Chapter 226: Chapter Two Hundred Twenty Seven

As soon as the dome dropped we checked on everyone else. As expected,  Natalie had taken her guards with her and most of the robed figures had  gone along. Trying to fight an F-ranked BEAR without any trump cards  was obviously a level of stupid not even Sanctuary Hall could motivate  their people to achieve. The few left were easily cleaned up by our  superior numbers, even as the morons wailed at the retreating forms of  their comrades, proclaiming them traitors and swearing vengeance on  them.

Most of them wouldn't be accomplishing that goal,  sadly. While my people were somewhat reticent to kill, Sloane and the  other Beast Lord Garden elites had no such compunctions, nor did most of  the Militia. Even Cark didn't seem too broken up about it. Considering  most of them had left already and the ones left were all fanatics, I  decided to let it go. They made their decision, and every second I  wasted trying to save morons suffering the consequences of their own  actions, my actual friends might be getting hurt.

After we  cleaned it up I sent Sloane and co. along with Cark and his people to  backup Cicero. I figured whatever they would run into there they could  handle as a group, especially with our bear along. Jessie unfortunately  had to go with them since Randall was needed, and because Callie had  given her enough of a rundown on the traps to help the group avoid them  if they came across some.

We could have gone with them,  but I was pretty sure I knew what Natalie had been hinting at with her  test comment. The two members of the Titan Twenty and princess of  Sanctuary Hall were fighting Mel, Abel, and the rest of our friends at  the pavilion. Based on her comments, things weren't going too well for  them. I didn't want to thing about what that might mean for Alden and  the others, but I really hoped they were all ok. We made good time  getting to the tent, and I checked with everyone else before we headed  in. "You all ready? This is going to be rough I'm guessing."

We'd  scouted everything out, and from what we could tell, the majority of  the enemy were assaulting Cicero, so we sent everyone who wasn't an  essential part of our combat team with the other group. The smart call  would have been to just crush them with overwhelming force, but Cicero  still had the damn deed with him, and that was the target. As much as we  wanted to help our friends, losing the circus in the process would be a  net loss, so we sent nearly everyone we could spare to help Cicero.

The  three of us weren't necessary for the assault, and were really all that  could be spared for this mission, but it was just as important. I was  pretty sure Natalie would withdraw her support for Sanctuary Hall  completely if their failed here, not to mention getting shit stomped  like this would be a huge black eye and would have all the other forces  on guard if they found out. My cousin withdrawing would turn this into a  last ditch effort, and that was pretty much the only chance of us  keeping this place long term.

With everyone seemingly  prepared, we burst into the tent, ready to rain hell down on whoever was  there, but we weren't even remotely ready for what we found there. Mel  was standing in the stands, in front the other members of the pavilion,  including Alden, most of whom were seriously injured. Alden was missing a  leg, and the only thing keeping it from bleeding him dry was the  obvious cauterization patch job that I assumed had been Mel's doing. For  her part, Mel, or I suppose Starbreaker, was raining down a hurricane  of blazing golden flames on a pair of small forms that were managing to  hold her off.

The pair of skinny, dark haired twins that  she was up against were dressed in normal seeming clothes. Cargo pants,  hoodies, and t-shirts, each with only a half mask covering the top of  their faces. One had fists up and rippling with concentrated energy,  while the other had a vicious looking knife in one hand, gleaming with a  red light concentrated along the razor sharp edge.

Mel  was conducting her flames like a symphony, a riot of golden light and  heat whirling in circular shifting patterns, collected into shapes like  serpents as they wove together into a tapestry of devastating power and  unbreakable defense. But despite her obvious skill and power, Mel  herself was dripping blood from several surgically clean cuts on her  body, and I could see sweat staining her clothes as she swayed on her  feet. Beat and Sever, from what I could guess, and they were clearly  absurdly powerful.

I expected Abel to be on hand to help  her, but the rabbit masked warrior was standing on the other side of the  ring, raining down a torrent of powerful and precise blows on a calm  looking brown haired girl with golden eyes and a peaceful smile. As each  blow came close, she lifted a hand, creating a wave of soothing golden  energy that collided with the fists and seemed to fade away like snow  melting in the sunshine.

"Shit." I said venomously. "This  isn't great. How the hell are we supposed to help? I mean, I assume we  should try and weigh in for Mel. Anyone who can counter Abel is out of  our weight class, but how are we supposed to get close enough to get  involved? Mel is obviously exhausted, and I'm pretty sure if we get  caught on the wrong side of that flame wall we're going to get  butchered. If we have any shot at helping we need to get to our people."  I had healing bursts saved up I could start dropping on the heavier  hitters. I wasn't entirely sure I could regrow a lost leg, but I could  at least give Mel a second wind. Beat and Sever had to be at least  winded, right?

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I turned to Callie, waiting for her input.  She scanned the scene, trying to figure out some method of entry to the  battle we could use. She scanned for a while, until she seemed to hit on  an idea. She turned to me. "Solomon, do you remember the trick I used  in my fight with Gust? The ground thing? Doing that now would take way  too long, but it proves my shadows can effect the earth. Do you think we  could use them in conjunction with your Sucking Mud? Would that do  anything?"

Biting my lip, I nodded. I'd seen what  combining skills could do with my poison fire. The results could be  unpredictable, but I was pretty sure it would do SOMETHING useful, and  at the very least the normal Sucking Mud skill was distracting. I closed  my eyes, focusing on the Sucking Mud skill, and on one of the shadow  attacks I had stored, and resonated them together before triggering the  result. I was pretty vague on what it would do, but Shadow Swamp, as I  called the combination, was launched immediately.

My eyes  widened in shock as the dirt beneath Beat and Sever turned to liquid  darkness below their feet. The shadow mud took on the consistency of  quicksand as normal, but the sand was much quicker than usual, and not  nearly as static. Instead of slowly sinking into the mud, spears of  darkness shot up out of the ground and began trying to swallow them both  up, the multiple blades of the shadow attack mixing with the sucking  and consuming nature of Sucking Mud to make tentacles that attempted to  drag them into the dirt.

I turned wide eyed to the others.  "Go!" I shouted, as we turned and booked it around the furthest  possible edge of the ring, as far from those two as possible while still  going the right way. I still had Leaf on the Wind active, and I took  long, flashing steps, sailing longer distances as my feet kicked off,  remaining low to the ground with the low arcs I was taking. Beat and  Sever, to my lack of surprise, appeared to be trying to get loose.  Luckily Beat's power, those rippling shockwaves, was NOT suited to  getting out of quicksand, and the churning and shifting effects of the  force were actually making it worse.

Sever was having much  better luck above ground, cutting away the tentacles with his knife,  but the part of him submerged wasn't nearly as effective. We barely  managed to make it to the wall, bellowing for Mel, and the pavilion  master heard us, dropping the flames for just a second as we bolted  through, before raising the blaze again behind us. She didn't dare to  lower it with them on the other side, even if it would have been  tempting given how tired she was.

Speaking of which, I  triggered one of my healing bursts, the wounds knitting along her body  and her posture seeming to straighten as her energy was refilled. I  wasn't dumb enough to think it would last very long with that kind of  output, but for now it bought us time to figure out a plan. I stepped  over to lay a hand on Alden as well, looking down at him questioningly  before I used the healing ability. "I can heal you up, but with that  wound cauterized I don't think your leg is going to grow back. It's  going to scar over most likely, do you want to just wait and see if we  can re-injure it and try to get Agria to help when she gets here?"

I  could actually grant him a new leg in a wish if necessary, but now  wasn't the time for that discussion. He gave a pained grunt and shook  his head. "No time lad, I'll worry about getting a new one later. Just  heal me up so I can get back in the fight. Even without both legs my  ability will still let me fight." I grimaced at the image but nodded  anyway, putting a hand on him and triggering another healing surge. He  hissed as the wound, which was perfectly level in a way that implied  he'd been cut by a VERY sharp blade, began to burn with green light as  it scarred over.

The  various scraped and bruises across his body mended before my eyes, and  he gave a sigh of relief at the lack of pain. His eyes were a bit  unfocused though, which made sense. The endorphin dump from a thorough  healing could be intense. Going from feeling a ton of pain to none was  great, but the adrenaline in your body didn't magically vanish like the  wounds did. The worse the injury the more extreme the loop it could  knock you for, and having a leg lopped off and then burned closed would  probably be a big one.

With  him taken care of I checked the others, but none were injured enough to  need immediate attention. I only had five bursts left, and I was going  to need them before the night was out if I didn't miss my guess. I  turned to Mel, who was looking much more relaxed with the energy blazing  through her. The massive expenditure of the wall would run through that  powerup pretty fast, but not within a minute or two. "So, what can we  do here?" I said. "Because I have no concept of how tough these guys are  other than 'very'. You're the one who knows how to play at this level,  where do you need us?"

Mel's  eyes flicked to us. She stared out at the forms of our enemies through  the flames, and remained silent for a few minutes as she weighed her  options. Finally she let out a long sigh. "Alright, we might be able to  make something work. I have a good idea what you can do since I've  watched most of your training with Alden. I think I can use you, but you  need to do EXACTLY as I say. Understood?" We all nodded and she  chuckled. "Alright then, I suppose we'd better get to work. Listen close  children, Auntie Mel is about to take you to school."

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