The moment the countdown ended, both sides launched into battle. The five graduate students moved in two groups. Ashe and Isolde moved together while Scarlet, Orion, and Thalia moved together. The pair stayed back for defense while the trio moved forward to attack. Leaping out past the fortress of bone fortifications, the three sent forward a combination of attacks to stay within the rules Angelica had set.

Orion blasted forward a cone of fire, enveloping Thalia—who took the chance to mutate herself into having fire-resistance. Thalia, while in the flames, first shielded Scarlet before stabbing a hand through her torso. The resulting blood that rushed out of scarlet got carried away by the flames and began dissolving the ice and dirt armaments they came in contact with.

Thalia, now, pulled her arm back, letting her regeneration take over to regrow the hand she had lost within Scarlet.

On the other side of the pitch, the seven current students split up into three teams. Albion, Conrad, and Titus sat back. Electra and Ryker advanced together on the left while Nyssa and Celeste advanced on the right.

“Careful to not get pincered,” Orion kept an eye on the two groups pushing up the sides of the floor. “Let’s back off a bit and take care of one of the groups.”

“The younger ones then,” Thalia laughed as she planted a foot into the ground before leaping to the side towards Celeste and Nyssa. “Sorry, you two.”

Raising her arms, Celeste took to the skies as the star engine in her heart fired to life. Her hair and eyes changed colors as she sent a warning shot towards Thalia. “Nyssa, we can’t seriously attack unless we do a combination one. So, which one are you thinking of? I’ll match whatever transformation you make.”

Nyssa, transforming into a bird to follow Celeste upward, dodged another attack from Orion and Scarlet as they tried to buy some time for Ryker and Electra to move into a better position. She dove, she swooped, and she twirled in the air while trying to analyze the patterns of her opponents.

What to use... what to use?

After a second of thinking, Nyssa spread her wings and transformed. The small bird form she had been in morphed into a giant lizard. The classic kind like the ones seen in deserts. Just with a little extra-size... and also four extra heads.

Now large enough to eat horses as snacks, she reared her five heads back. Each head had been constructed from a complex array of fins as the glow of an organic reactor seeped out from the spaces between the fins. Once at the apex of her backward movement, Nyssa opened all five of her mouths and breathed out five energy beams to stave off the graduate students.

Celeste soared down from above and laid flat onto the lizard’s back. Having practiced this in the past with Nyssa, she smiled as the three graduate students paused in their tracks. Nyssa used the graduate students’ wariness to reposition herself to face the opposing bone fortress to the best of her ability.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Celeste, meanwhile, closed her eyes. With each breath she took, the thumping in her chest got louder. Her entire body began glowing. Letting her star engine heart go wild, she channeled all the energy into Nyssa.

Nyssa didn’t try to control it either. Feeling the energy run wild in her body, she spun the organic reactor in the lizard’s body as each fin, each segment, and each scale on all her heads began to separate. The glow, though, only continued to brighten.

And so Nyssa screamed.

Five balls of light enveloped the five lizard heads. From each crack shot out a separate energy beam. The attacks didn’t distinguish between friend and foe as an artillery barrage of attacks shot around the training field. Orion wove through the air letting loose a continuous stream of full-powered fire attacks to counter each laser beam near him. Thalia, like a nimble acrobat, leaned, twirled, and stepped through the laser show. Though she tried to advance, a singed pant leg urged her otherwise. Scarlet, on the other hand, braced herself on the ground and let her healing factor keep her alive as lasers sliced her up and down.

A strategy also undertaken by Ryker as he exploded parts of his body to accelerate down the field with the opening Nyssa and Celeste had created. Electra, unaffected, just ran forward. She seemed to blink in and out of existence as she flitted forward to launch a frontal assault against the fortress.

“I’m done,” Celeste panted as she flew back and upward, disengaging as she brought the star engine in her heart back under control. She soared off into the sky, advancing forward to cover for Electra and Ryker while catching her breath.

Nyssa, on the other hand, transformed back into a bird and flew off. Sweat poured out from every pore in her body. Flapping into the sky as the three graduate students began making forward progress once more, she grimaced. “How were they unaffected?”

“Because we’re just a little more skilled with dodging those types of attacks,” Orion laughed after overhearing Nyssa’s murmur. As he threw a punch, a sun-like giant appeared behind them, then mirrored his movements. Its punch missed Nyssa who had escaped back into the fortress. It, instead, hit the ground with a sizzling sound, slicing through Albion’s ice like a hot knife through butter.

Albion, half-covered—and half made of—ice by now, waved his one free hand to create an ice slide for Nyssa to land on and reach Titus and Conrad with. His other hand, now gone as half his body had disappeared into the ice throne, indistinguishable. It did, however, allow him channel his power outward into repairing the damaged castle exterior. Staring upward into the sky, the still visible half of Albion’s face made eye contact with Orion. “You’re an insect playing in a god’s domain.”

“Talk your trash! Nothing though, withstands the furnace of my heat,” Orion roared from the air as a huge smile appeared on his face. Unable to act without Thalia or Scarlet—having just done a solo warning strike—he floated in the air as Thalia soared up to join him while Scarlet skated across the ice.

“Titus!” Conrad shouted as he caught Nyssa. “Is the bow ready yet?”

“Yessir,” Titus kept his eyes closed, focusing on melding the roaring flames around him. His hands swept outward as the flames rushed inward. In the span of a second, the flames turned silvery-white as his expression tensed. Grabbing the center, he tossed the still forming bow to Conrad. “The bow of artemis!”

Conrad caught the bow while putting Nyssa down. A searing sensation erupted in his palm as Titus finished the bow’s creation. He grit his teeth and clenched down harder before reaching down to pluck an arrow from the back of Nyssa’s arrow porcupine. Crouching downward, blue circles appeared around his eye.

[Calculating trajectory]

[Trajectory correction]

Conrad’s body moved on its own before he let the arrow loose.

Seconds later, the arrow punched into Thalia’s abdomen and engulfed her in a ball of silver flames.