Wish upon the Stars chapter 313

I vaguely considered throwing fruit or something at Midknight as he  returned to talk, but that was clearly beneath my dignity, and also I  didn't have any fruit. Instead I just held Callie's hand as the armored  bastard returned to his obnoxious soliloquy. "Now." He rumbled. "As I'm  sure you know, today we will be selecting your primary opponents. In the  spirit of fairness there will be a random selection rather than a  structured match schedule."

Callie's snort told me she  agreed with my assessment that Midknight wasn't the type to care about  fairness. My guess would be that he didn't want to get assassinated by  some overzealous E-ranker from a higher rank planet because he fucked up  their chances by putting them against a ringer.

"If you  will all look under your seats!" Boomed Midknight. "There should be an  envelope. If you have more than one per team simply leave them be and  they will randomly switch places until all contestants receive their  assignments." Huh, considering we picked our own seats that actually did  seem random. However, we were on a marble stadium style bench seat.  There was no under to check.

Looking down though, I could  clearly see a stone tablet set snug into the bench. Levering my fingers  into the seat I lifted it up and let Callie grab our envelope. The other  groups nearby grabbed their own and began to open them. Our envelope  was opened in a moment, and Callie checked the stiff white card inside.  "Halls of the Nether." She announced. She flipped over the card. "Team  captain: Selariam. Team members: Sennec, Vile, and, Runk." She stared at  me blankly. "I...have no idea what any of these words mean."

I  was about to respond when Megan's voice cut in. "Wait, you guys are up  against the Nether? From the sound of it you got the Screaming Specters  too." She paused. "Huh, could have sworn those guys were dead."

"They are." Said Sydney in puzzlement. "They're ghosts."

Megan  just glared at her sister. "That's not what I meant you smartass.  Anyway, the Nether isn't from our planet, but it is from one of the  others orbiting our star. We've had some dealing with nearby worlds a  time or two. Selariam and his brothers all managed to find a spectral  catalyst and synergize a ghostly racial trait. Energy attacks work  better than physical damage for that group."

"Noted." Said  Callie with a smile. "Who did you guys end up drawing? It's not anyone  we know is it? It would really suck for you all to end up fighting  Lament's team in the first round of something."

That got a  snort from Megan. "Please, we're luck manipulators. Granted with all  the Impact behind this tournament it's unlikely we'll be able to do much  for the overall situation later, but with this many people involved  things are pretty damn in flux. Tweaking our odds with all this still  colliding fate to work with is just child's play."

It was  interesting to hear more about their ability, sadly, I didn't get to  hear too much, because a booming voice cut us off. "Now." Said  Midknight. "Since you all have received your battle assignments, we can  discuss the rules of the tournament." Everyone settled down, even us,  because as much fun as it would be to fuck with him at the moment, we  needed to know the rules so we didn't get disqualified over something  stupid.

"First." Said the Unity Guild Master for the Rajak  branch. "The rank limit. If, under any circumstances, anyone breaks  through to F-rank during the course of the tournament, their entire team  will be immediately ousted. Most of you are at the edge of F-rank, due  to the requirements for entry into the Moonsong Glade. However, in order  to make sure the contestants don't vary too wildly in strength, you've  been required to put your breakthroughs on hold."

We'd  known that already, but it was nice to know what the consequences were  if someone tried to actually break through. Not that I'd refuse to do it  if needed, I'd keep my friends safe no matter what, but still,  forewarned is forearmed. "Second." Continued Midknight. "The use of  offensive F-rank artifacts is considered forbidden during the  tournament. As the matches aren't designed to be fatal, defensive gear  is permitted."

That was a relief actually. Out armor was a  huge benefit to keeping us safe during all this. "And finally." The  armored man intoned. "Intentional killing will be cause for dismissal  from the tournament."

Where the other rules had been a net  benefit to us, this one wasn't. Not because we were murder hungry  lunatics, but because he'd said INTENTIONAL. Which meant it would be  possible for someone to kill us and then claim after the fact that it  was an accident. While Midknight couldn't do anything to me because of  Zeke, that didn't mean none of the Unity could. Based on his petty  personality as mentioned by Callie, I wouldn't be surprised if the Unity  teams closest to him had orders to try to kill me.

That  might have been a bit paranoid, but he looked right fucking at me when  he said it, so I was thinking not. Callie looked just as upset by the  implication as I did, or moreso possibly. Where I was just cautious and  annoyed, my girlfriend was so livid I was worried she'd literally burst  into flames from anger.

Pulling my hand out of hers and  flexing my sore fingers, I put an arm around her and pulled her close.  "Hey, don't let him get to you. He can't do shit to us directly, and I  refuse to believe he has a team of G-rankers that'll be a threat." After  all, we had Abel on our side, and I didn't think any of those assholes  were Master Candidates. Our team would crush any of his people.

"That's  only helpful in the first eight rounds." She insisted. "The five single  elimination rounds will give him plenty of chances to try something. I  know you're plenty strong Shane, but the Unity is a big organization.  Some of the fighters on this planet ARE dangerous, despite how low  ranked it is. I bet you at least a decent chunk of the Titan Twenty make  it to the single elimination rounds, and some of them are from the  Unity."

I pulled her into a hug. "Hey, I'll be fine. I'm a  scary bastard. Plus don't we have a few more days at least before that?  Maybe a week or two. That's plenty of time to get even stronger.  Although I admit I'm a bit surprised. Like, this is a three star system  right? Even if every star has a bunch of planets around it, lets say  ten, that's still only thirty planets. How the hell are there twenty  five hundred teams competing?"

"Oh, that." Said Megan.  "C-rank planets are much bigger than D-rank planets. Gralter is the  weakest C-ranked planet orbiting our star, and like I said, we barely  got an invite. We're really only psuedo C-rank, like this planet is  psuedo D-rank. The real C-rank planets have much scarier forces, and  plenty more of them. The strongest person on a psuedo C-rank planet is  still D-rank, even if there are a lot of them. Real C-rank planets have  ACTUAL C-rankers. Every force from places like that is able to send  multiple teams to an event like this."

That made sense in a  way. I was guessing the true C-rank planets were the top of the food  chain in a small star system like this one. Once we got into the wider  cluster I imagined they would be much more common, with psuedo B-rank  planets maybe even showing up. Regardless, Megan and Sydney's reveal  about the Wave Warren and Slime Hall being the only contestants from  their planet and Zeke's explanation of the star system had massively  thrown off my estimate for how many people we'd be fighting.

Granted,  a large chunk of the contestants were probably from local forces. I  imagine the bar was much lower for locals, especially since we hadn't  had to take any tests or anything. Listening to Midknight go on about  things though, most of the local forces were clearly just there to fill  out numbers and make the main matches more exciting. Higher end teams  like the ones from the Unity and the WCP factions would be the real  competition from Callus, and the system forces probably didn't even care  too much about them.

Abel cleared his throat. "Stop  getting in your own heads idiots. We aren't here to play patty cake,  though to be fair I would absolutely crush at a patty cack tournament." I  saw him pause, hands twitching, and I scooted away from him as I  imagined massive hand images descending from the sky to crush his  enemies in rapid succession. He shoot it off quick with an elbow from  Mel though. "Oh, sorry. Point is we don't need to worry so much about  this kind of thing. Our options have only ever been to win or lose. The  strength of the enemy doesn't change that. Win or lose, just fight as  hard for the former as you can."

A bark of laughter  sounded from behind us, and I turned to see Zeke grinning down at Abel.  "I like this kid. He gets it. So many Ascendants get too caught up in  nonsense. Move forward, don't hesitate, if something stops you then you  were never going to make it all the way to begin with, but you gave it  your all." It had been a long time since I saw Zeke so enthusiastic  about anything. I think Abel reminded him quite a bit of himself, which  looking back I could kind of see.

Alexander nodded his  agreement with my uncle's sentiments. "Exactly." He said to his own  team. We'd met them all when he showed up, but they weren't really  friendly or talkative, so they'd mostly been standing in the background  watching silently. "Abigail, are you prepared for this fight? To put it  all on the line even if your opponents are stronger than you are?"

The  tiny, tanned girl with blue streaked black hair and aqua eyes nodded  gravely. "I am, my lord." Her tone was overly polite and formal. "For  the moment however, I suggest we retreat from this place to strategize  and talk amongst ourselves. So long as none of our number are pitted  against each other, such a confluence should be quite advantageous, and  as you can clearly see, the water darkness slowly swallows the skies."

At  all of our confused looks, Alexander just sighed. "She means it's going  to rain." He paused, looking up. "Which actually is a good point. No  roof on this place. Good call Abigail." He stood up, gesturing for us to  follow. "If you'd all accompany me, I can pay for a meal while we talk.  I assume we all have things to share about our enemies, or at least  some of us do, and if any of us actually did get matched up we can  simply decline to discuss such topics."

Callie shrugged  happily. "Works for me. I'm hungry anyway. Plus if you're treating uncle  Alex I bet the place will be great. Can we bring the wolves?"

Alex  just chuckled. "I'm an E-ranker. You could bring a whole damn forest if  I decided you should. The wolves will be fine. Though I don't think the  bear will fit. Where is it by the way? I thought the two of them were  bonded?" He gestured to Jessie.

Our blonde teammate looked  sullen. "I had to leave him home. They wouldn't let him into the  meeting." Her scowl turned quickly into a sunny smile. "It's fine  though, I can just bring him some food to go. I'm sure you wouldn't mind  me getting some carryout." Alexander agreed easily, but it was my turn  to chuckle. Poor bastard had never seen how much an F-ranked bear could  eat clearly. Oh well, better him than me.