With all the glows from the hand stamps and the Perception we all had, it was effortless to see in the darkened restaurant. It was sort of surreal, with the shifting glows moving along with the hands of the people nearby. Still, despite the minor confusion, we were all well trained and ready to act. Even as several dozen customers tried to mob the rabbit eared girl, they were met with a fist the size of a train car that managed to appear between them and their target without damaging the intervening space at all.

As the first responders were sent flying, Abel stood happily from the table, cracking his neck as he started walking slowly toward the girl and her companions. Mel rolled her eyes, rising herself and flooding the room with light as a nimbus of golden flame blazed into existence around her arms. Despite being older and stronger, the two of them hadn't even hesitated to listen to Callie's declaration about protecting the sacrifice.

Of course, Abel was just a battle crazy lunatic, but Mel was a rational human being most of the time, which meant she really took Callie's words as leader to heart. I, of course, stood up and slipped my cane from its sheath under my coat. I activated my Touch of Tears and Consecration of Flame as I trailed behind my mentors, Callie, Sloane, Beric, and Croll followed behind. The Spear Legion members stayed sitting for the moment, which was better than having to fight them all.

Abel made it to the girl with the rabbit ears without much trouble, after his first attack everyone was waiting to see what happened. They weren't sure what had happened, and no one here was stupid enough to risk their lives for some F-ranked chits. When he got within range, Abel grinned at the girl. "Young lady! You have an excellent sense of style! Your ears are adorable. I don't suppose you'd be interested in doing a little business?"

The girl, a pale, tiny girl with blood red hair and wide, stormcloud grey eyes, swallowed hard. "I...I-don't know what you mean sir. Thank you for the help though. What kind of business did you mean?" She glanced nervously at her friends, who all wore various types of rabbit themed accessories. To my surprise, THEY did not look worried. Most of them looked confident and ready to fight.

Wren, who had somehow appeared behind us when I'd been distracted, leaned in to murmur. "They're with the Wave Warren. Not the strongest group in the system, but definitely impressive. That's Sydney Whispervale. She's one of their ringers for the tournament. Don't underestimate her."

Due to everyone's high Perception, every person in the room heard him, and Abel cocked his head in interest. "I was going to offer to protect you for a cut, but it sounds like you might not need it, and my team leader said we have to help anyway. How about if we can escort you out of this place you buy me and my friends a drink and we call it even?" His wide, innocent smile made me want to roll my eyes. He was still trying to scam someone into buying that brandy.

Sydney bit her lip. "Well...I guess that doesn't sound too bad. If you really help us then there's no reason not to say thank you." She twisted a lock of hair around her finger worriedly. "Oh I should never have come here. I never should have listened to Megan. She said there was no way I would get picked, and everyone was so excited to try the food." She'd stopped looking at Abel and begun to mutter to herself worriedly under her breath, seemingly castigating herself for every decision that had led her to the point.

"Hey!" Callie said, after a minute."It's ok." She looked almost panicked at how badly the girl was spiraling in what was possibly the literal worst place for it. "We're here to help you. We can all just leave. I'm assuming you don't want to stay to try to win the money?"

With wide eyes, Sydney shook her head rapidly, her red hair whipping back and forth and her rabbit ears coming loose. She reached up and had to fix them, looking embarrassed. I was pretty much dumbstruck. How was this girl the secret weapon of a system level force? How was this girl allowed to come DOWN here? She was so...meek and harmless. "Of course not." She said anxiously. "I just want to leave." She looked at the others. "Can we just leave?"

One of the men in a black coat with a rabbits paw pinned to the lapel sighed heavily. "Of course, Miss Sydney. Miss Megan wouldn't have sent us to accompany you if we weren't supposed to offer our protection. We can leave immediately." He turned to us. "We appreciate your help, though if you attempt to backstab us I'm afraid you're going to suffer for it extensively." There was no threat in his voice, just a calm statement of fact.

A nearby patron of the Wombat, finally fed up with us ignoring them, piped up. "Hey! We aren't just going to let you take her and leave." A chorus of agreements rang out. His eyes pinned Sydney gleefully. "Sorry girly." he said, stepping menacingly forward. "But in your next life, you should be more careful exactly where you g-" Without warning, the mans eyes flashed steel grey, and he rolled his ankle, stumbling into the man next to him, who had drawn a wicked looking knife.

The knife drove into the mans side, and he growled, turning his own brown eyes on the person he'd bumped into, fury written on his face. He hauled back and punched the other man, fist shifting in magma as it crashed into the hapless knife wielder. Knife guy's friends decided to join in, and magma guy apparently had a group of his own. Within seconds, a miniature gang war had erupted inside the Wombat.

I blinked at the wilting form of Sydney. The grey flash in his eyes had looked just like hers. Whatever that had been, I was pretty sure she had done it. Not that it was hard to puzzle out with the physical manifestation as a clue. Ascendants didn't trip often, as a rule. Sydney clearly had some sort of ability that could effect enemies. Based on how spectacularly everything went wrong, I was kind of guessing it was bad luck.

Now wasn't the time to think about that though, because while the two groups had started fighting, their agitation had set off the rest of the people in the Wombat, who had all started to surge forward. Some attacked directly, some circled looking for an opening, but they still came at us all the same.

Letting myself shift into my combat trance, I slipped up next to Callie and neatly deflected a blow from some kind of fleshy tentacle. Callie slammed a hand into the ground, putting up a dome of condensed darkness to intercept a wave of icicles even as what looked like a swarm of purple energy bats tried to swarm over us. Mel turned the things to ash without a second glance, freeing us up, and Callie dropped the shield just as I swept out a Mercy Kill infused strike at the kneecap of one of the attackers as they clashed against a member of the Wave Warren.

The man, a red dressed guy with a winged cap and aviator goggles, howled in pain as he whirled his hands, conjuring a pair of whirling tornadoes to push us back. I used Sucking Mud, shaping the attack with my soul to hold us less deeply in exchange for speed, and the wind broke over our armor as the scarf wearing Warren cultivator snapped out a kick with a leg that had suddenly become a bladed hook, opening the red clad man's throat from the side.

More power to him, he didn't pass out or drop from blood loss though, smashing his coat against the wound to staunch the bleeding and using his wind to hurl himself away. I really needed to put some time into coming up with proper counters to the elements. A vast majority of Ascendants had some sort of element based power, especially after getting the chance to synergize.

I didn't have a chance to get lost in thought as usual though, I was forced to burn a triple stack density shifted attack, along with a Mercy Kill, to smash aside some kind of weird chain ball construct with huge jagged teeth that tried to bite into Callie from behind. The blade legged Warren cultivator bounded up into the air in a low arc, lashing out with a kick that took off the summoners arm at the elbow, causing him to jerk the ball construct back to defend himself.

There wasn't time to do more than nod gratefully at him before the crowd surged between us, and we backed up to try to group tighter with Abel and Mel, who had surrounded Sydney along with a pair of her guards and were beating back the crowd, Abel whooping with joy in the rush of battle. With our mentors at our back, we were SLIGHTLY more secure, but not nearly as much as expected. This was fucking lunacy, people weren't just attacking Sydney and her guards, I could see several Ascendants backstabbing and attacking random people in the chaos, using the action as cover for murder.

Trying to give myself a bit of room, I reached for my power, triggering a clone and a density shifted triple strength attack at the same time. I felt my head go slightly fuzzy as more soul weight than I could really handle slammed down on me, but I managed to hold up under the strain until it passed. Of course, the clones were much weaker and more fragile than I was to begin with, but with the addition of the triple strength and density shifting, the one I managed to construct was about half as durable and strong as I was.

The clone dove forward into a crowd of G-rankers, lashing out with the most brutal attacks he could manage with all the Skills and stats he had to bear. He broke a few limbs and managed to tie up several of them long enough for Callie to smash them with a bulldozer made of shadow while they were off balance, sending them flying, though not doing much to hurt them. The cloud of gelatinous acid crawling across the floor took care of that when they landed in it, and though they didn't die, they were in FAR too much pain for it to matter at the moment, at least based on the searing skin.

Unfortunately, while we were holding the line for the moment, we were also being worn down. Abel and Mel were guarding Sydney as instructed, but that meant they weren't clearing a path out of here. We were getting penned in and this was going to get worse and worse for us.

Despite the mess, it had only been about a minute since this all started, and I was already almost dead on my feet. We needed some sort of backup. Wren was helping, decimating anyone who came close with his spear, and Vector was doing the same. I saw Lestri flash between a pair of combatants, taking a limb from each in one swirl of his own long spear. Almost at the same time as I glanced over to the table to check what Lament was doing, the Spear Legion's ace finally acted.

A spear. The size of a fucking bus, flashed through the air, parting the crowd with a brutal cleave, taking limbs and even heads off multiple enemies and opening up a path to the door. I was in shock. That spear move had reminded me so much of Abel's fist attack, and I'd always thought that was just his ability. Thinking back though, Abel had mentioned being peak Intermediate in his own combat Skill. Something to look into later. Lament looked almost bored as she strolled away from the table, casting a derisive glare at the gathered enemies. "Noisy." She sneered.

From the huge bloody hole in the crowd stepped another figure, one I hadn't seen before. A man in bright yellow clothes and a top hat, with a sad face painted across his features. He shot her a grin, an incredibly odd thing to see on someone with a painted on sad face. "Well now. That was certainly dramatic." He flicked his hand and a shining golden whip unfurled in the air beside him. "Want to try it again?" Apparently this mess wasn't over. Based on the figures stepping up behind him, it was just beginning.