Empaths Challenge. My name is John Hardy. Recently my life has taken an interesting turn. I have seen things I wouldn’ t have thought possible and faced down challenges I would never have believed myself capable off. Me and my new companions fought together through this strange new world and now we are at the final challenge. “ARE YOU READDYYYYYY!!!” The Announcer scream ed to thunderous applause. We still don’t know what the announcer is but he was there at the start and the end of every challenge to give a roaring commentary for the crowd. The crowd at least we could see. This round was going to take place in a giant col osseum and though the entryway gates, at the end of the tunnel we were in, I could see stands filled with the human like creatures hissing, cheering and roaring like they did every round. We had tried to glean information from them, to try and solve som e of the mysteries of this world, but it has proved extremely difficult. According to Lucy's foresight ability any attempt we made to physically interact with the beings, be it though Sarah telekinesis or even something as simple as a thrown rock, would re sult in a grisly death that even Michael’s force field wouldn’t save us from. The only real info we had on them was they didn’t count enough as humans for my ability to work on them. We could have probably learned more about them if we really tried but the only time had to see them was while doing a challenge and being distracted then could prove fatal. I always become tense waiting for The Announcer starts his speech. It means the game will soon start and once again we will be plunged into a dangerous sit uation. My heart beats loudly and heat builds in my chest as my flight or fight response kicks in. I activate my ability, a nervous response I had picked up in my time here, and the emotions of my companions, and their approximate location, are revealed to me. Michael and Sarah just feel scared as I am and even the usually calm and collected Lucy is feeling pretty nervous. Though since getting this power I’ve gotten better at connecting the emotions I feel to body language I probably didn’t even need my pow er to tell that. Lucy was tapping her fingers on the knife in her waistband. We’d won it in an earlier challenge and ever since then whenever she felt weak in any way she’d make contact with it. It was kind of creepy too be honest but I tried not to judge. Then The Announcer starts explaining the rules. He did this is a quieter voice and only we could hear this. “Each team will be teleported into the arena and will fight till all the members of every other team has been eliminated. Don’t be afraid thoug h, the winning team will have all members be healed from anything up to and including death so don’t hold back.” he says cheerfully. Then his voice takes a darker tone “Also in case you get any ideas about pacifism, after a minute of no deaths a person wil l be killed at random every six seconds until the fighting starts again.” He quiet after that and we gather together to rally ourselves before the fight. “We doing the usual plan?” Sarah asks. Everybody nods. The plan was our standard opening move for these challenges. Lucy will wait until the fight is about to start, then uses her ability foresight to look as far as she can into the future (twenty seconds). We will get teleported in and future me will use my ability to sense emotions to find the direc tion of any enemies. Lucy will see this future with foresight and relay that information to Sarah who will use her telekinesis to chuck stuff at them right as we teleport in. Then we all hide inside Michael's forcefield and for protection while me and Lucy find info on the enemy in future timelines and Sarah uses telekinesis to throw stuff outside of the field. The Announcer then starts counting down. “The match begins in five, fou - ” As planned I activate my power so future me is ready to tell future L ucy any info I find. Lucy gives me a nod and I experience a familiar jump in her emotions as she instantly experiences what her future self would see. She goes from nervous but ready to cold and calculating in an instant. Something is wrong but before I ca n do anything she pulls out her knife and stabs Sarah in the neck. Both me and Michael freeze for a second and Lucy takes that chance to slash at Mike. This jolts both of us to action. Mike back pedals dodging Lucy's second slice and I rush forwards and tackle her to the ground while trying to grab the knife. She struggles and cuts my hand before I wrestle the knife from her and throw it away. She knees me in the gut but I'm running so high on adrenalin I barely feel it and I punch her hard in the face in return. I reach back to punch her again but a voice rings out before I can. “One. NOW!” The Announcer screams and everything changes. Lucy is no longer beneath me and I am stood in the colosseum. I let the familiar disorientation of a teleport wash over me and try to quickly get my bearings. Now I am inside the colosseum I can see it is divided up into 4 sections. In each section a large banner hangs from the walls. They read: Team 1, Team 2, Team 3 and Team 4. Also in each section is one of my compan ions. Lucy with a bloody nose, Michael with his slash wound and Sarah bleeding out from her neck. I quickly figure out what's happening; for the final challenge a sadistic twist had us each put on our own team to be made to fight to the death. Lucy had seen this with her foresight and, since Sarah would shre d the lot of us in a straight fight, had deci ded to eliminate the telekinesis user before she even knew to put her guard up. I feel their emotions. Lucy's is holding a cold fury towards me. Michael is holding a hot fury towards Lucy. I did as well for that matter. I run towards her hoping t o cross as much distance as I can before her ability recharges. She looked forward twenty seconds so it wouldn't work for the next twenty seconds. I cross the distance in time but just as I am about to throw a punch the cool down ends and Lucy get her power back. I feel the emotional jump caused by foresight then Lucy smoothly dodges my fist and throws a punch in my gut. I stumble backwards and feel another jump before she backs up out the way of my wild swing. She steps forward to punch my face and I intend to dodge to the right. Then I feel the foresight jump and knowing that she now knows that I will dodge to the right I go to the left instead. Her fist cleanly misses me and I punch her face again. Pain lances up my fist but it sends Lucy crashing down to the floor so I don't care. At this point Mike manages to limp towards us. Another step and he has us in range of his ability. I feel another emotion jump and Lucy lunges forward right as Mike's forcefield materializes as a sphere around him at s uch a distance that it closes around her leg. The field descends slicing it clean off. She cries out in pain. Our crowd went wild at this. At this moment I realize something: I could win this fight. Lucy was going to be bleeding out, Serah was not showin g up to my power so she was dead or going to be soon and Michael was far from in perfect health himself. What's more his forcefield had a set range of five meters. I was inside that. If I rushed him now while he was focused on Lucy I'd win. Mike deactivate his power a took a limping step forward. I followed. I felt another jump. "Mike, wait" Lucy croaked out "John's going to try to kill yo - " only to be cut off by a forcefield slicing through her torso. Wow that's brutal. Our viewers cheers become a single powerful roar at the scene. I think Mike liked Serah the most out of any of us so his reaction made sense. He was feeling an interesting mix of rage and despair right now. I hesitate for a moment before putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinches as if st ruck. Then he starts to cry. To be fair to us that was an incredibly violent and sudden way to lose half of our little team. I cry a little to. I think back to Lucy's fortune that I would try to kill him. I wonder if it was a lie she thought up or an actua l future before deciding it didn't matter. I was going to resolve this peacefully if just to prove her wrong. The monsters in the crowd don't like that booing and hissing when the minutes up and random chance selects Mike to slump to the ground dead. "A ND THE WINNER IS JOHN HARDY!!!" The Announcer boomed. ~===[]===~ Wow. I did not mean for that to end up as such an unnecessarily violent edge fest when I started it. I guess that's what writing with no plan can do to you. Well anyway, I hope you li ke it