Round 1: Kayla Croft vs. Grace Crowe

Electricity crackled in the palm of her hand, dancing like snakes across her fingertips. Tall yellow grass tickled her bare legs, the  light breeze tinged with the scent of the sea. Flat and open, and no blinding sun like last year. Perfect for her. But she couldn't focus on all that right now.

"Are you fucking joking me?"

Kayla wasn't sure whether to laugh or yell.

The lightning began to twine up her arm, sparks crackling around her head. If Grace thought she was going to hold back, she was going to be in for an unpleasant surprise. Kayla flicked her arm through the air in a lazy slash, and a lash of electricity went snapping toward the girl like a whip. It cracked and fizzled into a shower of sparks only inches in front of her face, harmless. Or mostly harmless, anyways. "Just give up and go home, Grace."

God was a cruel Master. This was the worst - the absolute worst! - possible outcome. Grace clutched the sleeve of her jacket with a hand, looking around nervously at the deadened prairie that sprawled out seemingly for miles. Despite the relative warmth, the young girl was shivering, and the entire place seemed strangely uninviting. Of course, some of that could be attributed to her opponent. Why did it have to be her?

Grace was not looking forward to fighting Kayla. While she had done a decent job of reminding herself that this all wasn't real - at least the threat of dying, anyway - it once again held no hope of calming her frayed nerves. After their little misadventure in the conservatory, she was pretty much convinced that this girl wanted to kill her, and this wasn't a bad place to do it, illusionary efforts aside. A small yelp of surprise came from her mouth as she hopped back from Kayla's wayward electric jolt. Giving up didn't sound like that bad of an idea, but she didn't like hearing it from her. She didn't want to do this, but at the same time she didn't want to just give up. This wasn't how she wanted her time here to be... "Th-the battle hasn't s-started yet," she stuttered out, knowing that she couldn't even fake a cool-headed attitude. "Y-you'll have to... You'll have to make me go home."

Was that supposed to be threatening? Kayla gave a contemptuous snort and raised her hand, a formless sphere of electricity forming in her palm. Showing spine didn't mean anything if you couldn't back up your talk. Just hold still.

She whisked her fingers through the air, and a spear of blue lightning shot out from her fingertips, arcing through the air towards her with deafening CRRRRRRACK. She never moved from place, just stood there, her face an iron mask under her cap.

The battle had begun. Almost immediately, Kayla sent a powerfully-charged bolt of lighting Grace's way, forcing the young girl to quickly jump out of the way, rolling awkwardly to the side before getting up. Well, it was now or never then. This was her only chance to back up her words. Suddenly, she started running - though not quite 'grace'fully - towards her opponent, desperately willing the darkness to start enveloping her hand before she pumped her arm back and thrusted it forward. A ball of darkness left her hand and was sent hurling towards Kayla as Grace quickly changed directions on the run. She knew she'd have to stay light on her feet to avoid getting fried to a crisp.

Kayla sidestepped, not even looking as the orb of darkness went slinging past her ear. Her eyes were trained on Grace, still moving, still running. Did she really think she'd win if she could just hold out? "Are you trying to waste my time?" She snapped her fingers, and lashes of electricity went snapping at Grace's ankles like snakes, sending up clouds of dust and burned grass. Her face never changed. "How long do you think you can run?"

Not very long, obviously. Grace desperately jumped as the electricity scorched the earth beneath her, but her jump was wild, and she found herself falling, losing her footing, landing on her knees and rolling feebly. Giving Kayla a quick, fearful glance, she desperately stuck her hands out. She was too far to do anything, but as if her powers could finally understand, the darkness began leaving her hands and forming something akin to a protective wall, empty black shielding her from view, though for how long, she didn't know. She was prepared; prepared to run out and attempt a desperate strike once her opponent attacked.

When Grace fell into an awkward roll, Kayla showed her first hint of a smile, fingers still cocked like a gun and pointed right at her enemy. Obliteration. Nothing less than complete obliteration would win her this tournament. She snapped her fingers as she stared into those fearful emerald eyes, eager to finally end this pointless game, and lightning went shooting from her hand, spearing through the air.

A black wall of darkness formed from Grace's hands, and the lightning scattered into a million tiny sparks, crackling like fireworks. Kayla brought her hand back, a tiny ripple of electricity crackling near her head. "Are you going to run and hide forever?" There was a tinge of fire in her voice now. "Don't you remember what I told you? You have to want to kill, or you'll always be pathetic."

She slashed her hand through the air, and a lash of electricity broke against her black shield. For a fraction of a heartbeat, there was a window for one last sally. "So come out and die on your fucking feet!"

Grace's body was tensed behind her temporary shield, darkness almost having completely covered her right arm at this point. Her entire body was wrapped in an empty chill, and she felt like she might end up being sick all over the battlefield, but she had to hold herself together. To want to kill… How? In the few precious seconds she was given, her mind was enveloped by how unhappy she was with herself, with worry, with the anger she had still boiling over a certain someone, and the fear… Without taking a preparatory breath, she tensed her legs, then uncoiled like a spring, bounding over her cracking shield and thrusting her arm forward once more. This time, however, something more akin to a stake of black was thrown from her entire arm, slamming down towards Kayla. Hopefully this wasn't all the young Brunette had...

There. The shield cracked, shattered, fell away, and Grace came bounding out from the wreckage, a spear of darkness leaving her hand and arcing through the air like a javelin. Kayla twisted her body to avoid it, but it came at a moment too late, grazing past her shoulder to tear at her shirt. There was a nasty looking cut across the exposed skin now, at leach an inch deep. A trickle of red streamed down her sleeve and arm to twine around her fingers. With an expression that looked halfway between a smile and a wince, she extended out her other arm, body still twisted, and snapped her fingers, sending another bolt of electricity coursing through the air toward Grace. Not a second wasted.

This one wouldn't be quite so easy to dodge. Almost completely prone in mid-air, Grace tried to move out of the way of the electric bolt, but it was upon her too fast. It landed directly against her shoulder, knocking her off-course and sending a shooting shock of pain through her body as she landed with a thud. Panting and electrified, she pushed herself to her feet and grasped her shoulder with her other hand. Slowly the darkness spread over the area, somewhat dulling the pain and allowing her to focus on Kayla. She was fast, and it wouldn't be easy to keep avoiding the lightning. Letting go of her shoulder, spheres of darkness began to form in her palms, and she threw both towards Kayla, one after the other. Then she was running, fighting with her lungs to go for her opponent, quickly throwing up a weak shield before feinting right and getting another shot of spherical darkness off.

Kayla rolled her injured shoulder, lightning crackling in her palms as Grace stumbled back to her feet. She whisked her hand through the air, snapping her fingers, and a lash of lightning shredded through one of the thrown spheres like cloth. The other was just a matter of sidestepping, twisting her body like she had before. Grace was leaps and bounds over how she had been in the conservatory, but Kayla had been fighting her whole life. It all came down to muscle memory, raw instinct honed from a thousand street fights.

A whip of electricity shattered against the shield with a wave of Kayla's hand, and she suddenly bulled forward, lightning crackling in her fist. The sphere Grace let loose took her right in the chest, and for a moment she stumbled.

She had been expecting pain, to be knocked off her feet, to die at such close range. Instead it was just a cold, almost wet sensation that spread throughout her entire body, an icy pang shooting through her head. An empty feeling that almost made her fall to her knees, but Kayla kept driving forward, inexorable.

Blue lightning flared up around her, and Kayla swung her arm, her fist connecting with Grace's jaw.

It was as if Grace had been hit head-on by a bulldozer. One second, she was on the ground, having just finished launching an attack; the next, she was off her feet, her brain unable to acknowledge what had happened. All she knew was that she was no longer earthbound, and she flew a few feet backwards before crashing back down to earth, flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her. Her body was in shock - no pun intended - enough to where she didn't even realize how much pain she was in, how her teeth were rattling around in her mouth. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at the sky, and with her body going numb, she knew that she had lost. Her entire body felt incapable of doing anything.

Darkness fluttered up and down her right arm. She could feel movement there, the ability to attack, but the rest of her body was uncooperative. Kayla would have to come over, though, to finish her off. This was the last thing Grace could do. She would have to take Kayla's advice, as impossible as it had seemed before. She would have to get angry. The darkness sheathed her arm in a billowing, black spike. Once Kayla came over, she'd stab the girl through the heart. It was the last attempt at an attack she had left.

Kayla put a hand to her temple, not even looking at Grace as she fell back to the ground. Was this poison? Did it dampen her powers? She just felt so... cold. Aside from the sharp ache in her head, like somebody had just driven a ice pick through her skull, she was fine. What business did this idiot have in the tournament? Was she trying to prove herself after the incident in the conservatory?

The thought almost made her laugh. Oh, she could respect that. She would've done the same thing in Grace's shoes. Maybe that's why she always threw herself into events like this, to prove herself. But it was still a death sentence to enter, and Grace had been bound for humiliation and defeat no matter who she'd ended up facing. Kayla couldn't help but wonder how much courage it took someone like her, who stuttered and shook in a normal conversation, to walk into a deathmatch against students who could create armies of the dead to do their bidding, who could transform into bears and dragons, who could destroy buildings with snaps of their fingers. Most had swords, knives, bows, glaives, axes. A sixteen year old with a year of training in Beata Academy could kill in half a second if they wanted to, and there was no holding back here in the simulation, with no consequences for sadism or murder.

Kayla walked over to Grace's feet and raised her hand, sparks running down her arm to collect in a tight sphere at the tip of her nail. There was no holding back here. This would be her full power, her ace-in-the-hole, obliteration, complete overkill. Her enemy was already practically defeated, but she wanted Grace to remember this, and she wanted everyone spectating to remember this. It was arrogant, but why should she hold back? She had the power of gods at her fingertips, and only an idiot would try to say otherwise. Why humble yourself when the world was so full of people eager to do it for you?

The sphere grew to the size of a pinball, and then she let it loose with a snap, three feet from Grace's face. It was more like a laser than lightning, more than a billion volts of concentrated power, hot enough to melt steel, strong enough to blast a perfect hole through cement and rock.

She never stood a chance to begin with.