Chapter 70 - Frozen Fortitude
The wave was a brutal reminder never to get too confident. I was falling into the groove of the waves with the acid spiders, lightning tigers, and what have you, and I was confident in my ability.
Fighting the wave of my opposing element opened my eyes to that arrogance.
The wave of Blaze Lions pointed out a deficiency that I needed to quickly remedy.
The aftermath of the battle was still in the process of cleaning up and we had yet to get to the unfortunate part of it. Two more were to be buried tomorrow. Austin's Dad and cousin Dennis would not be waking up tomorrow.
Austin was off in the woods somewhere dealing with his grief. Conner was devastated at his Dad's death and Carrie was doing her best to keep it together. I didn't know what to do to help, so I gave them space.
Abigail and Grandma were trying their best to comfort them but I didn't expect them to get over it any time soon. Austin being my friend, I tried to help but he wanted to be left alone, so I did.
I trusted that he wouldn't do anything stupid and it was sad to see the spark of wonder he usually carried diminished slightly. He would get through it, we all would, but who would we be on the other side?
It was infuriating to watch my family dwindle and die. I wanted to rage at the world and let my fury out, but I didn't. I kept it in check and when [Barbarian's Fury] threatened to activate on its own, I took calming breaths to stop it.
Or I went and killed something brutally, but saying I took calming breaths made me feel better.
The two deaths weren't anything that we did wrong either, it was just an unfortunate matchup. My power was stifled by the heat, Rachel's was severely weakened, and Austin lost an aspect of his power as well.
Three of our strongest were weakened and that led to deaths that could have been avoidable. Rachel's powers were entirely fire-based and shooting fire at lions that were already on fire didn't do much. Believe it or not, they had innate fire resistance in their blood. She tried to manipulate it and turn it against them but she wasn't strong enough and could only do one at a time, which was slower than some of her non fire skills.
Austin's powers had the piercing power of light added with the burning power of the sun. He wasn't as weakened as me and Rachel but an aspect of his usual powerset was missing.