I immediately turned to Abel. "Wow, that guy seems tough." I said excitedly. "Who is he?" Lament was supposed to be on Abel's level, or close to it, so this guy must be some local bighshot, or maybe one of the outsiders I hadn't heard about yet. If it was the former, Abel probably knew who he was.

My mentor gave me an irritated look. "How the hell should I know?" He just shrugged. "I'm not a population directory. Looks decent, not sure if he's local or not, but if he is he's not someone I recognize. You can't expect me to know everything and everyone." He sounded genuinely annoyed by the assumption, but I didn't take it to heart. I had no way of knowing what he did and didn't know.

Luckily, while he might be ignorant, Sloane wasn't. "Laughing Jack. His dad is Pierrot. Luckily he didn't inherit his dad's creepy puppet making ability. He uses some kind of sunlight ability, and that whip is magic. He has a skill for it too. All in all he's pretty scary, though I'm surprised to see him down here. I've met him at a few social functions Melinda took me to, and he's not really one for slumming it."

That sounded interesting, but if Abel hadn't heard of him I doubted he was on the same level as Lament. Abel made it sound like a peak Intermediate combat Skill was something that you pretty much wouldn't see somewhere like Callus. Speaking of which. "Hey, what did she just do by the way? That spear thing? It looked like what you do, but I thought that was your ability?"

To my surprise, rather than blowing it off or snapping off an easy answer, Abel ruminated for a minute. Finally he held up a hand and waggled it back and forth. "It is and isn't. My ability is definitely powerful and often used in conjunction with my combat Skill, but the effect you're talking about is called a manifestation." He sounded like he was being careful about what he said, which was fair, this conversation was happening in public. "A lot of weapon masteries gain the ability when they hit Intermediate. My combat style is a combination of those two factors, with my spatial lubrication ability providing flexibility and options to a powerful Skill."

"Oh." I said blankly. "So that wasn't even her ability? Just the Skill part of her combat style? Because that's terrifying, she tore through that whole line of people like they weren't even there. Could you do that without using your ability?" If he could, he'd been holding back against us more than I'd thought in training. No wonder he crushed us so thoroughly even without Skills. Reaching peak Intermediate must mean his martial arts were at an absurd level of competence.

For the first time since I'd met him, Abel seemed...uncomfortable. "Probably." He finally answered. "But I avoid displays like that. Being terrifying and competent is great, but you can push it too far. If I start demonstrating Skills at that level without consideration, some E-rank might decide to take offense and come deal with me." He looked annoyed by the idea, and I could definitely understand. I hadn't come into contact with that kind of suppression yet, mostly because of a combination of my background, Zeke, and the utility of my ability.

For someone like Abel though, being able to reach the peak of an Intermediate Skill was a big deal. It meant he was most likely going to become an Expert as soon as he hit F-rank, and was potentially able to become a Master at E-rank like Master Saiten. I wasn't sure how rare that was, but chances were good it wasn't common. None of the other E-rankers would want a Master martial artist around at their rank.

It seemed like leaving for the dungeon was the best possible outcome for Abel, because once he hit F-rank people were going to start taking note of him. At G-rank the Impact suppression would make him basically a non-issue for them, but that wouldn't be the case forever.

I didn't have time to worry about that though. As we'd been talking Lament had exchanged a few words with laughing Jack, whose minions had fanned out behind him to block her path. The spearwoman didn't seem particularly bothered. Wren, however, looked upset, and stepped up to murmur something in her ear that I couldn't hear. Probably used a stealth Skill.

She grimaced but nodded, then stepped forward and vanished in a blur, appearing right in front of Laughing Jack to smash down with her spear. Wren exhaled in relief. "Ok. Good. She knows not to reveal too much. She could swat him like a fly with her Spear Mastery, but it would give away too much before the tournament. I asked her to keep it low key."

Low key was apparently fast and violent, but not super fancy. Instead of the fluid, snakelike spearmanship I'd seen from Wren. Unlike the bigger man, Lament didn't appear to be using a spear at all right now. From what I could tell, she was pretty much planning on beating the other man with her spear like a bat. Unfortunately, holding back so much meant she wasn't able to one sidedly crush him. As she lashed out Jack flicked his whip up, coiling it into a sort of tunnel.

The blow landed, and the whirling whip dispersed the impact of the blow down its length, bleeding off the damage. Abel hissed. "Ouch. Whips are always a pain in the ass. She could demolish him, but if she's not using her Spear Mastery Skill, that's going to be a pain in the ass. I wonder what her ability is?"

Despite his words, he didn't seem worried. He just took up a position in front of Sydney to make sure none of the onlookers tried some shit while we were all watching the show. As we watched, Lament probed laughing jack a few times. Despite not using her Skill or martial arts, she was clearly incredibly experienced handling a spear. Her grasp on controlling the force was extreme, even when she was just waving it around sloppily.

Laughing Jack looked serious now under his sad face makeup. His whip spun up in concentric circles, each one bleeding off the force of a strike, but despite the swirling endless river of golden metal that was his whip rotating quickly, each blow was forceful enough to offset his rhythm and he was slowly shifting to the back foot. "What are you idiots waiting for?" He shouted in panic. "Attack her!"

His minions who had grouped up behind him seemed surprised by the plea for help, but not afraid. A ghostly skeletal energy hand smashed down on Lament as a pair of snakes made of stone leapt from the ground. The third member of his group summoned a series of tiny, fluffy white clouds that tried to get in close to wrap around Lament's spear, spewing lightning bolts as they did so.

Lament barely noticed. Even as she sidestepped the smash from the skeletal hand she flicked out her spear in a slash, spinning it through the motion without even slowing down and cleaving through one of the clouds as she brought the spear up and over to bisect a snake. Two quick flicks destroyed the other one and another cloud, and she speared the last cloud with a single thrust aimed at Laughing Jack's throat.

The yellow clothed man eeped and flicked up his whip, and even as he did, the thing roared to life with golden sunfire. I felt a slight stir from Lament as she briefly engaged the slightest hint of her Intermediate Skill, and as her spear hit the whip there was a colossal crash as Laughing Jack was sent soaring through the front of the Wombat, smashing the stone as he went through in a way that couldn't possibly be comfortable.

I just...gaped. I'd been in sieges and battles, but those had mostly been lower rank. The Bone Wyvern aside, the abilities I was seeing down here were far above what I was used to. I'd known that as people ranked up and could synergize more Skills, powers would become more unique and varied, but there were some seriously scary attacks being thrown around in this fight.

Still, I wasn't a rookie. I was hardly going to just gape. I stepped back to fall into position closer to Callie, Abel, and Mel. Lament gave everyone else a hard look, but no one was stupid enough to pick a fight after what she'd just done. Not when a huge chunk of them were trying to reattach limbs from that spear manifestation. She turned to us. "Seems like this isn't a great place to eat after all. Oh well, the pre-dinner warmup was nice. You guys know anywhere near here I can get a steak?"

Her glare pinned the surrounding crowd. "Unless someone else wants to give it a try? I'd be happy to give you the same treatment as your little friends over there." She whirled her spear in a lazy, ponderous circle, slow enough that the light really had a chance to glint off the edge of the spearhead, highlighting how sharp it was in an extremely threatening fashion. None of them chose to do so, most stepping back to get further out of her range.

We all looked to Abel, who didn't look offended at being the go-to choice this time. "Nah. Not near here." He said apologetically. "Not a ton of high end restaurants down here. Doomtown isn't conducive to fine dining. The Raving Baby is pretty much the best eatery I know of down here. There are some pretty decent places in G-district if you're up for a long walk, but I don't think it's worth it."

Neither did I, considering how delicious those Enchiladas were. "Do you guys like Enchiladas? " I asked hopefully."Because we know where to get the best Enchiladas you've ever had." Aside from being free, the taste had been haunting my dreams since we went yesterday. I was already drooling at the thought of wolfing down some more, and Callie looked just as excited. Even Sloane and her minions looked ravenous at the idea of going back to Owen's place for another all we could eat buffet.

Lament just shrugged. "Sure, why not. I can always get a decent steak somewhere else." Wren just shrugged in acceptance when she looked at him, and Lestri and Saiten seemed ambivalent. I was surprised. Lament seemed much more relaxed and laid back than I had expected, at least once she got past her little threat display with Abel...and the whole stabbing a dozen people with a single spear thrust thing. Maybe my standards for laid back people had become a bit lax.

Sydney, who was the last person we checked with, was excited to try the Enchiladas, and asked if she could invite her sister Megan. Since we were trying to learn more about the external forces in the star system anyway, we agreed of course, and we all made our way through the crowd to the exit, ignoring the dozens of dissatisfied G-rankers glaring after us.

I half expected them to attack us, but they didn't. The situation here was much more complex than it looked. Rather than all of them vs. us, this was more like a team free-for-all. If they attacked, their enemies might attack them while they were distracted, not to mention Lament and Abel had both demonstrated terrifying levels of skill and power, so some of them would probably die. No one wanted to be first on the chopping block if that happened, which lead to a sort of universal hesitation. As we finally exited, the stamps on our hands winked out, and I heard a collective groan from outside. Hah. Served those bastards right.