Carl was scowling as he put his hand on the metal elephant. "Hey! How dare you hurt McRuffles. He's one of the best tattoos my old man gave me." Looking up at the elephant I actually did feel a little bad, but I didn't believe that the tattoos being harmed damaged them long term. I was, however, concerned about another part of that statement.

"Your old man?" I said dubiously. "M-Jack's tattoos have to be above G-rank, how are you even using those? If they're F or higher then they would be illegal in the tournament because they would count as offensive weapons." I wasn't actually sure they would, but I'd at least bring it up. Honestly I couldn't tell what rank the tats were, their Impact came from Carl rather than being part of them, so the manifestations of the tattoos didn't give it away.

Carl snorted. "Nuh-uh. They're G-rank for sure. My old man isn't just a tattoo user, he's a tattoo artist, and he can tailor his work to the person he's working on." He made another ridiculous flexing motion. "And with an awesome canvas like this he made some badass tattoos. You're just trying to confuse me with your rules bullshit. Do you think I'm stupid?"

I stared at him for a second. "Oh! That wasn't rhetorical." I paused. "I feel like the answer you're looking for is...no?" My condescending tone was obvious enough even Carl couldn't miss it. The shirtless man roared in rage and reached up to slap the bottom of the elephant.

The massive metal form dissolved, shrinking down and recovering Carl, except this time it didn't imprint itself onto his skin, it covered him like some kind of armor, giving him a metal suit with an elephant head helmet and a long hanging trunk, as well as gleaming metal plates along his arms, back, and shoulders, though it left his chest and stomach bare.

His arms, hulking with muscle and metal, started lashing out at me in a series of punches, and between my overlay and my Balam Mastery, avoiding those blows was completely feasible. Roaring with outrage, Carl started flinging his head around, trying to smash me with the metal trunk.

Gritting my teeth, I triggered a triple stack density shift on my arms, which were still coated with toxic magma. Holding up my limbs, I got them in front of my face, tanking the trunk whips with my armored forearms as I waited. It sucked. A lot. I triggered a heal burst to begin healing the damage and to overclock my energy reserves as I weathered the storm.

Despite the pain and constant barrage of attacks from both arms and the trunk, I had to admit he was holding back though. Carl could have tried to gore me on those tusks, and he didn't. He obviously didn't want to kill me any more than I wanted to kill him, though apparently he had no such compunctions about tenderizing me.

Waiting for a gap, I took the punishment, finally seeing an opening via the overlay. I triggered Flurry of Blows, enhancing my speed as I slipped through the gap, letting my armor tank the hits (though since they were blunt force I felt a rib crack, only to be healed up by my still surging life force) and hit Carl with the heaviest right cross I could manage, using my Minor Boxing Mastery along with Balam and Mercy Kill to land the heaviest punch I could.

The elephant armor dissolved as Carl staggered back, head spinning from the punch, which I followed up. I had two more hits with Mercy Kill of the three, and I triggered a tranq punch with each hand as I used them. As that happened, I tagged him with a gravity attack from Alden, making sure he could feel the obvious change.

Certain that the sluggishness from the tranq punch was the increased gravity, Carl started flailing around, not bothering to try to resist or counter the tranquilizer or even the poison fire that was still spreading from all of my strike points carrying it.

As I kept up the punches his own arms came up to try to stop them, but they couldn't do shit about the spider legs raining down short sharp stabbing blows from above. Granted they weren't imbued with poison fire, but they were G-ranked metal spikes stabbing into bare flesh from above which I didn't imagine was fun.

Despite the advantage, I waited. I could see him getting more and more dizzy and unstable. Finally the overlay gave me a tip off on an opening, and I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him and leaving behind a fake image of me as usual. When I did that though, I decided to try something new.

I had tranq blows, but I'd imbued other kinds of attacks with certain abilities before. Feeling my head split open I used a tranq blow, but instead of a punch I slipped past his guard from behind and locked him into a sleeper hold, imbuing the choke with the tranquilizer attack.

Carl stiffened, slapping my arm and struggling, but I could feel the tranq working with the stuff already in his system, after about twenty seconds he was out, and I let him go, dropping him to the sand as I doubled over, hands on my knees, to process the intense head pain. I'd strained my soul with that little trick, it had been a big change very quickly.

That had me down to four tranq blows and three density shifted ones. I needed to top up soon, luckily Jessie was almost at her elixir limit and I'd be back to buffing Benny. I waited for my head to clear and then stood, turning to look around at the rest of the battle.

Abel was still stalled fighting Serenity, but I doubted I'd be either useful or appreciated there. Mel was dealing with Sever and Callie with Beat, so I decided to go help my girlfriend with the blunt force user. Without waiting I spun and triggered Double Trouble again, appearing behind Beat mid rotation, bringing my elbow around into the side of his head with another Flurry of Blows.

Callie, who had been barely keeping up with the powerful force user, felt a surge of relief that I could clock through the bond, but it turned to horror when the hoodie wearing younger man bent at the knees, leaning back to let my blow pass over his head and planting his hands on the sand behind him, feet coming up to smash into me.

His lead foot slammed into my chest, and the other hit the back of his first shoe, smashing his initial kick into me like a chisel driven into stone. The energy from his punches gathered on his feet and slammed into my chest like a car going full speed, and I felt my sternum crack as I was sent sailing off into the distance, my head blurry with pain as I hit the sand and rolled like a stringless puppet.

I used a healing burst, then another just in case, and I felt the bones in my chest begin to knit together, though my head didn't stop spinning. I rolled over, propping myself up on my elbow, and panted with pain as I tried to right myself. I could feel Callie's rage through the bond, and hear the roar as several of my abilities were funneled through the bond, Touch of Tears, Consecration of Flame, Stone Limb, all channeled through my girlfriend and the soul weight born solely by her.

I raised my head, seeing the massive shadow magma dragon construct bear down on Beat, who was hurling explosive bursts of concussive force to keep the monster from reaching him. Staggering up to my feet, I nearly fell over, having to catch myself with the spider legs, and tried to walk towards to the spot I'd been at before.

That had been my bad. I'd tried to engage a fucking member of the Titan Twenty in close combat, one who almost definitively specialized in Might. I'd gotten cocky after beating Carl and fucked up, but I couldn't let Callie lose this. As I tried to step forward and almost fell again, I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Enough, kid."

I looked up to see Abel standing next to me. Serenity's golden shield was nowhere to be seen, though the woman herself was lying in the sand near where they'd been fighting. "I have to help."

"No." He said firmly. "You had your fight. I'll mop up the rest of this. She was only supposed to slow him down anyway. It was my fault this took so long. The two of you are pretty good, but handling someone like him is still a little ways off. Sit your ass down and let me handle it. Might as well take advantage while you can."

Of course, right at that minute, the spider legs finally gave out, the attack collapsing and my body going with it, falling back into the sand. "Ok." I said calmly, ignoring my spinning head. "You go ahead and take care of that. I'm just going to rest here for a second."

He laughed at that, grinning down at me. "Good work on taking out Carl, kid. For future reference, you are NOT a frontline combatant, even if you're physically inclined. Next time pick your moment better if you need to take on someone like that in close quarters."

I already knew that, so I just gave a grunt as he vanished, appearing behind the distracted form of Beat. He didn't bother with manifestations, he just got in close and started throwing hands. Callie let the construct drop, sagging herself as she did, but her soul had clearly grown since the last time, because she didn't pass out, just seeming exhausted.

Beat...he lost. Bad. I'd forgotten after seeing Abel fight how brutal he could be, and I guess he was annoyed at the force user for hurting me so bad too, because he fucking DISMANTLED the guy. Every blow Beat threw was turned aside or minimally dodged, and every blow he took was somewhere vulnerable and painful.

Short ribs, kidney, every punch was brutal and aimed at the worst possible spot. I had to give Beat credit, he lasted much longer than the F-ranker had, though admittedly Abel was much less driven this time. Still, he actually landed a few punches in return, though my mentor mostly diverted them with his ability.

Finally, the younger brawler couldn't take it anymore and missed Abel slipping around with spatial lubrication to nail him in the kidney. He gasped in shock, and my teacher wrapped an arm around his neck in the same sleeper hold I'd used on Carl and choked him out, waiting until he wasn't moving and dropping him in the sand.

He turned to where Mel was still fighting and cleared his throat. Sever, who was burned in several places, looked up to see the rest of his team totaled and sighed, before dropping his knife and folding his hands behind his head, getting down on his knees.

And just like that...it was over. The fight had ended, and now we were officially past the team matches. From here on out, it wasn't us vs .them, it was ME vs. them. I had a few more upgrades to make to my abilities before my first round, and after. My major plan was to make sure I got to Intermediate in DS Mastery before I hit anyone scary, because I had a few incredible skills coming next rank.

Callie staggered over, dropping into the sand next to me, too tired to leave but not too tired to get over to me to make sure I was ok. I smiled at her and pulled her close, dropping a heal burst on both of us to combat the side effects of a hard battle. Then I leaned back and sighed in relief. We were one step closer. That alone was worth celebrating.