Kyra landed hard on the ground, tangled with the rest whom had fallen with. Their landing echoed throughout the cave. It appeared that they fell through a long tubing that swayed left and right for a good 20 seconds. Kyra removed Rena’s leg from her and stood up, away from the mess of bodies.

It seemed they were in some sort of an underground cave system. The caves were dimly lit with fluorescent tubes strewn along the walls.

“That was unpleasant. We fell into a literal shithole.” Rena commented.

“You can say that again.” A boy that was with them spoke as he got up.

Kyra did not take a good look at him earlier in the hall. If she recalled correctly, his name was Cree. Cree had a happy-go-lucky on look. He carried a sword just like Kyra. However, his was a western sword. The other guy beside Cree was Shiloh. Shiloh wore a bandana and his posture was slightly slouched. He held two daggers in his hands.

Cree spoke once again, “So what do we do now?”

“We need to find our respective Tags.” Kyra replied.

Rena raised her finger as if to indicate she had an idea. “How about we work together?”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

“Sure.” Kyra added. Being grouped together like this by the school was most likely encouraging students to work together or kill each other once the exam started.

Shiloh nodded.

Teaming up in an unknown environment is a sound idea. However, she cannot fully trust her “teammates”. Even though, they were not enemies. The chance of them backstabbing her was still there. As of now, being backstabbed was the least of her concerns. Finding others and getting the right Tag was a bigger problem. This entire cave system that she was currently in, most likely was a huge maze. Traversing and surviving enemy attacks are also another thing. Kyra had to assume that there were others who were working in teams.

“We should move before others find us. Find them first.” Kyra suggested.

“Well, which direction? Left, or right?” Rena gestured to the two passageways available.

“Let’s try the right.” Cree told the group.

It was better than nothing so they headed off to the right passageway without discussion.  

After walking a good distance, they came across two dead bodies riddled with bullets. Kyra took a closer look at the bodies. It seemed that they were shot behind from the back.

“Is this what Alkiel meant when she said by any means?” Cree asked.

Kyra answered, “Probably. She did say we are allowed to kill when authorized. It’s safe to assume that we are authorized to kill. Being passive won’t do good if the rest have the intent to kill.”

Kyra expected everyone in this school to be trigger happy. A kill on sight mentality was a must. Although the voluptuous headmaster did not outright authorize them, the wording was more than enough to entice everyone to start killing for a glorified smartphone.

Kyra examined her surroundings. The cave system was not strictly passageways. It was a mixture of large and small openings, arenas with plenty of cover for fights. A pretty elaborate underground fight arena underneath the school.

All of a sudden, the ground shook. Rubble fell from the ceiling onto their bodies. The ground shook again. The magnitude of the rumble got heavily over time as if it was getting closer.

The group drew their weapons. Kyra, her katana, Rena her guns, Cree his sword and Shiloh his knives.

Soon, they could hear explosions. A panicked examinee, with tattered clothes, ran down from the tunnel ahead. He saw the group and shouted raspingly for help. Before he could get any closer, his body blew up into pieces.

Rena whistled, “That’s overkill. I don’t think his ID survived that.”

Kyra silently agreed. Whoever that assailant was, his method was surely explosive and they were just about to find out who that person is.

The assailant emerged from the explosion’s smoke. He was holding a grenade launcher, grenades slung across his body.

He snarled, “Finally gotten the damn rat…. Oh, what do we have here? Four more rats scouring around.”

The student proceeded to reload his launcher grenade by grenade.

Creed spoke to him, “Look, we don’t want trouble. How about you grab the dead guy’s ID and we go our separate ways.”

Kyra knew that was not going to happen. The explosive idiot was going to listen to them.

“Ned! Wait up!”

A voice came from behind him. It belonged to a girl, who was carrying a semi-auto rifle, stumbling across the path.

“I thought I told you to call me Boomer!”

“The others lost their way because you blew the entire place up. 2 of the IDs we picked up were destroyed. You need to be more careful.”

“And I told you to follow closely behind, Aimi.”

The girl, Aimi, walked towards to the exploded carcass and gently picked up a leg. She took out the ID from its pocket.

“Ah! Found it. The screen’s cracked but it’s still functioning. Errrm, it says Tag 3 here.”

“Isn’t that nice. You’re Tag 3. I have yet to find mine yet but there’s four to choose from.”

Boomer observed the group. Two sword users, a gun user and a stealth user from the looks of it. The gun user was more of a concern than the rest. It all boiled down to who made the move first. Boomer was still reloading rounds into his launcher. The plan was to fire a grenade at the ceiling above them. The gun user merely unholstered her guns. Either she was unsure of what to do or she was confident she could get them first.

He whispered to Aimi, “Pop the smokes.”

Aimi fumbled with the smoke grenades and threw them across the cave.

Immediately after the smokes were thrown, Boomer aimed his launcher towards the group’s direction and arced his trajectory upwards. Kyra readied herself to jump out of the way. She knew what he was planning to do. He was going to blast the ceiling above them.

Before anything could happen, Rena started shooting which caused Aimi to snap her rifle right at her. Shots were exchanged and Aimi came out victorious.

“That bitch clapped my shoulder!” Rena exclaimed.

Poppoppoppoppoppoppoppoppoppop

Boomer pulled the trigger and his launcher fired a quick succession of grenades towards them. Boomer’s grenade launcher had custom functionalities built in. He chose the full-auto for this situation. Boomer grinned. Unleash the chaos from my canvas.

The smokes decreased the group’s vision. First impact hit the ceiling. Everyone jumped away from where they were standing.  Rena jumped into cover, Shiloh rushed ahead while Kyra and Cree jumped towards the right.

The grenades continued impacting the cave. Kyra’s ears ringed loudly. She had counted at least 10 grenades being launched. All of them hit various parts of the caves. The worst part was that it was not random. Each grenade was fired into consideration and they impacted at spots where it did not give them much room to dodge.

However, the integrity of the caves failed.

“Aimi, thermal scope now!” Boomer ordered.

“Yes!”

Aimi turned on thermal on her scope and took aim. However, it was hard to take a clean shot as the ground shook vigorously and huge rubbles were blocking her vision.

“I-I can’t take a shot.” Aimi said.

 Meanwhile, the floor under Kyra and Cree caved in. Kyra lost her footing and both of them fell in deeper.

“KYRA!” shouted Rena.

Rena could only watch as Kyra and Cree fell. She could not move from her cover with all these rocks falling and the ground shaking violently due to the explosions. She had no idea where Shiloh went. She took a peek from her rock. The smoke was dissipating slowly. She could barely make out the aftermath of the environment. However, she could see two silhouettes.  There was a flash from the right silhouette. Rena immediately ducked down. A bullet impacted at the rock that Rena was hiding behind.

Despite the mini earthquake that Ned caused, Aimi continued looking through the thermal scope. She saw two body heat signatures fall. One peeked so she opened fire. But the figure went back into cover. Aimi fired a few more rounds. There were four of them. Two fell in the abyss. One’s hiding in the rock. Where was the other? In the smoke? But she was not picking up anyone in the smoke.

Boomer unclipped his launcher and unloaded the used shells. The chaos that ensued was overkill. But this was still exuberating. The thrill of cornering rats.

The launcher needed time to cooldown. He had recently used the auto firing which heated up his launcher even faster. During this time, it was inadvisable to load any more grenades. The smokes were almost clearing up now. Just then, at the corner of his eye, a figure burst out from the smoke to his diagonal right.

Aimi heard a figure emerging but was unable to shoot. It was directly in her blind spot where Ned was standing from.

Shiloh had been silently moving from cover to cover, waiting for a chance to strike. He moved towards an angle where Boomer’s body blocked Aimi in his line of sight. Boomer currently did not have his launcher at the ready. Smoke was rising from the canister. It seemed that the launcher needed to cool down. The chance to attack was now.  Shiloh emerged from his cover and went straight for Boomer. He was going to kill him and jump towards Aimi and kill her next.

Boomer grinned widely and immediately pulled out his side launcher at his pistol holster.

He cocked it and said, “Boom.”

Shiloh’s eyes widened as Boomer pulled the trigger. The only thing left to do was to twist his body mid-air away from the grenade. But he might not make it, seeing as the distance between them were barely a meter.

Bang

Rena fired right at the grenade round. The speed of the bullet impacted with the speed of the grenade round, which caused an explosion right at them.

Although Shiloh twisted his body away, he was still caught by the explosion, barely making it out. His bandana and clothing helped to shield most of the explosion and he hit the ground hard. He cursed silently. Shiloh was sure that he had broken a rib or two. For better or worse, the exhibitionist gunslinger, Rena had saved him. Shiloh needed to move away to cover. Boomer definitely was caught up in that explosion and the sharpshooter behind him most likely did not. At best, she flinched. Whoever made the next move wins this showdown.

Kyra hated this exam to the core. First, she fell and then she fell deeper again. Kyra looked up. She estimated that she had fallen at least 30 meters deep. If she was going to fall, she rather fell voluntarily.

“Argh. What do we do now? Is there a way out?” Cree asked.

“Yea, there should be a way out. There’s light here. Same as above.  We’re just deeper underground.”

“We need to hurry and head back up. Rena and Shiloh may need help.”

Kyra looked at Cree with a drop of curiosity. This guy was acting selfless. Even though, they were the ones in bigger trouble, he still thought of the others above.

Kyra looked away and gave him some assurance, “They’re both fine. I don’t know about Shiloh but I think Rena can handle herself.”

“Y-you’re right. Shiloh can take of himself.”

There were a lot of huge rocks and rubble around that had fallen from above due to the series of explosion. There was not much floor space to walk normally. Traversing across to the entrance that was ahead of them would not be easy.

Before Kyra could take a step, she felt a presence from behind. She instinctively jumped to her side and landed on a huge rock. The presence belonged to a hammer user. His hammer smashed into where Kyra was last standing. He, however, was not alone as Cree had his sword locked with another sword user. They traded a few parries before breaking off.

The hammer user raised his hammer and went straight for Kyra’s position. Kyra once again jumped away before he could strike. From the corner of her eye, she saw a scope glint. She ducked into cover and a bullet impacted onto her rock cover. The hammer user was not done yet and smashed her rock cover. Kyra ducked into the next cover beside her. She had to keep a low profile or the sniper will get her.

“I’m going to kill you!”

The hammer user swung his hammer wildly, smashing any rock in his way as Kyra continued to avoid the sniper and the swings. He seemed to harbor ill hatred against Kyra. She continued moving

Cree heard the sniper fire but thankfully he was out of the sniper’s line of sight. Though, he was completely on the defense against the other sword user. The sword user’s attacks were very aggressive, yet they were giving him no openings. With him being push back like this, his footing was getting more unbalanced due to the uneven ground. Cree had to find a way to go on the offense soon.

Cree decided to ask a question.

“If I may ask, why do you and your friends seem so angry with us?”

Their swords locked with each other again.

“The fight that happened above was you, wasn’t it? The series of explosions?” The sword user questioned intensively.

“Your shenanigans above caused my friend’s death!”

The sword user kicked Cree into a rock behind him. Cree smiled as if he had been for this. Cree hit the rock but he used the momentum and force to rebound his body back and stab the sword user thorough her chest with his sword. When she kicked him, he saw an opening.

Cree brought himself closer to her ear and whispered, “Now, you’ll die with your friend.”

Cree pushed her body off his sword. He looked towards the hammer user. It appeared he was still trying to smash Kyra into a blob. Kyra was dodging both the swings and gunfire. Cree guessed he would have to sneak his way ahead to intercept the sniper.

Meanwhile, Kyra was not having the time of her life. Having to dodge the heavy swings was one thing, but keeping low at the same time was annoying. She could just ignore the hammer user and go straight for the sniper.  To hell with it, she thought. Dancing around the big guy wasn’t going to do anything. Her jacket was not hammer-proof but it was bulletproof to a certain extent.

An explosion from above occurred. The ground shook again. It appeared Boomer launched another explosive round above. Kyra changed her game plan and went straight back for the hammer user. The sniper should have been staggered by the shake. Kyra ran to her left and pulled her blade back, ready to slice him. The hammer user saw this and swung low from his right. She immediately jumped to her right, onto a large rock, avoiding the hammer. Kyra then launched herself from the rock.

Twin Style 7^th Form Rotary Slash

The hammer flew out of his hands and smashed into a rock. His headless body fell to the ground.

“Alex!!!” The sniper shouted.

The sniper dropped his rifle in disbelief. In just a few seconds, all of his friends that he had known since childhood were dead.  The black swordswoman was walking closer towards him with Alex’s decapitated head in hand, her sword still dripping with blood. Huge beads of sweats rolled profusely down his face. He took out his ID.

“H-h-hey! This is what u want, isn’t it? Take it. Just take it.”

He waved the phone at her. But the swordswoman was not stopping. She did not say anything. Her kill intent was flowing out of her. He could not take it anymore. He threw the ID and ran backwards. He was not going to lose his life here. So, what if he could not enroll in this Academy? There were other ways to learn Arts. This was just a prestigious school in this dump of a city.

However, he was stopped in his tracks by someone who blocked him with his body. It was the other sword user who fell from the hole. The sword user merely smiled at him. He tried to say something to him but soon realized that his throat was filled with blood. He felt a sharp pain in his abdomen and he looked down, only to see a sword pierced into his body. He screamed but no sound came out from his mouth. Only blood. The last thing he saw was his killer’s smile. A kind yet merciless smile.

Kyra dropped the head and went to search for the hammer wielder’s ID. It seemed she did not do anything. Cree had been waiting to make a move. She found the ID and turned on the screen. Tag 1, it read. Just what she needed.

“This guy has Tag 3. The girl I killed just now had Tag 2.” Cree stated.

“That means Tag 4 is somewhere under this rubble.”

Kyra scanned the area. “Yea, I’m not going to bother searching in this mess.”

They just had to find another examinee who had Tag 4 or leave whoever had Tag 4 to deal with his own mess. Rena had Tag 2. She had Tag 1. So, it was either Shiloh or Cree.

“Ah! Found him. His upper body is crushed but his lower half is intact. Let me see… And we got it. Yep. Tag 4. We’re done here. Let’s head up to Rena and Shiloh.”

Kyra could only watch silently and nod.

“Shiloh. Hey Shiloh.”

Rena approached Shiloh whom was laying faced down. His body moved.

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

Shiloh slowly sat up and checked his body for wounds. There was a few bruises and small burns but nothing too major. Shiloh looked towards Boomer’s direction. The smoke explosion was too visible. At this point, it was getting annoying. The smokes were hindering their vision and breathing. They were also in an enclosed area. It would take quite a while for smoke to dissipate again.

Rena spoke, “I could start firing rounds into the smoke as a distraction while you approach from either side and shank them before they get any wiser.”

It seemed like it was a decent idea. It was risky but if he could find them first and caught them off guard. Shiloh was confident in his backstabbing skills but he had to worry about any tricks that Boomer or the girl might have. For all he knew, Boomer might blow himself up with a grenade to take him out. He did fire a grenade at close range.

No, he had to make a call now. He just had to strike them first before they both react. Shiloh took out two knives from his belt. A knife each to the back of their heads, he thought to himself.  40 seconds had already passed. It was now or never.

Boomer emerged from the smoke and grinned.

“Nice try, bitches.”

A top part of Boomer’s face was burnt off.  Boomer was wearing a fireproof suit with long sleeves and had covered his face with his arm. However, part of his forehead was caught in the explosion. It was nothing to serious. Boomer was used to it. Aimi did not get caught in the explosion because Boomer had pushed her directly behind him and made sure she would come out unscathed.

“What do we do now?”  Rena asked Shiloh.

Shiloh replied, “Damned if I know….” He paused. “It’s an endurance fight now. Maybe till Kyra and Cree arrived.”

Rena smirked with slight uneasiness, “And be pussies? I will be the one damned if I let others rescue poor lil’ me.”

She raised her guns to her face and jumped out of cover and started shooting at Boomer. Boomer immediately pulled Aimi down and went into cover. As they went into cover, Boomer had dropped a smoke grenade. Rena cursed when it popped. She continued to fire into the general area where they hid.

Poppopopopop

“Run!” Rena warned Shiloh.

Shiloh immediately moved out of cover and went towards the smoke to get the advantage while Rena tried her best to avoid the explosions. Rena continued cursing. This was a bad matchup no matter how one looked at it. She was the only one with range in their little group while the rest used blades. The worst part was she had pistols only. She’s not equipped for heavy power or long range for that matter. As of yet… Prancing around like an idiot was her only solution. They needed to find a way to break this continuous cycle. They could keep dodging till Boomer ran out of shells. However, there’s an off chance one of them might get hit.

“Shiloh! Target the girl. I will go after Boomer!”

Shiloh nodded and Rena immediately sprung into action.  Rena dashed forward and fired in two directions. Boomer and Aimei. Shiloh went straight for Aimi. Boomer snarled and fired his launcher upwards. Shiloh stopped in his tracks as rocks fell down. Boomer pointed a middle finger at them and moved backwards with Aimi.

“That explosive cunt!” Rena cursed. Going up against a maniac with no regard with his safety or life was extremely reckless. She thought the girl would be a weak link but she was surprisingly in tune with Boomer. However, it was obvious that Boomer was protecting her. Too well.

“That’s enough.” A voice echoed.

Kyra had her katana at Aimi’s throat. “Move and I slice her pretty throat.”

“Well well, you got me.” Boomer replied. He went to back sling his launcher and raised his hands to show his surrender. Boomer eyed to his left and saw Cree.

Cree positioned himself in a way that he is able to thrust his sword into his neck.

Kyra called out to Rena and Shiloh, “You guys ok?”

“Yeah… Just kill the bastards already.”

Just then, Kyra heard a pin being twisted and pulled. Kyra looked down to see Aimi throw a flashbang at her. Kyra immediately slapped it away from her and braced herself.

BANG

The flashbang went off. Kyra became disoriented from the impact. She stumbled in her feet but held her ground and tried to focus. Without hesitation, Kyra swung her katana horizontally but the slash missed its mark. Aimi had already escaped. So did Boomer.

It took a while for Kyra to regain her senses. The rest were still recovering. Rena stood up and commented, “Seems like the girl is as crazy and reckless as him.”

“He must have signaled her to escape once we showed up.” Kyra theorized.

“Damn. I’m pretty shagged myself. We still need to get through this dumb exam.”

“Well… Cree and I took out a whole team by ourselves. Here.” Kyra passed Rena’s corresponding Tag to her and to Shiloh.

“Not bad. Hey. It’s bloodied and sticky.” Rena stated.

“Just wipe the blood away using your pants.” Kyra stated flatly.

Rena stood up, walked towards Kyra and wiped the ID on her jacket. Kyra’s eye widened and immediately hopped backwards.

“The jacket’s off limit, asshole!” Kyra slapped Rena’s hand away.

“You killed the guy so it’s your fault that this ID is bloodied.” Rena retorted.

“That makes no senses whatso-”

“Will you two keep it down? My head is still ringing.” Shiloh interrupted.

Rena flipped Shiloh off while Kyra sat down leaning against a huge rock. She took out her ID and started to fiddle with it. She clicked on an icon that said “Map”. It seemed that it showed the area that she was currently in. It was a rather extensive application with many functions. It was able to show 2D and 3D views, real-time GPS locations of students and faculty but that function was unavailable as of yet. The map showed that they were two levels below the nearest exit.

The group decided to take a breather before heading for the exit and get this exam over and done with.

Aimi stopped and slowly caught her breath. The second the flashbang popped, she had closed her eyes and hightailed it out of there as far as she could get.

“That was a close call….”

“I probably could have taken them all.” Boomer stated. Aimi looked at him with worry. He always had some would call, suicidal tendencies. She could not help but worry each time. He never listened to her.

“But that female swordswoman had a dangerous aura.”

“Where have you two been?”

The question came from another member of Boomer’s and Aimi’s team. He was together with the last member.

Boomer grinned, “We were in a scrape with another team.”

The member raised an eyebrow. He looked at both Boomer’s and Aimi’s conditions. Aimi was pretty banged up while Boomer was bleeding and his equipment had clearly seen some action.

“A scrape you say? More like an explosive fight. Those explosions and tremors were clearly caused by you. I don’t plan to die in an unknown underground cave. You do still have your ID intact, don’t you?”

“Yea. Stop nagging. You still have a young life ahead of you,” Boomer wisecracked.

“And whose problem would that be?”

The girl smiled, “Should we go back and deal with them, now that we have full strength?”

“No! ….” Aimi squeaked.

She continued after recomposing herself, “What I meant was that we should continue on and look for other targets.”

All the commotion earlier might have attracted other groups to that location. If the swordswoman was bad news as she had thought, they might not have gotten out unscathed.

The girl shrugged, “If you say so.”

The underground cave system seemed to be a mixture of natural and manmade formation. It seemed as if the school had repurposed the cave system into a battlefield. In any case, everything about the caves was quite unnatural. Kyra assumed that all freshmen go through the same entrance exam. If that was the case, wouldn’t the environment have battle scars? Kyra did not once see any signs of battles. Did the school always clean this place up thoroughly?

They had walked quite a distance before reaching the exit. They first had to climb upwards towards ground level and traverse through rocky terrain in order to reach their destination.

“I… never… want to go through that… again,” Shiloh panted.

“You can say that again,” Cree agreed.

It was a miracle that none of them came into contact with any other groups. They had heard sounds of people clashing together but they ultimately decided to avoid them and head straight for the exit.

As they approach the exit, the rocky terrain was slowly smoothened out and transited to a smooth polished marble floor.  They could see two figures standing at what seems to be a heavy fortified door.

“Welcome and congratulations and making this far. May we see your admissions?” they spoke in unison that made the surrounding area even chiller.

Kyra took out her ID and the other one flashed it at them. The rest proceeded to do the same.

“It seems everything is in order. Please leave the other participants’ IDs in the container bin here and exit through the door ahead and proceed to the admin office for registration. And once again, congratulations on entering the Academy of Arts,” they bowed.

Rena, who was visibly freaked out, quickly headed for the door. The door sensed motion and slowly swung outwards. Light from outside shone brightly and lit up the dimly lit cave. Rena walked out and took a deep breath.

“Finally, air that is even more stale and less natural,” she vented out.

Now, they had to find their way to this administrative office. Kyra sighed internally. This whole day had been nothing but ups and downs. The time on her ID reflected it was around 12 in the afternoon. That meant that they had been stuck in that accursed place for about three hours. The group stretched their bodies. Kyra’s body shuddered as she stretched. The sound of her bones cracking was oddly satisfying to her.

“Hey, is that a map of the school?” Shiloh pointed to a nearby stand with many brochures. He walked over to it and took four brochures and passed it around.

“Oh wow! This is like some kind of amusement park but with a higher mortality rate,” Rena remarked, clearly intrigued by the map’s design.

Rena wasn’t wrong. The map was colorful and had lots of cutesy design that you thought this wasn’t a prestigious academy. After the cold speech by the Director and the killing in the entrance exam, this was quite a shock to see. None of them expected to see this at all.

“Let’s see…. It seems if we make a right and follow the path here… we will arrive at the administrative building.” Cree traced a path on the map with his finger.

Without a word, Kyra left.

“Hey, wait up!” Rena called for her and ran after her. The two remaining guys sighed and followed behind.

Note: This chapter has not been fully proof read. I apologize for any errors or plots that do not make sense.