ATYCHIPHOBIA¹ | p.jackson

TWO.

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NICASIA grunted as she dodged her opponent's sudden hit aimed at her face. she ducked down to the ground and swept her opponent's feet out from under them. clarrise hit the ground with a thud.

the two were engaging in a semi-friendly duel, a daily occurrence. the ares cabin, along with all the war gods' children (minus the athena cabin) took part in a weekly combat competition to see who was the best. the competition started way before any of them were born, as a way to decide who would get to go on a quest. the winner of the competition would lead and the runner up would accompany them. the third member would be chosen by the leader of the quest.

now, it was more of a game than a competition, since nobody really got any quests anymore. the winner got the rights to as much dessert off of the losers' plates as he or she would like. the bracket and leaderboard for the games was posted outside of the arena, so anyone could see it. the order of who goes first was always changing, so every person had faced off with every single participant of the games at least once. the eliminated participants had to watch the rest of the duels. the injured and the first ones out had to be the judges.

clarrise stood, staring down nicasia. nicasia smirked at her best friend. they had both been the winners of their half of the bracket, so they were the final two. they were competing against each other for the win.

nicasia's smirk disappeared as clarisse charged at her. she brought her own spear up as clarisse attempted to slash at her. the two spears collided, the electricity from clarisse's spear started to spread to nicasia's spear. the energy bar at the head of her spear absorbed the electricity, but her spear still started to warm up from the heat of the electricity.

nicasia pulled her spear away before swiping it at clarisse's hand, sending clarisse's spear through the air. clarisse disarmed nicasia a few seconds later, both of their spears now sticking out of the ground a few feet away from them.

the two of them threw punches and kicks at each other, hardly any of their hits actually hitting their target. nicasia got clarisse with an uppercut. clarisse shook it off and landed a kick to nicasia's gut.

nicasia stumbled backwards before trying to go in for another hit. clarisse caught her elbow and threw her onto the ground. she still had one of clarisse's arms in her grasp and used it to spin her self around on the ground before kicking out clarisse's legs. the momentum form clarisse's throw gave her kick more power. as clarisse went down, her elbow caught nicasia in the nose, blood starting to trickle down. nicasia stood as clarisse hit the ground again.

nicasia watched as clarisse stood, preparing for her to charge at her again. "THE LIST!" clarisse yelled out to both the judges and the crowd. nicasia sighed, already knowing where this was leading. "i win. nicasia forfeits by cheating. that move is an illegal one, we agreed that it should be added to the list last week."

clarisse was referring to the list of illegal moves. the list was full of moves that were banned for being unfair, cheap shots, cheating, or unsportsmanlike. the list stated that killing, using any sort of powers, using illegal moves and sabotaging were against the W.W.T. code. (weekly war tournament) the list hung on the wall of the ares, athena, and hermes cabin. it also hung outside the arena. all of the papers had been stuck to a flat surface, most likely a wall, with a some kind of knife, courtesy of clarisse. no one dared to touch the papers or the knives because they didn't want the knives to end up stabbed into their arms instead of the wall.

"that move is not cheating! it's being smart!" nicasia protested. "LETS VOTE ON IT!" claus called out from the crowd. nicasia gave him a nod in thanks before turning back to the rest of the crowd. "VOTE!" the crowd of eliminated participants started to chant.