"You made me work for that one." I grunted as I slumped down on the couch. We hadn't talked much on the drive home. "I was worried a few times there. Your main stats are so much higher than mine. Can't believe you could see through my Moonlit Night. Even close range."

She shook her head. "Not see. Sight was gone. I was going off hearing. You almost got me with that. Some kind of Stealth element I'd guess? But you forgot that Stealth is about using Perception to erase all trace of yourself. Someone with a high enough Perception can overpower someone else's stealth. Even with nearly triple yours though, I could only pick you up when you got close."

I winced, pressing on my ribs. "Being able to read and react to every move was pretty impressive. Fighting me blind must have been tough, even with your Balam Skill. Honestly I'm shocked I even won with your advantages. I kept expecting to get pincushioned."

That got a laugh from Callie. "Honestly, you just have too many options. Especially with the new tricks, you were able to counter everything I tried. Several of those were new right? Stuff you've been working on during the tournament? I was on the back foot the whole time. I had no clue how to react."

"I guess that's the downside to us knowing each other's fighting style so well." I said with a shrug. "Changes are harder to keep up with." I massaged my side. "Though you made a damn good effort." I could have healed it up. Used a healing burst to fix things. But I didn't want to. I'd earned the bruises in that fight. Callie had earned them. Plus they were light and they would be gone by the time I woke up tomorrow, no use wasting a healing charge.

She sighed. "So, with that out of the way, I guess we can talk about the tournament now. If you want. The closer we get to the end the more likely you'll be fighting Mel or Abel. What do you think your chances are?" I could see she didn't want to talk about her loss anymore, and was trying to move on to discussing the tourney like someone who was just a bystander. She couldn't give me tips, because while she was out, I wasn't, and we still had an agreement with the others, but getting my opinion on it wasn't too much of a problem.

"Honestly." I said with a frown. "Not great. I have some more options for possible upgrades, and I might be able to take Mel if I prepare for it right, but I have no clue which one I'll face, if either. As for Abel...I'll do what I can. I'm not sure I can beat him, but at this point, even if I can't, that still means someone from our team will probably enter the finals. That's enough for me."

Not that I wasn't going to give my all to beat Abel, but I just...couldn't think of anything that would get it done. He was too strong. Too versatile. Too...Abel. If he did beat me though, I was going to make him work for it. I wouldn't be just another crushed enemy. He was going to remember our fight, even if he won the whole damn tournament.

The chances of me fighting him next round weren't high though. Statistically, running into two teammates in as many battles wasn't exactly likely. Knowing that she still needed time to process, and that being under foot wasn't helping, I took off my mask and leaned down to press a kiss to Callie's forehead. "I have to go check in with Benny about today's wishes. Especially since SOMEBODY needed half my stockpile of tranq blows to take down."

That got a smug grin from my girlfriend. "Well, you didn't think it would be easy did you?" Rolling my eyes, I headed off to find my best friend, but internally, I was happy to know she wasn't too upset. She'd put up a hell of a fight. It had taken me finally utilizing my stockpile of Skills to their utmost to have a chance at winning. If nothing else, Heavy Hands had been a hell of a weight on the scales. The passive ability was the only way I'd managed to do anything with her armor in the way.

Honestly, the way that worked out in combination with my other abilities was amazing. The augmentation from Moonlit Night boosted the force enough that even ten percent of it could have a real effect, and I hadn't even used Mercy kill during this fight. Or Afterburner. I'd be keeping those in reserve for dealing with Abel.

When I found Benny, he was sitting in the kitchen eating cereal. He gave me a mute nod as I came in, shoving another spoon full of sugar coated corn flakes into his mouth and chewing. I always thought it was funny seeing Benny eat while tired. It was so...bovine. Staring off into the distance, jaw moving in a circular motion as his teeth ground up the food, the sound of it like a metronome. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"Stop comparing me to a cow." He said without looking up, mouth full. I grinned, about to ask why he thought that, but he cut me off. "You always do it when I eat tired. I'm not in the mood this morning. So tell me how your match went or get with the wishes. Either way, shut up about my breakfast."

I scoffed. "Buzzkill. But fine. I won. It wasn't easy though. My match was against Callie." He stopped chewing, swallowing his food as he looked at me sharply.

"You ok?" He asked slowly. I smiled at the fact that he knew me well enough to ask, but...I was. I hadn't expected it myself, but Callie and I were in a good place. This hadn't hurt us. My smile must have made that obvious, because he nodded. "Good. Could have got messy."

I know he doesn't want to talk about this, because it reminds him too much of his own situation, so I change the subject. "Well, if it helps, I need another five stored tranq blows. Callie didn't go down without a fight, and I blew through half my stockpile. That's today's wishes paid up if you want to get them out of the way. It's a Focus day today, right?"

He chuckled. "They're even so either works, but sure, Focus is usually first on the rotation. I wish for four Focus, in exchange for a triple strength tranquilizer attack."

Wish detected. Grant wish?

Confirming, I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder, ignoring the list of necessary stats because I'd seen it dozens of times. A growing charge of electricity broke over me and poured into my friend, our eyes both glowing purple, though I could only actually see his.

I couldn't help think back to that first wish all those months ago, for a steak dinner in a park. This used to be so difficult for me. The effects of the power drained me every time I used them, and it felt insane doing it. Now...big wishes still hit me hard, but stuff like this didn't even wind me. A side effect of having such a high Vitality probably. Benny wished for his next four wishes, topping up my tranq blows again as he got the last of his twenty points of Focus for the day.

Two hundred and sixty three Focus, and six hundred and forty three total stat points. Not bad for someone who had hit G-rank so recently. At this rate, I'd just barely manage to get he and Jessie both to F-rank before we left. My healer friend was stockpiling cash for it as we spoke, so when I finished up with Benny I'd have a nice influx of money and I could buy a much nicer weapon before we actually left.

Once that was done, Benny slumped back with a sigh. "Man. That never stops feeling weird, you know? Not the wish itself, though...that too. But the sensation of just being...different, one moment to the next. Twenty points in a minute or two is just nuts, as I'm sure you remember. Like, yeah it's a smaller percentage now, but having my brain work that much faster and better out of nowhere is still jarring."

I nodded. "Yeah, the huge stat dump after the scavenger hunt was nuts. Glad we don't need to go through that again anytime soon. Even big events in the future won't hit us as hard without that insane ratio." I paused. "Does it ever bother you?" He looked at me quizzically. "The feeling that this eating away to who we are. I don't think it ever bothered me really, I wasn't too attached to my humanity. But I've always been a bit weird that way. Looking back I think I might have been raised with that disassociated view on purpose. But you..."

He shrugged. "Maybe? A bit. The idea of something external changing me like that was certainly weird for a while. But in the end...it's for the better right? Like I can mark notable improvements as my stats go up. Sure, I'm changing, but so is everyone else. I'm not becoming another person, just...more of myself. Recursion makes it a bit worrying, but in the end, don't we all change because of the world around us? It's a bit more literal for you and me, but it's not like not becoming an Ascendant will mean I get to freeze the person I was in time forever and never be anyone different."

"True." I said, slumping back on the couch as I mulled things over. "I guess for me, it just never mattered in the first place. My sense of self has always been a bit weird. Physical alterations, mental ones, none of it feels like it's changing me. Just making me into the person I want to become. I guess it's the same thing in the end. More of myself. That's a good way to put it."

"What about Callie?" He asked quietly. "Do you feel like your relationship with her is changing who you are? Making you different in a way the stats aren't?"

I could tell the question meant a lot to him. "Of course." I said immediately. He seemed...thrown. "I'm different because I'm with her. But like you said, everything changes us. The changes from being with her are ones I like. Is this about your recent training mindset?"

He'd been very focused, and while a lot of that was us being gone and him worrying, at least some of it had been inspired by Celine. "Yeah." He said quietly. "It is. How much of that was because of her? Do I want to undo that? Does NOT wanting to undo it mean I want her back?"

"Nope." I said. He looked up in surprise. "It doesn't. I'm not saying you don't want her back, or that you shouldn't, that's not my call. But even if she inspired the changes in you that doesn't mean that she's necessary for them to stay. We're all made up of nothing but constant changes. The people in our lives, both the ones who stay and the ones we leave behind, are the most of those changes. They don't go away, even when the people do."

His eyes cleared, the haze of doubt I hadn't even really registered lifting. "Yeah." He said pensively. "You're right. That's a good way to look at it." He shook his head. "I'm dwelling on this too much. Let's go watch something stupid on the scan box. I want to decompress."

I nodded, clapping him on the shoulder. "Of course. There's a new reality show where they make people with poor balance try to walk down a long beam with a wedding cake as a hat. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds just stupid enough to numb our brains for a while." Benny laughed as we headed for the living room. He'd given me a lot to think about, but that was for another time. For now, I just wanted to be dumb with my best friend.