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

[Malcolm Tent]

The next morning was surprisingly quiet. I'd gotten so used to things being busy and frantic, but with everything taken care of, I almost felt like we were in the calm before the storm. I woke up slowly, smiling down at Callie's peaceful face. I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, my smile widening as she grumbled and slapped at my hand.

Her brow furrowed slightly, but she didn't wake up. I leaned down and kissed her forehead gently before sliding out of bed and walking to the doors of our balcony.

The air outside was crisp and refreshing, still with that morning chill, and the silence around me was heavy on air. Oddly, I didn't feel the need to break it. More often than not, the silences I dealt with on mornings like this felt oppressive, but this one was different. Harmonious, almost.

Above us, I watched the aurora dance in the sky, visible even more vividly in the early morning, before the sun had risen. I was completely immersed in the sight, and almost missed the movements behind me, but it became clear who was moving when a familiar arm wrapped around my waist as Callie tucked herself under my arm.

"Sorry if I woke you." I said shortly. It felt almost sad to shatter that peaceful silence.

She just shrugged. "Hard to sleep." She said idly, staring up at the aurora. "Just one more day. It'll be weird sleeping alone tonight."

"Your rule." I said with a wry grin. "I'd be happy to scrap it.

Snorting, she shook her head. "Not mine. My mom's. She's superstitious about the weirdest things. But it makes her feel involved when I listen to her, and that's important. Speaking of important, I need you to do the once over of the venue. Make sure everything is up to snuff. I have to get my dress fitting double checked."

"You haven't changed even slightly over the past couple months." I pointed out. "You haven't even gained muscle because we weren't working out on the trip."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "When will you learn to let me have my quirks? Measure twice, wear once. That's a known thing in fashion. Bethy told me that."

"Then she lied to your face." I laughed. "That's a known thing in CARPENTRY. It's measure twice, cut once, and that saying is about literal wood beams." She looked unimpressed, so I rolled my eyes and gave her a quick peck. "Oh fine. Yes dear. I'll check on the venue."

Beaming at me, she gave me a tight squeeze. "Shane…I just wanted to thank you. I know this has been a pain. I've been going out of my mind with worry. It just feels like…I have to get this perfect. This is the first time the world will be seeing us together as a married couple. I want everyone to know that we're a team, that we support each other and have each other's back."

I could feel what she wasn't saying. "Is this still an insecurity thing?" I reached down to put my finger under her chin, raising her head to look me in the eyes. "You, Calliope Reynolds, are amazing. I was in awe of you from the moment I laid eyes on you. I'm lucky to have found you, and anyone who thinks you're not good enough, or are using me, or whatever crazy ridiculous thing you've convinced yourself people will think, is an idiot, and I will strike them violently about the head and body with my magic stick."

That threw her off enough that she burst out laughing. She was used to my support and adoration, and she just thought I was biased, but the unexpected joke had jarred her out of her funk. She laid her head against my side and closed her eyes, smiling peacefully. "I love you."

"I love you too." I said without hesitation. "And I always will. Now, if the wedding being perfect means that much to you I'll make it happen, so I have a venue to vet. Sadly, that means I can't make you homemade cinnamon buns for breakfast like I'd planned." Her jaw dropped in outrage as I dipped back, avoiding her grab for my shirt. "I'm sure future you appreciates your sacrifice thanks bye!"

I laughed maniacally as I bolted out of the rooms, ignored her joking cries of faux anguish at the thought of missing a home cooked breakfast.

About halfway down the hall, I ran into Benny, who was coming out of his own room. "Whoa there." He said with a laugh. "Where are you going in your civvies?" He gestured to my sweats and t-shirt. I'd slipped on my mask but hadn't bothered with my armor for the same reasons I hadn't needed it the other day.

"Benny!" I said happily. "Congratulations, you're being conscripted."

He grimaced. "Am I joining the army again? Because that was way less fun than you made it sound.

"You're so whiny." I said teasingly. "You made me join the army Shane. This tournament is hard Shane. I can't survive swimming in that volcano Shane, I'll die. You have absolutely no sense of adventure, you know that?"

He shot me a deadpan look. "Where is the adventure in having to help set up your wedding? You're just using me for free labor."

I threw and arm over his shoulder. "This is all about mindset. You don't 'have to' help me set it up. You 'get to' help me set it up. Or else. Just look for the silver lining. These are useful and important skills you can use to plan your own wedding someday."

"Except I'm not a Wyndham, so I won't need to make such a big fuss." He groused.

I just snorted. "Your girlfriend is elvish nobility. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you ain't seen nothing yet."

He frowned deeply. "I really wish that didn't make sense. Damn you."

"It's ok bud." I said consolingly. "That's a problem for future Benny. Present Benny is going to be so damned busy he won't be able to worry about it." I paused, looking up at the driver of the shuttle I'd just walked us up to. "Harmony Hall please."

Benny blinked, looking around in shock. "Shit, you distracted me. Come on, I can't even get breakfast?"

"You can eat when you're dead." I said mercilessly. "Or when my work is done, either is fine."

He glared at me sulkily. "Despot. Fine. But only because tomorrow is the big day and Callie has been going out of her mind with the planning. We should take some of the work load off her mind so she can enjoy things more."

"Agreed." I said with a sigh. "That's mostly why we're doing this. She needs a chance to relax a bit before the wedding so she won't be all burnt out."

We chatted for the rest of the tide, and despite our back and forth, I could tell my best friend didn't mind getting sucked into things. I considered bringing up Celine again, but I knew Callie and I had taken this step earlier than most recursion aside. I wasn't going to poke him about something that might make him genuinely uncomfortable, at least not too much.

I was pretty sure my talk with Zeke and the wedding itself had put me in a weird headspace about the whole thing.

Finally, we arrived at the venue, and I thanked the driver (not the same guy who had weirded me out the day before) and hopped out, excited to take in the place where I'd be getting married.

Sure enough, when we disembarked, I was awestruck. We'd rented a sort of garden spring gazebo in the center of Wintervale. While most of the place was green and relatively warm, the spring had collected all that frost and cold and condensed it into a single area. A small black pond sat in the center of the garden, with the gazebo behind it.

An ice bridge led over the pond, formed of black frost. The gazebo was clean and peaceful looking, if small, and the garden around the pond was a cascade of gorgeous flowers, growing up and around rows of intricately carved seats. I could see engravings of animals and beautiful scenes carved into the dark wood.

I'd expected the orange and black plants to be ugly, but to my surprise the vibrant starbursts of color among the deep black plants homogenized with the black ice and the pond, and the orange fairy lights hanging from the gazebo tied the whole thing together shockingly well. Even the grass was black. I could see some of the flowers Jessie had mentioned, but instead of arrangements it looked like they'd planted them and let them grow over the seating.

"Damn." Said Benny in an impressed tone. "This looks better than expected. I was kind of on the fence about the color scheme, but it looks good."

I smiled wryly. "Same here. It's weird, I think she decided to do orange partly because of the house back in Rajak. Like a nod to where we came from. But it seemed like such a terrible choice to me. I kind of get it now."

"You say that." He smirked. "But you don't have to wear a completely orange dress. Celine was NOT pleased, though she obviously didn't make too big a fuss. I think once she sees all this she won't be as unhappy. Lucky we only need orange ties."

Laughing, I resumed my circuit, taking in the details and double checking everything Callie wanted to make sure of. The gift bags, custom invitations included, were set out, the plating was done on the big fancy tables behind the gazebo (though none of the food was out yet obviously) , and there was a stage set up for the band (because DJs were tacky apparently).

All in all, everything was where it was supposed to be. Oddly, the more I confirmed, the more uneasy I got. My sense of peace from the morning was slowly eroding, and I wasn't sure why. I used my Eye of Revelation on everything, making sure there was no poison or traps or hidden weapons caches, I checked all the staff I saw and didn't notice an issue, I just couldn't figure out what was bothering me.

Eventually I just shoved it down. I was here for Callie, and if something went wrong I'd handle it, but for now, I was going to make sure this went as perfectly as possible. I owed her that much, and so much more. She deserved to have this day go just as perfectly as she wanted, even if the insecurity was a little silly. I grimaced as that pushed me back into the worry spiral, putting me back at square one.

"Hey." Said Benny casually. "You still have wishes for today right?" I glanced at him, and he grinned. "I know you're distracted, but we might as well get them out of the way." He reached into a pocket and flipped me a D-rank chit. "Credit for your thoughts?"

I rolled my eyes, but I was glad he was here. He always knew how to distract me. Plus,seventy Fantasy would put me over ten thousand, and milestones like that felt important.

Benny wished for seventy Might (putting HIM over ten thousand) and traded for the Fantasy I needed as we got back into the shuttle. We'd confirmed everything and now had the rest of the day to kill. I wasn't sure if it would be over in a flash or drag on forever, given how nervous I was.

As we took off, I looked back down at the gazebo, trying to pinpoint what was bothering me. Try as I might though, nothing was coming clear. Reaching out for Callie, I sent her a supportive burst of love through the bond, getting one back, and that helped me calm down. The last errand was out of the way. Tomorrow was my wedding. It was almost here.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke up alone. I didn't feel particularly strongly about that. No, loneliness was not on my list of emotions. The cold, gnawing dread was up taking up most of my emotional bandwidth. It was so pervasive it took me a minute to realize I hadn't woken up on my own, I'd been helped along by a knock on my door. Or rather, Benny's door, Celine and Callie had switched rooms so we'd all have somewhere to stay.

"Hey man, you awake?" Asked my best friend as he came into the room with a cup of hot cocoa and a plate full of food. "I figured you could use some food.

I grunted, sitting up, and gave him a grateful nod as I took the meal. I forced myself to chew, despite my stomach being a rioting mess and the bacon tasting like ash.

Like I'd told Zeke. I didn't have cold feet. I couldn't wait to marry Callie. No, the problem was that I was terrified SHE would rethink marrying ME. This girl was way too good for me. She was smart and beautiful and perfect and I was a lazy battle junkie with daddy issues.

Benny raised a brow at me. "You certainly seem to have your head on straight. Steady as a rock. I'm surprised, you usually freak out when you're doing something big. I guess you've grown up a lot."

"What are you, fucking insane?" I snapped at him. "I'm about to puke. My heart is hammering like an automatic rifle and palms are sweating for some weird reason. How am I supposed to regulate that? What if it happens during the ceremony? What if the ring slips off and she leans down to get it and I accidentally knee her in the face and her nose breaks and she leaves me forever-"

He covered my mouth with his hand, looking appalled. "Shit man, you buried that crazy in a shallow grave. My mistake. Luckily, I come bearing more gifts than just food." He reached into his pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to me.

Taking it, I opened the note to find a short, succinct message. 'I love you, idiot. Calm down.' I laughed, folding it up and putting it in the pocket of my pajama pants.

"I can't believe I took the under." He said with a disgusted sigh. "Almost two years at this and you only managed a decent poker face. Bastard. Seems like that helped though. Let's try this again. Pushing down any insane panic spirals about elaborate farcical comedies of errors ruining your wedding, how are you feeling, you absolute moron?"

I patted my pocket, closing my eyes as I pictured the note again, and laughed quietly. "Sorry." I said as I opened them. "I'm good. She does know me well. Did you see her? Did she seem ok?" I reached for my bond, getting a pulse of adoration and excitement, which I returned in force, but nothing specific.

"I didn't." He said. "Celine brought me that. I love how your wedding means my girlfriend doesn't sleep in our room. If I'd know being best man meant having to bunk with your big ugly ass, I'd have let Zeke do it."

I gave him a sympathetic look. "Jealousy is such a petty emotion." I said kindly. "But don't worry, we're only nineteen. I'm sure you'll grow into your features someday. Until then, try to control your envy at my refined and glorious features." I framed my chin with a finger and a thumb like a check mark and grinned cheesily.

"No wonder you managed to form a Path so early." He said pityingly. "You've completely lost touch with reality."

Shrugging, I winked at him. "Maybe it's the air up here. It gets thin at this altitude. You wouldn't know about that though, would you?" I never let him forget my current one inch height advantage after Callie traded me an inch for a wish.

"I'll let that pass because it's your wedding." He said with narrowed eyes. "But starting tomorrow you better watch your ass."

We both laughed, and I pulled him into a huge. Benny always knew when I needed to banter and let off steam. "How about you?" I asked when I let go. "You ready? Got the ring?" I'd handed it to him last night, and if he'd lost it I was going to hyperventilate.

"I'm not an idiot." He said with an exasperated sigh. He patted his pocket. "It's right here." He froze. "Wait, where did it go?" He patted his pockets frantically. "Shit, I swear I just had it…You're not buying this at all are you?" His panicked expression gave way to a toothy grin. "I thought you might be nervous enough to believe me."

I rolled my eyes. "Luckily I know you well enough to expect your poorly timed and amateurishly executed attempts at humor. You should talk to Serah. I'm told she's the funniest angel in her whole tower."

He burst out laughing. "She does crack me up sometimes. But it's a bit hit or miss. She pulls off most of her jokes because of the deadpan delivery, and I just don't have it."

"I shudder to think what she's teaching Bethy." I said with a terrified expression.

"Speaking of, she seemed awfully excited to be a bridesmaid. It was sweet of Callie to ask her. Maria really appreciated it too."

I smiled fondly. "Yeah, she's sweet like that. Though speaking of Maria, what's up with her and Jessie. They break up or something? They haven't really seemed to be interacting much, I was expecting them to hang out once we got back."

"They were never really together." He shrugged. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder sometimes, and sometimes it just puts distance. They decided to just be friends. Jessie was telling me about it the other day. They're just doing different things with their lives. Not everyone has a fairytale romance with their first girlfriend."

I shot him a withering look. "Dude. You're dating an ACTUAL elf princess."

"She's not a princess." He said quickly. "But fair point. Anyway, they're still friends, just not pursuing anything romantic, so it won't be awkward."

"Up to them." I shrugged. "I kind of get it. Long distance is hard enough for established couples. Trying to start something that way would be rough." I stood up, grabbing the bag with my suit in it and stepping into the bathroom to change. "Man, I thought being so sure of this would mean I wouldn't be as freaked, but if anything being so committed to the idea is making the pressure heavier."

I finished changing and stepped out, cracking my neck and spreading my arms wide. "So, how do I look?"

He shrugged. "Maybe half as good as I do. Which is still ten times better than usual."

"Remind me to replace your mirrors." I said with a mock sneer. "Apparently they're all the funhouse kind that Cicero uses at the circus."

He gave me a knowing smile. "You know we're going to have to quit stalling eventually." He said in a surprisingly kind tone. "There's nothing to be scared of. She's crazy about you, and it's not like this will really change anything. You're basically newlyweds anyway, you're so into each other it's sickening."

I laughed, pulling him into another hug. "Thanks man. You're right. Let's go."

We slipped out of the room, taking a specific hallways so we didn't run into Callie and climbing into a shuttle. The ride to the venue was shockingly quick, and when I arrived, the usher led me to the gazebo where I would be waiting.

We were early, by a substantial degree. Most of the seats were empty, but my mom and Amelia were already there. "Shane!" Callie's mom said happily. "You look so handsome!" She stepped up the adjust my tux, then adjusted it back a second later before nodding in confirmation. "Are you ready?"

"A little shaky." I admitted. "I'm worried she won't show up. I mean, I know she will but what if she doesn't, what if she dec-" Benny's hand covered my mouth again.

"Let's not get him started." He said with a laugh. "He's fine, and he'll be more fine when she gets here. Is everything ready?" He turned to my mom, who was standing off to the side in an orange silk dress, beaming proudly at me.

She brushed the question off with a snort. "Obviously. "I'm not half assing my baby's wedding. Our seating is all lined up, bridal party and groomsmen are aware of their places, caterer has already delivered the food, flowers are out, gift bags are ready, cake is here, photographer is standing by, the wolves are dressed in little outfits, and we nixed the doves because we were pretty sure they would get eaten."

"Where's the ring?" Asked Jessie as she arrived. "I want to give it to Randall before the ceremony, we have his pillow all set up."

Benny fished in his pocket. "I got it. Best man holds the ring until the ring bearer gets it. Or ring bear, I guess." He shot me a reproachful look. "Was the bad pun really necessary. You could have had Callie's half brother do it."

"Randall is adorable." I said in a dignified voice. "Plus Eric is too young. That ring is worth more than this entire star cluster. Cass is out flower girl though."

Jessie beamed. "I picked out the cutest petals for her to use. They burst into flames when they touch the ground. But like…not hot flames. Orange ghost fire. It's going to be very tasteful, and not arsonisty at all."

"That's good to hear." I said dryly. "Callie was very clear about how much fire the wedding was allowed to be on. Which is none. She's against it."

"I know." Said Mel as she stepped into the gazebo, Abel following behind her. "I tried to convince her to let me do a fire dance, but she said it's too dangerous. Something about G-rankers being so flammable I might ignite them from a distance by accident. So insulting. Security is standing by." She told my mom. "The last sweep came up clean."

I raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you two were helping out with that? I appreciate the assist. And thanks again for the manpower mom."

"Of course sweetie." She said happily, fixing my jacket exactly the same way Amelia had and actually messing it up worse. Her hands came up to grip my face. Or mask at least. "Look at you. I wish you're take this thing off for the ceremony. I'm surprised Calliope didn't insist."

I shrugged. "She knows it's a safety issue. Plus I think it looks good. It's my brand."

We talked for the next hour or so, double checking everything as guests began to trickle in. It was crazy seeing the mix of old friends and new, seeing powerful E-rankers we'd grown up hearing about next to people we were friends with and had fought with side by side. The whole wedding had a surreal vibe to it, without even touching on how crazy it was that I was marrying the woman of my dreams.

Eventually, Amelia, Chelsea, Mel, and my mom stepped over to where Callie's bridesmaids were waiting, and Abel joined Zeke, Gabe, Ian, and several other friends with the groomsmen. Benny stayed by me waiting at the end of the aisle.

After everyone was seated, the band started up the music, and my heart thundered in my chest as another shuttle, this one sleek and understated, landed at the end of the aisle. My eyes were locked on the exit, and I couldn't stop myself from swallowing as a figure emerged. Calliope Reynolds, the woman who was going to be my wife, started her walk down the aisle, and I'd never been so transfixed by any sight in my entire life.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I felt like time was standing still. People say that all the time, and it always sounds hokey to me, but in this case, it was the only phrase that fit. It was like I got stuck between one heartbeat and the next because I literally couldn't process how perfect my fiancee, no, my WIFE (at least in a minute or two) looked at that moment.

People were talking, birds were chirping, and a thousand other things were making some kind of noise, but I couldn't really hear any of it. The world was just gone, and all I could see was the love of my life at the end of the orange carpet laid over the grass, smiling softly back at me.

She looked like an angel. No, more like a goddess, floating across the grass in a black lace ball gown studded with shining black crystals. Her hair was woven through with orange flowers, somehow blending perfectly with the rest of her look.

I stared into those bottomless blue eyes as she walked down the aisle, the music barely audible to me, until suddenly, she was in front of me, and I was drowning in love and adoration and pouring mine right back into the bond. We stared for a minute or two, until my mom finally cleared her throat. "Shane?" She said in amusement.

Blinking, I turned to where she was waiting to officiate. She'd volunteered to do it, because as a literal Saintess she was more than qualified to do the ceremony.

"What?" I said dumbly. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing at that moment.

She smirked, suppressing a chuckle. "I believe you mentioned that the two of you wanted to say your own vows. I just got to that part."

I hadn't heard her do the introductory part of the ceremony, but I'd been distracted, so I took a deep breath and turned back to Callie, taking her hands in mine as I stared into her eyes. "I guess I can go first." I said with a laugh. "But honestly I'm not sure where to start. You mean so much to me, how do I put that into words? How do I say what I've said a thousand times even more emphatically, because every time I'm with you the love I have for you only grows.

"I think." I said after a moment. "I'll start with fear. Or rather. Without it. Because that's what you give me. Ever since I first started this journey a few years ago, my life has been constantly threatened, I've been thrown from one enemy to the next and I've almost died a dozen times. But I wouldn't trade a second of it for the world."

Pausing, I tried to force the words to express everything I felt, but it wasn't enough. I just had to keep trying until it clicked. "But when I met you, everything changed. The scary things about entering a dangerous new world melted away, and all that was left was the joy. The excitement and the adventure of being with you has made my life one of discovery and beauty. Since the first time we spoke, my life has never been the same, and I'll love you for that more and more every day of my life."

Her eyes were wet, though she was trying not to cry, and she closed them slowly, taking a deep breath before responding.

"Shane. You are the best thing that's ever happened to me." She said hoarsely. "I spent so much of my life alone. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone, like I'd just be thrown away when I wasn't convenient, and like I was just a useful tool for anyone who did invest their time."

Her eyes shone like cerulean stars as they bored into me. "But from the first time I came to get you to go to that fight club with me and you freaked out about riding on my bike, I knew you were special. You didn't care about my family, or my name, or any of that nonsense. You were fun and brave and a little silly, and I adored you for it.

"Thinking of spending the rest of my life with you doesn't scare me." She said firmly. "Because I've been doing that for months. Since before you proposed I've been spending my life with you. Because I knew you were it. You were everything I'd ever need. And getting to show everyone we love that we belong together forever makes me so happy. Getting to share how much you mean to me with everyone who is important to us means the world to me."

My mom beamed at us. "It certainly sounds like you're both very serious about this. Do you, Shane Elijah Wyndham, take this woman to be your wife. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for richer or poorer, so long as you both shall live?"

I squeezed both of Callie's hands, willing her to feel my certainty. Holding hands was something Callie and I did often. It was a way to show support without speaking, to lend physical strength to each other silently. And now, it was a way for me to show her that I wouldn't ever let her go. That I'd hold onto her for the rest of our lives.

Glancing back, I found a miniaturized Randall toting a little orange pillow tied around his neck, and on it sat the ring. I picked it up, sliding it onto Callie's left ring finger as I responded. "I do."

She turned to look at Callie. "And do you, Calliope Reynolds, take this man to be your husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for richer or for poorer, so long as you both shall live?"

"I do." She breathed, her own hand taking the ring from Jessie and sliding the black metal band onto my ring finger.

My mother smiled so widely I thought her face might freeze that way. "It's a big commitment." She said gently. "To pledge yourself to someone, especially another Ascendant. Talented young people like you can live for thousands of years, tens of thousands. To help start off your life together, members of my family have a tradition, a ceremony we perform on those we help usher into their new lives. Would you like me to perform it?"

Mom hadn't mentioned that to me, but I trusted her, and Callie did too. We both nodded, and she closed her eyes, raising her hands, allowing them to flare up with white fire.

She reached out for us, placing a hand on each of our heads, but I didn't flinch or resist. When her hand made contact, flames flowed through my body, and I felt myself heat up in a strangely cleansing way.

"Marriage is a difficult thing." My mother said, eyes still closed. "And it can test you as surely as fire tests gold. Before you enter this new phase of life, let me first cleanse your insecurities, cleanse your doubts, cleanse your worries and your fears. Be washed clean of the poisons that might taint your happiness, and emerge free of burden."

I wasn't sure if that little ceremony actually DID any of that, but I felt like it was cleansing something. Purifying my body, mind, and soul. I really did feel unburdened, and as she opened her eyes and stepped back, all I could feel in my heart or Callie's was joy and peace.

"In the name of the Red Revenant, of the Radiant Pope, and in my own name. I pronounce you man and wife. May your loves be forever intertwined, and may your love for each other carry you across a thousand oceans and through a thousand storms. You may kiss the bride."

And I did. My mask retracted like it always did and Callie threw herself into my arms, pressing her lips to mine as the bond lit up like a supernova, flooding with all the love and happiness. In fact, the light began to shift, and I felt the bond changing as it overflowed with those feelings and evolved, rising to Expert level in one step.

Callie stiffened for a second, but relaxed against me as she recognized the feeling too, and finally we pulled away from each other. Callie's eyes were overflowing with tears of joy, and she was smiling wider than I could ever remember seeing. I could feel her even more deeply now, like she was part of me, like she'd replaced the heart in my chest, and it just felt…right.

We turned to see the others, our friends and family, here with us on the most important day of our lives…and froze. Among the groomsmen and the bridesmaids, several figures had drawn weapons, pressing them against the throats of some of our friends. Cicero had a knife against Abel's throat, and Valk had gotten close enough to threaten my sister.

At the end of the aisle, looking relaxed, was the driver from the other day, the one I'd noticed before, standing in the middle of the carpet, unbothered by the multiple powerful Ascendants surrounding him. "Oh by all means." He said with a smile. "Don't let me interrupt.

My mother was glaring at him. "Who are you? How dare you threaten my daughter? I could snuff you out like a candle flame."

"I'm sure." He said without worry. "But you won't. Those knives they're using are specialty weapons. They're hooked through the edges of the soul, if they're withdrawn before being deactivated…well, bad things happen. We were very careful when arranging all this, so just be good and let me get through my speech. It's important to toast at a wedding."

I glared at him. "Who the hell are you? I feel like I recognize you from somewhere, but my Danger Sense isn't going off. Even now, when you're so close."

"Well, that would be the arrangements I mentioned. Cloaks from Delthrys, god of Secrets. I do have to thank you Shane, you've been such a busy bee. If you hadn't made such a nuisance of yourself I could never have gotten the resources to make this example of you. As for my identity…" He pouted, then ran a hand over his face. As I watched, the features melted, rearranging into a familiar visage that reminded me of betrayal and agonizing pain. "I'm hurt." Said Travis. "I thought for sure you'd figure it out once you got the first hint."

Valk's face, Cicero's face, and the faces of several other guests melted away, revealing different (though still unknown) visages.

I stared in horror at the hostages, at my mother, who didn't seem to be able to do anything, and at my wife, whose panic I could feel through the bond. "Please." I said quietly. "This isn't necessary. You want to hurt us, I get it. Make your example. There are plenty of witnesses to spread the word. I'm the most notable target. Just take me. Make a spectacle, it'll be so much more impactful."

Travis, the rat bastard translocator who had stabbed me in the back, betrayed us to Hatescream and caused Perit's death by my wife's hands, stared at me for a second. "You?" He said through his giggles. "You're not the example Shane. You're just the garnish. No, the example isn't one person, it's this whole PLANET." He slipped an object from his pocket and threw it at the ground.

There was a colossal blast of red light that obscured all vision, and when I looked up, my blood ran cold. My mom, Zeke, Callen, Felicity. Every person at the wedding above E-rank was gone. Above us, the sky began to warp, lines of light, far above the aurora, up in the atmosphere, began to arrange themselves into endless shapes of mazes. "Now." He continued in satisfaction. "We can REALLY start the fun."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

My entire body was locked up. Not by some effect or ability, but by indecision. My sister, my friends, they were all being threatened, and by someone I KNEW was capable of killing them in the blink of an eye. "What the hell was that?" I growled at Travis. My eyes were glued to the knife at my sister's throat. "And you have us surrounded, can you please…deactivate those knives or whatever?"

"These knives?" He asked casually, translocating his glove for the one that had been pressed against Chelsea's throat. I surged forward toward her, but Callie caught me as I realized nothing was happening. "Yeah, they're just knives."

I strained against every bone in my body, desperately wanting to attack now that I knew that, but they did still have knives on several of my friends, even if they weren't magic soul eating knives.

Travis pouted. "Aww, you didn't get all shocked at the big reveal. Ascendants can be so jaded. Still, I have to thank Delthrys for the cloaks. When no one knows what you're capable of, bluffing is so much easier. They didn't even sense my people drawing the blades, and they were RIGHT next to them. Divine work, right?"

"Where did the others go?" I demanded, trying to hold onto my last shred of rationality, at least until I knew what was happening."

He grinned. "That was a Banishment Bauble. I tuned it to this planet, and it rejects anything higher rank than the planet itself. All those pesky D-rankers and above are just kicked right off. I imagine the ship in atmosphere picked them up."

"So…what?" I asked acidly. "You just wanted to piss them off? They're gone but it'll take them seconds to get back."

"No." Said Abel grimly. "It won't." His eyes flicked up to the lines in the sky. "I recognize those patterns. I'm not sure how they're here. But I know what they do. This whole planet has been anchored in space. There's a bit of tolerance, but if anyone above E-rank by more than a few points sets foot on Callus, it'll shatter and send us plummeting into the void."

That sounded familiar. "You mean like that one guy you paid for the labyrinth? What was his name again?"

One of guests stood up dramatically, flinging away a heavy coat and hat, and yelled. "It was me! Mad Madigan!" Energetically. "Heya Abel, long time no see. You look like you got strong. Isn't this a fun reunion?"

The man looked…crazy. He was sallow and thin, with dark rings around his eyes so deep they looked like bruises, and a manic, sort of jittery energy.

"Maddy." Said Abel with a grimace. "I thought you were dead."
Madigan threw up his arms like he was sticking a gymnastics landing. "Ta-dah! I'm still here! I just got lost for a while. But I found my way into one of those cool mini worlds the gods use. They were so impressed they offered me a job! I've been helping ferry people in and out of their sealed pocket dimensions, and they've been helping me get way stronger." He flexed a bicep. "Lookit."

"So…you sealed the planet like Abel's old labyrinth." I said, focusing on Travis. "I assume you filled it with powerful E-rankers. The Wendigos were yours, I take it?"

He shrugged. "I tried a few things. We have a really good teleporter, so I've been here a while. I can't believe you didn't invite me to your wedding, Shane. We've been through so much together. Lucky for you I'm a conscientious guy. Not only did I crash, I brought presents with me anyway.

"You're kind of lucky your friends and family are all here, really." He said nonchalantly. "Because the rest of the people on this planet are NOT having a good time. Or won't be soon. Most of my friends are surrounding Wintervale right now, but hey, I made sure to leave a few buddies to invite all your favorite cities to the party. Not much of an example if we just snag the few of you."

"You're just going to kill everyone on the planet?" I demanded angrily. "Just to…what? Warn people off from interfering with your gods?"

He shrugged. "You know how Ascendants are about good press. Have to make sure they know what we can do. Your vampire buddy did a good job of rallying the rabble to your cause." He grimaced. "Hope is such an insidious thing. Some of the more hotheaded gods wanted to ambush him, but the it was decided that would do more harm than good."

I saw Bethy tense out of the corner of my eye, but ignored my friend for now. Morgan would be fine, he was a monster. But I could at least push them further in that direction. "A bunch of gods having to gang up on a mortal? That certainly wouldn't strike fear in my heart. Where's the dignity?"

"Exactly!" He said emphatically. "It's pathetic. No, we don't need the big boys mucking about in mortal business. It's beneath them. What we needed was to make an example of someone at the same level. It's more…appropriate."

I snorted. "Oh, sure. And outnumbering us, what? Twenty to one? That's totally in the spirit of fairplay. Why don't you back your bully boys off and we can settle this one on one."

"Please." He snorted. "I didn't want my gods humiliating themselves, but I'm hardly opposed to a little dirty dealing, as you well know. No, you and all your little friends are going to be part of something bigger than yourselves. Imagine it, and entire planet ritually sacrificed to our pantheon, the blood of ACTUAL gods spilled in the dirt from the veins of their descendants as their elders watch impotently from orbit." He sniffed. "I'm sorry. It's just so impressive it's making me tear up a bit."

"You're legitimately the worst human being I've ever met." I said bluntly. "And I helped kill a guy who stole and brainwashed children into sleeper assassins. So that's a pretty high bar. I'm absolutely going to murder you before this is over. You know that, right?"

His smirk turned cold. "It's nice to have dreams, bud. But don't get lost in your delusions. You're not leaving this clearing in any condition to ambush anyone. But don't worry. You won't die until the ceremony. Can't make any promises for your friends though. So how about you be good, and I won't have to teach any nasty lessons. Okay?"

"I could do that." I said slowly. "Or I could just leave." I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind the guy holding a knife to Chelsea's neck. Pulling him off, I tossed him away towards Bethy, who surged forward and ripped his throat out in a rage. "Bethy, Domain!"

Her eyes flared red, and the blood red moon filled the sky. At the same time, six different explosions went off, blinding everyone aside from the few of us who knew to close our eyes. Part of the security measures had been arranging escape measures with today's wishes. Just because I trusted my mom, didn't mean my paranoia wasn't still going full blast.

The seventh wish had been granted to Bethy herself. She'd pulled everyone we actually LIKED into her Domain as planned, and the escape wish shunted her out of the venue, carrying the rest of us along with her in another bright flash.

I felt the world shift, and then a crash as I landed back first on black stone. "Ow." I groaned as I rolled over. "Everyone ok? Did anyone get left behind?"

We'd chosen a place far away from the venue for the escape point, and we were lucky we had.

Part of me had considered blitzing for the entrance to the cold storage, if what Travis had said was true, we were stuck on this planet with quite a few E-rankers, and backup would be helpful…but in the end, we'd decided discretion was the better part of valor. Who knew how long it would take to recruit them if we even could, and with no wishes left today…

"Shane!" Said Nat in a panic. "Valk! They replaced Valk! Is he…do you think he's dead? I can't lose anyone else."

I did think he was dead. But right now was not the time for that conversation, so I just put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't jump to conclusions." I told her reassuringly. "They didn't kill him out in the tundra at least. We'd have noticed a body. Maybe they have him in some sort of dungeon. We can look around once we get settled."

Offering her false hope might be cruel, but I really didn't know for sure if he was gone. Nat was…we'd need her. Her hanging onto hope until we absolutely confirmed Valk was gone wasn't the worst thing in the world. I looked around, trying to find the others, the grass had receded, and we were standing on the battlements of a very large, very familiar castle.

"The necropolis?" Said Callie as she stepped up next to me. "Damn, been a while since we were last here. Not a bad hiding spot. No way anyone who isn't local would be able to find this place, much less think to look here."

I nodded. "Nat can help with that too." I nodded to where Abel and Celine had taken her aside to start working on some security wishes. "This is a fucking mess."

"It is." She said icily. "And someone is going to pay. My mother is here with us, Shane! She's pregnant." Her voice was laced with anxiety, and I put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. "And she'll be fine. I promise. We slipped the noose, and we have information about what's going on. But I need you to check in up top. Talk to my mom and Zeke."

Callie looked confused for a second, then her eyes flicked to her wrist. "The Starpluck Bangle!" My wife said in excitement. "I can get up to the ship and back down. I bet they won't expect that." She frowned. "But I can't bring anyone with me. What good will that do? Plus I only get one trip there and back and then I need months to recharge."

"Because you can still bring things with you." I said maliciously. "This is enemy action, and not part of the candidacy. Which means interference is definitely on the table. Zeke and my mom are both old and powerful. They must have tons of weapons and armor we can give out to the E-rankers we DO have, and that bangle will bypass any blocks they have on this planet for sure."

Her grin was bloodthirsty. "That is an excellent point. I want to check on my mom, but once we've talked through what everyone knows I'll head up." She turned to leave and then stopped, turning back to pull my mask aside. "Oh. And I know it kind of got overshadowed by this but…we're really married now." She gave me a soft kiss. "Once we kick these bastards off our planet, I expect a hell of a honeymoon."

She headed off to find her mother, and I turned to the battlements, affixing my mask as I looked out over the necropolis we'd raided back during the scavenger hunt more than a year ago. I let the feelings hit me full force, anger, pain, frustration, even some hope and joy left over from the wedding.

Then I took all those emotions, and I tossed them away. They weren't important right now. I had work to do, civilians to protect, friends to defend. We'd been prepared enough to get away, even with everything they had done. My paranoia had paid off big time. Now though, now we had to counterattack. There was an enemy force occupying my planet. They were going to regret that by the time we were done.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Before Callie left for the Necromedes, we all had a meeting about what exactly we might need. To my surprise. Benny actually shot down my plan, or at least advised an adjustment.

"Look. I get what you're going for." Said my best friend. "But more than gear, what we really need is intel. Except we've tried reaching out, and all the means of communications we can find are jammed."

It took me a second to catch up, given how keyed up I still was, but I finally caught on. "Shit. We have no eyes on pretty much anything that's happening." I turned to my wife. "Any chance your range with Abyssal Infiltration covers the whole planet?"

"Not even close." She said bluntly. "I could maybe get eyes on Valen from here if I pushed my power to work in a straight line, and even that's up in the air."

I glanced at Benny. "You want her to stay up there." I said eventually. "Act as our eye in the sky. I'm guessing you want to use the bond to bypass any communication blocks?"

The bond was…esoteric. Even in the faction games I was able to communicate with Callie on some level, and having just ranked up it was a good bet it would work even more smoothly. Actually, I was fine with the idea, but I was betting-

"The fuck you say!" Callie spat. "I'm not going up to space to eat bon bons on a high ranking space ship while my friends and family fight for their lives on an occupied planet!"

"Yes. You are." Came Amelia's voice. We all turned to see the expectant mother looking at her oldest child grimly. "Because despite how much it sucks to be useless, you'll do what you need to do end this nonsense."

Callie looked pained. "Mom. I can't just-"

"Yes you damn well can!" She snapped back. "I don't care about your pride or your reputation. I care that my daughter is safe and that it gives us the best chance of getting out of this Alice. So you get over whatever martyr complex is telling you that you need to stick around and you go do the damned job, Calliope."

I'd never heard Amelia sound so harsh before, but her eyes were hard and determined.

It was easy to forget when I was talking to her how much she'd been through. She'd been the wife of a unity branch guild master, and was an Ascendant now in her own right. She didn't seem scared of panicky at all. Hell, she was more stable than I was right now.

"I…" Callie looked pained. "I guess you're right." She looked miserable. "If this is the best way to keep everyone safe I'll do it.

I could feel her frustration and rage through the bond, but even without it I'd have known how upset she was. Her face was tight and her jaw was locked. I stepped forward to wrap my arms around her. "Hey." I said quietly in her ear. "We're lucky we have this kind of option. An eye in the sky with a direct line to my brain? We'll run circles around the idiots with your intel."

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Ok. Everyone should be safe here anyway. No one beyond E-rank is on this planet, so any wishes should be more than up to holding them off."

Unless they had more divine toys to play with, but I was pretty sure if they were sporting anything like that they'd have used it. I couldn't imagine those cloaks were easy to make, even for a god. This plan was just a basement level terror op, I doubted they had THAT much support from their gods.

Callie hugged her mom, said goodbye to Cass, gave me a kiss, then closed her eyes and focused. There was a flash from her wrist, and when it faded she was gone. The starpluck bangle had worked. I grinned smugly. No way that asshole Madigan's space barriers would interfere with something that powerful.

"Can you hear me?" Callie's voice asked in my head. "Because if not I'm coming RIGHT back to help."

I laughed, replying mentally. "I'm here, love. Sorry, you're stuck on overwatch. Find my mom and Zeke immediately, see what they have to say." We might not have them on hand, but we could still benefit from their wisdom.

"They found me." She said in amusement. "In like…fifteen seconds. Your mom is freaking out and hugging me. Zeke looks like he wants to punt someone into the sun. I'm telling them all about what's happening. Hold on." I felt a flex of the bond and Piece of Mind triggered for her. Sorry, that was really bugging me. Talking out loud and in our brains at the same time is weirdly complicated."

I rolled my eyes. "I mean, I'm glad you figured that out, but what are they saying. The bond ranked up, can we like…share senses now?"

There was another flex, and before I could blink, I was looking at my sobbing mother. "Are my babies ok?" She was asking frantically. "How about your mom? And Bethany? Did everyone get out of there alive?"

"We're fine mom." I answered reflexively. Her eyes widened, and I realized that my own voice had responded. "Oh, shit." I said in confusion. "That's super weird. I can feel Callie seeing through my eyes. She's not talking to anyone but I think she could." I shook my head, clearing it of distractions. "Sorry, focusing. Anyway, we need you to help Callie run surveillance. I have the brief beginnings of a plan, but it'll be rough."

Shockingly, my mom adjusted to my voice coming out of my wife's mouth quicker than I would have. "Intel is always a good start. Does your plan involve that cold storage you found?"

"Yes." I said with a sigh. "But those bastards are probably still surrounding Wintervale. We need more than eight or nine E-rankers. We need an army. Which means we need to do some recruiting."

She nodded. "You need information on the WCP and guild branches in the various cities so you can pad your forces. We can do that from up here. We can even help you plan your moves." Her eyes hardened. "As soon as this labyrinth is down we'll come to help. Do you know where the creator is?"

"Nope. He's an old enemy of Abel's. Or friend. Or something? It was hard to tell, he's VERY insane." I gritted my teeth. "But I don't know where he went when we bailed, and chances are good they'll hide him. The only upside is I don't THINK they know about the cold storage. There's no way any of our people told them. We all signed a contract, and I don't think any of his copies were present anyway. We have time."

"Agreed." She said slowly. "Which is good, because most towns don't have many E-rankers, if any at all. You'll need to work your way up to retaking Rajak. Luckily I know most of the Unity and WCP leadership have shelters and backup plans. Even with numbers, they aren't going to be taking this planet as easily as they might think."

Her voice was proud, and honestly, I was right there with her. It was nice to think of Callus resisting. Certainly nicer than considering all the people who were probably already dying.

She escorted Callie to one of the observation decks, having the Necromedes lock onto the planet and scan it for life signs. A holographic image of Callus appeared in the center of the room, and she circled it, observing the feedback. "Ok. There are…a lot of them. A thousand or so. I do not recommend a straight fight. You're all good, but quantity is a quality all its own."

"That's what the intel is for." I assured her. "We aren't going to fight a force of people two entire orders of magnitude larger than we are. We're going to recruit all the E-rankers on the planet and fight a force ONE order of magnitude larger. And win." My mother's face twisted in a parody of a smile, but it was obvious she couldn't manage real amusement. I pulled her into a tighter hug. "Don't worry about it. We'll be fine. We have Bethy and Gabe and Abel and even me. We're kind of monsters, if you hadn't noticed."

Snorting, she gave me a tight squeeze. "I suppose you're all decent. But don't let it go to your head. Be careful. We don't know how many E-rankers survived. My forces in Wintervale are probably mostly gone, but several of my powerful E-rankers had escape measures in place as a matter of course."

"They'd probably have gone to ground." I said with a grimace. "The tundra is a pain in the ass to track in. I can send Bethy. She's tough enough to escape even if she gets noticed. Wish we had some more people with transportation based abilities. Maybe we can find the teleporter who ran the scavenger hunt. He might be useful." I didn't remember his name, but I was sure someone would. "Oh, and keep an eye on my wife for me, will you. She's not happy about being left out, and honestly I wish I had her with me. We're stronger together, but her position up there gives us a huge strategic advantage."

"We've got her, kid." Said Zeke solemnly. "You just focus on where you're going to be recruiting. Branch managers and guild masters will be E-rank in most relatively large cities. Stella can help. She knows what's what. Oh, and kid…"

"I've got her back." I said before he could finish. "Chelsea too. And Gabe. We'll all watch out for each other."

"Good boy." Said my mom tearfully. "Oh…and tell your sister not to bother hiding her abilities anymore." Her face hardened. "Even if my mother doesn't take care of Black Sorrow, we can worry about it later. Make those sons of bitches sorry they ever tried to lay a hand on my kids."

I grinned, the feeling odd using Callie's face. "Oh she's going to love that. Zeke, any advice on combining those two powers?"

"Yeah." He said wryly. "Don't do it in an enclosed space. Corruption and purification are diametrically opposed. Enshrining Darkness doesn't play nice, even for a corruption Skill. I have no idea where Black Sorrow came up with that shit. It's like…anti reality toxic waste. Make sure Chelsea knows the ratio won't be one to one. If she mixes them it'll be more like ten parts flame to one part darkness. Otherwise the flame will be consumed, they are NOT on the same level."

I hadn't noticed him doing that back during his fight, but it was possible he'd just used really thin darkness to disguise the imbalance. Whatever he'd done, he was the expert, and I promised to pass it on. Telling my family I loved them I slipped back to my own body.

"Take care of my wife?" Callie's voice rang in my head waspishly. "Who's going to take care of YOU when I get my hands on your condescending ass?"


I smiled softly. "You will, same as always. Love you too honey. Don't worry too much. I'll be careful down here. Just give me the details I need and I promise I'll get us all out of this in one piece."


There was a long pause. "You're better. If you die down there I'm going to kill you. Be safe, Shane. I love you." The bond relaxed, still there but not so actively in use, and I turned back to go find Stella. She had info we needed, and I couldn't wait to get at it. The faster we got some more E-rankers to fill out our ranks, the faster this would be over, and my wife and I could go on our honeymoon. Hopefully without any tragedy marring our happy times.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Alright." Said Stella after we found and talked to her. "Show me the data." I pulled out a pen and paper and started sketching out a quick map of Callus, with notations for where large gatherings of enemy Ascendants were at last update. Last update was pretty much instantaneous, because Callie and I both had parallels running through Piece of Mind communicating with each other through the bond.


She scanned my notes, nodding slowly. "Well, I think it's pretty clear Valen is a trap. That and Rajak will be the first place they expect us to hit. As much as I'd love to free my people, the actual combat will probably be more dangerous than the occupation."


"I had a similar thought." I said with a grimace. "But I don't know the rest of Callus well enough to pick a secondary target."


She stared pensively for a minute, then tapped a spot on the map. "Trevally. Dox and Revna are both lighter defended, but those might be bait. Trevally is light on manpower, but not compared to the other cities, the guild master is a teleporter, and I've been there before, so I can guide us when we arrive."


"It's a bit far though." I grimaced. "Do we have any means of transport? I guess Gabe's charger maybe?"


"I can take someone else too." Said the Adamant. "Bethy can transport people in her Domain, so if I carry her…" He trailed off, and the vampire girl lit up. It was basically the same plan we'd used to get here, but given both of their capabilities, there was a good chance of them avoiding problems as a two man team. It would damn sure be less obvious than trying to steal a shuttle or force march an army.


I glanced at the angels. "I'd be happier if he had backup just in case. Can you two fly fast enough to keep up with the charger?"


"It won't be a problem." Said Holly, cracking her neck. "This planet is so…floaty. I haven't been anywhere this low rank in my entire life. Trust me, we'll make good time. Plus, we're fast enough to provide a distraction once they get there."


Serah nodded solemnly. "We can kill two birds with one stone."


"Why would you say that?" Demanded Holly. "We have WINGS. Do you know how big of a jinx that is. If I get killed because of your bad jokes I'll haunt you for eternity."


Abel snorted. "You don't want her around for eternity, trust me. As far as I can tell that's how long she's been complaining already, so I know from experience." Holly glared at my mentor, who stuck his tongue out at her.


"Children." I said with a sigh. "Focus please? We're about to raid an occupied city on a besieged planet where everyone is looking for us. Now, Stella, who exactly are WE looking for. I assume it's not just one person."


She shook her head. "Trevally has four E-rankers. The Unity guild master, the WCP branch leader, and a pair of crime lords. The Unity rep for that city is Walker. He has an ability that lets him fold space as he moves, every step is ten miles. That might not seem like much, but given how fast Ascendants can walk, it's a huge advantage. If we get Walker, especially if we combine his ability with Mr. Brightlaw's charger, we'll have the run of the whole planet."


"What about the WCP manager?" I asked. "Is their power something that can help us?"


She shrugged. "I don't know her as well. I'm pretty sure its Whisp. Her ability is a sort of smoke transformation. Not the undisputed strongest on the planet or anything, but fairly scary to have as an enemy and nearly uncatchable. The crime lords there are Dead Eddie and Sam Slaughter. Eddie is some kind of undead, and he's nearly impossible to hurt at the same rank, and Sam gets stronger the more blood he spills. It wears off after a few weeks, but in conditions like this…I wouldn't want to screw with him."


Abel snorted. "He's a hack." We all looked at him. "Slaughter was in the Titan Twenty with us back in the day. Well, more like he was on his way out when we hit the scene. Big thug with a chip on his shoulder, always sneering at everyone." He cracked his knuckles. "If he gives you a problem I'll take care of it."


"So Abel is dealing with Savage." I said with a laugh. "I'll approach Whisp. I'm a Wyndham, and she might know Zeke. I have the best chance of getting her on side. Stella, can you recruit Walker?"


"Easily." She said with confidence. "He's notoriously pigheaded, but it's not like I don't have experience with that."


Bethy raised a hand. "I can handle Dead Eddie. Vampires have a special status among most human seeming undead. I'm not sure what species he is, but he's almost definitely heard of daddy. By the time I'm done, he'll be your loyal follower!" She gave me a big cheesy thumbs up and a fang filled grin.


"I hesitate to unleash you on Callus unchecked." I said with a laugh. "Take Gabe with you. Chelsea, you're on distraction duty with the angels. Mom says no need to hold back. You're allowed to go all out. Both abilities."


My sister's face twisted into a cold smile. "Well isn't that nice. I can't wait to get some experience with that."


"Zeke said to tell you to stick to ranged, and the mix should be one to ten dark to flame." I tried to keep the comments vague, but I knew she understood.


"Alright." I said after we went over a few more things. "We need to move before they have a chance to catch their breath. If they grind down all the resistance it'll make things that much harder. Gabe, you ready to ride?"


My friend nodded firmly. "Any time." He snapped his fingers and his starlight charger manifested next to him, glimmering like the night sky.


"Archimedes!" Squealed Bethy. She leapt onto the horse, snuggling into his lightspun mane. "I missed you so much you big good boy. Mean old Gabe wouldn't let me see you." She beamed at us. "When Gabe and I were on daddys ship he used to let me ride all the time."


The big man put a hand over his face. "Bethy, we've been over this. The horse is a construct made of my energy. He has no emotions. You can't bond with him. Or name him. Because he isn't real. And scoot back, I'm the one steering, we have to use my Path for this if we want to make the best time."


Bethy pouted, but scooted back with a sigh. Gabe rolled his eyes and climbed onto the horse. "Now. Time to go. Everybody close your eyes and count to ten…nevermind too late!" Bethy's Domain exploded out, covering Abel, Stella, Mel, my sister, me, Benny, Celine, Jessie, and Randall.


We left behind Nat and the others to guard the civilians, and it was odd seeing the world melt away as the Domain covered us.


Domains were complicated. I knew there was a spatial component from seeing Lark do his thing and restrain all those S-rankers, and we'd used it to get here, but I still didn't understand exactly how it worked.


Bethy's Domain, from what I could tell, was a 'seed domain' like the one Tartarus had used. Lark had made it for her, and it was extremely powerful because Lark had basically condensed the entire vampire mythos into his singular domain by killing and eating all the other vampires outside his family.


I wondered if the thing my dad had said about not following the same Path as a god would be a problem for Bethy. Or maybe Lark had already altered his own Domain to clear the Path for her, I couldn't imagine him sabotaging her future.


As we took off, I couldn't even see the outside of the Domain, though I could sort of feel the motion. I turned to Benny and Jessie. "Hey, you two be careful ok? Stick with Stella. Randall is a badass, so as long as you all stick together he should be able to cover for any weaknesses. But just…don't do anything stupid."

Benny snorted. "Coming from the mayor of moronville. I should be telling you that. But yeah, we'll stay low. Get in, grab the E-rankers and any of their associates and get out. Leave the fighting to the distraction team."


"Unless you see an opening." I corrected wryly. "Then take a shot. Once we're all back together I fully expect Gabe to kill a few when he's breaking the encirclement. There are ten of them in town, so we're not outnumbered much, but they have backup at plenty of nearby locations, so we can't afford to drag our feet."


He snorted, drawing his sword. "Don't underestimate me, nerd. I've been training. My Path of the Dracolich is powerful as hell. Plus it's FOCUSED, unlike your cavalcade of half assed demon forms."


"Yeah, because a dead lizard is so much scarier than infernal royalty." I sneered. "You wish you had my kind of muscle."


"You're both very tough." Said Jessie exasperatedly. "I wish Callie was here to shut you up."


I snorted. "Callie's not the boss of me!" I paused, double checking the bond to make sure she hadn't heard that. I would have noticed if she tapped into it, but better safe than sorry. "Also…please don't tell her I said that."


Benny started laughing, and I just winked. I wasn't afraid of my wife, but a little levity made the situation seem less dire.


"Don't underestimate these people, kid." Said Abel as he walked over to where we were talking. "I know it's tempting to assume that being well travelled makes us invincible, but Slaughter is a competent guy. I'm sure I can take him, but it won't be quick and easy. The only upside is I know if I beat him he'll fall in line. He's cocky, but he has a code."


I grimaced. That was just the locals, we also had all these assholes following the dark gods, and who knew what they could do.


There was a pulse of warmth, and I smiled. Callie felt my worry and had sent a flash of reassurance and love. It really did help no matter what the situation, I felt like I was drinking a warm cup of tea for my mental state.


Finally, we came to a stop. It was easy to tell once you knew what you were looking for, the moon had been turning slowly as we traveled, and now it was stopped. The Domain retracted, leaving us all standing in a warehouse in Trevally (I assumed). "We're here!" Said Bethy cheerfully. "Quick trip, huh?"


Gabe was leaning against the wall. "Quick but not easy." He wheezed. "We picked up a tail halfway, and I had to shake them. I need a minute."

The angels stepped up, bringing Chelsea with them. "We've got it. We know what to do. Go make some noise." My sister sounded eager, and I considered warning her to be careful, but surprisingly, Bethy beat me to it.


"Hey, this is important ok?" Bethy said gently. "So don't rush it. Get in position and just do what you need to do. After I finish with Dead Eddie we'll come and help out, ok?" Chelsea gave her a grateful smile, and we all headed out to accomplish our assignments.


I stepped out into the street, doing my best to stay out of sight. Liberal use of Double Trouble let me skip wide open spaces, and my Eye of Revelation helped me avoid any concealed watchers. I followed the directions my parallel fed me from Callie, and finally arrived at my destination, the entrance to the Trevally WCP branch.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The entrance to the WCP was familiar. In fact, I was shocked to see that it was nearly identical to the back in Valen. It took me a while to sort through my ring to find some of my older gear, and dig out the black card I hadn't touched in so long. I ran my fingers over innocuous card, not feeling much except the smoothness I'd expected.

Swiping it in the card reader, I stepped onto the elevator. It felt…surreal. Hundreds of miles and years of time separated me from my old self, from the wide eyed newbie who had taken an identical elevator down into the depths of the Valen branch only to find out the branch manager was my drunk of an uncle.

Now I was in another city, heading to meet one of the masters of Callus, someone who was the same rank I was, after having been chased out of my own wedding.

The elevator stopped, and the doors opened, letting me out onto a familiar catwalk. Rather than actually descend though, I headed off to one side and took up a spot out of sight of whoever might be down there.

Despite spending the last few months relaxing, I'd been thinking long and hard about my needs. I had forms for attack, deflection, healing, and defense. What I needed still though, among other things, was a way to move undetected. My Moonlit Night was an effective and powerful skill, but it was also obvious as hell.

I'd been considering a new form for quite some time, and I'd come up with some ideas on how to make it work. It was a tall order. Moonlit Night itself couldn't act as a proper base, I needed at least three different skills to build it. One of them would be Afterburner, since it boosted effectiveness qualitatively. I always included it in my forms.

It had taken me quite a while to figure out what other pieces I could use to build it. I'd considered stealth, but that was a part of Moonlit Night and I didn't want to overbalance it. But after studying my skill book for quite some time, I realized there was another way to do it. Specifically, I could invert the skill I needed to create something new.

It only worked because of the way stealth functioned. As a Perception based ability, one needed to be able to detect the traces of something and then erase those traces to create stealth.

By inverting Eye of Revelation and using Afterburner to multiply the effectiveness of both that and Moonlit Night, I was able create an exponentially more powerful stealth ability, one that detected and erased its own traces, using the fog as a cover and then erasing the fog to provide double layered stealth with each layer having multiplied effectiveness.

I started constructing the ability, using my crown and Eye of Revelation to slowly and meticulously weave the stats together to create a flawless construct that would channel all the power I needed. "Goetia Staff Art. Fifth form." I intoned. "Bael."

Looking down, I saw myself…vanish. Fog covered me and then dissolved, whisking away all traces of my body. Multiplied effectiveness. It wasn't the same as stacking, creating a skill that was more than the sum of its parts was a mark of how much I'd grown as a skill creator.

All my forms had Afterburner, and other meta skills that amplified them, but this was different. The skill wasn't just amplified by Afterburner, the layers amplified each other. The total effectiveness of my stealth was worth something like seven to ten times my ACTUAL perception, which was pretty damned impressive.

It wasn't even close to what my ancestor had done, of course. THe wish ability tripled the effectiveness of EVERY stat, including Impact, which was just…monstrous. I still had no clue how the hell he'd managed. That wasn't just "more than the sum of its parts" it was making something out of nothing, and I had a long way to go until I reached that point.

Bael, however, I could still manage. Specifically because the multiplicative effect was only using one stat, which was fairly limited. I couldn't have added a second, which severely compromised the variety of forms I could make at this level.

Still, it was a step in the right direction. The more proficient I got at constructing skills, the closer I got to making my chronicle later on down the line and creating a more perfect foundation.

Now that I was all finished with my form though, I was confident in pulling this off. Rather than take the steps down, I vaulted the railing of the catwalk, letting State of Grace slow my descent, with the occasional Ripple Running platform to alter my direction.

I landed in a back alley, out of view of the street, and slipped quietly to the edge to peek out. I was careful, but I didn't honestly expect it to be necessary. With Bael active, my effective Perception for the purposes of stealth was over seventy thousand. I was confident nobody in E-rank would be able to detect me, barring some hyper focused monster who only used that stat.

The streets were empty for the most part, but my Eye of Revelation picked up signs of a struggle, and a few bloodstains on top of that. I could see plenty of barriers on the surrounding shops, locks and gates and door bars. There were people here, but they were hiding.

I ignored them for now. Flicker could help me coax them out when we finished talking, but I was guessing if there was blood the enemy was already down here.

Slowly creeping down the street, I watched for any sign of occupiers, ready to attack at a moment's notice. I had my staff out and in position, and even activated Mephistopheles alongside Bael, slowly condensing dark fire into a cosmic collapse for a powerful finishing move.

As I came around a corner, I stumbled on a group of creepy looking guys in patchwork leather armor. They had a variety of (suspiciously human looking) skin cloaks hanging over their shoulders and bone jewelry, eyes flickering from side to side as if scanning for prey.

All three were pale and tall, with overly long arms and lank hair in a variety of earth tone colors, like a pile of leaves on a forest floor. The one in the middle, the shortest of them, froze in place, sniffing the air. "Do you smell that?" I rolled my eyes, triggered Double Trouble, and smashed the cosmic collapse into the back of his skull.

Moonlit Night had a damage boost on attacks made from stealth, and the cosmic collapse was already a powerful technique, the staff penetrated into the base of the skull and the explosion of flame consumed the brain, exploding out from the eyes, nose and mouth.

My staff whipped over, planning to use the element of surprise to kill a second one, but my eyes widened and I was forced to trigger Double Trouble again to avoid a dinner plate sized hand tipped with claws like butcher knives.

The distended grey form of the wendigo howled in fury as it and its friend tried to pursue my. I stepped off the air twice, coming up over the edge of a building. As soon as I broke line of site I triggered Bael again.

While my new form WAS powerful, using that backstab trick forced me out of it. I'd assumed it wouldn't matter, given one was dead and the second was on his way, but clearly I was wrong.

"Fun fact." I sent to Callie through the bond. "Wendigos can take human form. Probably some vanished gods bullshit. Still, something to note." I saw the hideous horned heads of the Wendigos emerge from over the lip of the roof. They scanned around, sniffing heavily, and they seemed to fixate on my for a second.

I was getting ready for another charge when I noticed something odd. Smoke. There were curlicues of smoke wafting up from the building below, the Wendigos seemed to notice it as I did, and they glanced down, confused.

The curlicues coalesced into the form of a woman as soon as they averted their eyes. She grabbed a set of antlers and jerked them to the side, snapping the neck of the Wendigo and swinging it bodily into its companion, knocking them both off the roof. I triggered Pit of Despair below the building, racing to the edge to see the result.

The Wendigo backflopped on the melted stone, body crushed by his dead companion, and started sinking into the ground immediately. I dissolved my skill, letting the ground harden, and the monster ended up half submerged in rock, tangled up with the corpse of his buddy and hissing for release.

"Nice reflexes." Came the raspy voice of the person I assumed was Flicker. "And I like the mask. Familiar style of craftsmanship, that."

I glanced over to focus more on her. Flicker was short and muscular, with a dark mantle and hood. Her own mask was one of those pointy beaked ones you see in old timey video games, and the eyes were a blazing ruby red. She looked ominous as hell.

"Shane Wyndham." I introduced myself directly. "My uncle is Ezekial Cavendish, formerly the branch managed in Valen. And your mask looks pretty familiar too." Specifically because I remembered Zeke making it when I was eleven. That thing had given me nightmares for weeks. It had this creepy living avian vibe, like it hated everyone around it.

She stared for a moment, eventually nodding. "You're here about the invasion." She guessed, though I suppose it was actually pretty obvious.

"Followers of the vanished gods." I confirmed. "I'm not sure how much you know, considering how recently things went down. They're looking for me and mine, and are planning to mass sacrifice everyone on the planet to make an example. We're looking for powerful locals to join up. We have a plan, but we need more muscle."

She turned, flicking her finger, and a spear of smoke arced down and smashed through the skull of the still screaming Wendigo. "Sorry." She growled. "That was getting annoying. If you're a Wyndham, you know how this works. We can't do anything for you without payment."

I sighed, I'd been afraid of that. Luckily there was more than one way to skin a cat (a deeply disturbing saying whose origin I had always wondered about) . I stepped off the edge of the building, floated down to where the entwined Wendigos lay immobilized, and ripped an antler off of the one I'd immobilized.

Tossing it from one hand to the other, I grabbed hold and bent it slightly, nodding in satisfaction. "This would probably go for about ten E-grade chits. Two per head, and undoubtedly plenty of wendigos to go around. You help us, and I'll let you keep them all. Even the ones we kill."

She cocked her head. "That's…an interesting offer. I suppose I'd be forced to intervene personally in any case." She mulled it over before finally sighing. "I accept. I suppose you have some sort of means of enforcing loyalty?"

I grinned, pulling out a piece of paper I'd worked up on the ride over. I left plenty of room for it to hold multiple signatures. She leapt down and I passed it to her. Reading it over once, she nodded, then pulled out a pen and scribbled her name. "There. Now that I'm onboard, what exactly is our next move?"

Spinning my staff lazily, I grinned at her from behind my mask. "Oh that's simple. Now we go and help the others. We still have a bunch more new friends to pick up. We can take care of the stragglers down here first, though. Grab the antlers and get ready to go. You can bring anyone you like, but have them wait at the entrance down here. Up top will be dangerous."

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Cleaning up the rest of the enemy occupiers was shockingly easy. Flicker had more firepower than I'd expected, and combined with my control skills, we'd made pretty short work of them…for the most part. We'd rolled up all the stragglers, but we were currently surveilling some kind of dance hall, where the last group was camped out.

They weren't all Wendigos, there were a few of the actual invaders, and this last spot was where the leader was waiting, sent to deal with Flicker specifically. "So, what do you know about this guy?" We hadn't had time to do much recon here, and even if we had the guy was staying put without doing much, so we couldn't get a good measure.

"Not much." She said grimly (although realistically, Flicker hadn't exactly been a ball of sunshine when she'd said anything else either) "I've been watching them since they entered, taking their measure. But that one hasn't moved much. He posted up here and let the others run rampant. I've spent most of my time moving my people out of harm's way, so I wasn't close enough for him to take a swing."

Less than ideal, but I had a workaround. "It's fine." I said after some consideration. "I can send a clone in to take a look."

Sadly, while my clones were versatile and could use my Skills, my forms weren't so easy to utilize through borrowed abilities. Especially since the forms had been perfected and were so much more powerful now. I was working on a clone based form that would fix that issue, but at the moment I only had borrowed clones I could use via stored attack or through the bond.

Closing my eyes, I used one of my stored clone charges to create a shadowy version of me. It nodded mutely, then slipped off the roof we were stationed on to surveil the dance hall and vanished. At least, it vanished to Flicker. I'd used Piece of Mind to slip in a parallel, so I was more than aware of what the clone was doing.

I had the clone slip up to the side of the building, circling around to find a back entrance. There was no second door, but he did find a window about ten feet up the side of the wall in the alley. Ripple Running made the trip up to the window easy, and once he made it in, he stuck to the shadows, blending in with the darkness as he made his way around the edge of the building, trying to find the target.

It didn't take long, with my Perception, it was easy enough to locate them even in a tiny building. Stealth through the bond mixed with his shadowy nature meant getting caught was unlikely provided he didn't get too close.

"They're dying out there, you know?" Said a voice as I closed in. "We're not supposed to let too many of them die. They're a pain to replace with our resources cut off."

The speaker was a tall, thin woman with copper skin and an elaborate series of brains in her hair. She had a nose ring and a leather vest, and her green eyes shone like frozen venom, poisonous and cold.

The two men with her were dramatically different. One short and pale with silver hair and purple eyes, and one tall and hulking with green skin and a thick beard to go with his long dark hair. The pale man had pointed ears studded with silver rings, and he looked relaxed, reclining against a wall from his perch on top of some kind of work bench.

"Relax." He said lazily. "They're just locals, and not even useful ones. Wendigos are rabid, even in human form. No point keeping them around. They're consumables, we don't have to worry about consuming them. Besides, our surveillance has made good use of their deaths."

She shook her head. "I don't like it. They keep vanishing. We don't even know where they are right now. They could be here listening to us."

I tensed, worried they might have noticed something, but they hadn't, a shadow hiding in shadows was a tough thing to spot, especially with stealth active. The lazy elf snorted. "I'd have noticed anyone entering. You know how my Domain works. I've claimed this place as my own. The only thing in here is us." He paused. "Well, and some furniture, bugs, that kind of shit. Nothing that doesn't belong. Though they do have a rat problem."

The woman shuddered. "I hate rats. Creepy little things. Always scurrying around and staring with their beady little eyes."

"That's rich." Said the third guy in a gravelly voice. "Coming from the girl with the spider powers."

She sneered at him. "How cliche, being afraid of spiders. You're an Ascendant Hamilton, grow up. My lovelies are sweet and gentle, and they're artists. Nature's greatest weavers. Unlike RATS, who only spread pestilence and decay."

"Rats do not spread DECAY." Said the leader with an eyeroll. "Any more than any other animal that can kill with a bite. They aren't zombies."

"Some of them are zombies." Cut in the big guy, Hamilton. "I've seen zombie rats before. They're gross. Rotting little bags of pus with yellowed teeth and beady red eyes." He grinned maliciously at the woman. "And the smell. It's unbearable."

The leader groaned and hopped to his feet. "Oh for the love of the gods. I can't sit through any more of this. Any of the mutts left?" At the woman's head shake leader guy nodded. "Time to bait the trap. Go get me one of the hostages, and activate the transmission feature on the cameras. Branch leader can't watch a bunch of her people get murdered, now can she?"

They nodded so deeply it was almost a bow, suddenly serious, and then headed out. I weighed my options. The other two were gone, and this was just a clone, no need to hold back. I triggered Double Trouble, shoving my staff as hard as I could into the base of his skull, unleashing a mercy kill enhanced strike at his head.

It was a pitiful strike. No poison fire in case it gave me away, no stealth bonus from Bael, just my normal strength amplified by Mercy Kill.

Because of those factors, I wasn't at all surprised when leader guy tensed as I emerged from stealth, and vanished where he was standing, appearing ten feet away facing toward me. "Oh?" He said with interest. "I suppose that rat problem was worse than I knew. How are you here without tripping my senses? A shadow? That makes some sense."

There was a pulse of…something, and my clone just stopped existing. I cursed as the parallel ended forcibly. I hadn't been able to tell exactly what had done it from that point of view, but luckily my main body has Eye of Revelation locked onto the leader.

"Domain user." I said clinically. "Nothing crazy. Something about wires and wind maybe?"

Flicker grunted. "Veddo Dunfrey. Haven't heard that story in years. Kid made a pair of wings out of spider silk to sneak out of his house. Bribed a spider to teach him to weave, but he never paid up. The spider left his education half finished and when he tried to fly out the window, the wings came apart. It was windy outside, and the wind swept up the threads and carried them down to an outdoor banquet, shredding all the guests. Killed his whole family."

I grimaced. "What a charming story. Where did you hear this?"

"My parents." She said dryly. "They used to tell it to us at bedtime. It's a common WCP children's story. Moral of the story is to always pay your debts."

"Of course it is." I laughed. No wonder my dad had wanted me raised topside among the Conglomerate. "Anyway, I don't know the story well. Is there some sort of like…weakness we can exploit?"

She paused, thinking it over. "Veddo met the spider when he destroyed its web. Knocked a glass of water on it and it dissolved. The threads were strong as steel, but not so good with moisture. You have anything water based in your arsenal? Because I'm fresh out I'm sad to say. Smoke and fire and what have you."

I wracked my brain. "Maybe." I said finally. I started charging cosmic collapse. Moonlit Night was based on Mistwalking, which conjured mist from the moisture in the air. It had been modified, but should still work. I conjured another clone, sending it in the same way. As it entered, I triggered Moonlit Night, flooding the whole chamber with obscuring mist. Of course, my clone could see perfectly, and I used its line of sight to trigger Double Trouble.
As soon as I landed, I activated Mornax. Unlike the clones, I could use my forms fine. THere was a whisper of something in the air, and I felt some small scratches on my stone shell, but they were barely noticeable. Moonlit Night had mostly dissolved the wires, and my extra defense had been unnecessary.

Despite that victory, though, the leader elf dove forward out of the path of my cosmic collapse. I tried to alter the trajectory, but sadly that wasn't to be. I caught a hand in the larger radius, but he got away with just that injury.

Of course, I followed up, my staff smashing out, black flames licking as Mephistopheles emitted my most dangerous destructive power. I wanted to chase with the Waltz, but it couldn't be used with Mornax. Too much movement and time off the ground. Luckily I wasn't alone. I'd tweaked Moonlit Night to allow Flicker to see like I did. Among the mist, it was impossible to see the smoke, and the leader didn't even notice himself inhaling clouds of it.

His escape stopped, freezing in place as he clutched his chest, then he threw up blood and toppled over.

A cloud of smoke emerged from his mouth, coalescing into Flicker, who gave me a lazy wave before becoming smoke again and flashing off. I heard a few screams within the next couple minutes, and when she returned, she had a dozen civilians with her.

I chuckled at the brutal efficiency, but mostly just ignored it as I knelt beside the leader. I reached down, picking up a necklace that had fallen out of his shirt when he fell. It seemed…important. Something about it spoke to me, so I ripped it off, slipping it into my ring. Standing, I turned to Flicker and the others. "Everyone good to go?" I asked, mostly aiming the question at the civvies.

Getting a bunch of nods, I smiled and turned to lead them back to the crowd of survivors we'd already gathered. They would be waiting down here while we went up to deal with the rest of the city, Bethy could transport plenty of people, but until they got into her Domain they would be sitting ducks.

Once we had them all gathered up, we gave them instructions on where to wait, and the two of us headed back up the elevator to involve ourselves in some of the action up top.

As we rode up, I reached out to my wife. "Cal," I sent mentally. "I need a location on one of the other groups. Preferably not Abel or Bethy. So…not one of the other groups. Just specifically Benny's group."

I could literally FEEL the eyeroll through the bond as she sent me the information, and I returned it with a burst of gratitude. When we emerged from the elevator, I triggered Bael, letting just my voice emerge as I told Flicker where we were headed. Then I activated Mephistopheles again and triggered my waltz, blazing off into the distance towards my friends. Once we helped them get our target, we'd be out of here and back to base. I wanted to look into that necklace. I had a feeling it might be important.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The streets of Trevally were much emptier than I'd expected. We were stealthed, but it didn't turn out to be that necessary. We passed a few wandering enemies but made it to the Unity building otherwise without incident. While the WCP branch had been nearly identical to the one in Valen, the Unity branch was very different, a strange bronze building with faceless hat wearing men kneeling to hold up the roof instead of columns.

"Well, this is…interesting." I said from across the street as I faded back into view. Flicker was next to me, staring down at the construction, and for the first time I heard her chuckle ruefully.

"That's the Hall of Hats." She said with a amusement. "Haberdasher was the first Unity guild leader of Trevally and had…eclectic tastes. Admittedly his style of doing things worked, because almost any native Trevallian can tell you at least a vague history of that building, even those of us who grew up more in the WCP."

Another one like Jerks then. "Fair enough. I don't suppose you happen to know the entire layout too?"

She shook her head. "Haberdasher is a local legend. I'm sure wherever you're from had some famous founder everyone knew about too. But it's just cursory stuff who he was, what his costume looked like. That kind of thing. As for an entrance, I've never really been to the Hall of Hats, I was never Unity."

I could have gone in the huge entrance with the double doors, but since Stella and the others hadn't come out, I needed to assume the guild had traps of some kind that made a slow entrance necessary. In fact, I could check that myself. Triggering Eye of Revelation I focused hard on the entrance and side walls, tapping into Callie's trap Skill.

Several places on and around the hall lit up in my vision, and I grimaced. Sure enough, the defenses were activated. Stella would have ways around that, but as backup I hadn't needed to know them. Which meant I was going to need to slip us by them.

Luckily, this planet was pseudo D-rank, which meant we didn't have access to Master Level trap builders, especially not in smaller cities. The building was weird, but it was also going to be easier to break into as an E-ranker. I decided to send in a clone, conjuring one through the bond from shadow and sliding in a parallel. Then, with my main body on overwatch, I sent it into the maze of traps surrounding the place.

I got about halfway in before the clone died. Wincing, I made another, then another. Integrating Callie's trap skill with Eye of Revelation took a lot of effort, and wasn't working as well as I'd have liked. To support, I triggered Song of the Soil, letting me get a better look underground, and that yielded better fruit.

My next clone got to the door, then finally got inside. "Alright, follow that path." I said to Flicker. "I'm taking the quick way." Focusing on the clone's vision, I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind a smaller stone statue inside. As soon as I arrived, my Danger Sense went off, and I had to dive sideways as a literal whip of magma carved through the statue. I landed and triggered Mornax, letting the whip slam into my body on the second strike and then grabbing it firmly.

The attacker, a short man with dark shin and long red hair, yelped in surprise as I wrapped it around my hands and tried to haul him off his feet, but he was able to stop me once he realized what I was doing.

Mornax made me very stable, but it didn't make me stronger, and my Might wasn't as high as this person's so we ended up in a bit of a deadlock. At least until my clone came up behind him and smashed a Mercy Kill empowered blow into the side of his knee. There was a loud crack and he screamed, losing his footing and flying towards me.

I stomp kicked the flying form in the face, letting his own momentum do most of the work as he hit my (as far as he was concerned) nigh-invulnerable shell.

His nose broke, and he dropped to the ground screaming. Reaching into my ring, I pulled out some rope, tying him up securely. It took a bit of wrestling, but a few stomps on his face from my clone proved a sufficient distraction.

Flicker coalesced from smoke next to me, looking impressed. "That was a good takedown." She said approvingly. "Most Wyndhams aren't quite so handy in a pinch. Good to see you're not one of the layabouts."

I nodded. "I do what I can. I figure we could question this one. He seems like part of the main invasion force, so maybe he knows details of what's going on."

The captive cackled. "Fools!" He said acidly. "I'll never talk. You can peel off my skin and drown me in boiling oil, feed me to an ant colony, pluck out my eyeballs, I'm prepared for any form of torture."

I blinked at him oddly. "I mean…I was just going to ask you and then move on." I glanced at Flicker. "Those sounded really persuasive though. Should we try them?" I obviously wasn't going to torture him, aside from not even having time, I found the idea morally repugnant…but he didn't have to know that.

His bravado faltered. "Wait, no shit, don't do that." His expression was haunted. "That's just like…a saying. I didn't mean it. I don't want to boil alive in oil. That sounds horrible."

I was glad I had a mask on, because watching him talk himself into confessing was making it hard not to grin and give away the game. Instead I just stayed quiet. This guy was questioning himself way better than I ever could. My implacable wooden face was probably helping, so I just waited.

"You don't have to boil me alive." He babbled. "You could just beat me, I mean wait, don't beat me, you can throw me in prison, but I don't want to go to prison, shit." He looked ready to cry, and finally he let out a groan of mental anguish and wailed. "Fine, you got me, I'll talk, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just don't do any of those horrible things to me!"

Holding back gales of laughter was tough, but knowing my friends might need help made it easier. "Who did they send to take Walker? Can't be easy to pin down someone like him. Must be someone strong."

He nodded quickly. "Definitely!" He said "They sent Bon Voyage. He's super fast. Impossible to catch! Even Walker won't be able to get away."

We spent the next ten minutes trying to sort relevant details from the word vomit of Marshall's (his real name, though apparently he went by Fire Marshall when in costume) life. He shared WAY more than we needed to know, and was seemingly unable to stop talking. By the time we left to help the others we'd officially learned enough of his life story to write a biography, but we had the info we needed.

Walker was in here, but having figured out what Bon Voyage could do, rather than face him head on, he'd retreated and activated the defenses. Super speed was less useful with no room to move around. He'd been sending people to try to root out the guild master, but wasn't having much luck. When Jessie, Benny, and the others showed up things just got more complicated and our friends had decided to look for their target rather than start a fight, which was the smart call.

Since the person who built this place had also been insane, he'd honeycombed the whole thing with secret tunnels and passageway, some of which the enemy had found but most of which were eluding them. Stella seemed to know them though, which gave them a big advantage over everyone but Walker, who had evacuated everyone else. In fact, his power was perfectly suited to using the passages against the enemy, and he'd been picking off stragglers while he avoided Bon Voyage until our team showed up.

I'd tried calling them, but I hadn't been able to get through. What I HAD been able to do was extract (for some value of that word) the last location they'd been from the prisoner.

Once we arrived, I used Eye of Revelation to pin down the location of the passage entrance and then opened it up to follow them into the passageway.

With Benny's trail (not to mention Randall's) I was able to track them with my skill easily enough, and it only took about twenty minutes to reach the end of the road. As I opened the entrance, I felt a twinge of Danger Sense, but it immediately faded as Benny's voice shouted. "Wait!"

My staff was up and flickering to life with poison fire, but at his words I froze, as did the man with the top hat and the umbrella poised to spear me through the eye. And I mean VERY poised. I'd gone into Mornax as soon as my Danger Sense triggered so it wouldn't have killed me, but I'd never taken a blow to eyeball in my defensive form, it might have actually done some damage. The guy was FAST. "Walker, I assume." I said dryly as Benny explained who I was. We stepped forward into the passage, the wall closing behind us.

The inside of the passageway had glowing stones set into the top that kicked on when the light from outside cut off, so we could all still see. Stelle stood behind Benny, holding a pint sized Randall while Jessie waited behind her. With a sigh of relief Jessie launched herself forward to hug me. "Shane!" She said happily. "You're alright. There were way more of them than we expected. The speedster actually carried some reinforcements into the city at the last second."

I winced. We hadn't considered that option, though we should have, since it was basically the same as our plain, albeit way less well thought out. "Well it's fine." I said with a wave. "We have enough people to fight our way out, and we might not need to, this place has escape tunnels right? We can go meet up with Abel and Bethy."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible." Said Walker calmly. "The exit tunnels have been collapsed. Some of the interlopers attempted to follow my people out and they were forced to respond. We only had the one escape route, and it was designed to be collapsible in case of just such an emergency."

Cursing, I let out a loud sigh. I'd mentioned fighting our way out, but I'd hoped that would involve all of our people. We couldn't even count on Callie's overwatch because this building was in an enlarged space. Views from outside were meaningless when you went past a certain level of spatial enlargement.

None of the other buildings in the city were at that level, but the branch headquarters were the most advanced premises in town, despite being so old. They kept these places up to code, weird construction or not.

"Alright." I said after a minute. "Then we'll need to break out of here by force. Walker, is there a way to see what's going on in the hallways without leaving the passages?" If I had been building passages like this I'd have made spy holes or something.

Smirking, the dapper man nodded. "But of course. Follow me." He turned setting off at a casual stroll in a seemingly random direction, and we all followed. Finally we came to a large chamber between tunnels, the walls lines with mirrors showing various points in the building. "Do you mean something like this?" I grinned viciously behind my mask. This would do perfectly.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Asked Benny anxiously as we stopped outside the exit to the passages. The others were behind us, but they'd wordlessly agreed to hang back so my best friend could try to talk some sense into me.

"That depends." I said with a smile, looking over my shoulder. "Hey, Walker." I called loudly. "You sure this is the exit closest to the speedster?"

He nodded. "When last we checked. This should be the nearest to his position."

"Then, yeah, I'm about fifty percent sure." I told Benny brightly. "Pretty good odds. It's as good as a coin flip. Fifty fifty."

He threw up his hands. "That's a failing grade in literally every feasible grading metric! Fifty fifty is terrible!" He turned and started pacing. "You're going to die. And then I'm going to die. Or worse, you'll die and I'll live and your wife will murder me. Slowly!"

"It's true." I admitted. "She'd make you suffer for decades."

"You're not helping!" He hissed angrily.

I put a hand to my chest in shock. "Oh no! Am I not being considerate of how hard your part in this plan is? I could see how having to risk your life like this would be stressful, oh wait, no, that's me, so shut up and go stand in the corner like a good little rescuee."

He glared. "You are not RESCUING me. You're helping. We could totally do this on out own we-" He yelped as something smacked into the back of his head, shooting Celine a betrayed look.

"Sorry." She said without a hint of remorse. "Callie says when the two of you spend too long bickering it needs to be interrupted or you'll banter for hours."

He rubbed his head, glaring at me. "Your wife is a terrible influence." He said acidly.

I shrugged. "She's not wrong." I reached out and tapped him on the shoulder lightly with a fist. "I'm good man, seriously. I put a lot of thought into this plan, did the scouting, measured everything. I can do this. Just be ready to leg it when phase one ends."

Blowing out a breath, he nodded. "I got it. Just be careful. Seriously, aside from being super sad, my life will be hell if you die on my watch. Forget Callie, your mom scares the shit out of me."

"That's probably a smart position to take." I admitted. "I'll try my best not to leave you hanging."

Smiling reassuringly, I turned to the passage and opened it, stepping outside, we left it cracked so I could see in, part of the plan.. I had State of Grace pushed to its limits and was paying close attention my surroundings. I even triggered Piece of Mind so I could dedicate a whole parallel to executing my task flawlessly. My plan was rough, but I had the tools to pull it off. I'd crunched the numbers, I just needed to pull of this first phase and we were golden.

It only took a moment or two. I'd counted on them having some way of monitoring the hallways, and sure enough, they did. I felt my Danger Sense go off and used my parallel to trigger a pair of skills at once.

As I felt the attack coming, I triggered Double Trouble, targeting Benny inside the passage, and Pit of Despair on the wall next to where I was standing. Dust Construction kept it looking like a wall as I vanished, replaced by an illusion. Even with my speed enhanced, an entire other mind working the problem, and forewarning, I BARELY managed to move out of the way. But manage I did.

The speedster had been nearby, and when notified of my presence had come right for me, as I expected. While the other E-rankers were important, I was the main target on Callus, and I knew there would be standing orders to prioritize my capture.

My plan's first phase went off perfectly as the speedster passed through the illusionary double and hit the wall, smashing face first into a Pit of Despair and driving himself deep into the wall.

I let the skill drop, entombing him in rock, and shouted to go, the rest of us booking it out of the passages and down the hall. We'd gone over the path we had to take ahead of time, and all of us moved at top speed. Walker actually carried Benny and Jessie, while Jessie carried Randall (mini form) and Celine hung around his neck.

His ability let him move faster than any of the rest of us, and between my waltz and her stats Stella and I made the trip fast.

We were around the corner and in the next hall when there was an echoing crash, but I was already in motion. My Danger Sense had gone off again, and warned me of the return of Bon Voyage, and I was already in a combination of Mephistopheles and Belial, my staff flashing out to slam into the ground and open up a pair of Pits of Despair infused with Belial's corrosion.

As soon as they were down, I raised my staff and started charging cosmic collapse with the black fire and corrosion energy combined, pushing myself further than I ever had before as I activated Mornax, a third form stacking on top of the other two.

Even my soul, so powerful for my rank, screamed in distress under the weight of using all three forms and a technique at the same time. Only Callie's silent support and intervention, shouldering half the burden, left me functional as I launched my cosmic collapse.

With my parallels going, this entire sequence of events had taken place in a fraction of a second, my warning from Danger Sense letting me move before the speedster even broke free. As he came around the corner he ran into my pits of acidic despair and had to pause so he didn't fall in, then readjust to use the singular path I'd left between the pits.

The cosmic collapse detonated as he was right about to reach me, less than a foot away, and he didn't have time to dodge it at all. The explosion of black fire was infused with corrosive green flame, and the combination sprayed the hall in a cone, sticking to every surface like corrosive napalm.

Bon Voyage had taken it full in the face, and I let Mephistopheles and and my parallels drop as I adjusted my stance, Mornax and Belial still going, but the strain easing as I pulled back from crossing my limits.

The speedster had stumbled back, screaming and clawing at his body, burning with a terrible flame that wouldn't go out, the toxic fire eating through his flesh, mixing the horrible corrosive strength of Belial with Mephistopheles' armor piercing properties. It was WAY more damaging than expected, and it would have been enough to put any normal person out of commission.

But luckily, I didn't make plans to deal with normal people. I'd been studying tactics, learning how to make best use of my abilities, and while this particular plan was mostly just 'apply extra hard brute force here', I'd learned enough about making plans to know you should always expect to need overkill.

The speedster screamed, an inhuman sound of pure rage, and rushed me at top speed, obviously trying to use some combination of the fire and his momentum to smash me into mincemeat and end hopefully and the skill.

Which, considering I still had Mornax active, didn't work out so well. He hit me at top speed and stopped like a bug hitting a windshield, albeit with less explosive results. He was still burning but the most the impact did was break some bones. Of course, it also STOPPED him, and I wrapped my arms around him in a big bear hug, holding onto him tightly.

Belials's corrosion still coated my body, and it started seeping into him, even through the flames. My fire didn't hurt me at all through the combination of my defenses and current corrosive nature, and I felt him stiffen and start to panic.

His fists came up, and he started wailing on me, arms blurring as he smashed his hands into me faster than my eyes could see. I just took it, letting him poison his shattering fists as he pounded fruitlessly at my extremely durable exterior. To my shock, I started to feel the blows cracking my implacable stone hide, pain eating away at me.

Speed was a factor of Might, and someone like this had to be absurdly specialized. The strength he was using was unbelievable, and he was hitting fast enough to damage even my nearly unbreakable defense. At the end of thh day though, it wasn't enough. I'd put him in the worst position someone like him could be in.

He stopped struggling after about five minutes (an eternity to me) and I stumbled back, letting all my skills and forms drop as I keeled over. Benny caught me, Jessie there to support, and I felt my healer friend's power surge into me, even as Benny's spiritual calming helped repair the soul damage to my cracked and aching spirit.

"I hate super speed." I rasped. "I hate it so much."

Benny snorted. "I can't believe that worked. How the hell did you know what he would do so accurately?"

I shrugged, ignoring the agony it sent through my repairing body as they hefted me up onto a now expanded Randall. I wouldn't be walking for a while, and the bear would make a good protector as well as a mount. "It wasn't too hard to predict his path. The tough part was knowing if I'd be fast enough to react. State of Grace and my armor helped with that. Otherwise I'd have been screwed."

"Speaking of your armor." Said Jessie in a worried tone. "How did he bypass it and do so much damage to your body?"

"Blunt force." I grimaced. "Plus I was in a stone form, and extra vulnerable to that kind ot thing. The vibrations were basically tearing me apart. Never come up before because almost nothing our rank can get through my defense. That guy was hyper focused on Might, and his speed ability clearly gave him some kind of modifier for it too."

I mentally sent a question to Callie, checking on her, and she sent back a tired, pained affirmative. She'd helped a lot, but I'd been handling most of it. She was going to be fine, she just needed some rest. "Alright." I said tiredly. "Let's go meet up with the others. We need to get the hell out of here. Walker, you ready for your part?"

The dapper guild master nodded. "I'll be applying my ability to this 'starlight charger' to enable us to travel vast distances nearly instantly."

We made our way out of the building. We ran into a few baddies, but the others handled them, mostly just wendigos. Randall apparently remembered the first one, because he seemed to take great pleasure in tearing them apart.

Once we got outside, Callie was able to direct me to the others, still cognizant enough to keep watch, and we met up with them quick as could be. Dead Eddie and Sam Slaughter were with them, the former seeming almost cheerful and the latter looking suspiciously beaten up.

Bethy took us all into her Domain, and she, Gabe, and Walker climbed on the charger (it was a bit cramped but the horse was big) and we were off. The speed of the horse, Gabe's Path, and Walker's ability was just as potent a combo as we'd expected, and we literally made it back to the fortress in less than ten minutes, a staggering pace. When we were safely back, I stumbled up into the castle, finding a room, and promptly passed out on the bed. Mission successful, now I needed to get some fucking sleep.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I woke with a pounding headache. On checking my scan ring I confirmed it had been about eighteen hours, taking me firmly into the next day. It was crazy to think my wedding had been just yesterday, given everything that had happened. Focusing on that, I sent a quick message to Callie. "Good morning, and I love you."

She seemed to be busy, but I got a rush of warmth and love in return and smiled. Sadly, the giddiness was quickly overwhelmed by other concerns, and I rolled out of bed, groaning as my head rang a little.

To my surprise, it was shockingly light damage for the amount of soul strain I'd been under. Super speed was counterable with precognition and area denial, but using all those skills and techniques at once had been rough. I still had my limits, and thet were clearer than ever right now.

On the upside, my techniques had taken my original combination form (Belial plus Mephistopheles) and massively amplified its combat potential. That corrosive armor breaking cosmic collapse was probably the most devastating attack I had access to right now.

"Oh hey, you're still alive." Grumbled a sardonic voice off to one side. I turned to see my best friend slouched in a chair. "What part of 'don't die on me you moron' was unclear? Because shattering your soul would definitely count. I've been pumping out spiritual calming all night at point blank range and there's STILL damage. And I imagine Callie was helping too."

Benny looked like shit. Dark circles around his eyes, glazed expression, just generally exhausted and in pain.

"That fight wasn't one we had a good shot at winning." I said bluntly. "None of us were a good matchup for that guy. Mobility powers are a bitch to fight against, and that particular ability was absurdly powerful. Either that or he was REALLY focused on Might. Those punches actually hurt me in my Mornax form. Nothing in E-rank should be able to do that, which means-"

He grimaced. "Which means someone past traditional limits."

Being over the limit in E-rank was complicated. Much like earlier ranks, there were people whose power had qualitatively surpassed their rank. However, because of the watershed at D-rank, those people could NOT punch up ranks. Barring bullshit like we'd pulled with Callen, it was functionally impossible to beat a D-ranker at E-rank.

Bon Voyage, based on the damage he'd done, was something more like a 'Post E-ranker'. Someone who had passed what should have been the cap for the Expert level, but wasn't quite at the level of a true Master. Purely in terms of stats of course. You couldn't rank up an ability past your current rank, and I was sure Bon Voyage's speed was an ability.

Benny looked annoyed, but finally just sighed, waving it off. "It's fine. I get it. If Callie isn't berating you over it I don't have a leg to stand on, and she doesn't seem to be based on your demeanor."

I laughed. "She does worry, but she knows some things are necessary. I didn't get any flack for this one. She doesn't get angry unless I take unnecessary risks." I paused. "Well, she doesn't get angry with ME. She's not super pleased with the situation, and I think she might try to tear out Travis's spine and beat him to death with it."

"I'll hold him down." He said darkly. "It wasn't enough to turn on us back in the imperial academy? He had to follow us home to twist the knife?"

Surprisingly, I didn't seethe, or curse, or spit with rage. I was pissed, or course, but it was a calm fury. A certainty. "Don't worry about Travis. He's run out of chances. He's not leaving Callus alive. Not after this. I'll make damned sure of it."

Benny grimaced. "I don't know Shane. Travis was pretty scary back at the academy, and he pulled off a big coup. I get the feeling he isn't going to be a pushover. Having already reached E-rank without access to you. I mean being an infamous traitor probably helped, even if I know the factions tried to suppress the rumors, but…"

"But he's probably been personally instructed by some scary people." I finished. "Maybe a god. I know that's what most people would want as a reward for enabling their return. I felt a sense of power from him when we met. I have no doubt killing him won't be easy. But it's fine. I've been working on a new form specially for him. I know his ability, even if it might get countered.

"Then you'd better rest and heal." He said firmly. "Coming along with us for this run made sense, but now we've got Flicker on the team as a rep, and with Bethy, Gabe, and Walker our mobility is through the roof. Hell, even I'm probably just slowing them down. I'll be staying hear to help you heal."

That was a big sacrifice, and it kind of blew my complaints out of the water. If Benny was willing to get sidelined to sit around and play soul recovery aid, then I had no reason to bitch about not being able to go out.

If anything, he was right. If I wanted to lead the raid on Wintervale, I needed to be back in tip top shape. Which meant all the smaller runs to collect assets would need to be left to the rest of our crew.

I clenched my teeth in annoyance at the realization, but finally sighed and nodded. "Fine. But I'm going on the run to Rajak. Callie is worried about her little brother. Honestly, she isn't saying it, but I think she's even a LITTLE worried about her dad. She may hate the bastard, but she doesn't want him or Annie to get ritually sacrificed to dark gods and leave Eric without parents."

Honestly, I could understand. I wanted to stomp on her dad's hands and feet until they popped like bubblewrap, but I knew wishing him dead was a whole other ballgame. My wife hadn't asked me to help them, but she didn't have to. That said, if Paul were to be 'accidentally' injured during our escape, I suspected no one would be too broken up about it. I couldn't be expected to pull everything off perfectly.

"Done." He said with a relieved sigh. "And you can take over the planning here. Nat's been standing in, but she doesn't have as much up to date experience with our capabilities, and she's been kind of freezing up. That's fine when no one is going out, but she hasn't been sending rescue parties and we need to start dispatching soon. As for Rajak…I'm a bit worried. At this rate it'll be weeks before we can stage an assault. Will there be anything left?"

I snorted. "I imagine the occupiers are thinking the same thing, but they're overestimating themselves. We saw from this little raid into Trevally that there are upsides to being stuck at the same rank for millennia. Countermeasures in place, contingencies that have had centuries worth of resources and refinement poured into them. Rajak is the capital, and home to the biggest and baddest Callus has to offer. I doubt Travis has enough divine gear to go tossing it at every problem. Rajak will be a tough pill to swallow."

Callie had all but confirmed that from overwatch. She'd been keeping apprised, and the progress in the capital was anything but rapid. The defenses in the WCP were created for just such an occasion, and Cicero wouldn't have poured so much effort into regaining control of his deed back in the day if they weren't potent. She couldn't see the situation perfectly because of how deep underground they were, but plenty of enemy soldiers were being carried out in buckets and bags.

"So we take our time." He said with a sigh. "Do it right. And use yours and nats wishes to shore up defenses so if they DO find us, they'll pay in blood for every step they take into this damned cave.:"

I laughed. "Hell yes we do. Speaking of which, I assume yesterday's wishes went over alright? What did Celine end up paying for?"

"Anonymizers, Anti-detection wards, dimensional isolators, pretty much anything she could think of to prevent us from being picked up with Perception Skills or abilities. We're lucky that you invited Beaker to the wedding. He's been insanely helpful. We wouldn't have been able to set up the defenses half as well without him. A lot of the stuff she was going to wish for would have degraded the efficiency of some of the other measures. Setting up stationary defenses is shockingly complicated."

I laughed. "Beaker is here? I'm glad he made it out. He wasn't in the wedding party, so he kind of got lost in the crowd for me. How is everyone else?"

"Cass is terrified. Cark is angry." He shuddered. "Abel is…well, he's acting the same as usual, but there's an edge to his demeanor that no one is really comfortable with. We don't know if Cicero or Valk are alive. He and Mel are sticking with Nat while they're here, I think that's helping him keep his mind off it. Honestly Jessie is holding it together best out of all of us locals. Girl has iron in her veins when the chips are down."

I laughed. "Don't I know it. The two of you saved my ass back there. Without you to rely on there's no way i could have pulled that off." Sure, them helping was part of the plan, but I only felt comfortable pushing my soul to that extent because I had the healing and soul recovery powers at their disposal to make up for it, not to mention Randall to stand guard.

My best friend rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was pleased. We'd been pulling ahead of Jessie and Benny for a while, though they were catching up fast. They'd gotten a decent chunk
of points on the trip over, though I hadn't checked in about specifics yet. But this was Callus, they not only knew the place well, between Benny's Path and Jessie's absurdly specialized ability and stats, they were up to the task of taking on most E-rankers.

With Callie out of commission on the sip, my team was coming together to back me up, and they were doing a hell of a job. Speaking of. "How are your folks and Maria?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Dad is stressed and angry, mom is trying to figure out a way to spin this mess to her advantage, Maria is worried about her friends. They're all glad they came to the wedding, but Valen is home. Not being able to go back is hard."

Sighing, I rubbed the bridge of my nose, realizing my mask was on the night stand next to the bed I was in. I slipped it back on, realizing I must have been even more out of it than expected if I'd taken it off before bed. "Alright. Well, since I had a nap, I suppose it's time to go talk to everyone. We need to get moving on the rescues."

Eighteen hours would be plenty of downtime. We needed to get back to finding E-rankers to bolster our forces. One or two runs a day was probably the limit, and we'd have to mix it up so they couldn't ambush us. Within a week or two we should be ready for the raid on Rajak.

Despite the confidence with which I'd reassured Benny, I was still worried. I hoped we'd be fast enough to get to the capital before too many people died. Whatever happened, I would at least make good on the threat I'd made earlier. One way or another Travis was going to die for this. With that in mind I headed up to talk to everyone. Once the next rescue party went out, I could get to work on my next form. Like I told Benny, I was creating it special.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Sending the others out was more difficult than I expected. I had to watch my friends ride off into the sunset without me, risking life and limb on a dangerous occupied planet, and it felt…wrong. It gave me even more sympathy for what I'd put Benny through before he found his Path, and once I again I regretted letting my fear push me into the temper tantrum that alienated my best friend for a while.

It was silly, really. I was tough, but I wasn't Bethy or even really Abel. I'd put myself at maybe fourth in terms of combat ability, with Gabe bringing up the third spot. But some part of me felt like things would go wrong if I wasn't there.

My entire mentality had shifted over the course of our adventures. I'd become one of those arrogant elites that believed they were the center of the universe, and that I was necessary to succeed. And honestly…I was fine with that.

Arrogance wasn't always a bad thing. Confidence in yourself was fine, as long as you didn't take it to a foolish extreme. I'd done some crazy things, and my presence HAD overturned some nasty odds. It made sense for me to consider myself an asset. I just had to have as much faith in the rest of my people.

At its core, the desire to cultivate, to become a god, couldn't be called anything but hubris. Believing you were worthy of that level of power, of ruling over so many. Only an egomaniac would even consider it.

The trick was having the confidence to pursue that path without letting it convince you that you couldn't fail.

I think in some ways that was what my dad had wanted when he left me behind on Callus. To make sure I had enough of a heart to hold myself back from running off the cliff of supreme self delusion that so many powerful and talented Ascendants seemed to barrel over.

Because in the end, my friends kept me grounded. My wife, and my sister, and my mom, and Benny, and Jessie, and a dozen others. I cared about them, about what happened to them, and because of that, I would hold back rather than make a stupid mistake out of recklessness, because I'd risk my life without blinking, but I refused to risk theirs.

It galled me, honestly, to admit that I owed him something like that, but Zeke's speech had made an impact on me, and I'd been considering it ever since. My dad did what he thought was best, even if the rest of us disagreed. This was the exact quality he'd seen in my mother that he loved so much. He'd wanted it for me, and some of that was probably sentiment, but some of it was undoubtedly for this reason. To keep me anchored as I grew.

Maybe this was what he felt he'd been lacking back in the day. When he was up against Aidan. Not humility exactly, but a reason to fight. He'd had Zeke, sure, but I didn't think it was the same. Zeke was a partner, like so many of the other candidates had, someone to pour points and Skills and resources into. I knew he cared for my uncle, but it wasn't really the same. Hell, I wasn't sure it could be. My dad's mind had become seriously altered by his cultivation, based on what I heard. Was he trying to spare me that?

As much as I hated giving him credit, I hated missing the obvious because I was stubborn even more. Denial wouldn't accomplish anything but making a fool out of me. The truth was the truth no matter if I liked it or not.

I heard a sigh in my head. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you spiral into an existential pit of paralyzing self analysis. Why am I not surprised?"

My wife's voice echoing in my head soothed me in a way I was still awed by. Having Callie with me never ceased to make things better. "Eavesdropping now?"

"Nah." She said with a mental smirk. "We're married now. By Callus law I own half of your thoughts. Sorry, you signed up for me butting into your brain when you let yourself get morbid." The amused tone faded, replaced by concern. "You know there's nothing wrong with worrying right? Being concerned about our friends is a good thing. You don't have to treat every imperfection as some kind of trial to be overcome."

My grin this time was overpowering. "You're giving ME this speech? Bit ironic, isn't it?"

The mental equivalent of a pout came through the bond. "Someone once told me that I didn't need to be perfect. That I should be selfish sometimes. I can't remember details, he was super annoying so I tuned most of it out, but that sentiment stuck with me." Her tone softened. "I didn't marry Solomon. I married Shane. Don't be perfect. Be my husband."

The worry, the doubt, the gnawing uncertainty, they all dimmed at her words. An overwhelming tide of love and faith and trust crashed over me, dousing the flames of doubt that burned away at the edges of my mind. How could I be afraid when she was with me? How could I doubt myself when I felt how truly and deeply she trusted me?

I swallowed hard, letting my own emotions roll back toward her. The aching, bone deep adoration. The awe I felt that she was part of my journey. The joy at being forever bound to the love of my life.

On a ship in the blackness of space outside the atmosphere of the planet where we grew up, I felt tears prickle my wife's eyes at the depth of my feelings for her, and I smiled. She deserved to know how much I loved her. Our wedding had been interrupted, but it didn't matter. We had our bond, and our life together, and I'd make sure I told her, with words or actions or even with feelings, just how much she meant to me. Every day for the rest of our lives.

A wedding was not a marriage. Travis could interrupt one, but there was nothing even the gods could do to ruin the other. I made sure she could feel that as I wrapped her in my love and gratitude.

"You dick." She sniffed in my head. "You made me cry. I'm standing on the observation deck of the Necromedes. People are staring."

Snorting, I put on a tough tone. "Who are they? I'll come up there and kick their asses. I'll probably break my foot on impact, but I'll still do it." I sent a wink through the bond and reveled in the giggle I got in return.

So much context in so little communication. Not just thoughts really, not just words or sounds. That giggle contained so much more. Her love for me, her happiness at my willingness to defend her, her annoyance at me wanting to start trouble, and amusement at the knowledge that while I was kidding, I'd do it if she needed me to.

She was so amused, she took a second to realize what was going on, and then the pout was back. "Hey! I was comforting you. Don't turn this around on me."

And she was right. I had done that. Because alongside the love and affection, I'd felt something else when she showed me her emotions. Loneliness, guilt, fear. Being stuck up there watching while we all had to fight was heartbreaking to her, in the same way letting my friends run rescue missions without me was heartbreaking to me.

"Just reminding you of the same thing you were reminding me." I sent softly. ""You're not alone. You never will be again. Not if you don't want to be. That's not to say you can't take a vacation or something if you get sick of me. But for the rest of your life, if you're ever feeling scared or isolated, all you need to do is reach out and I'll be there. Or was that not the message you were trying to get across?"

A mental snort echoed in my head at that. "Why do you have to be such a sap?" She complained. "You're always making me look bad, knowing all the right things to say. You're setting an impossible standard for yourself, you know? Good luck keeping up this kind of treatment for millennia."

Smiling to myself, I laid down in bed, opening the bond fully, letting the connection carry our feelings back and forth as we stopped speaking. Words weren't necessary anymore, not now. We were together, in the deepest way we possibly could be, and everything was alright.

Sadly, all good things must end. There was a loud banging on my door, and I stood up, heading to open it, annoyed at the interruption.

Benny was waiting outside. When he saw my face, he snickered. "Did I wake you up? I'm supposed to be helping your soul recover, remember? Doesn't work as well if you wander off to nap without telling me where you're going."

"Spending time with my wife." I said with an eye roll. "Though I guess you can come in since that's clearly ruined."

He looked around the room exaggeratedly, checking under the bed and in the closet. In a condescending tone, he asked. "Is she here with us right now Shane?" He waved his hand. "Am I getting close?"

"We were talking through the bond, ass." I said snidely. "And she says if you keep mocking us about enjoying each other's company, she'll let Celine know that you think such things are silly, and you won't get any alone time with your girl for the next year."

He flinched dramatically. "No! Please! Have mercy!" He dropped to his knees, throwing his hands in the air in supplication. "Spare me oh might one!"

I laughed as I felt my wife's smug amusement. "She accepts your plea. You will be spared." I intoned dramatically. "But she says you need to earn your atonement. She wants you to bring me a sandwich."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure she does. Tell her I worry bringing you food might cause your culinary skills to degrade. Better to keep you sharp."

Now it was my turn for an eye roll as they both laughed. "Honestly, ganging up on me from orbit. What is my life now? Anyway, you nerd. You were here to help with my recovery? Take a seat. We were just talking, but I won't force you to sit in silence." Tapping my scan ring, I pulled up a file. "Because I have this."

His eyes went wide as he leaned in. "Is that…"

"The third one." I nodded solemnly. "It just came out. I picked up the file but never got to watching it."

In answer to my wife's cautious curiosity, I grinned, opening the file and sending her a mental image of the poster. "This is Benny and my favorite series from when we were kids. There were only two movies made, but they brought it back."

"Really?" She sent in a scathing tone. "You two actually watched those? They're notoriously awful. Whose favorite movie is 'Soul Puppet: Revenge of the Malicious Marionette'?"

I clicked my tongue. "She doesn't like Soul Puppet." I told Benny sadly. "Shame I didn't find out before the wedding. I'm stuck with her now. Make sure you check with Celine, or you might make the same mistake I did."

The faux outrage and amusement mixed together in my head as I dropped onto the bed flicking the screen over my scan ring onto the wall so we could watch the movie in a larger format. Then all three of us settled in to enjoy the show. It was just as awful as I expected, and I loved every minute of it. Sometimes I needed days like this.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After the movies (we made Callie watch the first two after we watched the third) I was feeling a lot better. I was itching to do…something, training, combat, whatever. But I was told in no uncertain terms that I wasn't allowed to do anything but grant my wishes for the day. Which I did, reinforcing various aspects of the defenses in exchange for another D-rank chit from Celine.

Once I finished, I decided to drop in and check on my mother-in-law. I found her in one of the less horrific rooms, spending time with Cass as Cark and Alex played bodyguard.

"That's a pretty good one." She beamed at Cass as the girl finished folding a small paper frog. "You're good with your hands. My daughter could never get the frogs. She got really good at making cranes though. Want to see a secret about the frog? Watch this."

She folded a piece of paper into a small froggy shape, then put it on the table, and after a second it popped up into the air before tumbling back down.

Cass gaped. "What? How did you do that? Did you use an ability? Is your power controlling paper stuff?"

Amelia giggled. "Nope. No powers involved. It's just a special way of folding the paper. There's an easier one where you push on it to make it jump, but I think this is more impressive." She paused. "Actually I do have a Skill for Origami now, but it's only a Minor Skill."

"That's pretty impressive." Cass admitted. "Can you teach me how to fold that one? I think a paper folding Skill sounds neat. I bet you could make a cool power with it."

Laughing, Amelia shook her head. "I don't know about that. Paper folding doesn't seem to useful."

"But you can make a cool power out of ANYTHING. Like Shane. His power is based on a dumb video game." I was behind her, so she hadn't noticed me coming in. She let her voice drop to a whisper. "I tried playing it and it's really boring. I think Butterfly Crashers is way more fun."

Amelia glanced at me over the girl's shoulder, trying and failing to suppress a smile. "I think Shane is more the exception than the rule. Though I guess maybe you could try to make a Skill out of playing Butterfly Crashers, once you get your ability."

She didn't mention the possibility of Cass not being Ascendant, because there really wasn't one. Cark would wish for her to get a power if she didn't have one. Honestly, part of me was curious about how strong an ability I could give someone, given the scaling effectiveness my power had on mortals. Especially after D-rank.

There had to be some limits though. Like I knew that no matter how strong I got, it was impossible for someone to wish for the wish ability.

It was interesting, because understanding skill construction better, I knew WHY that was the case. Aside from the basic fact that people assumed the wish ability was hard to get and so it was, asking wish to emulate and emulation Skill like wish was pretty much putting the Skill into a redundancy loop.

Shaking that off, I walked around the table, dropping into a seat where Cass could see me. "Butterfly Crashers is way too easy. Doom Sovereign has more complex gameplay. BC is for babies." I made a sound so she'd know I was sticking out my tongue at her, and her eyes narrowed.

"Your game is stupid and boring. Games should be fun. Claiming I'm too dumb to get it just means the person who made it is bad at making it…what's the word? The one that means people can use it easy?"

"Accessible." Said Cark with a grin. "And she has a point. They way overcomplicated the barter system. I could never get into DS."

I snorted. "A dislike of subtlety from the guy whose power is 'kill it with fire?' I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you." I put on a snooty tone, but I was watching Cass, and was glad to see her looking engaged and a little outraged instead of being scared or worried. Probably the reason for the folding party to begin with. "Now, how about one of you shows me how to do this folding thing. I want to get better than Callie so I can tease her about it."

Amelia laughed. "Yeah, that would probably annoy her. I learned this from my mother. I tried to teach her as a girl, but she never had the patience for it. She got to the crane and then stopped." She winked at Cass. "I'm glad I have someone else to teach. Maybe I can pass it on to the baby after she's born."

"You guys already know it's a girl?" I asked, intrigued. I knew nothing about babies or how to find out info about them.

She shrugged. "I know. Technically we can't be sure yet, but I can feel it. Not from scan heals, just my sixth sense as a mom." She glanced at Alex. "My idiot is terrified I'm right. He wants a boy because he thinks it'll be easier."

Callie's uncle rolled his eyes. "I am not an idiot, and as someone who WAS a young boy, of course I think raising one would be easier."

"What if you have twins?" I asked innocently. "Like…those run in families right? You're a twin. Plus Ascendants have a much higher chance of having twin children right? Hell, I'M a twin, though it's easy to forget it sometimes."

That was something I'd noticed in my time as an Ascendant. Because of the prevalence of twin stories and tropes, twin births were WAY more common among Ascendants than among mortals, at least statistically speaking. Obviously given there were considerably more mortals than Ascendants to begin with it ended up evening out, but still, something about recursion seemed to make multiple kids more likely."

Amelia glared at me. "We hadn't considered that. Thanks for bringing it up." Her tone made her lack of actual gratitude clear. "Anyway, I was just getting to know Cassidy. She's a very charming young lady."

"She's alright." I said blandly, shooting a quick look at Cass who was now fuming. "Little short though."

She stood up, pointing at me in outrage. "I am perfectly sized for my age! You're just a giant! I bet when I'm your age I'll be even taller than you!" Amelia had to try again not to laugh at the little girl's attitude, and I was right there with her.

"Maybe so." I said solemnly. "But you'll need to make sure to eat right and do your exercises, otherwise you'll just stop growing. What are you, two feet tall?"

She literally stomped her foot in fury. "I'm four foot three! That's exactly average for a girl my age! It's not my fault all of you are giants! I'll definitely be the tallest! You just watch, I'll be way taller than Callie!"

Cark rolled his eyes, laughing at his sister. "Ok, it's fine. We know you're not that short. Shane is just messing with you."

I shrugged. "You take shots at my favorite game and I'm gonna get revenge."

Glaring at me, she slumped back into her chair. "You're just being dumb. If you want to prove your game is better why don't you beat me at folding paper. I bet I can totally learn to fold the jumpy frog before you can!"

That was extremely unlikely, given my stats, but I wasn't a monster. I wasn't going to bully a ten year old with my superpowers. "Oh yesh? Why don't you prove it." I swept my cape back over my chair and grabbed a piece of paper. "Amelia-" I caught a stern look and flushed. "I mean…mom. Why don't you teach us."

She beamed at me. "I would love to." Grabbing a sheet of paper, she started slowly going through the steps, teaching us the exact folding patterns.

Cass ran into a bit of trouble, and she seemed frustrated, but she was a quick learner. I, meanwhile, purposefully hung back on the folding so I was making a bit less progress than she was. It was enough to push her to improve but not enough to make her feel rushed or hurt her confidence.

After about ten minutes, she finished, whooping with excitement as her from jumped off the table. "Yes!" She shouted triumphantly. "In your FACE Shane! I totally won!"

I clutched my chest dramatically. "You got me! Curse you Cass! Looks like there's a new paper folding champ in town. Why don't you go show this to Abel. He and the others just got back and I bet they'd love to see you."

Callie had let me know our team was returning just a minute ago. They vanished from her sight once they entered the necropolis, but she'd seen that they were uninjured. Cark nodded to me as he followed her out.

"That was nice of you." Amelia chuckled. "Letting her beat you like that."

I laughed. "She's TEN. I wasn't going to be the asshole that crushes her dreams. How has she been? Since the wedding I mean."

"Not bad." She said sadly. "She's putting on a brave face, but even under that she's mostly dealing with things." She smiled softly. "She's a strong girl. It's like looking at Callie when she was younger. I forgot how nice it was having them around at that age." She put a hand on her stomach. "Only ten years til I get another one."

"What if it was sooner?" I asked bluntly. "Cark works with Zeke, and he's pretty strong, but he's not…he doesn't come with us on most jobs, and we end up leaving Cass on the ship through all the dangerous stuff. Plus after this mess Callie will want you to have some protection."

She looked shocked. "I mean…Cark isn't really young enough to need parents. But Cassidy…if she was interested in that I would love to have her live with us. The compound gets a little lonely most days, if I'm being honest."

"Not my call, in the end." I cautioned her. "But as team leader, I DO decide if they come with us. I won't kick them out, but I could mention it to them. If you want."

I had no idea where our journey would take us next. In a year or so we'd have the candidate selection, but until then…we needed to expand our forces more. Make some new allies and friends. How we'd do that was anybody's guess. I could almost guarantee it would be dangerous though, and no way would the Necromedes be on hand to play chauffeur.

She nodded slowly. "I'll think about it." She shot a smile at Alex. "My idiot would need to sign off on it too."

Despite the nickname, he gave her a smile almost as silly, and I couldn't help but grin myself at their obvious happiness. Standing up, I moved over to her and gave her a hug. "Well, I came to check in. Callie and I were worried. If you need anything reach out, I can make it happen, until then, you two enjoy some well deserved down time."

Squeezing me back, she laughed. "I'm glad to hear she's doing alright. I know she wasn't happy that I yelled at her. But I still think she made the right choice."

"She knows." I reassured her. "And she doesn't hold it against you." And with that, I headed out. I needed to check in with the team who had just come back too. I wanted to know the details of how everything had gone before I sent out tomorrows rescue.

I had to shake things up. We were already falling into a holding pattern and if I let our moves get predictable my friends would pay the price. So I would get started on my research now. Tomorrows attack would be as unpredictable as I could make it.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

One month. One month under occupation. One month sending my people out to hit random cities, and stockpiling the E-rankers (and any F-rankers under their command) that we found there. My soul had healed, my new form was finished, and I'd managed to get a pretty sizable point harvest between renown income and wishes.

Three thousand points, two thousand Fantasy, five hundred each in Might and Perception. It was an interesting haul. I often made a point to try to figure out exactly what actions resulted in certain types of point gain. In this case, my reputation seemed to be heavily leaning toward force and cleverness. The raids must have been leaving an impression, overwhelming power and incisive information gathering. It was kind of fitting.

But today would be the end of that. The end of the waiting. Our forces were gathered, we'd taken stock of everyone we had, learned their powers, even trained them in some quick and dirty formations that should help.

All to prepare for this raid. Or rather, to prepare for the next one. Today, we were hitting Rajak. In force. Travis and Madigan were holed up in Wintervale, and we needed a trial run before attempting to take them on. Rajak would be the second heaviest defensive emplacement based on what we'd seen, and they would have information about the Wintervale defenses.

Unfortunately, there was still one big question mark. "What the fuck are they DOING?" I asked the room at large as I stared down at the model we'd made based on Callie's intel.

Because it didn't make sense. be'd been WAY too successful so far. Sure we were good, had amazing tools and used them well. But this was absurd. They had to have SOME kind of plan to deal with us…which meant Rajak had to be some kind of trap. It was their last chance to hit us before we attacked Wintervale.

Granted, attacking Wintervale was madness from a strategic perspective. Even with the additions from Rajak they outnumbered us 10 to 1. But it was also the only real shot we had. Even if they didn't know about the cold storage, we HAD to take out Madigan to get rid of the Labyrinth.

But Rajak looked…normal. Not great, but the forces that had collected there weren't centralized. They appeared to just be running amok around the city, ripe for the taking.

"I mean…it's a trap, right?" Said Benny as he stared down at the model.

I glared at him. "Yeah, thanks. I managed to deduce that much already. Any other staggering insights into our situation? I obviously meant what KIND of trap are they setting, genius."

"Well damn, Shane. I can't read your mind." He said with an eye roll. "But I don't see us managing to scope them from this distance any more thoroughly than Callie has. So what the hell should we do? They've got half their people in Rajak. If we go in the front we're going to get our asses kicked. Or the back. Or the side. And air dropping seems like it wouldn't work well. Pretty much our only option would be-"

"Underground." Said Abel. "We can use the old access tunnels into the districts. They were abandoned ages ago, but some of the shadier crews in the dark districts use them for…illicit activities. Disposing of bodies they don't want traces back, smuggling, that kind of thing. Stuff that even the WCP can't officially condone."

That was an unpleasant thought, given the kinds of things my family actively encouraged, but it wasn't really the point right now. "You don't think they know about the tunnels?"

Stella snorted. "I didn't know about the tunnels. The Palace is notoriously free of traitors. They use contracts and wishes to scan for double agents among their own people. The Unity was probably at least partly involved in the infiltration, but the WCP is rock solid. It sounds like these tunnels are a well kept secret even among the Rajak branch, I'd say there's a good shot we slip in undetected."

"True, but what about once we're in." I said with a grimace. "We won't be dropping into E-district. The dark districts are basically lawless free for alls. Which means if the vanished gods and their people want to hit our strongest, they'll have to get through. Those places are probably warzones."

Which would be fine if this was supposed to be an assault, but ideally we would get in, get our people, and get out.

Sloane spoke up. Her and Melanie were here with us, as well as Melanie's pet weasel (the unfortunately named Travis). "We might be able to help with that. You know what Beast Lord Garden does, right?"

"Animals." I said simply. "Sell, train, breed, all that stuff. Why?"

Melanie smiled sheepishly. "Because most of the people down there have bought from us at one point or another. Or a subsidiary. We have several active pet shops down in the WCP. The point is, there are a lot of animals down there. They're all trained and trusted…and we MIGHT have a way to make them go insane and attack everything around them."

We all stared at her. "You…you put BERSERK buttons in your trained animals?"

"They're not buttons." She said firmly. "And they won't harm the animals. If anything, they'll make them stronger. Just, you know, insane with rage." At our appalled expression she grimaced. "It's a last resort, ok? Every faction has one. Most of them are like, explosive formations or collapsing charges."

"Well, ignoring the ethical ramifications of implanting magic insanity triggers in your animals." I said sarcastically. "Exactly how many of them are going to be down in the dark districts?"

She shrugged. "We're a major faction. One of the biggest on Callus. The numbers could be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands depending on which district we end up in. Which begs the question, do we KNOW which entrance we're going to use."

"Whichever we pick, I'm going to say no one the animal riots." I said decisively. "That's too far. Those animals are likely to get seriously hurt, and they'll probably kill some of their owners. It'll be deeply traumatic."

Benny frowned. "I get it, Shane. But how do we get in then? We need a distraction to bypass the dark district and get into E-district. From there we have a straight shot to the surface, not to mention some serious backup. But only if we actually get there. Unless you have some way to make us all invisible."

I froze. "I…I actually might." I turned to Bethy. "If I can put you under stealth, do you think you can keep everyone inside your Domain long enough to get us through a small warzone?"

She lit up. "I totally could. I'll be the one dealing with the strain too. I bet you were worried stealthing me would mean trying to stealth everybody?" Bethy was pretty insightful when she wanted to be. I'd definitely been concerned that Bael wouldn't be able to keep up.

Stella shook her head. "We're ignoring the obvious. Getting in is one thing, getting out is another. We need some kind of distraction."

"I've got one better." I said with a grin. "Trust me. I already talked to Abel about it. We have a working plan, we'll be splitting up when we get there. The less everyone knows the better, but trust me, they aren't going to be worried about us by the time we leave. And if it works out how I'm planning, we won't need to worry about them either."

My plan for Rajak was…complicated. But also effective. I'd needed Abel's help along with Burning Fist to put it together, and we still weren't a hundred percent it would work.

"Well fine." She said with a shrug. "Then our biggest problem is getting into the Unity building undetected. That I might be able to help with. There are a few emergency exits, even one or two that let out directly into the WCP. The question is exactly what parts of the tower are locked down. It's designed to turn into a fortress during a siege. It's not really my area of expertise though, I can't get you detailed schematics."

I grimaced. "Callie has some basic layout stuff. Apparently the Necromedes can scan buildings even through the defenses, at least at that level. It took them a while to crack it, but they got the maps. The issue is they're static, they're the blueprints for the place, and don't take into account dynamic changes. We're pretty sure the building can do that."
Apparently hacking into the networks that ran the thing (and the fact that you could HACK enchantments was news to me) and getting a layout was a one and done thing. We had a vague idea of what was where, but after a week of sieging, chances were good that the building was dramatically different on the inside.

"It'll have to be enough." Said Chelsea tiredly. "A map, your skills for reading the situation with Eye of Appraisal, it's not ideal but we can get to someone who can let us through."

I sighed. "That was my plan too. The place is covered with cameras, so chances are good we'll get noticed quick. Callie knows a couple of passwords for emergencies." Pulling out a series of envelopes, I passed them around. "These are your parts of the plan. Read and burn people. I don't want any evidence. Compartmentalizing will save our asses if anyone gets captured."

It didn't really sit right with me, but I knew the chances of us getting intercepted if we split up were high. More than that, my plan for our exit was both dangerous and a little ruthless. I didn't want any more of my friends living with the measures I was taking than was necessary.

Once everyone scanned their envelopes, we all piled into Bethy's Domain, and she, Walker, and Gabe mounted the charger, ready to take us to our destination.

The trip took ten minutes, tops, and once we arrived, Abel and I were let out, while Gabe and Walker headed back in. Abel would be helping us find the entrance, then retreating himself, leaving Bethy and I to make the trip as a team.

Strolling into the forest, my mentor scanned the treeline for about two minutes, than walked up to a specific tree. Knocking on the bark, he frowned, then moved over one tree. Rinse and repeat, until he finally came to a tree that made a hollow sound. Once he did, he reached up and tugged a few branches, which shifted and clicked until a door swung open.

Grinning at us, he gestured into the darkness of what appeared to be a ladder shaft. "Alright, this will take you down to…I want to say PROBABLY dark district twenty six? I lose track. I never used these much. Cicero found out about them and wanted to try to set up a secret avenue of transportation for-" He stopped, grimacing. "Sorry, I'm worried about him. Makes me nostalgic."

I pulled him into a hug, which seemed to surprise him. "It's cool, man. If he's alive, we'll get him back."

"Nice of you to say it, kid." He said with a sad smile. "But we both know how likely that is. Keep your head on a swivel down there. Might get nasty. I don't feel like losing any more family."

He really must have been shaken, Abel wasn't normally that emotional. I smiled and nodded, then he headed over and Bethy let him into the domain. "Alright." I said with a grimace. "I need you close to use my stealth form." I turned around. "Climb on. You'll be making this trip on piggy back." Bethy squealed with excitement and raced over to jump on my back as I activated my Bael form to obscure us both. At least one of us was having fun.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The descent into the dark wasn't as stressful as I imagined. Climbing down into nothingness had seemed like something that would seriously freak me out, but honestly it was almost cathartic. Of course, it was hard to be worried with Bethy gleefully chattering in my ear.

"I really liked the dresses. Like the color wasn't the best, but it worked better than I thought, right? And Gabe and Chelsea looked super cute, and Jessie too of course. And I guess Benny looked ok and you were super handsome and Callie looked beautiful and Randall was so adorable in his little suit."

Chuckling at the fact that she seemed to not need to breathe and then reminding myself she was a vampire, I couldn't help but get sucked in. "Well I'm glad you liked it. Was that your first wedding?"

She shook her head quickly, hair whipping me in the face. "Oh not at all. But I'm usually not really part of them. Some of my siblings have gotten married, but I was just in the audience and the color palate was always too much black. I liked that Callie decided to break things up with a pop of color, because too much black is all sad and dour and weddings should be happy times you know?"

When I reached the ground, I dropped onto hard packed soil, setting off down a tunnel carved into the dirt and rock. "Well it sounds like you had fun. Shame we didn't get to have the reception. Callie was really excited about that cake."

Before she could respond, I came to a stop. We'd reached the entrance to the dark district. Bethy gave me a puzzled look from over my shoulder. "What's up? You see something?"

"Nope." I said as I set her down. "Just need to drop my stealth for this part. Some setup for the plan." Closing my eyes, I reached for my new form, ready to trigger it and begin the operation, though I hadn't tested it TOO thoroughly.

When considering my needs, I'd come across a few inescapable facts. First up, I needed a way to counter Travis, which, barring the ability to teleport consistently (and I didn't really have the foundation to build that since my one and only teleport was reactive for the most part) I needed to be able to be in more than one place at the same time.

That fed into my other need, exposed by the extreme damage of keeping three forms at once, the need to have greater access to my now decent sized arsenal of abilities without burning myself out.

Thus, I'd begun a grueling month of heavy research and methodical testing using what I had to create something that I could genuinely count on to fill those roles. It had taken a lot, considering the biggest factor was the ability to use forms without or with greatly reduced soul weight. I'd had to make a lot of trades, and rework the patterns about a hundred times, researching heavily in my skill construction book before I stumbled on the answer.
First off, I hadn't been able to use Afterburner this time. While a staple, it was actually TOO powerful, and had unbalanced the form. Secondly, I'd needed to use four skills as a base, and I'd needed them to produce more power than the sum of their parts, which meant I'd had to stack the stats again. This time I'd managed to incorporate two stats in the stacking, Perception and Might, something I'd only managed thanks to the book, Piece of Mind assisted research, and Callie helping out during the construction process.

I'd finally completed my new form only a few days ago. Shadow Clone, Piece of Mind, Stone Limb, and Dust Construction. It had taken some reworking to get it stable, with Stone Limb needing to be heavily retooled specifically to work with Dust Construction, but after weeks of trial and error I had finally finished it.

The sixth form of the Goetia staff art: Beelzebub. Based on the proverbial lord of the flies, it allowed me to manifest twelve copies of myself (thirteen of me total) and dispatch them to function totally independently. There was no range limit, and I could communicate remotely with them.

There WERE a few tradeoffs. They could only use a single form at a time, and I couldn't control or inhabit that many bodies at once. The parallels in those bodies were independent, even if they could check in and talk to me.

Structuring that had been hellishly difficult, and I'd only managed it by studying the Expert version of Paired Dueling and figuring out how the telepathic link worked for Callie and I. THe upsides to it were that the parallels seemed to possess either a soul of their own or at the very least some kind of amplifier, because I'd stumbled onto a way to use soul straining techniques like forms without straining my main soul.

Beelzebub itself was SLIGHTLY more strenuous than a normal form, but not enough to prevent me from using a second form at the same time. It was my crowning achievement in Skill construction to date, and without heavily abusing Piece of Mind to work at enhanced efficiency and help from Callie through the bond, I'd never have managed it.

Of course, the other me's didn't need to be told the plan. They were me. Using Bael to remain hidden, they all set off to their proper places immediately, ready to do the job.

"Wow, that was amazing." Bethy said, wide eyed. "Those all felt like real people. How did you do that? Wait…can I do that?" I was about to respond when she raised a hand and waved it, an identical Bethy appearing next to her. She put her hands on her hips and laughed cockily. "Hah! See, that's not so tough. Now there are two of me!"

Other Bethy looked at her in confusion. "Meow?" She said. She didn't actually meow, just said the word. Bethy, coughed in embarrassment and waved her hand, the clone dispersing. "Well, now that we've seen I can do it there's no need to keep another me around. One Bethy is already the perfect amount."
I had to shove down a laugh, because she wasn't wrong. "Alright, with them dispatched, we're ready to get going." I looked down past the edge of the tunnel out into the dark district, and winced. "Man this is going to suck. I can see a ton of E-rankers down there…and a lot of bodies. Attacks are dropping left and right. Even in stealth we'll need to be careful."

My Danger Sense would hopefully come in handy. I was also going to try to engage Eye of Revelation through the armor upgrade and my overlay at the same time. Combined with my early warning system I would hopefully be able to get us through unscathed.

"We're going to be moving as fast as I can without fucking up my stealth." I informed Bethy as I readied myself to run. "You ready for that?"

I'd have to keep my speed manageable to avoid the sonic booms screwing up my stealth, but as long as I didn't go over seven hundred and fifty miles per hour I would still be within tolerance. Mephisto's Waltz would have added to my movement abilities as it was made to, but sadly I was already using Beelzebub and Bael so running would have to do. Making sure we were still hidden, I breathed deeply, readying myself for the run, and then…I moved.

It felt shockingly good to just…run. State of Grace let me move more freely without the drag one would normally face at those speeds, though that was more for comfort than any real need, and my overlay combined with Eye of Revelation and Danger Sense…the three abilities kind of blurred together in one huge gestalt of movement.

My feet hit the ground like raindrops, barely touching down before the next step, and my body shifted through the line of free space like I was dancing. Sliding under blasts of energy, leaping over beasts, slipping between blades and hammers and bullets.

My Danger Sense played its warnings like a symphony, background music to the blurred lightshow of arrows and paths and attacks as I flitted through the madness, ignoring all of it, unstained by the reality of the world as I rode the music. Somewhere in my mind, I felt a click as I understood Mephisto's Waltz on a far deeper level, though the exact effects of that realization were a mystery to me at the moment.

And then…it was done. I was standing perfectly unscathed at the entrance to E-district. THe elevators were clearly out as a means of transport, but the dark districts were connected to E-district at certain spots. They were the unranked battlefields and the place where the E-rankers sent their best to win them honor and wealth.

Bethy hopped down excitedly. "Wow! That was awesome! You were like 'whoosh, whiz, fwip'. Sliding right between all those attacks!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Fwip?"

She shrugged. "When you avoided that ballista bolt covered in aquamarine acid jelly?"
That brought me up short. "Actually, that kind of was a fwip. Fair enough. Now we just have to get through this last barrier into E-district and you can let everyone out. How are you feeling by the way? Is keeping so many people in your Domain tough?"

"Not really." She said cheerfully. "It's kind of a strain, but a VERY small one for each person. Added together, less than seventy or so people is only a little tough. I'm good for a while still."

Grinning, I nodded. "Well lets not strain you more than necessary anyway. Come on, lets go."

We walked into a small, nondescript building, a bar called the 'Break of Don' and headed for the back. Abel had mentioned this place, since he'd been here before. It was old and creaky, but well cared for. It didn't take long to find the device Abel had mentioned.

The thing we were looking for was a strange multicolored music player. The top was a glass enclosure full of discs with music recorded on them (somehow, I had no idea how someone would go about engraving music on a physical medium like that, I didn't see any runes). We were supposed to press a letter and number, then another, then a third. Each one would play a song, and the three songs together were a password.

I tapped in the three that I'd been given, and the boxy device slid smoothly away from the wall, revealing yet ANOTHER ladder well. We climbed in, Bethy first and then me, and the machine slid back into place as the darkness swallowed us.

At the bottom was another tunnel, and we walked for maybe ten minutes before reaching a big metal door with a wheel release. We turned it slowly, and it opened out onto a hill in a forest.

Above us, I saw a familiar sky and grinned. E-district. It had been more than a year since I'd set eyes on this place, and it was oddly nostalgic. Bethy looked around calmly, having been much more interesting places than this.

"Alright." I said as I finished surveying the place. "I need to head to the temple all the way in the back. The Moravian lives down here apparently. He's the oldest E-ranker on the planet, and most likely the one with the most pull. If anyone can swing the others down here to our side it'll be him. Sadly I can't just take control of the WCP branch, and I really don't want to pay them all. Release the others and have them try to approach anyone they think they can sway. More motivation can't hurt."

This was technically part of the war, so chances were good convincing them would be easier than I thought, but having a representative with clout wouldn't hurt. The Moravian himself was apparently a friend of Zeke's and even knew my mom, and would be willing to hear me out for their sakes. As Bethy started releasing our people, I set off. Now it was time to go meet the oldest man in the world.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The Moravian's temple wasn't hard to find. In fact, knowing where it was, I couldn't have missed it if I tried. Not because it was some big flashy palace, but because it was literally the opposite of that. The temple looked…old. Like seriously old. It was built from weathered stones stacked on top of each other in an almost crude version of a log cabin.

Externally, the building was probably fifteen feet high and ten feet wide. It looked more like a tool shed than a temple in some ways.

But in others, it was truly staggering. Impact. The building was so far past anything else on the planet I could barely process it. Not D-rank, not quite, but right on the edge of the watershed. Ninety nine points of Impact. I wondered how he'd been able to make this, what process allowed him to create this building.

Sadly, my curiosity would have to wait. I had a meeting. I walked up to the metal door of the temple, rapping on it gently.

"Enter." Came a solemn voice. I glanced around, looking for any traps just in case, but Eye of Revelation was mostly silent. Pushing open the door, I stepped into the temple proper, unsurprisingly quite a bit bigger on the inside.

Still, not a huge building, even with spatial expansion. The interior was maybe a hundred feet by a hundred feet. The layout was simple, open air, with actual waterfalls on each side creating a sort of lake moat around a single central stone island. The floor of the island was covered with a soft, spongy carpet of moss.

In the center, sitting at a rough wooden table, was an old man. He wasn't ancient, or wizened, more stout than anything. The Moravian was a large man, about seven feet tall, with iron grey hair and a close cut beard. His long locks were bound up in a simple ponytail and his clothes were roughspun cloth.

Despite the simple appearance of everything there, including his apparel, I could practically smell the enchantments coming off them. Not runes, not exactly. More like man made formations. It was like every thread was carefully chosen to create a pattern that baked magic into every inch of his clothing.

He smiled gently at me as he gestured to the table. "Please." He said serenely. "Have a seat. I'm brewing tea. I grow it myself, you know."

Not wanting to be rude, I crossed the small bridge of stones leading across the moat. The waterfall on the front wall poured down over it, the stream shattering when it hit the large stone archway, not actually touching anyone entering, but creating fractals of light as it broke outward into banks of mist that floated above the island and temple.

Reaching the island, I sat in the hand carved chair across from him, and he slowly filled a porcelain cup with tea from a clay pot. As it hit the cup, small waves of steam came up, shifting and forming into strange patterns. "You're a formation Master, I take it?"

He smiled gently. "I've always felt a pull to the mysteries of the natural world. I travelled extensively in my youth, and was lucky enough to refine my soul, severing my shackles. When I returned home and realized I could never reach D-rank here, I wasn't discouraged. I simple realized I was gifted the chance to reach beyond what I was."

"This whole place is a formation." I said without any doubt. "A Grandmaster level formation?"

The Moravian smiled. "All things are born of the world, and in their birth enter the pattern. To return to oneness, to become a part of that whole once more, that is simply a state of grace. Grace can be powerful, if you let it."

"The Impact." I said with a nod. "You're collecting it. Why? You can't reach D-rank, not without destroying the planet. I assume the same issue would apply to the temple."

"Ah, and yet, once can surpass the limit and not reach heaven in a single step. Should the building pierce the veil without reaching the next rank, what would happen?" His eyes sharpened, despite his vagaries.

I was following though. "You're saying if you pass one hundred Impact without actually breaking into D-rank it would be enough to push the planet to D-rank?"

"Perhaps not all the way." He admitted. "But momentum is a curious thing. A little goes a long way. It would begin the process, at least. But you aren't here about me, or about my power. At least not this aspect of it."

"I need backup." I admitted. "My mom and uncle say they know you. That you're good people. They said you'll help me."

He shrugged. "Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Even one such as I doesn't reach my age in an environment like this without acting in my own interests. There may be power in grace, but there is rarely fairness. For the sake of my own goals, I cannot extend a hand in aid without expecting silver to grace my palm. So to speak."

"Yeah, you want to get paid." I said with an eye roll. "I know how my role in the WCP works. I can afford to pay, but not everyone. I don't have the cash to hire this many E-rankers, at least not long term. That's why I came to you. This isn't exactly part of the candidacy."

Sighing, the big man shook his head. "Symbolism, my boy. I seek payment not in coin, but in virtue."

"Can you talk like a normal fucking person please?" I snapped. "I'm on a schedule, and your cryptic bullshit is wasting time. Can you help me or not? And what will it cost me?"

Another sigh. "So impatient. My speech aligns with the world, as does all things. But very well. I shall be brief. This temple IS a formation. It gathers minute traces of Impact from across the planet. However, this occupation has shifted Callus into an unbalanced state. The natural formation of which this temple is a linchpin is out of balance."

"So you want me to…what? Go leave some rocks in a special place to fix it?" I asked cautiously. "Because time constraints aside I don't know formations."

He shook his head. "Unnecessary. In all Chaos there is Cosmos. What could be seen as a trial may also be an opportunity." At my impatient growl he sighed again, clarifying. "Formations are about patterns amid patterns. We are restrained. Kept captive on our own world. The planet itself is subjugated and under rule. To break free of one set of chains may symbolize freedom from another."

"You're talking about breaking through to D-rank?" I said with wide eyes. "The whole planet?"

"Even so." He nodded. "But what happens in the larger scheme must mirror the minimal. To break the shackles of E-rank is an opportunity I had thought wouldn't come for centuries yet. To seize this opportunity we must walk the path arrayed before us. Free the world and you will free the world. This is payment. Balance. Do you accept?"

"I mean…sure?" I said in confusion. "I was going to do that anyway. It's literally why I'm here."

He shook his head. "Intent is paramount. To free the world from its bonds is an act of deliberation. So too must your act of liberating us all. If you simply accomplish the goal with no intention, it lacks the trappings of ritual. Even the self begets the pattern. You must accept with knowledge. Move with purpose."

"Talking to you gives me a headache." I said bluntly. "Fine. Help me rally the rest of the E-rankers and I'll liberate the planet. Completing your little formation can only be a good thing for me. I want my loved ones to be safe." I paused. "What's going to happen when the planet breaks through, exactly?"

"The rest will follow." He said bluntly. "So many of us are on the edge of Ascension. With room to breathe we'll all reach the peak in a single exhalation. I imagine the phenomena will be quite spectacular. Perhaps not all one hundred, but certainly dozens at least. I imagine you will benefit quite immensely yourself."

I didn't doubt it. Renown was weighted by rank. A hundred fresh D-rankers pouring all their attention onto us was bound to be a big bump. Probably not enough to get me the rest of the way to D-rank, I wasn't delusional, but it would help me get closer for sure. Not just me either. Callie, Jessie, Benny, we'd all get a ton of renown off this. Hell, if we involved the cold storage crew it would be even more.

"We need you to get up into the Unity building and liberate the executives up there." I told him. "Will they accept your help?"

I was relieved by his nod. "I am not at the mercy of a faction. Unity, Palace, I simply am. I have been of great assistance ot most on this planet. Becoming part of the fabric of this world, making this temple the eye of a planetary formation, required a colossal effort of amalgamation. They know me. Will trust me. Worry not."

"Fine." I said with a sigh. "That's one thing taken care of. I'll be with you all, at least for most of it. Though we'll have to go slow. Traps and all."

Chuckling, the big man shook his head. "Traps I can deal with. As mentioned, all things are within the pattern. Disruptions are notable. To constrain me with passive defenses is beyond the skill of any on this world. Especially so close to my own seat of power. I know this corner of the world."

"Really?" I blinked. "You can just sense traps through the formation Skill? I guess Grandmaster is nothing to sneeze at." Honestly, he was kind of giving me a headache just being around him. His every movement seemed to be in harmony with nature, like he WAS a formation, and it kind of hurt to look at. I got the feeling that trying to fight him here would be a VERY bad idea, despite the lack of active or passive defenses.

Luckily, he was friendly, if a little abstruse and irritating. I supposed spending three thousand years studying naturally occurring magic in a hermit temple underground would make my social Skills rusty too.

Standing, I offered a hand. "I appreciate the help, in any case. I have to get going, we'll be heading up soon and I need to make sure my people are ready. If you could spread the word about us all leaving I'd appreciate it."

"It shall be done." He said solemnly, taking my hand. It was an odd sensation, like I suddenly became part of something larger. Then he let go and I was back to being normal me. I picked up the tea, quaffing it before I left. It was pretty good. Weirdly it seemed to kickstart my fate sense.

Once I was outside, I found Bethy waiting, alongside Abel, Gabe, and Chelsea. "We good to go?"

I explained the whole thing to them. Chelsea looked fascinated. "That's amazing. So if we can get through this the whole world will rank up?"

"Apparently." I said with a shrug. "I didn't follow all of it. He's not exactly the picture of clarity. Anyway, we have our backup. Between our own people, the people down here, and the E-rankers we have left over from mom's people, we have about a hundred even. With another twenty or so upstairs to be rescued, once we've got them we should be able to start planning the attack on Wintervale."

We just needed enough people to get into the cold storage. Luckily, gaining new people wasn't the only reason I came here. I mentally checked on my clones, grinning at the progress. If I had my way, not only would our forces grow, theirs would shrink. It would all happen in G-district. We just had to get Callie's family out first, then my grand plan could begin.
https://www.patreon.com/malcolmtent/posts?filters[tag]=WUTS

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"So, you ready for this?" Benny asked as we regrouped near the exit. As Stella had mentioned, there was a direct connection into the Unity building through one of the secret exits that had been set up to let out into one of the temples. The Unity and the WCP had a long history on Callus, and there were plenty of friendships across the divide.

We were currently standing at the headquarters of some kind of snake based Ascendant I hadn't really heard of, one who was close with one of the local Unity executives. They'd arranged for our entry into the tower, and the layout we had gave us a general idea of where we'd end up.

"It'll be fine." I said bluntly. "I'll make sure to remain in my Bael form. They won't know I'm with the group, and the plan should draw any of them off if I'm not there."

He nodded thoughtfully. "So what IS the plan. You keep mentioning it."

"Don't worry about it." I said with a wave. "Suffice to say it involves versions of me drawing off as many of them as possible in the most obvious way. Based on what we saw in Trevally, they're under orders to prioritize me. As for where they end up…you'll see."

"You're getting much better at this stuff than I expected." Admitted my best friend. "Making plans and stuff. You're not exactly a chessmaster."

I smirked. "Tactics aren't about chess. They're about figuring out what people want and using it against them. Sort of like granting wishes. And my fatewalker build doesn't exactly hurt. Anyway, looks like its about time to head in."

Gesturing forward, I pointed to a giant snake statue. Before our eyes, its lower jaw descended, leaving behind a stone tunnel that fed down and then straight back up, the tail pointing us through the body toward the sky. Once we got to the upswing it became steep, and we started climbing rather than walking, using the stone handholds easily enough.

It went on for longer than it should have, and it became clear some spatial fuckery was at work, but finally, we reached the end of the tail. I opened a trap door, emerging from the tunnel into a cramped closet filled with towels.

Moving out of the way, I peeked out of the closet, expecting to find the place abandoned. To my shock, a small blonde woman with a ruby crown was seated daintily on a loveseat, watching what appeared to be security footage of people in various hallways. A quick comparison with Callie's map convinced me these were nearby, and as I watched, the woman hit a few buttons on a remote and an unoccupied hallway shifted, one wall coming down and another rising from the ground and clicking into place as another flooded with red gold flames.

"Dynamic movement." I said thoughtlessly. Then I remembered I'd just broken into this person's penthouse. I immediately triggered Mornax as she whirled and attacked me. I cursed myself for considering her an ally out of hand and forgetting to activate Bael as soon as I came out.

A small army of birds made of rosegold fire screeched toward me, slamming into the stone skin of my defensive form and dissolving into a series of very hot, very contained explosives. "Wait!" Shrieked a familiar voice. "Dielli! It's me! He's a friend!" The woman froze as Stella came shuffling out of the closet, holding up her hands in surrender.

"Stacy?" She scowled. "Call ahead next time. And did Asp let you in here? That emergency exit was my escape route if they got too close."

Stella nodded. "He did, but it's fine. You can still leave. In fact, we're here to get everyone out. This is a rescue mission. We even have a solid fallback position. Actually, why are you still here?"

"Paul." She said with a grimace. "He ordered the executives to take active control of the defenses. It's working for the moment, you know how well configured our defensive systems are. But they've got the bodies to just throw at us, and those Wendigos are shockingly hardy. There's no chance you're going to be able to get past them all. There's hundreds of them. Paul just doesn't want to lose the building."

Chuckling, I let Mornax fall. "I wouldn't worry about that. I'll make a hole. Can I use one of your rooms for a bit? It would be best if I had somewhere quiet to coordinate this next part." It was about time for the fun to begin. I'd gotten the messages that everything was ready, and the timing was a bit sensitive. I hadn't been expecting it to work that quickly.

She glanced at Stella questioningly, but then shrugged. "Sure, there's a guest bedroom up the stairs. If it'll help, it's yours."

Tipping my crown to her in a way I immediately regretted because it probably made me look like a moron, I turned and headed up the steps. This was going to be a risk, but if it paid off we should be able to both get everyone out of here and seriously damage their numbers. Of course, it would also most likely kill hundreds of people, which I was…less sanguine about.

But I would do what was necessary to get my friends out of this trap, even if it meant staining my hands with more blood than I'd ever imagined. They'd started this, not us.

When I found that room, I sat down on the bed, crossing my legs at the ankles and closing my eyes. Using the same mechanic as the bond, I was able to reach out and tap into the senses of some of my clones. I picked a specific one, not taking control but more using the telepathy to backseat drive a little bit.

The version of me in question was standing in a familiar tent inside the circus. He was opening a hidden compartment, removing a familiar rolled up piece of paper. The deed to the Circus, left in a very specific place due to an agreement between Abel and his brother. Cicero had the deed but had agreed not to use it unless there was an emergency. This qualified.

Clutching the paper, my clone contacted me. "Are the others in place? I managed to pick up a decent amount of stragglers. Blasting around with Mephisto's Waltz was definitely as attention grabbing as you said."

"Just about." I confirmed. "The rest of them had to hit street level and move around for a while. But between our Might and the Waltz, not to mention Danger Sense, they mostly made it fine. We lost two, but I planned for an attrition rate. Just get ready. You remember how it works?"

A mental affirmative allowed me to relax as the rest of them got in position. This wasn't a delicate operation, but it was going to need to be well times.

Back in the day, Cicero had wanted to take control of the defenses in the circus to drive out the invaders. Abel had been wary, worrying he'd use them to try to leverage his position with the other members of the district, and so he had hidden the deed inside a labyrinth made by the same guy who had sealed the planet.

I'd retrieved it as part of a contract, but Abel had come back and we'd defended the place without tapping into the defenses (or if we had it wasn't near me).

This was important, because much like the defenses on the tower, the defenses in the WCP were dynamic, and sectioned off. Burning Fist, Cark's old boss, had the rest of the district under his control, and had the deeds on him. He'd handed them over, and I'd been able to send them down to G-district with my clones, most of them taking detours on the way.

As they'd entered, they'd dragged in as many of the enemy as possible, luring them with the promise of capturing their boss's one true target. Sure, there was some confusion when they noticed there was more than one of me, but that just added to the chaos.

Now ten versions of me (two had died) were down in G-district with control of the dynamic defenses, trapped down there with several hundred Ascendants.

The defenses, interestingly, were designed to be infused with the power of the user. In this case G-rankers. They were essentially giant amplifiers that let you wield your abilities at a massive scale to overpower enemies, but only within your area of influence.

My plan was based on the rank limitation, as well as the properties of some of my attacks. Once everything was ready, I had all of my clones dismiss Mephistopheles. I'd have liked to use a combo for this, but the clones could only use one form at a time. That didn't matter too much though.

Every single clone, at my signal, shifted into Belial, and with a word, they activated the defenses. Ten different E-rankers flooded the defensive constructs of G-district with the most overpowering corrosion possible, stacking Mercy Kill, Afterburner, and any other boost possible on the attacks as they funneled them through defenses.

In the distance, I heard a colossal roar as I lost contact with all ten of my clones at the same time, the form collapsing as the other me's died. I waited a minute to confirm, then stood up and walked out, strolling through the penthouse to look out the window overlooking Rajak.

In the distance, I could see a massive pit in the city, and I grimaced. One of the two destroyed clones had been placed to evacuate before he descended into G-district, and I hoped he'd managed it.

By using the strongest possible corrosion and overloading the defenses with way too much Impact, I'd essentially detonated them like supercharged acid bombs. G-district, built from mostly G-ranked materials, hadn't stood a chance. The entire district and all the ground above it had collapsed on top of about three hundred enemy Ascendants, crushing and then presumably melting them. The districts were compartmented, so it shouldn't do anything to any of the others now that the clones had died and the corrosion had lost its effect.

Hundreds dead, just to distract the invaders and whittle down their numbers. I'd grown numb to doing what I had to in order to take down the enemy, but this was a rough one, even for me. I felt a surge of fierce pride and love through the bond, and smiled, the burden easing. Callie was always the moral compass of our relationship. If she didn't hate me over this, I should be fine.

Turning from the window, I addressed the staring crowd. "I didn't get them all." I said apologetically. "But that should be a big enough chunk to seriously throw off their operation here. Let's go get the others before they regroup. We need to be out of here before reinforcements arrive. That won't work twice."

There were still a little under seven hundred Ascendant occupiers on the planet, and barring bullshit cheating plans (which I was out of) I had zero chance of taking them on directly with my current forces.

No one argued, they just kind of stared, some of them looking out the window at the gaping hole in the city. It was certainly something to look at.

I could understand the shock. A combination of Zeke knowing the defenses incredibly well, this planet being very low tier, and the districts having a design that lent itself to this kind of attack in case of emergencies had made it possible. Still, I was pretty sure once this was over, I'd be getting a MASSIVE spike in renown.

Which was fine with me. I wanted to be as strong as possible going into this last battle. We'd need everything we had to crack the cold storage and free the others. Even once that was done, arranging the final push to get to Madigan and Travis would be a hell of a job. I was going to take my time with the planning though. I was determined to get it right.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We split up as we left the apartment. There were a ton of people here, not just executives, but staff, families, subordinates, and any number of other innocents we could and should rescue on our way out. Rajak was MUCH too big for the remaining two hundred enemy Ascendants to really crack down on after we left, but the Unity building was a prime target for focus.

That was why I'd drawn off so many of them with my clones. As the main target here, I was too good of a find to pass up, and they would have pulled as many as necessary to track me down. The thing was…I still had a bad feeling. Something was going on here. Travis had to have a plan in place for when we showed up.

My own plan had massively evened the playing field, but it didn't mean we were in the clear. Which was why we'd split up to make the best use of our time.

There were a LOT of hallways and floors to cover, and seventy E-rankers was barely enough to sweep them all in time. We'd gone with groups of three, Benny and Jessie were accompanying me, and we were heading for the top floor, where we would find Paul, Annie, and Eric.

If there was a trap, it would be up there. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would put a guard on Callie's family. Close or not, it was the common sense move.

I growled as I ducked under a spontaneous laser grid, then hopped over a pit that opened in the floor full of some kind of acid. My hand lashed out, plucking five darts from the air, my gloves preventing the poison on them from being absorbed into my skin.

Between my Eye of Revelation, Callie's trap senses, and the overlay, we were getting through the place at a steady pace, but steady wasn't fast. Stella had gone with her friend, using the pass through the defenses to get to the nearby executives, hopefully using THEIR defensive access to expand that perimeter as they went, but we were heading for the top directly so we had to go the slow way.

The stairwells were trapped to hell, but they were the only way up (lockdown had shut down the elevator) and we'd run into several Wendigos already, but we were finally up at the last floor. I was just about to open the door, when I felt my Danger Sense flare. Hard.

"Wait." I said, holding up a hand. "There's someone in here. Someone bad." This was the trap, the hook that had been set in Rajak to scoop me up. "Just like we planned. The two of you hit the next floor down. The vice guild master and her family are down there, have her help clear the rest of the floor and bring everyone you can up to help."

I'd made several contingencies for this, and rollover backup was the easiest to pull off. Midknight and Shadowthorn were inside, but Shadowthorn was F-rank last I heard, and Midknight…he wasn't on our level.

My friends didn't look happy, but they already had their orders. Mostly I was just worried about whatever trap was in here hurting them. I was versatile as hell, had my staff, and had plenty of escape measures. Benny and Jessie were far less mobile. Me being the one to check things out was the smart play.

Of course, I wasn't going to go in personally. I wasn't stupid. I conjured a clone through the bond, letting it step through the door for me while I waited outside. I triggered Mephistopheles and Belial, charging up that horrifyingly corrosive cosmic collapse.

Meanwhile, the clone stepped through the door carefully, a parallel controlling it directly so I could see everything it saw. I expected a trap, or an attack, or some kind of scene of carnage. Maybe some hostages or something. But to my surprise, the inside of the tap floor was mostly quiet, empty, and clean.

The sole concession to the situation was a man, sitting in a large chair, pleasantly waiting for me. His skin was dark metal, with rivets along the joints. He wasn't a golem like Yvette, I could just tell, he was an Ascendant. An E-ranker, but a damned powerful one.

"A Domain." I said as I peered more closely at the walls. "And a really strong one. Are you like Tartarus, gifted a Domain by a god?"

He smiled, exposing teeth of shining white metal. "You're well informed. Not quite. Tartarus was favored by his goddess above all others. I'm simply a lower initiate of the faith. It should be more than enough to deal with you, however. Welcome to my Cruel Construction. My Domain is built in the image of Stralthrem, god of Dread Fabrication. Maker of mechanical monsters."

The place didn't look like a lab or anything, just an upscale manor. But looking closer, I could see dozens of placements for possible weapons or traps.

This would have been a very bad situation for me if I'd come in directly. Domains grew in power based on the strength of the being whose story you were utilizing, as well as the number of people using that particular legend. At least the ones that you didn't create yourself, but I had no frame of reference for how a Domain founded on a real Saga worked.

Point was, this Domain came from the legend of a GOD. Sure, chances were good that given his mention of being a lower initiate this guy wasn't even close to the sole inheritor of this Domain, but still. I needed my big punch to count for something, so I needed to stall. Luckily, I had a lot of questions, so that worked out fine.

"Where is Callie's family? Did you already move them?" I glanced past him, through the domain and down the hall to a reinforced steel door.

He smiled warmly. "Not at all. Does one remove the bait from the hook before casting the line? They were smart enough to stay locked up behind their defenses. I didn't come here for them, so I left them to their own devices."

"Why are you here? And who are you?" I asked after a moment. "You seem strong, why would someone like you follow Travis?"

"My name is Nemal. Travis is one of Hatescream's direct disciples." He said with a shrug. "Those of us under the tutelage of a god try to stick together. This was a complicated plan, they sent me for cleanup in case it went wrong." He stood, waving his hand, and the ground opened up. From below, mechanical arms rose, holding bulky armored pieces. "If you have more questions ask them quickly. I don't have all day. I hope you don't mind if I put on my party clothes before the big event?"

He didn't seem to care for my answer, because as I watched, the arms affixed the bulky pieces to his body, bolting them in place. Shoulder plates, gauntlets, greaves. One piece at a time, his body was enlarged and reinforced.

The pieces were all E-rank, but I felt a sense of supreme danger from them. These were part of his Domain, something like physical techniques, and I could tell they would make his already staggering power even stronger. I'd never seen anything like this before, except…maybe I had. This was somewhat similar to Beelzebub. Solid techniques that could act independently.

Despite all that, I wasn't worried. I didn't flinch, or back down. I just waited. Behind me, power gathered. Dark armor penetrating flames mixed with corrosive poison magma, stewing together into a terrible substance that would eat through nearly any armor I could imagine. Afterburner was flowing through the attack already, as was Mercy Kill. Through the clone, I triggered Marked for Death on the armored juggernaut.

Finally, his transformation completed. Before me stood a colossal man covered head to to in high tech full body reinforcement. The only part remaining the same was his face, seemingly undersized against that giant metallic body. "You see my power. Surrender. I'll leave the others and take you to Wintervale. You can still save them."

"Yes." I said with a smile. "I can." And I triggered Double Trouble through the eyes of the clone.

Behind the monstrous mechanical giant, my main body appeared, staff raised as it smashed forward into the ball of black and green destruction. At the strike, a cone of ultra dense corrosion spewed out, coating the armored form, especially around the head and upper back.

Nemal screamed. His Domain was powerful, but everything about that attack was designed to boost one very specific trait. Armor destruction. His Domain was the worst possible matchup for my attack. I'd perfectly designed that technique to destroy him, and there was no way I could have more perfectly used that strike. Which was the only thing that saved me.
My Danger Sense went haywire , and I triggered Double Trouble again, this time targeting my own clone. As I reappeared behind it, I saw Nemal spin unnaturally fast, arms smashing down with so much force the building shook even through the domain as his fists cratered the floor where I'd been standing.

From that vantage, I could see the back of his head and shoulders, and I winced. The corrosion had eaten through huge chunks of armor, as well as the metallic back beneath it. Marked for Death had mostly bypassed the defenses, though the Domain partly countered the effect. It was enough to let the hyper corrosive charged attack get under the armor and start to erode the body of the champion.

He roared with pain and rage, then spun again. This time, when he charged, he was far enough out for me to see the thrusters hidden on his body push him forward. I triggered Mephisto's Waltz, blasting to the side as he blurred forward. My staff licked out, a blast of black flame striking his wrist at an angle to both boost my movement and divert his attack.

Bellowing with rage, he spun, glaring. The floor opened up again, and the arms emerged, holding tools and pieces of metal. He grunted in pain as the mechanical limbs began welding the metal to his body, cutting things free as they did their best to repair him. I raised my staff again, charging another Cosmic Collapse.

"This didn't need to be violent." He rumbled menacingly. "You could have been reasonable. Now I'm going to make it hurt. I won't just defeat you. I'll brutalize you. Beat you until no part of you is left unbroken, then drag your barely functional carcass out of this building by the ankle. I'll leave a trail of your blood streaked along the ground from here to Wintervale, a red road of carnage to mark the passage of the fool who dared to harm the scion of a god."

I shook my head. "Wow. I thought your Domain was mechanical in nature. But now I see I was wrong. Your power is something much more insidious. You're clearly a follower of the god of not shutting the fuck up. Already I can feel my willpower flagging as you slowly talk me to death."

He bared his teeth again, but this time the expression was far from a smile. "Little fool. Enjoy your false confidence while it lasts. It'll make it all the sweeter to watch the light of hope die in your eyes."

"I'm wearing a mask, dipshit." I responded kindly. "You can't see my eyes at all."

That seemed to be one insult too many. Shrugging his shoulders, he tore free of the working limbs, then charged forward at me like some giant metal battering ram. As I blasted aside, I triggered Moonlit Night, filling the Domain with fog to obscure my passage. I just needed to wait for another opening, and then the real fight could begin.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Nemal's charge was even faster than the last time. I had State of Grace active, but I knew for a fact it wouldn't be enough on its own. As usual though, techniques were the answer to my problems. Where Skills could and would let me down, techniques and my unusually developed Path were the keys to this fight, and Mephisto's Waltz traveled far more quickly than would normally be possible for someone my rank.

Combined with State of Grace, the space eating explosive power of the Waltz was at its best, and I was still using Afterburner on top of that, giving me some serious speed as I circled the mechanical monster I was fighting.

While the original armor had been blocky and dense, the repairs had shifted the suit from something like a giant robot to something more…alien. The metal was warped and twisted, almost biological in some ways, and too alien to process in others. Strange angles and shapes that weren't shapes marked the intersection of flesh and device, and as I watched, the more fleshlike metal sections actually expanded slowly, consuming Nemal.

This Domain was unusual, at least compared to the others I'd seen. Different Domains followed different stories, and from what I could tell, this was a Domain of repair and improvement. Rather than give direct combat power, it was designed to reinforce the user.

And it was…reinforcing him every second he stood still, grasping arms of mechanical artifice shooting from the ground when his advance paused. He couldn't see me exactly, but he could sense me somewhat. Imprecise as it was, it was damned dangerous. He kept getting faster and stronger, and while there had to be a limit, the Domain was constantly moving the needle.

It took five minutes before I found my opening. At the end of a lunge he'd tried to make a surprise, he spun with just the wrong timing, and the Cosmic Collapse was loosed.

This time I didn't bother with the back. I hit the one original part of his body. I detonated the attack right in his fucking face. The scream made it worse. Some of the corrosion went into his mouth, down his throat, and he choked on his own melting palate as he clawed at his face. Falling to a knee, he slammed his head into the ground, the arms rising to try to fix the damage.

I started hitting him. Nothing huge or powerful, but lots of small corrosive taps as I blurred around him, dodging attacks. The black flame acid combination of these two forms was still deadly, even without charge time, it was just slower.

Of course, he had a counter to it. His Domain repaired the damage as it spread, so it was a back and forth. Damage versus repair. Finally though, he realized what I already knew. I could keep doing this, keep stacking the attacks, and there was only so long he could maintain this Domain for.

Domains were powerful and versatile abilities, but they were also exhausting to the soul. Domain seeds like this one provided a powerful environment that boosted the Path, allowing for techniques beyond what that person's Fantasy would allow.

Nemal's Path was one of self repair and evolution, similar to Benny's in some ways. But he couldn't use it forever, and these powerful self repair techniques had to be straining him already. Aside from the limitations it put on future advancement, that strain was one of the reasons smart people with long term goals didn't create Domains early.

Much like Skills, a Domain needed to be suitable to you in order to minimize the strain. People like Bethy, who shared a racial trait with a genius who had consumed thousands of powerful Ascendants, were the lucky few. This guy definitely didn't warrant personal attention from his god, and the Domain couldn't be a good fit for him.

With the timer counting down, all he could do was to rush me, try his best to attack me. His fists blurred out, cracking the air and shaking the building as his sharp, jerky combat style covered as much ground as possible with as few openings as he could make.

It was a brutal, efficient style, obsessed with economy of motion to an absurd degree. It was like looking at an abstract painting of someone fighting. Strange poses and positions that somehow left him protected as he tried to sweep the whole Domain to take me apart, to break me before he lost this battle of attrition.

After about two minutes, I lost my ability to avoid completely. He attacked me in such wide swaths with such strange movements there was no way to dodge.

Luckily for me, that wasn't what these forms were about. I wasn't even sure that Mornax could tank this flurry of blows, but taking them on directly wasn't the name of the game. While Mephistopheles was my brute force form, Belial was not, and the two in combination gave me far more options than either did alone.

My powerful, amplified blows combined with Belial's mastery of leverage and deflection were my redoubt from the steel storm of burning writhing limbs. Each blow knocked off course by explosions of black flames as I ate up ground, shifting and moving as I dodged and wove together a dance of deflection and misdirection.

I'd spent so much time since I got here running and hiding. Holed up waiting for my chance to strike, preparing to make my move…and what had it gotten me?

Valk might be dead, Cicero might be with him. Callie was stuck in space as Travis, who had murdered our friend and broken my wife's heart, ran amok on my home planet, hurting and terrorizing MY people to his heart's content. And I was supposed to…what? Slip away again? Wait for reinforcements so I could run?

I couldn't stand it. Wouldn't allow it. This was my HOME. MY planet. These fucking heathen psychopaths couldn't just come here and push me around. The angrier I got, the more it fed into the black flames of hatred raging through me. The more the form seemed to resonate with me. I WAS Mephistopheles. Destruction made manifest.

Not just that. I was Belial. The deceiver, the lord or lies. I was never where he expected me, never did what I was supposed to. He was stronger than me, faster than me, more durable than me. Nemal was my better in every conceivable way.

I didn't give a fuck. Combat wasn't math. This wasn't some video game where I subtracted his damage output from my health points. This was my city. My planet. My world. He was just visiting, but he'd made a mistake coming here. You don't chase the devil into hell. Not if you want to keep you free will.

The more we danced, the more he fell into my Waltz, the more I could see the strings. He was like a puppet, jerking to and fro exactly as I wanted him to. My staff landed hard at ket point of his body whenever he moved, the corrosion leaking into him even more deeply, absorbing into his metallic body like water into a sponge.

Arms tried to repair, to counteract, but he couldn't sit still long enough. I felt…like a calamity. Like a force of nature. And suddenly, it clicked. I realized what had changed, what was different. All my techniques were single form moves. Some of them weren't form dependants, and I could shove two kinds of energy into them, like the cosmic collapse.

But I didn't have any DUAL form techniques. Not really. Not like this. The image was missing. Every single technique was a story. A legend of its own. And the stories of Belial and Mephistopheles weren't compatible with each other.

Except. They were. Because much like me and Benny, or me and Callie, they shared a connection. A root. A home. I felt the Waltz bridge the gap in a strange way, the dance the last little ingredient to wrap my head around what was necessary to bring all this power and emotion and intent into one crystallized concept.

"First Circle of Hell." I hissed in rage. "Limbo."

The hell of the undecided. The pit of desolation where dwell the uncertain and confused. Misdirection to shape perception, power to enforce the viewpoint. Even the Moonlight Night around us, the overlay, and the Eye of Revelation that shaped my understanding were part of it.

He sense the change, and I could almost see his mounting horror as it affected him. "Stop." Grated the invader. "Please!" His jerky alien martial art had been disrupted, his movements were growing stranger, small shifts in stance and posture, limbs jerked slightly out of line by pulses of black flame. In my Eye of Revelation a dozen spots appeared, ranging from green to dark angry red. I recognized them for what they were. Weaknesses to be exploited.

My staff smashed into the reddest spots, channeling torrents of corrosion and dark flame into the body. The arms flailed, trying to fix him, but his body shifted out of the way unwillingly. Limbo wasn't just about finding weaknesses, it was about MAKING them. I wasn't killing the invader, he was killing himself on my staff, step by step.

Limbs began to buckle and weaken, screams echoing through the fog as I slowly dissected my enemy, an alien sense of glee pervading my mind as the hatred and destruction mixed with the deception and manipulation into a dangerous cocktail of sadistic cheer at the thought of the fear and pain I was inflicting.

I was so lost in the sensation that I almost missed the alarm through the bond. Almost. My wife's fear and pleading struck me like a hammer blow, and I stopped on a dime. My staff was a split second from another strike, and as I regained my clarity, I realized that there was no more repairing going on.

Nemal was curled on the ground, twisted and broken, the Domain shattered. He wasn't screaming anymore, just whimpering. I let the fog break, washing it away as I stowed my staff in my ring.

That had been…awful. Like concentrated recursion pumping right into my brain. I'd done something wrong, something I shouldn't have done. There was no other explanation for that mental state. What exactly WAS Limbo? It wasn't a technique, not really. I'd thought it was, but something about it felt…different.

It hurt. My soul was in pain, not like the regular kind of pain from overstraining it either. I felt like I'd violated some kind of rule of the universe. Like I'd done something unnatural. Tried to flex a muscle I didn't have to lift something too heavy for me.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I spun to attack, but froze when I saw who it was. Benny was behind me, face worried. I fell forward, and he grabbed me, hoisting me over his shoulder. He grimaced down at Nemal, then with a short, brutal motion, stomped down on the whimpering man's neck.

The body went limp, pain ceasing, and I let out a sigh of relief. I should have just cut my forms, but I wasn't sure that would have been enough. Death was kinder.

Benny carried me to the security door, pounding on it roughly. An intercom came alive, and talking ensued, but I wasn't processing. I was in my head, with Callie's presence wrapped tight around me, whispering in my mind that everything was going to be ok.

My vision started to go fuzzy after that, and it was a welcome relief. My part was done, now the evacuation would take us back to the fortress, and I could have Callie ask my mom what the actual fuck had just happened to me. Because I was terrified if I didn't find out, it would happen again, and I wasn't sure even my wife would be able to pull me back from the pit of horrible sadism I'd just been submerged in. The worries melted away as I blacked out completely. I'd have to deal with that problem when I woke up. For now, I had earned a rest.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I came back to consciousness in bed. My head was fuzzy, my body hurt, and I felt…off. Not like I had before at the Unity building. Less urgent. Like I'd wrenched my neck and every movement twinged, except in this case my neck was my soul. I groaned quietly as I sat up, and was immediately flooded with anxiety and relief.

Not MY anxiety and relief mind. Callie was in my head, her terror that I'd seriously and permanently injured myself like a jagged piece of glass in my mental eye. I couldn't think through the worry. As soon as she noticed that, she retracted the emotions, clamping down on the bond, and I sent a wave of love and comfort on the heels of her retreating panic.

"You're up." Said my best friend's voice in relief. "Good. You've been out for hours. We had no clue how to check what was wrong, and since everyone who might have been able to tell us isn't here, we were kind of stuck. Bethy seemed to have an idea what was going on though, and told us you would recover."

The vampire looked worried. "I said I was pretty sure. It seems a little like soul strain. But also recursion? You can get past both of those though. How do you feel?"

"Like someone just kicked my soul in the throat with steel toed boots on." I groaned. "But I am recovering. I'll check with Zeke and mom about this, but I don't think I can stay in Callie's head to talk to them."

The darkness in the room shifted, and I blinked in surprise as the shadow sculpted forms of my wife, mother, and uncle manifested in front of us. "You won't have to." Said Callie bluntly. "I'll handle the load for this conversation. Just let me work through your eyes, and relax, ok? Sasha came up with this workaround."

My mother's shadow form smiled worriedly at me. "How is your head, sweetheart? Are your thoughts muddled? Do you feel angry?"

"Not especially." I shrugged. "Confused and a little exasperated with myself. I take it I did something stupid."

"No stupider than usual." Said Zeke helpfully. "You just happened to run afoul of consequences this time. Apparently even your stupid luck isn't endless. You very nearly killed yourself. Or turned yourself into a lunatic. Which would have meant one of US would have had to kill you, so same thing."

My blood went cold. "So…Bethy was right? That was recursion? Why did it hit me like that?"

Zeke rolled his eyes. "See, this is why I despair for your future. You have all the information at your fingertips, but you don't put it together. Fine then, lets take it from the top. What did you do in your fight?"

I shrugged. "I made a technique. But like…not exactly. Sort of a mashup of techniques that I used to claim…ownership…of an area." I groaned. "I made a Domain."

"Nope, because if you had you would be dead." Corrected my uncle.

I flinched. "What? I know making a Domain early is bad, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE. Bethy has one."

"Bethy has a Domain based on an established legend. A Domain her father carries the weight of for her." He corrected me. "That's perfectly feasible, if a bad idea for long term growth. Your Domain wasn't like that, was it?"

I ran back over my thought process. It hadn't been. I'd even noted it while it was happening. How Mephistopheles and Belial didn't fit together. That had been part of why I had CHOSEN Mephistopheles. Zeke had implied a while ago that tapping into an established legend could help me later on. But I'd also learned that no one of consequence formed a Domain with a premade legend.

Mephistopheles was my solution to that. Introducing a disparate element meant that I was the originator of the legend of Solomon, at least the one about ME. Since the disparate thread meant I wasn't forming a Domain using the legend of the Ars Goetia… I paused. "What happens when you try to form a Domain of your own too early."

"A Path is a connection between the soul and the stats. Or more accurately, between the soul and belief of others. It allows you to leverage one with the other." My mother said patiently. "The reason Domains are formed on either a stable and realized story, or on a Saga, is because that foundation keeps that belief from affecting your soul directly." She waited for me to work through that on my own.

"So…I tried to form a Domain without a condensed Path in the form of a Chronicle or Saga and the weight fell on my soul directly, exposing it to contamination from my legend? Like…hyper concentrated recursion?" I sounded out the process in my head.

She shook her head. "No. You would be dead. Or insane. Like your uncle said. There IS a way to form something like a Domain at a lower rank. It's called a Pseudo Domain. A Chronicle would have been enough to handle that weight, but you don't have one. You formed a Pseudo Domain before forming your Chronicle."

"Even that should have killed you." Said Zeke bluntly. "But your bond let Callie leech off some of the damage, and then her influence let you shake off the recursion. Thank your wife kid, because she saved your absurdly lucky little neck."

I smiled adoringly at the shadow construct of Callie, who was staring at me in helpless grief. It took a second to tap the bond and feel what she was feeling, and less than a hundredth that time to cross the room and put my arms around her. "This is not your fault." I said sternly as I pulled back, holding her by the shoulders.

"I made you go to Rajak." She said quietly. "I knew there was a trap waiting there. We both did. It was common sense. But I guilted you into going anyway, and you almost died. I wanted to confirm my brother was safe, even if I don't care about my father and Annie, and I completely ignored your safety to do it."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh get over yourself." She blinked at me. "What? You think I wasn't going to hit Rajak anyway? The biggest concentration of E-rankers on the planet? That was the endgame no matter what. We NEED those E-rankers for the assault on Wintervale. We can't get the cold storage without them."

"But I-" She tired to interrupt, glowering at me.

"Was worried about your family." I interrupted. "I get it. And they're MY family too now. Eric is an innocent. A little kid with no sins on his head that needed help. A BLOOD relative of my wife. Annie pisses you off, but she's the mother of your half sibling, and hate him or not, your dad is still your dad. Just because he's a toxic biohazard dumpster fire of a person doesn't mean you want to know he died if you could have stopped it."

She swallowed hard, eyes misting with tears. "I don't know what I would have done if something happened to you." She whispered. "Especially if it was my fault."

"Well good thing it didn't." I said with a shrug. "I'm far too lucky and stupid to die. It's the perfect combination of traits to ensure I make it to my next disaster. You're stuck with me until I accidentally fail my way into godhood, I'm afraid."

She burst into a fit of nearly psychotic giggles. "That description does NOT help me feel better."

"I think I kind of knew what I was doing." I said slowly. "Not consciously. But the Pseudo Domain I made was a VERY small part of the whole. I made the first circle of hell, and that's only a ninth of the entire realm. Hell, maybe even less. This is MY hell after all. A brand new Domain based on my own legend. Maybe it has even more parts. Thirteen sounds good."

My fatewalker Path might have been pushing me just far enough off course to prevent me from dying or going crazy. "All I know is that I was fucked. I didn't have the power to take on that Domain. It was a god level Domain seed, and my normal tricks and techniques weren't working. I was going to die if I didn't pull out all the stops."

"You're not the first Ascendant to do something stupid and dangerous to survive." My mom admitted. "But you need to stop. Don't use that technique again. The next time you might not be so lucky. At least hold off until you form your Chronicle. That small measure of protection should be enough to make it at least survivable."
I hesitated, only to be interrupted by a shadowy hand upside the back of my head. "Your response to that request should be 'yes mother' you absolute dipshit." Spat Callie. "If you die and leave me a widow, or worse, force me to fucking KILL your rabid corpse, I am going to SUMMON you from the dead and seal your soul into a pair or fucking boots, in which I will walk through every sewer in the universe one by one until you apologize properly."

I put my hands up in surrender. "I got it." I said placatingly. "No Limbo. No pseudo domains. I still have another few forms to create anyway. I'll patch any deficiencies with those until I form my Chronicle."

"Which you shouldn't try to do until D-rank." My mother cut in. "It won't be as strong if you do it before the watershed. Not to mention you should complete and perfect all nine forms before you condense your Skill. Don't rush. Which I know is an alien concept to you, but you're FAR ahead of where you should be. Take your time."

Callie nodded approvingly. "What she said. Except with more threats. And maybe a joke or two." She pulled me against her. "I can't lose you. Not ever. And especially not now after we just committed to spending our lives together. I demand you become a god and live forever so I never have to see you die."

"That's the plan." I said with a laugh. "But you better keep up. I'll never let you live it down if I beat you to divinity."

She snorted, burying her head in my chest, and we sat there for a minute or two, just holding each other, feeling the love and support that only the bond could give us. Finally, she stepped back, letting out a long breath.

"I'll be coming back planetside before you move out. Which will NOT be soon." She said firmly. "A week at least, and I want regular checkups with Jessie and exposure to Benny. You need to be in top form for this. Until then, I'll stay here on overwatch. I want to make sure we have up to the minute information, or something close to it, for our final push."

I nodded sadly. The shadow was nice, but I missed Callie. Sleeping without her next to me made me feel off balance. I was so used to her being by my side. I could function, but it didn't feel right. I needed her back.

She took my hands, squeezing them tightly. "I know." She said softly. "Me too. But I'll be back with you soon. We'll kick the shit out of Travis, break the Labyrinth, and then have our godsdamned RECEPTION because we STILL haven't gotten to eat that fucking cake. I stashed it in my ring before we left. Shadow teleportation comes in handy at last."

I laughed, enjoying the way her face lit up at the thought of finally getting to celebrate our wedding. Plus she was right, I really wanted to try some of that fucking cake. Just one more sin Travis needed to answer for. And he was going to be paying with interest.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Things got surprisingly quiet after the big rescue. Or rather, we entered the calm before the storm. Our raid was echoing through the entire planet like thunder, and all of Callie's reports mentioned the aftereffects. Millions of tiny skirmishes, F-rankers and some of the few E-rankers we'd left in place taking any shots they could at their oppressors, more than a few managing to actually kill some of the vanished gods followers.

Of course, there was a lot more unhappy endings than happy ones. For every F-ranker who managed to take out a Wendigo, there were a dozen who got torn apart in front of their friends and allies.

Weirdly, that didn't seem to dissuade as much as enflame them. More incidents took place every day, and the number of enemies had dropped from about a thousand to something like six hundred and fifty. A colossal number of Wendigos and quite a few of their main force had been whittled away, and I'd gotten a LOT of the credit. I was more than happy to take the huge infusion of renown that might be one of the last boosts I got during this debacle.

At least…in the abstract. I was having a bit of trouble with exactly how this huge swing in popularity had come about. Namely, the absolute massacre I'd affected in G-district.

"You shouldn't let it get to you like this." Sighed Callie's voice in my head. "You know you did what you needed to do. You didn't pick this fight, they did, and they're even now hurting our people You did the right thing."

I laughed hollowly. "I know. I trust your moral compass more than my own. But it's harder to shrug off mass murder than having to put down somebody trying to actively kill me. Especially after that nightmare at the Unity building. Being in that headspace, feeling that satisfaction as I essentially tortured someone to death, that makes me sick. The justification for the massacre rings a bit hollow given how horrible that incident was."

"If anything, it should be the opposite." She sent firmly. "Those people WERE actively trying to kill you. Or at least capture you to BE killed. Every one of them followed you down there with that express intention. Killing all of them at once must feel awful, but their deaths were quick and probably mostly painless. No time to suffer. It's a stark contrast to what that…technique did to you."

"What it made me, you mean." I swallowed hard at the thought of it. "I was… I was a monster. And it felt GOOD. It's not even the fact that I did it that bothers me the most, bad as that sounds. I know he was an enemy and was straight up trying to kill me. It's that you felt that. I turned into the version of me that I fear becoming more than anything, and you had to watch that."

To my surprise, there wasn't even a flicker of doubt or disgust through the bond. "Recursion is a fickle bitch." She stated unequivocally. "I don't think worse of you for getting sucked into some supercharged version of it that made you get a little too vicious in a fight. That's what you did. Not who you are. I know who you are, Shane. Even if no one else does, I know better than anyone. You're the man who inspired hundreds of thousands of residents of this planet to stand up and take the fight to the enemy. To make a REAL difference in their own situation. You're a hero Shane. You're MY hero."

And she meant that. I knew it. Could feel it like I could feel the stone under my feet and the armor against my skin. It wasn't a cure all. I'd brushed aside what I'd done in the moment, but that was far more difficult inside the privacy of my own head. But it was enough. Another voice to counteract the one telling me I was an abomination. The only voice that really mattered.

I felt my body relax as I leaned back on the bed. I was still resting, the damage had taken about a week to fade, with nothing on my docket but wishes and resting. It had been extremely frustrating, but at least Callie had been keeping me company. We'd been similarly infuriated by our positions, and not being alone always helped.

This particular crisis of conscience had been brought on by my upcoming power boost. I had no clue exactly how much renown I'd gained after that mess, but all those points came soaked in the blood of…I forced myself to change my mental tone.

No reason to go back down the rabbit hole my wife had just pulled me out of. "Alright." I finally said. "I'm not going to take up all your time. I have some stats to process, and given the small percentage relative to my total, I'm not going to need help resisting the pressure. I'm sure you have your own boost to get to. Once you get back maybe we can download about our growth." I forced a tinge of competetiveness into my thoughts. "Maybe I was even able to keep up with the mighty godslayer."

She could feel my intention there, and of course, she played along. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it." She said condescendingly. "Even if you didn't catch up. I promise I won't let the big bad cultists hurt you." One of the upsides of the bond was that we always felt each other's intent. Even when she purposely gave the impression of taunting me, I got the aftertaste of joking affection. It was a subtext that never came with any verbal jabs, and one I appreciated.

Where that might normally have been borderline offensive to me, deep down, the teasing was comforting now. Progress wasn't worrying me anymore. Not after entering Limbo. Now I was more worried about consequences. She knew me well enough to know what was really bothering me, and I could feel the support through the bond. I wasn't going to lose it like that ever again. She wasn't going to let me.

I felt when she retreated from my head, taking a more remote view though not actually abandoning me. She was always with me when I needed her. Sighing, I got up from the bed and tried to…get ready.

It was stupid really. This influx of points wasn't somehow different or special because I got it from killing a bunch of people. Stats were stats. But it FELT different. Even without the baggage, it felt more portentous. Like it would change me, even though I knew that all stats changed me and this wouldn't be any different for that fact.

There was no downside to getting 'ready' though. I stretched, did some pushups, then realized my procrastination had become somewhat ridiculous and sat down with my legs crossed as I finally let the renown crash over me.

In the last week, I'd gotten four hundred and ninety points from wishes (mostly in Fantasy) so I had a decent scale to judge the changes I would be going through. Specifically, I'd accrued a staggering nine thousand, two hundred points receiving the adulation and revulsion of an entire planet of an entire captive planet and its captors.

Wishmaster candidate status. E-rank. Ability: Expert Wish- Seven times a day grant an Expert wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics.
Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.

Might-16,200
Impact-65
Fantasy-12,020
Vitality-12,242
Focus-11,920
Perception-13,004
Creation-10,054
Progress to next rank:75,505/100,000
Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body



Stored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (0 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 1 shadow clone, 18 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)

Pet- Wolf named Jin

Financial resources: 50 E-ranked chits 41 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)


Skills: Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign, Lesser Valtek Mastery, Intermediate Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Beginner Balam Mastery, Minor Fire Manipulation Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Expert Paired Dueling, Expert Dust Construction Mastery

DS Subskills. Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame, Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of Despair, Mountain Stance.

Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death, False Fatality

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rhythm of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense, Piece of Mind



Goetia Staff Art:
First form- Belial. Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, Consecration of Flames

Second Form- Mephistopheles. Consecration of Flame, Afterburner, Mercy Kill, Marked for Death.
Techniques: Cosmic Collapse: comdensed sphere of black flame that explodes out one side amplifying force. Mephisto's Waltz: Movement technique, Damnatio Memoriae: causes the ground iself to dissolve best used on mountains to cause avalanches
Circle of Damnation: defensive technique through destruction

Third form- Mornax. Stone Limb, Triple Strength Density Shifting (x10 F-rank stored attacks), Mountain Stance
Fourth form - Zagan. Heal Burst, Purifying Flame, Consecration of Flame, Afterburner
Techniques: Life Nova, purifying and healing version of Cosmic Collapse.Genesis Burst: enhanced version of Life Nova designed to repair soul damage.

Fifth form- Bael. Moonlit Night, Eye of Revelation (inverted), Afterburner (full effectiveness is seven times base Perception due to stacking, can only currently stack a single stat, unlike wish power which stacks them all)

Sixth form- Beelzebub. Piece of Mind, Stone Limb, Dust Construction, Shadow Clone. Create twelve copies (thirteen versions total) of Shane, each copy able to use a single form without straining Shane's soul past the strain of the original technique, which is only slightly more of a strain than a normal form and still allows one additional form to be used without overstraining. Can't remote control the forms, but can communicate with them remotely via telepathy principles from Paired Dueling. Might and Perception stacking, most versatile and well designed form yet.

First Circle of Hell- Limbo. Belial, Mephistopheles, Moonlit Night, Eye of Revelation. A psuedo Domain of confusion and mental manipulation, distorting the senses and controlling the body.

There was so much to unpack there. Over four thousand Might, the payment for crushing hundreds of people, thousands of Focus, for pulling off a rebellion against an occupation in such a way that the average person probably thought I was a genius. And that last bit. The codification of my mistake, proof of my stupidity and short sightedness, and a lure of power I knew I couldn't follow.

I exhaled slowly. Three quarters of the way through. So close and yet so far away. I wondered how long it would be before I hit my limits. I couldn't break through here, not yet. When the formation pushed Callus over the edge though…would I be close enough to ride that wave to D-rank? And what would my life be like when I did? Without Zeke to protect and watch over me, how different would things be?"

But then…Zeke wasn't here now, was he? Hadn't been for more than a month. I'd been doing it on my own all this time, and I was still here. That thought helped center me, affirm my confidence, and steel my nerves.

Which, of course, was when the explosion rocked the fortress. I was on my feet and out the door faster than I could think, taking the nearest hallway to the parapet to figure out what was happening. When I reached the battlements, I met several of the others out there, likewise checking on the commotion.

As we looked out over the fields of several hundred Ascendants, I felt my hands curl into angry fists. "Get the civilians to the evacuation points." I ordered the nearest E-rankers. "And get me Abel and Bethy. You all know the drill." Of course, having been here for so long and reinforced so thoroughly, we naturally had plans in place for this. No rest for the wicked after all. We had a job to do.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Abel and Bethy met me up on the battlements. The rest had been sent deeper into the fortress, where we'd set up escape measures. Teleportation circles keyed to fallback positions, traps, and defensive emplacements, all courtesy of Nats (and a few my own) wishes over the last few months.

"How did they find us?" Scowled Abel. "I thought we had anti-scrying wards on this place?"

I shrugged. "Probably just tracked our movements leaving all the different cities. If anything, the fact that it took them this long is impressive. This position was never meant to last forever. We've been making too many moves. They were bound to collate all that data into a lead eventually."

Below us, dozens of Wendigos scaled the dark stone of the fortress, butcher knife sized claws slamming into the dark stone as the dragged themselves ominously up the walls. Even as we watched, waves of blue flame rolled over the walls, dislodging a few, and spears of stone skewered some more.

We'd put a LOT of work into this place. In fact, the whole fortress could be considered its own trap. This would thin their numbers even more. The best kind of trap: one the enemy couldn't ignore. After I'd taken out their heavy in Rajak, there was no way Travis could afford to leave me to my own devices for long. And the best part was, this was a minimal risk for my people. The fortress was a combination escape route and meatgrinder.

"You know the plan." I said as I stretched. "They'll send the Wendigos first. The ones who get through will hit us in waves. Take out as many as you can up here, then retreat into the hallways when they overwhelm you. We have reinforcements waiting at fallback points throughout the fortress waiting to step in when you reach them. Oh, and whichever one of you kills the most enemies gets dibs on leading the strike on Wintervale while we spring the popsicles."

Bethy cackled gleefully, waving her hands and calling her cats from the shadows and her dog from her Domain. "You're going down Alamode. This is going to be so much fun!"

Abel grinned, bouncing lightly on his toes. "Been a while since I did anything like this. Hot and cold running fodder. Fun times. You might be a monster, vampire, but with my new Solid Path, I wont lose to you and your petting zoo."

Bethy's eyes went wide. "I WANT a petting zoo!" Her head whipped over to stare at me. "Shane, do you think I could wish for a goat? Like a cute demonic one with glowing red eyes? Oh! Or maybe a panda!"

"Why are you like this?" I complained to my mentor. "You know she's not going to able to focus now. Bethy, we can talk about your petting zoo later. Kill the most Wendigos and we can discuss it." Even as I watched, the first dinner plate sized grey hand crested the battlements, knifelike talons digging in as it hefted itself up.

Without hesitation, I triggered Belial. This was a marathon, not a sprint, so I didn't double up. I could fight longer with just one form, and Belial was made for group fights.

Stepping forward, I started slowly whirling my staff to prepare for my attack, closing in on the slowly growing crowd of Wendigos as the other two spread out, taking advantage of the wide open space as best they could.

The first Wendigo attacked, and I slipped effortlessly past, tripping it with my staff as I continued the movement around to smash aside a knife clawed strike at my chest.

I lost myself in the flow of battle. I'd gotten so used to using my bag of endless tricks to win, I'd forgotten what it meant to use what I had to best effect. In this case, I was learning to parse a sense I hadn't done much with. My Danger Sense.

In the past, the sense had gone off like a storm siren during battle, making it useless for anything except warning about ambushed.

Now though, I was paying attention to the direction, intensity, and all the other miniscule bits of data I hadn't been able to process before. Much like I'd learned ro parse my Impact senses to tell how far someone was in their rank, focusing on my Danger Sense let me gather more intel from the battle.

An attack from behind, no, back and left, no back left and low. Step right and deflect downward following the arc. It was a heady sensation, being back in combat like this. Not a desperate race to try to destroy the enemy, but a chance to shake the rust off and rebalance my actual battle skills.

State of Grace gave me the speed and fluidity to act on my predictions, and since I wasn't meeting strength with strength the Might difference didn't matter as much.

I ducked under a dinner plate size hand, snapping my staff into the wrist, and watched as the corrosion seeped into the claw, using the Wendigo's own attack to drive Belial's corrupt energy into one of its fellows. I caught another on the backswing, hooking it around. I felt a line of hot pain on my thigh as my dodge was just a notch too slow to avoid a glancing blow, then dipped under a charge, taking out the Wendigo's legs and letting its horns hit the one that had caught me.

First one, then five, then ten. I tore through them, or rather, they tore through each other, Belial's control of the battlefield combining with my speed and prediction abilities perfectly.

Sadly, all good things must end, and after about twenty five of the bastards, I realized that I was starting to get overwhelmed. A missed step here, a failure to land a finisher there. The Wendigos were getting bigger and more dangerous too, apparently having burned their weakest on the first wave.

"Retreat!" I bellowed to my friends, triggering Moonlit Night. Fog filled the area, but I made sure to let sound penetrate as I slipped between several of the Wendigos to head for the entrance to the lower levels. Behy and Abel, to their credit, started making their way back as well, using the fog for cover, though they each took more than a few potshots at the confused Wendigos, trying to pad their numbers.

When we reached the stairs down, I made sure we made enough noise to lure them down the steps, though I left the fog in place even as we entered the more narrow corridor and they were funneled into a straight line as they approached.

"Fish in a barrel." Grimaced Abel as he posted up next to me. "It's not even fun at this point."

Bethy nodded solemnly. "I usually like fish." Her eyes widened in horror. "Wait, no, I mean, I'm not a cat!"

"To be fair, sometimes you're a bunch of cats." I said wryly. "What's your thing with cats anyway? Like you seem to like them, but the few times I've heard you making cat puns by accident you get super weird about it."

She sighed dramatically. "My mom likes cat puns a lot. I do it on accident sometimes, and it really freaks meow-t." She flinched, slapping herself on both cheeks and shaking her head. "No! Bad Bethy! Don't go into the darkness! Be cool like daddy!"

"Yeah." I said with smirk. "Gotta nip that in bud. I have to say though, that's quite a yarn. Are you sure you're feline okay?"

"No stop" She wailed, covering her ears. "Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out!" She hurled herself forward, ears still covered, and slammed into the first advancing Wendigo with a brutal falling axe kick, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she attacked the enemy.

Abel laughed. "Should we stop her?" He said with a grin. "I mean it's probably not safe to fight with two of your senses impaired like that."

"Be my guest." I said as my vampire friend demolished the first few Wendigos. "I'm not getting in her way. If she can't see them she can't see us. I don't want to survive all this time in an occupation just to die with a platform heel shaped dent in my skull." My face went grim. "Besides, we've taken a huge bite out of their forces. They should be running out of fodder any minute. Once the real fighters arrive, that's when the retreat begins in earnest."

"How far back until we hit the first blockade?" He asked casually. "I'll be honest, I wasn't paying that much attention when you explained."
I gestured behind us. "Around that first corner. "They'll have to trail us, one of the first defensive measures was strengthening the stone here. No chance they can punch through it in a reasonable amount of time. They're playing our game. Shit, wait, hold on." I triggered Double Trouble, grabbing Bethy and bodily swinging her around to toss her toward Abel.

I'd been wrong, she hadn't attacked me, implying she was much less impaired than we'd thought. She just yelled "Wheee!" As she sailed down the hallway, Abel catching her and turning to take off.

We could have just done that from the start, but putting up a fight and showing them the funnel made it seem like this was our whole plan. If we made it too clear this was a trap they might break pursuit. I triggered Double Trouble again, appearing just behind Abel as he turned the corner, and following him around the bend.

We leapt over the blockade, and as the horde of pursuers came around the bend, they got pinned down between our reinforcements and the traps on the wall across from the blockade itself, ten of them being torn apart in an instant.

I did some calculations. I'd taken twenty five or so, Abel about thirty and Bethy forty five, with the ten that had just gone down that was a hundred. Of course, they'd been the weakest hundred, but still, with only about seven hundred fifty E-rankers on world for Travis to tap, any evening of the odds was a win.

Based on my rough count, he'd sent two hundred fifty or so fighters, but only about fifty actual members of his crew. The other two hundred had been Wendigos. Something about that was bothering me. I suspected he might have some means of empowering them, because he was being way too liberal with their sacrifice, but that was a problem for another time.

While the reinforcements chipped away at them, I dropped the fog, letting them see me (their orders were to prioritize getting me above all else) and then we began the run and gun. Our fighting retreat ground down the monsters as we went, whittling down their numbers one by one, until we finally reached the central chamber.

In the middle of the room, a glowing circle sat below a rift in space. An escape portal (we'd kept costs down by having a pair of beacons that could be placed on either side) Benny was waiting there, with Chelsea next to him, her hands wreathed in a horrible black energy.

The twenty or so E-rankers we'd picked up along the way headed for the portal, and I saw the huge force of still living E-rank invaders enter the chamber. The fifty enemy Ascendants were all still alive, driving the Wendigos before them, and my sister unleashed a burst of Enshrining Darkness at them to drive them back as our people fled through the portal.

Once they were gone, I stepped up to the exit, smiling behind my mask at the small army of enemies. "Hey, if it's not too much trouble, can you all deliver a message?"

The leader, a large man in blood red plate male, snorted, the sneer obvious in his voice. "Sure. Why not. Wherever that goes, you'll be in our clutches soon enough. Go ahead and make things worse for yourself. Who should we deliver this 'message' to?"

I shrugged. "Oh, it doesn't matter. Just do me a favor. When you get to hell, tell whoever is the highest ranking member of your forces down there that you guys really need to stop falling for this." Chelsea vanished into the portal, and as I stepped through, I announced loudly. "Cascade!" The portal was already closed by the time the fortress imploded. Weirdly, I felt a lot less conflicted about the mass casualties this time. I guess practice makes perfect.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Whoo!" Shouted Benny as I came out, hands up in the air. "Hell yes! How many of the bastards did we get this time?" Everyone looked at him. "What? I'm from here. These assholes are keeping my entire planet hostage."

Abel snorted. "No, we get it. You're just usually less bloodthirsty than the rest of us." He smirked at Bethy. "Sometimes literally." She stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes.

"I'm just shocked it worked." Said Benny with a laugh. "I mean, how many buildings can we drop on them? G-district was one thing, but how did they not see it coming when they raided the fortress."

I sighed. "I think they did. Or at least they hedged their bets. Travis only sent two hundred and fifty people. Realistically, after figuring out our entrenched position, they should have dropped all seven fifty on us and completely stomped us out. Instead he sent a force consisting of mostly Wendigos that barely outnumbered us."

Gabe nodded. "Shane's right. He couldn't pass up the opportunity, but they dipped a toe in instead of stepping in the bear trap." There was a tiny roar and Randall stuck his tiny head out of the hood on Jessie's cloak. Gabe cleared his throat in embarrassment. "Sorry Randall, poor choice of words."

Reaching through the bond, I manifested a shadow double of Callie, who appeared in front of us with a wan smile. "Good to see you all made it." She said with a chuckle.

"Well, realistically, we knew they would find the fortress eventually." I said with a shrug. "Be stupid not to add any contingencies. How are the numbers?" I had a sinking suspicion, based on Travis's behavior so far.

"Seven hundred." She said with a grimace. "They pulled more Wendigos from…somewhere. Maybe they're keeping them inside a spatially altered building, or maybe they have some way to produce them, but either way, they've been spending their lives cheap, and now we know why. Which means…"

I nodded grimly. "Which means we either move up the raid on Wintervale, of we figure out exactly how and where they're producing the shock troops and shut it down. I don't like rushing into their last holdout. We've seen firsthand what kind of preparation they might have waiting. Dropping buildings on people is great, but I suspect it'll be less entertaining to be on the receiving end."

"So take out their…what? Breeding ground? Research lab? How do you make more Wendigos?" Callie asked in annoyance. "And while we can crack the spatial expansion on a building with enough time to scan through, we need to know WHICH building. Especially through this damned labyrinth. Apparently it's screwing with all the readings, and even the Necromedes is having trouble compensating."
I grimaced. "We need someone who knows the local lore. None of us were really research types when we lived here." I paused. "Callie, does Zeke know anybody planetside who might be able to give us a better idea of how Wendigos fit into the structure of Callus? I mean, we ARE Ascendants. The story is always what matters."

She nodded, and I felt a flex on the bond as she split off a parallel with Piece of Mind, leaving it to control the shadow puppet as her real body headed off to consult my uncle. Turning to the others, I gestured around us. "So, what's the update on the fallback bunker? I'm sure you all had Nat lay down the same anti-scrying wards we had on the fortress a while ago. What other measure do we have in place?"

Celine cleared her throat. "We've reinforced the shell of the mountain, and we've got several defensive lines already under construction. The usual wish based defenses are just phase one. With the successful rescue from Rajak, we've got the planet's best enchanters and scientists at our disposal. By this time tomorrow we should be even more secure here than we were in the fortress."

"It was a smart call, using this place." Said Benny wryly. "The natural assumption once we bailed would be that we would jump somewhere distant. The volcano is right next door to the necropolis, geographically speaking. Far enough not to be readily obvious from visual signs, but close enough they would never think to check here."

"That's the hope." I said with a sigh. "But who knows how well it'll actually work. This entire offensive is one big shell game, and I'm getting exhausted keeping it up. I can't wait for this to be over."

I wanted to spend time with my wife, eat dinner with my friends, laugh with my family. The longer this went on the angrier I got, and the more I hated Travis for putting us all through it. Despite the fairly dramatic power growth from running a guerilla war against a superior force, this had been one of the worst times of my life.

It would have been so easy to give into that desire, to let it push me into making stupid decisions and rushing our assault. But as much as my dad pissed me off, he'd taught me better than that. Even as a child, he'd drilled into me that letting frustration push you into hasty action was how you made mistakes.

When something blocked your progress on a puzzle, you needed to stop, evaluate, and then form a plan of attack based on logical thought and strategic insight. No one ever solved a problem by getting angry at it really hard.

Though, I supposed in the Ascendant world that might not be true. Still, when faced with a situation where you were the underdog, frustration led to painful mistakes.

Callie (or her shadow puppet at least), stepped close and pulled me into a hug. I didn't bother to resist, letting her put her head on my shoulder. The constant stress of the last few months was eroding my sense of calm, and sometimes you just really needed a hug from someone you loved.

"Wait, hold on," she said, stilling. "Sorry, just heard from Zeke. He does have a lead. He says he knows a guy in Ramistaad who can help. Bad news is Ramistaad is still under occupation, good news is that they'll never expect us to hit it because it's strategically useless. No E-rankers in the city. Unfortunately…it's relatively close to Valen."

I nodded thoughtfully. "That…might not be a dealbreaker."

"You thinking another distraction?" Said Benny eagerly? "Take Valen back from those bastards once and for all while you slip into Ramistaad?"

"No. That won't work." My tone was calm. "From what I can tell, Rajak was a secondary trap from Travis's minder. Travis himself is subtler than that, and he's done his homework. Rajak was a minefield, but Valen is going to be a shooting gallery. The only way to win there is not to play. Based on the rope a dope we saw here, chances are good he's filled every spatially expanded building in Valen with Wendigos or something. We can't risk it."

Gabe nodded. "Not to mention we're starting to show a pattern of behavior. Distractions are becoming commonplace for us. It'll be the first thing he thinks of."

"Which is why we won't use one." I said finally. "No signs at all. We're doing this quietly. With no E-rankers in the city, we've got no one to draw attention. As long as I keep myself out of sight, getting in and retrieving the target is our best bet. Bethy, you up for an undercover gig?"

Her face lit up. "Oooh! Disguises! I have so many ideas. Do you think I could pull off a mustache?"

"I…no." I said in confusion. "Not at all. You DO get that the point of a disguise is to look LESS suspicious, right?"

My sister made a noise of disagreement. "Well…sometimes." She hedged. "Ascendants are naturally flamboyant and attention grabbing. In some ways, being too understated is MORE suspicious. Not that I think the mustache is a good idea." She said, cutting off Bethy's victory cheer. "He's not wrong about that. I'm just saying less isn't always more."

Bethy pouted. "Fine. Buzzkills. I have this neon orange wig that I can wear. Your wedding gave me so many fashion ideas. Orange and black are a total fireworks show! I'm thinking of doing something with leg warmers."

Since that was objectively less ridiculous than a ballgown and what I assumed (based on actually KNOWING Bethy) would be a giant handlebar mustache.

"Is it safe for just the two of you to go though?" Chelsea asked worriedly. "Bethy can take of her self, but Shane… I know you're tough, but I'd feel better if you had more backup. Maybe take Serah and Holly with you?"

"Because nothing says 'stealth mission' like beautiful women with metallic hair and giant fucking wings." Said Abel sarcastically. "Look, I get it, really I do. He's your brother." My mentor's face went uncharacteristically solemn. "I'm worried as hell for my own brother. But the fact is that bad disguises notwithstanding, Bethy and Shane have the best chance of pulling this off."

He was right. Bethy's Domain was necessary to extract the target, and contrary to what her bombastic personality might imply, she COULD be stealthy when necessary. Of course, she preferred to bust in loudly, and I was slightly worried she might actually try to play theme music while we were sneaking in, but like my sister said, weird was standard for Ascendants.

"What about our approach?" I asked, considering the angles. "I'm assuming using Walker and Gabe's mount is off the table. They've clearly got some means of tracking those, to put together our last position."

Bethy perked up. "Oh! Why don't we rid the kitties? They're shadow cats, so they're super sneaky, and they're great with people. I've been socializing them to accept hugs and cuddles."

I took that to mean 'bullying them with affection' but it was a solid point. Animals tended to be more effective at using Might for running, four legs being a more functional base for movement. With their inborn stealth abilities, the cats could carry us through the dark silently, as long as we waited for nightfall.

"I like it." I said, nodding. "We've got our in. We'll need a heading and preferably a map, not to mention details on the target. But all in all, it sounds like we have our next move. Once we have that confirmed we can hit the Wendigo spawning grounds, wherever they happen to be. Then we'll start whittling their forces down before the assault on the cold storage."

Benny perked up. "Wait, by whittling their forces do you mean…"

"That's right." I said with a vicious grin. "Once we take out the spawner, we need to wipe out as many Wendigos as possible before Travis can recover and redistribute his forces. Once we've taken out their buildup capability, we hit them where it hurts. They won't be running into our traps anymore? Fine. We'll run right into theirs. If they want to try to eat our forces they can fucking choke on them."

Benny cheered, pumping his fist, and I saw the general morale of the others in the room spike. The thought of a real offensive after months of taking quick in and out potshots was exciting, and we certainly had the forces for it.

"I want you working with the E-rankers on battle formations." I told Gabe. "They're basically the ideal counter to brute force mobs like the Wendigos. We need to be ready for our decapitation strike." I paused. "Amputation strike? We aren't taking the head so I don't know about the terminology. Regardless, you know what I mean."

Turning to Bethy I let out a long, slow breath. "Anyway, get your disguise ready Bethy, we head out at sundown. With any luck we'll be back with our target by morning, no muss, no fuss." Happily, this time my instincts weren't warning me of any danger, but I wouldn't let my guard down. Time for my first real stealth op.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The forest was quiet. Almost too quiet. Sadly, my traveling companion was not. "I just think you're being a party pooper." Said Bethy stubbornly. "It's not like this is going to make things any harder, and you're not getting into the spirit of it."

"But we don't NEED codenames." I groaned desperately. "And they don't work if you keep changing them anyway. Plus you keep picking ones that don't make sense. Big Cheddar? Red Leader? Pineappleface? And you didn't even warn me. You just kept dropping them into conversation like I was supposed to know what they were."

Her pout intensified. "Because I was TESTING them!" She said in exasperation, throwing her hands up. "To see how they fit. But those are so five minutes ago. I'm telling you this new one is the last one. Senator Beef is absolutely the right codename for you. It's so perfect!"

"HOW?" I all but shouted. "In what possible way is Senator Beef a good codename. Or a codename at all. Not to mention we don't NEED codenames. I picked one for you because you asked, and I get it, you have a new costume on. Fine. Candycorn is thematic, it goes with your clothes."

I gestured to her 'disguise' an orange and black striped monstrosity of shirt and skirt, a bright orange wig, and red painted cheeks that made her look like a rag doll.

Sadly, I had to admit it was a good disguise. Bethy was so…bombastic, that it weirdly distracted from her appearance. When you thought about Bethy you just thought about loud madness. With the costume on, that came into play hard, because even the vague changes to her features seemed to completely morph everything about her.

I was almost positive this was vampire bullshit, but it made arguing with her that much harder, because I couldn't dismiss her points when she'd done such a good job.

Before she could continue though, I noticed something out of the corner of my Eye of Revelation. "Wait!" I hissed. "Hold on, we have movement. I told you we shouldn't have waited out here for so long."

We'd been waiting for the city to quiet, or at least for the majority of people to go to sleep. Night owls abounded everywhere, but they were always the minority. Still, there was a point of diminishing returns on waiting, and at about two in the morning we had to be approaching it.

She shook her head, red eyes (though they looked orange against the costume) becoming serious. "Not…quite…now." She broke cover as she finished, blitzing towards the city at staggering speed. I cursed, triggering Bael and following her. We made good time, reaching city limits and slipping into an overhang on one of the buildings.

When we stopped she stared calmly out into the dark. "Sorry." She said with a shrug. "There was a gap in the attention on the border. It's…vampires are sneaky. I don't know how to describe it. But we're in and no one noticed. See? Easy peasy?"

I sighed. "I'd have appreciated a heads up, but you know I trust you. Your weird vampire powers haven't failed me yet."

She clapped her hands together under her chin, beaming at me. "Shane! Did we just become best friends? That was so super sweet of you to say." Her expression wilted, becoming surprisingly nervous. "I don't…I owe you a lot. For your help."

I swung my hand through the air like I was cutting that thought off. "You don't owe me anything. Inherent payment necessity of my power aside, you ARE my friend. I'm always here for you if you need me. And you always come through for me too."

The uncertainty in her eyes was bothering me. Seeing Bethy of all people so…shaken. "It's not just that. I'm not the most stable person. I get that from my mom. It can be hard for me to focus. Not just the bloodlust, but just…keeping myself even. Easier since you helped me, but knowing you don't hold it against me. People get mad at me usually. After a while. Being friends with me is fun for a while, but I can be a bit much. They get sick of me."

I hadn't seen her this sincere in…well, almost ever. And from what she'd just said, maintaining this level of focus was tough for her. It made sense really, Bethy was always flitting from one thing to the next, and while some of that was a charade, her inconsistent level of attention was a pretty distinct part of her personality. It couldn't all be a show.

"You're my friend." I repeated. "And you've done a lot for me too. I don't abandon my people, and I don't think you do either. You're stuck with me. No matter how 'much' you happen to be. But what brought this on?"

"You've been on edge." She said sadly. "The others don't see it because you keep a calm face on, but I can tell. I know you have Callie to talk to and you guys have your bond, but I don't want you to feel alone down here." She gave me a sad smile. "You can freak out a little bit in front of me. I'm just the crazy vampire. Who's going to know?"

It broke my heart to see that smile, but I could tell she didn't want empty platitudes or reassurances, she just wanted to know that she'd helped. And oddly, she really had. Having someone acknowledge how much stress I was under was weirdly cathartic.

I stared at her. "You know, it's easy to write you off as flighty, but then you say stuff like that. I can never tell how much of what you do is an act."

She winked at me. "Only most of it. I'm pretty on the ball. But don't tell Abel. I don't want him to get too comfortable. He might actually catch up to me in a fight.."

I burst out laughing. "I knew you were screwing with him. But thanks. For saying that thing about me freaking out. It's nice to know I can let down my guard. Now let's go sneak into this city where we'll probably get caught and gruesomely murdered."
"Probably is a strong word." She said sagely. "We'll either get caught or we won't. Fifty fifty."

She strode off into the dark and I followed her quickly, extending Bael to cover her. "Wait, Bethy, don't get too far ahead. You need to stay close. That was a joke right? You know we still need to be careful. Stop speeding up! Bethy please tell me you know that's not how statistics work?"

She stayed JUST far enough a head to easily coverable with Bael (how she knew the range on that I had no idea because I sure as hell didn't) but we made decent time arriving at the building we'd been given directions to. We stopped across the street from the Arcadia hotel to surveil the entrances.

Given its nature as an erasure of Perception, stealth could be improved by careful observation. The more you watched and made note of the details, the better you could remove them from notice. Besides that, I trusted Bethy's instincts, and I wanted to double check with her before we went in.

"Are we being watched?" I'd thought this would be a quick and easy infiltration, but Bethy's episode at the city limits implied differently. They might not have a bunch of E-rankers in town waiting, but there was SOME method of observation at play. It wasn't a shock, that was what our defenses on the fortress and volcano were there to prevent, after all. Not to mention Valen was a notable trap, and we were relatively close. They might not have an active eye on the city, but clearly they weren't STUPID either.

With Bethy helping us avoid whatever they were doing to keep track of us though, we had a way better chance of pulling this off.

She shook her head. "Not right now. But I think there's…something, over the hotel." Her eyes flicked up, narrowing into the darkened sky. "Some kind of…spirit eye? I think that's what I picked up at the border. It can't be everywhere though." She pointed up and away. "Right up there. Do you see it?"

Engaging my Perception, I focused hard on the spot she indicated, Eye of Revelation focused through my crown for maximum output. "I got it." I said after a second. "Ew. It's hideous."

"Super gross." She agreed bluntly. "But I have an idea. I think if I throw really hard, I can hit it with a rock. I can go around the building and do that, then it'll look away and you can get by." She clenched her fists intensely, like she was readying for battle.

I rolled my eyes. "We don't need to throw rocks at it. It's an E-rank entity. Even focused hard on Perception, it won't be enough to break Bael. My forms are limited, but they do what they do damned well. It's why I have them. I can study its focus for a while, and once I have a lock on where its looking and can understand it a bit better, I can walk us right past it."

Honestly I could probably do it now, but haste made waste. Better to take the extra few minutes to ensure we did the job the best way possible. Bethy just pouted, though I suspected it was more because she wanted to throw a rock at an ugly ass ghost eye than because she was impatient to get going.

After a minute of observing exactly where the eye was focused, I nodded and offered Bethy my arm. "Alright we're good. Let's bounce."

Nodding seriously, she grabbed my elbow, and then proceeded to skip cheerfully alongside me as I walked unhurriedly across the street. While stealth worked fine at speed, with the time and attention to map out my route, it worked even better if I took my time to make sure all traces were erased.

To my complete lack of surprise, I could hear Bethy humming something under her breath as we walked, eyes narrowed as she took in everything around us suspiciously, head on a swivel. Honestly the humming made my job slightly harder, but not enough to matter, and it was kind of hilarious.

When we reached the front door, we stopped, and I reached out casually, focusing on my finger.

While my little accident with the pseudo Domain had been a terrible thing, it had given me a few ideas. Using overwhelming or damaging power on a smaller scale to prevent hard might not work in that case, but it could work in others.

I couldn't maintain three forms at the same time without serious soul strain, but I could take a page from Benny's book, albeit in reverse.

Focusing on one finger, I flexed my will, bringing up just the smallest fraction of my forms. The finger in question marked as the energy from Belial and Mephistopheles flooded it, Bael maintaining my stealth.

Even just the one finger almost immediately made me wince, putting immense pressure on my soul, but it was bearable. Bearable enough to take it a bit further. A Cosmic Collapse the size of the head of a pin took milliseconds to make, and it flew into the lock on the door, bursting and hollowing out the mechanism without any outward sign.

Sighing in relief, I let the finger return to normal, just under Bael, and pushed open the door. "Alright." I said with a grin. "We're in. Let's go pick up the target and get out of here."

Now that we'd made it inside we just needed to collect our guy and we could bail. We were one step closer to the raid on the spawning grounds, whatever those might be. While this little side trip hadn't been even a blip on my radar…that one was setting off my instincts like nobody's business. I had a feeling we would find something bad when we got there. I just had no idea what.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"We're back bitches!" Crowed Bethy as we rode into the caves under the volcano. "We're so fucking sneaky you don't even know!" She leapt clear of her mount, Poptarts (I was pretty sure, I could NOT tell them apart) dissolving into her shadow as Donuts faded out from under me.

I managed to catch myself before I collapsed on the ground. "Bethy! You can't just drop people wherever. Don't do that to the target-"

She wasn't listening, there was a flex of her domain as she danced through the caves, and a thin form went flying into the wall with a crash, burying in the stone as I sighed. Walking over, I grabbed a limb sticking from the rock and pulled, removing the F-ranker we'd rescued and brushing him off.

Rudy the researcher blinked owlishly at me, his oversized glasses somehow not even cracked. "I say." He said as his brain recovered.

"You say what?" Called Bethy from ahead of us.

"Go inside Bethy." I sighed. "He's just getting used to things. Your Domain is a big scary place for an F-ranker.

She just shrugged and flounced off. I turned to Rudy, who was looking a bit green. "You alright there, man? You look like you're about to vomit." I paused. "Although I admit this place doesn't smell great. We have some air filtration enchantments in the central cave complex." I couldn't smell anything, one of the wonderful side effects of my kickass mask, but it was a volcano, they smelled like sulfur.

He nodded slowly. "That place…it was so…unnatural."

I rolled my eyes. It was easy to forget how sheltered people on Callus could be. I doubted this guy had left his hometown. Ever. And he was famous for being a researcher. I doubted a Lore wonk had much experience doing anything outside his field.

I immediately felt bad for the thought. Rudy's planet was under occupation by cultists and terrifying monsters. It was probably the scariest thing that had ever happened to him, and me dismissing him as weak because I was better equipped to deal with it was petty and cruel. I forced myself to take a breath. "It can be. But you're safe now. And more than that, you can help end this occupation completely."

He raised a brow at me. "Help end the occupation? I'm not a fighter, sir. I can't help with armies of hostile invaders. I can barely defeat armies of dust bunnies when I clean my library."

"We're not putting you on the frontlines." I said as I led him through the caves toward an open chamber where most of my friends were waiting. "We need your expertise. The enemy are fielding powerful troops, and we think they're using some local phenomena to make them."
Wendigos were native to Callus. At least as native as flesh eating monsters could be. Whatever the catalyst was for the transformation could be found here. It stood to reason that whatever Travis was doing to create and empower the monsters involved whatever that catalyst was. Even if it didn't though, just taking out the catalyst meant no more Wendigos, even if it didn't stop him from empowering the extant monsters.

He looked confused, which made sense. Ramistaad hadn't really been actively occupied, just watched. I was sure, based on the empty streets and the oppressive atmosphere, that someone had been there to terrorize the occupants, but they'd been long gone when we arrived.

We reached the makeshift war room, and I gestured him inside. "Hey guys." I waved casually. "I see Bethy got here first. Did she fill you in?"

Chelsea smiled wryly. "Her story involved more onomatopoeia than I would have used, but we got the gist. You found Rudy, brought him back, and we'll be debriefing him together." She smiled at the nervous, mousy man beside me. "Welcome. Sorry for the unusual circumstances."

He cleared his throat. "Yes, well. I understand. Needs must when the devil drives and all. I still don't understand what you could possibly need from me. I'm simply a local history enthusiast. If you're looking for valuable treasure or powerful weapons, I'm afraid I can't be of much assistance. My knowledge is strictly academic."

I clapped him on the back with a laugh. "We need academic knowledge. That's the whole reason we came to get you. My uncle recommended you. You remember Harlequin?" That had been Zeke's code name while he was here, since Janus was so widely known.

His eyes widened. "The former branch leader of the Valen Wish Curse Palace?" He squeaked. "I hadn't thought he would even remember me."

"Well he did." I said with a shrug. "And he said you could help us with a project we're working on. We need to know more about Wendigos. They're covering the planet right now, and we've seen them here before. There's some kind of…item or location that creates them here, as far as we can tell."

His brow furrowed. "The Wendigo?" He said absently. "I do know a number of stories about creatures such as those. I could perhaps dig into my knowledge and try to identify an origination point. What is your timeline, might I ask?"

"Soon?" I said questioningly. "They've invaded this planet. Or rather, someone else has, and they're using the Wendigos to do it. We need to clear them out so we can spring some allies and overpower the occupying forces. If we wait too long, they'll replenish their numbers before we can attack and we'll be in a bad position."

That got a frown. "Well, I'm afraid I don't know the exact location of the phenomena you're searching for. It isn't like there's a book lying around labelled 'secret Wendigo power source'. I can perhaps collate the data from a number of sources and attempt to identify their first appearance on the planet, but that may take some time."

"Which is why I'm here to help." Said Chelsea reassuringly. "I'm an expert researcher. We're going to work through your knowledge together. We just need you to write out everything you can remember, and leave the cross referencing to us."

Rudy exhaled in relief. He was an Ascendant, and most likely one who leaned toward Focus, combined with basic physical stats, he could probably copy a whole library from memory in less than an hour or two. Especially if given decent quality paper to work with (you had to be careful about writing too fast after a certain level of Might, or the friction could set the page on fire).

"That I can be of assistance with." He beamed. "Do you want me to write out the content? Because it would most likely be faster to enter it into a scan ring."

I hadn't considered that, but it was obviously way smarter. Chelsea lit up. "Oh, that's perfect! We can share the documents among everyone, so all of us can parse the data as you type it. That'll be way more efficient!"

"You're such a nerd." I said with a sigh. "Can't you just bask in your own ignorance like us cool people."

"My brother is taller than most." She told Rudy sadly. "He felt pressure from a young age to be big dumb and smashy. It's why his entire combat style revolves around whacking people with a big stick."

I gaped at her in horror. "That….is a GROSS oversimplification."

"Now who's a nerd?" She said smugly. "Stay in your lane, thug. Leave the brain work to us intellectuals."

I turned to glare at her. "You used to be so sweet and polite. My friends are a terrible influence on you."

She stuck out her tongue at me. "Actually that was you. Sorry big brother, you're the one who taught me to stick up for myself. Can't complain when I return a serve when you're dunking on me."

"And she's mixing metaphors!" I opined, hiding my laughter poorly. "What have I done?"

The others just laughed at the back and forth, and we all got to work setting up the shared scan ring file. Once that was done, Rudy started to type. Since the holographic surface of the scan ring interface did NOT have a problem with catching fire, he was able to make much better time, hands flying over the keys as page after page of abstruse historical texts wrote themselves into existence in the file.

And so began the longest afternoon of my life. Pages appeared like drops of rain, pouring out of the surprisingly enthusiastic researched as he shared everything in his head that pertained to Wendigos.

Which was…a lot. Books and books of notes, memoirs, poetry. Some of it was even fiction, but he took us at our word and just dredged up every single document that mentioned the creatures, doing his best to make notes of the date of each bit of information, despite not taking them down in order.

Finally, after a few hours, he stopped, hands falling down with a sigh. "And that's all. Sorry I couldn't dredge up more. My ability involves information storage, but it doesn't have an organizational aspect. I'm planning to integrate that next rank."

"It's fine." Said Chelsea absently. "I've been keeping a list and trying to sort everything. Good idea using page numbers. Give me a bit, I have to check some things." She flicked open a few new pages, accessing different parts of the document at the same time. A list of page numbers sat beside her as she collated the data.

The rest of us were working on the same thing, but Benny was the only one who was any help. He pointed out several alternate locations with mentions of the same things Chelsea was looking for. Dates, locations, stories about mysterious deaths and their circumstances.

Finally, she stopped. "Get me a map." She said bluntly. "I need to check something."

We brought up a globe projection, shared access with her, and she began putting pins on the image, It took about an hour for her to completely note down every incident that seemed relevant, then she started narrowing it down by eliminating stories that had inconsistent elements and were probably just made up.

As she did the rest of us tried to piece together what exactly we were looking for based on casual mentions and obscure language. Benny was the first to crack it. "It's a spring." He said with a triumphant grin. "The only direct mentions call it the "Heart of Winter" but from what I can tell its just an arctic spring with some kind of spiritual cold trait."

"And I know where it is." My sister crowed. "Check this out." We all crowded around the projection. "The earliest incidents of Wendigos spawning on this planet were in these locations." She gestured to a grouping of dots. "It threw me because some of the early discoverers took some of the water and sold it. The next few centuries saw a spike of the damned things all over Callus. But after sifting out the memoirs and stories based on financial means and personality to exclude people who bought the water, I managed to get a radius."

On the globe, a circle of red dots surrounded a small village in the northern hemisphere of the planet. "This is Valfarden." Said my sister smugly. "And from what I can tell, the Heart of Winter is here. I don't know why or where it came from, but chances are good that its where Travis is making his super Wendigos."

It was a small out of the way place in the middle of the tundra. Far enough from Wintervale not to be too notable but close enough to make dispatching the monsters out into the blizzards more than feasible.

I grinned wolfishly at my friends from behind my mask "Alright. Well, it looks like we found the spawning ground. Bethy, get everyone together, we're going to be hitting them as soon as possible. Chelsea, keep going over the information Rudy supplied, I want us to be as prepared as possible for what we find." The first steps towards the end of this war were upon us.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We took the cats to Valfarden. It was still dark, the rescue and research having only taken about half the night, and the shadows provided perfect cover for us to move unseen. When we hit the polar regions, we discounted and I had to carry Bethy piggyback because she insisted it was the best way for Bael's stealth to affect her.

Eventually though, we reached our target, and we stopped outside the village to surveil the situation. This time, we let Chelsea out to consult after we'd dug a small snow cave to watch from, just in case of overhead watchers like we'd had last time.

Once Bethy confirmed we were unwatched, Chelsea joined us in watching the place, and was able to confirm some things.

"The Heart of Winter is there." She said, pointing to a crystal blue ice gazebo in the center of town. "That leads into a cavern beneath the snow that houses the spring. We need to find out exactly what's down there before we go in. Whatever Travis is doing, it almost definitely involves the spring somehow."

I nodded. As much as I wanted to just hit the damned thing head on, I knew that it was important to gather intel. "That's my cue. Bethy, expand the cave and let the others out. I'll do a circuit of the spring and take some recordings. I want as good an idea as possible of what they're actually DOING before we attack."

After that mess in the Aetherbright Academy, I'd learned my lesson about going off half cocked. Trying to stop some random event without knowing the details had screwed us last time, and I learned from my mistakes.

I could get info in real time from my mom and Zeke through Callie, and I was going to use that source of information.

My sister glared at me. "I don't like it." She admitted. "But I understand. Just…be careful, ok?"

"Damn." I said in a deadpan voice. "I was going to set off fireworks and sing the Callus planetary anthem backwards. I guess I'll just stick to stealth this time. Good thing you mentioned it."

"Don't be sarcastic." She said acidly. "You're not very good at it." She stepped forward and yanked me into a bonecrushing hug. "Be safe. Ass. I kind of like not being an only child anymore. If you make me go back to the old way I'll kick your ass."

I smiled at her warmly, even if she couldn't see it. "Love you too, sis."

"Awww!" Bethy cooed at us, clapping her hands together. "You two are just the cutest siblings ever. It reminds me of how I am with some of my brothers. Well, the ones that still talk to me. Some of them resent me because daddy likes me best. Those are the ones that don't talk to me. Well, them and Peter, but he's a whiner, he survived the fall off that cliff fine, and I apologized after."

Chelsea gave me a conflicted look. "You could be much worse. I see that now."

"Hey!" Said our vampire friend, stomping her foot. "That's mean. You're being mean. I should push YOU off a cliff. But like…a small one. I like you way better than Peter."

"I'm going to go sneak into occupied enemy territory all by myself." I said with a wave as I turned to leave. "Somehow that seems safer." I triggered Bael and vanished as I stepped out of our makeshift case. As soon as I was out, the blizzard going on around me swallowed me completely.

Wind, snow, and nothing else. I suspected something magical about the storm, because after I entered it, I lost sight of the village completely until I triggered Eye of Revelation. Once I did that, I got outlines, but nowhere near as clear as from the cave. It took a few minutes of walking (I used Ripple Running so I didn't leave footprints) to breach the town border.

As soon as I crossed inside the town line, the stealth effect vanished. It was a surprising sensation, and I was pretty sure Bethy had been responsible for me being able to see the place from the cave. I shook it off, keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of habitation.

I saw…nothing. Valfarden was empty. No people, not even tracks in the snow. The blizzard stopped around the town like some kind of spatial snowglobe, flowing in one side of a dome of empty air and out the other.

Because there were no people, I reached the gazebo quickly and without any problems. Once I did though, I finally caught sight of some guards.

Wendigos. Easily ten of them, lying in wait in the snow. Something about their dull gray skin made them blend into the environment, like chameleons. They didn't notice me, and I took a circuitous path to avoid literally tripping over them. Finally though, I reached an inner circle that I couldn't go around.

State of Grace made me lighter, and Bael kept the sound of my short leap over the guards silent as I stepped off a platform in the air, landing silently on the snow on the other side. A Double Trouble took me past the one waiting right inside the gazebo, and when I arrived, I froze (figuratively, though it was cold as hell out here) to wait and see if I'd been compromised.

I hadn't, and I set off down the stairs. The spiral steps were made of frosted ice, though they provided surprisingly good traction. Once I reached the bottom, I looked around carefully for any nearby guards.

There weren't any. Just a huge cavern full off…people. Bodies, though I could see with Eye of Revelation that they weren't dead. Only frozen.

Past the field of frozen humans was a sort of icy fountain. The fountain itself was the same crystal blue of the gazebo, but the water running through it was much different. A sickening black red energy permeated the liquid, corroding the blue fountain (which was in itself a pretty nauseating sight given the skulls and screaming people carved into it) only for it to recover almost immediately after as the energy waned.

I started my scan ring, beginning the recording process as I tried to get closer. As I did though, I stopped cold. At the edge of the pool formed by the fountain, there were a number of dark metal constructs. People were strapped down to them, hanging parallel to the water, which leapt up and burned into the struggling, screaming captives.

Two of whom I recognized. Cicero and Valk hung over the liquid, tears of corrupted blood running from their eyes as they roared in pain, veins writhing under their skin darkly.

They were alive. Clearly being…converted or something, but alive. This had just gone from vandalism to rescue mission. For the first time in a while I was genuinely happy. Nat had not been doing well. Hope kept her going, but it was fading quickly. I'd been really worried about what finding Valk dead might do to her.

Abel would be thrilled too. Granted, I had a feeling I'd need to personally purify them in a way similar to Felicity, but the process clearly wasn't complete yet. I wanted to rush in and tear apart their restraints, but I held off.

This was recon. I'd already seen what running off without a plan could do, and I refused to lose them because I was impatient. They were alive after months, which meant they were holding out better than most people would have. Though…looking closer I could see they were stronger than they had been. More Impact. E-rank.

Whatever that dark energy was, it seemed familiar. It was probably what had been letting Travis make the Wendigos strong so much faster. It reminded me a bit of that human sacrifice muck from the Ruined Soul Temple, which didn't bode well.

I forced myself to focus. Where there was life there was hope. I just needed to get as much info as I could and consult the experts. We could rescue them, take out this spawning ground, and then hit Valen before Travis could recover, seriously rebalancing the calculus of war on this planet before our final push.

Not that it would be easy. Looking past my restrained friends (well, friend, Cicero was mostly just a dick I tolerated) I could see that the 'fountain' I'd seen was just one of about two dozen pylons radiating out in concentric circles from on even larger fountain, which appeared to literally be an ice sculpture of a giant hundred foot Wendigo with sickening bracking water pouring from a gaping hole in its chest where its heart should be.

Who the actual fuck had come to this cave and found THAT and decided to drink from it? The thing was horrifying. The brackish water was flowing out in spiderweb cracks into the sub pools with the fountains, around which thirteen captives struggled.

Some were nearly converted, already with horns and greying stretched tight skin, and some were still screaming and crying black red liquid, but there were LOTS of them.

As I watched, a pair of free Wendigos approached one of the horned ones, pulled up teh black metal mechanism with a handle, then unchained it and tossed it to the ground. When it hit the cavern floor in between the pools, it screamed and writhed, reaching up to use butchers knife claws to start ripping away pieces of its flesh.

Beneath it, the grey hide of a Wendigo emerged, and within a few minutes, the creature climbed to its feet, screaming joyfully.

Walking over the field, they grabbed a frozen body, shoved it into the metal contraption, and then shoved it back down to lay parallel to the water. The red black liquid hit the ice and began to erode it, but unlike the fountains it didn't recover. Before long, the man woke up, and his own screaming began.

I swallowed hard. That was…that hadn't been easy to watch. I forced myself to stay cool, watching closely in case there was more information. I made a slow circuit around the room, double checking for any possible signs I might be able to use.

Lucky for me, this place smelled like old blood and rotting flesh, which covered for me so the Wendigos couldn't scent me even if Bael didn't prevent it. I could smell it through my mask and it was making me sick.

After I completed my rounds, I slowly removed myself from the cavern, climbing the gazebo steps and making a quick but steady retreat. I didn't stop until I got to our makeshift cave.

When I entered, I found our whole force waiting. I ignored most of them, striding up to my cousin, desperate to give her some good news. She frowned at me as I approached. "Shane? What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I said happily. Then paused. "Ok, no, that place was a fucking nightmare factory, my soul is throwing up, but that's not important right now. This isn't a burn and turn raid anymore. We're going to have to do a bit more planning. This is a rescue mission. Nat…Valk is down there. And he's alive." I turned to Abel. "Cicero too. They're not HAPPY, but they're not dead. We can save them."

My cousin stared at me in shock, eyes filling with tears, and then she threw herself into my arms. I held her close as she sobbed in relief. She'd been in denial for so long now, pretending to have hope when she'd really known the truth deep down. Hearing that she'd been wrong, that her last living friend wasn't gone.

I held her as she cried, until finally, she went silent and I stepped back. "Well, if we want to get them, we need all the help we can get." I reached out through the bond, and at my request shadow figures of Callie, my mother, and Zeke appeared. "Alright." I said turning to them. "This is what I saw down there." I spun up my scan ring and projected the recording. The planning session began.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"They're alive?" My uncle asked incredulously. "I did NOT see that coming. I was positive they were both dead." Nat made a high pitched sound and everyone glared at Zeke, who cleared his throat. "I mean, glad to hear they're ok. Hopefully we can help get them out of there."

I rolled my eyes. "So based on the recordings, what the actual fuck is that place? I thought catalysts for racial traits had to be specially made."

"They do, except when they're passed directly from one person to another." My mom said bluntly. "That fountain thing is clearly the corpse of a powerful Wendigo. I did think it was weird you'd run into one of them, nevermind a pack of them."

I blinked in confusion. "So what, this is some kind of Wendigo God?"

"No." Said Zeke in exasperation. "Not everything is a god. Your experience isn't indicative of real life. It's probably an A or B-ranker. Or at least the corpse of one. Based on what you saw, it looks like it's been slowly eroding over the course of millennia."

That made sense. "So…what are the fountains?"

"Calcifications." My mom said with a shrug. "Word of the 'Heart of Winter' spread over time. Not enough to have a large scale presence in history, but the renown was enough to affect things. The red and black is lamentation liquid, like you saw before. You were right about that being how they were supercharging the Wendigos. Seems like it's fairly slow, thankfully, or at least resistable."

"So we need to hurry!" Said Nat in a panicked voice. "What if they break? We need to go get them now. Break in the front and blow the whole place sky high."

"We can't rush." I argued. "They've been down there for months. They can last a bit longer. I know seeing Valk like that was hard, but we only get one shot at this. More than two people are at stake. We cut the head off the snake, and then hit Valen like a hammer and take out as many as we can. To do that we need to minimize losses destroying the Heart. Work smarter not harder."

Chelsea raised a hand. "I might have an idea about that." My sister said hesitantly. "Given how Enshrining Darkness destabilizes Purifying Flame, maybe a sufficiently powerful purifying force could set the lamentation liquid off the same way. But just lighting off a single pool wouldn't do it."

"Well, they seem to be introducing it through those calcifications, Let me check something." I pulled the recording back up. It took me a few passes given all the distortion nearby, but I was able to identify a series of black red gems set into the base of the calcifications, pretty much underneath the water.

That explained the corrosion, the water was soaking the lamentation liquid out like a flavor crystal in some drink mix, which corrupted the water, which corroded the calcification, which I was pretty sure was speeding up the release of the water.

But I could see Chelsea's point, and I understood her idea. "I could pull that off." I said slowly. "If I hit the pylon with a Life Nova it should at least damage those gems, even if it doesn't cause them to explode, which I think I can influence by monkeying with the imagery of the technique a bit. I can use Beelzebub to hit half of them at once, then Double Trouble and hit the other half. Within seconds."

"Ok…but what is that going to do to the actual Heart?" Asked Callie worriedly. "The reaction from those two forces destabilizing will either fail to do anything or cause a BIG boom. Even if you tip it towards boom we still have to get the innocents out of there, not to mention save our people."

I frowned. She was right. If we just blew the whole chamber everyone would die. Even if we saved Valk and Cicero we'd be essentially detonating the place on hundreds of completely innocent victims who were just being used as mook fodder.

"Bethy?" I asked quietly. "Think you could sneak in and grab them up before the blast?"

She hesitated. "I don't know Shane. That's a lot of people. Not to mention they're stuck and won't have any idea what's going on. If they start straining to get out it could damage my Domain. One person resisting a Domain with their soul is one thing, hundreds at once is…something else."

"That shouldn't be an issue." Said Zeke. "They're not aware. At least not until the liquid hits them and starts the thaw. They won't be resisting, they're completely dormant."

"Well I should be able to do it then. But I'll be too busy to fight any of the Wendigos. There are a lot of them down there." She looked worried. "We'd need some sort of cover. Is there anything we can do to make a lot of noise?"

I frowned, thinking over who we had with us. If we wanted to hit Valen at full force, minimizing the involved parties was best. Beelzebub could blow all the fountains, leaving me open to help with whatever diversion we used, and they WOULD attack me, but being here was a giant red flag. If there wasn't a clear and present danger they would start looking for traps.

I stared at the giant hulking corpse with the grey water pouring from its chest hole. I frowned. That stuff was clearly bad news, even without the lamentation liquid, but combined, they were worse. I had my own secret sauce I could add to the mix. "Hey Abel." I said slowly. "Do you think you could redirect that tide of muck with a spatially lubricated tube?"

He frowned thoughtfully. "I mean…probably? Based on what they said it's not really high ranking liquid, more like the runoff of the degrading corpse. The Impact doesn't LOOK too high to be manageable."

"I have a plan." I said after a minute. "It's a bit of a long shot. Nat, you have today's wishes left? Because we're going to need a few answers to some very specific questions. I don't want to commit to this without confirming the interactions here. Not just the explosions for the lamentation gems, but how my own corrosive energy could affect the water."

She seemed almost surprised to hear my voice, and I frowned at her worriedly. "Hey, guys, talk over the details for entry with my mom and Zeke?" I said to the others. "I want to talk to Nat real quick."

Grabbing my cousin by the shoulders, I steered her over to one side of the cave, triggering Bael and shrouding us both. When we had privacy, I took off my mask so she could see my concern. "Hey, are you doing ok?" I asked softly. "I know this is rough. I can't imagine what you're going through right now."

"I'm fine." She scowled. "We don't have time for this. We need to get going. We have to-"

"No." I said flatly. "That's not how we do this. Yes, sooner is better, but we're hidden down here. They're not looking for us, they don't know where we are, and frankly, we're safer here under their nose than anywhere except the volcano, and even that's pretty close. Tell me where your head is at."

She let out a frustrated growl. "It doesn't MATTER. I just want to save Valk. Please. We can talk later, just don't let my friend die. I can't lose anyone else."

I nodded slowly. "Alright. You're in the Domain. Chelsea and Jessie will be with you. Purification and healing should help fix him up, but I bet he's going to be out of it when they cut him loose. Save him. But we're going to take a minute before we go."

"We don't have time for that!" She shouted angrily. "This is a huge waste of energy, why did you even pull me aside for this talk in the first place."

I smiled sadly at her. "Natalie. Your hands are bleeding."

She froze, then looked down slowly to see the hot drops of red dripping down her curled fingers, splattering onto the snow and send up nearly imperceptible curls of steam. "That's not…I don't-"

"Valk is going to need you to be ok." I said as I reached down and uncurled my cousin's fingers, prying her nails out of her palms. "It's not fair, but he's going to be in bad shape, and he needs you to be strong. It won't help calm him down if you're hurting yourself. So take a second, take a breath, and I'll send Jessie over here to heal your hands and make those wishes. She's our biggest nerd anyway, so she can trim the questions down to the least expensive options."

Her eyes blurred with tears. "What if I can't fix him?" She whispered. "What if this was too much and he's broken forever?"

"That's the question we all live with every day." I said sadly. "We're all nothing but the hero of our own stories. We just have to hope they aren't tragedies. But Valk has a lot of good friends, and we're all stubborn. He'll get that happy ending if we have anything to say about it. This isn't where his story ends. I can feel it."

She took a deep breath, wiped her face, and nodded, eyes hardening with determination. "You're right. We might not be competing anymore but we're still Ascendants. If this was enough to stop us we never would have made it this far. I guess I let myself forget that."

"Happens to everyone." I shrugged. "I just have the benefit of having my kickass wife in my head to smack some sense into me before I start to really spiral. Trust me, back when I was getting started I had crises of faith like…daily."

"Well sure." She said with a smirk. "You're a giant baby. But I expect better of myself little cousin. I have to set an example."

We exchanged a quick hug, and then I left her to compose herself as I sent Jessie over (she'd gotten some chits from Celine to pay for the wishes) to confirm our information before the raid. I headed over then to check on Abel.

My mentor was leaning against the cave wall staring out the exit when I approached. "Time to go?" He asked lazily.

"Not yet." I said with a shake of my head. "We're still getting confirmation. I just wanted to check on you. See if you were ok. Seeing Cicero like that was-"

"Annoying." He cut me off. "But honestly it might be good for him. My brother's reach exceeds his grasp. Having some humility tortured into him isn't the worst thing for his life expectancy. I didn't love seeing it, but he's alive. It's better than I expected. Maybe this will be enough of a push to keep him that way in the long run."

I whistled. "That's pretty fucking cold, Abel."

"What do you expect?" He said with a small smile. "We're in the tundra. Now if you'll excuse me I'm preparing myself for this clusterfuck. I'd appreciate a bit of time to myself. Come get me when it's time for us to move out." Then he turned his head away, studiously ignoring me.

It wasn't like I could make him deal with his emotions, so I just shrugged and walked away. Honestly, it was hard to tell sometimes whether Abel was emotionally stunted or just more highly evolved than the rest of us put together. I could at least tell he cared. His brother was important to him, and it was clear under the brutalist worldview he was happy he was alive.

Now we just had to keep him that way. Him. Valk, and hundreds of random frozen low rankers who were being horrifically mutated into Travis's monster army. Man, I really owed that guy a painful death. But hey, one thing at a time.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We confirmed that the plan would work easily enough. Yes no questions were simpler than digging for specific secrets, and after getting that done, we arranged some transportation formations to Valen to make sure we hit the trap with optimal timing. Callie left to get ready to meet us there, and the rest of our party was on standby just in case a rescue was needed.

With all that done though, it was up to Abel and I to move in and begin our distraction. I triggered Bael, escorting my mentor through the Wendigos and the small town and down into the cavern.

I wasn't surprised when he paused to stare at his suffering brother, but he shook it off more quickly than expected.

"Alright. Here's the plan." I said as we approached the central pool. "I'm going to corrupt the grey water, you're going to redirect it." As we watched, a dozen stone copies of me entered in their own Bael forms, taking positions to wait for the signal. "When we get to the target, I have to switch to Belial. Beelzebub is taking my other slot, so I won't be able to stealth us anymore."

He nodded. "And you want me to hold them off while you do your thing. Once the flow of water is all corrupted, I hose down all the enemies to draw attention while the other yous drop their stealth and use your purification form to torch the fountains. Then I use spatial lubrication to get us the fuck out of here before the whole place blows."

"Exactly." I said with a grin. "Meanwhile Bethy will snatch up all the statues and grab Cicero and Valk at the same time as the other mes are tossing Life Novas into those fountains."

I didn't see Bethy anywhere, but that wasn't really surprising, since I wasn't supposed to. Just to be safe we waited a few minutes, then, once the Wendigos had mostly moved away from the central position, we approached the giant creepy Wendigo statue.

As we approached, I felt the blood inside me run cold. Not just a physical chill, but a spiritual cold that seemed to sap the optimism and positivity out of my mind. Cold. Cold like the depths of a frozen sea, like the vacuum of space, like the icy peaks of the tallest mountain, but so much more.

There was darkness in the chill, monsters in the sea, horrors between the stars, ferocious beasts waiting in the snowblasted mountains.

For years I'd heard about racial traits, seen them in action, even fought against them. I had friends who had racial traits and had seen enemies take that step, but I'd never bothered to learn more about them. I knew how they worked, how they were passed down, and what they could do, but I'd never questioned the nature of that change.

Now, with the cold invading my heart, I finally grasped exactly what a catalyst really was. Recursion, concentrated and strengthened recursion, the distilled essence of the gradual madness that we all faced every day. It was in the air around this monster, seeping out of it and infecting everyone nearby. The water was the real thing, but even the vapor of the crashing fountain was enough to give me visions of what it was like to be a Wendigo.

I felt hunger and hate. Cold and anger and sadistic glee at the fumbling of weak prey through the snow. In my mind, I stalked a helpless animal through the tundra, glorying in its pain as its hot blood cooled in a trail behind it on the frozen plane. It was my art, my symphony of suffering, and it was the closest thing to sated my unending thirst for death and violence could meet.

It wasn't about the flesh, my hunger, not really. It was about the pain, the fear and the desperation invaded the meat, tenderizing and marinating it, giving it the nutrients my powerful body needed to continue, to thrive and evolve so I could stalk even more powerful prey.

And then it was gone. A protective warmth burned away the cold and I had to hold back the rising gorge of true disgust at the alien abomination I'd just been forced to experience. A wave of love and acceptance rolled through me, and every speck of that abominable frost melted off my heart as it was flooded with the protective affection my wife had sent me to combat the cold.

"Well." Said Abel with a grimace. "That was deeply unpleasant. You good?"

"Not sure that's the word I'd use." I gagged. "But I'm past whatever the fuck that was. I'm so glad we're going to blow this place the fuck up. Also, feeling a lot less morally uncertain about killing Wendigos."

He nodded. "I mean, I don't really do that kind of ethical waffling, but I think I can get actively excited about butchering those lanky fucks."

"Don't actually touch the water." I cautioned him as we approached. "Not without some way to counter the influence. My corrosion should be enough to override the cold, but be careful when you're redirecting the flow."

"Check." he said solemnly. "You about ready to start?"

Triggering Ripple Running, I walked slowly across the grey water, approaching the corpse, then I started to rise, creating stairs in the air until I was off to one side of the chest hole, which was about as tall as I was. Reaching down into myself, I triggered Belial, letting Bael fade away, and I felt the whole chamber tense around me.

I ignored it. I could vaguely hear Abel being attacked, but I tuned that out as I triggered Afterburner. With that done, I started to channel that enhanced power into a modified cosmic collapse.

The corruption was my focus, pouring my power into the hot, disintegrating degradation Belial represented. The consecration of flame was an almost sacred concept, but the touch of tears perverted and maligned it. Belial was the demon prince of the worthless and the wicked, the despicable rot that eroded the virtuous, and this technique was the distilled essence of that perversion.

I called it 'Heart of Darkness', a direct counterpoint to the Heart of Winter. Cosmic Collapse was its base form, but concentrating energy was just a template. The story that was told, the energy concentrated, that was the important part.

With a flex, I split off a parallel, then another. I needed three minds to pull this off. One to form the images, one to concentrate the energy, and one to hold the constructs I'd already created together. Ten of them, one for each charge of Afterburner. In the distance, screams and crashes seemed to become more pronounced, the fighting growing closer.

I ignored it, gathering all ten of those constructs and finally casting them into the heart hole of the corpse.

There was a sort of vacuum as they detonated, like all the air was sucked out of the room, before an explosion of horrifying corruption erupted from the chest cavity like a pressure washer of acidic muck, using the former grey water as as carrier. Around the hold in the chest, creeping magmatic corrosion started to eat away at the once frozen corpse.

"Abel!" I yelled worriedly. "Not sure how long this will last. This thing has been corroding for millenia, and it is NOT as sturdy as it used to be."

A snarl of annoyance was the response, before my mentor's voice snapped. "Damn it! Switch!"

I glanced over my shoulder, triggering Double Trouble as soon as I saw him, and I appeared behind him, letting Belial drop as Mephistopheles rose to take its place. "Go." I said, stepping past him and thrusting the butt of my staff into the screaming mouth of a Wendigo, unleashing a blast of black flame.

He didn't ask twice, heading for the giant corpse as my staff whirled up to deflect a dinner plate sized clawed hand. My staff came down like a hammer, on the overextended ankle of one of the monsters as I stepped past, and then arched up and around to smash down on the back of its neck.

I dropped one of my parallels, letting the last non main mental process track my combat as I checked on everyone else. I spotted Bethy, Nat and Chelsea outside the Domain as they took apart the metal constructs to stash away the mid conversion victims.

They were mostly done, and Chelsea was purifying who she could, though a few were too far gone and needed to die. Thankfully Valk and Cicero weren't and within a minute or two, they had officially saved who they could, the icy statues already stashed away. As I watched, a river of green black poison hosed down the cavern, burning alive Wendigos as it went.
To make sure I would survive, I dropped Mephistopheles and switched to Mornax as the others assumed the role of Zagan.

I took off running, one foot always on the ground as I headed for Bethy. The poison tide washed over me, and even protected by my most powerful defense I felt it eat away as my skin. The corruption had hijacked the potency of that dreadful liquid and turned it toward the destruction and decomposition it embodied.

When I reached Bethy, my sister and Nat were still outside, waiting for me to get close enough. I dropped Mornax, letting Chelsea blast me with some of her purifying flame to clean me off as they dragged me into the Domain, letting me fall to the dark grass in exhaustion.

The soul strain of so many techniques at once, mixed with my parallels, wasn't near enough to break me, but it definitely left me winded.

Not winded enough that I stopped paying attention, and I looked through the eyes of one of my clones, who had already dropped a Life Nova into one of the twenty four fountains and Double Troubled to another.

The venom tide was dissolving the stone, and he'd barely had enough time to drop the second charge of the purifying blast before he came apart, but barely was still enough. I checked on the others, knowing they were all just as dead, and then returned to my proper body, glancing around the Domain.

"He's here!" I called as Abel came barreling into the construct. With the arrival of our last party member Bethy took off, heading at top speed for the exit. It was shocking to see her dance across the corrosive liquid like it was solid ground, and I realized exactly how much Bethy could and did hold back around us.

As she emerged from between a pair of Wendigos and out onto the snow, she barreled toward the teleportation formations we'd set up. From inside the Domain, we could see her surroundings, like she was the center of a three hundred and sixty degree camera placement of something.

Behind us, there was a shudder as the ice began to break apart, green glowing energy pouring from the cracks and lighting up the darkness of the tundra. The last thing we saw before hitting the formation was the last of the purification and corruption energies clashing as a colossal pillar of shifting red black and green erupted from below the ice, shooting straight up into the air like a lance aimed at the stars.

The formation flashed, sending us hurtling through space, only to wind up inside a surprisingly familiar office. Zekes office, the same one I'd been in so long ago when I first realized how much more complicated my life was than I imagined.

I stumbled out of the Domain, landing on a couch nearby, and saw Bethy was bent over, hands on her knees as she panted in exhaustion. "Let them out." I said to her. "Quick, we can find the space." She nodded jerkily and started releasing the E-rankers. All I could think of as she did it though was exactly where we were. Back in Valen. Home. So far so good.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"How weird is it being back here?" Asked Benny as he slumped down next to me on the couch. "I still remember us coming here together after you got your powers. It was so huge and imposing, a whole new world. Now it seems almost pathetic compared to some of the places we've been." He put a hand on my shoulder, spiritual calming flooding into me and slowly repairing my soul.

"I feel that." I chuckled. "They finish searching the area?"

He sighed. "Looks like the WCP is completely empty. Do you think we were wrong about the trap? I was expecting to face some hard resistance when we left the office."

"I assume it's the opposite, honestly." I grimaced. "In all the other cities we hit, the Palace district was always flooded with Wendigos. Their absence here is pretty suspicious. We JUST blew up the Heart, so there shouldn't have been time to withdraw. Which means they left this place empty to herd us to another location."

He smirked at me. "Or they're afraid to run into you underground or inside a building. Maybe they're surrounding Valen, figuring they can deprive you of your biggest weapon by fighting outside."

I glared at my best friend. "First of all, fuck you. I'm not some kind of anti building armament. I HAPPEN to have collapsed a few places in the course of our resistance. It's not that's my signature move."

"Oh, but you are." He said maliciously. "Oh, but it has. Did you think all that stat income came in a vacuum? Stories abound, my friend, and they all paint you as the patron saint of blowing up buildings. On the upside, I'm pretty sure your techniques will get more effective at destroying large scale structures, on the downside I don't think you're going to have an easy time getting insurance going forward."

I rolled my eyes, perking up when my I saw my sister approaching. "Hey Chels." I said cheerfully. "How is Nat? And Valk? Everything ok? I saw you giving him and Cicero a once over with your purifying flame."

"Cicero is in bad shape." She grimaced. "Valk has a strong will and resisted being invaded by the cold. Cicero was tempted. He still held out, but it got in too deep for me to purge. You'll need to work on him. I was able to soften it up a bit though. Purifying flame vs. corrupting ice gave me a natural advantage."

"Unsurprising." I shrugged. "Cicero never struck me as strong of will. I'll work on him. Not now obviously, we have shit to do, but when I get a chance. How about you? Feeling ok? We're going to be leaning on you a bit harder during this part. You get any inspiration from watching us blow up the corpse of an ancient demon?"

My sister chuckled. "I had a few." She said with a grin. "I've been doing some research since you told me mom gave permission to use both my abilities." Holding up a hand, she focused on her palm, and a symbol slowly manifest. A black and white circle, a dot of each color the only relief in an otherwise bisected shape.

I raised a brow. "I'm not familiar with that. What is it exactly?"

"It's called a yin-yang diagram." She said excitedly. "It's a shape heavily invested in the blending of opposing forces. The implication is that all things are made of both dark and light, while each also contains a bit of the other. I've had some success stabilizing my energy when mixing it in this shape, long enough that I can actually use it as a projectile."

"That's fascinating." I said with interest. "Are you going to use it as your Path? It seems like a strong image."

She waggled her other hand. "Yes and no. I think I'm going to try to merge the concept with the idea of a star. It's kind of a family tradition, and there's a lot of powerful applications of star imagery. Imagine a yin-yang supernova. It's a perfect Path for me. I'm excited to ask mom and grandma about it." Her smile wilted. "If I can."

Reaching up, I pulled her into a hug. "Hey. I'm sure grandma is fine. She's a smart woman, no chance she would have gone to talk to her mother if she thought she would die. We're in a truce right now too."

"Do you think they can fix it?" She asked quietly. "Talk Black Sorrow into backing down so we can be a real family. Maybe dad will even come home."

"I somehow doubt that." I said wryly. "But I would like to be able to visit the Holy Dominion openly. I think they must have some kind of plan to get her to back down or they wouldn't have decided to try."

Letting her go, I stepped back. "Now, how about we search the district just to make sure there's no one lying in wait and we can get started on staging the attack. If they aren't here, the only other place that would be viable to hold an army is the guild. So once we clear the WCP we can start planning our assault."

"Hell yes we can." Said Stella bluntly as she arrived next to us. "Those horned bastards picked the wrong building to use. I have more than a few defensive redundancies in place. If we can get to my office I can seriously soften them up. Not to mention activating the lockdown protocols so we can kill them to the last man."

I grinned. "Don't suppose you and my uncle had a handy secret passage between your offices like in Rajak?"

She glared at me. "No. We did not. We were separated for years before I took over the branch. We'll have to go in the front. Or the back. Or one of the side entrances. Suffice to say we have more than a few options even without a secret tunnel."

"How about surveillance?" I asked with a frown. "Knowing where they all are, how many, and what their distribution is would be useful."

She sighed. "We don't have remote access. It's a security risk. If we can check that stuff from outside the building so can someone else. Beaker was adamant that we not leave any access from external sources. The whole security system is air gapped, not that lack of connection is a real obstacle for some people. It's better than nothing though."

"So we need to get you inside." I said with a nod. "Sounds good. Abel and I can escort you in while the others spread out and get ready to enter. No use coming in too hot and ruining our chances of tripping their trap."

Abel, who was waiting nearby, chuckled, cracking his neck. "Nice. That last workout was a little boring. Had to stay on defense and then bail. Let's get going then. If we take too long they'll withdraw."

With a sigh, I hopped to my feet, groaning a bit. I was still sore from the last fight, but my soul was in decent shape after some spiritual calming. Callie was on her way down, and we were on track to actually pull this off. This next part would be much more relaxing in some ways, just wiping out as many Wendigos as possible.

Which was why when we left the WCP, we left through the front door. Taking the elevator up into that old building, I stayed on high alert, waiting for any sign of an attack.

"It's weird there's no one down here." I muttered as we stood in the rising lift. "The WCP is never empty. I assume they let everyone flee, hoping we would go down and check and get boxed in." I smirked at the thought. "I bet they have people watching the outside waiting to spring the trap. Imagine their faces when we come OUT of there."

Abel snickered. "Always funny seeing an enemy reeling. If we're assuming they're watching, we need to head for the Unity building top speed right out the gate, right?"

I triggered Mephistopheles, letting my hair blaze up into black flame. "Hell yes." I said with a grin. "And go right through anything that tries to stop us. Stella, you good to keep up? I'm not really aware of your ability besides that it's star based. Cosmic Witchcraft, right?"

Reaching into a pouch, she pulled out a small doll that looked like her. From another pouch she pulled a recognizable can of what I knew was a high end energy drink on Callus. She poured it over the doll, which glowed the same purple as the liquid, and her eyes followed suit. "Yeah." She said nonchalantly. "I'll be fine."
"Alright." I said with a grin. "Then try to keep up. I won't be slowing down. Get ready for the Wendigo Run."

We waited together for a minute or two, until there was a ding, and the elevator doors opened. I stepped forward, vanishing in a blaze of black as Mephisto's Waltz began. I appeared at the front door, and the displaced air exploded out, the blast of wind and the sound of the sound barrier breaking shattering the glass windows at the front of the lobby.

My Eye of Revelation picked up a dozen horned forms moving, and I grinned as I stepped again. My waltz took me across the street, up the side of a building, off the skull of a Wendigo, and across the street in the opposite direction, shattering another's chest.

My staff licked out, smashing limbs and cracking skulls as I let the waltz take me, carrying me in split second flashes back and forth down the street toward the Unity building.

It felt amazing. I stepped off a piece of broken and falling debris from one of my landings, walking through that sky and up toward one of the larger Wendigos on top of of a taller building. It died in a single strike, and then I was off, back to the ground.

Our of the corner of my eye, I could see faces in the windows, people watching me work, and I felt…proud. These were my people, from my hometown, and they were seeing what I'd become, seeing me protect them from a terrible threat. It felt good, and it further reinforced my path moving forward.

Abel, meanwhile, was smashing through the monsters I left behind (I wasn't getting all of them) with massive bloody fist images, while Stella blurred through the wreckage in a purple streak, not really engaging with the monsters.

That was fine, it meant she made good time, and when we touched down in front of the Unity building, we were all there at about the same time. Around us, dozens of antlered forms gathered, barely visible in the dark if not for my Eye of Revelation, most likely using some kind of native stealth ability.

The Unity building looked empty from where we stood, and we had an unobstructed path inside, which of course confirmed the trap.

"We ready?" I asked Stella, who was panting slightly. She nodded, straightening with a firm look, and we all strode into the building. Once we were inside, the monsters tried to follow, and we let them. Stella couldn't trigger lockdowns yet, we needed to make sure the others made it in.

With that in mind, we walked deeper into the trap, letting them box us in, but none of us were particularly worried. In the back of my head, I could feel Callie getting closer. Since the fortress was gone, she couldn't use the bangle to come back, and was taking a shuttle in from the atmosphere.

Being E-rank she was able to enter easily enough without damaging the labyrinth construct. I grinned to myself as I felt the malicious presences at my back. She'd better hurry up, or there wasn't going to be any enemies left for her.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

"Why aren't they attacking?" I said casually as we strolled through the halls. "I expected to be ass deep in Wendigo by this point. Although I have to admit, watching Abel twitch every time they move is kind of funny." I ignored the middle finger my teacher shot me, keeping most of my attention on my Danger Sense.

It was going off like a storm siren, obviously, but I was trying to track the intensity for forewarning of an attack. Nothing was pinging right now, so I split off a parallel to keep track so I could relax a little.

"I suspect they're waiting for backup." Stella said worriedly. "There are more and more of them spilling in. They're supposed to take you alive, right?"

I shrugged. "Who knows. Travis is probably pissed about all the losses." I smirked to myself. "I wish I could have seen the look on his face when we blew up the Heart. For all I know he'll just kill me and sacrifice my body or something. Or maybe they can do that weird grey ice thing like the ones at the Heart. Kick my ass and freeze me just before I die."

Despite the grim nature of the topic, I didn't let the possibilities bother me. This was pretty much ideal for our purposes. The more that came in the more we could trap in here with the others, and the less chance our forces would be noticed.

Abel snorted, saying in a deadpan voice. "With this many nearby, it might not be impossible. Even your advantages have limits."

"Yes. They outnumber us so heavily. We are truly beyond all help." I answered just as flatly. We stared at each other for a few seconds and then we both burst out laughing, nearly doubling over as we were wracked by that muscle cramping, full body laugh you get when you get sucked into laughing about something and just can't stop, even though it isn't really funny.

Stella just glared at us both, then turned the full force of her disapproval on Abel. "He used to be normal, you know. You're a terrible influence."

"You take that back!" I said, aghast. "I was NEVER normal."

She just rolled her eyes. "My mistake. What could I have been thinking." Finally we came to the top of the staircase I'd first walked so long ago after my intake. "My office." She said unnecessarily. "I'm going to go check some things like we discussed. Make sure I'm not disturbed."

We nodded solemnly as she headed inside, then stood motionless and waited. Sure enough, after she'd been out of sight for about thirty seconds, the Wendigos hit their limits and attacked.

Black flames roared under my feet as I began to Waltz, vanishing straight up as I bounced off either side of the staircase until my back was flat against the ceiling. With the vantage point, I found the furthest one back and triggered Double Trouble, then went to work bashing my way into the crowd of monsters from the back as Abel smashed into them from the front. More flooded in from behind me, sadly, the ones who had been accumulating on the walk.

I triggered Mephistopheles and Belial, then started painting the area around me with black demonic corrosion. Which…turned out to be a big mistake.

My eyes widened as the ground melted out from under us, and I stepped off the air, dropping Belial and reaching out with Dust Construction.

It was tough to grab hold of the melted rock, but it was close enough to the dust that I was able to force it to work, and I managed to jam enough of it back into the expanding cracks to create a very basic makeshift brace that kept the building from collapsing on top of us.

"Can you please NOT!" Bellowed Abel from higher up the steps.

"Well it wasn't INTENTIONAL!" I howled back. "I forgot how fucking flimsy everything here is. Even Rajak was sturdy enough not to just fall apart." I should have considered the problem when I shattered those windows at the WCP building. Valen was essentially a mortal city, and almost nothing here was made of Ascendant material.

It was even more shocking the Wendigos could function, they were animalistic nutcases one and all. I was surprised their feet weren't punching into the rock. It was so annoying when bad guys were competent, even the really basic kind.

Still, I had plenty of easy options. I triggered Ripple Running and just avoided the ground in general, though I had to adjust my combat style to something more physical. Collapsing the building on us wouldn't kill us…but it also wouldn't kill them. What it WOULD do was make our forces harder to gather.

Once they showed up we could have Bethy pull them all into her Domain and fight it out inside. Until then, I just lashed out back and forth with my staff.

It almost felt nostalgic. No forms or special abilities, just creacking them over the heads with a big ass stick like I'd done when I got started. I snarled in pain as a pair of antlers slammed into my back, but my armor took most of the damage.

Lashing out behind me with a brutal thrust, the staff smashed into the creature's sternum, eliciting a horrific crack as the monster stumbled back. Another one was coming at me head on, but I used its eye as a reflective surface, triggering Double Trouble on the injured one behind me.

In an instant I was up on its head, using its antlers as handlebars as I stomped down on its ugly face as hard and fast as I could. As it sank to its knees, I wrenched the head around with the full weight of my body, interposing the antler in my left hand between myself and the one that had just realized it was only attacking an illusion.

There was so many of them, and so much happening. I triggered Piece of Mind, splitting off a parallel even as I called for Beelzebub. Twelve other versions of me appeared around me, immediately going to work, and I grimaced at the strain.

I only had two forms active, but I'd been going for a while now. My soul wasn't in agony or anything, but I had a throbbing pain behind my eyes that reminded me of an ice cream headache. I was used to overdoing it all at once and being struck dumb with agony, so the gradual build from constant on and off use was easy enough to push through for now.

The fight dragged on, and I killed a bunch more Wendigos (though less than I'd have liked because they kept getting between me and the wounded before I could finish them). I was about to stomp one's face in when there was a low hum and a flash as the walls and floor glowed blue.

"I think that was the lockdown!" I called as I kicked off the air to avoid being speared on a particularly sharp pair of antlers. When I touched down though, I had time to check out the materials for a second, and was shocked to note that I felt Impact in them now. Not anything up to my standards, but like…F-rank maybe?

"Did these rocks just get more durable?" Called Abel.

I just laughed, calling back. "Seems like the lockdown reinforces the building. Which makes sense because it's not much of a lockdown if you can just walk through the wall. Still, that'll make things way easier."

That train of thought was cut off by the scream of my danger sense and I threw myself sideways as a small orb of condensed black and white energy streaked past me, hit a crowd of Wendigos, and then fucking EXPLODED.

"Sorry!" Called the embarrassed voice of my sister. "I'm still figuring out how to aim that! It pulls to the left!"

I grinned as I turned around, seeing our entire force converging, more than a hundred and fifty E-rankers sweeping down the hallways, tearing apart the straggling Wendigos that were trying desperately to escape them.

"Is that all of them?" I called with a laugh. "It's hard to tell, they all have that same grey hide and the antlers."

Chelsea arrived next to me with a grin. "I'm pretty sure. We're getting conflicting reports of a few dozen staying outside, but not enough to really turn the tides. We're grinding them down easily enough. We have a numbers advantage AND a skill advantage. I don't think the stragglers are going to be an iss-" She cut off as Stella came barreling out of her office frantically. "DOWN!" She screamed, jumping into the hole I'd left with my corrosion. Without questioning it, we all disengaged, and anyone who couldn't get back down the hall jumped into the hole.

There was a colossal boom, and dust and rock rained down from above us as something hit the building.

We'd all landed just one floor below, and as the smoke cleared, I could make out something huge moving through the obscuring cloud. Something grey, tipped with knifelike talons on a hand the size of a small fucking house.

As I watched, a pair of massive dark columns recognizable as horns sheared through the stone of the Unity building and a hideous warped face shoved itself into the hole the arm had left, hateful red eyes glaring down at us from sockets as tall as we were.

"What the actual fuck is THAT?" I screamed in a manly and not at all high pitched voice.

Abel groaned. "Invocation of some kind? Technically the transformation IS an ability. Maybe all of the stragglers did it at the same time. Either way. Doesn't matter much, does it?" Hauling back, he threw a colossal punch with his right hand, and above us, a bloody manifestation of his closed fist coalesced, tearing through the air and smashing into the massive demon head.

It stumbled back, and I stepped off the air to follow it up, landing on a rock ledge inside the hole it torn in the side of the building. The construction was clearly getting destabilized, and the blue glow of the lockdown protocols was flickering and about to go out, at which point the whole place would probably collapse.

Despite all that, I wasn't worried about it. I just stood there casually, staring up at the massive monster. Abel and Chelsea hopped up next to me, the others below trying to hunt down the fleeing Wendigos as they scattered.

"You don't seem worried." My sister commented. "Shouldn't we be getting ready for a huge fight?"

I just laughed. "Nope. It's already taken care of." I'd been waiting for something for a while now, and I could feel it coming from a ways out. I wouldn't need to lift a finger, though I was definitely going to be helping.

"Really?" She said worriedly. "Because I don't see how that's possible. What exactly is going to take care of that giant monster."

Grinning, I pointed up at the sky behind the monster. Through the bond, I could feel the flex of two of my forms, forms that wouldn't have been usable before the rank up. One of them wouldn't have been usable even after, except that we were cheating a little bit.

"What is that?" She said, squinting. I didn't blame her for not knowing what she was looking at. With my feet planted, Mornax was working through the bond (a fun new trick considering it had only originally been usable on solid ground) , but the curled up form of my Callie wasn't easily visible, wreathed in black fire as she was from the collecting strength of Mephistopheles.

The giant super Wendigo seemed to notice at the last minute and turned to look at what was coming. Callie had jumped from a shuttle just below orbit, and with Mornax increasing her density and Mephistopheles supercharging her force she was basically a living mortar shell. It was a shame it had turned though, I'd have loved to see its face when she crashed into and vaporized its entire upper torso. My wife certainly knew how to make an entrance.