Wish upon the Stars chapter 345

I was in shock. Alec had managed to break one of Abel's punches.  Seeing as Abel was a Master Candidate with an extremely complimentary  ability (albeit one he hadn't really been using just then) it was crazy  to me that someone who definitely WASN'T a Master Candidate had  countered his attack.

That  giant flame chop hadn't been Intermediate manifestation, it had just  been a wide scale wind burst that he somehow set on fire. The really  weird thing was that he was using wind AND fire. Either he had two  abilities (extremely unlikely since my dad's cousin Aiden, the current  Wishmaster, was the only person I'd heard of with that distinction) or  that had been a Skill that he'd combined with his ability. Or two  Skills, since it also seemed like some kind of martial art had been  used.

"Hey  Starbreaker." I said seriously. "Any feedback on that attack? You're our  resident firestarter." Something about the flames just then had  seemed...different. Not the color, Mel's flames were golden too, but  something about the energy that made them up struck me as odd. They  looked weird, like I could see a strange shimmer in them.

She  sighed. "Those aren't pure flames. I can't tell you what kind of flames  they ARE, but they're mixed with something. Maybe a unique Skill."

Abel  nodded. "That was impressive. I think the wind is his ability, but  whatever that Skill is synergizes well with it, and it's REALLY strong."  He cocked his head. "He isn't a Master Candidate, but he's amazingly  skilled at using that Skill and his ability in conjunction." Abel  reached up and fluidly stripped off his coat, letting the fabric flutter  to the ground as he lashed out with a flurry of massive fist images. He  didn't use his spatial ability this time either, but it was clear he  was being much more serious about his Ragam.

Alec  clapped his hands together, and when he drew them apart he was holding a  sphere of warped air. Inside the sphere was a single flower made of  golden flame. Alec spun the sphere up onto the tip of his finger and  then blew on it lightly. It floated up like a soap bubble until it came  in contact with one of the descending fist images and then the whole  thing destabilized.

The  bubble warped, and the flower inside followed suit, becoming unstable  and then exploding. The wave of golden flames fluctuated inside the  bubble for a second, before it popped, and a colossal burst of fire  swallowed the air in front of the Heavensong Tower team, consuming the  fist images before they got close enough to do damage.

My  eyes widened in shock, but Abel just nodded. "Purification." I looked  at him quizically. "The fire purified my fist energy from the blows. My  manifestations use a Fantasy base with a heavy Might percentage. It  makes them easier to control. The fire eroded the Fantasy, and the Might  was consumed to fuel the flames, since fire is almost entirely Might.  Annoying."

I  stared at him. That explained a few things I'd been interested in  knowing. I knew Master Candidates could create manifestations, though  he'd implied those were just the most common form that high Intermediate  took. Still, those manifestations were standardized, and Intermediate  was about branching out and making a technique your own. Finding out the  manifestations were created custom from various stat mixtures made a  LOT of sense.

It  also wasn't really important right now. Purification fire wasn't ideal,  but I DID have a counter for it. I cracked my neck, stepping forward.  "Hold on, I'll try next." I wasn't sure why they were letting us attack,  but it felt like a provocation. It didn't matter in the end. We just  needed to beat them and it would be fine. Closing my eyes, I pulled up a  flame attack, a triple strength density shifted attack, Mercy Kill,  Touch of Tears, and Consecration of Flame, unleashing them all at Alec  in a massive burst of dark green fire.

I'd  never tried density shifting an actual fireball before, and apparently  it was REALLY effective, because the flames seemed to have become ten  times more toxic when condensed like that, and combined with all the  boosts even Abel looked impressed.

Alec's  previously casual impression turned stoic and annoyed and he lashed out  with a quick series of punches. Each punch created a wind based  explosion of air that fueled a bigger golden explosion of fire. The  series of attacks eroded my fireball, eating away at it until it  dispersed, but it took him dozens of attacks, and the blast got much  closer than I think he was comfortable with.

Callie  gaped at me, and even Abel looked surprised, but Mel nodded. "Smart.  Purification flame is diametrically opposed to something like toxic  fire. It's like trying to burn water. It's possible to turn it into  steam, but it isn't an efficient process. How many more times can you do  that?"

I  grimaced. "Myself? Not nearly enough, but I can imbue that skill into  your orb so you can throw toxic fire like that." She nodded and held it  out, and I placed a hand on the orb, triggering a second Touch of Tears  and Consecration of Flame. That should increase her actual flame power  too, which would be a big help.

Sadly,  showing that we could counter his attack without just relying on Abel  mean the spectator sport portion of this was at an end. Lena, the blonde  girl, inhaled and then let out a scream of challenge. As she screamed a  bank of angry red mist spewed forth from her mouth right at us. Abel  reacted immediately, cupping his hands in a dome and creating a shield  of hand manifestation over us.

The  red mist hit the shield and stopped, but Abel hissed in pain, and I  could see his hands starting to burn under the touch of the corrosive  mist. I closed my eyes, using Mistwalker for the first time in a while,  and I triggered ANOTHER triple strength density shift, creating a hyper  dense extra powerful mist.

As  my mist manifested outside the shield, it began to mix with and  disperse the red stuff, both types of mist dissipating as they consumed  each other, just like I'd been hoping they would. Lena looked pretty  much enraged. She screamed again, louder, and vomited another wave of  red mist. The tall dark haired clapped her hands and the mist condensed  into a rain of sharpened red ice spikes.

The  last member of the team, Carlos, snapped, and the spikes all randomly  changed direction, then he snapped again and they shifted back after  traveling some distance. Effectively that trick had spread the spikes  across a wide area and then reoriented them on us, and the momentum  never stopped, so we had a hundred plus acidic ice shards heading right  for us, attempting to turn us into pincushions.

I  reached out and grabbed Abel, using triple strength density shifting  and Stone Limb on him, focusing it through the medium of my mentor's  skill, or at least trying. He could have obviously resisted, soul  manipulation of another person's skill is REALLY easy to counter,  especially when your soul is much stronger, but he didn't because we  were on the same side.

The  folded hand manifestations shielding us (which were touching the sand  of the pit) were covered in earth as stone limb effected them, then  reinforced by the density shift. It was a really weird thing to see,  because for some reason between the sand and the intangible nature of  the manifestations, the stone versions weren't actually opaque. I was  able to see as Alec deployed another huge attack.

As  the ice spikes hit the manifestations and stopped (though based on  Abel's grunt it was painful for him to experience) Alec lashed out with a  hundred plus punches. Each punch created another one of those flame  flower wind orbs, and they spread along the arena on an unseen wind,  circling around us and bearing down on us.

Though  he couldn't use manifestations or create giant version of that attack,  using it a hundred times would accomplish similar things. I knew he  wasn't peak of Intermediate since he couldn't manifest, but if the Skill  he was using wasn't early Intermediate at least I'd be shocked.

Mel  snarled, having been focusing her fire energy into the orb for a while  for some reason. I was pretty sure she was charging an attack or  something, but since she usually used shapes or bursts I wasn't sure why  she didn't just launch the attacks directly instead of saving them.

To  my shock though, when she made that snarling sound and I turned to  watch, I saw her inhale, sucking all the fire energy she'd been  condensing into the orb back into her body. She reinforced her physical  body with the flames (which made sense since they were technically Might  I guess) and her whole form turned green gold. She hissed in pain and I  started, realizing she wasn't immune to my poisoned fire.

"Why  are you-?" I started to ask, but I was cut off when she turned to Abel  with a nod. He unfolded his hands, letting the shield around us  dissipate, and closed his eyes to concentrate. It took me a second to  realize what he was doing, but I finally figured it out as HE began to  glow green gold.

It  was their bond, he was using it like Callie and I could, to channel a  Skill or ability. I was pretty sure he couldn't just USE her fire, but  he COULD use a single attack, which happened to be what she'd stored.  She had internalized it despite the pain because otherwise he wouldn't  have had access, since the orb was a tool and not an innate part of her  he wouldn't have been able to channel that.

The  air around us filled with hundreds of floating golden flowers in soap  bubbles, gently bobbing through the air down toward us. Abel clenched  his fists, condensing his spatial energy along the lengths of his arms,  and then shot out a few dozen rapid punches. The manifestations in the  air were green flaming fists the size of busses, but as they began to  move they touched off the flower spheres, which detonated in a chain of  explosions.

Callie  slammed her hands into the sand, a dome of shadow raising above us as I  triggered another density shift and Stone Limb again, reinforcing the  shadow dome to withstand the chain reaction.

The  area shook as Abel's massive fist images clashed with hundreds of  golden flame flower spheres, and while I expected them to be  extinguished fast, I hadn't realized how much the poison fire would help  with that until the dome came down and I saw the rest of the arena.

The  other team were standing, barely, and torn to shreds. Based on the area  around them Lena had used her acid mist and  the taller woman, whose  name I hadn't gotten, had condensed a shield of ice. There was a ton of  shrapnel from where the dome had been busted before melting, but from  what I could see Carlos had interfered with that weird, momentum  shifting power and prevented them from getting pincushioned by their own  protections.

Alec  looked pretty dead on his feet, but when he saw that we were all  completely unharmed, his smug smile became bitter. "Ah." He paused for a  minute. "Fine. We concede." He sounded unhappy, but I respected him for  making the call. In their current condition there was no chance of them  beating us, based on the way he was swaying Alec had nothing left in  him to use anyway.

As  the match ended I headed forward, deciding to heal them up like I had  the last group. Since they were in the Church they might be allies once I  mentioned to them about my mom, and if not...well we beat them once, we  could do it again. I could feel Callie's pride as I approached too.  Seemed like she was happy with how this went. I was too, but I also had a  LOT of questions for them. Once they were healed up we'd need to meet  with them, it was time to clear some things up.