Pharoh Match 3

Calvin clenched and unclenched his fists as the elevator rose. He wasn't scared per-se, but the tension of the situation was setting him on edge. He was somewhat disturbed to find that this situation was almost starting to seem mundane to him. Did it really take that short a time for him to become bored with being kidnapped? With having fucking superpowers; albeit, not ones he had actually seen.

His self-reflection was cut short as the elevator doors opened. He lingered for a moment on the edge of the elevator, and then, letting out a deep breath, he stepped out.

On the other side of the Arena, a tall girl with frizzy black hair, and what looked like a rather pronounced set of bruises on her knuckles stood. Calvin stood stalk still, not really sure what to make of her.

She seemed to have no such reservations, as she began to walk towards him, her long strides covering distance quite quickly.

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As Candice stepped into the arena, she would see a tall boy with frizzy black hair, and a black eye, seemingly recently acquired. He looked somewhere between nervous and pissed off, though it seemed unlikely that that was at candice, as she hadn't even spoken yet.

Candice chewed her lip nervously. She didn't like fighting, and she had already told herself at least 40 times today that she would not do what the others had done. She would not decapitate anyone, she would not break legs or arms, she would not let Leon of all people see her become violent.

As the elevator doors slid open, she shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. She was honestly half afraid that if she stayed in the elevator it would forcibly remove her from itself. With a deep, grounding breath she stepped out and waved sheepishly to the boy.

"H-Hi. Are you...are you okay, sir?"

Calvin watched the girl approached. She looked about ready to punch someone, and, as he was the only person available, Calvin decided to prepare to get punched. He raised his hands slightly by his sides, ready to bring them up in a block if needed.

The girl sneered at him as she approached, standing nearly nose to nose with him. "Are you goddamned happy?" The girl suddenly spat.

Calvin blinked. The question was fairly innocuous, but he sensed that telling her that barring the being kidnapped, he was doing pretty well was more than a little likely to get him punched. He blinked, trying, as he generally had to, to find the correct words to avoid being accidentally insensitive.

His opponent saved him the trouble. "What, don't have anything to say for yourself you fucking asshole?!" She yelled. "Your fucking team just comes in and starts breaking people's spines, and you have no input but to shrug?"

Calvin, instinctively, but perhaps not entirely wisely, shrugged. He was slightly shocked by how painful the fist in his midriff was.

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Candice's opponent shook his head ruefully. It didn't seem to be directed at her question however. He started walking forwards. "What is the name of god isYour pod?" The boy asked, trying and failing to sound casual.

"I mean, Kay wakes up, nearly knocks us all out by raising the pressure or some shit, then your little demon kid tosses her against the wall, and nearly breaks her in half." He continued forwards. "Of course you can't kill Daz, but he got beat to a paste; then, just to sweeten the deal, the other two people I've started to work with get broken like twigs. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't like most of the assholes, but still." He stopped a few feet from Candice. "I really don't think peace is going to cut it."

"O-Oh." Candice rubbed her arm sheepishly. "I know, I wasn't too happy about watching it either."

As the boy came to a stop in front of her, she sighed. She really wasn't going to make it out of this without fighting and she knew it, but it still made her incredibly unhappy and she refused to throw the first punch. The boy certainly had reason to be upset, she just wished she wasn't the only one left to be upset at. Looking up at him apologetically, Candice raised her hands in a defensive way, hoping that maybe he would reconsider.

Calvin coughed, backing up, as he tried to recover from the blow to his abdomen. His opponent seemed to be waiting to come after him, now examining her knuckles. Calvin heard her mutter about choosing better times to punch people.

He considered asking what she was talking about, realized he was being a moron, and decided that he was going to incapacitate his opponent instead. He had considered it a lot since the battles had started, and, now that the time was here, he found that he was actually sort of relived. Win or lose, he could get rid of the persistent stress of waiting.

The girl shook her head and started advancing. Calvin did what he did best, he watched, and waited.

"Now maybe you-" She was cut short as Calvin snapped a fist out, and a wet crunch stopped her speech. Calvin backed up a step, and circled out, giving himself more room to move if he needed to.

His opponent held her now broken nose gingerly, aiming a look of absolute fury at Calvin. she seemed to be through talking. She took her hands, shaking, from her bleeding face.

"You're going down." She murmured through the blood.

Looking at the flowing blood had an odd effect on Calvin. It was like a solid thing, part of a whole...

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"Yeah" Candice's opponent said with a sardonic chuckle. "Funny how quickly we adjust though. "I mean, I've been here less than a day, already, I've seen shit that would have sent me into a panic at home, and here... well, you do what you have to." He finished with a shrug.

"But the fact is, even if I didn't feel like I had a little bit of a score to settle, If we don't fight, what do you think happens?" He asked, his voice somewhere between sad and angry. "You think they just let that fly?" He shook his head again. "Not likely. So. Sorry about this."

He may not have really wanted to fight, but he didn't pull punches either. He had started by aiming a quick jab at Candice's ribs. If he had powers, it seemed that he either didn't know about them, or wasn't yet using them.

He was right about the not fighting part. They weren't going to let them peacefully part ways. Candice had kind of expected the punch he threw, but simply being aware that your opponent is going to punch you is not quite enough to get you out of the way. She expected all of the air to rush out of her lungs, but it didn't. She simply let out a loud "oomph" and reeled backwards.

"I'd rather you not do that," she said weakly. "It's not very polite."

Calvin had expected his opponent to be fast, dangerous, even to have some sort of power. Admittedly he had not foreseen Her simply glaring at him for a bit. Then, his head felt like it was exploding. He fell onto all fours. Well that was unexpected.

He saw his opponent's feet draw close to him, and then felt her kick him sharply in the throat. Well, he though, that's that. I guess my neck is broken. He collapsed.

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Above him, the girl looked somewhat taken aback. "Come on asshole..." She growled. "Still nothing to say..."

Calvin suddenly realized that he didn't really want to die. It was a simple thought, but there was something hiding at the edge of it. He tried to reach it, the idea hovering just out of his grasp. Suddenly, he realized what it was.

He could see the patterns behind his own biological process. He could see the threads that held the world together.

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Calvin's opponent swallowed bile. She hadn't wanted to... now she was just as bad as them... For some reason though, the ground didn't open up, they were keeping her here, with the- She refused to think the word corpse -Of her opponent. Then there was a loud snap, and she gasped as Calvin slowly stood up, looking around curiously.

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Calvin was confused, but alright with it. Now that he wasn't dying, his vision of the threads was beginning to fade. Still, he could see faintly the links that held the biological processes of his opponent's blood, interlinked, constant. He reached out a hand. He wanted to study it, this new marvel.

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The boy sighed. "Yeah, tell me about it. Now try to punch me or I'm going to feel like a complete asshole." He said, trying to trip her up with a leg hook.

Candice really wished he would stop trying to cause her injury. As he kicked his leg out she tried to hop backwards out of the way and found herself moving about a foot and a half farther than was reasonable for what she'd just done. She stumbled as her heel hit the ground awkwardly, barely catching herself and staring up at the boy wide-eyed.

"Oh." She said, laughing quietly in surprise. "Just, oh."

Calvin felt the girl's fist glance along his jaw with a sort of detachment that he assumed was caused by shock, due to very recently having broken important bone-structures. He stumbled backwards, landing hard. He looked up quizzically at his opponent, who, behind the blood dripping from her nose, looked both incredibly freaked out, and extremely angry.

"What the FUCK?!" She yelled at him.

Calvin winced, she was loud and he was developing a headache. As he propped himself up on his elbows, his opponent strode over to stand over him. "Stay down you freak." She spat.

A few drops of blood from her nose splattered against Calvin's chest. He could barely see the threads now. He had to see...

Carefully, he lifted one of his arms, dipping his fingertips into the droplets. He grasped the threads, and pulled. He let out a shocked yell as blood suddenly showered over him.

His opponent, suddenly very pale put a hand to her face disbelievingly, then, slowly, her eyes grew indistinct, and she fell over. Calvin suddenly felt very tired, more tired than he could ever remember feeling. It was as though the tiny tug that he had applied to the backdrop of the world had taken hours of hard work. As the ground opened up around him, he had time only to wonder why he couldn't see the threads anymore before he was plunged into darkness.

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Candice's opponent looked a bit flabbergasted. "Oh? Yeah, oh I guess. Fuck me, Van everyone here do crazy shit? Am I the late bloomer? Goddammit!" He fumed for a few moments, before sighing and advancing again. "Okay, so, you can...uh, do that, whatever that is." He aimed a left hook at her, trying to end things quickly. He was rather concerned that she was going to suddenly rocket off into the distance. He really hated long distance running, so he wanted to avoid it if possible.

Candice laughed. Maybe she wouldn't even have to fight this guy...Maybe she could just keep doing that, whatever that was. Granted she would need to stop happy-shock laughing and pay more attention to the left hook that she caught with her shoulder instead of her face.

"Ow, no, stop that!" She hissed, stumbling to the side. She hopped back again to put more distance between her and the boy, tripping over her awkward landing in exactly the same fashion as last time. I've got to get better at gauging that distance.

"You're not supposed to hit a lady, you know." She clasped her hands sweetly behind her back. Candice was beginning to think that this might not be so bad. This was kind of fun, actually. Save for the whole being kidnapped and forced to fight thing, that is...At least she could do cool jumpy things.

Supervisor's report: One of them hopped around and fainted due to exhaustion, one of them overexerted himself, pulled a hamstring, and collapsed. I'm going to call this one a tie because I'm really tired of watching it.