Wish upon the Stars chapter 352

"So." I said as we arrived in the waiting room below the arena. "Last  team battle." I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pounding of my  pulse in my ears. "Who do you think we'll be up against?" Not that it  mattered. I was barely thinking about this fight. I was more worried  about the next five. Because any one of them could be against one of my  own teammates.

On the one hand that was exciting. I was  almost positive if I fought Abel I would lose, but I had a decent chance  against Callie and possibly even Mel if I pulled out all the stops. But  still, I'd gotten so used to us all moving as a unit. Especially  Callie. She was my partner. Fighting with her at my side was almost like  breathing at this point. It was going to be jarring switching from that  mindset, never mind actually fighting against her.

Which...was  what Abel had told us during training. That we would need to be able to  keep that mindset separate from our normal outlook so we could turn it  off. In some ways I was pretty sure that was the point of making Paired  Dueling a Skill. By doing it that way we kept it as a separate part of  our lives, which made it easier to do without. As opposed to making  every aspect us codependent.

Callie sighed, and I could  feel through the bond she was just as hesitant. I couldn't feel the  REASONS for that, but I knew her well enough to assume they were similar  to my own. "Nope. But if they made it this far they must be tough. Each  of the teams has been pulling out some crazy trick that we've never  seen, so we should assume the same of this one. Whatever it is though,  I'm sure we can hang with whatever they've got."

Abel  seemed pretty much at ease with everything, but that wasn't surprising.  I'd yet to see him go all out for real. Sure, he'd tapped his bond with  Mel in that demon fight, but that was just a raw power thing. Given  Mel's comment that he only ever got serious when he took off his mask, I  was positive that Abel had other tricks. The rest of us weren't  as...invincible.

Mel was pretty calm too though, and while  I didn't think I was as strong as she was, I was closer to her in power  than my mentor, especially now. Strangely, hearing Callie's fear about  what was coming in her voice made mine seem inconsequential. I stepped  forward and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug.

"I  know you're not worried about this fight. Not really. And neither am  I." I felt her stiffen against me as I touched on something she hadn't  brought up. The bond was useful and positive a lot of the time, but  empathy was a tough thing to get used to. "We're going to kick ass in  the solo rounds. We've been training constantly, and we've learned a  ton. We can do this."

She nodded against me. "Yeah. You're  right. I'm just letting this get to me. Besides, even if I lose it  isn't the end of the world. Four of us means four times the chance of  victory. And that isn't even counting your cousin." I'd almost forgotten  Natalie was going to be taking part in this. I wondered who her fourth  would be. Callie sighed, stepping back. "Alright, well for this to  matter we need to win the current match. Like you said, I'm not worried,  but we should focus.

"Oh definitely." I agreed. "Being  confident doesn't mean being stupid." I heard the call from outside as  we were summoned for our match. "Speak of the devil. That'll be us.  Whoever it is, I'm sure we can figure something out. We just need to  make sure to take our time and work out what they can do, right?"

She  grinned at me. "Of course. I'll come up with a plan as soon as we know  what they can d-" She stepped out of the gate onto the sand and stopped.  "Oh. Well shit." I was a bit confused as to what had stopped her, but  when I stepped out myself I realized what it was.

"Sanctuary  Hall." I cursed. Beat, Sever, Carl, and Serenity. Four of our old  enemies who were strong enough to be a serious threat. I turned to Abel.  "I don't suppose you discovered some secret weakness of hers in battle  and will be able to shut Serenity down quickly?"

"Nope."  Said my mentor. "And with Carl added on this is going to be tough.  Neither of you are a match for Beat or Sever one on one, and Mel can't  handle them two on one either. We beat them all last time because of our  distribution, but with one more person this is going to suck." He  scowled. "I hate fighting her. It's like punching cotton. There's no fun  if she just no-sell's everything I do."

Because almost  everything Abel did was brute force, and Serenity was the closest we'd  seen to a hard counter to him. We stepped forward, and the calm looking  girl nodded to us. "Well now." She said lightly. "I wasn't expecting you  to be our last group opponent. But maybe I should have." She smiled  warmly. "I have to say I don't dislike the symmetry. We'll make sure to  pay you back for last time."

Seeing that banter would be  pointless, and not wanting to deal with Carl's bullshit, I knelt down,  triggering stone limb on both arms as well as my poison fire. Coating  them in toxic acidic magma. "So, who am I up against." Ironically,  despite being unarmed and therefore more bulnerable to Sever, my armor  was better at tanking sharp force trauma, so Beat would be the bigger  threat.

"Carl." Said Callie firmly. "We can handle the  other two, but Carl has who knows how many tricks up his sleeve. We need  our most versatile fighter on him. I'll deal with beat, Starbreaker is  on Sever, and Apollyon will handle Serenity as planned. Go."

She  moved as soon as she finished talking, clearly planning to overwhelm  them with surprise as a wave of crushing shadow smashed down at Beat.  Mel expelled a burst of golden flame, appearing in front of Sever in a  flash and then releasing a burst of fire right in his face. I sighed and  triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind Carl and launching a flurry  of magma infused punches.

To my shock though, when I  arrived my punches were countered, as a pair of huge hairy arms pulled  free of the ape tattoo on Carl to slap them aside. Despite the knowledge  that he would have tattoos that could protect him courtesy of his dad, I  had no idea where the things were until now. They weren't VISIBLE at a  glance, which would have been obvious since Carl didn't wear a shirt.

Now  I saw where they came from though. I could see the tattoos fading into  existence, not from nothing, but as if they were coming from a great  distance, a trick of perspective as his skin was flooded with colorful  images that he hadn't had a second ago. I backed off watching him  closely as the writhing images adjusted themselves across his skin.

Behind  him, I saw a massive golden shield form in the air, defending against a  storm of massive punches as Serenity channel her ability through what I  was pretty sure was an F-ranked artifact, nullifying them with hear  pacifying power on impact. I could hear my mentor's groan of frustration  as he accelerated the punches, weaving them in from new angles only to  have the shield intercept them all.

I could feel Callie  was tense but safe, and I didn't have time to look over everyone as I  prepared for Carl. I triggered Flurry of Blows and Mercy Kill, three  augmented super speed punches to test out what Carl had going on.  Another tattoo, this one a small monkey, dashed off his skin and split  into a chain of monkeys, each throwing one of the others into the path  of one of my punches and exploding into fucking confetti of all things,  though luckily this stuff didn't cut me.

Seemed like the  tattoos had individual abilities, though I wasn't sure about how varied  they were. Carl grinned at me, flexing his muscles ridiculously. "First  stage of my tattoo boom, Primate Parade! You think your stupid lava  punches can hang with my monkey madness Solomon? Punchin Carl spits on  pathetic hand to hand bullshit! Only nerds throw hands."

It  took all my effort not to literally groan aloud in pain at how stupid  he was. "Your name is PUNCHIN Carl. You're saying you think punching is  beneath you?"

Carl snarled at me, flicking his hands to  hurl a pair of snakes at me. "SHUT UP! Real men don't punch with their  fists, they punch with their brains! I have the most badass bare knuckle  brain in the world, so I don't need hands to punch!"

I  just...stared at him as I easily sidestepped the snakes with the help  of my now active overlay. That wasn't how ANYTHING worked. At all.  "That...made no godsdamned sense, you lunatic."

Rather  than hurl more snakes, Carl reached behind him with both hands. He let  out a grunt and hauled up what looked like a fucking boar made of rocks,  holding it over his head like a championship belt as he roared. "I'll  punch sense in the FACE!" And hurled it at me in an overhand toss.

Activating  Leaf on the Wind I pushed off the sand, my foot coming down on the boar  as it arched through the air, and I pushed off the thing, hurling  myself further up in the air. Glaring down at the crazy gangster, I  triggered a spider leg attack, pointing both legs above my head to form a  sort of arrowhead. Using Cloud Step to reorient myself, I aimed the  point down at Carl, triggering a gravity attack, a triple strength  density shifted attack, and Mercy Kill as I plummeted down at him point  first.

I  aimed for the shoulder and arm, because I didn't want to murder Carl for  being a fucking idiot, but limbs could be regrown. Sadly, it didn't  really matter. Carl saw me coming and knelt down to slap the ground. As  he did a shape erupted from his back, an absolutely huge grey form, it  took me a minute to figure out it was a literal steel elephant, and it  crouched over him to tank the attack before it had a chance to hit him.

The  pointed spider legs propelled by their enhanced density and the gravity  attack slammed into the back of the elephant, and there was a thump as  the tattoo beast stopped as the body proved too dense for the spider  legs to punch through. I dismissed them, kicking off a cloud step  platform to hurl me out of the way of the wounded elephant (which bled  mercury apparently) as it lashed out with its trunk, trying to break me  in two.

I  touched down lightly, Leaf on the Wind preventing my impact from being  too rough, and aided by the sand. I'd had to strain the skill a bit to  prevent it from stopping my attack altogether, but I'd managed, even if  my head was twinging a bit. As I stood up I looked over at a glaring  Carl. Behind him I could see Abel coming up blank against Serenity, and I  growled with annoyance.

This  was the last fight of the team section, it should have been easy  fighting people we'd beaten before. But from what I could see someone  (probably not Carl) had done quite a bit of research. They knew what to  expect from us and had covered all their bases. I cracked my neck as I  took up a Balam stance. That was fine. I'd just need a home run.