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

Cicero wanted the deed badly, and I half expected him to try to take it, but knowing that we'd beaten the maze that had killed all his other participants definitely made the smug backstabber think twice before deciding to pick a fight with us. When he reached for the deed, I didn't hesitate at all to pull it back away from him. "Nope. We got the item, which means we completed the task. You said retrieve it and bring it to you, which I did. You never said anything about surrendering it to your custody."

A slight technicality, but he knew as well as I did it wasn't the real reason. I didn't trust him as far as Cass could throw him, and I wasn't giving him shit until he confirmed that we were getting our damn gear. He seemed to know it too. He sighed. "I already signed the contract, as long as you passed the test I'm bound to give you your prize if you accept the job. I can't deny you accomplished the test, so you're eligible to hear the details of the plan. Assuming that you're still interested and aren't just going to give up?"

He smirked at me, and I was annoyed because I knew either option would be beneficial to him. Sure having us do the mission would aid him, but even turning him down would benefit him at this point, since the deed was his, and even if we denied his help we'd still have to give it up. I needed to think this over like Callie would, or preferably delay it until she was awake. I tossed the paper up, catching it before it hit the table and keeping a sharp eye on Cicero, who was obviously worried about what would happen if I dropped the thing.

I raised an eyebrow at the older man. "If you want us to do a job we need details. I want the full story behind the whole mess. Informed decisions are made with consideration and knowledge. Tell me about Melissa, about Abel, about what happened exactly that screwed up your relationships with them and drove Abel out of this place. He didn't strike me as the type to take off running at the first sign of trouble. If Abel left I'm betting it was because of something more serious than a random circus act you didn't want him to start."

Cicero frowned, looking genuinely upset, before he finally nodded. "Fine. I wish you weren't all such busybodies. As I mentioned Melissa, Abel, and I were childhood friends. Abel was much more talented than either of us, so we didn't even try to compete. We all went out of our way to try train ourselves up too. We were considered cream of the crop originally, but with the training from Abel all three of us quickly managed to get to a point where we posed a genuine danger. It was part of how we managed to get this deed to begin with."

He gestured at the deed. "Abel left because he was concerned that I was going to use the defenses enabled by the deed to start expanding. I wanted to push our territory out using the defended perimeter as a fallback point. In retrospect I might have been slightly overeager. Melissa sided with Abel, but he didn't want to rob the cavalcade of one of its strongest defenders, so he had her stay behind. Abel himself left, because he knew that defenses or not, with him to here hold things up this place was basically unbreachable."

I didn't know Spruce Bunny well, but the Abel I met down there I could see being the type not to want others using his name to scare off enemies. He was very much a 'do it yourself or not at all' type of person. The fact that he forced us to fight and then honored the terms despite not being thrilled with the outcome was evidence. Unless he was thrilled with the outcome. I still wasn't entirely sure what side of this the guardian had come down on. He'd said a few things that made sure he wanted us to get it, but hadn't wanted us to win the fight. Who knew how people like that thought though?

I groaned. "Ok, but what does this have to do with what's happening now. You keep talking about this plan, but what the hell are we supposed to do to get the information from her. Because if she was someone who trained with Abel, I somehow doubt a straight fight will go our way. We barely survived that damn guardian, and with years to practice I sincerely doubt even a sparring partner of his will be within our capabilities." Abel had been a monster, I didn't even want to see what a current version would look like in a fight.

He waved a hand dismissively. "You're overthinking this. I told you the trial was to determine your suitability for the mission, and I didn't like. Melissa and her thugs prioritize martial prowess. They want talented fighters and recruit them for their little faction whenever possible. If you go in there and show off skills that could best or even equal a past version of my brother they'll snap you up. You get in good with them and you should be able to scope out who they're working with and get the answers both of us want."

I blinked. "That's...not a plan. That's an extremely optimistic goal that you're going to be expecting us to accomplish all on our own." My head hurt. I couldn't tell if we'd been screwed or lucked out. On one hand this is how we probably would have had to do this anyway if he'd told us, and now we got paid for it. On the other hand jumping through all these hoops was bullshit, even if I kind of understood what he was testing for now. I glanced down at Cicero's throat, but realized punching it should probably wait until after we got paid.

I stood, lifting Callie's unconscious body. "My girlfriend is the one who makes the calls, so I can't answer you now, plus she needs to be involved in the set design just like I and my other teammates. So I'll call you with the details once we've made our decision, but for the sake of the contract consider this a tentative yes and get started at least trying to find an artisan to work with us on our new gear. If we do accept we'd get started after we get the new equipment, as we mentioned."

I could tell he wanted to stop me and get a commitment about the job, but I could also tell he knew he wasn't capable of keeping me here. I didn't know what his ability was, but we'd just beaten Abel (not really, but he had no way of knowing that) so he probably considered us both absolute beasts. I wasn't in a hurry to disabuse him of that notion if it kept him out of my way. I'd had about enough of Cicero Castleton for the day, and I just wanted to get my girl home and let her sleep off the backlash of a stupid reckless move I should have been more careful about.

I hadn't even stopped to think about how much damage pumping her up with all those skills would do. I was pretty sure she was ok thankfully, her pulse and breathing were stable, and her face wasn't pale or anything, but I wanted to get her back to Jessie as soon as possible so our healer could take a look or at least top up her energy. It was worrying she was still unconscious at this point given what Vitality could do.

I messaged Cark on my scan ring as I left, and once I told him we had a lead and searching was pointless he dispatched the others back to the bar and came to meet us to head back up. When he ran into us, he took one look at me holding Callie, a small bit of blood still on her face, and his expression grew serious. "Ok, what the hell happened to you two. Last time I saw you the two of you were snuggling and walking off together like you were auditioning for a teen romance movie."

I realized from his tone and looking down that I wasn't in much better shape. The labyrinth had been annoying and long, and I was pretty much in tatters after it. I'd had plenty of holes in my armor already, ones I'd been patching with stopgap materials so they weren't obvious, at least until I could upgrade, but at this point my gear was more hole than outfit. I winced. Guess the timing on the replacement duds was good, because I was absolutely not going to be able to wear this set out into the field again. I felt a pang of sadness at the knowledge that my old familiar costume was now officially dead.

As we climbed onto the elevator back, Callie finally began to stir, and I was relieved to see a complete lack of pain or soreness in her actions as she woke up. She squinted a bit at the light, but otherwise seemed like she'd just woken up in the morning, albeit before she had a chance to have her coffee. I pulled her close, hugging her to me since I couldn't take my mask off on the elevator, and I felt a slight shaking as she chuckled warmly. "Hey there, I'm glad to see you too, but give a girl a minute to put her face on."

I chuckled slightly, my face still buried in her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I was an idiot, I should have asked, should have warned you how much I was going to do. You could have been killed, just because I made assumptions. I know we're usually in sync but just assuming you know what my moves are going to be and can handle them is pure idiocy. Hell, I've never even use Afterburner on another person." My head was still pounding from the effort too. My brain felt like someone was hammering a railroad spike through the stem.

Which was not helped by the sharp knock Callie gave me. I winced, but she wasn't even a bit sympathetic, just glaring into my mask. "Excuse me? I know you weren't just second guessing a solid combat decision that led to a victory because you weren't sure I'd be tough enough to handle it. Do I need to kick your ass in a sparring session to remind you which of us is stronger? Because I've got over sixty points of Might on you." I winced. She glared a bit longer and then relaxed. "It's fine Solomon. Really. The labyrinth pushed us both. You made a judgement call, and I trust your judgement so I'm fine with it."

That made it even worse honestly. "What if I don't trust my judgement." Seeing her like that, unconscious and vulnerable, was absolutely terrifying. There was no possible way I'd ever want to go through that again, much less when I had caused it. If I had to make the same decision again I wasn't sure I could go through with it. It had been reckless and stupid and I didn't know what I was thinking.

I got another tap on the skull and then a kiss on the mask. "Then I'll have to kick your ass for bad mouthing my boyfriend. I love that guy you know?" I grinned, not that she could see it. "But really. If you hadn't done it we could have both died. It was the right call and I'm proud of you for taking the initiative. If you'd stopped to ask we might both be dead. Partners consult each other, but they also trust each other. You didn't have time to do anything but act and so you did. Thank you." She leaned up and kissed my mask again, where my cheek would be, and I smiled. I was a pretty lucky guy.

 

Once we got home, we gathered up Benny and Jessie into the living room while Cark took Cass out for some ice cream to give us privacy. Zeke tagged along, partly for the same reason, and partly because I think he had a soft spot for the kid after watching her for so long, and we were left in the living room with the wolves. I used Jin as a pillow, because why wouldn't I, and we filled the others in on everything that had happened and what the ramifications were for that. Benny was the first to speak up after the story, and his first question echoed my own sentiments. "He was that strong?"

I grimaced but nodded. "Yeah. I think some of it was stats, he was high G rank, but even without them...it was bad. He was just on a different level than us. Even people like Fisher couldn't hold a candle to him. I was actually wondering about that, since you graduate at F rank and Fisher is a freshman G ranker. I wondered how he could be so clearly at the top of the rank in terms of power, but I clearly have a LOT to learn about what Ascendants are capable of doing with the proper training and dedication." I paused with a grimace. "Speaking of dedication, Jessie, how's our girl?"

Callie, who was sitting under the green glowing hands of our healer, glared at me. "She's fine, and not a fan of being talked about like she doesn't exist. That was suspiciously close to patronizing me again." I held my hands up in mock fearful surrender and she rolled her eyes, but her lips quirked a bit. "Alright, fine. As long as you're not hovering, I don't mind the question." She reached out to grab my hand, giving it a firm squeeze. I even felt a bit of the energy coming off her. "I feel much better so don't worry. Now, lets talk about your costumes the both of you."

She focused on Benny and Jessie. "Jessie you have a look already and it works. The green looks great on you and the cloak is pretty. It's distinctive enough to catch attention but not specific enough to be jarring when you switch it up. You can try something new if you want, but my personal suggestion is keep the broad strokes and maybe fill in some details that are more to your taste. Nothing too crazy, but just some ornamentation to help you stand out. Benny, you're going to be in a similar situation, but I'd say even more so. To the point I'd say you almost have to add some flavor."

Benny nodded. "I know. Clockwork's gear is generic to the point of being embarrassing. I have some concept work I've been sketching out in my spare time. I considered making my own but inventing isn't stable enough to be good for armor. Defensive items that do random terrifying shit are a pretty terrible defense. What about you two? You going to make any big changes or stick with the iconic gear? Well, more Shane, you kind of have your brand solidified at this point I think, given your time on the scene."

She just shrugged. "You're not wrong, changing at this point would be more trouble than it's worth. I'll get a similar set made up from the higher tier materials. F rank kicks my current armor's ass, and I'm hoping to get a few tricks added in to help me out of tight spots. I saw how much use Shane got out of that energy absorbing feature in his old gear. Having a trump card like that will be a comfort even if I never end up having to use it. As for Shane, he's sticking with his current look from what he said, but he's trading the cloak for a hooded long coat."

I was, though given the damage I was almost regretting it. I lifted the remains of my poor ragged cape with a sad sigh. "I know its not a big change, but it seems almost sad. These clothes have been through lots with me. Wish I could have at least retired them with dignity. That isn't the biggest question though. The biggest question is are we taking the jobn. I'm not in charge and I didn't feel ok committing us to this half assed sham of a plan without your input Cal. I think it might be our only shot here though."

A groan of frustration tore from her lips. "I know! Trust me. I can't think of an in either. We need a quick way to get in contact with whoever is pulling the strings here so we can use them to track down the other candidate. I just hate to cave to such obvious manipulation and backstabbing. That mustacheiod asshat is sure that we'll dance to his tune. It pisses me off having to fall in line, even if its to our benefit." Her eyes were blazing with anger, and I could tell the situation we'd been in still enraged her. Despite her cool head, she wasn't ready to forgive or forget.

I understood, but I also had a better idea. "That's true. But we have other options." I produced a rolled up piece of paper, unfolding it to show it to her." I pointed to a few clauses, and as she read over them she began to smile. "Did you do that on purpose? Because I can't believe he would leave a loophole like that for us to exploit. I knew he was in a hurry, but not that he was in THAT much of a hurry."

The smirk on my lips was pure evil. "It was give and take. I let him screw me over on some minor technicalities to make him think I wasn't paying attention and then slightly amended the wording on that clause. It looks functionally identical to the original wording. But changing it from the original wording to 'no more than F rank' completely alters the agreement. We can special order the most expensive F ranked gear we can find and he'll have to pay for it. I'm absolutely going to punch him in the mouth when I get a chance, but I plan to hurt him more where it counts. His wallet." We were going to spend that smug bastard into the ground.

To that end, we all turned to Benny. My friend shrugged, grinning widely. "I know what you're thinking. And yes, I can find us the most expensive and unusual F rank materials to use. Especially since we have access to the Academy crafting hall. Getting your hands on mats like that might be hard for normal people, but for Academy students it's much less of a challenge. I'm betting this Cicero guy was never a student at the Academy himself or he would know that. One of the downsides of insane over the top PR is that its hard to trust it. The crafting hall is kind a skeptical legend around here. People hear stories but they figure it can't be as good as everyone says."

At our confused looks he shrugged. "Despite its varied supplies the crafting hall doesn't have EVERYTHING. I've been making contacts in town through the local forums for inventors. It's all anonymous of course, but I've picked up some useful into. I've actually been sourcing some rare materials for my newest inventions. I want to integrate something really good next. I haven't integrated any really powerful items, but at G rank I should be able to make some fairly impressive things if I pick the right materials. I can't decide what comes out, but I can steer it a bit if I find the right item combos."

I grimaced at that. "You ever consider just using someone else's gear? You can do that right? Hell, you probably could have integrated some of the stuff from the necropolis. Like the hourglass. Does your ability work on consumables?" I'd been thinking about that for a while, it seemed like it would be a bit too broken though. He probably would have mentioned that since it would be a game changer.

As expected he shook his head. "No. Consumables don't actually count as items for the purpose of my power. They're closer to medicine as far as my integration is concerned. Which is a weird distinction but understandable in a way. Regardless, yes, I could use someone else's gear, but it would be stupid long term. My inventing is my only synergized skill. I need a solid foundation in it to improve my power. I could maybe keep wishing for a stronger version, but I have a feeling the experience is going to be useful for my power itself, not just for making gear."

That wasn't something I could comment on. Besides, given what I'd just learned about Skill wishes he might be on the right track. Granted, Inventing wasn't a custom Skill, so I had plenty of sources to pull from, but I wasn't entirely sure that the benefits of improving one of your main skills personally and relying on your own conception weren't superior when dealing with a Skill that would decide the direction your power went. If he wished for it I would grant it, but I made a note to tell everyone what I'd learned when we finished up this new gear thing. In the meantime we still had to figure out what materials we were going to use.

While Benny got on his forum to go over possible builds, we called Cicero. He picked up fairly quickly. After he answered I didn't give him time to continue. "We're in." He took a breath like he was about to speak and then stopped. I smiled, continuing my thought. "We have some stipulations though. They fall within the scope of the contract but I wanted to clarify them with you. The terms should change as we adjust them right? Assuming both of the signatories are able to come to an agreement about any modifications that need to be applied."

He sighed in consternation. "Yes. As long as we both accept the changes it'll be fine. Though I get the impression that I'm not going to be agreeing so much as tolerating these changes. I'll have to see if I'm going to allow your modifications or not." That was a bluff. I knew it, and he probably knew I knew it. He wouldn't have acted so quickly and burned the bridges he had if he wasn't desperate. Abel had been clear about the fact that us being Academy students was odd. It might not mean he was willing to screw himself, but it at LEAST meant he was in too much of a hurry for research.

In either case he was clearly on a clock here. I imagined the forces closing in were making him panic, and he wanted this taken care of before something unforeseen screwed him over. The old man wasn't as gutsy as his brother, at least from what I got from my brief meeting with both of them. I outlined what we wanted, trying to couch it in the most ignorant and optimistic terms so he thought we didn't know the value of what we were asking.

I managed to get him to agree to letting us select materials as long as we could supply them. He'd still be paying but we had to use our own channels. He was undoubtedly assuming some random G rankers wouldn't have much in the way of supply connections. I danced around the point a bit to get him to bite, but he was operating with much less information than he should have been, so I wasn't too worried. I was betting when his people finished their research on us (they would obviously do some, he wasn't an idiot) he was going to be enraged, but since the contract couldn't be amended without both party's consent I wasn't too worried. I was just excited about our new duds. I couldn't wait to see how they turned out.

A bit of fanart included from a reader on my royal road of the sign from the rowdy badger. This is literally my favorite thing ever! As usual patreon.com/malcolmtent has the advance chapters, hope you all enjoy.

 

It took several days for us to get everything set up. Multiple trips to the Academy, to the WCP, and to a shop in the center of Rajak had been exhausting and time consuming, but after all that effort everything was finally done. A full four sets of gear at the peak of F rank, one for each member of my crew. They had just now been delivered for us to look over before we headed down to participate in our mission in G district, infiltrating Melissa, or rather Starbreaker's faction within the cavalcade for Cicero so we could find out who our enemy was.

Callie and I had discussed Cicero's actions toward us at length, and despite still wanting to punch him in the eye socket because of it, we figured out the motivations in retrospect at least. Aside from his stated reasoning, we'd neglected the obvious fact that Melissa would definitely be watching. My show with the bull and donation of the chits would have been an obvious sign we were on team Cicero, and for his plan to work we had to be our own separate entity. By being so aggressive and manipulative he not only secured our help, he also visibly and obviously alienated us, something Melissa was sure to have noticed.

Since she would know we hated him now she would be more open to us being recruited, hoping to snatch a pair of talented kids that Cicero clearly wanted on his side. It made me think slightly better of the old ring master, though not by much. I was still pissed about the danger and lack of warning. I was planning to repay that favor whatever his reasoning. Until then though, we would have to be satisfied wasting a ton of his cash, and we had definitely done that well enough.

Which led us to now. We were all in the living room with the wolves, and since this was such a big moment we had decided to open the new gear up one at a time so we could all see what the others had gotten. We'd gone out of our way to keep the details private so we could surprise our teammates, and I for one couldn't wait to show everyone my new equipment. Since we'd left them behind for the negotiations though, we had decided to let Benny and Jessie go first.

Rather than agree to take turns the both of them decided to settle it with a game of rock paper scissors. Shockingly they played about a dozen hands before Jessie managed to eke out a win, and I briefly wondered if one or both of them might have cheated slightly with Perception or something. It would have been easy enough, but whatever the case they had settled it now, and Jessie practically sprinted from the room to put her new gear on, excited to get to show off the powerful armor set that she'd had custom made for herself.

When she came back in, we were all absolutely floored by her new gear. Technically speaking, Jessie's outfit was similar to her previous one, but at the same time, they couldn't have been more different. Rather than one of concept, the main difference was in execution here. Despite being a green cloak and leotard with boots and a green mask, the relation between Jessie's old costume and her new one was akin to the similarity between a child's finger painting of a car and an actual living feline.

There were plenty of differences despite the thematic similarities too though. The materials were what appeared to be literal leaves instead of fabric, though they were special leaves, the golden vessels inside the leaf structures forming intricate rune patterns so spiderweb thin I had to focus to even spot them. The runes, which had somehow been grown INTO the leaves, held a series of powerful enchantments I couldn't begin to recognize.

Her mask wasn't leaves, but it was a single piece of carved emerald filigreed to look like leaves, with traceries of gold along the edges. The cloak itself was a long carpet of crushed velvet with runes sewn in using some gold thread, and the boots were green leather I didn't actually recognize. It fit together flawlessy, possessing a subtle and harmonious wholesomeness of design that made it clear the set had been made all by one person. Jessie was obviously thrilled with it, doing a pirouette to show off her new gear and shooting us a grin.

She gestured down to herself. "Isn't this great? The leaves are life tree leaves. Celine got them for me. They're super heavy in Vitality and they amplify life and healing based abilities. The enchantments are elven design. I wasn't sure I could get them, but Celine called in a favor to get them laid into the leaves. They had to be done once the outfit was already finished, but it was so worth it!" Doesn't it look amazing? Aside from amplification it also has insane defense and will protect me from most anything."

I could see the elven handiwork in the design now that I was looking for it. Well, not exactly, I could see what looked like elven handiwork. I'd never seen elf gear really. Celine had gear but I was pretty sure she used locally sourced stuff. In any case we all clapped for Jessie, who looked thrilled and walked over to flop down on her wolf as Benny got up to go and get into his new costume. He was just as excited about this whole thing as Jessie had been, and I realized that this was his first set of custom gear.

He'd made his own stuff for integration, but this was his first set of real armor he had bought and I could see why he would want to celebrate it. I was looking forward to seeing how excited he got when he was showing us his new clothes, and to see exactly how impressive they were. I had high hopes after seeing the masterpiece Jessie had on when she'd come out to show us.

In some ways, Benny had a lot more to work with than Jessie had. While he had an aesthetic to stick to like Jessie, Benny's aesthetic was much more average and unimpressive. That was a problem for getting his name out there aside from certain situations like the hunt, but it was also an asset when redesigning his image like this. There was a lot more variety you could get in the strike zone of 'boring black outfit' than 'green leotard and cloak'. There was lots of variety to be found in a black mask and a hood.

And find it he did. I blinked in impressed shock as he stepped out from behind the wall, preening ridiculously as he waltzed into the room like a model on a catwalk. He whirled, looking dramatically back over one shoulder, and Jessie clapped as I rolled my eyes. Callie was doing her best not to laugh, and I finally had to cut in. "Would you two stop feeding the animals?" The wolves all looked up at me suspiciously and I coughed in embarrassment. "Not like that guys, I mean can you stop humoring him. He's got a big enough head as it is, and the last thing he needs is someone convincing him his jokes are actually funny."

Benny sniffed disdainfully. "The intricacies of my humor are far beyond the petty thought processes of an unsophisticated thug such as yourself." His tone was haughty and snobbish, but in an over the top way that made it clear he was just messing around.

Which didn't mean I wasn't going to respond. "Ok, first of all, I'll thuggishly unsophisticate you upside the head. Second of all your back is turned you nimrod. Your stupid cloak is covering up your costume so we can only see parts of it. It's pretty impressive but maybe you can sit still so we can admire it instead of having to look at your frankly underwhelming face, mask or not." I grinned to let him know I was also teasing, and enjoyed the over the top look of offense as he literally put a hand to his chest in shocked outrage.

That faded after a second though, and he rolled his eyes. "Fine. You sure your power isn't cancelling electricity? Because I've never met such an effective buzzkill." He swept back the cloak dramatically. "Very well nerds, behold!" He exposed the entirety of the new armor, and with a better look my impressed shock was amplified. Benny's new costume was a basic black set of gear. A thick arming jacket over a black leather breastplate and leather pants. The pants were thick rough leather rather than the kind you might see for fashion, and had thick cargo style pockets for holding objects.

The entire outfit was covered in a tracery of gold, silver, and copper filigree, traced over the leather in the shapes of mechanical gears of varying sized and complexity, with runes set into the material at various intervals. Nothing as impressive or flowing as Jessie's but I could tell just from the impressions I was getting there was some durability and protection mixed in there.

The subtle accents of the metallic thread changed what had been a basic and uninspired costume into something understated and elegant. I hated to admit it but I kind of wished I'd been able to go for a change that dramatic with my gear, but with my current rep I had to stay on brand as best as I could. Callie waited for Benny to get his preening and posing out of the way before she hopped up and bolted out of the room to get her own new costume. I knew hers had been a bit more difficult to find materials for because she needed either a ton of time to imbue the shadow aspect of her embodiment into the clothes or something shadow attuned that would accept the power more easily. Her embodiment power was extremely useful and I knew she wouldn't be comfortable without her clothes fully empowered so we'd chosen to look carefully for more suitable mats.

I was surprised to learn about the time requirement for her embodiment skill, but it made sense. I'd never seen her use it on anything not prepared, and she had mentioned something about special materials when she showed me her bike I was pretty sure. Still, despite knowing what was coming, when Callie stepped out I admit my jaw dropped a bit. As she'd mentioned, she didn't change her style or aesthetic at all, the design was literally identical. The material however, was a total shift.

Callie's old costume had been black. As in the color. This new one was dark, as in, the absence of light. The entire thing seemed to literally consume the light around her, giving the very jarring impression that she was wearing some kind of screen that was giving us a view into a bottomless abyss. I was almost positive that would harmonize perfectly with stealth and her shadow power both, and just watching her move took a bit of adjustment before I could even process what was happening. My brain kept losing track of her because it didn't want to process the effect, and I was damn impressed with the work of whoever made it.

She gave a twirl and a wide smile and I applauded alongside Jessie. She posed, gesturing to herself dramatically like Benny had, only much more appealingly and with way more grace. "As you can see, my new gear is made of shadowspun wraith weave. It holds dark energy better than almost any material at G rank, only losing out to some proprietary fabrics from the cult we would have had to wait for months to get. It's enchanted with stealth runes." She dropped the pose and looked to me. "Now. Why not get changed into your own costume and show us what you got because we have to go soon." She held up her hand, scan ring out. "Apparently the delivery service told Cicero we got the gear. We've been summoned." I cursed internally. Not my big reveal was going to be spoiled.

A slight note for the readers on here, I'm going to be changing my schedule slightly. WUTS will be updating on weekdays, with saturday sunday off. Patreon will still be getting daily chapters but the time off is going to help me a ton with my schedule.

 

As expected I didn't have time to show off much. My gear was similar to my initial loadout but with a hooded coat instead of a cloak as Callie suggested. The sleeves were somewhat loose to give a similar vibe and all in all I looked amazing, the crafter had paid special attention to the detail work on the leather armor to make it harmonize with the coat properly but I didn't have time to enjoy it because fucking Cicero was calling us in for his nonsense mission. I added an extra strike to my throat punch tally for that mustachiod bastard.

We got back to the cavalcade quickly enough, and Callie and I both stared at Spruce Bunny from afar as we passed. He gave us a jovial wave, and we waved back, feeling conflicted to be exchanging such jovial greeting was a legendary monster who have been able to crush us in a fight even years ago, nearly beating us one handed from across the room. Knowing such a terrible combatant lay underneath that cheerful rabbit mask made the entire image go from amusing to kind of terrifying.

When we got to the cavalcade we were about to head in (just the four of us, Cark was already starting to become known down here, and since the people working with Melissa were enemies of the Militia it would be stupid to bring him) but we were stopped outside the entrance and waved over by a hooded figure. Since we were already in a mess down here and it was unlikely we could make things more complicated. I checked with Callie before we moved in, and at her nod we stepped up to speak to the hooded figure.

Once we got close enough to see him through the deep shadows of the hood (I suspected it was some kind of artifact since our Perception should be too high for a little dark to be a problem, especially at this range) I was able to recognize Emery, who was standing placidly off to the side of the entrance, looking for all the world like he was waiting for a cab. As expected of Cicero's master of sneakery, the supposed assistant wasn't fidgeting or drawing any attention at all, blending in easily by virtue of his surety.

When we got within range he smiled lightly. "Good. You arrived in decent time. Melissa is having one of her combat trials tonight. If you'd missed it you'd have had to wait a week, and Mr. Castelton isn't the most patient of men at the best of times, never mind when on such a time crunch. Given we received word of the arrival of your new costumes we decided to make sure you had the best chance of infiltration in a reasonable time frame." He held out a hand, palm up, and passed us a few small paper tickets.

I took the stubby red paper, a square with a pair of half circles punched halfway up each side. I grabbed them, passing them to the others. "Ok, so what the hell is this trial anyway? You didn't say much. Do I need to worry about bringing all my team members into this? Our healer is pretty scrappy admittedly, but I don't know if she can keep up with someone like Abel. Not that WE can keep up with someone like Abel. If the trial is beating someone even half that strong there's no way we're passing."

Emery just shook his head. "If that was the test no one would pass. If you think there's even a fraction of a chance you could beat Abel he wasn't fighting you seriously. Melissa is one of his devotees, but not on his level, and you won't even be fighting her. Melissa prizes talent for combat over raw power. You can gain stats, but instinct and creativity are inborn. She'll probably put you through the mirror trial, it's her most commonly used appraisal method. You'll be fighting a mirror duplicate of yourself if she goes with that one."

That sounded...awful. "What? How the hell are we supposed to beat an exact copy of ourselves?" I had nightmarish visions of trying to punch myself only to slam my fist into the fist of the other me when he tried the same move. It sounded like the most frustrating exercise in futility I could imagine. The only upside was it meant Jessie should be fine. Benny I was less worried about given all his tricks, but Jessie's Might had been falling behind recently. I'd been working with Callie to increase Might, and had gotten twenty points of Vitality out of it for her twenty point bump in Might, but I'd let Jessie fall by the wayside given Callie's involvement in this whole mess seeming more direct.

The worst part is fighting a mirror image meant my girlfriend's now one hundred seventy seven points of Might wouldn't even be an asset. It was effectively pointless. Emery finished filling us in on what he could find out, but given they were in a rival faction he didn't have all the answers. Sneaky or not, he was known to be loyal to Cicero, and that meant Melissa's people watched their mouths around him. No one with common sense ran their mouth in front of the enemy. Once he finished filling us in he gave us a solemn nod and slipped off into the shadows, vanishing. It was an impressive
trick.

With that done we headed into the circus, following the path Emery had mentioned to get to the tent where Melissa held court. She tended to keep her people together when possible, with the grouping only changing slightly as people had to go and do work or tests. The trials especially she did her best to have everyone attend. She was under the impression it would build camaraderie for her people to see how tough new entrants were. Anyone who didn't put on a good enough show to impress probably didn't belong there anyway, and the ones who did would have a much easier time winning respect from the old guard there.

The tent we got to was orange and black striped, as opposed to the green of Cicero's tent. I wasn't sure if that had any sort of special meaning or if Melissa just liked the color, but regardless, it was definitely the right place because when we stepped in the similarities ended. Where Cicero had been in a mostly empty and quiet tent (aside from the fucking deathtrap labyrinth he had in that weird annex) Melissa's tent was a riot of color, sound, and energy.

The other members of her faction stood around a giant dirt ring, drinking, cheering, and hollering as a blue haired boy around our age danced around a huge roaring bear in battle armor, dodging it's blows by skating over the ground on small waved of water under his feet. It was my first time seeing a water element cultivator since I'd come up as far as I could remember. Unlike pyros hydrokinetics weren't flashy or overly impressive by nature. I knew that there were more than a few out there, it was a big universe, but none had been good enough to catch the eye of the people or Rajak that I'd seen.

Apparently I was now seeing different. The blue haired guy was holding his own well against the F ranked bear, and I wondered how the actual fuck they kept that thing under control. The armor, on second look, had chains on it, and might have been some kind of restraint system, and I was pretty sure the weight slowed the bear down a bit. Under those conditions it was actually kind of interesting training, drawn out combat with a much stronger opponent to try to figure out how to hit hard enough to damage it.

Sadly for blue hair, punching up ranks wasn't so easy, and he hadn't even managed a small cut through the bears thick pelt yet. I saw Jessie's eyes narrow at the big beast, and I felt for her. I didn't like seeing them use an animal like that either. Ferocious or not that bear was a living thing, and being trapped and attacked every day sounded like hell. I'd have used a zombie or something. I put a hand on Jessie's shoulder and squeezed. It was shitty to ignore it, but we had a job to do. We could negotiate with Cicero to free the bear after we helped him cut off Melissa's faction.

She gave me a sour grimace but nodded, and I sighed in relief. As much as it sucked we were way outclassed here. These people were all combat fanatics and there were LOTS of them. We took a seat off to one side of the ring, waiting for the trial to start, and the water guy lasted another five minutes or so before he slipped and got tagged in the arm by a paw. I could almost hear the bone shatter over the crowd as I watched his arm almost get powdered and the people on the other side of the ring hauled on the chains, dragging the bear back as a healer rushed to his side.

I was curious how their healers power worked, but when he arrived at the blue haired guy's side he just held out a hand and encased the limb in some kind of light cast. I was expecting it to fade, but once the cast was on he nodded to the guards and they picked up the blue haired fighter as best they could without disturbing the limb and carried him off behind the seating to who knew where. I turned to look at Jessie, being our resident healer I was sure she had a better idea what that had been than I did.

She saw my head shift toward her, and even without seeing my face she got it. She shrugged. "Healing powers are pretty varied. Powers like mine that work directly with life force aren't common. Most healing powers you see come from synergizing with a first aid skill, but without a life based ability like my plant growth. You end up with something more akin to a regeneration buff. The ability amplifies the Vitality of the recipient rather than using the power to directly heal. Of course, nothing is perfect. Powers like that are useful for long term engagements or large crowds. My power is much more draining to use."

I could see how larger forces might find some use for that, but I was glad we had someone like Jessie. I hadn't realized she was so impressive in terms of healers, though looking back it should have been pretty damn obvious. Her lifeweaving ability was insane in terms of scope. I wondered exactly how she ended up with it. Was it really just a random combination of her ability and Skills? Horticulture couldn't be that common, but still, I would have figured if there was such an overpowered path people would know about it. I wondered if stat totals and similar factors played some part in the way abilities evolved or if it was really just a Skill and power addition sort of thing.

That was a question I wasn't going to get an answer too anytime soon though, so I just shook it off to focus on the dirt pit. As we watched, the crowd quieted down as the bear was led...somewhere. As it left a woman came stalking out. Tall and lithe with leather pants, a bright red crop top, and a red full face mask with no features save eye holes, as soon as the others saw her the fell silent and the woman stalked out into the center of the circle. When she reached the middle she threw up her arms. "My friends! It's that time again! Time to see who comes to join our number."

Her hip length red hair was shot through with bright yellow streaks, and I wondered if she had a fire ability like Cark, given the obvious themes. I was pretty sure this was Starbreaker. I had to hand it to her, she knew how to work a crowd. She had a pleasant and energetic voice that thrummed with excitement, like she was playing a song to get everyone psyched. She scanned the room slowly before turning back to the crowd. "So, any of you that are here to compete please step forward." I could hear the wicked grin on her covered face in her very words. "We can't wait to see what you all can do."

 

The lot of us headed down into the ring after her announcement. A surprising number of the people in the audience were here for this apparently, and I handed over my ticket as the collected all of them, with Melissa (or Starbreaker rather since she was in costume) making sure to get all of them. I wondered if the tickets acted as some sort of waiver, or if we would have signed one when we got them from...wherever Emery had picked them up. The thought wasn't reassuring but I wasn't going to dwell on it. No point crying over spilled milk.

Melissa nodded approvingly as she took the last ticket, turning back to the crowd to play to her audience. "Well now! These fine people are willing to put themselves at risk to prove their worth!" She turned back to us. "Here in the Starburst Pavilion we measure our worth by combat prowess. You will be measured, tested, and strained to your very limits. We accept only the most talented and dedicated combatants, and mere Skills and stats will not be enough to see you through this trial." I was assuming the Starburst Pavilion was the name of this tent. It was kind of cool honestly.

Melissa gestured widely with both arms, her voice rising as she gestured to all of us. "Combat is more than simply Skill or power. Combat is a matter of instinct. Of drive. Of talent and determination. In view of this fact the trial you are about to undergo will be different than any other trial you have ever undertaken. It will push you to your limits and beyond, and only those with true potential will ascend the next step through the ranks to become a member of our Starburst Pavilion. Knowing this, understanding the stress and danger, do you consent to be tested?"

Her eyes, blazing orange behind her red mask, pinned us all as she waited for her answer. We all thought it over before confirming, nodding and agreeing verbally depending on the person who made the affirmation. She gave a pleased hum. "Very well. Bring out the instrument!" She bellowed the last part loud enough for everyone to hear but never took her eyes off of the rest of us as she did so. "Your test now will be one of the hardest of our trials. We have great plans on the horizon, and we need only the most talented."

The same people who retrieved the bear carried out a massive rectangular shape, and when they stopped and set it down Melissa stepped up next to it, grabbed the cloth still covering the shape, and whipped it dramatically away. "Behold!" SHe was really milking the drama here, but it seemed to be working, everyone was excited. "This is the mirror of multiplication. Look into the mirror and any of G rank or lower will find their very reflection stepping from the glass to face them in single combat. Do any of you dare?"

She didn't wait for a response, just continued speaking. "The mirror test will require much of you. In order to pass you must defeat yourself in battle. An enemy who knows your every weakness, your every thought, who can match your every Skill and ability. You will need to overcome your limits, to push past what is possible for you, to even come close to winning. Only those who have the talent to overcome impossible odds are worthy of joining our pavilion. Now, whichever of you is willing to take on this burden, step forward!"

She finally fell silent, and I honestly wanted to sigh in relief. She hadn't cared about any of us, putting on a show for her own benefit, not that I minded too much, but I didn't really enjoy being set dressing. Still, I volunteered to go first. My tricks were varied enough that I might be able to swing something interesting. I wasn't actually sure how this was going to work. Could the mirror let the clone grant wishes? I was betting not, but that wouldn't matter anyway given the circumstances. My ability wasn't combat oriented, so it wouldn't be needed in the fight.

I stepped past Melissa, gazing into the mirror as she stepped back, letting me have unfettered access to the testing implement. I stared into the reflective surface, contemplating myself. Sleek black leather armor with purple trim, a black hooded jacket with loosely hanging sleeves, and a wooden mask with no features or eyeholes. I watched myself in the mirror, checking for any sign that something unusual was happening, but I saw nothing. I stared into the blank masked face, and eventually tried moving. I raised an arm, and nothing odd happened, so I took a step back to see what it would do.

Unlike the arm raise, the reflection didn't just do the exact thing I did like it was supposed to. When I stepped back, it stepped forward, and I saw the armored form, push slowly through the surface of the glass, the reflective surface warping and shifting like mercury as the reflection passed out of the mirror. The others had all backed away, opening up the ring for me, and the assistants or whatever ran up to carry off the mirror, leaving just me and my reflection out here getting ready for our upcoming fight.

I glanced up and down the reflection, and sure enough, just like a real reflection it wasn't at all different than I was. I expected the lapel logo of my well of wishes sigil with the S in it to have been reversed, but it wasn't. I stared at it for a moment and then decided to start the fight with something to throw the other me off balance. I triggered mistwalking, filling the air around me with concealing mist. I resonated it with stealth, hoping that it would enable me to hide
myself from the other me's Seek Hidden skill, even if it seemed unlikely. Any little bit helped.

I immersed myself in my own Seek Hidden skill, focusing on finding the other version of me, and was forced to roll sideways as a mirror image of my cane came scything through the space where my head had been. I cursed internally, and used the dip to begin rotation, drawing my own cane from a spot on the inside of my coat and whirling both it and myself to begin my Balam forms. The cane in my hand smashed toward the other me, only to be deflected by the whirling duplicate in his hand.

I didn't bother with poison or fire. I had no desire to wreck my gear, and it wouldn't have done much good anyway since the other version could just use the same skills. I just began to circle slowly. I was wracking my brain for what the hell to do in this situation. As expected, beating yourself in a fight was the opposite of simple. I was up against someone with the same tricks and tactics I had. He could effectively counter every move I made. I tried a few more probing strikes, only to have them met and deflected, and he tried a few of his own that I easily saw coming.

Contrary to what I had expected, this wasn't some kind of perfect mime routine where we did the same thing in unison. People were complex creatures, and the choice they made vary depending on a myriad of complicated factors. Even innocuous changes like direction faced could have an impact on the choices a person made, and any deviation would snowball into even larger differences. The optimal tactic for me didn't exist in a vacuum, and the changes to our positions and view were subtle but important factors in something as delicate in battle.

I needed to focus on those differences, to force them to expand, and to exploit them. Step one was change the game and step two was win it. I considered my options, things I could do to separate us and force him to take a different tactical route than I was. Then I realized that as much as taking advantage of differences could help, the opposite was also an option. We shared several things here, and if I affected them he would have to adjust to that without having been the initiator.

I darted forward and smashed down with my cane, aiming right at his head but making sure it was only barely on target. As I would have done, he ducked back to avoid the blow, wasting the least energy by slightly opening the distance to let it pass harmlessly by instead of committing to a block. I smiled under my mask as the attack passed him, and instead of pulling back or disengaging I continued the strike, letting it smash into the ground as I triggered the stored force in my cane, turning the ground under his feet into a crater as the effect blasted the dirt up into a shower.

He lost his footing trying to backpedal and I pressed. While knowing each other's moves was a pain in the ass was a potential weakness, it was also a great strength. I knew where I'd be vulnerable if someone opened me up like that in battle, and I was able to exploit those gaps ruthlessly. The harder I pushed the more off balance he got, and I laid into him as hard as I could in the hopes that he wouldn't be able to regain his balance and I could end this in a single concentrated push.

Sadly, the other me was about as good at fighting as I was, obviously. He took a few solid hits, but I'd wasted my force burst throwing him off balance, and his armor was the same set I had. I cursed myself mentally for upgrading before this. I might have been able to drop him if he'd been wearing my old H grade gear. Still, I had used Mercy Kill and Flurry of Blows during the exchange, and I could see the ones that had hit had damaged him enough to make him a bit unsteady as he took his stance again.

I considered coming in to take advantage of the damage and stop him before his Vitality patched him up, but the wounds were inflicted by a G ranker, so they wouldn't vanish fast. Despite how badly I wanted to overwhelm him, I recognized that a battle of attrition favored me more here. As long as I didn't let him recover, the smart call was drawing this out and taking advantage of my better condition to chip away at him. Haste made waste, and if I was too aggressive I'd leave openings for him to exploit back. If he evened out our conditions I might not be able to win at all. I had a feeling a draw wouldn't be considered my victory.

When I backed up I saw him tense. He was me after all, and he knew exactly what I did. Unfortunately, he was on the other side of that dilemma. A battle of attrition would be detrimental to him, and he couldn't afford to drag things out and let me widen the gap. I heard a muttered snarl of frustration as he dashed forward, and it was his turn to activate Flurry of Blows. I turtled up, trying to minimize my profile as I deflected the attacks, not wanting to give him too large of a target to land a hit on.

I waited for several minutes, doing my best to avoid and deflect hits without taking damage until one of the blows I landed on his ribs started to cause him obvious pain. I waited as the gaps in his offense got bigger, until finally I lashed out, smashing a blow into the side of his head. He staggered and I activated Flurry of Blows, my wait over as I finally pressed the attack.

We fought it out for the next few minutes, me chipping away at him slowly until I finally landed a solid blow and knocked him out with my now refilled force cane. I slumped down onto the ground, gasping for breath. That had been the hardest fight I'd had in a while, but I did it. Now it was time for others to give it a shot. I was eager to see their fights.

And we're back! Also ignore the previous post that was tomorrows chapter. Monday to friday is still daily updates, but weekends are time off to relax and build up my stockpile. Speaking of my patreon chapters are seven ahead now so theres a full week of advance content for anyone who wants to check it out at patreon.com/malcolmtent

 

I was exhausted by the time I got up to the seats to drop down. I was the first one up, so none of my friends were here yet. I was alone watching the show, but to my surprise one of the nearby revelers offered me a drink from a cooler he had with him, shooting me a grin. "Good showing my friend, that mirror trial is the most difficult one we have. Not many make it through. Do you want something while we wait?" I blinked at that, but smiled and accepted. I rifled through the cooler and found a soda, since I wasn't one for alcohol.

He chuckled at that. "Not a fan of beer huh? More for me I guess." He held out a hand. "I'm Alden. I've been a member of the Starburst Pavilion for about four years now." I took the offered hand, noting his firm but not excessive grip. Controlled. I could tell just from the measured squeeze that Alden spent quite a bit of time on controlling his strength. Another follower of Abel's philosophy. Considering where we were that made perfect sense. Still, for battle maniacs they seemed like nice enough people, bear fighting not withstanding.

I popped the bottle and took a sip, enjoying the sweetness and the bit of the drink. The soda was unusual, a watermelon flavor that I'd never had in a drink before, but it was delicious and refreshing. I felt my body flood with energy as a sipped it, and I realized with a start that this was an H ranked drink. I had never seen ranked food in prepackaged form before, and I cocked my head at Alden in curiosity. "Where exactly did you get this? I've never had a drink like this before, and I figured I'd have seen it around."

Seemingly unphased by my mask opening up into a mouth to allow my sip he took a long pull of his own drink as Callie stepped up to the mirror. "Macintosh. He has a brewing skill. He synergized it with Alchemy at G rank and has recently opened a boutique specializing in bottled Ascendant drinks. They have some interesting properties, though the H rank versions mostly just give a really effective sugar high that you don't crash from. Still, they taste divine. Best beer in the whole WCP you mark my words."

I raised an eyebrow at that, it was a fascinating thing to hear. I wanted to see if I could pick some of this stuff up after, but sadly the question would have to wait since Callie stepped back and her double followed her away from the mirror just like mine had. I watched with bated breath, and after seeing my own battle everyone else quieted down too. They'd seen a winner today, and that gave them some hope. They weren't taking the chances for granted now, so they could only watch carefully.

Mirror-Callie stepped forward slowly, and my own Callie stepped to the side, angling herself away. She wanted to draw her double out further or open up some space. Mirror-Callie, just smiled and flicked a finger. Spikes of shadow tore up off the ground splitting the air in a wave as my girlfriend watched on impassively. The double had made the first move, and Callie was going to need to counter it or get seriously hurt. Callie flicked her coat up, reinforcing it with her shadows so it could tank all the damage.

As she did she hopped into the air, taking what had turned from sharp into blunt impact and using it to fling her further away. She flicked her coat out, snapping it into a wing configuration and using it to glide further away, and Mirror-Callie snarled in annoyance as she tried to bolt after the fleeing original, Callie let herself drop as she did, turning to face her double and falling the ten or so feet to the ground into a roll the sent her flashing toward the other her. She flicked a hand as she rolled to her feet, using the momentum to slip into a Balam stance, the forward roll being a type of circular motion, and drew a rapier made of shadow from nowhere.

Mirror-Callie sneered and conjured her own, stepping to meet her, and they began to duel. Watching them battle was...jarring. Pitch black blades flickered and blurred through the air, between Balam mastery and her Perception she was moving like an artist, and her body was flickering at such irregular intervals because of her new gear I was having trouble tracking her. The circular motions made slipping into blind spots much easier, and I kept losing track of her, of both of them.

Despite that I had no clue what the hell she was doing. This was impressive, but she needed to create some kind of gap between them to take advantage of for a win. She couldn't just match her clone head on. They were made for that situation. This was an exercise in futility. Still she pushed on, clearly going all out, and the clone did the same, and though they weren't exactly perfectly matched, they were pretty close. Callie was improving, but I didn't see what that had to do with anything, because the clone was improving too. This fight wasn't going anywhere at all. She might as well be doing nothing.

And then I caught it. A slight slip of the clone's arm as Callie licked out her blade to slash her opponent's side. She managed to deflect it, but it wasn't perfect. I couldn't figure out what she was doing for a second, and then it hit me all at once. She was learning. Or rather, training. She had this absurd Beginner level Skill for Balam Mastery, but hadn't been able to use it to its full extent on anyone. She had the knowledge, but not the muscle memory. So she was using the differences in the situation to force the clone to adapt differently to the knowledge to create a difference in their styles.

It was brilliant actually. Not that I should be surprised to see that coming from Callie. My earlier thoughts about even small differences making a huge difference in the perception of a fight were being applied here in a completely different way. Not only was Callie pressuring her clone to develop differently, she was matching herself against that clone. She had a chance to actually win this, and when she did she would be able to remember all the ways her clones style had differed and try to recreate it.

The differences weren't, as one might expect, huge. They were mentally the same person, and while changes in positioning, placement, and initiative, might have caused a slight deviation, the major change was that with every passing blow, the clone was facing someone with a slowly changing style as those differences added up. Still, even with that, it took a solid thirty minutes of constant high speed output before Callie was able to slowly whittle down her counterpart, and it was a damn close thing.

She staggered up to drop down next to me, absolutely exhausted, and I handed her my soda to take a sip of. Her eyes flew wide as she took a sip, but she seemed to enjoy it, clearly loving the energy boost. "Wow, this is almost as good as life energy. Plus it tastes pretty awesome." She cuddled up to my side. "That was exhausting. I don't think I could pull that off again, I barely managed to win. So, any ideas on how our teammates might pull off a win? Because I don't think the tricks either of us used will work again."

I winced at that, shaking my head because she was right. Sadly we didn't have time to discuss it as Benny stepped up in front of the mirror. He stepped back, drawing out the opponent, and once he did, he turned his head to Jessie and whistled to get her attention. She'd been frowning at the area where the bear had gone for some reason, but at the sound her head jerked up and she reached into a pocket, pulling out a small gold device and tossing it to him. He gave her a nod, then pressed it against his chest.

It vanished into his flesh like a stone submerging into water, and I grinned in realization. He'd had Jessie hold his new device so the mirror clone wouldn't have it, then he integrated it into himself. Since he was using what amounted to a Skill or ability now as opposed to just a spare artifact this SHOULD count as part of his capabilities. I looked over at Callie who was grinning at me. "Well, that's one way to do it. I wonder what this one does?"

I did too, but our question was answered as he turned to look at the mirror clone and a pair of razor sharp gold spider legs emerged from his shoulders, arching up and over to poise above him, ready to strike down at his enemy at a moments notice. I was curious if Melissa was going to stop this, since it would be easy to call foul, but it seemed like having the intelligence to come up with the scenario meant it was within the rules. These people were actually pretty easy going when it came down to it. I was finding myself liking them more and more, with some notable exceptions in their behavior like the bear thing.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't take Benny nearly as long to end the fight. With an entirely new element of combat he was able to take his clone apart pretty fast. It was kind of hilarious seeing how pissed off the clone got as he dismantled it too, because I could really imagine Benny looking like that as he was losing, though admittedly it was less jarring because the clones didn't really bleed so much as leak a mercury like fluid when injured. If I'd had to watch my best friend punch bloody holes in himself I imagine I'd have been less amused.

He jogged up to join us, absolutely giddy from the experience. "Wow, what's it like to take so long on such an easy test? You guys really dragged it out there huh?" He plopped down next to us, staring down at the dirt circle. The others went one at a time, but Jessie didn't volunteer, and after a while I got a bit worried. Noticing my unease, he clapped me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. Jessie has a plan too. She was worried about it at first, but she had an idea, when I did, and I trust her judgement. This should be a good show."

Jessie finally came up in the rotation, everyone else having already gone, and I watched her stand up to move over to the mirror. At some point she had knelt down where she'd been spacing out, her eyes staring off at the bear's exit point. As she stood up I notice her kick some of the dirt on top of a single green vine snaking across the ground toward the spot she'd been staring. She walked over to stand in front of the mirror and repeated the same process as the rest of us. As she stepped back another version of her stepped out as well, staring at her intensely. The clone took up a stance, getting ready to attack, but before it could there was a loud crash.

Everyone looked over to see the enraged form of the huge F ranked bear. It had torn free of its chains and ripped its way through a spot in the seating where there were no watchers. We all watched in shock as the massive animal charged forward and smashed its paw down on Jessie's clone, smashing it into a mercurial paste. Jessie stared impassively at the scene before calling it over. As it walked over to her she reached up and scratched under its chin before looking at a shocked Melissa. "This is Randall. He's mine now." I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

Accidentally posted this chapter yesterday, skipping one. I fixed it really quickly but if you recognize this chapter skip back to last chapter to catch the one you missed. Hope you all enjoy!

 

I half expected the crowd to turn on us after Jessie's stunt, lashing out at us for taking their bear, or declaring the strategy invalid. Instead, there was a long, deep silence as Melissa stared at Jessie and the now no longer restrained bear. The red haired woman mulled over the situation for a minute, and when I started to get ready to jump in, shocked me into stunned silence by throwing both fists in the air and bellowing happily. "SHE PASSES!"

Every person in the audience stood up and roared with approval, cheering the girl who had just stolen their insanely powerful beast and wrecked their seating. It was wall to wall roars of approval, and Jessie threw her hands up in triumph. Then Randall the bear let out a roar of enthusiasm and everyone sort of quieted down. Jessie headed up to meet with us as Melissa declared a short break in the proceedings so she could help repair the stands that Randall had broken. The big bear himself thumped down at the base of the seats while Jessie climbed up, waiting for his mistress.

I wanted to congratulate her on her victory, but before I did so, I had a much more important factor to clarify. "Under no circumstances are you allowed to bring him back to the house." I didn't need to wait for Callie or Zeke to weigh in. We had no legitimate way to store a bear that size, nor did we have a way to get him back to the house without being noticed and drawing attention. I knew she would be attached now, but she absolutely wasn't going to be allowed to take him home with us.

She gasped in hurt. "B-but Solomon! He saved us! And they're so mean to him! We can't just leave him here! We found room for the puppies we can definitely find a spot for him! He can sleep in my room. He can be my new bed! We can move the one I have out of there to make room!" The whiplash from upset to excited was giving me a headache, but I understood where she was coming from. I think her ability to bond and communicate with animals made Jessie extra empathetic towards them, especially ones she had a connection with. It made a lot of sense when you considered how she interacted with the wolves.

Callie, ever the peacemaker, stepped in. "No Agria. He's too big. It's not even just about us, he won't enjoy being locked up in a house all day, and we can't let him out into the streets. But no one is saying you have to give him back. We can talk to Cark and see if the Militia can make some room for him. I somehow doubt they're going to be upset about an F ranked beast living with them, provided he at least pretends to listen to them and helps out when they're under attack." Her voice was kind, and even Jessie couldn't fault the logic, so our healer calmed down.

It was pretty much a perfect solution for us too. It gave the Militia some protection. Granted, the Pavilion had subdued the bear in the first place with a crew of G rankers, which was impressive, so it was clear he wasn't invincible, but Jessie could make animals stronger as she imbued them with her life force. Between that and the G rankers already at the Militia hideout I didn't expect the Jerks to manage a another coup attempt, even if the were crazy or stupid enough to give it a try a second time.

It spoke to the cohesion and ability of the Pavilion though, that they were capable of subduing a massive animal like Randall. It should be noted that when I said huge, I didn't mean 'big for a bear' huge. I meant 'big for a truck' huge. Randall the bear was at least twenty four feet from snout to tail and fifteen at the shoulder. It was easily three times the size of any bear I'd ever even heard of, though to be fair I wasn't exactly a bear expert, nor had I seen one in person. Still, I knew bears weren't supposed to be THAT big.

On the upside we had apparently been allowed to keep the massive and probably expensive bear fitted armor set made of what looked like G rank materials. I wasn't given much time to ponder that though, because Melissa came back and took her place again in the center of the dirt ring. She held up a hand and everyone stopped talking, which was impressive considering the people in question were all battle maniacs. Once everyone stopped speaking she gestured up at is. "Well now! Seems like we have more new recruits than expected. Six of our initiates passed their trial this time, and I for one am impressed!"

Aside from the four of us, two of the others had managed to beat the mirror trial, though they'd both used unusual tricks I hadn't really been able to understand. Regardless, it wasn't just us entering the Pavilion, which honestly made me feel a bit better. It would have been pretty suspicious if just the four of us had passed the trial and she realized we were together, especially after she found out about our discussion (unfriendly or not) with Cicero. This way though it was less of an issue. We were just a few of a larger crowd.

Once the cheering (which I really appreciated) calmed down, she put a hand on her hip. "Now that we have entrance interviews out of the way, we can all mingle amongst ourselves. Get to know our new members, welcome them to the Pavilion. As you know we work closely together, and it's easier to trust people once you've shared a drink with them." She pointed to us. "You four, with me. I want to talk to you about something before you join the party." Without waiting she turned and strode out of the center ring.

I looked at Callie and shrugged. We had been expecting her to question us about what happened with Cicero. This was earlier than expected for sure, but not by that much. Since we had no reason to worry we just headed after her, curious to see what she wanted.

We followed her into the back of the tent, into a series of wall drapes that made up a makeshift office. She plopped down into a chair and reached up to take off her mask. Much like Cicero, Melissa looked young, a side effect of her having reached her current rank years ago and only aging one subjective year for every twelve chronologically. She didn't seem bothered to show her face to us, and when she noticed the surprise from those of us with exposed faces she shrugged. "It's more ceremonial than anything else. I don't sweat the secret identity. My hair isn't exactly subtle."

She gestured down to her bright red locks with yellow strands through it, and I had to concede the point. With hair like that a mask only did so much. It made me wonder how some of the other people I'd seen or met with brightly colored hair handled that. Maybe dye or wigs? I mentally shook off the thought. Callie stepped forward to respond. "We're happy to be part of the team. Might I ask what you were hoping to talk about?"

Melissa snorted. "You four. Obviously. Well, the two of you more like. You were seen leaving Cicero's tent, though one of you was unconscious, and you didn't seem particularly pleased. I'm not unfamiliar with that asshole and the little tricks he plays. I wanted to know if you're here for some kind of revenge or something? It's not exactly a well kept secret that he and I don't see eye to eye." She kept her tone even, not letting on if she would be pleased or upset if this was about revenge.

As always my girlfriend had good instincts. "Less about revenge and more about protection. We assumed that he would be less likely to harass us if we were with you. No reason to single us out if there's a whole group who are known to be against him. Birds of a feather and all that. Is that a problem? We didn't think you would be too upset about starting trouble for him or tweaking his nose."

That got another snort. "Not exactly. But things have gotten complicated lately. If you want protection we can swing that, but I'm not going to stir up trouble. There are things in motion and setting off a war with Cicero right now isn't in my best interest, or the best interest of the Pavilion. So this is a friendly warning. Don't drag us into some bullshit dispute over pride, because we won't be backing you up if you're the aggressors. Just wait your turn. Things might not be exactly as they appear."

With that ominous and cryptic remark she waved us off. It was clear that she had some things cooking and didn't want us to trip her up, but getting involved with those things after that speech would require us to prove ourselves a bit. Luckily, proving ourselves was easy in a place like this. We just had to kick some ass and draw some attention. Before that though we needed a better grasp on exactly what the situation was, and in the spirit of that I grabbed Callie by the hand and pulled her with me to find Alden.

The others trailed behind us without needing to be pulled like Callie. When we came within range of Alden the short, barrel chested man waved us over. Without the trial to focus on, I was able to pay more attention to Alden. He was about five foot four, with a bald head and a thick red beard. The wild growth of his facial hair was streaked with white, and his kind brown eyes were clear and energetic as he waved us over with one of his bulky arms, bare from the lack of a shirt under the overalls he was wearing. "Hail the conquering heroes!"

When we got close he clapped me on the shoulder, offering a hand to Callie, Benny, and then Jessie in turn. "Alden Perkins, nice to meet you folks. Welcome to the Starburst Pavilion. Don't let the location fool you, only about ten percent of us are actual clowns."

Another voice cut through the bustle of the crowd. "Mostly the ones with beards!" Alden whipped around to glare off into the throng of people, his beard almost bristling with fury as he scanned everyone nearby with narrowed eyes.

He barked out. "I know that was you Brian! I'll set your feet on fire! Don't you think I'm afraid of you because your wife knows how to use a hammer." Despite the glare and the harsh words I could see a twinkle in the eye of the bearded man, and I had to suppress a chuckle at the easy camaraderie between the people in this place. They reminded me of me and Benny in a way. Again I found myself resolving to try to talk Melissa out of the deal with whatever faction she was allied with if I could. These people would be better friends than enemies, and I was a candidate same as the cloaked woman.

Turning back around Alden apologized and offered us all drinks. I took another soda, this time a black cherry (my favorite), and waited for him to introduce himself to everyone before I finally broached the subject I'd been wondering about. "We're glad to be here. We were hoping to make a name for ourselves, so what do we need to do to get some more responsibility around the Pavilion. As you saw we're pretty tough, we can handle anything you can throw at us." I made sure my voice projected strength and confidence. I wasn't sure what we would need to do, but I was sure we could get it done. Alliance or not we had a job to do. We needed to find out who that other faction was, so it was time to show off.

 

The most obvious way to prove ourselves, according to Alden, was apparently to undergo a kind of obstacle course. It was designed by the Pavilion to test combat capabilities. It sounded similar to the testing at the Academy, but when I asked about how it worked I was informed in no uncertain terms that the Pavilion course was rank neutral. The obstacles were enchanted and could be adjust for the stats of the participant. Since the Pavilion prized combat standards, Skills were still allowed, but in order to beat the times of previous course runners you needed some real skill.

The obstacle course was one of the first things most pavilion members did on joining, and the score you got was basically an indicator of who would accept a challenge if you decided to fight. Being an entire organization of battle maniacs, the Pavilion was heavily influenced by fighting strength. Challenging others was a prime way to earn respect, and people would even bet on the outcomes, but no one would accept a challenge if your time wasn't within a certain number of seconds of their own time.

So, in order to raise our profile and become better known here, we needed to take the course, do well, and then fight some people. When we announced our intention, I expected it to be mostly ignored, and for Alden to lead us to a small underground area or something. Instead he bellowed. "Obstacle course!" And threw his fists in the air, with every other pavilion member echoing his yell with a loud cheer. Then he led the two of us (Jessie wanted to stay with Randall and Benny didn't want to leave her alone, bear or not) behind the seating off to one side and through a tent flap that led us into another open space.

I was reminded of Cicero's tent, but this side tent seemed much less cramped, so it was probably a bigger spatial distortion. When we got inside, everyone stampeded past, climbing up onto the seating in this room, excited to watch us throw ourselves against whatever impossible odds these were supposed to be. Oddly despite having just fought, I was looking forward to this exercise. It would give me a chance to cut loose without feeling so stifled or like I was on a razors edge like when I had to beat my clone.

Alden walked us out to the middle of the ring, which was also dirt, but seemed to be covered in strange objects and constructs, some for running over, some for climbing, and some humanoid and obviously meant to fight. There was a huge selection of options for what would be tested, and I was excited to try it out for myself, but I had one more question about this whole thing. "So, just to clarify, is this solo only, or can we try in teams?" Callie and I were partners with exception compatibility, so I was sure it would improve our time to work together.

Alden chuckled. "Tag teams are fine, but your time is doubled for the purposes of the record. Can't have doubles screwing up our times. In some ways bringing a partner is even harder than doing it solo, so are you sure that you want go up together?" Despite the warning words, his tone was eager and excited, and I smiled internally at how up front everyone here was. It was refreshing after dealing with a backstabbing dick like Cicero. Granted these people could also secretly be sneaky manipulators, but somehow I doubted it. They struck me as people more like myself.

I looked over at Callie, letting her decide, and she grinned and winked at me, an obvious sign of approval. I nodded to Alden. "Yeah, take us to wherever we're supposed to start." He led us over to a seemingly random spot in the center of the circle of seats, equidistant from a few different machines and obstacles.

He pointed over to the nearest few. "Now, there's no specific suggested order for the tasks, coming up with an efficient way to tackle everything is part of testing your combat capabilities, but we do give a few minutes to come up with a proper strategy. Don't feel too bad if you don't get some legendary score first time. There are people here who have spent years trying to refine the fastest and most efficient path through the course. All you really need to know is that the humanoid constructs detect damage based on how and where they're struck, and will shut down once you reach their limit."

With that he turned and left, giving us time to discuss our strategy. Callie scanned over the devices, most of which were pretty obvious in terms of use and execution. She went over everything a few times in her head, discussing our route out loud minimally to avoid giving away any of our tactics before the big show, but once she finally came up with what we should do she whispered in my ear so softly it was barely audible even with my perception.

Once that was settled we officially set off toward the first obstacle on our list. It was a mystery to me how they were going to arrange for the stat totals to matter on the obstacles, but once I got closer I realized that I could feel gravity itself seeming to increase. Callie and I both came up short in shock as we realized that our physical abilities were greatly hampered by even the proximity of these things. Alden had mentioned that the constructs could adjust their stats to match us, but apparently he'd decided to keep it a surprise that they could also do the opposite.

This was the second time we'd run across some amazing structure or device down here, and both had to do with Abel. I could see someone like him arranging this kind of place for his friends or subordinates to help them improve, and the existence of this and the labyrinth illustrated a big gap in what we thought we knew about enchanting and creation in general and what we actually did. The hatchery itself illustrated some interesting things about how crafting could be applied on a larger scale, but it was clear that invented buildings weren't unique or the only way for crafting to interact with the larger world.

Putting aside how individual powers could interact with those abilities in unique ways like that whole brewer thing, and the sheer variety of possibilities boggled the mind. That said, we didn't have time to think about it because we had to get through this, but we were unfortunately neutralized in terms of advanced physical abilities. The first obstacle was a relatively simple one. A wooden ladder led up about fifteen feet to a platform connected to another platform by a beam system with hanging steps.

The steps moved consistently, spinning and swinging without ever tipping, but being swapped along within a large field of empty space between the two platforms. Basically we had to jump from one step (small wooden boards that would barely hold two feet) to another to reach the other side, finding a path between them through the randomized movements of the steps in question.

Callie was staring at this thing in genuine horror, clearly unsure how to proceed. Luckily, I had something for this. I stepped forward. "Ok, I got this one." If she wanted to cross she would have to use a massive amount of shadow to create her own path or pin the things down, and that would defeat the purpose. I, however, had a variety of useful and powerful skills I could use to traverse the distance. In this specific case, Minor Gymnastics Mastery, while reality breaking, still put me at the level of a mortal who had been practicing for years.

I climbed up the ladder, not daring to lag behind in case I screwed up our time. I could see why they doubled it. Two people meant two Skill sets, not to mention we could probably double up on some tasks. For this one I triggered Minor Gymnastics Mastery and Leaf on the Wind. I decided since this was training as well as a test I wouldn't use cloud step, because it would invalidate things. Once I had Leaf on the Wind active I leapt for the first step that came close.

I landed on the wooden board, my body swinging away from the platform on the board's circular trajectory before I came within range of another board and jumped to that too. I controlled my movements perfectly, using Lead on the Wind to give me the hang time to really optimize my gymnastics. It might not be necessary, but working on my other Skills couldn't hurt, and besides, this was fun. I spent longer than I probably should have on the boards, unable to properly gauge the timing on some of them and having to take a more roundabout route, but I made it to the other side in about ten minutes or so.

In doing that, I realized the purpose of these tests. Abel's philosophy was about creating refined and cohesive battle strategies from your skills and ability. By forcing people to adapt to a variety of situations he was able to arrange for people to form a single coherent doctrine they could use in any part of their Ascendant career. It was kind of like making your own martial art, but on a much bigger and more inclusive scale.

More than that though, this was FUN. I'd kind of started taking my Might stat for granted given the fact that I couldn't turn it off, but trying to use my body from a mortal level again was kind of a blast. It was also somewhat scary, and I knew that if it was a thing outside this limited environment I would have been way too worried to enjoy it. It made me wary of higher tier planets with gravity naturally closer to this. I could see why despite people our rank being able to survive there most people didn't make that trip until closer to E rank.

After we got past the first obstacle, Callie was up next. The one after the platforms was a series of wooden stakes designed in such a way as to require extreme grace and a very light step to cross them. While gymnastics made jumping around easier, this was a simpler task for Callie with her years of training in stealth and careful movement. I used Leaf on the Wind on her first, and we tore through the test in like, thirty seconds, easily making up for my slow time on the platform obstacle.

We continued on like that, switching back and forth between the two of us depending on who was best suited for the task, sometimes her, sometimes me, and a few times we ran across tests we handled better together. As we moved though, the downside of this gravity became even more obvious, not just in its difficulty, but in the toll it took on our bodies. Neither of us were used to moving under these constraints, and I felt my muscles burn as I did my best to ignore the fatigue that was slowly overtaking even what my Vitality could fix in a short time.

I could see why this was considered such a good indicator of combat ability. It wasn't just Skill use and methods this tested, it also forced us to economize every motion and try to get the maximum possible energy from our now shockingly mortal seeming bodies. Of course, we weren't mortal, so we didn't get injured or anything, our Impact still offsetting things like the ground or strikes from other items, which made the test hard but not dangerous. Finally though, after almost an hour, we moved on to the part of the test where we needed to face the humanoid constructs. Oddly, part of me was looking forward to fighting like this. I had a feeling it would be a real challenge.

 

The humanoid constructs were waiting in front of the last few obstacles, spread out so we would have to face them one at a time to get to the end of the course. So when we came upon the first pair of constructs we didn't really have time to engage them slowly and figure out their moves or habits. We just attacked. The pair of them were different sizes, one short and stocky and one tall and lithe. I left the tall one to Callie and blitzed the short one as we closed in, figuring her Perception would let her counter its reach more easily.

Meanwhile, I came in at the stocky one with the intention to capitalize on my only real asset. I used my skills. I triggered Flurry of Blows as I approached, amplifying my attack speed as my cane flashed out in a whirling circular pattern easily recognizable as one of the Balam forms.

I expected the construct (who looked like a sort of blank doll of vaguely human shape) to dodge or block, but he took his cue from me and tried to counter attack with attack. For such a squat form, the thing had incredibly quick punches, and used them to devastating effect. Each punch was carefully aimed to intersect my line of attack before it could build momentum, disrupting all the power I was trying to generate with the centrifugal force of my whirling cane.

I was impressed with the tactics this thing was employing, not just in terms of actual combat sensibilities, but in using his assets. The squat construct was wide and powerfully built, and I could see from its movements that even with equalized Might it was stronger than I was by virtue of its powerful body and experience using it it. More specifically it wasn't EXACTLY equalized, more like generally equalized because the variance in gravity affected the different sized body differently.

Still, the power it did have it used exceptionally well. While most big strong entities built like the construct would throw wide, exaggerated punches to maximize their damage with big swings augmenting their power, the construct was using a series of light, quick jabs on me. Because it was stronger, it didn't need to commit to a blow as much to deal damage, only land a hit with the power it already had, so sacrificing force for speed was a much more rational decision. It was tough for me to deflect and intercept the rain of jabs with just the cane to work with.

As it attacked though, I began to rethink my strategy. The biggest issue here was that I was focusing too hard on the win.
Granted we were doing this to make an impression, but since this was our first run it was unlikely we'd have managed. No one was going to hold it against us having to do this twice, which meant the smart move was to try to learn as much as possible from the experience.

So I changed my focus slightly. Rather than push for speed in victory, I decided to focus on learning more about fighting an opponent like this. In the end, while we were trying to show off enough to be able to show people what we could do, even if we didn't have an amazing time we would earn the right to challenge the other members of the Pavilion and we could work our way up that way, plus we could always try this again later for a better time.

In the spirit of that, and of learning what I could before we actually had to fight one of those challenges, I started the Balam forms. Not a carefully selected for specifically for this fight, but running through the list, one form at a time, to probe this construct and try to learn what its weaknesses and strengths were. I wanted to figure out how I could find gaps in someone else's combat style.

I worked my way through the list, getting hit a few times with glancing blows because of my commitment to learning rather than winning immediately, but I didn't mind. As I fought, I got a better grasp on what the construct could do and how and I recognized some of the fighting style as belonging to Abel. He didn't have Abel's power, but he still had the same sort of ruthless combat efficiency, and it taught me a bit about this path.

While 'combat prowess' sounded like some sort of magical secondary ability that you had to train on its own based on the way we all talked about it, in reality it was a pretty simple thing. It was about perspective. People in the Academy tended to view combat as a math problem. Your opponent has a value, your attack has a value, you subtract your attack from their total and repeat until their number is up. It was simple and relatively easy to accomplish, except when it wasn't, but win or lose was pretty obvious either way.

Combat prowess was just the ability to break down those numbers into more detailed chunks. Instead of one overall value for a person, you needed to look at the values of each part of the whole. Find the weak spots, both in yourself and in the enemy, and exploit the latter while doing your best to eliminate the former. That was what made Abel so scary, I realized, he could see it all. He'd literally spent to much time in battle that he'd developed an instinctive grasp on what an enemy could do and could use that apply maximum pressure in the weakest spot they had instantly.

The construct couldn't really do the same, but it came close enough to give me a bit of the same feeling, and I used it to sound out the weak spots in my forms and to learn more about how they functioned individually and how they fit together. I checked on Callie to make sure she was ok, but she was having the same experience from what I could see. Callie had taken advantage of her battle with the clone earlier to start to develop her own unique style, and this was an excellent time to polish that.

While Skills from Wishes did give you a huge amount of bulk knowledge, combat styles weren't just move sequences. There were lots of elements and techniques in any fighting style, and people picked specific ones to focus on, creating a person style even within their martial art. Since Callie's was so new, having these scary constructs that could partly deconstruct our fights was a blessing in disguise for her just like it was for me.

After seeing she was ok I got back to work. First form, then second, then third, broken, I'd done that one wrong, I'd done that one too fast, that one worked better before the one I'd used two forms ago. It was like a puzzle, and each movement showed me where pieces fit. Balam was a new skill, and I hadn't put in as much time with it as I should have. I'd done some training obviously, since Callie needed to do so for her geas, but I'd been too distracted to put my all into it.

Sadly, not every battle is an opportunity to climb to a higher tier of mastery. Sometimes you learn some things but come away without any marked gains. All too soon the battle finished. I decided to cut it short because I was physically exhausted from all the obstacles, and I needed to rest up a bit. Flurry of Blows let me speed up enough to land a hit, and while I couldn't have gotten through a solid blow easily, a light tap was within my capabilities. After all the blocking and deflection my cane had stored up a solid charge, and I dumped it into the side of the constructs neck.

It froze, not damaged but having registered a defeat, and I slumped down to the ground to let my Vitality overtake the muscle fatigue and exhaustion while I watched Callie continue her fighting. As I watched her almost dancelike combat style I noted that Callie was much better at maintaining her condition than I was. With her years more of training and experience even with her strength returned to mortal limits she just understood her body and how to use it better than I did.

It was beautiful to watch, her evolution as a fighter, and I reveled in the chance to see her show what she could do as I recovered. Might made combat much easier, but I could see the reasoning behind the suppression equipment here. It was an excellent way to polish technique. You had to come up with solutions to problems that would have otherwise been solved by brute force, and you learned to deal with enemies stronger than you were despite the disadvantage.

Finally, Callie too finished her battle, though whether because she was done training or just didn't want to waste any more time I wasn't sure. She landed a final blow with the rapier of shadows she'd constructed and had to repair multiple times during the battle and the construct registered the strike as lethal, officially ending the battle. I hopped to my feet, bolted over and swept her up in a hug, getting a surprised squeak as I spun her around laughing. "That was amazing! You kicked ass out there."

She giggled as I whirled her around. "Hey there, we're not done yet. Put me down you human mountain!" Despite her words she was smiling, and I would have kissed her if not for my damn mask. Sadly I WAS wearing a mask, so I just put her down unhappily. She seemed to sense my annoyance because she pulled me in for a tight hug, just holding me close for a bit.

I was riding high on adrenaline, the learning, the growing, the combat, I loved it all. Doing all of that with Callie alongside me just made it even better. She obviously loved it too and it was nice to share the happiness we were feeling, even if we were in front of an audience. Ignoring the crowd we got back to the course, finishing in far from record time. It had been over an hour, and based on the way people had talked about it I was guessing even if we hadn't had to double our time for working together we would have been far outstripped.

I was going to challenge someone, but I was exhausted from the gravity, and everyone was so happy and upbeat it just seemed wrong to kill the party mood. It felt like we'd been playing some kind of party game. Everyone was so excited and energetic. Alden came barreling over. "Not bad kid! No one gets a decent time on the first run, but most people don't even finish! Sorry we didn't warn you about the obstacles, it's something of a tradition to keep quiet about the gravity stuff. Forces the newbies to adjust. So, what did you think of our course?"

He slapped me on the back roughly and I laughed, able to stand up easily under it with my returned Might. "I had a blast. I've never tried anything like that, hell I didn't know you COULD do anything like that. No wonder you're all so gifted at fighting with that kind of resistance training to do. It's scaling right? No matter how strong you get it just increases the difficulty?"

He nodded. "Mimics the gravity on some of the higher ranked planets for those of us on the weaker side of things. But it only works on G rankers." He gave me a wide grin. "If you think that was hard, you should try running it drunk. Anyway, enough business." He turned to the crowd. "Our newbies emerged victorious! Let's PARTY!" There was an echoing roar of acceptance and I felt myself smile under my mask. This place was turning out to be pretty great.

 

The next day found us rested and refreshed. We hadn't ended up challenging anyone, just enjoying our time at the Pavilion. We still needed to find the faction behind them, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that Melissa was more the type of person we wanted to work with than Cicero. We hadn't interacted with her much personally, but she'd seemed pretty fair, if a bit blunt and straightforward. She left a much better impression than the top hat wearing dick who tried to make us dance like monkeys.

The presence of the other candidate would have been a huge problem for that plan, except that as far as I knew they were working with that faction just to get Cicero out. It was more than possible if we could help them with that they would take the chance to jump ship, especially since there was no way whatever faction they were working with had them interacting directly with the candidate. No large faction was g0ing to turn over full time access to an asset like that to some random small time sub-gang in a circus.

So, with lots to think about, we went home. We slept off the partying (though I didn't drink to there wasn't too much to sleep off for me) and then we decided to take the day off. We'd been rushing around trying to get things done, but entering the Pavilion meant we were at least on schedule enough that Cicero couldn't claim breach of contract. He could bitch about it, but I didn't particularly care what he was unhappy about. Callie decided that we would go down and visit Cark as well as finding a spot to house Randall where Jessie could visit him.

I brought Jin and she brought Rellia along, Jessie let Lily, her own wolf, tag along as well, and with just the three of us and the three wolves it wasn't too cramped in the back of the car. Once we were driving, I leaned back and looked up at where Jessie sat in the drivers seat. "So you excited to see your new buddy? Because that whole giant bear thing is kind of awesome, and I could tell that whole using him as a bed suggestion was partially serious. He does look like a big fluffy pillow."

Lily whined in what sounded a bit like indignation, and I raised an eyebrow. I was never sure exactly how smart the wolves were. I knew they were sentient but not sapient of Jessie's powers wouldn't effect them the same way, but it seemed to be kind of a moving target. Sometimes it seemed like they knew exactly what we were saying, and sometimes they just acted like normal animals.

Jessie groaned. "Damn it Shane. Now she's going to be all clingy and jealous for the rest of the day when I'm trying to get Randall settled in. But yes, I am excited to see him." She had a wide, soft smile on her face. "Honestly, the animal thing is my favorite part of my powers. I know I can do interesting things with plants and healing, but I've always loved animals. The ravens showed me how useful working with animal partners can be, and being around Lily showed me how much fun it was. You may have noticed that I haven't exactly been focusing on my Might as much lately."

I nodded. I had noticed that. Which was a shame because Jessie was one of the most naturally talented combatants I'd ever seen. I'd been shocked when I saw her fight Benny for the first time, and honestly I wasn't entirely sure she couldn't have passed the mirror test by herself if she'd been willing to put in the time to do it directly. Still, I could respect her desire to leave the direct combat behind. She'd been impressive but I never got any sense that she enjoyed battle, just that she was exceptionally suited for it in some ways.

Despite thinking it wasn't a big deal though, I didn't bother directly addressing it. She wasn't really aiming that at me. Callie gave her a reassuring smile. "It's fine Jess. I get it. I think you more than proved that it's a workable combat style, and if you feel more comfortable focusing on that aspect of your abilities I say go for it. I may be team leader but your powers are still your own. You write your own legend. Do what you think is best and we'll support you the whole way. Though I hope this doesn't mean you're going to stop healing us when we need it."

Jessie's giggle had a relieved quality to it. "Of course not. Though speaking of you being a team leader, we haven't really had time to hang out since we got to Rajak. Between being a tactical badass and mooning over your boyfriend you kind of left me in the lurch. Why don't we set up a day to go out just the two of us. Well, we can bring the puppies if you like, but no boys."

Callie looked kind of shocked at the suggestion, but not against it, just surprised to hear Jessie ask to spend time with her. That basically sealed the deal for me in terms of it being a good idea. I didn't interject or tell Callie she should do it though, aside from an encouraging smile that she could actually see since we were in civvies today. My girlfriend cleared her throat. "Yeah, that does sound like fun. I love spending time with Shane, but if I don't get a break I'm going to forget how to solve problems without punching them."

I put on a faux offended face. "Says my girlfriend the insatiable loot goblin. But fine, I see how it is, just toss me aside when you don't need any arm candy." I let my teasing tone drop. "Seriously though, I can hang with Benny, we haven't done anything just the two of us in ages. He spends most of his time with Celine these days." I was going to suggest they bring Celine, since Jessie and she seemed to hit it off, but it was their plans and not really my place, so I just left it at that.

A head of black hair dropped down on my shoulder as Callie cuddled me consolingly. "Aww, don't be so sensitive. You know I love spending time with you. Just like I know you really want me to do this because you want me to take more time for myself." I rolled my eyes, but couldn't stop the smile tugging at my lips. She leaned up to kiss me, so I imagined she could tell easily enough even if I fought it.

Jessie groaned from the front seat. "HOW? How are the two of you getting even more nauseating the longer you're together? This is supposed to fade over time, not get worse." Lily chuffed lightly at her person's exasperated tone, and Jessie shot a quick glare at her wolf that was all she could spare. "Don't you start. Just because you're a puppy doesn't mean I don't know you're smart enough to make fun of me." The wold just panted placidly in a gesture that looked suspiciously like sticking out her tongue at our friend.

We spent the rest of the trip just chatting, with Jessie and Callie making plans for their day on the town that I mostly tuned out because none of their ideas sounded particularly amusing to me. Callie liked to fight and loot when we were together, but Jessie was more of a cultured sort of girl, and Callie was obviously taking the opportunity to get more of that kind of thing in her life. I was perfectly fine not going to see an opera or to a botanical garden.

When we arrived we parked and Jessie bolted out of the car heading inside to see Randall, with Lily trailing behind her and Jin and Rellia following Callie and I inside father behind them in turn because we were in less of a rush. I grinned at the sign for the Rowdy Badger, still as amusing and interesting as ever, as we stepped through the door to Cark's hangout.

Our friend had taken to spending most of his time here, and surprisingly when we showed up, Sage was here with him, the two of them sitting at a booth nursing a pair of drinks and deep in conversation. They were just looking up to see what the noise was when we came through the door, and when he saw us Cark put on a beaming smile and waved us over.
"Hey! You guys came over! It's always nice to see friends." His smile become somewhat wry. "Especially when they show up just in time to explain the BEAR that is now living in my back room. That sure was a surprise."

I held my hands up to indicate that wasn't on me, turning to look at Jessie, who pouted. "Oh sure, just blame me for everything why don't you? I'm the good guy here you know! I saved a poor helpless animal from being abused. Randall is a sweet and cuddly bear who wasn't hurting anyone and those thugs at the Pavilion were tormenting him for no reason at all." I chose not to point out the terrible maiming that poor sweet animal had inflicted on the blue haired guy we saw fighting him. She had a point anyway, it was a terrible thing to do to an animal.

Cark rolled his eyes. "Fine. It's not like he's been attacking my people or anything so I don't mind letting it go. He IS going to be protecting my bar though right?" His gaze was a little hungry when he said that, not that I blamed him. Having an F ranked guardian beast was basically the closest someone down here could get to a safe zone. I still had no clue where the pavilion had found Randall, but if it had been anyone but those battle maniacs they probably would have been incredibly pissed Jessie had taken him.

Though, maybe Melissa hadn't been as chill about it as she'd acted. It was hard to say. With the boost from Jessie's lifeweaving he would be stronger than ever. It was possible she just didn't feel confident whatever method she used to subdue him would work again. In any case we'd come out of that situation in the best possible shape so I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Some things I just didn't really care about the reasons for as long as it didn't effect me. Curiosity was a useful life skill in a lot of situations, but it wasn't valuable all the time.

Jessie rolled her eyes at Cark's question, but nodded. "Yes, obviously. He's not a freeloader. You're going to be housing and feeding him so the least he could do is keep you all safe. Just don't bother him too much with random problems or wake him up unless its an emergency. He's probably going to be sleeping most of the time. He's a big sleepy bear." She gave a fond smile talking about her new friend, who I imagined WAS pretty sleepy, given bears usually hibernated to store up enough energy to move their giant ass bodies, and Randall was bigger than most.

Cark nodded amiably. "Of course. No reason to disturb our protector outside times of trouble. He can just relax as long as he wants and we'll handle housing." His smile froze as he seemed to realize something. "Wait...you said we're supposed to feed him?" His voice was horrified, and I had to stifle a laugh as I saw him process what she had just said, no doubt horrified at the amount of food something that size would have to eat. Oh well, I was sure he would get over it. Having Randall around we be damn useful. Still, I was glad I didn't have to feed him.

 

As we sat down at the booth across from Sage and Cark, I finally took the time to take in my friend's appearance, and I was pleasantly surprised. Cark had spent months looking for Cass, and even after finding her he'd still been in fight or flight mode in some ways. The time down here running the show and spending time with Sage had done a world of good for the big bounty hunter though, and it was refreshing to see him looking so relaxed and well taken care of. I'd never seen him any other way, so I hadn't really known enough to worry, but seeing the two different states made it obvious to see the improvement.

I said as much directly. "This job is certainly treating you well. You look like you're having fun. I take it you don't regret your choice to accept your current position?" Despite how easy that was to assume I had to ask. Cark had done a lot for us and helped us out. If he felt trapped or limited I wanted to help. Picking a fight with one more faction wouldn't matter, we'd prepared to pick a fight with the Flame Riot Militia to start with anyway, so there was no reason to be afraid of it now. I didn't say that out loud obviously, no need to start a fight between Cark and his new girlfriend if he wasn't upset.

He gave me a reassuring smile, clearly seeing through my intentions. "I'm fine Shane. I appreciate you looking out for me but I have to admit I like it here. It's a bit busier than the bounty hunter life, but it pays better, and I talked to Burning Fist. If and when Cass manifests he's going to pull some strings to get her to H rank and sponsored for the Academy like you guys. H is low for that place, but she'll still probably be pretty young still, which should help make her case, assuming she even gets an ability."

It was hard to tell if kids in Ascendant families would manifest an ability. If it was a full on cultivation family it was likely, but Cark's parents hadn't been Ascendants, which meant he could very well have been a one off. I didn't think so though. I suspected Cass would get an ability, and probably something similar to her bother's. If not I could always put my thumb on the scales and help her out. I'd already made the offer for Callie's mom so there was no reason not to tack Cass on to the list.

In either case I was happy for him, and I said so. "That's fantastic! Don't send her too early though, that place is a complete snake pit. Maybe you could arrange some private tutoring from someone in town for a while before she goes. I bet that would help prepare her. I guess it's a bit soon to make that call though, we still have to see if she ends up with an ability. I'm betting she will, personally, but I could be wrong." I shot him a wink. "Statistically it has to happen eventually, right?"

He chuckled at that, and I saw his eyes flash with understanding at my hint. My emphasis on my opinion here serving as a reminder that I had ways of tweaking those odds. He couldn't say anything about that in front of Sage though, and I appreciated that discretion. That said, he chose to move on rather than hold her attention on the subject. "So, I've been asking around, and I managed to swing you a few meetings. I know you were hoping to reach out to some of the more trustworthy factions, and I managed to get you in. Mind you, I'm functionally a nobody right now, and I had to call in a few future favors to make even that happen. But it's a start."

He reached into his pocked and slid over an envelope. I opened it up to find a series of monogrammed cards with sigils on them, each with an address written on the back. I shot him a grateful smile. I couldn't go into details with Sage around, but this was a great step. Regardless of which faction supported the other candidate I would need my own to go up against her. I should be able to make a deal with one of these groups to work directly, which would give me access to power and resources at the top levels of Callus and a real shot at dealing with the other potential wishmaster.

I'd have liked to keep myself out of the limelight and just build slow until I had a chance to get to the top of the heap. Revealing my abilities would be much less scary if I had the personal power to back it up, but the other candidate was forcing my hand by having already done so. They were way ahead of me in terms of timeline, and if I didn't catch up fast I was going to get screwed out of my qualification to participate in the competition, my home, and potentially my life depending on the temperment of whichever relative happened to be here.

I slipped the cards into my jacket, shooting a look at Sage and surprised to find her checking her scan ring and ignoring us. That was a shock, but at a second thought I could kind of understand. While this was important and secret to me, Sage spent her whole life growing up around actual powerful forces in Rajak. Without the knowledge of my ability or the stakes at play this whole thing probably seemed like a farce to her. She probably just assumed whatever was going on was us being over the top for our own amusement. Like kids meeting in a parking garage because it reminded them of bad spy movies. As much as the image hurt my pride I wasn't going to be the one to disillusion her.

That was the main reason I wasn't bothering to hide my identity from her. Someone like me would be so far below her radar it wouldn't even matter. Plus we had been the reason for Cark getting involved with the Militia, trying to force him to hide our identities as well would make his transition of power much harder, and we didn't want to cause any problems for him.

While I couldn't bring up the competition, we could still ask questions about the cards themselves. Callie decided to do just that. "Can you tell us a bit about the people you're putting us in touch with? I'd like to be able to do some research on these factions before we show up. Aside from knowing what to expect it would be kind of insulting to show up with no idea who any of the players involved are." She winced. "I probably should have done more thorough research before we went to the Militia headquarters honestly. I looked into the place, but mostly in a general sense."

I put a hand on hers and squeezed, letting her know that she was the only person who wasn't happy with how she handled that incident.Though to be fair, I was still pretty shaken by her breakdown after Burning Fist compared her to her dad, and even if I had held it against her there was no way I'd have mentioned it.

Cark nodded. "Of course. I got you four meetings. The four factions represented aren't the strongest, but they have pretty solid positions in larger blocs. First up is the Beast Lord Garden. The Beast Queen inherited the place from her father, and they're an old and established force. She's pretty moderate as far as interactions go, but she's a tamer and supplies pets and companions for most of the people in Rajak. No one likes to mess with her because of how useful her ability is, and I think Jessie is going to be pretty interesting to her." He smirked at me. "Not that I expect history to repeat itself, I know Jessie is an integral part of your team, but The Beast Queen will probably like her."

That sounded like a decent reasoning, so I kept my mouth shut, waiting for him to continue. He smiled at my patience and kept going. "Next up is the Sanctuary Hall. They're the faction with most of the healers. Peace Lord is the E ranker in charge. He avoids conflict with everyone, and it's commonly accepted practice not to fuck with healers, so they're a pretty stable faction to deal with.I figured you would most want to meet with inoffensive and peaceful factions like that since it would be easier to have a nice discussion with them." Left unsaid was the fact that being more neutral would probably make them less like to try any sneaky shit, which I somewhat agreed with.

He paused briefly before finishing. "Finally the last one I set you up to meet with is Silent Dagger. They're a spying and infiltration organization who serve under The Nothing. The Nothing is one of the more mysterious E rankers. Wears layers of dense clothing that have built in anti scan features and rarely appears, but because of that people avoid fights with them. Bad idea to attack someone who can vanish and be anyone. Even more than most Ascendants The Nothing is a problem if provoked."

At our looks he chuckled. "I know, Silent Dagger doesn't fit with the image of the other two places, but they have a reputation for honoring their agreements and aren't likely to turn on you. Plus the nothing is well known to be a genius at shadow manipulation. Callie might even be able to pick up a few tricks." He shot Callie a meaningful look. "Even Midknight isn't better with shadows than The Nothing, not the he would ever admit it. Those two are like fire and water and have been since Midknight got to town. Some people even suspect there's a history there, but Midknight refuses to comment and the nothing never answers questions about anything."

That was...interesting. I could tell the idea of her father having a nemesis made Callie sit up and take notice too. I'd been worried that bringing him up would upset her, but it seemed she still liked the thought of putting him in his place. I mentally pushed The Nothing ahead a bit on the list of possible alliances, but I wasn't stupid enough to commit to something like that even in my head without some research and an actual meeting. I wasn't worried about a direct attack right now, but it still paid to be careful.

Which brought up the fact that I needed to try not to rank up too quickly. Zeke's protection was a huge part of the insurance I had for staying safe, and as soon as I hit F rank it would be gone. There were no D rankers on this planet, and Zeke couldn't interfere when someone was only one rank up from me. If we broke through during this political mess we might get killed off without even knowing how it happened. If Zeke had to demonstrate his power early on though, people wouldn't know he was forbidden to step in after I reached F rank here. That would be some protection at least, even through deception.

We talked for a bit longer and Jessie enjoyed her time with Randall. The big bear was very affectionate and it was nice seeing our gentle teammate look so happy. It was easy to catch her looking forlorn or hopeless when you looked at her during times she thought no one was watching, so seeing her so joyful when she was on her own brought a smile to my face too. Once Cark and Sage had to go Callie and I just sat back in the booth to enjoy our time together and pulled up our scan rings. Might as well do that research now, there seemed to be plenty to learn.

 

We spent the rest of the day at the Rowdy Badger, but after Jessie had spent enough time with Randall (which was to say he went to sleep because he was a bear and didn't have the energy to humor her anymore) we headed back home. We'd been doing research all day on the various forces, and while I'd looked into the Sanctuary Hall and the Beast Lord Garden, Callie spent almost the entire day looking up every single fact she could find on Silent Dagger, especially the relationship between Midknight and The Nothing.

I expected her to be all upset reading about her dad, but in an odd twist she was unusually excited as she filled me in on what she found during the ride back. "So I looked into The Nothing, and it turned out that most people don't think they're from here. The Nothing appeared several years before my father showed up, but there was no sign of them before that point. It took me ages of trawling the forums but I managed to pick up a few accounts of people who were around when The Nothing first rose to power. As far as I can tell, they probably came from somewhere weaker than Rajak, in fact, there's a decent chance they came from Velan itself originally."

That got a blink of surprise from me. "Wait, what? Another Velan native? How come we never heard about this person. If they were around when Midknight was coming up you would figure you at least would have heard of them. I know that older Ascendants could have gathered renown long enough ago to fade from public memory, but they only came to Rajak a few years before your old man right?"

Callie shook her head. "Well, a few years for us. More like ten or twenty chronologically. As for why we haven't heard of them? I suspect they left Velan young. It isn't impossible to get to the capital if you're willing to pull strings. Jessie had been here before if you remember, and so had I. If we have channels I'm sure the WCP does too, and I'd imagine those channels are much more easily purchased. Most people wait until at least high H rank to come to a place like this because any weaker makes you one hundreds of millions trying to carve out a piece of the pie."

I nodded in understanding. "Most as in not all. Some people don't join a force, and some people don't wait until they're at the top to jump to a higher ranking area. You think The Nothing was someone who knew your dad growing up and came here ahead of him to take advantage of the abundant resources? That kind of risk would take some serious willpower if nothing else."

Callie seemed genuinely impressed by this person. "Oh that it is. I imagine the improvement in resources and channels is cancelled out by the absurd amount of diffusion on the renown in this place. Think about how we've been doing here, do you have any confidence you could have accomplished even this much without the resources we've been using?" Her voice was excited as she described someone who seemed to be on a similar path to the one she was on, at least in terms of interacting with her dad. Knowing there was some E ranked badass who had walked the road she was traveling had energized her in a whole new way I hadn't seen from her before.

I knew we would be meeting The Nothing sometime soon. If nothing else Callie would want to talk to them about what exactly they had against her dad. I imagined there would be some asking about secret weaknesses and that kind of thing too, but mostly I think she was just happy to hear about someone who may have effectively stepped out of her fathers shadow like she had planned on doing. Her fervor died down a little as she shook her head to clear it. "Enough about that, what did you find out about the other two factions?"

There was no hiding the fact that she was forcing herself to change the topic, but I appreciated her at least pretending to be interested. "They're pretty well documented honestly. They both do huge amounts of business with other factions and are pretty up front about how they get things done. The Beast Lord Garden has two main industries, selling powerful tamed pets to high rankers and selling cubs to younger Ascendants to grow alongside them. That said they do follow up interviews to check how the tamed beasts are integrating with their new masters, which I think is pretty nice of them."

It made me think highly of Jessie's chances of getting along with them. I was prettysure her Lifeweaving was pretty unique, and I didn't doubt they would lose it if they knew even a fraction of what it could do. Even just the taming portion of things was probably going to grab attention. I hadn't done enough research on taming to know the specifics of why it was good but I had a hard time believing any power that versatile and unique wasn't something impressive to someone in that particular industry. Callie didn't interrupt, waiting for me to continue and offering me an encouraging smile.

So I moved on. "The last group is the Sanctuary Hall. The Peace Lord is considered a pretty decent guy, especially for an E ranker. His power is some kind of pacifying energy. It cancels out violence on a conceptual level, eroding the violent actions that originally caused a wound to help it recover like making it so they never happened. It can be used defensively too to cancel out attacks, and it makes him pretty damn scary, even to other E rankers. The busted ability is the second reason no one messes with him, aside from the whole healer thing which is the main reason."

Callie whistled. "That's...weird. Not sure how the hell you get a power like that but it sounds crazy useful. Not the weirdest ability I've heard of grant you. There are some really weird Skill and ability combinations that result in some strange powers. Unique Skills alone can cause strange changes, but even more than that certain stat totals and conception in Skills can change the outcome of synergy. One guy back in Velan had the power to summon rolls of cheese of varying sizes and compositions. As long as it was a type of cheese that existed he could conjure at least a small piece, even if it was higher rank."

I blinked at that. "There are higher ranked cheeses? I mean, I guess given other higher ranked foods existing that makes sense. Do the cheeses become higher rank through gaining stats? Or are they made with high ranked milk from a high ranked cow?" It was a ridiculous question, but it illuminated a secondary path for materials that I hadn't really considered. The initial formation through legend didn't have to be the only way. Hell, I bet high ranked cheese makers could get a solid chunk of change selling to restaurants.

Callie leaned in and kissed me for a minute or two, and when she finally pulled back she was smiling up at me impishly. "Callus to Shane, we lost you there for a second. As much as every girl loves to be ignored for hypothetical cheese, I'd prefer I keep my boyfriend's attention for the moment thanks. So, we need to take the time to go talk to some of these groups, but which one do you want to hit first? We shouldn't drag our feet since we still need to make ourselves seen at the Pavilion."

She was right, we should take the chance to check in with these factions, since things might start moving fast once we discovered who was behind Melissa's uprising. Hell, if we did want to shift the Pavilion to our side having our own faction backer could only help. That said, we couldn't afford to rush it too much, and we couldn't afford to half ass it, so I had to disappoint Callie. "I think we need to visit Silent Dagger last. I know you're excited to hear from The Nothing, but we need to cover all our bases. Even if we think Silent Dagger is the best fit we need to check the other two."

The conflicted look on her face broke my heart, but eventually she nodded. "You're right. I want to push you to skip them, but I know it's the wrong choice. Silent Dagger has been around for decades, they aren't going anywhere." She took my hand, squeezing it. " I have to do what's best for the group. But even if we end up deciding on Beast Lord Garden or Sanctuary Hall, we can still at least take the meeting right? I have so many things I need to know that I think The Nothing can tell me."

I leaned down to give her a soft kiss. "Of course. I'd have insisted on it even if we ended up sticking with the first faction we ran into. I know what this means to you. It's not just about finding someone to help you surpass him is it? The Nothing might have other answers you're looking for." I kept my tone gentle, but I didn't want her to get into the habit of bottling things up. I knew what I'd have been thinking of in her place, and I knew her well enough to be pretty sure her head had gone to the same spot.

She sighed, slumping against me. "I know it's stupid. I hate him, I'm not going to stop hating him even if I find out about his past. Having reasons doesn't undo the terrible things he's done to me or mom, but...I just want to know WHY. I want to know what made him this way. It can't just be recursion, because this part of himself was never something he showed other people. He's always been careful to be Midknight, the stalwart defender. He manages his image so carefully, and ruthless sociopathic bastard isn't any part of it. So what the hell happened to him? What made him like this?"

Part of me wanted to just shrug it off. Recursion didn't make a person. He might have just been a psycho from a young age. My money was on that option. But Callie wanted to know for sure, and I think deep down part of her was hoping she would find something that would excuse it. Some magical event or transformation she could undo that would make him a good dad who was in a bad situation. It was possible, anything was in this universe, but I doubted it.

Even so, I wasn't going to shatter that hope before I had to, especially since it was so fragile she wouldn't even let herself actually contemplate it. Besides, I didn't know what had happened. All I could do was be there for her, was walk by her side to the end of the road and then have her back as she dealt with the fallout. If she got a few days of hope or peace before she had to finally set fire to the last remnants of the part of herself that wished her dad could redeem himself, I wanted her to have that, she'd have thousands of years to live her life without those positive feelings.

So I held her, and said nothing, even as I watched what was probably going to be a train wreck in the making. We sat like that for while before I exhaled. "Well, I think tonight is as good a time as any to make our next trip to E district. I don't think we can hit all three places in a row, but we can at least knock out the Beast Lord Garden and Sanctuary Hall. We can meet with Silent Dagger tomorrow so we aren't away from the pavilion too long. What do you think?" Callie gave me an uncertain smile and I just pulled her close. Yeah, I didn't know what to think about all this either.

 

The trip back down the E district wasn't too long. We had to change into our costumes because even if I was willing to work with a faction as a Wishmaster candidate I wanted to keep my regular identity secret from anyone who was going to know about my Wish power, friends excluded. It was a nice pleasant ride down to meet with the people at the Beast Lord Garden. Since we were going to a taming faction, we even brought all the wolves with us, or at least the three of them belonging to Jessie, Callie, and I.

Benny had headed back to the Academy to spend time with Celine, not that I could blame him, though he and I made plans to hang out the day after next when we had some down time. Callie and Jessie were planning their big day out for that day, which I was glad about because it meant that they would have some down time after Callie's meeting with The Nothing, however that went.

Speaking of our blonde healer, she was sitting a distance away from us actively sulking. I groaned aloud as I saw her pout. "Agria, we've been over this. Your bear wouldn't have fit in this elevator, at least not easily. We would have been cramped as hell trying to pack him in with us, and that's IF they even let us bring him on." Which they would have, my black card was good for plenty of things. But still, I wasn't being ridiculous here, the bear wasn't going to fit properly. We already had three people and three huge wolves in here.

She turned to glare at me. "Beast Lord Garden is home to so many fun animals. Randall is still new to being with me, this would have been an amazing bonding experience and I could have introduced him to so many new friends. Maybe even some lady bears. Now I have to resort to buying him a bunch of expensive meat or something to win him over, because SOMEBODY won't let him live at the house so I can have consistent access to him."

I rolled my eyes. "Lily is still here with you. Stop ignoring your wolf, you'll hurt her feelings." As if on cue (though I suspected she just understood her name) Lily stepped up to lay her chin on Jessie's knee, staring up at her soulfully with a low whine.

Jessie's eyes widened in surprise and I was pretty sure slight panic. "Oh sweetie! Have I been ignoring you? I'm so sorry." She reached down to scratch the wolf behind the ears with glowing green fingers, an action that the wolf very obviously enjoyed based on the rumbling she was giving off. She looked back up to us as she pet the canine, not bothering to stop. "So, do you have a plan for this one boss lady? Or is this going to be another case of throwing a talented Ascendant at the leader of the faction so she'll be nice to us?" Her tone was teasing despite her serious words, so I knew she wasn't worried.

I snorted, reaching my hand out to ruffle her short hair under her hood and getting an offended squeak as I pulled my hand back. When we finally arrived at E district she stood up and stormed off with her chin in the air, the wolves trailing behind her. Jin gave me an amused look as he went and I winked at my wolf, who chuffed at the gesture. That wolf was much smarter than he let on most of the time.

When we stepped out of the elevator I noticed immediately that something was different. Where before golden sunshine had dyed the buildings, making them look peaceful and idyllic, this time the entire place was washed with silver moonlight. I looked up and sure enough it was night here, a huge full moon hanging in the air surrounded by tens of thousands of twinkling stars. Apparently the sky here was actually functional. I was mesmerized for a moment as I watched the fantastical sky, but I eventually shook it off.

Looking back down at the buildings, I noticed that the change in lighting had completely altered the impression this place gave off. The cold and mysterious feeling of E district at night was completely different than the previous vibe. It seemed much more dangerous like this, and even the lamp posts (that I hadn't seen before) were casting a mysterious silver light.

Callie whistled. "Wow, this place is pretty at night, but kind of creepy. Plus there's way less people around. It's like we're walking through a giant mausoleum or something. I don't suppose Cark gave you direction to any of these buildings? All I saw was symbols and addresses, which doesn't help us much since I don't know the layout of this place well enough to find a specific address assuming I even knew where on the buildings to look."

My snort made her look over questioningly and I grinned behind my mask. "Please. I can get us there easily, we're in a high place looking down on huge buildings." I looked down at the sea of white marble and triggered Seek Hidden, focusing on the Beast Lord Garden building. Huge targets like this were ideal for Seek Hidden, and it was easy to pick out the red glow especially from up here on the platform.

I gestured down in that direction and Callie didn't question me, she and Jessie just trailed behind, the wolves fanning out around us in a wedge formation to keep us safe if any tried to attack us. I wasn't sure if Jessie did that or if it was some pack dynamic that we were included in now, but either way we were lucky to have them. I didn't know what Jessie's chances for taming were but they couldn't be a hundred percent, so getting all of them had been amazing. It had probably only been so successful because goblins were assholes.

We followed the creepily lit paths without much trouble, I had to use Leaf on the Wind and Cloud Step up to check on our heading. It was impossible to see the building past the other buildings from the ground so that was our only option to prevent from getting horribly lost. Finally though we came to the huge white marble building with the right address. We had to look around a bit to find where address was actually recorded, but we managed it, and the symbol on the card matched in any case.

When we arrived I handed over the card itself to the tall man in green robes at the front of the building, and he took it with a solemn nod and not a word in response. His face was mostly covered by a green mask made of some kind of smooth stone. He glanced down at the wolves, then back up at us and gestured us inside before turning to walk away in silence. I turned to Callie. "I'm going to complain to management. Their doorman is way too friendly. I mean really, how is anyone supposed to get anything done around here?"

Callie stifled a snort of laughter, smacking me on the shoulder and making a shushing noise. Still, the slight tension from the creepy atmosphere and silence had been washed away. I stepped up and put an arm around Callie, while the wolves clustered further around Jessie just in case as we headed inside. When we stepped through the door at the back of the entryway just inside though, we stopped in shock.

Flowers. So many flowers in so many shades and colors it was hard to even take it all in. Not just color, the shape was so varied and insane it was crazy, big ones small ones, short ones, and tall ones. There were flowers that looked like strange geometric designs, ones that looked like paintings of animals, and some that were too strange to really describe, but they were all somehow perfectly cohesive in overall impression. Each disparate element was somehow arranged perfectly to sit in the absolute perfect spot for...something.

Jessie was spellbound. I'd actually forgotten she used to do flower arrangements for a living. This whole place would have already been amazing to her probably, even if not for the animals. A plethora of creatures scattered throughout this one huge room full of plants and color. This, I was sure, was the Beast Lord Garden in its true form. This was where the name came from, and I could feel some kind of indescribable power in here that I'd never come into contact with before.

I wasn't sure what it was, but Jessie, being the one of us with the most experience with flowers, picked it up first. "An Enchantment. This is some kind of huge field enchantment. But it feels different right? Like it isn't something someone made. Naturally occurring somehow? How does that even work?" After she pointed it out I realized she was right. This was somehow an Enchantment, but I couldn't see any runes anywhere. It just seemed different than a traditional Enchantment.

A melodic voice came from off to one side. "Well spotted, dear girl." We all jumped and turned to take in the caramel skinned woman with amber eyes and long dark curls sitting on a bench off to one side, slowly stroking a small furry animal. When she saw us looking she offered a gentle smile. "Hello. I hear you've arranged to meet with me. My name is Melinda. Some call me the Beast Queen, but I find it a tad ostentatious. Melinda is fine, or Mel if you prefer. I've never been one for formality." She gazed down at the wolves. "Your companions are quite lovely. Are they new friends or did you raise them yourself?"

Jessie practically lit up. "Oh, they're recent additions to our team. We found them out in the forest. They were living with some mean goblins out in the forest." Her face shadowed with sadness. "There were a few others in the pack, but we couldn't save them all. Luckily they didn't hold it against me. Wolves are very practical like that from what I can tell. They know that sometimes bad things happen and don't feel the need to find someone to blame. I wish humans could be as understanding."

Melinda gave a solemn nod. I often find a similar level of empathy toward the actions of animals. They're more honest I think. The main difference between humans and animals is that animals don't lie. Not to themselves anyway. Humans lie to themselves more than perhaps anyone else."

That was probably more true than most people would be willing to admit. Jessie stepped forward to look at the furry critter Melinda was scratching. "That little guy is so cute. What's his name? And what kind of animal is he? Looks like some kind of weasel?" I realized when she spoke that if I focused on the animal I could feel a sense of weight that I recognized, and almost jumped out of my skin when I realized the damn thing was an E ranker. I suspected it had been hiding it's Impact in the way that some of them seemed to be able to do.

Melinda smiled. "This is Travis. He's my partner. He was the first beast I ever tamed, and he's been with me for over a century. One of the reasons my Beast Lord Garden is considered such a stable force is because we have two E rankers where others have only one. Travis is a Moondancer Weasel, a particularly rare variant of beast. But enough about Travis and I, you came here to meet with us about something important, yes? We're anxious to hear you out. You keep excellent company so we're feeling well disposed to you." She stroked the little creature with more power in one claw than I had in my whole body and smiled placidly. "So go ahead. Impress us."

 

We let Jessie answer, though we had coached her on what to say. Since we'd come down here to feel out forces before committing to an alliance, we naturally weren't stupid enough to just tell her the whole story right off the bat. Letting an E ranker know what we wanted without any assurance of safety was eight different kinds of stupid. My blonde teammate was much more reliable than she let on to most people, and she had no problem navigating the situation.

She offered Melinda a warm smile. "We were looking for a faction to join. You might have heard of our group, we took first place in the freshman scavenger hunt at the Academy. While that definitely helped us out in terms of notoriety and even standing over there, we're not exactly top of the heap. A lot of things can happen before graduation, so we figured we would take advantage of our temporary fame to get our names out to other forces and shop around for something that would be a good fit. After all, it's not like we would need to quit the Academy."

That had been a relief to learn, but it wasn't surprising. Joining a WCP force wasn't grounds for expulsion. Plenty of graduates made the jump actually. The WCP was the counter force for the momentum of The Unity in Rajak, and they were a necessary part of the local ecosystem. Granted they weren't thrilled when people with actual potential tried to join up with the other team, but the WCP was a powerful enough force that straight up forbidding it would be a poor decision.

Melinda looked a bit interested, but not in a hurry to respond, so while she thought it over I decided to cut in with a question. "Excuse me, earlier you mentioned that Agria had good instincts to notice that the Enchantment here was odd. Can you tell me what it is exactly? It doesn't feel like anything I've been around before." The vibe I was getting off the thing was really driving me nuts actually. I was a decent Enchanter even if it had been a while since I indulged. Not knowing something that seemed so interesting was bugging me.

She smiled widely. "Of course. I'm happy to enlighten such a curious young man. This is a formation." Since my mask was covering my face I cocked my head as usual to show confusion. She paused, searching for the right words. "Formations are naturally occurring Enchantments. You may have heard for instance, that some materials are formed with special unique runes on them. These runes can form into many different types of effect. When several form together and promote each others function, it's called a formation."

I had heard of that. All the way back in Velan the Undine we'd met had taken a piece of stone from Callie with a naturally occurring water rune. I hadn't really understood what that meant at the time. Melinda continued. "Formations can be either naturally formed through special circumstances, which is rare, or arranged by formation masters. These people learn to move the special material involved into unique patterns and structures to enable them to resonate. The garden is a formation formed from dozens of powerful Ascendant plants with naturally occurring runes."

That sounded amazing. It also sounded expensive and like way too much work for me to bother learning. There were lots of neat things out there that a person could master as an Ascendant, but I'd come to the conclusion over time that I was going to need to focus on the more punchy aspects to keep up. I enjoyed it sure, but more than that, my power forced me to distribute my stats in such a way that I was never going to be able to compete with specialists in their stat category. Learning to use the multipliers I had in combat and applying my martial skills was the only way I was going to be able to keep myself relevant.

People like Abel and the others at the Pavilion finally gave me a path to walk, and the more I learned about it the more it seemed like a method I could use to keep pace with my friends as they soared through the ranks. Oh, I'd always be able to effortlessly keep up stat wise, but by my nature even as I did I'd never surpass them in their area of specialization. Not when I helped them focus all theirs into more optimum configurations.

I didn't mind that honestly. People hyper focused on individual strength. Teams were made up of different pieces, people with different skills. But aside from wishes my main skills were combat based, so I needed a way to remain combat capable. I could just evolve my DS Mastery, and I would, but if I could shift each of my subskills to more perfectly compliment a holistic style I'd be able to get exponentially more out of the power I had right now.

Which would be much easier once I could work with a larger force. Being able to work with more varied Ascendants was key to being able to flush out my stats to a more well rounded whole. As it was I was mostly taking whatever my team could spare, and while it was helping me a bit in shoring up my weaknesses, I definitely could use a wider pool to draw from. Not to mention it provided a source of Skills and other things I couldn't really get from my own people without depriving them of some of their own tricks.

Jessie had been chatting with Melinda for a few minutes, having recognized her chance to get the conversation back under control when I lapsed into silence thinking about the whole formations thing. She hadn't even given Melinda a chance to really notice, but I made a mental note to try to avoid losing focus like that in the future. It wasn't exactly safe to get lost in thought in territory that wasn't ours, and it was a mistake I made far too often for my own liking.

Melinda had listened placidly as Jessie spoke, seeming amused by the younger woman's enthusiasm. She stroked Travis under the chin as she waited, and finally, after a few minutes she spoke up. "Well. I have to say I'm certainly interested in your potential. I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to offer you some kind of valuable position in my inner circle or some such nonsense. You're talented children, but you're still young. Feeding you too much renown or resources will hinder your growth. If you choose to work with the Beast Lord Garden, we would welcome you, but as entry level members."

To my surprise, hearing that didn't actually bother me. I'd have expected being told to work out way up would irritate me when we'd been expecting terms like Cark had gotten at the Militia (at least for Jessie). But thinking about it, she wasn't wrong. We'd seen at the pavilion how empty some G rankers strength was in comparison to people who worked harder. It made me like her a bit more.

Callie seemed well disposed to the decision too, but she still needed to ask the obvious question. "What about Agria? Wouldn't you want to train her personally? You've seen what she can do and I'm sure she would be an asset. A friend of ours had a power set complimentary to the Flame Riot Militia and they made a point to focus on his development and give him a decent position."

That got a laugh from the older woman. "Yes, dear. He was the one who got you this meeting. But there's a major difference. Blue flame callers are rare among pyrokinetics, and pyrokinetics aren't that common themselves. Tamers however, come in many flavors and varieties. There are no shortage of people who love animals and want to work with them. Your friend certainly seems to have a gift with beasts, and I prize that, but so do most of our other members. I'm not putting down her ability, I don't even know what it is, but even if it's something powerful and unique, it won't do her any harm to go through the systematic education I give my tamers. I'm not as impatient as Burning Fist."

Callie nodded. "That's fair. In the spirit of returning that same honesty though, this isn't our only meeting. We are going to speak to a few forces, so we can't give you an immediate answer. It's only fair for you to expect your new recruits to earn their place, but by the same token, it's only fair for newcomers like us to seek out the best benefits possible when looking to join a faction around here, especially while we still have access to the fame and prestige that will make us a commodity in the first place."

I didn't think Melinda was the kind to get upset about some bluntness, and I wasn't wrong. She gave an approving nod. "Good girl. I'm not such a hypocrite that I would fault some kids from trying to get the best offer they could. Take your meetings, your place here is open if you want it. That said, we aren't going to increase our offer no matter what Santuary Hall or Silent Dagger offers you. What they want to give their new recruits is their business, not ours."

We thanked her and were just getting ready to leave, but Jessie stopped us. Melinda raised an eyebrow at my green clad teammate, who blushed in embarrassment. "Sorry if this is abrupt or rude but....can I pet your weasel?" I bit down on my cheek hard to prevent myself from cracking up, and I thanked the gods Benny wasn't here because he'd be rolling on the ground right now. She stopped, went back over her words, then blushed harder. "Oh gods, I'm sorry, I mean, your beast companion is very cute. Can I scratch him behind the ears?"

Melinda grinned at her. "Little girl, if you think I'm so old that I've never heard that joke before, I think I might actually be offended. At least you made it by accident. As for your request..." She looked down at the small furry animal. "Travis says he'd be happy to let you scratch him behind the ears." Jessie looked excited by the prospect and stepped forward to gingerly scratch the small tube shaped silver animal behind its tiny rounded ears. It made a happy chittering sound as she scratched it.

Jessie really did love animals, and the chance to pet an E ranked animal was probably only slightly less exciting for her than the opportunity to pet such a cute little critter. Either way she sat there cooing to the little thing for about five minutes, and it flopped back lazily, enjoying the attention. She didn't use her lifeweaving, presumably because it would be rude without asking, but she clearly had a knack for petting animals because the little weasel seemed thrilled by the attention, and whined pitifully when she pulled back from him.

She turned to Melinda with a wide smile. "This place is so pretty. For what it's worth I hope we join your faction. I feel really at home here. It's not my decision in the end but I'm definitely pulling for you." She pumped her first once for emphasis and the older tamer laughed as she bid us goodbye.

As we walked out I looked back at the building, remembering the beautiful garden and the formation and all the animals. I kind of hoped we settled on this one too. I liked Melinda, and I thought she might be the kind of person we could trust with my secret. We still had two other meetings though, so it was too early to commit. For now, it was time to head to our next destination. We were going to Sanctuary Hall. I was interested to see what someone who called themselves the Peace Lord looked like.

 

Jessie's mood as we left the Beast Lord Garden was fantastic, and it brightened my day to see it. She'd become more effervescent since we'd made our pact about bringing back her brother, but this was more than that. It was the closest I'd seen to the way she acted when we first met, back when her brother was still alive. I couldn't help but be grateful to Melinda for giving her this kind of peace of mind, even just by creating that place. Jessie was one of the sweetest people I knew, and seeing her so happy made this whole trip worth it even if we didn't manage to find a faction to ally with.

Letting her enjoy her mood I slipped over to Callie as the wolves padded along beside our teammate. I lowered my voice slightly, but not enough to be considered a whisper. "So, I heard you get directions from the door guard, guess the new one was more talkative. Do you know if the Sanctuary Hall is close to here? I wasn't really paying attention to the directions when you got them." I gave an embarrassed chuckle at her knowing smirk. She knew how prone I was to getting lost in my own thoughts.

Still, she didn't make things difficult for me, just rolled her eyes at my bad habits. "No. It's not a long walk. This is a pretty decent area of E district apparently, and much like the Beast Lord Garden, the Sanctuary Hall makes pretty good money and has lots of favors to call in. No one is as in demand as healers after all." She turned to Jessie. "Speaking of, do you want to show off some of your ability at the Sanctuary Hall? I don't think Cark mentioned what you can do to them since I think he assumed you'd prefer the Beast Lord Garden."

Jessie just shook her head. "No. He was right. I do prefer the Beast Lord Garden. I really hope we end up working with them, even if they aren't the faction we join with in the end." She gave a soft smile. "They seemed really nice. I think that's something we should prioritize. We've already seen from dealing with that circus guy that not everyone can be trusted. I think sticking with the group that takes care of small furry animals is the best way to make sure we end up trusting the right people."

Despite the ridiculous basis...that was actually a really good point. I'd seen plenty of evidence showing me that not even all heroic Ascendants could be trusted. Aiden was a good example of that. But in terms of tests of character, devoting your life to the care and comfort of animals was as good as anything I could think of. I'd been thinking about all this in terms of benefits, and I still had that on my mind, but even though character had always been on my mind at least a bit, weighting it a bit heavier might not be a bad call.

I turned to Callie. "She has a point. I don't want to commit to anything too early, but I think the Beast Lord Garden should definitely go on the list. I know you have your heart set on meeting Silent Dagger, but keeping them in line won't hurt anything. That's just my two cents though." Despite being the boss, Callie never minded when we shared our opinions. She usually welcomed input, which is why I was thrown off by her stopping to give me a strange look.

I waited for her to voice her thoughts, and when she did, she sounded confused. "You...know this isn't my decision right?" I cocked my head in confusion. She stared at me for a minute before bursting into a fit of giggles. "Solomon. Sweetie. This is your call. I'm here to help and weigh in, but group leader or not I don't have any say in this. You're the one who has to live with this decision, so you're the one who needs to make the call. I love you, but I'm not going to give you a direction on this. I won't risk you resenting me later if I make the wrong choice."

I blinked at that, because it hadn't occurred to me, but then nodded. "That's fair. I guess it was kind of shitty for me to just assume you would be making the call. I guess I got used to you being the one to come up with our plans. It was easier to just decide you would be the one to decide what we would do. I didn't want to have to be responsible if I pick wrong. You sure you don't want at least equal say?"

I wouldn't say it out loud, but I wasn't sure I trusted myself with this call. I had little to no foresight, and I made impulsive decisions based on my gut. I'd gotten us into trouble too many times by following my instincts. Callie didn't even need to see my face to know what I was thinking. She stepped in close, putting a hand under my masked chin and tilting my head down to meet her eyes. "Hey. I trust you. You aren't stupid, and you aren't reckless, even if you like to think of yourself that way. Just because you've made bad calls doesn't mean you haven't made good ones too."

Jessie chimed in. "Yeah, don't forget you picked each of us. You were the one who decided to trust us with your secret, to help us grow. You decided to bring in Cark, you decided on plenty of the things we've done that were important. Not being as good as Nightstrike at tactical thinking doesn't mean you have bad instincts. You have a knack for knowing the right people to trust. Out of our whole group, I think you're actually the best person to be making a decision like this."

That wasn't something I'd considered. "I...I guess I did. It didn't feel like that. Picking you I mean. You're my friends. I just trusted you. I wasn't trying to build some perfect team or something. Hell, I didn't even know Clockwork's power when I decided to bring him along." I turned to Callie. "Alright. I'll make the call. You're right that it's mostly to do with me anyway, and it wouldn't be fair to put that on you. But don't think this means I want to be in charge."

Her smile was gentle. "I know, love. You have too much fun rushing headfirst into situations. I'd never ruin it by forcing you to think through everything you do." She winked at me to show she was kidding, but then pulled to a stop. "In any case, we don't have time to go on about it. We're here." She gestured up at the building. "Man, the outside of these gets way less impressive after you've seen a few of them. You'd think that they would personalize the street view a bit. It's so boring when they're all the same."

We had come within hearing range of the door guard as she said that, and the average looking man in the gray robe looked at us in amusement. Callie realized she'd accidentally brought another person into the conversation and apologized for the offensive comment. The man just waved it away. "Don't worry. I feel the same. Unfortunately the Deacon has forbidden customization of the outside of the buildings. They used to allow it, but too many forces tried to use perspective and building tricks to exceed their allotted space."

I could see how that would have been a problem. I was still surprised the Deacon had been capable of enforcing that directive. I also wasn't sure HOW one would redisign and standardize a building facade when the building already existed, but they probably had a guy for that. With an internal shrug I reached into my pocket and slipped out a card, passing it to the door guard, who took it with a small nod. "Hi there, we're here for a scheduled meeting with the Peace Lord."

He smiled reassuringly. "Of course. You are expected. Please, come in. Sanctuary Hall welcomes all visitors, though I admit, a personal meeting with the Lord himself can be difficult to come by, given how busy he is. The Lord's particular brand of healing is exceptionally effective on almost any brand of injury, even those coming from enemies whose wounds do not normally heal at all, so he is quite in demand."

A chill went down my spine at that. I hadn't known that there WERE enemies who made wounds that didn't heal. That sounded like a terrifying power, and I made a mental note to watch out for that kind of thing in the future. The last thing I wanted was to go to sleep after a fight and bleed to death from a small cut or something. Sometimes the powers that Ascendants had terrified me a bit.

The guard led us into the interior of the Sanctuary Hall, and the first thing I noticed was...there wasn't much to notice. Not that there was nothing in there, but just that it was all fairly unimpressive. Sanctuary Hall wasn't as enchanting as Beast Lord Garden, or as imposing as the Flame Riot Militia. It was actually kind of homey. Comfortable carpets lined the floors, done in warm tones and obviously prioritizing function over form. The walls were lined with soothing pictures and the variety of furniture scattered around the place was a series of mixed and matched couches and chairs that looked downright snuggly.

All in all the place was one of the most welcoming and inviting places I could imagine, and the complete lack of anything surprising was a surprise in and of itself. When we all stopped to stare the man in the robe laughed. "Ah, I'm assuming you all expected some cavernous throne room or something? Most people who come here are thrown off by how humble the surroundings are. The Peace Lord likes to put patients at ease. He believes comfort and accessibility is far more important than gauche displays of wealth or power."

While that might have sounded judgemental or snippy from some people, the robed man delivered the indictment of the other forces with a sort of peaceful ambivalence that made it clear that while he was proud of the man he chose to work under, he didn't judge the other forces for their own decisions. It was the sort of condescension that only absolute perceived moral superiority could give someone, and only the fact that it was obvious that he attributed that superiority to his boss and not himself kept it from coming off as unbearably smug.

I wasn't entirely sure I liked these people much. While being so 'humble' and 'helpful' was nice and all, the vibe of this place was aloof and snobby rather than the ascetic thing I think they were going for. Not that it was surprising. I doubted an E ranker was close enough to mortal to really understand how normal people thought anymore. This was less like someone being a saint and more like watching a saint in a badly written movie. It was all flash and no substance.

I wondered how I'd come to that conclusion after such a short period of time and decided it was probably those weird instincts that seemed to be a result of my Fantasy stat. Whatever it was, it put my back up, and I had to try my hardest to keep the unease out of my posture as we drew closer to our meeting with the Peace Lord. I just hoped any discomfort was seen as nervousness at meeting such a big shot. As we stopped at a wooden door in the cozy hallway, I ran out of time to think about it. Well, E ranker meetings were never boring at least. It would be interesting to see what this one was like.

 

Much like the rest of his place, the Peace Lord was...underwhelming. As we entered the small but mostly empty office and I spotted him behind the desk, the first thing I noticed was how utterly normal he appeared. The biggest thing that stood out about him was probably his eyes.

The icy blue of his irises clashed dramatically with his unassuming features, giving him a sense of placid steadiness that wouldn't have been easily discernable from his slightly crooked nose or clean shaven but tapered jaw. It was like someone had taken the eyes out of some kind deity and transplanted them into the guy who bagged your groceries when you went to the store.

Aside from being dramatically colored and slightly disdainful, his eyes also gave a feeling of cold serenity. I could understand why they called him what they did. He looked like nobility to me. When we walked in he glanced up to see us and gave a welcoming smile.

Whatever you could say about the Peace Lord, you couldn't claim he wasn't a charismatic man. That one smile transformed his otherwise plain face into something warm and reassuring, and even those cold tranquil eyes lit up with welcome. "Hello there. You must be our new friends from the Academy. I heard you children were coming to meet with me so I took the liberty of a quick internet search. I do hope you don't mind. Please, come in and sit down, can I get you anything? We have a wonderful soothing herbal tea that is excellent for calming the mind if you like."

It looked like he knew Jessie was a healer, but he didn't seem to focus on her to the exclusion of the rest of us, making sure his warm smile encompassed even the wolves. Callie sat down first in the chairs on the other side of the desk with a guarded smile. I could tell he made her slightly unsettled too, and it made me think better of my own instincts that I wasn't the only one reacting. Far from making me feel better, seeing him go from cold and aloof to warm and welcoming at the drop of a hat made me much more wary of him. Anyone that good at lying had lots of practice.

Still, we weren't going to benefit from offending an E ranker, and especially not the one who did the majority of healing for the whole WCP, so she just shook her head. "No thank you. We still have the trip home after this, and it doesn't do to be too relaxed on the elevators." I hadn't really noticed them being that much more dangerous than anywhere else, but I wasn't going to question her reasoning since it was probably bullshit anyway.

The Peace Lord nodded amiably. "Of course, seeing such cautious young people does my heart good. You can never be too careful in these uncertain times. So, since we aren't going to be sharing a mug of tea, perhaps it would be best to get to the main point. What can I do for you children?"

Callie gave him the same explanation Jessie had given Melinda, telling him we wanted to shop around for terms while we had prestige to do it with, striking while the iron was hot. He listened, nodding along, and when she was done, he responded warmly. "Well, I'd be happy to welcome such fine young people. I was very impressed by your showing at the exams, and while we are traditionally healing based, we do have a law enforcement hall under the main Hall branch that deals with protecting our healers. Miss. Agria could also apply for you two to be her personal guards instead of protection for the whole Hall."

That made sense. Relying on something as ephemeral as good will wasn't really a strategy at all when it came to doing business. The whole 'don't piss off the healer' thing was common sense, but common sense wasn't really that common. People were frequently idiots and almost always assholes. If they could get away with something, they would, or at least they'd try. Even with Sanctuary Hall as shelter, our backing only mattered if we were alive to complain when something went wrong.

Jessie bit her lip now that he'd mentioned her. She'd been planning to take a miss as the focal point of these negotiations, but his research had derailed that. I wondered if the other had done the same research, and decided they probably had. Melinda hadn't been surprised by Jessie's ability or the implication that it was more than she was seeing. She'd most likely looked into us when she'd heard we were coming, it just hadn't really been relevant to her pitch. She wanted us to work for our position there, regardless of our potential. I respected the hell out of that mindset, even if it wasn't optimal for me.

She seemed to hesitate to interrupt, but at a gentle nod from Callie, who had noticed the same indecision, finally spoke up. "So, what do healers who work for you receive, and what about their guards? What kind of terms do you offer? Not to sound greedy, but we have skills and they're currently in demand, we're shopping around for the best possible terms after all."

I'd half expected him to pull some bullshit guilt trip, but his smile just widened. "Of course. My healers are extremely well compensated. We offer competitive pricing to our clients. People who are able to come to us aren't emergency cases, they're strong enough or have enough Vitality to be able to make it down here, not to mention the access needed to even be in this district. As such we don't see a need to hamstring our prices. We charge what our time is worth, and since we're so in demand, that's a premium. I like taking care of others, but I also like taking care of my own. We don't expect anyone to work for free. Healers aren't medicine dispensers. We're real people with real needs, and that's ok."

Oddly, unlike the rest of his speeches, this one came across as entirely sincere. There was passion in his voice as he spoke, and while it didn't offset the weird creep factor, it did make me like him a bit more. I could tell he'd made this speech quite a few times, and I could feel his frustration at trying to make it stick in his sharp words. It was pretty clear that lots of people wanted healers to be selfless and virtuous at their own expense, and equally clear that the Peace Lord was having absolutely none of that shit.

Jessie either also felt he seemed sincere, or hadn't gotten the bad vibes I had in the first place, so she just nodded along solemnly. "I can understand that mind set. But if I join your faction, would I only be able to use my ability for official jobs? I don't want to sign some contract that makes it so I can't heal people for free any more. As much as I like the idea of being able to make a bit of money, I still like helping people." It made me glad to know that even if she hadn't picked up on the odd impression I had, she'd still seen through something that I hadn't even considered.

I knew better than to underestimate my blonde friend, but sometimes she still surprised me. Her sneaky side was well hidden, and I knew she liked it that way. It was easy to forget that she had a knack for getting information and for talking to people, and you don't develop those without being a good judge of character with a sharp mind. I saw a flash of surprise in the Peace Lord's eyes when she asked that, and got the feeling that he might have tried to slip something like that into the contract, but he covered it with a placating smile fast. "Of course not. I'd never restrict any of my recruits like that. You're free to use your ability however you like. Though as for the contract, the details are of course, confidential after you sign."

That in itself was a huge red flag. Not letting your hires talk about their terms of employment didn't seem like a great sign. Jessie just played it off though. "Ah, well that's good then. What kind of position would I be looking at in your organization? I'm not familiar with the way you structure your forces, but my friend who got us this meeting had a very complimentary power for Flame Riot Militia and managed to get an exceptional status when he signed on. Would it be possible for me to get something like that here?"

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be accepting this guy's invitation, and while it was good to see Jessie trying to get us the best benefits here, I just wanted to leave. The longer I stayed here the more this place creeped me out. At this point I liked it only slightly less than the person who ran it. Still, the guy was an E ranker, and it would have been a bad idea to just bail. Hearing him out wouldn't hurt anything as long as we didn't agree to any terms. I officially crossed this place off my list of possible alliances though. Even if I couldn't put my finger on why I absolutely wasn't willing to let this guy know about my ability.

He leaned back with a chuckle, getting into a more comfortable position for negotiating. "Well, now. I'm not against that, but my Sanctuary Hall is less stratified than most forces. In order to get the position you're looking for you would need to have some strong relation to me personally. Perhaps I could offer you a position as my apprentice. Even with different abilities I'm sure I could teach you plenty of things. Maybe I can help you refine your first aid skills. Most healers use that Skill as a foundation for ability advancements, though whatever you mixed it with must have been unusual."

Jessie, just put on a cheerful smile. "That's certainly a tempting offer. Of course we still have another meeting, so I'll need to accompany my friends there to check things out. We're making this decision as a group, so we need to weight every option together and then discuss things. I trust there's no rush?"

With a casual wave he dismissed the notion. "Of course not. Take all the time you like. I'll make sure the guards are aware that you're always welcome here. In any case, since the offer has been made you can all see yourselves out. I wouldn't want you to be late for your other meeting." With that, we all made our way out of the room, heading out as quickly as possible. I was glad to be leaving. As we turned the corner though, I caught a glimpse of the door closing. As I did, I took in the expression on the Peace Lord's face. All I could see was emptiness. I got the strong impression that was his normal visage, and it made me even more determined to avoid him.

After we left we headed back up the elevators to make our way home. I put an arm around Callie's shoulder as we ascended. "So. Tomorrow is our big meeting with The Nothing. Are you excited?" I didn't bring up the Peace Lord. After meeting him I was feeling too paranoid to be comfortable talking about him down here. We could have that discussion later.

Callie gave a worried smile. "I am. I'm just hoping things will go our way. Just in case I think I have some..." She paused, clearly noticing my reticence to talk about sensitive topics. "Requests. That I can make for tomorrow. To make sure we can stay safe. We can talk about that later though. For now, lets just go home, I'm tired and I just want to go to bed." I just chuckled and pulled her tighter against me. I could definitely agree with that plan. We had a big day tomorrow, and we'd all need our rest.

 

The trip back down to E district the next day was quieter than the last one. Callie had used yesterdays wishes to arrange several safeguards and contingencies in a way I hadn't expected. Things like shields and threat activated teleportation. Unfortunately the shields wouldn't stop anyone above F rank and the teleportation would take us about ten miles. Still, it had been a brilliant maneuver I'd never even considered, and I felt much safer going down there today.

Aside from her interest in learning more about her dad, the fact remained that The Nothing was an enemy of Midknight's and Callie WAS his daughter. Some precautions were definitely warranted. Luckily The Nothing was unable to act against us directly without Zeke interfering (I'd been assured Zeke could protect us from anywhere on the planet with ease and trying to hide an attack from him inside the WCP itself was even more ridiculous a proposition) so the F rank shielding and the escape options were plenty to guarantee our safety.

The one consolation to our mobility was that we left the wolves back at the house. As much as we wanted to bring them along the Wishes were too expensive if they needed to cover more than the three of us. We'd sounded out the values for various configurations before finding the wishes that would work best.

Or rather, Callie had because I was only allowed minimal input without unbalancing the payment for the wish. We'd managed to get four of five in place though (aside from the shielding and teleport, a good luck wish for the actual duration of the meeting and a wish to foil deception Callie was expecting) and that should be plenty to keep us all safe down there, or as safe as we ever were.

So it was with a decent bit of confidence that we made our way to the address on the card. Since we had found the address last trip we knew where to look, and Callie had looked up a map before we came down here this time so we didn't have any trouble finding the path. It was a relief not to have to waste charges before going into such a tense situation, even if I realized that if it came down to a fight we'd be in a bad enough position that it probably wouldn't matter anyway.

So we arrived relatively early, Callie not wanting to bother waiting. As we got to the entrance the two black masked and hooded figures led us inside silently, gesturing us forward but not actually saying a word. It was hardly unexpected that Silent Dagger members would be quiet so no one was really surprised. Once we entered the building, we saw yet another of the E rank forces and how they exerted their power on their territory.

It was different than the others. While all the other headquarters had been large and imposing, this particular layout was much more confined. It wasn't small exactly, but it was almost cramped, going more for length and relying on confusing twists and turns to make use of the principles of expanded space. The black carpets were thick and muffled the sound of movement and the lighting was dim and relatively condensed, appearing in the form of candle flames and similar small methods of lighting the way to produce lots of jumping shadows and dark patches as they led us through the black walled corridors.

It was obviously made to allow people to sneak around unnoticed, and that was further confirmed by the numbers of drapes and curtains lining the walls in what were supposed to painting alcoves and were almost definitely excuses to randomly toss in secret passages that the members of the Silend Dagger could use to pop up behind people unexpectedly during any attempted attacks on the base or even during visits from people they decided they didn't really like. That wasn't a comforting thought to have, and I ratcheted up my awareness of my surroundings to make sure I didn't get
snuck up on.

What was odder though was Callie. Not how she was acting, but how she was being treated. As someone who was known to be Midknights daughter I'd have expected the subordinates of his worst enemy to treat her like shit, or at least be wary enough of her to make sure she didn't get into trouble. Instead they were treating her with immense respect and trying to be as accommodating as one could be while also remaining totally silent.

I wouldn't have thought you could show deference without talking, but they were managing, conveying their respect through gestures and stance rather than words. Finally we arrived at a large pair of dark wood double doors. The escorts gestured inside, pushing the door open for us so we could step into a new room. The new location was huge and dark, lined with bookshelves and large furniture while still having plenty of room to move around.

Behind the desk sat....a person. Not a very visible one, granted, and not one I could make identifying guesses about. The person was wearing thick, bulky black robes and under that wrapped head to toe in cloth. Wrapped black bandages covered their face, not even revealing the shape of a nose or eyes, and a good was thrown carelessly over the bandages to provide shadow even to the pitch black cloth, making seeing through it even less likely.

Despite that, Callie froze when she saw the figure. She stared for a bit, squinting suspiciously. "That's shadow embodiment." There wasn't any hesitation or uncertainty in her voice, though there was surprise and I could understand why it would be there. Shadow embodiment wasn't a unique ability, but it was rare. It required a certain combination of Skills and a base ability, not to mention certain foundations in those Skills to make sure the synthesized ability came out as they wanted. There were also stat requirements and various other factors, factors Callie had been able to accommodate because her father had guided her through its formation. It was extremely slim odds a stranger would manage it, and even slimmer ones that stranger would have a contentious relationship with the only person with a thorough understanding of how to grant the ability.

Callie, far from being upset by the revelation, was ecstatic. "I was right wasn't I. You knew him when he was younger. Maybe some sort of friend or ally who had a similar enough power you were able to create the same ability. Though I'm surprised you went with cloth. I did it on purpose to make sure I kept myself distinct from him, but if you saw him coming up you must know that metal is a much more effective vessel in most cases." She forced herself to stop. "Damn it. No. Sorry. I like to wax eloquent about informational topics when I'm nervous."

I snorted at that, and she wheeled to glare at me. I stayed perfectly still, not needing to avert my eyes or anything behind my mask. She gave me a look just as suspicious as she'd given The Nothing before turning back to them. "Well. In that case, I should introduce myself. My name in costume is Nightstrike. I know yours already. Can you tell me what exactly your relationship is with Midknight? He's my father, which I suspect you know, but I'm not sure how you met him."

The cloth wrapped figure cocked its thoroughly obscured head before speaking. "Are you sure I have some deep connection to Midknight?" The Nothing's voice was unsettling, to say the least. It was soft and raspy, with very few identifying features. Somewhere between the rustle of dead leaves and the buzz of a cicada's wings. It gave literally no indication of the age or gender of the person it was issued from, and I highly suspected that a purposeful effect. Not surprising for a figure so shrouded in secrecy, both figuratively and literally.

Callie was not to be deterred though. "Because I'm here. You're an E ranker. Getting a meeting with the two others might have been a bit easier because of Agria's power, but they were both support and business type enterprises. They're known for being accessible and easy to reach. Silent Dagger isn't nearly so simple to get in touch with. You're an upper level force in the city, and me having a shadow ability isn't enough to get this meeting. Neither is our rising star. In fact,
I'd bet if we interrogate Cark, we'd find out that you arranged for him to even consider it. Maybe some mole in the Militia dropped a hint, or you arranged for him to overhear something. Either way, some middle manager in a lower level E ranked force isn't enough to push someone like you to see us."

I blinked. I hadn't considered any of that. Callie had done quite a bit of research and apparently formed some theories based on them. I was pretty impressed by the deductions. It seemed The Nothing didn't share the sentiment however. "Little girl, this was all clearly obvious. However, you've made several leaps of logic that are far from certain. Do you have any actual evidence? Or are you also in the habit of assuming you know better than everyone else like that arrogant old bastard?"

Callie flinched at that, and I remembered how upset it made her when people compared her to her dad. Her obsession with being nothing like him might not be healthy, but it was something she cared about, and this cloth wrapped asshole had obviously hurt her with his comment. Which of course, made me angry. "I'm sorry, did we come here to get sneered at by a shapeless blob dressed in someone's sock drawer? Or was this supposed to be a meeting? Because based on what I've heard about that bastard, the person here acting like Midknight is you. He's exactly the type of asshole to lord his power over helpless lower rankers just because he can."

The cloth wrapped person pulled up short, turning to me as if they hadn't even noticed my presence before. "Well, it seems one of you has a spine at least. Boy, do you think I won't kill you for some reason? Or are you so besotted you're willing to risk death to pay back a little harmless probing?" The dry leaf whisper had turned sharper, and I could almost feel the winds of autumn slicing at me skin from chill and edge contained in the words.

I rolled my eyes. "Kill me if you want. Either you let me be after talking to you how I want, or you kill me and prove you weren't smart enough to refute what I was saying. I can't keep up with you in a murder contest, but if you feel like announcing to the world that you got outsmarted by an eighteen year old with probably exponentially less Focus than you feel free to do so. If not, maybe let me know so we can get out of here and end this waste of time. I've got things."

There was a sound like tearing cloth and a flash of darkness, and a strip of black fabric slashed the air right next to my head. I didn't move, and I assumed he'd been avoiding me on purpose, because if an E ranker had actually tried to harm me Zeke would have swatted him like a fly. I'd have probably been much less insulting if I didn't know he couldn't do shit to me. This was a smart call in a few ways though. It would establish my rep among higher rankers as someone fearless, so when I eventually hit F rank I wouldn't have to worry as much about Zeke's protection being gone.

Sadly, I was the only one who had that protection, and despite knowing I did, Callie had become enraged at seeing me attacked and lashed out with a wave of razor sharp shadows of her own. To our mutual shock, they slammed into The Nothing, crashing over them like waves off a stone cliff. I expected things to escalate, but they didn't continue to get worse. The Nothing retrieved the cloth and with a deep chuckle began to clap. The voice that came out this time was much clearer and obviously male. "Excellent. You didn't disappoint me Calliope. Nothing like Midknight indeed. That was all I needed to see. Now this meeting can really begin."

 

Callie was staring at the man in the black cloth covering hard. Her eyes were hard and cold as permafrost as they bored into the dark form. "So that was what? Some kind of test? You ATTACK my boyfriend just so see what I would do about it? Because if that's the kind of place this is we have no interest in staying. We have enough to worry about dealing with our enemies, we don't need attacks coming from our allies too." Her teeth were gritted as she hissed out the words, her voice dripping with barely controlled rage.

The figure of The Nothing raised it's hands. Apologies. It was a necessary deception. You know better than I how much of hypocrite he is. Research wasn't trustworthy when it came to you. It was far too likely that your might be hiding your true self like he does. That said, he would never attack someone two ranks higher than he was for the sake of a loved one, much less one that wasn't even actually hurt. I'll be happy to compensate your boyfriend for any distress I might have caused, Calliope, and I apologize for the necessity of my deception. I assure you, neither of you were in any danger."

The irony of him saying that, not knowing he'd almost been...hell, who knew how Zeke would have killed him, but whatever had almost happened to him wouldn't have been pleasant. I stepped up to put a hand on her shoulder, and I felt the muscle under my fingers relax as she allowed herself to unclench once she knew I was safe. "Fine. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I buy that. How the hell do you know my name? It's incredibly bad form to dig into someone's civilian life like that."

He let out a deep, rumbling chuckle. "Of course I know your name, little girl. I was there when your mother picked it out. Amelia always enjoyed the old stories, and Paul was willing to agree to anything that sounded pretentious." His voice was wistful, though there was an undercurrent of bitterness to it that I wasn't really sure how to read.

Callie's eyes narrowed. "Ok, that's it. Who the fuck are you? I knew you might have known my dad, but knowing my name, my mothers name, all of that is a step too far. If you really are just his nemesis then I'm seriously disturbed by how much research you've done. I'm absolutely not willing to let some E ranked asshole run around with complete knowledge of my loved ones without some explanation, especially not one with a grudge. Even if I'm sure it's deserved."

There was a shifting in the bandages, and they all slid away, exposing the face of...a guy. Not a guy I knew. Black hair, blue eyes, strong jaw. The usual. Callie looked like she was about to fucking explode when she saw his face, so I decided to take her mind off it the best way I knew how. "It's you!" I gasped dramatically, pointing right at the now unmasked man in the robe.

It was so out of nowhere, even Callie, who had been about to have a meltdown, paused and turned to look at me quizically. "You...you know him?" Her voice sounded uncertain, and a little guarded, which made me curious as to who the hell this guy was. But luckily it was only a bit of hesitation. She wasn't actually suspicious of me.

I just shrugged. "No. But that was such a dramatic reveal moment I assumed whoever he is, he must be someone shocking. Plus, I figured it would be harder for you to be angry or upset if you were confused at my nonsense." I shrugged widely. She just stopped, staring at me and blinking dumbly for a second, before finally dissolving in a wave of giggles, laughing so hard she almost fell over as she planted her hands on her knees. There was a slight hysterical edge to the laughter, but at the very least she wasn't having a panic attack. After a minute she finally calmed down and stood up again.

She stepped up to me and kissed the cheek of my mask. "Never change sweetie. The reason by the way, that I freaked out, is that my the man standing over there looks literally identical to my father. With a second to actually think about it, I'm positive it's NOT him. Just the brief interactions we've had with him make it unlikely. For one thing my father would never speak ill of himself, even as a deception. He values his reputation too much to allow anything to sully it, even if doing so would benefit him in some way."

The man laughed. "Yes, that does sound like Paul. My name is Alexander Reynolds. I'm your Uncle. Paul is my identical twin brother. One of the reasons I cover my face. Partly to avoid being associated with that bastard, and partly because people are idiots and one out of every pair of Ascendant twins always gets typecast as the evil one. Since Paul already has a reputation as a hero and is a member of the Unity, I'd have to deal with all that evil twin recursion. Easier to just keep the whole thing a secret to avoid the hassle. "

I felt my jaw hang open, but then I thought about it. I...kind of did expect one twin to be evil. In fact, evil twin was the first thing that popped into my head when he told us his identity. Callie recovered faster than I did. "Ok. That's...big. Not sure how it matters here though. Why would you invite me here? Is there some kind of problem you need help with?" Her voice was shaky and uncertain, and I could see this information had shaken her deeply. I didn't blame her. She'd wrapped lots of her identity up in her dad, even if it was negative, and finding out he had a twin brother must be wild.

The Nothing, or rather, Alexander, gestured for both of us to sit down. I realized he'd managed to nullify Callie's shadows perfectly earlier, protecting not just himself, but the desk he sat at as well. Callie looked like she might protest, but finally decided to take her seat, gesturing for us to do the same. It was a testament to how much she hated her dad that I was pretty sure she had to actively resist the urge to refuse to sit just because this guy looked like him.

Once we were seated Alexander leaned back, steepling his fingers. "To answer your questions, no. I have nothing I need help with. Rather, I heard you were poking around down here and simply wanted to warn off any of the other forces who might take an unhealthy interest. The Beast Lord Garden and Sanctuary Hall have lots of theoretical power, but they aren't exactly considered scary. Which is stupid because the Peace Lord is a monster, and fighting Melinda is the same as battling a pair of E rankers at the same time. Still, I won't deny that they're far from the biggest threats down here. My interest in you serves to dissuade some of the cockier forces, or some of the newer E rankers who haven't seen them cut loose."

We nodded. It was easy for people to underestimate support powers. Having literally the ultimate support power, and a teammate with one that was only slightly less amazing, I was well aware of that phenomena. Callie opened her mouth to speak, then paused before she finally responded. "That's...kind of you. But how did you even get here? You and my father clearly don't get along, but you've been in Rajak much longer. Hell, why bother hiding your face in the first place for all those years before he showed up."

Alexander averted his eyes in discomfort. "Well, for one thing, I've always preferred full coverage. Just as a matter of principle, it provides better protection. For another I didn't want my face being used to track down my family. I may not like Paul, but I don't want him dead." He paused. "Ok, that's not entirely truthful, I often want him dead, but I'm aware that it's a bell I can't unring. Plus he has you and your brother, and despite what you may think, losing a parent isn't anything I want my niece and nephew to endure. As for how I got here? I had someone in the WCP who owed me a favor.
They have their own channels. Once Paul and Amelia got married...well, Velan didn't feel as welcoming, so I left before you were born."

Callie's face was a mask of confusion and warring emotions. I could vaguely guess what her mind was spinning on. The idea of another person who might have been there to help make their lives easier, someone to keep her father in check. But even upset she was smarter than I ever was. She calmed down pretty quickly. I supposed she must have seen some of his reasons for not staying, even if I didn't. Well, aside from the obvious pain in his voice when he mentioned her mother's name.

She stayed silent for a minute or two before sighing. "So...what now? I know who you are, and apparently you're scary enough that we'll be left alone by most people. Are you going to extend me an invitation to join your faction now?" Her voice was light, but I could sense a tension in her as she asked the question. I wasn't actually sure how she was feeling about this, and I couldn't tell if she was either, but however she was feeling, it was obviously important to her.

He shrugged. "I can. If you like. I'd be happy to teach you. I've spent years honing my ability, and I know plenty about it that would allow you to increase your abilities with it exponentially. Hell, you probably don't even have the Shadow Manipulation Mastery Skill based on what I just saw. Until your manipulation abilities reach at least the Minor level you're going to be losing out on more than a little power efficiency."

Callie froze. "Wait...Shadow Manipulation can become a SKILL? I mean...I guess anything can become a Skill, but I hadn't really considered it to that level. Does that mean all my training and effort has been so sloppy and ill defined it doesn't even rate a Minor Skill designation? That's..." She look devastated, and I couldn't blame her. She had put so much work into her ability, and finding out there was a literal Skill that defined how well she was progressing and she didn't have it yet must have been rough.

Still, she collected herself quickly. "But no. Thank you for that information, but I want to step out of his shadow, no pun intended. Taking shelter in yours so I can beat him isn't a solution. If you were able to beat him then you would have already. You two are probably pretty close in strength. I can do this on my own, or at least my team and I can. I appreciate the good intentions though." She stood up, clearly needing to get out of here and process this. "I'll pass your regards to my mother." And with that, she turned and fled the room.

I gave him a nod and chased after her, Jessie hot on my heels. This had been a huge day for Callie, and I didn't like the idea of her running around in that condition. She was clearly too upset to think straight. As I gained on her I wondered about everything we'd been told today. Eventually though, I put it out of my head and focused on triggering Seek Hidden to track down my girlfriend. However she wanted to handle this, I needed to find her first. Then we could have a long talk about all this. I had a feeling aside from venting, she had some wishes she would need granted. I was happy to oblige.

 

By the time we got back to the house, I had a pretty decent idea of where my girlfriend's head was at. Even Jessie, who normally tried to lighten the mood with her happy chatter, was uncharacteristically silent during our drive home. Once we got inside the three of us split up, with Jessie bounding off to say hello to the wolves and Callie and I retreating to my room to sit and talk. I escorted her inside, closed the door, and waited until she seemed to have gotten her head on straight enough to speak to me about whatever she was thinking.

Finally, she looked up at me. "So. That was a lot." She kept her tone light, but her eyes were lost and worried. Despite that I didn't say anything even when she stopped talking. She was thinking this through out loud and needed time to sort it out. After a brief silence she kept going. "I learned a whole bunch of things I didn't know today, and I'm not sure which of them is the most shocking, or the most relevant. I'm guessing you know perfectly well why I turned down Alexander's offer of tutoring?"

She looked almost worried about how I would react, but I just rolled my eyes. "Yes, I know you're planning to with for that Skill now that you know it exists. We've been over this Cal, I don't mind granting you wishes, I don't feel like you're taking advantage of me." I gave her a gentle smile, having already removed my mask when we came in. "Besides, I also know the reason you gave him wasn't a lie. You know as well as I do that your victory over your dad is personal business. You don't want to get sucked into some nonsense family power struggle."

The chuckle she let out at that was thick with stress and impending tears, but she held them back. "You have a point. I still can't believe my dad has an evil twin. Well, IS an evil twin. Whatever. Wow, I kind of get why Alexander kept that a secret, it's kind of an easy place to go mentally. Still, that's not the biggest shock of the night. That would be the Shadow Manipulation Mastery Skill. I can't believe I didn't consider that before. I mean, it's so damn obvious in retrospect, but I can't believe I haven't hit Minor."

I just shrugged. "What the hell even is Minor Mastery of Shadow Manipulation? Making those puppets on the wall with your hands? Minor Skills are supposed to be normal mortal grade stuff. Whatever, we know that it exists, but I can understand the shock certainly. This is a good thing. I mean, it's not going to turn you into an absolute peak master of combat, but thinking about it, your ability to make things has always been kind of...simple. Blades, waves, boxes. Just shapes mostly. I saw you do a key once, but it was small and not too intricate."

She opened her mouth to retort, but then paused. "Well damn. That's a really good point. I only ever trained by trying to increase responsiveness and things like thickness and sharpness. I wonder what kinds of things I'll get from a Skill like that. Of course, I'll still be working it into proper combat training. I'm going to milk those training facilities at the pavilion for all they're worth. I know you feel the same. But still, I feel like that one supplementary Skill opens a huge door for us all."

The bitter snort that leaked out of me came too fast to catch. I tried to play it off but Callie looked at me with concern and given how upset she already was, I relented with a sigh. "It'll benefit YOU. My power is pure support. It's a great way to help you all grow but it's functionally useless to me except for stockpiling stats. My most promising Skill is my DS Mastery, and that's a ways off from taking a jump in effectiveness. Supplementary Skills are useful to you all because you can wish for them, but I can't. I can only trade them other people, and they won't have any of the ones I need. I can't use any of the flashy impressive attacks you all have."

Callie froze, appearing thunderstruck. "But...why?" I blinked at her, not sure what that meant. She looked like she was starting to get excited. "Why can't you use our attacks? We've paid with memories, with tasks, with Skills even, why not attacks? What if you could charge us attacks for wishes, and then seal them up in a bottle or something. Then you could stockpile an arsenal and then unleash them in combat. That's your big problem right? You need more force. But you don't need to stick to just the stat gain method for acquiring it. I mean, you can still get stats from us and help us change our builds, but this would make you WAY more effective in combat."

I just gaped at her. She was right. She was so fucking right I felt like an idiot for missing it. The image of mixing Callie's shadow waves or blades, or a life force boost from Jessie, or one of those flame blasts from Cark, into my attack patterns was amazing. I'd already seen I could mix my DS attacks with other people's moves too. I could use that aqua acid flame on my own without any need for Cark to be there.

It wasn't exactly the most glamorous attack style, but with enough attacks like that I could just straight up drown the other person in overwhelming force. It was an attack style only I could use, and it would maximize my advantages while also being incredibly flashy and impressive. No one would be able to guess my ability from it either, because I'd be dropping a ton of powerful attacks from all different kinds of abilities. It would completely obscure my Wish ability.

Before she could even process what was happening I'd swept her up in my arms, getting a surprised squeak in response as I spun her around before kissing her soundly. When I pulled away we were both laughing and when I finally set her down she smiled up at me happily. I flushed as I realized how sudden that had been. "I've been really worried about that. I feel like I'm getting further and further behind in terms of damage potential. But now that I have this option there's hope for me to keep up."

She went up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. "I'm glad I could help. But we still need to see if it actually works. We need to figure out if you can actually store them anywhere. So, in the spirit of that, I wish for the Beginner Shadow Manipulation Mastery Skill. I'm willing to pay with a full power attack." I hopped up and sprinted over to grab a bottle and a piece of paper, figuring I'd give my power options for storing the attack in case one of them didn't work out.

Sure enough, the familiar purple flames rolled over my vision. Wish detected. Grant wish? I confirmed without a thought. Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 189 Focus, 240 Perception, 63 Fantasy, 246 Creation, 36 Impact. I was pretty sure that the reason I kept hitting the ceiling for all my stats on Beginner Skills was that I didn't have enough to create a top tier version, just a solid one. It was just making the best Skill possible, with Impact making up any differences as it did. I was still able to grant the wish, but if she'd wished for a peak Beginner level Skill right on the edge of Intermediate I didn't think it would have worked.

But she didn't so I reached out my hand, taking hers firmly as I accepted the wish and let the already rising electricity roll out of me and into her. We'd been sitting on the bed after I put her down, which was lucky, because it meant she didn't have to fall over as she writhed on the mattress. I winced in sympathy as she grit her teeth through the screaming. Beginner Skills appeared to be pretty unpleasant to recieve, and I was almost glad I hadn't met anyone willing to trade one yet.

As the Skill was burned into her, there was a rush of darkness. A funnel of shadowy power was sucked out of her, condensing into a tight vortex as it dove down at my other hand, where I held the bottle, and...bypassed the damn thing altogether as it seared itself into my wrist. I hissed in pain myself but didn't move, letting everything play out before she finally went still with exhaustion. With Callie ok and recovering, I let go of her hand, pushing up my sleeve to reveal a small tattoo on my wrist of her sigil.

Huh. That actually made some sense. No normal paper or bottle would be able to hold a full power G ranked attack. But my body could. I WAS a G ranker. I didn't think I'd be able to handle an infinite number of these of course, the body can only take too much, but I was pretty sure more than one wouldn't be a problem. The burning in my wrist settled down, leaving behind just smooth skin marked with Callie's symbol. I could feel the thing on me, ready to be unleashed, though I couldn't alter or mess with it like a normal Skill.

It seemed like Callie had a mental image of what kind of attack I would be using when she agreed to pay it. This one was a wave of dark blades. I should be able to aim them well enough, but changing size or shape or any of that wasn't on the table. Callie, meanwhile, seemed to be processing her new Skill, and I scooted over on the bed to pull her head into my lap, rubbing her temples to help her deal with the pain as she digested the new information.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, she opened her eyes. She hadn't been sleeping, just in so much pain that she needed all her focus on processing, but I sighed with relief when her eyes opened. I smiled down at her. "Well, that seemed like fun. We should make this a regular thing. Maybe have Beginner Skill granting date nights once a week." I gave her a crooked smile, trying not to show how worried I was, but she saw through me. She lifted a hand to stroke my cheek before sitting up gingerly.

I helped her up, making sure to take special care so she didn't fall or hurt herself. She gave me an exhausted grin. "Tell you what, we can trade off turns. On odd numbered weeks I can get a new Skill, and on even numbered weeks you can lay your head on a rock platform and let me smash it with a sledgehammer." Her grin became sugary and sarcastic. "After all, I want to make sure that we both get the same amount of enjoyment out of our dates."

I stuck my tongue out at her and she giggled, pulling me in for another kiss. Then we both laid down, Callie too exhausted to head back to her room, and cuddled against each other. We could deal with the new Skill and the implications of the other uses for my ability later. For now I was tired, and so was she, and we just held each other as we drifted off to sleep. It had been a long day, and lots of things had happened. But regardless of the drama or the pain, or even the new use for my ability, this part of it, just spending time together and relaxing, was still a memory I was going to treasure.

 

The next morning we headed down to the training room. The wish for the shadows manipulation skill had been the fifth of the night, and it had worn me out enough that I slept in, but we didn't have any hard commitments so we decided to go test things out. When we got downstairs Callie was practically vibrating in excitement. She was warming up as we got ready for some tests, shadow boxing with a big grin on her face. I felt the need to burst her bubble. "Just so you know, past Beginner Skills need to be personalized. I think you can still wish for them, but it'll cost A LOT more most likely."

She stopped and shot me a smile. "It's fine Shane. I wasn't expecting you to carry this one. I have a ridiculously solid foundation, but a Skill like this concerns my entire combat style. I'll blaze my own path moving forward. I'll have to put in some serious work on that though. There's no way I'm not synergizing that Skill into my ability. At Beginner it'll work fine for my rank up to F, but getting this one to Intermediate is going to be a bitch. Enough about that though. What about you, excited to try out your new trick?"

I looked down at my wrist, rubbing over the marked skin and reaching into myself to feel the power stored in my arm. I grinned at her. "I really am. I was a bit worried after I had the idea, I didn't want to change things up too much and ruin all the work I already put in, but thinking about it a second time all my combat experience should be applicable. My DS Mastery in particular will be useful. My Fatewalker build is mostly formed around status conditions and augmentations, which means I can apply those subskills to the attacks as I use them."

That had been the most exciting thing about Callie's suggestion. I'd have insane versatility, and it provided an advantage that other people, even other Wish users, wouldn't have. I was sure I wasn't the first Wishmaster candidate to think of storing attacks, even if it probably wasn't universal, but I WAS almost definitely the first with DS Mastery. There were other modifier Skills, but not many I'd heard of as versatile. Even if I went up against another candidate using the same strategy, I'd have a marked advantage.

Callie gave a low whistle. "Well damn, that's going to be scary when you get enough of them. I take it aside from my shadow blades you're going to stockpile some of Cark's fire blasts? I saw what your Skill did to that attack in the Rowdy Badger. Being able to solo cast that trick will be a scary trump card. Hell, Cark's ability in general is a scary trump card. Make sure you get at least a few of those if you can."

It was clear she was as excited about my own gains as hers, and I gave her a warm smile. "I plan to. So, tell me exactly what this Shadow Manipulations Skill can do. Or better yet. Show me. We ARE in the training room. No need to hold back or anything. Let me see what you've got."

She looked about ready to burst with glee when I said that. She held up a hand dramatically. "Very well. I'll demonstrate the power of my new skillset. First up. My shadow blades!" She reached out and sent a surge of shadowy cutting edges out from the ground at a nearby training dummy. As it exploded forward, I noted that the blades really were different. The blades themselves were more compact and defined. Before they had mostly just been pointy and sharp edged tentacles. Now there were actual blades and they looked much sturdier and more dangerous. They struck the dummy and tore it into sections, the edges so sharp they left smooth cuts behind.

Now it was my turn to whistle. "Ok, that was pretty cool. I can already tell those are much more effective. What exactly is different about them. Also can you do that again? I want to see what I can figure out from your attack. If I can spot something on my own it'll be a better outcome since that'll help me in the future. I can't always have you to walk me through things right?" I gave her a wink to let her know I was only teasing. I knew how much she loved being a source of information. I was always happy to ask Callie for answers, but I really would need to learn to figure this shit out myself.

She flicked a wrist, sending out another barrage of blades. I made a slight hmmm sound. "Ok, I think the biggest difference is probably the compression. Aside from being much more structured and stable, you also condensed much more shadow than you could have fit before into the blades. They were able to hold up much better under the reinforcement. Even with a higher Might, this was an exponentially better method for increasing strength It also seemed to make the weapons more fluid and easier to move, which made sense for a manipulation Skill.

Another dummy collapsed into pieces. I wondered how those got replaced, but that could wait until later. Callie looked pleased with my observations. "You got it. There are a dozen other subtler tweaks, but those are the biggest. Of course I can do more than that. I have all sorts of new tricks." She gestured and a trip of extremely lifelike black cats climbed from the shadows to prowl around the training room.

I blinked in shock at the sleek, delicate construction of the cats, which looked like actual cats to me for the most part. Aside from the eyes and the inside of the mouth both being pitch black these things could have passed for real animals. Which was absurdly impressive, I had to admit. Callie looked pleased at my awe. "See. I can do this kind of thing now. Or this" She flicked a finger again and a series of snowflakes made of shadow drifted into existence. I raised an eyebrow at that, not sure what good that was, and she flicked her finger, sending the razor sharp shapes spinning into another dummy like throwing stars.

Being so thin and delicate was apparently good for sharpness. I walked over to look at the shredded dummy, which still had at least one snowflake in it, and turned back to her. "Admittedly, that was awesome. The snowflakes all look the same general shape, and they're a bit simple design wise. That seems like a great way to refine your minute control though. Is this your new training tool?"

She beamed at me. "I knew you would get it. Yeah. Beginner is, as mentioned, only the beginning. I'm going to work on the snowflakes as a unique attack method. They're flashy and interesting, but also made of shadow so not the kind of flashy and interesting that pulls the gaze. They're pretty much perfect weapons, and if I can refine the process to a certain point I can use clouds of them. Plus the more I work on making them delicate and deadly the less shadow I have to use for each and the more of them I can conjure."

It was definitely scary. This would be a big bump to Callie's reputation too. The whole 'beautiful girl in a snowstorm of darkness' aesthetic was awesome. It would leave a big impression once she learn to apply it in combat. I stepped up next to her. "Alright. My turn. Let's see what this attack you gave me can do." As much as I didn't want to waste it, I was more than aware of the need to train new abilities, plus I needed to see exactly how my subskills could effect it. Plus this was an old attack, any new ones she traded with that new manipulation Skill would be better anyway.

I focused on the feeling of the shadow in my head, raising the hand with the mark on my wrist as I targeted one of the remaining dummies. I triggered my skills one after another. Mercy Kill, Flurry of Blows, Consecration of Flame, Touch of Tears, I even used Afterburner, since the five minutes of weakness afterward wouldn't be an issue while I was home safe here. Then I used the attack.

If the defense Callie had put up in the labyrinth was the ultimate shield, this was the ultimate spear. The flash of a dozen blades of darkness was rapid and deadly. I didn't bother aiming them more than just envisioning them hitting vital spots. As they came out, I gaped a bit at the sight. The shield had been facing away, plus I'd been a bit busy, so I hadn't realized how visually impressive this kind of attack was.

A rain of blades of darkness filled with green flaming cracks slammed into the dummy, reducing it to basically chunks as the enhanced power tore through all the materials. The black became even more obvious when contrasted against the dull green light of the poison fire, and as I watched, the pieces of the dummy dissolved. Once the attack finished I just stood there and gaped.

Callie's decent amount of Might,multiplied by Afterburner, augmented by Mercy Kill, and honed by poison fire, not to mention the speed bump from Flurry of blows, was an attack on a level I had never used before. As I watched the corroding ashes of the dummy drift to the ground, I couldn't help but grin victoriously. I was exhausted from Afterburner after it faded, but that didn't stop me from being excited. This was an absolutely perfect answer to all my problems so far.

I'd been worried about how to keep up with my friends, even with my quick progress I wasn't able to keep pace because I had to spread out my stats so much. This would let me use the power of concentrated and specialized abilities without having to damage my ability to use my Wish power to maximum effect. Not to mention the synergy with my current skillset. I'd finally found a path to making myself stronger. Hell, there was a pretty good chance I could actually punch above my rank if I could fill out a good loadout of attacks.

Turning to Callie, I grinned at my girlfriend, who was likewise gaping at the destruction. "Ok. That was crazy. I remember how strong that shield was...vaguely, but seeing an attack at that level. Those were weaker shadow blades too. My current attack would be twice as efficient in terms of penetrating power. That's just ME, could you imagine if you got some attacks from Cark? Or one of Jessie's heals to keep in reserve? How many of those things can you hold? Is it unlimited? You could just stockpile a ton and crush anyone who tried to hurt us."

She sounded pretty excited. I appreciated the vote of confidence, but I had to rain on her parade. "Probably not too many. I'll have to check. I might be able to hold a few of each, but even if I can hold an unlimited number I still have to keep up my stat gain. I can't use all my wishes on storing up attacks or I'm going to fall behind. I need to head back to the crafting hall soon, I can't keep moving around stats in the party."

I sighed, having been worried about this for a while. "While you get a commensurate number of points in another stat, when you pay with stat points you still lose points from somewhere. In order for me to grow you need to lose out. If I can get points from other people I can gain and then you all can trade attacks for your points." I wasn't sure how many of those attacks they had in them per day, at least not full power ones, but in any case, it was a solid plan. For now though we had more training to do. Might as well push myself a bit. At least after I recovered from Afterburner. I was still exhausted.

 

The days wishes were used on attacks. I was able to get two from Callie, though she had to rest after the first before giving the second. It seemed that drawing out the attacks worked the same as just executing them, and her full power blows weren't so easy to toss around. Vitality seemed to have a lot to do with energy and recovery time, and I made a note to remind her to keep up with that one.

Luckily I had other roommates, and I was able to get two attacks from Cark and one healing burst from Jessie in case of emergencies. Callie and Cark put theirs into Might while Jessie put hers into Vitality. The points this time had increased though, because I had FINALLY broken through whatever barrier of stats kept my wishes limited to two points. Now I could trade three points per wish, and that would be a huge boost to our power going forward.

Unfortunately I wasn't willing to burn five wishes on training, so I could only keep the attacks in reserve for now. I was planning to up my stockpile since I could feel my body wasn't at capacity yet, but I'd have to make sure not to waste all my wishes on attacks. I still had to boost my own stats. My new combat style would help make sure I didn't fall behind, but only if I kept up with the progress I'd already been making. The extra stat point per wish would help with that.

I wasn't surprised I'd gotten it though, because I remembered the other candidate being able to do three points already, and she'd been G ranked too. It occurred to me as I had that thought that though my style of stat distribution increased versatility, it wasn't necessarily the only way. It was possible other candidates stuck to the stats they were born with and because of that were only able to grant specific kinds of wishes, just at a greatly enhanced pace. I even briefly considered that strategy, but dismissed it. My power was too versatile to sacrifice that for some temporary convenience.

The more wishes I could grant the more people I had to draw from for skills and stats. With all that done for the day though, we headed back down to the circus to check in at the pavilion. We still had a mission to complete. We needed to figure out which faction Melissa was colluding with and hopefully talk her out of it, possibly roping her in on our own side.

When we arrived at the pavilion, most of the members weren't there. Alden saw us come in and grinned widely, waving us over. "Well if it isn't our four newest recruits! Good to see your smiling faces." He glanced at me sideways. "And creepy blank mask I suppose. Anyway what can I do for you kids today? Not too busy around here right now so I'm free to chat if you need something." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a bottle. "I have refreshments. I always carry a few bottles of the good stuff on me."

I rolled my eyes, but didn't turn him down. "Do you have any black cherry?" He grinned and passed me a soda, while Callie asked for a watermelon flavored variation. I popped the cap and took a sip. "These must be expensive, can you afford to keep giving them away for free? Also where are all the others? It was a lot more lively here last time we came. I expected there to be crowds."

He lout out a snort so loud it shook his beard. "Don't be daft boy, we have lives. We don't all just sit around the pavilion all day waiting to punch each other. As for the drinks they aren't cheap, but I make decent money. Friendly wagers on the outcome of battles you know." He gave me a wide and somewhat terrifying grin. "Of all the active pavilion members, I'm the one with the most wind under his belt, but those damn fools keep trying anyway."

I admit, I kind of wanted to fight him after hearing that. It would be a great way to build up reputation here. But I wasn't stupid, if Alden was at the top of the heap here he was way too strong to beat in a sparring match. With all my new tricks I might have been up to fighting him if we went all out, but I liked the guy, and I wasn't willing to do that. He'd been nothing but nice to us, and even if that had been useful to make a good impression (which I couldn't imagine it would be) I would never do it.

Benny spoke up. "Well, can you tell us a bit about people close to our own level? You've seen us fight, and since you're an experienced combatant you might be able to suggest someone who can push our limits." He sounded as intrigued by the possibility as I was.

Alden guffawed at the question. "See, this is why I like you kids. That's the proper pavilion spirit. Sure, come on over and sit down. I can give you a few suggestions." He led us over to the seats off to one side of the dirt ring, and when we sat down, Jessie and Benny both picked out drinks.

Jessie sipper here chocolate soda (I hadn't known that was a thing and I was kind of curious how it tasted) happily and made a noise of appreciation. "This is so good!" She gave Alden a warm smile. "If you need any healing in the future you can feel free to ask me. I'm pretty good at patching people up, and you seem really nice! Thanks again for how welcoming you were at the party the other day."

It was hard not to feel good when Jessie was smiling at you. Her cheer was just infectious, and Alden obviously thought so too since he grinned right back. "I'll keep it in mind lass. I don't get wounded much, but it's always nice to have a decent healer on hand. They're usually damned expensive to work with. Not that it ain't worth it, but the damned Peace Lord snaps up most of them for his faction and their rates are outright extortion. Luckily there are more than a few who joined up with the other factions so his goons can't bully them too much."

Jessie's eyes went wide. "The Peace Lord is that bad? He sounded like a pretty nice guy, and Sanctuary Hall is in E district right? Do they have a branch down here?" She avoided mentioning our meeting, which was smart, but still set us up for lots of information. I was reminded how Jessie used her cheerfulness and easy nature to draw out conversation and info from plenty of people. I hadn't seen it in action personally much, but it was an effective method from what she'd told us in the past.

This time was no exception. Alden was happy to complain. "Oh, aye. He runs that group like some kind of doctor street gang. Anyone who doesn't join up is considered a 'misguided healer' and the members treat them with contempt and make trouble for them under the guise of trying to be helpful and educating others. Sanctuary Hall doesn't have branches exactly, but it does have a presence through all the districts. It acts like something of a healer's union, and since healers are everywhere so are they. It's one of the things that make them so irritating. Everyone still treats them well though, since they're needed. You'll even see them around here at times, I'd avoid healing independently if you spot them."

Callie looked disturbed. "Will Jessie have trouble with them if she doesn't join a faction?" We'd basically decided to join the Beast Lord Garden anyway, or at least I had. Melinda was nice enough, and I trusted her to actually treat us fairly far more than I did the Peace Lord, especially after hearing that. The Nothing was a complicated issue I'd rather avoid. Callie wanted to do things on her own, so she wasn't likely to be comfortable being forced to join up with her uncle. With Melinda having two E rankers to hold down the fort I wasn't worried about the strength of her faction either.

Alden frowned thoughtfully. "Might be something happens, can't say for sure. My advice is to make an effort to find someone to take you in. Being free and unfettered is always best, but some powers are desirable enough that having a tree to shelter under is basically a necessity. Healing is a sought after gift, and if you don't have any backing there are some folks who aren't against using force to make sure they have access to it. The pavilion isn't something to sneer at, but that's only down here. With your gift I'd bet you can get a low level position at least with one of the big factions."

"Anyway, we can talk about that later." He said with a dismissive wave. "For now you wanted some input on who would be the most challenging fights. I assume you'd like those challenges to within your ability to complete?" I just nodded at him, sad he couldn't see the droll look through the mask. "Well, that makes it a bit trickier. I know plenty of folks you kids would struggle with, but if you want something relatively close I can oblige."

He paused for a minute. "Alright, well for the shadow girl I'd say your best bet is Gust. He uses this odd form of wind manipulation that lets him turn to air. Provides him good mobility to avoid attacks and get in close. It'll be a rough fight, but it'll also be educational as hell. You're going to need to do some quick thinking to pin him down and beat him. Gust is a little power dependent though, so you have a decent shot at pulling it out if you can counter him."

"As for you." He turned to look at Benny. "Probably Mountaincrusher. He's not actually earth based, his body turns into metal, but given your versatility and the tricks I saw, your biggest weakness is putting down people who can take a real beating. Mountaincrusher isn't too high up the ladder here either, so you have a chance to turn things around, all you need to do is stay on your toes and think."

Jessie waved him off as he looked at her, clearly not interested, and he nodded before turning to look at me. "Last but not least you should fight Fang. He's strong, fast, and damn skilled, but his power is mostly just increased regeneration from a Vitality multiplier. He's a good dummy for training on if you can survive him, and I can tell your biggest weakness is the lack of experience or foundation." He shrugged. "They'll all be tough fights you might lose, but from my point of view those are your best chances to grow, and that's really what we're all looking for here."

I nodded along as he spoke. I could tell he meant what he said, and I couldn't deny those were pretty valid points. I'd been thinking about that issue with my combat style to start with. Plus if we were walking Vitality I had a boost from Jessie that would not only heal me up but also give me an energy surge that would last quite a while during the fight if I needed it, which should let me keep up. I mulled it over for a bit before finally deciding to go for it. "So where do we sign up?"

A broad grin split Alden's face. "Lad, I knew there was something I liked about you. That's the kind of spirit I like to see!" He gestured over to one side. "Right over there is a table you can use to sign up for battles. Remember the names I gave you and just tell them you want to engage in a sanctioned match." His grin took on a vicious tint. "Remember to try your best. I'll be betting on your victory. Winner even gets a share of the profits from whatever bets the pavilion pays out, so work hard for both of us!" He clapped me on the shoulder and I suddenly had the sinking feeling that this might not be as good an idea as I'd though earlier. Oh well, too late to back out now.

 

My opponent, as it happened, was ready first. I'd been worried that we would need to wait, but apparently Alden had taken 'is here right know' as unspoken criteria, and all of our opponents were on the premises. I was glad not to have to wait for my big match. I was raring to go at the moment, having more than recovered from any exhaustion from my earlier training with Jessie's help on the elevator ride down here. Having a teammate who could mainline pure life force into your body was insanely convenient.

The guy I was fighting, Fang (and wasn't that a boring name, I had to wonder how he had even gotten it, I'd have thought it would be taken) was an average looking man with pale skin, brown hair, and amber eyes with dark circles under them like he didn't get much sleep. His expression was serene, which I wouldn't have expected from a guy named Fang, but I could somewhat sense and aura of danger coming off him, like I was looking at a predator.

"It's nice to meet you, I think I saw you around at the party." I said politely. Fang's expression didn't change, but he gave a slow nod. Not a chatty guy. "So, any rules you want to make, special circumstances, safe words? This is my first time in one of these so I don't exactly know what the conventions are. I hope you can guide me through what we're supposed to be doing for this match."

Fang stood there, unmoving for a second, looking up and away ponderingly before finally giving a slight nod. "Attack until one party calls stop, or unconsciousness. Avoid killing blows." His voice was deep and rumbled up from his chest, surprisingly growly for such a small man. I didn't put him at more then five foot six, but he his voice made him sound like a giant. It rumbled up from his chest like an eruption from the depths of the molten earth.

It also stopped immediately after he said that, clearly having decided that he didn't need to illuminate me anymore. I shrugged internally, it was nice enough for him to bother to start with. I didn't mind just starting. I turned to Alden, who was apparently taking a position as officiator. He gave me a wide grin. "Now, as you all know, officiator of the battle is a sacred trust. No suspect calls are tolerated. I've proven my impartiality, but I wanted to inform our fresh hire that I won't be going easy just because I bet a chunk of cash on him. Understood?"

I nodded. "That's fine, I wouldn't want it any other way. I take it his rules were all there are?" I glanced to Fang. "Not that I'm doubting you, just want to make extra sure I haven't missed anything. It would be a shame to lose on a technicality I didn't see coming. I'd rather have as fair and even a match as possible" I also didn't know this guy. No harm in doing a bit of double checking.

When Alden nodded, I breathed a sight of relief and did something I hadn't done in a long time. I activated my overlay. I had let this particular tool in my arsenal rust for quite a while since we arrived in Rajak. With all my new overt attacks it just never seemed too useful. I preferred sneak attacks and overwhelming force. I wasn't done though. Along with the overlay, I resonated my Balam Skill, and the arrows shifted.

Suddenly I was standing in a field of images of myself and my opponent, some red, some green. Because they were, after all, my Skills, I could see that each image represented one of my Balam forms, and I could tell what the responses might be. I prowled forward, staying loose and ready to attack, as well as keeping my eyes out for attack opportunities on Fang, whose power I didn't actually know yet.

When I got close, I spun off my front foot, back leg scything out in a sweeping whip from low to high with my entire body behind it. Fang reacted by taking a slight step back, which had been an option I prepared for, and I hurled myself back into a flip off my feet as my kick came full circle and my other one hit the ground, pressing my hands down for extra distance as I brought both heels down in a smash at Fang's head and shoulders.

The overlay was combining with my Balam Mastery to form a sort of predictive textbook on how to use my attacks. It gave me lots of options that I could use, and lots of potential responses, and using it was letting me refine my technique in combat. My overlay, as I'd suspected, was the perfect way to figure out how to string all my movements and forms together optimally. It was going to take lots of repetition to find the patterns that worked best, but then again, that was the whole point of this fight.

My heels smashed down at Fang's face, and I expected him to dodge. I did not however, expect him to pick the least likely possible response and headbutt my heel while using both hands to catch the other. I reacted with a cloud step, pushing off the air to change direction just before he was able to wrap his hands around my ankle. I landed a few feet away,and once I realized I wasn't going to break his defense with the range I had, I reached into my coat and drew my cane.

When he saw the weapon, Fang did something I hadn't expected at all. He smiled. The smile started as a small, quiet thing, but then it began to grow, his lips pulled back, continuing past the point of natural possibility as he fece lengthened and shifted, the action acting as the opening for a transformation as his visage twisted into a muzzled furry wolf face. The rest of his body expanded and began to fill in with fur, until the small man was gone, and I was looking at a seven and a half foot tall werewolf.

Which kind of explained the whole Vitality regen thing. I mentally cursed at Alden for burying the lead here, but I didn't really blame him. Based on the first part of this fight, Fang might not have needed to actually shift for most people, especially if he had a limited version of that regen in human form. I wondered where all the extra mass came from, then just wrote it off as Fantasy. I bet he could do other crazy werewolf shit with Fantasy if he leaned into the stories too, but for the moment I doubted it was relevant.

It took me a second to decide how to handle this, and I finally decided to use my poison fire. It was a soft counter to regeneration, and would burn his energy more quickly. Plus it would hurt which was distracting. Once that was done I triggered Leaf on the Wind, because mobility was the only possible way I had a chance at beating someone this big and based on what I knew about werewolves, probably strong.

I was guessing this was a racial ability, I knew that fairies weren't the only things around, it was also possible to become a devil or monster. Werewolves weren't a big surprise, though I hadn't heard of any before so they might have been rare like vampires, or I might just be a frog in a well...and I was distracting myself again. I shook off my wandering thoughts and decided to put more energy into raising Focus, it was possible having it so far behind Perception was the reason I was so easily distracted.

With my attention back where it should be, I rushed forward at Fang, staying light on my feet to take advantage of Leaf on the Wind. My cane whirled as I pushed off, hurtling toward him in a long, low lunge that carried me forward about fifteen feet right above the ground. As I came forward the overlay showed his mist likely response, and since this was a direct attack, it was easy to see what he would go with.

Knowing what was coming, I waited until I got in close, then triggered cloud step three times. I pushed off once sending me hard to the side, out of his eyeline, then again pushing forward at a diagonal to appear behind him, then a third time from the back to throw me forward at his back, my cane lashing out at his undefended skull from behind as the quick series of motions allowed me to slip into his blindspot through using the cloud steps like a wall corner I was able to bounce off of.

Fang was fast, but his reaction was still limited to what he could track, and he didn't manage to turn around quickly enough to avoid the poison fire can snash upside his head, sending him staggering forward as I used the opportunity to follow up with a few attacks from behind, aiming my first one at the back of his knee to unsteady him. Luckily the overlay warned me of his coming attack (well, a dozen of them, were possible but they all involved an attack to drive me away) so I was able to dodge back in a smooth handspring and avoid the powerful werewolf claw attacks as he spun.

Despite his absurd size, Fang was also FAST. The werewolf had the speed of a striking snake, and only a combination of my mobility and the overlay let me stay ahead of him. Even that wouldn't have been enough except for the fact that I had the healing burst from Jessie. I triggered it, along with Afterburner, which amplified one of my moves massively. A five times boost to Jessie's life energy pushed my physical ability to it's absolute maximum and left me overflowing with vital power even as all my energy usage until now recovered.

I went on the offensive. I only had until the quintupled power of the Vitality boost ended, which would be at most a quarter of an hour, but that was plenty of time to immerse myself in the battle. I'd also confirmed that unlike Mercy Kill, Afterburner would work on a healing skill as long as I was the one using it. That would be useful information in the future. For now I just flashed forward to attack with the best combinations I could find in the overlay. My cane lashed out, spinning between fingers to take advantage of the rotational specialty of Balam.

I lost myself in battle. I knew the energy wasn't infinite, and at fifteen minutes might not seem long, but the amount of learning you can do with my level of Focus and a perfect opponent to test every idea of concept on, as well as a guide, isn't small, even in that limited amount of time. I flashed through endless combinations, blurring through the air at the absolute maximum speed my ninety seven points of Might could manage.

Fang met me head on, obviously much more Vitality heavy than Might (which made sense with a VItality multiplier for regeneration in his combat form) but still stronger than me. But between my ability to predict moves and make them myself with Leaf on the Wind I managed to avoid most hits. He got in some lucky shots, broke a few ribs and left a lot more bruises, but the poison fire was wearing him down.

I didn't expect it to actually beat him, even if I lined up every shot perfectly and joined the effects together in stacks. With his Vitality that would never happen, but what DID happen was that each stack of poison fire took up resources his body needed to heal. After fourteen minutes, my lifeforce charge was about to run out, and I decided to end things right then and there.

Flurry of Blows, Mercy Kill, and a triggered burst of stored force I'd been stockpiling through the whole fight slammed into his knee and shattered it in such a vicious way even his regen would take a minute or two to fix it. I looked to Alden, who accepted that I could have killed him with that blow if I'd hit him in the head and declared me the winner. Then the weakness hit and I fell on my ass, breathing heavy as the lifeforce ran out and the backlash from Afterburner hit. I didn't mind though, because I could feel one of my Skill breaking through. Balam Mastery had just hit Lesser. Perfect.

 

Next up for combat was Benny. Where I'd been fighting the werewolf, Benny was up against the metal man. An appropriate match up considering that iron hide was his original power. I was sure this Mountaincrusher person was able to synergize some more skills in to make himself even tougher, but Benny was going to have a tough time taking the man down based on what Alden had said. I was looking forward to the match, and based on his fidgeting I was pretty sure Benny was too.

My best friend leapt off the seating he'd been perched on and dropped into the dirt ring. Instead of plummeting and landing hard, he drifted to the ground. Not slowly, but not nearly as quickly as he should have. I was pretty sure he had altered the density of his leg again making it lighter than air to provide a bit of resistance. He landed on the other leg, strolling out to meet the absolute beast of a man who emerged from the other side of the circle to fight.

Mountaincrusher was a large man. Like...about as tall as Fang in his wolf form large. Rather than a mask,
Mountaincrusher sported a bare upper face and a massive bushy beard that joined his tangled and matted hair in tumbling down his chest and back, covering his otherwise bare chest and making him look like some sort of ancient warrior savage or something. His wide green eyes were fixed on Benny, and his lips were pulled back in a manic grin that exposed white teeth from between the bushy plumes of beard and mustache.

"So, you're my opponent. Bit scrawny, aren't you?" Mountaincrusher rumbled in a voice that was appropriately deep and booming. Unlike Fang though, his voice was less growl and more crash, like an avalanche rather than an animal. I wondered if that had anything to do with his name and size. It seemed like the kind of thing people might subconsciously attribute to someone and then affect through recursion.

Benny glared at him. "Asshole, I'm six foot three, I am NOT scrawny, you're just gargantuan. I will not be made to feel inferior because people are taller than me." He turned to glare at me. "Especially if they fucking shouldn't be!" I grinned under my mask, Benny had been enraged about Callie paying off one of her wishes with an inch of height because we had previously been the same height and now I was taller than he was.

I'd expected Mountaincrusher to be offended by getting snapped at, but his grin just widened even further. Benny rolled his eyes, muttering something about 'crazy battle maniacs' before turning to give Alden the ok to call the match to a start. Alden smirked at their antics before holding up both hands. "Alright, once again, the fight goes until either someone gives in or I call it to a stop. No attempts on anyone's life of course. This is just a friendly match, so have fun with it."

Benny stepped forward at his indication, and the match began. The spider legs extended from his back, gleaming wickedly in the low light of the pavilion, and his turtle shell formed behind him in preparation for attacks.
Mountaincrusher looked intrigued at the devices, shifting his body into his metallic form as the fight started to make sure he could handle it. His pale skin rippled, becoming the rust red of old metal as his body converted from one of flesh to one of iron. He raised his fists in what I recognized as a boxing stance and stepped forward.

Benny's spider legs lashed out, and Mountaincrusher raised his guard to tank the hit, deflecting them off his forearms with the boxing stance, the ground beneath him cracked at the impact, and my eyes widened as I realized what had just happened. I turned to Callie, whose own eyes were just as wide with surprise. "Wait, did he just density shift those spider legs?" Benny didn't have nearly the strength to strike with that much force, which meant he'd done something else. Add in the cracking of the ground under his own feet, both of them mind you, and density shifting the spider legs was all I could think of. His effects were supposed to be limited to a single body part last I checked, sometimes able to spread, but the leg that allowed that move was a completely separate limb. We turned to Jessie, who spent the most time with Benny lately, something I felt guilty about.

She gave a wide grin. "Yup. Clockwork figured out that his embodiment makes the items part of him, so he can use their properties like Skills and not just trigger them. He can't use more than two at once yet, but even that is pretty impressive." She gave a small sigh. "He's been training hard when you guys aren't around. He feels like you're leaving him behind, and he doesn't want to be useless. Even though he acts like nothing bothers him, he came here to support you. Well, he also wants to become stronger so Celine will be impressed, but still."

I had no idea." I knew my voice was hoarse as I spoke, but my head was just spinning. I knew how hard mastering Skills like that was. Benny must have been completely exhausting himself trying to get better, and I hadn't even noticed. I pushed that day off with my best friend up even higher on my list. I was definitely going to talk to him when we hung out. I wanted to find out more about where his head was at. Jessie was right, he'd come here for me, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say I felt bad about spending time with Callie, especially when he had been off with Celine just as often, I did feel like shit I hadn't noticed all he'd obviously been doing to get better.

Meanwhile, in battle, Benny was kicking ass. While he wasn't able to use more than one extra skill on the same limb, it did not, apparently, affect his ability with the others. His brain was clearly overclocked based on the speed and precision of the weighted spider limbs striking the metal mans arms. Mountaincrusher was on the defensive, holding up under a barrage of ultradense strikes with the wicked metal arms. He was also laying into the bigger man's guard with his own fists, and while even the triple strike punch wasn't managing to do as much as the obviously much more powerful spider limbs, it was doing something.

I didn't see any obvious effect from the tranq punch, but he was still managing to put his opponent on the back foot. Finally though, the attacks stopped being enough. Mountaincrusher got his footing and started lashing out with quick but obviously powerful blows. I was worried Benny might be hurt (though with his F rank gear even the stat disparity shouldn't be enough to do serious damage) but even that turned out to be an unfounded concern. As the fist approached him, Benny activated the ranged attack attraction effect through one of the spider limbs, pulling the punch off course.

The attraction was used perfectly, pulling the bigger man up and forward with the offending limb, pulling him off balance and leaving him open on one side in a way that made it clear Benny was using that cognitive speed boost to best effect. He stepped in and smashed a series of powerful attacks into Mountaincrusher's torso while he was open, before drifting back out of the way and avoiding the recovery attack in a way that made me pretty sure he'd lightened most of his body to pull off the move.

Mountaincrusher stepped back, guard up and not willing to attack, but I was sure he wasn't giving in, just trying to find gaps. Benny's demonstration of multiple abilities of Skills was worrying, but Skills could do lots of things. My DS Mastery was unique, but it wasn't the only unique Skill out there. Benny's combat style wasn't perfect, but being able to stack his effects was devastating in a direct fight. I was absolutely flabbergasted in how much improvement he was showing here. I'd kind of been starting to think of him as mainly an inventor, but this new trick put him on the same level as Callie and I in terms of potential, probably higher if he could get some better gear integrated.

Despite what Mountaincrusher might want, he wasn't capable of just standing there and waiting for the attacks to show a weak spot. Those spider legs were G rank, and with the density increased, they were heavier, denser metal than his body was, which meant he was essentially getting beaten up with baseball buts as far as actual inflicted damage went. It was a brilliant counter to his strengthened form, but then, iron hide had been Benny's first ability. I was pretty sure he'd considered how to get past it well before this match.

Despite all that, I truly believe without his armor Benny would have been broken by this guy. F ranked gear was pretty much the best possible safety measure against serious injury in a fight between G rankers. It wasn't some impervious invincible shield, granted. It covered the parts of the body that were directly protected, and it mostly stopped piercing damage. Even my gear, which was enchanted with the same sort of impact absorption that I'd had on my last set, wouldn't fully nullify blunt damage, just siphon off some of it to store.

When I wanted it to. It became clear we could somewhat manipulate the effects of our gear, since Callie wasn't constantly nearly impossible to see, mostly saving that for combat situations. Regardless, the powerful gear gave Benny a chance to make mistakes without paying for them in blood, and a few broken bones wasn't the end of the world. He was improving at a noticeable rate, managing to switch between secondary abilities on each limb much more quickly as time wore on. He even got a opened up a slice on Mountaincrusher with one of the spider legs, presumable with the three times damage ability.

As they fought on though, it became clear what the deciding factor would be. The tranq punch. It wasn't exactly all powerful, and even augmented three times (I suspected he had the triple fist and the tranq fist both augmenting each other so he got both effects on each hand) it was taking ten or fifteen minutes, but I could see the metal man beginning to look a little unsteady on his feet. The amount of buildup needed was staggering, but it was working over time.

They traded blows for about a half hour in total, Benny looking like he was about to pass out from pushing himself hard and fast enough to keep up with the much stronger man. Even being lighter he had a serious disadvantage, and if not for the ability to attract punches with the spider limbs and Mountaincrusher's slow descent into dizziness and eventual unconsciousness, I doubted he could have lasted the whole time with just the Vitality stat he currently had. Eventually though, the bigger man slipped out of consciousness with on final hammering tranq triple punch, and fell over backwards.

There was a massive thud as the big metal man hit the dirt, and Benny dropped to his own knees after, groaning in discomfort and cradling his hands, which had been punching actual G ranked metal for the last half hour, even with the gloves taking the worst of it. Alden grinned down at him, and called the match. "Clockwork WINS!" He walked over and knelt down, offering Benny a swig from a flask, which he took, and giving my best friend an approving slap on the back. "Well done lad. That was a hell of a fight to watch. Go back to your friends and get healed up." He needn't have said anything, Jessie was already headed over to heal them both. Once that was done we all settled in to wait. Callie had the last match of the night. After that, we would see if we'd earned enough respect to get in deeper and finally learn what we came here for.

 

Callie's match, the last one, wasn't ready right after Benny's. We had a little while to digest the battles and think over what had happened, as well as strategize for her match. From what Alden had said, this one was going to be the toughest for any of us to manage. Benny and I were in at this point, if a single fight was enough. We'd proven ourselves, but more importantly, we'd learned. These had been huge growth opportunities for both Benny and me, and Callie was excitedly trying to figure out how to get the most of her own match now.

"So how do I beat up the wind?" She said, not bothering to sugar coat her intentions at all. At my loud snicker she just rolled her eyes. "Don't laugh at me. It's a totally reasonable question, this guy can turn into air, that's going to be damn hard to counter. Any ideas would be appreciated so I don't make an entire damn fool of myself. I don't want to be the only one of us who can't hack it in one of these fights. Based on how impressed Alden has seemed we have a solid chance of making it into the inner circle if we can prove ourselves."

I exhaled loudly. "Yeah, but I don't have any real ideas. I think that's kind of the point. You need to have whatever epiphany Alden was hoping for on your own. Learning is part of what impresses him. He's looking at potential not just combat ability. I can't give you an answer or I might blow it for you. But if you want to talk it out for us we'd be happy to listen and let you bounce ideas off us." I looked at Benny speculatively. "Well, I would. Benny had the attention span of a goldfish, it's even odds he doesn't even remember what the beginning of this sentence was about."

Benny flipped me off, his hands having been healed up by Jessie, who was now trying hard not to giggle at his put out expression as she spectated our sniping like a sports match. He growled out. "Ok first off, fuck you very much, secondly, I have a higher Focus than you shit for brains, which means I have a better memory, though I wouldn't have expected you to have remembered even that much you muscle brained baboon."

I gave a malicious grin that was so obvious in my voice I didn't need to let him see it to know he knew what the look on my face was. "Sorry, that just sounds like sour grapes. I think you're holding grudges because you're so scrawny. Even your enemies are commenting on it. It's ok though little man. I don't hold it against you. I think it's admirable that you've dedicated yourself to intellectual enlightenment to make up for your shrimpy underdeveloped body. Only forty Might? Your Focus is like twelve higher than mine, but I've got more than double your Might. Do you even lift?"

His face was a picture of righteous indignation as he gaped at me offendedly. "Alright, we don't have time for this. If you aren't going to help at least don't waste my damn time." Callie said in exasperation. Benny and I broke off our back and forth with a pair of matching unrepentant grins. Alden called Callie down in the background, ready to start the last of our matches. She leaned up and planted a kiss on my mask. "Alright babe, looks like I'm up. I was going to try to bounce a plan off you but it was pretty bare bones anyway. Just watch how I do this."

I smiled down at her, glad for my mask so she couldn't see the embarrassed flush on my face from burning her strategizing time bickering with Benny. She didn't seem mad though, just fondly exasperated as she hopped gracefully down from the seats to stroll across the dirt ring to fight her opponent. As she did, I thought over the Pavilion as a whole. This place was a blast. Constant training and combat, constant improvement. Despite that everyone seemed pretty nice, the sole requirement was dedication to getting stronger.

It just highlighted how complex people could be. I hadn't expected everyone to be so friendly and accepting in what was essentially a giant pit fighting club. Callie reached the center of the circle, turning to smile at Alden in concern. "So any extra notes for me? I think I have a grasp on the rules, but our fight is going to be a bit less restrained I think, so I wanted to check out what we need to keep in my for energy attacks and things like that. Don't want to hurt the audience by mistake."

"Not something to worry about." The bearded man laughed. "It may not be obvious but we have protections in place to stop the fights from spilling out of the ring by accident. That's what this place is for after all. Go wild, you don't need to worry about us. For fights like this I want you both to keep in mind that giving up is better done sooner than later. I can't and won't force you, but it's extremely difficult to predict the outcome of overpowered blasts. If you feel you're in danger you should stop, because as with any fight we can't assure you of safety."

Callie nodded, and her costume began to activate, making her harder to see or pay attention to. The other man, a five foot six inch man with a mostly blank green mask and a hooded green robe, also gave a solemn nod, piercing eyes never leaving Callie through the only two holes in the jade surface of his face covering. With the out of the way, Alden gestured for them to begin and stepped back out of the way.

Callie had been refining her new shadow manipulation technique every possible chance, and she'd shown me some of it. I expected her to use her snowflakes, but she didn't start off with those. Her costume made her hard to see and focus on, and the effect was ultimately based on shadows, so she was able to somewhat recreate it with pure constructs. Callie raised a hand, blanketing the area with darkness, and then letting it fall away to reveal thirteen identical copies of her, all with that exact same effect.

I blinked. I hadn't know her fine control was that good. Snowflakes were one thing, but people had lots of details, it was impressive she could make those copies. Then I realized she wasn't. She was using the difficult to see nature of the costume as a crutch to allow her copies to be less complete. She'd clothed both them and herself in a shroud of nearly smoke like shadows, and the insubstantial configuration managed to cover the lack of details. She wasn't capable of making perfect copies of herself, but she didn't need to be.

Gust didn't speak, just lashed out with a hand, sending a series of cutting windblades toward her. Windblades that were jerked aside as he was forced to turn insubstantial and avoid the spears of darkness stretching up from the shadow beneath him. Callie had shifted the shadows cast by her insubstantial clones to crisscross the areas around where he was standing just subtly enough that it had been easy to miss when distracted by her copies.

Her stab didn't hit him though, and even thrown off the wind blades managed to disperse two of the shadows, leaving her with only eleven. Still, I was damn impressed. Callie had used that burst of dark at the beginning to lay down several concurrent traps. Shadow manipulation had clearly given her the control to truly start taking advantage of her experience and tactical acumen.

The wind whipped around the ring, circling, and Callie watched calmly as her opponent failed to appear. Suddenly she whipped out both hands, as did the copies, and shadows darted between their fingers, thin as razor wire. They wrapped and connected the lines, creating a tapestry of sharpened shadow thread that spread through the ring like a spider web. It was impossible to tell from looking which one was the real one, all of them acting on concert. Callie's ability to put her stats to use now was staggering. That one Skill had qualitatively improved her combat ability by leaps and bounds.

With no place to reform in the ring itself, Gust was forced to manifest as an insubstantial wraithlike entity above the field of shadows lines. I was guessing he couldn't actually remain as wind for more than a few seconds based on the timing. It would have been much better to wait for an opening, but being made of air was probably a trump card more than a normal part of his toolkit. That at least showed he was taking Callie seriously.

Sadly, that meant the next move was a wave of raining wind blades. I'd have expected that tactic to be frowned on in a place so dedicated to combat mastery, but then again, Alden had said that Gust leaned on his powers too heavily. Still, I was in awe at the control and fluidity he was showing with the attacks. Every wind blade was carefully aimed and calculated to hit exactly where it would to the most damage, and I even saw several of them adjust midair. Whatever this guy's Focus was, it was damn sure higher than mine was.

The rain of wind cutters smashed down on the ring. I saw several of them cleaved in half when they hit the razor wire shadows, but the shadows shattered when they hit as well. Several of them managed to avoid the defensive net that Callie's shadow doubles had thrown up into the air at the start of the attack, managing to submerge themselves more completely in the hanging strands to prevent them from getting sniped from above the netting. The ones that managed to get through tore holes in the shadows, dispersing most of them.

By the time the attack was done there were only three doubles left, and the spiderweb of shadows had been mostly torn apart in the attack. The three Callie's darted into the center, each of them flicking their hands in a weaving gesture to pull the strings into a powerful dome shield over top of them, blocking them all from sight under a half sphere of pure darkness. There was no movement from the shield for a minute or two, and Gust just waited for a while, clearly expecting her to come out or attack or something similar so he could find an opening to exploit.

Nothing of the sort happened. Callie just stayed under there, taking shelter in the shield, and Gust eventually began to descend. His translucent form had become more substantial as he lowered himself down, his shadow growing as he approached the solid earth, until his feet eventually touched down on the hard packed dirt. That wind form was probably pretty energy intensive, and keeping it up during such an obvious lull would be a waste of energy. Callie wasn't giving in, that much was clear.

Gust stalked forward, raising his arms, and began hammering blast of compressed air like hammers into the shadow dome. It creaked, then began to buckle, eventually being torn apart. As soon as it breached though there was a massive explosion of shadow energy as a pressurized blast of the stuff poured out of the hole like a waterfall and smashed Gust longways across the ring, smashing him into the barrier at the edge. The rest of the dome dissolved, leaving behind...nothing. It was empty.

None of the Callie's who had been inside were remaining which could only mean that she'd never really been there. There was a disturbance on the ground near where he'd touched down, and Callie stood up. She brushed the dirt off her coat as the visibility returned and the smoky veil of shadow making her identical to her doubles flaked off. She'd used his growing shadow during the descent as cover to burrow out under the shield using her shadow construct to dig through the dirt, completely covered in a layer of shadow to obscure her, then she must have dispersed the doubles and used the energy to create a high pressure environment. She turned and gave me a wave and I laughed loudly. That girl definitely had style.

 

Alden looked damn impressed by our results, as well as pretty pleased by his obvious winnings. He let out a long whistle. "Damn, you kids did not disappoint. You made me a mint. Especially you, little miss. Gust is known for being nearly impossible to pin down properly. Odds are always disproportionately in favor of him. Personally I think he's a showoff with no substance who uses his power as a crutch, but I don't deny he gets results."

After stopping to collect multiple bags of what I was pretty sure where chits, he escorted us over to sit down on the seating far enough away from everyone else that we could talk, he passed out drinks to everyone, then, with that done, he sipped his own bottle of what I was pretty sure was beer for a minute, reveling in the taste, before shifting his eyes back to us. "So. I like you kids, and you just won me a ton of money, so I'm going to go ahead and let you explain your purpose for weaseling your way in here before I decide to be a bit more...aggressive."

My eyes widened, and Callie, always quick on the uptake, seamlessly put 0n a hurt expression. "What? I don't know what you mean, we told Melissa already, we're hoping for protection from Cicero. He was really putting the screws to us, and we weren't sure he would leave us alone unless we had some backing. Joining a big faction would be great, but it doesn't necessarily happen overnight. Is this because we're new? Because we can go, we didn't mean to cause any trouble or anything." Her voice sounded so small at the end even I halfway believed she was hurt. I was impressed.

Alden was not. "Lass, Mel is seven kinds of stupid when it comes to the boss man. You say his name and every ounce of sense in that girl's head flies right out her ears. Now, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I still may be. But it's clear you aren't here just to learn fighting. You have too many questions, you're pushing far too quickly for authority, and when I mentioned joining a faction you were much too willing to be picky. Any normal G rank kid would fall in with any E rank faction that would take them. You lot were being picky, picky means options."

"That's..." Callie started to defend herself before eventually sighing. "Damn. That's a good point. I missed that. You were baiting us. So I take it from the lack of violent blows to our skulls you're at least willing to hear us out? Because we really don't have anything against you in particular, or the Pavilion. We're here to get some information about a third party, and we weren't planning to use anything we learned here against anyone."

Callie liked these people as much as I did, and it must have shown in her voice, because Alden's faux casual demeanor softened into actual sympathy. "Well sure. Like I said. I like you. If you have bad intentions I won't let you off, I could crush the four of you if I needed to. But I don't. I trust my read on people, and it tells me you lot are ok. I'm willing to be proven right."

I exhaled in relief. Alden was a damn decent guy, and I didnt want to have to fight him. I also did not love how absolutely confident he was that he could beat us all after watching us fight. He clearly had some solid insight into combat, if he thought he could take us after seeing us battle, he might actually be right. Of course, we hadn't used all our moves, but this seemed like a good chance to make the switch from hostile to possible friendly as long as we played it right.

Putting a hand on Callie's arm, I gave it a light squeeze, and when she glanced over at me, I gave a small nod. This was ultimately her call as leader and I trusted her, but I wanted her to know where I stood on this. She seemed to be of the same mind because that was good enough for her to sigh and stand up. "Alright, but even though this place is semi private, it's not nearly secure enough. Follow me." She walked over to the edge of the seats and gracefully stepped down, not bothering to roll or anything given her leg strength.

None of us really needed any fancy tricks to get down from something this low to the ground, but it was more stylish to avoid smashing a foot into the dirt on landing. This spot was pretty low down the seating though, so even just absorbing the landing force only left some marks in the dirt. We followed her down, including Alden, and I mentally congratulated myself on the choice not to fight him. It was theoretically possible he was just massively overconfident, but I doubted someone with that much insight would have such a bad estimation of his own skills.

When we reached the spot behind the seating, Callie held up a hand to stop us, then flicked a few fingers and covered us in shadow. I could feel the Stealth Skill blending seamlessly into the shadows, and being under a big overhang would make the darkness totally natural looking on the off chance someone actually bothered to look. This was pretty much a perfect environment for Callie to keep the contents of this meeting secret. Once she did, she turned to Alden. "Alright, we can talk freely. Ask your questions."

Alden raised an eyebrow, but smiled all the same. "Careful at least. That's not bad. Less likely to just half ass an excuse, no reason to put effort into a sloppy lie. Doesn't necessarily ensure you're honest, but it's a good start. Now. Like I asked before, why are you here? Despite being sneaky and suspicious, albeit badly, you lot have been pretty stand up folks, and I don't think you're here for something nefarious, though I can't be sure. So convince me. If I don't think you're a threat to me and mine, we may be able to work something out."

"Alright." Callie said again. "We're here because Melissa is working with someone. I don't know exactly how familiar you are with the day to day here, but Melissa has joined up with a faction that will help her oust Cicero. Normally, we wouldn't care, he's kind of a dick, but the faction she's allied with is doing all this at the behest of someone whose goals run counter to ours and we believe it's part of a larger plan that will eventually make trouble for us, so we're doing our best to put a stop to it. We're here to try to figure out who she's working with so we know who our enemy is supporting."

I blinked. She really had taken my opinion to heart. That was more honest than I'd expected, or at least more detailed, but I thought it was the right call. Alden seemed like someone who respected honesty. When she finished talking, I turned to look at Alden, and was surprised to see him looking sad. "Damn fool girl. She's been obsessed with getting some imaginary vengeance for so many years. Can't admit the boy left of his own accord. She doesn't want to face the fact that he loved his brother more than her. That whelp left a mess in his wake, no doubt, but to collude with external forces against the whole circus? She's more desperate than I thought."

"Whoa." I held up my hands to interrupt. "Wait, you make it sound like you knew them when they were kids. Were you one of their friends growing up? Were you here before the founded the cavalcade?" We'd only gotten brief snippets of what had happened between all of them, and while it was enough to puzzle some things out, being in front of someone who was there for the whole thing.

Alden snorted. "Knew them? Boy I trained those brats. All three of them, though Abel was the one who took it most to heart. That boy surpassed my wildest expectations. He asked me to stay on and help Mel train up the youngsters when he left, and I couldn't deny a request like that. I knew he was going to sever all contact, and that girl was hopelessly in love with him. She never got over it though, not like we hoped. Just let it fester and rot under the surface. I hadn't realized quite how bad it had gotten for her to be willing to risk the livelihoods of everyone in this place just to stick it to Cicero."

His voice was tired, and his face looked worn and aged, despite having not actually changed since we started the conversation. Like the weight of years was slowly crushing him the longer we talked. I reached out to clap him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry. But the people she's working with are enemies of ours. Do you know what faction she might have allied with?" Even as I asked I knew there was little to no chance. Alden hadn't been aware she was even doing anything involving outsiders. It occurred to me that he might have been one of the reasons Melissa seemed so adamant on keeping things quiet.

I wasn't sure what Alden's position in the pavilion was, but based on what he said it was obviously high. It seemed odd that he was stuck at G rank if he was old and strong enough to train someone like Abel, but then again, Abel's whole deal was strengthening his foundation at the price of growing fast. Maybe Alden had reached his current level specifically by spending decades or centuries in the G ranks.

"Sorry, lass. I haven't a clue." Alden's voice was as sorrowful as his face as he answered her. "I wish I did. But it's clear she doesn't take my council as she once did. I knew she'd drawn away, but I never expected her to leave me out of something like this. I suppose she knew I wouldn't approve." He let out a heavy sigh. "I'll look into it. I won't mention your reasons for being here...for now. I'll be keeping an eye on you, and on Mel." His eyes narrowed, and a sense of palpable danger radiated off him as his voice dropped to a growl. "If I see even a hint of treachery I'll out you, and we'll show you what the Starchaser Pavilion does to traitors."

Callie raised both hands placatingly. "No need. Like we said, we don't mean anyone here harm. We just need to know the source of this mess so we can track down the instigator." I wasn't sure how much I wanted that, but we'd need to face the other candidate eventually. If we could crush her attempts to overtake the branch then so be it, if not, a direct confrontation was probably the only chance we had. She hesitated a second. "Will you tell us who it is? If you find out? It would really help us."

He fixed her with a glare for a moment, but it softened, and he let out a tired sigh. "I'll look into this myself. If I see evidence that the faction she's cooperating with has nefarious intentions, then I'll let you in on it. If not, I'll keep an eye on the situation until a path forward becomes clear. In either case, you can keep poking around if you want, but don't go too far. If Mel finds out what you're doing she'll crush you. You're tough kids, but those fighters you were playing with earlier are babies compared to the real monsters here. Don't push your luck." With that last warning he turned and strode out of the stealth field. I guessed we had to tread more carefully from now on.

 

The next week passed in a blur. With my new ability to grant wishes for three stat points instead of two, the thirty five wishes accrued over those seven days came out to over a hundred total stats. Given the lacking foundations of one of our members, namely, Benny I made sure my friend got twenty four of those, which he paid off with four of those triple strength density shifted blows, and four of the triple strength tranq hits.

He chose to dump those twenty four into Might, given the physical nature of his recent attack style. Jessie had given me ten of those heals bursts for another thirty points of Vitality, choosing to lean into her advantages, and Callie had gotten the other fifty one points, specifically because she had enough accumulation to actually trade me some points for myself instead of just adding to my stockpile of attacks. She paid for eight of the wishes with shadow attacks and then the other nine with ten points of Focus, ten points of Perception, and seven points of Vitality.

With a fresh twenty seven points and a massive stockpile of attacks, I was ready for anything, even if I'd been forced to put Cark on the backburner for a bit to prioritize my team. I still had two fire attacks in any case so that wasn't urgent. Aside from the massive amount of wishes I'd spent the week granting, we also spent the entire time ass deep in combat training. Alden, true to his word, didn't rat us out, but he also kept his promise of watching us like a hawk, which to him apparently meant harsh and brutal training plans he custom tailored for us.

We could have turned him down, but it gave us a good excuse to interact with him, and a better excuse to continue our training and shore up our foundations a bit in combat. The week was a hellish exercise in persistence as we forced ourselves to follow various training regimens, some reasonable, like weight lifting and fighting constructs, and some insane, like being forced to run across precariously balanced sticks without stats or Skills.

He gave each of us separate tasks and we undertook them willingly, being forced to spar with new opponents daily to test what we learned, even when dog tired. With our Focus and dedication though, the last week had definitely shown results. We were all much stronger than we had been when it started, even if our Skills hadn't actually improved that much. Alden had helped us merge our Skillsets into our combat styles more holistically, developing trials that allowed us to use one skill at a time to accomplish a task outside the purview of that Skill until we learned to apply them in
disadvantageous situations.

After enough of the sessions we were able to use our Skills much more naturally and fluidly in combat, and had learned a ton about when to use them too, rather than just how. We had learned more in the last week than we had since becoming Ascendants, and I could tell without even seeing it that if I fought the me from a week ago, I would have crushed myself within the span of a minute. Honestly at this point I was looking forward to upgrading my DS Mastery and enchanting, because twenty four charges daily just wasn't enough.

My stockpile of daily attacks had been plenty when I first made the jump up to G rank, but over the last week I'd seen how much smoother I could really be when using my Skills, that kind of fluidity required a sort of ingrained repetition that I couldn't afford at the moment, so I'd also added studying Enchantment to my daily regimen. I'd carved out some time to Enchant at the end of every night with whatever points I had left. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get the Skill moving again, which was all I needed.

Of course, this was what the three of us had been doing, but Jessie had been undergoing much less training. Or rather our blonde team member had been her own specialized training at the Beast Lord Garden, working her way up the ranks as demanded. She did a few team battles with us, but mostly spent her time in E district, learning more about beast taming and helping heal injured animals. She somehow managed to come home exhausted most night, even with her Vitality, but she was clearly thrilled, and had even picked up Minor Beast Taming Mastery Skill.

She wasn't going to merge that one, because her eventual goal of saving her brother required her to have the life force related ability, and it was already insanely useful and powerful, but still, having the Skill made her current abilities that much more effective, so no one was going to complain about it. She'd been doing so well that Melinda had even arranged a personal card for her to use the lifts down to E district, which was convenient because I didn't have time to escort her there every day.

Training aside though, this week had also brought as closer to Alden, who I believed was growing to trust us much more than he had before. Even as he trained us we talked to him, and while he wasn't revealing groundbreaking secrets about the lives of the founders of the circus, he happily shared anecdotes about when the cavalcade was just starting out and the antics all the original performers got up to. After the full week of getting to know each other though, he finally made enough progress to confirm some things, and asked us to meet him in the same spot.

When we got back there Callie set up the field again, resonating her Stealth Skill, and putting us back into that undetectable state. Despite all the interacting, this was the first time Alden had asked us to head back here, so it was a reasonable assumption that he wanted to talk to us about something sensitive, which really only left one option. Callie smiled at the bearded man. "So, I take it you found something and are deciding to trust us? Or are you planning to share the recipe for the moonshine mash you've been working on."

"First of all." Said Alden, in an amused tone. "I do trust you, and yes I have information. Second of all, that recipe will follow me to the grave, and you can try to pry it from my cold dead fingers after that. I've been poking around while I had you kids doing your training. I had to oversee most of it, but some of the exercises didn't actually serve a purpose other than forcing you to do embarrassing shit so you would be distracted." He grinned at us. "Don't worry, I made sure to have someone record those for me when I wasn't there."

I bristled at that. "You fucker! I knew that crab walking thing wasn't a real training method. Don't tell me any of the others, it'll just piss me off. I'm happier reading some nonexistent meaning into everything I did. I suspect I might have learned a few things you didn't even mean to teach me, and I don't want to ruin it. Plus if I don't have details I wont need to punch you in the throat for the humiliation." I made sure my tone was jovial enough that he didn't take it as an actual threat.

I needn't have bothered. "You're a hundred years too early for that lad. But as you wish." Alden choked in voice rife with barely controlled laughter. "Anyway, as I was saying before you mouthy brats interrupted me with your rabble rousing, I've been looking into what you told me, and I managed to confirm at least some of it. Mel is being too careful for me to manage to uncover what she's doing directly but I managed to put together a series of clues and figure out when she's meeting with her benefactors."

"I don't like it..." Alden said sadly. "But I'm willing to bring you along to scout the meeting. Something about this feels off, and worst case I can keep you three in line, but if I bring you I want your word that none of you will interfere actively without my say so. Aside from not knowing exactly what's going on, I also don't want you ruining things if the meeting isn't what we think it is. I will stop you if you try to get in the way of legitimate Pavilion business, is that understood?"

His voice was serious enough that we knew there was no room for argument, and we all nodded. Callie confirmed it aloud as soon as she saw we were on board. "Agreed. We'll give you priority on when to move. All we want is to see these people. We don't need to act directly." I had ways of identifying others, so it wasn't necessary for us to wade into a fight in an inopportune moment. Not that we were afraid to wade in if he decided to intervene, but promising to stay back so we could get the information we were here for was fine. We could always attack later if needed.

The bearded man sighed in relief. "Good. I won't lie to you, I'm a bit worried about all this. Mel might be in over her head. I don't doubt she received plenty of assurances we would all be alright, and was probably even promised she would retain control, but she's a bit straightforward at the best of times. When she's dealing with her feelings for Cicero she's practically a bull in mid charge, and it wouldn't be hard to slip some sneaky terms by her. I like you kids well enough, but I'm not in the business of trusting most newcomers. I doubt whoever Mel is working with has intentions as benevolent as she probably thinks they do."

I winced at the reminder of learning that exact lesson from Cicero not too long ago. Callie, ever the focused member of our little band, got to the heart of the matter. "So when is this meeting taking place? It would be nice to have some time to prepare. Not that we're going to need it for a simple recon mission, but its nice to make sure of things before you go charging off into danger. Double check our equipment and so on." It was a pretty flimsy excuse. He probably thought we wanted to stock up on bombs or something. In reality I knew Callie was thinking about using wishes to make sure things shook out in our favor.

Alden gave her a suspicious look, but finally nodded with another sigh. "It's tomorrow night. I only managed to find out about it by tracking the movements of some of Mel's more loyal lackeys. That girl has a knack for inspiring her people, but she isn't always too smart about deploying them. Battle maniacs don't make good spies. I don't know exactly who the meeting is with, like I said, but I was able to put together its existence at least. As for the exact time, I know one of the people who will be there. We'll tail him to the meet."

With that laid out, we arranged a time the next night to meet up, and then said our goodbyes. None of us were stupid enough to spend the day training and getting our asses kicked before a possible huge confrontation. We all headed back up, calling Jessie home from the Beast Lord Garden to fill her in. We would be bringing the wolves along for this obviously. They were very stealthy when needed and would be a huge force multiplier, even if they had to hang back at the start. Once that was done we started to plan as best we could. I had the sinking suspicion that this wasn't just going to be a simple recon mission, and if it went sideways, we needed to be ready.

 

The preparations for the meeting we were crashing began the next day. Benny made the wishes after talking with Callie for a bit. It seemed like I was running into a wall on storing more than ten of any one kind of attack, and Benny was best able to supply a new type. Callie was thinking about trying to supply a stealth ability for the next try, but we figured experiments should be done when we didn't have so many important things on the line, so Benny paid for the wishes with five uses of his spider leg attack.

It was temporary, just like his was, but still a G ranked pair of extra sharp limbs was a damn useful thing to have in my back pocket, especially with my DS skills to modify it with. once that was done Callie pulled him aside and discussed the potential wishes we might need. Once he had a good idea of what we should do without my input mucking things up, he came back and got started. "Ok. So we talked it over and we have a few wishes for the meeting. Mostly environmental stuff to help us stay hidden."

I just raised an eyebrow, waiting. Seeing I had no questions he started with the first one. "Ok, first off I wish during the duration of the meeting, every possible clue that might reveal our presence would be masked, and by possible I mean as many as I can afford not every clue conceivable." He's obviously put a decent amount of thought into this, and one he said it, the usual purple flame licked across my vision.

Wish detected. Grant wish? After confirmation I got the rundown. Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 270 Perception, 219 Focus, 36 Impact. I whistled. That was a decent chunk of points, but that was good, it had been a modular wish, which was what I called the ones that were open ended and just applied the best possible version of the effect. More points meant more effect, and this many should hide us from plenty of accidental slips if we made any. Benny paid with the spider leg attack and I felt the growing charge in my body explode into the ether, altering the world around us.

Benny, meanwhile, seized up, falling to his knees in pain as the price was extracted. I panicked a bit, wondering why it was painful when Callie's hadn't worked like this, and then Benny gagged and vomited up a pool of molten gold the same color as the spider legs, which flowed across the floor and up my leg, funneling up my body and condensing into a small golden gear mark with a C in the middle near the other symbols.

Benny lay there for a minute, dry heaving and shuddering on the ground before staggering back to his feet and slumping back on the couch he'd been sitting on before he fell. "Well, that was deeply unpleasant. Sucks I have to do it four more times." He hacked a few more times and Jessie brought him a glass of water, pumping some life force into him to patch up any injury or exhaustion.

She rubbed his back for a while, imbuing her touch with green power. Her expression turned worried as she glanced up at us. "I don't know if doing these too close together is a good idea. That was pretty rough looking. I don't think he's actually injured, but it seemed draining." She frowned seriously. "I might be able to overcharge him enough to offset the drain though. I'll leave it up to you Ben, whatever you want to do is fine. I trust our fearless leader won't ignore her healer's recommendation?" She arched an eyebrow at Callie.

"Not at all." Callie said quickly, putting both hands up in a placating gesture. "If he doesn't think he can keep going we can wait. The meeting isn't until later tonight, so there's no rush. We can space these out to let him adjust. That really did look kind of rough." Callie's blue eyes cast a concerned glance at my previously shaking and drained friend. I'd have been worried too, but I knew from earlier wish sessions what Benny could handle when he put his mind to it. He would tell us if it was too much.

Sure enough, he shook his head. "I'm fine. I appreciate the worry, but Jessie's little pick me up did me a world of good. I can definitely keep going. I'll let you know if I need a break, but I want to get these out of the way so I have time to take a nap. I don't want to feel like this when we're heading to the actual meeting." He turned to me. "I wish that the enemy we'll be watching would be as unguarded as possible in their speech so we can learn their secrets more easily. Obviously I'll be paying with the spider legs again."

Wish detected. Grant wish? I hesitated this time before confirmation, but I trusted Benny to know his limits. Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 219 Focus, 36 Impact, 270 Perception. I noted that the stat distribution here was basically the same. I suspected those thirty six points of Impact were making up for quite a bit of lacking potency in the wish, but those two stats being used for essentially the opposite of the first wish made plenty of sense. Once again the purple electricity built and exploded out into the ether, leaving Benny choking on the ground.

This time he seemed less affected though. Jessie had kept him topped up and he was clearly in better shape despite still not enjoying the process. Once he was done he held up a hand, taking another drink from the water glass. "Ok, I don't need too long, but give me at least a minute. That was loads better, but it still sucked ass. You better fucking cherish these attacks, because no way am I ever doing this shit again."

I winced at his comment, and Callie finally stepped in. "Ok. That's enough. Switch attacks for the last three, Benny. Shane, you can hold ten of each type right? And he's only given you four of the density shifted triple and tranq blows. Use those instead. You can trade the other spider leg attacks for stats later if you want, but give yourself some time to adjust." MY friend grimaced but after that second try he was willing to make a change. He wasn't giving up, but switching to a different attack type wouldn't halt the wishes.

He sat up with a groan from where he'd been on hands and knees. "Fine." He said in a raspy voice. "I'll pay the last three with triple tranqs. Those will be the most useful anyway. Sharp limbs are great, but knocking people out is a good match for your style. I wish for a random escape teleport applied to me that will take me to a random place somewhere in the city if I come under attack." He paused. "Then, I wish for one for Jessie and her wolves, and one for Callie. I figure with Zeke there you should be fine if the worst happens, right?"

As before, the wish energy began to gather, and I confirmed it as I read over the stat requirements. Wish detected. Grant wish? Stat points sufficient. Requirements: 291 Might, 63 Fantasy, 270 Perception, 219 Focus, 35 Impact. I had been worried about granting three in a row, but it seemed as long as the wishes were made separately my power could queue them up like that. Benny and Callie were worth the same to transport, but Jessie, probably by virtue of bringing the wolves along, also cost two hundred Vitality, which I happily paid for.

I felt my power surge and discharge three more times, and each one pulled more and more from me. Granting big wishes was tough, and these were large. I was the one on the floor this time, and Jessie stepped up to infuse me with lifeforce, which really helped. Wishes took a lot out of me, but it was worth it. I looked up at the others. "Alright, that should be enough to keep us pretty safe once we're there. If we get into too much trouble I can slip away with Double Trouble probably. I have escape skills for this, plus Zeke watching my back."

Callie sighed, helping me up. "I guess. I'm worried about this though. I get not using one of the teleports on you, with your background you'll be the safest if push comes to shove. Still, I don't like it. The thought of leaving you behind doesn't sit right with me, even as a hypothetical." I pulled her into my arms, squeezing her tight as she laid her head on my shoulder, knowing that sometimes there wasn't anything to say to refute someone's fears, and that when I had moments like that, a hug was usually the most helpful response.

Personally I was just glad Jessie could bring the wolves with her. I hadn't been sure that would work until it did. Their Vitality connection and the fact that they weren't sapient was probably the main reason. It was still damn convenient for us. With the wishes out of the way for the day, there was only so much prep work I could do before tonight now. I told the others I was going to do some training and left them to their own devices, giving Callie another tight hug. She stayed to talk to Jessie about their day out, which had been postponed due to our insane training schedule.

I had a massive stockpile of attacks if I needed them, so I decided to work on upgrading some of the DS Mastery subskills. I'd need them all upgraded before I could get that Skill to intermediate. I decided the first skill upgrade I would focus on was Stone Limb. That skill had become much less useful over time because of the long buildup needed. Touching rock was fine, but touching rock for thirty seconds was just too big a liability mid combat to be useful.

I decided not to do too many of these, we weren't planning any combat tonight, but even with the wishes I wasn't stupid enough to burn all my enchantment charges before an operation. I settled on fourteen. That would leave me ten charges to work with, and literally dozens of attacks stored up to use them with. I placed my hand on the dirt in the training room, the track was made from the stuff. Then I triggered Stone Limb, straining the skill to make it form faster. It hurt my head but I managed to shave down the time from tens of seconds to only eight.

Of course, that wasn't fast enough, and it still hurt. So I repeated myself. Eight seconds to six, six to four, four to three, then to one. I finally got the cast time down to a second, and then I began perfecting that. I used the one second cast Stone Limb, then used it again, each time I got more and more proficient at it. The more I forced the skill into that shape, the less it hurt, and the more natural the changes became to the skill itself. One use, two, five, each one making it more and more complete until finally, the changes were permanent. Like a puzzle piece clicking into place, Stone Limb CHANGED.

I pressed a hand to the ground, triggering the skill normally with the last of the fourteen charges, and I grinned as the rock climbed my arm, officially snapping into place in a single second, and finalizing the change to the second of my subskills. Two down, plenty more to go, but it was fine. I'd take my time and optimize every skill for my new combat style. This wasn't just a task to do, it was an opportunity to customize the Skill to my exact needs, and I wasn't going to waste it. When DS Mastery upgraded, I planned for it to become an even more key part of my arsenal.

 

We set up on top of a building near the east end of G district to watch the meeting. We hadn't known where it was, but the guy we were following showed up early, so we had some waiting to do. We hid up on top of a building with Callie using her stealth field to cover us. The wishes should cover us even if something went wrong with that, but there was no use advertising that to Alden, plus it was more amusing to be able to talk during the wait instead of sitting in silence.

Sadly, nobody felt like chatting, we were all too tense, so we did end up just sitting around until the meeting started. It was easy to notice when that happened, because one second the blonde guy with the pointy beard was alone, and the next he was surrounded by a number of figured in pitch black robes with beaten bronze masks. I nudged Alden. "Any ideas where the hell they came from? Because I don't recognize them as any faction I've heard of, but my experience is limited."

The bearded man looked troubled, but shook his head. No, but that doesn't mean anything. One use costumes are often employed for meetings like this. Keeps people from being traced. All we can do is wait and listen to what they say, then maybe try to follow them." Of course, he didn't know about the wishes we'd set up to make sure someone here slipped. We would definitely get some clues.

The blonde guy, Marc, cleared his throat loudly, making it plainly visible that he wasn't comfortable here. "Good, you've arrived. There's a problem. Your agents aren't holding up their end. Ronnie the Beef was up to the task, but Way Crazy Wyatt is barely focused on shaking confidence in Cicero's leadership at all. He's too caught up in rampaging around and enjoying himself."

One of the figures made a disapproving sound. "As expected. It is simply not worth trusting such unreliable figured to advance our goals. I suspect a more visceral response is needed. Perhaps...unleashing the Wendigo?" His voice was wicked and cruel, reveling in the suffering he was proposing, and something gave me a very bad feeling about whatever he'd just suggested.

Not that it mattered. One of the other masked figures smacked him upside the back of his head. "Gods damn it Andy, we've been over this. That is NEVER a proportionate response to anything. Stop suggesting it. You don't even save it for times when it's hypothetically warranted. Last week you suggested we unleash the Wendigo on Darrel when he made us all chip in for the lunch bill. It's never going to happen."

Andy rubbed the back of his head, muttering under his breath. "I thought it was a good idea. Not my fault you guys are so wimpy about how you get things done. It would have totally worked too. I bet you not a single person would have been causing trouble for us if we unleashed the Wendigo."

The other robed figure raised a hand again and Andy shied back. The unnamed figured ground out. "Yes, because they would have been dead. Everything would have been dead. That's literally all the Wendigo is good for. There's a reason we keep it in a dark hole in the ground." He paused, clearly suspicious of something. "Have you been going down there to talk to it on weekends again? You know we told you to stop doing that."

The third unnamed figure sighed. "Enough, Paul. He's young, I'll talk to the boss about keeping him out of the pit. You're not wrong that it's a bad idea to be down there." His eyes swiveled to Andy. "And you, the next time you suggest we unleash the Wendigo for any reason other than some kind of war, I'm going to throw you in that hole yourself and you can try talking to it in person." He glared for a minute before turning back to the blonde man. "Apologies. You know how the newbies can be."

"As for the rest of it." The unnamed third figure said. "We aren't your babysitters. We already committed quite a bit of resources to this venture, helping Mr. Jack-tastic break through to E rank and then arranging for the Jerks to be shipped over. Getting them here through WCP channels without alerting any of our enemies was no mean feat, and we did so under the impression you would use the opportunities granted to assume control." That was interesting. I could only assume that Mr. Jack-Tastic had used some sort of elixir to make his breakthrough. I'd don that myself with my breakthrough to G rank, so I knew it worked as long as you hadn't used up your safe elixir percentage. They had taken a much more direct approach than expected.

Marc snarled. "We're TRYING, but they're incompetent. Cicero has been in charge for quite some time, and a vote of no confidence isn't something any of the factions in the circus are going to rally behind unless it comes at the right time. We need to prove him unfit, and your lackeys aren't getting the damn job done. I don't know what you need the circus for, but you wouldn't have been doing all this for nothing. You can't just bail at the last second."

Third figure shook his head. "That's where you're wrong. We approached Melissa because as a fringe element she was more amenable to working with us, but her very attempt to oust him will be sufficient pressure to leverage Cicero into an agreement if needed. We've wasted too much time and effort on this venture, and we're done. Figure this out with the resources we've given you, or we'll take another path to our objectives. Don't contact us again unless the job is completed or you're forfeiting the contract. But be warned. If you give up, you'll be responsible for repaying the resources used. That is a heavy bill."

Marc looked furious. I had expected him to pull back meekly, scared of the forces behind the robed men, but I had neglected to remember one very important thing. Marc was a member of the Starchaser Pavilion, and everyone there was a fucking lunatic. A red glow suffused the man as he began to grow. Marc's body shifted and changed until the formerly medium sized man was twenty feet tall, glaring down at the hooded figures. "You think I'm fucking scared of you chumps? We're not your dogs. We agreed to work with you as equals, if you think you can threaten the pavilion and get away with it you have another thing coming!"

His voice boomed across the street around us, driven by massive powerful lungs as he bellowed in rage and lifted a foot to slam it down on the nearest figure. The closest man to him, Andy, snorted and raised his hands, clouds of frost gathering to his palms as he prepared to receive the strike. Before I could register what was happening, Alden cursed and darted out of our concealment, leaping from the rooftop and smashing down among the three figures harder than should have been possible.

I watched ground crack beneath him and then saw the other three men stagger as something slammed into them, and I figured out exactly what Alden's power was. Gravity. Alden's ability was the power to effect gravity. I almost whistled. That was a hell of a power. In the end though I didn't have time. I glanced over to Callie. "Ok, I get why he didn't want to watch one of his get torn apart, because three on one is bad odds even for a pavilion member, but what are we supposed to do?"

"The deal was we wouldn't interfere without his permission. He specifically mentioned interfering with pavilion business." Callie said with a grimace. "We're supposed to stay out of it. If Alden can't handle this we can jump in, but for now stay in concealment. He seems to think he's strong enough to take all of us, so I doubt he'll have a problem with a two on three fight." She didn't sound any happier than I was, but she settled back in to watch, and I did the same. The wish would cover us enough not to be revealed unless we broke stealth.

I heard the unhappy growls of the wolves and grimaced. We might understand staying back, but the puppies weren't really ones for planning. We kept them in line, but it was still unfortunate. I focused back on the fight to take my mind off things. And damned if it didn't. Alden was tearing apart the three robed men, while Marc was standing back in shock watching his boss rip through them. Not literally mind you, there was no blood, but it was easy to see the integration of combat and ability in every one of his moves.

Alden's combat style involved lots of grappling. Joint locks, throws, even holds. But where a normal person would use their center of gravity and body weight for that, Alden seemingly blended his power into his fighting style completely. Throws involved smashing gravitational strikes, locks were assisted by vortexes of gravity pulling the limb in whichever way it was being twisted and holds crushed down with power of a plummeting mountain, pinning the men under an inexorable weight.

The ice hands that Andy had used had never managed to land as Alden swept under the outstretched grip and grabbed the man in a suplex, smashing him down with force multiplied exponentially by a powerful gravitational pull. Every action and motion was supported by his power, making it exponentially more effective, but the actual martial art at play was clearly an incredible polished combat style that would have been devastating even without it. It took Alden roughly a minute and a half to crush the three of them.

The other two tried to intervene, one using some kind of acid conjuration and the other some kind of golden augmentation energy, but nothing managed to stop the bearded man as he took them apart. Despite the amazing show though, that wasn't the biggest shock. We'd gone out of our way to wish for the opponents to slip up and reveal something, and then had. It was the third man, Paul, who used that golden energy. When he'd gone down, had lost his mask, and my eyes snapped to Callie's as we both recognized him. He was the obnoxious attendant from Sanctuary Hall. The one who had been yammering on about the Peace Lord as he brought us in to speak to the E ranker.

That meant we now knew who the faction backing the Jerks and trying to oust Cicero was. The ones working with the other Candidate. It was Sanctuary Hall. The healers were the ones behind all of this. I tried to puzzle through the potential fallout of this, and couldn't even begin to grasp it. I wasn't a politician, and even if I had been we'd never actually learned the ins and outs of the politics here beyond what we needed to know. This whole plan was a massive line of carefully arranged dominos and we were only able to see the last few to fall.

Alden was restraining the robed figures and turning to tell off the giant form of Marc, who was now literally shrinking back from the smaller man as he resumed his original size. I noticed a slight movement to one side and barely managed to call out a warning to Alden as a massive wave of black corrosive gas came pouring down the street, seemingly appearing from nowhere. The bearded man reacted fast, stomping down and smashing a depression in the ground where he and Marc could take cover.

The gas receded, and I saw Alden had shielded Marc's body with his own, his back scorched and twisted by the corrosion, though I was relieved to note he was still alive. Marc helped him to his feet. "Alden? Can you hear me? Come on boss man, don't black out, you need to stay conscious." The rest of us were already on the way down to help, and the wolves, Callie, Benny and I took up a defensive perimeter as Jessie put her hands on the bearded man and began to heal him. I didn't have time to watch the progress though, I was too busy staring hard at the series of robed figures emerging from the dark of the street. Looked like these assholes had brought backup.

 

There were six new robed figures, all wearing hammered bronze masks just like the ones on the other men. The one at the front, who based on position I assumed was responsible for the wave of corrosive black gas, turned to the downed figures. "Honestly. The three of you had one job. This is what happens when we let Andy go on jobs, so I own that one, but I expected better from you Paul. Honestly, can't even handle some nobody G ranker and an old man. I'm ashamed to belong to the same organization as the three of you."

I stared in horror at the casually chiding man, focusing in on him with a sinking feeling in my stomach as my Perception told me what my brain had been trying to deny. This guy was a fucking F-ranker. The others were all G rank, but this guy was hands down the most powerful person here. I felt my gut clench at the idea of trying to harm him. With my new tricks I MIGHT be able to manage something if it was one on one, but against eight G-rankers at the same time? We were fucked. No two ways about it.

I cleared my throat. "Well, seems like you folks have some HR stuff to handle. Personally I hate when other people sit in on peer reviews, so we'll just take our friends and go. Good luck to you all." I turned to try to leave, knowing I couldn't but at least being confident that our preparations could save my team. I was personally completely screwed, but those teleports would whisk them away before they had a chance to come to harm, so all I had to worry about was getting Alden out of here, and probably Marc since I doubted he would leave him.

Before I could take a step another wave of terrifying black gas circled around me and ripped a huge chunk of street out from in front of me, making it impossible to proceed. I gulped. Black gas wielding mask guy snickered a bit. "Sorry buddy, your pals went after one of mine. I can't have people spreading around that I let my people get attacked. Bad for my reputation you see. It's my job to protec-" His smug diatribe was cut off by a burst of flame as I unleashed one of my two stored fire attacks.

Mercy Kill, Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flames, Afterburner, hell I even tried to superimpose one of Benny's triple strikes on it, though I couldn't get it to work. Still, that was a blast of flame from Cark, who was middle to peak G-grade in pure Might, multiplied several times over and infused with vicious poison. It was literally the heaviest blow I'd ever thrown in my life, and the absolute explosion of aqua flame that consumed the whole street within twenty feet of where the man had been standing would have killed literally any G-ranker I had ever met expect maybe Abel.

Which only made it all the more heartbreaking as the flames receded and I saw the masked man standing only lightly singed in front of a crowd of much more badly burned but still alive G-rankers. I could almost feel the force of the glare from behind the mask. "That was rude. Here we were having a perfectly nice chat and you go and try to exterminate all of us. Granted, it was an impressive effort for a G-ranker. I have to say that might have even been enough to barely cross the rank gap. Not enough to hurt me mind, but I've met F-ranked fighters that would have worked on, so you can die proud."

I gaped, until I remembered that raw numbers weren't the only factor in play. The Impact difference was a full twenty points, and this guy probably wasn't too early in the F-ranks either. I'd took my biggest shot and it hadn't done shit to him. I was barely standing at this point, and it occurred to me that using my biggest punch might have been a bad plan. I'd panicked and tried to sucker punch them, and I was pretty sure that blast would have killed the G-rankers if the leader hadn't protected them, but now I was exhausted and vulnerable.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked down to see Alden stepped forward, cracking his neck. "A good try lad, but you're far too low in stats to fight up a rank, even with...whatever that was. Despite being powerful, that was ultimately a G-ranked attack, so the effectiveness was massively diluted. It's possible to fight up ranks, but it's nearly unheard of to drop a higher ranked opponent in a single blow. It's all about accumulation. I'll engage him, can your lot hold back the riffraff?"

I nodded, gesturing to Jessie to dispatch the wolves. Marc was back on his feet and Jessie and Benny joined Callie in attacking the G-ranked robed figures. Unfortunately, they had emergency escape effects on them. If any of them received what would be even a solid blow, they would be gone. If it happened to Jessie we'd lose not just our healer, but the wolves too. Despite being exhausted, I decided to help out. I triggered another shadow attack, infusing it with Flurry of Blows. The blades of darkness ripped from the ground right in the middle of the group of figures, causing them to scatter.

I would have liked to use more of my DS modifiers, but unfortunately I'd wasted way too many charges improving my stone limb. The others started attacking the figures as soon as I disrupted them, and Alden blitzed forward to engage the leader directly. He rocketed across the street, smashing into the man like a wrecking ball with his shoulder. It was a monstrous attack, on a level it was hard to even contemplate taking, and I was absolutely sure that it surpassed the threshold of a thousand points of force.

The leader took a step back with a small grunt at the hit, but Alden took advantage of the moment of retreat and began his attack. Whatever this man's stats were, I was pretty sure Alden had more Might. He just wasn't as fast as the bearded man. I knew everyone had a few dump stats, and Might must have been one of his. The shorter fighter had stuck close, and was taking advantage of a combination of a massively more advanced martial arts knowledge and the perfect fusion of that knowledge with his ability to contend with the robed boss.

Lots of grappling and locks when possible, but unfortunately the enemy knew his own weaknesses too. He'd coated his body with that black gas, and Alden's skin was being eaten away as he attacked. He didn't stop, just kept up his assault, ignoring the damage even as a green glow sprung up and started to repair the damage. While his Vitality wasn't enough to offset a higher ranked attack, it seemed like Jessie had loaded him up on life force. It must have been burning away his charge at an insane rate, but it WAS healing him.

The other fighter wasn't too high Vitality either from what I can see, most likely specializing in Creation and maybe Perception. This guy was pure battlefield control, which with a rank advantage would have been devastating without Alden to soak up his attention, but despite his confidence, our bearded friend wasn't exactly winning this fight as much as he was surviving it.

Alden grunted as he traded blows with the more powerful warrior, barking over his shoulder. "Damn it boy, get your people out of here, I'm having more trouble than expected, I can't have you damn fools distracting me. Take Marc with you. " Despite that, he didn't look surprised, and I realized that he'd always been planning to lose. He was just buying us time so we could get away. Before my eyes, the wounds started to close slower and slower. He was using holds to muscle the other man into place for some brutal strikes, holding him down by using the gravitational joint locking move I'd seen earlier, but keeping his hands on the other man was taking its toll, and he was almost out of Jessie's energy.

I triggered a heal burst on myself and then another one aimed at Alden, which shockingly worked, showing that I didn't need touch to heal others when using one of my stored heals. I felt my body flood with energy to combat the weakness as Alden started to regain momentum. I tried to see if I could give him some of my stored abilities, but other than the healing none of them worked. I supposed because the healing was always meant to be able to effect both the self and others.

I decided to try to take out the other figures so maybe Alden could leave with us. I could probably at least delay the robed bastard that long. As I turned I noted that Jessie and the wolves were gone. Their teleports were probably triggered. Callie and Benny were working together and had avoided getting tagged with any solid blows, even managing to take down two of the five. The original three were still restrained and I jumped in to help, five on three not seeming like that bad of odds compared to the other fight. I kept an eye on Alden though, so I could throw him more heal bursts if needed.

I dropped a Touch of Tears and Consecration of Flame combo on my cane, then triggered Leaf on the Wind. All of them were longer term attacks that would last me a while, so I didn't have to worry about burning charges. I couldn't wait to upgrade my damn Enchanting Skill so I had an extra twenty four a day to play with. I leapt up into the air, sailing over the heads of Callie, who was engaging two of them without problems, towards the spot where Benny was being battered by the three others. As I came down I swung the cane like a sledgehammer, spiking down on one of them with a triple damage density shift blow I got from Benny, smashing down on a collarbone like a descending star.

There was a loud snap as the blow connected, snapping the thick bone and driving the robed figure to his knees. I saw him try to gather a cloud of mist to form some sort of object, but I stepped off the air with a Cloud Step and stomp kicked the bastard in his masked face, knocking him out cold before I landed lightly. I had three charges left and my head was starting to hurt from spamming them, but I had enough presence of mind to check on the downed man. The poison fire was hurting him, but not enough to kill him.

I heard a shout of warning and whirled to check what had happened when I noticed a glowing gold sledgehammer the size of a horse appear before me and smash into me hard. I was sent flying away from the downed combatant and smashed into a nearby building, my body cracking the wall. I looked up to find that Benny had taken the momentary lapse to take down one of his opponents, but Callie had been hit hard enough to trigger her teleport and the last of her own opponents had ganged up on him from behind.

He'd taken a hit and yelled a warning before being ported away, leaving me alone with what felt like a broken arm and shoulder and two opponents left. Meanwhile Alden was getting his ass kicked, and I dropped a healing burst into each of us to help. Sadly it was too late, as Alden missed a block and got a massive hole burned in his side. The whole burst went to keeping him alive and he had no way to defend from the next blow.

The leader was cackling like a lunatic as he charged up some kind of gas bomb, ready to kill Alden and probably finish me off, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A motion, so subtle I almost missed it, preceded a fist the size of a fucking train car smashing headlong into the F-ranker and sending him careening down the street like a skipping stone in a pond. "Well now." Said a calm, thoughtful voice. "I'm afraid I have to ask."

A man stepped from the shadows, and I couldn't fight the grin that split my face as I recognized him. He narrowed his eyes behind his distinctive rabbit mask and glared coldly after the now rising F-ranker. The calm and thoughtful tone melting away into a simmering cauldron of white hot rage. "Exactly hose fucking teacher do you think you're putting your hands on?"

 

I'd met Abel a few times now, and every one of them he'd come across as a carefree, somewhat loony man, who just did his own thing and didn't much care what anyone thought. He was friendly, polite, and most likely laughing at you behind that mask even if you couldn't tell, but not in a malicious way. Seeing him here like this though, I didn't see any of those things. The mask was still a black rabbit, it should have looked ridiculous. It should have been impossible for him to be intimidating.

But he WAS intimidating. Despite being a G-ranker standing before a higher ranked enemy and a group of similarly ranked thugs, Abel Castleton wasn't losing out to any of them in sheer momentum of presence. It wasn't Impact, he only had the same twelve I did based on how he felt, this was something less definitive. An aura of barely restrained violence, of bloodlust and the willingness to do harm, as well as the absolute certainty that harm WOULD be done if he chose to inflict it. Standing in front of Abel was, almost ironically given his prey like mask, like standing in front of an enraged predator on the hunt.

The version of him I'd seen in the Labyrinth had been kind of scary, but it was more wild. He'd been a big blunt instrument. Maybe with some edge, like a heavy axe, but his presence had been impersonal. He was dangerous and violent, but it was just a fact. Water was wet, the sky was blue, and Abel was going to fuck you up if you gave him a reason. This was much less universal. Abel wasn't radiating the ability to fuck up everyone, he was radiating the INTENT to murder these robed assholes, and that intent was much more terrifying for how controlled and sharp it was.

There was a shifting of stone in the background as the leader stood up from the rubble of the building he hit with Abel's first blow. Even behind his mask, I could tell that he was seething, and he staled back down the street to take his place between the last two members of his entourage, and among the unconscious and restrained bodies of the other six. As one might expect, there was barely restrained fury in his stance as well, though not the amount of fear that I felt was warranted here.

That wasn't exactly a shock though. Abel's reputation wasn't exactly something universal down here. People knew him, but he wasn't at the front of everyone's mind after so long away. Most people just thought of him as the wacky sausage seller. They had forgotten exactly who Spruce Bunny used to be, but judging by the faces peeking out of windows in the surrounding buildings, there were more than a few of them about to getting a stern reminder today.

"How dare you?" The leader spat. "Do you know who I am? What I am capable of? How dare some pissant G-ranker put his hands on me. Do you morons even comprehend what the rank difference is? I might as well be a god down here. How dare you ignorant plebians sully my robes with your filth, inflict your absurd delusions of relevance on me in the discharging of my duties? I'm going to show-"

There was a flicker, and another train sized fist smashed into him like an oncoming locomotive. He didn't go flying this time, having dug his feet into the concrete beneath him. He was still forced back easily a dozen feet, tearing a long furrow in the ground as he glared through the beaten bronze, nearly panting with rage. Abel just glared at him, so angry it was almost palpable. "Are you done? Because I have to say, the 'you're all ants to me' monologue is hardly original, and I can't begin to tell you how annoying it gets after the first few times you hear it."

The leader sputtered with fury, so angry he had to take a second to form coherent words. "I am PHANTASM you rodent. I've walked this world for decades, wreaking havok and inflicting misery on my enemies. To think to subdue me, especially with a rank difference." He reached up, removing the mask to show a wild eyed man with pale features and green and purple hair. "I'll enjoy crushing you, seeing the humiliation and shame in your eyes when I murder your so called teacher right in front of-"

And then Abel was gone. No. Not gone. Somewhere else. He'd used that weird spatial fluidity to step across the intervening distance in a single motion, appearing right in front of Phantasm and his cronies. Phantasm reeled back, eyes wide as he threw up his hands, a wave of corrosive black gas swallowing the area in front of him. Rather than try to break it with force, Abel simply stepped to the side and kind of...swerved. It was hard to understand as it was happening. I could only assume he'd created a sort of half moon shape of spatial lubricant and stepped into it, because in a flash he'd looped around behind the other man.

A fist smashed into Phantasm from behind, and it hit as if it was the size of a bus, but due to Abel's ability completely avoided any intervening space. It kind of made my head hurt just watching it. I knew that even if Abel was punching him through a single fist sized hole in a wall, he could still land that same titanic blow without damaging the wall around his hand, it wasn't a size changing power after all. The fist crashed into Phantasm, shoving him forward into his own corrosion, which he hurriedly dispersed into wisps of mist as he caught himself.

Unfortunately his footing was unsteady, and he caught himself in an unbalanced, forward leaning state. Abel swerveds again, and drove his fist up as he appeared. Due to his forward stumble and momentum, it almost looked like Phantasm threw himself onto Abel's fist chin first. The ascending fist exploded up from under the falling man with the force of a plummeting mountain, and I heard a sharp crack as the hand made contact.

Then Abel proceeded to beat him. It wasn't flashy, or awe inspiring. It was brutal. Phantasm didn't even have a chance to react. Where Alden had been barely managing to exploit openings and weaknesses, Abel was methodically hammering every weak spot the other man had. Not just obvious ones either. Each blow set up the next, and the one after, creating openings that hadn't been there and exploiting them before Phantasm even knew they were there.

It wasn't a power difference, as much as it looked like one. Oh, granted, Abel's Might was probably in the higher end of G-rank, and I imagined he had a dozen Skills to improve and heighten physical damage, but that was irrelevant. I think even with my strength he probably could have managed it. He could see exactly what the other man was going to do and each move was designed to restrain Phantasm before he could get a speck of momentum.

The purple and green haired man tried to kill him too, multiple times, but he could never bring his power to bear for more than short bursts, because Abel was ringing his bell hard enough to make conjuring any significant amount of concentration impossible. The worst part was I was pretty sure Abel could have killed him with the first blow, but he didn't. He DESTROYED him. Every blow broke something or caused excruciating pain, and Abel just kept hammering away.

The others tried to help, though one of them died pretty quickly, his head melted off by a burst of black gas Abel effortlessly avoided. I felt my stomach turn at the sight. He wasn't the first person I'd seen die, but even the head exploding in the underground arena hadn't been quite as gruesome as this. The rabbit masked man killed the other one with a sharp punch to the chest, hitting him so perfectly that I only realized he'd actually stopped the mans heart when the body fell over, seemingly undamaged.

Even then, he didn't stop. Phantasm became less and less able to resist, his attempt to fight back wilder and more violent, but none of them touched Abel, despite the horrible corrosion damage to the street around them, and the few times I saw him try to target Alden from a distance Abel attacked hard enough to force him to reorient. Eventually the other man was lying on the ground, seriously injured, even his Vitality overcome by the sheer amount of damage inflicted despite lower ranked wounds not being as effective.

He stared up at Abel in horror, blood bubbling from between his ruined lips as his eyes shone with fear and pleading. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't know someone like you was here. Please. I'm with Sanctuary Hall, please don't kill me. We can pay you! We can give you healing, resources, anything you want. You don't need to do this." His voice was choked and labored, his eyes streaming tears, but credit to him, he didn't try to threaten or bully Abel. I think he could tell as well as I could that it wouldn't work.

Abel just stared down at him from behind his mask. The fury was still there, but it wasn't hot anymore, it was cold, and I felt the icy chill of death radiating off him as his voice rang out, a single clipped syllable with such a frigid hate radiating through it that it scared me just listening to it. "No." Then his foot lashed out like a striking snake, catching Phantasm's head at a very specific angle and twisting it along the rotation of his neck, snapping it and killing him instantly. Abel stared down at the body for a moment, breathing heavily, and I could almost so the bloodlust inside him clawing to get out.

But instead, he took a long, slow breath, and it all just...vanished. The anger, the hate, the violence, it all melted away like that ice had been exposed to the bright summer sunshine, and as it did,Abel pretty much transformed. Between one breath and the next, the terrifying predator vanished, and Spruce Bunny, the friendly sausage seller, was back. His shoulders drooped, his smile became more friendly, and a dozen other imperceptible things shifted, turning him into a completely different person in the blink of an eye. I blanched. If anything, that was the scariest thing he had done tonight, and I'd just watched him literally beat a higher ranked Ascendant to death with his bare hands over the course of several minutes.

He shot me that same friendly smile from when I'd been to the sausage cart. "Well, hello there! Sorry I seemed to have missed your friends. I appreciate the effort you went through to help my teacher." He cut a sardonic look at where Alden was laying, healed up from that least heal burst after being left alone for so long, but obviously absolutely exhausted as he lay on his back, gasping for breath. "The old man is a bit of a busybody, but he dotes on his students, and it's always good to see that kind of loyalty repaid."

Casually sauntering over to where the bearded man was wheezing on the ground, Abel knelt down, looking into the eyes of the exhausted man with a grin. "Just can't help sticking your nose in everyone else's business huh Alden? What exactly did Mel do this time? You're too old and careful for me to believe this is your fault." Alden didn't answer and Abel rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll ask her myself." Alden's eyes widened, and mine along with them, as Abel extended a hand and pulled him to his feet. "I suppose it's time to go home."