The darkness felt as though it shifted, he couldn't quite tell what was different about it but he felt in his gut that something was happening. As he started looking around trying to figure out what was going on, a sudden flash appeared to cover him.
The first thing he noticed was the warmth against his skin; he didn't realize that spending however long he did in that void had apparently cooled his body down, so the warmth was a pleasant surprise.
Bright light filled his vision as he squinted his eyes, hoping to adjust to the sudden brightness. He felt as though his pupils were being set ablaze as they slowly started to adjust, the brightness dimmed slightly as he held his hand against his brow to try and block out some of the light.
The next thing that came to him was the sound, a booming cheer resounded in his ears from every direction. Finally getting used to the light he managed to look around, and what he saw floored him. Surrounding him in every direction was a large circulating row of seats leading high above him. The seats were so high he couldn't even make out the figures in the third row. A large wall that he thought to be around 30 meters separated the ground he was on to the first set of seats.
A sudden realization hit him, the screen said something about a coliseum. All color drained from his face as he slowly started to piece together what that meant. He was on the ground level, in the center of a coliseum.
"Oh shit" He thought as he finally understood what the screen was telling him. He was a participant in this coliseum; he had qualified to fight.
Welcome all to our newest contestants first match.
A booming voice sounded from all around him silencing the entire coliseum.
Let's all give him a warm welcome to what will probably be his grave.
The cheers suddenly erupted back to life as he was stunned by what the voice had said.
"My grave?" he thought, trying to gulp down the lump building in his throat.
As this is his first match, we will be nice enough to explain the rules to him.
Rule 1: You just have to kill your opponent.
Rule 2: Do not let them kill you.
The crowd erupted into laughter as he stood there, too stunned to even move.
Alright kid, all you have to do is beat your opponent. Since this is your first round it wont be too hard. To use your skills, just concentrate on what they do and they should work. You should hope yours are good. Good luck.
The booming voice seemed to only sound in his head as he tried to understand everything that was happening.
Suddenly, the crowd went silent. Which confused him, because he could still see them moving and what appeared to be chanting.
"Concentrate on what they do?" he thought, trying to focus his mind. He decided the first skill he should try to activate would be focus.
"More focus is bound to help right?" he thought while thinking about increasing his focus.
Suddenly, it felt as though the world was slightly brighter, louder and easier to feel. Trying to get a hold of his enhanced senses, he tried to see if he could see his apparent adversary. Looking around he saw nothing but rough dirt and slight amounts of dust. The sound of moving chains snapped his attention to his far left.
There he saw what looked like a large dog. No, this dog wasn't just large — as he looked closer, the strange doglike creature appeared to be the size of a car. Trying to concentrate on the creature, he saw that it wasn't a dog at all. It had 2 fangs coming from its upper jaw that curved along its bottom jaw to an impossibly sharp point a few inches under its chin. Its fur was more like chitin strands woven together in a strange pattern, on its front 2 feet were claws that were the size of small swords that clutched at the ground, ready to move at a moment's notice.
The dog appeared to sniff as it raised its head. Clancy stumbled back as the dog locked eyes with him, a deep red visible in its iris, locked on his visage.
"Fuck, Fuck that!" He shouted as he started to slowly walk backwards, hoping the overgrown mutt wouldn't see him as anything worth its time. His hopes were pointless; the dog started to mirror Clancys movements, stepping toward him as if trying to figure out if he was dangerous enough to be cautious. It appeared it saw no need to be cautious, picking up speed toward him.
"Shit! Okay, this isn't happening." He said as sweat ran down his back.
Trying to figure out what to do, Clancy felt the mutts run pick up in pace as it closed the distance between them, the ground quaking under its immense size.
He figured he had maybe 10 seconds before its hulking form would be upon him. Stranded in the bottom layer of the stadium without a weapon, he had to try and quickly come up with a plan. If this was truly his life now, battling beasts to survive, he needed a strategy, and fast.
He tried to concentrate on his gravity manipulation to see if he could slow down the beast. Only to learn that apparently, he couldn't affect anything if he wasn't touching it. He had no idea how he knew this, but his instincts were telling him this was the case. Having run out of time, he had to throw himself to the side to avoid the Beasts charge.
A sharp pain struck him from his right shoulder, a trickle of blood ran down his arm. Looking at his shoulder he was suddenly stunned. A small tunic of leather armor had somehow found its way onto him without him noticing, looking down he also had a pair of leather trousers on.
"Huh, when did i get these — I didn't even..." suddenly cut off by the large dogs growl, he remembered where he was.
"Shit — don't get distracted." He thought, placing his focus back on the dog.
He had no idea what to do, he wasn't very good at fighting. Definitely not good at fighting dogs the size of cars. Focusing on Whispers of Earth, he tried to understand what he could do with his spell. His first thought was to either trap the dog inside a cocoon of dirt or make a weapon out of compacted earth. The former felt as though his mind would erupt as he tried to move that much earth at once, a splitting headache threatening to split his head open, he abruptly stopped trying to conjure the image in his mind and the pain went away. The latter however, a small dagger made of rock appeared in his hand, he had no idea how it made a realistic dagger and had even less of an idea of how the thing looked sharp.
The dog-like creature snarled as it lunged toward him, a sudden realization flashed in his mind, he had no idea how to fight with a dagger. A feeling of stupidity struck him at the same time a flash of pain cut across his chest.
He wildly slashed with the dagger as the dog approached, feeling the dagger meet the dog's weird chitinous fur, the dagger struggled against the fur until a small feeling of cutting soft flesh rushed into his arm. He had at least done a small amount of damage, grateful for the armor that was somehow bestowed upon him taking the brunt of the cut. This didn't mean he hadn't receive the full force of the beast's slash into his chest as he felt the air rush out of his lungs.
Struggling to try and breathe in any air he could, a weird croaking sound escaping his mouth. The dog looked at him with an entirely different look, before the dog appeared to look at Clancy with hunger. That had changed, the dog looked at him much more fiercely, as though the beast saw him as prey that wouldn't back down, a look of glee crossed its face, a dark, murderous glee.