There were ten of the dog masked men. I didn't even consciously count them, my Focus and Perception synergizing to grant me an innate sense of the number of enemies based on the various inputs. I wasn't sure if that was some kind of side effect of my training with Callie, or if it was just a factor of surpassing some threshold of either stat, but regardless, I could tell without even looking how many men were around us and where they were standing.

Abel and Mel were letting us take priority, since they were much more experienced and would have an easy time working themselves into our cooperation, so Callie and I shifted into our teamwork trance and blitzed forward, instinctively knowing we were going to take the four directly in front of us and leave the rest to the others. Rellia and Jin each jumped one, leaving two each for Mel and Abel as well, and it was nice to be able to trust our team enough to just ignore our backs as we attacked, knowing they had us covered.

The four men in front of us barely seemed surprised by our attack. I considered using some of my stored attacks on them, but when I gamed it out I decided to stick with my DS Skills. These were random G-rankers attacking newcomers, they wouldn't be too strong. Callie and I both had the same thought, which wasn't unusual, and we closed the distance , ready to work together as we'd been taught. As we got near them, I layered a Touch of Tears and Consecration of Flame on my cane, and then let my left leg drop out as I fell into a shoulder roll toward Callie.

Being able to sense me and instinctually react to my moves, Callie stepped off my shoulder mid roll, splitting into a trio of clones as her body was cloaked in darkness. The two who she'd been approaching froze at the sight of a foot and a half more Ascendant than they had been expecting swinging a green flaming cane at them, and I was able to stack a Mercy Kill and Flurry of Blows to tag both of them several times. One in the ribs, knee and shoulder, and one in the hip, elbow, and collarbone.

As soon as I landed the blows I turned to swing overhand at full extension, smashing an ice attack aimed at Callie's temple out of the air even as one of the clones slipped out of my own shadow to tank a burst of lightning from one of my two. Callie, who had been backing away after landing a series of light cuts on the legs of her opponents, hit my back and we switched places.

I choked up on my cane and swung it like a bat, unleashing the force stored so far along with a mercy kill to smash what looked like a ball of super heated rock straight at the ice user, who squeaked and dove out of the way of the attack, not having expected it. The meteor (basically) attack had been aimed at Callie's head, which considering her height meant it had been coming right up the middle for me, perfect for a proper swing.

As soon as I made the hit I used Sucking Mud, then switched with Callie again, taking advantage of a shadowy smokescreen she had put up to attack lightning guy, hitting his other knee and dropping him before changing directions and attacking the other guy, who was trying to use a wall of water to protect himself from all sides. I could see why those two worked beside each other, water and lightning was a good combo, but unfortunately for him, whereas MY mask had a filtration function, his didn't, and the steam that came off my cane as the posion fire hit the wall of liquid was definitely not healthy to inhale.

I tapped a sharp series of beats on the ground with my cane to let Callie know the situation as I changed targets to meteor guy, since lightning guy and water guy were submerged in a cloud of poisoned steam that they inhaled even as they tried to scream. It wouldn't kill them, but burned, poisoned lungs had to fucking suck. Callie was engaging ice guy with her clones, leaving meteor guy to me aside from a quick deflection of an ice spear aimed at her back from one of the puddles water guy had left behind. Another solid bit of synergy.

Meteor guy had tanked quite a few hits and seemed sturdier for G-rank than most, probably an ability, so as I got close, I stopped, letting him notice his feet currently beginning to submerge in mud. The distraction was enough time to use my improved Stone Limb (only took a second to cast now), and another consecration of flame on my leg, then I did something I had decided against and stacked on a triple strength density shifted blow and tossed on a Mercy Kill, before spinning off my other leg and smashing into his side with a super dense triple stacked Mercy Kill empowered magma spin kick.

My head spun a bit as the soul weight of that much mid combat fuckery slammed into my brain, but not nearly as hard as my suped up kick slammed into that guy's ribs, which I could literally hear crack under the blow, even if they didn't break. He went sailing off in the opposite direction, smashing into the wall behind him hard enough to leave a crater, and only the groaning made me sure I hadn't accidentally killed him. That fucking Magma Leg combo was nuts, and I made a mental note to add it to my permanent loadout against opponents with defensive abilities.

Turning to deal with ice guy, I realized Callie had already dropped him, and was leaning against a wall petting Rellia because the wolves (one of whom looked a bit singed) had taken down their two and Mel and Abel had made short work of the other four. Abel, who was walking over, whistled as he looked at the broken wall where meteor guy had landed. "Holy shit kid, that was a rough one. I think even I would have trouble tanking that. Of course, it would never hit me, way too slow, but still, hell of a finisher."

I groaned, putting a hand to my head. "Yeah, but I'm going to need to practice it some more to get used to the strain. That kind of soul weight is no joke. I was doing way too much at once during that attack." I paused, letting the pain slightly recede. "Although if I can get used to it, a Flurry of Blows tacked on would take care of the speed issue. That move would be even scarier at a faster speed. Remind me to give that a shot."

"You will do no such thing." Snapped Callie. "Especially not mid combat. Are you insane? You don't test theoretical move combos with unknown costs to your soul mid battle. What is wrong with you?" She marched up to me, yanking my head down to look into my eyes as if checking for a concussion. "You seem like you're ok, but you need to be more careful Solomon. I know it's been a while since you were able to really cut loose with Skills like this, but doing things like that is dangerous without testing. Promise me you won't do that again."

I winced at the tone, but nodded. She was right. I'd been sidelined in Valen, and we hadn't been using Skills in training with Abel and Mel, so I'd been antsy and done something stupid. I held up both hands with a sigh. "Sorry. You're right. Got a bit excited and took a stupid risk. It won't happen again, I promise."

Her shoulders relaxed and she stepped up to wrap her arms around me, resting her head on my chest. "Good. Sorry, I just saw you start to wobble like that and kind of freaked out. It wasn't that big of a deal. You made sure it was your last opponent at least. Still not smart, but you put some thought into it." She stepped back, clearing her throat as she turned to the others. "Speaking of putting thought into things, you couldn't have warned us about a potential attack? You clearly though it was likely enough to bet on it."

Abel just shrugged. "We did warn you. What part of 'be ready to be attacked at all times' was unclear? Besides, you're all fine. Jin looks a little toasty, but he's been picking up more from your training sessions than I thought. He and Rellia were acting in perfect sync, it was impressive. Some of that was probably just wolf instinct, but I'm pretty sure they've been learning from some of the lessons, which is kind of crazy. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"

I turned at a sudden realization to see Sloane and the other G-rankers from the Beast Lord Garden stepping out of an alley. Callie shot them a 'what the fuck?' look, and Sloane just shrugged. "Sorry, we were behind all of you a ways, but by the time we showed up they had already surrounded you. We figured we would jump in if you needed it, but that clearly wasn't necessary."

Come to think of it I hadn't seen them during the last portion of the walk down, but I'd been too distracted to notice it. Maybe they had stopped for a break or something? Whatever the case, they didn't really owe us backup, and the chance to make our reps here was appreciated. I noticed a few windows closing along the street, and I was pretty sure we had been noticed during our little spat.

Abel seemed to think nothing of it, telling them to keep up because things were going to get a bit dicier here soon enough, so we just shrugged it off and resumed our walk. With a full fifteen people we weren't stopped again, and Mel looked kind of annoyed that Sloane and the others hadn't show up earlier and saved her some money, though she didn't say anything to them. The Beast Lord Garden initiates were along for the ride as an allied force, but they weren't Pavilion. Mel wasn't in charge of them, and while I kind of was, she couldn't really use that authority.

Finally, we made it to an old run down black stone building . There was a sign out front with a picture of a cigar smoking baby in a spiky black leather jacket and a mohawk that read 'The Raving Baby', which I thought was awesome. When he saw it Abel gave a whoop of joy. "It's still here! Fantastic! I wonder who's running the place. No way Taggert hasn't outleveled this place by now. Maybe his nephew Owen?" He shrugged. "Oh well, doesn't matter, lets head in and see if we can get the lay of the land."

I made to follow after him, but he stopped after a few steps, turning to look at us. "Oh, one more thing. Alliances down here get complicated. Don't make waves immediately until we can figure out who stands where in terms of local powers. Not to say bar fights aren't fine, but try to keep things one on one until we get some answers. Once we know who is who we can pick our targets, maybe get you acquainted with some of the Titan Twenty." He shot me a wink to let me know he meant violence, then turned to head inside.

I looked at Callie and shrugged, stepping close enough that I felt like I could help her if someone attacked and vice versa, and then we trailed Mel and Abel into the bar, the Beast Lord Garden crew behind us and our wolves padding along beside us. We were going to be down here for the next few weeks. Time to go learn exactly what we would be dealing with, and how to best use it to our advantage.