Round 1: Kayla Croft vs Rosie Portgas

Holy crap it was hot. She waved her hand in front of her face, trying to cool herself off somewhat. Glancing up at her opponent, she stared them down. She wondered what their ability was, and if she had any chance of defeating them. If they didn't have any way of stopping her, she could just rip them apart. But, she wouldn't do that. She wanted to at least play a little with her prey. After just arriving at the school, she immediately signed up for the tournament. She hadn't trained at all, as she had no time. Hopefully this girl didn't have some poison ability or something. Bracing herself, she stared at her target, waiting for the go.

Heat rose in shimmering waves, blurring her opponent on the other side of the arena as if she was looking at her through a veil of tears. Kayla stretched, smirking. When the tournament was announced, it had come as a pleasant surprise. She had been beginning to think that Beata was all just math classes with a supernatural twist, so it was nice to finally be able to exercise your powers without any... impediments. It was all pretty fucked up, if you thought about it. Oh, sure, it was all just a mirage, but the heat, the sand, the ground, the suffocating, arid air, it all felt real enough. And it'd feel especially real when Kayla put one billion volts of electricity through this girl's heart. Somehow she didn't think it was very ethical to let children murder each other in a hyper-vivid simulation for the sake of "monitoring progress," but she knew that Beata and the Headmaster didn't give a rat's ass about that. Kayla wasn't complaining. She wasn't planning on losing.

Blue currents rippled down Kayla's arm as she wiped the sweat from her brow and adjusted the brim of her cap. There wasn't any sun that she could see. It was just... light, intense, burning light, beaming down from the sky. Was that some kind of mistake the mirage master made? Or was that just how things were here?

The whole trip to the Island had been a shake-up. Not much, not even all of Beata Academy's peculiarities, could phase her, but she hadn't expected the portal, or to walk out to all this on the other side. The other groups of students had gotten different environments; marshes, forests, open plains, whatever. They'd brought her here. Dead trees, gnarled, petrified, and twisted. Dead shrubs, blackened and withered in the heat. Rocks. Sand. Lots of sand. It stretched on in every direction for what seemed like forever, all boringly flat. Flat's good, Kayla thought to herself, snapping her fingers. Sparks shot out and popped in the air. Dead is good. Trees and buildings would have just gotten in the way. Here, she had clear sight, and a clear aim.

Kayla held out her arm. There was a good fifty yards between them. Her smirked widened, turning feral. "Do you know how many volts are in a lightning bolt?" she called over.

Kayla didn't give her a chance to respond.

There was a flash, a crackling sound, and before anyone could blink, dazzling blue electric currents were running down her arm. With a lazy whisk of her hand, she sent them streaking through the air with a feral smile. "Let's make this quick, eh?"

Oh shit. Whipping her body around and spraying sand all over the area around her, she transformed and bolted into the air and backwards. This was someone with lightning, how could she get close? This place was open, and open was good for her. If she continued being quick, maybe she could dodge all her attacks? Landing on her four paws, she stood on her back ones and raised her wings. This sand could probably block her vision? Flapping her huge feathered wings, the sand raised and spread, then whipping towards the other girl in a massive cloud. Lets see how she reacts, just stay quick and don't give away where you are.

The girl's shape shifted into something else entirely, dodged sideways, took to the air on huge outspread wings, and then came down again in a storm of dust and sand. Kayla threw up her arm against the sudden duststorm to shield her face, gritting her teeth. What the hell was that? She lowered her arm and narrowed her eyes against the stinging, blinding wind, sparks zapping in her palms and around her fingertips. "Tsh. There's no point to hiding." Kayla whipped her finger out in a slash. A bolt of lightning arced out like a whip into the cloud of dust, blindly reaching, searching for the beast within. She did it again, with her other finger, and again, and again. The lashes CRACKED in the air, one after another, zapping into nothing before another took their place. The Autumn was losing patience with this girl already. "Cut that out and come out, will ya? You'll hardly even feel it. What are you supposed to be, anyways?"

Lightning whipped past her, almost singeing her. Turning herself around, she gave a sharp bark, hopefully getting the girls attention in her direction, and used her back legs to hold her rigid, and flung sand back with her front paws. A few strong kicks of sand in the girls direction, and she quickly fled behind the girl. Be quick, be quick, she can't have a chance to zap you. Launching herself forward, she bit down onto the girl leg, keeping her huge body low. Blood dripped into her mouth and then realized she was taking too long. She was going to be zapped to nothing. Standing up on her hind legs, she brought the girl with her in her jaws, and flung her to the other side of the dust cloud. With a dust cloud between them, before she saw if the girl had even looked in her direction yet, she flew high into the air. Soaring high, she felt cooler breezes, and the sun on her back. The girl was only a tiny shape now, and she was ready for her next lightning attack.

Kayla turned her head in the direction of the bark, her smile widening. Did she get a hit? Through the dust she could make out a dark silhouette. A huge, hulking, canine shape, with two feathered wings like a bird or an angel. Time to finish the job, then. She raised her finger to send one last killing bolt right through her body when the sand kicked back up again, attacking her eyes and mouth. One moment Kayla was reeling backwards, coughing and rubbing the dust from her eyes, and the next she was in unbearable pain. The Autumn twisted, wild ripples of electricity shooting out from her fingertips, but before she could make that fatal contact that would've fried the wolf-girl's brain within an instant, she was being thrown through the air like a ragdoll.

She hit the earth with a violent tumble and rolled cleanly into a crouch, panting. Her leg was slicked with blood where the girl had bit her, but Kayla's eyes were in the sky, where the wolf had taken off. No more games. She ignored the sharp, throbbing ache in her injured leg and jumped to her feet, thrusting her finger into the air. Dazzling blue light danced around her as sparks raced up her arm and gathered to form a zapping sphere at the tip of her nail. Kayla grit her teeth, narrowing her eyes against the glare of the sun, and zoned in on the tiny speck up in the sky, hardly seen through all the light.

She found herself remembering something Mrs. Jacobs had prattled on about in Gift Mastery, the only class Kayla ever paid any attention to. Gifts, untamed gifts especially, were strongly influenced by your state of being. Some were more influenced by your physical health, while others were affected by emotions or mental discipline. Often, it was a mix of both. And Kayla was bleeding, pissed, and utterly out of control.

It made for a lethal combination.

Kayla snapped her fingers. A spear-like blue beam shot off from the tip of her nail into the sky, followed by wild tendrils of electricity that lashed and flicked out like serpent's tongues.

Doing anything to keep away from that lightning, she closed her wings, and pointed her head straight now. Dive-bombing. Her body weight and extra flapping of her wings brought her body zooming down. Her wing stretched and the tiniest tendril skimmed it, the electricity shocking half her body. It was the smallest of the horde of tendrils she shot out, but it still did damage. Flapping her good wing and doing her best with the other, she slowed her fall and landed not so softly, but not bone breaking. The wind carried the scent of blood, and her pupils shrunk and her fur stood. Growling lowly, her consciousness slowly slipped away to mostly animal. She knew to still be cautious, but it was no more messing around. Lightning tensed up the muscles, and her wing was still suffering. During her frantic descent and erratic flapping, dust and sand was all around her, and the whole cloud not far from this lightning girl.

She stalked closer, which soon turned into a full sprint. Launching herself out of the cloud and on the girl, she put her huge jaws around her next and crouched on her body, her paws holding her arms. She put a little pressure on her windpipe, a few droplets of blood peeking out. If she shocked her, not matter how many volts, her jaws would constrict and break her neck. If anything she could still get up, maybe she would be declared the winner. But if she was shocked enough and if the girl got a broken next, it would be a tie.

The shape plummeted, sending up another storm of dust and sand in its frantic beating of wings, and for half a heartbeat Kayla dared to hope. Yet the mirage hadn't ended. If she was dead... She raised a sparking finger for the final blow when the wolf leaped out from the brown haze, knocking her to the ground. Kayla let out a choked grunt, clenching her eyes shut as she felt the warm breath on her throat, the teeth, the giant paws pinning her down, waiting for death, for defeat, for another humiliation at the hands of another of her peers at Beata Academy. If I electrocute her, she'll...

Kayla's eyes snapped open. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks.

This entire battle Kayla had been outmatched, outsmarted, and overpowered. It hurt her pride to admit it, but it was true. She'd been thrown around like a ragdoll, blinded with sand, and now she was being pinned with a giant dog's jaws clamped around her throat, ready to rip out her jugular and break her neck. Her opponent was clever. Way more clever than her, at least. But there was one thing she overlooked.

A lightning bolt contained over one billion volts and burned five times hotter than the surface of the sun. Its effects against the human body included, but weren't limited to, intense burns, cardiac arrest from the electromagnetic pulse created by the bolt itself, lung damage, concussions, ruptured ear drums, amnesia... or simply sudden death. It wasn't impossible to survive a lightning strike. Usually. But her opponent was right here, with her teeth right in Kayla's neck. Transmitted directly by touch, an electric shock of such a high voltage would be impossible to dodge or survive.

The moment the shock hit her, she would clamp her teeth down, and Kayla would die. Maybe she would still end up losing the match anyways, but Kayla was going to make sure that she didn't die first, even if it it was only half a second later.

Sparks rose up all around her. Sayonara. The electricity coursed up her chest and to her neck, where the teeth were digging into her throat... and through her opponent's mouth and head and brain, all one billion volts.