Disclaimer: Chances are, anyone you recognize we don't own. All the OCs are of our creation and belong to us (LostAcanthus and CallousCole)

---

Chapter One, Part One

The cheerful newscaster popped up on the screen manifesting happiness, as he reported his shocking new story. As he began to voice over the live footage of a gigantic mound of burning rubble, his face and tone instantly became somber, “Tonight hear about the biggest scandal to hit this decade, the newly discovered fad for those bored multi- millionaires that has shocked and appalled millions of mutants and activists world-wide. We have exclusive footage directly from the scene and our news crew has discovered that some of the most prominent millionaires in the world have been participating in the illegal kidnapping and gambling on the survival of mutants. The stakes were in the millions for this sick version of a dog-fight. They hired bounty hunters to capture powerful mutants, and bring them to this isolated part of Britain to “play their game.” Using their new and well bought technology they brainwashed the captured mutants and locked them into a Virtual Reality world where they were forced to kill or be killed. Until something went dreadfully wrong and this arena was destroyed, leaving no survivors…”

…Earlier that week…

Carina can not remember her past. All she carries are the gruesome scars that leave her wondering what her past might have been like; if it was any better than the current one it would be worth knowing. The only thing that she is sure of is her name and her purpose, to kill.

Ever since her and her comrades have been trapped in this…place, all they have done are “missions” given to them by a computer screen. The only thing that remains in this world everyday is that computer, its screen blinking that annoyingly bright blue color, until they are given a new order, a new subject to kill.

---

Clarissa McAdams and seven other students walk to the center of a vast expanse of green grass. The sun bears down on them and the blonde first year student takes it in gratefully. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, inhaling the sweet smell of the freshly cut grass.

Raising her arms above her, she stretches and smiles. She's completely content to stand there all day, admiring the fair weather that seemed to be lacking in New York as of late. Someone suddenly bangs into her shoulder, interrupting her pleasant thoughts.

John Allerdyce. He jogs by with a less than amiable expression on his face. Clarissa lets her hands rest on top of her head, her lips forming a hard line as she returns his glare. Her brow then creases as she watches him go. She wonders if she'll ever understand what his problem is.

But still, she hurries to catch up to him, not wanting to miss any gloriously snarky remarks that he seems to be so full of whenever Scott Summers is around. They stand with the six other students—Bobby Drake, Piotr Rasputin, Kitty Pryde, Juliana Reed, Regina Taylor, and Carson Cox—loosely forming a group while waiting for Cyclops to show up.

Clarissa didn't join in any of the mild conversations, just sighed and stood alone, her thoughts drifting back to the weather, among other things. She has only been here--here being Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters--for a month, and has yet to find her niche in the school. Kitty is closest to her though, and her conversation with Juliana bleeds into Clarissa's thoughts. She's talking animatedly about some new guy in her Advanced Physics class. Clarissa knows him.

Dean Peterson. If it was any other guy, she probably would’ve at least feigned interest. But it wasn’t any other guy. It was Dean. He’s a few years older than she is, and she wonders what would possess him to come to this school now, at his age. She had already had the misfortune of running into him--rather literally--a few nights before, and he definitely seemed to have excellent control over his powers. She sneered at the memory.

He was quite possibly the biggest asshole she had ever met. Just thinking about him was pissing her off, and Kitty and Juliana’s gushing over how ‘hot’ he is isn’t helping. She turns away from the two girls, tuning them out.

On her other side, Piotr, John, and Bobby are considerably less lively. Bobby and the normally reserved Piotr are talking about some show she doesn’t watch or care about, while John stares miserably ahead, grumbling something incomprehensible.

She doesn’t realize she’s staring at him until he turns, and his eyes meet hers. He smirks, his automatic response to anything and everything. He has a ‘You like what you see?’ kind of shit-eating grin on his face and any embarrassment she felt from the initial shock of being caught staring dissipates, replaced with annoyance. She rolls her eyes and turns away, but she can’t help the slight rush of blood to her cheeks.

Luckily, Cyclops chooses this moment to join them, preventing John from saying anything that would make her blush deepen.

---

There aren’t many moments to rest in this ongoing “game,” so Carina uses every moment that she can to relax. She looks around at her surroundings and doesn’t even bother to try to memorize them since they’re constantly changing.

She looks down at her hands to see something familiar and cringes. The raw, stripped flesh of her right hand glares at her against the soft pale skin on her left. She groans, and begins to pace around the computer mulling over what their next target might be, it could be any one of them.

Out of all the “players” of this game, Carina has been here the longest, and there fore she has killed the most of her own kind. It has been nearly a full three years since she has become a captive to this strange world, and she is no closer to understanding why she is here than when she first arrived. None of them understand why they are here, not Antonin, Harold, Dempsey, or Sven; all that they know is that they either kill, or are killed.

But Carina hasn’t completely lost hope because she isn’t alone in all this, she has Sven. Even though he isn’t the brightest out of their group, he has proven to be the most trustworthy, and he and Carina make a perfect team.

While Sven smashes and trashes anything in their way, completely distracting their target, Carina sneaks up on them and kills them, swiftly and softly. And she whole-heartedly dreads the day that Sven and her might be pitted against one another.

The screen flickered for a moment and then went blank, every one rushed to the front of the screen to watch it attentively. Only one line popped up on the screen reading:

The Final Battle—
Kill each other. The last one standing wins.

Carina gaped at the screen. In all her time here the screen had never said anything like this; it had never ordered them to kill each other, and it had never mentioned a winner.

Carina was the first to recover as she muttered, “This is bolloks.”

As if slapped in the face the others began to shake off the shock the message had caused. Harold started to tremble, and when he spoke he sounded neurotic, “Well we don’t have to do what it says right? We can just ignore it right? They can’t really make us can they?!?” Harold and Dempsey were new to the game; they didn’t know what would happen if you didn’t do what you were told.

Just like Harold Carina had refused to play along when she got her first mission, and just thinking about the event made chills run up her back. Carina clearly remembered how when she refused to participate the Virtual Reality brought to life her worst fears. She could almost still feel the scorching hot flames licking at her face, burning all around her, inside her. She shivered at the thought, and answered Harold calmly, “We must fight to the death, or all die together in our worst nightmares.”

“WHAT?!? Why?!? What the Hell are you talking about? Why can’t we-” Harold’s voice broke as he began to release heavy sobs.

Antonin turned and almost sneered at Harold, “Get a hold of yourself, man! The girl knows what she’s talking about…even though…I think I have a plan, listen up.”

---

“Alright kids, Line up.” Cyclops says firmly and they all shuffle into a straight line.

“Aren’t you going to apologize for being late?” John asks sweetly, but the ever present smirk is still lingering on his face. John has yet to step into the line. Cyclops’ jaw tightens briefly before he responds.

“That depends—are you going to show up on time to your next detention?” Clarissa can hear Regina titter from the other end of the line and she grins. John glowers and steps back, lining up with Bobby and Piotrs’ shoulders.

Satisfied, Cyclops continues with instructions. “Drake, Rasputin, Pryde, Taylor—” He calls off the names of every other student and tosses them a colored jersey. “–-Red team. Allerdyce, McAdams, Reed, Cox—that makes you guys blue.” They all groan collectively as they unwillingly don the jerseys. Most of them are complaining because this means a short (and not to mention utterly pointless) game of Mutant Capture the Flag. For Clarissa, it’s not the game, it’s the jerseys. They were the one thing she thought she had escaped. She thought those were strictly a public school thing.

She pulls the scratchy blue mesh material over her head and shifts awkwardly, tugging the bottom hem down. This is uncomfortable. The jersey on top of her gym uniform (Something else she thought she would never have to wear again. But gym is gym, and Xavier’s is still a school.) makes her look stalk-y and awkward as she waddles over to her group. She groans to herself as she approaches John, Juliana, and Carson, who seem to be having little to no trouble with their similar get up. Jules and Carson look sympathetic, but Johns face is smug as he crosses his arms. “Problems, Claire?”

She glares and reluctantly mumbles a negative.

Clarissa chooses to be the goalie. She figures this way it’ll be easier to stay out of Johns way, as he has a tendency to be a huge show off. She’s sitting in front of the cone that holds the flag, and she barely has to concentrate to keep the electric field surrounding it.

This is the most pointless game to play with a group their size, and why Scott had them do this today, she’ll never understand. It’s quarter to twelve, which means it’s almost lunchtime, and the game is still dragging on, taking longer than she expected. Maybe Cycke will let them go early, since neither side is making much progress.

Taking her eyes off the game and scanning the yard, she realizes that Cyclops is no where to be seen. She stretches out on the grass, closes her eyes, and tilts her head from the sky. She doesn’t know how the others haven’t noticed.

---

The scene that was unfolding before Carina was a grisly one. Harold was on the ground, with Sven on top of him beating his head in with both fists. A large pool of blood was forming all around Harold’s head, and his face was beginning to look like a pile of mush.

Dempsey and Antonin were completely immersed in their battle; Antonin was making colossal explosions all around trying to find Dempsey while he was dodging around his attacks, completely invisible with his chameleon defense.

Now that Sven had definitely killed Harold, probably three times over, he started to run towards what seemed like an empty space and bashed it in. When Dempsey’s from appeared in front of them it was evident that his skull had been crushed from the weight of the one hit, blood corroded his eyes as his body loudly thumped to the ground.

Before Sven had the opportunity to turn his heavy fists onto Antonin, Antonin was able to shoot an explosion right where Sven stood. Pieces of Sven’s body were flying everywhere, splattering on the dark city scene made by the virtual reality world.

Now it was just Carina and Antonin, and as Antonin turned his attacks onto her, Carina began to move as fast as her legs would let her, straight for Antonin. At the same time that she hit him with her full force, she dug her fangs into his shoulder, while he sent her into the air with a full psychic body blast. The poison coursed through Antonin, killing him almost instantly, his skin turning grey as he hit the ground; Carina’s lifeless body fell to the ground beside him.