Wish upon the Stars chapter 282

With all the glows from the hand stamps and the Perception we all  had, it was effortless to see in the darkened restaurant. It was sort of  surreal, with the shifting glows moving along with the hands of the  people nearby. Still, despite the minor confusion, we were all well  trained and ready to act. Even as several dozen customers tried to mob  the rabbit eared girl, they were met with a fist the size of a train car  that managed to appear between them and their target without damaging  the intervening space at all.

As the first responders were  sent flying, Abel stood happily from the table, cracking his neck as he  started walking slowly toward the girl and her companions. Mel rolled  her eyes, rising herself and flooding the room with light as a nimbus of  golden flame blazed into existence around her arms. Despite being older  and stronger, the two of them hadn't even hesitated to listen to  Callie's declaration about protecting the sacrifice.

Of  course, Abel was just a battle crazy lunatic, but Mel was a rational  human being most of the time, which meant she really took Callie's words  as leader to heart. I, of course, stood up and slipped my cane from its  sheath under my coat. I activated my Touch of Tears and Consecration of  Flame as I trailed behind my mentors, Callie, Sloane, Beric, and Croll  followed behind. The Spear Legion members stayed sitting for the moment,  which was better than having to fight them all.

Abel made  it to the girl with the rabbit ears without much trouble, after his  first attack everyone was waiting to see what happened. They weren't  sure what had happened, and no one here was stupid enough to risk their  lives for some F-ranked chits. When he got within range, Abel grinned at  the girl. "Young lady! You have an excellent sense of style! Your ears  are adorable. I don't suppose you'd be interested in doing a little  business?"

The girl, a pale, tiny girl with blood red hair  and wide, stormcloud grey eyes, swallowed hard. "I...I-don't know what  you mean sir. Thank you for the help though. What kind of business did  you mean?" She glanced nervously at her friends, who all wore various  types of rabbit themed accessories. To my surprise, THEY did not look  worried. Most of them looked confident and ready to fight.

Wren,  who had somehow appeared behind us when I'd been distracted, leaned in  to murmur. "They're with the Wave Warren. Not the strongest group in the  system, but definitely impressive. That's Sydney Whispervale. She's one of  their ringers for the tournament. Don't underestimate her."

Due  to everyone's high Perception, every person in the room heard him, and  Abel cocked his head in interest. "I was going to offer to protect you  for a cut, but it sounds like you might not need it, and my team leader  said we have to help anyway. How about if we can escort you out of this  place you buy me and my friends a drink and we call it even?" His wide,  innocent smile made me want to roll my eyes. He was still trying to scam  someone into buying that brandy.

Sydney bit her lip.  "Well...I guess that doesn't sound too bad. If you really help us then  there's no reason not to say thank you." She twisted a lock of hair  around her finger worriedly. "Oh I should never have come here. I never  should have listened to Megan. She said there was no way I would get  picked, and everyone was so excited to try the food." She'd stopped  looking at Abel and begun to mutter to herself worriedly under her  breath, seemingly castigating herself for every decision that had led  her to the point.

"Hey!" Callie said, after a minute."It's  ok." She looked almost panicked at how badly the girl was spiraling in  what was possibly the literal worst place for it. "We're here to help  you. We can all just leave. I'm assuming you don't want to stay to try  to win the money?"

With wide eyes, Sydney shook her head  rapidly, her red hair whipping back and forth and her rabbit ears coming  loose. She reached up and had to fix them, looking embarrassed. I was  pretty much dumbstruck. How was this girl the secret weapon of a system  level force? How was this girl allowed to come DOWN here? She was  so...meek and harmless. "Of course not." She said anxiously. "I just  want to leave." She looked at the others. "Can we just leave?"

One  of the men in a black coat with a rabbits paw pinned to the lapel  sighed heavily. "Of course, Miss Sydney. Miss Megan wouldn't have sent  us to accompany you if we weren't supposed to offer our protection. We  can leave immediately." He turned to us. "We appreciate your help,  though if you attempt to backstab us I'm afraid you're going to suffer  for it extensively." There was no threat in his voice, just a calm  statement of fact.

A nearby patron of the Womabt, finally  fed up with us ignoring them, piped up. "Hey! We aren't just going to  let you take her and leave." A chorus of agreements rang out. His eyes  pinned Sydney gleefully. "Sorry girly." he said, stepping menacingly  forward. "But in your next life, you should be more careful exactly  where you g-" Without warning, the mans eyes flashed steel grey, and he  rolled his ankle, stumbling into the man next to him, who had drawn a  wicked looking knife.

The knife drove into the mans side,  and he growled, turning his own brown eyes on the person he'd bumped  into, fury written on his face. He hauled back and punched the other  man, fist shifting in magma as it crashed into the hapless knife  wielder. Knife guy's friends decided to join in, and magma guy  apparently had a group of his own. Within seconds, a miniature gang war  had erupted inside the Wombat.

I blinked at the wilting  form of Sydney. The grey flash in his eyes had looked just like hers.  Whatever that had been, I was pretty sure she had done it. Not that it  was hard to puzzle out with the physical manifestation as a clue.  Ascendants didn't trip often, as a rule. Sydney clearly had some sort of  ability that could effect enemies. Based on how spectacularly  everything went wrong, I was kind of guessing it was bad luck.

Now  wasn't the time to think about that though, because while the two  groups had started fighting, their agitation had set off the rest of the  people in the Wombat, who had all started to surge forward. Some  attacked directly, some circled looking for an opening, but they still  came at us all the same.

Letting myself shift into my  combat trance, I slipped up next to Callie and neatly deflected a blow  from some kind of fleshy tentacle. Callie slammed a hand into the  ground, putting up a dome of condensed darkness to intercept a wave of  icicles even as what looked like a swarm of purple energy bats tried to  swarm over us. Mel turned the things to ash without a second glance,  freeing us up, and Callie dropped the shield just as I swept out a Mercy  Kill infused strike at the kneecap of one of the attackers as they  clashed against a member of the Wave Warren.

The man, a  red dressed guy with a winged cap and aviator goggles, howled in pain as  he whirled his hands, conjuring a pair of whirling tornadoes to push us  back. I used Sucking Mud, shaping the attack with my soul to hold us  less deeply in exchange for speed, and the wind broke over our armor as  the scarf wearing Warren cultivator snapped out a kick with a leg that  had suddenly become a bladed hook, opening the red clad man's throat  from the side.

More power to him, he didn't pass out or  drop from blood loss though, smashing his coat against the wound to  staunch the bleeding and using his wind to hurl himself away. I really  needed to put some time into coming up with proper counters to the  elements. A vast majority of Ascendants had some sort of element based  power, especially after getting the chance to synergize.

I  didn't have a chance to get lost in thought as usual though, I was  forced to burn a triple stack density shifted attack, along with a Mercy  Kill, to smash aside some kind of weird chain ball construct with huge  jagged teeth that tried to bite into Callie from behind. The blade  legged Warren cultivator bounded up into the air in a low arc, lashing  out with a kick that took off the summoners arm at the elbow, causing  him to jerk the ball construct back to defend himself.

There  wasn't time to do more than nod gratefully at him before the crowd  surged between us, and we backed up to try to group tighter with Abel  and Mel, who had surrounded Sydney along with a pair of her guards and  were beating back the crowd, Abel whooping with joy in the rush of  battle. With our mentors at our back, we were SLIGHTLY more secure, but  not nearly as much as expected. This was fucking lunacy, people weren't  just attacking Sydney and her guards, I could see several Ascendants  backstabbing and attacking random people in the chaos, using the action  as cover for murder.

Trying to  give myself a bit of room, I reached for my power, triggering a clone  and a density shifted triple strength attack at the same time. I felt my  head go slightly fuzzy as more soul weight than I could really handle  slammed down on me, but I managed to hold up under the strain until it  passed. Of course, the clones were much weaker and more fragile than I  was to begin with, but with the addition of the triple strength and  density shifting, the one I managed to construct was about half as  durable and strong as I was.

The  clone dove forward into a crowd of G-rankers, lashing out with the most  brutal attacks he could manage with all the Skills and stats he had to  bear. He broke a few limbs and managed to tie up several of them long  enough for Callie to smash them with a bulldozer made of shadow while  they were off balance, sending them flying, though not doing much to  hurt them. The cloud of gelatinous acid crawling across the floor took  care of that when they landed in it, and though they didn't die, they  were in FAR too much pain for it to matter at the moment, at least based  on the searing skin.

Unfortunately,  while we were holding the line for the moment, we were also being worn  down. Abel and Mel were guarding Sydney as instructed, but that meant  they weren't clearing a path out of here. We were getting penned in and  this was going to get worse and worse for us.

Despite  the mess, it had only been about a minute since this all started, and I  was already almost dead on my feet. We needed some sort of backup. Wren  was helping, decimating anyone who came close with his spear, and  Vector was doing the same. I saw Lestri flash between a pair of  combatants, taking a limb from each in one swirl of his own long spear.  Almost at the same time as I glanced over to the table to check what  Lament was doing, the Spear Legion's ace finally acted.

A  spear. The size of a fucking bus, flashed through the air, parting the  crowd with a brutal cleave, taking limbs and even heads off multiple  enemies and opening up a path to the door. I was in shock. That spear move had reminded me so much of Abel's fist  attack, and I'd always thought that was just his ability. Thinking back  though, Abel had mentioned being peak Intermediate in his own combat  Skill. Something to look into later. Lament looked almost bored as she  strolled away from the table, casting a derisive glare at the gathered  enemies. "Noisy." She sneered.

From  the huge bloody hole in the crowd stepped another figure, one I hadn't  seen before. A man in bright yellow clothes and a top hat, with a sad  face painted across his features. He shot her a grin, an incredibly odd  thing to see on someone with a painted on sad face. "Well now. That was  certainly dramatic." He flicked his hand and a shining golden whip  unfurled in the air beside him. "Want to try it again?" Apparently this  mess wasn't over. Based on the figures stepping up behind him, it was  just beginning.