After that, the crew avoided Marco, Stacey, and Logan. We spent a really long fucking time in another cafe before we received an announcement message.

"The University of Montressor Battle Royale begins in ten minutes. Please enter a Prep Room."

"Is there something any of us can do to make us invisible?" I asked, "I don't want either of those three to see us. They're acting so stupid."

"I can do this," Daniela put her arms in the air and then...nothing.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"This is what I do to disappear and none of you even notice I'm gone. I'm not sure how it works, really, but it does," she replied.

"And we're connected because of you?" Noah asked, "This is cool."

"We can go," was all she said.

We walked through the endless crowd of students and somehow they all made way for us even without seeing us. Not a single glance our way.

We reached a Prep Room entrance before most other people did. The Statusin definitely noticed, though, "For this event, participants must take their own room."

Dania went in first. Then I did. I lost the connection to Daniela as soon as I was out of her reach.

Once I was in the Prep Room, a Statusin began telling me about the game.

The goal was to be the last one standing in the arena. The competitor screen showed all two hundred thousand six hundred faces of the competitors in alphabetical order.

"As a comparison you can understand," the Statusin tried to get me to understand, "the arena is the size of Rhode Island. You may find that methods of rapid mobilization are vital in this game."

This isn't gonna be easy, I thought.

"Additionally, multiple biomes are added to the arena to add flavor to the landscape. You may find you are advantaged or disadvantaged in certain regions because of this."

One minute to the fight. A countdown timer replaced the ready button.

When my vision blurred and returned, I was standing paralyzed in the underbrush of a jungle.

"3, 2, 1, begin," A voice announced throughout the arena.

I quickly lifted myself off the ground telekinetically. I spun in circles but I couldn't see a near exit.

"Carlos," Stacey said, stepping out from behind a tree, "Daniela and I have an alliance, we spawned right next to each other, do you want to join?"

Daniela popped into existence next to Stacey and waited for an answer.

"Fine," I said, purposefully reluctantly. I still wasn't too happy about the way she was acting.

I made them both hover alongside me. "What direction do we go in?" I asked.

"That way," Daniela pointer to our right, "I see the border."

"You're sure? I can't see anything," Stacey asked.

An explosion from behind us prompted me to take us there regardless. The explosions followed us even as we zoomed through the jungle.

"What is it?!" I asked.

Stacey turned around and looked.

"Keep going!" she yelled.

Then the biome changed drastically. All of a sudden we were in a grey wasteland plagued by lightning bolts jutting out of the sky without any clouds. The jungle line was completely abrupt.

"What is that?" Stacey asked, pointing at the lightning.

"That's dry lightning," I said in awe.

"I think you should drain some more trees before we go, Stace. There is no water anywhere." Daniela suggested.

The explosions went in another direction, and I'm glad we didn't have to find out who was doing that.

Stacey crouched and came up as if she had an enormous weight on her shoulders. She moved her arms as if she was actually weightlifting. I turned and saw that she had entirely drained the nearest part of the jungle and the atmosphere of its moisture. A huge blob of water hovered behind us. I brought us forward and the water trailed behind.

Up ahead, I could see Marco, Logan, and twenty other people fighting in groups to defeat the opposite team.

"I think they're fighting over you," suggested Daniela, "Again."

"Again," I emphasized.

"Well, I'm over Marco. It took him too long to realize I even liked him. He can go shove it. This whole time he thought I was just really flirty for nothing. Like, what?" she replied.

I rolled my eyes at her and she saw that I did.

Before she could decide what to say, a dirt golem appeared before us, swinging giant hammer arms at us. Stacey screamed in my ear and dropped her water all over us. I dropped my hold on us, too.

Stacey and Daniela got up before me. Daniela shot shadow bullets at the figure, only managing to leave it full of small holes. Stacey drew water from the wet soil and used ice blades to slice at the golem's arms, but they grew back in a second every time she did.

I tried to zap the figure with electricity, managing even less than Daniela.

"Remember Pokémon type match-ups, dude!" she yelled as she evaded a hammer attack, "Electric-type is useless against ground-type.

Then I recognized who the figure was. I got up off the ground.

"Jozeey," I said aloud.

"No way of knowing, idiot," Stacey impaled the figure with an icicle, to no avail.

"It's him, I know it."

He grew to five times his size, leaving us with no hope.

"Run!" I heard, Stacey yell at the top of her lungs.

I got both of us in the air, forgetting about Daniela. She jumped high into the air with ninja powers, but was hit by one of Jozeey's hammer hands. We didn't wait for her.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"Can you contact Dania?" Stacey asked, "The others?"

"No Statusin," I said with a failed attempt.

"Can you learn telepathy or something?"

Dania? I thought out.

How are you— she responded.

Telepathy, I guess. I cackled. This was great. This was more than great.

We're in a meadow with a small lake and a river, she thought back, we need help.

I tugged at her thoughts and it was like she turned her location on. We raced through the dry air into a sandy desert. We avoided a sandstorm and then we reached the meadows. I followed her thoughts.

They were fighting a small alien person and a dragonkin. The grey alien was short, cylindrical, and had six stumpy legs. Its black, beady eyes remained unblinking and did not seem surprised we were here. The dragonkin was two feet taller than me and had red, scaly skin.

"That's an Oon," Stacey said as I brought us down, "Most of them have auric manipulation. The dragonkin has pyrokinesis, probably."

I set us down next to Grady and Dania and I reinforced her aura barrier. Dania was punching and sending blasts of air at the Oon. I aimed and shot arcs of electricity at them, putting them out of the battle.

Then the dean warped right in front of us. With a swipe of her hand our aura shield came down. He were left vulnerable and I'm sure she planned on swatting us out of the competition like she did to our shield, but Sabine also warped in front of us. She faced Andrelos.

"I didn't think you would be able to trace me," Andrelos told her.

"I didn't either, but here I am," she responded.

There was something different about Sabine. She was much more confident.

"Prepare to lose," Andrelos threatened.

Sabine snapped her arms towards the ground and jets of darkness burst from them. Andrelos snapped her arms down as well but she produced beams of light.

They let loose, but they became blurs. Their elements bent the flow of time. After a couple of seconds they shot away from each other. Sabine nearly crashed into us, but we sidestepped her before she could knock us out of the game on accident.

I took the opportunity to grab the Dean in a telekinetic hold. I kept her from moving at all, and Sabine returned flying at full speed towards her. The impact knocked them both out of the game.

"Whoa," Dania gasped.

We all fell onto the ground as something enormous collided a few meters away from us and shook the very soil beneath us.

It was Jozeey's golem, except giant. He was fighting a water golem, and the person was actually in the center of this one. It was a seakin. Their webbed hands moved and so did the golem. It towered into the sky and we were lucky we weren't put out by Jozeey.

He got up and began flinging his hammer arms at the center of the golem, but the seakin blocked with crossed ice arms.

Then, on one impact, the seakin grabbed hold of Jozeey's dirt arms by freezing onto them. Once that happened, the seakin enveloped the whole earth golem and froze itself around it.

"Jozeey's about to lose," Grady commented.

Then he burst out of the ice and knocked the seakin out of the game. In a swift turn, he brought his arm up and swung it down on us.

I countered with as much telekinesis as I could.

"Daniela!" I called out.

"Got you!" she emerged from her invisibility, as I suspected.

Jozeey lifted his arm to impact us again, but we weren't there anymore to him. We were in between the shadows and the real world.

We didn't linger around.