curious why you're up again so soon. Shouldn't you be in a later round?"

She shrugged. "Guess not. Since there are so few people left the rounds won't be as consistent. Not everyone will fight at the same point in the rotation. I don't know who I'm fighting this time, or even where yet. They're sending out locations the morning of."

"Makes sense." I admitted. "If they told us where we would be fighting it would be easy to figure out our opponents by process of elimination. This way the surprise is fresh." I was still worried as hell about who I'd be fighting, but I had to admit that the first round had been a blast.

She rolled over to cuddle up next to me. "I guess. I'm just worried one of us will run into someone really scary. I know there are safety measures, but this is still battle. If someone like Abel decided to kill you, do you really think you would survive? And now we have Celine's asshole sister putting bounties on us, which granted, she was nice enough to specify shouldn't cause our deaths, but..."

"But." I agreed. "But there's still the cult. But we have enemies here. But the tournament is the perfect opportunity to kill us without allowing for interference."

"Do you really think that would work though?" She asked cautiously. "Like...Zeke is bound not to interfere, but after you died..." She sounded uncomfortable bringing it up, but I got her point. Hell I couldn't argue it because I'd asked him the same thing once.

I mulled over my wording. "I think that the person who kills me is going to have a bad day. Or century. But I also think that won't mean much to me since I'll be dead. If it makes you feel better, I'm not planning on dying, and I've made some serious preparations for the next round."

She looked up at me, raising an eyebrow. "Oh really? And what would those be? Inquiring minds want to know." She fluttered her eyelashes at me so fast it looked like she was trying to blink morse code, and I cracked up at her, which earned me a poke in the ribs and another pout. She didn't push for my answer though, she knew I wouldn't give it. After all, we might be up against each other at some point.

We chattered for a bit about nothing, not wanting to give away anything about our preparations but still wanting to spend time together. She tried to convince me to cook for her early, and I resisted, leading to lots of bargaining for one or two weeks taken off despite my steadfast refusal.

Eventually, we drifted off to sleep, and I couldn't help but smile as I dozed off, loving that we were still able to relax together even though we might be enemies if things went a certain way.

I was woken the next morning by my scan ring, and Callie by hers, and I groaned and sat up, flicking open the screen. Callie was yawning and doing the same, and as the screens came up, we each noticed what the other person's said and we froze, staring at the information. Nothing too complicated, mind you. A simple address. Very simple, in fact, because it was the exact same address on both screens. I glanced up to find Callie looking at me in worry. We'd both gotten our assignments. Our tenth round fight would be against each other.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We didn't freak out or anything. Though we did kind of shut up for a while. We both got ready and Jessie drove us to the arena. We didn't say much on the ride, and I admit to being a bit nervous. My emotions were a jumble, really. I was excited for a good fight, upset I had to fight Callie, scared she would resent me if I won, scared I would resent her if I lost. My head was swirling with all these different thoughts, and I had no idea what to do.

Then she reached out and took my hand. I looked up into her eyes and she gave me that dazzling smile I only ever saw on her face when we were alone, and...I felt better. My worries weren't gone, I could still feel them, twice actually because the bond was still open. But I could also feel how much she cared about me, and that in the end this fight wasn't going to mean anything we didn't want it to.

I squeezed her hand back and then turned to look out the window, to watch until we arrived at the arena. Once we arrived we both climbed out and headed for our respective waiting rooms below the arena. This was another new one I hadn't seen. There would be two matches here today, ours being the first. One hundred and sixty fighters over ten arenas. Four per day for four days for the first round, and two per day for four days for the second.

Sadly for Callie, I'd gotten lucky. I'd had my first match at the beginning of the rotation, so I'd gotten the full four days off. Since she had hers midway through she only got a day or two of downtime before her second match with me. I wasn't going to go easy on her because of that though.

Despite my worries about her resenting me or me resenting her, I'd never considered softballing it. She deserved better than that, and so did I. We were competitive people, and we both had a lot to prove. Holding back would be an insult to both each other and the audience, and I could feel through the bond that neither of us had any intention of doing so.

The wait before the match felt much shorter than normal, but that was probably just distraction. The guy watching the waiting room ushered me out when it was time, and I walked out onto the sand to stand across from Callie. She looked back at me, and I got ready to shut down the bond. Before I did though, I took in the sight of her.

Seeing her like this, like an enemy, was strange for me. The mask, the flowing black hair, the doll like features, the coat, the leotard, the boots. I got so used to the sight of her like this, in her costume, as my partner, that I lost track of what it looked like to take her in all at once like this. As a threat. Because she was a threat. Maybe one of the biggest I'd ever faced.

Callie wasn't an F-ranker, or some kind of combat genius like Abel. But she KNEW me. Knew me in ways most people never would. We had a fucking Skill that proved that. Even without the bond active she wouldn't be easy to beat. Not least because she was the one who trained me in close quarters combat.

Speaking of the bond, I decided to take one last glimpse at it. I focused hard on the connection, and found her doing the same, and for a split second, before it shut, I saw myself. I saw me through her eyes, and felt her own trepidation. She was seeing me the same way as I saw her, as a threat for the first time pretty much. And it was jarring to see myself like that. Despite the tinge of affection, there was a sense of wariness, but more than that, a sense of pride. At how far I'd come. What I'd turned into.

Then the bond snapped off, and it was just me, looking at her, seeing myself in her eyes more literally now, as I looked at the reflection off her irises. The whole experience had felt endless, but it took us about thirty seconds tops. She grinned at me. "You ready? Because I'm not holding back. I'm gonna kick your ass. Not that it'll be hard considering the size of you."

I bit back a little trash talk of my own, because if I got sucked into banter, I wasn't sure I'd be able to commit to fighting at my best. So without responding, I triggered Moonlit Night. Fog billowed around us, filling the arena with dense mist that occluded the sight. At least, it occluded HER sight. Mine was fine, since the fog was luminescent and partially translucent, just like last time, making it easier to see, if anything.

Next I triggered State of Grace, giving myself the ability to move more freely and quickly, then Ripple Running, so I had three dimensional mobility. With that done I knelt down, planting my hands on the sand and using my Stone Limb, along with Touch of Tears and Consecration of Flames, to coat my arms in toxic magma.

Callie was standing in the middle of the arena, not moving, eyes fixed forward. I grinned, and without delay triggered Double Trouble. Appearing directly behind her, my eyes widened as one of her boots flashed up at my head, ducking back as she dashed forward, blitzing me with attacks so fast I couldn't figure out how to counter.

I blocked them easily enough, between the speed boost and my magma limbs, I was more than up to defending, but she was launching attacks so quickly that I couldn't find time to respond. Cursing, I triggered Double Trouble again, but instead of attacking I dashed forward, Ripple Running allowing me to avoid impacting the sand until I reached twenty or so feet away.

Shaking out my arms, I gnashed my teeth. Callie giggled. "You use that Double Trouble skill too much. It's predictable. I knew you wouldn't want to come at me head on, so I just listened for the displaced air. Don't forget how much higher my Perception is."

Which was probably how she'd been able to siege me down. She could hear my movements and use them to detect me, even without seeing, especially at close range. Moonlit Night made me harder to detect, so further out I should be fine, but her Perception was so much higher that the Stealth aspects of the ability couldn't keep up when I was right next to her. Joy.

Of course. I had other options, but before I could employ them, a massive wall of shadow spikes erupted from underneath me. Ripple Running was still active, so a quick step on the air and State of Grace let me blast upwards. I planted my foot midair, kicking off to the side, and touched down warily, waiting for another attack. This time she didn't speak to me, and I cursed internally when I realized what she's done.

She figured out I used Double Trouble, which made me appear right behind her, and then attacked in a straight line. She probably used the damn shadows to burrow under the ground, and then told me how she's beaten my attack to distract me while she felt around for my weight.

The stealth aspects of Moonlit Night would keep her from hearing me touch down, but they didn't prevent me from putting weight on the sand. Ripple Running could do that, but without a heading finding me would be near impossible, and I wasn't wasting the soul power to create a platform that would hold me the whole fight. I did, however, have other options.

I triggered Sucking Mud, which would normally be too slow, and then used a shadow attack with it, forming the Dark Swamp that used grasping tendrils to drag my enemies down. The darkness spread across the sand, but as it closed in and the tendrils lashed out, Callie narrowed her eyes and darted back and up. I saw the tendrils move slightly, changing direction in midair, and I snarled in annoyance as I figured out what had happened.

Callie had shadow manipulation, and the Dark Swamp use her very own shadows. She'd detected the attack and overriden it slightly. She couldn't use it against me or anything, but I was damn sure not going to catch her with it. Close combat would bring me within range of her Perception, which was strong enough to override my stealth, and the Dark Swamp was out.

I triggered Sucking Mud again, but followed it up with a gravity attack. Callie buckled, looking surprised as the crushing force of gravity started mashing her into the sand. She snarled, hands lashing out as a wave of shadow tore through the ground below her, pushing the Sucking Mud aside as she dropped into the hole. Sand wasn't hard to move for people our level, and I'd seen her do the underground thing before.

Without any hesitation, I triggered Eye of Revelation, just in time to see a dozen forms erupt from the ground and rush out in all directions. She'd used the time out of my sight to spam those damn clones. Unfortunately for her, my Eye of Revelation told me which ones were clones and which was real.

I dashed forward again, hoping that all the noise from the clones and exploding sand would keep her from detecting me once I got close enough. As I came in I bounced off the air with Ripple Running, spinning off into a switchback kick aimed right at her head. Her eyes widened as she picked up the sound and hit the ground, which was what I'd wanted. I stepped on air again, redirection myself as I used Touch of Tears and a tranq blow on my leg, slamming myself down on her back and triggering another gravity attack to pin her.

My fists slammed down on her coat, and the blunt force traveled through. It wouldn't have done anything, except Heavy Hands allowed partial armor piercing, which let the effect of the poison fire bypass her coat. Not completely, but enough that a few dozen blows made within a split second stacked enough of it up to hurt, and it combined with the similarly small percentage of the tranq poison that bypassed her coat.

She groaned, but kept her head, reacting with a shredding blitz of shadows aimed over her back where I was standing. I jumped straight up to avoid it, and stepped on air as I waited for the blades to retract. Then I triggered another gravity attack and smashed the same leg with another tranq attack down on her back again, missing as she rolled aside, expecting the attack.

I could have grabbed for her, but grappling was the worst possible decision when she was stronger than I was, even with the poison. So I just backed off. She staggered to her feet, looking unsteady, and I remembered the boost from Moonlit Night, which would have improved the amount of the poison that penetrated her defenses.

The rest of the fight was just wearing her down. Using my steam arrow to pick at her, mixing it with poison and tranq attacks. I used have my tranquilizer stockpile, but finally, she couldn't hold out any more and dropped to the sand, unconscious.

I let Moonlit Night fade, the fog rolling away, and walked over to her tiredly. This had been an intense fight, even with me having most of the momentum. I knelt down, dismissing the poison, and triggered a heal burst on her, patching up all of her wounds. As she woke up, I was somewhat worried about how she'd react, but she gave me that same big dazzling smile and I laughed. I picked her up in a princess carry and walked out my own entrance. She just rolled her eyes and leaned against me, and I felt grudging acceptance through the bond, now active again. Only three more rounds to go.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"You made me work for that one." I grunted as I slumped down on the couch. We hadn't talked much on the drive home. "I was worried a few times there. Your main stats are so much higher than mine. Can't believe you could see through my Moonlit Night. Even close range."

She shook her head. "Not see. Sight was gone. I was going off hearing. You almost got me with that. Some kind of Stealth element I'd guess? But you forgot that Stealth is about using Perception to erase all trace of yourself. Someone with a high enough Perception can overpower someone else's stealth. Even with nearly triple yours though, I could only pick you up when you got close."

I winced, pressing on my ribs. "Being able to read and react to every move was pretty impressive. Fighting me blind must have been tough, even with your Balam Skill. Honestly I'm shocked I even won with your advantages. I kept expecting to get pincushioned."

That got a laugh from Callie. "Honestly, you just have too many options. Especially with the new tricks, you were able to counter everything I tried. Several of those were new right? Stuff you've been working on during the tournament? I was on the back foot the whole time. I had no clue how to react."

"I guess that's the downside to us knowing each other's fighting style so well." I said with a shrug. "Changes are harder to keep up with." I massaged my side. "Though you made a damn good effort." I could have healed it up. Used a healing burst to fix things. But I didn't want to. I'd earned the bruises in that fight. Callie had earned them. Plus they were light and they would be gone by the time I woke up tomorrow, no use wasting a healing charge.

She sighed. "So, with that out of the way, I guess we can talk about the tournament now. If you want. The closer we get to the end the more likely you'll be fighting Mel or Abel. What do you think your chances are?" I could see she didn't want to talk about her loss anymore, and was trying to move on to discussing the tourney like someone who was just a bystander. She couldn't give me tips, because while she was out, I wasn't, and we still had an agreement with the others, but getting my opinion on it wasn't too much of a problem.

"Honestly." I said with a frown. "Not great. I have some more options for possible upgrades, and I might be able to take Mel if I prepare for it right, but I have no clue which one I'll face, if either. As for Abel...I'll do what I can. I'm not sure I can beat him, but at this point, even if I can't, that still means someone from our team will probably enter the finals. That's enough for me."

Not that I wasn't going to give my all to beat Abel, but I just...couldn't think of anything that would get it done. He was too strong. Too versatile. Too...Abel. If he did beat me though, I was going to make him work for it. I wouldn't be just another crushed enemy. He was going to remember our fight, even if he won the whole damn tournament.

The chances of me fighting him next round weren't high though. Statistically, running into two teammates in as many battles wasn't exactly likely. Knowing that she still needed time to process, and that being under foot wasn't helping, I took off my mask and leaned down to press a kiss to Callie's forehead. "I have to go check in with Benny about today's wishes. Especially since SOMEBODY needed half my stockpile of tranq blows to take down."

That got a smug grin from my girlfriend. "Well, you didn't think it would be easy did you?" Rolling my eyes, I headed off to find my best friend, but internally, I was happy to know she wasn't too upset. She'd put up a hell of a fight. It had taken me finally utilizing my stockpile of Skills to their utmost to have a chance at winning. If nothing else, Heavy Hands had been a hell of a weight on the scales. The passive ability was the only way I'd managed to do anything with her armor in the way.

Honestly, the way that worked out in combination with my other abilities was amazing. The augmentation from Moonlit Night boosted the force enough that even ten percent of it could have a real effect, and I hadn't even used Mercy kill during this fight. Or Afterburner. I'd be keeping those in reserve for dealing with Abel.

When I found Benny, he was sitting in the kitchen eating cereal. He gave me a mute nod as I came in, shoving another spoon full of sugar coated corn flakes into his mouth and chewing. I always thought it was funny seeing Benny eat while tired. It was so...bovine. Staring off into the distance, jaw moving in a circular motion as his teeth ground up the food, the sound of it like a metronome. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"Stop comparing me to a cow." He said without looking up, mouth full. I grinned, about to ask why he thought that, but he cut me off. "You always do it when I eat tired. I'm not in the mood this morning. So tell me how your match went or get with the wishes. Either way, shut up about my breakfast."

I scoffed. "Buzzkill. But fine. I won. It wasn't easy though. My match was against Callie." He stopped chewing, swallowing his food as he looked at me sharply.

"You ok?" He asked slowly. I smiled at the fact that he knew me well enough to ask, but...I was. I hadn't expected it myself, but Callie and I were in a good place. This hadn't hurt us. My smile must have made that obvious, because he nodded. "Good. Could have got messy."

I know he doesn't want to talk about this, because it reminds him too much of his own situation, so I change the subject. "Well, if it helps, I need another five stored tranq blows. Callie didn't go down without a fight, and I blew through half my stockpile. That's today's wishes paid up if you want to get them out of the way. It's a Focus day today, right?"

He chuckled. "They're even so either works, but sure, Focus is usually first on the rotation. I wish for four Focus, in exchange for a triple strength tranquilizer attack."

Wish detected. Grant wish? Confirming, I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder, ignoring the list of necessary stats because I'd seen it dozens of times. A growing charge of electricity broke over me and poured into my friend, our eyes both glowing purple, though I could only actually see his.

I couldn't help think back to that first wish all those months ago, for a steak dinner in a park. This used to be so difficult for me. The effects of the power drained me every time I used them, and it felt insane doing it. Now...big wishes still hit me hard, but stuff like this didn't even wind me. A side effect of having such a high Vitality probably. Benny wished for his next four wishes, topping up my tranq blows again as he got the last of his twenty points of Focus for the day.

Two hundred and sixty three Focus, and six hundred and forty three total stat points. Not bad for someone who had hit G-rank so recently. At this rate, I'd just barely manage to get he and Jessie both to F-rank before we left. My healer friend was stockpiling cash for it as we spoke, so when I finished up with Benny I'd have a nice influx of money and I could buy a much nicer weapon before we actually left.

Once that was done, Benny slumped back with a sigh. "Man. That never stops feeling weird, you know? Not the wish itself, though...that too. But the sensation of just being...different, one moment to the next. Twenty points in a minute or two is just nuts, as I'm sure you remember. Like, yeah it's a smaller percentage now, but having my brain work that much faster and better out of nowhere is still jarring."

I nodded. "Yeah, the huge stat dump after the scavenger hunt was nuts. Glad we don't need to go through that again anytime soon. Even big events in the future won't hit us as hard without that insane ratio." I paused. "Does it ever bother you?" He looked at me quizzically. "The feeling that this eating away to who we are. I don't think it ever bothered me really, I wasn't too attached to my humanity. But I've always been a bit weird that way. Looking back I think I might have been raised with that disassociated view on purpose. But you..."

He shrugged. "Maybe? A bit. The idea of something external changing me like that was certainly weird for a while. But in the end...it's for the better right? Like I can mark notable improvements as my stats go up. Sure, I'm changing, but so is everyone else. I'm not becoming another person, just...more of myself. Recursion makes it a bit worrying, but in the end, don't we all change because of the world around us? It's a bit more literal for you and me, but it's not like not becoming an Ascendant will mean I get to freeze the person I was in time forever and never be anyone different."

"True." I said, slumping back on the couch as I mulled things over. "I guess for me, it just never mattered in the first place. My sense of self has always been a bit weird. Physical alterations, mental ones, none of it feels like it's changing me. Just making me into the person I want to become. I guess it's the same thing in the end. More of myself. That's a good way to put it."

"What about Callie?" He asked quietly. "Do you feel like your relationship with her is changing who you are? Making you different in a way the stats aren't?"

I could tell the question meant a lot to him. "Of course." I said immediately. He seemed...thrown. "I'm different because I'm with her. But like you said, everything changes us. The changes from being with her are ones I like. Is this about your recent training mindset?"

He'd been very focused, and while a lot of that was us being gone and him worrying, at least some of it had been inspired by Celine. "Yeah." He said quietly. "It is. How much of that was because of her? Do I want to undo that? Does NOT wanting to undo it mean I want her back?"

"Nope." I said. He looked up in surprise. "It doesn't. I'm not saying you don't want her back, or that you shouldn't, that's not my call. But even if she inspired the changes in you that doesn't mean that she's necessary for them to stay. We're all made up of nothing but constant changes. The people in our lives, both the ones who stay and the ones we leave behind, are the most of those changes. They don't go away, even when the people do."

His eyes cleared, the haze of doubt I hadn't even really registered lifting. "Yeah." He said pensively. "You're right. That's a good way to look at it." He shook his head. "I'm dwelling on this too much. Let's go watch something stupid on the scan box. I want to decompress."

I nodded, clapping him on the shoulder. "Of course. There's a new reality show where they make people with poor balance try to walk down a long beam with a wedding cake as a hat. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds just stupid enough to numb our brains for a while." Benny laughed as we headed for the living room. He'd given me a lot to think about, but that was for another time. For now, I just wanted to be dumb with my best friend.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next three days passed relatively quickly. While fighting on the first day of each bracket was a pain because I had to be one of the first in the round, and there were many more powerful opponents for me to draw, it was also a benefit because I got the full four days off for each round.

For the eleventh round it would be another four days, though there would only be one fight per day instead of two, though there would only be two days off before round twelve. Over the last few days I'd gotten another fifteen G-ranked chits from Benny in exchange for twenty Might and forty Focus, meaning my friend had broken the three hundred mark for Focus and the seven hundred mark for total points.

I still needed to upgrade Earthseeking and Sucking Mud, and was having trouble coming up with a good combination for either of them. While I could just upgrade them normally without synergizing, now that I'd realized how to make this Skill stronger I was loathe to leave power on the table. I couldn't be sure, but I had a decent guess that this process was similar to how my Wish ability had been created. Maybe not exactly the same, but I was betting the resulting power when I got DS Mastery to the peak would be absolutely amazing.

Despite not having any real ideas for my last two skill upgrades, I was relatively happy with the results so far. Which meant I was in a pretty good mood that was completely ruined when I left the training room to find an agitatedly pacing Benny. When he saw me, he let out a sigh of relief and rushed forward to shove his hand in my face.

"I don't know if anyone told you." I said dryly. "But that 'talk to the hand' thing went out of style years ago. I hear these kinds of trends are cyclical though, so maybe you can bring it back if you try hard enough." I smirked at him, but the expression melted into concern when I saw his face remain twisted in worry. "What's wrong?"

He seemed to realize that he wasn't being clear, and spun up his scan ring, shifting it from the normal dormant mode to the screen. As he did that, I realized that the ring had been what he was showing me. Texts circled the band when it was dormant. Once he had the display up though, I was able to more easily read the message from Celine. 'Things are going wrong, get somewhere safe. I love you.'

"Well that's...ominous." I said as my stomach began to tighten with sympathetic anxiety. "Did you call her back?" I knew he had, but I had to make sure. He wasn't in a good place right now, so overlooking options wasn't beyond the realm of possibility.

He ran a hair through his messy brown hair. "Yes. Obviously. Nothing. I tried six times and got no answer." He started pacing again. "What the hell, man? What's going on? Celine isn't in the tournament herself. Did one of the other factions jump her? Is this a trap? Do I care?"

It said a lot about how far Benny had come that the idea of this being a trap occurred to him. But it didn't feel right to me. Celine had been trying to make amends, even put herself in a bad situation with her family to do it. A trap just felt out of place, which just left some kind of attack...which wasn't much better.

"Come on." I said to my friend, grabbing his shoulders to stop him in place. "We need to go talk to Callie and the others. We'll figure out what to do as a team, ok?"

His eyes were shimmering with fear as he looked back at me, and it tore me up to see the panic and agony in his expression. "What if..." His voice broke. "What if she's dead? What if the last thing I ever said to her was that it was her fault I couldn't trust anyone? What if she's lying somewhere in a ditch with no head like those sleepers Aiden killed down in G-district." He was shaking, and voicing that possibility seemed to be too much for him, he blurred down the hall, smashing open the door to the bathroom.

I could hear him puking from where I stood, and honestly I didn't blame him. That had been gruesome, and I tried not to think about it, but the idea that one of those bodies could be someone I knew. Just imagining Callie's head exploding like that made me want to vomit myself.

Following him into the bathroom, I ran the sink and then passed him a cup of water to rinse out his mouth. he swished and spat, then downed the rest of it, eyes still vacant and breathing shallow. That...that wasn't just fear. That was a panic attack. Which made sense in this situation, but told me that some of what we'd been through affected Benny more than he liked to let on.

I clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey." I said, getting his attention. "She'll be fine. I can feel it. She texted you. That's not something people can do easily from captivity. She's probably on the run. Let's go check with the others and make a plan and we can find her and help her. Don't forget we have Rime around, she goes where we go. Whoever is after her, if anyone still is, will be in for a rude awakening."

He swallowed hard, but seemed to cling to my words. "On the run. Right. We can help." He grabbed a bottle of mouth wash and swished a few times, so no one would be able to tell he'd just puked his guts out, and I stepped out of the bathroom while he washed his face with cold water and tried to breathe for a bit.

After he was stable, we headed to the living room to loop in Callie, Abel, Mel, and Rime. Cass and Cark were out at the park...thankfully. I didn't want to explain to the little girl what was going on. After Callie heard everything that we knew, she grimaced. "That...that's bad." She bit her lip, gnawing at it in a way I only saw her do when she was really nervous. "This could be a trap. And even if it isn't...I'm not sure I can risk us for Celine after what she did."

Benny looked ready to attack her. "What she did? You mean when she leaked our next opponent to us so you could prepare for your match? Or when she helped us learn about information gathering at the academy, compromising her own advantage so we could get access to information." Callie looked at him sadly, and he closed his eyes, taking a long, slow breath. "Look. I'm sorry. I get it. This is risky. I can't ask you to put yourself in danger."

He turned to walk away and Callie stood up, grabbing his arm. "Oh stop being a drama queen." She huffed. "I'm not letting you run off to do this by yourself. And you aren't wrong. Celine helped us plenty of times. We might have died during Aiden's siege if it wasn't for her. If it means that much to you...we can help."

My friend's relieved smile was cut off as she shoved a finger in his face, continuing. "But." She said sharply. "If we're doing this, you need to listen to my orders. You're way too emotional right now. We can help her, but the person doing it needs to be making smart calls. You have to follow the chain of command here. If you don't, then I'm going to have Abel knock you out and lock you in a room, no matter how much you hate me for it. I'm not letting you get yourself or any of the rest of us killed."

Benny looked uncertain, but finally, he sighed and nodded. "Ok." He said dully. "I can agree to that. But you need to help me. Help her. Do SOMETHING. Because if that was one long way of telling me to sit tight and wait it out or something you can fuck right off."

She smiled wryly, she turned to Rime. "I need you to get in touch with Frostbite. Find out what's going on. No way there was an attack at the academy or even in the city proper involving an active diplomatic attache and she doesn't know about it. We need to know what's happening and where before we can decide our next move."

The blue haired F-ranker nodded. "Seems like a good start. I'll need somewhere private to reach out? You have any quiet rooms I can use? My scan ring is untraceable but she isn't a fan of being overheard."

Jessie stood up. "I know a place. This eyesore is bigger than you can imagine, and I wander around here sometimes. I still don't know why we can't paint the place, but either way, there's a room I have in mind." She waves the ice user after her, stopping before she leaves to grab Benny in a bonecrushing hug. As my friend grunted in discomfort, she buried her face in his shoulder. "She's gonna be ok, Ben. Just have faith."

He smiled tensely down at her, resting a hand on her head, and then she let him go and headed off with Rime. Callie, still in the zone, turned to Abel and Mel. "I need you two to reach out to the Magnificent Fable Forest. They're the only real connection we have to Celine's faction, and are the best bet for getting information from anyone we actually know."

They two of them nodded, and I wasn't sure how they would manage it, because we didn't get a number from them, but they didn't seem worried. They just headed out of the room, presumably to start getting in touch with some of their own contacts to try to find a lead. Callie turned to Benny. "Did you call Sarah or Martin?"

My friend looked stunned for a second, but then shook his head. Callie nodded understandingly. "Alright, well that'll be your next move. Reach out to her team, see if they know anything. Once we've heard back from all our sources we'll head for the Academy."

"What?" Benny snapped. "Why the hell wouldn't we leave now? She could be in danger, or hurt, or even dying!"

"Which." My girlfriend said calmly. "Is why we wait. The Academy is a protected and secure place. While it's possible she might be there, the chances of her being under threat while she's that defended are low. Which means if we head there, we might be moving further away from where she actually is, and not find out until we're already there. So yes, we sit tight, and once we know more we decide what to do."

Benny deflated, but he seemed to accept her explanation, slumping down on the couch like the bones had gone out of him, and staring worriedly off into the distance, completely oblivious to anything else but the storm of pain and fear I was sure was in his chest.

It was funny. If it had been any other situation I might have pointed out that they were fighting, that he was angry at her, or a dozen other things. But now...it didn't matter. Because seeing him like that the best answer to any question I could ask about how he felt, or any question he could ask either. He would forgive her, I knew he would. I just hoped to the gods that his forgiveness would still be possible. Because if it wasn't, I was pretty sure he wouldn't be extending that same mercy to himself.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Rime came through. Or rather, Frostbite did. Upon receiving the call, our ally combed through the local information sources and got us a location for a recent fight matching the parameters we gave her. She wasn't able to actually locate Celine, but she told us where the elf girl HAD been, and that would be more than enough for me. Eye of Revelation would let me track her if I had a place to start.

Just as she said, Callie wasn't pulling punches either. Aside from Rime, she also called her uncle to ask him to lend us The Four, and with Randall thrown in that gave us SIX F-rankers. Which was good, because when we arrived at the address we'd been given...there was a lot of damage. Like, someone blew up the house levels of damage, except instead of craters and ash, there were mostly trees.

Branches and roots had torn the place apart, and I saw the twisted forms of huge tree golems, though the ones around the house were dead and partially rotted away. "Um..." I looked at Jessie, who was currently sitting on Randall's back, her F-ranked green cloak drawn around her for protection. "Can Celine do this? Because I feel like I'd have noticed."

Benny shook his head from my other side. "No. Cel is more on the political side of things. A lot of her Skills are aimed at reading tells and remaining composed, she does have some nature manipulation stuff, but it's all either small scale or very slow. This...this is not slow." He looked at Jessie. "Could you do this? Even just in terms of growth rate? I know that you can't really control plants like this given the direction your power has gone."

She shook her head. "This isn't G-rank plant manipulation. I don't know if it's closer to F or E, but this kind of power is way beyond what I can do within any reasonable period of time. But that's not what's bothering me...there isn't any life in these plants. At least, not much. It seems like whatever killed the golems sucked it out maybe? Or the plants tried to defend themselves. The plant user wasn't the only powerful person here."

That gave me an idea of what we were dealing with, and it wasn't one I liked. I walked up to the nearest damaged section of tree and used Eye of Revelation. Under the view of my new gaze I could see a few clues I hadn't before. Specifically enough to confirm my guess. "Cultists." I spat. "This was Black Sorrow. Pietro used something like this. Some weird kind of conceptual darkness that twists the world around it."

Callie made an angry noise. "I remember. You think it's something like Fist of the Red Revenant? That stuff creeped me out, but there's no way someone like Pietro could be a direct descendant of Black Sorrow. Not if his dad is only D-rank. Now that I know you can create Skills like that...maybe he mixed his with a shadow power? Doesn't matter. This is a lead. We just need to find them now."

She was right. If Celine was being chased by cultists, we needed to help. "The question is, where do I start?" I asked sheepishly. "The plant stuff isn't Celine, so I can't use it to track her. I can only track over short distances, so I need a location to begin my search." Twenty feet wasn't a short distance in battle, but for tracking, it seriously limited my options.

"Here." Said Benny from off the side. I turned to find my friend kneeling next to one of the trees, pointing to something I couldn't see. "This is an earring I gave her. I have a matching ring that heats up a little when it gets close. I bought it for her as a joke, because she told me she didn't like surprises. I figured she'd like it, since she'd always know I was coming. I...I'm surprised she's still wearing them."

That was a surprisingly touching story, and it made me realize that Benny and Celine probably had a lot of those. Just because I only saw them around each other for a little bit didn't mean they didn't have a whole relationship that none of us were aware of. This was the first real clue to exactly how much my friend had been mourning, and despite having no option to learn more without him telling me, I felt bad that I hadn't understood how much Celine meant to him.

Well, the only way to fix that would be to help find her. I approached the earring, which Benny was smart enough not to pick up, and flexed Eye of Revelation again. The earring glowed a soft green, and beside it, a set of foot prints shone the exact same shade. "Got her. I can't really see who might have been with her or following her, but I can tell you which way she went."

I started to track her. The residential area around us was shockingly quiet and unruffled for a place with a giant tree tearing apart one of its locations. I ignored it all though, following the foot steps behind the house and past a small lake to a strip of woods. "I think this was a safehouse or something." I said as we entered the trees. "No way the cultists are stupid enough to bring them somewhere this close to the woods. The elves had to have picked this spot."

Callie made a noise of agreement. "That was my guess too. Based on the amount of power thrown around, I think this might have been where Celine's sister Nalia was staying. Which means the cultist around here is at least E-rank. Which is...less than ideal."

I could try to get in the way of whoever it was, but if they attacked anyone but me we were screwed. Still, the E-rankers seemed to be gone at least. I made sure to take the lead anyway. For one thing I was tracking so I kind of had to, but for another if some E-rank asshole was waiting in the wings to attack I'd be the one to get tagged.

We followed the footsteps into the trees, then down a narrow gully, and through a stream. As we crossed the river the footprints got REALLY faint, and almost flickered out, but I managed to keep with them by slowing down and shrinking the radius of my Eye of Revelation.

I hadn't had much chance to train this one in the field, and the knowledge that I could condense the twenty foot radius to increase effect was damn helpful. It was also a minor change in the skill, which meant my soul was barely taxed by keeping it up. Something that would be necessary on long tracking missions if that became necessary.

"This is weird." I murmured, using the bond to tap into Callie's Stealth Skill to keep my voice from carrying. I still had stored charges of Stealth too, but it didn't seem smart to use them when I had other options. "The tracks are fading out. I'm keeping up, but I can't really figure out why they would be doing that."

"Because." Said a pained voice from up ahead. "I was trying to make them disappear as I left them." We all looked up to see Celine propped up against a tree, hand on her side, and blood leaking between her fingers. She had a black eye and her hair was matted to her scalp with dark fluid on one side. The biggest problem though, would have to be her other hand. The flesh was black, like she'd been frostbitten, and it hung limply off to one side.

"Cel!" Shouted Benny, practically blurring across the space between them. It was jarring to realize that his Might was way higher than mine because of his specialization, something I knew but hadn't internalized really. He stopped just short of grabbing her, looking on anxiously. "Are you alright? What happened?" He looked over his shoulder. "Agria, can you come help patch her up?"

Jessie hopped down from the bear, zipping over to lay glowing green hands on the elf. She winced. "These were made by an F-ranker. This will take a while, Celine, sorry."

The elf shook her head mutely, sighing in relief after a minute. "No." She said with a hoarse voice. "It's more than enough. Thanks. Nalia and her guards drew most of them off. The F-ranker that was left behind was extremely injured. I was barely able to finish him off."

Reaching down to touch the blackened arm, Jessie winced. "This...I can't fix this." Benny's head snapped up. "This isn't damage, it's some kind of persistent effect. Like a curse or something. If it was damaged or even dead I could probably do something about it with enough time, but whatever the force that made this wound is, it's still active, and it's not something I can work against directly."

Celine chuckled. "It's fine. The wound in my side is already feeling much better. I can find a solution to the arm later. We need to get out of the open. There's a cave near here. I've been slipping out to watch for reinforcements, trying to use my Woodcraft Skill to stay out of sight. It's only at Beginner, but my Perception is relatively high." She shot me a wry look. "Though apparently it isn't useful on whatever it is Solomon was doing."

I just shrugged. "I don't play by the rules. It's a character defect." Dropping the joking tone, I frowned at her worriedly as Benny and Jessie helped her stand up. Jessie needed to keep a hand on her to heal, and Benny was clearly reticent to let her out of his sight. "You sure you're going to be ok? That hole in your side looks nasty."

She just smiled. "I appreciate your concern. I admit it feels...nice, to know you all care." Her smile wilted as she looked at Benny. "I didn't...I didn't mean for you to come. I just wanted to say goodbye, and say..." Her cheeks darkened. "That." Benny's smile could have split his face in two, it was so wide.

"Of course I came." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I love you too." He hesitated, before saying quietly. "I'm not saying we're good. You really hurt me. I'm not over that. But...it's less important right now than making sure you're safe. We can work on things later. If you still want to."

Leaning her head against him, she nodded, her smile still in place, though quieter and filled with pain. We got into the cave and helped her sit down so Jessie could have better access, and I stepped up to use a combo heal and scan heal. Jessie's ability (being the source of my heal burst) was much more powerful, but scan heal could help target injuries better, and might even be able to do something about her arm.

Sadly, that didn't turn out to be the case. When I apologized she waved me off again. Benny looked concerned, but Jessie had an idea how to help her. She said she needed to check in on a few things but she knew someone whose ability could help. Actually apparently we did too, though with everything happening I couldn't think of who.

"Alright." Said Callie after we'd mostly gotten Celine patched up. "As glad as we are all to see you ok, we need to know what happened. Who did this?" We had a general idea, but we needed confirmation.

Sure enough, Celine immediately responded. "The Black Sorrow Cult. They snuck many more people onto this planet than we expected. They lured me here with a fake information leak and showed up in force, three E-rankers and ten F-rankers. Nalia stalled the other E-rankers, my sister has always been the most martially inclined member of our family, but there were just so many..." She trailed off. "I don't think this was an isolated attack. If they hit us, they probably hit the other factions." I was already sprinting out of the cave for a signal, calling Natalie. If they had F-rankers in those numbers she was in danger even with her guardian. I just hoped my cousin was ok.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I hadn't visited the location where my cousin and her guards were living. With the tournament ongoing and my team's deal not to seek outside help, it seemed smart to minimize contact, but I had at least gotten an address from her in one of our conversations, so I was able to direct Jessie to the location. Lucky the expanded space came with a possible expanded entrance, or we'd never have fit Randall in the car.

When we arrived at the rented house (Natalie had been in a hotel for a while but had moved into semi-permanent lodging a while after confirming my team's strength in the first round, since between us we had a decent chance to make it all the way.

I grimaced as I looked up at the house. It was dark and silent, but looking close I could see a few issues. The lock on the door was snapped and it hung slightly ajar, some of the windows were cracked. I tried calling again. No response. Shit. I turned to Callie, who was standing close, offering support silently with her presence and through our bond. "Someone's been here. But it seems weird there wouldn't be more mess. Nat is a candidate. She's not going to go down easy."

There was a loud crack behind us, and we all spun to stare at Jessie, or rather, Randall, whose back she was on, who had stepped on a curbside bench and smashed it to kindling by accident. We all glared, and she just shrugged, saying in a soft tone. "Well, he's a bear. They aren't made to be stealthy."

Rolling my eyes, I turned back to the house, my tension pretty much shattered. I was still worried, but it's hard to feel stifled by the gravitas of a situation when you're walking around with a big clumsy teddy bear on your team. I looked at Callie. "Do The Four have a higher Perception than you? I know of the G-rankers present you're our best stealth agent, but I don't really know what they can do."

She glanced at them questioningly and when one of them nodded she pointed to him. "That one does, apparently." At my snicker, she just shrugged. "What? It's not like I lunch with them. When would I even have the time, we're together almost any time I'm not working or training. They're acquaintances through my uncle." She turned to the indistinguishable-from-their-sibling hooded figure. "Check the house, report back if you run into anything we need to know about, and be careful in there."

The only real upside to this was that we knew there was no one over F-rank inside. With Rime and the rest of our crew along there was very little chance they'd be able to overpower us. I hoped. No matter how many times I repeated that to myself a part of me was pretty terrified we were kicking an anthill and about to be ass deep in F-rankers we couldn't beat. Speaking of which, I looked at Rime. "Is Frostbite coming to meet us here?"

I'd asked her to tell our ally we needed her on hand after we found Celine, since the other team had a decent chunk of people on hand. The blue haired ice user nodded. "She's on her way. This isn't exactly a central location, which I imagine is the point."

That was the best we could ask for. Callie, hearing the confirmation, dispatched whichever of the The Four had been pointed out, and one of the figures vanished. I'd seen them use that trick in the fight with the mercenaries, but I wasn't sure how much of that was taking advantage of lapsed attention. This time they just blinked out of existence right in front of me, and I recognized that they'd used Perception to erase all traces of themselves from my sight.

The door to the inside shook slightly as it creaked a smidgen more open, but it didn't make any sound or anything, and if I hadn't been looking right at it I'd have missed the motion. Callie put a hand on my arm. "She's fine, Shane." She said softly, her voice being run through Stealth to prevent it from carrying. "Your family is tough, and if her guardian is anything like yours, in the very unlikely circumstance that something happened to her, they'd have burned down half the planet in retribution."

I snickered at that, but it actually did make me feel better. If there was anyone I trusted to have my back it was Zeke, and remembering that Natalie had someone like that really helped. Not to mention her two guards, whose names I'd forgotten if I ever heard them. She had plenty of backup even without my team coming to help.

After two minutes the hooded form reappeared in front of us among the other three. The weirdest part was that somehow even knowing where there hadn't been one of them before, I somehow couldn't figure out WHICH of the figures had just appeared and which had been there for the entire time we'd been waiting. "The house is empty." Reported the F-ranker. Signs of a struggle. The inside is bigger than the out, and the fighting was mainly in the middle of the top floor, so none of it spilled over onto the exterior."

I cursed, stalking through the door, letting it bang open as I strode into the house. Near the exterior it looked like a nice normal house, but the further in I got, the more signs I saw of combat. Acid burns, fire, purple crystal and some strange blue glowing slime that had stuck at least two literal lightning bolts to the wall, suspending them harmlessly inside the gel in an extremely disturbing way.

I saw splatters of blood in a few places, none of them too big, so I was pretty sure no one bled out here, but in and of itself the fact that Nat and her people hadn't managed to kill any of their attackers was jarring. I also wasn't sure how they'd attacked this place. Was Nat's guardian not living with her like Zeke was with me? The whole loophole of protecting their own residence should have applied. Though maybe that was a liberty Zeke took with his contract to help as best he could.

Looking around, I shouted. "Hey, if Natalie's guardian is here I'd like to talk. It's not interference, I just want to confirm a few things. Even if you aren't living here you should be keeping an eye out right?" My voice carried into the depths of the empty house, but I got no response.

Callie shook her head. "They probably followed Natalie. We need to figure out where she went. What about your tracking skill? You have a starting point here, so you can follow her trail right?"

That...was a good idea. I should have thought of that. I was off my game. My stomach roiled and my chest was tight. I had exactly one biological family member who I was aware of in this entire damn star cluster, and she was on the run from insane cultists who had tried to kill me multiple times. Nat and I weren't close, we barely knew each other, but what she represented...a member of my family I could talk to. Could learn about.

"Shane." Snapped Callie, and my head came up, I'd been standing still for a minute, lost in my panic. Callie knew about my tendency to drift off, but she usually left me to my thoughts. This time she was looking at me sternly. "I know. Ok? I know how scary this is. How confused you are. I can FEEL it, and it breaks my heart. But if you spiral and let her die it's going to break YOUR heart, and that will hurt me a million times more. I need you to focus up. Ok?"

I took a long, deep breath. "Yeah. Yeah I'm good. Thanks Cal. I'm ok." I turned to the destroyed room and triggered Eye of Revelation. There was...a lot. Footprints, all over, some of the attacks were glowing, showing me they'd been Nat's, and I had to stop for a second, not because I didn't have a trail, but because I had like seventeen of them. Nat had lived here, there were traces of her everywhere.

It took me a few minutes to sift through the traces, figuring out how the passage of time effected them, and using that to date the most recent trail. Once I got it, I set off down the hall, following several passages back further into the house. We stopped in the kitchen, and everyone looked at me quizically, until I reached up and put a hand on the refrigerator and shoved to one side.

The large metal machine slid aside easily, smashing into the wall because I was way too strong to do something like that without paying attention. Behind it was a small closet full of cleaning supplies, and I stomped down on the floor of that closet, crumpling a well hidden trapped door that led down into a cement passageway.

It was a huge relief that they'd managed to rehide this place behind them, but the blood smeared across the cement as we climbed down the metal ladder into the tunnel was...less encouraging. It wasn't enough that I was sure someone was dead, but it wasn't a little bit either. Handprints on the wall showed where someone had tried to hold themselves up, and the prints were lower to the ground and smaller than they would be from a man or even a reasonably tall woman. Natalie was small like that.

Callie stepped up next to me as she came down the ladder. "This keeps going. And it's not a huge amount." She squeezed my arm. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but this is a good sign. I sent Jessie with Rime to take Randall around the back of the house to look around. Mel went back to let them know which direction the tunnel is going, so they know which way to head."

I nodded silently, not trusting myself to speak right now. I was...angry. Irrationally pissed off at everything. This was taking too long, my cousin was hurt, possibly dying and I couldn't help and everything was getting in my way and I just wanted to punch something and throw up and possibly strangle a cult member. The cocktail of unpleasant emotions and feeling was not helping myself control at all.

Callie just smiled at me reassuringly and then set off down the tunnel. She could feel what I was, and she knew I needed a minute to clear my head. But I also needed to keep moving, so once they pulled ahead I followed after. The tunnel went on for an unusually long time, the blood smears getting more and more fresh as well as having less blood on them, which I took as a good sign.

About three quarters of the way down we started hearing noises and feeling shaking. We reached the end of the tunnel and opened up a hatch at the top of a ladder, pushing aside a bunch of leaves to reveal our place at the edge of a massive clearing. In the center of that clearing, glaring at a series of hooded figures, was Nat and her two guards.

One of them was cracking whips made of blue gelatinous material like the stuff from the house. There were dozens of types of energy caught along the whips, and the taller hooded figure, whose face had been revealed as a red bearded giant of a man with a shaved head, was bringing them down to ward off the other forms.

The smaller hooded figure, who turned out to be a strong looking blonde girl with her hair in a pair of braids, had a huge axe coated in green smoke that she was lashing out with in short, sharp chops.

Surrounding them was a huge construct made of some kind of red energy in the shape of a wall of briars, and I could see that while it was F-rank, some of the cultists were hard at work tearing through it. Off in the distance, I could see Jessie on Randall's back with Rime bringing up the rear. Without even waiting, I dropped to my knees to condense my poison lava fists. I needed to help.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

State of Grace flowed through me as I dropped to a knee, planting my hands on the ground to trigger my usual magma limb and introduce poison into the mix. I was about to charge forward to help, but a hand caught my shoulder. I turned to see Abel frowning at me. "No." He said bluntly.

"What do you mean, no? My cousin is fighting for her life here!" I tried to shake him off, but even boosted, his Might was much higher, his hand remained locked around me, and probably would unless I took a swing.

He pointed at the red wall of briars. "No. She isn't. She's under a defensive enchantment or something. It's holding, even if her guards seem to be dipping out of it to engage. We aren't rushed, ad much as it feel like it. You need to wait for the others to engage first. A crowd of F-rankers mainly focused on you would be fatal. Once Rime and Randall arrive we can engage with our full forces."

He sounded...weird. Serious and efficient. I'd seen him pissed, seen him casual, but Abel when he was operating in a serious manner was weird to me. It was jarring enough to make me stop and think. With the red barrier still up, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Sadly, just because I agreed to wait, didn't mean the figures would. We'd been noticed, and while most of them stuck with trying to chip through the red barrier and take pot shots at the guards when they made a move, two of the F-rankers turned and started heading toward us.

"It's him." Said the muffled voice of one of the figures. "He killed Pietro. But not just Pietro. Can we fight someone who killed an E-ranker?"

The other shook their head, both of their black fathomless hoods pointed at me, not bothering to keep it down. "He's like the girl, another of the wish spawn. His protection doesn't cover us, as hers doesn't cover us." He looked over a shoulder as the others arrived, The Four, Randall, Rime, all hitting the crowd of F-rankers. There were more than six of them, seven in fact, not counting these two, but Rime engaged two of them so I wasn't worried.

I WAS worried about being up against a pair of F-rankers, even admittedly weak ones, with just a group of G-rank backup. I felt Callie step up next to me. With Mel, Rime, The Four, Jessie, and Randall on the other side of the clearing it was just me, Benny, Celine, Callie, and Abel over here. I considered using Moonlit Night, but it would hamstring my allies, so I stuck with my current boosts.

As they drew closer, I got more and more angry, my hands almost shaking. These fucking lunatics. Attack my family, kidnap children, try to murder my loved ones, they just wouldn't stop. Just wouldn't give up. Why couldn't they just leave us alone? They were fucking poison, a toxic rot pervading the whole planet.

I stalked forward, yanking my arm from the grip of a distracted Abel, and strode toward them. The closest figure, the weaker one, chuckled softly under their robe, and flicked a finger casually. A dozen spears of bone erupted from the ground, and I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him. He was already turning lazily to meet me, which was when I triggered Steam Arrow. Buffed with touch of tears, consecration of flame, and Mercy Kill, and with my speed enhanced by State of Grace, the arrow of boiling, now toxic liquid smashed into his face.

Despite the hood, there must have been no face covering, because the figure reared back with a roar. Or maybe there was, but Heavy Hands pierced some of the defenses, either way, the hood fell back, revealing an olive skinned girl with close cropped hair, one side of her head shaved.

Her face was being chewed away by acidic boiling steam, though it was already starting to heal, her eyes had been right in front of me. I thanked the gods that Steam Arrow worked through my mask since despite the spitting motion if condensed right in front of my face, and then triggered another. She screamed, clawing at her face, and I took a second to look to the other one as I felt Callie appear behind the girl whose face I'd spat in and slam a leg into the back of her knees.

The other one was pretty distracted. Mel had circled around with her flame movement and joined Abel in assaulting the second figure, whose cloak had shredded to reveal a tall bald man with glowing veins covering his unnaturally distended body. He was trying to punch holes in Abel, who was never where the man thought he was, and was tanking a ton of very scary blows.

Deciding that wasn't something to worry about I dipped down and triggered Sucking Mud, along with a shadow attack, activating the Dark Swamp. The tendrils lashed out to grip bone girl, starting to drag her down, but she had gotten past the pain, even if the poison was slowing her healing. She screamed, and the ground around her was ripped to shreds by a torrent of dark bones.

Each bone was gleaming with a black sheen, like they were coated in oil, and they split apart the Dark Swamp with sheer numbers, displacing all the earth within that ten foot radius. Callie lashed out with a hand and a palm of shadow smacked me aside as a grasping claw of black bone formed from the spikes and tried to grab me. Apparently we now warranted being taken seriously.

Making sure Benny, Mel, and Abel were out of range, I used Moonlit Night, shrouding the area nearby in fog. I felt Callie reach through the bond and I let her connect to the skill, allowing her to see inside the fog like I did. She didn't get the boost to attacks that I did, but mobility in a fathomless fog bank imbued with stealth was a hell of a useful advantage. I triggered Ripple Running, bouncing off three separate spaces to land next to her where she'd dodged the attack.

I grimaced as I saw the slash on her thigh, one of the bones had slipped between her leotard and boots and through the gap in her jacket. I put a hand on her shoulder and triggered a heal burst. "Alright." I grunted. "Really don't like her. Any ideas?" Inside the mist Stealth was all pervading, which meant we could talk openly without being overheard by a third party, though it was a trick that would only work with Callie due to our bond allowing her to bypass the concealment.

She scowled at the hooded form still climbing out of the hole left in the muck. "Not sure. That bone power is annoyingly versatile. Not sure if it has a range limit, but she seems to be able to use it in close proximity to herself as well as far away. I'm PRETTY sure she can't just pincushion the entire clearing, since she hasn't yet. But if we get close we need to put her down hard or she's going to ventilate us before she drops. Any chance the poison will take her down?"

"No." I growled. "And tranqing is out too. My tranq attacks aren't strong enough to take down an F-ranker, even with poison as a carrier, without some serious damage to soften them up and compromise their healing factor. Kind of wishing Benny kept that big ass hammer. Any chance the shadow dragon might be able to get things done? We could have it attack from the fog."

Shaking her head, Callie sighed as we watched the bone girl spin in circles trying to see anything. "No. The dragon is only as strong as the combined power of our skills. The shadows are G-ranked and my Might isn't high enough to hurt someone cross rank, and even with stone limb reinforcing it wouldn't bridge the gap. Maybe with a density shift and a few bonuses stacked up, but I'd have to support most of the soul weight myself since I'd be holding the construct. That's too much for me to handle."

I let out a frustrated huff. "Ok so we need a single powerful attack, something that can smash her defenses before she can react and spear us." I paused. "I've got nothing. I have a few single shot finishing blows but nothing that can cross ranks with any certainty. You don't either." I turned and strode out of the fog, Callie following as we left the hooded figure thrashing around. Once we were out I bellowed over to Abel. "Hey! Apollyon. We need a finishing blow for this F-ranker. Want to switch?"

Abel gracefully slid through space out of the way of a blow from the big guy before smashing a right cross into his jaw. "Can you guys take this one? He's mostly softened up but he's an ornery fucker, just won't stay down." The huge man was snarling in rage and hate, glowing green blood dripping from his malformed and battered face. Guess his blood was a carrier for whatever was boosting him.

I triggered Double Trouble, then dismissed and retriggered Moonlit Night, letting the fog disperse from around the bone girl and condense around the big guy. "Yeah, go ahead." I said before the fog closed around us. Abel had seen the direction needed and booked it out of the fog as soon as it come up, and I turned my attention to the big guy.

He was bruised and bleeding and seriously damaged. Abel had to have used that weird multi blow stacking ability to beat him this badly. My arms were still magma, and with the bonuses from State of Grace and Moonlit Night, Mercy Kill was able to boost me enough to take advantage of the tranq blows.

Since the tranquilizer punches were triple strength, all the power added up was enough to start to chip away at this guy, since his body was too busy healing his beating to use the Vitality to counter my poison. And so began the slow and steady process of beating the asshole into the dirt. Without the ability to see and with my own boosted speed, I was able to avoid him easily, especially with Eye of Revelation helping me predict his punches. I rabbit punched him with a tranq blow and then spent the rest of the time making sure the poison was dense enough to carry it.

It took about twenty minutes for me to finally finish driving the poison in, and once it was permeating most of his body and further compromising his healing, or at least counteracting it, I used another tranq blow to put him down. He'd been shaky on his feet for a few minutes, but another tranq punch to the temple finally dropped the bastard, and I let the fog fade as I stumbled over to slump down on the ground out of range if he somehow woke up.

Pointing at him, I groaned. "Restraints please." And left Callie to tie him up. It wouldn't hold if he was in peak form, but unconscious and horribly beaten he should be fine.

There was a thump and I looked over to see Abel toss the other cultist right next to him. "Her too." He didn't seem particularly winded, and while I'd have loved to take credit, I was pretty sure this was all him. Callie made her way over and started wrapping them in so many layers of chains if they did wake up they wouldn't be able to exert much force. Wouldn't hold them, but it was better than nothing.

As we turned to see the others finishing their fights, a hole opened in the red barrier, but no one came out. I smiled and hauled myself to my feet, trudging over to speak to my cousin. Guess I was supposed to come to her. Nice to know she was ok enough to be a pain in my ass still.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Nat was grinning at me as I entered the barrier, but I ignored that and yanked her into a tight hug. She eeped in surprise before tapping on my back. "Ribs." She wheezed. "Breaking." I flinched and pulled back, grabbing her by the shoulders to look her over for any injuries I hadn't apparently just caused.

"Are you ok?" I said frantically. Natalie just grinned at me, rubbing her ribs slightly as she chuckled at my panic. I flushed. "I mean like...other than possible rib fractures from me being an enthusiastic hugger."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm fine, Shane. I appreciate the backup by the way. Perit and Valk wouldn't have been near enough to handle this many F-rankers. They definitely came prepared for me." She shook my hands off her shoulders. "I appreciate the worry though cuz' it's sweet that you care so much. I kind of assumed we were just allies of convenience." Her smile became warmer. "You came to bail me out when you didn't have to. I won't forget it."

"Speaking of which." I said clearing my throat and looking around uncomfortably. "How the hell did they get this many people on world without being noticed? This wasn't the only attack, they jumped all the other factions too. How are they fielding these kinds of numbers and why didn't anyone know about it?" I had no real idea how to deal with being thanked like that by a family member, best to just move on.

Seemingly aware of how out of my depth I was, Nat chuckled and turned to look at the subdued F-rankers. "Neighboring system. I'm guessing they've been slipping people into the planet since the tournament was announced. Traffic among F and G-rankers is much less likely to be monitored than E-rank entry. Getting foot soldiers in would prove far less of a challenge. Not to mention alternate routes like smuggling. Still, this couldn't have been easy."

I growled with frustration. "But what's the point? I get wanting to win the tournament but this ridiculous shadow war between the factions seems like a huge overreaction. Why do any of this? It can't JUST be about the damn dungeon."

Nat laughed a bit louder, reaching over to pat me on the shoulder as she stared unblinkingly at the enemy. "Politics, little cousin. Politics. Don't think to much about it, if you understood it you wouldn't be sane enough to ask questions like that." She shot a side eye slyly at the rest of my team. "No offense to future cousin-in-law, of course." I heard a coughing sputter from Callie, and felt a surge of embarrassed shock through the bond.

Deciding to take pity on my girlfriend, I gestured to her backup. "So. You never did introduce me to your guards. I assume they're the beneficiaries of most of your wishes. Being able to hold off a crowd of F-rankers, even with that barrier to help, is no small feat. They must be boosted pretty hard."

That got a wide grin. "Yup. That's my crew. Perit and Valk. Most of us try to confine our direct subordinates to between two and five people. Single guardians work better if they're dramatically higher ranked, and anything past five means less than a wish a day at our rank. Two is considered a pretty safe amount. They can watch each other's backs. Though three is popular too, because it gives you the possibility of ranged support."

I considered my own mess of backup and grinned wryly behind my mask. I could see how that could get complicated. "So...what do they do? If it's cool to ask? Because I get that...Perit? If that's her name, uses an axe, and based on the cloud of green mist around it probably some kind of acid? But I'm drawing a blank about the blue stuff that guy is whipping around, other than some kind of power trap."

She paused for a second, thinking over the pros and cons, before nodding. "Yeah. Ok I'll tell you. As a sign of trust. Valk's ability is called Vector Gel. It's a sort spatiotemporal thickening. Think of it like suspending something in amber, but less rigid and more weird. When energy comes into contact with the gel it becomes stuck in it, only raw energy mind you, nothing with physical mass. It's an odd power, but he's managed to make it work for him."

I could see that. The whips were a brilliant use of a power like that. He could create a chain of effects and slam them into something over and over until the energy dissipated. Since the gel suspended energy, most of the attacks seemed to be stuck halfway, so there was some sticking out, though I wasn't sure what would happen if you just brought a completely ensconced attack down on a person. I knew they wouldn't stick, but did the gel just pass through them?

Abel seemed intrigued. I hadn't realized he was listening, probably because he was giving me space for me reunion, but he had no problem butting in to comment. "That's interesting. It's the closest power to my own I've seen in ages." He narrowed his eyes at Nat. "But you're all still in the tournament. Aren't you worried about Shane using that information against you in the arena?"

Natalie snickered. "No offense little cousin, but Valk is a monster. Just because you know what he can do doesn't mean you can stop it. I trust my guy to be able to take you on." She shot Abel a challenging smirk. "You or any of your little buddies. You've got a knack for this kind of thing, but you're still from a backwater. Valk has traveled the cluster with me. He can take anything you have to throw at him."

I wasn't offended. i had just as much faith in my own crew. It sounded like Valk was her version of Abel, though probably not as scary. That said I didn't want to fight him. Like at all. The big burly red bearded man had that same feeling of barely suppressed gleeful violence that my silver masked teammate gave off when he was excited and I wanted no part of it.

That wasn't important now though. What was important was my cousin's safety. "Ok, well you should come stay with us until you find a place." Admittedly I hadn't brought this up with anyone, but seeing Nat in so much danger worried me. The safest place around was my place. I wasn't sure why her guardian hadn't stepped in, but if they got attacked at my place I knew mine would.

Natalie, however, had no such understanding. "Shane. No." She said firmly. "I appreciate the worry, like I said, but I have my own guardian. She's a C-ranker. If she can't take care of me then neither can you and yours. This incident proves that guardians aren't there to protect us from threats at our own level. I'll take more precautions with my living arrangements next time."

"But my guardian is B-rank." I wheedled. I wasn't willing to sell Zeke out for helping, since if he wasn't supposed to then telling Nat was a bad idea, but claiming that the extra rank made him scary enough not to mess with would work fine. And it would give her a reason to stay somewhere safe.

To my surprise, Natalie's head snapped up. "See, I feel like I might have heard you say that before and brushed it off, because it's not possible. B-rankers are real powerhouses. They aren't at the level of branch clan founders obviously, but you can start a family of you own within a branch at B-rank. Having a Legendary ability is no small thing. No way a B-ranker agrees to play babysitter. Especially not for Elijah. He's not exactly popular."

I shrugged. "Couldn't say, but Zeke has known my dad since they were kids. They're best friends. From back in the day when dad was a candidate himself."

"Janus?" She said incredulously. "Your guardian is Janus? Fucking HOW? How do you get someone at that level to agree to vanish for decades and raise a kid. Because that's what happened based on what you're saying. No way he could reach A-rank in hiding like that. If he ever was at all. B to A is a qualitative leap. At that level the sheer number of stats you need becomes nearly unmanageable. Plus the...other requirements."

I wanted to ask about that, but it didn't seem like the time. "He asked nicely." I said flatly. "The point is my uncle is a scary guy, and you'd be safe staying with us. So will you please do it? With so few rounds left no way they aren't going to be getting desperate. It'll get worse before it gets better and you know it. I want to make sure everyone is safe, but especially you."

She just shook her head. "I'm sorry Shane. I get the intent, I do, and I appreciate it. I'd be more than happy to hang out sometime after the tournament, have some family time and just try to bond. But I'm not going to hole up in your place like a coward. Being a candidate requires a decent amount of discretion and sneakiness, but you need a backbone. If I hide behind you no one would respect me, and honestly I wouldn't respect myself."

I groaned in frustration, rubbing my temples. "This isn't about self respect Natalie, it's about your safety. You can't just-" I was cut off by a hand on my arm, and I turned to see Callie smiling up at me softly.

"It's her call Shane." She said quietly. "I know it sucks, but you can't force her." Her soft smile turned wry. "In my experience Wyndham family members are insufferable stubborn oxen who don't know what's good for them, so changing her mind seems like a long shot to me."

I heard the unspoken commentary. That since she wouldn't recant I should accept it. That trying to force her to do something she didn't want to do was just going to alienate my only nearby family member. I wanted to punch something. A tree, a wall, my dad for getting me involved in all this. Dealer's choice.

Finally I just sighed. "Alright." I said, my shoulders slumping. "It's your choice. But can we at least keep in contact? I was doing the whole training maniac thing up to now, but I don't want to leave you hanging. Can we do like...nightly check in calls?"

Nat burst into giggles. "Oh, my god. How are you such a mom? My actual mother isn't half this neurotic. But fine, little cousin. If it'll make you feel better." She glanced over at the F-rankers on the ground again. "You proved you have my best interests at heart...for some reason. I'll make time to call and check in." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Now, since I'm not crashing with you, you ought to get home. After all, you have a fight tomorrow, as do we. Gotta be rested up."

I wasn't likely to have a problem with that, given my vitality, not to mention heal bursts, but I wasn't going to argue. We'd helped, and I imagined her guardian would be coming to pick them up now that things were over. "Alright." I said grudgingly. Leaning down to hug her again, this time less tightly, I murmured. "Stay safe ok. I'll call when I get home to check in."

She rolled her eyes again, but was still smiling, hugging me back and then stepping away. "You too. Can't have you getting crushed by cultists before you face us." With that, she turned and gestured for her guards to follow, vanishing into the darkness of the forest around us. I turned back to my friends, drained, and gestured toward the car. It was finally time to go home. Just a shame I had another fight in the morning.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was able to get a bit of sleep before my match. Not as much as usual, but enough that I wasn't really tired or jumpy. Despite that, I was at least a little nervous. The chances of me fighting a team member again, even with the smaller pool to draw from, were low. For the eleventh round I'd probably be up against a stranger, but that didn't help as much as I'd have thought.

Whoever this was, they had made it almost to the end of the solo rounds, which meant they were terrifyingly strong. Whether it was someone I knew or not, I could almost guarantee that my next match would be a tough one. When I arrived at the arena, Rime headed for the stands while I made my way down to the waiting area to get ready, and I couldn't help but fidget a bit with worry.

When they finally called the match to start, I strode out onto the sand on my own. Hardly my first solo fight, but the closer I got to the end the more intimidating this became. When I saw my next opponent though, I calmed down a bit.

He wasn't intimidating. Just a scruffy looking teenager with brown hair and brown eyes. He had a green shirt and red baggy pants and a relaxed, peaceful smile. "Like, hey man. It's nice to meetcha." He waved lazily. "Pretty far out we managed to get almost to the end right? My best pal got bounced out last round but I think it's pretty legit that I get the chance to keep tryin'."

His voice was a lazy, happy drawl, and it made me chuckle a bit in response, my shoulders relaxing. I didn't let my guard down, mind you, but I felt less worried. Hard to fear for your life against someone that mellow. "Yeah, it is neat. My girlfriend was in the solo rounds until last fight, when we went up against each other. Carrying on for her is pretty cool. I'm Solomon by the way. If it matters. From the Starchaser Pavilion."

The shrug he gave was nonchalant. "Matters to you, man. That's like...good enough right? I'm Norman from the Enigma Corporation." I cocked my head at him, not seeing anything corporate about him, and he gave a low laugh. "It's like, an ironic name man. We're just pals who like to travel around helping people out with weird stuff. We get that reaction a lot though, don't worry."

I laughed at his wry tone. Norman was a pretty interesting guy. "Alright." I said as my laugh ended. "Well, may the best man win, but I'm not holding back." He gave me a laconic nod, and then I triggered Moonlit Night. The whole arena filled with fog only I could see through, and I activated State of Grace and Ripple running alongside it. Kneeling down, I coated my arms in magma, triggering touch of tears after that, then stood up and started to circle.

Norman did...nothing. Like at all. He just stood there, though I could vaguely see a silver glow coalesce around him, not that it was easy to spot in the glowing backdrop of the fog. I waited, but he didn't engage at all, just waiting completely at ease, and I realized I'd run out the clock on my skills if I didn't attack first. Pushing off the ground, I bounced up into the air, then planted my foot on nothing with ripple running and shot toward his back.

I spun in a tight rotation midair as I came in, bringing my hand down at the back of his head in a spinning backfist even as I flew straight at him. Norman leaned ever so slightly forward, and my fist passed within inches of his skull as he stepped aside casually to avoid the rest of my body impacting him. I hit the sand at a skid and slid for a few feet, before turning to stare at him in confusion.

He didn't look flustered, or even aware of my presence. I triggered my overlay, checking to see how I should attack next, and got...red. All the arrows were red. That made no sense. Triggering Eye of Revelation next I tried my best to observe anything, but nothing happened. He just stood there, glowing slightly silver at the edges and staring blandly ahead. I closed in slow, keeping Eye of Revelation active, and then used Steam Arrow, spitting an arrow of boiling water at him.

Adjusting himself so slightly it was barely perceptible, he leaned back diagonally, letting the arrow pass within a hair of his skin yet again. Fuck. I tweaked the Moonlit Night skill, allowing my voice to pass through. "You have some kind of prediction ability." I said flatly. Nothing I could see to try would hit him, at least not according to my overlay. The Eye was more reactive, but it didn't spot any weaknesses in his form or anything.

Shrugging again, he smiled. "Like, I don't know man. I just move before stuff hits me. It's all instinct." His voice was placid and cheerful as ever, and unlike before, it kind of annoyed me. Being taken so lightly was bound to irritate anyone, even if I was pretty sure it was nothing personal.

I narrowed my eyes at him, then triggered Sucking Mud and used up a shadow attack to create the Dark Swamp. The sand beneath him started to darken, but before it could happen he hopped casually back. Unfortunately for him, Dark Swamp wasn't just a quicksand trap, it could respond. He tried to shift in midair to avoid the tentacles of earth, but since the attack had been launched while he was midair, and by something that didn't actually think, he hadn't seen it coming.
With no leverage his legs were dragged back into the dark sand, and he started to sink. I charged in, attacking again with a flurry of punches and kicks to see how his defense was holding up.

Despite his immobile legs being secured from the shin down, he swayed and moved out of the way with lazy graceful ease. But this time, he also attacked back. His fist shot out at a weakness in my guard I hadn't even known was there, and I tried to get my arms in the way of the blow, barely managing thanks to the speed boosts.

There was a loud crack as the blow landed on my encased arms, crossed in front of me, and even through my armor and the magma I felt the bones rattle as I was blown backwards. I skidded over the sand, my arms barely working after the impact of that one punch.

Of course the instinctual fighter who could dodge without thinking was a Might focus. Because that would be where the fucking speed to dodge came from. I'd have guessed Perception before he explained it, but if he had no actual input, then he wouldn't be perceiving, his power would. There was probably some of that because of his reputation, but since he was so physical he probably just came across as a bruiser.

"Like, careful man." Said the relaxed monster in front of me. "I punch pretty hard. Don't want you to get hurt too bad." I grimaced, triggering a heal burst to patch my arms up as I circled. Blunt force was a bad match for my armor, but anything helped. I felt the surge of energy flood me, slowly relieving the pain in my limbs as I circled.

Norman was still sinking into the sand, but not fast. He seemed unbothered by the trap, sitting eerily still and ignoring it, which of course made it slower. The Dark Swamp was reactionary at heart. Even with the shadow attack, once it captured you it didn't keep dragging unless you tried to escape.

I needed some angle. Coming at him directly wouldn't work. Without a Perception focus, his reactions to my attacks were either ignoring the stealth completely or he was reacting at the last possible instant. Either option wasn't good for me. I was wracking my brain for what to do, when it finally dawned on me.

Triggering Mercy Kill, I used a gravity attack. The ability, boosted by Moonlit Night and Mercy Kill, landed heavily on Norman. Then I did it again, and again, and again. I stopped at four, since I only had eight of those, and then blitzed forward again to attack. State of Grace allowed me to bypass the field around him easily, and when I attacked this time, I got much closer to hitting him.

I still missed, because he was FAST, even under the pressure, but he dodged by a much narrowed margin. His placid expression finally cracked, his brow furrowing a bit. When my next attack came in at him he dodged and tried to counter, but I used Afterburner to increase my next ten attacks.

With the existing boost of speed from State of Grace added to the attacks, my fist was a blur as it raced in at his face. He dodged the first, but the second he had to divert his counter to deflect. I grunted in pain as my arm creaked under the pressure, but I ignored it. Redoubling my attacking efforts.

Norman seemed to get serious this time, his hands flying up to deflect my blows. I grimaced, because I was running out of attacks on Afterburner. I tried Steam Arrow, and the explosion of steam was much more powerful because of Afterburner. He tried to avoid it, but because of the slowing effect of the gravity and the increased power of the arrow it scored him across the face, leaving a thin burn on his cheek.

He was so stunned by the injury he froze up, and I used my tranq blows on the three punches I managed to get in on him before he had a chance to react. I tried one more, but didn't manage to land it, and my Afterburned ran out, forcing me to retreat to avoid being hit.

I panted in exhaustion as I stared at him, having gone all out even with all the stacked debuffs to keep up with this absolute beast. I was damn lucky his only trick seemed to be close combat. If he had a ranged attack he might be able to keep up with Abel. I circled slowly, waiting to see what he would do, but he just waited, unmoving, patient to the end as he let his power prepare.

And I did nothing. I sat there, waiting, and let him prepare. I was weakened because of Afterburner, and exhausted from the fight, and there was no need for me to attack. Norman's weakness was his strength. The ability to sit still and remain unconcerned while he trusted his power to predict any attacks.

A minute passed, then two, he kept sinking, but only got to mid thigh. I just waited. I'd won this already, and it was only proven when I heard the first faint snore. I grinned. Those tranq blows were supercharged by a bunch of buffs as well as stacked, and I'd known they would do the job.

I raised a hand to signal the end of the match, and when he didn't move or respond for a minute they called it. I groaned, debating healing him but realizing I'd only managed a few glancing blows anyway so it wasn't needed. As he stirred awake I held out a hand and let Dark Swamp fade, pulling him up out of the sand. He grinned it me. "Like, wow man, that was a pretty cool nap. Shame I lost, but nice moves."

Laughing I returned the sentiment and we traded numbers, Norman saying he could use the occasional knock out to get some rest since the nap had been so peaceful. I was happy to make a connection with such a badass. Turning to leave though, I felt a pang of fear knowing the next fight would be even worse. I'd need to bring my A game to win that. I had two more days, it was time to finally rank up my DS Mastery.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Time. Something I'd had plenty of in the last few rounds, but not enough of to accomplish a goal I was now planning to accomplish in just a few days. I needed to finish my last two upgrades, then synergize DS Mastery with Enchanting permanently to hopefully eliminate the whole charges thing completely. It would be nice not to have to count my attacks during combat.

But to do that, I needed to figure out a possible synergy for Earthseeking and Sucking Mud. Which gave me an idea. Well, I had an idea for Sucking Mud. I decided to go track down Callie, to ask her for some advice on something I thought might help out.

I found her lying on the couch, watching the scan box with Cass, looking bored and amused in equal measures as the younger girl cheered at the cartoon currently displayed on the screen. The wolves were inside, the four of them sprawled about the living room, with Jin acting as a pillow for my girlfriend while Rellia played the same role for Cass.

Slumping down next to her, I smirked at her boredom. "So, not much to do? I figured you would have work today."

She just shook her head with a sigh. "Nope. With so many visitors in town jobs have been getting thin. I can pick up a decent bit of work every few days, but since I don't have any crafting skills or anything jobs are hard to come by. Benny's been getting a ton of jobs as a crafter, even if Inventing is far less useful and precise. So, what brings you down here so close to the next fight?"

I'd been excited to share my idea, and when she asked I jumped on the chance to mention it. "I want to talk about traps." I announced grandly. I had a bad habit of waiting for my turn to talk when I was excited, rather than really listening, and I had definitely been doing that, but this idea would solve a lot of my problems.

She gave me an amused smirk. "Is this your way of telling me that I'm smothering you? Because I thought things were going pretty well."

I rolled my eyes. "Only in the literal sense that you sometimes choke the life out of me in your sleep, but that's why I'm the big spoon. No, I mean I want you to teach me about traps. Like...the Minor Trap Mastery Skill. I've seen enough of how it works to be close, I just need some basic lessons. Even though you wished for it you can still teach me manually, and I've been around for a LOT of your trap making."

Mulling it over, she nodded. "I could see how you might have an easy time picking it up. It is just a Minor Skill, and with your Focus you wouldn't have any trouble with the knowledge. I'm guessing this plays into your prep for next round somehow?"

The whole non interference thing was kind of out the window since the last two people in the tournament besides me were Mel and Abel, who didn't care. Still, I wanted to play things close to the vest, so I just nodded. Callie slumped back in annoyance, groaning loudly, only to be shushed by Cass. "Sorry sweetie." She told the younger girl with a wince, before turning her gaze to me. "This is going to be annoying, but fine, meet me in the training room, I need to get a few things."

She hopped to her feet, strolling off, and Jin sat up, glaring at me for taking away the warm person he was cuddling with. I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I've been there. But I have training to do. SOME of us don't just get to become house dogs after a little while. Watch your show." He snorted dismissively at me before refocusing on the cartoon projected from the scan box.

When I reached the training room, I had to wait a few minutes for Callie to show up carrying a large black bag with a strap that hung over one shoulder. Slipping it off, she let the bag fall to the ground and unzipped it, starting to take out various odds and ends. Wire, spikes, springs, rope. The bag was quickly emptied as she gestured proudly at her collection. "Boom. Beginner trap maker kit."

"Ok." I drawled. "Glossing over the fact that you have a bag full of restraints that I didn't know about, which is weird since we basically share a room at this point, shouldn't you set up the traps...first? Then show me how to disarm them?" I knew a bit about traps, but not much, Callie's Skill did most of the heavy lifting in the labyrinth.

She shook her head firmly. "No. You've seen plenty of traps disarmed, and made. Now you need to make some yourself. If you can't construct them, all the theoretical knowledge in the world is pointless."

"Alright." I said with a shrug. "You're the expert. I should be able to do this, like you said, I've seen plenty of traps. Here, turn around for a minute." She gave me an amused look, but with a quiet snort, she turned her back to me. I grabbed a few supplies, some rope, a small pulley, and a net, and walked over to where the obstacle course was situated.

Cracking my knuckles confidently I started to rig up an expertly arranged trap...then stopped. I knew the basics, but that was mostly just reactions. Cause and effect stuff. I didn't know HOW a lot of them worked. I held up the rope, mulling over my options, before looping it between two posts. I tied one side down, then looped the other up around the pole and over the top, tying it loosely around the net.

Nodding happily, I stepped over my makeshift trip wire and whistled to Callie. "Alright, all done." It wasn't pretty, but it should work.

Turning around, she looked right at me, then scanned over the trap, and subsequently burst into gales of laughter. I glared at her, which made her laugh harder, and I spent the next few minutes seething as she almost fell over in fits of hysterical giggles.

When she finally got a hole of herself she wiped her eyes mirthfully. "Oh. Wow. Sorry. It's just...you were solid when we started training in Balam, and you have so many varied skillsets you seem to pick up everything fast, so I was expecting you to be...at least competent."

"You're not making this better." I complained. "What exactly is wrong with it?" I gestured to the trap. "Sure, it's simple, but at least it's functional right? When you trip the line it tugs the rope off the net and it falls on you."

She giggled again, getting it under control faster this time. "No, Shane. That's a slipknot. The jerk on the line will tighten the knot and then fling the whole thing off the side of the structure." She paused. "What is this anyway? Just a pair of posts next to a climbing wall with a protruding arm?"

I shrugged. "Salmon ladder, at least the posts are. The protruding arm is for hanging a harness when climbing I think, but who knows."

Honestly the training room was weird. Half of this stuff wasn't really that useful, and I was almost positive some of it wasn't always here. Zeke said it was a side effect of the last owner's reputation, and since he wasn't worried about it I just ignored the whole issue.

Callie chuckled, and started actually teaching. While I'd watched her process directly, there were lots of small details I didn't note just from observing. Types of knots, angles, tensile strength of certain materials and a dozen other little tricks of the trade. We worked for hours, with her filling me in on little bits of knowledge I didn't have that put things I did know into context better.

By the time we finished, she had taught me enough to make my own traps, albeit not great ones, and with my Focus and Perception, not to mention the time I'd put in, I officially got enough information figured out to officially have a Minor Trap Mastery Skill.

I slumped back against the wall with a groan. I wasn't physically tired, obviously, but doing the same menial task for hours was boring and annoying. Callie just smirked at me. "Well, seems like my work here is done, I'm going to go watch mindless cartoons and leave you to your training." She leaned down and gave me a quick peck on the lips. "Good luck on your match. I'll be there watching this time, so you'd better kick ass." She pouted at me. "If you beat me and then lose to some nobody I'm not speaking to you for a weak."

She was bluffing, and we both knew it, courtesy of the bond, but it was her way of cheering me on, and I smiled softly at her as she turned and strolled away. With her gone, I was officially done with prep work, and sat up to cross my legs. An unnecessary step but one that would at least help clear my head.

This next upgrade had a solid amount of synergy. Not as much as the herbalism skill had, but enough that I thought I'd get something pretty good if I focused on the right method of combination. I'd already seen proof that there was some better and some worse ways to combine things.

I used Sucking Mud, focusing on the space in front of me as I did my best to synergize it with Minor Trap Mastery. I'd only just gotten the Skill, but I'd spent hours practicing so I was in a good headspace. I considered the possible methods of combining them and decided to focus on increasing the trap capability of Sucking Mud, instead of something like time delay that might lean more toward the trapping aspect.

Imagining my Sucking Mud, I focused on the mental image of a pitfall trap. Instead of something slow and plodding, the pitfall trap was a single sharp drop, but I didn't want to lose the earth aspect that made the skill what it was. Instead, I focused on making the sand thinner and decreasing friction, creating more of a silt material from the skill use.

With the strong mental image and the recent practice, not to mention my experience tweaking Sucking Mud, it clicked into place pretty quickly, and I felt Minor Trap Mastery vanish just as soon as it arrived. Focusing on my DS Mastery and feeling out subskills, I confirmed the new addition with a smile as I made sure Sucking Mud was gone.

Pit of Despair, a control skill that creates a pit of silt that swallows up anyone standing on top of it nearly instantly. Fast, deadly, and a distinct upgrade to Sucking Mud. I grinned happily to myself as I checked to confirm my last subskill. Earthseeking was all I needed to finish it, Intermediate DS Mastery was so close I could taste it. I couldn't wait to use it on whoever I was fighting for the last round.

I was so excited I wished I could upgrade the last Skill now, but I knew that wasn't on the table. The soul weight of the one upgrade after learning a new Skill was already hard on me.

Standing up to stretch, I decided to take a small break before going to find Benny for his wishes. This was good progress, and I knew that I was well on my way to reaching the finals, but everyone needs a break now and then. I headed for the kitchen, pondering what I should make for dinner. I was hungry, and I was in the mood for something complicated. Maybe chicken and dumplings as a thank you to Callie for helping. Whatever I made, I was sure it would be delicious.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Today was the day. Round twelve. I got up early so I could finish my goal of ranking up DS Mastery, and was just finishing up the last step of that. Yesterday I'd ranked up Earthseeking to 'Song of the Soil', which increased the range and specificity of my seeking ability by using my Minor Singing Skill to boost it. I'd also considered using piano and guitar, but realistically there were accessibility issues there. I wasn't carrying around a whole piano for one skill.

Aside from finishing up that last skill, I'd also done Benny's wishes for the last two days. He'd paid me in chits this time, from his jobs, and I was up to a hundred and sixty of the things, which would make buying my new weapon after rank up so much easier. Twenty points each to Might and Focus brought Focus to three hundred twenty three, and Might to two hundred eighty nine. At seven hundred forty three total points he was incredibly close to three quarters done.

With all that done and out of the way, I was officially at a point where I could do what I'd been dreaming of for months now. Get my first intermediate Skill. Sitting down and crossing my knees, I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Then I reached into myself and flicked on my overlay.

The overlay was the most basic ability of my DS Mastery Skill, and the first I'd gotten. It was also completely unchanged. I could probably have ranked up the Skill just by upgrading this one aspect, but I didn't want to do it that way. I wanted to make DS Mastery a complete system, a unique skill all on its own that didn't need any other abilities to function.

Feeling DS Mastery resonate as I tapped into it, I reached out and found the connection I always used, one that I'd begun to internalize so much it was almost like it didn't exist. I pushed the connection between Beginner Enchanting Mastery and Beginner Doom Sovereign Mastery. I'd never merged two actual Skills of the same power like this, but I felt in my bones it was the right call.

The two of them resonated easily and quickly, having both been shaped around each other. I reached into the resonance, and pulled. The two Skills began to blur, and so did my brain as I felt a MASSIVE pull on my soul. It hurt. A lot. But I kept at it. This wasn't great, but I'd already started, and taxing myself before my match without accomplishing my goal was the stupidest thing I could imagine doing.

It felt like trying to drag an engine through tunnel full of hot coals and broken glass, but finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably a minute or two, I felt that same click as the last few times. Unlike the last few times though, there was a massive shift in my brain, like someone turning over a car key, and then things just...changed.

I didn't know if the sensations were from ranking up my first intermediate, from combining two huge Skills, from the change of losing one of my foundational Skills, or some combination of the three, but my body felt different, better. More. It wasn't Impact, or stats, or any of that stuff. It was more like I'd gotten over a cold, or cleaned out something gunking up my body.

Bringing up my Skills, I looked at that I'd created. Intermediate Path of the Doom Sovereign. I didn't know what the lack of the word mastery meant, but it didn't seem like a bad thing. I was pretty sure it had to do with this being a unique Skill. A REAL unique Skill now. Other people could theoretically have DS Mastery, but with all my additions and this final shift, this Skill was something that was only mine now.

I could also actually bring up the subskills directly and read them by focusing on the Skill itself. Which allowed me to see the three new ones I had available. Mountain Stance, Danger Sense, and Marked for Death. My soul also felt...stronger. Like I'd gotten a burst of power when I did whatever I did. I'd have to ask Zeke about that later, but for now...I hopped to my feet with a grin.

Only an hour or so until my second to last match of the solo tournament. I had no clue who I was fighting but I was sure I could take them on as I was now. I was salivating thinking of possible synergies, attacks I had stored, my new powers, all of it. I was sure they would be terrifying, as the first Intermediate skills I had access to.

Finished up, I headed to my room to knock, and the door opened to reveal Callie. I just...stared. My girlfriend was wearing a dark blue sundress with a black jean jacket over it. Her hair was in a long ponytail and she had on a hint of lip gloss, which was rare because frankly, she didn't need makeup. She wasn't wearing her mask, and she gave me a beaming smile when she saw me. "Here." She said cheerfully, shoving a bag the size of my chest into my arms. "Hold my purse."

I just stared, dumbstruck by both the beauty and the audacity, and then I burst out laughing. She pouted at me. "What? I just mean until we get to the car. It's not like you're driving." She grabbed my arm, dragging me behind her as she headed for the car. Jessie was already outside waiting, listening to music. The arena was far enough that we would need to leave soon to get there on time.

Callie and I climbed in, and I dumped her monstrosity of a purse on the seat, earning a glare. I just shrugged. "You said carry it to the car."

She growled at me, sifting through the bag to make sure everything was unharmed. "You know." She said testily. "I went out of my way to dress up and be supportive today. This will be a big fight for you. The least you could do is appreciate my hard work."

I took off my mask, giving her a soft smile. "You don't need to put in any hard work to be beautiful Cal. But the fact that you decided to is sweeter than I can say. Thank you." She blushed at the comment, clearing her throat and going back to rooting around in her purse. I could feel her pride and embarrassment through the bond, and knew she was just trying to distract herself.

Jessie giggled from up front. "I don't know if the two of you are relationship my goals or the biggest cautionary tale for cringey sweetness ever. Either way, I think you're pretty adorable. Plus I think it's sweet you're trying to hard to distract him from being nervous, even if we both know it isn't going to work."

Callie glared at her. "It MIGHT have worked. If you didn't have such a big mouth."

I put a hand on hers, squeezing gently. "Sorry love, I can feel your emotions. I knew what you were doing. And it IS working. I can't help but be distracted by you." She blushed again, rolling her eyes dismissively as she tried to hide her small smirk.

We spent the rest of the trip like that. Cuddled close and chattering about nonsense and flirting to try to keep my mind off the fight. I was...afraid. Norman had been a monster, and realistically, whoever I was fighting NEXT would be worse. I was about to take on someone truly terrifying and even though I felt invincible with my new Skill, I was also worried as hell.

If I lost, it would all be on Mel and Abel. I'd be cutting our chances down even more, and that would be AFTER making them worse by beating Callie. It was just the same old thing all over. The excitement of a great fight tempered with the knowledge of what was riding on it.

Callie, sensing that confusing mix of emotions, tried her hardest to distract me, and did a better job than anyone reasonably should have been able to. Sadly, all good things must end, and we eventually reached the arena. Callie hopped out, stopping to press a firm kiss to my lips before shoving my mask back on with a wink. "For luck." Then she took off into the area to find seating so she could watch my match.

Jessie just giggled, shaking her head at me. "I don't even have to see your polaxed expression to know what it looks like. You'd better win I guess, can't go disappointing the lady of the house."

I just chuckled. "Nah, can't do that. But thanks for the well wishes, Jess. I'll give it my all."

Her smile became affectionate. "Oh I know you'll do that. You always do. I'll be up there cheering you on. Don't...don't put too much pressure on yourself ok? You're not in this alone. I know how prone you are to trying to take on too much, and so does she. She'd have told you that herself, but she was pretty sure you'd get all guilty about making her worry and overcompensate. You're not the best listener."

I put my hand to my chest with an offended gasp. "I am an amazing..." I trailed off jokingly. "Sorry what was that last bit? I wasn't paying attention."

"That was a bad joke." She said flatly. "And you should feel bad for making it."

Grinning, I rolled my eyes. "Nag, nag, nag. Poor Maria. I wonder if she knows what she's getting into. Go sit in your comfortable stadium seat and watch my match."

She turned and headed for the arena with another giggle, muttering to herself about idiots who thought they were funnier than they were. I chose to ignore her hurtful and clearly spurious remarks and headed into the arena myself. I walked down to the waiting room, excitedly warming up for my match. Stretches, bit of cardio, I didn't really need it, but it helped me go in the zone.

I also started mixing and matching possible combos for my match, I'd need to evaluate my opponent and figure out exactly what I needed to do from there, but some canned combinations like Dark Swamp and Magma Leg were always helpful, and with my three new tricks I was sure I'd be able to do even better. Finally though, I got the call to head out to the pit to meet my opponent.

Giving the attendant a nod of goodbye, I strolled out onto the sand, having mostly gotten over my nerves from spending time with Callie, and ready to take on anything. I was in the best possibly position to take care of this, so there was no reason to worry. It's not like I'd be fighting...I froze.

The smile dropped off my lips and my eyes widened in horror at my opponent. His own reaction was slightly less dramatic. He just offered me his usual toothy smile, eyes twinkling with sadistic amusement behind his silver mask. "Well, looks like I'm going to get a chance to put all that training to the test, huh kid?" Asked Abel Castleton casually.

I just stared at him, feeling one of my new abilities trigger passively before the match even started. Despite the warning, I wasn't even remotely amused by the occurrence. After all, Danger Sense warned me when I was in a position where I was vulnerable to extreme harm, so it wasn't a shock it would be going off right now. Telling me Abel was dangerous was far from useful. I tuned it out and considered my next move as he stood there, hands in his pockets, and waited. This...was going to suck.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My first move was to immediately trigger Moonlit Night. Danger Sense wouldn't stop trilling in my head, but with the push a second ago it at least dimmed. I'd need to adapt it to the situation so it would actually work. Sensing that you were ALWAYS in danger wasn't actually a warning of anything.

Abel, meanwhile, stared into the fog with amusement. I'd moved out of the way immediately, making sure he couldn't see or hear me well enough to aim. He could probably cover the whole arena with his manifestations and a couple flurries of punches, but that would be sloppy and desperate, which were things Abel wasn't. I knew my teacher well enough to be aware that he was genuinely excited about this fight.

I'd sparred with him before, so I knew that none of my old tricks would work, but I had new abilities now, new tricks I could use. I needed to time this though, Abel's instincts were insane, and if I got close enough to attack he WOULD sense it. I wasn't sure if it was Perception, Fantasy, or some sort of combat sense from years of constant attacking but he was tough to sneak up on.

"Smokescreen." He said lazily. "Mediocre idea. Interesting execution though. My Perception should be enough to pierce a veil like this, which means that you somehow mixed stealth into the fog. Fascinating. I take it this is a new trick? Or were you sandbagging during training?"

It actually wasn't entirely new, but I hadn't shown Abel Moonlit Night yet, since I was keeping it secret for the tournament. I was guessing he hadn't bothered to come watch my matches either. Wanted to make sure he got a decent challenge. Deciding to buy some time, I triggered Pit of Despair, creating a silt trap under his feet that sucked him right in. He vanished into the ultra thin particles in an instant.

Knowing it wouldn't hold for more than a second I dropped to my knees, triggering my Magma Limbs, I just barely had time to apply my Touch of Tears before Abel came shooting out of the ground like a rocket, arcing down right towards me somehow.

My eyes widened in shock and alarm, and I saw his hands move, the images of other arms condensing on his right as he would up for one of those layered punches. Without waiting I triggered Stone Limb from where my feet touched the ground, coating my whole body, then used Mountain Stance for the first time, as well as a triple strength density shift. Stacking every defensive move I could possibly think of.

Abel hit me at speed, smashing a fist directly into my chest...and stopping cold. His feet landed, and he just gaped for a second, unable to see me, but having felt that a full force punch from him had stopped when it hit me. Don't get me wrong, it HURT. I think he slightly cracked my sternum. But with the massive defensive bonus of Mountain Stance (triple defense when my feet were firmly planted on the ground) enhanced by the density shift AND Stone Limb, not to mention the bleed off from my armor, I'd actually tanked the punch.

I didn't waste it either, I triggered Steam Arrow, and when Abel's non punching hand flew up to bat away the attack with his spatial lubrication, I triggered State of Grace and laid into his ribs with the strongest punches I could manage. I pummeled his midsection as hard as I could, but his armor wasn't bad either, and he somehow absorbed the blows as they made contact by clenching his abs. Some martial arts trick probably.

He stepped into a trail of lubricated space and slid effortlessly away from me, stopping about five feet back. "Ok." He grunted in amusement. "That was pretty good. I didn't know you had that kind of durability, kid. Must be new. I can't believe you took a serious punch from me head on." Reaching up, he shucked off his jacket, cracking his neck as he went about limbering up his shoulders.

I swallowed hard. That...that wasn't comforting. Taking off his jacket was the first sign that Abel was getting serious. He still had his mask on, so he wasn't going all out, but it also meant he didn't think he NEEDED to go all out, which wasn't at all comforting to think about.

Letting Mountain Stance fade with a sigh, I winced a bit as I felt the soul weight. That little defensive setup hadn't been easy to pull off, even if it was apparently a bit delayed, but sitting still and taking hits was the exact worst way to handle Abel. He'd punch through any defense I put up once he had time to build up steam. I needed to go on the offense.

I triggered Double Trouble, and then once I arrived I used another new skill. Marked for Death. Marked for Death was my most recent finishing blow from my rogue class. I got one every other level, and this one was both amazing and sub par. The actual damage increase wasn't great, just double. but the real value of Marked for Death wasn't the damage increase. Once the Mark was applied, the next blow would land with perfect accuracy. Regardless of space, defenses, or anything else, Marked for Death was an unblockable sure hit attack.

Probably. There were most likely high ranking Ascendants who could avoid or stop it, but within the confines of reasonably close ranks to mine, it would work. I grinned as I leaned on State of Grace and triggered Ripple Running to bounce away from Abel's response to my appearance, because despite leaving fast, I could see the glowing purple mark of my sigil, the well of wishes, on Abel's shoulder as I slipped away.

My mentor spun slowly, waiting for the next attack, and I considered the best way to hit him to do as much damage as possible. "I have to say Shane." He said warily. "You got lucky as hell with that Skill. It makes up for so many of your shortcomings."

He was right, though I frowned at the dismissal of my hard work. I'd built my Path of the Doom Sovereign Skill from the ground up. First in DS itself, and then with other Skills and hard work. It was unrecognizable from the original Skill, and the combination of it with my stored attacks gave me a ton of versatility. I was willing to bet I was leagues stronger than your average Candidate in a straight fight, and I didn't like the implication I'd just tripped and fallen into my powers.

But on second thought, I had definitely gotten a heaping helping of good fortune in more than a few ways. That thought was enough to deflate my ego a bit and let me clear my head. Once I did, I rolled my eyes. Of course Abel knew what buttons to press to piss me off.

Sadly for him, it wasn't going to matter. I was going to end this in a single blow. Afterburner, Steam Arrow. Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, triple stack density shift, triple stack tranq, a shadow attack for good measure, Mercy Kill. I piled my advantages and power ups so high I thought my brain was going to explode, but I barely managed to trigger the hit.

Marked for Death meant a certain hit attack, doubled the blow, further enhanced as a sneak attack inside Moonlit Night, sped up by State of Grace and stacked with Mercy Kill. It was the most devastating direct attack I'd ever made in my life, and I saw Abel roar in pain as the horrifying tranq fire shadow steam arrow abomination slammed into his fucking rotator cuff and tore right through it, bypassing all his defensive skills and armor.

Of course, I wasn't exactly in good shape myself. That had been WAY too much soul weight, and I was currently on my knees in agony as I gasped and clutched at my skull. I'd come VERY close to blacking out from shock with that one. I used heal burst, hoping it would help, and staggered to my feet, swaying slightly as I stared at my currently blood soaked mentor.

"Fuck." He spat. Looking genuinely annoyed for the first time this match. "You took my arm? Not cool." I closed my eyes, focusing on trying to recover at least a bit. He wasn't down, and I knew he was going to be coming at me hard. I was completely tapped, and I had no way to put him down. That attack had been everything I had. Hell, I had no clue how he was conscious, given all the boosts applied and the tranquilizer aspect of the attack.

At the very least, I could see lines of searing toxic magma radiating through the wound, though Abel wasn't showing what must have been the agonizing response to being eaten alive from your arm with poison. Contrary to his statement, his arm wasn't actually gone, though it was pretty much dead meat on his shoulder at the moment. I didn't respond, I didn't want him to know where I was.

That didn't work out, somehow he'd felt where the attack came from, because as he hauled back, my previously oscillating Danger Sense became a damned storm siren. A manifestation coalesced above his head. A fist the size of a bus. Then another and another. Six of them, all floating there before he compacted them down into one single fist and swung at me with everything he had.

I knew that fist would seriously injure me if it hit, and my immediate response was to try to turtle up. Mountain Stance, density shift, and luckily Stone Limb was still coating me. I hunched my shoulders and brought my arms in front of my face, trying to defense as best as I could from the coming attack. My head was pounding like a war drum, and I was about to pass out, but I held on, just for this one last move.

Afterburner was still in effect, and that had boosted both defensive abilities, though not Stone Limb, since it had already been active. As the fist landed I felt a crack, not just from the stone but from my arms and legs. I kept my feet planted because I had to or I'd lose Mountain Stance, but all four of my limbs fractured under the impact.

With the punch over, I barely managed to stay standing, mostly because of the still active heal burst patching me up, and as I watched the fog receded, Moonlit Night fading as I fought to stay upright and functional. To my shock, Abel was staring at me shakily, the tranq seeming to be wearing him down, he started thumping toward me, one foot in front of the other, almost dragging himself, his arm hanging limply.

I could hear the burning of the flesh as he approached, and I tried to pull back to throw another punch, but with my arms broken I couldn't move them, barely able to keep them up. Abel made it to the spot in front of my, wobbling on his feet as he grinned at me proudly.

He put a hand on my shoulder, something I couldn't resist at all in my current condition, and chuckled. "That was a hell of a fight kid. You almost had me." I wanted to reject the statement. To tell him it wasn't over. But I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could barely think. I was so close. I was almost there. But I just couldn't make it. I couldn't beat him. He gave a gentle shove to my shoulder, and Mountain Stance broke as I tipped over backwards, toppling to the ground with a loud thump. The last thing I saw as my vision faded out into blackness was the crowd going wild. Oh well, at least I put up a good fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was surprisingly pain free when I came to. Well...my body was. My head was fuzzy, but that was to be expected with overtaxing my soul. Oh, and the yelling. The yelling wasn't helping. "Look at him!" Screamed a voice. "How many bones did you break? Do you even know? Now he won't wake up even after healing. None of the rest of us were that badly hurt in any of our matches. Is there even an ounce of forethought it your head?"

Groaning slightly, I opened my eyes, taking in the situation. Callie was standing over me in the back of our car, bellowing at Abel like she was about to attack him. For his part, my mentor didn't look contrite, or afraid, or even guilty. Just patient, as if he was letting her get it out of her system. Which he was, since this little nap had been my fault not his.

Reaching out, I snagged her wrist, which was within arms length. "Whoa."I said groggily. "Keep it down Cal, my skull is splitting. What's going on?" Sitting up, I saw my girlfriend's relieved expression as she hurled herself at me, her knee driving into my gut as I grunted at the impact. I laughed, putting my arms around her. "Whoa there, what's wrong? Actually, why didn't you feel it when I woke up? I'd have figured the bond would have tipped you."

She squeezed so hard I groaned, but when she noticed the discomfort she eased up, staring up at me tearily. "It shut down. As soon as that punch hit the bond fried. Maybe it was all the soul weight, or maybe just you passing out, but I saw you lying there and the bond stopped working and I thought you were dead."

"You weren't dead." Abel chipped in helpfully. "In case you were wondering. Half dead, at worst. I carried you out to Jessie and let her patch you up before she started the drive home." He rotated hos arm stiffly. "Me too actually, shit, kid, you don't fuck around. If you'd landed that weird mark thing on my neck or head I'd have been a corpse."

I snorted at that. "As if you'd let me. You reacted as soon as I appeared and shifted your body unconsciously. I was aiming for the middle of your back. You're the one who changed the spot where you were going to take that blow. That final punch was monstrous, I guess you were holding back in all your other matches." Hearing my tone seemed to calm some of Callie's anger, though she still looked upset.

Abel shrugged. "Is it holding back to open a soda by twisting off the top instead of smashing it in half with a hammer? I just do enough to do the job. You came close to pushing me into going all out though. That was a hell of a fight, especially for someone who started cultivating so recently."

"Don't patronize me." I said flatly. "Mel told us that you don't get serious unless you take your mask off. I might have pushed you, but you sure as hell weren't going all out."

That got an acknowledging nod. "Well, fair enough. But you were damned sure the hardest fight I've had so far. Even if I'm pretty sure that won't continue to be the case. I hear that the top ten are monsters, one and all." He grinned. "Even a few familiar faces in there. Helix made it, and so did Lament. Whether they're going to pass round thirteen and take part in the finals is anyone's guess, though a five man free for all does sound like fun."

I looked over at Mel, who had been relaxing across from us, having been fighting at another of the arenas. Jessie had gone to pick her up after she dropped us off, and had made it back just after the match. "You've been quiet. Did you make it through your round?" I hoped she had, if not we would be left with only one entrant on the team. I mean, sure, he was our strongest and the one with the best chance of winning, but going into the finals with two of the five would be nice.

Sadly, she shook her head with a sigh. "Gods no. I got demolished. I ran into one of the tournament favorites. Roland Wilder. They call him the Walking War. He uses this crazy weapon summoning ability, calls up swords and spears and axes of different sizes and materials." She looked at Abel. "Decent chance he'll be your next fight, or Helix, or Lament. With only ten people left the chances of meeting up with someone you know gets more and more likely."

He grinned at her. "I promise you'll be avenged if I meet him. I'll stomp his teeth in and wear his head like a shoe."
Mel giggled. "You say the sweetest things." Her tone flattened, becoming severe. But don't underestimate him. He was one of the scariest people I've ever fought, and I've sparred with you plenty." She looked at Callie. "You looked into the people in the twelfth round right? Any educated guesses on who makes it to round thirteen?"

Rime, who I hadn't even noticed because she'd been so quiet, piped up. "Firn from Final Frost Heaven is almost a shoe in for the last round. She uses a weird mutated version of ice manipulation that makes extremely durable permafrost. Durable even for her rank, I mean. Her control is also insane."

Callie nodded. "Heard about her." Her voice was rough, still hoarse from crying earlier, though we all pretended it wasn't. "There's a teleporter named Lucas who seems to be doing well. Ambush fighter. Mixed his teleports with a nasty knack for Stealth. Not sure if he makes the top five, but you'll probably see him in the next round, even if you don't actually tun into him. Other than him, Arrabus, from the cult, is pretty scary. He uses that same dark corrosive energy we saw from Pietro, though it's not the same."

Mel nodded. "I saw him fight. He's Might focused. Makes the destructive aspects of the energy more apparent. Stat allocation has a strong influence on how abilities manifest, as I'm sure you know, since it's one of the ways to alter an ability without synergy."

None of this seemed to bother Abel. "I'll keep it in mind." He said casually. "We can worry about it when we find out who I'm actually going to be fighting. No use crying over being about to spill milk."

"That's...not a saying." Said Mel in exasperation. "It doesn't even make any sense. Can you for once take it seriously when someone tells you to watch out for an enemy, instead of barreling right at them like some kind of demented five year old on a sugar high."

Abel pursed his lips before shaking his head. "Nah, not my style. But thanks for worrying about me, love. You know I can take care of myself, but it's still sweet of you."

I groaned, and they all looked at me. "Sorry, not about you. Just realized I have to tell Nat I'm out of the running. Any of her team make it through?" I'd almost forgotten my cousin was in this with us, but if she had team members entering round thirteen that would massively increase our chances.

Callie brightened a bit. "Oh, right. Yeah, Valk, that red bearded guy with the weird gel powers. I guess he had a chance to make the finals too." She shot a stern look at Abel. "To be clear, if he makes it in, you're to team up with him until the other three are eliminated to maximize our chances. That means no free for all just to have some fun punching out a bunch of powerful warriors. Play it smart."

"Yes MOM." He said belligerently. Then grunted when Mel elbowed him in the ribs. He shot her a wounded look. "Hey be careful, I'm still in pain from my gruesome injury."

Her only response was a dismissive snort, which drew a smirk from my teacher. I rolled my eyes. "How did you beat me in a fight again?"

Abel's face smoothed out, his normally expressive features, so loud that it was easy to tell what he was thinking even under a mask, flattened as he stared at me intently. "With some effort. Seriously, kid. I don't think you get how much that means coming from me. You did good. I'm proud of you."

I froze. That...wow, that caught me flat footed. It felt...weird. I mean sure, Zeke had said it before, though not often, he wasn't the type, but that kind of thing is something you expect to hear from your dad, and I really hadn't. Ever. My dad hadn't said he was proud of me once in my entire life. Not even when he left me his final message throwing me into the deep end.

Callie, who out of everyone got what I was feeling, grabbed my hand and squeezed it as I muttered out. "Thanks, Abel." He nodded, effectively declaring the conversation closed, but I understood. Abel was a gregarious and outgoing guy, but that was mostly surface. He didn't share what was under it often. I appreciated him doing it now.

Finally, we came to a stop, and they helped me up to open the door. My brain had settled mostly, a bit of pain but the fuzz and discomfort I felt on waking was mostly faded.

As we made it inside, I heard cheering and turned to see Cass running up. "Happy losing day!" She said cheerfully. She was being so upbeat about it I couldn't even get mad, just laughing at the odd comment.
Cark, who came up behind her, rolled his eyes. "Cassidy, you're not supposed to point out when someone fails at something. It's rude."

She shot him an annoyed look. "Nuh-uh. You always tell me that trying your best is what matters. Uncle Zeke said he went to watch and that Shane tried his best and did really good. As long you try your hardest losing isn't a big deal, it's even better than winning, because you learn something."

We all just stared at her, before Callie burst into laughter. At Cass's glare, she held up both hands. "Sorry sweetie, that's just a really smart way to look at it. I'm laughing because the rest of us were being dumb. Where did you hear that take on it though?"

Cass rolled her eyes, as if Callie had asked the dumbest question possible. "From cartoons, duh. Anyway, I wanted to wish Shane a happy losing day, because he tried his best and that means he got to learn something. Isn't that way better than winning?" She whispered to Callie, loud enough for us all to hear. "He needs it more than you did, because he's a boy. They get stupid about that kind of stuff."

Even I couldn't help but laugh at that, though I noted Cark shooting Callie and Jessie suspicious looks and muttering something about bad influences. I grinned, taking my mask off. "That's a good way to look at it. But if we're celebrating I guess I need to make something for dinner, maybe even a cake." I paused. "Is it arrogant to make your own congratulatory cake?"

It was hard not to crack up as everyone vehemently assured me it wasn't, choosing to interpret that as support and not the obvious desperate attempt to get me to make dessert for them that it was. Turning to head for the kitchen, I heard the others trailing behind me, and I thought back to what Cass said. She was right, there was more than one way to look at a loss. Sure I wasn't thrilled, but I'd done better than most, and I'd really shown what I could do. This wasn't such a bad outcome really, at least I got to show Abel how strong I'd gotten. Now I could just sit back, relax, and let him crush our enemies. Poor bastards.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I had to admit that the people running this tournament were smarter than I'd given them credit for. The next day was downtime before the semi-finals, and to get everyone pumped they released the names. At this point, everyone had fought enough times and there were few enough people left that anyone who wanted to be prepared (Abel didn't) would be. In light of that, all the matchups were trumpeted from the rooftops.

It had only taken me a second to realize why the five way brawl was set up for the finals. Besides being big and flashy, it meant they could advertise ten different semi-final matches, maximizing the amount of attention each of the contestants got. Which was how we got the announcement that Abel was going to be fighting Lament for his match.

The grin on my mentor's face was so wide I expected his face to split when he found out. We were all gathered around the scan box in the living room, watching the coverage of the tournament so far. They'd been cherry picking the best moments to play for everyone on Callus and all the surrounding worlds with champions involved.

When my own fights came up, I froze. "Wait...I had the whole fight under cover of Moonlit Night. How are there so many clips from my solo matches?" I hadn't really watched any of the coverage, wanting to stay focused on training, but now that I was out I was free to enjoy the downtime, especially since Abel's match wasn't until tomorrow.

That got a snort from Abel. "Please, you think they don't have counters for Stealth effects? Those barriers that keep out audience sound act through Perception, same basic principle as Stealth itself, erasing sounds as they go through, but it ALSO acts as a sort of revealing lens for anyone or anything looking through from the outside. Nothing more boring that seeing two people vanish at the start of the fight and the pop up after its over."

Huh. That made sense. "Oh, well." I said with a shrug. "I knew some of my secrets would get out. Just a shame I won't be seeing the points from this tournament, since I'm at my cap."

Abel shook his head. "Nah, I told you there's a ceremony for rank up built into the tournament itself. That was the event doesn't end until the contestants have hit the next rank. Otherwise why waste all that time on promotion. Once it ends you'll get all the points at once, kind of like the scavenger hunt the academy does."

I tried to remember if someone had mentioned something like that. I remembered hearing about the ceremony, but wasn't sure if I ever asked why they had it. I turned back to the screen, where I saw a clip of Lament's insane lightning ability. "So." I said seriously. "You think you can beat her? Because she's about as scary as you from what I saw. I know you were holding back on me, but by how much exactly."

"Ah." He said with a grin. "But that would be telling. As for whether I can beat her...who knows. I look forward to finding out though. Don't worry kid, if I lose, it's not going to be because I was slacking off."

Cass, who had decided to watch with us, was staring at the screen with a serious expression. "Hey." She said solemnly. "Mr. Abel, can you teach me to fight?" We all froze, turning to look at the small girl and her intent gaze as she took in the on screen combat.

"Cassidy!" Snapped Cark. "That's not something you just ask like that. Mr. Abel has things to do, he's still in the tournament and he doesn't have time to teach you combat."

My eyes were wide with panic. "Cass, that's not really a good idea. What even made you ask that?" Having been through Abel's training, I knew it wasn't at all something I would ever put a child through. I could sense Callie's shock and unease through the bond as well, so it wasn't just me.

She shrugged. "Mr. Abel is really strong. I want to learn to be strong like that too. In case someone tries to hurt me again." Her voice was...flat. But too flat. And I detected a slight shudder at the end. She was trying her hardest to seem disaffected, but she was still obviously disturbed by what happened to her, not that I blamed her at all. We all knew about her bad dreams, and as much as she repressed it most of the time and played the happy carefree little girl, there were other signs too.

We all went quiet at that, all of us except Abel. "Sorry kid. I won't teach you to fight. You're too young for my kind of training." Her face screwed up in anger. Before she could voice her complaint though, he held up a hand. "But I CAN teach you martial arts. At least until we leave for the Moonsong Glade. Nothing fancy or dangerous, just some low risk training and forms. To help build confidence."

That...was less objectionable. I knew that learning martial arts could help a person feel more in control and safe, and if he was planning to teach her just Ragam, and gently at that, it seemed fine to me, but in the end it wasn't my call. We looked at Cark, who was scowling. He could see the benefits too, but I could tell he didn't want to admit it.

It must have been rough, knowing she needed help and not being able to give it. I mean, sure any of us could have taught her, but we didn't want to shove her into combat. She'd been through enough. Now she was asking though, and it clearly meant a lot to her. Eventually, he sighed. "Alright. But I want to sit in on the lessons, and if I feel like you're being too harsh I reserve the right to end them at any time."

In an uncharacteristic show of seriousness, Abel nodded, his face set. "Of course." He turned to Cass, standing up only to kneel down in front of her. "I'm just going to teach you exercises, some of the forms I found in the book where I learned Ragam. Even so, this won't be easy. Our martial art is time consuming an difficult to master, and you may never make much progress in it. Even if you become an Ascendant, not everyone can learn Ragam."

Seeming to ignore that last part, Cass squealed with joy and hurled herself onto him, hugging his neck as he laughingly stood up. He nodded to Cark. "Going to be swamped tomorrow, might as well start the lessons right away so she can work while I'm not around." He looked at Jessie. "Think you could come with? I think having a healer on hand in case she falls or something would be a good idea."

Jessie looked thrilled to be included. "Of COURSE! I'd love to come watch her practice. Can we do it in the outside building so we can hang out with Randall and the puppies after?" The building behind the house was...well we weren't sure of its original purpose. There were some hints of it being a garage, or maybe some kind of barn, and there was a swimming pool full of broken glass jars and multicolored twenty sided dice out there. No one was willing to touch it, because the whole mess was somehow F-ranked, and Zeke thought it was too funny to get rid of.

That was in the back though, and there was a big empty hangar type room in the front that Jessie had co-opted for the animals, and had spent days decorating and sprucing up.

With an eye roll, Abel nodded, and the small group headed outside, with Rime deciding to tag along because we were in the house with Zeke and therefore safe, plus she seemed fascinated by seeing Abel fight, which I couldn't exactly blame her for given the battles she'd seen from him.

Once they were gone, I turned to Benny. "Alright, so I got yesterday's points traded, how about we get today's out of the way early."

He shrugged. "I'm not against that. Yesterday was Might, and I'll do Might again today to even things up. Focus has been lagging behind." He fished out a small bag, tossing it to me, and I heard the clink as I jingled it around. Chits. This would bring me up to one hundred seventy one combined with the five from yesterday. He made his wish, pushing his Might up to three hundred and nine and his total points to seven hundred eighty three.

Benny finished up his wishes and decided to go check in with Celine, who had been staying with us, though mostly keeping to her room. With him gone, I slumped back into the couch with a world weary sigh. Callie frowned at me, having been letting us get the wishes done and enjoying the show until she felt my unease. "You ok babe? You seem out of it. Anything I can help with?"

"I...guess not?" I said contemplatively. "I was pretty down about losing until Cass's speech yesterday, and now I'm fine, but I'm also kind of lost. I've been going full tilt for so long, and now I have to just stop. The whole hurry up and wait thing is giving me whiplash. I know we have to wait for Abel to do his thing and leave it up to him, but at this point I can't sit still. I feel like I should be training or something."

She made a pensive sound. "Nope." I raised an eyebrow at the dismissal. "No training, that's an order from your team leader. Until the end of the tournament wishes are the only Ascendant thing you're allowed to do. Until then, you need to find other things to occupy your time. Visit friends, get a hobby, whatever you want." She gave me a sly look. "Maybe lavish your adoring girlfriend with attention. Or even do two of those things at once."

"I'm not sure cooking for you counts as a hobby." I said wryly. "But I'm starting to think you only like me for my culinary skills."

She gave me wicked grin, leaning in for a kiss. "That's a lot of talking and not a lot of getting in the kitchen to make me a sandwich." When I chuckled, she squeezed me tight. "You know I love you. I love you because you're sweet, and kind, and loving, and brave, and you're a total beefcake. The fact that you're a gorumet chef and happen to be a treasure magnet is just icing on my absolute favorite kind of cake."

I nodded solemnly. "High praise, given how much you enjoyed the one I made last night. But fine, I see your point. I'll try to take some me time. I don't suppose watching matches counts?"

"It does not." She said firmly. "Though you can still go, because we need to support our team. It's the right thing to do as teammates. Plus, come on, you have to admit you want to see Lament and Abel face of. They're the two scariest G-rankers I've ever seen."

I laughed at the admission, and she snuggled up to me to get started on this whole downtime thing. Of course, that didn't mean she let me pick what we watched, she connected her scan ring and started flipping through the channels on the scan box until she got to a cooking channel. From her surreptitious glance at me it was clear she was hinting at something but I just snorted settled in to watch. Though I had to admit, I'd never actually made stuffed peppers before, maybe I actually would give that a shot.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Finding a seat at the arena the next day was harder than expected. I don't know why I hadn't assumed it would be packed, maybe because it had been so sparsely populated all the other matches. People had watched from home or just ignored most of the lead up fights, since there were so many happening. Even last round, the top twenty, hadn't really been a concern for most.

This one was different though. This match was one of the ten semi-finals, and everyone wanted to be here. I don't think it even mattered to them who was fighting, one of the matches being as good as the next, they just wanted to be part of the spectacle. Which made finding a seat annoying and difficult.

Luckily, Rime was with us, which made it at least possible, as after thirty minutes of looking she finally approached a group of locals she knew and just literally kicked them out of their seats. They whined about it a bit, but she was annoyed at the wait, and once they knew she was being serious they lost most of their momentum, just quietly vacating, to join the throng of searchers.

Zeke had come along directly, and brought Cass with him. She wanted to see her new teacher fight, and Zeke was the only person she really felt safe with in a place like this. I wasn't sure the little girl KNEW how scary her 'Uncle Zeke' was, but some part of her recognized that he was at least competent. Along with them was Callie and I, of course, Cark, Jessie, Benny, and Mel.

To my surprise, we all seemed to be in good moods, almost as excited for this fight as Abel himself was. Mel was sitting closest to the aisle between the seats, just so she could reach the pit fastest if she needed to. I'd never seen anything close to uncertainty from her towards Abel before, so it was a bit jarring, but even she looked anticipatory. Still, I decided to at least say something. "Hey, you ok?"

She jumped slightly, looking up at me. "Yeah, sorry. Just out of it. It's been years since I've seen him in a really big fight." She coughed lightly. "Uh, no offense. But this just reminds me of how things used to be. When we were younger he would challenge anyone except freaks he had no chance of beating. I just- shit, there he is, time to watch."

Sure enough, Abel was walking out onto the sand, looking so excited he was about to vibrate through the ground. On the other side Lament emerged, hefting her spear over her shoulder and staring intently at me mentor. They spoke for a minute, not that we could hear them, and then the two of them started to circle.

Lament lashed out with a spear thrust, and Abel clapped his hands together, massive manifestations halting the thrust of the colossal spear head before it could reach him. He slapped the blade aside, driving forward with a flurry of punches, fist manifestations appearing and vanishing as he struck from a new angle with each blow.

It didn't phase Lament, who started to spin her spear, the haft manifesting in the air over her head, creating a whirling defensive manifestation that blocked all the blows. Shoving the haft forward, the whirling defense drove at Abel, and my mentor stepped lightly aside, carried on a thin stream of lubricated space out of the path of the attack, raising his arms, I saw him use that space warping effect to manifest six afterimages of arms around him, then condense them and hurl out a barrage of punches with three times the power.

Using her spear as a pole vault, Lament shoved herself aside, dodging back and forth to avoid that punches. She called out for her power, manifesting lightning to her blade, and flashed forward in a driving charge faster than my eyes could track, a manifestation of the lightning charged blade heading right for Abel.

My mentor tossed his jacket to the side, arms clenching as space seemed to shimmer and warp around them. Manifestations appeared above him, but these were somehow denser and more intimidating. Raising his arms, he brought them down, leaving a trail of afterimages, each one following behind the arms to stack on top of them a dozen times, space behind them lubricated and creating a sort of dimensional overlap.

There was a clap of thunder even the wards couldn't keep in as his phantom hands smashed into the spear, one at the head, and one halfway down the haft just over where the hand would be. The manifestation snapped, and with it the actual spear Lament was holding basically exploded in her hands, the spearwoman dodging back as quickly as possible, but not fast enough to avoid the shrapnel completely.

Abel shook out his arms, giving her an easy grin, and I saw the two of them start to argue. Or rather, Lament was arguing, seeming to get more and more agitated until...something changed. Literally, the weight of the spear user on my consciousness was altered as she..."Is she fucking breaking through?"

My question was answered a moment later as I felt her stabilize at F-rank. Mel whistled. "Wow, she does NOT want to lose. They'll disqualify her for this, but I somehow don't think she cares. Looks like they'll continue the fight though. Probably waiting for Abel to call it." She was trying to sound casual, but there was an undercurrent of worry in her tone.

Lament raised a hand into the air, and another manifestation appeared above her. I stared at it in shock, how the hell was she doing that without a spear? As I gaped, lightning condensed on the spear image, coating it completely, and then she clenched her fist and the manifestation began to CONTRACT. The huge spear image started shrinking, becoming more solid and more dense as it did, until a literal lightning spear was sitting in her hand, visibly physical and deadly.

"What the actual fuck?" I asked Mel, who was staring at the spear in horror. "How did she do that? Some kind of power synergy?"

She shook her head mutely. "No. That's a physically manifest Skill. Manifestations are physical, but only for a second or two during attacks. That's an actual solid object. Different people manifest things differently, but...I'm pretty sure she just ranked that Skill up to Expert."

I snapped back to watching the fight, terrified for my teacher, but to my shock he looked elated. Reaching up, he pulled off his mask and slipped it into a pocket, cracking his neck.

At the motion, Mel seemed to deflate, the pressure of her worry fading. "Ok, he's going to start taking things seriously."
I blinked at her. "Ok...but how much can he be holding back really? I've seen him fight, ans he's scary as he'll, but if she's an F-ranker and an expert now..."

To my surprise, Mel seemed to actually calm down at the words, starting to chuckle to herself. At my strange look, she chucked her chin down at the arena. "Let me ask you a question. We've talked about Ragam plenty right? Told you it's a striking art that allows you to condense force with pinpoint accuracy?"

I nodded, and her chuckle gained a wicked edge as she pointed to the arena. "Well, at any point during those explanations did we mention that Ragam only used PUNCHING techniques?"

My head snapped up, eyes widening as I saw a colossal phantom leg appear and sweep towards Lament from the side, seeing it, she spun her lightning spear, turning to intercept. As she did, Abel stepped into the manifestation, which extended from where he was standing to where she was blocking. The limb had been coated in his spatial lubrication before manifesting, and Abel basically vanished at one end, appearing in front of his enemy.

Lament's eyes widened and she lashed out at Abel, who rolled in midair, leaving behind a warped space in the shape of his body that seemed to condense as a manifestation, even as he slipped around behind her, spinning off his back leg to scythe a kick at her head from behind as the manifestation of himself launched a flurry of attacks and faded into nothingness as it was struck by the spear.

She yanked the spear out, rolling it up over her arm to place it between her and Abel. As his foot landed, he pulled back, shedding another blurry manifestation of himself cobbled together from warped space. He spun on his toe, whirling around her in a complete circle, leaving copies behind, and then changed direction as she attacked the spot he'd just been in.

As he moved back through the warped copies of himself he absorbed them, seeming to become denser and more powerful, not quite hitting the next point of Impact, but coming close. After absorbing ten clones he dashed forward, and engaged her in a direct head to head fight.

Her spear lashed out like a glowing blue rainstorm, striking the air and creating explosions of thunder as it tore through the sound barrier, but Abel was always a step ahead, twisting and contorting his body in a strange movement style that was both fluid and ragged, always just an inch from being hit as his blows smashed into his opponent with brutal and punishing force.

Blow to the short ribs, downward elbow to the collar bone, uppercut to the jaw, stomp the knee. Lament was getting frustrated, moving faster, attacking harder, and she even landed a few hits. Despite that, Abel didn't stop or slow. I'd see him get stabbed and think he was dead, only to realize it had been a glancing blow, or landed somewhere less vulnerable than intended.

Even with the new holes being poked in him, Abel was clearly in a frenzy of joy. Lament attacked again, driving the spear into his thigh, and I saw his smile turn feral as he used the second it was stuck in his leg to slam his head forward into her nose. Her eyes went hazy, head falling back as her nose fountained blood, and Abel's hand came up to grab her hair, holding her hear back as he drove the other into her throat, knuckles first, in a brutal knife hand.

She doubled over as he backed up slightly, tearing his ragged and bloody shirt off the tie it around his thigh in a make shift tourniquet, then stepped in and grabbed her head, smashing his other, uninjured leg into her bloody face, again, and again, and again. It took ten blows before she slumped over, unconscious, and Abel threw a fist up in the air as the crowd erupted in cheers.

I stared, dumbstruck. Not because he won, but because of what he'd done to get there. The pain, the blood, the injuries he just shrugged off. I could see what Abel had wanted us to see. That fights weren't clean and orderly like the ones we'd been in so far. Even the bouts with assassins had been neat, tame. We tried not to get hurt and to take down the bad guys. That was what heroic cultivators did.

This wasn't that. This was brutal, bloody, and unfiltered. If we wanted to take down people stronger than us, we'd need to fight like this when it mattered. I made a mental note to take all of this to heart as I stood up, following Mel down the steps to the edge of the pit as I saw Abel keel over, probably from blood loss.

With both fighters out they dropped the shield and Mel and I jumped down, bolting for Abel to heal him up. A heal burst and scan heal just to be safe, later, had him on the mend, and two more heal bursts sped things up a bit. Then we healed up Lament and carried them both out. Our team was in the finals for real. Time to celebrate.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

By the time we got home, Zeke was already there. He always beat us back, which was fine, but I had other things to address. Questions for Abel, more specifically. "Ok." I said heatedly. "What the actual fuck was that? I mean congrats on the win, but you were really holding back against me that much?"

My mentor was still healing, and I admit I wasn't gentle dropping his ass on the couch from the firemans carry I had him in. He grunted as he hit the cushions, but didn't seem upset about it as he crawled to a sitting position with a chuckle. "Not exactly. My Cicada Stacking Steps is new. I've been working on the technique for the tournament. I had something...kind of like it before. But what you saw from me today was me going all out."

I noticed he dodged the question, but I didn't bother to point it out. "Cicada Stacking Steps? How does that even work?" I had been damned impressed by my mentor's fight, and some of what he pulled off made almost no sense to me.

His grin was proud as he adjusted himself on the couch. Callie, Jessie, and Mel had gone out with Rime to get Enchiladas from the Raving Baby (Abel's favorites). We'd gotten permission from Zeke for a quick trip from the F-ranker into Doomtown, and they should be back soon enough. "Good question. Why not guess?"

Groaning at his insistence on making everything training, I gave my best guess. "Well the actual clones were obviously spatial lubrication. But I'm not how you did the rest exactly. Something with manifestations?"

He nodded. I can manifest any part of me used for Ragam, and at basically any size. Using my legs transitioned it to a full body art. I shed spatial lubrication behind me and then harmonized it with a quick full body manifestation, then used it to stack like my punches do, amplifying my strength multiple times over."

I whistled. I'd figured it was something like that, but the details...the complexity of something like that must be absurd. It wasn't just harmonizing several different instances of power use, but doing it with a Skill that already taxed the soul to the peak of G-rank. Speaking of which. "What happened to Lament by the way? I mean, she lost, so she was out anyway. Did they do anything to her for cheating?"

That drew a snort from my teacher. "Hardly. Like you said, she lost. If she'd beat me they'd have had to fix it, but since she was bounced anyway there was no reason. Plus her Master is a scary old man. Nobody wanted to pick a fight over a dead issue. I didn't throw a fit so why should they?"

"But aren't you..." I searched for the words. "Mad? Disappointed? She almost cost you all your hard work just because she was a sore loser."

He just chuckled, shaking his head. "See, this is why I think the Unity is a bad influence. It doesn't matter. It never mattered. Not just to me, because I wanted the fight to be as hard as possible, but at all. The world isn't about fairness, or hard work. It's about doing what you want. Finding that thing that makes your heart pound. If someone crosses a line it's not an offense, it's an opportunity to leverage them."

Rather than refute him, I sat and thought for a minute. "The way you were fighting..."

An approving nod accompanied his grin. "Exactly. People love to talk about the downsides of being an Ascendant. You have whiny romantics go on and on about losing themselves, and cautious people insisting they hone their force of will to resist recursion, but they ignore the best parts. The parts I love. To be Ascendant is to be a force of nature. A story made flesh. Never ceasing, never ending, even after you die, you don't because stories always live on as long as there are people to tell them."

I gaped at him. I'd never seen him so...philosophical. "But what if you DO lose yourself? Who you are? Giving so many people control of you is just..."

"But you aren't!" He said passionately. "Renown is reactive, not active. It's a response. You're the one throwing the stone in the pool, creating the ripples. Your destiny is all on you. It can be hard to keep complete control, but it's still you driving. It's a snowball, kid, the more you show the world the person you want to be seen as, the more they push you to that ideal. You're the author of your own story."

I groaned in exasperation. "So what? What does that have to do with your fight? With how self destructive you were being?"

"Because." He said like it was obvious. "The story I was telling is one of overwhelming power. And you can't have overwhelming power without something to overwhelm. The blood, the injuries, the pain, they paved the road I wanted everyone to walk down, showed them my journey in a way deeper than words. They walked my path with me, and because of that, they'll REMEMBER it."

Which I couldn't argue, really. He'd left a hell of an impression. "But is it like that everywhere? Is that the new standard? Will I need to watch Callie bleed like that? Hurt like that?" I could take the pain, it would suck but half the problem with injury was wondering if it would be the end of you, and with my abilities I'd be fine. But seeing Callie like that, hurting, tearing herself apart like an animal gnawing off its arm to escape a trap. It made me sick to think about it.

"Honestly. Probably not." He said, to my surprise. At my cocked head he laughed. "There are more types of stories than stars in the sky, kid. Callie is a sneaky type. People like that walk a fine line. Gotta be scary enough to build a rep, but being all blatant and violent like me is counterproductive. Sneaky people aren't supposed to get pumped full of holes and get up. They're supposed to be a maybe, to be a whisper that may or may not be true. It's a safer life, but a much more ruthless one in some ways."

That was surprisingly insightful, but I could tell from his drifting attention he'd said all he really wanted to say. So I changed topic. "Well, fair enough. Speaking of safety, are you going to be ok to fight in the finals? They gave us three days, but your wounds were from an F-ranker. That's a pretty nasty thing to heal." I gestured to the multiple holes still closing up.

The healing energy had prioritized the worst injuries because of the inclusion of a scan heal in my patch job, which upside meant he would be fine, but downside meant that there were still plenty of non vital spots that were the human equivalent of swiss cheese.

"I'm fine." He said with a casual wave. "Plus we have full time access to one of the best G-rank healers on this planet. Jessie already has a higher Vitality than most F-rankers start with, she can help patch me up with plenty of time to spare. Even if she doesn't feel like it, I've fought hurt before. I'll be there."

Seeing how little the idea bothered him brought me back to his little speech earlier. About making yourself who you wanted to be. Abel had been trudging forward without flinching for decades, this was definitely a result of that, and the idea of that kind of determination shaping who I was...it was kind of nice.

It was also an angle people like Zeke wouldn't even consider talking to me about. Zeke had been living it for longer than I'd been alive, probably MUCH longer. It would be like trying to give someone breathing advice. The downsides of being an Ascendant would be obvious, but not this particular aspect of things.

My thoughts were interrupted as the front door slammed shut. "We're home!" Called Callie. We got up to head to the kitchen, me giving Abel my shoulder for help and him ignoring it. I smirked a bit at how stubborn he was, but I kind of respected it.

In the kitchen, Callie was coming in with several containers of Enchiladas. She started setting them down as Rime and Jessie came in. Benny, who had been off with Celine, came in after, clearly summoned to help carry things in. Cass came running through the door with Cark and Zeke. The little girl sniffed the air. "That smells so good!" She crowed. "What is it? I want seconds!"

Callie giggled at the girl's appetite while Jessie set down the containers (metallic foil trays with crimped folding tops) and scooped her up to get her out of the way. Cass squealed in surprise and joy as Jessie carried her out of the room to go watch cartoons again.

We all chuckled, and Mel dragged him to the table, fussing over her boyfriend. "Sit down you insufferable idiot. We got your favorite, so park your ass and eat it before we decide to feed it to dogs. I bet they would love some enchiladas." Her voice was brusque, but the worry in it was clear, and Abel obviously got that too, since he gave her a solemn look and then sat with a nod.

It was weird to see her so worried about him, given what he could do, but then, I could do plenty, and Callie still worried about me. I guessed it wasn't often someone you loved fought an F-ranked Master Candidate. The rest of us crowded around the counter once they got Abel his food, Jessie coming back in with Cass (though with was a bit of an overstatement, it was more like she got dragged) and we all sat at the table to eat.

Abel, of course, had a stack of trays next to him with dozens of the damned things in there, which I was assured would not only be delicious, but help him fuel the energy burn of Jessie spamming her power on him for days. Jessie's power supercharged the body, but it still USED the body. Short term it acted like healing and a pure energy boost, but long term it needed nutrients to work with.

We sat around, stuffing out faces and enjoying the food, listening to Cass talk about her day at home, and I had to admit...it was nice. I'd expected to be a bit bitter about losing to him, but honestly seeing him so happy and feeling like part of the winning team washed any of that away. I'd never have won, I had known it deep down, even if I wanted it desperately. This though, this was better. Friends. Family.

Eating, laughing, spending time together, this was a damn good result for the tournament, and even if he didn't win the finals, this whole thing would have been worth it. It made us stronger, brought us together, showed us who we were. I could see why these things were so common, there was a lot to be said about learning from combat. Looking back the way Abel and I had come, I considered the next round.

The finals. The last thing he needed to get past to make this work. It wouldn't be easy, but at this point...I almost didn't feel the pressure. As a part of the team of course. I wasn't the one fighting, but even this round I had felt a drive for him to win. Now though...we made it to the end. If we fumbled here life would go on. I shook the thought away, tucking back into my Enchiladas as Cass started telling Callie all about how the main character in her cartoon had just gotten a power up. Like I'd said, it was all worth it.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Three days of downtime passed far more quietly than expected. Granted, it wasn't my downtime, it was Abel's, but still I'd figured I'd be more nervous about the last round. My odd sense of peace continued until the last minute though, and the morning of, I finished up my wishes with Benny. With another fifteen G-ranked chits in my bank for my weapon fund, I was free to give Benny another sixty points, forty in Focus and twenty in Might over the break. Then I headed to talk to Abel about his final fight.

Getting seats for the finals when it was all in one arena was rough, but we couldn't leave him by himself. The E-rankers had it covered though, and we managed to snag enough entrance passes for all of our close friends. Benny, Jessie, Celine, Mel, Rime, Lament, Wren, Alden, Sydney, Megan, and Sloane were all coming with, hoping to cheer on my terrifying teacher and maybe get their faces on camera cheering. Some of the other teams we'd made friends with had their own invites too, this was going to be a big event.

"You're sure you're healed up?" Asked Callie with concern as Abel actually stretched before we headed to the arena. Warm-ups weren't his usual style.

He just waved it off. "I'm fine, I called and talked to Shane's cousin, who put me in touch with Valk. He won his match, and we both agreed that the best possible outcome is one of us winning, so we talked through a couple of combinations to maximize our combat potential." We all turned to stare at him questioningly, but he just winked. "No spoilers."

"I'm surprised though." I volunteered. I'd have pegged you for the lone warrior type. I wouldn't have figured you would want to team up with someone you don't know."

Frowning, he nodded at Lament. "Yeah well, pigsticker over there showed me that I can't take this lightly. Chances are some of these bastards are tougher than she was, and while I'm confident I can take any G-ranker around, I'm not confident I can take FOUR of any G-ranker around. If I'd been fighting four of her, even before she shamelessly cheated and lost anyway, I'd have been in trouble. Barely."

Lament twitched, and Wren tried his best not to snicker. The other members of their team had stayed behind, but Wren was a friend, and he was enjoying Abel tormenting his captain. Of course, like he'd said before, Abel didn't hold it against her, but he DID love to mess with people, and was regularly poking her about the loss. The pigsticker comment was particularly cutting, since he'd smashed her spear in the fight and she had no way to get a new one on planet that was up to her standards, especially with the rank up.

To her credit, Lament didn't argue the point. She wasn't sorry, and had admitted that, but she also had a good fight and the consequences were all on her. She considered the right to shit talk Abel's due for winning. I decided interrupting would be the nicest thing I could do here. "So did we get confirmation on the finalists? I never checked."

Callie nodded. "The Walking War and Firn both made the finals. Helix didn't shockingly, got bounced out by some shapeshifter. Along with Abel and Valk that's the top five right there. The shapeshifter is from the Cult, as far as I can tell. Whereas I think Wilder, the Walking War, has ties to the Empire. Nobody is sure WHO the Final Frost Heaven is backed by, if anyone, but Firn is supposed to be damned scary."

Abel shook his head. "He's not a shapeshifter. He's got a racial trait. He's a Hyde. Valk sent me some videos of his matches. He's...not weak. Aside from being able to take on a massive supernaturally powerful form, he has some kind of black energy like what that asshat in Doomtown used." He pointed at my uncle. "Zeke says its called the Rath and the Ruins, and it's a martial art from the Cult, though not directly created by Black Sorrow. Much less prestigious and powerful than the Fist art that Alec uses."

That was surprising to me, but when we looked at Zeke he just shrugged. "He paid for the info, so it wasn't helping too much to give it to him. Is Natalie coming with us or is she going on her own?"

"Her own. She and Perit and their other teammate got tickets easily. Speaking of tickets, we should go shouldn't we? It's going to start soon."

During the conversation most of us had trickled out to wait in the car, Jessie starting it up and everyone packing in tightly, even with the expanded space. We got there pretty quickly from my view, since we didn't talk much on the drive. Everyone sort of mutually agreed to let Abel concentrate, and even my usually relaxed mentor himself was quieter than expected.

When we arrived, we all headed up to sit down in the stands, not finding anyone we knew. We'd brought our own party though, so to speak, so we didn't need to add to it. We were in assigned seating, because otherwise there was no way we would have ended up together, because the whole place was packed to the rafters. Or would have been. If open top arenas had rafters. It was pretty full, was the point.

Rather then the sand pit though, this one had a huge square ring surrounded by flat ground. The ring itself had a pentagonal shape on it where each of the contestants would take an equadistant place from the center and from each other. Before the match started though, Midknight himself strode out onto the platform.

Callie tensed, but I put a hand on her arm. As much as I hated that asshole, and as much as I wanted her to get another chance to teach him a lesson, I knew this wasn't the time. Politically though, this situation was a time bomb. We couldn't afford to throw gas on the fire when there was so much happening...actually, there was a LOT happening. I looked around suspiciously.

This would be the stupidest, and as such in some ways the smartest, time to attack again. If they thought they had a method to counter the defenses here it would provide a huge amount of reputation. But what was the point? By the time it ended the winner would be chosen. Was I being paranoid? Or was this my Fate sense latching onto a stray though?

Midknight cleared his throat. "Citizens!" He intoned, voice booming a bit more ominously than it had last time. He was hamming it up for the larger crowd. I wasn't sure what caused the shiver down my spine, but the effect was clearly felt throughout the arena. "We bring to you the final battle. The last moment. These warriors have bled and fought and cursed to reach this hallowed stage, and this is their reward. Glorious combat."

I got the incredibly strong urge to roll my eyes, and realized it was coming through the bond when Callie DID roll her eyes. I smirked at her from behind my mask, but neither of us spoke as Midknight continued. "Power. Skill. Determination. All important qualities, important building blocks on the path to success. But in truth, these blocks are all made of a single material, one substance that makes up the blood and bone of every truly great warrior. Victory."

He gestured widely to the ring. "And as with all true Victory, only one may claim it. Only a single warrior may emerge at the peak. These five competitors will now show you how those building blocks are forged. Show you the way they're laid down, so you might follow that path yourselves one day."

"Wow." I murmured under my breath, making sure to use Stealth so I wasn't heard. "He REALLY likes the sound of his own voice." I'd thought Callie had been being hyper critical when she mentioned that, but it seemed like she was just being literal.

My girlfriend used Stealth herself to stifle a giggle, and Midknight either didn't hear or didn't care as long as others couldn't, as he pressed on. "The competitors may use any means within the rules. They may team up, may even fall upon a single person as a group and beat them down. Anything is permitted. But at the end, when this finishes, only one will be crowned the victor. These five champions represent the strongest of their generation. Roland Wilder, of the War God Regiment. Appolyon of the Starchaser Pavilion. Firn of the Final Frost Heaven,Valk of the Wish Curse Palace, and Jack Carrax of the Weeping Clown Tomb. Which of them will emerge victorious? Only time will tell."

He snapped his fingers and shadows leapt up, obscuring the five points of the ring and receding to reveal the contestants. "You may begin." He slammed his palms together and the armor exploded into a shadowy mist, obscuring the ring for a moment before it faded away, revealing the five combatants standing across from each other, waiting for the right time to attack.

Everyone watched with bated breath. Abel was standing to the left of Valk, close enough to reach quickly, of course, but the five of them all just...stood. This was combat at the highest possible level. These were all people like Abel, monsters in human form, and the second one of them moved things would begin with a bang and they all knew it.

As the observed, I took in the forms of the enemies. The Hyde, Jack Carrax, was a tall, pallid looking man with sunken eyes and a hungry expression. His matted, greasy blonde hair hung limply to his shoulders under a tall top hat, and he wore an apron covered in blood.

Firn was a small, delicate looking girl with purple hair and blue eyes the color of ice, she wore a pair of purple shorts and a black sleeveless shirt with a purple silk jacket over the top of it. Her skin was chalk white, almost bloodless, and her expression was as cold as the ice she used in combat.

Finally the Roland was a short, dark skinned man with a wide, amiable smile and close cropped hair. His eyes were hazel, and were the only part of him that didn't scream kind and approachable, his gaze analytical and dangerous. He had on a functional set of leather armor, dyed red hide covering his entire body except for his face. I wasn't sure what the hide was, but it appeared to be F-ranked like my armor was.

The lull before the fight lasted for almost an entire minute, analyzing, waiting, deducing, until finally the tension snapped like a rubber band. Jack turned, shifting from a tall, thin man to a monster, easily ten feet tall and grotesquely bulging with muscle, arms so long the scraped the ground from a standing position. He hurled himself at Firn, who flicked a wrist to conjure a massive wall of pitch black permafrost in front of herself.

My gaze was dragged away as Abel used his spatial lubrication to flash across the distance to Valk, one of each of their hands clapping together as the air blurred. Suddenly a massive manifestation of Abel's other hand appeared cupped in front of them, but this time it wasn't normally colored. Instead the hand was made of blue gel.

The gel was Valk's ability, and it was lucky it was, because a wave for G-ranked swords came spearing down from above to pincushion our guys, stopped by the gel formed hand before even getting close. Roland surged forward to engage, and I turned to look at Callie with worry. Those attacks had all been terrifying. I hoped Abel would be ok, but all I could do was trust in my mentor. However this went down though, one thing was sure. This would be a hell of a fight.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Roland Wilder, the man known as the Walking War, was every bit as terrifying as his moniker suggested. While Firn battled with the Hyde (who was managing to just barely degrade her permafrost with his dark energy, and then using the weakening to smash holes in it with his massive fists) Valk and Abel were teaming up to combat the storm of conjured swords sweeping down on them from above.

While he didn't seem able to manually control the things one at a time, Roland WAS able to direct the torrent of conjured weapons, turning and shaping the attack pattern to try to avoid the hand. Abel stepped forward, making a circular motion with his palm, and created a rotating trail of lubricated space leading inward. The motion had the effect of making a sort of vortex in space that sucked in all the swords the other man was trying to get past the hand manifestation.

It was an interesting and terrifying move, but I could see how he wouldn't use it. Without the gel power Abel's manifestations were part of him, and could be harmed. It wasn't direct translation, but it effected him. Now though, the manifestation was catching the swords like flies in amber.

Which, as it turned out, was kind of the point. Roland had purposefully filled the hand with swords, something we didn't know until he used the next wave as a path, stepping on swords in the air and heading up after them.

This seemed like a supremely bad idea, but I realized as he got sucked in the the palm had been packed so full of swords there was barely any gel left. With a wave of his hand Roland dismissed the swords, and suddenly there were big open holes in the construct, and Roland stepped off a summoned sword and dashed through it.

Abel, not one to shrink back, flickered forward to meet him. Roland grabbed a sword from his summoned masses and brought it to bear in a powerful swing that Abel diverted easily with his power. I expected Valk to jump in, but I realized I'd been so concerned with the big show I'd missed the red bearded man leaving. Looking around, I spotted him engaging the Hyde, and was confused as to why he wasn't in position until I saw the dark energy wrapped around the whips on his hands.

I wasn't the only one who had noticed either, the distraction had been plenty of time for Firn, as a dragon made of black ice came howling down from above to swallow Jack whole. Seeing the opening, Valk turned and sprinted back to the fight between Roland and my mentor.

The swordsman had been trying unsuccessfully to get his blade on Abel, who had been using trails of lubricated space to divert every blow, never coming into contact. Roland wasn't a pushover though, and as Valk came in behind him he noticed, and with a stomp a barrage of swords erupted from the ground like spikes to perforate both fighters.

Abel avoided easily, and Valk used the dark energy whips to tear the blades apart. Before he could actually attack though, there was a roar as Jack came hurtling out of the ice dragon, shattering the black frost as he threw himself bodily at Valk, clearly enraged by the distraction even more than the actual confinement.

Abel flickered again, stepping into a trail of lubricated space that took him in an arc around the edge of where Valk was preparing to combat Jack. Valk didn't hesitate, turning and lashing out at Roland with the whips as Abel intercepted the Hyde.

The towering form of the monstrous brawler brought his hands down, collecting dark energy, and Abel dipped to the side to avoid it. Reaching up to pluck off his mask and slip it into his pocket, Abel flickered sideways, circling the Hyde and leaving a trail of duplicates, overlapping them again as he completed a second circle and empowering himself with his Cicada Stacking Step.

I blinked at the realization that Jack was STRONGER than my mentor. Whatever being a Hyde did for you, it apparently prioritized Might, and got some kind of natural modifier to strength like the Wendigo had. Jack lashed out with another punch, but this one Abel met head on, using a coating of warped space to prevent his hands from being degraded by the dark energy of the Rath and the Ruins.

Jack snarled at him, baring yellowed, uneven teeth, and snapped something we couldn't hear through the barrier before redoubling his efforts, attacking twice as fast, raining down blows. Abel whipped his jacket off and hurled it up at the other man. Jack slapped it aside nearly instantly, but that nearly was all the opening Abel needed. He used his spatial lubrication to slip around behind the Hyde.

Wrapping his arms around the giant man's waist, Abel bent over backwards, lifting Jack off his feet and slamming his skull into the dark stone of the ring. His tophat, which had somehow stayed on this whole time, went flying as his head slammed brutally into the stone, cracking the F-ranked material with the force of impact.

Abel would have followed up, but before he could attack, he seemed to sense danger. He pulled Jack in front of him as a rain of razor sharp black icicles came down on both of them, using the giant Hyde as a human shield to intercept the ice spikes.

Which turned out to be extremely wise, considering every place the permafrost slammed into Jack, ice spread over his bodyu, darkening his flesh with frostbite. Even though we couldn't hear him, the expression on his face made the pain clear. Firn had apparently taken the distraction as time to build up for something really nasty, because once Abel tossed aside his shield she didn't do that again.

Jack just writhed on the ground in pain, ignored as Valk faced off with Roland and Abel matched Firn head on. My cousin's guard was doing shockingly well though, his dark whips easily matching the torrent of blades Roland was bringing to bear. That dark energy was dangerous, and even G-ranked blades weren't able to stand up to it in combination with the force the whips were bringing to bare.

At this point, Valk was the one bringing the pain, and it was gratifying seeing the calm and cheerful Roland get serious, deflecting blows and being forced to abandon and resummon the swords he had in each hand as they became unusable under the assault.

Abel meanwhile, had rushed Firn, who had reacted by erecting some sort of spherical shield with nine large heads emerging from it, each a sucking tube of black ice with consecutive rotating rings of black frost teeth. Abel was bouncing from tube to tube, sliding down them on lubricated space trails to speed himself up and tying the damned things into knots.

I even saw one about to catch him, but as it chomped down he shed one of his Cicada shells, his strength dipping by a chunk but his body surviving the attack completely unscathed. He took advantage of the gap to push off heading for the shield, manifesting a massive fist, condensing several blows together even on top of the enhancement from the Cicada Shedding Step as far as I could tell.

His fist image hit the shield of dark ice and shattered it, smashing Firn INTO the stage, creating a crater deeper than I was tall. Abel turned on a heel, flickering in an arch along a trail of space I hadn't noticed him making, and came down with a smashing axe kick on a distracted Roland, who took the blow to the shoulder and was forced to the ground with a grunt. Judging by the expression on his face I was guessing his collar bone was either broken or cracked.

The two of them turned to Jack, who had dragged himself to his feet to glare at them. The Hyde took a step forward, and both of them prepared to fight, but he just toppled over face first. With him down, the two final competitors turned to each other. Valk spoke calmly, saying something I couldn't hear. I wished they'd left the shield noise permeable after Midknight vanished.

Abel flashed forward, and Valk whirled his whips in front of him in a defensive barrier. Sadly for him, the black energy had been used up quite a bit fighting Roland. I'd seen the effect waning as the fight went on, but now it was barely present. Abel slipped out of another shell, leaving behind a duplicate as her flowed behind Valk. The red bearded warrior shredded the shell, but realized too later what had happened as Abel hammered a spinning back elbow to base of his skull.

He fell to the ground heavily, and Abel looked around the area, eager for more despite the sweat and obvious exhaustion. The dome began to fall. The armored form of Midknight stepped up onto the stage, choosing to avoid. He approached Abel, grabbed his hand, and held it aloft triumphantly.

"Your champion!" He roared. "Winner of the ten spots for the Moonsong Glade, to be distributed however he sees fit. The rest of them fought bravely, but in the end only one warrior ca-" He was cut off as a blast of black energy detonated in the center of the stage, both Abel and Midknight being thrown clear.

I saw the armor dissolve from the blast, and Abel hit the sand rolling, having survived the explosion by virtue of being further away and having Midknights armor between them. In the center of the ring stood a trio of dark figures, each clad in a dark robe, the air around them crackling with the familiar black energy.

The one at the front of the triangle formation grinned widely, a flushed, boyish faced E-ranker with curly red hair surrounding a round face set with bright green eyes. "Sorry to interrupt!" He boomed happily. "I'm afraid we disagree with the results. Actually, we disagree with the tournament entirely. We've decided the Black Sorrow Cult will take the slots, and since you did such a poor job distributing them, we'll be taking this planet for good measure."

I froze, staring down at them. Of course they would try something, they'd been way too quiet lately. But this...this was crazy. I turned to Zeke. "They can't do this right? They know you're here! It would be insane for them to attack a world with a B-ranked protector on it."

He just shook his head. "This is faction business. This kind of thing happens. Callus would normally be too backwater to warrant a takeover attempt, but under the circumstances...I could see it. But the planet is my current home, and I have loved ones here besides you." He seemed confused. "There's no way they could be stupid enough to think I'd ignore that."

As if the words had summoned it, the redheaded cultist turned to grin up at us. "But please, don't think we're looking down on you bringing only a trio. We have many more agents placed around the planet, and even more than that, we made sure to bring some extra special helpers who will make sure that things are finished up fast."

The two figures behind him stopped holding back, and I felt the world slam down on my shoulders as the weight of their Impact manifested on the air. My eyes widened as I struggled to breathe under the suppression, not because they were trying to hurt us, they weren't, they were just that powerful. A level of powerful I recognized, though I couldn't pinpoint exactly where they fell on that scale.

B-rankers. They were both B-rankers. This was insane. Why were they here? What was going on? People like this shouldn't be on Callus. Zeke was staring at them with a glimmer in his eyes I'd never seen. Real, genuine fury was radiating off my uncle as he stood. Their eyes locked on him, and the redhead smiled. They knew he was here, and they'd come anyway. I just hoped they'd bitten off more than they could chew. Otherwise we were all dead.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"You have a lot of guts coming here like this." With the words came a tide of power, pushing back the aura of the two B-rankers through his own and with sheer force of personality. Zeke wasn't worried at all, and it showed in the way he spoke. "You might not worry about some small time scuffle between the Unity and the Cult, but there are other interests here."

The redhead didn't seem worried (apparently he was as crazy as all the other cultists I'd met). "You won't get involved, but in case you did, we arranged some entertainment for you. Finding out there was an unknown B-ranker on the planet was an annoyance, but luckily, we managed to get the details from a reputable source. Isn't that right Miss Selka?" His smug grin turned to take in where I could see Natalie sitting.

The teal haired woman next to her, clearly her own guardian, rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to start trouble, Kix. I'm a neutral party. As long as my charge remains safe I'm not obligated to take a side, and while Natalie might think an alliance with her cousin is best, I'm not nearly so convinced."

It occurred to me that while Nat might be aware that Zeke was B-rank, and even knew his name, she hadn't passed the latter bit of information on to her guardian. Apparently the lack of trust ran in both directions, she and her guardian clearly had a much different relationship than we did.

Zeke looked mildly annoyed at the woman, but not upset. "Selka. That sounds familiar." He was talking normally now, as were the others, but with the Perception of everyone here and the cameras, it didn't seem to be a problem for anyone. He snapped his fingers. "Ricardo's daughter. Your mother is that little Countess with the teleportation power. The hair should have tipped me off. Surprised someone from Malachai's branch contracted you as a guardian, given how much he and your grandmother hate each other."

She glared at him. "Inter branch cooperation is important. Grandma knows that. And no REAL Wyndham would ever violate the sanctity of the candidate selection. Not that some random's pet B-ranker would know that." Wow...apparently Nat hadn't told her guardian ANYTHING about me. Maybe Zeke's little jab about branch politics wasn't that far off.
My cousin was pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Neither of us were in danger, granted, but it hardly made her guardian being a shady asshole any less mortifying. Zeke just looked unperturbed. "It's always so cute when the little ones make plans. I assume you realized that the location and importance of this planet made it a prime target for annexation and decided to arrange this to both get rid of my ward and advance your own?"

"Pretty much." She said with a shrug. It would be suicide to attack you, and bad form even if I survived, but this way my hands stay clean and I make a nice profit. I'm not defecting or anything, but unlike you I have no obligation to protect your candidate."

Zeke just smiled wryly. "I'm guessing you don't know who he is? Or who I am? Because while a pair of mid to upper B-rankers would be sufficient for most, I assure you I can handle myself just fine. Tell you what, since I don't dislke ambition, I'll give you a chance. Help me take care of the rabble while I deal with thug one and thug two and I'll let you slink off after this without doing anything drastic."

She just snorted. "Drastic? You think you can take on a pair of nearly peak Arch-Bishops and you'll still be alive to hurt me? Everyone knows the cultists are hell to kill off, and in pairs they're more than a match for anyone their rank. Crazy bastards will self destruct if they think they're losing. Outnumbered you have no shot."

Sighing, Zeke shook his head. "Come on, don't be stupid here." He reached into his coat and pulled out and old, brittle looking mask. "I don't have a teleportation Volto mask anymore. My last one broke. Unless you were planning to spend the remainder of your life with your soul trapped in porcelain I'd take the offer." He held up the mask in the air beside him, then released it, leaving it hanging in the space he left it in. Under the mask, a form manifested, a black robe too dense to see a shape. "Besides." He said with a bloodthirsty smile. "Who said I was outnumbered."

Snapping his fingers, a bag appeared, a large black duffel. He unzipped it and started to remove masks, leaving them hanging in the air. Under each mask a robed figure manifested, each one floating up and away to take position around us in the air in a formation. Selka's eyes went wide with terror as she stared at Zeke, then down at her candidate in an expression of fearful dismay.

"I...I didn't know." She stuttered. "I swear, I didn't know. I wouldn't have contacted them if I had." Zeke just looked at her calmly, and she swallowed, standing and bowing. "Not a single cultist will remain on this planet by the time you finish." She said formally, and then, suddenly, she was gone.

Amusingly, she had NOT informed her former allies who Zeke was, though she clearly figured it out herself. Clearly we were far enough from wherever Zeke usually did his thing that random B-rankers didn't know who he was, because the hooded figures didn't back down, and Kix (who was an E-ranker actually) hadn't heard of him either.

The redhead's ever present grin had slipped, replaced with an annoyed scowl. "Bitch." He snapped. "I'll let my their excellencies deal with her after they finish with you. Your brat has been responsible for the deaths of several of our operatives, including a promising your talent her to attend the tournament he needs to pay, and since we're here anyway, we can just send a few messages all at once."

Zeke smiled. "Really? I thought you guys had found out his mother is the Star Queen and decided to enforce that shitty blood feud you nutcases have with those stuffed shirts at the church." At the shocked expression Zeke put on a faux embarrassed face. "Oh no, did I say that out loud? Now everyone knows. Of course, once they see what I'm about to do to your little buddies I don't expect they'll find the risk worth it."

I'd been shocked when Zeke blurted that out, but now I got it. People would learn about my mom eventually. But since he was in a position to fight them personally and make an impression, he'd thrown out the information himself. Now when he butchered the cultists two to one everyone would see it, and anyone who thought about getting to mom through me would think twice. Anyone B-ranked that is. But I doubted an A-ranker would bother. They could just attack her head on. and that wouldn't offend one of the biggest factions in the universe.

I was low ranked and part of a competition, them attacking was technically within the scope of that since Zeke was here to protect me. If they started moving out Saints and Popes to kill me it would literally just be declaring war on the WCP, and the Church would sure as hell jump in on the other side.

Kix, meanwhile, was turning red, his face looking like he'd had an anuerysm. "H-heretic! How dare you protect a heretic? That bitch has killed more of our Saints than any ten A-rankers in the entire church, and the Radiant Pope murdered our Saintess of the Drowning Shade, our Lady's own flesh and blood daughter!"

Zeke rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, that happened before he even broke through to S-rank. None of us were even alive. Besides, Drowning Shade was a psychopath, even by Ascendant standards. I've met serial killers lost in full recursion that weren't unstable enough to have spawned some of those stories."

The redhead was shaking like he was going to explode. "YOU DARE!" He screamed, his voice cracking. "Defaming our lost Saintess, speaking ill of our Lady's bloodline. Crimes! Crimes against the Cult! Blasphemy! Heresy! Sacrilege! You'll die for this. You and your brat and every person you've ever met!"

"See." Zeke said turning to me. "This is why no one likes dealing with Cultists outside strict mercenary assassination contracts. One wrong word and they turn into a gibbering lunatic." Looking back at the other man he clicked his tongue. "Also, heresy is the holding of an opinion counter to a religious precept, and usually carries the assumption of being a heretic, and heretic's can't by definition, blaspheme, which is defined as 'showing contempt for god or sacred things'. Can't hold contempt for something you don't believe exists."

Before the redhead could retort, he held up a hand. "Don't mistake me, I know Black Sorrow is real. I'm just making the point that you're contradicting yourself here. Regardless, this whole fight is deeply inconvenient to me. I don't have the materials to make two more B-rank masks. I'll have to seal your souls until I can make a shopping trip to get the materials for a porcelain that can contain them." He shrugged. "Oh well, doesn't matter I suppose. Any artist would be glad to have a new canvas to work with."

The two Arch-Bishops, predictably, didn't take this threat well, but before they could do more than step forward, Zeke snapped his fingers. Two of the masks began to glow, the hooded manifestations under them vanishing and appearing around the ring. A third gestured and the remaining contestants were subsumed in suddenly liquid earth, then spat out off the now self repaired stage. The two figures raised their arms and a cube of glasslike energy appeared, then shifted as the second masked figured warped the energy, creating a defensive perimeter.

Zeke took a step, vanishing and appearing inside the ring with the three cultists, while all the other robed figures, seven of them in total, drifted through the shield as if it wasn't there to join him. Smiling grimly, he reached into the bag again, withdrawing one last mask, then snapped his fingers to dismiss it as he raised the porcelain to his face.

As the mask covered him, I felt a sort of...shift, in the air. Zeke's body language changed, like someone throwing off an old cloak. Perception was important, and he was making no effort to hide the differences. His stance screamed aggressive and sadistic, and even the two hooded Arch-Bishops had stepped back, clearly realizing that they had picked a fight with someone with whom wise men did not fuck.

The floating robed figures had spread out to surround the enemies, slipping the edges of the ring to create a second line of defense. Zeke cracked his neck. "Oh dear, this one is always so bloodthirsty. Perhaps I should have used one of the others." He shrugged. "Oh well." He flickered, appearing in the middle of the B-rankers, right behind Kix, and shoved and arm THROUGH his chest. "Too late now."

The two B-rankers whirled, one bringing to bear that black energy and the other releasing a red lightning in a massive cloud of power that literally turned the shield into a box seething black with red sparks through it. When the energy faded, Zeke was back in his original spot, safely behind a line of defense erected by his masks. There was no evidence at all of the attack, since Kix's body was obliterated by the other B-rankers.

Zeke just clicked his tongue. "Killing your own subordinates. How gauche. Especially since he would have been fine." Their fists clenched and he cocked his head. "What? Did you think I actually attacked him? Didn't you hear me earlier? I don't have a teleportation mask." He flicked a hand and a perfect copy of him appeared to one side, high fiving him before vanishing. "But we've had enough fun for now. Let's get started." And with a snap of his fingers, both he and all his mask bearers disappeared.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took me almost no time to figure out what that mask did from context. Illusions, obviously. But despite knowing that I also knew I had no chance of piercing through them. No one here did. Trying to bypass B-rank perception would be pure delusion, so I didn't try.

Zeke was far too much of a performer to let this end without a show, so I trusted the illusions wouldn't ruin our chance to watch them battle. Apparently, he was making enough of an impression here that the other two were genuinely worried. The taller of the hooded Arch-Bishops snarled. "You seek to unnerve us with your games, but you've shown your weakness. This shield exists to protect this planet and your charge. Should we take it down any casual attack would reduce this world to dust."

He started to gather dark energy in his hands. It...hurt. Just looking at it hurt. The energy Pietro had used had looked wrong, but it was nothing compared to this. Like the difference between a dark room before bed and the soul crushing depths of the deepest cave in the world. It was just conceptually incomparable. Callie grabbed my hand, squeezing it, as I struggled to tear my eyes away from the energy.

The worst part was that I suspected the shield was actually helping. It was mitigating the effects somewhat like it had with the attacks. Being able to box in a pair of B-rankers by himself was terrifying to me. Zeke was stronger than any of us had given him credit for. He wasn't just B-rank, he was to B-rank what Abel was to G-rank. He was a monster.

His voice echoed cheerfully from the empty air. "I wouldn't do that. That shield is made from a combination of very powerful abilities. The direct defensive applications are impressive, but the secondary effects are what really make it shine. Aside from filtering out harmful conceptual elements before they can damage the lower rankers here the defenses also-"

The Arch-Bishop cut him off by unleashing a TORRENT of the gathering power, a beam of energy packing into the size of a needle, so dense I almost threw up just seeing it. The beam struck the shield...then bounced off it in three different directions before spearing the other Arch-bishop, the red lightning guy, through the shoulder. The hooded figure howled in pain and literally RIPPED his arm off his body, hurling it onto the ground as it was consumed along with his cloak in a swirl of rotting darkness.

Zeke's voice continued his explanation as if there had been no interruption. "Deflect direct attacks along the inside of the defensive perimeter. It's made for aftershocks, but if you try to break it directly there's a backlash. It took me AGES to find that power interaction. Most B-rankers don't focus on defense.

The red lightning guy, who was revealed to be a large red haired man with mutton chops and dark eyes, glared at both his companion and the air around them. "Damn it Absalom! You have to stop doing that. This is why we got reassigned to this frontier nonsense. You can't just overpower everything." He looked down at his smoking shoulder. "Can you remove this corruption? I can do it but it'll take time we don't have."

Shuffling uncomfortably, the still robed figure took a step toward the other man and froze. There was a shift in the air and three masked figures appeared in a triangle formation. They raised their arms and a whirling vortex of brilliant white flame sprung up, swallowing the figure. As the injured one saw his partner attacked, he tried to rush to his aid.

The four other hooded figures swirled into existence around him. Two of them threw their hands out and dark chains lashed from the ground, binding him in place at neck, legs, and his remaining arm. One of the other masked figures made a drawing motion and a huge bow and arrow coalesced above their heads. The last one pointed at the arrow and power spilled down the length of the weapon, infusing it with a yellow glow so sharp it almost hurt to look at.

There was a rush as the arrow released, but the vortex burst, a flash of dark energy imposing itself between the red haired man and the arrow. The robe of the remaining figure was burned away revealing what looked like a desiccated corpse with its mouth sewn shut. Dark gems were set where its eyes should have been, and it punched the arrow head on, trying to destroy the energy.

It wound up with an absurd amount of power, even more than last time, and swung it in a close quarters blow meant to destroy the attack. A blow that hit...nothing. The image of the arrow vanished, and the corpse looking man choked, looking down at where he'd been bisected by the ACTUAL arrow, which had been fired from the ground where it had been hidden under an illusion.

Zeke stepped out of thin air as he saw the corpse fall, snapping his fingers. The three masks responsible for the white firestorm manifested around the plummeting figure's top half, unleashing another attack on someone far less prepared to defend himself.

By the time the flames faded there WAS no top half left, just a pair of spasming desiccated legs hitting the ground. Zeke clicked his tongue and turned to the red haired one, who was staring at his partner's remaining limbs in terror. "This is the problem with cultists. No sense of flare or imagination. You all pride yourself on being sneaky and dangerous, but give you an ounce of power and all you can do is slug away."

The other man pointed shakily at one of the masks. "That's...that's an Arch-Bishop of the Red Revenant Church. Those were flames of purification."

Zeke shrugged. "Partly. They were amplified by a few other powerful abilities. But they were definitely in the mix. Theodore Stoddard. Dreadful man. Tried to have my nephews mother assassinated so he could move up in the clergy. He did have a gift for the purifying flame though. Comes in useful when up against Black Sorrow's Enshrining Darkness."

Snapping his fingers, a small flask appeared in his hand. He opened the top and there was a swirl of crystalline energy as runes lit up along the flask. There were millions of them on the thing, so dense I wouldn't have been able to see them if not for my Perception. In the sky where the fire had struck, a phantasmal outline of the corpselike Arch-Bishop appeared, a dark bluish purple, screaming so loudly the stitches in his mouth had torn open.

The image of the man clawed at the air as an invisible force dragged him toward the flask. Zeke gestured to one of the masks and the same dark chains holding the red head grabbed Absalom the corpse and restrained him, allowing him to be sucked into the flask. Zeke screwed the top back on the flask, staring at it for a few seconds before flicking it with a sharp "Stop that." Then he put it away.

"What did you just do?" The red haired man asked in revulsion. "Was that his soul? Give it back! You can't take a soul that belongs to our Lady!"

Zeke snorted. "Imagine only being at Indigo as a B-ranker. I think Black Sorrow would thank me for cleaning up trash like that. Or she won't. I don't much care. I told you morons I'd be harvesting you for materials. Did you think I would go back on my word on a system wide broadcast? A man's word is all he has. Would you like to struggle? I'm still not sure what your ability is, and if you want to show off I'd be happy to allow it."

The man looked sick. "You're a monster! Our souls belong to the Lady. How many of our brethren have you used to create these abominations? How many have you stolen from the Red Revenant. You can't do something like this in front of all these people and expect to get away with it. The cult will-"

"Do nothing." Cut off Zeke with amusement. "I've been active for quite some time, my friend. The Church and the Cult know about me. You think they care? If they hunted down people for things like this I'd hardly be first on the list. Morgan Lark can consume the very stats that make up a person, yet the Vampire remains free, assumed to be the next being to become a god, do you know why that is?"

The cultist didn't respond, so Zeke continued. "Because power is all that matters. I'm strong, which makes me valuable. If you think I'M scary, you should see my best friend. When it comes down to it, you've played with forces best left alone. You weren't sent by the Cult itself, you and your little buddy decided to take this planet on your own. You wanted to prove yourself, didn't you?"

"We...we just wanted to be recognized for our power." He said blankly. "We wanted the respect our positions were due. There are so MANY Arch-Bishops, and we had to work our way up the ranks the hard way. We didn't get any of those special privileges like some of the children of the Saints and Popes. We're members of the Cult too. We just wanted them to acknowledge us."

Zeke just chuckled. "Of course you did. But you have no concept of what a REAL B-ranker looks like. There are real monsters out among the stars, my boy. You might be a cultist, but you aren't powerful enough to interfere in high level faction business. People like Sasha, like my buddy Elijah, they're in a whole different world than you."

He turned his eyes on the crowd, and somehow, I could sense him looking past them all, to everyone watching the recordings. "This is your one warning. All of you. Elijah Wyndham's son is under the protection of Janus. If you are of a match with him, are willing to pit your heirs against him, be welcome. Hone his edge. Held me mold him. But if you think you can interfere with the candidate selection, interfere with MY FAMILY, this is all that awaits you."

He walked toward the still chained redhead, and like he said, he let the other man use his powers. The cultist hurled red lightning at my uncle, and one of the masks appeared, erecting a small clear shield that I believed was similar to the shield they were in. The red haired man screamed, hurling bolts of crimson electricity, but none of them even came close to Zeke.

My uncle arrived in front of the man, with a snap, he slipped on a glove with pointed talon like fingers that lit up with a multitude of runes, just like the flask. Then he shoved a hand INTO the other man. Not through him, there was no blood, his hand vanished into the chest of his enemy, and as he withdrew it, I could see the struggling purple form as it was RIPPED out of the body of the cultist.

When he finally tore it loose the body slumped over to the ground, limp and motionless, breathing but empty. Another snap brought out a second flask, and he popped the cap with a thumb before stuffing the struggling spirit into the flask. Dismissing the glove he recapped the flask and put it away. He waved a hand and the bodies vanished, as did the shield, and Zeke turned and walked out of the arena, past a staring Abel who had crawled over to lean against the wall and watch.

The rest of the crowd was...quiet. That had been brutal, even by Ascendant standards. Zeke had been sending a message, and it was one that I knew came from a place of real anger. Seeing him do that should have horrified me, and part of it did, but it also made me proud. My uncle was strong and loyal and had my back. Despite how brutal he could be, I was damned glad he was on my side.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Healing or not, we had to carry Abel out of the arena. My mentor was in bad shape, though not as bad as the armor double Midknight had been using, which had been mostly destroyed. Callie had been...quiet, since we saw him get wrecked, and I wanted to pull her aside to check on her about it but we had other problems.

Zeke rode home with us this time, as did Natalie and her guardian, along with Perit and Valk. We were all pretty quiet until we got to the house, at which point I finally broke the silence. "Alright...what the actual fuck? Like, to all of that Zeke. Can you tell me what happened now that it's over?"

My uncle shrugged. "Stupid people doing stupid people things." He cut a look at Selka, who wilted slightly but didn't argue. "I made an example of them, so they shouldn't try it again, though you can bet they'll try other things. That's your problem though."

I couldn't really complain about that. "What about the other factions? Abel won, but the Empire, the Faerieland, are they really just going to back off because you smacked around a couple B-rankers? Like, won't they send more people to come and fight you?"

Zeke just snorted. "No. First of all, there are a hundred of these. Losing two B-rankers, even trash like them, is a blow over something this insignificant. Sunk cost fallacy isn't something the upper echelons of the Black Sorrow Cult engage in. Or any higher ups from the factions. Going to war over a random border planet would be ridiculous. Second of all they can't spare enough people to kill me off, especially knowing they'll lose most of them. I'm basically unkillable under A-rank and everyone knows it."

Selka nodded quickly. "It's true. Janus is infamous among B-rankers. He's predicted to reach A-rank in the next decade."

Seeming to send my skepticism at the time frame, Zeke snickered. "I know it seems like a while to you, but in the upper ranks you need hundreds of thousands or even millions of stat points to rank up. Not to mention...other things. The next decade isn't bad. I think that was part of why Eli did what he did. I'm sure you of all people can imagine how frustrating it is to be giving out points that let people rank up fast when you lag behind."

I hadn't experienced that, but he wasn't wrong. It was easy to picture. "Well that whole thing was certainly dramatic enough to diffuse things. I guess that means it's really over. We...we won." I felt myself melt into my seat gleefully. Like some magic switch had been flipped. I couldn't believe it. We'd been working so hard for such a long time for this, been through so much.

Callie looked shocked too, her eyes wide as she thought through exactly what it meant for us to have made it. Abel was grinning, despite his injuries. I couldn't see Mel's face under her mask but Jessie and Benny looked thrilled. We'd separated from the others after the mess at the tournament, planning to meet up again soon.

"So..." I said uncertainly. "How are we handling the Moonsong Glade. You can't get in, right Zeke? I was told it was F-ranker exclusive. How long will we be in there? Are you just going to wait outside? Can you suppress your power to come in with us?"

"Nah." Said my uncle casually. "Your mask will let me keep an eye on you. If things go too badly I'll break in and help, but it would destroy the glade which would be...bad. Even for me. I probably will wait outside. Plenty of the older generation will be out there. I'll make sure they don't ambush you when you come out for whatever you get. Though I think we should get you all some proper spatial gear before you enter."

"Like a ring? A real one? How would we even get that? They don't really have them available on Callus. At least not that I've seen. I've got some solid cash reserves, but we don't have access to the proper supply." It was a similar problem to the issue of my weapon. I really wanted something E-rank, but despite probably having enough for a relatively low level E-rank weapon there weren't any on world.

His grin was wolfish. "Well sure, which is why you'll be picking up what you need at the field market outside the glade. Someone always starts one. That large an influx of newcomers always spawns a bazaar. People need consumables and weapons before entering, not to mention that it ends up being a huge conglomeration of powerful elders from different forces waiting around for months on end."

"You think they'd have an E-rank weapon I could use?" I asked excitedly. "I definitely need a new stick to hit people with. Hopefully something that can take a beating."

Abel snickered. "You know, I understand the with for blunt damage, but you could pick up a more traditional weapon and develop an actual Skill for it. Maybe a staff? Bit longer than your usual but it wouldn't hurt to give yourself some range. It could synergize with your combat style too. Pole vaulting would be a good complement to you movement skills and open up more lines of attack."

My mentor had been mostly quiet since the tournament. He seemed happy to have won, but I saw him giving Zeke awed looks that made it hard not to snicker. Though as I nodded my agreement to look into a staff weapon a question popped into my head. "Oh, that reminds me. Was that really a B-rank fight? Don't get me wrong it was crazy, but I was figuring it would be...larger scale."

My uncle just smiled. "It was. You just couldn't tell. That shield protected you. It was dampening the Impact to prevent not just physical but conceptual damage. Looking at B-ranked attacks directly without any protection can damage your soul. Impact is a qualitative difference in level. Sound is just vibration, sight is light bouncing off an object. The size of the attacks wasn't massive because they were in a confined space and that wasn't necessary, but make no mistake those moves would have killed you just by observing them if I hadn't protected you."

Selka chimed in. "Not to mention any one of those casual blows would have atomized the planet and everyone on it. B-rankers operate in the ten million range of stat points. Any blow you're capable of throwing they can beat by thousands of times, and that's not even counting the qualitative leap that is D-rank or the effects of higher ranked Skills. If I were you I'd commit that fight to memory. You'll be benefiting from it for decades. Even if you can't see why yet."

I tried thinking back to the fight, to the movements, the abilities, and I could kind of see what she meant. There was...something, there. Something just out of reach of me. Like looking at a crack in the ground that's only a few inches wide but then realizing it goes down for miles. I was only seeing the crack.

The others almost all seemed nearly as distracted by the statement as I was. Mel though, Mel was all business. "I'll keep that in mind, but I want to know that Abel's win is going to be safe. He worked his ass off for that. How do we know they won't try something before the ceremony. Speaking of, when IS the ceremony?"

"Tomorrow." Said Zeke bluntly. "The actual date for the Moonsong Glade is in a month to make sure everyone's teammates have the best chance to rank up, but no one was comfortable waiting on the ending ceremony. Tomorrow they announce the top placements and allow everyone IN the tournament to rank up. You'll all be reaching F-rank." He glanced at Abel. "Provided you're willing."

My teacher nodded firmly. "No more waiting. I'm confident I've gotten the most out of G-rank, and I want to take the next step. I wanted a good fight to go out on, and I definitely got that. It's going to be brilliant ranking up and getting to fight it out with people so much stronger than I am on a relatively even playing field."

That was actually a good point. The idea that some people would be five times stronger than we were but still within our ability to harm was kind of crazy. Not that I was going to be fighting peak F-rankers, but the point remained. This would also be a huge opportunity for me to make sure I was able to reach the higher levels of F-rank in an area without E-rankers to take advantage of the gap.

"Wait." I said, remembering something. "You said it would be MONTHS?" I'd asked for a time frame earlier, and I guess I had one, but that was kind of crazy.

Zeke shrugged. "For you are least. Some people might stay longer, but I absolutely refuse to let you miss out on the soul trials. The Ruined Soul Temple is one of those places I mentioned to you where you can train soul strength outside of a clan. Once in a while the temple holds trials for people training there, and they offer prizes that can increase the speed of soul refinement and even reward special Skills and unique gifts."

That sounded intriguing. "So this would be a way for me to increase the grade of my soul to two ahead before D-rank? Because I know you said that's important."

"All of you, if you're ready." He said, looking over the others. "The Ruined Soul Temple is technically neutral territory, but practically it's hard for anyone outside the higher ends of a faction to get in. There are so many people scrambling for entry, there's no possible way to accommodate them all. The cream of the crop have their own soul refinement methods and locations, but for something like the soul trial even clan heirs will be showing up."

My eyes widened. "That's why everyone is paying so much attention to the Glade!" I said sharply. "When everything else is equal, a boost in Impact might be the thing that puts them over the top in the trials."

"Exactly." Said Zeke with a nod. "I didn't want to bring it up and increase the pressure, but now that the tournament is over it's best you know what's coming. The trial is a unique opportunity. You can get things there that even wishes would have trouble giving you, at least from any people low ranked enough to bother with any of you. Some people have even manage to pick up a second ability."

My head snapped up. A second ability would be...big. Especially for me. The current Wishmaster had his position specifically because he had two abilities, something that gave him the skills and power to beat even my dad out for the position. Not to mention it would enable me to have a surefire Skill that would always rank up without detracting from my effort in other areas. If I got a weapon ability for instance, I would be a natural. It would prevent me from ending up a Master Candidate like Abel, but that wasn't ever really in the cards for me anyway.

Seeing his comment had its intended effect, Zeke grinned, leaning back and closing his eyes. He wasn't going to sleep, Zeke just liked to tune things out sometimes when he was bored. His relaxed expression changed when his ring vibrated and he looked down to see a text, his face paling as he swallowed hard. "Huh. Apparently Stella wants me to come down for a visit so we can talk." He tried to sound nonchalant, but there was a quaver in his voice that made me laugh. Good to know my terrifying uncle could still feel fear.