Chapter 220: Chapter Two Hundred Twenty One

The welcome, of course, was traps. So many traps. Like more traps  than you would normally see. Despite the existence of the defenses we  were informed by Cicero that traps would be necessary to bounce out the  invaders for one very simple reason. The defensive systems in the  cavalcade were only designed to attack people who entered the buildings.

Tents  counted, but since so much of the place was outside, we couldn't count  on the defenses to take care of too many of the attackers. Callie, who  had a badass trap Skill I'd given her and as such would be a perfect  choice to lay them down, called bullshit immediately. "Why the hell  would they design the protections not to work outside? There are so many  ways to take advantage of that. I assume they at least protect the  buildings themselves so the invaders can't bust open the sides and  expose the internals to attack, or worse just burn the tents down  themselves?"

Cicero sighed. "Yes, the buildings are  protected. As for the reasoning, it's so we don't abuse the ability and  start wiping out whoever we feel like killing when they enter our  territory. Don't get me wrong, there are still methods to take advantage  of it, as long as SOME people had played along." He cut his eyes at  Abel sulkily, but then moved on. "But they're meant to be defensive and  not offensive. The amount of enemies is also relevant here. If they try  to push into enough of the buildings the defenses will be spread thin,  which would prevent them from being nearly as effective. Hence the  traps. To whittle them down before they get to our actual troops."

"Hes  right." Mel said, with a grimace so pronounced I could hear it in her  voice. " It'll save more lives than we can count if we can soften them  up. My Pavilion members can hold their own, and I'm sure our beast  master friends are terrors in their own right, but even the most combat  capable of Cicero's forces are silk pants little milktoasts. They'll  need all the help they can get." That last part was sad with a taunting  glance at the mustachioed man, whose eye twitched as he pretended to  ignore her.

Callie rolled her eyes, cutting off the  brewing argument before it got started. "Anyway, so we have thirty  G-rankers that are combat capable. I doubt we need thirty places to hole  up, so we can split us up into teams. You all talk that through while  Solomon and I work on traps and we can finalize it when we get back. I  don't know how long we have, but the sooner we get them up the better. I  have some ideas for how we can put some of them together quickly."  Without waiting for a response she grabbed my hand and dragged me out of  the tent. I was getting the impression my girlfriend was sick of  dealing with those three and just wanted a break.

I  started chuckling as soon as we were out, but she shushed me, looking  around before she grabbed my hand and activated her stealth Skill to  cover is both. Once that was done she hip checked me lightly, arm  wrapped in mine so she could channel the Skill. "Hush you, if they think  it's an excuse they're going to make a big deal about it, and I'm SO  sick of listening to those two bitch. Believe it or not that was  actually better than before Alden yelled at them. They were sniping way  worse before you got back. Anyway, I did have an idea of how we might be  able to use your ability to make traps."

I briefly  thought over that. I didn't have many abilities that could be considered  useful in construction. It only took me a second to figure it out. "  Sucking Mud? Softening the earth could be a useful way to dig pits and  arrange attacks." With Callie's trap Skill I was sure she had a dozen  ways to arrange traps with access to quick and modifiable holes in the  ground. If I softened the dirt up and she scooped it out with her  shadows it would be the quickest way I could think of to make a hole.  Granted, Callie could also just dig, but that wouldn't be quite a  delicate in terms of shape.

She shrugged. "Oh sure, but we  only need to use that for certain traps. Mostly I just wanted to spend  some time with you before the battle. I know you well enough to know  you're probably too jittery to see straight. You like combat, but this  whole candidate thing is really scary. It's your first real taste of the  big show, so I wanted to check on you and see how you were doing. You  did the same for me, remember?" She laid her head on my shoulder as we  walked, waiting patiently for me to talk.

I pulled her  close. "I appreciate that. But honestly, I don't know how I feel. It's  going to be a hard fight, but really...I'm scared I might have to kill  her. I know I don't know her and she's been making trouble for me, but  she hasn't tried to kill me or anything, and she's family. I don't want  this to turn into a fight to the death. I DO want to see which of us is  stronger, I just don't want it to go too far. But after all Zeke's  warnings ignoring the possibility seems stupid. This is a pretty fucked  up situation right? It's my first time meeting one of my relatives and  my biggest concern is having to murder her. There are upsides to this  Wish stuff for sure, but it doesn't always make up for how complicated  it makes my life."

Callie leaned up, standing on her toes  to press a kiss to the side of my mask. "I know. But you're a  resourceful guy. I believe you can finish this without having to lose  anyone or do anything you'd hate yourself for. If you don't want to kill  her just don't. Remove it as an option. It might be a little naive, but  I'll be here with you to help make sure you can pull it off." She gave  me a soft smile. "We can do some pretty amazing things when it's the two  of us, and that's not even factoring Jessie and Benny into the  equation."

I couldn't say her reassurance magically fixed  all my problems. I still had a gnawing feeling of anxiety in the pit of  my stomach, but it was definitely partially washed away by the warm rush  of gratitude and affection. I leaned down and gave her a tight hug  before pulling back. "Thanks, Cal. I should have talked to you about  this sooner. Guess it's no surprise that someone I love was able to pull  me out of my funk."

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"Why start paying attention now?" She  said airily, winking to show she was just teasing. "You never think  things through, it's why you need me." She gave me another kiss on the  cheek of my mask. "And I love you too, you big softie. Now, let's get to  the trap construction already. First thing we need is a map of this  place. We'll want to set up the traps in the spots that are most  necessary for traversing the fair grounds. There should be a sign with a  general layout somewhere around here."

A quick use of  Seek Hidden and a circuit of the grounds was enough to find what she was  looking for, and with our Focus remembering it was hardly a problem.  Once we found it she went over the sign carefully. "Now, realistically  we should go check with the others about the best places to funnel the  invaders, but I somehow doubt we would get anything done quickly with so  many rival factions. I think out best bet is to funnel them to the main  buildings we're familiar with. The Pavilion, Cicero's tent, and for the  last one we can use this."

She pointed to a spot on the  map, and I stared at her in horror for a minute before starting to  snicker. "Seriously? I'm assuming the Beast Lord crew and our own team  will be in the third location, since giving Cicero and Mel's people home  ground advantage makes sense, do you really want us to fight in a  fucking hall of mirrors?" But the more I thought about it, the better it  sounded. Callie and I were both people who did better attacking the  unwary, and I had several interesting skills that I was pretty sure  would make it a nightmare for the enemy. The defenses protected the  buildings from being destroyed, so we didn't need to worry about them  just tearing through it either.

Callie grinned at me  shamelessly. "Come on, you know it sounds like fun. Plus, if we don't  take some precautions the other teams are going to massively outshine  us. How many chances will we get to cut loose like this in such a crazy  environment in the future? We can build up some serious reputation this  way." She gestured back to the sign. "Anyway, with those parameters we  need to set up traps in these locations." She pointed out about a dozen  spots. "First though, we need to make a quick stop."

We  headed for Cicero's tent, following the route back to the entrance to  the labyrinth. It was still there, which was pretty lucky, and I used  Leaf on the Wind to drop us down into the tunnel. Once we got there, we  proceeded to loot the place from top to bottom. When we were down there  in the first place we hadn't bothered taking trap mechanisms, because  why would we? But this time we stole EVERYTHING. Arrows, blades,  mechanical parts, Callie used her trap Skill to deconstruct the  emplacements, and since we'd already disarmed them all it didn't take us  that long.

Of  course, we still had to carry it all back out, but given our Might the  weight of the parts was inconsequential, even if we had to make a bunch  of trips because we didn't have enough space to carry it all at once.  The spatial box in my backpack helped, but there were a LOT of traps  down there, and even the bigger on the inside container wasn't enough to  take it all in only one or two trips. Still, once we got it all out if  the actual labyrinth we just left it lying in the middle of Cicero's  tent and used the box to take what we needed for each stretch of open  space among the twelve of them we selected.

With  the supplies we needed, we began the process of assembling the traps.  We wandered around for a bit until we found one of the twelve locations  that was empty, and then we went from there. Some of the traps weren't  salvageable, or didn't fit the terrain, but Callie was able to tweak a  surprising number of them to function properly. By the time we were  finishing the first spot, the people had all been cleared out, so we  were able to hit the others without worrying about any of our own  triggering the traps, though we had to stop in and fill the others in on  the plan.

Cicero  looked annoyed at us for breaking into his tent, which meant Mel was  completely on our side, and Abel weighed in for us too so they were able  to overrule him. With distribution decided we all dispersed to our  various posts while Callie and I finished off the traps. It took us  several hours to manage it, but by the time we were done I was  practically shaking with anticipation and worry.

Sloane assured us they wouldn't let the day end without attacking, and  waiting this long meant they would be coming in force. Ready for things  to begin, Jessie, Callie, Benny, all twelve of the Beast Lord initiates,  and I all headed for where we would make our stand. The hall of mirrors  was the place I'd finally meet my counterpart, and I had a feeling  nothing would ever be the same after that.

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