I was in shock. Alec had managed to break one of Abel's punches. Seeing as Abel was a Master Candidate with an extremely complimentary ability (albeit one he hadn't really been using just then) it was crazy to me that someone who definitely WASN'T a Master Candidate had countered his attack.

That giant flame chop hadn't been Intermediate manifestation, it had just been a wide scale wind burst that he somehow set on fire. The really weird thing was that he was using wind AND fire. Either he had two abilities (extremely unlikely since my dad's cousin Aiden, the current Wishmaster, was the only person I'd heard of with that distinction) or that had been a Skill that he'd combined with his ability. Or two Skills, since it also seemed like some kind of martial art had been used.

"Hey Starbreaker." I said seriously. "Any feedback on that attack? You're our resident firestarter." Something about the flames just then had seemed...different. Not the color, Mel's flames were golden too, but something about the energy that made them up struck me as odd. They looked weird, like I could see a strange shimmer in them.

She sighed. "Those aren't pure flames. I can't tell you what kind of flames they ARE, but they're mixed with something. Maybe a unique Skill."

Abel nodded. "That was impressive. I think the wind is his ability, but whatever that Skill is synergizes well with it, and it's REALLY strong." He cocked his head. "He isn't a Master Candidate, but he's amazingly skilled at using that Skill and his ability in conjunction." Abel reached up and fluidly stripped off his coat, letting the fabric flutter to the ground as he lashed out with a flurry of massive fist images. He didn't use his spatial ability this time either, but it was clear he was being much more serious about his Ragam.

Alec clapped his hands together, and when he drew them apart he was holding a sphere of warped air. Inside the sphere was a single flower made of golden flame. Alec spun the sphere up onto the tip of his finger and then blew on it lightly. It floated up like a soap bubble until it came in contact with one of the descending fist images and then the whole thing destabilized.

The bubble warped, and the flower inside followed suit, becoming unstable and then exploding. The wave of golden flames fluctuated inside the bubble for a second, before it popped, and a colossal burst of fire swallowed the air in front of the Heavensong Tower team, consuming the fist images before they got close enough to do damage.

My eyes widened in shock, but Abel just nodded. "Purification." I looked at him quizically. "The fire purified my fist energy from the blows. My manifestations use a Fantasy base with a heavy Might percentage. It makes them easier to control. The fire eroded the Fantasy, and the Might was consumed to fuel the flames, since fire is almost entirely Might. Annoying."

I stared at him. That explained a few things I'd been interested in knowing. I knew Master Candidates could create manifestations, though he'd implied those were just the most common form that high Intermediate took. Still, those manifestations were standardized, and Intermediate was about branching out and making a technique your own. Finding out the manifestations were created custom from various stat mixtures made a LOT of sense.

It also wasn't really important right now. Purification fire wasn't ideal, but I DID have a counter for it. I cracked my neck, stepping forward. "Hold on, I'll try next." I wasn't sure why they were letting us attack, but it felt like a provocation. It didn't matter in the end. We just needed to beat them and it would be fine. Closing my eyes, I pulled up a flame attack, a triple strength density shifted attack, Mercy Kill, Touch of Tears, and Consecration of Flame, unleashing them all at Alec in a massive burst of dark green fire.

I'd never tried density shifting an actual fireball before, and apparently it was REALLY effective, because the flames seemed to have become ten times more toxic when condensed like that, and combined with all the boosts even Abel looked impressed.

Alec's previously casual impression turned stoic and annoyed and he lashed out with a quick series of punches. Each punch created a wind based explosion of air that fueled a bigger golden explosion of fire. The series of attacks eroded my fireball, eating away at it until it dispersed, but it took him dozens of attacks, and the blast got much closer than I think he was comfortable with.

Callie gaped at me, and even Abel looked surprised, but Mel nodded. "Smart. Purification flame is diametrically opposed to something like toxic fire. It's like trying to burn water. It's possible to turn it into steam, but it isn't an efficient process. How many more times can you do that?"

I grimaced. "Myself? Not nearly enough, but I can imbue that skill into your orb so you can throw toxic fire like that." She nodded and held it out, and I placed a hand on the orb, triggering a second Touch of Tears and Consecration of Flame. That should increase her actual flame power too, which would be a big help.

Sadly, showing that we could counter his attack without just relying on Abel mean the spectator sport portion of this was at an end. Lena, the blonde girl, inhaled and then let out a scream of challenge. As she screamed a bank of angry red mist spewed forth from her mouth right at us. Abel reacted immediately, cupping his hands in a dome and creating a shield of hand manifestation over us.

The red mist hit the shield and stopped, but Abel hissed in pain, and I could see his hands starting to burn under the touch of the corrosive mist. I closed my eyes, using Mistwalker for the first time in a while, and I triggered ANOTHER triple strength density shift, creating a hyper dense extra powerful mist.

As my mist manifested outside the shield, it began to mix with and disperse the red stuff, both types of mist dissipating as they consumed each other, just like I'd been hoping they would. Lena looked pretty much enraged. She screamed again, louder, and vomited another wave of red mist. The tall dark haired woman clapped her hands and the mist condensed into a rain of sharpened red ice spikes.

The last member of the team, Carlos, snapped, and the spikes all randomly changed direction, then he snapped again and they shifted back after traveling some distance. Effectively that trick had spread the spikes across a wide area and then reoriented them on us, and the momentum never stopped, so we had a hundred plus acidic ice shards heading right for us, attempting to turn us into pincushions.

I reached out and grabbed Abel, using triple strength density shifting and Stone Limb on him, focusing it through the medium of my mentor's skill, or at least trying. He could have obviously resisted, soul manipulation of another person's skill is REALLY easy to counter, especially when your soul is much stronger, but he didn't because we were on the same side.

The folded hand manifestations shielding us (which were touching the sand of the pit) were covered in earth as stone limb effected them, then reinforced by the density shift. It was a really weird thing to see, because for some reason between the sand and the intangible nature of the manifestations, the stone versions weren't actually opaque. I was able to see as Alec deployed another huge attack.

As the ice spikes hit the manifestations and stopped (though based on Abel's grunt it was painful for him to experience) Alec lashed out with a hundred plus punches. Each punch created another one of those flame flower wind orbs, and they spread along the arena on an unseen wind, circling around us and bearing down on us.

Though he couldn't use manifestations or create giant version of that attack, using it a hundred times would accomplish similar things. I knew he wasn't peak of Intermediate since he couldn't manifest, but if the Skill he was using wasn't early Intermediate at least I'd be shocked.

Mel snarled, having been focusing her fire energy into the orb for a while for some reason. I was pretty sure she was charging an attack or something, but since she usually used shapes or bursts I wasn't sure why she didn't just launch the attacks directly instead of saving them.

To my shock though, when she made that snarling sound and I turned to watch, I saw her inhale, sucking all the fire energy she'd been condensing into the orb back into her body. She reinforced her physical body with the flames (which made sense since they were technically Might I guess) and her whole form turned green gold. She hissed in pain and I started, realizing she wasn't immune to my poisoned fire.

"Why are you-?" I started to ask, but I was cut off when she turned to Abel with a nod. He unfolded his hands, letting the shield around us dissipate, and closed his eyes to concentrate. It took me a second to realize what he was doing, but I finally figured it out as HE began to glow green gold.

It was their bond, he was using it like Callie and I could, to channel a Skill or ability. I was pretty sure he couldn't just USE her fire, but he COULD use a single attack, which happened to be what she'd stored. She had internalized it despite the pain because otherwise he wouldn't have had access, since the orb was a tool and not an innate part of her he wouldn't have been able to channel that.

The air around us filled with hundreds of floating golden flowers in soap bubbles, gently bobbing through the air down toward us. Abel clenched his fists, condensing his spatial energy along the lengths of his arms, and then shot out a few dozen rapid punches. The manifestations in the air were green flaming fists the size of busses, but as they began to move they touched off the flower spheres, which detonated in a chain of explosions.

Callie slammed her hands into the sand, a dome of shadow raising above us as I triggered another density shift and Stone Limb again, reinforcing the shadow dome to withstand the chain reaction.

The area shook as Abel's massive fist images clashed with hundreds of golden flame flower spheres, and while I expected them to be extinguished fast, I hadn't realized how much the poison fire would help with that until the dome came down and I saw the rest of the arena.

The other team were standing, barely, and torn to shreds. Based on the area around them Lena had used her acid mist and the taller woman, whose name I hadn't gotten, had condensed a shield of ice. There was a ton of shrapnel from where the dome had been busted before melting, but from what I could see Carlos had interfered with that weird, momentum shifting power and prevented them from getting pincushioned by their own protections.

Alec looked pretty dead on his feet, but when he saw that we were all completely unharmed, his smug smile became bitter. "Ah." He paused for a minute. "Fine. We concede." He sounded unhappy, but I respected him for making the call. In their current condition there was no chance of them beating us, based on the way he was swaying Alec had nothing left in him to use anyway.

As the match ended I headed forward, deciding to heal them up like I had the last group. Since they were in the Church they might be allies once I mentioned to them about my mom, and if not...well we beat them once, we could do it again. I could feel Callie's pride as I approached too. Seemed like she was happy with how this went. I was too, but I also had a LOT of questions for them. Once they were healed up we'd need to meet with them, it was time to clear some things up.