Right after classes ended, the school announced a "friendly team exhibition match" to show off the newest squad combos. Translation: "Let's toss the chaos crew into a pit and pray the cameras survive."
Team fights were a weekly event, usually for ranking, bragging rights, or to blow off some steam.
This time, the match was called "Unleash Potential: Quad Battle Royale."
Arena: Sector-Delta. 4 Teams. 16 Students. One Medically Insane Revival Doctor on standby.
"FOR THIS MATCH," the announcer boomed through the speakers, "DEATH IS TEMPORARILY ALLOWED. ANY FATALITY WILL BE REVERSED BY OUR SCHOOL'S ONE AND ONLY, SLIGHTLY UNHINGED, TIME-STITCHING REVIVAL DOCTOR!"
Said doctor waved cheerfully, sipping from a blood bag smoothie.
Ashley grinned. "Ohhh, finally."
Ava side-eyed her. "You good?"
"I've been edging on murder for weeks."
Sera: "Can we please just try to look normal?"
Ashley walked to the edge of the platform, eyes already glowing.
"No promises."
---
Round Start
Four teams surged forward. Projectiles, powers, and bad decisions flying everywhere.
Ashley got first blood.
She didn't move. Just flicked her wrist, and a focused beam of fire lanced through an approaching tank-class student's chest.
He screamed. Then dropped.
Ashley let out a full-body shiver, knees wobbling slightly. "Nghhh—oh."
Ava blinked. "Did you just—?"
Ashley wiped her mouth, grinning like sin. "Don't judge me. Some people need coffee. I need carnage."
Another opponent ran at her. Ashley twisted in place, spun, and sliced his throat open with a flame arc like a ballerina made of vengeance.
He fell.
She moaned.
Cleo: "Oh my GOD, is she—?"
Sera: "Please tell me she's not—"
Ashley: "Don't worry, that one was just a mini one." She licked her fingers like icing. "I don't go full explosion unless the kill's special."
---
Ava's Turn
Two students charged her with nullifier gloves.
She didn't even dodge. She just bit her lip, whispered, "Hope you like herpes," and flung a blood-slicked dagger into the first one's neck.
The infection spread in seconds—he rotted from the inside out, flopping like a broken puppet.
The second slipped on a puddle of blood, screamed, and caught an elbow to the throat.
Ava: "I'm not as... dramatic as Ashley. But I do get a little tingly."
---
Sera's Turn
She summoned an electric dome, caught three ranged fighters inside, and casually increased the voltage until they passed out mid-scream.
Cleo clapped. "That was so controlled!"
Sera: "I aim for medium-rare."
---
Cleo's Turn
She teleported behind someone, whispered "boop," and hit him with a gravity pulse that launched him into the wall like a pancake.
Ashley let out a dreamy sigh. "That sound. That crunch. Better than sex. Way better."
"Release the Onishin"
The arena hadn't even cooled down from the last match when the sirens started blaring.
"WARNING," the loudspeaker announced. "THE NEXT TEST SUBJECT IS NOT A STUDENT. REPEAT: NOT A STUDENT."
Cleo's hands flew to her mouth. "Oh my god oh my god, are they letting out Onishin?!"
Sera blinked. "The bio-weapon?"
Ava: "I thought that was just a rumor. A rage-mutant created in a lab with seven hearts and a spinal cord that whips people?"
The doors creaked open with the ominous sound of metal scraping bone.
From the shadows stepped Onishin—twelve feet tall, veiny, frothing, and smiling like a shark wearing someone's face as a mask.
Ashley lit her hands on fire and cracked her neck. "I want him."
Sera: "Ashley, no."
Ashley: "Ashley yes."
---
Fight Start
Onishin roared, then launched toward the group with inhuman speed.
Cleo blinked and teleported behind him.
Ava dipped her fingers in her blood and etched a sigil midair. "Try not to get infected, big guy."
Sera charged up a lightning spear the size of a bus.
But Ashley?
She ran straight at him, full psycho grin blazing.
"Come here, Daddy Wrath."
He punched. She ducked and blasted his jaw off with a fire-kick that left half his head boiling.
The monster grew a new face instantly.
Ashley gasped. "Yes. Make this hard for me."
He screamed and slashed down, but she caught his claws with her bare, flaming hands—and smiled through the pain like it was foreplay.
"Oh no," Sera said from the sideline. "She's turning this into a thing again."
Ashley let out an unhinged giggle, twisted his arm backward, and then blew up his second heart with a fire pulse that made the arena shake.
Ashley: "OH—oh yes—YES."
---
The Finisher
Onishin grew two more arms.
Ashley lit up, flames coating her whole body, and fire-eyelasered straight through his ribs. His hearts popped like party balloons.
Sera: "You missed one."
Ashley: "No. I'm saving that one for the end."
She jumped inside him. Like, climbed into his chest cavity.
Silence.
Then—
BOOM.
A pillar of fire exploded from within, shooting high into the air like a volcano birthed by lust and warcrime.
Ashley walked out of the smoking ribcage, hair sizzling, chest heaving, face flushed.
"Better than a honeymoon."
---
Post-Fight
The Revival Doctor walked in, pale and exhausted. "I am not bringing that thing back. That's a crime against science."
Ashley winked. "You're welcome."
Ava gave her a look. "You realize that thing was made from like, thirty dead serial killers and a regret demon, right?"
Ashley licked a scorch mark off her arm. "Tasted like chicken."
Cleo fainted. Sera sat down and whispered, "We need holy water."
Announcer: "Team Code Red... survives. Again. Somehow."