Khavur had signed into the competition. Something about it was making his stomach churn. The person organizing all of this was an Overseer, like was Vargas had been, like what Garnet-Delta was. Someone whom Khavur had never met. Did they know about the first time he'd signed up for one of these? How embarrassing his performance had been? Did they ever see him, look at his battle scars, and make the assumption that he had improved by some measure instead of sleeping for cycles on end?

He huffed, heading towards the secret room in the arena. There was likely some kind of food there, and Khavur wanted to grab something to eat while he watched the other battles. The entrance, of course, required some stupid waving and whirling slappature of hands. Khavur barely had the patience for it.

He tried to simplify it to a solid punch, but it didn't work.

Sighing, he consigned himself to do the twisted series of maneuvers that would please... whatever mechanism it was that guarded this entrance. Somehow, it stuck in his memory quite well despite the time that had passed. Perhaps that was because of how odd it was.

Regardless, Khavur padded in, retrieved a bucket of "popped corns" and some strange beverage that made his tongues feel fizzley, and padded directly back out without talking to anyone. He was busy. Busy stressing the frick out.

It seems that, despite his desperate stuffing of his mouth with clawfuls of popped corns, the trip back to the seats of the forum was causing the dread welling in Khavur's gut to reach its pinnacle. If this person who had arranged the match ups had never seen him, then had they spoken with Vargas? Heard of him? Would Master Vargas have bragged about him? Or simply set up some expectation? Ah, wouldn't it be sooo fun to find out?

He didn't feel ready. He wasn't ready. He needed to punch something—NOT a competitor. Not yet. He had a brief idea... to test his accuracy using one of his popped corns. In his stress-addled mind, he didn't manage to stop himself. He took a detour to what seemed like an unoccupied part of the forum, set aside his beverage, plunged a gripper into the bag of food and tossed a corn up into the air. Then he aimed a swipe straight for it.

It was shaky. A flimsy swat that resulted in the corn spinning in the sky, landing with an unimpressive thud not far from where he had tossed it. Khavur sighed. He supposed it was difficult to hit a target if there was nothing to aim for.

So what should he aim for?

Khavur thought for a moment, before coming up with an anxiety-induced genius idea. He let some cherry juice "venom" drip in various puddles on the floor, and then wandered back to the secret room to get some more popcorn.

Ah- right. Reentry.

He tried again to replicate the handshake he has just done literally moments earlier, but the memory of it seemed to have escaped him Entirely. Was it like... some kind of.... silly chicken dance? Khavur really didn't want to be standing in front of a wall doing nothing while his competitors fought on and gave away meaningful information about themselves. He began a panicked dance involving the wild flapping of his sets of arms around—smacking himself in the face a few times—and the slow shimmying of his feet—which were now slippery with cherry grease, causing him to stumble and just look at utter fool in general.

When the door did not miraculously open, Khavur's embarrassment at the realization crept up his neck and straight into his face.

Khavur would walk away, breathe in real deep, spin around and try again. Normaler this time.

He punched the entrance again.

"AAAAARGH!" Khavur's frustration came spilling out of his snarling maw, his claws flying up to cover his upturned face. His frustration must have rung out across the open space, but he didn't really care.

What the heck does a guy have to do to get some more popped corns around here?!

It's somewhere in between punching and twirling about like a headless chicken. Khavur knows this. The last two attempts may have made the first look like a fluke but it wasn't! Khavur could not be fudging this hard when there was so much on the line in T minus 10 minutes!!

Deep breath. Remain calm. College starts in kindergarten. Try, try again.

The door opens. Khavur scuttles in for more popped corns—a lot more, compliments to the chef I guess. And another beverage. That was just for him.

He scuttles back to his makeshift "training ground" to find...