By the time we got back to the house, I had a pretty decent idea of  where my girlfriend's head was at. Even Jessie, who normally tried to  lighten the mood with her happy chatter, was uncharacteristically silent  during our drive home. Once we got inside the three of us split up,  with Jessie bounding off to say hello to the wolves and Callie and I  retreating to my room to sit and talk. I escorted her inside, closed the  door, and waited until she seemed to have gotten her head on straight  enough to speak to me about whatever she was thinking.

Finally,  she looked up at me. "So. That was a lot." She kept her tone light, but  her eyes were lost and worried. Despite that I didn't say anything even  when she stopped talking. She was thinking this through out loud and  needed time to sort it out. After a brief silence she kept going. "I  learned a whole bunch of things I didn't know today, and I'm not sure  which of them is the most shocking, or the most relevant. I'm guessing  you know perfectly well why I turned down Alexander's offer of  tutoring?"

She looked almost worried about how I would  react, but I just rolled my eyes. "Yes, I know you're planning to with  for that Skill now that you know it exists. We've been over this Cal, I  don't mind granting you wishes, I don't feel like you're taking  advantage of me." I gave her a gentle smile, having already removed my  mask when we came in. "Besides, I also know the reason you gave him  wasn't a lie. You know as well as I do that your victory over your dad  is personal business. You don't want to get sucked into some nonsense  family power struggle."

The chuckle she let out at that  was thick with stress and impending tears, but she held them back. "You  have a point. I still can't believe my dad has an evil twin. Well, IS an  evil twin. Whatever. Wow, I kind of get why Alexander kept that a  secret, it's kind of an easy place to go mentally. Still, that's not the  biggest shock of the night. That would be the Shadow Manipulation  Mastery Skill. I can't believe I didn't consider that before. I mean,  it's so damn obvious in retrospect, but I can't believe I haven't hit  Minor."

I just shrugged. "What the hell even is Minor  Mastery of Shadow Manipulation? Making those puppets on the wall with  your hands? Minor Skills are supposed to be normal mortal grade stuff.  Whatever, we know that it exists, but I can understand the shock  certainly. This is a good thing. I mean, it's not going to turn you into  an absolute peak master of combat, but thinking about it, your ability  to make things has always been kind of...simple. Blades, waves, boxes.  Just shapes mostly. I saw you do a key once, but it was small and not  too intricate."

She opened her mouth to retort, but then  paused. "Well damn. That's a really good point. I only ever trained by  trying to increase responsiveness and things like thickness and  sharpness. I wonder what kinds of things I'll get from a Skill like  that. Of course, I'll still be working it into proper combat training.  I'm going to milk those training facilities at the pavilion for all  they're worth. I know you feel the same. But still, I feel like that one  supplementary Skill opens a huge door for us all."

The  bitter snort that leaked out of me came too fast to catch. I tried to  play it off but Callie looked at me with concern and given how upset she  already was, I relented with a sigh. "It'll benefit YOU. My power is  pure support. It's a great way to help you all grow but it's  functionally useless to me except for stockpiling stats. My most  promising Skill is my DS Mastery, and that's a ways off from taking a  jump in effectiveness. Supplementary Skills are useful to you all  because you can wish for them, but I can't. I can only trade them other  people, and they won't have any of the ones I need. I can't use any of  the flashy impressive attacks you all have."

Callie froze,  appearing thunderstruck. "But...why?" I blinked at her, not sure what  that meant. She looked like she was starting to get excited. "Why can't  you use our attacks? We've paid with memories, with tasks, with Skills  even, why not attacks? What if you could charge us attacks for wishes,  and then seal them up in a bottle or something. Then you could stockpile  an arsenal and then unleash them in combat. That's your big problem  right? You need more force. But you don't need to stick to just the stat  gain method for acquiring it. I mean, you can still get stats from us  and help us change our builds, but this would make you WAY more  effective in combat."

I just gaped at her. She was right.  She was so fucking right I felt like an idiot for missing it. The image  of mixing Callie's shadow waves or blades, or a life force boost from  Jessie, or one of those flame blasts from Cark, into my attack patterns  was amazing. I'd already seen I could mix my DS attacks with other  people's moves too. I could use that aqua acid flame on my own without  any need for Cark to be there.

It wasn't exactly the most  glamorous attack style, but with enough attacks like that I could just  straight up drown the other person in overwhelming force. It was an  attack style only I could use, and it would maximize my advantages while  also being incredibly flashy and impressive. No one would be able to  guess my ability from it either, because I'd be dropping a ton of  powerful attacks from all different kinds of abilities. It would  completely obscure my Wish ability.

Before she could even  process what was happening I'd swept her up in my arms, getting a  surprised squeak in response as I spun her around before kissing her  soundly. When I pulled away we were both laughing and when I finally set  her down she smiled up at me happily. I flushed as I realized how  sudden that had been. "I've been really worried about that. I feel like  I'm getting further and further behind in terms of damage potential. But  now that I have this option there's hope for me to keep up."

She  went up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. "I'm glad I could help. But  we still need to see if it actually works. We need to figure out if you  can actually store them anywhere. So, in the spirit of that, I wish for  the Beginner Shadow Manipulation Mastery Skill. I'm willing to pay with  a full power attack." I hopped up and sprinted over to grab a bottle  and a piece of paper, figuring I'd give my power options for storing the  attack in case one of them didn't work out.

Sure enough, the familiar purple flames rolled over my vision.

I confirmed without a thought. Stat points sufficient.

I  was pretty sure that the reason I kept hitting the ceiling for all my  stats on Beginner Skills was that I didn't have enough to create a top  tier version, just a solid one. It was just making the best Skill  possible, with Impact making up any differences as it did. I was still  able to grant the wish, but if she'd wished for a peak Beginner level  Skill right on the edge of Intermediate I didn't think it would have  worked.

But she didn't so I reached out my hand, taking  hers firmly as I accepted the wish and let the already rising  electricity roll out of me and into her. We'd been sitting on the bed  after I put her down, which was lucky, because it meant she didn't have  to fall over as she writhed on the mattress. I winced in sympathy as she  grit her teeth through the screaming. Beginner Skills appeared to be  pretty unpleasant to recieve, and I was almost glad I hadn't met anyone  willing to trade one yet.

As the Skill was burned into  her, there was a rush of darkness. A funnel of shadowy power was sucked  out of her, condensing into a tight vortex as it dove down at my other  hand, where I held the bottle, and...bypassed the damn thing altogether  as it seared itself into my wrist. I hissed in pain myself but didn't  move, letting everything play out before she finally went still with  exhaustion. With Callie ok and recovering, I let go of her hand, pushing  up my sleeve to reveal a small tattoo on my wrist of her sigil.

Huh.  That actually made some sense. No normal paper or bottle would be able  to hold a full power G ranked attack. But my body could. I WAS a G  ranker. I didn't think I'd be able to handle an infinite number of these  of course, the body can only take too much, but I was pretty sure more  than one wouldn't be a problem. The burning in my wrist settled down,  leaving behind just smooth skin marked with Callie's symbol. I could  feel the thing on me, ready to be unleashed, though I couldn't alter or  mess with it like a normal Skill.

It  seemed like Callie had a mental image of what kind of attack I would be  using when she agreed to pay it. This one was a wave of dark blades. I  should be able to aim them well enough, but changing size or shape or  any of that wasn't on the table. Callie, meanwhile, seemed to be  processing her new Skill, and I scooted over on the bed to pull her head  into my lap, rubbing her temples to help her deal with the pain as she  digested the new information.

Finally,  after about twenty minutes, she opened her eyes. She hadn't been  sleeping, just in so much pain that she needed all her focus on  processing, but I sighed with relief when her eyes opened. I smiled down  at her. "Well, that seemed like fun. We should make this a regular  thing. Maybe have Beginner Skill granting date nights once a week." I  gave her a crooked smile, trying not to show how worried I was, but she  saw through me. She lifted a hand to stroke my cheek before sitting up  gingerly.

I  helped her up, making sure to take special care so she didn't fall or  hurt herself. She gave me an exhausted grin. "Tell you what, we can  trade off turns. On odd numbered weeks I can get a new Skill, and on  even numbered weeks you can lay your head on a rock platform and let me  smash it with a sledgehammer." Her grin became sugary and sarcastic.  "After all, I want to make sure that we both get the same amount of  enjoyment out of our dates."

I  stuck my tongue out at her and she giggled, pulling me in for another  kiss. Then we both laid down, Callie too exhausted to head back to her  room, and cuddled against each other. We could deal with the new Skill  and the implications of the other uses for my ability later. For now I  was tired, and so was she, and we just held each other as we drifted off  to sleep. It had been a long day, and lots of things had happened. But  regardless of the drama or the pain, or even the new use for my ability,  this part of it, just spending time together and relaxing, was still a  memory I was going to treasure.