The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-Termination, followed by The Spell of Instantaneous Tallying Upon a Designated Board Upon the Activation of The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-

Jenn liked the sound of that. Her mouth curved high, showing a glint of teeth.

The Participants were ushered out in staggered lines. They were en route to an open courtyard. It seemed like a designated space for this sort of thing. Quite wide. Quite long. Quite well fitted with balconies along the perimeter, with hundreds of nobles, peasants, and foreigners carning from the edges, hungry for blood and that sort of thing.

There were even camera crews at hand. A fact Jenn noted with a raise of her brow, and a quick search for someone she knew.

One White Hat gestured with his gun. “Observer guests, please come with me. I repeat, Participants who are not Participants but are just here to watch, come with me.”

“See ya,” said Cerica, tracing Jenn’s navel with her finger. “Try not to—”

The woman picked up the girl under her arms. That was when she tossed her like a ball, headfirst into the crowd.

“Look at her go!” yelled a journalist in the crowd, instructing her camera crew. “A participant just launched a little girl for no reason at all!”

Jenn nodded in satisfaction before looking towards the courtyard’s entrance.

Three boys stood at the entrance, each a different colour: red, blue, and yellow. All were dressed for ceremony, with tall cone hats, great overcoats, and leather bracers at the wrist. From their hands dangled chain and censer, rattling like rats as they approached.

“Hello,” said Boy A.

“Hello,” said Boy B (not to be mistaken with Boy Blue, who was Boy C).

“Tis I,” said Boy C, who was technically Boy B but in other technicalities not.

“Before the mêlée begins, we will be casting spells on you,” spoke Boy A.

“Safety spells,” replied Boy B.

“Tis I,” added Boy C, clearly nervous.

“The spells are as follows: The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-Termination.”

“The Spell of Instantaneous Tallying Upon a Designated Board Upon the Activation of The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-Termination.”

A short silence. Boy A nudged Boy C in the side.

“Then, then…” He stuttered. “Tis—There’s The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-Termination, followed by The Spell of Instantaneous Tallying Upon a Designated Board Upon the Activation of The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-Termination, followed by the The Spell of Instantenous Designation by a Large X Across the Chest Upon the Activation of The Spell of Instantaneous Tallying Upon a Designated Board Upon the Activation of The Spell of Self-Assured Ascension Upon Previously Mutually Agreed Self-Termination.”

The crowd clapped for the stuttering boy. After which, the crowd passed one by one between the three boys, being doused with censer smoke, and strange words. Jenn was through before long. As was Filly, who had found himself next to her.

Another figure stood before them now. A stern man, in a sleeveless tunic, with a gun by one side, a sword at the other, and brushed brown hair on the top.

“I am Abe Fordsworth.” He watched to let his name set in. “The rules are simple. The last twelve standing will pass this preliminary.”

Jenn nodded, thinking. “Anything else?”

“Good question,” replied the man rather conversationally. “Preferably no hits or thrusts below the hip. Preferably nothing that will in any shape or form harm the audience.”

“Are we allowed to strip naked?” One asked. “It’s kinda a part of my transformation.”

“Preferably no displays of external genitalia,” added Abe.

“How about internal?” asked another.

“Good question,” said the Prince of All Things Besides the King. “I will be monitoring the mêlée as it happens. If I am in any shape or form subjected to a display of internal genitalia, I will hereby resign from my post and become a farmer. That is all.”

Abe mumbled some words beyond hearing. More White Hats came and went, diverting half of the current group to the far end of the courtyard. Jenn and Filly stayed where they were, waiting.

“You know, Filly. A real mêlée is much more complicated.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said.

“There’s a tournament book by King René of Anjou that goes into it. The ladies go on their scaffold. Knights have their banner riders come out first. And there’s a bunch of speeches and whatnot that go beforehand. Really extravagant. Nothing like this.”

“This ‘ere thing is complex as is.”

A wave of music, featuring blaring trumpets, drums, and a sound reminiscent of Mongolian throat singing, came from the sides.

Abe Fordsworth began. “My honoured guests and even more honoured Princes of this here land, the great King of Indaria hereby presents the mêlée of his great tournament, and so that this great tournament might begin, invites the speaking of the Princes present.”

Those at a nearby scaffold stood and began in unison. “The Princes have heard your word, and recognise the will of the King thus contained! In the name of all that is good, all that is just, and all that might be glorious, let the mêlée begin!”

The music sounded again. The courtyard exploded with motion. Clouds of dust, and the rupture of movement came from all over; ignited jets, heavy steps, and wheeled chariots.

“DATTEBAYO!” Up ahead, a shounen protagonist exploded in literal aura, his frame covered by a hue of fire.

He rushed forth, sliding low under a halberd that would have taken him from shoulder to hip. With his hand exploding in red, he slammed it into the halberdier's chest, landing an instant KO.

Seizing the halberd, he spun it around and around, slashing a half-dozen opponents at once. A grin crossed his young features. He barely had time to breathe before a shadow loomed over him, and a giant hammer came crashing down.

Boink! A cute girl in a frilly pink dress slammed the poor shounen protagonist. He fell unconscious immediately, and a large X formed across his chest, before he flew to the scaffold.

“Come on, come on!!” The girl yelled, bonking target after target, doing great leaps in the air like a balloon full of helium. “You guys are way too weak for this!”

Then someone drop-kicked her, and the girl fell down, too.

“Oh, I did not just drop-kick a little girl! Dude, Uncle Tod would be so disappointed.”

It was a man in black and white spandex, with two hornet wings on his back. He fluttered around, leaping and flying at once. Two warriors cornered him, each wielding a laser sword.

“Our weapons cut through titanum!”

“I’m not wearing any titanium.”

They slashed from both sides, blades hissing like desert heat. He jumped. Spinning in the gap between the two blades. Then landed with both palms on the ground. Twisting with his legs kicked out, and ‘break-danced’ across the men’s faces. Kicking them one, two, three, four, five times!—before landing a finishing foot to the men’s chins, sending them hurtling a dozen metres into the air.

He back-flipped back to his feet with a grin. “You know, it feels good to know sci-fi gizmos and high-tech armour can’t beat a dude with hornet powers.”

“Sure, if you don’t count break-dancing that is!”

Hornet-Dancer-Man looked to his right, watching as Jenn came in with a left hook. He bent backwards, balanced on the edge of his feet’s balls. The punch went just above his nose, tickling it ever so slightly.

In reply, Hornet-Dancer-Man arced a foot towards Jenn’s jaw. She ducked low, dodged it by a hair’s breadth, and carefully, gracefully, angled her fist in the nether area between a man’s two thighs.

“Oh—my glorious, precious hornet marbles!”

Crkkkkk.

A sound like tossed vegetables came from his sack. And a large X formed on Hornet-Dancer-Man, sending him flying into the sky.

“Sorry, Hornet-Dancer-Ballgone-Man!”

Jenn charged forth, left arm raised. To her right was a witch mid-incantation. A short booger of a thing, with sickly green skin, and a sausage for a nose. She raised her great branch-staff into the air and yelled.

“El Balagua!”

A fissure formed in the ground, accompanied by a glow of apple green. Bony fingers thrust from within. One by one, skeletons dragged themselves up, large, horrible things the size of a double door each.

“‘Kekeke.”

Their jaws clacked, in a clk clk clk rhythm.

Jenn breathed hard and charged harder. She ploughed through the first and ripped the head off as she did.

“Help!” The skeleton cried. “This is a violation of Code A of the Skeletal Caus—

“ORA!”

Jenn threw the skull straight into another skeleton’s crotch, shattering its pelvis on impact.

—Second Reversion: Marked Object Return

Her right hand flared red.

“Wooooah!”

The skeleton’s head returned to her hand.

“Get her!”

A circle of skeletons swarmed around her, faces clacking in interpretative anger. Jenn grinned. They rushed forth at once, with all the harmony of a synchronised swim team. She jumped, and landed on a head, stumbling once as she did.

Then, palming her skeleton skull, Jenn dug into the hollow eye sockets like handles.

“My holes! My eye holes!!!”

With a smirk, Jenn threw the skull down, slamming her skull into another. As it came down, the receiving skull suffered the snap of broken jawbones and splintered shards, destroying the attached body entirely.

—Second Reversion: Marked Object Return

Jenn’s skull flew back into her iron-vice grip. She began to dribble it against each of the skeletons beneath her, hopping from head to head, shattering skulls as she did.

“El Balagua! El Balagua!”

More and more skeletons clawed from the ground. A few dozen were in front of the witch, all in a great pile over five metres tall.

“You’ll never make it, puny human!” cried the violated skull.

“Oh yeah?!”

Jenn zipped past more and more skeletons, bouncing her skull, building momentum towards the great wave of bones. One skeleton lunged from the pile, arms raised to grab.

This was perfect for Jenn. Using it as a platform, she mounted the coming wave, and with a bend of her knee, leapt over it all. And finally, in a jump that covered six metres high, Jenn gripped the two skull with two hands, and hurled it at the witch.

“Slam dunk!”

The skull smashed straight into her face, and pulled from it spit, blood, and old dentures. The green witch dropped her staff, then well into unconsciousness. The skeletons lost their drive and motion, becoming limp as they did.

As it so happened, a symbol spread across the witch’s chest, a large X, red as a rose.

The witch rocketed upwards, black robe fluttering in the wind. Jenn watched her trajectory, going across the sky, before landing in a designated purple scaffold.

Upon closer inspection, several more individuals were there. Each unconscious or wounded. Clearly, the result of having lost the mêlée in their own way.

Seconds passed. Jenn was back in the game, eyes furrowed on what lay ahead. Further along, Mo Xixi—with his red taselled spear did battle with a mech. Thrust after thrust was replied with block after block from an energy shield on the mech’s wrist bracer.

And like the intrepid observer she was, Jenn kept watching, face drawn in a smile. For a moment, Jenn locked eyes with Mo. The latter, seeing her, winked.

He thrust his spear, stabbing it inside the mech’s shield. Flexing the handle, angling it down, Mo Xixi leveraged it as a launchpad. Boing. The spear whipped straight. He carved an arc; landed on the mech’s head, and thrust his hand through the metal cockpit, pulling out its pilot.

“My gift to you!” he exclaimed.

Mo threw the pilot all the way to Jenn. She pulled up her sleeve, winding her fist in a clockwork motion. It was a savage, passionate punch, and as the pilot fell face-first into it, sent him soaring through the air.

“Alright!”

Jenn was sure of herself now. She grew faster, letting loose a terrible, long laugh, and striving for her next opponent.

“Who else wants some of the Cockehead, eh?!”

Jenn drew to a sudden halt, her foot kicking up dust and dirt. For there came a great cry of simultaneous anguish, as not one, not two, but three Participants were felled at once, sent into the sky. All of them were launched by the same man. All defeated by a sole figure.