As soon as the dome dropped we checked on everyone else. As expected, Natalie had taken her guards with her and most of the robed figures had gone along. Trying to fight an F-ranked BEAR without any trump cards was obviously a level of stupid not even Sanctuary Hall could motivate their people to achieve. The few left were easily cleaned up by our superior numbers, even as the morons wailed at the retreating forms of their comrades, proclaiming them traitors and swearing vengeance on them.

Most of them wouldn't be accomplishing that goal, sadly. While my people were somewhat reticent to kill, Sloane and the other Beast Lord Garden elites had no such compunctions, nor did most of the Militia. Even Cark didn't seem too broken up about it. Considering most of them had left already and the ones left were all fanatics, I decided to let it go. They made their decision, and every second I wasted trying to save morons suffering the consequences of their own actions, my actual friends might be getting hurt.

After we cleaned it up I sent Sloane and co. along with Cark and his people to backup Cicero. I figured whatever they would run into there they could handle as a group, especially with our bear along. Jessie unfortunately had to go with them since Randall was needed, and because Callie had given her enough of a rundown on the traps to help the group avoid them if they came across some.

We could have gone with them, but I was pretty sure I knew what Natalie had been hinting at with her test comment. The two members of the Titan Twenty and princess of Sanctuary Hall were fighting Mel, Abel, and the rest of our friends at the pavilion. Based on her comments, things weren't going too well for them. I didn't want to think about what that might mean for Alden and the others, but I really hoped they were all ok. We made good time getting to the tent, and I checked with everyone else before we headed in. "You all ready? This is going to be rough I'm guessing."

We'd scouted everything out, and from what we could tell, the majority of the enemy were assaulting Cicero, so we sent everyone who wasn't an essential part of our combat team with the other group. The smart call would have been to just crush them with overwhelming force, but Cicero still had the damn deed with him, and that was the target. As much as we wanted to help our friends, losing the circus in the process would be a net loss, so we sent nearly everyone we could spare to help Cicero.

The three of us weren't necessary for the assault, and were really all that could be spared for this mission, but it was just as important. I was pretty sure Natalie would withdraw her support for Sanctuary Hall completely if they failed here, not to mention getting shit stomped like this would be a huge black eye and would have all the other forces on guard if they found out. My cousin withdrawing would turn this into a last ditch effort, and that was pretty much the only chance of us keeping this place long term.

With everyone seemingly prepared, we burst into the tent, ready to rain hell down on whoever was there, but we weren't even remotely ready for what we found there. Mel was standing in the stands, in front the other members of the pavilion, including Alden, most of whom were seriously injured. Alden was missing a leg, and the only thing keeping it from bleeding him dry was the obvious cauterization patch job that I assumed had been Mel's doing. For her part, Mel, or I suppose Starbreaker, was raining down a hurricane of blazing golden flames on a pair of small forms that were managing to hold her off.

The pair of skinny, dark haired twins that she was up against were dressed in normal seeming clothes. Cargo pants, hoodies, and t-shirts, each with only a half mask covering the top of their faces. One had fists up and rippling with concentrated energy, while the other had a vicious looking knife in one hand, gleaming with a red light concentrated along the razor sharp edge.

Mel was conducting her flames like a symphony, a riot of golden light and heat whirling in circular shifting patterns, collected into shapes like serpents as they wove together into a tapestry of devastating power and unbreakable defense. But despite her obvious skill and power, Mel herself was dripping blood from several surgically clean cuts on her body, and I could see sweat staining her clothes as she swayed on her feet. Beat and Sever, from what I could guess, and they were clearly absurdly powerful.

I expected Abel to be on hand to help her, but the rabbit masked warrior was standing on the other side of the ring, raining down a torrent of powerful and precise blows on a calm looking brown haired girl with golden eyes and a peaceful smile. As each blow came close, she lifted a hand, creating a wave of soothing golden energy that collided with the fists and seemed to fade away like snow melting in the sunshine.

"Shit." I said venomously. "This isn't great. How the hell are we supposed to help? I mean, I assume we should try and weigh in for Mel. Anyone who can counter Abel is out of our weight class, but how are we supposed to get close enough to get involved? Mel is obviously exhausted, and I'm pretty sure if we get caught on the wrong side of that flame wall we're going to get butchered. If we have any shot at helping we need to get to our people." I had healing bursts saved up I could start dropping on the heavier hitters. I wasn't entirely sure I could regrow a lost leg, but I could at least give Mel a second wind. Beat and Sever had to be at least winded, right?

I turned to Callie, waiting for her input. She scanned the scene, trying to figure out some method of entry to the battle we could use. She scanned for a while, until she seemed to hit on an idea. She turned to me. "Solomon, do you remember the trick I used in my fight with Gust? The ground thing? Doing that now would take way too long, but it proves my shadows can effect the earth. Do you think we could use them in conjunction with your Sucking Mud? Would that do anything?"

Biting my lip, I nodded. I'd seen what combining skills could do with my poison fire. The results could be unpredictable, but I was pretty sure it would do SOMETHING useful, and at the very least the normal Sucking Mud skill was distracting. I closed my eyes, focusing on the Sucking Mud skill, and on one of the shadow attacks I had stored, and resonated them together before triggering the result. I was pretty vague on what it would do, but Shadow Swamp, as I called the combination, was launched immediately.

My eyes widened in shock as the dirt beneath Beat and Sever turned to liquid darkness below their feet. The shadow mud took on the consistency of quicksand as normal, but the sand was much quicker than usual, and not nearly as static. Instead of slowly sinking into the mud, spears of darkness shot up out of the ground and began trying to swallow them both up, the multiple blades of the shadow attack mixing with the sucking and consuming nature of Sucking Mud to make tentacles that attempted to drag them into the dirt.

I turned wide eyed to the others. "Go!" I shouted, as we turned and booked it around the furthest possible edge of the ring, as far from those two as possible while still going the right way. I still had Leaf on the Wind active, and I took long, flashing steps, sailing longer distances as my feet kicked off, remaining low to the ground with the low arcs I was taking. Beat and Sever, to my lack of surprise, appeared to be trying to get loose. Luckily Beat's power, those rippling shockwaves, was NOT suited to getting out of quicksand, and the churning and shifting effects of the force were actually making it worse.

Sever was having much better luck above ground, cutting away the tentacles with his knife, but the part of him submerged wasn't nearly as effective. We barely managed to make it to the wall, bellowing for Mel, and the pavilion master heard us, dropping the flames for just a second as we bolted through, before raising the blaze again behind us. She didn't dare to lower it with them on the other side, even if it would have been tempting given how tired she was.

Speaking of which, I triggered one of my healing bursts, the wounds knitting along her body and her posture seeming to straighten as her energy was refilled. I wasn't dumb enough to think it would last very long with that kind of output, but for now it bought us time to figure out a plan. I stepped over to lay a hand on Alden as well, looking down at him questioningly before I used the healing ability. "I can heal you up, but with that wound cauterized I don't think your leg is going to grow back. It's going to scar over most likely, do you want to just wait and see if we can re-injure it and try to get Agria to help when she gets here?"

I could actually grant him a new leg in a wish if necessary, but now wasn't the time for that discussion. He gave a pained grunt and shook his head. "No time lad, I'll worry about getting a new one later. Just heal me up so I can get back in the fight. Even without both legs my ability will still let me fight." I grimaced at the image but nodded anyway, putting a hand on him and triggering another healing surge. He hissed as the wound, which was perfectly level in a way that implied he'd been cut by a VERY sharp blade, began to burn with green light as it scarred over.

The various scraped and bruises across his body mended before my eyes, and he gave a sigh of relief at the lack of pain. His eyes were a bit unfocused though, which made sense. The endorphin dump from a thorough healing could be intense. Going from feeling a ton of pain to none was great, but the adrenaline in your body didn't magically vanish like the wounds did. The worse the injury the more extreme the loop it could knock you for, and having a leg lopped off and then burned closed would probably be a big one.

With him taken care of I checked the others, but none were injured enough to need immediate attention. I only had five bursts left, and I was going to need them before the night was out if I didn't miss my guess. I turned to Mel, who was looking much more relaxed with the energy blazing through her. The massive expenditure of the wall would run through that powerup pretty fast, but not within a minute or two. "So, what can we do here?" I said. "Because I have no concept of how tough these guys are other than 'very'. You're the one who knows how to play at this level, where do you need us?"

Mel's eyes flicked to us. She stared out at the forms of our enemies through the flames, and remained silent for a few minutes as she weighed her options. Finally she let out a long sigh. "Alright, we might be able to make something work. I have a good idea what you can do since I've watched most of your training with Alden. I think I can use you, but you need to do EXACTLY as I say. Understood?" We all nodded and she chuckled. "Alright then, I suppose we'd better get to work. Listen close children, Auntie Mel is about to take you to school."