I vaguely considered throwing fruit or something at Midknight as he returned to talk, but that was clearly beneath my dignity, and also I didn't have any fruit. Instead I just held Callie's hand as the armored bastard returned to his obnoxious soliloquy. "Now." He rumbled. "As I'm sure you know, today we will be selecting your primary opponents. In the spirit of fairness there will be a random selection rather than a structured match schedule."

Callie's snort told me she agreed with my assessment that Midknight wasn't the type to care about fairness. My guess would be that he didn't want to get assassinated by some overzealous E-ranker from a higher rank planet because he fucked up their chances by putting them against a ringer.

"If you will all look under your seats!" Boomed Midknight. "There should be an envelope. If you have more than one per team simply leave them be and they will randomly switch places until all contestants receive their assignments." Huh, considering we picked our own seats that actually did seem random. However, we were on a marble stadium style bench seat. There was no under to check.

Looking down though, I could clearly see a stone tablet set snug into the bench. Levering my fingers into the seat I lifted it up and let Callie grab our envelope. The other groups nearby grabbed their own and began to open them. Our envelope was opened in a moment, and Callie checked the stiff white card inside. "Halls of the Nether." She announced. She flipped over the card. "Team captain: Selariam. Team members: Sennec, Vile, and, Runk." She stared at me blankly. "I...have no idea what any of these words mean."

I was about to respond when Megan's voice cut in. "Wait, you guys are up against the Nether? From the sound of it you got the Screaming Specters too." She paused. "Huh, could have sworn those guys were dead."

"They are." Said Sydney in puzzlement. "They're ghosts."

Megan just glared at her sister. "That's not what I meant you smartass. Anyway, the Nether isn't from our planet, but it is from one of the others orbiting our star. We've had some dealing with nearby worlds a time or two. Selariam and his brothers all managed to find a spectral catalyst and synergize a ghostly racial trait. Energy attacks work better than physical damage for that group."

"Noted." Said Callie with a smile. "Who did you guys end up drawing? It's not anyone we know is it? It would really suck for you all to end up fighting Lament's team in the first round of something."

That got a snort from Megan. "Please, we're luck manipulators. Granted with all the Impact behind this tournament it's unlikely we'll be able to do much for the overall situation later, but with this many people involved things are pretty damn in flux. Tweaking our odds with all this still colliding fate to work with is just child's play."

It was interesting to hear more about their ability, sadly, I didn't get to hear too much, because a booming voice cut us off. "Now." Said Midknight. "Since you all have received your battle assignments, we can discuss the rules of the tournament." Everyone settled down, even us, because as much fun as it would be to fuck with him at the moment, we needed to know the rules so we didn't get disqualified over something stupid.

"First." Said the Unity Guild Master for the Rajak branch. "The rank limit. If, under any circumstances, anyone breaks through to F-rank during the course of the tournament, their entire team will be immediately ousted. Most of you are at the edge of F-rank, due to the requirements for entry into the Moonsong Glade. However, in order to make sure the contestants don't vary too wildly in strength, you've been required to put your breakthroughs on hold."

We'd known that already, but it was nice to know what the consequences were if someone tried to actually break through. Not that I'd refuse to do it if needed, I'd keep my friends safe no matter what, but still, forewarned is forearmed. "Second." Continued Midknight. "The use of offensive F-rank artifacts is considered forbidden during the tournament. As the matches aren't designed to be fatal, defensive gear is permitted."

That was a relief actually. Out armor was a huge benefit to keeping us safe during all this. "And finally." The armored man intoned. "Intentional killing will be cause for dismissal from the tournament."

Where the other rules had been a net benefit to us, this one wasn't. Not because we were murder hungry lunatics, but because he'd said INTENTIONAL. Which meant it would be possible for someone to kill us and then claim after the fact that it was an accident. While Midknight couldn't do anything to me because of Zeke, that didn't mean none of the Unity could. Based on his petty personality as mentioned by Callie, I wouldn't be surprised if the Unity teams closest to him had orders to try to kill me.

That might have been a bit paranoid, but he looked right fucking at me when he said it, so I was thinking not. Callie looked just as upset by the implication as I did, or moreso possibly. Where I was just cautious and annoyed, my girlfriend was so livid I was worried she'd literally burst into flames from anger.

Pulling my hand out of hers and flexing my sore fingers, I put an arm around her and pulled her close. "Hey, don't let him get to you. He can't do shit to us directly, and I refuse to believe he has a team of G-rankers that'll be a threat." After all, we had Abel on our side, and I didn't think any of those assholes were Master Candidates. Our team would crush any of his people.

"That's only helpful in the first eight rounds." She insisted. "The five single elimination rounds will give him plenty of chances to try something. I know you're plenty strong Shane, but the Unity is a big organization. Some of the fighters on this planet ARE dangerous, despite how low ranked it is. I bet you at least a decent chunk of the Titan Twenty make it to the single elimination rounds, and some of them are from the Unity."

I pulled her into a hug. "Hey, I'll be fine. I'm a scary bastard. Plus don't we have a few more days at least before that? Maybe a week or two. That's plenty of time to get even stronger. Although I admit I'm a bit surprised. Like, this is a three star system right? Even if every star has a bunch of planets around it, lets say ten, that's still only thirty planets. How the hell are there twenty five hundred teams competing?"

"Oh, that." Said Megan. "C-rank planets are much bigger than D-rank planets. Gralter is the weakest C-ranked planet orbiting our star, and like I said, we barely got an invite. We're really only psuedo C-rank, like this planet is psuedo D-rank. The real C-rank planets have much scarier forces, and plenty more of them. The strongest person on a psuedo C-rank planet is still D-rank, even if there are a lot of them. Real C-rank planets have ACTUAL C-rankers. Every force from places like that is able to send multiple teams to an event like this."

That made sense in a way. I was guessing the true C-rank planets were the top of the food chain in a small star system like this one. Once we got into the wider cluster I imagined they would be much more common, with psuedo B-rank planets maybe even showing up. Regardless, Megan and Sydney's reveal about the Wave Warren and Slime Hall being the only contestants from their planet and Zeke's explanation of the star system had massively thrown off my estimate for how many people we'd be fighting.

Granted, a large chunk of the contestants were probably from local forces. I imagine the bar was much lower for locals, especially since we hadn't had to take any tests or anything. Listening to Midknight go on about things though, most of the local forces were clearly just there to fill out numbers and make the main matches more exciting. Higher end teams like the ones from the Unity and the WCP factions would be the real competition from Callus, and the system forces probably didn't even care too much about them.

Abel cleared his throat. "Stop getting in your own heads idiots. We aren't here to play patty cake, though to be fair I would absolutely crush at a patty cake tournament." I saw him pause, hands twitching, and I scooted away from him as I imagined massive hand images descending from the sky to crush his enemies in rapid succession. He shut it off quick with an elbow from Mel though. "Oh, sorry. Point is we don't need to worry so much about this kind of thing. Our options have only ever been to win or lose. The strength of the enemy doesn't change that. Win or lose, just fight as hard for the former as you can."

A bark of laughter sounded from behind us, and I turned to see Zeke grinning down at Abel. "I like this kid. He gets it. So many Ascendants get too caught up in nonsense. Move forward, don't hesitate, if something stops you then you were never going to make it all the way to begin with, but you gave it your all." It had been a long time since I saw Zeke so enthusiastic about anything. I think Abel reminded him quite a bit of himself, which looking back I could kind of see.

Alexander nodded his agreement with my uncle's sentiments. "Exactly." He said to his own team. We'd met them all when he showed up, but they weren't really friendly or talkative, so they'd mostly been standing in the background watching silently. "Abigail, are you prepared for this fight? To put it all on the line even if your opponents are stronger than you are?"

The tiny, tanned girl with blue streaked black hair and aqua eyes nodded gravely. "I am, my lord." Her tone was overly polite and formal. "For the moment however, I suggest we retreat from this place to strategize and talk amongst ourselves. So long as none of our number are pitted against each other, such a confluence should be quite advantageous, and as you can clearly see, the water darkness slowly swallows the skies."

At all of our confused looks, Alexander just sighed. "She means it's going to rain." He paused, looking up. "Which actually is a good point. No roof on this place. Good call Abigail." He stood up, gesturing for us to follow. "If you'd all accompany me, I can pay for a meal while we talk. I assume we all have things to share about our enemies, or at least some of us do, and if any of us actually did get matched up we can simply decline to discuss such topics."

Callie shrugged happily. "Works for me. I'm hungry anyway. Plus if you're treating, uncle Alex, I bet the place will be great. Can we bring the wolves?"

Alex just chuckled. "I'm an E-ranker. You could bring a whole damn forest if I decided you should. The wolves will be fine. Though I don't think the bear will fit. Where is it by the way? I thought the two of them were bonded?" He gestured to Jessie.

Our blonde teammate looked sullen. "I had to leave him home. They wouldn't let him into the meeting." Her scowl turned quickly into a sunny smile. "It's fine though, I can just bring him some food to go. I'm sure you wouldn't mind me getting some carryout." Alexander agreed easily, but it was my turn to chuckle. Poor bastard had never seen how much an F-ranked bear could eat, clearly. Oh well, better him than me.