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 said 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."

"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 of 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.