The hivemind is conquering for me?

Unlike the bombardment I endured all last night, where it was all about endurance, with this little spar, I had to be quick, precise and ultimately, willing to receive a hefty amount of damage to pull out the win.

As... fiery as Tamara was, the fact that Valerica herself told me the woman was dangerous up close so I could not afford to be lax. I began to channel my Psionic energy into me, fueling myself with Pyrokinetic energy. I felt a surge of adrenaline hit me instantly, the fire was difficult to tame for most, but I channeled the torrent of energy into myself instead of spreading it outwards.

Tamara narrowed her eyes at me, clearly expecting Psionics, I had made a showy example last time in front of the group, so she knew what I was capable of, but judging from her posture, she was expecting an attack, or something like what I did in our last spar and I was counting on her to think exactly that for my gambit to pay off.

Valerica noticed the two were ready and nodded at their respective battle spirits. One was like a torrent of chaos unbridled, just waiting to be unleashed, while the other was a raging fire held back by pure willpower.

Without putting on pretence, she declared.

”Begin.”

As Tamara charged towards me, I did the opposite of what I should do during a fight and turned away from the woman. What I was about to do was very dangerous and I felt slightly bad for the onlookers, but there were Psionic healers around somewhere, they would be fine.

Using every last bit of Psionics in my body, I expelled it outwards, not in an attack, but in a sheer build up and.

White.

Even with my eyes closed and my back turned the brightness of the white star I created that was the size of a donut flashed in and out of existence, It lit up a good portion of the moon we were on and turning away did not help.

I didn’t create its heat, but instead used my Psionics to give the star the full brightness of a true sized blue white star for a fraction of a second. Due to the sheer magnitude I had to create in such a short amount of time by converting heat into light, It left me exhausted instantly.

However, my over the top flashbang worked, a bit too well considering I was also blind, as I felt Tamara crash into me with the force of a thousand elephants. She made contact, but her equilibrium was lost. Using that moment and the fact that pain was just an old friend at this point and I have long known what it’s like to have bones turned to dust, I grabbed Tamara around the waist hastily and performed a suplex backwards, making sure my back stayed arched so it did not touch the floor.

As I got up to my feet, I took in a few deep inhales, devouring the Psionics in the surroundings before I heard a yell, and not one of the yells of pain from the present company. ”Who the fuck dropped a sun onto the planet? Are you insane I should have you- Oh Apollo, what a surprise! Are you ok?”

Turning to the familiar voice that probably just emerged from one of her wormholes to investigate the bright light, I smiled politely and said. ”Oh, hi Hecate. Sorry, we were sparring and I let off a new idea. I over did it.”

Hecate, being the only ones with working eyes in the area, looked around at those nearby. She thought someone created a sun, but no scorch marks left her interested. ”What was this technique Apollo, also one second...” She then created a wormhole to her left, reached her hand out and pulled someone through.

A woman in pyjamas then looked around baffled and before she could ask, Hecate declared. ”Mass blindness, handle it.” She then turned away from the woman giving nothing more.

Feeling the silence, I assumed it was now my turn to talk. ”Well, I did use the blueprint of a star condensed it down to a very small scale and used the reality bending nature of Psionics to make it so that the star had no other properties within it except its light. No heat, UV radiation or any of that stuff Just pure light converted from heat.”

”Hmmm. Hold still.” Hecate declared and before I could even ask what she wanted to do she sucked me dry, forcing me to collapse backwards as I was well and truly spent.

Hecate then began to ’observe’ the pyrokinesis in her possession and hummed. ’Interesting theorem.’ Then with the skill of a kindled pyrokinetic, she manipulated the energy into a small star however this time she was able to control the light at will and kept it dim. It only lasted a moment, but she nodded at what she found.

’Very malleable Psionic energy. It’s like the Psionic energy exists for his whim, not just for him to channel and use. That is some seriously advanced Psionic property for someone who only awakened the talent earlier this year. Most remarkable. This requires further inquiry.’ and Hecate smiled at this prospect. She had the perfect excuse to study further.

”Apollo, while I am truly impressed by what you just did. It seems you were in a spar and knowingly put the spar referee and innocent bystanders at risk and caused grievous bodily harm. That is a week’s detention.”

”NOT A CHANCE HECATE!” Valerica said sitting upright, perfectly fine. After seeing and then instantly unseeing Apollo’s beautiful display of Psionics, she then channelled her family technique to heal herself quickly.

”I am not harmed so you cannot punish my boy for injuring me!” She followed up, prompting Hecate to roll her eyes. ”For goodness sake Valerica, he blinded people. I’m playing the cards as best as I can here.”

”Those four over there were not even supposed to be here; they knew the risks of watching. This is elite training after all.” Valerica rebutted, prompting Hecate to scoff.

”Valerica you are being ridiculous. You can’t just expect me to look the other way on this.”

”You can and you will...”

Tension began to rise between the two individuals, as Valerica’s hands turned into fists. Hecate saw this and was preparing a wormhole to the top of the atmosphere when she heard.

”It’s alright you two. Detention is fair. I’m a big boy, I can understand that I injured others, I don’t need you protecting me on this Valerica.” I said, after the mystery woman healed my eyes. But now she was looking at me weird as she went to help Tammy.

Valerica’s battle spirit vanished in a moment as she looked at me baffled. ”Apollo. I’m not just protecting you because you are mine, you are innocent on principle. You were up against a target at close range you will lose to in a no holds barred spar without combat Psionics. You did what you needed to do. It was a fight. You are not responsible for your actions during said spar. I mean you didn’t even kill anyone, when I was here in my youth I killed at least-”

”-Valerica.” Hecate said sternly at her bringing up old history. She then continued now the tension was gone and a reasonable person spoke up. ”Look, if we do nothing, rumours are going to circulate about Apollo and his ’favouritism.’ The College prides itself on being truly neutral to all so we can’t have that. Sure we both care deeply for Apollo here, but that also means he needs to be punished if he has done wrong.”

Valerica frowned, steadfast. ”Not a week. For the principle. Three days.” She then folded her arms, waiting for Hecate.

”Five days.”

”Four.”

”Done.”

Valerica then nodded and looked towards me, declaring. ”But I will be overseeing the detention. To make sure you don’t exploit him with your rat claws.”

”Stop calling my hands rat claws, they look younger than yours and I am the elder here. Show some respect, Valerica.”

Valerica then raised her hands up. ”Whatever you say Rat queen.”

”Stop calling me a rat!”

”Make me ratty!”

...

I decided to walk away from the raging grandma’s towards the aforementioned bystanders. During the quick match, I didn’t care about external damage, but I also didn’t expect the flash to be that bright. I had borrowed some knowledge on how stars worked from my link to Sol and considering the only stars I have had true close proximity to are the brown stars in the home system, I overcompensated.

’In the future, I can probably use 1% of the energy I used as an efficient flashbang. At least I know now...’

As I arrived in front of the Harem I announced myself. ”Um, hey guys, It’s Apollo. I want to apologize for blinding you. There is a healer coming over.”

Sigfried sat up hearing my voice and looked directly at me, though he clearly could not see me. ”Apollo? Oh, don’t worry about it. Truly. To be honest it’s not the first time our group has been blinded by Psionics. But that’s a whole other fiasco. I think it’s why Franny suggested you try, because we would be fine with being blinded. Also, Franny can heal us as well, but she’s working on herself right now.”

Francesca then with her hands covering her eyes as I felt Psionic energy weaving through her hands smiled and nodded her head. ”Exactly! Though I didn’t expect you to permanently blind us, the last time was only temporary blindness, so bravo. I’m glad you listened to my advice, even if it was overkill to the point everyone was affected.”

The two green haired women simply nodded their heads in agreement and I then felt relieved that there were no hard feelings before responding to Francesca.

”Well, my friend gave me advice, I would have been a fool not to take it... Even if I did go overboard with said advice haha!”