Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

subjected to significant pain. Jay wasn’t naive enough to believe that the Forlorn and A’snkarnt wouldn’t have something to hurt him. He just needed to be able to withstand pain and still function.

      It gave him another reason to practice his Iron Will or rather the skill it was absorbed into and his Precognition. The trick came in attuning what he affectionately called his spidey sense. He didn’t need to know every time he was about to get blasted. That was just plain irritating, and he got a few stares from the girls as he shouted out, “Oh really, you think I’m about to get shot. Thanks for the warning,” into the air.

What he really needed was to know if any attack were going to hit him that could cause him debilitating injury or especially anything that might one shot him. Once he set those mental conditions into place and trained the skill to respond accordingly, the number of precog warnings he got went to almost none. A few of the combo attacks still hit hard but then again, the purpose of this was for him to build up these skills while letting the girls blow off some steam.

      So, like a good trooper he took flames, acid, ice, electricity, shadow, sonic, concussive, compressed air, light, lasers, water, and pure telekinetic blasts to the face. When he wasn’t being used for target practice, he was being pounded on by girls with transformation powers that turned them into everything from enlarged versions of themselves to half monster hybrids or that presented with cold iron bodies or glittery diamond skin.

      He took it all in turn. Punches, kicks, being slammed with what looked like an I-beam and turned into a baseball, to claws and bites. It got worse when the girls with energy powers combo’d with the more physical girls. They were able to create energy auras or add elemental effects to their physical attack. Through all that he stood strong.

      Then he was suddenly hit with a warning of impending danger, but it was so vague he didn’t know which direction it was coming from. An instant later it made sense though as he felt like his head was going to explode from the insight. When external attacks weren’t working, they had finally shifted to trying a more internal approach. He knew he was still wreathed in flames from an attack but that wasn’t bothering him; it was the assault on his mind that was most dangerous.

      Jay knew it was more than one of the girls because he could feel different types of attacks. At first the girl dancing through his mind no matter how much his eyes were open didn’t seem to be a threat, but then he realized that her ability to induce daydreams in him was serious as a way to break his concentration. At the same time, he felt pain rocketing through his body. That had to be Emma.

      The knife-like pain that felt like it was trying to cut his personality to shreds must be Oma. There were other attacks that he had trouble recognizing so they must have been from other people. One of the girls seemed to be trying to siphon his PSI energy away. He would have laughed but his jaw was clamped shut trying not to scream in agony. The size of his PSI pool would crush any of them here, especially a non-fused.

      He felt his mind starting to crack under the strain. Equally dangerous he was having trouble maintaining maxed durability and regeneration. He needed to do something, or he was going to have to admit they could take him down. For a moment he thought that might not be so bad. It was sixty to one, but then new Jay took center stage again. If he was going to defend his women then he had to be the strongest, and dammit they were his women.

      Jay leaned into the new threshold ability Multi-Mental Focus. So far, he had been using it instinctively in little ways to help him multi-task. Now he had to be more intentional about it. Of course, that was hard to do as his skin was burning with flame and acid, his bones were cracked, and his muscles were convulsing from the electrical current running through him. That was to say nothing of the psychic assault.

      He heard the voices of his wives in his mind asking if they should call off the attack. There was nothing but concern in them but still he pushed. He didn’t answer as all his attention, every bit of mental energy he could muster was put into trying to partition his mind.

      Then it clicked into place. One part of him was controlling his body while another was engaged in a psychic battle. He sent out a surge of his Imposing Will tracking back along each of the mental assaults. A moment later he felt the pressure start to ease as one after another the girls were knocked out.

      Even as he felt the mental pain lesson the physical attacks were stepped up. He was almost oblivious to the world around him, but he felt a punch to the side of his face that knocked teeth loose. It was like a sledgehammer had slammed into the side of his face. Not the current him. Evolved Jay would have laughed at a sledgehammer. This was like he had been struck as his old normal human self.

      The blow sent him flying into the PSI wall behind him which promptly shattered due to his loss of focus. He surged PSI to his regeneration trying to get back in fighting shape before whoever this was hit him again. But he was too slow. She was on him in a flash. It didn’t make sense. None of the girls should have been this powerful. It had to be more