Wish upon the Stars chapter 67

The seaweed hair held the troll for about ten seconds. Tops. Despite  Jessie being incredibly quick on the draw and managing to wrap it up she  wasn't able to restrain it for long at all. Luckily, Benny was more  than ready. As soon as the thing was restrained he hopped in and smashed  his left fist into the thing rapidfire. Three or four blows to the head  and face before it tore itself loose and roared in challenge. It dove  forward, but Jessie had scattered a carpet of seeds under Benny as he  punched and while he dove back a wall of dense vines leapt up to grab  the troll.

The troll looked barely even affected by the  tranquilizer, but that was to be expected. With that kind of Vitality he  would need to hit it quite a few times before it started to waver. I  clenched a fist, but Callie put a hand on my arm, shooting me a sad  smile. "We don't help unless things get bad. It might seem kind now, but  the more we do for them the less they'll be able to handle on their own  in the future. Training like this in a safe environment with higher  rankers watching over them is an invaluable experience. Don't take that  from them."

I nodded, chuckling ruefully. "See. This is  why you're the boss. Every bone in my body is screaming at me to tear  that troll apart with poison. Just hamstring the thing so they can fight  it out on easy mode. But you're right. They need this. Enemies aren't  going to get weaker. I've given them all the help I can for now. I  shouldn't step in until things get really dicey." The words tasted  bitter in my mouth. This was the kind of shit I hated hearing from Zeke,  but at least he had no choice. I was actively making the decision to  leave them in danger and it made me feel like scum.

But my  faith wasn't misplaced. The troll came back in at Benny and my friend   backed up, leading the thing as it broke free from Jessie's vine trap,  he slipped to the side, circling, forcing the troll to spin in place  rather than come forward, keeping it in the weeds so to speak. His left  fist flashed out, short sharp jabs at anything he could reach as he  slowly hammered in the tranquilizer blows.

The troll  roared in frustration, smashing its massive fists down on the cement  below it, breaking up the floor and allowing it to break up the  foundation the vines grew from. It started picking up chunks of rock and  hurling them at Benny, snarling in rage, and my friend dipped and  dodged, jerking his left arm around to attract the ranged attacks before  he ducked the other way, releasing the ability from his forearm. The  combination of moves let him maneuver around the attacks expertly. I was  impressed.

Jessie wasn't exactly resting on her laurels  either. She had another handful of seeds up and was blowing them into  the air. As they settled on the Troll she triggered her wand again and  the vines once again lashed out like lightning. Unlike the last time,  the vines wound not only around the limbs of the troll but around each  other, yanking the thing's limbs in tight and preventing it from getting  the leverage to easily tear free. It's lantern eyes widened in rage and  it began to snarl and writhe, but it left the thing open for another  series of punches from Benny.

Every blow landed on the  head, and it looked like the had the thing licked, when suddenly there  was a huge crash and a second troll came barreling out of the dark. I  moved to intervene but Callie stopped me. I shot her a confused look and  she flicked her fingers, conjuring a series of twisting shadow blades.  "It's fine, I have them if they need it, but I want to see what they can  do when pushed. Surprises happen, they need to learn to deal with this  kind of thing sometime. Best it happens when they have backup."

I  spotted a series of shadows around the edges of the room writhing like  snakes and noted that Callie had been prepared to interfere in the  situation the entire time. They were alright. I relaxed, giving her a  nod, and she shot me a grateful smile as we turned to watch the  unfolding fight. With the first troll restrained they were able to focus  on the other entirely, but unfortunately the original was still  actively trying to break free, distracting Jessie and leaving Benny to  deal with the second basically on his own. Despite that he showed no  hesitation at all as he closed with the beast, ready to put it on it's  back.

He came in close, using it's long reach against it  as he got right up in it's face and hammered his right fist, the triple  blow right into it's jaw. It grunted, stumbling back, and as it was  reeling Benny's other hand came up with a rope from his midsection. He  threw it over the things head and looped it around the upper body to pin  it's arms down, tied it at the spot where it overlapped and then, hands  free to fight started to beat the thing violently about the head and  body with his fists.

The triple blow would hammer the  skull, causing it to reel at the damage and the tranquilizer punch would  smash in  while it was off balance. It's Vitality seemed to slightly  offset the effect, but the more he hit it the more it staggered and  stumbled like it was drunk. He continued to lay into the beast for a  minute or two until it finally stopped moving, still as a corpse except  the slow and steady breathing of an unconscious form. Benny looked  genuinely elated, at least until Jessie's shouted warning.

He  managed to roll off the troll as the first one finally broke free of  the plant binding. It came after him snarling, claws raking the cement  and desperately trying to find purchase in Benny's flesh. Then it  stopped and staggered. Jessie had followed it across the room and was  kicking the living shit out of the back of it's legs. When it turned to  deal with her Benny rabbit punched it in the back of the head with his  triple strength fist. It roared in frustration as it tried to wheel  around and get it's hands on him only to have it's balance knocked out  by a blow to the back of the knee from Jessie.

I  hadn't realized the two of them would work se well together. Jessie had  given up her ranged advantage to help, though considering the patches  of moss on the trolls skin had mostly been torn free when it escaped she  had less options there anyway, but their teamwork was closing the gap.  They were pulling the old circling wolves trick. One in, one out, then  switch when the monster figured out the pattern. Luckily their  Perception was higher than the trolls, if it even had that stat  unlocked. The thing really was pure almost pure Vitality from what I  could tell.

What  few points it had other than in that stat was most likely all in Might.  It was pretty big and relatively strong, though thankfully not nearly  as powerful physically as it was in terms of regeneration and energy.  Between Jessie's eleven Might, and Benny's thirteen, they were able to  more than offset the portion of its power invested in strength. The  troll was honestly probably a bit stronger than they were, but they had  higher Perception and the advantage in numbers. Even as I thought that  though the troll managed to change directions last second and land a  hit.

Jessie  screamed in pain as it's fist smashed into her midsection, hurling her  back with the sound of cracking ribs. As she did though, Benny jumped on  it's back in rage, hooking it with the same looping rope technique he'd  used on the last one before it could follow up. Wrapping his legs  around the big monster Benny started pummeling it's head and shoulders  like he had the last one, alternating that triple impact punch and the  tranquilizer to devastating effect. The monster started to sway on it's  feet as he beat it.

Luckily  for us, Jessie was also heavy into Vitality. Aside from healing ability  and dealing with life force, Vitality could help her heal just like it  could for the troll. Once we confirmed she wasn't in any danger and was  healing alright we relaxed, since Benny had the troll under control.  Still, this one was taking much longer to go down. It's Vitality must be  higher than that other troll. The second downside to that was becoming  apparent. Aside from healing Vitality gave energy and stamina, allowing  the monster to use it's Might to full effect without tiring.

Still,  it was far from enough. The troll was flagging from the tranquilizer,  and eventually dropped, unable to stay up under the assault. As soon as  it hit the ground Benny was up, retracting his rope and bolting over to  check on Jessie, who was sitting up with a wince. She put a hand to her  side pull out a roll of bandages and then beginning to wind them around  her. She closed her eyes and there was a bright green glow as she used  her first aid Skill in conjunction with her Vitality to increase the  rate that her bones would mend.

Benny  knelt down to look her over. "Hey are you ok? That looked rough, I  heard the crack from a few feet away. I'm sorry, I thought the thing  would go down faster. I half expected the tranquilizer to spread faster  because of the increased healing, but apparently it's more an effect  than a substance so it doesn't work like that. Or Vitality doesn't do  what I think it does, I don't know. Point is I'm sorry it took so long  and I should have done better and I-" Jessie laughed, putting a hand  over his mouth.

She  winced at the movement of her ribs the laughter caused, but gave him a  grimacing smile anyway. "You're babbling, Clockwork. I'm fine. Better I  took that hit than you, I have WAY more Vitality and a much better  chance of getting back in shape soon. It probably would have taken you  days to recover from damage like that." He winced guiltily but I was  impressed. She was right, healing broken bones was a nightmare compared  to normal cuts and scrapes. More serious wounds took longer to heal  unless the damage was offset by Vitality.

It  wasn't consistent sadly, I was pretty sure it had something to do with  the Impact of the person doing the damage relative to the recipient.  Regardless, the rule of thumb was that the worse the damage the longer  to heal, and the higher the Vitality the less time that actually took.  Benny helped her to her feet, turning to look at us. "Please tell me  we're done. I don't have another fight in me." He sounded exhausted but  proud. I was happy for him. I'd been worried he might be pissed but it  seemed like he got our reasons for staying out of it.

I  laughed, as did Callie, and I let her take the lead here. She smiled  wolfishly. "No. You two are finished. Tie them up with that rope of  yours just in case and carry them out to the car. Solomon and I are  going to go hunt down a few more. Those spatially expanded trunks can  hold quite a bit, and it seems like such a waste to leave so much money  on the table." She turned to me with a predatory smirk. "Don't you  agree?" I cracked my neck, smiling under my mask. I did indeed. I wanted  to stretch my legs too.