We all stared in shock as Zeke ripped the soul from an A-ranker, just in time for Killian to appear next to him with a whistle. "Shit, that was brutal, you're still as terrifying as ever. Honestly I think you'd have hit A-rank before I did if you didn't keep killing all the witnesses every time you got in a tough fight."

Zeke reached over and snagged a broken mask shard from the air. "I need materials. These things always get broken in big fights." He grimaced at the thing. "Shit, this was my Piercing Metal mask. Armor penetration is always super useful." He kicked the floating elf corpse that he'd freed from the chains after the soul was removed. "Smarmy pointy eared bastard."

Killian chuckled. "Well hey, at least you got the soul. You think you can even make a mask out of an A-ranker?" I couldn't remember if Zeke's power could do that either, though I knew he needed materials.

"It's fine." Said my uncle with a wave. "My Archery mask will provide a solid platform to attach it to. The soul has been fully integrated into that one and elevated the quality of the porcelain infinitely close to A-rank. I'll have to structure the enchantments carefully, but it should be more than suitable. Plus I can add his path to the arrows." He pocketed the flask containing the soul as he put away his gloves.

Killian just shrugged. "Fair. Let's go help Uncle Miles. He's going two on one, and Rayner is proving to be shockingly competent."

Zeke shook his head. "You go. I put way too much into that. The capture only worked because I channeled my whole Path into the mask at the end, plus the fake out arrows and the attack that softened him up were mind numbingly draining. Unless you need me?"

Killian shrugged. "Nah. Already killed mine, and Uncle Miles and I use similar abilities, so we can synergize easily enough. I just figured it would be fun to fight together again." Turning on his heel, he vanished, even as Zeke groaned and did the same. Assuming he probably wasn't coming right back to watch the fight with us, and assured he was ok, I walked over to join Blake at his own viewing portal, where he was watching Miles do his thing.

Much like Carus, Miles was obviously using has Path liberally. He was also using what appeared to be a weapon mastery with that sword, as a massive blade of condensed ghostly death was raining down blows on Rayner. The black masked man had condensed a manifestation of his own above himself, this one a massive version of his own body, arms made of the same dark metal as his mask.

Miles probably would have won, except he kept having to deflect dagger strikes from the rapidly appearing and vanishing gold masked man, who was emitting a concentrated air of death energy of his own. Weirdly, despite the similarities, the two auras were as different as night and day. Miles's Path was the chill of the grave and the ghostly, while the masked man seemed to be channelling the sudden ending of a life.

To my surprise, one of the daggers actually caught Miles along the ribs on the last attack, deflected too late, and the old Ascendant snarled, raising his cleaverlike blade. A dozen ghostly outlines of identical blades manifested around him, superimposing themselves on the manifestation of the blade, and the sword began to literally hum with power.

I wasn't sure at first why this seemed so different than last time, but then I spotted Killian standing to one side and realized what was happening. Those blades were made of ghosts, and Killian had just poured in his own ghost army to subsidize Miles's full power attack.

The gold masked guy didn't even bother to pretend to think about it, he just dipped out, vanishing instantly. Rayner, frozen in fear, only had time to say "Shit." Before the colossal manifestation of that huge terrifying sword swung down like a headsmans blade and BISECTED both the construct and the pirate lord who had made it.

The two halves of him floated gently away from each other, bobbing in space, and I winced. It just went to show how easy battles could turn. It went from two to one against Miles to two to one against Rayner. That assassin was just gone the second things got bad.

"Alright, well...that was over faster than the other fight." I said in mild disappointment. I had been hoping to see another awesome display like Zeke had shown us.

Blake shrugged. "Most fights are like that. We had way more firepower and just crushed them. Granted, Great Uncle Miles is a monster, even for an A-ranker. He'd probably have ended them even sooner if that assassin wasn't directly restraining him. But once dad showed up, the assassin stopped the attack. Can't really backstab without leaving your own back open."

Killian appeared next to Miles. "Hey, you ok? Saw he got you." The words weren't echoing through the room anymore, but the viewing portal was still picking them up.

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Miles coalesced a small, ghostly knife, then jammed it into the gash in his side, working it in slowly. After a second he managed to lever out a shard of dark smoking...something. "I'm fine." He grunted. "Don't get to my age without learning to deal with poison. That's a nasty one though. Hopekiller. Lucky he got me and not you, your vitality ain't near enough to suppress it."

He fished out a vial, stowing the dark smokey fragment, then put it away. "Let's get back. The assassin will be gone after losing his backup. Maybe this will be enough to dissuade any of the other. Rayner had a hell of a reputation out here, and killing him is bound to be intimidating to some." His sword vanished and he cracked his neck with a groan. "I hope so, because I could use a nap."

Killian chuckled, then turned his head, and somehow, his eyes fixed right on the viewing portal. "Why are you still watching us?" Echoed his voice through the hall, once again projecting loudly. "Tell everyone to get back to work, and let our guests move on with their day. Show's over Blake." Then he snapped his fingers and the portal disappeared, along with all the others, leaving us looking at a massive empty sky of stars.

I could just barely notice a speck in the distance if I focused, and with my Perception could probably have seen something if I looked hard, but it wasn't worth pissing off an A-ranker.

"Well." Blake said loudly. "You all heard him. Get back to work if you're a crew member, and if you're not enjoy your day." He turned to us. "I can take you to the docking bay they probably used. Zeke should be there still,I'm sure you all want to check on him."

We did, so we thanked him and he led us out of the observation dome and off down the hallway. It didn't take as long as I'd expected to come to a large open metal room with an open doorway off the ship on one side. There was a screen of green light across the doorway, and I saw Zeke slumped over a chair, taking long pulls from a very large bottle of liquor.

He finished his swallow and set the bottle down, nodding as he saw us. "Kids. I take it you enjoyed the show?" His smug tone made it clear that he knew we had. Which was fair, he had reason to be smug, it had been impressive as hell.

Abel chuckled. "You were in total control of that whole encounter for the entire fight. Every single action you took was bait for what happened next, wasn't it?" He sounded almost awed. "Would that initial arrow attack have even done anything to him if it had landed?"

"Not a thing." Zeke said casually. "Which is why it didn't. If there's one lesson I can teach you, it's that raw power isn't what decides a battle. Control is. Your enemy should never make a move you weren't expecting them to make. HOW they make the move can vary, but at the end of the day, they should be attacking when you want them to, defending when you want them to, and catching you when and if you want them to."

"So that whole thing with the copy of you getting shot?" I asked in amazement. "You knew that was going to happen? From the very beginning?"

He shrugged, taking another pull. "Of course I did. Otherwise the one who got shot might have been the real me. The same with the punch, I even framed myself up nice and perfect with a pair of masks just to make sure he was focused on the right me. The whole fight was a shell game."

"What about the mask?" I asked, putting my finger on one thing that had been confusing me. "You mentioned it was a Path ability you used. Why didn't it feel like one? When Carus used his I could sense it. Same with Miles. It like...changed reality. Like most Paths seem to do."

Zeke sneered. "Showoff nonsense. I make masks. Masks are discrete objects meant to conceal and confuse. How could my Path be the kind of noisy trash you can see at a glance. The power, much like all identifying features, lies UNDER the mask. Everything I did in that fight was in accordance with my Path, it just wasn't blatant. That last attack was definitely leaning into it pretty hard though."

"Yeah, what was with that?" I said, thinking of the crazy switch he'd pulled off. "Is that the nature of a mask too? Because I've seen your masks eat people, but that was almost like you were becoming him."

"Don't worry too much about that." He said with a wave. "Suffice to say that the concealment of a mask isn't always beneficial. I suppressed his personality. As for the mask I used, it has to do with the nature of my ability and my legend. That kind of thing isn't something you'll need to worry about until much later."

Did that mean that the next step in Path usage was to fuse your solid Path with your identity as an Ascendant? Or even an older story? I shook that off. I wasn't even finished learning to use the Path I had. Zeke was right, I had a long way to go before I needed to think about the next step.

Still, Zeke had made his point, in a way. He hadn't been lying in wait to get attacked, he'd reacted when it came. Whats more, he'd shown me that rolling with the punches didn't mean you had to constantly improvise. Plans and tactics were still useful and possible during short term engagements. I was sure part of the reason he'd done it this way was so I didn't abandon my attempts to think things through.

Zeke listened to all of our questions, deflecting most of them, and drained his bottle of what I was pretty sure was bourbon. Then, when he was finished, he bid us all goodnight and headed back to his room to sleep. I suspected he was much more exhausted than he was letting on.

I said my goodbyes to everyone and Callie and I decided to take some time to ourselves. Just walk around and digest some of what we'd seen and learned. Not training, we were still trying to take some time off, but just think things over. Besides which, once we emerged back out into the ship, we were able to bask in the lovely scenery. Just a nice long walk with my girlfriend as we hurtled through space on a giant block of enchanted metal. My life could be pretty cool sometimes. What would it be like when I reached Zeke's level? I couldn't wait to find out.