Wish upon the Stars chapter 353

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 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 done 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.