Dark clouds covered the sky, as usual, the rain poured heavily, scenting the air with Petrichor.
A long black and white double decker bus, exited Saints Academy, in the opposite direction, a similar one was driving away.
It was the final day for the baptism, every students were waiting in anticipation, except for Asher's class.
Upset that, they had to compete for a spot, that was rightfully theirs, all because their teacher was petty.
The bus drove downtown, swiftly arriving at a large dark dome, surrounded by tall buildings. "Pumza Academy" flashed at the entrance.
After a brief pause, the bus drove smoothly, and a new world greeted them.
Ice and snow, covered almost everything, decreasing visibility to the minimum. The howling winds were heard from within the bus, causing the students to howl.
This was obviously a separate space, similar to their academy, but why was it cold.
As if prepared, the tires on the bus retracted as it started levitating. Following a map, the driver passed a group of tall buildings, before finally arriving in front of a small cottage.
The group got off and were instantly greeted by the cold winds, they had to activily push back against the wind, to prevent being blown away.
Detecting the cold, their uniforms automatically tightened around them, trapping as much heat as it can, but even that wasn't enough to stop their shivering.
"Quickly, everyone follow me!" ignoring the disgruntled looks, Chase, who was wearing a large winter coat, led the way into the small cottage. Seemingly unbothered by the cold.
The students swiftly followed, they all found themselves in a large wooden hall. The obviously small cottage actually housed such a large space inside.
A group of thirty or so students wearing white camo, stood in assembly, in front them were a group of teachers, standing on a raised platform.
"Welcome! We were getting worried that you guys wouldn't show but it seems I was wrong." At the front, an old, short and bold man, came to great everyone, he had a large beard and, scars could be seen riddled on his face.
This was the principal of Pumz Academy. Despite being 3 foot tall, he was already 40 years old. All thanks to being a dwarf.
"Thoren my friend, you shouldn't stress yourself like that, of cause we would come." Chase walked up to the man and effortlessly hugged him, as if accustomed to it.
"And these are your students, they truely look formidable." The principal, Thoren, nodded to himself, looking at the group of still shivering kids, trying to keep warm.
"ha see, I told you. Now, get some of that dwarf wine, and prepare those things for when your students lose." Chase laughed while rubbing his hands.
He walked besides the principal as they headed towards a side door, seemingly forgetting his students.
"Wait! What about the arrangements!" A tall male teacher, suddenly asked.
"Just let my kids decide." Chase waved his hand, before continuing with his conversation, ultimately entering the side room.
"Che. Why does the principal even indulge that moron." The teacher complained.
"He's maybe a moron, but his given us an opportunity, so let's focus on that." A female teacher wearing a tight red dress comforted the man, before walking forward.
"Students from Saints Academy, I'm pretty sure you all understand why your here, but basically, you'll compete with our students, and if you lose, your forfeit your slot for the baptism ceremony." the female teacher explained.
She continued, saying, "Now, only twenty students from each side can participate. Of those twenty, you must choose to either fight individually, meaning you'll be defending your spot or fight as a team, meaning if you lose, the entire class looses. Keep in mind this will be either a tournament or a free for all between the classes. Your teacher has given you the privilege to chose."
Hearing her words, Asher's class began to discuss amongst themselves.
While others were still against the idea, others were already discussing between which method they have to chose.
"We'll pick the 1st method."
"No, the second method is much more preferable."
Two voices rang out, one after the other.
One was a male student with red hair, who was previously "touched" by Atlas. The other voice was four-eyes.
"Four-eyes, haven't you already gotten us in enough trouble. Shut-up and let us fix your mistake." The boy exploded. His words, stired the students anxious hearts, garnaring some agreement.
*Pa*
"Fix? Fix yo temper first, I'm convinced it's screwing ya head in and making you dumber." Atlas came from behind, slapping the boy's head.
He continued saying, "With the first option, I'm guessing they'll pick us off one by one, same applies with the second option. The only difference is whether we can help each other or not."
"But anywho, Four-eyes is the class president so he decides. But I don't care which he chooses, as long as I'm fighting, I'm sure I'd win."
The class fell into thought, before finally looking at Four-eyes.
Seeing their gazes, Four-eyes fixed his glasses, "The first option allows for individuals to forfeit their place, meaning one or more people can be left behind, but the second method is superior. It outweighs the risks."
The students finally thought about it and saw the problem. They couldn't help glancing at Atlas and Four-eyes, and some of their glances turned to the female teacher.
"The apple truely doesn't fall to far from the tree, Atlas." The female teacher suddenly spoke up.
"Yah, just like the old man, neither of us can be tricked by some has-been." Atlas responded, showing a rare coldness.
Everyone was surprised, it seems these two knew each other, yet not on good terms. Leaving others to wonder, the content of their History.
Hearing the word has-been, the female teachers expression became sharp as she balled up her fists.
"We'll be chossing the second method." Four-eyes casually said, before turning to the others.
He continued, "This is unexpected and we don't have time for evaluation, so we'll use the twenty strongest amongst us, if someone isn't sure or lacks fighting experience, switch out with someone else."
Over the past month, everyone had a vague evaluation of each other's strength, so it wasn't hard. After some brief interaction, twenty students stepped forward. A roster of 20 boys.
The other school, had a cast of 20 boys and girls, of various sizes. They all looked formidable.
A handsome boy with blonde hair, looked at Asher's group with disdain, "Your are the strongest saints academy has to offer? My father's the numb-"
"No one f*king asked, let's be quick, we don't wanna be late for our baptism." Atlas interjected, cutting the boy of.
The boy remained silent, his eyes firmly locked on Atlas.
"You'll all move to a sepperate location where you'll hash it out, and these are participation tokens, once you sustain certain amount of damage, you'll be transported out." the woman explained while she gave out some tokens.
The tokens were round and small, with nothing special apperant.
"This exchange will take an hour, after an hour, if one team hasn't lost, then we'll pull everyone out and the team with the most people wins." As the woman was saying that, everyone was enveloped by a bright light, and when it faded, they had disappeared from the room.
....
Opening his eyes, Asher found himself in a snow forest.
The trees weren't thicker then a man, providing an open view.
The cold, hugged his face, pieced through his ears and fingertips. Luckily the wind wasn't similar to the outside one.
Despite the outside, the was a sun in the sky, albeit it was small and the whole sky resembled the early morning.
In the middle of the sky, Asher saw, two 20s, parallel each other. Right above it, was a count down clock that started from an hour.
'So that's how it is.' Asher realized, why the other students were wearing white camo uniform.
Asher looked around, he couldn't see a distinct landmark or particular path.
He picked a random direction and started walking.
*Crunch* *Crunch*
The snow sounded under his feet, it wasn't that deep, only a few inches/centimeters.
Not a minute later, Asher noticed one of the numbers in the sky had decreased to 15, not long after it decreased to 12. While the other was at 20.
'8 people were eliminated so quickly! Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.'
It hadn't been a minute, and already a large number of people were out, meanwhile he hadn't found a single person.
Asher continued in a straight line, ten minutes later, he saw a large displacement of snow, which hadn't been covered up by the snow yet.
'Seems to have been a fight, and not a fair one at that.'
Not far, he saw four sets of footsteps, headed in a direction, so he decided to follow them.
The footsteps weren't in a straight line, sometime they darted left then right then left again, maneuvering through the trees like a thread.
' Unlike me, they have a clear destination in mind.' Asher decided to pick up his pace.
Five minutes later, Asher slowed down, he started hearing sounds of fighting; grunting, screaming, clashes, etc.
Not far away, two boys and a girl wearing white-camo uniform, were fighting one kid wearing black uniform.
Asher noticed the boy with red hair, he was the one who bickered with Four-eyes, named Judas.
Despite losing to Atlas last time, Asher realized that Judas wasn't a pushover.
Despite the multiple attacks landing on him, he dodged some, while throwing out his own. Despite a punch to the face, and a kick to the back, Judas dodged the kick to the chest, while punishing the kid.
He was clearly losing but his opponents needed to earn their victory.
'Quite commandable.' Asher admired as he slowly moved forward, making a solid snowball.
The others were tightly surrounding Judas, so they didn't notice him. Asher threw it at one kid, before jumping towards another.
To Asher's surprise, the one kid actually dodged his snowball and the other quickly turned to him. But Asher still landed a punch to the face.
'Do they have eyes at the back of their heads?'
Judas didn't waste this opportunity and kicked towards the girl not far away.
"Who are yo-"
*Bam*
A short muscular guy got up to ask, but Asher was already close to him, landing a punch, followed a barrage of knee attacks to the boys face.
Just as Asher landed and threw a follow up attack, the boy was enveloped by a white light before completely disappearing.
The boy was already bloodied and sustained alot of damage, Asher wasn't holding anything back.
Everyone was stunned, this was undoubtedly fast, not even a minute had passed.
Seeing this, the tall muscular guy threw a boulder-sized snowball, Asher reacted and punched the snowball but the man's fist was already in front of him.
Asher's head darted past the attack, while he slipped in a punch to the boy's chin.
The boy landed face first meanwhile a kick followed behind and landed on his head, but that was just the start. Asher stomped the man repeatedly, until his had had burrowed past the snow and left an imprint on the hard dirt.
As Asher was stomping, he suddenly felt a lack of feedback as his feet broke the ground.
Everything happened so fast, causing the others to lose a few details.
As the girl stood there, still frozen, Asher was already standing & front of her.
The girl was a head taller then Asher, with bushy long red hair.
Asher grabbed her by the neck and slammed her to the ground before pinning her chest with his knee.
He scoured her face and pulled something out of ear, it was a small round device.
'That's how it is.' Asher wanted to place the device in his ear but it exploded, and reduced to fragments.
Strangely enough, the girl pinned down didn't struggle, she didn't even make use of her free arm. She was just starring at Asher, seemingly in a daze.
*lubdub lubdub lubdub*
'Scared huh,' Asher loosened his hand around her neck but kept his knee and foot on her chest and arm.
"What's your classes overall plan?"
It would undoubtedly be useful to know the other parties plan. There was also a chance she might lie, but nothing is guaranteed until it is.
Suprisingly the girl didn't hesitate, "We spawned in groups and near a few students, the plan was to pick them off one by one, while the teachers gave us their location. If we couldn't win against someone or can't fight anymore, our instructions were to hide and wait for the time to run out."
Asher finally understood things, he looked up, the numbers were 10:15 with 34 minutes left. If things continued like this they would lose.
Not only that, since the whole thing was rigged, who's to say the others also had twenty students to begin with.
'Who cares about the circumstance, just act.' Asher dispelled the extra thoughts.
"Thanks, I guess." Asher looked at the girl again.
"Wait, you don't have to, my names Circe." The girl quickly said when Asher prepared to punch her.
She rummaged through her pockets and took out the participation token, "Also watch out for a boy with blond hair, his very strong."
The girl crushed the token and was enveloped by a white light, having thought of something, she quickly asked, "What's your na?"
But she was quickly cut off.