Sorry, The Only Power Left Is Alteration.

Azoria smiled towards the bull as she walked back from the curtains while adjusting her hair. Returning to the podium, she peered out over the cave.

"Moggy baby, everyone is so dour, do you think some music would lighten the mood?"

The bull nodded. It's mouth fell open to reveal a dark gaping chasm. The tail straightened and then curved at a ninety degree angle, then curved a the same angle again until it resembled a crank. It turned. A bass beat blasted forward throughout the cave from the open mouth. Florescent lighting flickered before the walls of the cave began to undulate. Circular patterns formed at various intervals. The beat boomed from all directions. Smaller circles formed at regular intervals around the larger circles. A high-pitched striking sound joined between the bass notes. Low-key chanting from the monks of chaos interrupted itself discordantly at regular intervals. Screams and babbles formed a background amidst the harsh beat.

A list of four more fatalities bellowed from the speakers as Adonis received his electrocution. Mark didn’t reserve any of his power for the day. It was a short burst of time, but the electricity was far more impressive than he ever thought possible.

It felt like he conducted energy from some pocket in his body, though now that pocket had been drained and he’d be reduced to an ordinary blunt weapon. But he had leveled, he could sense it. When he checked his stats later he knew he’d be at least a bit stronger.

Streams of smoke rose from the tips of Adonis’s charred hair, his burnt fingernails, and the gaping neck wound that revealed glowing bone when he tilted his head the wrong way. The gum looked like charred meat on hair skewers. The man stood, burning on the inside from the full force of Mark’s power with blank eyes. Smoke poured from his mouth as he stood.

Nickey relaxed her combat posture, “Did you hear that? Someone killed a magical girl! That’s unforgivable!”

Fedor took the opportunity to slowly back up. Nothing critical had been wounded but he bled heavily from deep jagged slices into his fatty sides. His cleaver remained ready as he stared at the halted berserker, who still defied all of them by remaining standing with the sword clutched tightly in his hand.

“That tickled!” Adonis screamed, “I want to see the stick of Fundleburg. Have you not seen the flute!?”

Nickey tensed and then ran in a circle to get behind the enemy. She twirled as she raised her leg and bought it against his neck. Perhaps if she could separate the head from the body this nightmare would end. A flurry of kicks invisible to the naked eye slammed into the back of Adonis’s head and neck. Vertebrae snapped, crackled, and popped as his head listed but refused to come loose.

As the last kick landed, she slowed to normal speed. An arm came up; his hand gripped her ankle and squeezed. Nickey found herself in the air being swung like a club. She used her hands to protect her head and kept her mouth shut as she found her right shoulder bashed against the floor.

“GOOBER SNAZLES CAVEMAN STYLE!” Adonis screamed as he dropped the unconscious assassin and twirled his sword for her midsection.

“Dude, why can’t you just stop?” Carson whispered.

A string of paper formed around Nickey’s ankles but the tie was too thin and Banko didn’t have the strength to pull her away. The paper snapped apart and shriveled into nothing.

A low punch slammed into Adonis’s torso from the side. Ribs crunched clearly as he slid back. That was all Fedor had, as his jackhammer punch had been used earlier.

Adonis clutched his sword in both hands and raised it high over his head. Fedor raised his cleaver with the blade facing horizontally outward. His left hand served to support the back of the thick blade.

“Creatures like you are an insult to the goddess. I’ll slice and grind you like the meat you are.”

With Adonis distracted, Mark scooped up Nickey and carried her back behind Carson, “She’s out, protect her with your life kid.”

“Okay.”

Mark didn’t rejoin the battle, with his trump card exhausted and Nickey on the floor, he wasn’t sure how effective he could be. If that much electricity had done so little, what would a few strikes with a blunt baton achieve? The best he could do was divert attention, but he refused to be bait. He could try this magic stuff though; his wind magic hadn’t looked too shabby and his mana was the same as everyone else’s.

He concentrated and found a ball of swirling wind in his palm. It even looked potent enough to do some damage. He aimed it as Adonis but it veered off target. Then he had an idea.

“Carson, you’re up! Use your magic and blast this-”

A shadow loomed over Carson. A seven-and-a-half-foot tall purple rabbit mascot that resembled an animatronic focused on Nickey. It had red eyes that glowed dimly, long floppy ears with faded fur, and wore farmer’s overalls with a straw hat. The rabbit pointed at Nickey before opening its mouth to reveal a gleaming metal pair of incisors. It released an ear-piercing screech that disoriented everyone nearby except for Adonis.

“W-w-where d-did this come from!?”

Carson kicked it, then threw a punch. It simply stood still with no reaction to the attacks. Then it moved fast. A punch to the gut caused Carson to spit up over his chin. Next a kick to the side popped his hip and slid him away from Nickey.

Going melee when his stats suggested otherwise didn’t make sense, he thought, he wasn’t going to get anywhere by copying the others. With a bit of concentration, he formed an ice spike above the palm of his right hand and cast it into the rabbit.

The spike ripped through the overalls and broke the fur before it came out the other side of the rabbit. A depth of darkness, and then the light of the exit hole could be seen. The rabbit was hollow.

Mark decided to join the target practice from a safer distance. But his attacks didn’t do much beyond annoy the mascot, though he noticed fire singed the fur and lasted a bit longer. He turned to Carson.

“Use a fire ball!”

A burning ball of flame formed above Carson’s right hand, another in his left hand. They doubled in size as the flames swirled with a bright burning collection of reds, oranges, and yellows. The more robust fireballs hit the rabbit, on in the torso and the other directly in the face.

The flammable suit burst from ear to toe. The now crackling rabbit sprinted towards Carson with a flaming fist. A punch to the gut left a burn mark in his shirt. A kick to the same spot followed the punch. Carson went up. As he came back down, the flaming rabbit kneed him in the gut. Flames ran along his body and licked at his back as his eyes went blank. He fell limply to the floor as the rabbit put its forepaws together to slam them down into his back.

Before the attack could land, the burning rabbit mascot puffed out of existence leaving on a trail of smoke and the smell of burning leather. Nickey sat up, rubbing her shoulder. As her vision returned, she surveyed the field. She saw Carson laying on his stomach. Small remnant flames licked at his shirt as they burnt through to skin.

Frantically she rushed to pat out the flames, “What happened to you!?”

Meanwhile, Fedor tanked Adonis’ attacks by himself. Cuts formed along the back of his hands and fingers from a wild flurry of strikes. Not only did he bleed from the side but his pants had been sliced and the blood ran down his legs.

“The wheels on blob go round and round! ROUND AND ROUND!”

Adonis sung repeatedly at the top of his screeching voice. Air hissed from his wounded neck. Bubbles of blood and saliva frothed from the cleaver wound. Fedor waited for an opening, taking attack after attack, and blocking with all the stamina he had left. Then he burst into a swing with the last of his reserved stamina.

“YaaaaaAAAAHHHH!”

The blade of the cleaver flew into the slice. Vertebrae separated. Flesh squelched. Adonis’ head tumbled off his wounded neck as it laughed. The body remained standing and kept hold of the sword.

“Pokey! Pokey! Stabby! Stabby! Shish-kebab!”

The chipped katana pushed through the center of Fedor as it lodged into his stomach. Clink! The imitation katana sunk in almost as deep as it could before it gave up. The blade cracked at the base and broke. Adonis’ body pulled back a stub. An empty neck craned as if there was head with eyes to look at it.

Fedor coughed blood. Adonis' head rolled and laughed.

“The blade in the blob go slice, gush, gash! Shish ka-blob!”

A crack followed a squirt of wet matter. The man who had been blocking Adonis’s attacks earlier with his shield ability, still bleeding from his wounds, rushed in and attacked the disembodied head with the edge of a wood shield growing from his wrist. The attacks mashed it into an unrecognizable pile of flesh, hair, bone, and brain matter.

The body shivered. Fingers uncoiled around the hilt of the broken blade. It clattered against the floor. The body of Adonis fell backwards with a meaty thump.

An anouncement bellowed throughout the cave slightly louder than the other death announcements.

Circe Oratia Sheffield: Heartbeat Zero: FATALITY!