Omega Rising - On Hiatus Due To Lack Of Inspiration

Chapter 6: Rainbow Colored Mustaches

          Karen and Chaim ripped right through the test, Karen deciphered the questions while Chaim filled in as much knowledge as he knew about Talents into the test. They slammed down their papers at the same time onto the small table labeled "Doctor Orginome". He seemed quite surprised, as if he expected them to take longer, but accepted the papers and flipped through them quickly. His face changed quickly from confusion, to surprise, to deep interest, and then to realization. He looked at the two standing in front of him, and knew there was something special about them. Not once in the history of the Talent Rankings had two people worked together to achieve the same goal.

          Doctor Orginome scribbled a map onto a small sheet of paper and pointed the duo to the next location. As they headed down to the next room, a small wooden sign would sprout out of the ground every few steps and point them in the correct direction. As they reached the large door indicated on the map, Chaim clasped his hand around the handle. Just as he was about to open it, he started to feel chills going down his back. He rapidly spun his head around, trying to see if someone was watching him.
"Umm, Chaim? What are you looking for?"
Chaim turned back around and started to rub his neck uncomfortably.
"Nothing... Nothing sis."
With a strong tug, the door before them swung open, and they step over to the other side. Chaim turned his head back one last time before the doors closed behind him.

As Karen stepped into the room after Chaim, she looked around his shoulders to see what was going on before them. She stared at the large, fiery ball that was being created in the center of the room. She could feel its warmth coming closer and closer to her, until it grew blazing hot. She noticed something, as did Chaim. Chaim slammed his palm into the ground and called out two words, "Stone Wall!" Immediately from the ground, Karen could see the flooring rumble. Bursting out of the ground came a massive wall. On the other side of the wall, she could hear a loud boom and some screams. Chaim gradually lowered the wall revealing a large pile of people on the ground. There were a few, like Chaim and Karen, that were left standing. There was a man standing in the corner who was busy scribbling away on his clipboard. Karen felt like she knew that man, but she couldn't put her finger on it. It then came right underneath her nose, well, his nose. That man had a mustache. Karen grinned from ear to ear noticing who it was. There were two Orginomes to poke.

          Chaim sat back and watched Karen running around trying to pull on Orginome's mustache. He laughed internally and finally decided to pull Karen away from the fancy pink Warfstache that adorned Orginome's face.
"What... *huff* in the name of the Creators... *wheeze* is wrong... *puff* with your sister? Or is my mustache simply just that interesting to pull on?"
"I would probably have to say its the second. The more I stare at it, the more I feel inclined to touch it at least."
Orginome immediately jumped back thinking that Chaim had honestly meant what he said as a joke. Chaim looked at him confused.
"Ohh, sorry, that was a joke... Well, you mustache is rather interesting though."
Orginome kept a rather long distance away from both Chaim and Karen while staring at them suspiciously.
"Ahem, well, those that are still standing after that blast may exit out of this hall into the arena... Without trying to touch my mustache."
Chaim looked down at Karen, who had slinked into the shadows, trying to reach for Orginome's mustache. Chaim couldn't quite figure out why Karen liked facial hair so much. It was so... fuzzy. Regardless, Chaim and Karen walked through the door and heard a small click behind them. A few moments later, they heard a large explosion coming from behind them followed by a large amount of screams. Chaim turned around in the direction and then smirked. How many people had survived the blast this time?

Karen couldn't understand what Orginome's problem was, all she had ever wanted to do was to touch the multicolored face extensions, possibly rip it straight off of his face, re-glue it together and create a synthetic mustache, then finally wear it around with a monocle and pretend to be British while she drank hot tea and ate biscuits. Maybe the biscuits were pushing it a little... regardless, Karen started to wonder if the tunnel they were walking down would ever end. It went on and on and on and on and on and, you get the picture. After what had seemed to be an hour of walking, Karen small a faint light at the end of the tunnel. She dashed towards the light as fast as she possibly could.
"Hey, Karen! Slow down! Watch out for the-"
"Kyaah!"
"... hole"
Chaim was too late. Karen had fallen face first into a ditch right in front of the exit. Chaim sighed and transmutated the earth around into long wooden poles and a pile of shorter poles. With the new materials, he intricately pieced the wooden pieces into a ladder for Karen to climb out with. Once Karen climbed out with the ladder, it poofed into a pile of dirt near the center of the ditch.
"This is why we never went cave exploring again after your 8th birthday, you always manage to fall into hole."
Karen shook the dirt off of her clothes and quickly sifted through her hair with her fingers as they headed towards the bright light before them.

* * *

After Chaim's eyes readjusted to the blinding light around him, he saw a man with a green mustache pointing towards a diagram on a whiteboard. Before Karen could run off, Chaim quickly grabbed her hoodie and pulled her away from Orginome's face. Green mustached Orginome seemed to know what was about to happen and pulled out a mask from his back pocket. He strapped it around the back of his ears and positioned it onto his prized mustache. Karen calmed down once the vibrant green lip tickler was out of sight and walked passively with Chaim towards the whiteboard. Orginome pulled out a large box with contents that sounded like a bunch of marbles.
"Inside of this box are small glass balls that contain a number on them. Each number represents a spot on this chart behind me and will pair you up with one of the people in this year's ranking test."
Chaim took a better look at the diagram scrawled onto the whiteboard behind Orginome. At the top, the words "Pair Battles" took up most of the header. Beneath the title was an upside down classifying tree labeled with different numbers. Towards the bottom of the board were a stack of name labels, listing the first and last name of a person in the room. A lonely pair of name labels lay in the corner, both missing something Chaim couldn't put his finger on. The names were all together too short, as if... the last names on them were missing. Chaim strained his eyes further, attempting to read the names on the two labels.
"C-H-A-I-M"
Something was definitely wrong with his last name, and he was going to find out.

Karen quickly glanced around the room. She counted the variety of hair colors, looking for a vivid green color. There was brown hair, black hair, blond hair, fiery red hair... wait... blond? Karen traced her eyes back to the blond haired girl she had seen before. Karen's eyes met the blonde's, and a stare off enfolded. The battle of silent death stares continued, her eyes burning into the blonde's ice blue eyes. The stare off grew so intense, she could feel herself shaking. She tried to calm herself down, but the shaking wouldn't stop. She could now start hear voices in her head, and they were growing louder, and louder, until she could clearly make out her brother's voice.
"Karen? Karen! KAREN!!!!!!!"
Karen looked at Chaim who had been shaking her for the last 5 minutes to awaken her from her trance.
"Its your turn to draw a marble."
Karen looked down at the small box Orginome held out in his hands and reached inside. She pulled out a shiny orb and searched for the number entailed inside.
"My number is... 29."
Orginome turned and glanced at the chart behind him and found an empty slot labeled with the number 29.
"Well young lady, it seems that you are going to be paired up with... Clarence Terranes!"
Karen looked up at Chaim who shrugged.
"I guess your luck wasn't strong enough to be paired up with me."
Karen giggled a little as Orginome handed her a large plaque with the number 29 labeled onto it. Karen looked around for the number 30, who she ended up finding in the corner. As she looked at the face of her partner, she almost melted into the shadows. Karen could never forget those annoyingly large, blond curls. Chills ran down her spine from recognition, Clarence Terranes was the annoying blond girl she had met earlier that day.

Clara stared up at the shaggy bundle of meat standing in front of her. As she inspect her supposed "partner", she noticed something. This girl was the one she had made fun of earlier that morning! Fate could be rather humorous at times, and this time the joke wasn't on her.
"Pfft, so you're supposed to be my meatshield? Well, you look so scrawny, I bet that even a feather could knock you over! On top of that, your Talent is probably second rate, how could a commoner like yourself even make it this far into the ranking test?"
The girl didn't seem to care what Clara had said to her, she simply stood there. She began to walk away until Clara called out to her.
"Hey, where do you believe you're going missy? You haven't even introduced yourself! Its quite rude not too you know, but what would you know? You're just a commoners brat!"
The girl then spun around with rage in her eyes, Clara could practically feel them burning. Despite all the things she had said to her, the girl simply buckled it all in. She finally replied to her question.
"My name is Karen. Its a pleasure to have made an acquaintance."
The girl then continued to walk away from me. Clara scoffed at her, even the way she walked was pitiful. Clara gazed around the room with a now dissatisfied look on her face. She was not going to allow some sort of trash get in her way of achieving a high ranking. She would no longer be the unwanted daughter in her family, no longer ridiculed by her brothers around her. Everything was slowly falling in place for her revenge.