The school gym did not look like a gym anymore.
All the heavy wooden bleachers had been aggressively pushed against the far walls, groaning under their own weight. The basketball hoops were pulled up and locked tightly to the ceiling. In the exact middle of the massive room, there was a giant square ring drawn onto the polished wood floor with thick, bright white paint.
The room was so incredibly loud my ears were ringing the moment I stepped through the double doors. Hundreds of kids were stretching, shouting over the noise, and showing off. Some kids were practicing, punching the empty air and leaving fading trails of orange fire behind their fists. Others were casually floating near the ceiling lights, doing flips in mid-air. I stayed out of the way, standing in the back corner by the fire extinguisher, holding my gray hoodie tight around my body like a blanket.
Coach Davis walked into the exact center of the white square. She wasn't wearing her usual tracksuit, and she wasn't holding a whistle today. Instead, she was holding a shiny silver microphone, looking entirely too happy for a Friday morning.
"Listen up!" Coach Davis yelled.
Her voice boomed out of the giant black speakers mounted on the brick walls, vibrating right through my shoes. The gym instantly went dead quiet. Even the kids floating near the ceiling slowly drifted down to the floor to pay attention.
"Today is the first day of the Intraschool Battle Royale," she announced, her voice echoing in the large space. She pointed to a long folding table set up near the main exit doors. There were two giant, clear glass bowls sitting on the table. Both bowls were filled to the brim with hundreds of small plastic balls, the kind you see in a lottery machine.
"Here are the rules," Coach Davis explained, pacing the inside of the white square and counting on her fingers. "Rule number one: Everyone fights. Nobody gets to hide today. If you are enrolled in this school, you step into the ring."
I swallowed hard. My mouth felt completely dry, like I had been chewing on cotton.
"Rule number two," she continued, her voice echoing over the silent crowd. "In a few minutes, you will all line up, walk up to the table, and pick one plastic ball. Every ball has a hidden number inside it. If you pick an Odd number, like one or three, you will walk over and stand on the red side of the gym. If you pick an Even number, like two or four, you will walk over and stand on the blue side."
She pointed to the two far sides of the room, which were marked with colored tape.
"Odd numbers will fight against Even numbers. We will do this for seven full rounds. But listen closely, because this part is important! You pick a brand new number before every single round. If you pick an Odd number for round one, you are not allowed to be an Odd number again for round two. You must switch to the Even side for your next fight. This keeps everything completely fair."
The kids around me started whispering and nodding in agreement. It made a lot of sense. You couldn't just hide behind a group of strong friends on one side the whole day. The random draw forced you to fight different people with different powers every single round.
Coach Davis raised her free hand, and the whispers instantly stopped.
"If you lose a fight or get pushed out of the white square, you go sit in the bleachers. You are done for the day. If you win, you move on to the next bowl. If you are strong enough to win all seven rounds, you become a Finalist. All the Finalists will fight each other, one on one, until there is only one person left. The last man standing wins the Battle Royale trophy."
She pointed at a giant, shining golden trophy sitting on a separate table near the door. It was catching the overhead lights, glittering brightly.
"Alright," Coach Davis barked, dropping her hand. "Line up and get your numbers!"
The crowd rushed forward in a massive wave. I took a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart, and joined the very back of the line. My heart was beating so hard and so fast I genuinely thought it was going to break my ribs. When it was finally my turn, I reached a shaking hand into the giant glass bowl on the left.
I pulled out a small white plastic ball and popped it open with my thumbs.
There was a small, folded piece of paper inside. It had the number 7 printed on it in bold black ink.
An Odd number.
I put the paper in my pocket and walked over to the red side of the gym. The red side was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with kids who looked tough, mean, and eager to fight. I stood near the very back of the group, keeping my head down and my hands shoved deep into my hoodie pockets.
"Round One! Odd against Even!" Coach Davis yelled into the microphone, pointing to the center of the room. "Find a partner from the other side and step into the white square!"
Kids immediately started running into the middle of the room, yelling names and grabbing the specific people they wanted to fight. The center of the gym turned into absolute chaos. I stayed near the outer edge, hoping I could just blend into the brick wall and go unnoticed.
"Hey. Bookworm."
A dark shadow fell over me. I slowly looked up.
Standing right in front of me was a tall girl with bright blonde hair tied tightly in a high ponytail. She held up her piece of paper so I could see it. It clearly said 4. An Even number.
She didn't look scary. Her skin wasn't turning into gray rock, and her eyes weren't glowing with dangerous laser energy. She just looked like a completely normal, athletic teenager wearing gym clothes.
"You're an Odd number, right?" the girl asked, offering me a sweet, almost polite smile. "Come on. Let's make this quick. I really want to win my seven rounds, and you look like an easy out."
I looked closely at her. A normal girl without powers would apologize and run away right now. But I wasn't just the girl who hid in the library anymore. I thought about the painful burns on my hands and the hours I spent practicing in the dirt in my backyard. I had my system. I knew the physical rules of water and fire.
"Okay," I said plainly, keeping my voice steady. "Let's make it quick."
I stepped past her and walked right into the middle of the crowded white square. The blonde girl followed closely behind me, still wearing that confident smile.
"Begin!" Coach Davis shouted into the microphone.
I didn't waste a single second. I wanted to end this fight fast, before she had any chance to use whatever hidden power she had. I immediately pointed my finger at a half-empty plastic water bottle sitting abandoned on the edge of the gym floor. I squeezed my pinky finger tightly and swept my arm across my chest.
A long, thin whip of water shot cleanly out of the narrow bottle opening. It whipped across the distance of the gym and slapped the blonde girl right on her right shoulder with a loud crack. The water was moving so fast and hit so hard that it sliced right through the fabric of her shirt and left a deep, bleeding red cut on her bare arm.
She stumbled backward, looking completely shocked. "Ouch!" she yelled, immediately grabbing her arm with her other hand.
I smiled. All my painful practice had finally paid off. I got ready to sweep my arm and use my water whip again to push her out of the ring and secure my win.
But then, the girl moved her hand away from her shoulder.
The deep red cut was completely gone. Her skin was perfectly smooth and healthy again, without even a scar. The ripped fabric of her shirt was the absolute only proof that she had even been hit.
My confident smile vanished instantly.
*Ding!*
The bright blue window popped up right in front of my face, blocking my view.
**[Magic Logic Observed]**
**[Target: Instant Cellular Body Repair]**
**[Analyzing...]**
**[Current Understanding: 0%]**
**[Status: Locked]**
**[Hint: You do not know how cells rebuild themselves this fast! What is the fuel source?]**
I panicked. I completely dropped the tension in my arm, and the water whip splashed harmlessly onto the floor. I quickly imagined the thick string of heat connecting the warm, buzzing gym lights hanging above us to my empty hands. I pulled the heat down fast, packed it tightly into a ball, and threw a baseball-sized orange fireball right at her chest.
*Bam!* The fireball hit her dead center. It burned a large black hole in her shirt and left an ugly, blistering burn on her skin. She groaned in actual pain and dropped down to take a knee on the floor.
But three seconds later, the burnt, ruined skin peeled away from her chest like dead autumn leaves, falling to the floor. Fresh, completely healthy pink skin grew right back in its place right before my eyes. She stood up, calmly brushed the black ashes off her chest, and stretched her neck side to side. She wasn't even breathing hard.
"My turn," she said, her sweet smile totally gone.
She ran full speed right at me. I tried to pull more heat from the lights, but my hands were shaking entirely too much. I was panicking. I couldn't focus my mind on the heat transfer for the fireball p, and I couldn't figure out the logic of her healing. Did she speed up her own timeline? Did she create new flesh out of thin air? Did she absorb energy from the floor? The blue system screen hovering in the corner of my eye stubbornly stayed at 0%.
Before I could throw another desperate fireball, she crashed into me. She didn't use any flashy, glowing magic to hit me. She didn't need to. She just used her normal, physical strength. But because she never got tired and her muscles never stayed hurt, she was impossible to stop.
She grabbed me tightly by the front of my gray hoodie, spun on her heel, and threw me backward with incredible force. I hit the shiny gym floor hard, the air knocking out of my lungs, and slid on my back all the way out of the thick white square.
"Out of bounds!" Coach Davis yelled loudly, pointing her finger right at me. "Winner is number 4! Number 7, go to the bleachers!"
I lay flat on the cold, hard floor, staring blankly up at the bright ceiling lights. My back ached terribly where I had hit the wood. The blonde girl didn't even look back at me. She just turned around and walked away to wait for round two, looking completely unbothered by our fight.
The blue screen hovered silently over me, still flashing that awful, mocking zero percent.
I slowly sat up, groaning softly, and dragged myself over to the empty wooden bleachers pushed against the wall. I sat down heavily on the lowest step and pulled my knees tightly to my chest. The loud, chaotic sounds of the gym fighting slowly faded away into the background of my mind.
I had been so incredibly proud of my little fireballs and my clever water whips. I thought simply knowing a few rules made me a genius. I thought I was ready. But sitting there on the hard bleachers, rubbing my bruised back, the cold, harsh truth finally hit me.
Having the System didn't mean I automatically won fights. It just meant I had the tools to learn. And as I sat there and watched the other kids fight, tearing up the gym floor with amazing powers I couldn't even begin to understand yet, I realized something incredibly important.
I had lost the battle today. But if I sat right here on the bleachers, kept my eyes open, and paid very close attention, I could Observe and learn a lot more powers for tomorrow.