Wish upon the Stars chapter 334

It was time. Round four. Rime got her wishes in before we left and  Benny started on taking his elixirs (all for Might this time and set to  bring him up to one hundred and sixty four Might) and we all made our  way to the arena while he did, with Rime coming along just in case,  since she was our bodyguard. Surprisingly, the four made another  appearance and followed behind us too, which I supposed made sense,  since Alexander was bound to want to keep Callie safe.

I  could feel from the Impact difference between them and Rime (I wasn't as  good as gauging the differences in F-rankers, but I could get a general  feel for it) that they weren't on her level, but they would be solid  backup, and with Rime intervening they would have an excuse to jump in  and protect us from any F-ranked threats without starting a war, which  was the more important part.

Everyone got set up in the  stands and the four of us headed down to the prep room under the stadium  before to wait to be deployed. When we got down there, we found the guy  waiting to send us in and finally had a chance to ask him about our  opponents. He smirked at us when he heard the question. "Well at least  some of you little bastards are in the dark. last round only one of my  teams asked who they were facing. I think it's more exciting this way  though, don't you? No chances to prepare for your opponent. The first  rounds were a bit to predictable, so they wanted to shake things up."

He  looked at us suspiciously for a bit, as if it had only just occurred to  him that we hadn't asked him last time, but eventually rolled his eyes.  "Oh well. Too late for any last minute planning anyway. Fine. Let me  see." He walked over to a desk and pulled out a clipboard, flipping  through it. "Ah. You're up against the Seven Seas Armada. C-rank  faction. Pretty good results so far."

There was no further  elaboration, which was annoying, but at least we had some kind of idea  now. Probably some kind of water based force? He walked back over and  sat down in an old wooden chair, ignoring us and closing his eyes as he  waited for it to be time to dispatch us to the sand pit. After a few  minutes of looking around the cramped, moist stone space, his eyes  snapped open and he looked over at us. "Alright. Go on out. Good luck."

We  nodded to him and the four of us walked out into the arena. The sun was  beating down but as usual it was silent despite the cheering crowd  because of the sound barrier around the combat area. When we came out  and saw the other team...we all stopped.

Pirates. We were  fighting fucking pirates. Long leather coats, tricorn hats, pistols,  swords, the works. I wasn't sure what was up with the pistols since  aside from that Master Candidate I heard not many people used them, but  the rest of their gear gave the impression of brutal efficiency and LOTS  of practice. My heard started pounding in excitement as I grinned at  them. I got the distinct impression this would be a fun fight.

"Well  now!" Said the leader cockily. "If it isn't our opponents. You  certainly don't look like much, but then again, I suppose looks aren't  everything."

I snickered at the comment. "It's ok, I'm  sure plenty of people will like you for your personality." Callie rolled  her eyes and Abel chuckled while Mel just shook her head. The  enemy...er, captain smiled wolfishly, seemingly unbothered by the  comment.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could  I got a...feeling. Whether it was my fate sense, my diviner instincts,  or just luck, I got a strong impression I needed to MOVE, so I did. The  sand rippled like lapping waves and one of the pirates (the shortest,  who had his whole face wrapped in bandages under his hat( broke apart  into shards of glass as an exact copy of him emerged from the ground,  wickedly sharp blade aimed right at my fucking eye.

Callie  reached out and grabbed my coat, casually pulling me the rest of the  way clear, she'd already been moving when I had, since out bond made it  easy enough for her to see something like that coming if I did. The form  of the pirate dropped back toward the sand, but as he fell Abel's fist  lashed out like a speeding car, about to smash into him.

The  captain crossed the distance within a blink, his sword coming free at  the same time as his pistol and chopping down roughly at Abel's hand  while his gun came up at Mel and fired. Rather than a musket ball or  something, which I'd have expected to come out of the barrel, a  cannonball of green smoke erupted from the gun, and Mel's eyes widened  as she called a wall of flamed to stop it from reaching her.

Abel,  who was about to follow up, jerked his head toward her and bellowed  "NO!" Before vanishing in a swirling line of shifting space as he  tackled his girlfriend out of the way before the gas made contact with  her flame defense, barely getting them clear of the huge gas explosion.  The captain had already spun on us to attack, but I wasn't giving him a  shot, I got a dangerous feeling from him. I unleashed a blast of flame  of my own I had stored up from Cark, releasing it through my cane which  I'd already coated in poison fire.

The scruffy blonde man  snarled but stepped back into the watery sand, falling beneath the  'waves' and vanishing to reappear next to the others alongside the  bandaged one. The closest to them, a tall red haired woman with piercing  green eyes, stepped over to put a hand on them and...fuck, healed them.  We hadn't fought a team with a healer yet, but as I watched the  soothing water wash away their wounds I realized this would be even  tougher than expected.

Abel stormed back over, slightly  singed and looking as genuinely annoyed as I had seen him in one of  these fights. Stripping off his jacket he shoved it into my hands. "Stay  here." He said with a snarl and started stalking toward the other team.

I  looked at Mel uncertainly and she just snorted and shook her head.  "Stay on alert. We'll jump in if we're needed, but I doubt we will be.  That other team isn't bad, but they aren't on the same level as some of  the ones we've fought so far. Let him work it out."

Shrugging  I sat and watched, waiting for my mentor to do his thing. I was kind of  curious to see how this would go for the pirates. I hadn't met anyone  who could really push Abel. The closest was the Master Candidate with  the Mop Skill, but even he'd mostly given the man a light workout. As he  stalked forward, the captain, flicked a hand, and the bandage guy and  captain both vanished into a ripple of waves on the sand. At the same  time, the redheaded woman stepped back and the last man, and absolutely  massive guy with bulging biceps showing through a sleeveless leather  vest, hurled himself forward.

He shot forward like a  cannonball, curling his legs and arms as he turned to steel midair. Abel  hauled back and smashed his fist headlong into the flying man, and I  saw a slight ripple in the air of a fist image between them just long  enough to crush the big man into the sand before Abel's elbow caught a  previously unseen slipstream of warped space and his body CONTORTED like  a fucking spinning top, his elbow smashing into the face of the now  emerging bandage guy.

As that happened the captain emerged  from the sand cutlass shopping up at Abel's throat. My mentor's spare  hand waved in the air, creating another spatial slipstream and guiding  the sword harmlessly by him, but before he could press the attack the  pistol came up and a roaring wolf head made of blue flames erupted from  the barrel.

Abel shifted his whole body back and to the  side, his physical form jerking in several rapid directional changes I  don't think I'd be capable of with years of practice, before the wolf  head caught up. When it did, it smashed into him headlong, only to hit  sand as his form blurred, revealing that to have been a fucking  AFTERIMAGE as he appeared behind the now open captain.

The  blonde man snarled and yanked his hand from the pocked it slipped into  after holstering his gun, hurling out a cloud of black dust that Abel  prevented from immobilizing him by guiding it away from his face with  spatial lubrication. The redhead had been sneaking over to heal bandage  guy as the steel guy dug himself out, and they swarmed him, all of them  together converging to attack from all sides.

I moved to  go help but Mel stuck out a hand and put it on my shoulder, shaking her  head. I supposed it was fine, he'd already showed off everything he  could do, he'd just done it VERY casually. He wasn't giving away any new  abilities here, just proving he was way fucking stronger than most of  the people here. If anything this would hide some of our own possible  trump cards.

I have to give them  credit. The four of them together we scary. Not the same level of  cohesion that Callie and I or Abel and Mel had, but a different kind of  teamwork. Where our cooperation was a perfect melding of our styles,  theirs was almost the opposite. They were so perfectly out of sync that  it made properly reacting to them at the same time nearly impossible. It  was so discordant it was almost beautiful, and if it had been me I'd  have been screwed.

The  captain drew and fired, a massive cloud of red smoke in the shape of a  bear trap snapping towards Abel while the big guy hurled himself at my  mentor's legs and the redhead fired some kind of blowdart at him,  covering the bandage guy who leapt toward his back. They knew exactly  what the others would do, and instead of fitting their attacks together,  they made them so wildly different that there was no way to counter  both.

Except  if you were Abel. With barely a thought, he dropped to a knee, swinging a  hand up behind him to create a slide of spatial energy over his back.  The metal guy hit the slipstream and changed direction arcing up over  Abel's back to take his place. The red energy trap closed around the  metallic pirate and he screamed in agony, the metal fading from his  skin. Bandage guy landed on him as the red trap was closing, and the  smaller pirate stiffened but made no sound as blood welled from the  injury.

Abel  slid forward through space, leaving them to drop onto the sand, the dart  from the healer having hit the big guy head on as my teacher engaged  the captain alone. A series of short, sharp punches launched from  outside the captain's range that hit despite being too far away disabled  the pirate leader before Abel knocked him out with a brutal smashing  blow to his chin.

Turning  to the redhead slowly, Abel glared at her emotionlessly, and the pirate  girl dropped to her knees, hands behind her head to show the people  outside the dome she surrendered. Abel snorted and turned to walk away  in disgust, and she breathed a sigh of relief before scrambling over to  treat her friends. Fingers crossed she had an antidote to whatever was  in that dart, because metal guy was turning purple. As I watched Abel  walk back toward us though, I swallowed audibly. Note to self, never  mess with Apollyon. After this display, I doubted I was the only person  thinking that either.