Jayden's body began to change. His skin took on a translucent quality, blue veins pulsing with unnatural light. The air around him wavered as if viewed through intense heat. Where his eyes had been, twin pools of blue-white fire now burned.
"THIS IS TRUE POTENTIAL!" Jayden's voice boomed, distorted by the extreme heat emanating from his transformed body. "SUPERHEATED TO PLASMA!"
The crowd gasped collectively. Many retreated from the lower seats, driven back by the heat that penetrated even the protective dome.
Lucas straightened fully, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. Rather than looking intimidated, a ghost of a smile touched his lips.
"Now we're starting," he said quietly, blood speckling his lips as he spoke.
Electricity began to pour from Lucas's body, not in controlled arcs as before, but in wild, chaotic surges that illuminated the entire arena with stark light. His injuries seemed inconsequential as the lightning wrapped around him like a living cocoon.
Within that electric shroud, Lucas's form began to change. His eyes blazed electric blue, pupil-less and inhuman. The air around him crackled and hissed as water vapor instantly vaporized. His hair stood on end, glowing with internal electricity.
Kelvin grabbed Noah's arm, eyes wide with disbelief. "Soul fusion! I've never seen it manifest this completely!"
Noah nodded, equally stunned. "This is what he's been hiding during training. Full integration with his elemental affinity."
Both transformed fighters slowly rose into the air, levitating on currents of their own immense power. Jayden, a being of living plasma, heat distorting reality around him. Lucas, a human lightning storm, electricity arcing between every molecule of his being.
They hovered there, ten feet above the ruined arena floor, power radiating from them in palpable waves. Every eye in the stadium remained fixed on them, breaths held in anticipation of the clash to come.
Jayden raised his hand, plasma coalescing into a spear of pure energy. Lucas mirrored the gesture, lightning forming a jagged blade of electricity.
They tensed, preparing to hurl themselves at each other—
A deafening explosion ripped through the VIP section of the arena. All eyes jerked toward the sound. Blood splattered across the protective glass separating the students from the headmasters. Where the Academy 3 Headmaster had been sitting moments before, there was nothing but a red spray and an empty chair.
In the stunned silence that followed, masked figures emerged from multiple entrances, flooding onto the concourse levels. Students screamed, scrambling for exits that were already being sealed. In the headmasters' section, several figures slumped in their seats, unconscious or worse, with holes at the back of their head.
Commander Owen was the only one that stood, only to find himself surrounded by ten masked operatives, weapons trained on him from all angles.
Webb Pithon had managed to evade the attackers and was now running frantically around, his suit jacket ditched and screaming one thing.
"Kelvin... Kelvin!!!!" With his eyes searching frantically for his boy.
Near the teachers' viewing area, a different scene unfolded. All the other instructors had seen similar fate to that of the headmasters. They'd either all slumped into unconsciousness or were brutally murdered. It all looked to have happened in mere seconds. Just like the head masters, they all had a singular large hole in their heads for those that were dead that was like the size of a golf ball.
However, Miss Brooks alone remained standing, conscious and at alert. But where there had been one Miss Brooks moments before, now multiple identical figures stood—all with the same face, all glowing with ethereal blue light. One held a masked intruder by the throat, feet dangling. Others stood over fallen attackers, their movements perfectly synchronized despite being separate entities. They were all Miss Brooks except they looked like phantoms of her. And the original, she looked down from her vantage point and could see the carnage.
Throughout the stadium, students began collapsing, an unknown substance contaminating the air. Panic spread like wildfire.
In their premium seats, Noah, Sophie, and Kelvin exchanged knowing glances. The fight between Lucas and Jayden was forgotten as reality crashed down around them.
"They're here," Noah said grimly, rising to his feet. "It's begun."
Sophie's hands tightened into fists. "The Purge."
Kelvin was already tapping frantically at his wrist device. "They've hit every section simultaneously. This isn't just an attack—"
"It's an invasion," Noah finished, watching as more masked figures poured through the entrances, methodically securing the arena.
With all of this going on, all the commotion and chaos, one particular figure stayed put, unflinching and still gazing up at Lucas and Jayden whose faces bore confusion.
She sat with a look of pure bliss while all the chaos unfolded.
"Entropy...death...destruction...ooou..." she purred, crossing her legs more tightly as her grin widened impossibly far, revealing too many teeth. "Isn't it just *delicious*? All these little insects scurrying about." Her pink-tinged eyes never left the floating champions as she tilted her head at an unnatural angle.
"Everyone's wearing such pretty red decorations now," she whispered, giggling as she traced imaginary patterns in the air with one finger, following the arc of blood sprays. "The headmaster made such a lovely *pop*! Like a water balloon filled with cherry syrup."
Her body began to rock slightly back and forth as the screams intensified around her, yet she remained perfectly untouched by the surrounding panic, as if enclosed in her own bubble of serenity.
"Two little lightning bugs suspended in my jar," she singsonged, reaching up as if she could pluck Lucas and Jayden from the air with her fingers. "So bright, so angry, so *alive*..." Her voice dropped to a hiss on the last word. "Not for long though. Not for looooong."
Her eyes widened with childlike wonder as more people fell to the unknown substance. "Shh," she whispered to no one in particular, pressing a finger to her lips. "It's almost time for everyone to go to sleep. The sweet, sweet sleep that never ends."