Wish upon the Stars chapter 296 (Patreon)

The bond didn't take long to adjust to. By the time the starting horn  sounded, just like Abel had said, I was already pretty used to it.  Thus, I immediately leaned on it to push the Ralkor into a full on  sprint the second we were told to go. Though I couldn't use any active  Skills, my passive connection to Callie through Paired Dueling was still  there, and I had enough of a sense of her to match our speeds as we  took off down the track, bringing my Ralkor close to hers as we raced  ahead.

Unfortunately, as mentioned, the Ralkor  distribution was random. Callie's was a bit slower than mine, and  several of the enemy were much faster. Not only that, several started to  drift in toward me as if preparing to attack. Ahead of me, I saw Abel,  sprinting along on his own red Ralkor, and as a blue and a green drifted  in from both sides, it leaped into the air and kicked out with both  claws, attempting to gouge each of them in succession.

The  first rider, the one on the green a lighter shade than mine, was coming  in too fast, and he had to put his arm up to block and got laid open to  the bone, falling back with a howl of pain. The blue rider, however,  flipped up into a picture perfect counter claws clashing against claws  in a shower of sparks as they were thrown away from each other.

The  two trying to close on us made their own move while we were distracted  by the attack, but unfortunately for them I within arms reach of Callie.  I reached out and grabbed her hand and her Ralkor leapt into the air  and with a heave I swung her around my entire head, her legs keeping her  Ralkor under her and her mounts kicked out with a series of dangerous  bicycle kicks to attack both of them.

One of the attackers  got driven back, but the other dipped under the attack and managed to  slip in to slash at my leg. Sadly for the tall man on the back of the  red Ralkor I was wearing strong armor, which soaked the blow easily,  even if it hurt like crazy. I urged my Ralkor in closer and leveled a  heavy punch at his head. He dipped back and took it on the shoulder even  as Callie came up around on the other side of him and executed a  spinning taloned kick at his head with her own purple Ralkor.

The  man tried to counter the attack, leaving him open for a hard kick from  me, his Ralkor turning to dart after him as he flew off into the pack  behind us, and I winced as I saw him get stepped on, though from the  brief glance I got he didn't die or anything and his Ralkor managed to  snatch him up.

Callie pulled up even with me and shot me a  grin. The two of us had a huge advantage here even without active Skill  use, the training we'd done over the last few months giving us a  passive awareness of each other and what the other would do. Of course,  that meant Mel and Abel had an advantage too. It was easy to see the two  of them had joined up and were in the center of a crowd of Ralkors  seamlessly fighting them off.

Giving a nod to them, Callie  made a gesture that we'd worked out in training to indicate helping and  I flashed her a thumbs up. We split up and closed in on the crowd from  either side flashing a few hand signs at Abel and Mel as we came in,  pincering the group of five enemies in between us. I saw Mel's orange  Ralkor leap straight up about ten feet into the air as Abel smashed  sideways to drive one of the five out of formation at me and I kicked  low as he swung partly off his Ralkor, leg lashing out at the head of  the one between us, the racing bird unbalanced and thrown behind by the  dual attack.

Mel meanwhile came plummeting from the sky  like the stars she was named for breaking, and when two of the others  tried to move aside, Callie body slammed one into another and shoved  them both into the path of our descending mentor, Ralkor claws flashing  even before the heavy bird smashed into them and opening long slashed  across arms and back and forcing them to retreat.

The last  two Mel and Abel converged to pull the same swing move we had earlier  taking them out. I saw them consider attacking us directly, but they  eventually decided to leave that for the end of the race if we met up  and the four of us separated. The winners would get half the entry  money, but we;d use it for the Pavilion anyway, not that it would stop  Abel from competing if we ended up being that last ones left.

As  we belted forward at top speed, I saw the other riders avoid us  completely and nodded with smugness. Sadly, this wasn't a brawl, it was a  race, and we weren't winning. I didn't want to leave Callie, knowing  not only would she be more vulnerable without me, but I'd have to worry  about watching my back much more thoroughly. Taking a lesson from Mel's  huge jump I noted the faster speed of my Ralkor and shot Callie a few  hand signs that she responded to quickly before closing in.

Taking  her hand I did the same swing maneuver, but instead of a circle I  hurled her up and around, shooting her forward into the air alongside  her squawking Ralkor, sending her hurtling into the near distance as I  kicked my own bird into high gear, sprinting full out to catch up before  she landed among a large group.

I managed to beat her  there and smashed into them like a scaly wrecking ball, mostly clearing  them out so she could land delicately, the long tough legs of her Ralkor  absorbing the impact as she crashed down, only to grab her again and  throwing her a second time, before sprinting all out with my much faster  Ralkor to catch up to her, essentially leapfrogging forward a few times  as we closed with some of the lead elements of the pack.

The  furthest ahead were in a state of near constant combat even as they  ran. While getting a feel for the bond was simple and martial arts  experience helped maneuvering, the most advanced seemed to be old hands  at this kind of racing. While their actual capabilities weren't any more  impressive, their grasp on the movements that the Ralkor's excelled at  were much more refined. I took a moment to watch and study, learning  more about the bodies of the animals we were riding as I watched the  dizzying arrays of kicks and slashes from these veteran racers.

Abel,  of course, managed just fine without any of those considerations, his  spatial awareness monstrous even without using Skills. Mel was doing  surprisingly well too, probably from her perception of Abel through the  bond similar to what Callie and I shared. As we watched some of the  attacks, Callie and I refined our own techniques, noting certain kinds  of explosive movement that Ralkor's seemed built for.

For  instance, Ralkor's were front heavy, a fact they countered with  extremely solid traction, but relied on to sprint faster. A forward  flipping motion that whipped the legs up over the head and down on the  enemy was extremely suitable for their physiology. With a glance at  Callie, we decided to try a variation of that. Grabbing her hand, she  pushed her Ralkor to flip up over me, and I swung her as she traveled  along the arc of my extended arm, ramping up the speed to deliver a  brutal overhead slash to the pair of Ralkor riders in front of us.

The  two were so distracted by trying to outdo each other they missed the  attack until it was too late, both of their backs being slashed open.  With cries of pain the two split, letting themselves fall back to treat  their wounds and being overtaked by the pack within seconds and passed.

It  was notable that no one in this little race actually attacked the  Ralkors. I personally avoided it because they were just racing animals  and didn't deserve to be hurt, but I somehow doubted the people of  Doomtown were nice enough to keep that in mind. If I had to guess the  Lanes had some sort of rule about it. That actually gave us a distinct  advantage, because due to our armor the Ralkors couldn't do much harm to  us.

With those two out of the way we picked up the pace,  pushing for just that little bit of extra speed from Callie's mount. I  was able to keep pace, but she'd managed to eke out a bit more momentum  and we started to slowly close on the mad scramble of battling Ralkors  at the front. We were getting closer to catching up. The track was  pretty long, though we apparently had to do multiple laps before this  ended, but I wasn't sure how many and I didn't want to get screwed out  of winning because the race ended early.

Despite the  advancing though, we still needed to break through the line of battling  Ralkor with advanced riders. Even Abel and Mel seemed to be stuck, as  they'd run into a pack of five riders who worked with shocking  coordination to repel them. I supposed Abel wasn't invincible after all.  I was jarred from that realization by a feeling of alarm through my  bond with Callie, and barely managed to weave to the side to avoid a  vicious slash aimed at my throat.

Mordaunt laughed happily  as her Ralkor pirouetted through the air, claws flashing right by me,  actually scraping across my mask as I leaned back, though not doing any  damage. I felt more than saw Callie lunge for her in retaliation, only  to be intercepted by the hulking form of Rahm on a massive black scaled  Ralkor, interposing himself between my girlfriend and his mistress. I  cursed as I saw the two of them break past us to surge into the midst of  the pack of frontrunners, slowing down to meet up with Callie.

I  made a few hand gestures, and got a few in response, glad once again  that we'd decided to to refine our communication during all that  practice. Honestly I suspected the hand signals were much less effective  than they seemed, and at least some of the understanding we developed  of each other was just intuition that came as a precursor to developing  the Paired Dueling Skill.

Looking ahead, I glared at all  the Ralkors in front of us. I had no idea how to get past them, or if we  even could I wished I could use Skills right now, but Abel had  mentioned they had ways of detecting that. I scoured my brain for  something, ANYTHING that would let me break through the line. At this  point I didn't even care much about winning. I just wanted to beat  Mordaunt. That attack had pissed me off. Armor or not it had been way  too dangerous for a friendly race. Something was seriously wrong with  that girl, she could've put my eye out, not to mention slitting my  throat.

Finally, I had an idea. I  had no shot at winning this, there were a few racers out front of the  pack that were definitely going to get it. There was, however, a gap  between the pack of frontrunners and the very best who were leading the  charge. I shot Callie a look and a few gestures and she grinned back at  me. She drifted out in front as I slowed down, and with no hesitation I  steered my Ralkor to jump onto her shoulders. With a single powerful  leap her Ralkor hurled itself up about twenty feet, and I had my own  Ralkor jump as hard as it could using her shoulders as a playform. As I  sailed over the battling crowd to land between them and the frontrunners  I got a good laugh. Mordaunt didn't seem nearly as amused now.