Snippet #2336574

Ellis inwardly winced as Gray swung her to block the arrow, for all she knew it was explosive. If that was the case, she could try to interfere with the wavelength of the arrow with her own or try to transform into something defensive before it went off. In either case both her and Gray would still take some damage if the thing detonated. Since this was a student's attack, she decided to interrupt the arrow with her own wavelength instead of guarding...waiting to the last minute and then picking isn't an option. When the arrow touched her side, she sensed the quality of the arrow: it was rigged to blow on contact, but the level of construction-while good for a student, was far from what she anticipated in combat. This was also where things got tricky, because while all this was going on she effectively had to split her soul into three partitions. One would keep working with Gray, and the other two would be dedicated to countering the two wavelengths in the arrow. It was because of this that resonating with multiple people was very difficult...very few people had that level of control over their soul wavelength. The arrow was successfully blocked, and due to the inherent instability of its creation it fizzled out instead of detonating in the air.

While Gray lectured the students, the after effects of a four way resonance hit her. While her wavelength had matched his perfectly earlier, it had dropped down to 77% from the strain. If the students had been more in synch, she would have dropped even more, under ideal conditions she could manage a max of a seven way resonance and her average best was five. Though in each case the after effects greatly depleted her energy, the seven way had left her unconscious for nearly two weeks. Granted her colleague should be at a level where he could account for that 23% difference on his own...especially when normal wavelengths differences were much larger.

"If I may offer my own opinion," she began but by then Gray had re-engaged the previous pair of students. "The young man's strategy was good in a fight seeking victory. In situations like a Kishin appears or a rare super strong threat where one Meister isn't enough, teams will be formed. The detonating arrow just now would have been a great distraction for the other two." The sound of her voice was undergoing a miniature version of the Doppler effect since she was being swung around during this time.
"Since this is technically one of those fights, his action was correct. But since this is meant to measure individual partners instead of Meister teams, his action was out of place. Besides, as far as students go...that arrow was pretty good."