“You ready?”

“Definitely. And I’m going to win this time.”

Sophie chuckles. “I’d like to see you try.”

Aunt Tamaya has finally declared me fully recovered, after four days restricted to light exercise. There’s still some lingering tightness in my shoulder, but far less than before, and the pain is all gone now. So, Sophie and I have decided to have a full sparring session.

She’s standing in front of me, spear at the ready, and a confident grin on her face. It's nice to see she’s feeling better now. Her self esteem has been slowly pulling back together after we agreed that we are in fact friends two days ago.

My sword is out, wrapped in the soft light of its barrier. As poor a match against the spear as the sword is, my gauntlets aren’t any better. I may be able to maneuver them a little better, but the reach is much worse, so they’re not the best idea until I can get inside her guard.

Sophie doesn’t know I’ve been practicing switching between weapons mid movement. It's one of those skills I don’t need to practice as much outside the Armoury, given it's mostly a mental skill, rather than a physical motion. There are still nuances to it that require real-world practice, but for the most part I’ll be fine. My timing on it could still stand to improve, but I haven’t been doing it all that long, so that’s no surprise.

We circle around each other, neither of us willing to make the first move. Normally I’d rush in as soon as I can, and that will typically be my opening move, but Sophie and I have sparred enough that she’s getting a handle on my approach, so I need to change things up.

Suddenly wind swirls around Sophie in an unseen breeze, and she blurs forward. I had a mental finger on the trigger of my own enhancement, so I manage to get it going before she moves herself.

She sweeps the end of her spear at my ankles, once again reshaped by Mom to be blunt and mostly harmless, in an attempt to disrupt my balance. I see it coming and lightly hop back, then step into the gap left behind by her sweep and strike at her shoulder. She brings the haft of her spear into place to block without pulling it around, and pushes back against my sword. The butt of her spear whips around towards my head, and I duck beneath.

In the same moment, I switch weapons, quickly bring a hasty barrier around my gauntlets, and throw a straight punch at her stomach. The switch caught her by surprise, just as it was meant to, and my gauntlet slams into her midsection, the blow softened by the barrier. Knowing that if I let her she’ll recover quickly, I kick her in the knee as I rise, knocking that leg out of position. I’m just about to come in with an uppercut, when Sophie’s flat palm meets my sternum, and a blast of wind throws me back.

I land into a roll, using the momentum to bring me to my feet. Once I get up, I see Sophie with a look of intense focus, hand still outstretched. I step forward, intent to keep up my pace, but before I can pick up any speed something impacts my side. Stumbling to keep my balance, I look around, but there is no one else except Sophie, and Mom sitting on a chair she shaped from metal in her ring, up against the house. She wouldn’t interfere, I know, she’s just here because we aren’t allowed to spar without someone to watch, just in case.

I take that in over the course of a moment, and I turn back to Sophie, eager to keep fighting. Once again I step forward, and once again I take a blow from something I can’t see, this time to the gut.

I narrow my eyes.

Sophie’s using her Wind magic to hit me from a distance, like Huntsman did Armsmaster three days ago. She doesn’t have anywhere near his level of precision, though, which is a good thing. Aunt Tamaya has been called in to settle some last minute details at Cardinal, so we won’t have anyone to heal those kinds of injuries for a while. Healing potions and salves exist, as well as enchanted items to speed up natural healing, but they aren’t exactly cheap. Best we avoid needing them, if possible.

Regardless, I focus my senses as best I can. Sensing mana is never easy, unless one has an Aspect for it, so I get only hazy feelings at best. Armsmaster says I can refine that sense, much like my mana control, but it's a long and difficult process, which is why we haven’t done much with it yet.

I feel a shift of mana to my right, and step around it. A harsh breeze whips my clothes and hair, but that's all I get from it.

I rush in, eager to close the distance between us before she can get too many hits in. She gets off two more strikes, both I manage to evade, though the second was too close for my liking. As I approach, I switch to my sword and spend a moment to wrap its barrier around it. Just before I reach her, Sophie launches one more blast of condensed wind at my face. I dodge by sliding on my knees underneath, and she responds with a spear thrust to the neck. I lean to the side a little, just enough to let it pass me by, and use my sword to knock it off line.

I rise from my kneeling slide, sword swinging. She steps back, I follow in and keep attacking. More and more, I keep her on the defensive. Twice she tries to push me away with her magic, but both times I see it coming and either step aside as she releases the magic or push her hand out of the way.

It’s not enough. With every strike, every block, every move either one of us makes, Slayer gives her that little bit more insight into my movements. More and more, she becomes more able to read my next action, preparing a counter fast enough to keep up with me, building the breathing room she needs to retaliate.

But I’ve learned from our previous two spars. Each time, Sophie let Slayer build her insight as far as it would go before going on the offensive, and each time, there was a noticeable difference in how she held herself. A total and complete confidence in the knowledge of what I would do next.

There’s a reason why I’ve yet to switch to my gauntlets throughout this assault, despite multiple opportunities. I wanted to test a theory.

I wait until the very last moment, for the instant her posture shifts from focused intensity to total certainty.

Then I let my sword swing into a poor position, where I’d have a moment’s difficulty bringing it into my next attack. I let Sophie think she’s free to turn the tables.

Then I switch to my gauntlets.

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Instantly, the unwavering surety is shattered. Sophie stumbles in shock from the lost insight Slayer had built up.

I take the time I’m given to wrap my gauntlets in their barrier as quickly as I can, and before Sophie can fully recover from the backlash I kick her in the same knee I struck earlier. She stumbles more in an attempt to regain control, but I grab her spear and kick her in the sternum with the other foot. Her spear is torn from her grasp, and my kick launches her back a few feet.

She has enough wherewithal to regain her footing, and stares at me.

Sophie growls.

“Fine, then,” she says.

The breeze floating around her picks up, and she surges forward, Wind Affinity enhancement lending her significant levels of speed.

I consider using her spear against her, but considering Sophie knows the weapon far better than I, it would only put her at an advantage. I toss the spear behind me in an attempt to keep her weapon away from her and get ready to meet her charge.

Sophie stretches out a hand and there's a rush of wind behind me, and I realise that was a terrible mistake. On instinct I roll to the right, and I’m proven right by the spear soaring past me, carried by Sophie’s magic. Just as I’m coming out of the roll, Sophie catches her spear, and uses the momentum to bring it around in a wide sweep at my feet.

Out of my peripheral vision I can see that my roll put my back against the fence. Any closer and I’d be stepping into Aunt Tamaya’s flowers, and I don’t think she’d take damaging them too kindly. To the side won’t work, Sophie could easily adjust the sweep to accommodate.

Up is my only option left.

I need to get high enough that Sophie simply can’t lift the swing to catch my legs.

I put every ounce of my enhanced strength into leaping upwards as hard as I can. As I do, I feel a strange ripple in the mana flowing through my enhancement. There’s a shift in the flow, and the next thing I know I’m at least ten feet up into the air. I feel strangely weightless for a moment, suspended in the air by something. Then the ripple in my enhancement settles, and the weightlessness vanishes. I immediately drop from the air.

I get only a moment to look down to see that Sophie, having put her all into that last swing, has stumbled from the follow through and is now off balance underneath me.

Then, impact.

The shock of the landing, both the unexpectedness of it and the fact I land on Sophie, causes me to lose my grip on my mana. Both of us end up in a tangled heap on the ground, groaning somewhat in pain.

We lay there entangled for nearly a full minute, before Sophie says, “You know, if you just wanted to call it a draw, there were other ways. Ow.”

I start to untangle myself from Sophie, while at the same time I say, “Ha ha. If you must know, that was an accident. I have no idea what happened there.”

At which point, Mom walks over. “You girls alright?”

Once Sophie and I are separated and standing again, I say, “Yeah, Mom. Just a bit sore.”

“What exactly just happened?” Sophie says, “One moment, I’m about to finish you, the next you land on top of me out of nowhere? What?”

“I’m not sure. I tried to jump over your spear, but something shifted in my enhancement, and suddenly I’m ten feet up. Stellar Affinity increases strength a little, but not enough to do that.”

Mom turns thoughtful. “It might be a secondary effect of your enhancement. Some Affinities have that. The four base Elemental Affinities, for example, allow an extra sense, different for each. Earth would let you sense vibrations from a fair distance through the ground, Air does the same at a lesser range through the air. Water and Fire tend to vary, but for most people with them it expresses as sensing extremes of temperature from a distance. I do wonder what your Stellar Affinity might be doing to achieve something like this, however. I’ve not heard of Stellar enhancement having a secondary.”

If it’s not something Mom’s heard of before, then it’s likely related to how my version of Stellar magic differs from everyone else’s here. So what is it that I know about stars that would allow me to jump ten feet up, when I’d normally struggle reaching five even when enhanced?

Gravity.

That weightlessness I felt is the biggest clue. Maybe my enhancement let’s me control how gravity affects me?

“Let me try something,” I say.

Possibly understanding my intentions, Mom steps back and motions for Sophie to do the same. She also uses her magic to pull her chair over, and shapes it into a cluster of metal spheres around the size of a tennis ball each. A precaution maybe, in case she needs to catch me?

Regardless, I take a deep breath and pull on my mana. I have about a third left, after the fight and switching out my weapons. It should be enough.

I pull the threads of starlight through my body, in a process that is quickly becoming second nature. Once I have it stabilized, study the flow for a minute before attempting to replicate that shift I felt earlier.

Instantly I can feel I did it wrong, as instead of lessening gravity’s hold on me, it’s reversed.

“Oh shiii-” I cry out as I begin to fall upwards.

Mom’s precaution proved both insightful and well executed, as I’m not falling for a few moments before the spheres she’s holding with her magic fly towards me and latch on at numerous points on my body, notably the wrists, ankles, shoulders, and waist. My fall is arrested immediately, and while not exactly comfortable, Mom’s control is evident in how the impacts don’t hurt despite them being, well, metal.

Eventually I calm down enough from the shock of falling upwards, and end the enhancement. My hair, being pulled in the same direction I was falling, falls in front of my face. Mom takes that, along with the more visible effects of my enhancement fading, as a sign it’s safe to set me down on the ground.

My knees are shaky when she lets me go, and I let them collapse beneath me. I keep my eyes shut and focus on my breathing as I come to terms with the fact that I just fell towards the sky.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and Mom says, “Just breathe, Valerie. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“What was that?” Sophie asks, “Did she just fall up?”

Once my breathing has steadied enough I feel comfortable speaking, I say, “My enhancement’s secondary lets me change how gravity affects me. I tried to lessen its hold, but accidentally reversed it. So, yeah. I fell up.”

“That’s fucking terrifying.”

I chuckle a bit hysterically. “No kidding.”

I try to get back on my feet and open my eyes. My footing is still a bit unsteady, and I can’t bring myself to look up yet, but I manage it.

“I don’t think I’ll be all that okay outside for a bit. Though, Armsmaster is probably salivating at the opportunities this opens for me, so I think she’s already planning how to work it into my training. That’ll be fun.”

“Will you need to go back inside? You should be finished for today anyways,” Mom says.

I shake my head. “I can’t let this control me. I’ll be fine.”

“At the risk of sounding callous,” Sophie says, “I’m a little jealous. Your Aspect gives you multiple Relics, your own training space when you sleep, and now you can do this? Meanwhile, I get to throw a little wind at people and sometimes fight them better. And even that hardly works much lately.”

Mom cocks an eyebrow at her. “Is that all you think it does? ‘Sometimes fight them better’? Hmm. Come with me.”

Sophie pales slightly. Her hero-worship of Mom has lessened slightly with the time spent around her, but she hasn’t forgotten who Mom is.

Mom walks into the middle of the yard, and looks at Sophie expectantly. The spheres are floating by her side, still suspended by her magic. I suspect she would be using her cloak, if it wasn’t still being processed by the Armoury.

“Uh. Mom? Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask. I can make a fairly solid guess at what’s about to happen, and I think Sophie can as well.

“It’ll be fine. The absolute worst she’ll get is a broken bone or two, and I know how to treat those at least. I’ve had the practice.”

Sophie hesitantly walks over across from Mom, about the same distance between them as Sophie and I keep in our spars.

Realising that I won’t be able to convince Mom otherwise, I walk over to the veranda at the back of the house. The moment I’m under the roofing over it, I instantly relax. At the same time I swear to myself that I won’t let the anxiety I’ve developed for being under open sky control me for long. I will get over this.

Mom stares at Sophie and says, “You don’t need to worry about attacking, just defend yourself through any means available. But this time, pour your mana into your Aspect.”

“What? But I could hurt-”

Mom’s voice goes hard. “I have faced those with Slayer before, Sophie. Each of them more experienced with it than you, and one was actively doing his best to kill me. I will be fine.”

Sophie gulps and nods. She takes a steadying breath, and her enhancement kicks in. At the same time, a change comes over her I hadn’t seen before. Her eyes seem to take Mom in in her entirety, and whatever they see there seems to reassure her she has no chance of harming Mom. Weirdly enough, that calms her down a little.

“We will start slow," Mom says, and one of the spheres rockets towards Sophie at a blistering speed.