Wish upon the Stars chapter 288

As the canoe hit the water, the two of us slipped inside without too  much trouble. We'd gotten a running start, so it wasn't too tough, we  just had to be sure to land on the canoe before the water swept it away.  Once we did, we slid into it and each took up once of the paddles,  slamming them into the water quickly to prevent capsizing as we were  swept up into the rapids and yanked out into the riot of water.

My  eyes widened a bit as the canoe was jerked around and we barely managed  to stabilize, having to adjust on the fly as the angles and pressure  changed. It took a minute to get the hang of it, but luckily my mask  kept me from gettin splashed in the face. Callie had covered her own  face with a veil of shadows to prevent water from getting in her mouth  and eyes, and despite how confusing the helter skelter water way was, we  managed to finally get the hang of it after a bit.

I  realized quickly that rowing wasn't exactly the right move here, but  rather, I needed to use my oar to sort of angle the water in a way that  pushed the canoe in the right direction. Callie was doing the same, and  we definitely needed our combat trance to properly adjust the oars as  the water changed constantly, with each of our attempts altering the  course of the canoe.

Still, once I got the hang of it I  couldn't help but grin in delight. This was wild and crazy, but it was  also fun. Aside from the crush of water making it kind of hard to see,  being thrown around was actually a lot of fun. I was so caught up in it  that I barely noticed the dark shape forming in the water in time to  plant my oar and jerk us out of the way, barely missing a HUGE G-ranked  rock rising out of the rapids and concealed by the spray. Swinging a  hard left had taken us down a fork in the rapids, but I didn't have time  to pay attention to that aside from noting the others had followed us  as the river changed.

Callie shouted something that I  couldn't really hear, but it turned out to be a warning as we suddenly  dropped and began plummeting straight at yet another huge rock. The  rapids had started descending, and we had to steer with all our might as  we were essentially thrown into freefall, being hurled back and forth  with barely enough time touching the water to steer properly. I  considered using Leaf on the Wind on the canoe, but I was genuinely  worried we would be flung off the river entirely by the water pressure.

As  we were hurled around I could see the other canoes being thrown into  the same part of the rapids, and we had to adjust to those too. Our  friends were having just as tough a time, but also seemed to be enjoying  themselves just as much. As we came within a foot of Sloane, we could  hear her howling with joy, and couldn't help but laugh at how crazy all  of this was.

Of course, that was far too tame for a  training session Abel had come up with. While this was all fun and  difficult, it wasn't enough to really push us. The rocks were stationary  even if the water wasn't and I was suspicious that we'd figured out the  real purpose of this test. Or at least, had noticed its real form. Sure  Mel told us what to do, but Abel loved nasty surprises. I couldn't  imagine what exactly he would come up with though. Rapids were all the  same. Just crazy waterslides with dangerous rocks and...waterfalls...at  the bottom.

My eyes snapped up, focusing through the spray  as hard as I could, and sure enough, when I looked hard anough I could  see a cloud of more diffuse spray down the river about a mile or two  from us. I nudged Callie, who turned around in confusion, barely able to  react to a rock in time because of the distraction. I leaned in and  bellowed. "WATERFALL!" Right into her ear.

Even our  Perception wasn't suited for picking sounds out of this kind of tumult,  and it took me a few tries to get it through, taking a couple seconds  and a few hundred feet. Finally she looked where I pointed and screamed.  "Oh fuck! Waterfall!" I'd probably have laughed if we weren't about to  plummet over a cliff on a death stream.

Focusing hard I  got even closer, my mask pressed almost to her ear. "What do we do?" I  bellowed. No idea how to avoid this. It wasn't like we could just make a  turn. We were pretty fucking stuck on this path. I doubted Abel would  give us a test that would definitely kill us, but I was pretty sure it  would come close if we didn't figure out how to deal with it. Based on  the speed and force of the river and how fucking big it was, this drop  would be a doozy too. The spray down there was being flung up pretty  high into the air, if not for the steep downward drop along the way it  would have been way more noticeable.

Unfortunately there  wasn't really time for a plan. We'd have to just take it as we went,  making sure not to get dashed on the rocks. Hell we were still trying to  control our forward momentum to avoid the ones in the rapids  themselves. But there were several along the top edge of the waterfall  we would need to slip between to get out without being dashed on the  rocks. I planted my oar in the rover, curving the water as best I could  to force it to push the back of the canoe.

As I made sure  my end was in line, Callie was desperately doing the same on her side,  making sure we had force acting in the opposite direction to keep us  straight, not to mention adjusting that force to account for all the  rapid changes in pressure. It was like walking on the edge of a knife  blade.

Shockingly, I noticed Lament's canoe slide up next  to us, scything through the water with seeming ease. As she got within  reach she looked over casually. "Hey." She shouted. "You guys know  there's a watefall coming up? This place is great!" For probably the  first time I saw her looking genuinely excited outside battle. I wasn't  surprised, she and Abel were similar in a lot of ways, and apparently  this was easy for her so she was probably treating this like a vacation.

I  was confused as to HOW she was doing that, until I took a closer look  at her oar. Or rather, the oar she should have been using. Which turned  out not to be an oar at all. She was steering with a fucking spear.  That...how did that even work? The oars were large and float, easily  able to shape the water, but that spear wasn't a giant ass blade like  Wren's was. Lament's spear was much slimmer and more deadly, but she was  managing to somehow cut the water currents in a way the altered her  trajectory.

Lestri, who was on the boat with her, wasn't  even doing anything, just sitting back and enjoying the ride. I could  only assume that this was more Spear Mastery bullshit. It seemed like  having a high level martial art or weapons skill really could offer a  lot of utility. I suspected she might have been using her ability in  conjunction with it like Abel did, but still, this was just blatant  cheating. I really needed to start grinding up my Balam Skill. I was  betting it could do some amazing things in conjunction with my DS  Mastery.

Shaking off my jealousy, I shouted back. "We  noticed! Have you seen the others?" I couldn't see Sydney or Megan  anywhere, and Sloane had vanished after we almost ran into her earlier.  The only reason we could even have this conversation was because of  Lament's craziness. Since the others would still be pinballing around it  would be dangerous as hell for them if they didn't see the waterfall  coming.

Luckily Lament nodded. "Yeah! They all know. I  think they're aiming for the gaps closer to the banks though!. The  splashback from the edges of the river neutralize some of the force! Not  much, but a little. Anyway I'm heading through, catch you on the other  side!" She turned back to the waterfall and struck out with her spear at  the front of the canoe, apparently cutting through the water and  somehow speeding up her advancement.

I hoped I didn't have  to fight her in the tournament. She would fucking destroy me. My only  real shot was if Abel ran into her first or we took her out in the team  matches. I didn't have time to dwell on that though, because we were  drawing closer and closer to the waterfall, and it was taking all our  skill to try to thread the needle between those huge rocks before we  went over.

Seeing the rocks flash  past my eyes as we went over, I paled slightly. I'd come within inches  of being smashed flat. While the water itself wasn't enough to hurt any  of us with our current Impact, Abel had been right to warn about the  rocks. They were G-ranked too, and hitting stone with the same Impact as  we had at whatever absurd speeds this mealtrom was flinging us about  would absolutely have done extreme damage. We might not have died, but  getting knocked out as mentioned was a strong possibility.

As  we went over, I let out an involuntary scream as we were grabbed by the  mightily descending torrent of blue glowing liquid and shoved downward  easily three times faster than the most extreme speed on the rapids. I  lashed out with my oar as I shifted my weight, trying to angle the canoe  sideways to break some of the momentum and create drag. I saw the  shapes of other canoes as dark blots across the waterfall, each at  different altitudes. Sharp rocks poked out of the water along the length  of the several hundred foot drop.

Unlike  before when my worry was being thrown clear, this was a place where  being lighter would actually help. I used Leaf on the Wind, straining to  cover the whole boat, and our descent slowed noticeably. It was still a  rapid drop, but were were managing to resist the push of the water  somewhat. The resistance gave both of us the chance to put our oars to  work and steer ourselves as best we could to avoid getting dashed on  protruding rocks on the way down. Not that we could see the situation at  the bottom.

The  spray from the water smashing into whatever was at the base of this  cliff (we really should have done a complete lap around the Bay before  agreeing to any of Abel's ideas) was obscuring whatever was down there. I  was PRETTY sure it had to be a lake or something. No way Mel would have  let Abel hurl us at flat ground and get crushed to death. Not that I  thought he would. Even my teacher wasn't quite that much of a dick.

As  we wove our way past several protruding rocks, we got close enough that  I could see the water WAS collecting in a basin. There were more rocks,  but maneuvering along this waterway was easier than doing the rapids in  some weays, and we skidded along the length of the waterfall and I had  to strain my skill hard to resist the pressure as we smashed into the  water.

Luckily,  since it was the bottom of a waterfall the constant disruption of the  new water hitting constantly broke the plane of the surface of the pool.  We smashed through it, the canoe below us taking all the damage and  basically dissolving into scrap as we were submerged. We swam up quickly  to get out of the way as another canoe made contact and crawled out  onto the shore. As I slumped over onto my side, shaken and gasping, I  looked up to see something interesting. A cave. Huh, those we usually fun.