Wish upon the Stars chapter 4 pt 5

Pack Rat was shockingly quick at designing my gear. By the time I got  out of the training room shower it was all ready for me to try out. I  wasn't sure what kind of costume makers the other branches used but Pack  Rat was aces at his job. He had me all wrapped up snug in perfectly  tailored armor within an hour or so of getting the order, and he didn't  even need to do any measurements or alterations. The armor felt snug and  perfect around me and I couldn't help but preen a bit at how badass I  looked in the fitting room mirror.

I looked fantastic. The  placeholder wrap I was using instead of a mask worked well with my hood  and the smooth armored contours of my new suit looked imposing in a  sleek and dangerous way. I could see a faint tracery of runes running  along the limbs and radiating out across my body. I grinned at the  feeling of flexibility and protection around my limbs as I stretched  through a series of gymnastics movements to limber myself up, feeling no  tightening or pulling at all. Even the cape seemed to flow strangely to  prevent tangling.

The next twenty minutes were a blur of  instructions and rules as Captain Polaris and got ready for our first  patrol, and I couldn't help but be excited. As my mentor and I walked  out he reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, enshrouding us both  in a dazzling stellar aura. I felt my body begin to lighten as we  drifted up into the air and into the afternoon sky. Captain Polaris was  clearly trying to stay relatively low so as not to scare me, but it was  still a terrifying and exhilarating experience.

I was  frozen for the first minute or two, paralyzed by the fear that moving  would break the aura, but as I got used to the feeling (and remembered  some of the three dimensional movement abilities my armor had, I started  to calm down. I looked to my mentor, and couldn't help but ask. "Hey  Cap, what exactly is your ability? I know you can do energy blasts and  fly. Is it ok to ask people their powers? I talked to Jessie about it  when I did my intake and she didn't mind but I wasn't sure if that was  just personal choice."

He chuckled, his voice not muffled  at all by wind or rushing air. The stellar aura kept us perfectly  unruffled as we soared over the city slowly towards our patrol route.  "You can ask, some people don't like to share, but no one will freak out  about the question. My ability is called Star Power. I won't go into  specifics but I made it through skill synergy.. For future reference,  asking the skill combination needed to get a specific ability IS off  limits. My power involves stellar manipulation and a heroic aura that  affects me at all times."

That sounded useful as hell.  "Neat. So just to confirm the rules I'm supposed to stay back and let  you handle combat situations unless directly engaged, but when we talk  to civilians you want me chatting with them directly to try to get my  name and rep out there?" I could already tell that this job would be  exhausting, but it would also be a great way to gain stats. He confirmed  my recollection even as we touched down on a relatively quiet street.  "By the way, whose territory is this, gang wise?"

Cap  stretched a bit, limbering up when there was no one around to see us. He  seemed excited to get to work and I had to envy that kind of  enthusiasm. I hoped I liked my job that much once I got a bit further  into it. He glanced around to double check we were alone then turned to  me seriously. "The Nobody Man runs this part of town. His boys are  sneakier but usually more low end specifically because they don't make  many waves. He goes for quantity over quality so it's a good place for a  newbie to start out."

That made some sense, and it  honestly made me feel better I'd be dealing with low level mooks. "By  the way, I know today is patrol but when should I look into working on  getting some crafting clients. Do I advertise? Is there some sort of job  board? Or do I go to some crafting center and work at a counter like a  clerk?" I was in the dark about the crafting facilities in the Unity,  but I wanted to get started on granting some wishes so I could get  stronger and maybe get some more skills.

The pleased look  on his face told me I'd asked a question he was hoping I'd bring up. "A  reasonable question, the answer is...all of those. Or none of them. The  crafting center has a few departments. You have your base level  grinders, they usually work the counters, but since you're H rank  already you can skip that. Next up is the job board for those who have  proved themselves, that'll be what you'll be working off of, and finally  the crafters with a name behind them can advertise for custom  commissions, but it'll take a while for you to get to that point I  think, though probably not as long as most."

We headed off  down a side street, searching for any trouble, and pretty soon we  stumbled upon just that. A pair of grey appareled Nobody Men were racing  down a nearby alley, clearly up to something, and without even a word  we took off after them. I made sure to lag a step behind Cap, not that  it was hard because his stats were so damn high. He was clearly  sandbagging for me but luckily the goons we were chasing were just as  slow as I was so his holding back didn't put our quarry at risk of  escape.

It too me a bit to notice,  but I realized Cap was steering them out of the alleys they had run into  and into a more open space. not a crowd or anything, but at least  somewhere with cameras and people looking out windows. He wanted my  first take down with him to be in the public eye so I could get a great  deed. From this I was able to guess that he'd noted how weak they were  and was planning to let on slip by him so I could get some experience  fighting in the field.

Once  we got them into the open Cap circled around at lightning speed to  engage the stronger of the two and then herded the other toward me with a  star bolt. Clearly even though he told me to wait to be attacked he  wasn't planning to leave me hanging here. The nobody mas coming towards  me wore formless gray clothes just like the others, though he was a bit  shorter. He was pretty damn fast, but only early H rank speeds. Nothing I  would have too much difficulty with. It was time to try out my new gear  in actual combat.

I  activated Lesser Doom Sovereign Mastery and Minor Gymnastics engaging  Fantasy, Might, and Perception, as the other fighter closed in.  Immediately I saw the massive shift in the patterns of the overlay as he  charged in toward me. Having the extra three dimensional mobility  opened up so many avenues of attack. Unlike Captain Polaris, this one  had his guard up so most of the paths were red, but his guard wasn't  perfect. There was one green path that I knew would get past his  defenses. After all, he wasn't a high end monster like my mentor, so his  stats wouldn't be too much higher than mine.

I  stepped forward conjuring a hard light shield to place my hands on and  pulling a handspring up into the air right over the head of the charging  man. Once I passed him I rebounded both feet with a double jump and  smashed down at his head with a scything axe kick using my whole body to  fire off the blow out of a back flip. Just like the overlay said he had  no defense there, and as I approached I poured some of the fore pre  loaded into the impact absorbing potion of my costume into my feet.

There  was a pulse of force as the Nobody Man got knocked flat out, and I  gracefully caught myself on another hard light shield and flipped back  up onto my hands. I turned to check on Cap but my mentor had already  crushed the other man without much difficulty. He wandered over with a  smile. "Very nice! Clean, efficient, and definitely enough to make an  impression. I'll contact the guild to have one of the sweepers pick them  up and we can get back to it. You get anything out of your first real  fight?" Sure enough, when I took time to check, purple flames rolled  across my vision.

[Your  name is on the lips of your enemies. You have done a great deed, and  Tales of your Might and Perception have spread. Plus one to Might and to  Perception.]

I  grinned at him. "Hell yeah, I got a point of Might and of Perception."  He congratulated me and clapped me on the shoulder letting me know it  was time to get back to it. We weren't approached by any civilians or  anything for the most part, but the rest of the afternoon was easy  enough. We took down a few more Nobody Men. I got a point of Focus in  the process, I supposed someone though my strategies were well thought  out, plus Focus was low so it was easier to raise. Unfortunately the  easy days were not to be, because a few minutes before we were set to go  back we heard a scream.

Cap and  I bolted, but he was moving at top speed so I had to catch up. It took  me a minute or two to enter that alleyway where he found the terrified  middle aged man staring down at what I could only describe as a hunk of  meat. Captain Polaris was staring at the meat too, specifically at a  small scrap of green fabric laying on the center of it, and it finally  hit me that I was looking at what was left of a person. The civilian  took off to go vomit in a trash can and I wasn't far behind, but I came  up to stand next to my mentor by force of will.

His  voice was hoarse as he spoke. "This is Verdant. I heard you were in an  intake class with his sister. He was G rank." He sounded shaken as he  stared down at the body of someone who had been stronger than him, and  was now just a destroyed hunk of flesh. He swallowed hard, turning to  punch the wall. "Damn it! I can't believe he would attack in the middle  of the day like this. He never took any of the others while the sun was  up, and a G ranker at that? This is going to be a fucking mess."

I  blinked at him. "Wait, you know who did this? How can you even tell?"  Cap kept staring at the body, but one hand pointed up at the wall behind  Verdant, the glow from his aura peeling back the shadows to show a  crude eye sketched in blood on the wall with a smiley face for a pupil. I  grimaced at the macabre show piece, but I had to admit, just looking at  it gave me the chills.

Captain  Polaris activated his scan ring, sending through a call, and the face  of Stella appeared on the floating screen above his hand. "Mom? It's me.  We have another one. It was Verdant this time. I'm sending you the  location now." I couldn't hear her response from within his star aura  for some reason, probably because he didn't want me to now that I  thought about it, but after a minute or two he nodded. He turned to me.  "Sorry kid, going to have to cut this short. This mess is going to take a  while to clean up." Oddly, I didn't think he was talking about the  blood.