Wish upon the Stars chapter 343

"So." Said Mel to Abel. Her tone dripping with relish as we walked  into the Cavalcade's entrance. "Did you have to threaten him to get him  to cave? Because I loved seeing you do that last time, and watching him  get all whiny and stomp his feet would make me smile."

My  mentor smirked at that. "No, I didn't threaten him, I just reminded him  that it was my labyrinth and that he threw you two in there and I doubt  you were the first. Once I implied I might charge him for damages if I  found any he decided pretty quick to help out."

We  hadn't been attacked yet, though it was only a matter of time. It had  been hours since the match, and we'd gathered most of our G-rank friends  here to help out, as well as Rime, Frostbite, Melinda, and Alexander to  wait outside and prevent any F-rankers from just shattering the  labyrinth with us inside.

The  rest of our team was Cark, Lament, Teague, Abigail, and a few other  former competitors we had managed to get on board. When we arrived at  the tent, Cicero wasn't around, apparently he'd decided discretion was  the better part of valor and chosen to have his assistant let us in.  Probably smart given Mel's extreme dislike of him. Barring intervention  from Abel I had no doubt she could easily set him on fire.

Once  we arrived, we hopped down into the labyrinth, and I breathed a sigh of  relief at the lack of pressure once we did. This team was more than  overkill for a bunch of cultists, or even powerful G-rank mercenaries.  We were basically untouchable in our level, and I was really hoping to  take some of the enemy out ahead of time.

"Wow."  Said Cark with a whistle. "This place is a dump. Look at all the  damage." He kicked a small rock across the hallway, and we could all see  the burns, scrapes, and holes from all the traps we'd set off.

"Imagine  actually BEING in it." I said in annoyance. "This place was a giant  unnecessary pain in the ass. Shame we triggered all the traps though. We  might be able to use some of them." It would be pretty convenient to be  able to take some of them out without any effort. We'd picked this  place clean for the traps when we'd built up the trap alleys during the  siege from the Sanctuary Hall though, so we didn't have anything down  here to use to reset them.

Abel  shrugged. "I designed it to be too annoying for a normal G-ranker to  get through. Otherwise Cicero would have just kept sending people in.  Honestly if you didn't have a Trap Skill there's no way you'd have made  it. Most people would have needed to run it cold, and they'd have died."

Which  made me wonder something. "What about Mel?" I said hesitantly. "Not to  bring up a bad time, but she was here when you weren't. For years. Why  didn't she run it herself and get the deed?"

"Because  she knew I wouldn't want her to." He said with a smile. "She also knew  it was safe down there. Without anyone to run the maze Cicero wasn't  going to advertise where it was because he didn't want someone stealing  it. He guarded the place and kept an eye out so she didn't have to."

Mel  chimed in. "Plus I had no desire to be in charge until much later. I  only started making moves to oust that asshole once I felt he'd taken  things too far."

"This  is a really interesting design." Commented Teague from off to one side.  "Who designed this place? I'd love to get them under contract?"

Abel  chuckled at that. "Mad Madigan built it. He isn't around anymore. Fun  fact, designing unstable pocket spaces that can fall into the void at  the slightest touch doesn't do much for your life expectancy." He  paused. "Well, I mean people assume. No one was there when he died for  obvious reasons."

Cark  shook his head ruefully. "Crafters. All of them are nuts." He glanced  over at Callie and I. "Speaking of crafters with a screw loose, where  are Clockwork and Agria? I'd have figured they would be all over this."

I  shook my head. "Too dangerous. They're not high enough into G-rank. If  this had been a few weeks from now it would have been a different story,  but as they are now Clockwork is only halfway into G and Agria isn't  even that. If not for the nature of this place we might have brought  them anyway, let them work with Randall, but since F-rankers are a no go  they wouldn't be safe down here in the middle of this mess. I expect to  never hear the end of it, but we managed to convince them to stay with  Cass."

Which  was unnecessary since Zeke was there, but we'd cheated and had Cass ask  them herself, and Jessie had melted instantly. Benny had pretended not  to care, but he'd caved way easier than I'd expected too. Guess it had  been long enough since Maria was a kid of him to lose some of his puppy  dog eye resistance. She'd been a menace when she was younger, and those  eyes got her out of a fair amount of trouble with both of us.

Lament  looked bored. "When are the enemies going to show up? I want to see  what I can do in this kind of place. With such small corridors I bet I  won't have space for manifestations. Not in most of it anyway." She  turned to Abel with an intrigued look. "Want to have a fight in here?  Might be interesting without full use of our disciplines."

"No  he does NOT." Mel snapped. "I don't know what your teammates will let  you do, but he isn't fighting a Master Candidate in the middle of the  tournament outside a match. If you want to fight him you'd better make  it to the later rounds so you can get matched up with him."

Lament  rolled her eyes, but didn't comment. She took a few steps and then  froze. I'd have assumed she took a second to think of a come back, but  Callie had frozen too, and I had enough knowledge of her stats to  realize what was going on. I clenched my fists, wishing I had my damn  cane, but all I could do was plan to pick something up with the money  I'd been saving. I'd hoped to let Jessie and Benny pay me out a bit more  before I bought one, but I guessed it wasn't in the cards.

Callie's  eyes were scanning the hallway, and the bond was telling me exactly  what she was looking for. As I felt a twinge of panic I reacted  seamlessly, spinning and releasing a burst of fire from my stockpile  behind me, stacked with a Mercy Kill to boost it.

The  dark robed form caught in the flames roared in pain, distracted just  long enough for Abel's fist (only the size of an engine rather than a  bus) smashed into him and sent him hurtling into the wall behind him.  Callie's shadows leapt from the ground as she raised a shield to protect  the rest of us. We'd all been on the lookout so there was no chance of  serious injury, but that one had been sneakier than expected. I was glad  we caught him early.

I  cast a dispassionate glance at the robed figures appearing along the  hallway. The hoods cast a shadow so deep I couldn't see their faces,  sort of like I'd seen from Natalie when I first spotted her. I guessed  that kind of disguise was common in larger forces. "You all look like  idiots. It's like ninety degrees out. You must be sweating like pigs."

Callie  snorted out a laugh. She turned to Abigail. "Is the secondary force in  position?" The girl's eyes glowed for a second before she nodded. "They  have the way blocked off. No one is getting out of here. Our backup has  already started pinning down the others and the authorities have been  called. Their choices are either abandon the ones in here or fight the  entire Unity security team for the planet."

Frostbite  being able to call up Unity forces was a big win for us, since she  could get local security to head down here. Just because they were  capable didn't mean they'd do so easily, even with us smoothing things  over. When an executive of their faction said jump though, the only  answer was how high.

The  closest figure, the one who seemed to be in the lead, snarled. "You  seek to detain us? No name trash. We alone will be more than a match for  you, and your strategy will prove fruitless if we kill you all and  remove ourselves from the situation before the local Unity branch can  arrive."

Another  figure snorted at that. "The fuck you say." The first looked at him.  "We're out. We came on contract with you guys, but the stipulations were  only for the tournament. I'll return the bonus you paid for this little  operation, but I categorically refuse to stick around and get arrested.  We'll take our chances with their rear guards."

He  turned to leave and the first figure flicked a hand and hurled a wave  of pitch black flame at him. A figure to the side of the target waved a  hand and a cascade of purple bubbles filled the hall. The flame hit the  bubbles and the black fire tore them apart, but the water inside created  steam, blocking the passage from view. When it cleared the target and  seven others were gone.

I  wasn't too worried about it. Either the rear guard WOULD catch them, or  they'd get outside and probably get picked up by out backup. I turned  to face black flame guy. He spun back to us and barked. "Kill them all!"  Before throwing out his hands again and coating the whole hallway in a  sea of pitch dark fire.

Cark  roared and hurled a wall of blue flame back at him, but the dark fire  clearly wasn't your run of the mill flame. I didn't have time to engage  though as the golden fist of one of the other figures flashed toward me.  I flicked on the overlay, sidestepping as Callie swept in at his feet.  He stumbled and fell forward into a stomp kick to the head reinforced by  Mercy Kill, down in one shot as we moved on to the next.

I  saw Abel clash against three other fighters while Lament took on four,  Mel joined Cark in pushing back the black flame guy and Callie and I  closed on another man, whose hood had fallen back to reveal some sort of  man-zebra. I prepared for an attack before there was a bang and a  howling purple jackal head smashed into the animalistic man, driving him  off his feet.

Teague  tipped his hat to us as he reloaded and we were free to move on.  Between the bond, the overlay, and Balam, we wove through the crowd of  hooded figures like striking cobras, taking them down wherever we hit. I  used Touch of Tears sparingly, given my lack of a focus, but it was  devastatingly effective when I DID use it.

Finally,  we finished off the last one, turning to see Mel and Cark subduing the  black flame wielder. Once we finished we pushed his hood back, and  Teague confirmed he WAS one of the Cult's team leaders, which meant we'd  taken out at least some of the competition.

I sighed in relief as we subdued and started to cart them out. Callie sidled up next to me, raising an eyebrow. "Everything ok?"

Shaking  my head, I stared off after the others. "Not really." I said. "This  will get worse before it gets better. We need to fight another team  tomorrow and we have no idea who." She just took my hand and squeezed  it. She didn't need to say anything after all. We'd been here before.  All we could do was move forward best we could.